Peony

XI

PEONY DID NOT KNOW how to live in this house of Ezra without her elder mistress in it. She came home from the funeral and warmed the crying child and gave him to his wet nurse, and her first thought was for David and his father. Kueilan was weary, and complained that her feet hurt her sorely and that she was hungry and felt weak, and the two little boys wept with hunger. But Peony bade the undermaids serve these, and she and Wang Ma gave their heed to the two men.

Each had gone to his room, and finding this so, Peony motioned Wang Ma to Ezra’s room, and she herself went to David. She did not know how she would find him, whether weeping or not, but she was not prepared for his calmness when, having coughed at his door, she heard him bid her enter. He stood there taking off the sackcloth outer garment that he had worn for the funeral, and underneath he had his usual silk robes. They were of a dark blue today, to signify the solemnity of what had taken place. When he turned his head she saw his face grave but not weeping.

“Come in, Peony,” he said quietly. “I was about to send for you.”

He sat down himself and looked at her most kindly. “Do not wait for me to bid you seat yourself,” he said. “You know how much you have become in this house.”

She sat down and waited.

“Did I know how I could manage without you, I would not let my conscience trouble me,” he went on. “I ought to find a husband for you, Peony. We are all selfish toward you, and I am the most selfish. But the truth is that without you we would be like a boat without a rudder. Now that my mother is gone—” He paused and pressed his lips together.

“I have no wish to wed, Young Master,” Peony said.

“You always say that,” David replied, “but it does not absolve me from my duty.”

Peony put the matter aside. “What did you wish to tell me?” she asked.

David got up suddenly and walked to the door and stood looking out. The winter of the year was over and spring nearly come. The air was mild on that afternoon, and the door was open to the court. “I want to make a journey,” he said.

“A journey?” Peony repeated. “Where?”

“You know my mother and I planned to take the journey westward to the land of our ancestors. I have a wish to make that journey now, alone.” He paused and then he said abruptly, “There is something restless in me.”

“There is something restless in you,” Peony repeated. She felt stupid with surprise and yet she knew she needed all her wits about her.

“I feel some hidden guilt in me,” David went on. “I have had the guilt ever since Leah died. Now my mother is dead. This journey would somehow be for them.”

“Would you leave your father?” Peony asked. She felt breathless, but she made herself calm.

“He does not need me,” David said. “He has his friends — and his grandsons. I think sometimes he is nearer to them than to me. And you would be here, Peony — and Wang Ma.”

“But your children — and their mother!” Peony urged. “How can I take this responsibility?”

“You do take it, Peony, whether I am here or not,” he told her.

Now she could not hold back her fears. “What if you died upon the way?” she cried. “What if you were — were killed?” She remembered the sword with the thin blade that had done such evil to his people in other countries, and had done evil here in this house, too, but she could not speak of it. Old Wang had taken that sword and had carried it to the river and had thrown it as far as his strength could reach, into the yellow whirlpools.

“Many have been killed,” David said quietly. “There is no reason why I should not face the same danger.”

Now what could Peony say? She longed to cry out to him to stay for her own sake, for he was all her life, and if he did not come back, she too could no longer live. But she was afraid to seize this comfort. His mind was very far away at this moment. She felt a strange jealousy that she had not known since Leah died. She had forgotten Leah for months upon months, even years, but now Leah came back in all her beauty. Did he remember that beauty? She weighed the common sense of speaking Leah’s name to him and decided that she would not. If he thought of Leah, to talk of her would be to bring her into this room where they were alone. Let Leah lie dead! Yet what hold was this that clung beyond the grave? What was the conscience in him? She could not answer her own question and she rose gracefully, quiet above her inner turmoil. “Let all be as you will, Young Master,” she said.

To her surprise David turned on her with anger. “Do not call me that, Peony!” he said with much impatience. “At least when we are alone call me by my name. Have we not been brother and sister all our lives?”

What words could wound her more than these? But she refused to allow her hurt to show and she answered smoothly, “I will try to remember. Do not take the journey unless you must. Yet if you must I will try to be all I should be while you are gone.”

With this she went away, having contrived it so that she did not speak his name. Someday perhaps she would speak it, but not while he remembered Leah.

She went to her own room and sat a long while, pondering what she would do. She heard her name called and she went into her bedroom and hid herself behind the bed curtains, and crouching there she thought a while longer and until her mind was clear. She would go to Kung Chen, and he would help her. Certainly he would not allow his daughter’s husband to wander away into the westward country to come back not sooner than a year and perhaps even never to come back. To think of this was to do it, and once again she slipped out of the Gate of Peaceful Escape, which she had not needed to use in these years since David’s marriage day.

Kung Chen was at home, for he had been wearied by the long funeral, and he sat inside his own rooms, sipping hot wine and gazing into a small brazier of coals that he had ordered prepared for his comfort rather than for warmth. She was ushered immediately into his presence, since all knew she served his daughter.

“Honored Sir,” Peony said in a small sweet voice.

He looked up kindly at her slender, gray-robed figure and remembered that he had seen her standing beside his daughter and holding the wailing child. “Do not stand in my presence,” he now commanded her. “We are old acquaintances. Do you remember the morning by the fish pool?” He did not tell her what he thought, that she had grown very beautiful since that morning. Then she had been a rosy girl but now she was a woman, graceful and self-possessed. If the old gay glance of her eyes was gone, a lovely quietness had taken its place. No one would imagine that she was a bondmaid. She had grown far beyond that place.

“What have you to tell me?” he asked.

Peony sat down delicately and folded her hands. She did not tell him what she thought, that he had aged very much since the morning by the fish pool. She had seen him only at a distance since that day. Now she saw him much thinner than he had been. His full face was slack and he had grown a scanty beard that was turning white. But his height remained and his shoulders were still broad. She knew that all his children were married, although for Lili, the child of his concubine, he had been able to find only the son of an ironmonger. Wealthy families did not wish to marry their sons to the daughter of a concubine who had run away with a head servant. This had been grief to Kung Chen, for he loved his little Lili above all the other children.

“Sir, it is for the sake of my young mistress that I come,” Peony said. “After we returned from the funeral today, I went to serve hot food to my young master, which is my duty, and I found him distraught, and when I inquired he told me that it was in his heart now to make the journey alone to the land of his ancestors, which he once planned to make with his mother. I said nothing, but I came to tell you. Sir, the journey would take a full year, but this is not the worst of it. The Muslims are very fierce along the way, and Kao Lien told my old mistress so even before she died. My young master will stand in danger of his life if he goes. I think of our lady, your daughter, and the children.”

Kung Chen heard this in great astonishment. “How is it that the son would make a pilgrimage when his father does not?” he inquired. “Does this not smack of filial impiety? Would his father not feel reproached before Heaven?”

Peony took her courage in her hands. She had a very delicate web to weave. “Sir, our young lord is the son of our old mistress. Our old lord is the son of one of our own people. The soul of the mother is in the son.”

Kung Chen began to understand. He nodded his head slowly and stroked his beard. “Go on,” he said.

Peony inclined her own head modestly. The web was well begun but it was not finished. “Sir, there is more than this. I wish to offend no one — but it may be you remember the young lady to whom our young lord was once betrothed — or very nearly.”

“The one who—” Kung Chen drew his long forefinger across his throat.

“That one,” Peony agreed.

“Did — he — ah — love her?” Kung Chen next inquired. There was some jealousy in him for his daughter, but he did not speak it out.

Peony perceived the jealousy well enough. “I will not say he loved her,” she said hesitatingly. “I would even say he did not, for it was at that very time that he loved our young mistress — your daughter, sir. But in some strange way these two young ladies struggled in his heart against one another. Thus the foreign one kept him back from loving entirely our lady, now the mother of his sons, and our lady made him unable to love the foreign one whom his mother wished for her daughter-in-law. The two spoiled one another for him.”

Kung Chen pondered this a while. “Was the other more beautiful than my daughter?” he now asked.

Peony considered. “No,” she said, then she added, “but she had some hidden power over him. It was the same power his mother had, and he loved and hated it together. While his mother lived, he rebelled against it and he maintained himself. But now that she is dead, he remembers the other one, too, and he feels that somewhere he has a duty undone, and he is restless.”

“What has the journey to do with all this?” Kung Chen next inquired.

“They both wanted to leave our land and go to that one where their ancestors were,” Peony replied.

Kung Chen mused a while longer. He remembered all that he had learned of the Jews and of the lodestone of faith that drew them back to the arid strip of earth that had once been theirs. Certainly his Little Three must not suffer and she must not be left a widow with many children, and in the height of her young womanhood. He moved to protect his own.

“The young man is restless,” he said, stroking his beard. “It is natural enough. He has never traveled. Men often grow restless after the first years of marriage. They know all they have, and they think of new sights. Very well, he shall travel, and my daughter and the children and you must all go with him. I will lend my own mule carts and my muleteers to meet you when you leave the river, and my cooks will go with you, and they will all take the journey to the northern capital. I shall ask the governor of our province, moreover, to send some of his own guards with you, as warning to robbers and river pirates. Spring is just beyond tomorrow and the journey will be pleasant. I shall ask his father to decide that the journey is necessary for our business, and indeed it may well be.”

Kung Chen was very well pleased with himself, and he wagged his big head to and fro. His mind ran ahead of his plans. “Yes, and I will see that I have a fine gift that must be presented for me to the two new empresses, and I will send word to my friends to give feasts for my son-in-law, and I will give orders at the Pear Garden Theater to show plays for him and for his friends, whom he must feast in return. Who does not enjoy the northern capital? It is the most beautiful city in the world.” Kung Chen’s imagination grew warm. He rubbed his hands together over the coals. “All is as it should be,” he said. “The Imperial Court is home from exile now — it has returned from Jehol to Peking — and the capital is filled with joy. Truce has been declared with the white men over the opium from India, and the rebel Christians are defeated in the eastern provinces. It is time again for pleasure and for trade.”

He clapped his hands on his knees and beamed so brightly that Peony was delighted indeed. She rose, her own face bright too. “It is a plan from Heaven,” she declared. “I will wait then, sir, until commands come down.” Then bowing she went home again.

Behind her Kung Chen sat alone, stroking his beard and frowning into the fire. His Little Three — was she happy? He had taken it for granted that she was, since each year she had given birth to a son. Once or twice he had asked her mother what she thought, but Madame Kung seldom thought at all about a daughter who had left the house to belong to another family.

His mind went gratefully to Peony. Where she was, doubtless all would be well.

Thus it came about that on a fine day in later spring David, persuaded by Peony, set out for the north. He, his wife, and their children and Peony went aboard a great river junk and sailed for the northern capital. With them were undermaids and menservants and two cooks whom Kung Chen chose because they came from the north and begged to have the chance to see their old home again. On a smaller boat the guards went ahead of them.

Ezra saw them go with a chill heart, and he dreaded his loneliness until they came back. Yet he dared not leave his business, for Kao Lien was about to lead his camels westward again, and the loads must be chosen from the best Chinese goods. Moreover, since peace had come with the white men from India, Ezra had in mind to send down two trustworthy men with Chinese goods to be sold there. He was further persuaded by Kung Chen, who said that his own loss would be heavy if Ezra did not send out these loads early enough to bring back western goods by the next early winter at latest. So Ezra made the best of his lot, and Wang Ma and Old Wang stayed at home, and Kao Lien moved into Ezra’s house for the last weeks before he set out, and David made promises to come home soon, and Kung Chen promised that he would dine with Ezra every day, and so the parting was made.

On the junk all was confusion at first. The children cried with the strangeness and they were frightened when with many shouts and curses the boatmen eased the huge junk from the shore and edged their way into the middle of the river, pushing with long bamboo poles and rowing until in midstream the wind caught their sails. Each nurse comforted the child that was her responsibility, and the baby clung to the breast of the wetnurse, and so quiet came. Peony tended her young mistress and saw that she was seated on a couch and that she had tea and sweetmeats, and she unpacked cushions and fans and bedding and charcoal braziers and everything that could be used for greater comfort. This done, she inquired of the cooks what was to be prepared for the day’s meals, since they had come aboard at early morning, and only when she was satisfied with their plans did she let her heart rest, and she looked around to see where they were to live.

The junk was a mighty one, for the river, and the bow and the stern rose high out of the water. Upon the bow were painted two great eyes, and upon the stern was painted the tail of a fish. The boatmen lived in two small cabins at the stern, and with them were their wives and children. But gates shut them off from the others and they kept themselves apart. Each child had a rope tied about his middle, so that if he fell into the water, the mother could haul him up again, and Peony exclaimed that such ropes should be put about her charges, too. She took two coils of soft hempen rope that the boatman gave her, but when she tied these ropes about the waists of David’s sons, they cried with rage and would not be tied, and Peony had no choice except to bid the maids to hold them by their sashes, and never let them be free for one moment. Thus two maids were continually busy all day and Peony thanked Heaven that the youngest child could not walk.

The kitchens came next after the boatmen’s cabins, and the cooks slept in them at night. They were small but there was everything needful for preparing fine food, and soon the cooks were at their duty. In front of the kitchens were the bedrooms for the family and the great central saloon, where they sat by day. Here Peony must sleep by night, for the children and their nurses must have one bedroom, and David and his wife the other, and Peony had no place for her own. This was hardship indeed, but she told herself that when she needed solitude very much she could sit outside the windows of the saloon, where the deck was so narrow that the children could not come and where her mistress would not dare to walk. This place then became her own. In front of the saloon there was a wide deck, and the floors were of fine varnished wood, which neither sun nor rain could spoil. This varnish came from Ningpo, whose people are famous for their junks and seagoing ships.

Thus began the journey that was to last for days. For herself Peony looked forward to every day with pleasure. She had work enough to superintend the life of all, and yet she had hours in which to sit dreaming in her own little place, disturbed only by a boatman when he passed from stern to bow and back again, or when the wind failed and the oars must be used until the tow ropes were out. But she feared very much lest David grow restless. He was used to space and many courts, and would he be patient closed into this vessel with crying children and his wife sometimes impatient? At first she was afraid; then she found she need not fear.

For David found himself absorbed in the sights that passed before their eyes. Sometimes their way was slow enough so that he could walk on the shore, and many miles he walked over new country and through provinces that he had never seen before. Everywhere he was treated with courtesy, and when the towmen stopped to rest and eat and drink tea, he took his meal ashore, too, and the townspeople spoke to him courteously, inquiring only what country he came from. When he spoke the name of his own city they wondered.

“We did not know that foreigners lived there,” they told him.

“I am not a foreigner,” he replied. “I was born in that city and my father before me.”

“But what country did your ancestors come from?” they then inquired.

“From over the mountains,” he replied, and they nodded, their curiosity satisfied.

He did not talk often with Peony, for there was little chance for this, and they both, without words, knew that Kueilan would not be pleased if she saw her husband talking with a bondmaid beyond what was necessary. Yet sometimes when Peony had put her mistress to bed, and she went to the foredeck to tell David that all was ready for the night, David lingered a few minutes, especially if the moon shone.

On one such night he said to Peony, “My father has always said that your people are kind to ours, but the depth of this kindness I only now see for myself. These people in the river hamlets and along the shores, they do not know me, and yet they greet me and they make me welcome in the inns. I wonder at this gentleness.”

“Are not all men brothers under Heaven?” So Peony replied in the words of the sages.

David shook his head. “These good words are everywhere,” he replied, “but not always such good deeds.”

He went inside then to his own rest, and Peony stood alone in the moonlight.

It was indeed fair country. The land along the river shores was green with new rice and about every little village the peach trees were in full blossom, pink by day and pearly by night. Distant hills rose against the sky and the water flowed golden under the moon. A good land, and the people were good. There were robbers, it is true, and there were pirates on the river, but these robbed all alike, whatever their color and their shape. With the guards this family was safe, and the governor had given the boatman a flag that announced that they were taking gifts to the Imperial Court and none would dare to rob them.

When all was quiet Peony went into the now empty saloon and she unrolled the quilts that by day she hid under the couches, and she made herself ready for sleep. She slept well, the fresh winds blowing upon her.

Out of one province they came into another and so at last near to the port where the river met the Grand Canal. They did not wish to reach the sea, neither did they wish to change to the small canal-boats. At a given place, therefore, they left the boat that had become a home to them, and they met the mule carts that were to take them north.

Often did Peony wish for the junk again, for now they must travel all day over the rough cobbled roads, stopping to eat quick meals, except at night when they slept at inns. Peony was impatient indeed, for to find a clean, good inn was nearly impossible. Each evening the master innkeeper wherever they were would come out fawning and praising when he saw how long a retinue they had, and he bawled and shouted to his men to prepare food and tea and he promised that he had clean rooms and the best of everything. But when Peony inspected the rooms, they were often filthy. When she saw there were fleas and bedbugs she refused to have the bed rolls opened until water had been boiled and poured over the bed boards. All was done under her supervision, for her mistress was helpless and David was eager to see every new sight, and when they reached a town or city he left his family and went out to look at it.

But Peking was reached at last, and every child was silenced while they looked in wonder as the great walls loomed gray and high out of the surrounding plains. All had heard of the wonders of this capital, but even David was not prepared for the vastness of what they saw. They went through the city gate, and the walls were so thick that it was twilight there between sunlight at the two ends. Kung Chen had written to his shops to prepare a house for Ezra’s son and his family, and there they went along streets so wide and all paved with stone that even Peony had no word to say and could only look her wonder.

So they came to a gate set in a wall, and they went in and found Kung Chen’s men there waiting to welcome them. David stayed with them in the guest hall, and Peony led the family into their courts, and the servants worked well, and soon all was settled.

The little boys were pleased with what was new, and Kueilan walked about the gardens and exclaimed over the rockery and the dwarfed plum trees. Thus the holiday was begun. But Peony watched above all for David. Would it be holiday for him, too? She was comforted when having sent his guests away he came in to visit his family and her and she saw his face gay and his eyes bright with excitement.

“Let us stay here a long time, eh, mother of my sons?” he said to his wife, and she smiled back at him, excited by his joy. He grew tender to her suddenly. “You little one!” he exclaimed. “You look as you did the first time I saw you!”

Hearing these words Peony slipped away, lest her presence check the renewal of their love. The old deep sadness of life lay in the bottom of her heart and she knew it was there, but she would not allow herself to sink into it. Out of the dark and sullen bottom of a lake the lotus flowers bloomed upon its surface, and she would pluck the flowers.

Peking was at its best that spring. The people, released from the fears and trials of war, rejoiced in the return of the Imperial Court to the city. The two empresses, the eastern and elder and the western and younger, were regents for the young emperor, who was still a child. Both empresses were beautiful, but the Western Empress was rich with love of life and power, and it could easily be seen that under her reign the nation would prosper and every sort of art and commerce would grow strong.

It was the air that David loved best. Old sadness fell from him and the very look in his eyes changed. The tinge of melancholy that had become natural to him left him, and the vitality that only rebellion had lit so far now became his daily energy.

“I love this city,” he told Peony one day. “Look at the people — the men tall — the women handsome. Peony, you are like a child here.”

Peony was not sure that she was pleased with this comparison. It was true that most of the women were taller than she, their cheekbones high and their frames big. She pouted a little at David and he laughed. “Let us talk of something else, then! The wide streets — I like the space.”

To this Peony could agree. There was space everywhere, the streets wide enough for ten carts to run abreast between shops on either side stocked with fine goods. The people were more than handsome — they were kind and their spirits were noble. There was no smallness anywhere. The largeness of the north was in this city, where the people ate wheat bread with their meat instead of rice. Many peoples met here, and David took pleasure in feasting in the fine inns with the friends whom Kung Chen had provided. To eat roast mutton in a Mohammedan inn, to spend half the night over roast duck in another, to declare both the finest food, was easy enough. The mutton, tender and wisely flavored, was torn in pieces and roasted upon spits over charcoal and brought to the table hot to be eaten with steamed rolls of bread.

And yet Peking duck could still be the finer food. Night after night David sat in one inn or another with men so carefree and so full of humor that he would have said they never worked at anything but pleasure had he not seen them shrewd tradesmen by day. They sat about a great round table, eating small dishes first, until the host of the inn brought in the ducks for their approval, killed and plucked but not yet roasted. When they had chosen a pair of ducks, appraising size and fat and texture of the skin, these were spitted and turned over coals, until the skin was crisped and browned and glistening with fat. Soon the first dish was served, and it was the curls of rich dark skin, and with it came thin pancakes of wheat flour and red jelly made of haws and sweetened. These cakes were wrapped about the roasted duck skin and into each was put a spoonful of jelly and so they were eaten, hot and sweet and bread and meat together, with warmed wine in small bowls. Then in succession came the other dishes, the meat of the roasted duck flavored and mixed with tender cabbage and then with mushrooms and then with bamboo shoots and then with chestnuts, each dish different from all others and each as good as the next, until the final dainty of the duck, now devoured. This was the head split open so that the brains could be picked out with chopsticks and tasted for the fine delicate flavor.

Who could tire of such fare? And yet there were the vegetarian inns where devout Buddhists could feast, those who gave up eating meat for the sake of their souls. At those inns vegetables were shaped and flavored until the feasters could have sworn them meat, except they had no flesh of any animal in them. The eyes of the devout were satisfied and their palates tasted the semblance of the meats they had denied themselves, while their souls were saved.

“How clever are these people!” David exclaimed each day when he discovered such new things. Indeed, the pleasures he had enjoyed in his youth seemed small in comparison to the variety that he now found in Peking. The finest theaters were here, the best shows of juggling and magic, and the most famous singers and musicians and scholars.

While he waited for audience with the two empresses, David released his soul and he enjoyed every pleasure that the city had. Nor was he selfish and solitary. Each morning he spent on business for his father and Kung Chen, and he visited every rich merchant in the city and he made many new contracts for the delivery of goods and he took orders for fabulous articles from Europe and from India. For the merchants here knew of machines and cloths and lamps and toys made abroad and they craved these things for themselves and for sale. Especially did they want clocks. The great gilt clock that years ago Kao Lien had brought as a gift for the Emperor was now matched by many others in the palace. In one room, so David heard, there were more than a hundred clocks. What had been a royal gift for one now became a thing coveted by common men, and David wrote to his father:

“Clocks can be sold here by the many thousand, I think, especially those not too high in price, yet ornate with gilt and figures. But all foreign goods are valued. These people have the best of everything, the finest silks and satins and embroideries, the richest jewelry and furniture, and yet their love of novelty is such that they will buy any trickery of foreign stuff.”

When the morning’s business was over David spent his afternoon with his family, unless the day was raining or, worse than rainy, clouded with dust, which the high winds blew over the city from distant deserts. Holding his sons’ hands, David walked in temple forests and sat in theaters and visited every bazaar and fakirs’ show place, and with him often was his wife, shy at being seen abroad and yet made bold by curiosity. Whether Kueilan went or not, and sometimes she complained that her feet hurt her and she could not walk, Peony went always with the children, and now she too knew the happiest times of her whole life. With David and his sons she laughed and watched and was amazed at many sights. She was never tired, and she was always amiable, and as the weeks passed easily, more and more it was she who went and not her mistress.

For Kueilan had made friends with some of the ladies of the merchants, and she grew fond of gambling with them. From one house to another these ladies went, one day here and one day there, traveling in their curtained sedans, and they spent the whole afternoon and evening at mah-jongg, until it became their passion. In this the serving maids encouraged them, since before each lady said good night to the others she must for courtesy’s sake put silver in a bowl upon the table, and this the maids divided between them. Peony took no share, for she considered herself above such money, but careful always to wound no feelings, she excused herself to the others saying, “Since I must stay with the little lords and their father and I cannot help you who serve our mistress, it would not be just for me to share the serving money.”

There was no talk of quick return to their old home. For one thing, the presentation of the gifts David had brought to the empresses was delayed until they were ready to receive him, and the delay stretched into months because they were busy with the repairs needed for the palace. While the court had been in exile there had been much ruin, and this must all be mended. But far beyond this were the vast plans the Western Empress had for a new palace and for added courts and pools and bridges and rockeries and gardens. The Imperial Treasury was impoverished by wars with the white men and by the rebellion of the southern Christians. The Western Empress demanded therefore new taxes and tributes, especially for the building of the Summer Palace and for the beautifying of the lake there. She dreamed of a marble boat set in the lake that would be large enough for all her ladies to dine in and then to see a play whose actors might number into hundreds. Her ministers groaned to think of such expense, and rumors went out over the city of her ambitions and her willfulness. The ministers besought her to remember that the wars with the white men had been lost for lack of a good army, and that swords were not enough these days when outer nations had gunpowder. But the Western Empress answered arrogantly thus: “When the Imperial Court is glorious, the nation shares its glory,” and the rumor of this went over the city, too.

Yet the people laughed when they heard of the pride and strength of the young empress and they took it as a good sign. Weakness and languor in the ruler were feared, and there was neither in the Western Empress. Even rumors of her quarrels with the Eastern Empress were made the stuff for jokes and songs, and hardihood and willfulness entered into the spirit of the people because it was in the young empress.

Early in the summer David received at last the summons to the court and he made ready to appear. The hour was soon after dawn, when the audience with the ministers was over, and the empresses were ready to receive proposals of new revenue and gifts.

Peony rose early indeed and she helped David to dress himself and saw to it that he had food and that all was in readiness. She went with him to the gate and behind her stood the servants, awed to know their master was to be received at court. They all gazed at David, very fine in new garments of blue silk and black velvet, his tasseled hat upon his head and jade rings on his thumbs, as he stepped into his great sedan chair.

Peony watched until the chair disappeared and then she went back to bed. She could not sleep — that was beyond her — and in an hour or two she must rise and see that the children were fed, cared for, and happy, and later than that the feast was prepared for her mistress that night, for the ladies were to play mah-jongg here. When David would return she did not know, but the house must be ready for that, too, and her mistress up and dressed and waiting to hear the story he would have to tell. For Peony was always careful to prepare her mistress to be all that she should be as a wife. She did not allow Kueilan to appear before her husband with her hair uncombed or her dress wrinkled. Kueilan grumbled often, saying, “I am an old married woman now, Peony, and shall I have no peace? First it is my feet I unbound to please you and now it is my hair to be a trouble to me and then it is my eyebrows to be plucked and my fingernails painted and you have me perfumed like a flower girl. When am I to have some peace?”

To this Peony only smiled and said, “It gives your lord pleasure, does it not, my lady?”

One day when Peony had so answered Kueilan threw her a shrewd look and she said, “It is only to please him, then? You do not care for me.”

Peony felt her heart stop. Then she said smoothly, “I take it that what gives him pleasure gives you the most pleasure, too, but if I am wrong, Lady, please instruct me.”

This put Kueilan in a difficulty, for how could she say she did not wish to give her husband pleasure? She was silent, but after that Peony took care never to mention David to her again. She learned more wisdom, and her soul grew deep as life itself.

When David came back at midmorning, looking weary but triumphant, the whole house was waiting to receive him, his wife dressed and pretty, the children clean and eager, and the servants respectful and yet curious.

Peony met him at the gate. “Is it too much to ask that you tell us what has happened? We wait to know, and with one telling it will be told to all.”

“First let me eat and drink, for I am faint,” David replied. “We were not allowed to sit down and I had to bow myself on my knees until they are sore.”

She followed him into the house and to his own rooms and took the heavy hat from his head, and the stiff brocaded robe he next laid aside, and the high velvet boots. Then she fetched his easy robe of summer silk and his low satin shoes and he ate and drank food that she ordered brought to him and he slept an hour and then he was ready.

In the great hall of the house Peony assembled all, and David sat down in the highest seat and looked about at his family and servants. The day was fine and the summer sunshine fell into the court and shone through the wide-open doors and he thought to himself that what he had was well enough to make a man proud. His wife sat across the table from him, and she wore a soft green satin robe, and jade was in her ears and in the knot of her hair and gold and jade were upon her hands and wrists. She was as pretty as the girl he had first seen in Kung Chen’s hall. Near her stood his two handsome sons, dressed like little men in long silk robes, their hair braided in queues and corded with red silk. The third son was now beginning to walk, and his nurse held him by a broad silk girdle and followed him as he staggered everywhere. Peony sat near the door, and he knew her quiet beautiful face. The servants stood together clean and waiting. He took up his tea bowl, sipped and set it down, and then began:

“You must understand that it is no easy matter to appear before the empresses. I waited for more than two hours in an anteroom with others who had been granted audience today, and we were given no seats or tea. A eunuch led us there and bade us wait, and it was the Chief Steward himself who was to call us. But when he came he had first to teach us what to expect and how to behave. The Eastern Empress, he told us, was ill today and only the Western Empress would receive us. We were not to look at the Imperial Screen behind which we sat—”

At this point David’s elder son cried out, “Dieh-dieh, did you not see her?”

David shook his head. “No one is allowed to see her, my first son. She is empress but she is also a woman — a beautiful one, and a widow. Her behavior is correct.

“Well, we all went in, and I was given the third place—”

“Why the third place, Dieh-dieh?” his son asked again.

At this David looked impatient and Peony rose softly and led the little boy to her side and held him in her arm. Then David went on: “That I am third is because I have no official rank and there were two before me who had. I was the first of those without rank, and this is because Kung Chen has special favor in our province and has been mentioned at the court by our provincial governor.”

So David went on, and he told how he came in and how he bowed his head to the floor and how he must stay in that position until his name was called, and how then he stood with bowed head and presented his gifts, which had been taken from him at the door when he entered. He explained that the gifts were from Europe, not as good as anything already here, but still he hoped that Her Majesty would find a moment’s idle pleasure in their curiosity. Then he spoke of the House of Ezra and its contracts with the House of Kung, and he thanked the Empress because although his ancestors came from foreign lands, yet they had lived here in peace.

At this point David stopped and looked at them with some pride. “When I said this, the Western Empress spoke to me.”

“What did she say?” Kueilan asked.

“She asked me if you were foreign too, but I said no. Then she asked me if I had children and I said yes, three sons. Now hear me — she commanded me to bring my sons and let her see them, because she has never seen children of foreign blood!”

What consternation, pride, and excitement now fell on David’s family!

“Did she set a day?” his wife exclaimed.

“Tomorrow, at four in the afternoon, we are all to go. I am to wait in the anteroom, but you and the children and their nurses must go to the garden where the ladies of the court will be gathering flowers. The Chief Steward will take you there and you are to stay only as long as he says and then come back.”

“Peony must come with me,” Kueilan said immediately.

“Oh, no!” Peony exclaimed.

“Yes, you must go,” David said with authority. “It is only you who can stop a child from crying.”

So it was decided, and for once Kueilan was too distraught to play her mah-jongg well and that night she was peevish when Peony came to put her to bed because she had lost so much money.

“Your lord is rich and generous,” Peony reminded her. “He will not reproach you, Lady.”

But Kueilan did not want to be comforted and she continued peevish until Peony left her in bed and went to tell David that she was ready to go to sleep.

She found him very meditative in his garden, sitting under a twisted pine tree in a bamboo chair. He heard her message and inclined his head but he did not rise for a moment. Peony waited, perceiving that he had been thinking and might want to tell her what he thought. When he did not speak she asked a question to excuse her lingering.

“How did the voice of the Western Empress sound in your ears?”

“Strong and fresh, but without sweetness,” he answered.

Then he said what was in his mind. “Peony, I never felt so clearly before the imperial clemency that has been shown to my people. She knew me foreign, she heard me give her thanks — and all she wished was to see my children.”

“Woman’s curiosity in an empress,” Peony said smiling.

“But no dislike!” he exclaimed.

“Why should there be dislike when your people have never made a war here or taken what was not yours of land or goods?” Peony asked warmly. “You have been good people — and you and your father are good men.”

David looked at her strangely. “Our goodness has not saved us elsewhere in the world,” he said.

“Those other foreign peoples are unreasonable,” Peony retorted. “We have been taught reason with our mothers’ milk.”

Upon this she went away, and the more she pondered what David had said, the more she was not certain whether it had been well to have him grateful to the Empress or whether it were a good sign that she had made him feel foreign again. Peony sighed and for the first time wished that a day had been set for their return to their own city.

There was no time for thinking or wishing on the morrow, be sure of that. All day Kueilan spent in bathing and powdering and dressing, and the hairline of her forehead must be straightened and every little hair pulled out that did not lie flat, and only Peony could do this without hurting her. The long fingernail on the third finger of her right hand broke off and this made her shed tears of anger.

“How shall I hide this?” she demanded of Peony, and she held out her little hand, which was still like a lotus bud.

“We will put the silver shield on just the same,” Peony replied. “Who will know the nail is gone beneath? Sit still, Lady, please, and let others serve you, lest you break another nail.”

By now it was her feet that distressed Kueilan. She looked with much distaste upon her shoes, which needed to be so much larger than they had been. “I am ashamed to show these huge countrywoman’s feet,” she declared to Peony. “I wish I had never listened to what you said.”

“Your lord was very pleased, Lady,” Peony reminded her, forgetting that she was not to speak of him.

“Only for a day or two,” Kueilan said pouting. “He never sees my feet now. He has forgotten all my suffering. But I have to see my feet every day and now they will disgrace me before the empresses. I dare say their feet are very tiny!”

Peony remembered her books at this moment. “No, Mistress, there you are wrong. The empresses are Manchu and not Chinese and their feet have never been bound, and therefore how much bigger are they than yours!”

Kueilan exclaimed at this but she was consoled, and at last she was dressed and beautiful and she sat motionless in her chair so as not to spoil her looks while Peony superintended the dressing of the children before her eyes. This, too, was a task needing much patience, for Kueilan did not like the robe for her eldest son, and when at last all were ready, the third son was overcome with excitement and too much noise and he cast up his food and spoiled his garments and had to be made ready afresh.

“I wish it were all over and that I were in bed!” Kueilan exclaimed when she rose at last and went to the gate, where the sedan chairs waited.

“Lady, you will tell your grandchildren of this hour,” Peony said, smiling, to comfort her.

So they set forth, David ahead and all his family behind, and they approached the great foursquare walls of the palace. At the gate they were delayed for bribes to the gatekeepers and then the chairmen were allowed to enter. Then the gates closed again after them and the chairs were set down and David came out first and then waited while they all came out. He surveyed them and felt his pride rise at the sight of his pretty wife and healthy children. Then he turned to Peony anxiously.

“Stay close by each one, Peony! Do not let the little boys run here and there — help their mother to answer well when she is spoken to.”

“Rest your heart,” Peony replied, but her own heart was far from at rest.

So they left him there, and a eunuch led them to an inner gate, and then the Chief Steward met them. He was a tall strong man, a eunuch as all men were in these walls, except the Emperor himself, and Peony instantly disliked his looks. He was handsome, his face full and smooth, his voice high and soft, but cold. But his eyes were not the eyes of a eunuch. He stared at her with instant and insolent admiration, and she looked away. In spite of her wish, she felt herself blush and then she grew cold. What if he took that blush to be a sign that she felt his look? She stayed close to her mistress and she took a hand of each little boy, and together they walked behind the Chief Steward to the gardens. At the gate he paused, and again his insolent eyes were on Peony while he gave them commands in his high cruel voice.

“Their Imperial Majesties are now examining the water lilies,” he told them. “You are to stand by the great pine tree inside the gate. When they pass you must all bow, even to the children. Do not speak unless Their Majesties address you. If they do not speak and pass on, I will lead you away again. If a question is asked, I will repeat it, and you are to answer me, and I will repeat your answer to Their Majesties.”

He led them in, and they waited by a great pine tree and he waited with them. In the distance, among the flowers in the sunshine, they could see the empresses, followed by a score and more of ladies all in beautiful robes of many colors. It was a pretty sight and Peony wished to enjoy it, but she could not because of the Chief Steward. What did he do now but take his place directly behind her? He stood so close to her that she could feel his hot breath on her nape, and she knew this meant that he was staring at her hair and at her neck and shoulders. She stepped forward and he stepped forward and suddenly she felt faint. The sunny picture before her swam into a mist, and all the brilliant colors mingled in a rainbow haze. If she stepped farther, it would be unfitting to her mistress, and yet she could not endure the terror of this man behind her. While she wavered she felt him press yet closer, and he made pretense to speak in a low voice: “The tall one is the Western Empress. She will speak if either speaks, for the Eastern Empress never speaks before her.”

While he said this he peered over Peony’s head and she felt his huge body press loathsomely against her. Now she could not bear it, and she slipped to one side and put the third son’s nurse in her place. Peony did not look up while she did this, but he reproved her. “Make no commotion, woman. Their Majesties are near!”

“Be still, Peony!” Kueilan whispered loudly.

What could Peony do but stand? She felt her face flush again and all the joy was spoiled. She scarcely heard what came next and she could scarcely keep from weeping.

For the Western Empress had paused and then the Eastern Empress also and all the ladies.

“Who are these?” the Western Empress now asked of the Chief Steward.

He answered her, and they stood while the Western Empress looked at them. Peony did not lift her eyes, knowing it was forbidden, but she saw the royal hands, one holding a jade fan, the other hanging down empty. They were strong hands for a woman, not small, but beautifully shaped. Upon each finger was a nail shield of gold, embossed and set with jewels. The feet beneath the long robe were in embroidered shoes, and under the shoes were satin soles padded six inches thick to the give the Empress height.

The Eastern Empress did not speak, but the Western Empress looked her fill at the children. “They do look foreign,” she declared to her ladies. “Black hair, but not smooth. The eyes are round, their noses high. Yet they are handsome and they look healthy. I wish our royal son looked so healthy.”

She sighed and ordered sweetmeats given them all and Peony thanked Heaven that the baby did not cry. Then she heard the Western Empress ask yet another question. “Who is this pretty girl?” She knew the question was of her, and she hung her head yet lower.

“She is our bondmaid,” Kueilan told the Chief Steward, and he shouted, “A bondmaid, Majesty!”

“Too pretty for a bondmaid,” the Western Empress said coolly.

That was all. The Western Empress swept on and with her the Eastern Empress and the ladies, and the Chief Steward led them out again. Now he was very affable and he heaped sweetmeats on the children, and he put his hand into his bosom and took out some money.

“Here is something for yourself,” he said to Peony. “Her Majesty never sees another woman, and it was most unusual that she spoke of you. A word from me will bring you into these courts and you will have all you need for life.”

While he spoke he held the money on his big open palm, but Peony did not take it. She hastened on with the children and shook her head and was not able to speak. Never had she been so glad to see David as she was now. He came forward to meet them and she answered his questions quickly while she busied herself.

“Yes, the children were good. Our lady was beautiful. Her Majesty spoke of the children’s health.”

And all the time she made haste to be hidden behind the curtains of her sedan chair, for the Chief Steward stood staring at her. When the curtains were drawn about her and she felt the chair hoisted to the men’s shoulders, she took out her handkerchief and wept heartily and well. She had been thoroughly frightened and now she was safe. Never would she leave the walls of the house again until they went home. A man so powerful as the Chief Steward in the Imperial Palace could reach out his hands and clutch her anywhere in the streets. She would persuade David to go home as soon as they could. Yet how could she tell him?

All the way home she wept, wiping her eyes dry only when they turned into their own street. When she was in the house she was busy again and she kept her face turned away, and in the weariness of all, the fret of her mistress and the crying of the children, she was not noticed, for David withdrew to his own rooms as he always did when the children were troublesome. So this day ended, and when all were at rest Peony went to bed too, without having seen David. She wept again and asked herself whether she must tell David, but being weary with fear and excitement, she too fell asleep before she could answer her own question.

David discovered her plight himself the next morning before Peony had so much as seen him. He had finished his breakfast and was about to set forth on a visit to a new shop in the south end of the city where rugs were being woven in new patterns, when a messenger came to the gate in the yellow garments that meant that he was from the Imperial Palace. He was very haughty and he frightened the gateman and the servants by his loud voice and his high manners, saying that he brought out a letter addressed to “The Foreigner Surnamed Chao, from the City of K’aifeng, Now Resident in the Hutung of the Silver Horse.”

Chao was the Chinese surname of Ezra’s family and the letter was for David. The gateman received it, and begging the imperial messenger to be seated, he ran with the letter to the head servant, who took it to David as he was about to come out from his own door.

“Master — from the palace!” the servant gasped.

David took the letter with wonder, and opened it. His face changed as he read the words it contained. He looked astonished and then stern.

“Does the messenger still wait?” he asked.

“At the gate, Master,” the servant replied.

“Pay him well and tell him that I shall send an answer when I have considered the proposal.”

The man went away and paid the messenger and then spread throughout the household the rumor that the master had been offered a high post in the Imperial Court. This rumor came to Peony and immediately she grew afraid. If David were tempted indeed to stay near the court, then how could she remain with him? She could never be safe from that evil eunuch. Her life fell into pieces before her eyes, and she felt so faint that she could scarcely continue with her task of arranging lilies in a bowl. Now indeed she must speak to David and tell him what had befallen her.

But David sent for her before she could speak. It was not usual that he sent for her, since when he had anything to say to her he strolled about the house until he found her. Peony knew, therefore, that he wished to speak privately to her, and she inclined her head when the servant came to call her and she put the flowers into the water and went at once.

David stood in the middle of his sitting room when she came in. In his hand was a large yellow envelope. When he saw Peony he held it out to her. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked.

She took the letter and read it. It was an offer from the Chief Steward to purchase her as a maid for one of the ladies of the court. Arrogantly phrased, it was all but a command. She folded the letter and thrust it into its envelope and looked speechlessly at David. Tears welled into her eyes again.

David sat down. “Sit down, Peony,” he said.

She sat down, bending her head and wiping her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.

“Do you know any reason for this?” he asked kindly.

To her dismay she saw that he imagined she knew that this offer was to be made. She shook her head and could not speak for weeping.

“Come, Peony,” he said at last, growing angry with her. “Have the courage to tell me if you want to leave my house!”

His anger dried her tears immediately. “Dare to say that I have no courage!” she retorted.

“This is more like you,” he said. “Now tell me everything.”

So Peony told him what had happened the day before, and the further David heard the more angry and dismayed he was.

“What a quandary!” he exclaimed. “We cannot stay here any more, or the Chief Steward will make our life wretched for us. A word from him and the very merchants will fear to deal with us!”

“It is all because of me,” Peony said in much distress. “Let me go.”

“Sell you?” David exclaimed. His voice was so hot that Peony took heart.

“I could run away,” she said.

“You could run away!” he repeated. “And what would become of me, Peony? Could I forgive myself?”

“If I ran away I might be able to find my way to you again,” Peony faltered.

They looked at one another and it was a strange long look. Peony was humble and trembling and frightened and David was fearful not only at what he saw in her face but at what he now perceived in his own heart. He could not let her leave him. He was jealous that the Chief Steward had so much as seen her and he blamed himself.

“How dare I let you out of my gate?” he muttered.

Peony looked down and did not answer. He saw her long straight lashes lying upon her cheeks and he rose abruptly.

“Prepare everything,” he commanded. “We leave for home tonight.”

She rose slowly, and lifted her eyes to his face.

“David,” she whispered, and did not know she spoke his name. “Do not think of me!”

“I do think of you,” he said shortly. “Obey me, Peony! I give it as my command.”

“I obey you, David.” Her voice was as soft as her breath.

That night soon after midnight David and his family left the city in hired mule carts. To his friend who was the head of Kung Chen’s shops in the city he explained truthfully why he must go. “The young woman has been like a sister to my wife rather than a bondmaid, and it cannot be allowed,” he said.

“That Chief Steward is a very devil,” the merchant agreed. “How many families in this city have suffered the loss of their daughters through him! You do well to escape.”

To his wife David also told the truth in a few simple words, and Kueilan was half frightened and yet unwilling to yield to fear. “It might be very well for Peony to be in the palace,” she reasoned. “We would have a friend there and she is so clever — who knows, she might even be a servingwoman to the Empress!”

To this David would not listen. “Peony has been in our house always, and it does not become me to sell her like a slave.” If Kueilan looked at him with suspicion he refused to see it. “Come,” he said. “Hasten yourself, Little Thing! We go tonight whether you are ready or not.”

It was a silent going. The city gate was closed and David had to bribe the gatemen well before they would open the great locks. But once they were open the carts passed through swiftly, and by morning they were well on their way to the canal.