by Ann Bridge
“I must read the Apocalypse,” said Rupert briskly. “I’d no idea there was anything half so good in it.” He lit a cigarette. “No, S. John can’t have seen this,” he went on, “because this actual building only dates from the fifteenth century. But of course the ritual goes back well into pre-Christian times, and I believe the earlier altars were on the same model; the Chinese don’t change much—their ceremonial hardly at all.”
“So he might have seen something like it?” Amber pursued.
“There was nothing to stop him, if he chose to come,” said Rupert. “The great trade-routes from China to Persia were open then, in fact I believe the journey was easier and safer than now.”
Amber was charmed with this information. But Rupert went off on another tack.
“You seem to know the Bible very well,” he said. “Are you religious?”
This is always an extremely awkward question, especially to the shy. Amber was nonplussed for a moment, but happily recalled her determination to be curious and ask questions herself.
“Medium,” she said. “Are you?” she then asked firmly.
To her secret delight, Rupert also hesitated.
“If you mean, do I believe in the Virgin Birth and the whole bag of tricks, the answer is No,” he said at length, with his usual explosiveness. “And I don’t go to Church, as you may have noticed. But I don’t concede that the people who do have a monopoly of religion.”
“Of course not—there are Buddhists and all sorts,” said Amber amiably, her desire to agree with people appearing in spite of her. Then she remembered her resolve again, and said: “You mean you have some sort of religion of your own?”
He glanced at her, a little surprised at this manifestation of enterprise. “Everyone has something they live to, some sort of standard,” he said. “Mine wouldn’t be accepted by the straight legitimate religious as a religion. But then I don’t accept theirs.”
This was not taking them very far, Amber thought; she had a feeling that Rupert was evading something. Her courage was limited, and she was wondering if she could screw herself up to another question, when he went on: “The important thing in life seems to me to be willing to accept experience—all experience. So many people refuse experience, for one reason or another: either because they’re playing for safety, or because of some inhibition. If I have a religion, it is just that—to accept experience.” He sighed gustily, thinking of his recent meditations as they walked through the junipers, and said—“But I don’t always live up to my creed, any more than anyone else.”
Amber was thinking about the refusal of experience, and said nothing. Rupert mistook her silence for criticism and said, rather provocatively—“The worst of the pukka religions is that they make a positive virtue of refusing whole categories of experience. They believe in blinkers! Like that appalling saint or pope or whatever he was, who rode along the north shore of the Lake of Geneva with his eyes on his mule’s withers, for fear he should be distracted by the view of Mont Blanc and think worldly thoughts. My God! As though the view of Mont Blanc isn’t enough to lift one to Heaven!”
“But that’s very old-fashioned,” the girl protested; “no one thinks that nowadays.”
“Not about Mont Blane, but about other things they do,” Rupert asseverated. “Church people, I mean.”
“Rupert, they don’t. It’s all rubbish. Why, I heard Dean Inge say in a sermon how people ought really to use that Collect about so passing through things temporal that they finally lose not the things eternal. He said they must pass through experience, not pass by it. And what’s more, he mentioned that man on the Lake of Geneva as an instance of how not to do it!” said Amber triumphantly.
“Then he’s a very sensible man,” said Rupert, smiling at her flushed face: it was delicious the way any excitement brought her colour flooding up. “Is that your religion too? Because if so, we rather agree.”
Amber considered. She had seized on that point impulsively as an argument, but on thinking it over she was not perfectly sure that Rupert and Dean Inge were really talking about the same thing. Though she had remembered the sermon, Rupert’s words had given a fresh possibility of meaning to it. Up to now she had made, she realised, a rather limited application of the Dean’s words about experience. Rupert, she was sure, was thinking of the whole of life, as it came—including what Hawtrey referred to mockingly as “old Rupert’s experiences, ha-ha!” Was it possible that they were really the same, that life was all one? Because if so…
“Well?” said Rupert.
“I haven’t finished thinking,” the girl said, pushing back her hair off her forehead with an impatient gesture.
“You mean you don’t know what your religion is?” said Rupert, not unamiably.
“No—I’m thinking what exactly refusing experience is,” she answered.
“It’s every form of Safety First,” said Rupert. “Shying off something because you think it will hurt or is wrong. And in my opinion the trouble with religious people is that they often cover up what is really a form of cowardice by postulating that what they’re afraid of is wrong. They’re afraid of sex, so they call sex wrong. Actually it’s a normal part of life, as well as one of the great purveyors of experience, damn it!” He blew again. “Or one shies off a relationship with a person, for fear of being hurt, or drained dry. Well, that’s refusing experience. But if you refuse it,” he turned brusquely on her, “at least know why you’re refusing it, and don’t pretend you’re doing on moral grounds what you’re really doing from cowardice. Isn’t that right?” he said, as Amber said nothing. “What are you thinking about?” For the girl was staring at the Altar with a half puzzled, half far-away look on her face.
“I was wondering if it wasn’t as bad to refuse religious experience as to refuse sex experience,” she said thoughtfully. Rupert laughed—for all her simplicity, she was a shrewd hitter.
“Is that meant for me?” he asked.
“Not specially—though I think you’re rather unjust about religion,” she said, turning her candid eyes to him. Something in her face disarmed him suddenly.
“Amber dear, I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I hope I haven’t”—she made a negative movement of her head. “All I meant really is that religious experience is only for some people, whereas what you call sex experience”—the thought of the words on her lips made him smile, involuntarily—“is universal, and can’t be denied.”
“Oh, but surely, in some form or other, religious experience is universal too,” the girl protested. “I don’t mean Church services—I don’t know quite what I mean! Except—the spirit has its adventures. And they can’t be denied either. Only I don’t quite know where one leaves off and the other begins. Or are they all mixed up? I can’t express myself!” she broke off, rather embarrassed at having said so much.
“I think you express it very well,” the young man said. He was curiously moved by her simplicity and candour; and clearly, in her rather childish way, she thought for herself. He had expected to provoke some completely second-hand cliché, and had got instead a mouthful of genuine, if uncertain, thought. As they walked back through the junipers, where the low light, slanting in under the boughs, caught and lit the tallest flowers like lamps, he thought with approval of the solidity and directness of her mind, untutored though it was. But Amber walked in a strange mental dazzle and confusion, corresponding to the dazing beauty about her, with which she continued to wrestle all the way home. Something in her rose eagerly to hail and greet Rupert’s doctrine of the acceptance of all experience. In spite of her perception of the injustice (and even ignorance) of his views on religion, in spite of her much vaguer sense of his evading some issue, she yet felt that this in him was vitally right, and that in himself also was something of vital value. She was too young, and as yet too incompetent at the difficult business of knowing people, to be very precise about her reasons for this. But she was aware of a new and growing desire to live up to Rupert’s standard, in this parti
cular; to be, in this, the sort of person Rupert would approve. Only—now she went back to the phase of thought where Rupert’s impatience had interrupted her—if life was somehow all one: if all experience was to be passed through, not by: if it all had value, then what became of her recent decision to watch her step, not to let herself get involved with any more young men—in fact, not to get hurt again as she had been hurt with Arthur?
Oh, it was all so difficult. She must have more time to think. Perhaps it was just as well that she was going to Uncle Bill the day after tomorrow. There she would see it all more from a distance, she thought, her eyes resting on the roof of the Chien-mên, green with the dull dusty green of August elms in the afternoon light, as the two rickshas sped swiftly between the trams. But she would miss all this, she thought, a few moments later, as the coolies swung in at the West Gate of the compound, past the sentry and along the dusty road under the pale fresh pattern of the mimosa boughs. And there would be less chance than ever of getting to know what Mr. Grant-Howard thought about it all.
“Now for some tea—I shall take it off the Erh-ch’in-ch’ai too,” said Rupert, as they stepped out of the tilted rickshas and went up the steps between the clumps of irises. Liu opened the door to them, fresh creases of worry marking his yellow face, which wore permanently that look of intelligent concern so often to be seen on the faces of monkeys; he followed them discreetly into the drawing-room, where tea was laid, but untouched: the room was empty.
“T’ai-t’ai not got?” Rupert asked the servant in surprise: it was long past tea-time. Liu moved a hand upwards.
“T’ai-t’ai with Small Mastah; she welly sick,” he replied. “Tai-fu come.”
“Oh Lord, what can he have picked up?” said Rupert with a groan; he knew Peking, and had acquired the dismal dread of the doctor’s sudden presence in a house proper to China. At that moment Nugent came in. He walked heavily, like a man who is dead tired; the expression on his face shocked Amber.
“What’s wrong with Dickie?” Rupert asked quickly.
“He’s got scarlet fever,” said Nugent; he dropped into a chair like a person hardly conscious of what he was doing. “His temperature’s a hundred and four.”
“Oh God!” said Rupert. Then he made some cheerful remarks about recent recoveries. “You’ve got Hertz, I suppose?” Nugent merely nodded, and Rupert expressed his strong faith in Hertz. Amber went to the table, made tea, and gave it to the two men in silence. She was thinking, though she tried not to, about the Bong.
Chapter Twelve
NUGENT GRANT-HOWARD tilted his topi over his eyes as he left the black patch of shadow outside the Chancery porch and started on his short journey back across the compound. Behind him the typewriters clattered, and through the open windows of Hawtrey’s room came a buzz of voices and Hawtrey’s laugh at its most artificial—Joe was interviewing a correspondent; before him the path shimmered in a haze of dust and heat. He walked slowly along the hot gravel, past the Legation Theatre, past the fives-court and the chapel; the scent of the acacias swept in hot waves across his face, the whole compound was full of them, swam in their honeyed perfume. At the corner of the square, Mrs. Hugo accosted him—“Oh, Mr. Grant-Howard, how is the dear little boy?”
“He was much the same this morning, thank you,” said Nugent, in a colourless tone—he listened with an unmoved face to her expressions of sympathy with Joanna. What a cold man! she thought to herself, as he raised his topi and walked on along the square, already a dusty green. At the end of the stable drive, old Wang, the mafoo, appeared suddenly from behind a bush; he had a tiny cage in his hand, containing a small greenish bird. With a low bow he tendered it to Nugent. “For small Grandfather. She welly like. Sing!” Nugent, embarrassed, took the bird and thanked Wang. The old man lingered, one slippered foot tapping nervously, his old parchment face wrinkled with uncertainty. “Small Grandfather more better?” he ventured at last.
“A bit better I think, thank you, Wang,” said Nugent warmly; but the words knocked at his heart as he spoke them. He would have to get a lot better to get——Oh God, why could one not stop thinking those things? He walked on, up the curved drive to his house. On the front door was pasted a notice: “Maladie contagieuse dans la maison—prière d’attendre la réponse au dehors”; it was repeated in German and in English. Nugent didn’t go in that way; he walked round past the irises and peonies, up on to the loggia by the garden steps, and through his study into the hall. The sharp clean smell of carbolic met him there. He turned into the drawing-room to look for Joanna, but she was not there; sighing at even this minute disappointment, he went to wash his hands. In the outer hall lay a little heap of cards—he tossed them over. “To enquire”; “To enquire”—people were very assiduous; “With kind enquiries”—who could that be, using the reply for the question? Mrs. Lexham?—one of Joanna’s missionaries, no doubt. There were two pots of flowers: a tree of tiny roses—charming—who was that? Anna Stefany—a nice creature! And a great mass of lilies from Lydia Leicester, with a scrawl on the card—“So terribly sorry. Do have Hertz.”
“Well, we are having Hertz,” Nugent muttered to himself. As if in answer, the small greenish bird emitted a little bubble of sound, four notes of astonishing power and sweetness, and then was silent. Nugent started; he had forgotten the bird. He must see to it. He went to ring the bell, but Liu came softly across the hall, unsummoned. “Liu, this must have food and water,” Nugent said; “do you know what it eats?”
“All right—can do; I buy food—I fix,” said Liu, taking the cage. He smiled suddenly at the bird. “She welly good bird; sing welly loud; Mastah welly like,”
“Put it in my study,” said Nugent, and went upstairs. The smell of carbolic was stronger here—the passage leading to Dickie’s room was closed with sheets; Chang was spraying them with solution from a bucket. Chang had been chosen to wait on the sick-room; he was gentle, silent, neat-handed and assiduous. He carried the trays to the table in the corridor behind the outer sheets, and Sister Helga, the gaunt tall Pomeranian, with her ugly aristocratic face and clever tender hands, emerged from the inner pair and took the beverages for Dickie, the little special meals for herself. Joanna was allowed into this sort of ante-room in the corridor; there she held endless colloquies with Sister Helga—but Nugent, who had to carry on with his work in the Chancery, was obliged to stay outside. He heard voices within now; Joanna was there. Well, there was nothing he could do, and he had better not interrupt; he sighed again, and went downstairs. Fearful, this uselessness, this helplessness. His mind tormented him with pictures of Dickie, whom he might not see—in pain, tossing, frightened, fretting for his mother. Though that nurse certainly inspired confidence; she obviously knew her job.
Restless, he went out on to the loggia. Joanna would be down to lunch, anyhow—and probably Hertz would be in again. Mechanically his eyes followed the gardeners, snipping the faded heads off the bright ribbons of pansies that edged the beds. Hertz seemed to know his job too—but how utterly one was in their hands! There was Dickie, his son, his life, his immortality, in pain and in danger; and all his hope, all his slender chance lay with strangers. He, Nugent, who would have worked his hands raw, given his hands, eyes, anything to save him, could do absolutely nothing.
From across the Jade Canal Road came the little vague tune played by the bugles of the Japanese Legation Guard; it filled the sunny air, pervasive, insistent, like a small pointless pattern of spangles—curiously irritating now, though when he was happy he had hardly noticed it. Now four times a day it fretted him; he wondered if Dickie was disturbed by it. His room was on the other side, but that silly little sound, like the smell of the acacias, filled the compound. He saw Amber coming across the garden, from under the trees on the upper lawn. She had not had scarlet fever, and Dr. Hertz would not hear of her going to Uncle Bill, who had returned the previous day, till she was out of quarantine. She came slowly up the loggia steps and sat down.
“Is there any more news?�
� Nugent said.
“Doctor Hertz has found out how he got it,” the girl said. “It was his little city.”
“Not really?”
“Yes—he enquired in the market; he found out which stall Liu got them at, and there have been six cases of scarlet fever in the man’s house—there are two there now. He called a second time to tell us,” the girl said.
In the first burst of distress Joanna had been inclined to attribute the disaster to Dickie’s visit to the Forbidden City, but Dr. Hertz soon exploded that theory. The maximum period of incubation, he explained, was ten days, and it was more than a fortnight since the demonstration. It was considered important to discover the source of infection, and the servants were questioned and their homes visited. Dickie was always in and out of their quarters, and he had played with Cho Sur, Chang’s little fat four-year-old son; but there were no cases of scarlet fever among their families. Hertz had pounced on the toys the previous day, and asked if they had been disinfected—Joanna was incredulous, but Hertz was insistent.
“Yes, so they do, bring toys—and from where do they come, these toys?” he had said, shaking his head.
“What’s been done with them?” Nugent asked now, looking at the empty corner.
“I’ve just been burning them,” Amber said. “I must go and wash my hands,” and went indoors.
A moment later Joanna came out. “How is he?” Nugent asked at once.
“He’s quiet—he feels the heat rather, Sister says.”
“What’s his temperature?”
“Still a hundred and three, but Hertz says we must expect that,” said Joanna. Her voice was very steady and quiet; she sat still in her chair; a sort of controlled strength breathed from her. Nothing could appease Nugent’s distress, but somehow her mere presence was comforting to him.