Читать книгу The Vermilion Pencil - Homer Lea - Страница 8

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As Destiny fated it, the Viceroy himself married, that summer, the daughter of the tea-farmer and not Ho Ling, Mandarin of the Fifth Rank.

More than a year had passed since the Viceroy had married this farmer’s daughter from the Valley of the Fountain, which extraordinary event had been duly commented upon by the gentry of Hangchau and had been forgotten. But with the Viceroy it was different. Though many months had mysteriously vanished he was still an uneasy bridegroom unable in any degree to resume that tranquil state he had enjoyed years before.

“Tranquillity of the spirits,” said a guest one day, “is the culmination of a scholar’s life; it is the essence of propriety; the golden mean between the heart and the mind.”

“Undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” replied the Viceroy gruffly, “but there is no happiness in it.”

So the Viceroy, while by no means tranquil, was happy. And though a year had rushed hastily away, he still paced restlessly back and forth before a richly carved screen; waiting, frowning, biting his under lip.

Suddenly stopping in his impatient pacing, he clapped his hands and an old woman timidly entered.

“Is she coming?” he demanded in a voice of mingled anxiety and doubt.

“Great Sir, she will be here in just——”

“Get out! I will not tolerate this any longer; not another——”

A soft, tinkling laugh from behind the screen caused him to turn, startled, uneasy; a gentle rustle and the tea-farmer’s daughter entered.

The deer-like freedom of her home was altered; she came slowly into the room with graceful but restrained hauteur. Her rich, brown skin was now white as an almond petal; in her cheeks wavered a transparent pink but her lips were as red as ever and her eyes shone with the same liquid brightness.

Bowing, she said mockingly, “Most impatient and ungentle Great Sir, you are angry at my delay?”

“No, no, just bothersome dispatches——”

“Indeed! then I shall leave you to consider them in peace.” Tossing her head she turned to leave the room.

“Just a moment! Just a moment!” cried the Viceroy hastily. She stopped with her back to him. “I have a necklace of pearls.”

“Yes?” she inquired carelessly.

“You wish it?”

She could hear the pearls trickling through his fingers.

“Ah, do you not admire it?”

“I have not seen it,” she answered curtly.

“I am seated on the divan here.”

“I am standing by the door.”

“Are you not going to take these pearls?”

“Are you not going to bring them to me?”

The Viceroy got up, hesitated, then came and stood beside her. She held out her hand and he wrapped the necklace around her palm and wrist, while a childish happiness dimpled her cheeks as she admired and fondled the gold-strung baubles from the sea.

“They would be most beautiful,” she said, looking up at him with a smile that brought a flush to his face, “did not the jewelled kindness that suggested them dim their brilliancy.”

“Eh? Yes, yes,” his Excellency bowed. “Pearls are a very worthy jewel—unfortunate——women have not their attributes——”

“What are they?” she demanded, throwing back her head.

“Why, why, Time’s incrustations——”

“Yes?” she inquired, with such a mocking chill in her voice that it caused him to lower his eyes. “Yes,” she repeated, walking over to a table where an inkstone lay, “it is quite true that what Time adds yearly to the pearl, it steals from a woman’s cheek but,” she put the pearls in the wet ink and with the tip of her tiny forefinger rubbed them around and around until they were but a blackened mass, “you see,” she continued naïvely, “that they are alike in a way.”

“Isn’t it strange?” she murmured, still rubbing her little finger tip among the blackened jewels. “Isn’t it strange?”

The Viceroy stood immovable, while a network of purple veins began to spread across his face.

The wife’s hands rested for a moment on his shoulders, then seizing his ears, pulled him down into a chair.

“You are not angry?” she said consolingly.

The Viceroy looked up at her reproachfully.

“I know it was very wrong,” she said with contrition.

He eyed her questioningly.

“Do you think,” she frowned and her tones became threatening, “that my father did not teach me gratitude?”

“Yes, yes,” answered the Viceroy hastily. “Yes; economy is a woman’s highest virtue——”

“Economy in what?” she demanded, straightening up and looking down at him coldly.

He moved restlessly and tried to say something.

“Money!” she repeated with scorn. “I knew you would say that! Money! Oyah! A pool of filth where men are defiled and drowned—bah!” She stamped her little foot fretfully, and threw the pearls on the floor.

“Would you let wealth all run away?” he asked pathetically.

“Does not a running stream irrigate more fields than a pond? Is there not more purity in a brook than in a stagnant pool?”

His Excellency sighed deeply.

“Why don’t you learn other economy?” She leaned over him, pouting her red lips like a teasing child. “Why don’t you be economical of punishments, wasteful of mercy, and treat greed as a rogue? Because, my husband,” and taking hold of his ears, she tilted his head back, “I think whoever is a miser in punishments and a spendthrift of compassion, not only hoards up inestimable treasure, but practises the economy of heaven.”

“That is true,” mumbled the Viceroy, thickly, “very——”

“It is not!” she interrupted, letting go his ears and stamping her foot.

“Not true?”

“It never happens.”

“That is so,” replied the Viceroy in a relieved tone.

“It is not!”

“What——”

“Because you could make it so if you wished.” Speaking these words in half whispering tender tones, she again took hold of his ears and looked down into his eyes, serious, begging.

“Will you promise me not to have any more prisoners beheaded this week?”

“Again!”

“Will you promise?” she pulled harder on his ears.

“But—but——”

“Promise!”

“Yes.”

“And you will send away that thin, wicked lictor?”

“Eh? Yes, yes; he is a rogue.”

“And you will rebuild the hospital at Ho Yong?”

“No, no; a waste of money.”

“You won’t?” she pulled his ears again. “Not even for me?” Her red lips parted and her breath blew warm upon his cheek.

The viceroy moved restlessly, hopelessly.

Her lips, just touching his ear, whispered, “Only that one little promise, my husband.”

A tremor passed through the Viceroy’s great frame.

“Yes,” he muttered in a thick voice, lifting his hands to clasp her to him but in that instant she stood beyond his reach, her face flushed and dimpled with smiles.

Distant she stood, looking at him, smiling, blushing, mocking; then taking his fat face between her little hands she tilted it back, laughing softly a laugh like the low notes of a wood-warbler.

He raised his hands.

She frowned.

His hands fell and her smiles came again.