The Gift
Meanwhile, inside another carriage, Lady Cui dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, sorrow overtaking her once more. Dong Qing'e took her hand and sought to console her.
"You saw it yourself, didn't you? Ayan has grown even more beautiful. Her speech and bearing are so composed, so full of grace. Aside from the difficulty she has conceiving, there is nothing about her—neither her lineage nor her character—that is unworthy of our Zhangyuan."
Lady Cui shot her husband a glare.
"Only your niece is good enough, is she! Who doesn't know you're only trying to lighten your sister's worries? Who doesn't know you're only repaying the debt you owe your brother-in-law for raising you up? My poor son……"
When Lady Cui began to weep again, Dong Qing'e's face darkened.
"Whether you like it or not, Dong Zhangyuan will take Jingyan as his wife! I'll hear no more of it—dry your tears at once! If your mother learns of this when we return, she will surely have something to say!"
At her husband's anger, Lady Cui bit her lip and let her tears fall in silence.
In the meantime, inside the carriage with its ceiling of deep blue silk woven with azure threads, Madam Dong told Bai Jingyan about her grandmother, Old Taijun Dong.
"Ever since you were injured, your grandmother has hardly slept a proper night. She seems to have concluded that the only way to keep you out of your aunt-in-law's reach was to keep you where she could see you with her own eyes. And according to your second uncle, Zhangyuan hasn't kept a single maidservant attending his chamber all this while. He may be three years your junior, but he has a bold spirit and rare learning—I think the two of you would suit each other wonderfully."
Madam Dong gazed at Bai Jingyan's hand with smiling eyes for a long moment, and then her own eyes reddened again.
"If only your marriage can be settled well, this mother of yours could die with an easy heart."
Only then did Bai Jingyan understand the expression she had seen on Lady Cui's face in the Grand Princess's chamber earlier. Lady Cui had been smiling at her, but her eyes had been full of helpless dismay and unspoken grievance.
Bai Jingyan took her mother's hand. Her thoughts were tangled, and she did not know how to begin.
"Mother, Zhangyuan is Second Uncle's own son by his wife. Are you truly certain it's fine for a legitimate son to take as his principal wife a woman who cannot bear children?"
"Zhangyuan is a legitimate son, yes, but only the second son—not the heir. And your second aunt was always so fond of you, so surely…… she won't mind."
Even Madam Dong did not sound convinced.
Chunyan, walking alongside the carriage and straining her ears at the conversation, went white to the lips the moment Madam Dong's words reached her. Strength drained from her legs until she could no longer keep pace with the carriage.
"Chunyan! What are you doing? Keep up!"
Chun Tao urged her on with a frown.
Only then did Chunyan force her feet to move, but her mind was in such turmoil that her legs felt like lead, and she could not keep up with Chun Tao. She ended up trailing at the very rear of the procession, hurrying along in quick, strained steps.
If the eldest young lady marries the second son of the Lord Uncle, what becomes of His Highness Prince Liang? What becomes of her? She was terrified that she might never set eyes on Prince Liang again—so noble, so exalted, like a shooting star across the sky.
At that thought, Chunyan's eyes turned red. She had to carry this news to Prince Liang, and quickly.
Watching her mother's heart flutter with hope, Bai Jingyan could not bring herself to say that she intended never to marry. She did not want to see Madam Dong grieve.
"Just now, I saw that Second Aunt's eyes were red—she must have been crying before we arrived. She cherishes me because I am her niece, but a daughter-in-law who cannot give her grandchildren is another matter entirely. I know Grandmother and Uncle mean well for my sake, but you cannot force a cow to bow its head and drink. If I do marry, I would have to live under my mother-in-law's watchful eye—what do you think of that, Mother?"
Madam Dong said nothing and turned the matter over in her mind.
"Mother, Grandmother and Uncle have been so good to you and to me—would you want to watch Grandmother spend her twilight years at war with a daughter-in-law on my account? Marriage is not the only path in life. You once comforted me with those very words yourself."
Madam Dong had said it then only to comfort her injured daughter. In truth, she had never once given up on Bai Jingyan's marriage. She spoke in a small voice.
"Then how about you meet Zhangyuan first, and decide after? Perhaps he may wish it himself?"
Bai Jingyan did not argue.
Her mother said that Grandmother had been considering the match between her and Dong Zhangyuan ever since her injury, but Bai Jingyan had never heard a word of it in her past life.
She closed her eyes and thought it through, and the reason came to her quickly.
In her past life, when her grandmother, her second uncle, and his wife had come to Dadu to spend the New Year, they had brought the second son, Dong Zhangyuan, from Dengzhou. But that had been shortly after Bai Jinxiu's death in an accident on her wedding day, and her grandmother would have found it improper to raise talk of marriage amid such mourning. Then, on New Year's Eve, the news had arrived that every man of the Bai family had died in the Southern Border campaign……
Bai Jingyan knew well how dearly her grandmother loved her, and she had no wish to see her grandmother or her second uncle suffer strife between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law on her account.
Before the carriage had even arrived, the white-haired Old Taijun Dong was already waiting before the gates of the Dong residence with her eldest daughter-in-law, Lady Song, her four grandsons, and two granddaughters, awaiting her daughter and granddaughter.
She wore a pleated surcoat of chestnut ground embroidered in gold, prayer beads wound about her fingers, and her eyes were fixed steadily on the right side of the long avenue.
Dong Zhangyuan stood beside Old Taijun Dong with his hands clasped behind his back, dressed in a bluish-gray robe, a single tablet of ink-jade hanging at his waist. A strikingly handsome youth, he was vigorous and refined in bearing, yet his pale face betrayed no emotion at all.
"They're here! They've arrived!"
a maidservant cried out.
"I see Lady Ayan's carriage!"
Old Taijun Dong gathered the hem of her skirt with the hand that held her beads and stepped forward, supported by her daughter-in-law, Lady Song.
"Mother, don't hurry so! It isn't as though Wangjun and Ayan will vanish before your eyes!"
Old Lady Dong, Lady Song, joked with her mother-in-law.
Dong Zhengzhen, the eldest daughter of Old Lady Dong, took Old Taijun Dong's arm as she spoke.
"Grandmother, please don't rush. If you were to take a fall, Aunt and Cousin would be so worried!"
Before long, the carriage drew to a halt before the gates of the Dong residence. Madam Dong alighted first, and at the sight of her aged mother, whose hair had gone white at the temples, tears welled up in her eyes.
"Mother!"
"Wangjun!"
Old Taijun Dong's own eyes grew moist as she hurried down the steps.
Chun Tao and Chunyan, who had been walking on either side of the carriage, helped Bai Jingyan down. Bai Jingyan bowed in a formal salute.
"Grandmother. Eldest Aunt."
"Oh, my Wangjun! My Ayan!"
Holding her daughter with one arm and her granddaughter with the other, Old Taijun Dong wept without pause. Bai Jingyan's own eyes reddened.
The brothers and sisters of the Dong household came forward to pay their respects. Dong Zhangyuan remained standing on the steps above, clutching the jade tablet at his waist, head bowed, sparing no one a single glance.
When Dong Qing'e, standing beside the carriage, shot a stern look at Zhangyuan as he stood there motionless and dazed, Lady Cui hastily called out to him. Only then did Dong Zhangyuan descend the steps with visible reluctance and bow in salute.
"I greet my aunt and cousin."
He did not so much as look at Bai Jingyan.
"How you've grown, Zhangyuan! Such a fine young man you've become!"
Madam Dong praised him, dabbing her tears with a handkerchief.
Old Lady Song spoke up in haste.
"Let's not stand about out here—come inside quickly. Ayan is sensitive to the cold. Mother, take Wangjun and Ayan to the inner room."
"Yes, yes! Let's go in and talk!"
Gripping her daughter's and granddaughter's hands tightly, Old Taijun Dong led them into the residence. To her eyes, no one existed in that moment but her daughter and her granddaughter.
Once inside, Old Taijun Dong drew Bai Jingyan into her arms and wept as she showered her with tenderness, until Bai Jingyan's freshly changed clothes were stained with her grandmother's tears.
Dong Zhangyuan sat on the bench at the far end of the room, looking at no one, quietly drinking his tea alone. Even Old Taijun Dong had noticed his rebellious attitude, so there was no chance that Madam Dong and Bai Jingyan had missed it.
Madam Dong was indeed deeply troubled by her daughter's marriage prospects—but for all that, she had no desire to send her daughter off to a man who showed her not the slightest interest.
She looked back and forth between Lady Cui, who looked to anyone as though she had been weeping in the carriage, utterly deflated, and her own daughter, whose eyes were rimmed with red. She decided she would have to tell her mother that this match simply would not do.
"Zhangyuan, it's only been a few years, and look how grown you are—practically a man now."
Madam Dong set down her teacup and called his name with a warm smile. Then she turned her head toward Yinju and signaled with her eyes to bring out the gifts she had prepared for Zhangyuan.
Only then did Dong Zhangyuan rise and bow in thanks to Madam Dong.
Old Taijun Dong, still holding Bai Jingyan in her arms, gazed at her well-grown second grandson and thought only of how perfectly suited the two young people were—a match made in heaven.
"I received your grandmother's letter last year—I hear you placed first in the provincial examination and became the top graduate of the whole circuit! Your aunt was overjoyed to hear it!"
Madam Dong gestured to Yinju to present the gift to Dong Zhangyuan.
"These two pieces of Shoushan stone are of no great use to me, but with them, Zhangyuan, I believe you could have two seals carved."
Flustered, Dong Zhangyuan bowed and tried to decline. The Shoushan stone was far too precious a thing for him to accept.
"One does not refuse an elder's gift. They come from your aunt, so accept them graciously. It will be enough if you strive to live up to her expectations from now on."
There was another meaning hidden in Old Taijun Dong's words.
The face of Zhangyuan, still bowed in salute, twisted further and further. At those words, he found he wanted nothing to do with this burdensome gift.
Old Lady Song covered her mouth with her handkerchief and laughed lightly.
"My goodness—it seems the young lady's gift is so precious that it's startled Zhangyuan!"
Bai Jingyan, leaning against Old Taijun Dong's embrace, saw that Second Aunt Cui's eyes remained red. She had no wish to watch her second aunt and Dong Zhangyuan suffer in silent agony any longer. Having seen how the two of them fretted over a marriage to her, Bai Jingyan spoke up.
"Mother only wishes for Zhangyuan to take first place again. If he brings further honor to the Dong family, it will reflect glory upon Mother as well."
That clear, gentle voice lingered at Dong Zhangyuan's ear. Not that the voice itself was odious to him—but Dong Zhangyuan bowed his head deeper still.
Bai Jingyan rose to stand beside Old Taijun Dong and continued with a smile.
"Since this is my first time meeting Zhangyuan, I have prepared a gift for him as well."
At those words, Chun Tao respectfully presented the finest Huizhou ink and the finest She-inkstone that Bai Jingyan had asked her to prepare.
The moment Dong Zhangyuan saw the ink and the inkstone, his eyes went wide. He was a man who truly loved to take up the brush and write. At the sight of the Huizhou ink and the She-inkstone, he could not bring himself to set them down even for a moment.
Then it occurred to him that this gift had come from the very woman whom his grandmother had threatened him—his very life—to take as his wife, and it was as though a bucket of cold water had been dashed over him. As if he had swallowed a fly, he bowed his head lower in misery.
"A gift from my cousin is far too precious—this humble one cannot possibly accept it."