So Juan and Harriet avoided the war; except the sound of it, which they could not escape. In the afternoon they went to see a game of pelota, winch in Shanghai is called hai alai.
‘Shaghai,’ said Harriet, as they thrust their way into the crowd, ‘is certainly hard-boiled.’
It was so hard-boiled, so tough and resilient, that war in its suburbs and snipers among its chimney-pots could not prevent it from amusing itself in whatever ways were possible. The cinemas were still open, and some twenty or thirty night-clubs had now reopened, while a crowd of more than two thousand people, most of them Chinese, had come to see the swift-moving pelota players, and to gamble on every match.
They were well worth seeing. Slim figures in gaily coloured shirts, dies moved with rapid grace and hurled the ball from the long wicker chistera with fierce dexterity. The spectators were also worth watching. Plump and amiable, they were very different from the sinewy swift playerr. and their rushing game. They betted eagerly on every set, and won or lost with seeming indifference. But neither players nor spectators could hold the attention ofjuan and Harriet for very long. Deliberate entertainment was redundant to them, who had no need to be entertained; and a crowd was nothing but impertinent tres-passers on what should have been solitude. They returned to Harriet’s flat.
It was late in the evening when Harriet said, ‘I’m going away tomorrow, you know.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Yes, I am. The ship that takes my dirty little friend the ex-pirate to Ping-hai is sailing at midday, and I’ve got to go with him.’
‘forget about it.’
‘And lose my chance of getting a close-up of all the pirates in Bias Bay?’
‘We’ll go somewhere else.’
‘But Bias Bay is going to be the peak chapter in my new book. The bright light, the top of surprise, the real thrill.’
Have you ever read any Byron?’
‘I used to.’
He’s dated badly, hasn’t he?’
‘How?’
‘You remember that he says: “Man’s love is of man’s life apart, ‘tis woman’s whole existence”? That makes him pretty grand-fatherly, doesn’t it?’
‘But I must go. I make my living by writing books, and if there’s nothing exciting in them they won’t sell.’
‘Yes, I know. Byron’s the mug, not me.’
‘Well, you can’t expect me to cry myself to sleep because of that,’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I don’t want to go. I mean, I don’t want to leave you.’
‘That’s nice of you.’
‘It’s because you’ve never had to do any work yourself that you don’t understand…’
‘Lovely Harriet, don’t talk like that. Don’t join the great sisterhood of sadistic Marthas whose chief joy is the necklacing of their men with the millstone of work. Work is the deadliest of the perversions. The natural instinct of natural man is to avoid work, and nothing shows more clearly the degeneracy of the modern world than the fact that work has become a social jewel, something to be sought with fervour, even a rarity, a prize for those who most closely resemble the ant, the pismire, the detestable insect that never raises its head.’
‘That’s all very well, but…’
‘I know, I know. You can out-argue me at every turn. But I’m right, and you’re wrong. I say work’s a perversion, and so it is; everything except pure and voluntary creation. But it isn’t recognized as a perversion because it isn’t obviously destructive, and because its results are profitable. But no one who has worked for twenty years – and when I say worked, I mean laboured for hire – can either see clearly, hear with certainty, think straight, or feel ecstasy.’
‘So you’re serious too? That’s the worst of men. All the nice ones have got some cock-eyed philosophy – anything from grouse disease to Fascism – that makes them fanatics at bottom. To hell with men!’
‘I’m not serious! Your serious man is concerned with the welfare of his fellow-men, and I’m beautifully and purely selfish.’
‘Then why did you come to China and get mixed up with Chinese Nationalists?’
‘Who told you I had?’
‘You haven’t been so discreet as you think.’
‘Well, I was experimenting with induced emotions.’
‘O Juan, you are a darling!’
‘That,’ said Juan complacently, ‘is the impression I have been trying to create ever since I met you.’
Chapter 15
Harriet was not to be moved from her resolution to seek adventure and a stirring chapter in Bias Bay. She woke early, and insisted that Juan should return at once to his hotel. She could not, she said, be bothered with him while she was packing, and she would not let him see her off.
Juan had only one argument with which to oppose her decision: the argument of their common pleasure. But in Harriet there was an element of puritanism – the modern shape of puritanism, that has transferred to work the sanctity which once belonged to the flesh and her resolution was like adamant, on which Juan beat in vain.
But when they said good-bye her lips were hard for a different reason, and her fingers held his shoulders with desperate strength.
Juan returned to the New Celestial – that smooth abode of commercial luxury – in a mood of arrant and explosive unhappiness. It was so explosive that some of it was immediately vented in blasphemy; so unhappy that much of it escaped in a disemboguement like the breaching of a dam.
Then he found spurious consolation in a sort of romantic stoicism; asomewhat By ronic defiance and acceptance of unhappiness; a decision to wear his distress like a dark and lustrous plume. He saw himself as destiny’s plaything, a shuttlecock in the hands of circumstance: and was perversely pleased with the idea.
To be jilted twice within a few days was a bitter thing, though his rival in one case had been China, and in the other the hot and resplendent muse of journalism. But bitterness might be a tonic. He would take it so. He would temper his solitary spirit in a cup of quassia. The thought of his solitude reinforced this intention. He was, he remembered, a wanderer over the face of the earth, and homeless unless he chose to go home.
‘Call me Ishmael,’ he said, and with some difficulty got into a pair of very well cut jodhpurs. The Byronic disposition was dynamic, not static. To reveal his embittered but unbroken spirit he must go out into the world of men. Even his solitude – his inner solitude – would be intensified by company. He would keep his appointment with Mr Fannay-Brown and the paper-chasers.
He was relieved, however, when he met Fannay-Brown at the Club, to hear that Mrs Fannay-Brown had a severe cold and would not be able to accompany them. His inner solitude was so newly acquired, its rind was so young and thin, that he was doubtful whether it would have been proof against so energetic a talker. But he could stand the innocuous and not unamiable chatter of Fannay-Brown himself. Indeed he welcomed it, for its cheerful triviality made him realize more strongly than ever how far apart from ordinary humanity his unhappiness had taken him.
Fannay-Brown had a large Cadillac, and a very good Chinese chauffeur; so they drove rapidly out of Shanghai. The tall buildings and the splendid ones and the crowded and innumerable buildings were left behind them like a sediment, and they came into an area less thickly populated, where between the houses could be seen open stretches of pale green country. It was a windless day, with a raw mist in the air, and very quiet. The quietness was mysterious and. even oppressive, till Juan remembered the reason for it. The guns had stopped firing. There was a little interval of peace, and one might almost think the sky was holding its breath lest its peace be untimely discovered.
Having discussed several of the more notable ponies that at one time or another he had owned or ridden, Fannay-Brown crossed by some verbal bridge, that Juan failed to notice, to the subject of his wife. Of her also he spoke with enthusiasm. There was indeed a definite resemblance between the way in which he described a hock with plenty of bone in it,
and his manner of reporting the finer point? of the mercantile Beatrice – though he confined himself, of course, to her intellectual equipment.
‘She was very disappointed at not being able to come out to-day,’ he said, ‘but not nearly so sorry as I was. As I still am, if it conies to that. Heaven knows I’d go anywhere for a ride – desperately keen on hunting, even hunting paper – but I always say that half my pleasure’s in listening to Beatrice’s remarks about the other people. We go home after one of these paper-chases, and for an hour or more she’ll describe what she saw and heard, and I’ll sit and simply rock with laughter. Of course she isn’t always kind in what she says, but that’s the way with witty people. If you’ve got a knife, you want to cut something: that’s natural. I always remember what she said about – well, perhaps I’d better not tell you his name. He came out with a parliamentary commission a year or two ago. Nice fellow, a bit dull, didn’t ride, but we took him out to see the ponies, and when we got back I asked Beatrice what she thought of him. We’d a dinner-party that night, and every body listened to her reply. – They always do, of course. – Well, what d’you think she said? As cool as ice, and right off the bat, she answered: “'A liberal in politics, agnostic in faith, and not quite a gentleman.” Pretty shattering, don’t you think?’
‘Very,’ said Juan, Very shattering indeed.’
‘She’s constantly saying good things. They’re no effort to her. There was a man called Patch, for instance, who made himself conspicuous with a Mrs Hiploe, whose name was already pretty notorious. Somebody told Beatrice that Mrs Hiploe was going about with Patch, and Beatrice at once replied: “It’s just what her reputation needs.” Not bad, eh? Then there was a young man, rather an oafish fellow, who told her he couldn’t read modern novels or modern poetry. Said they were all Greek to him. Said you needed a key to understand them. “Only the qui-vive,” said Beatrice.’
It seemed that Fannay-Brown’s horse-coping had become so much of a habit that he even spoke of his wife as though he were trying to sell her; but as he could not with propriety praise her withers and cannon-bones, he praised her wit. It was, thought Juan, a very charming tendency, and in the coruscation of Fannay-Brown’s remarkable denture he descried the gleam of a kindly optimism.
Open fields were now visible through the windows of the car. Rough winter-fields intersected by ditches, hummocked with grave-mounds, and tufted with willows. They drove through a squalid hamlet. They passed some large houses with high-walled gardens, and crossed a black and muddy creek. Fannay-Brown continued to recite his wife’s obiter dicta.
‘…It was a big party, and there was a woman there who rather took the floor. Young, quite good-looking, stupid, and married to a hideous old man – very wealthy – who might have been her father. She was constantly making foolish remarks with unnecessary emphasis. But Beatrice took the wind out of her sails. Indeed she did. Somebody else – another foolish woman – said something idiotic, and this woman, wagging her finger, crowed, “Ah! But women never give themselves away!” Quick as lightning, Beatrice said, “Except to very rich men.” Ha! You should have seen her – the other woman, I mean. Absolutely collapsed. Hadn’t another word to say. Look at all those cars, Motley. We’re going to have a big turn-out.’
They joined a long procession of motor-cars that were discharging their occupants at the end of a muddy lane, and following the crowd, crossed a hump-backed bridge and came into a field where there was a multitude of ponies, grooms, paper-chasers, and spectators. Everyone seemed very cheerful, and on all sides Juan heard commendation of the Japanese for their sportsmanship in agreeing to an armistice. The Chinese had consented to it simply because they wanted a chance to bury their dead. – Some ten or a dozen Japanese officers had themselves taken advantage of the truce, and were already in the saddle.
Fannay-Brown introduced Juan to several people, but gave him no time to talk to them, for he was in a great hurry to find his ponies. They were, like most of the ponies there, sturdy in appearance rather than fast; thick and cobby, with somewhat heavy heads and manes whose luxuriousness was evident despite hogging. One was mouse-coloured, and the other a curious faded orange. A Chinese groom, with a melancholy expression and a cast in one eye, was in charge of them.
‘There!’ said Fannay-Brown, with marvellous satisfaction in his voice. ‘That’s Chang there.’ And he pointed to the orange pony.
‘He looks strong enough,’ said Juan.
‘Oh, tireless,’ said Fannay-Brown, ‘absolutely tireless. Look at those shoulders. Powerful, lying well on the chest, there isn’t a pony on the field with better shoulders. And look at the breadth of his loins. Look at the substance in them. You won’t see a better pony in Shanghai.’
‘That’s a nice animal over there,’ said Juan.
‘Curby hocks,’ said Fannay-Brown promptly.
‘There’s a good-looking chestnut too. Almost as good as the girl who’s riding him.’
‘That brute with the great grass belly? He won’t last a mile. But Chang’s in beautiful fettle. Tip-top condition. I give you my word that if you’re thinking of buying a pony, you won’t do much better than Chang. Here, boy!’ – he spoke to the groom – ‘Lead him up and down. This master maybe going to buy him.’
Seeing his pony in movement, Fannay-Brown became almost lyrical in his praise. For springy pasterns, dilating nostrils, and large fetlock-joints he made such a rich encomium as would have flattered Keats’s Madeline beneath the moon of St Agnes. He spoke of horses in general, and of breeding, touching on the Darley Arabian, Eclipse, Blair Athol, Bend Or, and Persimmon; he felt pretty certain there was a trace of Blood in Chang; and in any case there were flyers that the Stud Book had never heard of. Nor did he seek a prohibitive price for the orange pony. A very modest sum indeed was all he asked.
Juan grew somewhat alarmed as Fannay-Brown became more and more business-like. Unless he was careful, he felt, he would soon be the owner of a pony that he did not want and for which he had no use. So he pointed a depreciatory finger at Chang, and said in a very confident voice, ‘He dishes his near-fore.’
Fannay-Brown was very surprised to hear this. Very surprised indeed. He watched Chang closely, and said he really didn’t think so. No one had ever suggested such a thing before. But his assurance was weakened, and Juan, who knew next to nothing about horses, was very pleased at having so fortunately remembered a scrap of stable conversation he had once overheard. Before Fannay-Brown regained enough composure to refute the charge – for which indeed there was very little justification – they perceived that everyone but themselves and a Japanese subaltern, whose pony was evading him with singular dexterity, had mounted and formed a rough line in an adjacent field. They hurriedly got into the saddle and trotted after the others.
It soon became evident that Chang was a pony with a decided personality. The starting line was already a long one – the field was about eighty strong – but no sooner had Juan piloted Chang into a convenient gap than it extended by some ten or fifteen yards. The ponies on either side immediately recognized him, and sheered off to left and right, thus compelling their outside neighbours to side-step and ultimately, after a good deal of confusion, to lengthen the whole line. When the starter’s flag dropped, Juan-on Chang-was in a conspicuously empty space.
Within fifty yards, however, he was riding knee-to-knee with a nervous young man on an eager, splay-footed, camel-necked dun. ‘For God’s sake,’ said the nervous young man, ‘keep that beast of yours out of my way.’
‘I wish I could,’ said Juan.
Then Chang bit the splay-footed pony in the neck, and went off at a tangent. It charged a narrow ditch, slowed and bunched itself for the take-off, and leapt it like an angry cat. By the time Juan had recovered his stirrups he was riding in embarrassing proximity zo a lady in a very smart habit and a bowler hat, who rode with great elegance a tall spindly bay. She was, apparently, a lady of some local importance. Before the start Juan had seen her speaking to one of t
he five or six pink coats who glorified the dark-clad field. She had a high-bridged nose and very heavy eyebrows.
‘Where the hell d’you think you’re going?’ she demanded, as Chang rubbed her spidery bay.
‘Wherever my pony takes me,’ said Juan a trifle breathlessly.
The trail of paper stretched clearly in front of them, over a black field and another ditch. To left and right, ahead and behind, were tiie eighty horsemen, the thudding of many hooves, the creaking of leather, the snorting of ponies, the earnest breathing of their riders, and their occasional imprecations. It was a gallant thing to see such furious action in the still Chinese air. From panting nostrils rose a livelier steam to mingle in the sluggish mist, and with flying clots of mud the patient earth leapt like a mackerel-quickened sea. Black soil and grey-green winter grass were cheered by scarlet coats, pink faces, and the many-coloured ponies; the sightless air awoke and wondered to hear the thunder of such cheerful cavalry. It was a glad courageous sight, made whole and reasonable by the single purpose of the riders, the single aim of all but one of the ponies.
For Chang had his own intentions. He was out to enjoy himself, not to hunt paper, and for the moment his enjoyment lay in riding-off the well-habited lady and her spider-legged bay. He had a mouth like iron and a neck so strong and self-willed that whenever Juan tugged at the near rein it curved like a scimitar to the off. With clownish delight and a resolute indifference to his rider, Chang so bored and thrust against the bay that presently they were all on the extreme right-wing of the hunt, and the lady’s language had become repetitive and profane.
Juan in China Page 20