Four-Part Setting

by Ann Bridge

  “Saves candles,” said Antony.

  “Early to bed and early to rise,” said Anastasia cheerfully.

  Hillier looked from one to the other in dismayed surprise. This wasn’t at all what he had expected from the Lydiards—China must somehow have altered them. Living in the East had, he had always understood, a curious effect on peoples’ intelligence, but he hadn’t imagined that the Lydiards would succumb so soon. As the meal proceeded, Anastasia vying with Hargreaves in producing cliché after cliché, his gloom increased. No one made a single rational observation—they would be saying tiffin in a moment, he thought, dismally. And he was quite right. Mrs. Pelham, who had been the chief sufferer from Hillier’s conversation at lunch, soon saw what her cousin was up to, and prepared gleefully to join in. Lydiard having got everyone’s assent to being called at 6 A.M. (“‘up with the lark’ is my motto”) so that they might get off at 7.30, she seized her chance and asked—

  “What do we do about tiffin, Antony, when we’re on the move?”

  His eyes just caught hers for a second before he answered—tiffin was a forbidden word in the Lydiard menage, and even Hargreaves, to whom its use was second nature, had been brought to heel by the fine of one dollar for its use at her table, inexorably imposed by Anastasia.

  “When we’re on trek,” Antony said slowly, and with perfect gravity, “we don’t stop for cooking at mid-day; we have sandwiches and cake and biscuits, and cold tea or whisky and water. Just a snack, in fact.”

  “Much better not to overload the stomach, if you’ve got to keep on the go all the afternoon,” Hargreaves added. Rose glanced at him, and saw that he was speaking in all good faith—being himself, bless him. Somehow the contrast between his unconsciousness and that minute exchange between her eyes and Antony’s gave her a little prick of discomfort. If only one could catch Henry’s eye about things like that!

  Dinner and coffee over, Antony decreed a stroll before turning in. Rose, who had hoped for a little turn with Henry, to banish her small sense of disloyalty towards him in the warmth of one or two kisses, was disappointed—the men and the women walked apart on these occasions, it seemed. “No, we can’t, sweetheart,” Henry whispered to her as they moved up the village—“This is just taking the dogs out.”

  “Damn!” said Rose, laughing in spite of herself.

  “Damn indeed! But we’ll try and manage better tomorrow—we may get in earlier with this summer time of old Ant’s. Goodnight, dearest sweet.”

  Beyond the village, Rose and Anastasia drifted off up a side track. It was nearly dark now, but a sweetish dusty smell told them that their path was passing through plantations of maize, and when it narrowed they could see the drooping plumes shadowy against the stars. Beyond the maize fields they came out onto open ground, with bushes and rocks showing black or pale in the uncertain light; here they could see the ridge across the valley standing out against the last faint glow from the west, while up beyond them the limestone cliffs gleamed palely in the same glow. “Let’s sit a minute—it’s so lovely,” said Rose. They sat on a rock, sweet herby smells all about them; from just below animal and human noises rose from the village as it settled down for the night—the braying of an ass, the sudden squeal of a pig, which always has a peculiar quality of unexpectedness; a coughing grunt from a camel, cries, Chinese laughter.

  “Goodness, how nice it is,” said Rose fervently. Then after a moment she laughed.

  “What is it?” Anastasia asked.

  “You were so awful at supper,” said Rose happily. “I can’t think how you think of those ghastly things to say.”

  “I think it’s the only way,” said Anastasia—“I feel rather awful about it, but it did seem to work!”

  “Oh yes, it’s chastening him. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth,” said Rose irrepressibly. “I must tell Ant that.”

  “Come on in—you’re getting silly,” said Anastasia affectionately.

  “Despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction,” chanted Rose, rising obediently from her rock. “What else is there about chastening, Asta?”

  “Shut up—they’ll hear you,” Anastasia rebuked her laughing; Rose’s spirits were infectious.

  “Nonsense—they’re miles away!”

  But at that moment a halloo in an unmistakably European voice arose from the darkness surprisingly close by. Anastasia answered it, as they went back through the maize—in a couple of minutes they were on the main track, where the dark figures of the three men loomed up awaiting them.

  “Come along,” said Antony. “We wondered where you’d got to. Thought we’d lost the women and children!”

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs. Pelham was fast asleep when Wu, punctually at six the next morning, came into the tent which she occupied with Miss Lydiard, splashed last night’s water from the tchilumtchis on the ground outside, and refilled them from a steaming jug. When he had gone she lay on her camp-bed, stretching her arms luxuriously, and looking out through the triangle formed by the tent door at the section of sky, mountain and near-by roofs which it enclosed. Even as she watched, three or four figures appeared on the nearest roof-tree, which was close enough to allow of a clear view into the tent, and gazed at her with delighted concentration. She proceeded to inform her cousin of this fact, with some amusement.

  “I can’t help that,” said Anastasia, drawing her short, very white legs up out of her sleeping-bag, and setting her feet down on the ground-sheet—she too stretched, and wriggled her toes. “I’m not going to dress in the dark for any Chinese—they can just get on with it. I am stiff!” And she proceeded with her toilet, regardless of the yellow watchers on the roof outside. Rose, rather more cautiously, followed her example. Then at Anastasia’s suggestion they stowed their belongings away in the tchilumtchis and, as to Rose, in a small suit-case, as to Anastasia in a much more practical squashy leather bag with a zip fastener along the top. “How fearfully convenient that is!” said Rose.

  “Yes,” said Anastasia, setting it down on the floor—as she did so Rose caught sight of the initials L.G.L., and wished she hadn’t spoken; the bag had clearly been Laurence’s. “It was Laurence’s,” Anastasia said then.

  “How is he? Do you ever hear from him, I mean?”

  “Oh yes, he writes about once in three months,” said Anastasia, sitting down on her bed again—her mouth, so wide and generous, set now in lines of strength, which in her Rose always connected with something concealed or overcome; Tasia’s mouth used to take that shape when they first talked about Charles, years and years ago. “He’s well,” Anastasia went on, “and in his own way I think he’s happy. But it’s rather a horrible way for us. His letters don’t really mean anything any more. They’re mostly about politics!” she said, with a little smile that was almost a distortion on that firmly set mouth.

  “How wretched for you,” said Rose, with sympathy.

  “It is, rather,” said Anastasia. “Antony minds frightfully. There’s something specially defeating about a state of affairs which makes one’s very affection seem de trop.” She pushed her hand up under her hair, combing it through with her fingers, thoughtfully—Rose was silent. Who knew about the pain of one’s affection being de trop if she didn’t? “I’m almost glad to be out here, do you know,” Anastasia went on, “so that there can be no question of those awful interviews, in that room! But I don’t think Ant is—I think he clung even to that. He was really woven into Laurence in the most extraordinary way—more than any twins I ever knew. This has left him pretty solitary, you know.”

  “He’s very lucky to have you,” said Rose simply.

  “Yes. We’re lucky to have one another,” said Anastasia. She combed her fingers through her hair again, looking out through the tent door with distant eyes, and for the first time in her life Rose Pelham, in a flash of understanding, realised with full clearness something of what the loss of Charles, her own husband, must have meant to this woman. Anastasia was difficult and
fastidious and not beautiful—she couldn’t do with just anyone; she could have done with Charles, but she, Rose, had taken him away. But she hadn’t been able to keep him, or make a success of it; and she herself could, it seemed, do with just anyone, since she could do with Henry Hargreaves to the point of taking him for a lover. It was a moment of acute discomfort—she sat on her camp-bed, looking in dismay at Anastasia, seated on the other and staring out through the door of the tent. Ah but, protested her self-esteem, you couldn’t marry Henry; you couldn’t bear to live with him always—you would be bored to death. Then what were you doing in his arms, only three nights ago? this sudden illumination demanded. And in the face of Anastasia’s figure on the bed, the strength of the set mouth and the pain of the eyes, all the reasons and theories that had seemed so adequate and excellent a fortnight ago suddenly seemed to lose their validity and turn small and shapeless. Restless and distressed, she got up. “Tasia, I am sorry,” she said.

  “Yes, come on—let’s have breakfast,” said her cousin, also springing to her feet; but as they moved out into the clear light, and Rose saw Anastasia greeting the three men with ready cheerfulness, “who are you to be sorry for her?” she thought involuntarily, “she has all the real things.”

  “There was a hell of a row going on last night, about one,” Hargreaves remarked, as they sat down to eggs and bacon. “Can’t think what it was. It sounded like murder.”

  “Yes, the Chinese are so raucous about being murdered,” drawled Hillier; “I’d just got off to sleep, and they woke me up again.”

  “It wasn’t murder,” said Rose—“it was Hsiao Wang talking in his sleep.”

  “How on earth do you know that, Rose?” Lydiard asked.

  “Oh, Asta and I went to see,” she answered airily. “We heard this appalling noise going on, so we popped through that little gate into the next courtyard to see what was up, and Wu spotted us and came and told us.”

  “What were you doing, still up at one o’clock?” Hargreaves asked her—unguarded for the moment, he spoke as one who has a right to ask.

  “We weren’t up—it waked us, the same as you. But we thought we’d better see, so we just went.”

  “You’d far better not do things like that,” said Hargreaves reprovingly. “Suppose it had been a real scrap, and you two running about in your nightgowns? Doesn’t do, you know, Asta.”

  “No one else went,” said Asta tranquilly, helping herself to marmalade.

  “The women and children seem to have been more energetic than the men, last night,” said Antony, pushing back his campstool and lighting a cigarette. “Roy, do you care to have a look at the school, when you’ve done breakfast? They’re in full cry, in there, and we don’t want to start too long before the moke-train.”

  Hillier said that he would like to very much—so while the tents were being taken down and rolled up, and the luggage loaded on the donkeys, the party went and inspected the school, which was in a large building in an inner courtyard. Forty to fifty children were sitting at small wooden desks, each on a little square of goat-skin, and holding a book in his hand, from which he read aloud in a high strident sing-song—the noise was deafening; full cry was exactly the word. Antony explained that they were reading aloud passages from the classical authors, with a view to memorising them—this, with a slight knowledge of characters, was the main education received by children of the lower classes.

  “How much of that do they do a day?” Hillier wanted to know.

  “Well, they were just leaving when we got in last night about seven, and they were all back again by six this morning—I saw them,” Antony replied. “They have a break of about two hours, I believe, in the middle of the day.”

  “Poor little brutes!” said Hargreaves. “What a life! And what good does all that old stuff do them?”

  “It produces what you see,” said Antony. “I don’t know that we do any better.”

  They got off about eight, by their new summer time. It was a brilliant morning, already very hot, and yet with a touch of early freshness about it—a combination peculiar to mountain country; but they were all glad when about seven li beyond Ho T’ei their track left the white bed of the river and took a steep short cut over a shoulder of the hill. The soil hereabouts was extremely fertile—unusually tall crops of maize and kaoliang covered the level ground and spread up the hill-sides wherever the angle was easy enough, and their path was shaded by groves of walnut and persimmon trees. The persimmons were not yet ripe—great pale-green globes, they hung in masses on the boughs among the big dark leathery leaves; with their shapely silver-grey trunks, rather like those of the ash, the trees were beautiful—Anastasia observed civilly to Hillier that she should like a dress designed from a persimmon tree, with foliage and unripe fruit.

  Rose walked with Antony Lydiard. Hargreaves’ remark at breakfast had not escaped his observation, and reinforced his resolve to make contact with his cousin—when they gathered for the start he said to her—“Come along with me, Rose—I’ll show you things,” and set off beside her. In spite of his limp, Antony was a fast walker, and they soon outstripped the donkeys and the other three, who were the more delayed because Anastasia began to find flowers, up here on the hill-side. The exercise, the beauty about her, and the easy talk with Antony, who dished out amusing bits of information about the Chinese methods of cultivation and the social structure of the villages gradually restored Rose’s spirits, and dimmed the recollection of those distressing moments in the tent; what remained undimmed, however, was the thought of Antony’s suffering at the loss of Laurence. She was full of a shy sympathy; and though Rose was not a person to express such feelings directly, as a rule, they coloured her attitude towards him. Antony was aware of this, though not of its cause, of course, and it encouraged him in his desire to come to terms of understanding with her. When they reached the top of the shoulder, after a stiffish pull—“Let’s sit,” he said. Accordingly they sat on a bank, in the shade of an immense walnut—through its drooping branches they looked out across the valley to a small temple, precariously perched high up on a shelf on the further side, flanked by a slender pagoda; below it the forest-clad slopes fell away so steeply that it was impossible to guess how it could be reached. With its scarlet and white walls and delicate creamy tower, standing out against the dark trees and grey rocks, it looked like a place in some ancient legend, conjured by enchantment rather than by mortal hands onto its airy ledge.

  “Gracious! How exquisite that is!” said Rose—she threw off her hat and leaned back against the trunk of the walnut tree; she looked, and was, very content at that moment.

  “Are you happy?” Antony asked her.

  “Yes,” she said, “I am.”

  “What makes you happy?” he asked.

  She turned and looked at him, as if puzzled by the question, and a little nervous.

  “I think I’m generally made happy by the wrong things,” she said after a moment.

  “Such as?”

  “Well, I’m nearly always happy if I’m feeling very well, and using my arms and legs a lot, like riding or swimming or even walking fast—and it makes me happy to be seeing new places, especially if they’re beautiful—and to see new birds.”

  Antony smiled at this catalogue.

  “What’s wrong with those? They all seem innocent enough.”

  “Oh yes, they’re innocent—but they’re all outside one. Oughtn’t happiness really to come from inside—being good and all that? And books,” she added as an afterthought, not wishing the conversation to become too personal, and remembering Anastasia’s perpetual contentment when in the company of some stoutish volume bound in red or dark green.

  Antony burst out laughing.

  “You are a child, Rose! What have books got to do with it?”

  His laughter made her blush a little. “Haven’t they got anything to do with it? I was thinking of Tasia.”

  The implied compliment pleased Antony.

  “I daresa
y—but tell me how you mean. I thought you read books yourself?”

  “Well, I do—but not very solid ones.”

  “What sort of books do you read?”

  “Novels mostly, I’m afraid.”

  “Now, Rose, that’s really low of you. Why should you be ‘afraid’ that you like novels? Do you mean to tell me that you consider Jeremy Bentham, say, a greater man and a greater thinker than Tolstoi or Dostoievski?” Antony burst out. “Or that reading him has done the human race more good?—would have done, I should say, if they’d been able to bear to read him, which most people quite rightly can’t?” He looked rather hard at her and said—“I believe that’s the first time I’ve heard you say something really sham.”

  Rose coloured in earnest this time, at his tone.

  “I didn’t mean it sham-ly, I don’t think,” she said, with a rather disarming humility. “I do like that kind of novel—but that wasn’t what I was thinking of, actually; I was thinking of the rather dud modern ones. Those—Tolstoi and Dostoievski—do seem to have some point.”

  “What kind of point?”

  She looked at him, a little surprised at his pertinacious questioning, and again a little nervous.

  “They have a sort of shape, a wholeness,” she said after a moment’s thought, forming her brown hands into a globe in front of her as she spoke. “I hate hotch-potch books, that are all odd bits, like a heap in a junk-shop; I like the ones that make their bit of life look like a room in a house, a whole in itself, and probably rather beautiful.”

  “And don’t any modern novels do that?”

  She thought again. “Yes—some. Howard’s End, and A Passage to India.” He nodded. Antony was an impassioned Forster fan. “Now in those books,” she went on, “even the pain and ugliness, and God-awful people like old Mr. Wilcox are made to fit in, to seem part of a pattern, and part of the beauty, somehow.”

  He looked at her with a sort of gladness. “I agree absolutely. But now tell me, Rose, do you like those books because you think they are true? Do you think life is like that?”