Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

She moved from this room into her own bedroom and walked slowly back and forth, her satin-shod feet noiseless on the smooth tiles.

The girl seemed as open as a child. All her heart and nature lay revealed to anyone. But this meant she was undeveloped, and how would she develop? She was not a fool. Her eyes were quick with intelligence. Her lips were tender in their fullness. Was she perhaps too intelligent? There was also the silk garment and the fine embroidery. Her blood was not common, unless perhaps the mother had been a maidservant in a rich family. Yes, there was a possibility that this girl was the child of a maidservant in such a family, gotten with child by one of the sons, perhaps, and this garment had been given out of the discard of her mistress. Or it might be that some teahouse girl had worn such a garment and had given it to a child, unwanted.

“It is impossible to tell what this girl is,” Madame Wu murmured to herself.

Did she want to take into her house so unknown a being? She could not answer this. She went back after a while to the library. The girl was sitting there alone, looking frightened in the big, shadow-filled room. She held her hands clasped on her knees. The meal was finished, and Ying had taken away the bowls. When she saw Madame Wu she rose, and relief beamed on her face.

“What shall I do now, Elder Sister?” she asked. The name came to her lips trustfully and warmed Madame Wu against her will. She was wary of giving affection too soon.

“What do you usually do at this hour?” she asked.

“I always go to bed as soon as I have eaten at night,” the girl replied. “It wastes candlelight to sit up after it is dark.”

Madame Wu laughed. “Then perhaps you had better go to bed,” she said. She led the way into the room where the narrow bed lay waiting. “There is your bed, and beyond that door yonder is the room where you may make yourself ready.”

“But I am ready,” the girl replied. “I washed myself clean before I came here. I will take off my outer clothes and that is all.”

“Then I will see you tomorrow,” Madame Wu replied.

“Until tomorrow,” the girl replied. “But I beg you, Elder Sister, if you want anything in the night, please call me.”

“If I need you I will call,” Madame Wu said, and went out of the room to her own.

Long after she had gone to bed herself she could not sleep. Toward midnight she rose and went into the other room and lit the candle and looked at the girl while she slept. She had not tossed nor even stirred. She lay on her right side, one hand under her cheek. She breathed easily, her mouth closed, her face rosy. In her sleep she was even prettier than when she was awake. Madame Wu observed this. She observed also that the girl did not move or snore. The covers were drawn neatly to her waist. She slept in her cotton undergarments, but she had unfastened her collar so that her round neck showed and part of her breast. One breast Madame Wu could see quite clearly. It was young and round and firm.

She slept deeply, still without stirring. This was good. Madame Wu herself had always been a light sleeper, waking instantly if Mr. Wu so much as turned in the bed and then unable to sleep again. But this girl would sleep soundly all night and wake fresh in the morning. Madame Wu shielded the candle with her hand and bent near to the girl’s face. Still the same sweet breath! She straightened and went back to her own room and pinched out the candle between her thumb and finger and lay down again.

She was awakened before dawn by small sounds from the other room. The bamboo bed creaked, something rustled. She woke, as she always did, to the full, and lay listening. Was the girl preparing to run away at this hour? She rose and put on her robe and lit the candle and went out again. The girl was sitting on a stool brushing out her long hair. She was dressed, even to her shoes and white cotton cloth stockings.

“Where are you going?” Madame Wu asked.

The girl was startled by the sound of her voice and dropped the big wooden comb she was using. Her black hair hung about her face.

“I am not going anywhere,” she said. She got to her feet and stared at Madame Wu. Her dark eyes shone out of the flying shadows of her hair. “I am getting up.”

“But why are you getting up at this hour?” Madame Wu asked.

“It is time to get up,” the girl said in surprise. “I heard a cock crow.”

Madame Wu laughed sudden and unusual laughter. “I could not dream to myself why you were getting up, but of course you are a country girl. There is no need, child, for you to get up here. Even the servants will not be awake for an hour yet. And we do not rise for an hour after that.”

“Must I go back to bed?” the girl asked.

“What else can you do?” Madame Wu asked.

“Let me sweep the rooms,” the girl said, “or I will sweep the court.”

“Well, do as you like,” Madame Wu replied.

“I will be quiet,” the girl promised. “You go back, Elder Sister, and sleep again.”

So Madame Wu went back to her bed, and she heard the sound of a broom which the girl had found in the corridor. She used it on court and floor, and her footsteps were light and guarded as she moved about. Then, without knowing, Madame Wu fell asleep again, and when she woke it was late. The sun was shining across the floor, and Ying stood waiting by the bed.

She rose quickly and the rite of dressing began. Ying did not mention the girl, and Madame Wu did not speak. The rooms were silent. She heard nothing.

This silence grew so deep that at last Madame Wu broke it. “Where is the girl?” she asked of Ying.

“She is out there in the court, sewing,” Ying replied. “She had to have something to do, and I gave her some shoe soles for the children.”

From the slight scorn in Ying’s voice Madame Wu understood that she did not think more highly of this girl for wanting to be busy, like a servant. Madame Wu did not speak again. She would not be led by Ying’s likes and dislikes.

Instead she ate her breakfast and then went out into the court. There the girl sat on a small three-legged stool, in the shade of the bamboo. She was sewing, her fingers nimbly pushing the needle through the thick cloth sole. On her middle finger she wore a brass ring for a thimble. She rose when she saw Madame Wu and stood waiting, not speaking first.

“Please sit down,” Madame Wu said. She herself sat down on one of the porcelain garden seats.

Now as it happened this seat was placed so that she sat with her back to the round gate of the court, but the girl sat facing the door. She had no sooner taken her seat on the stool again and lifted her needle, when she looked up and saw someone in that gate. Madame Wu saw her large eyes look up and fall and the peach-colored flush on her cheeks deepened. Madame Wu turned, expecting from this behavior to see a man, perhaps the cook.

But it was not the cook. It was Fengmo, her third son. He stood there, his hand on one side of the entrance staring at the girl.

“Fengmo, what do you want?” Madame Wu asked. She was suddenly conscious of a strange anger because he had come upon her unexpectedly. He was the son whom, she knew herself, she least loved. He was willful and less amiable than Liangmo or Tsemo, and less playful than little Yenmo. When he was small, he had preferred the company of servants to the company of the family, and this she had thought was a sign of his inferiority. She had treated him outwardly exactly as she treated the others, but inwardly she knew she loved him less. Doubtless he had felt this difference, for he seldom came to her, after he was fifteen, unless she sent for him.

“Fengmo, why have you come?” she asked again when he did not answer. He continued to stare at the girl, and she, as though she felt this, lifted her eyelids and glanced at him and let them fall again.