the danger immediately and had done his best to retreat before the sleeper awoke. However, it was not to be, for, trying to tiptoe out backwards, he tripped on the edge of the carpet and dropped one of the books. Well, I donât have to tell you what happened then. Within an hour our entire staff were lined up in their going-away clothes and explaining, through a second Number-One-Boy, why the squad could no longer remain in a house in which their senior member had lost practically his entire allowance of face. And that since they were all related (which this time I didnât believe for a minute â I think it was team spirit), they must all leave. And leave they did.
It was no good Mother being cross with her âChina-sideâ relations and muttering darkly that âThey might have warned me!â No amount of warnings could have prevented either of those dêbâcles. It was just China.
Mother got no sympathy from her family, all of whom, I imagine, had stubbed their toes on this type of situation time without number. But it has to be said that apart from such quirks, the servants were to be valued above rubies, and the life of a foreigner who possessed a well-trained and industrious amah , a competent Number-One-Boy and a really good cook could truthfully be likened to a bed of roses.
Chapter 8
Winter crept up on us almost without warning. One day Peking was ablaze with the red and yellow and gold of autumn, and the next it was misty with the smoke of the countless bonfires of fallen leaves that flamed or smouldered throughout the walled cities, and there was ice on every patch and puddle of water in Peking, so that one had to be careful not to slip and fall when out walking.
But though the leaves and the chrysanthemums had gone, the colours were still there in the Imperial yellow of the roof-tiles, the blood-red of the walls and the scarlet and blue and green of the Pâai Lous . And now the thin silk robes and small, button-topped caps of the old gentlemen who used to come out each evening to give their pet singing-birds an airing â each little bird tethered to its owner by a long length of the finest silk thread, which enabled it to fly around as though it were free, and be wound in again like a hooked fish on a line â were exchanged for long padded and quilted coats and (if the cold was particularly intense) fur-lined caps with ear pieces that tied under the chin. Every child became a small rotund object, wrapped in a well-worn padded coat and quilted bootees, while the beggars, many of them White Russians who could not even afford that much cover, wrapped themselves in tattered newspapers under their rags, and smothered their poor, blue-and-red chilblained feet in more of the same, kept on by bits of string.
Then one night the real winter, the âGreat Snowâ, fell silently upon the city, and we woke to a glittering world in which every stick and stone was frilled with frost, and our Jade Canal frozen solid: a long sheet of ice bordered on both sides by the silver lace of the leafless willows that overhung it. We learned then what a winter in North China is like. The Pei-hai had turned itself overnight into an immense skating rink, and it looked as though all Peking had taken the day off to skate on the canals and lakes of the Forbidden City. âMake the most of it,â said the old China-hands. âYou wonât be able to do this for long!â
I thought they meant that the icy spell would soon end in a thaw â we had already heard that the sea had frozen for three miles out from Chin-wang-tao. But it was not so. A day or two later the sky turned a dull yellowish-grey at midday, and the wind began to whine viciously through the delicate carvings and along the verandahs of the painted pavilions, pagodas and palaces, as one of Pekingâs infamous dust-storms swept through the city.
Rajputana had accustomed me to dust-storms. But this was not dust as I knew
It was no good Mother being cross with her âChina-sideâ relations and muttering darkly that âThey might have warned me!â No amount of warnings could have prevented either of those dêbâcles. It was just China.
Mother got no sympathy from her family, all of whom, I imagine, had stubbed their toes on this type of situation time without number. But it has to be said that apart from such quirks, the servants were to be valued above rubies, and the life of a foreigner who possessed a well-trained and industrious amah , a competent Number-One-Boy and a really good cook could truthfully be likened to a bed of roses.
Chapter 8
Winter crept up on us almost without warning. One day Peking was ablaze with the red and yellow and gold of autumn, and the next it was misty with the smoke of the countless bonfires of fallen leaves that flamed or smouldered throughout the walled cities, and there was ice on every patch and puddle of water in Peking, so that one had to be careful not to slip and fall when out walking.
But though the leaves and the chrysanthemums had gone, the colours were still there in the Imperial yellow of the roof-tiles, the blood-red of the walls and the scarlet and blue and green of the Pâai Lous . And now the thin silk robes and small, button-topped caps of the old gentlemen who used to come out each evening to give their pet singing-birds an airing â each little bird tethered to its owner by a long length of the finest silk thread, which enabled it to fly around as though it were free, and be wound in again like a hooked fish on a line â were exchanged for long padded and quilted coats and (if the cold was particularly intense) fur-lined caps with ear pieces that tied under the chin. Every child became a small rotund object, wrapped in a well-worn padded coat and quilted bootees, while the beggars, many of them White Russians who could not even afford that much cover, wrapped themselves in tattered newspapers under their rags, and smothered their poor, blue-and-red chilblained feet in more of the same, kept on by bits of string.
Then one night the real winter, the âGreat Snowâ, fell silently upon the city, and we woke to a glittering world in which every stick and stone was frilled with frost, and our Jade Canal frozen solid: a long sheet of ice bordered on both sides by the silver lace of the leafless willows that overhung it. We learned then what a winter in North China is like. The Pei-hai had turned itself overnight into an immense skating rink, and it looked as though all Peking had taken the day off to skate on the canals and lakes of the Forbidden City. âMake the most of it,â said the old China-hands. âYou wonât be able to do this for long!â
I thought they meant that the icy spell would soon end in a thaw â we had already heard that the sea had frozen for three miles out from Chin-wang-tao. But it was not so. A day or two later the sky turned a dull yellowish-grey at midday, and the wind began to whine viciously through the delicate carvings and along the verandahs of the painted pavilions, pagodas and palaces, as one of Pekingâs infamous dust-storms swept through the city.
Rajputana had accustomed me to dust-storms. But this was not dust as I knew
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