Peony under the cover of her straight lashes watched this beauty with appreciation and wonder. Her mind played now about the beautiful foreign girl with question and doubtful answer. When—or if—Leah came into the house of Ezra, as David’s wife, would she be shrewd to see all that went on under that ample roof? Would she protest and forbid, would she lead David away again into the dreams of his own people?
“Aaron should not leave without telling you where he goes, Father,” Madame Ezra was saying.
“He is young,” the Rabbi sighed.
“Not too young to remember his duty,” Madame Ezra said firmly. “He is the only one to follow after you, Father, and he must remember his duty to his people. If he fails, there will be none left to lead us home when the time comes.”
“Oh, that it might come in my lifetime!” the old rabbi mourned.
“But we must remain ready, even though it does not,” Madame Ezra said earnestly. “The synagogue should be repaired, Father, and we should revive the remnant of our people. As it is, our men are forgetting and our children never know our heritage. You should give Aaron the task of collecting the funds for the repairs. A good idea, Father—and I will promise five hundred pieces of silver as the beginning.”
“Ah, if all our people were like you,” the old rabbi replied. “But it is a good idea, eh, Leah? Aaron could busy himself with it and it would give him something to do.”
“Yes, Father,” Leah said doubtfully. She looked down into the pool of brightness about her feet.
These strange foreign people, Peony was thinking, the beautiful old man, the beautiful girl, even Madame Ezra handsome and stately, all burning from within! And why did their eyes glow and their faces grow rapt and their voices so grave while they spoke? Some spirit came out of them and enveloped them in a mystic unity that shut her out. Her downcast eyes fell on Leah’s hands clasped loosely over her knees. They were like a boy’s hands, the fingers square at the ends, strong and rough. Peony looked down at her own little hands as they rested on the back of Madame Ezra’s chair—soft, small, narrow hands, the fingers pointed as a girl’s fingers should be. Leah’s hands were like Madame Ezra’s, except that Madame’s were not workworn. They were smooth and plump and she wore rings on the first fingers of each hand and on each thumb. Leah wore no rings.
“Yet I did not come to talk about the synagogue,” Madame Ezra was saying.
The Rabbi inclined his silvery head. A small black skullcap covered the crown of it, but his hair curled about its edges.
“What then, my daughter?” he asked courteously.
“I do not know whether Leah should stay or go while I speak,” Madame Ezra said, looking at the girl kindly.
Leah rose. “I will go.”
“No,” Madame Ezra decided abruptly. “Why should you? You are not a child and we are not Chinese. It is quite permissible to speak before you of your marriage.”
Leah sat down again hesitating. Peony watched her sidewise from under her lashes. At the word “marriage” a dark rich red flooded up from Leah’s straight neck and shoulders; it crept up her cheeks and into the roots of her hair. Seeing it, Peony felt the blood drain down from her own face and her heart began to beat slowly and heavily. The talk would go on before her, as a matter of course, for who would consider whether a bondmaid had a heart? Madame Ezra, in her shrewdness, might think it well for her to hear of David’s marriage. Peony dropped her head low and stood like a small image of marble, her hands folded together upon the back of Madame Ezra’s chair.
“Marriage,” Madame Ezra repeated. “It is time, Father, to speak of our children. My son is no longer a child.”
“Leah is only eighteen,” the Rabbi said doubtfully. “Besides, what would I do without her?”
“To be eighteen is to be a woman,” Madame Ezra retorted, “and you cannot keep her forever. We can hire a good Jewish woman to take her place. I will see to it. I know just the one—Rachel, the daughter of Eli and that woman he married—”
“A Chinese,” the Rabbi said still more doubtfully.
“Only partly,” Madame Ezra said firmly. “It is hard to find servants now who are purely of our people. I myself use only Chinese. It is better not to mix them. But to take Leah’s place here, of course, we must have a woman who understands the rites and can help you. Rachel knows enough for that. And her husband is dead.”
“He was a Chinese,” the Rabbi said plaintively.
“It is as much as we can do to get our sons married to women of our people nowadays,” Madame Ezra replied. “That is why I want my son married now. Leah, you must help me!”
A look of trouble came into Leah’s deep eyes. “How can I help you?” she murmured.
“You must come and visit me,” Madame Ezra said. “It is natural and right that at this age, when you are entering womanhood, you should come and stay with me, your mother’s friend. We were like sisters, she and I, and I have long had it in my mind that you should come to me.”
They were interrupted by a sound at the door. Aaron came in impetuously and then stopped, confounded by their unexpected presence. He gave a snigger of embarrassment.
“Aaron!” Leah whispered distressfully.
“My son!” the Rabbi cried. “How fortunate! Now we can talk with you. Aaron, sit down here, my son, near me.”
The Rabbi felt for a chair, but Aaron did not move toward him. He took off his turban and wiped his hot forehead. It was Leah that rose and moved a chair near to the father and motioned to her brother. He sat down, trying to control his rapid breathing.
“Why have you been running?” the Rabbi asked.
“Because I wanted to,” Aaron answered sullenly. He was a slight pallid young man and his eyes were small and black and set close on either side of a thin hooked nose. His curly black hair hung untidily from under his turban.
Madame Ezra gazed at him with dislike. “You do not look as the Rabbi’s son should,” she now said majestically. “You look as common as anybody’s son.”
Aaron did not answer. He threw her instead a shrewd peevish glance, sharp with hostility.
“Aaron!” Leah murmured again.
“Be quiet!” he commanded her in a fierce whisper.
“My son, do you not give greeting to our guests?” the Rabbi asked.
“Let us go on with our conversation,” Madame Ezra said.
“Yes, yes,” the Rabbi murmured. “Aaron, Madame Ezra wants Leah to come and stay with her for a while.”
“Who’s to look after us?” Aaron inquired rudely.
“Rachel will come,” Madame Ezra replied.
“Do you mind if I go, Aaron?” Leah asked half timidly.
“Why should I mind? Do as you like,” he replied. His eyes, roving about the room, now fell upon the silent Peony, and there they fastened themselves. She felt his coarse gaze and did not lift her eyelids.
Then Madame Ezra saw it and was angered. She rose, interposing herself between the two. “Let us decide it so, Father. Leah can come to me tomorrow. I will send a sedan for her, and at an earlier hour Rachel will come. Leah, you can tell her everything to be done. And do not set a day for your return—I may keep you for a long time.”
Madame Ezra smiled and nodded to Leah, who had risen when she rose. Then bowing her farewell to the Rabbi, she left the room without giving heed to Aaron. The Rabbi rose too, and leaning upon Aaron’s arm, he followed Madame Ezra to the gate.
Leah walked on his other side, and Peony went ahead to prepare the chair carriers.
Thus Madame Ezra returned to her house. She was ill pleased with her own thoughts, that Peony could see. She was very silent when she had reached her own rooms, and she gave brief commands for the preparation of the small east court for Leah. Peony stood to receive these commands, and when she had heard them she turned and went to fulfill them, only to hear Madame Ezra call her again from the gate of the court.
“Young girls have natural instincts,” Madame Ezra said to Peony. “Do you prepare tho
se two rooms as you can imagine Leah would like to have them prepared, with the scrolls and vases, flowers and perfumes, that she will most enjoy.”
“But Madame, how do I know what a young foreign lady will most enjoy?” Peony inquired. She met Madame Ezra’s fixed stare with a wide and innocent gaze.
“Try to imagine,” Madame Ezra said dryly, and the innocent gaze flickered and fell.
Outside the gate, in the mossy passageway, Peony stood still for a full minute. Then she moved with decision. She went to her room and in a few swift movements she took off her somber street garments and put on her soft peach-pink silk jacket and trousers. She washed her hands and face in perfumed water and coiled her braid again over one ear and thrust a jeweled pin into the knot. In the other ear she hung a long pearl earring. Cheeks and lips she touched with vermilion, and she dusted her face with the fine rice powder. Then she slipped through the secret passages of the old house that went winding into the courtyards where David lived near to his father.
The house had been built hundreds of years ago for a great and rich Chinese family, and generations had added courts and passageways to suit their needs and their loves. Many of these were closed now, and left unused, but Peony in her exploring and David in his curiosity had found them, until, as the years of their childhood passed, all were familiar to them, and these ways underlay the upper surfaces of the house in a secret pattern for a secret life. The house was Peony’s world, where she lived with the family to which she belonged, and yet where she felt that she lived most often alone, passing hours at a time in some forgotten overgrown courtyard, dreaming and musing. But she knew that until now she had never been really alone because there had always been David. Whether he was in her presence or not, he had been always in her dreams and musings.
As she went her secret way, she was bewildered with fear. Well she knew and had always known that someday he must be given a wife. But she had not believed that this wife could separate them. They would go on, the closeness of man and woman scarcely heeded, scarcely noticed, in the family life. But if Leah were brought here, would Leah allow this to be? Could anything be hidden from the foreign eyes of that young girl? Would she not demand the whole of David, body and mind and spirit? His conscience she would create in her own image, and she would teach him to worship the god of his fathers, and he would cleave to Leah only and there would be no room for any other in his heart. Now Peony feared Leah indeed, for she saw that Leah was a woman strong enough to win a man entire and hold him so. Peony’s eyes swam with tears. She must go to David instantly, win him again, renew every tie. Impetuously, daring to disobey even Madame Ezra out of her fear, she ran silently upon her satin-shod feet into the library, where David at this hour should be at his books.
She found him at his writing table, his books pushed aside. When she stood in the doorway he was poring over a sheet of paper, pointing his camel’s-hair brush at his lips. He did not see her and she waited, now rosy and smiling, ready for his lifted eyes. When he made no sign, she laughed softly and he looked up, his eyes thoughtful and far away. Then she went to him, and taking her white silk handkerchief from her sleeve, she leaned and wiped his inky lips.
“Oh, what lips!” she murmured. “Look!”
She showed him the stain on the handkerchief, but he was still far away. “Tell me a rhyme for ‘lily,’ ” he commanded.
“Silly,” she replied with prompt mischief.
“Silly yourself!” he retorted. But he put the brush down.
“What are you writing?” she inquired.
“A poem,” he replied.
She snatched the paper, he snatched it back, and between them it was torn in two. “Now see what you have done!” he cried furiously. “It’s the fifth time I have copied it!”
“For your tutor, I suppose?” she cried. She began to read the torn poem in a high, sweet voice.
“I came upon a garden unaware,
A flower-scented space,
But all the flowers did abase Themselves before a lily…”
“Why a lily?” she demanded. “I thought you said she looked like a fawn. The same girl cannot look like a fawn and a lily.”
“She isn’t exactly like a lily—she’s too small. I wanted to say orchid, a small golden one, but there is nothing that rhymes with orchid.”
Peony crumbled the paper in her hand. “There is no use in your writing poems to her, whatever she is,” she declared.
“You wicked little thing!” he cried. He grasped her hand and forced the wad of paper out of it and smoothed it. Then he looked at her, remembering her words. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
She paused and then said firmly, “Leah is coming.”
“Here?”
She was pleased with the horror in his eyes, and she nodded. “She is coming tomorrow—and she is really very beautiful. I never saw before how beautiful she is. Why not keep the poem? ‘Lily’ would suit her.”
“What is she coming for?” he asked, biting his underlip.
“You know—you know,” she answered. “She is coming to be married to you!”
“Stop teasing,” he commanded. He stood up and seized both her wrists and held her firmly. “Tell me—did my mother say so—to her?”
Peony nodded. “I went with your mother to the Rabbi’s house and I heard every word. They are going to rebuild that temple—the temple to your foreign god—and Leah is coming here to live.”
“If my mother thinks—” David began.
“Ah, she will do what she likes,” Peony declared. “She’s stronger than you. She will make you marry Leah!”
“She cannot—I won’t—my father will help me—”
“Your father is not as strong as she is.”
“Both of us together!”
“Ah, but there are two of them, too,” she reminded him triumphantly. “Leah and your mother—they’re stronger than you and your father.”
She felt a strange wish to hurt him, to make him suffer so that he would ask her help. Then she would help him. She looked up into his eyes and saw doubt creep into them.
“Peony, you must help me!” he whispered.
“Leah is beautiful,” she said stubbornly.
“Peony,” he pleaded, “I love someone else. You know it!”
“The daughter of Kung Chen. What’s her name?”
“I don’t even know her name,” he groaned.
“But I do,” Peony said.
She had him now in her power. He dropped her wrists. “What is her name?” he demanded.
“You were nearly right—to want to call her ‘orchid’,” she said demurely. “Her name is Kueilan.”
“Precious Orchid,” he repeated. “Ah, it was my instinct!”
“And if you wish, I will take the poem to her myself—when you have finished it,” Peony said sweetly. He opened the drawer of the table and drew out a fresh sheet of paper.
“Now quickly help me with the last line,” he commanded her.
“Let’s not have any flowers,” she suggested. “Flowers are so common.”
“No flowers,” he said eagerly. “What would she like instead?”
“If it were I,” Peony said, “I would like to remind someone—the one I loved—of—of a fragrance—caught upon the winds of night—or dew at sunrise—”
“Dew at sunrise,” he decided.
He settled to his paper and brush, and she touched his cheek with her palm.
“While you write,” she said tenderly, “I will go and do something your mother bade me to do.”
He did not hear her, or know that she had left him alone. At the door she looked back. When she saw him absorbed, her red lips grew firm and her eyes sparkled like black jewels, and she went away to fulfill the task of preparing Leah’s rooms.
How hard she was upon the two small undermaids she summoned to help her! Nothing she did herself, until the last corner under the bed was swept, until the silken bed curtains were shaken free of dust, and the bed spread wit
h soft quilts, the carved blackwood table dusted. Then she waved the wearied maids away, and she sat down and considered Leah.
It was in her heart to leave these rooms as they were, clean but bare. Why should she put forth her hand to more? Then she sighed. She knew herself too merciful to blame Leah, who was good. She rose, unwillingly, and went about other rooms in the house and chose from one and another pretty things, a pair of many-flowered vases, a lacquered box, a pair of scrolls, each with its painted verse beneath flying birds, a footstool made of golden bamboo, a bowl of blooming bulbs, and these she took to Leah’s rooms and placed them well.
When all was done, she stood looking about her; then, feeling duty done, she closed the doors. Outside these closed doors she paused in the court and considered. David would have his poem finished now, doubtless. Should she return to him to know his will? She went silent-footed through the courts again to David’s schoolroom and looked in. He was not there.
“David?” she called softly, but there was no answer. She tiptoed to the desk. Upon the sheet of paper he had written only a single line.
Within the lotus bud the dewdrop waited.
Then he had flung down his brush. She felt its tip—the camel’s hair was dry! Where had he gone and where had he stayed all these hours?
She looked about the empty, book-lined room, and all her perceptions, too sensitive, searched the air. Confusion—what confusion had seized him? She longed to run out, to look for him, to find him. But her life had taught her patience. She stood, controlled and still. Then she took up the brush, put on its brass cover, and laid it in its box; she covered the ink box, too, and set the slab of dried ink in its place. This done, she stood a second more, than took the paper with its unfinished poem, folded it delicately, put it in the bosom of her robe, and returned to her own room and found her embroidery. There the whole afternoon she sewed, and none came near, even to ask her if she were hungry or thirsty.
Peony: A Novel of China Page 5
