Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “Nurse getting herself installed,” he said, smiling at her, as she watched his methodical arrangements.

  “This is a curse for you,” she said miserably.

  “My dear Rose, you’re the person it’s a curse for,” he said. “How do you feel now?”

  “It’s nice to be in bed,” said Rose—it was all she truthfully could say.

  Antony, having arranged the impromptu table, looked about him to see what remained to be done, with distaste and concern. It was not much of a place to have an illness in—a small dirty room with no door, only one window, and no other form of lighting. It was altogether a very disagreeable situation—a sick woman on their hands, an undisciplined army on their heels, no proper medicines available, and five days’ march from home. Well, they must do the best they could. He called Wu and sent him for a blanket, which he rigged up over the door—the clouds Anastasia had seen down the valley had come up now; the sky was grey, and a chilly little wind was puffing straw and pieces of paper about the small courtyard outside. Wu said “Water bollung”; Antony told him to heat a jug and bring it all in five minutes, and then went and fetched a light Shetland sweater from his luggage, wrapped it round Rose’s hot-water bottle (displacing the nightgown), and proceeded to rub her chest with the carbolated vaseline. He thought he was doing it as gently as was consistent with Asta’s instructions, but Rose protested (as the patient in such circumstances invariably does protest) that he was not only skinning her, but bruising her as well.

  “Isn’t that enough?” she asked pitifully.

  “No,” said Antony. “It’s got to be red.” He rubbed on.

  The advent of the kettle released Rose from this torture. Antony muffled her chest in the heated sweater, rather clumsily, and was fetching the towels to put over her head when Rose said—“I say, Antony.”

  “Yes, what?” he answered, with the faint brusquerie of the amateur nurse who is trying to do everything right, and finds it disturbing to be interrupted.

  “In my rucksack I think you’ll find a stick of stuff called ‘Freezoclone’ or something—you’re supposed to rub it on your head when you’re hot, instead of Eau de Cologne.”

  “Well, you don’t want it now, do you?” said Antony, beginning to drape a small Turkish towel over her head.

  “No—only I wondered if the stuff in it that makes you cold was menthol; it smells rather like it.”

  “Oh—yes, I see.” He rummaged in her knapsack and pulled out a small object like a stick of shaving-soap. “This it?”

  “Yes.”

  He unscrewed the cap and smelt it.

  “By Jove, I believe it is! Good for you, Rose. How shall we put it in!”

  “Couldn’t you chop bits off?”

  Antony could and did, dropping them into the jug. When the contents of the kettle were poured on, an undoubted odour of menthol arose. He thrust the jug triumphantly into Rose’s hands, covered her up with a second towel, and looked at his watch. “That was a really brilliant idea of yours, Rosie,” he said.

  Rose, behind the towels, coughed. At least it was a funny strangled sort of sound, which she hoped would pass for a cough—actually it was closely related to a sob. Antony hadn’t called her “Rosie” since she was almost a child—he used to use it then if he was especially pleased with her; and the old affectionate term was almost more than she could stand, just then. Later she began to cough genuinely, and presently called out—“I want to spit, Ant.”

  “Splendid! Spit away.”

  “But I haven’t got a basin.”

  “Spit in the jug—it can be washed out.”

  When Rose had inhaled for what Antony deemed a sufficient length of time, while he squeezed a lemon and beat the juice up with some of the Fathers’ honey in a cup, and she was lying down again, wiped and muffled up, he asked—

  “What did Asta say you were to eat?”

  “She didn’t say anything about that.”

  “What would you like?”

  “I don’t really feel like eating anything—it hurts so to swallow.”

  “You must have something, I suppose,” he said doubtfully. “Though nothing solid till your temperature goes down.”

  “Milk? I could drink milk and soda,” said Rose hopefully.

  But of course there was no milk—only condensed, which she abhorred. Wu was summoned and consulted. He suggested that the ch’u-t’zu could buy “welly big, welly old chicken”, and make what he described as “chicken-bloh”. This seemed an excellent idea, and the “bloh” was ordered; but it would take time—meanwhile Antony suggested tea.

  Rose, who disliked tea with condensed milk at the best of times, shook her head. “I know what we might do,” she said huskily.

  “What’s that?”

  “Isn’t black-currant very good for throats? If there’s one of those tins of black-currant jam left, couldn’t we brew a sort of tea with that?”

  There was a tin, and this was done. Antony, sitting in the chair and watching Rose sip it, turning her head painfully to one side to swallow, said—“You seem to me to be more or less nursing yourself.” He felt miserably helpless and at a loss; he was not the first man to find out that prescribing is one thing, and nursing quite another.

  Rose protested—he was doing everything. “But oughtn’t you to go and have tea? I’m all right now.”

  Antony thought he would.

  “Ant, look,” she said as he was leaving the room.

  “Yes?” he turned back.

  “Henry will want to come, I expect,” she said—“but I’d rather not, if you can manage it.” There was a weary appeal in her tone. “Let him just come and peep, if he wants to; but not to sit and stay.”

  He nodded without speaking, and went.

  Henry of course did want to see Rose—it was the second thing he asked when Antony appeared, the first being how she was?—and Lydiard had some difficulty in heading him off. He said what he could about seeing people being likely to raise her temperature still more, that it hurt her to speak, and that in her wretched state the smallest thing was an effort, and she ought to keep perfectly quiet and try to sleep. But he felt considerable awkwardness all round at being forced into the position of trying to prevent Henry from seeing Rose. Henry was very much upset, that was evident; he sat drumming with his fingers on the tea-table, with a very dissatisfied face.

  “It’s a stupid business all round,” he broke out at length. “I’m not blaming you, my dear Antony, but you must see that it would have been far better if we’d stayed at La Trappe.”

  Antony said, with perfect sincerity, that he wished to Heaven they had.

  “I don’t know why Asta couldn’t have taken her temperature this morning,” Henry fretted. “She knew she had a cold. Then we need never have started. As it is, we’re really pretty well in the soup. It’s a damned awkward situation, you know, with all these troops coming in. And if anything prevents those two from getting back, she won’t even have a woman with her.”

  Antony said he felt sure they would get back—“In need, I’m certain the Abbot will send someone with them.” But Henry continued to worry, and to calm him down—and in real pity for his state—Antony said after tea that he might just come and peep at Rose for a moment. He felt still more awkward when he had led Henry through into the school-house; his instinct would have been to leave them together, but a look from Rose clearly forbade that.

  “Well, how is she?” Henry asked, standing by the bed.

  “Oh, better,” she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. “The inhaling has done it good. I’ll be all right tomorrow, I expect. And Ant is a very good nurse!”

  Henry was cheered by this.

  “She doesn’t look too bad,” he said, when he and Antony were out on the t’ai again—“and she seems fairly perky.”

  But when Antony, having ordered more kettles, went in to prepare a second inhalation and to re-fill her hot bottle, it was a different story. “Do you really feel better?” he ask
ed.

  “No, beastly!” she said, with a childish quiver in her voice. “I do wish I could sweat.”

  “Well, if you don’t, you shall have some more aspirins presently,” he said. “Come on—I’ll give you another rub.” But while he worked away in a perfectly business-like fashion, part of his mind noted the extreme oddity of their situation, which had brought about a state of affairs in which it was to him, Antony, and not to her lover, that she was willing to tell the truth about how ill she felt.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hillier and Anastasia set off a little before 4.30, at a good brisk pace. Anastasia was really very strong; she had the stocky capacity for enduring effort of short men, butchers’ ponies, and other small thick-set orders of creation—and she was in good training. Her one fear was that she might go too slow, and prevent their finding the top of the correct path down from the col before darkness fell. In an unwonted spasm of confidence she mentioned this to Hillier—she had been pleased by his ready determination to accompany her, and they were drawn together by their common enterprise, as people are.

  Hillier was easily optimistic. “We shall make it all right,” he said. “The thing to do is to walk fast on the flat, and steadily on the rise—then you don’t get worn out, and make the best use of your levels. You’re a fairly solid goer, too.”

  Anastasia tried to be a solid goer. As they pounded up the gorge below the Hsiao Lung Mên she realised that what Hillier called “going steadily” was a good deal faster than she cared for uphill, but she puffed along, and said nothing. The clouds were rolling up behind them in a disagreeably menacing way—no longer white and golden, but dark, in black bulging masses. Anastasia looked over her shoulder at them from time to time. “We’re going to get wet, I’m afraid,” she said.

  Hillier also glanced back. “H’m, yes—we may,” he said. “I walk rather well wet.” Anastasia smiled to herself at this invincible optimism, but said nothing; she wanted all her breath for walking, really.

  They reached the tower at the Hsiao Lung Mên a little before seven, an improvement by over an hour and a half on their time on the first journey, as Hillier pointed out. And here the rain hit them. For some time past the wind had been brushing uneasily through the gorge at intervals, turning up the undersides of the leaves so that the shrubs had a curious metallic look, and now and again a few heavy drops had come spattering onto the rocks, while thunder muttered behind them—but now, without the usual preliminaries of flashes and cracks, the regulation opening to a thunderstorm, the rain suddenly came down, silent, cold and heavy. There was something rather sinister about this silent onset. They put on their jackets and turned up the collars, and trudged on—it was all they could do, for they were travelling as light as possible. “You were right,” said Hillier, a little grimly.

  “Well, I daresay I shall find I walk well wet too,” said Anastasia.

  But what was really preoccupying both of them was not getting wet, but the question of the light. On clear evenings it was true, as Anastasia had said, that there was a glimmer of twilight till about eight; but now, under the heavy clouds, it was very much darker than usual—nearly as dark at seven as it would normally be at eight. As they pushed on up the track Hillier said suddenly—“I wish to Hercules we were still on Summer Time!”

  “So do I,” said Asta. At La Trappe they had been obliged to revert to what Hargreaves called “God’s Time”, and they had not changed back—it was to have been done that evening.

  It grew darker and darker. They could just see the path through the grey blurring sheets of the rain, but that was all. “Could you speed up at all, do you think?” Hillier asked, still preserving that elaborate casualness of tone.

  Poor Anastasia tried to speed, but she was really doing pretty well her utmost already. In spite of having done some ten hours actual walking she was still quite strong, but her legs were too short to make it possible for her to do what Highlanders call “travel”—i.e. cover the ground at a swift pace. Presently they reached the long open valley—here the going was easier, and she managed to walk faster. It was only by the flat grass on either side of the path, the absence of rocks and bushes, and the more level ground that they knew where they were—they could see nothing but the track a few yards ahead.

  Presently the path forked.

  “Right, here,” said Hillier.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes—this was Rose’s and my first fork. We shall come to another about half a mile on.”

  They walked on. Sure enough, in about half a mile—eight minutes by Hillier’s watch—they came to a second fork.

  “Here we are. Right again,” said Hillier.

  “You’re quite certain?”

  “I am, actually—but I think I can check up. There ought to be a clump of bushes about fifty paces half-right. You stand still and keep shouting, and I’ll go and see.”

  Anastasia stood still, glad to get her breath. “Roy!” she called presently. “Roy! Roy!”

  “O.K.”—she heard his voice. “Call again.” She called “Here.” In a couple of seconds he was beside her once more.

  “How did you know that?” she asked, as they walked forward again.

  “I thought that was where we whistled. When she did, a bird flew out of some bushes; and even when we thought we were lost, she started gaping after it. She is a peculiar creature,” he said.

  “Oh, do you think so? Why?”

  “She’s so completely futile about so many things,” he said—, “one rather expects that, of course, with all that charm—but then here and there she turns out completely practical, like her knowledge of birds—and doing those shirts!”

  Anastasia made some non-committal reply. It was not that she did not want to discuss Mrs. Pelham with Roy—almost for the first time, she felt quite prepared to; but she had better uses for her breath. But that business of his identifying the forks gave her—and gave Roy too—a faith in his knowledge and memory of the way that subsequent events failed to justify.

  A few minutes later they walked without warning into a thick bank of mist. Hillier stopped short.

  “Damn!” he said. “That’s bloody well torn it!”

  “It’s clouds,” said Anastasia. “We’re high here.”

  “It’s torn it just as much even if it is clouds,” said Hillier, very justly. “Well, let’s go on. We may get out of it fairly soon, if it’s only a cloud.”

  They went on, more slowly now—half-seeing the path, half-feeling its firmness with their feet. They proceeded in this way for about another half-hour.

  “Do you remember at all the place where we branched in this morning?” Anastasia asked. “Any clump of bushes or anything? We ought to be getting nearish it now.”

  “No, the boring thing is that I don’t,” he said. “We were talking, and I took no notice till Antony called out, and we were well in the straight by then, you remember. We didn’t seem to turn particularly—my impression is that it’s pretty well dead straight ahead.”

  Anastasia, remembering her words that morning, noted with gratitude that he did not remind her of them. Presently Hillier, who was walking in front, checked suddenly, saying “Stand still!”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m off the path. Wait a minute.” He moved about, muttering—then “Damn! I believe it’s another fork,” he said. “Could I have your torch a moment?”

  “Here,” she said, still without moving, holding it out. He brushed into her arm and took it.

  “That’s right—keep where you are.” He threw the light this way and that; it beat back at them from the soft whiteness, striped with falling spokes of rain, in the maddening way that light does in fog. “Oh, confusion!” he said—“there are three!”

  “Can I look?”

  “Yes—if you keep on ours.” She stepped carefully up behind him, and peered into the mist. Sure enough, three small paths branched out, like the fingers of an incomplete hand.

  “I never notic
ed that,” he said—“either time.”

  “Nor did I. But I think the fact that we didn’t notice it might mean that we came in on the middle one, this morning, don’t you?”

  Hillier thought it might. “We certainly don’t want to go to the right, here,” he said. “We went too far right last time. And this left one seems to rake right back.” He stepped along it a pace or two. “I think the middle one has it.”

  So they took the middle path. It was now quite dark, and after using the torch it seemed darker still. Hillier kept to the path by what seemed to Anastasia some miracle of instinct; she followed as closely as she could. “I can’t see you in the least,” she called out presently—“don’t go too fast.”

  He stopped, took a handkerchief from his pocket, and tucked it into the collar of his jacket by one corner, spreading the rest out over his shoulders. “How’s that?” he said, moving on again.

  “Oh, much better”—she found that she could see the pale blur immediately in front. They were going rather slowly now, and Anastasia began to realise that she was feeling cold; the rain was soaking through the shoulders and elbows of her jacket, and dripping off her hair down her neck—now and again a little cold trickle ran down between her breasts. It was very disagreeable.

  Presently Roy spoke again. “Do you get the impression that we’re inclining to the left?” he asked,

  “No. I mean I’m not getting any impression at all,” said Asta truthfully. “It’s all I can do to follow your handkerchief.”

  She heard him laugh.

  “Well, I think we are trending left,” he said. “I wonder if we should have taken the other path back there after all.”

  “We have to bear a bit to the left,” she reminded, him. “The col we crossed this morning was west of that path we came down the first time. I expect it’s all right. Anyway we’re bound to come to the watershed some time or other, and then we can just tumble down the far side anyhow, without the donkeys. There aren’t any cliffs.”