William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

Ever yours,

Sadie. New name.

VERY SAD

Please wire.

Aunt Teresa wrote that her poor health was in as miserable a state as ever and that she had resigned herself to spend the remainder of her days in her exile in the Far East. There was little purpose in going back to Belgium now that Anatole was dead, and they were all removing to Harbin, where Countess X., an old Russian friend of hers, who was going back to Europe, would let them have her flat practically free of rent. Uncle Lucy’s remittance had still not arrived, and she was taking Sylvia home from the ‘Sacred Heart’ as she could not afford the fees.

WHEN, AFTER MY RECOVERY, I RETURNED TO THE OFFICE, I found that the Major had usurped my job. I worked, for a little while, under his orders, and then got sick of it. The clerks (like permanent officials untroubled by a change of Minister) worked unperturbed as before. ‘Chesterton,’ said Sergeant Smith, from his desk. ‘Ah, Chesterton, sir!’

‘What about him? He says more than he knows.’

‘But,’ rejoined Sergeant Smith, ‘how he walks down Fleet Street, stopping every few paces, lost deep in thought; then suddenly dashes across, stops dead in the middle of the thoroughfare, the buses and taxis and things all whizzing past and around him, then touches his forehead—“Got it”—and having captured the missing link in his thoughts returns to the pavement. A great character.’

‘A hair-splitting dud!’ rejoined Sergeant Jones.

‘No!’

‘Now then,’ said the Major, from my former desk. ‘Now then!’

Finding it impossible to evict him from my chair (now more amply occupied by his form), I accepted Sir Hugo’s offer of combining a little duty with pleasure, and proceeded on a sheepskin expedition to Harbin to bring back a quantity of sheepskin coats which had been ordered for the Russian Army. As Beastly was returning to Harbin to consult the railway authorities in that city on matters locomotive, we agreed to go together, Pickup and Beastly’s batman Lenaine (the latter a public school boy whose father as he came to see him off at Euston wore a top hat and looked like a lord) travelling with us. It was full winter, and bitterly cold. Two weary nights, impenetrable gloom.

A lovely morning. I stood on the open platform as the train raced between a forest and a field, both deep in snow. A harsh wind whipped me in the face, but the sky was blue and cloudless and the vast space of snow glittered in the sunshine.

Sylvia was waiting for me at the station, looked out, and seeing me went in — I suppose out of shyness. Then we met. She had grown. She was taller and more beautiful than she had been in Japan; she looked fresh and strong in her short astrakhan-bordered coat and warm overshoes. And Harbin, which I had visited one summer, seemed full of precious associations; but under the cloak of winter it had acquired an unreal, fantastic appearance. The pines and firs were covered with snow; the ground creaked agreeably under our feet as we walked to their house.

As we entered the large stone building, a door on the landing was open and a terrific row seemed in progress in one of the flats, as if someone — someone who shouldn’t have been — had been killed. I looked up at Sylvia, in alarm.

‘It’s Berthe and Mme Vanderphant,’ she said, ‘talking.’

And indeed, as we ascended the steps, it transpired that Berthe and Mme Vanderphant were amicably imparting to each other their deep-felt impression that it was very cold in the flat.

‘ Mais, Mathilde, c’est épouvantable ce qu’il y fait froid !’

‘ Ah, mais je te crois bien, Berthe !’

And so on.

The flat was a little dark, but otherwise nice and comfortably furnished, and there was a bath. But when I applied for its use I created a commotion. ‘ Allons !’ said Berthe, ‘we must send for the workmen to repair the bath.’ Some hours afterwards they arrived and set to work on the geyser, which gave angry little puffs of explosion — when they all began to curse each other. While the bath was being prepared for my impending use, two homeless dressmakers who had been allowed by Aunt Teresa to use the bathroom as a room for dressmaking were enjoined by Berthe to leave it. They stood in the corridor, surprised and afraid, as if wondering what was ‘up’, and holding their work in their hands, while I washed, slowly, lingeringly, interminably. And I could hear their voices, amid the angry little puffs of the geyser, while in the adjoining room Uncle Emmanuel conversed politely with Mme Vanderphant:

‘Monsieur is supporting the cold remarkably well.’

‘Ah, madame is truly amiable.’

‘Monsieur is too kind.’

‘Ah, madame is flattering me!’

‘Is monsieur then not afraid of the climate?’

‘Ah! not at all.’

‘ Enfin , monsieur has courage!’

‘Ah, madame is flattering me.’ ‘Monsieur is too kind.’

In the twilight of the cosy drawing-room Sylvia was playing patience and telling fortunes, talking a lot to herself, cooing like a dove — half-audibly. Having finished telling her own fortune she began telling mine — something about a fair lady, an important letter, a long journey, and so forth.

‘Darling,’ I said, ‘you only wrote to me once all the time. I wrote three times.’

She did not answer at once because she was laying out the cards and cooing to herself the while. I thought she hadn’t heard, but presently she replied: ‘I wanted to know.’

‘What?’

‘When a man loves he writes, writes, writes — goes on writing. I wanted to know.’

‘What?’

‘If you would go on.’

‘Oh!’

‘Oh!’ she mimicked. ‘I did.’

‘But I’ve no time for writing letters. I like writing for print.’

‘You write something about my darling beautiful brother Anatole.’

‘But, darling, what am I to write?’

‘Write something. I want to have something from you. Write about his little dugout and how he joined at eighteen and — and how they killed him.’ Her eyes filled.

I thought: we shall forget your sacrifices, curses, vows, and what you went through — and we shall live as though those things had never been. We shall forget the things you died for — and the peace will yet calumniate your deaths.

We arrived on a Thursday, and on Saturday, it being the fourth day since we left Vladivostok, Major Beastly made a stink . Uncle Emmanuel at once lit a heavy cigar. Aunt Teresa applied her lace handkerchief to her chiselled nostrils. ‘ Mais mon Dieu ! He wants to kill us,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s poison gas!’

‘ Ah, je crois bien, madame !’ cried Mme Vanderphant in tones of acute anguish. And Berthe uttered: ‘ Oh la la !’

Uncle Emmanuel shrugged his shoulders several times in that provoked, astonished way by which the Latin race implies that ‘it’s a bit much!’ and said, ‘ Allons donc, allons donc !’

‘ Ah, mais ! he has some cheek!’ echoed Mme Vanderphant.

To which Uncle Emmanuel could only answer, ‘Ah! Ah—!’ completing with his gestures the unspeakable.

He had a delicate skin, said Beastly, when I approached him diplomatically, which would not stand the touch of the razor-blade. I cannot say what happened. As I was about to press him more definitely to give up this evil-smelling practice, he suddenly fell ill with dysentery, and the question was again indefinitely postponed.

It fell to Berthe to nurse him. Beastly was no great beauty at the best of times. His nostrils were strictly perpendicular to the ground on which he trod — that is vertical instead of being horizontal; so that when he leaned back in a chair, or now in bed, before you, they were parallel with the incline of his body. You had a full view of them, as though they were drawn up for your inspection. Nevertheless, Berthe took a fancy to him and nursed him with especial care.