Part 4

I can hardly exaggerate the importance of the position held by the eldest son in the higher class Chinese household. After his father, he is the male head of the family. His wife is the attendant shadow, the never-failing companion of his mother. Our phrase, "A man marries," is expressed in Chinese as "He leads in a new woman." Under the old regime he literally did so, for he invariably brought his bride to his ancestral home. The phrase for the marriage of a girl is, "She goes forth from the family." "A new woman" is the term for a bride. The Western education of many young men of the Chinese upper class has resulted in some acute readjustment in the ancestral households. Often these elder sons return, marry according to the old custom and live in their parental homes. But often, too, they marry advanced Chinese women, set up establishments and professions of their own, far from their native cities, and live after semi-foreign ways.

In this respect, our case was somewhat typical. As I have already related, Chan-King's mother had been looking forward for years to the marriage of her eldest son with the little Miss Li-Ying. She had expected in her middle age the usual release of the Chinese woman from the bonds of youth. Having been a faithful and obedient wife and daughter-in-law, she rightfully expected to assume authority over her family, leaning on the arm of her son's wife. This younger woman would take her place in the long chain of dutiful daughters; she would help to welcome guests; she would keep up the family shrines; she would perform all manner of household duties under the supervision of her mother-in-law. On the death of her husband's mother, she would become the woman head of the family, responsible for everything, her privileges and authority growing with her years, especially if she were the mother of sons. Her great mission would be to furnish children to the clan, in order that the ancestral shrines might never be without worshippers. I explain these matters at this point in order that I may not be mistaken for a moment when I tell the incident that follows. By this time, I had lived long enough in China to be almost thoroughly orientalized, in so far as my sympathies were concerned at least, and yet, when Chan-King, after talking for a while about the events of his visit home, came to a full pause and said uncertainly, "There is one thing I wish to tell you, but I am not sure you will understand," I was a trifle apprehensive.

But I answered at once: "Of course I shall understand. China has been kind to me. What have I to fear?"

Chan-King then went on deliberately: "Not until I saw my mother again did I understand that I had done a really cruel thing to her, in depriving her of a daughter-in-law on whom she could lean in her old age. Oh, Margaret, woman's lot is not easy, with all the complexities of parents and brothers and children! And I would have atoned for my share in all this if I could--but of course there was nothing I could do, nothing at all."

And very calmly he told me that shortly after his arrival at home his mother had conferred with him seriously on her need of a daughter-in-law. In accordance with ancient customs she wished him to take a Chinese secondary wife, who would live in the family home, who would be, in a fashion, proxy for me in the role of daughter-in-law. Chan-King's mother offered to arrange this marriage for him and assured him that the secondary wife and her children would be well cared for and treated kindly during his long absences.

I listened incredulously, and the question I could not ask was in my eyes. I knew, of course, that the custom of taking secondary wives was not unusual among wealthy families in China, even where both wives lived under the same roof. But I had given it only the most casual thought. And not once had it occurred to me that the problem would touch my life. Brought suddenly level with it, I suffered a shock at the very foundation of my nature. I could not think, of course, in the moment that followed my husband's recital. I only felt a great roaring tide of pain rising about me, a sense of complete helplessness, such as I have never known before or since. I wonder now at my instant subjective readiness to believe that my husband had conformed to this custom of his country; that he had shaken off his Western training at his first renewed contact with the traditional habits of his race.

"Did--you----?" I asked finally, and stopped.

He came to me instantly, his arms about me. When he saw the distress in my face, he frowned, with an odd, remorseful twist of the brows.

"I wonder that you ask," he said. "How could I come back to you--and to your loyalty and trust--with the shadow of that deception between us? I made it very clear to my mother that I would never have any wife but you. It's you and I together, dear one, and no one else so long as we both shall live."

And his words had the solemn sound of a vow renewed. This high honesty of Chan-King's with me was a rock on which I founded my faith. And his final repudiation of an accepted form among his people represented a genuine sacrifice on his part, so far as his material welfare was concerned. As generously and unhesitatingly as he had made the first one, at our marriage, he laid the second votive offering on the altar of our love. He had, you see, according to the view of his father and mother, hopelessly injured them in his marriage. Above all, he had denied in himself the great racial instinct of the Chinese to obey his parents. If he wished to please them, here was his last opportunity. The taking of a Chinese secondary wife would have been a complete atonement in their eyes. At the same time it would have meant his instant restoration to his rightful place among them--first in their affections and inheritance. The family assistance would have placed him at once in the position towards which, without it, he would probably have to struggle for years.

And later I understood how very easily he might have complied without my needing ever to know of the fact. Indeed, I could have lived in his mother's house with a second wife and never have suspected that she was there in that position, so securely welded and impassive is the clan sense, the reserve and remoteness of the personal relation when the family peace and dignity are to be considered.

Some of these matters I had been aware of since my life in China began, some of them I learned that day in talking with Chan-King, and others, as I have said, I discovered gradually afterwards. But from that day, certainly, our relation subtly shifted and settled and crystallized. We both became for ever certain that we could not fail each other in any smallest thing. Into my heart came a warmth of repose, like a steadily burning lamp. We were assured of our love beyond any possibility of doubt, ever again. And for a time we experienced a renascence of youthful happiness, a fine fervour of renewed hopes and ambitions, as though spring had come again miraculously, when we had expected October.

The family letters came now regularly to Chan-King, with always a kindly message for me. Evidently relations were to be resumed on the plane of a good friendship, nothing more. But that was so much more than we had dared to hope for that we were perfectly happy to have it so.

Chan-King must have mentioned his slowly failing health, for his mother sent a worried letter to him and asked him to come home for a while once more. Chan-King decided that his affairs would not warrant his absence and wrote to her to that effect.

One morning as I sat in the sun-porch, sewing, Ah Ching appeared suddenly before me.

"Master's mother, he downstairs," he announced calmly.

I gazed at him without understanding.

"What do you say?"

Ah Ching came nearer. He held up one hand and counted his words off on his fingers slowly. "Missee-sabe-master-have-got-one mother?" he inquired patiently.

"Yes, yes!"

"Well, he just now have come. He downstairs!"

I got to my feet. I was more frightened and nervous than I had ever been. I remembered to be grateful. I was wearing complete Chinese dress--a black skirt and blue velvet jacket. This fact assumed an amusing importance in my mind as I stood there, struggling to get myself in hand. I had planned this meeting a thousand times, and now that it was fairly upon me I was totally without resource. I progressed downstairs confusedly, running a few swift steps and then stopping short and beginning again slowly. If Chan-King had been there, I should have fled to him and left the entire situation in his hands; but I was alone and certain of one thing only--I meant to win the love of my Chinese mother if I could. Subjectively, all the tales I had heard of Chinese mothers-in-law must have impressed me more than I had admitted, for I remembered something Chan-King had told me long before: "I cannot describe to you the importance of the mother in the Chinese household. She is a complete autocrat, with almost final authority over her sons, daughters-in-law, servants, relatives, everybody except her husband, who is usually absent on his business. Her old age is a complete reversal of the restraint and discipline of her youth."

I stopped short at the door of the drawing-room. I saw my husband's mother for the first time. She had become to me a personality of almost legendary grandeur, and I felt a little wave of surprise go over me that she looked somehow so real and alive and genuine. She sat in a big, tall-backed chair, her hands spread flat on her knees. Her face was the face of the young mother in the photograph Chan-King had shown me, only grown older and a trifle more severe. She was dressed in black brocade, its stiff folds and precise creases accentuating her dignity. Under the edges of her skirt glimmered her tiny grey shoes, embroidered in red and green. At her side stood the male relative who had accompanied her--a Chinese gentleman of the old school, in a long gown of dark silk. Behind her chair stood a maid and two menservants.

I knew that she spoke no English, and as yet I had no knowledge of her southern dialect. There was a sharp pause in the dead-silent room while we regarded each other.

III

FIRST DAUGHTER-IN-LAW

I clasped my hands in the Chinese way, smiled and bowed. My Chinese mother rose at once and took a step towards me, balancing on her tiny feet with the aid of a thick, gold-headed cane. I saw that she was unusually tall. Then, surprisingly, she extended her hand, American fashion, and I shook it, the eyes of each of us still searching the other's face. I saw in hers the look I needed for reassurance--the mingled kindness and apprehension--a trace of the anxiety that I am sure was the very counterpart of my own expression. I knew then that her heart was no more certain than mine was, and that this meeting was as important to her as it was to me.

Ah Ching brought forward my chair and we sat down together, smiling at each other, letting our gestures speak for us. Finally she stretched forth her right hand, palm down, measuring the height of a small child from the floor, inclining her head towards me, her eyebrows up in a question. I made a pillow of my two hands, laid my head upon it, eyes closed, and then pointed up. We were both delighted at this simple pantomime. The elderly man--her cousin--looked pleased in sympathy and even the three solemn servants smiled a little. She asked me in gestures where my husband was. I waved widely and comprehensively towards the street, in the general direction of the city. She nodded, settling back a trifle, drawing a long breath. We had reached the end of our power to converse without the aid of an interpreter.

When I heard Chan-King's ring at the gate, I hurried out to meet him with the news. He was even more excited than I was and hastened ahead of me to the house. I walked very slowly in order that they might have their first greeting undisturbed, and, when I arrived, they were beaming upon each other and talking the South Province dialect over a very sleepy and cherubic infant, whom Chan-King, with paternal pride, had ordered down to greet his grandmother at once.

The retinue settled, Chan-King informed me that our mother would remain with us for six weeks. During this time, I learned the art of pantomime beyond anything I had ever hoped for in one of my undemonstrative nature. My Chinese mother and I conversed with eyebrows, hands, smiles, noddings and shakings of the head, much turning of the eyes. I had an instant affection and admiration for her, and she adopted towards me a gently confidential attitude that pleased me very much.

She had brought presents for us, in the Chinese way: for me, a delicately wrought chain of Chinese gold in a box of carved sandalwood; for Wilfred, a dozen suits of Chinese clothes in the bright patterns worn by children of the Orient, and so becoming to the proud, wee man that, arrayed in them, he seemed already to be coming into his heritage. She also brought great hampers of fresh fruits--pomeloes, lichees and dragon's-eyes--and countless jars of preserved fish and meats and vegetables, which had been Chan-King's favourites when he was a boy at home.

Madame Liang had the Chinese woman's love for shopping. Accompanied by her cousin and the servants, we went from silk merchant to porcelain dealer, and from brass worker to rug weaver, gathering treasures. Though she carried on most of her negotiations through her cousin, she bargained with a firmness and a sense of values that I admired very much. In the silk shops she bought marvellous brocaded satins and embroidered silks and she made me select the pattern I wanted for myself. Though she preserved most carefully the distinctive features of the dress of her own province, she was much interested in Shanghai styles and examined my wardrobe critically, noting the short sleeves with tight-fitting undersleeves and the skirts with seven plaits--not five, as in Canton, for example--at each side.

Notwithstanding the popular Western fancy that fashions never change in China, the Chinese woman is painstakingly particular as to the exact length and fullness--or scantiness--of her coats, skirts and trousers. She is carefully precise about the width of bias bands or braid or lace that she uses for trimming, the number and arrangement of fastenings, the shape and height of her collar. All of these details vary as tyrannically from season to season--under Shanghai guidance--as certain style features do with us under the leadership of New York or Paris. Moreover, as against our four seasons, the fashion devotee of China takes account of eight, each with its appropriate style and weight of clothing.

At home Mother sewed a great deal, using her hands gracefully and very competently in spite of the long curved fingernails on her left hand. My American sewing-machine fascinated her. She had an excellent hand-power machine at home, Chan-King explained, but mine worked with a treadle and she wished to try it. I took the tiny, brightly shod feet in my hands and set one forward and one backward on the iron trellis. And she moved them very well, alternately, and ran several seams with energy.

Chan-King, his mother and I went to Chinese cafes together and Madame Liang was pleased and amused to see that I not only used chopsticks with ease but had a real taste for Chinese food. We used to treat ourselves to all sorts of epicurean dishes: spiced chicken and duck, sharks' fins, bird's-nest soup with pigeon eggs (my favourite delicacy), seaweed and bamboo shoots, candied persimmons, lotus-seeds and millet pudding with almond tea.

Once, in a roof-garden cafe, where I was wearing American clothes, my use of chopsticks aroused considerable interest among neighbouring groups of diners, and stray comments reached us, for the Chinese are always pleased to see foreigners familiar with their customs. "No doubt she is a missionary lady," a young woman remarked in my husband's native dialect. Hearing and understanding, Mother immediately said, in clear, gracious tones, "My son, perhaps your wife would like to have some American food now." Chan-King translated for me both comment and suggestion, and I felt pleased to learn that, at any rate, my Chinese mother was not ashamed, in a public place, to acknowledge her American daughter.

Mother was fond of the drama and, since Shanghai had some excellent theatres, we made up several parties during her stay.

The great semicircular stage on which a famous old historical play that we saw was acted was hung with gorgeous embroideries, laid with a thick Peking rug of immense size and brilliantly lighted by electricity--as was the entire theatre. The actors wore the magnificent official and military robes of an early dynasty. As on the Elizabethan stage, women's parts were taken by men, who achieved by cleverly constructed shoes the effect of bound feet. I found the deafening drums and gongs a little trying, at moments, and the crude property makeshifts somewhat incongruous with the wonderfully elaborate hangings and costumes. But, being familiar with the story, I understood the action and so evidently enjoyed it that Mother was surprised anew, as Chan-King afterwards told me. We sat in our balcony box, above the vague tiers of lower seats packed with a restless audience of men, women and many children in the arms of their _amahs_. On the wide front rail of our box was the inevitable pot of tea, with room also for such fruits, sugar-cane, melon-seeds, or meat-and-rice dishes as we wished to purchase from the endless variety offered by eager boys in round caps and blue cotton gowns. Now and then an attendant came with a huge teakettle to refill our teapot, and once he offered us the usual steaming hot towels for sticky fingers. Chan-King waved these away energetically. "Awful custom," he said to me. "Unhygienic. How can they do it?" And he added something of the kind to his mother in Chinese. She regarded him with comprehension, a tiny gleam of superior wisdom in her eyes. But she made no reply.

She had taken a fancy to Wilfred, who by this time had a fair vocabulary of Chinese, which he always used in talking to his _amah_. He was a handsome child, typically Chinese, very charming in his manner, very fond of his _amah_ and his indulgent grandmother. Madame Liang would take his chin in her hands and study his features intently, nodding her head with approval. Then she would stroke his round black poll and give him melon-seeds or almonds from her pocket. Wilfred used a weird mixture of dialects--a confusion of Mandarin and the Shanghai vernacular, with a dash of Cantonese from his _amah_. Madame Liang set out patiently to teach him her own dialect as well.

When her visit was ended, our mother said to Chan-King, "This is a Chinese house, with a Chinese wife in it. Everything is Chinese. I could never have believed it without seeing, for I thought your wife was a Western woman. I am happy." And she told him again that we must come and visit her, for she needed us.

Chan-King's father, a member of an old, established firm in the import and export trade in the Philippines, was away, looking after his business or exchanging visits with friends of his own age and rank. His home-comings were in the nature of a vacation. The management of the household depended on Madame Liang.

As she talked, I realized by her face, by Chan-King's answers, by all that I knew of Chinese family life, that we were a part of that clan and should be so always. A hint of the solidarity I now feel with my husband's family came to me. We were not separate from them; nor should we be.

After our mother was gone, Chan-King said something of this sort to me, quoting what she had said about my not being Western. "But I love you to be Western in this sense," he told me, "that you and I have companionship and freedom and equality in our love. That is what makes me happiest."

Before Chan-King and I closed the house in Shanghai to depart for the southern hills, our second son, Alfred, was born. An American woman asked me, when he was about six weeks old, if I did not feel a sense of alienation at the sight of the wee, Oriental face at my breast. Quite simply and truthfully I answered no. My husband was not in any way alien to me. How, then, could our child be so?

His coming provided me with a welcome excuse to remain at home quietly for a short while. I now attempted to learn, at the same time, both Mandarin and the dialect of Chan-King's province--a method of study that hampered me constantly at first. But my husband was an encouraging teacher, and I began uncertainly to use my new knowledge, trying it mostly on my young son Wilfred, who was the real linguist of the family. He took my Chinese very seriously. I cannot say so much for Chan-King, who was greatly amused at my inflection.

Towards the close of the year, I decided to take a place as teacher of English and history in a Chinese girls' high school. Chan-King was surprised when I told him that I wished to teach, but he offered no objection, and watched with interest my progress through the year. I loved my teaching. Still more I loved the girls in my classes. Collectively and individually I found them supremely worth while in spirit and mind. I cannot say how lovely the young womanhood of China seemed to me. I began to yearn for a daughter, and when, towards the close of the second term, I found that I might, perhaps, have my heart's desire, I realized that my husband shared it.

In the early autumn, our mother wrote and asked us to come south for the cold season. She also expressed the hope that the coming grandchild might be born in her own province. Chan-King had been encouragingly strong for over a year, but he had always found the northern winters hard. We decided that the time had come to fulfil our promise of visiting the ancestral home. Chan-King secured six months' leave of absence.

Within ten days we had closed our affairs temporarily, dismissed the servants, with the exception of the _amah_ and the faithful Ah Ching, got our boxes together and bidden our friends farewell. The leaves were falling in the avenue; the plants were shrivelled at the edges in the sun porch; the winds blew ominously shrill under the eaves. Chan-King grew pale and began to cough again. Out of the teeth of the terrible Shanghai winter we fled into the hospitable softness of the South.