A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar (16 page)

‘Did you come in response to our telegram?’ Lizzie asked.

In fact no, was the answer. He has been travelling. The telegram was sent to Urumtsi and he has not been there for weeks. It is luck that he came to find us.

‘We must tell you’, Lizzie said, ‘we are under house-arrest.’

‘I am so relieved that you are here,’ I said.

Mr Steyning is a gentleman, and fascinating. He has lived in Turkestan for seventeen years, having arrived in 1906 with the Inland Mission. Elizabeth sat with him as I served tea and dough-bread biscuits. He glanced frequently at Ai-Lien, though was too polite to ask any questions, and so I sat down and quickly told him our story. He absorbed my words calmly, asking the odd question here and there about the trial, and of Millicent’s great danger and the accusation of murder. He took out a small notebook and wrote several lines and nodded.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘I must talk to Millicent about this.’

Then, encouraged by his smiles, we asked him question after question, poor man. He did not seem to mind, answering with magnanimity. Geography, distance, religion, social issues, and the women of the region, the Moslem question, the Chinese question, the Russian question, and the state of the Empire, all discussed in great and lively spirits. He spoke of his acquaintance Mr Greeves, with whom he lives in Urumtsi, a world-renowned specialist in Turkic folklore and language, a specialist of Manchu and who is at their home at work on a great dictionary and various important translation works.

‘Ah,’ Lizzie said, ‘we know a priest, Father Don Carlo, who is also at work on a dictionary.’

‘At least – I think it’s a dictionary,’ I added. At the mention of Father Don Carlo, Mr Steyning frowned slightly.

‘You must visit us, Miss English,’ he said. ‘We too have a small mimeograph and have taken some of Mr Greeves’ translations of the Gospels and printed them into Turki, Manchu and Qazak. We are currently working on “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.’

We passed a pleasant afternoon. Elizabeth led a tour of the garden, with me trailing behind and Mr Steyning was immediately in raptures. It turns out that he has a wonderful knowledge of botany of the area. He gave us the names and I noted them down for my guide book:
Acer griseum
, with cinnamon-red papery bark.
Dipteronia sinensis
.
Lonicera tragophylla
in full flower, and
Schizophragma integrifolium
is the name of the mass of white that clambers over all. Flowers:
Lilium giganteum
;
Ilex Pernyi
; a sort of cowslip called
Primula sikkimensis
; and he pointed out a dark-red Tibetan lady’s-slipper orchid (
Cypripedium
tibeticum
) that grows in abundance in our garden.

Lizzie invited him to follow her into the small adobe out-building where she spends much of her time. I have not been into it myself, I could tell she was hesitant about letting me in, but I simply followed. It is a sort of hovel built into the ground, presumably previously used as a cellar, or similar. Lizzie lit a linseed lamp. Clipped to a piece of string tied along a wooden pole was a series of photographic prints. I sniffed at the smell of chemicals, glad to see, however, that they were being put to use having travelled so far. Apart from one of a cluster of pigtailed native children, the prints were mostly self-portraits – one next to the handkerchief tree, or near flowers in the garden – and they were layered with images, gauzy and indistinct, ghost-like. I had not seen them before and looked at them with interest.

Mr Steyning looked closely. ‘These are very impressive,’ he said.

‘Oh, they were mostly accidents. I have difficulties with the chemicals, with the light. I cannot control the conditions adequately here and can only shut out the light using several blankets over the door. I long for a dark-room.’

‘You seem . . .’ Mr Steyning paused for a moment, scratched at his chin. ‘In this one, well, you seem light, as if you have lightened yourself and released yourself from the gravity of this earth.’

‘That is insightful of you.’ Lizzie was smiling. ‘I am very interested in heavy things made light.’

We walked back into the garden and I lingered behind as he and Elizabeth chatted about the bark, the colour of the wood and the details of the garden. I did not know she had taken such photographs. There certainly is something about Mr Steyning that inspires private confidences. Later, I told him of my endeavour to write a guide as one of the first English women to visit this region (apart from the wife of the British Consul) and to my delight, he was sympathetic to the idea, offering his study and resources in Urumtsi if ever I should need it. He gave me his card with the address embossed in silver in English, Chinese and Turki. It has a picture of a hummingbird in the corner.

Millicent still did not return, even though we had sent a scout to inform her of our visitor, and so I took over the organisation of the evening. I instructed Lolo to prepare some Tibetan thenthuk stew (when Millicent is away we abandon English cuisine, Lolo’s native concoctions being profoundly superior). Mr Steyning insisted on joining us in the kitchen as we were preparing the evening food for him.

‘Do excuse me, Mr Steyning, as I attend to the baby.’

‘Oh, Miss English, I would much prefer to sit here and chatter. I am an incorrigible chatterer as you can tell.’

Elizabeth offered to arrange his room, but he insisted that he would leave that night. Lolo prepared the food, humming as he cooked. I tended to Ai-Lien as Mr Steyning conversed with Lolo in what he said was a broken form of Tibetan dialogue. Mr Steyning patted Lolo on the back as he mixed the flour, pressed the dough with his wide hands and chopped the vegetables into strings.

‘Oh don’t lay the table, English-style’, he declared when he saw Lizzie begin to bring out the tableware items. ‘Mr Greeves and I normally eat local-fashion, it is much more convenient, much simpler.’

So we sat on the divan with the food laid out on plates, using the bread to sweep it up. As we ate, he began, for the first time, to ask about our Mission. Do we have any converts? Are we of much interest? Under suspicion? I let Lizzie talk on Millicent’s behalf at this point and she certainly demonstrated conviction. Her blonde thin hair fell over her face as she talked of our great plans for a Children’s Service – this was news to me – and of our distribution of the translated pamphlets.

‘But have you any converts, yet?’ Mr Steyning persisted.

‘Mr Steyning, you may disapprove, but we have a rather
female
approach to spreading the Gospel,’ Lizzie said.

‘Oh, do elaborate, Miss English.’

‘We talk, Mr Steyning. We call it – well, Millicent calls it
gossiping the gospel
. We infiltrate the female elements of society, the harems, the inside of the Moslem women’s quarters and families and it is there that we begin the process of conversion. Slowly, but surely.’

Mr Steyning nodded, smiling.

‘The daughter of one such house has come to us and although she is just one, she will surely be a conduit for more.’ Lizzie looked pleased as she spoke.

‘And you, Miss English, do you gossip the gospel?’ I blushed across my face and neck and Mr Steyning, to be kind, changed the subject.

We finished eating the stew followed by one of Lolo’s sweet rice puddings, a simple and delicious dish with traces of apple and a delicate honey saturated through the rice. After dinner we talked of the Moslem situation in this area. I had not realised it was quite so devastating. According to Mr Steyning, all of the cities of the North West are now in the grip of terror as Moslem Brigands maraud through the desert, raiding cities at will, warring with the Chinese.

‘Goodness,’ Lizzie spread her toes out in front of her as she spoke, ‘but they are not furious with us?’

‘Foreigners are always treated with suspicion,’ he said. ‘We are not welcome here, particularly our Mission, which reminds people of the violence of the dreadful Boxer era.’

‘Do you mean it is very dangerous for us?’ Lizzie asked.

‘It is always dangerous. But more so at the moment. Tensions are very high, suspicion is rife. This is why I am here, to talk to Millicent. To suggest that she –’

‘You want us to leave?’ Lizzie sat upright and pushed her hair behind her ears. ‘I don’t think we can, we are still under house-arrest, in effect.’

Mr Steyning continued, ‘These Moslem bands are terrifying. They are not your usual bands of thieves and beggars. The area is profoundly militarist. City gates are shut up at night. Soldiers are permanently mobilised. There is an atmosphere of war.’

‘Mr Steyning,’ I said, ‘we feel quite removed from all of this, here.’

Mr Steyning smiled an intelligent smile, if a little foxy. He looked at us with a concerned expression.

‘Evangeline, you are on the outside of city walls, under no protectorate. There is suspicion of Christians at the best of times. We offend the ancestral spirits. The Moslems have usually been more indifferent to us than the Chinese, but now, suspicions run high. I should warn you, too, that all correspondence will be censored.’

We were silent for a moment.

‘I don’t want to alarm you,’ he said, stroking at his wrist with his long fingers as he spoke, ‘but during this time of high tension our methods do rather need to be amended and our profile reduced.’

I was not sure what this meant. There was a pause and then we heard the clang of the gate and Millicent’s voice instructing one of Lolo’s boys to take her packages. There was a scuffle and the sound of running, and then Millicent walked into the room, glancing first at Elizabeth, then me, then fully at Mr Steyning. I do not know why but I felt rather guilty, and could tell from Lizzie’s expression that she did too. Millicent’s hair was wild and she had a rakish expression. Mr Steyning stood up quickly, gracefully, and held out his hand. It was a clever gesture, at once a hello, but also, he had seen that she was swaying slightly, and as he shook her hand he steadied her.

‘Dear Millicent,’ he said, with warmth, ‘I have been wonderfully looked after by your protégées.’

Millicent opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again.

‘Perhaps we should talk in the courtyard, Millicent.’ Millicent concurred and I was astonished to see that she allowed him to steer her by her arm, out into the cooling night air. They remained there together, being served coffee by Lolo.

Once Ai-Lien was asleep, I stepped out from the kang room into the courtyard. The scorching heat of the day gives way at night to a sharp chill which seems to come up from the ground and take a standing person by surprise. I heard the strike of a match and its hiss as the cigarette took light. They were sitting together on the garden chairs and had not seen me. I leaned against the cooling wall and listened.

‘Millicent, it has fallen to me to impress this upon you immediately.’

Millicent said nothing, just smoked. Mr Steyning’s voice was lulling, not unkind:

‘You know, Millicent dear, that your services to the Church, to the overall work of the Mission, and your outstanding contribution to the development of Illumination of His Will amongst the dark, heathen and closed corners of this Earth are not without noting and are deeply appreciated by the Mission community, and beyond, both here, in the East, and back home in England.’

‘If that is the case then why are my methods criticised by the committee?’

‘You mistake criticism for concern, I fear.’ There was a squeaking in the air, bats carousing for their supper. ‘There have been some serious changes to the political situation in the region. To be frank, Millicent, I fear for your safety and that of your two companions and I – and the Committee – insist that you amend your approach immediately.’

‘What do you mean, John?’

‘I mean that you have been distributing pamphlets that are provocative. The locals don’t like your approach, your taking up with the Mohammedan girl. It is very tense, as you no doubt know. We need to maintain a low profile at this moment.’

‘That is what I am doing. Exactly what I am doing.’

‘You are not. You have been talked about, striding around the souqs. There is much hostility. In addition, I see no evidence of your educational proposal, the school for children, the Sunday school. Your stipend is entirely based on this information.’

‘You want me both to maintain a silent presence, a trouble-free presence, but also to set up educational facilities for the children?’

‘Our Missionary policy is to provide a useful service as well as spiritual guidance and currently I do not feel, and the Committee agrees with me on this, that you are offering any such service. If I feel this, then, undoubtedly, the Chinese officials and the network of leaders, tribal, nomadic and otherwise, feel the same. As such, you are under threat.’

They were quiet, I could see from the tilt of their heads that they were both looking up at stars, almost shockingly clear and bright.

‘What of this trial, Millicent?’

‘I know as much as you. We are accused of killing a girl, the mother of the baby Evangeline is caring for. She died in childbirth as we were trying to help her. We are not allowed to leave the region. Your Inland colleagues have refused to provide me with the funds for a bribe. Is there anything you can do to help in this regard?’