come to look at it calmly you'll be all right. It'll be the sort of
experience that not everyone has had."
"I thought, I thought . . ."
She rocked to and fro in an agony. He did not speak, and once more his
face wore that sullen look which till lately she had never known. Kitty
was not crying now. She was dry-eyed, calm, and though her voice was low
it was steady.
"Do you want me to go?"
"It's Hobson's choice, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"It's only fair to you to tell you that if your husband brought an
action for divorce and won it I should not be in a position to marry
you."
It must have seemed an age to him before she answered. She rose slowly
to her feet.
"I don't think that my husband ever thought of bringing an action."
"Then why in God's name have you been frightening me out of my wits?" he
asked.
She looked at him coolly.
"He knew that you'd let me down."
She was silent. Vaguely, as when you are studying a foreign language and
read a page which at first you can make nothing of, till a word or a
sentence gives you a clue; and on a sudden a suspicion, as it were, of
the sense flashes across your troubled wits, vaguely she gained an
inkling into the workings of Walter's mind. It was like a dark and
ominous landscape seen by a flash of lightning and in a moment hidden
again by the night. She shuddered at what she saw.
"He made that threat only because he knew that you'd crumple up at it,
Charlie. It's strange that he should have judged you so accurately. It
was just like him to expose me to such a cruel disillusion."
Charlie looked down at the sheet of blotting paper in front of him. He
was frowning a little and his mouth was sulky. But he did not reply.
"He knew that you were vain, cowardly and self-seeking. He wanted me to
see it with my own eyes. He knew that you'd run like a hare at the
approach of danger. He knew how grossly deceived I was in thinking that
you were in love with me, because he knew that you were incapable of
loving anyone but yourself. He knew you'd sacrifice me without a pang to
save your own skin."
"If it really gives you any satisfaction to say beastly things to me I
suppose I've got no right to complain. Women always are unfair and they
generally manage to put a man in the wrong. But there is something to be
said on the other side."
She took no notice of his interruption.
"And now I know all that he knew. I know that you're callous and
heartless. I know that you're selfish, selfish beyond words, and I know
that you haven't the nerve of a rabbit, I know you're a liar and a
humbug, I know that you're utterly contemptible. And the tragic part
is"--her face was on a sudden distraught with pain--"the tragic part is
that notwithstanding I love you with all my heart."
"Kitty."
She gave a bitter laugh. He had spoken her name in that melting, rich
tone of his which came to him so naturally and meant so little.
"You fool," she said.
He drew back quickly, flushing and offended; he could not make her out.
She gave him a look in which there was a glint of amusement.
"You're beginning to dislike me, aren't you? Well, dislike me. It
doesn't make any difference to me now."
She began to put on her gloves.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Oh, don't be afraid, you'll come to no harm. You'll be quite safe."
"For God's sake, don't talk like that, Kitty," he answered and his deep
voice rang with anxiety. "You must know that everything that concerns
you concerns me. I shall be frightfully anxious to know what happens.
What are you going to say to your husband?"
"I'm going to tell him that I'm prepared to go to Mei-tan-fu with him."
"Perhaps when you consent he won't insist."
He could not have known why, when he said this, she looked at him so
strangely.
"You're not really frightened?" he asked her.
"No," she said. "You've inspired me with courage. To go into the midst
of a cholera epidemic will be a unique experience and if I die of
it--well, I die."
"I was trying to be as kind to you as I could."
She looked at him again. Tears sprang into her eyes once more and her
heart was very full. The impulse was almost irresistible to fling
herself on his breast and crush her lips against his. It was no use.
"If you want to know," she said, trying to keep her voice steady, "I go
with death in my heart and fear. I do not know what Walter has in that
dark, twisted mind of his, but I'm shaking with terror. I think it may
be that death will be really a release."
She felt that she could not hold on to her self control for another
moment. She walked swiftly to the door and let herself out before he had
time to move from his chair. Townsend gave a long sigh of relief. He
badly wanted a brandy and soda.
_xxvii_
Walter was in when she got home. She would have liked to go straight to
her room, but he was downstairs, in the hall, giving instructions to one
of the boys. She was so wretched that she welcomed the humiliation to
which she must expose herself. She stopped and faced him.
"I'm coming with you to that place," she said.
"Oh, good."
"When do you want me to be ready?"
"To-morrow night."
She did not know what spirit of bravado entered into her. His
indifference was like the prick of a spear. She said a thing that
surprised herself.
"I suppose I needn't take more than a few summer things and a shroud,
need I?"
She was watching his face and knew that her flippancy angered him.
"I've already told your amah what you'll want."
She nodded and went up to her room. She was very pale.
_xxviii_
They were reaching their destination at last. They were borne in chairs,
day after day, along a narrow causeway between interminable rice-fields.
They set out at dawn and travelled till the heat of the day forced them
to take shelter in a wayside inn and then went on again till they
reached the town where they had arranged to spend the night. Kitty's
chair headed the procession and Walter followed her; then in a
straggling line came the coolies that bore their bedding, stores and
equipment. Kitty passed through the country with unseeing eyes. All
through the long hours, the silence broken only by an occasional remark
from one of the bearers or a snatch of uncouth song, she turned over in
her tortured mind the details of that heart-rending scene in Charlie's
office. Recalling what he had said to her and what she had said to him,
she was dismayed to see what an arid and business-like turn their
conversation had taken. She had not said what she wanted to say and she
had not spoken in the tone she intended. Had she been able to make him
see her boundless love, the passion in her heart, and her helplessness,
he could never have been so inhuman as to leave her to her fate. She had
been taken unawares. She could hardly believe her ears when he told her,
more clearly than with words, that he cared nothing for her. That was
why she had not even cried very much, she had been so dazed. She had
wept since, wept miserably.
At night in the inns, sharing the principal guest chamber with her
husband and conscious that Walter, lying on his camp bed, a few feet
away from her, lay awake, she dug her teeth in the pillow so that no
sound might escape her. But in the daytime, protected by the curtains of
her chair, she allowed herself to give way. Her pain was so great that
she could have screamed at the top of her voice; she had never known
that one could suffer so much; and she asked herself desperately what
she had done to deserve it. She could not make out why Charlie did not
love her: it was her fault, she supposed, but she had done everything
she knew to make him fond of her. They had always got on so well, they
laughed all the time they were together, they were not only lovers but
good friends. She could not understand; she was broken. She told herself
that she hated and despised him; but she had no idea how she was going
to live if she was never to see him again. If Walter was taking her to
Mei-tan-fu as a punishment he was making a fool of himself, for what did
she care now what became of her? She had nothing to live for any more.
It was rather hard to be finished with life at twenty-seven.
_xxix_
On the steamer that took them up the Western River Walter read
incessantly, but at meal-times he endeavoured to make some kind of
conversation. He talked to her as though she were a stranger with whom
he happened to be making the journey, of indifferent things, from
politeness, Kitty imagined, or because so he could render more marked
the gulf that separated them.
In a flash of insight she had told Charlie that Walter had sent her to
him with the threat of divorce as the alternative to her accompanying
him to the stricken city in order that she might see for herself how
indifferent, cowardly and selfish he was. It was true. It was a trick
which accorded very well with his sardonic humour. He knew exactly what
would happen and he had given her amah necessary instructions before her
return. She had caught in his eyes a disdain which seemed to include her
lover as well as herself. He said to himself, perhaps, that if he had
been in Townsend's place nothing in the world would have hindered him
from making any sacrifice to gratify her smallest whim. She knew that
was true also. But then, when her eyes were opened, how could he make
her do something which was so dangerous, and which he must know
frightened her so terribly? At first she thought he was only playing
with her and till they actually started, no, later, till they left the
river and took to the chairs for the journey across country, she thought
he would give that little laugh of his and tell her that she need not
come. She had no inkling what was in his mind. He could not really
desire her death. He had loved her so desperately. She knew what love
was now and she remembered a thousand signs of his adoration. For him
really, in the French phrase, she did make fine weather and foul. It was
impossible that he did not love her still. Did you cease to love a
person because you had been treated cruelly? She had not made him suffer
as Charlie had made her suffer and yet, if Charlie made a sign,
notwithstanding everything, even though she knew him now, she would
abandon all the world had to offer and fly to his arms. Even though he
had sacrificed her and cared nothing for her, even though he was callous
and unkind, she loved him.
At first she thought that she had only to bide her time, and sooner or
later Walter would forgive her. She had been too confident of her power
over him to believe that it was gone for ever. Many waters could not
quench love. He was weak if he loved her, and she felt that love her he
must. But now she was not quite sure. When in the evening he sat reading
in the straight-backed blackwood chair of the inn with the light of a
hurricane lamp on his face she was able to watch him at her ease. She
lay on the pallet on which her bed presently would be set and she was in
shadow. Those straight, regular features of his made his face look very
severe. You could hardly believe that it was possible for them on
occasion to be changed by so sweet a smile. He was able to read as
calmly as though she were a thousand miles away; she saw him turn the
pages and she saw his eyes move regularly as they travelled from line to
line. He was not thinking of her. And when, the table being set and
dinner brought in, he put aside his book and gave her a glance (not
knowing how the light on his face threw into distinctness his
expression), she was startled to see in his eyes a look of physical
distaste. Yes, it startled her. Was it possible that his love had left
him entirely? Was it possible that he really designed her death? It was
absurd. That would be the act of a madman. It was odd, the little shiver
that ran through her as the thought occurred to her that perhaps Walter
was not quite sane.
_xxx_
Suddenly her bearers, long silent, began to speak and one of them,
turning round, with words she could not understand and with a gesture,
sought to attract her attention. She looked in the direction he pointed
and there, on the top of a hill, saw an archway; she knew by now that it
was a memorial in compliment of a fortunate scholar or a virtuous widow,
she had passed many of them since they left the river; but this one,
silhouetted against the westering sun, was more fantastic and beautiful
than any she had seen. Yet, she knew not why, it made her uneasy; it had
a significance which she felt but could not put into words: Was it a
menace that she vaguely discerned or was it derision? She was passing a
grove of bamboos and they leaned over the causeway strangely as if they
would detain her; though the summer evening was windless their narrow
green leaves shivered a little. It gave her the sensation that someone
hidden among them was watching her as she passed. Now they came to the
foot of the hill and the rice-fields ceased. The bearers took it with a
swinging stride. The hill was covered close with little green mounds,
close, close to one another, so that the ground was ribbed like the
sea-sand when the tide has gone out; and this she knew too, for she had
passed just such a spot as they approached each populous city and left
it. It was the graveyard. Now she knew why the bearers had called her
attention to the archway that stood on the crest of the hill: they had
reached the end of their journey.
They passed through the archway and the chair-bearers paused to change
the pole from shoulder to shoulder. One of them wiped his sweating face
with a dirty rag. The causeway wound down. There were bedraggled houses
on each side. Now the night was falling. But the bearers on a sudden
broke into excited talk and with a jump that shook her ranged themselves
as near as they could to the wall. In a moment she knew what had
startled them, for as they stood there, chattering to one another, four
peasants passed, quick and silent, bearing a new coffin, unpainted, and
its fresh wood gleamed white in the approaching darkness. Kitty felt her
heart beat in terror against her ribs. The coffin passed, but the
bearers stood still; it seemed as though they could not summon up the
will to go on. But there was a shout from behind and they started. They
did not speak now.
They walked for a few minutes longer and then turned sharply into an
open gateway. The chair was set down. She had arrived.
_xxxi_
It was a bungalow and she entered the sitting-room. She sat down while
the coolies, straggling in one by one, brought in their loads. Walter in
the courtyard gave directions where this or that was to be placed. She
was very tired. She was startled to hear an unknown voice.
"May I come in?"
She flushed and grew pale. She was overwrought and it made her nervous
to meet a stranger. A man came out of the darkness, for the long low
room was lit only by a shaded lamp, and held out his hand.
"My name is Waddington. I am the Deputy Commissioner."
"Oh, the Customs. I know. I heard that you were here."
In that dim light she could see only that he was a little thin man, no
taller than she, with a bald head and a small, bare face.
"I live just at the bottom of the hill, but coming in this way you
wouldn't have seen my house. I thought you'd be too fagged to come and
dine with me, so I've ordered your dinner here and I've invited myself."
"I'm delighted to hear it."
"You'll find the cook's not bad. I kept on Watson's boys for you."
"Watson was the missionary who was here?"
"Yes. Very nice fellow. I'll show you his grave to-morrow if you like."
"How kind you are," said Kitty, with a smile.
At that moment Walter came in. Waddington had introduced himself to him
before coming in to see Kitty and now he said:
"I've just been breaking it to your missus that I'm dining with you.
Since Watson died I haven't had anybody much to talk to but the nuns,
and I can never do myself justice in French. Besides, there is only a
limited number of subjects you can talk to them about."
"I've just told the boy to bring in some drinks," said Walter.
The servant brought whisky and soda and Kitty noticed that Waddington
helped himself generously. His manner of speaking and his easy chuckle
had suggested to her when he came in that he was not quite sober.
"Here's luck," he said. Then, turning to Walter: "You've got your work
cut out for you here. They're dying like flies. The magistrate's lost
his head and Colonel Yü, the officer commanding the troops, is having a
devil of a job to prevent them from looting. If something doesn't happen
soon we shall all be murdered in our beds. I tried to get the nuns to
go, but of course they wouldn't. They all want to be martyrs, damn
them."
He spoke lightly and there was in his voice a sort of ghostly laughter
so that you could not listen to him without smiling.
"Why haven't you gone?" asked Walter.
"Well, I've lost half my staff and the others are ready to lie down and
die at any minute. Somebody's got to stay and keep things together."
"Have you been inoculated?"
"Yes. Watson did me. But he did himself too, and it didn't do him much
good, poor blighter." He turned to Kitty and his funny little face was
gaily puckered. "I don't think there's any great risk if you take proper
precautions. Have your milk and water boiled and don't eat fresh fruit
or uncooked vegetables. Have you brought any gramophone records with
you?"
"No, I don't think so," said Kitty.
"I'm sorry for that. I was hoping you would. I haven't had any for a
long time and I'm sick of my old ones."
The boy came in to ask if they would have dinner.
"You won't dress to-night, will you?" asked Waddington. "My boy died
last week and the boy I have now is a fool, so I haven't been dressing
in the evening."
"I'll go and take off my hat," said Kitty.
Her room was next door to that in which they sat. It was barely
furnished. An amah was kneeling on the floor, the lamp beside her,
unpacking Kitty's things.
_xxxii_
The dining-room was small and the greater part of it was filled by an
immense table. On the walls were engravings of scenes from the Bible and
illuminated texts.
"Missionaries always have large dining-tables," Waddington explained.
"They get so much a year more for every child they have and they buy
their tables when they marry so that there shall be plenty of room for
little strangers."
From the ceiling hung a large paraffin lamp, so that Kitty was able to
see better what sort of a man Waddington was. His baldness had deceived
her into thinking him no longer young, but she saw now that he must be
well under forty. His face, small under a high, rounded forehead, was
unlined and fresh-coloured; it was ugly like a monkey's, but with an
ugliness that was not without charm; it was an amusing face. His
features, his nose and his mouth, were hardly larger than a child's, and
he had small, very bright blue eyes. His eyebrows were fair and scanty.
He looked like a funny little old boy. He helped himself constantly to
liquor and as dinner proceeded it became evident that he was far from
sober. But if he was drunk it was without offensiveness, gaily, as a
satyr might be who had stolen a wine-skin from a sleeping shepherd.
He talked of Tching-Yen; he had many friends there and he wanted to know
about them. He had been down for the races a year before and he talked
of ponies and their owners.
"By the way, what about Townsend?" he asked suddenly. "Is he going to
become Colonial Secretary?"
Kitty felt herself flush, but her husband did not look at her.
"I shouldn't wonder," he answered.
"He's the sort that gets on."
"Do you know him?" asked Walter.
"Yes, I know him pretty well. We travelled out from home together once."
From the other side of the river they heard the beating of gongs and the
clatter of fire-crackers. There, so short a way from them, the great
city lay in terror; and death, sudden and ruthless, hurried through its
tortuous streets. But Waddington began to speak of London. He talked of
the theatres. He knew everything that was being played at the moment and
he told them what pieces he had seen when he was last home on leave. He
laughed as he recollected the humour of this low comedian and sighed as
he reflected on the beauty of that star of musical comedy. He was
pleased to be able to boast that a cousin of his had married one of the
most celebrated. He had lunched with her and she had given him her
photograph. He would show it to them when they came and dined with him
at the Customs.
Walter looked at his guest with a cold and ironic gaze, but he was
evidently not a little amused by him, and he made an effort to show a
civil interest in topics of which Kitty was well aware he knew nothing.
A faint smile lingered on his lips. But Kitty, she knew not why, was
filled with awe. In the house of that dead missionary, over against the
stricken city, they seemed immeasurably apart from all the world. Three
solitary creatures and strangers to each other.
Dinner was finished and she rose from the table.
"Do you mind if I say good-night to you? I'm going to bed."
"I'll take myself off, I expect the doctor wants to go to bed, too,"
answered Waddington. "We must be out early to-morrow."
He shook hands with Kitty. He was quite steady on his feet, but his eyes
were shining more than ever.
"I'll come and fetch you," he told Walter, "and take you to see the
Magistrate and Colonel Yü, and then we'll go along to the Convent.
You've got your work cut out, I can tell you."
_xxxiii_
Her night was tortured with strange dreams. She seemed to be carried in
her chair and she felt the swaying motion as the bearers marched with
their long, uneven stride. She entered cities, vast and dim, where the
multitude thronged about her with curious eyes. The streets were narrow
and tortuous and in the open shops, with their strange wares, all
traffic stopped as she went by and those who bought and those who sold,
paused. Then she came to the memorial arch and its fantastic outline
seemed on a sudden to gain a monstrous life; its capricious contours
were like the waving arms of a Hindu god, and, as she passed under it,
she heard the echo of mocking laughter. But then Charlie Townsend came
towards her and took her in his arms, lifting her out of the chair, and
said it was all a mistake, he had never meant to treat her as he had,
for he loved her and he couldn't live without her. She felt his kisses
on her mouth and she wept with joy, asking him why he had been so cruel,
but though she asked she knew it did not matter. And then there was a
hoarse, abrupt cry and they were separated and between, hurrying
silently, coolies passed in their ragged blue and they bore a coffin.
She awoke with a start.
The bungalow stood half way down a steep hill and from her window she
saw the narrow river below her and opposite, the city. The dawn had just
broken and from the river rose a white mist shrouding the junks that lay
moored close to one another like peas in a pod. There were hundreds of
them, and they were silent, mysterious in that ghostly light, and you
had a feeling that their crews lay under an enchantment, for it seemed
that it was not sleep, but something strange and terrible, that held
them so still and mute.
The morning drew on and the sun touched the mist so that it shone
whitely like the ghost of snow on a dying star. Though on the river it
was light so that you could discern palely the lines of the crowded
junks and the thick forest of their masts, in front it was a shining
wall the eye could not pierce. But suddenly from that white cloud a
tall, grim and massive bastion emerged. It seemed not merely to be made
visible by the all-discovering sun but rather to rise out of nothing at
the touch of a magic wand. It towered, the stronghold of a cruel and
barbaric race, over the river. But the magician who built worked swiftly
and now a fragment of coloured wall crowned the bastion; in a moment,
out of the mist, looming vastly and touched here and there by a yellow
ray of sun, there was seen a cluster of green and yellow roofs. Huge
they seemed and you could make out no pattern; the order, if order there
was, escaped you; wayward and extravagant, but of an unimaginable
richness. This was no fortress, nor a temple, but the magic palace of
some emperor of the gods where no man might enter. It was too airy,
fantastic and unsubstantial to be the work of human hands; it was the
fabric of a dream.
The tears ran down Kitty's face and she gazed, her hands clasped to her
breast and her mouth, for she was breathless, open a little. She had
never felt so light of heart and it seemed to her as though her body
were a shell that lay at her feet and she pure spirit. Here was beauty.
She took it as the believer takes in his mouth the wafer which is God.
_xxxiv_