four years on the Mission in China. They had had a stiff and rather a
dull time, as it were sowing tame oats. They had struggled and scraped
and saved to make ends meet, for there had been born to them three
children, and Theodosia was expecting to complete her book by adding
a synoptic fourth to Masters Matthew, Luke and Mark McWherry. Josiah
saved souls and halfpennies with equal avidity. If the extreme opposite
of spendthrift is a theological virtue, it was his. The expenses of
mission life were formidable though a Society in Chicago advanced a
bounty of fifty pounds on every child born in the mission field. So
economical were the evangelising pair that they actually saved a little
on the bounty won for each child. Theodosia understood that they were
putting aside the money needed to revisit Ireland and never grudged
the pinch in dress or food. Besides, she thrived on the rice, and her
skin was still unspoilt by the sun and her hair remained the colour
of pale primrose. Suave Orientals observed her beauty with a polite
wonder. Though they were quite untouched by the Reverend Josiah’s
God, they secretly observed and admired Josiah’s goddess. Josiah
became mechanical, with his mind set and focused on the double task
of saving Chinks in his tin chapel and tin in his chink-box. Chink,
chink! The lot of a missionary is not a particularly happy one. His
fellow whites succeed in living down any notion he may instil into the
East of the moral perfections of home Christendom. He himself ceases
to believe in Europeans, and the Orientals seldom begin to believe in
him. It is the working of the old paradox, that Christianity began
as an Oriental religion, a sublime teaching of the Desert, and, when
brought back to the East in Western trousers and upon elastic-sided
boots, becomes unrecognisable there as religion at all. The puzzled
Orientals observed domesticated missionaries preaching from a pulpit of
middle-class mind and second-class comfort One Who abandoned Mother and
declined wife. The McWherrys were as unsuccessful as might have been
expected in the task of presenting a suburban Calvin to the children
of Confucius, and were intensely relieved by a call to minister to a
semi-European community in Hong-Kong. It sounded pleasantly provincial
after the frontier misery of the Mission, and they accepted the call.
They took the first steamer down the coast out of the little Chinese
port; Matthew, Luke and Mark with them. There was the additional reason
that Hong-Kong was provided with white doctors, and Theodosia stood
in need of one in about two months’ time. They agreed that the call
must be providential. They were two days at sea and never out of sight
of the coast, when Theodosia was prematurely seized with pangs and
premonitions. Her condition grew more serious and it became obvious
that she would arrive at Hong-Kong with an addition to their party, for
whom no ticket had been provided, and, as Josiah calculated with panic,
no bounty could be claimed. For the high seas are extra-diocesan and a
child born at sea cannot be described truthfully or even theologically
as born on the mission field. Theodosia lay calmly in her berth showing
no traces of panic nor pain. But Josiah’s panic was considerable. It
was financial. Though he sat sympathetically holding her hand, he was
harassing his wretched mind with the agonising chances of losing fifty
pounds, if she were quickly and successfully delivered at sea. It was
not only unlucky, he felt, but it was unchristian to let an innocent
family be deprived of their right to so great a sum. It was even
intolerable. But any minute it might be so.
The day grew into night, and a long harassing darkness began for both.
Morning came and nothing serious had happened. Theodosia only thought
of the child. Josiah only thought of the bounty. He looked out upon the
smooth sea and beheld a land which was never quite out of sight. The
ship’s doctor was of opinion that her child would not be born that day
but would certainly appear before they reached the landing stage of
Hong-Kong. It set Josiah thinking and finally he went on the bridge and
suggested to the captain that it would please the powerful Missionary
Societies if he took his ship into the nearest port for the event. Land
doctors had naturally more experience than sea doctors of such cases.
Of course he had heard of such things as “Water Babies” and he laughed
nervously. He was terribly anxious for the sake of his wife. The
captain only remarked that he knew no port within three days’ journey
except Hong-Kong.
At noon Josiah was feeling as desperate as a Minister of Providence
feels it is right to feel, and again he mounted the bridge. This time
he demanded to be put ashore in the long-boat with his wife. He had
consulted her and she had vaguely consented, believing they were not
far from their destination. “My wife is anxious to be put ashore before
her baby is born. I insist on our being placed in the long-boat.” The
captain only remarked that in such circumstances a sea doctor was
better than no doctor at all. It might look very calm, though it did
happen to be the season of the year for typhoons. However, he consented
and ordered the ship’s stoppage. He was aware of the propriety of not
offending the Missionary Societies. They provided a great deal of
traffic on the coast. His action could be interpreted as an attempt to
save human life and he would allow a crew of three to row the lady with
her husband ashore. The three children, Matthew, Mark and Luke, were
left with the stewardess.
Theodosia was carried out of the bowels of the comfortable ship and
lowered down the companion ladder into a bed prepared in the stern of
the long-boat. The shore did not look more than an hour’s row away.
With broad grins the two seamen began rowing toward land, while a third
steered, and Josiah continued his indefatigable attentions in the
stern. As the boat drew away from the ship, the light of the sinking
sun flickered and rested a moment on an untidy tress of primrose hair.
It was the last detail visible to a few curious and pitying passengers
who stood watching from the main deck--a gleam of primrose hair
disappearing rapidly into the Yellow Sea.
* * * * *
As a matter of fact Theodosia suffered less mental agony on this crazy
trip with Josiah than during their elopement to Belfast. Then her mind
had been on the rack. Now it was only her body that suffered as the
slow pain got hold of her and she lay back under an open sky festooned
with the gathering indigo of virulent storm. Shore was considerably
farther than the atmosphere had let them imagine, and, though it
remained clearly visible, they did not seem to have drawn closer during
the first hour. Another hour passed and once or twice a tremor shot
through Theodosia’s body while she uttered not the ghost of a groan.
Each time he felt her quiver, Josiah felt fifty pounds being wrenched
out of his pocket. The very tide under the churning boat seemed to be
drifting away with his well-earned bounty. Her very hair seemed like
a bunch of melting yellow sovereigns to his feverishly anxious sight.
From time to time he urged the rowers with imprecations, mild but loud.
Land drew decidedly nearer and the outlines of the harbour he had
visioned were taking shape in his eyes. Even if the baby were born on
the landing stage, the bounty might yet be won. Josiah unfortunately
had no sporting sense or he might have been as thrilled as the native
seamen by the gamble he was making. It was a woman’s life against fifty
pounds! Theodosia rapidly passed beyond all emotion save pain.
“Ahoy! Boat Ahoy!” descended upon them through a megaphone. They
held their rowing and then their breath. Above them towered a great
liner through the yellow misting, immense, massive and majestic. It
was slowly bearing down upon them. Transfixed with dread, Theodosia
watched with the helpless feeling growing upon her that the mighty
ship would cut the child within her into halves. For herself she had
no thought, and Josiah had no thought for her either as he stood up
and shouted “Ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy!” The liner deliberately stopped and a
companion ladder was lowered. For the second time that day Theodosia
found her child-bed the cynosure of a sympathetic passengers’ deck. By
this time she was feeling weird as in a dream. Some strange destiny
was approaching her in that mighty ship of the high seas. She found
herself hoisted through the air, taken into a comfortable stateroom
and treated for starvation and shipwreck by three stewardesses. The
rowers and Josiah were similarly treated in the saloon, and discovered
to be thirsty rather than hungry. A real thrill was supplied to the
lazy and luxurious passengers when it was announced at dinner that the
rescued lady had been delivered of a child! As a rule European ladies
do not choose the China seas as the best place for an accouchement or
an open boat in typhoon weather as the most propitious surroundings.
It seemed rather remarkable and caused talk amongst the crew, who were
the first to learn the underlying cause from their rescued mates. The
grim truth began to circulate through the ship, from crew to officers,
from stewardesses to lady passengers, from pursers to gentlemen in the
smoking-room. The indignation was spontaneous and summary. Josiah
received morally freezing shoulder blades wherever he turned.
Meantime Theodosia lay in a comfortable bed, for the first time in
her life. She was placed in one of the state-rooms of the royal
suite, which a Persian Prince courteously placed at her disposal. Her
experiences were widening. She had experienced child-birth before,
but she had never drunk champagne. It had the dizzier effect. Then
they brought her fruit and titbits daily. Ladies in beautiful clothes
came to watch and wash the baby. A purse was subscribed to provide
him with a loving cup. The baby cried and crowed without realising
the fluke that had dropped him into a bed of clover, whereas he might
have easily been tossing like a broken eggshell in the China seas. The
captain of the ship and the Persian Prince applied for the position of
godparent, and were present at the baptism, performed by the ship’s
chaplain with distilled water. The whole ship was interested. The only
person unnoticed on the occasion was Josiah. Theodosia was particularly
pleased that the Prince had accepted the position of godfather. What
would Gortaherrin have thought?
Oddly enough the captain was an atheist and the Prince was no less than
the living head of one of the great Mohammedan sects, who venerated him
as a remote descendant of the Prophet, and believed him incapable of
sin and ready of miracle. His bath-water was collected very carefully
every morning by worshippers and dispatched in sealed cans for the
degustation of the faithful--throughout Pan Islam. Some was sipped in
the Afghan hills and some was swallowed in the Sahara. In India it
was administered as a powerful spiritual tonic at the moment of death.
The lower classes used it to cure diseases. But its main virtue was
internal, and the faithful had acquired almost a taste for the scented
Parisian soaps in which the Prince was pleased to cleanse his body. The
salaciousness of his instinct was perhaps offset by the saponaceousness
of his hide.
He was by chance one of the first to welcome Theodosia when she was
brought on deck. She was stretched under an awning, while ladies took
turn to hold silk parasols between her and the breeze. She lay with
her white skin shining like a river-run salmon, fresh and fruitful,
unflecked and unflushed--while her primrose hair moved delicately in
the warm air. It was a colour that the Prince had never seen before in
his long experience of light-skinned women, European or Eurasian. And
he studied it as he would have studied the water of a diamond or the
wine in a ruby. Theodosia was quite unconscious of his admiration. Two
things stood clear in her soul. Her baby lived, and her love for Josiah
was dead, dead as that money bounty. But the present hour felt like
Paradise.
Unconsciously and then consciously her mind had shed Josiah. She had
overheard the unceasing indignation of the passengers who came to
pet the baby. Women looked at her as though she had suffered some
great martyrdom for her sex or for her religion, or as though she had
been rescued from the arena. Men bowed with tender smiles or stood
eyeing her as though she were some fair form of fish pulled out of
the sea. Josiah used to creep about her with an expression that might
have called for pity, had there been anyone to pity. But of all on
shipboard none pitied and none pardoned. Theodosia only asked him what
there was to pardon. She was perfectly cheerful and politely hoped
Josiah was not as sick as he looked.
There was always some new friend to talk to her and she never felt
ashamed, for her old clothes had been put aside for ever. The first
class passengers collected a trousseau for her. For the first time in
her life she had sampled the soft delight of wearing the finest French
underwear, fringed with gossamer lace and spliced with tyrianthine
ribbons. Her body was massaged every day by rhythmic fingers, and her
legs were encased in silk stockings of so fragile and transparent
a web that the colour of her veins was apparent. She was laid upon
cushions and given winsome wines that made her gay or sleepy and
deliciously aware at intervals of a new world and new impulses. She
knew continual pleasure and happiness for the first time in her life.
She was surprised to find herself flooded by such tender and luxurious
emotions. Life had always been rugged and hard, with a hardness against
which she had never kicked. It was only once in her life that she
had desired with desire, and that desire had been fulfilled. She had
wilfully compelled Josiah to come to her and take her away to Belfast.
She could never desire again as she had desired then. She acquiesced
now in whatever life brought her of weal or woe. She had not shrunk
from pain and death, when it seemed to be her portion. When fate
flowered, she did not decline the lovely pleasure. She had endured the
Chinese mission without a murmur; filth, discomfort, poverty, lonely
childbearing and her queer dread of the Orientals. She always had a
quiet fear they would get her some day. She had read of Boxers. Now her
life had taken a wonderful twist, thanks to Josiah’s idiocy and greed.
She learnt that she would be deposited by the liner in Japan in a few
days.
The Prince was particularly active in his attentions and curious as to
her future. He hung about in a wonderful dressing gown, an heirloom
in his family, contrasting with the London trousers and boots below.
Josiah showed no emotion except anxiety as to who would pay for the
return trip. That was rather unexpectedly settled by the Prince,
who, after some entrancing conversations with Theodosia and a very
heart-to-heart talk with Josiah, proposed to pay Josiah’s journey back
and to give Theodosia a much needed holiday, at his expense also, in
Honolulu and California, whither the ship was bound. Josiah said he was
the only gentleman on board. He was certainly the only one to speak to
Josiah.
Theodosia’s glowing health and acquiescence of mind enabled her to
recover quickly from the creasing of childbirth. She took her children
naturally. They had come as a consequence of her immense and primitive
desire to escape from Caleb McRoarty. China was another consequence and
she had accepted the rough and tumble of her lot. Even when Josiah had
thrown her into an open boat she had not uttered one repining word.
She had not desired comfort or even life. She had always felt she
was paying a penalty. And now it all turned to this, the admiration
and adoration of a whole ship. It was a far cry from Belfast, and
Gortaherrin had shrunk into a point upon the other side of the globe.
Josiah had dwindled into something incredibly small. All feeling
for her father had died in the waiting-room at the railway station
in Belfast, when he cursed her for her harlotry, and now it had died
for Josiah for whom she had given up her father. She felt as much for
Josiah as for the skinned body of one of the kids she used to see
hanging at the Irish crossroads. As for her mother, she was only the
ridiculous rag-accompaniment to her father. Theodosia was primitive
and could grasp only one thing at a time. Once Josiah had been the
one and absolute idea, and now he had shivered to nothingness. He had
come to her on the wings of her great desire, the desire of the bird
to escape from the cage. He had been the wings of her desire and she
did not mind seeing them crumpled now. At least they had carried her
to the empyrean. She watched his ghostlike face hanging round her
cabin. He really looked like a goat’s ghost if there were such things,
ridiculous, inane and unwanted.
A new idea had come into her life. She was enjoying it! The great
physical wrench she had endured combined with the beautiful clothes,
in which she was dressed, to give her the glorious emotion of the
chrysalis when it has been bred to butterfly. She was lying on the
deck at delicious ease. Her feet were encased in white, gold-brocaded
shoes, and her body lapped in a rose dress faintly frothed, as it were,
by a shawl of lighter pink falling from her shoulders. Flesh-coloured
were her silk stockings and like a web of rosy silk was her flesh. The
two plaits of her primrose hair attracted so much attention that she
left them hanging. They were rather like the pollened antennæ of some
florivorous insect; their soft sheen like the pellucid cinnamon of
the rain-washed sunset of spring. She had rather despised her natural
coloured hair compared to the bright hennas and auburns and chalybeates
of the ladies aboard. It never occurred to her that hers was the only
undyed foliage and her face the only unrouged petal in the first-class
dining saloon. But it had been obvious to every man with taste on the
ship, and the Prince was a man of exquisite taste as well as of highly
religious sensibilities.
One day he approached her not for the first time truly, but for the
first time they discussed religion. The idea of accompanying him on a
holiday had charmed and absorbed the innocence of her mind. She had
felt no remorse in sending Josiah back from Nagasaki, nor had Josiah
felt any qualm when the Prince, with the generosity that a great
Christian nobleman might not have shown, had paid him the forfeited
bounty out of his own pocket in consideration of the plucky attempt
Theodosia had made to save it. Fifty pounds was nothing to him. He
had given eight thousand the previous month for a French race-horse.
The only prick of conscience she felt was her desertion of the
new mission-post even for a month. The children could remain with
Josiah, except the baby, and His Serene Highness played with Baby too
charmingly. How surprised she was to learn that he was the head of a
great religion. She found herself growing sad at the thought of his
perdition. But it was satisfactory and a little wonderful to be arguing
with the head of a real Mohammedan sect. It would be a good chance
to find out how Moslems really felt towards Presbyterian principles.
Perhaps?--and her heart leaped--she might be able to convert this
prepossessing Prince. How wonderful! He was a sort of Senior Moderator
in his own community, and must have untold influence.
* * * * *
They were together. “If you are a Mohammedan,” she asked him, “are you
not a teetotaller?” “No, I always drink wine.” “But the example must
be wrong for your followers?” she queried. “They never drink wine, but
they do not mind me doing so. They believe that by saying a few words
I can always change wine into water betwixt the cup and the lip. They
are very faithful.” Theodosia shivered. She felt like having tea with
Antichrist. But he was so sweet playing with Baby. She dared ask him if
he had many wives. No white man had ever dared ask him such a question,
much less a white woman; and he had known a gamut of one and a gallery
of the other. He trembled with rage, and then with amusement. He had
never met a white woman like this before, and a missionary’s wife as
well. He had always shared the official contempt for missionaries
and the official indifference to their wives. He had the Oriental’s
disgust for the wives of professed holy men. In fact, a Maharajah’s
hundredth concubine seemed less displeasing to him and to God than the
missionary’s lady with her black jet brooch, and Jumble Bazaar written
all over her clothes. “Yes,” he told Theodosia, “I have many wives at
home, and they are all good friends.” Theodosia looked at this heathen
with great pity. “Would you never give up the poor dear ladies and
let them become Christian?” “I do want to give them up and to marry
one nice Christian instead,” the Prince stated with a delicious
smile. Theodosia woke to possibilities. “They need a Queen among them
to instruct and help them,” he added, “a white golden-haired Queen.”
He was watching how she would take it. She clapped her hands. “How
splendid! They could all become Christian. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if
you married a white lady. How I should like to be her!”
The Prince hardly knew whether he was talking to a schoolgirl full
of the “Arabian Nights,” or to a very mysterious and self-concealed
courtesan. But he knew that he was fascinated and not merely drawn
fleshward. It was moonlight, and the Pacific Ocean was full of
filtering sounds and suppressed purples. From time to time a great
phosphorescent sheet shot across the ship’s track like the sea’s
luminary echo or defiance of the moon. Butterfly by day and moth by
night, Theodosia felt freed of her shell, and the name of her shell was
Josiah.
The Prince was beginning to see his way. At Honolulu he suggested that
Theodosia should return with him to Persia instead of continuing to
California. Theodosia was quite willing and began to visualise a new
future. Though the Prince had hinted that she might become the white
Queen he had alluded to, it was clearly impossible as she herself was
married, and then he was possibly married in some queer way to all
those dark ladies. An extra one might not make a difference for him,
but it would puzzle the Belfast Presbytery. In the end he proposed,
with his unfailing tact, that she should enter his harem as English
governess to his wives. She could share their limited life and, if
she liked, she could consecrate herself to their conversion. All
Theodosia’s scruples were overcome at a puff, and she began to feel
as radiant in conscience as in body and mind. She no longer felt she
was acting treacherously to Christ and Kirk. Under her conscience,
however, a subconscience warned her and a subconsciousness tempted her
to unknown delight, and, when she succumbed again and again, the very
warning became an overwhelming delight or expectation of delight. All
this occurred in the undebating and unchallenged recesses of her soul,
where modern ideals and primitive instincts keep company.
As long as she talked a little religion every day with the Prince,
Theodosia felt that all was justified. Josiah only made two converts
a year in China. She might really devote six months to a convert so
important as the Prince. It was true that he would only talk religion
when she refused to hear him on any other subject. He preferred to tell
her of Parisian theatres, and his race-horses and the splendours of
his royal palace. He found himself unaccountably checked every time he
tried to touch sex, though she allowed his ebony hands to move on her
canary-coloured hair. Though she was deeply versed in her Scriptures
and had an eye for his soul, he had a number of arrows in his Moslem
quiver which surprised her. And this it was that surprised him most.
The only thing she ever asked him for was his soul. White women with
whom he went even as short a trip as London to Paris generally asked
for pearls. But to go to Honolulu and back and be asked to become a
Presbyterian was a rich experience. And he desired her exceedingly.
With hushed desire he desired.