China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

Stone fell to earth and created the West Lake, which is guarded to this day by the Phoenix Mountain.”

“Exactly. And there are lots of other stories concerning the lake, you know—mostly stories of lost love, of course. The tale of the White Snake, for instance.”

“ ‘The White Lady is imprisoned in the pagoda by the lake,’ ” Bright Moon said quietly.

Guanji looked at her in surprise. There were endless versions of the tale. The most popular modern ones twisted what was really quite a grim old story into a more conventional romance. But the line she had quoted came from an older, lesser-known poem that he wouldn’t have expected her to know.

“ ‘Her lover will die when he finds a white snake,’ ” he quoted back at her. He turned to Mr. Yao. “Your wife has an unusual knowledge of poetry,” he remarked admiringly.

“She has. She has,” Yao cried with a laugh. “She can quote all sorts of stuff.”

Bright Moon inclined her head towards Guanji, accepting his compliment. Then she raised her eyes and gave him a little look. It was brief and Mr. Yao didn’t see it, but the message was clear: My husband’s crude. But what can we do?

Guanji turned to Mr. Yao. “Have you been up to the Leifeng Pagoda yet?” The curious old ruin was nine centuries old. Long ago, Japanese pirates had burned down the wooden top stories of the great eight-sided tower, but the stone trunk still stood like a ghostly old guardian on its low hill above the waters. “Some scholars believe, you know, that there’s a hidden tomb under the tower that contains a lock of the Buddha’s hair.”

He continued to talk easily in this fashion about past emperors who’d visited the lake and some of the notable residents at present. He was addressing them both, but he was careful to make eye contact only with the merchant, not with his young wife.

“Your mother should hear this,” Yao suddenly cried to Bright Moon. “Go and fetch her.”

“You know my mother was not feeling well,” she gently reminded him. “And I am still serving tea.”

“Never mind, never mind,” he said. “Your mother is only a little tired. Tell her I asked her to come. This will brighten her up.”

Bright Moon said nothing as she rose to go, but her resentment was obvious, and Guanji could hardly blame her. Mr. Yao, however, was unrepentant.

“It does her good to be contradicted sometimes,” he remarked cheerfully as soon as she’d left. “Her mother came to visit us just after we first met you at the temple,” he continued. “A most beautiful woman. From a rich peasant family, but unusually refined. She was the concubine of a senior mandarin of an ancient and distinguished family, after she was widowed. My wife was a late child, with grown-up brothers when she was born.”

“I see.”

“Bright Moon looks like her mother, but she also bears a close resemblance to some of the mandarin’s family. Indeed, he adopted her as his own daughter, if you take my meaning.”

“I believe I do.”

“It may surprise you that Bright Moon’s mother, unlike the rest of her family, has unbound feet. That is because her own mother came from a rich Hakka family and it was to please them that her father did not bind her feet.”

“As a Manchu, of course,” Guanji replied easily, “none of the women in my family, including my own wife, had bound feet.” Although from time to time he had slept with Han women whose feet had been bound, Guanji had never found the fabled lotus feet erotic. In fact, on these occasions, he’d tried to ignore them.

“I hope she is well enough to join us,” Mr. Yao said. “I think you will like her.”

A few minutes later, the lady in question appeared.

—

And Guanji stared. What age must this woman be? From the information he’d been given, she had to be in her sixties. Older than he was. Yet she looked like a woman of fifty at most—an exceptionally beautiful one, too.

It suddenly crossed his mind that Mr. Yao might have an ulterior motive in making this introduction. He smiled to himself. Did Yao want him to take the woman into his own household? It would create a social bond between the newly made gentleman and his distinguished neighbor. It might also, he shrewdly guessed, keep a mother’s steadying hand closer to his young wife.

Well, I’m free to do whatever I please, Guanji thought.

“The general has kindly said,” Mr. Yao told her, “that when the new boat arrives, he will take us all out and show us the best beauty spots on the lake.”

“There will be a full moon in three days,” Guanji reminded them. “Might your boat have arrived by then, Mr. Yao? I should be at your service.”

“Alas, I don’t think it’ll come so soon,” Yao replied.

“The next full moon, then,” Guanji said cheerfully.

“It will have to be without me,” Mei-Ling said. “I must return to my family before long.”

“Stay at least until then,” Yao encouraged her.

“You are very kind, though I’m afraid it’s not possible,” she replied. And turning to Guanji, she added, “You will say I am ‘hurrying like a traveler with far to go.’ ”

A famous quote, from Nineteen Old Poems. It referred to the short time between life and death—with the implication that one must seize the day. Was it a signal that she was interested in him? Or was she just showing that she was literate, like her daughter, because she knew this would please the vanity of her daughter’s husband?

“Perhaps the boat will arrive in time,” said Bright Moon.

A momentary silence fell, and the girl’s mother stepped in to keep the conversation going. “I have heard, General, that you retired early to pursue the literary life. If it is not an impertinent question: Was that a sudden decision, or one you had contemplated a long time?”

Mei-Ling did not really care, but men of rank, in her experience, liked to talk about themselves.

“Ah.” Guanji paused and considered.