Sidney Carton, thought Ruth, in pursuit of a sing-song girl! The
idea was so incongruous that a cold little smile parted her lips.
It seemed as if each time her imagination reached out investingly,
an invisible lash beat it back. Still, she knew instinctively that
all of Sidney Carton's life had not been put upon the printed page.
But to go courting a slave-girl, at the risk of physical hurt! A
shudder of distaste wrinkled her shoulders.
She opened the window, for the night was mild, and sat on the floor
with her chin resting upon the window-sill. Even the stars were
strangers. Where was this kindly world she had drawn so rosily in
fancy? Disillusion everywhere. The spinsters were not kind; they
were only curious because she was odd and wore a dress thirty years
out of date. Later, when they returned home, she would serve as the
topic of many conversations. Everybody looked askance at everybody
else. To escape one phase of loneliness she had plunged into
another, so vast that her courage sometimes faltered.
She recalled how she had stretched out her arms toward the magic
blue horizon. Just beyond there would be her heart's desire. And in
these crowded four weeks, what had she learned? That all horizons
were lies: that smiles and handshakes and goodbyes and welcomes
were lies: that there were really no to-morrows, only a treadmill
of to-days: and that out of these lies and mirages she had plucked
a bitter truth--she was alone.
She turned her cheek to the cold sill; and by and by the sill grew
warm and wet with tears. She wanted to stay where she was; but
tears were dangerous; the more she wept, the weaker she would
become defensively. She rose briskly, turned on the light, and
opened Les Misérables to the episode of the dark forest: where Jean
Valjean reaches out and takes Cosette's frightful pail from her
chapped little hands.
There must be persons tender and loving in this world. There must
be real Valjeans, else how could authors write about them?
Supposing some day she met one of these astonishing creators, who
could make one cry and laugh and forget, who could thrill one with
love and anger and tenderness?
Most of us have witnessed carnivals. Here are all our harlequins
and columbines of the spoken and written drama. They flash to and
fro, they thrill us with expectancy. Then, presto! What a dreary
lot they are when the revellers lay aside the motley!
Ruth had come from a far South Sea isle. The world had not passed
by but had gone around it in a tremendous half-circle. Many things
were only words, sounds; she could not construct these words and
sounds into objects; or, if she did, invariably missed the mark.
Her education was remarkable in that it was overdeveloped here and
underdeveloped there: the woman of thirty and the child of ten were
always getting in each other's way. Until she had left her island,
what she heard and what she saw were truths. And now she was
discovering that even Nature was something of a liar, with her
mirages and her horizons.
At the present moment she was living in a world of her own
creation, a carnival of brave men and fair women, characters out of
the tales she had so newly read for the first time. She could not
resist enduing persons she met with the noble attributes of the
fictional characters. We all did that in our youth, when first we
came upon a fine story; else we were worthless metal indeed. So,
step by step, and hurt by hurt, Ruth was learning that John Smith
was John Smith and nobody else.
Presently she was again in that dreadful tavern of the Thénardiers.
That was the wonder of these stories; one lived in them. Cosette
sat under the table, still as a mouse, fondling her pitiful doll.
Dolls. Ruth's gaze wandered from the printed page. She had never
had a real doll. Instinct had forced her to create something out of
rags to satisfy a mysterious craving. But a doll that rolled its
eyes and had flaxen hair! Except for the manual labour--there had
been natives to fetch and carry--she and Cosette were sisters in
loneliness.
Perhaps an hour passed before she laid aside the book. A bobbing
lantern, crossing the bridge--for she had not drawn the
curtain--attracted her attention. She turned off the light and
approached the window. She saw a pole-chair; that would be this Mr.
Taber returning. Evidently Ah Cum's luck had held good.
As she stared her eyes grew accustomed to the night; and she
discovered five persons instead of four. She remembered Taber's
hat. (What was the name he had given her that day?) He was walking
beside the chair upon which appeared to be a bundle of colours. She
could not see clearly. All at once her heart began to patter
queerly. He was bringing the sing-song girl to the hotel!
The strange cortège presently vanished below the window-sill.
Curiosity to see what a sing-song girl was like took possession of
Ruth's thoughts. She fought the inclination for a while, then
surrendered. She was still fully dressed; so all she had to do was
to pause before the mirror and give her hair a few pats.
Mirrors. Prior to the great adventure, her mirrors had been the
still pools in the rocks after the ebb. She had never been able to
discover where her father had hidden his shaving mirror.
When she entered the office a strange scene was presented to her
startled gaze. The sing-song girl, her fiddle broken, was beating
her forehead upon the floor and wailing: _Ai, ai! Ai, ai!_
Spurlock--or Taber, as he called himself--sat slumped in a chair,
staring with glazed eyes at nothing, absolutely uninterested in the
confusion for which he was primarily accountable. The hotel manager
was expostulating and Ah Cum was replying by a series of expressive
shrugs.
"What has happened?" Ruth asked.
"A drunken idea," said Ah Cum, taking his hands out of his sleeves.
"I could not make him understand."
"She cannot stay here," the manager declared.
"Why does she weep?" Ruth wanted to know.
Ah Cum explained. "She considers her future blasted beyond hope.
Mr. Taber did not leave all his money in the office. He insisted on
buying this girl for two hundred mex. He now tells her that she is
free, no longer a slave. She doesn't understand; she believes he
has taken a sudden dislike to her. Free, there is nothing left to
her but the canal. Until two hours ago she was as contented and as
happy as a linnet. If she returns to the house from which we took
her, her companions will laugh at her and smother her with
ridicule. On this side of the canal she has no place to go. Her
people live in Heng-Chow, in the Hu-nan province. It is all very
complex. It is the old story of a Westerner meddling with an
Eastern custom."
"But why didn't you oppose him?"
"I had to let him have his way, else he might not have returned
safely. One cannot successfully argue with a drunken man."
The object of this discussion sat motionless. The voices went into
his ears but left no impression of their import. There was, in
fact, only one clear thought in his fevered brain: he had reached
the hotel without falling down.
The sing-song girl, seeing Ruth, extended her hands and began to
chatter rapidly. Ruth made a little gesture, of infinite pity; and
this was quickly seized upon by the slant-eyed Chinese girl. She
crawled over and caught at the skirts of this white woman who
understood.
"What is she saying to me?"
Ah Cum shrugged.
Ruth stared into the painted face, now sundrily cracked by the
coursing tears. "But she is saying something to me! What is it?"
The hotel manager, who spoke Cantonese with facility, interpreted.
He knew that he could translate literally. "She is saying that you,
a woman, will readily understand the position in which she finds
herself. She addresses you as the Flower of the Lotus, as the
Resplendent Moonbeam."
"Just to give her her freedom?" said Ruth, turning to Ah Cum.
"Precisely. The chair is in the veranda. I will take her back. But
of course the money will not be refunded.
"Then take her back," said the manager. "You knew better than to
bring her here under the circumstances."
"Well," said Ah Cum, amiably, "when I argued against the venture,
he threatened to go wandering about alone, I was most concerned in
bringing him back unhurt."
He then spoke authoritatively to the girl. He appeared to thunder
dire happenings if she did not obey him without further ado. He
picked up the broken fiddle and beckoned. The sing-song girl rose
and meekly pattered out of the office into the night.
Ruth crossed over to the dramatist of this tragicomedy and put a
hand on his shoulder.
"I understand," she said. Her faith in human beings revived. "You
tried to do something that was fine, and ... and civilization would
not let you."
Spurlock turned his dull eyes and tried to focus hers. Suddenly he
burst into wild laughter; but equally as suddenly something
strangled the sound in his throat. He reached out a hand gropingly,
sagged, and toppled out of the chair to the floor, where he lay
very still.