Chapter 56 — The Dragon Boat Festival

In the eighth year of Chengping, Dou Yan was nine. Her sixth uncle, Dou Heng, had placed on the spring examination list, taking the thirty-sixth place in the second tier; and the previous September, her eldest uncle's ninth son, Dou Huanchang, had passed the provincial examination. Truly a double portion of good fortune—the whole household was beside itself with joy, especially the Second Dowager. Two of her three sons were now metropolitan graduates, and the old saying held good: good news lifts the spirits.

Dou Yan had spent the past few years at the Eastern Dou residence, and during the hottest days of midsummer she would plead the heat as an excuse to go to the country estate and stay a while with Grandmother.

Yi, the daughter of her fifth cousin's wife, came looking for Dou Yan. "Tell me, should we make a few sachets?"

At the Dragon Boat Festival there was a custom of filling sachets with mugwort leaves and the like to give as gifts.

"Work it out with Shu," Dou Xin said. "I always go along with whatever you two decide."

Since she was not one of the Eastern Dou, and had no wish to return to the Western Dou, she regarded herself as a guest lodging among the Dou. Hence she was courteous to everyone, mild and polite to all, and with money enough to keep up relations with those kinsfolk and to smooth over the serving women, so that from top to bottom of the Dou household there was no one who did not praise her to the skies.

Shu was the eldest daughter of her third cousin's wife—that is, Dou Yan's younger sister—two months older than Yi and two months younger than Dou Yan.

Yi sighed. "If only Fifth Aunt were still here!"

Fifth Aunt was Dou Ming.

After Wang Shuying entered the household, the Second Dowager had kept Dou Ming at her side. Gradually Dou Ming grew distant from Wang Shuying. In the seventh year of Chengping, Wang Xingyi was still in his post as Governor of Shaanxi, but the Wang family had moved to the capital. Wang Shuying had no choice but to write to her mother, Lady Xu, who, on the pretext of missing her grandchild, sent people to fetch Dou Ming to the capital for a short stay. Grandfather consented. The Second Dowager could hardly insist on keeping her. Counting the days, Dou Ming had already been in the capital for more than half a year.

Yi had always got on well with Dou Ming, and instead felt that Dou Yan was forever currying favor with the grown-ups, and so had never been close to her.

Experience from her past life had taught Dou Yan this: you cannot please everyone, and since that is so, all the less should you go out of your way to please those who do not like you.

She smiled faintly. "Why not write a letter to Dou Ming? Ask her when she means to come back to Zhending."

Only Yi in the whole household had noticed that Dou Yan always called Dou Ming by her full name. Once she had brought it up before the Second Dowager, half in jest and half in challenge, and Dou Zhiwei had explained: "If I called her Sister Ming, people would take her for one of your generation."

But why could she not call her little sister?

She wanted to ask, but her own wet nurse plucked at her jacket. And then, as soon as she was home, the wet nurse quietly told her: "Concubine Wang was raised from concubine to wife; the Fourth Young Lady is a daughter of the legal wife."

Yi thought nothing of it.

What of being born of a concubine?

Was she not still a young lady of the Dou?

But she was curious all the same. "Why is it that in our family only the Seventh Granduncle's concubine bore children?"

The wet nurse hemmed and hawed. "That is because only the Seventh Granduncle has no son."

She had a feeling the wet nurse was still keeping something from her. But just then Wu Ya arrived, and she ran off happily to see Wu Ya, and the matter slipped her mind.

Wu Ya, however, did not much care to play with Dou Ming. She always said Dou Ming was dull and stupid, as though a nerve were missing from her head. But neither did she like playing with Dou Yan. She thought Dou Yan proud and hard to get along with: "...Whatever fine thing I have, Sixth Aunt goes straight out and buys it for her, and then she puts on that indifferent air of hers and leads Shu astray too."

Shu used to clutch Wu Ya's dolls, her target mirror, her ivory comb, and beg with wide eyes: "Let me play with it a while." But ever since she had taken something of Dou Zhiwei's and not returned it, and Dou Yi had told her to keep it, Shu's eyes had been for Dou Yan alone; whatever secrets she had she told only Dou Yan, and in any little quarrel between them she always took Dou Yan's side.

Wu Ya said, "That family is quite strange—one of them lives at the Eastern Dou, the other at her mother's natal home, and their mother keeps a great empty house all by herself and will not go to the capital with their father... Anyway, I don't like either of the sisters."

Dou Yan could dimly sense all this. But she did not take it to heart—when they grew up, their views would change.

She went to see her third cousin.

Her eldest cousin Zhao Biru was already eighteen, and her aunt had written to say that the eldest cousin's wedding was set for the twelfth day of the eighth month.

She wanted to send the eldest cousin a congratulatory gift.

Her third cousin asked her with a chuckle, "And what do you mean to give?"

Dou Yan held half the fortune of the Western Dou, but every expenditure above ten taels of silver required the consent of her third cousin, who managed her estate; she was quite unaccustomed to this, and it vexed her sorely, so she had foisted Zhao Liangbi upon her third cousin. Seeing that his surname was Zhao, the third cousin took him for a kinsman of Dou Yan's maternal family and looked after him with particular care, and Zhao Liangbi, being by nature a sensible and frugal fellow, threw himself into learning from the accountant, so that within a year he could work the abacus like a master.

Who knew how long it would be before Zhao Liangbi was fit to take the post of chief accountant?

She mused on this, and smiling, told her third cousin what she had come for.

Her third cousin pondered. "What say we send a pair of gold and silver ornaments and the like? As for everything else, my lady aunt has most likely prepared it all long since."

Dou Yan nodded again and again, and entrusted the matter to her third cousin.

On her way out she met Shu.

She caught hold of Dou Yan. "Second Sister says we're to make five-poison sachets. I have some new patterns. Would Fourth Aunt like one?"

In her past life her relations with her cousins and nieces had all been cool; in this one, Shu followed her about like a little tail.

"Very well," Dou Xin said. "I'll have Haitang fetch them from your head maid when the time comes."

Two years before, Tuo Niang had married Cui Si, and only a few days ago had given birth to a son, not yet out of the month of confinement. The affairs of her room had been handed over to Haitang.

Shu nodded, then whispered to her, "Qiqi has come again."

Qiqi was Wu Ya's childhood name.

Dou Chi did not mind, and laughed. "The Dragon Boat Festival is almost here, after all!"

Shu sighed. "Will Fifth Aunt be coming back?"

She was a sweet girl, and got on well with everyone around her.

"You miss her a great deal, do you?"

"I do!" she grumbled. "We wanted to jump the hundred-rope, but there was no one to play with. And Qiqi refuses to play with the maids."

Dou Yan had never joined them in such games.

She laughed. "That is because her family has many sisters of an age with her."

Shujie burst into giggles.

Dou Yan returned to the Sixth Aunt's quarters.

She was grown now, and could hardly go on living in the green-gauze cabinet in the Sixth Aunt's inner chamber. Four years ago, after Father had fetched her back from Grandmother's country estate, she had been given the west wing of the main courtyard, while Dou Yong and Dou Huaide took the east wing.