CHAPTER VII
The Story of Mercy Ingledew
One result of the coolness and subsequent reconciliation between Linda and Sylvia was the establishment of a firm friendship between the latter and Mercy Ingledew. Sylvia, who had been more accustomed at home to grown-up people than children, was attracted to Mercy at once, and the elder girl saw so much that was unusual and lovable in the younger one's character that she took a strong interest in getting to know her better. Mercy was a tall, fair girl of sixteen, with a sweet, thoughtful face, and a particularly pleasant open expression. She was a great favourite, both with teachers and pupils, a plodding, conscientious worker, and always ready to give help or sympathy to anyone who stood in need of either. Miss Kaye had made a wise choice in appointing her monitress of the upper landing, as no one could have more fully appreciated the responsibilities of the post. She tried as much as lay in her power to 'mother' all the eight little girls of the third class, looking after them in their bedrooms, reviewing their clothing, helping to brush their hair, settling their disputes, advising them in any question of right and wrong, and keeping them up to the mark in matters of school discipline, and she managed to do it in such a jolly, hearty, affectionate, tactful manner that not one of them resented her interference. Mercy had very soon discovered that Sylvia had far more in her than most girls of her age, the expressive hazel-grey eyes, lost sometimes in a brown study, or shining with excitement over some new pleasure, told a tale of the eager mind behind them; and the child's many quaint remarks, decided opinions, the flashes of humour or flights of fancy in which she occasionally indulged, singled her out as possessing powers far beyond the average.
"She has just twice the brains of Connie Camden or Nina Forster," said Mercy to a fellow monitress; "I shouldn't be at all surprised if she were to be a great credit to the school some day. You should hear the clever games she invents for the babies, and the marvellous stories she makes up for them. She really has a wonderful imagination. She has got through nearly half the Waverley novels already, and I found her reading Tennyson one day. She's rather too fond of airing her ideas, and is a little conceited, but Hazel and Marian sit upon her so hard that she'll soon get over it. She's a most affectionate child, far more so than any of the others. She's the only one who ever seems really grateful for what one does for them. I think she's a dear little thing, and I'm glad she has come here."
If Mercy were disposed to make much of Sylvia, the latter was only too ready to return her kindness with that devotion which a younger girl often feels for one considerably older than herself. With Sylvia it was not a shifting fancy, such as Nina Forster formed nearly every week, and changed as rapidly, but a genuine love, founded on a firm basis of all-round admiration. She thought Mercy the prettiest, cleverest, and best girl she had ever known in her life, and when she discovered her to be the heroine of a most romantic history, her interest in her was increased a thousandfold. She had heard once or twice that Mercy was an orphan, and had no home of her own to go to during the holidays, but it was only by degrees she gathered the various facts of the case, though when they were fitted together they formed a narrative as thrilling as any to be found in the gaily bound volumes over which it had been her delight to pore. As Sylvia got the account mostly in disjointed scraps, first from one girl and then from another, and was obliged to connect them for herself, it will be as well to tell Mercy's story here as she learnt it more fully afterwards, since it had some bearing and influence on various incidents which happened later and led in the end to unforeseen events.
Fifteen years ago there was great uneasiness among the white residents of the city of Tsien-Lou, in a certain inland province of China. There had been rumours of serious riots and outrages against foreigners farther up the country; terrible tales were whispered of houses burnt and families murdered, and both the British Consul and the Commissioner of Trade had warned the little colony of Europeans to keep strictly within its own quarter, and not to trust to any fair promises made by their yellow-skinned, almond-eyed neighbours, who resented their presence in the land with such fierce intolerance. Business for a while was suspended; it was not considered safe for a white face to be seen in the streets, and even the Chinese servants who did their daily duties in the houses were regarded with suspicion. Only the Ingledew Medical Missionary Station, at the outskirts of the town near the old Kia-yu gate, went on with its work as usual, nursing the sick in the hospital, attending to the numerous outpatients who came every day for medicine and treatment, teaching the children in the school, and holding the daily Bible readings which all were still invited to attend. It was an anxious time for both doctors and nurses; they knew that they carried their lives in their hands, and that at some given signal the flame of fanaticism might burst out, and hordes of shrieking, murderous, pigtailed natives might sweep over the mission, leaving nothing but smoking ruins and desolation behind them.
It was with a troubled mind, therefore, that Sister Grace, the head of the nursing staff, went out one evening into the patch of enclosed garden which surrounded the hospital buildings, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked far along the road that led to the hill country. There was a fierce, fiery sunset; it seemed as if the very sky were stained with blood, and the cross on the top of the little chapel stood out dark and startling against the lurid background. She passed slowly down the walk to shut the great gate, which, though open by day to every comer, was always safely barred at night, and she was in the act of sliding the bolt and securing the chain, when she paused suddenly and listened. She had heard a moan outside, a distinct, long-drawn, suffering sigh, that quivered a moment and then died away into silence. Someone on the other side of the gate was in distress or pain, and it was clearly her duty to enquire into the cause. With a beating heart she undid the fastening and peeped out. Crouched down on the step, as if she could drag herself no farther, was a Chinese woman bearing a baby fastened on to her back. She was desperately wounded, the blood still flowed from a gash on her head, and stains on the roadside marked the track along which she must have crawled in her agony to reach the friendly shelter of the wooden archway. Life was almost spent, but with an effort of desperation she managed to raise herself into a kneeling posture, and, clasping her hands together, cried out in Chinese: "Mercy! Mercy! The child!" and, with a last glance of supplicating appeal, fell across the threshold at the feet of the trembling nurse. Help was summoned at once, and she was carried into the hospital; but she was already past all human aid. She had accomplished her errand with the last spark of her dying strength, and had gone out into the light beyond the sunset.
Sister Grace took the baby from her and laid the little creature gently on the bed, unfolding some of the curious Chinese clothing in which it was closely wrapped. She had unloosed the wadded coat, and now pulled off the queer double-peaked crimson cap, disclosing as she did so, not the expected shaved head, with its fringe of coarse black hair, but a crop of short, tight, flaxen curls, like rings of floss silk, falling round a pair of flushed cheeks as pink as appleblossom.
She uttered a cry that drew both doctor and nurses to her side. "Look! Look!" she exclaimed, "the child is white!"
Where the poor baby had come from or to whom it belonged no one knew. It was warm and unhurt, though in such a deep sleep that it had evidently been drugged to prevent it from crying. Beyond a small woollen vest it was dressed in Chinese clothes, no doubt with the intention of passing it off as a native, and it wore a carved Chinese charm tied round its neck. It was a little girl of apparently about a year old, so round and pretty and dimpled that, when at last, after many hours, she opened her big blue eyes, she won all hearts in the hospital at once.
It was impossible to institute any enquiries regarding her during the troublous time which followed. The Mission, indeed, escaped attack, but it was many months before communication with the outside world was safely established, and by then every clue seemed to have been lost. The consul did his best, and made the case widely known among the European residents in China, but many families had perished in the uprising, and no one could tell by which of them the child might have been claimed.