Gods Men

by Pearl S. Buck

  William went to Cambridge for his final examinations in September. He had missed the preliminaries but Mrs. Lane had herself gone to the dean with a certificate signed by the headmaster of the Chefoo Boys’ School. She had so talked and persuaded and demanded that the dean was much impressed and granted her son a certain clemency, and William was admitted conditionally. He was confident that whatever promises his mother had made to the dean, he could in the course of four years fulfill. Indeed, he preferred not to know all that his mother had said and done for him. Thus he did not know, though he suspected, that the admirable arrangement he had made with Mr. Cameron to be Jeremy’s roommate, and when necessary his tutor, had taken shape first in the active brain of his mother.

  Mrs. Lane, before she went back to China, had chosen a final Sunday afternoon to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Cameron. She had grown friendly if not intimate with them during the summer when William had gone almost every afternoon to play tennis at the house on top of the cliff. He had asked her to call upon Mrs. Cameron, stipulating that neither of his sisters nor his grandmother was to go with her.

  “The Camerons are the kind of people I belong with,” he had explained. “I want them to know I have a mother I need not be ashamed of. Nobody else matters.”

  Mrs. Lane was touched. “Thank you, dear.”

  The formal call had gone off well, and Mrs. Cameron had explained that she must be forgiven if she could not return it, since in the summer she made no calls. Mrs. Lane and William were, however, invited to dinner within the month. After the evening pleasantly spent by Mrs. Lane talking about the Empress Dowager and the magnificence of Peking, it had occurred to the indomitable mother that a problem which had been worrying her much could now be solved. In spite of all her efforts, it was clear that William would be compelled to earn money somehow during college, and she could not imagine how this was to be done. She had inquired of the dean, and he had suggested waiting on table or washing dishes. This suggestion she had accepted with seeming gratitude but she knew it was impossible. William would not wait upon anyone nor would he wash dishes. It would be impossible to make him. She remembered the delightful evening in the great seaside house. It was a pity, she had thought, that the heir to all the wealth was only a pale sickly boy. William would so have enjoyed it, would have been so able to spend it well, looking handsome and princely all the while. She had thought deeply for some weeks, and had at last decided to call one last time upon the Camerons. She wrote a short note to Mrs. Cameron, was grateful for all the kindnesses of the summer, mentioned her impending return to China and how she feared to leave her boy so new and friendless here, and asked permission to come and say good-by. When Mrs. Cameron telephoned her to say they would be at home on a certain Sunday, thither she went, at five o’clock.

  The butler ushered her into the drawing room, where Mrs. Cameron sat doing nothing while Mr. Cameron read the Transcript.

  “Do sit down,” Mrs. Cameron said, and made a graceful motion with her ringed left hand.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Lane replied.

  She had spent a good deal of thought upon her costume for this occasion. It should be plain, but not poor. It must convey good taste and a civilized mind.

  Knowing the ready impatience of the rich, she had begun upon her theme as soon as Mr. Cameron put down his paper to greet her.

  “Don’t let me interrupt your reading,” she said. “I have come for a very few minutes to say good-by—and for one more purpose. It is about William.”

  “What’s the matter with William?” Mr. Cameron inquired.

  “He has always done very well in school,” Mrs. Lane said. “We expect that. His father was graduated from Harvard summa cum laude. No, the concern is in my own heart. William is so young, so lonely. He has no one to take his parents’ place. His grandparents, my father and mother, are old and they can scarcely understand him. They have the responsibility of the girls, too. My husband’s parents are dead and the family scattered. If I could feel that William would be able to look to you and Mrs. Cameron for guidance—through Jeremy—”

  “He can always come here,” Mrs. Cameron said in a mild voice. “I’m sure there is plenty of room.”

  Mrs. Lane sighed. “Thank you, dear Mrs. Cameron. I dread the long vacations. His father says he must work and earn part of his way, but what does William know about such things?”

  “It won’t hurt him to work,” Mr. Cameron said.

  Mrs. Lane agreed quickly. “That is just what his father says, and I am sure you are both right. Please, Mr. Cameron, for the first summer at least, could you help to find something suitable for my boy, something that will not lead him into bad company? He doesn’t know his own American people yet.”

  “Oh well,” Mr. Cameron said. “I can do that. There are always jobs waiting for young men, if they are the right sort. I supported myself entirely after I was fifteen, as a matter of fact.”

  Mrs. Lane proceeded bravely to the most difficult part of her purpose.

  “I am going to ask something really bold, dear Mr. Cameron. Do you think that William could be useful somehow to your son? Could he not perhaps look after him, help him even with his lessons? When—if, of course—he should be ill, William could look out for him, you know—go to his classes and take notes for him—that sort of thing.”

  Mrs. Lane was faltering under Roger Cameron’s stern eyes, and she looked pleadingly at Mrs. Cameron for relief. To her joy she saw a mild approval there.

  “It might be a good idea, Roger,” Mrs. Cameron said.

  “William’s a proud sort of fellow,” Roger replied.

  “Not too proud to help his friend,” Mrs. Lane said. “William is a Christian boy, Mr. Cameron.”

  Roger pursed his lips. “How much do you expect me to pay him?”

  Mrs. Lane knew her battle was over. She shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. “Please don’t ask me that, Mr. Cameron. I trust your judgment—and your generosity. I wish there need be no talk of money—it’s so dreadful. Had my husband remained in this country instead of choosing poverty upon the mission field … but no matter!” She smiled sadly and changed the subject. After ten minutes of lively talk made up of news from her husband’s recent letters, she rose to say good-by. She clasped Mrs. Cameron’s hand between both her own and smiled bravely. “I cannot tell you how safe I feel now about William. I leave him in your care, dear friends.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Cameron bowed, still looking a little bewildered. When the door had closed they sat down again exactly as they were before and Mr. Cameron picked up the Transcript. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, and Mrs. Cameron gazed out of the window into the garden.

  “It is a good thing that William Lane is so handsome,” she said at last. “We really won’t mind having him about. Candy says he is clever. I do hope he will always be good to Jeremy. Sometimes I think there is something cruel about his mouth. His hands are small for such a tall boy. Have you noticed that? I always think small hands mean cruelty in a man.”

  She did not speak often but when she did a little rush of words came from her lips, as though reserve had temporarily been removed.

  Mr. Cameron listened, still reading the paper. “It won’t hurt Jeremy to have a strong young fellow around to keep him lively.”

  Mrs. Cameron did not reply for some little time. Then she said, “As for vacations, you must not forget that Candace is also in the house. The two of them, both being so healthy, will want to play games together. … I shouldn’t at all like her to marry the son of a missionary.”

  “Candy will marry whom she pleases,” Mr. Cameron said. He loved his daughter and was proud of her, though with steady pessimism. Sooner or later the young always betrayed the old.

  “Do keep quiet, there’s a good girl,” he went on. “This Bryan is putting me into a state, even on Sunday. He’ll be the death of us all, talking about the Philippines. What does he know about those foreigners over there?”

  Mrs. Cameron fell silent,
and Mr. Cameron read the paper with fury, chewing the yellowed ends of his mustache.

  The examinations were easily passed, for which William was grateful to the hard grueling of English schoolmasters. He was practical enough to realize that he could also thank his own talents and ambition. It was intolerable for him not to do well and so he did well. When Mr. Cameron had asked him to come and see him, one day after his mother had sailed for China, he went with some excitement within, although with entire calm upon his surface. His mother had told him, not quite truthfully perhaps, what Mr. Cameron would talk about.

  “He has some idea that you might be a sort of tutor for Jeremy,” she had said that last day. “Don’t get proud and refuse it, William. Remember the alternative is dishwashing or waiting on the college tables. Besides, no one need know. You will simply be Jeremy’s roommate and you will have the chance to live in those beautiful rooms. I don’t think I could get you in there otherwise.”

  The beautiful rooms, he had already discovered, were on that short and noble street called the Gold Coast. There the sons of the wealthy lived like young princes in suites of rooms with separate bedrooms, a private bath, and a shared living room. Anything less seemed impossible to William. He made up his mind that he would accept whatever Mr. Cameron offered.

  He was pleasantly grateful, then, when the offer was made.

  “I leave it to you,” Mr. Cameron said, “to see how you can help my boy. You know him pretty well now, don’t you?”

  “I think so,” William said, and he added quite sincerely, “at least I like him more than any boy I’ve ever known.”

  “That’s good,” Mr. Cameron said with more heartiness than usual. “Then you can help him, I guess. Keep him cheerful, you know—that’s very important. We don’t believe in medication. It’s very important to believe in the power of mind over matter.”

  “Yes, sir,” William said.

  “Now,” Mr. Cameron went on. “Will a hundred dollars a month be about right?”

  “Whatever you say, sir,” William replied. He was startled by the amount, but he would not show his amazement.

  “Well, if you find it isn’t enough you can let me know,” Mr. Cameron said. “And look here, one more thing, what say we keep this little arrangement to ourselves? It might make Jeremy feel queer with you. He’s democratic and all that.”

  “You mean just you and me, sir?” He thought of Candace. He did not want her to know that her father was paying him.

  “Just us,” Mr. Cameron said. “Of course, Mrs. Cameron knows the general idea, but she won’t say anything if I tell her not to, and she isn’t interested in details.”

  “I’d like it,” William said. “That is, sir, I’d like to forget it myself, so that I won’t be thinking of money in connection with Jeremy.”

  “No, no,” Mr. Cameron said, quite pleased.

  “I’ll just ask him if he will let me room with him,” William suggested.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Cameron said. “You fix it up and on the first of every month there’ll be a check.”

  The outcome of this was that when the two young men entered college, William found himself on the Gold Coast, with a bedroom of his own across the pleasant living room from Jeremy’s. Mrs. Cameron came with them and spent a week furnishing the rooms properly. There was even a small grand piano for Jeremy to use. William, secure in the monthly check, spent the money his mother had left him to buy himself a few luxuries that she had not been able to persuade the agitated mission treasurer to include in his necessities, a handsome set of razors, some silk pajamas, a blue brocaded satin dressing gown and leather slippers to match.

  Thus William began his four years of college. He was reserved, modest, and dignified, and took his work with secret seriousness, though outward ease. He fulfilled exactly his every obligation to Jeremy and was at once kind and stern. He felt sometimes that Jeremy did not like him but he did not allow this to disturb him. The brilliance of his own academic standing was answer enough. Among the hundreds of young men who were matriculated at Harvard that year, William was notable. In prudence he made no close friends as the months passed, but he surveyed the Gold Coast carefully. It did not occur to him to search for friends outside that bright area. He marked here and there men whom he might cultivate as time went on. There was plenty of time.

  Nevertheless, by Christmas he had approached a classmate who attracted him above all others, a handsome fellow who lived in Westmorly, too careless to be ambitious for high marks with his professors, too self-confident to consider marks of first importance. He had already his group of friends, in the upper classes as well as among the freshmen, for he had prepared at Groton. He did many things well. He sang in the freshman glee club, he was a fine oarsman, and he was already marked for those clubs which William exceedingly desired to enter. Franklin Roosevelt was the man, William told himself, that he would like to have been, his father rich and his mother secure in her place in American society. Having everything, the gay and handsome boy could say what he liked, could believe as he felt, behave as he willed. In the election that autumn he was for Bryan, although his own cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, was running for vice-president, and he flouted England by raising money for the Boers. It was this high-handedness that won William’s notice. He could not have taken sides against England even though he could not approve the Boers, or disapprove the English, and he envied the ease with which it seemed that Franklin did both, without liking the Boers or disliking the English. For some reason which William could not comprehend, there seemed to be such an overflow in this youth, such a limitless privilege, that he made a habit of believing that the poor, the uneducated, the miserable must be championed, although without hatred of the oppressor.

  William knew nothing of South Africa. That he might prove to himself at least that the man he unwillingly admired was wrong he began for the first time in his life to read newspapers and to perceive though dimly, how omnipotent they were. Even he was dependent upon them to shape his own opinions about the war. He was convinced from what he read that England was right and that the Boers were coarse farmers, ignorant dwellers upon the soil. When he announced this opinion, not to Franklin Roosevelt but in his presence, he was answered only by loud though pleasant laughter. His opponent refused to argue. He did not care what William believed.

  The tall young man did other things more amazing. He helped the men who lived in the Yard, in the cheap dormitories and in even cheaper rooming houses, and the day students, to organize themselves and win the class elections away from the little group that had always won them.

  The Gold Coast inhabitants sneered. “Anything to get himself popular!”

  William listened and said little. He was cautious in the world of his own country, still so new to him, and being insecure and unready to take what he felt was his proper part, he hovered near the young Roosevelt who had no doubts and behaved like the prince of a royal house. He made his approach of friendship tentatively slight, a conversation in the dining room at Memorial Hall, a chance to walk together to separate classrooms. Roosevelt answered without assuming superiority and was mildly interested to hear of William’s birth in China. His own grandfather had made his fortune in China and his grandmother in her twenties had visited the fashionable parts of Hong Kong and Canton.

  Upon this slight interest William built his hopes. Of all the young men he knew or saw, this one was most nearly his equal, most fitted for friendship. Why that friendship did not grow, why the hoped for companionship faded, William never knew. It was a bud that did not bloom. Franklin Roosevelt’s greetings were carelessly kind, but he had no time. There was never a time for talk, no time for companionship, and William, too sensitive, withdrew into cold and secret criticism. He was reminded of the English days in the Chefoo school. Because he was not allowed to love, he took shelter again in hatred. The fellow, he told himself, wanted to run the college. When both of them were chosen for the staff of the college newspaper, the Crimson, William
felt himself freeze toward the young man who was still too happy to notice him.

  On a cold day in January in William’s sophomore year, his father stood on the balcony of Mr. Fong’s bookshop. Dr. Lane knew Peking well, and the day before he had walked along the street judging each house for its view of the Great North Gate, through which on this day, the seventh day of the Western first month, the Old Empress with her Imperial Court was to return to the palace. Dr. Lane did not know Mr. Fong and it was by the merest chance that he saw above this bookshop the narrow balcony to which one must climb by a ladder since it was merely a façade upon the roof. From it, however, was the best possible view of the great event of tomorrow.

  Dr. Lane went into the bookshop and bowed to Mr. Fong, who stood behind the counter reading an old book he had bought from the library of a man recently dead. Since the man had no sons and none of the females of the house could read, there was no more use for a library.

  “What can I do for you, Elder Brother?” Mr. Fong inquired. He was polite to all foreigners because, being a good man, he was sorry for everything that had happened. While he could not say that he was glad that his country was defeated, for he put no more trust in foreign governments than in his own, yet he grieved that foreigners and Chinese had been killed.

  Especially was he ashamed of the folly of the Old Woman who had put her faith in the society of ignorant men called Boxers. She deserved the catastrophe that had befallen her when she had been compelled to flee the city in such haste, seventeen months ago. So impetuous had been the Court’s flight, as Mr. Fong heard, that more people had been killed by the Imperial Guard in getting the Old Buddha out of the city than the foreign soldiers had killed when they came in. It was over at last, to the disgrace of all concerned, and pity to those dead, both Chinese and foreign, and especially the little children, and Mr. Fong was polite at the sight of a foreign face now that it was safe to be friendly.