Pavilion of Women: A Novel of Life in the Women's Quarters (2 page)

For Madame Wu herself this was a day to which she had long looked forward with a strange mingling of relief and quiet sadness. The first part of her life was over and the second part about to begin. She did not fear age, for age had its honors for her. She would with each year gain in dignity and in the respect of her family and her friends. Nor was she afraid of losing her beauty, for she had allowed it to change with the years so subtly that it was still more apparent than her years. She no longer wore the flowering colors of her youth, but the delicacy of her face and skin were as clear now as ever against the soft silver blues and gray greens of her costumes. The whole effect of age upon her was one of refining and exalting rather than loss. Because she knew herself still beautiful, she was ready to do today what she had planned to do. A woman who had lost her looks might have hesitated through feelings of defeat or even jealousy. But she had no need to be jealous and what she was about to do was of her own clear, calm will.

She finished her breakfast. Everyone else in the family was still sleeping except the grandchildren, whom the amahs would be amusing in some corner of the vast compound until the parents awoke. But the children were never brought to her except when she called them. She was a little surprised, therefore, when in a few moments she perceived something like a commotion in the court just beyond her own. Then she heard a voice.

“It is not every day that my best friend is forty years old! Does it matter if I am too early?”

She recognized at once the voice of Madame Kang, the mother of Meng, her elder daughter-in-law, and she made haste to the door of the court.

“Come, please,” she exclaimed, and held out both her hands, in one of them the two silver-gray orchids which she had taken again from the table.

Madame Kang lumbered across the court toward her friend. She had grown fat in the same years during which Madame Wu had remained exquisite, but she was too generous not to love her friend in spite of this.

“Ailien,” she exclaimed, “am I the first to wish you long life and immortality?”

“The first,” Madame Wu said, smiling. Servants, of course, did not count.

“Then I am not too early,” Madame Kang said and looked reproachfully at Ying, who had tried to delay her. It was a rule in the house that no one should disturb Madame Wu while she took her breakfast because at a disturbance she would eat no more. Ying was not abashed. No one was afraid of Madame Kang, and Ying would have defied even the magistrate to gain an hour of peace for her mistress in the morning.

“I had rather see you than anyone,” Madame Wu said. She linked her slender fingers into her friend’s plump ones and drew her into the orchid garden with her. Under a drooping willow tree two bamboo chairs stood, and toward these the ladies moved. A small oval pool lay at their feet. At its bottom a clump of water lilies was rooted. Two blue lilies floated on the surface. Madame Wu did not care for lotus. The flowers were too coarse and the scent was heavy. Very minute goldfish darted in and out among the blue lilies, and paused, their noses quivering at the surface. When they found no crumbs there, they snatched themselves away and sprang apart, their misty tails waving behind them in long white shadows.

“How is your eldest son’s son?” Madame Wu asked her friend. In the years when Madame Wu had borne her four living sons, and three children, who had died, of whom only one was a girl, Madame Kang had borne eleven children, six of whom were girls. There was none of the peace in Madame Kang’s house that was here in this court. Around her fat, good-natured person was a continuous uproar of children and bondmaids and servants. Nevertheless, in spite of everything, Madame Wu loved her friend. Their mothers had been friends, and when one went to visit the other, each had taken her small daughter along. While the mothers had gambled all day and late into the night, the two little girls had come to be as close as sisters.

“He is no better,” Madame Kang said. Her round red face which had been beaming like a lit lantern was suddenly woeful. “I am considering whether I should take him to the foreign hospital. What do you think?”

“Is it a matter of life and death?” Madame Wu asked, considering the matter.

“It may be, within a few days,” Madame Kang replied. “But they say that the foreign doctor does not know how to tell what a sickness is without cutting people open to see. And Little Happiness is so small—only five, you know, Sister. I think his life is still too tender for him to be cut open.”

“At least wait until tomorrow,” Madame Wu said. “Let us not spoil today.” Then, fearing lest she were selfish, she added, “Meanwhile I will send Ying with a bowl of broth made after an old recipe of my great-grandmother for just such a cough as he has. I have used it often on my first and third sons and more than once on their father. You know he has been troubled with a cough for the last two winters.”

“Ailien, you are always kind,” Madame Kang said gratefully. It was early and the garden was cool but she took a small fan from her sleeve and began to use it, laughing while she did so. “I am hot as soon as the snow is gone,” she said.

They sat for a moment in silence. Madame Kang looked at her friend lovingly and without jealousy. “Ailien, I did not know what to bring you for a birthday gift. So I brought you this—”

She reached into the loose bosom of her wide blue satin robe and brought out a little box. This she handed to her friend.

Madame Wu recognized the box as she took it. “Ah, Meichen, do you really want to give me your pearls?”

“Yes, I do.” Across Madame Kang’s plain good face a flicker passed as of pain.

“Why?” Madame Wu asked, perceiving it.

Madame Kang hesitated, but only for a moment. “The last time I wore them, my sons’ father said they looked like dewdrops on a melon.” Madame Kang smiled. Then tears came to her eyes. She paid no heed to them, and they rolled slowly down her cheeks and splashed on the thick satin over her bosom without penetrating it.

Madame Wu saw them without appearing to do so. She did not move in her chair. In her hands she held the box of pearls. She had often let Madame Kang talk of her difficulties with Mr. Kang. Neither of them had ever talked of Mr. Wu, beyond a word or two put in by Madame Kang.

“Ah, Ailien,” she would say, “your sons’ father is so little trouble to you. So far I have never heard of his even entering a house of flowers. But my man—well, he is good, too. Yes, only—”

At this point Madame Kang always paused and sighed.

“Meichen,” Madame Wu had once said many years ago, “why not allow him to enjoy himself so long as he always comes home before morning?” She had never forgotten the look of shame that came into her friend’s honest eyes. “I am jealous,” Madame Kang had declared. “I am so jealous that my blood turns to fire.”

Madame Wu, who had never known what jealousy was, became silent. This was something in her friend which she could not understand. She could understand it less when she remembered Mr. Kang, who was an ordinary wealthy merchant and not even handsome. He was shrewd but not intelligent. She could not imagine any pleasure in being married to him.

“I have been wanting for a long time to tell you something,” she said now after a moment. “At first, when I began thinking about it I thought I would ask your advice. But—I have not. Now I think it is beyond advice. It has already become certainty.”

Madame Kang sat waiting while she fanned herself. The slight breeze from the fan dried her tears. She wept and laughed easily out of the very excess of her goodness. In this friendship she knew humbly that she took the second place. It was not only that she was not beautiful, but in her own mind she did nothing so well as Madame Wu. Thus with all her efforts her house, though as large and as handsome as this one, was seldom clean and never ordered. In spite of her every endeavor, the servants took charge of it, and convenience rather than good manners had become the habit. When she came here she felt this, although living in her house she did not see it. But she often told herself that anyone who came into Madame Wu’s presence grew better for it, and this was perhaps the chief reason why she continued to come ten times to this house to Madame Wu’s one visit to her own house.

“Whatever you want to tell me,” she now said.

Madame Wu lifted her eyes. They were long and large, and the black irises were very distinct against the white, and this gave them their look of ageless youth. She spoke with cool clarity. “Ailien, I have decided that today I shall ask my sons’ father to take a concubine.”

Madame Kang’s round mouth dropped ajar. Her white small teeth, which were her one beauty, showed between her full lips. “Has—he—has he, too—” she gasped.

“He has not,” Madame Wu said. “No, it is nothing like that. Of course, I have never asked what he does at his men’s feasts. That has nothing to do with me or our home. No, it is only for his own sake—and mine.”

“But how—for you?” Madame Kang asked. She felt at this moment suddenly superior in her own relationship to Mr. Kang. Such a step would never have occurred to her, nor, she was sure, to him. A concubine always in the house, a member of the family, her children fighting with the other children, she contending with the first wife for the man—all this would be worse than flower houses.

“I wish for it,” Madame Wu said. She was gazing now into the depths of the clear little pool. The orchids she had plucked an hour ago lay on her knee, still fresh. So quiet was she that in her presence flowers lived many hours without fading.

“But will he consent?” Madame Kang asked gravely. “He has always loved you.”

“He will not consent at first,” Madame Wu said tranquilly.

Now that she had received this news, Madame Kang was full of questions. They poured out of her, and the fan dropped from her hand. “But will you choose the girl—or he? And, Ailien, if she has children, can you bear it? Oh, me, is there not always trouble in a house where two women are under one man’s roof?”

“I cannot complain of it if at my wish he takes her,” Madame Wu said.

“Ailien, you would not compel him?” Madame Kang asked with pleading.

“I have never compelled him to do anything,” Madame Wu replied.

Someone coughed, and both ladies looked up. Ying stood in the doorway. On her round cheerful face was a mischievous look which Madame Wu at once recognized.

“Do not tell me that on this day of all days Little Sister Hsia is here!” she exclaimed. Her lovely voice was tinged with rueful mirth.

“It is she,” Ying said. She stopped to laugh and then covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, heaven, she will hear me,” she whispered. “But Lady, I swear she does not understand a no. I told her you were having guests—”

“Not that it was my birthday!” Madame Wu exclaimed. “I do not want to have to invite her.”

“I am not so stupid as that,” Ying replied. “But I told her that Madame Kang was here.”

“I am going,” Madame Kang said with haste. “I have no time to listen to foreign gospel today. Indeed, Ailien, I came here when I should have been directing the affairs of the house, only to give you my gift.”

But Madame Wu put out her slender hand. “Meichen, you may not go. You must sit here with me, and together we will be kind to her and listen to her. If she does not leave at the end of a half an hour, then you may rise and say farewell.”

Madame Kang yielded, as she always did, being unable to refuse anything to one she loved. She sat down again in great good nature, and Ying went away and came back bringing with her a foreigner, a woman.

“Little Sister Hsia!” she announced.

“Oh, Madame Wu—oh, Madame Kang!” Little Sister Hsia cried. She was a tall, thin, pale woman, now nearly middle-aged, whose birthplace was England. The scanty hair on her head was the color of sand, and she had fish eyes. Her nose was thin and high, and her lips were blue. In her Western dress of striped gray cotton she looked older than she was, but even at her best she could never have been pretty. Long ago the two Chinese ladies had come to this conclusion. But they liked her for her goodness and pitied her for her lonely life in the city where there were so few of her kind. They did not, as some of their friends did, put her off with excuses when she came to see them. Indeed, in this both Madame Wu and Madame Kang were much too kind. But since Little Sister Hsia was a virgin, there could be no talk in her presence of concubines.

“Please sit down, Little Sister,” Madame Wu said in her pretty voice. “Have you eaten your breakfast?”

Little Sister Hsia laughed. She had never, in spite of many years of living in the city, learned to be wholly at ease with the ladies. She laughed incessantly while she talked. “Oh … I get up to box farmers,” she said. She studied Chinese faithfully every day, but since she had a dull ear she still spoke as a Westerner. Now she confused the sounds of two words. The two ladies looked at each other with a faint bewilderment, although they were accustomed to Little Sister’s confusions.

“Box farmers?” Madame Kang repeated.

“Resemble farmers,” Madame Wu murmured. “The two words are much alike, it is true.”

“Oh, did I say that?” Little Sister cried, laughing. “Oh, please, I am too stupid!”

But Madame Wu saw the red rush up from her neck and spot her pale skin, and she understood the tumult in this uneasy foreign heart.

“Ying, bring some tea and some little cakes,” she said. “Bring some of the long-life cakes,” she added, and relented. “Why should I not tell my foreign friend that it is my birthday?”

“Oh, your birthday!” Little Sister Hsia cried. “Oh, I didn’t know—”

“Why should you know?” Madame Wu asked. “I am forty years old today.”

Little Sister Hsia gazed at her with eyes that were wistful. “Forty?” she repeated. She fluttered her hands and laughed her meaningless shy laughter. “Why,” she stammered, “why, Madame Wu, you look twenty.”

“How old are you, Little Sister?” Madame Kang asked politely.

Madame Wu looked at her with gentle reproach. “Meichen, I have never told you, but it is not polite, according to the Western custom, to ask a woman’s age. My second son’s wife, who has lived in Shanghai and knows foreigners, told me so.”