The Ragged Edge, Harold MacGrath [great books of all time txt] 📗

tales in all-short stories-a method of expression quite strange to her, after the immense canvases of Dickens and Hugo. When she had finished the first tale, there was a sense of disappointment. She had expected a love story; and love was totally absent. It was a tale of battle, murder, and sudden death on the New York waterfront. Sordid; but that was not Ruth's term for it; she had no precise commentary to offer.

From time to time she would come upon a line of singular beauty or a paragraph full of haunting music; and these would send her rushing on for something that never happened. Each manuscript was like the other: the same lovely treatment of an unlovely subject. Abruptly would come the end. It was as if she had come upon the beautiful marble façade of a fairy palace, was invited to enter, and behind the door-nothing.

She did not realize that she was offering criticisms. The word "criticism" had no concrete meaning to her then; no more than "compromise." Some innate sense of balance told her that something was wrong with these tales. She could not explain in words why they disappointed her or that she was disappointed.

Two hours had come and gone during this tantalizing occupation. At the least, the tales had the ability to make her forget where she was; which was something in their favour.

"My coat!"

Ruth did not move but stared astonishedly at the patient.

"My coat!" he repeated, his glance burning into hers.

[Illustration: Distinctive Pictures Corporation. The Ragged Edge. A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY.]


CHAPTER XI


The second call energized her into action. She dropped the manuscripts and swiftly brought the coat to him, noting that a button hung loose. Later, she would sew it on.

"What is it you want?" she asked, as she held out the coat.

"Fold it ... under the pillow."

This she did carefully, but inwardly commenting that he was still in the realm of strange fancies. Wanting his coat, when he must have known that the pockets were empty! But the effort to talk had cost him something. The performance over, he relaxed and closed his eyes. Even as she watched, the sweat of weakness began to form on his forehead and under the nether lip. She wet some absorbent cotton with alcohol and refreshed his face and neck. This done, she waited at the side of the bed; but he gave no sign that he was conscious of her nearness.

The poor boy, wanting his empty coat! The incident, however, caused her to review the recent events. It was now evident that he had not been normal that first day. Perhaps he had had money in the coat, back in Hong-Kong, and had been robbed without knowing it. Perhaps these few words were the first real conscious words he had uttered in days. His letter of credit; probably that was it; and, observing the strangeness of the room he was in, his first concern on returning to consciousness would naturally relate to his letter of credit. How would he act when he learned that it had vanished?

She gathered up the manuscripts and restored them to the envelope. This she put into the trunk. She noticed that this trunk was not littered with hotel labels. These little squares of coloured paper interested her mightily-hotel labels. She was for ever scanning luggage and finding her way about the world, via these miniature pictures. London, Paris, Rome! There were no hotel labels on the patient's trunk, but there were ship labels; and by these she was able to reconstruct the journey: from New York to Naples, thence to Alexandria; from Port Saïd to Colombo; from Colombo to Bombay; from Calcutta to Rangoon, thence down to Singapore; from Singapore to Hong-Kong. The great world outside!

She stood motionless beside the trunk, deep in speculation; and thus the doctor found her.

"Well?" he whispered.

"I believe he is conscious," she answered. "He just asked for his coat, which he wanted under his pillow."

"Conscious; well, that's good news. He'll be able to help us a little now. I hope that some day he'll understand how much he owes you."

"Oh, that!" she said, with a deprecating gesture.

"Miss Enschede, you're seven kinds of a brick!"

"A brick?"

He chuckled. "I forgot. That's slang, meaning you're splendid."

"I begin to see that I shall have to learn English all over again."

"You have always spoken it?"

"Yes; except for some native. I wasn't taught that; I simply fell into it from contact."

"I see. So he's come around, then? That's fine."

He approached the bed and laid his palm on the patient's forehead, and nodded. Then he took the pulse.

"He will pull through?"

"Positively. But the big job for you is yet to come. When he begins to notice things, I want you to trap his interest, to amuse him, keep his thoughts from reverting to his misfortunes."

"Then he has been unfortunate?"

"That's patent enough. He's had a hard knock somewhere; and until he is strong enough to walk, we must keep his interest away from that thought. After that, we'll go our several ways."

"What makes you think he has had a hard knock?"

"I'm a doctor, young lady."

"You're fine, too. I doubt if you will receive anything for your trouble."

"Oh, yes I will. The satisfaction of cheating Death again. You've been a great help these five days; for he had to have attendance constantly, and neither Wu nor I could have given that. And yet, when you offered to help, it was what is to come that I had in mind."

"To make him forget the knock?"

"Precisely. I'm going to be frank; we must have a clear understanding. Can you afford to give this time? There are your own affairs to think of."

"There's no hurry."

"And money?"

"I'll have plenty, if I'm careful."

"It has done me a whole lot of good to meet you. Over here a man quickly loses faith, and I find myself back on solid ground once more. Is there anything you'd like?"

"Books."

"What kind?"

"Dickens, Hugo."

"I'll bring you an armful this afternoon. I've a lot of old magazines, too. There are a thousand questions I'd like to ask you, but I sha'n't ask them."

"Ask them, all of them, and I will gladly answer. I mystify you; I can see that. Well, whenever you say, I promise to do away with the mystery."

"All right. I'll call for you this afternoon when Wu is on. I'll show you the Sha-mien; and we can talk all we want."

"I was never going to tell anybody," she added. "But you are a good man, and you'll understand. I believed I was strong enough to go on in silence; but I'm human like everybody else. To tell someone who is kind and who will understand!"

"There, there!" he said. There was a hint of tears in her voice. "That's all right. We'll get together this afternoon; and you can pretend that I am your father."

"No! I have run away from my father. I shall never go back to him; never, never!"

Distressed, embarrassed beyond measure by this unexpected tragic revelation, the doctor puttered about among the bottles on the stand.

"We're forgetting," he said. "We mustn't disturb the patient. I'll call for you after lunch."

"I'm sorry."

She began to prepare the room for Wu's coming, while the doctor went downstairs. As he was leaving the hotel, Ah Cum stepped up to his side.

"How is Mr. Taber?"

"Regained consciousness this morning."

Ah Cum nodded. "That is good."

"You are interested?"

"In a way, naturally. We are both graduates of Yale."

"Ah! Did he tell you anything about himself?"

"Aside from that, no. When will he be up?"

"That depends. Perhaps in two or three weeks. Did he talk a little when you took him into the city?"

"No. He appeared to be strangely uncommunicative, though I tried to draw him out. He spoke only when he saw the sing-song girl he wanted to buy."

"Why didn't you head him off, explain that it couldn't be done by a white man?"

Ah Cum shrugged. "You are a physician; you know the vagaries of men in liquor. He was a stranger. I did not know how he would act if I obstructed him."

"We found all his pockets empty."

"Then they were empty when he left," replied Ah Cum, with dignity.

"I was only commenting. Did he act to you that day as if he knew what he was doing?"

"Not all of the time."

"A queer case;" and the doctor passed on.

Ah Cum made a movement as though to follow, but reconsidered. The word of a Chinaman; he had given it, so he must abide. There was now no honest way of warning Taber that the net had been drawn. Of course, it was ridiculous, this inclination to assist the fugitive, based as it was upon an intangible university idea. And yet, mulling it over, he began to understand why the white man was so powerful in the world: he was taught loyalty and fair play in his schools, and he carried this spirit the world which his forebears had conquered.

Suddenly Ah Cum laughed aloud. He, a Chinaman, troubling himself over Occidental ideas! With his hands in his sleeves, he proceeded on his way.

* * * * *

Ruth and the doctor returned to the hotel at four. Both carried packages of books and magazines. There was an air of repressed gaiety in her actions: the sense of freedom had returned; her heart was empty again. The burden of decision had been transferred.

And because he knew it was a burden, there was no gaiety upon the doctor's face; neither was there speech on his tongue. He knew not how to act, urged as he was in two directions. It would be useless to tell her to go back, even heartless; and yet he could not advise her to go on, blindly, not knowing whether her aunt was dead or alive. He was also aware that all his arguments would shatter themselves against her resolutions. There was a strange quality of steel in this pretty creature. He understood now that it was a part of her inheritance. The father would be all steel. One point in her narrative stood out beyond all others. To an unthinking mind the episode would be ordinary, trivial; but to the doctor, who had had plenty of time to think during his sojourn in China, it was basic of the child's unhappiness. A dozen words, and he saw Enschede as clearly as though he stood hard by in the flesh.

To preach a fine sermon every Sunday so that he would lose neither the art nor the impulse; and this child, in secret rebellion, taking it down in long hand during odd hours in the week! Preaching grandiloquently before a few score natives who understood little beyond the gestures, for the single purpose of warding off disintegration! It reminded the doctor of a stubborn retreat; from barricade to barricade, grimly fighting to keep the enemy at bay, that insidious enemy of the white man in the