Chapter 15 — Aborted

If only Mother were not so deeply attached to him!

As things stood, there was really nothing she could do.

Dou Yan heaved a deep sigh.

Toward her mother, a strange, sudden swell of feeling rose in her.

It seemed to hold a little heartache, a little tender pity, and something else besides... envy!

The instant the thought took shape, she gave a great start.

To grieve for her mother's plight, to pity her mother's hardship—these were only natural human feelings. But why should she envy her?

What was there in her mother to envy?

The deep affection she had once possessed? Or the unguarded frankness her mother showed before her father?

Dou Yan was somewhat bewildered, and somewhat at a loss.

After seeing off Lady Wei and her son, she sat on the heated kang and watched Hanxiao and Shuangzhi help her mother take down her hairpins and ornaments.

Her father came in.

His face was somewhat grim. "Guqiu, I have something important to say to you."

Her mother turned. Her slender, scallion-like fingers wound about the great red tassel that hung from the handle of her gilt mirror, patterned with water weeds; her gaze was deep and dark as she quietly regarded Father.

The maids and serving women in the room slipped out without a sound.

Father crouched down beside Mother. "Guqiu, Yingxue... she... she... is with child..."

Her mother's fingers, twisting the tassel, suddenly went still.

Father hung his head. "...I could only come to you to talk it over... I know I have wronged you... but to go on as though nothing had happened—I, I truly cannot bring myself to do it..."

"How did the two of you come to know each other?" Mother asked him softly, her tone calm, her fingers once more winding the tassel—now a turn, now not.

Father's spirits lifted at once. "When I reached the capital, naturally I had to call on Mr. Guanlan. It happened that Yingxue had gone there to borrow ginseng..." He hastened to explain, "I did not see her then; it was only that Mr. Guanlan treated me like a nephew of the family, and no one in the household made any effort to keep me out of sight. I heard from the servants in Mr. Guanlan's house that the daughter of Wang Xingyi had come to call on the madam, saying that her cousin was ill and needed a decoction of single ginseng, and asking the madam's help in buying two roots of ginseng a hundred years old or more—only she had not the silver for it. You know how rare ginseng of that quality is; it cannot be had for the asking. The madam tried every means, and even put in some of her own money, yet could only manage to procure a fifty-year root. It came to me that this Wang Xingyi was of the same year as Fifth Brother, a man of iron integrity and a loyal heart, and that his lady, of the Gao family, was wise and righteous—and that such was the end they had come to. I could not help feeling sorry for her, so I told Gao Sheng to buy two fifty-year roots and deliver them to her. When she had the ginseng, she came specially to thank me..." Father's face slowly reddened as he spoke. "I knew she made her living by the cotton trade, so I agreed to introduce her to the steward of our household, and helped her obtain a few other medicinal herbs besides... She asked whether I was married... and I, speaking too quickly, made a joke of it..." His voice was as faint as a mosquito's. "For her father's sake she often went about the capital with her brother, calling on her father's old friends... She is a forthright sort... told me of all the amusing places in the capital... and we drank a little wine together..."

Mother closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Only after a long while did she open them and ask Father, "Did she never once ask who you were?"

"No!" Father said in a low voice. "I—how could I have known it would come to this..."

Mother's hand came down on the mirror stand with a crack, the jade bracelets on her wrist striking one another with a sharp chime. "Faugh! I do not believe she did not know who you were! For several hundred li around this Zhending Prefecture, what household does not live at the mercy of the Dou family? Even if she did not know you, when you spoke of introducing her to the steward of your household, could she not have guessed it was you? She has frequented our house since she was a child—does she not know what manner of man I married? She knew nothing at all about you, and on the strength of two roots of ginseng and a single promise she dared to go to bed with you? Was she not afraid she had met some dissolute rogue..."

"Guqiu, Guqiu!" Father, ashamed and mortified, cut her off. "She truly did not know! It was only afterward that she realized... Had she not conceived, she would never have come back to Zhending with me..."

"You do not believe what I say?" Mother's face was as overcast as a sky about to rain.

"I believe you, I believe you!" Father said again and again. "Say what you will—she is a woman alone, and to meet with such a thing... In short, the fault is all mine. Will you not help me?"

"You..." Mother bit her lip; the tassel she had been winding about her fingers was pulled taut as a bowstring.

"Guqiu, Guqiu, do not be angry!" Father said in a fluster. "If this gets out, I shall truly have no face left before anyone... Only look upon our years as man and wife, and help me through this pass! Guqiu, Guqiu..." His eyes rested on Mother, full of sorrow.

"Very well!" Mother said with a smile—though the smile, by any reckoning, was bleak through and through. "Have Wang Shuying sign a deed of sale, and I will let her into the house."

"How can that be!" Father cried out in alarm. "If you do that, how is the Wang family to hold up their heads? You go too far! No, no!"

"Then tell me what is to be done," Mother said lightly, a weariness showing through her look.

Father was somewhat sheepish. "We could give a larger betrothal gift and take none of the Wang family's dowry... I saw how it was when Feng Baoshan took a concubine... Feng Baoshan said it was the same as buying a concubine, only that for the sake of appearances it was called a betrothal gift... and that if the match should fall through, the gift must be returned in full..."

"Is that not the same as those merchant families taking a wife of equal rank?"

Father was taken aback. Only after a good while did he murmur, "How—how is that the same? You will live together, and everyone in the Dou household will know who is the greater and who the lesser..."

"You have thought it all through, have you not!" Mother said with a smile—a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Has not my father-in-law confined you to the house? You had best go back early. I shall discuss this matter with my eldest sister-in-law and the others."

Father sprang up in delight and seized Mother's hand. "Guqiu, then you agree!"—like a child who has at last been given his sweet.

"I agree," Mother said, the corners of her lips lifting. She turned her hand to clasp his, bent her head, and kissed it lightly. "Go back quickly! Take care my father-in-law does not summon you again for a lecture!"

Father beamed at Mother and gently stroked her temple hairs. "Guqiu, you are so good to me!"

Mother laughed a gurgling laugh, laughed until the tears ran from her eyes.

Father went away rejoicing.

Mother was still laughing there, only her smile slowly thinned away while her tears flowed the faster.

"Mother!" Dou Yan flung herself into her mother's arms.

Mother slowly stroked her head and said in a low voice, "Wang Shuying had her intentions... perhaps not at first, but at least afterward she had them... Shouyuan, your father does not believe what I say—do you, do you believe your mother?"

"I believe you, I believe you!" Dou Yan nodded without cease, her eyes brimming.

"But what use is your believing?" Mother laughed, tears hanging like morning dew, crystalline, at the edge of her flawless white cheeks. "You little wretch, you understand nothing!" She pinched her little nose fondly.