Part 1

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THE YELLOW PEARL

A Story of the East and the West

by

ADELINE M. TESKEY

Author of "Where the Sugar Maple Grows," etc.

Hodder and Stoughton New York George H. Doran Company

Copyright, 1911, By George H. Doran Company

THE YELLOW PEARL

ADELINE M. TESKEY

THE YELLOW PEARL

_March 1st, 1----_

Here I am in this strange country about which I have learned in the geography and history, and about which I heard my father talk. The daughter of an American man and a Chinese woman, I suppose I am what is called a mongrel. My father was a Commissioner of Customs in China, and living for years in that country he fell in love with my mother and married her--as was natural. Who could help falling in love with my dear, yellow, winsome, little mother? My name is Margaret, called after my father's mother; my father said that the word Margaret means a pearl, so he gave me the pet name "Pearl." Dear father!

"It was a monstrous thing for Brother George to marry away there," I overheard my Aunt Gwendolin remark a short time after my arrival. "Why could he not have come back home to his own country and found a wife?--And above all to have married a heathen Chinese!"

"Not a heathen," said my grandmother, reproachfully, "she had previously embraced the faith of Europeans; so my dear George wrote me from that far-away country."

"Oh, they are all heathens in my estimation," cried my Aunt Gwendolin, scornfully; "what faith they embrace does not change the fact that they belong to the yellow people."

My mother died while I was yet a child, and my father has died and left me alone in the world within the last year. Grandmother, my father's mother, when she learned about her son's death, sent at once for me.

"I cannot leave a granddaughter of mine in that country, and among that heathen, if not barbarous, people," she wrote to the American consul, "and I ask your services to assist her to come to my home in America."

The consul, absent-minded, gave me my grandmother's letter to read, and thus I learned her feeling about my mother's people and country. I never would have come to this horrible America if I could have helped myself; but I am scarcely of age, and by my father's will grandmother is appointed my guardian.

The result of it all is, that having crossed the intervening waters, I am here in the home of my grandmother, my Aunt Gwendolin and my Uncle Theodore Morgan.

When I arrived this morning I was ushered into the sitting-room by a maid, and the first one I beheld was my grandmother, sitting in a rocking-chair. She called me to her, and crossing the room, I kotowed to her, that is I went down on my hands and knees and touched my forehead to the floor, as my Chinese nurse had taught me when I was yet a baby that I should always do when I came into the presence of an elderly woman, a mother of children.

"My _dear_ grandchild!" cried my grandmother, "_do_ get up. All you should do is to kiss me--your grandmother!" And she put out her hand and assisted me from the floor.

Grandmother is the dearest, prettiest little woman I ever saw, with white hair and the brightest of eyes, and I have to love her, although I had made up my mind to hate everything in America. A moment after she had lifted me from the floor, my Aunt Gwendolin came in. She is tall and thin, not nearly so beautiful a woman as my Chinese mother. She wears skirts that drag on the floor, and her hair is built up into a sort of a mountain on top of her head. I am reminded every time I look at her of a certain peak in the Thian Shan mountains. I very much prefer little women, like my own dear mother, like the women of my own country.

My Uncle Theodore is long-armed, long-legged, long-bodied. He looks a little like my father, and for that reason I hate him a little less than my Aunt Gwendolin.

After my mother's death, my father brought into our home a French governess, daughter of a French consul, to teach me. Father seemed to be lost in his business, or his grief at the loss of my mother, and paid very little heed to me after the arrival of the governess.

"She is an educated woman," he told me when he had engaged her, "and I want her to teach you all you could learn in a first-class girls' school in Europe or America."

After that the French governess spent hours with me every day, and I saw my father only at intervals. How much we talked about, that French lady and I! Everything, almost, except religion; _that_ my father vetoed, as her faith was not the one he wished me to embrace. "I'll take you over to your grandmother by and by," he used to say, "to get the proper religious instruction."

The governess said that I inherited more from my father's side of the house than my mother's; that although I was born in China, I was more of an Occidental than an Oriental; more than once she said that my American mannerisms and tricks of speech were really remarkable, and that I was a living example of the power of heredity. But I am never going back on my mother's people, _never_, my dear little oval-faced mother whose grave is under a spreading camphor tree at the heart of the world.

Does it not mean something that China is at the centre of the world--the kernel?

"The girl is not bad to look at, in fact I think she is a beauty--a face filled with the indescribable dash of the Orient," said my Uncle Theodore, when they were talking me over in the sitting-room after I had retired to my chamber upstairs. Evidently they had forgotten the opening in the floor which had been left by the workmen while making some changes in the plumbing. And they did not know my extraordinary keenness of hearing, which my governess said was an Oriental trait.

It seemed to give my governess some pleasure to talk about that keen sense of the Orientals, and to speculate as to how they had acquired it. "They have lived in a country where it is necessary, for self-protection, to hear all that is being plotted and planned," she said, "a country of conspiracies and intrigues, of plots and counterplots. Centuries of this have developed abnormal hearing."

"She has a superb figure," said my uncle, continuing to talk about me, "and that oval face of hers, with her creamy complexion, is really bewitching."

"Yellow! you mean, _yellow_!" interrupted my Aunt Gwendolin; "she's entirely too yellow for beauty. I'm terribly afraid that some of our set will discover her nationality. That's _one_ thing you must remember, Theodore, nobody on this continent is ever to learn anything about her Chinese blood. They are so despised here as a race. She is our brother's daughter, with some foreign strain inherited from her mother; that is enough; never, _never_, let us acknowledge the Chinese. The Italians and Spanish are yellowish too,--I have it!" she exclaimed, "_Spanish!_--Spanish will do!--Some of those are _our_ people now, you know! It will be quite interesting to have her a native of one of our Dependencies--a descendant of some old Spanish family!"

"Do not be foolish, Gwendolin," said my grandmother.

"I could not endure the thought of introducing a Celestial," continued my aunt. "None must know that we have introduced the Yellow Peril into the country!"

"Why, Gwendolin, how you do talk," said my grandmother; "the child's father was an American, and she was admitted into this country as an American."

"You must talk with the girl to-morrow, Theodore," continued my aunt, ignoring my grandmother's remark, "and tell her to keep sacred her progenitors. She speaks such perfect English no one would suspect that there was much foreign about her."

"She has a striking, unusual air that would attract a second glance from most people," said my uncle. "If you can keep her nationality from Professor Ballington you will do better than I think you can; he is a great ethnologist; it is his life-work to make discoveries in that line."

"Well it _must_ be kept, no matter what means we resort to," returned my Aunt Gwendolin, with a ring of determination in her voice.

"Poor child," said my dear old grandmother, "she is my granddaughter, and I love her already, my George's child. She looks beautiful to me whether yellow or no."

I had gone down to dinner on this first evening in a soft yellow silk, with long flowing sleeves trimmed with dragons, I know I looked well in it. Governess always said I did. It was partly Chinese and partly European in design. Governess planned it herself, and she said the French were born with a knowledge how to dress artistically; she boasted that she made it to suit my peculiar style.

"Did you notice that China silk she had on at dinner?" said Aunt Gwendolin; "there must be an end to all that; a ban must be put on everything Chinese."

"It was rather becoming I thought," said Uncle Theodore, "in harmony with the clear yellow of her skin. Let her dress alone, she seems to know how to put it. That is a born gift with some women, and if it is not, they never seem to acquire it. There is great elegance in the straight lines of the Oriental dress."

"Let her alone," said Aunt Gwendolin scornfully, "and let the whole city know we have introduced the Yellow Per----"

"Gwendolin, dear," interrupted grandmother, "do not speak so."

"Those Chinese silks, of which she seems to have gowns galore--I was at the unpacking of her trunks--must be tabooed," said my aunt. "Her father has evidently intended her to dress like an European or American; she has _some_ waist line, and does not wear the sacque the women wear in China; but her sleeves are _years_ old."

"The dear child may object to having her attire changed at once," said my grandmother. "She is used to those soft clinging silks, and may not want to give them up. And sleeves are of little consequence. Let her alone for awhile."

"Let her alone!" again retorted Aunt Gwendolin, "and let Professor Ballington see her? He'd know her nationality at once in that yellow silk covered with sprawling dragons, as almost anybody might. I cannot have anything so mortifying occur when the girl is calling me 'aunt'!"

"Ballington is a curious kind of a chap, and values people on their own merits; _he'd_ think none the less of the girl because she has some Chinese blood in her," returned Uncle Theodore.

"I'll take her out to-morrow," continued my aunt, "and buy her some taffeta silks and French muslins, and dress her up as a Christian _should_ be dressed."

Grandmother said no more. The mother is not the head of the house in America as she is in dear old China. I suppose it is the daughter who rules in this country.

I am so sleepy I cannot listen any longer, even to talk about myself. My governess has taught me that eavesdropping is not honourable, but I cannot avoid hearing so long as I stay in my room, and I have nowhere else to go. I will turn out the electric light, throw myself on the bed, yellow silk and all, and cry myself asleep. I wonder is that an American or a Chinese act? My governess was continually tracing my actions to one or other of the nations.

_March 2, 1----_

It happened this morning! That man Aunt Gwendolin thought would be so sure to know that I was the Yellow Pearl, came to the house, and was ushered into my uncle's den by the maid, a few moments after I had been sent in there to have the "talk" with him which was spoken about the night before.

"He is a tall man, very, very white," were my thoughts regarding him, as he bowed politely before me, when my uncle introduced us; and I suppose his thoughts regarding me were: "She is a short woman, very, very, yellow."

He left after a few moments' conversation with my uncle; and turning to me the latter said, "That gentleman who has just gone is professor of ethnology in the State University. He knows all about the peculiarities of all the peoples and tribes that ever have graced or disgraced the face of this planet we call the world---- Has your aunt told you that she thinks it better that you should say nothing about your Chinese ancestry?" he added hastily and awkwardly.

"Have the Chinese done anything disgraceful?" I asked him.

"No, no, I don't suppose they really have," he answered with an air of annoyance. "A girl like you cannot understand; you had better simply follow instructions. I hope it will not be necessary to mention this subject again," he added meaningly.

I could not mistake him; I must not _dare_ tell Professor Ballington or any one else in this great country that my mother was a Chinese woman.

In the afternoon Aunt Gwendolin took me down into the shops of the city, "to select an outfit," she said.

We stood for hours, it seemed to me, over counters laden with silks and muslins of every colour in the rainbow. Aunt Gwendolin held the various shades up against my face to see which best became my "Spanish complexion." This was said, I suppose, for the ears of the sales-people, and the fashionable customers standing around.

When selections were made among the goods, I was taken to the establishment of a "Parisienne modiste," where I was pinched, puckered, and pulled until I was nearly numb. A sort of a steel waist was put on me, which my aunt and the modiste called a "corset," and was so tightly pulled I could scarcely breathe.

"I can't stand it, Aunt Gwendolin," I whisperingly gasped.

"Yes, you _can_!" she returned peremptorily, "you'll get used to it; that's nothing like as tight as the girls all wear them in this country."

"I can't breathe," I gasped again, when the modiste had turned her back; (Aunt Gwendolin had signed to me the first time not to let her hear me).

"Hush!" said my aunt; "for pity sake do not let the modiste know that you never had a corset on before."

"I'd rather have my feet bound like the women do in Chi----"

Aunt Gwendolin placed her jewelled fingers over my mouth before I had finished the sentence.

Just as I was through being "fitted," one of Aunt Gwendolin's fashionable friends came in. "Arabella," my aunt called her, but the modiste called her Mrs. Delaney. I was not noticed, and slipped off into a corner, and this newcomer and my relative fell into a deep and absorbing talk about the new style of sleeve. I saw my opportunity and slipped unnoticed out the front door, which fortunately was behind them.

Hurrying down a few blocks I reached a bookseller's window. With one glance I had noticed, when my aunt and I were passing the window on the way to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste, the word China on the cover of a book. "I'll buy that book," I had said to myself, "and learn what there is about China that makes Americans despise her people."

Entering the store, I found a number of books about China and the Chinese: "One of China's Scholars," "How the Chinese Think," "The Greatest Novels of China," "Chinese Life." I paid for them all and ordered them sent to my grandmother's house.

The bookseller looked at me very curiously for several moments, and then ventured, "You speak English very well."

"Of course I do," I said, tossing my head and trying to act saucily, as my governess had told me the American girls did. I would not have dared to treat a man that way in China.

He did not venture to speak again. It is funny to be able in this America to frighten a man! Confucius says that women should "be always modest and respectful in demeanour, and prefer others to themselves"; but I have not to mind Confucius any longer; I am now in the "sweet land of liberty," as they sing in their national anthem. I heard my father say once that the gentleness and modesty of Oriental women was really beautiful; but it would not be beautiful in America.

I hurried back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste, and found my aunt and her friend still talking about sleeves. They had never noticed my absence. How very important sleeves are in America! I never heard them talked about in China.

The talkers had evidently forgotten me, so I slipped out again, and walked several blocks, watching the manners, and catching snatches of the conversation of Americans.

"I'm going to have mine eighteen gores----"

"Pleating down the front, frills at the side----"

"Pocahontas hat, and Prince Chap suit----"

"Front panel, and revers turned----"

"Frills and pipings all around----"

"Gored, or cut in one piece----"

"Oh, pompadour, by all means, with----"

These were the snatches of conversation which I caught from the women as they passed me. The men were mostly silent and glum.

This curious country, that Aunt Gwendolin says has gone away ahead of the rest of the world, why do its women talk more about dress than anything else? And why have its men such pushing, hurrying, knock-you-down-if-you-stand-in-my-way faces?

When I got back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste I found my aunt ready to take me to the milliner's to be "outfitted with hats."

Walking a block or two we entered a much-decorated room, and at my aunt's request an attendant brought several hats for our inspection--curious-looking things like straw bee-hives, or huge wasps' nests, covered over largely with wings and the heads of poor little dead birds, ends and loops of ribbon, roses and leaves, looking as if they were only half sewed on and liable to tumble off if touched, and long feathers, buckles, and pins. My aunt selected several, fitted them on my head, and declared they were very becoming to my Spanish style of beauty. I, almost in tears, whispered into her ear, so the attendant would not hear me, "I shall not have to wear them where any one can see me, shall I?" Aunt Gwendolin smiled (the attendant was looking) and replied sweetly, "Yes, they are very pretty, indeed."

We in China could never kill our birds and wear them on our heads--the breasts of our beautiful mandarin ducks, the wings of our gold and silver pheasants, the heads of our pretty parrakeets--we never could do it--we would feel like murderers. Our majestic-looking wild geese, that fly over our heads in flocks sometimes thirty miles in length, going south in the autumn and north in the spring, we never molest them. The Buddhists believe that all geese perform an aerial pilgrimage to the holiest of the lakes in the mountains every year, transporting the sins of the neighbourhood, returning to the valley with a new stock of inspiration for the people in the locality where they choose to alight. Here in this civilised country--I have been reading in one of their magazines that grandmother loaned me--they catch the beautiful water-fowls, kill them, and hack off their downy breasts to make ladies' hats. And the little young birds starve in the nest, because the mother never returns to feed them. Ugh! Civilised countries are dreadful!

When the hats were selected my aunt conducted me to the furrier's.

"The cold weather is not over yet," she said, "and while we are about it I shall select some necessary furs."

I had noticed as we were passing through the streets that the ladies had curious looking things around their necks and shoulders, capes trimmed with heads of animals, and tails and paws of the same. I wondered the dogs did not bark at them. They looked like some hunters who had been out shooting and had thrown their dead game over their shoulders.

The furrier whose shop we had entered seemed to know my aunt, and as soon as she said, "I want you to show me some of your best fur garments suitable for a young lady," he brought down from some shelves the greatest quantity of fur articles, ermine, mink, seal, sable, all covered with heads, tails, paws, claws, eyes, mouths, teeth, whiskers. I shuddered and drew back when my aunt went to place one around my neck.

"Oh, auntie!" I cried, "don't touch it to me!"

"Ha, ha, ha," softly and politely laughed the shopkeeper, "the young lady has not become acquainted with the newest thing in furs, so beautiful and realistic--so charming!"

Aunt Gwendolin frowned. She evidently did not like my display of nerves, and resolutely fastened around my throat an ermine scarf with seven or eight heads, and twice as many tails. "There!" she said, "that will do nicely, it is very becoming to her creamy Spanish."

"It could not be better," said the polite shopkeeper.

A muff was then chosen to match the scarf, with just as many horrible grinning heads, and little snaky tails; and paying for them, my aunt ordered them sent home.

On my return home I dropped a silver coin into the housemaid's hand, and told her when the parcel of books arrived she was to carry it up to my room and say nothing about it. She seemed to understand, and asked no questions.

An hour later she came to my door with the books in her arms, and found me examining my new set of furs.

"Betty," I cried, throwing wide the door of my room, "come in and tell me all about my furs--how the man that sells them gets all those little heads and tails. Where do they get them? And how do they catch them? I want to know it all."

"Oh, miss," said Betty, stepping briskly into the room, nothing loath to accept the invitation to examine the new furs, "they lives out in the wild woods--these little critters, an' men poisons 'em, an' traps 'em. An' when they is dead, they skins 'em, tans the skins, an' makes 'em up into muffs, an' boas, an' tippets, an' fur coats, an' so forth, an' so forth."

"Poison and trap them!" I cried, "doesn't that make the little creatures suffer?"

"You bet!" said Betty.

"How cruel!" I added.

"Yes, miss, ain't it awful?" returned Betty, making a wry face. "They's a book just been throwed in at the door to-day telling all as to how it is done. The American Humane Association has wrote the book--_they_ don't approve of killin' things. I'll bring it up an' let you read it."

Suiting the action to the thought Betty rushed away down to the kitchen for the book.

She returned in a few moments with a small pamphlet, and thrust it hastily into my hand--my aunt was calling her--and hastened away.

I glanced down at a picture on the front page--a hare caught by the hind leg in a trap. A most agonised expression was on the little animal's face. Below the picture was the title of the story, "_The Cost of a Skin_." I dropped into a rocking-chair and read the story: