Hills of Han 10

Hills of Han 10

Withery stepped within the room, closed the door behind him, and looked

straight up into that mask of a face; in his own deep emotion he thought

of it as a tragic mask.

 

“Grigg,” he said very simply, “what’s the matter?”

 

There was a silence. Then Doane came toward the door.

 

“The matter?” he queried, with an effort to smile.

 

“Can’t we talk, Grigg?... I know you are in deep trouble.”

 

“Well”--Doane rested a massive hand on a bedpost--“I won’t say that it

isn’t an anxious time, Henry. I’m pinning my faith to Pau Ting

Chuan. But... And, of course, if I could have foreseen all the little

developments, I wouldn’t have sent for Betty. Though it’s not easy

to see what else I could have done. Frank and Ethel couldn’t keep her

longer. And the expense of any other arrangement... She’s nineteen,

Henry. A young woman. Curious--a young woman whom I’ve never even seen

as such, and my daughter!”

 

“It isn’t that, Grigg.”

 

At the moment Withery could say no more. He sank into a chair by the

door, depressed in spirit.

 

Doane walked to the window; looked out at the stars; drummed a moment on

the glass.

 

“It’s been uphill work, Henry... since nineteen hundred.”

 

Withery cleared his throat. “It isn’t that,” he repeated unsteadily.

 

Doane stood there a moment longer; then turned and gazed gloomily at his

friend.

 

The silence grew painful.

 

Finally, Doane sighed, spread his hands in the manner of one who

surrenders to fate, and came slowly over to the bed; stretching out his

long frame there, against the pillows.

 

“So it’s as plain as that, Henry.”

 

“It is--to me.”

 

“I wonder if I can talk.”

 

“The question is, Grigg--can I help you?”

 

“I’m afraid not, Henry. I doubt if any one can.” The force of this sank

slowly into Withery’s mind. “No one?” he asked in a hushed voice.

 

“I’m afraid not.... Do you think the others, my people here, see it?”

 

“The tone has changed here, Grigg.”

 

“I’ve tried not to believe it.”

 

“I’ve felt it increasingly for several years. When I’ve passed through.

Even in your letters. It’s been hard to speak before. For that matter, I

had formulated no question. It was just an impression. But today... and

to-night...”

 

“It’s as bad as that, now.”

 

“Suppose I say that it’s as definite as that, Grigg. The impression.”

 

Doane let his head drop back against the pillows; closed his eyes.

 

“The words don’t matter,” he remarked.

 

“No, they don’t, of course.” Withery’s mind, trained through the busy

years to the sort of informal confessional familiar to priests of

other than the Roman church, was clearing itself of the confusions of

friendship and was ready to dismiss, for the time, philosophically; the

sense of personal loss.

 

“Is it something you’ve done, Grigg?” he asked now, gently. “Have you--”

 

Doane threw out an interrupting hand.

 

“No,” he said rather shortly, “I’ve not broken the faith, Henry, not in

act.”

 

“In your thoughts only?”

 

“Yes. There.”

 

“It is doubt?... Strange, Grigg, I never knew a man whose faith had in

it such vitality. You’ve inspired thousands. Tens of thousands. You--I

will say this, now--you, nothing more, really, than my thoughts of you

carried me through my bad time. Through those doldrums when the ardor of

the first few years had burned out and I was spent, emotionally. It was

with your help that I found my feet again. You never knew’ that.”

 

“No. I didn’t know that.”

 

“I worried a good deal, then. I had never before been aware of the

church as a worldly organization, as a political mechanism. I hadn’t

questioned it. It was Hidderleigh’s shrewd campaign for the bishopric

that disturbed me. Then the money raised questions, of course.”

 

“There’s been a campaign on this winter, over in the States,” said

Doane, speaking slowly and thoughtfully. “Part of that fund is to be

sent here to help extend my work in the province. They’re using all the

old emotional devices. All the claptrap. Chaplain Cabell is touring the

churches with his little cottage organ and his songs.”

 

“But the need is real out here, Grigg. And the people at home must be

stirred into recognizing it. They can’t he reached except through their

emotions. I’ve been through all that. I see now, clearly enough, that

it’s an imperfect world. We must do the best we can with it. Because it

is imperfect we must keep at our work.”

 

“You know as well as I what they’re doing, Henry. Cabell, all that

crowd, haven’t once mentioned Hansi. They’re talking the Congo.”

 

“But you forget, Grigg, that the emotional interest of our home people

in China has run out. They thought about us during the Boxer trouble,

and later, during the famine in Shensi. Now, because of the talk of

slavery and atrocities in Central Africa, public interest has shifted to

that part of the world.”

 

“And so they’re playing on the public sympathy for Africa to raise

money, some of which is later to be diverted to Central China.”

 

“What else can they do?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“You find yourself inclined to question the whole process?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Aren’t you misplacing your emphasis, Grigg? We all do that, of course.

Now and then.... Isn’t the important thing for you, the emphatic

thing, to spread the word of God in Hansi Province?” He leaned forward,

speaking simply, with sincerity.

 

Doane closed his eyes again; and compressed his lips.

 

Withery, anxiously watching him, saw that the healthy color was leaving

his face.

 

After a silence that grew steadily in intensity, Doane at last opened

his eyes, and spoke, huskily, but with grim force.

 

“Of course, Henry, you’re right. Right enough. These things are details.

They’re on my nerves, that’s all. I’m going to tell you...” He sat up,

slowly swung his feet to the floor, clasped his hands.... “I’ll spare

you my personal history of the past few years. And, of course, captious

criticism of the church is no proper introduction to what I’m going

to say. During these recent years I’ve been groping through my own

Gethsemane. It has been a terrible time. There have been many moments

when I’ve questioned the value of the struggle. If I had been as nearly

alone as it has seemed, sometimes... I mean, if there hadn’t been little

Betty to think of...”

 

“I understand,” Withery murmured.

 

“In a way I’ve come through my Valley. My head has cleared a little. And

now I know only too clearly; it is very difficult; in a way, the time

of doubt and groping was easier to bear... I know that I am in the wrong

work.”

 

Withery, with moist eyes, studied the carpet.

 

“You are sure?” he managed to ask.

 

He felt rather than saw his friend’s slow nod.

 

“It’s a relief, of course, to tell you.” Doane was speaking with less

effort now; but his color had not returned. “There’s no one else.

I couldn’t say it to Hidderleigh. To me that man is fundamentally

dishonest.”

 

Withery found it difficult to face such extreme frankness. His mind

slipped around it into another channel. He was beginning to feel that

Grigg mustn’t be let off so easily. There were arguments....

 

“One thing that has troubled me, even lately,” he said, hunting for

some common ground of thought and speech, “is the old denominational

differences back home. I can’t take all that for granted, as so many

of our younger workers do. It has seemed to me that the conference last

year should have spoken out more vigorously on that one point. We

can never bring missionary work into any sort of unity here while the

denominational spirit is kept alive at home.”