My Splendid Concubine (36 page)

In the evenings, when the weather was agreeable, which meant it wasn
’t raining, the girls went outside into the courtyard behind the house and practiced their dances. Robert loved the sensuous way their bodies moved. He never grew tired of watching them. Ayaou was the one who couldn’t pass a day without moving her arms or kicking up her feet. She dragged Shao-mei outside taking her away from a book of poems. She wasn’t as quick as Ayaou, but she had no less of an ambition than Ayaou when it came to winning Robert’s affections.

Eventually, as planned,
Shao-mei revealed to Ayaou she was pregnant, and Ayaou received the news in silence. She forced herself to look pleased, but how could she be? Chinese tradition said the first concubine to conceive a boy child became number one. Robert was sure that Ayaou didn’t want to be second to her younger sister. It was why he hoped Shao-mei delivered a girl.

He
came home early one day to find Shao-mei alone. He sat in the study room. She came to sit on his lap urging him to rest his hand on her growing pregnancy.

“
Can you feel our baby moving?” she asked.

She demanded love like a child demands candy. He had mixed feelings. After all, the child was not his, but he was determined to be a good stepfather anyway. Besides, if he took Guan-jiah up on the offer to make him the adopted uncle, the child would have two fathers. Guan-jiah would probably
spoil the child rotten.

“
What are you doing, Shao-mei?” It was an explosion from Ayaou as if a storm has appeared in the house without warning. She stood in the doorway holding a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables. She dropped the food on the floor sending produce everywhere and walked halfway into the room. Robert saw lightning and thunder in her eyes. The unwelcome visitor he’d sensed hiding in the shadows had arrived—jealousy had walked on stage.

Shao-mei jumped off Robert
’s lap like a startled cat.

“
Why are you sitting on his lap?” Accused the older sister. “Today’s my day!”

“
He loves me too,” Shao-mei said.

“
I’m the number one concubine. Don’t you cross me!”

“
But you were not here!”

“
Would you like me to steal your food when you’re not home?”

“
I wasn’t stealing, and he’s no food.”

“
If you let me see you steal him again, I’ll lock you up.”

“
Bully!” Shao-mei shot back.

“
Don’t make me hit you.”

“
Bully!”

“
Try me again!”

“
Enough!” Robert roared. He moved between them. “I love both of you. There’s no reason for this. Stop this horrid behavior now.” He was trembling, and his fiery demeanor appeared to quiet them. They stared at him with startled eyes. He immediately regretted his angry tone but refused to let them know. He hated losing his temper.

That was when he noticed the bruises on Ayaou
’s arm. “How did you get those?” he asked, thinking the girls had been fighting.

“
A foreign sailor tried to grab me on my way to the market,” she said.

“
What?” He was alarmed. “Tell me what happened. Did you know him?”

She shook her head.
“I never saw him before. He stepped from an alley as if he had been waiting for me. When he grabbed my arm and tried to drag me into the alley, I kicked him in his sun instrument. While he was on the ground grunting like a pig, I ran away. He must have thought I was a prostitute.”

“
Were you near the river?”

“
No. I took my usual route to the market.”

“
I don’t want you to go alone next time,” he said. “You will take Shao-mei with you. You will both carry sturdy walking sticks.”

A strange look came over Ayaou
’s face.

“
What is it?” he asked.

“
He knew me. I just remembered. Before he stepped out of the alley, he called my name. When I stopped, he jumped on me.”

“
How did he know your name?” He was sure it was one of Ward’s men sent to kidnap her. There could be no other explanation. He shuddered, and his hand went to the pocket where he kept the accusation letter—the one Dr. Winchester had given him. It was folded in a small, tight square. He took it out of the pocket. Every time he felt threatened, he rubbed it between the index finger and thumb of his right hand. The paper was starting to wear thin. Where he rubbed it, the paper was smudged. It was a habit he was unaware of. He never opened it.

“
I do not know,” she said. “I never saw him before. You make it sound like it was my fault.”

“
No,” he said. “It’s not your fault. I don’t know why it happened, and I don’t like it. Never take the same way to the market again. I don’t want either of you out of the house alone. Close all the shutters and keep the door locked when I am gone. Never go at the same time or on the same day each week.”

“
He was just a foreign devil,” Shao-mei said. “I have had them come to me and ask me how much it cost. One foreign devil offered me ten yuan if I would do it in an alley with him. I walked away as fast as I could. That is why I never go near the river.”

“
That you had to be subjected to such horrid behavior is bad enough by itself, Shao-mei,” he said, “but this man knew Ayaou’s name, and she didn’t go near the river. In the future, if you cannot go together, you must tell me. I’ll have Guan-jiah or members of his family come to the house and escort you.”

A knock at the door signaled Tee Lee Ping
’s arrival.

Chapter 20

The next morning, the girls continued to fight. “Robert,” Ayaou said, “why are you eating Shao-mei’s lotus soup and not drinking the tea I brewed?”

He wanted to say
he couldn’t do two things at the same time. Ayaou snatched up the bowl of soup and hurried to the chamber pot in the corner where she emptied it. “Since Shao-mei made the soup, it is a poor quality and could make you sick. Drink the ginseng tea. It will give you the energy of a lion.”

“
That’s not fair, sister,” Shao-mei said. “You know nothing is wrong with the soup, because you taught me how to make it.” Then Shao-mei grabbed the cup of tea from Robert’s hand. “The tea will give you a stomachache, Robert.” Shao-mei spilled the tea on the floor.

“
Clean that up!” Ayaou said.

“
It will dry on its own.” Shao-mei replied.

“
Robert will slip on the puddle and fall. It will be your fault, sister.”

Shao-mei glared at Ayaou
then turned to Robert. “Did you like the soup or the tea better?”

“
My stomach hurts, and it wasn’t caused by the soup or tea,” he said, standing to leave.

“
You haven’t eaten yet,” Ayaou said.

“
You dumped the lotus soup,” he replied. “I was eating that.” He pointed at Shao-mei. “And she spilled my tea. I’ll find something to eat at the consulate.”

“
See, Ayaou,” Shao-mei said, “you are going to cause Robert to become big like Mrs. Winchester. Her food is horrible. She eats enough for five Chinese.”

He
stopped at the door and looked back. They were still in the kitchen glaring at each other. “Don’t cook dinner for me tonight,” he said. “I’m working late. I’ll get something to eat from a street vender.”

“
No, I’ll bring dinner,” Ayaou said. “If you eat from a vender, you could get sick. It costs too much anyway.”

“
Don’t bother, Ayaou,” Shao-mei said. “He won’t like what you cook for him. I’ll take him his evening meal.”

He opened the door
. “Robert,” Ayaou said. “Why are you wearing that sweater Shao-mei knitted? You have never worn it to work before. You should know that the yarn is of the poorest quality. It will not keep you warm. Dr. Winchester and his wife will think you are poor. They will pity you.”

“
That’s not true!” Shao-mei stamped a foot.

“
I was distracted,” he said. He slipped the sweater off and took his jacket from its hook by the door.

“
See, he hates your sweater,” Ayaou said. “Tell her what you think about it, Robert.”

With one foot outside, he stopped and took a slow breath.
“I refuse to take part in this argument. This fighting over who I favor or love the most is not my problem. The truth is that I love you equally.”

“
But, Robert, the lotus soup was horrible,” Ayaou said. “You know it was. Tell us whose cooking you like best.”

“
I will not!” he said. “You are competing, because you’re both jealous. You must make peace and solve this constant bickering that is causing me to lose sleep at night.”

“
It’s all her fault,” Shao-mei said. “If she hadn’t poured the soup I cooked for you into the chamber pot, you would have had something to eat before going to work.”

Robert stared at Shao-mei
’s huge belly. No, he thought, it wasn’t Ayaou’s fault. It was his. Ayaou was jealous because of the baby growing inside Shao-mei. She was worried it might threaten her position in the family. She didn’t know the baby wasn’t his. He was tempted to tell her the truth to end this fighting. He considered the consequences and realized if he did that, she would never let Shao-mei hear the end of it. Ayaou would also make the baby’s life miserable.

“
I don’t want to hear any more of this,” he said. “Fight when I’m not home if you must. When I come through that door each evening, I want peace and harmony in this house until I leave the next morning. Do you understand? If you don’t do as I say, I will do something both of you will regret.”

Ayaou
’s face turned pale. “What would you do, Robert? Would you sell us to be prostitutes? Would you send Shao-mei back to Captain Patridge and me to General Ward? Is that what you would do?”

“
The only way you will discover the answer to those questions is if you don’t stop this arguing,” he said.

Shao-mei
collapsed on one of the stools next to the kitchen table. The angry expression on her face had been replaced with worry.

He
understood that his position was to ride a horse knowing that bending either way would cause him to fall. At the beginning, his neutrality had worked. The girls managed to solve the conflicts between themselves. They’d come out of each clash as best friends, sisters and lovers, so he hoped they would solve this problem and keep him out of it.

He put on his jacket and fled. It was bone-chilling cold ou
tside, but at least it wasn’t raining. The sky was free of clouds and had a greenish blue cast to it.

This jealousy between his girls was getting out of control.
There was a tug of war inside him because of it. One part of Robert was pleased that these two beautiful women loved him so much they were willing to fight over him. His other side, the mental voice that gave him Christian advice, said it was wrong to want two women—that it was his duty to stop.

The girls were Chinese and were influenced by Buddhist and Co
nfucius thoughts. Because of that, he almost excused them for their behavior, but he couldn’t excuse himself for his part in what was going on. He was sure that a Chinese master would have defused this in no time. Robert felt inadequate.

Turning a corner, he saw William Martin down the street and managed to duck into an alley to avoid him. He chuckled at the irony of i
t. He was not only running from his lovers, but he was also avoiding his friends.

Then he
remembered what businesses were on that narrow, short street close to the river. Foreign sailors came here to find liquor and whores. He peeked and saw Martin standing in front of the entrance to a notorious house of prostitution talking to someone out of sight in the shadows of a recessed doorway. Was William preaching the word of God to a prostitute in an attempt to save her soul?

Then Martin took
what looked like a coin of the realm from a pocket and handed it to the person he was talking to. A woman stepped out of the shadows. She was slender with sharp angles in the bone structure of her face. Her shiny black hair reached her knees. She took the Presbyterian minister by the hand and took him to the stairway leading to the second level where Robert knew the prostitutes had intercourse with the men who paid them.

What is Martin doing? Robert thought. An urge to rush down the
street and drag his friend from the prostitute entered his mind. Then he shook his head. “
Judge not, that ye be not judged
,” he said, quoting
Matthew 7:1
. How could Robert save Martin when he couldn’t save himself?

He realized
there was a difference. Robert loved his girls. They were not whores. He was sure Martin did not love this prostitute. The reason his friend was doing this was obvious. Martin’s wife had returned to America because of her illness. He was a man lonely for a woman.