The Chinese doyenne and autocrat of the Sêns and the young English wife
of the house met two days later.
If the meeting was not awkward, it was badly circumscribed. Ya Tin knew
not a word of the other’s tongue, and Sên Ruby scarcely a score of Ya
Tin’s.
Their meeting was only decently ceremonial, and Madame Sên had made no
elaborate and hampering toilet today. She was a sensible old creature
and did the little she could to give the younger and so foreign woman a
friendly and unembarrassing welcome. Since she had consented to receive
Sên Ruby at all and in doing so acknowledge and condone a marriage she
strongly deplored—and she had consented in reply to a letter King-lo
had sent her from London, her answer reaching them in Hongkong—she,
having consented, intended to show Sên Ruby all not too inappropriate
kindnesses. But the language barrier was insurmountable. Sên King-lo
acted as interpreter, but conversation so spoken cools in the process
and grows increasingly difficult. And Sên Ya Tin was by nature and habit
unbending and had no knack of assuming an easy congeniality that she
never had felt. She had few affections; the few that she had were
veritable passions. But between them and icy indifference and vitriolic
hate Sên Ya Tin was almost devoid of creature feeling. She was critical
and self-indulgent to a degree. She was brutally, and sometimes
coarsely, frank. But she had high principles, and she never relaxed in
her personal adherence to them—no matter what the cost to her own
inclination and convenience. It was largely from this grandmother that
Sên King-lo had inherited the uprightness of character and relentless
habit of self-analysis that underlay and dominated all his suavity and
sunny good nature. He had inherited also from her no little of his
manliness, but he had inherited from Ya Tin few of his tastes. Indeed,
she had few, and, unlike most women of her years and power, she had no
foibles. Her sometimes wearing yellow was not a foible, it was an
assertion. China until recently was an empire of innumerable
kingdoms—and queendoms—and in her own Sên Ya Tin would brook little
control, and still less dictation.
For a Chinese woman she was very untalkative. Nothing escaped her
narrow, bead-like eyes; little came free to her tongue. But she always
spoke the truth—almost un-Chinese in this, and, too, it must be owned,
a little unfeminine. She was capable of almost incredible indifference,
but also, though far more rarely, of exquisite sympathy. She was almost
devoid of a sense of humor—almost denying her Chinese blood in that.
Few had heard her laugh, and no one, but three men who were dead, ever
had seen her smile. She cared for few amusements—unless her pipe was
one—and she was not industrious. She was intellectual, but read few
books—cared little to whet her mind on the minds of others. Argument
vexed her. Conference and conversation bored her. The music that King-lo
so loved was nothing to her, and the poetry that fed him as the river
feeds the verdure and cereals on its banks never nourished and rarely
pleased her. She took flowers for granted, but she liked and understood
fine stuffs. Ivories interested her, and lacquers enchanted. She liked
all animals, and they liked her. She regarded children as belongings and
possibilities. She was ruthless to servants. She ate but little and paid
little heed to what she ate, or when. She was without religion, except
for her personal creed and observance of uprightness and her belief in
China and her loyalty to it. Her nepotism was broad but easy-going, more
her one milk of human kindness than a cult. She loved the stars and
gloried in them and was no mean astronomer. She had few superstitions
and no cheap ones. She was not prejudiced. She had a fine and very
mathematical mind, though she cared more for color than for form. She
had little imagination but great intuition. She was neither a man’s
woman nor a woman’s woman. She thought most women dolls or harpies and
most men gullible and weak. She liked or disliked, if she did either, at
first sight, and she never changed her mind.
During the scant half-hour of their initial visit, Sên Ya Tin repelled
Ruby, who thought her ugly, sour, and mediocre. But Sên King-lo saw that
Ya Tin liked, and in some odd, strong way approved of, his English wife,
and his heart leapt and his courage quickened that she did. He had not
expected it, and it seemed to brace and stamp the self-respect of what
he had done and the un-Chinese choice he had made.
He wondered why his grandmother did. She could have told him. She, too,
had caught a something Chinese in this alien granddaughter-in-law. She
liked Ruby’s uncringing manner—to which she was unused in the women her
sons and her sons’ sons had married. And she thought the younger woman
rather brave than foolish to have made both the marriage and the journey
she had. There was nothing that Sên Ya Tin admired more than she did
courage.
Sên Ya Tin questioned.
Sên King-lo translated.
Mrs. Sên answered.
Sên King-lo translated.
Over and over again—that and only that.
Then the small bowls of green, smoking tea and the scant sweetmeats came
and were given and taken without a word.
Then Sên Ya Tin dismissed them.