by Ann Bridge
“Did he say anything else?”
“It was the toys,” said Joanna slowly.
“Yes, Amber told me. It seems most extraordinary that they could carry it.”
“Oh no—those little straw figures, and people peeling in the house! It’s obvious. I suppose I might have thought of it,” she said, still in that steady voice. “Or asked someone. I’m sorry, my dear.” There was the tiniest quiver in her voice then. But before Nugent could answer: “They must be burnt,” she said, in the same level tones as before, looking round.
“Amber’s done it,” said Nugent.
“Oh—how sensible of her. By the way, Nugent, can you take her for a walk after tea? It would do her good. Hertz says she ought to keep as fit as she can—it all depends on one’s power of resistance whether one gets it or not.”
“Oh, very well,” said Nugent. He didn’t want to go for a walk, but if it was useful, it would be as well to do it. And of course they must take proper care of that nice child. It struck Nugent suddenly that since that time on the boat he had made no attempt to find out how she was getting on. The load she carried, whatever it was, she had had to shoulder quite alone all these weeks, among people who were really strangers to her—or at least, he thought rather remorsefully, who had allowed her to remain fundamentally strange to them, for all the apparent intimacy of their common life. He had noticed that both Joe and Rupert were rather taken with her, but young men were more apt as a rule to multiply a young woman’s problems than to mitigate them. With perceptions sharpened by unhappiness he remembered her as he had seen her off Sumatra, quivering under some defeat at the hands of life; and this was the person who since had been launched into a new world without any shield of strong affection and certain interest behind which to seek shelter and help in need. His imagination, working with the violent intensity created by emotional stress, saw her suddenly as all youth, involved in its own battle; saw her bright head unhelmeted among the spears like the head of the boy in Paolo Uccello’s picture in the National Gallery, gallant and resolved, but peculiarly defenceless. It was one of those curious flashes of vision to which Nugent was given, which do for some people illuminate the theory on which their relations with another are built; and in spite of his own anxiety he had a quick impulse to try to find out how the girl was really faring in that inner life which our theories seek to penetrate.
The summons to lunch broke in upon his thoughts. It was a cheerless meal. Nugent crackled his thin toast and nibbled it perpetually; Joanna spoke once about the flowers; but no one troubled to eat much of the four delicious courses which the servants set before them. While they were having coffee on the loggia, Dr. Hertz was announced. He came out on the heels of the servant, and after a hasty greeting to Joanna, stood pulling various objects out of the bulging pockets of his grey alpaca jacket, while he explained his errand. He had just got at the hospital the pathologist’s report on a rubbing of Dickie’s throat. “There is the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus present, in quantities,” he said gravely. None of his hearers knew what the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus portended, and he was obliged to explain that it was the germ of diphtheria.
“Do you mean that he may get diphtheria?” Joanna asked quietly.
“No—he has it now,” the Doctor said. “This is quite usual here,” he went on, turning to Nugent, from whom a sound like the shadow of a groan escaped at the words. “For this we take the rubbing. I shall give him now the anti-dipterie injection, and Schwester Helga shall use these sprays.” He put some small bottles on the table. “We shall go up now, yes?” he said to Joanna.
“One moment,” Nugent said, rising and taking him by the sleeve. “You say it’s quite usual here to have both things together, scarlet fever and diphtheria?” He spoke slowly and judicially, as Amber had often heard him speak when discussing some point of Chinese politics with Leroy or Benenden—somehow his use of that manner now turned her sick with pity. Hertz nodded—his kind heavy face was creased with distress and concern, tiny beads of perspiration powdered his large pale cheeks and forehead.
“And such cases are—successful?” Nugent pursued, still in the same Socratic manner.
Dr. Herz raised his shoulders with a curious distressful movement of impotence.
“It can be so—yes. Naturally it is more grave. One can promise nothing yet. There is a chance. I give the injection now—in twenty minutes I have an operation.” He turned into the house.
“Don’t come up,” said Joanna, putting her hand on Nugent’s arm, and speaking with a sort of assured finality. Over his shoulder she threw a glance of entreaty at Amber. Amber understood. Dickie had had his T.A.B. inoculations on the boat, and the prick of the needle always made him scream; he had a nervous terror of it. Joanna wanted Nugent removed out of earshot somehow, while that injection was given. Regardless of Amber, she pressed a kiss on her husband’s forehead and followed the Doctor indoors.
Amber cast desperately round in her mind for some pretext, and found one. “Mr. Grant-Howard, I’m not much good at bonfires; could you come up with me and see if those little toys are burning properly? I’m rather afraid of the gardeners rescuing some and taking them off,” said Amber, warming to her theme, “unless we do it thoroughly.”
Sighing, Nugent rose without reply and followed her across the heat of the lawn and into the upper garden, where behind the septic tank, screened by a hedge of thujas, was the rubbish-heap, the bonfire and the nursery-beds. The gardener, his pigtail looped round the crown of his straw hat, was grafting chrysanthemums on to tall stout-stalked plants grown for the purpose. Amber’s fire had burned well; with a stick she pushed the few half-consumed fragments of the pretty toys into the red ashes, prolonging the operation as much as possible. Then she suggested a visit to the greenhouse to see how the geraniums were coming forward. On the way thither Nugent broke his silence, which she found so oppressive. “Have you ever had diphtheria?” he asked.
“No—my sister did,” Amber replied.
“Did it hurt?” Nugent next enquired.
“She said it was like a rather bad sore throat,” said Amber, as they entered the greenhouse.
“Ah, said Nugent. “Did she have that membrane thing in the throat?” he asked, as they stood between the stagings, which were full of flowers just coming into bloom. Amber thought not. While she forced herself to give a cheerful account of Gemma’s illness, she was appalled by Nugent’s evident suffering. He walked round the greenhouse, going through all the motions of one who admires the flowers, even touching one now and then; but it was clear to her that he hardly knew where he was, that he simply did not see the blooms before his eyes. There was something frightful about these mechanical actions, performed while he spoke continuously of diphtheria. She got him out of the greenhouse somehow. Oh, it was all very well to talk about the pangs of motherhood, the girl thought, seeing for the first time the terrible thing that fatherhood can be. Far worse to be a father! Joanna was busy, occupied, able to do things all the time that related to Dickie—ordering meals, drinks, medicines; organising the household, in touch with the nurse. It was the father who bore the brunt of the terrible helplessness. And moved by an overpowering impulse of pity, she turned her clear eyes on to Nugent and said, “You know, Mr. Grant-Howard, Dickie has always looked a very strong child to me. I don’t mean fat and robust, but strong in himself. And I believe those children get over things much better than the big fat ones.”
Nugent turned and stared at her in a sort of surprise. “What do you mean by strong in himself?” he asked.
“It’s something about his hands, and the look of his skin and eyes,” said Amber earnestly. “He looks—resistant. I do really think he ought to get over it.”
“That’s very interesting,” Nugent said, but his tone was less dead than a few moments before. “It’s curious that you should have got that impression of him. Most people think he looks so delicate—and he does seem to get whatever’s going.”
“Yes, but doesn’t he g
et over whatever’s going too?” Amber persisted. “Really, I don’t think you should worry too much,” she said, looking at him steadily, as if she was trying to force hope and comfort into him with her eyes.
“I won’t,” he said, and for the first time that day he smiled at her. “I’ll go across now and do some work,” he said, more briskly, “and after tea you’re going to take me for a walk.”
When he had gone, Amber sat on the loggia and took up some sewing. Well, that was done all right. They hadn’t heard a sound. Presently Joanna came out, and said she was going to lie down for an hour or two; “Yes, he was really very good,” she said, in reply to a question of Amber’s, “but he does hate it so.” She half closed her eyes.
“We went and finished burning the toys,” said Amber. “Mr. Grant-Howard has gone back to the Chancery now.”
“Yes—I want you to take him out after tea, Amber,” said Joanna. “Take him a good long walk—to see something, if you can. It will do him good.” And away she went, poised and controlled, leaving Amber looking after her with admiration.
Mrs. Grant-Howard had only been gone a few moments when Benenden came round the corner of the house and flopped into a chair on the loggia, where he started to fan himself with his black felt hat. (He refused to accommodate himself to local usage, and spurned a topi.) “Well, how is he?” he said gloomily.
“He’s got diphtheria as well as scarlet fever,” replied Amber.
“My Christ! Poor little beggar!” Rupert groaned. “I saw Nugent crossing the compound, and hid. I didn’t dare to ask for news.”
“Ought you to be here?” Amber said. “You know we’re in quarantine.” She shifted into a chair further away from him.
“Oh, it’s all right in the open,” said Rupert. “What does Hertz say?”
“He said there was a chance,” Amber said.
“Oh Lord!” He put his head into his hands and groaned again. “He’ll never recover—people hardly ever do, and he’s such a little chip of a thing. It will just about kill Nugent,” he said, raising his head and staring at her. “He’s perfectly dotty about all his children, but Dickie has always been the pick of the bunch to him.” He sighed, lit a cigarette and a moment afterwards threw it away, shifted the cushion in his chair and then flung it away too. “I can’t bear this to happen to him,” he said. “Nugent’s not like ordinary people. Half the men here would hardly care after a week; their wretched wives would mind, but they wouldn’t suffer really. But Nugent!”
Amber was touched by the depth of his sorrow and affection, but found his company extraordinarily depressing nevertheless; she was really relieved when he took himself off.
The heat was still considerable when Nugent and Amber set out in the car after tea. Nugent had suggested that the Temple of Heaven was as good a place as anywhere, and they walked briskly round the track through the outer park. It was already much hotter than when Amber and Rupert had been there only a few days ago. Peking was stoking up, as Joe called it. The white dust rose about their feet in the open stretches, and hung in a shallow silvery cloud where they had passed. At first they walked in silence. Amber was thinking what a God-sent opportunity this walk would have been to discuss some of the many things on which she wanted Mr. Grant-Howard’s opinion; but her shyness quite apart, she felt that she could not trouble him now with her own concerns. She was therefore both startled and disconcerted when Nugent turned suddenly to her with, “What do you make of Rupert?”
Amber considered rapidly on which aspects of Rupert she most wanted illumination. They crowded into her mind pell-mell, confusing her, and as she was never much good at expressing herself with any precision— “He’s nicer to places than to people,” she brought out at last.
Nugent laughed, and she was so pleased to hear him laugh that she forgot to be embarrassed at having probably said something silly. “What precisely do you mean by that?” he asked.
“He isn’t irritable with places like he is with people,” she answered. “And he—he accepts them as they are.”
“Doesn’t he accept people?”
“Oh no—you know he doesn’t!” the girl said. “People like you he does, whom he is frightfully fond of, but other people——” She paused, caught as usual between the flood of her ideas and the lack of words in which to clothe them. “He weighs and balances, and suspects—no, he thinks the worst.” And seeing Nugent looking a little incredulous, she repeated some of Rupert’s admonitions to her on the day she had tea with him. “Even if people aren’t nice all through, the nice bits of them may be real,” she wound up. “I don’t see what one gains by being so—scrutinising as he is.”
Nugent was interested in these criticisms, which he saw were genuine, and not part of the usual defensive apparatus of the sophisticated young woman. Hoping for more, he said non-committally, “I certainly think it’s not necessary to en vouloir people for qualities they haven’t got.”
“I think it’s even more unnecessary to en vouloir them for things they have got,” returned Amber with unexpected readiness—she was thinking of Rupert’s hostility to her interest in horses. Nugent, however, did not know this and said, with an evident placatory intention—“I think perhaps he felt you might need advice, and that’s why he lectured you. He does hold forth, rather. Do you dislike him?” he asked her, then.
“Oh no,” the girl said readily. “I like him very much. I didn’t mind his lecturing me. But I’m not sure that I agreed with the lecture. Of course I’m not very experienced,” said Amber simply, “but if I were as old as Methuselah I shouldn’t want to go about distrusting everybody as he does.”
“Why do you listen to him?” Nugent asked, as they passed into a patch of deep shade between two plantations of young conifers. He was interested, and yet half discouraged by her incompetence at expressing herself. The young were very difficult to talk to!
“Because he talks to me! And about interesting things. Most people don’t—not to me,” said Amber, causing Nugent a prick of remorse. “But I don’t know whether to believe him or not,” she went on thoughtfully.
“Oh, why? He’s more than truthful,” said Nugent.
“He quarrels with himself,” the girl said. Nugent laughed out. “No, but he does! At least, things in him quarrel with one another,” she persisted. Nugent agreed, still laughing. Rupert need not complain so much of her lack of discrimination, he thought; she had got on to the fundamental contradictoriness of his character pretty shrewdly, however oddly she expressed it. He was surprised at her being able to see so clearly in the case of a person with Rupert’s degree of charm; usually women were simply bowled over by him.
“Mr. Grant-Howard, may I ask you something?” she said now, turning to him with a clear seriousness in her face.
“Yes—go on.”
“It’s about accepting experience,” the girl said. “I can see it’s a good principle to; but a kind of experience that one has had, and knows it’s dreadful—is it very safety-first to try to avoid that again?”
There spoke the burnt child, Nugent thought—and in safety-first he recognised one of Rupert’s pet clichés. What had he been saying to her?
“I don’t think much good comes either of seeking experience or avoiding it,” he temporised. Oh, well, let her have it—she meant her question, and must have a real answer. “Yes, I think one must accept it. You go along like this”—he waved his stick ahead of him, where the track, emerging from the deep shade, stretched away into the distance, dappled with the light shadow of young willows, till it curved round out of sight—“and just meet what comes. And remember, the terrible things are what make people. The unlucky ones who only meet easy things always remain undisciplined by life—they’ve never really grown-up.”
Amber made no reply—he saw her staring ahead down the curving track, as if watching the approach of a whole procession of invisible crises; he was reminded again of his thought before lunch, and the pitiful gallantry of youth. Suddenly he felt that she had th
e capacity, not too common, of really being forged by life, of taking a fine temper; something in the set of her head, the whole tone of her, gave him this impression with the clearness of a spoken phrase. It moved him to further utterance. “There’s more to it than just accepting,” he said. “One has to be willing to embrace experience, to let it do its work in you. Of course that’s what the Bible means by dying to live. And even while that’s going on, to be what Marcus Aurelius called ‘always the same man.’” He stopped suddenly, remembering that in his catalogue of disasters to be so endured, the most human of philosophers put last and worst “and in the death of a child.” Oh, could one be the same man in such a case? Was he now to be called upon to practise his own doctrine? His anxiety returning, unconsciously he walked faster, and Amber quickened her pace beside him in silence, thinking. Strange that he should use that expression about dying to live. She had always applied it only to what she thought of as religion—dying to one’s sins, and all that. But Mr. Grant-Howard was clearly using it about life in general. Did one, then, only come to full life by death-like pains such as she had suffered over Arthur, such as the silent man beside her was facing even now? She did not phrase it to herself so clearly, but in a dim way she felt these great issues looming about her, saw half-veiled vistas of pain and strength, strangely linked, opening before her. Then about this at least Rupert was right; then experience was one whole; then the adventures of the spirit were received and expressed in quite mortal things like love-affairs and the illnesses of children. Step by step her mind worked at it, as she trod the track beside Grant-Howard, between the young green of the spinneys, with the dry smell of the dust in her nostrils, and the occasional strong resinous fragrance of a single pine-tree. And why Nugent was different to, say, Sir James, was just because of his capacity for embracing experience. And so one must, too—must go forward and meet whatever was coming…
Round a curve in the track, with a dull thud of hoofs, a horseman came galloping at tremendous speed. It was Hawtrey. “I’m being bolted with!” he shouted cheerfully as he passed them. Nugent smiled, in spite of his anxiety, at this apparition. Amber smiled too—one always did smile at Joe. But she was aware of a vague sense of anti-climax. Her dim and solemn visions of meeting experience had been suddenly scattered—scattered by the familiar, nice, but slightly ridiculous figure of Hawtrey being run away with, galloping towards them. She walked forward more thoughtful than ever.