Sun and moon

by Vincent H. Gowen

"He is not well enough to come," answered the t'ai-t'ai.

There was a guilty hesitation in the reply which caused Nancy to look long and carefully at her stepmother. For a moment she delayed, for a moment even pondered brushing aside all the futile ceremony in her mad wish to know what was wrong with her father. Then, as quickly, she silenced the words on her lips and held out her arms to let her body be vested with the heavy robe. There was an instant in which every heart seemed to stand still. Acting for Nancy's absent parents, the t'ai-t'ai fastened the long veil of red silk across the face of the bride. It was so thick that the girl could see nothing. Everyone stared in great quietness at the muffled figure, which swayed a little when the attendant women helped the bride step by step into her chair. She sat down, hidden away in darkness by the curtained windows. The doors were closed in front of her; their two sides joined together the severed character for happiness. There was a perceptible click as the lock was slipped into place, a bare instant before the fresh outburst of crackers, the tumult of horns and flutes, the loud weeping of the amah, the sound of Edward's crying, the ear-shattering din as the musicians and lantern-bearers formed their hectic procession, and the scarlet-girdled coolies struggled with their huge chair.

Nancy had come close to her threat to stop thinking, but she could not stop feeling, just as Ronald had predicted. She sat, stiff and listless, making no effort to lift the veil that cloaked her face. There would be nothing to see if she did. The windows were too securely shrouded, the doors too safely fastened. She kept no count of time, knowing the procession would thread many streets on the way to her new home, making the bravest show money would allow. Far ahead came the repeated explosion of crackers, almost incessantly the trumpets brayed, and the flutes kept up their monotonous lilting music. The girl could feel the hum of people round her and hear the noise of traffic in the streets brought to a momentary standstill by her passing. But she felt no glory, no exultation in this high moment of her life. Her body was cold with fear and her heart already sick from loneliness, weary of the ride yet dreading its finish, dreading her delivery like a well-selected piece of merchandise into the hands of strangers.

Just when her mind had been lulled into a state of throbbing blankness she realized that the roar of firecrackers had redoubled, the musicians were blowing themselves into an accelerated frenzy of noise; the pace of the coolies slackened. The chair was set down; the long poles were withdrawn. She felt men pick it up at the four corners, and she clung to the sides as they toiled with their load, jerking and pitching the unhappy bride across the threshold of her new home.

It was difficult for Nancy to collect her spirits in the great uproar of her arrival, but the heavy veil, hiding her face from all observers, helped the girl at least to look calm when the doors of the chair were unlocked and she was led stiffly across the room and seated on the bridal bed beside her husband. She gave herself entirely into the hands of her attendants. At their direction she knelt and bowed four times to the tablets of heaven and earth and then to her still invisible husband.

Now came the great moment, when, having been seated a second time beside Ming-te, she suffered him to lift the veil from her face. She felt rather than saw his anxiety, felt rather than saw the curiosity of the crowd gathered in the door, all breathless to see what the face of this foreign bride should be. There were reassuring exclamations of approval, loud whispers of admiration at her beauty, all bitter praise to the girl whose cheeks needed no paint to heighten their flushed color. In her bewildered trance Nancy hardly knew what was done next. She was too shamefaced to steal even a glance at her youthful husband, but received silently the gilded cups of wine with which she and Ming-te plighted their troth. She did not think of touching the food which was set before them or to make even the pretense of eating, but sat in mute embarrassment, catching just a glimpse of Ming-te's trembling hands as he helped himself to the nuptial cakes. The wedding was completed. She knew that she was irrevocably the wife of this unknown, still unseen stranger. She had no courage to lift her eyes to his.

Through a long day's ceremonies she bore her part with the same unbending dignity. But all the time, when she managed to be outwardly calm enough to worship alien ancestors; to bow down before the parents of the bridegroom; to stand beside her husband and, at the command of the master of ceremonies, to do an endless series of salutations to the many guests who had come; even in the moments when she was allowed to withdraw with attendants to her room, her real life went round and round in a whirl of tempestuous thoughts. The merrymaking, the feasting, the noise and excitement of savory dishes being served, of wine being drunk, wine being spilt, the loud shouts of men at their games, touched her so lightly that she did not observe a sudden change in the festivities, a momentary pause as though of hearts stricken with fear, words of whispered debate, before the renewal of the merriment in a defiant spirit which was not loud enough to drown the buzzing undertone of conversation in which the word "unlucky," "unlucky," was bandied to and fro. She missed the first news that her father was dead, and went tranquilly through the rites assigned to her without knowing her new loneliness.

The news had thrown the feasters into consternation, not because they had ever met or regretted Herrick, but because his untimely death was so bad an augury for this marriage. To die in the height of the merrymaking—they could not forgive him for that. There were those who deplored the strange match and thought he might have died early enough to postpone, even to prevent it; others thought he might have died later. But to die when his death could be neither hindrance nor help and with no result except to throw gloom upon the feast, that was unspeakably bad taste. To the dismayed family of the bridegroom the shock was still harder. They were angry at being balked even for a few days of the dowry which should by now have been paid, and were not nearly so sure as their kinswoman, the t'ai-t'ai, that Herrick had not cheated them by his death.

For the moment, however, they tried to put the best face on things and when the question arose as to whether the girl should be told, they decided to leave her ignorant till the morrow. Fate had been spiteful enough. It would never do to mar the auspices of the bridal bed by mentioning so unpropitious a word as death. The first hush of panic gave way to a delirium of mirth. Hosts and guests alike were determined to forget the grim shadow which had disturbed them, to put outside the gates of their memory the hideous demon who snatches souls from the living. More and more hot wine they poured into the cups. Voices yelled; hands were flung helter-skelter in the fury of "slippery fist," the wild game of guessing fingers and urging one another into a state of drunken hilarity. Everyone sought to pledge the bridegroom till the unfortunate youth scarcely could totter on his feet and saw lights and faces going round in giddy spirals. The young men who supported him did stout duty in his defense, discarding the wine cups little bigger than thimbles and calling for the more capacious teacups in which to measure staggering potations.

By evening time no one cared whether Herrick had died yesterday or to-day or a thousand years ago.