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?”
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.
