Chapter 57 — Grandfather (Bonus Update for 300 Pink Votes)

Grandfather was watching the opera with the newly arrived Magistrate Lu of Zhending County, the servants having brought up such delicacies as mandarin-orange cakes and Fengcheng preserved meats. He had meant to take a mandarin-orange cake, but his eyes were fixed so intently on the stage that he seized a salted peanut and popped it into his mouth; by the time he realized his mistake, the peanut had lodged in his throat, and he coughed without cease. Those beside him hurriedly offered tea to ease his throat, but the more he drank, the harder he coughed.

Dou Yan sat at Dou Duo's bedside, gazing at her unconscious grandfather, unable to say whether what she felt was sorrow or a dull, empty ache.

In her last life, she had not returned to the Western Dou until after Grandfather was laid in his coffin. By then it was already the eighth month, and she was still a muddled child; newly arrived at the Eastern residence, flustered, frightened, ill at ease—how could she have thought to ask after the cause of her grandfather's death?

No wonder, then, that in this life Grandfather, after three months of coma, would die?

Her father soon hurried back from the capital, and with him came Dou Ming.

She was greatly changed from her days at the Eastern Dou. She seemed much livelier, her voice louder. No sooner had she stepped from the carriage than she called out loudly to Gao Sheng: "I've brought piles of things back for Sister Yi and Sister Shu and the rest—mind you're careful, take everything to my room."

Her room?

And where was her room?

The warm chamber on the Second Dowager's side? Or the eastern wing that Wang Shuying had arranged for her?

The warm chamber was in the Eastern residence. The eastern wing—she had not spent a single day in it.

Gao Sheng looked rather put out.

Dou Ming had already begun to shout in displeasure: "You dog of a servant, mind I don't tell Father to sell you off."

Dou Yan closed her eyes.

Matters had returned, beyond any reversing, to their former course.

She stepped out and rebuked Dou Ming: "Gao Sheng serves Father. Even if he were at fault, it is not for you to deal with him. If you dare say such a thing again, I'll have you dragged off to the firewood shed and shut up there for three days."

Dou Ming had been in awe of this somewhat distant elder sister since childhood; at these words her expression faltered, but she quickly mastered her fear and said, "I—I didn't mean anything by it." Her voice trailed off; in the end she dared not talk back to Dou Yan.

Dou Yaocheng had been a man much given to enjoyment, and early on had bought a three-courtyard house in a lane beside Yunqi Temple in the capital. Small though it was, it was decked out in silks and flowers, its furnishings and vessels all exquisite; it was a most comfortable place to live.

Blood is a fearful thing. Whether Dou Duo or Dou Huaiying, all were like their ancestor Dou Yaocheng, fond of comfort.

While in the capital, Dou Huaiying stayed there. Dou Ming was in the capital too, but it was inconvenient for him to bring a child along alone. What was more, when Lady Wang Xu saw Dou Ming's dull-witted air and heard her daughter's account, and learned that Dou Bingheng and her own husband did not get along, she was sure the Eastern Dou meant to use this to put the Western Dou down, and her heart ached beyond bearing. So when Dou Ming came to the capital, Lady Wang Xu cherished her like the apple of her eye; her own grandsons were all thrust aside, and she doted only on this granddaughter. Dou Huaiying went to see Dou Ming a few times, but finding her rosy-cheeked and surrounded by a great press of maids and serving women who would not leave her for a moment, and that she had grown somewhat distant from him, he counted himself well rid of the trouble. One lived in the Yunqi Temple lane, the other in the Liuye Lane, and his contact with Dou Ming was not much.

Seeing Dou Ming treat Gao Sheng thus, he was displeased. But having no experience of being with his daughter, he stood there dumbfounded, not knowing what to say.

Now that Dou Yan had stepped in and Dou Ming's temper had cooled, Dou Huaiying could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Wang Shuying, seeing Dou Ming rebuked by Dou Zhiwei while Dou Huaiying said not a word, knew that Dou Huaiying was siding with Dou Yan, and feared that Dou Ming might thereby lose Dou Huaiying's favor. She hastened to smile and smooth things over, saying to Dou Yan, "Your father and your sister have both been anxious over your grandfather's illness; they've come dusty and weary from the capital, hurried and tired, so tempers are bound to run high and words to come out a little crooked." Then to Gao Sheng she said, "Take the Fifth Miss's trunks and boxes to the eastern wing of Qixia Court." And then to Dou Huaiying, "The Seventh Master has had a hard journey. This humble one has already ordered the women in the kitchen to heat water. Will you go and wash and change before visiting Father? Lest Father take the dust from your clothes."

Dou Yan sneered inwardly. She thought: Your own mother won't trouble herself over you—am I, a half-sister by another mother, to wag my tongue and meddle in everything? So she said no more and went back into Grandfather's bedchamber.

Aunt Ding had tended Grandfather without sleep or rest ever since his illness, and two days ago at last she could hold out no longer and fell ill herself. Grandfather's bedside was now in the charge of Qiufen, the senior maid who served Aunt Ding.

Seeing Dou Yan come in, she made haste to stand aside with her hands folded respectfully.

Dou Yan instructed her: "My father has returned. He will come to see Grandfather in the time it takes to burn three sticks of incense at most. Have the maids prepare tea, and then send for the physician who has been treating Grandfather. Father will likely have questions for him."

Ever since Dou Duo had fallen ill, Dou Ji had returned to the Eastern residence and taken up residence in the main quarters, which had stood empty all this while. By day she stayed only at Grandfather's bedside tending his illness; all other household matters were managed by Wang Shuying. Only when elders such as the Second Dowager came to inquire after the sick would she come out to exchange a few pleasantries; now and then she would direct a maid or a managing woman to do some task, yet everything she said struck the mark, all of it things Wang Shuying had not thought of or had overlooked. By degrees, the maids and managing women of standing in the household had grown more circumspect in her presence.

Qiufen respectfully assented and dispatched maids and serving women to the task.

Before long Dou Huaiying and Dou Ming, having washed and changed, came in escorted by Wang Shuying.

Dou Yan withdrew to one side and yielded the place at the head of the bed to her father.

Dou Huaiying took Dou Duo's hand, and in an instant his eyes rimmed red.

Qiufen came in to announce: "Fourth Miss, the physician is here."

Dou Yan said softly to her father: "If you have anything to ask, ask the physician."

Dou Huaiying knew it was his daughter's arrangement, and cast her a grateful glance, greatly comforted at heart, thinking that to have given his eldest daughter into Lady Ji's care had been the rightest thing in the world.

The physician explained Dou Duo's condition to Dou Huaiying in careful detail; the gist of it was that if he had not awakened by the seventh month, the family should make ready for the funeral.

The judgment was, in fact, quite accurate.

Hearing it, Dou Huaiying wept.

The mood in the room turned mournful at once; all followed suit and wiped their eyes—even Dou Yan shed a few tears.

Father set up a couch beside Grandfather's bed, and himself wiped Grandfather's back and bathed him, carried away his waste, fed him water and medicine.