The Love Ring

by Max Howell

  “And mine is Muriel Hemingway.”

  “Muriel, you don’t hear that name very often.” She smiled, and opened her eyes wide, a ploy of many women in this time period. “Actually, I am named after my grandmother, who my mother loved.”

  “It’s a nice name”, replied Henry.

  She surveyed him quickly. Blonde with blue eyes, six feet tall, he was somehow different. She could sense his seriousness, even aloofness, but there was an obvious and unusual sincerity in his voice. He was a person she could trust, she knew that instinctively. There was also a certain old-world quality about him. He was unlike other Harvard men she had met, who did not impress her with their ‘preppy’ behaviour. Henry seemed older somehow, more mature. He obviously had no sartorial sense, his clothes fitting his tall frame well enough, but they were certainly not the latest fashion.

  “So you are a member of the Musical Society?” he asked.

  “Actually, no. I am in the Drama Society at Wellesley where I go, and every year we do joint productions with the Harvard Musical Society. It’s a tradition I believe. It started about ten years ago.”

  “Ten years?” he replied, smiling. “I spent my early years in China, and they considered something a tradition when it had been going on about a thousand years.”

  “Ahh”, she said, also smiling, “this is the New World, Henry. It’s a tradition here if it happened once before.”

  It was obvious to both of them that they enjoyed one another. The signs were all there. Each one wanted to know the other’s thoughts, and enjoyed the playful reparteè. He liked the way she offered her own opinions, she in turn liked the way he spoke so directly and looked straight in her eyes. A funny surge went through her body. Something was happening to her. She had never felt like this before and this was, incredibly, their first meeting.

  Henry felt a strange warmth with her as well. It was the same warmth that he had felt when with Lin, the only other woman he had feelings for, despite the difference in their ages.

  Henry went on. “So it’s drama you are interested in, rather than musicals?”

  “Actually”, she replied, “I love everything about the stage. I don’t know why, as there is nothing in my family to encourage such an interest. I personally like comic productions, like Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’. I like the humour, the reparteè, the clever use of words. Wilde was a master.”

  “I am not familiar with him”, Henry stated. “It must have all happened when I was in China.”

  She added: “But in answer to your question, I love musical comedies like ‘Gilbert and Sullivan’. Same sort of clever use of words. My favourite is ‘Pirates of Penzance’.”

  “So do you see your career as one on the stage?”

  “Good heavens, no. My parents would kill me. Being on the stage is all right at College, but it ends there.”

  “Then why are you at College?” he queried.

  “Well, if you asked my parents, they would say to find some marriageable young man. I am not as forthright as that. I believe I am at College to enhance my own education. I love drama, as you now know. But what I like best academically is History, and Literature. Funnily enough, few girls I know have any interest in the history of our own country, while I revel in it: our early settlement, the conflict with the Indians, the Wild West, the early explorations, the War of Independence, the various Presidents, and so on. It is a wonderful history, which most take for granted. I feel much the same about American literature, American poetry, even early American songs. So there you are. You know my innermost secrets”, she added coquettishly.

  “I doubt if they are your innermost secrets, Miss Hemingway.” He noticed that she blushed, which lightened up her face and made it even more attractive.

  “Well, maybe not, Mr. Luce. But after all, this is only our first meeting. Surely that is enough for now.”

  Henry looked in her eyes. “No, Muriel, it really is not enough. I do not know your study schedule, and I do not know whether your parents keep you under lock and key so you will not divulge any more secrets, and I wonder whether we might meet again.” He quickly added: “How about tomorrow?”

  She blushed, and in no time they had arranged a meeting time. She thought, to herself, that she would skip any of her classes to meet this intriguing young man again.

  They agreed to meet on neutral territory, at Boston, at a popular coffee house at 4 p.m. the following day.

  He went back to his home that night. He did not stay at a Harvard College as most normally did but remained at home with his parents, most of his scholarship money going to his tuition. All he could think of that night was Muriel Hemingway. Having a liaison with a young girl, or older woman for that matter, simply did not fit into his career plans. Being a success academically was his single goal. He tossed and turned that night, and could not get her off his mind. All his plans for the future did not include any such attraction. But he simply could not get her off his mind, and wanted desperately to see her again.

  Muriel similarly had a restless night, and all she could think of was Henry Luce. He was unlike anyone she had met before. He did not know anything about her. He did not know that her family was one of the richest in Boston. He not only did not know but he did not seem to care. Up to this point the young men she knew were trying to impress her because of her heiress status, and were so completely obvious in their primary interest. She wanted desperately to know more about him. She had never felt this way before.

  Henry arrived early at the restaurant, and was surprised by his own anxiousness and nervousness. He wondered beforehand, indeed, whether she would even arrive. Maybe she has thought better of it?

  Then she walked in, and he stood up to meet her. My God, he thought, she is even more beautiful than I remember.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Hemingway.”

  “And the same to you, Mr. Luce.”

  “You know”, Henry said slowly, “I thought you might not come, to be perfectly honest.”

  “Well, to be perfectly honest”, she countered, “I also thought you might not be here.”

  They both laughed, and instinctively both hands went across the table and held on. It was a magic moment. “I just wanted to make sure it was you, and I was not dreaming”, he said.

  “If it’s a dream”, she said, “we are both having it.”

  They laughed again. He ordered, after conferring with her, tea and scones, a restaurant specialty

  “You don’t know me as yet”, Henry went on, “but I could not sleep last night. I am perhaps a bit embarrassed to admit to it, but I am a very honest person, and I have to say that all I could think about was you.”

  She smiled, and nodded. “As I am honest myself, Henry, I will admit that I also could not get you off my mind.”

  They both knew then that however illogical it was, they were both in love. For both of them it was their first such experience.

  She then said: “Henry, do you know anything about me? My family or anything like that?”

  “No, I don’t”, he said, “I know absolutely nothing about you, other than my heart beats faster when I am near you. And in so far as that goes, do you know anything about me or my family?”

  “No”, she replied, “I have never heard your name before. I must admit I saw you at the Musical Society before we spoke, but that is about all I know. Why don’t you tell me about yourself first, your family and things like that? I am jealous if you have had girl-friends or affairs.”

  “Well”, he said, drawing in his breath, “there is nothing very much to tell. My father Henry and mother Elizabeth are very religious, and associate themselves with the Protestant group called The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Society is pledged to take Christianity throughout the world, and has missions in China, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile. My parents ran a Mission in China for about twenty-five years, in a small town near Shantung. They were there before the Boxer Uprising – have you heard of that? - unti
l the Mission was closed in 1911.

  “They are wonderful people, absolutely devoted to their religion. Unfortunately their profession is one that does not pay in the material sense. Everything they possess, their house, clothing, even food, comes from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. These clothes that I wear today, for example, are second-hand.

  “I was born in China in 1898, and was brought up in my parents’ Mission until it was closed. I was some 13 years of age then. My parents are just wonderful people, who have devoted their lives to helping others. Surely there is nothing wrong with that? They are idealistic, loving, caring. I have never heard a cross word between them, never a single complaint. Some of the problems that they faced were horrendous, but they were always positive and never despaired. I worship them both.”

  “I was educated in a haphazard fashion. My parents did what they could, but neither one could take time out from the Mission to provide me with the education I needed. Fortunately I had a tutor, a wonderful Chinese lady called Lin. She came from a highly educated family in Peking. Her father and mother were killed by the Boxers, as was her husband, I believe. Everyone was very quiet when it came to her husband, but I know he was an Australian navy officer who was killed. She was the one who really brought me up, as she did her own son, who was born, like myself, in the Mission.

  “I adored Lin, loved her in my own way as a child. She taught me the piano, and was very good at mathematics and literature. Her father, who was murdered by the Boxers, was an Oxford graduate. She was unable to come back to the United States with us, and still teaches at the Mission, which is now the local school. Anyhow, Lin was an important part of my life, and even today I miss her.”

  Muriel interrupted. “Sounds as if you still love her.”

  “Love her?” he said, “Well I do in one sense, but I do not know how to put it. My love is not a sexual love, it is a kind of warmth love. I love her like my mother, that kind of love. Does that answer your question?”

  “Yes”, she replied, “it certainly does. You had me worried for a minute!”

  They both laughed as he went on.

  “Well I made a decision in my life when I came back to America. I appreciate what my parents have done and what they are doing, but such a life is not for me. I will always care for other people, like my parents do, but I do not want to live an existence depending on the hand-outs of others. I want to succeed in some kind of business, I want to do well, I want to live well. So I decided to go to the highest academic institution in the land – in business for certain – and so I became the top student just by hard work at a state school at Amherst and was granted a scholarship at Harvard, which pays my fees and leaves a little over for books and the like.

  “So my studies are everything to me, and I want to go on and do a Master of Business Administration, a relatively new Harvard degree. It’s a pretty boring and self-centred life, I guess. Oh, my recreation is the piano – it soothes me, relaxes me, and takes me away from my studies. It is as if I am drifting away in some kind of dream-time when I play. So that’s about my life, Muriel.”

  “But what about girls, Henry?” Muriel asked.

  “Girls?” Henry replied. “I am going to sound even more boring, but I have never had a girl-friend and have never really thought about girls. It was impossible in China, as there were no girls of my own age, white girls I mean, at the Mission, and when I got back to Amherst my every moment was spent trying to catch up in my studies. I am hesitant to say this, but meeting you here for tea is a completely unique experience for me. Oh, I am 21 years of age!”

  She had heard enough. She had never met anyone quite like him, and she already knew that this was the man she would marry. He moved her, he was completely and utterly different from any man she had ever met. She would marry him, she knew it instinctively.

  “Now how about you?” he asked, “maybe I will learn a few more of your hidden secrets?”

  “I doubt it”, she replied, “but I must say I feel very inferior after listening to your story. Your experiences in China are so different from my own upbringing it is almost ludicrous, and you have goals, ambition. I am embarrassed to say I do not have such worthy aims in my life. I am going to University because I was expected to go to University, and for no other reason.

  “I scarcely know where to start. I am nineteen years of age, I am a sophomore at Wellesley College, and I am a sorority girl – Psi Delta Pi. Unlike you, I have been dating boys since I was 15 years of age. But I have never found anyone I liked. They all seemed so immature and type-cast. Like me, they all went to private schools and had all the privileges of the wealthy. I always knew I wanted something more than what I saw around me.”

  “You are making me nervous”, Henry said. “It seems we are poles apart.”

  She laughed. “I guess we are. But you have heard the old adage about opposites attracting one another, haven’t you?” He nodded as she went on. “But now I’ll really make you nervous.”

  She paused, drew a breath and kept up her narrative. “My father, Clifford, is a very wealthy man, one of the richest in Boston. His father and his father’s father were all wealthy. As one example, he owns the Boston Railway Line, and has a lot of other financial interests, particularly in shipping and textiles. I am an only child, and from what I gather so are you.” He nodded as she went on. “I haven’t the slightest idea of how much money my father has, and for that matter my mother Mary is a Rockefeller, and I heard her say once that she was wealthier than Dad. They have given oodles to Harvard University. The Women’s Gymnasium, the Mary Hemingway Gymnasium, is a gift from my mother. Mother was quite a good tennis player. She had her own lawn tennis court in her youth, and she still plays on the one we have. She was in the US Championships as well as Wimbledon. She never won either of these, but she got to the semi-finals at both. She played with and against the great players of her day, in singles, doubles and mixed doubles.”

  “Whew!” whistled Henry. “Yes”, he said, “our lives are different. Tell me, where do you live?”

  “I live in the sorority house at Wellesley, but I go home every weekend. It’s called the Hemingway Mansion. It has some forty rooms, tennis courts, a stable and equestrian area. It’s one of Boston’s finest, they say. It fronts the Harbour. Father likes it as he can see his ships come and go, and berth.”

  “I believe I have seen the place”, said Henry. “I cycled out there one day. It is certainly something. I remember the big iron gates and iron railings, and there was a long driveway to the house.”

  “That’s the one”, said Muriel.

  “Well”, Henry said, “there’s one good thing about all this.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If I’m short of funds today you can handle the bill!”

  They both laughed. “I’m just joking”, he said.

  They sat there looking at each other for a time, holding hands across the table. “Well”, Henry continued, “I almost don’t know what to say, Muriel. My parents are the direct opposite of yours, and our backgrounds are, well, somewhat different, to put it mildly. You are the wealthy socialite from an exclusive private girls’ school, I am the impoverished state school boy. I guess I am perplexed, no, dumbfounded is a better word. We are obviously attracted to one another. What I don’t understand is what you see in me. Really, I’d like to know.”

  She smiled at him. “I like your dress sense.” They both laughed. “No, it’s not that, it’s… well, you’re cute!”

  “Cute?” he questioned. “A little child is cute, your pet dog or cat… I don’t see myself as cute.”

  “In our sorority if we like something we all say it’s cute. It’s a mod phrase. In your case you’re cute because you are different. You are only 21, but you seem much older to me. I somehow believe what you tell me. I know it’s silly, this is only our second meeting. I trust you, like I trust my father and mother. I have gone out with other boys, and they always want to talk about materialistic things
, the cars their fathers gave them, or their skiing holidays in Canada or France. You talk about simple things, and you don’t pressure me. You aren’t trying to impress me!”

  “So are you saying I’m simple?” He smiled.

  “No, quite the opposite”, she replied.

  “Well, you’re dead wrong on one count, Muriel.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In actual fact I’ve really being trying to impress you.” They both laughed, and tightened their grips across the table.

  “You’ve done a good job, Henry.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’m impressed.”

  “I doubt if your parents would be impressed”, he said.

  “We’ll see”, she said, “I’m an only child, as you now know, and I’m used to getting my own way. In any case, I know my parents will like you. I am going home for the week-end. I would like to invite you to come with me.”

  “The whole weekend?” he said incredulously. “The whole weekend?”

  “Yes, why not?”

  “I just couldn’t, Muriel. I would be uncomfortable, my clothes sense and all that. I don’t have riding clothes, or tennis outfits. What you see is almost all there is and besides, I simply can’t afford the time. I have to study. I have no wealth to fall back on. I have to make it all in this life by myself, and to do that you have to be better than average. I cannot and will not settle for second best. I’m sorry, I hope you understand.”

  “I guess I do. I’m spoiled, did I tell you that? I’m used to getting my own way. How about a compromise? What say you come over to lunch on Sunday? You’ll see my home, and my parents. They’re not ogres, you know.”