Читать книгу Nightsong - V.J. Banis - Страница 9

CHAPTER FOUR

Lydia woke with a lingering smile on her face, though it quickly vanished as she recalled the events of the past few days.

Mama, she thought, scrambling out of bed. She felt guilty for having forgotten her in the arms of Peter MacNair, though she was grateful for the first good night’s sleep she’d had in ages. Her cheeks reddened when she thought of Peter, who was nowhere to be seen. She knew that she should regret what had happened the night before, but how could she regret anything so splendid? How could she regret falling in love? For of that there was no doubt.

She ran into the adjoining room and stopped short, giving a little cry of alarm when she saw the figure of a Chinese peasant leaning over her mother. Was this some angry coolie come to murder them or perhaps an agent of Ke Loo who had traced them here?

The figure straightened and turned toward her, and she saw that it was an old woman, her face like yellowed parchment.

“Who are you?” Lydia demanded, first in English and then, seeing the woman’s baffled expression, in Chinese.

“I am the nurse,” she explained.

“The nurse—but I don’t understand—”

“Gentleman come early, say mistress lady is ill. He pay, I take care.”

Lydia felt a wave of relief, mixed with new gratitude. How kind her lover was, and how generous. He had risen early, while she still slept, and arranged for a nurse to care for Mama. Now, no doubt, he was making arrangements for their flight.

She blushed again as she thought of how she might repay him for all his efforts. In the meantime, she ought to do what she could to make ready. Perhaps she could even get some of their things from their house. It was possible that Ke-Loo had given up his search for them and gone on his way. It was her understanding that he had only been stopping here in the city, and that his actual home was farther to the north. He might even now be wending his way northward, with nothing but a memory of thwarted desire.

“How is she?” she asked, coming to the couch.

Sarah moaned just then, and the nurse wet a dirty rag and put it to her lips. “She very bad,” she said matter-of-factly. “She will die soon.”

“But she mustn’t,” Lydia cried. “You must keep her alive till we reach Shanghai. The doctors there will be able to help her, I know they will.”

The woman gave her a peculiar look, but did not reply. For a moment Lydia stood watching helplessly as the nurse bathed her mother’s face. A distant clatter in the street outside reminded her that it was already growing late. Peter would surely be back soon. She must have herself and her mother ready to go when he came.

Someone—Peter, or the nurse—had hung their wet clothes out to dry in the morning sunlight. Lydia brought them in and began to dress hurriedly. She was just finishing when she heard the sound of the front door, and Peter came in.

Her quick smile of greeting faded when she saw the grimness of his expression.

“What is it?” she asked. “Has something happened—oh!”

She saw that he was carrying a purple parasol, which he handed wordlessly to her. She recognized it at once; she had seen it only a few days before.

“It’s Mrs. Blaise’s,” she said. “Does this mean...are they...?” She could not bring herself to say the word.

He nodded. “All three of them.”

She shuddered, as though someone had walked over her grave. She thought of Reginald. In a way, he had been responsible for bringing her and Peter together, and now Reginald was dead, and his parents as well, and her own dear father.

“We must get away from this dreadful place,” she said aloud, “while there’s still time.”

“Lydia, I want to talk to you,” he said, taking her hand in his.

“Oh, darling, I love you,” she cried, “but can’t we talk when we’re on the road? Will the nurse come with us?”

“Lydia,” he said again, but he was interrupted by a commotion from outside, and the chatter of several voices.

“Someone’s there,” she said in a frightened whisper. “What are we to do? We must hide.”

There was no time to hide, however, for a moment later the front door burst open, and Ke Loo came into the house, followed by his servants.

Lydia clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle her scream. She looked wide-eyed from the mandarin to Peter. To her horror, she saw that Peter was not in the least surprised to see the mandarin; his expression was one of infinite sadness.

“You?” she cried. “You brought him here?” Peter nodded.

“Lydia, I must talk to you,” he said.

“But how could you? Last night—I thought that you loved me.”

“My poor child,” he said. “Don’t you understand?”

“I understand that you’ve betrayed me to that—that yellow fiend,” she said, pointing. Ke Loo stood just inside the door, smiling, his hands folded serenely in front of him.

“I went to see Colonel Wu first thing this morning,” Peter said, speaking rapidly. “He told me that there was no way he could guarantee our safety. Then I went to Ke Loo. I even tried to buy our safety from him, I offered him all the cash I had left, with no success. Don’t you know what that parasol means? Why do you think I brought it to you, why do you think he gave it to me? Ke Loo had those people stopped on the road, and killed, in a fit of anger because you’d eluded him. He’d already learned that you were here. He’d have had us killed too if we’d tried to leave. I’ve saved your life. This way there’s no real danger.”

“Not for you, at least,” she said bitterly.

“I can understand your anger.”

Tears threatened, but this time her anger was stronger than her grief, and she fought them back. “No,” she said quickly, “No, you cannot. I hate you, Peter MacNair. I shall always hate you. I shall never cease to pray that you will suffer as I am suffering, at the hands of love.”

“Lydia, don’t, please, this is difficult enough. If, as you say, you loved me....”

She gave a shrill, hysterical laugh. “Yes, yes, I loved you, that was my curse. Well then, let it be yours as well. May you never be free of my love—and may it never cease to cause you pain!”

She did cry then, great heartrending sobs that shook her whole body, while the tears rushed down her cheeks. He put out a hand to comfort her, but she slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me, you Judas,” she cried.

He made no further move to touch her. For several moments they all waited while she cried into her hands. When her sobs grew somewhat quieter, Peter said, “The nurse will stay here with your mother.”

“He can’t mean to separate us,” Lydia said, turning her red-rimmed eyes to him.

“But you must know that she’s dying,” he said brutally. “It’s impossible for her to travel, and it can’t be more than a matter of hours. I promise you, I won’t leave myself until she’s—until it’s over.”

“And I’ve no doubt Ke Loo has promised you safe passage to Shanghai, once you’re no longer burdened with two unfortunate women.”

“He’s promised me that he at least won’t try to stop my leaving, though that wasn’t my chief concern. He’s also agreed to take you to your former house, if you want to collect anything.”

“What do you think I might need?” she asked, her voice dripping venom. “A shroud, perhaps?”

At least that made him wince. “Don’t, I beg you,” he said, averting his eyes.

Lydia turned from him, and catching sight of the couch on which her mother lay, she ran across the room and threw herself over her mother’s body. Though she had never been as close to her as she had been to Papa, it was a bitter blow to lose her now as well. It was a cruel fate for her mother, to die with neither husband nor daughter at her side, in a foreign land, in this pitiful way.

Behind her, Ke Loo cleared his throat impatiently.

“I assured him that you would go willingly,” Peter said. “It will be far more comfortable for you than being bound, which I’m afraid is the alternative.”

She clung to her mother a moment longer. Then, feeling incredibly old, as old even as this ancient land in which she found herself a prisoner, she got slowly to her feet.

“I’m quite ready,” she said, squaring her shoulders; she would not give them—especially Peter MacNair—the satisfaction of seeing her cowed and beaten. She was an American, the daughter of the Reverend Joshua Holt; and, notwithstanding her angry remark to her betrayer, she did not intend to die. She meant to survive, somehow, to live to escape. She would return to her own country some day, she swore it, because she had a purpose that would enable her to endure anything, no matter how dreadful.

She wanted revenge! She would never rest until she’d gotten that.

One of Ke Loo’s servants brought out a coil of rope and spoke in an undertone to his master.

“Tell him we won’t need that,” she said, speaking to MacNair though she did not deign to look at him again. “It’s not ropes, it’s my trust in you that has made me a prisoner.”

* * * * * * *

They set out almost at once. A luxurious chair had been provided for her, borne by four peasants. At first there were two burly coolies who ran alongside the chair as well to prevent any attempted escape. For a short while Lydia sat dry-eyed, seething with anger and the need for revenge. But the chair rocked gently and in the curtained privacy, Lydia gave vent to her anguish, sobbing into the pillows until they were stained with her tears.

It was infamous! This couldn’t be happening to her, not in the nineteenth century! Surely even in China there must be some form of authority. If Colonel Wu could do nothing, she’d beg someone else for help, she’d go to the Empress if necessary.

A fresh bout of sobbing assailed her. The Empress of China wasn’t going to listen to a mere girl, even if she could get to her. Anyway, it was said that the Dragon Empress hated the foreign devils as much as her subjects did.

Hopeless. She must be a slave to that cruel and terrifying mandarin, to submit to his caresses, and all because she had been betrayed by that monster, Peter MacNair.

She swore aloud, momentarily forgetting her grief in her anger. Over and over she repeated her vow, that someday, somehow, she would see Peter MacNair suffer as she suffered.

At length her tears ran dry and her grief faded to a dull gloom. Despite the horror of her situation, she was only sixteen, and China fascinated her. She found herself becoming interested in her surroundings, watching through the curtains as the great panorama that was China paraded itself before her eyes.

The coolies, mere beasts of burden to those who employed them, jogged quickly along. The peasants stood thigh-deep in water, working their fields with tools as ancient as the land. A water buffalo regarded her cynically, as if sharing with her a grim view of their circumstances. Old women tottered along the road.

Though they paused twice to rest and to make a brief meal of cold rice, she only saw her captor at a distance. She began to wonder if perhaps she had misjudged his intentions. Chinese men frequently had more than one wife, she had heard, the others being called concubines. She had heard of one prince with so many concubines that many of them never did meet him, though they lived all their lives in his palace.

Perhaps that was what fate intended for her. MacNair had said that to Ke Loo she was a novelty; perhaps he had satisfied his curiosity in acquiring her and, that accomplished, had lost interest in her.

Night fell and still they jounced along. A coolie ran before her chair carrying a lantern, its pale light giving her glimpses of a banyan tree, a thicket of bamboo, or the water gleaming darkly in the rice fields.

At last they passed one of the memorial arches that the Chinese raise to honor a virtuous woman or an eminent scholar, and she knew that they were near a town. The coolies seemed to quicken their step. The road led uphill and through the city gates. The streets were crowded still and the bearers shouted for the crowds to make way.

She was weary from the aftermath of the shocks she had suffered and the long day’s journey. They carried the chair into the courtyard of an inn and set it down.

She had never been inside a Chinese inn before, for when she had traveled inland with her parents, they had managed to find whites with whom to stay the night.

The courtyard was packed with people sitting at long tables, drinking tea or eating rice. Toward the rear, partially hidden in the shadows, two naked coolies were sluicing themselves with water.

She was taken to a chamber at the end of the yard, protected from the gaze of others by an elaborately carved screen. It was a large, windowless room with an open roof and a floor of trodden earth, its only furnishings a table with two wooden chairs and a pair of wooden pallets covered with filthy matting.

Notwithstanding its filth, she would have sunk wearily onto one of these had not Ke Loo’s servant clucked and scolded, preventing her from doing so.

“You wait,” he said, in almost his only English. He vanished, to return in a moment with a tied bundle. Untying it, he quickly replaced the dirty matting with clean taken from the bundle, and covered this in turn with silk cloths and pillows, until a luxurious bed had been made.

“Food,” the servant said when she stretched out with a weary sigh upon the bed. “You wait.”

“I’m too tired to eat anything,” she said, closing her eyes. “Just let me sleep, please.”

“You wait,” he said, going out.

She was asleep almost at once, despite the chatter of voices from the courtyard and the other rooms. In her dreams she was back again in Kansas. She had not been there since she was a child, and it was with a thrill of recognition that she saw again those great, broad plains, stretching as far as the eye could see, and the breeze making rippling waves on the surface of the ripening wheat. The wind soughing through the apple orchard, the scent of fresh-baked bread, lying in the velvet softness of the fresh-sprung grass—how long ago and far away it seemed, as if this alien land had become reality for her, and that was the stuff of fairy tales. Once she had sat listening to her parents make plans, and dreamed dreams of ancient China, of the mysterious East, as now she lay and dreamed of home—a home she might never see again.

Even in her sleep, a single tear escaped her eyes and wound its way down one cheek.

She was awakened by a sharply spoken command. She blinked, and saw Ke Loo standing by the bed. He had shed his embroidered robe and wore black trousers and a matching tunic, and in the dim light of the single lamp his eyes seemed to gleam with a light all their own.

He grinned, and in his grin Lydia saw the end to her last hope, that he might not desire her physically. He motioned for her to remove her clothing.

“Please,” she begged, hoping against hope. “I—I’m so tired....”

For an answer he lifted one hand and she saw that he held a whip made of knotted ropes, such as she had sometimes seen used on criminals and slaves. He brought it down loudly upon the scarred surface of the table, the noise making her flinch.

His meaning was clear. Regardless of the lack of ceremony, she was for all intents and purposes his wife now, and the wife’s role was to serve her husband. To refuse to do so would be to invite a beating, and far from being shocked, the others in the inn would sympathize with him if they knew the reason for his actions.

Too frightened to do otherwise, she got hastily to her feet and began to fumble with the fastenings of her gown, her fingers numb and clumsy.

As she undressed, Ke Loo watched her with little-concealed lust. She would have liked at least to undress in privacy, but as she watched Ke Loo swished the knotted whip to and fro impatiently, and she was afraid to ask.

Her gown fell to the floor, leaving her in just her shift. Though it had been warm in the room, she now felt an icy cold.

“This too,” he ordered, gesturing at her shift.

She obeyed his command numbly, her teeth beginning to chatter. Naked before him, she avoided his gaze. She felt sick with revulsion as she heard him shedding his own clothing.

She wanted to cry out in anguish when he came to her, his naked body bloated and leathery looking. He pushed her back upon the bed, pausing over her to stare down at her bare flesh. She dreaded what was to follow, and at the same time wished that he would get on with it, so that it could be the sooner finished.

A wave of nausea swept over her as he began to run his hands over her, probing, fondling. But would it ever be finished? She was his wife now, his slave, really. How could she ever hope to escape from him, from China?

I must escape from China, she thought at once. How else was she to have revenge on Peter MacNair?

The thought of him brought uninvited memories, in contrast to what was happening to her with this repulsive creature. She remembered the pounding of her pulse, the quickening of her breath when Peter had touched her, there in the same spot where rude hands now sported. Peter’s hands had been so skilled, so demanding, and yet at the same time so gentle, urging her on to the heights of passion.

Sick with disgust she stared upward, seeing the starlit sky through the open roof. Fat, soft fingers crawled over her flesh like so many rapacious insects. She would never again know the pleasure that those long, slim fingers had given her, never feel his lips moving, burning a course over her breasts, touching each tingling nipple—how she hated him!

She nearly jumped when these other hands pawed greedily at her breasts, causing a pain she was almost grateful for; it distracted her attention from the horrible wet lips covering hers, the thick, hungry tongue forcing its way into her mouth. She was crushed beneath his weight and felt him forcing himself into her. She moaned in agony, and he laughed softly into her ear, mistaking the sound for one of pleasure.

“Little lotus flower,” he called her. The name sickened her. How could he think she was enjoying this nightmare, when he knew that she had fled from him, that she feared and hated him, and had been forced into this position? It was the ultimate cruelty, to credit her with welcoming this merciless pounding as his fat beastly body rose and fell over her.

His hands went beneath her, clawing at the tender flesh of her buttocks, digging into her. She writhed in pain, thrashing to escape his scratching nails, but her movements only fueled his ardor.

“Yes, yes, that is right,” he gasped, slobbering on her throat, his breath fetid in her nostrils.

I can’t stand a moment more, she thought. I shall be sick, I shall die. She rolled from side to side, tossing her head to and fro. She was moaning repeatedly now, in agony and shame, but even her cries seemed to heighten his pleasure.

At last she could stand no more, and opened her mouth to scream, but once again he kissed her, stifling her cries. Finally she felt him stiffen, felt the pain of a powerful, final thrust, and he began to shudder and grunt in the throes of his ecstasy.

He seemed to lie upon her for an eternity before finally getting to his feet. She lay with her eyes closed, as pale as death, while he donned his clothes once more. She expected him to say something, or to come to bid her goodnight, but when the silence had grown peculiarly long she opened her eyes to find that he had dressed and gone.

She began to sob again, almost hysterically this time, muffling her sobs in one of the silken pillows. It was over—but tomorrow would be the same, and before her stretched a long, unbroken line of such tomorrows, for years, perhaps forever!

She cried herself into a stupor, and slept until the stirring in the inn roused her to the dawn, and marked the end of her wedding night.