CHAPTER XVI
After Nancy's departure, the ceremonies again could take their appointed course. The firecrackers blazed and snapped, the little horns, with voices like thin piping clarionets, again commenced their weird din, the trumpets blew; away went the trays, with Nancy's own bright gift, to the home of her future husband. Now came men who wore scarlet sashes, to bring the large red document revealing in its eight gold characters the celestial ordinance beneath which Ming-te had been born; two others took away with them Nancy's eight characters, putting her destiny eternally into the keeping of her betrothed.
In these things Nancy took no part. She returned to the garden and listened to the exulting turmoil with ears that understood its meaning less than the resonant whisper of the pines. The flowers, nodding together their many-colored heads, made her homesick for the mountains and summer sunshine. She wondered where her poor token would go, her golden-hued chrysanthemums, her one small effort to ask pity and love from a youth she had never seen. Would those unvalued blossoms come by some extreme chance to his eyes and tell him that she had sent them? No, he would not see the flowers; they might have fallen bedraggled into the streets; he could see only the gaudy, costly things, the silk, the cloth, the slippers, things the t'ai-t'ai had got ready without any reference to her. He had sent her no token, no sign, just inanimate rubbish. And yet it was this cold stranger who was receiving the precious eight characters, the red cards Nancy knew with a superstitious shudder were being taken away like some virtue gone out of her.
Nancy contemplated these matters with a gentle bitterness. From years back this hour had been inevitable; perhaps she had been spoiled by its having been so long delayed. She could not complain, but her heart was sad, filled with foreboding of that second more sinister hour when she must be locked into the scarlet bridal chair. When that hour should come, whether soon or late, she had no clue. But she was betrothed; it must come in the end. She must walk now a straitened path, never again to see Elizabeth and Helen—or Mr. Nasmith, never again with the heart to fling cones from the high branches of the pines upon her laughing, vexed brother.
Winter came; the garden was parched and bleak. When the children went out to play in the cold dry sunshine they wore thickly padded garments which transformed them into stuffed dummies, a misshapen caricature of the cool clean limbs and lithe bodies that had made the pine tree their own kingdom in July.
Nancy accepted her lot. She got great comfort in learning by an indirect message from her father that there was to be no marriage for four whole years. Much might intervene in four years, so she did not demur at the new task of sewing for her trousseau; after the first shock it became like any other sewing and the boy a shadowy, almost legendary, figure only vaguely able to threaten her happiness from a distant horizon.
Herrick alone was morose. He had regretted the engagement before it was made; afterward he regretted it more. He lost sleep. The peace he had hoped to buy became more elusive than ever because all the time Kuei-lien was torturing him by little subtle ironies upon the life to which he was dooming Nancy. Her words came so innocently that the man never guessed the intent behind them. He did know this: that he was a prey to nightmare, to dreams in which Nancy's mother and the amah and Nasmith all were inextricably mixed, the one burden of their tongues and their eyes being the evil he had done. He was becoming a haunted man, and no matter how desperately he might fight to preserve his wits, to keep his mind and his strength for the sake of his children, there was a point beyond which flesh and nerves could not endure; he gave way with a crash, like the rending of a great tree, and for days offered himself to Kuei-lien to be trampled on.
When he emerged, everyone in the house knew that he was a sick man. He did not regain his poise with the old alertness, did not even struggle to regain it, but lay back, shaking, infirm, afraid to move lest he provoke one of his terrible spasms of the heart.
"You are killing him," protested the t'ai-t'ai to Kuei-lien. For so many years she had been used to Herrick's moderate indulgence in opium and kao-liang spirits that she had not realized her husband's self-control could relax with such speed. A hale and hearty old age anyone would have predicted for Timothy Herrick, yet here was death written on his face.
The t'ai-t'ai had not prepared for this. She could not afford to let Herrick die now, with Nancy unmarried, the ten thousand taels undelivered, worse than all, Herrick's fortune, of which no one knew the exact amount, locked up in that mysterious, impregnable place, the English bank, whence only Herrick's magically written slips of paper could draw forth the silver stream. The woman, of course, knew nothing of law or banking practice; of her own accord she would not have trusted a copper behind the brass grille of a bank. If Herrick died, she feared every cent he possessed might be taken out of her grasp. She could not write checks; even for Nancy's dowry she had no security. Her only hopes were to marry Nancy while her father lived and to persuade him into transferring his wealth from inaccessible bank vaults to the tangible form which had served her forefathers, into gold ornaments and pearls, and ingots snugly buried in the garden.
"You are killing him," she warned Kuei-lien. "A man of his years cannot stand these excesses."
"Oh," said the concubine, with a touch of insolence she had never shown before, "do you credit me with being the mistress? If my master commands, what can I do but obey? His is the will, not mine."
The t'ai-t'ai opened her ears at this tart remark. She looked narrowly at Kuei-lien, wondering whether this last and least of her husband's concubines were using her favor to rob an infatuated man. The shrewd suspicion entered her mind that Kuei-lien was utilizing these frenzies of sordid passion, when Herrick's senses were bemuddled, to extract money from her master, to extract those formidable little slips of paper.
"Well, you may rest for a while. Your master is too sick for excitement. I will look after him," she said.
Kuei-lien nodded and withdrew.
"I shall have to send her away or sell her," thought the t'ai-t'ai. "This kind of business can't go on."
She took rigorous charge of her husband, put him in bed, administered homely Chinese medicines, refused to let anyone see him. So languid was Herrick's mood that the man acquiesced, only complaining in an occasional peevish sentence because Kuei-lien had not come to see him. During the stupor which possessed him the t'ai-t'ai found it easy to get his keys and she pulled out the check book in which she had seen him write. It had been his habit to draw out limited sums each month, giving the checks to be cashed by an old and recognized servant. The woman took the book, looked at the stubs crosswise and upside down, but could make neither head nor tail of them. Finally she sought Edward's help.
"Your father is not well and wants you to help me with some business," she explained. "Will you read what is written here."
After some confusion between the numbers of the checks, the dates, and the sums, Edward found the gist of the story the stubs told and soon was able to translate the monthly record, "To cash, such and such a sum," "To cash, such and such a sum," while the t'ai-t'ai noted the figures in her memory. Then appeared what she suspected, checks for sums she had never received. They began in the summer and continued through the autumn. She had Edward repeat them again and again till the figures were printed indelibly on her mind.
The t'ai-t'ai pondered this new problem at some length. She was quite certain that Kuei-lien could not have cashed checks for such large amounts without enlisting the help of her husband's old messenger. This faithful man had been associated so invariably with the process of getting money that the woman had come to believe his participation was an unalterable step in the procedure. He was not the man to be bribed in a day; the t'ai-t'ai was reasonably certain of his honesty. The probability then was that Kuei-lien still held the checks and was waiting a favorable chance to exchange them.
When once the t'ai-t'ai had reached this conclusion, her first impulse was to call the concubine to her husband and in her absence to search every corner of her boxes, every corner of her room; if this failed, to summon two strong servants, strip the girl, and search every article of her clothing. It was probably on her body that Kuei-lien would carry the checks.
"I should have to sell her after that," the woman decided.
Second thought, however, was more deliberate, not from any pity for Kuei-lien, but because there certainly would be scandal; the story would reach Herrick's ears—the t'ai-t'ai could trust her enemies for that—and no one knew what vengeance the man might exact, in his weakened, peevish condition, for the loss of a favorite concubine. Even this the angry woman might have risked, if the thought had not occurred to her that by making terms with Kuei-lien she could use the wiles of the concubine to get even larger sums from her husband, to get the money he always laughingly had insisted was safe, into the only safe form the t'ai-t'ai recognized, the safety of good, tangible silver. Yes, the concubine was worth winning over; she could do this; she might even persuade the old man to allow an earlier marriage for Nancy.
The t'ai-t'ai went to Kuei-lien's room and found the concubine seated cross-legged on the k'ang, the brick oven which served for divan and bed. She was smoking cigarettes, her incessant habit. At the t'ai-t'ai's entry, however, she jumped up, brought her mistress to the k'ang, and only after repeated urging by the t'ai-t'ai consented to sit on the warm rush mats beside her. There was much desultory talk during which the older woman searched Kuei-lien's appearance with keen eyes to see if she had acquired any unusual jewelry; Kuei-lien was fastidiously dressed, rather daringly, with short full trousers barely topping a startling length of cerise stocking, but there were no signs of jewelry. This was some evidence that the checks had not been cashed. Finally, when the time seemed ripe, the t'ai-t'ai became more direct in her speech. She had steered the conversation to the subject of Herrick's ill health.
"It is a pity he will go to these excesses," Kuei-lien agreed. "I can do nothing to stop him when the passion comes over him. Hai—at times I am afraid. He becomes like a madman and strikes me if I try to take his opium pipe away."
"Does he ever pay you for these blows?" asked the t'ai-t'ai shrewdly.
Kuei-lien winced a little.
"Oh yes, he pays me," she laughed, "pays me with bruises. I will show you my back; it is black and blue."
"He pays you with nothing more substantial?"
"Not even a ring has he given me."
"No, not a ring, but little pieces of paper, little pieces of paper which you have not been able to exchange for money. Wouldn't you like Lao Yang's assistance to cash them?"
Kuei-lien's face grew red with a blush the girl could not check, but she held her body from a second telltale jerk.
"I don't understand what you mean," she said.
"Come now," protested the t'ai-t'ai, "you can't deny that you received checks for these amounts." She reeled off from memory the sums and dates of the checks she was certain Kuei-lien had received.
"What should I do with checks?" asked the girl.
"That's just the point," the t'ai-t'ai smiled in return; "what should you do with them? They are useless in their present form and you will never be permitted to change them."
"I don't know anything about these things," Kuei-lien persisted stubbornly.
"Just think a little," her mistress went on in the same bland voice, "and don't try to keep up appearances before me. Who brought you up, may I ask? Who saved you from being a slattern in the scullery at this very moment? It's worth remembering, because the same person who lifted you to your present favor can throw you down again." The t'ai-t'ai allowed a minute for these words to have their effect while she looked round the room. "You are very comfortable here," she remarked, "you have prospered well for the short time you have been here—well-filled boxes, plenty of clothes; I have indeed been generous to you. It would be a pity to lose them all."
"They are yours," admitted Kuei-lien. "I have no claim to them. Take them."
"Ah, don't try that game of candor with me," said the woman. "I am not threatening, mind you. I am simply appealing to your reasonableness. I should be sorely disappointed if the protégée over whom I have taken such pains proved to be merely a clever fool. Just let me imagine two pictures for you. On the one hand you cling obstinately to little bits of paper for which you never can get a copper cent. What do I do? I call in two strong men who are waiting outside; they tie a piece of cloth across your mouth so as not to disturb the household unnecessarily, then they twist your arms so—and so; do you think you wouldn't soon be anxious to point out these worthless checks? Or they ransack these boxes, take off these pretty clothes, and cut the linings away with scissors; don't you think we could find them even if you had to stand stark naked watching us? What good would you get of your stubbornness? Just the pleasure of being sold back to be a slave again. That's one picture," concluded the t'ai-t'ai, as though she had been telling a story.
Kuei-lien listened in startled attention, quite hypnotized by the woman's smooth voice.
"Now for the other side, a much more cheerful picture. We'll imagine you giving me these checks. Lao Yang, at my orders, will cash them. Of that money I will give you one fourth. You may think that is too little, but it is more than you could get in any other way; it is much more than nothing. The best part of it is, you have the chance of earning more money on the same terms. It is not wrong. The Great Man is not well, as you know, and he is stubborn about keeping his money in a foreign bank. He thinks he can provide for us in time, but I know his disease: pfui! in a moment he's gone—like a candle blown out. If he dies, what becomes of us? Is it our fault for snatching what safeguards we can? Well, that's the other picture. You may not be contented with a fourth, but you'll like it better than being sold to a brothel. I am not easy with those who betray me."
Kuei-lien showed her mettle by smiling.
"Yes, I do like the second picture better," she said, "it is drawn very well. Do you offer me this picture?"
"I offer it—and I shall add a few more colors on the day Nancy marries my nephew. You have had your own game there, I know," she remarked cheerfully, "but your game is a risky one. I don't blame you for trying your own plans, but you were trying for all or nothing. While I'm here, it would have been nothing."
"I understand," said Kuei-lien. "I accept your offer."
"I am glad my judgment has been vindicated. I had begun to fear you were just like the common trash who remain slaves all their lives. They think they are clever because the cat doesn't stop them when they go to snatch rice from the trap. You are sensible; you understand that there is profit in being grateful."
Kuei-lien answered the t'ai-t'ai by unbuttoning her jacket and loosening her clothes till she could reach the narrow girdle bound next to her skin. Pulling it out, she cut the threads and extracted five folded slips of paper.
"That is the proper number," said the t'ai-t'ai. "I will bring you a fourth of this sum to-morrow. Remember, you have a free hand. I will see that no one interferes with you. Don't be too hasty, don't drive the Great Man to excess; then there should be many more of these."
Calmly she bowed herself out.