Peony: A Novel of China Read Free Page B

feast!”
    She shrugged, waved her little hands, and sat down on the edge of one of the great armchairs. “Wang Ma, I ask you, who have been in this house so long, what makes them love to grieve?”
    Wang Ma pursed her full lips. “You’ll grieve if our old mistress comes in and sees you sitting in her chair,” she retorted. “Such impudence! I’ve never thought of sitting in one of those chairs. But then, I’ve only been here thirty years.”
    “Do not be cross with me, Wang Ma.” Peony’s voice was soft, and she rose from the chair and opened the red lacquered sweet box that stood in the center of the square table. It was full of small sesame cakes. She took one and began to eat it.
    “Nor would I help myself to their cakes,” Wang Ma said.
    Peony went on eating.
    “Those cakes smell of pigs’ fat,” Wang Ma said severely. She reached for one and smelled it. “Pigs’ fat, it’s certain! I told you all cakes must be bought at the Buddhist sweetshop!”
    “I told your Old Wang so, too,” Peony replied. “He bought them, not I.”
    “You!” Wang Ma cried. “Telling him!”
    Peony smiled and did not answer. She opened the tea basket that stood beside the sweet box and felt the pot. It was hot and she poured tea into one of the rice-patterned bowls and sipped it, both hands cupped about its warmth.
    “And I have never drunk from one of those bowls,” Wang Ma said. She nibbled a cake. “Yes, it’s pigs’ fat,” she murmured gloomily, and went on eating it.
    “Why don’t they like pigs’ fat?” Peony inquired. “It’s odd that I’ve lived with all their superstitions and still I don’t know what they mean.”
    “It’s their religion,” Wang Ma said. She reached for another cake. “People do strange things when they are religious. I had an old aunt who went to be a Buddhist nun when her betrothed died, and she never ate meat again and she shaved her head and she slept on a bamboo bed with no quilt underneath her so that when she got up in the morning she was all wealed. Why? Who knows? But it made her happy.”
    “Yet our mistress is so sensible,” Peony said.
    She poured a bowl of tea for Wang Ma, who shook her head. Peony took the bowl in both hands and presented it. “Drink, good mother,” she said. “You deserve it after all these years. Besides, they’ll never know.”
    “Who knows what you’ll tell?” Wang Ma said severely.
    “I never tell anything I know,” Peony said demurely.
    Wang Ma put down the bowl. “What do you know?” she inquired.
    “Now you want me to tell,” Peony said, smiling.
    “I know some things myself,” Wang Ma retorted.
    “What things?” Peony asked. Her innocence was flagrant in voice and wide black eyes.
    “You and our young master,” Wang Ma said.
    “I and our young master! Don’t think it’s with us as it was with you and the old master,” Peony said.
    Wang Ma stared. Her neck grew red. “Dare to say it!” she cried.
    Peony shrugged her pretty shoulders. “It’s not I who say anything,” she retorted.
    Wang Ma pursed her lips and swept her eyelids downward. “ P’ei! You ought to die!” she muttered.
    Peony put her hand on Wang Ma’s sleeve. “If we are not friends to each other in this house, who will be friends to us?” She paused and went on, “Yet I am only a servant. Well, what then? It has been my duty to care for him, to play games with him; if he were restless, to sing to him; if he were sleepless, to read to him; if he were hungry, to feed him—to be his slave in everything. Yesterday—” She shrugged her shoulders again.
    Wang Ma came close. “You know what is to happen?”
    Peony shook her head. Then she looked sad. “No, I won’t lie. Of course I know. But he’ll never be happy with Leah.”
    “He has to marry her, even as his father did before him marry one of their people,” Wang Ma insisted. “This betrothal was fixed when the children were in their cradles. I remember—it was before you were