She had ended their talk by a soft touch on his hand. “Now you must go away,” she had told him. “You must go back to New York, to your home and to your wife. Please don’t trouble about me. I shall be all right and really quite happy. I like London. I know many people and I don’t lack friends. I am quite clear now in my mind. What has happened is what is better for us.”
“What did the Englishman say?” he demanded.
She seemed surprised. “Do you really want to know? He is very honest and he just said to me that he had heard we were meeting almost every day and he would not forbid it—only I had to make the final choice. He said I could leave him or stay with him—he would not play second fiddle. If I stayed with him, he would look after me as long as I lived. There would be enough for me in his will, if he died in the next war, which he thinks will be quite soon. But if I chose to see you, ever, he would cut me off at once.”
“Yet you have seen me,” he had urged.
“Yes, I am going back now to tell him so,” she had said. “It will be hard for a bit to make him understand that I did not want to see you, but that there was no other way. Then I shall promise never to see you again. I haven’t quite made that promise yet. Tonight I’ll make it—and keep it.”
There was the soft touch again on his hand, and she turned and lost herself in the crowd. He had stayed on, staring down into the misty gently flowing river, and toying with the idea of throwing himself from the bridge. But a passing policeman looked at him once or twice and he grew self-conscious. He did not really want to die.
He had stayed on with Mr. and Mrs. Li for a few days more, accepting now an invitation from Charlie Ting’s parents to visit them. To his surprise he found he quite enjoyed diplomatic life. It was gay and expensive, and money for everything was provided. He had a handsome Rolls-Royce at his disposal and a smart English chauffeur. He might, he thought, offer himself some day as a diplomat—an ambassador, perhaps. The idea gave him a new interest and while he considered it, he could stop thinking for a moment or so about Violet. Somewhere in the few days he found a chance to speak to Lili.
“By the by, I called upon Miss Violet Sung. She seems quite well and happy. I stayed only a few minutes because I was so busy that day.”
The coolness of his voice astonished her but she only smiled. Then he told her that he was going home, that he was quite anxious to see his wife who had been to visit his two elder children in the ancestral village where they were enjoying the old home, and that Mary was married.
Lili gave a little scream, “Oh, can they enjoy such old-fashioned things? And what man is there to marry Mary?”
He had laughed with her. “They will grow tired of the village,” he said. “I should not be surprised if they come back with their mother. My son-in-law, I hear, is a brilliant doctor of Peking—a friend of my son’s, I believe. You remember James?”
Lili dimpled perfunctorily. “Of course, and Charlie thinks he is doing some wonders in China. I am sure it is true.”
Dr. Liang did not believe that Charlie Ting had so spoken, but he inclined his head with the dignity usual to him when he received a compliment.
So he had come home again. In London he thought he had got over everything, but when he reached home he knew he had not. Mingled in his hurt love for a beautiful woman were her words: “You know yourself.” He did not want to know himself. She had shaken him very badly indeed. The affair might have ended sublimely. It might have been a splendid rejection of a selfish love; it might have been a noble acceptance of the obligations life had already put upon them. But she had taken away both splendor and nobility. She had said merely the few words, “You know yourself.” They included these few words more which she had not quite spoken, “and I know you.”
He felt fretful in his loneliness and he began to long for Mrs. Liang to come home. He could be cross with her and she would not mind because he was her husband.
When he got her telegram saying that she would arrive at three o’clock the next day, unless there were storms, he immediately began to feel better. It was something like having been ill or away or out of his usual routine. Now soon his house would be what it had always been. He felt more kindly even toward Louise and he rang her up to invite her, with Alec, to dinner. It was the hour when she was putting her baby to bed and she was abstracted but good-natured.
“Sure we’ll come, Pa,” she said. “I think Alec would like it.”
Before he knew what he was doing he was also inviting Mr. and Mrs. Wetherston. “We may as well make it a real party,” he told Louise. “If you think your parents-in-law would enjoy hearing the latest news from China, then bring them along.”
Since her father had shown no interest in the existence of any of them ever since her mother went away, Louise was pleased. “I don’t believe they have anything planned,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll want to come. It’ll be nice. It’ll be lovely to see Ma again.”
“Indeed it will,” he said with unusual warmth.
He was very much absorbed the rest of the evening in planning the dinner. After some thought he decided to order it sent in hot from a Chinese restaurant and he had a long talk over the telephone with the proprietor about special dishes and their preparation. When this was over he felt he should go to bed in order to be fresh for the next day. But he found it difficult to sleep. His mind, instead of being absorbed with memories of Violet Sung, returned to the earlier years of his life when Mrs. Liang had first come to his father’s house. She had been a fresh-faced lively-looking girl with a full red mouth. His first disappointment had been that she was not pretty. But somehow or other she was living and strong in the house, simple creature though she was, and he had soon learned to depend on her. When there was something unpleasant to be done, such as asking a permission of Uncle Tao, it was always she who did it. She had many faults, and each one irritated him separately, but they did not combine to change her quality, which was that she never thought of herself. She was not interested in herself or in her own moods. She had very few moods and they were because of some external circumstance which could easily be changed. Usually she changed it herself and restored her own good humor, or she took a long nap or she bought herself a bag of chocolate drops which she enjoyed. She liked sweets, he now remembered, and he determined to buy her a large box of them tomorrow.
Mrs. Liang saw her husband waiting for her at the airport and she thought he looked tired. She blamed herself for having been away so long, and although she felt very tired herself after this dreadful journey, she braced herself to seem better than she was.
When he saw her she was smiling and cheerful as ever. She looked younger than he remembered and her hair was becomingly loosened by the wind. When she saw him her face turned quite pink and this touched him. He took her hand openly. “Louise couldn’t come,” he told her, not knowing what to say at first. “She has the children and so on. But they are all coming to a welcome dinner.”
“How nice!” she exclaimed. With him she began instinctively to speak in English. “You look a little bit of tired, Liang. Are you feeling quite well? Now I shall feed you something good.”
“I am well enough,” he replied with a touch of pathos. “Nellie has done her best. I gave her a little vacation, by the way, because I had an invitation to visit the Li family in London and I thought it would be a good way to pass the time until you came home. I got leave from the college.” He wanted to tell her about London at once.
“I am glad you took some rest,” she said briskly. She longed to get home and crawl into her own bed and put a hot-water bottle to her poor stomach. But if there was to be a welcome dinner she must not think of such things.
In the cab they sat hand in hand. He had put her suitcase on the floor so that she could use it as a footstool. He was surprised at his sense of comfort as he held her plump hand. He had not done such a thing in years.
“Eh, Liang,” she said, smiling at him, “I think you do want me to come home again!”
He gave
her his slight smile. “I was only afraid you would not want to leave the ancestral village and all its delights to come back to New York and your poor old scholar.”
She began unexpectedly to chatter in Chinese. “Liang, nothing is changed! Can you believe that after all these years Uncle Tao is just the same, but more fat, except, poor old man, for the knot in his belly which must come out, James said, as soon as he is willing. And the street, Liang, even more dirty! Of course it is winter and so I did not see flies. But the children run everywhere as before, their faces dirty and their pants—well, you know. Mary teaches a school now and maybe things will be better in a few years. All the relatives are the same except some are dead.” She counted off on her fingers the dead Liangs and what they had died of and when.
“Of course there are bandits everywhere now,” she went on, “but even they are somewhat afraid of Uncle Tao because he takes dinner with the magistrate and he is friends with the police and the tax men. In fact, Liang, Uncle Tao is quite useful and though he is troublesome, nobody dares any more to wish him dead. Later when government is better perhaps it will be all right for Uncle Tao to die. But just now—”
He laughed for the first time in days. “Nothing you say makes me want to go back there,” he told her when they reached the apartment.
Now that she had been away and had returned she was surprised to find as she went from one room to the other that there was a strange feeling of home here, too. She could not have believed it possible, but so it was. The Wetherstons had sent flowers of welcome, and Louise called on the telephone almost immediately and Mrs. Liang listened avidly to details of baby’s teeth and how much little Alec could say. Then she looked at the clock and screamed, “Louise, please! Only one hour or so and there is the dinner coming. Tell me something more, dahling, when you are here.”
She hung up and then remembered Mrs. Pan and telephoned to her. It was just the time when Mrs. Pan was cooking supper and when she heard her friend’s voice she cried out with joy.
Dr. Liang heard only his wife’s end of the talk. “Yes, Mrs. Pan, I am here. … Oh fine, everything is fine. … Not so much as you think, Mary is fine—very nice man. James also is being married. … Yes, yes, I tell you everything. Tomorrow? Oh fine!”
“What’s this about James being married?” Dr. Liang demanded. He had changed his coat for his old smoking jacket and had dragged out a pair of old slippers that he had not worn since she went away. He was smoking and reading and feeling almost entirely normal.
“I tell you later,” she said. “It is surprise, but good. Now, Liang, you must dress yourself early. I and Neh-lee set the table. Supposing I am somewhat late you can be polite.”
She was bustling about, but she found time to be alone in the kitchen with Nellie.
“How is everything went?” she inquired in a low voice.
“Good,” Nellie replied. “For a while I thought something was funny, but I guess he was just restless. He went over to London and come back like a lamb and hasn’t hardly left the house since.”
“Thank you, Neh-lee. Now better we use the second-good tablecloth on account Chinese dinner slops around fiercely.” Together they searched for the second-best tablecloth. Mrs. Liang had not seen a tablecloth since she left.
It was a very successful evening. Dr. Liang was at his best, dignified and quiet. He was courteous to Mr. and Mrs. Wetherston, a little distant perhaps with his son-in-law, and condescending and pleasant to his daughter. Mrs. Liang did most of the talking. Mr. Wetherston asked many questions of a practical nature, as he explained. These questions had to do with what she thought of Chiang Kai-shek, whether the graft was as bad as he had heard it was, how Communist the Chinese Communists really were, whether she thought the Chinese people would ever get together, and so forth. She answered everything briskly, declaring that Chiang Kai-shek was no better and no worse than any man in his position and with his history, that government graft was always bad wherever it was found but perhaps inevitable, that Communists were Communists, that Chinese people had been together on the same piece of land for four thousand or so years and probably would continue there. When Mrs. Wetherston ventured a question about the private life of Madame Chiang, Mrs. Liang laughed heartily behind one hand and said, “Madame Chiang is so special, isn’t he?” Mrs. Liang was always weak on gender, and at this point Dr. Liang felt it necessary to explain. “In our language,” he said, “we do not denote gender in the personal pronoun. Thus ‘he’ and ‘she’ are represented by a single third personal pronoun, namely, ta.”
Mrs. Wetherston turned to her son with reproach. “Alec, you never told me that before.”
“You never asked me, Mother,” he replied, laughing lazily.
Alec, lounging his long frame on the divan, enjoyed the evening hugely. His marriage was turning out well. Chinese wives made a cult of marriage. He felt sorry for his friends who were coping with American girls in their houses. The Chinese had things right. Everything depended on relationships between people.
The many dishes which the Chinese restaurant chef served with a flourish provided conversation for two hours and more, and the last hour of the evening Mrs. Liang used in describing the fabulous ancestral village, its walls, its gates, the home of the Liangs with its courts and many rooms, the hospital which James was building, the school which Mary had already established, the relatives in all their beauty and cleverness and finally Uncle Tao, who presided over them all like a god.
“You make it sound wonderful, Ma,” Louise said with some astonishment.
“In its way, it is also wonderful,” Mrs. Liang declared.
She had not mentioned cold or filth or scald-headed children or beggars or rebellious tenants or quarreling relatives or Uncle Tao’s tantrums or any of those things which Dr. Liang had feared she would. When he perceived she was creating a beautiful China before these foreigners, he felt for her a new and profound tenderness. This woman of his, this old wife, was doing it for him!
That night when she had made honest love to him in her downright wifely fashion, and after he had yielded pleasantly to her inclinations, they lay talking for a long time and she told him about her visit and each detail of each conversation with each relative. But most of all she talked about James and the girl she had found for his wife. The betrothal had been very quick—too quick maybe, she admitted. She had left the day after, which in itself was very bad, for she had not been able to divine anything from James’s face. Of course he had said she was not to worry. Mary and Chen had promised privately to tell her everything.
“Liang,” she now said earnestly, “I tell you, James is spoiled for common marriage. He loved that Lili too much, and yet it is a strange thing he does not love her now. She has killed the love power in him. If he did not marry a woman in an old-fashioned way, he would not marry at all. I saw that after a while. Now, Liang, you know a man cannot live without a wife. Any wife is better than no wife. But I did not take just any wife for our son. I went very carefully through our whole region and found a girl who is not blood kin to the Liangs. Her father came from Shantung when she was small but he never bound her feet because he had heard women do not any more, and he is a good man and he was glad to keep her feet free. They are farming people only, and their lands are beyond the Liang lands, and he owns his land. How he had money is this way: the Americans wanted some land to build a camp during the war and they bought his land and he moved far enough away from there so he would not see Americans and Communists and such strangers any more. I think our place is safe enough maybe, too.”
“What sort of a girl is she?” Dr. Liang inquired.
“A big girl, maybe you would say,” Mrs. Liang replied. “She is not fat, but very strong and she has a round face and big black eyes. She is old-fashioned, you know, Liang. She combs her hair as I did when I was a girl. She wears country clothes—no long robe. But she is quiet and she is very honest and she will think only of James, and their children will be very healthy. The family ha
s five sons and she is the only girl, so maybe she will have plenty of grandsons for us.”
He was so silent that she began to be fearful lest he did not approve.
She spoke in the darkness somewhat shyly. “Liang, I do not know how you think, but for my part I have been very satisfied in our old-fashioned marriage. I know that now our young people like to love by themselves, as for example, Louise and Alec. But Mary is somewhat more Chinese. Judging by everything, Liang, however, I don’t think so much of love.”
“Nor do I,” he said, and then he added firmly, “very little indeed!”
She was so pleased that she could have cried, but she knew this would have been to show too much feeling. “Liang, you must go to sleep, please,” she commanded him. “Tomorrow is your class day.”
To him it was sweet to hear her voice thus bidding him what he wanted to do anyway and he obeyed.
Underneath all she had said Mrs. Liang felt the old bleeding wound that had been left in her by Peter’s death. She did not speak of it because she wanted her return to her children’s father to be without sadness. She had written to Dr. Liang the facts as she knew them, and she had not gone to see where Peter lay under the big pine in the imperial gardens. Later, when times were better, she wanted to go back and see that his young frame was brought back to the village and buried among the ancestors.
She heard Liang’s deepened breathing and she knew he was asleep, and so, lying very still, she wept silently for the dead son. Then she lifted one hand carefully and turning her head she wiped her eyes on the edge of the pillowcase. What was past was gone, she told herself, and for the sake of the living she must think of the future.
She lay thinking instead of the village. Life was wonderful there, so warm and close, all the human beings so close and everybody knowing everybody else, good and bad. The days were crowded with life. It had been so good to be flat on the earth. When she got out of bed in the morning her feet were on the real earth, beaten solid by the feet of Liang ancestors. How intensely did she hate this living high up in the air, and knowing that above and underneath them were strangers!