Chapter 369 — Passing Muster

At Fucheng the plum blossoms herald spring early.

But it was still only the end of the first month, and the wind sweeping past Fucheng Gate on the western side of the capital left a person shivering with cold.

Standing before the tea house, Zhao Si gazed at the unfamiliar woman with her married woman's falling-horse bun, and could not keep his eyes from growing wet.

In the blink of an eye more than ten years had passed. The little girl who had barely been lisping out words was now a wife and a mother — and what else had he missed in all that time?

"Shouyuan!" His hand trembling, he reached out to steady Dou Yan, gesturing for her to rise quickly.

Dou Yan stood up, called out "Uncle," and her tears came falling in a patter.

In her last life she had misread her uncle's endurance and his aching sorrow. Today it was her uncle again who had fought for her half of the Western Dou fortune, and only so had she been able to live as freely as she did now. In two lifetimes he had never once treated her shabbily; and she, in return — a misunderstanding in the last life, helplessness in this one — owed her uncle a great deal indeed... Yet today she had a happy life, and she was able to meet her uncle besides. No occasion could be more auspicious than this. She should not weep. She should smile.

Dou Yan lifted her face and let a smile blossom from the bottom of her heart. "Uncle, since you are being transferred this time, you will surely be staying in the capital a while longer?"

She made polite conversation, but tears still blurred her vision.

Zhao Si gave a grunt of assent, and the corners of his own eyes glimmered with moisture. "I will stay ten days or so in the capital. Once your cousin's wedding is done, we set out for Huguang..."

There was so much he wanted to ask this only niece of his, but propriety stood between man and woman, and they had been parted too long. The words reached his lips and he did not know where to begin, or how; only this well-regulated, faultless exchange seemed the most fitting thing.

Uncle and niece stood beneath the tea house's great black-lacquered signboard with its gilded characters, a bustling crowd streaming past on either side, and yet they stood still and silent, at something of a loss.

A tearful little splutter of laughter from her aunt broke the quiet between them.

"Look at the two of you — when you cannot see each other you pine, and now that you are face to face you have nothing to say." She took Dou Yan's hand and said to her husband, "This is no place for talking. Shouyuan has been waiting here for you the better part of the day, and Shouyuan's husband has rented us a house in Yuqiao Alley. Whatever there is to say, we will say it at home."

Hearing that the heir of the Duke of Yingguo had rented a courtyard for him, Zhao Si could not help knitting his brows; but reflecting that this was a happy day of reunion between uncle and niece, he smoothed them at once, nodded with a smile at his wife, climbed into the carriage, and followed Dou Yan's carriage back to Yuqiao Alley.

Along the way Dou Yan was still lost in the tangled feelings of seeing her uncle. Zhao Zhangru had already leaned close and murmured, "Are you disappointed? To think my father is such a dour old stick-in-the-mud." She sighed as she said it, then let herself go limp against the great bolster cushion and remarked lazily, "Still, there is one advantage in it for me. He did not so much as glance at me today, so from now on he will have his eye fixed on you, and I shall be free. I wonder whether Song Yan will turn coward when he meets my father? You have no idea — the last scholar they proposed to me was rejected by my father simply because, the moment he saw him, he stammered and could not get a word out..."

Whatever broodings Dou Yan had, Zhao Zhangru's words made her laugh.

She teased Zhao Zhangru: "What, thinking of backing out? You are betrothed already. Even if my uncle questions Song Yan until he is struck dumb, the two of you can only marry on the appointed day. Or is it that you are afraid Song Yan will be cowed by my uncle?"

Song Yan, after all, was the man who would share the rest of Zhao Zhangru's life.

Zhao Zhangru's face flushed red as morning clouds, and she reached out to pinch Dou Yan's cheek. "You and your nonsense!"

Dou Yan ducked her head aside and laughed. "I am carrying a child now, you know. If you bully me I shall go straight to my uncle and aunt and tell on you!"

"Telling tales is all you know how to do. What else can you do?" Zhao Zhangru glared at her, eyes round as sweet apricots.

Dou Yan chuckled and said in a low voice, "I can also save up a private purse for my cousin."

"Oh, get along with you!" Zhao Zhangru's face went red again.

Her wedding day had been formally set for the second day of the second month, and a few days before, Dou Yan had sent her trousseau gifts — a four-courtyard, three-bay residence, and a farm estate besides. Her aunt thought it far too grand and would not accept it, so Dou Yan said with a smile, "Aunt, must you reckon every penny with me too?"

Her aunt considered, then thanked her generously and accepted Dou Yan's dowry addition.

But when she had a chance while her husband was changing his clothes, and he asked after Dou Yan's recent circumstances, she told him of the matter.

Zhao Si flew into a rage. "How could you accept things from Shouyuan?"

His wife knew her husband's temper better than anyone. She knew that if he heard of Dou Yan's gift to their daughter from someone else's lips he would be half dead with fury; better to be clear with him herself and early, and so preserve the whole of Shouyuan's good intentions.

She said with displeasure, "Who is Shouyuan? Must you be so exact with her, so terrified of owing her the least little thing? Have you no fear of chilling her heart? Why can you not put yourself in her place? When did you grow so small-minded? This house we are living in belongs to Shouyuan's husband — do you mean to move out this very instant? Even friends may share their goods without stinting; is Shouyuan to be less than your friends? I regard her as my own daughter. Whatever a daughter gives me in filial respect, every thread and strand of it, I like, and I accept it all with a glad heart. All the more when it is a gift to her elder sister, when she is giving her sister face and, out of pity that her sister will be hard pressed after the wedding, giving her sister a private purse."

Zhao Si fell silent.

Her aunt went out, instructed the maids to lay the meal, then stood on the covered walkway waiting for her husband's anger to cool.

Before long Zhao Si came out with a trace of shame on his face, stood shoulder to shoulder with his wife on the walkway, and said without expression, "When do we eat? I am starving. All these days it has been nothing but dry rations or that devilish fare at the post stations — not one day have I eaten my fill!"

Her aunt pressed her lips together and smiled, then told the maids, "Go and invite the young lady and the young miss to come out and eat."

The little maids answered and went.

Her aunt straightened her husband's collar for him, then turned and went into the hall.

Zhao Si hurried after her.

By the time Dou Yan and Zhao Zhangru came in, the two were seated at the table talking amicably enough, and no one could have guessed that they had been at odds a moment before.

Her uncle thanked Dou Yan in all sincerity and said, "Your mother had only you, and I have only Zhangru and her two sisters. In this world there are none closer to you than they. Hereafter you must stand by one another." Then he regretted something and added, "Your eldest cousin wanted to come along, but your eldest cousin's husband failed the metropolitan examination last September. His heart is still sore, so I did not let her come."