My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard | Page 9

between the households, that of her home and that of her husband, and news was carried back to the servants' quarters until at last our household was in a state of unrest that stopped all work and made living quite impossible.
It seems small, but it is the retailing of little calumnies that disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and ruins the peace of families. Finally I found it necessary to talk to Li-ti's nurse, and I told her many things it were good for her to know. I warned her that if she did not wish to revisit her home province she must still her tongue. Things were better for a time, but they commenced again, and I called her to my courtyard and said to her, "The sheaves of rice have been beaten across the wood for the last time. You must go." Li-ti was inconsolable, but I was firm. Such quarrels are not becoming when we are so many beneath one rooftree.
The servant went away, but she claimed her servant's right of reviling us within our gate. She lay beneath our outer archway for three long hours and called down curses upon the Liu family. One could not get away from the sound of the enumeration of the faults and vices of thy illustrious ancestors even behind closed doors. I did not know, my husband, that history claimed so many men of action by the name of Liu. It pleased me to think thou mayest claim so long a lineage, as she went back to the dynasty of Ming and brought forth from his grave each poor man and woman and told us of-- not his virtues. I should have been more indignant, perhaps, if I had not heard o'ermuch the wonders of thy family tree. I was impressed by the amount of knowledge acquired by the family of Li-ti. They must have searched the chronicles which evidently recorded only the unworthy acts of thy men-folk in the past. I hope that I will forget what I have heard, as some time when I am trying to escape from thine ancestors the tongue might become unruly.
At the end of three hours the woman was faint and very ill. I had one of the servants take her down to the boat, and sent a man home with her, bearing a letter saying she was sickening for home faces. She is old, and I did not want her to end her days in disgrace and shame.
But thine Honourable Mother! Thine Honourable Mother! Art thou not glad that thou art in a far-off country? She went from courtyard to courtyard, and for a time I fully expected she would send to the Yamen for the soldiers; then she realised the woman was within her right, and so restrained her-self. It nearly caused her death, as thou knowest thine Honourable Mother has not long practised the virtue of restraint, especially of the tongue. She was finally overcome taken to her chamber, and we brought her tea and heated wine, and tried in all our ways to make her forget the great humiliation. As she became no better, we sent for the man of medicine from the Eastern Gate, and he wished to burn her shoulders with a heated cash to remove the heat within her. To this she objected so strongly that he hastily gathered his utensils and departed looking fearfully over his shoulder from time to time as he passed quickly down the hillside.
Then I thought of her favourite priest from the monastery down below, and sent for him. He came with candle and incense and, I think, some rose wine for which the monastery is justly famous; and he chanted prayers, striking from time to time a little gong, until peace was restored and sleep came to her eyelids.
[Illustration: Mylady07.]
In the morning she wished to talk to Li-ti; but I feared for her, and I said, "You cannot speak of the ocean to a well-frog, nor sing of ice to a summer insect. She will not understand. She said Li-ti was without brains, a senseless thing of paint and powder. I said, "We will form her, we will make of her a wise woman in good time. She replied with bitterness, "Rotten wood cannot be carved nor walls of dirt be plastered." I could not answer, but I sent Li-ti to pass the day with Chih-peh at the Goldfish Temple, and when she returned the time was not so stormy.
All this made me unhappy, and the cares of this great household pressed heavily upon my shoulders. Please do not think the cares too heavy, nor that I do not crave the work. I know all labour is done for the sake of happiness, whether the happiness comes or no; and if