by Bridge, Ann;
Last night, Laura said – and was sick; she had seemed listless in the afternoon, she heard. ‘I wasn’t there myself – some of us went to T’an Chüeh Ssu.’
‘Ah, yes – you have an episode with bandits, I hear!’ said the doctor, with an amused glance. The banditing of one’s friends and acquaintances is an invariable source of rather malicious entertainment in China. But he returned at once to the point. ‘She is how old?’
‘Twenty-three.’
He made a note. ‘And is in Peking how long?’
Barely two months, Laura told him – she was Mrs Nevile’s niece, and staying with her.
‘Ah, I see her. Do you know, has she any illness since she comes here? Any shock?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Laura. She hesitated, and then said: ‘It is sunstroke, is it?’
‘But yes, it has that look. Hyperpyrexia she has certainly, and it shall be from the sun, most probably. There can be also some septic condition, but I do not see the signs of it. She is exposed to the sun all these hours on Friday – and yesterday without the hat! – this suffices!’ He turned to go. ‘Na, auf wiedersehen, gnädige Frau! Es kann schon gehen! But I cannot promise. You stay here?’
‘I shall stay till Mrs Nevile comes,’ said Laura.
‘Schön! Schön! I see her when she comes.’ He went off, with his heavy hurried step.
Twenty minutes later Mrs Nevile arrived, rather breathless. ‘Oh yes, much better bring her here, if she’s really ill,’ was her reply to Laura’s explanations. ‘Has Dr Hertz seen her yet?’ Laura told her what had passed. ‘Hertz always thinks it’s death!’ said Nina, with the petulance of extreme worry. ‘Where is she?’
‘Here,’ said Laura, opening the door – and treading softly they went in. In the darkened room the nurses were still plying their task with damp cloths and icebags; Annette lay with closed eyes, moaning a little, her small mouth open, her hair showing dark and flattened with moisture under the pads on her brow. The sister held up a warning hand – Laura, whispering, ‘Let me hear how she goes on,’ slipped out and went back to the Legation.
In the hall she met Lilah. ‘How is she?’ Miss Milne asked at once.
‘Baddish, I’m afraid,’ Laura answered, her foot on the bottom step of the stairs. ‘But Hertz is always frightfully pessimistic.’ Small wonder, she thought to herself, as she went on up to her room and ordered a bath, if he was – she would be, if she followed the profession of medicine in Peking! People were always going off like flies, at a few hours’ notice, and half the time no one ever really knew what was the matter with them – not even Hertz, whom she, like many other people, considered to be the best doctor from Harbin to Singapore. However, Annette was young and strong – she might throw it off, she said to herself, wrestling with these gloomy thoughts as she lay in her bath. And then she heard her husband’s voice in her bedroom, ‘Laura?’
‘Yes – I’m in my bath – I’ll be out in a moment,’ she called back.
‘Don’t hurry – I’ve got to be off in two minutes. I only came in to hear how you’d enjoyed your picnic,’ boomed Henry jovially through the door. ‘I gather you had a lovely time – bandits and all! I’ve just seen La Touche for a moment in the compound. Where are the girls? Were they frightened? He said Lilah had done something rather plucky, but I was in a hurry, and I couldn’t wait to hear.’
‘Didn’t he tell you about Annette Ingersoll?’
‘No – what about her?’
‘She’s down with sunstroke – I’ve just dropped her at the German Hospital.’
‘Oh Lord! Bad?’
‘Nearly a hundred and six.’
‘That’s high enough! What’s Hertz say? ‘Ich kann nichts versprechen,’ I suppose?’
‘Yes – but I’m afraid he’s worried about her.’
‘So he may be. Poor little thing. Well, I shall be back to dinner – the Professor chap’s coming, isn’t he? I’m off to the temple now. That banana-coloured griffin is showing remarkable form, Laura – I shouldn’t wonder if he’s fit to put in for the Counsellor’s Plate.’ She heard her door bang, and Henry’s heavy departing step along the passage.
Downstairs tea was laid on the verandah. Mrs Leroy and her nieces sat among the stocks and oleanders, all rather silent. Judith’s expression reminded Laura forcibly of a boiling kettle with the lid bouncing on it, her inner effervescence was so evident under her quite sincere concern for Annette Ingersoll. ‘But she’ll get well, won’t she, Laura?’ she burst out at length. ‘It would be too – too bloody for her to die just now. Though she’s miles too good for that little worm Henri!’ she added.
‘Poor Henri! Why is he a worm?’ asked Laura, amused in spite of her anxiety by the girl’s train of thought.
‘Oh, I don’t know! He’s so – so accurate; I’m sure he makes love like a dancing master!’ said Judith impatiently. She jumped up. ‘I shall go for a turn on the wall,’ she said. ‘One can’t just sit still here and think –’ and disappeared into the house.
For some moments after her departure Mrs Leroy and her elder niece said nothing to one another. Then Lilah lit a cigarette, and blowing out a cloud of smoke, ‘I don’t think Little Annette is at all well qualified to live,’ she observed.
‘What makes you think so? Did General Nevile say anything?’ Laura asked quickly, startled.
‘No – I don’t mean her chances of recovery,’ said Lilah. ‘I can’t judge of those, poor little beast – though I should think a brainstorm was a pretty poor foundation for sunstroke. I meant generally.’
‘How did you know about her brainstorm?’ Laura asked, remembering with something of a shock how badly she had wanted to discuss this with Lilah at Chieh T’ai Ssu. She had never got the chance, and now the need was over, for the time.
‘It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it?’ said Lilah. ‘I know she talked to you, but it stuck out of her a foot, without talking.’
‘What did you make of it? I should really like to know,’ said Laura.
‘She simply wasn’t up to having a love affair with anyone, as far as I could see, any more than a child of eleven would be,’ said Lilah; ‘she hadn’t developed the capacity. And she was just beginning to find it out – but by that time she’d got herself somehow tied up with Master Henri, I imagine, and didn’t know what on earth to do about it. Really this illness will be a perfect godsend if Mrs N. has any wits at all, because it will make a break. She can take her to the sea or something afterwards, and keep him off.’
‘Do you think she ever will develop the capacity for having love affairs? The Professor wasn’t at all sure that she would,’ said Laura.
Lilah looked at her aunt a little curiously. ‘He ought to know,’ she said bluntly. ‘I shouldn’t have thought so, I must say. I think she’s quite half-baked about people. The only thing for girls like her is to marry some hundred-per-cent he-man, or whatever they call them, who’s as simple as she is, and be perfectly happy in a perfectly prep-school way forever after. It’s no good her taking on a hypercivilised European like Henri. That’s her way out, if only Nina Nevile could see it.’
‘Vinstead says there always is a way out, but not always a good one,’ said Laura meditatively, remembering his remark on the terrace.
‘What a bromide!’ said Lilah. ‘By the way, what’s his Christian name, Laura?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Mrs Leroy. She was amused and surprised to realise that this was so. Lilah was doing her good; her blunt matter-of-factness, which was not in the least unkind, had insensibly relieved the anxiety which hung over her. She forgave her the bromide – it was true, of course.
‘I gather from Judith that Master Fitzmaurice has more or less decided to chuck his ladies and become a respectable citizen,’ said Lilah, changing the subject with her usual abruptness. She looked amused and noncommittal.
‘Oh, it’s as definite as that, is it?’ said Laura. ‘Well, do you approve?’
‘I don’t think anything else would satisfy he
r – or him either, at the moment,’ said Lilah judicially. ‘It may work. She’s a pretty stiff proposition, you know,’ she said, turning on Laura her slow amused stare. ‘She’ll either make a man of him, or send him flying. But it won’t kill either of them. Hullo, there they are! That’s Judith’s idea of walking on the wall!’
Across the lawn, among the flowering trees of the upper garden, the figures of Derek and Judith came into view, walking rather more than arm-in-arm. The onlookers on the verandah saw them stop, and the girl look up into the man’s face with a happy confident gesture, before he took her by the shoulders and gave her a slight shake. It was the very diagram of a good-tempered disagreement. They moved on and were lost to sight among the trees. Laura smiled. ‘They look all right,’ she said.
‘Yes, they’re all right – for the moment,’ said Lilah. ‘Hullo, here’s His Excellency. I rather think I’ll leave you to it.’ She rose and trailed indoors through the French window of the drawing room, as Niu announced ‘Big Envoy!’ at the glass door leading from the hall.
Neat and dapper, Sir James stepped through on to the verandah. His manner expressed a mixture of gallantry and disapproval, unique to himself.
‘Well, Mrs Henry, I’m afraid you’ve had a disagreeable experience,’ he began. ‘Bit unwise, of course, these expeditions, when the country’s disturbed and all that. However, you’re looking none the worse! That’s an admirable frock!’
‘Let me make you a cocktail, Sir James,’ said Laura, as Niu and Li removed the tea things and put the cocktail tray in their place. ‘Yes – it’s after six, so it’s quite in order! Tell me,’ she went on, as she mixed the drinks, ‘what’s been happening here? We’ve heard nothing, of course.’ She thought it would be safer to ask for information than to give it, if possible.
‘Oh, Li’s all right. He and Tu really seem to be going to stand together, and freeze old Wang out,’ said Sir James. ‘In fact, the Marshal’s in great form – I was at Nan-yuan with him yesterday. Thank you – Ladies whose bright eyes –!’ he raised the glass she handed to him. But he was not to be put off. ‘These brigands you fell in with – know whose men they were?’
‘Yes, Wang’s – luckily, as things stand,’ said Laura. ‘They were some of those three battalions he disbanded the other day, and of course they were down and out – no officers, no pay, and no food.’
‘Hm! Most unfortunate, the whole thing,’ said Sir James, beginning to gnaw his moustache. ‘Most unfortunate! Tiresome if these fellohs start kicking up a fuss about the three chaps you brought back. Don’t quite see what La Touche wanted to bring them for.’
‘They’d knocked us about a good deal,’ said Laura. ‘But the real reason was because we saw them murder a monk. I think the Yamen will want to have them for that, you know.’ She began to laugh. ‘Sir James, you can have some fun with Dr Schuyler over this! We’d half decided to let them go, to save a fuss, and it was Miss Hande who insisted on having them brought to justice – a full-blown hundred-per-cent. American citizen!’
‘Miss Hande? Who’s she? That writing woman at the MA’s?’
‘Yes – but the writing woman, as you call her, is a famous novelist,’ said Laura. ‘She’s a quite enormous noise! You tell Dr Schuyler it was her doing. It’s a lovely situation!’
Sir James was tickled. ‘Quite good! Quite good! You’ll bear witness, dear lady?’
‘Six of us will bear witness,’ said Laura, laughing again.
But Sir James was not mollified for long.
‘Unlucky, though, our fellohs going out! Armed forces operating on Chinese soil! Most irregular! Can’t think what they’ll say about it at home. I don’t know what La Touche was thinking of.’
‘I expect he would have been thinking of saving our lives,’ said Laura rather coldly. ‘But in point of fact it wasn’t he who sent for them.’
‘Who did, then? Jeudwine said he had a message from La Touche.’
‘Sir James, it’s rather awful, and you must help me if you can,’ said Laura, suddenly looking very troubled. ‘It was really my fault, and what Henry will say I can’t think. Will you help me?’
‘My dear lady, of course, of course. But how on earth do you come into it?’ said Sir James, gallantry visibly overcoming disapproval – his real kindness, Laura knew, was seldom appealed to in vain. She knew quite well what Henry would say when she told him the story of Hubbard’s performance – he would guffaw till the furniture shook, and give Hubbard ten dollars. But it really was important to get the Minister well set on blanketing the whole affair, and making no scapegoats – the most obvious animals in this category being Jeudwine and Derek, neither of whom was in any way in fault. So she told Sir James of Hubbard’s false message with a considerable appearance of distress, and of anxiety for the results to herself and Henry if there were any sort of official fuss over the matter. Sir James rose to the occasion – he was shrewd enough to see that Li Ch’ing-hui, the Marshal, would be very unlikely to make any trouble over the decapitation of three of his rival’s common soldiers; and as for Peking gossip – always a factor, though a minor one – Miss Hande’s action put the Americans in the hollow of his hand, if they should try to make capital out of the episode. He was encouraging and kind. There need be no official commotion. ‘No, no – don’t you worry, Mrs Henry – your maid’s little game shan’t get you into trouble.’
At this point Niu entered with a chit book and two notes, for which Laura signed. The book was Nina’s, and one of the notes was from her, asking Laura to go round as soon as she could. ‘The packs have not been very successful yet, but the Schwester is still hopeful.’ The other note was in a strange handwriting, and Laura’s pulse gave a little jump as she guessed whose script it was that she was seeing for the first time. She was right – it was from Vinstead, to excuse himself from dining with them. ‘I cannot imagine that you will want a guest in the circumstances. Mrs Nevile remains optimistic, but personally I have little hope.’ The signature was A. Vinstead. She made her excuses to Sir James and went off to Nina.
Late that night Professor Vinstead was in his room at the Neviles’. He was in bed, but he was neither sleeping nor reading, though a book lay open on the quilt near his hand. The mental discomfort of acute anxiety lay over the whole house. Mrs Nevile had been fetched back at half past eight by her husband from the hospital, where her presence was of no use – but a telephone message had been received at ten o’clock to say that Annette Ingersoll was now unconscious. Vinstead had taken himself off to his room early, anxious to relieve them of his presence, and equally anxious to be alone. He had been doing some pretty hard thinking all day, and had travelled a considerable distance from his position of even twenty-four hours ago. He saw at last in its true perspective, or so he thought, his long-cherished attitude of aloof avoidance of sex and emotion – no longer as something wise and lofty, but as a thing in itself crippling and deforming; saw at last that the secret of life is to abandon all our own inner pretensions to superiority. Man cannot be a god; he must accept the normal human lot, with all the humiliations it imposes – the ardours, the pangs, the butterfly joys and the long cold sorrows; the small things with the great. This he had come to see; and lying half in the narrow circle of the light from the bedside lamp, staring into the shadows of the room, he was endeavouring to make a rational application of it to his own case – embracing the spears of a new torment, making his surrender to a suffering he had avoided for years, which yet held, for him as for everyone, the vital springs of life.
Suddenly there was a knock at his door.
‘Come in!’ he called, and there entered, longer and leaner than ever in a dressing gown, the long lean figure of his host. General Nevile limped across the room; he was carrying a small box in one hand, and a bottle in the other.
‘You’d better have one of these,’ he said, setting down the bottle, and opening the box, which contained several large white cachets.
‘What is it?’ Vinstead asked.
; ‘Santonin,’ replied the General briefly.
Vinstead had never kept dogs, and the reply conveyed nothing to him. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
The General explained what Santonin was. ‘We always take it after a spell in the hills or anywhere – as a precautionary measure,’ he said, with his gloomy grin. ‘This is Epsom salts’ – he touched the bottle – ‘take a good tot of that tomorrow morning, and castor oil tomorrow night, and you ought to be all right. Goodnight,’ and he limped out again.
Vinstead took his cachet, as he was bidden, and lay back in bed again. The current of his thoughts had been changed by the General’s entrance – his mind was fetched up with a jerk by this last episode, and from thinking of his own emotions and problems, he fell to brooding on the oddity of the whole weekend. He had been on a picnic with a number of total strangers; they had been captured by brigands, and rescued again; a girl had got sunstroke and lay at the point of death; he himself had fallen in love more violently and completely than ever before; and finally his host had come to him and administered a worm powder. ‘I suppose that is Peking,’ he murmured to himself, and fell asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ON THE following morning Mrs Leroy was sitting on the verandah, finishing her breakfast alone. Letters, in England such an accessory of the breakfast table, are absent from it in Peking – the daily flight of chits round the city does not begin much before 11 a.m., and the rather uncertain mail comes in, when it does come, towards midday. She was reading the typed Reuter’s sheets with the latest news, which are distributed in the Legation. A couple of flower sellers had set down their round flat wicker trays, full of pots of small monthly roses in full bloom, at the foot of the verandah steps, and with loud and persistent shouts drew her attention to the beauty and value of their wares – at intervals Mrs Leroy, without looking up, mentioned a lower price, and then went on with her reading. Presently Niu announced ‘Ha Kuniang!’ Laura rose and went indoors, followed by screams from the flower sellers, who on seeing her disappear immediately dropped their price by another third – she paid no attention to them, but walked into the drawing room, where she found Miss Hande.