Читать книгу Hills of Han: A Romantic Incident - Samuel Merwin - Страница 21

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The three men had tea in the study. M. Pourmont, with an apology, smoked cigarettes. Withery observed, when the genual Frenchman turned his head, that the lobe of his left ear was missing.

M. Pourmont regarded the local situation seriously.

“Zay spik of you,” he explained to Griggsby Doane.

“Zay say zat you have ze petit papier, ze little paper, all yellow, cut like ze little man an' woman. An' it is also zat zay say zat ze little girl, ze student, all ze little jeunes filles, is ze lowair vife of you, Monsieur It is not good, zat. At Paree ve vould say zat it is se compliment, but here it is not good. It is zat zay have not bifore spik like zat of Monsieur Doane.”

Doane merely considered this without replying.

“That statement of the Gentry and People looks rather serious to me,'' Mr. Withery remarked.

“It has its serious side,” said Doane quietly. “Put you see, of course, from the frankness and publicity of it, that the officials are back of it. These Gentry and People would never go so far unsupported. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the documents originated within the yamen of his Excellency Pao Ting Chuan.”

“Very good,” said Withery. “Put if he lets it drift much further the danger will be real. Suppose some young hothead were to take that last threat seriously and give up his life in throwing a bomb—what then?”

“It would be serious then, of course,” said Doane. “But I hardly think any one here would go so far unsupported.”

“Yes!” cried M. Pourmont, in some excitement, “an' at who is it zat zay t'row ze bomb? It is at me, n'est ce pas? At me! You tlink I forget v'en ze mob it t'rowr ze bierre at me? Mais non! Zay tear ze cart of me. Zay beat ze head of me. Zay destroy ze ear of me. Ah, c' était terrible, ça!”

“They attacked Monsieur Pourmont while he was riding to the yamen for an audience with Pao,” Doane explained. “But Pao heard of it and promptly sent soldiers. 1 took it up with him the next day. He acted most correctly. The ringleaders of the mob were whipped and imprisoned.”

“But you mus' also say to Monsieur Vitieree zat ze committee of my compagnie he come to Peking—quinze mille kilometres he come!—an' now Son Excellence he say zay mus' not come here, into ze province. It is so difficult, ça! An' ze committee he is ver' angry. He swear at Peking. He cool ze—vat you say—heels. An' ze work he all stop. No good! Noz-zing at all!”

“That is all so, Henry.” Thus Doane, turning to his friend. “I don't mean to minimize the actual difficulties. But I do not believe we are in any such danger as in 1900. Even then the officials did it, of course. If they hadn't believed that the incantations of the Boxers made them immune to our bullets, and if they hadn't convinced the Empress Dowager of it, we should never have had the siege of the legations. But I am to have an audience with His Excellency tomorrow, at one, and will go over this ground carefully. I have no wish, myself, to underestimate the trouble. My daughter arrives next week.”

“Oh!” said Withery. “Oh … your daughter! From the States, Grigg?”

“Yes, I am to meet her at Hankow. The Hasmers brought her across.”

“That's too bad, in a way.”

“Of course. But there was no choice.”

“But zat is not all zat is!” M. Puurmont was pacing the floor now. “A boy of me, of ze cuisine, he go home las' week to So T'ung an' he say zat a—vat you call?—a circle..

“A society?”

“Mais oui! A society, she meet in ze night an' fait l'exercise—”

“They are drilling?”

“Oui! Ze drill. It is ze society of Ze Great Eye.”

“I never heard of that,” mused Griggsby aloud. “I don't really see what they can do. But I'll take it up to-morrow with, Pao. I would ask you, however, to remember that if the people don't know the cost of indemnities, there can be no doubt about Pao. He knows. And it is hard for me to imagine the province drifting out of his control for a single day. One event I am planning to watch closely is the fair here after the middle of April. Some of these agitators of the Gentry and People are sure to be on hand. We shall learn a great deal then.”

“You'll be back then, Grigg?”

“Oh, yes. By the tenth. I shan't delay at all at Hankow.”

It seemed to Henry Withery that his friend and host maneuvered to get him to retire first. Then he attributed the suspicion to his own disturbed thoughts. … Still, Griggsby hadn't returned to the house until after M. Pourmont's arrival. It was now nearly midnight, and there had been never a personal word.

But at last, M. Pourmont out of the way for the night, lamp in hand, Griggsby led the way to the remaining guest room.

Withery, following, looked up at the tall grave man, who had to stoop a little at the doors. Would Griggsby put down the lamp, speak a courteous good night, and go off to his own attic quarters; or would he linger? It was to be a test, this coming moment, of their friendship. … Withery's heart filled. In his way, through the years, out there in remote Kansu, he had always looked up to Grigg and had leaned on him, on memories of him as he had been. He had the memories now—curiously poignant memories, tinged with the melancholy of lost youth. But had he still the friend?

Duane set down the lamp, and looked about, all grave courtesy, to see if his friend's bag was at hand, and if the wash-stand and towel-rack had been made ready.

Withery stood on the sill, struggling to control his emotions. Longfellow's lines came to mind:

“A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long

thoughts.”

They were middle-aged now, they two. It was extraordinarily hard to believe. They had felt so much, and shared so much. They had plunged at missionary work with such ardor. Grigg especially. He had thrown aside more than one early opportunity for a start in business. He had sacrificed useful worldly acquaintances. His heart had burned to save souls, to carry the flame of divine revelation into what had then seemed a benighted, materialistic land.

Grigg would have succeeded in business or in the service of his government. He had a marked administrative gift. And power. … Distinctly power.

Withery stepped within the room, closed the door behind him, and looked straight up into that mask of a face; in his own deep emotion he thought of it as a tragic mask.

“Grigg,” he said very simply, “what's the matter?”

There was a silence. Then Doane came toward the door.

“The matter?” he queried, with an effort to smile.

“Can't we talk, Grigg? … I know you are in deep trouble.”

“Well”—Doane rested a massive hand on a bedpost—“I won't say that it isn't an anxious time, Henry. I'm pinning my faith to Pau Ting Chuan. But … And, of course, if I could have foreseen all the little developments, I wouldn't have sent for Betty. Though it's not easy to see what else I could have done. Frank and Ethel couldn't keep her longer. And the expense of any other arrangement … She's nineteen, Henry. A young woman. Curious—a young woman whom I've never even seen as such, and my daughter!”

“It isn't that, Grigg.”

At the moment Withery could say no more. He sank into a chair by the door, depressed in spirit.

Doane walked to the window; looked out at the stars; drummed a moment on the glass.

“It's been uphill work, Henry … since nineteen hundred.”

Withery cleared his throat. “It isn't that,” he repeated unsteadily.

Doane stood there a moment longer; then turned and gazed gloomily at his friend.

The silence grew painful.

Finally, Doane sighed, spread his hands in the manner of one who surrenders to fate, and came slowly over to the bed; stretching out his long frame there, against the pillows.

“So it's as plain as that, Henry.”

“It is—to me.”

“I wonder if I can talk.”

“The question is, Grigg—can I help you?”

“I'm afraid not, Henry. I doubt if any one can.” The force of this sank slowly into Withery's mind. “No one?” he asked in a hushed voice.

“I'm afraid not. … Do you think the others, my people here, see it?”

“The tone has changed here, Grigg.”

“I've tried not to believe it.”

“I've felt it increasingly for several years. When I've passed through. Even in your letters. It's been hard to speak before. For that matter, I had formulated no question. It was just an impression. But today … and to-night …”

“It's as bad as that, now.”

“Suppose I say that it's as definite as that, Grigg. The impression.”

Doane let his head drop back against the pillows; closed his eyes.

“The words don't matter,” he remarked.

“No, they don't, of course.” Withery's mind, trained through the busy years to the sort of informal confessional familiar to priests of other than the Roman church, was clearing itself of the confusions of friendship and was ready to dismiss, for the time, philosophically; the sense of personal loss.

“Is it something you've done, Grigg?” he asked now, gently. “Have you—”

Doane threw out an interrupting hand.

“No,” he said rather shortly, “I've not broken the faith, Henry, not in act.”

“In your thoughts only?”

“Yes. There.”

“It is doubt? … Strange, Grigg, I never knew a man whose faith had in it such vitality. You've inspired thousands. Tens of thousands. You—I will say this, now—you, nothing more, really, than my thoughts of you carried me through my bad time. Through those doldrums when the ardor of the first few years had burned out and I was spent, emotionally. It was with your help that I found my feet again. You never knew' that.”

“No. I didn't know that.”

“I worried a good deal, then. I had never before been aware of the church as a worldly organization, as a political mechanism. I hadn't questioned it. It was Hidderleigh's shrewd campaign for the bishopric that disturbed me. Then the money raised questions, of course.”

“There's been a campaign on this winter, over in the States,” said Doane, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. “Part of that fund is to be sent here to help extend my work in the province. They're using all the old emotional devices. All the claptrap. Chaplain Cabell is touring the churches with his little cottage organ and his songs.”

“But the need is real out here, Grigg. And the people at home must be stirred into recognizing it. They can't he reached except through their emotions. I've been through all that. I see now, clearly enough, that it's an imperfect world. We must do the best we can with it. Because it is imperfect we must keep at our work.”

“You know as well as I what they're doing, Henry. Cabell, all that crowd, haven't once mentioned Hansi. They're talking the Congo.”

“But you forget, Grigg, that the emotional interest of our home people in China has run out. They thought about us during the Boxer trouble, and later, during the famine in Shensi. Now, because of the talk of slavery and atrocities in Central Africa, public interest has shifted to that part of the world.”

“And so they're playing on the public sympathy for Africa to raise money, some of which is later to be diverted to Central China.”

“What else can they do?”

“I don't know.”

“You find yourself inclined to question the whole process?”

“Yes.”

“Aren't you misplacing your emphasis, Grigg? We all do that, of course. Now and then. … Isn't the important thing for you, the emphatic thing, to spread the word of God in Hansi Province?” He leaned forward, speaking simply, with sincerity.

Doane closed his eyes again; and compressed his lips.

Withery, anxiously watching him, saw that the healthy color was leaving his face.

After a silence that grew steadily in intensity, Doane at last opened his eyes, and spoke, huskily, but with grim force.

“Of course, Henry, you're right. Right enough. These things are details. They're on my nerves, that's all. I'm going to tell you …” He sat up, slowly swung his feet to the floor, clasped his hands. … “I'll spare you my personal history of the past few years. And, of course, captious criticism of the church is no proper introduction to what I'm going to say. During these recent years I've been groping through my own Gethsemane. It has been a terrible time. There have been many moments when I've questioned the value of the struggle. If I had been as nearly alone as it has seemed, sometimes … I mean, if there hadn't been little Betty to think of …”

“I understand,” Withery murmured.

“In a way I've come through my Valley. My head has cleared a little. And now I know only too clearly; it is very difficult; in a way, the time of doubt and groping was easier to bear … I know that I am in the wrong work.”

Withery, with moist eyes, studied the carpet.

“You are sure?” he managed to ask.

He felt rather than saw his friend's slow nod.

“It's a relief, of course, to tell you.” Doane was speaking with less effort now; but his color had not returned. “There's no one else. I couldn't say it to Hidderleigh. To me that man is fundamentally dishonest.”

Withery found it difficult to face such extreme frankness. His mind slipped around it into another channel. He was beginning to feel that Grigg mustn't be let off so easily. There were arguments. …

“One thing that has troubled me, even lately,” he said, hunting for some common ground of thought and speech, “is the old denominational differences back home. I can't take all that for granted, as so many of our younger workers do. It has seemed to me that the conference last year should have spoken out more vigorously on that one point. We can never bring missionary work into any sort of unity here while the denominational spirit is kept alive at home.”

Doane broke out, with a touch of impatience: “We approach the shrewdest, most keenly analytical people or; earth, the Chinese, with something near a hundred and fifty conflicting varieties of the one true religion. Too often, Henry, we try to pass to them our faith but actually succeed only in exhibiting the curious prejudices of narrow white minds.”

This was, clearly, not a happy topic. Withery sighed.

“This—this attitude that you find yourself in—is really a conclusion, Grigg?”

“It is a conclusion.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know.”

“It would be a calamity if you were to give up your work here, in the midst of reconstruction.”

“No man is essential, Henry But of course, just now, it would lie difficult. I have thought, often, if Boatwright had only turned out a stronger man. …”

“Grigg, one thing! You must let me speak of it. … Has the possibility occurred to you of marrying again?”

Doane sprang up at this; walked the floor,

“Do you realize what you're saying, Henry!” he cried out.

“I understand, Grigg, but you and I are old enough to know that in the case of a vigorous man like yourself—”

Doane threw out a hand.

“Henry, I've thought of everything!”

A little later he stopped and stood over his friend.

“I have fought battles that may as well be forgotten,” he said deliberately. “I have won them, over and over, to no end whatever. I have assumed that these victories would lead in time to a sort of peace, even to resignation. They have not. Each little victory now seems to leave me further back. I'm losing, not gaining, through the years. It was when I finally nerved myself to face that fact that I found myself facing it all—my whole life. … Henry, I'm full of a fire and energy that no longer finds an outlet in my work. I want to turn to new fields. If I don't, before it's too late, I may find myself on the rocks.”

Withery thought this over. Doane was still pacing the floor. Withery, pale himself now, looked up.

“Perhaps, then,” he said, “you had better break with it.”

Doane stopped at the window; stared out. Withery thought his face was working.

“Have you any means at all?” he asked.

Doane moved his head in the negative. … “Oh, my books. A few personal things.”

“Of course”—Withery's voice softened—“you've given away a good deal.”

“I've given everything.”

“Hum! … Have you thought of anything else you might do?”

Doane turned. “Henry, I'm forty-five years old. I have no profession, no business experience beyond the little administrative work here. Yet I must live, not only for myself, but to support my little girl. If I do quit, and try to find a place in the business world, I shall carry to my grave the stigma that clings always to the unfrocked priest.” He strode to the door. “I tell you, I've thought of everything! … We're getting nowhere with this. I appreciate your interest. But … I'm sorry, Henry. Sleep if you can. Good night.”

They met, with M. Pourmont and the others, at breakfast.

There was a moment, on the steps of the gate house, overlooking the narrow busy street, when they silently clasped hands.

Then Henry Withery crawled in under the blue curtains of his cart and rode away, carrying with him a mental picture of a huge man, stooping a little under the red lintel of the doorway, his strong face sternly set.