Whereinthere is adeparturefrom familycustom andKuei Pinggoes withher husbandto livein Peking
MOONLIGHT on which the white magnolia flowers floated as birds about to take wing, filled the courtyard and touched the town with a magic of pale green gold. Kuei Ping could not sleep. She lay wide-eyed, following the pattern that a moonbeam made as it filtered through the parchment window. Unable to resist longer the call of the path of light she slid from her bed to the floor. Cautiously pulling about her the long garment that lay waiting for the morning, she crept through the door of her pavilion into the courtyard. Still holding her slippers in her hand she listened for sounds of others awake. From the rooms of her honorable women relatives came only the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep.
She passed safely out of the women’s division of the compound, stealing through the intricate lacery of courtyards and curious-shaped gateways, stopping to dabble her fingers in the waters of a fountain and then, at a disturbed quack from the pet heron who stood sleeping with one foot drawn up beneath him, she sped carefully away. Her shadow mingled with that of the flowering magnolia trees as she slipped from place to place like a long-caged bird trying its wings in newly gained freedom, stooping now overthe fragrant heart of a rose, brushing gently the stiff little potted evergreens that stood in a row at the base of the spirit screen, turning back to feel the velvet of the purple iris, holding up her hands to let the full-blown wisteria petals flutter through them.
From over the walls came a mysterious groping after expression from the strings of some blind wandering musician. It vibrated on the heart of Kuei Ping, calling her beyond the confines of the compound she had entered as a bride two months earlier. Square across the entrance gateway, placed so that evil spirits flying in to bring disaster would be flung back, stood the high, many-colored spirit screen guarding the household, while it slumbered, from disaster. Her hand still touching the familiar potted trees on the inner side of the screen, Kuei Ping crept around it. No sound save that of irregular snoring came from the gatekeeper’s house. Her fingers trembled as they sought for the open link in the chain that held the bar across the outer gate. A wild rose that had clambered up beside the gateway and dared to cross the bits of broken glass that made more impassable the top of the wall gave her courage. Noiselessly she slid the bar and stood without the compound.
How soft the dust felt beneath her feet as they touched it for the first time. Pilgrimages she had made with her honorable mother-in-law to pay respect to the ancestral hall, to worship at the temple of Buddha, and to ask after the health of Madame Yen and her household, but it was not fitting that the new bride should soil her feet upon the common ground. Chair-bearers came within the courtyard to bear her forth upon those journeys.
Leaning back against the wall, Kuei Ping drew a deep breath of air. Now near and now far away the music called. Thither along the road to his former place in the world of other affairs Fuh Tang had returned six days after their marriage. Above her head the wood-rose nodded in the breeze. Men went out and beyond. Women in that far-away land from which Miss Porter came, walked, too, in similar paths of freedom.
She looked up at the venturesome rose. It wafted down fragrant perfume. On her questioning mind came a consciousness of a change in the music—loneliness and a vague hunger that died away in a vibration of despair. There came upon the heart of Kuei Ping an overpowering sense of walls that stretched along the dusty hutung, closing inupon the lives of uncountable women. Even the roots of the wood-rose held her body within the compound. With cold hands and eyes blinded by tears she put the bar back in place. Her feet caught in the skirt of her long mandarin robe as she stumbled back into her room.
The morning would bring its round of regular hours in which she, the wife of the eldest son, would continue her lessons in family duties, ready to take the burden when it should fall from the ageing shoulders of Madame Chia.
The noon of the day brought its difference. Kuei Ping sat on the folded rug at the feet of her new mother, putting tiny stitches in a piece of satin embroidery, when the sounds of welcoming voices came from the outer court. The women’s conversation about small household affairs was stilled as they heard the gateman repeating the name of Fuh Tang, and the other servants take up the cry, “You bring us unexpected joy by your presence, most gracious master.” A needle prick from which a drop of red blood stained Kuei Ping’s embroidery was the only trace of excitement the quiet little bride showed as she rose to greet him with his mother. Within her there fluttered a hope that he had come upon thisunexpected visit in answer to a call from her heart. She breathed a prayer of thanksgiving to the Goddess of Merciful Gifts that she had been given patience to perform the tasks of the day in quietness, and that she had donned for the afternoon the most becoming of the wisteria silk garments from her trousseau chests. The wistful light in her eyes changed to one of sure gladness as they met his. She heard the explanation of his coming as put into words to their most gracious mother, but Kuei Ping knew without words that he had come because he loved her.
Throughout the week and on into the next Fuh Tang lingered. The full moon had become a waning quarter, making the lighting of the many-colored lanterns in the courtyard necessary to turn it into a fairy land at twilight time. A messenger came calling him back to his post, and Madame Chia, fearing family dishonor, urged upon her son the necessity for immediate departure as soon as the next day should dawn.
Kuei Ping, bringing back to the gracious mother the household keys with which she had been entrusted to dole out the next day’s supplies to the cooks, heard the last words of Fuh Tang’s reproval.
It was in the courtyard, where the scatteredpetals of the blown magnolia flowers were bruised under their feet as they walked, that Fuh Tang told Kuei Ping that he must return upon the morrow to his waiting work. His voice had trembled as he spoke, and Kuei Ping, crushing consciously beneath her tiny embroidered slippers the blossoms that had seemed to dare to float out to freedom and then had dropped in a withered mass on the paved courtyard, had begged him to let her go with him. He had stayed his steps, startled at the suggestion. His calm hands folded into opposite coat sleeves, he had listened with ears that could not believe they heard aright.
Fuh Tang did not depart when morning came. The orders of an Emperor waited. The elders of the two august families of Yen and Chia met together to bring wisdom to the minds of the two young people who contemplated so drastic a departure from family custom. Separately and together they were called before the family tribunal. Faithfully and completely until now both of them had submitted to the rules of tradition; mechanically and faithfully they performed the small duties given them now. Kuei Ping listened to the daily words of her grandmother with reverently bowed head and modestly loweredeyes. Words were futile, for no one among the women spoke to let her know if by chance they understood.
In humiliation Kuei Ping’s heart was lighter than ever before. She knew that Fuh Tang would not depart without her. His younger brother was dispatched to fill Fuh Tang’s too long neglected orders.
In early autumn they left the protection and the guidance of their families in disgrace. Love for each other, so strong that it broke down old barriers to personal freedom, set them out upon the road of life a unit separate from the complex life of the compound. Fuh Tang, appealing to the principal of the school he had attended, secured through him a position as clerk with the British consul at Peking.
In the Tartar City just west of the entrance to the Forbidden City they found a small dwelling place.