THE STORY OF THE SWORD
“You--you shouldn’t have done that,” Mrs. Gregory faltered as the door
closed again behind Ah Sing. “She is very devoted to me,” she added
feebly.
“No doubt,” the mandarin answered tersely. “But I fancy my authority is
even more powerful than her devotion.”
The woman’s uneasiness was growing rapidly. “I don’t think I ought to
have come,” she said, looking about her nervously. “But now,” with an
effort to speak ordinarily and to assume an unconcern she no longer
felt, “Mr. Wu, what is the news?”
“Oh! pray, Mrs. Gregory,” the Chinese begged, all the blandness in his
voice again, “do not let so trifling an incident disturb you in the
least.”
A sudden throb of Chinese music came from the garden, and at the first
note a change crept into his face. It was such music--but softly
thrummed, almost timid--as he and Wu Lu had heard together on their
first hours alone in Sze-chuan. Chinese music is strange to European
ears; they rarely learn to hear it for what it is. It is not discord.
It is not crude. At its best it is the pulse of passion turned into
sound. No other music is so passionate, no other music so provocative.
And this was Chinese music at its best. Wu laid down his fan softly,
and stood listening, his head thrust a little towards the sound. Mrs.
Gregory listened too for a moment, startled; then, in a spasm of
nervous tension, she covered her ears with her hands.
Wu took a step towards her. “Do you not find the music agreeable?” he
asked her in a creamy voice.
“No,” she almost sobbed, “it is horrible! Horrible! I--I can’t bear
it--as I feel now.” And she sank down miserably on a stool and leaned a
little against the table.
Wu smiled--a cruel, relentless smile. But he moved to the low, wide
window, pushed back the opaque slide, and called out abruptly,
“Changhoopoh.” The music stopped instantly.
“Oh, thank you!” the woman cried.
“I am sorry it distressed you,” he said in an odd voice; “perhaps these
notes----”
“They jarred on me dreadfully,” she sighed.
“It is a pity,” the mandarin told her, “for the music was in your
honor.”
“I’m sorry,” she faltered, twisting and untwisting her little
handkerchief--Wu was fanning himself again, slowly, contentedly--“not
to appreciate it more. You must please forgive me,” she pled, “but I
am so dreadfully overwrought.” She turned to him with a wan smile that
tried to be confident, but failed, and with a brave attempt to appear
at ease that was sadder than her tears would have been, “Now, Mr. Wu,
please tell me. Where is my son? What do you know about him? Oh! if you
only understood a mother’s anxiety!”
Wu Li Chang looked into her eyes with a narrow smile that was half
a taunt, half a caress. “Ah!” he said, laughing a little, “the old,
old mother-vanity. Why is it, I wonder, that motherhood lays claim to
all the love, all the tenderness, and to all the misery of parentage?
And it is so, world-wide. Our own women are so. But”--his voice grew
stern--“fathers feel too! Fathers love their young. Fathers dote,
brood, fear, suffer.” He ended with a slight, bitter laugh that was
a sneer and frightened the woman oddly, and then he added smoothly,
imperturbably, “I was about to say, Mrs. Gregory, that that music,
performed in your honor, is one of our classical love-songs.”
“Really,” she responded lamely. “Well, I hope your love-making is not
so----” She broke off, painfully at a loss, and turned her head away.
Wu, still standing, leaned towards her, resting his hands on the
table between them. “Not so--violent?” he suggested with a leer,
“Displeasing? Passionate? What was the word you were about to use, Mrs.
Gregory?” He almost whispered her name.
“Oh! Mr. Wu!” Florence exclaimed, rising hysterically--the torture
was telling on her cruelly now; the handkerchief was torn and
knotted--“please have mercy on a mother’s agony!”
Wu Li Chang bent down, across the table still, and laid a hand very
gently on hers. At his touch her self-control, already worn to a
thread, snapped, and she screamed violently. Wu moved his fingers
softly across her wrist, and smiled down at her amiably. “I’ll scream
the house down!” she gasped pantingly. Wu looked at her calmly, shook
his head deprecatingly, and folded his hands upon his arms beneath
his sleeves. Nothing answered her cry of terror--unless the absolute
stillness of the garden did, or its rich, penetrating perfume. “I’m
sorry,” she murmured distractedly, recognizing her mistake, and that to
show fear would both affront him and invite annoyance. “I didn’t mean
that,” she said, choking back a second scream; “I only mean that--oh!
I’m tortured by all this suspense.” In spite of her new resolve, a low
sob broke from her, and she huddled down upon the stool again, crying
like a tired and frightened child.
The man stood a moment watching her grimly. Her head was bowed and
she could not see his face. There was bitter determination on it,
remorselessness, but no desire. He moved slowly across the room and
closed and fastened the thick screen-slide of the window that looked
upon the garden. And now again, except for the high narrow window,
through which no one could look out or in, the room was shut and barred
from all the rest of the world.
They two were entirely alone.
The mandarin moved slowly back until he stood beside the woman. “Pray
compose yourself, dear lady,” he said very quietly. “That weakness was
unworthy of you, and hardly complimentary to your host.” He took her
hand quietly in his, and she made no remonstrance, made no attempt to
draw her hand away again. He put his other hand on her arm, and pushed
her gently down upon her seat, and released his hold.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said brokenly, brushing her hand across her
eyes. “I--I am not myself. Please forgive me.” Wu flicked that aside
with a courteous gesture. “And now,” her voice was little more than a
whispered gasp, “Mr. Wu, please tell me----”
“I am about to do so. Patience!” Wu said silkenly. “In China things
move slowly. China is the tortoise of the world, not the hare. I was
going to tell you”--he spoke with a deliberation that was a torture in
itself.
“Yes?” she interrupted his vindictive procrastination feverishly.
“About that sword.” The mandarin pointed to where it hung.
Mrs. Gregory half smothered a moan.
“The sword with rather a gruesome history----”
“Oh! don’t, please, Mr. Wu,” she broke in, “please--I--I couldn’t bear
it now.”
“But, my dear Mrs. Gregory,” he persisted blandly, “good news will
keep. Time is not pressing. Besides, tea has not yet been brought in.”
“Tea!” she panted distractedly; “oh! Mr. Wu, you must please excuse me.”
“I beg _you_ to excuse _me_,” the Chinese corrected, a little
arrogantly. “For countless generations my ancestors have drunk tea at
this hour, and our tradition must be kept up. You have been long enough
in China to know, perhaps, that tea-drinking with us as a matter of
ceremony is an indispensable custom----”
“Yes, I do know that,” she said quickly, “but--I----”
“And so,” Wu continued pleasantly, “whilst we are waiting for tea I
will tell you the story of the sword.” And he moved as if to lift it
down.
With half-closed eyes, wearied with terror, Florence Gregory half
crouched against the table, prepared to listen. Her rings were cutting
into her hands. Her handkerchief lay at her feet, a ball of rag.
Suddenly Wu turned from the weapon, left it hanging in its place and
swung back to her; standing behind her, his hands on the table, almost
touching her, bending over her, he said, “By the way, Mrs. Gregory, you
must love your son very much.”
“Oh!” she told him, rising and turning to him with supplication in
voice and gesture, “I do.”
“Otherwise you would not be here?” the Chinese asked her calmly.
“Otherwise I should not be here,” she said a little proudly, stung for
the moment back to a sort of self-assertiveness.
“Alone,” he added with a horrid emphasis. “But a mother’s love is
capable of any sacrifice, is it not?”
“It is capable of _much_ sacrifice,” the woman returned, some
dignity lingering in her voice.
“If your son were in any peril, you would----”
“Oh!” the mother said sadly, “I would give--my very life.”
“Your life!” the mandarin exclaimed almost contemptuously. “In China
life is cheap. Is there nothing you value even more?”
“Why?” she asked feebly, at bay now, and putting up such poor fight as
she could for time, in the desperate hope that some outside help might
come--from Ah Wong or from somewhere. “Why, what can one value more
than life?”
“Let us rather say,” the Chinese insinuated, bending until his breath
fanned her cheek, “what can a woman value more than her own life--or
the life of her son?” He paused, not for a reply--he expected none--but
to watch the effect upon her of his poisoned words; to watch and gloat.
She, poor creature, no longer made any pretense. Her strength was gone:
worn away by the persistent drip, drip of his long, slow cruelty. She
looked about the room wildly, saw the face leering close to hers, and
shrank away shuddering. “When I have your attention, Mrs. Gregory,” Wu
said determinedly, but falling back a pace or two.
The entrapped woman summoned up all her courage. “You shall have it,
Mr. Wu,” she said steadily, rising, “from the moment you tell me what I
came to hear.”
“If you will be seated again,” the mandarin said suavely, “I will
proceed to do so. But you must allow me to choose my own route.”
Florence Gregory looked at her tormentor squarely, then beseechingly.
She hesitated. And then she sank back listlessly on to the seat.
“And so,” the man continued, “I will commence with--the sword.”
Mrs. Gregory closed her aching eyes and caught her cold hands
together--and waited.
The mandarin moved, and spoke more and more deliberately. Slowness
could not be slower than his was now. He took down the sword--he
remembered how he had touched it last--his face was ice, his voice as
cold. “As I told you,” he began, standing in front of her, the sword
resting on its point, held between them, “it belonged to an ancestor of
mine who lived many generations ago, Wu Li Chang, whose name I bear.
Perhaps you would like to look at it more closely.” There was a note of
command in his voice, and the woman, obeying, lifted her head a little
and fixed her agonized eyes on the weapon he held, edge towards her.
“I will show it to you, and then restore it to its place. You see,
the blade is no longer keen----” But the point was. She saw neither.
“I keep it merely for its history.” He laid it on the table, laid it
between the Englishwoman and himself, as he might have laid a covenant
or some vital document of evidence, a terrible accusation, a great deed
of gift.
The torture of the merciless leisurely recital was telling on the woman
visibly. She had held a pistol stoically enough this morning. But when,
at a weary movement of her own, the lace in her sleeve caught in the
old sword’s hilt, she shuddered and shrank back. She made no pretense
of listening. She was “done,” for then at least; and of her diplomatic
courteousness not a shred was left. But yet she heard each word.
Wu sat down again, and the slow, cold voice went on evenly. “My
ancestor had only one child, a very beautiful daughter. He worshiped
her with more devotion than is common in China--for you know we do
not often (unless of pure Manchu blood) esteem daughters so highly as
sons. But he was an admirable man--a good neighbor, unselfish, upright,
charitable (and--is it not strange?--for all this was before the
missionaries came to China), a faithful husband--he was a very devoted
father. She was, in your Western phrase, the apple of his eye. Well,
one day when the time came for her marriage to a mandarin to whom she
was betrothed, her father discovered that she--that her marriage was
no longer possible.” Basil Gregory’s mother was listening now, not
listlessly. The ears of a mother’s soul are terribly acute. “He dragged
from her her lover’s name, and then, without a word of reproach or of
warning, he slew the being that he loved--with that sword.”
The English mother moaned. She understood.
“And after that, her lover too was slain; and not only he, but also his
sister, his mother, his entire family. My old sword has drunk deep,
Mrs. Gregory,” and he drew a finger lovingly along its blade.
“Don’t--don’t tell me any more,” Florence Gregory whispered.
Wu lifted the weapon and laid it across his knee--reverently. “I warned
you that it was rather a gruesome story,” he said gravely.
“Yes--well,” she stumbled, playing still for time, trying to think,
“thank Heaven we are more civilized to-day than--than anything so
horrible as that!”
Wu smiled. “Much more civilized, no doubt. Methods change; and since
I have had the advantage of a European education, if I found myself
in such a case, I would not adopt so bloodthirsty a revenge. Indeed
I think, if anything, my ancestors erred on the side of leniency.”
Wu Li Chang paused. Less light was coming through the one high window
now. Florence Gregory was well-nigh strangled by the beating of her
tortured, frightened heart. And almost Wu could hear its beat.
“He was robbed of honor,” he said sternly; “he took merely life
in exchange, whilst he might have taken--from the sister or the
mother--that which they would have held dearer than life. Are you
listening to me, Mrs. Gregory?” for she had buried her face in her
hands on the table where the sword had laid.
She lifted her head heavily--her face was ashen and lifeless--and
looked at him with stricken, agonized eyes.
“I have wearied you,” Wu said contritely. “Your husband would reproach
me--or your honorable son. My story was too long, and unpleasant in an
English lady’s ears. Yet I have said no word that does not bring me
nearer to my point. I, too, had a daughter----”
“Had!” the woman’s lips just breathed it.
“And family history has repeated itself--so far.”
For some moments there was silence in the room--a silence far
more poignant than any words--a silence chill and kindless as the
voicelessness of death. Then Florence Gregory started up at the sounds
of bolts withdrawn and of panels sliding in their grooves.
Wu rose too, carried the sword, and put it beside the gong. “It is
growing dark,” he said.