Peony: A Novel of China by Pearl S. Buck

did eat,” Leah said frankly, “but I am hungry again.”
    “It is the morning,” Peony said. “The air is dry and good today. I will bring you food, Lady, as soon as I have settled you in your rooms. I made them ready for you yesterday, and I shall bring you some fresh gardenias. They should not be plucked early, lest they turn brown at the edges.”
    So the two young women went together, each very conscious of the new relationship between them and each trying to fulfill it. Wang Ma had gone ahead to tell Madame Ezra that Leah had come, and so Peony was left to lead Leah to her rooms.
    “Am I to have this whole court?” Leah asked in surprise when Peony paused. The rooms were much more beautiful than any she had ever used. As a child she remembered having seen here David’s grandmother, an old lady, lighting candles at sundown.
    “There are only two rooms,” Peony said. “One is for your sleep and the other for you to sit in when you are alone.”
    She guided Leah into the rooms and a man followed, bringing her box. When he was gone Peony showed her the garments that Madame Ezra herself had worn in her youth, the robes of the Jewish people. Straight and full and long they hung, scarlet trimmed with gold, and deep blue trimmed with silver and yellow edged with emerald green.
    “You are to wear the scarlet one today,” Peony said. “But first you must eat and then be bathed and perfumed, and here are jewels for your ears and your bosom. And my mistress says you are not to hide yourself away here alone, but you are to come out and walk about the courts and mingle with the family and enjoy all the house.”
    “How kind she is!” Leah said. Then she was shy. “I doubt I can feel so free in a day,” she told Peony.
    “Why not?” Peony said half carelessly. “There is no one here to hurt you.” She opened a lacquered red box on the dressing table as she spoke, and Leah saw a little heap of gold and silver trinkets set with precious stones.
    Leah looked up from where she sat beside the table and met Peony’s smiling, secret eyes.
    “It is marriage, is it not?” Peony asked in a light clear voice. “I think our mistress has made up her mind that you are to marry our young lord.”
    Leah’s face quivered. “A marriage cannot be made,” she replied quickly.
    “How else, then?” Peony inquired hardily. “Is not every marriage made?”
    “Not among our people,” Leah said proudly.
    She looked away, and reminded herself again that this pretty Chinese girl was only a bondmaid. It was not at all suitable that she should discuss with Peony the sacred subject of her marriage. Indeed, it was too sacred yet even for her own thought, something as distant and high as God’s will. “I will have something to eat now, if you please,” Leah said in a cool firm voice. “Then afterward I can dress myself—I am used to doing so. Please tell Wang Ma I will not have her help—or yours.”
    Peony, hearing this voice, perfectly understood what was going on in Leah’s mind. She bent her head and smiled. “Very well, Lady,” she said in her sweet and docile way, and turning she left the room.
    A few minutes later a serving woman brought in food, and Leah ate it alone. When she was finished the serving woman took it away, and alone Leah brushed her hair and washed again and put on the scarlet dress. But she put no perfume on herself, and she took none of the jewels from the box. When she was ready she sat down in the outer room and waited.
    Peony had gone to her own room and wept steadily for a few minutes because Leah was so beautiful. She looked at herself in the mirror on her dressing table, and it seemed to her that all her own charms were mean and small. She was a little thing, light as a bird, and although her face was round, her frame had no strength. Leah was like a princess and she like a child. Yet she could not hate Leah. There was something lofty and good about the Jewish girl, and Peony knew that she