by Bridge, Ann;
They turned to the left, and cantered upstream along a stony sandy flat beside the river. The hills were now ahead of them. The sort of track they followed presently skirted the foot of a high bank which gradually hid the stream from their view. ‘Let him out!’ called Mrs Leroy, and put her grey into a gallop. Annette thought it rather unsafe to ride at that speed over ground pock-marked with potholes and heaps of stones, but did as she was bidden. With wind and sand and hair in her eyes, trying to see her way and to hold on to Po Chih, who pulled, she was aware of nothing else till they slackened speed. ‘Up here!’ said Mrs Leroy, and led the way up a slope of rough wiry yellow turf. Annette expected to fall off backwards, the ground was so steep, but Po Chih scrambled up like a monkey, and breathless and excited she found herself at their goal.
The Red Temple does indeed stand beautifully, even dramatically, perched like a crow’s nest on the high bank above the river. Behind it the ground falls steeply to the flat along which they had ridden; in front it drops at once to the river bed. The Hun-ho at this point makes a wide sweep southwards after its straight run out from the mountains, and the bank on which they stood was revetted with blocks of stone to control the summer fury of the stream. For it is not in the dry cold winter, but in the summer rains that the rivers of North China rage like unchained beasts, sweeping out with sudden violence from their lairs in the hills to carry destruction over the plain. The Hun-ho had eaten its way into the narrow ridge till now there were only a few feet of soil between the carved marble gate of the little temple and the crumbling edge of the drop. Standing there, their bridles over their arms, they had almost the sense of being poised in space above the world, looking out over it. And what a view! Upstream and down, in the distance, the river bed broadened out into wide pale stretches of sand, which the wind was lifting in great smoky clouds, lit up by the westering sun till they shone like some celestial conflagration. In front of them were the hills, near enough now to cease to be a painted curtain – it was possible to look into them, and see the bony structure of ridge and hollow and sharp-walled valley on the nearer slopes, and the agitated perspective of the sea of tossing crests behind. But the magical thing was the sense of being lifted up into the heart of light and the power of the free wind. The battered and weather-stained walls of the temple, the twisted and misshapen tree or two which rose above them, bore witness to the wind’s power. The long pale stems of dead grasses and the bare twigs of bushes whipped and scrabbled at the faded red plaster of the walls, making little worn patches; the sharp cutting sand lay drifted in little heaps in the angles of their carved marble footings.
‘The first time I brought Sarah here she said this temple reminded her of a very poor humble Saint, who found himself lifted halfway to Heaven,’ said Mrs Leroy suddenly.
‘Why, what a wonderful comment!’ said Annette. ‘Who is Sarah, Mrs Leroy?’
‘Sarah is my daughter.’
‘I haven’t met her yet, have I? I’d love to,’ said Annette.
‘You won’t meet her – she’s in England, at school,’ said Mrs Leroy briefly, and the girl saw her face change from the bright musing look with which she had gazed at the view. The older woman turned and walked a few paces away along the ridge, leading her horse; Annette saw her take out her handkerchief and realised swiftly that Sarah was not a case for her usual bright interest. That the thought of her child should move to tears a grown woman – a woman, moreover, whom she had felt to be rather peculiarly hautaine and self-contained – was something new in her experience, and stirred her to a sudden warmth of feeling. But when she turned round Mrs Leroy spoke with business-like abruptness. ‘Now we must hurry, Miss Ingersoll. We’ll lead them down the bank.’
They slithered down the bristly turf, mounted, and set off at a canter, not along the track by which they had come, but cutting across country at an angle to it, to bring them back into their road home beyond the bridgehead. The waste and open flat gave place presently to small sandy clearings, separated from one another by low loose-growing rows of wind-swept tamarisks. Galloping through a gap in one of these, ‘Look out!’ screamed Laura suddenly. Annette saw the grey make a spring, but she was too close behind to turn or stop, and Po Chih, never much of a jumper, saw too late the deep-dug pit which yawned beyond the gap. He gathered himself together and had a shot at it, half landed, stumbled, and rolled over in the deep soft sand, pitching his rider ahead of him.
CHAPTER SIX
THE LONG WALK home afforded opportunity for a good many things. Po Chih was badly lame; Annette Ingersoll, though stiff and shaken, not much the worse once the sand was removed from her eyes, ears and mouth. She rode the grey, and Laura walked, leading Po Chih. She was not pleased with herself. It had been stupid and careless to take an inexperienced rider galloping across country like that – she ought to have stuck to the others and not yielded to the sudden impulse to go and look at her beloved Red Temple. It was a place for which she had a particular affection, partly for its own sake, partly because Sarah had loved it so much. It was full of memories of Sarah – Sarah scrambling up the steep bank, hardy and skilful, on her pony; Sarah climbing the wall to enter the temple and coming back with descriptions of the shrine within; of the March day when they found the great tuft of purple pasque flowers growing halfway down the river face, and Sarah would go and pick them. So now to come to the Red Temple was for Mrs Leroy almost to catch sight of Sarah, to get a brief draught of that for which she was perpetually athirst, and she had yielded to the temptation. Ashamed of her habitual self-indulgence, ashamed of General Nevile’s polo pony disastrously lamed, she turned with an impulse of penitence to lightening the long road home, as far as might be, for her young companion. And Annette Ingersoll, shaken by her fall and still warmed by the recollection of Mrs Leroy’s changed face and brusque movement at the mention of her child, forgot the slight awe in which she had stood of her, and fairly let herself go in return.
Mrs Leroy found out a lot in the next two hours. Miss Ingersoll, it appeared, was a young woman of considerable culture and ambition. She knew Russian, and read Gogol and Pushkin in their native tongue; she had lived a good deal in Rome, and spoke Italian fluently. Mrs Leroy could not follow her into the realms of untranslated Russian, but they compared notes on Italian literature and she was surprised by the girl’s knowledge of some of its lesser-known treasures, such as the minor poets of the court of Frederick II. Annette’s ambition was to write a history of the novel in all countries, from its earliest beginnings! Culture thus beguiled the way to Pa-mao-ch’ang, the sort of suburb of villas and temples outside Peking near the racecourse. ‘If we don’t find anyone at the Minister’s villa we must telephone for the car,’ said Mrs Leroy as they approached it; ‘the gates will be shut by the time we get there, and I haven’t got a pass.’
‘A pass?’ queried Little Annette.
Laura explained that the city gates were always shut at 7.30, and that without a pass it was literally impossible to get in. But on reaching the Great Mound, the acacia-plumed hillock on which Sir James Boggit’s country house stood, they saw Touchy’s Buick standing below the wall, while his chauffeur and a couple of grooms were gambling quietly, squatting in the deep sand by the roadside. As they drove back in the car the girl had turned to Mrs Leroy and proffered a request with a sort of shy animation: would Mrs Leroy mind if she asked to be called Annette and not Miss Ingersoll? In her then mood of penitence Laura would have agreed to anything; she had taken one glance at the girl’s pale face, darkened under the eyes, and had called her Annette on the spot.
They continued to meet. Next day, on that Wednesday of alarms and no excursions, Mrs Leroy and the Kuniangs, walking with Derek Fitzmaurice on the City Wall, ran into Miss Ingersoll and Henri Delache. They joined forces – not too much to Henri’s delight, Laura fancied – and Annette at once walked with her, talking with the intimacy of old acquaintance. She liked the girl more and more; there was a warmth, a simplicity and an eagerness about her which was more
than mere American brightness. Acting on an impulse which surprised herself, Mrs Leroy had invited her to ride next day at the Temple of Heaven, and they had spent an hour or two cantering round the untidy park, half wild spinney, half open space, which surrounds it. They had, of course, talked all the time – but the better she got to know Little Annette the more Laura Leroy was surprised at the odd combination in her of so much culture with such a curious, almost babyish, flatness and unperceptiveness about people. She had her little clichés, which she used with no discrimination at all. Women were ‘the greatest dear’ or ‘a lovely person’, or ‘terribly clever’, or ‘terribly chic’ – men were also ‘the greatest dears’, ‘perfectly lovely men’, or merely ‘quaint’, or – in Henry’s case – ‘terribly learned’. (Laura suspected that Henry was really also ‘quaint’ as well.) It was not shyness, for she had ceased to be shy; she was most ready to pour out her impressions of people and things – it was, Laura came to believe, really that she only saw people in the flat, like cardboard dolls to which labels could be pinned. Her experience of life, she decided, was so far wholly literary; she was discerning enough about the standard figures of fiction, but almost myopic about real people and the actualities of daily life. She had no idea of how to set about getting to know people properly, and no genuine curiosity to impel her to learn; her technique was simply her bright diffused enthusiasm and an affectionate disposition; her only criterion, how much she liked them. ‘She’s quite intelligent, but simply asleep as far as reality is concerned,’ she told Derek. Derek had been prosecuting his acquaintance with Judith with considerable energy during the same period – or else Judith had been prosecuting her acquaintance with him, Laura was not quite sure which; but she could not help contrasting in her mind Annette Ingersoll’s methods with those of her niece. Judith was far from being asleep as regarded reality or anything else. Things move fast in Peking, and Laura had watched with interest but without surprise the rapid growth of her intimacy with Fitzmaurice in the last few days. In her dealings with him, as indeed with everyone, Judith showed a sort of valiant curiosity, a determination to understand people and motives, and to face facts. She could be disconcertingly direct.
‘Is he an absolute rotter? I can’t make out,’ she had asked suddenly, when Derek’s name was mentioned.
‘Oh, no, he’s not an absolute rotter,’ Laura had replied unhesitatingly – and then she had paused, a little bothered. There were plenty of people who would, and did, consider that that was just what Derek was. And she realised that her words might be taken as a sort of guarantee by her niece. She hastened to qualify them. ‘Yes, I suppose some people would say that he was.’
‘But you don’t think so?’ Judith pressed her.
‘No, I don’t. I see that he behaves very much like one in some ways, but I don’t believe he is really. There’s something too real in the middle of him. And he is affectionate, and can be honest.’
That had satisfied Judith, who had gone off, a meditative look on her Michelangelo face. Very much to Laura’s surprise Lilah had uttered on the subject too. ‘Where is Judith?’ Mrs Leroy had asked, coming in from her ride at the Temple of Heaven with Miss Ingersoll, and finding Lilah alone, extended in a chaise longue on the verandah, languid and lovely.
‘Gone for a walk with Mr Fitzmaurice,’ Lilah answered, putting down her book and looking up at her aunt. ‘They’re rather progressive, those two, aren’t they?’ she added.
Laura assented.
‘I shouldn’t wonder if Master Derek has met his match this time,’ Lilah went on, with a sort of sleepy amusement on her lovely face.
‘Yes – if his being so much more experienced doesn’t put her at a disadvantage,’ said Laura, glad to voice her secret anxiety to someone, especially to the person who knew Judith best.
‘Oh, no, that’s all right,’ said Lilah, with languid confidence. ‘Because she fights with real weapons, and he’s only using sham ones.’
Laura looked at her niece with increased respect for this remark which she drawled out so casually. She found herself pondering on it afterwards. But what if Derek ever took to fighting with real weapons? Ah, well then, of course, he would have ceased to be what he now was, so the problem would anyhow be different.
She had been running over all this in her mind, sitting under the septic tank after early lunch on Friday. Much of it had not gone into her letter to Sarah. She was just about to finish that off, and close it for the post, when a fluttering of white appeared through the thujas in front. Mrs Leroy kept very still – she must on no account give away her hiding place. But the white approached inexorably, and in a moment Li stood in front of her, impassive and respectful. He knew her corner all right – Chinese servants always know everything! Laura almost laughed.
‘Yao shen-ma?’ (What do you want?) she said.
The Ping Ying T’i Tu (the Commandant of the Guard) was at the house and wanted the T’ai-t’ai. Laura rose and went in, Li flapping across the garden behind her with undiminished respectfulness.
The General as well as Touchy awaited her on the verandah.
‘It’s all right – we’re off,’ Touchy hailed her across the lawn.
‘Are you all ready?’ asked General Nevile in a slightly comminatory tone, looking inquiringly at her drill jodhpurs and loose silk shirt.
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Leroy, picking up a soft felt hat from a chair on the verandah and cramming it on to her thick dark shingle. ‘What about the telegram? Was it anything?’ she asked in her turn.
‘It was only from home. The Tass Agency has been improving on these latest rumours, as usual, and Parliament has got into a fuss about the missionaries.’ (‘Also as usual!’ interjected Touchy.) ‘So they telegraphed for more information and sent some general instructions,’ pursued the General, looking gloomily amused, ‘in case of emergency.’
‘Can’t you imagine the papers at home!’ said Touchy, absently measuring an oleander with the polo stick, shorn of its mallet, which he carried as a walking stick. ‘Dangerous situation in China!’
‘If Mrs Leroy is really ready we ought to start,’ observed the General.
‘Yes, come on, Laura.’
Laura made some vague excuse about a handkerchief, and vanished. She was determined to see if the mail was really in. Striding upstairs, she met Hubbard on the landing. The maid was carrying a fan and had a drill jacket over her arm.
‘Is the mail in, Hubbard?’
‘Yes, madam. I thought you would want your letters, so I’ve put them in your pocket.’ She tapped the jacket. ‘And I’ve filled your large travelling case – and matches – and two handkerchiefs. And here’s your fan.’
‘Oh, bless you, Hubbard!’ Laura exclaimed, putting on the coat. ‘There’s a letter for Miss Sarah in a block on the verandah,’ she went on over her shoulder, as the maid straightened her collar and gave little professional pulls and pats to the coat, which was loose, much worn, and of a comfortable shapelessness – a hopeless garment from Hubbard’s point of view. ‘Put it in an envelope and see that it goes.’
‘Yes, madam. Do you think you shall want anything else, madam?’
‘No, that’s the lot, thank you, Hubbard. Goodbye!’ She turned to go.
‘Should you mind if I go out this weekend, madam? If I should be invited?’
‘No, of course not – go by all means.’
‘Thank you, madam. I hope you’ll have a pleasant time, and not get mixed up with that Doo or his lot,’ she added, with a demure giggle. ‘I don’t like what I hear of him at the “Y”.’
On the square Mrs Leroy saw the whole party assembled in a group round the cars, and she found time as she approached to be amused by the variety of their costumes. La Touche and the General were military and correct in riding dress; Derek was in shorts; Henri Delache, however, was content to picnic in grey flannel trousers, brown boots, and a small Trilby hat. This young man had the high fresh colour and premature baldness of many Frenchmen; his inquiring up-ti
lted nose and weak, rather prominent eyes combined to give an air at once of impertinence arid sophistication to his smooth round face. Nina’s Professor stood a little apart – tallish, thinnish, youngish for a professor, Laura thought; there was no colour at all except freckliness about him; his light suit would not have been amiss in Bond Street. Someone had lent him a topi, which he was examining rather gingerly, turning it about in his hands. Suddenly he put it on his head, and his face wrinkled into a quick pleasing grin, presumably at himself – it was gone in an instant, but it inspired Laura with a certain confidence. The ladies of the party showed an equal disparity in dress. Judith Milne, like her aunt, wore cotton jodhpurs and a shirt; with a silk handkerchief knotted round her throat and a broad-brimmed hat, she looked like an operatic cowboy. Mrs Nevile was in shorts – an impossible dress for most women, but admirably becoming to her perfect little figure; eager and businesslike, she moved about like a diminutive Boy Scout, directing operations. But Miss Hande, short, thin, dark and sensible, had imported New York into Peking complete with one of those neat little travelling suits, beloved of American women, a ‘shirtwaist’, and a small close hat. The novelist and the Professor matched one another in their urban trimness.
‘Our intellectuals are very tidy,’ murmured Laura to Derek, as she approached the group.
‘My God! I don’t think much of Nina’s Professor,’ returned Derek in the same tone. ‘He looks like a slice of galantine! I’m sure there’s a layer of jelly between him and his suit.’
‘Oh, nonsense! I think he looks rather nice.’
‘My dear Laura! At last’ere you are!’ exclaimed Delache, coming up to Mrs Leroy and taking her hand in both of his. ‘On vous a découverte à la fin. J’avais cru …’ he leant forward and whispered something into her ear which made her laugh and redden in spite of herself.