A Woman In China

by Mary Gaunt

And those stools were covered, much to my surprise, with red woollen tapestry, and the pattern was one that I had seen used many a time in a little town on the Staffordshire moors, where their business is to dye and print. And here was one of the results of their labours, a “Wardle rag,” as we used to call them, up among the hills of Northern China.

I was too tired to do anything but go to bed that night as soon as I had had my dinner. I had it, as usual, on the k'ang table, the dirt shrouded by my humble tablecloth, and curious eyes watched me, even as I watched the trays of full basins and the trays of empty ones that were for ever coming and going across the courtyard.

Next morning my friendly landlady brought to see me two other small-footed women, both smoking long pipes, women who said, through Tuan, their ages were forty and sixty respectively, and who examined, with interest, me and my belongings. They felt my boots so much, good, substantial, leather-built by Peter Yapp, that at last I judged they would like to see what was underneath, and took off a boot and stocking for their inspection, and the way they felt my foot up and down as if it were something they had never before met in their lives, amused me very much, At least at first it amused me, and then it saddened me. Though they held out their own poor maimed feet, they did not return the compliment much as I desired it. They took me across the courtyard into another room where, behind lattice-work windows, that had not been opened for ages, were two more women sitting on the k'ang, and two little shaven-headed children. These were younger women, tall and stout, with feet so tiny, they called my attention to them, that it did not seem to me possible any woman could support herself upon them. My boy was not allowed in, so of course I could not talk to them, could only smile and drink tea.

These two younger women, who were evidently of superior rank, had their hair most elaborately dressed and wore most gorgeous raiment. One was clad in purple satin with a little black about it, and the other, a mere girl of eighteen, but married, for her hair was no longer in a queue, and her forehead was squared, wore a coat of pale blue silk brocade and grass-green trousers of the same material. Their faces were impassive, as are the faces of Chinese women of the better class, but they smiled, evidently liked their tortured feet to be noticed, gave me tea from the teapot on the k'ang table, and then presently all four, with the gaily dressed babies, tottered out into the courtyard, the older women leading the toddling children, and helping the younger, and, with the aid of settles, they climbed into two Peking carts, my elderly friends taking their places on the outside, whereby I judged they were servants or household slaves.

“Chinese wives,” said Tuan, but whether they were the wives of one man, or of two, I had no means of knowing. The costumes of the two younger were certainly not those in which I would choose to travel on a Chinese road in a Peking cart, but the Chinese have a proverb: “Abroad wear the new, at home it does not matter,” so they probably thought my humble mole-coloured cotton crêpe, equally out of place.

And when they were gone I set out to explore the town.

It was only a small place, built square, with two main roads running north, and south, and east, and west, and cutting each other at right angles in the heart of it. They were abominably paved. No vehicle but a springless Peking cart would have dreamt of making its way across that pavement, but then probably no vehicle save a cart or a wheelbarrow in all the years of the city's life had ever been thought of there. The remaining streets were but evil-smelling alley-ways, narrow in comparison with the main ways which, anywhere else, I should have deemed hopelessly inadequate, thronged as they were with people and encroached upon by the shops that stood close on either side. They had no glass fronts, of course, these shops, but otherwise, they were not so very unlike the shops one sees in the poorer quarters of the great towns in England. But there was evidently no Town Council to regulate the use to which the streets should be put. The dyer hung his long strips of blue cloth half across the roadway, careless of the convenience of the passer-by, the man who sold cloth had out little tables or benches piled with white and blue calico—I have seen tradesmen do the same in King's Road, Chelsea—the butcher had his very disagreeable wares fully displayed half across the roadway, the gentleman who was making mud bricks for the repair of his house, made them where it was handiest in the street close to the house, and the man who sold cooked provisions, with his little portable kitchen and table, set himself down right in the fairway and tempted all-comers with little basins of soup, fat, pale-looking steamed scones, hard-boiled eggs or meat turnovers.

This place, hidden behind romantic grey walls, at which I had wondered in the evening light, was in the morning just like any other city, Peking with the glory and beauty gone out of it, and the people who thronged those streets were just the poorer classes of Peking, only it seemed there were more naked children and more small-footed women with elaborately dressed hair tottering along, balancing themselves with their arms. I met a crowd accompanying the gay scarlet poles, flags, musical instruments and the red sedan chair of a wedding. The poor little bride, shut up in the scarlet chair, was going to her husband's house and leaving her father's for ever. It is to be hoped she would find favour in the sight of her husband and her husband's women-folk. It was more important probably, that she should please the latter.

The bridal party made a great noise, but then all in that town was noise, dirt, crowding, and evil smells. The only peaceful place in it was the courtyard of the little temple close against the city wall. Outside it stand two hideous figures with hands flung out in threatening attitude, and inside were more figures, all painted in the gayest colours. What they meant I have not lore enough to know, but they were very hideous, the very lowest form of art.