Peony: A Novel of China (39 page)

“We grow too mournful,” Ezra said suddenly. “What has been has been, and cannot be avoided. Tell me about your journey, my son.”

So David roused himself and he told his father everything, the beauty of the great northern capital, and how the people looked and how noble their nature was, and what he had eaten and drunk and what all the gaieties were that he had enjoyed and how he had been given an audience before the Western Empress, and he told of the rumors about her, and so telling all he came at last to the reason why they had left the city so suddenly by night, for Peony’s sake.

Ezra listened closely, laughing sometimes and his eyes shining sometimes, and shrewd and careful when David spoke of business. When he heard of Peony, he grew very grave indeed. “What misfortune!” he exclaimed. “The long arm of the Chief Steward can reach anywhere, and we must tell Kung Chen this tomorrow.”

“I could not have done otherwise, Father,” David said.

“No—no.” Ezra hesitated, then he said firmly, “No, my son, no! To be sure, had she been like other women and had she welcomed the chance to go into the palace—well—hm—then, ah, it would have been fortunate for our house. We would have had a friend in the highest quarters. But being what she is—no, certainly not. Yet we must take every opportunity to ward off evil results. It would be a great sacrifice to make only for a woman, if our business were spoiled because of spite at the court. Your mother always said we made too much of Peony.”

At this David felt some sort of heat rise in him, mingled with anger, and to defend himself he spoke coolly. “Well, my father, if I have done unwisely, I must make amends in some other way, for Peony has been like my sister, and I could not put her into that evil steward’s palm at any price. That much I know.”

“As long as she is no more to you than a sister I will not complain,” Ezra said.

This speech was so plain that David was confounded by it. It probed him too deeply, beyond what he himself was willing to know, and he did not answer it. He looked at the candles and saw them guttering and he made excuse to rise and use the snuffers on them.

“It is late!” he exclaimed. “Tomorrow I must be early at the shops, Father, and so I will say good night.”

Wang Ma had been waiting outside the door, and when she heard this she came in with the fresh tea and the rice gruel that Ezra drank before he slept, and so the day was over.

But for David there was no sleep. He did not go to his wife. Instead he stayed in his room, finding there every sign of Peony’s thought for him, the bedquilt folded, the curtains drawn, the teapot hot, his pipe prepared, the candles trimmed. But she herself had gone.

He made himself ready for bed and he put out the candles and parted the curtains and laid himself down. Still he could not sleep. His father’s talk had stirred afresh all that had been in his mind these many weeks on the journey. His mother, Leah, Peony, Kueilan, these four women who had somehow between them shaped his life were shaping him still. He longed to be free of them all, and yet he knew that no man is ever free of the women who have made him what he is. He sighed and tossed and wished for the day when he could return to the shops and the men there who had nothing to do with his heart and his soul.

Peony, too, was restless that night. David had been long with his father, she knew, for Wang Ma told her that the two were talking gravely hour after hour and she dared not go in, even though it was long past midnight. She had waited with Wang Ma, outwardly to keep her company but secretly because she hoped to see David’s face at least as he passed. Yet he had not seen her, and she had not dared to call him. She sat in the dark court outside the range of the mild candlelight flowing through the open door and beyond, hearing their voices, and he passed her so closely that she could have touched him, but she did not put out her hand. Doubtless he had told his father why they had left Peking, and perhaps Ezra had reproached him. Well she knew that danger of trouble from the Chief Steward was not past, even here, and she shrank from being the cause of it.

When David had gone she went to bed herself, and lying alone in the moonless summer night, she considered her plight. Rich folk could be kind, as the Ezra family had always been kind to her, but if one of the lesser ones to whom they were kind should also become a trouble, their hearts could cool quickly. She remembered how she had thought that David loved her, perhaps, and she thought of the look in his eyes sometimes. Then she remembered how cold he had been all these weeks. Doubtless he regrets already what I have compelled him to do, she told herself.

Pride came to her help again, and she decided that at the very first moment he allowed her, she would go to David and tell him that she wished to enter the Buddhist nunnery that stood inside the city gate. There she would be safe from any man, and he could send word somehow to the Chief Steward that she had long been dedicated and only waiting for the journey north to be finished before she became a nun. Inside that quiet haven, where only women lived, she would be safe, and it seemed sweet to her.

The more she thought of this plan, the better she considered it to be, and she held it in her mind for a few days until the first rush of David’s business was over. Yet she dared not be silent long, lest that strong soft hand from the Imperial Palace should bring trouble in its grasp.

On the fifth day she saw David linger after his noon meal as though he were not in haste to return to the shops. Ezra went to sleep on the long couch that in this summer weather was set under the bamboos, and Wang Ma sat by him to keep the flies away. The children slept, the servants slept, and her mistress too was sleeping. Peony had made it her business today to superintend the noon meal, and while the underservants took the dishes away, she handed the bamboo toothpicks to David and she said, “Will you not sleep a while, too? The air is heavy and there are thunderclouds in the south.”

“I will sleep an hour in my own court,” he replied.

Thither she went to set a bamboo couch under an old pine tree there, and while she was spreading a soft mat over it, David came in. He had taken off his robes when he came in and he wore his inner garments of pale green silk.

“All is ready,” Peony said, and she prepared to leave him. The day was so hot that clear little rills of sweat ran down her cheeks and she wiped them away and laughed. “I am melting!” she exclaimed.

Her eyes met David’s unconsciously, and instantly her laughter died. She had never seen him look at her thus. His eyes were on her passionately, grave and warm. The red flew into her cheeks and her knees trembled. Her tongue began to speak at random, without her mind, and yet repeating what her mind had been thinking.

“I have—have been—looking for the moment—to—to say something.” So she began.

“This moment,” David said.

She clasped her hands in front of her. “I—I have wept so much—”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because of what happened in the capital.” Her words rushed out now, hurrying to be said. “I want to ask you—I beg you—I would die if I had brought harm to you, or even a little trouble. I can—I will—go into the Buddhist nunnery. It is safe there, and you could tell the—the Chief Steward—I am to be a nun.”

“You a nun!” David cried in a low voice. He laughed silently, as though he wanted no one to hear him.

Yet who was there to hear? The house was sleeping and around them the hot afternoon sun shone down. There was not a sound even from outside the walls. The city slept and the very cicadas were still. And Peony stood before David as though she were caught fast in a web. She did not try to speak again. She could not, indeed.

What had brought him to this moment she could not imagine. She was amazed and fearful and love heated her veins and throbbed in her heart. He whom she had thought so cold all these weeks was suddenly all molten fire.

“Peony, follow me,” he commanded her.

He turned and she followed him into his sitting room. He leaned against the table and faced her. “I tell you this now and it must last our lives through. If I tell you, will you remember?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and her eyes did not waver from his.

“I have cheated myself all these years by saying you were like my sister,” he said. “I have been a fool. You have never been like my sister. Never could I have loved a sister as I loved you when we were children—and as I love you now.”

He looked at her steadily and she returned his look. This was the gift life gave her, this moment when he spoke these words. It would have been easy to put out both hands and take the gift, forgetting all else. But this was not possible for Peony. Too many years had she taken care of him and shielded him and strengthened him, planned for him and loved him. She could not think of herself now.

She tried to laugh. “All the more reason for me to be a nun, I think!”

He put aside her pretense at mirth. “Do not escape me by laughter,” he said sternly. “I know as well as you do what it means for me to—to say what I have said. Yet I had to say it so that you know now why I could not leave you in the palace. As long as I live you must stay in my house, Peony, for I cannot live without you. I know it at last.”

“Is this why you have been so cold to me all these weeks on the journey?” she asked.

“I was not cold to you. I was thinking of you, by day and by night,” he replied.

She could not pretend to laugh now. He was sorrowful and resolute and she could not bear to know that his love for her should bring with it trouble to him. “I thank you for telling me what you have in your heart.” Her voice was clear and grave. “I will keep your words in my heart forever. They are my comfort and they make my home.”

She clasped her hands together and she bowed and turned away to leave him.

At the door his voice held her again. “Further than this I have not thought. Yet what is to become of us?”

She paused, one foot on the threshold, her hand on the lintel of the door. “Time will show us,” she said gently, and then fearing lest he step forward to catch her hand or touch her shoulder, and dreading the weakness of love in her heart, she went quickly away.

That night it was impossible to sleep. She was glad that the bright moon that had attended them on their journey was gone. She crept through the darkness into the peach garden, and sat there alone under the trees. The stars were hidden by clouds, and the air was damp with coming rain. Yet she could not sit too long, for soon the mosquitoes began to whine about her. She lifted her wide sleeves and waved them like wings about her, and then she rose and walked to and fro. This walking—it was what Leah used to do, hour after hour, and when she thought of this suddenly Leah was here again and she could not shake off the sense of her presence. Yet why should she be afraid of Leah any more? She had the weapon now to still that ghost forever. If she would, she could go to David at this very hour and seal her love with her body, and what could Leah do to her—Leah, whose flesh was dust? She lifted her face to the dark sky, and ecstasy brimmed her heart. What if she went on silent feet while the house slept and took her advantage of David’s love? The victory would be hers.

She stopped alone in the darkness, her finger to her lip, smiling to herself. Into her secret life in this house he would come, and she would be alone no more. She shook her head and her hand fell and her smile was gone. Her heart beat hard. Why should it be secret? There was no law against a man taking to himself the woman he loved. All through the city men did so, even as Kung Chen had taken his pretty singing girl, who afterward betrayed him. None would raise a cry against David. Indeed, it would be the better for him, for it would bring him closer to his friends. There need be no ceremony. She would yield to her heart and go to him now, and in the morning she would tell Wang Ma and soon all would know, and her mistress could accept it and allow her the second place, or she could refuse to know and all would go on as before.

Thus Peony’s soft heart reasoned. Then her mind, solitary so long, grew hard and clear. Is David like other men? So mind inquired of heart.

At this moment, before she answered, she was suddenly startled by a strange thick cry. She lifted her head to listen, and her thoughts paused. There was no second sound, but feeling herself always responsible for this family, she went at once through the dark garden into the dimly lit great hall, and listened. Ezra’s rooms opened eastward from the hall and his windows into the garden, and she pressed her ear against his closed door. She heard his breathing coming from him in groans, very heavy and slow, and she opened the door softly.

“It is I, Peony!” she called softly. “Are you ill, Old Master?”

He did not answer but his loud breaths came and went as though he dragged them out of his bosom. She ran in then to his bedroom and blew alive the brown paper spill always smoldering in its urn of ashes, and she lit the oil lamp and held it high in her right hand while with the other she pulled aside the curtains. Ezra lay there, his pillow pushed aside, his head thrown back until his beard stood upright into the air. His eyes were open and glazed and his whole face was purple and his back arched and stiff. He did not see or hear her, for his whole attention was fixed upon drawing his breath in and pushing it out again.

“Oh, Heaven!” Peony cried. She dropped the curtain and ran to David’s room and beat upon his door. Then she tried to open it. It was locked! Even in the midst of her terror she paused. Why had he locked the door—except against her? Or perhaps against himself! He heard her now and he answered, “What is it?”

“It is I, Peony!” she cried. “Your father has been smitten down!”

He came out almost at once, tall in his pale night garments, and fastening his silk girdle as he came out he passed her.

“I heard your father cry out—and I went in—being in the peach garden—” She stammered this as she followed him, and they entered Ezra’s room.

There was no sound of breathing now. When David parted the curtains and Peony looked in by his shoulder, she saw the old man lying with his arms and legs flung wide, as though embattled against death. But he had lost. He was dead. His beard lay on his bosom, and his eyes stared up severe and cold. She pushed David aside when she saw those eyes, and with her fingers she drew down the lids, lest they stiffen in that stare until they fell into decay, and she drew his arms to his sides and laid one foot beside the other and covered him. “So that he looks only asleep,” she murmured.