Pearl Buck - Peony

“You should have advised me against it,” he said in great discontent.

“Be still,” she urged. “There is no time to make others.”

So he put on the yellow, and then he was pleased with it after all, for his Chinese robes were of bright blue, and the yellow under-linings were pleasant enough. Over the brocaded blue satin he wore a black velvet jacket buttoned down the front with jade buttons. That his little bride be not frightened, David had chosen to wear Chinese garments altogether for this day, and upon his head he put a round black satin cap and on its top was a round red button.

When all was finished he stood up before Peony for her inspection, and when she saw him there, tall and smiling, his head high, his feet together, the tears swam up into her eyes.

He stepped forward quickly and put his arm around her. “Peony!” he cried softly. “Why do you weep?”

She leaned her cheek for one moment against him. Then she laughed and slipped out of his arm. “You are too beautiful!” she declared. She made herself very busy. “Let me put your collar straight. Have you rubbed musk on your palms as I bade you? David, you will be very happy — I know it — I feel it in my heart!”

“But are you happy?” he insisted.

She turned grave then and she took his hand and put it to her cheek. “I am happy,” she said softly. “Now I know that I shall live in this house — forever and forever, until I die.”

With these words she fled as swiftly as a swallow. But he took her words and considered them. Did she indeed so love him? He was most tender, thinking of her. Peony would demand nothing of him. She could live quite happily here, content with what her life gave her and asking for no stretch of heart or spirit, or for anything that was beyond right and proportion to what she was. He would look after her welfare and keep her with him so long as they lived, not quite his sister, but something more than servant. He would be good to her.

And now his father and mother were coming. He saw them enter the gate, side by side, dressed in their wedding garments. Each had bought new robes, and Ezra’s was of brown satin and Madame Ezra’s was the deep color of purple grapes edged with gold. Ezra had left off his small cap, and Madame Ezra’s gray hair was bare. They came with measured steps, in silence, and he went to meet them and bowed before them. He saw his mother had been weeping, for her eyes were swollen and her lips still quivered, but she did not speak. It was Ezra who said what must be said.

“Are you content, my son?” Ezra asked.

“Well content,” David replied steadily.

He bowed and they bowed to him and then he went with them to the great hall, and there they waited.

Now in another room Wang Ma and Peony waited, too, for the bride. Whispering and peeping at every corner and window were the women servants and the undermaids, and all were expectant and excited. Was the new bride pretty and would she be good to them? Rumors were that she was the prettiest girl in the city, but these were usual rumors before a bride was seen.

At noon, exactly, the bride’s sedan, covered with red satin curtains, arrived at the great gate and a small sedan for Chu Ma and with them panoplied mule carts bringing the bride’s family and their attendants. The sedan was carried into the courts and thence into the place where Peony and Wang Ma waited. Chu Ma came out of her sedan first. But Peony herself, with a begging word, opened the curtains of the bride’s sedan and offered her arm to the bride.

From all around the court sighs and exclamations rose into the air.

“Ah, she is very pretty!”

“Ah, it is all true!”

“Look at her great eyes!”

“Her little feet—”

If the bride heard, she made no sign. She stepped daintily into the doorway, one hand on Peony’s arm and the other on Chu Ma’s.

“Carefully, my mistress!” Chu Ma said in a loud voice. She considered it beneath her to notice any other servants, and she went ahead to smooth the cushion on the chair set for the bride and to feel if it were soft enough and she called imperiously, “Where is the tea? Is it the best? My mistress drinks only what is brewed from the leaves plucked before the rains!”

But Peony had all prepared, and after the little bride had sat a while she grew curious, and since only women were there she put aside her veil. She looked about the room with her big black eyes. “Is this to be my room?” she inquired in her high sweet voice.

“Hush!” Chu Ma said. She pursed her lips. “Brides are not to speak — I told you, you naughty child!”

“I will speak,” the little bride said willfully. “Besides, you said only if there was a man in the room.”

Everyone laughed at this and she laughed, too. Then she saw Peony standing near. “I am glad you are in this house!” she exclaimed. “You are no older than I, are you?”

“I am eighteen, my lady,” Peony said.

“So am I,” the bride said, and clapped her hands, and everybody laughed again. Then she leaned forward to Peony. “Tell me — is his mother very strange?”

Peony shook her head and put her hand over her mouth to hide her smiles.

“But she is foreign?” Kueilan insisted.

“Yes — but not as much as she was,” Peony said.

Madame Ezra had indeed changed very much. She had grown silent and she did not always put her will first. When Leah died, something died in her, too. This all had perceived, without understanding what it was. But Peony knew.

Now there were footsteps in the court. They looked up and there stood David. At once there was confusion, for this was not the time for him to appear.

Chu Ma cried out in alarm, “Your veil, little one!”

But Kueilan did not put up her hand to her veil. Instead she looked at David and he at her. All in the room were astounded at what they saw was happening and they took it to be a foreign custom.

“I know I do what may be considered wrong,” David said to Kueilan very gently. He looked at her without shame, and indeed with the greatest pleasure. She did not reply but she gazed back at him as though she forgot that she should drop her eyes. They looked at each other, and then she said in a small breathless voice, “I think it is not wrong!”

“Then we agree,” David answered, and after a long look more, he bowed and went away. When he was gone Kueilan sat smiling like a little goddess and heard not one word of Chu Ma’s scolding or the smothered laughter from the walls. She let Chu Ma drop her veil and she sat behind it, her eyes bright and her mouth demure.

But Chu Ma continued to scold and she said in distraction, “It is not well for the man to see the woman too early — it brings ill luck to the marriage.”

No one gave her heed, for Peony now hastened the wedding. “Let me lead you to the great hall,” she said to the bride, and the little figure in the stiff embroidered robes of scarlet satin rose and leaned on her arm and Chu Ma went on the other side, and all followed. In the great hall Kung Chen waited with his wife and his sons by his side. Across the room Ezra and Madame Ezra and Kao Lien stood alone. There had been some talk of the Rabbi’s being present, but this morning when Ezra went to see the old man in the rooms where he lived in this house, he found him so dazed and befuddled that he feared to bring him out before guests, and he had left him there under the care of Old Eli, who had been brought here as his servant. As for that Aaron, none had heard of him yet.

The family of Kung missed neither the Rabbi nor his son. They watched the entrance of their child with feelings various and natural to them. The sons were dubious for their sister, but the younger son especially so. The eldest son shared with his father the prudence of business and unity within the nation. Through this little sister the House of Ezra ceased by so much to be foreign, and since Ezra was known as a kind good man, and very rich besides, it was enough. Madame Kung was serene, never exerting herself to worry or overmuch thought, and she saw that the child looked as she should and thought that the marriage was good enough for a third daughter, although she was secretly pleased that the two elder girls were well married to wealthy Chinese families. She held back a yawn, stared at Madame Ezra, and pitied her for being so tall and having so high a nose.