‘But don’t you see it’ll kill me? Don’t you know that he’s taking me there because he knows it’ll kill me.’
‘Oh, my dear, don’t talk like that. We’re in a damned awkward position and really it’s no time to be melodramatic.’
‘You’ve made up your mind not to understand.’ Oh, the pain in her heart, and the fear! She could have screamed. ‘You can’t send me to certain death. If you have no love or pity for me you must have just ordinary human feeling.’
‘I think it’s rather hard on me to put it like that. As far as I can make out your husband is behaving very generously. He’s willing to forgive you if you’ll let him. He wants to get you away and this opportunity has presented itself to take you to some place where for a few months you’ll be out of harm’s way. I don’t pretend that Meitan-fu is a health resort, I never knew a Chinese city that was, but there’s no reason to get the wind up about it. In fact that’s the worst thing you can do. I believe as many people die from sheer fright in an epidemic as because they get infected.’
‘But I’m frightened now. When Walter spoke of it I almost fainted.’
‘At the first moment I can quite believe it was a shock, but when you come to look at it calmly you’ll be all right. It’ll be the sort of experience that not every one 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 any one 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 Meitan-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 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.
27
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.
28
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 struggling 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 businesslike 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 day-time, 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 Meitan-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.
29
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 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.
30
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 some one 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.
31
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 tomorrow 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.