China Edward Rutherfurd (essential reading .txt) 📖

Maybe I could borrow the money. If Elder Uncle would do some work, we could farm it. But I can’t take it on by myself.”

“Maybe when your father and your brother get back…”

“Yes.” He nodded. “They haven’t sent us any money yet, have they?”

“It’s a long way. They will.”

“I don’t even know where California is.” He fell silent again.

“Far away,” she said absently.

“When my little sister gets married, she’ll need to have all sorts of things. Embroidered shoes and I don’t know what. That all costs money. Do you suppose we’ll have enough?”

“Mother and I have thought of that,” said Mei-Ling.

“What are you going to do?”

“Sell your uncle’s opium pipe.”

“He won’t like that.” A slow smile crept over her son’s face. “He’ll have a fit.”

Mei-Ling nodded slowly, but her thoughts seemed to have moved on to another subject. “Do you know what else worries me?” she asked.

“No.”

“You should be married. We should have made you marry long ago.”

“Like father, like son, I suppose.” He smiled. “My father was obstinate when he made his parents let him marry you.”

She sighed. He looked so like his father just then that it almost gave her pain. “What sort of girl do you want?”

“Someone like you.”

“I’m sure you could do better. My family had nothing, remember.”

“I’m not ambitious. I’m a peasant. I work the land. I like it that way.”

“Then we’ll find you a nice girl like me.”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“The house is too sad.”

“Maybe it would be happier if you had a wife and children.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “Nothing feels right. What with Elder Uncle being the way he is, and Father not here and…I don’t know.”

“Things are never completely right.”

“When Father gets back, and my brother, and they bring more money…”

“You’ll marry then? You promise?”

“All right.” He nodded. “I promise.”

When Father gets back. But when might that be? In another two years?

There was not a day when Mei-Ling did not think of Second Son. Not a night when she did not long for him. But there had been no word. Soon, perhaps, they might hear something. If the American came again, he would bring news, and money, too, perhaps. But so far, nothing.

And still that little voice spoke to her and told her: “You will not see him again.”

—

The Binder was as good as her word, and it had to be said she was thorough. By the time the month was up, she had taught both Mei-Ling and Mother how to tie the bandages, wrapping them a little tighter each time; how to sew them in place so that they didn’t need to be changed every day; how to wash and powder each foot. She also taught them how to lift the little girl up and drop her onto a narrow block of wood laid on the ground—a most useful exercise that helped to break down the arches of her feet. Though she still had to reprove Mei-Ling from time to time for weeping when Bright Moon screamed—which, as she pointed out, was no help to the little girl at all.

“When will I stop wearing bandages?” Bright Moon asked her one day.

“Never, my dear,” the Binder explained. “You’ll always have a light binding for the rest of your life, just to keep everything in place.”

She left on a sunny morning, promising to return a month later.

—

Around noon that day, the weather changed. Grey clouds, trailing skirts of mist, came into the valley from the coast. A dull humidity settled over the hamlet. Bright Moon was subdued. Mother had sat down indoors and closed her eyes.

Mei-Ling went out through the gate and stared down at the pond. The water was grey as the sky. The reeds by the bank hung their heads—in boredom, perhaps. The flock of ducks at the foot of the bridge made no sound.

She stood there for a quarter of an hour before she saw the single figure emerge from the trees at the far end of the bridge. The figure paused, as if debating whether to cross the bridge, so she supposed it wasn’t someone from the hamlet. And she was about to call out that the wood was rotten and that it wasn’t safe when the person evidently came to the same conclusion and disappeared back onto the path through the woods. She wondered idly who the stranger might be. But since the track led to the village lane in one direction, or into a network of fields some way behind the house in the other, she didn’t expect to see him again.

She was taken by surprise, five minutes later, when the figure came from behind the barn and made its way towards her, and she realized that it was her younger son.

“Mother.” He had grown a little taller, thickened, turned into a powerful young workingman during his absence. He carried a bag on his back, a stick in his hand. He didn’t smile at the sight of her. He looked very tired.

“You are back,” she cried. How could he be back already? “You came from America?”

“Yes.”

“Where is your father?”

But with a sinking heart she guessed, even before he said it.

“Father’s dead.”

After he told her what had happened, he said he needed to lie down. Then he slept.

—

Mei-Ling told Mother first, asked her to tell the others and to ensure no one disturbed her sleeping son. “We’ll get the whole story when he wakes up tomorrow,” she promised.

But first, she thought, she’d better prepare her poor little daughter. So she went in to Bright Moon and sat on the bed and gently told her: “There is bad news. Your father had an accident. He was killed, in America.”

The little girl didn’t say anything for a moment. She just stared in shock.

“I’m here, my little one, and so is all your family, and your brother is back from America, too. We’re all here. But your father won’t be back.” And she put her arms around the child.

“I’ll never see him again?”

“You can think of him. I’m sure he’s watching over