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"Slowly, slowly, my lad! What's all this about?"
For the first time he looked up to see with amazement that he was not in
the hands of ill-met friends of the two monks, but held by the very two
foreigners who once had applauded his cricket; he was a captive of the
Western barbarians whom, in his mock wars, he had been defying—and
very happy to be their captive after the real warfare of this unlucky
afternoon.
"Where?" said one of the men, who had a vivid memory of Nancy's
beauty.
"In the temple," said Edward breathlessly; "they want to make her their
slave."
"They look like a harmless old pair," said the second. "I shouldn't
accuse them of being so naughty."
He approached the two monks and tried to address them in none too
fluent Chinese. But the yellow-toothed priest, who had picked up pidgin
English in a temple at Peking where the increase of tourists made it both
profitable and necessary for him to express his importunity in terms his
visitors understood, now interrupted the foreigner.
The boy looked even more amazed. This was a tongue far beyond the
bounds of his comprehension. The man laughed again.
"Well, never mind, I don't think there's anything worse than a twenty-
cent piece at stake. Follow me and we'll soon have your sister out of the
dragon's clutches."
Edward divined that his intentions were helpful. He himself was too
fully charged with emotion to take up the task of explaining their
adventures in English. He was content to walk quietly between his two new
friends, glad of their protection, even ready for the moment to overlook the
impudent defense of the priest. The other monk had slipped away during
their colloquy and had made good use of the few minutes thus gained, for
the little party, when they arrived, found the front gate opened and their host
prepared with a kettle to pour out more tea for his visitors.
The older monk, understanding his gestures, led the way to the door
behind which Nancy was confined. It had been unbolted too and plausibly
confirmed the monk's tale.
The man felt the door which Nancy was still keeping securely fastened.
"Ah, she doesn't trust you ecclesiastical gentry," he said. "Call her, my
lad; tell her she's safe."
"Nancy," shouted Edward in Chinese, "it's all right now! You can open
the door. There are two big foreigners here. The old turnip doesn't dare hurt
us."
The monk gave Edward a wicked look. The boy rejoiced to see that his
thrust had gone home and referred to the priest in several other terms of
choice abuse, a partial revenge which his enemy had no means of
countering. The Englishmen stood innocently by, unconscious of how
Edward was settling scores with the monk, till at last the grating of bars told
them that the prisoner was reassured. The door opened and Nancy stood
before them, white and startled.
CHAPTER IX
Neither man forgot this picture of Nancy in the doorway. The quick look
of surprise she gave them was not swift enough to banish traces of the terror
she had been suffering, so that they cherished a continuing memory of the
color in her startled eyes before she looked down, confused by the gaze of
two strangers. And her blush of embarrassment was too slow to hide the
glowing whiteness of her skin, a whiteness accentuated by the sumptuous
disorder of dark hair. The girl kept a nervous grip upon the panels of the
door; she stood tiptoe, her body poised for flight; the narrow slope of her
shoulders, the fullness of her thighs, the slender ankles, to which the simple
costume of jacket and trousers did admirable justice, suggested a figure
graceful rather than dainty, a healthy coherence of nerves and muscles ready
to express with full pliability the lightest promptings of her mind. She was a
creature through whose veins life ran bravely.
Not till Edward took his sister affectionately by the hand did she relax.
One of the men, at least, watching the haunted look slowly subside from her
face, realized that the boy's story, after all, had not been so wildly unlikely:
there had been more at issue than payment for a cup of tea. His suspicion
would have been amply confirmed if he had seen the greediness in the face
of the monk, a stare of thwarted exasperation which a lifetime of copying
the placid Lord Buddha did nothing to erase. Nancy saw it and turned away.
"Well, tea has been your undoing, my children," said the more
whimsical of the two Englishmen, "now let tea make amends. Sit down and
let's drain the pot. I've got twenty cents for your ransom and twenty cents
more for ours, so have no fear. They can hardly lock up the four of us."
Nancy would not think of drinking more tea beneath this hostile roof,
but Edward, quite at ease again, poured several cupfuls down his thirsty
throat. The two monks were bland and smiling and did their amiable share
in a disjointed, bilingual conversation with the two strangers. The children
they ignored, but Nancy stiffened each time they passed her stool and
waited anxiously for her rescuers to finish. At last, after one of the
Englishmen had done the rounds of the temple, examined the eighteen Lo-
han, photographed Kuan-yin on her dolphin, and tried various expedients,
all useless, to photograph the mummy in his glass case, they got up to go.
With effusive bowing they passed out of the monastery from which, an hour
ago, she had nearly lost hope of escaping. Her happiness to be away from
its walls made her forget for a moment how low the sun had fallen.
"We haven't introduced ourselves," said the man who had been taking
the lead. "My name is Beresford and my silent friend here does honor to the
good old name of Nasmith. May we presume to ask what you are called?"
"Good names, too, good old-country names; but have you not a
surname, a last name?"
It took Edward a minute to realize that the man meant what would be, in
the Chinese order, his first name.
"Yes, it is Hai."
"We can't call you Miss Hai and Master Hai," laughed Beresford; "that
would be absurd. If you will forgive the impertinence, we must content
ourselves with Nancy and Edward. What is your father? Why does he dress
you like this? Is he a missionary?"
"I don't know," said Edward. "He is an official of the Emperor, that is,
he was an official of the Emperor—"
"When there was an Emperor," helped out Nasmith, relieving the boy
from possible difficulties with his syntax.
"Oh," said the man, fearful lest he had touched a sore spot, but ready to
proceed with his questions when he saw by the slight boastfulness in
Edward's bearing that the death of his mother was a claim to distinction
rather than a recent sorrow. "Then whom do you live with?"
"Oh, we live with father and the amah and Kuei-lien—that's my father's
newest wife; she's very pretty. That's all there are here. The rest are in
Peking, the t'ai-t'ai and the other wives. Then I have some brothers and
sisters in Peking too, but not real sisters like Nancy."
The two strangers heard this domestic record with astonishment, not the
smallest cause of which was Edward's matter-of-fact tone in the telling.
They had come leisurely through the silver pines to the end of the temple
path. Suddenly Nancy, who had taken no part in the conversation but
walked on Edward's far side, began speaking to her brother in swift low
Chinese. The reaction from her peril, the novelty of walking with two
foreign men, neither of them could blind her to the lateness of the hour.
Once out from the shadow of the trees, she realized night would fall long
before she and Edward could get home. Another spell of panic unnerved
her. Edward himself looked round with an expression of blank dismay.
"You couldn't get halfway there before dark, even if you know these
goat tracks, which I don't believe you do, do you?"
"But father will not know where we are," said Nancy doubtfully. "He
will be angry."
"He will be worse than angry if you are lost, Miss Nancy, and I see no
hope of our finding the way there at this time of day. At home, perhaps, I
can find a messenger who can take a letter to him. That will keep him from
worrying."
Edward seemed eager to accept the invitation, but Nancy still hesitated.
"Don't fear, Nancy," said Beresford kindly, divining her fears; "in any
case we are not going to desert you. If you say the word, we'll try to get you
home to-night, though I don't think it can be done. If you come home with
us I can assure you of a merry time. Mr. Nasmith's sister's children—excuse
the mouthful—are really very jolly and full of fun. You mustn't judge them
by their uncle. You will have the time of your life, and nothing will please
them better than to have two visitors. They'll want every last word of your
adventure. What do you say?"
Nancy saw the reasonableness of what he said and she liked the jovial
courtesy of the choice he allowed. She was shyer than Edward, but already
she felt as if she had known these men—she did not think of them as young
men; they represented no special age to her mind—she felt as if she had
known them for years. And she trusted them. So to Edward's manifest joy
she put aside qualms about her father's wrath and chose an experience
which promised entry into a new world, a world she had long been curious
to see. She was tired too and hungry, and this walk, as it proved, was none
too short for the hour of daylight which remained.
They came at last down a wide road into the settlement. Dusk had
fallen. The children were dazzled by the many lights which shone from the
bungalows and from the occupied temples scattered round the sides of the
valley.
Mrs. Ferris was not so puzzled as to miss the hint. She saw the
embarrassment of the two children; her motherly sympathies helped her to
take instant pity on their plight. She got them inside, called for hot water,
soap, and towels, and left the boy and girl vigorously scrubbing themselves.
"They know how to wash," she said delightedly, coming back to the
large living-room. "Who are they? What are they?"
Nasmith detailed all that he had learned while Beresford was supplying
the curiosity of the group on the verandah and keeping them from too quick
a descent upon Edward and Nancy.
"The poor dears!" exclaimed Mrs. Ferris. "How utterly horrible to think
of two English children being brought up like that! And with such a man for
their father. I declare I don't think you ought to take them back."
"They don't see the horror of it at all, you can count on that, Agnes,"
said Nasmith, not wishing to smile too openly at his sister's point of view.
"They won't find it half so horrible as wrestling with forks and knives at
dinner to-night."
"Oh no, the experience will be a thrilling one for them to remember.
This will be their first introduction to foreign ways. The more highly
colored the impression the better they will like it."
Nancy and Edward were called into consultation for the dispatch of a
messenger to their father; then they were ushered into the room, where they
stood shyly, not daring to take note of their surroundings.
"You must make yourselves at home," said Mrs. Ferris gently. "I am
awfully glad my brother brought you here. We'll take good care of you and
see that you get back to your father safely. I'll call the children now; they
are dying to meet you."
Nancy had only time enough to notice her pleasant face and the oddness
of her light wavy hair—it seemed rather untidy to the Chinese taste in the
way it was heaped on top of her head—before the children trooped in. She
did not wish to stare too curiously, but her interest in seeing Western girls
for the first time directed her eyes with irresistible fascination toward the
newcomers.
"These are the twins, Helen and Elizabeth," said Mrs. Ferris, as two
girls of Nancy's own height came forward. Each of them stretched out her
hand, momentarily puzzling Nancy, who had forgotten that this was the
foreign way of greeting. She tried to make up for her lapse by hastily
putting out her left hand, so that her new friends in their turn were
nonplused till frank laughter on all sides set matters right and helped Nancy
to feel more at ease.
"Seventeen! I should not have thought it. I suppose it's your costume
which makes you seem younger. Why, you look almost like a boy. Then you
are older than my girls." Mrs. Ferris did not know that Nancy was figuring
her age by the Chinese reckoning, which makes a child one when it is born
and two on the succeeding New Year's Day, so that a baby born on New
Year's Eve can be two years old before he has lived two days.
Older though she might be, Nancy felt very young beside these two
strapping lasses, who were so instantly friendly that she was no longer
afraid to look at them. For twins their features were not much alike, but
they had the same yellowish golden hair, which they allowed to fall
profusely down their shoulders. Nancy had never seen this fashion before; it
was strange, but she liked it. The color too was unusual, but not too freakish
in Nancy's eyes, for she was used to her father's shock of light hair. The
blue eyes did startle her, but the girl was more entertained by the dresses
they were wearing, dainty white muslin which left throat and shoulders bare
and spread out into many embroidered flounces at the knees. This was the
foreign style, no doubt, but it did not appear quite modest.
"It isn't fair," said Nasmith in a comforting voice; "you ought to have
your revenge and see us eating Chinese food."
"What a question from Pat, of all people," said Elizabeth, "Pat, who's
never been known to get tired of eating any food."
Patricia gulped at the bait indignantly, but the situation was saved for
Nancy. In the good-tempered wrangling which ensued she could lay down
her spoon unobserved and wait calmly for the meal to end. She soon found
herself enjoying the retorts bandied back and forth by the Ferris children.
The wordy battle reminded her of the three-cornered warfare between Li-
an, Edward, and herself. She began to feel immensely at home and rose
from the table quite in a mood to learn the games her new friends wished to
teach her. She enjoyed draughts and dominoes and smiled at Beresford's
droll stories. Nothing, however, quite surpassed the effect of the
gramophone, which she listened to as she swung with Elizabeth and Helen
in a capacious hammock under the trees. She had heard of these marvelous
instruments but Herrick, who hated them, would not permit one within the
walls of his home. Amid their host of new impressions the girl and her
brother equally could spare wonder for these black discs which sang with
such unbelievably human tones. They pictured enviously the sensation they
could make by introducing this miraculous toy into the gossiping
perfunctory life of the courtyards at home.
So full was the evening, so engaged were Nancy and Edward by their
new friends, that Mrs. Ferris had not the heart to call "Bedtime" till every
record had been heard; she even let Elizabeth and Helen perform their
respective show-pieces on the piano and combine forces for a militant duet,
and at last suggested sleep only when Patricia and David's rendering of
"Turkey in the Straw" promised to continue interminably and without
variation through the night.
She had dug up pyjamas for Edward and a nightgown for Nancy, and
now put the boy in charge of David while the twins carried off Nancy like a
prize to their own room, offering one bed to their guest and preparing to
share the other.
Nancy looked with speechless amazement round the clean white room.
Its daintiness, its comfort, were beyond her experience. She gazed at the
spotless beds and at the long mirror of the dressing table, and at the bottles,
hairbrushes, combs, and hairpin trays arrayed before it. Helen and Elizabeth
were delighted by her surprise, overjoyed to explain the uses of every toilet
implement. In their turn they wished to be satisfied about every detail of
Nancy's clothes, so the three were soon busy comparing the odd features of
Western and Chinese garments.
"We are not dressed up like this usually," explained Helen, "only for
dinner. We wear gingham in the day-time, but we still have the skirts to pull
down and the stockings eternally to pull up, and we never could get ready in
twice the time it takes you."
CHAPTER X
Edward and David were having their own good time together. They
were not troubling much about distinctions in clothes, once Edward had
solved the mystery of how to wear pyjamas, but they were trying to
compress every incident of the twelve and thirteen years of their lives into
the few hours given them to talk. David, like his older sisters, had come to
China too late to pick up Chinese from a nurse and had been sent to a
school where conversation in Chinese was discouraged, for fear of the
undesirable things the pupils might learn, so China, except in a superficial
way, was undiscovered territory. He could not keep out of his speech the
arrogance which foreign children assumed toward native life.
"Do you mean to say you live all the time with nothing but Chinese?" he
asked. "Don't you ever have anybody to play with?"
"Why, of course, I have lots of people to play with; our family is bigger
than yours."
"But only Chinese. That can't be much fun. What do you do? How do
you pass the time?"
"Oh, we're always busy. We make poems and draw pictures."
"I don't see any fun there. The boys would laugh at me if I wrote poems.
They'd call me a 'softy.' We leave things like that to the girls. Don't you play
any games, any real games, I mean?"
"Pooh, that's an old man's game. It takes a year to make a move. Do you
play cricket?"
"Oh, yes, I play cricket," said Edward, relying too confidently on the
limited instruction from his father.
"All my work's in Chinese except the English lessons father gives us.
We have read the Four Books—"
"The Four Books?" exclaimed David, seizing the first tangible clue to
Edward's education. "What are the Four Books? Are they readers?"
Edward was speechless. He could not cope with a mind which had
never heard of the Four Books. Yet he could not make capital of his own
superior knowledge, as David had been doing, because there was a
haughtiness in the latter's manner which made him feel that acquaintance
with the Four Books was a thing to be ashamed of.
"He was English," admitted Edward, too subdued by now to resent the
question.
"But why does he live like a Chinese? Why doesn't he live like an
Englishman?"
"I don't know," answered Edward, never really conscious before to-
night that his mode of living was abnormal. "I suppose he likes it better."
"I know," said David. "It's so that he can have all those wives. In
England that wouldn't be allowed."
"Wouldn't it? Why not?"
"No, he would have to go to prison if he did that. We can only have one
wife."
"No, everybody's just the same. And one wife's enough anyway."
Edward mused on a society so curious that rich and poor should be just
the same.
"Well, I'm going to have lots of wives," he said, with his first show of
defiance, "and I'm going to have fifty children."
The family rose early. The slight estrangement between the two boys
had been composed by Edward's tales of the Tatar hunting park; in the
congenial topic of leopards the boys found mutual interest and Edward
restored himself in David's eyes by describing his bow and his feats of
archery.
From the first daylight the girls had resumed talking. They put their
questions more discreetly, being of a better age to appreciate Nancy's
history. But they were more curious than their brother about the domestic
intricacies of Timothy Herrick's life and on the glamorous subject of
concubines relished every detail they could extract from Nancy's willing
lips. The guest was amused at the importance they attached to such
commonplace matters.
"But what will you do?" came at last the inevitable question. "Surely
you won't marry a Chinese."
"I don't know," said Nancy; "my father hasn't decided. I'm not engaged
yet."
"Your father!" the two girls shouted in concert; "are you going to let
your father decide?"
"Well, I think it's shameful," protested Elizabeth. "You are too pretty,
Nancy, to be thrown away like that. You ought to choose your own
husband. Suppose he should have some more wives; would you like that?"
"No."
"No," said Nancy for the third time, "I don't want to marry anyone. I
want to be a nun."
Nancy did not know what she meant by a Catholic nun. Surely there
was only one kind of nun.
"I want to be a nun and live in a temple far away in the mountains," she
said.
"You mean a Buddhist nun? You want to live in a temple and worship
those ugly idols?"
David had not been more astounded by Edward's wish to have fifty
children, while Nancy realized, seeing the amazed faces of her friends, that
here lurked between West and East some quicksands of misunderstanding
such as with the best will in the world they could not cross. Her desire to be
a nun was too slightly defined to be defended in competent speech.
But the early breakfast had been finished. There was no excuse for
delay. The sorrow of parting was eased by the decision of the twins that
they must escort Nancy home and David's prompt statement that he would
do the same duty by Edward. The impressionable Patricia was convinced
only with difficulty that the road was too long; she wept as though she were
parting from lifelong friends. To the inexpressible astonishment of Edward
and Nancy, Mrs. Ferris gathered each of them into her motherly arms and
kissed them. Would they all expect to do this, Nancy asked herself? Why
did nice people have such barbarous customs? She might kiss Helen and
Elizabeth, if she saw they were disappointed, but she never could kiss Mr.
Beresford and Mr. Nasmith. The prospect called up bitter memories and
turned her thoughts in fear to contemplating the anger which her father
would visit upon their truancy.
The walk, begun with the care-free abandon of a picnic, grew more and
more depressing, despite the merry companionship of the girls, Beresford's
comic remarks, and Nasmith's quiet understanding reserve, in which Nancy
put more trust than she knew. Nancy endeavored to give in a light-hearted
vein the promises the twins were trying to exact, that she should come and
see them again, that they might call upon her, that they should do long
walks together and write many letters.
She put so much inflection upon this conditional clause that the girls
knew by instinct she was withholding more than she offered.
Nancy smiled. She hoped they might, but she dared not encourage them.
She would not let them even climb the final path to her home.
"My father doesn't see many people," she explained. "He might not like
it; and if he got angry he would take us back to Peking."
Nasmith saw her point and insisted that his nieces and nephew wait
while he and Beresford accompanied their guests to the house. Nancy
wanted to leave all of them there, but the two men evinced a complete
determination not to forsake the children one step short of their home door
so she did not waste time in futile dissuasion. She did not escape from the
twins, however, without embraces and kisses, a strange affectionate
demonstration she schooled herself to endure, but she was glad to notice