Singing Waters

by Ann Bridge

  “I am sorry. I did not know.” Nils spoke without any awkwardness, only with complete sincerity and simplicity. “I am glad that you do not hold it against the mountains,” he said then.

  “Do you know why I don’t?” she said, putting her elbows on the table and leaning towards him, with a directness as complete as his own. “It is because of something I heard him say once—it was in a speech at a mountaineering dinner, and I think he must have been a little bit tight, or he wouldn’t have said so entirely what he really felt. He said—‘Of all the gifts that the mountains hold for us—and to some of us they give so much that if they should exact the uttermost in return, we think ourselves still in their debt—of all those gifts’ … and so on. I knew that was true for him, before he said it—but I’ve never forgotten those words. It could have been true for me too, in time—it was getting to be true. But now all that’s finished with.”

  “What was the great gift, the greatest of all?” Nils asked. He wanted to keep her talking naturally; to probe farther into her tragedy, directly, was impossible.

  “Friendship,” she said slowly. “But you know I don’t believe that was true, although he said it then, and he did adore his friends, and they meant the world to him. But I believe mountains meant more to him than any human being could.”

  “Yes—that can be so. I believe that that is true of me—so far,” Nils said.

  “Are they like religion to you, too?” she asked. “They were to him.”

  “Not quite. God, who made them, is still above them. But they are one of the supreme expressions of God,” he said, “and they evoke—I know it—the great religious feelings of adoration and faithful service. For one feels that to climb them is somehow to serve them.”

  “Oh, he felt that!” she said, her face alight.

  “Of course. Mountaineers do. You should go on climbing,” he said. “You need the religious sense.”

  “I guess I do,” she said, and fell silent again. Nils left her alone, wondering what line her mind was following. Presently—“Are there mountains in Albania?” she asked.

  “Indeed yes—it is nearly all mountains. Not like the Alps; there is nothing much over nine thousand feet, but there is some fine climbing on the limestone, and it all waits to be explored, from the climber’s point of view.” He was glad that the conversation had moved back to this degree of normality.

  “How does one get to Albania?” she asked then.

  “By a number of ways. From Italy, by boat from Bari; or if one is going from London one leaves this train that we are on at Zagreb, goes down to Susak, and so by steamer to Kotor or Durazzo. For you, if you went from Istanbul,” said Nils practically, “you would take a steamer to the Piraeus, and then get another boat from Corinth up to Valona or Durazzo.”

  “I see.” She sat pondering. “And all those tents and ponies and things, to hike around with—can one buy them there?”

  “No. One can buy very little in Albania. But General Stanley, the Head of the Gendarmerie, can usually arrange all that— or one of the Legations. The Gendarmerie have plenty of tents and camp-beds, because they must rely on them for all their tours of inspection.”

  “That is extraordinary—in Europe, today,” she said. “But it sounds nice.”

  “It is nice,” Nils said, smiling at her. “You should really go.”

  “Oh well.” She smiled back at him, and rose. “Thanks for all the drinks,” she said. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” Nils too had risen, and bowed. “We meet at breakfast, I hope,” he said—“as today.”

  She smiled again, with sudden brilliance.

  “Maybe,” she said, and left the empty dining-car.

  Chapter Three

  Undressing in his sleeper, swaying to the rocking movement of the train, Nils racked his brains, trying to remember about the accident to Mrs. Thurston’s husband. Thurston—Thurston—the name was vaguely familiar, but in what connection he could not for the life of him remember. Nils had never belonged to the regular trade-union of English and international climbers, who met one another every summer in Zermatt, Chamonix, Courmayeur or Grindelwald, knew all one another’s names, ages, and notable expeditions, and were au fait with all climbing gossip—a busy man, constantly travelling, he had spent his brief leaves, climbing and ski-ing, but he was out of touch, and always had been, with that climbers’ world; his only real friend among English climbers had been, years ago when they were both young, the ardent and delightful Miss Glanfield. And long since he had lost touch with her. He had heard that she had become a rather well-known writer, or thought he had; but Nils had no time for reading novels.

  He opened the window at the top, drew down the blind again, switched off the ceiling light and got into bed and lay, his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the white reflection of the pillows on the shining reddish panelling, and chasing his recollections of the name Thurston through his memory. Killed climbing—“the men who left him to die” she had said. Oh yes! There had been that international expedition to the Himalayas, and a story—a story with rather a strong smell—about a climber and some porters being left up on a high camp, when bad weather came on; and the climber and some of the porters had died. He had been in China at the time, and seen few European papers, but—it was coming back now—the man who had died was an Englishman. Thurston—no, he couldn’t actually pin the name to it, but that was almost certainly it. Not quick of him, not to have guessed sooner, only he was bad at names, and his memory was so overloaded as it was with the myriad names he had to remember, in his job.

  As people do, he went back over his conversations with Mrs. Thurston in the light of this fresh knowledge. That was why she had said “I don’t see why you should have supposed that I did,” when he spoke of climbing; she had expected him to know that her husband climbed, and no doubt the accident had made banner headlines when it happened. He tried to remember how long ago it was—about five years, at a rough guess. Poor woman, he thought—no child, her husband lost in agonising circumstances. No wonder there was misery in her face. It all added up; given her upbringing and surroundings, her reactions were just about what might have been foreseen. A pity, Nils said to himself, soberly—a great pity, for she might have been otherwise. Mountaineering would have gone on teaching her its timeless lessons of patient continuance in well-doing, of endurance, and above all of worship and of joy. She had the capacity for joy, and she had the capacity for feeling—her sudden violent outburst in defence of American institutions had shown that. Funny how her very speech went American when she felt that America was assailed! But probably it was too late to do anything about it—certainly one could not cure a woman of a mortal sickness like that by a few conversations in a train. If one could have taken her to the Alps, now, for a month, and let her climb and climb, lipsticks and mirrors left behind, getting her nails scratched and broken on the rough surfaces of rock, and her face tanned by sun and new snow!—and all the time, resting on sunny summits, stretched after the descent by tumbling streams in flowery pastures, have pumped into her hope and faith, and another view of life and of the world—then indeed one might have hoped to help her a little. Poor creature—pretty creature! Or if she would really go and take a look at the true life of a country like Hungary, or Yugo-Slavia, or Albania. Curious how she had kept on about Albania. But she won’t, Nils thought, switching off the light; people never do those things. He turned on his side, thinking with pleasure, in spite of his gloomy meditations, of how he would see her at breakfast in the morning, and fell asleep.

  He was aroused some hours later by the train stopping at a station; the absence of motion, cries outside, light through the chinks of the shutter do so arouse even the most hardened traveller when an express stops at night. He glanced at his watch—just after twelve; it must be Zagreb. He lay sleepily, listening to the usual noise of voices upraised without, sounding louder in the night; steps in the corridor, the banging of doors. How long they had been there he had no
idea. Still sleepy, he resisted for some time the normal impulse to raise the blind and look out, to verify for himself what station it was, but at last he gave way to it, and turning on his elbow, not only raised the blind, but put the window right down and stuck his head out, to get a breath of the night air. Even in the station it had a fresh tang in it. Yes, it was Zagreb all right—there was the big notice, both in Cyrillic and in Roman letters. He glanced casually up and down the platform. To his right, outside the coach behind his, porters and officials were fussing round a pile of immense trunks and boxes, all alike of white hide with green painted bands round them. A millionairish lot of baggage, Nils thought idly—and then, as the porters moved, he saw two women standing just beyond the pile. One, small and neat, he had never seen before, but there was no mistaking the other. Tall, graceful, Parisian, a mink coat over her arm, that ridiculous bag in her hand, Mrs. Thurston was standing on Zagreb platform in the middle of the night, beside—undoubtedly—what Francesco had called the “mountain” of her luggage. Nils gaped at her.

  The whistle blew—slowly the long train gathered motion and pulled out of the station. Nils drew in his head, rearranged the window and blind, and went back to bed. So she was going to give Albania the once-over, was she? “If I were English,” he said to himself aloud, in that tongue, “I should say that I should eat my hat!” Then he laughed, and turned out the light. But it was some time before he went to sleep. He was wondering very much what Mrs. Thurston would make of Albania, and still more, whether he would ever see her again.

  Chapter Four

  The Durazzo boat was steaming steadily down from Ragusa towards the entrance of the Bocche di Cattaro, and in one of its small, brightly-cretonned staterooms Mrs. Thurston sat on the bed, arranging her face and hair before the little mirror on the wall. She had not unpacked anything because she was only going as far as Cattaro; but this Yugoslav steamship company had the agreeable habit of providing passengers with staterooms even for a day trip. At Cattaro she was to spend the night in an allegedly very good hotel, the Slavia, and next day Warren Langdon was picking her up in his car and taking her down to Albania, driving her over the famous Mt. Lovcen road. All these arrangements she had made by an exchange of long and expensive telegrams with Warren Langdon at the American Legation at Tirana; her maid had been despatched to Venice, with a proportion of the larger green and white trunks, to sit at the Lido and await orders.

  Gloire Thurston had gone ahead with all this on rather a blind impulse; she was not a person who had the habit of looking much within. She had been lonely and fed-up, and there was no one she much wanted to see in Istanbul; Albania sounded different from anything she had ever seen, so different as perhaps to be a little amusing—so she had just decided to go there. Luckily she knew Warren Langdon well, and he had fixed everything for her. But now that she was actually on her way she began to wonder a little whether she had been mad to do anything so bizarre on the recommendation of a chance-met stranger in the train. It was a chilly, grey, blustery day; from the little window she could see, through travelling showers of rain, the mountains of the coast, blue-black and menacing—altogether a prospect to prompt doubts of a reckless enterprise. Gloire did not want to doubt, did not want to think why she had set out for Albania, did not in fact want to think at all. She wanted a drink, and any distraction that the boat might offer; pulling an artful turban instead of her hat over her close hair, and putting on her coat, she went off in search of both.

  The drink she got easily enough. Seating herself in the saloon, she drawled “Slivovitz” at a steward, who promptly brought it. Distraction looked less likely. She surveyed her fellow-passengers. There were not many, and most of them were short, blondish men and women, with thick figures and unfashionable clothes, talking a sibilant tongue she could not recognise; they were Czechs, only Mrs. Thurston didn’t know it. But presently a woman came in who attracted her attention. She had a good figure, but slouched distressingly; she carried a large despatch case. She was well and even cleverly dressed, in a dark brown and cream imprimé, with a well-cut brown coat, and expensive brown shoes and gloves. But she did not create in the least a fashionable impression—her coat was creased and wanted brushing, so did her shoes; her hat, small, neat, and smart as it was, was worn at the wrong angle, and the hair below it was vaguely unfashionable. All this aroused a certain interest in Mrs Thurston’s mind, which had nothing else to occupy it at the moment, as the woman sat down at a small table close by. Since she understood what to buy and wear together evidently rather unusually well, why on earth didn’t she put her things on properly and hold herself decently? This was the sort of problem which really intrigued her, and she looked at the rather uncared-for face. It was square and firm, with fine blue eyes, unplucked eyebrows, and a neat short nose; the complexion naturally good, clear and slightly tanned—and intelligent face; when the woman, no doubt feeling Gloire’s glance, raised her eyes suddenly and looked at her, it was a blue glance, keen and incisive. Gloire felt that she would like to talk to her. She was certainly English, and there was no one else who looked in the least conversible on this ghastly boat. There was no ash-tray on the stranger’s table—when she lit a cigarette Mrs. Thurston leant over and put one down on it.

  For the second time the woman looked up, with that blue, brilliant glance, and a half smile.

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, and put her match in it.

  “Revoltingly cold, isn’t it?” Mrs. Thurston said.

  “Yes. That’s the bora,” said the lady.

  “What’s the bora?”

  “The north wind. It’s always horribly cold with it.”

  “Do you know this coast, then?” Mrs. Thurston asked.

  “A good deal of it—pretty well.”

  “Do you know Cattaro?”

  “Yes—darling place.”

  “What’s the hotel like?”

  “Well, which are you going to? The Slavia is very much all right if it’s open but the other is quite quite awful,” said the lady rapidly.

  “I’m going to the Slavia,” said Mrs. Thurston.

  “Oh, is it open already? Oh, well, then you’ll be perfectly all right.” She looked at Mrs. Thurston as if she was trying to see her and couldn’t, and then added—“There’s quite good bathing—it has its own beach.”

  “I shan’t do much bathing this weather,” Gloire drawled— “and I’m only stopping one night.”

  “Oh really? Oh, what a pity!” said the lady. “Oh well, do go into the town—it’s so lovely—and see San Metodo and that other little church, the very early one, with the picture of Our Lady on the iconostasis, that they say is a portrait by S. Luke. It certainly looks as if it might be—it has much more character than most of those iconographic paintings, and it is very ancient, obviously.”

  Gloire was a little overwhelmed by all this information, so rapidly poured out. She was quite unequal to discussing iconographic paintings, whatever they might be. She made some vague reply, and then said, amiably—“Have a drink.”

  The lady looked at her empty glass, this time as if she did see it, and said, “What are you drinking? Slivovitz? Good. Yes, I’d love one.”

  The steward, hovering round the curtained door of a sort of galley, was after the manner of stewards keeping an eye on Mrs. Thurston—a movement of her head, and over he came.

  She said “Slivovitz” again, and held up two fingers. As the man moved away the lady drew her chair over to Mrs. Thurston’s table.

  “You’re going up Mt. Lovcen tomorrow, and driving back, I suppose?” she asked.

  “No, I’m going right over, and down to Scutari. You’re not stopping at Cattaro?”

  “No, I’m going on to Durazzo.”

  Gloire was a little surprised. The Englishwoman, too, was going to Albania! Gloire felt as if a little of her thunder was being stolen.

  “Is there a good hotel there?” she asked—it was the question that always sprang, automatically, to her lips about any fre
sh place.

  “No—both are quite frightful, I believe, but I’m not going to them. I’m staying with friends,” said the lady.

  “Do you know Albania well?”

  “No—not at all. It’s my first visit.”

  “Mine too,” said Gloire. She wasn’t sure that she liked this new acquaintance very much, but she was definitely curious now about more than her appearance. Who were her friends in Albania? Next to no one had friends in Albania. Who was she, anyway?

  This last query was promptly answered. The steward summoned them to lunch. It was the ingenuous and frugal habit of the steamship authorities, having conned over the passengers’ passports, to write out each person’s name on a small slip of cardboard, and stick it into a sort of slot made for the purpose on the embroidered linen cases in which everyone’s napkin was placed. So the lady in brown and Gloire, ushered by the steward to seats side by side, were each able to read the other’s name, embedded in red cross-stitch. “Mrs. S. Hanbury” read Gloire, silently; as she raised her eyes they met those of her neighbour.

  “Now we know!” the lady said, smiling, and Gloire felt that she liked her better.

  They were not left to pursue their acquaintance in peace. Opposite them an English couple took their seats, a pursy elderly man and a stout chattering little woman. The few tentative approaches which Gloire and Mrs. Hanbury had made to each other’s journeys were swamped in a flood of direct questions and personal experiences poured out in suburban accents.

  Mrs. Potts—for her napkin-case also revealed her identity—didn’t care much for the food on these boats, nor for the accommodation; clean enough, but only cold water. She wasn’t sure that she cared much for Dalmatia anyhow; she hoped Greece would be more interesting. They hadn’t found Ragusa very interesting, had they, Tom? Tom, consuming the despised food, made no sign of either agreement or disagreement. Where had they come from? Gloire said that she had been at Split. The little woman asked Mrs. Hanbury if she hadn’t found it rough, coming down from Split? Mrs. Hanbury said she had not come from Split.