by Kane, Clare
“And there is no reason to believe he would listen to my advice. If the man had a modicum of sense he would never have approached Nina in the first place.”
“Quite. That brings me to my second idea. We allow them to conduct this… affair… here in the hotel. We contain the risk.”
“Mrs Samuels,” I choked. “I am not easily shocked, but you have succeeded where even cannibalism has failed.”
Hilde met my gaze squarely, and returned directly to the matter.
“Mr Scott, we must think of Nina. She is naive, she is innocent, she possesses the imprudent arrogance of youth. She will not be dissuaded easily, she does not realize that her very honor rests on this affair. I more than anyone wish that she might have fallen in love with Mr Lovell, even some American soldier, but the heart is not a rational master.”
She stood.
“I see I have alarmed you.”
“Mrs Samuels, Nicholas Ward is one of my oldest friends in Peking. I could not do such a thing in good faith.”
“In that case,” Hilde said. “I implore you to speak with Mr Fairchild.”
“I will,” I said.
“Then it is decided.” Hilde moved towards the door. “You are a man of words, Mr Scott. Convince him. For Nina.”
“And for us.”
What a plight Hilde set before me. What undeniable shambles we had orchestrated in our attempts to protect Nina. Blankly I looked to the wall opposite me, my mind so crowded with thoughts that I could not distinguish a single idea amongst them. I felt dread in its most physical of forms: leaden stomach, torpid limbs, numb anguish of an approaching headache. A second whisky cleared my thoughts a little, and brought one to the fore: Nicholas, dear old Nicholas, I could not betray him. I must speak to Fairchild, and end the wretched thing once and for all.
That evening I walked with Nina through the Legation Quarter towards the Fairchild household. She held the cake she had baked with Lijun in front of her chest, balancing it across two careful palms while taking even, attentive steps around the rubble strewn across the streets. Peace had descended, we were told, but it seemed bad luck to clear away any signs of the conflict so soon, a temptation too far for fickle Fate, and so the detritus of war, the crumbled bricks and blood-soaked garments, the mangy dogs and abandoned weapons, littered every pathway. I watched Nina for signs of the character-altering love Hilde had described. She seemed happy, that was certain, and a smile teased the corners of her mouth each time she spoke, but she did not strike me as entirely unheeding, indeed she appeared balanced, sanguine, controlled.
“You are content,” I observed.
“Naturally. The truce has cheered me considerably,” she said. “I suppose now we might even survive the summer.”
“One hopes so.”
I wished to speak of Oscar; the idea of going behind her back and to the man directly sat uneasily with me, but half-formed words remained dry and sour in my mouth. We arrived as the servants were preparing to serve supper: a comparative feast of broiled chicken, tinned beans and fried potatoes. Nina proudly handed over her cake to the staff: today’s dessert would be more than a cigarette drawn out as long as the breath would allow. We had all grown slimmer in the last weeks, but I noticed as Nina talked with the servants that the meagre diet seemed to suit her. Her collarbones gleamed through the delicate skin at the base of her neck and the flatness of her cheeks set her green eyes in keen relief. I saw then the change Hilde had witnessed: Nina’s body was deprived, yet her heart gorged itself on love.
We ate that night until sated, an unusual feeling in those days, and my full stomach left me quite uncomfortable. I had rather forgotten the sensation of a curved belly straining against buttons. I asked Oscar then if I might have a moment with him.
“I have heard some news today that may be of interest to you,” I said.
“Let us retire to my study,” he suggested.
Nina watched us leave, and I avoided her eye.
Oscar took a seat behind his desk and offered me a cigar. I accepted it gratefully, and let him light it for me.
“You have heard some rumors today, Mr Scott? I heard some news of the approaching troops myself, but I fear it was more wishful thinking than accurate intelligence.”
“Not rumors, I’m afraid. Facts.”
“Concerning…?” Oscar’s smile was affable, his demeanor relaxed.
“Something rather more personal,” I said, my tone light.
“Go on,” Oscar said, his cigar suspended mid-air.
“Mrs Samuels and I are rather concerned about your relationship with Miss Ward.”
Oscar’s brow, youthful and unlined, creased.
“You must realize, Mr Fairchild, that I am privy to the facts,” I continued. “After all, my room was provided as a meeting place for you and Miss Ward just a few days ago. Mrs Samuels believes that the meeting we organized with the purpose of definitively severing your relations reached a rather different conclusion.” I paused, watched for his reaction.
Oscar shifted back in his chair, his cigar glowed unattended in his right hand.
“Mr Scott, I appreciate your concern. And your frankness,” Oscar said. “They say the Scots are rather more direct than the English.”
“Perhaps only a Scot and a German could broach this delicate subject,” I said.
In truth, Oscar’s statement had irritated me. It was designed to wrong-foot, to suggest that I had no right to meddle in his affairs, it was an elegant way for him to deny my judgment. And yet, did not the Boxers want us both returned as piles of ashes to the same queen?
Oscar remained silent, his cigar bled silver ash to the floor.
“Mr Fairchild, I have no desire to make you uncomfortable,” I said. “You must understand that current circumstances are entirely untenable. I have chosen to speak with you not only because of my deep concern and affection for Miss Ward, but also because I recognize the danger such an affair might pose to your own career.”
“Mr Scott.” Oscar leaned forward, blue eyes cold now, warm congeniality disappeared. “I appreciate your concern. If I may speak in confidence, I plan to divorce my wife.”
“Good God!” I said. “I thought that was only some nonsense you had said to placate Nina. A man of your position cannot divorce his wife, especially not a wife so treasured, a woman who has already lost so much. I know we live in extraordinary times, but once we are finally liberated we shall be obliged to return to normal society. And society favors Violet over Nina, you must know that. And what of Nina’s prospects? This situation will likely ruin any chances of a good marriage for her.”
“Nina does not wish to marry.”
“Come now, that is nothing more than the silly talk of a young girl. She is a woman now, and she must marry. Let us be sensible.”
Oscar sank back into his chair and took a puff on his cigar, his eyes not wavering in close observation of my movements.
A knock at the door announced a servant, who entered with head bowed. He apologized for the interruption as he crossed the room and set down a plate on Oscar’s desk. A small apple tartlet sat neatly atop the dish, its surface dusted with sugar.
“What is the meaning of this?” Oscar asked.
“Miss Ward asked me to give it to you after dinner.”
The servant dipped his head and departed. Oscar and I remained silent until the servant had closed the door behind him.
“Well,” I said. “I suppose this proves my very point. Has Miss Ward served everyone an apple tartlet?”
“Perhaps,” Oscar countered. “Perhaps they are all eating tarts downstairs.”
“Then where is mine?” I tried to sound authoritative, in control, but frustration tinted the edges of my voice. I had come to tell Oscar to leave Nina be, to ask him to make a clean, graceful exit from her life before their affair damaged her future prospects.
Instead I found myself tangled in my own words, my arguments lost in the plain nonsense of divorces and puddings. Oscar lifted the dessert fork from the side of the plate and cut tentatively into the tart, which crumbled from its core, spilling pastry fragments across the plate. We both stared as the small cake fell apart; tucked inside its fleshy heart was a neatly rolled piece of paper. Oscar removed the paper with careful fingers, unravelled it and read the handwritten note. I could not distinguish its contents from my position.
“Well.” I stood. “I should take my leave, Mr Fairchild. I hope you shall consider my words.”
“Thank you, Mr Scott.” Oscar rose from behind his desk and shook my hand with a grip firm and steady. I turned to go, and he spoke again. “Suppose, Mr Scott, we are all slaughtered within the week. Wouldn’t it be a shame not to have lived in the days preceding death?”
I kept walking.
I descended the stairs to delighted squeals that emanated from the drawing room. I peered around the doorway and saw Lillian Price in the centre of the room, her skirts arranged around her on the Persian carpet.
“Isn’t she precious?” Lillian trilled. In her lap was curled a kitten, its white fur dotted with black blotches. Nina knelt on the floor beside Lillian and the new arrival, her fingers reached nervously towards the kitten’s emaciated body.
I slipped into the room and observed the assembled guests unnoticed. Nicholas turned the pages of a Chinese newspaper while Phoebe and La Contessa watched the two girls and the kitten. Pietro Mancini smoked in an armchair, his eyes fixed on the red sky setting beyond the Tartar wall. The kitten took a step towards Nina, nuzzled an inquisitive nose against her hand, then shrank away.
“Mr Scott!” Lillian said, catching sight of me. “Have you seen our new pet?”
“Is this not rather an odd time to adopt another mouth to feed?” I asked.
“She is so small, Mr Scott, she doesn’t want for much. Besides, we have food for the moment. The poor little thing was living in a hole in a wall without a mother. I thought it only right I do what I could to protect it.” Lillian pressed the kitten against her chest and kissed the top of a downy ear. “I have named her Liberty,” she said.
“Very nice,” I said, though the name moved me little. I felt that the naming of the infant Siege had been quite sentimental enough. Over Lillian’s head I caught Chiara’s eye, she offered me a barely perceptible shake of the head. I bowed and left, noticing that Nina did not look in my direction as I departed.
At the Grand I found Hilde finishing the last of a glass of gin in the bar. She poured me a nightcap and we retired to my room, where I told her of my meeting with Oscar.
“And?” she asked. “He will stay away from her?”
“I am afraid not.” I sighed, swirling the whisky in my glass. “He tells me that he plans to divorce his wife; such nonsense as I have never heard.”
Hilde shook her head, her teeth worried her bottom lip.
“Yet we must recognize that this folly is not his alone. A servant delivered a tart to him while I was present, inside was a message from Nina. A little note, rolled up and baked into a tart.”
“Romance,” Hilde said without feeling.
“Clearly neither party is prepared to abandon this affair,” I continued. “And I quite understand their individual positions. Nina is naive and unprepared, Fairchild is intelligent and knowledgeable of our true circumstances. Any rational man in his role would have calculated by now that there is a very distinct possibility that our rescuers lie bloody and dead in a desolate field somewhere to the east of the city. He knows that while the Imperials sell us chickens and fly white flags, they also work through the night to strengthen their defenses. He believes there is a real chance of not making it out of Peking alive, and sees no harm in living his last days with joyous carelessness.”
I lifted my glass; with disappointment I noticed that it was already emptied.
“What can we do?” she asked.
“Perhaps you might speak once more with Nina. I daresay she is more sensible than the First Secretary.”
“May I propose again my other solution?” Hilde’s finger circled her glass. “I know it sounds unorthodox, but helping them to conduct their affair in secrecy would protect Nina from the damage such a situation might inflict on her future prospects.”
“Mrs Edwards! You must see that to do such a thing would be wrong.”
“Only God may judge,” she said simply.
“Yes, God and His Earthly followers, whom, it appears, are rather harsh arbiters. The risk to Nina is too great, Hilde.”
“Precisely. The risk is huge, which is why we must seek to contain it.” Hilde placed her hand on my forearm. “Left alone, there is no guarantee that either Miss Ward or Mr Fairchild will act with propriety. We could provide them with a meeting place in the hotel, take messages from one to the other, create false stories to stop the rumors.”
“The risk remains,” I said, shaking my head.
“There are none so reckless as lovers,” Hilde said, “but lovers who expect to die.”
XII
Before I recount, then, the most shameful aspects of my conduct during the siege, permit me the small indulgence of an explanation. I grasp desperately to defend myself, I know, but I cannot set down on paper the following events without at least a little justification. It was wrong, I knew that as soon as Hilde said it, and yet I believed that no other option remained. Fairchild was ambitious, conscientious, dependable – a model official under normal circumstances, just as Nina was bright and shrewd and protected in her habitual environment. The alchemy of the rebellion, the surety of approaching catastrophe, altered each in turn, and bound them together in chains of the Boxers’ making. And so I assented to a course of action I feared might ruin Nina, knowing reluctantly that while the potential for scandal in this plan was significant, not only for Nina but also for myself and Hilde, such disgrace would be unavoidable if Nina continued unchecked on her current path. I betrayed Nicholas, I hid my deeds from Edward, and I enabled Nina to continue the ruinous affair. But I did it for them, for us. I was duplicitous and deceitful, but only to serve a higher ideal. Such is the muck and mire of human existence.
The following morning I found Nina in the kitchen chatting animatedly with Lijun; the younger girl sneaked an occasional lick of her flour-coated fingertips.
“Miss Ward,” I said. “A moment, please?”
Nina wiped her hands on her apron and followed me to the hallway.
“Let us go to my room,” I suggested.
She nodded willingly enough, but I noted the slow tread of her steps on the stairs behind me.
“Nina. You must realize your relationship with Mr Fairchild cannot continue as it is,” I started, pulling the door closed behind us.
Nina, crossing the room towards the window, stopped immediately. With her back to me still she said: “Not this again, Mr Scott.” She turned to face me with cool expression. “I appreciate your concern, Alistair, I do, but there is nothing for us to discuss. I can manage this myself.”
“Oh, how many silly girls have thought the same thing!” I said.
“What do you know of silly girls?” Nina cried. “How unfair your words are! Is Mr Fairchild not silly?”
“Believe me, Nina, I know much of silly girls. And you protest too quickly.” I took a breath, prepared myself for the words, irreparable and irrevocable, that came next. “I have a proposal for you, something rather unusual, something that does not make me happy, but may save you and Mr Fairchild from this mutual madness.”
“Oh, yes?” Nina’s countenance softened, she dropped her hands from her hips.
“Please, sit.”
The proposition fell quickly from my lips, the words rushed into one another in my desire to expel them, to have them out rapidly enough to avoid inspection, consideration of their con
tents.
“It has become clear to both Mrs Samuels and myself that neither you nor Mr Fairchild is prepared to terminate this ridiculous affair. Therefore, we propose not that you end the affair but rather that you conduct it only within the confines of the hotel. We will provide you with the place, the protection, everything you need to carry on with this nonsense. I need you to understand, Nina, that I disapprove absolutely of your involvement with Mr Fairchild, but your stubbornness has left me with little choice. I am indebted to your father for his friendship and I feel obliged to do all I can to protect both you and him from the more vicious rumors about your relationship with Mr Fairchild.”
“Really?” Nina asked cautiously, her lips toyed with a smile. Guilt gripped me; my stomach tightened, my hands coiled to fists, my physical self could not forgive this treachery.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “But you must promise to listen to me and Mrs Samuels, to take our advice, to avoid unnecessary scandal.”
“I promise,” she said solemnly.
“Nina. This is not in any way an endorsement of your behavior.”
“I understand,” she said. “Thank you, Mr Scott.”
I prepared myself to speak again, but a frantic knocking at the door stopped me. Hilde did not wait for an invitation to enter the room.
“The troops are on their way!” she declared breathlessly. “I thought you would like to know right away, Mr Scott. The Japanese have received a letter.”
“Really?” Naturally I had imagined this moment in my mind dozens of times, the heralding of our rescue and the possibility of life beyond the Legation Quarter walls, but the likelihood of it coming to pass had grown more faint with each passing day. I felt almost winded by the news, as though I had taken a swift punch to the gut. “When shall they arrive?”
“In the coming days,” Hilde said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Fantastic,” Nina said, though her words lacked any such sentiment. “Such good news.”
“Nina, I must go,” I said. “You understand.”
“Yes, yes. But what about…?”