1
ON the morning of that same day--while Griggsby Doane was striding down
the mountain road from So T'ung to T'ainan-fu--Jonathan Brachey sat
in his room at the inn trying to read, trying to write, counting the
minutes until two o'clock at which hour Betty would be waiting in the
tennis court, when John slipped in with a small white card bearing the
printed legend, in English:
_MR. PO_
_Interpreter and Secretary_
_Yamen of His Excellency the Provincial Judge T'ainan-fu_
Mr. Po proved to be a tall, slim, rather elegant young man in
conventional plain robe, black skull-cap and large spectacles, who met
Brachey's stiff greeting with a broad smile and a wholly Western grip of
the hand.
“How d' do!” he said eagerly: “How d' do!” Then he glanced about at the
two worn old chairs, the crumbling walls of the sun-dried brick with
their soiled, ragged motto scrolls, the dirty matting on the _kang_, and
slowly shook his head. “You're not comfortable as all get-out.”
If there was in Mr. Po's speech a softness of intonation and a faint
difficulty with the _r's_ and _l's_, the faults were not so marked as to
demand changes of spelling in setting it down. He accepted a cigarette.
Brachey lighted his pipe.
“You are quite at home in English,” remarked Brachey.
“Oh, yes! English is my professional matter in hand.”
“You have lived abroad?”
“Oh, no! But at Tientsin Anglo-Chinese College, I made consumption
largely of midnight oil. And among English people society I have broken
the ice.”
Brachey settled back in the angular chair; pulled at his pipe; thought.
The man was here for a purpose, of course. But from that slightly eager
manner, it seemed reasonable to infer that among his motives was a
desire to practise and exhibit his English, a curious mixture of
book phrases and coast slang, with here and there the Chinese
sentence-structure showing through. And he offered an opportunity to
study the local problem that Brachey mentally leaped at.
So these two fell into chat, the smiling young Chinese gentleman and the
austere Westerner. Mr. Po, speaking easily, without emphasis, his casual
manner suggesting that nothing mattered much--not old or new, life
or death--revealed, through the words he so lightly used, stirring
enthusiasms. And Brachey observed him through narrowed eyes.
Here, thought the journalist, before him, smoking a cigarette, sat
modern China; in robe and queue, speaking of the future but ridden by
the past; using strong words but with no fire, no urge or glow in the
voice; as if eager to hope without the substance of hope; at once age
and youth, smiling down the weary centuries at himself.
“It has been expressed to me that you are literature man.” Thus Mr. Po.
Brachey's head moved downward.
“That is quite wonderful. If you will tell me the names of certain of
your books I will give myself great delight in reading them. I read
English like the devil--all the time. I'm crazy about Emerson.”
Brachey led him on. They talked of Russia and England, of the new
railways in China, of truculent Japan, of Edison, much of Roosevelt. Mr.
Po suggested a walk; and they mounted the city wall, sat on the parapet
and talked on; the Chinaman always smiling, nerveless, his calm, easily
flowing voice without body or emphasis. Brachey finally succeeded in
guiding the man to his own topic, China.
“It puzzles and bewilders,” said Mr. Po. “China must leap like
grasshopper over the many centuries. To railways one may turn for
beneficent assistance. And also to missionaries.”
“I'm surprised to hear you say that. I supposed all China was opposed to
the missionaries.”
“I do not dwell at present time upon their religion practises. That may
be all to the good--I can not say. But the domicle of each and every
missionary may be termed civilization propaganda center. Here are found
books, medicines, lamps. Your eyes have discerned enveloping gloom of
Chinese cities by night. Think, I beg of you, what difference it will be
when illumination brightens all. Our people do not like these things, it
is true. They descend avidly into superstitions. They make a hell of a
fuss. But that fuss is growing pain. China must grow, though suffering
accumulate and dismay.”
“Come to think of it,” mused Brachey aloud, “superstition isn't stopping
the railroads.”
Mr. Po snapped his fingers, smilingly. “A fig and thistle for
superstition!” he remarked. “Take good look at the railways! What
happened? In every field of China, as you know, stand grave mounds
of honorable ancestral worshiping. It will break heart of China to
desecrate those grave mounds. It will bring down untold misery upon
ancestors. But when they build Hankow-Peking Rahway, very slick
speculator employed observation upon surveyors and purchased up claims
against railway for bringing misery upon ancestors and sold them to
railway company at handsome profit to himself. And, sir, do you know
what it set back company to desecrate ancestors of China? It set back
twelve dollars per ancestor. And that slick speculator he is now
millionaire. He erects imposing house at Shanghai and elaborates dinners
to white merchants. It is said that he will soon be compradore and
partner in most pretentious English Hong.... No, the superstition will
have to go. It will go like the chaff.”
“But this big change will take a little time.”
“Time? Oh, yes, of course! But what is time to China! A few centuries!
They are nothing!”
“A few centuries are something to me,” observed Brachey dryly.
“Oh, yes! And to me. That is different. There are times to come of
running to and fro and hubbub. It is not easy to adjust.”
“It is not,” said Brachey.
“For myself, I would like to get away. I have observed with too great
width customs of white peoples, I have perused with too diligent
attention many English books as well as those of French and German
authorship, to find contentment in Chinese habit ways. I would
appreciate to voyage freely to America. If I might ask, is not there
an exception made under so-called Chinese Exclusion Act in instance of
attentive student and gentleman who finds himself by no means dependent
upon finance arrangements of certain others?”
“I really don't know,” said Brachey. “You'd have to talk with somebody
up at the legation about that.”
“But up at legation somebodies make always assumption never to know a
darn thing about anything.” Mr Po laughed easily.
“I have employed great thought concerning this topic,” he went on,
with mounting assurance. “It is here and now time of beginning upset in
Hansi, as perhaps as well in all China. At topmost pinnacle of Old Order
here stands Kang, the treasurer. It can not, indeed, be said that
for ennobling ideas of New Order he cares much of a damn. And he is
miserably jealous of His Excellency, Pao Ting Chuan. But Pao is very
strong. Sooner or later he will pin upon Kang defeat humiliation.”
“You feel sure Pao will be able to do that?”
“Oh, yes! Pao is cat, Kang is mouse.”
“Hmm!”
“Yes indeed! But it is nothing to me. Nothing in world! I have laid
before His Excellency desires of my heart. He expresses willing
courtesy. If I may make voyage freely he will make best of it. And not
unlike myself he has perceived half-notion that if I turn to you for
wisdom advice you will not turn cold shoulder and throw me down.”
Catching the opposition behind Brachey's slightly knit brows, he added
hastily, “I have no need. That is to say, I'm not broke. And--with this
thought plan I have made transferrence of certain monies to Hongkong
Bank at Shanghai where no revolution or hell of a row can snatch it from
my outstretched hands. With but a nod from your head, sir, and also with
permission of His Excellency, I could make sneak out of province as your
servant.”
Brachey, after some thought, said he would take the proposal under
consideration.
During the walk back to the inn he contrived to hold the interpreter's
chatter closely to the ferment in the province.
Kang, it appeared, was openly backing the Lookers now. His yamen
enclosure swarmed with ragged soldiers from the West who foraged among
the shops for food and trinkets, and beat or shot the inoffensive
Chinese merchants by way of emphasizing rather casually their privileged
status in the capital city. Down the river, near Hung Chan, a more
considerable concentration of the strange troops was taking place.
Hung Chan was also the rendezvous for the local young men who had
been initiated into the Looker bands. Rumors were flying of a general
massacre to come of the white and secondary (or native) Christians.
There was even talk of a political alliance with the organizers of
rebellion in the South against the Imperial Manchu Government and of
a triumphant march to the coast. A phrase that might be translated as
“China for the Chinese” had come into circulation.
Brachey grew more and more thoughtful as he listened.
“If Pao is so strong, why does he permit matters to go so far?” he
asked.
Mr. Po laughed. “His Excellency will in his own good time get move on
himself.”
“Hmm!”
“Only yesterday I myself was pinched on street by Western soldiers.”
“Pinched?”
“Seized and arrested. Taken up.”
Brachey raised his eyebrows; but Mr Po smiled easily on.
“Oh, yes! They called me secondary Christian. They ran me in before
low woman, a courtesan. They have told Kang that this courtesan is
second-sighted.”
“Clairvoyant?”
“Yes, that is now firm belief of Kang on mere say-so of cheap skates.
This courtesan has been conveyed to treasurer's yamen where with eunuchs
and concubines to attend and soldiers to stand sentry-go she now holds
forth to beat the Dutch. All perfectly absurd!”
“And this creature sat in judgment over you?”
“Oh, yes! Not a day since.”
“What was her decision?”
Again that easy laugh. “Oh, she decree that I am to kick bucket.”
“Execute you, eh? You take it lightly.”
“It is nothing. I will tell you. In companionship with me was my bosom
friend, Chili T'ang, who is third son of well-known censor of
Peking, Chili Chang Pu. It was Chih who got hustle on to yamen of His
Excellency--”
“By His Excellency you mean Pao?”
“In every instance, if you please! Well, like a shot His Excellency
acted in my behalf. In person and with full retinue grandeur panoply he
set forth to pay visit to old rascal Kang, carrying as gift of utmost
personal esteem ancient ring for thumb of jade that Kang had long made
goo-goo eyes at. And he asked of Kang as favor mark to himself that he
be let known instanter, right away, if any of soldiers from his yamen
should behave with unpleasantness toward new soldiers of Kang, for
new soldiers of Kang had come to T'ainan-fu out of far country and not
unnaturally felt homesick and were not in each instance in step with
customs of our city. And he made explanation as well that he would
instruct his secretary, Po Sui-an, to bring news quicker than Johnny get
your gun if his own soldiers should act up freshly or become stench in
the nostrils.... Well, you see, sir?”
“Not quite.”
“But I am Po Sui-an! It was rebuke like ton of brick, falling on all
but face of old Kang. It has been insisted to me that Kang trembled like
swaying aspen reed as he made high sign to attendant mandarins. And then
His Excellency set forth that I had just stepped out on brief journey
but would shortly be back and that he would then instruct me with
determined vigor.... Such is His Excellency, a statesman of stiff upper
lip. A most wise guy! Thus he served notice on that old reprobate that
he will strike when iron is hot.”
“They released you?”
“At once. On return of His Excellency, to his yamen. There was I, slick
as whistle!”,
“Very interesting. But if Kang continues to bring in soldiers from the
West, how is Pao going to strike with any hope of success? Is he, too,
marshaling an army?”
“Oh, no! But you see, I come to call upon you, with you I walk freely
about streets. At Kang I thumb my nose and tell him go chase himself.
Pao will protect myself and you.”
“But as I understand it, Kang officially ranks Pao.”
“Oh, yes! But that is nothing.”
“It looks like a little something to me.”
“Oh, no! I will ask you for brief moment to glance sidelong at Forbidden
City of Peking. There during long devil of a while Eastern Empress
officially ranked Western Empress, but I would call your attention to
insignificant matter that it was not Western Empress--she whom you dub
Empress Dowager--that turned up her toes most opportunely to daisies.”
“Oh, I see! Then it is believed that the Empress Dowager had the Eastern
Empress killed?”
“You could not ask that she neglect wholly her fences.”.
“No.... no, I suppose you couldn't ask that.”
“She is great woman. She will not permit that another person put her
on the blink. It is so with His Excellency. A dam' big man! We shall
see!”... He hesitated, smiling a thought more eagerly than before.
They had reached the gate of the inn compound. His quick eye had caught
increasing signs of preoccupation in Brachey's manner. Finally, laughing
again, he said:
“'There is one other little bagatelle. An utter absurdity! I have made
preparation for lecture in English about China. Name of it is 'Pigtail
and Chop-stick.' When I read it at college I must say they held sides
and shook like jelly bowl. On that occasion it was made plain to me by
men of thought that it is peach of a lecture. It's a scream.” His laugh
indicated now an apologetic self-consciousness. “It was said that in
America my lecture would be knockout, that Chinaman treading with
humor the lyceum would make novelty excitement. Indeed, by gentleman
of Customs Administration this was handed me....” He fumbled inside his
gown, finally producing a frayed bit of ruled paper, evidently torn from
a pocket note-book, on which was written in pencil: “Try the J. B. Pond
Lyceum Bureau, New York City.”
“Since it was expressed to me,” he hurried to add, “that American
journalist notability was in our midst, I have amused myself with fool
thought that you would run eyes over it and let me have worst of it.”
“It would be a pleasure,” said Brachey, civilly enough but with
considerable dismissive force, extending his hand.
So, Mr. Po, smiling but something crestfallen, sauntered away.
2
At ten o'clock that night Brachey sat in the angular chair, his _Bible
in Spain_ lying open on his knees, his weary face deeply shadowed and
yellow-gray in the flickering light of the native lamp on the table
beside him.
John tapped at the door; came softly in; stood, holding the door to
behind him.
“Well?” cried Brachey irritably. “Well?”
“Man wanchee see you. Can do?”
“Man?... What man?”
“No savvy.”
“China man?”
“No China man. White man. Too big.”
Brachey sprang up; dropped his book on the table with a bang; brushed
John aside and opened the door. The only light out there came slanting
down from a brilliant moon. Dimly outlined as shadowy masses were the
now familiar objects of the inn courtyard--the row of pack-saddles over
by the stable, the darkly moving heads of the horses ami mules behind
the long manger, the two millstones on their rough standard; above these
the roofs of curving tile and a glimpse of young foliage. Then, after a
moment, he sensed movement and peered across, beyond the stable, toward
the street gates. A man was approaching; a huge figure of a man, six
feet five or six inches in height, broad of shoulder, firm of tread;
stood now before him. He carried something like a soldier's pack on his
back.
“Why did you come here?”
Brachey on the door-step found his eyes level with those of his caller.
“Mr. Brachcy?” The voice had the ring of power in it. Brachey's nerves
tightened.
“Yes.”
“I am Mr. Doane.”
“Will you please come in?”
John slipped away. Doane entered; moved to the table; turned. Brachey
closed the door and faced him.
“You will perhaps wish to take off your pack,” he said, with bare
civility.
Doane disposed of this remark with a jerk of his head. “I have very
little time to waste on you,” he said bruskly. “What are you doing in
T'ainan? Why did you come here?”
[Illustration: 0231]
There was a long silence.
“Very well, if you won't answer.”... Doane's voice rasped.
Brachey raised his hand. “I was considering your question,” he broke in
coldly. “While it is not the whole truth, it will probably save time to
say that I came to see your daughter.”
He would have liked to express in his voice some thing of the desperate
tenderness that he felt. The experiences of the preceding evening and
of the afternoon just past--the glimpses he had had into the heart of
a girl, his little storms of anger against Mrs. Boatwright and all her
kind, followed in each instance by other little storms of anger against
himself--had finally swept him from the last rational mooring place out
into the bottomless, boundless sea of emotion. He had found himself,
already to-night, a storm-tossed soul without compass or bearings or
rudder. He burned to see Betty again. It had taken all that was left
of his will to keep from charging out once more across the city, out
through the wall, to the mission compound. He was shaken, humbled,
frightened. To such a nature as Brachey's--stubbornly aloof from human
contacts, sensitively self-sufficient--this was really a terrible
experience. It was the worst storm of his life. He felt--had felt at
times during the evening, as he tried to brace himself for this scene
that he knew had to come within the twenty-four hours--something near
tenderness for the man who was Betty's father. There were even moments
when he looked forward to the meeting with the hope that through the
father's feelings he might be helped in finding his lost self.
He had tried, sitting among the shadows, to build up a picture of the
man. Several of these he had constructed, to meet each of which he
felt he could hold himself in a mental attitude of frankness and even
sympathy. But each of these pictures was but an elaboration of
familiar missionary types. All were what he considered--or once had
considered--weak, or over-earnest to the borders of fanaticism, or
cautious little men, or narrow formalists... men like Boatwright
And without realizing, it, too, he had counted on either real or
counterfeited Christian forbearance. The only thing he had feared might
come up to disturb him was intolerance, like that of Boatwright's wife.
With that, of course, you couldn't reason, couldn't talk at all.... What
he really wanted to do, burned to do, was to tell the exact truth. He
had passed the point where he could give Betty up; he would have to
fight for her now, whatever happened. His one great fear had been
that Betty's father would be incapable of entertaining the truth
dispassionately, fairly.
But the actual Doane cleared his over-charged brain as a mountain storm
will clear murky air. Here was a giant of a man who meant business. Back
of that strong face, back of the deep voice, Brachey felt a pressure
of anger. It was not Christian forbearance; it was vigor and something
more; something that perhaps, probably, would come out before they were
through with each other. There was a restless power in the man, a
wild animal pacing there behind the slightly clouded eyes. Even in the
blinding fire of his own love for Betty he could look out momentarily
and see or feel that this giant was burning too. And what he saw or
felt, turned his heart to ice and his brain to tempered metal. Sympathy
would have reached Brachey this night; weakness, blundering, might have
reached him. But now, of all occasions, he would not be intimidated.. ..
He felt the change coming over him, dreaded it, even resisted it; but
was powerless to check it. The man proposed to beat him down. No one had
ever yet done that to Jonathan Brachey. And so, though he tried to speak
with simple frankness in saying, “I came to see your daughter,” the
words came out coldly, tinged with defiance, between set lips.
It might easily mean a fight of some sort, Brachey reflected. This
mountain of a man could crush him, of course. Primitive emotion charged
the air as each deliberately stud'ed the other.... It would hardly
matter if he should be crushed. There were no police in T'airan to
protect white men from each other. His wife would be relieved; a queer,
bitter sob rose part way in his throat at the thought. There was no one
else... save Betty. Betty would care! And this man was her father! It
was terrible.... He was struggling now to attain a humility his austere
life had never known; if only he could trample down his savage pride,
hear the man out, swallow every insult! But in this struggle, at first,
he failed. Like a soldier he faced the huge fighting man with a pack on
his back.
“You knew my daughter on the steamer?”
“Yes.”
“Before that--in America?”
“No.”
“There is something between you?”
“Yes.”
“You are a married man?”
“Yes.”
Doane, his face working a very little, his arms stiff and straight at
his sides, came a step nearer. Brachey lifted his chin and stared up the
more directly at him. “You seem to have a little honesty, at least.”
“I am honest.”
“How far has this gone?”
Brachey was silent.
Doane took another step.
“Why don't I kill you?” he breathed.
It was then that Brachey first caught the full force of Doane's
emotional torment. To say that he did not flinch, inwardly, would be
untrue; but all that Doane saw was a slight hesitation before the cold
reply came: “I can not answer that question.”
“You can answer the other. How far has this gone?”
Brachey again clamped his lips shut. The situation, to him, had become
inexplicable.
“Will you answer?”
“No.”
Doane's eyes blazed down wildly. And Doane's voice broke through the
restraint he had put upon it as he cried:
“Have you harmed my little girl?”
Brachey was still.
“Answer me!” Doane's great hand came down on his shoulder. “Have you
harmed her?”
Brachey's body trembled under that hand; he was fighting himself,
fighting the impulse to strike with his fists, to seize the lamp, a
chair, his walking stick; he held his breath; he could have tossed a
coin for his life; but then, wandering like a little lost breeze among
his bitter thoughts, came a beginning perception of the anguish in
this father's heart. It confused him, softened him. His own voice was
unsteady as he replied: “Not in the sense you mean.”
“In what sense, then?”
Brachey broke away. Doane moved heavily after him, but stopped short
when the slighter man dropped wearily into a chair.
“I'm not going to attack you,” said Brachey, “but for God's sake sit
down!”
“What did you mean by that?”
“Simply this.” Brachey's head dropped on his hand; he stared at the
floor of rough tiles. “I love her. She knows it. She even seems to
return it. I have roused deep feelings in her. Perhaps in doing that I
have harmed her. I can't say.”
“Is that all? You are telling me everything?”
“Everything.”
Doane walked across the room; came back; looked down at Brachey.
“You know how such men as you are regarded, of course?”
“No.... Oh, perhaps!”
“You will leave T'ainan, of course.”
“Well...”
“There is no question about that. You will leave.”
“There's one question--a man dislikes to leave the woman he loves in
actual danger.”
An expression of bewilderment passed across Duane's face.
“You admit that you are married?”
“Oh, yes!”
“Yet you speak as my daughter's lover. Does the fact of your marriage
mean nothing to you?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“Oh, you are planning to fall back on the divorce court, perhaps?”
“Yes.” Brachey's head came up then. “Does love mean nothing to you?” he
cried. “In your narrow, hard missionary heart is there no sympathy for
the emotions that seize on a man and a woman and break their wills and
shake them into submission?”
Looking up, he saw the color surge into Doane's face. Anger rose there
again. The man seemed desperate, bitter. There was no way, apparently,
to handle him; he was a new sort.
Doane crossed the room again; came back to the middle. He seemed to be
biting his lip.
“I'll have no more words from you,” he suddenly cried out. “You'll go in
the morning! I'll have to take your word that you won't communicate with
Betty.”
“But, my God, I can't just save myself--”
“It may not be so safe for you or any of us. Will you go?”
“Oh... yes!”
“You will not try to see Betty?”
“Not to-morrow.”
“Nor after.”
Brachey sprang up; leaned against the table; pushed the lamp away.
“How do I know what I shall do?”
“I know.”
“Oh, you do!”
“Yes. You will do as I say. You are never to communicate with her
again.”
Brachey thought. “I'll say this: I'll undertake not to. If I can't
endure it, I'll tell you first.”
“You can endure it.”
“But you don't understand! It's a terrible thing! Do you think I wanted
to come out here? I meant not to. But I couldn't stand it. I came. Is
it nothing that I told her of my marriage with the deliberate purpose of
frightening her away? But she is afraid of nothing.”
“No--she is not afraid.”
“I tell you, I've been torn all to pieces. Good God, if I hadn't been,
and if you weren't her father, do you think I'd have stood here to-night
and let you say these things to me! Oh, you would beat me; likely enough
you'd kill me; but that's nothing. That would be easy--except for Betty.”
“I have no time for heroics,” said Doane. “Have I your promise that you
will leave in the morning, without a word to her?”
“Yes.”
“I am going to Hung Chan. There are more important issues now than your
life or mine. I shall be back to-morrow night and shall know then if you
have failed to keep your word.”
“I shan't fail.”
“Very well! A word more. You are not to stop at Ping Yang on your way
cut.”
“Oh?”
“For a night only. Then go on. Go out of the province. Go back to the
coast. Is that understood?”
Brachey inclined his head.
“I have your promise?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
Doane turned to the door. But then he hesitated, turned, hesitated
again, finally came straight over and thrust out his hand.
Brachey, to his own amazement, took it.