The Warning Voice Read online

Lady Wang hugged Bao-yu.

  ‘What about me?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Doesn’t anyone love me?’

  ‘I’ll hold you,’ said You-shi, laughing, ‘– though why you should act the shrinking young thing now I can’t imagine. Normally when you hear fireworks you get so excited I’d sooner eat a bee’s turd than stand by and watch you!’

  ‘Wait until this is over,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We’ll go out in the courtyard and let some off ourselves. I’m sure I can do it better than these boys.’

  While they were speaking, a succession of different sorts of fireworks were going off outside: golden rain, ‘nine dragon’ rockets, thunderflashes, cloud-hoppers, and many other sorts. When the display was over, the boy-actors were asked to go up on the stage again and play the Beggar’s Song, and everyone amused themselves by throwing money onto the stage and watching them scramble for it.

  As hot soup was once more being served, Grandmother Jia remarked that after being up for so many hours she was beginning to feel rather empty.

  ‘We have some duck and rice stew ready,’ Xi-feng told her.

  ‘I think I’d like something a bit lighter than that,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  ‘We’ve got a rice and date frumenty that was made for the ladies who don’t eat meat,’ said Xi-feng.

  ‘That will do,’ said Grandmother Jia.

  The used things were removed now from the table and another set of dishes containing all sorts of tempting entremets laid out in their place. When everyone had sampled what they fancied, they rinsed their mouths out with tea supplied for that purpose and the party finally broke up.

  *

  Early on the morning of the seventeenth the family paid a formal visit to the Ning-guo mansion to attend the ceremonial closing of the Hall of Ancestors and the taking down and putting away of the ancestral portraits. Later in that day, when they were back at Rong-guo House, they attended a New Year reception by Aunt Xue.

  There was no question of another Visitation that year. A Dowager Consort, who had been the late Emperor’s favourite concubine, had fallen seriously ill and the filial feelings of the reigning Emperor had prompted him to curtail all seasonal festivities at the Palace. So from Yuan-chun that year there was not so much as a lantern riddle.

  There was, however, during the days which followed, a succession of parties or ‘receptions’ given by the senior domestics of the household, to which the family were, of course, invited: Lai Da’s on the eighteenth, Lai Sheng’s at the Ning-guo mansion on the nineteenth, Lin Zhi-xiao’s on the twentieth, Widow Shan’s on the twenty-first and Wu Xin-deng’s on the twenty-second. Grandmother Jia attended these or not as the fancy took her, sometimes coming at the beginning and staying until all the other guests had gone, sometimes only putting in a brief appearance long after her arrival had been despaired of. But she refused absolutely to turn up when friends or relations were visiting, or to attend the receptions to which they invited her, leaving Lady Xing, Lady Wang and Xi-feng to stand in for her on these occasions. Bao-yu, too – apart from a single duty visit to his uncle Wang Zi-teng’s house – managed to avoid all social gatherings by saying that his grandmother needed him at home to keep her amused.

  Then suddenly, when all the festivities were over, an event occurred which filled the whole household with dismay. Xi-feng had a miscarriage.

  For further information on this subject you must turn to the following chapter.

  CHAPTER 55

  A foolish concubine seeks to humiliate her own daughter And an ill-natured stewardess tries to outwit her young mistress

  As we were saying, the First Month festivities in the Rong-guo mansion were scarcely over when Xi-feng had a miscarriage. Confined for a month to her room by doctor’s orders and with two or three physicians in daily attendance on her, she was unable to keep up her usual management of the household’s affairs; yet so confident was she of her powers of recovery that she continued, in spite of remonstrances, to plan things from her sick-room, despatching Patience with messages to Lady Wang whenever she thought of something that needed doing.

  Lady Wang for her part was like a woman who has lost a limb. Never at the best of times an energetic person, she attended to only the most important matters herself and left most of the routine business to Li Wan. Unfortunately Li Wan, though a model young woman in some respects, was not a good manager and allowed the servants to do more or less as they liked. Soon Lady Wang was obliged to call in Tan-chun as a reinforcement. It would only be for a month, she told them. If they could hold out for a month, Xi-feng would by then be better and would be able to take over once more.

  But Xi-feng was not as robust as she supposed. Like many young people she had not been taking proper care of herself, and the excessive demands she had for some time past been making on her nervous energies had seriously weakened a constitution that was already far from strong. The miscarriage was in fact only a symptom of her body’s exhaustion. A month later it was followed by the beginning of a chronic small discharge of blood from the womb. Although she was unwilling to tell anyone about it, it was apparent to everyone from her gaunt and yellow look that something must be seriously the matter with her.

  Lady Wang insisted that she should make a more serious effort to get better: she must follow the treatment prescribed for her; above all she must stop worrying about the household. Xi-feng was herself beginning to be afraid that the trouble might develop into a major illness which would leave her at the mercy of her enemies and was now willing to take time off to recuperate. But in spite of her impatience to get better, the weakness was not to be cured in a day, and it was not until well into the autumn of that year, after months of slow convalescence, that her body recovered its strength and the discharge of blood finally dried up.

  But we anticipate. Let us return to the time about a month after the miscarriage when Lady Wang was beginning to realize that her niece was far from better and could not be expected to relieve Li Wan and Tan-chun of their duties.

  Lady Wang was worried about the Garden. There were far too many people in it: she feared that they were receiving insufficient supervision. Calling Bao-chai to her, she entrusted her with their surveillance.

  ‘Those older women are no good,’ she told her. ‘They drink and play cards whenever they have a moment to spare. They sleep in the daytime and play cards at night, I know they do. When Feng was up and about, there was someone they were afraid of; but now that she is out of the way, I expect they do just as they please. Now my dear, I know you are a dependable person. Your cousins are too young for these matters and I am too busy. Will you please, for my sake, keep your eye on things for the next week or two? If you come across anything I have missed, point it out to me. I don’t want Lady Jia asking me about things and finding that I don’t know the answer. If you see any of the servants misbehaving, let me know. And report them if they are disobedient. Don’t wait for things to get out of hand before speaking up about them.’

  Bao-chai, whatever she thought of this request, could not very well refuse it.

  Spring was now at its height. Dai-yu’s seasonal cough had returned, and in All-spice Court Shi Xiang-yun lay ill in bed with some epidemic sickness that required constant medical attention. Li Wan and Tan-chun, though neighbours, were too far apart for their present circumstances, since servants had to keep going from one place to the other looking for them, so it was decided that for purposes of household management they should meet at six o’clock each morning in a little three-frame reception room on the south side of the Garden gate. They would eat their lunch there and would be available for seeing people on household business there up to the end of the morning.

  This reception room had originally been intended as a place for the senior eunuchs to sit at the time of the Visitation. After the Visitation was over there was no further use for it – in the daytime, at any rate; at night it provided a convenient meeting-place for the women who made up the watch. Now that the weather was getting warmer, it did not need a great
deal doing to it – beyond moving in one or two pieces of furniture – to turn it into a comfortable office for the young managers. It had a board over the doorway bearing the inscription

  SUPPORT BENEVOLENCE PROMOTE VIRTUE

  but the servants always referred to it simply as ‘the jobs room’.

  Thither, then, at six o’clock each morning the two sisters-in-law repaired and sat there until noon while a stream of stewardesses and serving women trooped in and out reporting on their duties and asking for their instructions.

  To begin with, when the servants heard that Li Wan would be managing the household on her own, all of them were secretly pleased. She was known to be a kind, easy-going sort of person who disliked giving punishments, and with her in command they felt sure that it would be much easier than usual to get away with things. Even the addition of Tan-chun did not materially alter these expectations. Tan-chun was young and unmarried and, so far as one could judge, a quiet and docile girl. They foresaw no trouble from that quarter and were, as a consequence, inclined to take liberties in her presence that they would not have dared to do with Xi-feng. Within only a few days of her arrival, however, they had begun to sense, from the way in which she handled one or two of the matters that were brought to her attention, that though quieter-spoken than Xi-feng and of a much more equable disposition, she yielded nothing to her in thoroughness.

  By coincidence it happened that about this time a dozen or more important events – promotions, demotions, marriages, deaths and the like – occurred in rapid succession among the group of aristocratic and official families connected by matrimonial or other ties with the Ning-guo and Rong-guo Jias, and for days on end Lady Wang’s time was taken up with visits of condolence or felicitation. Some responsible person was needed to stand in for her while she was away; so while Li Wan and Tan-chun spent all their mornings in the office, Bao-chai spent hers in Lady Wang’s apartment, only leaving it when her aunt got home from her visiting. At night the three young guardians spent whatever time could be spared from their sewing patrolling the Garden in sedans, escorted by the old women of the watch. Working together in this way they soon came to feel that they had evolved a system of supervision more careful even than Xi-feng’s – a view amply borne out by the grumbles of the domestics themselves:

  ‘No sooner is the Terror of the Seas put out of action than along come these three Scourges of the Mountains to take her place. Nowadays you can’t even take time off for a quiet drink of a night or a little game of cards!’

  A day came when Lady Wang was due to attend a luncheon at the Marquis of Jin-xiang’s. Li Wan and Tan-chun, after an early toilet, had attended her to the gate and seen her off. They had just got back to their office and were enjoying a morning cup of tea when Wu Xin-deng’s wife came in to report:

  ‘Mrs Zhao’s brother, Zhao Guo-ji, died yesterday. I told Her Ladyship and she said I was to report it to you.’

  Having delivered this brief communiqué, she stood in silence, her arms held stiffly at her sides, waiting for a reply. A number of stewardesses who were waiting their turn to report, pricked up their ears at this mention of Tan-chun’s natural mother and waited with interest to see what the two young deputies would decide. If their decision was a good one, they would in future treat them with respect; but if it was one in which there was the slightest possibility of picking holes, not only would they not respect them, but afterwards, when they got back outside, they would have many a good laugh at their expense.

  The behaviour of Wu Xin-deng’s wife on this occasion was quite deliberate. If it had been Xi-feng that she was reporting to, she would have demonstrated her efficiency by making one or two helpful suggestions, having armed herself beforehand with some precedents for Xi-feng to choose from; but as it was only Li Wan and Tan-chun, one of whom she despised for her softness and the other for her youth, she merely stated her business and left them to flounder unaided.

  Tan-chun turned questioningly to Li Wan.

  ‘When Aroma’s mother died recently, didn’t they give her forty taels?’ said Li Wan after thinking for a bit. ‘I suppose we’d better give her forty taels.’

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ said Wu Xin-deng’s wife, and taking up a tally, went hurrying off to collect the money.

  ‘Just a minute!’ Tan-chun called out after her.

  Wu Xin-deng’s wife returned – a trifle reluctantly it could be observed.

  ‘Don’t collect that money yet,’ said Tan-chun. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. Of the old women in Lady Jia’s apartment who used to be chamber-wives when my grandfather was alive, some must have been home-reared and some must have been bought outside. There’s a different scale for the two kinds, isn’t there? How much do the home-reared ones get when someone in their family dies and how much do the ones from outside get? Give us one or two examples so that we have something to go on.’

  Not having prepared herself for such a question, Wu Xin-deng’s wife was unable to answer it. She covered up for herself, all smiles:

  ‘It’s not a very important matter. Just give what you think. No one’s going to question your decision.’

  Tan-chun smiled back:

  ‘Now you are talking nonsense. Suppose I said, “Give her a hundred taels”? No, we have to give what is right: otherwise, quite apart from the fact that you will all laugh at us, how am I going to face Mrs Lian when I next see her?’

  ‘Very good then, I’ll go and look up the old accounts,’ said Wu Xin-deng’s wife. ‘I can’t at the moment remember.’

  ‘You’ve been working here all these years and you can’t remember?’ said Tan-chun. ‘I think you are trying to make things difficult for us. I can’t believe that you have to go off and look things up when Mrs Lian asks you a question. If you do, all I can say is that she is not such a strict mistress as she is supposed to be; in fact, I should say that she was a rather indulgent one. All right, hurry up and fetch the accounts then! If this matter is delayed, it isn’t your negligence that will be blamed but our incompetence.’

  Blushing to the roots of her hair, Wu Xin-deng’s wife hurried off to do as she was bidden. The other women gasped and stuck their tongues out in surprise. Reporting on other matters continued in her absence.

  After a little while she returned with the account-books. On examination Tan-chun found two instances of home-reared concubines receiving twenty taels and two of ‘outsiders’ receiving forty taels. She also found an instance of an outsider receiving a hundred taels and one of an outsider receiving sixty; but in each case a note explaining special circumstances had been made against the entry: in the first case the body of a parent had had to be conveyed in its coffin for interment in another province and the extra sixty taels was to cover the cost of transport; in the second case the extra twenty taels was for the purchase of a plot of ground for burial. Tan-chun handed Li Wan the relevant account to look at, while at the same time informing Wu Xin-deng’s wife of her decision:

  ‘Give her twenty taels. And leave these accounts with us, so that we can have a good look at them.’

  Wu Xin-deng’s wife went off once more.

  The next thing that happened was that Aunt Zhao came stalking in. Li Wan and Tan-chun invited her to be seated, but Aunt Zhao was in no mood for polite preliminaries.

  ‘Everyone in this family tramples on me,’ she said, addressing herself to Tan-chun. ‘Don’t you think that you at least might stick up for me?’

  She began crying messily, the abundant moisture seeming to come as much from her nostrils as from her eyes.

  ‘Who are you complaining about?’ said Tan-chun. ‘I really don’t understand you. Who’s been trampling on you? If you would tell me, perhaps I might be able to “stick up” for you.’

  ‘You have, for a start,’ said Aunt Zhao. ‘That doesn’t leave me anyone to turn to, does it?’

  Tan-chun leaped to her feet:

  ‘I shouldn’t dream of trampling on you.’

  Li Wan, too, stood up and made some
soothing remark or other. But Aunt Zhao was not to be placated:

  ‘Sit down both of you, and listen to me. I’ve given the best years of my life to this family – years and years and years. I’ve borne two children for them, you and your brother. And now, after all that, I’m not even to be treated as well as Aroma. What sort of face does that leave me with? What sort of face does it leave you with – never mind me?’

  Tan-chun laughed mirthlessly:

  ‘Oh that’s what this is about! The simple answer to that is that I have to follow the rules.’

  She sat down again, opened up the account-book and, holding it out for Aunt Zhao to see, read the relevant entries out to her.

  ‘These regulations were laid down by the ancestors for everyone to follow. I can’t suddenly go altering them. It isn’t just Aroma. It will be exactly the same if one day Huan has a chamber-wife from outside. If someone in her family dies, then, as an outsider, she will get exactly the same amount as Aroma did. It has nothing to do with who is more important than whom. It isn’t a matter of prestige at all. Zhao Guo-ji was Lady Wang’s bondservant. That means that he belongs to the “home-reared” class. The rules lay down a certain scale of payments for that class. All I have done is to follow the rules. I am sure that Zhao Guo-ji must approve and be grateful to the ancestors and Lady Wang for their generosity. If he doesn’t – if he thinks he is being unfairly treated – then all I can say is that he is stupid and ungrateful and one can’t really care very much what he thinks. As regards face, it makes no difference to me whether Lady Wang gives him everything she’s got or nothing at all. And I really do think that while she is away you might try to compose yourself a bit and not go working yourself up into such a state. Although Lady Wang is so good to me, I am constantly worried that you will spoil everything with your perpetual trouble-making. If I’d been a boy I should have left home long ago and done something to show myself worthy of her kindness; but as I am a girl, I have to stay at home and never say a word out of turn. I believe she realizes this, and because she thinks highly of me she has entrusted me with this managing job as a means of proving myself. But before I have had a chance to do anything, you have to come along and start making things difficult for me. If Lady Wang gets to hear of it, she will probably conclude that the job is too hard for me and take it away again. That would be a real loss of face – for you as well as for me.’