Peking Picnic

by Bridge, Ann;

  The supreme characteristic of the Chinese is their inconsequence. As rapidly as it had arisen, the storm subsided. Something like friendliness succeeded to hostility and bullying. Her hands were freed, and she showed Derek’s card. The others were also released, and the Number One, impressed by the p’ien-tzu, even offered some kind of apology. He retired into a corner to take counsel with a sort of Soviet of six or seven other T’ao-pings, while the little party, rubbing their wrists, sat down again on their stools and lit much-needed cigarettes. They all had rather the sleepy confused sensations of relief with which one comes to after an anæsthetic. The stools were occupied by soldiers, but Laura, determined to hold the ground momentarily gained, quietly turned them off with the single word, ‘Ours.’

  ‘Phew! That was a go!’ said Derek, wiping the dust off his face. ‘What did you tell them, Laura?’

  ‘Have you any brandy?’ Laura asked, ignoring his question. Judith was sitting in a rather crumpled attitude on her stool, her head against the wall, her eyes shut again – a case for brandy, if ever there was one; she herself felt that she could do with some very well indeed. She felt cold too, but most of all she wanted something normal to do, like drinking, to shake off the sense of nightmare which kept surging sickly over her whenever she looked in the direction of the grey figures with rifles just across the little court.

  However, Derek had no brandy. They had to make do with cigarettes as a restorative, and conversation. Laura translated her speech for the benefit of the rest, and Vinstead began discussing this last episode with Miss Hande. He was no doubt right to try, but it was not a great success; their nerves were too stunned, the suspense as to what was to come next was still too acute. Presently the Number One and the Soviet approached. They were clearly rather undecided, but Mrs Leroy gathered that a search would be made for Lilah. Rather cautiously the Soviet opened the subject of a ransom. Laura, still on the haughty line, said that she must discuss this at great length with the Commander-in-Chief and the Third Envoy. Time was, of course, now their object, since Lilah had got out – if she got back to Chieh T’ai Ssu, help would presumably be forthcoming sometime. So she temporised, and asked to be left to consider it quietly – also they would like some tea. This the Soviet undertook to produce, and retired. Laura looked at her watch. It was five minutes to four. No one, of course, knew when Lilah had got out – but she had left them, ostensibly to hide her trinkets, some time before Judith had seen Niu; and that was at two o’clock, as Derek had remarked. By now she ought to be well on her way, they reckoned.

  ‘Anyone got a cigarette?’ Derek asked presently. ‘Mine are done.’

  A census produced a gloomy result. Judith had two, Vinstead four, Laura one. Miss Hande did not smoke. They were all rather shaken by their recent experiences, and they were, moreover, beginning to feel the lack of food – except for a cocktail and a cup of soup, none of them had had anything to eat since breakfast, eight hours before. Tobacco was their one resource, and there was very little of it – seven cigarettes between the four of them. Vinstead had a slab of chocolate, which he offered to Miss Hande; at her instance they had a piece all round, and felt better.

  ‘Hullo, now what’s up?’ Derek exclaimed suddenly. A fresh commotion was taking place in the passage. The soldiers crowded together, jabbering and pointing – shouts of Liu-kö (the sixth), came to their ears.

  ‘Goodness, surely they haven’t got Lilah!’ Laura exclaimed in dismay, catching a glimpse of a figure in European dress among the crowding grey uniforms. But as they parted to allow the newcomer passage, she fairly gasped with astonishment. No, they hadn’t got Lilah – with a simper of respectful triumph on her ugly little face, a flask of eau-de-Cologne grasped firmly in one hand, and her small brown handbag in the other, into the corner courtyard walked Hubbard, the maid.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ‘WELL, MADAM, this is a proper do, as you might say,’ was Hubbard’s first observation, when the exclamations of astonishment had begun to subside.

  ‘But how on earth did you get here?’ Laura repeated; she had asked this before. ‘Where did they capture you?’

  ‘They didn’t capture me, madam,’ said Hubbard firmly; ‘I came in. When I heard from Miss Lilah that you was in here, among these brutes, I thought, “Well, my mistress must have someone to see after her,” so I made that Niu bring me in.’

  ‘But, Hubbard,’ Laura interrupted, ‘where did you meet Miss Lilah? And how did you come to be here at all?’

  ‘Why, madam, you said I could take the weekend if I wanted, and I came out yesterday to this hotel place – Barter Jew, they call it – such names!’ – said Hubbard, with her usual discreet giggle – ‘with some friends, you understand. So today, we decided to come over here for a picnic, and a look-see. Of course, I didn’t know you was here, then, madam,’ said Hubbard rather deprecatingly. ‘So when we get to the top of the hill, where you start to come down, who should we meet but Niu. Oh, he was in a stew! “T’ai-t’ai!” he kept on, “T’ai-t’ai” – and waving down here – but really, he is that dumb, if you’ll pardon the word, madam, that not a bit of sense could I get out of him.’

  ‘Poor Niu!’ said Laura, as Hubbard paused for breath. It was plain that he had not deserted them after all, and no doubt it was he whom Judith had seen. ‘Well, go on, Hubbard. Where did you meet Miss Lilah?’

  ‘Why, madam, as I was talking to him – and really, I could have shaken him for his witlessness! – up comes Miss Lilah. And she told me you was all in here, sort of prisoners. Her poor dress!’ Hubbard threw in, parenthetically. ‘Green and ruined! I said to her, “Whatever have you been doing to yourself, miss?” “Oh,” she says, in her way, “I climbed out.”’

  ‘There!’ said Judith. ‘What did I say, Laura?’

  ‘Well, what next, Hubbard? Where is she now?’ asked Laura. She knew that the maid was enjoying her epic, and would not be prevented from telling it in her own way, but she had to poke her on.

  ‘Ah, that I couldn’t say, madam. She said she should go on to that Jay Tie Sir, and tell the Major, and straight on she went, without another word, before we could stop her.’

  ‘Goodness! I hope she’ll be all right,’ said Laura. ‘She’ll never find the way.’

  ‘So I thought, madam – but you know what Miss Lilah is,’ said Hubbard, with resignation. ‘I thought to myself – “That will take some time, and then the Major will have to send word in to Peking somehow – by the telephone from Barter Jew, most likely – and he’s got to get there. And it will be pretty well tomorrow before anyone can get here – to do any good, that is.” So I thought perhaps I had better arrange something myself. I hope I did right, madam?’

  ‘What did you do, Hubbard?’ Laura asked, with the liveliest possible curiosity for the answer.

  ‘Well, madam, you see my friends and me, we had our donkeys. So they reckoned that they could gallop back to Barter Jew in just under the two hours, downhill most of the way.’

  ‘Yes, they would do that, just about,’ interjected Derek.

  ‘Yes, sir. So I said they should do that, and get on the telephone to the Legation Guard, and tell them to send out some men and machine guns, quick, up to Tanjy Sir, because you was all imprisoned here, madam. I gave them the names, wrote down. “Say it’s Major La Touche’s orders,” I said, “and urgent. And our Legation, mind – none of your doughboys,” I said to them – you see my friends were from the American Guard,’ explained Hubbard, with an expression of extreme smugness.

  ‘God bless my soul!’ exclaimed Mrs Leroy, rather staggered by this Napoleonic activity on the part of her servant. ‘Who was the message to be sent to, Hubbard? Mr Leroy?’

  ‘Oh, no, madam. Mr Leroy is out at the Temple today – with the new horses, madam. I said the message was to be sent to Lieutenant Jeudwine. He’s on duty. Captain Hughes is gone to the Ming Tombs, madam. But the Sergeant knows the way here, and he’s on duty too. I was here on a picnic with him once,’ said Hubbard, looking
smug again.

  Laura nearly laughed. Hubbard’s intelligence service was, as usual, perfect – she knew to a hair where everyone was, and who to apply to. None of them could have done better, if as well. It was not only a tour de force, it was also an immense relief to know that help had been summoned so quickly. Nevertheless, a doubt or two still remained in her mind. Would poor little Harry Jeudwine accept such a message? He would be frightfully bothered. And if he applied to Sir James, there would certainly be delays and cautions.

  ‘The Minister will be dreadfully worried,’ she said, uttering part of the last thought aloud.

  ‘Sir James is gone to the races at Nan-something; the Chinese races, madam; with this Lee – the Marshal as they call him, so Mr Perks said.’ (Perks was Sir James’s valet.) ‘Sir James was not dressing, I heard – so he would be back late. They’ll very likely be here before he commences to worry,’ said Hubbard primly, but her praeternaturally discreet expression and pinched mouth told more clearly than words that she had her own views of Sir James and his worryings.

  ‘Well, that’s one mercy!’ said Derek, with his usual lack of discretion. ‘Thank God he’s out of the way.’

  ‘Nonsense, Derek,’ said Mrs Leroy reprovingly. ‘But I don’t quite see,’ she went on, ‘how they would get out here, even if Jeudwine acts on the message.’

  ‘Lieutenant Jeudwine has his car, madam – and Captain Hughes hasn’t taken his out today – he went with a party. And there’s the Conference car. I mentioned that – cars I said it was to be, madam – or rather I said the Major said so,’ said Hubbard, looking very self-satisfied.

  ‘Well done, Hubbard! You are a champion!’ exclaimed Derek.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Hubbard; but she looked at her mistress.

  ‘Well, thank you, Hubbard. I think you’ve done very well,’ said Laura, in a temperate sort of tone, which filled Judith with indignation – she would have liked to crown Hubbard with laurels on the spot. But Hubbard seemed quite content.

  ‘Thank you, madam. And what I was going to say, have you plenty of cigarettes? Because if not, I didn’t know if you would care to accept these – if you’ll excuse me.’

  So saying, Hubbard most unexpectedly removed the white felt hat which was perched on her black frizzy hair; the hat was lined with red silk, for the sun, and from the crown, inside the lining, she produced a mass of cigarettes. They were of five or six different sorts, all cheap and all Virginian, but there were nearly fifty of them.

  ‘Crikey! How marvellous! Where on earth did you get these, Hubbard?’ said Derek. ‘We were nearly out.’

  ‘My friends, sir. I thought to myself, madam will be nowhere without her cigarettes, and she didn’t take all that many with her. And they could get plenty more at Barter Jew, so I took up a collection, like,’ said Hubbard, smirking demurely. ‘They’re not very good ones, I’m afraid.’

  This time Laura’s response was not temperate. ‘Hubbard, you’re a jewel!’

  On the whole the comfort of Hubbard’s arrival was immense, and her news astonishingly good. Mrs Leroy might have some lingering doubts as to how much action the unhappy Lieutenant Jeudwine would take, and some prudent diplomatic ones as to what Henry and the Minister would say about it all, but the broad fact remained that the alarm had been given, and given thoroughly, much more quickly than it could have been by Lilah, going back to Chieh T’ai Ssu. They had already experienced relief when the T’ao-pings left off knocking them about, but that was more in the nature of a brief respite – this was likely to be permanent, and their spirits rose. Their position was still not too comfortable – they were hungry, they had only the hard wicker stools to sit on; the T’ao-pings, crowding at one side of the court, filled the air with garlic fumes, and the corpse of the dead guard still lay under the wall; but they had a definite prospect of safety and escape to look forward to, and that was much. Hubbard, with professional zeal, offered to arrange Miss Hande’s hair, which since her shaking hung in rather dissipated loops from under her hat, and they retired, with the maid’s little brown bag, to the pavilion; while Judith and Laura, with the two men, remained, smoking the good gaspers of which Hubbard had plundered her ‘doughboys’.

  ‘That’s a most remarkable woman,’ observed Vinstead, nodding in the direction of the pavilion.

  ‘What, Miss Hande? Yes, wasn’t she splendid?’ said Mrs Leroy.

  ‘Well, she was, but I meant this other person – your maid, is she?’

  ‘Oh, Hubbard!’ Laura laughed. ‘She’s a marvel.’

  ‘I couldn’t quite follow it all – who these friends of hers were, and how she happened to be here,’ he pursued; the relief inclined even the Professor to chat on rather trivial lines.

  ‘Oh, her friends were men in the American Legation Guard, NCOs, probably. You wouldn’t think it, but Hubbard is a complete vamp,’ said Mrs Leroy, laughing again. ‘They have immense pay, and often take their friends out for weekends – two or three maids or nurses go together, to chaperone one another, more or less. This time they were all at the hotel at Pa-ta-Ch’u, at the foot of the hills beyond the Hun-ho, and just happened to come over here for a jaunt.’

  ‘Oh, that’s what she meant by Barter Jew – I couldn’t think,’ said Judith.

  ‘Hubbard is so funny about Chinese,’ said Laura. ‘She won’t attempt to learn it, or pronounce even the names. She’s just like the Tommies were in France about that – she uses the nearest English word, and makes that do.’

  ‘Talking of Barter Jew,’ said Derek, ‘I wonder when these pals of hers will get there. When did they start?’

  ‘She got here just about four,’ said Judith. ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Yes, but they must have started before that.’

  ‘Go and ask if she knows, Judith,’ said Mrs Leroy.

  ‘No, here, I’ll go – you sit still,’ said Derek, springing up.

  ‘You may not be too welcome at the toilette, Derek,’ said Mrs Leroy.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ He relapsed a little sulkily, while Judith sped off. ‘She looks awfully done up,’ he said reproachfully to Laura. ‘You shouldn’t fag her too much. She’s had a pretty good doing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ said Mrs Leroy tranquilly. She realised what nervous strain and physical violence, and the reaction from them, had probably done to Derek’s emotions about Judith, and rather welcomed this evidence of the fact. Indeed she wondered that no one had as yet been particularly cross. That, no doubt, would come.

  It did come, and at once.

  ‘Mrs Leroy has had a pretty good doing too, I think,’ said Vinstead rather blandly. ‘After all, she’s had all the strain of dealing with these fellows. She’s simply carried the lot of us – we’ve done nothing.’

  Derek was nettled at once.

  ‘Well, she can talk their cursed lingo,’ he said. ‘I can’t – or I would like a shot. But she is more or less accustomed to this sort of thing, and it’s all new to Judith. It must be a frightful shock to her.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, Derek,’ said Laura quickly, to prevent Vinstead’s replying. ‘And I will look after her. Lilah is really the heroine of this occasion,’ she went on. ‘If she hadn’t climbed out even the redoubtable Hubbard couldn’t have functioned.’

  ‘You seem to me to have done a good deal too,’ said Vinstead, with a certain warmth. ‘As far as I can see, but for you we might all have been dead before any help came. Do you really feel all right?’ he asked her, leaning towards her solicitously.

  ‘No – I’m hungry and cross!’ said Mrs Leroy, with a little smile which belied her words.

  ‘She says they went off at a quarter past two,’ said Judith, flying back and reseating herself. ‘But it took her ages to get in. She made “that Niu” as she calls him, bring her down here and translate for her and get her up to us. She was so funny. “I couldn’t make him understand, miss,” she said. “Waw, I said – waw, t’ai-t’ai.” What does “waw” mean?’

  ‘Means I,’ said
Derek.

  ‘Oh, that was it. She said, “He was that stubborn, I could have eaten him, yellow as he is!”’ Judith reproduced Hubbard’s mincing emphasis so precisely that they all laughed.

  ‘Two-fifteen,’ said Laura, and looked at her watch. ‘Well, it’s ten to five now. They should have got to Pa-ta-Ch’u at least by four-fifteen.’

  ‘And then they’ve got to telephone,’ said Derek.

  They went on reckoning it out. If the line was not cut, and they got a connection quickly, and if Jeudwine acted at once, unhindered, and none of the cars were out of action, the relief party ought to get to Men-t’ou-kou by about seven-fifteen. And then there was the walk up. Laura thought this took an hour and a quarter – Derek said all but cripples would do it in an hour. ‘Machine guns are rather crippling,’ said Vinstead.

  ‘Well, call it eight-thirty, “at a conservative estimate”,’ said Derek. ‘That gives us three and a half hours to go. I wish those fellows would bring us that tea! Can’t you poke them up, Laura?’

  Laura said she would rather not. ‘The longer everything takes, the better. I’m so afraid of their moving us on somewhere else. Don’t look too pleased with yourself, Derek, or you may make them suspect that we have something up our sleeve. If they cart us off somewhere we’re done again.’

  ‘How am I to look, then? Gloomy and proud?’ said Derek. ‘Curzonian?’

  ‘Depressed,’ said Mrs Leroy shortly. Derek at the moment looked anything but depressed. He was sitting beside Judith, lighting her cigarette, arranging his coat as a cushion for her back – there were little questions and answers and touches and undertones passing between them all the time, alongside the other conversation. Vinstead too looked perkier than she had seen him do yet, and in the hours which followed displayed an open interest and solicitude for her welfare which startled not only herself, but, she could see, Miss Hande as well. In spite of his habitual contenu manner, there was about him a curious air of a person who has abandoned something – stripped off, as it were, a garment for some plunge. Without being able to define this impression, Laura was aware of and a little disturbed by it, in spite of her other preoccupations.