“Sister, I ask you a favor,” Wang Ma said sobbing.
“Ask it, Elder Sister,” Peony replied.
“I have no heart to stay here in this house any more, I and my old man. We will go to the village and live with our eldest son and our own grandsons. Speak for us to the new master.”
They were so broken by sorrow that Peony had no courage to say what she had been about to ask, that they go and serve David in her place.
“I will speak to him as soon as he is able to forget his own sorrow for an hour,” she promised, “and be comforted, the two of you, for he will refuse you nothing. Yet how shall I manage alone, Elder Sister? I have always leaned on you.”
“I have no heart any more in this house,” Wang Ma replied, and she began to weep again.
So Peony left them sadly and found a manservant and bade him go and see if the master wished food or anything, and so she went alone to her own rooms. It was night and she felt weary indeed and the future was not plain before her eyes.
Now Ezra had had no time to tell Kung Chen of the reason why David and his family had left the northern capital so suddenly, and David in his grief had forgotten it. As if the grief were not enough, the ships loaded with goods from India sent word that they had reached port, and that the goods was being brought overland by carriers. Yet since the wars were so recently over and the people everywhere were poor there were many robbers, and David must arrange for guards and soldiers in each province through which the loads would pass. He had no time for mourning even for his father. Immediately he must return to his business. In the midst of all this trouble, he still forgot to tell Kung Chen of what had happened in regard to Peony. He was troubled within and without, for in the house he soon saw that Peony had separated herself from him, and this fretted him, even though he knew it was her wisdom so to do. He told himself that when his troubles were settled and the goods safely in the shops and the continual pain of seeing his father no more were all over, then he would face his own heart again and know what he must do with Peony.
He was in no wise prepared for Kung Chen, therefore, who came to him one morning with looks of consternation. David was in his own part of the shop, computing the quantity of the goods that were beginning to arrive each day, and appraising the quality of the fine cotton stuffs that had been woven in India. With him sat his partner, Kung Chen’s eldest son, and the two were deep in their affairs. Both were surprised when Kung Chen came in.
“David, come aside with me for a moment, and you, too, my son,” Kung Chen said gravely.
Both men followed him into a small room, where Kung Chen shut the door. His full face was gray with alarm, and his lips were pale.
“A messenger has come to us from our shops in the northern capital,” he said in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “He tells me that there is anger in the palace against us, David. The Chief Steward has sent out the rumor that one of your bondmaids was rude to the Western Empress. What is the meaning of this?”
David’s heart fell. All was clear to him in an instant, and with difficulty he told the story to the two, who listened in silence.
“The Chief Steward will certainly demand that Peony be sent for on the pretense of punishment,” Kung Chen said when David had finished. “If we refuse to give her up, then we must never hope to do good business again. The arm of the imperial favorite is long.”
“I will return to the capital alone,” David said. “I will seek audience with the empresses and tell them the truth.”
Both Chinese cried out at this. “Folly — folly!” Kung Chen declared. “Can you hope to prevail against the Chief Steward? He is in the imperial confidence and you would only be casting away your own life. No, there is no hope except to make her go.”
“That I cannot do,” David said.
Both men looked at him strangely and he had much difficulty in not allowing his eyes to falter before theirs. Then father and son looked at one another. They remembered how beautiful Peony was. Indeed, Kung Chen had remarked once or twice to his son that it might be difficult for any man to remain unmoved by so beautiful a bondmaid, who was clever and learned besides.
For David the moment was intolerable. “You wonder at me,” he said stiffly, “but I assure you, what you think is not possible. In my religion — the religion, that is, of my people — a man is allowed only one wife. I feel — gratitude to the bondmaid — who has been like a daughter in our house. I cannot deliver her to — to the eunuch.”
Kung Chen grasped at a hope. “If she is willing to go of her own will?”
David could not tell the truth, nor did he know why he could not. These men would not blame him did he say openly that he loved Peony and wanted her for himself. They would have laughed and pondered how to save her for him. He could not say it. He bowed his head. “If she wishes to go — for her own sake,” he stammered, “let it be so.”
They went back to their business then, and David tried to apply himself. Yet how could he think of figures and goods or even of profits? Kung Chen would summon Peony and force her, he would press her to realize how great a damage she would do to David and to all their two houses, and in her soft unselfishness Peony might yield. His mind misted and he could not go on.
“I feel ill,” he told Kung the First. “I shall go home and sleep a while and come back tomorrow.”
His partner stared at him and said nothing, but David saw the shrewdness in his small kind eyes and he hurried away. He could not delay one instant. As soon as he reached home he sent for Peony and waited restlessly until she came running to his rooms, still wiping her hands dry.
“I was in the kitchens,” she confessed. “They told me the jar of soy sauce was not thickening properly and I went to see.”
He paid no heed to this, but he saw her beautiful and strong, the pillar of his household. He could not live without her. “Peony, sit down,” he commanded abruptly.
She sat down on the edge of her chair, alarmed at his looks and at the sound of his voice. “What has happened now?” she asked.
He told her roughly and quickly, eager to get the burden off his own heart and knowing her able to bear anything. But he was frightened when he saw the pink drain from her cheeks and the strength from her frame. “I told you I must be a nun,” she whispered. “I shall not be able to save you otherwise.” She rose and began to untie the blue apron she had forgotten.
“Wait,” he commanded her. “There is another way for you to stay with me.”
Peony knew well what he meant, but her heart had hardened at last and she would not spare him.
“What way?” she demanded.
“You know,” David said in a low voice, and he would not look at her.
She was angry that he turned away, and she spoke for him firmly. “You mean — take me as your concubine?”
“Yes,” he said, and still he did not look at her.
She saw his face was fixed and strained. There was no joy in his eyes. The apron dropped from her hands. “You locked your door against me,” she said. “Why?”
“How do I know?” he asked.
“You do know,” she retorted. “You were afraid of the very thing that now you ask. You were afraid of yourself — of that which is in you still and will be in you so long as you live!”
“I deny it!” he said in a loud voice.
“It will not be denied,” she said. “It is born in you.”
He bent his head on his hand and did not answer. As clearly as though she lived, he saw Leah and heard her voice, and her voice was the voice of his mother and the voice of all those men and women who had lived before him. It was the voice of Jehovah Himself.