Master Wu's Bride

by Edward C. Patterson

  “If my old lady is happy,” Lao Lao said, “I am content, because she will nag me less and speak little.”

  Chi Lin doubted that. Mo Li was quiet on the issue, her kitchen needing the least repairs.

  “There is a new room for your new hand maiden,” Gao Lin said, “since I will depart now, my work completed.”

  Chi Lin felt a sudden pang. At first she thought it was the baby, but then realized that Gao Lin would be leaving and the days of his happy presence in the Silver Silence would come to an end.

  “Will you leave today?”

  “I leave now,” he said, bowing.

  She noticed his tools in a basket and a carry pole nearby.

  “Where will you go?”

  “There is a corvee order in town for shipbuilding at the port.”

  “What do you know about building ships?”

  Chi Lin was uncustomarily stern as if she was about to talk Gao Lin out of the decision to leave. But she knew he must go before she grew more attached to him, and certainly before their child was born. Such temptations needed distance.

  “I climb trees and scale roofs,” he replied. “I know silk cloth and how to tie knots. What I lack I will learn. It is better than digging a ditch or clearing a road.”

  “Then if you must leave,” she said, “it is best you leave now.”

  She turned away. If she had remained constant she would have seen the pain on his face and the near tear in his eye. She might have succumbed to the urge to embrace him one last time. But she kept her back to him until she reached the Hall. When she turned, he was gone.

  “Let me help you,” Tso-tze said.

  “I need solitude, Tso-tze, if you please.”

  “Have I offended you, mistress?”

  “Not in the least.”

  Chi Lin crossed the threshold walking slowly to the chair, where she slumped like a sack of rice. There she sat in silence, sad and sorry. She needed Tso-tze to prepare her for bed, but decided that for this evening the chair would do. There, as darkness spread its pall, she wept, her nose filling up and her head swimming. Through the night she shed tears for the man — her first man and father to this child, because she would never see him again and would never be permitted to tell the child about his father. His father would be a fairy tale ghost because the family was proud and the fa-shr was rich. She could never reveal this beautiful truth. A woman’s heart is sometimes plagued by things she knows and cannot address. This was the heavy burden of the ghost bride.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Winter Measures

  1

  Chi Lin greeted the gray skies of the colder season as best she could. She was growing larger, her legs aching and her back strained. But Mi Tso-tze proved a mighty help, responding to her mistress’ needs, assuring the garments were loose and the robe sash longer to accommodate new girth. Chi Lin spent another silver ingot on a fur shawl, nothing elaborate – a fox fur garment, although Tso-tze insisted on ermine. She lost that argument, because the remaining cash from the ingot went to hang a leather drape over the hall’s doorway and another to block drafts through the window. The partition at the end of the hall was repaired with brocade remnants and became a place for Mi Tso-tze to reside, because Chi Lin needed her nearby now. New sleeping cushions were bought and a duck feather quilt for Chi Lin’s bed.

  Chi Lin moved slower to her tasks and, on some days, delayed at the shrine, the incense brazier warming her. She also took side trips to Crimson Blossom and Golden Oak Halls to watch the girls learning to sew. Mostly she enjoyed their childish prattle. Pearl and Jade reminded her of herself and her sister when their mother was not teaching them some new art or craft. They would make-believe they were grown married women discussing the business of the house.

  “I believe we need to buy new tables and chairs,” Pearl said to her sister.

  “Only if you can find sweet sandalwood,” Jade replied. “It would smell ever so fresh in the morning with our tea.”

  Then they would giggle and cover their faces until the amah would sweep by and reset their learning attitude. Their mother was aloof, always relaxing on her golden chair, tasting sweet fruit and steam buns. When she was not spooling the silk, Lotus played her p’i-p’a and sang. It was a lonely existence, but Chi Lin thought it was as lonely as her own. She was glad that her feet were unbound. She could not imagine depending upon two servants to guide her about. Although now that the pregnancy advanced, she wished she had two servants to help her.

  When she visited Crimson Blossom Hall, the girls would stir and dance about her. They would cautiously wink at her belly, until Auntie Purple Sage allowed them to touch it.

  “It is life,” Chi Lin said. “It grows.”

  “Like the worms in the cocoons?” Pearl asked.

  She was the clever one,

  “Yes, indeed,” Chi Lin replied. “Only it is not a worm.”

  “And we will not boil you and spin you into cloth,” Jade quipped.

  She was the silly one.

  Visits to Golden Oak Hall were less happy. Not that the hall was poor, but its drapes were maudlin, reflecting Orchid’s morose mood. Chi Lin rarely saw her sister-in-law, because she slept most days, and when she was seen in the ji-tzao, she kept to her place silently. Sapphire was always in the hall, when she was not playing with her sisters. She was a child apart, a mirror of her mother in many ways. Chi Lin wondered about this sadness. Willow told her that Orchid was accosted by Liang-tze when she first arrived as Third Wife. She was lucky not to have been raped, but his threats made her nervous and caused a rift between the two brothers, one that became violent one night. That night, Liang-tze was expelled from the house. That night upset mother and child so much that both shook in terror. After that, Wu Hung-lin stopped visiting Orchid and neglected Sapphire. Sad to say and sadder to hear, the household came to regard the Golden Oak more asylum than residence.

  Sapphire would approach Chi Lin quietly, smiling sourly.

  “Child,” Chi Lin would say, “do you have enough to eat?” Chi Lin feared that her diet was amiss, pale and thin as she was. “Is your amah giving you melon?”

  “I do not like melon, Auntie. It makes my tummy bubble. I do like tea, but they say it will make my skin tough too soon.”

  Chi Lin always brought a Moon Cake for each girl, but she brought two for Sapphire when they met apart from the others. The sight of a Moon Cake always made the little girl weep for joy and the amah pout. Chi Lin did not care for any of the amahs and wondered why the Old Lady of the House chose such cold sorts to wean these children. But Chi Lin’s concern was who would be sent to wean her son when the time came. In any event, all three daughters were spared the foot binding – a blessing from her mother-in-law who despised the new custom despite leaving feet full-sized might limit future matrimonial matches, men such as they are.

  The other detour Chi Lin took would put her at odds with the First Wife.

  2

  Chi Lin often passed the school room as she went to and from her chores. Always she would pause and watch Wu Lin-kua and Wu Chou-fa at their studies. Sometimes they would look up and nod to her when in view. So would the scholar P’ing Chin. On one chilly day, as Chi Lin walked from her sewing chores to her worm feeding tasks, she paused longer than usual before the schoolroom door. She was out of breath and a cold wind penetrated her fox collar. The door was cloaked in heavy leather and beyond the door, inside, would be warm. So she move to the edge and peered in.

  “Purple Sage,” P’ing Chin said, looking up from his writing desk. “You look pale. Come into the warmth.”

  “I dare not, Master P’ing.”

  “Oh, but you must. As you can see, we are not alone.”

  The boys looked up from their writing, their brushes suspended over the page. Chi Lin was drawn by the warmth in their eyes as much as the warmth from the room. She entered, shivering and sought a chair between them.

  “We work, Auntie,” Lin-kua said.

  “We are good
at it,” Chou-fa added.

  “They think they are proficient,” P’ing Chin commented, “but as you can see, the character shen is poorly derived, the brush stroke order incorrect and thus too loose to be anything but sloppy.”

  “It is my way,” Lin-kua said.

  “When you brush in the correct order and emulate the master brushwork of Su Tung-po and Li K’ai-men, then you can adopt your own order and call it your way. Until then, do it correctly or your mother shall know of it.” P’ing Chin grinned and looked to Chi Lin. “Am I not correct, mistress?”

  “How would I know?” Chi Lin said nervously, clearly seeing Lin-kua’s error and knowing how to right it.

  “You know,” P’ing Chin said. “Your father would have slapped the hand for such poor scholarship.”

  “Auntie,” Chou-fa asked. “You know the characters?”

  “You can use the brush?” Lin-kua added.

  “Only as a foolish child in a scholar’s household,” she replied, softly.

  This was a secret best left undiscussed, but the boys were only too eager, having been taught that women knew no such things. They seemed pleased.

  “Mother does not know,” Lin-kua said.

  Chi Lin mistook the meaning that Jasmine was ignorant of her secret.

  “Nor should we tell her,” she replied.

  “No, Auntie. Mother does not know how to read and write.”

  “What use would she have for it?” P’ing Chin said, perhaps realizing he had breached a forbidden topic. “If she needs a letter written, she can ask you, after you are a master of the brush. And if she receives a letter, she can have it read to her.”

  The boys fell silent. They surely sensed an issue. Then, Wu Lin-kua sighed.

  “I am sorrowful, Auntie, that our uncle misused you,” he said.

  “You must not say that,” Chi Lin snapped. “You laid hands on the man and have paid for your lack of respect. Is that not so, Master P’ing?”

  Master P’ing was silent. Surely he agreed with the punishment levied on unfilial children. But in his silence, Chi Lin reaped his true feelings. And so did the boys. Suddenly there was a sound at the door, the leather shifting.

  “Who is there?” P’ing Chin asked, arising and parting the drape.

  He peered outside, and then grunted.

  “Do we have a visitor, master?” Chou-fa asked.

  “Is it Ma Mai-to with our tea?”

  “No,” P’ing Chin said, resignedly. “It was your mother. But she is gone now.”

  Chi Lin moved quickly to the leather windbreak, parting it. She saw in the distance Jasmine’s long coat in the wind, her sister-in-law clearly departing in a huff.

  “I must go,” Chi Lin said, turning to the company. “You must study. You must teach. I must make amends, because your mother does not seem happy with my visit here.”

  The chill clipped her nose as she returned to the path and did her best to keep a true course to Blue Heaven Hall.

  3

  Jasmine would not see her, at first. The maid servant, Ma Mai-to, was poor company indeed. Unlike Willow, she was reticent and churlish. No tea was offered. No chair either, although after a long while Chi Lin made bold to sit on the second quality chair in the ke-ting. Ma Mai-to was still surly and did not even object to this, but disappeared from the room altogether.

  Chi Lin pondered any offense she may have committed against her sister-in-law. She knew what it was, but felt it was not just. Chi Lin could speak up to the First Wife, who was not the Old Lady of the House . . . yet. But she needed to be circumspect. When Chi Lin’s baby came, Jasmine would become its mother. Angering the First Wife could have undue consequences for her son. So she sat in the keting thankful to be off her feet and out of the wind.

  After a while, Jasmine appeared, mounting the first quality chair, and sitting like an Empress before a full court.

  “I see you have come, Purple Sage,” she said.

  “I have not been summoned and come freely,” Chi Lin answered; however, she neglected to bow.

  “What business do you have with me?” Jasmine snapped. “You should be feeding the worms.”

  “I should, but I have come to assure that you have not been offended because I took shelter in the school.”

  “That you speak to my sons is no hardship for me,” she said. “But it reminded me that they were punished because of you, and that is difficult for a mother to overcome.”

  “I am sorry for that,” Chi Lin said. “But as you see, I am growing big with my son.”

  “Your son?”

  “Our son.”

  “You are the child’s aunt,” Jasmine sneered. “You know as well as I do, the boy will be an honored member of this household under my jurisdiction.”

  Now Chi Lin bowed.

  “I wish you the best. May you proper, sister-in-law.”

  Chi Lin arose to leave.

  “I believe it is time for a tour of the ji-tzao,” Jasmine proposed. “It is time for you to undertake the task on your own.”

  Chi Lin’s marrow froze. She was having more and more difficulty walking from one pavilion to another, yet Jasmine wanted her to venture out to the tenancies and validate the ji-tzao. This had to be revenge for the visit to the school room. This had to be revenge for having the audacity of carrying a son. She turned to Jasmine.

  “Reconsider, sister-in-law,” she said.

  “I have made up my mind.”

  “But I am in a tender way.”

  “All the more important to impress the tenants with their great fortune to witness the ghost bride and her ghost child. It will honor the household three-fold.”

  “But . . .”

  “Expect the porters tomorrow.” Jasmine arose. She clapped and Ma Mai-to came. "Assure Purple Sage overtakes the path safely.”

  Jasmine was gone. Chi Lin was stunned. The maid servant marched ahead of her to the path, waiting there until Chi Lin stepped on the first cobblestone. Then, the maid disappeared as fast as she had appeared. The porters would arrive early the next morning.

  4

  “But mistress,” Mi Tso-tze pleaded. “You cannot go. It is dangerous. You must ask Willow to speak to the Old Lady.”

  These words were the most Tso-tze had spoken in one go since her arrival, and she spoke them over and over again. But Chi Lin was resigned to do her sister-in-law’s bidding. The morning sickness was minimal this day, but her legs were sore and she had a headache. If the porters held the chair steady, she would survive. Besides, the journeyman Chou Kuai-tze would assure her safety.

  “But mistress.”

  “No, Tso-tze. When they come, I shall go.”

  “Lao Lao,” Tso-tze said to the ever lurking custodian. “Tell her she must stay.”

  “It is not my place to tell the mistress what she can do and cannot do,” Lao Lao said. “She is strong-willed. Might I suggest you finish her toilet, bow your head obediently and retire to your corner.”

  “I shall not,” Tso-tze snapped. “The mistress needs to hear reason.”

  “I hear you, Tso-tze,” Chi Lin said. “Your words are generous today. Perhaps, too generous, but there are things a wife must do for the good of the household.”

  “Then why not just climb the roof and jump off it.”

  After saying these words, Tso-tze went to her knees and coiled into a pathetic, but apologetic ball. She rocked and wept.

  “Be of better cheer, Tso-tze,” Chi Lin said. “That you think I should jump off the roof is a testament to your loyalty, because if I did so, I know you would follow me.”

  “I would, mistress, I would.”

  The sound of clopping came from the courtyard. Chou Kuai-tze had arrived with a two-porter carry-chair.

  “They brought the small chair,” Lao Lao remarked. “You should head for the roof.”

  Chi Lin found his remark humorous, but did not laugh, because the small chair with only two porters would be quite a wobbly affair. Mi Tso-tze arose and finished wrapping
her mistress in a double layer of undergarments and a stiff brocaded robe. She covered her head with a fur cap, the fox scarf drawn up over her nape.

  “I shall go with you,” she said.

  “There is only one chair, Tso-tze.”

  “No matter. I will walk beside you.”

  “It is not the custom. Wait here. I shall return intact. It is better than if I jumped off the roof.”

  Chi Lin graciously held her aching body erect and walked proudly to the chair, nodding to Chou Kuai-tze. When he saw her, he cocked his head. Perhaps this was the first time he realized that his cargo was a pregnant women. Surely that was not the case. But perhaps he had underestimated her condition. He dismounted and, quite beyond convention, helped her into the chair.

  “Steady,” he snapped at the porters. “If you drop her, you shall be digging ditches in Yuan-ch’i-fu.”

  The porters lifted their cargo as steady as they could, but Chi Lin saw that they were scantily dressed for the weather – a gray steely morning with no sun on the horizon. They were barefoot and bare-shinned up past their calves. It was to be as miserable for them as it would be for her. Still, everyone under Heaven had their duty and ordeal to perform. They were to keep her steady or face a worse fate.

  Chou Kuai-tze remounted, straightened his Salt Monopoly badge and rode to the fore. The porters were quick about their work, the chill propelling them over the cold ground as fast as they could. Chi Lin was immediately ill. By the time she reached the outer gate, she was wishing for her morning bucket. The main road was devoid of people, business on such a gray day at a minimum, so only this small parade raced through the town to the Ya-men.

  The porters slogged the chair from side to side, Chi Lin holding firmly to the arm rests. The breeze bit her nose, not helping her aching head. She supposed this was the feeling one had at sea, if she had ever been to sea. Added to that, Chou Kuai-tze’s horse was no better this day than on the first tour, the stench wafting over Chi Lin, her gorges rising. Suddenly, she choked, her morning congee coming up.

  The porters halted when they heard her. She leaned over the side and vomited, the tears welling and her nose clogged. Chou Kuai-tze heard the choking and turned about. He was out of the saddle and over to the chair.