The House of Hardie (29 page)

Lucy clung to the saddle of the mule, determined not to collapse. She had assured Gordon that she could ride, and it was no idle boast. At Castlemere she could happily spend all day on her riding mare; or keep up with the hounds on her hunter just as well as Archie, however high the hedges or rough the ground. But by ‘riding' she meant an activity in which she was almost one with the horse, controlling it but at the same time becoming a part of it, so that their joint energy was channelled into a single flow of movement. Sitting on a mule for twelve hours a day was a different matter entirely.

It would have been more comfortable to walk from time to time – but also more dangerous. The mountain paths were rough and narrow. On the occasions – fortunately rare – when they encountered travellers moving in the opposite direction, it could take an hour or more as well as much argument before a passing place was found. Rocks fell from the sheer cliffs above; stones crumbled into the precipice below. A false step would allow no second chance. Although – after a daily demonstration of bad temper and refusal to move had been overcome – the mules appeared to plod along mindlessly, they were surefooted. Lucy knew that she was safe from anything but a landslide, but the knowledge did not help her to feel comfortable.

Their weeks of travelling away from the busy trading routes of China and even deeper into the mountain wilderness had brought her embarrassment as well as
physical discomfort. As long as they remained on the plains, they had spent each night at one of the inns which awaited travellers in each small town. Built round a courtyard, with a kitchen and eating-room fronting the street and stalls for mules and horses along a second side, such an inn provided plentiful accommodation for guests; and although much of it was communal, there was always one ‘best room'. Lucy had to endure staring and even touching as she passed through the public quarters, but could then enjoy a night's privacy with Gordon, sleeping on a
kang
– a stove bed, heated from below by glowing coals.

Since leaving the plains, however, conditions had necessarily become more primitive, whilst privacy had almost entirely vanished. It was clear from the sour smell of their clothes and skin that the men whom Gordon hired to act as guides and porters never washed at all, but instead rubbed rancid butter into their skin to protect it from the elements. A blonde woman was an object of such intense curiosity to them that they stared at her intently, not disguising their wish to see as much of her own skin as possible. So Lucy was forced to perform her ablutions as best she could inside the tiny yak-skin tent which was only just large enough for two people to sleep in, and did not allow either of them to stand up. The rivers whose clear water might have tempted her to a more refreshing immersion proved always to be flowing straight from a glacier or snowfield and so were icy as well as dangerously swift.

Even Lucy's most private functions would have come under interested scrutiny had Gordon not always placed himself on guard, forbidding his men to turn their heads on pain of forfeiting a day's pay. There was nothing evil in their wish to stare, he assured his wife, only curiosity.

Lucy believed him, but still felt embarrassed when she had to bring the caravan to a halt – for just as the mountain paths were too narrow to provide her with seclusion, so also they made it impossible for her simply to fall back for a few moments and take her place in the line again later. This was an aspect of travel which her heroine, Miss Marianne North, had never mentioned in the books which described her adventurous explorations. But the mortification which Lucy felt when she first needed to appeal to Gordon grew less with each day that passed.

They had reached the mountains which separated China and Tibet by the middle of March. This was the area in which Gordon expected to make his discoveries. Within a week or two the first buds of the earliest rhododendrons would begin to open, even in the snow. For the next six months he would keep a careful log of his position and everything he saw, so that they could return later to collect seeds which had ripened and dig up dormant roots. The prospect ahead was one of ceaseless trekking, with only occasional breaks to pick up more stores.

Lucy had known in advance about the discomforts of travelling and camping. She had resolved never to let a single word of complaint pass her lips. What she had not been prepared for was the effect of the altitude. Well aware that the mountains through which they must travel were some of the highest in the world, she had not realized that even the valleys would often be higher than mountain peaks in other countries.

Although they remained on the Chinese side of the frontier, as their special passports required, their muleteer, Sati, was a Tibetan. Disregarding frontier lines drawn on a map, he had spent his life trading across the mountain area. He and his coolies, born and brought up
at altitudes of over twelve thousand feet, were so well acclimatized to the thin air that they suffered in an opposite way from the two Europeans, feeling discomfort in the lower-lying plains of China. But their mules showed by the blood which trickled from their nostrils that they were near the limit of their endurance. If animals native to this part of the world began to gasp for breath and stagger under their loads, it was hardly surprising that the English couple should be affected.

The first sign of something unusual had been laughable. Lucy had smiled to see Gordon's dark, curly hair suddenly standing on end as though in an illustration for a ghost story. But within a few moments his nose began to bleed and her amusement turned to anxiety as the flow of blood resisted her efforts to check it with packs of snow. He was attacked, too, by severe headaches and spells of vertigo. It was the mountain sickness, Sati assured them. There was no cure except to move slowly and with as little exertion as possible.

Lucy was unaffected at first and, as Gordon gradually became acclimatized, they both felt fit and energetic. Then she in turn fell victim to the sickness. The precipitous country through which they were passing was enough to induce vertigo by the merest glance downwards, but Lucy felt giddy from the moment she awoke in the morning – unable to steady herself because of the sensation that she was floating above the solid earth. She found herself retching without being able to vomit. Gordon was solicitous, and the fact that he had been a sufferer himself made it easier for Lucy to avoid feeling guilty about her weakness. But she had always enjoyed good health. It was difficult now not to be impatient with herself.

It was no doubt the mountain sickness which robbed
her of her appetite, but the only food available was not of a kind to tempt her to eat. Lucy herself had never learned to cook, so it was just as well that meals were included in the service which Sati and his men provided. As soon as a camp site for the night had been chosen, Gordon would produce his flint and steel and ceremonially provide the spark to light the night's fire. Often the flames had to be fuelled by pats of dried dung, for there was little wood in the higher areas; but a greater problem was the low boiling point of water at such altitude. The Tibetans were as anxious as Lucy herself for a drink of tea, and a Chinese tea brick was the first item to be unpacked. But the beverage had to be stewed rather than infused; it was some time before Lucy became reconciled to its strong tang.

As for food, there was little variety of ingredients and less of taste. Whenever, in the lower valleys, Gordon succeeded in shooting game for the pot, the meat would be cooked in the rancid butter which the Tibetans loved. To them, every year of its stored life increased its attractiveness, but the stench nauseated Lucy even before the food touched her lips. By contrast, the dried barley and beans which provided the bulk of their rations were boiled to a tasteless mush. Lucy could force herself to eat only a little. She never complained about this, but her lack of appetite, and subsequent failing of strength, made her more susceptible to the extremes of climate which must be faced in every twenty-four-hour period. By day, as the sun blazed down through the thin air, the temperature reached 120°, whilst at night it fell below freezing point. And all the time a fierce wind blew, arid by day and bitter by night. Even in the quilted coat which she had bought locally, she shivered after the sun went down; and even under a wide-brimmed hat and wearing her thinnest,
loosest clothes, her body seemed to swell with the heat during the day.

As the weeks passed, she found herself considering a question for which no book of etiquette had prepared her. Would it matter, she wondered, if she were to remove her corsets? Polite society would hardly care if she were to relax her standards in the wildness of China, but would such slackness ruin her figure for the rest of her life? By the end of April she gave up the struggle. Like her husband, she had at last become acclimatized; but, as her appetite returned, her body felt even more swollen than before. Without saying anything to Gordon, she ceased to wear the corsets.

By now the excitement of the search had infected her as strongly as Gordon. Her eyes were keen, and often she was the first to see some flash of colour in the crevice of a rock, or far below at the foot of the valley. It had proved impossible to explain to their guide precisely what the purpose of the expedition was, for how could Gordon hope to describe plants whose most important characteristic was that he had never yet set eyes on them? He had made a drawing of a lily, hoping that it might bear some resemblance to the flower which above all he longed to find – but just as he had earlier discovered that Sati was incapable of interpreting a map, so the muleteer's puzzled expression as he stared at the drawing showed that the marks of pencil on paper meant nothing to him at all. The map problem could be solved simply by specifying a village or pass as destination and trusting the guide to find the best approach to it. But where new plants were concerned, the two Europeans had to rely on their own eyes and botanical knowledge; and already they had enjoyed many successes. Azaleas and rhododendrons came into flower – and to Lucy, who had only seen one
or two solitary specimens, it was a revelation to come across a valley carpeted with them. Her only disappointment was the difficulty of using her water colours at such altitudes, for the water evaporated on the brush before she could touch the paper. Driven by necessity, she evolved a new way of working, making sharp drawings in pencil and pressing an example of each blossom for a few days until camping on lower ground made it possible to add the colour wash.

It was in May that she began to suspect what might be happening to her. The disturbance in the normal rhythms of her body she had first thought to be an effect of the mountain sickness. To be unexpectedly freed from a monthly process which would have caused discomfort while riding the mule and embarrassment in evading the eyes of the coolies came as a relief. This led her for some time to put to the back of her mind its possible explanation. But one day she felt a movement inside her body which could not be mistaken. It was the movement of a child.

Once again, Lucy had cause to regret the lack of a mother and her abrupt departure from home. No one had ever talked to her about having babies. Still, she had grown up surrounded by dogs and horses, and the conversation of the grooms had none of the polite restraint of her female relatives. It did not take much imagination to deduce that she must be pregnant. What she did not know – and could not guess – was how long the process would take.

Would Gordon know? But at the very thought of asking him Lucy was overcome with guilt. She had vowed never to let herself become an impediment to his journey and what could be a greater impediment than a baby? On the Castlemere estate she had carried parcels of food and
clothes to new mothers often enough to know that a woman needed a midwife for a birth, and a period of rest in bed after it, and that the baby itself, once delivered, must be kept warm and comfortable and frequently fed. None of this was compatible with the conditions under which they were travelling. When the time came, she would have to find somewhere to stay, and Gordon would feel obliged to stay with her. His plans would be spoiled. A whole season of seed-collecting would be wasted. He might even feel that she ought to return immediately to England – or at the very least to Shanghai, where there would be a European doctor. And he would, of course, insist on accompanying her. She was realistic enough to recognize that it would be impossible for her, a foreigner and a pregnant woman, to travel two thousand miles across such inhospitable country unescorted.

Gordon had been planning this expedition for ten years. He had put all his savings into it, as well as the money provided by patrons who had received firm promises of what he would bring them in return. He had also invested something far more important than money. The whole drive of his enthusiasm and ambition and determination had centred on this one great opportunity which could never be expected to recur. And she, who would do anything for him and had wanted only to share in his adventure, was to be the one to ruin it.

All that evening she sat in silence. Usually the meal at the end of the day was a noisy affair. Because of the lack of fuel, only one camp fire could be sustained for the whole party, so the Tibetans gobbled their food on one side of it whilst Gordon and Lucy sat on the other, discussing the day's discoveries as they ate. Then, while Gordon made detailed notes in his daily log and Lucy made pencil drawings, the coolies would pull out their
opium pipes and puff peacefully away until it was time for them to take up the extraordinary posture in which they slept, keeping the main part of their bodies above the frozen ground by resting on knees and elbows, with their heads tucked in between their arms – a draping of all available furs and blankets giving them the appearance of a small flock of sheep.

Gordon and Lucy, changing their clothes inside the tent, one at a time for lack of space, would settle down more comfortably, close together on a mattress of furs and with more furs to cover them. They were still on their honeymoon: usually this was a time for joy. But on the night after Lucy first felt her child's movement she lay awake for a long time after Gordon was asleep, weeping silently so that her husband should not stir and suspect her unhappiness. How unfair it was, when she loved him so much, that she should be the one to bring him distress! Soon she would have to tell him her suspicions. She would see disappointment in his eyes – perhaps even anger. Would his love survive the news?