My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard | Page 8

above the open shopways. There were long black signs of lacquer with letters of raised gold, or red ones with the characters carved and gilded. Above a shoe-shop was a made for the King of the Mountains, in front of a pipe-shop was a water pipe fit for his mate. From the fan-shop hung delicate, gilded fans; and framing the silk-shop windows gaily coloured silk was draped in rich festoons that nearly swept the pathway.
We bought silks and satins and gay brocades, we chatted and we bargained and we shopped. We handled jade and pearls and ornaments of twisted gold, and we priced amulets and incense pots and gods. We filled our eyes with luxury and our amahs' chairs with packages, and returned home three happy, tired, hungry women, thinking with longing of the hissing tea-urn upon the charcoal brazier.
That crowded, bustling, threatening city seems another world from this, our quiet, walled-in dwelling. I feel that here we are protected, cared for, guarded, and life's hurry and distress will only pass us by, not touch us. Yet-- we like to see it all, and know that we are part of that great wonder-thing, the world.
I am thy happy, tired, Wife.
8. My Dear One, I am carrying a burden for another that is causing me much sorrow. Dost thou remember Chen-peh, who is from my province and who married Ling Peh-yu about two moons after I came to thy household? She came to me yesterday in dire distress. She is being returned to her home by her husband's people, and, as thou knowest, if a woman is divorced shame covers her until her latest hour. I am inexpressibly saddened, as I do not know what can be done. The trouble is with his mother and, I fear, her own pride of family. She cannot forget that she comes from a great house, and she is filled with pride at the recollection of her home. I have told her that the father and mother of one's husband should be honoured beyond her own. I can see that she has failed in respect; and thus she merits condemnation. We have all learned as babes that "respect" is the first word in the book of wisdom. I know it is hard at times to still the tongue, but all paths that lead to peace are hard.
She will remain with me two nights. Last night she lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, with I know not what within her soul. I begged her to think wisely, to talk frankly with her husband and his mother, to whom she owes obedience. There should be no pride where love is. She must think upon the winter of her days, when she will be alone without husband and without children, eating bitter rice of charity, though 'tis given by her people. I put her in remembrance of that saying of the poet:
"Rudely torn may be a cotton mantle, yet a skillful hand may join it; Snapped may be the string where pearls are threaded, yet the thread all swiftly knotted; But a husband and his wife, once parted, never more may meet."
I must not bring thee the sorrows of another. Oh, dear one, there will never come 'twixt thee and me the least small river of distrust. I will bear to thee no double heart, and thou wilt cherish me and love me always.
Thy Wife.
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My Dear One, I cannot wait until the seventh day to write thee again, as my letter to thee yestereve was full of sadness and longing. Now I have slept, and troubles from a distance do not seem so grave.
Thine Honourable Mother has chided me gravely, but to my mind unjustly, and, as thou knowest, I could not answer her words, though they pierced me "like arrows from the strings of white-winged bows." Poor Li-ti is in trouble again, and this time she has brought it upon herself, yet she cannot he blamed. I as the head of the household, as thine Honourable Mother has told me, should have protected her. I told thee that she brought servants from her old home, and amongst them her childhood's nurse, who, I am sure, loves Li-ti dearly; but, as many women who have little to occupy their hands, she loves to sit in the women's courtyard and gossip. If it had stopped within the servants' courtyard all would have been well; but at the time of Li-ti's dressing all the small goods she had gathered during the day were emptied into the lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that "as poison that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of gossip spread through the soul of woman." I do not know how it came about, but comparisons were made