To Be A Virtuous Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Clause Nine
Yuwei finds the marriage contract hidden in her dowry chest and decides to serve three years and leave rich; the prince is waiting in her dark room.
The books were a mess, but they were a mess on purpose.
Yuwei saw it in the first twenty pages, sitting cross-legged on the Peony Court floor with a lamp and a pot of tea Dongmei had made while she watched.
Entries were dated and carefully inked.
Numbers were round, and every month closed on a figure that looked neat enough to hang on a wall.
Real households never closed that neatly.
Somebody was writing the totals first and the details later.
She rubbed her eyes.
"Mistress, you should sleep," Dongmei said. "The Dowager gave you thirty days."
"Twenty-nine. Bring me the dowry list."
"The what?"
"The list of what I brought into this house. Somebody wrote it down."
Dongmei dug through a trunk and came back with a long scroll.
It was a sorry list.
Two bolts of silk, a set of old porcelain, a jade ring, forty taels in silver, three sets of winter clothes.
No wonder the prince had paid six thousand taels of debt.
Nothing on this paper came near four thousand.
"Then where did the Dowager's four thousand come from?" Yuwei murmured.
"What did you say?"
"She says my dowry cost this house four thousand taels. My dowry had forty taels in it."
Dongmei's mouth opened.
"Then that's a lie."
"It's a number. I don't know yet who it belongs to."
She turned the scroll over, looking for a seal or a second page.
On the back, in a thin, careful hand, someone had written a note.
It said: Chest, left corner, under the lining. Keep it dry.
Yuwei stared at it.
"Dongmei. Where is my dowry chest?"
"At the foot of the bed, mistress. The old one with the brass corners."
It was a wooden chest, scratched and dull, about the size of a small child's coffin.
She knelt beside it and ran her hand across the inside.
The bottom was lined with faded green cloth.
She pushed at the left corner, and nothing happened.
She pressed harder.
The cloth gave, and a thin paper slid out of a hidden pocket, folded in thirds.
The paper was heavy and cream-colored, and it had two seals at the bottom.
One was red, with a tiger's head.
The other was a small round chop, belonging to Han Yuwei.
She unfolded it and read by the lamp.
It was a contract.
Not for a marriage, but for a very careful arrangement that happened to look like one.
The Prince of Anbei would clear the debts of the Han family, six thousand taels, in full.
In return, Han Yuwei would serve as his lawful wife for three years.
She would hold his house with honor, appear at his side in public, and bring no scandal to his name.
On the third anniversary of the wedding, he would release her.
She would receive a letter of release, two thousand taels in silver, and the deed to a small house at Qinghe, in the southern hills.
Yuwei read the last line again.
She read it a third time.
Then she began to laugh, quietly, with her hand over her mouth.
"Mistress?"
"Three years," she whispered. "Two thousand taels and a house. Dongmei, I'm not trapped."
"You're not?"
"I'm employed."
She had been scared since she woke, and she had been hiding it behind sarcasm.
Now she looked at the paper and the fear loosened.
This was a job.
She had done terrible jobs before, with worse bosses, for less pay.
She could do three years of anything.
She read the contract through again, slowly.
The wife's duties were plain.
The prince's duties were two: pay the debt, and give the release.
And at the bottom, in smaller writing, a ninth clause.
If scandal falls upon the house through the fault of the wife, the release, the silver and the deed shall be void.
She sat back on her heels.
Scandal.
Poisoned tea, a ruined tea ceremony, a missing four thousand taels.
It would be very, very easy for someone to arrange a scandal.
And someone, she realized, already had.
"The Dowager wants me to lose the deed," she said. "That's what the four thousand is for. If I'm a thief, clause nine voids everything."
Dongmei looked as if she wanted to faint.
"Then we have to hide this."
"No. We have to find who knows it exists." Yuwei folded the contract carefully. "The old me hid it. Why would she hide it from everyone?"
"Because she didn't trust anyone."
"Then neither will I."
She was reaching to slide the paper back under the lining when she noticed something strange about the chest.
She laid her hand flat on the bottom board, then pressed her palm to the outside of the chest.
The outside was deeper than the inside.
By nearly the width of two fingers.
She frowned and tapped.
The sound was hollow.
"What is it?" Dongmei asked.
"Probably nothing. A bad carpenter."
She put the paper back and shut the lid.
She was tired, and it was easy to leave a small mystery for another night.
Dongmei went to heat more water.
Yuwei picked up her lamp, turned, and stopped.
Someone was sitting in the dark corner of the room, in the chair by the window, with his hands folded.
The lamplight just reached the dark green of his robe.
"Don't scream," said the prince. "I knocked."
"You did not."
"I thought about it." He did not move. "You've found the chest."
Her throat went tight.
"You know about the contract."
"I signed it. I know where my wife hides things."
He stood up, took a step, and stopped, as if to give her room.
"Read clause nine again," said Lu Chengzhou. "Because someone is going to try to use it against you before the week is over."
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