I try to hide my disappointment, but Grandmother, who has a lifetime of training in reading expressions and emotions, sees the truth on my face. “Like you, a Dragon will never give up,” she comforts me. “You will find your husband to be naturally ambitious. He will surely succeed at his exams and will no doubt take a high position as an official like your father and grandfather. If the two of you play your parts well and according to the rules of civilization, then you will, as a couple, reap many rewards.”
Almost immediately, the Letter of Gifts is delivered, listing the number and types of items to be sent as part of my bride price, which will include a whole roast pig, sweetmeats, and cakes to be shared with all who live in our household, as well as money for my father and grandparents to pay them back for their care of this future daughter-in-law. In addition to gold ingots, jade carvings, and jewelry, the Yang family will provide bolts of silk of different weaves so seamstresses can begin to sew the gowns, leggings, capes, and tunics I’ll eventually take to my new home. Not long after Grandfather receives the Letter of Gifts, the bride price is delivered. Tradition says that certain gifts must be returned. I find the first one easily when I open a cloisonné box and discover fresh lotus petals, which symbolize having many children. But after that, I struggle. The Yang women must have had fun hiding these things, because Grandmother and I spend hours looking through everything to uncover them.
“I found the scissors!” I exclaim on the second day of our search. Scissors symbolize that a man and wife will never separate. In the same trunk I find the ruler, which sends the message of thousands upon thousands of mou of land. Grandmother and I pack these three gifts in a red lacquer box, and the matchmaker takes them back to the Yang family. With this, the first two of the Three Letters and four of the Six Etiquettes have been completed. Now the two families will enter into the period of the Fifth Etiquette with each side meeting with a geomancer to begin looking for an auspicious wedding date, when I will be as perfect and fresh as a flowering plum branch in spring rain.
I’m grateful to my grandparents for taking such care with my betrothal, but it’s in my nature to worry. I’m eight; Maoren is nine. I don’t know who I’ll be in seven years, let alone what he’ll be like. What if Maoren doesn’t pass the imperial exams? What if his family sees my lack of womanly skills as a problem? What if I don’t give birth to a son? Will my husband bring in a concubine or many concubines? No matter what I do or where I go, I must live as a proper Confucian woman: When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son. My entire life will be limited to a total of three places: the house where I lived with my parents, the Mansion of Golden Light, and my future in-laws’ compound and garden.
* * *
Weeks later, White Jade—who Grandmother and the bonesetter agree is healing well—is abruptly sold by Grandfather. She is simply gone one morning. By day’s end, a new White Jade arrives. She’s seventeen, and her beauty rivals that of the other two Jades. Only time will reveal who will climb to be Grandfather’s favorite, while the first White Jade has provided a lesson to all the girls and women in the Mansion of Golden Light, no matter their age or status: Our golden lilies are both a gift and a peril. We must prize and care for them but also be watchful with every step we take. Our tottering and swaying on our spindly and weak legs make us appealing to men, but a single misstep or fall can change our futures.
The next time Meiling comes to the compound, Grandmother says I can take her to my room. When I notice my friend looking curiously at the carved wooden tassels that hang from the rosewood canopy of my mother’s marriage bed, I take her hand. We step through the antechamber, where Poppy sleeps at night; through the second space, which was once my mother’s dressing room and is now mine; and then through the moon-shaped archway into the third and largest room, which houses my bed. I pull Meiling up onto the raised platform to sit on the soft mattress.
“This is bigger than where Mama and I live,” she says.
She must be teasing me.
She gets up on her knees to look at one of the silk paintings that covers a window. It shows a husband writing poetry with brush and ink to his wife, who sits nearby. Meiling then edges along the bed’s side walls, examining each window painting. To me, they seem ordinary, showing a wife in a flowing gown playing an instrument for her husband’s pleasure or the two of them walking by a stream, but Meiling is entranced.
“They’re so pretty,” she says with a sigh. “And look at these. What are they?”
Her finger touches a tiny carved piece of boxwood about the length of one of my feet in height and nearly twice as wide. This part of the bed has twenty of these carvings, but I’ve never paid much attention to them as, once again, they simply show the grace of leisure days—in miniature—that were so much a part of Respectful Lady’s own life. But what has always seemed commonplace to me beguiles my friend. I rise to my knees and scoot to her side. Now that I look, I see that the details are amazing. Even on such a small piece of wood, the artist has found ways to bring out every drape or fold of a garment, the movement of water over rocks, and the uniqueness of the clouds in the sky. Soon enough, Meiling and I start to pretend we’re the characters captured in the carved tableaus. I even pull out a couple of tunics and scarves to change Meiling from the daughter of a midwife into a girl like me. We laugh and giggle, going from the dressing room back to the bed, where we lie on our backs, hold hands, and laugh some more.
“This is even more fun than racing leaves,” Meiling says.
“Here, let me show you something.” I wiggle the panel to the right of where I rest my head at night. “See how it’s loose. I can pull it out—”
“Don’t do that!”
“I can put it back in again.” But I don’t. Instead, I remove a small bundle.
Meiling sucks in air.
“No one knows about this hiding place or what I keep inside.” Slowly I fold back the silk. Meiling’s eyes widen when she sees Respectful Lady’s red wedding shoes. “They belonged to my mother.”
Inspired by the moment, I ask her to share something with me. “It doesn’t have to be a secret. Just something we can have between us—as forever friends.”
“Forever friends. I like that,” she says. She peers up at me through her lashes. Her cheeks go pink when she confides, “My biggest secret is my wish to learn to read and write.”
I smile. “I can help you with that. I will teach you.” I leave the marriage bed, go to the table, and pat the back of a chair, inviting her to sit. “I’m going to show you how to write ten basic characters. The next time you visit, I’ll teach you another ten.”
But when she doesn’t come right away, I realize I’ve caused her to lose face. I can’t act like I’m above her just because I can teach her to read and write. I rub my chin, thinking. Then I return to the bed’s entrance. “I shared something with you, and you shared something with me. I can give you something, but you need to give me something back.”
“But I have nothing to give.”
“Yes, you do. Would you give me what I can’t see?”
She cocks her head. “You know there are things I’m not allowed to talk about.”
I shake my head. “No, no, no! I don’t mean anything like that!” Although I most definitely do. A Snake can be gifted with a calculating mind. That would be me. I want to hear the stories about corpses and all the other things too. A Snake can be gifted with uncompromising willpower. That would be Meiling. Grandmother Ru and Midwife Shi may have agreed to this friendship, but it will take time for Meiling and me to build trust between us. I’ll need to work slowly to get the secrets she’s supposed to keep from me. “Just tell me about the outside,” I suggest. “What’s it like beyond the gate? During the New Year’s Festival, my father made offerings to our ancestors, we got new clothes, and had a banquet. He set off firecrackers on New Year’s Day, but I don’t know how other people celebrate. During the Lantern Festival, we released lanterns in our courtyard, but what is it like outside? I’d love to see lanterns coming from houses all across Wuxi.” I pause to take a breath. “I’ve never been to the marketplace. I’ve never—”
“I can tell you about all those things.” She grins. “For every ten characters you teach me, I’ll give you back word stories.”
“Good!” I exclaim, but I wonder if she realizes I’ll be receiving much more than I’ll be giving her. “Now let me show you how to grind ink on the inkstone…”
* * *