The House of Hardie

by Anne Melville

  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.

  Gordon was no longer looking south towards the river, but had turned his head to one side. Lucy followed his gaze with her own, and drew in her breath sharply. Now she understood the tone of awe in which he had spoken.

  What she saw was a cleft in the rock which was not large enough to be called a valley. A gorge, perhaps, rising for two thousand feet or more from a point below the level of the pass on which they were standing. In any case, the word was not important. All that mattered was that the gorge was curtained and carpeted with lilies in full flower.

  For a second time Lucy gasped with amazement and was made almost dizzy by the rich perfume borne towards her on the wind. Her eyes widened as she studied the lilies. They were four feet tall, and from each long, elegant stem hung half a dozen long flowers, their ivory-white petals tinged on the outside with pink. A deep gold in the very centre of each trumpet revealed itself only as the swirling wind turned the plants in the direction of the two watchers. Lucy had never seen anything similar before. This, surely, must be the lilium which Gordon had described to her – the plant which had been discovered eighty years earlier but which had failed to make a safe passage to Europe and could never be found again.

  ‘Thousands!’ exclaimed Gordon, his voice husky with awe. ‘There must be thousands there. And nowhere else. It’s unbelievable. Just think, Lucy, if we hadn’t turned back to come this way … Or if we had followed this path a few months later, when the flowers had died down and the bulbs were hidden below the ground. If it were not for our baby, Lucy! Oh, how I give thanks for the grace of God and the demands of our baby!’

  He turned back to face Lucy, and it seemed to her that he was almost crying with excitement and delight. She was accustomed to the bright eagerness which was always in his eyes, and the alertness of his strong-featured face. But never before had she seen this expression almost of wonder. A weight of guilt flew from her mind and body as she understood that this discovery had by itself made his expedition worth while. Even if, through her fault, they had to cut short their time of travel, he would go home happy as long as he could take the lilies with him.

  ‘We must stay near here,’ she said. She knew that this season, while they were in flower, would not be the right time to dig up the bulbs; he would need to wait until the autumn.

  ‘Yes. How it all works together for the best. You need to rest and I need to wait. I must collect a few now, though. So that you may have a flower to paint, and I can consider whether they will propagate best by seeds or by scales from the bulb.’ He looked again towards the gorge. ‘The first part of the climb will be difficult. It will take me several hours to explore the area. I can rejoin this track at a much lower level. But even the track is very steep. You, Lucy, should take the descent carefully. Would you be willing to go ahead with Sati and the baggage, leaving me and one coolie to make the climb? We’ll fix a place where you should wait for me to catch you up.’

  Lucy nodded her willingness. ‘As long as the place cannot be missed,’ she said.

  ‘Well, we can see from here.’ He called Sati to join them, and began to explain what he wanted in a mixture of gestures and the limited pidgin vocabulary which they shared.

  ‘Follow the track down with your eyes,’ Gordon instructed Lucy when the discussion was over. ‘Can you see that brown line where the path reaches the river? That’s a bridge, and Sati says it’s the only one within miles. There’s no possibility of mistake.’

  Straining to see, Lucy was able to make out the thin line of the bridge, shimmering in the arid heat, many hundreds of feet below. On the further bank of the river, at a lower level still, was one of the first grassy patches they had seen for some days, suggesting a flat space which, beside water, should be an ideal camp ground.

  ‘That’s where I’ll join you,’ said Gordon. ‘We’ll stay there for the night.’

  ‘You’ll be sure to come back before it gets dark?’

  ‘Of course.’ Gordon kissed her in reassurance, but Lucy could feel his body trembling with eagerness to be off – and she herself felt such relief at his discovery that she would not allow another word of doubt to cross her lips. She watched as he confirmed the arrangement with Sati, chose one of the coolies to accompany him, buckled on his own backpack and, with a last cheerful wave, disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

  Lucy dared not watch him go, knowing that she would become dizzy and nervous. Instead, she took her seat in the wicker chair and gripped its edges tightly as the coolies stooped to pick up the long poles between which it was suspended.

  Lucy hated the chair – especially when, as today, she was being carried steeply downhill. Even on level ground the short quick steps of the coolies set up a swaying motion, and her feeling of insecurity became even greater when she felt herself tipping forward. But she recognized that she no longer had the stamina to make a full day’s journey on her own feet and, more decisively, the changing shape of her body had affected her natural sense of balance. On a mountain track with a sheer fall on one side her lack of steadiness would be a danger. Common sense told her that she must accept the arrangement which her husband had made.

  At three o’clock that afternoon the mule train reached the bridge which Gordon had pointed out from above. Lucy stared at it in dismay. The river here was still falling steeply from its source in the mountains and had cut out a gorge as steep-sided and deep as the higher one which Gordon was at that moment exploring. So the bridge – if it could be called a bridge – was sixty or seventy feet above the water. It consisted simply of two long ropes suspended at infrequent intervals to support a footway of narrow planks which seemed not to be in any way secured. Even before anyone had set foot on it, it swayed in the wind in an alarming manner.

  Lucy got out of the chair. If the coolies were to carry her across, they would need both hands to hold on to the side ropes. The poles, resting on their shoulders, would raise Lucy high above the level of the ropes. Should she fall, there would be nothing to save her.

  Why should she fall? Although the coolies occasionally stumbled on the stony mountain paths, they would be cautious in making such a crossing. But she herself might become dizzy and overbalance.

  Sati observed her nervousness and misunderstood its exact cause. He led one of the mules across to show that the apparently fragile construction was stronger than it appeared. The heavily-laden animal plodded stolidly across, head down, placing one leg in front of the other in a straight line along the centre of the planks. There was nothing to be afraid of. And yet she was afraid.

  Why, she wondered, should pregnancy have this effect on her? During the seven months since they set out from Shanghai there had been several moments of real danger and she had faced them with courage, even a kind of excitement. They were part of the great adventure whi
ch she and Gordon were sharing. During the past few weeks, although conscious of a new nervousness, she had almost managed to control it. But now, faced with the need to take a step forward, she was unable to do so.

  Sati led forward another mule and indicated that she should ride it across, but Lucy shook her head. On its back, as in the chair, she would be too high. She could trust the animal, but not herself.

  The muleteer had one last solution to offer. He tied a rope around her, under her arms: the loop was loose but the knot was firm. The words he spoke were presumably intended to reassure her that even if she were to slip, he would not let her fall far.

  Lucy stared at him for a moment. Had she come face to face with such a man in England, she would have assumed him to be a brigand. His face was scarred and, although his high cheekbones and Mongolian cast of face gave the impression that he was always smiling, the narrowness of his eyes made the smile appear a sinister one – an impression strengthened by the way in which he had pulled down the ear-flaps of his felt hat. The problems of communication were so great that she could have no true idea of what he was thinking. Yet she must trust him. His agreement with Gordon had involved him not only in providing mules and hiring men, but in purchasing supplies and making all practical arrangements, and he had been both efficient and honest in this. It must be assumed that he knew what was for the best. In any case, somehow or other the river must be crossed. She told herself that she was being weak and cowardly and altogether despicable, and stepped on to the bridge.

  It was like walking on a hammock. With each step the structure not only swayed but shuddered. Lucy took a tight hold of the waist-high rope on either side and inched her way forward. At first she held her head high, fearing that if she looked down, the emptiness below would increase her terror. But the roughness of the footway and the gaps between the planks forced her to watch her feet. Although she knew that to move fast would be safer, she continued to inch forward at a snail’s pace, not daring to take the weight off one foot until she was quite sure that the other was steady. Sati walked backwards in front of her with only one hand sliding casually along the rope bridge, the other grasping her halter as though she were a recalcitrant mule to be brought safely across.

  She was within ten feet of the further bank when the bridge began to sway violently. The plank on which she was treading tilted upwards and then lurched down again, and at the same moment the muleteer yelled out at the top of his voice. Was his grimace one of fury or fear? It might only mean that one of the other mules had been led on to the bridge too soon, against his instructions, but in a moment of panic it felt to Lucy as though the flimsy structure was about to collapse. What good would Sati’s rope do her then, if he too was flung down into the gorge? She hurled herself forward, panting in her anxiety to reach the land. But she had been right to distrust her own sense of balance. Her right foot slipped off the plank and, before she could recover herself, she was down on her left knee, with the whole weight of her ungainly body following her dangling foot sideways and down.

  The bridge did not collapse. Sati did not let go of the rope, for she felt it bite in under her shoulders. Nor did she herself release her grip on the two side ropes of the bridge although, as she slipped, her arms were jerked upwards, above her head. She was conscious of a new shuddering as one of the coolies ran to hold her from behind and, with Sati’s help, to raise her to her feet and carry her to the end of the bridge. But by now she had ceased to worry about falling. She had a new fear instead.

  They reached the bank. ‘Missee alrightee?’ asked Sati, grinning with success. Lucy did her best to smile. She leaned against the steep wall of rock – for the track on this side was as narrow and precipitous as the other – and tried to bring herself under control while the rest of the mule team was led across. She was not all right. As she slipped, and as her arms jerked upwards, she had experienced an agonizing pain. It had lasted only for a second, and she hoped that it might be explained by the strain on some muscle. But her body told her, as she waited, that the pain would come again.

  Within moments it returned, squeezing her as though in the jaws of a man trap. She slipped to the ground as if only on hands and knees, like an animal, would she be able to endure it. For a while, in the bustle of reorganizing the mule train and starting it on its way down, her distress went unnoticed. By the time Sati came to look for her again, she was in tears.

  It was not so much the severity of the pain which upset her as its significance. Ignorant though she might be about childbirth, the one fact which every young woman knew was that it was painful. The only possible explanation for the feeling that her body was being stretched and squeezed and torn into pieces must be that the baby was about to arrive. Gordon had promised that there should be at least two months to wait, but Gordon must have been mistaken.

  So what was she to do, with no woman to help her, no husband at hand to comfort her, surrounded by men whose manners were rough and whose clothes were dirty? How could a baby born on a mountainside in such conditions survive even for an hour? There would be no hot water to wash him, no way to keep him warm when the sun set and the temperature fell below freezing. She cried from a feeling of helplessness – and with anger at finding herself trapped in such a situation.

  When the pain came again, she struggled to control her groans. An Englishwoman ought not to let a native see that she was suffering. But Sati, uncouth though he might seem, was not to be deceived and crinkled his wind-tanned forehead in worry. ‘Beebee?’ he asked, rocking his arms in the gesture which Gordon had used when teaching him the new word to explain their change of itinerary.

  Lucy nodded her head. She could not afford to refuse any help. She had read about countrywomen who gave birth to their babies in a ditch and went straight back to work, but her upbringing had been of a different kind. The memory of her mother’s death was enough to remind her of the dangers. She tried to ask that someone should be sent to fetch Gordon without delay, but was unable to interrupt the excited discussion as all the men, in a cluster, argued about what should be done.

  In the end she was given no choice. The poles of her carrying chair were used to make a litter on to which she was strapped with blankets. Two coolies set off with her at a run, with two others trotting behind, ready to take their turn with the burden. Down the mountain path they went and past the flat meadow on which the camp was to be pitched. Lucy tried to stop them there, but they took no notice. They had been given their orders by Sati and it soon became clear that they proposed to run on towards the village which had been visible from high above.

  Lucy gave up, resigning herself to the jogging of the litter and the spasmodic swelling of her body, which pressed against the straps holding her firm. Under the blankets her fists clenched with each new pain – but between them, she was able to stroke her own abdomen, sensitive even through layers of clothing to the movements of her child. Often during the past month, feeling the baby’s kicking, she had smiled to think how fit and active he seemed to be. But now his movements frightened rather than reassured her.

  ‘Wait a little,’ she pleaded to her baby. ‘Please wait.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gordon sighed with contentment as he rested in the valley of lilies. Surely this must be the happiest day of his life!

  Throughout the years of dreaming and studying and planning which had preceded the expedition, he had done his best not to make his expectations too specific. The purpose of his venture was to discover something new – something which could not be imagined because it had never yet been seen outside its native habitat. Nevertheless, as a runaway boy, one of the earliest lessons he had learned from the botanist who befriended him was that discoveries are made by people who know what they are seeking.

  It was that same botanist who had told him about the lost lily. Merlot’s lily, he had called it. Vividly Gordon recalled the excitement with which he had listened to the story. From that moment onward he had longed to become the man who wou
ld find the lily again and this time bring it safely back to Europe. But others had had the same ambition. Naturalists had been searching for it for years without success. To have proclaimed such a rediscovery as his principal goal would have doomed his expedition to failure. So he had made no mention of it to any of his patrons.

  This restraint made his triumph all the sweeter. The lily would be his own. He could name it, breed from it, sell it if he wished or else keep it for himself to be the envy of every other horticulturist. With a second sigh of satisfaction he lay back, intoxicated by the heady perfume of the flowers and his own sense of achievement.

  It was all because of the baby. Remembering his reaction of dismay on first hearing Lucy’s news he was momentarily ashamed. He had even felt angry with her, as though it were her fault, instead of experiencing the joy with which a man ought to greet the news of a new life.

  He knew that joy now. His feelings for the baby and the lily merged in a swell of possessive love. For Lucy, the conditions of the birth would be hard, but he would give her every assurance that he wanted the baby.

  The wind changed, wafting the scent away and reminding him by a sudden edge of coldness that he ought not to delay any longer before making his way to the camp. In his excitement he had climbed to the head of the valley of lilies. Now, with more difficulty, he began to make his way down. In his pack were a dozen of the precious bulbs, and a bunch of the flowers for Lucy to smell and to paint.

  The descent took longer than he had expected. The sun had set behind the high mountains long before he reached the bridge, and darkness was falling as he made his precarious way across it. But the camp could not be more than half an hour or so away. Lucy would be worrying – so Gordon began to sing, loudly and untunefully, gesturing his coolie companion to join in so that Tibetan and English notes mingled in discord. Hearing them coming, Lucy would be laughing and teasing when they arrived, instead of anxious.