Vincent H. Gowen

“ In the first grayness of twilight the red candles glowed in their pewter sticks, the incense went up in faint spirals, the courtyard was redolent of burning sandalwood. The women stood round, hushed by a spirit of awe close to tears, when the bride bowed gravely in front of the glittering tablet, separating herself by this simple act from the host of spirits whose name she had borne. With the same trance-like dignity Nancy bowed to the t'ai-t'ai. Then she let herself be led to her father, who was too ill, too sad to receive her worship before the eyes of the feasters. ”

“ It was childish. "What kind of husband do you want, Nancy?"
The question cut shabbily into the passionless quiet of Nancy's trance. The sunlight and the wind seemed to have gone on and left her behind them. All that lovable outdoor world was receding as life itself might recede from a dying man. Frantic anxiety rent the girl's heart, a wish to rush out and call on all these things to wait, not to hurry so fast, lest she never again hear the birds singing or play with Edward through the brilliant hours of the morning.
"What kind of husband do you want, Nancy?" ”

“ She did not hear him approach.
"Good afternoon, Nancy," he said, "it is a long, long time since the happy day when we met. You don't go roving any more to temples."
The girl gave him a startled glance. A look of momentary fear gleamed in her eyes. Gladness came next, and then misery. The wind had blown her hair in disarray over her forehead till it was like a veil behind which her thoughts seemed to hide. Nasmith longed to draw them out from their covert, to see whether they were happy thoughts, whether they dwelt with contentment on the betrothal by which they were bound. ”

“ It would be better if we were enjoying to-day instead of weeping over to-morrow. I have been weak, fickle, changeable, Nancy, and I have tried to blame you, tried to put the burden upon you. Here I have even been so irresolute as to hand over my will for you to direct. That was a thing no father should ask of his daughter. After all, what does it matter how much trust we put into our paltry schemes, what is the use of vexing ourselves, when the stars, whether we like it or not, decide our lives for us? You were right: autumn leaves do fall. ”

“ I have had to talk for years, Nancy. I have had to make myself talk. You will too. You are only just beginning to know what life is."
Kuei-lien was treating herself richly to her own medicine. In the last few weeks her manner toward Nancy had been growing increasingly kinder till she found herself bearing Nancy's pain with her own. To-night, in this still room, the secret that lay between herself and the girl she was tending overpowered her veins with a surging pity so that she chattered desperately to hold back the recurring treacherous need to break down and weep. ”

“ Don't you understand, don't you see, Nancy? Must I go over it all again! He doesn't want this marriage. It is only his stubbornness, his obstinacy that makes him cling to it. I showed you his own words, the scrolls he wrote for me; he told me that these were the truth and that the best part of my life would come when I found out the meaning for myself. If they were the truth, then your marriage is false and your father is false to himself, false to his own heart's desire in allowing it. It will kill him; remember that—it will kill him. ”

“ The age-old traditions of the bridal took her out of common places and common scenes, they invested her with sadness and fear, made her too holy to be touched, too lovely to be worshiped, set upon her face the pathetic seal of flowers at their blossoming.
Even the scoffing spirit of Kuei-lien was awed by her handiwork. With a caressing touch the concubine proceeded to her task, helping Nancy into the voluminous scarlet folds of her skirt, fastening the gold buttons of her scarlet tunic, slipping bangles over her wrists and setting gently on her glossy hair the headdress of pearls. ”

“ When she descanted upon the cleanliness of the Ferris family, the unashamed use of soap and water, the delicacy which did not tolerate dust and cobwebs even in corners where they could not be seen, the splendor of the dinner table set with linen and silver and shining glasses, the manners and dress of the children, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the pantry, it was only a step to her memories of Nancy's mother and of stories she got new zest, fresh energy, to tell for the hundredth time. ”

“ In fear she gave herself up to the will of her stepmother and submitted without words to being taught the ceremonies of her wedding, to being set up like a doll for the fitting of the bridal garments. Despite Kuei-lien's laughing advice, she remained remote and aloof, the seething bustle of the household eddying unheeded round her body, which was the only part that her eyes gave them the feeling they could claim. Where her thoughts were no one could tell, no one indeed had the curiosity to search out except Kuei-lien, whose spirit of irony was amused by the puzzle of the silent girl. ”

“ And yet it was this cold stranger who was receiving the precious eight characters, the red cards Nancy knew with a superstitious shudder were being taken away like some virtue gone out of her.
Nancy contemplated these matters with a gentle bitterness. From years back this hour had been inevitable; perhaps she had been spoiled by its having been so long delayed. She could not complain, but her heart was sad, filled with foreboding of that second more sinister hour when she must be locked into the scarlet bridal chair. When that hour should come, whether soon or late, she had no clue. ”

“ Nancy hid her burning cheeks for shame at the concubine's unsparing frankness.
"Pooh, that's nothing to be afraid of," declared Kuei-lien. "You can be mistress there, even if you are the bride. Your husband will be more frightened than you to be shut up with a strange woman, and a foreigner at that, behind those happy curtains. They will fill him full of wine to make him brave. He's only a boy, nothing to shrink from or blush about. Marriage is marriage and a bridal bed is a bridal bed; it is foolish pretending to be so delicate about things that have to be. ”

“ By evening time no one cared whether Herrick had died yesterday or to-day or a thousand years ago.
People from the streets had joined the guests in a clamorous entry into the bridal chamber, long before which time Nancy had been taken from the quieter feast of the women and prepared for the ordeal to which every Chinese bride must submit, when she stands the rude inspection of the crowd. This is always an occasion of ribald wit,—curiously allowed by the custom of years,—in which strangers do their best by the indelicacy of their remarks to disconcert and embarrass the "new woman." ”

“ Nancy enjoyed the long walks, the start in the cool of the morning, the chattering climb to some far-off temple where the trees provided shade and the bushes, tangling among boulders, gave covert in which the girls swiftly stripped off their clothes and climbed into swimming suits for an hour's diving and splashing in a clear warm pool. Though she envied them, she never could quite be persuaded to join them. Edward emerged fearlessly and was soon out with the men, swimming like a young spaniel, but his sister allowed herself only once to be led charily to the brink of the pool. ”

“ They spent themselves, for the present, on the hills which taxed her legs and revealed to her eyes so many novelties of sight. Edward, on the other hand, prattled continuously, amusing his father by his voluble excitement over every strange blossom and his certainty that every cave contained a leopard or a tiger.
"Ah, there's English in you, my lad," said the father wistfully, "you ought to be playing cricket."
"What is cricket?" asked the boy, instantly curious.
"I'll show you," said Herrick, beaming from indulgent memories of his own youth. ”

“ With the rest of her husband's family she bundled uncomfortably into a third-class carriage, squeezing herself so tightly between baskets and bedding that she sat as though cramped stiffly in a vise. Everyone spoke shrilly; the early hour, the bitterly frosty morning, had set their tempers on edge. No one was in a mood to enjoy the novelty of a railway ride. Nancy looked wearily at the dingy houses they passed, wondered if their occupants could be unhappier than she was; she saw in the distance the blue roofs of the Temple of Heaven, but paid no heed ”

“ He had no heart to reproach the girl for persisting in the wedding she might have stopped. With her face marred by grief, he could not ask her if she were happy, if she were contented with her new home. The words would have mocked their own meaning.
"Nancy," he did at last summon courage to say, "it is no use weeping over the dead any more. It doesn't help them at all. If your father doesn't know, then your tears are wasted; if he does know, then he will be the more unhappy to see you so sad. The living are what we have to think of—you and Edward. ”

“ There were times when Herrick's gloomy room was lit up by the splendor of Kuei-lien's beauty, when the concubine herself, great in the austere perfection of her presence, was not great enough to vie with the golden illusion she created.
Often the pain of these supreme illusions drove the man into frenzy; at other times it quieted his heart, as though there were nothing more to be satisfied with in life. ”

“ No hiding away in an ignorant village, no father-in-law and mother-in-law and a whole courtyard of mangy relations tyrannizing over you, but your own home, friends to visit and be visited, and a husband who will love and reverence your slightest wish. Ah, Nancy, how can I tell you these things, how can I make you know that I love you, that life won't be life for me if I cannot have you? ”

“ All this Ronald heard in the weird music of the procession, as the coffin and its mourners moved slowly toward the gates of the city; he felt that the road Timothy Herrick was traveling, this same road there was no one to prevent his daughter from taking, despite all her lovable instincts for joy and for beauty—no one good enough to prevent her from following in her own desolate hour. ”

“ She was not seriously touched by their dissuasion because her latest ambition was still far from taking deep root. Suddenly attracted by the purity of heaven and earth and growing things, she had put into words an unformed wish, but the wish had no kinship to the sordid details of the dining-room gossip. There was momentary longing to be caught up from the turmoil of humankind, but the longing did not persist. Nancy was glad enough to jest with Kuei-lien and the amah, she needed the sight of Edward's cheerful face and relished the savoriness of the evening meal. ”

“ From those far-off glittering days she seemed to look back at Nancy and to know why she had been weeping.
"Those tears were not for Ming-te," she said quietly.
"No, they were not for Ming-te," Nancy confessed.
"Why did your father wish to marry you to him? Were there no others? Or did he become tired?"
"He became tired," answered Nancy, scarcely knowing what she said.
"Ah, that is our weakness when we become old. We do grow tired of searching out the equal of our hopes. ”

“ Nancy's face was white, but the girl was still sufficiently mistress of her lips to answer with an even-toned composure:—
"It is our custom, you see—"
"It is not our custom, and you are one of us, Nancy. It is an unthinkable, disgraceful thing! It is bad enough that you should have had all the best years of your life stolen from you because of your father's selfishness in bringing you up like a Chinese, but to be handed over to a greasy mandarin or coolie or whatever he is, that is more than you have any business to allow. You've got to do something to bring the man to his senses." ”

“ Such was Nancy's respect for Kuei-lien's superior acquaintance with life that she never thought of the concubine as only two years older than herself, nor that what her words suggested in her own case must also be true in Kuei-lien's. And there was the further difference that a concubine is not a wife; for a man of fifty to take a concubine of seventeen was only reasonable; to take a wife of seventeen would have been extraordinary. Nancy could not have imagined a man living unmarried to the ripe age of fifty. ”

“ I can't keep quiet when I see anything as wicked as this marriage to which you are being sacrificed. If I went to your father to-day, don't you think he would hear me? If I told him to have his own way, to keep you where he pleased till you are twenty, couldn't we break this engagement?"
"We don't break engagements," the girl answered proudly. She turned cool, almost cold in her firmness, now that Nasmith had been betrayed into what she felt was a dishonorable weakness. "My father doesn't change and I don't change. We have promised."
"Fiddlesticks! Engagement is not marriage. ”

“ The impressionable Patricia was convinced only with difficulty that the road was too long; she wept as though she were parting from lifelong friends. To the inexpressible astonishment of Edward and Nancy, Mrs. Ferris gathered each of them into her motherly arms and kissed them. Would they all expect to do this, Nancy asked herself? Why did nice people have such barbarous customs? She might kiss Helen and Elizabeth, if she saw they were disappointed, but she never could kiss Mr. Beresford and Mr. Nasmith. ”

“ Ronald was moved by the loneliness of Herrick's burial-ground. It was so tranquil that he, too, half envied the dead man's privilege of sleeping quietly with all the scenes he had loved, the serene clarity of the Western Hills, the climbing palaces of Wan Shou Shan, the towers and golden roofs of Peking, compassing from the far distance the little circle of pine and cypress round the grave. ”