Now she studied one book after another, first the house accounts which the steward kept, then the clothing accounts, repaired and new, then the house repairs and replacements, always heavy in so large a family, and finally the land accounts. The ancestral lands of the Wu family were large and productive, and upon them and the shops the family depended. Neither Mr. Wu nor any of his sons had ever gone away to work. Some of the remoter cousins, it is true, had settled in other cities as merchants or in banks and trade, but even these, if they were temporarily out of work, came back to the land for a while to recover themselves. Madame Wu administered these lands as she did the house. It had been many years since Mr. Wu did more than read over the accounts once a year just before the old year passed into the new one. But Madame Wu studied the house accounts twice monthly and the land accounts every month. She knew exactly what the harvests of rice and wheat, eggs, vegetables, and fuel were. The land steward reported to her any change or disaster. Sometimes she talked this over with Mr. Wu and sometimes she did not. It depended on how tired she was. If she were tired she settled a matter herself.
This day she had spent in such work from early morning until dark, pausing only to supervise the hanging of the picture and the cutting away of the trees. Around her the house was as silent as though she were the only soul in it. The silence was restful to her. She would not, of course, want it every day. That would have been to enter too soon into death. But after forty years it was pleasant to spend one day entirely alone, without a single voice raised to ask her for anything. The accounts were accurate and satisfying. Less had been spent than had been taken in. The granaries were still not empty and soon the new harvests would be reaped. The larders were full of food, both salted and fresh. Watermelons had ripened and were hanging in the deep wells to be cooled. The steward had written down in his little snakelike letters, “Nineteen watermelons, seven yellow-hearted, the rest red, hanging in the two north wells.” She might have one drawn up tonight before she slept. Watermelons were good for the kidneys.
When the account books were closed she sat steeping herself in the sweet silent loneliness. She felt the weariness begin to seep from her like a poison breathed out of her lungs. She had been far more weary than she knew, a weariness not so much physical as spiritual. It was hard to define even where in the spirit it lay. Certainly her mind was not weary. It was hungry and alert and eager to exercise itself. It seemed to her that she had not really used her mind for a long time except in such things as reckoning accounts and settling quarrels and deciding whether a child should go to one school or another. No, her weariness was hid somewhere in her innermost being, perhaps in her belly and in her womb. She had been giving life for twenty-four years, before the children were born and after they were born, and now they would themselves give birth to other children. Mother and grandmother, she had been absorbed in giving birth. Now it was over.
At this moment she heard a footstep. It was clear and decided, clacking on the stones lightly as it approached. She wondered for a moment — leather shoes? Who wore leather shoes among the women? For it was a woman’s footsteps. Then she knew. It was Rulan, the Shanghai wife of Tsemo, her second son. She sighed, reluctant to yield even for a moment her silence and loneliness. But she rebuked herself. No one must think she had withdrawn from the house. Rather, let them think of this as the center of the house because she was here.
“Come hither, Rulan,” she called. Her pretty voice was cheerful. When she looked up she saw the girl’s dark eyes searching her face. The young woman stood in the doorway, tall and slender. Her straight long robe was pinched in at the waist after the half-foreign fashion of Shanghai. Her bosom was flat. She was not beautiful because of her high cheekbones. Madame Wu’s own face had the egg-shaped smoothness of classical beauty. Rulan’s face was wide at the eyes, narrow at the chin. Her mouth was square and sullen.
Madame Wu ignored the sullenness. “Come in and sit down, child,” she said. “I have just finished our family accounts. We are fortunate — the land has been kind.”
The girl was plain, and yet she had flashes of beauty, Madame Wu thought, watching her as she sat down squarely upon a chair. She had none of the polish and courtesy which all the other young women in the house had. Instead it seemed that this girl even took pleasure in being rude and always abrupt. Madame Wu looked at her with interest. It was the first time she had ever been alone with Rulan.
“You must be careful of your beautiful mouth, my child,” she now said in that gentle dispassionate manner which all young persons found disconcerting, since it was neither chiding nor advising.
“What do you mean?” Rulan stammered. Her lips quivered when they parted.
“It is a lovely trembling mouth now,” Madame Wu said. “But women’s mouths change as they grow older. Yours will become more lovely as it grows firm, or it will become coarse and stubborn.”
Her cool voice conveyed no interest, merely the statement of what was to be expected. Rulan might have declared, had there been any interest, that she did not care what her mouth became. But confused by the coolness, she merely pressed her red lips together for a moment and drew her black brows together.
“Did you come to speak to me about something?” Madame Wu inquired. She had changed her seat to one more comfortable than the straight wooden chair by the table. This one was wooden, too, but the back was rounded. Yet she did not lean against it. She continued to sit upright while she filled her little pipe. She lit it and took her two customary dainty puffs.
“Our Mother!” Rulan began impetuously. She was pent and disturbed, yet she did not know how to begin.
“Yes, child?” Madame Wu said mildly.
“Mother,” Rulan began again, “you have upset everybody.”
“Have I?” Madame Wu asked. Her voice was full of music and wonder.
“Yes, you have,” Rulan repeated. “Tsemo said I wasn’t to come and talk with you. He said that it was Liangmo’s duty as the oldest son. But Liangmo won’t. He said it would be no use. And Meng does nothing but cry. But I don’t cry. I said someone must come and talk with you.”
“And no one came except you.” Madame Wu smiled slightly.
Rulan did not smile in reply. Her too-serious young face was agonized between shyness and determination. “Mother,” she began yet again, “I have always felt you did not like me, and so I ought to be the last one to come to you.”
“Child, you are wrong,” Madame Wu said. “There is no one in the world whom I dislike, not even that poor foreign soul, Little Sister Hsia.”
Rulan flinched. “You really do not like me,” she argued. “I know that. I am older than Tsemo, and you do not like me for that. And you never forgive me that we fell in love in Shanghai and decided ourselves to marry instead of letting you arrange our affairs.”
“Of course I did not like that,” Madame Wu agreed. “But when I had thought about it, I knew that I wanted Tsemo’s happiness, and when I saw you I knew he was happy, and so I was pleased with you. That you are older than he you cannot help. It is annoying in the house, but I have managed in spite of it. One can manage anything.”
“But if I were like Meng and the others,” Rulan said in her stormy impetuous way, “I would not feel so badly now over what you have done. Mother, you must not let Father take another woman.”
“It is not a matter of letting him,” Madame Wu said, still mildly. “I have decided that it is the best thing for him.”