warm light streamed into the room.
"What is it?" she asked. "Why are you back so early?"
"The Sisters said that you weren't very well. I thought I had better
come and see what was the matter."
A flash of anger passed through her.
"What would you have said if it had been cholera?"
"If it had been you certainly couldn't have made your way home this
morning."
She went to the dressing-table and passed the comb through her shingled
hair. She wanted to gain time. Then, sitting down, she lit a cigarette.
"I wasn't very well this morning and the Mother Superior thought I'd
better come back here. But I'm perfectly all right again. I shall go to
the convent as usual to-morrow."
"What was the matter with you?"
"Didn't they tell you?"
"No. The Mother Superior said that you must tell me yourself."
He did now what he did seldom; he looked her full in the face; his
professional instincts were stronger than his personal. She hesitated.
Then she forced herself to meet his eyes.
"I'm going to have a baby," she said.
She was accustomed to his habit of meeting with silence a statement
which you would naturally expect to evoke an exclamation, but never had
it seemed to her more devastating. He said nothing; he made no gesture;
no movement on his face nor change of expression in his dark eyes
indicated that he had heard. She felt suddenly inclined to cry. If a man
loved his wife and his wife loved him, at such a moment they were drawn
together by a poignant emotion. The silence was intolerable and she
broke it.
"I don't know why it never occurred to me before. It was stupid of me,
but . . . what with one thing and another . . ."
"How long have you . . . when do you expect to be confined?"
The words seemed to issue from his lips with difficulty. She felt that
his throat was as dry as hers. It was a nuisance that her lips trembled
so when she spoke; if he was not of stone it must excite his pity.
"I suppose I've been like this between two and three months."
"Am I the father?"
She gave a little gasp. There was just a shadow of a tremor in his
voice; it was dreadful that cold self-control of his which made the
smallest token of emotion so shattering. She did not know why she
thought suddenly of an instrument she had been shown in Tching-Yen upon
which a needle oscillated a little and she had been told that this
represented an earthquake a thousand miles away in which perhaps a
thousand persons had lost their lives. She looked at him. He was ghastly
pale. She had seen that pallor on him once, twice before. He was looking
down, a little sideways.
"Well?"
She clasped her hands. She knew that if she could say yes it would mean
everything in the world to him. He would believe her, of course he would
believe her, because he wanted to; and then he would forgive. She knew
how deep was his tenderness and how ready he was, for all his shyness,
to expend it. She knew that he was not vindictive; he would forgive her
if she could but give him an excuse to, an excuse that touched his
heart, and he would forgive completely. She could count on him never to
throw the past in her teeth. Cruel he might be, cold and morbid, but he
was neither mean nor petty. It would alter everything if she said yes.
And she had an urgent need for sympathy. The unexpected knowledge that
she was with child had overwhelmed her with strange hopes and unforeseen
desires. She felt weak, frightened a little, alone and very far from any
friends. That morning, though she cared little for her mother, she had
had a sudden craving to be with her. She needed help and consolation.
She did not love Walter, she knew that she never could, but at this
moment she longed with all her heart for him to take her in his arms so
that she could lay her head on his breast; clinging to him she could
have cried happily; she wanted him to kiss her and she wanted to twine
her arms around his neck.
She began to weep. She had lied so much and she could lie so easily.
What could a lie matter when it could only do good? A lie, a lie, what
was a lie? It was so easy to say yes. She saw Walter's eyes melt and his
arms outstretched towards her. She couldn't say it; she didn't know why,
she just couldn't. All she had gone through during these bitter weeks,
Charlie and his unkindness, the cholera and all these people dying, the
nuns, oddly enough even that funny, drunken little Waddington, it all
seemed to have changed her so that she did not know herself; though she
was so deeply moved, some bystander in her soul seemed to watch her with
terror and surprise. She _had_ to tell the truth. It did not seem worth
while to lie. Her thoughts wandered strangely: on a sudden she saw that
dead beggar at the foot of the compound wall. Why should she think of
him? She did not sob; the tears streamed down her face, quite easily,
from wide eyes. At last she answered the question. He had asked her if
he was the child's father.
"I don't know," she said.
He gave the ghost of a chuckle. It made Kitty shudder.
"It's a bit awkward, isn't it?"
His answer was characteristic, it was exactly what she would have
expected him to say, but it made her heart sink. She wondered if he
realised how hard it had been for her to tell the truth (at the same
moment she recognised that it had not been in the least hard, but
inevitable) and if he gave her credit for it. Her answer, _I don't know,
I don't know_, hammered away in her head. It was impossible now to take
it back. She got her handkerchief from her bag and dried her eyes. They
did not speak. There was a syphon on the table by her bed and he got her
a glass of water. He brought it to her and held the glass while she
drank. She noticed how thin his hand was, it was a fine hand, slender,
with long fingers, but now it was nothing but skin and bone; it trembled
a little: he could control his face, but his hand betrayed him.
"Don't mind my crying," she said. "It's nothing really; it's only that I
can't help the water running out of my eyes."
She drank the water and he put the glass back. He sat down on a chair
and lit a cigarette. He gave a little sigh. Once or twice before she had
heard him sigh like that and it always gave her a catch at the heart.
Looking at him now, for he was staring with abstracted gaze out of the
window, she was surprised that she had not noticed before how terribly
thin he had grown during the last weeks. His temples were sunken and the
bones of his face showed through the skin. His clothes hung on him
loosely as though they had been made for a larger man. Through his
sunburn his face had a greenish pallor. He looked exhausted. He was
working too hard, sleeping little and eating nothing. In her own grief
and perturbation she found room to pity him. It was cruel to think that
she could do nothing for him.
He put his hand over his forehead, as though his head were aching, and
she had a feeling that in his brain too those words hammered madly: _I
don't know, I don't know._ It was strange that this moody, cold and shy
man should have such a natural affection for very little babies; most
men didn't care much even for their own, but the nuns, touched and a
little amused, had more than once spoken of it. If he felt like that
about those funny little Chinese babies what would he have felt about
his own? Kitty bit her lips in order to prevent herself from crying
again.
He looked at his watch.
"I'm afraid I must go back to the city. I have a great deal to do
to-day. . . . Shall you be all right?"
"Oh, yes. Don't bother about me."
"I think you'd better not wait for me this evening. I may be very late
and I'll get something to eat from Colonel Yü."
"Very well."
He rose.
"If I were you, I wouldn't try to do anything to-day. You'd better take
it easy. Is there anything you want before I go?"
"No, thanks. I shall be quite all right."
He paused for an instant, as though he were undecided, and then,
abruptly and without looking at her, took his hat and walked out of the
room. She heard him go through the compound. She felt terribly alone.
There was no need for self-restraint now and she gave herself up to a
passion of tears.
_lvii_
The night was sultry and Kitty sat at the window looking at the
fantastic roofs, dark against the starlight, of the Chinese temple, when
at last Walter came in. Her eyes were heavy with weeping, but she was
composed. Notwithstanding all there was to harass her she felt, perhaps
only from exhaustion, strangely at peace.
"I thought you'd be already in bed," said Walter as he came in.
"I wasn't sleepy. I thought it cooler to sit up. Have you had any
dinner?"
"All I want."
He walked up and down the long room and she saw that he had something to
say to her. She knew that he was embarrassed. Without concern she waited
for him to summon up his resolution. He began abruptly.
"I've been thinking about what you told me this afternoon. It seems to
me that it would be better if you went away. I have spoken to Colonel
Yü and he will give you an escort. You could take the amah with you.
You will be quite safe."
"Where is there for me to go?"
"You can go to your mother's."
"Do you think she would be pleased to see me?"
He paused for a moment, hesitating, as though for reflection.
"Then you can go to Tching-Yen."
"What should I do there?"
"You will need a good deal of care and attention. I don't think it's
fair to ask you to stay here."
She could not prevent the smile, not only of bitterness but of frank
amusement, that crossed her face. She gave him a glance and very nearly
laughed.
"I don't know why you should be so anxious about my health."
He came over to the window and stood looking out at the night. There had
never been so many stars in the unclouded sky.
"This isn't the place for a woman in your condition."
She looked at him, white in his thin clothes against the darkness; there
was something sinister in his fine profile, and yet oddly enough at this
moment it excited in her no fear.
"When you insisted on my coming here did you want it to kill me?" she
asked suddenly.
He was so long answering that she thought he had refused to hear.
"At first."
She gave a little shudder, for it was the first time he had admitted his
intention. But she bore him no ill will for it. Her feeling surprised
herself; there was a certain admiration in it and a faint amusement. She
did not quite know why, but suddenly thinking of Charlie Townsend he
seemed to her an abject fool.
"It was a terrible risk you were taking," she answered. "With your
sensitive conscience I wonder if you could ever have forgiven yourself
if I had died."
"Well, you haven't. You've thrived on it."
"I've never felt better in my life."
She had an instinct to throw herself on the mercy of his humour. After
all they had gone through, when they were living amid these scenes of
horror and desolation, it seemed inept to attach importance to the
ridiculous act of fornication. When death stood round the corner, taking
lives like a gardener digging up potatoes, it was foolishness to care
what dirty things this person or that did with his body. If she could
only make him realise how little Charlie meant to her, so that now
already she had difficulty in calling up his features to her
imagination, and how entirely the love of him had passed out of her
heart! Because she had no feeling for Townsend the various acts she had
committed with him had lost their significance. She had regained her
heart and what she had given of her body seemed not to matter a rap. She
was inclined to say to Walter: "Look here, don't you think we've been
silly long enough? We've sulked with one another like children. Why
can't we kiss and be friends. There's no reason why we shouldn't be
friends just because we're not lovers."
He stood very still and the lamplight made the pallor of his impassive
face startling. She did not trust him; if she said the wrong thing he
would turn upon her with such an icy sternness. She knew by now his
extreme sensitiveness, for which his acid irony was a protection, and
how quickly he could close his heart if his feelings were hurt. She had
a moment's irritation at his stupidity. Surely what troubled him most
was the wound to his vanity: she vaguely realised that this is the
hardest of all wounds to heal. It was singular that men attached so much
importance to their wives' faithfulness; when first she had gone with
Charlie she had expected to feel quite different, a changed woman; but
she had seemed to herself exactly the same, she had experienced only
wellbeing and a greater vitality. She wished now that she had been able
to tell Walter that the child was his; the lie would have meant so
little to her, and the assurance would have been so great a comfort to
him. And after all it might not be a lie; it was funny, that something
in her heart which had prevented her from giving herself the benefit of
the doubt. How silly men were! Their part in procreation was so
unimportant; it was the woman who carried the child through long months
of uneasiness and bore it with pain, and yet a man because of his
momentary connection made such preposterous claims. Why should that make
any difference to him in his feeling towards the child? Then Kitty's
thoughts wandered to the child which she herself would bear; she thought
of it not with emotion nor with a passion of maternity, but with an idle
curiosity.
"I daresay you'd like to think it over a little," said Walter, breaking
the long silence.
"Think what?"
He turned a little as if he were surprised.
"About when you want to go?"
"But I don't want to go."
"Why not?"
"I like my work at the convent. I think I'm making myself useful. I
should prefer to stay as long as you do."
"I think I should tell you that in your present condition you are
probably more liable to catch any infection that happens to be about."
"I like the discreet way you put it," she smiled ironically.
"You're not staying for my sake?"
She hesitated. He little knew that now the strongest emotion he excited
in her, and the most unexpected, was pity.
"No. You don't love me. I often think I rather bore you."
"I shouldn't have thought you were the sort of person to put yourself
out for a few stuffy nuns and a parcel of Chinese brats."
Her lips outlined a smile.
"I think it's rather unfair to despise me so much because you made such
a mistake in your judgment of me. It's not my fault that you were such
an ass."
"If you're determined to stay you are of course at liberty to do so."
"I'm sorry I can't give you the opportunity of being magnanimous." She
found it strangely hard to be quite serious with him. "As a matter of
fact you're quite right, it's not only for the orphans that I'm staying:
you see, I'm in the peculiar position that I haven't got a soul in the
world that I can go to. I know no one who wouldn't think me a nuisance.
I know no one who cares a row of pins if I'm alive or dead."
He frowned. But he did not frown in anger.
"We have made a dreadful hash of things, haven't we?" he said.
"Do you still want to divorce me? I don't think I care any more."
"You must know that by bringing you here I've condoned the offence."
"I didn't know. You see, I haven't made a study of infidelity. What are
we going to do then when we leave here? Are we going on living
together?"
"Oh, don't you think we can let the future take care of itself?"
There was the weariness of death in his voice.
_lviii_
Two or three days later Waddington fetched Kitty from the convent (for
her restlessness had induced her immediately to resume her work) and
took her to drink the promised cup of tea with his mistress. Kitty had
on more than one occasion dined at Waddington's house. It was a square,
white and pretentious building, such as the Customs build for their
officials all over China; and the dining-room in which they ate, the
drawing-room in which they sat, were furnished with prim and solid
furniture. They had the appearance of being partly offices and partly
hotel; there was nothing homelike in them and you understood that these
houses were merely places of haphazard sojourn to their successive
occupants. It would never have occurred to you that on an upper floor
mystery and perhaps romance dwelt shrouded. They ascended a flight of
stairs and Waddington opened a door. Kitty went into a large, bare room
with white-washed walls on which hung scrolls in various calligraphies.
At a square table, on a stiff armchair, both of blackwood and heavily
carved, sat the Manchu. She rose as Kitty and Waddington entered, but
made no step forward.
"Here she is," said Waddington, and added something in Chinese.
Kitty shook hands with her. She was slim in her long embroidered gown
and somewhat taller than Kitty, used to the Southern people, had
expected. She wore a jacket of pale green silk with tight sleeves that
came over her wrists and on her black hair, elaborately dressed, was the
head-dress of the Manchu women. Her face was coated with powder and her
cheeks from the eyes to the mouth heavily rouged; her plucked eyebrows
were a thin dark line and her mouth was scarlet. From this mask her
black, slightly slanting, large eyes burned like lakes of liquid jet.
She seemed more like an idol than a woman. Her movements were slow and
assured. Kitty had the impression that she was slightly shy but very
curious. She nodded her head two or three times, looking at Kitty, while
Waddington spoke of her. Kitty noticed her hands; they were
preternaturally long, very slender, of the colour of ivory; and the
exquisite nails were painted. Kitty thought she had never seen anything
so lovely as those languid and elegant hands. They suggested the
breeding of uncounted centuries.
She spoke a little, in a high voice, like the twittering of birds in an
orchard, and Waddington, translating, told Kitty that she was glad to
see her; how old was she and how many children had she got? They sat
down on three straight chairs at the square table and a boy brought in
bowls of tea, pale and scented with jasmine. The Manchu lady handed
Kitty a green tin of Three Castles cigarettes. Beside the table and the
chairs the room contained little furniture; there was a wide pallet bed
on which was an embroidered head rest and two sandalwood chests.
"What does she do with herself all day long?" asked Kitty.
"She paints a little and sometimes she writes a poem. But she mostly
sits. She smokes, but only in moderation, which is fortunate, since one
of my duties is to prevent the traffic in opium."
"Do you smoke?" asked Kitty.
"Seldom. To tell you the truth I much prefer whisky."
There was in the room a faintly acrid smell; it was not unpleasant, but
peculiar and exotic.
"Tell her that I am sorry I cannot talk to her. I am sure we have many
things to say to one another."
When this was translated to the Manchu she gave Kitty a quick glance in
which there was the hint of a smile. She was impressive as she sat,
without embarrassment, in her beautiful clothes; and from the painted
face the eyes looked out wary, self-possessed and unfathomable. She was
unreal, like a picture, and yet had an elegance which made Kitty feel
all thumbs. Kitty had never paid anything but passing and somewhat
contemptuous attention to the China in which fate had thrown her. It was
not done in her set. Now she seemed on a sudden to have an inkling of
something remote and mysterious. Here was the East, immemorial, dark and
inscrutable. The beliefs and the ideals of the West seemed crude beside
ideals and beliefs of which in this exquisite creature she seemed to
catch a fugitive glimpse. Here was a different life, lived on a
different plane. Kitty felt strangely that the sight of this idol, with
her painted face and slanting, wary eyes, made the efforts and the pains
of the everyday world she knew slightly absurd. That coloured mask
seemed to hide the secret of an abundant, profound and significant
experience: those long, delicate hands with their tapering fingers held
the key of riddles undivined.
"What does she think about all day long?" asked Kitty.
"Nothing," smiled Waddington.
"She's wonderful. Tell her I've never seen such beautiful hands. I
wonder what she sees in _you_."
Waddington, smiling, translated the question.
"She says I'm good."
"As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue," Kitty mocked.
The Manchu laughed but once. This was when Kitty, for something to say,
expressed admiration of a jade bracelet she wore. She took it off and
Kitty, trying to put it on, found, though her hands were small enough,
that it would not pass over her knuckles. Then the Manchu burst into
childlike laughter. She said something to Waddington and called for an
amah. She gave her an instruction and the amah in a moment brought in a
pair of very beautiful Manchu shoes.
"She wants to give you these if you can wear them," said Waddington.
"You'll find they make quite good bedroom slippers."
"They fit me perfectly," said Kitty, not without satisfaction.
But she noticed a roguish smile on Waddington's face.
"Are they too big for her?" she asked quickly.
"Miles."
Kitty laughed and when Waddington translated, the Manchu and the amah
laughed also.
When Kitty and Waddington, a little later, were walking up the hill
together, she turned to him with a friendly smile.
"You did not tell me that you had a great affection for her."
"What makes you think I have?"
"I saw it in your eyes. It's strange, it must be like loving a phantom
or a dream. Men are incalculable; I thought you were like everybody else
and now I feel that I don't know the first thing about you."
As they reached the bungalow he asked her abruptly:
"Why did you want to see her?"
Kitty hesitated for a moment before answering.
"I'm looking for something and I don't quite know what it is. But I know
that it's very important for me to know it, and if I did it would make
all the difference. Perhaps the nuns know it; when I'm with them I feel
that they hold a secret which they will not share with me. I don't know
why it came into my head that if I saw this Manchu woman I should have
an inkling of what I am looking for. Perhaps she would tell me if she
could."
"What makes you think she knows it?"
Kitty gave him a sidelong glance, but did not answer. Instead she asked
him a question.
"Do you know it?"
He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Tao. Some of us look for the Way in opium and some in God, some of us
in whisky and some in love. It is all the same Way and it leads
nowhither."
_lix_
Kitty fell again into the comfortable routine of her work and though in
the early morning feeling far from well she had spirit enough not to let
it discompose her. She was astonished at the interest the nuns took in
her: sisters who, when she saw them in a corridor, had done no more than
bid her good morning now on a flimsy pretext came into the room in which
she was occupied and looked at her, chatting a little, with a sweet and
childlike excitement. Sister St. Joseph told her with a repetition which
was sometimes tedious how she had been saying to herself for days past:
"Now, I wonder," or: "I shouldn't be surprised"; and then, when Kitty
fainted: "There can be no doubt, it jumps to the eyes." She told Kitty
long stories of her sister-in-law's confinements, which but for Kitty's
quick sense of humour would have been not a little alarming. Sister St.
Joseph combined in a pleasant fashion the realistic outlook of her
upbringing (a river wound through the meadows of her father's farm and
the poplars that stood on its bank trembled in the faintest breeze) with
a charming intimacy with religious things. One day, firmly convinced
that a heretic could know nothing of such matters, she told Kitty of the
Annunciation.
"I can never read those lines in the Holy Writ without weeping," she
said. "I do not know why, but it gives me such a funny feeling."
And then in French, in words that to Kitty sounded unfamiliar and in
their precision a trifle cold, she quoted:
"_And the angel came in unto her, and said. Hail full of grace, the Lord
is with thee: blessed art thou among women._"