The A. Merritt Megapack

by Abraham Merritt

  He said: “My daughter, if they were illusions—they were not mine. And if they were illusions, then I, like you, am victim to them.”

  She asked: “You mean you have seen—her?”

  He answered: “And her sisters. Many times.”

  She said shrewdly: “Yet that does not prove her real—she might have passed from your mind to mine.”

  He did not answer. She asked abruptly: “Shall I live?”

  He replied without hesitation. “No.”

  She considered that for a little, looking at the willow tendrils, the ropes of wisteria. She mused: “I did not ask for happiness, but she gives me serenity. I did not ask for life, so she gives me—vengeance. But I no longer care for vengeance.”

  He said gravely: “It does not matter. You struck into that other life. You asked, and you were promised. The ripples upon the greater pool cannot cease until that promise is fulfilled.”

  She considered that, looking at the conical hills. She laughed. “They are like great stone hats with brims of green. What are their faces like, I wonder.” He asked: “Who killed your husband?” She answered, still smiling at the hatted hills: “Why, his brother, of course.”

  He asked: “How do you know that?”

  She lifted her arms and twined her hands behind her neck. She said, as impersonally as though she read from a book: “I was little more than twenty when I met Martin, Just out of college. He was fifty. But inside—he was a dreaming boy. Oh, I knew he had lots and lots of money. It didn’t matter. I loved him—for the boy inside him. He asked me to marry him. I married him.

  “Charles hated me from the beginning. Charles is his brother, fifteen years younger. Charles’ wife hated me. You see, there was no other besides Charles until I came. If Martin died—well, all his money would go to Charles. They never thought he would marry. For the last ten years Charles had looked after his business—his mines, his investments. I really don’t blame Charles for hating me—but he shouldn’t have killed Martin.

  “We spent our honeymoon out on Martin’s ranch. He has a pool and garden just like this, you know. It’s just as beautiful, but the mountains around it have snowy caps instead of the stony, green-rimmed ones. And he had a great bronze vessel like that of yours. He told me that he had copied the garden from Yu Ch’ien’s even to the blue pagoda. And that the vessel had a mate in Yu

  Ch’ien’s Temple of the Foxes. And he told me… of you.…

  “Then the thought came to him to return to you and your temple. Martin was a boy—the desire gripped him. I did not care, if it made him happy. So we came,

  Charles with us as far as Nanking. Hating me, I knew, every mile of the journey. At Nanking—I told Martin I was going to have a baby. I had known it for months but I hadn’t told him because I was afraid he would put off this trip on which he had set his heart. Now I knew I couldn’t keep it secret much longer. Martin was so happy! He told Charles, who hated me then more than ever. And Martin made a will. If Martin should die, Charles was to act as trustee for me and the child, carry on the estate as before, with his share of the income increased. All the balance, and there are millions, was left to me and the coming baby. There was also a direct bequest of half a million to Charles.

  “Martin read the will to him. I was present. So was Kenwood, Martin’s secretary. I saw Charles turn white, but outwardly he was pleasantly acquiescent, concerned only lest something really might happen to his brother. But I guessed what was in his heart.

  “Kenwood liked me, and he did not like Charles. He came to me one night in Nanking, a few days before we were to start for Yunnan. He tried to dissuade me from the journey. He was a bit vague about reasons, talked of my condition, hard traveling and so on, but that was ridiculous. At last I asked him point-blank—why? Then he said that Charles was secretly meeting a Chinese captain, by name—Li-kong. I asked what of it, he had a right to pick his friends. Kenwood said Likong was suspected of being in touch with certain outlaws operating in Szechwan and Yunnan, and of receiving and disposing of the best of their booty. Kenwood said: ‘If both you and Martin die before the baby is born, Charles will inherit everything. He’s next of kin and the only one, for you have nobody.’ Kenwood said:

  “You’re going up into Yunnan. How easy to send word to one of these bands to look out for you. And then brother Charles would have it all. Of course, there’s no use saying anything to your husband. He trusts everybody, and Charles most of all. All that would happen would be my dismissal.’

  “And of course that was true. But I couldn’t believe Charles, for all he hated me so, would do this to Martin. There were two of us, and Kenwood and a nice Scotch woman I found at Nanking, a Miss Mackenzie, who agreed to come along to look after me in event of my needing it. There were twenty of us in all—the others Chinese boys, thoroughly good, thoroughly dependable. We came North slowly, unhurriedly. I said that Martin was a boy inside. No need to tell you again of his affection for you. And he loved China—the old China. He said it lived now only in a few places, and Yunnan was first. And he had it in his mind that our baby should be born—here—”

  She sat silent, then laughed. “And so it will be. But not as Martin dreamed…” She was silent again. She said, as though faintly puzzled: “It was not—human—to laugh at that!” She went on serenely: “We came on and on slowly. Sampans on the rivers, and I by litter mostly. Always easily, easily… because of the baby. Then two weeks ago Kenwood told me that he had word we were to be attacked at a certain place. He had been years in China, knew how to get information and I knew he had watched and cajoled and threatened and bribed ever since we had entered the hills. He said he, had arranged a counter-attack that would catch the trappers in their own trap. He cursed Charles dreadfully, saying he was behind it. He said that if we could only get to Yu Ch’ien we would be safe. Afterwards he told me that he must have been sold wrong information. The counter-attack had drawn blank. I told him he was letting his imagination run away with him.

  “We went on. Then came the ambush. It wasn’t a matter of ransom. It was a matter of wiping us out

  They gave us no chance. So it must have been that we were worth more to them dead than alive. That realization came to me as I stood at the door of my tent and saw Martin cut down, poor Mackenzie fall. Kenwood could have escaped as I did—but he died to give me time to get away.…

  “Yu Ch’ien, what have you done to me?” asked Jean Meredith, dreamily. “I have seen my husband butchered… I have seen a man give up his life for me… and still I feel no more emotion than as though they had been reeds under the sickle… what have you done to me, Yu Ch’ien?”

  He answered: “Daughter—when you are dead, and all those now living are dead—will it matter?”

  She answered, shaking her head: “But—I am not dead! Nor are those now living dead. And I should rather be human, Yu Ch’ien. And suffer,” He said: “It may not be, my daughter.” “I wish I could feel,” she said. “Good God, but I wish I could feel.…”

  She said: “That is all. Kenwood threw himself in front of me. I ran. I came to wide steps. I climbed them—up and up. I saw a fox—I saw a woman where I had seen the fox—”

  He said: “You saw a Tibetan, a half-caste, who threw himself upon those who followed you, howling like a mad dog. You saw that Tibetan cut down by the knives of his men. I came with my men before he died. We brought him here. I searched his dying mind. He told me that they had been hired to wipe out your party by a Shensi leader of hung-hutzes. And that he had been promised not only the loot of your party if all were slain, but a thousand taels besides. And that when he asked who guaranteed this sum, this leader, in his cups, had told him the Captain Li-kong.”

  She cupped her chin in hand, looked out over the blue pool to the pagoda. She said at last: “So Kenwood was right! And I am right. It was Charles.…”

  She said: “I feel a little, Yu Ch’ien. But what I feel is not pleasant. It is hate, Yu Ch’ien.…”

  She said: “I am onl
y twenty-four. It is rather young to die, Yu Ch’ien, isn’t it? But then—what was it your woman’s voice said while I was in the darkness? That the self of mine whom I would pity died when Martin did? She was right, Yu Ch’ien—or you were. And I think I will not be sorry to join that other self.”

  The sun was sinking. An amethyst veil dropped over the conical mountains. Suddenly they seemed to flatten, to become transparent. The whole valley between the peaks grew luminously crystalline. The blue pagoda shone as though made of dark sapphires behind which little suns burned. She sighed: “It is very beautiful, Yu Ch’ien. I am glad to be here—until I die.”

  There was a patter of feet beside her. A fox came trotting down one of the carven runways. It looked up at her fearlessly with glowing green eyes. Another slipped from the cover of the pool and another and another. They lapped the blue water fearlessly, eyes glinting swift side-glances at her, curiously.…

  The days slipped by her, the weeks—a month. Each day she sat in the seat of the foxes beside the pool, watching the willows trail their tendrils, the lilies like great rosy pearls open and close and die and be reborn on the pool’s blue breast; watching the crystalline green dusks ensorcell the conical peaks, and watching the foxes that came when these dusks fell.

  They were friendly now, the foxes—knew her, sat beside her, studying her; but never did she see the lithe fox with the lock of white between its slanting green eyes. She grew to know the brown woman Fien-wi and the sturdy servitors. And from the scattered villages pil grims came to the shrine; they looked at her fearfully, shyly; as she sat on the seat of the foxes, prostrating themselves before her as though she were some spirit to be placated by worship.

  And each day was as the day before, and she thought: Without sorrow, without fear, without gladness, without hope there is no difference between the days, and therefore what difference does it make if I die tomorrow or a year hence?

  Whatever the anodyne that steeped her soul—whether from vague woman of the steps or from Yu Ch’ien—it had left her with no emotion. Except that she knew she must bear it, she had no feeling even toward her unborn baby. Once, indeed, she had felt a faint curiosity. That this wise priest of the Foxes’ Temple had his own means of learning what he desired of the outer world, she was well aware.

  She said: “Does Charles know as yet of the ambush—know that I am still alive?”

  He answered: “Not yet. The messengers who were sent to Li-kong did not reach him. It will be weeks before he knows.”

  She said: “And then he will come here. Will the baby be born when he comes, Yu Ch’ien?”

  He answered: “Yes.”

  “And shall I be alive, Yu Ch’ien?”

  He did not answer. She laughed.

  It was one twilight, in the middle of the Hour of the Dog, that she turned to him, sitting in the garden beside the pool.

  “My time has come, Yu Ch’ien. The child stirs.”

  They carried her into the temple. She lay upon the bed, while the brown woman stooped over her, ministering to her, helping her. The only light in the temple chamber came from five ancient lanterns of milky jade through whose thin sides the candles gleamed, turning them into five small moons. She felt little pain. She thought: I owe that to Yu Ch’ien, I suppose. And the minutes fled by until it was the Hour of the Boar.

  She heard a scratching at the temple door. The priest opened it. He spoke softly, one word, a word often on his lips, and she knew it meant “patience.” She could see through the opened door into the garden. There were small globular green lights all about, dozens of them, like gnome lanterns.

  She said drowsily: “My little foxes wait. Let them enter, Yu Ch’ien.”

  “Not yet, my daughter.”

  The Hour of the Boar passed. Midnight passed. There was a great silence in the temple. It seemed to her that all the temple was waiting, that even the unfaltering light of the five small moons on the altar was waiting. She thought: Even the child is waiting…and for what?

  And suddenly a swift agony shook her and she cried out. The brown woman held tight her hands that tried to beat the air. The priest called, and into the room came four of the sturdy servants of the temple. They carried large vessels in which was water steaming hot and water which did not steam and so, she reasoned idly, must be cold. They kept their backs to her, eyes averted.

  The priest touched her eyes, stroked her flanks, and the agony was gone as swiftly as it had come. She watched the servants pour the waters into the ancient

  Tang font and slip away, backs still turned to her, faces averted.

  She had not seen the door open, but there was a fox in the room. It was ghostly in the dim light of the jade lamps, yet she could see it stepping daintily toward her… a vixen, lithe and graceful as a woman… with slanted eyes, sea-green, brilliant as jewels… the fox of the steps whom she had called sister.…

  And now she was looking up into a woman’s face. An exquisite face with sea-green, slanted eyes under a broad white brow, whose hair of russet-red came to a small peak in the center of that brow, and above the peak a lock of silvery white… the eyes gazed into hers, and although they caressed her, there was in them a faint mockery, a delicate malice.

  The woman was naked. Although Jean Meredith could not wrest her own eyes from the slanting green ones, she could see the curve of delicate shoulders, the rounded breasts, the slender hips. It was as though the woman stood poised upon her own breasts, without weight, upon airy feet. There was a curious tingling coolness in her breasts… more pleasant than warmth… and it was as though the woman were sinking into her, becoming a part of her. The face came nearer… nearer… the eyes were now close to hers, and mockery and malice gone from them… in them was only gentleness and promise… she felt cool lips touch hers.…

  The face was gone. She was sinking, sinking, unresistingly… gratefully… through a luminous greyness…then into a soft blind darkness… she was being cradled by it, sinking ever deeper and deeper. She cried out once, as though frightened: Martin! Then she cried again, voice vibrant with joy: Martin!

  One of the five moon lamps upon the jade altar darkened. Went out.

  The brown woman was prostrate upon her face beside the bed. The priest touched her with his foot. He said: “Prepare. Be swift.” She bent over the still body.

  There was a movement beside the altar. Four foxes stepped daintily from its shadows toward the Tang front. They were vixens, and they came like graceful women, and the coat of each was silken russet-red, their eyes brilliant, sea-green and slanting, and upon each forehead was a lock of silvery white. They drew near the brown woman, watching her.

  The priest walked to the doors and threw them open. Into the temple slipped fox after fox… a score, two score… the temple filled with them. They ringed the ancient font, squatting, red tongues lolling, eyes upon the bed.

  The priest walked to the bed. In his hand was a curiously shaped, slender knife of bronze, double-edged, sharp as a surgeon’s knife. The brown woman threw herself again upon the floor. The priest leaned over the bed, began with a surgeon’s deftness and delicacy to cut. The four vixens drew close, watching every movement—

  Suddenly there wailed through the temple the querulous crying of a new-born child.

  The priest walked from the bed toward the font.… He held the child in his hands, and hands and child were red with blood. The vixens walked beside him. The foxes made way for them, closing their circles as they passed. The four vixens halted, one at each of the font’s four sides. They did not sit. They stood with gaze fastened upon the priest.

  The priest ringed the font, bending before each of the four vixens, holding out the child until each had touched it with her tongue. He lifted the child by the feet, held it dangling head down, high above his head, turning so that all the other foxes could see it.

  He plunged it five times into the water of the font.

  As abruptly as the first moon lantern had gone out, so darkened the other four.

>   There was a rustling, the soft patter of many pads. Then silence.

  Yu Ch’ien called. There was the gleam of lanterns borne by the servants. The brown woman raised herself from the floor. He placed the child in her hands. He said: “It is finished—and it is begun. Care for her.”

  Thus was born the daughter of Jean and Martin Meredith in the ancient Temple of the Foxes. Born in the heart of the Hour of the Fox, so called in those parts of China where the ancient beliefs still live because it is at the opposite pole of the Hour of the Horse, which animal at certain times and at certain places, has a magic against which the magic of the Fox may not prevail.

  CHAPTER III

  The home of heavenly anticipations honored with its presence Peking, not yet at that time renamed Peiping. It was hidden in the heart of the Old City. The anticipations discussed there were usually the reverse of heavenly—or, if not, then dealing with highly unorthodox realms of beatitude.

  But except for its patrons none ever knew what went on within its walls. There was never any leakage of secrets through those walls. Peculiarly ultimate information could be obtained at the Home of Heavenly Anticipations—so long as it did not pertain to its patrons.

  It was, in fact, a clearing house for enterprises looked upon with a certain amount of disfavor even by many uncivilized countries: enterprises such as blackmail, larceny on the grand scale, smuggling, escapes, piracies, removal of obstacles by assassination and so on. Its abbots collected rich tithes from each successful operation in return for absolute protection from interruption, eavesdropping and spies, and for the expert and thoroughly trustworthy advices upon any point of any enterprise which needed to be cleared up before action.

  Prospective members of the most exclusive of London’s clubs were never scanned with such completeness as were applicants for the right to enter the Home of Heavenly Anticipations—and one had to be a rather complete scoundrel to win that right. But to those who sought such benefits as it offered, they were worth all the difficulty in securing them.