Chapter 313 — In Person

Dou Huaide hurried through the whole account in a rush, and Dou Huaiying was struck dumb with amazement.

"Could Yantang have read it somewhere?" he muttered, frowning. "No—that can't be right. Even if he read it somewhere, there was no need for him to compose an examination essay of his own! And besides, why would he make a target of Song Qianli?"

Dou Yong and Dou Huaide could make no sense of it either.

Dou Huaiying said, "Tomorrow I will summon Yantang and question him."

There was nothing else to be done.

Dou Yong and Dou Huaide exchanged a helpless glance.

Dou Huaiying sent Gaosheng's wife off to ask her aunt, "What has Shouyuan come home for?"

Nothing was settled yet, so her aunt naturally could not say much, and fobbed Dou Huaiying off with what she and Dou Yan had discussed: "We were talking over the matter at Qixia Temple on the tenth of the tenth month."

Dou Huaiying nodded, wondering how he should broach the subject when he met his son-in-law the next day.

After Song Yan had seen Dou Yan back to the residence of the Duke of Ying, he went to the place where Song Yumin was temporarily lodging.

Song Yumin had only just reached the house and had not yet had time to change; he came out in the very clothes he had worn to pay his call.

Seeing that Song Yan was likewise still dressed as he had been in the lane by Yunqi Temple, he felt a stir of unease beneath his mounting suspicions.

Song Yumin's friends were merely a family of modest means; they kept only two or three serving women, and with so large a household to look after, Song Yumin's daily comforts here were, as ever, something Song Yan took the measure of.

When the two of them had seated themselves, host and guest, Song Yan brought in the tea.

Song Yan glanced at him and said to Song Yumin, "Mr. Song, there is something I would speak of with you alone..."

Song Yan knew well enough to withdraw. Yet before he had even reached the door, he heard Song Yan say, "As it happens, this matter concerns your nephew..."

On any ordinary day, even overhearing such words, Song Yan would have turned a deaf ear and seen nothing, heard nothing. But today's business was too strange—first Song Yan's inexplicable examination, and now this half-finished sentence. He hesitated again and again, and could not help but halt beside the door curtain.

Song Yan's voice came clear to his ears: "I should like to drink a cup of wedding wine at your nephew's marriage!"

Song Yumin and Song Yan were greatly startled, and in that instant they understood what Song Yan had been about just now.

Song Yan's rank and station made Song Yumin answer with studied care: "May I ask, my lord, for which family you would act as matchmaker? Our Song family may enjoy a fair name in Quzhou, but we are, after all, a small household that lives by tilling and by letters. A match between the high and the low sits ill; I fear we could not climb so far."

Weighing match against match—as the uncle who had been both teacher and father to the boy—Song Yumin felt that if Song Yan could take a girl from a scholarly household and live frugally, that would be enough.

The heir of the Duke of Ying's house stood too far above them to be imagined; to think of climbing such a lofty branch seemed to him impossible, and so there was no weighing of choices to be done at all.

Song Yan pretended not to have heard, and said with a smile, "You know the young lady as well—my wife's cousin, the third young lady of the Zhao family of Anxiang Village."

Song Yumin had served five years as tutor in the Dou household; how could he not know the Zhao family of Anxiang Village?

He felt at once that he had been insulted.

The Zhao family—why, they took live-in sons-in-law.

Was it because the Song family was small and humble, because Song Yan had lost both parents, that he should be expected to marry into another house!

But before he could speak, Song Yan had already smiled and said, "You have surely heard of Lord Zhao's character. In those years, so that he might be in time to bury his sister, he gave up even the examination for the Hanlin; and when the Wang family wished to make his mother a legitimate wife and offered him office and fortune, he paid it no heed. If your nephew goes to the Zhao house as their son-in-law, how could they treat him ill?"

Lord Zhao's character was indeed beyond reproach.

On that point Song Yumin could not argue.

"And as for the third young lady of Zhao—her looks and her character are hardly unknown to you. As a match for your nephew, is he so poorly served?"

Though men and women must keep their distance, he had seen the third young lady of Zhao twice from afar, and she was indeed a young lady of uncommon looks and breeding.

Yet Song Yumin could not refrain from saying, "But surely that is no reason to make Qianli marry into their house?"

Song Yan bowed his head to drink his tea, yet from the corner of his eye he swept the lattice curtain and caught sight of a pair of broad-toed cloth shoes.

He smiled faintly and said, "Your nephew lost both his parents and grew up eating at a hundred tables; you yourself do no more than keep a school for a living. The Dou family's stipend may be generous, but I doubt it comes to more than two or three hundred taels. With your nephew at your side, the Dou family has borne his food and clothing, his brushes and ink and paper—we need not speak of that; but the clothes for the four seasons alone must have cost you no small sum?"

"Today I tested your nephew's examination craft: proper and regular, fluent and natural. With good training, who knows whether in ten years' time he might not become a metropolitan graduate?

"From Quzhou to the capital, they say a round trip costs a hundred taels of silver. When you finish your post and go home, I wonder how many years your savings could sustain you?

"And moreover, in this dynasty the examinations are divided into northern and southern rolls, and the south has long had a name for its zeal for letters; of ten licentiates, scarcely two become provincial graduates, and of ten provincial graduates, scarcely two become metropolitan graduates.

"But to marry into the Zhao family would be another matter.

"With the Zhao family's means and Lord Zhao's character, your nephew—though the metropolitan degree may be hard to attain, being a live-in son-in-law—might yet, if he is diligent, win a provincial degree or the like.

"The Zhao family is a household of letters besides; even if your nephew is never destined for office, his sons and grandsons after him will do well enough.

"And there is still the custom of the third generation returning to the ancestral line—what more could you ask?"

The so-called return in the third generation meant that the sons born to a live-in son-in-law, in the third generation, by designation of one branch or by long-established custom, would take the surname of the original grandfather, whether boy or girl, and return to the ancestral hall.

Yet Song Yumin still declined, albeit tactfully: "Qianli has studied so many years with me; he must at least try the examinations once before he will give up. As for marriage, let us set the matter aside for a few years yet."

Song Yan glanced once more at the shoes beneath the curtain and said unhurriedly, "A melon pulled from the vine is never sweet. I ask you to consider it carefully, sir; and should you change your mind, send word to the residence of the Duke of Ying." Then, shaking his head, he rose to take his leave, and sighed, "You are harder on your nephew than on a son of your own flesh! You have brought out your own savings for your old age to keep him in his studies..." and he looked deeply moved.

Song Yumin pretended not to have seen a thing, and saw Song Yan out.

Behind the great locust tree before the gate, Song Yan had gone, his face ashen.

He stood a long while, watching Song Yan's carriage dwindle into the distance.