The Ragged Edge Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  Ah Cum lived at No. 6 Chiu Ping le, Chiu Yam Street. He was aCanton guide, highly educated, having been graduated from YaleUniversity. If he took a fancy to you, he invited you to the housefor tea, bitter and yellow and served in little cups withouthandles. If you knew anything about Canton ware, you were, as likeas not, sorely tempted to stuff a teacup into your pocket.

  He was tall, slender, and suave. He spoke English with astonishingfacility and with a purity which often embarrassed his tourists. Hemade his headquarters at the Victoria on the Sha-mien, andgenerally met the Hong-Kong packet in the morning. You leftHong-Kong at night, by way of the Pearl River, and arrived in Cantonthe next morning. Ah Cum presented his black-bordered card to suchindividuals as seemed likely to require his services.

  This morning his entourage (as he jestingly called it) consisted ofthe girl, two spinsters (Prudence and Angelina Jedson), prim anddoubtful of the world, and the young man who appeared to beconsiderably the worse for the alcohol he had consumed.

  In the beginning Ah Cum would run his glance speculatively over theassortment and select that individual who promised to be the mostcompanionable. He was a philosopher. Usually his charges bored himwith their interrogative chatter, for he knew that his informationmore often than not went into one ear and out of the other. To-dayhe selected the girl, and gave her the lead-chair. He motioned theyoung man to the rear chair, because at that hour the youthappeared to be a quantity close to zero. Being a Chinaman in bloodand instinct, he despised all spinsters; they were parasites. Awoman was born to have children, particularly male children.

  Half a day had turned the corner of the hours; and Ah Cum admittedthat this girl puzzled him. He dug about in his mind for a term tofit her, and he came upon the word _new_. She was new, unlike anyother woman he had met in all his wide travel. He could not tellwhether she was English or American. From long experience with bothraces he had acquired definitions, but none snugly applied to thisgirl. Her roving eagerness was at all times shaded with shyness,reserve, repression. Her voice was soft and singularly musical; butfrom time to time she uttered old-fashioned words which forced himto grope mentally. She had neither the semi-boisterousness of theaverage American girl nor the chilling insolence of the English.

  Ah, these English! They travelled all over, up and down the world,not to acquire information but rather to leave the impress of theirsuperiority as a race. It was most amusing. They would sufferamazing hardships to hunt the snow-leopard; but in the Temple ofFive Hundred Gods they would not take the trouble to ask the nameof one!

  But this girl, she was alone. That added to his puzzle. At thismoment she was staring ahead; and again came the opportunity tostudy her. Fine but strong lines marked the profile: that wouldspeak for courage and resolution. She was as fair as the lily ofthe lotus. That suggested delicacy; and yet her young body wasstrong and vital. Whence had she come: whither was she bound?

  A temporary congestion in the street held up the caravan for aspell; and Ah Cum looked backward to note if any of the party hadbecome separated. It was then that the young man entered histhought with some permanency: because there was no apparent reasonfor his joining the tour, since from the beginning he had shown nointerest in anything. He never asked questions; he never addressedhis companions; and frequently he took off his cap and wiped hisforehead. For the first time it occurred to Ah Cum that the youngman might not be quite conscious of his surroundings, that he mightbe moving in that comatose state which is the aftermath of a longdebauch. For all that, Ah Cum was forced to admit that his chargedid not look dissipated.

  Ah Cum was more or less familiar with alcoholic types. In thegenuinely dissipated face there was always a suggestion of slynessin ambush, peeping out of the wrinkles around the eyes and thelips. Upon this young fellow's face there were no wrinkles, onlyshadows, in the hollows of the cheeks and under the eyes. He wasmore like a man who had left his bed in the middle ofconvalescence.

  Ah Cum's glance returned to the girl. Of course, it reallysignified nothing in this careless part of the world that she wastravelling alone. What gave the puzzling twist to an ordinarysituation was her manner: she was guileless. She reminded him ofhis linnet, when he gave the bird the freedom of the house: itbecame filled with a wild gaiety which bordered on madness. Allthat was needed to complete the simile was that the girl shouldburst into song.

  But, alas! Ah Cum shrugged philosophically. His commissions thisday would not fill his metal pipe with one wad of tobacco. Thespinsters had purchased one grass-linen tablecloth; the girl andthe young man had purchased nothing. That she had not bought onepiece of linen subtly established in Ah Cum's mind the fact thatshe had no home, that the instinct was not there, or she would havemade some purchase against the future.

  Between his lectures--and primarily he was an itinerant lecturer--hemanoeuvred in vain to acquire some facts regarding the girl, who shewas, whence she had come; but always she countered with: "What isthat?" Guileless she might be; simple, never.

  It was noon when the caravan reached the tower of the water-clock.Here they would be having lunch. Ah Cum said that it was customaryto give the chair boys small money for rice. The four touristscontributed varied sums: the spinsters ten cents each, the girl ashilling, the young man a Mexican dollar. The lunches wereindividual affairs: sandwiches, bottled olives and jam commandeeredfrom the Victoria.

  "You are alone?" said one of the spinsters--Prudence Jedson.

  "Yes," answered the girl.

  "Aren't you afraid?"

  "Of what?"--serenely.

  "The men."

  "They know."

  "They know what?"

  "When and when not to speak. You have only to look resolute andproceed upon your way."

  Ah Cum lent an ear covertly.

  "How old are you?" demanded Miss Prudence.

  The spinsters offered a good example of how singular each humanbeing is, despite the fact that in sisters the basic corpuscle isthe same. Prudence was the substance and Angelina the shadow; forAngelina never offered opinions, she only agreed with thoseadvanced by Prudence.

  "I am twenty," said the girl.

  Prudence shook her head. "You must have travelled a good deal toknow so much about men."

  The girl smiled and began to munch a sandwich. Secretly she wasgratified to be assigned to the role of an old traveller. Still, itwas true about men. Seldom they molested a woman who appeared toknow where she was going and who kept her glance resolutely to thefore.

  Said Prudence, with commendable human kindness: "My sister and Iare going on to Shanghai and Peking. If you are going that way, whynot join us."

  The girl's blood ran warmly for a minute. "That is very kind ofyou, but I am on my way to America. Up to dinner yesterday I didnot expect to come to Canton. I was the last on board. Wasn't theriver beautiful under the moonlight?"

  "We did not leave our cabins. Did you bring any luggage?"

  "All I own. In this part of the world it is wise never to beseparated from your luggage."

  The girl fished into the bottle for an olive. How clever she was,to fool everybody so easily! Not yet had any one suspected thetruth: that she was, in a certain worldly sense, only four weeksold, that her every act had been written down on paper beforehand,and that her success lay in rigidly observing the rules which sheherself had drafted to govern her conduct.

  She finished the olive and looked up. Directly in range stood thestrange young man, although he was at the far side of the loft. Hewas leaning against a window frame, his hat in his hand. She notedthe dank hair on his forehead, the sweat of revolting nature. Whata pity! But why?

  There was no way over this puzzle, nor under it, nor around it:that men should drink, knowing the inevitable payment. This youngman did not drink because he sought the false happiness that luredmen to the bottle. To her mind, recalling the picture of him thenight before, there had been something tragic in the grim silentmanner of his tippling. Peg after peg had gone down his blister
edthroat, but never had a smile touched his lips, never had his gazeroved inquisitively. Apparently he had projected beyond his tablesome hypnotic thought, for it had held him all through the dininghour.

  Evidently he was gazing at the dull red roofs of the city: but washe registering what he saw? Never glance sideways at man, the oldKanaka woman had said. Yes, yes; that was all very well in ordinarycases; but yonder was a soul in travail, if ever she had seen one.Here was not the individual against whom she had been warned. Hehad not addressed to her even the most ordinary courtesy of fellowtravellers; she doubted that he was even aware of her existence.She went further: she doubted that he was fully conscious of wherehe was.

  Suddenly she became aware of the fact that he had brought no lunch.A little kindness would not bring the world tumbling about herears. So she approached him with sandwiches.

  "You forgot your lunch," she said. "Won't you take these?"

  For a space he merely stared at her, perhaps wondering if she werereal. Then a bit of colour flowed into his sunken white cheeks.

  "Thank you; but I've a pocket full of water-chestnuts. I'm nothungry."

  "Better eat these, even if you don't want them," she urged. "Myname is Ruth Enschede."

  "Mine is Howard Spurlock."

  Immediately he stepped back. Instinctively she imitated thisaction, chilled and a little frightened at the expression of terrorthat confronted her. Why should he stare at her in thisfashion?--for all the world as if she had pointed a pistol at hishead?