Peking Picnic

by Bridge, Ann;

  ‘That’s not very wonderful, surely?’ expostulated Laura, half amused and half irritated.

  ‘Why yes, it is – and you do, you all do,’ said Annette earnestly. ‘I was noticing Miss Judith at tiffin – the way she was talking with the Professor and Major La Touche. She was getting right ahead with them – making them say remarkable things.’

  ‘They were interested, that was all,’ said Laura, turning away and moving on up the hill. She had spied a rock in the shade of a dwarf oak, and on reaching it sat down. Annette followed and seated herself beside her.

  ‘I wish I knew how it was done, to make people all that interested,’ she pursued half wistfully.

  ‘Isn’t it by being interested oneself?’ said Laura lightly.

  Annette did not answer. She sat staring at the roofs below her, her pretty brows drawn together. Presently she turned to her companion with a sudden movement.

  ‘Mrs Leroy, do you think there’s anything in those fortunes?’

  ‘No, not much – I think they’re a very hit-or-miss business,’ Laura replied.

  ‘I just hated mine!’ said the girl, with surprising energy in her tone. ‘What is enlightenment, anyway? Is it the same as learning? I guess I know quite a lot.’

  ‘No, I don’t think it’s quite the same as learning,’ said Laura.

  ‘I’ve been wondering if it was just that – knowing how to know people, as you do, and Miss Judith.’

  ‘I think that’s only part of it – enlightenment must mean knowing altogether about the nature of life, mustn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but that would be no use to you when you’re dead,’ said Annette, ‘it’s now you want it. I wish I’d never gone near that old shrine!’

  Laura urged her not to worry about it, ‘They’re only ancient proverbs, and it’s just chance which you pull out.’

  Annette was silent. When she spoke again she did not look at her companion, but at the toe of her brown and white shoe, which she scraped to and fro in the shady dust.

  ‘I guess there’s something queer happening to me,’ she said slowly. ‘Since I came up here I feel, somehow, that I’m almost nothing.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t seem to get near people, the way you all do. I feel like a child playing blindman’s buff. I know people are there, but when I put out my hand I can’t touch them. I feel alone,’ she said, turning now to Laura with wide astonished eyes. ‘It seems to me I’ve never really known anyone – but that’s just silly.’

  Not so silly, Laura thought to herself – it’s reality she’s missing at last. And she fell to wondering just what had prompted the realisation. Was it Henri? Was it Judith? Or was it Chieh T’ai Ssu and its ancient wisdom, and the magic of the blossoming tree?

  ‘Do you think I’m crazy to talk to you this way?’ the girl went on. ‘I never have before, to anyone – but then I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve always been quite satisfied with things. What is it I haven’t got? It’s not religion – I am religious,’ she said quaintly. ‘It seems just crazily foolish to want something and not know what it is. Do you know? I thought possibly you might.’

  ‘Why did you think that?’ Laura asked, to gain time. Vinstead’s words before breakfast about the dangers of rousing the unawakened were ringing like bells in her head – and here was the unawakened, poor child, stirring in her sleep and muttering uneasily.

  ‘Why, I always feel you’re terribly wise,’ said the girl. ‘I guess you are, too. I heard the Professor telling Miss Hande before lunch that you had “extraordinary virtuosity in your touch on life”.’

  ‘Oh glory!’ said Laura, with a comical lift of the brows. ‘He doesn’t know much about me, you know, Annette.’ She was secretly pleased by the remark all the same. ‘Tell me,’ she went on, ‘did no one ever tell you at home how to talk to people – no, not exactly that, but how to think about them, and try to understand them?’

  ‘Why, no,’ said Annette, looking a little surprised. Laura was struck afresh by the doll-like charm of her face; the small, rather vacuous mouth, now open in astonishment, was just like the formal rosebuds on the expensive waxen Claras and Angelas of her youth – the large, slightly piteous eyes and brows might have been beautifully and carefully painted on some inexpressive china visage.

  ‘No,’ Annette went on; ‘but I was very carefully brought up – we were taught to dress properly, and my mother was tremendously particular about our manners. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘No, not altogether. Manners are like clothes – you can’t go into society without them; but your clothes don’t make friends, and manners alone won’t. Had you friends when you were growing up? Intimate friends? Girls you chattered to at night, or boys you rode and sailed with?’

  ‘Why no, not a great many. I went to parties,’ said Annette, looking puzzled. ‘But before I came out my mother didn’t much like our having beaux. We were with her a good deal. We read French memoirs to form our manners,’ she said, with a rather naïve air of self-satisfaction. ‘And my mother felt that gentlewomen ought to have really cultivated minds, so we studied a lot.’

  ‘I am sure she was most successful,’ said Laura warmly. She could visualise this cultivated upbringing with painful clearness – every virtue and accomplishment sedulously fostered, while the capacity to live was wholly overlooked. She tried another tack – there was something else she must know.

  ‘Does Henri come into this?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Why, Mrs Leroy!’ Annette looked at her, staggered; then the swift colour flooded her face, and she looked away.

  ‘Yes, but he does, doesn’t he?’ Laura pursued gently. ‘It would be odd if he didn’t, you know.’

  To her extreme surprise the girl burst into tears. ‘Oh, I can’t see any of it!’ she sobbed, ‘I just can’t make it out.’

  Laura was a good deal distressed. She put an arm round the girl; against her shoulder Annette cried more quietly. The tears would probably relieve her, Laura thought, and she let her have her cry out. Henri clearly did come into it – no doubt he had helped to show her that she was alone, that she had not learned to be anyone’s ‘dear companion’. But he was not an ideal teacher – and more than ever she felt convinced that Nina was wrong, and that while Judith might well take on Derek with a possibility of success, a marriage between Henri and Annette could only lead to tragic failure.

  At length Annette’s sobs ceased, and she raised a woebegone face. ‘Don’t apologise,’ the older woman said, smiling at her. ‘It’s not so long since I was young, you know – you needn’t tell me about it. Come on, powder your nose and let’s go and have tea.’

  ‘But won’t you try and explain to me what it is that’s the matter with me?’ said Annette, with a curious insistence.

  ‘You must let me think about it, and tell you tomorrow,’ said Mrs Leroy. She felt she would like to consult someone – Nina, or better still Lilah – before she embarked on a diagnosis of Annette’s complaint.

  As they strolled down the hill the path led round above a little hollow, screened rather thickly with oaks in front. Looking down into it they saw two figures seated there, those of Derek and Judith; even at a distance their attitude suggested some painful controversy – and Judith too was in tears. Laura could not help smiling as she turned away and walked on. Poor Youth – Love put it properly through the hoops! Still for all that, how much simpler the love of youth, she thought, with its eager resilience through any ups and downs, than the slow, painful, and consuming love of middle age. Miss Hande was quite right – not a doubt of it.

  A little way further on they came on Lilah, sitting under her painted parasol, doing nothing at all. Laura was beginning to wonder sometimes whether Lilah’s wisdom, which she so much respected, might not be due partly to her immense conservation of energy in all other things. She rarely read, never sewed, moved as seldom and as little as possible, and was incredibly economical of her speech. She simply ate, slept, sat, and observed. Her blue eyes, under their white sleepy lids, took
in Annette’s recently restored countenance now with one calm glance. When she heard that they were going in to tea, ‘Come this way – I’ll show you a short cut,’ she said. They followed her along one of the little winding goat paths to the foot of the monastery wall, at a point higher up than the main gateway. There was no door, but a heap of rocks against the masonry made a way up. Inside, however, the drop was considerable, into a sort of narrow alley between some building and the wall. Not without difficulty they swung themselves down. ‘How did you find this?’ Laura inquired.

  ‘I came out this way,’ said Lilah.

  ‘But how on earth did you get up?’ Laura asked. There were no stones on the inside, and the wall was six feet high at least.

  ‘Like this,’ said Lilah. Placing her back to the wall she put her feet against the building opposite, bridging the gap – and bracing herself, regardless of her frock, she shuffled steadily upwards by what climbers call ‘the back and foot method’. When she reached the top she swung half round, took hold of the tiled coping and hauled herself on to the top of the wall, where she sat swinging her feet and looking down at them with calm amusement.

  ‘Well, isn’t that just marvellous!’ said Annette. Laura stared in stupefaction. It was a considerable muscular feat, and the last thing in the world that one would have expected of Lilah.

  ‘I’d no idea you were a gymnast,’ she said as her niece dropped down again.

  ‘Oh, I used to be, at school,’ said Lilah, as she led them on towards the terrace. ‘Rather fun.’

  Tea was rather a scratch meal, taken as and when people came for it. Judith and Derek were absent altogether – Professor Vinstead and his camera turned up very late. Nina and General Nevile presided, and endeavoured to get the plans for the expedition to T’an Chüeh Ssu on the morrow cut and dried. ‘Whoever goes, must start early,’ the General pronounced.

  ‘What is your notion of early?’ Miss Hande asked.

  ‘Leaving here at latest at nine o’clock,’ he told her, ‘and we must order as many donkeys as we need this evening.’

  Miss Hande was most anxious to see T’an Chüeh Ssu, the other great temple some miles away in the hills, with its famous gingko tree. Little Annette had seen it, and did not want to go again; nor did the Neviles, nor Henri. ‘It will be fearfully ’ot,’ he observed. Touchy was lukewarm on the subject. Lilah, when sounded, said that Judith was certain to want to go, ‘She always wants to do everything.’

  ‘And you?’ Nina asked her.

  ‘I may as well,’ she said indifferently.

  ‘Well, that is you, and Miss Hande, and Judith – and Mr Fitzmaurice, I suppose,’ Nina counted on her pretty beringed fingers. ‘And the Professor, of course, I know he wants to go. Five. What about you, Laura?’

  ‘Oh, I hope Mrs Leroy is coming!’ said Miss Hande. ‘I’m sure she’ll be a wonderful cicerone.’

  ‘Someone who can speak the language had better go,’ said General Nevile.

  ‘Yes, I’ll go,’ said Laura.

  ‘Then what about donkeys?’ Nina wanted to know.

  ‘I shan’t want a donkey,’ said Laura, getting up; she strolled across to the balustrade, leant on it and gazed out at the view. Annette troubled her – at tea the girl’s face, under its mask of little smiles and gesturings, had still worn something of the rather piteous look of strain and bewilderment that she had shown so openly on the hill. Mrs Leroy waited impatiently for Lilah to have finished the large meal which she was making as usual; she wanted to talk to her. But before Lilah had nearly done, Henri Delache got up and joined her.

  ‘Laura, I ’ave found something just priceless! You must come and see it.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Laura without stirring.

  ‘Ow, it is most funny. Come on – I shall show you.’

  From Henri, anyhow, she probably need not fear any more confidences, Laura reflected with relief, as he marched her off – she was pretty well sated with confidences for the moment. As they strolled through various courtyards she wondered whether she, on the other hand, ought not to drop him a hint about Annette; but what could she say? No, it was really Nina’s business, and she must talk to her first.

  Henri led her to the extreme eastern end of the monastery, into a small court where she had never been before, and opened a door in the building which surrounded it as usual on three sides. Within, what was indeed a curious sight met their eyes. A broad shelf several feet in depth ran round the whole length of the building, and this shelf was covered as thickly as they would stand with hundreds of coloured images of Buddha in all his manifestations, and of Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy. It looked like one of those Catholic shops near the Brompton Oratory, only on a much vaster scale, and with a strange composed remoteness about the faces, very different from the overemphasised humanity of Christian images. Henri wandered about, drawing her attention to the peculiarities of this one and that. ‘Ow odd it is,’ he said, pausing before a group of Kwan-yins, ‘Cette dame-là n’a presque pas de seins!’ ‘Ow do you say this in English, “sein?”’ he went on. ‘I am never sure. You say breast? or boosum?’

  ‘Probably bosom,’ Laura said. She could not help laughing a little, and wondering to what use Henri would put the word; if it was to tell another story to poor Miss Hande she hoped she might be there to hear it.

  ‘They should not make Mme Kwan-yin without boosums,’ pursued Henri meditatively, ‘they are most attractive in the figure. Savez-vous, Laura, this is what first please me in Miss Ingersoll, ’er boosums,’ he said, leaving the Kwan-yins and turning round to her, with a communicative stare of his large pale eyes. ‘We were at a peecnic, and ride donkeys – she makes me ride in front, and says I am not to look round, because ’er skirt is so short. I do not look round – les jambes, ça me dit peu de chose, du reste,’ said Henri, with fine detachment. ‘But when we get off I look at ’er; il faisait du vent, and ’er jersey se plaquait contre son corps, so that I ’ave seen ’er boosums. They are very pretty, Laura, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘She is most charming in every way,’ said Laura evasively.

  ‘Yes, but in particular ’er boosums. Je n’ai jamais rien vu de pareil. And she is très intelligente. Do you knoh, I think per’aps I want to marry ’er?’

  ‘Because you like her figure?’ said Laura mockingly.

  ‘Now, Laura, ne soyez pas embêtante! I like ’er very, very much. Mais il faut être raisonnable. With Americans, much more than with Englishwomen, il est indispensable de remplir ses devoirs de mari. And for that – enfin, il faut que la femme soit jolie.’

  ‘My dear Henri, the American idea of les devoirs du mari is much more comprehensive than you think. You would be expected to give up your mistresses, you know.’

  ‘Ow yes, bien sûr, for some years,’ said Henri easily. ‘But this is just what I say – she ’as great charm, she ’as du tempérament; je crois que cela pourrait marcher. Qu’en pensez-vous?’

  ‘I disapprove of international marriages altogether,’ said Laura. She felt herself in some difficulty, between her knowledge that Nina wished for the match and her own sense that it would not marcher, as Henry called it.

  ‘Mais pourquoi donc? Very often they ’ave a great success.’

  ‘And very often they are a miserable failure. Our idea of marriage is quite different to yours, Henri – you said so yourself last night.’

  ‘C’est entendu – but, my dear Laura, I think you see things trop en noir.’

  ‘Oh, well, you must do as you think best,’ said Laura, turning to go.

  ‘Non, restez encore un instant!’ he said, catching her arm. ‘You disapprove – pourquoi? Dites donc!’

  ‘You should talk to the Neviles about it,’ said Laura. ‘It’s no business of mine.’

  ‘Non!’ E is too English! ’E would understand nothing. You do understand more.’

  ‘Talk to Nina, then.’

  ‘Non! It becomes then a conseil de famille, and I ’ave not yet decided. Je ne pourrais évidemment pa
s aborder le sujet avant de me décider,’ said Henri firmly. ‘But you ’ave good judgment – en somme, vous donnez des conseils.’

  ‘I can’t give you any in this case,’ said Laura, getting cross, as she always did when driven into a corner.

  ‘Enfin, you can tell me why you disapprove? Dans ce cas particulier?’

  Could she? Laura wondered. What was the use of saying to a Frenchman, ‘You don’t love her enough?’ She and Henri meant different things by the very word ‘love’. And did anyone ever love anyone enough for happiness?

  ‘How fond are you of her?’ she asked reluctantly.

  ‘Rein que de lui toucher la main m’excite!’ he said triumphantly.

  ‘Et quand je la rencontre soudainement, ça me fait battre le coeur.’ He threw out this announcement with a naïve self-satisfaction which made Laura laugh.

  ‘Vous vous moquez de moi!’ he said reproachfully. ‘You are not nice, Laura!’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ she said. ‘Tell me, what do you talk about?’

  ‘Ow, Love; of course – and literature. She ’as pretty good taste for literature,’ he said. ‘Elle est très calée sur les écrivains modernes. Une jeune fille française would be less amusing.’

  ‘Yes, it’s all very well now, but afterwards you wouldn’t find her as accommodating as a jeune fille française,’ said Laura. ‘You must see that.’

  ‘Per’aps you are right. Comme il est difficile de se décider!’ he said, turning to her with a comically frank air of doubt. ‘I wish you would tell me truly what you think, Laura – you ’ave something up your sleeve.’

  For a moment Laura dallied again with the idea of having it all out with him there and then. She stood silent among the crowding images, vaguely aware of their quiet painted faces regarding her with cold detachment, Oriental, incomprehensible. Should she try to make him understand the situation as she saw it – Annette’s youth and pathetic ignorance, the complete superficiality of her literary experience, the enchanted unconsciousness in which she still walked through life? And the possibilities of tragedy if she were roused from it too suddenly? Unconsciously she turned towards the group representing Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy, the undefiled princess, who turned back from the gates of Paradise, so the legend goes, at the sound of a child’s crying – Kwan-yin, whose thousand mystic hands are forever stretched out to console human distress. Still, serene, beautiful in the pure flow of the lines of hands and drapery, carrying, modern as they were, the traditional grace of an ancient symbolic perfection, the Kwan-yins stood there, a score or more of them, regarding her with cool gracious composure. Remote, remote from human trouble they seemed; their antique serenity relegated present distresses to an infinite distance. All had been the same a thousand years before, said their grave almond eyes – and a thousand years hence, again all would be the same. The quality of Mercy is oblivion, Time’s great gift – and we who stand with Time above the tides of human struggle, as the moon above the sea, with a thousand hands bestow this gift on men.