The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  And then the miracle had happened. A single ray of sunlight had broken through the great banks of cloud, and had shone like a torchbeam into the valley below. It shimmered only for a moment—the clouds rolled onward in their stately progress and the ray was withdrawn—but in that moment she saw them, the faint, reflected, sparkles of white, flashing like the diamonds on a girl’s choker as she turned her head to laugh. Drawing on her last reserves of energy, she had begun slowly to crawl down the slope—she could no longer trust herself to stand. In her dazed state, she felt that the dry grass was parting before her of its own accord as grasshoppers and insects leaped away at her approach. The sun burned on her bare neck and her head throbbed. At last she felt moistness on her hands; the ground had become softer, muddier. She pulled herself onward, hardly daring to believe the evidence of her senses. Suddenly a face was looking up at her, that of a hideous old woman, with burning, red-rimmed eyes, gaunt cheeks, and yellow teeth that snarled out of desiccated gums. With horror she started away, then realised it must be her own reflection. She dropped her head into the brown pool; her cracked lips opened, and somehow the thick block of her tongue began to move again, and she drank.

  She could not tell how long she had lain there, lapping in the life-sustaining liquid, feeling it flow through her body, restoring substance to her limbs, reviving her will to go on—but when, finally, she rolled over, lying on her back, gazing at the towering cumulus that floated in majestic unconcern in the blue sky above her, she knew that God in Heaven, for whatever reason, had spared them again, and they would live for another day.

  She was summoning her reserves of strength for the long walk back to the dell where the others lay. Her heart ached, as she thought of her babes, their skeletal little arms and swollen bellies, their big, lustrous eyes in their prematurely aged faces, which somehow even now shone with confidence in her, and despite every new trial revealed a spirit that had not been entirely broken. She thought sadly of Edward and Helen Frances. Helen Frances moved like an automaton, these days: bravely she went through the motions, but her body was exhausted and her mind appeared to be elsewhere; the marionette’s smile and the vacant eyes had something terrible about them, as if the soul inside was already on the point of departing. Nellie feared for her: the candle of life inside her seemed to be flickering towards its end. And Edward? Edward was physically fine—he had survived the hardships better than any of them—but he, too, had withdrawn into melancholy introspection. She no longer knew how to reach him through the barriers of his self-hatred and despair.

  She wished that they could share the comfort which succoured her even on the worst of days. It was not just fancy, or wishful thinking, that there was a Guiding Hand leading them on. That they had survived through such terrible ordeals could not be mere chance. Every day they had evidence that Providence had not abandoned them. It had shown them roots when they were starving, revealed springs when they were parched, and so often surprised them with small kindnesses when every man’s hand had been turned against them.

  Only last week—or was it the week before? she had long ago lost track of time—they had been stoned out of one of the cave villages in the hills in which they had sought shelter. The village headman had called them devils, and he had been the first to pick up a rock to hurl at them. Yet on the outskirts of that same village, a little boy had run after them and given them food and a goatskin full of water—this very goatskin that lay beside her now. That had been a small miracle, one of many they had encountered on their odyssey. It had sustained them as they climbed the barren mountain that had ultimately led them to this region of desert grassland. They had replenished the skin several times since, once at a small waterfall, and again at a well by some deserted shepherds’ huts, and they had rationed carefully the mantou and pickles the boy had given them. It was only during the last three days that they had been without any water or food at all.

  And again Providence had favoured them, revealing this spring, which had revived her. Idly she tried to remember the words of the psalm, but all she could recall was the line ‘Thy rod and Thy staff will comfort me.’ They would need that rod and staff if they were to survive many more days in an environment that was so hostile. She sighed when she thought of all the hardships that they had already endured during their weeks of wandering. Was it August now? Or September? She did not know.

  It seemed like months ago that they had left the train, so well equipped, mounted on such fine horses—but they had wandered in the forest for days, lost among the endless trees. Several times they found that they had retraced their own tracks. One night there had been a thunderstorm. It had not occurred to them to hobble the horses, and the animals had bolted in the night, taking away all of their provisions in the saddlebags. They had spent a day searching fruitlessly for them, and another, before accepting the inevitable. Nellie now remembered the ensuing days—weeks—of wandering in the dark forest as a nightmare without end. They had no food, and Edward had forbidden them to eat the few tempting berries they occasionally came across, in case they were poisonous. In those days he had shown a manic leadership, pressing them on relentlessly and unsparingly, his jaw fixed rigidly as he strode ahead. Nellie had not dared to ask him if he knew where he was going, so fierce was his expression as he paused time and again to look at the sun’s position through the branches above him. After a day of trackless wandering, he had told them they would move at night so he could judge their position by the stars. The children found that even more difficult—the noises of the forest, rustling animals and shrieking birds, alarmed them—and Helen Frances, facing withdrawal pangs, for the morphine had gone with the horses, was occasionally hysterical, although Nellie had to admit that, in the circumstances, she was doing remarkably well even to walk at all. They might have died in the forest if on the third day they had not stumbled upon a woodman’s cottage. The man had at first been kind, and given them food and shelter, but when they were leaving he demanded payment, and lifted his axe threateningly. Edward had been forced to give him most of the little cash he had had in his pocket. Then the man had been all smiles and had directed them towards another woodman’s hut a day away. Here had been a father and his son who had unceremoniously robbed them of the little they had remaining, even taking Nellie’s necklace with its silver cross, and her husband’s signet ring—but at least they had given them food.

  When they had arrived at the next human habitation, they were greeted with suspicion as paupers, or worse. In the two huts in a clearing lived a family who were engaged in slash-and-burn farming; they had some pigs and a vegetable patch, but they were poor and had no intention of sharing what they had with mysterious foreigners. Reluctantly they allowed them to sleep in one of the animal pens belonging to the two brothers who lived in the second hut, but when they asked for food, the peasants shook their heads. It took them hours to get to sleep, unaccustomed as they were in those days to hunger pains, a condition that was now their constant reality. But Mary had woken them in the night. She had pointed to a cloth on the ground on which there were, unbelievably, a plate of hot green vegetables, a large bowl of rice, and half a breast of chicken. Edward had not been able to conceal his delight. ‘How did you persuade them, Mary?’ he had asked jovially, as he cut himself a slice of chicken.

  The girl had looked sullenly at the ground. Then, after a long pause, she had shrugged her shoulders. ‘I just asked the brothers for the food,’ she muttered.

  ‘The Lord be praised, there is Christian charity yet among us,’ Edward had continued, smiling. ‘You have hidden charms, young Mary, hidden charms, if you can melt the hearts of stony heathen like these.’

  Nellie had realised even then what sort of payment the men must really have demanded from Mary for this charity, and she saw that Helen Frances too was looking miserably at her feet, avoiding any eye contact, but Nellie had remained silent, allowing Edward to enjoy his meal. What was the point in saying anything? Whatever Mary had done, she had done—and they h
ad to eat.

  A few days later, after more wandering and more hunger, they had received an even more than usually hostile reception from a woodcutter—he had threatened them with a fowling musket—and they had withdrawn to a glade close by to spend an uncomfortable night in the open. Mary had again woken them producing food, a dish of rabbit and cooked vegetables, but this time Edward had not been so obtuse. He had raged at Mary, calling her ungrateful, wicked, a whore, and dashed the plate out of her hands so it fell upended among the wet leaves on the ground. He had stamped his foot on it, breaking the plate, and ordered the shivering girl to fall down on her knees and repent her weakness. He had threatened her with God’s wrath if she sinned again. Nellie and Helen Frances had waited in frozen silence, and George and Jenny had looked at their father with frightened, uncomprehending eyes. Only when Edward had exhausted himself, had Nellie calmly moved over to the weeping girl and put her arms around her. After a moment Helen Frances, avoiding the doctor’s eyes, had knelt by the broken plate and begun carefully to retrieve the pieces of meat from among the leaves.

  ‘You’re not proposing to partake of these wages of sin?’ Edward had cried, but the women ignored him, continuing with what they were doing.

  ‘I think that you should apologise to Mary,’ Nellie had muttered, after a while.

  ‘For God’s sake, woman, she’s behaved like a whore. Have you not realised what she’s just done?’

  Nellie had contemplated him calmly. ‘Mary’s what she is, Edward,’ she said. ‘And she’s feeding us, although she doesn’t have to.’

  Nellie often reflected back to that moment. It had marked for her the change in her husband’s behaviour—his retreat into sullen melancholy, the awful passivity that had since overtaken him—and it had also marked for her the moment when she had quietly assumed leadership of their little group.

  Nothing more had been said. Edward had sat on a tree-stump some distance off, while they silently ate what they could recover of the meal. Nellie had taken a portion to him, but he had shrugged her away. In the morning they had carried on with their journey.

  So much had happened since—so many terrible things. There were many days during which even Mary was unable to produce food for them, and on the occasions when she could, nobody now said anything. They ate what she managed to provide, even Edward, although from that day on he had not spoken a word to her. One day she left them. They had long ago departed the confines of the Black Hills forests and were wandering through a plateau, pitted with deep gullies, in many of which were dwellings of the poor peasants who lived in those parts. They made their homes in caves dug out of the soft gully walls, surviving on the meagre crops they could gather from the terraces they had carved out of the steep slopes.

  They soon learned to avoid these troglodyte villages, hiding where they could find shelter in the open countryside. They had not forgotten that they were foreigners and Christians in a country that had vowed to exterminate them. They saw no ostensible signs of Boxers, but in one village they came across a poster on a wall that contained xenophobic slogans and repeated the words of an unforgiving imperial decree. The villagers had looked at them with hostility, gathering in knots and pointing at them. They had left hurriedly, and some stones had been hurled in their direction. Afterwards they had kept their distance from human habitations. Without ever actually acknowledging it, they relied on Mary, who would slip away after they had all lain down to sleep. Usually there would be food of some kind waiting for them when they woke. Only one night she did not come back.

  They had waited a day and a night tense with worry, hunger gnawing their bellies. On the second day they had made their way into the village. People stepped aside as they passed, and would not answer their questions. Finally they came upon an old woman, who pointed to one of the caves at the far end of the valley before hurrying away. There they had found Mary, cooking a meal at the hearth inside the cave. A grey-haired, wispily bearded peasant sat rigidly on a stool, ignoring them. Mary had burst into tears and told them that this man had agreed to keep her. She had had enough. She did not want to run any more. She was sorry. She asked for their forgiveness. Before they left, she had pressed on them several baskets of food.

  The supply had lasted five days and after that they had no recourse but to beg for alms in the villages they came to, whatever the risks attached. Sometimes they found kindness and hospitality. Usually they were driven away with imprecations, and for one frightening night they were locked in a cell by the constable, but his wife had taken pity on Jenny and George and they were released in the morning.

  Their emaciated bodies were covered with sores. Their feet were blistered in their rotting shoes. They were lice-ridden. Insect bites festered. It was a miracle that none of them had succumbed to illness more serious than diarrhoea, but at these high altitudes the heat was not oppressive in the daytime, and the nights were only cool. Nellie coaxed them on, rousing them in the morning when they did not wish to move, somehow finding the words to shame them into going on when they despaired.

  Frankly she was amazed that Helen Frances had survived. There had been some very bad nights when she had screamed for her drugs, and the nights when she slept soundly were as bad: she would shout in her nightmares the names of Henry and Tom, or her hands would scrabble with the air as if she was fighting off an attacker. That she had a child growing in her belly was clearly visible now. Indeed, the swelling womb seemed to be sucking the life out of the rest of her body, like a hungry parasite demanding sustenance while its host starved. Nellie had become accustomed, when rationing out the portions of whatever meagre food they had been given, to loading Helen Frances’s plate at the expense of her own; and sometimes her pity for her own suffering children meant that she took nothing for herself at all, splitting her whole portion between Helen Frances, Jenny and George. She was strong, she told herself, as she fought the pangs of hunger; she would survive, because her loved ones depended on her.

  She felt a fierce, maternal love for Helen Frances. Sometimes, watching her thin frame waddling painfully along a stony path, realising that with the heavy weight in her belly every step she took was a matter of will, she felt through her sympathy a burning pride in her foster-daughter’s courage. Breathing heavily, her face grimly set, Helen Frances never complained, though sometimes the strain became too much for her, and they all had to rest until she recovered the strength to go on again. On these occasions Edward would pace listlessly back and forth, or slump by himself on the side of the road. He was no longer the physician. Something had died in him. He would answer when spoken to, and once or twice Nellie observed him watching his two children with a tear in his eye, but for most of the time he remained wrapped in his own bitter thoughts. He avoided the others’ company, never joining in their conversations round the evening fire. One day she noticed that his hair was nearly white, and his face had become worn like an old man’s. Nellie could not think what was wrong with him—although it pained her to see him like this. Gradually—she was reluctant to admit it to herself even though she knew in her heart it was so—she had come to despise him. Sometimes she wondered if she had not come to despise all men, with their shallowness, their bravado, their violence, and their ultimate weakness.

  Nellie would occasionally think of Helen Frances’s irresponsible father, Frank. She doubted that the girl’s deep reserves of willpower and her capacity for endurance were inherited from him. She wondered what sort of woman her mother had been—she knew that Helen Frances had never known her, but Frank had always spoken of her as a goddess. Had Helen Frances inherited this extraordinary tenacity from her mother? Nellie knew that this was idle speculation. Wherever they came from, Helen Frances’s qualities were her own. She also possessed something much more fundamental, something shared by every woman who had ever borne a child: the knowledge that another life was growing inside her. Nellie had seen her pregnancy as the cause of her weakness, the slow draining of her strength on top of the malnutrition that t
hreatened them. Perhaps she should be thankful that Helen Frances was pregnant. For all that had happened to her, she was a woman and a prospective mother, with all the instincts and fierce determination of any mother to protect the life of her child. Far from weakening her, it gave her the will to live.

  One thing surprised Nellie. Not once since they had left the train had Helen Frances ever mentioned Henry Manners, although she would sometimes talk of Tom with fondness and even humour. Nellie knew that Helen Frances was aware that he was dead: on their first night around the campfire Edward had described to them the terrible scene he had come across in the Mandarin’s compartment. She herself had been surprised when the extent of Manners’s villainy had been revealed, and she had expected that Helen Frances would react to defend him, or give some other evidence of denial, or at least of sorrow—but the girl had merely listened with her head bowed, and had never spoken of the matter again. Well, she thought, perhaps it was for the best. As far as the world would need to know, Helen Frances’s child could be Tom’s. Perhaps it would be kind even to invent a marriage. Sadly she acknowledged that there was no one alive who could gainsay this now. If Tom had not died a martyr’s death he would have done the right thing. She was sure of that. Of the two men in Helen Frances’s life, the scales of Providence had clearly fallen on the side of the most worthy, and Henry Manners, at the end of his miserable existence, had merely shown what a beast he was. It was sad—she had come to like him, even admire him, but his final treachery had been unforgivable. It was nevertheless remarkable that Helen Frances had put the memory of him so easily behind her …