The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

by Zen Cho

  "Oh no no no," I said, alarmed. "Of course I shan't see you in London. I have been perfectly happy with the sordid assignations. I simply meant that it is nice to see these gardens, and not be cooped up in a hotel all day. I've not had many chances to see the city. Aunt Iris doesn't much like to go out for anything besides shopping."

  Hardie looked away, so I knew I had hurt his feelings. For a celebrity he has an awful excess of sensibility, and is very anxious about one's opinion of him. Perhaps it comes of being an artist.

  "I am sorry," I said. "I like you and Diana well enough, but I should find it very odd to continue my relations with you in a sort of three-person marriage. I had a conventional upbringing, you see."

  Hardie's expression wobbled between affront and amusement, but finally settled on a smile.

  "'Well enough'! Heartless little animal," he said. "To fall back on your 'conventional upbringing' now, when for the past week you have been—"

  "Yes, yes, but that was all for the purposes of artistic development," I said. "I thought it would be an educational experience. It is all grist to the mill. You ought to know, being a writer."

  Hardie made a face.

  "May we at least be friends on your return to London, little Caliban?" he said. "Or would that occasion too much disruption to your continuing artistic development?"

  "Friends, yes," I said cautiously. "But you know I don't like parties, or clever people in large groups."

  "If you will come to tea with me and Diana once in a while, I shall provide buns and biscuits and beverages, and never invite anyone clever at all," promised Hardie.

  He is something of a cad, but he can be rather sweet for all that. It is funny to think of how dazzled and shy I was when I first met him. I am not in the least intimidated by him now, but perhaps that is what happens when you have seen someone in the nude. I felt I had been bullying him enough, so I gave him a kiss on the cheek when we parted.

  I shouldn't object to seeing him socially, and I would like to talk to Diana and find out what she really thinks of things. But I am happy to put a period to our romance.

  It has given me lots of material, and one feels one understands some things better now. I shouldn't have liked to have been a virgin my whole life. But I do not love Hardie even one little bit, and if I don't love him, it might have been immoral to continue fornicating past the point that it was educational.

  Besides, my mother and father didn't sit with me for afternoons and afternoons teaching me my times tables for me to become a concubine.

  I should have said that to Hardie! Imagine his face. I'm sure he would never think to describe me as his concubine, or his previous lovers as members of his harem. But all the high-flown poetising about passion overcoming staid convention in the world cannot change the fact that very few women harbour girlish dreams of becoming second wife. My grandmother was a second wife and she thought it was rubbish, and my grandmother was a very sensible woman.

  Tuesday, 1st February 1921

  I bumped into Ravi on Charing Cross Road today. I went there to purchase the sequel to The Duke's Folly. It's called The Duke's Delight. The Duke has procreated since the previous book, and his charming harum-scarum daughter has interrupted her primary occupation of getting into scrapes to become attracted to an ineligible young officer, thus repeating the mistakes of the previous generation. (My mother would say it was karma, dishing up to the Duke a fitting revenge for his unfilial actions in the first book.)

  I came up the road with my brown paper parcel and there was Ravi standing next to a bin of discounted books, a Sanskrit grammar in one hand and a monograph on Ceylonese natural history in the other.

  "Do you know Sanskrit, Ravi?" I said.

  He started, came back down to Earth, and smiled at me.

  "I've been making a study of it," he said. "I learnt a little when I was a boy, but that was a very long time ago. I'm trying to pick it up again. Are you busy? Would you like to have tea with me?"

  "Is it tea time already?" I said. "Oh!" I caught his wrist and covered his watch with my hand. "Now tell me what time it is."

  "It's half past three," said Ravi. "No—twenty-five to. And we've had a good month at the ORL. I am in a mood to spend my riches. Let me just acquire these books and then we will go to Fortnum & Mason."

  When he'd paid he swiped my parcel and put it under his arm with his usual unfussy courtesy. We went off down the street, happy as ducks in a bakery.

  "It is precisely twenty-five to," I said. "And you didn't even look! Was there any indication that you would be a genius when you were born? Did your mother observe that the back of your head jutted out particularly, or did you perhaps have six toes on one foot?"

  "It isn't quite as unusual an ability as it seems to you," said Ravi.

  "Because not everyone is as stupid about time as me, you mean," I said. "But you shan't shake me. I shall continue to believe it is magic."

  "If you want to consider me a wizard then do by all means," said Ravi. "But it's nothing very mystical. I know how much time it takes me to do things. So long as I've looked at a clock once in a day, it's just a matter of calculation."

  "Now that proves it's pure magic," I said. "If it were not for its sometimes getting dark, and for one's getting hungry, I would never notice the passage of time."

  "Is that why I haven't been seeing you as often as I used to?" said Ravi.

  I glanced up at his face, but he was gazing at the shop windows with a mild interested look.

  "Oh—it isn't—" I said. "I've just been busy."

  I felt foolish. I hadn't thought he would notice that I had stopped visiting the Oriental Literary Review office.

  "Yes, I imagine the attention you received for the Mimnaugh review has kept you on your toes rather," said Ravi. "I hope it's been profitable as well as interesting?"

  "Oh yes," I said. "I've had lots of work. Publishing that article was the greatest favour you've ever done me."

  "I wonder," said Ravi quietly.

  What did he mean? I should have asked him, but I felt too awkward. Instead I said,

  "In fact I'm so nearly rich I ought to spend some of it, just to make sure I'm not shut out of heaven by my wealth. Will you insist on its being your treat, or may I pay?"

  "I believe I set out the terms when I made my offer," said Ravi. "We'll have no chopping and changing now, if you please."

  "You have," I said, "an unpleasing rigidity of character, Ravi. You lack flexibility. Work on this. It is the only blemish that mars a great mind.—Oh, but I have a brilliant idea. I shall buy your tea and you shall buy mine. That's fair, isn't it?"

  Ravi allowed that it might be acceptable. I do like a man who allows you to be chivalrous in return. Hardie never did. I suppose he was trained to think that is manners, but I like to hold doors for other people once in a while.

  It was nice to be with Ravi, who is sensible. But it wasn't the same—not quite the same as it used to be. He didn't seem entirely natural.

  I can't bear to think he might be disappointed in me. And he doesn't know the half of it.

  We had reached Fortnum's and sat down, and each commanded the other to order whatever we liked off the menu, price be damned. But the awkwardness, imagined or not, was gnawing at me, so I said:

  "Ravi, we are friends, aren't we?"

  Ravi gave me a surprised look. He has the nicest eyes. One feels one could say anything to those eyes, and it would be understood as one would want it to be understood.

  "I should like to think we are," he said.

  "You don't think notoriety has spoilt my character, do you?"

  Ravi looked very serious. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin and raised his eyes to the ceiling. He opened his mouth, but he couldn't keep it up, and started laughing.

  "You are a three-horned spotted beast," I said. "I am serious!"

  "I think," said Ravi, "any damage to your character was already fixed by the time Mimnaugh made you famous. That is my professio
nal opinion."

  "Well—" I hesitated. "Would you still be my friend even if I had done something you didn't quite approve of? Something that was—that was rather foolish?"

  That made him calm down and look at me properly.

  "Is this about Sebastian Hardie?" he said.

  "No! What makes you think that?" I said, but I could feel I'd gone a furious red. I pressed my cheeks to try to make it go away.

  Ravi looked as if he regretted bringing it up. "I've heard ... some things."

  "Oh," I said.

  I could well imagine the sort of things people have been saying. Hardie has let drop that our dalliance in Paris is not as much of a secret as I'd thought. Apparently he wrote some poems about the piquant charms of Caliban, and his friends guessed who he meant. I got quite cross and called him all sorts of names, saying he was a great big jarmouth and a child like him brought shame to his mother, but he was so apologetic that I let it drop.

  Aunt Iris does not move in Bohemian literary circles, so I thought it would be all right. It hadn't occurred to me that Ravi might hear of it.

  "Were they rather awful things?" I said.

  Ravi stared at the tablecloth. He seemed to be working out what to say.

  "Everything I heard said more about the speaker than the spoken of," he said. He met my eyes and smiled slightly. "I'm afraid I couldn't tell you much about what was said. People didn't talk about it for very long in my presence."

  "Thank you," I said. I wanted to touch his hand, but didn't. "I haven't seen Hardie since Christmas anyway."

  Ravi nodded, but I knew he wouldn't say anything more about it if I didn't. I didn't know what he'd heard, but I didn't want to ask him either. I suppose it doesn't really matter.

  I said, "Do you mind, Ravi? I mean ...."

  But I didn't know how to say what I meant. Ravi is lovely, but probably he is like most other men, and expects good girls to be different from girls who have sex without being married or frightened.

  I used to be a good girl and that was uncomplicated, but I thought complicated would be more interesting than safe.

  "Shall we still be friends, do you mean?" said Ravi.

  That wasn't quite what I wanted to say, but it was close enough. I nodded.

  "We shall be friends," said Ravi, "as long as you continue to like me, and say things without stopping to think about them first, and do not insult my clothes or my poetry. Will that do?"

  I rubbed my eyes.

  "Do you write poetry, Ravi?" I said.

  "Doesn't everybody?" said Ravi.

  "I don't," I said. "I feel you only ought to write poetry if you are tremendously intelligent, or terrifically in love. You are the former, of course, but I've never been either. Will you show me your poetry?"

  "I only write poetry in Tamil, I'm afraid," said Ravi.

  "Will you teach me Tamil?"

  "Perhaps," said Ravi. "Some day."

  After that I was much happier, and I think Ravi felt more comfortable as well. He ordered a piece of sponge cake and I had trifle, and we both had interesting kinds of tea. And we talked about everything—almost everything.

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it. I suppose it's for the best. I do not see Hardie till Thursday, and it's only right that he should know first.

  Thursday, 3rd February 1921

  I told Hardie and Diana today. I did it almost as soon as I had sat down, for fear that I should lose my nerve if I waited. Diana was pouring us tea when I turned to Hardie and said:

  "Hardie, you have said to me before that you tell Mrs. Hardie everything, don't you?"

  "My dear," said Diana. "Call me Diana, please."

  Hardie smiled at her. "Indeed there are no secrets between us."

  Diana put down her teapot and passed me my cup of tea.

  "Is this why you don't come to see us half as often as you should?" she said. "My dear, I know everything—everything. And I can't say how happy it makes me that Hardie should have found a gem like you."

  "Oh, it's not that," I said hastily. "I've just been rather busy. It is kind of you to keep inviting me. But I did tell Hardie that I had no intention of disrupting your family routine."

  "She's had her fill of me and would throw me away like an old toy," Hardie confided in Diana.

  "And it delights me that you are such an obdurate gem," said Diana to me. "You can't think how good it is for him. The course of life is altogether too smooth for Sebastian and a good snubbing is tremendously bracing for his constitution. He wakes up in the morning snorting like a bull and dashes to his study and writes three articles before lunchtime."

  I saw I would have to turn the tide of the conversation, or be swept away with it.

  "I'm glad he has been so fruitful," I said. "Because I have been as well. In fact that's what I wanted to speak to you both about today."

  Hardie was still laughing, but Diana's elegant dark eyebrows drew together. She is much more intelligent than Hardie. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this?

  "I am going to have a child," I said. "I thought you ought to know. Only mind I've already picked out names for it. It shan't have stupid names like—" I caught myself before I said "Julian, or Clive". They are stupid names, but presumably Hardie and Diana wouldn't have given them to their children if they had thought so.

  "It shall have a sensible Chinese name, anyway," I said. "'Light' if it is a boy and 'Valour' if it is a girl."

  Hardie ran his hand through his hair.

  "Ah," he said.

  "Oh my word," said Diana faintly. She looked at Hardie, who sat hunched in his chair, looking like a schoolboy who has destroyed his great-uncle's collection of antique erotic figurines.

  "It is his, I'm afraid," I said apologetically. "I haven't—um—with anyone else. And we've never had a case of virgin birth in my family. But you aren't to worry about it. I didn't bring it up to be horrible. I shan't tell anyone, or make a scandal. Only—"

  It was dreadful to say it. But if I have learnt anything from my mother it is that one has got to carry out one's responsibilities, and something as trivial as personal pride can't be allowed to stand in the way.

  "I haven't got any money, you see," I said. "I won't need a great deal, but for a midwife and things—and I suppose school in future—there isn't anyone else I can ask. My mother and father are far away, and—"

  But I'd decided not to talk or think about what my mother and father would say if they knew, because the only thing that could have made the whole thing worse was my bawling like the baby I am going to have. I shut my mouth and looked at them.

  Diana had sat there listening with an awful fixed face, her beautiful mouth in a stern line. Now she said, without taking her eyes off me,

  "Sebastian, you must go. This is a thing between women."

  Quietly she said it, but Hardie got up and went without a murmur. Anyone would have done. I felt like a fox backed into a corner, with the yelping of the hounds coming closer. But even so I admired her tremendously. Being with Diana must be like living in a beautiful play written by a playwright of the modern school.

  When Hardie had left, Diana got up and sat down next to me and took my hands in hers. She has very soft hands, as some women do, smelling of lavender like my mother's. I looked up from her hands and saw that her eyes were full of tears.

  "My dear Jade, to hear you talking like this—every word is a reproach to me. You must think we are absolute dragons. No, you know what Sebastian is—you know he is the dearest man alive—so you must think I am a dragon," she said. "How can you think that I would attack you now of all times? To speak as if we would quarrel over giving you money for Sebastian's child! As if we would not take you in as our own—as if we would blame you, when the only sin you have committed was to love, which is no sin."

  I goggled at her. Diana laughed, took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

  "Is it so astonishing that I should speak as a human being?"
she said. "Did you think I would box you on the ears and throw you out on the street?"

  "No," I said.

  But I felt this was very peculiar behaviour for a first wife. I suppose she does have two sons, but all the same one doesn't expect roses and chocolate for the declaration that one has been made pregnant by someone else's husband. I said this (though I didn't mention first wives and sons).

  It had the effect of making Diana take my hands again.

  "My dear," she said. "When Sebastian and I promised to marry, we also promised that it should never ever become a shackle on us. And it should have grieved me if Sebastian, who has a heart large enough for the world—," (heart! More like penis) —"were forced to cage it and let it wither and shrivel and become a dry dusty thing. It should have grieved me far more than his having other loves has done.

  "It has not always been easy. I have not liked everyone Sebastian has liked. He is so loving, you know, so childlike in his ready affections. I'm afraid I am much more reserved. But I am happy knowing he is happy. And I liked you the minute I saw you. And even if I did not like you, I could not hate anyone who was bearing Sebastian's child—Julian and Clive's little brother or sister."

  "I like you too," I said. I hesitated. "Do you really not mind?"

  Diana smiled. "Never enough to choose to destroy everything that is good and true and whole in my life. Besides, it would be churlish of me to mind when Sebastian allows me the same liberty."

  "Oh, does he?" I said, sounding probably more surprised than I should have. I tried to make up for it by adding quickly: "Har—Sebastian hadn't mentioned it."

  "Sebastian is wonderful—you know how wonderful—but he doesn't always understand," said Diana. "I tell him everything about my friendships. He knows my whole heart. But I suppose, for a man, it is rather difficult to understand how very much a woman may value the company of other women."

  I was frightfully interested. One knows about Oscar Wilde and men like that, but I'd never known a woman who liked women that way.