  Ground-state properties of a double-large-dot sample connected to a reservoir
via a single-mode point contact are investigated. When the interdot
transmission is perfect and the dots controlled by the same dimensionless gate
voltage, we find that for any finite backscattering from the barrier between
the lead and the left dot, the average dot charge exhibits a Coulomb-staircase
behavior with steps of size e/2 and the capacitance peak period is halved. The
interdot electrostatic coupling here is weak. For strong tunneling between the
left dot and the lead, we report a conspicuous intermediate phase in which the
fractional plateaus get substantially altered by an increasing slope.
