She sat down again in one of the bamboo chairs and motioned him to the other, and he sat down on the edge of it in deference to her.
“How well you look, son,” she said, examining his handsome young face. He was, if possible, more handsome than his father had been at the same age, for she had given him something of her own delicacy, too.
He wore this morning a long robe of summer silk, the color of pale green water. His dark short hair was brushed back, and his dark olive skin was smooth with health and good food. His eyes were quiet with content.
“I have married him happily,” Madame Wu told herself. “And the little child, my grandson?” she asked aloud.
“I have not seen him this morning,” Liangmo replied. “But had he been ill I would have heard of it.”
He could not keep from answering his mother’s smile. There was great affection between them. He trusted her wisdom far more than he did his own, and because of this when she had asked him to marry in order that there would not be confusion in the family because of the marriage of his younger brother ahead of him, he had said at once, “Choose someone for me, Mother. You know me better than I know myself.” He was completely satisfied with Meng, his pretty wife, and with the son she had given him within a year of their marriage. Now she was pregnant again.
“I have been saving some good news for this day, Mother,” he said at this moment.
“It is a day for good news,” Madame Wu replied.
“My son’s mother is to have her second child,” he announced proudly. “Her second moon cycle has passed, and now she is sure. She told me three days ago, and I said we would wait until our mother’s birthday to tell it to the family.”
“That is good news indeed,” Madame Wu said warmly. “You must tell her that I shall send her a present.”
At this moment her eyes fell on the little box of pearls that she had put on a small porcelain table. “I have the gift,” she exclaimed. She took up the box and opened it. “Her own mother gave me, an hour ago, these pearl earrings. But pearls are for young wives, I think, and it would be fitting for me to give them to our daughter. When you return to Meng— No, I will go to her with you. But first, my son, is there anything I should do in regard to our guests today and the feast?”
“Nothing, Mother,” he replied. “We are doing everything for you. Your children want to give you a day of idle joy. You shall not even ask about anything — only enjoy. Where is my father?”
“I doubt he can rise before noon even on my birthday,” Madame Wu said, smiling. “But I told him he must not, indeed. He enjoys the day so much more when he does not get up early, and he will be fresh and happy at the feast.”
“You are too good to us all,” Liangmo said.
She surveyed him with her steady beautiful eyes as though she did not hear this. “My son,” she said, “since doubtless we will be interrupted soon, I will speak at once of what I am planning to do. I have decided upon a thing, and yet I feel it is due you, as my eldest son, to tell you what I plan. I have decided to invite your father to take a concubine.”
She said these stupendous words in her calm, pretty voice. Liangmo heard them without understanding them. Then they crowded his mind and deafened him like thunder. His handsome full face paled to the color of cream.
“Mother!” he gasped. “Mother, has he — has my father—”
“Certainly not,” she said. But it struck her with a touch of pain that Liangmo, too, had first asked this question. Was it possible that her husband could so seem to all the sort of man who might …? She put away the unworthy thought. “Your father is still so youthful, although forty-five years old, and he is still so handsome, that it is no wonder that even you, his son, should put that question,” she said. “No, he has been and is most faithful.”
She paused, then with the nearest to diffidence that her son had ever seen in her calm manner, she went on, “No, I have my own reasons for the decision. But I should like to be assured that you, my eldest son, would accept her coming and help the house to accept it when it is known. It is natural that there will be talk and some disturbance. I must not hear the disturbance. But you must hear it and maintain the dignity of your parents.”
By now, although his cheeks were still cream pale, Liangmo had recovered himself. His black eyebrows settled themselves above his eyes, which were like his mother’s. “Of course, the matter is between you and my father,” he said. “But if you will let me step beyond my place, I beg you that if my father has not this wish you will not ask it of him. We are a happy family. How do we know what a strange woman will bring into the house? Her children will be the same age as your grandchildren. Will this not be confusing the generations? If she is very young, will not your sons’ wives be jealous of her position with my father? I can foresee many sorrows.”
“Perhaps you cannot understand, at your age, the relationship between men and women of my generation,” Madame Wu replied. “But it is because I have always been happy with your father, and he with me, that I have decided upon the step. Please, my son, return to your place. I require of you only to obey your mother in this as you have in all things. You have been the best of my sons. What you say will influence your younger brothers. What Meng says will influence the young wives. You must help her, too.”
Liangmo struggled against this in his own mind. But so deep was his habit of obedience to his mother that he obeyed her now. “I will do my best, Mother, but I will not pretend that what you have told me does not sadden this day.”
She smiled slightly. “I am really saving you greater sadness on other days,” she said. And then she saw that what she said was an enigma to this man so much younger than she, and so she rose and took up the box of pearls. “Come,” she said. “We will go and see Meng and I will make my gift.”
He had risen when she did, and now he stood beside her, young and strongly built as his father was, head and shoulders above her. She put out her little hand and rested it on his arm for a moment in a gesture of affection so rare that it startled him. She did not easily endure the touch of another human being, even her own children’s. He looked down at her and met her clear upward look.
“In you,” she said distinctly, “I have built my house upon a rock.”
Meng was playing with her little boy in the courtyard of her own house within this great house. She was alone with him except for his wet nurse, who squatted on her heels, laughing and watching. Both young women, mother and nurse, adored this little boy all day long. At night he slept in the nurse’s arms. In this common adoration the two women found a deep companionship. They poured out, in happy sacrifice, the love and attention the child demanded.
Meng’s body was made to bear children, and her breasts had been full of milk. But no one, not even she herself, had thought of allowing the baby to pull at her lovely small breasts and spoil their firmness. Lien had been hired to provide milk. She was the young wife of one of the farmers on the Wu lands. Her own child, also a boy, had been fed flour and water and rice gruel by his grandmother, instead of his mother’s milk. For this reason he was now thin and small and yellow, while Lien’s nursling was fat and rosy. Lien was allowed to go home once a month, and when she saw her child she wept and put him to her great breast. Her full nipples dripped milk, but the child turned away his head. He had never tasted this milk, and he did not know how to suckle. Lien could never stay out her day because of her aching breasts. By midafternoon she must hasten back to the Wu house. There her nursling waited for her, shouting with rage and hunger.
At the sight of him she forgot the thin yellow child. She opened her arms, laughing, and the big fat boy screamed for her from his mother’s knees. Then Lien ran to him, snatching open her coat as she ran. She knelt beside him at Meng’s side, and with both hands the child grasped her breast like a cup and drank in great gulps. Together Meng and Lien laughed, and each felt in her own body the child’s satisfaction.