Читать книгу The Apple of Discord - Earle Ashley Walcott - Страница 8

The Chinese girl's wound proved a desperate matter, and for days she hung between life and death, dependent for the flickering vital spark upon the ceaseless ministrations of her self-appointed nurses. Mercy Fillmore was brought to the house by Mr. Baldwin at an early hour of the morning that followed the rescue, and took her place as naturally and unostentatiously as though she had always been one of the family.

"She's a thousand times lovelier than I had expected," confessed Laura Kendrick, "and when you see her you're to be very nice to her. I'm sure you owe her that much, after making her all this trouble."

I promised to use all gentleness and courtesy toward Miss Fillmore, but the full significance of my debt to the young lady did not appear to me till later. Eventually I found that by some inexplicable freak of logic I was supposed to be chiefly in fault for the Chinese girl's wound. I had bungled the enterprise, it seemed; otherwise she must have been brought safely off. The sense of my delinquency was finally stirred within me by overhearing the comment of two indignant servants, which ran something like this:

"Those two big men without ever a scratch on them, and that poor heathen creature bleeding to death between 'em–that's what I call a shame."

Below stairs, it thus appeared that I shared equally with Mr. Baldwin in the discredit of the outcome. In my lady's chamber it was different. I learned that in those sacred realms I had all the blame for my very own. Mr. Baldwin appeared to be regarded, like the gallant army of Bazaine or Mack, as merely the unfortunate victim of an incompetent leader. Nothing of this judgment came to me directly. But it was conveyed delicately, imperceptibly, intangibly, through the days when the girl's life hung in suspense, mingled with an unspoken assurance that as I didn't appear to know any better I should ultimately be forgiven.

All this was galling enough, but it was nothing compared to the afflictions I suffered from the sight of Mr. Baldwin's airs. He was possessed of a cold and haughty nature, but the situation roused in him something approaching an enthusiasm. For my sorrow he was endowed with an odious gift of competency, and no false modesty restrained him from exhibiting it to the fullest measure. Whenever I offered to perform a service, I found that he had already performed it, or was then engaged upon it, or was just about to perform it, until I was consumed with regret that the highbinder bullet had not found its billet with Mr. Baldwin, instead of with the Chinese girl.

I should not go so far as to assert that any one of the self-sufficiency of Mr. Baldwin would be at a loss for an excuse for following his own inclinations; yet it struck me that he carried the pretense of devotion to the interests of the Chinese girl to an extent altogether indecorous. The prosperity of the firm of Hunter, Fessenden and Baldwin had never before appealed to my fears or my sympathies, but I was at this period distressed to observe that its law business appeared to be at a low ebb. Either that, or the junior partner was grossly neglecting his duties. Whatever time of day or night I called at the Kendrick house to seek news of the Chinese girl, and incidentally to enjoy the society of the ladies, I was sure to find Mr. Baldwin there, or to learn that he had just gone or was presently expected, until I grew to resent the sound of his name. Furthermore, his air of proprietorship in Laura Kendrick and her affairs, which had disturbed me on our first meeting, appeared to grow more marked. If Miss Kendrick, her uncle, and all things beneath the roof had been turned over to him in fee simple, the sense of ownership could not have been shown more clearly in his manner. And, worst of all, I could not see that his attitude roused resentment in any breast but my own. Miss Kendrick smiled on him, called him by his first name, and discussed the theory and practice of surgery with him in a manner most confidential.

At this day I can confess with freedom that my dislike of Mr. Baldwin found its root in the fertile soil of jealousy and envy. At the time, however, I stoutly maintained to myself that I hated him for his faults alone. In the light of later experience, I am willing to concede that men are not hated for their faults, or even for their virtues. Had Mr. Baldwin been an angel of light, instead of a cold and supercilious young attorney who was receiving an undeserved amount of favor, I should have disliked him none the less heartily.

Mr. Baldwin returned my dislike with acridity. Whenever possible, he affected to have forgotten me, had to be assisted to my name when compelled to speak to me; and when he did decide to remember me, was so patronizing in his condescensions that I longed to throw him through the window.

Miss Kendrick was not long in discovering this suppressed hostility; and at first alarmed by it, she presently found it a source of amusement. Then she appeared to derive a certain pleasure in blowing the smoldering coals into a blaze; for she would, with the most innocent air imaginable, bring forward topics of discussion that served to range us in hostile argument. As we held opposite views on almost every question of politics, law, sociology, and the arts, she had usually more difficulty to close the argument than to inspire it. Yet she handled the situation with a skill that would have been the admiration of a diplomat, and had a tact in diversion that enabled us both to retire from the heat of battle in good order with the conviction that we had each won a substantial victory.

In the anxious days through which the Chinese girl's life hung by a thread, I learned that Laura Kendrick's characterization of Mercy Fillmore was no example of feminine exaggeration. Miss Fillmore proved to be a young woman of about twenty-five, a little above the average height, a little fuller in outline than was demanded by the rules of proportion, a little slow in her movements. Her face was round, and though lacking in color gave a distinct impression of prettiness. But her chief characteristic was a certain calm sweetness in expression and manner, a certain gentle tact that made her presence as soothing as a strain of sweet music. It was on the evening following the rescue that Miss Kendrick introduced us.

"I am glad to meet you," she said in a voice that was low and melodious. "I am glad to find a man who is not afraid to do the right thing because somebody is going to laugh at him."

Miss Fillmore gave me her hand, and I found that her touch had the same soothing quality that was manifest in her voice and presence.

I professed myself gratified at her approval, and murmured that any one would have done the same in the circumstances.

"No, indeed," said Miss Fillmore earnestly. "It isn't every one who would have followed Mr. Baldwin to that den and risked his life to rescue a poor Chinese slave girl."

Mr. Baldwin's part in the affair had evidently lost nothing in Mr. Baldwin's telling of it, and Miss Fillmore's imagination had filled out the blanks in his narrative in a way to make him the promoter of the enterprise.

He was quick to see the peril of his situation, and said stiffly:

"Oh, if there's any credit to the affair, it belongs to Mr. Hampden alone. He discovered the distressed damsel, and is entitled to all the rewards."

Laura Kendrick gave him a pleased look and a gracious nod, which afflicted me with a pang of unwarranted resentment.

"I claim all the credit myself," she said, with a little air of importance. "I seem to remember two rather reluctant knights who were anything but pleased to be sent out to storm the ogre's castle at the call of beauty in distress."

"It was well done, whoever was responsible for it," said Miss Fillmore gently. "It is a noble thing to have rescued Moon Ying."

"Moon Ying!" cried Mr. Baldwin. "Is that the creature's name?"

"I never thought to ask it," I said.

"So like a man!" sighed Miss Kendrick.

"I want you to tell me," said Mercy Fillmore, "how you came to find Moon Ying, and be interested in her. How long have you known her?"

"She's a very recent acquaintance. I first saw her yesterday morning." And then I gave in detail the story of my visit to Chinatown, and the adventures that came of it.

"And that is all you know about her?" asked Miss Fillmore, in a voice that imported disappointment. "I had hoped that you knew more. She is so much above the type of Chinese girls that we meet at the Mission that she has interested me particularly."

"Big Sam gave me the idea that except for her beauty, which I understand to be of a sort highly considered among her countrymen, she is not above the girls you find at the Mission."

"Well, then, it's only another romance spoiled," said Miss Fillmore.

"Oh, you needn't despair. Big Sam appeared to be dealing frankly with me, but that proves nothing. Big Sam is an accomplished diplomat and would tell any story that suited his purpose, and tell it so neatly that you couldn't distinguish it from the truth. For all I know, she may be the daughter of the Empress of China."

"Nothing so interesting, I fear," said Miss Fillmore, with a sober shake of the head.

"Well, then, let's make believe. She shall be a princess of the blood royal, and shall have a story suited to her dignity."

Miss Fillmore smiled dubiously, as though she were not quite certain whether I was in jest or earnest.

"It isn't necessary," she said, her practical mind refusing to descend to frivolity. "Whatever her origin, we must see that she has a better fate than the one that threatens her."

"Yes, so far as it can be done within the conditions laid down by Big Sam."

Miss Fillmore's forehead drew into a knot of lines in which could be read a mingling of disapproval and anxiety.

"I have been thinking," she said, with an apologetic reproach in her voice, "that you didn't do quite right to make those conditions. Can't they be–" she was going to say "evaded" but after a moment's debate with a feminine conscience changed it to "modified."

"I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear," I said. "Those were the only conditions on which the girl could have the opportunity to escape. Unless Big Sam can arrange better terms with the tongs, we have no choice but to live up to them."

Miss Fillmore was silent at this, and I wondered whether I had not, on my side, given too strong an emphasis to the reminder that we were discussing a question of good faith.

"Well," said Miss Kendrick with decision, "we'll leave all that till Moon Ying is quite well, and then I'll see Big Sam and the highbinders myself, if Mr. Hampden can't get them to listen to decency and reason."

"Good heavens!" cried Mr. Baldwin, with chilling protest in his tone. "You surely can't mean to do anything of that sort. You don't suppose that those creatures are open to reason and decency, do you?"

"Oh, indeed," said Miss Kendrick, straightening her small figure and tip-tilting her small nose, "I consider Big Sam an interesting man, and I'm sure I should like to talk with him. And as for reason, I have no doubt he's quite as open to conviction as the rest of his sex. I shan't have the slightest hesitation in appealing to him, or even to those explosive highbinders, if it's necessary to Moon Ying's interests."

"Why, my dear young lady," protested Mr. Baldwin in his most superior manner, "you surely can't be thinking of going down to Chinatown and talking to those fellows. It's altogether absurd."

"Well, if you consider it absurd to try to save a girl's life or happiness, I don't," said Miss Kendrick tartly. And for the rest of the evening Mr. Baldwin sat under a cloud, and I enjoyed a brief period of sunshine.