The Bitter Tea of General Yen Read online

  The stout girl, breathing heavily, nodded in corroboration of this.

  “Won’t you come into the parlor? It opens into the court, we’ll be more comfortable there.”

  “No, I think not,” said Doctor Strike. “You had better get the children together and come with me at once. I think any delay at all would be the worst thing possible. I have a car outside.”

  “I don’t believe, Doctor,” said Miss Reed hesitatingly, “that we will be allowed out. You’ll find there is a guard there, supposedly to protect us but actually to keep us in. I tried several times to-day but wasn’t allowed to pass.”

  “I saw your guard. It came out of an eating-house across the way as we drove up. There are a few others with them. But it is our only chance just the same. I must try to jolly our way through. You know a whole mob of Chinese has been known to turn if you can only give them something to laugh about.”

  “Yes, but——”

  At that moment a noise from the street made them all start, a commonplace noise but nothing could have been more ominous. It was the Ford engine. The Doctor swung around and for a moment wrestled with the double latch of the door. Miss Reed blew out the candle. After an infinitesimal delay the Doctor got the door open. It framed a square of dimly lighted street, in which the Ford was just starting amid the group of Chinese who scattered a little to let it pass. When it had gone they all with one accord turned toward the open doorway and Megan saw on every face one sudden grotesque disturbance of line, while a wave of sound broke from them, terrifying in its simplicity, like the laughter of children tormenting a cat. Doctor Strike slammed the door and once more they stood in darkness.

  Megan said to herself that at any rate they had given the Chinese something to laugh about.

  IX

  They stood for a moment without moving and Megan heard the heavy breathing of Miss Minton, punctuated by one long sigh of resignation from Miss Reed. Then a match scratched once more and Miss Reed’s candle was relighted.

  “Who could have taken it?” she asked.

  “My driver,” said the Doctor bitterly. “He must have followed us. I should have counted on that possibility. I should never have left the car.”

  “But what else could you have done?” cried Megan, anxious to reassure him.

  “You could have come to the door. I should have stayed in the car.”

  He dropped his head forward between his shoulders for a moment, like a man overcome by exhaustion.

  “Well,” said Miss Reed, “we may as well go to the parlor now.”

  They followed her down the hall and through a door into a room where on a center table burned an oil lamp with a green shade. It was a room bare of rugs, with a few pieces of blackwood furniture made by native carpenters; on the walls were some of Hoffman’s religious pictures; a quantity of mats and doilies of cross-stitch and filet hung over tables and chairs, and on the top of an harmonium there were vases of paper flowers, like the needlework probably the work of the orphans. In one corner stood a splendid old Korean chest, looking almost abashed to be keeping such company.

  They sat down about the center table in silence. It was cold so Megan kept on her coat. She said nothing, she was absorbed in the wonder of having been so calm, of still feeling calm. Miss Reed picked up a pencil and began to follow with invisible lines the pattern of the cover. Her finger-nails were quite blue with cold. She was watching her pencil, her rather prominent pale eyes cast down; her colorless lashes, unusually long, absurdly suggested under the light the feathery antennæ of an insect. Megan began to take an interest in her. She looked at her more closely and at the Doctor. She guessed that between Miss Reed and the Doctor there was an antagonism of some sort, perhaps of long standing. From the look of his set face it might be even active dislike. He sat with his arms folded across his chest and in the light of the oil lamp his head was reduced to its essential structure, almost skull-like, but it no longer suggested weakness to Megan. It was the same head only now its bareness was formidable.

  “What has been happening to you here?” he asked. “And why have you been so unwilling to leave?”

  Miss Reed might easily have felt that some reproach was due her but apparently she did not. She answered in her sweet, gentle voice:

  “I believe up until yesterday we were quite safe. I have been through a great deal in my time. I was in Senchow in 1903, my first year in China. I was only eighteen then. You couldn’t expect me to seek shelter at the first alarm. But yesterday things grew suddenly worse. Shells fell from somewhere very near, my amah said from a car on a siding by the North Station. One of them wrecked the servants’ quarters across the court, but no one was hurt, fortunately. I could tell that areas near us were on fire. There has been a tremendous amount of smoke. And there was plenty of street fighting all afternoon. But by that time we had abandoned the front of the house because about noon an unfriendly crowd gathered outside and broke the windows with stones. Once some one set fire to our buildings in the back here, but we managed to put it out, with God’s help. To my surprise a guard was appointed by some one to protect the property. I don’t know by whom. They spend most of their time in the eating-house across the street and they did not help us a bit when the crowd gathered. But when I try to go out they always stop me. All yesterday afternoon I sent my amah out with the children, one by one, to the houses of various Christian Chinese, who I knew would take care of them. But the little Russians I had no place for, and besides, the amah never came back after the last trip. So there are only the five Russians, Miss Minton and I here. Miss Soames, you know, is in the Shanghai General, she was taken ill over a week ago.”

  “Why do you suppose a crowd gathered, just general animosity or something special?”

  “Rather special, I am afraid. A child was run over by a truck in front of the house about a week ago. We took him in here and gave him first aid but he died shortly after, and the parents came and made a terrible to-do, blaming us for his death. He was an only son and the father is a foreman in one of the Naigai cotton mills, a prominent labor leader, rather important in this district. Of course we’ve always had a great deal of antagonism from the people here, but I think the incident would account for the crowd. I believe if it had not been for our little guard and the fact that there were so many snipers about in the streets and on the house-tops they might have—well, they might have done nearly anything to us.”

  She sighed resignedly and dropped her eyes again so that her lashes hung antennæ-like against the light. Miss Minton, whose heavy face and rather congested eyes had been turned toward her while she spoke, now looked anxiously to Doctor Strike to see what the effect was on him. But he made no comment, he was not looking at any of them, and Megan felt that he was trying over in his mind the various possibilities left open to them. She wondered what they would do now. The little back parlor suggested to her vaguely a room where she had gone to Sunday-school as a child, and it seemed, by association of ideas, safe. But she was afraid to dwell on ideas of safety and security lest they should weaken her. She stared at a cross-stitch camel embroidered on the table cover and turned her thoughts to schoolboy stories of journeys across the Gobi and wild Mongol raids.

  “How long would it take you to get the children ready?” asked the Doctor.

  “They are in the next room,” said Miss Reed, “sleeping in their clothes.”

  “Then you had better wake them up and we will start at once.”

  Miss Minton looked hastily from the Doctor back to Miss Reed and she began to breathe asthmatically again.

  “Why, Doctor,” exclaimed Miss Reed softly, “you don’t think of our starting out now on foot, do you?”

  Miss Minton looked around with an expression almost of triumph, as if Miss Reed’s obstinacy were a source of satisfaction and even pride to her.

  “I certainly do. I insist on it. We are actually only a short distance from Range Road. The streets are as empty now as they ever will be. In one hour, in half an hour,
they will begin to fill again. It is unfortunate that the guard promised me did not come and still more unfortunate I lost the car, but you cannot stay here.”

  Miss Reed, who had been assiduously making designs on the table cover with her pencil, lifted her eyes to Doctor Strike, and Megan was startled to observe under the long pale lashes the fixed idolatrous gaze of a schoolgirl.

  “I don’t feel it would be wise to leave,” she said gently. “I feel if we stay here with our guard we are comparatively safe, but if we start out, even if we are allowed to leave the house, we will be attacked before we reach the barricade.”

  Doctor Strike let his quicksilver eyes flicker angrily over her for a moment.

  “I don’t understand you,” he cried. “Do you really suppose Miss Davis and I came here to shut ourselves up in your orphanage, where the best we can hope for is to cower under cover until some one else comes to take us out?”

  “I am sorry about Miss Davis. I did not ask any of you to come, though I appreciate your devotion in doing so. But I am responsible to God for the safety of these children and Miss Minton. I don’t feel it would be wise to expose them in the streets now.”

  “You prefer to keep them here and be burned out, hit by a shell, or butchered by the mob?”

  “I don’t believe we would even be allowed to leave.”

  “I have a pass from General Yen. I have got by on it so far. If I can get you out, will you come?”

  “No,” said Miss Reed. “I don’t think it would be wise.”

  The Doctor turned from them and slumped forward in his chair till his long legs stretched straight in front of him. He folded his arms across his chest and stared at the floor. He looked as if he were going to sleep, worn out by discouragement. Miss Reed added little flourishes to her invisible designs, and Miss Minton breathed out an explosive, “Well!”

  Megan said, “I think you ought to consider, Miss Reed. The Doctor has been working for days to get you safely out. I think you ought to do as he says.”

  “You must really let me use my own judgment,” replied Miss Reed, but she did not look at Megan, only at the Doctor, and Megan saw she drew a positive intoxication from this opposition of their wills. She felt as if it were a taut cord between them which, as soon as Miss Reed gave in, would snap and leave them separated once more.

  “Horrible woman,” she said to herself. “If Mrs. Jackson were here she would know what to say to her. One commonplace word from her would shatter the spell.” For she knew it was useless to talk to her of sacrifice and death and torture. She had already accepted these possibilities with complacency. Exasperation with Miss Reed began to take possession of her. She looked at her watch and saw it was after five o’clock. In a short time, she was not sure how short, it would be daylight. She looked at the Doctor. His head sunk between his shoulders was the head of a sick old bird of prey.

  Perhaps he felt he had undergone enough humiliation even for the sake of saving their lives. As she looked at him, he came to a decision. His head jerked up from his chest; he said shortly:

  “You are probably right. I believe after all you are safer here.”

  “Yes, that is what I think.” Miss Reed drew in a deep breath and laid down her pencil. “I feel sure I am right.”

  The Doctor got up and took out his watch.

  “I forgot this doesn’t run,” he said, “it hasn’t for the last week, but I don’t seem to remember to have it fixed. What time is it, Miss Davis?”

  “Five ten.”

  “Well, shall we once more brave the dangers of Chapei?” He spoke again with his air of using English laboriously. “Unless, like Miss Reed, you prefer the safety of the orphanage. How about that? I don’t like to ask you to take a chance that she is not willing to take.”

  “Oh, I’m willing.”

  “Good,” he said cheerfully. “I am proud of you!”

  Megan buttoned up her coat. The Doctor had taken his off and it hung over the back of his chair. As he lifted it to put it on, Miss Reed ran around the table and held it for him.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said.

  There was no trace of irritation in his face. Looking at Miss Reed Megan saw in her eyes an empty look as if one feeling had evaporated too quickly for another immediately to take its place.

  They stood about the table for a moment. Then Miss Reed crossed over to one of the windows and opened it. She stood there listening. Megan heard the rain falling more heavily now, spattering off the eaves, on to the sill, onto the tiles of the courtyard, a deliciously relaxing sound, a sound of abandonment, of dissolution. They all listened. Then a sudden crackle of rifle-shots burst through, stamped against the monotones of night, silence, and rain like rockets on a dark sky. Megan was vividly conscious once more of the terrors of the outside, terrors beyond this veil of rain streaming over them like a protective insulation. The thought of safety became suddenly so sweet that her mind clung to it for a moment with a piercing delight. Then she thought of how a few hours before she had lain in her bed and envied the workers at the orphanage, and a forced, heavily articulated courage crept over her. She heard without surprise Miss Reed’s voice:

  “Perhaps it might be better to make a run for it. If you can wait a moment I’ll get the children ready.”

  Miss Reed hurried into the next room followed by Miss Minton. The Doctor sat down again and closed his eyes. Megan sat down opposite him. He said nothing, and Megan could see in his face no sign of anger or triumph. She wondered if he had ever been aware of the curious adoration, forced into an unwilling antagonism, which Miss Reed so clearly felt for him. Poor Miss Reed! She did not believe he did. His skull-like face with closed, hollowed eyes was empty now of all feeling, only his lips moved slightly as if he were praying.

  Very shortly the two women returned with five small children wrapped in coats and shawls, huddling together and staring at the light like little blinded animals. One little girl was crying, but Miss Minton very expertly wound her woolen scarf across her mouth so that her sobs were muffled and she might use her scarf, if she wished, for a handkerchief. Miss Reed and Miss Minton carried two old suitcases and wore very worn coats of leopard cat and no hats. Miss Reed’s small face framed with short hair, in spite of its many lines, looked strangely childish above the frayed fur collar, especially as Megan saw on it the adolescent look of adoration which had become now faintly idiotic. She walked to Doctor Strike and laid her hand on his arm.

  “We are in your hands now, Doctor,” she said.

  But the Doctor made no reply. He took her bag abruptly from her, snatched Miss Minton’s and stalked out of the parlor. Miss Minton and Miss Reed gathered a child with each hand and followed. Megan came last with the smallest, she who had been crying.

  X

  At the street door they stopped for a moment and listened. No sound came from the street, but they heard once more at a little distance the crackle of rifle fire. The Doctor seemed satisfied. He opened the door slowly, then suddenly swung it wide. The street was empty, the eating-house across the way shuttered and closed, the dim light over their own door shone only on rain spattering in puddles on the rough road.

  “We are fortunate,” said the Doctor. “Now keep close together but don’t walk too fast.”

  They closed the door carefully and noiselessly behind them. They stood still while the Doctor looked cautiously up and down the street, but still they saw nothing and heard only the vast, diffused sound of rain.

  “It seems almost too good to be true,” he murmured.

  They started slowly down and quite suddenly Miss Minton slipped on the wet step and fell thudding her whole length to the sidewalk. She fell without a word, as completely as though she carried out a rehearsed part, and lay there with her head turned from them. They looked at her, unwilling to believe she had actually fallen. Doctor Strike stepped down and picked her up. He held her for a moment, and her eyes were congested, astonished, her mouth half open.

  “I’ve hurt my ankle,
” she said hoarsely.

  The smallest child began to cry once more, and Miss Minton was not able as before to muffle her sobs.

  They stood and looked at Miss Minton, even Doctor Strike looked at her for a moment, as though she had deliberately betrayed them and they were aghast at her duplicity. The smallest child went on sobbing.

  “Hush, darling, do hush,” whispered Megan. She wiped its streaming eyes and nose with her handkerchief.

  “Oh, I’ve hurt my ankle!” Miss Minton’s voice had become a groan of anguish.

  The Doctor bent and examined it while Miss Reed held her up.

  “It isn’t broken,” he said. “You will just have to walk on it somehow. I’ll help you.”

  They redistributed the children and the baggage, the Doctor put his arm under Miss Minton’s arms.

  “Try now,” he insisted. “You’ve got to do it.” She limped forward, her breath coming in explosive groans at every step. The youngest child began to cry more loudly.

  “Hush, darling,” said Megan and, when she did not stop, shook her slightly. “You really must hush,” she said sharply.

  They moved along the street with the slowness of a nightmare. But Megan knew they must reach the barricade, because there were always certain things that God would never permit and the slaughter of these children was one of them. They would certainly reach the barricade. The street was so cold, so dark, touched only by flickerings of distant fires, that it was impossible to imagine it as ever made aware of the infinitely remote warmth and beauty of the sun. Megan felt that she might be crawling over some dead planet, strayed outside the universe, moving blindly and remotely toward no possible end. And yet the barricade was only a few hundred yards away. Doctor Strike had said the Chinese were never able to discover the existence of a God of love. It had not seemed so tragic when he said it as it did now. Now she could not conceive of how they had existed without it. Only to a God of love was everything possible, immortality, redemption, miracle. Miracle. These children were going to be got alive and unharmed to the barricade.