“I never thought I should have to see a flower-house girl in our house,” Ying retorted, “nor the sons of the house out wandering over the earth and a concubine cast aside and still having to be fed.”
“So the girl Jasmine is come?” Madame Wu said.
“She is in the back court waiting,” Ying replied. She busied herself about her mistress’s toilet table while she went on talking. “They asked me what to do with her. I don’t know what to do with her.” Ying’s underlip thrust itself out. “The girl says she’s expected. I told her I did not expect her.”
Madame Wu got up out of bed and thrust her narrow feet into flower-embroidered slippers. “Did she come alone?” she asked.
“A snag-toothed old woman came with her and then went away in a hurry. Oh, she’s on our hands,” Ying said very sourly.
Madame Wu did not speak. She proceeded to her bath, and then she put on her silver-gray brocaded satin robe over soft white silk undergarments. Ying dressed her hair carefully, her underlip still sullen.
“Fetch my breakfast,” Madame Wu commanded. She sat down a few moments later and ate it with appetite. She felt a new hunger even for food, and was amused. Had she not heard that love destroyed the appetite? Then she remembered that it was only unrequited love that did so.
“André loves me,” she thought in triumph.
In less than half an hour she rose to go to the back court to see the girl Jasmine.
“Shall I not bring her here, Lady?” Ying inquired. “It will give her big thoughts if you go to her.”
“No,” Madame Wu said calmly, “I will go to her.” She wished as few persons as possible now to enter her own court. Here let the spirit of André dwell undisturbed, she told herself. Then on the threshold of the moon gate she felt her feet cling, as though hands held them to the marble. A new thought came into her mind.
“But André never held himself back from anyone,” she thought. “He would have met this girl freely to discern what he could do for her. His spirit here will help me.”
She turned to Ying. “You may bring her after all,” she said.
So while Ying went she sat down. Anyone looking in through the gate would have seen her sitting, a slender silvery figure, her head bent, a smile upon her almond-pale face. But no one passed, and in a few moments Ying returned, marching ahead of a rosy plump short young girl.
Thus Madame Wu looked up and saw Jasmine. She was at the same instant aware that this was the sort of woman whom she naturally most disliked, a robust and earthy creature, coarse and passionate. She averted her eyes and felt her soul stagger between yesterday and today. Her dainty flesh shivered.
She felt her protest cut off, stilled by André. There his face was again, dark upon the curtain of her memory. Gazing at his face, she began to ask the girl questions in a soft and gentle voice. Ying fell back a few paces and stood listening and staring. This was not at all Madame Wu’s usual silvery clear voice. There was no hardness in it. Yet it was not the voice in which Madame Wu habitually spoke to children. It was something new, this voice.
“Tell me why you want to come here to live,” Madame Wu asked.
Jasmine looked down at the stones under her feet. She wished she had put on her blue cotton jacket and trousers instead of her green satin ones.
“I want to settle myself before the child is born,” she said.
“Is there to be a child?” Madame Wu asked.
Jasmine lifted her head for one quick look at her. “Yes!” she said loudly.
“There is no child,” Madame Wu replied.
Jasmine lifted her head again, opened her lips to protest, and stared into Madame Wu’s eyes. They were fixed upon her with piercing light, and she burst into tears.
“So there is no child,” Madame Wu repeated.
“Lady, we don’t have to keep her!” Ying cried.
Madame Wu put up her long narrow hand. “This is for me to decide,” she said. “Please go away, Ying.”
“And leave you with this rotten egg?” Ying demanded.
“You may stand just outside the moon gate,” Madame Wu said.
She waited for Ying to go, and then she motioned the girl to sit down on a porcelain garden seat. Jasmine sat down, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles and drawing her sobs back into her throat. Madame Wu began to speak.
“You know,” she said to Jasmine, “it is a very grave thing to enter a man’s house, especially when there is a large and honorable family such as ours. You can come into it and ruin all happiness here. Or you can come in and add happiness by your presence. All this depends on your true heart. If you come for rice and shelter, I beg you to tell me. I will promise you these. You may have them freely without having to buy them here with your body.”
Jasmine looked shrewdly at Madame Wu. “Who gives a woman something for nothing?” she asked.
Madame Wu marveled at herself. Had this happened a month ago, she would have despised the girl’s coarseness. But now she understood it.
“You have never had food or shelter freely,” she murmured. “It is hard for you to believe me.”
“I believe nobody,” Jasmine said. She pulled a bright red silk handkerchief out of her bosom. One end of it was fastened to a button, but she twisted the other about her fingers.
“Then you do come here for shelter,” Madame Wu said.
Jasmine shook her head. “I don’t say so,” she declared. She lifted her thick eyelids, and a sly look came into her round black eyes. “Other men have promised me shelter,” she said.
“But you come here for something,” Madame Wu persisted. “Is it because there is honor in belonging to our family, even though you live in our back court?”
Jasmine’s face was suddenly scarlet under its powder. “I like the old head—” she muttered in the jargon of the street.
Madame Wu knew she spoke of Mr. Wu, but she did not reprove her. Truth was stealing newborn out of the girl’s heart.
“He is much older than you, child,” Madame Wu said.
“I like old men,” the girl said, trembling.
“Why do you tremble?” Madame Wu asked. “You need not tremble before me.”
“I have never known anyone who was noble,” the girl said, frightened. “He is very noble.”
“What do you mean by noble?” Madame Wu asked. She would never have used the word noble for Mr. Wu. Impetuous, impatient, willful, stupid, good-natured sometimes, selfish always — these were all possible words for him, but not noble.
“I mean — noble,” Jasmine said. She lifted her arm. “This bracelet,” she said. “It is solid gold. A young man would have given me a brass one with a coat of gold and sworn it was true. It would have lasted until he left me. But no, the old one gave me solid gold.” She bit it and showed the toothmarks to Madame Wu. “See?”
“Yes, it is gold,” Madame Wu agreed.
“He is so patient,” the girl went on eagerly. “When I don’t feel well, he notices it — he doesn’t press me. Young men don’t care. They take what they want. But this old one always asks me how I feel.”
“Does he indeed,” Madame Wu replied. This was not the Mr. Wu she had known.
The girl sat down again and twisted the bracelet about her arm. “If I have no child—” she began.
“A child is not important,” Madame Wu said.
Jasmine looked at her cornerwise while Madame Wu went on. “The important thing is, will you add happiness to this house or take it away?”
Jasmine lifted her head eagerly. “I will bring happiness, I promise you, Lady—”
“Tomorrow I will decide,” Madame Wu said. She rose as she spoke, and Ying hurried into the court and led the girl away.
When she was gone Madame Wu walked straight along a path of new sunlight that now fell across the stones into the doorway. The light dazed her, but her feet were warmed by it. “I did well,” she thought in some wonder at herself. “How did I know to do so well?”