1
THE Boatwrights were at this time in the thirties; he perhaps
thirty-six or seven, she thirty-three or four. As has already been noted
through the observing eyes of Mr. Withery, Elmer Boatwright had lost the
fresh enthusiasm of his first years in the province. And he had by no
means attained the mellow wisdom that seldom so much as begins to appear
in a man before forty. His was a daily routine of innumerable petty
tasks and responsibilities. He had come to be a washed-out little man,
whose unceasing activity was somehow unconvincing. He had stopped
having opinions, even views. He taught, he kept accounts and records, he
conducted meetings, he prayed and sometimes preached at meetings of the
students and the native Christians, he was kind in a routine way, his
rather patient smile was liked about the compound, but the gift of
personality was not his. Even his religion seemed at times to have
settled into routine....
He was small in stature, not plump, with light thin hair and a light
thin mustache.
His wife was taller than he, more vigorous, more positive, with
something of an executive gift. The domestic management of the compound
was her province, with teaching in spare hours. Her husband, with fewer
petty activities to absorb his energy until his life settled into a
mold, might have exhibited some of the interesting emotional quality
that is rather loosely called temperament; for that matter it was still
a possibility during the soul-shaking changes of middle life; certainly
his odd, early taste for taxidermy had carried him to the borders of a
sort of artistry; but her own gift was distinctly that of activity. She
seemed a wholly objective person. She was physically strong, inclined to
sternness, or at least to rigidity of view, yet was by no means unkind.
The servants respected her. She was troubled by no doubts. Her religious
faith, like her housekeeping practise, was a settled thing. Apparently
her thinking was all of the literal things about her. Of humor she had
never shown a trace. Without the strong proselyting impetus that had
directed and colored her life she might have become a rather hard,
sharp-tongued village housewife. But at whatever cost to herself she
had brought her tongue under control. As a result, having no mental
lightness or grace, she talked hardly at all. When she disapproved,
which was not seldom, she became silent.
The relation between this couple and Griggsby Doane had grown subtly
complicated through the years that followed the death of Mrs. Doane.
Doane, up in his simply furnished attic room, living wholly alone, never
interfered in the slightest detail of Mrs. Boatwright's management.
Like her, when he disapproved, he kept still. But he might as well
have spoken out, for she knew, nearly always, what he was thinking.
The deepest blunder she made during this period was to believe, as she
firmly did, that she knew all, instead of nearly all his thoughts. The
side of him that she was incapable of understanding, the intensely,
warmly human side, appeared to her merely as a curiously inexplicable
strain of weakness in him that might, some day, crop out and make
trouble. She felt a strain of something disastrous in his nature. She
regarded his growing passion for solitude as a form of self-indulgence.
She knew that he was given more and more to brooding; and brooding--all
independent thought, in fact--alarmed her. Her own deepest faith was
in what she thought of as submission to divine will and in
self-suppression. But she respected him profoundly. And he respected
her. Each knew something of the strength in the other's nature. And so
they lived on from day to day and year to year in a practised avoidance
of conflict or controversy. And between them her busy little husband
acted as a buffer without ever becoming aware that a buffer was
necessary in this quiet, well-ordered, industrious compound.
Regarding the change of tone for the more severe and the worse that
had impressed and disturbed Withery, none of the three but Duane had
formulated a conscious thought. Probably the less kindly air was really
more congenial to Mrs. Boatwright. Her husband was not a man ever to
survey himself and his environment with detachment. And both were much
older and more severe at this time than they were to be at fifty.
The introduction of Betty Doane into this delicately balanced household
precipitated a crisis. Breakfast was served in the mission house at a
quarter to eight. Not once in a month was it five minutes late. A delay
of half an hour would have thrown Mrs. Boatwright out of her stride for
the day.
During the first few days after her arrival Betty appeared on time. It
was clearly necessary. Mrs. Boatwright was hostile. Her father was busy
and preoccupied. She herself was moved deeply by a girlish determination
to find some small niche for herself in this driving little community.
The place was strange to her. There seemed little or no companionship.
Even Miss Hemphill, the head teacher, whom she remembered from her
girlhood, and Dr. Mary Cassin, who was in charge of the dispensary
and who had a pleasant, almost pretty face, seemed as preoccupied as
Griggsby Doane. During her mother's lifetime there had been an air of
friendliness, of kindness, about the compound that was gone now. Perhaps
less work had been accomplished then than now under the firm rule of
Mrs. Boatwright, but it had been a happier little community.
From the moment she rode in through the great oak, nail-studded gates
of the compound, and the mules lurched to their knees, and her father
helped her out through the little side door of the red and blue litter,
Betty knew that she was exciting disapproval. The way they looked at her
neat traveling suit, her becoming turban, her shoes, worked sharply
on her sensitive young nerves. She was aware even of the prim way they
walked, these women--of their extremely modest self-control--and of the
puzzling contrast set up with the free activity of her own slim body;
developed by dancing and basketball and healthy romping into a grace
that had hitherto been unconscious.
And almost from that first moment, herself hardly aware of what she was
about but feeling that she must be wrong, struggling bravely against
an increasing hurt, her unrooted, nervously responsive young nature
struggled to adapt itself to the new environment. A pucker appeared
between her brows; her voice became hushed and faintly, shyly earnest
in tone. Mrs. Boatwright at once gave her some classes of young girls.
Betty went to Miss Hemphill for detailed advice, and earnestly that
first evening read into a work on pedagogics that the older teacher,
after a kindly enough talk, lent her.
She went up to her father's study, just before bedtime on the first
evening, in a spirit of determined good humor. She wanted him to see how
well she was taking hold.... But she came down in a state of depression
that kept her awake for a long time lying in her narrow iron bed, gazing
out into the starlit Chinese heavens. She felt his grave kindness, but
found that she didn't know him. Here in the compound, with all his
burden of responsibility settled on his broad shoulders, he had receded
from her. He would sit and look at her, with sadness in his eyes, not
catching all she said; then would start a little, and smile, and take
her hand.
She found that she couldn't unpack all her things; not for days. There
were snapshots of boy and girl members of “the crowd,” away off there,
beyond the brown hills, beyond the ruined wall, beyond the yellow
plains, and the Pacific Ocean and the wide United States, off in a
little New Jersey town, on the other side of the world. There were
parcels of dance programs, with little white pencils dangling from
silken white cords. There were programs of plays, with cryptic
pencilings, and copies of a high-school paper, and packets of letters.
She couldn't trust herself to look at these treasures. And she put her
drawing things away.
And other more serious difficulties arose to provoke sober thoughts.
One occurred the first time she played tennis with her father; the day
before Li Hsien's suicide. The court had been laid out on open ground
adjoining the compound. Small school buildings and a wall shut it off
from the front street, and a Chinese house-wall blocked the other end;
but the farther side lay open to a narrow footway. Here a number of
Chinese youths gathered and watched the play. It happened that none of
the white women attached to the mission at this time was a tennis
player; and the spectacle of a radiant girl darting about with grace and
zest and considerable athletic skill was plainly an experience to the
onlookers. At first they were respectful enough; but as their numbers
grew voices were raised, first in laughter, then in unpleasant comment.
Finally all the voices seemed to burst out at once in chorus of ribaldry
and invective. Betty stopped short in her play, alarmed and confused.
These shouted remarks grew in insolence. All through her girlhood Betty
had grown accustomed to occasional small outbreaks from the riff-raff of
T'ainan. She recalled that her father had always chosen to ignore
them. But there was a new boldness evident in the present group, as
the numbers increased and more and more voices joined in. And it was
evident, from an embroidered robe here and there, that not all were
riff-raff.
Her father lowered his racket and walked to the net.
“I'm sorry, dear,” he said; “but this won't do.”
Obediently she returned to the mission house; while Doane went over to
the fence. But before he could reach it the youths, jeering, hurried
away. That evening he told Betty he would have a wall built along the
footway.
2
Within less than a week Betty found herself fighting off a
heart-sickness that was to prove, for the time, irresistible. On the
sixth evening, after the house had became still and her big, kind father
had said good night--in some ways, at moments, he seemed almost close to
her; at other moments, especially now, at night, in the solitude, he was
hopelessly far away, a dim figure on the farther shore of the gulf that
lies, bottomless, between every two human souls--she locked herself in
her little room and sat, very still, with drooping face and wet eyes, by
the open window.
The big Oriental city was silent, asleep, except for the distant sound
of a watchman banging his gong and shouting musically on his rounds.
The spring air, soft, moistly warm, brought to her nostrils the smell
of China; and brought with it, queerly disjointed, hauntlike memories of
her childhood in the earlier mission house that had stood on this same
bit of ground. She closed her eyes, and saw her mother walking in quiet
dignity about the compound, the same compound in which Luella Brenty,
a girl of hardly more than her-own present age, was, in 1900, burned
at the stake. Down there where the ghostly tablet stood, by the chapel
steps.
She shivered. There was trouble now. They were talking about it among
themselves, if not in her presence. That would doubtless explain her
father's preoccupation.... She must hurry to bed. She knew she was
tired; and it wouldn't do to be late for breakfast. And she had a class
in English at 8:45.
But instead she got out the bottom tray of her trunk and mournfully
staring long at each, went through her photographs. She had been a nice
girl, there in the comfortable American town. Here she seemed less nice.
As if, in some way, over there in the States, her nature had changed for
the worse. They looked at her so. They were not friendly. No, not that.
Yet this was home, her only home. The other had seemed to be home, but
it was now a dream... gone. She could never again pick up her place in
the old crowd. It would be changing. That, she thought, in the brooding
reverie known to every imaginative, sensitive boy and girl, was the sad
thing about life. It slipped away from you; you could nowhere put your
feet down solidly. If, another year, she could return, the crowd would
be changed. New friendships would be formed. The boys who had been fond
of her would now be fond of others. Some of the girls might be married...
She herself was changed. A man--an older man, who had been married,
was, in a way, married at the time---had taken her in his arms and
kissed her. It w'as a shock. It hurt now. She couldn't think how it had
happened, how it had ever begun. She couldn't even visualize the man,
now, with her eyes closed. She couldn't be sure even that she liked him.
He was a strange being. He had interested her by startling her.
Romance had seized them. He said that. He said it would be different at
Shanghai. It was different; very puzzling, saddening. There was no doubt
as to what Mrs. Boatwright would say about it, if she knew. Or Miss
Hemphill. Any of them.... She wondered what her father would say. She
couldn't tel! him. It had to be secret. There were things in life that
had to be; but she wondered what he would say.
But she was, with herself, here in her solitude, honest about it. It had
happened. She didn't blame the man. In his strange way, he was real. He
had meant it. She had read his letter over and over, on the steamer, and
here in T'ainan. It was moving, exciting to her that odd letter. And he
had gone without a further word because he felt it to be the best way.
She was sure of that.... She didn't blame herself, though it hurt. No,
she couldn't blame him. Yet it was now, as it had been at the time,
a sort of blinding, almost an unnerving shock.... Probably they would
never meet again. It was a large world, after all; you couldn't go back
and pick up dropped threads. But if they should meet, by some queer
chance, what would they do, what could they say? For he lingered vividly
with her; his rough blunt phrases came up, at lonely moments, in her
mind. He had stirred and, queerly, bewilderingly, humbled her.... She
wondered, all nerves, what his wife was like. How she looked.
Perhaps it was this change in her that these severe women noticed.
Perhaps her inner life lay open to their experienced eyes. She could do
nothing about it, just set her teeth and live through somehow.... Though
it couldn't be wholly that, because she had worn the clothes they didn't
like before it happened, and had danced, and played like a child. And
they didn't seem to care much for her drawing; though Miss Hemphill had,
she knew, suggested to Mr. Boatwright that he let her try teaching a
small class of the Chinese girls.... No, it wasn't that. It must, then,
be something in her nature.
She had read, back home--or in the States--in a woman's magazine, that
every woman has two men in her life, the one she loves, or who has
stirred her, and the one she marries. The girls, in some excitement, had
discussed it. There had been confidences.
She might marry. It was possible. And even now she saw clearly enough,
as every girl sees when life presses, that marriage might, at any
moment, present itself as a way out. The thought was not stimulating.
The pictures it raised lacked the glowing color of her younger and more
romantic dreams.... That mining engineer was writing her, from Korea.
His name was Apgar, Harold B. Apgar; he was stocky, strong, with an
attractive square face and quiet gray eyes. She liked him. But his
letters were going to be hard to answer.
The soft air that fanned her softer cheek brought utter melancholy. She
felt, as only the young can feel, that her life, with her merry youth,
was over. Grim doors had closed on it. Joy lay behind those doors. Ahead
lay duties, discipline, the somber routine of womanhood.
She shivered and stirred. This brooding wouldn't do.
She got out a pad of paper and a pencil, and sitting there in the dim
light, sketched with deft fingers the roofs and trees of T'ainan, as
they appeared in the moonlight of spring, with a great faint gate tower
bulking high above a battlemented wall. Until far into the morning she
drew, forgetful of the hours, finding a degree of melancholy pleasure in
the exercise of the expressive faculty that had become second nature to
her.
She slept, then, like a child, until mid-forenoon. It was nearly eleven
o'clock when she hurried, ready to smile quickly to cover her confusion,
down to the dining-room.
The breakfast things had been cleared away more than two hours earlier.
The table boy (so said the cook) had gone to market. She ate, rather
shamefaced, a little bread and butter (she was finding it difficult to
get used to this tinned butter from New Zealand).
In the parlor Mrs. Boatwright sat at her desk. She heard Betty at the
door, lifted her head for a cool bow, then resumed her work. Not a word
did she speak or invite. There was an apology trembling on the tip of
Betty's tongue, but she had to hold it back and turn away.
3
The day after the suicide of Li Hsien rumors began to drift into the
compound. News travels swiftly in China. The table “boy” (a man of
fifty-odd) brought interesting bits from the market, always a center
for gossip of the city and the mid-provincial region about it. The old
gate-keeper, Sun Shao-i, picked up much of the roadside talk. And the
several other men helpers about the compound each contributed his
bit. The act of the fanatical student had, at the start, as Doane
anticipated, an electrical effect on public sentiment. Suicide is by no
means generally regarded in China as a sign of failure. It is employed,
at times of great stress, as a form of deliberate protest; and is then
taken as heroism.
So reports came that the always existent hatred of foreigners was
rising, and might get out of control. A French priest was murdered on
the Kalgan highway, after protracted torture during which his eyes and
tongue were fed to village dogs. This, doubtless, as retaliation for
similar practises commonly attributed to the white missionaries. The
fact that the local Shen magistrate promptly caught and beheaded a few
of the ringleaders appeared to have small deterrent effect on public
feeling.
Detachments of strange-appearing soldiers, wearing curious insignia,
were marching into the province over the Western Mountains. A native
worker at one of the mission outposts wrote that they broke into his
compound and robbed him of food, but made little further trouble.
Reports bearing on the activities of the new Great Eye Society--already
known along the wayside as “The Lookers”--were coming in daily. The
Lookers were initiating many young men into their strange magic, which
appeared to differ from the incantations of the Boxers of 1900 more in
detail than in spirit.
And in the western, villages this element was welcoming the new
soldiers.
Here in T'ainan disorder was increasing. An old native, helper of Dr.
Cassin in the dispensary, was mobbed on the street and given a beating
during which his arm was broken. He managed to walk to the compound, and
was now about with the arm in a sling, working quietly as usual. But it
was evident that native Christians must, as usual in times of trouble,
suffer for their faith.
On the following afternoon the tao-tai called, in state, with bearers,
runners, soldiers and secretaries. The main courtyard of the compound
was filled with the richly colored chairs and the silks and satins and
plumed ceremonial hats of his entourage. For more than an hour he
was closeted with Griggsby Doane, while the Chinese schoolgirls, very
demure, stole glances from curtained windows at the beautiful young men
in the courtyard.
By this impressive visit, and by his long stay, Chang Chih Ting clearly
meant to impress on the whole city his friendship for these foreign
devils. For the whole city would know of it within an hour; all middle
Hansi would know by nightfall.
He brought disturbing news. It had been obvious to Doane that the
menacing new society could hardly spread and thrive without some sort
of secret official backing. He was inclined to trust Chang. He believed,
after days of balancing the subtle pros and cons in his mind, that
Pao Ting Chuan would keep order. And he knew that the official who was
responsible for the province--as Pao virtually was--could keep order if
he chose.
Chang, always naively open with Doane, supported him in this view. But
it was strongly rumored at the tao-tai's yamen that the treasurer, Kang
Hsu, old as he was, weakened by opium, for the past two or three
years an inconsiderable figure in the province, had lately been in
correspondence with the Western soldiers. And officers from his yamen
had been recognized as among the drill masters of the Looker bands.
Chang had reported these proceedings to His Excellency, he said (“His
Excellency,” during this period, meant always Pao, though Kang Hsu, as
treasurer, ranked him) and had been graciously thanked. It was also said
that Kang had cured himself of opium smoking by locking himself in a
room and throwing pipe, rods, lamp and all his supply of the drug out of
a window. For two weeks he had suffered painfully, and had nearly died
of a diarrhea; but now had recovered and was even gaining in weight,
though still a skeleton.
Doane caught himself shaking his head, with Chang, over this remarkable
self-cure. It would apparently be better for the whites were Kang to
resume his evil ways. It was clear to these deeply experienced men that
Kang's motives would be mixed. Doubtless he had been stirred to jealousy
by Pao. It seemed unlikely that he, or any prominent mandarin, could
afford to run the great risks involved in setting the province afire
so soon after 1900. Perhaps he knew a way to lay the fresh troubles at
Pao's gate. Or perhaps he had come to believe, with his befuddled old
brain, in the Looker incantations. Only seven years earlier the belief
of ruling Manchus in Boxer magic had led to the siege of the legations
and something near the ruin of China. Come to think of it, Kang, unlike
Pao and Chang, was a Manchu.
Chang also brought with him a copy of the Memorial left by Li Hsien,
which it appeared was being widely circulated in the province. The
document gave an interesting picture of the young man's complicated
mind. His death had been theatrical and, in manner, Western, modern.
Suicides of protest were traditionally managed in private. But
the memorial was utterly Chinese, written with all the customary
indirection, dwelling on his devotion to his parents and his native
land, as on his own worthlessness; quoting apt phrases from Confucius,
Mencius and Tseng Tzu; quite, indeed, in the best traditional manner.
And he left a letter to his elder brother, couched in language humble
and tender, giving exact directions for his funeral, down to the
arrangement of his clothing and the precise amount to be paid to the
Taoist priest, together with instructions as to the disposition of
his small personal estate. Doane pointed out that these documents
were designed to impress on the gentry his loyal conformity to ancient
tradition, while his motives were revolutionary and his final act
was designed to excite the mob at the fair and folk of their class
throughout the province. Chang believed he had scholarly help in
preparing the documents. And both men felt it of sober significance
that the memorial was addressed to “His Excellency, Kang Hsu, Provincial
Treasurer.”
That Li Hsien's inflammatory denunciation of “the foreign engineer at
Ping Yang” had an almost immediate effect was indicated by the news
from that village at the railhead. M. Puurmont wrote, in French, that
an Australian stake-boy had been shot through the lungs while helping an
instrument man in the hills. He was alive, but barely so, at the time
of writing. As a result of this and certain lesser difficulties, M.
Pourmont was calling in his engineers and mine employees, and putting
them to work improvising a fort about his compound, and had telegraphed
Peking for a large shipment of tinned food. He added that there would
be plenty of room in case Doane later should decide to gather in his
outpost workers and fall back toward the railroad.
Doane translated this letter into Chinese for Chang's benefit.
“Has he firearms?” asked the tao-tai.
Doane inclined his head. “More than the treaty permits,” he replied. “He
told me last winter that he thought it necessary.”
“It is as well,” said Chang. “Though it is not necessary for you to
leave yet. To do that would be to invite misunderstanding.”
“It would invite attack,” said Doane.
It was on the morning after Chang's call that the telegram came from Jen
Ling Pu. Doane was crossing the courtyard when he heard voices in
the gate house; then Sun Shao-i came down the steps and gave him the
message. He at once sent a chit to Pao, writing it in pencil against
a wall; then ordered a cart brought around. Within an hour the boy
was back. Pao had written on the margin of the note: “Will see you
immediately.”
For once the great mandarin did not keep him waiting. The two inner
gates of the yamen opened for him one after the other, and his cart
was driven across the tiled inner court to the yamen porch. It was an
unheard-of honor. Plainly, Pao, like the lesser Chang, purposed standing
by his guns, and meant that the city should know. By way of emphasis,
Pao himself, tall, stately, magnificent in his richly embroidered robe,
the peacock emblem of a civil mandarin of the third-class embroidered
on the breast, the girdle clasp of worked gold, wearing the round hat of
office crowned with a large round ruby--Pao, deep and musical of voice,
met him in the shadowy porch and conducted him to the reception room.
Instantly the tea appeared, and they could talk.
“Your Excellency,” said Doane, “a Christian worker in So T'ung, one Jen
Ling Pu, telegraphs me that strange soldiers, helped by members of the
Great Eye Society, last night attacked his compound. They have burned
the gate house, but have no firearms. At eight this morning, with the
aid of the engineer for the Ho Shan Company in that region, and with
only two revolvers, he was defending the compound. I am going there. I
will leave this noon.”
“I hear your alarming words with profound regret,” Pao's deep voice
rolled about the large high room. “My people are suffering under an
excitement which causes them to forget their responsibility as neighbors
and their duty to their fellow men. I will send soldiers with you.”
“Soldiers should be sent, Your Excellency, and at once. Well-armed men.
But I shall not wait.”
“You are not going alone? And not in your usual manner, on foot?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“But that may be unsafe.”.
“My safety is of little consequence.”
“It is of great consequence to me.”
“For that I thank you. But it is to So T'ung a hundred and eighty _li_.
The best mules or horses will need two days. I can walk there in less
than one day. I have walked there in twenty hours.”
“You are a man of courage. I will order the soldiers to start by noon.”
Back at the compound, Doane assembled his staff in one of the
schoolrooms. Mr. and Mrs. Boatwright were there, Miss Hemphill and Dr.
Cassin. He laid the telegram before them, and repeated his conversation
with the provincial judge.
They listened soberly. For a brief time one spoke. Then Mrs. Boatwright
asked, bluntly:
“You are sure you ought to go?”
Doane inclined his head.
“If things are as bad as this, how about our safety here?”
“You will be protected. Both Pao and Chang will see to that. And in case
of serious danger--something unforeseen, you must demand an escort to
Ping Yang. You will be safe there with Monsieur Pourmont.”
“How about your own safety?”
“I have put the responsibility squarely on Pao's shoulders. He knows
what I am going to do. He is sending soldiers after me. He will
undoubtedly telegraph ahead; he'll have to do that.”
4
Betty was in his study, standing by the window. She turned quickly when
he came in. He closed the door, and affecting a casual manner passed her
with a smile and went into the bedroom for the light bag with a shoulder
strap, the blanket roll and the ingenious light folding cot that he
always carried on these expeditions if there was likelihood of his
being caught overnight at native inns. He put on his walking boots and
leggings, picked up his thin raincoat and the heavy stick that was his
only weapon, and returned to the study.
He felt Betty's eyes on him, and tried to speak in an offhand manner.
“I'm off to So T'ung, Betty. Be back within two or three days.”
She came over, slowly, hesitating, and lingered the blanket roll.
“Will there he danger at So T'ung, Dad?” she asked gently.
“Very little, I think.”
He saw that neither his words nor his manner answered the questions in
her hind. Patting her shoulder, he added:
“Kiss me good-by, child. You've been listening to the chatter of the
compound. The worst place for gossip in the world.”
But she laid a light finger on the court-plaster that covered a cut on
his cheek-bone.
“You never said a word about that, Dad. It was the riot at the fair. I
know. You had to fight with them. And Li Hsien killed himself.”
“But His Excellency put down the trouble at once. That is over.”
She sank slowly into the swivel chair before the desk; dropped her cheek
on her hand; said, in a low uneven voice:
“No one talks to me... tells me...”
He looked down at her, standing motionless. His eyes filled. Then,
deliberately, he put his park aside, and seated himself at the other
side of the desk.
She looked up, with a wistful smile.
“I'm not afraid, Dad.”
“You wouldn't be,” said he gravely.
“No. But there is trouble, of course.”
“Yes. There is trouble.”
“Do you think it will be as--as bad as--nineteen hundred?”
“No... no, I'm sure it won't. The officials simply can't afford to let
that awful thing happen again.”
“It would be... well, discouraging,” said she thoughtfully. “Wouldn't
it? To have all your work undone again.”
He found himself startled by her impersonal manner. He saw her, abruptly
then, as a mature being. He didn't know how to talk to her. This
thoughtful young woman was, curiously, a stranger.... And this was the
first moment in which it had occurred to him that she might already have
had beginning adult experience. She was an individual; had a life of
her own to manage. There would have been men. She was old enough to have
thought about marriage, even. It seemed incredible.... He sighed.
“You're worried about me,” she said.
“I shouldn't have brought you out here, dear.”
“I don't fit in.”
“It is a great change for you.”
“I... I'm no good.”
“Betty, dear--that is not true. I can't let you say that, or think it.”
“But it's the truth. I'm no good. I've tried. I have, Dad. You know, to
put everything behind me and make myself take hold.... And then I draw
half the night, and miss my classes in the morning. It seems to go
against my nature, some way. No matter how hard I try, it doesn't work.
The worst of it is, in my heart I know it isn't going to work.”
“I shouldn't have brought you out here.”
“But you couldn't help that, Dad.”
“It did seem so.... I'm planning now to send you back as soon as we can
manage it.”
“But, Dad... the expense...!”
“I know. I am thinking about that. There will surely be a way to manage
it, a little later. I mean to find a way.”
“But I can't go back to Uncle Frank's.”
“I must work it out so that it won't be a burden to him.”
“You mean... pay board?”
“Yes.”
“But think, Dad! I've cost you so much already!”
“I am glad you have, dear. I think I've needed that. And I want you to
go back to the Art League. You have a real talent. We must make the most
of it.” Betty's gaze strayed out the window. Her father was a dear man.
She hadn't dreamed he could see into her problems like this. She was
afraid she might cry, so she spoke quickly.
“But that means making me still more a burden!”
“It is the sort of burden 1 would love, Betty. But don't misunderstand
me--I can't do all this now.”
“Oh, I know!”
“You may have to be patient for a time. Tell me, dear, first though...
is it what you want most?”
“Oh... why...”
“Answer me if you can. If you know what you want most.”
“I wonder if I do know. It's when I try to think that out clearly that
it seems to me I'm no good.”
“I recognize, of course, that you are reaching the age when many girls
think of marrying.”
“I... oh...”
“I don't want to intrude into your intimate thoughts, dear. But in so
far as we can plan together... it may help if...”
She spoke with a touch of reserve that might have been, probably was,
shyness.
“There have been men, of course, who---well, wanted to marry me. This
last year. There was one in New York. He used to come out and take me
riding in his automobile. I--I always made some of the other girls come
with us.”
Doane found it impossible to visualize this picture. When he was last
in the States there were no automobiles on the streets. It suggested
a condition of which he knew literally nothing, a wholly new set of
influences in the life of young people. The thought was alarming; he had
to close his eyes on it for a moment. Much as his daughter had seemed
like a visitor from another planet, she had never seemed so far off
as now. And he fell to thinking, along with this new picture, of the
terribly hard struggle they had had out here, since 1900, in rebuilding
the mission organization, in training new workers and creating a new
morale. He felt tired.... His brain was tired. It would help to get out
on the road again, swinging gradually into the rhythm of his forty-inch
stride. Once more he would walk himself off, even as he hastened on an
errand of rescue.
Betty was speaking again.
“And there's one now. He's in Korea, a mining engineer. He's awfully
nice. But I--I don't think I could marry him.”
“Do you love him, Betty?”
“N--no. No, I don't. Though I've wondered, sometimes, about these
things....” The person she was wondering about, as she said this, was
Jonathan Brachey. Suddenly, with her mind's eye, she saw this clearly.
And it was startling. She couldn't so much as mention his name;
certainly not to her father, kind and human as he seemed. But she would
never hear from him again; not now. If he could live through those first
few weeks without so much as writing, he could let the years go.
That would have been the test for her sort of nature, and she could
understand no other sort.
She compressed her lips. She didn't know that her face showed something
of the trouble in her mind. She spoke, bravely, with an abruptness that
surprised herself a little, as it surprised him.
“No, Dad, I shan't marry. Not for years, if ever. I'd rather work. I'd
rather work hard, if only I could fit in somewhere.”
“I'm seeing it a little more clearly, Betty.”' He arose. “On the way out
I'll tell Mrs. Boatwright and Miss Hemphill both that I don't want you
to do any more work about the compound.... No, dear, please! Let
me finish!... When you're a few years older, you'll learn as I have
learned, that the important thing is to find your own work, and find
it early. So many lives take the wrong direction, through mistaken
judgment, or a mistaken sense of duty. And nothing--nothing--can so
mislead us as a sense of duty.”
He said this with an emphasis that puzzled Betty.
“The thing for you,” he went on, “is to draw. And dream. The dreaming
will work out in more drawing, I imagine. For you have the nature of
the artist. Your mother had it. You are like her, with something of my
energy added. Don't let the atmosphere of the compound pull you down.
It mustn't do that. Live within yourself. Let your energy go into honest
expression of yourself. You see what I'm getting at--_be_ yourself.
Don't try to be some one else.... You happen to be here in an
interesting time. There's a possibility that the drawings you could make
out here, now, would have a value later on. So try to make a record
of your life here with your pencil. And don't be afraid of happiness,
dear.” He pointed to a row of jonquils in a window-box. “Happiness is
as great a contribution to life as duty. Think how those flowers
contribute! And remember that you are like them to me.”
She clung to him, in impulsive affection, as she kissed him good-by. And
it wasn't until late that night, as she lay in her white bed, such a glow
did he leave in her warm little heart, that the odd nature of his talk
caught her attention. She had never, never, heard him say such things.
It was as if he, her great strong dad, were himself starved for
happiness. As if he wanted her to have all the rich beauty of life that
had passed him grimly by.
She fell to wondering, sleepily, what he meant by finding a way to get
the money. There was no way. Though it was dear of him even to think of
it.
She fell asleep then.