The House of Hardie (33 page)

‘Be quiet,' said Gordon gently, drying her face. ‘This was an accident of travel, nothing else. No one is to blame. We can feel a little sorry for ourselves, but that's all. I know that you want to have a family, and I want your babies as well. Nothing has been spoilt. The baby brought good fortune to me, although only pain to you. We shall have more children, Lucy. There's plenty of time ahead of us. Just as long as you are well. That's all that matters.'

‘I'd like to see her, Gordon. They took her away so quickly.'

‘I wanted to see her as well. I asked. But she's been buried already.'

Lucy felt herself becoming upset again. ‘She should have had a Christian burial. She was born alive.'

‘I've found out from the innkeeper where the nearest mission house is,' Gordon said. ‘As soon as you're fit to travel, we'll take you there on a litter. The innkeeper's wife has gone to find a woman who will travel with us, to look after you. You'll be better cared for at the mission station, and we'll ask one of the missionaries to say a
prayer for the baby. Probably they travel around the area from time to time. When one of them next comes this way, he could say the funeral service over the grave.'

‘She should have a name,' said Lucy.

Gordon nodded. ‘We could call her Lily, and remember her by the valley of lilies.'

‘No,' said Lucy. ‘I want your lily to be a happy memory for you, not a sad one.'

‘Then I tell you what,' said Gordon. ‘I shall name the lily after our
next
daughter. The beautiful, golden-haired girl who is going to be born in England in two or three years' time and who will grow up to be as tall and slender and lovely as her mother. I would like to call
that
daughter Grace – and give the name to the lily at once. So I'll leave you to christen your first-born.'

‘Rachel,' said Lucy. Rachel had been the name of her mother, who had also died too young.

‘Rachel,' agreed Gordon.

Named, the baby seemed to become a person instead of only a ghostly cry in the night. Lucy struggled to bring her unhappiness under control and put everything that had happened behind her. ‘I want to leave now,' she said. ‘Straight away. As soon as you've found a nurse.' She could feel that she was bleeding, but was too embarrassed to mention this to Gordon. ‘First of all, I need to get out of all this strapping and have my arms free. And I'd like something to eat.'

‘That's my brave darling.' Once again, Gordon covered Lucy's face with kisses. ‘I love you,' he said.

The journey to Suifu, the nearest settlement of any size, was smooth and comfortable. There was a well-made stone road for the first section, and the last day was spent aboard a river boat. Lucy felt her strength returning with every hour that passed. She was young and healthy; and
the baby had been small. At first she had to force herself to put on a show of cheerfulness; but by the time they arrived at the compound of the China Inland Mission her smiles had become sincere.

The English missionary, Mrs Dennie, welcomed her compatriots with delight. The prospect of company was especially welcome because her husband, a doctor, was away on a three-month tour of the frontier villages, she told them. When Lucy learned that he would probably have been not too far from the village of Jinkouhe at the time when her baby was born, it was hard not to wish that she had known this in time to send for his help. With more expert care, perhaps even a premature baby might have survived. But she had promised herself that she was not going to make Gordon unhappy by any signs of mourning for her little Rachel.

‘I act as a teacher here,' Mrs Dennie said. ‘But I used to be a nurse. You must stay as long as you need. I shall be so pleased to have someone to talk to.'

Safe and comfortable at last, Lucy allowed her mind and her body to relax. Gordon too, after so many months on the move, was in need of a rest. Although July and August were hot months, the river breeze made the heat bearable, contrasting with the scorching winds of the high mountain valleys. He and Lucy engaged a teacher to help them with their Chinese, and delighted the small boys of the mission school by joining in the daily practice of the tones needed to make their vocabulary intelligible.

Lucy spent another part of each day with the class of girls. There were fewer of these. They were all foundlings, Mrs Dennie told her. Some, wrapped in brown paper, had been left as babies outside the door of the mission once the townsfolk had come to believe that the foreigners did not live up to their reputation of eating children.

Others had been found naked, lying exposed to the elements amongst the graves outside the city wall. Dr Dennie, when he was at home, explored the area at first light each morning in case there was a living child there to be saved. Lucy remembered how shocked she had been on board the
Parramatta
when she first heard Miss Fawcett describe the ruthlessness with which Chinese parents rejected girl-babies as useless and unwanted. She was glad that these bright-eyed girls, with their unbound feet, had been saved to grow up as Christians.

The room provided for the visitors at the mission was barely furnished, but whitewashed and clean. Lucy herself was able to feel clean for the first time in many weeks. She ate regular meals, including the fresh fruit and vegetables which had not been obtainable in the mountains. For a second time within a few months her clothes began to feel tight round her waist – but by now she had had a woman-to-woman talk with Mrs Dennie. The information which her own mother had not lived to give her, Lucy acquired from the motherly missionary. So instead of wondering whether another baby might already be on the way, she unpacked the bag in which her corsets had been stowed away and enlisted Mrs Dennie's help in lacing them for the first time.

Even after a great struggle it was clear that she had lost her eighteen-inch waist. Lucy was panting and Mrs Dennie was laughing when at last the fastening was secure.

‘What would the Chinese think of this!' exclaimed the missionary. ‘We upbraid them for deforming their daughters' feet by binding the bones tightly, yet we are doing much the same to our own rib-cages.'

‘With less success,' laughed Lucy, hardly able to breathe in her strait-jacket after so many weeks in which
her body had been unrestrained. Yet she took it as a sign that her recovery was complete. That evening, tentatively, she broached the subject of the future to her husband.

‘We agreed that you would go back alone to the mountains when the time came to dig up the bulbs and plants that you've marked,' she reminded him. ‘When we made that plan, of course, it was with the thought that my confinement would be in September – and that afterwards I should have to care for a baby.'

Gordon took her hand in his. ‘And now you are thinking that you are well and free and would like to accompany me.'

‘I don't want to hold you back in any way,' Lucy said. ‘If I make you slow, or worried, or make it necessary to take too many men or mules, or if you think there are climbs too steep for me …'

‘You climb like a mountain goat,' Gordon assured her. ‘Speed is not important. This time we shall be spending several days in each area. I shall be glad of an assistant, because there will be so much marking and listing and wrapping to be done. And if I leave you behind here, even in such good hands, I shall worry about you every day and night. There's nothing I want more than to have you beside me – for every hour for the rest of my life. So please come back with me to the mountains, Lucy.'

Lucy's heart swelled until she felt that it must surely burst. She had never loved anyone as she loved Gordon. Her inexperience had made it hard for her in the past to be certain that he loved her. On three or four occasions she
had
felt certain – and yet within a short time some new expression of his love made it appear that the earlier experience had been incomplete. There had been moments of doubt, when she felt that she had forced herself upon him and that he was only making the best of
a situation he would have preferred to avoid. He might have felt that he had no choice but to marry her, but she had given him a choice of a kind now, and his answer was all she could have hoped for.

Nor was it an answer only in words, for he opened his arms to enfold her. She had heard him tell her before that he loved her, but this time his voice expressed an appeal as well as an assurance, justifying her trust. The sharing of sorrow had made them one person in a way that love alone could not. Lucy looked into Gordon's black eyes as he kissed her, and saw there the promise of happiness for the rest of her life.

In September 1890, almost three years after they had sailed separately away from England, Lucy and Gordon returned together to Oxford. While still in China Lucy had received letters from Mr and Mrs Hardie which left her in no doubt of their pleasure in Gordon's marriage. The warmth of their greeting now made her feel one of the family. Mr Hardie, although saying little but a few words of welcome, kissed her affectionately – while Mrs Hardie took one look at her daughter-in-law, whose pregnancy could not be completely concealed by her travelling cloak, and embraced her lovingly.

‘My dear, I'm so glad! How we felt for you when the news of your disappointment reached us! So far away, with nothing we could do to help or comfort you. Come and lie down after your journey. When do you expect the baby?'

‘Not until after Christmas,' Lucy told her. ‘So I mustn't be coddled yet. I've had two idle months on board ship. Living in the lap of luxury.'

‘You won't be able to stop her spoiling you,' laughed Gordon. ‘The first grandchild is as important to a family business as to a dukedom. And Mother's quite right that you should rest. Are we to sleep in my old room, Mother?'

Mrs Hardie led the way upstairs to the rooms which had been prepared for them. This would be luxury indeed, thought Lucy. After almost three years of sleeping in tents or bug-infested village inns, the ship which brought
them back to England had seemed to offer far more comfort than the cramped quarters of the
Parramatta
on which they had travelled out – even though the cabins were identical in size. Now she would be able to sleep on a feather mattress in a double bed, and wear clothes kept clean and uncrushed in a wardrobe. They had a sitting-room of their own, with another small room which Gordon could use as a dressing-room or study.

‘It's lovely!' exclaimed Lucy, throwing her bonnet on to the bed and crossing to look out of the window. The grounds could not compare with Castlemere, but the gardens were pretty and the lawns trim. They sloped down to an arm of the River Cherwell, and a wide expanse of water meadow on the further side gave an open aspect. A second branch of the river was hidden by trees, with the ground rising gently beyond. After the excitements of China's mountain scenery, the outlook was in truth rather dull – but Lucy had promised herself never to let any regrets about the ending of her adventure enter her mind. She turned back towards her mother-in-law.

Mrs Hardie was talking in a low voice to Gordon, who put out his hand to draw Lucy to his side.

‘I was asking Mother what had happened to Will Witney, who was lodging in one of these rooms when I left home. And she's been telling me –'

‘We've had to send Will to London, to look after the Pall Mall business,' Mrs Hardie explained. ‘Mr Hardie hasn't been at all well this summer, I'm afraid. The doctor advised him to keep his travelling to a minimum, so it was decided that he should stay at home and run the Oxford branch until Gordon returned. As soon as you're back in charge, Gordon, I shall take him to the country for a holiday.'

‘Could you allow me a week or two?' asked Gordon. ‘I
must supervise the distribution of plants to all my patrons. And make a business arrangement with a nursery.' He had brought home a thousand bulbs of what would be known from now on as
Lilium hardiensis
‘Grace'. It was too beautiful, he had decided, to keep solely for his own pleasure, and it could be used to breed new varieties as well as being sold to flower as he had seen it. But he could not himself afford the time which should be devoted to its development. Besides, as a married man who was about to become a father he would soon need money to set up a home of his own. So he proposed to sell at least half the bulbs, together with the right to breed from them, and this must be done quickly.

Mrs Hardie agreed at once. ‘Of course. I don't want your father to feel that I'm fussing over his health. I shall suggest to him that you and Lucy might like a little time to yourselves here.' For a moment longer she allowed anxiety to show in her expression, but then deliberately brightened it as she turned towards Lucy. ‘We shall want you to stay here, Lucy dear, until after the birth of the baby. Even searching for a house of your own may prove hard work. Certainly you mustn't even think of trying to fit one out and furnish it until you're strong again.'

‘And Midge?' asked Gordon. ‘How is Midge?'

‘Still teaching at the Ladies' College. This is to be her last year there, if her plans go as she hopes. She intends to open a school of her own. But I'll leave her to tell you about that herself when she comes home for half-term.'

Lucy had liked Midge immensely at their only previous encounter, on the Magdalen barge, and was pleased at the prospect of meeting her again as a sister-in-law. When half-term arrived, though, she was startled by Midge's appearance. Instead of being bright-eyed and merry, as Lucy had remembered her, she looked severe in her dark
travelling clothes and hat. But within only a few minutes she had changed into a green tea-gown and recovered her bubbling vivacity. She demanded to hear all Lucy's adventures and inspect her paintings. Only when Lucy refused to talk any more, for fear of boring her listener, did Midge in turn pause, giving her new sister-in-law a quizzical look.