Ying moved aside in silence, and at the door Madame Wu saw the girl. The candlelight fell on her full but gently. Madame Wu saw almost exactly the face she had imagined and almost exactly the figure. A healthy, red-cheeked girl gazed back at her with round childlike eyes, large and very black. Her black hair was coiled at her neck and fell over her forehead in a fringe, in the fashion of a countrywoman. She held a knotted kerchief in her hand.
“What is that in your hand?” Madame Wu asked. “I told them you were to bring nothing.” The girl looked so innocent, so childlike, that she could only speak these simple words.
“I brought you some eggs,” the girl answered. “I thought you might like them, and I had nothing else. They are very fresh.” She had a pleasant voice, hearty but a little shy.
“Come here, let me see the eggs,” Madame Wu said.
The girl came forward somewhat timidly, tiptoeing as though she feared she might make a noise in the intense quiet of the room. Madame Wu looked down at her feet. “I see your feet have not been bound,” she said.
The girl looked abashed. “There was no one to bind them,” she replied. “Besides, I have always had to work in the fields.”
Ying spoke. “She has very big feet, Lady. Doubtless she has gone barefoot as country children do, and her feet have grown coarse.”
The girl stood looking anxiously from Ying’s face to Madame Wu.
“Come, show me the eggs,” Madame Wu commanded her again.
The girl came forward then and put the bundle on the table carefully. Then she untied the kerchief and picked up each egg and examined it. “Not one is broken,” she exclaimed. “I was afraid that I might stumble in the darkness and crush them. There are fifteen—”
She paused, and Madame Wu understood that she did not know what or how to address her.
“You may call me Elder Sister,” she said.
But the girl was too shy for this. She repeated, “Fifteen eggs and not one is older than seven days. They are for you to eat.”
“Thank you,” Madame Wu said. “They do look very fresh.”
She had already perceived several things about this girl as she stood near her. Her breath was sweet and clean, and from her flesh there came only the odors of health. Her teeth were sound and white. The hands that had untied the kerchief were brown and rough but well-shaped. Under the washed blue cotton coat and trousers, the girl’s body was rounded without fat. Her neck was smooth, and her face was innocently pretty.
Madame Wu could not keep from smiling at her. “Do you think you would like to stay here?” she asked. She felt a little pity for this young creature, bought like an animal from a farmer. She discovered in her something delicate and good in spite of her sunburned cheeks and rough garments.
The girl perceived this kindness and into her dark, clear eyes there sprang a light of instant devotion. “Liu Ma told me you are good. She said you are not like other women. She told me to please you first above all, and that is what I will do.” She had an eager, fresh voice.
“Then you must tell me all you can remember about your life,” Madame Wu replied. “You must hide nothing at all. If you are honest, I shall like you very much.” She perceived the devotion and felt, to her own surprise, a pang of something like guilt.
“I will tell you everything,” the girl promised. “But first shall I not take the eggs to the kitchen?”
“No,” Madame Wu said, hiding a smile at this. How astonished would the servants be at such a visitor! “Ying will take them to the kitchen. You must sit down there in that chair across from me, and we will talk.”
The girl tied up the eggs and sat down on the edge of the chair. But she looked somehow distressed.
“Are you hungry?” Madame Wu asked.
“No, thank you,” the girl said carefully. She sat straight, looking before her, her hands folded.
Madame Wu smiled again. “Come, you are to be honest,” she said. “Are you not hungry?”
The girl laughed suddenly, a quick burst of rippling laughter. “I am a bone,” she said frankly. “I cannot lie even to be polite. But Liu Ma told me I must say, ‘No, thank you’ if you asked me if I were hungry, lest I seem greedy at the first moment.”
“Did you not eat your supper before you came?” Madame Wu inquired.
The girl flushed. “We have not much food,” she said. “My foster mother said—my foster mother thought—”
Madame Wu interrupted her. “Ying!” she commanded, “bring food.”
The girl sighed. Her body relaxed, and she turned so that she might face Madame Wu. But she did not look at her.
If she had a fault, Madame Wu thought, it was that she was a little too big in frame. This must mean that she had come of northern blood. It might be that her family had been refugees from some disaster, a flood, perhaps of the Yellow River, or a famine, and they had been compelled to put a girl child out to die.
“Liu Ma told me you were an orphan,” Madame Wu said aloud. “Do you know anything of your own family?”
The girl shook her head. “I was newborn when they left me. I know the place where they laid me down, for my foster mother has pointed it out to me many times when we have come to the city market. But she told me there was no sign on me of any kind, except that I was not wrapped in cotton, but in silk. It was only ragged silk.”
“Do you have that silk?” Madame Wu asked now.
The girl nodded again. “How did you know?” she asked with naive surprise.
“I thought you would want to bring with you the only thing that was your own,” Madame Wu said. She smiled in answer to the girl’s round eyes.
“But how do you know the heart of a stranger?” the girl persisted.
“Show me the silk,” Madame Wu replied. She had no wish to tell this girl the ways of intuitive knowledge which were hers.
Without hesitation, as though she had indeed made up her mind to obey Madame Wu in all things, the girl put her hand in her bosom and brought out a folded piece of silk. It was washed and clean, but faded from its first red to a rose color. Madame Wu took it and unfolded it. It was a woman’s garment, a short coat, slender in width but long-sleeved.
“If this was your mother’s she, too, was tall,” Madame Wu observed.
“You know that!” the girl exclaimed.
Madame Wu examined the embroidery. The garment was old-fashioned, and a band of embroidery was stitched around the collar and down the side opening. The same bands went around the wide sleeves.
“It is delicate embroidery,” Madame Wu said, “and it is done in a Peking stitch of small knots.”
“You tell me more than I have ever known,” the girl said under her breath.
“But that is all I can tell you,” Madame Wu said. She folded the garment again and held it out to the girl.
But the girl did not put out her hands to receive it. “You keep it for me,” she said. “I do not need it here.”
“I will keep it if you like,” Madame Wu said. “But if you find later that you want it again, I will return it to you.”
“If you let me stay here,” the girl replied with pleading in her voice, “I shall never want it again.”
But Madame Wu was not ready yet to give her promise. “You have not even told me your name,” she said.
The girl’s face changed as plainly as a disappointed child’s. “I have no real name,” she said humbly. “My foster parents never raised me a name. They cannot read and write, and I cannot either.”
“But they called you something,” Madame Wu said.
“They called me Little Orphan when I was small and Big Orphan when I was big,” the girl said.
“That, of course, is no name,” Madame Wu agreed gently. “When I know you better I will give you a name.”
“I thank you,” the girl said humbly.
At this moment Ying came in with two bowls of food and set them on the table. Madame Wu looked into each bowl as she put it down. If Ying had brought servant’s food, she wo
uld have sent it back. But Ying had been sensible. She had brought dishes not quite good enough for the family, but certainly too good for the kitchen. She put down a bowl of broth with chicken balls in it and a dish of pork and cabbage. A small wooden bucket of rice she had brought also, and a pot of tea and a tea bowl and chopsticks. The chopsticks were not the family ones of ivory and silver nor the common bamboo ones of the kitchens. They were of red painted wood such as the children used.
“Serve her,” Madame Wu commanded.
Ying had hesitated, but now she obeyed, her lips tight and silent.
But the girl noticed nothing. She accepted the bowl of rice from Ying with both hands, rising a little from her seat in country courtesy, and thinking everything was too much. Indeed, Madame Wu soon saw the girl was torn between honest hunger and the wish to be polite, and so she rose and made an excuse to leave her alone.
“I shall return in a little while,” she said. “Meanwhile eat heartily.”
With these words she went away into her sitting room. There stood the bamboo bed which Ying had prepared for the girl. Madame Wu looked down on it thoughtfully. She would let the girl sleep here a few nights. She ought even, perhaps, to keep her here until the girl understood her place in the family and until she, too, understood the girl. There must be some deep accord established between them before she released her from this court to enter the other, else trouble might arise in the house. She was doing a delicate and difficult thing, and it must be done skillfully. She stood, her thumb and finger at her lower lip. When she had been a girl she had liked in the spring to help with the making of silk on the family lands. After the silkworms had spun their cocoons, there came a certain moment, sure but swiftly passing, when the cocoons must be put into tubs of hot water lest they turn to moths and gnaw the cocoons. She could divine that moment. The farm wives had marveled at her discernment. She remembered now the size of her certainty, out of nothing and yet of everything.
“Now,” she would declare, and the sprays of rice straw to which the cocoons clung were plunged into the tubs. Then she, too, with her delicate, feeling fingers would find the wet fine end of the silk and unwind the cocoons. The old divination stirred again. Her delicacy must not fail her, lest Mr. Wu reproach her as long as she lived.
She moved from this room into her own bedroom and walked slowly back and forth, her satin-shod feet noiseless on the smooth tiles.
The girl seemed as open as a child. All her heart and nature lay revealed to anyone. But this meant she was undeveloped, and how would she develop? She was not a fool. Her eyes were quick with intelligence. Her lips were tender in their fullness. Was she perhaps too intelligent? There was also the silk garment and the fine embroidery. Her blood was not common, unless perhaps the mother had been a maidservant in a rich family. Yes, there was a possibility that this girl was the child of a maidservant in such a family, gotten with child by one of the sons, perhaps, and this garment had been given out of the discard of her mistress. Or it might be that some teahouse girl had worn such a garment and had given it to a child, unwanted.
“It is impossible to tell what this girl is,” Madame Wu murmured to herself.
Did she want to take into her house so unknown a being? She could not answer this. She went back after a while to the library. The girl was sitting there alone, looking frightened in the big, shadow-filled room. She held her hands clasped on her knees. The meal was finished, and Ying had taken away the bowls. When she saw Madame Wu she rose, and relief beamed on her face.
“What shall I do now, Elder Sister?” she asked. The name came to her lips trustfully and warmed Madame Wu against her will. She was wary of giving affection too soon.
“What do you usually do at this hour?” she asked.
“I always go to bed as soon as I have eaten at night,” the girl replied. “It wastes candlelight to sit up after it is dark.”
Madame Wu laughed. “Then perhaps you had better go to bed,” she said. She led the way into the room where the narrow bed lay waiting. “There is your bed, and beyond that door yonder is the room where you may make yourself ready.”
“But I am ready,” the girl replied. “I washed myself clean before I came here. I will take off my outer clothes and that is all.”
“Then I will see you tomorrow,” Madame Wu replied.
“Until tomorrow,” the girl replied. “But I beg you, Elder Sister, if you want anything in the night, please call me.”
“If I need you I will call,” Madame Wu said, and went out of the room to her own.
Long after she had gone to bed herself she could not sleep. Toward midnight she rose and went into the other room and lit the candle and looked at the girl while she slept. She had not tossed nor even stirred. She lay on her right side, one hand under her cheek. She breathed easily, her mouth closed, her face rosy. In her sleep she was even prettier than when she was awake. Madame Wu observed this. She observed also that the girl did not move or snore. The covers were drawn neatly to her waist. She slept in her cotton undergarments, but she had unfastened her collar so that her round neck showed and part of her breast. One breast Madame Wu could see quite clearly. It was young and round and firm.
She slept deeply, still without stirring. This was good. Madame Wu herself had always been a light sleeper, waking instantly if Mr. Wu so much as turned in the bed and then unable to sleep again. But this girl would sleep soundly all night and wake fresh in the morning. Madame Wu shielded the candle with her hand and bent near to the girl’s face. Still the same sweet breath! She straightened and went back to her own room and pinched out the candle between her thumb and finger and lay down again.
She was awakened before dawn by small sounds from the other room. The bamboo bed creaked, something rustled. She woke, as she always did, to the full, and lay listening. Was the girl preparing to run away at this hour? She rose and put on her robe and lit the candle and went out again. The girl was sitting on a stool brushing out her long hair. She was dressed, even to her shoes and white cotton cloth stockings.
“Where are you going?” Madame Wu asked.
The girl was startled by the sound of her voice and dropped the big wooden comb she was using. Her black hair hung about her face.
“I am not going anywhere,” she said. She got to her feet and stared at Madame Wu. Her dark eyes shone out of the flying shadows of her hair. “I am getting up.”
“But why are you getting up at this hour?” Madame Wu asked.
“It is time to get up,” the girl said in surprise. “I heard a cock crow.”
Madame Wu laughed sudden and unusual laughter. “I could not dream to myself why you were getting up, but of course you are a country girl. There is no need, child, for you to get up here. Even the servants will not be awake for an hour yet. And we do not rise for an hour after that.”
“Must I go back to bed?” the girl asked.
“What else can you do?” Madame Wu asked.
“Let me sweep the rooms,” the girl said, “or I will sweep the court.”
“Well, do as you like,” Madame Wu replied.
“I will be quiet,” the girl promised. “You go back, Elder Sister, and sleep again.”
So Madame Wu went back to her bed, and she heard the sound of a broom which the girl had found in the corridor. She used it on court and floor, and her footsteps were light and guarded as she moved about. Then, without knowing, Madame Wu fell asleep again, and when she woke it was late. The sun was shining across the floor, and Ying stood waiting by the bed.
She rose quickly and the rite of dressing began. Ying did not mention the girl, and Madame Wu did not speak. The rooms were silent. She heard nothing.
This silence grew so deep that at last Madame Wu broke it. “Where is the girl?” she asked of Ying.
“She is out there in the court, sewing,” Ying replied. “She had to have something to do, and I gave her some shoe soles for the children.”
From the slight scorn in Ying’s voice Madame Wu underst
ood that she did not think more highly of this girl for wanting to be busy, like a servant. Madame Wu did not speak again. She would not be led by Ying’s likes and dislikes.
Instead she ate her breakfast and then went out into the court. There the girl sat on a small three-legged stool, in the shade of the bamboo. She was sewing, her fingers nimbly pushing the needle through the thick cloth sole. On her middle finger she wore a brass ring for a thimble. She rose when she saw Madame Wu and stood waiting, not speaking first.
“Please sit down,” Madame Wu said. She herself sat down on one of the porcelain garden seats.
Now as it happened this seat was placed so that she sat with her back to the round gate of the court, but the girl sat facing the door. She had no sooner taken her seat on the stool again and lifted her needle, when she looked up and saw someone in that gate. Madame Wu saw her large eyes look up and fall and the peach-colored flush on her cheeks deepened. Madame Wu turned, expecting from this behavior to see a man, perhaps the cook.
But it was not the cook. It was Fengmo, her third son. He stood there, his hand on one side of the entrance staring at the girl.
“Fengmo, what do you want?” Madame Wu asked. She was suddenly conscious of a strange anger because he had come upon her unexpectedly. He was the son whom, she knew herself, she least loved. He was willful and less amiable than Liangmo or Tsemo, and less playful than little Yenmo. When he was small, he had preferred the company of servants to the company of the family, and this she had thought was a sign of his inferiority. She had treated him outwardly exactly as she treated the others, but inwardly she knew she loved him less. Doubtless he had felt this difference, for he seldom came to her, after he was fifteen, unless she sent for him.
“Fengmo, why have you come?” she asked again when he did not answer. He continued to stare at the girl, and she, as though she felt this, lifted her eyelids and glanced at him and let them fall again.
“I came to see—to see—how you are, Mother,” Fengmo stammered.
“I am quite well,” Madame Wu replied coldly.
“There was something else, too,” Fengmo said.
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