“A pretty woman,” Madame Wu said faintly, “very pretty but not beautiful. A girl — a woman, that is — about twenty-two years old, round-cheeked and young and soft as a child, ready in her affection to love anybody and not just one man — someone who does not, indeed, love too deeply any man, and who will, for a new coat or a sweet, forget a trouble — who loves children, of course, good-tempered — and whose family is far away so that she will not be always crying for home—”
“I have exactly what you want,” Liu Ma said in triumph. Then her round face grew solemn. “Alas,” she said, “no, the girl is an orphan. You would not want one of your sons to marry an orphan who does not know what her parents were. No, no, that would be to bring wild blood into the house.”
Madame Wu brought back her gaze from the court and let it fall on Liu Ma’s face. “I do not want the girl for Fengmo,” she said calmly. “For him I have other plans. No, this girl is to be a small wife for my own lord.”
Liu Ma pretended horror and surprise. She pursed her thick lips and took out the square of cotton again and held it over her eyes.
“Alas,” she muttered, “alas, even he!”
Madame Wu shook her head. “Do not misjudge him,” she said. “It is entirely my own thought. He is very unwilling. It is I who insist.”
Liu Ma took down the cloth from her eyes and thrust it into her large bosom again. “In that case,” she said briskly, “perhaps the orphan is the very thing. She is strong and useful.”
“I do not want a servant for myself,” Madame Wu interrupted her. “I have plenty of servants for the house, and Ying has always taken care of me and would poison another. No, if she is a servant she will not do.”
“She is not a servant,” Liu Ma said in alarm. “What I mean is only that she is so willing, so soft, so gentle—”
“But she must be quite hearty and healthy,” Madame Wu insisted.
“That she is,” Liu Ma replied. “In fact, also, she is quite pretty and had she not been an orphan I could have married her off long months before this. But you know how it is, Lady. Good families do not want wild blood for their sons, and those who are willing to have her are somewhat too low for her. She is strong, but still she is not low. In fact, Lady, I had thought of putting her in a flower house for a while for the very purpose of finding some older man who might want her for a small wife. But Heaven must have been watching over her, that at this very moment when she is at her best you should be looking for just such a one as she is.”
“Have you a picture of her?” Madame Wu inquired.
“Alas, no, I never thought of taking her picture nor she of having a picture,” Liu Ma said. “The truth is”—the cotton cloth came out and she coughed into it—“the girl’s one fault is that she is simple and ignorant. The worst I had better tell you. She cannot read, Lady. In the old days this would have been considered even a virtue, but now, of course, it is fashionable for girls to read even as boys do. It is the foreign way that has crept into our country.”
“I do not care if she cannot read,” Madame Wu said.
Liu Ma’s face broke into wrinkles of pleasure. She struck both her fat knees with her palms. “Then, Lady, it is done!” she cried. “I will bring her whenever you say. She is in the country with her foster mother on a farm.”
“Who is this foster mother?” Madame Wu inquired.
“She is nothing,” Liu Ma said eagerly. “I would not even tell you who she is. She found a child, Lady, one cold night, outside the city wall. Someone had left it there — a girl not wanted. The old woman was walking home after a feast meal with her brother who that day was thirty years old. He keeps a little market at— No, I will not even tell of it. It is nothing where he is or what his market. She heard a baby cry and saw the girl. Now, she would not have taken another mouth home, for she is poor, but the truth is she had a son, and when she saw this girl she thought it might serve her one day as a wife for her son, and she would be saved the cost of finding one outside. How could she know her one son would sicken and die before they could marry? Plague took him. She has the girl now and no husband for her.”
Madame Wu listened to this without moving her eyes from Liu Ma’s face. “Will she give the girl up altogether?” she now asked.
“She would be willing,” Liu Ma said. “She is very poor, and after all the girl is not her bone and flesh.”
Madame Wu turned her back to the court. The sun had crept over the wall and shortened and thickened and blackened the shadows on the bamboos on the stones. “I had better see her,” she said musingly. She put her delicate finger to her lip as she did when she was thoughtful. “No, why should I?” she went on. “It would not be to your interest to deceive me, and as you say, one girl is like another, after we have decided on her nature.”
“How much would you pay, Lady?” Liu Ma now inquired.
“I should have to dress her, of course,” Madame Wu said thoughtfully.
“Yes, but since the old woman is not her mother, she would not care what you did for that,” Liu Ma said. “She would only want heavy silver in her hand.”
“One hundred dollars is not too little for a country girl,” Madame Wu said calmly. “But I will pay more than that. I will pay two hundred.”
“Add fifty, Lady,” Liu Ma said coaxingly. Sweat burst out of her dark skin. “Then I can give the two hundred whole to the woman. She will let the girl go today for that.”
“Let it be then,” Madame Wu said so suddenly that she saw a greedy sorrow shine in the small old eyes that were fastened on her anxiously. “You need not grieve that you did not ask more,” she said. “I know what is just and what is generous.”
“I know your wisdom, Lady,” Liu Ma said eagerly. She fumbled the pictures together. Then she paused. “Are you sure you don’t want a pretty wife for your son, too, Lady? I would take off some cash for two girls at once.”
“No,” Madame Wu said with a sort of sternness. “Fengmo can wait. He is very young.”
“That is true,” Liu Ma agreed. Now that the bargain was made she was half-tearful with joy, and she wanted to agree with everything that Madame Wu said. “Yes, yes, Lady, it is the old that cannot wait. The old men must be served first, Lady. You are right always. You know all hearts.”
She tied the picture book into the kerchief again and rose to her feet. “Shall I fetch the girl here at once?”
“Bring her this evening at twilight,” Madame Wu said.
“Good,” Liu Ma said, “good — the best of times. She will have the day in which to wash herself and her clothes and clean her hair.”
“Tell her to bring nothing,” Madame Wu said, “nothing in her hands, nothing in a box. She is to come to me empty-handed, clad only in what she wears.”
“I promise you — I promise you,” Liu Ma babbled, and bowing and babbling she hurried away on her feet that had been badly bound in her childhood and now were like thick stumps.
Almost immediately Ying came into the room with fresh tea. She did not speak, and Madame Wu did not. She watched in silence while Ying wiped the table and the chair where the old woman had sat and took up the tea bowl she had used as though it were a piece of filth. When she was about to leave with this bowl Madame Wu spoke.
“Tonight about twilight a young woman will come to the gate.”
Ying stood motionless, listening, the dirty bowl between her thumb and finger.
“Bring her straight to me,” Madame Wu directed, “and put up a little bamboo bed for her here in this room.”
“Yes, Lady,” Ying muttered. Her voice choked in her throat and she hurried away.