The seventh moon waxed and waned in a succession of trivial days.
The interest of the summer, so far as Nancy was concerned, had ended
with her triple battle waged against Ronald and the twins and her
father. Chatter with Kuei-lien, perfunctory excursions with a wary
eye lest she blunder into Ronald, whom she did not trust herself to
meet again, filled in the tale of days. There was but one high
moment, the Feast of Souls, when she and Edward secretly sacrificed
to the spirit-tablet of their mother. Theirs was a fervid little
cult which had grown up unmentioned except between themselves, a
worship of the alien mother whom only Nancy dimly remembered. It
signalized the bond which had always kept them from feeling quite kin
to the rest of their father's family, an aloofness of origin which
centred naturally round the legend of their mother.
Guided by reticence quite unusual to the communal life of the
household, they had never been willing to drag their secret into the
open gossip of the courtyards, but kept up this worship as an act and
a habit too sacred to be divulged, too far apart from the noisy
ostentation of the sacrifices which the women from time to time
offered. Their shrine was holy ground, and when they made their
sober childish prayers before the gilded tablet, the boy and girl, so
shyly, fondly devoted to each other, seemed orphans indeed, shut out
from the world around them by their still tenser devotion to the
mother who was little more than a memory and a shadow.
Their worship this year was also, on Nancy's part, a farewell. She
was saying good-bye to the spirit of her mother, whom she would not
be entitled to worship next summer when the festival of All Souls
once more quickened love and regret for the dead. For she must give
up her own forefathers, give up even her mother, when she went out
from home to the strange halls of her husband. Thenceforth his
ancestors would be hers, and in place of the dearly loved tablet
which she and Edward had fashioned so loyally between themselves, she
must bow her head before a row of cold names which were not even dead
to her because they never had been alive.
With grave seriousness she bequeathed the trust to Edward, envying
him his right to worship his mother undisturbed until the end of his
days. So passed the Feast of Souls, and one by one the days of the
ghostly seventh moon slipped away.
Tedious, Nancy found them, for she was very much alone. She dodged
close talk with her father, an attitude for which he was grateful,
because neither he nor his daughter wished to touch again upon
matters which in an incomplete, unspoken way they had left settled.
The father stayed drowsily with his books, slept and dozed through
the afternoons, realizing with taciturn dismay the fact that he was
old and that his thoughts were empty of comfort. He tried some
walking, but his heart complained. Undue exercise taxed his
strength, sent the blood to his head. One thing he had set his will
not to do: to give way to Kuei-lien's enchantment--not till his
daughter was married. This was a promise he had made silently with
himself, a little way of being fair to Nancy, and he stuck heroically
to his agreement, although there were moments when the vacancy of the
books over which he nodded made this ascetic life almost too tiresome
to be borne.
"I don't understand you, Nancy," Kuei-lien said more than once,
enjoying the comfortable sleepiness of the afternoons in Nancy's
room. Her fear of the t'ai-t'ai had been growing less and her
sympathy with the betrothed girl more. "I am not so blind as you
think I am. This marriage is your making; I can see that, but I
can't see why."
"One has to be married," was Nancy's usual defense, when the subject
was forced upon her mind.
"Yes, but why this particular marriage, when your father has given
you so many opportunities to get out of it? You are not one of us,
Nancy, even though you believe you are. Your father would have liked
it best if you had stayed with your foreign friends."
Kuei-lien, from her talks with the amah, knew more than the girl
dreamed of the pressure the Ferrises had brought to keep their guest.
In idle moments she could not help toying with the last year's plan.
"That is finished," said Nancy decidedly.
"If I had been your father's daughter," laughed the concubine, "I
should have managed things much better. Your father would give every
cent he has promised the t'ai-t'ai to be rid of this match. Why
don't you fall sick or cut off your hair so that you have to become a
nun? Then you would save everybody's face. Even the t'ai-t'ai would
be satisfied, if she got her money--"
"She will get her money, whatever it is, in the way we have
promised," announced the girl.
"I believe you are holding the old woman to her bargain just to spite
her," vowed Kuei-lien. "You know her whole family is afraid of the
daughter-in-law they are getting. If it weren't that they had been
bribed by your dowry, they would just as soon marry their priceless
son to a fox-spirit. They will think it a miracle if you don't bear
him four-legged sons; it will be a miracle with such a donkey for
their father! What are you going to do when you go to them? Are you
going to play handmaid to your father-in-law's water pipe and sew out
your eyes on underwear that is greasy from your mother-in-law's
unwashed body?"
Against her own conscience Nancy was amused by the racy way Kuei-lien
dealt with topics that were held to be sacred. She knew quite well
that the parents of her husband were not proper game for these
irreverent shots, yet she relished every impudent hit at their
expense. It was one way of settling scores for the travail these
unknown personages had given her. She was in a mood, as Kuei-lien
perceived, to be spiteful. And she was curious to get every chance
inkling of what her life was to be.
"And when you meet them in the morning, will you invite their 'jade
toes graciously to approach'? If you do, Nancy, if you jump to fill
the teapot and wait up late to put your old grandmother to bed, you
will be lost, you will be their slave for the rest of your days. I
know these small-livered people. They will live to a hundred just
for the pleasure of bullying you, just to let you dust out every
wrinkle of their sagging faces. If you have a daughter, it will be
your fault because she isn't a son; if you have a son, it will be
your meanness of heart that kept him from being twins. Faugh! the
stupidity of having babies so that other people can cackle as if they
were the hen that dropped the egg! I don't hold with these
old-fashioned notions. I am a new Chinese, newer than you with all
your foreign blood. And heaven help you if you have a white-haired
brat!"
She said these unspeakable things so wickedly that Nancy could not
keep from laughing. The betrothed girl watched the scornful twist of
the lips by which the concubine expressed more aptly even than by
words her pouting contempt for the Chous and all their clan.
Kuei-lien's odd turns of sarcasm were pleasant to hear. The warm
afternoon imparted its sense of lazy security even from the family to
which she was promised. Nancy gazed with easy pleasure at her own
white knees as she sat, half clothed, on the bed. She clasped her
arms tightly round them and rubbed the soft skin with her cheeks,
feeling almost as lazily content with summer and sunlight as she used
to be in her more careless child days.
"What did Mencius say?" demanded Kuei-lien, continuing her tirade.
"'At the marriage of a young woman, her mother admonishes her,
accompanying her to the door on her leaving, and cautioning her with
these words: You're going to your home. You must be respectful; you
must be careful; do not disobey your husband.' Hm-m, I suppose your
worthy old teacher put circles next to those characters, didn't he?
He would. And what did the father say to his son? He 'admonished'
him. That was all. The Sage didn't explain that part of it. The
Sage was a man. I don't believe in sages."
Nothing was sacred to Kuei-lien in her mocking moods. She had never
let Herrick be sacred even to himself.
"I don't believe in sages. I don't believe in nuns. I don't believe
in priests. I don't believe in gods. And I don't believe in being
respectful to a husband. You haven't a mother, Nancy; I'll be your
mother. I will admonish you, I will accompany you to the door when
you leave, I will caution you. Yes, indeed, you are going to your
home. Very well, let them know from the first that it is your home
and that you are not grateful merely for a place near the k'ang, like
the chickens that peck rice off the floor. Remember, you will have
the family purse in your hands, but only because they'll want you to
produce twice the money that's in it, find cash for your
father-in-law's opium and your mother-in-law's mah-jongg debts, and
board and lodging for their third and fourth and fifth cousins and
for all the children they can squeeze without cost under your roof.
Stop that from the beginning; be as niggardly as they would be in
your place. They will hate you, anyway, because you're a foreigner
and because you're different and because they'll think if only they
could have been bribed into taking your money without your precious
self they might have secured a Yang kuei-fei in your stead. So you
might as well give them good reason for hating you and, better still,
for fearing you. Then, when you've scolded them till their ears are
like wax and made them shake in their slippers every time they see
your shadow crossing the courtyard, they will be only too happy to
let you go back to your father, to the moon if you wish; they will
press upon you the need for a long vacation and, while you're safely
out of the way, they will find another wife, a nice quiet-tempered
girl, for your husband, who can bear a dozen children and choke the
house with the dust from her broom and pick bugs with nimble finger
nails from the seams of the quilt in which your illustrious
parents-in-law have been pleased to sleep for four thousand sweaty
nights."
Nancy held up her hands in protest, but Kuei-lien laughed at her
qualms.
"You can do it so easily," she said; "they will expect nothing better
from you because you are a foreigner. Anything you do will be only
what they expected. If only you browbeat them from the beginning,
before they have got breath enough to browbeat you, then you will
have your own way. You can go back to your father's and stay for
sixty years and they will not be sorry; they will bless the spirits
of their ancestors for having delivered them after their own folly in
bringing a devil and a termagant into their midst. Aren't my words
true? You will be happy, they will be happy, your father will be
happy; everyone will be happy except the unlucky girl who takes your
place. You can trust them to take revenge on her for all the
injuries they have suffered from you. I don't envy her the time
she'll have of it. But that's not your fault. Better somebody else
miserable than poor me: that's the way to look at the foolishness of
this world."
Many letters had been coming from the t'ai-t'ai, urging her husband
to bring Nancy back to Peking. There were so many things to be done:
the bridal furniture had to be sent, the wedding dress cut, the gifts
procured. But Herrick refused to budge till the time he had set.
With the coming of the eighth moon he could no longer postpone the
claims of his wife. He roused himself unwillingly from this torpor
of indecision and packed his reluctant family back to Peking. He had
waited upon fate as long as he could, but fate offered him no help.
With their arrival in Peking, the t'ai-t'ai took vigorous command of
the household. The momentum of her energy carried everyone before
her, most of all Nancy, who had no further time to hesitate and
reflect. The ensuing days became almost a round of processions, for
Herrick had allowed barely time enough for the festivities which had
to be crowded into twenty-four days. The courtyards never seemed
clear of the smoke of firecrackers, the neighbors were always being
called to their doors by the lilt of wind instruments. First came
the wedding cakes, and the satin for the bridal dress, and elaborate
gifts, which the t'ai-t'ai took care to return more elaborately.
It had been necessary to transport her brother and the important
members of his family to Peking, to take for them a house in the
capital, since Herrick had stood out obstinately against sending his
daughter to be married in the ancestral home of the bridegroom. The
t'ai-t'ai grumbled, of course; she grudged the expense which she said
her brother could not afford, she moaned about the insult to her old
mother who was much too feeble to make the long journey to Peking to
see her grandson married. But Herrick said never to mind the
expense; he would see that they were not out of purse because of this
accommodation. With so liberal a promise, the t'ai-t'ai decided she
could meet his wishes and she took care not only that Herrick should
pay for moving Nancy's husband to Peking but that many of the showy
presents, which were paraded through the streets on their way to the
home of the bride, were actually gifts from Herrick to himself. Her
thrift preserved Nancy's dowry intact from all the corroding expense
of the wedding.
The autumn festival dawned, but its rejoicings were only an incident,
compared with the greater day hurrying upon its heels. Nancy said
quiet farewell to the full moon, climbing once again into her
comfortable old pine tree to watch its splendor as the moon mounted.
She turned a grave face to its light; it was not only a symbol of her
sex, of her womanliness, the symbol which she had learned to revere
from childhood, but it was bound by deeper ties to the inmost
thoughts of her heart, so deeply bound that she almost looked for a
miracle to be done in her behalf and this crowning moon of her life
never to wane from its completed beauty. But it waned.
The rest was a dull trance in which the days went by, scarcely
counted. Night after night the moon decreased; the girl's spirits
fell. She kept tryst each evening with its rising until it rose too
late to be awaited. Then the darkness frightened her.
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.
The bridal furniture had been got ready. Three days before the
wedding it was sent off.
Great show was made of the chairs and tables for the bridal chamber,
the chairs with their carved arms and round panels of gray Yunnan
marble, but, most sumptuous of all, the bridal bed, hung so heavily
with curtains of scarlet satin that the wealth of embroidery led the
eyes astray from the pictures inlaid in the woodwork and even from
the silver chains which drew the curtains aside. Kuei-lien's tongue
was rife with jests about this bed and its heap of satin quilts.
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. You are lucky to have rich curtains and plenty of
warm quilts and one place where your mother-in-law can't trouble you.
You don't have to make your bed your profession like me."
Kuei-lien's bitter moods, her uneasy habit of thinking too deeply,
made her singularly outspoken, but Nancy refused to listen further.
Her only peace was to be carried on as in a dream. She could not
bear to stare at her fate set forth in these visible pictures.
The bedstead, the chairs, the boxes all went their festive way to her
new home, where soothsayers ensured the fortunate placing of the bed.
Her father's house was draped with red, the walls were hung with
scarlet banners on which "joy" was repeated in huge characters of
gilt, characters written double to amplify the luck of the occasion.
The courtyards were roofed with red bunting and the first
chrysanthemums of the season banked high against the walls. Into the
nightly feasting Nancy did not intrude, and her father did not
appear, did not trust himself to see Nancy. He was ill, feeble,
uncomforted by the bustle which echoed even into his silent room.
For the last evening a great feast was prepared and though only the
women of the household and their kinsfolk took part, Herrick having
no outside guests to invite, they made the most of their one great
chance to be merry over an event which promised no good fortune to
any of their number. It was the t'ai-t'ai's affair, this wedding,
but that was no reason for declining the baked meats of their enemy's
bounty. So they were quite cheerful and quite eager to see the girl
who had lived with them, so aloof and yet so intimate, clothed at
last in her bridal garments.
In her last afternoon the t'ai-t'ai came to Nancy's room to tell her
stepdaughter it was time. Everything was prepared. She now needed
only to put up her hair and put on her dress for the ceremonial
farewell to her own family and then retire to the night's vigil of
weeping and vain efforts at sleep, weeping and sleeping both rigidly
prescribed by custom, before the bridal chair was heralded by
trumpets in the morning. Kuei-lien came in behind the t'ai-t'ai;
Li-an and a maid followed her. They had brought the clothes which
the bride was now formally to try on to make sure that all was ready
for the morrow.
Nancy rose without comment and was as quiet as a puppet in their
hands, raising her arms or turning her head at their bidding. A
square of red carpet was laid on the floor for her to stand upon.
Slowly and with great deliberation Kuei-lien and her helpers
proceeded to their work, the dignity of the season making them linger
over each detail. The girl was divested of her own garments, bathed
and scented, and the cotton of her former undergarments replaced by
linen on which symbols of good luck had been embroidered in
cross-stitch. The t'ai-t'ai exclaimed upon the pity of Nancy's
unbound feet and deplored the new custom of large feet, which would
ruin China, she vowed, but Kuei-lien defended new fashions at the
expense of old, while the girl who was the subject of their debate
gave no signs of listening, but allowed her body to be assessed
without reply. Sometimes she watched the fingers that were busy with
her; for the most part she kept her fixed gaze upon the carpet. A
panel of cloth was tied with strings round her waist and hung by a
silver chain from her neck. Stockings of scarlet silk were pulled up
to her knees. She stepped unresistingly into the undermost pair of
long pantaloons and let the tunic that matched them be slipped softly
down her arms. Then, at the precise minute the soothsayers had set,
began the unbraiding of her thick hair, the sign that she was to be a
maiden no more; slowly it was soaked with resin, pulled across her
head till it matched the smoothness of enamel, and gathered in a
lustrous clump at the back, a clump into which Kuei-lien thrust
blade-like pins of soft gold. The fringe of down round her forehead
would not be pulled out till she came to her new home.
The concubine and her helpers stood back to admire the change they
had made. Then over the face of the bride they dusted clouds of
powder, and brushed it half away again before they softened the
spectral white with an artfully applied surface of rouge. Nancy
seemed to cease breathing while they reddened her lips; she closed
her eyes while they penciled the graceful arch of the brows. Her
face had become like the mask of a tragic figure, something removed
from life, yet deeply instilled with the most pitiful passions of
life, austere and delicate, sombre and youthful, possessed of a
beauty which a day could destroy, yet which promised in its
singularly immobile pose to live forever, an unforgettable memory.
Nancy had lost her personality; she had become a symbol. 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. There
now remained only the veil of red silk to be placed over her face
before she entered the chair. For the rest, Nancy was the bride
complete, and Kuei-lien, in an unwonted mood of reverence, could not
resist bowing before the brilliant vision.
Dusk had come. Hours had gone by. Nancy came forth, assisted by
Kuei-lien, to take farewell of the family among whom she had lived so
long and so happily. The all-provident t'ai-t'ai had made ready an
altar with a bright new tablet to Nancy's unrecorded ancestors. 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. The door was opened and she
was allowed to go in alone. She stood motionless before her father.
Timothy Herrick stared as though his mind scarcely could believe what
his eyes saw. He seemed struggling to realize that this vision of
scarlet and gold was his daughter, come at last to say good-bye. For
the first time in the long tedium of the day's events, Nancy lifted
up her eyes. She paid her whole debt of loyalty with that one look
and then, behind the tragic splendor of her dress, behind the
loveliness of brocades that outshone the blood-red lustre of flames,
her spirit seemed to withdraw, as though she had said good-bye.
Nancy became only a memory in the sight of her father.
The man trembled with a great moan of despair, scarlet and gold
blinded his eyes; suddenly, with a cry that rasped in his throat,
Herrick threw himself forward, buried his head in his arms, and so
lay still amid the vain litter of his desk.
Nancy waited for him to speak, quite forgetting it was her time to
kneel and bow. Finally, when the silence seemed hopeless, when the
clock had ticked away many empty minutes, and still with no sign from
her father, she realized that someone was leading her away again,
that Kuei-lien was leading her back to her own room. She had left
the presence of her father without the kindness of one last word.
There had been so much to say, so much she wanted to tell him; yet
her heart had been sapped of emotion till the girl was not even sorry
for this wordless parting.
Only one thing could have wakened her spirit, and this she did not
know. She had been too tired to see that not she, but her father,
had been the first to go out from his home.