Sên C’hian Fan’s face softened.
He was not glad that Ruben had come, but he could hold no bitterness
to the boy who, garbed so, slept so at the foot of a father’s altar,
who wore the signet of the Sêns on his hand--not at least until the
stranger kinsman had earned bitterness.
Here in the temple that old Sên Ya Tin had builded to the father of Sên
Ruben, Sên C’hian Fan could feel no rancor towards the young kinsman
who had journeyed so far to do worship to a father, who had crept so
untrumpeted to pray beside his father’s tablet. The older Sên had
no doubt that the boy had done that--and praying had fallen asleep,
overcome by the weariness of long and arduous travel. A great heap of
perfumed ashes in the ash-catcher of an incense burner, another such
ash-heap and another, testified for Sên Ruben.
The Chinese heart of Sên C’hian Fan could not keep cold or hard to
a kinsman young-one who had so proved his first of all the virtues,
filial devotion; and in proving that had proved, too, his very
Chineseness. The heart of the man watching the other as he slept might
sour or harden to Sên Ruben under stress or rasp of future circumstance
or discord--but not here, not now.
Perhaps Ruben felt his kinsman’s presence--perhaps he had slept his
sleep out. He rolled over, gave a sleepy sigh of contentment, and
opened his eyes.
Blue English eyes and Chinese black eyes met--and locked.
Sên C’hian Fan spoke first.
“Greeting!”
Ruben sprang to his feet, sprang up to make the salutations of respect
and obedience to his elder and kinsman.
Sên C’hian Fan bowed in return to Sên Ruben.
“Thou art welcome, far-come one.”
“Thy servant has come home, sir my lord,” the boy said pleadingly but
proudly.
Sên C’hian Fan smiled. “Come to thy rice, boy-one kinsman from beyond
the edge of the world.”
Sên C’hian knew that the earth we live on did not, firmly as his
ancestors for centuries had believed that it did, end abruptly just
beyond the Great Wall, just yonder over Nippon, a little south of Ind,
a long throw west of Persia; but he chose to use speech of old days to
his new-come kinsman.
How in all the devils had this pale-one contrived to enter their
gates or scale their high walls; how contrived to find his way all
undetected, undebarred, to the temple of Sên King-lo?
But he would not question him here. Already they had chattered more
than was fit in the temple of a sacred tablet.
And he would question him of nothing until he had fed him. The traveler
who had slept from great weariness must hunger for his rice. Sên
C’hian Fan hungered for his and was minded to have it now; even if
Wash-the-Cats was incompleted. One cat certainly would have to be
washed all over again to-morrow! Well, let it. It was high rice-time
now. Sên C’hian had done a hard day’s work, young though the day
still was; his hands bled, a rough scratch athwart his nose tingled
uncomfortably; he needed the stimulant and refreshment of scalding
tea, the reënforcement of snail-and-rice pancakes, the sedative and
consolation of many pipefuls.
He took Ruben’s hand in his own, and led him out, down the temple steps
to where those gathered at the temple spirit-wall stood watching amazed
and in consternation.
And some of the peasant-ones fell down on their faces, prostrating
themselves half in fear, half in worship, thinking that a spirit-one
had come to them with Sên C’hian Fan from the temple of Lord Sên
King-lo.
And Sên Ruben knew that the lord-one and _doyen_ of their most noble
tribe did him great honor, gave him high welcome, since Sên C’hian Fan
led him hand-in-hand, hailed him and crowned his home-coming by the
touch of flesh and flesh; an intimate token that even close kinsmen
rarely--very rarely--give or brook.
None dared follow them, for Sên C’hian Fan had bade none do so as he
and Ruben passed between the little human throng that parted at their
coming. But twenty heads turned to watch them as they went, twenty
tongues fell a-chattering as soon as C’hian Fan and his unaccountable
companion had passed them. And the Sun Flower, crouched up on the old
lemon tree, waved his tail to them as they went, an orange plume of
victory; tauntingly at Sên C’hian Fan, and to Sên Ruben in defiance--or
in greeting.
Devastated Wash-the-Cats was completed that day without the presence of
the clan’s headsman; most irregular!
And when they had bathed their hands and faces--C’hian’s needed it the
more--C’hian Fan and Ruben breakfasted alone in one of the smaller
_k’o-tangs_, waited on ceremoniously by soft-footed, deft-handed
house-servants, men and boys expressionless of face, but whose yellow
bosoms were almost bursting with curiosity, whose thin small ears bent
obsequiously to catch every word they could. What a Chinese house
servant cannot hear when he really listens rarely is worth hearing.
There would be weird tales to tell and to hear to-night when the
servants of the great household pulled their pipes in the courtyard in
which they took their leisure--and chattered of their masters--telling
each other of all the girdle-wearer ones had said and done all day long.
Host and guest faced each other across a small marble-topped table.
Their seats were stools.
That they directly faced each other was a rudeness to Ruben. But the
elder Sên believed that the ignorant one from across the seas would not
know that; and it was easier to study the stranger’s face seated so.
At first they said but little; C’hian Fan was hungry, Ruben after his
long fast was famished.
But the man who was at home and accustomed here watched the other with
devouring curiosity, although he did not appear to watch him.
But when a course or two--a dozen small bowls of heaped-up food and
sauces to a course--had been removed, and their hunger a little
appeased, Sên C’hian began to question, deeply curious to learn more of
this unwelcome-one, and, too, because an interchange of questions is
the preliminary politeness of every Chinese conversation. Interchange
of thought, discussion of affairs or business may follow on--usually
does to endless length of words--but questions and answers must have
the first, and no short, place.
The more Sên C’hian Fan watched and listened the more he was puzzled.
Where had this kinsman who had lived in the West until a few weeks ago
learned to use Chinese words and Chinese chopsticks as if he always had
used them? Sên King-lo had died in Sên Ruben’s babyhood, and C’hian
knew that Sên Ruby had neither liked nor adopted Chinese manners or
customs. And Ruben knew the names of dishes that the older Sên was sure
the other never could have eaten in Europe. He even knew how to answer
Chinese questions, and to return them--the prescribed, stereotyped
interrogations of Chinese politeness.
When at last he asked, Ruben told him; gave the credit where it was due.
“Kow Li--yes, I recall that one of our ‘babies’ followed Sên King-lo,
your noble father, on all his wanderings. I think I have heard that Kow
often writes even now to his family here--and that he prospers.”
“He has prospered exceedingly,” Ruben stated. “Li is a very rich
man--and a staunch friend!”
“Many of our servants are that,” C’hian replied both indifferently and
cordially, accepting serf-devotion as the gentle’s merest right, but
claiming it proudly as a race virtue.
“Can I see his family--his relatives?” Ruben asked. “I should like to
greet them; and dear old Kow will like to hear of them from me--hear
more than letters often tell--when I am back in London.”
“What if I will not permit you to go back?”
Ruben smiled a question--what did his kinsman mean?
“In China it is the host who gives the guest leave to go, not the guest
who takes it. He who comes unbidden may not go untold to go.”
“Yes, I know. I have been taught that. But my mother wants me, cousin;
and no Chinese will ask a son to overstay the liberty his mother has
granted him.”
“No Sên will!” C’hian Fan answered. “When must you leave us, Sên Ruben?”
“Long before the _ying su_ moon, I fear.”
Sên C’hian Fan devotedly hoped so! How soon, he wondered, would Sên
Ruben demand to see the estate account-books, how soon demand his
seventh share of all their wealth--his by right. One seventh! It would
tear an ugly gap in their splendid fortune. And to have it taken out
of China! China needed all her wealth now. Money was strength--the
greatest, surest of all the international strengths--and the giant
nation beset by all the pygmy peoples of jealous East and avaricious
West needed strength as in all her smoldering flaming history she
never before had needed it. It was not in Sên C’hian Fan to be
dishonest--it is in few Chinese; still less was it in him to repudiate
an ancestral debt--that is in no Chinese. And on the death of Sên Ya
Tin one-seventh of all the Sên fortune belonged to the estate of Sên
King-lo. Sên C’hian Fan had no thought, no wish, to deny it. But he
grudged that such potential power should go from China in this day of
national factions, threatening civil war, alien encroachments and--as
he saw it--stupendous and thievish trickeries.
However, Sên Ya Tin had charged them when she lay dying that
one-seventh of their all was Sên King-lo’s son’s and should be given
when he claimed it.
Did this pale, half-Chinese, half-Sên deem that they might dispute what
indeed he might in this time of schism and transition find insuperably
difficult to wrench from them against their will? Did Sên Ruben fear
that it would take time, address, cajolery? Only so could C’hian Fan
read it that the blue-eyed one thought to tarry here until such time as
the cooling moons approached the frozen Poppy Month. Pah! Had the white
half-Sên never heard of honor? Did not Sên King-lo’s son know that Sên
honor neither caviled nor flinched?
When would the English Sên speak? The sooner the better--speak, take,
and go!
Sên C’hian’s fine lacerated hand clenched on the ivory stem of the
ginger help-spear as he pronged up the best lump of the ginger and
thrust it into Ruben’s bowl of chicken, rice and mushrooms.
“You can have speech of all the Kows when you will, most eminent
cousin-one. I will bid them attend you when you will. Some of them
are near, some farther off, at the edges of the domain; but it will
not take many hours to fetch them to your heel. Kow Yong Shu, to whom
Kow Li indites his not altogether infrequent letters, is our head
dog-keeper. There is little he knows to do beyond his office, I fear,
but he is trustable and discreet, and you may care to attach him to
your personal service while you are here.”
“Nay, my honorable cousin, this person requires no servant here--save
only the general service of the household attendants, if you grant it
to him. I have come to be your servant, cousin, here in the house of
our fathers. It is that I ask--that and to stay awhile here one of
my own people, to live their life and share it, to see and know my
homeland that I have loved and longed for since my birth day.”
“That is what you wish?”
“That is what I ardently wish, Sên C’hian Fan. I have crossed the world
for that; it is my soul’s desire.”
“And--what else?” The question slipped from Sên C’hian Fan before he
could check it. He would have recalled it if he could. C’hian’s teeth
bit his tongue as he waited Sên Ruben’s answer.
The answer was prompt. “Only that, nothing but that,” Ruben said simply.
And Sên C’hian Fan did not believe Sên Ruben.
“When I am wedded--” Ruben began. He started a little, started more
than a startled Chinese girdle-wearer should, as something rough and
heavy fell imperatively on his shoulder. Ruben turned abruptly, more
nearly turned his back upon his elder and kinsman than a Chinese
gentleman under any circumstances should; turned and saw a bright
brown bear sitting close beside him, sitting upright on its haunches,
opening and closing its mouth in unmistakable appetite; staring at him
gluttonously with its avid little eyes, its nostrils quivering, its
tongue beckoning to Ruben’s food-bowls hungrily.
Sên C’hian Fan was watching Ruben intently.
Ruben laughed.
“Hello, old bean!” he said in English.
Bruin growled at the unaccustomed speech--or perhaps at the easy
mockery in the white man’s voice.
But it did not reject the sugared sweetmeat Ruben gave it; and Sên
C’hian Fan saw that the white hand did not flinch from the edge of the
sharp-fanged drooling jaws; saw how confidently the younger Sên tweaked
caressingly the beast’s up-set pointed ear as it munched, one mean red
eye cocked sharply on Ruben.
This stranger, who had come to spy and to despoil, was Sên-like, in
some ways!
“You were about to tell me a thing of great interest and importance,
when Lung Tin thrust his ugly snout into our conversation. You are
affianced? And will wed, on your return to England, the distinguished
English maiden of your lotus-like mother’s selection! This kinsman,
your poor and inadequate host, makes you his humble and ardent
congratulation, honorable Sên Ruben.”
“The gods forbid,” Ruben exclaimed quickly. “I am not affianced, my
venerable cousin and most indulgent host. When I am, my bride will be
of my father’s race. Believe me, O my cousin, I am Chinese for all that
my bleached skin belies it; and rather will I die unwedded, to lie for
all time unmourned in a dishonorable grave, a poor pariah of the hell
underworld, than marry with any but a Chinese maid.”
That might not be so easy, Sên C’hian Fan reflected cynically,
especially if this human oddity had any thought of marriage with a
maiden of repute and family, and it could not be gainsaid that he
wore his robes and used his chop-sticks like a true sash-wearer. But
etiquette forbade C’hian Fan the discourtesy of saying aloud that Sên
Ruben might not find the first Chinese gentleman he approached eager to
accept a son-in-law from the West.
But he did venture a question that his seniority and their kinship gave
him full right to ask.
“You have seen the maiden you desire?”
“I have not met her--yet,” Sên Ruben said softly.
Sên C’hian Fan was much puzzled.
When this other had denied that in coming to Ho-nan he had had no
motive more ulterior than to visit the home of his father and of his
ancestors, to see and know his Sên kindred, to take for a time his
place, a Chinese in China, Sên C’hian Fan had not believed him. But
the sincerity blazoned in the voice that had said, “My bride will be a
Chinese maid,” had rung its message through to Sên C’hian Fan. C’hian
Fan knew that Sên Ruben meant it.
And Ruben appeared to worship his mother; and C’hian remembered how
little King-lo’s English wife had liked China and ways Chinese! How
would she welcome a Chinese daughter-in-law?
Sên C’hian Fan was very puzzled--so puzzled that he thrust his fingers
in the rinse-cup, and lifted the soaked, steaming towel to his lips
before his guest had used either of his.