OUTPOST IN CHINA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 June 1940, Page 10

OUTPOST IN CHINA

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

Author of “Africa Flight” and Part Author of “Death at Broadcasting House.”

CHAPTER Vlf.

(Continued.)

She stood in the doorway of her own room, as smart and appealing as a fashion plate, wearing a white drill coat and skirt, most elegantly cut. white silk stockings, white buckskin shoes with ridiculously high heels, and a smart, impertinent, scarlet hat, which gave the impression of being clamped on to the side of her head. It would have been difficult to imagine a greater contrast than she presented to the rather bedraggled girl in the kimono of ten minutes before. And something tugged at Gerald Havelock’s heart-strings as he looked at her. She looked so pretty! So young! So utterly adorable! And she seemed so many interminable miles away from him! She had been ever since they had first come to this infernal station: since she had kept away from him in a room of her own; since she had realised him to be incompetent as a man of affairs, against the yardstick provided by Leslie Dale’s unimaginative efficiency. And a sick loathing of Dale flooded back across his mind. "That," he said, speaking a little breathlessly, "was just our Mr Dale." A queer look flashed for a second, quite unregarded by her husband, into Sheila Havelock’s eyes. “Where’s Leslie gone?” she asked. “Not to the boat already?” “On the contrary. Just to pack—in a huff.” “What upset, him?” "Yours truly, as usual.” "Why?” Gerald gnawed his thumb nervously. “Oh I just gave him old Greer’s letter. Sheila. That was all. He didn’t like it. In fact, he hated it—” And he indicated the torn fragments of paper on the floor. Sheila moved towards him.

“If yo;s ask me, considering how much he’s done for us, I call that pretty mean, Gerald.” “I don’t ask you, Sheila. I tell you I was fed up with his everlasting superior airs. It wasn’t my fault if they wanted to take him down a peg at head office. He’s not the Lord High Everything, even if he has been in China ever since he was weaned! Anyway, what does it matter when he’s clearing out for good today. Thank heaven he is, say I!” “I’m not sure,” said Sheila slowly, “that I do.”

"Developing a weakness for our strong and silent pillar of Empire?” sneered Gerald.

Sheila shrugged her slim shoulders. “He knows his job my dear Gerry.” “You mean- —I don’t?” “Well —do you?” Gerald slid heavily into a chair. “He’s never given me a chance to prove whether I do or not,” he muttered without looking up. Sheila seated herself deliberately on the corner of Leslie Dale’s big desk, and proceeding to put nail-polish, exquisitely chosen to tone with her hafi on her nails with a tiny brush. ’ The odour of pear-drops filtered into the room. And Gerald remembered the time he had first smelled it—th first time he had seen Sheila varnish her nails. It had been in their bedroom on the third evening of their honeymoon. There had been moonlight shining outside the window, and an acacia tapping at the pane in the soft breeze. And through the trees, in the miniature harbour there had been the little twinkling lights of anchored yachts, and the glitter of the cafes along the jetty, and the sound of distant dance music. They had been dressing to go up to the Casino, and at the last moment Sheila had decided that she must re-varnish her nails. She had been wearing a white satin frock. And she had kept him waiting the best part of an hour, because the nails must drp properly . . . How he had loved her! How he still loved her . . . He realised that Sheila was speaking’ again:

“I hope you're not going to take too long to find out your limitations. Gerry.” “And why say that?” “Perhaps this splendid isolation appeals to you. I tell you flatly that I preferred Shanghai.'

"You didn't while we were there,” Gerry retorted. "You did nothing but blarney old Greer to send nle up-river. And quite right, too. How was I to get on, licking stamps in that miserable office?”

Sheila held up her fingers to get the full benefit of the light on the varnish.

"1 got some hot water, anyway," she said, “which is more than I did this morning.” “I'll skin that boy one day!”

“Which will do so much towards the hot water supply. Why not learn a little Chinese instead, my dear?” "Of course if you won't be serious—" "I'm extremely serious. Gerald. But then I like being clean." Gerald moved restlessly in his chair. "Don't let's have another silly row, Sheila—please!" Sheila Havelock was apparently entirely absorbed in her work on her fingers. She had crossed one leg over the other, and sat swinging them gently. It infuriated Gerald that she should persist in wearing white silk stockings and white shoes in Tan Fu . . "I'm not making a row." said Sheila. "I'm just reminding you that I appreciate tne amenities of civilisation. You don't seem to worry about my point of view any longer. You used to like me to dress well and look pretty. Now you disapprove of my clothes, and you don't seem to mind whether I can even get a bath or not." “Wei —as we're being so frank with each other —1 suggest that you get used to doing without the amenities, like Dale has! That you try slacks and sandals instead of your pretties! After all. we're here for two years at the very least."

CHAPTER VIII. There was a little silence. Then Sheila jumped down from her desk. The flick of her skirt as she moved knocked over the little bottle of varnish. She let its contents trickle stickily on to the desk unregarded. “Gerry! Two years—do you mean that?”

Gerald smiled rather uncertainly. "I do. Dale had three before he got a smell of a leave. But of course, he had to get the place started. Sheiia’s hands went up to her face. Careless of their stickiness she pressed her fingers against her cheek bones as if trying to force reality into her mind with the pressure against her flesh. “Two years!” she repeated in a whisper. Then her chin went up in her characteristic challenging gesture. “Why didn't you tell me this before?" Gerald bit his lip. "I thought you realised—what odds does it make?" "Of course, none! It never occurred to you that two years might be rather a long time for a young and attractive woman to bury herself alive.” “Sheila!”

“Gerry, you’re hopeless! How you expect to manage Tan Fu, God knows. You even shirk telling me—your wife —something beforehand, for fear of getting involved in a row.” “That's pretty brutal, Sheila.” “Isn’t it true? I suppose you were afraid that if you had told me I mightn’t have come.”

“I wasn’t!" said Gerald hotly. “Then you were a fool—l shouldn’t have come.” “You’d have had to have come.” “Couldn’t I have stayed in Shanghai?”

Thrust and riposte had followed each other with such deadly speed and slickness that Gerald had not realised how close he had been pushed to a gulf in his married life, without even appreciating that gulf's existence. He found himself gripping the arms of his chair, and having to check the twitching of his lips before he spoke again. “I see,” he said quietly. “I thoughtwell, that you were fond of me—fond enough of me to put up with things—to ”

He couldn't go on. And that appealing helplessness and charm, which had won her heart originally, came back to check Sheila’s anger, like some unhappy ghost.

“I'm fond of you. Gerry,” she said “But how long am I going on being fond of you in Tan Fu? Can’t you see that’s what’s ' worrying me so much? If only there was something—anything in the world —for me to do! What am I to do, Gerry? You’ve your job. But I can’t do plain sewing, and read, and listen to a gramophone and take a little ride, all day and every day. It's vilely uncomfortable —and Chinese good works don't appeal to me. It isn’t as if there was even the society of the average Treaty port. I'm alone. Gerry, eight hours a day. And you’re telling me that I’m going on being alone for eight hours a day for two years! It’s a long time. Gerry. Can't you understand?"

“There are James and his wife,” Gerald protested, without much conviction.

"In whose company I forsee orgies of fun!”

“You knew I was. coming to China when we got married!”

“You talked a good bit about the delights of Hong Kong and the wealth of Harwood and Greer. I don’t remember much about the glorious prospects of Tan Fu!”

“I’d never heard of the place till I got to head office. For heaven's sake be reasonable Sheila! Or is all this a back-handed way of saying that you want to go back to Shanghai?” “So that you can tell everyone how your wife left you in the lurch? No thank you, Gerry.” “Then,” said Gerald savagely, "I think you might make the best of it instead of nagging!” But this time Sheila ignored the challenge.

"There's another alternative,” she said slowly. "Well?"

"Throw in your hand! Leslie's breaking his heart at having to quit. If you threw it up he could stay on, and you could persuade Mr Greer to confirm it."

Gerald laughed bitterly. "Old Greer wants Dale shifted, I tell you. His blessed independence has got them properly steamed up. Besides—how could I quit, after all the fuss we both made to get the job? Be sensible. Sheila!" Sheila looked at him steadily. “You could do it perfectly easily—if you'd start thinking of me, and leave yourself out of the picture for a little.” "You wouldn't." sneered Gerald, "be thinking of yourself?" “Of course I am." said Sheila calmly; "But my selfishness is commonsense, for both our sakes. You know as well as I do that you'll never be up io tackling this job, however long you stay!” “That." said Gerald, "is absurd!" "It s not absurd —it’s commonsense. You've plenty of advantages over Leslie, Gerald, but even a child could see that you've not his knack for business, quite apart from his gift for handling Chinese.” During that last sentence a queer choking feeling rose in Gerald Havelock's chest, and seemed to spread upwards stifling into his throat. He got cut of his chair with a quick desperately jerked movement of his limbs —almost as if repelling a physical assault. And when he spoke, he was almost surprised to hear his own words, so sure had he been that his feelings were strangling them before they could be formed by bis lips. (To be •Continued).