They parted, brothers and sisters, with a warm family feeling. It was good to be together. Before he went to bed James sent a cablegram to his parents. “Children arrived safely. All well. We go north tomorrow. Love and respect. James.”
He lay awake long after Peter was breathing in deep even waves of sleep. He had wanted to get Mary away and ask her about Lili, but he had not dared to leave Louise alone. There was something desperate in her face.
7
LONG AGO MRS. LIANG had learned not to open envelopes addressed to her husband. Therefore she did not open the yellow envelope which she hoped brought news of the children’s safe arrival. It came after luncheon when Dr. Liang was taking a nap in his study, and she tiptoed to the door and listened. She could hear him breathing heavily, and she sighed and went back to the living room and sat down by the window. She held the envelope in her hand, for she was not willing for one moment to lay it down. There was so much she wanted to know which of course it would not tell her. There was so much she wanted to know which indeed no one could tell her, because only someone like herself would perceive it. For example, what was it like now really to live again in Peking? She loved Peking. To herself she called it by the old name of Peking, as most Chinese did, although before foreigners she was careful to say Peiping, to show that she was a modern woman and loyal to the present government.
Still, she had not at all liked Madame Chiang Kai-shek when she came here to New York. She and Dr. Liang had sent a large bouquet of chrysanthemums to Madame Chiang, yellow ones, costing one dollar apiece, but Madame Chiang had not even acknowledged them. Some secretary had merely scrawled a note of receipt. When later among other Chinese they had gone to a reception Liang had taken Madame’s hand very warmly, but she herself had not touched Madame Chiang. She had bowed a little and said in Chinese, “Eh-eh, you’ve come, have you?” exactly as in her old-fashioned home her mother had greeted guests whom she did not like. Madame Chiang’s face had not changed. The Americans thought her beautiful but in China there were many women more beautiful.
“Eh, why do I think about Madame Chiang?” Mrs. Liang asked herself now.
Outside in the park the leaves were beginning to fall and this meant that winter would soon come. She dreaded the long cold American winters. It was cold in Peking, too, but the days were always sunny. Even when there came down a snowstorm from the north, it passed quickly. Peking in the snow! Nothing was more beautiful. And how the bright red berries of Indian bamboo used to shine through the whiteness of the snow! She wiped her eyes quietly. That home in Peking, set so firmly upon the earth that no wind could shake it, was still her dearest memory. When the winds blew here the tall building trembled and she was always afraid, although she had learned not to show it because Liang grew so angry with her. Liang was often angry with her and for many things she did not blame him. He is not very happy here, too, she thought. No one is happy away from the earth and waters of his own home. Then why did Liang stay here?
There was the Li family, also. Why did they stay here? Lili was becoming quite famous now among the Americans. They had taken her up as a fad and only the other day in a picture magazine she had seen Lili’s face, looking at her from a full page. “Chinese Beauty,” was written underneath, and thee there had been a story about her which said she was considered the most beautiful girl in China. But none of the story was true. There were many girls in China more beautiful than Lili. James was lucky not to marry her. Still, if he had married, he would be here and all the children would be here, and the house would not be so quiet. When the children were here she had so much to say, but now she could not think of anything to say to Liang.
Suddenly she heard him cough. Then she heard his step and she ran to the door again and opened it softly. He was awake but he looked unwell and pale. “Liang, here is an electric letter from the children,” she said. Now that they were alone she had returned to speaking Chinese altogether, unless some foreigner came to visit them. Her English was slipping from her.
“Give it to me,” he said.
She stood waiting while he tore open the envelope with his thumbnail and took out the inner sheet. He did not read it aloud. She waited.
“They have arrived safely and they are well. James sends this word,” he said finally.
A misty happiness filled her body. “So they are safe,” she murmured.
“Of course.” He stooped and pulled on his slippers. “You are always so fearful.”
“But the ocean is terrible,” she pleaded.
“Not in the great modern ships,” he replied. “You always behave as though there were nothing but old-fashioned junks.”
She understood that his nap had left him feeling heavy and uncomfortable and so she said, “I will fetch you some hot tea and then it will be good for you to take a short walk in the park. You have to make a talk tonight before American ladies.”
“I don’t see why I am always compelled to make these talks,” he grumbled.
She hastened to agree with him. “Nor do I, Liang. Why do you not refuse? It is so foolish for you to waste your time. How can women understand the things you talk about?”
She hoped to comfort him but instead she made him very angry. “Not all women are like you,” he said coldly. “There are even some women who appreciate the subject to which I have devoted my life.”
“I am always wrong,” she said and turned and went away to the kitchen. Had the children been here she would have answered him with some temper of her own but indeed she had none now. Well, a woman without children had no courage before a man. In the kitchen alone, for she kept the maid now only half a day, she filled the kettle and lit the gas stove. Secretly she was afraid of the suddenness of the gas lighting, but she forced herself to light the match and hold it to the burner.
She made the tea and took it into the study. Liang sat before his desk, drowsing over some notes, and he did not speak when she poured the tea into the bowl and set it on the able, and so she tiptoed away to sit by the window again in he living room. The wind was beginning to rise. She saw the eaves falling faster in the park below, and the building seemed to sway in a slow whirling motion. Certainly she heard it creak. A look of terror came over her face and she clutched he edge of the window sill with both hands.
In his own way Dr. Liang also was suffering. His philosophy had not deserted him, nor did he feel that he had done anything wrong. Therefore he could not understand why his usual buoyancy had left him and why he felt dry and sad. The house was quiet, but he liked quiet. He had done a great deal of work since the children went and so much indeed that he had made entirely new notes for his course in contemporary Chinese literature. The children’s mother was of course somewhat depressed. That was inevitable. She was the mother type rather than the wife type. He had come to this conclusion long ago. In his own way Dr. Liang thought a great deal about women. No woman could have persuaded him from the path of rectitude and he was a man genuinely chaste. But he thought about women, nevertheless, and he analyzed many women in his mind, without any thought of their relation to him. Indeed he wanted nothing of them, for himself. They were merely interesting specimens of the human race. Confucius had thought little of women, and he had long pondered this aspect of the master’s mind. There must have been reason for this contempt. Perhaps the master had endured a willful wife, and had taken his revenge in private by writing down his wishful hope that women were beneath the notice to men. “Women, children and fools,” he had said, although recently Dr. Liang had been inclined to believe that Confucius was partly wrong in this classification, for he was becoming convinced that not all women were fools.