CHAPTER XVIII
For a second time, after all his years in Peking, Herrick was denying the sureness of the root which his life had taken in alien soil, by turning to a casually met stranger from the West for help he looked in vain to obtain from his adopted countrymen.
"This is a hideous place," he remarked, scanning the dirty whitewashed walls of the guestroom into which Nasmith had ushered him. "You don't live here, I hope."
"No, thank God."
"This is the blight our Western ways put upon China. How can you instruct students in a hole like this? These places make me more anti foreign than the Chinese themselves. I should like to sweep all of you into the sea; I can see too well the beauty you are desecrating."
Nasmith thought to himself that the reverse might also be true. He had spent an unquiet winter. He had never ceased debating the choice Herrick had given him, as though the offer still lay open for his decision. It was futile, useless debate, a purely academic distraction from which no profit could be gained, yet it continued to wound him. Nancy had cast a spell of vivid charm over all his family; she had won their hearts by an interest which long outlasted the summer, a charm which hung over them like a receding shadow so that they lived almost with bated breath beneath the fascination of her mystery, wondering where she was, what she was doing and—this they felt but feared to mention aloud—what perils she might be facing with the steadfast dark eyes they remembered so tenderly.
Nasmith's particular recollections were still more poignant because Herrick's unconventional offer, the curious phrasing of his scrolls, upon which the offer had shed some light, made him feel that Nancy's life was bound to his by a fateful sympathy which would persist even though it were balked of all real fulfillment. Yet even now, attracted to a Nancy who was almost a legend, he could not make up his mind to accept, if her father renewed the proposal.
He might have spared himself these worries. The older man set that issue at rest by his next words.
"I have come on a matter of business," he said.
"Business?"
"Yes, I want your help in something I have postponed for years, something I hoped I might never have to do: it smacks too much of your dreary Western formality. But I know, now, my mind will be easier when it's done. I want to make my will."
"Aren't there any provisions for a will in the Chinese customs you like so well?" asked Nasmith, smiling ironically as he spoke. "Surely the Chinese, after four thousand years, have devised some way of leaving their treasure behind them. Or have they excelled us again and learned how to lay up their gold and silver in Heaven?"
"Oh, they have their ways," admitted Herrick, ignoring Nasmith's sneer; "the family inherits the money and attends to its just distribution. That is of no use to me, however, for I have no family."
"Haven't you? I thought you were a shining example of the family man."
"Ah, yes; but all women. They would tear each other in pieces if I put any money in their hands. It's only men who can manage these matters."
"Yes, it is a misfortune that you should not have been born Chinese. That would have solved many difficulties. But what advice am I worthy to give you? If you, with all your years in China, can't leave your money satisfactorily, how can my limited experience be of use?"
"I am not seeking advice; I want you to be my—what do you call it?—executor, and keep my will, and see that my property is fairly distributed. I seem bound to ask favors of you. This is no easy one, I know, but perhaps it is easier than the last. If I live long enough, it may cost you no trouble at all."
"If you don't?"
"Then I admit frankly you will have the devil of a time. You'll have to apportion certain sums, which I shall specify, among several women, each of whom will think you are robbing her. But, once you've done it, you're rid of them. They can gamble away their share in a night if they wish without your being under any obligation to interfere. I don't expect you to take this trouble without being paid for it; I insist upon that, though I know that will not be a consideration to you if you really wish to help me; but I wouldn't ask my own brother to make so large a gift of his time and patience without some reward, so please don't protest. Your most exacting burden will be keeping an eye upon my boy, Edward. If he's twenty-one before I die, well and good: you'll have no responsibility. If he's younger, he'll need some direction."
"What about Nancy?"
"Ah, Nancy—she is arranged for; I won't bother you with that responsibility again. She is to get her share when she's married."
"Married!"
"Yes, I've found a good husband for her. How could I rest easy with that responsibility on my mind? Let's hope, my dear sir, that when you're married you will have only sons. You'll have more sleep, less worry. It is too great a strain to have the future of growing daughters on one's mind."
"But when is she to be married?" asked Nasmith, trying to keep his voice level.
"That I can't say. Not for four years, I hope. You remember the terms you found too extravagant. If I find my strength failing, I shall hasten it. If anything should happen too suddenly, that is, if she should fail to be married before I die, then I shall have to ask you to hand over her marriage portion. But I shall leave no stone unturned to spare you such a disagreeable necessity."
"Then she is to marry a Chinese?" asked Nasmith, scarcely brave enough to hear the answer.
"She is engaged to a Chinese."
Nasmith did not pursue this topic further. There were too many thoughts to be uttered; he did not know which to select. The shame, the wrongfulness of the father's action choked him, but he remembered that he had been warned. He had refused his chance and felt honor-bound not to protest, now that Herrick had disposed of his daughter in a way which seemed to him so utterly appalling. He knew, also, how unavailing protests would be, how deaf the ears upon which they would fall. A betrothal in China was too binding, too sacred a compact to be dissolved by the persuasion of a moment. So he kept silent, preferring not to waste words.
Disappointment over Herrick's relentless execution of a threat he himself never had taken seriously made him all the more willing to accept this second trust the man had sought from him. He would be able to follow events in this weird family, still more to assume some responsibility for them; perhaps Nancy's tragic case was not hopeless—some stubborn cell of his brain would not be reconciled to accepting it as hopeless—he might yet, he must, have his part to play, his chance to intervene. In one breath he prayed that Herrick might live to be ninety and that Nancy's affianced bridegroom be struck down by all the plagues of the East.
"This time," he told Herrick, "I can help you. I shall be glad to act as your executor, but I hope the necessity of doing so may never arise—at least not for many years."
"Thank you," said Herrick gravely, "you have taken a great load off my mind. Now we must have witnesses, and the will, of course, must be left with you. It would never do to put it where others can tamper with it."
"I can get witnesses: Mr. Beresford should do, and my brother-in-law—he is a banker. I am sure he will be useful."
"Good. Can you bring them to my house? Here is my card. I will write the address in English, if you wish. Could you come, say, at five to-morrow?"
"I am sure we could."
Herrick departed, greatly pleased at the granting of his request and not without regretful thoughts over having lost what seemed a predestined husband for Nancy. What, after all, was the training he had boasted of giving his daughter? Months had gone. Except during his spell of illness, he had scarcely seen the girl. He began to feel that he had sacrificed her for an inconsiderable point. The thought was too painful. It was better to be philosophic, to say that what was to be would be despite all the evasive twistings of little human schemes. With this comfortable casting of his burden upon fate Herrick went to sleep and did not waken till he felt his chair settle on the pavement of his own courtyard.
Promptly at five the next day Nasmith with his two witnesses drove up the narrow hutung to Herrick's star-studded gate. His news had caused a great outcry at home. He had kept in confidence the story of Herrick's offer of betrothal and how the father had threatened to marry his daughter to a Chinese. No hint had been suggested to break the shock of this grievous information. So stunned were his sister and nieces by an arrangement which seemed both wanton and abominable that Nasmith, to his own bitter amusement, found himself defending the father, trying to convince his outraged relations that there was nothing unnatural in betrothing to a Chinese a girl who had been trained, all her life, to Chinese manners, Chinese ways of life. He was a lame advocate and could only listen, with a disheartened smile, to the dozen wild plots for saving Nancy which were bandied round the table.
"If she ever has a mind to it, she will save herself," was the best comfort he could offer.
"Do you know the way Chinese women save themselves?" asked his brother-in-law grimly. "At the bottom of a well."
Nasmith cheerfully would have strangled Mr. Ferris for this ill-chosen remark.
At five the next day Herrick received his three guests. They went curiously through the draughty hallways, the wintry courtyards, to the room their host had prepared for them.
"Here is the document," he said, offering them a piece of carefully inscribed foolscap. "Will you read it? I think it is properly phrased. I spent twenty years in the Customs, you know, and did my turn at writing dispatches."
The three men scanned the paper and could pick no flaw in its wording. Nasmith did begin to protest that he wanted no executor's fee, but Herrick overruled him. After repeated scrutiny Ferris and Beresford signed their names as witnesses. Even Beresford's lips failed of their customary joke at the solemn moment when Herrick handed to his executor the will, which seemed the last seal on a life that had failed. Nasmith took it with trembling hands.
"Now, my friends, to be more cheerful," said Herrick, "we must celebrate the occasion with a feast."
The banquet, it seemed, was ready. In a neighboring room the surprised men found the table spread with a cotton cloth and crowded with the tidbits which precede the meal: oranges, quarters of pomegranate, sections of pomelo, ducks' eggs, black from their pickling in lime, the thinnest slices of ham and sausage, dried melon seeds, candied peanuts—a dozen dishes grouped in a pattern.
Despite the festive appearance of the board, the grotesque decorations,—gay phœnixes ingeniously put together from scented orchids, silk, and brass wire,—Herrick surveyed the sight glumly.
"Four is poor company for a feast," he said, "but the ladies will help to cheer us up."
"The ladies?" Nasmith wondered, with great hope in his breast, and kept an ever expectant eye upon the door, through which he longed every moment to see Nancy enter. But the "ladies" were not of the household. Never would Herrick have violated Chinese custom so grossly as to bring women of his own family to eat with strangers. They were sing-song girls, merry entertainers introduced after the great dish, the sharks' fins, had been steamingly served. Slim, lithe children in gaudy satin jackets, scant trousers, they came in laughing, and sat in pretended embarrassment on stools behind the four men. Thimble-cups of heady kao-liang soon put them at ease amid these Western barbarians, roused their throats to shrill rhythmical songs which Nasmith, in his disappointment, was slow to appreciate, though the succession of explosive vowels and sharply punctuated trills often gave scope for tones of great tenderness. Herrick was instantly at home with these girls, patted them on the knees, teased them by bouts of drinking games into consuming more wine. Beresford followed his example and waxed merry with the slender damsel assigned for his delight, but Ferris, conscious of a wife at home and of her brother present, was more discreet, while Nasmith sat in morose silence, angry at these trivial philanderings when his heart was aching for Nancy.
Yet even his anger melted as he began very slowly to recognize that Herrick's gayety was feigned, that the man was bidding an empty defiance to the shadow of death, the shadow of defeat, which hung over him. From the moment Nasmith realized this the scene became almost too ghastly to be endured. The sight of this aging man, with no recourse but a painted courtesan to keep up his spirits, became the most pathetic display he had ever watched. He felt he was helpless in the presence of sorcery, helpless to raise his fist and shatter the web of illusion.
Dish followed dish, all the variegated delicacies of a Chinese meal, giblets fried and peppered, whole ducks torn apart from their tongues to their feet, fish spicily sandwiched in cabbage, steamed bread flavored with garlic and pork, glutinous sweet rice into which lotus seeds and candied fruit had been mixed—course after course, till they had long become uncounted, before wine was poured under a copper vessel and the flames allowed to lick its sides with tongues of livid blue and green light and the boiling water crowded with slices of raw fish and pheasant and chicken, green vegetables and crusts of burnt rice, the last splendid dish of the feast. Herrick pushed these ingredients into the cauldron with his chopsticks and then heaped up the bowls of rice which had been served to his guests, bidding them eat when they had no longer appetite to eat.
Then he rose unsteadily. He had consumed tens of the tiny cupfuls of wine; his face was flushed. But it was more than the wine which seemed to overcome him at this portentous moment. A look in his eyes bade even the laughing sing-song girls be quiet. With the glare of the electric lights beating upon his forehead he looked like a man lost, utterly spent by the violence of a tropical sun. He lifted a glass with one shaking hand, leaned against the table with the other. His guests wondered dumbly what amazing action was to follow.
"Gentlemen," he said, "my heart is at rest."
"What a lie!" thought Nasmith.
"For a long time I have made myself miserable with half measures. That is finished, I tell you—finished, finished. To-night for the last time you have heard me speak my native tongue. I will never speak it again. I want you to drink to Timothy Herrick. He is dead, thank God! He has no successors. All that remains of him is that piece of paper you have folded into your pocket."
Higher went his glass. "To Timothy Herrick!" he cried.
"Surely he is mad," said the eyes of the men who were watching him.
"To Timothy Herrick. He was an unhappy man. The sooner he is forgotten, the better. God rest his spirit!"
He drained the glass and then with an emphatic gesture hurled it to the floor. Instantly the four sing-song girls followed his lead. Highly amused by this noisy whimsical end to the banquet, they "dried" their cups—as the expression went—and hurled them down with a crash, so that the splinters skipped like diamonds across the stone floor. Beresford, too, carried away by the tense feeling of the moment, drank the ominous toast and shivered his glass into fragments, making a crash which stirred the girls into much laughter, much cheering and clapping of hands. Only Ferris and Nasmith took no part in the riotous demonstration: the one pulled his moustache in embarrassment over such an unmanly display of emotion, the other looked at Herrick as though he had beheld his words literally fulfilled, as though he were gazing upon a corpse.
Not because of Herrick alone did his heart seem suffocated with pain. He was like a man staring into a crystal. Behind the vow of lips that never again should speak English he suffered a vision of Nancy shut off from sight and sound, shut off from the timeless beauty of love. In the shattered fragments of glass, sparkling even in the brilliance of this garish room, he saw all that she had been born to enjoy flung away, wantonly destroyed.