by Ann Bridge
During the next few weeks nothing occurred either to relieve or to intensify Nugent’s sense of a menace to Amber’s happiness. The thing remained, apparently, where it was. Mrs. and Miss Boggit of course completely permeated Peking, as Joanna said—staying with the British Minister, they had to be asked to everything, and were to be met everywhere. Rupert, like everyone else, both met them and entertained them; but not more than Joe, who did his bit in keeping up the Legation traditions of hospitality by giving magnificent lunches and dinners for his Chief’s guests. (This did not prevent him from referring to the girl as “Yellow Chartreuse,” “Gold Flake,” and similar uncomplimentary titles.) So far as Nugent could judge—and he made a point of seeing a good deal of her—Amber noticed nothing; her serene contentment and unconcern suffered no perceptible change; her talk was all of her ponies and their progress. And then something happened which she did notice.
Acting on Leroy’s suggestion that it “might be as well to see what a bit of’face’ would do” in the way of making the Marshal more amenable to advice, Sir James gave a party at the Legation for Li. It took the form of a dance, with supper and a band, brass and champagne being known to be two of the European inventions which appeal most to the Chinese. Now there are certain difficulties attendant on entertaining high official personages in China. To show them due courtesy, you must meet them at the outer gate, and escort them personally through your household courts. This would be easier to arrange if you could know to within an hour, say, when they are likely to arrive. But you cannot. Invited to dinner at 8.30, a Chinese may easily seek to give himself face by arriving, bland and gracious, at 9.20; or, to show his friendly eagerness for your society, he may equally well turn up half an hour or more too early. On this occasion the reception was due to begin at 10 P.M., but just before half-past nine, while the ladies were still drinking coffee in the drawing-room, the spies posted by the Military Attaché for the purpose came hastening with the information that the Marshal was even then entering the compound. There was a general sauve-qui-peut; the ladies, carrying their cups and dropping their spoons, fled into an ante-room, to leave the great salon vacant for the formal reception; the Minister nipped briskly down the steps and across under the lighted t’ing-erhs to the outermost one, there to greet his guest; servants in red and blue silk robes lined up in the great halls, or collected the coffee-spoons; Leroy, the Military Attaché, Mr. Hugo and the vice-consul all attended on Sir James, to act as interpreters and to do the requisite “getting-together” with the Marshal’s staff in Chinese. Slowly, solemnly, with bowings over clasped hands, with salutes, with the light shuffle of slippers and the firm tread of uniform boots, with rustlings of brocade robes, the procession passed through the red-columned t’ing-erks, up the steps, and into the Great Envoy’s residence.
The Grant-Howards, coming across from the Counsellor’s House at a quarter to ten, according to plan, were greeted by a spectacle which did not wholly accord with the European idea of a friendly diplomatic reception. All round the Minister’s house, and stretching away up the dimly lit road beyond the Chapel, was a fleet of motorcycle combinations, with a machine-gun mounted on the side-car of each, manned by soldiers in uniform. “Gosh—he’s rolled up already,” said Joe, who was with Nugent and Joanna. “Look, there’s his car; come and see it.” He proceeded, coolly, to point out to them the more peculiar features of the vast bullet-proof saloon: the quick-firer on the windscreen, where happier people carry a spotlight, the quick-release bullet-proof shutters worked by a handle in the roof, the silver spittoon set in the floor. Two or three revolvers lay among the priceless sable rugs on the seat. “In his home town the old boy never leaves his jamen without four of these—all the shutters are up, and no one knows which he’s in,” Joe informed them. The outer hall of the Legation was thronged with soldiers, armed with rifles and revolvers; smoking, spitting, they filled the air with a reek of garlic and cheap American tobacco. It was like passing through a barrack-room to a ball. Joanna sniffed, daintily. “They’re very amusing people,” she said resignedly.
Inside, in the great drawing-room, they made their bows to the Marshal. This renowned war-lord, who had fought his way up from banditry in a small way to the position, practically, of an independent monarch, this fierce soldier, ferocious slaughterer of his rivals, startled Joanna even more than his idea of a suitable escort to an evening party. She saw a little old gentleman in a robe of gentian-blue brocade, with a mild face, like that of a benevolent Oxford don, small beautiful hands, and a very quiet gentle smile. He was talking, rather haltingly, to Sir James, Leroy interpreting, or turning to chatter fluently with the Military Attaché, for whom he had a great liking, no doubt because of the latter’s delightfully intimate connection with those modern weapons of precision which have such an attraction for war-lords.
Sir James stepped forward to greet them. “Now do your stuff, Mrs. Nugent,” he said urgently to Joanna, “he likes talking to t’ai-t’ais.” Thus adjured, Joanna made her first essay in k’o-ch’i-hwa (politeness-talk). This consists in dénigrer-ing yourself and your possessions, and lauding to the skies those of the person you address, and is an indispensable preliminary to conversation in polite society in China. (If you wish to speak seriously about anything, after some minutes of flowery compliments you say “Pu k’o-ch’i!” (not politeness) and then get down to it.) So Joanna, who had carefully mugged up the requisite phrases, when the Marshal complimented her on her extremely rudimentary Chinese retorted that it was more fitted for the ears of mafoos (grooms) than of a T’a shuai (commander-in-chief). The Marshal, purring visibly, enquired after her virtuous and high-born children; Joanna thanked him for his gracious condescension towards the abject offspring of an unworthy mother, who were, beyond their deserts, in health. After some minutes of this, while the Military Attaché and Leroy stood by, grinning at her struggles, and the Minister, relieved from the labours of an interpreted conversation, talked to his other guests, the Marshal, to Joanna’s great embarrassment, expressed a wish to drink her health. Whereupon they moved off in solemn procession, accompanied by a large group of staff, both English and Chinese, to the buffet, where they drank champagne, touching glasses with many bows. The Marshal then embarked on a long story, which soon became too complicated for Joanna’s small vocabulary—on their return to the drawing-room, she asked Leroy what it had all been about?
Leroy gave his cavernous chuckle, and muffled his boom to what he regarded as an undertone. “It was about his health,” he said. “He was telling you that for years he was too ill to drink champagne; but then he consulted a magician, who gave him a broth of stags’ bones—and after that he got quite well, and had six children!”
By this time the general company had assembled, and dancing had begun. The Marshal, surrounded by his suite, watched it from a sofa with absorbed attention. Joanna, who was not an ardent dancer, presently found herself sitting by Lydia Leicester. Her attitude towards Lydia was a fairly even mixture of liking, pity and disapproval. While she could not condone the behaviour which rumour freely attributed to Mrs. Leicester, she could not help pitying the suffering and humiliation which she divined behind that gracious and beautiful exterior. When she was actually in Lydia’s company, pity and liking were generally uppermost—she was so intelligent, had such a well-bred simplicity of speech and manner, and was, occasionally, so witty. As they sat together now, Mrs. Leicester amused her companion by her penetrating but not unamiable comments on the dancers as they passed. Presently Amber came by with Mr. Hawtrey.
“That pretty child!” said Mrs. Leicester. “I should be much happier if she would marry Joe and have done with it.”
“Why?” Joanna asked, interested in spite of herself in Mrs. Leicester’s views of Amber.
“Because I think she needs safety. She’s one of the ones who are simply made for pain about people, till she gets some solid anchorage.” She turned her immense clear eyes on to her companion. “You know,” she said, with that sincere
simplicity which Joanna could not help finding so attractive, “I’m sometimes afraid of her falling in love with your husband. She thinks there’s no one like him. Of course the idea never enters her head, and that protects her—but if it ever did, I believe she would find she cares for him more than she knows.”
Joanna heard these sentences with most unusual sensations of discomfort. She respected Mrs. Leicester’s intelligence too much to write off the idea as folly, and her good-breeding enough to realise that if she wished to convey a warning about Nugent’s own feelings, this would be the way she would choose. Done as it was, there was no loophole left for a rebuff, even had she felt any inclination to administer one.
“I think the protection probably is enough,” she said, careful to speak slowly and thoughtfully, as if she were considering someone else’s concerns. “The force of an accepted convention is a very powerful defence.” She paused, as if thinking again. “Do you really feel, though, that George Hawtrey is the right person for her?” she asked, turning the conversation in a channel easier for herself.
“I’m afraid Rupert won’t marry her, though he’s a fool not to take the chance, in my opinion,” said Mrs. Leicester. “Look at that! That’s the third time running.” They both looked at Benenden and his partner as they passed. Miss Boggit danced with her face pressed into Rupert’s shirt-front—occasionally she tilted it up at a provocative angle to gaze at him, then she turned it down again. There was something about the whole aspect of the pair which made Joanna wholly sympathise when Mrs. Leicester said—“The little bandit!”
Joanna and Mrs. Leicester were not the only people to notice Rupert’s dancing with Miss Boggit. Amber had gone to the Legation ball with the keenest expectations of pleasure. She remembered the dance on Christmas night, and had promised herself a repetition of that happiness, only more so. But after one dance with her, Rupert made none of the usual assignations for the next but two, and so on; he said, rather vaguely, that he must do a bit of duty now. And when she saw him steering the wife of the Iberian Minister about like a ship, she felt no surprise. But then she saw him dancing with Daphne Boggit; and again, and then again—and still when he passed her in the doorway or in the corridors where one sat out, he did not come and ask her for another dance. Amber could not understand it. Was he just being extra discreet? Using Miss Boggit as a smoke-screen, as she had used Joe? But need they be so discreet? To leave room for the dances she was counting on, she had been rather vague with some of her earlier partners about what Touchy called “second editions,” and half-way through the evening there came a moment when she realised, in a panic, that Rupert really wasn’t going to dance with her again; and that, failed by him, she might have to endure the humiliation of being seen to be without partners. People were drifting off to the buffet and the bridge-tables—Aunt Bessie had settled down to play long ago; in the great white-and-gold room the crowd of couples was much thinner.
All this was not lost on Nugent. He had watched Amber’s eyes following Rupert, as he passed her without a word; and he saw, in that panic-stricken minute, the fear begin to dawn in her puzzled face. And suddenly he felt that he could not bear it. Looking ahead, he put all possible future pain for her into that moment. She must not be allowed to see it, to realise it; not all at once; not then. He went up to her and asked her for a dance. And for the rest of the evening, whenever she was free, he danced with her. He talked, involving her in long arguments about books, giving her amusing criticisms on people—anything to keep her mind occupied. He succeeded—it was hardly possible not to be interested by Nugent, if he gave his mind to it; and the flattery of this unwonted attention, and the interest of his conversation, really did for the time prevent the girl from watching or thinking about Rupert, as Nugent saw with great relief.
But his rescuing enterprise had one repercussion which he could not have foreseen. Joanna, with Mrs. Leicester’s uncomfortable remarks still fresh in her ears, saw first with surprise, and then with an odd little prick of concern, her husband dancing repeatedly with Amber. But for that conversation with Lydia, she would have thought nothing of it—as it was, not all her affectionate common sense about Nugent, the ripened fruit of years of sympathy, loyalty and good-tempered comprehension, could quite exorcise that prick. Such moments do come to the most sensible, the most secure, the least exigent of wives—and they have to occur a good many times before they can be taken quite as lightly as they deserve. Two of the Minister’s guests at least took away a source of thoroughly uncomfortable meditation that night.
For in spite of Nugent’s efforts, Amber finally went home a good deal distressed. Quite at the close of the evening she had one more dance with Rupert, which, though good in its way, mainly prompted comparisons with the many more he had had with Miss Boggit. He was lively and amusing, too, but she missed a particular tone to which she had become accustomed. As they were moving back to the ball-room Count Herman intercepted them, and speaking to Rupert, briefly confirmed some previous assignation. “I have arranged it for next Thursday—you are free then? Good. You will find it surpassingly interesting—it is a unique experience.” He bowed and passed on. Most innocently, most naturally, Amber asked Rupert what this unique experience might be—it had been quite openly spoken of, and she never dreamed that her question could be unwelcome. To her immense surprise he turned to her and said, with a rather patronising smile, “My dear Amber, little pitchers shouldn’t have such long ears!”
Blushing with mortification, she stared at him, speechless for a moment. Then—“I’m sorry,” she said, angrily. “You choose such odd places to discuss your secrets,” and walked away, her lips quivering with vexation. Prickly though he often was, Rupert had never done this to her before. It was a deliberate snub. And she had done nothing to deserve it! How could she guess it was a secret? She went home miserable.
Chapter Twenty-four
RUPERT’S snub to Amber had been prompted mainly by a momentary embarrassment. He had not felt equal, on the instant, to explaining to the girl that he was going under Herman’s escort to visit the Sing-Song houses of the Chinese City—those curious places of entertainment which are so often referred to by Europeans, but into which so few of them ever in fact penetrate. The plan had long been arranged, but somehow or other the episode of Amber’s question had taken a good deal of the edge off his enthusiasm for the expedition. He realised at once that he had behaved badly, and would readily have tried to put things right, given the chance—but he did not meet Amber during the next few days, as he expected, and when he finally both wrote and telephoned to the Hei Lung Hu-t’ung, he learned that she had gone out to the Temple for a week. A letter of explanation would be making too much of the whole thing, and there was nothing for it but to blame Amber for her sensitiveness, Herman for his tactlessness, and to feel thoroughly disgruntled with himself for something which he did not specify very precisely.
He set off, accordingly, in a rather bad frame of mind, but hoping vaguely to be distracted from his mental discomfort. As the two rickshas passed down the broad street outside the Chien-mên, he noticed how much denser and livelier the crowd was by night than by day, and a faint infection of interest took him. They turned into Lantern Street, where each shop displays an array of lanterns and lamp-shades of every shape and colour; overhead the fluttering banners proclaiming the names of the proprietors almost touched, making the narrow street look like an arcade. The crowd was denser than ever here, and the rickshas had to pass in single file, with loud cries of “lend your light!”—once Rupert lost sight of Herman altogether. But after a few moments they turned to the left into an almost deserted lane, lighted only by an occasional lamp hanging from a dilapidated pole, where they moved more swiftly and again close together.
“Na-i-kö hu-t’ung?” (Which street?) panted Herman’s coolie, pausing. Like all his kind, he knew the habits of his master to perfection, but there were four or five streets in the neighbourhood, any one of which might have been selected for the
honour of a visit. On being told “to the Han Chia T’an” he trotted forward a little till Count Herman bade him stop. “We’ll walk,” he said.
Getting out, they turned down a narrow alley, followed by the rickshas. On either side were open doorways illuminated from above by clusters of round lamps of frosted white glass. The few Chinese they met gaped with curiosity—a verminous beggar pestered them for alms. Humming and tapping his teeth, a trick of his when undecided, Stefany murmured the names of the houses as they passed—“The Pa Fung Yuan—no, not there; the Yin Ts’ai Ke; these are all famous, you know, some of the most popular in Peking. No—we will go to the Lotus Spring.”
At the entrance to the Lotus Spring Rupert observed several small brass plates, each engraved with two or three Chinese characters, hanging above the door. “Those are the names of the girls who live there,” Herman explained. “Come on in.”
Passing through a narrow passage and round two corners, they found themselves in a small and rather dirty paved court, half open to the sky. Round the sides ran a dark green wooden verandah, on to which opened the windows of the ground-floor rooms; a rickety staircase led up to a second floor, and in one corner was a large dust-bin and a pile of coal briquettes. In a sort of combined office and kitchen at the entrance to the court a number of servants were gathered, smoking and drinking tea; one of these, clearly the head janitor, recognised Count Stefany and emerged in haste, bowing and rubbing his hands. “Ah, Mr. Ssü!” he said.
“Mr. Ssŭ has come!” shouted the others, grinning.
“Guests!” shouted the janitor in loud tones; immediately a tall man in a grey gown strode into the courtyard. “Guests!” he too shouted in a long-drawn wail— “Gue-e-e-ests!”
“Coming at once,” piped a chorus of shrill voices from all sides of the court. Rupert’s interest was fully aroused now—this was definitely amusing and Hassan-like.