export of tea and the change of taste from Chinese to Ceylon had ruined
it. For thirty years the port had lain a-dying. Before that the consul
had had two vice-consuls to help him in his work, but now he was able
to do it easily by himself. He generally managed to get a game of golf
in the afternoon and he was seldom too busy for a rubber of bridge.
Nothing remained of the old splendour but the enormous hongs, and they
were mostly empty. The tea merchants, such as were left of them, turned
their hands to all manner of side lines in the effort to make both ends
meet. But the effort was listless. Everyone in the port seemed old. It
was no place for a young man.
And in the room in which I sat I seemed to read the history of the
past and the history of the man I was awaiting. It was Sunday morning
and when I arrived after two days on a coasting steamer, he was in
church. I tried to construct a portrait of him from the room. There
was something pathetic about it. It had the magnificence of a past
generation, but a magnificence run to seed, and its tidiness, I know
not why, seemed to emphasize a shame-faced poverty. On the floor was a
huge Turkey carpet which in the seventies must have cost a great deal
of money, but now it was quite threadbare. The immense mahogany table,
at which so many good dinners had been eaten, with such a luxury of
wine, was so highly polished that you could see your face in it. It
suggested port, old and tawny, and prosperous, red faced gentlemen
with side whiskers discussing the antics of the mountebank Disraeli.
The walls were of that sombre red which was thought suitable for a
dining room when dinner was a respectable function and they were heavy
with pictures. Here were the father and mother of my host, an elderly
gentleman with grey whiskers and a bald head and a stern dark old
lady with her hair dressed in the fashion of the Empress Eugenie, and
there his grandfather in a stock and his grandmother in a mob cap. The
mahogany sideboard with a mirror at the back, was laden with plated
salvers, and a tea service, and much else, while in the middle of the
dining table stood an immense épergne. On the black marble chimney
piece was a black marble clock, flanked by black marble vases, and in
the four corners of the room were cabinets filled with all manner of
plated articles. Here and there great palms in pots spread their stiff
foliage. The chairs were of massive mahogany, stuffed, and covered with
faded red leather, and on each side of the fireplace was an arm-chair.
The room, large though it was, seemed crowded, but because everything
was rather shabby it gave you an impression of melancholy. All those
things seemed to have a sad life of their own, but a life subdued,
as though the force of circumstances had proved too much for them.
They had no longer the strength to struggle against fate, but they
clung together with a tremulous eagerness as though they had a vague
feeling that only so could they retain their significance, and I felt
that it was only a little time before the end came when they would lie
haphazard, in an unlovely confusion, with little numbers pasted on
them, in the dreary coldness of an auction room.
XXIX
ARABESQUE
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent, and terrible, stood
the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature
herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of
the valley. Menacingly, the grim watch towers, stark and foursquare,
at due intervals stood at their posts. Ruthlessly, for it was built at
the cost of a million lives and each one of those great grey stones
has been stained with the bloody tears of the captive and the outcast,
it forged its dark way through a sea of rugged mountains. Fearlessly,
it went on its endless journey, league upon league to the furthermost
regions of Asia, in utter solitude, mysterious like the great empire it
guarded. There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent, and terrible,
stood the Great Wall of China.
XXX
THE CONSUL
Mr. Pete was in a state of the liveliest exasperation. He had been
in the consular service for more than twenty years and he had had to
deal with all manner of vexatious people, officials who would not
listen to reason, merchants who took the British Government for a debt
collecting agency, missionaries who resented as gross injustice any
attempt at fair play; but he never recollected a case which had left
him more completely at a loss. He was a mild-mannered man, but for no
reason he flew into a passion with his writer and he very nearly sacked
the Eurasian clerk because he had wrongly spelt two words in a letter
placed before him for his official signature. He was a conscientious
man and he could not persuade himself to leave his office before the
clock struck four, but the moment it did he jumped up and called for
his hat and stick. Because his boy did not bring them at once he
abused him roundly. They say that the consuls all grow a little odd;
and the merchants who can live for thirty-five years in China without
learning enough of the language to ask their way in the street, say
that it is because they have to study Chinese; and there was no doubt
that Mr. Pete was decidedly odd. He was a bachelor and on that account
had been sent to a series of posts which by reason of their isolation
were thought unsuited to married men. He had lived so much alone that
his natural tendency to eccentricity had developed to an extravagant
degree, and he had habits which surprised the stranger. He was very
absent-minded. He paid no attention to his house, which was always in
great disorder, nor to his food; his boys gave him to eat what they
liked and for everything he had made him pay through the nose. He was
untiring in his efforts to suppress the opium traffic, but he was the
only person in the city who did not know that his servants kept opium
in the consulate itself, and a busy traffic in the drug was openly
conducted at the back door of the compound. He was an ardent collector
and the house provided for him by the government was filled with the
various things which he had collected one after the other, pewter,
brass, carved wood; these were his more legitimate enterprises; but he
also collected stamps, birds' eggs, hotel labels, and postmarks: he
boasted that he had a collection of postmarks which was unequalled in
the Empire. During his long sojourning in lonely places he had read a
great deal, and though he was no sinologue he had a greater knowledge
of China, its history, literature, and people, than most of his
colleagues; but from his wide reading he had acquired not toleration
but vanity. He was a man of a singular appearance. His body was small
and frail and when he walked he gave you the idea of a dead leaf
dancing before the wind; and then there was something extraordinarily
odd in the small Tyrolese hat, with a cock's feather in it, very
old and shabby, which he wore perched rakishly on the side of his
large head. He was exceedingly bald. You saw that his eyes, blue and
pale, were weak behind the spectacles, and a drooping, ragged, dingy
moustache did not hide the peevishness of his mouth. And now, turning
out of the street in which was the consulate, he made his way on to the
city wall, for there only in the multitudinous city was it possible to
walk with comfort.
He was a man who took his work hardly, worrying himself to death over
every trifle, but as a rule a walk on the wall soothed and rested him.
The city stood in the midst of a great plain and often at sundown from
the wall you could see in the distance the snow-capped mountains,
the mountains of Tibet; but now he walked quickly, looking neither
to the right nor to the left, and his fat spaniel frisked about him
unobserved. He talked to himself rapidly in a low monotone. The cause
of his irritation was a visit that he had that day received from a lady
who called herself Mrs. Yü and whom he with a consular passion for
precision insisted on calling Miss Lambert. This in itself sufficed to
deprive their intercourse of amenity. She was an Englishwoman married
to a Chinese. She had arrived two years before with her husband from
England where he had been studying at the University of London; he
had made her believe that he was a great personage in his own country
and she had imagined herself to be coming to a gorgeous palace and
a position of consequence. It was a bitter surprise when she found
herself brought to a shabby Chinese house crowded with people: there
was not even a foreign bed in it, nor a knife and fork: everything
seemed to her very dirty and smelly. It was a shock to find that she
had to live with her husband's father and mother and he told her that
she must do exactly what his mother bade her; but in her complete
ignorance of Chinese it was not till she had been two or three days in
the house that she realised that she was not her husband's only wife.
He had been married as a boy before he left his native city to acquire
the knowledge of the barbarians. When she bitterly upbraided him for
deceiving her he shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing to prevent
a Chinese from having two wives if he wanted them and, he added with
some disregard to truth, no Chinese woman looked upon it as a hardship.
It was upon making this discovery that she paid her first visit to the
consul. He had already heard of her arrival--in China everyone knows
everything about everyone--and he received her without surprise. Nor
had he much sympathy to show her. That a foreign woman should marry a
Chinese at all filled him with indignation, but that she should do so
without making proper inquiries vexed him like a personal affront. She
was not at all the sort of woman whose appearance led you to imagine
that she would be guilty of such a folly. She was a solid, thick-set,
young person, short, plain, and matter of fact. She was cheaply dressed
in a tailor-made suit and she wore a Tam-o'-shanter. She had bad teeth
and a muddy skin. Her hands were large and red and ill cared for. You
could tell that she was not unused to hard work. She spoke English with
a Cockney whine.
"How did you meet Mr. Yü?" asked the consul frigidly.
"Well, you see, it's like this," she answered. "Dad was in a very good
position, and when he died mother said: 'Well, it seems a sinful waste
to keep all these rooms empty, I'll put a card in the window.'"
The consul interrupted her.
"He had lodgings with you?"
"Well, they weren't exactly lodgings," she said.
"Shall we say apartments then?" replied the consul, with his thin,
slightly vain smile.
That was generally the explanation of these marriages. Then because
he thought her a very foolish vulgar woman he explained bluntly that
according to English law she was not married to Yü and that the best
thing she could do was to go back to England at once. She began to
cry and his heart softened a little to her. He promised to put her in
charge of some missionary ladies who would look after her on the long
journey, and indeed, if she liked, he would see if meanwhile she could
not live in one of the missions. But while he talked Miss Lambert dried
her tears.
"What's the good of going back to England?" she said at last. "I
'aven't got nowhere to go to."
"You can go to your mother."
"She was all against my marrying Mr. Yü. I should never hear the last
of it if I was to go back now."
The consul began to argue with her, but the more he argued the more
determined she became, and at last he lost his temper.
"If you like to stay here with a man who isn't your husband it's your
own look out, but I wash my hands of all responsibility."
Her retort had often rankled.
"Then you've got no cause to worry," she said, and the look on her face
returned to him whenever he thought of her.
That was two years ago and he had seen her once or twice since then.
It appeared that she got on very badly both with her mother-in-law and
with her husband's other wife, and she had come to the consul with
preposterous questions about her rights according to Chinese law. He
repeated his offer to get her away, but she remained steadfast in her
refusal to go, and their interview always ended in the consul's flying
into a passion. He was almost inclined to pity the rascally Yü who
had to keep the peace between three warring women. According to his
English wife's account he was not unkind to her. He tried to act fairly
by both his wives. Miss Lambert did not improve. The consul knew that
ordinarily she wore Chinese clothes, but when she came to see him she
put on European dress. She was become extremely blowsy. Her health
suffered from the Chinese food she ate and she was beginning to look
wretchedly ill. But really he was shocked when she had been shown into
his office that day. She wore no hat and her hair was dishevelled. She
was in a highly hysterical state.
"They're trying to poison me," she screamed and she put before him a
bowl of some foul smelling food. "It's poisoned," she said. "I've been
ill for the last ten days, it's only by a miracle I've escaped."
She gave him a long story, circumstantial and probable enough to
convince him: after all nothing was more likely than that the Chinese
women should use familiar methods to get rid of an intruder who was
hateful to them.
"Do they know you've come here?"
"Of course they do; I told them I was going to show them up."
Now at last was the moment for decisive action. The consul looked at
her in his most official manner.
"Well, you must never go back there. I refuse to put up with your
nonsense any longer. I insist on your leaving this man who isn't your
husband."
But he found himself helpless against the woman's insane obstinacy.
He repeated all the arguments he had used so often, but she would not
listen, and as usual he lost his temper. It was then, in answer to
his final, desperate question, that she had made the remark which had
entirely robbed him of his calm.
"But what on earth makes you stay with the man?" he cried.
She hesitated for a moment and a curious look came into her eyes.
"There's something in the way his hair grows on his forehead that I
can't help liking," she answered.
The consul had never heard anything so outrageous. It really was the
last straw. And now while he strode along, trying to walk off his
anger, though he was not a man who often used bad language he really
could not restrain himself, and he said fiercely:
"Women are simply bloody."
XXXI
THE STRIPLING
He walked along the causeway with an easy confident stride. He was
seventeen, tall and slim, with a smooth and yellow skin that had never
known a razor. His eyes, but slightly aslant, were large and open and
his full red lips were tremulous with a smile. The happy audacity of
youth was in his bearing. His little round cap was set jauntily on
his head, his black gown was girt about his loins, and his trousers,
as a rule gartered at the ankle, were turned up to the knees. He went
barefoot but for thin straw sandals, and his feet were small and
shapely. He had walked since early morning along the paved causeway
that wound its sinuous path up the hills and down into the valleys with
their innumerable padi fields, past burial grounds with their serried
dead, through busy villages where maybe his eyes rested approvingly
for a moment on some pretty girl in her blue smock and her short blue
trousers, sitting in an open doorway (but I think his glance claimed
admiration rather than gave it), and now he was nearing the end of his
journey and the city whither he was bound seeking his fortune. It stood
in the midst of a fertile plain, surrounded by a crenellated wall,
and when he saw it he stepped forward with resolution. He threw back
his head boldly. He was proud of his strength. All his worldly goods
were wrapped up in a parcel of blue cotton which he carried over his
shoulder.
Now Dick Whittington, setting out to win fame and fortune, had a cat
for his companion, but the Chinese carried with him a round cage with
red bars, which he held with a peculiar grace between finger and thumb,
and in the cage was a beautiful green parrot.
XXXII
THE FANNINGS
They lived in a fine square house, with a verandah all round it, on
the top of a low hill that faced the river, and below them, a little
to the right, was another fine square house which was the customs;
and to this, for he was deputy commissioner, Fanning went every day.
The city was five miles away and on the river bank was nothing but a
small village which had sprung up to provide the crews of junks with
what gear or food they needed. In the city were a few missionaries but
these they saw seldom and the only foreigners in the village besides
themselves were the tide-waiters. One of these had been an able seaman
and the other was an Italian; they both had Chinese wives. The Fannings
asked them to tiffin on Christmas day and on the King's Birthday; but
otherwise their relations with them were purely official. The steamers
stayed but half an hour, so they never saw the captains or the chief
engineers who were the only white men on them, and for five months in
the year the water was too low for steamers to pass. Oddly enough it
was then they saw most foreigners, for it happened now and again that
a traveller, a merchant or consular official perhaps, more often a
missionary, going up stream by junk, tied up for the night, and then
the commissioner went down to the river and asked him to dine. They
lived very much alone.
Fanning was extremely bald, a short, thickset man, with a snub nose and
a very black moustache. He was a martinet, aggressive, brusque, with a
bullying manner; and he never spoke to a Chinese without raising his
voice to a tone of rasping command. Though he spoke fluent Chinese,
when one of his "boys" did something to displease him he abused him
roundly in English. He made a disagreeable impression on you till
you discovered that his aggressiveness was merely an armour put on
to conceal a painful shyness. It was a triumph of his will over his
disposition. His gruffness was an almost absurd attempt to persuade
those with whom he came in contact that he was not frightened of them.
You felt that no one was more surprised than himself that he was taken
seriously. He was like those little grotesque figures that children
blow out like balloons and you had an idea that he went in lively
fear of bursting and then everyone would see that he was but a hollow
bladder. It was his wife who was constantly alert to persuade him that
he was a man of iron and when the explosion was over she would say to
him:
"You know, you frighten me when you get in those passions," or "I think
I'd better say something to the boy, he's quite shaken by what you
said."
Then Fanning would puff himself up and smile indulgently. When a
visitor came she would say:
"The Chinese are terrified of my husband, but of course they respect
him. They know it's no good trying any of their nonsense with him."
"Well, I ought to know how to treat them," he would answer with
beetling brows, "I've been over twenty years in the country."
Mrs. Fanning was a little plain woman, wizened like a crab-apple, with
a big nose and bad teeth. She was always very untidy, her hair, going
a little grey, was continually on the point of falling down. Now and
then, in the midst of conversation, she would abstractedly take out
a pin or two, give it a shake, and without troubling to look in the
glass insecurely fix its few thin wisps. She had a love of brilliant
colour and she wore fantastic clothes which she and the sewing amah
ran up together from the fashion papers; but when she dressed she
could never find anything that went with anything else and she looked
like a woman who had been rescued from shipwreck and clothed in any
oddments that could be found. She was a caricature, and you could not
help smiling when you looked at her. The only attractive thing she had
was a soft and extremely musical voice and she spoke with a little
drawl which came from I know not what part of England. The Fannings
had two sons, one of nine and one of seven, and they completed the
solitary household. They were attractive children, affectionate and
demonstrative, and it was pleasant to see how united the family was.
They had little jokes together that amused them hugely, and they played
pranks with one another as though not one of them was more than ten.
Though they had so much of one another's society it really looked as
though they could not bear to be out of one another's sight, and each
day when Fanning went to his office his boys would hardly let him
go and each day when he returned they greeted him with extravagant
delight. They had no fear of his gruff bluster.
And presently you discovered that the centre of this concord was that
little, grotesque, ugly woman; it was not chance that kept the family
united, nor peculiarly agreeable dispositions, but a passion of love
in her. From the moment she got up in the morning till the time she
went to bed her thoughts were occupied with the welfare of the three
male persons who were in her charge. Her active mind was busy all the
time with schemes for their happiness. I do not think a thought of
self ever entered her untidy head. She was a miracle of unselfishness.
It was really hardly human. She never had a hard word for anyone. She
was very hospitable and it was she who caused her husband to go down
to the houseboats and invite travellers to come up to dinner. But I do
not think she wanted them for her own sake. She was quite happy in her
solitude, but she thought her husband enjoyed a talk with strangers.
"I don't want him to get in a rut," she said. "My poor husband, he
misses his billiards and his bridge. It's very hard for a man to have
no one to talk to but a woman."
Every evening when the children had been put to bed they played piquet.
She had no head for cards, poor dear, and she always made mistakes, but
when her husband upbraided her, she said:
"You can't expect everyone to be as clever as you are."
And because she so obviously meant what she said he could not find it
in his heart to be angry with her. Then when the commissioner was tired
of beating her they would turn on the gramophone and sitting side by
side listen in silence to the latest songs from the musical comedies
of London. You may turn up your nose. They lived ten thousand miles
away from England and it was their only tie with the home they loved:
it made them feel not quite so utterly cut off from civilisation. And
presently they would talk of what they would do with the children when
they grew up; soon it would be time to send them home to school and
perhaps a pang passed through the little woman's gentle heart.
"It'll be hard for you, Bertie, when they go," she said. "But perhaps
we shall be moved then to some place where there's a club and then
you'll be able to go and play bridge in the evenings."
XXXIII
THE SONG OF THE RIVER