Party in Peking

by Margaret Pemberton

  She stumbled again, this time on a stone she had not seen. Tears of tiredness and frustration stung her eyes. It was not easy to be cool and impersonal when she still felt the heat of shame and rage. And not when a small voice at the back of her mind kept prompting her to relive the few minutes after she had fallen.

  Had his behaviour been so outrageous? He had lifted her from the ground, steadied her until she had regained her breath—surely it was not his actions, but her own response to them that was at fault. Her jaw tightened. No. She would not believe it. He had seized her by the shoulders and pressed her to him with a passionate intensity that had been real and not imagined. His lips had sought her hair! Even now she could feel where his fingers had sunk into her flesh. No wonder such a man had been ostracized by polite society.

  She no longer felt the slightest sympathy for him. His presence would have to be tolerated until they reached Peking, but once there she would make sure that she never set eyes on him again.

  Phillippe would be waiting for her in Peking. Phillippe with his blond hair and blue eyes; blue like a summer sky. Not a deep, night-black that flared and flashed and intimidated even her uncle. She wondered if he was wrong, in assuming that Peking knew nothing of the Boxers’ nearness. Perhaps Phillippe was already aware that European villas in the Western Hills had come under attack. Perhaps even now he was in a fever of anxiety about her safety.

  She narrowly sidestepped a deep rut in the road. In another few hours she would be able to reassure him as to her safety. She would be able to have a reviving bath, change once more into her own clothes; eat a hot meal; slip between cool sheets and sleep until her body and her mind were rested.

  ‘Why has Doctor Sinclair stopped, William?’ her aunt was saying. ‘Why has he picked up that child? Oh, do hurry ahead and ask him what he is doing. I’m so frightened that the Boxers are behind us and will catch up with us.’

  With an anxious frown, Sir William hurried forward. Olivia hesitated and then continued walking to where Lewis Sinclair stood, a child in his arms, his head bent low as he listened to a small dark figure. It was none of her affair who he stopped to talk to. Perhaps he was negotiating for another pony or maybe even an unused cart. Steeling herself for the moment when their eyes should once again meet, she heard her uncle say fretfully. ‘It is madness, Sinclair, we will be slowed down alarmingly.’

  The child in Lewis’s arms began to whimper. Forgetting the scathing glances she had been about to subject him to, Olivia said in horror, ‘ His feet are bleeding!’

  ‘No doubt ours would be too, if we were barefoot,’ Lewis said dryly.

  There was another snuffle, somewhere to her right, and Olivia turned swiftly, seeing clearly for the first time, the small figure that Lewis had been talking to. It was an elderly nun, no taller than herself, her face lined and weary beneath her dust-covered coif. Clinging to her habit was a small boy, barely old enough to walk.

  ‘The children can go no further,’ the nun said tiredly. ‘Ch’un is five and he has carried Cheng-yu but he can do so no longer. I have tried to carry him myself, but we have covered only a hundred yards in the last hour.’

  She swayed, and Olivia caught her arm, steadying her, her eyes flying to Lewis’s. ‘She’s on the point of collapse! She can’t possibly walk any further.’

  Lewis didn’t disagree. He lowered the child gently to the ground and looked reflectively at Letitia Harland and Lady Glencarty.

  ‘Can I give them a drink of water?’ Olivia asked, and at his brief nod, hurriedly retrieved the water bottle from his saddle pack and handed it to the aged nun. She took it with shaking, arthritic hands.

  ‘Kwangtei has been burned,’ she said, her eyes bright with tears.

  ‘I was out in the fields with Ch’un and Cheng-yu. There was nothing we could do.’

  ‘Where is Kwangtei?’ Olivia asked Lewis, passing the water bottle to the eldest child.

  ‘About twenty miles north. God knows how they managed to make it this far.’

  ‘Are there other refugees from Kwangtei on the road?’ Olivia asked, turning her attention once more to the fragile figure at her side.

  The old nun shook her head. ‘No,’ she said simply. ‘Everyone was killed. Nuns. Children. Even the old Chinese who cleaned the chapel for us.’

  Olivia fought down the overwhelming urge to be sick. Lewis had told her that no mission was safe, but it had seemed a thing too monstrous to be true. Now she was faced with the reality. There would be other missions besides Kwangtei. Missions as yet unattacked and unprepared. Once they reached Peking, escorts could be sent from the city to bring the occupants to safety. But there was very little time. Even now, as they stood in a motley group in the middle of the unmade highway, precious minutes were ticking by.

  ‘We must give them some biscuits,’ William Harland was saying impatiently. ‘We have plenty to share. And now Sinclair, for the love of God, let us be on our way.’

  Olivia bent down and picked up the child squatting at the nun’s feet. She had never held a child before and was not quite sure how to go about it. Awkwardly she cradled it in her arms. It lay passively, large, eloquent eyes holding hers.

  ‘Olivia! What are you doing?’ her aunt shrieked in anguish.

  ‘Carrying him,’ Olivia said succinctly. ‘He’s little more than a baby, Aunt Letitia. He can’t possibly walk all the way to Peking.’

  ‘William! Tell her to put that child down! Tell her to…’

  ‘Sister Angelique cannot walk any further either,’ Lewis interrupted tersely, eyeing his horse.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Letitia Harland said, clutching at her heart. ‘Tell Doctor Sinclair I couldn’t walk, William. It would kill me!’

  ‘It won’t kill me,’ Lady Glencarty said briskly, and to everyone’s stunned amazement, she dismounted, squaring her jaw and eyeing them defiantly.

  ‘Thank you,’ Lewis said, striving to keep the surprise from his voice. ‘If I can find another mount for you, I will.’

  Lady Glencarty shrugged her massive shoulders as if it were of very little interest to her whether he did or not, and tried not to look too discomfited as Sister Angelique took her hands in hers and thanked her with tears in her eyes.

  ‘Ch’un can ride behind you,’ Lewis said as he led Sister Angelique away from Lady Glencarty and towards the pony. With ease he swung her astride the pony’s broad back, and lifted Ch’un up behind, then he turned to Olivia. ‘I think I may find the task of carrying Cheng-yu a little easier than you will,’ he said, a curious expression in his eyes as he removed the near-naked child from her arms.

  She nodded stiffly, averting her eyes from his, walking speedily away from him until she was abreast of Lady Glencarty.

  Lewis swung Cheng-yu up on to his back, a frown marring his brow. He had wanted to tell her that her willingness to carry Cheng-yu the remaining eleven or twelve miles to Peking had touched him deeply, but the hostility in the set of her shoulders deterred him. He had hoped that she had been too dazed from her fall to have been aware of the spasm of desire and grief that had swept over him when he had held her in his arms. He knew now that she had not been. She had been acutely aware of it, and she had misunderstood it.

  Sir William walked past him, his face white and drawn and Lewis saw that there were tears on Letitia Harland’s plump cheeks. He remained where he was, staring at Olivia’s retreating figure, his face sombre. He could speak to her, explain. Tell her about Pearl Moon. The moment came and went, and he knew that he would not do so. The hurt was still too naked, too raw. He began to walk forward quickly, to take the lead once more, aware that if he did ever talk to anyone about the woman he had loved, it would be to Olivia Harland with her refreshing directness, her impulsiveness, and her heart-catching kindness.

  She froze as he approached her and passed her and his face tightened. He had inadvertently alienated and offended her and he wished to God that he had not done so. ‘ Damn,’ he muttered under his breath as he led his motley p
arty past an overloaded Peking cart, ‘Damn, damn, damn!’

  There were other nuns amongst the long straggle trudging across the airless plain. All had the same story to tell. Attacks on their missions, attacks on nearby missions, warnings by the local peasantry of proposed attacks. Peking, with its stout walls and its representatives of their respective governments, was the only place that offered refuge.

  ‘The city will be overflowing with refugees,’ William Harland said as he made a gallant effort to keep abreast of Lewis. ‘ They’ll all have to be fed and watered. God, what a mess it all is.’

  Lewis shifted Cheng-yu to a slightly more comfortable position on his back. ‘It will be even worse if the Empress Dowager comes out in open support of the Boxers.’

  William Harland paled. ‘Do you think there is a serious possibility that she might?’

  Lewis shrugged. ‘ There is no telling what Empress Tzu-hsi might or might not do. She certainly hasn’t come down too hard on the Boxers so far.’

  ‘But if they run not in her own city, surely she will suppress them?’ William Harland asked, determining to remove Letitia and Olivia to Tientsin and the coast at the earliest opportunity.

  ‘Peking also houses all the heads of all the foreign legations,’ Lewis said tersely. ‘She might quite like it if the Boxers made an end of them once and for all.’

  William Harland inserted a finger between his collar and his neck, trying to ease the restrictive tightness. ‘But why should she want to do such a monstrous thing?’ he demanded.

  Lewis looked across at him and suppressed a sigh. Sir William Harland was a not unintelligent man and was an official at the British Legation. Yet his knowledge of China and Chinese grievances was minimal.

  He said with strained patience, ‘Over the last fifty years, China has been divided piecemeal among other nations, including Britain. Is it inconceivable that she should resent the fact, Sir William?’

  ‘There have been certain treaties,’ Sir William said reluctantly, ‘but all conducted most fairly, I can assure you.’

  A cart lumbered past them. A child began to cry and turning his head, Lewis saw Olivia bend low and offer it a biscuit from her rations. His eyes lingered on her for a few moments. In the moonlight, in native dress and with her dark hair streaming freely down her back, she looked far more Chinese than European. Only when she raised her head and her eyes briefly met his, was the illusion destroyed. There was nothing Chinese about the delicate oval face with its high cheekbones and full, generous mouth. The look she gave him before turning to Lady Glencarty, was cool and freezingly indifferent. Bleakly he turned his attention once more to Sir William.

  ‘In eighteen fifty-eight, Russia seized vast territories in the north. In eighteen sixty-two, Portugal occupied Macao, France occupied Annan and Britain annexed Lower Burma. Since then, Russia has occupied a vast tract of Chinese Turkistan, Japan has taken the Liuchiu Islands, and France has gained control of the Mekong basin. The list is endless and it will surely seem to China’s rulers that the countries respected in Peking are not going to be satisfied until the whole of China has been carved up between them.

  ‘And do you think that is the reason for the uprising?’

  Lewis shook his head. ‘No. The Boxers are peasants. I doubt that they are politically motivated. Their concern is with gods and spirits and their hatred is directed against Christians, but Christians are also foreigners, and such a vast, unpaid army could be put to very good use by the Empress.’

  The past few hours had etched deep lines around Sir William’s eyes and mouth. He felt—and looked—like an old man. ‘Then you think that there is a very real danger that the Boxers might attack Peking, and that the Empress will not deter them?’

  ‘I think there is a very real danger that not only will she do nothing to deter them, but that she might order the Imperial Army to join forces with them,’ Lewis said briefly.

  ‘If she does that,’ William Harland said, his voice trembling slightly, ‘ then we are all dead men.’

  Lewis did not contradict him. Sir William Harland was at last aware of the extreme gravity of the situation and he only hoped that together they would be able to convince Sir Claude MacDonald that the time for polite notes between the legations and the Winter Palace was at an end. Troops had to be called for, and called for without the slightest delay.

  ‘Are you a friend of Doctor Sinclair’s?’ Sister Angelique asked Olivia as she walked tiredly along at the pony’s side.

  Olivia looked up into the kindly face and shook her head. ‘No. I had not met him until yesterday.’

  ‘And you were travelling south, as we were?’

  ‘No.’ Olivia patted the pony’s flank, her eyes dark. ‘We only left Peking yesterday morning. My aunt and uncle leave the city every year in late May to avoid the sweltering heat. They have a villa in the Western Hills. It used to be a Chinese temple, and was very pretty.’

  Sister Angelique nodded, and waited as Olivia paused. Had it only been yesterday morning that they had travelled out from Peking in comfortable carriages, chattering light-heartedly about the party that Sir Claude had given in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday? After a little while, she continued, ‘When we arrived, I went for a walk while my aunt and Lady Glencarty rested. It was then that the Boxers attacked.’

  ‘I see,’ Sister Angelique said quietly. ‘And Doctor Sinclair?’

  Tears stung Olivia’s eyes. ‘The Boxers had set fire to the villa and my aunt and uncle and Lady Glencarty were trapped inside. I was running down the hillside, screaming when Doctor Sinclair overtook me on his horse. When I told him about my aunt and uncle, he ran forward with his rifle.’ She faltered. ‘I think he killed one of them. Perhaps two. I can’t remember. I can only remember running towards the villa, and the heat, and the smell of the smoke…’

  Sister Angelique leaned towards her and pressed a frail hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘It must have been very distressing for you, little one.’

  Olivia remembered the flames beating her back; the awful seconds when she had been convinced that her aunt and uncle were dead.

  ‘Doctor Sinclair was very brave,’ she said unsteadily. ‘He rushed into the villa through all the flames and smoke, and carried my aunt to safety.’

  A small smile touched Sister Angelique’s lips. ‘ Yes, Doctor Sinclair is a very brave man. A brave man and a good man.’

  Olivia looked up at her with surprise. ‘Do you know him. Sister Angelique?’

  Sister Angelique’s smile deepened. ‘Everyone in Chihli and Shansi knows of Doctor Sinclair. He is a remarkable doctor. I doubt if any of his patients would dare die. He is also one of the few men who can speak the northern dialects with ease. He loves China and the Chinese, and the Chinese love him.’

  ‘Yes,’ Olivia said thoughtfully, regarding his lean, lithe silhouette as he marched on a little way ahead of them. ‘He seems to understand them far more than any other European that I have talked to.’

  ‘He has patience and tolerance,’ Sister Angelique said. ‘He accepts people for what they are and that is a very rare quality.’

  Olivia regarded her doubtfully. It seemed to her that Lewis Sinclair had a remarkably small amount of patience.

  ‘He is also a man of honour,’ Sister Angelique continued, ‘and the Chinese respect honour.’

  Olivia was just about to indignantly say that Lewis Sinclair was most certainly not a man of honour, when the expression on Sister Angelique’s face stopped her. It was cruel and pointless to destroy the elderly nun’s illusions. Whatever his more worldly faults, he had behaved with great courage in saving the lives of her aunt and uncle and Lady Glencarty, and he had behaved with great kindness in not bypassing Sister Angelique and her two small charges.

  She found her eyes resting on him with increasing frequency. Cheng-yu’s small arms were firmly around his neck, his chubby legs tucked beneath his arms. It was a long walk, and she knew from her own brief experience that Cheng-yu was surprisingly
heavy.

  Beside her, Lady Glencarty stumbled and paused, panting heavily. Olivia took her arm, her face anxious. ‘Are you all right, Lady Glencarty? Would you like me to ask Doctor Sinclair to rest for a few moments?’

  ‘I am not all right,’ Lady Glencarty replied tartly. ‘I fail to see how I can be, in the circumstances.’

  Her breathing was harsh and rasping, and Olivia’s concern, deepened. Even as she was speaking she was clutching a hand to her side, and Olivia saw that her face was tight and drawn with pain. Breaking her resolve not to speak again to Lewis Sinclair, she hurried forward, saying urgently, ‘Lady Glencarty looks most ill. I don’t think she can continue much further.’

  He halted in his tracks, staring down at her grim-faced.

  ‘She has tried very hard,’ Olivia said defensively, aware of a disconcerting sensation as his eyes held hers.

  Lewis turned, walking back to where Lady Glencarty stood, panting for breath, the endless line of peasants filing past her on either side.

  ‘You have done your best,’ Olivia heard him say to her with surprising gentleness, and then, to her aunt, ‘Lady Harland, I think there is room behind you for Ch’un.’

  Letitia Harland nodded and Lewis lifted Ch’un from behind Sister Angelique, and placed him astride his own horse where he clung incongruously to Letitia Harland’s plump figure.

  ‘Now what?’ William Harland asked.

  ‘Sister Angelique weighs little more than a child,’ Lewis said brusquely, ‘and Mongol ponies are extraordinarily strong. I think it quite possible that Lady Glencarty and Sister Angelique can ride together.’

  Lady Glencarty was too exhausted to protest, but she did regain some of her former tartness just before Lewis helped her to mount.

  ‘I hope,’ she said imperiously to the gentle-faced Sister Angelique, ‘that you are of the Anglican persuasion and not a Roman?’

  Lewis’s mouth twitched suspiciously, and Olivia felt her own mouth tug into a smile as Sister Angelique assured Lady Glencarty that she was indeed an Anglican and Lady Glencarty, with a nod of approval, allowed herself to be seated once again on the uncomplaining pony.