THREE

No, Jack, come back here.” I hoisted my infant daughter on my hip while I grabbed my son by the scruff of his neck, dragging him back over to the pile of wooden blocks that I had laid out on the rug in front of the window seat.

They would be here any minute. I looked around anxiously. The scene was set, but my offspring refused to cooperate. Little Elizabeth squirmed in my arms and my fifteen-month-old son had recently discovered how to crawl with rapid crablike movements, escaping my grasp.

“No, Jack, stay. Play with the blocks, see?” They were given to us by Dean Marion Talbot, who’d been told by the top educators at the university that these were the most up-to-date learning toys available. I piled them up, hoping he would take the hint and imitate his beloved mama, but he was having none of it. He saw Kitty slip under the shawl I had draped over the desk and he wanted to follow. I clung to his little jacket as I heard the doorbell.

“Delia!” There was no need for me to yell. Our young maid was conscientious in the extreme. Stephen said she was afraid of me, but lately it seemed I could do nothing right in his eyes. “Straighten your cap,” I hissed when Delia stopped in the doorway, confused. She was a slight, pale girl of fifteen with large blue eyes and hunched shoulders. “Go, answer the door.” I let go of Jack to wave her away.

Sitting up straight, so as to be carefully framed in the bay window, I tried to smooth my skirts and arranged my little daughter in my arms. I had chosen the sprigged muslin of my dress to complement the green velvet drapes hanging in the window. Making clothes for myself and the children had become an obsession of mine over the last year. But my skill with a needle was questionable. I looked down and noticed the dropped stitches in the seam of my daughter’s matching gown. I plucked at the fabric and moved her to my other arm to hide the fault. Suddenly, I felt how very makeshift and cheap the whole place must appear.

The second-story apartment on Blackstone was the best we could afford. There were a few good pieces of furniture I had inherited when my mother passed away, but I had to scrimp and save and do my own sewing to try to achieve the level of gentility I remembered from my parents’ home in Boston. Seeing the room through a stranger’s eyes, I felt a complete fool. My efforts were so amateur. The two exotic women entering my home had been entertained in some of the finest drawing rooms of Prairie Avenue and Michigan Avenue. Whatever had possessed Stephen to invite them to tea in our pitiful little parlor?

Jack found his balance on all fours and moved towards the desk where I had so carefully set out tea and sandwiches. “No, Jack,” I hissed. I could hear Delia directing our guests to the parlor door. I half rose, but suddenly Elizabeth screamed. I realized I had accidentally squeezed her little arm. She was red in the face with anger as I sat back down.

My children seemed determined to disrupt this important occasion. Sometimes I wondered how Stephen and I could have created our children. Jack was named for my father, Elizabeth for my husband’s mother, but when faced with their contrariness, my children seemed far more foreign than any of the children of immigrants I had met at Hull House.

Lizzie screamed again and beat her little fists in my face. “Lizzie, no, here.” I rocked her in my arms, but she only screamed louder. As I tried to quiet her, I saw a sudden look of alarm appear on Delia’s face. Behind her, two round faces appeared, looking startled. I turned to see what they were responding to, but I was too late.

I yelled, “No, Jack!” as my son yanked the shawl down from the desk, pulling the tea and sandwiches onto the floor. The hot tea splashed his shirt, he screamed, and the cat jumped out from under the desk, grabbed a sandwich, then escaped into the hallway with a scratch of her claws on the wooden floor. Lizzie hiccupped sharply and I looked down in time to see her throw up all over the front of my dress. And then, to cap it all off, I felt my whole face tremble and, to my immense embarrassment, I broke down in sobs. I wanted to sink into the floor and die. I just couldn’t stop it. Trying to stop only made it worse. It was horrible.

Through my sobs I saw Delia frozen in the doorway. The poor girl had no idea what to do. Then, the two small women behind her glided in and brought order to chaos. Ida Kahn, the shorter one with round rimless spectacles, gathered up Jack, wiped the tea off his shirt and hands with a towel from the desk, and whisked him back to his blocks. With him ensconced on her lap, she was soon entertaining him by building towers.

At the same time Mary Stone whispered to Delia, who disappeared and returned with cloths the Chinese woman used to clean up the tea from the floor, righting the pot and placing it on the desk. Then she lifted my still wailing daughter out of my hands and gently hushed her. I gathered together the scattered sandwiches and retreated to the kitchen.

Delia quickly prepared a fresh tray of tea things. By the time it was ready I’d managed to bring my sobs to a sputtering stop and to sponge off the front of my dress, so I carried it out to the parlor. Mary passed Lizzie off to Delia, who took the baby eagerly, looking at me with apprehension. Despite the fact that she had been hired to help care for the children, I’d made it perfectly clear that I would not have my motherly duties usurped, so she was fearful of my disapproval now. I gulped and nodded, allowing her to relax as Mary led her to the rocking chair, where she was soon happily rocking with the baby.

I stiffened as Mary turned back to me with a cup of tea. I patted the damp spot on the front of my gown, completely humiliated by the chaos. With all the authority of a medical doctor she insisted I drink a cup of heavily sweetened tea, hovering over me until I obeyed. It calmed me, but I felt a knot in my throat that prevented me from speaking, I was so embarrassed. Even coughing would not clear it.

Refilling my cup and setting it by me, she took a cup for herself and sat primly in one of the chairs I had set out for my guests, hoping to impress them with a picture of domestic happiness. What a perfect mess my children and I had made of that! But now there was quiet, as Jack gurgled with joy in the games Ida played with him and Delia rocked Lizzie in mutual comfort.

Mary sipped her cup of tea as if none of the chaos of the past several minutes had ever happened. “We were so very happy to receive your invitation,” she told me. “You are so kind to invite us into your home.” She was a petite woman with a heart-shaped face, smooth as porcelain. Both women wore Western dresses in the most up-to-date fashion, with high-necked collars, huge leg-of-mutton sleeves, and waists cinched tight. Delicate tiny pearl earrings dropped from their ears on almost invisible wires.

I sniffled inelegantly and attempted to swallow. I still could not quite bring myself to speak.

“As you know, Ida and I have been here for several years studying. In Ann Arbor we lived with Miss Howe, Ida’s adopted mother, who brought us from China. Of course, people were very kind to us and we had friends, especially among our Methodist congregation. But it was not so often that we have been welcomed into the home of a woman scholar such as yourself. We are very grateful to you for taking the time to see us.”

Finally, I took a deep breath and, stretching my neck, spoke around the knot in my throat. “I must apologize for the confusion. I am so sorry.”

“Oh, no, you must not say so. It is a great honor to visit you. Ida and I have been able to spend our time studying these past years but that is nothing to your accomplishments. To be not only a scholar at the University of Chicago but also a wife and mother to two children, this is extremely impressive. I cannot tell you how much we admire you. Dr. Chapman has told us how proud he is of his most accomplished wife. We would learn from you,” she said earnestly.

I ducked my head in embarrassment. It was praise I little deserved. I had been a scholar, it was true. Before the birth of my son I even held a lectureship. For that fall quarter I had managed to retain the position, despite the prejudice against giving any appointment to a married woman, and I had proven myself in my post. But, by spring, it was impossible to disguise my condition. There was certainly no precedent for a woman carrying a child to hold a lectureship, so I was given a leave of absence. It was against the policy of the university to employ married women, but the dean of women, Marion Talbot, argued my case. There was a tacit understanding that I would return to my duties the following fall.

I had my son in April, only to find that caring for a baby, and then moving into the apartment, was far more time-consuming than I ever imagined. When the summer ended I found myself again with child. With that discovery, I lost all hope of continuing. I was supposed to return to my appointment within a few months but, if I failed to take up the post this time, I knew I would have to give it up forever.

I realized Stephen must have told these Chinese women of my plan. It was a point of contention, one of many that summer. I knew it could only be a dream. I looked around the room, aware of the respite from the demands of my children, but I knew it was only temporary. That was something Stephen seemed unable to understand.

“No doubt you will one day have children of your own,” I told Mary. Was I wishing her a blessing, or invoking a curse? At that time in my life, I was unsure.

She shook her head sadly. “It is not to be. I see you think I am modest, but that is not it. You see, in my country a marriage must be arranged between two families.” She put down her cup. “You will find it strange, but in China a man will not marry a woman whose feet have not been bound. It is not something you have heard of here, I know. But it is the custom for a girl child to have her feet bound so they cannot grow beyond this.” She made a gesture with her hands, indicating the size of a small box.

“How can that be?” I thought of the perfect little feet of my daughter and I was appalled.

“It is painful. They are strapped in, you see…not allowed to grow.”

“How awful.”

She smiled. “It is a custom. My father decided against it. My mother had her feet bound according to custom but, when it came time for it to happen to me, my father heard my cries and he decided it would not be. My parents are Christians, you see. They already had gone against the old practices of our country so they decided to take the Western way in this as well. But it means no man would have me as a bride.” She seemed quite at peace with this. Her expression remained content.

“My father also met Dr. Kate Bushnell. She is a Western woman who had a clinic in our town. When he saw that, he was greatly impressed. He decided that his daughter, whose big feet would make her never marry, should become a doctor, too. So he took me to Miss Howe and asked her to help me become a doctor.”

Ida looked at me over Jack’s head, nodding in agreement.

“Miss Howe adopted Ida. She was the sixth daughter born to a good family. But daughters are not wanted so much, you see. Miss Howe also adopted some sons. She is the one who helped Ida and me to study medicine.”

“My husband is most impressed by your skills, both of you,” I admitted.

“But it is nothing to you, who are not only a scholar but also a wife and mother. This is most impressive. We will return to China to open a clinic in our native Jiujiang, but we will not marry.”

“I once thought I would never marry,” I confessed, surprised at myself for the sudden wish to confide in her. “You never know what the future will bring.”

She smiled and looked across at Ida, who shook her head. It was as if they shared secrets I could never understand. But I felt myself older and wiser than them. I had not expected to find myself anchored down with children as I was. I felt sure the future could not be so easily predicted for any young woman. That conviction was based on my own experience, something they could not understand.

“I am curious about your names. I’m guessing that you changed them when you came to study in America.”

“That is right. If you like, I could show you our Chinese names. I brought my calligraphy brushes along,” Mary said.

“I would love to see that. I’ve heard that you did demonstrations at some of the other houses you visited. My friends were very impressed with the beauty of your writing.” I made my way over to my desk. “I have ink right here.”

“You are not to worry. I have special ink I use. See?” She pulled a bar of solid black ink out of her bag and held it up. Then she set her things up on the desk, insisting I should sit. She asked Delia to bring her a little pitcher of water, then moistened the ink and rubbed it back and forth on a stone. Once she had the correct consistency, she placed a sheet of paper on the desk, then uncovered a bamboo brush and placed it carefully next to the ink.

When she began to unbutton the sleeves of her dress, preparing to roll them up, I stopped her.

“Oh, wait,” I said, “I have something for you to use.” I went to the desk and pulled out some paper sleeve protectors. Mary was thrilled by the discovery as I showed her how to wear them. She insisted on demonstrating to Ida how they worked. Her excitement went far towards making me feel more confident than I had since the fiasco at the start of their visit.

Once she had her preparations completed she seemed to do a little meditation, swirling the brush on the ink stone and trying it on a scrap for some moments before she began.

“Here is my Chinese name—Shih Meiyu.” She drew several intersecting lines on the paper. “In Chinese, when you say a person’s name, the family name comes first, followed by the individual’s name. My family name, Shih, means ‘stone,’ so I picked that word for my English name.” She swiftly drew several more characters. “And here is Ida’s Chinese name—Kang Aide. She picked an English family name that sounded a little like her own. And now I shall write you a poem.”

She set the first paper aside, then took a rectangle of paper and carefully folded it, over and over, until, when she opened it back up, the folds defined four squares across and five squares down. Holding the brush perpendicular to the paper she swiftly drew a little picture of a few strokes in each box. Starting from the upper right hand corner, she carefully filled in the five blocks down, then the next column top to bottom, and so forth, until the entire paper was filled. There was only one chance for each stroke, with no opportunity to correct a mistake. It made me hold my breath as she drew each square, the point of the brush held for a moment over the blank paper before it dropped down and was moved to form the image. Her concentration was so intense I hardly noticed the deep serenity of the room—Delia rocking with the baby, while Jack giggled quietly in Ida’s arms and a tranquil breeze drifted through the open window.

When Mary put down the brush she smiled and translated. She explained that she had written out a Taoist poem and pointed to each character as she named it.

A thousand mountains birds flying stopped

Ten thousand footpaths, man’s footsteps dissolved

Alone in a boat an old man wearing a straw hat sits

Alone fishing cold river snow

Somehow coolness pervaded the heat of midsummer in the room and all was at peace. If only it could last.

Suddenly the doorbell rang and there were heavy knocks on the door. My heart skipped a beat. The bell rang insistently, followed by more knocks. Mary began to move, but I put a hand on her arm, at the same time waving Delia back into the rocking chair. I would answer it. When I opened the front door, I was startled to see Detective Whitbread, his lanky frame looming over me, and two uniformed patrolmen lurking behind him.

“Mrs. Chapman, is Dr. Mary Stone here?”

“Detective Whitbread.” I felt the blood move up my neck to my cheeks. What was going on?

“Dr. Stone?” He looked beyond me to where Mary stood in the doorway to the parlor. Ida, still holding my son, stood behind her. “Are you Dr. Stone?”

Mary nodded. “Yes.”

“Dr. Mary Stone, I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Lo Sung Chi. I’ll have to ask you to come with me now.”

I was flabbergasted. I watched helplessly as the policemen hurried Mary out of our apartment and down the stairs. At a questioning glance from Whitbread, I protested that I could not leave. I gestured towards my children. What did he think? When they were gone, suddenly all of the uneasiness and conflict that had been simmering in my home that summer came to a head and I knew then that Stephen would never forgive me.