Chapter 12: Thoughts on Conduct

Shen Wen had two personal maids, one called Huailou, one called Sijiu, both twenty years of age. This was their fourth year attending at Shen Wen’s side; everything they did was deft and thorough—they could write, keep accounts, and carried themselves with distinction. These few days Jiang Man waited in the study, learning under Huailou and Sijiu; the chores were light, and in idle moments she even discovered that both had some genuine feel for poetry.

The young ladies Jiang Man had known in her boudoir could, at best, read a ledger so as not to be cheated by insolent servants; the better ones had studied women’s learning and the Four Books—but only swallowed whole. Among Jiankang’s daughters, the ability to chant poetry was rare in merchant houses; that leisure belonged mostly to scholars’ families.

The three grew familiar quickly. The two, though scrupulous in their place, over several days—kindred in taste, able to talk—grew warm in speech. But of Shen Wen’s habits, likes and dislikes, even asked by accident, not one word would they give.

This very discretion endeared them to Jiang Man.

Shen Wen might be a Household Master of shifting skies, but her people, one and all, knew advance and retreat, and had substance to them.

Shen Wen was seldom in the garden. She usually went out after the morning meal, sometimes back before the hour of Shen, sometimes not until nightfall did they hear her. Jiang Man, in her station, would never dream of probing her whereabouts—but Sijiu was the talkative one, and when Huailou was absent, Jiang Man might catch a place-name or two: that Shen Wen often left the city for the West Lake, and that this lane and that ward in the city were also her frequent haunts.

Jiang Man had been in Lin’an seven days and had not once been out; naturally she could not have found her way.

Those seven days were idle indeed; her duties were lighter even than at home: in truth, when Shen Wen was present, she served a cup of tea and heard a few feather-light commands, and that was all.

Jiang Man waited in the study throughout. Shen Wen often had great sheaves of writing to read; grinding ink and washing brushes fell to the two maids. Jiang Man would not press close to her—if she saw something she should not, that would be bad—so she stood long outside the curtain, eyes on her nose and nose on her heart. It was not tiresome, only her two legs suffered; whenever she moved them, it was like operating a pair of lotus roots.

Physician Xie had come once to take her pulse; the medicine continued as before. She had seen Wu You twice; as for Inspector Dong, of their single meeting, he had not appeared in the garden.

Her cousin Jiang Lun—what post had he found under Shen Wen? Had he come to Lin’an too?

This day Shen Wen returned early. Taking tea, she dismissed the attendants, leaving only Jiang Man to wait in the study, and was now leafing through a half-new manuscript. On its cover were the words “Outline for Prefectures and Counties”—plainly an official’s admonitory manual, from whence obtained, who knew.

At lunch, unable to resist Sijiu’s urging, Jiang Man had tasted a piece of that Dongpo Pork the two described as glistening with fat yet never greasy—and had felt unwell ever since. She had meant to beg a cup of plain tea to cleanse her palate, but Shen Wen returned, and the thought was abandoned.

From the inner room came a voice: “What are you dreaming about? Called you twice and no answer?”

“Yes.” Jiang Man hurried in, her calves swollen and aching, bearing it as she lifted the bead curtain and curtsied. “What are the Scribe’s commands?”

Shen Wen had evidently found something amusing in the book; her eyes smiled as she looked at Jiang Man—yet with two parts coldness in it. “You do know how to steal leisure.”

Jiang Man dared not rise, nor knew how to answer; she only bowed her head in courtesy, all while enduring the sudden flare of ache in those lotus-root legs of hers.

“I’ve kept you here these days, and you never thought to learn from those two clever ones.” Shen Wen’s gaze returned to the page; she turned it. “Rise.”

“Yes.” Jiang Man rose carefully, afraid that moving too fast she’d stumble and earn herself a lecture.

Whether the Taizhou new year had truly soured this woman’s mood, Jiang Man could not say—but it was true that Shen Wen showed her little warmth. Today her color was somewhat better, rare enough; emboldened, Jiang Man asked, “I have not yet had the honor of asking what I ought to study. I inquired of Steward Dong before—I dare not eat the Scribe’s bread for nothing and disgrace her kindness; I had hoped to find some task. But Steward Dong said all matters await the Scribe’s word—thus I venture to ask today.”

Shen Wen laid the book flat. “You never noticed that when Sijiu and Huailou attend here, they are forever changing the tea, tending the coals, wiping table and stove, dusting the shelves? If the table gleams, they will even clean the inner wall of the lamp shade of every trace of oil. Others find work to do—and you cannot?”

Jiang Man was put out. It was precisely because the room’s tasks were all snapped up that she had nothing to do; her hands were not quicker than those two. To find herself work she could only go tidy at the desk—and would that not simply vex Shen Wen?

Jiang Man did not know how to answer. She thought defending herself would not do—yet feared that if she begged pardon, she would truly seem the shirker.

Then Shen Wen said, “You have never known hardship; you don’t know how to steal ease within busyness, to make yourself comfortable. They tidy inside and out—not for my benefit.”

Jiang Man saw the light: it was to keep their limbs moving?

Such a fine-grained thought—that even Jiang Man, living under another’s roof, had never noticed—yet Shen Wen the mistress had discerned to the last hair.

Her mood must be very good today, to instruct her so. Jiang Man raised her head and saw that Shen Wen’s book was nearly finished; remembering her habits, she quietly went to fetch the gnat-script brush and readied it, warmed. Shen Wen said nothing, turned another page, absorbed.

What official’s manual could be so entertaining? Curiosity stirred in Jiang Man; she stole glances now and then.

The entry on this page read “Accept the tax rice; do not reject it over-often”—a few spare lines teaching how to screen rice that met the standard for receipt. Dull beyond words; nothing amusing in a single stroke.

Had she not been laughing at the manual before? Jiang Man turned it over in her mind, realized belatedly, and flushed.

She had been holding back with all her strength—never imagining her discomfort had long been written on her face.

She stole another glance at Shen Wen—one glance only—and dropped her head again at once.

Thinking on it, Shen Wen’s conduct, though erratic to the point of madness, had after all the capital to be mad with.

Might she, at bottom, be kind-hearted?

Shen Wen closed the book and tossed it on the desk, saying abruptly, “On your left there are several blue-covered volumes—the Collected Annotations on the Analects. Find them.”

Jiang Man came back to herself. “Yes.”

Shen Wen’s library held barely a thousand volumes—few for her station. But in this room nearly every book had been thumbed until its pages curled; some covers were brand-new, yet seen from the side, the paper curved as if fished from water and dried.

Jiang Man searched the left-hand shelves as bidden, moving as quietly as she could for fear of disturbing Shen Wen. But of what classics the shelves held she knew nothing; she drew out a dozen volumes one after another, spent considerable time, and found nothing.

Wood scraped stone—a soft sigh—and Shen Wen came over, one finger landing on a book before Jiang Man’s face. “What is this, then?”

Her words brushed Jiang Man’s ear like a feather.

Jiang Man had long since stopped breathing, and Shen Wen’s subtle fragrance, that spirit and grace, had already, unawares, closed around her.

Before her eyes was the woman’s sleeve—and in a flash, what Jiang Man remembered was Shen Wen’s brow and eyes, a thousand miles cold.

How near she was.