My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard — Part 1 Letters 6 - 10

I am, Thy Wife.

6 My Dear One, "The five worst infirmities that afflict the female are indocility, discontent, slander, jealousy, and silliness.

The worst of them all, and the parent of the other four, is silliness.

"Does that not sound familiar to thine ears?

Life is serious here in thine ancestral home since we have taken to ourselves a daughter-in-law.

The written word for trouble is two women beneath one rooftree, and I greatly fear that the wise man who invented writing had knowledge that cost him dear.

Perhaps he, too, had a daughter-in-law.

Yet, with it all, Li-ti is such a child.

Ah, I see thee smile.

Thou sayest she is only three years less in age than I; yet, thou seest, I have had the honour of living a year by the side of thy Most August Mother and have acquired much knowledge from the very fountain-head of wisdom.

Perchance Li-ti also will become a sage, if-- she be not gathered to her ancestors before her allotted time, which depends upon the strength of body and mind which they may have willed her.

To me she is the light of this old palace.

She is the true spirit of laughter, and, "When the happy laugh, the Gods rejoice."

She is continually in disgrace with thine Honourable Mother, and now the Elder One has decided that both she and Mah-li, thy sister, shall learn a text from the sage Confucius each day for penance.

They are now in the inner courtyard, studying the six shadows which attend the six virtues.

I can hear them saying over and over to each other, "Love of goodness without the will to learn casts the shadow called foolishness--" now a laugh-- then again they begin, "Love of knowledge without the will to learn casts the shadow called instability--" giggle and much talking.

I am afraid they will never arrive at the shadow cast the love of truth, and after I have written thee I will go in and help them, that they may not be reprimanded.

Li-ti takes her duties now most seriously, these same duties consisting of dressing for the day.

In the morning she seats herself before her mirror, and two maids attend her, one to hold the great brass bowl of water, the other to hand her the implements of her toilet.

While the face is warm she covers it with honey mixed with perfume, and applies the rice-powder until her face is as white as the rice itself.

Then the cheeks are rouged, the touch of red is placed upon the lower lip, the eyebrows are shaped like the true willow leaf, and the hair is dressed.

Her hair is wonderful (but I say within, my hearty not so long or so thick as mine), and she adorn it with many jewels of jade and pearls.

Over her soft clothing of fine linen she draws the rich embroidered robes of silk and satin.

Then her jewels, earrings, beads, bracelets, rings, the tiny mirror in the embroidered case, the bag with its rouge and powder fastened to her side by long red tassels.

When all things are in place, she rises a being glorified, a thing of beauty from her glossy hair to the toe of her tiny embroidered shoe.

I watch her with a little envy, because when thou wast here I did the same.

Now that my husband is away, it is not meet that I make myself too seemly for other eyes.

The rouge brush and the powder have not been near my face, and I have searched my clothing chests to find gowns fitting for a woman who is alone.

Thy Mother says poor Li-ti is o'ervain, and repeats to her the saying, "More precious in a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of beauty."

But I say she is our butterfly, she brings the joys of summer.

One must not expect a lace kerchief to hold tears, and she fulfills her woman's destiny.

Chih-peh, thy brother, is inexpressibly happy.

He adores his pretty blossom.

He follows her with eyes worship, and when she is in disgrace with thine August Mother, he is desolate.

When needs be she is sent to her apartment, he wanders round and round the courtyards until the Honourable One has retired from sight, then he hurriedly goes to his beloved.

Soon I hear them laughing gaily, and know the storm is over.

The rains have come and we cannot pass long days upon the terrace.

The whole valley is shrouded in grey mists and the peasants have gone from the fields.

The path down the mountain-side is empty, except for the men with the great umbrella hats and capes of straw, bringing the vegetables to the monastery below.

The old abbot of the monastery is in great trouble.

Some men have come and wish to erect long poles with wires on them.

It is feared it will interrupt the feng-shui of the temple, the good spirits of the air cannot pass, and will rest upon these ugly poles instead of coming to the temple rooftree.

The abbot has wailed and gone to the magistrate; but he will not interfere, as the men have many tens of thousands of sycee and quite likely will work their will.

[Illustration: Mylady05.

] Such foolish letters as I write thee!

They are filled with the little life that passes within the women's courtyard.

It is all the life I know.

My world is bounded by these walls, and I ask no more.

I am thy loving wife.

7 My Dear One, All thy women-folk have been shopping!

A most unheard-of event for us.

We have Li-ti to thank for this great pleasure, because, but for her, the merchants would have brought their goods to the courtyard for us to make our choice.

Li-ti would not hear of that; she wanted to see the city, and she wanted to finger the pretty goods within the shops.

She knew exactly what she wished, and life was made uncomfortable for us all until thy Mother ordered the chairs and we went into the city.

We were a long procession.

First, the August One with her four-bearer chair; then your most humble wife, who has only two bearers-- as yet;

then Li-ti; and after her Mah-li, followed by the chairs of the servants who came to carry back our purchases.

It was most exciting for us all, as we go rarely within the city gate.

It was market day and the streets were made more narrow by the baskets of fish and vegetables which lined the way.

The flat stones of the pavements were slippery and it seemed our bearers could not find a way amongst the crowd of riders on horses and small donkeys, the coolies with their buckets of hot water swinging from their shoulders, the sweetmeat sellers, the men with bundles, and the women with small baskets.

They all stepped to one side at the sound of the Ah-yo of our leader, except a band of coolies carrying the monstrous trunk of a pine-tree, chanting as they swung the mast between them, and keeping step with the chant.

It seemed a solemn dirge, as if some great were being carried to the resting-place of the dead.

[Illustration: Mylady06.

] But sadness could not come to us when shopping, and our eager eyes looked long at the signs above the open shopways.

There were long black signs of lacquer with letters of raised gold, or red ones with the characters carved and gilded.

Above a shoe-shop was a made for the King of the Mountains, in front of a pipe-shop was a water pipe fit for his mate.

From the fan-shop hung delicate, gilded fans; and framing the silk-shop windows gaily coloured silk was draped in rich festoons that nearly swept the pathway.

We bought silks and satins and gay brocades, we chatted and we bargained and we shopped.

We handled jade and pearls and ornaments of twisted gold, and we priced amulets and incense pots and gods.

We filled our eyes with luxury and our amahs' chairs with packages, and returned home three happy, tired, hungry women, thinking with longing of the hissing tea-urn upon the charcoal brazier.

That crowded, bustling, threatening city seems another world from this, our quiet, walled-in dwelling.

I feel that here we are protected, cared for, guarded, and life's hurry and distress will only pass us by, not touch us.

Yet-- we like to see it all, and know that we are part of that great wonder-thing, the world.

I am thy happy, tired, Wife.

8. My Dear One, I am carrying a burden for another that is causing me much sorrow.

Dost thou remember Chen-peh, who is from my province and who married Ling Peh-yu about two moons after I came to thy household?

She came to me yesterday in dire distress.

She is being returned to her home by her husband's people, and, as thou knowest, if a woman is divorced shame covers her until her latest hour.

I am inexpressibly saddened, as I do not know what can be done.

The trouble is with his mother and, I fear, her own pride of family.

She cannot forget that she comes from a great house, and she is filled with pride at the recollection of her home.

I have told her that the father and mother of one's husband should be honoured beyond her own.

I can see that she has failed in respect; and thus she merits condemnation.

We have all learned as babes that "respect" is the first word in the book of wisdom.

I know it is hard at times to still the tongue, but all paths that lead to peace are hard.

She will remain with me two nights.

Last night she lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, with I know not what within her soul.

I

begged her to think wisely, to talk frankly with her husband and his mother, to whom she owes obedience.

There should be no pride where love is.

She must think upon the winter of her days, when she will be alone without husband and without children, eating bitter rice of charity, though 'tis given by her people.

I put her in remembrance of that saying of the poet: "Rudely torn may be a cotton mantle, yet a skillful hand may join it;

Snapped may be the string where pearls are threaded, yet the thread all swiftly knotted;

But a husband and his wife, once parted, never more may meet."

I must not bring thee the sorrows of another.

Oh, dear one, there will never come 'twixt thee and me the least small river of distrust.

I will bear to thee no double heart, and thou wilt cherish me and love me always.

Thy Wife.

9 My Dear One, I cannot wait until the seventh day to write thee again, as my letter to thee yestereve was full of sadness and longing.

Now I have slept, and troubles from a distance do not seem so grave.

Thine Honourable Mother has chided me gravely, but to my mind unjustly, and, as thou knowest, I could not answer her words, though they pierced me "like arrows from the strings of white-winged bows."

Poor Li-ti is in trouble again, and this time she has brought it upon herself, yet she cannot he blamed.

I as the head of the household, as thine Honourable Mother has told me, should have protected her.

I

told thee that she brought servants from her old home, and amongst them her childhood's nurse, who, I am sure, loves Li-ti dearly; but, as many women who have little to occupy their hands, she loves to sit in the women's courtyard and gossip.

If it had stopped within the servants' courtyard all would have been well; but at the time of Li-ti's dressing all the small goods she had gathered during the day were emptied into the lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that "as poison that reaches the blood spreads through the body, so does the love of gossip spread through the soul of woman."

I do not know how it came about, but comparisons were made between the households, that of her home and that of her husband, and news was carried back to the servants' quarters until at last our household was in a state of unrest that stopped all work and made living quite impossible.

It seems small, but it is the retailing of little calumnies that disturbs the harmony of kinsmen and ruins the peace of families.

Finally I found it necessary to talk to Li-ti's nurse, and I told her many things it were good for her to know.

I warned her that if she did not wish to revisit her home province she must still her tongue.

Things were better for a time, but they commenced again, and I called her to my courtyard and said to her, "The sheaves of rice have been beaten across the wood for the last time.

You must go."

Li-ti was inconsolable, but I was firm.

Such quarrels are not becoming when we are so many beneath one rooftree.

The servant went away, but she claimed her servant's right of reviling us within our gate.

She lay beneath our outer archway for three long hours and called down curses upon the Liu family.

One could not get away from the sound of the enumeration of the faults and vices of thy illustrious ancestors even behind closed doors.

I did not know, my husband, that history claimed so many men of action by the name of Liu.

It pleased me to think thou mayest claim so long a lineage, as she went back to the dynasty of Ming and brought forth from his grave each poor man and woman and told us of-- not his virtues.

I should have been more indignant, perhaps, if I had not heard o'ermuch the wonders of thy family tree.

I was impressed by the amount of knowledge acquired by the family of Li-ti.

They must have searched the chronicles which evidently recorded only the unworthy acts of thy men-folk in the past.

I hope that I will forget what I have heard, as some time when I am trying to escape from thine ancestors the tongue might become unruly.

At the end of three hours the woman was faint and very ill.

I had one of the servants take her down to the boat, and sent a man home with her, bearing a letter saying she was sickening for home faces.

She is old, and I did not want her to end her days in disgrace and shame.

But thine Honourable Mother!

Thine Honourable Mother!

Art thou not glad that thou art in a far-off country?

She went from courtyard to courtyard, and for a time I fully expected she would send to the Yamen for the soldiers; then she realised the woman was within her right, and so restrained her-self.

It nearly caused her death, as thou knowest thine Honourable Mother has not long practised the virtue of restraint, especially of the tongue.

She was finally overcome taken to her chamber, and we brought her tea and heated wine, and tried in all our ways to make her forget the great humiliation.

As she became no better, we sent for the man of medicine from the Eastern Gate, and he wished to burn her shoulders with a heated cash to remove the heat within her.

To this she objected so strongly that he hastily gathered his utensils and departed looking fearfully over his shoulder from time to time as he passed quickly down the hillside.

Then I thought of her favourite priest from the monastery down below, and sent for him.

He came with candle and incense and, I think, some rose wine for which the monastery is justly famous; and he chanted prayers, striking from time to time a little gong, until peace was restored and sleep came to her eyelids.

[Illustration: Mylady07.

] In the morning she wished to talk to Li-ti; but I feared for her, and I said, "You cannot speak of the ocean to a well-frog, nor sing of ice to a summer insect.

She will not understand.

She said Li-ti was without brains, a senseless thing of paint and powder.

I said, "We will form her, we will make of her a wise woman in good time.

She replied with bitterness, "Rotten wood cannot be carved nor walls of dirt be plastered."

I could not answer, but I sent Li-ti to pass the day with Chih-peh at the Goldfish Temple, and when she returned the time was not so stormy.

All this made me unhappy, and the cares of this great household pressed heavily upon my shoulders.

Please do not think the cares too heavy, nor that I do not crave the work.

I know all labour is done for the sake of happiness, whether the happiness comes or no; and if I find not happiness, I find less time to dream and mourn and long for thee, my husband.

Thy Wife.

10 My Dear One, We have been to a great festival at the Temple of the Goddess of a Thousand Hands.

Thine Honourable Mother decided that we should go by boat part of the way, so the chairs were told to meet us at the Western Village Rest-house.

We hired from the city one of those great pleasure-boats, but it was not too great for us all.

There was the August One, and four of her friends, then Li-ti, Mah-li and myself.

We took the cook, the steward and three amahs, and it was indeed a time of feasting.

It was the first time I had been upon the canal, and it was different from seeing it from the terrace.

As we passed slowly along we could watch the life of the water people.

On the banks were the great water-wheels turned by the village buffalo.

In the deserted districts women were gathering reeds to make the sleeping mats and boat covers.

The villages with their blue-grey houses and thatched roofs nestling among the groves of bamboos looked like chicklets sheltering under the outstretched wings of the mother hen.

We pushed our way through the crowded water-ways of the cities, where we could catch glimpses of the guests in the tea-houses or the keepers of the shops, or could watch the children leaning over the balconies.

On the steps between the houses which led to the waterside women were washing clothes, or the dyers were cleansing the extra dye from the blue cotton which clothes all China's poor.

We caught small bits of gossip and heard the laughter of all these people, who seemed happy at their work.

When we could again pass to the open canal we would watch the boats.

I did not know there were so many boats in all the world.

They floated slowly past us-- big boats, little boats, those that went by sail, and those that went by oar.

There were the boats of mandarins and merchants, those for passengers, and great unwieldy boats for rice.

We saw the fishing-boats with their hungry, fierce-eyed cormorants sitting quietly in their places, waiting for the master to send them diving in the water for the fish they may not eat.

[Illustration: Mylady08.

] [Illustration: Mylady09.

] The canal was a great broad highway.

Even the tow-paths had their patrons.

Travellers on wheelbarrows, rich men in sedan-chairs, soldiers, coolies, chanting as they swung along with their burdens swinging from the bamboo on their shoulders, all going to or coming from the great city to which we drew nearer with each stroke.

At the rest-house the bearers were awaiting us, and we were carried up the long paved roadway to the temple.

It seemed as if all the world had turned to praying-- all the women world, that is.

They were here, rich and poor, peasant and official's wife, but in the temple all of a sisterhood.

We descended from our chairs in the courtyard and put our spirit money in the great burner, where it ascended in tiny flames side by side with that of the beggar woman, to the great God in the Heavens.

We entered the temple, placed our candles, and lighted our incense.

We made our obeisance to the Many-handed Goddess and asked her blessing on our household for the year to come.

Then I went to the Mother of Mercies, Kwan-yin, and made my deepest reverence, because for her my heart is full of love and gratitude.

The other Gods I respect and make them all due worship, but, I feel they are far away from me.

Kwan-yin, is the woman's God, and I feel her love for me.

She shapes my way, and I know it is to her I owe it that my life flows on as a gentle stream, and I know that she cares for me and guards me now that thou art away and I have no one on whom to lean.

When I go before her all fire of passion is extinguished in my heart, and my troubles and cares pass away and become small in the distance, even as the light of the morning stars pales and wanes at the coming of the sun.

My heart is full of love for her, of a love that I cannot express.

She has heard my prayers and answered them.

She is my Kwan-yin, my Mother of Mercy, and each day I do some little deed for her, some little thing to show remembrance, so she will know the hours are not too full nor the days too short for me to place my offering on an altar built of love.

[Illustration: Mylady10.

] As we turned to leave the temple I glanced back at the great dark chamber and I saw the God of Light, the Buddha, sitting there so calm upon his throne, with the light of many candles before him and clouds of incense that floated to the roof.

I thought, "He is all-powerful.

I only prayed to him from out my lips, not with my heart.

Perhaps--" So I returned.

I prayed the mighty God with humble prayer to bring my loved one swiftly home to me; and then we left the temple.

We walked slowly through the courtyards, looking at the great trees that stood like tall, grim sentinels guarding the place of prayer.

Then we were taken by our bearers to the Goldfish Monastery in the hills.

Dost thou remember it?

Thou and I were there once in the springtime.

We bought the small round cakes from the priests and fed the greedy fish.

They swarmed over the pool, pushing, nudging, fighting one another to get the morsels we threw them.

Tiring of that, we had tea and sweetmeats served upon the terrace; then, after chatting for a time, we left for the boat.

We drifted slowly homeward.

Thy Mother and her friends discussed the earth, the moon, the sun and stars, as well as smaller matters, such as children, husbands, servants, schools-- and upon the last thy Mother waxed most eloquent; as thou knowest, it is a sore subject with her, this matter of the new education.

I heard her say: "All my sons have book knowledge.

Of what use is it in the end?

The cock crows and the dog barks.

We know that, but the wisest of my sons cannot say why one crows and the other barks, nor why they crow or bark at all."

Canst thou hear her, and see her shake her head dolefully over the dismal fact that thou hast left the narrow way of Confucius and the classics?

We came to the pathway just at sunset, and as I looked up at the old palace a little hurt came to my heart that thou wert not close by my side.

It lay so peaceful there and quiet, the curving roofs like flights of doves who had settled down with their wings not yet quite folded.

It brought remembrance that for me it was an empty palace.

I will see no one-- as Li-ti will-- within the archway.