When they reached the house it was seven o'clock. The house was
cold, for the coolies had let the fires die down, and when Mrs.
Jackson fussed about, spurring the boys to activity, she saw that
dinner had not even been started.
"What is the matter with these boys!" Mrs. Jackson complained, but
she knew what was the matter.
There was no word from Doctor Strike.
Megan went to her room and sat down with a book. She was quite aware
that she was becoming overcharged; her hands trembled noticeably as
she turned the leaves, and with an instinct for preserving her
balance she tried to take her mind as far as possible from China by
reading a book that had nothing to do with it. But she could not.
She remained abnormally alert to all she had just seen. Finally she
left the book open on her lap and deliberately abandoned herself to
the barbaric images that filled her mind, letting them riot through
as they must, hoping when they had had their will for the power to
discipline them into some permanent understanding of them. What she
most clearly saw were the young Chinese soldiers tossed like
discarded bundles on the road, yet lying in dignity for all that.
Only man among animals, she thought, even among those most noble, has
any dignity in death; the rest become at once carrion. But Megan had
never in her hospital, nor again here, looked at a man just dead
without feeling that that which had just left him had been in its
essence truly august. The young Chinese soldiers were past help from
her, but there remained all of China and it could not be possible
that having reached China she should find herself thwarted as at
home. That almost desperate irritation which she felt before
obstacles began to take hold of her. She dropped her book and walked
over to her window, open now on darkness and rain and a few casual
lights. She thought of Miss Reed at the beleaguered orphanage in the
midst of Chapei. Miss Reed's ultimate desire, she was convinced, was
for martyrdom, and apparently she was about to attain it. A desire
so capable of definite realization was, she felt sure, rare. Miss
Reed was fortunate. And it came to her with a further irritation how
much her own desires still floated unharnessed and goalless, waiting
amid a confusion as of voices, beating of wings, sharp flashes, for
something they could take hold of and make their own.
Mrs. Jackson called her from below and she ran down-stairs in great
haste because haste gave an illusion of direction. But she found it
difficult to eat, and Mr. Jackson also sat making scraping sounds
with his fork, eating nothing. His face was flushed and his eyes
were heavy. Mrs. Jackson, after watching him anxiously during the
meal, leaned over and felt his forehead.
"Will," she exclaimed, "you have a fever!" She jumped up and ran to
the foot of the stairs, calling her amah to bring down the
thermometer.
Mr. Jackson looked apologetically at Megan.
"I got soaked to the skin yesterday and to-day, but I don't feel as
if I had a cold at all." But sitting foolishly with the thermometer
in his mouth, he admitted to pains in his head and back.
"Does your chest hurt you?" demanded Mrs. Jackson.
He said it did not.
"Well, into bed you go. I am going to rub you with Vick's Salve and
give you a hot lemonade and some aspirin. And don't you stir till
they burn the roof over our heads. Mr. Jackson had pneumonia two
years ago at Shasi," she explained, "and it all came from not doing
as I said."
"But, dear, I must stay up till Doctor Strike comes, or at any rate
till I have some word from him. He may need me."
"When he comes I'll send him right up to you. But there won't be a
thing you can do, Will. The Doctor is never going to get a permit
from that man."
"No, I'm afraid not," Mr. Jackson admitted sadly, and he suffered
himself to be led up to bed.
Megan and Mrs. Jackson sat up a while. Several times the telephone
rang and Megan always ran to answer it herself. But it always proved
to be a Chinese who had got the wrong number. Even the exchange was
worse than usual that night. Doctor Strike did not come. Finally
they went to bed.
Megan lay in bed knowing she would never be able to sleep. The rain
had stopped but moisture dripped off the eaves of the house and it
grew gradually colder so that she pulled a blanket over her.
Suddenly she heard what she knew to be firing. It came from
somewhere the other side of the International Settlement and it
sounded like a stick drawn rapidly along a picket fence. Megan got
up and ran to the window, but aside from the red glow in the
direction of Chapei there was nothing to be seen. The firing went on
but came no nearer. Then it stopped. Megan went back to bed. She
began to count sheep as her father had made her do as a child.
Sometimes when she had been sick or frightened he would sit by her
bed and count them for her. She made herself think of her father.
Then of Bob. Bob was as near to China as she would let herself
think. It was easier to picture Bob's fulfillment than her own. She
saw Bob's life as one long integrity in the midst of grossly
multiplied odds. She saw too, with some confusion of feeling, his
blue eyes. Dear Bob. And she did not know she had gone to sleep
until a bell jangled immoderately somewhere in the midst of her
unconsciousness. Before she knew what she was doing she had jumped
up and turned on the light. Her traveling clock said three-thirty.
The bell rang again and she heard one of the boys scuffling to the
door. As she dressed she heard the door open and Doctor Strike's
voice in the hall. Then she heard the voices of the Jacksons. But
while she listened there were no sounds that might be Miss Reed and
her orphans.
When she got down-stairs she found Doctor Strike and the Jacksons in
the living-room before the fireplace, where the sleepy coolie was
laying a fresh fire. Mrs. Jackson wore one of Mr. Jackson's
overcoats, Mr. Jackson was wrapped in a blanket, Doctor Strike was
hanging his wet overcoat on a chair. His face was hollower under the
eyes and quite white, but he did not suggest fatigue; on the contrary
he seemed to restrain, as ever, a restless, burning vitality.
"Good evening, Miss Davis," he said as she came in. "Or probably it
is good morning."
"Yes, it is three-thirty. No Miss Reed?"
"Not yet," he answered. He sat down with them and began to rub his
strong bony hands together. "Pretty cold," he said briskly. "I
wonder if I could have some coffee. I have not eaten anything since
noon."
"I'll get you some," said Mrs. Jackson, "and you'd better have some
sandwiches too."
She went out and Megan sat waiting for Doctor Strike to tell them
what had happened. The room had a strange look, seen in a startled
awakening from sleep, as though what was most familiar in it was only
a replica in a changed substance. She let her eyes linger on the
plush carpet, the pictures of dogs in lace caps and toppers, the
flannel collar sticking up from Mr. Jackson's blanket, the coolie
making the fire, whose bristling head some disease had turned bald in
patches, all of which assured her that she was awake in a world of
things that remain permanent.
"It is cold driving," said the Doctor, still rubbing his hands
together.
"Have you an open car?" asked Mr. Jackson.
"Yes, all I could get. It was the only kind they would send with a
Chinese license, and they were reluctant enough to give me that."
"Then you got your permit, did you?"
"Yes, finally." And though he did not yet say so, Megan felt sure by
the sudden flare in his eyes that he had got it from General Yen. "I
spent some time at the Consulate, as you know, and a great deal more
time trying to get in touch with the Nantao Yamen. I tried through
every Chinese of influence I know in Shanghai. Our authorities were
trying to arrange an armistice between the Cantonese and the Northern
troops cornered in various sections around the North Station, and
General Duncan sent one of his officers who went with a Commissioner
and some Chinese to the Nantao Yamen to see what could be done about
it. I asked them to speak at the same time about the orphanage. But
all the negotiations fell through and on their way back from the
Yamen they were nearly killed by a mob. They only escaped because
General Hsu, questioning the guard he had sent with them, found they
had not been escorted all the way to the Settlement. So he sent
after them, and they were barely reached in time to save them from
the mob. Not too reassuring, is it? Remember, these were some of
our highest officials under a flag of truce. Well, well,--at any
rate this got me nowhere and it was already late. Earlier in the day
a Chinese I knew had mentioned that General Yen was staying in a
house on the Route Ghisi, and I determined as my last resort to try
to reach him. After all," he said, "we had been friends."
Mrs. Jackson came back and sat down.
"The sandwiches and coffee are coming," she said. "So you saw
General Yen again? What did he do?"
"I went to the house in the Route Ghisi but a very insolent boy
coming to the door told me he wasn't in. 'When will he be in?' I
asked. He said he didn't know, so I pushed in past him and said I'd
wait. I sat in a dark hall. The house seemed truly deserted by its
masters; no one came in or out and I could hear behind a heavy door
at the end of the hall the muffled voices and laughter of the
servants. Every now and then I'd call the number one and question
him as to the whereabouts of General Yen, but he would not tell me
anything. I waited there from nine to eleven. Finally the number
one came and asked me for five dollars. I gave it to him and he said
General Yen was attending a banquet being given for him by friends at
the Great Eastern Hotel.
"I went there but when I spoke to the clerk he told me the General
was not in the hotel. So I went over the hotel myself from floor to
floor, till I heard sounds from a room that made me feel a party was
going on inside. I pushed open the door in spite of all the room
boys on that floor who had gathered to protest against it. Well, he
was there. It was already late and the party had been going on a
long time. The General was quite drunk, drunker than I have ever
seen him. But he knew me at once. He insisted I sit down beside him
and join in the festivities, he offered me food and champagne,--yes,
he prefers champagne to samshu,--and he presented me to all and
sundry as his old and honored friend. Of course I took nothing, and
every time I tried to speak to him about the safe-conduct pass I
wanted from him he would only answer by offering me champagne, or he
would recite amorous verses, some of which he said he had written
himself, and his friends would all laugh and the singsong girls would
set up a din. It was very difficult. I began, I am afraid, to get
angry. At one moment I had an impulse to pull everything off the
table and throw chairs at each member of the party. I sat there
sufficiently silent and stiff one would imagine to cast a damper on
them. And perhaps I did, for suddenly the General grew silent too.
He sat and looked at the ceiling, a way he has when he is thinking,
and I began to pray that I might be given the power to touch the good
that is in him, that I know is in him. My prayer must have been
answered. After a little time he reached over for a sort of menu
card that lay by his place and called for some one to bring him a
brush and ink. 'What is this you are asking me for?' he said."
Doctor Strike took a soiled piece of stiff paper out of his pocket
and handed it around for them to see. He smiled at Megan, the smile
she found so charming, for it was always a little tremulous and
uncertain in the midst of his firm, lined face. He put the paper
back again.
"What time is it now?" he said.
Megan looked at her wrist-watch.
"Quarter to four."
"I don't want to cut too close on time. If I can have that coffee
I'll get right along."
"You aren't going there now, are you?" asked Mrs. Jackson, and
without waiting to hear his answer she went out to hurry the
preparations.
"I must leave as soon as I can," said Doctor Strike. "You see, it is
like this. I did not feel myself that a safe-conduct pass alone in
times like this would be much of a help. I spoke of this to the
General, asking him if he couldn't let me have one or two of his men
as a body-guard. He hesitated about this, said he was leaving
himself on a special train at six o'clock from the North Station and
would have to take all his guard with him. I told him the orphanage
was so near the station I could get my friends out and have his guard
back by six o'clock. He said his guard were already at the station
and unless I could get that far there was no way he knew of to
communicate with them. 'Then give me an order to them,' I said,
'I'll pick them up there.' He still hesitated, and then a peculiar
thing happened. There was a young woman with him, one of his
concubines, I suppose. While I was talking I saw her looking at me
in an interested way, and at last she leaned over and spoke to the
General in a low voice. I could not hear what she said but finally
she said to me, in excellent English too, 'Doctor Strike, the General
will do what you ask.' I believe she had something to do with
persuading him. Before I left I managed to have a few words with
her. I thanked her. She told me, here is the remarkable part, that
she was educated in the Presbyterian Mission School in Soochow. I
was in Soochow, you know, for years and she said she knew me as soon
as I came into the room."
"Extraordinary. It seems like a real providence working out,"
exclaimed Mr. Jackson.
"But how does a Mission-reared girl become the concubine of a
general?" asked Megan.
"I don't know. It distressed me. I must try to learn more about
her."
Mrs. Jackson and the number one boy returned with coffee and
sandwiches, and the Doctor began to eat and drink hungrily.
"There is one thing that worries me now," he said, "and that is my
driver. He has a Chinese license but I know he will balk at going
into Chinese territory. I have a short distance to go between the
barricade at Range Road and the North Station, but anything may
happen in it. And further, there is the possibility of my not making
contact with the guard. He may give me trouble or at the least
desert. I think two of us, Jackson, would be better than one."
Mr. Jackson's face showed utter misery and humiliation.
"He cannot possibly go," cried Mrs. Jackson. "He has a temperature
of one hundred and two. He oughtn't to be up here now. You know he
almost died of pneumonia two years ago."
"Oh, I think I can manage it," said Mr. Jackson.
"No, no," cried the Doctor emphatically, "don't think of it. It is
cold outside and raining, it would be suicide."
"Let me come," said Megan, "I can drive a car. I would be able to do
that while you do whatever else is necessary."
Every one turned to look at her and Megan felt her face flush. Her
words had come without her mind having consciously prompted them or
her will consenting, but now that they were spoken they suddenly
crystallized into her intention.
"You say you can drive a car," asked the Doctor, "a Ford?"
"Yes."
His eyes turned a current into her so that all her weaknesses seemed
to jangle out audibly like electric bells. But she bore his scrutiny
as well as she could and after all, she thought, perhaps the keenness
of his vision is inward, not for what is about him. Some instinct
even told her that he was often blinded by the reflections of his own
qualities and that the last thing to surprise him in another would be
courage. Of Mrs. Jackson however she was more afraid. But when she
glanced at her Mrs. Jackson was not looking at her, and it was Mr.
Jackson who uttered a protest.
"But Miss Davis, I don't believe you realize the possibilities.
Remember, I feel a great responsibility for you."
"I really insist on going," said Megan, "if Doctor Strike thinks I
can be of any help." She spoke so emphatically that her voice
sounded disagreeable, and Mr. Jackson sank back in his chair looking
quite ill and sadly worrying the end of his mustache.
"Have some sandwiches and coffee then," said Mrs. Jackson; "you ate
no dinner, I noticed."
It seemed to be settled, though Doctor Strike, had not yet definitely
accepted her. Megan ate some sandwiches and drank heartily a cup of
coffee to demonstrate that she was not at all nervous.
"I don't believe we'll have any trouble," said the Doctor. "I have a
permit from General Duncan for the Settlement and one from the French
Commandant of the Defense for the Concession. We can only of course
go through the Concessions. That leaves us a minimum of Chinese
territory to cross between Range Road and the North Station, only
several hundred yards as I remember it, and from there on we have the
guard of General Yen."
He said the last words with a smile; he was happy, Megan saw,
actively happy and even a little triumphant.
"What time is it?" he asked again.
"Four o'clock."
"Then if you will get a warm coat, Miss Davis, we had better be
starting."
Megan ran up-stairs and returned with a coat.
Outside in the thin rain stood a Ford car, the curtains down and a
Chinese driver huddled at the wheel. He did not even look at them
and Megan was sure the Doctor was right in believing he could not be
depended on; he was sullen or frightened or both. The Doctor got in
beside him and Megan got in the back. The driver climbed slowly out
and cranked. Mrs. Jackson stood by the car talking to Megan:
"You had better button up your collar," she said, "these nights are
raw and you don't look too strong. You'll be in luck if you don't
catch your death of cold." And she added with an unexpected
satisfaction, "Miss Reed will certainly be surprised when the Doctor
turns up with a lady."
The car jerked forward before Megan could answer.
[Illustration: Chapter VIII headpiece]