Pearl Buck - Peony

“I will feed you,” she said tenderly.

She feared lest David ask her how he came to be lying in his bed. But he did not ask. He drank slowly, mouthful by mouthful, the warm sweet mixture. Red sugar was to make blood. Then he had lost much blood. That was why he was weak. His head pained him greatly. He remembered why this was. Leah had struck him with the sword. He saw her wild beautiful face, her hands holding the uplifted sword. As long as he lived he would remember. Nothing she could say or do would make him forget. And she was sleeping!

“My head hurts me,” he muttered.

“I will give you a little opium,” Peony said, going back to the table. She prepared the opium pipe, heating the pill of opium until it was soft, and then going back to the bed she put the mouthpiece to David’s lips.

“Breathe it in, Young Master,” she said.

He breathed it in again and again and the fumes curled about the paths of his brain. The pain eased and in the gradual relief he saw Peony’s face, surrounded by light.

“How kind — how — how kind — how kind—” he began, and he could not leave off babbling.

She put her hand on his lips and stilled them. “I love you,” she said distinctly. “I could never hurt you — I love you. Do you hear me?”

He smiled in delightful drowsiness and could not answer. He sank into velvet softness, smelled fragrance, heard music, saw Peony’s face over and over again, tender with love, and his eyes closed.

When Peony was sure he slept, she felt the pulse in his wrist. It was stronger than it had been. She could leave him safely for the few moments she needed to go and tell Madame Ezra that he had waked and had eaten and now was sleeping again. Silently she went into the other room and passed Old Wang, sleeping in a chair beside the table, his head on his folded arms. Ezra had commanded him to stay the night, ready for Peony’s bidding. Pitying him in his sleep, Peony went on without waking him.

The house was strange at night, silent in the soft darkness. She walked lonely through one court and the next. At each gate a paper lantern was hung to guide her, and she followed the dim light. When she passed her own court Small Dog heard her and pattered after her, sniffing and yawning.

Thus they came to Madame Ezra’s court. A light burned in the bedroom and there Peony went. Madame Ezra was sitting up against pillows, asleep in her bed. She had not meant to sleep, doubtless, but weariness had been too much for her. Her head was thrown back, her mouth was slightly open, and she was breathing deeply.

Peony stood between the parted curtains, and dreaded to wake her. “Mistress — Mistress,” she called. She made her voice very soft at first, then louder, winning back the wandering troubled soul.

Madame Ezra choked and started. “Eh!” she cried, and opening her eyes, she started forward and stared at Peony. Her soul was still only halfway home, and Peony took her hands and clapped them.

“Nothing but good news,” she murmured. “Our young lord waked, he ate, he sleeps again.”

Madame Ezra came fully to herself. “Is he asking for me?”

Now Peony did not want to say that he had not asked for his mother, so she replied, “He was still confused with pain in his head, and after he had eaten I made the pipe ready, and eased him. He is asleep again.”

“Did he say nothing?” Madame Ezra demanded. She pulled her hands away from Peony’s.

“He called Leah’s name,” Peony replied.

“What did you tell him?” Madame Ezra demanded.

“I told him she was sleeping,” Peony said.

Madame Ezra leaned back and sighed.

“I must return to him,” Peony went on.

“When he wakes do not tell him Leah is dead,” Madame Ezra commanded her.

“I will not,” Peony promised, and she went back again, pausing only to lock Small Dog into her room lest David wake.

David was still sleeping when she came to him, and Peony herself felt very weary. Now that he had eaten she did not fear so much that he might die, and she crept upon the foot of his bed and curled herself small on top of the covers and thought how she would conceal Leah’s death for a day or two, at least. So tender was David’s conscience that he would blame himself somehow for what had happened. Yet how was anyone to blame except Leah herself, and her own god-driven soul?

“How to make him believe this!” Peony murmured distressfully.

Yet he must believe it, or Leah’s power would continue over him as long as he lived. He would cling, as all his people did, to his own suffering.

“We must distract him,” Peony told herself resolutely. “We must amuse him and make him happy in spite of himself.”

Upon this resolution she fell asleep.

Yet how could Leah’s death be hidden from David? When he woke in the morning he asked no one where she was, but his eyes were thoughtful. Peony felt him stir and she was up and tending him and Ezra came in soon after dawn, before he had washed or dressed, and Madame Ezra came, wrapped in a great quilted robe, and Wang Ma came and Old Wang, and servants peered in at the door to see their young master so that they could carry the news outside. Still David asked no question of anyone. The old doctor came again and took off the silk bandages that bound David’s wound, and he stared at the black plasters that held the edges together, and declared that all was as well as possible, and he ordered the best of blood puddings.

“Pig’s blood is best,” he declared.

Ezra looked at his Naomi. “We do not eat pig, Elder Brother,” he said gently to the old Chinese physician, “but if it is necessary for my son’s life—”

“He is young and strong,” the Chinese replied, “and chicken blood will do. Were he very old I would recommend woman’s milk instead of blood.”

So chicken blood was jelled into a pudding with the liver, and red rice was cooked with spinach roots and raw eggs mingled with it, and all this went to mend David’s wasted blood. His mother sat beside him all day and his father came and went restlessly, and still David asked no one of Leah.

But the next day and the next, as he grew stronger, his ear caught certain sounds in the house. Stealthy feet came and went, and once he heard the Rabbi’s voice raised in a cry. Toward evening he heard the pounding of a carpenter’s hammer. His father and mother were with him, and Peony was heating water on the charcoal brazier.

“Mother,” David said.

Madame Ezra rose from the chair in which she was sitting and went to his bed. “Yes, my son?” Her voice was so sad and her whole manner so subdued that she seemed strange.

“Where is Leah?” David asked distinctly.

Madame Ezra turned to look at Ezra. He sat beside the table moving one thumb slowly around the other. “We had better tell him, Naomi,” he muttered.

“Have you punished Leah, Mother?” David cried out. “Ah, that was wrong.”

“God has punished her, my son,” Madame Ezra said. Suddenly she began to weep. This tall, strong, hearty woman, who all her life had taken her own way, fell into an agony of weeping. She could say no more and she hastened from the room and Ezra went after her. There was only Peony left, and it was Peony who had to tell David. She went to him and she told him in soft, gentle, quick words.

“Leah went alone into the other room, while I stood here stanching your blood with my silk girdle. She took up the sword and drew it across her own throat — and her life flowed away.”

He closed his eyes. That blade, melting through the coarse cloth of the caravan loads! He saw it sink into Leah’s flesh. Suddenly he was sick and Peony cried out and held the quilt under his mouth.

“Even dead she hurts you!” she wailed.