Sour Loquats - Chapter 1

Every year, when loquats arrived in the capital, the palace would bestow several crates on the marquis’s household.

The old madam did not care for them.

She always called in the young masters and told them to share the fruit among the younger members of the family.

Third Cousin was bold and carefree. He made no attempt to hide his preference for me.

Everyone else received two plates. I received five.

The young ladies of the household were on good terms with me. Far from getting angry, they teased him.

“Third Brother, at least try to hide how you feel. You’re practically a peacock with its tail spread!”

After my parents died, I had come to seek refuge with the marquis’s family, carrying a marriage contract.

Everyone in the household knew I was to marry one of my cousins.

The family honored the contract, and the sons they had raised were upright men who kept their word.

All of them were willing to marry me. In the end, the choice of husband was left to me.

But the eldest had trouble with his legs, the second was a womanizer, and the fifth was too young.

That left the third and fourth sons, evenly matched in looks and ability.

Third Cousin was proud and exuberant; Fourth Cousin, steady and reserved.

I could not make up my mind, and the old madam did not hurry me.

“There’s no rush. Decide when you come of age at your hairpin ceremony. Whoever you marry, this family will cherish and protect you.”

As I grew older and taller, I grew prettier too.

My cousins began to watch me more intently, each plainly hoping to be chosen.

Third Cousin was the most open about his feelings.

Two more winter outfits than anyone else, three extra plates of loquats—he never hid his preference for me.

Sometimes, though, I upset him. When we were not speaking, he would deliberately keep his distance.

Every young lady in the household would receive her usual share of winter clothes and loquats. Everyone except me.

Nurse could only bring out last year’s clothes, wash them, and mend them for me to wear again.

In my old clothes, I would hide behind a pillar and steal glances at the loquat stones the others had left behind.

Fourth Cousin was an entirely different sort of person.

Though younger than Third Cousin, he was composed, principled, and meticulous.

He treated me, a cousin living under their roof, exactly as he treated the young ladies of the family.

Whatever they received, I received too.

If they had five winter outfits, so did I.

If they had two plates of loquats, I had precisely two as well.

During the five years Third Cousin managed the household affairs, he gave me fifteen plates of loquats.

Fourth Cousin took over for the next five years and gave me ten.

Nurse said that, by comparison, Third Cousin treated me better.

During his years in charge, he often favored me one year and shunned me the next.

Still, it worked out to three plates a year.

One more than the two Fourth Cousin gave me each year.

But I did not think you could count it that way.

Two plates were my rightful allowance.

Whether Fourth Cousin liked me or not, he was fair. I received my share every year.

Third Cousin’s feelings were far too difficult to predict.

One year I might have five plates. The next, I would have none at all.

How much I received depended on how much he liked me.

Something so uncertain. So changeable.

One wrong word, and it all became as insubstantial as flowers in a mirror, the moon reflected in water.