Pearl Buck - Pavilion of Women

“That was thoughtful of you,” she told him. “You are entirely wise.” She looked up at him affectionately. He was a tall man, somewhat fat, for he was fond of food. “How are you this morning?” she asked. “You look like a prince of Chu.”

“Well,” he replied, “very well.” But she discovered a certain impatience in him. She smiled.

“I have not forgotten you,” she said. Her pretty voice was rich with tenderness.

“I feel as though you had,” he grumbled. He opened his jacket and fanned his bare breast swiftly and hard for a moment. “I have been very lonely, waiting for you to make up your mind. I am a good husband, Ailien! Another man would not have stood for this separation for so long. All these days! Enough, I say!”

“I have not forgotten you for one moment,” she said. “I have diligently searched, and the young woman is here.”

A fine red sprang into Mr. Wu’s face. “Ailien,” he said, “do not speak of that again.”

“You must have heard she was here,” Madame Wu went on in her clear voice.

“I pay no heed to servants’ talk,” he said and looked lordly. But this she knew as merely his picture of himself. He listened to all his manservant told him and laughed at his jokes, for the man was a clown and knew that his master liked to laugh.

Madame Wu moved gracefully to a garden seat. “The young woman is truly suitable,” she murmured. Her delicate hands fell into their usual tranquillity upon her lap. “Healthy, young, pretty, innocent—”

“Do you have no jealousy whatever?” he interrupted her harshly. The clear sunlight fell upon him as he stood, and she appreciated the picture it made of him — shining black hair, smooth golden skin, handsome lips, and large bold eyes.

“You are so handsome,” she said smiling, “that I might be jealous were she not so much a child, so simple, so less than nothing between you and me.”

“I cannot understand why you have grown so monstrously cold overnight,” he complained. “Ailien, last week you were — as you have always been. This week—”

“I have passed my fortieth birthday,” she said for him, still smiling. Then she motioned to the seat beside her. “Come,” she coaxed him, “sit down.”

He had scarcely taken his seat when she saw Fengmo pass the door. He looked in, saw his parents side by side, and went away quickly.

“Fengmo!” she called. But the boy did not hear her and did not return.

“We must marry that third son of ours,” she told Mr. Wu. “What would you say if I spoke to Madame Kang at once — perhaps tomorrow — and asked for Linyi?”

“You have always chosen the boys’ wives,” he returned.

“Tsemo chose his own,” she reminded him. “I wish to avoid that mistake with Fengmo.”

“Well enough,” he said. She was pleased to see that there was no interest in his voice at the thought of Linyi. He had forgotten her. He was thinking only of himself. She decided to speak directly, as though she had ordered him a new suit of clothes or a pair of shoes.

“Unless you are unwilling, I will send the girl to you tomorrow,” she said.

The bright red came back again to Mr. Wu’s cheeks. He put his thumb and forefinger into the small pocket of his jacket and brought out a package of foreign cigarettes, took one out and lit it. “I know you are so devilish stubborn a woman that I could kill myself beating against your wish,” he muttered between clouds of smoke. “Why should I kill myself?”

“Have I ever made you less happy by my stubbornness?” she inquired. Her voice was bright with laughter. “Has it not always been stubbornness for your sake?”

“Do not talk to me about this matter,” he said. He blew a sudden gust of smoke. “Never mention the girl to me again!”

“There is no reason why we should talk about her,” Madame Wu agreed. “I will send her to you tomorrow night.”

She saw a second shape at the gate to the court and recognized her eldest son, Liangmo. He also was passing by, or so it seemed.

“Liangmo!” she called. But Liangmo also went and did not return.

Mr. Wu rose abruptly. “I now recall I promised to meet a man at the teahouse,” he told Madame Wu. “The land steward thinks we should buy that pocket of a field that my grandfather, three generations ago, gave to one of his servants who saved his life. The man’s descendants are ready to sell, and it would restore the land to its old shape.”

“A very good thing,” she said, “but it must not cost more than seventy-five dollars to the fifth of an acre.”

“We might give him eighty dollars,” Mr. Wu said.

“I shall be happy if it is no more,” she told him. “We must think of our children.”

“Not more than eighty,” Mr. Wu promised. He turned and went into the house, and she too rose and prepared to go on her way. But at the threshold Mr. Wu stopped and turned. He looked at her. “Ailien,” he cried, “I cannot take the blame for anything!”

“Who will blame you?” she replied. “And, by the bye, I have forgotten to tell you her name. It is Ch’iuming. She will be brightness in your autumn.”

Mr. Wu heard this, opened his mouth, closed it, and walked away.

Madame Wu looked down at the fading orchids with thoughtful eyes. “He wanted to curse me,” she thought, “but he did not know how to do it.”

She suddenly felt timid and longed to return to her own quiet rooms. But she knew she must not, in duty to her sons, who would be expecting her. Son by son she must visit them all.

She found Liangmo in the next court which was his and his family’s own home. It was a happy, lively home. Liangmo’s small son was playing with his nurse in the court, and he came to Madame Wu when she came in. She fondled his cheeks and stooped to smell his sweet flesh.

“Little meat dumpling,” she said tenderly. “Ah, your cheeks are fragrant!”

Liangmo heard her voice and came out of the house. He was dressed for the street. “Here I am, Mother. I was about to go outside the city and see how the rice is growing. It’s time to measure the harvest.”

“Put off your going, my son,” she said. He held out his arm and she placed her hand on it for support and thus he led her to a garden seat under a pine tree that had been trained to curve over it like a canopy.

“I have come to ask that you go with your father to the teahouse. He is thinking of buying back the parcel of land that the Yang family have had these three generations. The present son is an opium smoker, as you know, and it is a good chance to secure that land again into our own holding. But you must go and see that not more than seventy dollars is offered. Your father talks eighty. But it can be had for seventy. People rob us because they think we are rich, and no one is rich enough to be robbed.”

“I will go, Mother, of course,” he said. She saw him hesitate and knew at once that he wished to ask about Ch’iuming. But she had made up her mind that she would not talk of the girl with any son. It was not well to allow one generation to discuss another.

“Where is Meng?” she asked. “I have not seen her since my birthday. I want to ask her — and you, too, my son — what do you think of Linyi for Fengmo’s wife?”

“Linyi?” Liangmo had not thought of it. “But will Fengmo let you decide for him?”

“If he will not, then I will let him decide for himself to marry Linyi,” Madame Wu said with her pretty soft laugh. “I never compel anyone to anything.”

At this moment Meng came out of the house. Her chief fault was that she was sleepy in the morning and slatternly for an hour or two after she rose. This morning when she heard Madame Wu she had been sitting in her night garments with her hair uncombed. She had hastened into the inner room and made herself decent. Now she came out looking like a rose, neither bud nor full blown. Her new pregnancy made her soft and mild with lassitude. Her great eyes were liquid, and her lips were parted. In her ears she had put the pearls that Madame Wu had given her.