Chapter 50 — Lending a Hand
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 2 of 4
"It's normal for it to be higher than usual," said the Third Madam. "But thirty percent higher than usual—isn't that a bit much?" As she spoke she leafed through the accounts. "Look here, this is what the household spent when the Sixth Master passed the provincial examination. Now look at what it spent when the Zhao aunt came..."
"The Sixth Master's time was still mid-autumn, but the Zhao aunt did not leave until after the Winter Solstice, and once the Solstice passes, the price of chicken and duck and fish all goes up..."
"Before the Winter Solstice, don't the various estates send their goods in?" The Third Madam was unmoved. "Why are you still buying from outside?"
"The Zhao aunt stayed from mid-autumn all the way to Light Snow." The managing mother was so agitated that blisters rose at the corners of her mouth. Seeing Wang Shuying in her half-new clothes and finding her face unfamiliar, she took her for some steward's wife, and while still talking to the Third Madam, she pointed at Wang Shuying: "Go, pour me a cup of tea!"
"Me?" Wang Shuying was taken aback and looked toward the Third Madam.
But the Third Madam and the managing mother were glaring at each other like two fighting cocks.
Wang Shuying looked again at the Third Madam's maids and serving women; not one of them made a sound, so she had no choice but to rise slowly and pour the managing mother a cup of tea.
Yet resentment still churned in her heart, and she quietly asked a young maid: "What does this managing mother do?"
"You mean Mother Dou?" The young maid followed her gesture and smiled. "She's the wife of our Steward Dou. There's no one more upright. She used to be a personal maid to the Dowager, and even the masters of our household give her a measure of respect." Then she asked curiously, "Which branch are you from? I've never seen you before. Are you a newly promoted steward's wife?"
Wang Shuying regretted dressing so plainly. The next day she did her hair in a falling-horse chignon, wore a large jadeite flower, and put on a leek-green brocade jacket, radiant and striking.
All who came in to report matters smiled and nodded to her, asking the Third Madam who she was.
"She is the concubine Wang of the East Residence."
Then those people looked at her again with a little more curiosity, a little probing, and even a faint hint of disdain. At mealtime the maids and serving women glanced at her in twos and threes, and the moment she turned her back they let out ambiguous titters.
Wang Shuying was both ashamed and angry, regretting that she had dressed so conspicuously, and the whole day passed as though she sat on a bed of needles.
Back at Qixia Court, Nurse Hu told her: "The Second Dowager sent Mother Liu to fetch Miss Ming. She said the New Year is near and you must learn household management from the Third Madam, so there is no one to look after Miss Ming; it was just as well to bring her over to keep the Fourth Miss company."
Dou Ming had never in all her life been parted from Wang Shuying. Wang Shuying felt as though a piece of flesh had been cut from her. At this hour it was hardly proper to go back to the East Residence to fetch the child, so she scolded Nurse Hu: "Why didn't you send someone to tell me? I could have brought Ming back with me when I came home."
Nurse Hu said to herself, Who knew no one in the East Residence would inform you!
But she dared not say it aloud and could only acknowledge the fault in fear and trembling.
Wang Shuying worried first that Dou Ming, parted from her, would be unsettled and cry all night; then that the people in the Second Dowager's rooms would put on airs and look after Dou Ming poorly; then that Dou Yan would bully Dou Ming. Tossing and turning, she did not sleep a wink all night, and after washing and dressing she went to Dou Duo.