Chapter 239 — The Dowry
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Seeing her daughter's dismissive look, Wang Shuying lectured her: "Why don't you use your head? Whatever ceremony the Yingguo Duke's household uses to take Dou Yan as a bride, that is exactly how they will treat her once she is through the door. Whether a daughter is valued by her husband's family determines whether she can help her natal family when it counts. A daughter who is not valued by her husband's family can only have her natal family help her husband's family—there is no time when her husband's family helps her natal family.
"A marriage is meant to join the good of two families. If you cannot maintain the good of the two families, what is the point of your natal family helping you?
"That sister-in-law of yours is a formidable one. You had not been through the door a month before she urged your mother-in-law to have you take charge of the household accounts—and the accounts hold precious little silver. She clearly means to trick you out of your dowry. Without your natal family's backing, can you outmatch your sister-in-law? Or do you plan to simply admit defeat and let your sister-in-law take whatever she wants?"
Dou Ming could not help asking, "Then what do you say I should do?"
This was precisely why she had come to her mother—to have her mother think of a plan for her.
"Am I not confined to my quarters now?" Wang Shuying said with a cold laugh. "Go to your Fifth Aunt. In front of all the relatives, pretend you know nothing at all and ask her what you should do."
"But what if she tells me to take charge of the household accounts?" Dou Ming was quite taken aback. "They care only for appearances—what do they care whether I live well or not?"
Wang Shuying's greatest hope now was to draw back to her side this daughter who had been so thoroughly brainwashed by the Dou family and had grown ever more distant from her.
Otherwise, she truly would have no day of deliverance!
"Are you a fool!" Wang Shuying said. "Just do as your Fifth Aunt tells you! But remember this: from now on, you must often go to the Huai Tree Alley to seek your Fifth Aunt's counsel on managing a household. When you go, wear the same few garments over and over, and when you send the servants about, you must look cowed and timid..."
Dou Ming was a clever girl and understood at once.
She could not help turning it over in her mind.
A flicker of relief passed through Wang Shuying's eyes.
Before long, the little maid came back to report.
Her parrot-like recitation turned both Wang Shuying's and Dou Ming's faces deathly pale.
"What did you say?" Wang Shuying rose to her feet, quite losing her composure. "The Marquis wants to call the Fourth Son-in-law his elder brother?"
The little maid was rather dull-witted. Otherwise, the steward would never have sent her to serve Wang Shuying.
Nodding, she said with great earnestness, "That is what the Young Heir Shen said, and he also said the Marquis was unlucky to have met the Fourth Son-in-law—otherwise, he could have kept the Fourth Son-in-law pressed down, each addressed according to his own rank. When the master heard this, he laughed. And several of the master's colleagues laughed along with him..."
Wang Shuying's heart felt as though oil had been poured upon a fire.
"Fool!" She glared fiercely at the little maid. "Who told you to be so detailed?"
The little maid lowered her head, aggrieved.
Was it not you who told me to tell you everything I saw and heard, plainly and in full detail?
Dou Ming too grew fretful.
She asked the little maid, "When the Young Heir Shen said this, what did the Marquis say?"
The little maid said softly, "The Marquis said nothing."
Which was to say, Wei Fan had acknowledged it too.
Mother and daughter both fell silent, their faces very grim.