This Life of Mortal Breath

This Life of Mortal Breath Joyce H. Munro Alice didn't go with him to China that spring, though she wasn't against his going. In fact, some afternoons she was the one to bring it up, as they sipped tea on the veranda at La Paisible or walked the hill to Maison de Pomme. After all, his wife was gone now, her spirit freed from earth's binding chains. His grief was ebbing. And in its place, concern, profound and ardent, for China. Only the fragile state of his health had kept him from returning. Now that he was feeling so much stronger, why remain in Switzerland? When Alice nudged him like this, she always called him “my dear,” never by his first name. A great man, revered around the world, in his seventies. It would be unseemly. Alice Thomson was so very kind and bright, so good for him during those days. Even Mary, Hudson's niece, had to admit it—Alice never seemed to vex him. “Here, my dear, let me take your muddy boots off.” “Time for a nap, let me cover you up.” “Let's get you out of that wet coat.” She could handle him better than Mary. Alice had never been to China. He had been ten times. Pardon the interjection: These three—the elderly mourner and his caregivers—are not at Audrey Hepburn's La Paisible. But at a pension in the hills above Vevey. It is important to clarify this, for Vevey figures in Alice's life later. Paisible = peace. Peace, according to the dictionarians at Oxford University, means freedom from disturbance. Those who christen their homes La Paisible are looking for a place to while away distress and anxiety. A haven, sanctuary. In such a place, the presence of the eternal can break through the walls, Paul Tillich wrote. Walls of pinkish stucco, windows with fretwork balconies, cloistered verandas. All designed for curing what ails you, for meeting the eternal. Breakthroughs can happen here. Alice was part of the cure. I want to see kind and bright and good in Alice. I look for it in her face, her eyes. In a photograph I love, there sits a young woman at her mother's feet. She sprawls on the grass in a dressy dress, lavish ruffles at her wrists and neck. A healthy woman. Big‐boned, like her Sinclair ancestors from the north‐most Highlands. Elbow on her mother's knee, she props her head up with her fist. Other relatives in the photo are dour‐faced, stiff, although I can't figure out why—this is going to be a lovely tea party. Maybe it's because they're Scots Baptists and merriment is not in their religious genes. They sit properly in bent‐willow chairs or stand by the tea table. Obviously a nice day, cause for celebration, with Alice's half sister visiting from Lausanne. Alice alone is relaxed. Her coy smile a magnet, pulling my gaze, telling me she's someone worth knowing. What's her secret? What has she done to put that smile on her face? Certainly not told a joke because the rest of them aren't laughing. Only she knows. The title below the photo is not instructive: Picture taken in the garden of the T.M. Thomson home at Jarvis and Bloor streets in Toronto. About 1903. Which turns out to be incorrect. It was earlier. And this is important because Alice's mother, second wife of Thomas McLerie Thomson, merchant, money manager, immigrant, died in 1902. After that, Alice went to Switzerland. Something tells me Alice was a groupie, the kind who's devoted to someone in the limelight, gets his autograph, follows him everywhere. In Alice's case, he was a band leader, but not that kind. James Hudson Taylor, M.R.C.S., F.R.G.S., surgeon, missionary, Bible translator, founder of China Inland Mission. One of the most beloved, quoted individuals of all time—among evangelical Christians, that is. Bible colleges and institutes have been established as a result of Taylor's influence, where students learn things vital to missionaries. Taylor's vision and dedication have...

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