Gods Men

by Pearl S. Buck

  “An excellent idea,” William replied.

  Mrs. Lane received the cable the next day. She had been staying at a big country house in Surrey, where the tenants at Christmastime had gathered in the real old English way to drink the health of the lord in spite of government. There was something about English life that made her think of Peking and she would have liked to spend the rest of her life in England except that the Socialists were spoiling everything. There was no reason for an American to endure the austerity upon which Sir Stafford Cripps insisted, especially an American woman. She would have stayed longer, however, with her friend, the Countess of Burleigh, had she not received William’s cable. Jeremy, it appeared, had been taken to a special sort of hospital and Ruth needed her.

  Mrs. Lane shrugged her handsome heavy shoulders when she read the telegram the footman brought her. She was having a quiet tea with the Countess, just the two of them. The Countess was old, too, and always looking for diversion and Mrs. Lane had been diverting her by a long visit.

  “I cannot understand why my children still insist upon my returning to them at every crisis in their lives,” she now complained to the Countess. “One would think that at my age I might be allowed my freedom. But no—William, it seems, feels I must come home. My elder daughter is of course absorbed in her grief—I told you she lost her husband—and so my poor youngest child turns to me. Her husband has been taken sadly.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” the Countess inquired. She had been a music-hall star in her younger days and she continued to look very smart in spite of a tendency to palsy, and she talked with the youthful Cockney twang that she pretended she used on purpose.

  “I fancy he’s been drinking too much again,” Mrs. Lane replied.

  “Ah, if it’s that,” the Countess said decisively, “then you’re rahhly in trouble, my deah. I know poor Harold was the same—would have his little tipple, he would, and he ended that way. Nothin’ to do about it, nyether. I used to rampage a bit and he’d get frightened at first. In the end, poah deah, it only made him drink more. I had to let him drink himself to death, I rahhly did.”

  This was not encouraging, and Mrs. Lane took her way homeward by plane as soon as she could get a seat, which she was able to do very soon, to the surprise and annoyance of the man who had already engaged it. She knew how to use William’s name in secret places.

  She found Ruth alone. Emory, who had come to meet her at the air field, went with her. Ruth began to weep when she saw her mother in the hall standing still so that the maid could take off her coat properly, and Mrs. Lane, regarding her daughter’s tears, saw that Ruth cried as a middle-aged woman exactly as she had as a child, almost soundlessly and with bewildered pathos. She put out her stout arms and wrapped Ruth in them. “There, there,” she said. “Everything is going to be all right now. I’ve come to stay with you. You need me more than Henrietta does. Where is Henrietta?”

  “I don’t know,” Ruth sobbed. “I can’t think about anybody but Jeremy. Oh Mother, why does he—the doctor says it’s a symptom. Something is still making him unhappy—but it’s not me, I’m sure. I do everything he wants me to.”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Lane said, pulling her daughter along firmly in the circle of her right arm as she moved into the drawing room. “Men like to get drunk—some men. That’s all there is to it. It’s not any woman’s fault.”

  Emory kissed Ruth an inch or two off the cheek. “William feels quite desperate, too, dear Ruth. We all want to help poor Jeremy.”

  “He was so deceitful about it, Mother—” Ruth cried. “He went off to the office every day apparently to work and instead he took a room at his club and just began, and went on, all by himself. When he didn’t come home, of course we had to find him. He had locked the door and they had to break it down. He was unconscious. I had Doctor Blande go and get him. They took him straight to the hospital. I haven’t even—seen him. Doctor Blande says I mustn’t just now.”

  She began to cry again. Mrs. Lane sighed and Emory sat, quietly beautiful, looking at these American relatives. She knew why Jeremy had gone off. It was his revenge upon William, the revenge of a weak man upon one invincible. She had sympathy for the weak, but she was prudent enough to cast her lot with the invincible. William was right to be invincible in the sort of world there was now. It was the only chance one had for survival. She was invincible, too, at William’s side. She pitied Ruth and felt a new admiration for William’s mother, sitting solidly and without tears.

  “Ruth, there’s not a bit of use in your crying now that I’m here,” Mrs. Lane said. “I’m sorry for you. Your father was a saint. You’re used to good men. William, too, is so good. It’s natural that a man like Jeremy should be a trial to you. But you belong to the family and you’ll be taken care of. My advice is to let Jeremy stay right where he is until William tells us what to do. Maybe you ought to let Candace know, so she can go to see him.”

  Ruth shivered. “Oh, I can’t! She’d think it was somehow our fault.”

  “Then she’s very silly,” Mrs. Lane said loudly. “The trouble with Jeremy is that he was brought up to be spoiled. He can’t live up to William’s standards. Now you go and wash your face and brush your hair. You’ll feel better. There’s nothing you can do for Jeremy, not a thing. We may as well have a bite of something to eat and go to a matinee! It will take our minds off our troubles. Emory, why don’t you come with us? That’s a handsome frock you have on. I’ve always liked that shade of yellow, especially with jade. That’s handsome jade, too.”

  “William brought it from China,” Emory said. “Madame Chiang gave it to him for me.”

  “She has wonderful taste,” Mrs. Lane said. “What a pity the Communists have taken over!”

  They were alone, for Ruth had left the room as obediently as though she were a little girl. Mrs. Lane leaned toward Emory. “Jade looks nice with dark hair and eyes. William ought never to have married Candace. She was a blonde, you know. He always liked brunettes best. The Chinese wear a lot of jade. Of course they’re always brunette. Some of the Chinese women have very beautiful skin. It reminds me of yours. I used to know the Old Empress Dowager. In fact, we were almost intimate. She had that sort of skin, very smooth and golden. She wore a lot of jade. William always liked to hear about her. I took him to see her once, by special permission.”

  “He has told me that,” Emory said.

  “Nobody could forget the Empress,” Mrs. Lane said with complacency.

  Ruth came in, looking pretty again. Her short curly hair was almost white and very becoming. They went away at once since it was already late, and they found the theaters so crowded that they could only get seats at a new musical.

  At the dinner table that night Emory described to William the effect of the afternoon and he listened gravely. They seldom had guests nowadays. Since the war they had fewer really distinguished visitors from abroad and not many Americans were interesting enough to be invited for a whole evening.

  “I shall advise Ruth to get a divorce,” William said with decision. He had grown very handsome with the years. The discontent which had marred his face from childhood was almost gone.

  “Oh, can you?” Emory murmured mildly.

  “Certainly, why not? She’s not a Catholic,” William replied. “Moreover, at her age she will certainly not marry again. For my own part, I shall be glad to be rid of Jeremy.”

  Emory did not reply. They sat in comfortable silence. She was glad that she need not live now in England. How ghastly might her life have been in such penury as Michael and his family endured! He was trying to make the farmlands pay, for the government was threatening to take over Hulme Castle if he could not. The only really safe and comfortable spot now in the world was America.

  This thought moved her to an unusual idea. “William, what would you think of a cozy family dinner now that your mother is back, something to gather us together again in these troubled times? After all, there’s nothing quite like family. I think it w
ould comfort your poor sisters and impress the children, you know. We needn’t ask the grandchildren.”

  William’s heavy eyebrows moved. He pushed aside his salad. He had never liked salads, which he called food for rabbits. “I am going to Washington next week to insist on more arms for Chiang. I gave my promise to him—a promise I hold sacred, in spite of what’s happened in Korea.”

  Emory evaded this. William had grown amusingly dictatorial in these past few years. “Why shouldn’t I just telephone them for tomorrow night? After all, it’s family. One needn’t be too formal.”

  William reflected, then consented. “Very well. But tell them to be prompt. Will’s wife is always late.”

  Emory rose at once and walked with her long lingering step across the floor. “I’ll telephone Henrietta first.”

  None of them would think of saying he or she could not come, unless Henrietta declared she had to work in her absurd laboratory. She would tell her that she needn’t dress, at least.

  “You mean we aren’t to dress?” Henrietta inquired over the telephone. “But I have a quite decent black gown. I had to get it when Clem was given an award in Dayton—for the citizen who had done the most for the town during the war.”

  “Oh, then we’ll dress,” Emory replied. “William always does anyway.”

  So she had telephoned to everybody to dress, and therefore it was upon his family in its best trappings that William looked the next evening, after he had said his usual grace before the meal. The dinner was excellent, hearty without being heavy. Emory understood food as Candace never had and she had no qualms about dismissing a careless cook. She never allowed herself to become involved in the domestic situation of any servant, a fault which had been very trying in Candace. They had once endured abominable omelets for nearly three years because the cook had a crippled son. In the end William had dismissed the cook himself one Sunday morning over a piece of yellow leather on his plate.

  Tonight the bouillon, the soufflé, the roast pheasant, and the vegetables were all delicious. He did not care for sweets but Emory had a Russian dessert that he had never tasted before, flavored with rum. “It is a pity,” he remarked, “that our relations with the Russians cannot be confined to their sweets.” Everybody laughed and even Emory smiled.

  His mother was looking very handsome in a lilac velvet, trimmed at the bosom with a fall of cream-colored lace. No one would dream that she had ever been the wife of a missionary in China. She had kept her stout figure in spite of her age, and her visit in England, prolonged as it had been, had given her an imperial air, enhanced by the pile of white curls on her head, which he liked. He was proud of her and, the dinner over, he led her to the most comfortable chair in the long drawing room.

  “You’re looking well, Mother.”

  “I am in splendid health, thank God,” she replied in a resonant voice. “I’ve had no chance at you, you naughty boy. Oh, I know you’ve been too busy for your old mother.” She leaned over the edge of her chair while the others were settling themselves. “Now, William, I want you to have a talk with Henrietta. She is living all by herself somewhere way downtown in the most miserable little apartment. It doesn’t look right for your sister.”

  “What is she doing?” he asked. He knew vaguely from Emory that Henrietta was still working on one of Clem’s absurd notions and his eyes fell on her as he spoke. She was sitting in her characteristic repose.

  “She’s working at some laboratory with an old Jew. I don’t know what she’s doing. Clem was a queer duck, if you ask me.”

  At this moment Henrietta raised her dark eyes and smiled at them. She was gentler than she used to be, though even more withdrawn.

  “I want a word with you later, Henrietta,” he called.

  She nodded and her eyes fell.

  Ruth was very pretty in spite of her troubles. He had time now to look at each one of his family. She had gained some weight—eating, probably, to take her mind off Jeremy. Of all of them Ruth looked the most like his father, her features delicate and her bones fine. Yet there was nothing in her face of that spiritual quality which he remembered with reverence as being his father’s habitual expression. Her two daughters were nondescript young matrons, he thought. They looked like all the modern women, flaring blond hair, wide painted mouths, a clatter of thin bracelets and high heels. He supposed they were well enough and certainly they need not worry him now that they had husbands.

  He had taken no more relatives into the business, not even his own sons. He wanted to be free to dismiss incompetents like Jeremy. Not that his sons were incompetent in any way. Both of them were successful men, Will a lawyer, Jerry a surgeon. They were married and he had three grandchildren, two of them boys. He did not know his sons’ wives very well and had even been accused of passing them on the street without recognizing them. He had grumbled a good deal when Jerry married an ordinary trained nurse while he was an intern. William had a theory that it would be better for all young people if they were married in the Chinese fashion by their parents, in order that one could be sure of what was coming into the family. When he had said this to Emory she had gone into fits of laughter. “You are the most unrealistic of men,” she had declared. “Don’t you know yet that you are living in modern America?” He did not know what she meant and was too proud to say so.

  His sons and Ruth’s daughters seemed on the best of terms with Emory. She sat among them and behind her coffee table, appearing, he thought with self-congratulation, entirely happy. Her darkly regal head was bent while she busied herself with cups. She wore a coral-colored gown of some sort that he did not remember having seen before. The full skirt flowed round her like a calyx, and she had on her diamonds.

  It was all very pleasant and he did not remember ever having been quite so happy before. Everything was well with him, and it was dawning upon him that perhaps even the war had been good for him in its own way. The world needed leadership as never before. He must not allow himself to think of retiring, however much Emory hoped for it. Monsignor Lockhart had said to him only last week that the new war in Asia might be the—beginning of mankind’s most titanic struggle. Within the next years—

  “William,” Emory said. “Your mother wants to know what you think is going to happen in China. Why don’t you tell us all?”

  So he began, sitting in his high-backed armchair. “A very strange new China, not at all what you and I remember, Henrietta, in old Peking. You would like it less than ever, Mother. I don’t suppose Ruth remembers. …”

  They listened to his picture of Communist China, no one interrupting him except his mother, who put in small cries of horror and interjections of outrage.

  “But how repulsive, William!” And at the end, “I’m glad your father isn’t here to see it. He would want to go straight over there—though as I always said, what one man can do I don’t know. ‘You’re wasting yourself,’ that’s what I always told him.”

  “One man can do a great deal,” William said.

  She heaved a mighty sigh and shook her head.

  “Not any man, of course,” William said, “but one who knows, one who has faith in God, has infinite power.”

  His mother looked rebellious. “Your father always thought he knew, too, William. He was always so sure that God told him what was best. I don’t know that there’s any difference between then and now.”

  “There is a great deal of difference,” William said gravely. “Now we really do know.”

  Emory, scenting the dissension always possible in the presence of her mother-in-law, chose a lighter substance for talk.

  “William says the Old Tiger’s wife is very beautiful, though she’s Chinese.”

  “So was the Empress Dowager,” Mrs. Lane said promptly. “The Empress was not Chinese exactly—Manchu, of course, but it’s almost the same—and she was very beautiful. I shall never forget her. She had long eyes, very long and brilliant. She had a temper, as any woman worth her salt has. Her mouth was very red—of course she p
ainted. Her skin was wonderful and smooth and white as anybody’s. I never felt it was really her fault that things went as wrong as they did. She was so charming, and always perfectly lovely to me. I took William to see her—do you remember, William?”

  “I can never forget,” William said.

  “Powerful, wasn’t she! With such charm, too!”

  “She killed an extraordinary number of people.” This was Henrietta’s voice coming so quietly that it seemed almost indifferent.

  “Oh well,” Mrs. Lane said, “we don’t know what provocation she had.”

  “It is never right to kill people,” Henrietta said with what Mrs. Lane felt was her childish stubbornness.

  William answered his sister. “It is sometimes necessary. In order that the end may not be lost, the means must sometimes be very severe.”

  “Then the end is lost,” Henrietta said. She lifted her head when she said this, and Emory felt that the family was really very difficult. They seemed determined to disturb life. She turned to the younger men.

  “Will, why don’t you and Jerry and the girls open the doors into the music room and roll back the carpet? I’ll play for you and we can watch you dance.”

  Under cover of the music and the rhythm of brisk feet swinging into new intricate steps, William went to Henrietta.

  “Let us go into my library. I would like to know what you are doing.”

  She rose almost obediently and followed him, her black-robed figure upright and dignified. Since Clem’s death she had not cut her hair and now, almost entirely white, it was long enough to be coiled around her head and held at the back with a silver comb. Emory’s eyes, from the piano, followed the tall figures. It was surprising how much William and Henrietta looked like each other. Yet they were utterly unlike. Henrietta was espousing poverty for Clem’s cause. Emory had learned much about that solitary laboratory and the old scientist who worked there. And yet perhaps there was a likeness between William and Henrietta. A great deal of character and spiritual energy could be stubbornly bestowed upon something chosen and the chosen substance was changed, transubstantiated, and so deified.