The House of Hardie (30 page)

Throughout her life, Lucy's emotions had developed with a steadiness deserved by someone whose nature was affectionate and brave. Her love for Gordon was as smooth and deep as the waters of the Yangtze River which poured into the ocean. But now her body was shaken by an emotion she had never experienced before: of anger as turbulent as those same Yangtze waters when they surged down the rocky cataract of the Hsintan gorge. There was no person against whom that fury could be directed – not even herself. As much as Gordon, she was a victim of a situation which she would have avoided had she only known how to do so. She longed to have children – Gordon's children – one day. But not here. Not now.

Gordon listened to his wife's news with a dismay which he struggled to conceal. He could tell from Lucy's expression that she already knew what his true reaction was certain to be. Instead of displaying the proud happiness of a mother-to-be, she was close to tears.

Try as he might, he could not quite bring himself to console her by expressing delight, but he did succeed in smiling. ‘When is the baby due?' he asked.

Lucy's face flushed to a bright red. ‘I don't know,' she confessed.

‘But surely …' He checked himself. During the six months since they left Shanghai his wife had endured the hardships of the journey with a cheerfulness which made her an ideal companion. Her behaviour was that of a mature traveller, but in reality she was little more than a child, abruptly removed from a sheltered life. The problem was that Gordon himself knew little more than Lucy about periods of gestation and the process of child-bearing.

He was silent for a few moments while he tried to puzzle it out, dragging up from his memory all the smutty jokes and rhymes over which he, like any other small boy, had once sniggered. There was just one which seemed to be relevant – a girls' skipping song which the boys at his first school had appropriated as they hit a rubber ball in the air on the edge of a cricket bat.

‘A day to bake a lardie cake.

A week to eat it, maybe.

A month to tell I love you well

And nine to make a baby.'

It was hardly scientific statement, but it seemed possible, and he could recall no more precise facts. Reminding himself of the date of their arrival in Shanghai, he did a quick calculation in his head.

‘The beginning of September,' he said, with more confidence than he felt. ‘It could be later, but that's the very earliest. Three months ahead. No need to worry yet. You must get as much rest as you can. I'd planned to climb to the head of the valley tomorrow, to look for more primulas, and I'll still do that, while you relax here. It will give me a chance while I'm walking to think about the future. By the time I get back in the evening, I'll have everything sorted out.' He leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. ‘Nothing to worry about.'

He could hardly expect her to believe his assurance. Lucy's own mother had died in childbirth. That could be a terrifying memory for a young woman with no female companion in a country which was primitive and dirty and hostile to foreigners. Nor would that be the greatest of her worries, for Lucy was neither cowardly nor selfish. The tears trembling in her eyes had undoubtedly been for him rather than herself. He would have to reassure her on that score as well – but it was not something he could do on the spur of the moment, for his own disappointment was too great. There would be no chance now to complete his project.

Next day he set off from their lakeside camp with his pack empty of everything except collecting bags and trowel. The wind which screamed through the high valleys at every hour of the day or night was behind him today,
raising his spirits by the ease with which he was able to climb towards the head of the valley. He heightened this mood of contentment by deciding to put the new problem out of his mind until the return journey. As the sun rose higher in the sky he began to climb, and was rewarded by the sight of the plants he had expected to find: rainbow edgings of colour along ledges hardly wide enough to take his feet.

The task of digging out a selection of plants to be dried, and marking those to be collected later, when their flowers had faded, demanded his full attention. When he had finished, he sprawled beside a tumbling stream to refresh himself.

The scene as he looked down towards the camp was a beautiful one. So dark and still was the lake that it reflected a perfect panorama of the surrounding mountains. These were impressive enough, but above them rose an evener high and more Olympian range – so high that they disappeared into a cloud and then rose above it, the snowy peaks seeming to float in the air. He had not come to China to admire scenery, but he felt the need to imprint the magnificent view on his memory. It would have to last him through a lifetime of selling wine in Oxford.

Sighing, he stood up. He must make his way back to the encampment. But his eye was caught by a flash of colour high up above the head of the valley, in a place so steep that the stream fell as a waterfall. Was there time to investigate? He knew that it was vital in such rough terrain to reach camp before sunset, but could not resist the prospect of another discovery. Climbing faster than was altogether safe, he came within an hour to what he had seen – a solitary clematis clinging to the skeleton of a wind-sloped sapling. The plant was heavy with buds, but
only two had so far opened, revealing blossoms of such a clear, bright blue that Gordon gasped in wonder. No specimen that he had ever seen in England had flowers of so pure a colour. They were the colour of Lucy's eyes. They were beautiful.

Panting in the thin air, Gordon picked one of the two blossoms so that Lucy might paint it quickly, before the colour faded. Then he spent twenty minutes building a cairn of light-coloured stones, to help him identify the position from a distance. By the autumn its bright beauty would have disappeared, leaving little more than a twig to show where it had bloomed.

The autumn. By then he would be a father. Would he ever be able to return to this valley? He had gone through the routine of marking the primulas as though his plans were unaffected, but now he must give proper consideration to the future. Climbing down the steep cliff on which the clematis was growing, he scrambled as fast as the wind allowed along the rocky side of the valley, dropping a few inches of height in every yard he covered.

The camp was in sight all the way. Drawing nearer, he could see Lucy, who had been sitting near the edge of the lake, packing away her water colours as the light began to fade. Perhaps she too had been attempting to preserve a view which she might never see again. She stood up and walked towards their tent. How was it that he had failed to notice, until she had told him last night of her condition, that her tall, slender figure had thickened and her feet no longer stepped gracefully but were set wide apart in an ungainly movement? It could only have been because he was pleased with her for abandoning without complaint the elegant clothes to which she was accustomed and wearing instead a shapeless tunic over wide
trousers by day, and an equally shapeless quilted garment by night.

The change that he
had
noticed was in her face. The delicate, pale complexion which had been part of her blonde beauty had become reddened by the sun and weathered by the wind. She had not complained about that, either. He must remember that her enthusiasm for this adventure had been almost as great as his own. It would be unkind to talk of his disappointment and make no allowance for hers.

Without that thought – and the memory of the clematis – he might have made a decision that would have been unselfish but wrong. As it was, by the time they had eaten their meal of broth with barley doughballs, apricots in honey and a sour cheese, he had made up his mind what to say. Sati and the coolies shared the warmth of the camp fire with them, but not their language, so the conversation was private.

‘There's no time for you to return to England for the birth,' Gordon said. ‘And I don't think you should attempt even to reach Shanghai. Even though the journey down the Yangtze would be much faster than coming up, it would be no more comfortable, and I'm sure that you ought not to exert yourself. So our best plan is to make tracks to the nearest mission station. I believe the China Inland Mission requires its missionaries to have some medical experience even if they're not qualified. You can stay at the mission station until the baby is born and for whatever time is necessary afterwards. You'll be safe and well looked after there. I shall feel able to leave you in good hands for a few weeks in the autumn while I return to collect seeds or roots of the plants we've noted in this area.'

‘Yes,' said Lucy quickly. ‘I'd like you to do that very much.'

‘Then we needn't make any more decisions until we know how strong you and the baby feel. But the first thing we must do is to unpack the chair from the heavy baggage, so that you can be carried.'

‘Oh no!' exclaimed Lucy. ‘I'm perfectly well.'

‘I know you are, dearest, and as long as you feel strong enough to walk, that can do no harm. But I don't think you should continue to ride.'

‘Why not?'

Gordon burst out laughing. ‘What an ill-educated couple we are! How disgraceful it is that I should know so much about the propagation of plants and so little about babies. If I'd had an elder sister with a family, I might have picked up more information. But my mother would never have discussed such a subject in front of her unmarried children. Just once, though, I remember her commenting that our neighbour might be expecting a further increase in his family, because his wife had given up riding again.'

Lucy made no further objection to his suggestions – but although they had agreed on a plan, it was not easy to put it into effect. The mountain area held few inhabitants, and no missionaries. Three weeks of travel were needed before the mule train was able to round the barrier presented by the towering twenty-two thousand feet of Gongga Shan. Once over the last high pass, they could look forward to a less arduous passage through the foothills, following the tumbling course of the Min Jiang River towards Suifu, where some of the comforts of civilization might be found. That, though, was still many days' journey ahead. Gordon watched anxiously for any indication that his wife was tiring. She obviously felt more
nervous at being carried along the mountain paths by two coolies in the chair than on the back of the sure-footed mule, but continued to smile cheerfully and to walk occasionally when the ground was level.

Gordon himself made no further stops, even when they passed through inviting groves of pristine rhododendrons, although each evening he devoted more time than usual to the charting of the area they were crossing. It was on the last day of June that they reached the head of the pass and turned their faces to the south.

‘It will be softer going now,' he said reassuringly. ‘Look, there's the river.' He pointed to a silver ribbon of water winding through the valley below. There was a village on its bank, not too far away – little more than a huddle of huts inside a mud wall, but holding out the hope that the muleteer might be able to purchase rice and fresh provisions to vary the diet of beans and barley on which they had subsisted for so many weeks. They could not expect to reach it that night, since the track was steep and winding, but with luck they might come to it before the second evening. Gordon nodded to himself in satisfaction and took a few steps forward, to the very edge of the pass: a position which allowed him to glance back at the mountain they were about to leave. He turned his head to the left.

For a moment, a long moment, he could not speak. Then he stretched one hand out behind his back for Lucy to clasp. It groped through the air, not reaching her, but he could not bring himself even for a second to take his eyes off what he had seen, lest it should disappear like a mirage.

‘Lucy!' he whispered. ‘Lucy, come and look at this!'

Lucy was looking down at the village which her husband had pointed out to her. She was careful never to express opinions on such matters, in case they should appear to be complaints, but in truth she preferred to sleep in a tent, in spite of the extreme coldness of the nights. The villages were dirty and smelly. The straw mattresses of the beds they offered were full of biting insects. And the villagers were always unfriendly and often actively hostile. On the first occasion when she had been called a foreign devil by passers-by, she had assumed that this was an automatic reaction to any stranger, meaning nothing personal. But since then there had been other cries, and one of the missionaries with whom they had stayed had reluctantly translated them. Burn her. Child-eater. Lucy was used to being liked. It was unpleasant to find that no amount of smiling or polite behaviour could prevent her from being hated just because she was not Chinese.

Sati and his men treated her differently. As Tibetans they had no great respect for the Chinese and seemed genuinely loyal to their temporary employers, despite difficulties of communication. Brought up, as she had been, in a great house which was run by a small army of indoor and outdoor servants. Lucy had an instinctive ability to command without offending. Because she was used to unobtrusive service, it had taken her a little while to overcome her distaste for the almost aggressive curiosity with which the Tibetans watched her. But just as she had earned their respect by her dogged endurance of the
discomforts of travel, so she had grown to appreciate their honesty and reliability. Lucy was an aristocrat by birth and it was a mark of her breeding that she found it easy, once a good relationship had been established, to be friendly and firm at the same time. She trusted the men, and was at ease in their company. It was another reason for preferring to camp at night.

But she made no comment, and in her silence became aware of Gordon's stillness.

‘Lucy! Lucy, come and look at this!' His voice was so intense but so soft that she thought he must have caught sight of a bird or butterfly which must not be disturbed. So she turned slowly and crept rather than walked to join him.