Pearl Buck - Kinfolk

The oil lamp burned on the table and gave a soft yellow light to the walls. Mary had cut a stalk of Indian bamboo with its scarlet berries, and this stood upon the table in an old brown jar. The room looked cheerful and warm.

To Chen this was exceedingly precious. “I do not like to see any change in this house,” he said sadly, “but we must all perceive now that Louise is not here with her heart.”

“Yet I never see her with anyone,” Mary said.

“Young Wang has already told me that she leaves the house every afternoon,” James said quietly. “He says she meets an American.”

“An American!” Mary echoed, stupefied at Louise and her deception. Then she was hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded of James.

“Because you are such an impetuous little thing,” he replied, looking at her with eyes both fond and humorous, “because you are like a brimming cup, always ready to spill over, or a small firecracker, ready to explode—”

He dodged Mary’s open palm, and Chen put out his hand and pretended to give James a mighty slap. They laughed and settled down again, and Mary’s face took on its look of lively concern.

“But why does Louise hide it from us?”

“I suppose she thinks that since Pa sent her here to get away from Americans, we would prevent her,” James said. He was smoking his old American pipe and suddenly he looked weary.

“We must stop her!” Mary exclaimed.

This James did not answer. He continued to smoke, his eyes very dark.

Now Chen began to talk gravely. “Several things begin to be plain to me,” he said. “That boy child at the hospital — Mary, have you looked at him lately?”

“He is quite well,” Mary said with surprise. “The nurses care for him and not I, as you know, but every day I pass his crib and he is sleeping or eating or lying awake. He cries in such a loud voice.”

“Louise went to see that child,” Chen said cautiously.

James took the pipe from his mouth. “There is no reason why you should shield Mary now,” he told Chen. “We had better tell her everything.” They were still speaking in English, lest a servant overhear them.

But it was no servant who overheard. Louise, always sensitive to Mary’s watchfulness, had seen her sister’s eyes follow her thoughtfully as she left the room that night. She had thrown her good night gaily at the three who sat on after Peter had gone, and when she said she was sleepy Mary had not answered. Mary had only looked at her with large quiet eyes, too full of thought. Therefore Louise knew she would not be able to sleep. In a few minutes she had stolen with noiseless feet along the corridors and had hidden herself behind the curtains which divided one room from another. Now she heard what was being said, and filled with horror, she fled back to her room. There she put on a coat and outdoor shoes and still silent she slipped through the dark court, passed the latticed door of the living room, now closed against the sharp night air, and thus she went on through the gate. In the alley she was frightened but she went on to the street where she waved to a passing ricksha. Seated in it, she directed the puller to the house of Dr. and Mrs. Su.

Mrs. Su was her only friend. At her house she met Alec every day. Dr. Su knew nothing of it, but Mrs. Su welcomed the excitement of the romance. All Mrs. Su’s best friends knew about the rendezvous, and most of them had told their husbands. Therefore in the hospital nearly everyone knew that Dr. James Liang’s younger sister was meeting an American, who had returned to Peking after his discharge as a soldier, because he had been in love with a Chinese girl, a nobody, who had died in the hospital after giving birth to a boy who was now a hospital foundling. Louise thought her secret safe with Mrs. Su, and no one had told James or Mary, and no one told Dr. Su because everybody liked the new little Mrs. Su and nobody liked him. The Chinese gossiped prudently. Where it did not matter all was told and discussed, but beyond prudence no one went.

The danger tonight, Louise reminded herself as the ricksha carried her through the darkness, was that Dr. Su was at home. It was only good fortune that could prevent this. Alas, such fortune was not hers. When she had paid the ricksha man and had entered the brightly lit foreign-style house that stood beside the street, she heard Dr. Su’s voice. It was Mrs. Su, however, who came out to meet her when the servant announced her.

“My brother and sister know!” Louise whispered.

At this moment Dr. Su came to the door. “Miss Liang!” he called with the bantering smile that was his approach to all young and pretty women. “Have you run away from home?”

Louise tried to laugh. “I am really only on my way somewhere else,” she said. “I just stopped to see if Mrs. Su would come with me.”

“Where?” Dr. Su asked with ready curiosity.

“Some foreign friends,” Louise said, frightened that everything she said was too near the truth.

“Don’t go, don’t go,” Dr. Su exclaimed. “Stay here with us.”

“Then I must telephone,” Louise said, seizing upon the chance.

Mrs. Su was immediately helpful. “Su,” she said to her husband, “please return to our other guests. I will take Louise to the study.”

Dr. Su turned away and Mrs. Su led Louise into the small study where the telephone stood on the desk and she closed the door.

“Now,” she whispered, “what will you do? Your brother will be angry with my husband if he finds that I have let you meet Alec here. You know I like to help you, Louise, but I must think of my relations with my husband. Su has a very bad temper.”

“You mean Alec mustn’t come here tonight?” Louise faltered.

“He must not come any more if your brother knows,” Mrs. Su said. Her small pretty face was pale. “You know, Louise, what you do may be all right in America but here it is serious. And I am my husband’s fourth wife. He is not too patient with me. Such a fine man as Su with a good job can get plenty of women to marry him.”

Louise felt her heart grow hard toward Mrs. Su and all Chinese women, but she asked, “May I telephone?”

“Certainly that,” Mrs. Su said quickly.

“Then please — may I be alone?”

Mrs. Su hesitated. “I ought better to stay here,” she said, “but then I like to say I didn’t know anything about it. I will stand outside the door.”

So saying she went out and closed the door and Louise called the hotel where Alec Wetherston was living. His voice answered, a pleasant tenor at whose sound her lips quivered.

“Alec, it’s me — Louise.”

“Why, darling!” His voice took on depth. “Where are you?”

“At the Su house. Alec, my brother and sister know about us.”

There was silence for a long moment and she said anxiously, “Alec, do you hear me?”

“Yes, I was just thinking fast, darling.” His voice was somewhat breathless. “What will they do?”

“I don’t know but I’ve got to see you.”

“Shall I come over there?”

“Mrs. Su is afraid.”

“But what’ll we do, darling? I suppose you couldn’t come here to the hotel?”

“People would recognize me — you know how they are.”

“I could meet you at the hotel door and we could walk.”

“All right — in fifteen minutes.”

She hung up the receiver and went out into the hall. Mrs. Su was still standing there, watching the door of the living room. A burst of laughter pealed out.

“I am going home,” Louise said. “Just tell Dr. Su I had to go on, after all.”

The two young women tiptoed down the hall; Mrs. Su opened the door, and Louise went out. She was beginning to be frightened because for the first time in her life she was acting quite alone. In New York there had always been Estelle to praise her for her independence and here, until now, there had been Mrs. Su. Now she had no one. Estelle was far away and Mrs. Su was a coward, like all Chinese — cowards when it came to real courage. How she hated being Chinese herself! She must go back to America. If she married an American she could be an American, almost. At least her children would be American and she, their mother — it was her only escape.