Three Marriages: The House of Exile. Iii
I
IT was the afternoon of the Feast of Lanterns Eve, in 1922. Above her sewing table Mai-da had tacked a color sketch of the Pearl Fairy, holding open her oyster-shell home, as a pattern from which to create her costume for the Lanterns Eve masque. She had shaped an oyster shell of whalebone, in size to close comfortably about herself, covered it with gray cotton cloth touched up realistically with white and green paint, and lined it with a fine shirring of pink gauze. It lay finished on her bed. She had fringed the pale pink chiffon veil that makes the fairy invisible, cleaned her best satin slippers, and completed the basque waist of the shell-pink velvet dress. It awaited the attachment of a wide bouffant ruffled skirt.
But she had found the task of hemming and attaching the tiers of tiny ruffles more than she was equal to in the time remaining before the masque. This circumstance had forced her to trust her cousins concerning her intent to dance in the street masquerade at which the guilds frolic.
She told of the note she had received from Erh-sung, the Manchu Prince, asking her to come as the Pearl Fairy to meet him, who would be disguised as the Fisherman’s Son; also how she had put her consenting answer under the loose stone behind the shrine of the Old Man in the Moon, in the Street of the Purple Bamboo Forest, which had been her letter box for communication with him for many months.
So, as the wives were all safely out, Su-ling and Ching-mei lectured Mai-da wisely on marriage while they sewed with diligence. I polished the jade earrings Mai-da had promised to give her servant Faithful Duck if she got safely out through the Gate of Compassion and in again. When the stitching was finished, Mai-da donned the costume and showed us how she could dance the pageant in her pink satin slippers. She held the shell in her hands and mischievously closed its dullness around her dainty beauty.
We had tidied the room before the pat-pat of the chair bearers’ feet sounded at the Orchid Door. The wives found Mai-da in the kitchen, assisting at the preparation of the evening meal.
Clouds covered the moon in the early night. Mai-da squeezed her slim loveliness through the Gate of Compassion and handed one earring to Faithful Duck. A Fisherman’s Son kept tryst with her at the homestead wall. He flirted in a dance all down the mystic lantern-decorated streets, returning her frolic with quick response. She was puzzled, thrilled, and half frightened.
She knew that he was not Erh-sung. Yet he enchanted her with his charm. They dined with other masqueraders at the Abode of Orchids. He brought her safely back to the Gate of Compassion just before dawn.
Faithful Duck awaited her there. When she was again under the shadow of the Goddess of Mercy and had lit a tall taper of thanksgiving, her escort recalled her to the door with a low whistle. Then he lifted his mask — and she knew that the gay companion of her escapade was her favorite uncle, Keng-lin.
Next day, when the Elder’s Wife sent Mai-da to polish the brasses in the Hall of Ancestors, Uncle Keng-lin followed her and told her how her letter had come into his possession. An itinerant priest had seen her put it behind the shrine in the Street of the Purple Bamboo Forest. He secured it, followed her home, and sat down at the To and From the World Gate to sell it to the first man of the family who came out.
He had demanded five hundred dollars. Keng-lin had got the letter for three hundred, and sealed the priest’s lips against gossiping Mai-da’s name all along his holy pilgrimage to Wu Tai Shan in Shansi.
II
Two days after the Feast of Lanterns Wei-sung, the Family Elder, called Mai-da to the library. Five cards proposing marriage were laid face down on his writing table. He told her to take up one. Thus she, who over a period of many years had managed to avoid betrothal, selected her husband. And Wei-sung, reluctant to break his family circle by giving any girl in marriage, was saved from making a choice for her beyond giving his sanction to the Family-in-CounciFs decision that any one of the five was suitable.
From then on Mai-da, who is bred of centuries of folk who accept marriage as a duty, accepted her fate with philosophy, and seemingly without undue curiosity concerning her future husband.
Uncle Keng-lin carried a red card, identical in size and shape with the proposal, and containing, similarly, the record of her year, month, day, and hour of birth, to the man’s homestead, which is but three streets away.
When he had gone, the Family Elder put the proposed groom’s name with Mai-da’s on the altar in the Hall of Ancestors, between the life tablets of the founder of the House of Exile and his mate.
‘Marriage,’ Shun-ko explained to me, ‘is a contract between two families, and must be made with the free consent of both families. A maid is wed in accord with the wisdom of her clan, and we take great care to have our descendants mate well. The name of Mai-da’s proposed husband will lie with her name for three days on our family altar. Mai-da’s name will lie with his name for three days on his homestead family altar. Only if there is peace in both households during this time will the considered alliance go further. If criticism of their union be spoken in either homestead, the matter will be dropped. But as the cards are on the altars, no person will speak without real concern.’
Late on the third day, Mai-da and I were in the central room of the Three Eastern Courtyards. We were searching for a volume of Li T’ai-po’s poems, from which her mother had promised to read to us, when the Elder’s servant came in and put down a padded wicker tea basket. We realized that a visitor had been announced at the gate. Reasoning that we could not avoid being met in the courtyard if we went, we stayed behind a lacquer screen. The Elder entered, pulling his ceremonial robe about him.
This room was the Hall of Dignity of the original homestead, and is the place where especially honored callers are received. The doors were flung open. From our peep-crack, we saw that the Family Elder had ordered the visitor’s sedan chair to be carried to this inner court. We recognized it as the chair of the Elder of the House of Mai-da’s proposed husband.
An uncle of that house descended from it. He was dressed in a richly ornamented gown of many colors. A servant accompanied him. The servant spread a red mat. The master knelt before the Elder of Lin, despite the latter’s polite attempts to stop him. He presented a betrothal contract. This, he announced, was signed by his Family Elder and the four heirs-in-succession to the Family Eldership. ‘I am the voice of our homestead,’ he ended, ‘who arc united in eagerness to welcome the daughter of Lin.’
The men drank tea. They talked of crops, of weather, of political conditions. We grew weary in our cramped closeness. Finally, when the call had stretched to proper politeness, the visitor asked to pay his respects to the First Lady of the homestead. The servant preceding them with the red mat, they left to go to Kuei-tzu’s apartment. Then we slipped back to the Springtime Bower.
After the caller had gone from the homestead, Kuei-tzu sent for Mai-da. She gave her the betrothal gift from the Lady in First Authority in her future husband’s homestead — a gold bracelet set with three rubies.
Next morning Uncle Keng-lin rode out in the Elder’s chair. He was accompanied by Camel-back. Camelback carried a red mat. Uncle Keng-lin had a contract signed by the Elder of Lin and four heirs-in-succession, also a gift of jade coat buttons from the First Lady of Lin to the betrothed bridegroom. In the afternoon, the Elder of the groom’s homestead came to the House of Lin to ask for the wedding date.
The nineteenth day of the Peony Moon, and the birthday of the Protectress of Blossoms, was chosen. This is Mai-da’s favorite day.
As soon as sweet cookies could be baked, and while they were still warm from the oven, the groom’s mother sent a red basket of them to Mai-da. These cookies are called ‘phoenix-and-dragon cakes.’ Two servants garbed in wedding coats of green and red brought the basket. They carried it on a red pole by way of the principal streets of the village. So it was made public that the betrothal between the two houses was complete and the wedding day named.
Mai-da had presented to Kuei-tzu a list of the homesteads to which she wished to intimate her approaching marriage so that they might help with preparations. Kuei-tzu vetoed two names and reminded Mai-da to include a lady patron of her birth who had married a second time and was now domiciled in Shantung. Each phœnix-anddragon cake had the wedding date stamped into it with red sugar. The cakes were div ided into packets of five. The packets were wrapped in wedding paper, then nestled around with red cotton, and sealed up in lacquer wedding-cake boxes. They were dispatched by messenger or by post to each household on the approved list.
These homesteads responded with gifts appropriate to the bride’s dowry. They included garments suitable for addition to the trousseau, household furniture, bedding, crockery, silverware, kitchen utensils, and jewelry.
Seamstresses helped the women of the family sew gowns of flowered silk for all the family, as well as fashion the wedding garments for the bride.
III
Mai-da was teased about her future husband. She was laughingly told that he had flat feet, a terrible temper, a pock-marked face, a beard, untidy habits, a finicky appetite, a weak digestion, the body of a giant, and the mind of a simpleton. She met this jesting with admirable self-control. But she bartered away her birthday camera to her boy cousin, Tsai-fu, in return for half a dozen snapshots of her betrothed. So she satisfied herself that he was the man whom she had seen two years previously, worshiping the God of Knowledge at the City Temple.
Red cards of invitation to the‘Maid’s Feast’ were sent to friends and relatives, so timed as to reach them ten days before the feast. They responded with many more gifts, among them four gowns, one for each season; in these every woman resident in the homestead of Mai-da’s betrothed had put stitches of welcome.
Hau-li was busy in court and garden coaxing the peonies with pruning knife, liquid fertilizers, and sprinkling basin. Mai-da and I thought that the showing of flowers and buds was perfect. In varieties of every size, from the round of a summer fan to the rim of a humming bird’s nest, they gave dignity and fragrance to the House of Exile. They rose, on glazed tile terraces facing the south side of the lapis-lazuli pond, in a hill of color shading through dark plum, wine red, sunset rose, sunrise pink, apple bloom, and cloud white.
Reed awnings were put up to shade the courts, crimson carpets laid in brilliant pattern on the tiles. Rosy banners were fastened to float on the spring breezes over the courtyard walls. The house pillars were wrapped in bindings of silk. Vermilion curtains were hung in doorways. All the decorative treasures of ivory, porcelain, bronze, and jade were brought from chests and set where their antiquity showed best. Scrolls of red and gold were pasted on either side of the To and From the World Gate, announcing to all who passed that Mai-da, daughter of the House of Lan, would go out to complete the House of Tseng, as wife to Tseng Huai-ching, on the birthday of the Protectress of Blossoms.
Friends from a distance, and women relatives and friends who desired to assist in the preparations, began to arrive four days before the wedding day. Courtesy demands that feast food be ready to welcome these guests, so there were continuous bustle and stir in the kitchens a week before the wedding.
With thoughtful consideration, the groom’s household sent to the bride’s household gifts of wine, cakes, roast geese, braised duck, pickled pork, spiced mutton, sugared nuts, candied fruits, and sweetmeats prepared by their recipes. With equally thoughtful consideration, the bride’s family, realizing that early guests would be arriving at the groom’s house too, sent gifts of wine, cakes, roast geese, braised duck, pickled pork, spiced mutton, sugared nuts, candied fruits, and sweetmeats made by their recipes. There was a delightful confusion of servants carrying baskets between the two households — in itself a source of happiness, as carriers are tipped each time they deliver a parcel in Chinese homes.
In the forenoon of the day before the bride was sent, bearers in brilliant wedding garments carried Mai-da’s dowry to her new home. Musicians played wind, string, and hand instruments at the front and at the rear of this procession. It was ninety-one carrying poles long. Each pole was loaded with what two men could carry. The large furniture was wrapped in red covers. The smaller articles and the wearing apparel were packed in sheets. But a Swiss clock with a bird that sang the hour was carried uncovered so that the village might enjoy it.
Camel-back walked behind the procession. He was entrusted with Maida’s jewel box and with the inventory of her possessions.
On the marriage eve, the ‘Maid’s Feast’ was held in the Hall of Hospitality. The hall was decorated with the symbols of happiness and illuminated with scarlet candles. Mai-da’s mother presided. Mai-da came to the hall when the first course had been served and poured wine into each guest’s cup.
She was dressed, for the last time, in the costume of girlhood. Her hair had been brushed to a blue-black gloss. It hung in a thick plait far below her waist. Faithful Duck had tinted her lips with ruby. Her eyes were bright with excitement. She was exquisite in the straight bamboo-green dress made for the occasion.
On the evening before she leaves home, each girl of the House of Exile dines alone with the First Lady of Authority. Mai-da dined with Kuei-tzu. Then she burned the incense of farewell in the Hall of Ancestors, and was sent to bed.
IV
The pad-pad of cloth shoes on the dusty road heralded the approach of the bridal chair before dawn. At sunrise the flutes played the ‘Call for the Bride,’ and the To and From the World Gate creaked open.
Faithful Duck hurried out. She returned to our room to say that the groom’s musicians numbered thirtytwo; that the bridal chair had eight bearers; that there were two green chairs each with four bearers, one of which had held the groom’s aunt, who had the bridal cloak and red handkerchief, and had gone to drink tea with Mai-da’s mother, the other to carry herself, Faithful Duck, the bride’s good serving matron; also more banner-men than she had been able to count, as they moved about so much — bearers, musicians, banner-men, all in new wedding coats of scarlet satin, with heavy thread-of-gold embroidery.
Shun-ko came. She ordered Faithful Duck to stop her chatter and fetch bath water for her mistress. She laid out Mai-da’s lotus-perfumed wedding undergarments. She hid her emotion by scolding Mai-da for being too lenient with her servant. Another aunt came and painted Mai-da’s alarming pallor with a liquid lotion. Then Chingmei used her lip rouge on the bride’s mouth, saying that it was absolutely proof against coming off on the nuptial cup.
A cousin came to say that the bridegroom had arrived, and was now kneeling before the Elders making formal request for their daughter to ‘complete himself,’ and would soon return to his homestead to await Mai-da.
The wedding dress was slipped over Mai-da’s head and adjusted. It was admired by all the women and children, who were now clustered in the room, in the doorway, and around the window. Mai-da had been a quiet doll to paint and dress, but suddenly she began to laugh with shrill hysteria. No one could stop her. The Elder’s wife sent word that everyone excepting Shun-ko, who ‘has sense,’ and Faithful Duck, was to leave the Springtime Bower. Uncle Keng-lin came with his table lute and played lullabies to quiet Maida’s nerves.
It was noon when Mai-da came to the Hall of Dignity. She bowed to the guests. She knelt in farewell to the Elders and to her parents. Her father fastened the groom’s cloak about her shoulders. Her mother dropped his handkerchief as a veil over her face. The family cried, ‘May you be as happy as the maid from Canton!’ Crackers were fired in loud explosion. Mai-da was lifted into the bride’s chair. The chair was closed. The sealing papers were fastened.
Kuei-tzu, Lady of First Authority in the Lin homestead, put her name on the seals. The drums rapped the call to start. The cymbals clanged assent. Flutes gave the ‘Wail of Departure.’ The groom’s aunt and Faithful Duck got into the two green chairs. Lifting poles creaked. The bride’s procession passed out of the house of her girlhood; the To and From the World Gate was locked behind her.
The clan of Lin gathered from far and near, feasting and talking and playing table games to pass the time, waited until the invitation should come from the clan of Tseng inviting the bride’s mother to the ‘After the Rites of the Marriage Bed Breakfast,’ which is assurance that the groom’s family are satisfied.
Thus Mai-da went to her husband.
V
Born in 1904, Tai-chun was married in the Chrysanthemum Moon, when he was eighteen. The present Elder of Lin is industrious in keeping the admonition of the sages: ‘Marry your sons as soon as they are grown.’ By the marriage of a son he can bring into his homestead yet another charming young woman, descendant of one of his friends, and also fill the homestead courtyards still more full with beautiful Lin children.
The messenger delivering the announcements of the birth of Lin Taichun, great-grandnephew of the Lin Family Elder, crossed paths with the messenger delivering announcements of the birth of Pien Wei-ling, great-granddaughter of the Pien Family Elder.
Stopping to gossip, the messengers agreed that the newborn boy and girl would certainly marry. This supposition was also voiced in every family that received the birth announcements.
Before the ‘Rounding of the Year,’ Tai-chun’s mother received and accepted an invitation to spend a moon in the Pien courtyards, during which the babies shared the same cradle. Some time later, Wei-ling’s mother returned the visit. The children sat in a double pushcart and each had a hand string to the kite that old Camel-back made and flew for them.
From then until the ‘Cycle of Ten’ they were together a month or two every year, staying with their nurses in the Garden of Children either of the Lin or of the Pien homestead. The year that they were twelve, Tai-chun wove Wei-ling a sewing basket, of rice straw (the one she still uses) and equipped it, spending his own pocket money. And Wei-ling, helped by her younger brother, made Tai-chun a boat to sail on the shallow pond.
After that, of course, Tai-chun was too old to play with girls. He lived on the male side of his homestead. He had a tutor who was gruff with him if he even so much as mentioned them. The tutor punished such idleness by obliging him to commit to memory pages from Confucius’s books, to cleanse his mind.
Naturally Wei-ling also was no longer permitted the license of a child. Promoted to the Springtime Bower, she was chaperoned in maidenly seclusion. While kept from man, yet, as marriage was to be her career, her educators seldom permitted her thoughts to stray away from man or the arts by which to please him.
The clans of Lin and Pien are both exceedingly cautious. Both received invitations to betrothal from other clans as the years passed. Neither entirely rebuffed any one of these queries. Then, at New Year 1919, the House of Lin included a pair of embroidered pockets in the usual friendly gifts to the House of Pien. One pocket held a red card on which Tai-chun’s name, birth hour, day, moon, and year were brushed in gold. The other was empty. The House of Pien returned the empty pocket filled with a red card on which were brushed Wei-ling’s name, birth hour, day, moon, and year.
At the Dragon, the Harvest, and the New Year Festivals for three years after this, the House of Lin sent sweetmeats and flowers to Wei-ling. On the third Dragon Festival they included a pink flowered silk of the shade used only by a bride, thus indicating that they but waited for her to name the day to make everything ready to receive her. She announced the day by sending the wife of the Lin Family Elder a square of the bride’s silk on which she had painted seven chrysanthemums, thus indicating the seventh day of the Chrysanthemum Moon as her choice.
Phœnix-and-dragon cakes were then baked for the betrothed groom, in addition to those sent to the promised bride. Accompanied only by Camelback to carry the red kneeling mat, Taichun called in each homestead within visiting distance and gave his wedding invitation to the Elder and his wife. Others were sent by post.
Horn moon lanterns (symbolic of marriage, because each month the pale lady Moon throws herself into the embrace of her lover the radiant Sun, leaving him only when he has kindled new light in her) were hung outside t he To and From the World Gate and were lit each sunset. Red and gold scrolls below them announced that the great-granddaughter of Pien was soon coming to complete the House of Exile by union with the great-grandnephew of Lin.
The family portraits, even the most ancient and fragile, were unrolled and hung in the halls. Silk hangings, awnings, banners, carpets, and candelabra were arranged with even more elaborateness than for Mai-da’s marriage. A daughter’s marriage holds the sadness of departure, but a son’s marriage holds only the joy of arrival.
The family shared rooms, so that, in addition to the usual guest courts, there were three courts in the men’s quarters and three in the women’s vacated. These were prepared for ‘sleeping guests,’ some of whom began to arrive ten days before the date. Food in abundance was ready for them.
They also all brought hampers of cooked meats, cakes, and fruit. There was so much that even the children rose from the tables replete after each meal. Trays were heaped with rich dishes for all the needy who knocked at the Gate of Compassion.
Gifts were displayed at one end of the Hall of Family Gathering. There were fans, furs, gown-lengths of brocade and heavy washing silk, and jeweled coat buttons; books, furniture, bed quilts, pillows, tapestries, rugs, porcelain, mirrors; money in the form of gold and silver bars; ducks, geese, turkeys, and goats, which were taken to the stable; rice, barley, wheat, millet, corn, rose trees, and a canoe. Each gift was accompanied by a large red card brushed with the name of the donor and the gift.
The magnificent Lin bride’s chair, for which the gold lacquer was made at Foochow and whose tapestry occupied the wives of Lin ten years, is of such workmanship that two centuries of use have but enriched its elegance. At dawn on the marriage eve, the groom knelt in the circle of his ancestral tablets, on the hearth of his homestead, and before his Elders. In each place he told that he intended now to take the bride’s chair to a worthy maid. Firecrackers were set off as he departed. He was attended by musicians, banner bearers, and his aunt. She carried the cloak and the veil for the bride. The House of Pien is three villages up the canal. Giant crackers, exploded at the wharf, were heard in the Lin homestead as Tai-chun embarked with his escort in four rowboats.
The bride’s house in the Lin homestead was waiting when the Pien servants came with her dowry at midday. The Lin Elder’s wife, as Lady of First Authority, superintended the placing of her tulipwood bed. Half a dozen wives assisted in the arranging of things. The rosewood chest, carved with one hundred laughing chubby babies, which by custom contains the bedding the bride desires to use on her marriage night, was opened and unpacked. The pink silk bed curtains were hung under the four-posted canopy. The mattress was spread. Coverlets of peach blossom, primrose, and heliotrope were put in place. The copper ‘baby’s first bath basin’ was found to need no polishing. It was turned upside down to be used as a table on which to serve the bride and groom’s nuptial supper.
The lacquer chest, holding the bride’s garments for the festivities, was put against, one wall. The table, with its dwarf pine tree, symbol of long life, and the tapers of red wax, was placed against the opposite wall with a straight-back chair on either side of it. ‘Our Lady of Five Sons and Two Daughters,’ a lovely tinted ivory figure with a sweet Madonna face, was unwound from her wrappings and stood in her niche above the bed.
VI
The groom returned next day, an hour before the arrival of his bride, and in ample time to dress. The Family Elder bade her procession welcome at the To and From the World Gate. The Lin women took the carrying poles from the servants and lifted the bride’s chair in, over the apple of peace. The seals were broken and she descended. She placed an apple, pledge of peace, beside the string of cash, pledge of fortune, that lay on a grain measure in the centre of the court.
Her husband welcomed her by offering her refreshment after her journey from the ‘cup of the perfect circle,’ which necessitated the lifting of her veil before they could share the wine. Then he led her to kneel with him in the Hall of Ancestors, at his Homestead Hearth, and before his Elders, which observance is a symbol that henceforth they are one in rights and responsibilities, as though she had been born in his clan.
Then the Lin family stood at the end of their Hall of Dignity to receive the congratulations of their guests. To the Elders each guest said, ‘May you soon have another descendant on your knee.’ To the groom’s parents, ‘May you embrace grandchildren and great-grandchildren.’ To the bride and groom, ‘May you live together five generations.’ To all other Lins, ‘Good! Good! Good!’
The women’s feast was served that evening in the Court of the Favorite Eaves of Nesting Swallows, the men’s feast in the Court of the Happy Waterfall. The groom passed from man to man, pouring wine and pressing some special dish on each. The bride passed from woman to woman, pouring wine and pressing some special dish on each. Little girl children sat at table with the women, and little boys with the men. The courtesy to them was identical with that shown to their elders.
When the wedding couple had accomplished ‘wine and food politeness,’ they went to the bride’s house, where their supper had been placed on the upturned copper basin. The bride and groom shared the ‘son and daughter dumplings,’the ‘bread of long life,’ and the ‘wine of sympathy.’ While they ate, the Family Elder and his wife sat together on the bench under the cherry tree, outside the bride’s window, and sang the ‘Mating Song.’ This song may be sung only by a man and a woman who have loved each other for more than five decades. . . .
The bride’s mother came to breakfast. The sulky chrysanthemums had refused to bloom earlier, despite all coaxing, but they opened their silken petals that morning to welcome the young wife. She was dressed in that stiff silk named by its weavers ‘roses at dawn.’ Seamstresses had fashioned it into bell-legged trousers and a collarless but very graceful short coat. It had been embroidered with the flowers of every season in threads so fine that they appeared to be painted on. Her husband’s gift, a sapphire like a bit of the China sky at night, sparkled as she patted her anxious parent reassuringly before she sat down.
VII
An Englishman in the Chinese Government Service, whom I had met on the Empress of Asia when I went home for a brief visit, was given my China address during his stay in America. In the Peony Moon, he returned to China a fortnight before the expiration of his ‘leave,’and sent his sister-in-law to call upon me. She is nice. I liked her at first meeting.
The second time that she came to see me he came with her. He said that he had been appointed to Nanking. Mai-da had accompanied her husband to Nanking three months previously. The residence the government provided him was just five minutes’ walk from the residence provided for Mai-da’s husband. Aside from giving me this information, the rest of the time of the call was taken up with telling me gravely that I made a mistake in staying on in China.
Twice in the Dragon Moon he kindly took the trouble to explain to me that I ought not to do what I was doing. He came three times in the Lotus Moon. On the fifth day of the Harvest Moon he asked me in marriage.
He was found suitable, on investigation, by both the Chinese and the American people who had concern for me. This was well. It made everything much more pleasant.
I was most confusedly in love. I dreaded speaking about it, if he asked me. But he did n’t ask. From the first meeting, he had distracted my mind. Even though I resolved not to think of him, his face would keep appearing between me and a book I tried to read, or his voice would suddenly sound instead of the words I tried to write on a page. This still happens even now. I found love annoying and uncomfortable, like fetters, until I got used to it.
During the weeks that my betrothed’s intent to marry me was publicly posted at his country’s consulate, it was also read out each Sunday morning in the Church of England: ‘If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it.’
No one declared anything, so, after ihe ten o’clock service at the British Consulate, I changed my dress and then was married at twelve o’clock in the Church of England. This very nearly did not happen. Shortly before the service was to begin, the aged Dean of the Cathedral comprehended that I was a Quaker and that, if such was true, I had never been baptized.
I had n’t. Neither had any of my progenitors within my memory. The Dean explained that marriage is a Christian sacrament which he considered it wrong to administer to one who had not been christened. The Quakers present from Philadelphia were drawn into the matter. Joseph Swain said that words spoken over water did not make it holy, nor could the touch of such water make one more Christian. The aged Dean had a long answer to that. It began to seem to me that my marriage was not to be. Then it flashed into my mind that all water which falls from heaven is holy, and words spoken over it could not change it. I mentioned this quietly to one of my Quaker relatives, an elderly woman whose judgment I have always found sound. She agreed, and quietly told the others.
My betrothed, the Dean, and I went into a side chapel. The Dean asked me some questions. I answered them. He was really a very kindly man. My answers seemed to comfort him. I asked him some questions. I found him not unlike a Quaker. He sprinkled some water on my head. My husbandto-be was written in a book as my godfather.
Previous to my own wedding, I had never seen a wedding other than Quaker and Chinese weddings. Neither had I ever been in a place built for worship other than Chinese temples and Quaker meetinghouses. The Cathedral, where I was married, has stained-glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible in color. There were white flowers, tall lighted candles, and a sonorous organ on which one of my husband’s friends played music that bade one yield obedience to supernatural powers.
We go to Quaker meetings with or without hats as we choose. It is the same in Chinese temples. But a woman has to have her head covered to enter here. I had a matron of honor to attend me and prompt me when to walk to the music, when to kneel, and when to rise. She had covered me with a lovely filmy white veil of handmade lace, fashioned it into a cap with a wreath of orange blossoms, and spread it over my white dress so that it trailed far behind. I had also something old, something blue, and something new.
The aged Dean did not conduct the service. A young clergyman, surpliccd in white, possessed of the most lyrical voice I have ever heard, read it from the church prayer book in cadenced solemnity. Hearing this marriage sacrament for the first time, I was surprised at it. During one part I was panicky and thought: ‘What am I doing here?’ I had regret that I had trusted so naively. I observed the solemn man beside me. I felt as though some awful trap were closing around me. As word followed word, I had a desire to get away quickly. It was late autumn, but the day was warm. A window had been opened. When I turned from the altar I faced this window.
A wren sat on the inside sill. She was arranging her feathers. The sight of the little bird sitting inside the Cathedral casually preening herself restored me. Through ten happy years I have been grateful for her sweet naturalness.
I turned again to the altar. Although Quakers are not wedded with rings, I reassured the startled young clergyman by putting back on the fourth finger of my left hand the ring I had pulled off, and knelt again beside my quietly waiting husband.
{The End)