CHAPTER XXX
Washington was delighted; so were the papers—and proclaimed it. Things were a little dull in newspaperdom just now, and the Anglo-Chinese engagement was a savory tit-bit capable of being served up in a number of ways, and was. Dick and Blanche were in an ecstasy, and girls Ivy scarcely knew touted shamelessly to be her bridesmaids. Every one was surprised, which made it all the more exciting. Every one, with only three exceptions: Lady Snow, Dr. Ray and Kow Li. Even Emma Snow was a little surprised, but not so the Chicago physician and Sên’s Chinese manservant.
It had been expected long ago; but it had hung fire so long that Washington society had quite made up its mind that there was nothing in it beyond a friendship too long-drawn-out and too serene to have even the zest of flirtation, and Lady Snow herself had come to lean to that opinion now and then. Until a June day and an old apple-tree had rent the veil, Sên and Ivy had kept their mutual secret so well from each other that it was scarcely surprising that they had balked others of it.
Not many in Washington approved, but most were pleased—a very different thing—and the papers were honestly grateful.
It came with all the toothsome surprise of an unforeseen sensation. And the wedding would be great fun. Would they be married at the Church of the Ascension? Was Sên King-lo a Christian? Nobody seemed to know. Or would they take Convention Hall or the Lafayette Square Opera House and be married on the stage with Chinese rites by Chinese priests, with posture girls at the back and tom-toms in the orchestra, and fire-crackers for confetti? What fun!
Truck-loads of Chinese junk, real and imitation, poured in on Ivy from mere acquaintances, and from a number whom she had not met, but was going to meet now—if they could contrive it. Lucille Smith sat on the doorstep, and for days Ivy had to stay indoors to avoid reporters and camera men—even the back-door and the tradesmen’s gate were “watched”—and Sên King-lo was photographed every time he came to see his fiancée, which was often.
But if the four hundred and the outer thousand were pleased and palate-tickled, a handful of others, and they more nearly interested, were not.
Julia Calhoun Townsend was ill with rage and disgust. Charles Snow was anxious and bitterly anxious too. The Chinese Minister didn’t like it, but told no one so. Kow Li didn’t like it at all, but only told an opium pipe—a very harmless opium-pipe. Uncle Lysander was enormously shocked and disgusted, and he lost no time and spared no pains in noising it abroad that he was. Elenore Ray and Emma Snow stood by Ivy, and the little they said to outsiders was in approval; but at heart neither approved, and each was sorry, Lady Snow the more so and the more acutely. With Elenore Ray an eager scientific and psychological interest somewhat dulled her personal and friendly anxiety.
Julia Townsend writhed. She closed her doors to Sên King-lo and to Miss Gilbert and told them so in frigidly phrased notes written in the third person. A week later she sent for them both—separately—and pleaded and argued. She stormed and wept at Sên King-lo. Ivy came in for most of the pleading, though Sên had his share, and it was to Ivy that she said the hardest and the more questionable things, for she could not quite break the reticence of generations in speaking of intimate things to any man.
Miss Julia quarreled with Dr. Ray because Elenore Ray would not altogether condemn or at all ostracize, and Sir Charles Snow very nearly quarreled with his wife—and that he did not quite do so was Emma’s fault, not his. He was wretchedly unhappy about it.
Miss Julia hurt Ivy a little and angered her bitterly—but accomplished nothing, lost a friendship and didn’t score a point. Sên King-lo she did not anger at all; venomous speech is a Chinese privilege of old age and of women—and Sên King-lo valued her words, not for what they said, but for the kindness that he knew had forced her to speak them; he remembered all her gracious motherliness of years to him, the exquisite, pathetic motherliness of child-deprived and aging spinsterhood. He was neither hurt nor angered, and his gratitude and his affection held. But some of her words and the truth they spoke troubled him. He could not brush them aside, and he could not forget them. Sên King-lo knew the risk he was taking—far better than Miss Julia could. She guessed it a little, spurred by prejudice to state it sourly. He knew it; both his intelligence and his honesty acknowledged it; his courage accepted it. He accepted it, gladly even, now for himself. But—for Ivy? Was the risk he was going to let her take too cruel, too close a risk? Such a marriage would have its pricks, and sometimes its scourge. He had no doubt of that. Could he keep every prick and scourge for him alone, keep them all from her? He said “Goodbye” to Miss Julia as affectionately as she would permit, more sadly than he would show. And his heart had a heavy ache as the door of Rosehill closed behind him forever, and he went through Rosehill’s gate for the last time.
Every goodbye has its tinge of sadness. We know the ills we have; not the ills to come. The released prisoner throws a long last look at his gaol as the warder locks him out. To say goodbye to old friendship, old kindness, old welcome is hard and sad indeed. It cuts.
Sir Charles took it harder than Julia Townsend did but attacked it more gravely and kindly, more gently. But he did his utmost.
To Emma his wife he showed his rancor and a little his tingling spleen. He went among his colleagues grimly. But to Sên King-lo he showed only his sorrow and anxiety and his friendship, and even more considerately to Ivy.
But he spoke.
He spoke to her with his hand on hers; but for all his cousinly kindness and all his diplomatic care, he angered her even more than he hurt—and he hurt. And he failed. He had expected to fail.
But he hoped not to fail with Sên King-lo.