CHAPTER XXXIV
Sên Ruben heard some one running after him up the Peach-tree Hill, turned and saw that it was Sên Toon, but scarcely recognized him. Toon took the tiny trickling brook with a merry leap, and Toon’s face was glowing; Sên Toon’s eyes were triumphant.
“Strike me, Sên Ruben, strike me for a dolt and monster!” Toon cried half in shame, but all in gladness, panting a little from the pace he’d come. “Forget my silly railings. Never remember them, I entreat thee, O Sên Ruben. She is carved out of opal; she is made of roses; all the odors of the peaches of the garden of immortality perfume her. Oh, I have done penance at her feet. Her feet, Sên Ruben! They are loveliest in China. All of her is loveliest in all the world. And she is kind and sweet as she is beautiful. I am drunk with happiness. My wife is the twin of my soul, the gold glory of my existence. If I go on-High to-morrow I have lived an eternity in Paradise since last we spoke together, thou and I. But pray all the gods, pray them hard, I entreat thee, that I live to nurse my son-ones and their son-ones in my arms; the love-buds of my celestial marriage.”
Sên Ruben promised to do it, deeply glad that marriage had blinded Sên Toon. Only blindness could account for this. He remembered the bride-one’s face quite clearly. Then suddenly he remembered the old Sên woman’s contented chuckle as she had looked down on Sên Toon from the lantern-hung casement. Did Madame Sên know of some necromancy of which he never had heard? This was witchcraft or sheer madness. Better so, if it could last! But it could not. It must pass, and then life would sour again for poor Sên Toon, more bittered than before. Probably Sên Toon would travel then, far and long, if Sên Wing-lu, his father, and Sên Wed O the regnant Madame Sên would let him. Poor girl! Ruben was sorry for her, widowed by her husband’s absence and repudiation. Of course Toon could divorce her—there were ways—but Ruben had not heard that ever a Sên had done it. Certainly it was not a Sên way.
Sên Toon babbled on. There was no need for Ruben to speak; Sên Ruben was glad that there was not. Nor did Sên Toon stay long.
“You must see her. She will greet you kindly for my sake, and you will envy me her beauty. You shall see her soon—at our picnic among the graves—it draws near, and this year our women are coming with us to make merry among the tombs when we have finished our pious worshiping. You shall see my treasure, Sên Ruben, and our happiness. Until then”—and Sên Toon was running down the Peach-tree Hill, over the brook, across the scented meadows like a drunken lapwing. Sên Ruben shrugged, wondering, and, with odd perplexity darkening his fair face, watched Toon out of sight.
At the picnic among the graves some days later young Mrs. Sên Toon made her real family début among the Sêns. Only her own maids and her infatuated husband had really seen her until now. The wives of the family had visited her formally as she sat all but speechless on her painted ivory bed, in her own room with peacocks’ feathers strewn thickly on its lacquered floor; and she had served them herself with tiny cups of boiling tea and thickly sugared sweetmeats; but the girls and children had not seen her at all, and no Sên man except Sên Toon had. But she came to the picnic, carried there in a litter almost as gay as her bride’s chair. And when the prostrations at the graves were done, and done, too, the ceremony of introducing her to all these graves of Sên, she made merry with them all, as merry as No Fee herself, and No Fee was in wild frolic mood to-day.
The men were presented to her, and she to them, one by one, as was now their right, for she now was of their blood, a Sên woman, living in the Sên ladies’ kuei. Sên Toon was vastly proud and showed it, pulling at an imaginary beard with all the pomp of a thrice-wived graybeard. The bride’s girlish face was flushed with shy happiness as well as crusted with paint. Certainly she was pigeon-plump, but not so plump as Sên Ruben had thought; she had a dimple or two. Ruben suspected that she had charm, and he saw the softness of her eyes that followed Sên Toon whenever he moved away from her a pace—her eyes did not follow Sên Toon often. Sên Ruben wondered how he had thought her so plain. She lacked Ivy’s loveliness; she lacked No Fee’s; a hundredfold she lacked the loveliness of the pictured face that had fired his soul and twisted his blood; but the girl was not exactly plain. When the picnic boxes were unpacked and the flasks unstoppered she served her young lord meekly; but Ruben saw her eyes sparkle down into Sên Toon’s and saw Toon put a titbit or two between her lips. He saw Toon’s fingers linger at their task, saw them tremble, too, as his bride knelt beside her lord pouring amber wine into his amber cup. Sên Ruben doubted that Sên Toon ever would wander far from his little wife-one’s courtyard. Perhaps Chinese-way Chinese marriage was best, after all—for the Sên Toons of China who never had looked upon utmost girlish loveliness on an English canvas.
Mrs. Sên Toon accepted them all, and they all accepted her. She flew her kite as well as No Fee flew hers, and her little fluted laugh was silver as she chased the babe-ones between the graves, or played “butterflies” with them, and played blindman’s buff through the pink and cream pampas grasses. Sên Ruben did not envy Sên Toon, not even the feet of his bride, but he thought her a nice little thing. Sên Ruben concluded that Sên Toon’s wife would do.
The moon came up in molten splendor before the Sêns lighted their scores of needless lanterns and, having made obeisance once more at their ancestors’ graves, went singing home.
As they neared their gates, an unattended horseman passed them. The ladies veiled their faces quickly—all but No Fee. No Fee stood stock-still and watched the sash-wearer squarely as he rode slowly past. Sên Kai Lun’s face was thunderous; but thunder never had frightened No Fee, least of all on the face of her father. She caught his sleeve and tugged it hard. “Who is yon lord?” she demanded.
“What’s that to thee, plaguesome wanton-one? Cover thy face!”
No whipped a film of gauze-scarf across a segment of her face, and laughed roguish eyes at Sên Kai Lun across it.
“Gods!” muttered Sên Kai Lun. Perhaps he knew what was coming, felt it. And instantly Sên Ruben suspected.
“Who is he? You know him, my honorable father.”
“Your dishonorable tool-one!” Sên Kai Lun almost sobbed.
“Hey, he was beautiful,” No Fee sighed. “I would wed with him. Send him your mei jên.”
“Never!” Sên Kai Lun ripped out with an oath.
“I choose it,” No Fee told him softly. “Who is he? I will not be denied to know his beautiful, honorable name.”
“His name is the name of a toad, his family are thieves, his father is a hyena.”
No Fee laughed very softly. “I told you you knew him; the beautiful, beautiful lord-one.”
“This person knows him not,” Sên Kai Lun said sulkily.
“Tush,” said No Fee, “you know who he is.”
“Be done, girl. I know him not. But his fox face is the face of the viper Lun Koo Yêh as I knew it long ago. I shall charge the lictors to chase the toad son of a toad and slay him for his great insolence that he rides him in Sênland.”
“The only son of your bitterest foe, Lun Koo Yêh; that is awkward,” No Fee admitted. “Yah! Yah! you must send a peace-cup to Lun Koo Yêh—nay, you must take it to him and drink it with Lun Koo Yêh, the father-one of the beautiful lord.”
Sên Kai Lun groaned, and Ruben saw that he shook with rage. Almost he feared that the angered man would strike No Fee. She had no such fear, for she knew that Sên Kai Lun could not. But she pitied Sên Kai Lun. She knew how the task she had set him would gall him, and why. She knew the depths of the long quarrel between Sên Kai Lun and Lun Koo Yêh. She knew how his gorge would rise at the cup she bade him drink. She had no thought but that he must drink it to the dregs. But in all her relentless willfulness she found a heart-corner in which to sorrow for the father who never had thwarted her, and certainly must not be allowed to do so now. She snuggled close to her father, and they went in silence, No Fee’s arm thrust in his—an unpardonable liberty for the girl to take. But Sên Kai Lun did not thrust her off. Ruben walked beside them sorely in doubt what the end would be; Sên No Fee had none.
Ruben walked alone far into the night, when all the others had gone to their lacquered pillows. Ruben paced and pondered.
No Fee had shocked him, and he had seen that she had horrified Sên Toon’s young wife. Mrs. Sên Toon had heard nothing that No Fee had said to her father; only Sên Ruben had heard. But the bride-one had seen No gazing at the stranger and had seen that he had returned it warmly, and Sên Sia Tûtsin had cowered back in her litter, shamed in all her being for her husband’s young kinswoman.
Would Sên Kai Lun imprison No Fee in a nunnery? Ruben wondered. Or would he yield and reap the un-Chinese harvest his own weakness had sown? Was it alone the fault of Sên Kai Lun? Or had the brash ways of Young China infected even far-off old-conventioned Ho-nan? Was it possible that rash, hoydenish No Fee could prevail even in this? Sên Ruben’s gorge rose against it almost even as had Sên Tûtsin’s. He too had seen the stranger give No Fee look for look. Gods! Not so would he, nor his lady permit him to, look into the eyes of his lady of the picture, did ever Kwan Yin-ko, Hearer-of-Cries, grant that he found her.
Oh, to find her!
Too—he pondered and brooded over the words of a witch-woman’s prophecy. Strange! Very strange!
At last Sên Ruben went slowly to his sleep-mat. But sleep did not find him soon. Perhaps he had lain soft too long to find within a few moons rest easy on a wooden pillow.