Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “It seems rather mean,” she said sadly.

  “You can’t defraud anyone of their own generosity,” said Antony—“that would be much meaner.”

  So in a noisy silence concerning all essentials Henry Hargreaves made his preparations for departure, sold his poloponies, arranged with Lydiard to pay off his servants, gave his farewell party, and was the central figure when his friends went through the dismal formula of seeing someone off from the Chien-mên Station by the morning train. A little group of Europeans gathered outside the door of the Pullman, a focus of big noses, pink skins and multicoloured hair in the seething crowd of greenish-yellow flattened faces and black heads which swarmed and jostled all over the rest of the platform, yelling its way through the difficult, complicated and exciting business of getting itself, or its merchandise, or its relations off by the Fire-Cart. Hargreaves was popular, and the group of friends unusually large; since he was a man the flowers were absent, but there were boxes of cigarettes and cigars, and magazines, and even a book or two, all the futile tributes to departure with which people seek to disguise the discomfort of parting in a place where partings seem to matter more than they do in Europe. Hargreaves, conspicuous by his height and an amazingly loud tweed overcoat moved about the group, laughing, shaking hands, making little remarks, doing his stuff perfectly. “Well, Ant old man, forward any letters—that’s what the Posts are for!” In an access of exuberance he kissed Mme. de Brie goodbye—“pour la dernière fois, chère Madame.” “Mon dieu, dites au moins la première, tant que je suis là!” said M. de Brie, as delighted as his wife. “Thanks for everything—be good to the Begum,” Henry said to Asta. “Goodbye, my dear Roy—send me a copy of the book when it comes out!” He shook Rose’s hand. “Bye-bye, Rose—have fun!” A whistle blew—he mounted the step of the coach, and as the train moved slowly off, stood at the door, waving, smiling, calling out words and names to the last.

  The little crowd of Europeans dispersed, walking back along the cinder path to the Watergate and getting into their cars or rickshas, the men to return to their offices, the women to write their chits or do their errands. In each breast there was a small hollow space, whether they had really cared much about Captain Hargreaves or not—here was another change, another loss, another breach in the walls of their carefully-constructed fragile edifice of friendship, stability and security, in a land where nothing has real stability but the age-old alien structure of Chinese life and Chinese character. Anastasia was sharply aware of this common feeling as she and Rose drove back to the Lung An Hut’ung; she saw European life out there in all its artificiality and uncertainty, like a small paper Japanese house perched precariously on an immense bare rock which, immovably solid itself, afforded no shelter or protection to the flimsy dwelling-place set up on it.

  And this reflection gave a sharp point to the personal problem raised for her by Hillier’s proposal. If she married him, he would certainly wish to make their home in England, though they might travel; and that would leave Antony wholly alone in China, solitary in the paper house on the rock. But, set against that, she was coming to believe that Roy was right, and that their marriage might well be a very happy and successful one. She liked him more and more; she continued in a state of delighted surprise over the honesty and clearsightedness he had shown in discussing the possibility of marrying her, and his insight when they had spoken of herself and Charles. Anyone, she said to herself, could live with a man like that—and if she had got so fond of him (starting really from scratch) in six or seven weeks, how fond might she not get of him in the years of marriage, with physical love present, as she felt confident it would be in her also, to do the work they both believed in, of breaking down barriers, of kindling and refreshing—above all, with the tremendously powerful impulsion to make the thing work, to love and enjoy and be patient and loyal which marriage, properly understood, affords. Anastasia did so understand it. She was a person possessed of that rather rare thing in the modern world, faith. Not only or merely faith in the sense of acceptance of certain religious truths, though that was also hers; she had faith in people, she had faith in life, and she had faith in marriage. Even with Rose’s failure before her eyes, what was marriage for, she asked herself, but to protect human beings from their own caprice, discouragement, frivolity or weakness with its mighty and ancient power of reassurance and encouragement, by its proclamation of positive and gracious values above and beyond transient individual desires and hopes. She had always believed that marriage constituted the best foundation of a full and valuable life for a man, incomparably the best for a woman; part of her suffering over the loss of Charles had been the further loss, as it seemed likely to prove, of the hope of marriage for her—she had not expected to find again a man whom she felt she could marry. And now in Roy she had—most unexpectedly—found one. And she was twenty-nine. But unless Antony himself married, marriage for her would involve intolerable loneliness for him.

  It was a difficult choice, further complicated by Rose and her problems, and the question of how far and how seriously they involved Antony. Her head was full of these things when they reached the house, and it was still full of them when, her household duties attended to and her notes written, she joined Mrs. Pelham where she sat under the p’eng with her sewing. Rose was very silent, and her silence presupposed thought on her part too. Watching the pretty head bent in abstraction over her work, it came into Anastasia’s mind that it was here, under this very matting shelter, and now over four months ago that her cousin had last spoken openly of her own affairs, when she gave her brief account of why she had left Charles. And the thought revived her own determination to find out how matters stood. She had respected Antony’s injunction to leave it alone till Henry had gone; but now he was gone indeed,

  “We shall miss Henry,” she began, non-committally.

  Rose looked up, a rather distressful expression in her beautiful eyes.

  “Yes, you will,” she said, with a tiny sigh, and bent her head over her work again.

  “Rose, why did he go? Not the reason he gave, the real reason?”

  The treacherous colour flew into Mrs. Pelham’s golden-pale cheeks.

  “Didn’t he tell you?” she fenced.’

  “No. But I imagine you know better than anyone,” said Asta, a little relentlessly—she could be relentless when she chose.

  The habit of confiding in Anastasia was almost a lifelong one with Rose Pelham, and not easily broken. At this sign of the old half-affectionate, half-austere pressure she gave way—a little way.

  “He—I think he probably thought it better—he was rather fond of me,” she said disjointedly, “as I expect you saw.” That was enough for Asta; she was not going to tell her the whole thing. Somehow even now she couldn’t.

  But it wasn’t anything like enough for Asta, even if for the moment she might let it appear that it was.

  “That’s the worst of being a grass widow,” she said judgematically—“these sort of difficulties crop up.”

  “Yes,” said Rose faintly. She saw what was coming. Anastasia was in one of her “tank” moods, as Rose privately called them, when she drove remorselessly through one’s defences to get at the truth. It had generally been good for her, she acknowledged—and at the moment, tired, dispirited, worried, surprisingly distressed by the hidden pathos of Henry’s gallantly platitudinous departure, she simply lacked the spirit to resist.

  “Rose, dear, what are you going to do about Charles? Are you going back to him, or what?” Anastasia asked, laying down her work and looking earnestly with her dark short-sighted eyes at her cousin.

  “Oh Asta, I don’t know! How can I go back?” Rose said piteously, at this direct assault.

  “Dearest, how can I know whether you can go back or not? You haven’t really told me anything,” Asta answered. “Is he living with the other person? Does he want you to go back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know if he wants me to, either.”

  “B
ut you must settle something,” Anastasia said, in her most reasonable tone; “you can’t go on just drifting about alone. It isn’t fair to anyone. Look where it’s landed Henry! If Charles has chucked this person, would you be willing to go back? I have a sort of feeling that you ought to, that it would be the best thing. These engouements don’t mean anything very often; they don’t last. How serious was it? What sort of person was she?”

  The well-known voice of authority, of reason trained on her problems, of Asta’s balanced mind getting to work on the pros and cons of her difficulties, as it had done so often in the past, suddenly drove Rose to desperation. Heedless of caution, regardless of wise tactics, driven on by the distress of her position—“I don’t want to go back to him” she burst out.

  And then sat silent, amazed at what she had said, the fatally truthful colour again flooding her lovely face.

  Asta registered everything—the words, the desperate tone, the blush.

  “Because you are in love with Henry?” she asked, and waited curiously for the answer. She got it, though not in speech. Watching Rose, she saw the absolute negation of that suggestion in her face, something that was almost a recoil from it. Her mind leapt to the only other possibility, and before Rose had found words—“How much does Antony come into this?” she asked abruptly. “Rose, you must tell me.”

  That question Rose made no attempt to answer. She put her hands up to her face, as if to shield herself, and sat silent—her whole attitude expressed a sort of collapse.

  Anastasia regarded her with dismay.

  “Oh Rose,” she said, quite softly now—“oh Rose, you aren’t in love with Ant?”

  Slowly, Rose took her hands down, and looked across at her cousin.

  “Yes,” she said. “I love him—hopelessly.” Tears gathered in her eyes, over-spilled, and ran down her face; she paid not the smallest attention to them. Something about the words, the steady look, those unregarded tears affected Anastasia profoundly; in spite of her dismay, her rather superior disapproving attitude to Rose melted. She remembered Roy’s words about her cousin’s effect on men—“it’s a big thing.” This also was a big thing.

  “And Ant?” she asked. “Oh Rose, does he care too?”

  “Yes—at least he said so.”

  Anastasia sat silent, appalled. This was far worse than she had feared. Not merely a secert destruction of Antony’s peace of mind, but a mutual love, mutually declared, between him and a married woman. It was hardly credible, but she recognised it as truth.

  Anastasia’s mind was almost always in command of her emotions; and even now, in her shock and dismay, after the first moment or so it ran rapidly over the practical aspects of this disastrous situation. To her it was disastrous. Her religious views were more formalist and much more definitely High-Church than Antony’s; she held the straight Anglican view in all its purest rigidity, and in her eyes marriage with a divorced person was no marriage, it was “living in sin”. Moreover she minded about living in sin; it was all a denial of that idea of marriage which she had been reviewing, with sober happiness, in connection with herself and Roy. Here was no hope and happiness—only hopelessness, a despairing impossibility. And it had struck Ant!—Ant and poor little Rose; the cruel Helen spell, smiting blindly, had brought this misery on them. That they should marry never entered her head—it was quite plainly impossible. And yet Rose’s face and voice, her whole aspect, spoke of a great love; she had not so looked, so spoken, even when she was wooed by Charles. Pity sprang up in her. “Oh Rose, my poor Rose! I am sorry.”

  To her surprise Rose lifted her drooping head.

  “In a way I feel I ought to be glad; perhaps I am glad,” she said.

  Asta surveyed her with astonishment. “But—it’s so wretched for you,” she said, for once almost at a loss.

  “I don’t think it’s wretched for anyone to have Antony love them,” said Rose—not truculently, but with a sort of sad pride.

  “Oh yes—only you can’t marry. That is so miserable,” Asta said, thinking now of Charles, and of her own desolation when that same truth was first borne in on her about him. “Oh, it is a cruel business.”

  Rose sat silent. Anastasia continued to ponder the situation. The right and sensible thing was always there if one looked for it; what was necessary was to recognise it, and then do it as soon as possible.

  “Don’t you think,” she began again after a moment or two, “that it will be best for you both if you go home fairly soon? Oh, I do so hate to say that just baldly like that, darling Rose—but isn’t it true?”

  “I expect so—presently.”

  “The sooner the better, don’t you think? This must be being very hard for both of you.”

  Rose moved in her seat, but made no answer. Something about that slight movement conveyed to Anastasia a sense of resistance, of some opposition to her own certain conviction of the right thing to do. She observed her anxiously. “I’m sure you must feel that too,” she said soberly—“don’t you, Rose?”

  Mrs. Pelham looked, not at her cousin, but at the toes of her pretty shoes.

  “Probably—when Antony and I have settled a little more about things,” she said, slowly and almost reluctantly.

  “But Rose dear, what is there to settle?” Anastasia spoke without impatience, but with the smooth clearness of one who is being patient with obvious irrelevance. “As you can’t marry Ant, you’d surely better go home? It can only be a strain and a misery for you both to see much of one another, as things are.”

  Rose turned now and faced her. “Asta, it really isn’t much good you and I talking about it when Ant and I haven’t, properly,” she said, driven at last to bay. “I don’t know yet what he wants.”

  “But what can he want?” Asta was a little impatient now.

  “He might want us to marry, later on,” Rose said, hesitatingly. This cross-examination, when she herself was still in the dark as to his feelings and wishes, was agonisingly uncomfortable to her.

  “Have a divorce, do you mean? He wouldn’t,” said Asta quickly—and as she heard her own words knew that in fact in her heart she didn’t know if Antony would or not. The unsuspected secret doubt pierced her like an arrow, and drove her on to try to crush out so mad, so wrong an idea in Rose’s mind.

  “Besides, you couldn’t do that—it would ruin Charles,” she went on firmly.

  “Why would it ruin him? People do have divorces.”

  “But he’s in the Guards!” She was really angry now with Rose’s irresponsibility. “You know that they have to resign if there’s a divorce.”

  Rose hadn’t known. The niceties of regimental etiquette and discipline had never interested her except in so far as they affected Charles, and so had for the most part passed her by. Confronted by this fresh complication she sat silent again. Yes, that made it worse than ever. Charles not a soldier was almost unthinkable. But perhaps it wasn’t really as definite as that. Anyhow Antony would know—she must talk to him! It was no good going on like this with Asta till they had had a talk.

  Asta, for her part, watched her cousin’s silent face with more than anxiety now, with alarm. When she saw that Rose was not going to answer, she spoke again.

  “That in itself rules out a divorce,” she said. “You can’t be serious, Rose. You couldn’t do such a thing. And if you were absolutely reckless, and did, I don’t believe Ant would marry you. We don’t believe in re-marriage after divorce—I mean, we don’t recognise it as morally possible. Surely you know that?” Still Rose was silent, and after a moment’s pause Anastasia’s indignant dismay drove her on.

  “Even if he were—were demented into doing it, against his principles, he would be utterly wretched always—I’m certain of that. You couldn’t wish to inflict that sort of misery on him, even if you had the power.”

  The words, the reasons, the lack of gentleness in Anastasia’s voice fell on Rose like so many blows. But again she turned and faced her cousin, rising as she spoke.

  �
�Asta, I really don’t want to talk about it now,” she said, with decision. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.” She turned to go. At that moment Wu appeared, stepping noiselessly across the courtyard in his white coat, and addressed Anastasia in Chinese—Kai-men-ti (gate-keeper) was the only word Rose caught. Anastasia also rose, and followed Wu out in the direction of the front door. Rose sank dejectedly into a chair again; she was not only wretchedly unhappy, she felt quite exhausted. Steps roused her—she looked up, prepared for flight if it should be Asta returning; but instead she saw Antony, evidently coming back for lunch.

  “What’s fussing Tasia?” he asked, sticking his lame foot out preparatory to sitting down, a movement Rose knew well. Then he noticed Rose’s face. “I say, what’s wrong?” he asked in quite a different tone, coming over to her.

  “Ant, you and I must have a talk,” Rose said desperately, looking up at him.

  “I know. We will—I want to,” he said. “I was only waiting—”

  “Yes, till Henry’d gone. I know,” she interrupted. “But we can’t wait any longer—really not, Ant.”

  “No, we won’t. We’ll ride this afternoon,” he said quietly and reassuringly. “But tell me what’s gone wrong.”

  “Only Asta has found out about—about us; she was asking me about H.H. and Charles, and she half-guessed; and then she asked me flat out,” Rose said. “She wanted to discuss it all, and I couldn’t, really, because we haven’t talked, and I don’t know where I am! And she said—oh, all sorts of things!”

  Antony looked grave. He could imagine the sort of things Asta would have said. “Did you and she quarrel?” he asked.

  “No—not in words. But we were—well, utterly in disagreement, even not saying much. It has been so miserable,” Rose said, tears coming into her eyes once more.

  “I expect it has. Well, we’ll go out to the Princess’s Tomb this afternoon; we shall be quiet there. I’ll take both Wang and Tu, so that we needn’t bother about the ponies,” he said, again in that quiet voice that brought her so much comfort. “I’ll go and order the horses now,” he said; “you go and change, so that we can start the moment after lunch.” He turned and limped out across the courtyard.