Chapter 437 — Dowry
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
The Miao couple had long known their son to be a man of many schemes; at these words their eyes lit up at once, and they said together, "What have you got in mind?"
Miao Anping grinned slyly. "The Songs are simply bullying us for having no money, and that is why they dare not open their mouths about the betrothal money. But the betrothal money has always come before the betrothal gifts. We can trick the money into our hands first and talk afterward."
Father Miao grasped his son's meaning instantly.
He shook his head like a rattle drum. "That won't do. The marriage contract sets down plainly how much the betrothal money is and how much the dowry is, down to the last tael. When the time comes and we cannot produce it—" Here he broke off, clapped his palms together, and looked at his son with a gaze brimming with comfort and admiration. "Why did I never think of it? This is a marriage bestowed by imperial grace. Will the Song family dare call it off when the time comes?"
Mother Miao, however, was frightened half out of her wits. "We mustn't, we mustn't! If the Songs lodge a complaint with the Emperor, how could our family withstand it? If the two of you are clapped into prison, how am I to live?" And with that she covered her face and wept.
"On a day of great joy, what are you wailing for?" Father Miao scolded her impatiently, though her words had left a shade of worry at the bottom of his eyes.
Miao Anping rolled his eyes this way and that, and at once had an idea. "It is precisely that I fear they will not lodge an imperial complaint! For if they do—well, it is the Song family who care about face. They will hold up their own Heir as their example: they insisted our family produce a dowry of such size, and our family, reckoning this a marriage bestowed by the throne, a matchless honor, resolved to scrape the sum together despite our slender means. But when we had borrowed from every relative and friend, we simply could not raise the silver. Should the Songs be willing, our family is willing to write an IOU and make good on Ansu's dowry little by little in the years to come. Now tell me—if His Majesty heard such a speech as that, would he not bestow ten or twenty thousand taels upon our household?"
Father Miao nodded with delight. "Trust your head to find the way! We shall put it to your elder uncle just so. And once your sister has married in, with her arts, can she fail to wind your brother-in-law round her finger? Since the Duke of Ying has settled such a fortune on your brother-in-law, a few drops slipping through your sister's fingers will be enough to keep us chewing for years—perhaps enough to make up the silver we lack. A truly fine notion!"
Miao Anping smiled smugly.
Mother Miao, though, thought it all very improper, and quavered in a small voice, "But we never borrowed any silver for Ansu's marriage..."
Father Miao itched to kick this spoilsport of a woman out of the room. "Did we not borrow a great deal of silver from others in times past? When the time comes, we need only bring out those IOUs."
Mother Miao wanted very much to say that some of those IOUs were two or three years old and some were from these last few days—but two or three years ago this marriage had not even been dreamt of. How were they to bluff their way past that?
Yet seeing the sullen fury in her husband's face, the words rose to her lips and she swallowed them again.
Father Miao had plainly thought of this too, for he instructed his son, "Go now and exchange those IOUs. Say the interest is to be reckoned afresh, so that no flaw shows."
Miao Anping answered "Yes," and the two of them left the side chamber, one behind the other.
Mother Miao had no choice but to follow her husband and son out the door.
The Miao family's eldest married daughter, who sat among the women's seats beside Third Madam Song, received the news and was secretly puzzled.