Part 7

For a month I had been expecting the arrival of Chan-King. His letters were always love-letters, with added paragraphs saying that he was getting on well with his work and would have much to tell me of it when he came home. At last a letter told us to expect him by a certain steamer, on a certain day. But schedules were still in confusion because of the war. That steamer was delayed, and Chan-King sailed for another port, meaning to change there. More delays followed. More letters of explanation. More delays again. Mother and I both became heart-sick with hope deferred. At last, one morning, worn out with watching, I slept later than usual, and on that morning Chan-King came home.

Awakened out of a long drowse, I heard a stir in the quiet house, the clang of a gong, a rush of padded footfalls in the outer hall. Happy voices mingled in greeting at the door of my mother's apartment. I threw on my robe, tucked Alicia under my arm and ran across the room, flinging the door open even as Chan-King had his hand raised to knock at the panel. I saw him dimly in the wavering light. He was smiling, and behind him stood his mother, also smiling. Each of us solemnly spoke the other's name, trying to erase, with a long look, the memory of all those months of absence. Then he saw the baby. "Li-Sia, my thousand catties of gold!" he said, in Chinese. Alicia smiled and held out her arms to him. "She recognizes him!" said Mother, in pleased surprise. We three stood together a moment, silently, gathered around the child. I felt myself more deeply absorbed into the clan--a Chinese woman, dedicated anew, heart and spirit, to my adopted people.

Later, Chan-King explained to me the reason for his home-coming. His legal service for the Government had been completed and his expected appointment had come at last. We were to return to America, where he would be in the Chinese consular service. After a period in this work, a bright future in the diplomatic field seemed assured. It meant leaving my beloved China, where I had firmly taken root. But we agreed that the exile would be for only a few years and that we would return surely to our Promised Land, there to enjoy our span of "long life with honour."

Now our leisurely existence was broken up to a degree. Almost immediately we set about preparations for our new life in America. Chan-King looked forward with absorbing interest to the change, almost as if he were going home. My instant reaction was one of joy, swiftly followed by sorrow at giving up things now loved and familiar. I wanted to appear cheerful, as a duty to those around me. I did not want to seem too cheerful, lest Mother should think me glad to go.

In this period, at last, I met my Chinese father. One beautiful day in early autumn, Chan-King and I went down to the city, returning in mid-afternoon. As our chairs were set down before the entrance, the gatekeeper announced to Chan-King his father's arrival. I was filled with swift apprehension. Again chance had decided my costume: I was wearing, not the conservative Chinese garb in which I had met my mother, but a frilly American dress of blue and white summer silk, a white lace hat with black velvet and pink rosebuds and white kid shoes. Chan-King had on white flannels and a Panama hat. The latter he handed to a servant, as also his cane. As we entered the main room together, a figure rose from beside Mother to receive us. I saw an elderly man of medium height, with grim, smooth-shaven face and grey hair. He was wearing a long gown of deep blue silk, with a black outer jacket and the usual round cap of black satin. My husband first greeted him and then presented me. While I stood uncertain, there was a courteous inclination of the grey head, the grimness of expression dissolved in a wonderfully winning smile, and, surprisingly, as Mother had done, my Chinese father extended his hand. I felt that he was interpreting me in the light of all she had told him, that his cordial handclasp and kindly words of welcome were his ratification of her judgment. Then, with a courtly gesture, he assigned me to his lately occupied chair beside Mother, while he and Chan-King took seats together opposite us. Mother smiled into my eyes with her happiest expression. I felt that Chan-King's background was complete. Long before, I had conceived of it as harsh and threatening, but I had now proved it to be wholly kind and protecting. At my recent fear of this last test I wondered and smiled.

Father was much gratified at finding his grandsons able to converse fluently in his native tongue. He would gather them all about him for an hour at a time, asking questions to test their practical knowledge, or telling stories to amuse them. Alicia also delighted him. At simple Chinese commands, she would now clasp her hands or fold them and bow profoundly. Mother was very proud of her wee granddaughter and would often say, "She is just as Chan-King was at her age!" And her husband would invariably assent with an indulgent smile. There existed between these two--conservative types though they were--an evidence of mutual affection and respect, of real companionship, that touched me profoundly. I was glad that Father was to be with Mother when Chan-King and I took ourselves and our three children from the home where, according to the old Chinese custom, we all rightfully belonged.

The question of leaving one or more of our children there for a time was discussed one afternoon later.

"Under ordinary circumstances," said Father to Chan-King, "you would go alone, as your brother does, leaving your entire family with us. At the very least, you would allow one child to remain in your stead. But of course your mother and I understand that these are not ordinary circumstances. Your wife is an American. She has been considerate of our point of view in many ways--more than we expected--and in this matter we do not fail to consider hers, which is no doubt your own as well. We understand that according to the American view the children belong with their parents, always. We cannot, of course, deny your right to this manner of living. But we want you to feel that, if you can leave even one child with us, we shall be very happy. You understand what protection and care will be given it."

For a moment there was silence. My heart was very full, and, even had it been my place to speak, I should have been unable to do so. Mentally I pictured Mother's loneliness at losing so many of her children. Vainly I tried to imagine our home in America with even one small face missing. I watched my husband, noted the tiny traces of conflict in his face, impassive perhaps to the casual glance. At last he spoke.

"Father, mother," he began earnestly, "we do indeed appreciate your great kindness and generosity. You will understand that, just as you understand most truly our situation. We know that here with you our children would have many advantages that we, perhaps, cannot give them. But which one could we leave to enjoy those advantages? Not Wilfred, for he is our eldest son, on whom we place great dependence. And Alfred--of us all he seems least fitted for the southern climate. The summer heat has left him a little pale and listless. He needs the sea voyage. As for Alicia, she is the baby, and our only daughter. Do not think us unmindful of all you have done. But I fear we should not know how to make our home without our children."

After all, it was evidently not unexpected. They shook their heads a trifle ruefully at each other and then smiled.

"Very well," Father assented. "But this you must promise: that at intervals, whenever your work permits, you will come back--all of you--and spend a year with us again. Do not let the children forget us nor their Chinese speech. In four years, at most, all come back together."

We promised readily, Mother and I repeating the phrase to each other, "In four more years, all come back together." Our eyes were full of tears.

That night I said to my husband, "We should have left one of them."

But Chan-King was a clearer thinker, just then, and knew the truth of this situation better than I did. "Which one?" he asked me significantly, in a tone that made me see the essential hollowness of my protest.

On the Sunday before our ship sailed, Chan-King and I bade farewell to China. In company with our parents and many other relatives we walked to the top of a very high hill, where an old temple, which commanded a magnificent view for miles around, crouched contentedly among the rocks, in the grey sunshine. It was a temple of the three religions, with huge stone images of Confucius, Buddha and Lao-tse grouped in its outer court. Together, Chan-King and I climbed to the crest of the terraced rock. I looked about me, down upon the proud, bright little village, alert and colourful on the hill-side, upon the scattered fertile patches in the midst of the barren mountains where tigers build their lairs. The eternal hills swept the lowering, clouded skies, rolling away from us, silent, shadow-filled. A surging love of the very soil under my feet, a clinging to the earth of China, overwhelmed me. I wished to kneel down and kiss that beloved dust. "Oh, Chan-King," I said, shaking with emotion, "This is home! I wish we were not leaving, even for a day!"

"We will come again soon," he said, in Chinese, "and we will live here when we are old."

That evening we sat together in the quiet garden. From Mother's apartments came the sound of her young nephew's voice as he chanted his morrow's lessons. We heard the subdued merriment of two little maids, teasing each other in the hall beyond. Along the outer path a sedan-chair passed with rhythmic sway, the bamboo supports creaking a soft accompaniment to the pad-pad of the bearers' sandalled feet.

From varying distances came the clang of a brass gong, shuddering on the stillness, the staccato sound of slender bamboo sticks shaken together in a cylindrical box, the measured beat of a small drum-rattle, as the different street venders announced their wares. Over the hills, now purple in twilight, the round moon swung leisurely into the violet sky. Strange breaths of incense were wafted about us. The sea-breeze stirred the branches of a dragon's-eye tree close by, where the ripening fruit-balls tapped gently against each other like little swaying lanterns. For long moments we sat in silence, with clasped hands.

Out of that silence my husband spoke softly, words I had long yearned to hear: "Absence, Margaret, teaches many things. Once it showed you your own heart. This time it has taught me to believe with you in the immortality of love like ours. Physically, we may be separated at times, but mentally, spiritually, you and I are one for all eternity."

The moon rose higher, golden, perfect, even as our love.

A few days later, we sailed for America. The rest may be told in a few words, for, after all, no words could adequately tell it. A week after our arrival in America, Chan-King was stricken with influenza. For several years he had been in the shadow of a slow illness, but with stout resistance and such buoyant recurring periods of good health that we had for a time almost forgotten that early and sinister threat. But those years of struggle were all thrown into the balance against him when the decisive hour came. After six days, he died. Quietly, with terrible implacability, death closed over him. We feared a sudden end, it is true, but were still incredulous of such a calamity. We gave each other what assurance we could: our ultimate farewells were simple renewals of faith, a firmer tightening of our hands for our walk in darkness. "Of all the world, you are my love," he said, many times. "More than anyone else you have understood, you have been unfailing--you have been my wife." And, almost as he spoke, my arms held no longer my living beloved, but only the clay where his spirit had been and would come no more.

So, by the visible evidences, my history is finished. But it has begun anew for me, not as I wished, not as I hoped, but on a level that I can endure. For I have my children and my memories and my home in China, which waits with the gentle healing of sight and sound and place ... and I have learned that in love, and only in love, we can wring spiritual victory out of this defeat of the body.