Madame Wu rose. “Do go, Mother,” she said. “We will remain with the guests in the other room.”
She waited while two servants led Old Lady out, and all the guests stood. Then she looked at Mr. Wu.
“Will you take your guests to the main hall?” she directed gently. “The ladies will come into my own sitting room.” She moved away as she spoke and the women followed her, and the men went with Mr. Wu in dividing streams. Children were taken to the courts and held by their nurses while they slept.
Madame Wu paused at the door. “Take the sick little one to the bamboo bedroom,” she directed its nurse, “it is cool there. He must sleep awhile.” The child who had been wailing stopped suddenly at the sound of her voice.
The feast was over, but in her sitting room Madame Wu maintained her delicate dignity before the women. She spoke little, but her silence was not noticed because she was by habit a silent woman. Only when some decision had to be made did they turn to her by instinct, for they knew that in this house she made all decisions. Then whatever she had decided she made known in a few simple, clear words, her voice always pretty and smooth and gentle as water slipping over stones.
Around her the talk ebbed and flowed. A small troupe of actors had been hired for entertainment, and they performed their tricks. The children watched with pleasure, and the elders watched while they talked and sipped hot tea of the finest leaves plucked before summer rains fell. In the presence of younger women there was no talk possible between the older women, and Madame Kang slept a little. Once Madame Wu said to Ying, “Go and see if our Old Lady is ill.”
Ying went away and came back laughing. “She has been ill and has cast up everything,” she told Madame Wu. “But she still says it was worth it.”
Everyone laughed, and at the sound of the laughter Madame Kang woke. “It is time we went home,” she said to Madame Wu. “We must not weary you, Sister, for you are to live a hundred years.”
Madame Wu smiled and rose as one by one the guests came to her to say good-by. Packets of sweetmeats and gifts and money from the guests had been prepared for the servants, and now Ying brought these in on a tray and servants came in to receive them. They bowed before Madame Wu, their hands clasped politely on their breasts, and Madame Wu replied to each one courteously and gave him his gifts. All these servants had feasted, too, in the kitchens.
So at last she was alone again, and she allowed herself to be weary for one moment. Small muscles that held her bones gracefully erect relaxed at throat and breast and waist, and for a moment she looked wilted as a flower and now almost her age. Then she straightened her slender shoulders. It was too soon to be weary. The day was not yet ended.
An hour later, after she had rested, she rose and walked up and down the room seven times. Then she went to the window and leaned on the low sill. The window was long and wide, and the lattices were thrown back. Outside was the court where she had sat this morning with Madame Kang and then with Liangmo. She recalled their horror at what she was about to do, and unconsciously she smiled her pretty smile which was neither sad nor gay.
Ying at this moment appeared at the round moon gate of the court and she caught the smile. “Lady, you look like a young girl there in the moonlight!” she called.
Madame Wu’s smile did not change, but she turned and sat down at the toilet table. Ying came in and took off her garments down to the fine white silk of her innermost ones. Then she let down Madame Wu’s long hair and began to comb it in firm strong strokes with the fine-toothed sandalwood comb. She saw the quiet face in the mirror and saw how large and black the eyes looked tonight.
“Are you tired, Lady?” Ying asked.
“Not at all,” Madame Wu replied.
But Ying went on, “You have had a long day. And now, Lady, you are forty and beginning another kind of life, and I think you ought not to work so hard. You should give over the government of the house and shops to your eldest son, and you should let your son’s wife direct the kitchens, and even your second son’s wife could attend to the supervision of the servants. Now you should sit in the court and read and look at your flowers and remember how good your life is under this roof, and how your sons’ wives are bearing sons.”
“Perhaps you are right,” Madame Wu replied. “I have been thinking of such things myself. Ying, I shall ask my sons’ father to take a small wife.”
She said this so calmly that for a moment she knew it was not comprehended. Then she felt the comb stop in her hair, and she felt Ying’s hand holding her hair together tighten at the nape of her neck.
“It is not necessary for you to speak,” Madame Wu said. The comb began to move again too quickly. “You are pulling my hair,” Madame Wu said.
Ying threw the comb on the floor. “I will not take care of any lady but you!” she burst forth.
“It is not asked of you,” Madame Wu replied.
But Ying went down on her knees on the tiled floor beside Madame Wu, and she sobbed and wiped her eyes with the corner of the new sateen jacket which she had put on for the day. “Oh, my mistress!” she sobbed. “Does he compel you, my precious? Has he forgotten all your goodness and your beauty? Tell me just one thing—”
“It is my own will,” Madame Wu said firmly. “Ying, get up from your knees. If he comes in he will think I have been beating you—”
“You!” Ying sobbed. “You who could never put out your hand to pinch a mosquito, even when it sucks your blood!” Nevertheless she rose and took up the comb from the floor and, sniffling in her tears, again she combed Madame Wu’s hair.
Madame Wu began to speak in her quiet, reasonable voice. “I tell you first, Ying, so that I may tell you how to behave among the servants. There is to be no loud talk among you and no blaming this one and that. When the young woman comes—”
“Who is she?” Ying asked.
“I do not know yet,” Madame Wu said.
“When does she come?” Ying interrupted again.
“I have not decided,” Madame Wu said. “But when she comes she is to be received as one honored in the house, a little lower than I am, a little higher than any sons’ wives. She will not be an actress or a singing girl or any of those persons, but a good woman. Everything is to be done in order. Above all, there is not to be a word spoken against my son’s father or against the young woman, for it is I who will invite her to come.”
Ying could not bear this. “Lady, since we have been together so many years, is it allowed for me to ask you why?”
“You may ask, but I will not tell you,” Madame Wu said tranquilly.
In silence Ying finished combing the long hair and scenting it and braiding it. She wound it into a coil for Madame Wu’s bath, and then she supervised the pouring of the water in the bathroom. There stood a deep round jar of green-lined pottery, and two water carriers brought in great wooden buckets of hot and cold water through an outer door and poured it in and went away again. Ying tried the water with her hand and dropped in scent from a bottle and then, holding fresh soap and silken towels, she went into the other room.
“Your bath is ready, Lady,” she said as she said every night.
Madame Wu took off her last garments and walked, as slender as a young girl, quite naked across the room and into the bathroom. She took Ying’s hand and stepped into the tub, and sat cross-legged in the water while Ying washed her as tenderly as though she were a child. The water was clear, and Madame Wu’s exquisite flesh was ivory white against the deep green of the porcelain. The water was about her shoulders and as she thus sat submerged she reflected on her own wisdom. Her body was actually as beautiful as it had ever been. Mr. Wu had not allowed her to suckle her children, and her little breasts looked like lotus buds under water.