The Ginger Tree
Page 12
However, Armand spends money in his own way, and has just announced that his first purchase in America is to be a motorcar, at which Marie declares she has never ridden in one of the horrible, smelly things and has no intention of ever doing so, which means that she will have to have her carriage and pair as well. Though Marie and I each have our reservations about the other, I am very fond of these two and for me Peking will be desolate without them. Marie says that in due course Richard will probably be transferred to Washington also, and then we will be together again. She says that she wishes this to be and that when, in her life, she has seriously wished hard for something it has always happened.
This must be a nice gift to possess. I don’t have it, and am without much hope that a British Military Attaché will be sent to America to watch what their Army is doing, this simply because it has done very little since the Spanish American War when they acquired the Philippines as their first colony. It seems to me that as a people they are most unlikely these days to become involved in wars abroad, having plenty in their own huge country to keep them occupied. Still, one never knows, and after all Marie was right about the Japanese and Russians going to war, for we are now right in the middle of one of the bloodiest struggles in human history between them.
Richard’s last letter was from a Russian headquarters at a place called Anping. Though he seems to believe that the Russians will win in the end, I think he would prefer to be watching the fighting from the Japanese side, for most of the war has been attacks by them with the Russians just defending positions. He seems to think very little of the Czar’s Viceroy in the Far East, Admiral Alexeiev, though he does have a better opinion of Kuropatkin whom he thinks is just playing for time bringing in more Russian reinforcements via the Trans-Siberian railway. The sheer might of Russia is bound to triumph in the end for, as Armand told me the other day, the Czar has a standing peacetime army of well over a million men without calling up the reserves, while it is said that the Japanese are already desperate for manpower. I don’t see how gallantry alone can give them victory.
Marie found out through the Japanese Legation that Count Kurihama has been wounded yet again in the Battle of the Yalu. I’m sorry to hear this, remembering how he said, with a serious face, that Japan was mounted on a dragon subject to uneasy dreams. Apparently the Count has now been made a full Colonel and received a high decoration from his Emperor, which I’m sure he deserved. Marie is certain he will become a general very soon.
It is strange being in China during this war which is being fought over who is to have control of Manchuria, and the Chinese, with battles raging on their territory, have no say in the matter at all. It is humiliating for them to have to stay passive while their own land is being ravaged, the more so because of their defeat of not so many years ago at the hands of Japan. The Empress Dowager and her advisers remain completely silent about the whole matter, as though it were not happening not so very far north of us. She has again moved her whole court, which is like moving a city, out to the Summer Palace which we can see from some of the higher bridle paths amongst our temples. The only thing that really affects us here is the slowness of mails from home now the Trans-Siberian railway has been requisitioned for military use only. Everything for us has to come by sea via Suez, and there seem to be delays here, too, for Mama’s last letter was dated nearly two months earlier. All this makes home seem very far away and I’m not sure I really think of it as home any more. After not quite a year and a half in China I feel sometimes that it is at least ten years since I left Scotland. From Mama’s letters nothing has changed there. The changes are all in me.
The Temple of Ultimate Peace, Western Hills, China
August 10th, 1904
I seem to have caught the writing disease again, which may be because I wake up early and Marie is such a late riser. Armand gets up early, too, but immediately goes off on a long walk on which I have wanted to accompany him sometimes, but never suggested this, pretty sure that Marie wouldn’t like the idea. Also, I have always made a point of supervising Meng’s preparation of Jane’s first morning feed, though I know I don’t really need to do this since Amah is so devoted to the infant. Actually Jane is putting on weight fast at last, the cooler air up here undoubtedly suits her, and she no longer looks what I have always thought her, a ‘peakit’ baby, as we say in Scotland. I tell Meng not to be continually screening the child from the sun, a little of which won’t harm her, but Meng goes on keeping her in the shade. Perhaps I am wrong to trust Meng as much as I do, but Marie says it always happens with amahs in China and does the baby no harm, not that Marie knows much about raising children. I don’t think she minds one bit about not being a mother, though I have no idea how Armand feels about having no heir for the de Chamonpierre name. This is probably something that worries a man of family. I know how disappointed Richard was that Jane was a girl, and it is almost as though the infant does not recognise him as her father, she never laughs when he comes towards her as she sometimes does with me, though more often with Meng. On the rare occasions when he picks her up she quite often screams, and I’m sure he has noticed this. I had always thought that girl babies had a special feeling for their fathers even from a very early age. I can certainly remember this from my own childhood even though Papa died when I was quite young. With him I felt safe from many things, including punishments, for he never lifted a hand to me, leaving this to Mama.
I still have guilt feelings about not being able to breastfeed Jane. I think it angered Richard that a daughter of the Collingsworths had to be suckled by a Chinese wet-nurse, as though this might be the source of some strange contagion. I know that Edith did not approve at all, she wanted me to use some special artificial infant feeds that can be obtained these days from Tientsin, but the wet-nurse was a cheerful, kind woman and I’m sure that Jane took no harm from her milk. It was when we started on the artificial feeds too soon, this by Richard’s orders, that she failed to put on weight.
The Temple of Ultimate Peace, Western Hills, China
August 18th, 1904
There is absolutely nothing to do here, and though one or two of the temples nearby are occupied by others from the Legations we have no contact with our neighbours, perhaps because we are rather isolated, for there are rumours of partying elsewhere. It is a terrible thing to say, but the news of the war, with thouands dying, reaches us as something unreal, in which it is hard to believe. Armand comes back from his botanical excursions as though from some secret excitement and will talk, if made to by me, about China as an astonishing reservoir of sometimes unique plants, which is somehow hard to believe when one looks at hills which appear to be covered with nothing but sunscorched grass.
The other day there was a slight sandstorm from the Gobi Desert, but only touching us lightly here and apparently not nearly so bad in Peking as the ones we had last summer. However, though lucky in our escape, these temples cannot be closed up in any effective way and, though we lowered shutters and so on, we were still eating grit with our salads and everything had a layer of something much more solid than dust. I covered Jane’s cot and mosquito net with wet cloths that would hold the sand and keep it from getting through to the bedding, and the whole time we were under assault from the sand cloud, about two hours, Meng insisted on carrying Jane about with her and never staying still, as though movement was somehow a kind of protection against the attack of these devils from the desert.
I am reading a great deal, more steadily than I ever have, and as though she knew I would be driven to this here Marie brought along almost all her library of what Armand calls her dream literature about Japan, though fortunately not more Pierre Loti which I would have had to struggle through in French. Greater than Loti, Marie says, is Lafcadio Hearn, who writes in English about the land he adopted, and he certainly does make it seem almost Marie’s paradise, though there were things in one of the books, Kokoro, which disturbed me and continue to. One evening after dinner we discussed these matters in a gener
al way, though Armand has only read one half of one of Mr Hearn’s books, stopping because he prefers plants to fairy stories. What we discussed was reincarnation.
It may be the result of my Scots education, but I had never heard of this before, the theory that we all have many lives and are returned to a new life in a condition that somehow reflects what we were and what we have done in a previous existence. It is a strictly un-Christian doctrine, of course, or I thought it must be until Armand said that once it was not, part of Christian teaching by some sects, and then rejected as improper doctrine at a church council.
I must admit the idea attracts me a little, that the mistakes we make in one life, or perhaps the seeming complete waste of it, are not all, but that we can profit by these errors when we come back again and, by some instinct carried over from another living, not make the same mistakes again.
Marie also quite likes the idea but Armand says it in no way accounts for natural increase, and that with the world population becoming larger all the time there must be a factory busy manufacturing new souls to send out as well as despatching the old ones for a new turn, at which Marie said nonsense, the new souls might not be new at all, but old ones coming to earth for the first time from another planet. At this point Armand said that if we would excuse him he would go to bed, which he did after warning us to put out all the lamps, and Marie and I went on talking about reincarnation until I suddenly had the thought of Mama coming from another life into her present one, and I wondered what she was being rewarded for, or perhaps punished by being given me. Marie prodded at my thoughts until she got this one out and after I had told her a little of what Mama is like we both began to giggle, and then went on to play a game in which we tried to think of what various people in the Legation Quarter had been last time, and what they were likely to be next. We were soon laughing so loudly that Armand came back again in his dressing-gown and Jane woke and started to howl.
Marie says that what we were last time and what we will be next is the most brilliant drawing-room game ever invented and she is determined to play it next time they give a formal dinner to the German Minister, who is a Prussian with a steel spine. She also wants to try it on the Russians, saying that the game ought to be as effective as that ice-breaking ship they used on Lake Baikal in Siberia to get the trains over in winter.
In one of Marie’s Japan books there was a story that was quite horrible, but somehow fascinating. It was about a couple who were so poor that there was almost nothing for them to eat and when their baby was born, rather than let it starve slowly, the father took the infant to a stream and drowned it. They continued so poor that starvation stayed a threat and the man drowned two more babies. Then things improved for the couple and the wife had her fourth child which they kept and it thrived, growing fat. Both parents doted on the son they had been able to keep, and one day the father was bouncing a ball for the baby when he was so overcome with love that he stopped and said out loud that the Gods had favoured them at last with this great gift of the infant. The child looked up and said clearly: ‘I’m glad you feel like that now, Father, for I tried to come to you and Mother three times before and you always drowned me.’ The father ran away, becoming quite mad.
Mama would think I am becoming quite mad, too, even to think about such things.
Western Hills
September 7th, 1904
Armand is just back from Peking where he has been for the last ten days. He brought the news that there has been a great Japanese victory over the Russians at a place called Liao-Yang and that as a result the Czar’s armies are in retreat on Moukden. There was no word of Richard at the British Legation and I have not had a letter for three weeks, but I am not worried because it seems that the Russian withdrawal north is quite orderly and, of course, Richard will be with headquarters and not near the actual fighting. There is apparently considerable excitement and some unrest in Peking as the result of the Japanese triumph, for the Empress Dowager would much rather have the Russians the dominant influence in Manchuria. She hates the Japanese and there are hotheads at court who would like to see China entering the war on the side of the Russians to drive the Japanese out and Armand believes that the old lady has been listening to them and is tempted. He also thinks that it would be unwise for us to return to Peking at the moment because it is known that the British and French favour the Japanese and there are signs of feeling against us because of this in the Imperial City. When we do go back, Jane and I, with Amah, are to stay in the Legation Quarter with the de Chamonpierres until Richard returns, though this won’t be very convenient for Marie, who has all her packing to do before the end of the month. It was decided that we will stay on in the temple for another week or ten days, and Armand is going to stay with us. Marie told me afterwards that he has brought a rifle to have here, as well as others to supply some of the Legation people in other temples. I do not really mind all this for myself, because I can’t believe that anything will happen to us up in these hills, but I worry a little about Jane. With Richard away she is my complete responsibility.
Western Hills
September 11th, 1904
Nothing has happened, the sun shines, it is hot at midday but cooling down sharply by sunset. No more rumours or any news of the war have reached us, yet over everything there hangs this curious feeling of something about to happen that can only be bad. I don’t know whether Armand or Marie feel it too, they give no sign if they do, and everything seems perfectly normal. I forget about my feeling for hours and then suddenly there is that lead lump sitting in my stomach. It may be nerves. With her usual good cheer Edith told me to expect to be depressed for a long time after my baby was born, that it took her a year to really recover from the births of both her sons. I’m sure the doctor would say that this is nonsense and it is certainly nonsense for me. Admittedly I did have a bad time with Jane. As the British nurse at the Legation hospital was putting my baby in my arms for the first time she said: ‘Well, Mrs Collingsworth, I’m relieved, too, that she is here at last. It was beginning to look as though she didn’t want to come.’
I have thought of that often. Supposing it were just possible that Jane had decided too late she didn’t want to come to Richard and me? This is just a crazy idea from one of Marie’s books, yet I couldn’t have blamed the poor little thing if she had wanted to change her mind.
Western Hills
September 12th, 1904
I got up this morning before sunrise after a night of broken sleep, something that doesn’t happen to me often. I am rather ashamed that I don’t always wake when Jane cries, but this could be because I know Meng is there to look after everything. I suppose we are lucky to have these faithful amahs on duty practically all the time, but I sometimes wonder if it is good for the mother or the child?
I did my hair in what was almost the dark, putting on a skirt I have been wearing a lot up here, of flowered Japanese cotton in a pattern Mama would think far too gaudy for a lady. Because it was chill in the bedroom and likely to be chillier outside I added a grey Shetland cardigan which Mama sent me from Jenners on Princes Street last Christmas, this over a white blouse, the whole an outfit Marie would not have cared for very much since she believes that even casual clothes should remember elegance. I don’t think she really likes the country, though she pretends to; she is only at ease in a city. One of the things I like about this half-camping in a temple is that there are no mirrors about in which you can see how dreadful you are looking. I’m sure Marie misses mirrors, her house is hung with them, in the drawing-room one reflects another, and you turn to see at least fifty reproductions of yourself stretching away into the distance. This is all right if you are in looks and wearing the right dress, but not good for the spirits on off-days.
A temple is easy to get out of without making a noise, and just as easy for an intruder to enter, which was my thought as I went down three steps into the garden. We are really very isolated up in these hills, a long way even from the nearest village and
certainly from any kind of help should it turn out that the area is not free yet of brigands or roving bands of ex-Boxers. In so far as I know, only two or three of the other temples are now occupied by Europeans, most back to the city again. I think another year I will suggest to Richard that we holiday in Wei-Hai-Wei under the British flag, the place certainly looked attractive from the ship. Perhaps responsibility for Jane is making me more nervous than I ought to be, but I am getting a little jumpy about this place, marvellous as it has been to stay here with Armand and Marie.
It had rained during the night, not much, but enough to lay the dust, the paths firm. I haven’t walked very much since we came and don’t really know where all the tracks lead to, but I chose the one that climbed straight through the middle of a dense clump of enormous bamboos, and in that light it felt almost like going into a tunnel. When I came out on the other side, the path now much steeper, the sun was just rising over the saw-edged ridge of hills to the east, a sudden brightness quite dazzling. Birds, particularly one kind which Armand says is a Chinese species of finch, set up a terrific chattering, as though they had all slept in and were scolding each other. My way now climbed through masses of huge rhododendrons and above these a kind of oak tree which grows in the shelter of these glens. I had stopped, standing quite still, when there was a rustling and a long green snake came weaving out on to the path moving slowly, seeming unaware of me. It stopped too, as if for a warm up in the sunshine, but it wasn’t sudden heat that was making it sluggish: well down from the pointed head was a very large bump that could only be from a toad or perhaps one of the temple rats. The snake was digesting its breakfast, and would probably be doing that for a long time. One never really knows whether these creatures are poisonous, or I don’t, though I could see that this was far too big to be any type of adder. I’m not really frightened of snakes just because they are snakes, at the same time I was not going to challenge that one even though it had eaten, and I was about to turn back into the bamboo when I heard a sound underneath the bird noise, only audible because it was continuous, certainly a human voice in a kind of drone that didn’t even seem to take breaks for breathing. It reminded me of that endless whining from the Peking beggars, except that this was pitched much lower, a voice that in a singer would be classed baritone. The sound was coming from somewhere above, though I couldn’t really place direction through that thick growth all around. The reptile barring my path seemed disturbed by this sound, too, and with forked tongue probing out in front, a pointed green head parted grasses and then slowly towed a long body, distorted by that swelling, out of sight, leaving me free to go on climbing if I wanted to.