Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters (16 page)

“Take these bands from off the child’s feet!” he had commanded. There had been hubbub and outcry. She could never remember a single word of that battle between her elders, but she never forgot the storm. Her mother had cried and her grandmother had screamed with anger and even her grandfather had kept shouting. But her father had sat down and kept her on his knees, and with his own hands he had taken off the bandages and made her feet free. She could still remember the pain, the joy, of the freed feet. He took them in his hands, one and then the other, and rubbed them gently to bring in the blood again, and the blood running into the pinched veins had been first agony and then joy.

“Never—never,” he had muttered.

She had clung to him crying. “What if you had not come home!” she had cried into his breast. He had come in time to save her. She could run again in a few months. But it was too late for her sister’s feet. The bones were broken.

After this there had been nothing but disturbance for three years in the household. Her father had learned new ways in new countries, and he had insisted that she be taught to read. When he died of a sudden cholera at the end of a hot summer three years later, it was too late to bind her feet again, and too late for ignorance because she already knew how to read. She was even allowed to keep on with her reading because she was betrothed and Old Gentleman was pleased that she could read and that her feet were not bound. “We are very lucky,” her mother had said, “to find a rich family so lenient.”

Now she remembered her father at this moment when she put her narrow feet into her slippers. Something of that joy of freedom was in her again, too. She smiled, and Ying came and caught her smiling.

“You, Mistress,” Ying chided her. “You are too happy this morning!” She looked at her and against all her wish to behave decorously she could not keep from smiling. “You do look like a mischievous child,” she said.

“Do not try to understand me, good soul,” Madame Wu said gaily. “Why should you harass yourself? Let us only be as we always are. Tell me, is the day fair?”

“As though there had never been rain,” Ying replied.

“Then,” Madame Wu said, “dress me for visiting. I shall go to see Madame Kang as soon as I have eaten. I have a matter to talk about with her. What do you think of her Linyi for our Fengmo?”

“Two knots on the same rope,” Ying replied musingly. “Well, Mistress, better to repeat a good thing than a bad one. Our eldest young lord is happy enough with the eldest Kang daughter. But our second lord beat his wife last night.”

“Tsemo beat Rulan?” Madame Wu exclaimed.

“I heard her sobbing,” Ying said. “It must be she was beaten.”

Madame Wu sighed. “Will I never have peace under this roof?”

She ate her breakfast quickly and rose and went to Tsemo’s court. But Tsemo had risen even earlier and was already gone. Rulan was still in bed sleeping, the servant said. Madame Wu would not ask a servant why her son had beaten his wife, and so she said, “Tell my son I will see him tonight.”

She went on then as she usually did each day to inspect the kitchens and family courts, and when she had examined all parts of the house, had praised here and corrected there, she returned to her own court.

Two hours later she stepped out of the gate of the Wu house. Mr. Wu had some two years before bought a foreign motorcar, but the streets were so narrow that Madame Wu would never willingly use it. She disliked to see the common people flatten themselves against the walls of the houses while the big car spread itself across the street. At the same time she did not enjoy the openness of the ricksha which Mr. Wu had once given her as a present. She still liked best the privacy of this old-fashioned sedan chair which had been part of her wedding furniture. She told Ying, therefore, to follow in the ricksha. Then one of the four bearers lifted the curtain and Madame Wu stepped in and sat down and he let the curtain fall. From the small glass window in this curtain she could see enough of the streets for her own interest and yet not be seen.

Thus borne through the crowded streets by the four bearers, she felt she did harm to no one. Her weight was easy for the men, and the sedan was so narrow that none was pushed from his path. Moreover, she liked the courteous call of the head bearer as he cried out to those in his way, “I borrow your light—I borrow your light!” So ought the rich to be courteous to the poor and the high to the low. Madame Wu could never bear oppression of any sort. Since she had been mistress in the Wu house no slave had been beaten nor any servant offended. Even though it was sometimes necessary to dismiss an unfaithful or incapable servant, it was never done on this ground but on some other which, though he knew it was false, yet comforted him before his fellows. She was the more distressed, therefore, when she considered what Ying had told her—that Tsemo had beaten Rulan.

“I will not believe it,” she thought, “until I have inquired for the truth.” Thus she put the matter from her mind.

The distance between the houses of Wu and Kang was not short, being indeed almost across the entire city. But Madame Wu had no sense of haste. She enjoyed the sunshine falling into the streets still wet with the night’s rain. The stones were washed and clean and the people gay and glad of the brightness of the sky. Markets were busy and farmers were already carrying into the city their loads of fresh green cabbages, baskets of eggs and bundles of fuel grass. The sight of all this life going on always soothed Madame Wu. In this city the Wu family was only one house. It was pleasant to think that there were all these others where men and women lived together and brought forth their children and children’s children. And in this nation there were many more such cities, and around the world many other nations where in different ways men and women lived the same life. She liked to dwell upon such thoughts. Her own life took its proportion. What was one grief among so many like it, or what was one joy in a world of such joys?

In something under an hour the sedan was set down before the gate of the Kang house. Ying had, of course, sent a manservant ahead to tell of Madame Wu’s coming, and so she was expected. The great red varnished gates swung open, and a servant was waiting. Ying hastened forward from her ricksha to help Madame Wu out of her chair. She carried under her arm Madame Wu’s small traveling toilet case, lest she wish to smooth her hair or touch her face with powder.

Then they entered the gates, but before they had crossed the first court Madame Kang herself came to greet her friend. The two ladies clasped hands.

“How good of you, Sister!” Madame Kang cried eagerly. She was anxious to hear from Madame Wu’s own lips all that had happened. She knew, since the servants in the two houses came and went, that Madame Wu had fulfilled her plan. She knew even that last night Ch’iuming had gone into Mr. Wu’s court.

“I have come to talk about many things, Sister,” Madame Wu replied. “But I come too early—I disturb you.”

“How can you say that!” Madame Kang replied. She searched her friend’s fresh and lovely face. It was not in the least way changed. The tranquil eyes, the composed and exquisite mouth, the pearl-pale skin, all were at their best.

“How beautiful you always are,” Madame Kang said tenderly, and was conscious, though without the least pain, of her own hair as yet unbrushed.

“I rise early,” Madame Wu said. “Now let us go inside and while your hair is brushed I will wait.”

“Do not mind my hair,” Madame Kang urged. “I get it combed in the afternoon. Somehow the mornings pass too quickly.”

She looked around and laughed as she spoke, for behind her a dozen children seemed to come from nowhere. Children and grandchildren were mingled together. She stooped and picked up the smallest one, not yet able to walk, but hung on his feet by a cotton cloth passed round his middle and held at the two ends by a little bondmaid. The child was unwashed and none too clean, although his coat was of satin, but Madame Kang smelled him with love, as though he were fresh from the tub, and held him close.

Together the two friends walked into the house and through two courts until they reached Madame Kang’s own court. There she put down the child whom she had carried all this time, and waved her two plump hands at the children and small bondmaids who had followed her. “Away with you!” she cried heartily. Then, seeing their faces fall, she put her hand into her loose coat and brought out a handful of small cash. These she pressed into the hands of the eldest bondmaid. “Go and buy peanuts for them all,” she commanded her. “With shells!” she called after the eager child, “so that it will take a long time for them to be eaten!”

She laughed her rich rolling laughter at the sight of the children scampering toward the street. Then she seized Madame Wu’s hand again and led her into her own room and closed the door.

“Now we are alone,” she said. She sat down as soon as Madame Wu was seated, and she leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Tell me everything,” she said.

But Madame Wu looked at her friend. A certain blankness mingled with surprise appeared in her eyes.

“It is a strange thing,” she said after a second’s pause, “but I feel I have nothing to tell.”

“How can that be?” Madame Kang cried. “I am as full of questions as a hen of eggs. The girl—who is she—did you like her? Did he like her?”

“I like her,” Madame Wu said. Now she knew, as her friend paused, that she had been willfully not thinking of Mr. Wu and Ch’iuming this morning. Did he like her? She forced herself to go on without answering this question that sprang up like a snake in her heart.

“I gave her a name—Ch’iuming. She is only an ordinary girl, but a good one. I am sure he will like her. Everybody will like her, because there is nothing about her to dislike. No one in the house will be jealous of her.”

“Heaven!” Madame Kang exclaimed in wonder. “And you say all this as though you had hired a new nurse for a grandchild! Why, when my father took a concubine my mother cried and tried to hang herself, and we had to watch her night and day, and when he took a second concubine the first one swallowed her earrings, and so it went until he had the five he ended with. They all hated one another and contended for him.” Madame Kang’s big laughter rolled out of her. “They used to hunt his shoes—he would leave his shoes in the room of the one he planned to visit that night. Then another would steal them. At last, for peace, he divided his time among them equally.”

“They must have been silly women, those concubines,” Madame Wu said calmly. “I do not mean your mother, Meichen. Of course it is natural she might have believed in a man’s heart. But the concubines!”

“There never was a woman like you, Ailien,” Madame Kang said fondly. “At least tell me could you sleep last night?”

“Last night,” Madame Wu said, “I slept very well because of the rain on the roof.”

“Oh, the rain on the roof!” Madame Kang cried and went into gusts of laughter so that she had to wipe her eyes with her sleeves.

Madame Wu waited, smiling, until this was over. Then she said seriously, “I do have a matter to talk about with you, Meichen.”

Madame Kang grew grave whenever she heard this tone in her friend’s voice. “I will laugh no more. What is it?”

“You know my son Fengmo,” Madame Wu said. “Do you think I should send him away to school?”

This question she put very skillfully. If Madame Kang declared it was not necessary, she would at once ask for Linyi. If on the other hand—

“It is altogether a matter of what this boy will do with himself,” Madame Kang answered. Her large round face fell into lines.

“He has never shown what he wants,” Madame Wu said. “He has until now merely been growing up. But after seventeen a mother must begin to watch a son.”

“Of course,” Madame Kang agreed. She pursed her lips and thought of Fengmo, his arrogant bladelike body and proud head.

“Come,” Madame Wu said frankly, “why do I not speak the truth to you? I had thought of pouring our blood into the same stream again. Fengmo and Linyi—what do you say?”

Madame Kang clapped her hands twice together. “Good!” she cried. Then she let her plump hands drop. “But that Linyi,” she said, mournfully. “It is one thing for me to say good. How do I know what she will say?”

“You should never have let her go to a foreign school,” Madame Wu said. “I told you that at the time.”

“You were right,” Madame Kang said sadly. “Nothing at home is good enough for her now. She complains about everything. She quarrels at her father when he spits on the floor, poor soul. She wants us to put jars on the floor for spittle. But the babies pick up the jars and drop them and break them. And Linyi is angry because she wants all the babies to wear cloths tied about their little bottoms. But with thirteen small grandchildren under this roof still not able to contain their water, how can we tie cloths about all of them? Our ancestors taught us wisdom in seatless trousers. Shall we flout their wisdom? We have three wash maids as it is.”

“In our house she would not be troubled with any small children except our own,” Madame Wu said. “And with her own a woman learns wisdom.”

She was too kind to tell Madame Kang that in this matter she secretly felt sympathy with Linyi. The wet nurses and maids in this house were continually holding out the babies to pass their water on the floor until one did not know where to step. Madame Wu had never allowed these easy-going ways in her own house. The maids had always commands to take the small children into certain corners or behind trees.

Madame Kang looked doubtfully at her friend. “I would be glad for you to have her,” she said. “She needs to be married and have her mind taken up. But I love you too well not to tell you her faults. I feel she will demand foreign learning in Fengmo even if she is willing to marry him. She will think it shameful that he speaks no foreign language.”

“But with whom would he speak it?” Madame Wu asked. “Would she and he sit together and talk foreign tongues? It would be silly.”

“Certainly it would,” Madame Kang agreed. “But it is a matter for pride, you know, in these young women, nowadays, to chatter in a foreign tongue.”