Sons (4 page)

“It is nothing to me! But whatever you do, do it quickly.”

Wang the Eldest rose then as though he would make all haste, although as he came into these middle years of his life he could not make haste without confusion, and if he even walked quickly his feet and hands seemed too many for him.

But the matter was arranged at last and Liu the merchant was willing, for he had respected Wang Lung for a shrewd man. The brothers invited also such of the neighbors as were high enough for them and they invited certain high men of the town who were both rich and stable in their position, and these men gathered on the appointed day in the great hall of Wang Lung’s house, and each took his seat according to his rank.

Then Wang the Second, when Liu the merchant called upon him to give an account of all the lands and moneys to be divided, rose and gave the paper on which all was written into the hands of Wang the Eldest and Wang the Eldest gave it to Liu the merchant and Liu received it. First he opened it and put his great brass spectacles across his nose and he muttered the account over to himself, and they all waited in silence until he had done. Then he read it over again aloud, so that all the men sitting there in that great hall knew that Wang Lung when he died had been lord over a mighty number of acres of land, in all more than eight hundred acres, and seldom had anyone in those parts ever heard of so much going under the name of one man and scarcely under one family, even, and surely not under any since the time of the great Hwang family’s height. Wang the Second knew it all, and he would not look surprised, but the others could not but let their wonder leak out, however much they held their faces straight and calm for propriety. Only Wang the Third seemed not to care and he sat as he always did, as though his mind were elsewhere and he were waiting impatiently for this to be done and over so that he might go away where his heart was.

Besides all this land there were the two houses which were Wang Lung’s, the farm house in the fields and this great old town house that he bought from the dying lord of the House of Hwang, when that house had fallen into decay and its sons scattered. And besides houses and lands, there were sums of money lent here and there and sums of money in the grain business and there were bags of money lying idle and hidden, so that the money itself was half as much as the value of the lands.

But there were certain claims to be decided before all this inheritance could be divided between the brothers and, besides certain small claims to a few tenants and some tradesmen, the chiefest were those of the two concubines that Wang Lung had taken in his lifetime: Lotus, whom he took out of a tea house for her beauty and for his passion and for the satisfaction of his maturity when his country wife palled upon his flesh, and Pear Blossom, who had been a slave in his own house when he took her to comfort his old age. There were these two, and neither of them was true wife and both but concubines, and a concubine cannot be reproached overmuch if she choose to seek another when her master is dead if she is not too old. Still, the three brothers knew that if these did not wish to go out then they must be fed and clothed and they had the right to remain in the house of the family so long as they lived. Lotus indeed could not go out to another man, seeing how old and fat she was, and she would be glad to stay snugly in her court. So it was that now when the merchant Liu called for her, she rose out of a seat near the door, and she leaned on two slaves and wiping her eyes with her sleeves, she said in a very mournful voice,

“Ah, he that fed me is gone, and how can I think of another and where can I go? I am in my age now, and I need but a little to feed me and to clothe and give me a little wine and tobacco to lighten my sad heart, and the sons of my lord are generous!”

Then the merchant Liu, who was so good a man he thought all others good, too, looked at her kindly and he never remembered who she was nor that he had ever seen her anything except a good man’s wife, and he said with respect.

“You speak well and becomingly, for the one gone was a kind master, and so I have heard from all. Well, I will decree thus, then; you are to be given twenty pieces of silver a month and you may live on in your courts and you are to have your servants and slaves and your food and some pieces of cloth yearly besides.”

But when Lotus heard this, and she listened to catch every word, she rolled her eyes from one son to the other and she clasped her hands piteously and she set up a piercing wail and she said,

“But twenty? What—but twenty? It will scarcely buy me my sweetmeats I need because I have so small a little appetite and I have never eaten coarse and common foods!”

At this the old merchant drew off his spectacles and he stared at her astonished and he said sternly,

“Twenty pieces a month is more than many a whole family has, and half would be generous enough in most houses and not poor houses, either, when the master is dead!”

Then Lotus began to cry in good earnest and there was no pretence in her now and she cried for Wang Lung as she had never done yet and she cried,

“Would that you had not left me, indeed, my lord! I am cast aside and you have gone into the far places and you cannot save me!”

Now the wife of Wang the Eldest stood behind a curtain near and she drew it aside now and made signs to her husband that this behavior was indecent before all these goodly people here, and she was in such an agony that Wang the Eldest fidgeted on his chair and tried not to see her and yet he must see her, and at last he rose and called out loudly above the din that Lotus made,

“Sir, let her have a little more so that we can get on!”

But Wang the Second could not bear this and he rose in his place and called out,

“If it is to be more, then let my elder brother give it from his share, for it is true that twenty pieces are enough and more than enough, even with all her gaming!”

This he said, because as she grew older Lotus grew fond to passion of gaming and what time she did not eat or sleep she gamed. But the wife of Wang the Eldest grew the more indignant and she made violent signs to her husband that he must refuse to do this and she whispered loudly,

“No, the shares must be given to the widows before the inheritance is divided. What is she more to us than to them?”

Now here was a pother and the old peaceful merchant looked in dismay from one to the other, and Lotus would not cease her din for one moment, so that all the men were distracted with such confusion. So it would have gone on for longer except that Wang the Third was outraged and he rose suddenly and stamped his hard leathern shoes upon the tiles and he shouted,

“I will give it! What is a little silver? I am weary of this!”

Now this seemed a good way out of the trouble, and the lady of Wang the Eldest said,

“He can do it, for he is a lone man. He has no sons to think of as we have.”

And Wang the Second smiled and shrugged himself a little and smiled his secret smile as one who says to himself, “Well, it is no affair of mine if a man is too foolish to defend his own!

But the old merchant was very glad and he sighed and took out his kerchief and wiped his face, for he was a man who lived in a quiet house, and he was not used to such as Lotus. As for Lotus, she might have held to her din for a while longer except there was something so fierce about this third son of Wang Lung’s that she thought better of it. So she ceased her noise suddenly and sat down, well pleased with herself; and although she tried to keep her mouth drawn down and grieved, she forgot very soon and she stared freely at all the men, and she took watermelon seeds from a plate a slave held for her and cracked them between her teeth that were strong and white and sound still in spite of her age. And she was at her ease.

Thus it was decided for Lotus. Then the old merchant looked about and he said,

“Where is the second concubine? I see her name is written here.”

Now this was Pear Blossom and not one of them had looked to see whether she was here or not and they looked now about the great hall and they sent slaves into the women’s courts, but she was not anywhere in that house. Then Wang the Eldest remembered he had forgot to summon her at all, and he sent for her in great haste and they waited an hour or so until she could come and they drank tea and waited and walked about, and at last she came with a maid servant to the door of the hall. But when she looked in and saw all the men she would not go in, and when she saw that soldier she went into the court again, and at last the old merchant went out to her there. He looked at her kindly and not full in the face so as to dismay her, and he saw how young she still was, a young woman still and very pale and pretty, and he said,

“Lady, you are so young that none can blame you if your life is not over yet, and there is plenty of silver to give you a good sum and you may go to your home again and marry a good man or do as you will.”

But she, being all unprepared for such words, thought she was being sent out somewhere and she did not understand and she cried out, her voice fluttering and weak with her fright,

“Oh, sir, I have no home and I have no one at all except my dead lord’s fool and he left her to me and we have nowhere to go! Oh, sir, I thought we could live on in the earthen house and we eat very little and we need only cotton clothes for I shall never wear silk again, now that my lord is dead, not so long as I live, and we will not trouble anyone in the great house!”

The old merchant went back into the hall then and he asked the eldest brother, wondering,

“Who is this fool of whom she speaks?”

And Wang the Eldest answered, hesitating, “It is but a poor thing, a sister of ours, who was never right from her childhood, and my father and mother did not let her starve or suffer as some do to these creatures to hasten their end and so she has lived on to this day. My father commanded this woman of his to care for her, and if she will not wed again let some silver be given her and let her do as she wishes, for she is very mild and it is true she will trouble no one.”

At this Lotus called out suddenly, “Yes, but she need not have much, because she has ever been but a slave in this house and used to the coarsest fare and cotton clothes until my old lord made himself silly in his old age about her white face, and doubtless she wheedled him to it, too—and as for that fool the sooner she is dead the better!”

This Lotus called out and when Wang the Third heard it he stared at her so terribly that she faltered and turned her head away from his black eyes, and then he shouted out,

“Let this one be given the same as the old one and I will give it!”

But Lotus demurred, and although she did not dare to say it loudly, she muttered,

“It is not meet that elder and younger be treated as one and equal—and she my own slave!”

So she muttered and it seemed she might fall to her old noise again, and the old merchant seeing this said with all haste,

“True—true—so I decree twenty-five pieces to the elder lady and twenty to the younger—” And he went out and said to Pear Blossom, “Go back to your house and be at peace again, lady, because you are to do as you will and you shall have twenty silver pieces a month for your own.”

Then Pear Blossom thanked him prettily and with all her heart and her little pale mouth quivered and she was trembling because she had not known what would happen to her and it was a relief to know she might live on as she had and be safe.

With these claims ended, then, and the decision made, the rest was not hard and the old merchant went on and he was about to divide lands and houses and silver equally into four parts to give two parts to Wang the Eldest as head of the house, and one part to Wang the Second and one part to Wang the Third when suddenly this third son spoke out,

“Give me no houses and lands! I had enough of the land when I was a lad and my father would have me be a farmer. I am not wed, and what do I want with a house! Give me my share in silver, my brothers, or else if I must have house and land, then do you, my brothers, buy them from me and give me silver!”

Now the two older brothers were struck dazed when they heard this, for whoever heard of a man who wanted his whole inheritance in silver, which can escape a man so easily and leave no trace behind, and will not have house and land, which can remain to him for a possession? The elder brother said gravely,

“But, my brother, no good man in this whole world goes unwed all his life and sooner or later we will find you a woman, since our father is gone, whose duty it was to do it, and you will want house and land then.”

Then the second brother said very plainly, “Whatever you do with your share of the land we will not buy it from you, for there has been trouble in many a family because one has taken his inheritance in silver and spent it all and then has come howling back, crying out that he is defrauded of lands and inheritance, and the silver is gone then and no proof that it ever was beyond a bit of paper that could be written by anyone or else men’s bare words, and these are no proof. No, and if the man himself does not do this, his sons will and their sons’ sons and it means strife into the generations. I say the land must be divided. If you wish it I will see to your lands for you and send you the silver they bring to you every year, but you shall not have your inheritance in silver.”

Now the wisdom of this struck everyone, so that although the soldier said again, muttering it, “I will have no house nor land!” no one paid heed to him this time except that the old merchant said curiously,

“What would you do with so much silver?”

To this the soldier answered in his harsh voice, “I have a cause!”

But not one of them knew what he meant and after a time the old merchant decreed that the silver and the lands should be divided and if he truly did not wish a share in this fine town house he might have the old earthen house in the country, which was worth little indeed, seeing it was made out of the earth of the fields at the slight cost of a little labor. He decreed beyond this that the two elder brothers should have a sum ready, too, for Wang the Third’s marriage, as it was the duty of elder brothers to the younger, if the father was dead.