Chapter XLIV · The Sound of a Chinese Gong
Reading edition
IT was a pretty wedding, and very simple. The Lees were simple English gentlefolk.
It was a quiet ceremony, quietly performed. There was but little music; no fife, no drum, no clang. The old organist played softly. (Neither he nor Mrs. Gregory gave a thought to who had given the instrument; and no one else there had ever known.) No incense burned. The English sunshine, perfumed by the roses that grew about the village graves, drifted softly through the old church windows and dappled on the chancel floor and on the altar rails and on the organ’s pipes. And the holy place was sweet with quiet harmony.
Even Robert Gregory, spruce and straight, wearing the whitest pair of gloves, and almost tightest into which human hands were ever packed, was content. He was glad to see Basil settled. The girl had no “dot,” but she was pretty enough to eat; and his manliness was of a straight, sturdy stuff, and held that a man should earn and provide for his wife, by the Lord Harry, every time. And for once he was satisfied again with Mrs. Gregory’s appearance. She looked fine in her gray and gold, and the emeralds at her breast and pinning the scrap of bonnet on her white curls were some style.
Hilda listened to the old service with a rapt, tender face. John Bradley was coming home for six months of holiday next week. She had no doubt that he’d come to see her mother.
Mrs. Gregory was not displeased. It was no part of her regret to wish that Basil should live all his life wifeless and childless. And the rift between her boy and her saved her the jealousy that happier mothers must suffer when their first-born son weds. Sorry recompense—but recompense.
Basil Gregory did not make a very brave bridegroom. But only his mother noticed it. Most wedding-guests have little eye to spare for mere bridegrooms. And there is something about the function so trying to masculine sensitiveness that before now kings and heroes have carried themselves a little craven at their happiest triumph.
Basil Gregory saw two girls beside him at God’s altar.
As he passed down the aisle with his wife’s shy hand on his arm, he felt the touch of a smaller, tawnier hand. Its weight hurt him; it was heavy with fabulous nail-protectors and with priceless rings. He was madly in love with his wife, and, too, he was madly miserable, because he knew now that they two would never be quite alone—neither by day nor by night. His mother saw and knew. Just before they passed her he stumbled a little, startled by the sound of a Chinese gong.
And a few hours later, in the still sweetness of the dark, it smote him again.
Rest, Wu Li Chang! Be satisfied! The Englishman is punished. He has broken his mother’s heart. Your curse is fulfilled. Basil Gregory heard your gong cry out a soul’s damnation to-day above his wife’s “I will.” So long as he lives he will hear it, a bitter, relentless knell. When ginger is hottest in his mouth, when wine bubbles reddest in his cup, when the English girl he loves lifts with tired, triumphant hands their firstborn toward his arms, through the young mother’s misty smile he will see Nang’s face, above the baby’s first cry he will hear the throbbing note of a Chinese gong.
Rest! Sleep in your Sze-chuan grave! Your hideous vengeance is complete, life-long, soul-deep. It is greater than even you could have planned. Almost it is adequate.
“The great mountain must crumble, The strong beam must break, The wise man must wither away like a plant,” Confucius crooned as he died.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised while hyphenation has been retained as it appears in the original publication. Changes have been made as follows:
Page 25 The yamén was a bleak, empty place changed to The yamên was a bleak, empty place
Page 52 relations with the inumerable changed to relations with the innumerable
Page 56 made repeated obesiance and withdrew changed to made repeated obeisance and withdrew
Page 101 the blonde hair was marceled into changed to the blonde hair was marcelled into
Page 126 body with hers, as far as he could changed to body with hers, as far as she could
Page 128 At the Feet of Kwayin Ko changed to At the Feet of Kwanyin Ko
Page 189 ordinary English visting card changed to ordinary English visiting card
Page 209 Gregory asked dearily changed to Gregory asked drearily
Page 255 the mandarin said quiety changed to the mandarin said quietly
Page 261 of any sacrifice, it it not changed to of any sacrifice, is it not
Page 273 Almost wthin sound of your changed to Almost within sound of your
Page 313 Basil Grgory saw two girls changed to Basil Gregory saw two girls