“What do you want?” I asked.
Yao folded his hands in his white cotton sleeves. “My mother in the country has been taken dangerously ill,” he said. “I must go to her at once.”
Yao knew, as I did, that his sick mother was like the American office boy’s excuse to see the ball game. The illness of his mother was a convention for saving face and a delicate method of avoiding painful explanations. Yao was announcing conventionally that he was about to quit my service after three quiet, profitable years beneath my roof. I knew that he would never give an explanation, but I was certain that something had happened that very morning to make him reach such a decision. His patience and passivity, and his self-effacing quietness, conveyed a message to me, for I had seen the same expression on other Chinese faces. Yao was afraid and he could not entirely hide his fear. There was even a contagion in his state of mind that shook my placidity and self-control. I wished to ask him what he was afraid of, even though I knew he would not answer.
“The illness of my parent is all that could take me away,” he answered. “It is the only devotion above the devotion to my Master.”
“Very well,” I said. “Since you are going to your sick mother, who I hope will soon recover, have you brought someone to take your place?” My question appeared to hurt him.
“I could not do otherwise,” he answered, “after serving you so long. My cousin is coming to take my place this afternoon. He is a most reliable man. He will serve you honestly.”
“I have no doubt,” I said, “but I do not desire your cousin.” My reaction was instinctive because Yao’s mysterious behavior made anything connected with him mysterious. If he was afraid, his cousin would be also.
“My master does not trust me?” Yao inquired.
“I did not say that,” I told him. “I simply said that I do not desire your cousin. You may bring me your accounts at luncheon time. What are you waiting for? You may go.”
But Yao still waited.
“Pu, the curio dealer, is here with the pictures,” he said.
At this point my patience, which I had always striven to maintain in the oriental manner, wore thin and snapped.
“You fool!” I said to him. “How dare you introduce a merchant here when you have upset my household? I did not ask for him. Send the man away.”
I should have known that it is generally useless to swim against the current of a servant’s desire. Before I had finished speaking, Pu the curio dealer with his blue cloth bundles, his wispy grey mustaches and his blue cotton gown, was smiling and bowing in the open door. Pu and I had done small pieces of business before and, like most residents of Peking, I had my following of Chinese antiquaries who came occasionally to my house. I had grown to realize long ago that they seldom brought anything of rare artistic value. The agents of foreign dealers and of rich collectors had the first selection, so that what was left was second-rate. I tolerated the dealers more for the purpose of conversation than for buying, and as a man. Pu was interesting; he had a finesse of touch and perception that on the whole was fascinating under the proper circumstances.
“I am engaged in other business,” I said. “I cannot see you to-day.”
I might have known that the old man would ignore my remark. Before I could say anything further he had knelt theatrically at my feet and had pulled a scroll from one of his cloth bundles.
“Only a moment,” he said, in a voice like honey and rippling water. “See what I have saved for the Master! He is the first one to see it.”
“I said that I was engaged,” I began and then I stopped.
I had a good reason to stop when I caught a glimpse of the scroll that he was unrolling, for I realized even when I had seen a little of it that I was experiencing one of those moments which are talked of but which are seldom known. I was looking at a work of art as distinguished and as rare as a Botticelli in another incarnation. It was one of those scroll paintings, made to be unrolled a little at a time, and intended for leisurely contemplation. It was a series of landscapes and pastoral scenes that moved and changed, as China changes on a journey; from mountains to valleys, from valleys to rivers, from farms to villages and temples. No museum piece that I had ever seen compared with it. The delicacy of the brush strokes and the verity of the color gave one the illusion of living inside that scroll, and of experiencing almost physically each phase of the moving scene. The technique was simple, so naïvely uncomplicated that it was not difficult to attribute the painting to one of the earlier dynasties, some part of the Sung I could believe. It was in beautiful preservation, in spite of its great age. It must have been kept since the 12th Century, in a succession of rich men’s strongboxes. It must have invariably been handled with reverence and respect. It was easy to watch in silence as the scenes unrolled themselves between the dealer’s nimble fingers. When the scroll was finished, he looked up at me ingratiatingly.
“Have I not done well?” he asked.
It seemed impossible that such a picture should be lying there on my floor. There was no use in pretending that I was not impressed, for the old man had read my thoughts. His watery eyes were watching every muscle and every change in my expression.
“Where did you get that?” I asked.
Pu moved his hands resignedly and smiled. “It is a great treasure, is it not?” he said. “It was given into my care by a friend who wishes it to be in safe hands. He realizes that nothing is safe now, in his hands or in the hands of any of his countrymen.”
He paused, still watching me. The answer had been evasive as I knew it would be.
“Why should it not be safe in Chinese hands?” I said.
He smiled up at me, still kneeling on the floor. “Surely you understand,” he said. “Times in the Provinces are very uncertain. Since the army has been moved in accordance with the last demands of Japan, a wise man takes precautions. Property is no longer safe in Peking. Silver can be buried but not a picture.”
My mind was still on the sight I had seen. The painting of the cliffs and trees had been familiar. While the old man was talking my mind went over the list of the better known Sung artists. The scroll might have been a work of the Emperor Hwei-tsung. If this was so, it might have come from a Temple chest or from the hands of some connection of the Manchu dynasty. As I say, the picture distracted my attention from the old man’s words.
“I have just heard it said that Peking is not safe,” I answered. “I do not understand just why.”
The old man’s voice was mild and careless.
“What has the Master heard?” he asked. His voice was careless but his eyes were not. For some reason he seemed anxious for my answer. So anxious that I did not give it, and instead I asked a question in return.
“Have you brought this picture for sale?” I asked him.
He nodded. It almost seemed, although it was incredible, as if he were not interested in the price.
“If you wish,” he explained, “as I am not the owner, I can only transmit your offer to my friend. There is one thing very sad. The picture was to have been offered to-day to the Englishman, Major Best. Is it not very sad? I am sorry because the Major was a friend of yours and one whom I greatly admired.” Again his eyes were studying my face and I knew that he had seen my surprise. The old man had lived by his wits too long for me to be his equal.
“Yes,” I said. “It is very sad.”
“The Major may have spoken to you of the pictures, among other things, last night?” His voice was casual again but his eyes were not.
“No,” I said. “He did not.” I believe he knew that my answer was not accurate. I did not recall until I had given it that last night the Major had talked of pictures.
“The great soldier was generally a quiet man,” old Pu remarked. “You have asked me where the picture came from. One generally does not betray these confidences, but we are old friends and I shall tell you the name of the man who brought it to me, although his name will mean nothing to you. His name is,” Pu lowere
d his voice, “Wu Lo Feng, a stranger in our city. You have never heard his name?”
But he knew that I had heard it. I was helpless beneath his attention, and conscious of my barbaric crudity.
“Only once, long ago, I heard the name,” I said. I was quite sure that he knew that I was speaking an untruth. He was smiling, but an invisible veil had dropped over the brightness of his eyes and he reached for the picture and put it back in the bundle.
“To-morrow,” he said. “I will come again. To-day I merely wanted you to see.”
“Wait,” I said. “Will you not leave the picture?”
“Gladly, if it were mine.” His answer was courteous, regretful. “I do not dare to because it is another’s. But to-morrow I shall bring it back. I just wish to show it to an American lady who may buy—Miss Joyce.” His eyes met mine again and dropped away, but not before he saw my expression change—and I knew that it had changed.
Then it seemed to me that he was in a hurry to go. It was one of the few times that I had ever known a Chinese curio dealer to be in a hurry. He bowed and walked away with Yao, along the garden path toward the gate. For a moment I sat looking after him, aware that something had been wrong, without being able to specify what. I had become accustomed to the amenities and courtesies of Chinese conversation, all of them as accurate as the openings of a game of Chess: I had talked long enough to dealers to know the patterns of bargaining, to realize that this time the conventions had been different. My intuition was strong enough to tell me that he had wanted something of me. He had not wished to sell the picture. He had wished the sight of it to take me off my guard. He had asked me if I had heard of Wu Lo Feng. I remembered Major Best’s words on the subject.
“My life wouldn’t be worth tuppence if he knew I knew him.”
The antique dealer had come there to elicit a piece of information. He had deliberately woven three names into the talk as he had watched me. I could not tell why and that was what disturbed me most. Moreover, he must have found out what he wished or he would have been in no hurry to go.
I sat for a minute or two, thinking, vaguely surprised that I should be so disturbed; for restlessness was growing within me, sending out shoots and tendrils like an unhealthy weed. The shade of Major Best had followed me home. He was there beside me and I could not shake him off, but what worried me most was the mention of Eleanor Joyce’s name, and Pu had read my worry. There was no doubt of that.
Even so, I think I should have sat there quietly, worried but not stirred into any definite action, waiting, as I had liked to wait, for events to take their course, if I had not opened the drawer of my red lacquer desk. I did this half mechanically, following a habit of a morning’s routine, and the pages of my manuscript lay there, but not in the even pile in which I had left them. Then I opened the other drawers where my slender correspondence was kept, and again I had a sense that the order was not right.
“Yao,” I shouted. “Have you been inside my desk?”
“No,” said Yao. “Not I—a friend of yours, who came last night. Your friend from Japan, Mr. Moto of course, who said you had asked him to read what you had written.”
It was the effrontery of Mr. Moto’s that aroused me. There was something behind his interest that came close to making me afraid. I took my hat, without a word, and walked out to the gate.
“The Great Hotel,” I said. I was going to see Miss Joyce, if only because Mr. Moto had advised me to stay at home.
Chapter 10
It is strange, as one grows older, how mercilessly one becomes enmeshed in the material side of life, so that in spite of one’s better judgment one begins to evaluate by externals. I suppose that I had begun to reach that stage, for I found when I evaluated everything I knew about Eleanor Joyce that all my discoveries had been purely external. Except for a moment when she had been afraid, in front of the Major’s house, she had been an abstraction, carefully hidden behind dress and convention. She had said we had the same traditions and our tradition was largely one which dealt with façades. Her sitting room at the hotel was a façade. It had all the proper bits of Chinese bric-a-brac and all the suitable books which might pertain to an interesting young woman who had a smattering of intellectuality.
Eleanor Joyce herself seemed to have retired behind a façade; she was dressed in a white piqué skirt and a pullover. I noticed that her color was not right. Her lips were too crimson; her cheeks had been too patently rouged.
“I’m glad you’ve come. It’s been terrible,” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “Rather!”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to have affected you much,” she replied. “Excitement is rather becoming to you, as a matter of fact.”
Without wishing to frighten her, there was one thing I wished to be sure of. I tiptoed to the hall door and opened it quickly, but no one was outside.
“I’m sorry,” I explained. “I wanted to be sure that we were alone.”
She laughed, but her laugh was not quite steady. “I am very much flattered,” she answered. “What is the matter? Aren’t you going to tell me?”
I did not know exactly how to begin. I sat down and looked at her for the moment. Now that I had mentioned it, we seemed very much alone indeed. Her brown eyes were wide, attentive and honest.
“We seem rather thrown together,” I said. “I’ve had you a little on my mind to-day.”
She laughed again unsteadily. “Is that all?” she asked.
“Not quite,” I told her. “You should learn to be more careful about your personal belongings, and not to strew them around quite so much. You left the gold compact at Major Best’s last night.”
She sat up a trifle straighter.
“Who told you that?” she asked.
I admired her poise in a way, I had thought she would have been frightened.
“A mutual friend of ours,” I said. “A Japanese named Mr. Moto. Do you remember him? I had a talk with him this morning.”
“Did you?” There was a coolness in her voice which I had not noticed before. “So did I. Mr. Moto called on me here this morning.”
I was not surprised because I should not have expected less of him. “What did he want?” I asked.
“He wanted me to tell him exactly what happened last night,” she said. “I told him all he needed to know.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here,” I said. “I think you’d better tell me too.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why should I?”
“I wish I could tell you exactly,” I told her. “I believe we know something which is interesting to someone. There is something which the Major knew and someone believes he told it. I’ll tell you why I think so. I have been followed all day to-day, and now, just before I came to see you, a picture dealer called at my house, not to sell me anything but to ask me questions. I’m not altogether a fool, Miss Joyce. I was the junior partner of a law firm, a trial lawyer, before I came out here. The work teaches you observation, and dealing with Chinese teaches you more than that. There is something—something which isn’t right. I should rather like to know what it is. I’m thinking of you as much as myself. Will you tell me exactly what happened?”
She was looking at me for almost the first time since I had known her. Her look was not impersonal. She stretched her hand toward me, palm upward.
“Will you give me my compact, please?” she asked me.
I took it out of my pocket and handed it to her.
“How did you know I had it?” I asked.
“Because I’ve changed my opinion of you since yesterday,” she said. “If you knew that I had left that compact, I knew that you would see that it got back to me. You’ve been rather kind to me—for no very good reason. I owe you a good deal already. You needn’t have come back last night. A good many men I know wouldn’t have.” She smiled at me almost shyly. “Well, Eleanor Joyce pays her debts. That’s why I’m not going to tell you anything. There is no reason for your being dragged into this any further. It wo
uld not be fair. I don’t suppose most women are really fair, but I try to be. If I’ve done a foolish thing there is no reason why I should not take my own medicine—just as a man would—just as you would, I think. It isn’t that I don’t want to tell you because there’s nothing that I’d rather do. I’m rather frightened now. I’m rather lonely, staying here all day, thinking and thinking. But I won’t tell you anything except this: I’m not out here entirely for pleasure. There is no reason for you to worry about me, none at all. I’m not the sort who gets into trouble and runs for help. You mustn’t worry about what anyone says of me. There will be talk enough, I suppose. I can shut my eyes and hear everybody talking—”
“No,” I said. “There won’t be much talk, not about you, I think. There were plenty of good reasons, if you’ll excuse my saying so, for Major Best to die, besides the real reason. As far as you and I are concerned, we’re caught in something—whether we like it or not—”
Eleanor Joyce sat up straighter.
“I may be. You’re not. Please don’t ask me to tell you anything because I won’t. And there’s one thing more. We should not be seen together. I’m sorry, because it has occurred to me to-day that we might have rather a pleasant time and now we can’t. You must keep away from me as though I were poison ivy. I’m sorry, but I think you’d better be going now.”
It seemed to me I had never known who she was, although that is a clumsy way of describing something which is impossible to put into words. Those rare moments of rapprochement between two human beings are generally beyond analysis. She was suddenly a person of flesh and blood, endowed with character, imbued with generosity. Her character was almost tangible and it made me ashamed of myself, because I had come there to see her mainly for selfish reasons and she had been thinking of me. She had said that Eleanor Joyce always paid her debts.
Thank You, Mr. Moto Page 6
