MR. WU
By LOUISE JORDON MILN
(MRS. GEORGE CRICHTON MILN)
Based on the Play “Mr. Wu”
By H. M. VERNON and HAROLD OWEN
[Illustration]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company
_Copyright, 1918, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
_First published in the United States
of America, 1920_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I WU CHING YU AND WU LI CHANG 1
II AT RICE 7
III THE MARRIAGE JOURNEY 14
IV WEE MRS. WU 22
V HOMING 27
VI HEART ACHE 31
VII A TORTURED BOYHOOD 36
VIII SOME BALM 45
IX WU LI LU 52
X NANG PING 58
XI IN THE LOTUS GARDEN 62
XII O CURSE OF ASIA! 77
XIII MRS. GREGORY 87
XIV NANG’S VIGIL 93
XV THE MEETING OF THE MOTHERS 98
XVI GRIT 113
XVII THE SIGNAL OF THE GONG 124
XVIII AT THE FEET OF KWANYIN KO 128
XIX PREPARATION 132
XX WHAT WU DID IN PROOF OF LOVE 137
XXI A CONFERENCE 146
XXII SING KUNG YAH’S FLOWERS 156
XXIII AH WONG 161
XXIV IN THE CLUTCH OF THE TONGS 170
XXV WORSE AND WORSE 177
XXVI SUSPENSE 182
XXVII THE BEGINNING OF THE DUEL 190
XXVIII SOMETHING TO GO ON 203
XXIX “WILL YOU VISIT SING KUNG YAH?” 207
XXX SMILING WELCOME 220
XXXI FACE TO FACE 228
XXXII “CUR!” 236
XXXIII A CHINESE TEACHING 241
XXXIV ALONE IN CHINA 246
XXXV THE STORY OF THE SWORD 256
XXXVI IN THE PAGODA AND ON THE BENCH 265
XXXVII THE FAN 270
XXXVIII THE GONG 276
XXXIX AFTERWARDS 286
XL A GUEST ON HIGH 292
XLI “JUST WITH US” 294
XLII THE DUST OF CHINA FROM THEIR FEET 300
XLIII ENGLISH WEDDING BELLS 307
XLIV THE SOUND OF A CHINESE GONG 312
MR. WU
CHAPTER I
WU CHING YU AND WU LI CHANG
A look of terror glinted across the eyes slit in the child’s moon-shaped
yellow face, but he stood stock still and silent--respectful and obedient.
The very old man in the chair of carved and inlaid teak wood saw the
glint of fear, and he liked it fiercely, although he came of a clan
renowned for fearlessness, even in a race that for personal courage
has never been matched--unless by the British, the race which of all
others it most resembles. Old Wu adored little Wu, and was proud of him
with a jealous pride, but he knew that there was nothing craven in the
fear that had looked for one uncontrolled instant from his grandson’s
narrow eye--nothing craven, but love for himself, love of home, and
a reluctance to leave both; a reluctance that he was the last man in
China to resent or to misestimate.
Wu the grandfather was eighty. Wu the grandson was ten.
Rich almost beyond the dreams of even Chinese avarice, the mandarin
was warmly wrapped in clothes almost coolie-plain; but the youngster,
who was but his senior’s chattel, would have pawned for a fortune as
he stood, a ridiculous, gorgeous figure of warmth and of affluence,
almost half as broad as long, by virtue of padding. His stiffly
embroidered robe of yellow silk was worn over three quilted coats, silk
too, and well wadded with down of the Manchurian eider duck, and above
the yellow silk surcoat he wore a slightly shorter one of rich fur,
fur-lined and also wadded. The fur top-coat was buttoned with jewels.
The yellow coat was sewn with pearls and with emeralds. Jewels winked
on the thick little padded shoes and blazed on his little skull cap.
For himself the mandarin took his ease in unencumbered old clothes,
but it pleased his arrogant pride and his love of the gorgeous that
his small grandson should be garbed, even in the semi-seclusion of
their isolated country estate, as if paying a visit of state to the boy
Emperor at Pekin. As little Wu was of royal blood himself, he might
indeed by some right of caste so have visited in no servile rôle, for
on his mother’s side the lad was of more than royal blood, descended
from the two supreme Chinese, descent from whom confers the only
hereditary nobility of China. Perhaps the yellows that he often wore
hinted at this discreetly. The sartorial boast (if boast it was) was
well controlled, for true yellow was the imperial color, sacred to the
Emperor, and young Wu’s yellows were always on the amber side, or on
the lemon; and even so he might have worn them less in Pekin than he
did here in the Sze-chuan stronghold of his house.
The room was very warm, and seemed no cooler for the scented
prayer-sticks that were burning profusely in the carved recess where
the ancestral tablet hung, and as he talked with and studied the boy,
whom he had studied for every hour of the young life, the upright
old man with the gaunt, withered, pockmarked face fanned himself
incessantly. Little Wu had run in from his play in the bitterly cold
garden, all fur-clad as he was. The mandarin had sent for him, and he
had not stayed to throw off even one of his thick garments. Old Wu was
not accustomed to be kept waiting or the grandchild to delay.
“Well?” the old man demanded, “you have heard. What do you say?”
The quaint little figure kotowed almost to the ground. It was wonderful
that a form so swathed and padded could bend so low, wonderful that
the jewel-heavy cap kept its place. His little cue swept the polished
floor, and his stiff embroideries of gem-sewn kingfisher feathers
creaked as he bent. He bent thrice before he answered, his hands meekly
crossed, his eyes humbly on the ground: “Most Honorable, thou art a
thousand years old, and, O thrice Honorable Sir, ten thousand times
wise. Thy despicable worm entreats thy jadelike pardon that he pollutes
with his putrid presence thy plum-blossomed eyes. Thou hast spoken. I
thank thee for thy gracious words.”
“Art thou glad to go?”
“Thy child is glad, Sir most renowned and venerable, to obey thy wish.”
“Art glad to go?”
The boy swept again to the ground, and, bending up, spread out his
pink palms in a gesture of pleased acceptance. “Most glad, O ancient
long-beard.”
The grandfather laughed. “Nay, thou liest. Thou art loth to go. And I
am loth to have thee go. But it is best, and so I send thee.” He held
out his yellow, claw-like hand, and little Wu came and caught it to
his forehead, then stood leaning against the other’s knee, and began
playing with the long string of scented beads that hung about the man’s
neck.
“Well,” the mandarin said again, “say all that is in thy heart. Leave
off the words of ceremony. Speak simply. Say what thou wilt.”
“When do I go?” It was characteristically Chinese that such was the
question, and not “Must I go?” or even “Why must I go?” The grandfather
had said that he was to go: that point was settled. From that will
there was no appeal. The boy scarcely knew that there were children
who did not obey their parents implicitly and always. That there
were countries--in the far off foreign-devils’ land--where filial
disobedience was almost the rule, he had never heard and could not have
believed. Of course, in the classics, which even now he read easily,
there were runaway marriages and undutiful offspring now and then. But
the end of all such offenders was beyond horror horrible, and even so
little Wu had always regarded them as literary makeweight, artistic
shades to throw up the high lights whiter, shadows grotesque and
devilish as some of his grandsire’s most precious carvings were, and
scarcely as flesh and blood possibilities.
In all their ten years together there had been between these two
nothing but love and kindness. No child in China (where children are
adored) had ever been more indulged; no child in China (where children
are guarded) more strictly disciplined. The older Wu had loved and
ruled; the younger Wu had loved and obeyed always. They live life so in
China.
“When do I go?” was all the boy said.
“Soon after your marriage moon: the third next moon, as I plan it.”
The child’s face glowed and creamed with relief. He was only ten,
and--at least in that part of the Empire--older bridegrooms were the
rule. If the dreaded exile were not to begin until after his marriage,
years hence, all its intricate ceremonial, all its long-drawn-out
preliminaries, and happily to be delayed again and again by the
astrologers, why, then here was respite indeed.
“Nay,” the mandarin said, shaking his old head a little sadly, “think
not so. Thy marriage will be when the cherry trees in Honan next bloom.”
“Oh!” the boy just breathed his surprise.
“I think it best,” the old man added. “Your wife was born last month.
The runners reached me yesterday with the letter of her honorable
father.”
Little Wu was interested. He had read of such marriages and he knew
that they really took place sometimes. He rather liked the scheme--if
only he need not go to England for hideous years of wifeless honeymoon!
He had heard none of the details of his exile--only the hateful fact.
But his Chinese instinct divined that in all probability young Mrs.
Wu would not accompany him. Yes, he rather liked the idea of a wife.
He was desperately fond of babies, and often had two or three brought
from the retainers’ quarters that he might play with them and feed them
perfumed sugar-flowers. He hoped his grandfather would tell him more of
his baby-betrothed.
But the grandfather did not, now at all events, nor did he add anything
to the less pleasant piece of news, but rose stiffly from his chair,
saying, “Strike the gong.”
The boy went quickly to a great disk of beaten and filigreed gold that
hung over a big porcelain tub of glowing azaleas, caught up an ivory
snake-entwined rod of tortoise-shell, and beat upon the gong. He struck
it but once, but at the sound servants came running--half a dozen or
more, clad in blue linen, the “Wu” crest worked between the shoulders.
“Rice,” the master said, and held out his hand to the child.
“Lean on me, lean on me hard,” pleaded the boy; “thy venerable bones
are tired.”
“They ache to-day,” the octogenarian admitted grimly. “But untie
thyself first, my frogling. Thou canst not eat so--we are going to
rice, and not into thy beloved snow and ice.”
The child slipped out of his fur, and cast it from him. His quick
fingers made light work of buttons, clasps and cords. Garment followed
garment to the floor, and as they fell servants ran and knelt and
picked them up almost reverently, until the boy drew a long free
breath, clad only in a flowing robe of thin crimson tussore: a little
upright figure, graceful, and for a Chinese boy very thin. Then the old
man laid his hand, not lightly, on the young shoulder; and so they went
together to their rice.