When Little Sister Hsia opened her eyes she was astonished at the liquid warmth she saw in the great beautiful eyes of Madame Wu. For a moment she thought her prayer had been miraculously answered. Perhaps God had touched the heart of this heathen woman?
But Madame Wu rose and by that firm movement bade Little Sister Hsia farewell. “You will send the priest to me soon?” she asked and made it a command in the asking.
Against her will Little Sister Hsia found herself promising that she would.
“How can I repay you?” Madame Wu said courteously. “At least, let me say this, Little Sister. In return for your kindness in arranging a teacher for my third son, please pray for me whenever you like.” So she dismissed her visitor.
All day during this day Madame Wu had not forgotten what Ying had told her, that she had heard Rulan sobbing in the night. But Madame Wu had long ago learned that the affairs of a great household must be managed one by one and in order. This order was first in her own mind. She had tried to see Tsemo and Heaven had prevented it. The time was not ripe, therefore. And as she had learned to do, while she pondered on large things, she acted on small ones.
She sent for the cook to bring in his monthly accounts, which had been due two days earlier but which he had withheld, feeling the confusion in the house. Madame Wu read these accounts and remarked on the high price of the fuel grass.
Now, Ying always took care to be present when the accounts were presented, for she believed that her husband, although a better cook than any could find, was nevertheless not clever at anything else. When Madame Wu spoke of the fuel, she knew at once that some other servant had reported the matter, and she guessed that it was a certain middle-aged woman servant who had once approached the cook with offers of love. But Ying’s husband knew better than to look at another woman, and now the woman had turned sour and could not find enough fault with Ying and the cook.
When Madame Wu mentioned the fuel, Ying cried out to her husband, “You bone, I told you not to get it at the West Gate Market! Everything is more dear there.”
“We should not buy any fuel at all as early as this,” Madame Wu said. “The fuel from our own lands should be enough until the eighth month, when new grass can be cut.”
“The steward has plowed some of the grass lands,” the cook replied.
Madame Wu knew it was not necessary to carry the matter further. She accepted his excuse since she had administered her rebuke, and she closed the books and gave them to him. Then she went to her money, box and brought out what was due on the past month and enough to use as cash for the next month. The family numbered something over sixty persons, including all mouths, and the sum was never small.
The manservant in charge of the clothing and repairs came next, and with him the two sewing women, and Madame Wu discussed with them the summer garments required for servants and family, the changes of bedding, and such matters. When these were finished, carpenters came in to estimate the costs of repairs to two leaking roofs, and the building of a new outhouse for storage.
To all such affairs Madame Wu gave her close and entire attention. It was her talent that whatever she did, it was with the whole of her mind and for that time nothing else was. When one affair was settled, her mind went wholly to the next one. Thus during this day she accepted one task after the other. It was only when dusk came on and the household matters were finished that she acknowledged her own thoughts again. They centered on Fengmo.
“I have this day proceeded very far toward the decision of his life,” she thought. She had not risen from the big chair by the library table, at which she had worked all day. While she was now more than ever firm in her decision that he should marry Linyi, nevertheless it was only just that she should talk with him and allow him some freedom first to rebel. She summoned Ying from the next room where she was preparing the bed for the night.
“Go and tell Fengmo to come here,” she said. She hesitated while Ying waited.
“And when you have summoned my son,” Madame Wu went on, “invite the Second Lady to appear at the family meal tonight.”
Ying pursed her mouth and went away, and Madame Wu sat, her finger and thumb to her lip, while she waited. At this time Fengmo would be in his room, since it was about the hour for the evening meal. If Fengmo were in good humor with what she decided, she would eat tonight with the family instead of alone, as she had done during the last few days. It was time for her to come out and take her place among them again.
In a few minutes she heard Fengmo’s step. She knew the step of each son. Liangmo’s was slow and firm, Tsemo’s quick and uneven, and Yenmo ran everywhere. But Fengmo walked with a rhythm, three steps always quicker than the fourth. He appeared at the door of the library, wearing his school uniform of dark-blue cloth. On his head was a visored cap of the same cloth, and on the cap was a band giving the name of his school, the National Reconstruction Middle School.
Madame Wu smiled at her son and beckoned to him to come in.
“What is the meaning of this National Reconstruction?” she inquired half playfully.
“It is only a name, Mother,” Fengmo replied. He sat down on a side chair, took off his cap and whirled it like a wheel between the fingers of his two hands.
“It means nothing to you?” Madame Wu inquired.
“Of course we all want national reconstruction,” Fengmo replied.
“Without knowing what it means?” Madame Wu asked in the same half-playful manner.
Fengmo laughed. “At present I am having difficulty with algebra,” he replied. “Perhaps when I have overcome that I will understand National Reconstruction better.”
“Algebra,” Madame Wu mused. “In India several such studies were first devised and then found their way to Europe.”
Fengmo looked surprised. He never expected his mother to have any knowledge out of books, and Madame Wu knew this and enjoyed surprising him.
“You look pale,” she said suddenly. “Are you taking your tonic of deers’-horn powder?”
“It tastes worse than rotten fish,” Fengmo objected.
Madame Wu smiled her pretty smile. “Then don’t take it,” she said comfortably. “Why take what you dislike so much?”
“Thank you, Mother,” Fengmo said, but he was again surprised.
Madame Wu leaned forward, and her hands fell clasped into her lap. “Fengmo,” she said, “it is time we talked about your life.”
“My life?” Fengmo looked up and stopped whirling the cap.
“Yes,” Madame Wu repeated, “your life. Your father and I have already discussed it.”
“Mother, don’t think I will consent to your choosing a wife for me,” Fengmo said hotly.
“Of course I would not,” Madame Wu said quickly. “All that I can do is to bring certain names to you and ask you if you like any of them. Naturally I have considered your tastes, as well as the position of the family. I have put aside any thought of such a girl as the Chen family’s second daughter, who has been brought up in old-fashioned ways.”
“I would never have such a girl,” Fengmo declared.
“Of course not. But there is another difficulty,” Madame Wu said in her calm way. “The girls are also demanding much today. It is not as it was when I was a girl. I left all such things in my mother’s hands, and my uncle’s who took my dead father’s place. But now the girls—the sort you would want, Fengmo—do not want a young man who cannot speak at least one foreign tongue.”
“I study some English in school,” Fengmo said haughtily.
“But you cannot speak it very well,” Madame Wu replied. “I do not know that language myself, but certainly I hear you stammer and halt when you make those sounds. I do not blame you, but so it is.”
“What girl will not have me?” Fengmo asked angrily.
Madame Wu rode to her goal upon this anger as a boat rides the surf to the shore. “Madame Kang’s third daughter, Linyi,” she said, and while she had seen no interest pass between them, Fengmo’s
present anger was enough. He was immediately interested.
“That girl!” he muttered. “She looks too proud. I hate her looks.”
“She is really very handsome,” Madame Wu retorted. “But that is not the important thing. I do not speak of her except as one of others. If Linyi, who knows our family and position, still objects to you, can we look higher?”
“You could send me away to a foreign school,” Fengmo said eagerly.
“I will not do that,” she replied in her pretty voice that was nevertheless as inexorable as sun and moon. “There will be war over the whole world in a few years from now. At such a time all my sons must be at home.”
Fengmo looked at her astounded. “How can you tell such things, Mother?”
“I am not a fool, though all the world around me are fools,” Madame Wu said quietly. “When certain steps are taken and none prevents them, then more steps are taken.”
The boy was silent, his eyes fixed on his mother’s face. They were large and black like hers, but they had not the depth of her eyes. He was still too young. But he did not speak, as though he were struggling to comprehend the things of which she spoke.
“I have heard there is a foreign priest here in the city,” she went on, “and he is a learned man. It is possible that for a sum he would teach you to speak other languages. For this are you willing? Foreign languages may serve you well some day. It is not of marriage only that I think. The times ahead are due for change.”
Her voice, so clear, so musical, was nevertheless full of portent. Fengmo loved and feared his mother at the same time. To him she was always right, and the few times that he had disobeyed her she had not punished him, but he was always punished nevertheless. Slowly and hardly he had learned that what she said carried wisdom. But, being a boy, he demurred for a moment.
“A priest?” he repeated. “I do not believe in religions.”
“I do not ask you to believe in religions,” she said in reply. “It is not of that we speak.”
“He would try to convert me,” Fengmo said sullenly. “Little Sister Hsia is always trying to convert everybody in the house. Whenever she passes me she hands me a gospel paper.”
“Do you need to yield to conversion?” Madame Wu asked. “Are you so weak? You must learn to take from a person that which is his best and ignore all else. Come, try the priest for a month, and if you wish then to stop his teaching, I will agree to it.”
It was the secret of her power in this house that she never allowed her will to be felt as absolute. She gave time and the promise of an end, and then she used the time to shape events to her own end.
Fengmo began to whirl the cap slowly again between his hands. “A month then,” he said. “Not more than a month if I do not like it.”
“A month,” Madame Wu agreed. She rose. “And now, my son, we will go to the night meal together. Your father will have begun without us.”
In the Wu household men and women ate at separate tables. Thus at the threshold of the great dining room Fengmo parted from his mother and went to one end, where his father and brothers and the men cousins were already seated, and Madame Wu walked with her usual grace to the tables where the women were seated. All rose at her approach. She saw at once that Ch’iuming had taken her place among them. The girl sat shyly apart from the others and held a small child on her knee. With this child still in her arms she rose and managed to shield her face with the child. But Madame Wu had taken a full look at her before she did this. The girl was grave, but that was natural in a strange household. It was enough that she was here.
“Please sit down,” Madame Wu said courteously to all and to no one. She took her own place at the highest seat and picked up her chopsticks. Meng had been serving the others, and Madame Wu put her chopsticks down again. “Proceed for me, please, Meng,” she said. “I have been busy all day with household matters, and I am a little weary.”
She leaned back smiling, and in her usual way she gave a word to each of her daughters-in-law, and she spoke to Meng’s little boy whom the nurse held. The child was fretting, and Madame Wu took her chopsticks and chose a bit of meat and gave it to him. Then she spoke directly to Ch’iuming.
“Second Lady,” she said kindly, “you must eat what you like best. The fish is usually good.”
Ch’iuming looked up and flushed a bright red. She rose and gave a little bow, the child still clutched in her arms. “Thank you, Elder Sister,” she said in a faint voice. She sat down and did not speak again. When a servant put a bowl of rice before her she fed the child first.
But by this kind address Madame Wu told the whole house that Ch’iuming’s place was set, and that the life of the family must now include this one added to it. All heard the few words, and a moment’s silence followed them. Then servant spoke to servant and nurse to child to cover the silence.
Madame Wu accepted the food given her and began to eat in her delicate slow fashion. The little grandson, wooed by the gift of the meat, now clamored suddenly to come and sit on her knee. Meng reproved him tenderly. “You with your face and hands all dirty!”
Madame Wu looked up as though she had been in a dream. “Is it me the child wants?” she asked.
“He is so dirty, Mother,” Meng said.
“Certainly he is to come to me,” Madame Wu said. She put out her hands and took the heavy child and set him on her knee. Then with her instinctive daintiness she took up a pair of clean chopsticks and found bits of meat in the central bowls and fed them to the child. She did not speak, but she smiled at each mouthful.
The child did not smile back. He sat as though in a dream of content, opening his little mouth and chewing each bit with silent pleasure. It was Madame Wu’s usual effect on children. Without effort she made them feel content to be near her. And she took content from the grandchild. In him her duty to the house was complete, and in him, too, her secret loneliness in this house was assuaged. She did not know she was lonely, and had anyone told her that she was, she would have denied it, amazed at such misreading. But she was too lonely for anyone to reach her soul. Her soul had outstripped her life. It had gone out far beyond the four walls within which her body lived. It roamed the world, and reached into the past and climbed toward the future, and her many thoughts played about that constant voyaging. But now and again her soul came home to this house. It came back now. She was suddenly fully aware of this child and of his meaning. The generations marched on, hers ending, his beginning.
“Son of my son,” she murmured and continued to put bits of meat into his small red mouth, opened for what she gave. When he was fed she gave him to his mother.
But before the others had finished she was finished, and she rose begging them to continue, and walked slowly out of the room. As she passed Mr. Wu and her sons they greeted her, half-rising from their seats, and she smiled and inclined her head and went on her way.
That night again she slept the whole night through and did not wake.
But to Ch’iuming the half-hour of Madame Wu’s presence was her marriage ceremony. The night had left her confused. Had she pleased him or not? Mr. Wu had not spoken one word to her, and he had left her before dawn. She had slept after that until noon. No one had come near her all afternoon except a woman servant. Then she had been bidden by Ying, at evening, to join the family meal. She had hastened to make herself ready for this, and when the time came she had slipped into the dining room late, and had quickly taken the child from his nurse. He had not cried. But children never cried with her. In the village she had cared for many babies of farm mothers. One by one the ladies who were now her relatives had greeted her, half carelessly, half shyly, and she had only bent her head a little in reply. Nor could she eat.
But after Madame Wu had left the room, she suddenly felt ravenous and, turning herself somewhat so that she did not face the others, she ate two bowls of rice and meat as quickly as she could.
When the meal was over she stood waiting in deepening shyness while Meng and Rulan went a
way. But Meng in her gentle kindness stayed a moment to speak to her. “I will come to see you tomorrow, Second Lady,” she said.
“I am not worthy,” Ch’iuming replied faintly. She could not meet Meng’s eyes, but she was comforted and happy. She lifted her eyes, and Meng saw the timid desolate heart.
“I will come and bring my child,” she promised.
And Ch’iuming went out with the women and children, hiding herself among them from the men. But they looked at her, each in his own secret fashion.
That night Mr. Wu came early to the peony court, and she was not yet in bed. She was sewing upon her unfinished garments when she heard his step. She rose as he entered and turned her face away. He sat down while she stood, and he cleared his throat, put his hands on his knees, and looked at her.
“You,” he began, not calling her by name, “you must not be afraid of me.”
She could not answer. She clung to the garment she held with both hands and stood like stone before him.
“In this house,” Mr. Wu began again, “there is everything to make you happy. My sons’ mother is kind. There are young women, my sons’ wives, and young cousins’ wives, and many children. You look good-tempered, and certainly you are obliging. You will be very happy here.”
Still she did not answer. Mr. Wu coughed and loosened his belt a little. He had eaten very heartily, and he felt somewhat breathless. But he had not finished what he wished to say.
“For me,” he went on, “you have only a few duties. I like to sleep late. Do not wake me if I am here. In the night, I like tea if I am wakeful, but not red tea. I am hot in blood, and cannot have two quilts even in winter. These and other things you will learn, doubtless.”
Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters Page 14