Chapter 29
Hua Xiaoting
Outside Nanjing, on the Yangtze River
Xiaoting looked at her younger daughter’s pretty face as it contorted with fury, and wondered why her mother had never warned her of this.
Was it out of revenge for the time Xiaoting had hidden in a chest to avoid the evening meal as a child?
To this day, she refused to eat goose, disliking the too-rich taste of its meat, especially after her mother had fished her out from the chest and forced her to eat a full bowl as punishment.
Xiaoting had never done that to her daughters. Did she get praise for it? She did not.
Her elder daughter was so good. Guilan listened. She understood. Yingtai had been born resentful, and that bitterness had expanded over the years, until it was as if the girl had a small cloud attached to her bracelets that followed wherever she went.
“All of this secrecy is silly,” Yingtai said. “No one wants to hurt us. Anyway, how could they find us in this backwater?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Of course I don’t. How could I when you never include me? You never wanted me as part of this family.” Yingtai’s lovely complexion had turned a spotty red. “You wouldn’t allow me to learn with Guilan when you were teaching her.”
“You were refused once, and it was because you were five years old,” said Xiaoting through gritted teeth. “You weren’t ready.”
“Guilan is only three years older.”
In age but not in attitude, but Xiaoting knew better than to say such a thing to her younger daughter, who even on good days was like a crackling fire, mindlessly burning all around her.
Xiaoting sighed in unconcealed exasperation.
“You bring that up all the time, but you were a child. You don’t remember! ”
“I don’t need to.” Her daughter’s hair ornaments tinkled, and Xiaoting resisted the urge to fix them to make the display more graceful. Yingtai hated anything to match or show the beauty of symmetry. “You show me every day.”
Xiaoting would have straightened her back, but it was already stiff despite the soft cushions of the platform where she sat. “I do no such thing.”
“No? Then why does Guilan get all the attention?”
“She gets different attention because she is the first daughter. Different, not all.” Xiaoting waved to her daughter’s elegant peach robes.
“What does she have that you don’t? You have the same tutors and number of maids.
You eat from the same dishes, and your clothing is made from fabric that comes from the same storehouse.
The curtains on your bed are embroidered by the same women. ”
“Guilan has peonies on her curtains,” Yingtai said.
What was the connection Yingtai was making in her own mind? Xiaoting had no idea. “You have wisteria. They are flowers, like your sister has flowers.”
Yingtai glared at her. “They are not peonies! I am a Hua, and yet I’m treated like a servant.”
“A servant?” Xiaoting couldn’t believe her ears. She grabbed her daughter’s hand. “With soft skin like this? What work do you do, you foolish girl?”
Yingtai snatched her hand back and yanked down her sleeves. “Oh, it’s my fault you won’t let me into the workshop. My fault I don’t have the power of my sister.”
“What are you saying? Not let you? You never wanted them. You know you’re always welcome.
The lessons I gave Guilan were meant for you as well, but you avoided them like they were cursed.
” If her daughter wanted to learn how to make fragrances, she knew all she had to do was come to the workshop.
She simply never had, and Xiaoting was too busy to chase after Yingtai and beg her to attend.
“What was the point of me going?” Yingtai’s voice nearly shook the painted paper panels decorating the walls.
“Even if I did, my fragrances would always be second-best, the way I am in this family. You made it obvious you saw me as useless. When I marry, I’ll have to leave for my husband’s family, but Guilan will get to stay because you won’t marry her to a man who will make her leave.
I don’t understand why I was born if you didn’t want me. ”
She flew out of the room, slamming the sliding door so hard the wood splintered.
Xiaoting thought of fetching her back to apologize, but a soft cough from the corner made her turn.
“Let the girl go,” said her mother.
“Such disrespect,” groused Xiaoting. “You would never have put up with such behavior.”
Her mother rose from the pearwood chair where she’d sat through the entire confrontation without saying a word. “Someone needs a dose of her own sister’s moli,” she said. “Envy is eating the girl alive.”
“Yingtai has always wanted what her sister has and never wants to admit that her own life is easier than anything Guilan will confront.” Xiaoting arranged her silken cushions, but nothing was comfortable.
She’d noticed the same thing happening more and more over the last several years.
Cold sank through her robes no matter how many layers she wore, while heat made her feel as if she needed to roll in mud like the pigs to cool herself.
Occasionally, it seemed as if fire was erupting from her very blood, making her slick with sweat.
Her bones ached, and when sleep came, it was brief and fitful.
Her mother waved away the maid who had come to investigate the broken door, and poured the tea herself.
“Have you thought, Daughter, that to her it isn’t easier?” Her mother’s smile was small as she handed Xiaoting the blue porcelain cup. Xiaoting didn’t like the note of pity she detected.
“How hard can it be? She has no responsibility to improve her craft. She doesn’t have a craft, for that matter.
All she does is sit in her room and paint.
You see the hours Guilan devotes to the workshop.
She searches for new ingredients. She spends time in the gardens harvesting flowers and herbs, and in the markets shopping for new spices.
You hear her worry about having a daughter, while Yingtai waits for her future to be brought to her. ”
Xiaoting drank the tea in a vulgar gulp, indignant on her eldest daughter’s behalf.
Guilan was responsible for continuing the Hua family line by having a daughter, leaving her little choice but to marry.
Yingtai, the lucky girl, didn’t have to marry if she decided not to, for Xiaoting would never force her—despite what her daughter said.
If Yingtai’s husband joined the Huas, as was their family tradition, so much the better.
That had been another fight, one of many, between Xiaoting and her husband, who had still not forgiven her for moving the family out of Nanjing so many years ago.
Yingtai was like him. The two preferred to dwell on what could have been rather than deal with what was.
They were fantasists who were allowed their dreams because Xiaoting was there to do the work, to make the hard decisions to keep the family together and safe.
“The admiral was right,” said her mother.
The admiral? They had seen Zheng He only occasionally over the years, although he regularly sent messengers to check on the house as if he still owned it.
Although safe from the intrigue of the new capital of Beiping, Xiaoting’s moli sales meant she was still in secret contact with many of her old clients, who were happy to pass on gossip about what was happening in the capital.
Zheng He must have consulted a fortune teller, for his prediction of the new emperor had been correct.
In the last year or so, the Hongxi emperor had put a stop to the diplomatic treasure fleets and grounded Zheng He, who had been named the defender of Nanjing.
It was pleasant to have the admiral—for she continued to call him that—close to her, but she knew it pained him to be separated from the open sea.
Had he known he would be back in Nanjing, perhaps he would not have sold Xiaoting the house.
She wondered if he ever regretted it, for the property was exquisite.
No doubt the gangling woman who shared the admiral’s life would have loved it.
At least that was one thing that had turned out well.
Zheng He had wished for love, and Xiaoting had provided the answer to his most pressing desire.
After all, she thought wryly, the man had experienced adventure, wealth, power, and influence. What was left to possess but love?
She had heard from her clients that his wife was as in love with him as he was with her.
Jokes were made about them in the city, where Xiaoting rarely went, but she knew many of them came from envy that Zheng He had found such tenderness and loyalty in a woman.
Although there were those who insisted love was nothing but a distraction from the greater goals of life, those who yearned for it would do anything to have it in their hearts.
Most people, she was convinced, fell into the second category. Luckily, for her money chests.
She took a brief moment to listen to the river and admire the grounds that were hers before turning back to the conversation with her mother. “The admiral was right about what?”
“Do you remember what he said on the visit when he picked up his moli?”
Xiaoting thought back. “He said many things. He’s a man who likes to hear himself speak. Loudly and often.”
“He said you were like a farmer.”
“He did.” Xiaoting remembered now. There had been an odd glint in his eyes that she had put down to the anticipation of meeting his true love.
“You took it as a compliment,” her mother continued. Xiaoting knew that tone. She wasn’t going to like what came next.
“I didn’t take it as anything,” Xiaoting said.
“It was because you drive this family like a farmer drives his oxen,” said her mother. “Yoked to your will.”
Xiaoting tucked her feet under her, then put them back down. “Say what you wish to say. I have much to do.”