Chapter 3 — Bitterness

"A word once given should not be taken back—how can I go back on it now?" Dou Xin said. "As it happens, Lady Guo sent word through someone just the other day that she wished to arrange a marriage between our families. So I thought it best to betroth Wei to the eldest granddaughter of the Marquis of Xuanning, and so dissolve this knot of our own accord. That way, Aunt, you need not offend your father-in-law and make your days hard."

Her mother-in-law nodded again and again, and, shedding her usual mildness, said with decision: "We shall do as you say. Lady Guo and you are on the closest terms; her eldest granddaughter is a girl we have watched grow up, and in character and looks she is one in ten thousand—she is a fit match for our Wei. There is no time to lose. Send someone to the Guo house these next two days to make the proposal." Then, the words out of her mouth, she remembered that Dou Yan was still laid up in bed, and quickly amended: "Never mind—I shall see to this myself. You just rest well; leave everything to me!" With that she took Wei Fan by the arm and went back to her own courtyard to discuss Wei's betrothal.

Dou Yan's heart settled somewhat, and she instructed Cuileng: "Go and fetch the heir to see me."

There were matters she must speak of with Wei.

Cuileng answered and went.

Weariness came over Dou Yan, and she fell asleep.

Dimly, hazily, she heard a clamor.

"...Good sister, I am not here to make a scene or play the shrew—I am worried about the mistress's illness." Concubine Hu's shrill voice pierced her ear. "Everyone in the household is saying the mistress is so ill she will not last. I only wanted to know for certain." With that she wailed as though at a funeral: "If anything should happen to the mistress, how are the Third Master and I to live? I might as well go with her..."

Wei Fan had four concubines. After Rui turned four, they bore him, one after another, four sons and four daughters.

Brothers fight tigers together; fathers and sons go to war side by side.

Dou Zhiwei's two sons were both grown, and she did not mind these concubines spreading the Wei branches.

When these children grew up and made something of themselves, they would be a help to Wei and Rui.

This Concubine Hu was the first to bear a son by a concubine.

She had still been young then, and she had been smug about it for a good while.

Dou made no fuss; she took in two more concubines for Wei Fan—women of striking beauty, skilled in the hundred songs and in backgammon and chess.

This suited Wei Fan's taste exactly.

Day and night he dallied with the two new concubines, and how could he still remember who she was?

Only then did Concubine Hu realize: if Dou Yan wished it, she could make whomever she pleased favored, and whomever she pleased left in cold neglect!

So she washed off her rouge and powder, lowered her brows and bent her head, and set about courting Dou Yan's favor.

Dou Yan then took in yet another concubine for Wei Fan, one skilled in the lute, chess, calligraphy, and painting.

Once the concubines knew how formidable Dou Zhiwei was, none dared put on airs or strike poses again.

Since they were docile, Dou Yan of course did not make things hard for them. The concubines' clothes and ornaments for the four seasons, the maids and old women who served the concubine-born children—all were arranged properly, hardly inferior to what a principal wife and legitimate children of an ordinary great household enjoyed. The concubines settled their hearts, curried favor with Dou Yan, served Wei Fan, and bore sons and daughters, and the household was quiet and peaceful enough.

"What nonsense is the concubine talking?" Cuileng scolded Concubine Hu angrily. "Why must you always clutch at shadows and say such disjointed things? The Marquis and the mistress talked half the night; the mistress has only just lain down. Would you wake her?"

"No, no." Concubine Hu hastened to explain. "I—I was only grieving... I wish I could take this illness for the mistress..."

She spoke with every appearance of sincerity.

Dou Yan believed she was speaking from the heart.

If she died, within a year at most Wei Fan would take another wife, and there would be beauties in bloom to make music with him; Wei was heir to the Jining estate and all but betrothed—without his birth mother he would still have his wife's family to support him; as for Rui and her daughter Yin, with Wei, the heir, as their full brother, they would not suffer; only the concubines—their sons still young, their looks fading day by day—would have nothing to lean on!

"Even so, the concubine should not make such a clamor before the mistress's door." It was a voice both gentle and not without severity that counseled Concubine Hu. "If every concubine behaved as you do, would the house not be turned upside down! It is early morning; the concubine has likely not broken her fast yet? Best go back to your room and eat, and come again when the mistress wakes..."

It was Zhu's voice!

Dou Yan's heart gave a jolt.

Zhu was the wet nurse she had chosen with the utmost care for her eldest son—pure of character, generous and kind, more patient and painstaking with Wei than with her own son. Rarest of all, she was conscientious. When Wei did wrong, she never let it pass merely because she was his nurse; she always instructed him carefully and urged him to mend. So much so that after Dou Yan bore her second son, she put Rui's household affairs in her hands as well, freeing herself to devote all her energies to managing the Wei household's affairs.

The consequence was that her two sons held her in awe and obedience, but had no fond attachment to her.

Dou Yan regretted it bitterly!

First she sent Zhu, under the name of honorable retirement, to the Jining estate's villa in the Western Hills; then she took charge of her two sons' food and daily life herself, inquired after their studies and lessons, and persuaded Wei Fan to teach the boys archery and horsemanship...

But it was all too late.

Zhu's conduct was as open and honorable as the clear sky after rain, with nothing in it that could be murmured against. Ten-year-old Wei and nine-year-old Rui not only remembered but understood. What she did did not draw her two sons closer; instead they grew more silent before her.

She knew the two boys blamed her for sending Zhu away.

But who could know or understand the heartbreak of a mother estranged from her own children?

Perhaps only a woman truly understands a woman. Zhu had sensed the knot in her heart, and after going to the manor had never once taken the initiative to contact Wei or Rui, much less come back to the mansion without leave as she had done now.

What had Zhu come for?

Dou Yan pondered it, and heard from outside a low stir of surprise: "Nurse, why have you come? The road from the manor to the capital is all ruts and pits—why did you not send word, so I could have the estate's carriage fetched to bring you."

A youth's clear, pleasant voice—her son Wei.

Since her illness, the child had wanted to nurse her, but she could not bear it and feared passing the sickness to them, so she had them keep to the old custom of morning and evening greetings. Meeting him at this hour, it should be her son come to pay his respects.

He was the legitimate eldest son of the Jining Marquis's house, raised from childhood as the heir, and with Wei Fan as the precedent before her, Dou Yan had been stricter with him than with the children of ordinary noble houses. As he grew older his conduct grew ever more steady, and he won much praise from his elders; Dou Yan had secretly been proud of it.

To make a fuss like a child—was this her calm, reserved eldest son?

Dou Yan did something she had always despised in herself.

She threw on a robe, rose from bed, and peered through the window lattice at Zhu and her son.