Singing Waters

by Ann Bridge

  Nor did she regret her impulse. Having the girl along would alter the character of the trip, but would not necessarily spoil it; if she had done a couple of seasons in the Alps with Tony Thurston she would certainly be able to keep up, which was the main thing. And Larsen had wished her to go. Memories, strangely operative still, came up out of the past at his name. He must have had some good reason for sending her—and she, Susan Glanfield, was not going to oppose, even now, the wishes of Nils Larsen, whom she had not seen for twenty years.

  Chapter Eight

  “I still don’t see quite why Susan had to insist on this girl’s coming too,” Colonel Robinson said rather gloomily to his wife on the Saturday morning, as they stood stamping their feet to get the chill and stiffness out of them, after the long drive down from Scutari to Rësheni. Rësheni, in the valley of the Lesser Fani, was to be the starting-point of the expedition; a small side-road led to it, off the main Durazzo-Scutari highway; this came to an abrupt end among green meadows and a group of houses, a few yards from where they stood—the meadows sloped gently down to a belt of wood, beyond which lay the river. It was seven o’clock; the hidden sun was just beginning to spread a glow behind the hills to the east, and the air was still keen. The team of men and ponies which was to carry the gear of the expedition had already assembled, and the luggage was being disposed on the various pack-animals; a little apart stood three ponies with saddles and bridles for the women to ride. There was a man to each pony, and a picturesque group they made. The North Albanian mountaineer goes about his daily business in tight-fitting white trousers with a serpentine black band down the leg, a full-sleeved white shirt closed tight at the wrist in a long close-fitting cuff—very formal and elegant, and a short-sleeved black cloth jacket cut square and full, hanging loose to the waist; the wide sleeves terminate half-way to the elbow, and the whole is trimmed with large black bobbles, and a line of black fringe across the back. (The passion of South-East Europe for the swinging pride of tassels and fringes has almost certainly some significance which anthropologists and psychologists have not yet explored.) A black cummerbund supports the High Albanian’s trousers—but looks perpetually as if it will fail to do so; his bare feet are encased in open raw-hide sandals, usually with the hair still on them; on his head, for the most part, he wears a high round flat-topped cap of white wool, which is neither knit nor woven, but beaten and shrunk with some mordant, first in a bowl and then on a block, till it takes on the consistency of a thick felt. Most of the pony-men at Rësheni were so dressed, but a few, instead of the black-banded trousers, wore full white linen ones, and a linen tunic to the knee, with a sleeveless homespun zouave, embroidered round the neck and arm-holes, instead of the tasselled black jacket. One man, older than the rest and so short as to be almost stunted, who escorted one of the riding ponies, wore not the white cap but the head-cloth, swathed in thick folds across the forehead and draped under the chin—it produced a very Arab effect. Among the pony-team, either observing or directing operations, stood not less than seven gendarmes, very trim and smart in their green uniforms. It was something of an event when Colonel Robinson went on one of his rounds of inspection, and the Lieutenant from down the valley, and the one from Ndërfanden across the river, had both turned out to meet him with their men.

  General Stanley had done Miss Glanfield and Mrs. Thurston rather well in the matter of equipment. He had not only provided tents and camp-beds, but he had sent these up to Rësheni the previous day under the escort of Fran, his personal orderly, who bore the rank of Sergeant; Fran was to accompany the two ladies and wait upon them in every way throughout the expedition. This was a relief to Colonel Robinson, who knew what a weary business pitching tents and erecting camp-beds, and even cooking supper, can be to amateurs after a long day’s march. He and his wife, on the drive down, had been rather anxiously discussing the probable capabilities of the said two amateurs. Miss Glanfield had been a school friend of Mrs. Robinson’s and he knew her much less well than his wife, though he called her Susan and counted her as a friend; but friends are one thing and companions on a rather rough and exacting expedition another. Robina had succeeded in reassuring him as to Miss Glanfield, but Gloire’s appearance had filled him with dismay at the prospect of her company. Hence his grumble.

  “Susan said in her letter that Mrs. Thurston had some special reason for wanting to come,” said Robina pacifically.

  “H’m. Well, I hope she doesn’t think she can strike up flirtations with handsome Albanian men,” said Colonel Robinson, whose mind, after twenty-four hours of Gloire, ran on much the same lines as Warren Langdon’s, after some twenty-four years of her. “Because there’s nothing doing. They’re absolutely death on that. It’s curious, no one would ever guess how much more rigid their social code is than that of most so-called civilised countries. And there are no foreigners up there this year, if that’s what she’s after,” he pursued. “There’s nobody but old Dr. Crowninshield. She won’t do her much good!”

  “Oh, where is she? Shall we run into her? I do hope so— she’s such fun,” said Robina.

  “She was in Mati last week, taking a baby case—I haven’t heard of her since. But this damn girl,” he went on—“I do feel she’ll be totally out of key up here. And how will she keep up? She doesn’t look as if she could walk ten yards.”

  “Her husband was a mountaineer—you know, the one that got left behind on the top of the Himalayas, and died,” said his wife. “She climbed with him, Susan said, so she must be able to walk.”

  Colonel Robinson grunted. He was still unappeased. A simple, practical, and normally rather unimaginative man, when he gave his mind to a subject he mastered it thoroughly, and his heart was apt, silently, to follow his mind. Both had now been given for some years to Albania and the Albanians; he knew them well, he liked them and respected them; he was well aware of their backwardness and defects, and like the parent of a backward child, he disliked exposing them to an unsympathetic gaze. But he was also very much alive to their virtues, none of them at all easily expressible in modern terms of mass values. He knew them for a people either not exposed to, or oblivious of, economic pressure, non-starters in the race for wealth and self-advertisement; self-sufficing in their uneconomic world of older, more enduring, and more imponderable values. He could make Miss Glanfield see all that, indeed she would probably see it without any making—but not that wretched little cosmopolite. Also he was vexed at having this trip spoilt, as he gloomily expected it to be. It was very seldom that Robina could manage to get away to accompany him on one of his journeys, or indeed that they felt they could afford the extra expense.

  He looked across now at the group round the pack-animals.

  “They seem to be getting into a bit of a muddle,” he observed. “We must have those loads right, or we shall be wasting time the whole day. I’d better go and see—” and he strode across.

  Left to herself, Mrs. Robinson sat down on a heap of logs under one of the houses, and gave herself up to happiness. She too was an extremely simple and practical person, but she had more capacity for living in the present than her Dick. This jaunt was a holiday and a treat—well-earned, she could honestly feel; and besides Dick there would be her dear, her brilliant Susan, who in spite of wealth and fame was always so faithful and affectionate to her less glittering friends. She was not going to let the presence of one foolish little fashionable spoil all that. She pulled off her unbecoming felt hat, leaned her solid figure back against the rough wall, and watched Dick among his men. How jolly they were, tugging and wrestling with the loads with such cheerful and unskilful zeal, and turning faces bright with affection and respect on her tall husband. In that clear but muted light, without shadows still, the group had real beauty: the black and white figures, the ponies, the vivid grass; Robina Robinson could not describe beauty as Susan could, but she could feel it, and she sighed with pleasure. The air was sweet, after the city smells of Scutari; and now women came out of the houses and talked t
o her. What a good thing that it was a Saturday, they said; “Never start an undertaking or a journey on a Tuesday—evil will follow,” they said, mouthing out the familiar proverb with country relish.

  From down the narrow road came the hoot of a horn, and a white cloud of dust approached. Mrs. Robinson got up, and was standing by the roadside when the Legation car from Durazzo, its small Union Jack fluttering from the wing, drew up.

  Both she and Colonel Robinson surveyed its passengers appraisingly as they got out; it was important that they should have the right kit for riding and walking. Miss Glanfield passed easily. Her wide knitted beach-trousers of dark blue were tucked at the ankle into white cotton socks under low-heeled white canvas shoes; a dark-blue blazer, belted, with an enamel mug hanging from the belt, a white shirt, a soft felt hat, and a haversack completed her costume; it was practical, dignified, and harmonious into the bargain. Mrs. Thurston’s was rather less satisfactory. She had somehow raised a pair of grey flannel trousers, but with them she wore a very gaudy cotton shirt and a foolish little pale-blue linen jacket; her shoes were rubber-soled, thank goodness, but had idiotic open-work toes; she wore no hat at all. Dark glasses of enormous size, with white rims, added to her general resemblance to a film-star at Miami.

  Colonel Robinson turned promptly to the business in hand.

  “Now Susan, what luggage have you and Mrs. Thurston got? We’ve got all your sleeping gear loaded—we just want your personal stuff.”

  Porfiri, the Legation chauffeur, was already extracting their luggage from the boot. Fran stepped up and was formally presented by Colonel Robinson, a small neatly-made man, very smart in his uniform; he had an alert, intelligent, sensitive face and a splendid set of very white teeth, which flashed when he smiled. He and another gendarme bore the luggage across to the waiting ponies. Colonel Robinson went with them; the three women repaired to Mrs. Robinson’s heap of logs and sat down.

  “I expect you could do with some coffee,” said Mrs. Robinson, extracting a thermos from a large leather case slung on a strap.

  Gloire and Miss Glanfield, after a three-hours drive and a start at 4 A. M., found that they could do with it very well indeed, and with the rich home-made cake that accompanied it. Munching contentedly, they watched the group of men adjusting the loads on the ponies.

  “I like the black bands on their trousers,” Miss Glanfield observed.

  “You know what that is, don’t you?” said Mrs. Robinson. “That—and the black jackets—is in mourning for Scanderbeg.”

  Miss Glanfield, who knew all about Scanderbeg, said—“Is it really? Still? Robina, how enchanting!”—but Gloire, who did not, felt impelled to admit her ignorance and ask who Scanderbeg was?

  “Hasn’t your learned uncle told you that yet?” Mrs. Robinson asked.

  Gloire raised her plucked eyebrows, which somehow looked more artificial than ever in that wild valley, under the rough wall of that primitive house.

  “My uncle?”

  “Mr. Langdon, I mean. Isn’t he your uncle?”

  “Oh God, no.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well never mind. Scanderbeg—since he hasn’t told you. Scanderbeg’s real name was George Kastrioti; he was one of the four sons of John Kastrioti of Kruja, who were sent as hostages to Constantinople; the Sultan took a great fancy to him and made him ruler of a Sanjak. He was such a good strategist, and won so many victories for the Turks that they gave him the title of Scanderbeg, which means Prince Alexander, because they said he was as great a commander as Alexander the Great.”

  “How pretty,” said Miss Glanfield. “I didn’t know that that was how he came by his name, Robina.”

  “But if he fought for the Turks, why do these people mourn for him?” Gloire very naturally wanted to know.

  “Oh, because when he got the chance he came back—he made a wonderful seven-day march from Nish—and outed the Pasha from Kruja; and he threw the Turks out and became the independent ruler of Albania and Epirus. He was that for twenty-three years, fighting the Turks, alone, the whole time. He was a Catholic, and all South-East Europe looked on him as the one successful champion of the Christian faith; when he died, and the Sultan heard it, he said: “Asia and Europe are mine at last! Woe to Christendom! She has lost her sword and shield!”

  “When was all this?” Gloire asked.

  “In the fifteenth century. The Turks returned then, of course—and the country sank back again. But Scanderbeg’s reign made an enormous difference to the Albanians,” said Mrs. Robinson earnestly, “because it gave them the memory of freedom from Turkish rule as an actual possibility, and so it kept up the sense of national independence. And being the people they are, they recognised and seized on that; and in their daily lives, and their ordinary dress, they commemorate it.”

  “Do the white caps mean anything?” Gloire asked.

  “Oh yes, rather. They used to wear red tarbushes, like the Turks—but Zog forbade that and said they must be white, to emphasise the end of Turkish influence.”

  “They are rather wonderful, Robina,” Miss Glanfield said, looking across at the group of men. “It’s a glorious story, and a glorious attitude to it.”

  “You’ve no idea how fine they are, till you come to live among them. I do like them so,” said Mrs. Robinson with great simplicity.

  “Why are some of the Scanderbeg stripes broad and some narrow?” asked Gloire, who was still watching the men round the ponies.

  “That shows which tribe or clan a man belongs to, like the different tartans in the Highlands. When feuds were still going on it was extremely important to know at sight what clan a stranger came from, whether he was a friend or an enemy.”

  “I should have thought it a bit unwise to advertise oneself like that,” said Gloire, half jokingly. “Didn’t they ever change trousers if they were going into enemy country?”

  Mrs. Robinson stared at her for a moment.

  “No. That would never occur to an Albanian,” she said quietly. Oh dear, she thought—I hope she won’t go and say that sort of thing to Dick. And she too began to have her doubts as to whether after all the pleasure of the expedition would be able to surmount Mrs. Thurston’s presence.

  “I want to know more about the clans and how they are organised, Robina,” Miss Glanfield rather hastily put in. “Will you tell us?”

  “You’d better ask Dick that—he puts things better than I do.”

  “What a mass of gendarmes,” Miss Glanfield pursued. “Are they all coming with us?”

  “Oh no.” Mrs. Robinson explained about the gendarmes. “The Lieutenant from Ndërfanden will escort us so far—he’s come out of his district to meet us, to show respect—and then he will send two of his men on with us to the half-way point between here and the next post, where another couple will meet us and take over; and so it will go on all the way.”

  Gloire thought this very amusing. The loading had at last been completed, and the pack-animals began to move off in single file towards the wood; one of them had a foal at foot, leggy, furry, and awkward; it gambolled beside its mother as she moved sedately forward.

  “Gracious! That little thing isn’t coming too, is it?”

  “Oh yes; it’s still being suckled. It can’t be left,” said Mrs. Robinson, getting up as her husband approached. “Are we to ride at once, Dick?”

  “Yes, you’d better—we shall be fording the Fani in a minute or two.”

  The three women examined their mounts as they approached them. Mrs. Robinson’s was the largest of the three, a mouse-coloured pot-bellied creature; its drooping head and dejected ears gave little promise of staying power. Miss Glanfield’s was black, neatly built and spirited; Gloire had a bay. They mounted; stirrup-leathers were adjusted, and they rode off, Fran and Colonel Robinson walking alongside. Gloire’s pony-boy, the stumpy elderly man in the head-cloth, insisted on leading the bay pony; she asked Colonel Robinson to tell him that she knew how to ride and would rather handle her pony herself. Colonel Robinson did so,
and the little man, rather discomfited, let go of the bridle; Fran called out some remark in Albanian which was greeted by the others with laughter.

  “What’s the joke?” Gloire enquired of Mrs. Robinson, who was just behind her.

  “Fran’s making fun of your poor little man. He said—‘Don’t measure your importance by your morning shadow.’ It’s one of their favourite proverbs.”

  Gloire found herself laughing too; the sun was up now, and their shadows stretched out across the bright grass of the meadow. It struck her suddenly as odd that she should be amused by what was after all a very elementary form of joke. If one of her set had made it in London or Paris she would probably have told him not to be obvious. But then in London or Paris one was almost never out when the morning sun cast long shadows on grass wet with dew. Gloire stuck her heels into her pony’s ribs and trotted on ahead of the others, in high spirits. This was fun. After all her set-backs, she was really on her way to Torosh, where the Swede had bade her go; and the sun was shining and the air was delicious. Goody! said Gloire to herself, as she trotted forward into High Albania.

  Behind her, the atmosphere was less cheerful, and comment unfavourable.

  “What a fantastic get-up,” Colonel Robinson said, eyeing the unconscious Gloire’s back with disfavour, as she disappeared into the wood.

  Miss Glanfield hustled her pony alongside him.

  “Look here, Dick—and Robina—I am most frightfully sorry about this. I couldn’t explain properly in my letter, I wrote in such a hurry; but I had to let her come. I do hope she won’t be too much of a nuisance.”