Three Souls (15 page)

I put my ear to the door. This was real news, not Nanny’s usual diatribe. I spoke quietly into the keyhole. “Nanny, what was in that telegram?”

She continued as though she hadn’t heard me. “Who knows what it said, but First Young Master shook his head and gave it to the master’s concubine, who sighed and said, ‘Poor Leiyin,’ and sat down.”

With that, she shuffled off. I would have to wait until my father came home to find out what was in that telegram. I couldn’t concentrate on more than a sentence or two of a book before going back to speculating on the telegram’s contents. Was Father sending me away to live with relatives, to get me away from Hanchin? My mother’s family was in Hunan, quite far away from here. That didn’t matter. I’d find a way to write to Hanchin at
China Millennium.
We’d find a way to be together, somehow.

The next evening, I stood at the window and watched Father return. He walked up the path from the main gate briskly, followed by his manservant and luggage. He didn’t glance up in the direction of my window. He didn’t send for me that night. He didn’t send for me until the next morning.

***

I knelt, forehead pressed to the Turkish carpet, palms stretched out in an attitude of supplication. Father sat behind his desk, reading a document of some kind. When I walked into the study, only the tight set of his lips betrayed his emotions. Changyin, dressed to go out, stood by the door as if to prevent me from escaping. Beside Father stood my stepmother, holding the telegram. Tongyin wasn’t there.

Finally, Father looked up.

“I had many things to say to you, Third Daughter. But you know why I’m angry with you. You knew my wishes, and yet you disobeyed them, deliberately.”

He took the telegram from Stepmother.

“I have come to a decision.” He tapped the telegram. “You’re getting married. I have made all the arrangements.”

I gasped, the only sound I could make, for a choking sensation clogged my throat. There had been no talk of marriage a week ago. Matchmaking between families such as ours was a time-consuming business. Father must have come to an arrangement with a family he knew well. There was no other way he could have struck an agreement so quickly.

My thoughts scrambled around in my brain. I was only seventeen. Father had always said his daughters wouldn’t marry until we were at least twenty-one. I still had a few years to persuade Father to change his mind.

“Your husband’s name is Lee Baizhen. I met his father on my trip. Their clan lives in Pinghu, a town south of Shanghai. It will be a very favourable situation for you. Lee Baizhen is an only son. Your wedding is in two weeks’ time, in Pinghu.”

Now I screamed.

“Please, Father, no! Don’t send me away to a strange town and a strange family! Father, beat me and lock me up, but don’t do this!”

“You’re getting married. After that, there won’t be any more nonsense from you.”

“Father, no! Let me stay at home. Let me be the unmarried daughter who looks after you when you’re old. Please, don’t send me away!”

I crawled to his side, weeping. He jerked the edge of his gown away from my frantic hands.

“You’ve proved completely lacking in judgment. Impulsive. Disobedient. You’re going to live in a small country town where no one ever goes and nothing ever happens.”

He left the room, his footfalls soft and swift, merciless. When my cries subsided into sobs, Stepmother knelt down beside me.

“Your future husband is an only son, you’re fortunate.”

“I’d rather he beat me. I don’t want to marry this Lee person! Eldest Brother, please, speak to Father.”

“Little Sister, I warned you in Shanghai. I can’t help you.”

I met his eyes, then threw myself on the carpet and wailed in despair.

***

Don’t you have something to say about this?
I address my
yang
soul, who is watching the scene with more than a trace of smugness.

I have nothing to add,
he replies piously. He pulls a handkerchief from his sleeve.
Your father said it all. Disobedient, impulsive, lacking in judgment.

He always favoured you,
my
yin
soul says.
But this time you pushed him too far. He had so many other worries on his mind.

Memories come to me of Father seated at his table with Changyin leaning over his shoulder, looking at papers. Father pondering a map of China, marking boundary lines where the Communists held territories. Where the Nationalists had pushed through. Where warlords ruled. Where the Japanese occupied towns, whether it was official or not. Where we owned land and houses, quarries and mines, shares in railways and banks.

Five hundred years of wealth, built up by your ancestors,
my
yang
soul points out.
All part of his legacy, all of it his duty to safeguard. Why didn’t you realize you were just adding to his worries?

In a flash, memories of a photo album, pictures carefully tucked into the gold paper corners glued to its pages. Father as a student in Paris, looking jaunty with a tweed cap pushed back on his head, his arm around another young man, a classmate. Father in evening clothes, opera glasses in one hand, a champagne flute in the other.

Oh, come now,
my
yang
soul says.
That was never your father, not really.

My
hun
soul voices what I finally realized that day.
Those few years abroad were just a holiday before he took up his responsibilities as family patriarch. When he returned, no matter how much he admired Western culture, those few years could not compete with a thousand years of tradition.

8

T
here was no casting of horoscopes for my marriage, and no months of shopping for the dowry furniture I would bring to my husband’s home. With only two weeks before the wedding, and given the utter lack of interest on my part, Stepmother did all the work. She ordered a set of rosewood furniture, factory made rather than hand-carved, and packed our second-best Limoges in straw to ship to Pinghu. Only Father, Stepmother, and my brothers would come for the wedding. Sueyin wanted to come, but Liu Tienzhen didn’t want to make the long journey to a dusty little town. Gaoyin was not invited.

Father and Changyin went to Shanghai on business, but it was obvious they had left to avoid my tears. I was no longer confined to my room, but I wasn’t allowed off the estate. Lao Li, the gatekeeper, had strict instructions.

I had no way of contacting Hanchin. The only telephone in the house was locked in Father’s study. Nanmei couldn’t help me. She’d left for Soochow the day before I ran away to Shanghai and had no idea of my predicament. I couldn’t drag Sueyin into an escape plan, I knew better now. I had to do it on my own.

Sueyin brought me a wedding gift from Gaoyin. It was lovely, an English burr-walnut stationery cabinet no larger than a hat box. It opened to reveal vertical dividers filled with cream stationery and matching envelopes lined in navy tissue, the same as she had given Sueyin. There was also a heavy cardboard box with more of the luxurious envelopes and paper, enough to last for years.

“Gaoyin ordered this especially for us,” Sueyin said. She pulled out an envelope and opened the triangular flap. With a slim finger, she lifted the navy tissue away from the paper. “The tissue lining isn’t glued to the flap.”

The deliberate steadiness of her voice caught my attention and I stopped caressing the polished golden walnut veneer.

“Between the tissue and the paper, Third Sister, there’s a space, a pocket where you can hide a thin slip of paper. The letter you really want to write. Then glue the edges of the lining to the envelope. We’ll do the same.”

“Is this how you and Gaoyin . . .” Misery pressed into my chest like a fist, a foretelling of the loneliness I would face. That Sueyin already faced. “I won’t marry this man, Second Sister! And this Pinghu, it’s some dreary small town. I’ve never even heard of it. I won’t go. I won’t go!”

“The town isn’t that far from Shanghai. You could visit Gaoyin if you get lonely.”

We both knew it might be a while before Shen allowed me into his home again. However, he had forgiven Gaoyin. She was pregnant.

“Shen will deny her nothing if she has a boy,” said Sueyin. “Let’s wait until the baby is born. Then we can make plans to meet in Shanghai.”

“Second Sister, I’m not going to marry Lee Baizhen. You’ll see.” My words were defiant, but the escape plans I had conceived and discarded were as numerous as memorial stones in a graveyard. How could I get away this time?

***

The Lee family sent a delegate to our home a week after Father’s announcement. Madame Pao was middle-aged, a third cousin. When she bowed, her plump figure strained against a too-tight beige silk
qipao.
Her heavily powdered face beamed goodwill and excitement.

“I’m so honoured to have the duty of telling the bride about her family. And to have the opportunity to travel to a big city.”

Jewelled tassels dangled from her earlobes, old-fashioned earrings that swung in tiny flirtatious arcs when she nodded, much too youthful for a woman her age. Her voice reminded me of Nanny Qiu, loud and overeager. My determination to avoid the marriage was bolstered by the prospect of being related to Madame Pao.

She looked around the drawing room at its parquet floor and wallpaper. Her gaze swept out toward the terrace. The French doors were open to let breezes through, but the sheer silk draperies floating across the portals caught the sunlight, softening the harsh brightness of a hot summer morning. Outside on the terrace, urns overflowed with frothy late-blooming roses, white and pink.

“Your new home is just a traditional, old-fashioned house. But it’s the largest of the properties owned by the Lee clan.”

I knew that a bride must enter her husband’s home with an understanding of the family hierarchy, its history, how its members are related. Madame Pao launched into a recitation of the names of the members of the Lee household. It was a short list. Lee Baizhen had no siblings, nor did his father. Then she moved on through the previous five generations of Lees, then the names and degrees of kinship of various third cousins living in the town of Pinghu.

I remained silent, my face in as bland a mask as I could muster. Sueyin and Stepmother kept the conversation running smoothly.

“Where do you live, Madame Pao?” Sueyin asked when the woman finally paused.

“
Ai-ya!
No need to be so polite. Call me Auntie. Are we not as good as kin already? Well, my home is very close to the Lee estate. In fact, our house used to be part of the larger main estate. My husband’s family bought it the year we were married. It used to be Great-Uncle Lee Zhong’s house, before he fell on hard times.”

She caught herself, and leaned toward me reassuringly.

“But your father-in-law has no problems with money, oh no. He married well, very well. Your mother-in-law is from the wealthiest merchant clan in Hunan and brought a huge dowry with her, enough to keep the household in comfort for three generations, so it is said. And, of course, Lee Baizhen is the only son of an only son.”

I knew what she meant. No spiteful unmarried sisters spying on you or gossiping about your every mistake. No brothers and their jealous families fluttering about, hoping to win favour from the patriarch. That was the life most women had to endure in the inner courtyard. But I’d had enough of being told how lucky I was to be marrying the only son of an only son.

“Auntie Pao, tell me more about Lee Baizhen,” I said, in my most innocent voice. “Which university did he attend?”

Her face fell, her hands fluttered.

“He was tutored at home. He didn’t have your brothers’ advantages. But his tutor is the most respected in our town, a true scholar of the classics. Baizhen is an open-minded young man, he has the highest regard for education. He’s delighted with you already. A scholarship to Hangchow Women’s University, why that’s almost as good as graduating from college . . .”

“Madame Pao, do you enjoy gardens?” With her sweet voice, Sueyin could interrupt without giving the slightest impression of disrespect.

Sueyin led the way, taking Madame Pao’s arm. Stepmother and I followed, her hand firmly grasping my forearm. She gave me a stern look, which I ignored. Several paces ahead, Sueyin pointed out the different roses, saying their names in English and then in French:
Gloire de Dijon, Celestial, La Reine Victoria.

Madame Pao clapped her hands in delight. “And you all speak foreign languages!”

“Very little, Auntie. Only some polite phrases.” Sueyin picked a pink bloom and presented it to the beaming woman. “This one is called
Souvenir de la Malmaison
. It’s the most fragrant of all the roses. Would you like to see our traditional garden?”

By the time Madame Pao had taken a walk through the Old Garden, it was time for late-morning tea. Stepmother insisted our guest try one of everything: the lotus-seed buns, the fruit tarts, the little squares of iced sponge cake. Madame Pao, already in raptures over our gardens, the houses, and the quality of our tea, twittered her praises even more forcefully.

“What a delightful visit this has been.” Madame Pao bowed to us. She looked at me with a fond smile. “And what a beautiful, clever bride for young Baizhen. We’re fortunate indeed to have you join our family.”

Father’s sedan chair and two chair bearers stood in the forecourt ready to take Madame Pao to the train station. The sedan chair departed. The gates shut. My sister and stepmother turned back toward the path that led to the villa. I hurried after them.

“I refuse to get married.” The cry came out of me unbidden, words I had wanted to shout at Madame Pao, words I hadn’t dared shout at my father.

They didn’t seem to hear.

“You liked those little sponge cakes, didn’t you, Second Stepdaughter? I’ll put some in a box for you to take home.”