THE STORY OF THE STONE

A CHINESE NOVEL BY
CAO XUEQIN
IN FIVE VOLUMES

*

VOLUME III
‘THE WARNING VOICE’

*

TRANSLATED BY
DAVID HAWKES

PENGUIN BOOKS

Contents

Note On Spelling

Preface

Chapter 54

Lady Jia ridicules the clichés of romantic fiction; And Wang Xi-feng emulates the filial antics of Lao Lai-zi

Chapter 55

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

Chapter 56

Resourceful Tan-chun abolishes abuses in the interests of economy;
And sapient Bao-chai shows how small concessions can be made without loss of dignity

Chapter 57

Nightingale tests Jade Boy with a startling message; And Aunt Xue comforts Frowner with words of loving kindness

Chapter 58

In which the cock-bird who mourns his mate is found to be a hen;
And a true heart is able to sympathize with a strange kind of love

Chapter 59

By Willow Walk the conservers of property resort to violence and abuse;
And at Green Delights the defenders of law and order invoke a higher authority

Chapter 60

As a substitute for rose-orris Jia Huan is given jasmine face-powder;
And in return for rose essence Cook Liu is given lycoperdon snow

Chapter 61

Bao-yu owns up to a crime he did not commit;
And Patience bends authority in order that the innocent may be spared

Chapter 62

A tipsy Xiang-yun sleeps on a peony-petal pillow;
And a grateful Caltrop unfastens her pomegranate skirt

Chapter 63

Flower-maidens combine for nocturnal birthday revels;
And a grass widow copes with funeral arrangements single-handed.

Chapter 64

Five fair women make subjects for a chaste maid’s verse;
And nine jade dragons make a love-gift for a flirt

Chapter 65

Jia Lian’s second marriage is celebrated in secret;
And the future marriage of San-jie becomes a matter of speculation

Chapter 66

Shame drives a warm-hearted young woman to take her life;
And shock leads a cold-hearted young gentleman to renounce the world

Chapter 67

Frowner sees something that makes her homesick;
And Xi-feng hears something that rouses her suspicions

Chapter 68

Er-jie takes up residence in Prospect Garden;
And Xi-feng makes a disturbance in Ning-guo House

Chapter 69

A scheming woman kills with a borrowed knife;
And one who has ceased to hope swallows gold and dies

Chapter 70

Lin Dai-yu resuscitates the Poetry Club;
And Shi Xiang-yun tries her hand at a song lyric

Chapter 71

Lady Xing deliberately humiliates her daughter-in-law;
And Faithful inadvertently interrupts a pair of love-birds

Chapter 72

Wang Xi-feng refuses to see a doctor;
And Brightie’s wife seeks help with a betrothal

Chapter 73

A half-witted servant-girl picks up a highly embarrassing object;
And an easy-going young mistress refuses to inquire into a theft

Chapter 74

Lady Wang authorizes a raid on Prospect Garden;
And Jia Xi-chun breaks off relations with Ning-guo House

Chapter 75

Midnight revellers are startled by a sound of evil omen;
And Mid-Autumn moon-watchers listen to quatrains of unequal merit

Chapter 76

Flute-playing at Convex Pavilion provokes too much melancholy;
And linked verses at Concave Pavilion betray a morbid sensitivity

Chapter 77

A wronged maid takes a loving last leave of her master;
And three young actresses seek to escape matrimony in the cloister

Chapter 78

Jia Zheng commissions the Ballad of the Winsome Colonel;
And Bao-yu composes an Invocation to the Hibiscus Spirit

Chapter 79

Xue Pan finds to his sorrow that he is married to a termagant;
And Ying-chun’s parents betroth her to a Zhong-shan wolf

Chapter 80

Unfortunate Caltrop is battered by a philandering husband;
And One Plaster Wang prescribes for an insufferable wife

Appendix I Sandal, Musk and Skybright

Appendix II Suncloud, Sunset and Moonrise

Appendix III You San-jie, Liu Xiang-lian and Jia Lian’s Journeys

Appendix IV Old Mrs You and the Zhangs

Appendix V Fivey, Bao Er and The Mattress

Appendix VI Euergesia and the Little Actresses

Characters in Volume 3

Genealogical Tables

PENGUIN CLASSICS

THE STORY OF THE STONE
VOLUME III

ADVISORY EDITOR: BETTY RADICE

CAO XUEQIN (1715?–63) was born into a family which for three generations held the office of Commissioner of Imperial Textiles in Nanking, a family so wealthy that they were able to entertain the Emperor Kangxi four times. But calamity overtook them and their property was confiscated. Cao Xueqin was living in poverty near Peking when he wrote his famous novel The Story of the Stone, of which this is the third volume. The first two volumes, The Golden Days and The Crab-Flower Club, and the last two volumes, The Debt of Tears and The Dreamer Wakes, are also published in Penguin Classics.

DAVID HAWKES was Professor of Chinese at Oxford University from 1959 to 1971 and a Research Fellow of All Souls College, from 1973 to 1983. He now lives in retirement in Wales.

FOR JEAN

Note on Spelling

Chinese proper names in this book are spelled in accordance with a system invented by the Chinese and used internationally, which is known by its Chinese name of Pinyin. A full explanation of this system will be found overleaf, but for the benefit of readers who find systems of spelling and pronunciation tedious and hard to follow a short list is given below of those letters whose Pinyin values are quite different from the sounds they normally represent in English, together with their approximate English equivalents. Mastery of this short list should ensure that names, even if mispronounced, are no longer unpronounceable.

c = ts
q = ch
x = sh
z = dz
zh = j

CHINESE SYLLABLES

The syllables of Chinese are made up of one or more of the following elements:

an initial consonant (b.c.ch.d.f.g.h.j.k.l.m.n.p.q.r.s.sh.t.w.x.y.z.zh)

a semivowel (i or u)

an open vowel (a.e.i.o.u.ü), or

a closed vowel (an.ang.en.eng.in.ing.ong.un), or
a diphthong (ai.ao.ei.ou)

The combinations found are:

3 on its own (e.g. e, an, ai)

1 + 3 (e.g. ba, xing, hao)

1 + 2 + 3 (e.g. xue, qiang, biao)

INITIAL CONSONANTS

Apart from c = ts and z = dz and r, which is the Southern English r with a slight buzz added, the only initial consonants likely to give an English speaker much trouble are the two groups

j    q    x      and      zh      ch      sh

Both groups sound somewhat like English j ch sh; but whereas j q x are articulated much farther forward in the mouth than our j ch sh, the sounds zh ch sh are made in a ‘retroflexed’ position much farther back. This means that to our ears j sounds halfway between our j and dz, q halfway between our ch and ts, and x halfway between our sh and s; whilst zh ch sh sound somewhat as jr, chr shr would do if all three combinations and not only the last one were found in English.

SEMIVOWELS

The semivowel i ‘palatalizes’ the preceding consonant: i.e. it makes a y sound after it like the i in onion (e.g. Jia Lian)

The semivowel u ‘labializes’ the preceding consonant: i.e. it makes a w sound after it, like the u in assuages (e.g. Ning-guo)

VOWELS AND DIPHTHONGS

i. Open Vowels

a         is a long ah like a in father (e.g. Jia)

e         on its own or after any consonant other than y is like the sound in French auf or the er, ir, ur sound of Southern English (e.g. Gao E, Jia She)

e         after y or a semivowel is like the e of egg (e.g. Qin Bang-ye, Xue Pan)

i         after b.d.j.l.m.n.p.q.t.x.y is the long Italian i or English ee as in see (e.g. Nannie Li)

i         after zh.ch.sh.z.c.s.r. is a strangled sound somewhere between the u of suppose and a vocalized r (e.g. Shi-yin)

i         after semivowel u is pronounced like ay in sway (e.g. Li Gui)

o         is the au of author (e.g. Duo)

u         after semivowel i and all consonants except j.q.x.y is pronounced like Italian u or English oo in too (e.g. Bu Gu-xiu)

u         after j.q.x.y and ü after 1 or n is the narrow French u or German ü, for which there is no English equivalent (e.g. Bao-yu, Nü-wa)

ii. Closed Vowels

an       after semivowel u or any consonant other than y is like an in German Mann or un in Southern English fun (e.g. Yuan-chun, Shan Ping-ren)

an       after y or semivowel i is like en in ben (e.g. Zhi-yan-zhai, Jia Lian)

ang     whatever it follows, invariably has the long a of father (e.g. Jia Qiang)

en, eng   the e in these combinations is always a short, neutral sound like a in ago or the first e in believe (e.g. Cousin Zhen, Xi-feng)

in, ing    short i as in sin, sing (e.g. Shi-yin, Lady Xing)

ong       the o is like the short oo of Southern English book (e.g. Jia Cong)

un         the rule for the closed u is similar to the rule for the open one: after j.q.x.y it is the narrow French u of rue; after anything else it resembles the short oo of book (e.g. Jia Yun, Ying-chun)

iii. Diphthongs

ai         like the sound in English lie, high, mine (e.g. Dai-yu)

ao        like the sound in bow or bough (e.g. Bao-yu)

ei         like the sound in day or mate (e.g. Bei-jing)

ou        like the sound in old or bowl (e.g. Gou-er)

The syllable er is a sound on its own which does not fit into any of the above categories. It sounds somewhat like the word err pronounced with a strong English West Country accent, (e.g. Bao Er).

Preface

Before talking about the characteristics of a particular volume as I did in the Preface to Volume Two, I ought perhaps to have explained that the division of this novel into five volumes, of which each but the last ends with a request to the reader to ‘wait for the next volume’, is my own invention. Both the manuscript and early printed editions were divided into volumes, but they were volumes much shorter than these – ten chapters each or even fewer – ending not with a reference to the next volume but with the usual appeal to the reader to ‘read the following chapter’. However, although my division of the novel is as arbitrary as those earlier Chinese ones, the first three volumes as I divide it do seem to correspond with stages in its structural development, so that it is, I believe, meaningful to talk about the characteristics of a volume.

One characteristic of this third volume which will, I suspect, strike many readers is the important part that hitherto unknown or undeveloped minor characters are made to play in it. To the translator, on the other hand, its most striking characteristic is the intensification, to a point at which the novel almost breaks down beneath them, of those textual problems already mentioned in my prefaces to the two earlier volumes. These two characteristics of Volume Three – the development of minor characters and the growing number of contradictions in the text – have a causal connection which I shall presently try to explain.

As a preliminary I should like to examine three statements, each made by one of the people by whom the text was produced. The first is by the author himself.

Vanitas… subjected The Story of the Stone to a careful second reading. He could see that it consisted quite simply of a true record of real events, and that it was entirely free from any tendency to deprave or corrupt. He therefore copied it all out from beginning to end and took it with him to look for a publisher… Cao Xueqin in his Nostalgia Studio worked on it for ten years, in the course of which he rewrote it no less than five times, dividing it into chapters, composing chapter headings, renaming it The Twelve Beauties of Jinling and adding an introductory quatrain…

These words are found in a recension of the text dating from 1754, nine years before the author died. Although the statement is dressed in allegorical terms, there is no uncertainty at all about its meaning: years before he died Cao Xueqin completed his novel and subjected it to several revisions, and at least as early as 1754 he was engaged in producing what was to be its final version. Whether or not the ‘five times’ is to be taken literally does not now concern us – though the fact that this same passage lists five different titles which the novel is said at one time or another to have been given inclines me to think that it is: the most important thing to bear in mind is that there had been several already completed versions prior to the version he was then writing.

The second statement is by Cao Xueqin’s kinsman-collaborator Red Inkstone who produced the manuscript recensions of the novel from which most of the still extant manuscripts were copied. It appears in a comment dated September 1764.

Only one who understood the message of this book could have the hot and bitter tears with which to finish it. Xueqin, having run out of tears, departed this life on New Year’s Eve of the year ren-wu (12 February 1763) leaving this book unfinished. I have wept so much for Xueqin that I fear I too shall soon run out of tears…

Whatever ‘unfinished’ means in this second statement, it certainly does not mean that this is a novel like Edwin Drood or Weir of Hermiston which was never completed because its author was struck down in the midst of writing it. Apart from what Xueqin himself tells us in the first chapter, there is a marginal comment by Odd Tablet dated April 1762 (a few months before the author died) on the manuscript recension of 1760 telling us something about the contents of the final chapter. This proves that there must have been one version at least which the author succeeded in finishing.

The third statement comes in the Prefatory Remarks to the revised edition of the novel printed only a few months after the first edition of 1792. The Prefatory Remarks were published under Gao E’s and Cheng Weiyuan’s joint signatures, but as it was Gao E who did the editing, it was probably he who wrote the Remarks. (In a short preface to the first edition Cheng Weiyuan had already explained how he spent many years combing the book markets for the missing forty chapters, and how he eventually handed over what he had managed to collect to his friend Gao E to edit.)

The text of the last forty chapters represents a patchwork of different fragments collected over the years. It is a unique text: we have no other text to collate it with. For this reason our editing has been confined to making a continuous narrative and removing the inconsistencies. We have not ventured to tamper with the text beyond those minimal requirements. Until some better text comes along which would justify a thoroughgoing revision, we are unwilling that any of its original features should be obscured.

What is one to make of these three apparently irreconcilable statements? Merely to say that one of the witnesses, viz. Gao E, must be lying leaves too many questions unanswered. Cao Xueqin and Red Inkstone still seem to be contradicting one another. Merely to insist that the last forty chapters of Gao E’s edition are spurious still does nothing to explain what happened to the genuine last forty chapters. I suggested in my Introduction to Volume One that the family may have suppressed them for political reasons, but I am not at all convinced that that is the correct explanation.

Let me return for a moment to the question of what Red Inkstone and Odd Tablet meant by ‘unfinished’. We know that in some cases it refers to small parts missing from otherwise completed chapters. Red Inkstone wrote a note in 1756 at the end of chapter 77 to remind himself that he was still waiting for Cao Xueqin to supply the Mid Autumn poems which were to be inserted in that chapter. He was still waiting for them when Xueqin died seven years later. But there are several mentions elsewhere of whole chapters missing. A note dated ‘summer of ding-hai’ (i.e. early autumn, 1767: four years after the author’s death) made by Odd Tablet on the 1760 recension of the first eighty chapters mentions a borrower losing ‘five or six chapters’ from the last third of the book ‘when we were making the fair copy’. The date of this loss is impossible to determine, but I should hazard a guess that it occurred not later than 1754 when Red Inkstone was making a fair copy of what was to be the ‘final’ version of the novel – the version in which the author refers to his ten years’ labour and many revisions of the text. Odd Tablet says that what was lost was the drafts of these chapters, i.e. Cao Xueqin’s own autograph of them, which had not yet been fair-copied.

A great deal has been made by those wishing to discredit Gao E and Cheng Weiyuan of the fact that the titles or subjects of the lost chapters mentioned by Odd Tablet do not correspond with any of the titles or contents of the last forty chapters of the Gao E-Cheng Weiyuan edition; but it must be remembered that these chapters were lost before Red Inkstone could copy them; and it is by no means obvious that so compulsive a reviser as Xueqin would have reacted to the loss by simply sitting down and rewriting them. In fact he cannot have done so if Red Inkstone and Odd Tablet are to be believed, because when Xueqin died, seven years after the recension of 1756, they were still waiting not only for the last forty chapters but even for the pages and the few odd poems that were still missing from the first eighty.

What happened after the ‘five or six chapters’ were lost? The answer to that question can only be guessed, and before making the guess, it is necessary to guess the answers to several other questions. First of all, what was the method by which the fifth and ‘final’ version was being produced? My guess – it is nothing more – is that Cao Xueqin was rewriting his finished fourth version and sending the manuscript to Red Inkstone for copying in batches of ten chapters. Second question: which were the missing chapters? The titles or descriptions (whatever they are) suggest that they belonged to the section of the novel immediately following the confiscation of the Jia family’s estate. In the Cheng-Gao edition we read today the confiscation occurs in chapter 105. Assuming that it came in about the same place in the missing version, my guess would be that Red Inkstone had fair-copied all or most of the novel up to chapter 100 and had just received the manuscripts of 101–10 when the loss occurred. He and Odd Tablet had already read through all ten chapters and the anonymous friend had already read the first four. He was allowed to take away and read 105-10 while Red Inkstone was busy copying 101-4. After the loss Xueqin asked to have the manuscripts of 101-4 back, as well as everything that had been fair-copied from chapter 81 onwards, in order to help him reconstruct the missing section.

It would of course be possible to imagine something much more sinister: for example that the anonymous borrower or one of his family or acquaintance actually destroyed the manuscripts and gave Red Inkstone to understand, when he informed him of their ‘loss’, that they were highly subversive and dangerous and that Xueqin must be urged in the strongest terms to alter that part of the novel.

As for what Xueqin did or did not do during the years which followed: we can guess that he was so disgusted that he did nothing at all, or that he ‘dried up’, as authors sometimes will, or that he worked on the last part of the novel intermittently but was too busy scratching a living to do so effectively – there are a hundred compelling reasons for not completing a book. In this mass of guesswork only one thing seems certain: Red Inkstone and Odd Tablet got nothing more out of him until he died.

And when he did die, what remained of that last third part of the book? Presumably all of the last forty chapters¹ in their fourth version, some twenty of them (81–100) in the fifth version fair-copied by Red Inkstone, and a few chapters (101-4) of Xueqin’s autograph of the fifth version which had never been copied. All of this may have been worked on to some extent by Xueqin himself before his death, and it is reasonable to suppose that after his death Red Inkstone or Odd Tablet or someone else may have tried reworking them. The important thing to remember is that if anything emanating from Cao Xueqin – however much it had been tinkered with by others in the meantime – did ever find its way into Cheng Weiyuan’s hands (and one must not exclude the possibility that Cheng Weiyuan may himself have made an unsuccessful stab at editing it before handing it over to Gao E) a large part of it would still represent the obsolete fourth version and therefore be at odds in places with the text of the fifth version represented by the 80-chapter Red Inkstone manuscripts, particularly in cases involving the names of minor characters, which, as I attempted to demonstrate in the Preface to the last volume, appear to have remained unstable until a fairly late stage in the novel’s development. This in fact is what we seem to find.

Take the case of Cook Liu’s consumptive daughter Fivey. In chapter 77 in the Red Inkstone manuscripts we learn from Lady Wang’s lips that Fivey is now dead, yet she appears again in chapter 109 of the novel alive and well. In accordance with the principle enunciated in his Prefatory Remarks, Gao E’s solution is to leave the relevant passage in chapter 109 untouched and remove the reference to Fivey’s death in chapter 77. In the manuscript I have elsewhere referred to as ‘Gao E’s draft’ we can actually see where he has crossed it out. In an appendix to this volume I have tried to show that something similar to this must have happened in the case of Lady Wang’s maid Suncloud, though in her case the confusion in the text was so complete that Gao E failed to spot it.

As a matter of fact, though, the discrepancies between what is found in the last forty and what is found in the first eighty chapters which so exercised Gao E are probably not as numerous as those occurring inside the first eighty chapters themselves. They represent Xueqin and Red Inkstone’s failure, even in the ‘final’ version, to root out all obsolete survivors from the earlier version.

Such survivals are easiest to spot in the poems. Verse is much harder to alter than prose and would tend to get copied out intact from one revision to another, preserving relics of the earlier versions inside it like flies in amber. The maid Sandal, evidently one of Bao-yu’s principal maids in an earlier version of the novel, gradually dwindles out of the prose narrative in various successive editions and in Gao E’s edition has all but vanished, yet we meet her several times as it were mummified inside the poems.

Most of the textual problems of Volume Three occur in that section of the novel which centres on the story of the You sisters, chapters 63 to 69. Chapters 64 and 67 were missing from copies of the Red Inkstone manuscripts circulating in Xueqin’s lifetime, and even in Gao E’s day, thirty years later, manuscript copies of the first eighty chapters sometimes still lacked chapter 67. Two quite different versions of that chapter are now extant. It is generally assumed that the two chapters were omitted because, like the ‘five or six chapters’ from the latter part of the novel, they had been lost. I think myself that they were not lost but deliberately held back for recasting because of discrepancies caused by the insertion of new material. In my view the story of San-jie and her tragic betrothal was grafted on to the novel at a very late stage, and the insertion of this sub-plot into the narrative of Jia Lian and Er-jie’s secret marriage and Xi-feng’s revenge created problems of timing and consistency so great that no amount of tinkering was – or ever has been – able to remove them. It is a measure of Xueqin’s genius that he has been able to charm generations of readers into regarding this as one of the most moving and delightful parts of the novel while overlooking the quite extraordinary discrepancies which it contains. Only a spoil-sport, it might be thought – a ‘kill-view’, to use the eloquent Chinese expression – would want to break the enchantment by pedantically pointing them all out. I do so only because once or twice, in the interests of clarity and consistency, I have felt obliged to take some trifling liberties with the text (as for instance in the killing-off of Mrs You – not that she was ever very much alive, poor old lady) and hold myself honour bound not only to say what I have done – which I have tried to do in the Appendices – but also to explain, if I can, the circumstances in which I have felt obliged to do it.

While preparing this volume I have been greatly indebted to the generosity of that indefatigable Hong lou meng enthusiast Mr Stephen Soong, both for written encouragement and for several times supplying me with books or articles that I might otherwise have missed, and to Professor Chao Kang for sharing the fruits of his meticulous scholarship in several long and highly instructive letters. I am also deeply grateful to the following friends for having at one time or another – in some cases many times – during the past few years furnished me with books, articles or advice: Dr Chan Hing-ho, Dr Cheng Te-k’un, Professor Chow Tse-tsung, Dr Glen Dudbridge, Mr Tony Hyder, Dr Bill Jenner, Dr Michael Lau, Professor Li Fu-ning, Mrs Dorothy Liu, Professor Piet van der Loon, Dr Joseph Needham, Professor P’an Ch’ung-kwei, Dr Laurence Picken and Miss Mary Tregear. And although I have never either met or corresponded with him, I feel bound to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Itō Sōhei, whose painstaking notes to his Japanese translation of this novel (Kōrōmu, Heibonsha, 1970) have saved me many an hour of wearisome research.

DAVID HAWKES

Chapter 54

Lady Jia ridicules the clichés of romantic fiction And Wang Xi-feng emulates the filial antics of Lao Lai-zi

TO CONTINUE OUR STORY:

Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian had secretly instructed their pages to have a large flat-bottomed basket of largesse-money in readiness, and when they heard Grandmother Jia call out ‘Largesse!’, they told the pages to take this basket and empty it onto the stage. The money showered down on the boards with a tremendous ringing clatter, which greatly delighted the old lady.

The two men now rose to their feet. A page hurried forward and handed Jia Lian a silver kettle of freshly-heated wine on a tray. Taking the kettle, Jia Lian followed his cousin into the hall. Cousin Zhen went first to Mrs Li, bowed, took her winecup and, turning back, handed it to Jia Lian to fill. Then he did the same for Aunt Xue. The two ladies stood up, meanwhile, politely demurring:

‘Please, gentlemen, go back to your seats! You are too polite!’

With the exception of the four senior ladies – Aunt Xue, Mrs Li, Lady Xing and Lady Wang – all the females present now left their seats and stood, hands at their sides, while Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian went over to the couch on which Grandmother Jia reclined. As it was rather a low one, the two men knelt to serve her. The other males, who had followed them into the hall and were standing a little behind them drawn up in their order of seniority, with Jia Cong at their head, seeing Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian kneel, knelt down in a row behind them, whereupon Bao-yu hurriedly rose from his chair and knelt down as well. Xiang-yun nudged him, amused.

‘What do you want to kneel down with them for?’ she whispered. ‘If you’re feeling so polite all of a sudden, it would be more to the point to get up and serve everyone yourself.’

‘So I shall, presently,’ Bao-yu whispered back at her.

The two men had now finished serving Grandmother Jia and gone on to serve Lady Xing and Lady Wang.

‘What about the young ladies?’ Cousin Zhen inquired when these last two had been attended to.

‘No, no, go and sit down now!’ Grandmother Jia and the senior ladies cried. ‘Spare them the formality.’

At this Cousin Zhen and the other males withdrew.

It was now about ten o’clock and the play being performed – the ‘Feast of Lanterns’ section from The Orphan’s Revenge – had reached a climax of noise and excitement. Bao-yu tried to slip out unnoticed under cover of the din, but his grandmother had spotted him.

‘Where are you going?’ she called. ‘There are a lot of fireworks about outside. Mind a piece of burning touch-paper doesn’t fall on you and set you alight!’

‘I’m not going very far,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’ll be back directly.’

Grandmother Jia ordered some of the old nannies present to go after him and see that he was all right. Observing that he had only Musk and Ripple and a couple of little junior maids in attendance, she asked what had become of Aroma.

‘That girl is getting above herself,’ she said. ‘Sending the younger maids to stand in for her! – What next?’

Lady Wang rose hastily in Aroma’s defence.

‘It is only a few days since her mother died. She is still in mourning for her mother. It wouldn’t be right for her to go out in company yet.’

Grandmother Jia nodded, but seemed to have second thoughts:

‘That’s all very well, but bereavement shouldn’t make any difference where a master or mistress is concerned. Suppose she had still been working for me: do you think she would have stayed away then? One doesn’t want this sort of thing to become a precedent.’

Xi-feng came to her aunt’s assistance:

‘Even if she weren’t in mourning, she would still need to be keeping an eye on things. Tonight, with lanterns and fireworks everywhere, there is a terrible danger of fire. Whenever we have plays, the people from the Garden all come sneaking over here to watch. It’s just as well to have one careful person like Aroma left behind there who can go round making sure that everything is all right. Besides, she’ll be able to see that everything is ready for Bao-yu so that he can go straight to bed when he gets back. If she were here, you can be sure that no one else would bother. He would go back to find his bedding cold, and there would be no hot water for his tea or anything else ready for him. I’m afraid I took it for granted that you would prefer her not to come; but if you want her here, Grannie, I can easily go and fetch her for you.’

‘No, no, don’t fetch her,’ said Grandmother Jia hurriedly. ‘You have obviously given the matter more thought than I. There’s only one thing, though. When did her mother die? Why didn’t I get to hear about it?’

‘But Aroma came to tell you about it herself,’ said Xi-feng, smiling. ‘Surely you can’t have forgotten already?’

Grandmother Jia thought for a bit.

‘Yes, I do seem to remember something about it. I’m afraid my memory isn’t up to much these days.’

‘You can’t remember everything,’ the others said reassuringly.

Grandmother Jia sighed:

‘She served me all those years when she was a little girl, then she was with Yun for a while, and during these past few years she’s had that holy terror who left a moment ago to put up with. I remember thinking at the time that we owe the girl a bit of kindness – especially as she’s not one of our own home-reared servants but one who came to us from outside – and meaning to ask them to give her something towards the funeral when I heard that her mother had died, but I’m afraid that afterwards I forgot.’

‘It’s already been taken care of,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Lady Wang gave her forty taels for funeral expenses the other day.’

Grandmother Jia nodded:

‘Ah well, that’s all right then. As a matter of fact Faithful lost her mother too, quite recently. I couldn’t let her go to the funeral because her parents were living in the South. Since she and Aroma are both in mourning, why don’t we let her go and join Aroma? The two of them can keep each other company.’

She ordered some of the women in attendance to make a selection of the cakes and other delicacies they had been eating and take them for Faithful to eat with Aroma in Green Delights.

‘You’re a bit late with your suggestion,’ said Amber, laughing. ‘Faithful went over to Aroma’s place hours ago!’

This remark concluded the discussion and the company’s briefly distracted attention returned now to the business of drinking and watching the play.

After leaving the party, Bao-yu made his way straight through to the Garden. The old women whom his grandmother had sent after him, realizing that he must be returning to his own apartment, did not accompany him inside but slipped into the tea-kitchen of the gatehouse to warm themselves at the stove and avail themselves of the opportunity for some surreptitious drinking and a hand or two of cards.

On entering his courtyard Bao-yu found Green Delights ablaze with lights but silent as the grave.

‘Surely they can’t all have gone to bed?’ said Musk. ‘Let’s go in quietly and make them jump.’

Bao-yu and the four girls tiptoed through the outer room and peeped through the apertures of the mirror-wall into the room within. Aroma and another girl were lying facing each other on the nearer side of the kang. At the further end two or three old women appeared to be taking a nap. Bao-yu was just about to push open the mirror-door and enter when the sound of a sigh came from the direction of the kang and he could hear the voice of Faithful speaking:

‘You see, you can never be sure of anything in this life. Look at you, for example, on your own here with a free family living outside, never sure from one year to the next where they might move to: you never expected to be with your mother at the end, did you? Yet it just so happened that this year she was living near at hand and you were able to be a good daughter to her when she died.’

‘It’s true,’ said Aroma. ‘When I first came here, I didn’t think I’d ever see my mother again. And do you know, when I went to tell Her Ladyship that she’d passed away, she gave me forty taels for funeral expenses. She couldn’t have done more for me if I’d been her own daughter. It’s certainly more than I’d have dared hope for.’

Bao-yu turned back and whispered to Musk and the others behind him:

‘It’s Faithful in there with her. I didn’t think she’d be here. If I go inside now, she’s sure to rush off in a huff – she always does nowadays when she sees me. We’d better go away again and leave the two of them in peace. Aroma must have been pretty miserable on her own. It’s nice that she’s got Faithful with her to talk to.’

He tiptoed out again and taking his stand behind a rock, began hitching up his clothes. Musk and Ripple, who were standing behind him, suppressed a giggle:

‘Why don’t you squat down to take off your underthings? You’ll get the wind on your belly, standing up like that!’

The two junior maids who had been following behind Musk and Ripple, as soon as they saw the reason for the halt, hurried off to the tea-kitchen for hot water to wash his hands.

Bao-yu had finished and was just turning back to the waiting maids when two womenservants appeared, walking in his direction. Seeing this dark figure lurking amongst the rocks, they loudly demanded who it was.

‘It’s Bao-yu,’ said Ripple. ‘Don’t shout at him like that, you’ll scare the daylights out of him!’

‘Oh I am sorry,’ said the woman who had shouted. ‘What an awful thing to do – and today of all days! How are you, young ladies? Having a nice holiday? You certainly deserve it, after all your work during the rest of the year.’

As they came closer, Musk asked them what they were carrying.

‘It’s some things from Her Old Ladyship for Miss Faithful and Miss Aroma,’ said the woman. ‘She suddenly thought of them, while she was watching the play.’

‘Oh?’ said Ripple. ‘I thought it was The Orphan’s Revenge they were watching, not The Magic Casket!’

‘Take the lids off and let’s have a look,’ said Bao-yu.

The two women squatted on their haunches and held out the food-boxes while Musk and Ripple took off the lids. Bao-yu leaned over and looked into them. Each one contained a selection of the very choicest of the various sweet and savoury confections they had been eating at the party. He nodded approvingly before hurrying on. Musk and Ripple threw down the lids – somewhat carelessly – and hurried after him.

‘Now those two women seemed very nice,’ said Bao-yu. ‘They were certainly very civil. Think how hard they must work every day, yet they could still say those nice things about you – none of that boasting about how busy they are and how much they do for us that you get from some of these people.’

‘Oh, those two are all right,’ said Musk. ‘Some of them are really terrible, though.’

‘They can’t help being stupid,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Being more intelligent than they are, you ought to feel sorry for them. You only have to be a bit more forebearing with them and they’d give you no trouble.’

While he was speaking, they were passing through the gateway of the Garden. The old women drinking and playing cards in the tea-kitchen had been taking it in turns to get up and peep outside so as not to be taken off their guard, and seeing Bao-yu through the gate, they came hurrying out after him.

In the gallery leading to the hall where the party was he came upon the two little maids who had gone to fetch hot water. They had been waiting there for some time, one with a basin of water, the other with a towel over her arm and a pot of hand lotion. Ripple first tested the water with her hand.

‘The older you grow the more stupid you get,’ she said to the girl. ‘This water is stone cold.’

‘Blame the weather, miss,’ said the girl. ‘I was afraid the water would cool quickly so I poured it out boiling from the kettle, but you see it makes no difference.’

Just at that moment an old woman chanced to be passing by with a kettle full of freshly-boiled water.

‘Here, missus,’ the girl with the basin called after her, ‘do us a favour! Come over and pour some in this basin, will you?’

‘This is for Her Old Ladyship’s tea,’ said the old woman. ‘Go and get some yourself, young lady – walking won’t spoil your feet!’

‘I don’t care who it’s for,’ said Ripple, ‘but if you won’t pour that water out for her, I shall come and do it myself.’

The old woman turned. Recognizing Ripple, she hurriedly lifted the kettle up and poured some water into the basin.

‘That’s enough,’ said Ripple. ‘Really, a person of your age ought to have more sense! We know it’s Her Old Ladyship’s. Do you suppose we’d have dared ask for it if we weren’t entitled to?’

The old woman smiled apologetically:

‘My eyesight’s not too good. I didn’t recognize this young lady as one of yours.’

When Bao-yu had finished washing, the other girl poured some of the lotion onto his palm and he rubbed it into his hands. Ripple and Musk took advantage of the hot water to wash their own hands too, and after rubbing a little of the lotion into them, followed Bao-yu back into the hall.

Calling for a kettle of warm wine, Bao-yu now took his turn at pouring for the ladies, beginning with Mrs Li and Aunt Xue. They protested smilingly and begged him to go back to his seat, but Grandmother Jia insisted that he should pour for them.

‘He’s young,’ she said. ‘Let him do it. But let us empty our cups first for this round.’

She drained her winecup as she said this. Lady Xing and Lady Wang followed suit and the other two ladies felt constrained to imitate their example.

‘Pour out for the girls too,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘And do it properly. See that they empty their cups first before you fill them.’

‘Yes, Grandma,’ said Bao-yu, and proceeded from table to table, pouring for everyone in turn. When he got to Dai-yu he hesitated, knowing that for her this sort of drinking was an impossibility; but Dai-yu held her cup up to his lips and he drained its contents for her at a gulp.

‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling gratefully. Bao-yu refilled the winecup.

‘Don’t go drinking cold wine, Bao-yu,’ Xi-feng called out to him. ‘It’ll make your hand shake. You won’t be able to write properly or draw a straight bow.’

‘I haven’t been drinking cold wine,’ said Bao-yu.

‘I know, I know,’ said Xi-feng gaily. ‘I was only joking.’

When Bao-yu had finished pouring out for all the girls – all, that is, except Jia Rong’s wife Hu-shi, who, being of a generation below his, had to have her drink poured out for her by a maid – he went onto the verandah outside and poured for Cousin Zhen and the men. Having done so, he sat and chatted with them for a while before going back into the hall and resuming his seat with the ladies.

Presently soup was served and, shortly after, little First Moon dumplings of sweetened rice-flour. Grandmother Jia expressed concern for the boy-actors outside in the cold:

‘Tell them to break off for a bit, poor little things! Let them have some hot soup and some good hot food to eat before they go on again. They can have some of these cakes and things, and some of these dumplings.’

A few minutes later, the stage in the courtyard having by now fallen silent, two blind female ballad-singers, both of them familiar visitors to the house, were led in by the women. A couple of high stools were placed behind them, on which Grandmother Jia invited them to be seated, and their instruments were handed to them, a pipa lute and a three-stringed ‘samisen’ guitar. Grandmother Jia asked Mrs Li and Aunt Xue what story they would like to hear.

‘Anything,’ they said.

Grandmother Jia turned to the two women:

‘Have you added anything new to your repertoire lately?’

‘Yes,’ said one of the women. ‘We’ve got a new story set in the Five Dynasties period, after the fall of Tang.’

‘What’s it called?’ Grandmother Jia asked her.

‘It’s called The Phoenix Seeks a Mate,’ said the woman.

‘Well, the name sounds all right,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Can you give us an idea what it’s about, then we can decide whether we want to hear it or not?’

‘This story took place in the time of the Five Dynasties after the decline of the Tang,’ said the woman. ‘There was in those days a certain gentleman called Wang Zhong who, after having served as Chief Minister under two successive reigns, had retired because of old age to live on his estate in the country. Now this Wang Zhong had an only son whose name was Wang Xi-feng –’

This set everyone laughing.

‘Feng’s double, evidently,’ said Grandmother Jia.

One of the womenservants gave the blind ballad-singer a prod:

‘Don’t talk such nonsense! That’s our Mrs Lian’s name.’

‘Carry on, carry on!’ said Grandmother Jia.

The blind woman rose to her feet:

‘I’m dreadfully sorry, Mrs Lian. I had really no idea it was your name.’

‘Do carry on,’ said Xi-feng, laughing. ‘That’s quite all right. Coincidences over names are the commonest thing in the world.’

The woman sat down again and continued:

‘A time came when this old Sir Wang sent his son off to the capital to sit for the examinations. One day, while the young man was on his journey, there was a great downpour of rain and he was forced to seek shelter in a near-by grange. Now it so happened that the owner of this grange was a former acquaintance of old Sir Wang’s called Li, and this old Sir Li invited the young man to spend a few days with him at the grange, accommodating him in his own study. Sir Li had no son of his own, but he had an only daughter called Chuluan, a very accomplished young lady who excelled in everything she turned her hand to, whether it was performing on the qin or playing Go or painting or calligraphy –’

‘I can see why it’s called The Phoenix Seeks a Mate,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘You don’t need to tell me what the story’s about, I can guess already. “Feng” means “phoenix” and “Chu-luan” means “little hen phoenix”. Obviously it’s the story of how Wang Xi-feng seeks to make this Li Chu-luan his wife.’

‘I believe Your Old Ladyship has heard this story before,’ said the blind woman, smiling.

‘Her Old Ladyship has heard everything,’ someone told her. ‘And what she hasn’t heard she can guess.’

‘These stories are all the same,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘– so tedious! Always the same ideally eligible young bachelors and the same ideally beautiful and accomplished young ladies – at least, they are supposed to be ideal, but there’s certainly nothing ideal about their behaviour – in fact there’s nothing very ladylike about them at all. Invariably, we are told how well-born they are. Their father has been a Prime Minister, or a First Secretary at the very least. They are always their father’s only child and the apple of his eye. They are always amazingly well-educated, a model of decorum, a regular paragon of all the virtues – that is, until the first presentable young man comes along. As soon as he appears on the scene – it doesn’t matter who or what he is – all their book-learning and the duty they owe their parents fly out of the window and the next moment they are “making their plans for the future” and generally carrying on in a way that would bring blushes to the cheek of a cat-burglar – certainly not in the least like respectable, educated young ladies. You would hardly call a young woman who conducted herself like that a “paragon”, however many books she might have read – any more than you would acquit a young fellow charged with highway robbery on the grounds that he was a good scholar. The people who make up these stories give themselves the lie every time they open their mouths.

‘And for another thing: if these young women really belonged to cultivated, aristocratic households in which the girls and their mothers were all educated people, then even allowing for the somewhat reduced circumstances owing to their father’s early retirement, you can be sure there would still be plenty of nannies and maids in attendance on them. So how is it that in all of these stories there is only ever a single confidante who knows what her young mistress is getting up to? What are all the other servants supposed to be doing all this time? Of course, this is only another example of the way in which these stories contradict themselves.’

There was some laughter from the assembled company and someone complimented Grandmother Jia on her perceptiveness in exposing the underlying falseness of these stories.

‘There’s always a reason for it,’ the old lady went on. ‘In some cases it’s because the writer is envious of people so much better off than himself, or disappointed because he has tried to obtain their patronage and failed, and deliberately portrays them in this unfavourable light as a means of getting his own back on them. In other cases the writers have been corrupted by reading this sort of stuff before they begin to write any themselves, and, though totally ignorant of what life in educated, aristocratic families is really like, portray their heroines in this way simply because everyone else does so and they think it will please their readers. I ask you now, never mind very grand families like the ones they pretend to be writing about, even in average well-to-do families like ours when do you ever hear of such carryings-on? It’s a wonder their jaws don’t drop off, telling such dreadful lies! For my part, I have never allowed these sort of stories to be told. Even the maids here don’t know about such matters. It’s true that during the past year or two, since I’ve been getting older, and particularly now that the young people are most of the time safely out of the way in the Garden, I do once in a while listen to a snatch or two of one of these stories, when I feel in need of cheering up a bit; but as soon as the children arrive, I make the person telling it stop.’

Mesdames Li and Xue were thoroughly in agreement:

‘That is the general rule in all the best people’s houses. Even in our households the children aren’t allowed to listen to such stories.’

Xi-feng walked over to pour the old lady a drink:

‘Come on, Grannie, that’s enough! Your wine will be getting cold. Drink this first to wet your whistle. You can go on with your lecture afterwards.’

She turned to the rest of the company:

‘The story you’ve just been listening to is called Falsehood Exposed, or The Tale of a Grandmother. It is a story which took place under the reigning dynasty, on this very day of this very month of this very year on this very spot and at this very hour. How can Grannie “with one mouth tell a double tale”? Ah, how indeed! Our tale puts forth two tails. Which tail to wag? Wig-wag. But for the time being we do not inquire which tale is false, which true. Our story turns rather to those people in the party who were admiring the lanterns and watching the play… Just give these two kinsfolk a chance to drink a cup of wine and watch a scene or two more of the play, Grannie, and then you can get on with your Exposure of Falsehood – dynasty by dynasty.’

She continued unconcernedly pouring wine while her audience convulsed themselves. Even the blind ballad-singers were in stitches.

‘You’ve got the gift, Mrs Lian,’ they said. ‘It’s what we call a “hard mouth”. If you were to take up story-telling as a profession, we should be out of business!’

‘Don’t let them encourage you,’ said Aunt Xue to Xi-feng, laughing. ‘You must behave yourself. There are people outside listening. This isn’t like every day, you know.’

‘It’s only Cousin Zhen outside there,’ said Xi-feng. ‘He and I used to get up to all sorts of mischief together in our younger days. It’s only during the last few years since I’ve grown up and married Lian that I’ve had to start being a bit more strait-laced with him. But even though we have to treat each other like solemn in-laws nowadays, I’m sure he doesn’t mind me fooling about like this. Think of Lao Lai-zi in the Twenty-Four Patterns of Filial Piety, dressing up in children’s clothes at the age of seventy and playing at “dicky-bird” in front of his aged parents to keep them amused. If Cousin Zhen and the other menfolk won’t come in here and play dicky-bird themselves, the fact that I’m taking so much trouble to make Grannie laugh and get her to eat a bit should make them feel pleased and grateful, not critical of my behaviour.’

‘It’s true, I haven’t had a really good laugh for days,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘She has made me laugh so much, I really do feel better for it. I think I’ll have another drop of wine.

She took a sip from her cup and then turned to address Bao-yu:

‘Pour a cup for your Cousin Feng.’

‘No need,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Let me share your good health.’

She took the cup that Grandmother Jia had just been drinking from and tossed back what remained of the wine in it, then, handing the cup to a maid to take away, she replaced it with a clean one that had been previously warmed in hot water. She then proceeded to do the same for everyone else, removing their dirty cups and replacing them with clean, warmed ones. After that she poured out a fresh supply of wine for everyone before returning to her seat.

‘If Your Old Ladyship doesn’t want to hear a story,’ said the blind woman who had spoken before, ‘perhaps you’d like us to do a song for you.’

‘Give us “O Captain, Captain”,’ said Grandmother Jia.

The two women at once began tuning their instruments and presently struck up a lively tune, the words of which were divided alternately between them.

Grandmother Jia inquired what the time was.

‘Midnight,’ said one of the senior womenservants.

‘No wonder it’s getting so cold,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It really is bitter.’

Maids were already arriving with more clothes, which they helped their mistresses to change into or put on over what they were already wearing.

Lady Wang rose, smiling, to her feet:

‘Why don’t you go into the room at the back, Mother, where the heated kang is? Mrs Li and my sister are not outsiders; I’m sure they won’t mind. And the rest of us will take care of them for you.’

‘Why don’t we all go inside?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘That will be much cosier.’

‘I doubt there’s room for us all,’ said Lady Wang.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘We don’t need all these tables now. Why don’t we have just two or three of them taken inside? We can have them put together to make one big table, then we can all squeeze up round it and keep each other warm. That will be much jollier!’

Everyone agreed that this was a good idea and got up from their places in preparation for the move. The tables were cleared, the three largest ones were carried into the inner room and put together, and the dessert, with various additions and replacements, was relaid on them inside.

‘Now,’ said Grandmother Jia when everybody was inside, ‘you must forget about seniority now and sit down where I put you.’

She made Mrs Li and Mrs Xue sit at one end, facing south, and placed herself close to them on the east side, with Xiang-yun squeezed in on one side of her and Dai-yu and Bao-qin on the other.

‘You must sit next to your mother,’ she told Bao-yu. So Lady Xing and Lady Wang came next on the east side with Bao-yu sandwiched between them.

She put Bao-chai on the west side at the end nearest to Mrs Li, then came the Three Springs, then Lou-shi with her little boy Jia Jun, then Li Wan and You-shi with little Jia Lan squeezed in between them, and finally Xi-feng.

Jia Rong’s wife, Hu-shi, sat on her own at the north end, round the corner from Xi-feng.

When they were all seated, Grandmother Jia called to Cousin Zhen and the menfolk to leave, saying that she herself would shortly be going off to bed. Hearing her call, Cousin Zhen came hurrying inside, bringing the others with him.

‘Go away, go away!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Don’t come in here! They’ve only just sat down, they don’t want to have to all get up again. Off to bed with you! You’ve got important things to do in the morning.’

‘Very good,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I’ll leave Rong behind then, to pour the drinks for you.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’d forgotten him.’

Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian withdrew. Pleased to be so soon released, they arranged for Jia Cong and Jia Huan to be escorted back to their own apartments and went off, as they had planned to do if possible, to spend the rest of the night together on the town. But that is no part of our story.

‘I was just thinking,’ said Grandmother Jia when they had gone, ‘– all these people enjoying themselves here tonight: all we lacked was a young married couple to make it seem like a proper reunion. I was forgetting about Rong. Sit next to your wife, Rong. Let’s see you both together.’

Just then some of the women came in bringing a playbill with them. The players were preparing to resume.

‘Oh, just as we were beginning to enjoy a little conversation,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Now we shan’t be able to hear ourselves speak. And those poor children must be getting dreadfully cold after so many hours in the open. Why don’t we give them a rest? Call our own troupe over and let them do something on this stage. The other ones can stay here and watch them.’

With answering cries the women went out to make the necessary arrangements. Messengers were sent, some into Prospect Garden to summon the young actresses, others to the inner gate to requisition some pages. When the pages presented themselves at the green-room door they were told to take away all the grown-up members of the visiting troupe and entertain them elsewhere so that only the boy-actors should be present when the little actresses arrived. These last were to be observed shortly afterwards, issuing from the gallery at the corner entrance to the courtyard, preceded by their chief singing instructor and accompanied by a number of women carrying bundles. There had not been time to bring the wardrobe-boxes, so they had had to make a guess at the three or four plays that Grandmother Jia was likeliest to want to hear and hurriedly bundle together the costumes that would be needed for their performance.

Led by the women who had summoned them, Élégante and the rest entered the heated back room of the hall, made their curtsies to Grandmother Jia and the rest of the company, and then stood, arms held stiffly at their sides, awaiting instructions.

Grandmother Jia smiled at them benevolently:

‘Doesn’t your teacher give you a holiday even for First Moon? Dear, dear, dear! – Well now, what are you going to sing for us? We’ve just been listening to The Orphan’s Revenge, which was so noisy that it’s given us all headaches. We’d like to hear something a bit quieter now. I ought to tell you that we have a very discriminating audience here tonight. There’s Mrs Xue and Mrs Li here who both come from families which used to keep their own troupes of players and who have heard heaven knows how many good performances between them; there are some young ladies here who know much more than our own girls about plays and music; and the troupe you saw just now outside, though they are only children, belong to a famous connoisseur and are better than many commercial companies of grown-up players. So if we don’t want to disgrace ourselves, we shall have to be on our best. Now let’s see. Let’s try to think of something a bit different to show them. Suppose we get Parfumée to sing “The Dream Recalled” from The Return of the Soul with just a fiddle to accompany her – leaving out all the woodwind. How would that be for a start?’

‘Just the thing, Your Old Ladyship,’ said Élégante drily. ‘We’re certainly not good enough for Mrs Xue and Mrs Li to want to see us in full performance. They just want an idea of what our diction and voice-production are like.’

‘Quite so,’ said Grandmother Jia.

The two ladies referred to were much diverted by Élégante’s reply.

‘I believe you and Her Old Ladyship are pulling our legs,’ they told her.

‘Not at all,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘These girls are trained only for our own private amusement, not as an investment. We don’t hire them out, like some people. So they really aren’t up to commercial standards.’

She turned to Althée, the performer of ‘painted face’ parts:

‘You can do “Hui-ming Takes the Letter” from The Western Chamber. Don’t bother to make up for it, though. I think those two scenes should be enough to give our guests some idea of what you can do. Put all you’ve got into it, now, or I shall have something to say to you!’

The little actresses went out. Those who were to play had soon got into their costumes and the performance began: first ‘The Dream Recalled’ and then ‘Taking the Letter’. The audience listened throughout with rapt attention. When the performance had ended, Aunt Xue observed that, though she had seen hundreds of different companies in her time, she had never before heard a performance in which the woodwind in the orchestra was silent.

‘Oh yes,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Take that “Chu River” aria the heroine sings in The House in Ping-kang Lane that we were listening to earlier in the evening. Quite often you can see productions which leave out the woodwind parts in the orchestral accompaniment. Instead they have the male lead playing a flute accompaniment on the stage. I agree, a whole sequence with only string accompaniment is unusual, but there’s nothing very special about it. It depends entirely on the individual preference of the person who owns the troupe.’

She pointed to Xiang-yun:

‘When I was this child’s age her grandfather had a troupe of young actresses one of whom was a very good qin-player. She took a number of qin-playing scenes like the famous one from The Western Chamber and the scene in which Miao-chang plays the qin in The Jade Hairpin and the “Eighteen Stanzas for the Barbarian Pipe” from the modern sequel to The Story of the Lute, and arranged them in a single sequence with qin accompaniment. That was rather impressive. More what-shall-I-say than the things we have just been listening to.’

‘Yes,’ the others agreed, ‘that does sound most unusual.’

Grandmother Jia called the women over and told them that she would now like Élégante and the others to perform an instrumental piece called Lantern Festival Moon. The women went out again to transmit her order. Meanwhile Jia Rong and his wife went round replenishing the winecups.

Xi-feng observed that Grandmother Jia was in very good spirits.

‘While the ballad-singers are still here,’ she said, ‘why don’t we get them to play “Spring Joy on Every Brow” for us and we can have a game of “Pass the Plum”?’

‘Oh yes, that’s a good game,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Just right for this time of year, too.’

Orders were given for a pair of drums to be fetched – special ‘drinker’s drums’ whose black lacquered sides were studded with patterns of brass nails – and handed to the blind women. Someone produced a flowering spray of red plum for the game.

‘Now,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘whoever’s hand the branch is in when the drumming stops must first drink a cup of wine and then they have to say something: but what shall it be?’

‘You can turn your hand to anything, Grannie,’ said Xi-feng, ‘but for those of us who aren’t so clever it won’t be much fun if it’s something that we’re no good at. I think it should be something that all of us can enjoy. Why not say that whoever the branch stops with must tell a joke?’

Everyone present knew that Xi-feng was a wonderful raconteuse with a seemingly inexhaustible stock of new and funny stories. The servants standing below in attendance seemed quite as much delighted by this proposal as the members of the family sitting around the table on the kang, and several little maids went racing off to inform sisters or cousins outside:

‘Quick, come inside! Mrs Lian is going to tell a joke.’

In no time at all the room was packed with maids.

The actresses had by now finished playing. Grandmother Jia, after first seeing to it that they were given some soup and a selection of the delicacies available, gave orders for the drumming to begin.

The blind women were practised performers in this game and deliberately varied the speed of the beat. Sometimes it would be as slow as the last drips of a water-clock, sometimes as fast as the rattle of dried beans poured from a bag, sometimes it would go galloping along like a runaway horse, sometimes it became a soft whisper interspersed with sudden bursts of sound to make you jump, like flashes of lightning in the darkness. When the beat was slow, the branch passed slowly from hand to hand; when it was hurried, the passing too grew faster. Then suddenly it stopped altogether while Grandmother Jia was holding it. This, in itself, was enough to make everyone laugh. Jia Rong quickly came round and filled up the old lady’s winecup.

‘Naturally Grandma is the lucky first,’ the others said. ‘You must let us share your luck, Grandma!’

‘The wine is no problem,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It’s the joke that’s worrying me.’

‘Come now, your jokes are better even than Feng’s, Grandma,’ they said. ‘Do tell us one. Make us all laugh.’

‘I don’t know any good new ones,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’ll just have to put a bold face on it and do the best I can.’

She began her story.

‘In a certain family there were ten sons, all of whom were married, but of the girls they married only one, the youngest, was intelligent and nimble-witted and a good talker. The old couple doted on this clever daughter-in-law and day in day out found fault with the other nine. The other nine naturally resented this and took counsel together what they should do about it.

‘“At heart we are every bit as dutiful as she is,” they said, “but because the little wretch is so glib, father-in-law and mother-in-law only care for her. Isn’t there anything we can do about this injustice?”

‘Then one of the nine had an idea:

‘“Why don’t we go to the temple of Yama, the King of the Underworld, and ask him why, when our souls first went into human bodies, he gave that little horror a clever tongue and made all the rest of us so stupid?”

‘The others were delighted with this suggestion, and so next day they all went trooping off to the temple of King Yama and, after offering up incense, lay down on the steps of the altar and went to sleep. When they were asleep, the souls of the nine sisters-in-law waited and waited and waited, but King Yama didn’t come.

‘Presently, just as they were growing desperate, Monkey came bowling along on his cloud-trapeze, and seeing the nine souls there, lifted up his metal-clasped cudgel to strike them with. The souls knelt down in terror and begged him to spare them. Monkey asked them what they were doing there, so they told him their story. When they had finished, Monkey stamped his foot and sighed sympathetically.

‘“What a good job you met me here and not old Yama,” he said. “He wouldn’t have been able to help you at all.”

‘The nine souls implored him to tell them what they should do.

‘“Do but have compassion on us, Great Sage,” they said, “and our troubles will be over.”

‘“It’s quite simple,” said Monkey with a laugh. “The day that the ten of you were due to enter your human bodies, I happened to have been around at old Yama’s place and done a little piddle on the floor, and just before she was born, that little sister-in-law of yours drank it all up. That’s what gave her such a clever tongue. If clever tongues are all you want, I can do as much piddle for you as you like.”’

The story ended amidst laughter.

‘It’s a good job all of us are such stupid, tongue-tied creatures,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I should hate to think that any of us had drunk monkey’s piddle!’

You-shi and Lou-shi turned towards Li Wan, laughing:

‘I wonder who she thinks she’s fooling. It’s very clear which of us in this room is the one who drank monkey’s piddle!’

‘A joke is always the better for being apt,’ Aunt Xue observed.

While she was speaking, the drumming began again. The maids, who wanted only to hear Wang Xi-feng tell a joke, had come to a secret understanding with the blind women that if one of them coughed it would be a signal to stop, and when the branch had been round twice and had just reached Xi-feng for the second time, the maids all coughed and the drumming stopped. There was a shout of laughter from all present.

‘Ha!’ they said. ‘Now we’ve got you! Hurry up with your wine and tell us a good one – only don’t make us laugh so much that we get stomach-ache!’

Xi-feng thought for a few moments and then started:

‘A family was celebrating the First Moon festival, just as we are doing, admiring the lanterns and drinking wine together. It was a very lively party and everyone in the family was there: the grandmother, the great-grandmother, the daughters-in-law, the granddaughters-in-law, the great-granddaughters-in-law, the grandsons, the great-nephews, the great-grandsons, the great-great-grandsons, the great-little-medium-grandsons, the granddaughters, the great-nieces, the first cousins once removed, the first cousins twice removed, the second cousins two-and-a-half times removed – oh, goodness gracious me, it was a really lively party! –’

Her audience were already laughing.

‘She’s a caution!’ they said. ‘I wonder which of us she’s got it in for this time.’

‘Don’t you bring me into it,’ said You-shi, laughing: ‘I’ll tear your mouth for you!’

Xi-feng stood up and struck her hands together in mock despair:

‘Here am I going to all this trouble to entertain you and all you do is keep interrupting. All right then, I won’t go on.’

‘Go on, go on! Take no notice of them!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘What happened then?’

‘What happened then?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Oh, there they all sat, and after drinking together all night long, they went to bed.’

She said this straight-faced and in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice. Her audience waited open-mouthed for her to continue, but nothing was forthcoming, and at last they realized, with a chill of disappointment, that that was all they were going to hear. After a long, old-fashioned look from Shi Xiang-yun she relented, however.

‘All right, let me tell you another story about people celebrating the First Moon festival.

‘Some men were taking an enormous rocket outside the city and a crowd of thousands had collected behind them to see them let it off. While they were still on their way, some impatient character who couldn’t bear to wait any longer put a lighted incense-stick to the touch-paper and lit the fuse. There was a great WHOOSH! and the rocket went off. Everyone burst out laughing and went off home – all except the man who had been underneath, carrying the rocket on his back. He just stood there all on his own, complaining what a rotten job the firework-maker had made of the rocket. He’d put it together so badly, he said, that all the gunpowder had trickled away before they’d had a chance to let it off.’

‘But surely he’d have heard it go off?’ said Xiang-yun.

‘He was stone deaf,’ said Xi-feng.

There was a burst of laughter from her audience. But they were still worried about her earlier story.

‘What about the other one you were telling? What did happen then? You really ought to finish it, you know.’

‘Oh how you do pester one!’ said Xi-feng, thumping the table in pretended annoyance. ‘Next day was the sixteenth; the party was over; the festival had ended. If you ask me, I think they were too busy clearing up and putting things away to know what had happened then.’

This brought another burst of laughter.

‘That’s two o’clock sounding outside,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I’m sure Grannie must be tired. If you ask me, I think we all ought to be like the deaf man’s firework and “trickle away”.’

You-shi, who in the vehemence of her mirth was rocking back and forth with a handkerchief stuffed in her mouth, stopped for a moment to point a minatory finger at Xi-feng:

‘She really is a caution, this one!’

‘She’s a caution all right, and no mistake!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘By the way, talking of fireworks, why don’t we let ours off now? They will help us to overcome the effects of all that wine.’

At once Jia Rong jumped up and hurried out. Under his supervision a team of pages set up a number of framework stands in the courtyard on which fireworks were then fastened or hung. Though none of them particularly large ones, they were all imported tribute fireworks of the very highest quality. There were fireworks of all sorts, including a number of bangers. Dai-yu, being of a nervous disposition, was terrified of pops and bangs. Knowing this, Grandmother Jia hugged her to her bosom to comfort her. Aunt Xue offered the same protection to Xiang-yun, but Xiang-yun laughed and said that she didn’t mind the fireworks.

‘There’s nothing she likes better than letting them off herself,’ said Bao-chai. ‘She’s not afraid of fireworks!’

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.’

Tan-chun’s shoulders began to shake as she said this and she ended up by bursting into tears.

Aunt Zhao did not really have an answer to what Tan-chun had said, so she tried another tack.

‘If Lady Wang is so fond of you, you ought to use your position to give us a helping hand. The fact is, though, you are so anxious to keep in her good books that you forget about us altogether.’

‘Of course I don’t forget about you,’ said Tan-chun. ‘But what do you mean by giving you a “helping hand”? A good mistress will always be favourable to those who try hard and make themselves useful, and a good servant doesn’t need any “helping hand” in order to keep in her favour.’

Li Wan hovered between them, still trying to act the peacemaker:

‘Please don’t be angry, Mrs Zhao. You mustn’t blame Tan-chun. I’m sure she’s most anxious to give you all the help she can; but you could hardly expect her to say so.’

‘Don’t talk such stuff, Wan!’ said Tan-chun impatiently. ‘Help whom, for goodness sake? Whoever heard of the young mistress in a family helping the servants? Their private interests are no concern of mine, as you perfectly well know.’

‘We’re not talking about “servants”, we’re talking about me,’ said Aunt Zhao angrily. ‘If you hadn’t been in charge now, I’d never have asked you. At this particular moment you happen to be in charge here. Very well. Your mother’s brother has just died. If you decide to give an extra twenty or thirty taels towards his funeral, Her Ladyship isn’t going to stop you, is she? Of course she isn’t. We all know what a good, kind person Her Ladyship is. It’s mean, tight-fisted people like you interfering that stop her being generous. I simply don’t know what you’re worried about. It isn’t your money you’re spending. I’d been hoping that one of these days when you grew up and got married you’d be able to do our Zhao family a bit of good. But not you! You’re in such a hurry to find a higher branch to perch on, you’ve forgotten the nest even before your feathers are full-grown!’

Tan-chun went white, and for a moment anger deprived her of her breath. When she regained it she broke into louder sobs.

‘Who is this “mother’s brother”? The only mother’s brother I know about is the one who has just been appointed Inspector-General of Armies in the Nine Provinces. I’m sure I always try to show respect where it is due, but no one ever told me that I ought to think of Zhao Guo-ji as my uncle. If so, how is it that he always stood up for Huan and walked behind him on his way to school in the mornings? Why didn’t he insist on being treated as an uncle by Huan? But what’s the point? Everyone knows it was you who bore me. Two or three months never go by without your making a scene about something or other just to give yourself an opportunity of proclaiming the fact. And you talk about face! It’s a good job I understand your little game. If I were a simple-minded person and not very sure of my position, it would have driven me distracted long ago.’

The ever more agitated attempts at peace-making by Li Wan and continuing gabble of complaint from Aunt Zhao which followed this outburst were suddenly interrupted by a call from the women outside:

‘Here’s Miss Patience with a message from Mrs Lian.’

At once Aunt Zhao fell silent. She advanced fawningly on Patience as she entered:

‘Is your mistress any better, Patience? I’ve been meaning to go round and see her, but I just haven’t had the time.’

Li Wan asked Patience what she had come for.

‘Mrs Lian heard that Mrs Zhao’s brother had died and she was afraid you might not know what to give. She said according to the rule it should be twenty taels, but in this particular case Miss Tan should feel free to add on a bit if she sees fit.’

‘Oh? On what grounds, I wonder?’ said Tan-chun, who had by this time wiped the traces of tears from her face. ‘I’m not aware that there was anything very special about this person. His mother didn’t carry him for twenty-four months before he was born. He didn’t rescue his master on the battlefield from under a heap of corpses and carry him to safety on his back. It is very ingenious of your mistress, getting me to break the rules so that she can take the credit for being generous, but if she wishes to play the Lady Bountiful by giving away other people’s money, I’m afraid she will have to wait. Tell her that I absolutely refuse to take responsibility for any change in the rules. If she wants to make a change, let her wait until she is better. Then she can add on as much as she likes!’

Patience had already had a rough idea of the situation when she arrived and by the time Tan-chun finished speaking she had sized it up completely. Observing the anger in Tan-chun’s face, she did not presume to reply in the joking, light-hearted manner she would normally have adopted with her, but stood in silence, with her arms held submissively at her sides.

It was now about the time when Bao-chai usually came over from Lady Wang’s apartment for discussion. Tan-chun and Li Wan stood up to greet her as she entered and invited her to sit with them. Before they had a chance to begin talking, however, one of the women who had been waiting outside came in to make her report.

Because Tan-chun had recently been crying, three or four maids had already been to fetch water and towels and a hand-mirror so that she could wash her face. As she was at this moment sitting cross-legged on a low wooden couch, the maid carrying the hand-basin went down on both her knees to bring it to a convenient level for her, whereupon the girls bearing the towels, hand-mirror, cosmetics and so forth also knelt down on either side. Seeing that Tan-chun’s body-servant Scribe was not present, Patience hurriedly stepped forward, rolled back Tan-chun’s sleeves for her, removed her bracelets and tucked a large towel round her neck to protect the front of her dress. As Tan-chun stretched out her hands to begin washing, the woman who had just entered began to make her report:

‘Excuse me Mrs Zhu; excuse me Miss Tan. The school want to draw this year’s allowance for Master Huan and Master Lan.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ snapped Patience. ‘Haven’t you got eyes in your head? Can’t you see that Miss Tan is washing? You ought to be waiting outside. What do you mean by bursting in like this? Would you behave like this if Mrs Lian were here? Miss Tan is a kind young lady and lets you get away with it, but if I tell Mrs Lian when I get back how little respect you show her, you’ll be in serious trouble – and don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

Thoroughly alarmed, the woman put on her broadest smile and retreated, apologizing, from the room.

Tan-chun, who had finished washing and was now making up her face, looked up at Patience with a sardonic smile:

‘It’s a pity you didn’t come a bit earlier. You missed the best part of the comedy. Wu Xin-deng’s wife, who has spent a whole lifetime in service, came here without having bothered to look up the records, in the hope of making us look foolish. Fortunately I thought to ask her what the rule was; but then she had the effrontery to tell me that she had forgotten. I told her that I didn’t think she would forget things and have to go off and look them up if it was your mistress that she was dealing with.’

‘I should think not, indeed!’ said Patience. ‘If she had ever tried a trick like that on Mrs Lian, she’d have some nasty scars on her backside to show for it, I can tell you! Don’t you believe any of them, miss! They think that because Mrs Zhu is such a kind, saintly person and you are such a quiet, shy young lady they can get away with anything.’

She turned to address the women who were standing outside the door:

‘Keep it up all of you! Just carry on with these little tricks! See what happens to you when Mrs Lian is better!’

‘Now, now, you know us better than that, miss!’ said the women, laughing. ‘“Let him face the summons that did the offence”. We wouldn’t pull the wool over a young mistress’s eyes. We know perfectly well that if a young unmarried lady like Miss Tan was to get really angry with us, it would be more than our lives was worth.’

‘Well, as long as you know, that’s all right,’ said Patience drily. She turned back to Tan-chun. ‘I’m sure you must realize, miss: Mrs Lian is much too busy to think of everything and there must be quite a few things that she’s overlooked. They say “the bystander sees all”, and during the years that you’ve been quietly looking on as a bystander you may have noticed cases in which more or perhaps less ought to be given that Mrs Lian herself has never got around to dealing with. If you were to take this opportunity of putting them right, you’d be doing Her Ladyship a good turn and at the same time it would be a kindness to my mistress which I’m sure she would appreciate.’

Before she had finished, Bao-chai and Li Wan were both laughing.

‘Patience, you’re wonderful! No wonder Feng is so devoted to you. The way you’ve just put it, you make us feel that even if there are no grounds for altering the rules, we ought to try and find some, just so as not to disappoint you!’

Tan-chun joined in their laughter:

‘I still feel very angry. Until she came along, I was hoping to work some of it off on her mistress, but she’s been so reasonable about it all that I hardly know what to do!’

She called in the woman whom Patience had chased out a few minutes earlier.

‘What are these allowances for Master Huan and Master Lan that the school is asking for?’

‘Eight taels each a year, miss. It’s for paper, writing-brushes and refreshments.’

‘But these expenses are already provided for in the monthly allowances,’ said Tan-chun. ‘Mrs Zhao gets two taels a month for Huan, Aroma gets two a month for Bao-yu from Her Ladyship, and Lan’s expenses are covered by Mrs Zhu’s allowance. Why should we pay an additional eight taels for each of them to the school? Is that what they go to school for, to collect the money? I think we should cancel that payment from now on. Patience, go back and tell your mistress: I insist that these payments should be discontinued.’

‘They should have been long ago,’ said Patience. ‘Mrs Lian had decided to stop them last year, but with so much going on over the New Year, she forgot about it.’

The woman who had come for the allowances had to go off empty-handed.

Women from Prospect Garden now arrived carrying food-boxes containing Li Wan’s and Tan-chun’s lunch. They were preceded by the maids Scribe and Candida who carried a little table between them which they put down in front of their mistresses. Patience busied herself by taking dishes from the food-boxes and putting them on the table; but Tan-chun stopped her:

‘If you have nothing more to say, you had better be about your own business. There is nothing for you to do here.’

‘I haven’t got any other business,’ said Patience, smiling. ‘That’s why Mrs Lian sent me here. Partly it was to bring you the message, but partly it was because she was afraid the servants here might be giving you trouble and she thought I might be able to make myself useful.’

‘Why hasn’t Miss Bao’s lunch been brought here so that she can eat with us?’ Tan-chun inquired.

At once one of the maids went outside and gave an order to the women who were waiting there under the eaves:

‘Miss Bao’s going to have her lunch here with the other young ladies. Tell them to bring it here.’

The raised voice of Tan-chun, who had overheard her, issued from behind her in reproof:

‘Who are you ordering about like that? Those are stewardesses out there and senior members of the domestic staff. You can’t make them run to and fro fetching and carrying things for you. Have you no respect for seniority? Patience is standing around here with nothing to do: why don’t you get her to go?’

Not waiting to be ordered, Patience murmured something and hurried out; but the women outside silently waylaid her and with broad smiles prevented her from going.

‘We can’t let you go, miss: that would never do! In any case, we’ve already sent someone.’

They dusted the steps with their handkerchiefs and invited her to sit down:

‘There you are, miss, sit there in the sun and rest yourself. You must be tired after standing about for so long.’

Patience was about to sit down when two women from the tea-kitchen rushed up to her with a rug:

‘That stone’s too cold to sit on. Here’s a nice clean rug. You sit on this, miss.’

Patience smiled and nodded:

‘Thank you very much.’

Another woman came out carrying a cup of tea for her on a tray.

‘Here you are, miss,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t the tea we usually drink. This is the kind we make for the mistresses. Try some of that for a change.’

Patience bowed and took the cup, then, shaking a reproving finger at the women, she admonished them in a voice that she kept low so as not to be audible inside:

‘You’ve gone too far this time and no mistake! Miss Tan is a real little lady, but just because she is too well-bred to throw her weight about, it doesn’t mean that you can afford to take advantage of her. On the contrary, you ought to respect her all the more for it. If she were ever to get really angry, my word you would be in trouble! It wouldn’t just be a question of saying “sorry” then. If she took it into her head to throw a tantrum, even Her Ladyship would have to give in to her. Mrs Lian certainly wouldn’t stand in her way, she wouldn’t dare. So just what makes you so bold against her I do not know. You might just as well pelt a rock with eggs as set yourselves up against her!’

‘We wouldn’t dare set ourselves up against her,’ said the women. ‘This was all Mrs Zhao’s doing.’

‘Oh, come on now!’ said Patience, still speaking in a half-whisper. ‘Everyone likes to push a falling wall. We all know that Mrs Zhao isn’t the most sensible of mortals. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going half the time. It’s just a bit too easy to blame it all on her when things go wrong. Do you think after all the years I’ve been here I don’t know how unmanageable and how ruthless you can be? If Mrs Lian were just a shade less determined, she’d have been finished off by you lot years ago. As it is, you only need half a chance to start making things difficult for her. Many and many’s the time she’s nearly come unstuck because of your whispering. Everyone’s always saying what a holy terror she is and how you’re all afraid of her. I’m probably the only one who realizes that in her heart of hearts she’s actually afraid of you. As a matter of fact she and I were talking about this only the other day. We both agreed that if you didn’t make yourselves a bit more accommodating, there were sure to be one or two explosions. Miss Tan may be only a young girl, but you’re completely mistaken in treating her like this. Even Mrs Lian is a tiny bit scared of Miss Tan. Of all the young ladies in this household Miss Tan is the only one she feels that way about. And yet you think you can do what you like with her!’

Just then Ripple approached and the women all crowded round to greet her.

‘Better stay outside with us for a bit, miss,’ they said. ‘They’ve just laid for lunch inside. Better wait until they take the table away before going in to report anything.’

‘I’m not like you,’ said Ripple loftily. ‘I can’t wait.’

She began mounting the steps.

‘Come back at once!’ Patience called after her.

Ripple looked back and saw that it was Patience.

‘Oh, what are you doing here? Sentry duty?’

She came down again then and sat beside Patience on the rug.

‘What have you come about?’ Patience asked her in a low voice.

‘I want to ask about Bao-yu’s and our allowances for this month. We’ve been wondering when we’re going to get them.’

‘Oh that!’ said Patience. ‘That’s not very important. Go back and tell Aroma this – say I told you to tell her: no matter what it is, don’t come here asking for anything today. Anything you ask for will be refused. If you ask for a hundred things, one after the other, the answer will be “no” every time.’

‘Why’s that?’ said Ripple.

Patience and the women explained, pointing out that to go in and ask for something on Bao-yu’s behalf at the very moment when Tan-chun was looking around for someone of consequence to make an example of would be simply courting disaster.

‘There’s no sense in your going in now,’ said Patience. ‘Either way it will be awkward. If they make an example of Bao-yu they will risk offending Their Ladyships; if they don’t make an example of him You Know Who will call it favouritism and complain that they daren’t provoke anyone who has Their Ladyships behind them and only take it out on the weak ones who can’t protect themselves. You wait and see: they’ll even turn down one or two requests from Mrs Lian before they’ve finished, just to stop certain people talking.’

Ripple stuck her tongue out in a grimace.

‘It’s a good job I met you here. I should only have got smut on my nose if I’d gone inside. I’d better go back straight away then and tell the others.’

She rose and went away.

Presently Bao-chai’s lunch arrived and Patience went inside again to help serve it. By this time Aunt Zhao had already left. The three young women sat cross-legged on the wooden settle around the low lunch-table which had been placed upon it, Bao-chai facing south, towards the doorway, Tan-chun facing west and Li Wan facing east. Only their personal maids stayed inside the room to serve them; no one else dared enter. The women waited quietly on the verandah outside, discussing the situation in whispers:

‘Better keep out of trouble from now on. Better not try any more funny business. Look what happened to Mrs Wu, and she’s ever so much senior to us!’

Their whispered conversation continued intermittently until lunch was over. They knew it was over when the sound of chopsticks on bowls and dishes ceased and only an occasional low cough could be heard from inside. Presently a maid appeared in the doorway and held the portière up high to let two other maids through who were carrying out the lunch-table. Another three maids with wash-basins were already waiting outside who went in as soon as the other two had finished carrying out the table. Soon they too came out again, each carrying a wash-basin as before and also a spittoon. Then Scribe, Candida and Oriole arrived, each with a covered teacup on a tray, and went in. A little later this last trio reemerged. As they did so, Scribe stopped for a moment to admonish the junior maids who were remaining behind:

‘Now do your job properly. We’ll be back to relieve you as soon as we’ve had our lunch. No sneaking off to sit down while we’re away!’

The departure of Scribe and the other two was a signal for the women outside to begin going in, one by one, to report on their various business. They did this sedately enough, with none of the careless insolence they had been showing previously. Tan-chun’s customary good nature gradually reasserted itself and presently she turned to Patience and addressed her in a normal tone of voice:

‘There’s an important matter that I have been wanting to consult your mistress about. I’m glad I’ve remembered it now. Come back again as soon as you have finished your lunch, while Miss Bao is still here, and the four of us can discuss it together; then, when we’ve worked out all the details, we can ask your mistress whether to go forward with it or not.’

‘Yes, miss,’ said Patience, and promptly left.

When she got back, Xi-feng asked her why she had been so long and received a full account of what had happened which greatly entertained her.

‘Good! Good!’ she said. ‘Good for Tan-chun! I always said she’d make an excellent little manager. Oh, what a pity she wasn’t born in the right bed!’

‘Now you’re talking stupid, madam,’ said Patience. ‘Although she’s not Her Ladyship’s child by birth, surely no one is going to think any the worse of her because of that? Won’t she always be treated exactly the same as the rest?’

Xi-feng sighed:

‘I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as you think. I know being a wife’s or a concubine’s child is not supposed to make any difference, and in a boy’s case perhaps it doesn’t; but I’m afraid with girls, when the time comes to start finding husbands for them, it often does. Nowadays you get a very shallow class of person who will ask about that before anything else and often, if they hear that the girl is a concubine’s child, will have nothing further to do with her. It’s silly, really, because if they did but know it, even the maids in a household like ours are better than the wife’s daughters in many another household, let alone the daughters of concubines. In the case of girls like Tan-chun and Ying-chun it’s hard to say. They might be unlucky and make a bad match through being discriminated against, or then again they might be lucky: someone might come along who didn’t care about these distinctions and they might make a perfectly good marriage.’

Xi-feng paused for a moment and smiled at Patience confidingly:

‘Because of all the economies I’ve introduced during these last few years there’s hardly anyone in this household who doesn’t secretly hate me. But it’s like riding a tiger: I daren’t relax my grip for a single moment for fear of being eaten. In any case, our expenditure is still far above our income. The trouble is, everything in this household from the largest down to the smallest item has to be done on a scale and according to rules that were laid down by our ancestors; but unfortunately the income from our property is not what it was in their days. If we do economize, the family looks ridiculous, Their Ladyships feel uncomfortable, and the servants complain of our harshness; yet if we don’t economize, in a very few years’ time we shall be bankrupt.’

‘I know,’ said Patience. ‘And there are three or four young ladies and two or three young masters to provide for, and Her Old Ladyship: all these big expenses are yet to come.’

‘Ah, I’ve allowed for them,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Those expenses I think we can just about manage. Bao-yu’s bride-price and Miss Lin’s dowry won’t involve us in any expense because Her Old Ladyship will pay them out of her private savings and Miss Ying will be taken care of by Sir She. Of the girls, that only leaves Miss Tan and Miss Xi. They’re not going to cost more than seven or eight thousand each at the outside. Then there’s Huan: they’re not going to spend all that much on him: say three thousand. Even if we can’t raise all of that, we can probably get by with a little judicious pruning. As for Her Old Ladyship: the main things have been paid for already; there will only be various miscellaneous expenses. Four or five thousand will probably be ample. No, as long as we can economize a bit, we shall be able to deal with those expenses as they come along. What really worries me is the possibility of one or two large items of expenditure turning up which we hadn’t been expecting. Then I am afraid we really shall be done for!

‘But let’s not worry about these far-off things just now. You must hurry up and have your lunch so that you can get back and find out what it is they want to talk about. I’m delighted that things should be turning out in this way. It’s what I’ve always wanted, someone to take a bit of the weight off my shoulders. There’s Bao-yu of course; but he isn’t really one of us, so even if I were to win him over, he wouldn’t be very much use. Mrs Zhu is such a Holy Buddha, she’s no good. Miss Ying’s even worse – and anyway she doesn’t properly belong to this household. Miss Xi is still childish. Lan is little more than a baby. Huan is like a singed cat in the cold, only looking for a warm stove or a corner of a kang to curl up on – How the same mother could produce two children such poles apart as him and Tan-chun I never shall understand! – Miss Lin and Miss Bao are both very capable girls, but unfortunately they’re not of our surname and can’t very well be expected to involve themselves in running our affairs. And in any case, one of them’s like a beautiful picture-lantern: you feel that a puff of wind would blow her out; and the other is so determined not to open her mouth about what doesn’t concern her that a shake or a nod or an “I don’t know” is about all you can ever get out of her and you feel a bit awkward about asking her to do anything. And that only leaves Miss Tan. She’s got a good mind; she’s good at expressing herself; she belongs to the right lineage; Her Ladyship likes her; she’s a bit unsure of herself perhaps, but that’s all the doing of that wretched Zhao woman; in other respects she’s very much like Bao-yu. She’s certainly not in the least like Huan. He really is the most objectionable child. If I had my way he’d have been sent packing long ago. No, if she’s got the determination to do this job, let’s go along with her, I say. Let’s make an ally of her, so that I don’t have to go on feeling so isolated. From a high-minded, honourable point of view, having her to help us will save us a good deal of anxiety, and in the long run Her Ladyship will benefit. But there is also a not so high-minded, rather more selfish way of looking at it. I’ve been too ruthless, I know I have. I ought to step back now and take stock of things. I can’t keep the pressure up any longer. People hate me so much already, there are daggers in their smiles. You and I have only two pairs of eyes between us. If I carry on as I have been doing, sooner or later they are bound to catch us off our guard and I shall be destroyed. So you see, her stepping forward and taking command just when things are at their liveliest means that the heat will be turned off me for the time being and people’s resentment against me will have a chance to cool down.

‘There’s something else I want to say to you. I know you are a very intelligent person, but I am afraid you may find it rather hard to transfer your allegiance, so I want to impress this on you now. Although Miss Tan may be only a girl, there are very few things that she doesn’t know about. You mustn’t be taken in by her quiet manner. In fact, being able to read and write, she’s if anything better equipped to manage things than I am. Now they always say that anyone who wants to break a gang up should begin by arresting the leader, and her immediate concern must be to make an example of someone as a means of establishing her authority. That being so, you can be quite sure that I shall be the person she’ll pick on first to make an example of. If she starts criticizing anything I have said or done, don’t try to defend it; just be very polite and say that the criticism is justified. Don’t, whatever you do, stand up to her out of a mistaken sense of loyalty to me: that’s the last thing I want you to do.’

Before she could go on, Patience laughingly interrupted her:

‘Why are you so ready to assume that other people are stupid? I’ve been taking that line with her already; I don’t need you to tell me!’

‘I was afraid you might have no time for anyone but me,’ said Xi-feng. ‘That was my only reason for warning you. If you have been taking that line with her already, so much the better. Evidently you are cleverer than I am. By the way, aren’t you perhaps getting a little carried away – this “you”, “you”, “you” all of a sudden? What’s wrong with “madam”?’

‘I’ll say “you” if I want to,’ said Patience. ‘If you don’t like it, there’s always my face to slap. It won’t be the first time it’s enjoyed that privilege!’

‘Little beast!’ said Xi-feng. ‘How many times do you intend to go on dragging that up? Fancy provoking me with a thing like that when you know how ill I am! Come on! There aren’t any visitors about. Come over and sit here with me. We’d better get on with our lunch.’

Felicity and three or four junior maids came in at this point carrying a short-legged table between them which they set down on the kang. Xi-feng’s lunch consisted of no more than some bird’s nest soup and a couple of small, light dishes suitable for an invalid palate. Unable to eat more, she had cancelled the portion that under normal catering arrangements would have been her due. Felicity put the four dishes to which Patience was entitled on Xi-feng’s table and filled her a bowlful of rice. Patience then half sat, half stood with one foot curled underneath her on the edge of the kang and the other one resting on the floor, and in that position kept Xi-feng company while she ate her lunch. When they had both finished eating, she helped Xi-feng to wash and rinse out her mouth, then, after a few admonitory words to Felicity, went back to rejoin Tan-chun and the others in the office.

Outside the office building the forecourt was quiet and deserted. The stewardesses who had formerly been waiting there had now all gone off about their business.

What happened when she went inside will be related in the following chapter.

Chapter 56

Resourceful Tan-chun abolishes abuses in the interests of economy And sapient Baochai shows bow small concessions can be made without loss of dignity

Having kept Xi-feng company while she ate her lunch and waited on her while she rinsed her mouth out and washed, Patience made her way back to the ‘jobs room’. The courtyard outside it was quiet now, deserted except for the silent row of maids and womenservants waiting outside the windows until their mistresses inside the room should require them. The latter were already in the midst of a discussion. They were talking about Lai Da’s garden, which they had visited in Grandmother Jia’s company some months previously on the occasion of the party which had had such unfortunate consequences for Xue Pan. Tan-chun broke off as Patience entered and indicated a low stool for her to sit on.

‘I’ve been thinking about those two taels we get every month for hair-oil and cosmetics,’ she told Patience. ‘We already get a monthly allowance of two taels each and our maids get allowances too. It looks to me as if this is another case of duplication, like the eight taels paid to the school every year which we were dealing with earlier. I know it’s not a very important matter, and the sum involved is not very great, but it’s obvious at a glance that this is a bad arrangement, and I can’t understand why your mistress hasn’t noticed it.’

‘There is a reason,’ said Patience. ‘Obviously you young ladies need a regular fixed supply of these things, and as there wouldn’t be much sense in our constantly running out with a few coppers to make individual purchases, the cosmetic allowances for the various departments are drawn by our buyers and used to make bulk purchases with. The stewardesses collect monthly supplies from the buyers and distribute them to the different apartments, and we maids in the different apartments look after them for use by you as and when you need them. The two-tael monthly allowance you get is quite separate from the cosmetics money. It isn’t meant to be spent on cosmetics; it’s simply to keep you in money, so that if the need should ever arise to spend on something, you shouldn’t have the inconvenience of finding yourselves short and perhaps running round for some only to find that Her Ladyship or whoever is in charge at the time is out or too busy to see you. I have to admit though that about half of us do in fact seem to go outside these arrangements and buy cosmetics with our spending money; but whether it’s because the official buyers simply pocket the money and don’t deliver the goods, or because the stuff they supply us with is so inferior, I simply don’t know.’

Tan-chun and Li Wan exchanged knowing smiles.

‘You’ve noticed, too, then,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I don’t think they actually embezzle the money, but sometimes the supply is very much delayed. If you try to hurry them they produce something so awful that it is quite unusable, and in the end you are forced to buy your own. There’s only one way of doing that, too. You have to give a couple of taels to a nannie and ask her to get one of her sons or nephews to buy it for you. It’s no good trying to do it through the regular staff. If you do, you only get the same awful, unusable stuff as before, I don’t know why.’

‘It’s because if they bought you stuff of better quality, they’d be in trouble with the regular buyers,’ said Patience. ‘The regular buyers would complain that they were trying to do them out of a job. They’d rather offend you than risk offending the buyers. Of course, if you get the stuff through your nannies, there’s nothing the buyers can do about it.’

‘Well, I am very uneasy about the whole arrangement,’ said Tan-chun. ‘Here we are paying the same money twice over and half the stuff that is paid for has to be wasted. It would be much better if this monthly payment to the buyers were abolished altogether. That’s one thing. Another thing is this. Last year when we went to Lai Da’s place, you went too. What did you think of that little garden of theirs? How do you think it compares with ours?’

‘It’s not half as big,’ said Patience, ‘and it has far, far fewer trees and flowers and things in it.’

‘I got talking to one of the daughters while we were there,’ said Tan-chun. ‘That garden of theirs is let out annually on contract. She told me that quite apart from supplying them through the year with flowers for their hair and with all the bamboo-shoots, vegetables and fish that they eat, it brings them in an annual income of two hundred taels of silver. Ever since that day I have realized that even a broken lotus-leaf or a withered grass-root is worth something.’

Bao-chai laughed.

‘There speaks the voice of gilded youth. How typical! But even though, O delicately-nurtured one, you have no immediate experience of such matters, you can, after all, read and write. Surely you must at some time or other have read Zhuxius’s essay “On Not Throwing Away”?’

‘Yes,’ said Tan-chun, ‘but in that essay isn’t he merely urging the people, in a fairly general sort of way, to exert themselves? And isn’t it all rather empty and rhetorical? Surely he didn’t mean every word of it to be taken literally?’

‘Zhuxius empty and rhetorical?’ said Bao-chai. ‘He meant every word of it. If, after only a few days of household management, the greed for gain has already so clouded your judgement that the teachings of Zhuxius seem empty and rhetorical, I fancy that if you were to venture outside into the corrupting atmosphere of the market-place, you would soon be finding even Confucius himself too abstract for you!’

‘Since you are so learned,’ said Tan-chun, ‘I’m surprised that you should appear to be unfamiliar with the views of Fixius. Fixius once said, “Whosoever sets his foot in the market-place or takes his seat at the counting-board must forget about Yao and Shun and turn his back on the teachings of Confucius and Mencius…”’

‘How does it go on?’ said Bao-chai.

‘I must claim the quoter’s privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose,’ said Tan-chun. ‘If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!’

‘Everything in the world has some use or other,’ said Bao-chai, ‘and if it has a use, it must have a monetary value. Surely to an intelligent person like you so obvious a truism can hardly have come as a revelation?’

‘You call people here to discuss important business,’ said Li Wan, ‘but all we have had so far is talk about books!’

‘But talk about books is important business,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Without it we should be no better than vulgar tradesmen!’

The three of them continued chaffing a little longer before Tan-chun returned to her theme:

‘Let’s say for the sake of argument that our garden is only twice as big as theirs. Doubling the income they get from theirs would mean a clear profit of four hundred taels per annum. Now of course, a family like ours couldn’t possibly put its garden under contract and turn it into a business in the way that they do: it would look too mercenary. On the other hand, when you know how valuable everything is, it seems a terrible waste of natural resources not to have a few people whose special job is to look after it and just let everyone trample on it and despoil it as they please. I think we ought to pick out a few experienced trustworthy old women from among the ones who work in the Garden – women who know something about gardening already – and put the upkeep of the Garden into their hands. We needn’t ask them to pay us rent; all we need ask them for is an annual share of the produce. There would be four advantages in this arrangement. In the first place, if we have people whose sole occupation is to look after trees and flowers and so on, the condition of the garden will improve gradually year after year and there will be no more of those long periods of neglect followed by bursts of feverish activity when things have been allowed to get out of hand. Secondly there won’t be the spoiling and wastage we get at present. Thirdly the women themselves will gain a little extra to add to their incomes which will compensate them for the hard work they put in throughout the year. And fourthly, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t use the money we should otherwise have, spent on nurserymen, rockery specialists, horticultural cleaners and so on for other purposes.’

‘“And after three years there shall be no more famine nor hunger in the land”,’ Bao-chai intoned. (She had wandered off in the course of Tan-chun’s exposition and was examining some calligraphy on the wall.)

‘It’s a very good idea,’ said Li Wan. ‘If we could really do this, I’m sure Lady Wang would be pleased. It’s not so much the saving of money that’s important; but if there are going to be people whose special job is to look after the Garden and they are allowed to make a little money out of it as well, then what with “the allurement of status” on the one hand and “the incentive of gain” on the other, they are sure to make a good job of it.’

‘It needed you to suggest this, miss,’ said Patience. ‘My mistress has thought of something like this in the past, but she hasn’t liked to mention it to anyone, because she thought that now all you young ladies are living in the Garden you might feel that we ought to be spending more on it rather than less and if she had people snooping around in it making economies you might feel that that really was the last straw.’

Bao-chai walked over and began feeling Patience’s face:

‘Open your mouth, Patience: I want to see what your teeth are made of. Ever since early this morning you’ve been keeping up this tune. You never give Miss Tan credit for anything. You never admit that Mrs Lian is less than perfect and that there are things she may not have thought of. Whenever Miss Tan has finished saying something, you come back at her with the same refrain: your mistress has thought of that too, only for some compelling reason or other she hasn’t been able to do anything about it. This time you tell us that she didn’t like to save money by putting the Garden under supervision because of us living there.’

She turned to the others:

‘She’s right, of course. If you do hand this Garden over to a few of the old women to look after, they will naturally be unwilling that a single fruit or flower that they have charge over should be picked. Obviously where we are concerned they will not dare to say anything; but it is sure to prove a source of endless quarrelling with the maids. Patience is farseeing enough to realize this and, in her own inimitable way, without fear or flattery, she gives us warning. How tactful she is! Even if we weren’t on good terms with her mistress, I think after hearing Patience we should be shamed into making our peace with her!’

‘And I was so angry this morning,’ said Tan-chun. ‘When I heard that Patience had come, I suddenly thought of her mistress and the insufferable behaviour of those henchwomen of hers – which she, no doubt, encourages – and it made me even angrier. But Patience was so quiet and timid, like a poor little mouse that the cat has been after, and stood there all the time so meekly; and when she did speak, it was not to remind me of the many kindnesses that I owe her mistress, but to tell me that if I decided to make any changes, I should be doing her mistress a kindness which she was “sure she would appreciate”. It really wrung my heart when she said that. Not only did I stop feeling angry then; I felt ashamed. “Here am I,” I thought, “only a young girl, but behaving in such a way that nobody can ever like me or care what happens to me. When shall I ever be in a position to do anyone a kindness?”’

At this point her emotion got the better of her and she shed some tears. The others, moved by the sincerity with which she had spoken and remembering how Aunt Zhao was constantly maligning her and making things difficult for her with Lady Wang, were themselves moved to tears of sympathy; but they did their best to rally her.

‘What better return can we possibly make Lady Wang for placing her trust in us,’ said Li Wan, ‘than to take advantage of the fact that things are a little quieter now by discussing some much-needed economies? What do you want to go bringing in an unimportant matter like that for?’

‘I’ve got the gist of your plan, Miss,’ said Patience. ‘All you need do now is tell us which of the women you want to appoint and we can go straight ahead with it.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said Tan-chun, ‘but you ought to have a word with your mistress about it first. It was a bit presumptuous of us to go poking about and making these little economies in the first place – I should never have ventured to do so if I hadn’t known that your mistress was so understanding: if she’d been a stupid or touchy person, she might have suspected me of trying to shine at her expense – All the same, the very least we can do is to consult her first.’

‘Very well,’ said Patience pleasantly. ‘I’ll go and tell her, then.’

She was gone for some time, but returned eventually, full of smiles:

‘I knew it wasn’t necessary to go. Of course she agrees. A good idea like this: how could she do otherwise?’

As soon as Tan-chun had received this confirmation, she and Li Wan sent for the list of women employed in the Garden. Bao-chai joined them in scrutinizing it and in making a provisional selection of those most likely to be suitable. These were summoned forthwith and Li Wan, addressing them in a group, outlined the scheme to them in general terms. The women were enthusiastic.

‘Let me have the bamboo,’ said one of them. ‘I’ll have double the amount growing within a year. I can keep you in bamboo-shoots for the kitchen and pay you an annual rent for it as well.’

‘Let me have that bit of rice-paddy,’ said another. ‘I’ll keep you in grain for your cage-birds so that you don’t have to spend money on feed, and I’ll pay you annual rent.’

Before Tan-chun could say anything, someone arrived with a message:

‘The doctor’s arrived. He’s waiting to come into the Garden to have a look at Miss Shi.’

‘Just a moment!’ said Patience as the women went scurrying off to escort the doctor. ‘There’s no point in a hundred people going if there isn’t anyone responsible to receive him.’

‘Wu Xin-deng’s wife and Mrs Shan are already waiting for him at the Painted Gate on the south-west corner of the Garden,’ said the woman who had brought the message.

When Patience heard that, she made no further objection.

After the women had gone, Tan-chun looked at Bao-chai inquiringly:

‘Well?’

Bao-chai laughed:

“‘He who shows most enthusiasm in the beginning proves often to be a sluggard in the end; and he who promises the fairest is often thinking more of his profit than of his performance.”’

Tan-chun nodded in agreement and praised the aptness of the quotation. She turned to the register once more and pointed out a few more names for the other two to consider. Patience fetched a brush and inkstone for her to write with.

‘Mamma Zhu is a very reliable body,’ said the others of one of these. ‘Her old man used to be a bamboo specialist and her son still is; it’s in the family. She’s the one we should put in charge of all the bamboos in the Garden. And Mamma Tian comes from a farming family. The farm at Sweet-rice Village may be only a plaything and not meant for serious cultivation, but if she were in charge of all those vegetable and paddy strips and doing the things that needed doing at the proper times, we should probably get a lot more out of it.’

‘When you think of the amount of land that goes with them, it seems a pity that All-spice Court and Green Delights don’t produce anything marketable,’ said Tan-chun.

‘Oh, but they do!’ said Li Wan. ‘Especially All-spice Court. Half the aromatics sold in perfumers’ shops and on the herb stalls at markets and temple fairs come from plants like the ones grown in All-spice. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more profit to be had out of them than out of anything else that this Garden produces. And as for Green Delights: to mention nothing else, just look at all the flowers produced by that rosa rugosa during the spring and summer months! And all the rambler roses and monthly roses and rosa glabra and honeysuckle and wistaria on the pergolas: think how much you could make out of them if the flowers were dried properly and sold to tea-merchants for flavouring!’

Tan-chun nodded enthusiastically.

‘But,’ she reflected, ‘we haven’t got anyone who knows the art of flower-drying, have we?’

‘The mother of Miss Bao’s maid Oriole knows all about that sort of thing,’ said Patience. ‘Don’t you remember her drying a lot of flowers once and filling little baskets and gourds with them to make us presents?’

‘Is this the thanks I get for praising you?’ Bao-chai asked Patience.

‘What can you mean?’ said the others, in some surprise.

‘You can’t possibly give the job to her,’ said Bao-chai. ‘You have so many able and willing women of your own who won’t be getting any of these jobs: they are going to think very poorly of me if they know that I am responsible for bringing in an outsider. I can think of someone that you could give this job to, though: Old Mamma Ye at Green Delights – Tealeaf’s mother. She’s a very honest old woman; and what’s more, she is on very good terms with Oriole’s mother. You’d much better give the job to her. She will probably consult Oriole’s mother whenever there is anything she is not sure about in any case. She may even elect to hand over to her altogether. But that would be entirely a private matter between the two of them. The other servants might resent it, but at least they couldn’t blame us. The advantage of this arrangement is that it would look fair as well as being effective.’

Li Wan and Patience agreed. Tan-chun was more sceptical:

‘That may be; but what if cupidity proves stronger than friendship?’

‘Not likely in this case,’ said Patience. ‘Only the other day Mamma Ye was invited to become Oriole’s godmother. The three of them had a little party to celebrate. The two families are very close.’

Tan-chun dropped her objection and proceeded, with the others, to deliberate on the rest of their choices – all of them women whom the four of them had mentally noted in the past for their dependability. As each one’s selection was confirmed, she made a little circle with her writing-brush against the corresponding name in the register.

Shortly after this the women arrived back again to report that the doctor had gone and to hand in the prescription he had left. After studying it, Li Wan, Tan-chun and Bao-chai sent one of the women to obtain the drugs from outside and to supervise the making-up and administering of the medicine. Then Li Wan and Tan-chun told the women which of them were to have the cultivation of which parts of the Garden and what the conditions of their tenure were to be:

‘You will be expected to give us, in due season, a fixed amount of your crops for our own use; but apart from that it will be up to you to make whatever profit from them you can. Accounts will be submitted and dues paid at the end of the year.’

‘I’ve been having second thoughts about that,’ said Tan-chun. ‘If you are submitting annual accounts and paying dues, presumably it will be to the Office. But that means another lot of people with control over you and another layer skimmed off your profits. Now in thinking up this new arrangement and appointing you ourselves, we are already in a sense going above their heads, which is sure to anger them. They probably won’t dare to say anything about it now, but there will be nothing to stop them getting their own back later on when you go round to settle accounts with them at the end of the year. And there’s another thing. If they are going to be in on this, they are sure to expect a share of the produce. Whatever you agree to give us in the course of each year, they will expect the equivalent of half the amount for themselves. That’s an old, established rule. Everyone knows that. But since the new arrangement is our creation, I say let’s keep it out of their hands altogether. If there’s to be an annual settling of accounts, let it be done here, internally.’

‘If you ask me,’ said Bao-chai, ‘I don’t think there should be any settling of accounts at all. You’d always be finding that this one had too much and that one too little. It would only be a lot of extra trouble. Why not get each of them to take over some regular item of your expenditure and pay for it out of their profits? That will keep it all inside the Garden. I’ve just been running over in my mind what your regular expenses are. They aren’t very many. There’s hair-oil, cosmetics, incense, paper: every mistress and her maids get a fixed amount of those every month. Then there are brushes, dust-pans, feather-dusters and food for the livestock (birds, rabbits, deer and so forth). That’s really all. Now suppose instead of drawing money from Accounts for all those things we gave these women the responsibility of paying for them: how much do you reckon the saving would be?’

‘They’re small items in themselves,’ said Patience, ‘but I should think if you added them all together the total annual saving would be well over four hundred taels.’

‘There you are!’ said Bao-chai. ‘Four hundred a year, eight hundred in two years: you could buy a small house for letting with that or add half an acre of poor farm-land to your land-holdings. But though there should be quite a lot left over after they have covered the expenses we are assigning to them, we want them to have a little something to spend on themselves after working hard all through the year; and though, from our point of view, the main object of these operations is economy, we don’t want to overdo it. There would be no point in saving an extra two or three hundred taels if it meant resorting to undignified methods in order to do so. What we are now proposing means that Accounts will be paying out four or five hundred taels a year less than they do now without anyone outside feeling the pinch. And as for inside, the women doing these jobs will be getting a little extra for themselves, the ones not doing them will be able to relax a bit, the Garden’s stock of trees and flowers will thrive and increase through being better cared for, and we shall be better off when we have this regular supply of the produce for our own use – all this without any loss of dignity. Whereas if we went all out to economize with no other consideration but making money in mind, no doubt we should have little difficulty in squeezing more out, but the effect of paying everything back into the common account would be wails of protest from everyone, both inside the Garden and out, and a consequent loss of dignity that in a household like yours would be quite unacceptable.

‘Altogether there must be several dozen old women working in this Garden. If you give the money-making jobs to these few here and leave the others out in the cold, the others are going to complain that it isn’t fair. Now as I said, there’s still going to be quite a lot of money left over when they’ve finished paying these various expenses for you, and I think we should be letting them off a bit too lightly if we let them keep all of it. Why don’t we say that every year, no matter how much or how little they have made, they are to pay so many strings of cash into a common pool which will be shared out among all the other women? Although those others won’t any longer have anything to do with the upkeep of the Garden, they are responsible, day and night, for keeping an eye on the other servants; they have the responsibility of opening and closing the gates, which means that they have to get up earlier and go to bed later than everyone else; and whenever any of us go out, whatever the weather, even if it is raining or snowing heavily, they have to carry sedans, punt boats, draw sledges – in fact do any heavy work that needs to be done. Since they work so hard in the Garden from one year’s end to the next, it seems only fair that if any money is going to be made out of the Garden, they should have a share in it. And there’s another reason for this, if it doesn’t seem too petty-minded to mention it’ – Bao-chai turned to the women to explain – ‘If you think only of how much you can make out of this for yourselves and don’t let the others have a share, they are sure to feel resentful even if they don’t like to say anything and will try to make up for it by misappropriating what they can for their own use – filching a fruit here and a flower there whenever they have the opportunity. Whereas if they know in advance that they are going to get a share of whatever you make from your produce, they will be as anxious as you are that none of it is stolen and will even keep an eye on it for you when you aren’t able to watch over it yourselves.’

The women were quick to see the force of this argument – no control by the Office, no settling of accounts with Xi-feng, only a few strings of cash to pay out every year. They were all of them delighted and accepted these conditions unanimously.

‘Better than being pushed around by Accounts,’ they said. ‘If we were paying them anything, they’d want a dash on top of it for themselves.’

Those of the women present who were not getting one of the gardening jobs, when they heard that they were going to be given money at the end of every year without having to do anything to earn it, were, if anything, even more delighted – though for politeness’ sake they pretended to demur:

‘After all the hard work they’ll be putting into it they ought to have a bit extra for themselves. Doesn’t seem right that we should sit back and collect the jackpot without having to do anything for it!’

‘Don’t refuse the offer,’ said Bao-chai, smiling. ‘It’s no less than you deserve. As long as you continue to keep a close watch on things and don’t get slack and allow people to drink and gamble. Otherwise it puts me in such an awkward position. This isn’t really my business, of course; but as you have no doubt heard, my aunt has repeatedly urged me to take over responsibility for it on the grounds that Mrs Zhu is too busy and the other young ladies are too young to attend to it. I can’t refuse her, knowing that to do so would be deliberately adding to her worries. She has such indifferent health and so many household cares and I have so little to do myself that even if she were only a neighbour and not my aunt, I could scarcely refuse to help her. It’s no good worrying that I shall make myself unpopular. If I care only about being popular and allow people to drink and gamble as much as they like, sooner or later someone who has drunk too much will start a quarrel. If an incident like that were to happen, how should I be able to look my aunt in the face? And think what it would be like for you. You would have forfeited your reputation as responsible seniors that you have taken so many years to build up. After all, the reason all these dozens of maids and the whole of this great Garden have been placed under your supervision is because you have served here under three or four generations of masters and are considered more dependable than any of the other servants. At a time when we all ought to be doing our best to keep up appearances, you will have allowed other people to drink and gamble. It will be bad enough if my aunt gets to hear of it and gives you a talking-to; but what if you are found out by the stewardesses and they decide to discipline you themselves without bothering to tell my aunt? What a disgrace, that people of your years should be punished by servants younger than yourselves! They would be within their rights, of course. As stewardesses they have power over all other members of the staff. But how much better if you conducted yourselves in such a way that you could keep your self-respect and not be in a position where they had you at their mercy! That is why I have thought of this plan for bringing you in a little extra money. I am hoping that everyone will now collaborate to make this Garden such a model of discipline and good management that those who have the power to intervene, when they see how tight a discipline you are able to keep by yourselves, will decide that there is nothing for them to worry about and will respect you and leave you alone. Then we shall feel that the trouble we have taken in planning this little extra income for you was justified. Think about it!’

The women were all smiles of pleasure:

‘You’re right, Miss Bao. Don’t worry, Mrs Zhu and young ladies both! We should be lost souls indeed if we didn’t show a bit of consideration for you after you have been so kind and thoughtful to us!’

At that moment Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife came in:

‘The Zhen family from Nanking arrived in town yesterday. Today they have gone to the Palace to offer their felicitations. Some of their people have just arrived here to pay their respects. They have brought presents with them.’

She held out the list of presents with both hands. Tan-chun took it from her and ran her eye over it:

Imperial use decorated satins and mang satins

12 lengths

Imperial use satins, various

12 lengths

Imperial use gauzes, in different shades

12 lengths

Imperial use Palace taffetas

12 lengths

Official use satins, gauzes, taffetas and damasks in    

    various colours  

24 lengths

When Li Wan too had seen the list, she told Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife to use the largest size of gratuity packet for tipping the bearers with. She also sent someone to report to Grandmother Jia, who sent word back that Li Wan, Tan-chun and Bao-chai were to come over and inspect the presents. After they had done so, Li Wan told the women in charge of the store-room to wait until Lady Wang had got back and had a look at them before putting them into store.

‘The Zhens are rather special people,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘You had better use one of the largest gratuity packets when you are tipping the bearers. And you’d better get some cloth-lengths ready: I expect we shall have some of their women arriving shortly, to pay their respects.’

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the arrival of four women from the Zhen household was announced. Grandmother Jia at once gave orders that they should be brought in. All four were sober matrons of forty years or more and so genteelly dressed that it would have been impossible to guess from their appearance that they were servants. When the formal salutations and the inquiries after Grandmother Jia’s health had been completed, the old lady called for footstools to be brought for them to sit on. They acknowledged the courtesy but waited until Bao-chai and the others were seated before they would sit down themselves. When Grandmother Jia asked them when they had arrived in town, they stood up again to reply:

‘We arrived yesterday. Today Her Ladyship has had to take our young lady to the Palace, so she has sent us to offer you her respects and ask after the young ladies.’

‘It’s many years since they have been to the capital,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It’s rather unexpected, that they should suddenly turn up like this.’

The women smiled:

‘Yes, madam. They had an Imperial Summons to come this year.’

‘Have they all come?’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘No, madam. Her Old Ladyship and the young master and our fourth and fifth young ladies and the other ladies all stayed at home. Only Her Ladyship and our third young lady have accompanied the Master on this journey.’

‘Is your third young lady betrothed yet?’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘No, madam, not yet.’

‘Your first and second young ladies both married into families on very good terms with ours,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘Yes, madam,’ said the spokeswoman. ‘Every year when they write home they tell us how much they are beholden to you for your kind concern.’

Grandmother Jia laughed deprecatingly:

‘One could hardly call it that. Our families have known each other for so long and we are connected by marriage: it’s only right that we should take an interest in them. We are particularly fond of your second young lady. She is so unassuming, in spite of her rank. I think I could say, without offence, that we have grown quite attached to her.’

The women laughed:

‘You are too polite, madam.’

Grandmother Jia pursued her questioning:

‘Your young master lives with his grandmother, then?’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘How old is he? Has he started school yet?’

‘Thirteen this year,’ said the woman. ‘He has started school, but he is always playing truant. He has always been naughty, since he was little. He’s a good-looking boy, though, and his grandmother’s favourite, so there’s not much his father and mother can do about it.’

Grandmother Jia was greatly diverted.

‘Just like us! And what is his name?’

‘Well, because she says he is her “treasure” and because he has such a milky-white complexion, his grandmother calls him “Bao-yu”. That means “Precious Jade”, you see.’

Grandmother Jia turned to Li Wan, laughing:

‘Fancy that! He’s even called Bao-yu, too.’

Li Wan inclined politely:

‘Coincidences over names have always been common, whether among contemporaries or among people of different periods.’

‘We did wonder, after he was given this name, whether there wasn’t some family of our acquaintance in the capital in which the name had already been used,’ said the woman; ‘but as it was ten or more years since we’d been there, we couldn’t remember for sure whether there was or not.’

‘It’s my grandson’s name,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Come here, someone.’

‘Hei!’ shouted the womenservants in attendance, and a few of them stepped forward.

‘Go over to the Garden and tell our Bao-yu to come here so that our visitors can have a look at him and tell us how he compares with their Bao-yu.’

The women hurried off in obedience to her order and returned after ten minutes or so with Bao-yu in their midst. When the four women from the Zhen household saw him enter, they hurriedly rose to their feet.

‘You gave us quite a turn,’ they said. ‘If we hadn’t been here and had met you in some other place, we’d have thought that our own Bao-yu must have followed after to join us!’

They took him by the hand and made much of him, plying him with all sorts of questions. Bao-yu smiled back at them and greeted them politely.

‘Well, how does he compare with yours?’ Grandmother Jia asked them.

‘It would appear that the two Bao-yus are very like each other from what they have already said,’ Li Wan remarked.

‘I doubt such a coincidence is possible,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Children of the upper classes, especially if they are reared delicately and provided they are not pock-marked or illfavoured, are all much of a muchness as far as good looks are concerned. There would be nothing remarkable in a slight resemblance between them.’

‘In appearance he is exactly like our Bao-yu,’ said the women; ‘but though Your Ladyship was saying just now that he is mischievous, I think your Bao-yu must be better-tempered than ours.’

‘Oh?’ said Grandmother Jia, immediately interested. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘Because he let us hold his hand just now when we talked to him. If it had been our young gentleman, he would have called us “old fools”. We are not allowed to lay a finger on any of his things even, let alone take him by the hand. The only servants he will have about him are young girls –’

Before they could go on, Li Wan, Tan-chun and Bao-chai had burst out laughing. Grandmother Jia was laughing too:

‘I’m sure that if I were to send some of my women to see your Bao-yu now and they took him by the hand, he would somehow or other contrive to put up with it. Children brought up in families like ours, no matter how odd or eccentric they may be, will always conduct themselves in a courteous, well-bred manner in the presence of strangers. Otherwise their eccentricity would not be tolerated. In fact, the reason why grown-ups are so fond of them, though partly because of their good looks, is mainly because their beautiful manners – much better than many a grown-up’s – make it such a pleasure to be with them. No one meeting them can help liking them, and that makes us more tolerant of what they do on their own, when they are out of sight. But if they were to carry on in exactly the same way all the time, never allowing the grownups to get a word in edgeways, they would be fit for nothing but a whipping.’

‘That’s true, madam,’ said the women, smiling. ‘Although our Bao-yu is so odd and mischievous, he can at times, when he is with visitors, behave himself better than a grown-up, so that it’s a pleasure to watch him. No one who meets him can help liking him. Often they ask us what his father should want to beat him for, not realizing what a holy terror he can be inside the family. Sir Zhen and Lady Zhen are driven half distracted by him. If it were just his wilfulness, which is fairly normal in a child, it could be cured in time; so could his extravagance, which is normal in the sons of well-to-do people; and so could his hatred of study, which again is fairly normal in a young person. But this weird perverseness of his seems to be inbred: there seems to be no cure for it.’

Just then Lady Wang’s return was announced. She went straight up to Grandmother Jia on entering and saluted her, after which she received the salutations of the four visitors and exchanged a few words with them.

‘You are tired,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Go and rest.’

Lady Wang served her mother-in-law with some tea before withdrawing to her own apartment. Shortly after she had gone, the four women took their leave of Grandmother Jia and went to join her. Lady Wang chatted with them for a while about family affairs before sending them on their way – suitably primed, of course, with messages and gratuities: but those are details which need not concern us.

Greatly tickled by what the women had told her, Grandmother Jia, for some time after their visit, would announce to anyone who came to see her:

‘There is another Bao-yu, you know, exactly like our Bao-yu in every particular.’

The other members of the family, bearing in mind that the world was a large place and instances of the same name among its innumerable upper-class families probably of not very rare occurrence, and that a grandmother who doted on her grandson was a fairly unremarkable phenomenon, were unimpressed by the coincidence and gave little thought to it. But Bao-yu, convinced, like many another young gentleman, of his own uniqueness, dismissed what the four women had said as a fabrication designed to give pleasure to his grandmother. He was taunted about it by Xiang-yun when he visited her in her sick-room in the Garden to see how she was getting on.

‘You’ll be able to get up to all sorts of mischief now,’ she said. ‘Previously it was a case of

The single strand makes not a thread
Nor the single tree a wood.

We thought there was only one of you. But now you know you are a pair, there will be no stopping you. If your father beats you really badly, you can always run off to Nanking and get this other Bao-yu to stand in for you!’

‘You don’t believe that rubbish, do you?’ said Bao-yu. ‘How could there be another Bao-yu?’

‘There was a Lin Xiang-ru in the Warring States period and a Si-ma Xiang-ru under the Former Han,’ said Xiang-yun.

‘Yes, but this one’s supposed to look the same as well,’ said Bao-yu. ‘That’s not something you can find precedents for, surely?’

‘What about when the men of Kuang mistook Confucius for Yang Huo?’ said Xiang-yun.

‘Confucius and Yang Huo may have looked the same,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but they didn’t have the same name. Lin Xiang-ru and Si-ma Xiang-ru had the same name but they didn’t look alike. We are supposed both to have the same name and to look the same. It isn’t possible.

Xiang-yun, unable to think of a reply, took the easy way out.

‘Pleathe yourthelf. Whether it is or whether it isn’t, it’s of no concern to me.’

And she lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

But Bao-yu’s confidence was shaken. Had he a double? When he told himself that he couldn’t possibly, he now began to feel that perhaps after all he had. On the other hand how could he be sure that he had when he had never seen him? Brooding on this uncertainty, he went back to his room and lay down on his bed to ponder it in silence. Soon he had drifted into sleep.

He was in a garden, which, he remarked with surprise, bore some resemblance to Prospect Garden. While he was still puzzling over the similarity, he became aware that some girls were coming towards him, all of them maids. Again he was surprised:

‘Strange that there should be another lot of maids here like Faithful and Aroma and Patience!’

He observed that they were laughing at him:

‘Bao-yu, what are you doing here?’

Bao-yu, naturally supposing that they meant him, smiled back at them:

‘I’ve strayed in here by accident. I think this garden must belong to some friend or other of my family. Won’t you take me with you and show me round it?’

‘It isn’t our Bao-yu after all,’ said the girls. ‘He’s not bad-looking, though, and he sounds reasonably intelligent.’

‘Tell me,’ said Bao-yu eagerly, ‘is there another Bao-yu here then?’

‘Bao-yu?’ rejoined one of the girls sharply. ‘We have Her Old Ladyship’s and Her Ladyship’s orders to use that name as much as possible as a means of bringing him luck and Bao-yu likes to hear us use it; but what business has a boy like you from some remote place outside to be making free with it? Don’t let them catch you doing that here, boy, or they’ll flay your backside for you!’

‘Come, let’s be going,’ said another. ‘We don’t want Bao-yu to see him.’

‘Don’t let’s stand here talking to the nasty creature,’ said a third. ‘We shall be contaminated!’

And they hurried off.

Bao-yu was nonplussed:

‘No one has ever been as horrid as that to me before. I wonder why they are? And I wonder if there really is another person exactly like me here.’

As he mused on the unaccountable hostility of the maids, his feet were carrying him along in no particular direction and presently he found himself inside a courtyard. He looked around him in some surprise:

‘Strange! There’s even a place like Green Delights here.’

He mounted the steps of the verandah and walked inside the building. Someone was lying there on a bed. On the other side of the room were some maids, some of them sewing, some of them giggling over a game they were playing. Presently the person on the bed – it was a youth – could be heard to sigh and one of the maids laughingly inquired what he was sighing for.

‘Aren’t you asleep, Bao-yu? I suppose you are worried about your cousin’s illness again and imagining all sorts of foolish things about her.’

Bao-yu heard this with some astonishment. He listened while the youth on the bed replied:

‘I heard Grandmother say that there is another Bao-yu in the capital who is exactly like me, but I didn’t believe her. I’ve just been having a dream in which I went into a large garden and met some girls there who called me a “nasty creature” and wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I managed to find this Bao-yu’s room, but he was asleep. What I saw was only an empty shell lying there on the bed. I was wondering where the real person could have got to.’

‘I came here looking for Bao-yu. Are you Bao-yu then?’ Bao-yu could not help blurting out.

The youth leaped down from the bed and seized Bao-yu by the hands:

‘So you are Bao-yu, and this isn’t a dream after all?’

‘Of course it isn’t a dream,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It couldn’t be more reall’

Just then someone arrived with a summons:

‘The Master wants to see Bao-yu.’

For a moment the two Bao-yus were stunned; and then one Bao-yu hurried off and the other Bao-yu was left calling after him:

‘Come back, Bao-yu! Come back, Bao-yu!’

Aroma heard him calling his own name in his sleep and shook him awake.

‘Where’s Bao-yu?’ she asked him jokingly.

Though awake, Bao-yu had not yet regained consciousness of his surroundings. He pointed to the doorway:

‘He’s only just left. He can’t have got very far.’

‘You’re still dreaming,’ Aroma said, amused. ‘Rub your eyes and have another look. That’s the mirror. You’re looking at your own reflection in the mirror.’

Bao-yu leaned forward and looked. The doorway he had pointed to was his dressing-mirror. He joined Aroma in laughing at himself.

Seeing him awake, maids were already at hand with a spittoon and a cup of strong tea for him to rinse his mouth with. Musk recalled Grandmother Jia’s strictures against young people having too many mirrors around them.

‘She says that when you’re young your soul isn’t fully formed yet, and if you’re reflected in mirrors too often, it can give your soul a shock which causes you to have bad dreams. Fancy putting your bed right in front of that great mirror! It’s all right as long as it’s kept covered, but sometimes when you’ve been out to the front, especially in hot weather when you’re feeling tired, they forget to cover it. That’s what must have happened just now. And you must have been looking at yourself in it before you dropped off to sleep. That would be a sure way of bringing on a bad dream. And it would explain why you were calling your own name out in your sleep. Let’s move this bed inside, away from the mirror, for goodness sake!’

Just then a message arrived for Bao-yu from Lady Wang saying that she wanted to see him.

But as to what it was she wanted to see him about: that will be revealed in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 57

Nightingale tests Jade Boy with a startling message And Aunt Xue comforts Frowner with words of loving kindness

Obedient to the summons, Bao-yu hurried from the Garden and over to his mother’s apartment. It appeared that she was about to pay a call on Lady Zhen and wanted to take him with her. Bao-yu was delighted and hurried back again to get changed.

The Zhens’ town house was very much like the Ning and Rong establishments – if anything, a shade more opulent. In answer to Bao-yu’s questioning, Lady Zhen assured him that there was indeed a Bao-yu in Nanking. She kept the two of them to dinner and they stayed there for the rest of the day. Bao-yu was at last convinced.

As soon as they got back in the evening, Lady Wang made arrangements for entertaining Lady Zhen. A first-class dinner was ordered, a well-known troupe of adult players engaged, and Lady Zhen and her daughter were invited to come over next day. The day after that mother and daughter left town. They had no time for farewells: Sir Zhen had been ordered back to his post.

It was on the day of their departure that Bao-yu, after visiting Xiang-yun and finding that she was distinctly on the mend, went over to see how Dai-yu was getting on, only to be told that she was taking her afternoon nap. Nightingale chanced to be sitting outside in the covered walk doing some sewing, so, not wishing to disturb Dai-yu, he went over to talk to Nightingale instead.

‘How was she last night? Is her cough any better?’

‘Yes, a bit better,’ said Nightingale.

‘Thank the Lord for that!’ said Bao-yu fervently. ‘If only she could shake it off altogether!’

Nightingale looked up at him with amusement:

‘It’s not often we hear you calling on the Lord.’

Bao-yu returned her smile:

‘Any doctor will do in an emergency.’

His eye took in her costume as he said this: a cotton-padded dress of thin black-and-white material with only a lined black satin waistcoat over the top of it. He reached out his hand to feel it.

‘What you’re wearing is much too thin for this time of year. You’re sitting in a draught here as well. If you go sick too, things here will be in a pretty pickle!’

‘Look,’ said Nightingale sharply, ‘let’s just talk to each other in future, shall we, without any of this pawing about? Now that we’re all beginning to grow up, it creates such a bad impression. However much that horrible lot over there say things about you behind your back, you still carry on the same as when you were little. It won’t do. Miss Lin has warned us time and again about getting into conversations with you. Look at the way she behaves towards you herself nowadays: she can’t keep far enough away from you.’

She rose to her feet as she said this and moved, with her sewing, into the house.

The effect of this rebuff on Bao-yu’s feelings was as if a bowl of icy water had been emptied over him. For some moments he was stunned and stood gazing stupidly at the clump of bamboos that were growing in front of him; then, as he became gradually aware that Mamma Zhu, to whose expert care they had been entrusted, was rooting about in their midst, he took himself off, but still in a daze, and scarcely aware what he was doing. Presently he sat down on a rock somewhere to think. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but he did not feel them. For an hour or more he continued to sit there motionless, turning the same question, ‘What am I to do?’, over and over in his mind, but never reaching a conclusion.

Snowgoose, sent on an errand to fetch ginseng from Lady Wang’s, passed by him on her way back. As she glanced sideways from the path, she saw a figure sitting motionless on a rock underneath a peach-tree, chin cupped in hand and evidently lost in thought, which she recognized, with some surprise, as Bao-yu.

‘It’s ever so cold,’ she thought: ‘what can he be, doing, all on his own out here? They say that sickly people are specially liable to catch things in spring. Perhaps he’s gone mental.’

She went over to where he was sitting and, squatting down in front of him, peered smilingly into his face.

‘What are you doing out here?’

Bao-yu noticed her with a start.

‘Why do you come up to me like this? You’re a girl, aren’t you? She’s told you all not to have anything to do with me, for fear of creating a scandal; so why do you still come up to me? If we’re seen here talking together, there’ll only be more gossip. Go back home!’

Snowgoose assumed that Dai-yu had been upsetting him and continued on her way. When she got back to the Naiad’s House, Dai-yu was still asleep, so she gave the ginseng to Nightingale.

‘What was Her Ladyship doing?’ Nightingale asked her.

‘She was having an afternoon nap, too. That’s why I was so long. I’ll tell you something that will make you laugh, Night. While I was sitting in the servants’ room talking to Silver and waiting for Her Ladyship to get up, who should look in but Mrs Zhao, and beckoned me over to her. And do you know what she wanted? They’re burying her brother tomorrow and she’s got leave from Her Ladyship to go there for the wake. Young Fortune’s going with her, and she said Fortune hasn’t got anything to wear, would I please lend her my pale-blue dress? Well, I thought to myself, Fortune’s got just as many dresses as I have; the only reason she wants to borrow someone else’s is because she’s too mean to let her wear her own there and risk getting it dirtied. I wouldn’t mind lending it to her – even if she dirtied it, it wouldn’t matter all that much – but what has she ever done for us? So I said, “Miss Lin told me to hand all my clothes and jewellery to Nightingale to look after. I should have to see Nightingale about it first, and I should have to tell Miss Lin. It might take rather a long time. I might not be able to get it to you before you go,” I said. “Perhaps it would be safer to borrow someone else’s.”’

Nightingale laughed.

‘You’re an artful little minx, aren’t you? You don’t want to lend her your dress, but you take very good care that it’s me and Miss Lin that get blamed for refusing it, and not you. Is Mrs Zhao going now, then, or first thing tomorrow?’

‘Now,’ said Snowgoose. ‘She’s probably already left.’

Nightingale nodded.

‘It looks as if Miss Lin’s still asleep,’ said Snowgoose. ‘If it wasn’t her, I wonder who it was that made Bao-yu so upset. He was sitting out there in the Garden crying.’

‘Oh?’ said Nightingale sharply. ‘Where?’

‘Under that peach-tree behind Drenched Blossoms Pavilion.’

Nightingale hurriedly put down her sewing and stood up.

‘You take over in case she calls. If she wants me, tell her I’ll be back directly.’

She sped off to look for Bao-yu. There was a reassuring smile on her face as she came up to him.

‘That was only a harmless little remark I made, and it was only for your own and everyone else’s good. Why did you need to get in such a passion and go rushing off to sit in the wind here and cry? Suppose you were to get ill as a result of this.’

Immediately Bao-yu was his smiling self once more:

‘I wasn’t in a passion. I thought what you said was very reasonable. What upset me was the thought that if you felt that way, then other people must feel that way too, in which case soon everyone would stop having anything to do with me.’

Nightingale sat down companionably at his side.

‘A short while ago you moved away from me when I was standing opposite you,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Now, apparently, it is all right to sit close beside me.’

‘I suppose you’ve forgotten the time when you and Miss Lin were talking together and Mrs Zhao burst in on you,’ said Nightingale. ‘That was what made me careful. Now I’ve just heard that she’s away, so it’s quite safe. Incidentally, there’s something about that occasion I’ve always wanted to ask you. You were about to say something about bird’s nest when she came in but didn’t have a chance to finish; and you’ve never referred to it since.’

‘Oh, it was nothing important,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’s just that once you start taking bird’s nest, you’ve got to keep it up, and it seemed to me that as Cousin Bao is really here as our guest, it would be rather boorish to keep asking her for more; on the other hand it would be rather awkward to have to ask Lady Wang for it; so I dropped a hint to Grandma, and I rather think that she had a word on the subject with Feng. That’s all I was going to tell Dai when we were interrupted. I’ve since heard that you’re getting an ounce a day regularly, so there hasn’t seemed any need to mention it.’

‘Oh, so it was you who told her about it,’ said Nightingale. ‘In that case we owe you our thanks. We couldn’t think what it was that could have suddenly put it into her head.’

‘She should take it regularly, every day,’ said Bao-yu. ‘If she can keep it up for two or three years, she should get completely better.’

‘It’s easy enough now,’ said Nightingale, ‘but where will she find the money for it next year, when she goes home?’

Bao-yu was startled.

‘When who goes home? What home?’

‘When your Cousin Dai goes back to Soochow.’

Bao-yu laughed:

‘You’re joking. Soochow is where her father came from, I know. But the reason we brought her here in the first place was because when my Aunt Lin died there was no one to look after her. There wouldn’t be anyone in Soochow for her to go to. You must be lying.’

‘How arrogant you are!’ said Nightingale scornfully. ‘I suppose you think yours is the only big family in the world. According to you, I suppose, other people only have fathers and mothers: they couldn’t possibly have uncles and aunts on their father’s side like you do. As a matter of fact, when Miss Lin came here it wasn’t because there weren’t any relations of her father’s that she could have gone to; it was because Her Old Ladyship was afraid that being so little she might not be as happy with them as she would with her mother’s folk. But it was only ever her intention to keep her here for a few years. As soon as she’s old enough to be married, she’ll have to go back to the Lin family. You could hardly expect a Lin family girl to spend the rest of her days among Jias, now could you? The Lins may be too poor to afford a square meal, but they are people of education. They’d never sink so low as to hand over responsibility for one of their own number to their marriage-kin. Next year – next spring at the earliest, but certainly not later than next autumn – either your family will send her back to them or the Lins themselves will come here to fetch her. Miss Lin was talking to me about it only the other night. She said I was to ask you to get together all the little presents she’s ever given you and send them back to her, and she’ll do the same with yours.’

To Bao-yu these words were like a thunderclap exploding immediately overhead. Nightingale waited to see how he would reply, but he made no sound. Growing at last impatient, she was about to speak to him again when Skybright appeared. She had been looking for him everywhere, she said. He was wanted by his grandmother.

‘He’s been here all this time talking about Miss Lin’s illness,’ said Nightingale. ‘I keep telling him how she is, but he won’t believe me. If you want him to go with you, you’ll have to take hold of him and make him go.’

She left then, without waiting to see more.

Skybright noticed Bao-yu’s vacant expression. His forehead was beaded with sweat and there was a red, inflamed look about his face. She seized him by the hand and hurried him back to Green Delights.

Aroma was naturally alarmed to see Bao-yu come back in such a state, but attributed it to the weather: it was an inclement spring and he had gone out while overheated and exposed himself to the wind. But it soon became apparent that feverishness was the least serious of his symptoms. His eyes had a fixed and glassy stare, a little trickle of saliva ran from each corner of his mouth, and he seemed to have lost all consciousness of what he was doing: when they brought him a pillow he lay down; when they pulled him by the hand he sat up again; when they handed him a cup of tea he drank it; but all with the mechanical movements of an automaton. The maids, when they saw this, were in a panic; but not daring to report yet to Grandmother Jia, they first sent for Nannie Li to tell them what was wrong.

Nannie Li came promptly. Before she did anything else, she spent a good long while simply observing him. Then she asked him a few questions, but he made no reply. Then she took his wrist in her hand and felt his pulse. Finally, taking the raphe of his lip between her thumb and finger, she pinched it a couple of times, so hard that a deep imprint was made by her nails: yet he seemed to feel nothing.

‘Lord a mercy!’ cried the old woman in a pathetic voice, and clinging to his body, she set up a howl and wept. Aroma, beside herself with anxiety, tugged imploringly at her sleeve:

‘Nannie, Nannie, have another look at him and tell us how serious it is, so that we know what to say to Their Ladyships. Don’t just cry!’

Nannie Li hammered the bed with her fists:

‘It’s all up with him, I tell you. All the heartache I’ve had on account of him was wasted.’

Aroma and the girls who, whatever else they might think of Nannie Li, respected her age and experience, assumed that she must know what she was talking about and all began crying too.

Skybright now told Aroma the circumstances in which she had found Bao-yu. Without a moment’s hesitation Aroma flew over to the Naiad’s House, arriving just as Nightingale was giving Dai-yu her medicine. Wasting no time on civility, she stalked straight up to Nightingale and confronted her there and then.

‘What did you say just now to our Bao-yu? Just go and take a look at him, will you, then go and tell Her Old Ladyship, because I won’t be responsible.’

She concluded by sitting down rudely in a chair.

The sight of Aroma, with her angry, tear-stained face, behaving in a way that was so utterly uncharacteristic of her, filled Dai-yu with alarm.

‘What is it?’

Aroma made an effort to control herself and answered tearfully:

‘I don’t know what Her Ladyship here can have said to him, but that simpleton of ours just stares into space without speaking, his hands and feet are icy-cold, and when Nannie Li pinches him, he doesn’t seem to feel anything. He looked half dead when I left. Even Nannie Li said it was all up with him. She’s over there wailing for him now. He may be already dead for all I know.’

To Dai-yu, as to the girls, Nannie Li, for all her failings, was an old woman whose words carried the weight of experience. If she said it was all up with Bao-yu, it must be all up with him. There was a horrible sickening sound as she vomited up the medicine she had just taken, followed by a dreadful paroxysm of silent coughing that seemed to rack every nerve and fibre of her body. She coughed until her face was scarlet and her hair was in disorder, until her eyes bulged and the veins stood out on her forehead, coughed until she was so breathless that she was unable to lift her face up from the bed. Nightingale at once began thumping her, but Dai-yu raised herself with an effort from the pillow and, after struggling for some moments to regain her breath, pushed her away:

‘Don’t do that. Get a rope and strangle me – that would be kinder!’

‘But I didn’t say anything,’ Nightingale protested. ‘I was only joking. He must have taken me seriously.’

‘Surely you know better by now than to joke with him?’ said Aroma. ‘He’s such a fool, he always takes everything seriously.’

‘Whatever it was you said to him,’ said Dai-yu, ‘you’d better go over there straight away and unsay it. That might bring him back to his senses.’

Nightingale climbed hurriedly off the bed and accompanied Aroma to Green Delights. Unfortunately Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang were also there when they arrived. At the sight of Nightingale, Grandmother Jia’s eyes flashed angrily.

‘Wicked creature! What did you say to him?’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was only pulling his leg.’

There was a sudden ‘Aiya!’ from the bed. It was Bao-yu, who had just caught sight of Nightingale and who now, to everyone’s relief, burst into tears.

Grandmother Jia seized hold of Nightingale and thrust her towards him. She supposed that Nightingale had offended Bao-yu in some way and that he would find relief in beating her. To her surprise, instead of doing any such thing, he clung to her imploringly:

‘If you’re going, take me with you!’

No one could make head or tail of this until Nightingale had been questioned and explained to them the nature of her hoax.

‘So that’s all it was!’ said Grandmother Jia in tears. ‘And I was thinking it must be something serious!’ She chided Nightingale, but less unkindly now: ‘You’re normally such a sensible girl. Surely you know he’s inclined to be a bit simple at times? What on earth possessed you to tease him like that?’

Aunt Xue urged a less serious view of Bao-yu’s derangement:

‘It’s true that he is a simple-hearted child; but his Cousin Lin came here when they were both little and they have grown up together and are closer to each other than any of the other children. I think you would expect him to be upset, suddenly out of the blue like that being told that she was going away. Never mind a simple-hearted child, I should think even a sophisticated grown-up would be! This isn’t a serious illness, Lady Jia. I’m sure you and my sister have no reason to feel worried. A dose or two of medicine and he’ll be perfectly all right again.’

Just at that moment the wives of Lin Zhi-xiao and Lai Da were announced, ‘come to see how the young master was’.

‘How thoughtful of them!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Tell them to come in.’

But at the sound of the name ‘Lin’ Bao-yu began threshing about wildly on the bed, calling out that the Lins had come to fetch Dai-yu and insisting that they should be sent away.

‘Yes, send them away,’ said Grandmother Jia, while at the same time she did her best to soothe him: ‘There, there, there. That wasn’t anyone from the Lin family. The Lins all died out long ago. There aren’t any of them left to fetch her. Don’t worry!’

‘I don’t care who it was,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I don’t want any Lins here, apart from Cousin Lin.’

‘There aren’t any Lins here,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘All the Lins in this place have been sent away.’

She turned to the servants:

‘In future Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife is not to be allowed inside the Garden. And I don’t want the word “Lin” to pass your lips even. Is that clearly understood, everyone?’

‘Yes, madam,’ the servants replied in chorus, not daring to laugh.

Presently Bao-yu’s eye chanced to light on a little metal self-propelling boat – a West Ocean toy – which stood on one of the alcove shelves in the carved partition. Immediately he became excited again.

‘Look!’ he said, pointing, ‘the ship that’s come to fetch her – that’s where they’ve docked it, over there.’

At a hurried order from his grandmother, Aroma took it down from the shelf. He held his hand out to receive it, and as soon as it was in his possession, hid it under the quilt, chuckling with satisfaction as he did so:

‘They won’t get away now!’

All this time he continued to hold tightly on to Nightingale with his other hand.

The doctor’s arrival was announced and Grandmother Jia gave orders that he should be brought in immediately. Lady Wang, Aunt Xue and the girls withdrew into the inner room. Grandmother Jia herself continued to sit beside Bao-yu on the edge of the bed. As her attendants also remained, there were a good many people in the room when the doctor entered. It was Dr Wang. He paid his respects to the old lady before proceeding to take Bao-yu’s pulse, mystified by the presence of a shame-faced Nightingale, who, unable to leave Bao-yu’s side, could only stand there and hang her head.

After feeling the pulse for a while, Dr Wang rose to his feet.

‘The young gentleman is suffering from a delirium caused by a phlegmatic occlusion of the cardiac orifices. The ancients recognized three main types of this form of dementia: in the first type the delirium is associated with an anaemic deficiency, when the body is failing to absorb its nourishment; in the second, it is brought on by some violent emotional disturbance, such as anger; in the third, the occlusion occurs as a result of shock. This is a delirium of the third type. In this type, fortunately, the occlusion is only a temporary one, so it is less serious than the other two.’

‘Just tell us whether it’s dangerous or not,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘We’re not asking you for a treatise on medicine.’

Dr Wang laughed deprecatingly and bowed:

‘He’ll be all right.’

‘Will he really be all right?’

‘Unquestionably,’ said the doctor. ‘I give you my word for it.’

‘Very well,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Then perhaps you will go outside now and write your prescription. If he recovers, I promise you a handsome reward, and Bao-yu himself shall bring it to you and kotow to you when he brings it. But if he doesn’t get better, I shall have the main hall of the College of Physicians pulled down about your ears!’

‘How kind! How kind!’ The doctor, bowing and smiling at the prospect of a ‘handsome reward’ and Bao-yu kotowing at his feet, could not have heard the threat which followed, for he continued to say ‘How kind!’ after it had been uttered and left the room pursued by a wave of laughter.

The medicine he prescribed was soon concocted and Bao-yu did, after taking it, become a good deal calmer. But he would not release Nightingale.

‘If she goes,’ he said, ‘I shall know that they are leaving for Soochow.’

Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang saw that there was nothing for it but to let Nightingale stay with him. Amber was sent to look after Dai-yu in her place. Dai-yu’s other maid, Snowgoose, was kept busy running to and fro for news of Bao-yu’s condition. By evening this was sufficiently improved for Grandmother Jia and the other visitors to feel that they could return to their own apartments. They continued to inquire after him by messenger, however, throughout the course of the night.

Nannie Li came again, bringing Mamma Song and several other old nannies to help watch over him. Nightingale, Aroma, Skybright and Musk kept up a constant vigil at his bedside throughout the night. From time to time Bao-yu would drop off, but invariably he would wake up with a start from some dream and tearfully announce to them either that Dai-yu had already gone or that people had come to take her away. Each time this happened Nightingale was the only one who could calm him. Grandmother Jia had sent over various nostrums –pills and powders she had heard recommended as sovereign specifics in cases of mental disorder – and they used these to dose him with when he woke up.

Next day, after another dose of Dr Wang’s medicine, Bao-yu was distinctly better. His mind was clear now, but because he did not wish to lose Nightingale yet, he pretended that it was still affected. Nightingale regretted what she had done and bore the antics of this pseudo-madman and the weariness of waiting on him both night and day with uncomplaining fortitude.

‘It’s only right that you should have to nurse him, seeing that you were the one who set him off,’ said Aroma, relieved that Bao-yu was only play-acting. ‘You should have known better. He’s a case, this young master of ours. Tell him the wind’s blowing on a fine day, and next minute he can hear the rain! Heighho! What he’ll be like when he’s grown up doesn’t bear thinking of!’

But she did not pursue the subject.

Xiang-yun had by now recovered completely and could drop in daily to see how Bao-yu was progressing. As soon as he seemed normal, she treated them all to an imitation of his madness. Her mimicry was so droll that even Bao-yu had to laugh, shamefacedly, into his pillow. He had no recollection of what he had been like when it all started and now, when they told him, he did not believe them.

Once, when no one was about, he took Nightingale’s hand in his own and drew her to him.

‘Why did you scare me like that?’

‘I was pulling your leg,’ said Nightingale. ‘It was only a joke, but you took it seriously.’

‘That was no joke,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It was too well-reasoned.’

Nightingale laughed.

‘I made it all up. There’s no Lin family – leastways, if there is, they’re very, very distant relations, and not in Soochow, either, but scattered all over the place, in different provinces. And even if one of them did come to take her away, Her Old Ladyship would never let her go.’

‘I wouldn’t, even if she did,’ said Bao-yu.

‘I wonder,’ said Nightingale. ‘I think you’re only saying that. You’re not a child any longer now. You’re already betrothed. Another two or three years, when you’re married, you won’t have time for anyone else.’

Bao-yu heard her with astonishment.

‘Betrothed? To whom?’

‘Just before New Year I heard Her Old Ladyship say that she was betrothing you to Miss Qin. That’s why she makes so much of her, isn’t it?’

Bao-yu burst out laughing.

‘Everyone calls me a simpleton, but you’re an even bigger simpleton than I am. That was only a joke. Qin’s already betrothed to Academician Mei’s son. Do you think I would have taken it so calmly if I had been betrothed to her? Don’t you remember the scene we had last time, when I swore all those oaths and tried to break this beastly thing’ – he pointed to his jade – ‘and you had such a job trying to stop me? What are you trying to do? Start me off again?’

He ground his teeth.

‘If only I could die this minute and my heart burst out of my body so that you could see how true it is! After that I shouldn’t care if all of me – flesh, blood and bones – was burned to ashes, and the ashes turned to smoke, and the smoke blown by the winds into every corner of the earth!’

Big tears rolled down his cheeks. Nightingale covered his mouth up in alarm; then, as she wiped his eyes for him, she spoke to him soothingly as to a child:

‘There, there. There’s no need to get so worked up about it. I’m the one who needs to worry. That’s why I said those things: to test you.’

‘You?’ said Bao-yu in surprise. ‘What have you got to be worried about?’

‘You know I never belonged to the Lin family, don’t you,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was originally one of Her Old Ladyship’s servants, like Faithful and your Aroma. I was transferred to Miss Lin, but as it turned out I got on very well with her – ten times better, as a matter of fact, than the maid she brought with her from Yangchow – and since then we’ve become inseparable. Lately I’ve been worried by the thought that she might have to leave here – in which case, of course, I should want to go with her. But all my family is here. If I didn’t go with her, it would seem like a betrayal after what we’ve been to each other all these years. On the other hand if I did go, it would mean leaving my family behind. I wasn’t sure about how serious you were in wanting her to stay. That’s why I made those things up. I wanted to test you. I never imagined you were going to make such an uproar, or I wouldn’t have said them.’

‘So that’s what was worrying you!’ said Bao-yu, smiling. ‘Well, you are a simpleton. Please don’t worry about that any more. Let me try to put it for you in a nutshell. In life we shall live together; in death we shall mingle our dust. How will that do?’

Nightingale said nothing, but appeared to be thinking. One of the old women came in to announce that Jia Huan and Jia Lan had come to inquire after Bao-yu’s health.

‘Tell them it’s very kind of them,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but not to come in here, because I’ve only just gone to sleep.’

‘Very good,’ said the old woman, and went off to relay the message.

‘Now that you’re better,’ said Nightingale, ‘you ought to let me go back to see how my other invalid is getting on.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I was meaning to tell you last night that you could go back, but I forgot. I am completely better now. You can go back straight away.’

Nightingale began tying up her bedding and getting her toilet things together.

‘I notice you’ve got several mirrors in your vanity box,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Why don’t you give me that little one with the pattern of caltrops on it as a keepsake? I can keep it by my pillow to use when I’m in bed, and it will be handy to take with me when I go out.’

Nightingale gave him the mirror, then, having first arranged for someone to carry over her things, took leave of the other maids and returned on her own to the Naiad’s House.

During the past few days Dai-yu’s anxiety for Bao-yu had led to a relapse and had been the occasion of several fits of weeping. On inquiring nervously why Nightingale had returned, she was relieved to hear that it was because Bao-yu was better. As Amber’s services were now no longer needed, she sent her back to Grandmother Jia.

That night, when all the others had gone to bed and she had undressed and was lying not far off from her mistress, Nightingale addressed her, in guarded undertone, on the subject of Bao-yu’s intentions.

‘Bao-yu really is a simple soul. Do you know what made him ill? It was because he heard that we were going away.’

Dai-yu said nothing. After waiting in vain for a reply, Nightingale went on as if speaking to herself.

‘Much better stay where we are. You couldn’t ask for a better family than this. And the two of you have grown up together and know each other’s likes and dislikes. Where else would you find someone who understood you so well?’

Dai-yu snorted at her disgustedly.

‘Aren’t you tired after all your exertions during these last few days? I can’t understand why, instead of chattering away to yourself, you don’t take this opportunity to get a bit of rest.’

‘It isn’t just chatter,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m concerned about your future, Miss. It’s been worrying me for years. You’ve no father or mother or brothers: there’s no one else who will concern themselves about it. The important thing is to get it all properly settled while Her Old Ladyship is still well and in her right mind. You know what they say: “Good health in the old is like warm weather in winter: you can’t depend on it.” If anything were suddenly to happen to her, the chance of getting someone you really liked would have passed you by. No doubt they would do their best to marry you to someone of good family, but look how many of these young aristocrats keep concubines, and how changeable they are in their affections. Some of them if they were married to the Queen of Heaven would tire of her in a week. And neglect is not the worst part of it; often there are hard words and harsh treatment to follow. When that happens, if the wife has a powerful family to stick up for her, it isn’t so bad; but what about someone in your position? As long as Her Old Ladyship is alive you’ll be all right, but once she’s gone, you’ll be at everyone’s mercy. That’s why I say we’ve got to make our minds up.

Easier a golden hoard to win
Than find one understanding heart.

You’re a clever young lady. I’m sure you must know that saying.’

‘This girl’s gone out of her mind,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Just these few days away and she’s come back completely altered. I shall have to tell Her Old Ladyship about this tomorrow and get her to take you back. I’m afraid you can’t stay with me any longer.’

‘I meant no harm,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’ve only told you to think about it; I haven’t asked you to do anything wicked. Why should you tell Her Old Ladyship? It’ll only get me into trouble, and what good will that do you?’

She said no more, and presently went to sleep.

Not so Dai-yu. However she might have concealed the fact from Nightingale, she was deeply affected by what the maid had said, and while Nightingale slept beside her, she lay awake weeping through the greater part of the night. The darkness was beginning to lighten when she finally dropped off to sleep. Washing that morning required an effort. Not long after she had finished her bird’s nest syrup, Grandmother Jia came in person to see her and waxed eloquent on the importance of getting well.

It was Aunt Xue’s birthday and everyone from Grandmother Jia downwards sent her a present. Dai-yu looked out two little articles of her own embroidering to send her. Aunt Xue hired a troupe of child actors and threw a birthday party which everyone except Bao-yu and Dai-yu attended. Grandmother Jia took everyone to call on them both on her way back from it.

Next day there was another party for the employees of the Xue family at which Xue Ke acted as host on his aunt’s behalf. There were more festivities on the day which followed. Altogether three or four days were spent just in celebrating the one birthday.

Aunt Xue was very impressed with what she had seen of Xing Xiu-yan. She was such a refined, serious girl, in spite of her unfortunate upbringing: the very model of ‘virtue in homespun and a wooden hairpin’. Aunt Xue had thought of her as a possible daughter-in-law, but when she reflected on the lawless nature of her son, it seemed a pity that so nice a girl should be thrown away on him. She was still trying to make her mind up about this when suddenly it occurred to her that Xue Ke was not yet betrothed and that he and Xiu-yan would make an ideal couple. She decided to ask Xi-feng for her advice. Xi-feng was enthusiastic.

‘But you know how difficult Lady Xing can be,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you leave it to me, Auntie? Let me deal with it in my own time.’

She found her opportunity of broaching the subject when Grandmother Jia next came to call on her.

‘There’s something my Aunt Xue wants you to do for her, Grannie, but she’s a little bit shy of asking.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’ said Grandmother Jia.

She laughed when Xi-feng explained.

‘Good gracious, that’s nothing to be shy about! It’s a splendid idea. Let me have a talk with your mother-in-law about this. She won’t refuse, I promise you.’

As soon as she was back in her own apartment, she summoned Lady Xing and proposed the match to her, urging its suitability in forceful terms.

Lady Xing did some rapid thinking: the Xue family were of respectable origins; they were immensely rich; Xue Ke was a good-looking boy; and Grandmother Jia was making herself responsible for the match. Confident that she would be able to turn it to her own advantage, she assented, to Grandmother Jia’s intense satisfaction, without more ado. The presence of Aunt Xue was now requested and the self-abasing civilities customary on these occasions exchanged between her and Lady Xing. When these had somewhat abated, Lady Xing sent someone to inform Xing Xiu-yan’s parents, Xing Dequan and his wife, of the Xue family’s proposal. Living as they now did on Lady Xing’s charity, they were scarcely in a position to refuse even if they wanted to, and the messenger was soon back again reporting their prompt and enthusiastic acceptance.

‘I love meddling in other people’s affairs,’ said Grandmother Jia jovially. ‘I seem to have meddled successfully in this one. I hope I am going to be paid something for my services.’

‘Of course,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘The only difficulty will be knowing how much to give you. What shall we say? Ten thousand taels? Probably you would regard that as too little! What we really need is a sponsor to settle these matters for us.’

‘We may be short of manpower in this family,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘but I dare say we could rustle up a couple of cripples for you!’

She sent someone to fetch You-shi and her daughter-in-law from Ning-guo House. As soon as they arrived, she explained why she had invited them, whereupon they turned to the other two ladies and offered them their congratulations.

‘Now,’ sáid Grandmother Jia when they had finished, ‘you know our way of doing things in this family, don’t you – you know we never haggle about bride-prices and “face” and that sort of thing? We want you to act as a third party and settle this for us. What we want is a settlement that is not too lavish and yet not too economical: something between the two. And when you’ve worked out what each of the parties should contribute, come and tell me what you have decided.’

You-shi promptly agreed to do this. Aunt Xue, delighted that everything had gone off so well, hurried home and at once had a formal invitation to act as marriage-sponsor drawn up and sent over to Ning-guo House to confirm the arrangement.

You-shi knew Lady Xing too well to want to be mixed up in any affair – particularly one of a pecuniary nature – to which she was a party. She had agreed in this instance only because Grandmother Jia had asked her to and she could not very well refuse. In the event she simply arranged matters in the way she thought would best please Lady Xing. Aunt Xue was a very accommodating person and could be relied on to fall in with almost any terms. But it is not with details such as these that our narrative is concerned.

Aunt Xue’s betrothal of her nephew to Xing Xiu-yan was soon common knowledge throughout the household. At first Lady Xing wanted to segregate the girl by moving her in with herself, but Grandmother Jia objected.

‘Surely she can stay where she is? She can’t see anything of the boy, of course, but surely there’s no harm in her continuing to see Mrs Xue and Bao-chai and little Qin? They’re all females, after all. It will be cosier if they get to know each other better.’

Lady Xing did not renew her offer.

And what of the parties themselves? Xue Ke and Xing Xiu-yan had met briefly on the journey to the capital and there was no reason to suppose that they were not extremely pleased with the betrothal. Inevitably Xiu-yan became a little more withdrawn after it, spending rather less of her time in Bao-chai’s and Bao-qin’s company and speaking, when she was in it, rather more sparingly. But this was partly because Shi Xiang-yun was such a tease. Fortunately she was far too intelligent and well-bred to indulge in any of that false modesty, so common among girls in her position, which shows itself in affected simpering and ridiculous grimaces.

Ever since the day they first met, Bao-chai had felt sorry for Xiu-yan. First of all she was so poor. And then there was her father. Unlike most of the fathers that Bao-chai knew about – grave gentlemen who had gained wisdom with their years – Xiu-yan’s father was a drunken sot who took little interest in his daughter’s welfare. As for Lady Xing, Bao-chai could see that the affection she showed her niece was simulated and that really she did not care for her in the least. And Ying-chun, whose apartment she shared, was too docile to assert herself even on her own behalf, let alone anyone else’s. Since Xiu-yan was too proud to ask for things, this meant that whenever anything was lacking, even one of the simple necessities of life, she had simply to go without it. Knowing this, Bao-chai did all she could to anticipate her wants; but she gave by stealth, careful lest Lady Xing, who was sensitive to gossip, if to nothing else, should get to hear of it.

Xiu-yan had learned to cherish Bao-chai as a special friend long before this magnificent betrothal so wildly beyond her own and everyone else’s expectations and, after it, continued from time to time to confide in her. Bao-chai for her part continued to treat her as an intimate friend and would use none of the formalities that are customary between prospective sisters-in-law.

One day, when Bao-chai was on her way to visit Dai-yu, she caught sight of Xiu-yan, who, as it happened, was also on her way there. Bao-chai smiled and beckoned and waited for Xiu-yan to catch up with her. The two girls then walked on together until they came to the rear side of a miniature mountain of rock. There, where no prying eyes could see them, Bao-chai stopped again.

‘The weather is still really cold. Why have you changed out of your winter clothes already and put on single linings?’

Xiu-yan hung her head and said nothing. Bao-chai guessed at once that she had been forced to pawn them.

‘It must be because you haven’t had this month’s allowance yet,’ she said. ‘How could Cousin Feng be so thoughtless?’

‘No,’ said Xiu-yan. ‘She didn’t forget. She paid the allowance on time. But Aunt Xing sent someone to tell me that she thought I didn’t really need two taels a month and that I ought to contribute one of them towards my parents’ upkeep. She said that if there ever was anything I needed, I could always hent it from Cousin Ying’s things’ – suppressed emotion was causing her to lapse into her native dialect -‘But I ask you, coz, how could I? Cousin Ying wouldn’t mind – she is so meek – and she probably wouldn’t notice, any road. But though she wouldn’t say anything, you can be quite sure that the servants would. The nannies and maids in that apartment are such a prickly lot and so spiteful with their tongues. Although I am living there, I dare not ask them to do very much for me, and even for what little they do I am expected to find money to buy them drinks and other little treats with every four or five days. Even when I was getting two taels it wasn’t enough, and now it’s only one. The only way of raising money I could think of was by pawning my winter clothes. I got someone to slip out and do it for me the other day.’

Bao-chai sighed.

‘It’s a pity all the Mei family are away just now. Academician Mei isn’t due back from his posting until the year after next. If they were here in town, Bao-qin could get married straight away and then we could go ahead with your affair and get you out of this mess. But as things are, your Prospective will never consent to get married before his sister, so the difficulty remains. I shall have to have a word with Mamma about this. Obviously you can’t go on as you are. Another year or two like this and I am afraid you will go into a decline.

‘In future, if those people are nasty to you, you must learn to put up with it. You mustn’t make yourself ill trying to please them. Perhaps you had better hand over the whole of your remaining tael to them when it comes: see if that will keep them quiet. But don’t go treating them any more, whatever you do. Never mind the spiteful things they say to you. If it gets too bad, you can always walk away. And if you are short of anything, don’t behave like a little frightened mouse; ask me straight out for it, without delay. I say this not because we are future sisters-in-law but because we are friends. We are friends, aren’t we, and have been ever since you came? If you are afraid of gossip, don’t come yourself when you want something, send your maid for it, then no one will know.’

Xiu-yan hung her head and the reply she made was scarcely audible. In order to change the subject, Bao-chai pointed to a green jade girdle-ring that was hanging from her waist.

‘Who gave you that?’

‘Cousin Tan,’ said Xiu-yan.

Bao-chai nodded.

‘She must have noticed that all the other girls were wearing one of these things and wanted to spare you the embarrassment of being the only one without. It is typical of her to be so thoughtful. However, I think you ought to realize that these sort of gewgaws are really for the daughters of mandarins and noblemen. Look at me: you don’t see any jewellery on me. A few years ago, it’s true, I would have been smothered with it; but I know now that we are less well off than we used to be, and have given up wearing it as a means of economizing. No doubt when you marry you will be provided with a whole trunkful of this stuff. In the meantime, though, we don’t need to compete with the others in finery, you and I. As long as we are honest and remain true to ourselves, it doesn’t matter that we cannot equal them in appearance.’

Xiu-yan smiled.

‘In that case, I shall go back and take it off,’ she said.

‘Don’t be so precipitate,’ said Bao-chai. ‘She meant it as a kindness. If she sees you not wearing it, she will wonder why. I spoke only in general terms, for your future guidance.’

Xiu-yan murmured her assent.

‘Where are you going now, coz?’ she asked Bao-chai.

‘To the Naiad’s House,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Why don’t you go back now and get your maid to bring me that pawn ticket? I’ll send someone out on the quiet to redeem the things for you and get them round to you in the evening without anyone knowing, so that you can begin wearing them again as soon as possible. We don’t want you catching cold in this wind, do we? Oh, there’s just one other thing: where did you pawn them?’

‘I think it’s called the “Reliant”,’ said Xiu-yan. ‘It’s in Drum Tower Street West.’

Bao-chai laughed.

‘Well, at least they’ve stayed in the family. If the assistants realized where they had come from, they must have thought they were receiving an advance instalment of your trousseau!’

Xiu-yan coloured, realizing that the ‘Reliant’ must be one of the Xue family’s businesses. She did not say anything, however, but with a little laugh hurried back to look for the pawn ticket.

Bao-chai continued on her way to the Naiad’s House. She arrived to find her mother already ensconced and in the midst of conversation with Dai-yu.

‘Mamma, what a surprise! When did you arrive?’

‘I’ve been so busy during these last few days that I haven’t had time to see her or Bao-yu. Today I decided to see both of them, but both of them seem to be better.’

Dai-yu urged Bao-chai to be seated.

‘The world’s affairs are very mysterious,’ she said, by way of bringing her into the conversation. ‘Who would ever have thought that your mother and Aunt Xing would end up as commères?’

‘My child,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘you are too young to understand these things. Old folk talk about “the unseen thread that binds”. They say that marriages are decided by an Old Man Under the Moon who joins future couples together by tying them round the ankles with a scarlet thread, and that once he’s done that, it doesn’t matter how far apart they are, even if there are oceans between them, sooner or later something will happen to bring them together and they will end up husband and wife. These things are quite unpredictable. Sometimes there will be two young people whose parents on both sides are favourable to their union, who have lived years together in the same place, and who take it as a foregone conclusion that they are going to marry, yet if the Old Man Under the Moon hasn’t tied them with his scarlet thread, then in spite of everything, they never will. Take you two girls, now: we don’t know whether at this moment the two young men you will marry are right here under our noses or somewhere “south of the mountains and north of the sea”!’

‘Mamma!’ said Bao-chai, burying her head in her mother’s dress, ‘how you do always drag one in when you get talking!’

‘Look at her!’ said Dai-yu, mockingly. ‘What a great baby! She’s ever so poised and grown-up when you aren’t here, Auntie. It’s only when she’s with you that she puts on this little girl act.’

Aunt Xue stroked the recumbent head, still buried in her lap, and sighed indulgently.

‘I suppose it’s a bit like Cousin Feng and your grandmother. Chai can be perfectly serious with me when things need discussing, but at the same time she knows the little ways of cheering me up – she knows that when she becomes my little girl again, it helps me forget my troubles.’

It was Dai-yu’s turn to sigh now. A tear rolled down each cheek.

‘I don’t know why she has to do it here though – unless she wants to rub in the fact that I haven’t got a mother.’

‘Oh Mamma, just listen to that I’ said Bao-chai. ‘Who’s putting on a little girl act now?’

‘You mustn’t blame her for being upset,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Poor child! She has no one.’

She stroked Dai-yu’s hair and tried to comfort her.

‘Don’t cry, my dear. You mustn’t be upset because I make a fuss of your cousin. I’m as fond of you, you know – perhaps even more so. Although Chai has no father, she has got me and Pan: so you see I know that you have the greater need. She knows how fond I am of you, because I am always telling her. The only reason I don’t show it more is because there are a lot of people in this household who are always ready to put a false construction on things. If they saw me being nice to you, they would say that I did it not for the very obvious reason that everything about you cries out to be loved and that one can hardly help loving you, but because I saw how much your grandmother loves you and wanted to curry favour with her.’

‘You say you love me as much as Chai,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Let me be your god-daughter then. Don’t refuse, Auntie, or I shall think you don’t really mean it.’

‘If you will have me for your godmother, I should like nothing better.’

‘Out of the question,’ said Bao-chai flatly.

‘But why?’ said Dai-yu.

Bao-chai smiled mischievously:

‘Tell me, why do you think Cousin Xing was betrothed to my Cousin Ke? Why wasn’t she betrothed to my brother, who is Cousin Ke’s senior and who still hasn’t got a betrothed?’

‘I suppose because your brother is away,’ said Dai-yu, ‘or perhaps their horoscopes are incompatible.’

‘No,’ said Bao-chai, ‘that’s not the reason. It’s because someone has already been chosen for my brother. We are only waiting for him to come home to make it public. I don’t need to name names. If I tell you that you can’t possibly become Mamma’s god – daughter, you ought to be able to work it out for yourself.’

She winked at her mother and broke into a laugh.

This time it was Dai-yu who buried her face in Aunt Xue’s bosom.

‘Beat her, Auntie, beat her – I insist!’

Aunt Xue hugged her niece, laughing:

‘You mustn’t believe what she says. She’s only teasing.’

‘No, seriously, Mamma,’ said Bao-chai, ‘why don’t you ask Lady Jia some time if you can have Cousin Lin for your daughter-in-law! You will never find a better one elsewhere.’

Dai-yu threw herself on Bao-chai and made as if to scratch her:

‘Have you gone quite mad?’

Aunt Xue laughingly held them apart.

‘If I thought that your brother was not good enough for Xiu-yan – which is why I betrothed her to your cousin Ke – I certainly wouldn’t inflict him on this child here. Not so long ago Lady Jia was asking me about Bao-qin as a possible match for Bao-yu, but I had to tell her that Bao-qin was already betrothed – not that otherwise it wouldn’t have been a very good match. The other day, when we’d finished discussing Ke and Xiu-yan’s betrothal, she began teasing me about it. “Last time, when I wanted one of her girls,” she said, “I couldn’t have her; and now here she is snapping up one of ours!” She was only joking, of course, but I could see that she was thinking about Bao-yu still and half inviting me to make a suggestion. I rather wish now that I had. She is so concerned about him, and he is such a peculiar boy. You can’t see him getting on with some girl chosen for him from outside. I think much the most satisfactory arrangement would be to betroth him to your Cousin Lin here.’

Dai-yu, who up to this moment had been listening open-mouthed, turned scarlet at the mention of her own name and with a cry of rage threw herself again on Bao-chai.

‘I’ll kill you! You deliberately led Auntie up to this.’

‘How ridiculous!’ said Bao-chai, laughing. ‘It’s Mamma who said it, not I. What are you hitting me for?’

Already Nightingale had darted forward:

‘If that’s what you think, Mrs Xue, why don’t you talk to Her Old Ladyship about it?’

‘Goodness, child, you are impatient!’ said Aunt Xue, laughing, ‘I suppose if you are in such a hurry to get your mistress married, you must be thinking of a little husband for yourself!’

‘Mrs Xue!’ said Nightingale, crimson-faced. ‘You ought to know better at your age!’

She turned and fled.

Dai-yu who, when Nightingale intervened, had angrily bidden her to mind her own business, now gloated over her discomfiture:

‘Holy Name, it serves you right! You would poke your nose in, wouldn’t you, and now you’ve got smut on it!’

There was a burst of laughter in which the maids and serving-women joined. They were still laughing when Xiang-yun ran into the room, brandishing a piece of paper.

‘What sort of bill is this?’

Dai-yu examined the paper but could make nothing of it. The women below had recognized it, however, and tittered with amusement.

‘That’s a nice thing for a young lady to be carrying!’ they said. ‘If you want to know what that is, Miss, you’ll have to pay for the lesson!’

Bao-chai snatched the paper from Xiang-yun’s hand and looked. It was Xiu-yan’s pawn ticket. She hurriedly folded it away.

‘It looks like a pawn ticket that one of the women must have dropped,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Whoever it is will be worried when she misses it. Where did you pick it up?’

‘What’s a pawn ticket?’ Xiang-yun asked her.

The women laughed:

‘What a simpleton! Fancy not knowing what a pawn ticket is!’

‘It’s hardly surprising,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘She’s had a very aristocratic upbringing, don’t forget, and in any case she is still very young. How could she know about pawn tickets? What occasion would she ever have of seeing one? In the household she comes from even if one of the servants had such a thing, they would take very good care that she didn’t see it. You shouldn’t call her a simpleton. I doubt very much whether any of your own young ladies would know a pawn ticket if she saw one.’

‘That’s true,’ said the women, smiling. ‘Miss Lin here didn’t know, so you can be quite sure the others wouldn’t. Even Bao-yu, although he goes outside quite a lot, has probably never seen one.’

Aunt Xue now explained what a pawn ticket was. Xiang-yun and Dai-yu laughed incredulously.

‘The things people do for money! Is that what they do in your pawnshops, Aunt?’

‘That’s a funny question!’ said the women, laughing. ‘All crows are black, you know.’

‘Where did you find this?’ Aunt Xue asked again.

But before Xiang-yun could reply, Bao-chai interrupted:

‘It’s an old ticket, Mamma; it was cancelled years ago. Caltrop has been using it to fool them with.’

Aunt Xue believed her and did not pursue the matter.

Shortly after that a messenger arrived from the Ning-guo mansion to say that You-shi would ‘like a word when convenient with Mrs Xue’ and Aunt Xue got up and left them. As soon as she had gone, Bao-chai asked Xiang-yun where she had found the ticket.

‘I saw Xiu-yan’s maid Signet handing it, very furtively, to Oriole and Oriole slip it between the pages of a book. They thought I hadn’t noticed. I had a peep when they’d gone, but I couldn’t make out what it was, and as I knew you were both here, I thought I would come over and see if either of you could make anything of it.’

‘But why should Cousin Xing be pawning her clothes?’ said Dai-yu, puzzled. ‘And why, having pawned them, should she want you, Chai, to have the ticket?’

Bao-chai saw that Xiu-yan’s circumstances could no longer be concealed and explained to them both what had happened. Dai-yu, feeling ‘the fox’s sympathy for the hunted hare’, was much distressed, but Xiang-yun’s reaction was one of anger.

‘I’m going straight over to see Ying-chun about this,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel better, both of you, when I’ve given those beastly servants a piece of my mind.’

She would have gone, too, had not Bao-chai restrained her.

‘Are you out of your mind? Sit down and stay where you are.’

‘If you were a man,’ said Dai-yu, laughing, ‘you could go around like a knight-errant putting the world to rights; but a Jing Ke in skirts is just plain ridiculous!’

‘All right then,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘if you won’t let me talk to Cousin Ying about it, let’s simply have Xiu-yan over to live with us.’

‘We’ll talk about that tomorrow,’ said Bao-chai.

A servant put her head round the door to make an announcement:

‘Miss Tan and Miss Xi have called.’

Hearing of their arrival, the three in the room fell silent.

For further details of the visit our reader is referred to the next chapter.

Chapter 58

In which the cock-bird who mourns his mate is found to be a hen And a true heart is able to sympathize with a strange kind of love

Our last chapter concluded with Tan-chun’s and Xi-chun’s arrival at the Naiad’s House, which put a sudden stop to the discussion of Xiu-yan’s affairs by the other three. Conversation was renewed after the new arrivals had inquired about Dai-yu’s health, but of a general, unserious nature, and shortly afterwards all four visitors took their leave and went their separate ways.

The Dowager Consort of the late Emperor whose illness we referred to in an earlier chapter had now passed away and all noblewomen and wives of officials resident in the capital had to put on the mourning appropriate to their rank and present themselves at the Palace. A Special Edict was published prohibiting the holding of musical or dramatic entertainments by persons of rank for a period of one year and banning the celebration of marriages between commoners for a period of three months. Every day Grandmother Jia together with Lady Xing, Lady Wang, You-shi and Jia Rong’s wife Hu-shi had to go to the Palace to take part in the ceremonies of mourning, seldom returning until well after two o’clock in the afternoon.

These ceremonies, which took place in one of the side halls of the Palace, were due to last for twenty-one days, at the end of which time the body of the Consort was to be conveyed to the late Emperor’s mausoleum in Goodson prefecture, a distance of some ten days’ journey from the capital. On reaching there, the coffin was to lie in state for several more days while further ceremonies were performed preliminary to its final interment in the mausoleum. The whole expedition, from start to finish, would take about a month. Cousin Zhen and You-shi were both supposed to take part in it, which would mean that throughout that period both the Ning-guo and Rong-guo mansions would be left masterless. A family council was held and it was decided, in order that one person at least should be left in charge of the two mansions, to petition for You-shi’s exemption on the grounds that she was enceinte.

At the same time Aunt Xue’s help was enlisted to keep an eye on the young people. For this purpose it was essential that she should move into the Garden; but it was something of a problem to know in which of its buildings she should stay. Bao-chai already had Xiang-yun and Caltrop living with her; Li Wan was having to accommodate Bao-qin, whom Grandmother Jia had placed temporarily in her care, and though Mrs Li and her girls were still at their uncle’s place in the city, they too were constantly dropping in on her and staying for three or four nights; Ying-chun was sharing with Xiu-yan; Tan-chun was fully occupied with household business, and in any case the noisy bickering of Aunt Zhao and Jia Huan, who were constantly coming round to pester her, would have made her apartment a highly unsuitable place for Aunt Xue to live in; and Xi-chun’s place was too small. That left only the Naiad’s House for her to move into.

Aunt Xue did so the more readily because, in discussing these arrangements with her, Grandmother Jia had impressed upon her that Dai-yu was the young person most particularly in need of her care. And besides, Aunt Xue had always had a very great affection for Dai-yu. Now that they shared the same apartment she was able to give her undivided attention to Dai-yu’s welfare – to seeing that she had good food and enough of it, and that she took her medicines at the proper times. Never before had Dai-yu been so well looked after. She responded with a gratitude deeper than words, though it was by words that it was most often expressed: Aunt Xue was now her kind ‘Mamma’, and when Bao-chai and Bao-qin were present, she addressed them and referred to them exactly as if they were her elder and younger sisters. Grandmother Jia, who had been worried at the prospect of being separated, even for a month, from her orphaned granddaughter, was both relieved and happy to observe this new development.

Aunt Xue, now that she was in the Garden, concerned herself only with the welfare of the cousins and disciplining of their maids; in other domestic matters, however important, she was unwilling to intervene. You-shi, too, although she visited the Rong-guo mansion daily, did little more than hear the roll-call and was most unwilling to exercise any real authority. As the only responsible person left in it she already had her hands full with the affairs of the other mansion and was kept extremely busy seeing that the temporary lodgings near the Palace which Grandmother Jia and the other ladies retired to in between ceremonies were kept regularly supplied with food and bedding and so forth.

While the senior members of the Ning-guo and Rong-guo mansions were so busy, the stewards and stewardesses of the two mansions were no less occupied, some of them in accompanying their mistresses each day to and from the Palace, some in attending to the provisioning and maintenance of the temporary lodgings, and some as an advanced party who staffed the lodgings in readiness for their mistresses’ arrival.

Lacking the discipline normally imposed by these officers, the domestics of both mansions who remained behind grew slovenly in their duties or took advantage of the exceptional circumstances to ally themselves with those placed temporarily in charge as a means of scoring off fellow-servants. Of the male staff at Rong-guo House only Lai Da and one or two others remained. Nearly all Lai Da’s most trusted lieutenants had gone. Owing to their inexperience he was finding the replacements he had made extremely unserviceable – and so stupid: their peculations were so transparently gross, their reports so patently unreliable, their recommendations so obviously biased; he would have had difficulty in enumerating all the defects he found in them or the troubles they caused him.

At this time all the great families which kept troupes of actors or actresses in their households were beginning to disband them. Hearing this, You-shi, after discussing the matter with other members of the family, approached Lady Wang with the suggestion that their own troupe of actresses should be disbanded. The method by which she proposed to do this was economical.

‘We have, of course, bought these girls,’ she said. ‘Although they can’t keep up their music, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t use them as maids. It’s only really the instructors that we need to get rid of.’

‘No,’ said Lady Wang firmly. ‘We cannot treat them like servants. These are daughters of free men, sold into their profession because their parents could not afford to keep them. They have given us a year or two of good entertainment. Now that this opportunity of releasing them has arisen, we ought to give them each a few taels and let them go. That was certainly what our ancestors would have done; and I do not believe that we have become quite so degenerate or so ungenerous that we cannot, in this matter at least, follow the ancestors’ example. It’s true that we have a few members of an earlier troupe still living with us; but there was a special reason for their staying. They didn’t want to go, so we gave them employment and found husbands among the staff for them when they were old enough to marry.’

‘Very well, we shall ask them,’ said You-shi. ‘If they want to go, we can send for their parents to come and fetch them and give the money to their parents. That will be safest. Otherwise we shall have all sorts of dubious characters turning up here to collect them and selling them when they get them outside, and our kindness in freeing them will be wasted. Of course, any of them who don’t want to go can stay with us.’

Lady Wang agreed and You-shi sent someone to Xi-feng to explain what had been decided. She also instructed the clerks in the counting-house to pay eight taels to each of the instructors and tell them that they were free to go where they liked. The costumes, theatrical properties and other movables in Pear Tree Court were carefully checked against the inventories and stored away and a caretaker was put in charge of the buildings.

As for the little actresses, on interviewing them individually, You-shi found that hardly any of them wanted to go. Some said that their parents were alive but did not care for them and would only sell them again if they went back to them; others that they had no parents and had been sold by uncles or brothers; others that they had no relations at all that they could go to; others that they had become attached to the Jia family and did not want to leave. In the end all but three of them elected to stay. After what she had said, Lady Wang could scarcely refuse to have them.

The three who were leaving were taken away by their foster-mothers to stay with them for the time being until their real parents could come to fetch them. Those who had chosen to stay were assigned to different apartments – mostly in the Garden – as servants, Élégante, the leader of the troupe, was reserved for Grandmother Jia; the ‘leading lady’, Parfumée, went to Bao-yu; Étamine, the soubrette, to Bao-chai; the ‘principal boy’, Nénuphar, to Dai-yu; Althée, the leading ‘painted face’, to Xiang-yun; Cardamome, the second ‘painted face’, to Bao-qin; Artémisie, who specialized in old men’s parts, to Tan-chun; and You-shi asked if she might keep Aubergine, who specialized in old women’s parts, for herself.

The little actresses, though nominally in service, did nothing all day but wander about happily in the Garden, like uncaged birds rejoicing in their new freedom. Nobody made much effort to discourage them, as it was understood that they were wholly unaccustomed to waiting on other people and were none of them able to sew. It is true that one or two of them had the good sense to see that the future would be bleak for them without a craft, now that their theatrical training had been discontinued, and who applied themselves to learning domestic skills like sewing and spinning; but they were the exception.

An important day in the obsequies of the late Consort arrived when it was necessary for Grandmother Jia and the other ladies to start out for their temporary lodgings near the Palace at four o’clock in the morning. After recruiting themselves there with a small collation, they proceeded to the Palace to attend the ghostly breakfast of the Deceased. When that was over, they went back to their lodgings and had lunch. Then, after a brief rest, they returned to the Palace and remained there for both the None and Vesper offerings. Then back to their lodgings again for dinner before finally returning home.

The temporary lodgings were in the family temple of a high official in which perpetual devotions were maintained by a sisterhood of Buddhist nuns. The nuns occupied the two courtyards to east and west of the shrine-hall, but there were a great many spare rooms in these courtyards, all of them kept scrupulously clean by the nuns. The Rong-guo ladies had rented the rooms in the east courtyard and the Prince of Bei-jing’s ladies those in the west one. As they had to leave for the Palace and return from it at the same times, the two lots of ladies had plenty of opportunities of meeting each other, and many courtesies were exchanged between them. But it is not with these outside matters that we are concerned.

Back, then, to the Garden. With Grandmother Jia and Lady Jia away for so much of the day and the prospect of their being away altogether during the month it would take them to travel to and from the mausoleum, there were a great many maids and womenservants with nothing much to do but wander about in it enjoying themselves. Their numbers were augmented by the women from Pear Tree Court, who were now attached to different apartments in the Garden. Suddenly there seemed to be dozens more people about in it than there ever had been before.

The girl-actresses were arrogant little creatures, imperious and tyrannical towards the servants, demanding and fastidious about their food and clothing, sharp and disputatious with their tongues – in a word, thoroughly difficult characters to deal with. The Pear Tree Court women all hated them, but had not hitherto dared to quarrel with them openly. To these women the closing of the drama school was a great relief. Some of them, in their gladness to be free of it, were willing to let bygones be bygones. Others, less magnanimous, still nursed their rancour but, the diaspora having separated them from their former charges, dared not carry warfare against them into another’s territory.

It was the day of the Spring Cleaning festival and Jia Lian, having prepared the usual offerings, had gone with Jia Huan, Jia Cong and Jia Lan to the Temple of the Iron Threshold outside the city to clean the family graves. Jia Rong, accompanied by a party of clansmen from the Ning-guo side of the family, had set out separately for the same destination. Of the young male members of the family only Bao-yu, having not yet wholly recovered from his illness, was unable to go. After lunch Aroma noticed that he was showing a disposition to sleep.

‘It’s such a fine day,’ she said, ‘why don’t you take a stroll in the Garden? If you lie down as soon as you’ve eaten, you won’t digest your food.’

Bao-yu stepped somewhat reluctantly into a pair of slippers and, supporting himself with a walking-stick, shuffled off through the courtyard and out into the Garden.

Care of the Garden and its produce had lately been put into the hands of female experts and, this being the busy time of year for gardeners, they were to be observed on every hand, trimming the bamboos, pruning trees and bushes, bedding plants out, planting bulbs and sowing seeds. Other women were moving over the surface of the lake in punts, dredging up mud from the bottom and planting lotus-roots. On a miniature mountain of rock overlooking the lake an appreciative audience consisting of Xiang-yun, Caltrop, Bao-qin and some of the maids sat watching them. As Bao-yu slowly made his way up to them, Xiang-yun cried out in mock alarm:

‘Quick, send the boats away! They’ve come to take Cousin Lin!’

Bao-yu blushed and laughed sheepishly.

‘People can’t help what they do when they’re ill. You shouldn’t make fun.’

‘It’s your fault for being so comical,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Why do you always have to be so different? Even your illnesses are different from everyone else’s.’

Bao-yu sat down with them for a while and watched the women working.

‘It’s a bit windy here,’ said Xiang-yun presently, ‘and the rock is rather cold to sit on. Don’t you think you ought to go indoors?’

Bao-yu had already decided that he would like to go and see Dai-yu, so, hauling himself up with his walking-stick, he took his leave of the girls and walked off, over Drenched Blossoms Bridge and along the embankment on the other side.

New growth hung from the weeping willows in strings of gold and the blossom-buds of the peach-trees had burst into a vermilion haze; but the big apricot-tree behind the rockery, its flowering past, was already in full leaf and covered with tiny apricots, each no bigger than a pea.

‘What a shame!’ he thought. ‘Just those few days in bed and I missed the apricot blossom.

And in among the green leaves now
The young fruit hangs from every bough.’

He stood and gazed at the tree. They were Du Mu’s lines, written on his last visit to Hu-zhou, when he met the beautiful young dancer of a dozen years before and found that she was now a married woman with a brood of children. How did it go?

The spring-time blossoms, white and red,
Before the thieving wind have fled;
And in among the green leaves now The
young fruit hangs from every bough.

He thought of Xing Xiu-yan’s betrothal. It would only be a year or two now before she married, and soon she too, like the girl that Du Mu wrote about, would be a mother with a brood of young children about her. People had to marry, of course: they had to reproduce their kind. But what a way for a lovely young girl to end!

The spring-time blossoms, white and red…

Not so many years from now her jet-black tresses would turn to silver and her rosy cheeks become wrinkled and colourless. The thought of it made him feel sad and an involuntary sigh escaped from him. Then, as he continued to gaze at the tree, a little bird flew up, and perching on one of its branches, began to sing away for all it was worth. Bao-yu’s day-dreaming took another turn.

‘That bird must have come here when the tree was in blossom,’ he told himself. ‘What he’s singing is a lament at finding the blossoms gone. You can tell it’s a lament by the sound. Pity Gong-ye Chang, who understood the language of birds, isn’t around! I could have asked him what it was saying. I wonder if it will remember to come here next year when the apricot-tree is in flower again?’

His reverie was interrupted by a sudden burst of flame beyond the rockery which caused the bird to fly off in alarm. Bao-yu was almost as startled as the bird. The brief crackle of flames was followed by an outburst of angry shouting.

‘Nénuphar, you little wretch, how dare you burn paper offerings here in the Garden! I’m going straight off to report you. You’re in for a whipping, my girl.’

Wondering what on earth could be happening, Bao-yu hurried round to the other side of the rockery to investigate. A tear-stained Nénuphar crouched on the ground, holding the chafing-dish with which the recent blaze had been kindled, and gazing with a sorrowful expression at the charred, still smouldering remains of a pile of gold paper ‘spirit money’.

‘Who’s it for?’ he asked her. ‘You really shouldn’t burn it here, you know. I suppose it must be for one of your parents – or is it for a brother, perhaps? Tell me the person’s name and I’ll get my boys to go out and buy a proper baofu for you and write the name on it.’

When she saw that it was Bao-yu, Nénuphar closed her lips tightly and no amount of questioning would elicit an answer from her. Just then the woman he had heard shouting came hurrying back, an evil expression of triumph on her face, and seized hold of the girl.

‘Well, I’ve reported you to the young mistresses,’ she said, ‘and they’re very, very angry.’

Nénuphar was still only a child. Terrified of the humiliation that awaited her, she now made a childish attempt to resist going.

‘I said all along you were getting above yourselves,’ said the woman. ‘You can’t do as you please in here like you could outside. It’s different here. We like to have a bit of law and order.’ She pointed to Bao-yu. ‘Even Master Bao has to abide by the rules. I don’t know what sort of a young madam you think you are to come along here and start breaking them. Come on! It’s too late to start being afraid now. You’ll have to come along and see them.’

‘That’s not spirit money,’ said Bao-yu hurriedly. ‘It’s waste paper she’s been burning for Miss Lin. You should have looked more carefully before you reported her.’

To Nénuphar in her desperation Bao-yu’s appearance on the scene had been an added terror. She could hardly believe her ears when she heard him covering up for her. Her fear gave way to a surprised delight and she plucked up courage to defend herself.

‘Yes, what makes you so sure it was spirit money? That was used writing-paper of Miss Lin’s.’

But the woman was unimpressed. Stooping down, she picked out one or two of the unconsumed fragments from the ashes.

‘Don’t argue with me! Here’s evidence! You’ll have to come with me to the jobs room and explain yourself to them there.’

She took hold of Nénuphar by the sleeve and began dragging her off; but Bao-yu held her by the other sleeve and struck at the woman’s hand with his walking-stick until she let go.

‘Take those bits of paper to them if you must,’ he said. ‘I suppose I shall have to tell you. Last night I dreamed that the Spirit of the Apricot-tree came to me and said that if I wanted to get better quickly, I must have an offering of spirit money made to her. She said it had to be made by a stranger, not by anyone from my own room, and no one else must know about it. And now, after I’ve been to the trouble of getting the stuff and finding this girl to make the offering for me, it’s all wasted, because you saw her doing it. This is the first day I’ve been up since my illness. If I get ill again now, it will be your fault. Do you still want to take her? Nénuphar, go with her and see them. Tell them exactly what I have just said. And when my grandmother gets back I shall tell her what happened. I shall tell her that this woman interrupted you deliberately.’

Nénuphar was by now thoroughly cock-a-hoop. Now it was she who was tugging at the woman. The woman threw the bits of paper to the ground and addressed herself beseechingly to Bao-yu, a sickly smile on her face:

‘I didn’t know, really I didn’t. If you tell Her Old Ladyship that, it will be all up with me.’

‘Don’t report back then, and I won’t tell her.’

‘But when I reported just now, they said I was to bring her,’ said the woman. ‘I’d better tell them she’s been called away by Miss Lin.’

Bao-yu thought for a bit and then nodded. The woman went off to do as she had said. When she had gone, Bao-yu resumed his questioning.

‘Who was it for then? I’m sure it wasn’t for anyone in your family. Is it a secret?’

Nénuphar was grateful to Bao-yu for having protected her. Knowing now that he was a kindred spirit and to be trusted, she could hardly refuse him any longer. There were tears in her eyes when she answered:

‘Besides myself there are only two other people in the world who know about this: Parfumée in your room and Éitamine in Miss Bao’s. After what happened today, I think I shall have to let you be a third; but you must promise never to speak about it to anyone else.’

She began to cry.

‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I can’t say it to your face. After you’ve got back, when there’s no one else around, you can get Parfumée to tell you.’

She slipped away then, leaving him full of curiosity.

Continuing his walk to the Naiad’s House, he found Dai-yu looking thinner than ever but feeling, she assured him, very much better than she had been a few days earlier. She noticed how much thinner he had become, and the recollection of what had caused them both to look so haggard provoked the shedding of a few tears. They had not been speaking for more than a few minutes when, mindful that he was still convalescent, she urged him to go back and rest and he felt obliged to obey her.

When he got back, he was anxious to ask Parfumée about Nénuphar’s secret, but Xiang-yun and Caltrop had just arrived and were engaged in lively conversation with her and Aroma in the adjoining room. Fearing that if he called her to him the others might ask questions, he resolved to be patient.

After a while Parfumée went off with her foster-mother to have her hair washed. Her foster-mother had already let her own daughter wash her hair in the water. When Parfumée noticed this, she was loud in protest.

‘What, give me the water your daughter’s washed in? Considering you take the whole of my monthly allowance, I think I deserve better than left-overs!’

Angry – the more so because she was in the wrong – the woman shouted back at her.

‘Ungrateful little wretch! I’m not surprised they say players are hard folk to handle. However good a person may be to start with, once they get into that profession, they’re ruined. You’d never think a scrubby little creature like this could have so many airs and graces. Nothing but the best for young madam! Sixes or aces, nothing else! And such a spiteful, sharp little tongue if she doesn’t get what she wants! Worse than a biting mule!’

The two of them began to go at it then, hammer and tongs. Aroma sent someone outside to quieten them:

‘A little less shouting, you two! Just because Her Old Ladyship isn’t here, nobody seems able to say anything without hollering at the tops of their voices!’

‘It’s that Parfumée making trouble,’ said Skybright. ‘I don’t know what makes her think she’s so wonderful. Just because she knows a few plays, you’d think she’d won the war or something!’

‘It takes two to make an argument,’ said Aroma. ‘The older one shouldn’t be so unjust and the younger one shouldn’t be so unpleasant.’

‘You can’t blame Parfumée,’ said Bao-yu. ‘“Any departure from the straight or even causes things to give voice.” A famous philosopher wrote that. She’s here without parents or anyone to look after her. This woman takes her money and then doesn’t treat her properly. If that’s not a departure from the straight and even, I don’t know what is. You can hardly blame her for giving voice about it! How much does she get a month, anyway?’ he asked Aroma. ‘Wouldn’t it save a lot of trouble if you took the money and looked after her yourself?’

‘I don’t mind looking after her,’ said Aroma, ‘but if I do, it certainly won’t be for the money. It wouldn’t be worth making enemies over.’

She got up as she said this and, going into the other room, took a little bottle of Oil of Flowers, some hen’s eggs, some soap and a hair-string and told one of the old women to convey them to Parfumée outside.

‘Tell her to stop quarrelling. Tell her she can get some more water and wash her own hair with these.’

Unfortunately the foster-mother chose to regard this as a public humiliation for her and grew even angrier.

‘You wicked child,’ she said to Parfumée, ‘pretending that I keep back your money!’

She dealt her a couple of slaps, whereupon Parfumée burst out crying. Bao-yu was about to rush outside, but Aroma restrained him.

‘What are you doing? I’ll speak to her.’

But Skybright had already darted outside and was pointing at the woman angrily:

‘You ought to know better, at your age! If we give her the things to wash her hair with that you wouldn’t give her yourself, you ought to feel ashamed. I don’t know how you can have the face to hit her. You wouldn’t have dared hit her if she’d been in the school still, carrying on with her training.’

‘I hit her for trying to show me up in public,’ said the woman. ‘I’m her foster-mother. I’ve a right to.’

‘Musk,’ said Aroma, ‘I’m no good at arguing with people and Skybright is too excitable. You’ll have to go and deal with her.’

Musk hurried over.

‘All right, all right. There’s no need to shout. Let me just ask you this one question. When have you ever seen anyone punishing their daughter in the master’s or mistress’s presence – I don’t just mean here, I mean anywhere in the whole Garden? Even in the case of a real daughter, not just a foster-daughter, once she’s left home and gone into service it’s for her master or mistress to punish her or the senior maids. We can’t have parents chipping in all the time – otherwise how should we ever manage to train a girl? I don’t know! You people, the older you get, the worse you seem to behave! It’s not so long ago that we had Trinket’s mother in here making a scene. I suppose she must be your model. But don’t worry. During these last few days what with this one ill and that one ill and Her Old Ladyship busy all the time with other matters we haven’t had a chance to report anything. But give us a few more days. We shall find an opportunity. We’ll tell her everything. Then perhaps we shall see some of you highhanded people taken down a peg. And another thing. There’s Bao-yu in there only just beginning to get better – even we daren’t raise our voices above a whisper – yet here are you hitting a girl outside his room and making her cry like a howling wolf or a banshee. The top people only have to be away from the house for a day or two and already you are behaving as if you were above the law. No one is safe from you. A few more days and you’ll be hitting us, I shouldn’t wonder! If you ask me, you’re the sort of foster-mother the girl could do without. If you think the plant will only flourish with your tender care, you’re very much mistaken!’

Bao-yu was so angry that he banged on the threshold with his stick.

‘These old women have hearts of stone. It’s bad enough that they can’t look after the girls, but to go maltreating them as well…!

Almighty earth and heaven, what’s to do?’

‘What’s to do?’ said Skybright. ‘Send the lot of them packing, useless baggages!’

The woman, shamed into silence by Musk’s tirade, made no reply.

Musk looked at Parfumée, in her crabflower-red padded tunic and patterned green silk trousers unbound at the ankles, her glossy black hair hanging down her back, crying as if her heart would break. It was a spectacle so different from her more familiar stage appearances that Musk could not help laughing at its incongruousness:

‘I must say, you don’t look much like Cui Ying-ying at the moment. Reddie after her beating, though: now that’s a part you could play without having to make up for it!’

Skybright led Parfumée away and washed her hair for her. When she had towelled it dry, she did it up for her in a ‘lazy knot’ and told her to go back to Bao-yu’s room when she had finished dressing.

Shortly after, a woman arrived from the kitchen to say that the food was ready, should they send it over yet? One of the junior maids went inside to ask Aroma.

‘What does the clock say?’ Aroma asked. ‘With all that rumpus going on outside, I didn’t hear it strike.’

‘It didn’t,’ said Skybright. ‘The wretched thing needs repairing again, I don’t know why.’

She fetched a watch from somewhere and inspected it.

‘It’s about half a cup of tea off dinner-time,’ she said. ‘Tell them we’ll be ready directly.’

The girl went off to relay this message.

‘Come to think of it,’ said Musk, smiling, ‘that Parfumée deserved a slap or two for being so mischievous. She was the one who made the clock stop by playing about with the pendulum yesterday.’

She began getting things out and laying them in readiness for the meal. Presently junior maids carrying food-boxes came into the room and stood there while Skybright and Musk removed the covers and inspected the contents: a bowl of soup and the now familiar rice-gruel flanked by four different kinds of pickle.

‘But he’s better now,’ said Skybright. ‘How much longer has he got to go on eating gruel and vegetables in brine? Why can’t they send him some proper food for a change?’

Musk had finished laying now. Taking the large bowl of soup (ham and bamboo-shoots) from the food-box, she put it on the table for Bao-yu to try. He bent down over the bowl and slurped up a mouthful.

‘Ow, hot!’

Aroma laughed.

‘Holy Buddha! You’re not all that starved for meat, surely? I’m not surprised you burn yourself if you go at it so greedily.’

She picked-up the bowl and gently blew on it, then, as Parfumée happened to be standing by, she handed it to her:

‘Here, you can do it. You may as well make yourself useful, instead of mooning around all day doing nothing. But blow on it gently: we don’t want you spitting in it.’

Parfumée began blowing as instructed. She seemed to be managing very nicely, but the foster-mother, who was standing outside the partition doorway whither she had insisted on coming ‘to help’ and who, in her ignorance of the Garden’s étiquette, saw this as an opportunity of making up to the maids, came hurrying officiously into the room and tried to take the bowl from her.

‘She’s too inexperienced. She might drop it. Let me blow.’

Skybright shouted at her angrily:

‘Get out of here at once! Whether she breaks the bowl or not is our affair: we don’t need you blowing on it, at all events. Who said you could come inside the partition, anyway?’

Her anger transferred itself to the junior maids:

‘Young idiots! She probably doesn’t know about these things. You ought to have told her.’

‘We tried to keep her out,’ the maids protested. ‘We tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t believe us. – Now do you believe us?’ they asked the woman. ‘Even the places we’re allowed into you’re only allowed into about half of, but you seemed to think you could go bursting in even where we aren’t allowed to go – and you were shouting and waving your hands at us when we tried to stop you.’

They hustled her from the outer room, into which she had retreated, onto the verandah outside. The old women waiting in the courtyard below to take back the food-boxes and empty bowls laughed at her when she emerged.

‘You should ‘a taken a look at yourself in the mirror before you went inside, missus!’

The woman, angry and ashamed, had to bear their taunts in silence.

Parfumée was still blowing away at the soup. Bao-yu smiled at her:

‘Don’t destroy your lungs with all that blowing! Why don’t you try it now, to see if it’s all right?’

Parfumée thought he must be joking and smiled, timidly at Aroma and the rest.

‘Go ahead, taste it!’ said Aroma. ‘Why not?’

‘Watch me taste it,’ said Skybright, and took a sip from the bowl.

Encouraged by her example, Parfumée took a sip too.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, and handed Bao-yu the bowl.

Bao-yu drank about half the soup, ate a few pieces of bamboo-shoot, consumed half a bowlful of the gruel, and declared himself satisfied. The servants cleared away. A little maid came in with a wash-bowl. After he had washed his hands and rinsed his mouth out, it was Aroma’s and the other senior maids’ turn to have their dinner.

Bao-yu signalled to Parfumée with his eyes. A sharp-witted child – one, moreover, who had spent several years of her young life in a school of drama – Parfumée responded like an old trouper. She had a stomach-ache, she told them. She didn’t feel like any dinner.

‘Oh well, if you’re not eating,’ said Aroma, ‘you may as well stay and keep him company. We’ll leave the gruel here. If you get hungry, you can eat some of that.’

She and the other maids then left.

Bao-yu was now able to tell Parfumée about his encounter with Nénuphar – how he had lied to protect her and how, feeling unable to answer his question herself, she had referred him to Parfumée for an explanation.

‘So who was she making the offering for?’

Parfumée’s eyes reddened slightly and she sighed.

‘Oh, Nénuphar is crazy.’

‘Why?’ said Bao-yu. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It was for Pivoine,’ said Parfumée, ‘the girl in our troupe who died.’

‘There’s nothing crazy about that,’ said Bao-yu, ‘if they were friends.’

‘Friends!’ said Parfumée. “They were more than that. It was Nénuphar’s soppy ideas that started it all. You see, Nénuphar is our Principal Boy and Pivoine always played opposite her as Principal Girl. They became so accustomed to acting the part of lovers on the stage, that gradually it came to seem real to them and Nénuphar began carrying on as if they were really lovers. When Pivoine died, Nénuphar cried herself into fits, and even now she still thinks about her. That’s why she makes offerings to her on feast-days. When Étamine took over the roles that Pivoine used to play, Nénuphar became just the same towards her. We even teased her about it: “Have you forgotten your old love then, now that you’ve got yourself a new one?” But she said, “No, I haven’t forgotten. It’s like when a man loses his wife and remarries. He can still be faithful to the first wife, as long as he keeps her memory green.” Did you ever hear anything so soppy in your life?’

‘Soppy’ or whatever it was, there was a strain in Bao-yu’s own nature which responded to it with a powerful mixture of emotions: pleasure, sorrow, and an unbounded admiration for the little actress. He took Parfumée’s hands in his own and told her with great earnestness what she must say to Nénuphar.

‘Tell her never, never to use that paper stuff again. “Spirit money” is a superstitious invention of modern times: you’ll find nothing about it in the teachings of Confucius. All she needs to do when feast-days come round is to light a little incense in a burner. Provided that it’s done with reverence, that’s all that’s needed for conveying one’s feelings to the dead. It’s the sincerity with which we make the offering, not the offering itself that counts. You see that burner on the table over there? Whenever I want to remember someone dear to me – it doesn’t necessarily have to be on a feast-day or any particular day, by the way – I light some incense in it and put out a cup of fresh tea or water, or sometimes some flowers or fruit if I have any. You can even use “unclean foods” – as long as they’re devoutly offered: that’s the important thing. Tell her not to go burning that paper stuff any more.’

Parfumée promised. After that she finished off the gruel. Then someone came in to say that Grandmother Jia had got back.

Of that you shall hear more in the next chapter.

Chapter 59

By Willow Walk the conservers of property resort to violence and abuse And at Green Delights the defenders of law and order invoke a higher authority

Hearing that his grandmother and the other ladies were back, Bao-yu put on an extra garment and shuffled off, walking-stick in hand, to greet them. He found them tired out by the taxing routine of the past few days and anxious to retire to bed as soon as possible. Nothing of interest happened during that night. The ladies were up again at four o’clock next morning and off once more to the Palace.

The date of their departure for the mausoleum was fast approaching. Faithful, Amber, Parrot and Pearl busied themselves getting together the things that Grandmother Jia would need on the journey, while Silver, Suncloud and Sunset did the same for Lady Wang. When all was ready, they went over everything, item by item, with the most senior of the servants who were accompanying their mistresses. There were altogether sixteen of these: six maids and ten older women. The male servants, who are not included in that number, were meanwhile preparing the mule-litters that their mistresses would ride in and getting the harness and other gear into good order. Faithful and Silver were not among the sixteen. They were to stay behind and look after their mistresses’ apartments while they were away.

Some days before the funeral cortège was due to set out, the maids packed up the covers and hangings of their mistresses’ travelling-beds. These were collected by a party of four or five women, who, with the aid of some menservants, took them by cart through the back streets to the lodgings where their mistresses were to spend the night before their departure and put them up ready for them to sleep in.

The Jia ladies and their retinue left the mansion the day before the cortège was due to start. Grandmother Jia and Jia Rong’s wife shared the first litter; Lady Wang followed on her own in the second; Cousin Zhen and the menservants provided them with a mounted escort. Then followed several large covered carts in which the maids and womenservants were travelling. The carts also carried a large number of bundles containing changes of clothing for the ladies. The other members of the family, led by Aunt Xue and You-shi, accompanied the little procession as far as the outer threshold of the main gate to see the old lady off.

While the column was reforming itself in the street, Jia Lian appeared on horseback at the head of a small party of mounted grooms. He shepherded his parent’s litters into place between those of Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang, then, fearful of the possible consequences of leaving the baggage train with its female freight unguarded, trotted back to a position behind the carts and, with his mounted followers, brought up the rear.

Inside the mansion Lai Da greatly increased the numbers of the watch and ordered the entrances to the two main courtyards to be kept permanently closed. Anyone wanting to go in or out of the mansion now had to do so through the small side gate on the west corner. The ornamental gate dividing the outer from the inner part of the mansion was closed at sundown. So, too, were the main and side gates of the Garden. The gate which the cousins normally used for getting into or out of the rear part of Lady Wang’s quarters and the gate on the east side which gave access to the corner gate of Aunt Xue’s courtyard were left open. Since they affected only the intercommunication of the already sealed-off inner parts of the mansion, it did not seem necessary to close them. Faithful and Silver shut up the living-rooms normally occupied by their mistresses and went to sleep with the other maids in the servants’ quarters at the back. Each day at sundown Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife conducted a party of ten or so senior women into the Garden to police it during the night. The number of pages employed in the gallery outside for the purpose of sounding the night-watches was increased. Everything was done, in short, to ensure that the security of the mansion was maintained.

Waking one fine, fresh morning from vernal slumbers, Bao-chai, on raising the bed-curtain and stepping down into the room, became sensible of a very slight chilliness in the air, the reason for which was apparent when she opened the door and looked out. A little shower, falling in the last watch before dawn, had refreshed the earth and turned the mosses everywhere a more brilliant shade of green. She went in again and called to the others to get up.

While they were washing, Xiang-yun complained of an irritation in her cheeks which she feared might herald an outbreak of the mild eczema she sometimes suffered from and asked Bao-chai for some rose-root orris to put on them.

‘I gave the last of it to Qin a few days ago,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Frowner has a lot. I had been meaning to ask her for some, but as I haven’t had any trouble with my own cheeks this year, I forgot about it.’

She ordered Oriole to go and get some. As Oriole was about to leave, Étamine said that she would like to go with her because she wanted to talk to Nénuphar. The two girls set off from All-spice Court, chattering and laughing as they went.

At Willow Walk they followed the line of the embankment. The trailing golden strings of the weeping willows were already flecked with emerald.

‘Do you know how to weave things with these?’ Oriole smilingly asked her companion.

‘What sort of things?’ said Étamine.

‘Oh, things to look at, things to use – all sorts. Just wait while I break off a few and I’ll weave a little basket out of them. I’ll leave the leaves on, then, if we fill it with different kinds of flowers, it will look ever so pretty.’

Temporarily forgetting about the orris-powder, she reached up and broke off some of the tender willow-twigs. She got Étamine to hold them for her; then, as they walked along together, she plaited them into a little basket. From time to time she stopped to pick a flower or two that grew beside the way. The finished basket was a pretty little open-work one with a handle, bursting all over with the greenery which she had been careful not to pull off. When it was filled up and stuck all over with flowers, it looked really charming. Étamine was enraptured:

‘Oh, Oriole, do let me have it!’

‘We’ll give this one to Miss Lin,’ said Oriole. ‘We can pick some more twigs on the way back and I’ll make baskets like this for you all.’

By this time the two girls had arrived at the Naiad’s House. Dai-yu had not yet completed her toilet. She was very much taken with Oriole’s handiwork.

‘Ah, a living basket! Who made it?’

‘I did,’ said Oriole. ‘It’s for you, miss.’

‘Oh, but it’s charming!’ said Dai-yu, taking it. ‘No wonder they’re always saying how clever you are with your hands.’

After admiring it a little longer, she told Nightingale to hang it up where she could see it.

Oriole first inquired politely after Aunt Xue and then asked Dai-yu about the rose-orris. Dai-yu told Nightingale to wrap some up for her.

‘I’m better now,’ she told Oriole as she handed her the packet. ‘I feel like going out today for some exercise. Tell Chai that there’s no need for her to pay her call on Mamma today or to visit me. As soon as I’ve done my hair, Mamma and I will be coming over to her place. We can have our lunch there. We shall be quite a little family party!’

Oriole promised to relay the message and went into Nightingale’s room to collect Étamine; but Étamine and Nénuphar had just reached the most interesting part of their conversation and were most unwilling to be separated. Oriole proposed a solution to Nightingale.

‘Your mistress is going over to our place presently. Why not let Nénuphar come with us now and wait for her there?’

‘By all means,’ said Nightingale. ‘She gets up to so much mischief, we shall be glad to have her off our hands for a bit!’

She got out Dai-yu’s spoon and chopsticks, wrapped them up in a napkin of West Ocean linen, and held them out for Nénuphar.

‘Here you are: you can take these for her. May as well make yourself useful.’

Nénuphar took the things from her and set off, smiling happily, with the other two. They made their way to Willow Walk again and Oriole broke off a lot more twigs and, sitting down on a nearby rock, began straightway plaiting them to make into another basket. She told Étamine to go ahead with the rose-orris and come back for her presently when she had delivered it; but both girls were fascinated by Oriole’s skilful weaving and could not tear themselves away. Oriole threatened to suspend work on the basket if Étamine did not do as she was told.

‘Come on,’ said Nénuphar. ‘I’ll go with you. We can hurry back in no time.’

After they had gone, while Oriole sat plaiting on her own, Mamma He’s daughter Swallow walked up and smilingly asked her what she was making. Oriole was still talking to her when the other two got back. Swallow looked at Nénuphar curiously.

‘Tell me, what was that paper you were burning the other day when my Aunt Xia caught you? She was going to report you, but Bao-yu made out that it was she who was in the wrong, so she couldn’t go through with it. She was ever so angry. She came and told my mother all about it. What on earth did you do during all that time you were living outside together to make such an enemy of her?’

Nénuphar sniffed.

‘I didn’t do anything. It’s because she’s so greedy. She can’t squeeze as much out of me as she used to be able to. To mention nothing else, look at all the food she and the others used to take home with them when they were working with us outside. You know they did.’

Swallow laughed.

‘She’s my own aunt. I can’t very well criticize her in front of other people. I must admit, though, it does seem to be as Bao-yu once said. “A girl before she marries is like a priceless pearl, but once she marries the pearl loses its lustre and develops all sorts of disagreeable flaws, and by the time she’s an old woman, she’s no longer like a pearl at all, more like a boiled fish’s eye.” He said, “How can the same person, at different times in her life, seem like three completely different people?” – Of course, I knew at the time he was only talking his usual nonsense; but really there does seem to be some truth in it. I don’t know about other people’s families, but it’s certainly true of my mother and my aunt. The older they get, the more they seem to care about nothing else but money. When we were all living together at home, they used to complain that there weren’t any jobs for us that would bring in a bit of income. Then this Garden was built and I was lucky enough to be among those who were chosen to work in it – doubly lucky, in fact, because I was assigned to Green Delights. That meant that quite apart from the fact that they didn’t have to find my keep any more, they were getting an additional four or five hundred cash each month that I managed to save out of my wages. You’d have thought they’d have been satisfied with that, but oh no! Then they got jobs themselves, looking after these player-girls in Pear Tree Court. My Aunt Xia had Nénuphar for foster-daughter and my mother had Parfumée. So for this last year or two they’ve been really comfortably off. Now that you’ve all moved inside, of course, it’s rather out of their hands; but they won’t give up. It really makes you laugh. First my aunt having that row with Nénuphar, and then my mother having that row with Parfumée. That was over the shampoo. Parfumée had asked my mother I don’t know how many times to shampoo her hair for her. Then Parfumée’s monthly allowance came in and my mother had no excuse for putting her off any longer, so she bought the shampoo, but when she’d bought it, she told me to wash my hair with it first. Well, I didn’t like to do that. I mean, I’ve got money of my own, and even if I hadn’t, I could always get the stuff for washing my hair with from Aroma or Skybright or Musk without any trouble by simply asking for it. So I said no, I wouldn’t. So then she got hold of my younger sister and washed her hair first. Needless to say, when she called Parfumée after that there was a quarrel. Oh, and then she wanted to go and blow on Bao-yu’s soup. Oh dear, I could have died! I told her about the rule as soon as I saw her going in, but she wouldn’t believe me. Oh no, Mother knows best! So of course she made a fool of herself. It’s a good job there are so many of us working in the Garden and no one can ever remember who is related to who, otherwise they might get the impression that the people in my family do nothing but quarrel all the time.’

‘Incidentally, this place where you’ve chosen to do your basket-making is on the territory of another of my aunts – my father’s sister. Ever since she was put in charge of it, she’s treated it as if it were her own property. She slaves away on it from morning to night. What’s more, she makes me come and watch over it for her: she’s so terrified of any of it getting spoiled. It’s got so that I can hardly do my own job properly. And now that Mother’s moved into the Garden, she keeps an eye on it too. The pair of them watch over it like hawks. No one else is allowed to touch a blade of grass here. I don’t mind telling you, if they come along this way and find you’ve been picking their flowers and breaking their young willow-twigs, they won’t be at all pleased!’

‘In anyone else’s case, perhaps not,’ said Oriole; ‘but my case is different. When the Garden was divided up, it was agreed that daily supplies of stuff from it were to be sent to all the apartments. That included, apart from things to eat, flowers for everyone’s hair and flowers to put in the vases. Now my mistress, it so happens, was the only one who said she didn’t want a daily supply of flowers. She said she would let them know whenever she wanted any, but up to now she never has. So you see, in my case they are hardly likely to object even if they do find out that I’ve been picking some.’

These words were scarcely out of her mouth when who should appear, hobbling along on her stick, but this same aunt that Swallow had been talking about. Oriole and Swallow invited her to come and sit down on the rock. The old woman felt a pang of displeasure as her eye travelled from the little heap of broken willow-twigs to the freshly-picked flowers that Nénuphar and Étamine were holding, but since it was Oriole who appeared to be responsible, she forbore to complain of the vandalism and found something to grumble at her own niece about instead.

‘When I tell you to come here and keep an eye on things, you prefer to stay at home and play. Then when the others ask you to do something for them, you pretend that you can’t because you’re already working for me. You use me like a magic charm, so that you can do a disappearing act whenever there’s a job of work to be done!’

‘First you tell me to come here, then you’re afraid the others will want me so you tell me off for being here,’ Swallow protested. ‘I can’t be in two places at once, aunt!’

‘Don’t you believe her, missus!’ said Oriole teasingly. ‘She’s the one who picked all these things and pestered me to weave them for her. I tried to get rid of her, but she wouldn’t leave me alone.’

‘For goodness sake!’ said Swallow agitatedly. ‘Don’t make jokes like that. She’ll take you seriously.’

Alas, it was all too true! This aunt of Swallow’s was a stupid old woman whose senile infatuation with money was such that beside it all human ties had long since ceased to count. At Oriole’s words the pent-up anguish with which she viewed this hateful spoliation of her domain found relief in action: she raised her stick and, with the presumptuous tyranny of old age, struck Swallow several times with it across the back.

‘Little baggage!’ she said. ‘How dare you answer me back! Your own mother hates you so much she’s itching to get her teeth in you. Don’t you go raising your voice at me!’

‘Oriole was only joking,’ said Swallow, weeping – partly from the pain and partly from the humiliation of being beaten in front of the others. ‘Why should my mother hate me? I haven’t burnt the washing-up water! What am I supposed to have done?’

Dismayed that her words should have had such an effect, Oriole stepped hurriedly between them and seized the aunt’s upraised arm.

‘I was only joking, missus. Is it to shame me that you are beating her?’

‘I’ll thank you not to meddle in what doesn’t concern you, miss,’ said the old woman. ‘Do you think I should not be allowed to discipline my own niece just because you are here?’

The crassness of this reply caused Oriole to flush with anger.

‘You can discipline her any time you like, but I don’t see why you should choose to do it when I make a joke,’ she said scornfully. ‘All right, go ahead and discipline her, then.’

And releasing the old woman’s arm, she sat down on the rock again and got on with her weaving.

The next thing that happened was that Swallow’s mother appeared on the scene, looking for her daughter.

‘What are you doing there?’ she shouted as she caught sight of her. ‘I thought I told you to go and fetch some water.’

‘Come over and see what she’s been doing,’ the old aunt shouted back at her. ‘I’ve no hold over her any more than you now, it seems. She’s being very impertinent to me.’

‘Oh, what’s she been doing this time, sister-in-law?’ said the woman, coming up to them. ‘She’s got no use for her own mother any more, I knew that; but I thought she might have a bit of respect left for you still.’

Recognizing the newcomer as Swallow’s mother, Oriole wanted to explain; but the aunt did not give her a chance.

‘Look at that!’ she said, pointing to the willow-twigs on the rock. ‘A great girl like her – you’d think she’d know better! And not content with that, leading other people on to ruin me as well!’

Swallow’s mother was still smarting from her unsuccessful quarrel with Parfumée and was angry with Swallow for not having taken her side.

‘Little strumpet!’ she shouted, bearing down on her wrathfully and slapping her across the head. ‘How long now have you been working with those young madams? – it hasn’t taken you very long to pick up their airs and graces! But don’t you go thinking I can’t lay my hands on you any more. A foster-daughter’s one thing, but you are my own flesh and blood. I can still look after you when I feel like it. Little painted whores, telling me I can’t go inside where you can go! I wish you’d go inside and stay there: perhaps if you stayed inside long enough, you might find a customer!’

She grabbed hold of the little half-made willow basket and waved it in Swallow’s face.

‘And what’s this supposed to be? What’s the bloody meaning of this?’

‘I made that,’ said Oriole. ‘Don’t curse the mulberry tree when you mean the locust. If it’s me you’re angry with, why not say so and leave her out of it?’

Swallow’s mother was intensely jealous of these senior maids like Oriole and Aroma and Skybright, for she knew that their status and authority were greatly superior to her own. She feared them and deferred to them, but doing so cost her a good deal of angry resentment which she vented on the junior maids. On this occasion her anger was further exacerbated by the presence of her sister’s enemy, Nénuphar.

Swallow was now making her way tearfully towards Green Delights. Her mother was afraid that if they asked her there why she was crying and she told them, there would be further insults to put up with from Skybright, so she hurried after her to try and stop her.

‘You come back!’ she shouted. ‘You’ll go when I say you can.’

But Swallow refused to stop, and her mother, greatly incensed, rushed forward, intending to lay hands on her. Swallow happened to turn and see her coming, however, and got away by running even faster. Her mother, continuing the pursuit, slipped on the moss and fell over, to the great delight of Oriole and the other two.

Oriole was by now so disgusted with the whole affair that she threw everything – basket, twigs and flowers – into the water and went off home, leaving the old aunt blessing herself in pious horror at the waste.

‘Wicked creature!’ she called out after her. ‘You ought to be struck by lightning, throwing away good flowers like that!’

She set about picking some herself then, to deliver to the various apartments.

As for Swallow, she went on running until she came to Green Delights. There, just inside the courtyard, she ran full tilt into Aroma, who was just at that moment setting out to pay a call on Dai-yu. Swallow clung to her imploringly.

‘Save me, miss! My mother’s going to beat me again.’

At the sight of the mother, arriving now in hot pursuit, Aroma could no longer contain her annoyance.

‘That’s twice in three days: first your foster-daughter and now your own daughter. Is it to show off the size of your family that you do this, or do you really not know any better?’

Being a relative newcomer to the Garden, Swallow’s mother had as yet formed no very clear impression of Aroma beyond that she spoke very little and was probably a fairly harmless sort of person.

‘I should mind your own business, if I was you, miss,’ she said rudely. ‘You know nothing about these matters. It’s because you’re all so soft with the girl that she’s got so out of hand.’

She darted after Swallow again, her hand upraised to strike her. Aroma was so angry that she turned round and began marching back to the house. On her way she passed Musk, who was hanging some handkerchiefs out to dry under the crab-apple tree. Musk looked over her shoulder to see what all the shouting was about.

‘I should leave them to it, if I were you,’ she advised Aroma. ‘Just let them get on with it and see what happens.’

She signalled to Swallow with her eyes as she said this. Swallow understood her immediately and dashed inside the house to take refuge with Bao-yu. The other servants smiled at each other in pleasurable anticipation.

‘Now there’ll be trouble,’ they said. ‘Now we shall really see something!’

‘Why don’t you calm down a bit?’ Musk said to the woman. ‘Surely you’re not going to set yourself up against the whole apartment?’

The woman saw her daughter go up to Bao-yu inside the house and Bao-yu take her by the hand.

‘Don’t worry,’ Bao-yu said to the girl. ‘I’ll look after you.’

Swallow, still crying, told him the whole story of Oriole and the willow-twigs. Bao-yu was deeply shocked, but, for form’s sake, pretended to blame Swallow for what had happened.

‘It’s bad enough having rows in here; what do you want to go upsetting your aunt outside for?’

‘What this good woman said just now is right,’ Musk said to the other servants. ‘Perhaps we are too slack. Perhaps we don’t know enough about these matters to deal with them properly ourselves. What we need is someone whose opinion she will listen to, someone who really knows what’s what.’

She turned to a little maid standing near by.

‘Go and fetch Patience. If Patience can’t come, fetch Mrs Lin.’

As the little maid ran off on her errand, the other women in the compound drew round Swallow’s mother with interested smiles.

‘Better ask them to call that child back,’ they advised her. ‘You don’t want Miss Patience coming here.’

‘If she’s “Miss Patience”, she’ll just have to be patient and listen to reason,’ said the woman defiantly. ‘I never yet heard of a mother being disciplined for trying to discipline her own daughter.’

The others smiled at her ignorance.

‘You don’t know who Miss Patience is, though. Miss Patience is Mrs Lian’s Number One. If she’s in a good mood, you might get away with a telling-off; but if she’s not – my goodness, you’re in for a packet of trouble!’

Just then the little maid came back with a message.

‘Miss Patience was busy, but she asked me why I’d come and when I told her she said, “Tell her she’s dismissed and get Mrs Lin on the corner gate to give her forty strokes of the bamboo.”’

It was now the mother’s turn for tears and entreaties.

‘It wasn’t easy for me to get this job,’ she said. ‘I shan’t get another like it. And I’m a widow, too: I’ve no one else at home. From your point of view that’s an advantage, because I can give all my attention to serving you. But it means that it’s my only livelihood: if you turn me out, I don’t know how I’m going to keep alive.’

Aroma began to relent.

‘But if you want to stay here,’ she said, ‘you really must learn to behave yourself and do what you are told. You really can’t go around hitting people all the time. What are we to do with a person like you? This daily shouting and quarrelling is giving our place a bad name.’

‘Take no notice of her,’ said Skybright. ‘Send her packing. Who’s got time to stand around arguing with people like her?’

Swallow’s mother appealed to the other maids:

‘I admit I was in the wrong; but if you tell me what to do, I’m willing to learn. Give me another chance, young ladies, you won’t regret it. It’s a “work of merit”, don’t forget, to help another person mend their ways.’

She appealed to Swallow:

‘It was on account of beating you that I got into this trouble. And I didn’t beat you very hard. Put in a word for me, there’s a good child!’

Bao-yu himself now felt sorry for the woman and told her that she could stay.

‘But no more trouble, mind! Any more trouble from you, and you’ll be out like a shot – and you’ll be given the beating!’

The woman thanked first Bao-yu and then all the others in turn. She had already left when Patience looked in to see what the trouble was.

‘Forget about it!’ said Aroma. ‘It’s all over.’

‘Well, they say “where mercy is possible, mercy should be shown”,’ Patience observed. ‘If you can see your way to letting her off, it certainly saves us some trouble. I can’t understand it, though. It’s only a few days’ since Their Ladyships left, yet already the whole place seems to be in a state of mutiny. Before I’ve finished dealing with trouble in one place, it crops up in another. I scarcely know which way to turn.’

‘I thought we were the only ones,’ said Aroma. ‘I didn’t realize there were others.’

‘Oh, this is nothing!’ said Patience. ‘There have been seven or eight outbreaks just during these last three or four days. Compared with the others, this trouble of yours is a very minor affair. We’ve had something much more upsetting – and more ridiculous – than this to contend with.’

Aroma was curious to know what it was. But as to whether Patience told her or not, that will be revealed in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 60

As a substitute for rose-orris Jia Huan is given jasmine face-powder And in return for rose essence Cook Liu is given lycoperdon snow

Aroma, you will recall, had asked Patience what in particular it was that had been giving her so much trouble. Patience smiled mysteriously:

‘Something no one would ever guess. You’ll have a good laugh when I tell you. I won’t tell you for a few days yet, though, because I still haven’t quite got to the bottom of it – and I haven’t got time now, in any case.’

As if to prove that this was so, one of Li Wan’s little maids arrived at that very moment:

‘Miss Patience? Oh, there you are! Mrs Zhu’s waiting for you. Why don’t you come?’

‘I’m coming, I’m coming,’ said Patience, breaking away from the others with a laugh and hurrying after her.

Aroma and the others laughed, too.

‘She’s grown as popular as hot cakes since her mistress’s illness: everyone wants her at once!’

Patience’s business with Li Wan is no part of our story. We remain with Bao-yu and the rest at Green Delights.

‘Swallow,’ said Bao-yu, ‘you and your mother had better go to Miss Bao’s place and make it up with Oriole. You can’t let her go on feeling offended.’

‘Yes,’ said Swallow, and hurried out to find her mother. Bao-yu shouted to them through the window as the two of them were crossing the courtyard:

‘Don’t say anything about it in front of Miss Bao. You don’t want Oriole to get a telling-off.’

Mother and daughter shouted back a reply and continued on their way, conversing as they went. Swallow began reproaching her mother when they were out of earshot:

‘I told you, Mother, again and again, but you wouldn’t believe me. All this trouble you’ve got yourself into – it was so unnecessary.’

‘Get along with you, little hussy!’ said her mother, laughing. ‘You know what the proverb says: “Never suffer, never learn”. I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t need any lectures from you!’

‘If only you could be content with the job you’ve got, Ma, and not be always pushing forward so,’ said Swallow gently. ‘There are all sorts of benefits to be had from working here, after you’ve been here some length of time. I’ll tell you just one of them. Bao-yu says that when the time comes, he’s going to ask Her Ladyship to give us maids – all of us, that is, not just the ones who work in his room – our freedom, so that you can marry us to whoever you like. What about that for a start?’

‘Really?’ Her mother’s delight was tempered with incredulity.

‘Why should I tell a lie?’

The pious invocations which this news evoked continued until they were almost at All-spice Court. They arrived there when Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Aunt Xue and the others were having lunch. Swallow and her mother waited until Oriole came out to make the tea, then, as she emerged, Swallow’s mother stepped forward to make her apology.

‘I’m afraid I was a bit hasty just now, miss. I said some things I shouldn’t have done. I hope you won’t hold it against me. Anyway, I’m very sorry.’

Oriole, all smiles, begged them both to be seated and would have given them tea; but mother and daughter said they had business to attend to and took their leave. They were already on their way back to Green Delights when Éitamine came hurrying after them.

‘Just a minute, just a minute!’

She was holding a little packet which she wanted them to deliver to Parfumée for her. It was rose-orris, she explained, for the face.

‘That’s a bit unnecessary, isn’t it?’ said Swallow. ‘They must have plenty of it there they’d be only too willing to give her if she wanted any. Why go to the trouble of sending her some?’

‘What they do with theirs is their concern,’ said Étamine. ‘This is mine and I want to give it to her as a present. Please take it with you.’

Swallow could scarcely refuse.

When she and her mother got back to Green Delights, Jia Huan and Jia Cong were with Bao-yu inside, having arrived on a formal visit a few moments previously to inquire about his health. Swallow turned to her mother.

‘Now, Mother: I’ll go in alone. There’s no need for you to come in with me.’

Her mother received this without a murmur. All her former wilfulness was quite forgotten and she stood docilely outside while Swallow entered.

Bao-yu, seeing her come in, realized that it was only to report the successful conclusion of her mission and nodded to her curtly to show that he had understood. There was therefore no need for her to say anything, and after standing silently for a few moments inside the doorway, she slipped out again, signalling with her eyes to Parfumée as she did so to follow her into the outer room. There she handed the packet to her and told her in an undertone what Étamine had asked her to say.

Bao-yu, having nothing whatever to talk to his visitors about, had been idly following this transaction out of the corner of his eye, and when Parfumée came in again, he asked her what it was that she was holding. Parfumée told him and handed him the packet. He praised Étamine’s thoughtfulness while opening it up to have a look.

Jia Huan craned forward and smelt the powder’s cool, delicious scent. Stooping down, he fished a sheet of paper from inside his boot.

‘Give us a bit, brother!’ he said, holding the paper out for Bao-yu to pour some in.

Bao-yu would have given him some, but Parfumée was unwilling that Étamine’s gift to her should be shared.

‘No, don’t take any of that,’ she said. ‘I’ll get some more for you from outside.’

Bao-yu, divining the reason for her reluctance, quickly did the packet up again.

‘Here you are. Hurry up and get some more then.’

Parfumée took the packet, and having stored it safely away in the room where she kept her things, looked in the drawer of her vanity-case for her own supply, only to find that the box she had kept it in was empty – why she could not imagine, because she was sure there had been some left in it that morning. But when she asked the others, of course, no one knew anything about it.

‘There’s no time to bother about that now,’ said Musk. ‘Obviously it must have been someone from this room. They must have found themselves short and “borrowed” yours. Give him something else. It doesn’t matter what: he’ll never know the difference. Anything to get rid of them, so that we can get on with our lunch!’

Following this advice, Parfumée made up a little packet of jasmine-scented face-powder and took it inside to the boys. Jia Huan, grinning broadly, stretched out his hand to receive it, but she threw it contemptuously on the kang and he had to stoop down to pick it up. When he had stowed it inside the breast of his jacket, he and Jia Cong finally took their leave.

With Jia Zheng permanently away and Lady Wang and the other ladies now also absent, Jia Huan had lately taken to staying away from school for several days at a time on the pretext that he was ill; he therefore felt no compunction in entering his mother’s courtyard during the daytime. He did so now, very pleased with himself, to look for Sunset, whom he found chatting with Aunt Zhao.

‘Look, I’ve brought you something nice,’ he said, going up to her, all smiles, and holding out the packet: ‘something for your face. You know you’re always saying how good rose-orris is for skin troubles – how much better than the silver powder you get from outside – well, have a look at this!’

Sunset opened the packet, took one look at its contents, and let out a hoot of laughter.

‘Who did you get this from?’

Jia Huan told her.

‘They’ve been having you on,’ said Sunset. ‘This stuff isn’t rose-orris, it’s jasmine face-powder.’

Jia Huan looked again. It did in fact have a slightly pinkish tinge, and when he sniffed it, he found that it had a sweet, almost sickly perfume, quite unlike the clean, fresh scent of the orris.

‘Well, anyway, it’s good stuff,’ he said. ‘Orris or this stuff, it’s all powder, isn’t it? You can keep it to use on your face. This is still better than anything you could buy from outside.’

Sunset put it away resignedly.

Aunt Zhao eyed her offspring scornfully.

‘You don’t think if they’d got anything really good they’d give it to you, do you? I’m not surprised she made a fool of you; I’m surprised you bothered to ask her for it. Take it back and throw it in her face, that’s what you ought to do. Now that the others are all either chasing around the countryside after this funeral or lying with their toes curled up in bed is just the moment for a good old row. Stir them all up a bit. Pay them back for some of the things they’ve done to us in the past. No one’s going to be bothered to dig a little thing like this up in two months’ time when they’re all back again. And even if they do, you’ve got a good excuse. Bao-yu’s your elder brother; you can’t do anything to offend him, I agree. But that doesn’t mean that you have to put up with what every little cat or dog of his chooses to do to you.’

Jia Huan hung his head.

‘It’s not worth a quarrel,’ said Sunset, defending him. ‘Much better just grin and bear it, whatever we think.’

‘Just stay out of this, will you?’ said Aunt Zhao. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you. He knows he’s in the right. It’s a golden opportunity to go and tell these little hussies exactly what he thinks of them.’ She pointed at Jia Huan scornfully. ‘Pah! Spineless creature! If ever I say a word out of place or give you the wrong thing by mistake, I get black looks from you soon enough! Oh yes, you can be very fierce with your own mother! But when some little chit of a girl makes a fool of you, you take it lying down. How can you expect the servants to respect you when you grow up if you always behave like this? Oh, you’re so useless, you make me sick!’

Shamed and angered by her words, yet still not daring to act upon them, Jia Huan made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

‘It’s all very well to talk, but you wouldn’t dare to go there any more than I would. You want me to go back there and have a row with them, don’t you? All right, suppose I do and they tell the school. I’m the one who’ll feel the pain when I get beaten, not you. You’re always stirring me up to do things; then, when I get beaten and sworn at, you just keep your head down and say nothing. This time you’re trying to stir me up to have a row with these girls. Well, if you’re not afraid of Tan-chun, why don’t you do it yourself? Then perhaps in future I might take a bit more notice of what you said.’

His words touched Aunt Zhao on the raw.

‘What?’ she screamed. ‘Me afraid of my own flesh and blood, of my own daughter that I once carried inside me? That’s a good story!’

She snatched up the packet of orris-powder from where Sunset had placed it and went rushing off in the direction of the Garden. Sunset, having found expostulation in vain, slipped off to another apartment to shelter from the storm. Jia Huan slunk off through the ornamental gate to play on his own outside.

As Aunt Zhao, still in a highly combustible state, went charging into the Garden, who should she run into but old Mamma Xia, that aunt of Swallow’s who was also the foster-mother and implacable enemy of Nénuphar. From Aunt Zhao’s livid face and bloodshot eyes it was evident to the old nannie that she was in a very nasty temper. Mamma Xia politely inquired where she was going.

‘Now even the little painted actresses who haven’t been with us more than a few days are discriminating against us. I could take it from anyone else, but to have little creatures like that putting you in your place – it’s more than flesh and blood can bear!’

As these sentiments, insofar as she could make sense of them, seemed very much in accord with her own, Mamma Xia asked her, with some interest, precisely what it was that had upset her. Aunt Zhao explained how Jia Huan had asked for rose-orris and been fobbed off with ordinary face-powder.

‘My dear Mrs Zhao,’ said Mamma Xia, ‘have you only now begun to realize what they are like? Why, what you have just told me is nothing! The other day they were even burning ghost money in here – and Bao-yu sticking up for them, if you please! If anyone else brings anything into the Garden, it’s all “unclean, unclean!” – there’s no end of a fuss. But ghost money, than which there’s nothing more unclean that I know of, that’s all right, apparently. You’re the most senior person after Her Ladyship, Mrs Zhao. I think you ought to put your foot down for once. I’m sure if you did, everyone would respect you for it. If you ask me, players is only trash anyway, so even if you upset them, there’s nothing much they can do about it. Let these two things, the powder and the ghost money, be your justification for making an example of them. I’ll support you with my evidence. Give them a taste of your authority now and you will find it that much easier to deal with other things later on. Even if the young mistresses don’t like it, they’re not going to side against you with riff-raff like these.’

Aunt Zhao’s resolve was strengthened by this encouragement.

‘I didn’t know about the ghost money,’ she said. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Mamma Xia did so, in great detail, concluding with a further incitement to action.

‘Go and have it out with them, Mrs Zhao! We’ll stand by you if there’s any trouble.’

These words were as music in Aunt Zhao’s ears. Emboldened by them, she marched off without more delay to Green Delights.

It chanced that Bao-yu was out when she arrived (he had heard that Dai-yu was visiting All-spice Court and gone off to join her there) and Parfumée was having lunch with Aroma and the other maids. The girls all rose to their feet as Aunt Zhao entered and politely invited her to join them.

‘Won’t you have some lunch, Mrs Zhao? Why are you in such a hurry?’

Ignoring the invitation, Aunt Zhao stepped forward, threw the powder she was carrying in Parfumée’s face and, with stabbing index finger for emphasis, began shouting at her abusively.

‘Little strumpet! You’re a bit of bought goods, that’s all you are. We paid down money and bought you, so that you could be trained to sing for our entertainment. Play-actors and prostitutes are the class of people you belong to; the lowest servant in this household is still a few steps above you. So what makes you think you have the right to go discriminating between one person and another? It’s no skin off your nose if Bao-yu wants to give something of his away to somebody: what business have you to try and stop him? I suppose you thought when you palmed that stuff off on Huan that he wouldn’t know the difference. Well, let me tell you: Master Huan is Bao-yu’s brother, whatever you may think of him, and that means he’s one of the masters, and there’s no cause for you to look down on him.’

Parfumée, never one to take things quietly, set up a howl of tearful protest.

‘I gave that stuff to him because I hadn’t got any orris and I was afraid if I told him I hadn’t got any he wouldn’t believe me. Anyway, it’s good powder. And suppose I have been trained as an actress, I’ve never played outside for money. I’m a little girl, not a trumpet or whatever it was you called me. And as for being “bought goods”, well, it wasn’t you who bought me. And anyway, look who’s talking! I thought all of us here were bought goods. I don’t know why you of all people would want to drag that up.’

‘Stop that at once!’ said Aroma, shocked, and tried to pull her out of the way. But Aunt Zhao, in speechless fury, had already advanced on Parfumée and dealt her a couple of resounding slaps on the head. Aroma expostulated.

‘She’s only a child, Mrs Zhao, you don’t want to put yourself on the same level. Leave it to us to deal with her.’

Parfumée was not to be struck with impunity and reacted to the assault with a fine display of histrionics, weeping, shouting and throwing herself about in all directions.

‘How dare you hit me, you horrible old woman! You should look at yourself in the mirror! Go on, hit me again then, hit me again! I don’t want to go on living!’

Lowering her head, she drove it into Aunt Zhao’s midriff, continuing, as she butted into her, to repeat her challenge. Several of the servants shouted at her and attempted to pull her off. Aroma would have done so too, but Sky-bright drew her to one side and advised her against joining them.

‘Leave them to it, Aroma. You and I don’t want to get mixed up in this. It’s the law of the jungle now: you hit me, I hit you. Heaven knows where it will end!’

The servants who had followed in Aunt Zhao’s wake, when they heard the rumpus inside, gave thanks to the Lord Buddha that justice was at last being done. Among them, the old women who bore grudges against the little actresses were particularly gratified to hear that Parfumée was being beaten.

The news travelled quickly. Nénuphar and Étamine, who had found a quiet corner of All-spice Court in which to be alone together, heard it when the two former ‘painted faces’ of their troupe, Xiang-yun’s Althée and Bao-qin’s Cardamome, burst in on them to enlist their support.

‘Come on, you two! If we let them bully Parfumée, we shall all of us suffer. It’s time to come out in the open and make a stand. Let’s show them a bit of spirit!’

The four of them were only children, full of righteous indignation for their friend. Without a moment’s reflection they rushed off in a body and went charging into Green Delights. Cardamome made first impact, and Aunt Zhao would have been swept off her feet had she not been simultaneously ringed round by the three others, who, with fists flailing, heads butting, and all emitting loud ‘boo-hoos’, pressed in upon her rear and sides. Skybright and the senior maids, though pretending concern and making half-hearted attempts to intervene, found it difficult not to laugh; but Aroma was genuinely distressed and dashed from one to another of them, dragging them away from Aunt Zhao. It was useless. As she pulled one off, another would dart in to replace her.

‘What’s the matter with you all?’ wailed Aroma. ‘If you’ve got a grievance, why can’t you discuss it like sensible human beings? You can’t go taking the law into your own hands like this. I never heard of such a thing!’

Aunt Zhao could only curse helplessly, Éitamine and Nénuphar held her firmly by each arm and Althée and Cardamome had her pinned between them with their heads.

‘Kill us!’ they kept shouting, ‘Kill us all four!’

Parfumée meanwhile lay stretched out corpselike on the ground, having cried herself into a swoon.

The little actresses might have remained locked in their grapple with Aunt Zhao indefinitely, but Skybright had already sent Swallow to bear word of what was happening to Tan-chun, and You-shi, Li Wan and Tan-chun, together with Patience and a number of female domestics, now arrived upon the scene and shouted to them peremptorily to release her.

Aunt Zhao was by now pop-eyed with anger and the veins stood out thickly on her forehead. They asked her how she came to be in such a predicament, but her reply, though long and voluble, was made almost incomprehensible by rage, and You-shi and Li Wan, unable to make anything of it, contented themselves with shouting some more at the actresses. Tan-chun, though, merely sighed.

‘This isn’t really very serious. You are too easily angered, Aunt. As a matter of fact there was something I wanted to discuss with you, but the maids didn’t seem to know where you had got to. Now it appears that you were in here, working yourself into a rage. Do come with us now.’

You-shi and Li Wan smilingly confirmed the invitation.

‘Yes, Mrs Zhao. Come with us to the office and we can discuss things with you there.’

Since she could scarcely object to being consulted, Aunt Zhao was constrained to go along with them, but even as she went she continued muttering angrily to herself until Tan-chun cut her short:

‘These girls are here for our amusement,’ Tan-chun said. ‘They are like pets. You can talk to them and play with them if you feel like it, or if you don’t, you can simply ignore them. It’s the same when they are naughty. Just as, when your puppy-dog bites you or your kitten scratches you, you can either ignore it or have it punished, so with these girls. If they do something to offend you, you can either let it pass, or, if you don’t feel able to, you can call in one of the stewardesses and have them punished. There is absolutely no need to go rushing off in person, shouting and hollering at them. It’s so undignified. And besides, it sets so bad an example. Look at Aunt Zhou. She doesn’t seem to suffer any of this disrespect you complain of and she isn’t always rushing off after people to have it out with them. If I were you, Aunt, I should go back to your room now and try to calm down a bit. And don’t go listening any more to those trouble-makers. There’s no reason why you should do other people’s work for them; you get no thanks for it; they merely laugh at you for being stupid. However angry you may feel now, try to be patient for a few days until Lady Wang gets back and we’ll see what we can do to get all this sorted out then.’

This dressing-down was effective, insofar as it left Aunt Zhao without a word to say, and she returned in silence to her room. As soon as she had gone, Tan-chun burst out angrily to the others.

‘You’d think she’d know better at her age. Why can’t she do anything to make people respect her? I mean, what a ridiculous thing to quarrel about! And what a way to behave! She will listen to absolutely anything anyone tells her. She has absolutely no judgement of her own. And those wretched old women take advantage of the fact to use her as their cat’s-paw.’

The more Tan-chun thought about it, the angrier she became. She ended up by ordering the women to make some inquiries and find out whose incitement it was that had goaded Aunt Zhao into action. The women went off obediently to investigate, but turned to each other with shrugs and smiles as they left the building.

‘Like looking for a needle on the ocean bed!’

And though they had Aunt Zhao’s women and all the women from the Garden up in front of them for questioning, not one of them would admit to knowing anything at all about it, and they were obliged to report back to Tan-chun that they had failed.

‘But we shall go on making inquiries, miss,’ they said. ‘If we find anything suspicious, we shall report it to you.’

Tan-chun’s anger had by this time subsided and she would have let the matter drop; but Artémisie, the little actress who had been assigned to her apartment, came to her privately to tell her that she could identify the culprit.

‘It was Mamma Xia,’ she said. ‘She hates us and she is always trying to get us into trouble. The other day she tried to get Nénuphar into trouble for burning spirit-money, but Bao-yu had asked her to burn it, and when he owned up, Mamma Xia hadn’t a leg to stand on. Today, when I was delivering those handkerchiefs for you, I noticed her and Mrs Zhao twittering away for ever such a long time together and when they saw me coming they moved out of the way to avoid me.’

It seemed highly probable that it was Mamma Xia who had done the inciting; but these little actresses were all closely in league together, Tan-chun reflected, and all of them were exceptionally mischievous: it would be too risky to act on the evidence of what one of them had said. She thanked Artémisie for her information, but inwardly decided to do nothing.

By an unlucky chance Mamma Xia had a granddaughter who worked in Tan-chun’s apartment and did various little errands for the maids, with all of whom she was popular. Her name was Cicada, but the maids all called her ‘Ciggy’. On this particular occasion Tan-chun had gone back to the ‘jobs room’ after lunch, leaving Ebony in charge of her apartment. Ebony now asked Ciggy to go to the Garden gatehouse and get one of the pages there to run out and buy her a sweetcake. Ciggy objected that she had just finished sweeping the courtyard and had a backache. She told Ebony to ask someone else.

‘There’s no one else I can ask,’ said Ebony. ‘I tell you what. If you’ll do this errand for me now, I’ll give you a piece of good advice that you can pass on to your grandma when you get there.’

And she proceeded to tell her about Artémisie’s denunciation.

‘Tell her to be on her guard.’

‘The little beast!’ said Ciggy, taking the money for the sweetcake. ‘She wants to join in too, does she? Wait till I tell my gran!’

And off she went to the back gate of the Garden.

It was a slack time now in the kitchen and the women, Mamma Xia among them, having for the time being finished with fetching and carrying, were sitting outside on the steps and gossiping. Ciggy asked one of them to go out and buy a hot fried sweetcake for her and then proceeded to give her grandmother an account, interlarded with much bad language of her own, of what Ebony had told her about Artémisie.

Mamma Xia, both angered and alarmed by what she heard, was all for going off straight away, having it out with the little actress, and protesting her innocence to Tan-chun; but Ciggy prevented her.

‘Don’t go, Gran! What can you say to them if you do go? How are you going to explain how you got to know about it? Once they start asking questions, you’ll be in the soup again. I’ve told you this to put you on your guard. You don’t have to do anything about it.’

Just then Parfumée peered in the gateway of the kitchen courtyard and called across to Mrs Liu, the cook, who was still banging about inside the kitchen.

‘Cookie, Master Bao says, for his vegetable dish this evening could he have something cold and vinegary again, please, only not so oily as last time?’

‘Very good,’ Cook Liu stood in her doorway and called back cheerfully. ‘Why should they send you about such a great, important matter? Come in and look around, if it’s not too dirty for you.’

Parfumgée had barely stepped into the courtyard when the woman to whom Ciggy had entrusted the money arrived back carrying Ebony’s hot fritter on a saucer.

‘Oo, lovely hot fritter! Give us a taste!’ said Parfumée jokingly.

‘That has been ordered and paid for by someone else,’ said Ciggy primly, as she took the saucer from the woman. ‘It is not for you.’

‘Do you fancy one, miss?’ Cook Liu asked Parfumée. ‘I’ve got one in here that I bought for our Fivey you can have if you like. It hasn’t been touched yet, so it’s quite clean.’

She brought the fried cake out on a saucer and handed it to Parfumée.

‘There you are. Now you wait there a moment and I’ll heat up a nice cup of tea for you to go with it.’

She went inside again to rake the top off the fire and heat some tea up in a skillet. But instead of waiting for her, Parfumée picked the fritter up from its saucer, went over to Ciggy with it, and held it under her nose for her to inspect.

‘Look! What’s that, then? Fritter. Who wants your mouldy fritter? I was only joking. I wouldn’t eat yours if you went down on your bended knees and begged me to!’

She began to crumble it up between her fingers and throw the pieces to the birds.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Liu!’ she called out in the direction of the kitchen. ‘I’ll buy two catties of these for you presently.’

Ciggy glared at her in outrage.

‘Old Thunder up there must be blind not to strike you dead,’ she said bitterly. ‘Either that, or he must be angry with me for something. Still, I can’t compete with you, can I! I haven’t got anyone to rush out and give me things, or trot around after me like a self-adopted slave, or chip in with a good word for me when there’s an argument.’

‘All right, young ladies, that’s enough!’ said the women on the steps. ‘Can’t you even see each other without having words?’

The more discerning of them, sensing that a storm was brewing and not wanting to get involved, had already begun slipping off elsewhere. But Ciggy had no stomach for a fight and went off, muttering angrily to herself, without further argument.

When the women had all gone, Cook Liu came bustling out of her kitchen for a private word with Parfumée.

‘That business we were talking about the other day – have you spoken to him about it yet?’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Parfumée. ‘I was going to remind him of it today, but that wretched Zhao woman came along and upset everything with her quarrelling. How’s Fivey? Did she drink any of that Essence of Roses I brought her the other day?’

‘She drank it all,’ said Cook Liu. ‘She loved it. She’d really like some more, to tell the truth, but she doesn’t like to ask.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Parfumée. ‘I can easily get her some more. I only have to ask for it.’

The object of Parfumée’s inquiry, who owed her strange name to the fact that she was the fifth of Old Liu’s grand-daughters, though only the daughter of a cook, was in both looks and intelligence a match for any of the senior maids – Patience, Aroma, Faithful or Nightingale – and it was only because of a weakly constitution that she was still, in her sixteenth year, without employment. Recently, however, observing how numerous the maids were in Bao-yu’s apartment and how light their duties were, and hearing that it was his intention to give them their freedom when they had finished service with him, her mother had conceived the ambition of getting her on the staff of Green Delights. Lack of a contact there had at first made this ambition seem unrealizable; but Cook Liu had previously worked at Pear Tree Court, where her cheerful and ungrudging service had won her golden opinions with the girls. They greatly preferred her to their own foster-mothers. And so when Parfumée moved into Green Delights, the cook had easily prevailed on her to tackle Bao-yu on her daughter’s behalf. Bao-yu had consented willingly, but the situation created by Xi-feng’s illness together with other more recent developments had so far prevented him from seeking higher approval for the appointment.

But we digress.

Bao-yu heard about the fracas created in his apartment by Aunt Zhao while he was at All-spice Court visiting the girls. Though deeply distressed on Parfumée’s behalf, he decided, after some hesitation, that intervention by him could only make matters worse, and resolved to stay where he was. He did so until word reached All-spice Court that Tan-chun had succeeded in getting Aunt Zhao out of the way. Returning then, he had formally reproved Parfumée for her belligerency and then sent her on an errand to the kitchen.

Parfumée now arrived back at Green Delights and reported on the fulfilment of her mission. She also told him that, if he still had any, Fivey would like some more of the Essence of Roses.

‘Yes, I think I’ve still got some,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Look, why don’t you give her all of it? I don’t drink it very often myself.’

He sent Aroma to fetch it. As there was not a great deal of it left, he told Parfumée that Fivey might as well keep the bottle. Parfumée went back to the kitchen again to give the bottle to Cook Liu.

When she got there, she found Fivey there as well. To give her ailing, cooped-up daughter a little treat, Cook Liu had brought her along with her that day when she went to work. The girl had just been taking a little walk in the environs of her mother’s kitchen and was now resting her feet in the kitchen and having a cup of tea. Mother and daughter, when they saw the glittering five-inch crystal bottle half-full of ruby liquid that Parfumée was carrying, assumed that it was some of Bao-yu’s West Ocean grape wine that she was bringing them.

‘Sit yourself down,’ said Cook Liu. ‘I’ll just fetch the mulling-pan and boil up some water to heat it in.’

Parfumée laughed.

‘That’s all there is, I’m afraid. He says you can keep the bottle.’

Fivey realized that the red liquid must be not grape wine but some more Essence of Roses, and thanked her effusively for her kindness. Parfumée asked her how she felt.

‘A bit livelier today,’ said Fivey. ‘That’s why I came in with Mother. I’ve been for a walk all around here, but there’s really not much to look at – just a lot of rocks and the backs of buildings. I haven’t seen anything that you could really call a view.’

‘Why don’t you go right inside?’ said Parfumée.

‘Because I won’t let her,’ her mother chipped in. ‘None of the young ladies in there knows her. If some inquisitive person were to stop her and start asking questions, she’d have a lot of trouble explaining what she was doing. Once you’ve got her a place in there, as you so kindly promised, I’m sure there will be plenty willing to show her around. She’ll be able to look around the Garden then until she’s sick of the sight of it!’

‘You don’t want to worry,’ said Parfumée. ‘I’d look after her.’

‘I’m sure you would, bless you!’ said the cook. ‘But folks like us have to be more careful.’

She poured Parfumée a cup of tea. Parfumée accepted her hospitality to the extent of using some of this as a mouth-wash before getting up to go.

‘My hands are a bit full at the moment,’ said Cook Liu. ‘Fivey will see you out.’

The two girls went out together. Having first ascertained that there was no one else about, Fivey impulsively took Parfumée by the hand:

‘Did you really ask him about that?’

‘Of course I did!’ said Parfumée. ‘I wouldn’t deceive you. I’ve found out that there are two vacancies that haven’t yet been filled: one of them is the place left by Crimson, for whom Mrs Lian still hasn’t found him a substitute; the other one is Trinket’s. If he asks for you, it will be only one out of those two places, so he will be perfectly within his rights. The only reason he hasn’t done so already is because Patience keeps telling Aroma that if we have any requests concerning either jobs or allowances to make, we’d be well advised to put them off for the time being. The fact is that Miss Tan is looking for someone to make an example of. She’s already made an example of Mrs Lian by turning down two or three of her requests in a row, and now she’s trying to pick on us. She hasn’t found an excuse for doing so yet, but she hasn’t given up trying. So if we go asking her about a thing like this now, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that she will say no; and once she’s turned it down, it will be very difficult to get that refusal reversed. Much better wait until the situation here has quietened down a bit – till Their Ladyships are back again and everyone is in a good mood. If he approaches the old girl then, she’ll give him anything he asks for, no matter what it is.’

‘I know,’ said Fivey, ‘but I’m too impatient to wait that long. I want that job now. In the first place it will make my mother happy. She’ll feel that all the trouble she has had in bringing me up has not been wasted. Secondly, the pay I shall earn will make things easier for them at home. And thirdly, if only I felt a bit more cheerful, as I shall do if I get that job, I do believe that this illness of mine would get better – and that would mean a great saving for my family on doctor’s fees and medicines.’

At that point Parfumée left her and continued on her way back alone. Fivey returned to the kitchen. She and her mother spoke warmly together of Parfumée’s kindness.

‘I’d never have thought anything like this would ever come our way,’ said Cook Liu. ‘Still, though it’s so precious, you can have too much of a good thing. You don’t want to overheat your blood. I think it would be rather a nice gesture if we were to pour a little of this off to give to someone else.’

Fivey asked her who she had in mind.

‘I was thinking of taking half a cupful to your uncle’s boy,’ said Cook Liu. ‘He’s been down with a fever this last day or two, and it’s just the sort of thing he would enjoy.’

Fivey made no reply and watched in silence while her mother decanted a small quantity of the red liquid into a teacup and then placed the bottle, after corking it up again, on a shelf of the kitchen cupboard.

‘I think if I were you I wouldn’t give him that,’ she said finally. There was a wry little smile on her face. ‘If anyone should ask you where it came from, we might find ourselves in trouble.’

‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ said her mother. ‘Surely we don’t have to be that careful? If you work as hard as I do all the year round, you are entitled to a few perks. No one is going to say that we stole it, surely?’

She sailed off cup in hand then to her brother’s, leaving Fivey alone in the kitchen. She found her nephew in bed. He and his parents were all three delighted when they learned what she had brought them. A cupful of cool water freshly drawn from the well was mixed with a little of the essence and handed to the sick boy to drink. He finished it at one draught and immediately declared that he felt better and that his head seemed somewhat clearer. The cup containing the remainder of the essence was covered with a square of paper and set on the table beside him.

While Cook Liu was still there, some of the sick boy’s workmates from the mansion called in to visit him. Among them was a young fellow called Qian Huai, related on his mother’s side to Aunt Zhao. His father worked in Accounts. Qian Huai’s own job was to accompany Jia Huan when he went to school. A bachelor and with money to spend, he had for long been an admirer of Fivey’s and in time past his parents had, at his insistence, made several approaches to Fivey’s parents through intermediaries asking for Fivey’s hand in marriage. Her parents were by no means averse to the match, but as Fivey herself, though without actually saying anything, made it perfectly plain by her behaviour that the idea was repugnant to her, they had not dared to accept. More recently, with talk of Fivey going into service in the Garden, they had been less inclined than ever to look on Qian Huai as a possible son-in-law, for it now seemed probable that after four or five years’ service as a maid, Fivey would be at liberty to marry someone of their own choice from outside. Qian Huai’s parents, too, when they saw the way things stood, were inclined to let the matter drop.

Not so Qian Huai, however. Wounded in his amour propre by Fivey’s rejection, he made a fierce vow that he would pursue her relentlessly, with all the force and guile at his command, until he had succeeded in making her his wife.

It was a surprise to him, needless to say, to call with the other pages on his sick workmate and find Fivey’s mother at the bedside. Cook Liu was equally flustered on recognizing Qian Huai among the little group of visitors and got up to go, on the pretext of being busy.

‘Do just stay for a cup of tea,’ said her brother and sister-in-law. ‘It was so kind of you to think of him.’

‘I expect they’ll be wanting their dinner inside now,’ said Cook Liu. ‘I’ll come and see him again when I’m not so busy.’

The sister-in-law opened a drawer and took out a small paper packet from it as they were leaving. Outside, at the corner by the gate, she pressed it, smilingly, into Cook Liu’s hand.

‘This is something your brother brought back yesterday, from the gate. He was five days on duty there and not a single tip all the time. Then suddenly yesterday some high-up from Canton came here on a visit and left three little baskets of this white stuff– “Lycoperdon Snow” it’s called – two for the masters and one for the people on the gate. This here is your brother’s share of it. I opened it last night to have a look. It’s beautiful stuff – so white and fine. They say that a little of it taken every morning mixed with breast-milk is wonderful for building up the body. If you can’t get breast-milk, you can use cow’s milk, or even plain boiled water. Of course, we immediately thought of your Fivey; it would be just the thing for her. I sent our little maid round with some this morning, but she said your door was locked. She said you must have taken Fivey in with you. I would have gone in then to see her and given it to her myself; but then I thought that with the mistresses away they’re much stricter about letting people in and out now and they’d be sure to ask what business I had going inside. And besides, this last day or two we’ve heard rumours of such terrible goings-on in there, I should be afraid of getting mixed up in something. So it’s a good job you came today, sister-in-law; you’ll be able to take the packet to her yourself.’

Cook Liu thanked her and left. At the corner gate of the Garden her way was blocked by a grinning page.

‘Where have you been, missus? There have been two or three calls from inside asking for you. Me and the others have been looking for you all over the place. Where have you just come from? You don’t live out in this direction. I bet you’ve been up to something!’

‘Cheeky little monkey!’ said the cook.

The rest of their exchange is recorded in the following chapter.

Chapter 61

Bao-yu owns up to a crime he did not commit And Patience bends authority in order that the innocent may be spared

Cook Liu was trying to get back into the Garden, but the bantering page-boy delayed her.

‘You don’t live in this direction. Naughty old Auntie! What have you been up to?’

‘“Auntie” is it?’ said Cook Liu, laughing. ‘Cheeky little monkey! If your “auntie” has got herself a fancy man, that means you have a new uncle, so what are you worrying about? You open that gate quickly, my lad, and let me in, or I’ll take hold of you by that little po-cover of yours and pull your hair out!’

‘If I let you in, promise you’ll pinch a few apricots for me,’ said the boy, ‘to make up for having kept me waiting so long. Mind you don’t forget, now, or next time you want to nip out in the middle of the night for a bottle of wine or some oil, I’ll not open for you. I’ll just let you stand there shouting and not even answer you.’

‘You must be mad!’ said the cook. ‘We can’t do that sort of thing any more now. Nowadays it’s all divided up among the garden-women; and there isn’t one of them, either, that wouldn’t just as soon scratch your eyes out as look at you. You only have to walk under one of the fruit-trees and they’re watching you like hawks. Fat chance I should have of picking any of the fruit for you! Only yesterday I was walking underneath a plum-tree and raised my hand to drive a bee away that was buzzing in front of my face. One of your old aunties happened to see me, but as she was quite a long way off, she couldn’t quite make out what I was doing. She thought I was picking the plums. Oh, you should have heard her shout! “Don’t take them! We haven’t offered the first-fruits yet. No one must have any of those plums until Their Ladyships have got back and made the offerings. You’ll get your share in time.” I suppose she thought I had a craving and couldn’t wait! I’m afraid I wasn’t very polite. I gave her a piece of my mind. You ask one of your old aunties if you want some fruit, my boy, it’s no good asking me. You asking me for fruit is like the granary rat asking the crow for corn: Have asking Have-not!’

‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ said the boy sarcastically. ‘If you can’t get me any, you can’t; there’s no need to go on about it so. I suppose you think you won’t be needing my services any more; but you will. When your Fivey gets her job inside, you’re going to need my services more than ever.’

‘Whatever rubbish will the boy come out with next?’ said the cook. ‘What job are you talking about?’

‘It’s no good pretending,’ the boy crowed. ‘I know. You needn’t think you’re the only one with contacts inside. I’ve got my contacts too. I may be all the time working here outside, but I’ve got two girl cousins inside who keep me informed. There’s nothing much going on inside there that I don’t know about.’

At that point in their exchange they were interrupted by an old woman’s voice from within:

‘Come on, you little monkey, you let Mrs Liu in this minute! If she doesn’t come in directly, they won’t get their dinners in time.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m coming!’

Cook Liu brushed past the boy and, pushing the gate open for herself, went hurrying back to the kitchen. Several of her assistants were waiting there already. They had been standing about doing nothing, none of them having dared to take the initiative without her.

‘Where’s Fivey gone?’ she asked them.

‘She just this minute went off to look for her cousins in the tea-room,’ they said.

Cook Liu put the packet of Lycoperdon Snow somewhere to give to her daughter later and began making up the food-boxes for the different apartments. While she was engaged in this work, Ying-chun’s little maid Lotus arrived with a message from Chess.

‘Chess says for dinner tonight she wants a bowl of eggcustard, lightly done.’

‘That’s a bit of a luxury just now,’ said the cook. ‘I don’t know why it is, but for some reason hen’s eggs seem to be in very short supply this year. Ten cash each they’re charging for them at the moment, and even then you’re lucky if you can find any. The other day, when they were making up a present for one of Her Ladyship’s relations that had just had a baby, there were four or five of our buyers out scouring the markets for eggs. They had no end of a job getting together two thousand. So you can imagine what it must be like for me. Tell her to ask for eggs some other time.’

‘The other day when she wanted bean-curd, you gave me some that was rancid,’ said Lotus, ‘and I got a telling-off for it. Now she wants eggs and you say you haven’t got any. I bet I could find some here if I looked.’

She stepped over to the food-container and took the lid off. Among the other things revealed was a little cache of some ten or a dozen eggs.

‘There you are, what are they then?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you terrible? The food we eat is all paid for, I don’t know why you’re so grudging with it. It isn’t as if you’d laid the eggs yourself!’

‘I’ll give you laying eggs, my girl! If anyone lays eggs around here, it’ll be your mother! Those are the only eggs I’ve got left and I’ve been saving them up to use as garnishing on other dishes. Even then I’ll only use them if the young mistresses ask for them specially. I need to have a few eggs by me in case of emergency. What am I going to do if one of the mistresses asks for some eggs and you lot have already eaten them all? “What?” she’ll say. “No eggs? Not even any eggs?” You people lead such soft, sheltered lives. All you’ve got to do is stretch your hands out for washing-water and your mouths open for food. You think eggs are the commonest things in the world, you don’t realize there can be such things as shortages. Never mind eggs, the day may yet come when there’s not even a corn-stalk to be had. My advice to you girls is to try and make do with what you’re given. After all, you get the best quality white rice, and chicken and duck to eat every day. It’s too much pampering that causes this passion for variety: eggs one day, bean-curd the next, fried pickled turnips in gluten batter… It’s all very well saying you want something different, but I’m afraid it won’t do. If each lot wants something different, that’s ten different dishes I’ve got to prepare. I might just as well stop catering for the young mistresses altogether and do nothing but cook for you girls!’

Lotus went red and shouted angrily back at her.

‘It’s not true that we’re always asking for something different. This rigmarole of yours is quite uncalled for. Anyway, it’s your job to give us what we want. If that isn’t your job, I’d like to know what is. You were obliging enough to Swallow the other day, when she came to say that Skybright wanted a dish of artemisia shoots. “With pork or with chicken?” you asked her. And when Swallow said Skybright didn’t eat meat, she’d have it with wheat gluten, only not too much oil, “Oh,” you said, “how stupid of me! I’d quite forgotten she was a vegetarian.” You scurried off to wash your hands first before you cooked it, and when you’d cooked it, you carried it all the way there for her yourself, just like a little dog that runs wagging its tail to its master. Why you should pick on me to make an example of in front of all these people, I do not know.’

‘Holy name!’ said Cook Liu. ‘These people here will be my witness. Whenever anyone from one of the other apartments, whether mistress or maid, asks me for a special order – and I’m not just talking about that occasion you mentioned, I’m talking about ever since this kitchen here first started – they invariably offer me something to cover the extra cost. Whether I have to buy anything extra or not, it’s a nice gesture and I appreciate it. Some people think that as I only have the young ladies to cater for, I must make a lot out of it; but if anyone took the trouble to sit down and work it out, they’d get a shock. Between forty and fifty people I have to cater for, counting both mistresses and maids. And do you know what my daily allowance is? Two chickens, two ducks, ten catties of pork and a thousand cash worth of vegetables. You try managing on that! I can barely make it stretch to two meals a day provided everyone sticks to the regular menu; but if I’m going to have one person ordering one thing and one person ordering another, turning down the food I’ve bought for them and expecting me to buy other materials to make up their orders, my allowance simply won’t stretch to it. If that’s the way you want it, you’ll just have to ask Her Ladyship to give you all bigger allowances; then we can do what they do in the main kitchen for Her Old Ladyship’s meals: have a blackboard with the names of all the dishes under the sun chalked up on it and work through them one by one, having a different dish every day. Then you could settle with me for what you’d eaten at the end of each month. A week or two ago Miss Tan and Miss Bao suddenly thought they’d fancy a dish of salted bean-sprouts and Miss Tan sent one of the girls over with five hundred cash to ask me if I would prepare it for them. I laughed. “They’d never eat five hundred cash worth,” I said, “not if they had bellies like the Laughing Buddha. Twenty or thirty cash would be ample.” I sent the money back to her, but she wouldn’t take it – said I should keep it to buy myself a drink with. “Now that the kitchen’s inside,” she said, “I expect you often have people coming round and asking you for favours.” She said, “I know it’s hard for you to refuse them, but even salt and soy sauce cost something, and we don’t want you to end up out of pocket. Let’s call this a payment to make up for some of the extras that other people have had out of you.” Now there’s a kind, understanding young lady! I praise the Lord in my heart for a young lady like that! Too bad that Mrs Zhao got to hear about it. She was furious, of course: thought I was doing far too well out of it. And sure enough she sent one of her little maids round less than ten days later asking for this and asking for that. I couldn’t help laughing. You’re just the same. I suppose you’ve taken a leaf out of her book. Well, it’s no good. My allowance just won’t stretch to it.’

Just then another messenger arrived from Chess to find out what had become of Lotus.

‘What’s the matter?’ the messenger asked her. ‘Have you taken root or something? Why don’t you come back?’

Lotus flounced off angrily after the messenger. The report that she gave when she got back was so highly embellished that Chess could hardly fail to be incensed by it. She was unable to do anything about it for the time being, because she was in the middle of serving Ying-chun her dinner; but as soon as Ying-chun’s meal was over, she hurried off to the kitchen, taking several of the junior maids with her.

She arrived as the kitchen staff were having-their own dinner. The women, to whom it was obvious that some kind of mischief was imminent, rose to their feet with nervous smiles on their faces and invited her to sit with them. Ignoring the women, she issued a brusque command to her minions:

‘Right! Boxes, bins, cupboards – wherever the food’s kept – throw it all out! Better the dogs eat it than these swindlers have it all!’

The young maids, needing no second bidding, threw themselves with great gusto into the work of ransacking the kitchen, while the women made vain efforts to restrain them and pleaded with Chess to call them off.

‘You don’t want to believe everything those young girls tell you, miss. Mrs Liu would never dare offend you, she knows it’s more than her job is worth. She did say that eggs are hard to come by lately, it’s true; but we told her that it was silly of her to take that line, and that if you say you want something, it’s up to her to find some means of getting it for you, whatever it is. That’s what we told her. She’d already admitted that she was in the wrong and put a basin of eggs in the steamer before you arrived. Look on the stove, if you don’t believe us.’

Chess’s anger subsided somewhat under these blandishments and the young maids were persuaded, albeit reluctantly, to discontinue their pillage. Chess continued to grumble for a bit and make unflattering remarks about the cook, but was eventually persuaded to return, while Cook Liu, with much banging of pots and pans and indignant muttering, set about making her a custard. When this was in due course delivered to her, Chess promptly emptied it on the ground, but the woman who had taken it prudently refrained from reporting this fact on her return for fear of provoking further unpleasantness.

When Fivey returned to the kitchen, her mother gave her some soup and a half a bowlful of congee and told her about the Lycoperdon Snow. Fivey, resolving to share the latter with her friend and benefactress Parfumée, wrapped half of it up in a separate sheet of paper and, having waited until it was dusk, when there were not many people about, made her way to Green Delights, keeping to the trees as much as possible, so that no one should see her. She managed to get as far as the gate of the courtyard without being stopped by anyone, but, not daring to go inside, retreated to the cover of some rose bushes and lurked there until someone should come out.

Fortunately she did not have long to wait. After about the time it would take to drink a cup of tea Swallow came out of the gate and Fivey stepped out of the bushes and called to her to stop. Swallow could not at first make out who it was and had to go up close and scrutinize her before asking what she wanted.

‘Will you tell Parfumée to come out for a minute, please?’ said Fivey. ‘I want to have a word with her.’

Swallow laughed softly.

‘You’re too impatient. Your business is sure to be settled within the next ten days, whatever you do. It’s silly to keep on asking. Anyway, she’s just gone out to the front, so you’ll have to wait a bit. But perhaps it would be better if you gave me a message to pass on to her. If you wait till she comes back, you might find yourself inside still when they shut the gate.’

Fivey handed her the packet.

‘This stuff is Lycoperdon Snow…’

She went on to explain what its properties were and how it was to be taken.

‘I’ve just been given some and I want to share it with her. Would you mind giving it to her for me, please?’

Leaving the packet in Swallow’s hands, she turned and began swiftly making her way back again. She had just got as far as the part of the Garden bordering Flowery Harbour when she saw Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife at the head of a party of stewardesses coming towards her from the opposite direction. Concealment was impossible; there was nothing for it but to walk straight up to them and greet them.

‘What are you doing, running around like this?’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife. ‘I thought you were supposed to be ill.’

Fivey forced herself to smile.

‘I’ve been a bit better this last day of two, so Mother brought me into the Garden with her for a change of air. I’ve just been to Green Delights for her, to deliver something.’

‘That can’t be right,’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife. ‘I saw your mother go out of the Garden just now; that’s why I shut the gate. If she’d really sent you to Green Delights, why didn’t she tell me you were still inside? Why did she go out and let me lock the gate without saying anything? You must be lying.’

Fivey was momentarily at a loss for a reply.

‘Actually she told me this morning but I forgot,’ she stammered. ‘I only just now remembered. Probably she didn’t say anything about my being in here because she thought I’d already gone home.’

Observing her confusion and the halting nature of her reply, Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife remembered that Silver had lately reported some things missing from Lady Wang’s apartment which none of the other maids would admit to having taken and wondered if Fivey might be the thief. It was unfortunate for Fivey that Ciggy and Lotus, together with a number of older servants, should have arrived on the scene at that moment and helped to confirm her suspicion.

‘Give her a good grilling, Mrs Lin!’ said one of these new arrivals. ‘She’s been sneaking to and fro all over the place this last day or two. I don’t know what she’s been up to, but she’s certainly been up to something.’

‘Yes,’ said Ciggy, ‘and Silver told me yesterday that when they opened that cupboard in Her Ladyship’s side room the other day they found a whole lot of things missing. They noticed there was a bottle short when Mrs Lian sent Patience over for some Essence of Roses, otherwise they’d never have thought of looking.’

‘Oh?’ said Lotus with a pleased-looking smirk. ‘I didn’t know about that. As a matter of fact I’ve seen a bottle of Essence of Roses somewhere today.’

‘Where?’ Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife asked eagerly. Ever since the bottle from Lady Wang’s cupboard had been found missing, Xi-feng had been sending Patience round daily to inquire about the progress of her investigations and she was under great pressure to discover the thief.

‘In her mother’s kitchen,’ said Lotus.

Lanterns were lit and the little party hurried off to investigate, Fivey protesting anxiously as they went:

‘But that little bottle came from Master Bao’s room. It was given to me by Parfumée.’

‘Parfumy!’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife contemptuously. ‘If we find the evidence in the kitchen, I shall have to report it, and that’s that. It will be up to you to explain yourself to the mistresses if you can.’

By now they had reached the kitchen and some of them, led by Lotus, went inside to look. They came out almost immediately with the bottle. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, thinking that there might be other stolen articles in the kitchen, ordered a thorough search, in the course of which the packet of lycoperdon was discovered. Taking this and the rose essence as evidence, they now led Fivey off to face Li Wan and Tan-chun.

But Li Wan would not see them. Jia Lan was ill, and she was too busy looking after him to have time for household business. They should see Miss Tan about it, she said.

Tan-chun was not in the office, having already returned to her own apartment. Off they all trooped then to Tan-chun’s place, where one of their number went inside to announce their business. The maids were all in the courtyard enjoying the cool evening air. Tan-chun was inside, washing her hair, they said. Scribe went indoors to report. It seemed an age before she re-emerged.

‘I told Miss Tan. She said you’d better find Patience and ask her to see Mrs Lian about it.’

So off they went once more, this time to Wang Xi-feng’s place, where they told their business to Patience. Patience, on going inside to report, found that her mistress had just gone to bed. Xi-feng heard her through, after which she gave judgement summarily as follows:

‘Give the mother forty strokes, turn her out of the Garden, and make sure that she is never employed inside the Inner Gate again. Give Fivey forty strokes too and pack her off to the grange. They can either sell her or marry her to one of the hands.’

Patience relayed this verdict, word for word, to Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and the others waiting outside. Fivey, shocked and weeping, threw herself on her knees at Patience’s feet and explained to her how Parfumée had given her the rose essence as a present.

‘We can clear that up easily enough,’ said Patience. ‘All we’ve got to do is wait until we can ask Parfumée tomorrow to find out whether she gave it to you or not. But what about this lycoperdon stuff? That was brought here as a present for Their Ladyships. No one had the right to touch that before Their Ladyships had seen it.’

Fivey explained that the packet of powder came not from Lady Wang’s store but from her uncle’s share of the surplus that had been given as a douceur to the gate-people.

‘That puts you in the clear then,’ said Patience, smiling. ‘It’s beginning to look as if you are wearing the hat for someone else.’ She turned to Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife. ‘It’s too late to do anything about this now. Mrs Lian has just taken her medicine and gone to bed; I can’t go pestering her about a little thing like this at this time of night. You’d better hand her over to the night watch and tell them to look after her until the morning. I’ll explain it all to Mrs Lian tomorrow, and we’ll see what we can do.’

Lacking the confidence to dispute this countermanding by Patience of her mistress’s orders, Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife conducted Fivey outside and handed her into the custody of the watch before continuing about her own business.

Though still unbound, Fivey was unable to move freely and was obliged to stay where she was put and listen to the ill-natured comments of the old women. Some of them, assuming as a matter of course that she was guilty, rebuked her for her misconduct; others complained of the trouble that she was causing them.

‘As if we haven’t got work enough already, they have to give us this thief to mind,’ they grumbled. ‘If she does herself an injury or gives us the slip while we’re not looking, we shall get into trouble!’

And those who in the past had got on badly with her mother rejoiced in the daughter’s discomfiture and lost no opportunity of taunting and abusing her.

Poor Fivey! Her heart was full of the injustice of it, but there was no one to pour out her troubles to. The hardships of that night were doubly distressing to a person of her weak and ailing constitution: no one to give her tea or even a cup of water when she was thirsty, no pillow or bedding for her to lie on – even if she had felt like sleeping. The wretched girl spent the whole night in almost continuous weeping.

The enemies of Fivey and her mother, disappointed that the sentence could not be carried out on them immediately and fearful that the morrow might bring some remission, rose up next morning at crack of dawn and went secretly to Patience, hoping, by means of bribes and flattery, to buy her over. They extolled her resoluteness and drew her attention to various past misdemeanours of Cook Liu in order to strengthen the evidence against her. Patience accepted their presents, listened politely to their advice, and as soon as they had gone, slipped quietly over to Green Delights and asked Aroma whether Parfumée had in fact given some Essence of Roses to Fivey.

‘I certainly gave some to Parfumée,’ said Aroma, ‘but whether or not she passed it on to someone else, I couldn’t say.’

She called in Parfumée to ask her. Parfumée, in some alarm, at once confirmed that she had given the bottle to Fivey and went off to tell Bao-yu what had happened. Bao-yu was as shocked as she was.

‘The Essence of Roses is no problem,’ he said; ‘but what about the Lycoperdon Snow? I’m sure what she told them about it was the truth, but if it gets known that her uncle took it while on duty, then he’s going to get into trouble – which seems a rather poor exchange for his kindness.’

He thought he had better see Patience himself and point this out to her.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘the Essence of Roses can be accounted for easily enough, but that Lycoperdon Snow business still looks a bit fishy. Why don’t you be a nice, kind girl, Patience, and tell them that the Lycoperdon Snow was given to her by Parfumée as well? Then that disposes of the whole affair.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said Patience, smiling, ‘but she told everyone last night that her uncle gave it to her. How can she now make out that she got it from you? And apart from that, don’t forget that the bottle of Essence of Roses from Her Ladyship’s room has still to be accounted for. If this isn’t it, where are they going to look for it? It’s not very likely that anyone else will own up to having taken it.’

Skybright stepped over at this point to join in the discussion.

‘The Essence of Roses from Her Ladyship’s place must have been stolen by Sunset to give to young Huan. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. I don’t understand why you’re all making such a mystery of it.’

‘I know that as well as you do,’ said Patience, ‘but it’s not so simple. Silver, who was so worried about finding that bottle missing that she was in tears, did go, very quietly and nicely, and ask Sunset if she had taken it, and if Sunset had had the grace to say ‘yes’, Silver herself would have done nothing, and I’m quite sure that no one else would have made an issue of it. Who’s going to stir up trouble about a little thing like that? But unfortunately not only would Sunset not admit to having taken it, but she even had the gall to accuse Silver of taking it herself. The two of them made such a hullabaloo between them that soon everyone in the household had heard about it. By that stage I couldn’t ignore the matter any longer, even if I’d wanted to. I had to investigate it. And the first thing I found, of course, was that the one doing all the accusing was actually the thief. But without any evidence, there was nothing much I could do.’

‘I can take responsibility for that too,’ said Bao-yu. ‘You can tell them I stole the bottle from Her Ladyship’s room to give the girls a scare. Now everything is accounted for.’

‘No doubt it’s an act of merit to clear someone else of suspicion,’ said Aroma, ‘but Her Ladyship won’t be very pleased when she hears. She’ll say you’ve been up to your old childish tricks again.’

‘Oh, that’s of no consequence,’ said Patience. ‘We could of course clear this matter up quite easily by looking for the stolen bottle in Mrs Zhao’s room. The only reason I hesitate to do that is because I’m afraid it would make things difficult for a certain person whose feelings I do care about very much. I know she would be distressed, and the last thing I want to do is “damage the jade vase while trying to hit the mouse”.’

She held three fingers up as she said this to indicate that it was Tan-chun she was referring to. Aroma and the rest nodded in agreement.

‘That’s true. Perhaps it would be better if Bao-yu took all the blame.’

‘Yes,’ said Patience, ‘but at the same time I think we ought to call Sunset and Silver here and get this matter properly sorted out. We don’t want whoever it is to think she can get away with it. If we do nothing, she’s sure to think it’s because we haven’t the wit to find out rather than that it’s for the reason I’ve just said, and she’ll think she can go on stealing things with impunity.’

This being agreed on, Patience sent someone to call them over.

‘Well, you can stop worrying now, you two,’ she said when they had arrived. ‘They think they’ve found the thief.’

‘Where is she?’ said Silver.

‘At the moment she’s in Mrs Lian’s room being questioned,’ said Patience. ‘She’s admitted taking everything they’ve asked her about. I happen to know myself that she didn’t take them and is only confessing because she’s frightened. Master Bao can’t bear the idea of an innocent person suffering and has already agreed to take responsibility for some of them. As regards the rest, I could tell them who the real thief is, but there are certain difficulties. One is that the real thief is a very good friend of mine. The other is that the receiver of stolen goods, who is a pretty poor specimen, is closely related to a very nice person who would be very much upset if all of this were to come into the open. It looks as if I shall have to ask Master Bao to take responsibility for the whole lot, so that everyone is clear of suspicion. Before I do that, however, there’s something I should like to be clear about first. Can I be sure, if I do ask him to do us this favour, that everyone is going to be a bit more careful in future? Because if not, then rather than stand by and see an innocent person suffer, I shall have to tell all I know to Mrs Lian.’

A blush had overspread Sunset’s face while Patience was saying this. Her natural decency suddenly getting the better of her compelled her now to speak.

‘Don’t worry, Patience. There’s no need for any innocent person to suffer and there’s no need for that other person you mentioned to be upset. I stole those things. It was because Mrs Zhao kept on at me to take them. I stole them to give to Huan. Even when Her Ladyship was here I often used to steal things for him, so that he could give them away to his friends. I thought that the fuss made when they found out that things were missing would die down in a day or two. I can’t stand by and let an innocent person take the blame. You’ll have to take me with you to Mrs Lian and let me make a clean breast of it.’

Her courage took all of them by surprise.

‘You’re a good sort, Sunset, I always knew you were,’ said Bao-yu admiringly, ‘but there’s really no need for you to tell her. All I’ve got to do is say that I stole those things for a lark, to give you all a scare, and that now there’s been all this fuss about them, I feel I ought to own up. There’s only one thing, though. I really must ask you girls to be more careful in future, for all our sakes.’

‘I did it,’ said Sunset, ‘it’s up to me to face the music.’

Patience and Aroma disagreed.

‘That’s not the way to look at it at all. If you confess, they’re sure to worm something out about Mrs Zhao, and that will upset Miss Tan again when she gets to hear about it. You’d much better let Master Bao accept responsibility, so that everyone is cleared. Nobody except the few of us here knows the truth, so it’s terribly easy for him to do this. But as Master Bao says, you really will have to be more careful in future. If you must take anything, at least wait until Her Ladyship is here. When she is back, you can give the whole room away if you like, because then we shan’t be involved!’

Sunset hung her head and pondered for some moments before finally agreeing to go along with this.

When it was settled exactly what they should do, Patience went with Parfumée and the two maids from Lady Wang’s apartment to the watch-room, called out Fivey, and quietly instructed her to say that the Lycoperdon Snow as well as the Essence of Roses had been given to her by Parfumée. Fivey was deeply grateful. Patience next took Fivey with her to Wang Xi-feng’s place, where Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and her helpers had already been waiting for some time with Fivey’s mother in their custody.

‘I brought her here first thing,’ Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife told Patience in reference to her prisoner. ‘As that left no one to get the lunch ready, I put Qin Xian’s wife temporarily in charge, so that the young ladies should get their meal on time.’

‘Who is Qin Xian’s wife?’ said Patience. ‘I don’t think I know her.’

‘She does night duty in the south corner of the Garden. She doesn’t do anything in the daytime: that’s probably why you don’t know her. Very high cheek-bones and big round eyes. She’s a very clean, lively little body.’

‘Yes, of course you know her, Patience,’ said Silver. ‘She’s the auntie of Miss Ying’s maid, Chess. Chess’s father works for Sir She, but her uncle and auntie work on this side of the mansion with us.’

Patience remembered with a laugh.

‘Oh, that’s who you’ve chosen! If you’d told me that, I should have known who you meant.’ She laughed again. ‘You’ve been a bit too quick with your appointment. It’s all cleared up now, this business. The waters have gone down and we can see the rocks. We know now who the real thief was who stole that stuff from Her Ladyship’s room. It was Bao-yu. He went round to Her Ladyship’s apartment some days ago and asked Silver and Sunset for something and just for a tease the silly girls said he couldn’t have it, because they couldn’t give him anything while Her Ladyship was away. So he simply slipped in later on when they weren’t there and helped himself. When these two found the things missing, they were scared out of their wits. But as soon as Bao-yu heard that someone else had been accused of taking the things, he told me everything. He even brought them round to show me, so that I could see they exactly corresponded with what the girls had told me was missing. As regards the Lycoperdon Snow, that was something that Bao-yu had got from outside. He’s been giving it away to all kinds of people – not only in the Garden: one or two of the old nannies begged some off him to give to their relations outside and they have given it to other people as presents; and Aroma gave some of hers to Parfumée and that lot and they’ve been passing the stuff to and fro between themselves. So you see, it’s all over the place. The two baskets that were left in the jobs room the other day for Their Ladyships are still untouched. The seals on them haven’t been broken. So as far as that’s concerned, there are no grounds for a charge either. If you’ll wait here a few moments longer, I’m just going in to tell Mrs Lian about this and we’ll see what she says.’

Patience then went into the bedroom and repeated almost verbatim to Xi-feng what she had just been telling Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife.

‘That’s as may be,’ said Xi-feng when she had finished; ‘but we all know how ready Bao-yu is to cover up for other people. Someone only has to go to him with a hard-luck story – especially if there’s a bit of flattery thrown in with it – and he’ll own up to anything in order to get them off. If we believe him now, how are we going to deal with more serious cases later on? I think this needs going into more carefully. I think you ought to get hold of those girls from Her Ladyship’s apartment and – well, I wouldn’t say torture them exactly, but you could get them to kneel in the sun on broken china all day without anything to eat or drink. If one day doesn’t make them confess, just go on day after day until they do. They’re sure to give in sooner or later, even if they’re made of iron.’

‘And as for that Liu woman,’ she went on, ‘you know what they say. When flies gather on an egg, it’s generally a sign that there’s a crack in it. She may not have stolen anything in this instance, but I suspect she’s no better than she should be for all these people to be complaining about her. We’ll let her off the flogging, of course, but I still think we ought to dismiss her. Even in the Emperor’s court people get punished for what they call “guilt by association”, so she can’t complain if we sack her merely on suspicion.’

‘Yes, but why bother?’ said Patience. ‘They say that where mercy is possible, mercy should be shown. What better opportunity than this could you have of showing yourself merciful for once? Look at all the trouble you give yourself on account of these people, and they aren’t even your own household: it’s Lady Xing’s household that you really belong to. And where does it all get you, at the end of the day? All you do is build up a lot of resentment against yourself and turn a lot of nasty, spiteful people into your enemies. A person in your delicate health can’t afford to make enemies. Think of all the time it took you to conceive a man-child – and then to lose it after carrying it inside you for six or seven months! How do we know that that wasn’t brought on by too much worrying about this sort of thing? I think you ought to start straight away taking things a bit easier. Close your eyes to things a bit oftener. “What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve”!’

Patience’s little homily quickly won Xi-feng to a better humour.

‘All right,’ she said, laughing. ‘Do as you wish. I’m not going to get myself worked up about it.’

‘Now you’re talking sensibly,’ said Patience happily, and going out of the bedroom, proceeded to dispose of the business outside in the way she had all along intended to.

But more of that in the next chapter.

Chapter 62

A tipsy Xiang-yun sleeps on a peony-petal pillow And a grateful Caltrop unfastens ber pomegranate skirt

‘It’s the sign of a really thriving household,’ said Patience, ‘that their big troubles turn into little ones and their little ones into nothing at all. To make a great song and dance over a trifle like this would be plain ridiculous. You can take them both back to the kitchen. The mother is to keep her job. Qin Xian’s wife will have to go back where she came from. There is to be no further mention of this matter. Let there be no slackening in the daily inspection of the Garden, though. That’s most important.’

As she turned to go, Cook Liu and her daughter stepped quickly forwards and kotowed their thanks. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife then conducted them back to the Garden, after which she reported to Li Wan and Tan-chun on what had been decided. Both expressed satisfaction that the matter had resolved itself without further trouble.

The victory that had been gained by Chess and her faction was thus an empty one, and Qin Xian’s wife, that aunt of Chess’s whose installation in the kitchen had been the result of long and patient scheming, enjoyed only the briefest moment of triumph in her new position. Beginning in a great bustle with a general stock-taking of the kitchen’s equipment and stores, she detected – or claimed to detect – various shortages in the latter. Two piculs of best rice were missing, she said; a month’s supply of general purpose rice had been overdrawn; and the amount of charcoal was not what it was supposed to be. While so engaged, she was at the same time making discreet arrangements for the conveyance of various ‘presents’ (they included, by a strange coincidence, a pannier of charcoal and a load of rice) to Lin Zhi-xiao’s quarters outside; and there were to be presents for the clerks who worked in Accounts. She also prepared several dishes for a little repast to which she invited her new colleagues.

‘Now that I’ve got this job, I rely entirely on your support to run things here,’ she told them. ‘So if there are any little matters that I fall down in, I shall look to you all to help me out.’

Suddenly, in the midst of this activity, new orders arrived:

‘As soon as you have finished serving this lunch, you must leave. Liu has been cleared. They’re putting her back in charge here.’

Stunned though she was by this news, the wretched woman had at once to begin packing her things, and soon, with drums muffled and colours furled, beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen. The things she had given away to others – pointlessly, it now appeared – had to be made good, in some cases by selling her own possessions. Even Chess, for all her fury, was powerless to help her.

Ever since the fuss made by Silver about the missing objects, Aunt Zhao, the secret recipient of many of the things which Sunset had stolen, had been living in fear of discovery. Each day, as she made her surreptitious inquiries about the current progress of investigations, she perspired afresh. When Sunset herself suddenly came in and announced that Bao-yu had owned up and that there was nothing more to fear, she was naturally very much relieved. The effect on Jia Huan, however, was somewhat different. He immediately became suspicious, and taking out all the things that Sunset had been at such pains to get for him, he threw them in her face.

‘Two-faced thing!’ he shouted. ‘You must be thick with Bao-yu or he wouldn’t have covered up for you. If you were prepared to take those things in the first place, you ought to have kept quiet about it and not told anyone. Now that you’ve told him, I don’t want them any more. They would only remind me of your treachery.’

Sunset swore by the most desperate oaths that she had been faithful to him; she even wept; but Jia Huan was adamant.

‘If it weren’t that we used to be friends,’ he said, ‘I’d go straight along now to Aunt Lian and tell her that you stole those things. I’d tell her that you offered them to me, but I wouldn’t take them. Think about that then, and consider yourself lucky to have got away with it!’

With those words he flounced out of the room, to the great indignation of his mother, who shouted after him angrily.

‘Ungrateful little blackguard! What do you mean by it?’

Sunset meanwhile was weeping as if her heart would break.

‘Poor child!’ said Aunt Zhao, trying to comfort her. ‘He doesn’t appreciate you. But at least I know you are faithful to him. Let me look after these things for you. He’s sure to come round to a more sensible way of thinking in a day or two.’

She would have taken them, but Sunset forestalled her, sweeping them angrily into a bundle, which, when no one was looking, she carried into the Garden and emptied out over the lake. Some of the things sank straight to the bottom, the rest floated about on the surface of the water. She was still angry when she went to bed, and cried all night long under the bedclothes.

The day of Bao-yu’s birthday arrived – the same day, it had been discovered, as that on which Bao-qin had hers. Because Lady Wang was away, rather less fuss was made of it than in previous years. There were the customary four kinds of birthday present from Abbot Zhang together with a new amulet to replace the one he had worn during the previous year, and from the monks and nuns of various temples a token share of the day’s offerings accompanied by such other little gifts as the religious are wont to give on these occasions: little figures of Old Longevity, sacred colour-prints, offertory scrolls, talismans inscribed with his personal star guardian, and annually renewable lockets inscribed with the current year-star. A number of the blind ballad-singers both male and female regularly patronized by the household called in to offer their colourful felicitations. His uncle Wang Zi-teng’s family sent him the usual suit of clothes and two pairs of shoes and socks, together with a hundred little peach-shaped birthday cakes and a hundred little bundles of the finest ‘silver thread’ vermicelli. From his Aunt Xue he received exactly the same presents as from his uncle but in appropriately reduced amounts. The only other presents from senior members of the family were a pair of shoes from You-shi and a heavily-embroidered ‘propitious encounter’ purse with a tiny gold image of Old Longevity in it and a piece of Persian ware from Xi-feng. As in previous years, a distribution of alms was made on his behalf to the monks of various temples.

And then of course there were Bao-qin’s presents; but to enumerate them as well would be tedious.

The presents which Bao-yu received from the girls were of a less formal nature and chosen more to mark the occasion than for their intrinsic value: a fan from one, a specimen of calligraphy from another, a painting or a poem.

On the morning of his birthday Bao-yu rose at dawn, and after completing his toilet, put on his most formal clothes and went out to the main front courtyard of the mansion, where Li Gui and three other of his grooms were waiting for him by a table they had made ready with an incense burner and candlesticks and offerings as an altar to Heaven and Earth. Bao-yu lit some sticks of incense and made his prostrations, poured out a libation of tea, and burned the paper offerings and offertory scrolls. Then he went round to the Ning-guo mansion and kotowed his respects to the ancestors, first in the shrine and then in the hall. Emerging from the latter, he knelt down on the terrace outside and ‘kotowed upwards’ to his absent dear ones – Grandmother Jia, Jia Zheng and Lady Wang – rising on his knees after each prostration and lifting his clasped hands up in front of him. He called in at the main apartment on his way out and made his kotow to You-shi, after which he sat and talked to her for a bit before returning to Rong-guo House. His first visit there was to Aunt Xue, who made vigorous – though, of course, unsuccessful attempts to prevent his kotowing to her. After that he called on Xue Ke, who was slightly senior to Bao-yu but not enough to warrant an obeisance and whose efforts to prevent a kotow, therefore, were more successful. After exchanging a few words with Xue Ke, he went back into the Garden. There he found Skybright and Musk waiting for him. They were accompanied by two junior maids holding a red carpet which was intended for kneeling on. Attended by these four, he now proceeded to visit all those in the Garden beginning with Li Wan who were senior to himself. Then back to the mansion again and out through the inner gate to call on Nannie Li and three other of his former nannies, with each of whom he was expected to spend some time in conversation. On his way back the servants inside the Garden gate would have liked to kotow to him, but he would not let them; and when he was once more back in his room, Aroma and the other maids offered him only verbal greetings and did not attempt to kneel. Lady Wang had forbidden the maids to kotow to younger members of the family for fear it might shorten their lives.

Soon after this Jia Huan and Jia Lan arrived. Aroma prevented them from kneeling and made them sit down for a while. As soon as they had gone, Bao-yu declared himself tired out by all the walking he had done and put his feet up on the bed. But not for long. He had barely had time to drink half a cupful of tea when there was a confused sound of chattering and giggling outside and eight or nine maids burst laughing into the room. There was Ebony and Periwinkle and Kingfisher and Picture, Xing Xiu-yan’s maid Signet, the nursemaid carrying Xi-feng’s little girl Qiao-jie, and two of the maids from Lady Wang’s room, Avis and Avocet. He noticed that they were carrying a red carpet between them.

‘Where are the birthday noodles?’ they said. ‘See how your doorway is crowded with people who have come to wish you happy returns!’

No sooner were the maids inside than Tan-chun, Xiang-yun, Bao-qin, Xiu-yan and Xi-chun appeared behind them. Bao-yu hurried out to greet them. ‘How kind of you all to come!’ he said, and as he ushered them inside, he called out to Aroma to get them all some tea. A great deal of polite tussling ensued before his guests could finally be persuaded to sit down. Aroma now brought in tea for them all on a tray; but they had taken no more than a sip of it when Patience arrived, dressed to the nines in all her finery, and Bao-yu had to get up once more and hurry out to greet her.

‘When I went to Feng’s place just now,’ he said, ‘the person who announced me told me that she couldn’t see me, so I asked if I might see you instead. Why wouldn’t you let me?’

’The first time you sent in I couldn’t come out because I was doing your Cousin Feng’s hair,’ said Patience. ‘When you sent in the second time and said that you wanted me to receive you in her place, I naturally couldn’t let you because it would have been too great an honour. It is I who should kotow to you – which is what I have come to do now.’

‘But that’s too great an honour for me!’ said Bao-yu, laughing.

Aroma nevertheless brought a chair over and made Bao-yu sit in it. Patience made him a curtsey. Bao-yu, already on his feet again, answered it with a bow and pumped his hands. Patience went down on her knees. Bao-yu knelt down too. At once Aroma raised Patience to her feet, whereupon she curtseyed to Bao-yu once more and Bao-yu, who had got up when she did, answered her with another bow and another pumping of the hands.

‘Now another one,’ said Aroma smiling and giving him a nudge.

‘Why?’ said Bao-yu. ‘We’ve finished.’

‘She’s finished making her birthday reverence to you,’ said Aroma; ‘but it’s her birthday today too, so you still have to make yours to her.’

Bao-yu bowed again, delightedly.

‘So it’s your birthday too, Patience?’

Patience returned his bow with another curtsey.

Xiang-yun took hold of Bao-qin with one hand and Xiu-yan with the other.

‘At this rate the four of you are going to be making reverences to each other all day long!’

‘Oh, of course!’ said Tan-chun. ‘It’s Cousin Xing’s birthday as well. I’d quite forgotten.’

She turned to one of the maids:

‘Go and tell Mrs Lian about this; and get them to send another lot of presents like the ones they did for Miss Qin to Miss Ying’s apartment.’

The maid went off to do her bidding. Now that the fact that today was her birthday had become public knowledge, Xiu-yan was obliged to make a round of the apartments, bowing and kotowing to everybody, as Bao-yu had had to do before her.

‘Interesting, all these coincidences,’ said Tan-chun. ‘You expect a few birthdays every month; but it’s only when you get a lot of people living together like us that you begin getting two or three of them on the same day. We even have a birthday on New Year’s Day in this family: Yuan-chun’s. She comes first in that as in everything else. I suppose that’s what makes her so lucky. It was great-grandfather’s birthday as well, New Year’s Day. The fifteenth of the first month is Aunt Xing’s birthday and also Cousin Chai’s – another coincidence. The first of the third month is Mother’s birthday. The ninth of the third is Cousin Lian’s. We haven’t got anyone with a birthday in the second month.’

‘Yes you have,’ said Aroma. ‘Miss Lin’s is in the second month, on the twenty-second. It’s true there’s no one of your surname, though.’

‘My memory is hopeless!’ said Tan-chun.

‘Not at all,’ said Bao-yu. He pointed smilingly at Aroma: ‘She only remembers it because her own birthday is on that day.’

‘Oh, you’re on the same day as her, are you? I don’t recollect your ever having come round and kotowed to me on that day,’ said Tan-chun teasingly. ‘And Patience: this is the first time I’ve heard that your birthday was today.’

‘What sort of great ladies do you think we are to be bothering with birthdays?’ said Patience. ‘Kotows and birthday presents are not for the likes of us. My birthday is just another day, to be got through with as little fuss as possible. I don’t suppose you’d ever have known about it at all if she hadn’t let on. Now that you do know, I’ll gladly come round and kotow to you when you get back later to your room.’

‘I don’t in the least want you to do that,’ said Tan-chun. ‘On the other hand, I should very much like us to celebrate your birthday for once. In fact, I shan’t be content unless we do.’

‘Hear, hear!’ said Bao-yu and Xiang-yun.

Tan-chun gave instructions to one of the maids:

‘Go to Mrs Lian and tell her, from us all, that we want to keep Patience with us for the day. Tell her we are going to pool together and celebrate her birthday.’

The maid went off, laughing excitedly. It was some time before she returned with Xi-feng’s answer.

‘Mrs Lian says thank you very much for the honour you are doing her. She says she doesn’t know what you will be giving Patience to eat, but provided you let her have some of it, she will agree to leave her here in peace.’

The cousins and maids all laughed when they heard this message.

‘It so happens that, as the birthday noodles and all the other things needed for today’s meals are being seen to by the big kitchen outside, the Garden kitchen has got nothing to do today,’ said Tan-chun. ‘So when we’ve made our collection, we can give it to Cook Liu and get her to prepare this private party for us in the Garden kitchen.’

The others having readily agreed that this would be best, Tan-chun sent someone to tell Li Wan, Bao-chai and Dai-yu what had been decided and invite them to contribute. She also sent for Cook Liu and asked her to prepare a two-table banquet in the Garden kitchen. Somewhat puzzled by this request, Cook Liu pointed out that on this particular occasion the catering was all being done in the outside kitchen.

‘Yes,’ said Tan-chun, ‘but this is only for us. Today is Patience’s birthday and we want to pool together and have a special little party for her. So do something nice for us, will you? You can bring the bill to my place afterwards and I will give you the money.’

‘Miss Patience’s birthday today?’ said Cook Liu. ‘Well I never!’ And she stepped briskly forward and made her a kotow. Patience bent over in confusion and raised her to her feet.

The cook hurried off to begin preparations.

Tan-chun now invited Bao-yu to accompany her to the ‘jobs room’ and break his fast there with some noodles. Having first waited for Li Wan and Bao-chai to arrive, she sent someone to ask if Aunt Xue and Dai-yu would care to join them. Now that the weather was warmer, Dai-yu’s illness was very much better than it had been and she was able to come. With so many people in party dresses the crowded office was beginning to take on an unusually gay and festive appearance. Unfortunately a formal present for Bao-yu – a handkerchief, a fan, some sticks of incense and a length of silk – arrived at that moment from Xue Ke, and Bao-yu had to abandon the female company of the office and go to take noodles with Xue Ke.

Since the Xue and Jia families each had a birthday on this same day, each was supposed to entertain the other with birthday wine. Accordingly, at about noon that day, Bao-qin was brought over by Bao-chai to make a birthday reverence to her elder brother and to wait on him and Bao-yu while they drank the wine. But Bao-chai was impatient of punctilio.

‘There is no need for you to send our wine over there,’ she told Xue Ke. ‘This year at least we can dispense with those empty formalities. You can invite our employees from the shop in to help you finish it. Cousin Bao and I must go back to the Garden now. Excuse us for leaving you like this, but we have other people there waiting for us to entertain them.’

‘I won’t try to detain you then,’ said Xue Ke politely. ‘To tell the truth, our people from the shop will feel freer to call here when you are gone.’

Having apologized to Xue Ke on his own account, Bao-yu accompanied the two girls back into the Garden. As they passed into it through the corner gate, Bao-chai made the women there lock it up after them and hand her the key.

‘Why is it necessary to lock this gate?’ Bao-yu asked her. ‘There are only a few people using it, and now that you and Aunt and Qin are all three living in the Garden, it must be an awful nuisance if you have to lock and unlock it every time you need to go and fetch something from your place outside.’

‘One can’t be too careful,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Look at all the incidents you people have been having during the past few days; yet not once have any of our people been implicated. I put that down entirely to the fact that this gate is kept constantly locked. If it were left open, other people besides us would want to use it for the convenience of taking short cuts; and as it would be too invidious to begin distinguishing between who might use the gate and who might not, it is better to keep it permanently locked and stop everyone using it, even though it means a certain amount of inconvenience for Mamma and me, because at least it ensures that when there is any trouble none of our people will be under suspicion.’

‘You heard about the missing objects, then?’ Bao-yu asked her.

‘You mean the Essence of Roses and Lycoperdon Snow?’ said Bao-chai. ‘I don’t suppose you would have known even about them if your own protegés had not been involved. No, I was thinking about something rather more serious than that – something which, for all our sakes, I hope will never come to light. If it does, a great many people will be implicated. I can tell you this, because you have nothing to do with the management of the household. I told Patience the other day too. Patience is an intelligent girl, and as her mistress cannot get about now, I thought she ought to know about it. As I say, I hope nothing will come of it; but if it does blow up, Patience will have been warned and will know how to safeguard herself against being wrongfully accused again. Bear in mind what I am saying so that you are warned, too, if anything should happen. But don’t let anyone else know that I told you this.’

They had been approaching Drenched Blossoms while she was speaking. In the pavilion at the centre of the bridge a group of ten or so girls – Aroma, Caltrop, Scribe, Skybright, Musk, Parfumée, Étamine, Nénuphar and one or two others they could not identify – were leaning over the railings looking at the fish in the water below. As Bao-yu and his two cousins approached, they chorused out to them:

‘The party’s all ready in the Peony Garden. Hurry up and take your places!’

Taking the maids with them, the cousins made their way to the lakeside Peony Garden in the midst of which was the large, open summerhouse where the tables for the party had been laid. Even You-shi had been invited and was already sitting there waiting for them. In fact, by now almost everyone had arrived except Patience herself.

Patience had intended to drop in only briefly at Xi-feng’s house in order to change into something more suitable for the party; but no sooner had she reached it than presents began arriving from the Lin and Lai households. The bearers of these proved to be only the forerunners of a stream of callers from every level of the domestic staff, who arrived in twos and threes, bringing her gifts or offering their congratulations. Patience was kept continuously busy dealing with these callers, rewarding the deliverers of gifts, thanking those who had come in person to felicitate her, and running in and out to show her presents to Xi-feng. She kept only a few of these for herself; the rest she either courteously returned or immediately gave away. Even when she had finished with her visitors she had to serve Xi-feng her lunch of noodles and wait until she had finished it before she was at last able to get changed and hurry back into the Garden.

A number of maids who had been sent out by the others to look for her took charge of her as she entered it and carried her off to the summerhouse. It was a dazzling sight there that met her eyes: not perhaps the

chelonian tables, lotus-cushioned chairs

of the poet; but no effort had been spared to make it an eyecatching and appetizing spread.

A friendly laugh greeted her arrival.

‘Now all the birthday folk are here!’

They wanted to make her and the other three – Bao-yu, Bao-qin and Xiu-yan – sit at the head of the feast, but as Aunt Xue was present, all four of them naturally refused.

‘A slow old buffer like me is no fit company for you young people,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘I should only feel uncomfortable if I stayed. Let me go and lie down in the jobs room. I don’t feel like eating anything and I’m not much of a drinker. You will be much better able to look after your guests if I am not here.’

You-shi and the others loudly insisted that she should stay. Only Bao-chai dissented.

‘Whether or not we should get on better without Mamma,’ she said, ‘I’m sure Mamma herself would be happier lying down in the jobs room than sitting here with us. If there is anything here she fancies, we can have it sent over to her and she will be able to eat it there on her own in comfort. Besides, there is no one in charge there at the moment. If Mamma is there, she will be able to keep an eye on things.’

‘Oh well, in that case we’ll let her go,’ said Tan-chun smiling. ‘Obedience is the best obeisance, as they say.’

She went with the others to escort her aunt to the jobs room and personally supervised the arrangement of various pillows and cushions by the junior maids.

‘Now,’ she said to these junior maids when Aunt Xue had been comfortably settled, ‘if you will stay here and massage Mrs Xue’s legs for her and fetch her tea or anything when she asks you without making up all sorts of wonderful excuses, I shouldn’t be surprised if later on, when we send some nice things for her to eat, she doesn’t give some of them to you. So mind you don’t go away!’

The girls all promised that they would stay.

When they got back, Tan-chun made Bao-qin and Xiu-yan sit at the head of the top table and Patience and Bao-yu at right-angles to them on the left and right ends. She and Faithful sat shoulder to shoulder on the fourth side, facing Bao-qin and Xiu-yan. At the table parallel to the west wall Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Xiang-yun, Ying-chun and Xi-chun sat in order of seniority on the two longer sides and Caltrop and Silver on the shorter sides, one at either end. You-shi and Li Wan sat at the longer sides of the table parallel to the east wall, with Aroma and Sunset to left and right of them on the shorter sides. The fourth table was occupied by the remaining maids, Nightingale, Oriole, Skybright, Periwinkle and Chess, sitting around it in no particular order.

No sooner were they all seated than Tan-chun rose to her feet again, wine-kettle in hand, intending to drink toasts with each of the four ‘birthday people’; but the birthday four, realizing that if they allowed one of their hosts to do this, a dozen or more would follow, objected strenuously.

‘If you are going to start this nonsense,’ said Bao-qin, ‘we shall none of us get settled until evening.’

The point was taken and Tan-chun sat down again, whereupon the blind ballad-singers, who had tagged along with the others, began tuning their instruments for a birthday ode. This time everyone objected.

‘None of us like that old stuff. Why don’t you go to the jobs room and entertain Mrs Xue?’

While they were about it, they made a selection from the various dishes on the table for the people conducting the blind women to take with them to Aunt Xue.

‘Just sitting here making polite conversation is not going to be much fun,’ said Bao-yu when the singers had been disposed of. ‘We ought to play a drinking game.’

Various suggestions were made, but none met with everyone’s approval.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Why not write the names of different games down on slips of paper and put it to the draw?’

‘Good idea!’ said the others, and sent for an inkstone and writing-brush and some slips of fancy paper.

To Caltrop, who in addition to writing poetry had lately been learning some calligraphy, the opportunity of exercising her new skill proved irresistible and she jumped up and insisted on doing the writing. After thinking for a bit, the company managed to produce some ten or more names of drinking games which Tan-chun dictated one by one to Caltrop to write down on the slips. The slips were then folded up small, doubled over, and thrown into a jar. Tan-chun asked Patience to draw. She did so with a pair of chopsticks, stirring the slips around with them before fishing one out for her inspection. Tan-chun unrolled it and read it out.

‘Cover-ups.’

‘Cover-ups?’ said Bao-chai, laughing. ‘Why, that’s the grandfather of them all! They played “cover-ups” in ancient times. Admittedly, we don’t know exactly how they played it then and our modern “cover-ups” is a comparatively recent invention; but it’s still very, very difficult. I should think at least half the people here wouldn’t know how to play it. We’d much better set that one aside and pick something a little less literary that everyone can understand.’

‘We can’t set it aside now that it’s been drawn,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I suggest that we draw again, and if it’s the sort of game that everyone can enjoy, those who want to can play that game while the rest of us are playing cover-ups.’

This time she got Aroma to draw. The name on the slip she picked out was ‘guess-fingers’. Xiang-yun greeted it with approval.

‘Now there’s a nice, simple, lively game! There’s a game that suits me down to the ground! None of your stuffy old cover-ups for me! The very thought of it gives me a headache! I’m for guess-fingers!’

‘Isn’t it just like her to reduce the entire party to anarchy before we have even begun!’ said Tan-chun. ‘Cousin Chai, you must sconce her for me.’

Bao-chai forthwith obliged by forcing a whole cupful of wine down Xiang-yun’s throat.

‘Now,’ said Tan-chun, herself gulping down a little wine, ‘I’m your M.C. I take it you don’t need me to read the rules out. You just have to do as I tell you. We’ll get someone to fetch dice and a cup and each of us will throw in turn, beginning with Cousin Qin. Anyone who throws the same number as someone else will pair with that person for cover-ups.’

Bao-qin threw a three. The others on the top table each threw a different number. Caltrop on the second table was the first to throw another three.

‘We’d better confine ourselves to objects inside this room, don’t you think?’ Bao-qin suggested. ‘Otherwise the range of possibilities will be too large.’

‘Certainly,’ said Tan-chun. ‘And whoever hasn’t given the right answer after three guesses must drink a cup of wine as a penalty. You begin.’

Bao-qin thought for a bit.

‘Market.’

Caltrop, who was new to this game, could see nothing in the room which could combine with ‘market’ to make a quotation; but Xiang-yun, whose eyes had been darting busily around from the moment the clue was announced, happened suddenly to catch sight of the inscription that hung up over the door:

PEONY GARDEN

She guessed at once that Bao-qin must be thinking of the passage in the thirteenth book of the Analects where Confucius tells a person who wanted to study horticulture that he would ‘much better go to some old fellow who kept a market garden and learn about it from him’. As Caltrop could still not guess what the ‘market’ indicated and the others were beginning to drum her for an answer, Xiang-yun, who had already thought of a matching quotation from a line in one of Wang Wei’s poems

Sometimes I to my herb garden repair

leaned over and whispered to Caltrop to give ‘herb’ as her reply. But Dai-yu had spotted her and was quick to tell the others.

‘You’ll have to sconce her again. She’s been telling her how to answer.’

Xiang-yun was obliged to down another cupful of wine. She was so vexed that she rapped Dai-yu on the knuckles with a chopstick. Caltrop, too had to drink a sconce.

The next pairing occurred when Bao-chai threw the same number as Tan-chun. Tan-chun’s clue was ‘man’.

‘Isn’t that a bit wide?’ said Bao-chai.

‘All right,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I’ll give you another clue. That should narrow it down a bit. “Shut”.’

Bao-chai thought for some moments. There was certainly plenty of chicken-meat on the table. Tan-chun must be referring to ‘cock-man’ from Wang Wei’s

The red-capped cock-man has proclaimed the dawn

and ‘cock-shut’ from Luo Yin’s

At cock-shut still upon my book to pore.

She therefore countered with ‘niche’, basing herself on a line from the sixty-third poem in the Poetry Classic:

The cock roosts in his niche.

The two girls smiled at each other and each took a sip of wine in celebration of a successful turn.

Xiang-yun, unwilling to wait longer, was already in the midst of a game of guess-fingers with Bao-yu. The two of them were both shouting at the tops of their voices. At the other side of the room You-shi and Faithful were also shouting at each other ‘Five-a, five-a!’ ‘Seven-a, seven-a!’ ‘Eight-a, eight-a!’ from their separate tables, while Patience and Aroma, sitting at adjacent ends of the same two tables, made up another pair and contributed to the noise. To the racket made by their shouting was added, in the case of the five female players, the clashing of bracelets every time they gestured. Soon Xiang-yun had beaten Bao-yu and Aroma had beaten Patience. It was agreed that the losers should drink a cup of wine each and do something before and something after drinking it: the question was, what? Xiang-yun had plenty of suggestions for Bao-yu.

‘Before drinking you must give a well-known quotation in prose, a well-known quotation in verse, a dominoes threesome, a song-title, and the day’s forecast from an almanac, all five to hang together so that they make continuous sense. After drinking you must give the name of some food you see here on the table which can be used in more than one sense.’

The others laughed.

‘No one but her could think up such a rigmarole,’ they said. ‘Still, it should be interesting.’

They began urging Bao-yu to start.

‘Have a heart!’ said Bao-yu. ‘I need a bit of time to think if I’m to get through that lot.’

‘Drink the wine,’ said Dai-yu. ‘I’ll do the rest for you.’

Bao-yu drank his cup obediently and listened.

‘One. “Scudding clouds race the startled mallard across the water”,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Two. “A wild goose passes, lamenting, across the wind-swept sky.” Three. It must be “The wild goose with a broken wing”. Four. So sad a sound makes “The Heart Tormented”. Five. “The cry of the wild goose is heard in the land.”’

The others laughed:

‘It certainly makes good sense!’

Dai-yu picked up a hazel-nut.

‘This cob I take up from the table
Came from a tree, not from a stable.’

The other losers, Faithful and Aroma, were let off more lightly, being required to produce only a single well-known saying which had some bearing on birthdays. In the interest of economy their answers are omitted from this narrative.

A brief interlude of confusion followed while the next round of pairings was being decided. It was resolved that Xiang-yun should play Bao-qin now at guess-fingers and Li Wan, who had just thrown the same number as Xiu-yan, should play Xiu-yan at cover-ups. Li Wan was to begin.

‘Gourd,’ said Li Wan.

‘Green,’ said Xiu-yan.

‘Green’ was evidently correct, since Li Wan appeared to be satisfied and the two young women simultaneously sipped their wine.

Meanwhile Xiang-yun had lost to Bao-qin at guess-fingers and was asking what she should do for a forfeit.

‘You know what Lai Jun-chen said when he showed Zhou Xing the fiery furnace that Zhou Xing himself had designed,’ said Bao-qin:’ “Please step inside!” I think that’s what I should say to you now. Why don’t you do the forfeit that you designed for Bao-yu?’

The others apart from Xiang-yun appreciated the aptness of the historical allusion. Xiang-yun began answering without delay.

‘One. “A swift-rushing swirl and shock”. Two. “The sky rocks and heaves in the river’s swelling waters”. Three. Better have “The lone boat tied with an iron chain”. Four. And since there is a “Storm on the River”. Five. “This will be a bad day for travelling.”’

By the time she had finished, the rest of the company were all laughing.

‘That sounded a bit contrived!’ they said. ‘She must have thought the forfeit up for the express purpose of getting in her joke. – Come on!’ they said to Xiang-yun. ‘Let’s have the second half.’

From the dish in front of her Xiang-yun picked out a duck’s head with her chopsticks and pointed it at the maids who were sitting round the fourth table at the other end of the room.

‘This little duck can’t with those little ducks compare:
This one is quite bald, but they all have a fine head of hair.’

There was even more laughter at this, but the maids pretended to take offence and Skybright and Periwinkle came over to her table to protest.

‘It’s all very well for Miss Yun to have her joke, but she ought to leave us out of it. You ought to make her drink another sconce now, as a punishment. And while she’s about it, she might give us a nice bottle of hair-oil each by way of compensation.’

‘I dare say she would be glad to,’ said Dai-yu drily. ‘The trouble is that if she starts giving bottles of hair-oil away, she will probably find herself on the carpet for stealing them.’

The remark passed unnoticed, with two exceptions. The exceptions were Bao-yu, who, assuming that it must refer to his supposed theft of the Essence of Roses, held his head down and said nothing, and Sunset, the real thief, whose face turned red with embarrassment. Bao-chai stared at Dai-yu reprovingly, whereupon Dai-yu, who had intended no more than a mild joke at Bao-yu’s expense, realized too late that Sunset must inevitably have construed it as a spiteful reminder of her guilt. She attempted to distract attention from it by applying herself, with somewhat unnatural vigour, to the game of guess-fingers.

The next pairing to be determined by the dice was that of Bao-chai and Bao-yu. The clue Bao-chai gave Bao-yu for her cover-up was ‘precious’. After puzzling over it for some moments, Bao-yu felt sure that it was a leg-pull. His own name meant ‘Precious Jade’. No doubt the object she had in mind was the jade he always wore round his neck and she was using his own name for her clue. Very well, he would answer her in kind.

‘I take it that you are making free with my name,’ he said. ‘I hope that you won’t be offended then if I make just as free with yours. “Bao-chai” means “Precious Hairpin”, so I shall borrow your “hairpin” for my answer. “Jade hairpin” comes in a line by some Tang poet:

The candle burnt out and the jade hairpin broken.

It is “jade”, isn’t it, in your cover-up?’

‘I protest,’ said Xiang-yun.’ “Precious jade” isn’t a quotation. You’re supposed to use only quotations in this game. We ought to sconce them both.’

‘“Precious jade” does come from a quotation,’ said Caltrop.

‘Surely not?’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I’m prepared to admit you might find it on a New Year scroll or something of that sort, but not in any work of literature, surely?’

‘I came across “precious jade” only the other day in a poem by Cen Shen,’ said Caltrop:

‘Since in that land much precious jade is found.

I’m surprised you don’t remember it. And not long afterwards I came across “precious hairpin” in a poem too – a poem by Li Shang-yin:

The precious hairpin gathers dust.

I remember being very much amused at the time to think that Master Bao’s and Miss Bao’s names are both to be found in poems of the Tang dynasty.’

‘So much for your objection!’ said the others to Xiang-yun, laughing. ‘It’s you who must drink the sconce.’

It was useless to argue: Xiang-yun had to drink another cupful.

The whole company now paired off for guess-fingers. With Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang away, the girls felt free to make as much noise as they liked. Coloured sleeves flashed, bracelets jangled, earrings shook, hair ornaments nodded in time to the shrieked-out numbers. In such a bedlam almost anything would have passed unnoticed; and it was only when they had tired of playing and broken off for a rest that they suddenly became aware that Xiang-yun was no longer with them. At first they assumed that she must have slipped out to answer a call of nature; but when, after they had waited for quite some time, she had still not reappeared, they sent some of the maids out to look for her. The search proved fruitless. Xiang-yun had vanished without a trace.

At this point Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife arrived, accompanied by several of the old women under her command. She had come partly out of a genuine desire to be useful but much more because she regarded the maids as young and giddy creatures who would take advantage of Lady Wang’s absence to play their young mistresses up by drinking more than was good for them and behaving riotously. Tan-chun was fully aware of this and let her know that she was.

‘I see you still don’t trust us, Mrs Lin. I assure you, though, that we haven’t been drinking very much. We’re only enjoying ourselves: the wine has been a very small part of it. You really have no cause to be worried.’

Li Wan and You-shi added their reassurances.

‘Go and rest, Lin. We wouldn’t let them drink too much, I promise you.’

The women laughed.

‘I know you wouldn’t,’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife. ‘Even when Her Old Ladyship encourages them to, the young ladies don’t drink very much, so I know they’d be even less inclined to overdo it when Their Ladyships are away. It wasn’t because of that I came; it was just that I thought there might be something you needed me for. Also, as it’s a long way yet to dinner-time and you’ve been at it quite a long while now, I thought it was time you had a bite of something. I know you don’t normally go in much for snacks between meals, but when you’ve been drinking, you really need to get a bit of food inside you so that it does you no harm.’

‘You are quite right,’ said Tan-chun. ‘In fact, we were just thinking of having something when you came.’

She turned to the maids behind her and told them to fetch some light refreshments from the kitchen. There was an answering cry from all sides and a few of them went off to do her bidding.

Tan-chun smiled courteously at the women.

‘Do please go and rest now. Or perhaps you would like to go and keep Mrs Xue company? We’ll send some wine there presently for you to drink.’

‘Oh no, miss, we wouldn’t presume!’

She and the women stood talking a little longer before finally taking themselves off.

Patience put her hand to her cheek and laughed.

‘My face is so hot, it must be terribly red. I wish they hadn’t seen me like this. I think we ought to stop now. If we give them an excuse for coming back again it will be really embarrassing.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Tan-chun. ‘As long as we don’t do any serious drinking, it’s perfectly all right.’

‘Come and look, everyone!’ – They were interrupted by a giggling young maid – ‘Miss Yun must have been feeling drunk and gone out for some air. She’s lying on the granite bench behind the rockery, fast asleep.’

‘Let’s be quiet and not waken her,’ the others said amidst laughter, and followed her outside to have a look.

They found Xiang-yun where the maid had said, on a large stone bench in a hidden corner of the rockery, dead to the world. She was covered all over from head to foot with crimson petals from the peony bushes which grew round about; the fan which had slipped from her hand and lay on the ground beside her was half buried in petals; and heaped-up peony petals wrapped in a white silk handkerchief made an improvised pillow for her head. Over and around this petalled monstrosity a convocation of bees and butterflies was hovering distractedly. It was a sight that the cousins found both touching and comical. They made haste to rouse her and lifted her up into a half-sitting position on the bench. But Xiang-yun was still playing drinking games in her sleep and proceeded to recite the words of an imaginary forfeit, though her eyes were tightly closed.

‘One. “The spring water being sweet, the wine is good.” Two. “Pour me its liquid amber in a jade cup.” Three. We’ll drink till we see “The moon above the plum-tree bough”. Four. Then, as we’re “Rolling Home”. Five. It will be “A good time to meet a friend.”’

They shook her, laughing.

‘Wake up! Wake up! Come and have something to eat. Lying on the damp stone like this you’ll make yourself ill.’

Xiang-yun…

uplifted slowly then those orbs serene

and saw the faces of the cousins bending over her. Then she looked downwards and saw her own body and the place where she had been lying. She could remember escaping from the noise to rest for a few moments somewhere where it was cool and quiet. Evidently the wine from all those sconces she had been made to drink must have got the better of her and caused her to drop off. Ashamed to have been discovered in such a predicament, she struggled hastily to her feet and accompanied the others back to the summerhouse, where she rinsed her mouth out with water and drank two very strong cups of tea. Tan-chun made one of the girls fetch a piece of ‘hangover rock’ for her to suck. By the time she had sucked the rock for a bit and taken a few mouthfuls of hot, sour soup, she was feeling almost herself again.

A selection was now made of the various comestibles on the tables and sent over to Xi-feng, who reciprocated by sending them some delicacies of her own. Bao-yu and the girls then took some sustenance themselves, after which they broke up into little groups, standing or sitting where they pleased and amusing themselves as the fancy took them. Some went outside to admire the peonies or to lean on the balustrade at the edge of the lake and look at the fish swimming in the water below. Tan-chun and Bao-qin stayed indoors to play Go. Bao-chai and Xiang-yun stayed indoors to watch them. Dai-yu and Bao-yu went outside and, having found themselves a little flowering arbour that they could stand and talk in, appeared to be completely engrossed in their conversation.

While everyone was thus engaged, Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and her party appeared once more, bringing with them a tearful, woebegone woman, who, as they reached the steps that led up to the summer-house, threw herself down on her knees, not daring to go further, and began knocking her head upon the ground. Meanwhile Tan-chun continued to stare concentratedly at the Go-board, one outstretched hand feeling for the spare pieces in the box while she contemplated her next move. One of her pieces had been threatened, and though she could see how to get the two ‘eyes’ easily enough, she could not, however hard she tried, think of a way of doing so which did not break the development she had planned. It was some minutes before she looked up and, in turning to ask for some tea, caught sight of Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, who had all this time been standing there beside her, and asked her what she had come for.

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife pointed to the kneeling woman.

‘This is the mother of Miss Xi-chun’s maid, Landscape. She works in the Garden. She’s been using some very bad language. I heard her just now and asked her what she meant by it, but what she said to me, miss – well, I wouldn’t like to soil your ears by repeating it. I think she ought to be dismissed.’

‘Why didn’t you see Mrs Zhu about this?’ said Tan-chun.

‘I did, miss. I ran into her just now on her way to the jobs room to join Mrs Xue. She said I was to tell you.’

‘Shouldn’t you tell Mrs Lian?’

‘No need,’ said Patience. ‘I can tell her about it when I get back.’

Tan-chun nodded.

‘All right, dismiss her then. We’ll tell Lady Wang about it when she comes back and get her to confirm it.’

She turned once more to her game. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and her party moved off, taking the offender with them.

All of this scene was clearly observed by Bao-yu and Dai-yu from their flowering covert, though they were too far away to hear what was said.

‘What a curiously detached person your sister is!’ said Dai-yu. ‘She has been actually invited to take charge of things, yet she still won’t go a step beyond what is absolutely necessary. Most people in her position would have been throwing their weight about long ago.’

‘Ah, you don’t know what’s been going on while you were away,’ said Bao-yu. ‘While you were ill in bed, she did in fact do a great deal of managing. For example, she divided this Garden into sections and put each section under someone’s supervision. Nowadays you can’t even pick a flower in it without permission. And she cut down on a lot of things too – mostly things that Feng or I had asked for, as an awful example to the others. Oh no, Tan has got very strong views on domestic economy. I certainly wouldn’t call her “detached”.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We are all much too extravagant. Although the management of the household is not my business, I have frequently, just out of curiosity, made a few calculations, and I can see that our expenditure is vastly in excess of our income. If we go on in this way without economizing, the time will surely come when our credit is exhausted.’

‘Even if it does,’ said Bao-yu gaily, ‘I don’t suppose you and I will have to go short.’

Dai-yu turned away from him somewhat impatiently and began walking towards the summerhouse, intending to seek Bao-chai’s company inside. Bao-yu would have gone too, but just at that moment Aroma came up carrying a little varnished wooden ‘tea for two’ tray, in each of whose rounds nestled a cup of freshly made tea.

‘Well, where’s she gone?’ said Aroma. ‘I brought this out specially, because I could see the two of you standing here all this time without anything to drink; but now she’s not here.’

‘That’s her, over there,’ said Bao-yu, removing one of the cups for himself. ‘You can take it to her inside.’

Aroma did so, but by the time she had reached her, Dai-yu was already standing talking to Bao-chai.

‘Here you are,’ said Aroma, ‘whichever of you is the thirstier had better take this while I go and fetch another.’

‘I’m not thirsty,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I only want enough to wash out my mouth with.’

She lifted the cup to her lips, drank a mouthful of tea from it, and handed the remainder to Dai-yu.

‘Let me get you another cup,’ said Aroma.

‘Oh, you know me,’ said Dai-yu smilingly. ‘I can’t drink much tea because of my illness. The doctor says it’s bad for me. This half cup will be quite enough for me. Thank you very much, though. It’s very kind of you.’

Having drained the cup, she put it back on the tray, whereupon Aroma went off to collect the other cup from Bao-yu.

‘Where’s Parfumée?’ Bao-yu asked her when she got back to him. ‘I haven’t seen her for a long time.’

Aroma looked around.

‘She was here a moment ago. I saw her playing match-my-flower with some of the others. Now she seems to have disappeared.’

Bao-yu hurried back to his room to look for her. He found her asleep on the bed with her face turned inwards to the wall.

‘Come on, you mustn’t sleep!’ he said. ‘Come out and get some exercise. We’ll be eating soon. You want to get an appetite for your food.’

‘Why shouldn’t I sleep?’ said Parfumée. ‘There’s nothing else for me to do. I got so bored when you all went off drinking and left me on my own.’

Bao-yu laughed.

‘We’ll be having a party of our own here in the evening,’ he said, pulling her to her feet. ‘I’ll ask Aroma to let you sit at table with the rest of us, shall I?’

‘Not on my own,’ said Parfumée. ‘I shouldn’t enjoy it unless Nénuphar and Étamine could be with me as well. Besides, I don’t like noodles. I didn’t have a proper lunch today because I couldn’t eat the noodles. I got so hungry that just now I asked Liu to do a bowl of soup and some rice for me to eat here now; so I shan’t want anything again tonight. I could just drink, I suppose; but if you want me to, you’ll have to let me drink as much as I like and not let the others fuss over me. When I was still at home I used to drink two or three catties of rice wine at a sitting, but once I started learning beastly opera, they wouldn’t let me drink any more in case it spoiled my voice. During this last year or two I haven’t had so much as a smell of it. Tonight I should like to celebrate the end of all that.’

‘So you shall,’ said Bao-yu.

At that point a woman arrived from Cook Liu with a food-box containing Parfumeés order. Swallow relieved her of it and brought it inside. It contained a bowl of shrimp-balls in chicken-skin soup, a bowl of duck steamed in wine, a plate of red salted goose-slices, another plate on which were four cream-cheese rolls stuffed with pine-kernels, and a large bowl of delicious, steaming-hot, fragrant green rice. Swallow put these all on the table in front of Parfumée and fetched her a spoon, chopsticks and some bowls, one of which she filled for her with the fragrant rice.

‘Ugh!’ said Parfumée. ‘How can I eat this horrible greasy stuff?’

She spooned some of the soup onto her rice and picked up a couple of goose-slices with her chopsticks to put on top of it. The rest she left untouched. Bao-yu sniffed the rejected dishes. They smelt delicious – much nicer than the things be generally had to eat. He helped himself to one of the pinekernel rolls and told Swallow to fill him another bowl with some rice and pour on some of the soup. The combination – soup, rice, and pine-roll – was quite delectable. Parfumée and Swallow both laughed as they watched him eat.

When he and Parfumée had both finished, Swallow would have sent the remainder back to the kitchen, but Bao-yu told her that she should eat it herself.

‘If it’s not enough, we’ll ask them to bring you some more.’

‘No, no, this will be plenty,’ said Swallow. ‘It’s not long since Musk brought me some cakes and things from the party. If I eat this now, I shall have had quite enough.’

She proceeded to tuck in there and then, standing where she was beside the table. Soon all had been demolished except for two pine-kernel rolls.

‘I’ll save these for my Ma,’ she said. ‘Oh, and if you’re drinking this evening, will you let me have a drop too?’

‘Are you another drinker then?’ said Bao-yu. ‘Good! We’ll have a real celebration tonight. Aroma and Skybright are both fond of drinking, but they won’t take much as a rule because they feel it isn’t quite proper. Tonight my birthday shall be the excuse for everyone to let themselves go! By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for some time but keep forgetting. Would you make yourself responsible for Parfumée in future? Just keep an eye on her and see that she doesn’t get up to mischief. Aroma would like to if she could, but she has her hands full already.’

‘I can look after Parfumée, don’t worry about that,’ said Swallow. ‘What I want to know is, what are you going to do about Fivey?’

‘You can tell Mrs Liu that Fivey definitely will be coming to work here. After I’ve had a word with the others, she can move in as soon as she likes.’

‘Now you’re talking!’ said Swallow. She called the two little maids in to wait on him while he washed his hands and pour out tea for him while she herself got the dirty things together and handed them to the woman outside. After that she washed her own hands and went off to tell Cook Liu the good news. But that is no part of our story.

Bao-yu left to rejoin the others as soon as he was ready, and Parfumée, holding a silk handkerchief in one hand and a fan in the other, trailed along behind him. As he came out of the courtyard gate he saw Aroma and Skybright walking hand in hand towards him and asked them what they had come for.

‘You!’ they said. ‘Dinner’s been laid now and the others are waiting for you to begin.’

Bao-yu explained that he had just eaten.

Aroma laughed:

‘You’re like a cat: always eating except when you ought to be. You’d better come and sit with them all the same, for appearance’s sake.’

Skybright poked Parfumée playfully on the forehead with her finger.

‘You’re getting to be quite a little man-eater, aren’t you? Going back to have some food, indeed! You’d arranged to meet him there, more like. Why didn’t you tell anyone else that you were going?’

Aroma laughed.

‘Oh nonsense, Skybright! Of course she didn’t arrange to meet him. It was a pure accident, their being there at the same time together.’

‘All right,’ said Skybright, ‘but what does he need us for then? Why don’t we all go away and leave Parfumée to look after him on her own?’

‘He may not need the rest of us,’ said Aroma, ‘but he certainly couldn’t do without you.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Skybright. ‘I’m the one person he could do without. I’m lazy, I’m clumsy, I’m bad-tempered – in short, I’m just no good for the job.’

‘If he burns another hole in his peacock gold snow-cape, who’s going to mend it for him if you aren’t there?’ said Aroma mischievously. ‘Yes, my girl: all the excuses I used to hear from you in the past when I tried to get you to do something for me. You were no good at sewing, oh no! You didn’t even know how to hold a needle! And it isn’t as if it was my own sewing I’ve asked you about: it’s only ever been his things that I’ve asked you to help me with. No, you wouldn’t touch them. Yet I only have to be out of the house for a few days and there you are, sitting up all night sewing for him, even though you are half dead with the flu! What can the explanation of that be, I wonder? No, come on: I want to hear your answer.’

But Skybright only ‘pshaw’-ed and went on smiling.

They had been walking back to the summerhouse throughout these exchanges and were now re-entering it. Aunt Xue had come back again for the meal, so they reseated themselves in order of seniority with Aunt Xue at the head. Bao-yu poured a little tea onto some rice and merely pretended to share the meal with them. When they had finished eating, they sat talking over their tea or playing games.

Outside, meanwhile, Periwinkle, Caltrop, Parfumée,Éitam-ine, Nénuphar and Cardamome, having been all over the Garden collecting flowers, sat down, with their laps full of them, in a little semicircle of lawn enclosed by high banks of flowering shrubbery and began playing ‘match-my-flower’.

‘I’ve got some Guanyin willow,’ said one.

‘I’ve got some Lohan pine,’ said another.

‘I’ve got gentleman’s bamboo.’

‘I’ve got lady’s plantain.’

‘I’ve got green starwort.’

‘I’ve got red moon-flower.’

‘I’ve got a peony from The Peony Pavilion’

‘I’ve got a lute-flower from The Story of the Lute.’

‘I’ve got “brothers and sisters”,’ said Cardamome.

‘I’ve got “husbands and wives”,’ said Caltrop.

‘There’s no such flower,’ said Cardamome.

‘Yes there is,’ said Caltrop. ‘There are two main kinds of orchid, the spring orchid, which has only one flower on each stem, and the summer orchid, which has several; but there’s more than one kind of summer orchid. There’s the kind that you’ve got, which has the flowers growing one above the other on the stem: that’s called “brothers and sisters” and there’s another kind like mine here, which has two flowers growing side by side at the top: that’s called a “husband and wife” orchid.’

Cardamome rose to her feet. Unable to counter with botanical arguments, she resorted to jeering instead.

‘And I suppose it’s a “father and son” orchid if one flower’s bigger than the other and an “enemies” orchid if they’re growing back to back! It’s because your own husband’s been away so long: you can’t even look at an orchid now without thinking of him. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, dragging him into it like this!’

Caltrop laughed, though her face had turned bright red.

‘You horrible little creature! What rubbish you talk!’

She had begun getting up, intending to give Cardamome’s mouth a good pinch; but before she could do so, Cardamome had thrown herself upon her, forcing her backwards and pinning her to the ground, while at the same time she looked round and called to the other girls to help her.

‘Étamine! Nénuphar! Come and pinch her mouth for me!’

Caltrop struggled to get free and the two of them rolled over and over on the ground. The others laughed and clapped their hands.

‘Careful! Mind the puddle!’ they shouted. ‘Mind she doesn’t spoil her skirt!’

Cardamome looked round and saw that they had rolled towards a hollow in which rain-water had collected and that Caltrop’s skirt was half in it. Feeling somewhat scared, she let go of Caltrop, jumped up, and ran away. The others thought Caltrop’s plight a great joke, but fearing that, with Cardamome gone, she might vent her anger upon them, they ran off also, amidst peals of laughter.

Caltrop got up and inspected her skirt. It was completely soaked, and the foul, stagnant water was dripping off it in half-a-dozen places. She was still exclaiming bitterly over it when Bao-yu appeared. Observing that the girls were playing match-my-flower, he had gone off to collect some flowers himself and had now come back to join them. Surprised to find the other girls all gone and Caltrop standing on her own there contemplating her skirt, he asked her what had happened to the game.

‘I had a “husbands and wives” flower,’ said Caltrop, ‘but the others had never heard of it and said I’d made it up; so there was a quarrel and they spoilt my nice new skirt.’

Bao-yu seemed pleased.

‘I can match your “husbands and wives”,’ he said, taking a purple skullcap from his bunch. ‘Look, here’s a” two heads are better than one”.’ He picked up Caltrop’s orchid and laid it beside the purple skullcap.

‘Bother your “two heads are better than one”!’ said Caltrop, ‘and bother my “husbands and wives”! Look at my skirt!’

Bao-yu bent down and examined it.

‘Aiya! How did you manage to do that? It’s grenadine, isn’t it, that red material? They call it that because it’s the red of pomegranate-flowers. I’m afraid it’s a material that stains very badly. What a pity!’

‘It was material that Miss Bao-qin brought with her from Nanking,’ said Caltrop. ‘Miss Bao-chai and I each made ourselves a skirt out of it. This is the first time I’ve put mine on.’

Bao-yu stamped and sighed sympathetically.

‘I’m sure the Xues could afford to spoil a hundred skirts like this one every day,’ he said; ‘but that’s not the point. In the first place, if this is material that Bao-qin gave you, it’s going to look rather bad if your skirt’s worn out before Bao-chai’s has even been worn. And in the second place, Aunt Xue is a bit inclined to nag – I’ve often heard her complaining that you are extravagant and a bad manager and don’t know how to look after things properly and so forth – and though this may not be your fault, I’m afraid if she gets to see it, you are going to have rather a lot of that sort of thing to listen to.’

What Bao-yu had just said so exactly accorded with what Caltrop herself had been thinking, that she began, in spite of everything, to feel almost pleased.

‘I know. If only I’d got another skirt like this one, I could change into it straight away and she wouldn’t notice. But the trouble is, though I’ve got several new skirts, they all look quite different.’

‘Stop moving!’ said Bao-yu. ‘If you don’t keep still, you’ll get the dirty water on your trousers and pantaloons and the tops of your shoes. I’ve got an idea. Last month Aroma made herself a skirt which is practically identical with this one, but she won’t be able to wear it for a while yet because she’s still in mourning for her mother. Why don’t we get her to send it over for you to change into?’

Caltrop smiled gratefully but shook her head.

‘No, I can’t do that. I’m sure they wouldn’t like it if they found out.’

‘They won’t mind,’ said Bao-yu. ‘As soon as her mourning’s over you can ask her what she’d like to have in return and I’m sure they’d be only too pleased to let you give it to her. Come now, it’s not like you to be so coy! It’s not as if you’ll be doing anything deceitful. You can tell Bao-chai about it. All we shall be doing is making sure that my aunt doesn’t get to hear of it, because we know it would only make her angry.’

Caltrop thought for a bit. What he said seemed reasonable. She smiled and nodded.

‘All right – since you are so kind. I’ll wait for you here, then. Only please, I beg of you, ask her to bring it here herself.’

Bao-yu agreed, delighted that she had accepted, and hurried back to find Aroma, head low and eyes to the ground, thinking about Caltrop all the way.

‘What a pity – nice girl like that – hasn’t any parents – doesn’t even remember her own name – kidnapped when she was a child – and to be sold to a brute like Pan!’

But not all his thoughts about her were so melancholy.

‘What a delightful surprise, though, to be able to do this for her! – That time with Patience was a surprise, too. But this! – never, never would have expected it!’

Still engrossed in these thoughts, he regained his room. There, going up to Aroma, he took her impulsively by the hand and told her what he had come for.

Everyone loved Caltrop. There was something endearing about her that one could not help responding to. Aroma was no exception and was in any case somewhat given to acts of impulsive generosity. As soon as Bao-yu told her what had happened, she opened her clothes-chest, and getting the scarlet skirt out, folded it up carefully and hurried off after him to look for her.

They found her still standing patiently on the spot where Bao-yu had left her. Aroma pretended to scold.

‘You’re too wild, Caltrop. It always ends in trouble.’

Caltrop coloured.

‘Oh, thank you, Aroma. It’s those horrible little beasts I was playing with. I didn’t realize they could be so nasty.’

She unfolded the skirt that Aroma had brought her. It was, as Bao-yu had said, exactly like the one she was wearing. She made him turn his back and look away while she crossed her arms and inserted her hands under her dress in order to undo the fastenings of the dirty skirt. Having carefully removed it, she wrapped herself in the clean one and did up the sides.

‘Let me take that dirty one,’ said Aroma. ‘I’ll send it back to you later when I’ve cleaned it up a bit. If they were to see you going back with it, they’d be sure to ask questions.’

‘Yes, you take it,’ said Caltrop. ‘But my dear Aroma, I don’t want it back if I’ve got this one of yours to wear. Give it to one of the younger maids. I don’t mind which one: you can decide that for me.’

‘That’s very generous of you,’ said Aroma.

Caltrop bowed twice to her in formal expression of her thanks. Aroma then went off, carrying the dirty skirt.

Looking round for Bao-yu, Caltrop found him still with his back towards her, squatting down on the ground and just completing the burial of the ‘husband and wife’ orchid and the purple skullcap. He had dug a little grave for them with a piece of stick, lined it with fallen petals, laid the two flowers on the petals, covered them with more petals, and was now smoothing earth over the top. Caltrop tugged at his arm, laughing.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? I’ve heard people talking about the creepy sort of things you get up to, but I only now realize what they mean. Look at your hands! They’re absolutely filthy. You’d better go and wash them straight away.’

Bao-yu got up and began to go. Caltrop started walking off, too, in the opposite direction. She had gone no more than a few steps, however, when she turned and called to him to stop. Bao-yu, supposing that she had something more to say to him, turned smilingly towards her, holding up his muddy hands.

‘What is it?’

But Caltrop merely stood there, smiling and saying nothing. Just then her little maid Advent came up to tell her that Bao-qin wanted to talk to her. After that, finally, she spoke.

‘You won’t ever tell your Cousin Pan about this, will you?’

‘What, put my head inside the mouth of a tiger?’ said Bao-yu, laughing. ‘You must think I’m crazy!’

He turned once more and went back to Green Delights.

What happened there will be related in the next chapter.

Chapter 63

Flower-maidens combine for nocturnal birthday revels And a grass widow copes with funeral arrangements single-handed

The first thing Bao-yu did when he got back to Green Delights was to wash his hands. While doing so, he discussed with Aroma the drinking-party that they were planning to have that evening.

‘I want everyone to enjoy themselves,’ he said. ‘I want you to let yourselves go for once. Let’s decide now what we are going to eat, so that they have plenty of time to get it ready.’

‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ said Aroma, smiling. ‘I’ve already made a collection for tonight and given the money to Mrs Liu: ten pennyweights of silver each from Skybright, Musk, Ripple and me – that’s two taels – and six each from Parfumée, Emerald, Swallow and Number Four (I didn’t collect anything from the ones who are taking the evening off) making three taels four pennyweights altogether. With that money she’s going to do us forty little dishes of different things to eat. I’ve also had a word with Patience about the drink and she’s had a two-gallon jar of Shaoxing wine carried over for us. It’s hidden away over there, ready for the evening. The party will be our birthday present to you from the eight of us.’

‘How did the younger ones manage to give so much?’ said Bao-yu, pleased but a little concerned. ‘I think it would have been better if you hadn’t taken contributions from them.’

‘What about us then?’ said Skybright. ‘We’re not exactly rich. This is something they wanted to do for you. I think you ought to accept it in the spirit in which it was offered and not bother too much about where the money came from. Suppose they stole it: what does that matter to you?’

‘You’re right,’ said Bao-yu, laughing.

‘If you were to go for one single day without feeling the rough side of her tongue,’ said Aroma, ‘I think you would feel deprived!’

‘Aroma is getting quite expert in the art of stirring up trouble between other people,’ said Skybright. ‘I wonder who she picked it up from.’

While the others were still laughing at these exchanges, Bao-yu gave orders for them to close the courtyard gate.

‘I don’t wonder the young ladies call you “Busybody”,’ said Aroma. ‘If we shut the gate now, we shall be simply inviting suspicion. Much better wait a bit.’

Bao-yu nodded.

‘I have to go outside now for a moment. Have some water ready when I get back, will you, Number Four? Swallow, you can come with me.’

When they were outside and he had first made sure that no one else was about, he asked Swallow what Cook Liu had said about Fivey.

‘Mrs Liu was very pleased when I told her,’ said Swallow, ‘but she said that because of all the worry and the harsh treatment she suffered the other night Fivey has had a relapse; so it’s out of the question for her to begin working with us now. She said it will just have to wait until she’s better.’

Judging from the long sigh he gave when he heard this, Bao-yu appeared to be very much distressed.

‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘does Aroma know about this?’

‘I haven’t told her myself,’ said Swallow. ‘I suppose Parfumée might have done.’

‘Anyway, I haven’t told her yet,’ he said. ‘Hmn. Perhaps I’d better.’

Going back inside, he was careful to wash his hands to avert suspicion.

It was already lighting-up time. A party of women could be heard entering the courtyard gate. The inmates of Green Delights crowded to the windows to peep out. It was Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, accompanied by a number of the stewardesses. A woman holding a big lantern in her hand was leading the way.

‘They’ve come to inspect the watch,’ said Skybright. ‘When they go out again we shall be able to shut the gate.’

Sure enough, the women on night-duty at Green Delights now trooped out into the courtyard to be inspected.

‘Now, no gambling and no drinking!’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, when she had ascertained that they were all there. ‘And no lying down and going to sleep until daylight, or I shall be after you!’

‘None of us is that stupid,’ said the women, laughing. ‘We wouldn’t dare.’

‘Is Master Bao in bed yet?’ Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife asked them.

The women said they didn’t know. Aroma gave Bao-yu a prod and he shuffled to the doorway in his slippers and smiled amiably at the assembled matrons outside.

‘I haven’t gone to bed yet. Come inside and sit down.’ He turned to Aroma inside. ‘Aroma, some tea for Mrs Lin!’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife required no pressing.

‘Not in bed yet?’ she exclaimed, stepping nimbly into the room. ‘Now that the days are so long, you need to go to bed early so that you can get up early in the morning. If you get up late, people will laugh at you. “That’s no way for an educated, well-brought-up young gentleman to behave,” they’ll say. “More like an ignorant, uneducated coolie.”’

The comparison seemed to please her, for she laughed very complacently after making it. Bao-yu laughed too.

‘You’re quite right, Mrs Lin. As a matter of fact, I do go to bed early most nights. Generally when you make your rounds I don’t know you’ve been here because I’m already in bed when you come. The reason I’ve stayed up today is because I’ve had such a lot of noodles to eat. I was afraid that if I went to bed now I’d get indigestion.’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife transferred her smiling attention to Aroma.

‘You want to give him some good, strong Pu-er tea to drink.’

Aroma and Skybright answered her together.

‘We made him a big pot of herbal tea – wutong-tips. He’s already had two cupfuls of it. It’s still quite fresh. Would you like to try some?’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife rose to receive the cup that Skybright poured for her.

‘I hear that Master Bao has taken to calling you senior girls by your names,’ she said. ‘Now that’s not very respectful. Though you work here, you are still Their Ladyships’ girls, don’t forget. I don’t say but what he mightn’t sometimes, just once in a while, let one of your names drop out by accident, and no harm done. But if he makes a habit of it, the other young gentlemen will soon be copying him, and we shall get ourselves laughed at as a family in which the young folk have no respect for their elders.’

‘You are quite right,’ said Bao-yu. ‘But in fact it is only once in a while and quite unintentionally.’

Aroma and Skybright hastened to corroborate this.

‘Oh yes, Mrs Lin. It would be quite unfair to say that he makes a habit of it. Normally he is most respectful. It’s only once or twice in this apartment when we’ve been joking together and never in front of other people.’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife was all smiles.

‘Well, that’s all right then. Respectable is what an educated young gentleman ought to be. The more you respect others, I say, the more others will respect you. And I don’t only mean older people who have served three or four generations of the family, I mean anyone who comes to you from Their. Ladyships. Even Their Ladyships’ cat and Their Ladyships’ dog is to be respected, if you want people to think of you as an educated, well-brought-up young gentleman.’

She finished her tea.

‘Well, good night young master, I must be going.’

‘Won’t you stay a little longer?’ said Bao-yu.

But Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife was already on her way and leading her troops off to inspect another apartment. Skybright barred the gate after her as soon as she was gone. She was laughing as she came in afterwards.

‘I think the old girl’s had a bit too much to drink. That’s why we were treated to the lecture.’

‘She means well,’ said Musk. ‘We need someone to remind us once in a while, just to keep us on the straight and narrow.’

She began laying the table while she said this; but Aroma stopped her.

‘Let’s not sit up at the big table. We can put the round pearwood table on the kang. It will be much more relaxed and comfortable on the kang.’

While other maids lifted the pear-wood table onto the kang, Musk and Number Four went off to collect the dishes that Cook Liu had been preparing for them. Though each carried the largest tea-tray she could find, it took four or five trips to carry them all over. Meanwhile two old nannies squatted on the verandah outside, tending the stove on which the wine was heating.

‘It’s so hot,’ Bao-yu said to the maids. ‘Let’s take our outer clothes off.’

‘You can take yours off if you like,’ said the girls, ‘but we want to drink a health with you before we start, so we shall have to stay respectable a bit longer.’

‘If you’re going to begin that sort of nonsense, we shan’t get started until morning!’ said Bao-yu. ‘You know how I hate that kind of thing. It’s bad enough at parties outside when I have to do it; but to make me do it here in my own room – it’s as though you were deliberately trying to annoy me.’

‘All right, all right!’ they said. ‘Anything you say!’

And so, before taking their places on the kang, they went off to remove their hair-ornaments and make themselves more comfortable. They returned wearing only tunics and trousers, with their unadorned hair loosely knotted or coiled. Bao-yu himself was wearing a dark-red cotton tunic tied at the waist with a sash, and trousers in a black-and-green-patterned lined silk gauze, unconfined at the ankles. The girls found him already ensconced on the kang. He was leaning back, one elbow resting on a newly-made turquoise-coloured pouffe stuffed with rose and peony petals, playing guess-fingers with Parfumée. Parfumée was shouting excitedly as she played. She was wearing a very short, close-fitting tunic with a harlequin pattern of turquoise, deep purple and reddish-brown lozenges, a willow-green sash, and flower-sprigged pale red trousers, which, like Bao-yu’s, were unconfined at the ankles. Her hair was done up in a number of little plaits which had been drawn back to join one great plait, as thick as a goose’s egg at the nape of her neck. She had a tiny jade stud no bigger than a grain of rice in her right ear; from her left ear hung a pendant made of ruby-glass and gold, the size of a ginkgo-fruit. Never had the moonlike pallor of her face, the limpid brightness of her eyes shown to greater advantage.

‘Look at that now!’ said the maids admiringly. ‘Wouldn’t you take the two of them for a pair of twins?’

‘Wait a bit,’ said Aroma, who had begun pouring wine. ‘You can play that later. Even though you won’t let us drink healths with you, at least do us the honour of drinking from our hands.’

She held her wine-cup to his lips and he took a sip from it. After that each of the seven others came up to him in turn, holding their full cups out to him, and he took a sip from each one. This little ceremony over, they proceeded to arrange themselves round the table. As there was insufficient room for Swallow and Number Four on the side nearest the edge of the kang, they brought a couple of felt-covered porcelain ‘tabouret’ stools up and sat at it on the floor below. The forty dishes, all of white Ding-ware and each no larger than a tea-saucer, contained every conceivable kind of sweet, savoury, fresh, dried, pickled, salted, smoked, baked, fried or sautéed delicacy designed to assist the absorption of rice-wine by the human frame.

‘Let’s play a drinking game,’ said Bao-yu.

‘Yes, but let it be a nice, quiet game this time,’ said Aroma. ‘We don’t want too much shouting, or people will hear us. Something not too learned, though. Don’t forget that some of us here can’t read or write.’

‘Get out the dice and let’s play Fours then,’ said Musk.

‘No, that’s a boring game,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Let’s play Choosing the Flower.’

‘Oh yes, do let’s!’ said Skybright. ‘I’ve been wanting to play that for ages.’

‘It’s a good game,’ said Aroma, ‘but you really need more people playing it to make it interesting.’

‘If you ask me, I think we should slip over and ask Miss Bao and Miss Yun and Miss Lin to come and join us,’ said Swallow. ‘There’d be no harm in their staying here till about ten o’clock, surely?’

‘But think of all the opening and closing of gates,’ said Aroma. ‘And suppose you ran into the watch and they started asking –’

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Ask Miss Tan too; she’s fond of drinking. And if she’s one of the party, they won’t be able to say anything even if they do find out. And what about Miss Qin?’

‘No, not Miss Qin,’ said the girls. ‘She’s staying in Mrs Zhu’s room. Routing her out from there would be simply asking for trouble.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Bao-yu, ‘you see. Just ask her.’

Swallow and Number Four needed no second bidding. Choosing a few of the junior maids to go with them, they ordered the old women to open the gate for them and set off, one in the direction of Dai-yu’s place and one in the direction of Bao-chai’s.

The senior maids, Aroma, Musk and Skybright, doubted whether, particularly in the case of Dai-yu and Bao-chai, such insubstantial deputies would be successful and decided that they had better go themselves and add their own weight to the invitation. Ordering a couple of the older women with lanterns to accompany them, they went off in the wake of the other two to see what they could achieve.

It Was as they had suspected. Bao-chai ‘thought it was rather late’; Dai-yu ‘didn’t feel quite up to it’. It was only when Aroma and Skybright had appealed to them by pointing out that the maids were the hosts and would very much appreciate the honour that they changed their minds and finally consented to come.

Swallow and Number Four had had no such difficulty with Tan-chun. She had seemed delighted by the invitation, even suggesting that they should invite Li Wan as well – since it would be embarrassing if she were not invited and were to find out about the party afterwards – and sending her own maid Ebony to help Swallow persuade Li Wan that she and Bao-qin should come.

One by one the new guests started to arrive. Caltrop came, too, in addition to the ones already mentioned. Refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer, Aroma had taken her firmly by the hand and dragged her off forcibly from All-spice Court. To accommodate the greater numbers, Aroma and the other girls put another table alongside the one already on the kang and a row of chairs facing them on the floor below. Bao-yu and the other guests arranged themselves on the kang, while the seven maids and Parfumée, as hosts, sat on the row of chairs below, within reach of one or other of the tables.

‘Cousin Lin can sit there, against the partition,’ said Bao-yu, while the guests were still arranging themselves on the kang. ‘She’ll be better able to keep warm there.’

He made her a little nest of pillows there, into which, though it was somewhat inconveniently distant from the table, she settled herself very comfortably. From this cosy vantagepoint she looked across at Li Wan, Bao-chai and Tan-chun with a teasing smile.

‘You are always grumbling about the gambling and drinking of the servants, yet here are we proposing to do precisely the same thing ourselves. How will you have the face to tell them off for this sort of thing in future?’

‘This doesn’t count,’ said Li Wan, smiling back at her. ‘There’s all the difference in the world between doing this once in a while on a birthday or a holiday and doing it every night of one’s life.’

Skybright now produced a cylindrical bamboo box containing a set of ivory drinking-cards, each with a different kind of flower painted on it. After giving it a good shake, she put it down in the middle of one of the tables. Then she took four dice, put them inside a dice-box, shook it, opened it, and looked inside. The pips on the faces uppermost made a total of five. Counting herself as ‘one’, the fifth along in an anticlockwise direction was Bao-chai.

‘I draw first then,’ said Bao-chai, smiling. ‘I wonder what it will be.’

She gave the cylinder another shake and pulled out a card. The others craned over to look. It had a picture of a peony on it with the caption ‘Empress of the Garden’ in large red characters. This was followed by a line of smaller black characters from a poem by the Tang poet Luo Yin:

Yourself lack passion, yet can others move.

On the other side of the picture were directions for the person drawing the card and for the other drinkers:

All present are to drink a cup in your honour. Also, because you have preeminence over all the other flowers, you are entitled to ask anyone present to recite a poem or tell a joke or sing a song for your entertainment.

The others laughed delightedly.

‘The peony suits you perfectly. What a splendid choice!’

When they had all drunk the cupful, Bao-chai drank a little wine herself and said that she would like Patfumée to sing her a song. Parfumée began:

‘The sumptuous birthday feast begins –’

‘Stop! Stop!’ said the others. ‘We don’t want birthday odes at this time of night. Sing us something nice.’

Parfumée began again, this time putting all she had into the performance:

‘With my little phoenix-feather broom
I stand at heaven’s door
To sweep away the fallen flowers
That lie on heaven’s floor;
And when, by yonder cloud-bank,
The wind begins to rise,
It stirs the pearly dust up:
Round and round it flies.
O, sweeping heaven’s floor
Is like any earthly chore!…’

Meanwhile Bao-yu, who had taken temporary possession of the card, continued to turn it this way and that between his fingers, muttering to himself the line of verse that was inscribed on it:

Yourself lack passion, yet can others move.

When Parfumée had finished, he gazed at her fixedly, saying nothing. Xiang-yun snatched the card from him rather impatiently and handed it back to Bao-chai. Bao-chai threw the dice. Sixteen. This time the count went right round both tables, ending at Tan-chun, who was sitting next to her.

‘I wonder what I shall be,’ said Tan-chun, and reached out to draw a card. But she blushed when she had looked at it and threw it on the table with an embarrassed laugh.

‘I don’t think we ought to play this game,’ she said. ‘It’s really a game for men to play, outside. There are all sorts of objectionable things in the directions.’

The others were puzzled, until Aroma picked the card up and held it out for them to see. The picture was of a spray of almond blossom with the caption ‘Spirit of the Afterglow’. The line of verse which followed it was by Gao Chan:

Apricot-trees make the sun’s red-petalled floor.

Then came the part which had made Tan-chun feel embarrassed:

You are destined to make a noble marriage. Congratulations!
Those present must offer you a cup of wine and drink a cup in your honour.

The reading of these words was greeted with general laughter.

‘So that’s what upset you? Well, it’s true there are a few like this which are amusing at the expense of us girls, but there’s no real harm in them. Anyway, what’s wrong with the prognostication? We’ve already got one royal consort in the family, why shouldn’t we have another? Congratulations!’

They raised their cups and drank a toast to the marriage. Tan-chun herself refused to drink, but Xiang-yun, Caltrop and Li Wan seized hold of her and forced the wine down her throat. Even then she continued to insist that they ought to abandon the game and play something else. Xiang-yun had to take hold of her hand, clamp her fingers to the dice-box, and force her to throw the dice. The number thrown in this way was nineteen. This time the count was more than the number of players and ended, the second time round, at Li Wan. Li Wan shook the cylinder and drew out a card. She smiled when she saw what she had got.

‘Very good! Look at this, all of you! This is rather a nice one.’

The picture was of a winter-flowering plum with the rubric ‘Beauty of the Snow’. The verse that followed was by Wang Qi:

Content by cottage fence to bloom unseen.

The instructions given on this card were:

You are to drink a cup of wine. The next player after
you is to throw the dice.

‘There, isn’t that nice!’ said Li Wan. ‘You have to throw the dice for me and I just sit back enjoying myself and let the world go by!’

She sipped her wine and passed the dice-box to Dai-yu. The eighteen which Dai-yu threw brought the count round to Xiang-yun.

‘Ha ha!’ said Xiang-yun, rolling up her sleeves. She stretched her arm out and drew a card. The others looked at what she had drawn. It was a picture of crab-apple blossom with the caption ‘Sweet Drunken Dreamer’. The quotation following was a line from Su Dong-po:

Fear that the flowers at dead of night should sleep.

‘For “at dead of night” read “on a stone bench”,’ said Dai-yu.

The others laughed, remembering Xiang-yun’s inebriation earlier in the day; but Xiang-yun smiled unconcernedly and pointed to the self-propelling toy boat on Bao-yu’s shelf.

‘Just get on that boat and go home, will you? You have too much to say for yourself, my girl!’

Amidst further laughter they looked at the instructions:

In view of the sweet drunken dreaming you are not to drink anything yourself, but the players sitting to right and left of you are each to drink a cupful.

‘Holy Name!’ said Xiang-yun, clapping her hands delightedly. ‘What a kind, thoughtful card!’

Xiang-yun’s neighbours, it so happened, were Dai-yu and Bao-yu. Others filled their cups for them in readiness. Bao-yu drank half of his and gave the rest to Parfumée, who threw her head back and emptied it at a gulp; Dai-yu, under cover of talking to someone, emptied the whole of hers into a spittoon. Xiang-yun picked up the dice. The total this time was nine, which meant that Musk was to draw. The card she drew portrayed a rose under the caption ‘Summer’s Crowning Glory’. The black-letter verse was another line from Wang Qi:

After sweet Rose there is no more blooming.

And the instructions:

All present drink three cups to commemorate the passing of the flowers.

‘What does it say?’ Musk asked.

Bao-yu frowned and quickly hid the card.

‘We are all to drink something,’ he said.

As a compromise they drank three sips each instead of the three cupfuls prescribed.

Musk threw nineteen with the dice, which made it Caltrop’s turn to draw. The flower she drew was a purple skullcap with the caption ‘Three Springs’ Harbinger’. The line of verse was by Zhu Shu-zhen:

Even as the twy-stemmed blossoms break in bloom.

And the comment:

This flower is a luck-bringer. Congratulations! Those present are to offer you three cups of wine and are each to drink a cup of wine to your health.

Caltrop threw six. Dai-yu to draw.

‘I wonder if there are any nice ones left,’ Dai-yu thought as she reached out to draw a card. ‘I hope I shall pick one of them if there are.’

She looked at the card she had taken. It was a hibiscus flower. ‘Mourner of the Autumn Mere’ the caption said, and the line of verse was by Ou-yang Xiu:

Your own self, not the East Wind, is your undoing.

The instructions said:

You are to drink a cup of wine yourself, and Peony is
to take a cup with you.

The others laughed.

‘Isn’t that good! It’s exactly the right flower for her.’

Dai-yu too seemed pleased. When she and Bao-chai had drunk, she threw the dice. Twenty. That meant that Aroma was to draw. Aroma reached out and took a card. The picture on it was of a spray of peach-blossom with the caption ‘Fisherman’s Lost Paradise’ and the verse, from Xie Fang-de:

Peach-trees in pink and another spring is here.

The instructions said:

Almond is to drink a cup of wine with you, so is anyone who is the same age as you, anyone whose birthday is on the same day, and anyone who has the same surname.

‘This one sounds interesting,’ said the others, laughing, and at once began working out which of them belonged to these categories. Caltrop, Skybright and Bao-chai were all the same age as Aroma; Dai-yu’s birthday was on the same day; but there appeared to be no one present with the same surname – until Parfumée pointed out that her surname, like Aroma’s, was ‘Hua’ and claimed the right to drink a cup as well.

While the others were pouring out the wine, Dai-yu looked mischievously at Tan-chun:

‘As both Almond and someone who is destined to marry royalty, you had better begin.’

‘What’s that?’ said Tan-chun. She turned to Li Wan. ‘Oblige me by leaning over and giving that girl a back-hander, would you?’

‘Oh, that seems rather hard!’ said Li Wan. she’s not getting a royal husband and now she is to be beaten as well!’

Aroma was about to throw the dice when they heard someone calling outside the gate. One of the old women hurried out to see who it was and came back to tell them that it was some people from Aunt Xue’s come to collect Dai-yu.

‘What time is it?’ they asked the old woman.

‘Long past second watch,’ she said. ‘It struck eleven some time ago.’

Bao-yu, refusing to believe that it could be so late, asked to see his watch. He found on inspecting it, however, that it was in fact five and twenty minutes past eleven. Dai-yu rose to her feet.

‘I can’t, in any case, keep going much longer,’ she said. ‘And I have to take my medicine when I get back.’

‘Perhaps we’d all better break off now,’ said the others.

Aroma and Bao-yu tried to dissuade them, but Li Wan and Tan-chun were insistent.

‘It’s terribly late. We’ve already broken enough rules for one day.’

‘Very well,’ said Aroma. ‘All of you just drink one more cup of wine then, and we’ll let you go.’

Skybright, assisted by one of the junior maids, was already filling their cups. The others drank up and called for their lanterns to be lit. When they were ready, Aroma and the rest of the maids accompanied them all the way to the far side of Drenched Blossoms Bridge before returning to Green Delights. There, having once more barred the gate, they continued for a while with the game. Aroma filled some extra large cups with wine and put a selection of the delicacies on the little dishes on to a large plate to give to the old women who had been all this time on duty.

Everyone was by now beginning to be a little drunk. Soon they were playing guess-fingers and singing solos. By two o’clock the old women, who had been supplementing what the maids, in their kindness, had given them by surreptitiously helping themselves, had made such formidable inroads into the wine-supply that the two-gallon jar was suddenly found to be empty. On hearing that there was no more wine, the maids began to clear the things away and to wash and prepare themselves for bed.

Parfumée, who had drunk so much that her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glittered with an unnatural brightness, was incapable of moving. She leaned inertly against Aroma’s shoulder, murmuring plaintively in her ear.

‘Oh, Aroma! My heart is beating so!’

Aroma laughed.

‘You shouldn’t have drunk so much!’

Swallow and Number Four had long since succumbed and were lying asleep on the kang. Skybright tried unsuccessfully to wake them; but Bao-yu stopped her:

‘Leave them alone. It doesn’t matter if we all sleep here for once.’

He followed their example by pillowing his head on the petal-stuffed damask cushion, turning over on his side, and promptly dropping off to sleep.

Aroma could see that Parfumée was extremely drunk. Fearing that any but the slightest movement might make her sick, she lifted her up, very, very gently, and laid her down beside Bao-yu on the kang. She herself lay down on the couch opposite. A gentle oblivion then descended upon all of them and they slept like tops until morning.

It was already broad daylight when Aroma opened her eyes.

‘Oh, it’s late!’ she said.

She raised her head up to look at the kang opposite. Parfumée was still fast asleep, her head resting on the raised edge of the kang. Aroma hurriedly got up and went across to wake her. Her calling aroused Bao-yu, who sat up, looked around him cheerfully, commented ‘It’s late I’, and gave Parfumée a prod. Then Parfumée, too, sat up, rubbing her eyes and still only half awake.

‘Shame on you!’ said Aroma, laughing at her. ‘Look where you spent last night! You must have been very drunk, not to have chosen your place more carefully!’

Parfumée looked around her and saw that she had spent the night at Bao-yu’s side. She slipped off the kang hurriedly, with an embarrassed laugh.

‘How did I…?’

‘I don’t know either,’ said Bao-yu, laughing. ‘If I had known, I should have rubbed some ink on your face!’

Maids now came in carrying the basin and other things for his toilet.

‘Thank you all very much for last night’s party,’ said Bao-yu. ‘We’ll have another one tonight and this time you shall all be my guests.’

‘Oh no!’ said Aroma. ‘Not again! If we make another rumpus tonight, people will start complaining.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It’s only twice. Anyway, we’re all seasoned drinkers. Just think, we got through a whole two-gallon jar of wine last night! Just as it was beginning to get interesting, we found that we’d run out.’

‘That’s how it should be,’ said Aroma. ‘It’s much better to end a party when the fun is at its height than to go on until everyone is exhausted. I must say, everyone was in very good form last night. Skybright was being quite abandoned. She even sang a song, if I remember rightly!’

‘But don’t you remember?’ said Number Four. ‘You sang one too. We all did.’

A fit of uncontrollable giggles possessed the maids as they remembered, and they hid their blushing faces in their hands. While they were still giggling, a smiling Patience arrived. She had come to invite her hosts of the previous day to a return party.

‘No excuses!’ she said.’ I shall expect every one of you to be there.’

They made her sit down and somebody fetched her some tea.

‘What a pity we didn’t have her with us last night!’ Skybright commented.

Patience pricked up her ears.

‘Why, what were you doing last night?’

‘I don’t know whether I ought to tell you,’ said Aroma. ‘We had a high old time, I can tell you that. Even the high jinks Her Old Ladyship gets up to with the young ladies and Master Bao are nothing compared to last night. We got through a whole two-gallon jar of wine. We drank so much that we forgot our shame, singing songs until after two o’clock, then lying around with our clothes on and sleeping where we lay until morning.’

‘Charming!’said Patience with pretended indignation. ‘You come and ask me for wine, you don’t invite me to your party, and now you have the nerve to tell me what a wonderful time you had. I feel really angry!’

‘He’s giving a return party tonight,’ said Skybright. ‘He’s sure to ask you to that. I expect he’ll be going over himself shortly to invite you.’

‘“He” is who? Who is “he”?’ said Patience.

‘Oh, sharp-ears!’ Skybright coloured and pretended to strike her. ‘Trust you to pick on a little thing like that!’

‘Well, I can’t stay here talking, I’ve got something to attend to,’ said Patience. ‘I’ll be sending someone over later to tell you when it’s ready. Mind you all come now, or I’ll have the troops out to come and get you!’

Bao-yu and the maids tried to detain her, but she was already on her way.

Bao-yu now completed his interrupted toilet and took his early morning tea. While he sat sipping it, his eye chanced to light on a sheet of paper underneath the inkstone.

‘I wish you girls wouldn’t use my inkstone as a paperweight,’ he said.

Aroma and Skybright were immediately on the defensive.

‘Oh dear! Who’s at fault this time?’

Bao-yu pointed towards the offending paper.

‘Look. Under the inkstone. Someone’s pattern, I expect, that she forgot to put away.’

Skybright lifted the inkstone and picked up the paper from underneath. It was not an embroidery-pattern but some kind of writing. She handed it to Bao-yu. It was a sheet of pink, patterned letter-paper. A single column of characters ran down the centre of it:

From Adamantina, the Dweller Beyond the Threshold: Respectful Anniversary Greetings.

‘Who took delivery of this note?’ he asked, jumping up excitedly.

Assuming, from the degree of agitation, that the note must be from a person of some consequence, Aroma and Skybright took up the question. In response to their shouted inquiry, a smiling Number Four came running into the room.

‘I did. From Adamantina. She didn’t bring it herself, she sent one of the old women with it. I put it down somewhere in here. I meant to tell you about it, but with all that drinking last night I forgot.’

‘So that’s who it’s from,’ said the other maids. ‘What a fuss about nothing!’

But Bao-yu evidently did not think so.

‘Fetch me some paper,’ he said, still in some agitation, and himself began grinding the ink. But when the ink was ground and he sat with moistened brush poised in readiness over the virgin paper, he found that he did not know how to begin. What was the correct response to ‘Dweller Beyond the Threshold’? For a long time he sat thinking, but no inspiration was forthcoming.

‘It’s no good asking Bao-chai,’ he thought. ‘She’d only say something critical about Adamantina being too “fanciful”. I’d better ask Dai-yu.’

Slipping Adamantina’s note into his sleeve, he set off in the direction of the Naiad’s House. He was just stepping off the Drenched Blossoms bridge when he caught sight of Xing Xiu-yan bustling along in a very purposeful manner from the opposite direction.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked her.

‘I want to have a talk with Adamantina.’

Bao-yu was surprised.

‘Adamantina is such a strange, contrary person. There are very few people she can get on with. If she thinks highly of you, it proves that you must be made of finer stuff than the rest of us.’

‘I don’t know whether she thinks particularly highly of me,’ said Xiu-yan, ‘but we were neighbours for ten years. When she was serving her novitiate at the Coiled Incense Temple, there was only a party wall separating her from the place where my family lived. My family was too poor to own a house and for ten years lived in rented accommodation in her temple. Whenever I had nothing else to do, I used to go inside the nuns’ courtyard and spend my time with Adamantina. It was she who taught me to read and write. In fact, everything I know, practically, I owe to her. So you see, she’s not only my “hard times friend’; she is also in a sense my teacher. When my parents finally came here to throw themselves on the generosity of your family, we learned that Adamantina, too, had found a home here. She had evidently found this a place where her eccentricities would be tolerated and where she would be safe from molestation by those having the power to persecute her. It seemed as if our destinies must be linked. And I was glad to find, when I went to look her up here, that her friendship for me was unaltered. In fact, I think that if anything she is even nicer to me now than she was before.’

As if by a flash of lightning, the mystery of Xiu-yan’s utter alienness from her appalling parents was revealed.

‘I see’! he said. ‘That ethereal, crane-in-the-clouds quality one notices in everything you do or say – I see now where you get it from. As a matter of fact it’s something to do with Adamantina that has brought me out. Something she wrote has been puzzling me and I was on my way to ask someone else’s advice about it when I ran into you. It’s an extraordinary bit of luck that I did, because you are obviously much better qualified to advise me than the person I had been intending to ask.’

He took the piece of paper from his sleeve and showed it to her. Xiu-yan ran her eye over it and laughed.

‘She’ll never change. The same whimsical, preposterous Adamantina as always! Who but Adamantina would use her nom-de-plume in a birthday greeting? Talk about “a monk no monk and a maid no maid”! What sort of etiquette is that?’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Bao-yu, smiling. ‘Adamantina is above etiquette. She doesn’t subscribe to the conventions of our mundane world. Her writing to me in this way shows that she must credit me with some intelligence. Unfortunately I haven’t the faintest idea in what terms I ought to reply. I was on my way to ask Cousin Lin’s advice when I was fortunate enough to bump into you.’

For some moments Xiu-yan ran her eyes up and down Bao-yu appraisingly. Finally she broke into a laugh.

‘“The sight of it exceedeth the report thereof.” I see now what they mean. I’m not surprised she sent you this. And I’m not surprised she gave you all that plum-blossom last year. Well, if even Adamantina has succumbed, I suppose I shall have to do my little bit by explaining what this means.

‘Adamantina is fond of saying that out of all the poems by all the poets of the Han, Jin, North-and-South, Tang and Song dynasties, a couple of lines in Fan Cheng-da’s “Walk in the Cemetery” are the only decent verses ever written:

Though you hide behind a threshold of indestructible iron,

The mound shaped like a wheat-cake will claim you for its own.

That’s why she calls herself “The Dweller Beyond the Threshold”. Her favourite prose-writer is Zhuang-zi, so sometimes she calls herself “The Outsider”, after Zhuang-zi’s “outsider… wandering beyond the realm”. The way to please her is to refer to yourself modestly as someone still trapped in the toils of the wicked world while she is floating freely somewhere above them. If she’d called herself “The Outsider” in this note she’s sent you, the right response would have been to call yourself “The Worldling” in your reply. As she’s called herself “The Dweller Beyond the Threshold”, you should refer to yourself in answering as” The Dweller Behind the Threshold”, to indicate that you have understood the reference to Fan Cheng-da.’

The scriptures tell us that the revelation of the Buddhatruth comes ‘like ghee poured upon the head’. Bao-yu must have had some such feeling as he listened to Xiu-yan, for he first of all gave a gasp of discovery and then laughed out loud.

‘I see! That’s why our family temple is called the “Temple of the Iron Threshold” I Thank you very much. Now I can go and write my reply.’

Xiu-yan continued on her way to Green Bower Hermitage and Bao-yu went back to write his note. He wrote:

From Bao-yu, Dweller Behind the Threshold, Devout and Humble Thanks.

He carried the note to the Hermitage himself and posted it through the crack between the double doors.

By the time he got back to Green Delights, Parfumée had just completed her toilet. She had gone back to the elaborate feminine coiffure which she normally favoured, complete with kingfisher-feather hair-ornaments; but Bao-yu said he would prefer to see her permanently got up like a boy. He had her fringe and side-pieces cut off and the remaining short bits shaved away from her forehead round to the back of her neck, so that only the long hair growing from the crown of her head remained.

‘We’ll get you a big fur cap with ear-flaps to wear in the winter,’ he said, ‘and big tiger-boots for your feet, or white socks and thick-soled, stitch-patterned padded shoes, to go with loose-bottomed trousers. And we’d better change your name. “Parfumée” won’t do for a boy. What about “Honey Boy”? We can call you “Honey” for short.’

Parfumée was delighted.

‘Now you’ll be able to take me with you when you go outside,’ she said. ‘If anyone asks about me, you can tell them that I’m one of your pages, like Tealeaf.’

Bao-yu smiled at the idea, but seemed rather doubtful.

‘I think sooner or later they’d be able to tell that you weren’t.’

‘You have no imagination!’ said Parfumée. ‘Tell them I’m a foreign page. Your family’s got several foreign pages.* Anyway a pigtail suits me; everyone says it does. What about it? Don’t you think it’s a brilliant idea?’

Bao-yu was quite won over.

* Stone’s Note to Reader:

Both the Rong and Ning branches of the Jia family did in fact employ a number of foreign captives taken by previous members of the family in their various military campaigns and later graciously bestowed on them as bond-slaves by His Imperial Majesty. They were invariably employed as grooms, being useless for any other kind of work. Parfumée’s transvestism was by no means a novelty in the household. The tomboyish Shi Xiang-yun had long since shown a passion for dressing up in military uniform and was frequently to be seen wearing a cavalryman’s belt and tight-sleeved riding habit. When Bao-yu put Parfumée into boy’s clothing, she was quick to follow suit by dressing her own Althée in a page’s costume. As a ‘painted face’ Althée was already in the habit of shaving off the short hair above her forehead and round her ears to facilitate making-up and had acquired a certain masculinity of movement and gesture from the roles she played, so the transformation was in her case a less drastic one. Li Wan and Tan-chun were so taken with the result that they decided to dress Bao-qin’s Cardamome up as a little page as well. Her hair was done up in two knots like horns, one on each side of her head. Dressed in trousers and a short smock and with a pair of red shoes on her feet she looked – except for the make-up – exactly like the scholar’ page, Lute Boy, in the play. Xiang-yun changed Althée’s name to ‘Valiant’ because she thought it suited her. Cardamome was the youngest, liveliest and most mischievous of the little ex-actresses and the majority of the Garden’s inhabitants had already taken to calling her by less flattering sobriquets long before her transformation into a page. After the transformation had been made, Bao-qin rejected ‘Lute Boy’ as too obvious; and since she liked ‘Cardamome’ and thought it a pretty name, she resolved to retain at any rate the middle part of it by calling the new page ‘Damon’.

Stone

‘It’s a very good idea. I’ve often seen officials with little foreign servants – mostly Tartars or Tibetans captured in the wars. People like to have them as grooms because they are good at handling horses and don’t mind waiting about in the cold. We’ll have to give you a foreign name then. What about “Yelü Hunni”? “Yelü” is an old Kitansurnameand” Hunni” is what the Xiong-nu used to call themselves.’

Parfumée was very satisfied with this, so it was agreed that in future she would always be referred to as Yelü Hunni.

After lunch Patience’s messenger arrived to say that, as the summerhouse in the Peony Garden was thought to be too hot, her return party had been laid out in the Shady Elm rooms. You-shi came over well in advance, bringing two of Cousin Zhen’s little concubines, Lovey and Dove, with her from Ning-guo House. They were very young and wild and had seldom been taken to the neighbouring mansion before. Today, meeting such lively members of the Garden’s society as Caltrop, Xiang-yun, Parfumée and tamine for the first time, they were in their element, quickly proving the truth of the old saying about ‘birds of a feather’ by chattering nineteen to the dozen with their new-found friends and dashing off with them on an exploratory tour of the Garden. You-shi was left to the company of her own maids.

Presently, when they were visiting Green Delights, Caltrop, Lovey and Dove were very much amused to hear Bao-yu addressing Parfumée as ‘Yelü Hunni’. Having elicited from her how she came to have acquired so extraordinary a name, they began to try using it themselves; but in their unpractised mouths the foreign sounds soon degenerated into ‘Yellow Honey’; and even this was soon abandoned in favour of ‘Yellow Belly’. The maids, hearing them call her this, were all in stitches. Bao-yu feared that Parfumée would be wounded by their hilarity and proposed yet another change of name.

‘There is a land in the West called “Fran-see-ya” where they make a kind of golden glitter-glass called “aventurin”. You are such a bright and glittering person yourself: I think the name Aventurin would suit you very well.’

Parfumée was delighted with it. But it was still no good: the others found ‘Aventurin’ too difficult; and having estab lished that it was the name of some kind of foreign glass, soon took to calling her ‘Glassy’ or ‘Glass-eyes’ instead.

But we digress.

The party in the Shady Elm rooms had now begun. Once more wine was made an excuse for much unrestrained hilarity. The blind ballad-singers were asked to drum for them and Patience broke off a spray of peonies to play ‘passing the branch’ with. There must have been near enough twenty people taking part in the game. Just as the fun was at its height, it was announced that two women had arrived delivering things from the Zhen family in Nanking and Tan-chun, Li Wan and You-shi had to go off to the jobs room to receive them. The others decided to make a little break in the party while they did so, in which those who wanted to could take some exercise outside. Lovey and Dove decided to have a swing.

‘You get up as well,’ Bao-yu said to Lovey, who was pushing. ‘I’ll push you both.’

‘Oh no you don’t!’ said Lovey. ‘I know your kind of pushing! Yellow-belly can push us.’

‘Please,’ said Bao-yu exasperatedly, ‘don’t call her by that horrible name! You’ll have all the others calling her by it as well.’

Dove was giggling helplessly on the swing.

‘Stop it, you two! I can’t work this thing properly if you make me laugh. I shall fall off, if you’re not careful, and knock all the gravy out of you!’

While they were in the midst of their diversions, a group of servants from the Ning-guo mansion came rushing up in a state of great agitation.

‘Sir Jing is dead!’

‘Dead?’ Everyone hearing them was incredulous. ‘But he hadn’t been ill. How can he have died so suddenly?’

‘He spent all his time looking for the secret of immortality.’ said one of the servants. ‘Perhaps he found it and went off to heaven.’

You-shi heard the news with dismay. There would be so much to do, and with Cousin Zhen, Jia Rong and Jia Lian all three away, no dependable male around to help her. The first thing she did, of course, was to remove all her jewellery and the ornaments from her hair. Then, having ordered some of the household to go on ahead and put all the Taoists there under lock and key pending her husband’s return, she got into her carriage and drove with all speed to the Dark Truth Monastery outside the city, accompanied by the Chief Steward Lai Sheng’s wife and several of the senior stewardesses. Meanwhile other servants were dispatched to various members of the faculty requesting their attendance at the monastery.

The physicians duly arrived. As the patient was already dead, there was little scope for their customary methods of diagnosis; but they knew that Sir Jing had gone in for breath-control and various other kinds of Taoist hocus-pocus, some of which, like the worship of the Seven Stars, the keeping of ‘ghostworm’ vigils and the swallowing of mercuric ‘elixirs’, must have gravely weakened his constitution and may well have hastened his death; and when they saw the purple face and cracked and shrivelled lips of the corpse and felt the iron-hard abdomen, they had little difficulty in forming their collective opinion, which their spokesman delivered forthwith to the waiting women: ‘That death was due to edema and corrosion following ingestion by the deceased of some toxic metallic substance in pursuance of his Taoist researches.’

‘It wasn’t toxic,’ protested the Taoists, alarmed for their own safety. ‘It was an infallible secret formula, but it needed to be taken in the right conditions. We told him he wasn’t ready for it, but he wouldn’t believe us. He must have taken it during the vigil last night, when he was meditating on his own and there was nobody around to stop him. He will have gone straight to heaven, of course: such faith is sure to be rewarded. We must rejoice that he has cast off the corrupt garment of flesh and left this sea of misery behind him.’

But You-shi had no intention of getting drawn into an argument. Her only reply was to give orders that they should all be locked up again and remain so until Cousin Zhen could deal with them when he got back. Riders were dispatched post-haste to inform him of his father’s death.

You-shi could see at a glance that the monastery’s accommodation was far too cramped for the lying-in-state; on the other hand there could be no question of her taking the corpse back with her into the city. She therefore had it wrapped up and carried in a curtained chair to the Temple of the Iron Threshold. And as she calculated that it would probably be at least half a month before Cousin Zhen got back, by which time, as this was the hottest part of the year, the process of decomposition would already be well advanced, she decided, acting on her own initiative, to consult an astrologer and find out the earliest date on which the body could be encoffined. The coffin was conveniently to hand, having been deposited in the Temple of the Iron Threshold when it was purchased some years previously. The formal going into mourning and its attendant ceremonies were scheduled to take place three days later. Staging was put up in readiness for the Taoists and Buddhists, but their requiems were to be deferred until Cousin Zhen should have returned.

While You-shi and the already depleted staff were attending to these matters outside the city, no one with authority was left in the two mansions able to deal with callers from outside. On the Rong-guo side Xi-feng was still unable to see people because of her illness, Li Wan was fully occupied in looking after the young people, and Bao-yu was too lacking in savoir-faire to be trusted. It was necessary to call in a number of obscure junior clansmen who had done occasional odd-jobs for the family in the past: Jia Bin, Jia Guang, Jia Heng(I), Jia Chang and Jia Ling. On the Ning-guo side even the internal running of the household was a problem, since You-shi was for the time being unable to get back at all. She had to call on her step-mother, old Mrs You, to keep an eye on things for her. As Mrs You had two young unmarried daughters by a previous marriage, the most sensible arrangement seemed to be to bring the girls with her and install herself in temporary residence at Ning-guo House.

At this point our story moves elsewhere. As soon as the news reached him of his father’s death, Cousin Zhen made an urgent application for leave of absence to the Board of Rites. He included Jia Rong’s name in the petition, since Jia Rong was, nominally at any rate, the holder of a commission. The officials of the Board of Rites, bearing in mind His Imperial Majesty’s devotion to the Late Emperor and determination to give fullest expression to it in these obsequies of the Late Emperor’s favourite Consort, dared not grant leave of absence on their own initiative and referred the matter to the Emperor himself in a memorial. But the Son of Heaven, with that godlike compassion that is so typical of him, far from making his own bereavement an objection, saw it as all the more reason for sympathizing with the bereavement of a subject – particularly one whose ancestor had performed such great and signal services for the Crown. His immediate reaction on reading the memorial was to ask for particulars of Jia Jing’s official rank. The Board of Rites memorialized back as follows:

Jia Jing: Palace Graduate, Second Class. His hereditary office and emoluments were passed on during his lifetime to his son Jia Zhen. Owing to age and ill-health, he had for some years past been living in religious seclusion at the Dark Truth Monastery, where he was resident at the time of his death. Jia Zhen and his son Jia Rong are in attendance here at the mausoleum for the obsequies of Her Late Highness and are Your Imperial Majesty’s petitioners for leave to absent themselves in order to attend to the funeral arrangements.

On receipt of this memorial His Imperial Majesty was graciously pleased to issue the following Rescript:

Although Jia Jing’s own life appears to have been undistinguished by service to the state, nevertheless in recognition of the distinguished record of loyal service to the Crown of his grandfather the Duke of Ning-guo it is Our pleasure that a Court appointment carrying the honours and entitlements of an officer of the Fifth Rank should be bestowed upon him posthumously, and that his son and grandson should be authorized to convey his remains into the Capital, entering by way of the Lower North Gate, and to display them there in their private residence in the customary manner; and there after, having duly carried out all rites and ceremonies that are lawful to be performed, to convey them thence to the deceased’s registered place of origin for interment. And further more it is Our pleasure that Our treasury at the Imperial Victuallers should disburse to the said son and grandson a sum being the equivalent of one portion of funeral offerings of the First Grade towards the defrayment of the said Jia Jing’s funeral expenses; and that it should be lawful and permitted for holders of Court appointments up to and including the rank of Prince and Duke to make offerings and condolences.

When the contents of this Rescript were made known, it was not only the members of the Jia family who expressed their gratitude: all the great officers of the Court were loud in their praises of this extraordinary example of Imperial magnanimity.

Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong at once set off on horseback, determined to ride both night and day until they reached their destination. About half way along their road they came upon a group of horsemen riding hell-for-leather towards them who turned out to be Jia Bin and Jia Guang at the head of a party of Jia family domestics. They threw themselves from their saddles as soon as they recognized Cousin Zhen and touched knee and hand to the ground in the Manchu salute.

‘Why have you come?’ Cousin Zhen asked them.

‘Mrs Zhen was worried that when you and Rong left there would be no one to escort Her Old Ladyship,’ Jia Bin replied, ‘so she sent us to take your place.’

Cousin Zhen expressed his approval of his wife’s thought-fulness.

‘And what about things at home?’ he asked. ‘How have you been managing?’

Jia Bin told him how You-shi had had the Taoists put under arrest, how she had Jia Jing’s body moved to the family temple, and how, in order that there might be someone at home to keep an eye on things during her absence, she had persuaded her step-mother and two step-sisters to move into temporary residence at Ning-guo House. At mention of the two step-sisters the face of Jia Rong, who had dismounted when the others did, was observed to break into a grin. For his part Cousin Zhen merely nodded, observed several times over that these arrangements were ‘very sensible’, and, touching the riding-whip to his horse’s flanks, was on his way once more.

Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong rode on then through daylight and darkness, stopping at post-houses along the way only long enough to obtain a change of mount. It was night-time when they approached the outskirts of the Capital and well after two in the morning when they reached the Temple of the Iron Threshold. Those keeping watch had to rouse the others up to meet them. Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong dismounted and lifted up their voices in loud wailing. Still wailing, they crawled on their knees all the way from the outer gate of the temple to the lying-in-state room inside. There, at the foot of the coffin, they knocked their heads repeatedly on the floor and wept with abandon until daylight, by which time they had all but lost their voices.

After a brief intermission during which Cousin Zhen was greeted by You-shi and the rest (for he had not, till that moment, had an opportunity of speaking to them) he and Jia Rong changed into the appropriate hempen mourning-garments before returning to bow once more at the foot of the coffin.

Cousin Zhen found it impossible to achieve quite that state of self-absorbed grief – ‘oblivious to all around’ – which books of etiquette require of the bereaved son: there were too many things that needed attending to. For example, friends and relations had to be informed about the Gracious Rescript permitting a lying-in-state at the mansion and the receiving of offerings and condolences there. Jia Rong was ordered back home to make all preparations necessary for receiving the coffin.

Jia Rong was pleased with his commission. Hurrying to horse, he rode briskly into the city. As soon as he got back, he ordered the servants to begin clearing the furniture from the front reception hall at Ning-guo House and making a shrine for the coffin there out of screens and hangings. He also told them to put up awnings for the funeral bands outside the doorway, and a cloth and cane archway which should later be covered with funerary inscriptions. When he was satisfied that all this work was well in hand, he hurried into the inner apartments to meet his grandmother and two young aunts.

The Hon. Mrs You (the late Mr You – You-shi’s father – had been a mandarin of the sixth rank) was an elderly lady much given to taking naps. She was in fact recumbent upon the kang and refreshing herself with sleep at the moment when Jia Rong entered. It was the two daughters, sewing amidst their maids, who welcomed him.

‘I’m glad you’ve come, Auntie,’ said Jia Rong, grinning broadly at the elder of them. (Her name was Er-jie.) ‘Father has been longing to see you.’

Er-jie turned red.

‘Now look here, young Rong,’ she said, ‘you behave yourself! I suppose you are one of those people who, if they don’t get a good telling-off every once in a while, don’t feel comfortable. You are supposed to be a well-bred, educated young gentleman, yet a coolie would have better manners.’

She picked up the nearest object to hand, which happened to be a flat-iron, and made as if to aim it at his head. Jia Rong ducked in alarm, clasping his head in his arms; he ducked not away from her, however, but towards her, and ended up on her bosom, laughing and begging for mercy. At this the younger sister, San-jie, came over and tried to fasten her nails upon his mouth.

‘We’ll tell our sister about you when she gets back.’

Jia Rong knelt between them on the kang, entreating them not to, whereupon the two sisters collapsed in laughter.

He noticed that Er-jie was eating cardamums and made a grab at them intending to take some for himself. As he did so, Er-jie spat a chewed-up mouthful of them in his face. Quite unperturbedly, he began licking off the particles that he could reach with his tongue and nibbling them. This was more than even the maids could stomach.

‘Look at you, freshly in mourning and your old grannie lying there right under your nose!’ they said. ‘These are your aunts, after all, even though they are so young: you ought to have more respect for your mother than to treat her family like this. Wait till we tell the Master when he gets back: he’ll give you what for!’

Temporarily abandoning his aunts, Jia Rong went over to the maids, put his arms around two of them and began kissing them.

‘My darlings, you are so right! I shan’t interfere with them any more.’

The maids pushed him off indignantly.

‘Pig!’ The maid who said this spoke with feeling. ‘You have a wife and maids of your own; what do you need to come bothering us for? An understanding person would realize that this was only fun, but what about someone who didn’t know? There are plenty of dirty-minded, gossiping busy-bodies who would be only too pleased to go tattling about this sort of thing to the other mansion, and before you know where you are the gossips there will be passing round the most terrible stories about us.’

‘Their household is completely separate from ours,’ said Jia Rong, ‘why should they bother about what we do here? Anyway, they’ve got scandal enough of their own to keep them busy! Every family history has got a few scandals in it Look. at the stories they tell about the rules of the Han, and Tang dynasties: “Filthy Tang and stinking Han” they say, don’t they? If even the families of emperors were like that, you can hardly expect ours to be any different. As for the household next door: look how strict Great-uncle She is, yet Uncle Lian still manages to get up to a few tricks with that little chamber-wife; and look what a tough nut Aung Feng is, yet that didn’t stop Uncle Rui thinking he could settle her business. Do you imagine I don’t know what they get up to over there – ?’

He seemed to be warming to the subject and would doubtless have treated them to other even less edifying examples of Rong-guo depravity, had not the old lady suddenly woken up at that point, necessitating an abrupt change of manner. At once he dropped down on his knee and began inquiring solicitously about her health.

‘It is so good of you to have gone to all this trouble for us, Grandma,’ he said, ‘and for Auntie Er and Auntie San to put up with so much inconvenience on our behalf. Father and I don’t know how to thank you. I expect after this business is over we shall all be coming round to your place and making you a kotow.’

‘Bless the boy, what eloquence!’ said the old lady, nodding appreciatively. ‘For our own kin, though: it’s the least we could do. And how is your father?’ she asked him. ‘When did he hear the news? When did you get back?’

‘We’ve only just got back,’ said Jia Rong. ‘Father sent me on to see you immediately. He was particularly anxious that I should persuade you to stay here until everything is over.’

He winked at the two young aunts while he was saying this. Er-jie pretended to grind her teeth angrily, though she was trying not to laugh.

‘Glib-tongued little ape!’ she said.’ We’re to be kept around here as second strings for your father, I suppose?’

‘Don’t you worry!’ said Jia Rong, his eye on the old lady. ‘My father has your interests very much at heart. He’s been looking for years now for a couple of well-placed, rich, handsome young husbands for my two aunties. Now he’s found one at last – someone he met the other day on the journey.’

He was only joking, but the old lady took it all as gospel truth and asked him what the name was of this prospective son-in-law. Er-jie, laughing, laid down her sewing and ran across to strike him.

‘Don’t believe a word he says, Ma! He’s a wicked liar!’

Even the maids were outraged.

‘If the Lord in Heaven can hear you, you’d better watch out for the lightning!’ said one of them.

Just then a servant entered:

‘We’ve finished all the things you told us to do, Master Rong. Will you go back now and tell the Master it’s all ready?’

Off went Jia Rong then, smiling all over his face.

But what happened after that will be told in the following chapter.

Chapter 64

Five fair women make subjects for a chaste maid’s verse And nine jade dragons make a love-gift for a flirt

As soon as Jia Rong learned that everything was ready, he returned to the temple and reported to his father to that effect. At once preparations for the procession into the city were put in motion. Bearers were organized, insignia, funeral banners and all the other paraphernalia got ready overnight, and messengers hurriedly sent out to relations and friends telling them when the procession would set out: five o’clock on the morning of the fourth.

The procession, needless to say, was of dazzling magnificence, and troops of mourners took part in it. It provoked varying reactions from the crowd numbering many thousands who lined the road to watch it, all the way from the Temple of the Iron Threshold to the gates of Ning-guo House. Some took a simple pleasure in the spectacle; others admired the wealth which had created it; but there were also a few sour-faced Confucian scholars who looked down their noses and muttered something about sumptuousness being no substitute for grief. A buzz of discussion followed its passing all along the route.

The procession reached the mansion at about three in the afternoon; the coffin was deposited in its shrine in the main hall; offerings were made; the lament was raised. After that the mourners began gradually to depart. Only those members of the Jia clan remained who had undertaken to lend the family a hand with the reception. Among relations not of the Jia surname the only one to stay behind was Lady Xing’s brother, Xing De-quan.

As long as there were visitors around, convention obliged Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong to remain in appropriately grief-stricken attitudes beside the coffin, conforming, as far as possible, to the scriptural canons on mourning which enjoin the bereaved son, among other things, to ‘lie upon rushes with a sod of earth for his pillow’; but as soon as the last guest had gone, they were off like a shot to enjoy the society of their young female relations inside.

Throughout this period Bao-yu too was expected to put on mourning and go over every day to Ning-guo House to spend the whole day there beside the coffin. Xi-feng was not well enough to go over daily, but on days when there were sutra-readings and the callers were numerous, she would drag herself over and lend You-shi a hand in entertaining the wives.

One morning after the early offering, when Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong, worn out by a succession of short nights and long, exhausting days, lay dozing beside the coffin, Bao-yu thought that as there were no visitors he might just as well go back home and see Dai-yu. Calling at Green Delights on the way, he found the courtyard silent and deserted. In the coolness of the surrounding gallery a few old women and junior maids were sitting or lying about in various postures of sleep. He had no wish to disturb them, and would have made his way into the house alone; but just as he was approaching the doorway, Number Four caught sight of him and started up, intending to raise the blind for him to enter. She had not time to do so however, for at that very moment Parfumée came rushing out and very nearly ran into him. She checked herself just in time.

‘What are you doing here?’ There was an expression of pleased surprise on her face. ‘Don’t let Skybright get me! She’s trying to hit me.’

Inside the room there was a clatter of numerous tiny objects striking the floor and a moment later Skybright burst through the doorway in pursuit.

‘Where are you, you little wretch? If you’ve lost, you have to have a slap. It’s no good running to Bao-yu to protect you: he isn’t here today.’

Bao-yu laughingly intercepted her.

‘She’s only little. I don’t know how she’s offended you, but won’t you forgive her for my sake?’

Bao-yu’s sudden appearance at that moment was so unexpected that Skybright found it comical.

‘Parfumée must be a little witch! I wouldn’t have thought even magic spells could bring someone so quickly! Well, I don’t care!’ she said, having recovered somewhat from her surprise. ‘Magic or no magic, I’m going to get her!’

She wrested the arm free that Bao-yu was holding and darted at Parfumée; but Parfumée dodged behind Bao-yu’s back and clung to him. Bao-yu took Skybright by one hand and Parfumée by the other and walked with them into the room. There, on the kang under the west wall, Musk, Ripple, Emerald and. Swallow sat playing dibs: melon-seeds for winners and slaps for losers. Parfumée had lost to Skybright and run out to avoid the slap. The clattering noise that Bao-yu had heard was the sound of dib-stones falling from Sky-bright’s lap when she got up to chase her. Bao-yu surveyed the scene approvingly.

‘I thought you’d be a bit quiet here with me away,’ he said. ‘And as the days are so long now, I was afraid you might be going to sleep after lunch and making yourselves ill. I’m glad you’ve found a way of keeping yourselves amused – Where’s Aroma?’ he asked, suddenly noticing that she was not with them.

‘Oh, Aroma,’ said Skybright. ‘Aroma’s gone religious. She’s sitting on her own in the next room like Bodhidharma with her face to the wall. I haven’t dared disturb her so I haven’t the least idea what she’s doing. Whatever it is, she’s being very quiet about it. You’d better go in and have a look: perhaps she’s attained Enlightenment!’

Bao-yu laughed and went into the inner room. He found Aroma sitting on the couch by the window making knots in a length of grey silk cord. She rose to her feet as he entered.

‘What lies has that wretch Skybright been telling about me? I wanted to get on with this knotting, that’s what I came in here for. I hadn’t got time to fool about with the others, so I pretended that I wanted to take advantage of your being away by sitting here quietly on my own and meditating for a bit. Bodhidharma, indeed! I’ll pinch that girl’s mouth!’

Bao-yu laughed and sat down beside her to watch her knot.

‘The days are so long now, you ought to take a break of some kind. If you don’t fancy playing with the others, why not come with me to see Cousin Lin? Surely it’s much too hot for knotting?’

‘I noticed that you’re still wearing that old black fan-cover we made for you when you went into mourning for Mrs Rong. As long as you were only wearing it once or twice a year, it didn’t seem worth the trouble of replacing it; but now that you have to wear summer mourning every day at the other House, I thought it was high time I made you a new one. As soon as I’ve finished this cord for it, you can take the old one off and put it on. I know you don’t care very much about this sort of thing, but if Her Old Ladyship were to see you wearing the old one when she got back, she’d be sure to blame me for neglecting you. She’d say I was too lazy even to notice what you were wearing.’

Bao-yu smiled.

‘It’s very nice of you to have thought about it. But don’t drive yourself too hard. You don’t want to give yourself a heat stroke.’

At that moment Parfumée came in carrying a cup of water-cooled tea for him on a tray. Because as a little boy he had been delicate, Bao-yu was never given ice-cold tea to drink in summer. To cool his tea they plunged the tea-pot into a basin of water freshly drawn from the well. The water was changed several times until the tea inside the pot, though not chilled, had reached a pleasant freshness. He drank half the contents of the cup while Parfumdé held it to his lips, then turned his head back again to address Aroma.

‘I told Tealeaf when I left that if anyone important turns up at Cousin Zhen’s, he is to let me know immediately; otherwise I shan’t be going back there.’

He got up to go. As he was leaving the house, he called back to Emerald and the others in the outer room:

‘If I’m wanted for anything, you’ll find me at Miss Lin’s.’

On his way there, just as he was about to cross Drenched Blossoms Bridge, he came upon Snowgoose followed by two old women carrying an assortment of caltrops, melons and lotus-roots.

‘What are they for?’ Bao-yu asked her. ‘I know your mistress never eats that sort of thing. Is she expecting Mrs Zhu or someone?’

‘If I tell you, you mustn’t let on when you see her,’ said Snowgoose.

Bao-yu nodded.

‘You can go on ahead and give that stuff to Miss Nightingale,’ Snowgoose said to the two women. ‘If she asks you why I’m not with you, tell her I’m doing something and I’ll be back directly.’

The women made some reply and continued on their way. Snowgoose waited until they were out of earshot.

‘The Mistress has been feeling a bit better this last day or two. But when Miss Tan looked in after lunch today and wanted her to go with her to call on Mrs Lian, she wouldn’t go. She appeared to be thinking about something and had a little cry. Then presently she picked up her writing-brush and did a lot of writing – poetry I think. She told me to send out for some melons and things. While I did that, she said, Nightingale was to clear the qin-table in the inner room, move it into the outside room, and put the dragon incense-burner on it. She said she’d tell us what to do with the melons when I got back. If she’s planning to entertain someone, I don’t see what she wants the incense-burner for – certainly not for burning incense in, because she doesn’t like incense as a rule. She likes to have fresh flowers and fruit and gourds about her but not incense because she doesn’t like the smell of it in her clothes. Anyway, if she does want to burn some, why not in the inner room, where she spends all her time? Unless it’s because the old women have made the outer room a bit smelly and she’s burning it to get rid of the smell. The fact is, I really don’t know. You’ll have to go and find out for yourself.’

While she was speaking, Bao-yu had unconsciously lowered his head.

‘From what Snowgoose says,’ he thought, ‘there must be some other reason for this. She wouldn’t have things put out specially if she were merely entertaining one of the girls. Perhaps today is the anniversary of Aunt Lin’s death. No, just a bit: it can’t be. When it is, Grandma always sends her the stuff for the offering and she’s done that already this year. Perhaps it’s for a seasonal offering. Perhaps she’s been reading the Doctrine of the Mean:

In each season of the year… offer things seasonable.

It’s possible. If I go and see her now, when she is feeling upset, I am sure to want to talk her out of it and shall probably only succeed in causing her to suppress her grief. On the other hand, if I don’t go, then with no one there to stop her, she may simply go on getting more and more upset. Either way will be bad for her. The best thing will be for me to go and see Cousin Feng first, sit with her for a bit, and look in at Cousin Lin’s on my way back. Then, if she is still upset, I shall try to find some means of consoling her. In that way I shall be able to prevent her grief from getting out of hand, though at the same time she will have had a chance of giving it expression, so that there will be no danger of its being unhealthily repressed.’

Having come to this decision, he let Snowgoose go on to the Naiad’s House alone and made his way out of the Garden to Xi-feng’s place. He arrived just as a number of women-servants who had been reporting on household matters were leaving. Xi-feng herself was leaning inside the gateway talking to Patience. She smiled at Bao-yu as she saw him come.

‘You’ve come back, then? I’ve just this moment been telling Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife to send someone over to the other place to tell your pages that if you don’t appear to be doing anything they ought to slip in and ask you to come back here for a rest. I was afraid that in this hot weather with so many people milling around there, you might find the sweaty smells a bit too much for you. But you’ve come back anyway, so I needn’t have bothered.’

‘Thank you for the kind thought, though,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I decided to come back here partly because there was nothing there for me to do, but also because I noticed that you haven’t been over there for some days and I wanted to see if you were all right. How are you feeling lately?’

‘Oh, still pretty much the same,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Still up one day and down the next. Now that Grandmother and your mother are away, those senior women are getting quite out of hand, fighting or quarrelling about something or other every day. We’ve even had cases of gambling and thieving recently. Of course, your sister is a great help; but she’s a young unmarried girl and there are certain things she can’t be told about. When they crop up, I have to struggle out of bed and deal with them myself. So I don’t really get a lot of rest. Under the circumstances there’s not much prospect yet of getting better: all I can hope is that I shan’t get any worse!’

‘I know. But you’ve got to look after yourself,’ said Bao-yu. ‘You must try not to worry so much.’

He chatted with her a little longer before going back into the Garden. Arriving at the Naiad’s House, he could see the remains of incense smoke as he entered the courtyard gate. In the outer room there was a wet patch on the flagstones where a libation had been poured, and Nightingale was supervising the removal of the qin-table to the inside room and the replacement of various other objects and bits of furniture. Concluding that the little service (if that is what it had been) must just be over, he went inside. Dai-yu was lying down with her face to the wall. She looked ill and exhausted. At the sound of Nightingale’s ‘Master Bao, Miss’, she raised herself wearily, though with a smiling face, and invited him to sit by her.

‘How have you been these last few days, coz?’ he said. ‘You look a bit calmer than you did, but something seems to have been upsetting you.’

‘I can’t imagine why you should say so,’ said Dai-yu. ‘I am perfectly all right.’

‘How can you expect me to believe that?’ said Bao-yu. ‘The tears are still wet on your face. You should learn to take things a bit easier. It is bad for a person who has so much illness to be constantly indulging in grief. If you end up by undermining your health, I –’

The realization that what he was about to say was probably something that ought not to be said caused the words to stick in his throat. For although, from the fact that he and Dai-yu had grown up together, there existed a most perfect sympathy between them, although there was nothing in the world that either of them wanted more than to live and die in each other’s company, the understanding that this was so was a wordless one which had never been expressed. In the past, because Dai-yu was so sensitive, words had all too often proved a stumbling-block. And now today, when the whole point of his coming here was to comfort her, here he was again, on the point of saying something that would offend her! Finding that he could not go on, a sort of panic gripped him. He feared he was going to make her angry; and yet he so desperately wanted to help her. As he thought about it, the panic gave way to a feeling of helpless sadness and he began to cry.

Dai-yu, sensing that he was about to make one of those extravagant statements that she always found so irritating, had indeed been on the point of getting angry; but when she saw his internal struggle and the tears which followed it, she felt not angry with him but moved, and being herself of a tearful disposition, was soon sitting there in silence and weeping with him for company. To Nightingale, who came in at that moment with some tea, it appeared as if they must have been having a quarrel.

‘Just when Miss Lin is getting along nicely,’ she said to Bao-yu with some asperity, ‘what do you mean by coming along here and upsetting her?’

Bao-yu laughed and wiped his eyes.

‘I’ve done no such thing.’

To cover up his embarrassment, he got up and began pacing about the room. In doing so, he caught sight of a sheet of paper sticking out from underneath Dai-yu’s inkstone. The temptation to reach out and pick it up proved irresistible, and before Dai-yu could get up and snatch it from him, he had put it in the bosom of his gown.

‘Let me read it, Dai!’

‘Whatever you come here about,’ said Dai-yu, ‘you always seem to end up by nosing through my papers.’

Bao-chai came in while she was speaking.

‘What is it you want to read, cousin?’ she asked Bao-yu.

Bao-yu still had no idea what the piece of paper contained, and because he was uncertain what Dai-yu’s feelings would be about his reading it, he hesitated to answer Bao-chai’s question for fear of giving Dai-yu offence. He therefore smiled and said nothing, while all the time his eyes rested on Dai-yu questioningly. Dai-yu smiled at Bao-chai and invited her to be seated.

‘I’ve been looking at some lives of famous women,’ said Dai-yu, ‘all of them women who are famous in history for their beauty or intelligence. There was so much I found moving – heartening and admirable in some cases, tragic and deplorable in others – that after lunch today, having nothing better to do, I decided to make a selection of them and try writing poems about them in which some of those feelings could be expressed. Then Tan-chun came in and asked me to go with her to see Cousin Feng, but I didn’t feel up to it. After doing only five of the poems I had planned, I suddenly felt too tired to go on and left them lying there on the table, little thinking that Master Bao would come along and discover them. I wouldn’t really mind his seeing them if it weren’t for the fear that he might go copying them out and showing them to other people.’

‘When did I ever do such a thing?’ said Bao-yu indignantly. ‘If you’re referring to the White Crab-flower poems on that fan, I wrote them on it myself in small kai-shu characters merely for the convenience of always having them by me when I wanted to look at them. I fully realize that poems written in the privacy of the women’s quarters are not lightly to be passed around outside. Ever since you spoke to me about it, I have been careful not to carry that fan with me anywhere but inside the Garden.’

‘Cousin Lin is right to be worried,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Now that the poems are written on that fan, there is always the possibility that you might one day forget and carry it with you to your room outside. Suppose Uncle’s literary gentlemen were to see it there, they would be sure to ask you who the poems were by. If as a result of that they were to become public property, it would be extremely unpleasant for us. “A stupid woman is a virtuous one”: that is what the old proverb says. A girl’s first concern is to be virtuous, her second is to be industrious. She may write poetry if she likes as a diyersion, but it is an accomplishment she could just as well do without. The last thing girls of good family need is a literary reputation.’ She paused and gave Dai-yu a smile. ‘There would be no harm in letting me see them of course. The important thing is not to allow Cousin Bao to go off with them.’

‘In the light of what you have just been saying,’ said Dai-yu drily, ‘I’m not at all sure that I ought to let you look at them either. Anyway,’ she pointed to Bao-yu, ‘he’s already got them.’

Bao-yu assumed from her tone that he might read them. Extracting the paper from the inside pocket of his gown, he drew up close to Bao-chai so that the two of them could peruse it together. This is what they read.

Xi Shi

That kingdom-quelling beauty dissolved like the flower of foam.

In the foreign palace, Xi Shi, did you yearn for your old home?

Who laughs at your ugly neighbour with her frown-and-simper now,

Still steeping her yarn at the brook-side, and the hair snow-white on her brow?

Yu ji

The very crows are grieving as they caw in the cold night air.

She faces her beaten Tyrant King with a haggard look of despair:

‘Let the others wait for the hangman, to be hacked and quartered and rent;

‘Better the taste of one’s own steel in the decent dark of a tent.’

Lady Bright

To a loveliness that dazzled, the palace of Han showed the door;

For ‘the fair are mostly ill-fated’, as has been said often before.

Yet it seems strange that an emperor – even one with such tepid views –

Should abandon his eyes’ own judgement and let a painter choose!

Green Pearl

Pebble or pearl – to Shi Chong it was only a rich man’s whim:

Do you really believe your undoubted charms meant so very much to him?

It was fate, from some past life preordained, that made him take his rash stand,

And the craving to have a companion in death’s dark, silent land.

Red Duster

She marked the firm, courteous protest, the well-phrased confident plan,

And, under the unsuccessful clerk, saw the essential Man.

The great Yang Su in her eyes was finished from that hour:

He could not hold a girl like her for all his pomp and power.

After praising the poems enthusiastically, Bao-yu suggested that, as there were five of them, a good collective title would be ‘Songs for Five Fair Women’; and without waiting for Dai-yu’s approval, he picked up her writing-brush and wrote it on the left-hand side of the sheet after the poems.

‘Whatever subject one chooses for a poem,’ said Bao-chai, ‘it is important that one’s treatment of it should be original. If one merely plods along in the footsteps of earlier poets, it doesn’t matter how fine the language is, the lack of originality will prevent it from being a really good poem. Thus, many poets have taken Lady Bright as their theme, but the best ones have always contrived to give the subject a new turn, one emphasizing the sad fate of Lady Bright herself, another the wickedness of the painter Ma Yan-shou, another the frivolousness of the Han emperor who employed him to paint portraits of court ladies rather than portraits of distinguished statesmen and soldiers, and so on. Further new twists were given to this theme by Wang An-shi:

What brush could ever capture a beauty’s breathing grace? The painter did not merit death who botched that lovely face.

and by Ou-yang Xiu:

A prince so ill able to control what went on under his nose Must hope in vain to impose his rule on remote barbarian foes.

Cousin Lin shows the same originality as these two poets, by presenting each of her subjects in a novel and interesting light –’

Before she could continue with her disquisition, a servant came in to announce that Jia Lian was back. His arrival at the Ning mansion had been reported some time ago and he was expected any moment at Rong-guo House. Bao-yu at once got up and, hurrying out to the front part of the mansion, waited inside the main gate for his cousin to arrive. He did not have to wait long. Within moments Jia Lian was dismounting from his horse and stepping through the gateway. Bao-yu advanced to meet him, touched hand and knee to the ground in greeting, and wished good health, first, as was good manners, to his grandmother and mother, from whom Jia Lian had come, and then to Jia Lian himself. The cousins then went inside together, hand in hand. Li Wan, Xi-feng, Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun were already waiting for Jia Lian in the hall. After each of them had greeted him individually, he gave them his news.

‘Grandmother will be arriving here early tomorrow. She’s been keeping very well on the journey. Today she sent me on ahead to make sure that everything here is all right. I shall be leaving again tomorrow at four o’clock in the morning and going out of the city to meet her.’

They asked him a few questions about the journey, but because they knew how tired he must be after so much travel, soon left him so that he could go back to his own room and get some rest. About the remainder of that day our narrative is silent.

Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang arrived home round about lunchtime the following day. When the initial greetings were over, the old lady sat for a while and sipped a cup of tea before taking Lady Wang and the others with her to Ning-guo House. A great wailing rose up as she arrived. Jia She and Jia Lian had gone there after seeing the old lady home, and as she and her party entered the room in which the coffin stood, the two of them advanced to meet her at the head of a number of weeping clansmen, and supported her one on each side as she approached the coffin. At the foot of it Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong knelt down, pressing their heads against her skirts and weeping piteously. To people of advancing years even simulated grief is distressing, and Grandmother Jia, an arm about each head, wept very bitterly herself. Jia She and Jia Lian did their best to comfort her, and at last, when her grief had somewhat abated, she moved on, to the right of the coffin-screens, where You-shi and her daughter-in-law were waiting for her. Here there was more clinging and weeping, after which those present came forward one by one to salute Grandmother Jia and welcome her in a more normal fashion.

Cousin Zhen, fearing that Grandmother Jia, who had still not rested properly after her tiring journey, would become distressed if she were to sit much longer in such melancholy surroundings, strongly urged her not to stay. When at last he had prevailed on her to go and she was back in her own apartment at Rong-guo House, it became evident that the shock of mourning, following so soon upon the discomforts of travel, had indeed had an adverse effect on her ageing constitution. By nightfall she was showing all the symptoms of incipient illness: heaviness in the head, a constricted feeling in the chest, a blocked-up nose and hoarseness of the voice. The doctor was summoned immediately and half that night and the whole of the following day taken up with consultations, prescriptions and the preparation and administering of medicine. Fortunately the illness had not yet established itself in her system and responded rapidly to treatment. There was a slight outbreak of perspiration round about midnight of the second night and after that her pulse and temperature both returned to normal. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief; though to be on the safe side they kept up the dosage for another day.

A few days later it was Jia Jing’s ‘funeral’ – in this case no more than the re-depositing of his coffin in the family temple. Grandmother Jia was still not well enough to take part; Bao-yu stayed at home to look after his grandmother; and Xi-feng was still insufficiently recovered. Apart from them, all the other members of the Rong-guo family, Jia She, Jia Lian, Lady Xing and Lady Wang, together with all the men- and women-servants of their households, accompanied their Ning-guo cousins to the Temple of the Iron Threshold. They were back again that evening; but Cousin Zhen, You-shi and Jia Rong stayed on at the temple for the Hundred Days, at the end of which Jia Jing was to be taken to his final resting-place in Nanking. Old Mrs You and her two daughters remained all this while at the Ning-guo mansion to keep an eye on things.

Jia Lian had heard a good deal in the past about these two step-sisters of You-shi, though, to his great regret, he had never until very recently had an opportunity of meeting them. The opportunity had presented itself on the occasion of Jia Jing’s removal into the city. Since then they had become fairly well acquainted. Acquaintanceship in his case (Jia Lian being what he was) had been accompanied by the first stirrings of lust. He felt encouraged by an unsavoury rumour he had heard to the effect that his cousins Zhen and Rong, both father and son, had at one time or another enjoyed the sisters’ favours. Whenever he had a chance to, he flirted or made eyes at them – unsuccessfully in San-jie’s case, for she met all his advances with indifference, but with a more promising reaction from her sister. Unfortunately, with so many pairs of eyes watching, he could not follow up his success, apart from which he was a little scared that Cousin Zhen might be jealous. Between him and Er-jie it could be said that there was a silent understanding; but for the time being there could be nothing more.

This all changed after the funeral. Then, at Ning-guo House, apart from Mrs You and the two sisters and a few maids and older women employed to do the rough work, hardly anyone from the master apartment was left behind. All the personal maids, parlour maids and concubines stayed with their master and mistress at the temple. As for the married servants, their activities were confined to keeping watch at night and minding the gates by day; and since they had their own quarters outside, they had no reason to go inside the house except when they were on duty. This seemed to Jia Lian to be an excellent time to act. A pretended wish to keep Cousin Zhen company at the temple gave him an excuse for absenting himself from his own house, whilst the pretext of attending to household matters on Cousin Zhen’s behalf enabled him to make several trips back to Ning-guo House, thus providing him with further opportunities for pursuing his flirtation with Er-jie.

One day Yu Lu, a junior steward from Ning-guo House, came out to see Cousin Zhen about some business.

‘The total cost of the procession, including funeral furnishings and hire of labour, was one thousand one hundred and ten taels. Of that, five hundred taels have already been paid, leaving six hundred and ten taels outstanding. Yesterday I had the managers of both agencies round asking me for the rest of the money. I thought I’d better see you about it and ask you what I’m to do.’

‘Why didn’t you go straight to the counting-house and draw what’s wanted?’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I don’t see why you should need to come bothering me about it.’

‘I did go to the counting-house, sir,’ said Yu Lu, ‘but since Sir Jing passed away they have already paid out so much that they’ve barely got enough left to pay for the Hundred Days services and the expenses of your stay here in the temple. They couldn’t pay these bills without eating into what has been earmarked for something else. That’s why I’ve come out to see you. I wondered whether you would want me to pay them out of your personal account, or whether there’s some other account you could transfer the money from. If you will let me know what you want me to do, I’ll go ahead and do it.’

Cousin Zhen laughed.

‘The days when we had money lying around unused in private accounts have long since passed. You’ll have to borrow the money where you can.’

It was Yu Lu’s turn to laugh.

‘If it were one hundred or two hundred taels, sir, I might be able to manage something; but five or six hundred? Where would I get a sum like that at short notice?’

After thinking for a bit, Cousin Zhen turned to Jia Rong:

‘Go to your mother, Rong, and ask her for that five hundred taels the Zhens of Nanking sent us after the funeral. It hasn’t been handed in to the counting-house yet. And ask her to have a rake-around and see if she can’t raise the whole sum.’

Jia Rong hurried off. In a very short time he was back again with his mother’s answer.

‘Mother says two hundred of the five hundred has already been spent. She sent the remaining three hundred back home for Grandmother You to take care of.’

‘In that case,’ said Cousin Zhen, ‘you’d better go back with Yu Lu to ask her for it and let him have it. While you’re about it, you’ll be able to see if everything at home is all right. And of course give my regards to your aunts. – Yu Lu, you’ll have to raise the rest of the money as best you can by borrowing.’

Jia Rong and Yu Lu promised to do his bidding, but just as they were about to withdraw Jia Lian walked into the room. Yu Lu stepped up to him smartly and dropped him a salute.

‘What’s happened?’ said Jia Lian.

Cousin Zhen proceeded to explain to him why Yu Lu was there. As he did so, it occurred to Jia Lian that this would be a good opportunity of going to the Ning-guo mansion and looking up Er-jie again.

‘It seems a pity to go straining one’s credit for so trifling a sum,’ he said. ‘I had a little windfall the other day that I haven’t made use of yet. Why don’t I let him have that to add to your three hundred and save him the trouble of borrowing?’

‘That will be splendid,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘Perhaps you will authorize Rong to pick it up then, when he goes to collect the three hundred?’

‘I think it will be necessary to go for it myself,’ said Jia Lian hurriedly. ‘In any case I haven’t been home for some days. I really ought to drop in and pay my respects to Grandmother and Lady Wang and my parents. I shall be able to look in at your place too, Zhen, and make sure that your servants are behaving themselves. And pay my respects to your mother-in-law, of course.’

‘It means imposing on you once again,’ said Cousin Zhen, smiling. ‘I don’t know whether I should let you.’

‘For goodness’ sake!’ said Jia Lian. ‘One’s own cousin!’

‘Go with your uncle, then,’ Cousin Zhen instructed Jia Rong, ‘and when you see Lady Jia and the other ladies and Sir She to make your bow to them, remember to say that your mother and I send them our regards. And don’t forget to ask whether Lady Jia is quite better yet and whether or not she is still taking medicine.’

Having ‘yessir’-ed each one of these commands, Jia Rong followed his Uncle Lian outside. The two of them then took horse and, accompanied by Yu Lu and several pages, all on horseback, rode out towards the city. As Er-jie was very much on his mind, Jia Lian beguiled the journey by talking to his nephew about her as they rode along. He spoke approvingly of her good looks and gentle character. He remarked what perfect poise she had and what a soft and pleasing way of speaking. In fact, he concluded, everything about her excited one’s admiration and respect.

‘Everyone speaks so highly of your Aunt Feng, but to my mind she isn’t a patch on her.’

Jia Rong understood very well where this conversation was leading them.

‘If you love her so much, Uncle,’ he said, ‘why not let me be your matchmaker and arrange for you to have her as your Number Two?’

‘Is that a joke,’ said Jia Lian, ‘or are you in earnest?’

‘I’m being perfectly serious.’

Jia Lian laughed:

‘It’s certainly an attractive proposal. The only trouble is, I don’t think your Aunt Feng would ever stand for it. And besides, your Grandmother You might not be willing. And haven’t I heard somewhere that your Aunt Er is already engaged to someone?’

‘None of these is really a problem,’ said Jia Rong. ‘Aunt Er and Aunt San, although they took his surname, were not really my Grandpa You’s daughters. When Gran married my Grandpa You as his second wife, she brought them with her from a previous marriage. I’ve heard Gran say that when she was carrying Aunt Er, her first husband had an agreement with a friend of his called Zhang, who was a manager on one of the Imperial Farms and whose own wife was also pregnant at the time. They agreed that if the children their wives were carrying turned out to be a boy and a girl, they should be betrothed to each other. In that way Aunt Er was engaged to the Zhangs’ boy from the moment she was born. Later on the Zhangs lost all their money in a lawsuit, and Gran lost her first husband and married my Grandpa You, and for ten or fifteen years now she hasn’t heard a word from them. She often complains about the betrothal and says she wishes she could get it revoked; and Father is anxious to betroth Aunt Er to someone else. He’s only waiting until he has found the right person, and then he means to find out where the Zhangs are, hand them a small sum of money, and persuade them to sign a deed of revocation. The Zhangs are so poor, they are hardly likely to refuse. In fact, when they’ve seen the kind of people we are, they probably won’t dare. And whatever Father and Gran might have thought about Aunt Er becoming a Number Two in other circumstances, I’m sure they would have no objection in your case. The only difficulty as I see it is Aunt Feng.’

Jia Lian was so enraptured by the main part of what Jia Rong had been saying, that it is doubtful whether he heard those last words at all. For some moments he rode on in silence, a fatuous grin on his face. Meanwhile Jia Rong was thinking.

‘I’ll tell you what, Uncle,’ he said presently: ‘if you’ve got the nerve, there’s one way of doing this that would be absolutely fool-proof. It would involve you in spending a bit of money though.’

‘Never mind that, dear boy!’ said Jia Lian eagerly. ‘If you have a plan, just tell me what it is.’

‘Don’t say anything about this when we arrive,’ said Jia Rong, ‘but wait until I have had a chance to explain it all to Father and he can arrange it with my Gran. When it’s all settled, buy a little house somewhere in the streets at the back of our mansion, furnish it, install one or two married couples to look after it, and then all you have to do is choose the day: you can marry Aunt Er then and nobody be any the wiser. Of course, you’d have to impress on the servants that they are not to let on about it; but provided they don’t talk, there’s no reason why Aunt Feng tucked away in the inner courtyards should ever hear about it. And by the time you’ve been living together for a year or two, you ought to be able to ride the storm out even if your secret is blown. You’d have to face an explosion from Sir She, of course; but you can tell him that you did it for the family, because Aunt Feng is unable to have a son. And as for Aunt Feng herself, when she sees that the rice is cooked and knows that it can’t be uncooked, she’ll have to put up with it. That only leaves the old lady to square, and you should be able to do that easily enough with a bit of coaxing.’

There is an old saying, ‘Desire maketh the wise man a fool’. Jia Lian was so intoxicated by his desire for Er-jie that Jia Rong’s idiotic plan struck him as unassailable. The fact that he was in mourning, the fact that a secret marriage of the kind he was contemplating was bigamous and illegal, the fact that he had an extremely strict father and an exceptionally jealous wife – all those things which ought to have given him pause were lightly brushed aside. Nor did it occur to him that Jia Rong’s counsel was by no means disinterested. Jia Rong had designs upon Er-jie himself, to which the presence of his father, when they were all together in the same house, was an impediment. If Jia Lian married Er-jie, she would have to live outside, and there would be unlimited opportunities for larks with her whenever Jia Lian was away. Blind to all this, Jia Lian thanked Jia Rong profusely and promised him a suitable reward.

‘If you can really arrange this for me, dear boy, I’ll buy you a pair of the prettiest little girls who are to be had and make you a present of them!’

They were by now approaching the gates of Ning-guo House.

‘You go in here and ask my Gran for the money to give to Yu Lu, Uncle. I’m going on to the other House to pay my respects to the old lady.’

Jia Lian smiled and nodded.

‘When you see her, don’t let on that I came here with you, will you?’

‘All right,’ said Jia Rong; then, leaning over, he added in a low voice in his uncle’s ear: ‘If you should happen to see Aunt Er today, don’t let impatience get the better of you! A scandal now will make it harder to arrange things later.’

‘Cheeky devil!’ said Jia Lian laughing. ‘Go on, be on your way now! I’ll be waiting for you here.’

While Jia Rong went on to the Rong mansion alone, Jia Lian turned into the gateway of Ning-guo House. The men-servants temporarily in charge there were waiting inside the gate to welcome him, with the other servants all lined up behind them. They clustered round him as he made his way up to the hall. There, for form’s sake, he asked them a few perfunctory questions before dismissing them and continuing on his way to the inner apartments.

As cousins and intimates having no secrets from one another, Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian had always felt free to come and go in each other’s apartments without formality, and so, when Jia Lian approached the main sitting-room of Cousin Zhen’s apartment, the old women at the door simply raised the portière for him and let him go in unannounced.

Looking round him as he entered, Jia Lian saw only Er-jie and a couple of maids sewing together on the kang at the southern end of the room. The mother and the other sister were not in evidence. He went up and greeted her. In response to her smiling invitation to join her, he climbed up and sat with his back resting against the openwork partition along the eastern side of the kang, insisting that Er-jie should take the place of honour. After a few generalities, he asked her where Mrs You and San-jie were.

‘Just gone out the back to see about something,’ said Er-jie. ‘They’ll be here again in a moment.’

The maids now went outside to fetch tea, leaving the two of them alone together. Jia Lian ogled Er-jie meaningfully, but she merely smiled, keeping her eyes demurely downwards, and pretended not to notice. At this stage, he judged, a physical advance would be premature. He noticed that as she sat there her hands were continuously playing with a length of silk handkerchief to which a tiny embroidered bag was attached. To fill in the embarrassed silence that was developing, he pretended to be feeling for something at his waist.

‘Oh, I’ve come out without my betel! Give me some betel, my dear, if you’ve got any.’

‘I have got some,’ said Er-jie, ‘but it’s not for other people.’

Jia Lian laughed and made a movement towards her, as if he intended to snatch the handkerchief and its little pouch from her by force, whereupon Er-jie, rather than risk someone coming in and finding them in the midst of an unseemly tussle, threw it across to him with a little laugh. Jia Lian caught it in mid-air, emptied the contents into the palm of his hand, selected one single half-eaten nut which he popped into his mouth and began chewing, and stuffed all the rest back into the bag. He was just going to hand it back to her when the two maids came in again with the tea. Jia Lian took a cup from one of them and began sipping it. While the maids were not looking, he contrived to unfasten a Han jade girdle pendant in the form of nine tiny interlocking dragons that he wore attached to his belt, tie it onto the handkerchief and toss it back for Er-jie to catch. But Er-jie pretended not to have noticed. She allowed the handkerchief with the two small objects attached to it to fall beside her on the kang and went on calmly sipping her tea.

Just then there was a rattle of the portière and old Mrs You and San-jie came into the room from the back, attended by two little maids. Jia Lian signalled with his eyes to Er-jie that she should pick the handkerchief up, but Er-jie continued to ignore him. In somewhat of a panic by now and wondering what Er-jie could be at, he rose to his feet and advanced to meet San-jie and the old lady. When, after exchanging courtesies with them, he glanced back behind him, Er-jie was standing unconcernedly in the same place, with the same inscrutable smile on her face; but the handkerchief had vanished. He breathed a sigh of relief.

When they were all seated and a few pleasantries had been exchanged between them, Jia Lian remembered the business on which he was supposed to have come.

‘Zhen’s wife says that she sent a packet of silver to you the other day to look after for her. It’s wanted now to pay some bills with, so Zhen has sent me to ask you for it and also to find out if everything at home is all right.’

Mrs You at once told Er-jie to take the key of the chest and fetch the money for her.

‘I’m also glad of the opportunity my errand gives me of offering you my respects, ma’am, and of seeing the young ladies again,’ Jia Lian continued after Er-jie had gone. ‘I must say, you are looking extremely well. But I am sorry the young ladies should have to put up with the inconvenience of moving into a strange house.’

‘Tut, for one’s own kin!’ said Mrs You, smiling. ‘You are too polite, Mr Lian! It’s of no consequence where we stay: one bed is as good as another. To tell you the truth, things have been very difficult for us since Mr You passed away. If it hadn’t been for the help given us by my daughter’s husband, I really don’t know how we should have managed. To look after the house for him in his time of trouble is the very least we can do in return. It can certainly not be spoken of as an inconvenience.’

Er-jie had now returned with the silver and handed it to her mother; her mother handed it to Jia Lian; and Jia Lian ordered one of the maids to call in one of the old women from outside, whom he then instructed to take it to Yu Lu and tell him to wait for him in the front.

While the old woman was going off with the money, Jia Rong’s voice could be heard outside in the courtyard and a few moments later he appeared. He greeted his grandmother and two aunts before turning with a smile to Jia Lian:

‘Sir She has been asking about you, Uncle. He says there’s something he wants you to do for him. He was going to send someone to fetch you from the temple, but I told him you were already on your way into the city. He told me that if I ran into you on my way back, I was to tell you to hurry.’

Jia Lian hastily rose to go, but delayed to hear something that Jia Rong was saying to Mrs You.

‘You know the other day I was telling you that Father has found a husband for Aunt Er, Gran. In looks and build he has quite a strong resemblance to Uncle Lian. Does that please you?’

Since he was pointing a finger at Jia Lian and simultaneously making a face at Er-jie while he said this, the question appeared to be meant as much for Er-jie as for her mother. If so, Er-jie was too embarrassed to answer. Not so her sister, however.

‘Little monster!’ San-jie shouted, half angrily and half in jest. ‘Keep your dirty little mouth shut – unless you want me to come over and shut it for you!’

Jia Rong retreated, laughing, from the room; and Jia Lian, taking a laughing farewell of the old lady and her daughters, went out after him. He stopped in the hall again on his way out to admonish the servants: not to gamble, not to drink, and so forth. Then, after a private aside with Jia Rong in which he urged him to return with all speed to the temple and speak about a certain matter to his father, he went with Yu Lu to the other mansion and gave him the balance of the amount owing. Having dispatched Yu Lu, he went in to see what his father wanted, and after that to Grandmother Jia’s apartment to pay his respects. But these are formalities with which we need not concern ourselves.

We return, then, to the Ning-guo mansion, where Jia Rong, concluding, when he saw Yu Lu go off with Jia Lian, that there was nothing more for him to do, went back to the inner apartments for further badinage with his young aunts before setting off once more for the temple. It was evening when he arrived there and reported back to his father.

‘Yu Lu got the money all right. And Lady Jia is now completely recovered. She is no longer taking medicine.’

He availed himself of the opportunity to tell his father about Jia Lian: how, on the journey into town, he had expressed a desire to take Er-jie as his Number Two and how he proposed to set her up in a separate establishment, keeping Xi-feng in ignorance of the marriage.

‘His sole reason for taking a Number Two,’ Jia Rong explained, ‘is that he wants a son. And the reason he particularly wants Aunt Er is because he feels it would be better to keep things in the family and have someone he knows, than risk taking some unknown person from outside. He was very insistent that I should speak to you about this.’

He omitted to mention that he was the author of this plan.

Cousin Zhen, after reflecting on it, seemed well disposed.

‘Actually, it’s not a bad idea. I wonder whether your Aunt Er would be willing, though. You’d better go in again tomorrow and have a word with your Grandmother You. Tell her to talk to your Aunt Er about it and see if she accepts. If she does, we can go ahead and fix it up properly.’

After a good deal more advice to Jia Rong on how he was to conduct himself, Cousin Zhen went inside to see You-shi and told her about the plan. You-shi could see at once that it would not work and did her best to dissuade him; but Cousin Zhen’s mind was made up; and in the end, since she was accustomed to giving in to him, and since Er-jie was in any case only a step-sister, for whom therefore she felt only limited responsibility, she allowed the menfolk to go ahead and washed her hands of the whole affair.

Jia Rong went into town next morning and told his grandmother what his father had told him to say. He also added a good deal of his own. He told her what a capital person Jia Lian was; how Xi-feng was ill and not expected to get better; how Jia Lian was planning to buy a house outside and install Er-jie in it temporarily, but how in a year or two, as soon as Xi-feng was dead, he would move her inside and make her his Number One. He went on to tell her about the gifts Cousin Zhen would give for the betrothal and of the wedding presents that Jia Lian was planning for his bride; how Jia Lian was prepared to look after Mrs You in her old age; and how in due course he would see San-jie provided with a husband. The Liang dynasty preacher on whom the heavens rained down flowers could not have spoken with greater eloquence. Mrs You could hardly fail to agree, particularly in view of the fact that she depended on Cousin Zhen for her livelihood and that it was he who was sponsoring the marriage. And Jia Lian was such a fine young gentleman – infinitely superior to that Zhang boy. She would go to Er-jie at once and talk it over with her.

You Er-jie was a highly impressionable young woman. Already, in the past, she had compromised herself with her sister’s husband. And she had always resented the arbitrary betrothal to Zhang Hua (as the Zhangs’ boy was called) which seemed to condemn her to a lifetime of poverty. If Jia Lian loved her and her brother-in-law was prepared to give her away, what possible objection could she have to the marriage? Her consent was given with a nod, conveyed at once to Jia Rong by her mother, and in due course reported to Cousin Zhen.

Next day Cousin Zhen invited Jia Lian to the temple to hear from his own lips that Mrs You had consented. Jia Lian, delighted that the matter had been settled with so little trouble, at once began discussing what to do. Agents had to be engaged to look round for a suitable house, jewellery for Er-jie’s trousseau had to be ordered, and furnishings had to be purchased for the house. Within a few days all this had been done. A twenty-frame house in Little Flower Lane about two thirds of a mile north of Two Dukes Street had been bought, furnished throughout, and two little maids purchased to go with it.

Jia Lian was at first uncertain what to do about older servants. If he used servants from his own household, their transfer was sure to be detected; on the other hand a married couple purchased from outside would be strangers, and therefore of uncertain loyalty and impossible to trust. Suddenly he remembered Bao Er, whose unfortunate wife had hanged herself after being attacked by Xi-feng in a fit of jealous rage. At the time Jia Lian had given him some money and promised him a new wife. The wife he had eventually chosen for him was none other than the Mattress, widowed since the drunken cook ‘Droopy’ Duo had finally drunk himself to death. Bao Er had had prior experience of her charms and knew that he was getting a good bargain; and the Mattress for her part was glad to be married to someone who (thanks to Jia Lian’s subvention) could afford to be free with his money. This couple, united in their loyalty to Jia Lian and dislike of Xi-feng, seemed an ideal choice for the new establishment and were to their immense satisfaction installed in it, along with the newly-purchased maids, to be at Er-jie’s disposal when she arrived.

There remained only the matter of Zhang Hua to be dealt with. It was Zhang Hua’s grandfather who had originally held the managerial post on one of the Imperial Farms. His father simply inherited the post when the old man died. While holding it, he had made the arrangement with Mrs You’s first husband, who was his good friend, as a result of which Zhang Hua and Er-jie were engaged to each other from their earliest infancy. Some time after that he lost all his possessions in a lawsuit and the family were reduced to penury so dire that even food and clothing were a problem, and taking on a new daughter-in-law was, for the time being, wholly out of the question. Then Er-jie’s mother had remarried, and for fourteen years or more they had been completely out of touch. Their whereabouts were eventually traced, however, and Zhang Hua’s father summoned to Ning-guo House and induced to sign a deed of revocation releasing Er-jie from her betrothal. He did not want to sign it, but was too intimidated by Cousin Zhen’s air of affluence and authority to object. After he had signed, Mrs You handed him twenty taels, and that was that.

Everything had now been taken care of. All that remained was for Jia Lian to name the day. The calendar was consulted and the third of the sixth month, which was just beginning, was found to be the earliest auspicious day. On that day, it was decided, Er-jie should be received as a bride in her new home.

But for that event you must await the following chapter.

Chapter 65

Jia Lian’s second marriage is celebrated in secret And the future marriage of San-jie becomes a matter of speculation

By the second day of the month, the arrangements jointly agreed on by Jia Lian, Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong had been completed and Mrs You and San-jie moved into the new house. A brief inspection of it satisfied Mrs You that, if not quite what Jia Rong had led her to expect, it was at least excellently furnished, and it could be said that both she and San-jie were reasonably happy about the move. Bao Er and his wife could not do enough for them. It was ‘yes, milady’, ‘no, milady’ whenever they were talking to Mrs You; and San-jie, for the first time in her life, found herself being addressed as ‘Miss You’, or sometimes even as ‘madam’.

In the last watch of that same night, only an hour or two before the dawning of the third, Er-jie, seated in a plain chair without bridal trimmings, was carried to her new home. The incense and paper-offerings for the ceremony, the wedding-feast and marriage-bed had all been made ready long before she arrived. Jia Lian, also in a small, plain carrying-chair, arrived shortly afterwards. The bride and groom made their prostrations to Heaven and Earth, the paper offerings were set fire to, and Mrs You conducted her heavily-veiled daughter into the marriage-chamber, gratified to observe the transformation wrought by a completely new and expensive-looking outfit of clothes and jewellery.

The phoenix-gambollings of the nuptial couch and the mutual delight and cherishing which they engendered are here passed over. Suffice it to say that the more Jia Lian saw of Er-jie, the more he loved her, until the desire to make some gesture expressive of his feelings became overwhelming. All he could think of was to behave in every way as if Er-jie was his only wife and Xi-feng did not exist. He ordered Bao Er and his wife to call her ‘Mrs Lian’ and always referred to her himself in that way when he was speaking to them. When he went back to Xi-feng, as from time to time he was obliged to, he would tell her that he had been doing something at the Ning-guo mansion; and Xi-feng, knowing how well her husband got on with Cousin Zhen and how frequently he was consulted by him, suspected nothing. In spite of their numbers, few of the Rong-guo domestics concerned themselves much with Jia Lian’s activities, and even the few who had the time and curiosity to nose out what he had been up to were more anxious to win favours by playing up to him than to gamble on the uncertain advantages of giving away his secret. Everything seemed to be working out very smoothly and Jia Lian felt immensely grateful to Cousin Zhen for having made it all possible.

The allowance Jia Lian made to cover the day-to-day expenses of his little household was fifteen taels a month. On days when he was unable to come, Mrs You and her two daughters dined together. On days when he was there, he and Er-jie would dine together and Mrs You and San-jie would eat separately in their own room. Besides paying Er-jie the allowance, Jia Lian handed over all his private savings to her to look after for him. He told her everything about Xi-feng, down to the most intimate bedroom particulars, and promised her that as soon as Xi-feng died, she should move into the mansion and live there openly as his wife. It cannot be said that Er-jie found any of this displeasing. In the meantime the little household was managing very comfortably.

Two months passed quickly by. One evening, as Cousin Zhen was returning from a day of Buddhist ceremonies at the Temple of the Iron Threshold, he bethought him that it was some considerable time since he had enjoyed the company of the two You sisters and decided to pay them a visit. First, though, he sent a boy to the new house to find out if Jia Lian was there. Delighted when the boy brought back word that he was not, he ordered most of the servants to return to Ningguo House without him, keeping only his two most trusted pages to accompany him on foot to the Yous’ house. They did this walking one on either side of his horse’s head and holding on to his bridle.

It was already lighting-up time when they got there, but the courtyard gate was still open. Their arrival was so quiet and discreet that they managed to get inside it unobserved. The pages tied the horse up in the stable and took themselves off to the servants’ quarters to await further orders, while Cousin Zhen entered the living-room alone. He found San-jie and her mother sitting there. The lamp had just been lit. Shortly after he had finished exchanging greetings with them, Er-jie herself appeared and made him welcome. Tea was served. Cousin Zhen smiled over his cup at her as he sipped his tea.

‘Well, do you think I’d make a good marriage-broker? If the husband I picked for you is no good, I doubt I could find you a better! Your sister will be coming to see you shortly, by the bye, and bringing you a present.’

Er-jie had already given orders for food and wine to be brought and for the courtyard gate to be barred. Since their visitor was a member of the family, it seemed reasonable that the usual restraints should be relaxed. Presently Bao Er came in with some things and took the opportunity of offering his respects to Cousin Zhen.

‘You’re a good fellow, Bao,’ said Cousin Zhen affably. ‘I’m sure that’s why Mr Lian chose you for this job. No doubt there will be even more important work for you in the future. So don’t go drinking outside and getting yourself into trouble, will you? If you do as I tell you, I promise to make it worth your while. And let me know if there’s anything you want here. Mr Lian is a busy man, and not all the people in his household are to be trusted. It’s better to ask me. He and I are not only cousins, you know; we are also very good friends.’

‘Yes, sir. I shall do my best to give satisfaction, sir,’ said Bao Er. ‘I realize it would be more than my life is worth to get into any trouble.’

Cousin Zhen smiled and nodded.

‘Good. As long as you know.’

For some minutes the four of them sat drinking together; but Er-jie knew that it was not for a family evening that Cousin Zhen had come and soon found an excuse for getting herself and her mother out of the way. She told him that she had to go to the other side of the house for something and was afraid to do so on her own. As soon as she and Mrs You were out of the room, Cousin Zhen drew up closer to San-jie. His behaviour became so familiar that the two maids in attendance grew embarrassed and slipped off to the kitchen. They were content that Cousin Zhen and San-jie should enjoy themselves in any way they chose, Provided that they did not have to stay and watch.

Cousin Zhen’s two pages were all this time drinking with Bao Er in the kitchen, while the Mattress stood at the stove with her back to them. When the two maids burst in and began laughing and joking with the boys and asking to be given some wine, Bao Er was far from pleased.

‘What are you girls doing here? You ought to be in the sitting-room. Suppose they want service in there? There’ll be trouble.’

His wife turned round wrathfully from the stove.

‘Silly old fool! Why don’t you get your nose back into your winecup? The sooner you’re flat on your back snoring and your little winkle tucked up out of harm’s way, the better it’ll be for all of us! What’s it to do with you whether they want service in there or not? I’m here to see to all that. If there’s any rain falling it won’t fall on your head. So what are you worrying about?’

Bao Er was well aware that it was largely to his wife that he owed his favourable position with Jia Lian. He did little himself these days but draw his pay and drink his wine; but so exemplary was the Mattress’s service of Er-jie, that although Jia Lian knew of Bao Er’s failings, he had so far refrained from taking him to task about them out of consideration for her. Bao Er’s awareness of this kept him in obedient subjection to her. And so, when he heard himself addressed by her in this way, he merely drank a few more cups in silence and then took himself quietly off to bed.

The Mattress had a few drinks herself now with the pages and the two girls, anxious to make herself as agreeable as possible so that the pages would give a good report of her to Cousin Zhen. But just as this little party in the kitchen was beginning to warm up, it was interrupted by a sudden knocking at the gate. The Mattress hurried out and opened it as Jia Lian was dismounting from his horse. In answer to his question whether there was anything to report, she whispered into his ear that Mr Zhen had come and was at this very moment in the guest-room in the west courtyard. Jia Lian went straight to his own room, where he found Er-jie sitting with her mother. The two women seemed somewhat flustered by his arrival, but he pretended not to notice.

‘Bring us some wine,’ he told the Mattress. ‘I think I shall have a cup or two and then go to bed. I feel rather tired tonight.’

At once Er-jie was all over him, taking his coat, fetching him tea, asking him about his day – in short, showering on him all those little wifely attentions which so enchanted him. Presently the Mattress reappeared with their wine. Old Mrs You said that she did not want any and went off to bed. The two of them sat down together to drink it. One of the two maids, who had now been persuaded to resume their duties, came over from the kitchen to wait on them.

Meanwhile Jia Lian’s trusty servant Rich – the only attendant he had brought with him on this visit – had been tying his master’s horse up in the stable. Finding another horse there already, he was able on closer inspection to identify it and to deduce what the Mattress by her whispering had attempted to conceal from him: viz., that Cousin Zhen was somewhere on the premises. Sure enough, on going to the kitchen when he had finished tying up the horse, he found two of Cousin Zhen’s pages, Happy and Lively, sitting there drinking. They, too, when they saw him enter, realized that both their masters must be present; but neither party was going to admit what each knew the other one must know.

‘We couldn’t keep up with the master,’ said Happy and Lively, ‘and it was getting too dark to go home, so we came here to beg a night’s shelter.’

‘There’s plenty of room here for you to sleep,’ said Rich expansively. ‘Make yourselves at home. Actually I came here to bring the mistress her monthly allowance. Now that I’ve given it to her, I think I shall spend the night here as well.’

‘Come and have a drink then,’ said Happy. ‘We’ve had a lot to drink already.’

Rich sat down and poured himself some wine; but before he could drink any, there was a sound of neighing and trampling from the stable and he and Lively had to run out and shout at the horses. The two animals sharing the same manger had taken a dislike to each other and started kicking. It was only after a great deal of shouting and whoaing that the pages succeeded in quieting them and tying them up on separate sides of the stable.

While they were doing this, Happy was able to drink several more cups of wine, and by the time they got back into the kitchen, he was already glassy-eyed. The Mattress was evidently waiting for an opportunity to retire.

‘Well, boys,’ she said to them as they entered, ‘I’ll leave you to it then. I’ve made you a pot of tea, so you can help yourselves. I’m going off to bed.’

The boys were reluctant to let her go, and there was a good deal of kissing and fondling and noisy ribaldry before she finally succeeded in extricating herself. She closed the door behind her as she went, and Rich and Lively proceeded to bar it on the inside, preparatory to going to bed. When they went back to look at the kang, however, they found Happy sprawled out in the middle of it, already fast asleep.

‘Come on, there’s a good chap, get up and lie down again properly!’ they said, shaking him. ‘Don’t be so selfish! Where are we supposed to go?’

‘What about a bit of bum-cake?’ mumbled Happy, momentarily returning to consciousness. ‘Turn and turn about. Fair shares for all.’

The others, seeing that he was too drunk to reason with, blew the lamp out and settled themselves on either side of him as best they could.

The commotion in the stable had caused Er-jie’s apprehensiveness to return, but by forcing herself to keep up a flow of chatter, she succeeded in distracting Jia Lian’s attention away from it. So successful was she that, after a few more drinks, he began to grow amorous and, having first sent the girl off with the dirty things, proposed that they should bar the door for the night and begin undressing. Er-jie was beautiful at any time, but in only a crimson shift, with her fashionable coiffure shaken out into billowing black clouds and her face all soft and glowing with desire, she possessed an extra dimension of beauty that was not revealed in the daytime. He hugged her to him with a delighted laugh.

‘They’re always telling me how perfect that termagant wife of mine is,’ he said, ‘but the way you look tonight, she’s not fit to carry your shoes!’

‘I may have looks, but I’ve got no class,’ said Er-jie. ‘Without class, one might just as well not be good-looking.’

‘Why do you say that?’ said Jia Lian. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You all treat me as if I were a fool,’ said Er-jie tearfully.’ ‘You think that I know nothing –’

‘No!’

‘– but though we’ve only been married two months –’

‘I know you’re not a fool!’ he insisted.

‘– though we’ve only been together for so short a time,’ she continued, ‘I already feel that I’m yours completely and for ever, in this life or any life to come. Because you are my husband, I shall always look up to you and never, never deceive you. My future is assured. But what is to become of my sister? We can’t let things go on the way they are at present. We must think of some permanent solution for her.’

Jia Lian laughed reassuringly.

‘Look, I’m not a jealous man. I know about your past and it doesn’t bother me. You really mustn’t worry. I realize that now we are married you must feel awkward about Cousin Zhen being here, but surely the solution would be for Cousin Zhen and your sister to have a formal union and after that we can forget our inhibitions and make it a foursome. What do you say to that?’

Er-jie wiped her eyes.

‘It’s very nice of you to suggest it, but I don’t know what the other two would think of your idea. For one thing, my sister is such a funny girl. And for another, I don’t know whether your cousin would like having everything dragged out into the open.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ said Jia Lian, ‘you see! I’ll go over and have it out with him now. There’s no time like the present. It’s only a question of breaking the ice.’

He strode off, the bolder for being a little drunk, to the courtyard on the western side of the compound. Light was streaming through the sitting-room window. He pushed the door open and walked in.

‘Where’s the big chief, then?’ he cried. ‘Cousin, I’ve come to pay you my respects!’

Speechless with embarrassment, Cousin Zhen rose to his feet and motioned him dumbly to a seat.

‘What’s this?’ said Jia Lian, noting his embarrassment. ‘After we’ve always been such good friends, and after all you’ve done for me – because if I cut myself into a million pieces, I still couldn’t begin to show you how grateful I am – you’re not, surely, going to start feeling uneasy on my account? My dear coz, from this day on I want you to carry on exactly as you used to in the past. Otherwise I shall give up any idea of getting myself an heir and stop coming here altogether!’

He tried to kneel down at this point, but Cousin Zhen, who was becoming quite frantic with embarrassment, quickly reached out to stop him.

‘All right, Lian,’ he said, ‘all right. Whatever you say, coz. I’ll be guided by you.’

‘Come on, let’s have some more wine!’ Jia Lian said to the servant-girl. ‘I’m going to drink with my dear cousin.’ He turned to San-jie with a leer. ‘Why don’t you and my dear cousin share a cup? You and Zhen drink a cup together and I’ll drink a cup to your future happiness. To Zhen and San-jie!’

San-jie leaped to her feet and, pointing her finger at Jia Lian from where she stood on the kang, fixed him with a withering look of contempt.

‘Don’t try the talking horse on me, my friend! If you two want to drink, I’ll watch you drink. But count me out of it. People who work shadow-puppets should be careful not to break the screen. You surely can’t be so stupid as to imagine that we haven’t seen by now how things really stand in your household? If you and your cousin thought that by spending a few taels of your stinking money you could buy my sister and me for your whores, you were very much mistaken. You see, I know all about your old woman and how scared you are of her. I know that it’s because of her that when you married my sister you had to smuggle her out here like a man who’s stolen a gong and doesn’t dare to play on it. Well, I should like to meet this Feng lady and find out just how many heads and arms she’s got. If we can reach a satisfactory agreement, well and good; but if there’s the slightest difficulty, I’m perfectly prepared to take her on and fight it out with her single-handed. But before I do that, I promise to have the liver and lights out of you two, or my name’s not “San-jie”! – You said you wanted a drink, didn’t you? All right, I’ll drink with you.’

She picked up the wine-kettle and poured out a cupful of wine; then, having drunk half of it herself, she threw an arm round Jia Lian’s neck and pressed the winecup to his lips.

Jia Lian was shocked by this onslaught into instant soberness; and Cousin Zhen, ill-prepared for such strident shrewishness by what had passed earlier in the evening, was almost equally taken aback. The two of them, for all their boasted experience, found themselves reduced to a condition of tongue-tied helplessness by this single unmarried girl.

But San-jie had not finished with them yet.

‘Why don’t you ask my sister to join us?’ she asked. ‘If we’re going to have fun, let’s all have fun together. “Home is handiest” as the proverb says. There are no outsiders here. We’re all in the family. Come one, come all!’

Cousin Zhen was by now looking for an opportunity to leave, but San-jie was careful to give him none. He had not suspected that she could be like this and deeply regretted having come; but he could not simply walk out without giving offence to Jia Lian.

Out of deliberate disregard for appearances she had taken off her hair-ornaments and outer clothes, and from time to time as she spoke, the animated gestures with which her words were accompanied caused the imperfectly-fastened crimson shift she was wearing to gape open, revealing glimpses of leekgreen breast-binder and snow-white flesh beneath; the red shoes that peeped out below her green drawers were all the time tap-tapping or coming together in a manner that was anything but ladylike, and her earrings bobbed to and fro like little swings. To her

brow’s dusky crown and lips incarnadine

the lamplight lent an added softness and brightness; and the wine she had drunk gave her eyes, which were at all times sparkling and vivacious, an even more irresistible allure. The two men were spellbound, and yet at the same time repelled. Her looks and gestures were all that inflamed concupiscence could desire; but her words and the very frankness of a provocation too brazen to be seductive kept them at bay.

And a poor pair they made of it in a situation where something other than carnal satisfaction was required of them. Not only was there none of that lively repartee that might have been expected of men who prided themselves on their gallantry; they could not produce so much as a single amusing remark between them and sat there, as the effortless flow of talk continued to pour out of her, fascinated but unresponding. Sometimes she abused them, called them names, said the most outrageous things to them. It was as though the roles had been reversed – as though she was the man and they were a pair of poor, simpering playthings whose services she had paid for. And when she had had enough of playing with them, she dismissed them ignominiously, bolted the door after them, and went to bed.

From that time onwards, whenever one of the servants did some small thing to displease her, she would launch into loud abuse of Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Jia Rong, denouncing all three of them as swindlers, deceivers and oppressors of the widow and the orphan.

Cousin Zhen, when he finally got back after that visit, was chary of exposing himself again. Sometimes when San-jie felt in the mood, she would send one of the boys round to summon him and he would visit her then gladly enough, for he still had some small hope of winning her; but he was careful to behave himself when he did, and to defer in everything to her wishes.

San-jie was a very peculiar young woman. She took a perverse pleasure in enhancing her natural beauty by affecting a striking style of dress and by adopting every conceivable kind of outrageously seductive attitude. The effect was that every male who encountered her was smitten – not only the susceptible ones like Jia Lian and Cousin Zhen, but those made of sterner stuff as well; yet all of them, after only a few minutes in her company, felt their ardour extinguished and their advances repelled by the reckless, forthright, almost insolent way in which she received them.

When her mother and sister took her to task for her cavalier treatment of the two cousins, she told Er-jie she was ‘stupid’.

‘Why should that pair of precious rascals be allowed to ruin girls like us that are worth a million of them and get away with it?’ she said.’ They shan’t do so if I can help it. Besides, that wife of Lian’s is a very dangerous woman. We’re all right for the time being because she hasn’t found out yet about your marriage; but she will do one of these days, and when that time comes she’s not going to sit still and do nothing. There’s sure to be a most terrible row, and who knows which of us will come out of it alive? It’s only fair that they should be made to jump a bit now. If we’re going to end up with a bad name anyway, let’s at least get what we can out of them while we’ve got the chance!’

Her mother and sister, seeing that it was useless to argue with her, left her alone.

San-jie certainly put her precept into practice. Her demands for special kinds of food, for clothing, for jewellery became daily more extravagant and capricious. Given a silver ornament she would express a desire for a gold one. If she had something with pearls in it, she would like something with gems in it as well. While she was eating the fatted goose, her mind was already contemplating the slaughter of the duck. And woe betide the cook if anything was not quite to her taste! Over would go dishes, table and all! Or, if a newlymade garment displeased her, no matter how expensive the material, she would quickly reduce it to ribbons, using a pair of scissors to aid the process and uttering a fresh malediction at every tear. Cousin Zhen, who, having some time previously exhausted the possibilities with Er-jie and grown somewhat tired of her, had willingly yielded her up to Jia Lian and transferred his attentions to her sister, now found that San-jie, far from proving the complaisant mistress he had hoped for, was actually costing him a great deal of money – money, moreover, on which there seemed little prospect of a return.

Nowadays when Jia Lian came he spent the whole of his time there with Er-jie and scarcely dared venture from her room. Because of San-jie he too was beginning to regret the situation into which he had got himself.

On the other hand Er-jie was so loving and so devoted to him; he found her so sympathetic. In her gentleness, in the wifely submissiveness with which she insisted on discussing everything with him before she would make any decision, she was ten times better than Xi-feng. And in respect of looks, voice and deportment she was at least five times better.

True, she was a fallen woman; and though she had repented, neither her reform nor any other excellence could bring back her virtue. But that was what she said. Was it not Jia Lian himself who repudiated it?

‘Everybody makes mistakes,’ he would say. ‘As long as you know that you were wrong and don’t do it again, that’s all that matters.’

He refused to talk about the unchasteness of her past: her present goodness was enough for him.

And so, his doubts forgotten, he would cleave to her more passionately than ever. They were of one heart, one mind. He swore they should live and die together. Xi-feng and Patience were banished totally from his thoughts.

Inevitably these pillow-sessions would end with Er-jie urging Jia Lian to do something about her sister.

‘Why don’t you talk it over with Zhen and think of someone you both know of who can marry her?’ she said on the last of these occasions. ‘She can’t stay here like this indefinitely. Sooner or later there will be trouble.’

‘I did talk to Zhen about it the other day,’ said Jia Lian, ‘but he couldn’t give up the idea of keeping her for himself. I said to him, “That piece of meat is too hot for chaps like us, Zhen. The rose is a very pretty flower, but you can get some nasty jabs from its spines. You’ll never hold a girl like that down. Much better find a husband for her and get her off your hands.” But he wouldn’t say “yes” and he wouldn’t say “no”: he just hummed and hawed for a bit and left it at that. So what can I do?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Er-jie. ‘We’ll speak to San-jie herself about it tomorrow. If we can persuade her to agree in principle to a betrothal, it can be left to her to have it out with Cousin Zhen herself. Once she has convinced him that he has nothing to hope for, he will have to do something about finding her a husband.’

Next day Er-jie spent the morning preparing a little party for the four of them, and Jia Lian, instead of going off as he usually did, deliberately stayed indoors. At about noon Er-jie invited her sister over and, when she arrived, seated her next to their mother in the place of honour. San-jie knew perfectly well what the subject of this meeting was to be and, as the wine was going round for the third time, before her sister had had a chance to broach it, she burst into tears and proceeded to do so herself.

‘I’m sure the only reason you have invited me here today, sister, is to give me a lecture, but I’m not stupid and I don’t need to be nagged at as if I were a child. We all know what happened in the past, and there is no point in dragging it up now. The important thing is that as you are comfortably settled and Mamma’s future is now assured, it’s time to start thinking about how I am to be disposed of. However, this matrimony business is no children’s game: it’s a girl’s whole lifetime to the day she dies that is decided by it. In the past, because we were so vulnerable and one could never be sure what designs men might have on one, I deliberately acted in a shameless manner in order to keep them at bay. Now I am willing to put all that behind me and turn myself into a good and obedient wife. On one condition, though: the man I marry has got to be somebody I know about and somebody who is to my liking. If I leave the choice to you, I am sure you will do your best to find someone rich and well-placed and good-looking, but if it is someone I cannot give my heart to, I shall feel that the whole of my life has been wasted.’

Jia Lian smiled reassuringly.

‘That’s easy. We leave the choice entirely to you. Just name the man and we will take care of the expenses. Your mother will have nothing to worry about.’

‘I don’t need to name him,’ said San-jie. ‘Er-jie has known about him all along.’

‘Who is it?’ Jia Lian asked, turning to Er-jie; but Er-jie could not for the moment think who her sister had in mind.

‘I know who it is!’ Jia Lian clapped his hands delightedly, suddenly convinced that he had thought of the right answer. ‘And a very good choice too!’ he added.

‘Who?’ said Er-jie.

‘No one else could ever be good enough for her. It has to be Bao-yu.’

Er-jie and Mrs You felt sure that he was right, but San-jie herself repudiated the suggestion indignantly.

‘I suppose you think that if we were ten sisters instead of only three, every one of us would have to marry a Jia. There are other males in the world besides the ones in your family, you know.’

The other three were nonplussed. If it was not Bao-yu that she had in mind, then who could it be?

‘Don’t just look under your noses,’ said San-jie. ‘Try casting your mind back five years, sister.’

But at that point Joker arrived, one of Jia Lian’s most trusted pages and sharer of his secrets.

‘Sir She has been asking for you, sir,’ said Joker. ‘I told him that you’d gone off to Sir Wang’s and then hurried here as quickly as I could to let you know.’

‘Were they asking about me at home yesterday?’ Jia Lian sounded a trifle concerned.

‘I told the mistress that you were at the family temple discussing arrangements for the Hundred Days with Mr Zhen and thought you might not be able to get back.’

Jia Lian called for his horse to be led out and set off immediately, with Rich in attendance. Joker was left behind at the disposal of the women. Er-jie had two plates of food and a large cup of wine set down on the edge of the kang beside him and invited him to eat and drink standing, while she asked him a few questions. In fact she asked him a great many. How old was Xi-feng? In what way was she so awful? How old was Grandmother Jia? How many girls were there? And so on. Joker, smiling broadly, proceeded, between large sips of wine, to give the old lady and her two daughters a detailed exposé of the Rong mansion and its inhabitants.

‘I’m one of the boys from the inner gate,’ he told them. ‘I belong to one of two groups of four. We work there by shifts. One group goes on duty as the other one comes off. Of us eight, some, like me, are in the master’s confidence, some are in the mistress’s. Those of us who are in the master’s confidence daren’t say a word to upset the mistress’s boys; but she can say or do whatever she likes to us. You want to know what she’s like? A cruel heart and a sharp tongue, that about sums her up. The master’s no softy, but he can do nothing with her. There’s a Miss Patience working for her though. She’s very nice. Though she’s so well in with the mistress, she’ll often do you a kindness behind her back. When one of us boys is in trouble, the mistress will be down on us like a ton of bricks, but if we can get Patience to put in a word for us, we know we shall be all right. Everyone hates the mistress. The only exceptions are Her Old Ladyship and Her Ladyship. The others pretend to like her, because they’re afraid. She knows she hasn’t got any rivals and she always takes very good care to keep both Their Ladyships happy, so consequently whatever she says goes, nobody else dares stand up to her. She’s a great one for saving. She must have saved a mountain of money by now. That’s why Their Ladyships are always saying what a good manager she is. They don’t realize how much we servants have to suffer so that she can take the credit. Whenever anything good happens, you can be sure that she’ll get in with the news first, before anyone else does, so that she can reap the benefit. But when things go wrong or she’s made a slip herself, she’ll very quickly step aside and fasten the blame for it on someone else. She’ll even fan the flames up and make it hotter for that other person once she’s safely out of it herself. Even her mother-in-law can’t stand her. “The magpie looking for a bigger nest who set up house with the crow” she calls her. She says she’s no business meddling with the affairs of our household when she ought to be looking after her own. She says if it weren’t for Her Old Ladyship, she’d have ordered her back long ago and made her stay where she belongs.’

Er-jie laughed.

‘If you say things like this behind her back, what must you say behind mine? In my case there are even more things to criticize!’

Joker fell on his knees, protesting.

‘If I ever said a word against you, madam, I should deserve to be struck by lightning! It would have been a great blessing for all of us if the master had married you first instead of the mistress. I know there would have been fewer beatings and cursings for us boys and we shouldn’t have had to go around the way we do in fear and trembling all the time. There isn’t a boy among us who isn’t every day and everywhere singing your praises and saying what a kind and considerate lady you are. We are planning to ask the master to let us stay here and serve you all the time.’

‘Get up, get up!’ said Er-jie, laughing. ‘Little impertinence! I was only joking; how easily you are scared! I’m sure I don’t know what you should want to come here for. I am thinking of going to see your mistress.’

Joker waved his hand in vigorous disapproval.

‘Don’t do that, madam, whatever you do! It would be much better if you never set eyes on her as long as you live. She’s “soft of tongue and hard of heart”, “two faces and three knives”, she’ll “give you a smile and trip you up the while”, she’s “a welcoming fire when you see her, but a stab in the back when it’s dark” – all those things and more. I don’t think even Miss You here could get the better of her in an argument, so I’m sure a quiet, gentle lady like you would be no match for her.’

Er-jie smiled.

‘If I behave correctly towards her, I don’t see why she should do me any harm.’

‘Listen, madam,’ said Joker. ‘I’m not saying this to you because I’ve had too much to drink, but when she sees that you are both prettier and more popular than she is, she’s not going to let matters rest. They call jealous people “vinegar bottles”, don’t they? Well, she’s not just a bottle-full of vinegar; she’s a storage-jar – a whole cistern-full of it! The master’s only got to rest his eyes on one of the maids, and she’ll find occasion to have that poor girl beaten until she looks like a boiled sheep’s head. Miss Patience is supposed to be his chamber-wife, but I doubt she lets him sleep with her more than once in a year. And even then she’ll go on and on about it afterwards until she’s reduced Patience to tears. “I didn’t want to do it,” says Patience, “you made me. When I said I didn’t want to, you told me I was wicked and disobedient, but now that I’ve done it, you keep picking on me.” After that she makes it up with Patience and begs to be forgiven.’

‘That can’t be true,’ said Er-jie. ‘If she’s really the harpy you say she is, how could she possibly be frightened of a mere chamber-wife?’

‘Because Patience has reason on her side,’ said Joker. ‘It’s like the proverb says: “Three men with a carrying-pole can’t shift Reason from its place.” Patience has been with the mistress since she was a little girl. There were four maids that came with the mistress when she married, but only Patience stayed on with her. The other three either died or got married. The mistress gave her to the master to be his chamber-wife partly because she wanted to show everyone what a virtuous wife she was and partly because she thought it would be a way of binding him to her. Miss Patience is a really good sort. She’s not the sort of person to go looking for trouble, and she’s always been good and true to the mistress. That’s why the mistress always makes it up with her.’

‘I see,’ said Er-jie. ‘But haven’t I heard that there are a young widow and a number of young ladies in the family? If your mistress is as awful as you say she is, how comes it that these other ones let her get away with it?’

Joker clapped his hands together and laughed.

‘Because the “young widow” you’re talking about – that’s our Mrs Zhu – is a saint. The nickname we servants give her is “Lady Gwanyin”. She doesn’t as a rule have anything to do with household matters. She spends all her time teaching the young ladies writing and broidering and book-learning. That’s her job. She has done a bit of household managing since the mistress fell ill, but even now she doesn’t interfere very much: just follows the rules, very quiet and ladylike – no throwing her weight about or showing off how clever she is like the other one. Of the young ladies, the eldest one – well, I suppose she must be a good ‘un to have been so favoured. The second one – that’s the master’s sister – we call her “Miss Doddyblock”. She’d probably forget to say “oh” if you stuck a pin in her. The third – Master Bao’s younger sister – we call “The Rose”–’

‘Why do you call her that?’ the You sisters asked simultaneously.

‘Sweet and pretty and everyone loves her, but she has a thorn,’ said Joker. ‘The great pity about her is that she’s not Her Ladyship’s child. A phoenix reared in a crow’s nest, that’s what she is. The fourth young lady is really Mr Zhen’s sister, but Her Ladyship brought her over to our mansion when she was still a baby and brought her up there with the others. She’s a big girl now, but still pays no attention to what goes on around her, no more than the second one. Then besides our four there are two other young ladies that you probably won’t have heard about – both very, very beautiful. One is Sir Zheng’s sister’s child. Her name is Miss Lin. Though she’s so beautiful, she’s very thin and weakly. The other is Her Ladyship’s sister’s child. Her name is Miss Xue.’

‘Miss Wood and Miss Snow,’ said Er-jie, smiling.

‘If we ever meet them on their way through the courtyard or getting into their carriages when they go out,’ said Joker, ‘we none of us dare to breathe.’

‘Of course,’ said Er-jie. ‘A great household like yours is sure to be very strict about such matters. Though young boys like you would be allowed into the courtyards, you would naturally be expected to keep your distance when the young ladies are about.’

‘No, no, no,’ said Joker, waving his hand energetically. ‘That’s not the reason we’re afraid to breathe. We’re afraid that if we breathed out too hard, we might blow Miss Lin over and cause Miss Xue to melt!’

The three You ladies, the Mattress and the two maids all burst out laughing.

But who was it that San-jie wanted to marry? This will be revealed (if you want to know) in the following chapter.

Chapter 66

Shame drives a warm-hearted young woman to take her life And shock leads a cold-hearted young gentleman to renounce the world

Our last chapter concluded with Joker’s female audience laughing at the notion of Miss Wood’s being blown down and Miss Snow melted by the breathing-out of the pages. The Mattress dealt him a playful box on the ear.

‘There may be some truth in what you say; but your way of telling things turns even good sense into nonsense,’ she said. ‘You are more like one of Bao-yu’s boys than one of the Master’s.’

Er-jie was about to ask another question, but San-jie got in first.

‘Yes now, about Bao-yu: what does he do – apart from going to school?’

Joker laughed.

‘Don’t ask about him, Miss! You’d never believe half of it if I told you. To begin with, although he’s such a big fellow now, he’s never had what you might call a proper schooling. Everyone in the family since his great-grandfather’s time, including the Master, had to do their ten years in the family school; but not him. Bao-yu doesn’t like study; so because he is Her Old Ladyship’s darling, that’s that. Sir Zheng used to try and do something with him, but that was soon put a stop to by Her Old Ladyship. Nowadays he spends the whole of his time just fooling around. You can’t understand what he’s talking about half the time, and you can’t make any sense of what he does. He looks bright enough, and people always assume from his looks that he must be clever; but underneath it he’s stupid. You can tell he must be stupid from the fact that he never has a word to say for himself when he meets anyone. I’ll give him this, though: although he doesn’t go to school, he can write a bit. That’s about the only thing he’s any good at. He doesn’t study, he doesn’t care for physical training, and he doesn’t like meeting people. He just spends all his time playing around with a pack of maids. He’s soft, too. Sometimes when he sees us, if he’s in the mood, he’ll play with us as if he were an equal. Other times he ignores us and we ignore him. If we’re sitting down or lying down when he comes by, we don’t get up for him; we just take no notice. He doesn’t care. Nobody’s afraid of him. We do just what we like when he’s around. He never stops us.’

‘You talk like this about someone who is easy-going with you,’ said San-jie, ‘yet you complain just as much about someone who is strict. One can see that you are difficult people to employ!’

‘I always thought Bao-yu looked so nice,’ said Er-jie. ‘How disappointing to learn that there is really nothing in him after all!’

‘You surely don’t believe the rubbish this boy has been talking, sister?’ said San-jie impatiently. ‘We have, after all, seen Bao-yu several times ourselves. I suppose you could call him effeminate. Whether he is eating or talking or moving about, there is certainly something rather girlish about his manner. That comes from spending nearly all his time in the women’s quarters with no other males around. But stupid? I hardly think he can be called that. Don’t you remember when we were still in mourning, that time we were standing watching the monks as they went round the coffin and he stood right in front of us? Everyone said how ill-mannered it was of him and how inconsiderate. But then afterwards he quietly came up to us and explained: “I hope you didn’t think it very inconsiderate of me to stand in front of you like that,” he said, “but I noticed how dirty some of those monks were and I was afraid that the smell of them might distress you.” Then shortly after that, when he was drinking some tea and you said you’d like some too, he stopped one of the old women from emptying the slops out of his cup and filling it up again for you. “No, no,” he said, “that’s dirty! You must wash it first before you pour her any.” Just on the strength of those two incidents I think you ought in fairness to agree that, when he is with girls at any rate, he is perfectly capable. People fail to find out what he is really like because they are put off by his manner.’

‘To hear you speak, it sounds as if the two of you would get on very well together,’ said Er-jie. ‘I think we ought to betroth you to him. Why not?’

San-jie was prevented from answering by Joker’s presence. She merely looked down and occupied herself by cracking a melon-seed between her teeth.

‘They’d make a fine pair,’ said Joker, ‘whether from the point of view of looks or of character. The only thing is, he’s got someone else already. Although it hasn’t been made official yet, it’s as good as certain that he’s going to marry Miss Lin. The reason they haven’t been properly engaged yet is because Miss Lin is so often ill, and also because they are still a bit on the young side; but two or three years from now, as soon as Her Old Ladyship gives the word, they are sure to be.’

They were still discussing this when Rich arrived with a message from Jia Lian.

‘Sir She is sending the Master to Ping-an in a few days’ time on important secret business. He’ll probably be away for fifteen or sixteen days. He can’t come back here tonight, but he says, Mrs You, will you and the Mistress get that business you know about settled, so that when he comes tomorrow, he’ll know what he has to do?’

Having delivered this message, he went back again, taking Joker with him. Er-jie had the gate closed after them and retired early for the night, a good part of which she spent in extracting the required information from her sister.

Jia Lian did not arrive until after noon next day. Er-jie expressed concern that he had come at all.

‘If you have something important to do, you don’t need to put yourself in a rush by coming here. I should hate to be the cause of your starting late.’

‘It isn’t anything really important,’ said Jia Lian, ‘just a job that needs doing which happens to be rather far away. I shall have to leave by the beginning of next month and it will be about half a month before I get back.’

‘Well, while you are away, just concentrate on the job,’ said Er-jie. ‘You don’t have to worry about anything here. We shall be perfectly all right. San-jie isn’t the sort of girl to change her mind overnight and she has definitely chosen her man now. I think you will have to go along with her choice.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Jia Lian. ‘Who is it?’

‘Someone who may not be available at present, in which case it’s anyone’s guess when he will be back,’ she smiled. ‘I must admit, she has a very good eye. And she says that she is prepared to wait as long as it will take – ten years if necessary. If by any chance he’s dead or for some reason or other can’t ever come, she says she will cut her hair off and become a nun. She would rather spend the rest of her life in prayer and fasting than marry anyone else.’

‘Well, come on!’ said Jia Lian. ‘Who is this person who has made such a powerful impression on her?’

‘It’s a long story,’ said Er-jie. ‘Five years ago my mother took us both with her to her old home for my grandmother’s birthday. The family had invited a troupe of amateur actors for the occasion, all young men of good family. The one who played the junior male lead was called Liu Xiang-lian. He is the only man my sister is prepared to marry. Last year he got himself into some sort of trouble and had to go into hiding, and we don’t know whether he’s out of it yet or not.’

‘So that’s who it is!’ said Jia Lian. ‘No wonder she is so keen. Yes, she certainly has a good eye. There’s something you probably don’t know about him, though. Young Liu is a very handsome young man, but he’s an awfully cold fish. He has very few real friends. Bao-yu is probably the person he gets on best with. He took himself off somewhere or other last year after beating up that oaf Xue Pan – I suppose because he wanted to avoid meeting us. I haven’t seen him since then. Someone did tell me that they’d heard he was back, but it may have been only a rumour. I can easily find out by asking one of Bao-yu’s pages. – But suppose it is only a rumour. He’s such a rolling stone, it may be years before he comes back again. Won’t it be rather a waste for her to put off marrying for so long?’

‘When our San-jie says she’s going to do something, she does it,’ said Er-jie. ‘I think you will have to go along with her.’

They were interrupted at this point by San-jie herself, who had evidently been listening to their conversation and chose this moment to come into the room.

‘Set your mind at rest, brother-in-law. I am not one of those people who say one thing and mean another; I really do mean what I say. If Liu turns up, I shall marry him. From now on and until he does I shall spend all my time praying, fasting and looking after Mamma. If he has still not turned up when Mamma is no longer here to look after, I shall go into a convent.’

She drew a jade hairpin from her hair and deliberately broke it in two.

‘So be it with me if I do not do exactly as I have sworn!’

She went straight back to her room then; and from that day onwards her conduct was indeed exemplary.

Jia Lian could see that he had no choice but to fall in with her wishes, and after a brief discussion of domestic matters with Er-jie, went home for further discussions with Xi-feng about the preparations for his journey. While at home he sent someone to ask Tealeaf about Liu Xiang-lian.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ said Tealeaf. ‘I should think he probably hasn’t come back yet. If he had, I should almost certainly have got to hear about it.’

Inquiries made among Xiang-lian’s neighbours confirmed that he had not returned. Jia Lian was obliged to report back to Er-jie that he had drawn a blank.

A little before he was due to begin his journey, Jia Lian took leave of Xi-feng and the family, but only in order to spend his last two nights with Er-jie. He found San-jie so altered on this visit as to seem almost a different person. Er-jie, too, showed herself so careful and competent in her management of the little household that he could see there would be no need to worry about either of them while he was away.

Jia Lian left the city early on the day of his departure and thereafter followed the main road to Ping-an, putting up at some staging-post or hostelry each night and making shorter stops for meals and refreshments during the day. After two days of uneventful travelling he came, on the third day, upon a little caravan moving towards him along the road ahead consisting of a number of pack-animals and some ten or so horsemen, of whom the leading two appeared to be masters and the rest servants. As they drew near enough for him to make out their faces, Jia Lian saw with astonishment that the two leading horsemen were Xue Pan and Liu Xiang-lian and urged his horse forwards to meet them. After greetings and the customary generalities had been exchanged, the three of them went into a near-by inn to sit down together and talk. Jia Lian asked the question that had been puzzling him.

‘After your little incident last year, the rest of us were anxious to make it up between you, but young Liu seemed to have disappeared without a trace. How do you come to be together now?’

‘It’s a very strange story,’ said Xue Pan. ‘My boys and I finished selling our stuff off in the spring and we’ve been on our homeward journey ever since. Everything was going quite smoothly until a couple of days ago. Then just as we were approaching Ping-an, we ran into a gang of robbers who took away all our things. But just at that very moment up pops young Xiang-lian out of nowhere, drives off the robbers, gets all our stuff back for us, and saves our lives. He refused to let me thank him, but in the end he agreed that we should become blood-brothers. We’ve been travelling together ever since. From now on we’re going to be just like real brothers to each other. He’s leaving me at the next crossroads and going off sixty or seventy miles south of here to look up an aunt of his, while I go on ahead to the capital. When I’ve settled my own affairs, I’m going to find a new house for him and fix him up with a nice little wife, and we’re both going to settle down and be family men.’

‘I see,’ said Jia Lian. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. It’s a pity we had all that worry for nothing.’

He paused a moment before continuing.

‘You said something a moment ago about finding young Liu a wife. I happen to know of someone who would suit him perfectly.’

He proceeded to tell the other two about his own marriage to Er-jie and how they were anxious to find a husband for her younger sister, omitting to mention, of course, that San-jie had chosen Liu Xiang-lian herself.

‘Don’t say anything about this to the others when you get home,’ he told Xue Pan. ‘I’m waiting until we have a son. I shall tell them about it then.’

Xue Pan seemed delighted.

‘High time, too!’ he said. ‘Cousin Feng is to blame for not giving you one.’

“There you go again!’ said Xiang-lian, laughing. ‘You mustn’t say things like that to people. Better keep your big mouth shut!’

Xue Pan obediently fell silent, merely observing, before he did so:

‘We ought to take Lian up on his suggestion, though.’

‘I’d always set my heart on marrying a stunningly beautiful girl,’ said Xiang-lian. ‘However, since you both recommend this one, I’m prepared to lower my expectations a bit. Yes, all right, Mr Jia. I leave it to you to arrange this, then. I put myself in your hands.’

‘I don’t ask you to believe this now,’ said Jia Lian, smiling. ‘You’ll be able to judge for yourself when you see her: but this sister-in-law of mine is a stunningly beautiful girl. I should go so far as to say she must be one of the most beautiful women who have ever lived.’

Xiang-lian brightened.

‘All right, then. Shall we fix it up when I get back to the capital in about a month’s time, when I have finished seeing my aunt?’

‘If you and I were the only ones involved, I would gladly leave it at that,’ said Jia Lian, ‘but knowing how unpredictable your movements are, I can’t help feeling a little nervous on the girl’s behalf. Suppose you failed to turn up? It could mean a whole lifetime wasted. I think you ought to give me some sort of pledge.’

‘A gentleman’s word ought to be pledge enough,’ said Xiang-lian. ‘In any case, I’m always hard up; I’m not in a position to give you a betrothal gift – particularly when I am on the road like this, away from home.’

‘There’s all my stuff at your disposal,’ said Xue Pan. ‘Help yourself. Give him a share of that.’

‘It isn’t money or jewellery I’m after,’ said Jia Lian. ‘It doesn’t have to be anything valuable. Just give me something you carry about with you that I can take back with me as a token.’

‘At all events, I can’t give you this sword,’ said Xiang-lian. ‘I need it for self-defence. I have got another sword in my luggage I could let you have – well, two swords, really: it’s a pair of swords in one scabbard, what they call a “Duck and Drake” sword. It’s a family heirloom. I never use it, but I always carry it around with me. I could never bear to be parted from it for long, so however much I may wander, if you take that as my pledge, you can be sure of my eventually coming back to get it.’

He handed Jia Lian the heirloom when he had got it out of his bundle, and after a few more drinks the three men remounted, took leave of each other, and went their separate ways.

In due course Jia Lian arrived at Ping-an and saw the Military Governor, only to be told that the business he had come about could not be dealt with satisfactorily until some time in the tenth month. As there was no point in staying, he started back the very next day for the capital, calling in first at Er-jie’s place on his arrival.

Er-jie had run the little household during his absence with exemplary circumspection. The courtyard gate had been kept shut and bolted all day and she had received no outside visitors. San-jie, too – a young woman who never did anything by halves – had continued as good as her word. When not actually keeping to her own room, she had spent the whole of the time either ministering to the wants of her mother or sitting and sewing with Er-jie. Jia Lian was gratified to find all these signs of prudent housekeeping on his return and his respect for Er-jie’s wifely virtues increased.

When the greetings and routine questionings were over, he told the sisters about his encounter with Liu Xiang-lian, and getting the Duck and Drake swords out of his luggage, he handed them to San-jie to take care of. San-jie first examined the scabbard. It was embossed with a design of interlacing dragons and sea-monsters and encrusted all over with jewels. Then she took out the swords, identical except that one had the character ‘Duck’ and the other the character ‘Drake’ engraved on its blade. And what blades! Cold, cruel; glittering with the cold brightness of autumn waters. San-jie was enraptured by them. She put them both back into their scabbard and carried them off to her own room, where she hung them up over her bed. Thereafter she would look up at them from time to time and smile, happy in the knowledge that now her future was assured.

After a couple of nights with Er-jie, Jia Lian went back to Rong-guo House to report to his father and to rejoin the other members of the family. He found Xi-feng with the rest. She had by now recovered sufficiently to get about and had resumed her duties as household manager. As soon as he could, he went to see Cousin Zhen and tell him about San-jie and Liu Xiang-lian. Cousin Zhen was lately much taken up with a new acquaintance and had lost his former interest in the You sisters. He therefore received Jia Lian’s news with equanimity and seemed perfectly content to leave the matter in his hands, merely insisting on himself contributing thirty taels towards the expenses, since he feared that Jia Lian’s resources might be inadequate. Jia Lian accepted the money and handed it to Er-jie to spend on San-jie’s trousseau.

Round about the middle of the eighth month Xiang-lian arrived back in the capital and at once went to pay his respects to Aunt Xue and make the acquaintance of Xue Ke. He was told that Xue Pan had been ill in bed almost since the day he got back (some sickness brought on by change of water or the effects of travel) and was still under doctor’s treatment. However, on hearing that Xiang-lian had come, Xue Pan insisted on having him brought into his bedroom. He and his mother, whose earlier resentment against Xiang-lian had been completely banished by her gratitude to him for saving her son’s life, spoke eloquently of their indebtedness, and when the conversation turned to the subject of Xiang-lian’s marriage, they insisted that all the material things required for it should be supplied by them, so that he should have nothing to do himself except name the day. It was now Xiang-lian’s turn to be grateful.

Next day Xiang-lian went to see Bao-yu. The two of them were always wonderfully at ease in each other’s company and Xiang-lian felt sufficiently intimate to ask him confidentially about the circumstances of Jia Lian’s second marriage.

‘I really don’t know – beyond what Tealeaf has told me,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I haven’t been to see them. I don’t really think it’s my business. Tealeaf mentioned that Cousin Lian was very anxious to see you about something, but I don’t know what it was.’

Xiang-lian told him about the various things that had happened to him on his travels, ending up with an account of his encounter with Jia Lian.

‘Congratulations!’ said Bao-yu. ‘You are a lucky man. She’s a ravishingly beautiful girl. The perfect match for a good-looking chap like you!’

‘If she is so beautiful,’ said Xiang-lian, ‘there can be no shortage of suitors wanting to marry her. Why should your cousin pick on me? I’ve never been particularly friendly with him in the past – certainly not to that extent – yet when I met him on this journey, he was so pressing, so insistent that I should give him a definite undertaking to marry her. What am I to make of it? It’s almost as if the girl’s family was doing the pursuing. I can’t help feeling very dubious about the whole affair. I wish I hadn’t given him those swords. I thought of you as the person most likely to be able to help me get to the bottom of this business.’

‘For a person so intelligent you have left it a bit late to start feeling dubious now that you have promised to marry the girl and already given them your pledge,’ said Bao-yu. ‘You started off by saying that you wanted to marry a beauty. Now that you’ve got one, why not leave it at that? Why these suspicions?’

‘You said just now you didn’t even know about her sister’s marriage,’ said Xiang-lian. ‘How do you know she is so beautiful?’

‘I saw her practically every day for a month at Ning-guo House when she and her sister were brought there by Cousin Zhen’s mother-in-law,’ said Bao-yu. ‘How could I fail to know? Ravishingly beautiful. Obviously made for you. You San-jie, you see: even the name makes her yours!’

Xiang-lian stamped impatiently.

‘And everyone else’s, no doubt.’ Bao-yu’s execrable pun had not amused him. ‘It won’t do. This is a thoroughly bad business. The only clean things about that Ning-guo House are the stone lions that stand outside the gate. The very cats and dogs there are corrupted!’

Bao-yu reddened, and Xiang-lian, realizing that he had gone too far, began pumping his hands apologetically.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. – But surely you can tell me something about her character?’

‘Since you appear to know already, I don’t quite see the point,’ said Bao-yu wryly. ‘In any case, perhaps I’m none too clean myself.’

‘What I said was spoken in the heat of the moment,’ said Xiang-lian. ‘You mustn’t take it to heart.’

‘I’ve already forgotten it,’ said Bao-yu. ‘If you go on talking about it, you will make it seem that the one who has taken it to heart is you.’

Xiang-lian pumped his hands again and took his leave. He was still thoroughly unhappy about the whole affair. At first he thought of going back to Xue Pan and talking it over with him; then he changed his mind, partly because Xue Pan was ill but mainly because in any case he had little confidence in his judgement. In the end he decided that perhaps the best thing would be simply to ask for his pledge back. Once he had made up his mind, he decided to tackle Jia Lian about it immediately. He found him at Er-jie’s place.

Jia Lian, delighted to hear that Xiang-lian had already come to call, came hurrying out to meet him and conducted him to the inside sitting-room to introduce him to his future mother-in-law. He was somewhat surprised when Xiang-lian merely bowed to the old lady instead of making her a kotow and addressed her formally as ‘Mrs You’. The significance of this became apparent presently when tea was served and Xiang-lian came at once to the point.

‘I am afraid that when I met you recently on my travels I acted far too hastily. I didn’t know at the time, but it seems that my aunt had already in the fourth month chosen another girl to be my wife. When she told me about it, there was obviously nothing I could say. To hold to my agreement with you would have meant disobeying my aunt, and that of course is out of the question. Now, if the pledge I gave you had been gold or silk or something of that sort, I should simply have forgotten about it; but those swords I gave you were a family heirloom left me by my grandfather, so I’m afraid I shall very regretfully have to ask you for them back.’

Jia Lian was unable to take this calmly.

‘Now look here, young Liu, this won’t do, you know! A pledge is a pledge. The whole idea of it is to guard against people having second thoughts like this. An engagement to marry isn’t something you can just jump into and out of at will. I’m afraid what you are proposing is quite impossible.’

Xiang-lian smiled patiently.

‘No doubt you are in the right, and I am perfectly prepared for you to reproach me; but I’m afraid I cannot go through with this marriage under any circumstances.’

Jia Lian seemed about to argue, but Xiang-lian frustrated him by rising to his feet.

‘Could we go and discuss this somewhere else, please? It isn’t very convenient, talking about it in here.’

You San-jie had been able to hear the whole of this conversation quite clearly from her room. She had waited so long for Xiang-lian, and now that at last he had come, he was rejecting her. It must be because of something he had heard about her in the Jia mansion. He probably thought of her as a shameless wanton, the sort of woman who throws herself at men, unworthy to be his wife. If she allowed the two men to go off together, there was little likelihood that Jia Lian could do anything to stop him breaking off the engagement; and even if he tried arguing with him, the probable outcome would only be further damage to her reputation. As soon, therefore, as she heard Jia Lian agreeing to go outside with him, she snatched the swords down from the wall, and having first drawn out the Duck and hidden it behind her back, she hurried into the sitting-room to see them.

‘There is no need for you to go out and discuss anything,’ she said. ‘Here is your pledge back.’

The tears were pouring down her cheeks like rain. She held out the scabbard with the single sword in it in her left hand. As Xiang-lian took it, she whipped the other sword out with her right hand and slashed it across her throat. It was all over in a moment.

Red scatter of broken blossoms, and the jade column fallen, Never to rise again…

The terrified servants made futile attempts to resuscitate her, but she was already dead. Old Mrs You wept and screamed, breaking off from time to time to inveigh against Xiang-lian as a murderer. Jia Lian seized hold of Xiang-lian and called for someone to bring a rope, intending to tie him up and take him to the yamen; but Er-jie checked her weeping and did her best to dissuade him.

‘He didn’t force her to do it, it was her own decision. What good will taking him to the yamen do? We don’t want a public scandal on top of everything else. Much better let him go.’

Jia Lian, whose resolution seemed temporarily to have deserted him, let go of Xiang-lian automatically: but Xiang-lian made no attempt to escape.

‘I didn’t know she was like this,’ he said, weeping. ‘She had a noble heart. It wasn’t my luck to have her.’

He lifted up his own voice then and wept, as if he had been weeping for his bride. He stayed with the family until the coffin had been bought and San-jie laid inside it; and when the lid was closed over her, he threw himself on it and clung to it for a long time weeping. Only then did he take leave of them, walking alone out of the gate, blinded by his tears and scarcely knowing where he was going.

As he walked along in a daze, his thoughts full of San-jie’s rare combination of beauty and resoluteness which he had so wantonly rejected, one of Xue Pan’s little pages came looking for him to take him to his new house. Xiang-lian was too distracted to pay the boy much attention and allowed himself to be led there by the hand. It was a pleasant, well-appointed little house. While he and the page stood waiting in the sitting-room, he heard a little tinkling noise – the sound made by the girdle-gems of a hurrying woman – and San-jie came into it from outside. She had the Duck cradled in her right arm. Her left hand was holding some sort of album or ledger.

‘I loved you for five years,’ she said. (The tears were still running down her cheeks.) ‘I did not know that your heart was as cold as your face. It was a foolish love, and I have paid for it with my life. Now I am ordered to go to the Fairy Disenchantment’s tribunal in the Land of Illusion to keep the records of the other lovers who are under her jurisdiction. But I could not bear to leave without seeing you just once more before I go. After this I shall never see you again.’

She began to go, but Xiang-lian wanted to question her and tried to stop her going. She spoke again, but this time it sounded more like an incantation.

‘From love I came; from love I now depart. I wasted my life for love, and now that I have woken up, I am ashamed of my folly. From now on we are nothing to each other, you and I – nothing.’

A little gust of wind with a faint fragrance on it seemed to blow past him as she uttered these last words, and the very next moment she had vanished.

Xiang-lian came to himself with a start, uncertain whether or not he had been dreaming. He could see no sign of Xue Pan’s little page when he looked about him, and the new house had turned into a dilapidated temple. Not far from him a Taoist with a crippled leg sat catching and killing his lice. Xiang-lian got up and went over to him.

‘What is this place, holy one?’ he asked, having first clasped his hands and knocked them against his forehead in the appropriate salutation. ‘And may I know whom I have the honour of addressing?’

The Taoist chuckled.

‘I don’t know where this place is any more than you do. Nor who I am. It is a place where I am resting a little while before going on elsewhere.’

It felt to Xiang-lian as if a douche of icy water had penetrated him to the bone with its coldness. He understood. Without a moment’s hesitation he drew the companionless Drake out of its scabbard, stretched out his queue, slashed through

               … the unnumbered strands
That bind us to the world and its annoys,

and as soon as the Taoist was ready, followed him out into the world. But where the two of them went to, I have no idea. Other information apart from that will be available in the following chapter.

Chapter 67

Frowner sees something that makes her homesick And Xi-feng hears something that rouses her suspicions

The grief occasioned in old Mrs You, Er-jie, Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian by San-jie’s suicide can be imagined. It long outlasted her burial outside the city walls, which took place shortly after the encoffining. As for Liu Xiang-lian, the human repinings felt by that somewhat cold young man when he realized the value of what he had lost were brought to an abrupt end (as we have shown) by the even colder words of the Taoist, which, by breaking through the Barrier of Confusion and opening his eyes to the vanity of human affections, caused him to renounce the world by symbolically severing his hair and following the mad holy man in his wanderings. The direction these took them in is unknown, as we stated in the previous chapter. Let us leave them and see how others were affected by these events.

Aunt Xue had been delighted by the news of Xiang-lian’s betrothal to You San-jie. The wedding would give her an opportunity of demonstrating her gratitude to him for saving her son’s life. She was excitedly planning for this event – discussing the purchase of a house and furniture, selecting a date, making arrangements for the ceremony and so forth – when one of the household boys came in with the appalling news that San-jie had cut her throat and Xiang-lian decided to become a Taoist. She was still puzzling over the incomprehensible nature of this disaster when Bao-chai came over from the Garden.

‘Child, have you heard the news?’ Aunt Xue asked her. ‘Mrs Zhen’s younger sister, San-jie – the one that was engaged to marry Pan’s new “brother” Liu Xiang-lian – has cut her throat. I’ve no idea why. And Xiang-lian has renounced the world and just disappeared. Isn’t it terrible? I don’t know what to make of it.’

Bao-chai heard her without emotion.

‘It is as the proverb says, Mamma: “The weather and human life are unpredictable.” This was probably preordained because of something they did in their past lives. The other day you were planning to do everything you could for him because of what he did for Pan. Now she is dead and he has disappeared. I think the best thing you can do is just forget about them. There is no point in upsetting yourself on their account; there are other things to worry about. It is more than a fortnight now since Pan got back from the South and the goods he brought with him must all have been disposed of by now. Surely you ought to have a word with him about entertaining the people who went with him on the journey? They had a good deal of hardship to put up with during their months of travel. It will seem very uncouth of us if we do not find some way of showing our appreciation.’

While Bao-chai and her mother were talking, Xue Pan came in from outside. His eyes were still wet from recent weeping.

‘Mamma,’ he said, ‘have you heard about Xiang-lian and San-jie?’

‘They told me only a few minutes ago,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Your sister and I were talking about it when you came in.’

‘You heard that Xiang-lian had gone off with some Taoist then,’ said Xue Pan.

‘Yes,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘That’s what’s so extraordinary. Why should an intelligent young man like that suddenly take leave of his senses to go wandering off with a Taoist? As he had no parents or brothers, I think it’s up to you as his best friend to find him. They say the Taoist is both mad and lame, so they cannot have got very far – probably no farther than one of the temples or monasteries in this vicinity.’

‘That’s exactly what I thought, Mamma,’ said Xue Pan. ‘As soon as I heard the news, I went around looking for him with the boys, but we couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere, and none of the people we talked to seemed to have seen him.’

‘Well, if you’ve already looked for him and he can’t be found, you’ve done as much as a friend could do,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Some good might yet come of it, you never know. What you’ve got to do now is start getting your business back into shape. And for another thing, it’s time you started thinking about your own marriage and making a few preparations. We’ve got no other man in the family but you and you’re not as bright as you might be. You know what they say about baby birds learning to fly. The sillier the bird, the sooner it must begin. If you start getting ready well in advance, there will be less danger of making yourself ridiculous when the time comes by finding that there are all sorts of things you have forgotten. And there’s something else I want to talk to you about. Your sister has just been pointing out to me, it’s more than a fortnight since you came back and the goods you brought back with you must all have been sold off by now. You ought to give a little party for those of our employees who went with you on the journey – just a little gesture to show them that you appreciate their services. After all, it was a long journey. What would it be? A thousand miles there and back? Pretty nearly. You were four or five months away, at all events. And don’t forget, they underwent some very alarming experiences on your behalf.’

‘You’re absolutely right, Mamma,’ said Xue Pan. ‘And sis, she always thinks of everything. I had thought about it myself, but during these last few days, what with running around everywhere disposing of the stock until my head feels as if it will burst and running around getting things ready for Xiang-lian’s wedding (fat lot of good that was, now that it’s all come to nothing!) I somehow didn’t get round to it. Still, it’s not too late. We can fix a time for tomorrow or the day after and send the invitations out straight away.’

‘I leave all that to you,’ said his mother.

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when one of the pages came in from outside to report.

‘There are some men here from the shop with two cases of stuff for you and a message from Mr Zhang. He says these are the things you bought for yourself, that aren’t on the stocklist. He would have sent them round earlier, but there were a lot of other cases on top of them and he couldn’t get them out. He says they didn’t finish selling the stock off until yesterday, so this is the first time he has been able to get at them.’

Two other pages carried the two cases in, one after the other, while he was speaking. They were large coir trunks, protectively crated between pairs of roped-together boards.

‘Aiyo!’ said Xue Pan. ‘How stupid of me! I brought these things back specially for you and sis, Mamma, but I completely forgot to bring them home with me. Fancy the boys in the shop having to remember them for me!’

‘It’s a good thing you “brought them back specially”, said Bao-chai. ‘Now we’re only getting them a fortnight late. If you hadn’t “brought them back specially”, we should probably have had to wait until the end of the year! It’s the same with everything you do. You are so thoughtless.’

Xue Pan laughed.

‘I think it’s because of that scare we had on the journey. It scared the wits out of me and they haven’t got back into the right holes yet.’

The others laughed. He turned to the boy who had come in with the message.

‘All right. Tell the men outside we’ve got the stuff now and they can go back to the shop.’

Aunt Xue and Bao-chai were curious.

‘Well, what is it you’ve got all crated and corded up so carefully?’

Xue Pan told the pages to untie the ropes, remove the protecting boards and undo the fastenings of the trunks. The first one contained mostly materials – silks, satins, brocades and so forth – and various foreign articles of domestic use.

‘The other trunk is stuff I got specially for you, sis,’ said Xue Pan.

He undid the fastenings of it himself. Besides writing-brushes, ink-sticks, inkstones, different sorts of fancy stationery, purses, rosaries, fans, fan-cases, face-powder, rouge and other feminine articles, it contained a whole lot of novelties from Hu-qiu-shan: little mercury-filled automata who turned somersaults when you put them down on the floor or a table, automata with sand-filled cylindrical bodies whose arms, legs and heads moved when you set the sand running, and lots and lots of scenes from drama made up of tiny figures moulded in coloured clay in cases of transparent green gauze. Most fascinating of all was a tiny made-to-order figure of Xue Pan himself, looking exactly like the original in every detail. Bao-chai had no eyes for anything but this. Picking the tiny replica up in her hand to examine it, she looked from it to the original and burst out laughing. She had the other things put back into the trunk and ordered two of the older servants to carry it to All-spice Court for her under Oriole’s supervision while she herself stayed chatting a little longer with her mother and brother. Then she too went back into the Garden.

After she had gone, Aunt Xue proceeded to go over the contents of the other trunk with Providence, taking them out, putting them into separate piles, and explaining which pile was to be given to Grandmother Jia, which to Lady Wang, and so forth.

Xue Pan for his part began there and then to make preparations for a party. The invitations to his employees were dispatched with great urgency, for he was determined that the party should be on the very next day. As a number of people were invited, it took some time for all of them to assemble and there was much talk about trading, accountancy and the disposal of stock before the last of the guests had arrived. When they were all present, Xue Pan invited them to take their places at table and went round himself with the wine-kettle to fill their cups. Aunt Xue sent someone in to thank them on the family’s behalf for their loyal service. Thereupon drinking began and conversation of a more general kind among the guests. Presently one of them observed that a good friend was missing from their company whose presence might have been expected.

‘Oh?’ said the others. ‘Who’s that?’

‘Mr Liu,’ the man said, ‘that saved all our lives and became a blood-brother to the master.’

This started a good deal of speculation among the guests and finally one of them asked Xue Pan outright why he had not invited him. Xue Pan frowned and sighed.

‘Don’t ask me about him,’ he said. ‘It’s a very funny business. It isn’t “Mr Liu” now any longer. It’s “Father Liu”.’

The others expressed surprise.

‘How can that be?’

Xue Pan related the whole story to them. They were even more surprised when they heard.

‘Now I understand what they were shouting about yesterday outside the shop,’ said one of them. ‘It was something about a man having been converted by only two or three words spoken to him by a Taoist. Someone else said the two of them had vanished into thin air. They didn’t say who the man was. We were all busy selling stock at the time, so we couldn’t go outside to find out and we’ve been wondering ever since whether to believe the story or not. We never imagined it was Mr Liu they were talking about. If we’d known, we’d have gone after him and tried to reason with him. I’m sure we’d have found some way of stopping him.’

‘I’ve got a different theory about what happened,’ said one of them.

‘Oh? What’s that?’ the others asked him.

‘Well,’ said the man with the theory, ‘it doesn’t seem very likely that a clever young chap like Mr Liu would suddenly go off to become the disciple of an old Taoist. We know how strong he is and how good at martial arts. Perhaps he’d found out that this Taoist was really a wicked magician and just pretended to become his disciple so that when he’d got him to some quiet, out-of-the-way place he could do him in.’

‘If that’s what it is, that’s very good,’ said Xue Pan. ‘There are too many of these fellows going around leading people astray with their silly nonsense. It needs a person like Xiang-lian to put a few of them down.’

‘But didn’t you look for Mr Liu yourself when you heard about this?’ his guests asked him.

‘Of course I did,’ said Xue Pan. ‘Inside and outside the city. And I don’t mind telling you – you can laugh at me if you like – I had a good old cry when I couldn’t find him.’

He sighed several times and looked very despondent. His customary cheerfulness seemed to have deserted him altogether since this loss. Seeing him so downcast, his employees did not venture to stay long, but drank the wine up, finished up the food, and dispersed. We, too, shall leave him at this point and continue our interrupted narrative of the previous day.

When Bao-chai got back from her mother’s to her own room in All-spice Court, she went over the toys that Xue Pan had given her, deciding which of her cousins each one of them should go to and retaining only a very few of them for herself. When she had finished doing that, she proceeded to portion out the other things as well. For some of the cousins there were writing-brushes, paper, inkstones and ink; for others, purses, fans and rosaries; some were to have hair-oil, powder and rouge; for some there were to be only toys. She made the little piles as equal as possible, except in the case of Dai-yu, for whom she selected twice as much as for anyone else. Having explained very carefully to Oriole who each of the piles was for, she sent her off, with an old woman acting as portress, to go round to all the apartments and deliver them.

With one exception, the cousins, on receiving their presents, tipped the bearers and said that they would thank Bao-chai in person when they next saw her. Dai-yu alone reacted some-what differently. The sight of the Hu-qiu toys, manufactured only a few miles from her native Soochow, brought on a severe attack of nostalgia. Once more she was reminded of her position: an orphan and an outsider, with no kind brother in her case to bring back things for her from the South. Already she was beginning to be upset. Nightingale knew at once what was the matter, but judged it more politic to remonstrate than to let her mistress know that she understood.

‘Look at all the illness you’ve had, miss. You hardly ever stop taking medicine. It’s only just recently that you’ve begun to look a bit better. Though even now I think it’s more a case of being in better spirits than being properly cured. You can see from the fact that Miss Bao has sent you all these things that she must think a lot of you. That ought to make you happy, not upset you. Whatever is Miss Bao going to think if she gets to hear that the things she has sent you have made you feel miserable? That’s not going to be very nice for her, is it? And there’s another thing. Look how concerned Her Old Ladyship and Her Ladyship always are about your health, how they get the best doctors and the best medicines to try and cure you. And now, just as you are beginning to be a little bit better, here you go, crying and making yourself miserable. It’s as if you wanted to get ill again, just to give them something more to worry about! It was too much fretting that brought on your illness in the first place. You ought to have a bit more consideration for yourself.’

While Nightingale was admonishing her mistress, a voice from the courtyard was heard announcing ‘Master Bao’. Nightingale called to him to come inside.

‘Sit down,’ said Dai-yu.

Bao-yu noticed that she had been crying.

‘Hullo, what’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Who’s been upsetting you?’

Dai-yu forced a smile.

‘I’m not upset.’

Nightingale shot her lips out and gestured towards the table behind Dai-yu’s bed. His eyes followed her gesture to the pile of presents on the table. He realized she could only just have received them from Bao-chai.

‘Why, what a lot of things you’ve got there!’ he said. ‘Are you planning to set up a shop?’

Dai-yu made no reply.

‘Don’t talk about them!’ said Nightingale. ‘They’re from Miss Bao. As soon as Miss Lin set eyes on them, she burst into tears. I was just trying to talk some sense into her when you came in. Perhaps, now you’re here, you’ll be able to do it for me.’

Bao-yu knew what Dai-yu’s trouble was as well as Nightingale, but was no more willing than Nightingale to show her that he knew. He merely laughed, therefore, and answered Nightingale with a jest.

‘Oh, I know what’s upset your mistress. She’s cross because Miss Bao didn’t send her more. Never mind, coz,’ he said, turning to Dai-yu, ‘one of these days I’ll be visiting Kiangnan myself, and when I do, I promise to bring you back two whole boatloads of these things. That should dry your eyes for you!’

Dai-yu, aware that she was being ‘cheered up’, could not rebuff the clumsy attempt too impatiently; nor, on the other hand, did she feel inclined to let it pass unreproved.

‘I may be very stupid and ill-bred, but not quite to the extent of getting into a passion because I have not been given enough toys. I am not a three-year-old. You make me out to be even more petty-minded than I am. I have my own reasons for what I feel. What do you know about them?’

As she said this, the tears began once more to flow. Bao-yu moved over from his seat and sat down beside her on the bed. He began picking the articles on the table up one by one, turning them this way and that to examine them, and asking her all sorts of questions about them. What was this? What did you call it? Wasn’t this one clever? What was it made of? And this one, what was it for? He also made various suggestions as to where she should put them. This one he thought would be nice to keep by her on her desk; that one would look well with the vases and other ornaments on the walltable; and so on and so on until Dai-yu felt that, however well-intentioned this might be, she could stand no more.

‘Come on, you’re being a nuisance,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see Bao-chai.’

This was precisely what Bao-yu had been hoping for. If he could get her to go out, the distraction of doing something else might cause her to forget her sadness.

‘Good!’ he said. ‘We ought to go, anyway, to thank her for the things.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Between cousins there is no need for such formality. I was thinking that, having just got back from the South, Cousin Pan must have told her a lot about the places there he visited, and hearing about them from Chai would be the next best thing to taking a trip back there myself.’

Her eyes began to redden, and for a moment it seemed in doubt if she would go out after all; but as Bao-yu was already on his feet waiting for her, she was more or less obliged to follow him.

‘After all the trouble Cousin Pan went to in getting them to you,’ Bao-yu told Bao-chai when they were in her room, ‘you ought to have kept those things for yourself, not given them all away to other people.’

‘There’s nothing very special about them,’ said Bao-chai. ‘They are all inexpensive objects made by local craftsmen which just happen to have come from a long way away. I thought the rest of you might find them amusing.’

‘When I was little, these things were so familiar to me that I thought nothing of them,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Now, after all these years, they have become novelties again.’

‘“The farther from home, the more precious the object” as the saying goes,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Not that these are precious, of course.’

Bao-yu feared that Bao-chai was moving onto dangerous ground and intervened to change the subject.

‘Be sure to make Pan go again next year, Chai, and bring us back a lot more.’

Dai-yu stared.

‘If you want to make such a request, that’s your business, but kindly leave others out of it!’ She turned to Bao-chai. ‘He has not come here to thank you, you observe, but to put in an order for next year.’

Bao-chai and Bao-yu both laughed.

As the three of them chattered on, the conversation presently turned to the subject of Dai-yu’s illness.

‘When you are out of sorts,’ Bao-chai suggested, ‘you want to force yourself to go out of doors: walk around, visit people, look at things – anything to take your mind off yourself. You’ll find it is much better for you than sitting cooped up indoors feeling miserable. I wasn’t feeling very well recently. I felt exhausted all day long and hot all over and wanted to do nothing but lie down. This is a bad time of the year for me, and I was afraid of becoming seriously ill. So I started deliberately looking for things to do and forcing myself to do them; and do you know, during the last day or two I really have begun to feel better.’

‘I am sure you are right,’ said Dai-yu. ‘I have in fact come to the same conclusion myself.’

The person most gratified by Bao-chai’s presents was Aunt Zhao.

‘I’m not surprised they all say what a nice girl that Bao-chai is,’ she said to herself when the consignment of toys arrived for Jia Huan. ‘You can see from this how kind and generous she is. Her brother can’t have brought all that much back for her from his travels, yet every single person has been remembered. No one’s been left out because they aren’t important, even the unlucky ones like us that no one else ever bothers about. Now if it had been that Lin girl, it would have been a very different story. She can scarcely even bring herself to look you straight in the face. You wouldn’t catch her sending us things like this!’

As these thoughts passed through her mind, she was turning the things over and over in her hands and arranging them this way and that upon the kang. Presently the thought occurred to her that Bao-chai was close kin to Lady Wang. Why should she not take advantage of that fact to ingratiate herself with Lady Wang? Gathering the articles up in her arms, she went off, full of fuss and self-importance, to Lady Wang’s room and took up a position at her elbow.

‘Look!’ she said, putting on a very affected smile. ‘Look what Bao-chai has just sent our Huan! Such thoughtfulness in one so young! She’s a real little lady, Bao-chai. She has class. And so generous. You can’t help admiring her. I don’t wonder you and Her Old Ladyship are so fond of her and always speaking so highly of her. I didn’t like to keep these things without your permission, that’s why I’ve brought them. And I thought it might amuse you to look at them.’

Lady Wang had guessed what the motive for her visit must be long before she had finished. The clumsy attempt to ingratiate was by no means pleasing to her, but she could not ignore it altogether.

‘Certainly you should keep them,’ she said. ‘Let Huan have them to play with.’

She had merely glanced at the toys in saying this and then turned away again.

So Aunt Zhao, who had been so cock-a-hoop when she came, had got nothing for her pains but a smutty nose. Angry, but not daring to show it, she returned crestfallen to her room and threw the things into a corner, muttering crossly to her-self as she did so.

‘Hfn! What do you make of that then?’

And she sat on her own there on the kang, continuing to mutter to herself as she brooded angrily on her wrongs.

Oriole and the old woman had by this time finished delivering presents and went back to give their mistress an account of the messages of thanks sent back by the recipients and the various tips they had received. As soon as the old woman had gone out, Oriole moved closer to where Bao-chai was sitting and spoke softly into her ear.

‘When we were delivering at Mrs Lian’s just now, Mrs Lian looked absolutely furious about something. I had a word with Crimson on my way out and she said that when Mrs Lian came back from Her Old Ladyship’s a little before we arrived she was looking very grim – not at all her usual smiling self. She called for Patience as soon as she got back and they were talking earnestly together about something, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. It looks as though something really serious must have happened. Did you hear about anything while you were at Her Old Ladyship’s today, miss?’

Bao-chai wondered what could have made Xi-feng so angry, but could think of nothing.

‘Every household has its own troubles,’ she told Oriole. ‘It isn’t our business to inquire. Go and pour me some tea.’

So Oriole went out to pour tea and nothing more on that subject was said.

After seeing Dai-yu to her gate, Bao-yu continued on his way to Green Delights. While he did so, he was thinking how hard it must be to be an orphan and feeling more and more sorry for her. He resolved to have a word with Aroma about it when he got back, but when he got back, only Musk and Ripple were in his room.

‘Where’s Aroma?’ he asked them.

‘Must be in one or other of the courtyards hereabouts,’ said Musk. ‘She can’t be lost. Why the sudden urge to see her?’

Bao-yu smiled.

‘I didn’t imagine she was lost. The reason I asked is because I’ve just got back from seeing Miss Lin. She seemed to be rather upset about something, and when I asked her what it was, she said the things that Miss Bao sent her were made quite near her old home and the sight of them had upset her. I was going to ask Aroma if she’d mind going over and having a word with her.’

‘Oh dear! Who’s in for it this time?’

It was Skybright who said this. She had come in at that moment and overheard only the last few words he had spoken. He repeated for her benefit the whole of what he had just been saying to Musk.

‘Aroma went out a few minutes ago,’ said Skybright. ‘I think she was going to call on Mrs Lian. It’s quite possible that she may drop in at Miss Lin’s place on her way back.’

Bao-yu made no reply. Ripple poured him a cup of tea. He took it from her absent-mindedly, rinsed his mouth with some of it, handed the rest to one of the junior maids, and stretched himself out on his bed, looking thoroughly miserable.

After Bao-yu went off to visit Dai-yu, Aroma had at first occupied herself with some sewing. While she was doing this, it suddenly occurred to her that it was some time since she had been to call on Xi-feng and ask about her illness. Now seemed as good a time as any to visit her, because she knew that Jia Lian was not there so that she would be able to converse with her more freely. When she had changed her clothes and, with the aid of a hand-mirror, made a few adjustments to her appearance, she went in again to tell Skybright of her decision.

‘I’m off to Mrs Lian’s now. Stay in the room while I’m gone, will you? We don’t want Master Bao calling out and finding nobody there.’

‘Aiyo!’ said Skybright sarcastically. ‘You are the only one who ever thinks about him, of course. The rest of us just sit around all day doing nothing.’

Aroma merely laughed and went off without replying. As she came within sight of the water near Drenched Blossoms Bridge, she saw that the lotuses were all dead and ragged-looking; but the hibiscus-bushes along the banks were just coming into flower, the pink budding clusters making a brilliant contrast with the bright green of the leaves. She lingered on her way along the embankment so that she could get a better view of them. Looking up suddenly from her contemplation of the hibiscus bushes, she became aware that on the other side of the path a little ahead of her someone was standing under the grape-vine waving a feather-duster about, apparently dusting something. When she got a little nearer, she could see that it was that indefatigable gardener, Mamma Zhu. Recognizing Aroma, the old woman beamed and came up to greet her.

‘It’s not often you find time to go out walking, miss?’

‘No, indeed,’ said Aroma. ‘I’m on my way to see Mrs Lian. What are you doing?’

‘I’m trying to keep these wasps off the grapes,’ said the old woman. ‘There was very little rain in the dog-days this year, consequently it’s brought the pests out onto all the fruit. It gets riddled all over with bites and a lot of it is dropping before it’s ripe. These wasps are terrible things. You’d never credit it. They’ll go for just two or three grapes in a bunch, but the juice drips from them onto the rest, and then the whole bunch is spoiled. Look at that, miss! A whole lot more of them have settled just in the time we have been talking.’

‘Even if you keep at it non-stop with that duster of yours, you’re not going to keep off more than a few of them,’ said Aroma. ‘Why don’t you ask one of the buyers to get a lot of muslin bags made for you, to tie over the bunches? They will keep off the birds and wasps while still allowing the air to get at them.’

‘I certainly will,’ said the old woman. ‘What a clever idea! I’ve never heard of that one before – but then this is the first year I’ve had the job, you see.’ She smiled. ‘Look, miss, although so many of the grapes are spoiled, they still taste good. Let me pick you some to try.’

Aroma looked serious.

‘No, no. I don’t think they’re ripe enough to eat yet, in any case; but even if they were, I couldn’t possibly eat any before the first-fruits have been offered to the ancestors. Surely a person who has worked as many years for the family as you have must know that rule?’

‘Of course, miss. You are quite right,’ said the old woman hurriedly. ‘It was being so pleased that put it for the moment from my mind. I am a foolish old woman.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Aroma. ‘But you older servants ought not to set us younger ones a bad example.’

She continued on her way then, out of the Garden and round to Xi-feng’s place. As she entered the courtyard, she could hear the sound of Xi-feng’s raised voice coming from inside the house.

‘It’s monstrous! Treating me like a criminal, after all I’ve had to put up with in this place!’

Whatever the background of this remark might be, it was obvious to Aroma that this would be an extremely inopportune moment to go in; and yet it was already too late for her to turn back. The best she could do was to advertise her presence. She deliberately made a heavier noise with her feet and called out to Patience through the window. Patience came hurrying out to welcome her.

‘Is Mrs Lian in?’ Aroma asked her. ‘Is she quite better yet?’

By now she was inside the house; but Xi-feng had already had time to get up on the couch and pretend that she had been lying down. She rose to her feet as Aroma entered.

‘Yes, I am a little better, thank you. It is kind of you to remember me. It seems quite a time since you last came round here.’

‘Knowing you weren’t well, I ought by rights to have been coming every day,’ said Aroma. ‘On the other hand, when you are poorly, you need lots of peace and quiet for resting, and I was afraid that if I came too often it might disturb you.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind the disturbance,’ said Xi-feng smiling. ‘But I realize that it isn’t easy for you to get away from Master Bao. Although he has so many girls to wait on him, you are the one he really relies on. Patience tells me you are always asking her how I am; so you see, even though you can’t get over here, I know that you are concerned about me.’

She asked Patience to bring a stool over and put it down beside the couch she was reclining on for Aroma to sit on. Felicity came in with some tea. Aroma inclined herself politely as she accepted it and murmured something about Felicity troubling herself.

While she was talking to Xi-feng, she noticed a junior maid go up to Patience in the outer room and quietly announce that Brightie had arrived and was waiting at the inner gate. She heard Patience answer the girl in the same guarded undertone:

‘Good. Tell him to go away for a few minutes and come back later. Tell him not to hang about outside this courtyard.’

Aroma knew from this that Xi-feng must have business of some kind, so after sitting for a minute or two longer, she got up to go. Xi-feng made no attempt to stop her.

‘Come again when you can,’ she said. ‘It does me good to talk to you.’

She summoned Patience to see Aroma out. As Aroma followed Patience through the outer room, she saw two or three junior maids waiting there, obviously scared out of their wits and looking as if they scarcely dared to breathe. Aroma passed through the courtyard gate and continued on her way back alone, wondering what could be the matter.

As soon as she had finished seeing off Aroma, Patience went in again to report to Xi-feng.

‘Brightie came, but because Aroma was here, I said he was to go and wait in the front. Shall I have him called in now straight away, or shall I let him wait a bit? What do you want me to do?’

‘Call him in,’ said Xi-feng.

‘Tell me,’ said Xi-feng in the interval while they were waiting for him to arrive, ‘what exactly was it you heard?’

‘It was that girl I sent out just now who actually heard it,’ said Patience. ‘She said that while she was waiting at the inner gate, she heard two of the pages talking to each other on the other side of it. One of them said, “The new mistress is even prettier than the old one and ever so much better-tempered.” Then she heard someone else – she thought it might have been Brightie – telling the other two off. “What’s this’ new mistress’ ‘old mistress’ you’re talking about? You’d better keep your voices down. If anyone inside gets to hear about this, you’ll have your tongues cut out!”’

At this point one of the junior maids came in.

‘Brightie’s waiting outside, ma’am.’

A chilling little laugh from Xi-feng.

‘Tell him to come in.’

The little maid went outside again.

‘The mistress says you are to come in.’

‘Hei!’

Brightie stepped smartly inside, dropped his knee to the ground, and ended up standing stiffly to attention in the doorway leading to the inner room.

‘Come here,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I want to talk to you.’

Brightie came into the room and stood in front of his mistress, a little to one side.

‘Your master’s got himself a woman outside,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Did you know?’

Brightie dropped his knee to the ground once more.

‘I spend all my time on call at the inner gate, madam. I’ve no means of knowing what the master does outside.’

Xi-feng’s smile was full of malice.

‘Of course you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t stop other people talking about if you did, would you?’

Brightie realized from this that the words he had recently been saying to the other pages must have been overheard and that it would be impossible now to deceive her. He fell on his knees to reply.

‘I really don’t know, madam. I just happened to hear Joker and Happy talking a lot of nonsense, so I shouted to them to be quiet; but I really couldn’t tell you the exact circumstances they were talking about; I should only be making it up if I tried. You want to ask Joker, madam. When the master’s here, he spends most of his time with him outside.’

Xi-feng spat with great force.

‘Black-hearted, worthless scum the lot of you! You are all in league against me, do you think I don’t know? Go out and find that little pimp Joker and bring him here. And don’t go away when you’ve done that, either. Wait here. I’ll have a few questions to ask’ you when I’ve finished with him. – Wonderful!’ she commented to herself. ‘This is my trusted servant whom I employ on all my most confidential business!’

‘Yes, madam. Very good, madam.’

Brightie knocked his head upon the floor, then scrambled to his feet and went off to look for Joker.

Joker was in the counting-house fooling about with some of the other pages when word came to him that he was ‘wanted by Mrs Lian’. Startled, but never for a moment imagining that his master’s secret had been blown, he hurried off after Brightie to Xi-feng’s apartment to find out why he was wanted. When they got there, Brightie went in first.

‘Joker is here, madam.’

‘Bring him in!’

Even before he had seen her, the mere sound of that strident summons was enough to throw Joker’s thoughts into confusion. But there was nothing for it: he had to screw up his courage and follow Brightie into the inner room.

‘Well, my little man,’ said Xi-feng as he entered, ‘this is a fine thing you and your master have been up to! I think you had better tell me all about it.’

Joker heard the words, he saw the anger in Xi-feng’s face and the terrified looks of the maids who stood motionless to left and right of her, and his legs became so weak that he sank involuntarily to his knees and began kotowing.

‘I’ve been told that this business has really nothing to do with you,’ she said. ‘Your only fault is in not having come to me and reported it. I am willing to overlook that if you tell me the truth. But woe betide you if you tell me a single word that is false! If you had a dozen heads, I should have each one of them!’

Joker rose up, trembling, to his knees:

‘What is it the master and I have done wrong that you want to know about, madam?’

It was as though the fire that smouldered in Xi-feng had suddenly burst into flame.

‘Strike the mouth that said that!’ she shouted, beside herself.

Brightie advanced, with hand upraised, to do her bidding.

‘Not you, idiot!’ Xi-feng shouted. ‘I am asking him to strike himself. Don’t worry, I shall have you striking your own mouth too before we are finished!’

Joker, still kneeling, began opening his arms to left and right of him and bringing them forcibly together, so as to slap his hands simultaneously upon his face. Xi-feng allowed him to do this a dozen or more times before shouting to him to stop.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘what’s all this about the “new mistress” your master has married? I suppose you are going to tell me you know nothing about it?’

Joker, gathering from this that the whole story was out, became quite desperate. Plucking his hat off, he began bumping his head on the floor in a frenzy of self-abasement.

‘Only spare my life, madam! I swear that every word I tell you shall be the truth.’

‘Get on with it, then!’

Joker knelt stiffly upright in order to do so.

‘I didn’t know about this business at the beginning, madam. I think it started during the time when Sir Jing’s body was still lying at the temple. Yu Lu went out there one day to ask Mr Zhen for some money and when Master Rong came back into the city to see about it, the master came with him. On their way they got talking about Mrs Zhen’s two sisters, and the master said how much he admired the new mistress – er, the other Mrs Lian, and Master Rong, be said, joking-like –’

Xi-feng spat.

‘Turtle’s egg! What “other Mrs Lian”?’

‘Beg pardon, ma’am!’ said Joker hurriedly, and kotowed again.

When he had risen once more on his knees, he fixed his eyes miserably on the ceiling, unable to go on.

‘Well?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Is that all? Why don’t you go on?’

‘You’ll have to bear with me, madam,’ said the wretched Joker, ‘otherwise I daren’t.’

‘Bear with you?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Bear with your mother’s arsehole! I advise you to get on with your story: it will be very much better for you if you do!’

‘Master Rong said he could arrange for the master to marry her. The master was very pleased. Then – well, I don’t know how exactly, but he did.’

The very faintest of smiles hovered briefly over Xi-feng’s face.

‘I don’t suppose you do know. No doubt if you did, it would make a very complicated story. All right, go on. What happened after that?’

‘After that Master Rong found the master a house.’

‘Oh?’ said Xi-feng sharply. ‘Where is it?’

‘A few streets behind our place,’ said Joker. ‘Not very far.’

‘So!’ Xi-feng turned and looked hard at Patience. ‘You heard that? You and I are both dead, Patience. We don’t exist any more!’

Patience dared not reply.

Joker continued his story.

‘Mr Zhen gave a lot of money to the Zhangs so that they wouldn’t object to the wedding.’

‘Now we have a Zhang family in the story,’ said Xi-feng. ‘This is getting rather complicated.’

‘Ah yes, you see, madam, the other Mrs Lian –’

Joker suddenly realized what he had said and dealt himself a slap across the mouth. Xi-feng laughed in spite of herself and the maids to right and left of her puckered up their faces and giggled. Joker thought for a bit.

‘The elder of Mrs Zhen’s two sisters –’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Get on with it! What about her?’

‘The elder of Mrs Zhen’s two sisters was engaged when she was little to someone called Zhang. I think his name is Zhang Hua. Nowadays he and his family are very poor – beggars, almost. Mr Zhen promised them some money in return for breaking off the engagement.’

Xi-feng nodded, then turned to look at the maids: ‘You hear this, all of you? This is the little monster who was telling us a few minutes ago that he didn’t know anything!’

Joker continued:

‘After that Mr Lian had the new house redecorated and she came there for the wedding.’

‘Where from?’ said Xi-feng.

‘From her mother’s place,’ said Joker.

‘Hm, I see. Was she escorted by anyone?’

‘Only Master Rong and a few maids and nannies. No one else.’

‘What about Mrs Zhen?’

‘She came along a couple of days later with some presents.’

Xi-feng laughed and turned to address Patience behind her.

‘There you are! Don’t you remember there were a couple of days when he hardly stopped praising Mrs Zhen and telling us what a wonderful person she was?’

The smile on her face quickly vanished as she turned back again.

‘And who waits on them there? – You, of course.’

Joker hurriedly kotowed but did not attempt to reply.

‘Come to think of it,’ said Xi-feng, ‘I suppose all those times he told me he had to be away because he had business to do for our Ning-guo cousins, it was really this that he was up to.’

‘Sometimes he really was doing things for them, sometimes he was at the new house,’ said Joker.

‘Who’s living with her there?’ said Xi-feng.

‘Her mother and her younger sister – leastways, the younger sister was living with her, but the day before yesterday she cut her throat.’

‘Why did she do that?’ said Xi-feng.

Joker told her the whole story of San-jie and Liu Xianglian.

‘He was a lucky man,’ said Xi-feng when he had finished telling it. ‘I’ve no doubt that if he’d married her she would have made him a most notorious cuckold. – Have you anything else to tell me?’

‘I’ve told you all I know, madam, and every word I’ve told you is true. You can ask other people. If you find a word of a lie in what I’ve told you, you can beat me to death and I shan’t complain.’

Xi-feng bowed her head for some moments, reflecting. Eventually she looked up again and pointed her finger at him.

‘You are a wicked little wretch and I ought by rights to kill you for imagining that you could deceive me. I suppose you thought that by deceiving me you would do that stupid master of yours a favour and your new mistress would love you for it. If it weren’t that I thought you were too frightened just now to have lied to me, I should have broken both your legs.’ Her voice rose to a shout. ‘Get up!’

Joker kotowed several times, scrambled to his feet, and retreated as far as the threshold of the outer room, not daring to leave altogether.

‘Come back!’ said Xi-feng. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’

Joker turned and advanced some steps and stood with his arms held stiffly at his sides and his body inclined forwards in a respectful attitude of attention.

‘What’s the hurry?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Is your new mistress waiting to give you something?’

Joker dared not look up.

‘From now on you are not to go there any more,’ said Xi-feng. ‘From now on, if I call for you at any time of any day, I shall expect you to be there straight away – and I warn you, you’d better see to it that I’m not kept waiting! All right. Be off!’

Again he withdrew. This time he got as far as the steps outside the door.

‘Joker!’

‘Madam?’ He turned back once more.

‘Off to tell the master all about it, aren’t you?’

‘Oh no, madam! I wouldn’t dare.’

‘All right, go then; but if you breathe a word of this outside, I’ll have you flayed!’

‘Yes, madam. Very good, madam.’

Joker now made his final exit.

‘Brightie!’ Xi-feng called.

‘Yes’m!’ Brightie came bounding forward.

Xi-feng opened her eyes very wide and stared at him for the length of time it would take to say two or three sentences; then finally she spoke.

‘So, Brightie. Very good. Excellent. Now go. And if anyone outside breathes a word about this, I shall hold you responsible.’

‘Yes’m.’

Brightie withdrew very slowly from her presence; but in his case there was no recall.

‘Pour the tea,’ said Xi-feng.

This was taken by the junior maids as a signal for them to withdraw, which they did immediately, leaving Xi-feng alone with Patience.

‘You heard all that?’ said Xi-feng. ‘That’s good.’

Patience smiled, but dared not say anything.

Xi-feng appeared to be thinking, and to be growing angrier and angrier the more she thought. She lay back with her head on the pillow and gave herself up wholly to her thoughts. Presently she frowned as if an idea had just occurred to her.

‘Patience, come here.’

‘Madam?’

‘I’ve thought what to do,’ said Xi-feng. And she proceeded to tell Patience what she had planned.

But in order to know what that was, you must wait for the following chapter.

Chapter 68

Er-jie takes up residence in Prospect Garden And Xi-feng makes a disturbance in Ning-guo House

When Jia Lian made his second expedition to Ping-an in the tenth month, he found that the Military Governor was away on a tour of inspection; and since no one seemed willing to predict when he would be back, there was obviously nothing he could do but sit in his lodgings and wait for that elusive official to turn up. It was in fact several weeks before he did, so that by the time Jia Lian had finished transacting his business and made the journey back home again, almost two months had elapsed since he set out.

But we anticipate. Let us return to the point at which we left off in the last chapter.

After hearing Joker’s revelations, Xi-feng deliberately concealed her knowledge from Jia Lian for several weeks. It was not until he had started out on his journey to Ping-an that she began putting her plan into execution.

The first thing she did was to call in the workmen – carpenters, decorators, paperers and so forth – and have the three-frame building on the east side of her and Jia Lian’s courtyard converted into a smaller replica of the main apartment. On the fourteenth of the tenth month, when the decorating and furnishing of this apartment had been completed, she went to see Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang and announced her intention of going out first thing next morning to burn incense in a certain convent-temple in the vicinity. She would take only four companions with her, she said: Patience, Felicity, Zhou Rui’s wife and Brightie’s wife. She waited until they were about to get into their carriages on the morning of the fifteenth before revealing to her companions what their actual destination was to be. They were going to Er-jie’s house. Xi-feng had previously given instructions to the manservants who were to accompany them that they were to be dressed in mourning and that the carriage she rode in was to have mourning trappings. This was because Er-jie, she had discovered, had not long since suffered a second and greater bereavement: old Mrs You, who had never quite recovered from the shock caused by her third daughter’s suicide, had, only two or three weeks previous to this date, taken a nap which turned out to be her last. Joker was told to lead the way, and it was he who, arriving at the house a little before the rest of the party, knocked on the gate to give the occupants warning of its coming. The Mattress came to the door. Joker had by this time resolved the problem of nomenclature to his own satisfaction:

‘Tell Mrs Er,’ he said blandly, ‘that Mrs Lian is here.’

The immortal parts of the late Droopy’s relict leaped through her cranium and described several somersaults in the air. She rushed inside to inform her mistress. Er-jie was no less startled than her servant when she heard the message, but even in such an extremity she could do no less than receive her visitor with the expected courtesies. Adjusting her dress, therefore, she went into the front courtyard to meet her. By this time Xi-feng’s carriage had arrived outside the gate and its occupants were in process of descending from it. Er-jie watched her visitor curiously as she entered the outer gate, supported by Zhou Rui’s wife, and Brightie’s wife, one on either side. She was dressed in half-mourning, with hair-ornaments of silver and white and a spencer of some black material with a silver thread in it over the palest of pale blue gowns. Underneath the gown she was wearing a plain white satin skirt. Er-jie was particularly struck by her eyes:

Brows a branched twig with two high-pendant leaves,
And trigon phoenix-eyes, slant, hard and bright.

And she was very beautiful:

Pretty as a peach-tree in the spring,
Even in austere autumn’s dress.

Er-jie advanced to meet her as she entered the courtyard and dropped her a low curtsey, adopting, in the first words she uttered, the form of address that an inferior wife uses in speaking to her chief.

‘Forgive me, sister, I had no idea that you were planning to favour me with an inspection or I should have gone outside to meet you.’

This was followed by another low curtsey, which Xi-feng, smiling graciously, returned. After curtseying had continued for some moments on either side, Xi-feng took Er-jie impulsively by the hand and the two young women walked hand in hand into the house. Inside, Er-jie made Xi-feng sit down in the place of honour and ordered one of the maids to bring a cushion and put it down in front of her on the floor.

‘I am still very young,’ she explained to Xi-feng. ‘Since I first came here, everything has been decided for me by others, either my mother, when she was still with us, or my elder sister. Now that you have come, I hope – if you do not think me too unworthy – that you will allow me to take all my instructions from you. I promise to serve you with all the devotion of which I am capable.’

Having concluded her little speech, she knelt down on the cushion and kotowed. Xi-feng rose from the chair and bowed.

‘I am as young and inexperienced as you are, sister,’ she said. ‘What I have done for Mr Lian has always been for his own good, as far as a silly, inexperienced woman like me could tell what that was. I begged him, as I am sure you would have done in my position, not to go sleeping out “under the willows” (you know what I mean) both for his health’s sake and because I knew it would worry his parents; but Mr Lian completely misunderstood the spirit in which that advice was offered. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if he’d deceived me about taking a mistress; but marrying a second wife is a very serious business. He really ought to have told me. It isn’t as if I hadn’t begged him to take a second wife. If he were to have a son, no matter by whom, I should stand to benefit as much as he would. It would be a support for me in my old age. But no. Mr Lian has got it firmly fixed in his mind that I am the sort of jealous woman who cannot tolerate a rival. And so he has to go off and do this without telling me. It’s so unfair. Who am I to explain myself to? Only Heaven above knows what a great injustice he has done me. When I first got wind of your marriage about ten days ago, I realized at once that it was this mistaken notion he has about my being so jealous that had prevented him from telling me. I have waited until he is away before visiting you because I wanted this opportunity of getting to know you properly. But that is not the only purpose of my visit. I want to ask you – to entreat you – to show your understanding of my position by leaving this place and coming back with me to the mansion, Let us live together, side by side, like sisters. Let us join forces in looking after him: seeing that he performs his duties properly and takes good care of his health. Surely that is how it ought to be? Just imagine what it will be like for me if you continue living here outside. Quite apart from my feelings, think of the effect it will have on my reputation – and on yours, too, for that matter. And even if you think our reputations are unimportant, as no doubt they are, consider what the effect will be on Mr Lian’s reputation, which is a far more serious matter. I expect the servants say all sorts of nasty things about me behind my back. It is their way of having their revenge on me for being strict. I suppose it is only natural. You know the proverb. The woman who runs a household is like a water butt: all the dirt washes off on her. In our household I have three lots of seniors above me and cousins and sisters-in-law both single and married in my own generation. If I were really hard to get on with, how do you think all those people would have managed to put up with me for so long? Would I have come to you today if I were such a terrible person? Many wives hearing that their husband had married another woman and was living outside with her in secret would be unwilling even to set eyes on her. Heaven knows I’ve tried to accommodate Mr Lian. I’ve even offered him my Patience as a chamber-wife. I think Heaven and Earth and the Lord Buddha must have taken pity on me in letting me know about this marriage. They didn’t want me to be destroyed by a pack of scandal-mongering servants. That’s why I am asking you to come and live with me. I promise that your treatment will be exactly the same as mine in every respect: accommodation, service, clothing-allowance, everything. There is so much that an intelligent person like you could do to help me if you had a mind to. Working side by side together, we shall not only give the lie to this malicious tittle-tattle of the servants which I find so wounding; we shall also be able to show Mr Lian when he gets back how wrong he has been in making me out to be jealous. The three of us will live in perfect harmony together. And all this I shall owe to you! But if you won’t come with me, I am perfectly prepared to move in here with you. Provided that you put in an occasional good word for me with Mr Lian so that I am still left some ground to stand on, I should even be willing to hold your basin and comb your hair for you and wait on you like a servant.’

She concluded this discourse by breaking into noisy weeping. Indeed, so pitiful a spectacle did she present that Er-jie herself could not help weeping with her. After further bowings and curtseyings the two women sat down together as first and second wife and Patience came forward to make Er-jie her kotow. From the superior quality of her dress and general air of refinement Er-jie could guess who she was and hurriedly rose to prevent her.

‘No, no, you mustn’t do that! You and I are equals.’

Xi-feng stood up, too.

‘Nonsense! Let her kotow to you,’ she said, laughing. ‘She is only a maid. She is your maid as much as mine now and in future you must treat her as such.’

She ordered Zhou Rui’s wife to take the First Meeting presents out of the bag she was carrying: four lengths of best quality dress material and four pairs of pearl and gold earrings with hair ornaments to match. There was more bowing and curtseying as Er-jie received them. The two wives sat down once more. Tea was served, and they began to talk things over as they sipped their tea. Xi-feng insisted that what had happened had chiefly come about through her own fault.

‘I blame no one else,’ she said. ‘All I am asking for is a little sympathy.’

Er-jie was so lacking in guile herself that she had no difficulty in believing that Xi-feng was a good woman who had been slandered.

‘After all,’ she told herself when she recollected the alarming things that Joker had said about Xi-feng’s character, ‘servants do often revenge themselves by saying nasty things about their employers.’

And so, abandoning all caution, she began pouring her heart out unreservedly, confident that in Xi-feng she had found a friend. Confirmation of this favourable view in the form of tributes to the excellence of Xi-feng’s household governance were not wanting from Mesdames Zhou and Brightie in the background.

‘She puts herself out too much for other people, that’s her trouble. She gets no thanks for it, though. People only complain about her the more.’

They told Er-jie about the apartment that Xi-feng had made ready for her.

‘Beautiful, Mrs Er! You wait till you’ve seen it!’

Er-jie longed to live with Jia Lian inside the mansion like a respectable married woman and was therefore only too willing to comply with Xi-feng’s request.

‘I ought to go back with you, sister: it is no less than my duty. But what about this place?’

‘Oh, that’s no problem!’ said Xi-feng. ‘Just get the boys to move out your boxes and bags for you. You won’t be needing the furniture, you can leave that here. All you need to do is name whoever of your people is most reliable and we will get whoever it is to stay here and look after it for you.’

‘Now that I’ve met you, I should like to leave all those sort of decisions to you,’ said Er-jie hurriedly. ‘I haven’t been here very long and have no experience of running a household. I’m not able to decide things like this for myself. Why don’t you take charge of these chests and boxes, sister? I have got hardly any things of my own. Almost everything in this place belongs to Mr Lian.’

Xi-feng told Zhou Rui’s wife to make a mental note of all the movables and have them carried over later to Er-jie’s new apartment. She then urged Er-jie to dress herself as quickly as possible for going out, and as soon as she was ready, walked hand in hand with her to the waiting carriage. Inside the carriage she insisted that Er-jie should sit beside her on the same seat.

‘This is rather a strait-laced household we are going into,’ Xi-feng confided to Er-jie when they were alone in the carriage together. ‘Neither the old lady nor Lady Wang knows a word yet about your marriage. They would probably kill Mr Lian if they found out that he had married you while he was still in mourning. There is a very large garden at the mansion which all the young people live in and which other people very seldom go into. I think when we get back it would be better if you didn’t meet Their Ladyships straight away but stayed in there for a few days while I think of some way of explaining about you to them.’

‘I leave all that to you, sister,’ said Er-jie. ‘I will do whatever you think best.’

The boys accompanying the carriage had received advance instructions not to enter the mansion by the main gate on their return journey but to go straight in at the back. Descending from the carriage on her arrival, Xi-feng, having first shooed away a knot of curious bystanders, led Er-jie through the rear entrance of Prospect Garden and took her to meet Li Wan and the girls in Sweet-rice Village.

By this time nine out of ten of the Garden’s inhabitants had heard about Jia Lian’s second marriage, and when the news spread that Xi-feng was bringing the new wife into the Garden, curiosity drew numbers of them to Li Wan’s place to meet her. All were impressed by her beauty and by her gentle, pleasing manner. After introducing them, Xi-feng warned each of them individually that she would kill anyone who mentioned Er-jie’s presence to an outsider. The nannies and maids who worked in the Garden were all terrified of Xi-feng and knew in any case that Jia Lian’s marrying a new wife in a period of family and national mourning was a very serious offence. They needed no persuading, therefore, to have as little to do with the matter as possible.

Xi-feng had a private word with Li Wan requesting her to look after Er-jie for a few days while she herself thought of some way of explaining about her to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang. Li Wan knew that Xi-feng already had an apartment ready for Er-jie to move into at her own place and could well understand that a certain amount of secrecy had to be maintained about a marriage contracted when in mourning; she could not therefore refuse to give Er-jie temporary lodging.

Xi-feng took Er-jie’s own maids away from her and substituted a servant of her own. She also gave secret instructions to the older women to keep an eye on Er-jie, threatening them with the direst penalties if they allowed her to stray outside or deliberately run away. Having thus disposed of Er-jie for the time being, she went off to attend to the next stage of her plans. But of that, for the moment, we will say nothing.

Everyone who knew about this affair was mystified by the strange forbearance that Xi-feng had so far shown towards her rival and could not help wondering what had come over her. Er-jie for her part, observing how well all the young people in the Garden got on together, felt thoroughly reassured about her future in the bosom of so delightful a family.

But then, after a few days had gone by, there was an unpleasant incident with Mercy, the new maid whom Xi-feng had given her in place of her own. Er-jie had run out of hair-oil and told Mercy to run over to Xi-feng’s and ask her for some.

‘I think you might be a bit more considerate, Mrs Er,’ the maid said insolently. ‘Every day of her life Mrs Lian has to dance attendance on Their Ladyships and Lady Xing, she has two or three hundred servants waiting from daybreak every morning for a word from her to tell them what to do, she has at least a dozen important matters and thirty or forty little ones to deal with every day, all the family’s social contacts to attend to, from Her Grace at the Palace and princes and dukes and other high-ups down to other families like our own, thousands of taels of silver to approve the spending of – and you want to go bothering her for some hair-oil! My advice to you, madam, is to be a bit more patient. After all, your marriage to Mr Lian was rather a hole-and-corner affair, wasn’t it? It’s only because of Mrs Lian’s unheard-of generosity that you have been treated so well. A less tolerant person might have turned you out into the gutter – and not much you could have done to stop them!’

At the end of this verbal drubbing Er-jie could only hang her head in silence. If that was what other people thought about her, minor inconveniences like the lack of hair-oil would have to be endured.

But that was not the end of it. Following this outburst, Mercy began to grow more and more careless about serving Er-jie’s meals. Either they came much too early or much too late, and the food she brought consisted invariably of stale old left-overs. Er-jie once or twice tried speaking to her about it, but Mercy only glared at her and lifted her voice up in noisy self-justification. Fearing that if the others heard the shouting they would think of her as one of those vulgar, shrewish women who are always quarrelling with their servants, Er-jie felt obliged to drop the matter and put up with the hardship as best she could.

After a week or so Xi-feng came to visit her. She was all smiles and loving sympathy, ‘my dear’ this and ‘my dear’ that.

‘If the servants are not giving you satisfaction, my dear, or are being insubordinate, do let me know and I shall have them beaten.’

She turned and spoke harshly to the maids and older women who were present.

‘I know you lot. I know how you bully the gentle ones. It’s only the hard ones like me that you are afraid of. Once out of my sight you think you can get away with murder. But take care! If I hear one word of complaint from Mrs Er, I shall have you slaughtered!’

Er-jie was impressed by the concern that Xi-feng showed for her.

‘With her to stick up for me,’ she thought, ‘there is really no need for me to do anything myself. Servants often are insolent. If I speak up about this girl and get her into trouble, people will say that I lack the forbearance that a wife – especially one in my position – is always supposed to show.’

And so, far from complaining, she covered up for Mercy and the other servants and insisted that the service they gave her was satisfactory.

All this time Brightie was making inquiries on Xi-feng’s behalf into Er-jie’s background. He quickly established that Er-jie had indeed been previously betrothed. Her affianced, now a young man of nineteen, was a gambler and a wastrel. After gambling his way through all his family’s possessions, he had been turned out of doors by his father and now made the gambling-dens his home. The fact that his father had been to see Mrs You and received twenty taels from her in return for breaking off the engagement was still unknown to him. The name of this unpromising youth was, as Joker had said, Zhang Hua. When Brightie passed this information on to Xi-feng, she promptly wrapped twenty taels up in a packet and told him to go back and promise them to Zhang Hua if he would bring a written indictment against Jia Lian before the court. It should say that Jia Lian had, in a period of both national and private mourning and without the knowledge or consent of his parents, brought unlawful pressure to bear on the plaintiff’s parents, causing them to break off an existing engagement between the plaintiff and his betrothed, and had then, setting his own wife aside in an unlawful manner, taken to wife the plaintiff’s betrothed in her stead.

A strong instinct of self-preservation at first prompted Zhang Hua to refuse. When Brightie told Xi-feng this she was furious. A young idiot, she called him; a lame dog who wouldn’t allow one to help him over the stile.

‘You will have to explain it to him very carefully. Tell him he can charge this family with high treason for all I care; all I want is a pretext for making it hot for them. But tell him that if things show any sign of getting too hot, I am perfectly well able to cool them down again.’

Another idea occurred to her as Brightie was on the point of leaving.

‘He could put your name on the indictment,’ she said. ‘Then you could go along to the court and answer it yourself.’

She gave him careful instructions as to what in that event he should say and do, assuring him that she would be able to handle the consequences herself. Confident of her support, Brightie persuaded Zhang Hua to write out an indictment in which he himself would be named.

‘“Lai” is the surname,’ he said. ‘Put “Brightie Lai was principal agent of the accused.” You can say that everything Mr Lian did he was put up to doing by me.’

What Brightie was now proposing seemed to Zhang Hua much less risky than what he had suggested previously, and after some preliminary discussion about the exact form that the indictment should take, he wrote it out and went along with it next morning to the Court of Censors to ‘cry injury’ on the steps outside. An usher came out to relieve him of it and take it inside to their lordships, and in due course the court came into session and the presiding Censor found himself reading a bill of indictment in which a certain ‘Brightie Lai, servant of the above’ appeared as chief accomplice of the accused. Under the circumstances it seemed most expedient to have ‘Brightie Lai, servant of the above’ summoned before the court.

Somewhat overawed by the prospect of making an arrest in Rong-guo House, the blackcoats sent one of their number ahead of them with a message; but Brightie, who was expecting the summons, intercepted the messenger and was outside in the street waiting for them when they arrived. He stepped forward and offered himself to them with a disarming smile.

‘I’m afraid you have been troubled on my account, gentlemen, for I think I must be the person you have come for. Here you are: slip your chain on!’

He stretched his neck out in readiness; but the blackcoats declined.

‘That’s all right, brother. You just come along quietly. Nobody’s going to put any chains on you!’

When Brightie arrived in the court he knelt down facing the tribunal, side by side with Zhang Hua but at a little distance away from him. The Censor ordered him to be shown the indictment, and Brightie, although he had virtually dictated it himself, affected to study it very carefully. When he had finished doing so, he handed it back again and kotowed.

‘I know all about this, my lord. It’s true what it says there about my master, but it wasn’t really anything to do with me. Zhang Hua has only dragged me into it because he has a personal grudge against me. The person who put my master up to all this was someone else. Your Lordship ought to ask him about this other person.’

It was Zhang Hua’s turn now to kotow.

‘There is another person involved, my lord, but I didn’t dare to accuse him, so I put one of the servants’ names instead.’

Brightie pretended to be indignant.

‘Tell his lordship who it is, you fool! This is a court of law we are in and one of the Emperor’s judges you are speaking to. You’ve got to tell him the name of the person, no matter who it is.’

Zhang Hua admitted that Jia Rong was the person in question, whereupon the Censor, very much against his inclination, had to issue a summons for Jia Rong.

Xi-feng had secretly sent her page Cheerful to the court to see if the case was going forward. When he came back to her with this news, she hastily sent for a member of her father’s household called Wang Xin, explained to him what had been happening, and told him to see the Censor on her behalf. He was to persuade the Censor to give Jia Rong a good scare, but not to proceed to any damaging judgement against him. She also gave him three hundred taels with which to strengthen his persuasion.

That night Wang Xin saw the Censor in his private chambers and obligingly supplied him with a little ‘background information’ to the case. The Censor had a pretty good idea of what was expected of him. He took the proffered bribe without demur and agreed that at the next hearing it would almost certainly be discovered that Zhang Hua was a thoroughly worthless character who had brought these trumped-up charges against the Jias because he owed them money and could not pay it back.

Wang Xin also obtained a brief interview with the President of the Court of Censors at his private residence. The President was an old friend of Xi-feng’s uncle, Wang Zi-teng. He had observed that the defendants in this case were all members of the Jia family and was most anxious that it should be disposed of as expeditiously and with as little fuss as possible. He had made no recommendation for special action against the defendants as holders of commissions under the Crown, but merely confirmed what the Censor of the day had already decided: that Jia Rong should be summoned and should be required to answer the indictment.

By this time Xi-feng’s discovery and Er-jie’s removal into Prospect Garden were already known about in Ning-guo House, and Jia Rong and his father were anxiously discussing this latest development in Jia Lian’s affairs when someone arrived to give warning of the impending summons and urge them to think quickly what they would do. Jia Rong, who had gone into the front part of the mansion to receive the messenger, came rushing back in a panic to tell his father.

‘The man has an infernal nerve!’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I thought I’d taken sufficient precautions against anything like this happening.’

He sealed two hundred taels up in a packet and sent it as a sweetener to the Censor. At the same time he ordered one of his senior domestics to go and answer the summons. He and Jia Rong were still discussing this new crisis when a cry went up that ‘Mrs Lian of Rong-guo House’ had arrived. This was a most unpleasant surprise. Father and son both attempted to make a getaway, but Xi-feng was already inside the courtyard before they could disappear.

‘Ah, the head of the family!’ she called after the elder of the two retreating backs. ‘You’ve been putting your cousin up to some nice tricks lately, haven’t you?’

Jia Rong, as a junior, was obliged to go back and greet her. She seized him by the hand and marched on, with him in tow, towards the interior of the mansion.

‘Take good care of your aunt, Rong,’ Cousin Zhen called out after them. ‘Tell them to slaughter some fresh meat for her dinner.’

He called for his horse and went off to hide himself elsewhere.

Xi-feng walked through into the main sitting-room inside. You-shi came out of the inner room to greet her.

‘What is it, Feng?’ she asked, observing Xi-feng’s ugly expression. ‘Something has upset you.’

Xi-feng spat in her face.

‘Nobody else wanted that precious sister of yours, so you had to foist her onto our family. Anyone would think all the other men in the world had died and only our Jia ones were left! But even if you’d set your heart on marrying her to a Jia, at least you might have done it properly, with go-betweens and witnesses and everything open and above-board. At least we should all have known where we were then and been able to keep up some sort of appearances. I can’t think what could have come over you. Was it some phlegm that got into your heart? Was it rouge you’d swallowed, clogging up your thinking-tubes? Just what was it that made you think you could marry her to him at a time like that – a time when he was in double mourning: state mourning and family mourning? Now, thanks to you, we’ve got someone suing us: so even the people in the law-courts know what a jealous shrew I am and I have to sit by as helpless as a crab with no legs while total strangers discuss my character and wonder why my husband doesn’t divorce me. What have I done wrong since I came to this place that you should want to treat me like this? Is it something that Grandma or Aunt Wang said that has made you set this trap for me, to get me out of the way? Let’s go to court together, the two of us, and state our cases; and after that, let’s come back here and ask for a family council so that we can have it all out into the open, face to face. You can give me a bill of divorce then if you want to, and I shall go back to my own people.’

She began to cry noisily, tugging at You-shi’s arm and insisting that she should go with her to court. Jia Rong, in a desperate attempt to dissuade her, threw himself down on his knees and knocked his head repeatedly on the floor, entreating his aunt to ‘control her rage’. Xi-feng let go of You-shi and rounded savagely on Jia Rong.

‘Black-hearted villain! May God’s lightning strike you and the devils tear your carcase! You’re as stupid as mud, and yet you are forever meddling and interfering in what doesn’t concern you, forever busybodying away at your dirty, scoundrelly little plots that in the end will ruin your family and destroy the lot of us. Nobody wants you – even the ghosts won’t want you when you die, your own mother’s ghost or the ghosts of your ancestors. Don’t you dare tell me what I ought to do!’

And she began beating him. Jia Rong redoubled the frequency of his kotows.

‘Please, auntie, please! Don’t give way to anger. Don’t think only of what has just happened: try to remember the good things as well as the bad. I may be very wicked, but surely in a thousand days there must have been one day when I was good! I know you have every reason to be angry with me, but there is no need for you to punish me yourself. I will gladly do it for you if it will help you to overcome your anger.’

He spread his arms out to left and right of him and began to deal himself hefty slaps upon both cheeks, prefacing each blow with an interrogation, thus:

‘Are you going to go on doing these stupid, meddlesome things in future?’ (slap!)

‘Are you going to go on listening to Uncle instead of doing what Auntie tells you?’ (slap!)

‘How can you bear to be so cruel and unnatural to Auntie, when Auntie has always been so good and kind to you?’ (slap!)

The others felt like telling him to stop playing the fool. They also felt like laughing, but did not dare to. Xi-feng threw herself upon You-shi’s bosom, weeping and wailing in a fine display of histrionic grief.

‘I don’t mind your finding him another wife, but why was it necessary to make him break the law? Why did you let him do it without his father knowing? And why did you have to destroy my reputation while you were about it? You and I must go to the court together before the blackcoats come here and arrest us. After that we can go next door and have it all out in front of Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang and all the rest of the clan. If it’s found that I am an undutiful wife who refuses to let her husband take a concubine, you can give me a bill of divorce and I shall leave without a murmur. As a matter of fact I have invited your sister here myself. I haven’t dared tell Grandmother and Lady Wang about her yet because I was afraid they would be angry. At the moment she is living in the Garden, like a princess, with nothing but the best to eat and servants to wait on her hand and foot every minute of the day. Meanwhile I’ve been getting an apartment ready for her at home which will be exactly the same as my own. I’d been meaning to move her in there as soon as Grandmother had been told about her. I was prepared to live in peace and harmony with her and Lian and to let bygones be bygones. But now it turns out that all the time she was betrothed to somebody else! What a mess you’ve made of things! Of course, I knew nothing about this before. When they told me yesterday that I was being sued, I was panic-stricken. I knew that even if I appeared in court to answer the charge myself, it was the Jia family that would be disgraced. So I’m afraid I took five hundred taels of Lady Wang’s money without telling her, to bribe the Censor with. And even after that, he still has my servant there in custody.’

All this was spoken not as continuous discourse but punctuated by fits of weeping. In her final outburst the weeping turned almost into a scream as she began invoking her parents and her ancestors and threatening to hang or drown herself or batter her brains out against a wall. You-shi, whom all this time she had not let go of, was so mauled and crumpled that she was beginning to take on some of the aspects of a piece of well-kneaded dough and various parts of her clothing had become damp and discoloured with the moisture from Xi-feng’s eyes and nose. As there was nothing much she could say in answer to Xi-feng, she shouted at Jia Rong instead.

‘Stupid little fool! A fine mess you and your father have made of things between you! I said at the time that no good would come of this.’

Xi-feng took You-shi’s head in both her hands and, drawing her face close to her own, pretended to inspect the inside of her mouth.

‘Who’s stupid? There isn’t an aubergine in here. I see no sign of a gag. Why couldn’t you have come and told me? If you had told me about it at the time, none of this would ever have happened. But no, you have to wait until it has got into the law-courts and the whole household is in an uproar, and now you start blaming them! There’s a very old saying: “A good lining gives a garment strength and a husband with a good wife has few calamities.” If you’d been a good wife to Zhen, he and the others would never have got up to this mischief. You haven’t the wit to do anything useful; and as for saying – for all the good sense that ever comes out of your mouth you might as well be a bottle! You seem to think that you have only got to sit tight and do nothing and people will praise you for your virtue!’

She spat two or three times in quick succession.

‘I did try,’ said You-shi tearfully. ‘The others here will tell you, if you don’t believe me. I tried very hard to dissuade them. It’s not my fault that they wouldn’t listen. What was I supposed to do? But I don’t blame you for being angry. It’s just one more thing that I shall have to bear.’

All the Ning-guo concubines, maids and womenservants were by now silently entreating for their mistress, so that the room seemed suddenly to have filled with row upon row of kneeling figures. The most senior of the servants now smilingly addressed Xi-feng on her mistress’s behalf.

‘You’re generally such a wise, understanding person, Mrs Lian: even though our mistress is at fault, you ought not to be too hard on her – leastways, not in front of us servants. You and our mistress have always been such good friends. Leave her a bit of face now, please!’

She handed her a cup of tea, but Xi-feng dashed it to the floor. After a bit she did, however, stop crying and rolled up her hair, which had come undone. But the tone in which she addressed Jia Rong was still an angry one.

‘Go and fetch your father. There’s something I want to ask him to his face. I want to ask him about this new rule which says that a man may marry when he is in mourning, barely thirty-five days after his uncle’s death. It’s something I’ve never heard of before. I should like him to tell me about it so that I shall be able to teach it to the younger generation.’

Jia Rong kotowed and remained upon his knees.

‘This business had nothing to do with either of my parents,’ he said. ‘I was the one who put Uncle up to it. I don’t know what came over me; I must have been out of my mind. My father knows nothing about it. If you insist on having it out with him, he will undoubtedly kill me. I’d rather you punished me yourself – in fact, I should welcome it. As for the lawsuit, I’m quite incapable of handling a big thing like that myself. One “hides a broken arm inside one’s sleeve”: surely you, of all people, know that, Auntie? You’ve got a very silly nephew, I’m afraid, and he has done a very silly thing. There’s nothing for it, you will just have to deal with the matter for us, as you would if your cat or your dog had done something naughty and you had to clear up after it. Imagine you had a good-for-nothing son like me who had got himself into terrible trouble: wouldn’t you still go on caring for him, in spite of all the suffering he had caused you?’

He concluded by kotowing again and looked as if he might go on doing so indefinitely. His pathetic abjectness soon melted Xi-feng; but she could not change her tune too abruptly when there were so many pairs of eyes watching her. She did not answer him, therefore, but merely raised him up with a sigh and, wiping her eyes, addressed herself once more to You-shi.

‘You must forgive me, kinswoman. It’s because I am so young and inexperienced. When I heard that there was someone suing us, I simply lost my head. That’s why I have been behaving so badly. As Rong says, “One hides a broken arm inside one’s sleeve”: I must ask you to forget all those nasty things I was saying just now and have a word with Zhen on my behalf to see if he can’t get this lawsuit settled out of court.’

‘Certainly.’

‘Of course.’

In their eagerness to reassure her, You-shi and Jia Rong answered her simultaneously.

‘Whatever happens, Auntie,’ said Jia Rong, ‘I promise you that Uncle Lian won’t be involved. You mentioned just now that you had already had to spend five hundred taels on this case. Mother and I will certainly find some way of making that good. We can’t possibly allow you to be out of pocket because of this. That would be unthinkable. We must ask one thing of you, though. Do, please, cover up for us at the other house. Please don’t let Grandma and Lady Wang get to know about this!’

Xi-feng answered him scornfully.

‘You were willing enough to go over my head when you planned this thing in the first place. Now that it’s gone wrong and you need someone to cover up for you, you’ve decided that you need me after all. I may be stupid, but I’m not that stupid!’ Again she ignored him and addressed herself to Youshi. ‘Your Cousin Lian is my husband, don’t forget. You all say that you acted as you did out of your concern that he should have an heir. Well, don’t you think I share in that concern myself? I look on your sister as if she were my own. I was so happy when I first heard about her and Lian that I couldn’t sleep all night. I wanted the servants to start decorating a room for her immediately, so that I could have her to come and live with us. But you know what servants are. They told me I was too hasty and that I ought to tell Grandmother and Lady Wang first. I certainly wasn’t going to take that advice, and I threatened them with all sorts of pains and penalties if they said anything about it to anyone themselves. Unfortunately my threatening was of no avail. Just as I thought I’d succeeded in hushing the matter up, the very worst thing happened: a person called Zhang Hua suddenly popped up out of nowhere and brought a lawsuit against us. I was so scared that for two nights I didn’t sleep a wink. I didn’t dare tell anyone else about it. All I could do was to get the servants to try to find out who this Zhang Hua was and what it was that had made him so bold. After two days investigating they came back and told me. It seems that he is a thoroughly worthless character – a down-and-out. “Mrs Er is this man’s betrothed,” they said. “At the present moment he is so hard up that sooner than the of hunger and cold, he is prepared to do almost anything. This lawsuit is simply a last desperate attempt to make some money. He reckons that even if he dies in the attempt it will be a better death than starving. Anyway,” they said, “you can hardly blame him for trying. The master really has been a bit hasty: marrying during a period of national mourning is one offence; marrying in a period of family mourning is another; marrying without parental consent is a third; and marrying bigamously is a fourth. They say that the man sentenced to death by a thousand cuts will dare to pull the Emperor off his horse. A man like this Zhang Hua who is crazed by poverty will do anything. With such good arguments in his favour, he’d be a fool not to sue!” Well now, I ask you! Even if I’d been a forensic genius, which I’m not, hearing them say that would have been enough to shut me up. What could I do? Lian was away. There was no one at hand to advise me. All I could think of was to try and buy him off. But the trouble is, the more you give to people like that, the more they twist the knife in you and think up more and more pretexts for getting money out of you. And I am like a boil on a mouse’s tail: there’s a limit to what can be squeezed out of me. It was because I was feeling so desperate that I –’

‘Don’t worry about the money,’ You-shi and Jia Rong both chimed in, not waiting for her to finish. ‘That’s something we can certainly take care of for you.’

‘If Zhang Hua is only suing because he wants money,’ said Jia Rong, ‘I think I can now see what to do. We must promise him money on condition that he will admit that the charges he brought against us were false ones. Of course, we shall have to spend a bit of money to see that he isn’t too heavily proceeded against; but once the case has been dismissed and he has been released, all we have to do is give him the money we promised, and that should be the end of it.’

Xi-feng tutted and looked amused.

‘Brilliant! No wonder you made such a mess of your match-making if this is the way you go about things! I always thought that you were intelligent, but I see now that I was wrong. If we do as you suggest, he will pretend to agree, the case will be called off, and that will appear to be the end of it. But don’t you see, if you put money into the hand of a fellow like that, he will get through it in about four or five days and then think up some other villainy as a means of getting more? Even though we have nothing to fear from him, he will still be a constant source of worry. What you propose in any case plays straight into his hands, because it enables him to say that we must have something to be ashamed of or we wouldn’t be offering him money.’

Jia Rong was a sharp young man and quickly saw what his aunt was driving at.

‘I’ve got another idea,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I should be the one to clear this mess up after all, since I am the one who got us into it. I shall ask Zhang Hua straight out what his intentions are. Is it definitely Aunt Er he wants, or is he willing to make do with someone else if we will give him the money? If it is definitely Aunt Er and no one else will do, I shall simply have to break it to her that she must go and join him.’

‘That’s all very well, but I don’t want to part with your Aunt Er,’ said Xi-feng hurriedly. ‘In fact, I refuse to hear of it. Even suppose she were willing, what would people think of us if we allowed her to go? No, I think we must keep her, even if it means giving him more money.’

Jia Rong knew perfectly well that although Xi-feng said this, she was secretly longing to get rid of Er-jie and was merely anxious that if she did so it should be with her reputation for womanly virtue untarnished. He deemed it safest not to dispute with her, however, but merely to agree with everything she said.

‘This outside part of the business should not be too hard to settle,’ said Xi-feng. ‘In the long run it’s here at home that we are going to have the difficulty. Hadn’t you better come with me to explain all about this to Grandmother and Lady Wang?’

This threw You-shi into another panic. She seized Xi-feng by the hand and earnestly entreated her to think of some lie which would obviate this necessity.

‘If you are not capable of dealing with the consequences, you ought not to do these things in the first place,’ said Xi-feng coldly. ‘Really! It quite disgusts me to hear you bleat like this! Oh well. I wasn’t going to help you out of this fix, but I am such a weak, soft-hearted creature. I suppose I shall have to. You’d better stay out of this, then. I’ll take your sister on my own to make her kotow to Grandmother and the ladies. I shall say that this is your sister and that I have taken a great fancy to her. I shall tell them that because I haven’t so far managed to give Lian a son, I had been thinking of buying two girls to serve him as chamber-wives, but that since seeing your sister I had thought how much nicer it would be to have her instead as his Number Two and keep it all inside the family. Then I shall say that since her mother and sister died she has been living in very reduced circumstances and would have found it impossible to hold out on her own until the end of the hundred days mourning, so I have taken it upon myself to invite her here to live with us. I shall tell them that I’ve already had a room made ready for her and would like her to move in there as a temporary measure until the mourning period is over and she is allowed to sleep with Lian. All lies, of course, but I am sufficiently brazen to get away with them. Even if there is any trouble, I promise that it shan’t come near you. Well, what about it? Do you think that will do?’

You-shi and Jia Rong were all smiles.

‘Very handsome of you, and very resourceful, too. But then you always were both of those things. When this affair is safely out of the way, we shall come round and make you a kotow.’

‘Fiddlestick! I don’t want your kotows,’ said Xi-feng. ‘She pointed her finger at Jia Rong. ‘I know you now for what you are.’

Her face reddened as she said this, and for a moment she seemed on the point of tears. Jia Rong put on his most winning smile.

‘Come on now, forgive and forget, won’t you, just this once?’

He knelt once more, but she turned her head away and ignored him. He got to his feet again, still smiling.

You-shi made the servants bring a basin of water and a vanity-box, so that Xi-feng could wash her face and hands and comb her hair, and gave orders to hurry on the dinner. Xi-feng insisted that she must go back, but You-shi was equally insistent that she should stay and eat with them.

‘If you go off now like this, how shall we ever have the face to visit you at your place in the future?’

Jia Rong added his own smiling persuasion.

‘Come on, Auntie! I promise that in future I shall serve you as a truly devoted nephew, strike me dead if I don’t!’

Xi-feng gave him a look.

‘Pshaw! Who believes –?’

But she did not finish.

The maids and old women had been busy meanwhile laying the table. You-shi made a selection from the dishes with her own chopsticks to put on Xi-feng’s plate and Jia Rong knelt down beside her and offered her a cupful of wine. When Xi-feng and You-shi had eaten, a maid served them with tea to rinse their mouths with and then with a better tea to drink. After a couple of sips of the latter, Xi-feng rose to go. Jia Rong saw her all the way back to her own place.

As soon as she was back, Xi-feng went into the Garden to tell Er-jie about these latest developments. She told her how worried she had been when she heard about the lawsuit, and what she had found out as a result of her inquiries. Then she explained what had to be done now in order to ensure that none of the others got into trouble.

But if you want to know how Xi-feng’s plan turned out in the event, you will have to read the following chapter.

Chapter 69

A scheming woman kills with a borrowed knife And one who has ceased to hope swallows gold and dies

Er-jie was full of gratitude when she heard what Xi-feng was planning to do for her and gladly accompanied her to the inner mansion. You-shi, feeling that – in spite of what had been agreed – she could hardly stay away when her own step-sister was being formally presented to the family, went along with them, on the express understanding that she herself would say nothing and that, in the event of there being any opposition, Xi-feng would take sole responsibility.

When the three of them arrived in Grandmother Jia’s apartment, the old lady was talking to Bao-yu and the girls – such conversations, enlivened by much joking and laughter, being nowadays her principal source of amusement. Seeing Xi-feng come in accompanied by a beautiful young woman, she screwed up her eyes and peered at the latter with curiosity.

‘Well now, who is this charming young person?’

‘Have a good look, Grandma,’ said Xi-feng, taking Er-jie by the hand and drawing her forwards. ‘Tell me what you think of her. – Quick, make your kotow!’ she whispered to Er-jie. ‘This is Lian’s grandmother.’

When Er-jie had completed her obeisance, Xi-feng pointed to each of the cousins in turn and told her their names.

‘You can make your curtseys to them later, after you have been to see Their Ladyships,’ she said.

Er-jie had to greet each of the cousins by name, as if she were meeting them for the first time. After that she stood, with head demurely lowered, to one side.

Having studied her face for some moments, Grandmother Jia raised her head to think, but presently gave up with a laugh.

‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I can’t think who it is. But I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere else before.’

‘Never mind about that, Grandma,’ said Xi-feng laughing. ‘Just tell me what you think of her. Is she prettier than me?’

Grandmother Jia put on a pair of spectacles.

‘Bring the child a little closer,’ she told Faithful and Amber. ‘Let me have a look at her skin.’

Amid suppressed titters from the others present, Er-jie was hustled forward. Grandmother Jia looked her up and down very carefully.

‘Hold her hand out,’ she said to Amber. ‘Let me look at her hand.’

When the hand had been inspected, Grandmother Jia took off her spectacles and laughed.

‘Flawless. Yes, she’s prettier than you.’

Xi-feng laughed too, then, kneeling down, proceeded to repeat, more or less word for word, what she had told You-shi she would say.

‘Will you be very kind and let her stay here, Grandma? She wouldn’t begin living with Lian until next year, when she is out of mourning.’

‘Yes, that’s perfectly all right,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Very good of you to have suggested it. I’m very glad. Provided, as you say, that she and Lian don’t start sleeping together until next year.’

Xi-feng kotowed. Then she asked Grandmother Jia if she would mind deputing two of her women to take Er-jie round to see Lady Xing and Lady Wang, and whether it would be all right for them to say that Er-jie was being installed on Grandmother Jia’s initiative. The old lady consented and Er-jie was led off to see the other ladies. Xi-feng’s failure to take adequate steps for procuring her husband an heir had for some time now been a source of anxiety to Lady Wang, for she knew that her niece’s reputation must be suffering as a consequence. She was therefore delighted, when Er-jie was presented to her as Jia Lian’s new concubine, to learn that it was Xi-feng herself who was responsible for the arrangements. Now that Er-jie’s union with Jia Lian had been brought into the open, it was possible to move her from the Garden into the apartment in Xi-feng’s courtyard that had been prepared for her.

Meanwhile Xi-feng’s agents were secretly inciting Zhang Hua to claim his affianced wife, promising that she would come to him with a generous trousseau and that they would give him a substantial sum of money to set up house with. It was no easy task persuading him, since from the very start he had had little stomach for this case. His apprehensions seemed justified when, in answer to the summons, Jia Rong’s representative eventually appeared in court and made the following statement:

‘Zhang Hua had already broken off his engagement with the young lady before she entered our house. She did so, in any case, merely as a kinswoman, already related to the family by her sister’s marriage. There was never any talk of forcing her into matrimony. Zhang Hua trumped up this case against my master because my master was attempting to recover some money owing to him which Zhang Hua was unable to pay.’

The Censor, whose past connections with both the Jia and Wang families, not to mention the substantial bribe he had pocketed only the night before, inclined him to accept this as a reliable version of the facts, ruled that Zhang Hua was a person of untrustworthy character, driven by destitution to make a number of malicious and defamatory accusations against the defendants, none of which could be substantiated. The charges in the indictment were dismissed and Zhang Hua was sentenced to be flogged and driven from the court. By distributing money in the right quarters, Cheerful was able to ensure that the flogging administered was a light one and got to work again on Zhang Hua as soon as it was over.

‘There’s no question you were betrothed to this girl. If you go back and tell them that it’s the girl you want and nothing else, they’re sure to give judgement in your favour.’

Zhang Hua was induced to do this and the court, after further persuasions from Wang Xin, did in fact give judgement in his favour.

‘Zhang Hua is to repay the full amount owed by him to the Jia family within the period specified. But provided that he does so, his affianced wife is to be restored to him as soon as he is in a position to receive her.’

This judgement was confirmed in the presence of Zhang Hua’s father, who was specially summoned to the Court of Censors to hear it. When Cheerful explained to the old man that this meant that he and his son were to get not only the promised money but also Er-jie and her trousseau as well, he was naturally delighted and at once went along to the Jia mansion to claim the bride. Xi-feng went in feigned alarm to report this latest development to Grandmother Jia.

‘It’s all the fault of Cousin Zhen’s wife,’ she said. ‘It seems that the Zhang family had never agreed to break off this earlier engagement, and now they have sued us and the court has given judgement against us.’

Grandmother Jia summoned You-shi from the other mansion and rebuked her for her carelessness.

‘It seems that your sister’s betrothal before she was born to this Zhang person was never properly broken off, and now his family are suing us. I can’t imagine what you thought you were at when you made this arrangement!’

‘But it was broken off,’ You-shi protested. ‘They even took our money.’

‘When Zhang Hua was giving evidence, he said he’d never seen any money,’ Xi-feng chipped in. ‘He said no one had ever approached him about breaking off the engagement. His father said your step-mother mentioned something about breaking it off but there was nothing final. He said that when your step-mother died, you moved your sister in regardless and married her to Lian as his Number Two. No one present at the time was able to refute those statements, so they were able to get away with them. It’s a good job Lian hasn’t slept with the girl yet. As far as that goes, there is nothing to stop her going back to Zhang. The only thing is, it would be a frightful loss of face for us to let her go again having once moved her in.’

‘Yes, but as you say, Lian hasn’t touched her yet,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It would be even worse for our reputation to hold on to someone who by rights is somebody else’s wife. Much better hand her over to him. We can easily find someone else for Lian.’

‘The engagement really was broken off,’ said Er-jie, and named the date on which it had occurred. ‘My mother gave the Zhangs twenty taels for doing it. It must be because they are so hard up that they have brought this case against you. The things they have been saying are quite untrue. My sister made no mistake.’

‘It only goes to show how dangerous people like this are to provoke,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Well, in that case, Feng, you had better go and see what you can do about it.’

Whatever reluctance she may have felt, Xi-feng was obliged to say that she would. She had Jia Rong summoned to her room to talk to him about it. Jia Rong knew her feelings well enough – but after all, how could a family like the Jias really contemplate handing over one of their women to a beggar? The idea was preposterous. When he reported the conversation to his father, Cousin Zhen sent someone to have a word privately with Zhang Hua.

‘Look here, you’ve had a lot of money out of them,’ the man said. ‘Why do you have to have the woman as well? If you insist too hard, my master is likely to start getting angry with you, and frankly I wouldn’t give much for your chances if he does. Why don’t you and your father go back to where you came from? With the money you’ve already got you’d have no difficulty in finding yourself a very nice little wife, and if you decide to go away, I can promise you some more money towards your travel expenses.’

This sounded to Zhang Hua like good advice, and after talking it over with his father, he agreed that if the money he had already received were to be made up to a total of one hundred taels, he and his father would undertake to make themselves scarce. The money was handed over, and father and son rose at four o’clock next morning to begin the journey back to their native village. As soon as he had made sure of their departure, Jia Rong went round to tell Grandmother Jia and Xi-feng.

‘Zhang Hua and his father have run away. The charges in the indictment were all fabricated and they lost their nerve because they thought they were going to be found out. The court knows all the facts now but has decided not to prosecute. So that is the end of the affair.’

Xi-feng was not as put out by this as might have been expected.

‘After all,’ she told herself, ‘even if I bad insisted on Zhang Hua taking her away, there was always the possibility that Lian might get back in time to reclaim her. He would only have had to give Zhang a little money and Zhang would surely not have refused to give her back. Perhaps it’s just as well that she’s staying here. I have her here safely under my thumb while I think of some other way of dealing with her. But I don’t like this idea of Zhang going off nobody knows where. Suppose he talks? Or suppose one day he finds some means of reopening the case? Everything I have done up to now will turn out to have been simply working towards my own downfall. Oh, I should never have put a weapon like this into somebody else’s hand!’

She began to grow more and more worried and eventually thought of a plan. Calling Brightie to her she told him to find out where Zhang Hua was and procure his death, either by laying a false accusation of robbery against him and leaving it to the magistrates and yamen runners to finish him off judicially, or else by employing an assassin. Only by such root-and-branch methods, she felt, could her fears be allayed and the threat to her reputation be removed.

Brightie went off agreeing to do what she had asked, but when he got home and had time to think about it, he began to feel misgivings.

‘The fellow’s already gone away,’ he thought. ‘Surely that’s the end of the matter? Why does she need to make such a great issue of it? Taking a man’s life is no children’s game; it’s a serious business. I’ll just have to humour her for the time being and think of some way out of this later.’

Having so resolved, he went into hiding for a few days before coming back and reporting to Xi-feng.

‘Three days after Zhang Hua and his father ran away, somewhere near Jing-kou in the early hours of the morning Zhang Hua was knocked down and killed by a highwayman for the sake of the money he was carrying. The old man died of a heart-attack shortly afterwards in a near-by inn. There was an inquest on the bodies and both of them were buried there, where it happened.’

Xi-feng did not believe him.

‘I’ll probably be sending someone to make inquiries shortly,’ she said. ‘If I find out that you’ve been lying, I’ll have every tooth in your head broken.’

But in the event she did nothing and let the matter drop.

From that time onwards her demeanour towards Er-jie was affable in the extreme. No sister could have shown a greater interest in her well-being.

A day came when Jia Lian’s business was at last transacted and he was able to start on his much-delayed journey back home. On his arrival in the city he called in first at the new house in order to see Er-jie, but he found the place locked and empty with only an aged caretaker in occupation. When, in answer to his questions, the old man told him what had happened, he stamped in his stirrups with vexation; but there was no time for indulging his feelings, for he had shortly to present himself before his parents and report to them on the successful conclusion of his mission.

Jia She was for once very pleased with him and praised him for his capability. He gave him a hundred taels as a reward and a seventeen-year-old girl from his own room called Autumn as a concubine. Jia Lian kotowed to receive his presents. He felt enormously pleased with himself; but there was a slightly hang-dog expression on his face when, after he had seen Grandmother Jia and the rest, he appeared once more before his wife.

To his surprise there were none of the expected recriminations. Xi-feng seemed, indeed, to have become a different person. She came out to meet him with Er-jie at her side, confined herself to questions about his health, his stay in Ping-an and the journey back home, and made not a single reference to his deception. When the time came for him to tell her about Autumn, he was unable to prevent a certain pleased smugness from stealing over his face. At once Xi-feng ordered two of the married servants to go round in a carriage to collect her. Here was another thorn in her bosom, even before the first one had been extracted! Yet not a trace of what she felt was allowed to show itself in her expression. With the same unchanging smile she ordered a ‘welcome home’ dinner for her husband and took Autumn to make her kotows to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang. Jia Lian privately marvelled at the extraordinary change that had come over her.

It need hardly be said that Xi-feng harboured feelings about Er-jie very different from the ones her outward show of friendliness might have suggested. Once or twice when they were alone together she confided to her (in a sisterly manner, of course) that her reputation in the family was a very unsavoury one.

‘There is a nasty little story going around, my dear, that you weren’t all you should have been before you were married. They say you were much too thick with Cousin Zhen. I’m afraid even Lady Jia and Lady Wang seem to have got hold of it. They are beginning to ask me why I picked someone whom no one else would have, and why I don’t put you away and choose somebody more suitable. Needless to say, when I first heard this story I was flabbergasted. I’ve tried to find out who started it, but I’ve had no success. Oh, these servants! Just as I thought I’d done something to feel proud of, I find that I’ve got a fish’s head like this on my plate to contend with!’

Xi-feng’s sympathy for Er-jie was so great that, after telling her all this a couple of times, her indignation against these anonymous traducers. caused her to become quite ill; she refused all food and drink and began to spend the greater part of her time lying down in her room. The servants, with the sole exception of Patience, speculated freely about the cause of their mistress’s illness, and Er-jie, though seldom named, came in for frequent criticism.

Because Autumn had been presented to Jia Lian by his father, she had a very high opinion of her own importance, showing scant respect for Patience or even for Xi-feng, let alone for a poor, unwanted creature like Er-jie, who was commonly known to have been a fallen woman before she married. When Xi-feng noticed this she was secretly pleased.

Since Xi-feng’s pretended illness, she had ceased to eat with Er-jie, whose meals, on Xi-feng’s instructions, were now served to her in her own room. Invariably the food that was given her was inedible. Patience was so disgusted that she took to buying her things to eat with her own money, or, on the pretext of going for a walk with her in the Garden, taking her to the Garden kitchen where she could be given nourishing soups to eat under her supervision. Because it was Patience who did this, none of the other servants dared to inform against her. Unfortunately Autumn once came upon them there and, feeling no such compunction, went straight off to denounce her to Xi-feng.

‘Patience is going out of her way to give you a bad name, Mrs Lian. That Er woman wastes the good food you give her and goes into the Garden with Patience every day to sneak food from the kitchen.’

Xi-feng abused Patience angrily.

‘Most people keep a cat to keep down the mice for them. My cat seems to eat the chickens!’

Patience dared not answer back, and from then on kept away from Er-jie; but she secretly hated Autumn because of this.

Bao-yu and the girls were privately concerned about Er-jie. Though none of them would venture to speak out openly on her behalf, they all of them felt sorry for her. Sometimes, when no one else was about, one or other of them would get into conversation with her. Invariably she would be crying and wiping her eyes all the time they were talking to her; but she never uttered a word of complaint against Xi-feng – indeed, since Xi-feng was careful never to reveal herself in her true colours, it is hard to see what she could have complained of.

Jia Lian for his part failed to notice that anything was wrong. Since his return he had been completely taken in by Xi-feng’s show of magnanimity towards her rival; and in any case he was at present somewhat preoccupied. The sight of his father’s many maids and concubines had often in the past aroused libidinous feelings in him which he had perforce repressed; while on her side Autumn had often in the past, by flutterings of the eyelids and various other signals, expressed a marked interest in her master’s handsome son. It may be imagined what sort of blaze was kindled in the brushwood when two such eager bedfellows were brought together with full parental approval of their union. Day after day he spent in Autumn’s company –

aye sporting with his new-won bride

in the words of the poet. He seemed, indeed, scarcely able to prise himself away from her. Gradually, as Autumn became more and more the only centre of his concern, his former feelings towards Er-jie began to cool.

Xi-feng detested Autumn but was glad to have her as a means of ridding herself of Er-jie. She would ‘kill with a borrowed knife’ – or rather she would watch the killing from a safe distance, like a traveller reclining on a mountainside who watches two tigers tearing each other to pieces in the valley below. And when Autumn had disposed of Er-jie, Xi-feng herself would take care of Autumn. Once she had settled on this strategy, she lost no opportunity, whenever she found herself alone with Autumn, of stirring her up against her rival.

‘You are so young and headstrong. You ought to be more careful,’ she told her. ‘She is his second wife, after all. He is very, very fond of her. Even I have to give way to her a bit. It’s suicide to go constantly provoking her in the way you do.’

This had the desired effect of releasing a stream of abuse against Er-jie, uttered in a voice that could be heard from one end of the courtyard to the other.

‘You’re too soft with people, Mrs Lian. I wouldn’t behave so meekly if I was in your place. Where’s all your old authority gone to? You can be forgiving if you like, but if I’ve got a smut in my eye, I like to get it out. You just let me get at that bitch, I’ll give her a piece of my mind!’

Xi-feng pretended to be too scared of Autumn to rebuke her; but Er-jie, listening in her room, spent the whole day crying and was too upset to eat. She did not dare to tell Jia Lian what the matter was when he called in to see her, and next morning, when Grandmother Jia noticed that her eyes were red and swollen with weeping and asked her what the matter was, she would not say.

This was just the sort of opportunity that Autumn was waiting for. ‘She’s very good at putting on this dying duck act,’ she confided to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang when Er-jie had gone. ‘We get this from her all the time. It’s because she hates sharing. She wishes that Mrs Lian and I were dead so that she could have Mr Lian all to herself.’

‘It’s possible to be too attractive,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘They say that a jealous nature often goes with it. How contemptible to be like that, though – especially when Feng has gone out of her way to be nice to her! One can see that she has no breeding.’

From that time onwards she appeared to have taken rather a dislike to Er-jie; and the servants, when they sensed that Grandmother Jia did not like her, were only too ready to press forwards and trample on her themselves. Now indeed life for the poor young woman became a burden, only occasionally alleviated when Patience, acting behind her mistress’s back and against her wishes, took up the cudgels on her behalf. How could so gentle a soul, one of those whom Nature, in the words of the poet,

did out of snow and rose-petals compound,

stand up to the barbarities to which she was now daily subjected? After suffering in silence for a month, she began to show the symptoms of an illness: there was a weakness and lassitude in her limbs which made moving them an effort; she could keep nothing down, either food or drink, and seemed to grow thinner and paler all the time; and she could not sleep at night. One night, when she was trying to get to sleep, San-jie appeared to her, carrying the sword that she had cut her throat with.

‘Sister,’ she said, ‘you always were a silly, weak-willed creature. I knew you would suffer for it in the end. Don’t trust the honied words of that jealous woman! Outwardly she seems kind and virtuous, but she is treacherous and cunning underneath. She hates you and will never rest until she has brought about your death. If I had been alive, I would never have allowed you to move inside here; or if I had, I would never have allowed her to treat you like this. But I was fated to kill myself and you were fated to suffer here alone. That is our punishment, because in our past lives our wantonness led other folk astray. Sister, you must do as I tell you. Take this sword, cut off that jealous woman’s head, and come with me to the tribunal of Disenchantment to await her judgement. You will die in any case, but if you do not do as I say, you will have died for nothing and no one will feel sorry for you.’

‘Sister,’ said Er-jie, weeping, ‘my whole life has been sinful. You yourself say that my present sufferings are a punishment. Why should I add the crime of murder to my other sins?’

San-jie left her sorrowfully, and Er-jie, waking up with a start, realized that she had been dreaming.

Next time Jia Lian came to see her she had a tearful disclosure to make.

‘This illness I am suffering from will not get better. It is half a year now since I came to you and already I am with child. It might be the son you want, though of course we cannot know that until it comes. If Heaven is merciful, I hope I may live long enough to bear it; but I fear I may die before, and the child with me.’

‘You mustn’t worry,’ said Jia Lian, weeping himself. ‘I’ll get a first-rate doctor to cure this illness.’

He lost no time in sending for one. Unfortunately the Dr Wang of the Imperial College who had attended Grandmother Jia and other members of the family in the past was at present with the Imperial Army in the field (he had some hopes of a baronetcy on his return) and the pages sent out to summon him ended up by calling in a colleague of his called Hu Jun-rong – that same doctor, in fact, who had been called in to attend Skybright a year or two previously. After taking Er-jie’s pulses he informed Jia Lian that her trouble was ‘irregularity of the menses caused by anaemia’.

‘But are you sure she isn’t pregnant?’ said Jia Lian. ‘It’s three months now since she had a period, and she is suffering all the time from morning-sickness.’

When he heard that, Hu Jun-rong asked the old women in attendance if he might have Er-jie’s arm again. It was thrust out through the curtain and he spent a long time feeling the pulses in it a second time.

‘It’s true that in a case of pregnancy the pulse from the liver would be a strong one,’ he said finally. ‘On the other hand wood in the ascendant generates fire, which can by itself cause the drying up of the menstrual fluid: so a strong liver pulse may be indicative only of an irregularity in the menses and not of pregnancy. I wonder if I might have a look at the lady’s face? Before I finally decide on the right treatment, I should like to see what sort of colour she has.’

The request was an unusual one, but Jia Lian felt he had no choice but to grant it. The bed-curtains were drawn back a few inches and Er-jie thrust her head out through the slit. The vision thus presented to him seemed to deprive the doctor temporarily of his senses, so that it is doubtful whether he was able to make any observations of diagnostic value while he was goggling at it. After a moment or two the curtains were drawn to again and Jia Lian accompanied the doctor outside and once more asked him for his opinion.

‘It isn’t pregnancy,’ said the doctor. ‘There is some clotted blood which is holding back the natural discharge. The important thing is to disperse the clot and get her menstruating again.’

He wrote a prescription out and took his leave. Jia Lian sent someone to pay him and also to purchase the drugs named in his prescription. The medicine was made up, infused and taken. From about midnight Er-jie began to suffer from continuous abdominal pain, and after what seemed hours of agony, produced a foetus already sufficiently developed to be recognizable as a male child. This was followed by continuous bleeding in the course of which she fainted away.

Jia Lian cursed Hu Jun-rong bitterly when they told him. He sent someone immediately to call another doctor. He also sent someone to look for Hu Jun-rong; but Hu Jun-rong, having got wind of what had happened, had already packed his bags and disappeared.

The new doctor was not encouraging.

‘Obviously your lady’s constitution was not very robust to start with. It looks to me as if in the course of her pregnancy she must have been subjected to some sort of emotional distress resulting in a congestion of the pneuma. By mistakenly attacking this with a far too drastic dispersant, I am afraid the previous consultant has done a lot of damage. The vital essence has been eighty or ninety per cent impaired. As things look at present, I am afraid I really cannot guarantee a cure. I propose a treatment using both liquid and solid medicines simultaneously. If you can make quite sure that she neither sees nor hears anything likely to upset her during the treatment, there might be some hope of improvement.’

Having given his diagnosis he departed, but not before writing out two prescriptions, one for an infusion and one for some pills.

Jia Lian was beside himself. He insisted that the culprit responsible for calling in Hu Jun-rong should be discovered, and had him beaten within an inch of his life. But Jia Lian’s distress was as nothing compared with the transports of grief displayed by Xi-feng.

‘It is beginning to look as if we are fated not to have a son,’ she lamented. ‘To think that a doctor’s incompetence should ruin everything, just as we were so near to having one!’

She had a little ‘altar to Heaven and Earth’ set up on which she burned incense and in front of which she knelt down and prayed with the utmost fervency for Er-jie’s recovery.

‘Let me be ill instead of her,’ she prayed. ‘Only let You-shi’s sister get well again and bear us a man-child, and I vow to spend all my remaining days in prayer and fasting.’

Jia Lian and all the others who saw her and heard her pray were filled with admiration.

While Jia Lian and Autumn were alone together, Xi-feng had all sorts of soups and invalid slops made specially for Er-jie. She even sent the characters of Er-jie’s nativity to a fortune-teller to have her fortune told. The fortune-teller sent word back that Er-jie’s stars were temporarily in collision with those of some other female born under the sign of the Rabbit. A rapid investigation revealed that Autumn was the only person in the household born under that sign. It was her astral influence that was harming Er-jie.

The sight of Jia Lian rushing agitatedly about, calling for doctors, ordering medicines, dispensing curses and floggings among the servants, and in general showing a most singular devotedness to Er-jie, had already caused Autumn’s system to secrete several gallons of vinegar. Her jealous fury when she was informed that Er-jie’s illness was due to her influence and when she was urged by Xi-feng to move elsewhere for a few days in Er-jie’s interest can be imagined.

‘Who pays any attention to what those beggarly swindlers tell you?’ she said. ‘It’s all rubbish anyway. How can I have any influence on her? I have nothing to do with her.

The water in the well
And the water in the sea:
I’ve naught to do with you
Or you to do with me.

Precious little darling! She saw plenty of all sorts when she was living outside. She didn’t suffer from any influences then, why should she start suffering from them now, I wonder? Anyway, there’s something I’d like to ask her. I’d like to ask her where she got that child from. She may fool that cotton-eared master of ours. As long as she gave him a child, it would be all one to him whether it was a Zhang or a Wang. But do you really care about that whore’s brat, Mrs Lian? I’m damned if I do! What’s so special about having a baby? Give me a year or ten months and I’ll have one myself – and it won’t have half the city for its father, either!’

The servants hearing her were at some pains not to laugh.

It happened that Lady Xing had come over that day to pay her respects to Grandmother Jia. Autumn took the opportunity of complaining to her.

‘Mr and Mrs Lian are trying to drive me out of here. I don’t know which way to turn. Put in a good word for me, Your Ladyship, I beg of you!’

This led Lady Xing to give Xi-feng a severe telling-off, after which she proceeded to give a piece of her mind to Jia Lian.

‘Ungrateful wretch! Whatever the girl’s like, she was given to you by Sir She. Fancy trying to turn her out for the sake of an outsider! Have you no respect for your father at all?’

She walked off in a huff, giving him no opportunity to explain. Autumn, now thoroughly cock-a-hoop, stood outside Er-jie’s window and favoured the world at large with an expanded and even more abusive version of what she had said earlier to Xi-feng. Er-jie, lying inside, heard every word of it, as she was meant to, and was deeply distressed.

That night, when Jia Lian and Autumn were in bed together and Xi-feng was asleep in her own room, Patience went to see Er-jie and tried to comfort her.

‘You must try to get well,’ she said. ‘Don’t take any notice of that animal.’

Er-jie clutched her hand. She was crying weakly as she replied.

‘Sister, you have been so good to me, ever since I came to this place. I don’t know how much unpleasantness you haven’t had to put up with on my account. If I come out of this alive, I promise I shall do my best to repay your kindness. I fear I shan’t, though. I shall have to try and repay you in another life.’

Patience could not help crying too.

‘All these things that have happened to you – it’s all my fault. I was so stupid. I always told myself that I’d never deceive my mistress, and so when I heard about you and Mr Lian living together outside, I thought I had to tell her. I never thought it would all turn out like this.’

‘You’re wrong to blame yourself,’ said Er-jie. ‘She would have found out sooner or later, even if you hadn’t told her. It was only a question of time. And anyway, I wanted to come here. I wanted so much to be respectable. It really had nothing to do with you.’

The two young women wept a while in silence. Once more Patience tried to comfort her and urged her to get better; then, because it was long past midnight, she left her to go and get some sleep.

After Patience had gone, Er-jie lay thinking.

‘This illness seems to have got its grip on me. I’m losing rather than gaining all the time. It doesn’t look as if I shall ever get better. And now that I’ve lost the baby, there’s nothing much left for me to live for. I don’t have to put up with all this hatred and malice. Why don’t I just die and get it over with? They say you can die by swallowing gold. It would be a better way of dying than hanging oneself or cutting one’s throat.’

She struggled out of bed, opened one of her boxes, and hunted out a nugget of raw gold. Then she wept a little. It was four o’clock in the morning. Summoning up all the will-power she could muster, she forced herself to swallow it. She had to hold her head back and swallow many times before it would go down; but in the end it did. Then she dressed herself hurriedly in her best clothes, put on her jewellery and ornaments, laid herself down upon the kang, and sank at once into unconsciousness.

Hearing no call from her next morning, the maids – Xi-feng and Autumn having gone off to Grandmother Jia’s place for their morning duty – were only too pleased to get on with their toilets undisturbed. Patience was disgusted by their callousness and reproached them bitterly.

‘What you girls need is a really hard-hearted mistress – one who would curse you and beat you every day. There’s a sick woman in there: can’t you feel any sympathy for her at all? Even though she’s so easily put upon, I’m surprised you don’t show her a little consideration, if only for appearance’s sake. “Everyone helps to push over a falling wall” they say; but don’t you think you carry it a bit too far?’

Shamed by her reproaches, the maids pushed open Er-jie’s door and went inside to look. They found her dressed up in all her finery and stretched out dead upon the kang. Their frightened screams brought Patience running in as well. She could not help weeping out loud when she saw the cause. The other servants, too, when they remembered how sweet and gentle Er-jie had been and how unfailingly kind to her inferiors, were moved to tears by her death, but they were all so scared of Xi-feng that they dared not let her see their tears.

Soon everyone in the household had heard the news. When Jia Lian arrived he clung to the corpse and wept uncontrollably. Xi-feng made a show of weeping too and hypocritically reproached Er-jie for her ‘cruelty’.

‘Hard-hearted sister!’ she wailed. ‘How could you bear to leave me like this when you knew how much I cared for you?’

You-shi and Jia Rong also came and wept a while, after which they urged Jia Lian to cease his lamentations and begin to perform his duties. The first of these was to report Er-jie’s death formally to Lady Wang and ask if he might lay out the body in Pear-tree Court for five days and after that move it to the Temple of the Iron Threshold. Lady Wang gave her permission, whereupon he at once sent servants to open up Pear-tree Court and make the principal room in it ready to receive the corpse.

Jia Lian did not like the idea of Er-jie’s leaving the mansion for the last time by way of the rear gate and into the back streets beyond. He therefore opened up the gate in the outer wall of Pear-tree Court giving on to the passage-way between the two mansions which led into Two Dukes Street. A wnings were put up on either side of this gate to accommodate sūtra-chanting monks.

A beautifully-embroidered satin pall was draped over a camp-bed and Er-jie’s body laid on it and covered over with a sheet. On this it was carried by eight pages, followed by a number of married womenservants, along the foot of the inside walls and all the way to the room in Pear-tree Court which had been made ready for it. The official geomancer had been summoned and was waiting there in readiness. He lifted the coverlet back to look at Er-jie’s face. She looked almost alive – if anything even more beautiful than in life. The sight provoked a fresh outburst of grief from Jia Lian. Once more he clung to her and wept.

‘My poor wife!’ he sobbed. ‘You should never have died. I blame myself for allowing this to happen.’

Jia Rong nervously urged restraint.

‘There, there, Uncle! Take it easy! She was unlucky, poor Auntie. That’s all you can say about it.’

He pointed in the direction of the wall separating Pear-tree Court from the mansion. Jia Lian, understanding his meaning, lowered his voice, though he continued to reproach himself.

‘I was too careless. I should have noticed what was going on.’ He addressed himself to the dead woman. ‘One of these days I shall get to the bottom of this and you shall be revenged.’

At last the coverlet was replaced and the geomancer made his pronouncement.

‘I am assuming that she died at the end of the fifth watch. In that case you won’t be able to take her out of here on the fifth day, I’m afraid. It will have to be either the third or the seventh. For the encoffining, the best time would be four o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘The third day is much too soon,’ said Jia Lian. ‘It will have to be the seventh. I couldn’t keep her here much longer than that, because my uncle and my cousin are both away and I should need to have their permission; but I am planning to do much more for her when we get her to the temple outside. I’d like to keep her there for the full thirty-five days and give her a really decent funeral with a requiem and so forth at the end of it. We can take her south to Nanking and bury her in the family graveyard next year.’

The geomancer agreed to all this, wrote out the burial licence, and took his leave.

Various male kinsmen – Bao-yu was the first – came over to help Jia Lian mourn. When they had gone, he went back to his own apartment to look for Xi-feng and ask her for some money to buy timber for a coffin with and pay for the funeral.

Now Xi-feng had used her illness as a pretext for not accompanying the others to Pear-tree Court. She claimed that she had received strict instructions from Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang that until she had fully recovered she was to avoid all places connected in any way with birth, sickness or death. She refused to go into mourning for the same reason. The ban did not however prevent her from slipping out into the Garden when everyone else had gone, making her way round it between the rocks and the perimeter wall to the foot of the wall that separated it from Pear-tree Court, and eavesdropping on what was going on inside. She could not hear very much, but enough to send her scurrying back to Grandmother Jia to report on what Jia Lian was up to. Grandmother Jia was indignant.

‘I never heard such nonsense! When a consumptive child dies, one just burns it and scatters the ashes. Burying her in Nanking indeed! What can the man be thinking of? If he feels he has to do something special for her because she was his wife, let him observe the Thirty-Five Days. But after that he should either have her carried out and burned or else buried in the common graveyard. Nanking, indeed!’

Xi-feng laughed.

‘That’s what I thought, but it wasn’t for me to say.’

Just then a maid arrived from Jia Lian, looking for her.

‘Mr Lian’s back, madam. He’s waiting for you to give him some money.’

Xi-feng went back to see him.

‘What’s this about wanting money?’ she asked him. ‘Don’t you know how difficult things are lately? Every month now our allowance falls short of our expenditure. I managed to raise three hundred taels yesterday to pay some of the bills with by pawning two of my gold necklaces. There’s still twenty or thirty taels of that left that you can have if you like.’

She told Patience to get it out and give it to him; then, muttering something about Grandmother Jia having something more to say, she went away again, leaving Jia Lian speechless with resentment. He was obliged to go through Er-jie’s drawers and cupboards looking for the savings he had entrusted to her. But someone seemed to have been through them before him, for all he could find were a few bits of broken jewellery and a few far from new silk dresses. The sight of these clothes which she had worn brought on another outburst of anguished weeping. He felt sure there was something suspicious about her death but dared not utter what he thought. He made the things up into a bundle and was apparently intending to take them outside and sell them, for he had called no servant, and when Patience saw him was carrying the bundle himself. She found the sight of him carrying it both pathetic but also a trifle ludicrous. Hurriedly abstracting a packet containing two hundred taels of miscellaneous bits and pieces of silver from one of Xi-feng’s chests, she drew him into one of the side rooms where no one could see them and gave it to him.

‘Psst! Not a word! And by the way, if you want to cry, you can cry as much as you like outside, but for goodness’ sake don’t make an exhibition of yourself here, where everyone can see you!’

‘You are right,’ said Jia Lian, taking the money. He handed her a skirt out of the bundle. ‘Here, take this. It’s something she often used to wear. Keep it to remember her by.’

As he was insistent, she took it from him and put it away wit! her things.

Now that Jia Lian had some money, he sent someone to buy timber for the coffin. Unfortunately the best planks turned out to be too expensive and the more modestly priced ones did not meet with his approval. In the end he got on his horse and insisted on going to see for himself. The outcome was that a set of planks costing five hundred taels and obtained by him on credit were delivered from the timber-merchant’s that evening. The carpenters were set to work on them immediately and ordered to go on working through the night so that the ccffin should be ready in time.

He ordered some of the servants to dress in mourning and keep vigil at Er-jie’s side. He himself did not return to his own apartment that evening, but spent that and every other night of the seven at Pear-tree Court. Towards the end of this sojourn he was somewhat surprised to receive a summons from Grandmother Jia.

The reason for the summons will be revealed in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 70

Lin Dai-yu resuscitates the Poetry Club And Shi Xiang-yun tries her band at a song lyric

Each of the seven nights following Er-jie’s death were spent by Jia Lian on his own in Pear-tree Court. Throughout the whole of the seven-day period he had Buddhist monks and Taoist priests chanting and praying outside for her soul’s repose.

At the conclusion of the last chapter we mentioned the unexpected summons which he received towards the end of this period from Grandmother Jia. It turned out to be for the sole purpose of refusing him permission to convey Er-jie’s body to the family temple outside the city. This was a heavy blow, but one to which he could not but submit. He had to talk to the proprietor of the ground in which San-jie was buried and have another grave opened for Er-jie above her sister’s. Apart from a few Jia males and You-shi and her daughter-in-law, the only other mourners on the day they buried her were Xi-feng’s kinsman Wang Xin and his wife. Xi-feng herself would have nothing to do with the funeral and left Jia Lian to manage everything by himself.

The New Year was now approaching. Among the multitudinous duties that had now to be attended to was the necessity of finding suitable wives from among the maidservants for those of the menservants who had reached the marriageable age of twenty-five. Xi-feng consulted Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang on this subject and a lengthy discussion of it ensued. Several maids were of an age to marry, but for one reason or another had to be exempted. The first of these was Faithful, who had taken a vow to remain single all her life. Ever since the day on which she took this vow she had refused even to speak to Bao-yu and had taken to using make-up only sparingly, dispensing altogether with jewellery, and wearing only the very soberest clothes. The others respected her determination and did not press her to abandon it. Amber had to be exempted because she was ill. Sunset, too, since her break-up with Jia Huan, had developed an illness that seemed incurable and had to be exempted for the same reason. There remained only a few of the older maids-of-all-work from Xi-feng’s and Li Wan’s apartments. The other maids were all too young. It was decided to allow the young menservants to seek their brides outside.

Xi-feng’s illness, necessitating their standing in for her as household managers, had for many months deprived Li Wan and Tan-chun of their leisure. That, and the multifarious duties attendant on the New Year festival, had resulted in the indefinite postponement of the Poetry Club. Now spring had come and at last there was time for a meeting. But now it was Bao-yu’s condition that prevented them. Liu Xiang-lian’s conversion and subsequent disappearance, San-jie’s suicide, Er-jie’s hounding to death by Xi-feng, the grave deterioration in Fivey’s health caused by the hardships of her night’s imprisonment – all these shocks and distresses following hard upon one another had eventually reduced him to a state of mental collapse. He was beginning to look and act like a halfwit and his speech was frequently disordered and nonsensical. Aroma and the other maids were frightened out of their wits. They dared not tell Grandmother Jia about it; instead they did what they could to distract him by amusing him and making him laugh.

Early one morning he woke up to the sound of laughter, peals upon peals of it from the neighbouring room. Aroma smiled at him when she saw that he was awake.

‘It’s Aventurin,’ she said, giving Parfumée the name that Bao-yu had insisted on. ‘You’d better go and rescue her. She’s got Skybright and Musk holding her down and tickling her.’

Bao-yu slioped on his squirrel-lined gown and went into the outer room to look. The three girls were on the kang, their bedding still not folded and none of them yet dressed. Sky-bright, wearing only a tunic of leek-green Hangchow silk and a pair of red silk drawers and with her hair hanging loose over her shoulders, knelt above Parfumée’s body, straddling her as if riding a horse; Musk, wearing little but a red breast-binder and an old gown that she had wrapped round herself like a cloak, was tickling Parfumée under the armpits; Parfumée herself, in flower-patterned shirt, red trousers and green stockings, lay on her back drumming her heels on the kang and laughing so much that she seemed in some danger of asphyxiation.

‘Two big ones against one little one,’ said Bao-yu, laughing.‘I shall have to see about that!’

He got on the kang and began tickling Skybright. Skybright, being very ticklish, at once began shrieking and let go of Parfumée in order to tickle him back, which gave Parfumée the opportunity of getting on top of har and holding her down. Aroma stood watching these antics with amusement.

‘Why don’t you get dressed, all of you?’ she said. ‘It won’t be so funny if you catch cold.’

At that moment Casta came in.

‘Mrs Zhu thinks she left a handkerchief here last night. Have any of you seen it, please?’

‘Yes,’ said Swallow. ‘I picked it up off the floor, but I didn’t know whose it was. I’ve only just washed it and hung it out to dry. I’m afraid it won’t be dry yet.’

Casta was greatly amused by the four figures struggling on the kang.

‘You’re certainly a lively lot here, larking about like this so early in the morning!’

Bao-yu disengaged himself to talk.

‘Don’t you lot ever play, then? There are enough of you.’

‘Mrs Zhu isn’t much of a one for playing,’ said Casta, ‘and she keeps a pretty tight rein on the others – Miss Qin and the two Miss Lis. It’s very quiet there now that Miss Qin is sleeping over at Her Old Ladyship’s again. It will be quieter still next winter when the two Miss Lis go back to their own home. Look how quiet it’s become at Miss Bao’s place since Caltrop went back to Mr Pan. It’s as though several people had left. Poor Miss Shi is quite lost without her!’

By coincidence it was Xiang-yun’s maid Kingfisher who walked in just at that moment. She had a message for Bao-yu.

‘Miss Shi says come quickly, Master Bao. They’ve, got a very good poem for you to look at.’

‘Who have?’ said Bao-yu. ‘What sort of poem?’

‘The young ladies. They’re all together in the Drenched Blossoms Pavilion. You’ll see when you get there.’

Bao-yu rushed through his toilet and hurried outside to join them. He found Dai-yu, Bao-chai, Xiang-yun, Bao-qin and Tan-chun clustered round the sheet of paper on which the poem was written.

‘Have you only just got up?’ the girls jeered when they saw him coming. ‘We’ve all been up for hours!’

‘It’s more than a year now since our Poetry Club met,’ said one of them, ‘yet in all that time no one seems to have felt the urge to get it going again. Springtime, when everything in nature is renewing itself, seems an appropriate time for reestablishing it.’

‘Yes,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘We founded it in the autumn, which is a time of decay. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t thrive. If we re-establish it now, when everything is burgeoning, it is bound to flourish! And this “Flower of the Peach” is such a splendid poem: I think we ought to rename our club “The Peach-flower Club“. What do the rest of you think?’

‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ said Bao-yu. ‘May I see the poem?’

‘Let’s all go and see Farmer Sweetrice and discuss this business of reviving the Poetry Club with her,’ said the others.

They got up in a body and began to go, Bao-yu reading the poem as he went.

The Flower of the Peach

Peach pink the tender flowers outside the window blow;
Peach pink on sleepy face the morning colours glow.
Tree-flowers outside the room and lady-flower inside:
Only a few short steps the flowery forms divide.
Slyly the conspiring wind tugs at the blind below:
Tree-flowers would peep inside if they could do so.

Outside the window tree-flowers are blooming still;
Inside the window lady-flower looks ill.
If the flowers could understand, surely they would grieve?
The anxious wind flaps the blind against the window-sill.

The anxious wind flaps the blind; spring crowns the courtyard trees;
Spring sights fill the lady’s eyes, but bring her heart no ease.
In her closed, untrodden court the moss grows green on the stones:
She leans there at the sunset hour, in the soft evening breeze.

In the soft breeze the lady’s face is wet with many a tear.
Her silken peach-skirt billows out, the peach-trees to be near.
The peach-flowers and the peach-leaves nod in a rich array:
The leaves, against the peach-pink, dark emerald appear.
A thousand trees, ten thousand trees, crowding close together,
Walls and buildings everywhere in a red mist smother.

Heaven’s new bed-spread is burning on the dawn loom of the skies:
It’s time now for sleeping lady-flower from dreams of spring to rise.
Her maid comes in with a golden bowl as she leaves her coral bed,
And the peach-pink stain from her sleepy face the chilly water dyes.

If with the water’s rosy hue comparison be made,
Carmine tears and dewy flowers seem of the self-same shade.
Yet lady’s tears and flowers in this unalike I find,
That the flowers are still and smiling, but the tears flow unallayed.
As she gazes on the smiling flowers, her tears at last grow dry;
But as they dry, the springtime ends and the flowers fade.

The flowers fade, and an equal blight the lady’s fair cheek palls.
The petals drift; she is weary; and soon the darkness falls.
A nightingale is singing a dirge for the death of spring,
And moonlight steals through the casement and dapples the silent walls.

Bao-yu uttered no word of praise when he had finished reading it, he simply went on staring stupidly at the paper. He wanted to cry, but was ashamed that the girls should see his tears and brushed them away with a hurried movement of his hand.

‘How did you get hold of this poem?’ he asked them.

‘First guess who wrote it,’ said Bao-qin mischievously.

‘River Queen,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Who else?’

‘Really?’ said Bao-qin. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I did.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Bao-yu, smiling back at her. “The tone of voice is entirely different from yours.’

“That just shows how little you know about poetry,’ said Bao-qin. ‘Not all of Du Fu’s poems have the complexity of “Autumn Thoughts“. He is equally capable of lines like

Rain-fattened plum-buds crimson splashed,

or

The wind’s green duckweed-trails on the water bright.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but I don’t believe Cousin Chai would allow you to write such melancholy verses. And in any case, though I am sure you have the talent to write verses like this if you wanted to, I don’t believe you would want to. Cousin Lin writes like this because she has had actual experience of grief.’

The girls all laughed.

They had now reached Sweet-rice Village. Li Wan was shown the poem and – it goes without saying – was full of praise. After some discussion it was decided unanimously that the first meeting of the revived Poetry Club should be held the very next day, which as it happened, would be the second of the third month. The club was to be renamed ‘The Peach-flower Club’ and Dai-yu was to be its president.

Next day, as soon as lunch was over, everyone met in the Naiad’s House and began discussing the question of a subject. Dai-yu proposed that each of them should compose a hundred couplets on ‘Peach-blossom’.

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Bao-chai. ‘Even if we succeeded in writing so many, there have been such a lot of poems written on this subject in the past that we should be sure to find ourselves repeating what has been said before; and we couldn’t in any case do anything to equal your “Flower of the Peach“. Think of something else.’

But just at that moment a servant came in from outside and summoned them away.

‘The elder Lady Wang is here. Will you all come over to pay her your respects, please.’

So off they trooped to talk to Wang Zi-teng’s wife. They had to stay and have dinner with her and after that show her over the garden. It was lighting-up time before she went.

Next day was Tan-chun’s birthday. Yuan-chun had sent two little eunuchs well in advance of the date with her presents (various ornaments for Tan-chun’s room). There were presents from all the other members of the family as well, of course, but we will spare the reader a list. After lunch Tan-chun had to change into her most formal clothes and go around all the apartments making her kotows.

‘My poetry club seems to have got off to rather a bad start,’ said Dai-yu ruefully. ‘I’d forgotten about her birthday. Today and tomorrow will be completely taken up with it. Even though there will be no formal birthday with players and so forth, we are sure to have to spend all day in the front with Grandmother and Aunt Wang. There’s sure not to be any time left for a meeting.’

She postponed the meeting until the fifth.

On the morning of the fifth, after lunch, while the girls stood talking with Grandmother Jia, letters from Jia Zheng arrived. Bao-yu brought them with him when he came to make his regular morning call. He opened the one addressed to his grandmother and read it out to her. Most of it was taken up with greetings and inquiries about her health, but there was also something about returning to the capital some time in the sixth month. There were other letters in the same packet dealing with personal or domestic matters which were opened and read by Jia Lian and Lady Wang. Everyone was of course delighted to hear that he was coming back so soon.

But once again the Poetry Club was fated to be unlucky. Not long before this date the betrothal had been announced of Wang Zi-teng’s daughter to the Marquis of Bao-ning’s son (the wedding to be in the fifth month) and Xi-feng had lately taken to spending three or four days in a row at the Wang residence, helping her aunt with the entertaining occasioned by this important event. As ill luck would have it, when Wang Zi-teng’s lady called to collect Xi-feng on the fifth, she insisted that all her other nephews and nieces should come too and spend the day ‘enjoying themselves’ at her place. Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang decreed that Bao-yu, Tan-chun, Dai-yu and Bao-chai should go as a representative selection. It was out of the question to object that they had better things to do; the four of them had to go back to their own rooms and change into their most formal clothes before accompanying Wang Xi-feng and their aunt to the Wang family residence. It was lighting-up time before they returned.

As soon as he got back to Green Delights, Bao-yu threw himself down to rest. Aroma seized the opportunity to offer him a little serious advice. He really must try and pull himself together, she said, and apply himself whenever possible to his books, so as to be ready for his father’s return. Bao-yu did some rapid calculations on his fingers.

‘It’s a bit early for that yet,’ he said.

‘It isn’t only the books,’ said Aroma. ‘Your calligraphy is even more important. Even if you can get by on the books, what are you going to show him when he asks to see your calligraphy?’

Bao-yu smiled unconcernedly.

‘I’m always doing calligraphy. There must be masses of it. Surely you keep it for me, don’t you?’

‘Certainly we keep it for you,’ said Aroma. ‘I got it out to have a look at only yesterday, while you were away. Five hundred and sixty sheets: for all the years since you first started, that’s all you’ve got to show. If you ask me, I think that from tomorrow onwards you ought to concentrate all your energies on copying. If you could copy two or three sheets of calligraphy a day, then by the time he gets back, even though you won’t be able to show him a sheet for every day, you should have enough to get by with.’

Bao-yu heard her with some alarm. He had a look at the collected sheets himself. It was true. There simply wasn’t enough there to convince anyone that he had been practising calligraphy every day.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Beginning from tomorrow, I’ll write a hundred characters every morning.’

He was still discussing this when they went to bed.

Next morning, as soon as he had washed and combed his hair, he sat down at the window and began painstakingly copying kai-shu characters out of a sample-book. Grandmother Jia thought he must be ill when he did not appear with the others for his duty-call, and sent someone over to inquire. Bao-yu returned with the messenger to wish her good morning and explain.

‘I’ve been practising calligraphy,’ he told her. ‘That’s what’s made me late.’

Grandmother Jia was delighted.

‘Keep it up, my boy! When you are studying or practising your calligraphy, it doesn’t matter if you don’t come here at all. You may tell your mother I said so.’

Bao-yu went round to Lady Wang’s apartment to do so. His mother was unimpressed.

‘It’s too late to begin sharpening your weapons on the field of battle,’ she said. ‘Getting in a panic now will do you no good. Even if you work all day and all night, you won’t be able to make up for all the time you have wasted. More likely all you will succeed in doing is making yourself ill.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ said Bao-yu.

Bao-chai and Tan-chun, who happened to be present, reassured her.

‘We can’t memorize his texts for him,’ they said, ‘but we could at least help him out with his calligraphy. If each of us copied a sheet of characters for him every day to add to what he has done himself, he ought to have enough calligraphy to get by with. That’s one hurdle at least he’d be over. It would save Sir Zheng from getting angry and Bao-yu from making himself ill.’

Lady Wang smiled and nodded.

When Dai-yu heard that Jia Zheng was coming home, she knew that he would be sure to ask Bao-yu about his lessons and that anything which distracted him from them would be merely adding to his troubles. Because of this she deliberately made no more mention of the Poetry Club, and in order that he should not suspect her real reason for dropping it, pretended that she was beginning to find the whole thing rather a bore.

Tan-chun and Bao-chai each produced a sheet of characters a day to add to his collection, and Bao-yu himself, by doubling the time he spent on calligraphy, managed to produce two hundred or sometimes as much as three hundred characters a day. By the end of the third month he had already added considerably to his stock of sheets.

One day towards the end of the month he was going over this stock and had just estimated that fifty or sixty more sheets would probably be enough, when Nightingale arrived with a roll of something from Dai-yu. On opening it out he found it to consist of several sheets, all of the same dark-yellow bamboo paper, covered with tiny ‘fly’s-head’ kai-shu characters which she had copied, in a hand very similar to his own, from sample-books of Zhong Yu’s and Wang Xi-zhi’s calligraphy. Bao-yu was so pleased that he clasped his hands and made Nightingale a bow before hurrying over to thank her mistress in person.

Shortly after that he received some more sheets of calligraphy that Xiang-yun and Bao-qin had been copying for him. Now, when he put the whole lot together, he found that, though there was nothing like a sheet a day for every day since he first started, there was already a sufficient quantity to get by with. This was a great relief. He could now forget about calligraphy for the time being and concentrate on revision. His aim was to go three or four times over each of the texts.

While he was still busily engaged in this revision, a tidal wave hit a certain part of the coast, causing damage and loss of life in a number of neighbouring communities. After reading the reports sent in by the local authorities, the Emperor issued a Rescript commanding Jia Zheng to visit the area on his way back in order to supervise relief. It now seemed unlikely that he would be able to reach home before the end of the seventh month. When he heard this, Bao-yu threw aside his books and reverted to the drifting, aimless way of life that was customary with him.

Spring was now almost over. Xiang-yun, feeling rather bored, had been watching the drifting willow-floss and amusing herself by composing a little poem about it. It was a song-lyric, in the form of a Ru-meng-ling’.

‘Not chewed-off ends of the sky’s embroidery?
‘What are they?’ – ‘Raise the blind a bit and see.’
‘A white hand snatches some and draws it in,
Pursued by the swallows’ chiding din.
Oh stay, oh stay!
The lovely spring drifts after you away.

Xiang-yun was rather pleased with her little poem and wrote it out on a slip of paper to show Bao-chai. After that she went to look for Dai-yu and showed it to her. Dai-yu read it and smiled.

‘It’s good. Both charming and original.’

‘We’ve never done song-lyrics at any of our poetry meetings,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Why don’t you call a meeting for tomorrow and we’ll all do some? It would make a nice change.’

Dai-yu was becoming infected by Xiang-yun’s enthusiasm.

‘It’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘I will.’

‘It’s a lovely day today,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Why not have the meeting today?’

‘I don’t see why not,’ said Dai-yu.

She told the servants to prepare some suitably dainty things to eat, while a couple of them went off to summon the other cousins to the meeting. Meanwhile Dai-yu and Xiang-yun agreed that ‘Willow Floss’ should be the subject of the poems and decided on the stanza-patterns that they should conform to. All this was written down on a sheet of paper which was pasted up on the wall. When the cousins arrived, they first of all read the notice on the wall and then read Xiang-yun’s poem. Some little time after that was devoted to praising it.

‘I’m not much good at song-lyrics,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but I suppose I had better do what I can.’

Everyone drew lots then to see which stanza-forms they were to use. Bao-chai lit a stick of Sweet Dreams incense, and then everyone settled down to think. Dai-yu was the first to have something ready and write it down. Just as she had finished, Bao-qin began hurriedly writing hers.

‘I’ve thought of mine,’ said Bao-chai, ‘but I’d like to look at yours first before I show it to you.’

Tan-chun laughed.

‘Why does the incense seem to be burning so quickly today? I’ve only done the first half of mine.’ She turned to Bao-yu. ‘How about you? Have you done yours yet?’

Bao-yu had in fact written a few lines of one, but, feeling dissatisfied with what he had written, had crossed it all out and begun again, by which time the incense had almost burned itself out.

‘Bao-yu’s failed to make the grade as usual,’ said Li Wan, laughing. ‘But what about Miss Plantain?’

Tan-chun promptly began to write down what she had composed. The others read the words as she wrote them. It was the first half of a Nan-ge-zi lyric.

Once in the air you start,
The creatures of the wind, the breezes’ sport,
Not to be bound or held back by any art,
To north and south and east and west
You drift apart.

‘Very good,’ said Li Wan. ‘But why don’t you finish it?’

Bao-yu had been willing to concede defeat. When he saw that the incense was running out, he could see no point in writing an indifferent conclusion just for the sake of finishing, and so he had laid down his brush and occupied himself instead in reading what Tan-chun had written. As he did so, he had a sudden inspiration, and picking up his brush again, quickly scribbled out a second half for it:

Your drifting fate not fear:
I understand the message that you bear.
Though orioles mourn and the flowers’ end seems near,
Spring will return, but I must wait
Another year.

The girls were amused.

‘You’re a funny fellow. You can’t do your own, yet you can do someone else’s without any trouble. It’s very good, but unfortunately it doesn’t count.’

They had a look at Dai-yu’s poem then. It was a Tang-duoling.

The pollen is spent in the Island of Flowers;
From the House of the Swallow the perfume has fled.
The fluff-balls dance,
Pursue, embrace,
Their floating lives, as our lives, quickly sped,
That, craving Beauty,
Find it dead.

The creatures of nature, they too know our sorrow,
Their beauty, like ours, must soon end in decay.
Our fate, like theirs,
Uncertain hangs,
Wed to the wind, our bridegroom of a day,
Who cares not if we
Go or stay.

The others admired it, but with reservation.

‘Pity it’s so gloomy,’ they said. ‘Still, there’s no denying, it is very good.’

Then they had a look at Bao-qin’s. She had written a Xi-jiang-yue:

In the Han palace gardens a scatter thin and slight,
But along the Sui embankment in legions falling:
Spring’s three-month handiwork before the wind in flight,
A day-dream of pear-blossom on a moonlit night.

In many a courtyard petals fall through the air,
And the floss collects like fragrant snow on the casements:
In North and South the same sight is seen now everywhere,
But for the sad exile most hard to bear.

‘A more virile type of melancholy,’ said the others, laughing. ‘Very typical! That “In many a courtyard…” couplet is good.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I think it suffers from the same pessimism as Cousin Dai’s. Willow floss is a light and airy thing. It seems to me that the best way to avoid the clichés that this subject invites is to give it a light and airy treatment. That is the principle on which I have tried to compose my poem; but you may not think I have succeeded.’

‘Don’t be so modest!’ said the others. ‘It’s sure to be good. Come on, hand it over! Permit us to admire!’

It was a Lin-jiang-xian that she had written.

In mazy dances over the marble forecourt,
Wind-whorled, into trim fluff-balls forming –

‘Bravo!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘“Wind-whorled, into trim fluff-balls forming”: that line is better than anything the rest of us have written.’

They read on.

Like fluttering moths or silent white bees swarming:
Not for us a tomb in the running waters,
Or the earth’s embalming.

The filaments whence we are formed remain unchanging,
No matter what separates or unifies.
Do not, earth-child, our rootlessness despise:
When the strong wind comes he will whirl us upwards
Into the skies.

They thumped the table enthusiastically.

‘Undoubtedly this poem is the best. There is a more haunting melancholy perhaps in River Queen’s poem and more liveliness and charm in Cloud Maiden’s; but all in all this is far and away the best poem. This time Little Xue and Plantain Lover fail to make the grade. We shall have to think of a penalty.’

‘That’s fair enough,’ said Bao-qin, laughing, ‘but what about someone who failed to submit anything at all? What should his penalty be?’

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Li Wan. ‘He will be punished too – exemplarily!’

Just at that moment there was a crashing noise outside the window which made them jump. It sounded as if an outer casement had somehow come unfastened and fallen into the bamboos. The maids ran outside to look. Other maids, who had been waiting outside there all the time, told them what it was: a large kite shaped like a butterfly which had fallen down and got caught in the tops of the bamboo.

‘What a beauty!’ said the maids from inside. ‘I wonder whose it is. They must have cut the string. Let’s try and get it down.’

‘I recognize that kite,’ said Bao-yu. ‘It belongs to Uncle She’s new girl, Carmine. Let’s take it down and give it back to her.’

‘There must be other kites like that besides hers,’ said Nightingale. ‘I think it’s silly to say that it must be hers. Anyway, I don’t care. I’m going to get it down for us.’

‘How mean you are, Nightingale!’ said Tan-chun. ‘You’ve got a kite of your own already. And if you keep someone else’s, aren’t you afraid of catching their bad luck?’

‘You’re right,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We don’t know whose bad luck it mightn’t be bringing us. Take it away! Let’s take out our kite and get rid of our bad luck.’

Nightingale told the maids, who had by this time succeeded in getting the kite down, to take it to the women at the gate and hand it into their keeping. If anyone came looking for it, they were to give it back to them. The other maids rushed off excitedly to fetch Dai-yu’s kite. It was the kind called a ‘pretty lady’. While two of them carried out the kite, one of them brought out a stool to stand on, another fastened the crosspiece to the raising-stick, and another paid the string out from the winder. Bao-chai stood with the other cousins at the gate of the courtyard, directing operations. She told the girls to fly the kite in the open ground outside the courtyard.

‘This kite of yours isn’t nearly as pretty as Cousin Tan’s,’ Bao-qin told Dai-yu. ‘She has one shaped like a phoenix, with wings that move.’

‘Why don’t you get yours and fly it then?’ Bao-chai said, turning to Tan-chun’s maid Ebony.

Ebony hurried off excitedly to do so. Bao-yu, catching the enthusiasm, sent a maid off to fetch one of his own.

‘Bring the big fish one that Lai Da’s wife sent me yesterday,’ he told the girl.

After a long time gone, the girl came back empty-handed.

‘Skybright flew it yesterday and let it go.’

‘Really!’ said Bao-yu. ‘And I hadn’t even flown it once myself.’

Tan-chun laughed.

‘Never mind! At least she’s got rid of your bad luck for you!’

‘All right,’ said Bao-yu to the girl. ‘Go and fetch the big crab one.’

The girl went off and returned accompanied by two or three other maids carrying a large pretty lady kite and a winder.

‘Miss Aroma says she gave the crab one to Master Huan yesterday. She says why don’t you fly this one instead? It was sent to you yesterday by Mrs Lin.’

Bao-yu inspected it. The pretty lady was certainly a beautifully constructed creature. He was secretly pleased and told the girls to fly it.

Tan-chun’s kite had also arrived by now and Ebony was already standing on a little hill getting it up with the assistance of a few helpers. Bao-qin had sent for her kite, a large red bat, and Bao-chai, beginning to share the excitement herself, had had hers fetched too: it was a line of seven large geese flying one behind the other. Soon all the kites but one were up in the air being flown successfully. Bao-yu’s pretty lady was the exception. He said it was because the maids didn’t know how to do it properly and insisted on flying it himself; but after a good deal of manoeuvring he could get her no higher than the roof, and even then it was only to flop down weakly again upon the ground. Bao-yu was getting into quite a state and the perspiration stood out in beads upon his brow. The cousins all laughed. At this he became so exasperated that he picked the kite up, threw it down on the ground again, and pointed his finger at it in anger.

‘If you weren’t a lady, I’d stamp on you and smash you into pieces!’

Dai-yu laughed.

“The string isn’t fastened on right. If you could get someone to refasten it for you properly, it would fly just as well as any other.’

Bao-yu sent someone to take the kite back for restringing and fetch him another pretty lady that he could fly in the mean time.

All the cousins were now standing with their faces turned upwards, watching the kites as they soared higher and higher into the sky. A maid came round offering them all sweets. Presently there was a cry from Nightingale:

‘The wind’s getting stronger, Miss. Do you want to release it now?’

Dai-yu made her handkerchief into a pad for her hand and tested the tension on the string. The wind was certainly pulling it with some force. She took over the winder from Nightingale and let it run free, so that the kite could pull itself away in the wind. There was a whirring noise as the last of the string ran out. Dai-yu asked the others if any of them would like to cut it for her.

‘No, we’ve all got our own,’ they said. ‘You do yours first.’

‘It’s fun to see them fly away,’ said Dai-yu, ‘and yet it seems rather a pity.’

‘But that’s the main reason for flying kites,’ said Li Wan, ‘the pleasure of seeing them fly away. Not to mention the fact that it is supposed to get rid of your bad luck. You of all people ought to let yours go, so as to get rid of your illness.’

‘Come on, Miss, you’ve sent plenty of kites off in your time!’ said Nightingale. ‘Why be so stingy all of a sudden? If you won’t cut it, I’ll cut it for you.’

She snatched a little pair of West Ocean silver scissors out of Snowgoose’s hand and snipped through the kite-string, an inch or so from the winder.

‘Go away, kite!’ she cried merrily. ‘And take my mistress’s illness with you!’

The kite began to swoop and soar. Soon it appeared no bigger than an egg. A few moments later and it was only a dot in the sky. Another moment and it had disappeared from sight altogether.

‘Hurrah! Hurrah!’ cried the cousins, as they watched it disappear.

‘What a pity we don’t know where she will land!’ said Bao-yu. ‘It would be nice if she landed somewhere where there are people and some little child were to find her. But suppose she lands in some uninhabited wilderness: how lonely she will be! I think I shall send my lady after her, to keep her company!’

He asked for the scissors and cut the string himself, and a second pretty lady went hurrying after the first one until it, too, disappeared.

Tan-chun was just about to cut the string of her phoenix when another phoenix appeared in the sky, not far from hers.

‘I wonder whose that is?’ said Tan-chun.

‘Don’t cut yours yet,’ the others cried. ‘It looks as if that one is going to get caught up in it.’

And that is just what happened. The other phoenix drew nearer and nearer until the two strings crossed and tangled. The maids were all for winding Tan-chun’s kite in and capturing the other kite with it, but the owner of the other kite was not prepared to yield, and after a good deal of tugging and heaving on both sides, the strings finally snapped and the two phoenixes flew off companionably together. The cousins clapped their hands delightedly.

‘Well, I’ve released my kite and now I’m tired. I think I shall go in and rest,’ said Dai-yu.

‘Just wait until we’ve released ours,’ said Bao-chai, ‘and then we can all go.’

So she and Xiang-yun and Bao-qin each cut their kite-strings and watched their kites fly away, after which all of the cousins went back to their own apartments.

In spite of the reprieve, Bao-yu dared not abandon his lessons altogether and continued to do a little revision or calligraphy from time to time. When he was feeling bored, he would go out to seek the company of the girls, or go round to the Naiad’s House for a chat. The girls, for their part, knowing how much he was behind with his work, no longer sent anyone to invite him when they met together for poetry-reading or other diversions; and Dai-yu, in her anxiety lest he should once more incur his father’s wrath, frequently feigned sleep when he went round to see her, so as not to be the cause of keeping him from his studies. Bao-yu was reduced to spending more and more time in his own room, where work itself now often took the place of a diversion.

In this manner the summer gradually wore away. Autumn was just beginning when one day two of his grandmother’s maids came round in a very agitated state to summon him.

The purpose of the summons and the reason for their agitation will be explained in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 71

Lady Xing deliberately humiliates her daughter-in-law And Faithful inadvertently interrupts a pair of love-birds

It was the news of Jia Zheng’s imminent homecoming that had caused the maidservants’ agitation. As an Education Officer, Jia Zheng was supposed to report on his commission as soon as he arrived and, being a very conscientious man, he would have thought it improper even to look in on his family before doing so. When, therefore, at the news of his coming, Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Bao-yu went out to the first poststage beyond the walls to welcome him, he merely inquired after his mother’s health, bowing respectfully in her direction as he did so, and told them to go back and wait for him at home. After his interview next day with the All-highest, his mission was formally completed and he could return with a good conscience to his family. The All-highest had been graciously pleased to grant him a whole month’s leave of absence in which to rest and recuperate at home.

Jia Zheng was beginning to age now, and the worries and responsibilities of office had taken their toll of his health. It was good to be back after so long an absence from those nearest and dearest to him; he was determined to relax and enjoy himself to the utmost, refused even to think about money matters or domestic responsibilities, and spent all his time reading, or, when he felt in need of company, drinking and playing Go with his literary gentlemen, or enjoying the delights of family life with his wife and mother in the women’s apartments inside.

This year the third day of the eighth month was Grandmother Jia’s eightieth birthday. A formidable number of people would have to be invited and there was even some doubt whether they would be able to accommodate them all. After discussion by the menfolk of both mansions, it was decided that there should be eight days of entertaining, beginning on the twenty-eighth of the seventh month and ending on the fifth day of the eighth. On each of these days banquets would be given in both mansions: in the Ning-guo mansion for male guests and in the Rong-guo mansion for female ones. The Painted Chamber, Prospect Hall and one or two other of the larger buildings in Prospect Garden would be used as restrooms for the ladies. The programme of entertaining would be as follows: the twenty-eighth would be for Imperial kinsmen, Princes and Princesses of the Blood and their consorts, Royal Highnesses, Serene Highnesses and members of the high nobility; the twenty-ninth would be for Ministers of State and Civil and Military Governors and their wives; the thirtieth for official colleagues and their wives and members of other clans related to the Jia family by marriage; on the first of the eighth month a family party would be given by Jia She, on the second one by Jia Zheng and on the third one by Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian; on the fourth a joint entertainment would be given by all members of the Jia clan irrespective of age and seniority; and on the fifth there would be another joint entertainment organized by Lai Da, Lin Zhi-xiao and the other senior domestics.

Ever since the beginning of the seventh month presents had been coming in almost continuously. From the highest source of all an order was received by the Board of Rites authorizing the bestowal of the following:

a ru-yi sceptre of gold and jade
four lengths of tribute satin
four gold and jade cups
five hundred taels of silver from the Imperial
Treasury

Yuan-chun’s gifts, which were delivered to the mansion by eunuchs, were:

a golden figurine of Old Longevity
a staff of aloeswood
a rosary of putchuk beads
a box of Fu Shou incense
a pair of golden medallions
four pairs of silver ingots
twelve lengths of tribute satin
four jade cups

And there were presents too numerous to mention from princes and princesses and from the families of a host of civil and military officials both great and small who were on visiting terms with the Jias. Several long tables were carried into the main reception hall and covered with red baize and the choicest presents set out on them every day for Grandmother Jia’s inspection. She went along for the first day or two and took some pleasure in examining her gifts, but soon grew tired of this and told Xi-feng to look after them for her: she would look at them herself some other day, when she had nothing better to do.

By the twenty-eighth both mansions had been hung with lanterns and festooned all over with garlands. Painted phoenixes gambolled on folding screens, embroidered lotuses blossomed on drapes and covers, and the sound of fluting and piping could be heard several streets away. The only guests that day at the Ning-guo mansion were the Prince of Bei-jing, the Prince of Nan-an, Princess Yang-chang’s Consort, the Prince of Luo-shan and a number of noblemen whose families had long been on friendly terms with the Jias. At the Rong-guo mansion the guests were the Dowager Princess of Nan-an, the Prince of Bei-jing’s Consort, and the ladies of the various aforementioned noblemen. Grandmother Jia and the others were dressed in full court rig to receive them. After the initial salutations were over, the visitors were conducted to Prospect Hall inside the Garden, where they took tea and ‘changed their clothes’. From there they were conducted to the Hall of Exalted Felicity, where they offered formal congratulations to Grandmother Jia before finally, after much polite bowing and deferring, taking their places at the banquet. The Dowager Princess of Nan-an and the Prince of Beijing’s Consort sat at the two central tables at the back of the hall; the two rows of tables arranged at right-angles to left and right of theirs were occupied in order of precedence, the Marchioness of Jin-xiang and the Countess of Lin-an heading the row upon the left, while Grandmother Jia, as hostess, occupied the first of the right-hand ones. Lady Xing and Lady Wang stood in attendance behind Grandmother Jia’s chair, with You-shi, Xi-feng and a number of other Jia ladies fanning out to left and right behind them. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and Lai Da’s wife stood by the bamboo curtain on one side of the hall supervising the transportation of dishes and winekettles by a small army of serving-women, while Zhou-Rui’s wife directed the waitresses from the other side of the folding screens. Meanwhile the attendants brought with them by the lady visitors were being entertained elsewhere.

Outside, on the temporary stage that had been erected in the courtyard, the players were due to begin their performance. In honour of the occasion they began by kneeling in a row at the front of it and offering their birthday congratulations to the old lady, while twelve little maids, dressed up as page-boys in identical costumes, stood solemnly to attention below the stage. When the players had finished, one of these little girl-pages advanced to the foot of the steps leading up to the hall with a playbill in her hands. She was relieved of it by a serving-woman who had been stationed there for the sole purpose of receiving and carrying messages. This woman handed it to Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, who put it on a salver, edged herself through the bamboo curtain, and carried it to Cousin Zhen’s concubine, Lovey. Lovey handed it to You-shi, and You-shi walked up and offered it to the Dowager Princess of Nan-an. The Dowager Princess, after first, for politeness’ sake, declining, chose one of those congratulatory pieces which are customarily performed on these occasions. The Prince of Bei-jing’s Consort, whose turn it was next, did exactly the same. The rest of the ladies insisted that the players themselves should put on whatever they thought best, for it was sure to be good.

After four courses of various dishes and one of soup, the visitors’ attendants gave their mistresses’ largesse to the players, and the ladies returned to the Garden to ‘change their clothes’ and sample a very special tea. The Dowager Princess of Nan-an asked Grandmother Jia about Bao-yu.

‘Several temples are reading the Immaculate Diamond for me today,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘He has gone to kneel a while in each one of them while they do the reading.’

‘And what about your granddaughters?’ said the Princess.

‘Oh, this one is ill and that one is weakly and the other is too shy to see anyone. They are looking after my room for me today. We have more players than we need, so I thought we might as well let them have a troupe to themselves. I expect they are at this moment sitting with their cousins and watching a play in my courtyard.’

‘Do send for them!’ said the old princess coaxingly.

Grandmother turned to where Xi-feng was standing behind her.

‘Go and fetch your Cousin Shi and the two Xue girls and your Cousin Lin, will you? Oh, and you can bring your Cousin Tan with you as well.’

Xi-feng went to Grandmother Jia’s place. All the girls were there, nibbling sweets and watching a play, as Grandmother Jia had said they would be. Bao-yu had just got back from his kneeling. In obedience to her message, Bao-chai, Bao-qin, Dai-yu, Tan-chun and Xiang-yun followed her back into the Garden and made their curtseys to the assembled ladies. Some of the guests had seen them before, some had not; but all alike exclaimed admiringly at their beauty. Of the five girls Xiang-yun was the most familiar to those present.

‘Naughty girl!’ said the Dowager Princess waggishly. ‘You should have come yourself to see me when you heard that I was here, not waited to be called! I shall have a bone to pick with your uncle now, next time I see him!’

She took Tan-chun by one hand and Bao-chai by the other and drew them towards her.

‘And how old are you girls?’ she asked.

She released them, after several times commenting what ‘fine girls’ they were, and then subjected Dai-yu and Bao-qin to the same treatment, taking them by the hand, scrutinizing each of them in turn, and extravagantly praising their good looks.

‘Dear me, they are all such lovely girls I’ she said laughing. ‘I really don’t know which of them I prefer.’

Suitable presents had now been made ready by an attendant: five gold rings, five jade rings and five wristlets of aromatic beads.

‘Rather trifling presents I am afraid, my dears,’ said the Dowager Princess. ‘Perhaps you could give them to your maids.’

The five girls kotowed their thanks. There were more presents from the Prince of Bei-jing’s Consort and from the other ladies present – but there is no need to enumerate them.

When they had finished their tea, the ladies walked for a while in the Garden, after which Grandmother Jia invited them to return to the banquet; but the Dowager Princess of Nan-an took her leave. ‘To tell you the truth, I am not feeling very well today,’ she said. ‘I would not have stayed away for the world, but I am sure you will understand if I leave a little early.’

Under the circumstances, Grandmother Jia could not very well press her to stay, and after some polite skirmishing when the Princess protested that she could perfectly well find her way off the premises alone, the entire company saw her to the gate of the Garden, where she climbed into her palanquin and was carried away. The Prince of Bei-jing’s Consort returned with the rest of them to the Hall of Exalted Felicity and sat with them there for some minutes, but then she too took her leave. Of the other ladies some stayed on to the end, others left when a decent interval had elapsed after the departure of the two princesses.

The day’s entertaining left Grandmother Jia exhausted and next day she was unable to see anyone and stayed in her own room. Lady Xing and Lady Wang had to receive the female guests on her behalf. As for the male ones, those of them who wanted to offer their birthday congratulations had to do so in the outer reception hall. Their salutations were returned, obeisance for obeisance and bow for bow, by Jia She, Jia Zheng and Cousin Zhen, who then conducted them to the banquet prepared for them in Ning-guo House. But that is enough of banquets.

As long as the birthday celebrations continued, You-shi did not go back to the Ning-guo mansion to sleep. During the daytime she helped the others to entertain the guests. In the evenings, after some time spent in Grandmother Jia’s apartment chatting with the old lady, she would help Xi-feng supervise the getting out and putting away of the porcelain, gold and silver ware and other things that had been used that day or would be on the next, and the going over and setting out on display of the most recently-arrived batch of presents. After that she would go to Li Wan’s place to spend the night.

On one of these evenings she had just finished waiting on Grandmother Jia while she took her evening meal, when the old lady exempted her from further services.

‘You must be tired,’ she said. ‘I know I am. Why don’t you go and have a bite to eat yourself now and then go to bed? You will have to be up early again tomorrow.’

You-shi thanked her and went off to Xi-feng’s room hoping for some supper. Xi-feng was in the upstairs storage-room, however, supervising the putting away of some screens that had just arrived. Only Patience was at home, folding up some of Xi-feng’s clothes. Remembering Patience’s many kindnesses to Er-jie while she was still alive, You-shi nodded her head sympathetically.

‘You are a good-hearted girl, Patience. I am afraid you have a great deal to put up with.’

Patience’s eyes reddened, but she forbore to say anything. You-shi asked her if Xi-feng had eaten yet. Patience smiled.

‘She wouldn’t eat without first asking you,’ she said.

‘In that case I’ll go and look for a bite elsewhere,’ said You-shi. ‘I don’t know why, but I’m absolutely ravenous.’

‘Don’t go!’ said Patience. ‘We’ve got some mince rolls. Why not make do with one or two of those now and have supper with Mrs Lian when she gets back?’

‘No, I can see you’re busy,’ said You-shi. ‘I think I shall go into the Garden to see the girls.’

Since she obviously wanted to go, Patience made no further effort to detain her.

When You-shi came to the Garden she found the main gate and all the side gates still open and blazing with lights. Turning to the maid who accompanied her, she told her to go and fetch one of the women who were supposed to be on duty. The maid went into the duty room in the gatehouse, but not a soul was anywhere to be seen. She came back and told You-shi. Very well, said You-shi, then she should go and fetch one of the stewardesses from the mansion. The maid went back into the mansion to the corner-house inside the inner gate which was used by the stewardesses as a meeting-place, but its only occupants on this occasion were two women busily engaged in sharing out some left-overs for their supper.

‘Where are the stewardesses, then?’ the girl asked them. ‘My mistress from the Ning-guo is waiting for someone to give an order to.’

The women continued with their sharing-out. They felt little inclined to put themselves out for a visitor from the other mansion.

‘The stewardesses have all gone home,’ said one of them.

‘In that case you’d better go and get one from her lodgings,’ said the maid.

‘Our job is to look after the rooms here, not to run errands,’ said the woman. ‘If you want someone fetched, you’d better go and find someone whose job it is to fetch them.’

‘But this is rank mutiny!’ said the maid. ‘Not your job to run errands? You might fool a newcomer with such talk, but you don’t fool me! If I’d asked you to go to one of the stewardesses with a private message or tell her to come and collect a tip, you’d be trotting off like a little puppy-dog to its master. There’d be no talk then about it not being your job to do errands. I’d like to hear you give Mrs Lian such an answer!’

Partly because they had had a drop to drink and partly because what the girl said was uncomfortably close to the truth, the women’s resentment quickly flared into anger.

‘Impertinent little baggage! We know very well what our job is; we don’t need you to tell us. And before you start criticizing us, you might take a look at your own parents. The way they suck up to the stewards and stewardesses at your place is downright disgusting. You keep to your mansion and we’ll keep to ours. Go and make trouble for your own people if you have a mind to, but keep away from us!’

The maid had become white-faced with anger.

‘Good!’ she said ‘Very good!’ and turning about, walked straight back into the Garden to report all this to her mistress.

On entering the Garden some minutes previously, You-shi had come upon Aroma, Bao-qin and Xiang-yun laughing at a story that two nuns from the Convent of the Saviour King were telling them. When You-shi told them how hungry she was, they invited her to sit with them in the courtyard of Green Delights while Aroma went indoors to get her something to eat. Aroma found some rolls with meat and some with vegetable stuffing in them and put them in a food-box to carry out to her. She also brought out some tea for Bao-qin and Xiang-yun to sip while You-shi was eating the rolls. The nuns continued with their story. At that moment the maid arrived, still bursting with indignation, and proceeded to tell You-shi about her encounter and what the two women had said. You-shi was silent for some moments before she made any comment.

‘What extraordinary behaviour!’ she said finally.

One of the nuns gave the maidservant a prod.

‘You are too quick-tempered, my child! You don’t want to go repeating what those silly old women said to you. Your mistress is quite worn out from all her exertions during these past few days. What she needs is a little pick-me-up, something to cheer her up a bit. That’s what we’re trying to do, cheer her up. This is no time to come troubling her with that sort of talk!’

Aroma took the girl by the hand.

‘Go off and calm down a bit, there’s a good girl! I’ll get someone to fetch one of the stewardesses.’

‘It isn’t necessary,’ said You-shi. She addressed herself to the maid. ‘Go and fetch those two women, and when you’ve done that, you can find out where Mrs Lian is and tell her I want to see her.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Aroma.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said You-shi.

The two nuns rose to their feet with propitiatory smiles.

‘Come, Mrs Zhen! You are such a kind, forgiving person as a rule. Surely you are not going to lose your temper on Her Old Ladyship’s birthday? Whatever would people say?’

Bao-qin and Xiang-yun added their own smiling entreaties.

‘All right,’ said You-shi, ‘I’ll let them off – but only because it is Lady Jia’s birthday.’

Unfortunately Aroma had in the meantime already sent a junior maid outside the Garden to look for someone, and this girl was already pouring an account of what had happened into the receptive ear of Zhou Rui’s wife, who, as it happened, was the first person she ran into.

Although Zhou Rui’s wife was not actually a stewardess, she regarded herself as being of equal dignity with one on account of her special relationship with Lady Wang, who had brought her from the Wang household when she was married; moreover she was a somewhat insinuating woman, whose eagerness to please made her a popular servant with the younger mistresses. What the maid told her brought her flying over at once to Green Delights, brimming over with sympathy and concern.

‘How shocking! Poor Mrs Zhen! No wonder she is so angry! I wish I had been there. I should have boxed their ears for them on the spot and settled accounts with them later!’

These worthy sentiments were uttered by her on the way. You-shi was pleased to see her when she arrived.

‘Ah, my dear Zhou! Perhaps you will tell me whether or not I was right to feel concerned. When I came into the Garden just now, all the gates were wide open and candles were still burning in all the lanterns. Anyone would have been free to go in or come out as they pleased. I thought how awful it would be if anything were to happen, but when I gave orders for the duty-women to close the gates and put the lights out, not a single one was to be found.’

‘Good gracious!’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Mrs Lian gave special orders about this only a few days ago and already they’re disobeying them! She’ll have to flog a few of them when this is over; that’s the only way to cure this sort of thing.’

You-shi then told her what the two women had said to her maid.

‘Well, don’t let it upset you, Mrs Zhen,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Just wait until these celebrations are over: I’ll have a word with the stewardesses and we’ll take that precious pair and flog the daylights out of them. “You keep to your mansion and we’ll keep to ours” indeed! They’ll be singing a different tune from that by the time we’ve finished with them!’

In the midst of this excitement someone arrived from Xi-feng’s, inviting You-shi to come back for some supper.

‘I’m not hungry,’ said You-shi. ‘I’ve just been eating some rolls. Tell your mistress to have her supper without me.’

Zhou Rui’s wife went round herself to Xi-feng’s place shortly afterwards to repeat all this story to Xi-feng.

‘All you need do is make a note of the women’s names,’ Xi-feng told her. ‘When these celebrations are over, you can have them tied up and sent over to Mrs Zhen to punish or pardon as she sees fit. It isn’t a very serious matter.’

Now as it happened, Zhou Rui’s wife was on very bad terms with these two women, and in her impatience to proceed against them, she put a somewhat loose construction on the warrant given her by Xi-feng, for she first of all sent a boy round to Lin Zhi-xiao’s house to say that Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife was wanted by You-shi immediately, and then sent some other servants to apprehend the two women, tie them up, and hand them over to the grooms to be shut up in the stables and kept under guard there until further notice.

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, when she got the message, at once got into her carriage, wondering what on earth could be the matter, and hurried over to Xi-feng’s place to inquire; but when, on reaching the inner gate, she sent someone inside to announce her, a maid came out and told her that Xi-feng had already gone to bed.

‘It’s Mrs Zhen that wants to see you,’ said the girl. ‘She’s in the Garden now. You’d better look for her there.’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife went into the Garden and hurried through it to Sweet-rice Village. You-shi was quite put out when the maids announced her arrival. She had her invited in immediately and smiled at her apologetically as she entered.

‘I only asked for you because I wanted to give an order and nobody could be found. It wasn’t anything serious. It certainly wasn’t serious enough to call you out for specially. It is all over and done with now, in any case.’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife smiled, a trifle grimly.

‘But madam, Mrs Lian sent someone round to my place to say that you were asking for me.’

‘If I was, it was under the impression that you were still here,’ said You-shi. ‘I suppose it must be Zhou’s wife who told Mrs Lian about this. She need not have done so. It was really nothing of any consequence. Please go back home to bed.’

Li Wan was on the point of telling Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife what the trouble was, but You-shi would not let her. Since evidently neither lady was going to tell her, Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife took her leave. Just as she was coming out of the Garden gate, she ran into Aunt Zhao.

‘Good gracious me! Still on your feet at this hour, Mrs Lin?’ said Aunt Zhao. ‘I’d have thought you’d be at home and tucked up in bed by now!’

‘I was at home,’ said Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, and proceeded to tell Aunt Zhao why she had been called out (for she had privately found out the reason for the summons before going into the Garden).

‘Well, fancy calling you out for a piddling little thing like that!’ said Aunt Zhao indignantly. ‘She should either have ignored it altogether, if she was feeling generous, or if she was in an unforgiving mood, had the women given a few whacks and that would have been the end of the matter. There was no need to drag you out specially. I won’t ask you in for a cup of tea now, you’ll probably be wanting to get back to bed.’

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife continued on her way to the side gate where her carriage was waiting. The young daughters of the two imprisoned women were lying in wait for her there and, when they saw her coming, tearfully entreated her to intercede for their mothers. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife merely laughed at them.

‘Silly children! Those mothers of yours ought not to drink so much or be so free with their tongues – that’s the cause of all this trouble. I don’t know what makes them do it. It’s Mrs Lian who had them tied up and I’m in trouble myself now, so I don’t know what I can do to help them.’

The two daughters, being only little girls and of very limited understanding, continued to blubber and entreat and clung so obstinately to Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife that she was unable to get into her carriage. She rounded on one of the two girls exasperatedly.

‘Stupid creature!’ she said. ‘What do you want to come hanging around me for when you could find help elsewhere? Wasn’t your elder sister married to Mrs Fei’s boy recently? Mrs Fei came here with Lady Xing when she was married. If you were to tell your sister about this and get her to have a word with Mrs Fei and Mrs Fei spoke about it to Lady Xing, that would be the end of the mattér.’

Glad to be reminded, the girl went scampering off immediately; but the other girl continued to entreat. Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife shoved her off impatiently.

‘You really are a stupid child! Didn’t I just say that if she has a word with her sister that will be the end of the matter? That means they’ll both be let off. You surely don’t think they’d let her mother off and give yours a beating?’

She got into her carriage then and drove back home.

The first little girl went and told her sister, as Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife had told her to, and the sister at once repeated the story to her mother-in-law, Goody Fei. This Goody Fei was a notorious trouble-maker, whose first reaction to the story was a stream of invective, fully audible to the occupants of all the neighbouring courtyards, after which she went to solicit help from Lady Xing.

‘It’s my boy’s mother-in-law, my lady: she only had a few words with a maid of Mrs Zhen’s, but that Zhou woman told such a pack of lies about her to Mrs Lian that she had my boy’s mother-in-law and the woman that was with her tied up and shut in the stables and in a few days’ time she’s going to have them both beaten. Do, please, my lady, put in a good word with Mrs Lian and ask her to let them off.’

Ever since the Faithful fiasco Grandmother Jia’s attitude towards Lady Xing seemed to have hardened, whilst Xi-feng’s stature seemed to have grown at her mother-in-law’s expense. The jealousy and resentment that Lady Xing felt as a consequence of this had recently been exacerbated by an imagined slight: the passing over of Ying-chun when the Dowager Princess of Nan-an asked to see the Jia girls and Tan-chun was the only one of the three to be called. Mischief-makers were not wanting to play upon her resentment, in this case representing Xi-feng’s action as a deliberate attack on her authority.

Her hatred of Xi-feng had now reached a degree of intensity that went beyond all reason.

Early next morning she went to pay her respects to Grandmother Jia. This was the junior clansmen’s day. When Lady Xing got there, the junior clansmen had already arrived and the players were waiting to begin. Grandmother Jia always enjoyed meeting young people, and so today she was appearing in person to receive their congratulations, dressed in her ordinary clothes, since this was a family party and the guests were all her juniors. She was reclining in the middle of the rear part of the hall on a large wooden couch furnished with a back-rest and bolsters and a footstool in front of it in case she should wish to sit upright. Around her couch were ranged a number of identical stools on which Bao-chai, Bao-qin, Dai-yu, Xiang-yun, Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun were sitting. Of the twenty or so girls of their generation whose mothers had brought them there on this occasion two, Jia Bin’s sister Xi-luan and Jia Qiong’s sister Si-jie, had, on account of their good looks, well-spokenness and charming manners, found particular favour with Grandmother Jia and been invited to sit on stools with the other seven. Bao-yu sat up on the couch with his grandmother and massaged her legs for her. Aunt Xue had been given the place of honour in the ordering of the feast and the two lines of tables which rayed out on either side were occupied by the other ladies according to their husbands’ seniority in the clan. The men sat on the verandah at either side of the hall, also in order of seniority.

Presently the birthday ceremony began. The female members of the clan were the first to make their kotows. The males would have come next, but Grandmother Jia lay back on the couch and sent someone outside to excuse them. Then Lai Da arrived with the male domestics. They knelt down, row upon row of them, from the ornamental gate all the way up to the steps at the foot of the hall, to make their kotows. After them it was the turn of the married women, and after them of the maids. Something like the time it would take to eat two or three meals must have elapsed before all the kotowing was over. Next a number of bird-cages were set down in the middle of the courtyard and the birds released from them. Then Jia She and the other seniors supervised the burning of paper offerings to Heaven-and-Earth and Old Longevity. Only then did the drinking and the play-acting begin.

Grandmother Jia remained until the players’ mid-day interval before retiring to rest in her own room. She insisted that those of them who had escorted her there should go back and enjoy themselves, and asked Xi-feng to arrange for Xi-luan and Si-jie to stay on for a couple of nights after the party.

Xi-feng went off to speak to the girls’ mothers. Both had received favours from her in the past and were only too happy to comply with anything she asked them, and the girls themselves were of course delighted at the prospect of playing in the Garden all day and not having to go home for the night.

Lady Xing bided her time until the evening; then, just as everyone was getting ready to go, she went up to Xi-feng in front of all the others and made her a request.

‘I understand that you became angry with two old women last night and sent Zhou Rui’s wife to have them tied up. I don’t know what crime they had committed and it isn’t of course my business to interfere, but it does seem to me that Lady Jia’s birthday is an occasion when we should all be doing our utmost to help, those less fortunate than ourselves – giving money and free rice to the old and needy and that sort of thing – hardly a time for maltreating aged domestics. Could you not see your way to releasing them, for Lady Jia’s sake, if not for mine?’

Having said that, she got into her carriage and drove away.

The humiliation of being addressed like this in front of so many people filled Xi-feng with anger and confusion. Her face turned a dusky red colour and for some moments she was so taken aback that she was unable to speak; then, turning to Lai Da’s wife, she said, with a forced laugh:

‘But this is ridiculous! Last night I heard that some of our people had been rude to Mrs Zhen, and as I was afraid that she might be feeling vexed about it, I naturally had them tied up so that they could be placed at her disposal. It wasn’t me they had offended. I wonder what tale-bearing busybody is responsible for carrying this story next door?’

‘What exactly happened last night?’ asked Lady Wang.

Xi-feng explained.

‘I didn’t even know about this myself,’ said You-shi, laughing. ‘Really, Feng, I think you were a trifle officious.’

‘I was concerned about you,’ said Xi-feng.’ You had been insulted. It was a natural courtesy to place them at your disposal. Suppose I was at your place and some of your people insulted me? Wouldn’t you send them over to me for me to deal with? I thought that was a general principle which all of us observed, even if the servant in question was a highly valued one. Some meddlesome person has blown this incident up out of all proportion for the sake of stirring things up next door. I shouldn’t have thought myself that it was worth mentioning even.’

‘Your mother-in-law was quite right,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Cousin Zhen’s wife is one of us. There was no need for such empty courtesies in her case. Grandmother’s birthday is much more important. The women ought to be released.’

Xi-feng’s humiliation was now complete. A feeling of such wretchedness came over her that she could no longer hold back the tears of anger that had been collecting in her eyes. Not wishing them to be seen, she rushed back to her own apartment to weep alone.

She had hardly got back, though, when Grandmother Jia sent Amber round to summon her. Amber noticed with surprise that she had been crying.

‘Hullo, what’s all this about? She’s waiting to ask you about something.’

Xi-feng wiped away her tears, washed and dried her face, and put on a fresh lot of make-up before accompanying Amber back to Grandmother Jia’s apartment.

‘How many of the people who sent presents gave me screens?’ the old lady asked Xi-feng when she arrived.

‘Sixteen,’ said Xi-feng. ‘There were twelve big screens and four little kang screens. The biggest screen was from the Zhens of Nanking: a twelve panel folding screen with a scene in silk tapestry on crimson satin from A Heap of Honours on one side and Symbols of Longevity in powder-gold on the other. There’s also quite a good enamelled screen from Admiral Wu’s lady.’

‘Yes, well don’t do anything with those two, then,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Just put them by somewhere where they will be safe. I want to give them to someone as a present.’

Faithful went over to Xi-feng and peered into her face.

‘What are you staring at her like that for?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Haven’t you seen her before?’

‘I was wondering why her eyes are so swollen,’ said Faithful.

‘Come over here,’ Grandmother Jia commanded, and scrutinized Xi-feng herself.

‘It’s because my eyes were itching and I’ve been rubbing them,’ said Xi-feng.

‘Are you sure someone hasn’t been upsetting you?’ said Faithful, laughing.

‘Who would dare?’ said Xi-feng. ‘And even if they had, I wouldn’t dare to cry on Her Old Ladyship’s birthday.’

‘I should think not indeed,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’m just going to have dinner now. You can stay with me and watch me eat it, and then you and Zhen’s wife can share what’s left over. The two of you can help these sisters here to pick up Buddha beans.’ She indicated the pair of nuns whose presence Xi-feng had been vaguely aware of on entering. ‘It will add some years to your life. I let Bao-yu and the girls do it the other day. Now you two must have a go as well, so that no one can accuse me of favouritism.’

While she was speaking, the table had been laid and a meatless meal served for the two nuns. Then, when they had eaten, a meal with meat in it was served for Grandmother Jia. When she in turn had finished, the remains of her meal were carried into the outer room for Xi-feng and You-shi to eat. They had already started when Grandmother Jia had Xi-luan and Si-jie sent for to join them. After they had finished and washed their hands, some incense was lit and a pint of beans brought in, over which the two nuns chanted some prayers. The two young women, each armed with a pair of chopsticks, then had to pick the beans up one by one and drop them into a basket, to be boiled next day and given away to passers-by in the street. While they were thus engaged, Grandmother Jia reclined on her couch and listened to edifying stories told her by the two nuns.

Faithful had heard from Amber about Xi-feng’s crying and had been over to Xi-feng’s apartment herself to find out the reason for it from Patience. Late that evening, when everyone else had left, she spoke about it to Grandmother Jia.

‘Mrs Lian is still crying. It’s because she was shamed in front of everyone by Lady Xing.’

‘Oh?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Why was that?’

Faithful told her.

‘I think Feng acted quite correctly,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Surely we’re not going to allow our slaves to insult everyone with impunity just because it’s my birthday? I expect this was Lady Xing’s way of getting her own back for some grudge or other that she hadn’t had the courage to tackle her about at the time. It’s hard to see what other motive she could have had for humiliating her in public’.

Just at that moment Bao-qin came in and the subject had to be dropped. Bao-qin’s presence reminded Grandmother Jia of her two young visitors. She called one of her women to her and gave her a message about them which she was to convey to the principal womenservants in the Garden.

‘Tell them they must treat them just as they do our own young ladies. Anyone I hear of behaving disrespectfully to either of them will be punished mercilessly.’

‘Better let me go,’ said Faithful, before the woman had had time to get away. ‘They’ll never listen to her.’

She went off at once into the Garden. Her first call was at Sweet-rice Village; but neither Li Wan nor You-shi was there. The maids there told her that they were in Tan-chun’s apartment with the others, so she retraced her footsteps and called in at Autumn Studio. She found Li Wan and You-shi in the Paulownia Room engaged in a conversation, punctuated by frequent bursts of laughter, with the rest of the Garden’s little society. They welcomed Faithful with smiles and urged her to be seated.

‘What are you doing here at this late hour?, they asked her.

‘I suppose I’m allowed to walk in the Garden if I want to,’ said Faithful, and passed on Grandmother Jia’s message about Xi-luan and Si-jie.

Li Wan rose respectfully to receive it and at once sent someone to transmit it to the heads of all the apartments and instruct them to pass it on to their subordinates.

‘Lady Jia has wonderful foresight,’ You-shi commented drily. ‘We energetic younger ones may tie up a dozen servants, but we are still not so effective as her.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Li Wan. ‘Cousin Feng may not quite come up to Lady Jia’s standard, but she doesn’t do too badly. Personally I find her foresight quite uncanny. Certainly I could never hope to match it.’

‘You should have said “poor Cousin Feng”,’ said Faithful. ‘She’s in a bad way at the moment. During all the years she has been managing things she may not have put a foot wrong as far as Their Ladyships are concerned, but she has given a great deal of offence elsewhere. A daughter-in-law’s life must be pretty impossible. If she is too meek and mild her in-laws will complain that she is stupid and the servants won’t respect her, yet if she shows any initiative, there is always another set of problems rising up behind her back for every one that she deals with. In our household, where there are a certain number of mistresses who used once themselves to be maids, it’s particularly difficult. Such people are so full of their own importance that they are always taking offence, and if they are the slightest bit crossed in anything they begin spreading stories about you or finding other ways of stirring up trouble. I haven’t so far liked to say anything to Her Old Ladyship about this for fear of making her angry. If I ever do, people had better watch out, because then the sparks will begin to fly, I can tell you! Perhaps I shouldn’t say this in front of you, Miss Tan, but you know how certain people are always carrying on about the way Her Old Ladyship makes a favourite of Bao-yu. Well now apparently that doesn’t matter any more. That’s just a “natural preference”. Now it seems they’re angry because Her Old Ladyship has been favouring you. Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous?’

‘There are a lot of very silly people about,’ said Tan-chun. ‘One really can’t be bothered with what they say. I often think how nice it would be to live in a smaller household, even if it meant being poorer. Think how delightful it would be to have just oneself and one’s parents and one or two brothers and sisters living together as one happy little family! People look at our great household and all its wealth and think how happy we must be; they don’t realize that the vexations far outweigh the advantages.’

‘You’re much too thin-skinned, Tan,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’m always telling you: you should pay no attention to what vulgar people say or do but concentrate on enjoying the luxuries and opportunities that wealth and position make available to us. Others who lack these things have some reason to complain. Why make yourself miserable when you have got them?’

‘We can’t all be as happy-go-lucky as you are,’ said You-shi. ‘All you think about is amusing yourself with the girls, eating when you are hungry and sleeping when you are tired. Each year to you is like the last. You haven’t a thought in your head about the future.’

‘It’s the time I spend with the girls here that really matters,’ said Bao-yu. ‘If I die, I die. What do I care about the future?’

Li Wan and the others laughed.

‘That’s a silly way to talk. Even if you don’t do anything with your life and spend all the rest of it in here, you surely don’t think that the girls will be staying with you as well? They’ll all be going off to get married.’

‘I can understand why people say your growth has all gone into good looks,’ said You-shi. ‘You really are a silly fellow.’

‘Man’s life is uncertain,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Which of us knows when his time will come? Even if I die today or tomorrow or this year or next year, at least I shall have lived my life as I wanted to.’

The others would hardly let him finish what he was saying.

‘Worse and worse! Best not encourage him. What he was saying just now was simpleton’s talk, but this is raging lunacy!’

‘Don’t talk about dying, Cousin Bao,’ said little Xi-luan. ‘Lady Jia and Lady Wang are sure to feel lonely when all the girls have gone. I will come here and help you keep them company.’

Li Wan and You-shi both laughed.

‘Now you are talking like a simpleton, young lady. Don’t you think you will be getting married then as well?’

Xi-luan was overcome with bashfulness and hung her head.

The first watch was just sounding. They got up then and returned to their various apartments for the night.

On her way back to Grandmother Jia’s, Faithful observed that one of the side gates of the Garden was shut but not yet barred. There was no one about. A faint light burned in the duty-room and a sliver of moon half-way up the sky shed a feeble radiance from above. As she had no companion to talk to, carried no lantern, and was walking softly, the women in the duty-room seemed not to have noticed her. She had for some time been wanting to empty her bladder, and this seemed as good an opportunity as any for doing so. She left the path and began looking for a place where the grass was not too high to squat down in.

She had found what looked like a good spot under a large osmanthus tree behind a Tai-hu rock and was just making her way round the side of the rock to reach it when a rustle of clothing caused her to jump almost out of her skin. By straining her eyes she could make out two human shapes. They melted into the bushes at her arrival, but Faithful had very sharp eyes, and before they disappeared, the faint moonlight had enabled her to identify one of them by the red top, bouffant hair-style, and tall, somewhat heavy build, as Ying-chun’s head maid, Chess. She assumed that Chess and some other girl had been using the place as a convenience and had hidden themselves in the bushes when they saw her coming, intending to jump out at her presently and give her a scare.

‘Chess, come out of there!’ she called. ‘If you frighten me I shall scream, and then you will be taken for a thief. This is no time to be playing monkey-tricks, a big girl like you!’

These words were spoken in jest with no other motive than to prevent Chess jumping out and scaring her, but to Chess’s guilty conscience they seemed to imply that the secret she was hiding had been discovered. She was terrified that Faithful might cry out and others get to know about it as well, which would be even more frightful; and as Faithful had always been kind to her in the past, she resolved to throw herself on her mercy. Running out of the bushes, she knelt down and clung to her imploringly.

‘Faithful, I beg of you, for God’s sake don’t cry out!’

Not knowing what to make of this exaggerated reaction to her words, Faithful hastily pulled her to her feet.

‘Well, well, what’s all this about?’

Chess seemed unable to reply, but her body was trembling all over. Faithful was more mystified than ever. She looked again in the direction from which Chess had just come and saw a figure lurking there. It looked like a boy’s. She began to guess the reason for Chess’s terror. A sickening embarrassment made her own heart beat faster and she could feel her face burning to the very tips of her ears. She was afraid, too. After a brief silence in which she managed to recover some of her composure, she asked Chess, in a tremulous whisper, who ‘that other person’ was. Chess sank once more to her knees.

‘He’s my cousin, Faithful,’ she said faintly, ‘my father’s sister’s son.’

Faithful made a scornful sound, as if she did not believe her; but she was still too embarrassed to say anything.

‘There’s no need to hide,’ Chess called out softly to the boy. ‘My friend here had already seen you. Come out quickly and kotow.’

The boy darted out from the cover of the tree, threw himself on his knees in front of Faithful, and began knocking his head on the ground as if he were pounding garlic in a mortar. Faithful wanted to turn away, but Chess clung to her tearfully and beseechingly.

‘Our lives are in your hands, Faithful. Be merciful!’

‘Of course I shall; you don’t need to ask,’ said Faithful. ‘Tell him to go away. Whatever happens, I shan’t tell anyone. There’s no need for all this drama.’

Before she had finished speaking, a voice could be heard from the direction of the corner gate.

‘Miss Faithful’s already gone out. We can bar the gate now.’

Chess was still clinging to her so hard that Faithful could not get away. She had to call out to the woman from where she stood.

‘No, I’m still here. I’ve been doing something. Just a second: I’ll be out directly.’

Chess, when she heard her say that, was obliged to let her go. The rest will be told in the following chapter.

Chapter 72

Wang Xi-feng refuses to see a doctor And Brightie’s wife seeks help with a betrothal

As Faithful went out of the corner gate, her cheeks were still burning and her heart was beating wildly. What an extraordinary encounter – and how unexpected! She began to consider what the consequences would be if she were to tell anyone. A crime involving both sexual delinquency and illicit entry could cost the offenders their lives – and other persons might well be implicated. She resolved to keep her discovery to herself. ‘After all,’ she reflected, ‘it is really no business of mine.’ And so, when she got back to Grandmother Jia’s apartment, she gave only a routine account of her mission and went to bed without telling anyone about her experience.

But what of Chess? She and her father’s sister’s son – the boy whom Faithful had discovered with her in the Garden – had often played together as little children. In those days they were childhood sweethearts, innocently vowing, before they even knew the full meaning of the vow, that they would be husband and wife when they grew up or else would never marry. The years passed by and each grew up into a good-looking adolescent. Significant looks would pass between them when they saw each other during Chess’s occasional visits home, and they knew, without needing to tell each other, that the childhood bond between them was as strong as ever. As they were both dreadfully afraid that their parents would oppose their meeting, they contrived – he working on his side and she on hers – to buy the support of the Garden women, so that gates might be left conveniently unbarred and notice obligingly be given when the coast was clear; and now, today, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the birthday celebrations, they had met for the first time inside the Garden. They had not yet reached the point of physical union when Faithful surprised them, but they had exchanged vows and keepsakes and passionate endearments and were not far off it. Shortly after their discovery by Faithful, the boy managed to dodge away through the bushes and slip out of the corner gate unseen.

Chess did not sleep that night. She lay awake until dawn, bitterly regretting that she had ever agreed to the assignation. Meeting Faithful next day caused her to go hot and cold by turns, and all day long she felt as wretched and uncomfortable as if she were carrying a devil’s child inside her. She had lost all her appetite for food and drink, and whether sitting or standing felt equally jumpy and ill at ease. This continued for two days. When two days had gone by and still nothing had happened, she began to feel a little easier.

But then one morning one of the old women from the Garden gate came round and whispered some news to her.

‘Your cousin’s run away. He hasn’t been home now for three or four days. They’re out everywhere looking for him.’

A wave of mingled alarm, anger and grief swept over her.

‘Even if she’d told, he ought to have stayed,’ she thought, ‘and we could have died together. How can he love me, running away like that, without even waiting to find out?’

As a result of this latest shock she woke up next morning with a feeling of weakness inside her, and after trying unsuccessfully for a while to drag herself around, was forced to go back and lie down. This time she was ill in earnest.

When Faithful heard that one of the boys had unaccountably run away and that Chess was so ill that there was already talk of moving her out of the Garden, she was sure that in either case it was fear that she might betray them that had been the cause. So concerned did she feel about this that, on the pretext of paying a sick visit, she went to see Chess and reassure her. As soon as she could get the others out of the room, she swore a most solemn oath that she would never give her away.

‘So just stop worrying and get better.’ she told her. ‘You are too young to throw your life away because of a thing like this.’

Chess clung to her hand and wept.

‘Dear Faithful! We’ve known each other now since we were little girls. You have always been nice to me, and I have always respected you. If you really don’t tell anyone about this stupid mistake of mine, I promise to honour you as if you were my mother. From now on, each day I live will be a day I owe to you. If I get better, I shall set up a tablet with your name on it and kotow and burn incense to it every day and pray that you may have a long and happy life. But if I die, then I hope I may be reborn as a dog or an ass, if only I can have the chance to repay you.’

She went on to say much more in this vein, the tears all the while streaming down her cheeks, so that Faithful herself became affected and began to cry as well.

‘It’s your own imagination that is making you so ill,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘Why should I want to go out of my way to destroy your reputation? To win someone’s approval? Surely you know me better than that? In any case, I am much too shy to talk about such things. Please stop worrying. From now on you must start getting better. And when you are better, try to live a little more sensibly in future. Don’t go getting yourself into scrapes like this again.’

Chess nodded her head vigorously upon the pillow. After speaking a few more words to comfort her, Faithful took her leave.

Faithful had noticed that Xi-feng had been somewhat off colour during these past few days. She happened to know that Jia Lian was out and thought she might as well drop in on Xi-feng on her way back and ask how she was. The servants on the inner gate stood up as she approached and remained standing until she disappeared into Xi-feng’s courtyard. As she entered the reception room, Patience was just emerging from inside. She smiled when she saw Faithful and hurried up to her.

‘She’s just eaten and now she’s having an afternoon nap,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Come into the other room and we’ll have a chat.’

At her insistence Faithful accompanied her into the room on the east side of the reception room and sat down with her. A junior maid poured them both some tea.

‘Tell me, what’s been the matter with your mistress during these past few days?’ said Faithful. ‘She seems so lethargic.’

Patience sighed.

‘It’s not just these last few days,’ she said, having first looked round to make sure that no one else was within hearing. ‘It goes back a month at least. It’s just that all the work of the last few days and that upset with Lady Xing coming on top of it have made her worse, so that people are beginning to notice.’

‘In that case why doesn’t she call a doctor?’

‘My dear Faithful,’ said Patience, ‘surely you know our Mrs Lian better than that? It’s not just calling a doctor or taking medicine that she objects to. Sometimes, because I can’t bear to see her looking so ill, I’ll ask her, quite casually, “How do you feel today?”; but even that will be enough to make her angry. She says there’s nothing wrong with her and that I’m trying to make her ill by talking about it. In spite of feeling so poorly, she still insists on keeping up with everything that goes on in the household. It worries me. How can she ever get better if she herself won’t face up to the fact that she is ill?’

‘She really ought to call a doctor,’ said Faithful. ‘Surely it would be a relief just to know what she is suffering from?’

Patience sighed.

‘Whatever it is, if you ask me, it’s something pretty serious.’

‘Oh?’ said Faithful. ‘What kind of trouble is it then?’

Patience leaned forwards and spoke very softly into her ear.

‘During this past month, ever since she had her last period, it’s been drip-drip, drip-drip all the time. Surely that’s serious, isn’t it?’

‘Aiyo!’ said Faithful. ‘It sounds as if the blood-gate has burst.’

Patience gave a little laugh.

‘Oh Faithful, you are a baby! What a thing to say! Poor Mrs Lian!’

Faithful coloured, and she laughed as well, a trifle sheepishly.

‘Well I don’t know what it means myself. It’s just that I heard them saying it about my elder sister. You’ve probably forgotten: she died of something rather like this. I was too young at the time to know what was the matter with her, but I remember hearing my mother talking about it to my sister’s mother-in-law and one of them saying “The blood-gate’s burst” and wondering at the time what it could mean. Later on, when I heard more about her illness, I thought I understood, but I don’t suppose I did really.’

While they were talking, a little maid came in with a message.

‘Old Mrs Zhu has been again. We told her the mistress had just laid down for her afternoon nap so she went off to Lady Wang’s room.’

Patience nodded.

‘Which Mrs Zhu is that?’ said Faithful.

‘She’s an official marriage-broker working for one of the yamens,’ said Patience. ‘She’s come on behalf of Sir Sun Somebody-or-other who wants one of our young Jia ladies for his son. Old nuisance! She’s been around here every day during the past few days, flashing her card at everyone.’

At that moment another little maid came hurrying into the room.

‘Mr Lian’s back!’

Patience hurried out to meet him as he stepped into the reception room outside. He began walking into the side room, since it was the room that Patience had just come out of, but halted on the threshold when he caught sight of Faithful sitting inside on the kang.

‘Ah, my dear Faithful!’ he said, smiling broadly. ‘What favourable wind has blown you to our humble abode?’

Faithful smiled back at him. She made no effort to get up.

‘I came here to pay my respects to you and Mrs Lian, but one of you was out and the other one was having a nap.’

‘You’re so busy all the year round waiting on Her Old Ladyship,’ said Jia Lian, still smiling, ‘it’s we who should come to see you, not the other way round.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of fact it’s rather a stroke of luck that you have come here today. I was on my way to see you just now. The only reason I dropped in here was because this gown I am wearing is too hot and I wanted to change into something cooler before going on to see you. But God is good to me, it seems: your being here means that I am saved the trouble of going out again.’

He sat himself down in a chair.

‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’ said Faithful.

Jia Lian gave a preliminary laugh.

‘Something I’ve forgotten about that you may perhaps remember. On Her Old Ladyship’s birthday last year some travelling monk made her a present of a Buddha’s hand modelled in coloured wax. She was so taken with it that she immediately had it put on display somewhere where she could admire it. When I was going through the inventory of her ornaments the other day in preparation for these birthday celebrations, I found an entry for the thing but couldn’t discover where it had got to; and as I wasn’t able to tick it off on the inventory, the steward of the ornaments room has been on to me a couple of times since then asking me to find out where it is. Do you know? Has Her Old Ladyship still got the thing on display somewhere in her own apartment, or has she handed it over to someone else?’

‘After she’d had it on display for a couple of days, she grew tired of it and gave it to Mrs Lian,’ said Faithful. ‘I don’t know why you should be asking me about it! I can even remember the day, and the person I sent round with it. It was Old Wang’s wife. You should ask Mrs Lian or Patience about it. They will tell you.’

Patience, who had just been seeing to some clothes, came hurrying in again.

‘Certainly she gave it to us. It’s upstairs here in the loft. Mrs Lian long ago sent someone to tell the steward that we’d got it. I suppose he was too lazy to make a note of it at the time. It’s too bad that he should be making a fuss about it now.’

‘If she gave it to your mistress,’ said Jia Lian, ‘how is it that I don’t know anything about it? I think you must have been hiding it from me.’

‘The mistress did tell you about it,’ said Patience. ‘You wanted to give it to someone as a present, but the mistress wouldn’t let you. She had a terrible job persuading you to let her keep it. Fancy your forgetting – and then having the nerve to accuse us of hiding it from you! If we were going to start hiding things from you, we could do a bit better than that! We have been given things ten times more valuable, but invariably you have been told.’

Jia Lian looked down smilingly and reflected, then clapped his hands suddenly as he remembered.

‘Why yes, of course. How stupid of me! I’m forgetting everything these days; no wonder people get so cross with me. I’m not the man I was!’

‘It’s hardly surprising,’ said Faithful. ‘You have so much to do and so many people to deal with. By the time you’ve had a couple of drinks, you can’t be expected to remember very much!’

She got up to go. Jia Lian too rose to his feet.

‘Do stay a little longer. I want to ask you a favour.’

He turned rather crossly to one of the junior maids.

‘Can’t we have some better tea than this? Get some clean cover-cups and use some of that tea we were given yesterday.’

He turned back to Faithful.

‘During these past few days, because of Her Old Ladyship’s birthday celebrations, we’ve got through the last few thousand taels we had. Our house-rents and land-rents aren’t due in until the ninth month. Until then we have nothing. Yet soon we shall be having to buy presents for the Princess of Nan-an’s birthday, and there are the presents we shall have to send to Her Grace on the Double Ninth and various weddings and funerals to provide for. We need at least two or three thousand taels to pay for these things. It would be difficult to borrow that much outside at present; and as they say self-help is the best help, I am turning to you to ask if you would be prepared, for all our sakes, to commit a very tiny little crime. Could you possibly look out a few gold and silver things that Her Old Ladyship would not be likely to miss and smuggle a boxful of them out to me – enough for me to raise about a thousand taels on – just to tide us over the next week or two? As soon as our money comes in I shall redeem them and give them back to you. I promise you shan’t get into any trouble.’

Faithful smiled.

‘Nobody can say you aren’t ingenious. Whatever will you think of next?’

‘Look, I’m not just saying this to flatter you,’ said Jia Lian, ‘but though I know plenty of other people who have a thousand taels’ worth of stuff in their keeping, they none of them have your courage or intelligence. If I made a proposal like this to one of them, I’d frighten the wits out of them. That’s why I turn to you. Better one stroke of the big bell than a thousand tinkles on the little cymbal!’

At that moment one of the junior maids from Grandmother Jia’s apartment came in. She seemed somewhat out of breath.

‘Her Old Ladyship wants you. I’ve been ages looking for you. I never thought you would be here.’

Faithful hurried out after her. Jia Lian went inside to see Xi-feng.

Xi-feng had, as a matter of fact, been awake for some time. She had heard Jia Lian make his request but, not liking to intervene, had remained lying where she was. She knew that Faithful had left.

‘Well?’ she asked as Jia Lian entered. ‘Is it settled?’

‘Not quite,’ said Jia Lian, smiling. ‘As good as. I think if you were to go over and have a word with her, it would tip the balance.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me, what you get up to,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Suppose she does agree. Once you’ve got your hands on the money, you’ll like as not forget all your fine promises and just hang on to her stuff. And what can she do then? Nothing. Then suppose Grandmother finds out? Her confidence in me, that it has taken me all these years to build up, will be completely shattered.’

‘Come on, be an angel!’ Jia Lian pleaded. ‘I promise you won’t regret it.’.

‘Why, what will you give me?’ said Xi-feng.

‘Just say,’ said Jia Lian. ‘Anything you like.’

‘I know what to ask him for,’ said Patience, who had been near at hand listening. ‘You know you said earlier there was something you were planning to do that you would need one or two hundred taels for: ask him to let you have two hundred taels of the money he raises on pawn. That ought to suit both of you.’

‘Thank you for reminding me,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Yes, I will.’

‘You are a terrible woman!’ said Jia Lian. ‘Never mind things to pawn, if you had a mind to, you could probably let me have four or five thousand taels cash. All I’m asking you to do is say a few words for me – and even for that you want to charge! No wonder you and I –’

Xi-feng leaped to her feet angrily, breaking in before he could finish.

‘Well, what of it? The “four or five thousand taels” is my own money, isn’t it? I haven’t cheated you Jias out of it. Just about everyone in this establishment nowadays seem to spend their time discussing my shortcomings. It only needed you. Well, they say that when a house is haunted it’s one’s own ghost that invites the others in. Why do you always assume that any money I have must be Jia money? I haven’t noticed that your family is so staggeringly rich. You’re not exactly millionaires, are you? We Wangs could probably keep you going for the rest of your lives just with the sweepings from our floor! I don’t want to boast, but just take a look at the dowries that Aunt Wang and I brought with us when we came here and try matching them, item for item, with things of your own.’

Jia Lian laughed.

‘How you do fly off the handle! I was only joking. You can have a hundred or two hundred taels now if you need them. I couldn’t give you much more than that, but that much at least I can manage. Take it now and speak to her when you’ve spent it. How’s that for an offer?’

‘I’m not in that much of a hurry,’ said Xi-feng. ‘It isn’t pennies for a laying-out I’m after.’

‘Bless my soul, what a passion you’re in!’ said Jia Lian.

Xi-feng laughed.

‘No, I’m not really. But I found what you said just now very wounding. The day after tomorrow is the anniversary of Er-jie’s death. Since we were sisters for a little while, I thought the least I could do was visit her grave and make her a few offerings. She didn’t give us a son, it’s true, but we mustn’t “let the dust of those who have gone before get into the eyes of those who follow”. That’s what I wanted the money for.’

Jia Lian said nothing for some moments. Xi-feng had effectively shut him up.

‘You are very thoughtful,’ he said eventually. Then, after another pause, ‘Since you won’t need the money till the day after tomorrow, we may as well wait and see whether or not Faithful will let us have the things. If she does, you will be able to take what you want after I have pawned them.’

At that moment Brightie’s wife came hurrying in.

‘Well?’ Xi-feng asked her. ‘Is it settled?’

‘No,’ said Brightie’s wife. ‘Nothing doing. It’s as I said: unless we have your backing for it, we shan’t get anywhere.’

‘What’s this?’ said Jia Lian.

‘Oh, nothing serious,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Brightie and his wife have a son who is seventeen this year and not yet married and they wanted to get Lady Wang’s Sunset for him. They haven’t done anything about it previously, because they didn’t know what Lady Wang might have in mind for her. Now it seems that because Sunset has had so much illness during the past year, Lady Wang has sent her back to her parents and said they can choose a husband for her themselves. Brightie’s wife asked me if I would speak to the parents on her behalf, but I thought that as the families were so obviously suited, her parents couldn’t possibly have any objection to the match and that Brightie and his wife would be able to arrange it themselves. But it seems that I was wrong.’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ said Jia Lian. ‘Surely there are plenty of others as good as Sunset they could get for him, or even better?’

‘That’s as may be, sir,’ said Brightie’s wife with a somewhat artificial smile, ‘but if people see that we are not even good enough for the likes of them, it doesn’t do much for our prestige. I took a lot of trouble choosing that girl for him and I hoped that you and Mrs Lian would be so very kind as to settle the matter for us, for I know you could do so if you wished. But Mrs Lian she said no, there was no need, they’d be sure to agree. Well, I got a woman to speak to the parents for me, and now she’s just come back from them with a flea in her ear. I don’t think there’s any objection as far as the girl is concerned. I’ve sounded her out once or twice in the past and as far as I could make out she would be quite willing. It’s that stupid old couple with their high and mighty ideas that are the stumbling-block.’

These words were intended to put Jia Lian and Xi-feng on their mettle; but Xi-feng could hardly take the initiative in her husband’s presence and watched Jia Lian in silence to see what he would do, whilst Jia Lian for his part had too much on his mind to be bothered with anything so trifling. He would probably have ignored it altogether were it not for the fact that Brightie and his wife were rather special servants. Xi-feng had brought them from her father’s house when she was married and they had served her devotedly ever since. Jia Lian realized that to be refused help now that they had openly requested it would be regarded by them as a very great loss of face.

‘Well, it’s hardly a matter calling for so much palaver,’ he said impatiently. ‘Be on your way now and stop worrying about it! I’ll send a couple of senior people tomorrow with the betrothal presents to have a talk with her father and tell him that I am sponsoring the match. If he still holds out against it, I’ll have him over and talk to him myself.’

Brightie’s wife looked questioningly at Xi-feng. In answer to her look Xi-feng made a barely perceptible movement with her lips, whereupon Brightie’s wife got down on her knees and made Jia Lian a kotow.

‘It’s your mistress you should be kotowing to,’ said Jia Lian hurriedly. ‘Although I shall be talking to her father, you’ll still have to persuade your mistress to send for the mother and have a word with her, otherwise it will seem too much like coercion. After all, you’ll want to be on speaking terms with your son’s in-laws after the boy is married.’

‘If you are prepared to take so much trouble on their behalf, you surely don’t think that I am going to stand idly by?’ said Xi-feng. ‘All right, Brightie’s wife, you’ve heard what we are going to do for you: now I want you to do something for me. I want you to ask your husband to chase after all the people I have lent money to and see to it that all the loan accounts are cleared by the end of this year. Tell him I must have every penny back, or he’ll be in trouble! My reputation is quite bad enough already. If I go on lending money at interest for another year, people will be wanting to eat me up alive.’

‘It isn’t like you to be so timid, Mrs Lian,’ said Brightie’s wife, smiling. ‘Who would dare to criticize you? It seems such a shame, after the work we’ve put into this, to call all the money in again.’

‘I don’t want it for myself in any case,’ said Xi-feng; ‘it was a means of supplementing the housekeeping, because without it our expenditure was so much greater than our income. Mr Lian’s and my allowance for the month, including the allowances for four maids, is less than twenty taels: barely enough to keep us going for four or five days. If I hadn’t scraped together a bit of extra on the side, I don’t know what sort of hovel we should have been living in by now. And so now I’ve got myself a bad name. I’m a usurer. Very well, I’ll call it all in again and stop lending money altogether. I can spend money as fast as anyone else – though how we are supposed to manage if we just all sit back and spend without a thought in our heads for the future I fail to understand. Lady Wang spent two months worrying about how she was going to manage for Her Old Ladyship’s birthday. In the end I reminded her about four or five boxes of big, useless bronze things in the rear upstairs store-room and suggested that we should try pawning them. We did, and raised three hundred taels, which was barely enough to tide her over the celebrations. And you know of course about my chiming clock. I sold that for three hundred and sixty taels, but in less than half a month every penny of it had gone into paying bills. Now it seems the menfolk are running short and someone has had the bright idea of trying to get something out of Her Old Ladyship. Another year like this and we shall be pawning our jewellery and our clothes!.’

Brightie’s wife laughed.

‘Well, I dare say every one of you ladies has enough jewellery to keep you all for the rest of your lives, if she had a mind to pawn it.’

‘No doubt it’s silly of me,’ said Xi-feng, ‘but personally I could never bring myself to live like that. – Oh, I must tell you,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘I had rather a funny dream last night. Someone – I didn’t know who he was, though he looked familiar – came and told me that Her Grace had sent him to ask me for a hundred lengths of brocade. I said “Which Her Grace?”. He told me a name, but it was the wrong one, so I refused. Then he came forward and tried to take the stuff from me by force. That was when I woke up.’

‘That’s because your obligations to Her Grace are so much on your mind during the daytime,’ said Brightie’s wife, laughing.

The words were barely out of her mouth when a messenger from the Palace was announced – a little eunuch sent by Xia Bing-zhong, the eunuch Master of the Bedchamber. Jia Lian frowned when he heard the announcement.

‘I wonder what it is this time? You’d have thought he’d had enough out of us already this year.’

‘Make yourself scarce and let me speak to him,’ said Xi-feng. ‘If it’s only a little thing he wants, we needn’t worry; but if it’s something big he’s after, I think I know how to handle this.’

Jia Lian slipped into one of the side rooms at the back, while Xi-feng gave orders for the little eunuch to be brought in. She made him sit down and accept a cup of tea before inquiring about the purpose of his visit.

‘Daddy Xia saw a house today that he would very much like to buy, but he’s two hundred taels short of the price they are asking. He sent me to ask you if you happen to have one or two hundred taels on you you could let him have just for the time being. He will pay you back in a day or two.’

‘Why talk of paying back?’ said Xi-feng genially. ‘We’ve got plenty of money, just help yourselves. Why don’t we just say that if we are ever short of money, we’ll come and borrow some from you.’

‘Oh, Daddy Xia also told me to tell you that he still hasn’t paid back the twelve hundred taels he owes you from the last two times, but he says he will definitely pay it all back to you by the New Year.’

Xi-feng laughed.

‘Your Daddy Xia is an old fuss-pot, tell him. He really shouldn’t worry his head over such trifles. I hope he won’t think I am complaining, but if everyone were as scrupulous as he is about paying back the money they owe us, we should be millionaires. About this money he wants now, though: I wonder if I have got that much ready cash to give him. He’s certainly very welcome to it if I have.’

She called Brightie’s wife to her.

‘Pop out and see if you can get two hundred taels for me, will you? It doesn’t matter where from.’

Brightie’s wife at once caught on to the little game her mistress was playing.

‘I’ve just been trying to get hold of some,’ she said brightly. ‘That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t get any outside, so I thought you might have some.’

‘You people aren’t very resourceful,’ said Xi-feng crossly. ‘Why is it that when you want money you always have to fall back on me?’

She called Patience in.

‘Patience, get out my two gold necklaces and see if you can pawn them for four hundred taels.’

Patience left the room and came back presently with an embroidered box in which were two magnificent collars of jewellery, every bit as fine as any that could be found in the Palace, each carefully wrapped up in a piece of silk brocade. One of them was made of gold wire and pearls the size of lotus-seeds; the other was of kingfisher-feathers and gold, studded with precious stones. She went off with these and returned some time later with the four hundred taels, half of which Xi-feng wrapped up for the little eunuch, while the other half she handed over to Brightie’s wife to buy presents for the Mid-Autumn festival with.

The little eunuch now took his leave. Xi-feng sent someone to carry the money for him as far as the main gate.

‘These people really are a pest!’ said Jia Lian emerging from his hiding-place. ‘There seems to be no end to their borrowing.’

‘Just as I’d been telling you about my dream,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Talk of the devil!’

‘Yesterday it was Chamberlain Zhou,’ said Jia Lian. ‘The first thing he said when he opened his mouth was could I lend him a thousand taels. Because I hesitated a bit before saying yes, he started looking huffy. I can see us making any number of enemies this way. What we need right now is a windfall of forty or fifty thousand taels!’

Patience came in to help Xi-feng wash and change preparatory to going over to wait on Grandmother Jia at dinner. Jia Lian went off to his outside study. He had barely got there when Lin Zhi-xiao came hurrying in, evidently bursting with some news. When Jia Lian asked him what it was, he said that Jia Yu-cun had been demoted.

‘I don’t know what it was for,’ he said. ‘It may not be true, in any case.’

‘Even if it’s not,’ said Jia Lian, ‘he’s sure to get thrown out of that job sooner or later. We’d be well advised to have as little to do with him as possible.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, sir,’ said Lin Zhi-xiao. ‘But that’s easier said than done. Sir She is on very good terms with him, and Sir Zheng likes him. Everyone knows that he is a regular visitor here.’

‘Well, I suppose as long as we don’t get involved in any of his schemes it shouldn’t matter,’ said Jia Lian. ‘You’d better go and make some more inquiries. Find out if he really has been demoted, and if so, what for.’

Lin Zhi-xiao said he would do so, but showed no inclination to leave. Instead he sat down in a chair and began talking to Jia Lian about this and that. Presently they got on to the subject of the household’s financial difficulties. Lin Zhi-xiao took the opportunity of airing his own idea of a solution.

‘We’ve got too big a staff,’ he said. ‘We ought to pick a day when there’s no other business on hand and ask Her Old Ladyship and Sir Zheng if we can’t give some of those older servants who are a bit past it now an honourable discharge. It would be a kindness to them, because they’ve all got little jobs of their own to fall back on, and it would mean a big saving for us in the amount we have to spend every year on wages and keep. And there’s another thing: there are far too many maids. As the proverb says, “The times get worse but never better.” It’s no good trying to live in the style we used to keep up twenty or thirty years ago. If every apartment which in the past used to employ eight girls were now to employ six and those which used to employ four girls were to make do with two; the saving in wages and keep would be enormous. Most of those girls are in any case old enough now to be married. If we pair them off now with our boys, before we know where we are they will be breeding new servants for us.’

‘I’m entirely in agreement with you,’ said Jia Lian. ‘The trouble is that as Sir Zheng has only just got back, he doesn’t want to be bothered with anything yet. At the moment even quite important matters are having to be shelved. We’d never get him to discuss a small domestic matter like this. A couple of days ago an official marriage-broker came round here with all her credentials, wanting to arrange a match between her client’s son and one of our young ladies, but Lady Wang said that Sir Zheng was so happy to be home again with his family all around him – she says he’s hardly stopped talking about “family togetherness” since the day he got back – that she felt sure it would upset him to have to talk about the girls getting married and leaving home, and she forbade anyone to mention it to him.’

‘Why, I’m sure that’s as it should be,’ said Lin Zhi-xiao. ‘Her Ladyship is a very thoughtful lady.’

‘Talking of marriage-brokers, that reminds me,’ said Jia Lian. ‘Our Brightie’s boy wants to marry Sunset from Her Ladyship’s room and Brightie’s wife has been asking me if I would arrange it for them. It seems to me that it’s hardly important enough for that. Could one of you go round and see the girl’s father for me? You could tell him that it has my approval.’

Lin Zhi-xiao agreed to do so, but without much enthusiasm. After a longish pause he added,

‘I think if I was you, sir, I wouldn’t get myself involved. That boy of Brightie’s is only a lad, but already he’s drinking too much and gambling and getting up to all sorts of capers. I know they’re only slaves, but marriage is for a lifetime, after all. I haven’t seen Sunset myself for some years, but by all accounts she’s grown up into a very presentable young woman. It would seem a pity to throw her away on the likes of him.’

‘Oh, so Brightie’s boy has been misbehaving, has he?’ said Jia Lian. ‘It seems to me that it’s not a wife he needs but a thundering good hiding. I think you’d better give him one to get on with and then lock him up and ask his parents what they propose to do about him.’

Lin Zhi-xiao laughed.

‘We don’t have to do that now, surely? Next time he gives trouble, we’ll let you know and you can deal with him then. It doesn’t seem quite the time to tackle him about it now.’

Jia Lian made no reply and Lin Zhi-xiao shortly afterwards got up and left.

That evening Xi-feng summoned Sunset’s mother to her in order to propose the marriage with Brightie’s son. Sunset’s mother had all along been opposed to it, but it was so flattering to have Xi-feng talking to her like this, woman to woman, that she found herself agreeing to everything in spite of herself. When, some time after she had left, Jia Lian returned, Xi-feng asked whether he had spoken yet to the father.

‘No, I haven’t,’ said Jia Lian. ‘I was going to talk to him about it, but then I heard that that boy of Brightie’s is turning out a thoroughly bad lot, so I put it off. If what they told me about him is true, I think we ought to give him a good, sharp lesson or two before we set about getting a wife for him.’

‘None of us Wangs seem to find much favour with you people nowadays,’ said Xi-feng frostily. ‘I suppose since I don’t meet with your approval, it’s hardly surprising that you should be dissatisfied with my servants. I’ve already spoken to her mother about it and she was overjoyed. What am I supposed to do now? Call her in again and tell her it’s all off?’

‘No, no,’ said Jia Lian. ‘If you’ve already arranged it with her mother, it will have to stand. But you’ll have to have a word with Brightie tomorrow and tell him to do something about that boy.’

Our narrative moves at this point to the unfortunate object of these manoeuvrings.

When, some days previous to this, Lady Wang sent Sunset back home to her parents, it was on the express understanding that they might choose for her whatever son-in-law they wished. Brightie’s visits to her parents filled Sunset with fore-boding. Her union with Jia Huan had not yet been approved, but she had long since given her heart to him and knew that she could never be happy with Brightie’s son. When, shortly after that, she learned that Brightie’s son was a drunkard and a gambler and hideously ugly into the bargain, she became even more alarmed. The fear that Brightie and his wife might use their influence with Xi-feng to force her parents to accept the match finally made her so frantic that, on the evening of the day on which these other events took place, she told her younger sister, Moonrise, to go in secret to Aunt Zhao and try to find out exactly what was happening.

Now Aunt Zhao had always got on well with Sunset and had been longing for the day when Sunset could become Jia Huan’s concubine, thus providing her at the same time with an ally. It was an unexpected blow to her when Sunset was sent back home to her parents, and she was constantly urging Jia Huan to go and ask Lady Wang if he might have her for himself; but partly because Jia Huan was too bashful to open his mouth about it, and partly because he did not in any case care about her very much (after all, he thought, she was only a maid; there would be plenty even better than her in the future) he hung back, hoping that the matter would eventually be dropped. But Aunt Zhao did not give up so easily, and the night that Sunset sent her younger sister to see her she tried to enlist Jia Zheng’s support; Jia Zheng was unenthusiastic.

‘What’s the hurry?’ he said. ‘Wait until the boys have spent another year or two at their studies, it will be soon enough then. I’ve already got my eye on a couple of girls, one for Bao-yu and one for Huan, but I think they are too young yet. I am afraid that if they had the girls now, it would get in the way of their studies. You can speak to me about this again in a year or two’s time.’

Aunt Zhao would have gone on trying, but just at that moment there was a loud crash outside which made them both jump.

You will have to look at the next chapter, however, in order to find out what caused it.

Chapter 73

A half-witted servant-girl picks up a highly embarrassing object And an easy-going young mistress refuses to inquire into a theft

As we were saying at the end of the last chapter, Aunt Zhao and Jia Zheng were interrupted in the midst of their discussion by a sudden crash. The maids, when questioned, said that it had been caused by an outer casement of one of the windows falling. It could not have been properly fastened and must have slipped its catch. After first roundly cursing them, Aunt Zhao went outside with them to supervise its replacement. When she came in again, she helped Jia Zheng to settle down for the night. And so we leave them.

Meanwhile, over at Green Delights, Bao-yu had just gone to bed. The maids were themselves on the point of doing so when a sudden knocking was heard at the courtyard gate. The old woman who opened it recognized the caller as a maid of Aunt Zhao’s called Magpie, and asked her what she wanted; but instead of answering, the girl pushed past her and rushed straight inside. She found Bao-yu already lying down, but engaged in bantering conversation with Skybright and a couple of other maids who were sitting on the edge of his bed.

‘What’s the matter?’ they asked when they saw who their visitor was. ‘What brings you out at this hour?’

‘I’ve come to warn you,’ said Magpie, addressing herself in an urgent whisper to Bao-yu. ‘I heard my mistress just now jabbering to Sir Zheng about something, and though I couldn’t make out what they were talking about, I heard him say “Bao-yu” a couple of times. I thought I’d better put you on your guard in case he asks to see you tomorrow about anything.’

She turned and hurried out again as soon as she had finished speaking. Aroma told someone to run after her and ask her to stay for a cup of tea, but she was afraid of being shut inside the Garden when they closed the gate, and insisted on going back immediately.

Bao-yu knew that in Aunt Zhao’s twisted imagination he was regarded as an enemy, and though he did not know what she had said, the mere fact that she had been talking about him was enough to make him feel uncomfortable all over, much as Monkey did when he heard Tripitaka reciting the spell for tightening the iron band round his head. After giving the matter some thought, he concluded that the only practical way in which he could prepare himself for the morrow would be by revising his texts. Should his father take it into his head to test him, he reasoned, then if only he could be word-perfect in his texts, it would not be so difficult to bluff his way through whatever else he might ask him. Having made the decision, he hurriedly threw a gown over his shoulders and prepared to begin some revision, bitterly regretting that Jia Zheng’s silence on the subject of lessons since his last return from duty had lulled him into a false sense of security.

‘I ought to have had more sense,’ he told himself. ‘One really ought to do a little bit every day, to keep in practice.’

He began to reckon up how much he could still recite from memory. He found that there was little more than The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean and the two halves of the Analects that he could be absolutely sure of. The first half of Mencius he knew reasonably well, but certainly not well enough to be able to carry on from any sentence given him at random. The second half was virtually terra incognita. Of the Five Classics he was fairly familiar with the Poetry Classic because he was frequently having to read bits of it in connection with his own versifying. Though far from word-perfect, he probably knew it well enough to scrape through a test. He could not remember any of the other classics at all; but fortunately his father had so far never asked him to study them, so probably it would not matter. When it came to Old Style Prose, the case was rather different. Over the past few years he had read extracts from the Zuo, Gong-yang and Gu-liang commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals and various Han and Tang pieces, but he had only dipped into them as the fancy took him; he had not done any serious work on them. There was certainly no question of his being able to remember them. There was even less likelihood of his being able to pass muster on the Examination Essay. He had always detested this style of writing in any case. The Sage himself didn’t write that way, he argued, so how could one hope to expound the inner meaning of his teachings through such a medium? It was no more than a device used by vulgar fortune-seekers for starting themselves off on the golden road to success. Before he left, Jia Zheng had selected a hundred of these essays for him to read; but Bao-yu had only glanced at them occasionally, reading a paragraph here and a paragraph there as some particularly felicitous expression or the extravagance, humour or melancholy of the writer happened to catch his attention. He had never settled down to the serious analytical examination of even a single essay.

He began to revise; but the trouble was that whatever he revised now, he was sure to be asked about something else next day, and the whole night would not be long enough to revise everything. It soon became apparent that all he was succeeding in doing was getting himself into an even worse state of nerves than he had been in to begin with and, while studying to no purpose himself, preventing a whole roomful of girls from sleeping as well.

Aroma and the other senior maids could at least occupy themselves by trimming his lamp, pouring him cups of tea and so forth; but the younger ones could neither go to bed nor find any employment to keep themselves awake, and sat about the place, drooping and nodding in various attitudes of fatigue. Skybright became indignant.

‘Lazy little wretches! You sleep all day as it is. Just for once in your lives you are asked to stay up late, and look at you! If you don’t liven yourselves up a bit, I shall come and stick pins in you all!’

As she said this, there was a loud bang from the outer room. It turned out to have been caused by a little maid who had dozed off while sitting on the kang and in doing so had bumped her head against the partition. Waking with a start just as Skybright was uttering this threat, she assumed that the bump on the head she had just received must have been dealt her by Skybright. To the great amusement of the other girls she began tearfully begging her for mercy.

‘Oh no! Please, Skybright! I promise I won’t do it again!’

‘Don’t punish her,’ Bao-yu called out. ‘You ought to allow those younger ones to go to bed. And you older ones too – you don’t all need to stay up. You should be taking it in turns to get some sleep.’

‘Little ancestor!’ said Aroma exasperatedly. ‘You get on with your work! Just for this one night try to concentrate all your energies on studying. Once you’ve got over this hurdle, you can make what other arrangements you like!’

She sounded so earnest that for the next few minutes Bao-yu did in fact concentrate on his revision. Musk handed him a cup of tea to moisten his lips with while he recited. In taking it from her he noticed that she had only a short tunic on over her pantaloons.

‘It gets very cold at this time of night,’ he said. ‘You really ought to put something else on.’

Musk smiled grimly and pointed at his book.

‘Just forget about me for a while, could you? Get your mind fastened on this!’

Hardly had she finished saying this than Parfumée – or Aventurin’ as Bao-yu now called her – came running in from outside in a panic.

‘Oh God! A man’s just jumped down from the wall!’

‘Where? Where?’ cried the others, and began shouting for the older servants to go and look.

To Skybright this scare came as a blessing in disguise. Observing what heavy weather Bao-yu was making of his revision and foreseeing that if he wore himself out by staying up all night he would be in no condition for facing his ordeal in the morning, she had been casting about desperately for some means of rescuing him from it altogether. This panic about an intruder gave her an idea.

‘Why don’t you take advantage of this to get off tomorrow?’ she asked him. ‘Tell them that the shock has made you ill.’

This was a suggestion after Bao-yu’s own heart. He had the watch called and ordered them to light their lanterns and make a thorough search. But no intruder could be found.

‘I expect one of you young ladies had to go out for something in the dark and being still half-asleep, took the bough of a tree moving in the wind for a man,’ they said.

‘Nonsense!’ said Skybright. ‘You only say that as an excuse, because you haven’t been keeping watch properly and you’re afraid of getting into trouble. It wasn’t only one of us who saw him; a whole lot of us did; and Bao-yu was with us. The shock of it has made him quite ill. His face looks terrible and he’s burning hot all over. I shall be going over to Her Ladyship’s presently to get him a sedative. She’s sure to ask me what has upset him. What am I supposed to tell her? That he took fright from looking at a tree?’

This seemed to scare the women, for they made no reply but hurried off again to continue their search. Meanwhile Skybright and Aventurin went off to ask for some pills, deliberately making as big a fuss as possible to make sure that everyone knew that Bao-yu had been taken ill as a result of seeing something alarming in the Garden. Lady Wang sent someone to fetch the medicine for the two girls and gave orders for the members of the watch to make a full investigation. She was particularly anxious that the pages from the inner gate who did night duty at the point nearest to the Garden should be subjected to careful questioning. As a result of these orders there was a general hubbub in the Garden throughout all the rest of that night: lanterns and torches bobbing about and people scurrying to and fro in all directions. At four o’clock in the morning the stewards and stewardesses were summoned from their quarters and ordered to investigate all those servants of either sex who had been on night duty in the mansion.

When Grandmother Jia learned that Bao-yu was suffering from shock, she wanted to know why. The others were obliged to tell her.

‘I didn’t expect a thing like this to happen,’ she said. ‘It would be bad enough if the people who are supposed to be keeping us safe at night were merely being careless. What worries me is the thought that some of them may be criminals themselves!’

Lady Xing and You-shi had not long since arrived for their morning duty, and Li Wan, Xi-feng and the girls were also there in attendance. None of them dared say anything. In the end it was Tan-chun who, smiling, stepped forwards and broke the silence.

‘It’s because Cousin Feng hasn’t been very well during these last few months,’ she said. ‘The servants in the Garden have got much more careless than they used to be. At first it was only once in a while: three or four doing night duty on the same shift getting together for a little game of dice or cards to keep themselves awake. But gradually they became more reckless, until now there are regular little card-schools with their own bankers and forty or fifty strings of cash changing hands at a sitting. A fortnight ago it even reached a point where a fight broke out over the cards.’

‘If you knew this at the time, why didn’t you tell anyone?’ said Grandmother Jia with some asperity.

‘I didn’t tell Mother because I knew she was busy and not feeling very well,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I did tell sister-in-law though, and the stewardesses and the women were given several warnings. As a matter of fact, I think they have been a bit more careful since then.’

‘You’re only a child,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘You don’t know how serious this is. You think that gambling is a trifling matter and that the only thing to be feared from it is an occasional quarrel. But where there is gambling, there is probably drinking as well; and if there is drinking, probably gates are being left unlocked so that people can slip out to buy things; and when that happens, before you know where you are they will be letting thieves in – the easiest thing in the world when it is dark and there are so few people about. And then – Heaven help us! – with only you girls living there and the maids and women who wait on you – some of them no better than they should be, I dare say – anything could happen. There are things worse than burglary, the mere suspicion of which could have the direst consequences for all of you. No, this is not a matter to be dismissed so airily!’

After such a snub, Tan-chun could only sit down again in silence.

Xi-feng was still far from well and her usual ebullience was very much in abeyance, but she managed to summon up some energy when she saw how seriously the old lady was displeased. She made a point of observing how unfortunate it was that such things ‘had to happen’ when she was ill, then, sending for Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife and three of the other principal stewardesses, she subjected them to a thorough dressing-down in Grandmother Jia’s and everyone else’s presence. When Xi-feng had finished with them, Grandmother Jia ordered them to find out who the chief organizers were and all the others who had been taking part in the gambling. She empowered them to offer rewards for information and to punish those who withheld it.

Seeing Grandmother Jia so angry, the stewardesses dared not attempt to cover up for their own kinswomen and friends, of whom there were several among the older women of the watch. Going at once into the Garden, they summoned all the women together and proceeded to grill them, one by one, without distinction of persons. They met at first with a certain amount of resistance, but in the end, as will almost invariably happen when the questioning is sufficiently patient and persistent, the waters subsided and the rocks began to appear. By the time they had finished their interrogations it was established that there were three principal organizers, eight subsidiary ones, and a score or more gamblers who had availed themselves of their services. All of these were taken at once to Grandmother Jia’s place, and were soon to be observed kneeling down in rows in her courtyard, knocking their heads upon the pavement and begging for mercy.

Grandmother Jia began by asking for the names of the three principal organizers and the amounts of money in their ‘banks’. Of the three it turned out that one was a cousin on the mother’s side of Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, one a younger sister of Cook Liu, and the other one Ying-chun’s nurse. The other eight organizers, who had operated on a smaller scale, were also named, but their identities need not concern us. Grandmother Jia ordered all the dice and playing-cards to be collected together and burnt. The money from the banks she ordered to be confiscated and divided up among the other servants. She sentenced the principal offenders to receive forty strokes of the heavy bamboo, to be dismissed, and never to be employed by the family again. The others were to receive twenty strokes, lose three months’ pay, and in future be employed in cleaning out the latrines. After passing these sentences, she formally reprimanded Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife for having permitted such things to happen.

Lin Zhi-xiao’s wife, let down by her own relation and twice rebuked in public, was not the only person present to feel humiliated. Ying-chun, sitting among the other cousins next to Grandmother Jia, felt equally humiliated when it was revealed that her own nurse was one of the principal offenders. Dai-yu, Bao-chai and Tan-chun felt sorry for her and rose to intercede for the old woman.

‘Couldn’t you, for Ying-chun’s sake, let her off this once?’ they pleaded. ‘She isn’t an habitual gambler. It’s just that once in a while she gets carried away.’

‘You none of you know what you are talking about,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘These old nannies are all the same. They think that because they suckled you when you were babies it entitles them to special treatment now. They’re worse trouble than all the other servants put together, because whenever they have done wrong they think they can always get you to cover up for them. I know. I have had a lot of experience of these people. I need to make an example of one of them, and this one will do very well. You leave this to me. I know what I am doing.’

The three girls were obliged to let the matter drop.

Soon it was time for the old lady’s siesta and all of those present withdrew. But because they knew she was angry, they did not all go back to their own apartments. Some of them waited around so as to be on hand when she had finished resting. You-shi called in at Xi-feng’s place to chat, but finding Xi-feng too much out of sorts for conversation, went into the Garden to talk to Li Wan and the girls. Lady Xing, too, after sitting for a while at Lady Wang’s place, went off to take a walk in the Garden. She had got no farther than the Garden gate, however, when one of the junior maids from Grandmother Jia’s apartment, a girl called Simple, almost bumped into her. The girl was walking along chuckling delightedly to herself, intent on some brightly coloured object. Because she was so intent on what she was holding, she had not seen Lady Xing coming towards her and only looked up and checked herself when she was almost upon her.

‘Well now, Simple,’ said Lady Xing, ‘you seem very pleased with yourself. What marvellous thing have you got there? Let me have a look.’

Simple, just turned fourteen, had only recently been selected to help with the rough work in Grandmother Jia’s apartment. She had a hefty body, a broad face and an enormous pair of feet. A willing and effective worker in the heavier sort of jobs requiring no intelligence, she was nevertheless so stupid as to be almost half-witted and as ignorant and innocent almost as the day she was born. Much of what she said was unintentionally amusing. Grandmother Jia was endlessly diverted by her and always allowed her mistakes to go unreproved. It was she who had given her the name ‘Simple’. When Simple had no work to do, she would often go into the Garden to play. On this occasion she had gone into the Garden to look for crickets behind the rocks of the artificial mountain just inside the gate, and in doing so, had come upon a beautifully embroidered purse. The design embroidered on it consisted not of the usual birds and flowers, but on one side of a pair of naked human figures locked together in an embrace and on the other of some writing. Simple was too innocent to understand what the naked couple were up to. After giving the matter some thought, she had decided that they must be either two demons fighting or two people wrestling, but could not make up her mind which of these was the correct interpretation. She was on her way, chuckling delightedly over her find, to ask Grandmother Jia’s opinion on the matter when she nearly ran into Lady Xing.

‘I think you’ve said the right word, Your Ladyship,’ said Simple. ‘It is a marvellous thing. You just look!’

Lady Xing took the proffered bag. She examined the picture on it with a start.

‘Where did you find this?’ she asked, seizing Simple roughly by the arm.

‘I found it behind the rocks,’ said Simple, ‘when I was looking for crickets.’

‘Don’t tell anyone else about this,’ said Lady Xing. ‘This is a bad thing, Simple. If you weren’t such a simpleton, they would give you a beating just for touching it. Don’t ever say a word about it to anyone else!’

Simple turned pale with fright.

‘No, no, I won’t.’

She made Lady Xing a kotow and went off, round-eyed, with her mouth gaping foolishly open.

Lady Xing looked around her. There were only maids in sight, and she obviously could not give the embroidered purse to one of them, so she stuffed it up her sleeve. She was very puzzled to think where it could have come from; but no trace of what she felt was allowed to show itself on her face as she made her way through the Garden towards Ying-chun’s apartment.

Ying-chun was still brooding disconsolately over her nurse’s guilt when her mother’s arrival was announced. She hurried out to welcome her. As soon as Lady Xing was seated and had been given tea, she began laying into her.

‘You’re not a child now. If you knew your nurse was doing this sort of thing, for Heaven’s sake why couldn’t you have spoken to her about it? Other people’s nurses don’t seem to get into trouble, why does it have to be yours? I don’t understand you!’

Ying-chun hung her head and fiddled with her sash. It was some time before she answered.

‘I did speak to her about it, on two occasions, but she wouldn’t listen to me. What could I do? She’s my nurse. she’s supposed to tell me what to do, not the other way round.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Lady Xing. ‘She’s entitled to tell you off if you’ve done something wrong, but in a case like this where she was the guilty one, it was up to you to behave towards her like a mistress. Then, if she still wouldn’t obey you, you ought to have come and told me. As it is, you have let things slide until everyone knows about it and all the rest of us are involved in the disgrace. I just don’t know what you think you are at. Incidentally, if she was banker to a card-school, she must have had to get money from somewhere to start it with. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that she’d talked you into lending her clothes or jewellery that she could pawn in order to raise her capital. You’re such a soft, flabby creature, you’d be just as likely as not to lend them to her. Well all I can say is, if she has and you don’t get them back from her, it’s no good coming to me for the money, for I’ve none to give you; so what you will do when festival time comes and you need your things I can’t imagine.’

Ying-chun continued to hang her head and say nothing. Lady Xing found her unresponsiveness provoking.

‘Your mother was one of Sir She’s chamber-wives,’ she said, ‘and your Cousin Tan’s mother was a chamber-wife as well, so you and she had the same sort of start in life. As a matter of fact your mother was ten times better than that Zhao woman, so you ought by rights to be better than your Cousin Tan. But you’re not. You’re not her equal in any single respect. I don’t know, I’d have been better off without any children at all. Those I have only make me look ridiculous.’

‘Mrs Lian is here,’ one of the servants announced.

‘Huh!’ said Lady Xing scornfully; and then again, ‘Huh!’

‘Tell her to go back home and take care of her illness,’ she said to the waiting servant. ‘Tell her I have no need of her services.’

As that servant went out, another one, who had been sent to Grandmother Jia’s place to act as a look-out, came in to report that the old lady was now awake. Lady Xing got up to go. Ying-chun saw her out as far as the courtyard gate.

‘There you are!’ said Tangerine when Ying-chun got back. ‘When I told you the other day that that pearl-and-gold phoenix had disappeared, you wouldn’t even ask about it. I told you that Nannie had probably nicked it to pawn, but you wouldn’t believe me. You said, “I expect Chess is looking after it.” Well, I asked Chess, because although she is ill, she is still perfectly clear in her mind, and she said, “No, I haven’t touched it. It ought still to be in the casket on the bookshelf, ready for wearing at the Mid-Autumn festival.” Now why don’t you send someone to Nannie right away and ask her what she’s done with it?’

‘There’s no need to ask,’ said Ying-chun. ‘It’s perfectly obvious that she took it because she was temporarily out of cash and needed the money from it to tide her over. She quietly removed it when no one was looking, and I assumed that after a few days had gone by, when she was in funds again, she would redeem it and quietly slip it back again. I expect she forgot. In any case, there’s not much point in asking her after what has happened today.’

‘She never forgot!’ said Tangerine. ‘She knew from past experience that you’d never do anything, that’s why she didn’t put it back. I think I know what to do, though. I’ll go and tell Mrs Lian about it, and either she’ll ask Nannie about it herself, or better still, she’ll send someone with a few strings of cash round to the pawnshop and get it back for you straight away.’

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said Ying-chun. ‘Much better leave well alone. I’d rather do without the thing than stir up a lot more trouble.’

‘Why are you so feeble?’ said Tangerine exasperatedly. ‘All this “saving trouble”! One of these days they’ll carry you off with the loot! I’m going, anyway.’

She began to do so. Ying-chun said nothing and made no attempt to prevent her. Unknown to them both, however, Zhu-er’s wife – the daughter-in-law of the old nurse they were talking about – had all this time been listening outside the door. She had come intending to ask Ying-chun to put in a plea for her mother-in-law, but held back when she heard Ying-chun and Tangerine discussing the pearl-and-gold phoenix.

Because Ying-chun was so weak and unassertive, Zhu-er’s wife would not normally have regarded the discovery by her of one of her mother-in-law’s depredations as a matter of very much consequence; but when she heard Tangerine insisting that Xi-feng should be informed, she could see that unless something were done to prevent this, the consequences could be very serious indeed. At this point, therefore, she hurried in to try and stop her.

‘Now, now, Miss Tangerine,’ she said, smiling rather unnaturally, ‘don’t go making trouble! Our old missus was a bit silly about that pearl-and-gold phoenix, I will admit. She’d lost a bit at the cards and couldn’t recoup, so she took it as a loan. Naturally she never expected that all this trouble would break out before she’d had a chance to put it back. But be that as it may, it’s the mistress’s property, and we’ve no intention of forgetting about it. Sooner or later we fully intend to redeem it for her. I’d hardly be here now if we didn’t, would I? I’ve come to ask the mistress, for the sake of the milk she sucked from her as a baby, to go to Her Old Ladyship and plead with her for our old missus.’

‘My dear good woman,’ said Ying-chun, ‘if that is what you are hoping for, then the sooner you disabuse yourself of that hope the better. I am not going to plead for your mother-in-law. You can wait from now until this time next year if you like, but I will still not do it. Miss Bao and Miss Lin and the others have tried already and Her Old Ladyship refused to listen to them. She’s even less likely to listen to me on my own. I have already put up with enough humiliation for one day; I have no intention of going to look for more.’

‘Whether or not you return that phoenix is one thing and whether or not the mistress goes to plead for your mother-in-law is another,’ said Tangerine. ‘Don’t try to confuse the issue. I hope you’re not suggesting that if the mistress doesn’t do what you ask for your mother-in-law, you won’t redeem the phoenix? I think you ought to redeem the phoenix first and start talking about that other matter after you have brought it back.’

Ying-chun’s refusal and Tangerine’s sharp rebuke put Zhu-er’s wife out of countenance and left her momentarily at a loss for words, but she quickly found her tongue again and, as if openly contemptuous of Ying-chun’s easy-going nature, began taking noisy issue with Tangerine in her mistress’s presence.

‘Don’t be so high and mighty, Miss Tangerine! If you look around at the other apartments in this household, you’ll find that there isn’t a single one in which the nannies don’t take some advantage of their position to get a few perks. I don’t see why only in our case you should be so pernickety. If you are a bit light-fingered, of course, that’s another matter! Ever since Miss Xing came to live with us, Lady Xing has insisted on a tae! a month being stopped out of her allowance to help pay for her mother. That means that though we now have two mistresses here in the place of one – with all the extra expenses that that entails – we are having to manage on less money a month instead of more. It’s hardly surprising that the mistresses are always running short. And when they do, who is it that steps in and pays? We do. One way and another, we must have paid out at least thirty taels by now, and from what I can see, it was money down the drain.’

‘Thirty taels?’ said Tangerine indignantly. ‘How do you make that out? Just tell me one or two of the things the mistress is supposed to have asked you for.’

Ying-chun had been made uneasy by the open reference to her mother’s meanness.

‘Now that’s enough!’ she told the woman. ‘If you can’t give the phoenix back, you can’t. There’s no need to go dragging all these other matters into it and shouting them around for everyone else to hear. I don’t want the thing, anyway. If Mother asks me about it, I shall tell her I’ve lost it. At least you won’t have anything to worry about, so you might just as well go away and rest. What’s the point of making all this fuss?’

She told Tangerine to pour her some tea. Tangerine was both angry and alarmed.

‘It’s all very well for you to take that way out, miss, but what about us? Not content with depriving you of your gold phoenix, this woman is now pretending that you’ve been spending their money and proposing to write off the phoenix to offset what they’re supposed to have given you. If Lady Xing hears that and asks how you came to be spending so much, it’s we servants who will take the blame. It isn’t fair!.’

She burst into tears. Chess, who, as she lay ill in bed, had been listening with growing impatience to what the others were saying, could now contain herself no longer. Getting out of bed, she dragged herself over to take Tangerine’s part in the argument. Ying-chun, finding that her single attempt at ending it had failed, picked up a volume of Tai-shang’s Heavenly Rewards and Punishments and began to read.

While Zhu-er’s wife and the two maids were still at it hammer and tongs, Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Bao-qin and Tan-chun arrived. Concerned that Ying-chun might still be feeling distressed about her nurse, they had met together by prearrangement and come over to try and cheer her up. Sounds of the wrangling going on inside were distinctly audible as they entered her courtyard. Tan-chun walked over and, peeping through the window, saw Ying-chun half-reclining on the day-bed reading a book, oblivious to the noisy argument that was going on only a few feet away from her. She laughed. Just at that moment two junior maids raised the portière for the visitors and announced their arrival.

At once Ying-chun put her book down and rose to welcome them. The sight of these newcomers – particularly as Tan-chun was one of them – caused the woman to stop of her own accord and she took the opportunity of slipping quietly outside.

‘Who was that talking in here just now?’ said Tan-chun as she took a seat. ‘It sounded as if someone was having an argument.’

‘Oh, nothing,’ said Ying-chun, pleasantly. ‘Probably only the servants making their usual fuss about nothing. Certainly not anything worth inquiring about.’

‘I’m sure I heard something about a “golden phoenix” just now,’ said Tan-chun. ‘I distinctly heard someone say, “When she’s short of money, she always asks us servants for some.” When Who’s short of money? Not you, Ying, surely? You don’t ask the servants for money, do you?’

‘You’re absolutely right, miss, she most certainly does not,’ said Chess and Tangerine indignantly.

Tan-chun smiled.

‘Well, Ying, if it wasn’t you the woman I heard was talking about, perhaps it was me? You’d better call her inside again and let me ask her.’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ said Ying-chun, laughing. ‘Why be like this? It has absolutely nothing to do with you.’

‘There you are wrong,’ said Tan-chun. ‘You and I are in the same boat. Our circumstances are very similar. What she says affects me as much as it does you. It would be just the same if you were to hear someone at my place complaining about me. You would feel almost as though you were being criticized yourself. As mistresses, you and I are above talking to servants about the petty cash. We may ask them for things sometimes, as and when we require them, but that is another matter. Tell me, though: how did a “pearl-and-gold phoenix” come to be mixed up in this discussion?’

Zhu-er’s wife, terrified lest Tangerine should seize this opportunity to denounce her, came rushing in at this point and tried to put Tan-chun off the scent with her own extremely garbled account of what had happened. But Tan-chun showed that she had a better understanding of the case than the woman supposed.

‘I think you are being very stupid,’ she said smilingly. ‘What you ought to do, now that your mother-in-law has already got herself into trouble, is to go to Mrs Lian before the money confiscated has been divided up and ask if you can have some of it back to redeem this jewellery with. Ideally, of course, it would have been better if you could have redeemed it before all this trouble broke out and saved yourselves a bit of face. But now that you have no face left to save, you’d much better make a clean breast of it and get the money. After all, your mother-in-law has already been found guilty. However many crimes she’s committed, they can only cut her head off once. You take my advice. Go round to Mrs Lian’s place as soon as possible and make a clean breast of it. Standing around here shouting is not going to get you anywhere!’

The woman was forced to admit that Tan-chun’s reading of the situation was correct. But she was too scared to go to Xi-feng and confess.

‘If I hadn’t heard you talking about this, it would have been none of my business,’ said Tan-chun. ‘But now that I have heard, I think you had better let me take over and do the explaining for you.’

Unknown to the others, Tan-chun had tipped Scribe the wink a minute or two previously and Scribe had slipped outside to summon help. It was no surprise to Tan-chun, therefore, that Patience should have walked in just as she was saying this; but to the others her appearance at that moment was little short of miraculous. Bao-qin clapped her hands delightedly.

‘I always knew Cousin Tan was a witch. Now here comes her familiar spirit!’

‘It’s not witchcraft, it’s generalship,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Don’t you remember what it says in The Art of War?

A shy maiden in defence, but swift as a hare in the attack.

In good generalship surprise is of the essence.’

A look from Bao-chai caused the two girls to drop their bantering and talk of something else while Tan-chun addressed herself to the new arrival.

‘Is your mistress any better yet?’ she asked Patience. ‘She seems to have completely lost her grip on things since she had this illness. It’s very unfortunate for people like me who have to put up with the consequences.’

‘Oh?’ said Patience in some surprise. ‘Has someone been giving you trouble, miss? If you will let me know what I can do, I am at your disposal.’

Zhu-er’s wife was now in a panic. She bounded up to Patience and was all over her before Tan-chun could get a word in.

‘Sit down while I tell you, Miss Patience. I can explain it all.’

Patience gave her a long, hard look.

‘Miss Tan and I are talking. What right have you to come butting in like this? If you had any manners at all, you wouldn’t even be in this room, you’d be waiting respectfully outside. Whoever heard of an outside servant going into one of the young mistresses’ apartments without being asked?’

‘Manners?’ said Tangerine. ‘You won’t find many around here. People barge in and out of this apartment as they please.’

‘It’s your fault then if they do,’ said Patience sharply. ‘If Miss Ying is too gentle to do so, you ought to throw them out yourselves and then go and report them to Her Ladyship.’

Zhu-er’s wife reddened at Patience’s rebuke and took herself outside.

‘Now I can answer your question,’ Tan-chun said to Patience. ‘This is not actually my affair. If it were, perhaps I shouldn’t have minded quite so much. What happened is that this woman’s mother-in-law, trading on the fact that she used to be Miss Ying’s wet-nurse when she was a baby and taking advantage of Miss Ying’s easy-going nature, took some of her jewellery without telling her in order to raise money for her gambling. As if that wasn’t enough, this woman had the gall to pretend that Miss Ying owed them money in order that she could blackmail her into interceding for her mother-in-law. I found her and these two maids shouting at each other in Miss Ying’s bedroom while Miss Ying sat by helpless. Now that you are here, I should like to ask you this question. Is this woman really so thick-witted that she doesn’t know any better, or has someone else put her up to this? I mean, is there some plan to undermine Miss Ying first and then, when she is safely out of the way, to get to work on me and on Miss Xi?’

‘Oh miss!’ said Patience, endeavouring to treat the question as a joke, ‘how could you? Mrs Lian is not as bad as that!’

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ said Tan-chun coldly. ‘You know the saying: “Like grieves for like; for when the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.” When I saw what was happening to Miss Ying, I couldn’t help feeling nervous.’

Patience turned to Ying-chun questioningly.

‘It would be easy enough to deal with this matter if it weren’t that this woman is the wife of your foster-brother. It’s really up to you, miss.’

Ying-chun had all this time been sitting shoulder to shoulder with Bao-chai, reading one of the stories in Rewards and Punishments. She had not even heard what Tan-chun had been saying and had only the haziest idea what was required of her when she suddenly found herself being addressed. She smiled back, however, and did her best to oblige.

‘Don’t ask me!’ she said. ‘There’s absolutely nothing that I can do about it. If they will go getting themselves into trouble, they must face the consequences. All I can say is that I can’t do anything to get their punishment reduced and I won’t do anything to increase it. As for that object they took from me without telling me, if they do bring it back I shall be happy to receive it; if they don’t bring it back I shall not ask them for it. If either of Their Ladyships should ask me about it, I shall keep the facts hidden from them if I can do so honourably, in which case these people may consider themselves lucky; but if I can’t, I shall just have to tell them the truth. It is quite out of the question that I should deliberately deceive Their Ladyships in order to cover up for them. You say I am too easy-going and indecisive: if you know of a better way of dealing with this matter that is both fool-proof and will not upset Their Ladyships, by all means go ahead with it; I shall certainly not interfere.’

The others were much amused by this answer.

‘Ying-chun makes me think of that monk who went on discussing theological matters while wolves and tigers prowled outside in his courtyard,’ said Dai-yu laughing. ‘How on earth would she have controlled a great household like ours if she had been a man?’

‘That’s begging the question,’ said Ying-chun, smiling. ‘There are plenty of men who live off the fat of the land but who, in a crisis, are no better at dealing with things than I. Anyway, Tai-shang says that of all works of merit helping people when they are in trouble is the greatest. I may not be able to help anyone, but at least I am not going out of my way to make things worse for them. What is the point of gratuitously making enemies or exerting oneself for ends from which no one will benefit?’

Before she had finished, another visitor was heard arriving in the courtyard. Who this was will be revealed in the following chapter.

Chapter 74

Lady Wang authorizes a raid on Prospect Garden And Jia Xi-chun breaks off relations with Ning-guo House

Patience was greatly amused by the tone of Ying-chun’s answer to her inquiry. Ying-chun’s further self-justification in reply to Dai-yu’s comment was cut short by the arrival of another visitor. It was at this point that we concluded the last chapter.

The visitor was Bao-yu. When it was known that one of the chief organizers of the gambling was Cook Liu’s younger sister, Cook Liu’s enemies in the Garden regarded this as a good opportunity for making another attempt to oust her from her kitchen. Going in a body to Xi-feng, they accused her of being in partnership with her sister and receiving equal shares of her takings, and they demanded that Xi-feng should take appropriate action to punish her. Cook Liu, when she heard this, was at first panic-stricken; then, remembering her friends at Green Delights, she hurried over there, taking great care that nobody saw her on the way, and begged Skybright and Aventurin to tell Bao-yu what had happened. It occurred to Bao-yu, when they told him, that as Ying-chun’s nurse was in trouble for the same offence, it would be more effective to join forces with Ying-chun in pleading for clemency than to go along on his own and plead only for Cook Liu. It was in order to discuss this matter that he had come to see Ying-chun. Unfortunately, when he arrived, he found that she was not alone.

‘Are you better now?’ the others asked him. (They supposed that he was still suffering from shock.) ‘What have you come for?’

He could not state the real purpose of his visit in front of so many people and merely told them that he had come ‘to see how Ying-chun was getting on’. The others believed him, and a desultory conversation followed about nothing in particular.

Patience now went off to deal with the pearl-and-gold phoenix. Zhu-er’s wife followed at her elbow, begging to be let off.

‘For charity’s sake, don’t tell her, miss! I promise you faithfully, that phoenix will be redeemed.’

‘So you keep saying,’ said Patience, drily. ‘What a pity you couldn’t have redeemed it a bit sooner and saved yourself this trouble! You want to wriggle out of this somehow without telling her, don’t you? Well, I can’t say that I am very keen on informing against you, myself. I’ll tell you what: you get that thing back as quickly as possible and hand it over to me, and I won’t say anything about it to my mistress.’

Zhu-er’s wife was so relieved that she went down on her knees to thank her.

‘You carry on now with whatever you are doing, miss. I’ll have it ready for you by this evening. I’ll bring it to show you as soon as I’ve redeemed it, and then I’ll take it back to Miss Ying’s. How will that be?’

‘All right,’ said Patience. ‘But if you don’t turn up with it this evening, you will have only yourself to blame for what happens.’

The two young women then went their separate ways.

‘Well?’ said Xi-feng, when Patience got back to her apartment. ‘What did Miss Tan want you for?’

‘She was worried that you might have been fretting over this gambling business,’ said Patience, smiling. ‘She asked me how you’d been eating this last day or two.’

‘That’s very kind of her,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Oh, there’s more trouble, by the way. Some of them have just been here accusing Cook Liu of being mixed up in the gambling business with her sister. They’re saying, in fact, that she was the real organizer. However, remembering how insistent you always are that I should let well alone and only think of my health, I took no action. Last time I ignored your advice and had someone punished, I not only offended Lady Xing but also ended up by making myself ill. So this time I knew better. They can do as they please, I don’t care. Someone else can do the worrying. I have nearly destroyed myself by worrying and the only result of it is that everyone hates me. Very well. Now all I am going to think about is getting better. And when I am better, I am going to turn myself into a Mr Yes-yes. No matter what frightful things the others get up to, I shall just say “Yes, yes” when I hear about them. “Yes, yes,” I shall say, and not give them a single other thought!’

‘If only you would be like that,’ said Patience smiling, ‘what a blessing it would be for us all!’

At that moment Jia Lian came in, sighing and striking his hands together with vexation.

‘More trouble! When I borrowed that stuff from Faithful the other day to pawn, how could Mother have got to hear about it? She had me over there just now and asked me to borrow two hundred taels for her. She said she wanted it for the Mid-Autumn festival. I said I didn’t know who I could borrow two hundred taels from at the moment. “If you can’t borrow the money, you can easily find something to raise it on,” she said. “Don’t always make excuses. Don’t know who to borrow it from, indeed! You could spirit all those things out of Lady Jia’s room when you chose to, yet now you make difficulties about raising a paltry two hundred taels for me! You’re lucky I haven’t told anyone what you’ve been up to.” I’m certain Mother isn’t really short of money. This is sheer, gratuitous trouble-making on her part.’

‘There were no outsiders here on that occasion,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I wonder how the news could have leaked out.’

Patience, who had been listening to their conversation, tried hard to remember who had been present. After some moments it came back to her.

‘I know. There was no one else here that day while you were talking to Faithful, but in the evening, when she sent the stuff round, that mother of Simple’s who works for Her Old Ladyship called in with some laundry and afterwards sat quite a long while talking in the kitchen. If she saw that great trunk there, it would have been only natural to ask what was inside it, and the maids might well have told her, without realizing that they were not supposed to. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that’s how it got about.’

She called some of the junior maids in to question them.

‘Which of you told Simple’s mother the other day what was in that trunk?’

The maids knelt down in terror and swore by the most sacred oaths that they had said nothing.

‘We’re always most careful not to say too much to anyone. When people ask us anything, we always say that we don’t know. We’d certainly never have told her about that!’

Xi-feng considered the probabilities.

‘Somehow I don’t think they would have told her. At all events, there is no point in harrving them about it now. We shall just have to put that question behind us. The important thing now is to make sure that Mother gets what she wants. I’d rather we went short ourselves than risk her making another lot of trouble.’ She turned to Patience. ‘Take some of my gold things again and get us another two hundred taels. – As soon as she has the money ready, you can take it to Mother immediately, and that should be the end of the matter,’ she told Jia Lian.

‘Might as well raise four hundred taels while you are about it,’ said Jia Lian. ‘We could do with another two hundred ourselves.’

‘I don’t see that at all,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We don’t really need two hundred taels ourselves. And in any case, if we raise so much now, where is the money coming from later for getting the things out of pawn?’

Patience fetched the now familiar gold necklaces and told Brightie’s wife to take them to the pawnshop. Soon afterwards Brightie’s wife was back again with the cash and Jia Lian went in person to hand it over to his mother.

While Jia Lian was taking the money to Lady Xing, Xi-feng and Patience continued to ask themselves who could have leaked the information about the surreptitious removal of Grandmother Jia’s valuables.

‘It’s too bad!’ said Xi-feng. ‘Poor Faithful will be in trouble over this, and all because of us.’

While they were still wondering who it could have been, Lady Wang was announced. This was a surprise, for Xi-feng could think of no reason why she should be visiting them. She and Patience hurried out to greet her.

Lady Wang had only one maid, a trusted junior, in attendance. There was an angry expression on her face and she walked swiftly through the house into the inner room and sat down grimly on the kang, all without uttering a word. Xi-feng, concealing her apprehension behind a smile, hurriedly served her with tea.

‘It’s an unusual honour to have you here, Aunt.’

‘Patience, leave the room!’ Lady Wang commanded.

‘Yes’m,’ said Patience, wondering what on earth could be the matter, and hurried out, taking all the other maids with her. She stood by the outer door until they were all outside, then closed it after her and sat down at the top of the steps to prevent anyone going in.

As Xi-feng, now thoroughly alarmed, watched her aunt and wondered why she had come, Lady Wang, who appeared to be on the point of weeping, drew an embroidered pouch from her sleeve and threw it on the kang.

‘Look at that!’

Xi-feng hastily picked it up and found herself, to her great surprise, looking at a lewd picture, beautifully embroidered in silks.

‘Where did you get it from?’ she asked.

The tears that had collected in Lady Wang’s eyes poured down her cheeks now and the voice in which she answered was choked and trembling.

‘Where did I get it from? I sit all day at the bottom of a well. As you seemed such a conscientious young woman, I thought I could leave things to you and enjoy some leisure, but it seems that you are no better at managing than I. Fancy leaving a thing like that in the Garden – on a rockery, too, in broad daylight, where everyone could see it! It was picked up by one of Grandmother’s maids. If your mother-in-law hadn’t fortunately spotted the girl carrying it, it would have gone straight to Grandmother. I think it’s for you to tell me how it came to be dropped there.’

It was Xi-feng’s turn to look angry.

‘How do you know it’s mine?’

Lady Wang sighed and shed a few more tears.

‘How can you ask me that? Who in this household apart from you and Lian could a thing like this belong to? The old women would have no use for a thing like this and none of the girls would know where to get one from. Obviously that wretched, worthless Lian must have got hold of it from somewhere; and you, treating it, I suppose, as a great joke, were only too happy to receive it from him. I know that young couples do go in for this sort of thing; why try to deny it? But the young people in the Garden are still innocent. Suppose one of their maids had picked it up and shown it to them? It doesn’t bear thinking of. Or suppose a maid had picked it up and told someone from outside that she had found it in the Garden? What sort of reputation would that leave our family with? It would be better to die than that such a thing should happen.’

A mixture of shame and exasperation caused the blood to rush into Xi-feng’s face. She fell on her knees beside the kang. There were tears in her own eyes when she answered, but they were tears of anger.

‘What you say is no doubt very reasonable, Aunt, and I have no wish to argue with you, but I really don’t own anything like this and I really must ask you to reconsider one or two of the things you have said. First of all, take another look at this bag. It wasn’t made here. One can see at a glance that it is a poor commercial imitation of “palace” embroidery. Even the tassels are the kind you would buy outside. I may be young and frivolous, but I’d hardly be likely to want a trashy thing like this. Secondly, this isn’t the sort of thing one would carry around with one. Even if it were mine, I should keep it hidden somewhere in a secret place, not walk around with it on my person, particularly if I were going into the Garden. The girls and I are always holding each other and pulling each other about, so that if I were wearing a thing like this, it would very quickly get noticed, and what should I feel like then, if one of the girls or one of the maids were to look at it? Thirdly, I may be the only young married woman with a husband in the family, but there are plenty of even younger married women among the servants who are often in and out of the Garden. How can you be so sure that it wasn’t one of them who dropped this bag? Then there are those younger concubines of Sir She’s, like Carmine and Azure. Mother often takes one or two of them with her when she goes into the Garden. They would be even more likely to own a thing like this. And Zhen’s wife herself isn’t all that old, not to mention Lovey and Dove, whom she frequently takes with her when she goes there. How do you know it doesn’t belong to one of them? And in any case, there are so many maids in the Garden, how can you be so sure that all of them are pure? There may be one or two of the older ones who are not so innocent. One of them could have slipped out on some pretext or other when no one was looking to flirt with the pages on the inner gate and got it from one of them. It’s perfectly possible. But I can assure you that I have never possessed a thing like this, and I know that Patience hasn’t either. So I really must ask you to reconsider.’

Lady Wang was somewhat overwhelmed by this torrent of words, but had to admit their reasonableness.

‘You can get up,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It was wrong of me to accuse you. I ought to have known that a young woman of your breeding would not be guilty of such unseemliness. I am afraid I was overwrought and allowed anger to get the better of me. But what am I to do? Your mother-in-law saw fit to send this thing round to me by a messenger. I was terribly upset when I unwrapped it and saw what it was.’

‘The first thing to do is to try not to be so upset,’ said Xi-feng. ‘If the servants become aware that something is wrong, the chances of Grandmother getting to hear about it will be much greater. If we can remain cool and carry out our investigations in secret, we are much more likely to get at the truth, and even if we don’t, no one outside is going to be any the wiser. We should pick four or five of our most trusted servants to do the investigating – people like Zhou Rui’s wife and Brightie’s wife who can be relied upon not to talk – and send them into the Garden as replacements of the women who have been dismissed. The pretext for their investigations can be that there are various things connected with the gambling that still remain to be cleared up. The other thing we must do something about is the number of the maids. There are far too many of them. As they get older, they begin to get grown-up ideas, and one can never be quite sure that they may not get up to some mischief. It’s no good waiting until something has actually happened before doing anything, because then it will already be too late; on the other hand to begin large-scale dismissals straight away would be very distressing for the girls and probably for us as well. It would be better to wait until each maid either reaches a certain age or shows signs of growing insubordinate, and then use the first slip she makes as grounds for dismissing her and marrying her to one of the boys. In that way we can both avoid having trouble and at the same time make a considerable reduction in our expenses.’

Lady Wang sighed.

‘You are of course right. But in fairness to our girls I think it must be said that they are already making do with the absolute minimum of service. Not one of them has more than two or three maids who are the least bit of use. The others are like a pack of mischievous children. And I am not the only one who would feel unhappy about cutting down the numbers; I think it highly probable that Grandmother, too, would object. After all, things may be a bit difficult at present, but we can’t be all that poor. I wouldn’t lay claim to any great riches, but I think I may perhaps be a little bit better off than the rest of you. So if there is any talk of economy, I’d rather do without myself than see the girls suffer. The important thing now is to call in Zhou Rui’s wife and one or two of our other women and get them to begin these secret investigations for us as quickly as possible.’

Xi-feng at once called Patience in and explained what was wanted. Patience went out again and within a short time had assembled five of Lady Wang’s and Xi-feng’s most trusted retainers: Zhou Rui’s wife, Wu Xing’s wife and Zheng Hua’s wife from among Lady Wang’s servants and Brightie’s wife and Happy’s wife from among Xi-feng’s. Lady Wang thought they might not be enough for the sort of detailed investigation she had in mind. While she was wondering who else to get, Wang Shan-bao’s wife walked in.

Wang Shan-bao’s wife, like Goody Fei, was one of the servants who had been with Lady Xing since her childhood and accompanied her when she came to the Jia household as a bride. It was she, in fact, who had brought the embroidered bag to Lady Wang, and she had trailed along to Xi-feng’s place out of curiosity, to see what she would do about the discovery. Lady Wang’s past observation of these trusted henchwomen of her sister-in-law had not been sufficient to make her mistrust them and she welcomed this new arrival as a reinforcement.

‘Ah, just the person!’ she said as she caught sight of her. ‘After you have reported back to your mistress, you will be able to go with these others into the Garden and keep an eye on them for me.’

On a number of past visits to the Garden Wang Shan-bao’s wife had been greatly put out by the failure of the maids there to show her the respect and consideration that she felt to be her due; but dearly as she would have liked to teach those young creatures a lesson, she had not so far found a sufficient pretext for doing so. This discovery of an obscene object in the Garden was, in her eyes, a godsend, and her recruitment by Lady Wang to play a part in the investigations arising out of it was the kind of opportunity she had dreamed of.

‘We’ll get to the bottom of this easy enough, don’t you worry, madam,’ she said. ‘What you need in that Garden is more discipline, if you don’t mind my saying so, and has been for some time. To see the way those young maids carry on there, you would think they were princesses. They can have that whole place in an uproar, yet none of us dares to breathe a word against them, for we know that if we did, they would go running off to their young mistresses and get them to complain that it’s them we have been criticizing: and that is a charge which none of us is willing to stand up to.’

Lady Wang nodded.

‘Yes, I suppose the girls who wait on the young mistresses are inclined to be a bit spoiled.’

‘The young mistresses’ maids are by no means the worst,’ said Wang Shan-bao’s wife. ‘The worst of the lot is that Skybright that works in Bao-yu’s room. Because she’s a bit better-looking than the others and a bit readier with her tongue, she goes around dolled up all the time like a Xi-shi, putting everyone else in their place. She likes the sound of her own voice, does that young woman, and she likes to have her own way. If you say the slightest little thing to offend her, up fly her eyebrows and she will begin telling you exactly what she thinks of you. Oh, she’s a proper little madam, that one! Not much of the maidservant about her!’

A sudden recollection seemed to strike Lady Wang while Wang Shan-bao’s wife was speaking. She turned to Xi-feng questioningly.

‘I remember last time I was in the Garden with Lady Jia seeing a maid, a snaky-waisted girl with narrow, sloping shoulders and something of your Cousin Lin about the eyes, shouting at one of the junior maids, and thinking what a thoroughly objectionable young woman she must be. I didn’t say anything at the time because I was with Lady Jia. I meant to try and find out who she was afterwards, but I forgot. I wonder if this is the same girl? It sounds uncommonly like her.’

‘Skybright is certainly the best-looking of the maids,’ said Xi-feng cautiously, ‘and as regards her behaviour and manner of speaking, I suppose you could say she is inclined to be a little too free. The person you describe certainly sounds as if it might have been her, but as I wasn’t myself there at the time, I wouldn’t like to say for sure that it was.’

‘There’s no need to go on wondering,’ said Wang Shanbao’s wife. ‘We can call her here this minute and Her Ladyship can see for herself whether it’s her or not.’

‘Whenever I see anyone from Bao-yu’s room, it’s always either Aroma or Musk,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Both of them are the kind of plain, simple girl I like. They would never send the kind of girl we are talking about to see me because they know that that is just the sort of creature I cannot abide. – Oh dear! One can’t help wondering, when a thing like this happens: suppose Bao-yu were to be corrupted by a little harpy like that…?’

After some moments’ reflection, she called in her own maid from outside.

‘I want you to go over to Master Bao’s place and say that there is something I want to ask them about. Say that I would rather Aroma and Musk stayed behind to look after Bao-yu. There is a girl there called Skybright who is very intelligent. You can tell her to come. Say she is to come over with you straight away. You are not to say anything to her on the way here.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ said the maid, and hurried off to Green Delights.

When she arrived Skybright, who had recently been feeling far from well, was just getting up from a nap and was only half awake: but as the order said ‘Come at once’, she had to go with the maid as she was, with no time to make herself presentable. However, this did not unduly concern her. Knowing Lady Wang’s aversion to people of her type, she would normally have felt some nervousness about having to appear before her. On this occasion she took comfort from the fact that her indisposition over the last few days had caused her to neglect her appearance. Dowdiness would count in her favour.

Alas! When she arrived in Xi-feng’s room, Lady Wang took one look at this languid vision with its tousled hair, crooked hairpins and rumpled dress and felt all the anger she had just conquered rising up again inside her – particularly when she recognized this as being almost certainly the same girl as the one who had aroused her ire on that previous occasion a month before in the Garden.

‘Good gracious me!’ she exclaimed sarcastically. ‘What swooning Xi-shi have we here? For whose benefit do you go around in this extraordinary get-up? Don’t imagine I don’t know what your little game is, young lady! I may not have done anything about you yet, but I’ll have the skin off you one of these days! – Is Bao-yu any better?’

Though shaken by the unexpectedness of this onslaught, Skybright realized at once that someone must have been saying things about her. And although understandably angry, she managed to keep her head. She was too intelligent not to realize that the question about Bao-yu was a trap. She knelt to answer it.

‘I don’t often go into Bao-yu’s room, madam, or see much of him, so I am afraid I am not able to tell you. It’s Aroma and Musk who mostly wait on him. They would be able to give Your Ladyship an answer.’

‘Little liar!’ said Lady Wang. ‘You’ve got eyes in your head, haven’t you? What’s the good of employing you if you can’t even tell me whether he’s well or not?’

‘I used to be Her Old Ladyship’s maid,’ said Skybright. ‘She selected me for night duty in the outer room at Green Delights because she thought that, going to live in the big, empty Garden he might get frightened at night. I told Her Old Ladyship that I was too stupid to work for Bao-yu, but that only made her angry. She said, “I’m not asking you to wait on him personally. You don’t need to be clever for the job I’m asking you to do.” So after that I had to go. I don’t see him very often. He might call me in once or twice every ten days or so to ask me about something and I just answer him and go back to my work. His meals and all the personal service are looked after either by the older servants and nannies or by Aroma and Musk and Ripple. Whenever I’ve got time for it, I still have a lot of Her Old Ladyship’s sewing to do. I’m afraid I don’t pay much attention to what Bao-yu is doing. I will do so in future, if Your Ladyship wishes me to.’

Lady Wang was completely taken in.

‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ she said hastily. ‘Holy name! I’m only too happy to learn that you don’t see much of him. So you were given to him by Her Old Ladyship. I suppose in that case I shall have to see her first before I can dismiss you.’

She turned to Wang Shan-bao’s wife.

‘When you and the others go into the Garden, I want you to take particular care that this girl is kept well away from Bao-yu. Make sure that she doesn’t sleep in the same room. I shall be dealing with her in a few days’ time, when I have had a chance of speaking about her to Her Old Ladyship.’

As she turned again momentarily towards Skybright, her voice rose almost into a shout.

‘Get out of here! The sight of you standing there like a young trollop offends my eyes! Who gave you permission anyway to dress yourself up in that garish fashion?’

Skybright left the room, utterly crushed. She buried her face in her handkerchief as soon as she was outside the door and wept into it every step of the way back to Green Delights.

Meanwhile Lady Wang was telling Xi-feng how much she regretted her remissness in having allowed creatures like Skybright to inhabit the Garden for so long undisturbed.

‘I wish I had had the energy to keep a closer watch on things,’ she said. ‘I never expected to find a young flibbertigibbet like that in the Garden. And I suppose if there is one there like that, there are likely to be others like it as well.’

Xi-feng could see that Lady Wang was too incensed to reason with; and however much she might have said to the point, she would not in any case have dared to do so in front of Wang Shan-bao’s wife, who was one of her mother-in-law’s principal informants and a most notorious stirrer-up of trouble. She merely lowered her head, therefore, and murmured assent.

It was Wang Shan-bao’s wife who spoke.

‘Don’t upset yourself, my lady. Leave all these little things to me. There’s a very easy way of getting to the bottom of this business. Tonight, when the Garden gates have been shut and there is no chance of word getting through inside, we’ll make a surprise visit and search all the maids’ rooms in each of the apartments. Whoever owned this thing we’re trying to find out about must have other things like it as well, so if we find anything like it in our search, we shall have found the owner.’

‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Lady Wang. ‘We shall never get anywhere unless we do something like that. – What do you think?’ she asked Xi-feng.

Xi-feng deemed it impolitic to disagree.

‘If you think it’s all right, Aunt, I should let her do it.’

‘I do think it’s all right,’ said Lady Wang emphatically. ‘Unless we do it this way, we might spend a year investigating and still get nowhere.’

A raid was accordingly planned for that very evening. After dinner, when Grandmother Jia had retired for the night and the cousins had all returned to their apartments, Wang Shan-bao’s wife, having first asked Xi-feng to accompany her, led her little party into the Garden. After ordering all the side gates to be closed, she set about searching immediately, beginning with the room just inside the Garden gate which was used by the women of the night watch as a rendez-vous. Nothing of interest was discovered there except for a few candle-ends and a little leftover lamp-oil which someone had evidently put by to take home. However, Wang Shan-bao’s wife solemnly pronounced them to be stolen property: no one was to touch these things, she said, until Lady Wang had been informed and the appropriate steps had been taken. They proceeded to Green Delights, barring the courtyard gates after them as soon as they were inside.

Bao-yu was still worrying about Skybright when this party of women came bursting into his courtyard and, without a word of explanation, walked straight into the part of the house occupied by the maids. On going out to investigate he ran into Xi-feng and asked her what was happening. Xi-feng went indoors to sit down with him and accepted a cup of tea.

‘Something important is missing that no one will own up to having taken,’ she said. ‘It’s thought that one of the maids in the Garden might have stolen it, so they are searching everyone in order to clear the innocent ones of suspicion.’

While Xi-feng was explaining this to Bao-yu, Wang Shan-bao’s wife was proceeding with her search.

‘Whose are these trunks?’ she asked, and demanded that the owners should come forward and open them.

Aroma had suspected that some sort of trouble lay ahead when she saw the state that Skybright was in when she returned from her interview. The raid confirmed her premonition. Resignedly she set the other maids an example by opening her own trunks and boxes first. Nothing of interest was found in them. The searchers passed on. Each girl stood by her own things and opened them up as the searchers came to them. Finally only Skybright’s trunk remained.

‘Which girl’s is this?’ said Wang Shan-bao’s wife. ‘Why doesn’t she come forward and open it?’

Aroma was on the point of opening it herself when Skybright, who, to judge from the state her hair was in, had only just got out of bed, came rushing into the room, flung the lid open with a bang, picked the trunk up by its bottom, and emptied its contents on the floor. Wang Shan-bao’s wife blushed scarlet with embarrassment.

‘There’s no cause to be angry with me, miss,’ she said. ‘I’m not carrying this search out to please myself, I’m here on Her Ladyship’s orders. If you don’t want your things to be searched, you have only to say so and I shall tell Her Ladyship. There’s no need to carry on like this about it.’

At this Skybright’s wrath blazed up in fury. She pointed at the old woman’s face.

‘You say you are here on Her Ladyship’s orders. Well I’m here on Her Old Ladyship’s orders. Anyway, I thought I knew all the women who worked at Her Ladyship’s place and I’m sure I never saw a self-important, meddlesome old busybody like you there before!’

Xi-feng, who had now rejoined them, was secretly delighted to see Wang Shan-bao’s wife getting the rough side of Skybright’s tongue, but because the woman was her mother-in-law’s favourite, she had to pretend that she was shocked, and shouted at Skybright to be silent. Wang Shan-bao’s wife looked angry and flustered and seemed on the point of retorting; but Xi-feng restrained her.

‘All right, Mrs Wang, that will do. You don’t have to put yourself on the same level by arguing with the girl. You get on with your searching. We’ve got all the other places to go to yet, and if we delay too long, word will get round that we are coming and they will be prepared for us. If that happens and you don’t succeed in finding anything, I shan’t consider myself responsible.’

Though inwardly fuming, Wang Shan-bao’s wife was obliged to contain herself and spent the next minute or two rummaging tight-lipped among Skybright’s possessions. Having found nothing of importance, she then asked Xi-feng if they might go elsewhere.

‘Now have you looked really thoroughly?’ said Xi-feng. ‘You’re going to look pretty silly if you have to report back to Lady Wang tomorrow that you couldn’t find anything.’

‘We’ve been through everything,’ said one of the women. ‘There’s nothing here that there shouldn’t be. We did find one or two boy’s things, but they were the sort of things a quite small boy would use. Probably they belonged to Bao-yu when he was little. Anyway, they’re of no consequence.’

‘In that case we can be on our way,’ said Xi-feng, pleasantly. ‘On to the next place, then!’

Off they went without more ado. Xi-feng turned to Wang Shan-bao’s wife as they walked along for a word in her ear.

‘I’ve got a suggestion to make, but I don’t know whether you’ll agree to it or not. Can we confine this search to members of our own household? I don’t think we ought to search the maids in Miss Xue’s room.’

‘Oh, I quite agree,’ said Wang Shan-bao’s wife. ‘It would never do to go searching the rooms of our guests.’

Xi-feng nodded.

‘That’s what I thought.’

They had by now reached the Naiad’s House. Dai-yu had already gone to bed when the arrival of all these people was announced. Unable to guess what they could have come for, she was on the point of getting up to ask when Xi-feng came into her room and begged her to stay in bed.

‘Go to sleep. We shall be gone again in a moment.’

She slipped out again after a few inconsequences and rejoined the others, who had already begun their searching. In the course of rummaging through the various trunks and boxes in Nightingale’s room they came across some old amulets whose period of effectiveness had long since expired and a set of two pouches and a fan-case designed for wearing on a belt. The fan-case had a fan in it, which they took out to examine. These were obviously masculine articles and had in fact been worn at one time by Bao-yu. Wang Shan-bao’s wife, congratulating herself on what she took to be a significant discovery, called Xi-feng over to witness it.

‘Look at these things, Mrs Lian! Now where would these have come from?’

Xi-feng smiled.

‘These would be old things of Bao-yu’s,’ she said. ‘He and the girls here have been seeing each other for years – since they were little children. Their Ladyships would probably remember having seen these things on him. You could always ask them, if you don’t believe me.’

Wang Shan-bao’s wife was at once all smiles.

‘If you recognize them, Mrs Lian, that’s good enough for me.’

‘There’s nothing here worth bothering about,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I think we should leave these folk in peace and hurry on elsewhere.’

‘We’ve had so many other things where these came from and given so many in return that I can’t keep track of them,’ said Nightingale laughing. ‘I couldn’t for the life of me tell you when he gave us these.’

Xi-feng and Wang Shan-bao’s wife now conducted their little party to Tan-chun’s place. This time their arrival was anticipated. Someone had brought word of their coming, and Tan-chun, guessing that something serious must have happened to have provoked so ugly a reaction, was standing in the open doorway, surrounded by maids with lighted candles, waiting for the search party when it arrived.

‘Well?’ she asked, somewhat challengingly. ‘What do you want?’

Xi-feng smiled an emollient smile.

‘Something has been missing and they have been questioning everyone for several days now without being able to find out who took it. It’s thought that whoever is responsible for the theft might try to incriminate one of the maids. We are making this search more for the sake of clearing them than because we really suspect any of them of taking it.’

‘Naturally all my maids are thieves,’ said Tan-chun affably. ‘As a matter of fact, I am their principal fence. If you want to search, you’d better look at my cupboards and boxes first, because anything they steal is automatically handed over to me.’

She ordered the maids to open all her boxes. She also made them bring in her dressing-cases, jewel-boxes, bedding-rolls and miscellaneous wrapped-up bundles of clothing and open them all up for Xi-feng to inspect.

Xi-feng laughed uncomfortably.

‘I’m only carrying out your mother’s orders, coz. There’s no point in getting offended with me.’ She turned to the servants. ‘Quickly, do these things up again for Miss Tan.’

Scribe and Ebony, assisted by Patience and Felicity, began refastening the boxes and tying the bundles up again.

‘I’ve said that you may search my things,’ said Tan-chun, ‘but if you want to search my maids’, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, I am a very hard mistress. I always insist on knowing what my maids have got; consequently everything they have – every needle and thread even – is taken care of by me; I don’t allow them to keep anything themselves. So if you want to do any searching, you will have to search me. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you have only to report to Lady Wang that I was obstructive and I will gladly face whatever the consequences are tomorrow. I must say, I cannot understand this eagerness to meet trouble half-way. The searching will begin soon enough in this household when the day of confiscation arrives. Didn’t you hear the news this morning about the Zhens? They tempted fate, just as we are now doing, by carrying out a quite unnecessary search of their own servants, and now there is a confiscation order against them and they are being searched themselves. No doubt our time too is coming, slowly but surely. A great household like ours is not destroyed in a day. “The beast with a thousand legs is a long time dying.” In order for the destruction to be complete, it has to begin from within.’

She began to cry. Xi-feng darted a look at the women, which Zhou Rui’s wife interpreted as a signal that they should go.

‘Since Miss Tan has said that the girls’ things are all here, Mrs Lian, can’t we go on to another place now and leave her in peace?’

Xi-feng responded by rising to her feet and wishing Tan-chun good night.

‘Are you sure you’ve looked properly?’ said Tan-chun. ‘It’s no good coming back tomorrow and asking to look again, because I shan’t let you.’

‘If all the maids’ things are in here, there is no need to look,’ said Xi-feng, smiling.

‘No need to look, when I’ve gone to the trouble of having everything opened for you?’ said Tan-chun coldly. ‘I call that rather perverse. Tomorrow I suppose you will say that I covered up for my maids and wouldn’t let you look. I want to be told in plain language that you have searched as much as you want to. If you haven’t, you’d better do so now, while you have the chance.’

Xi-feng smiled. She knew from past experience that she had to be more careful with Tan-chun than with any of the other girls.

‘I have already searched your maids’ things and your things sufficiently.’

‘And what about the rest of you?’ Tan-chun asked the women.

‘We’ve searched enough,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women, smiling.

It was now that Wang Shan-bao’s wife showed her total lack of judgement – for she was in truth a very stupid woman. She had heard something of Tan-chun’s reputation in the past, but refused to believe that an unmarried girl of her years – particularly one who was a concubine’s daughter – could be as formidable as Tan-chun was said to be. No doubt, she told herself, it was the inexperience or pusillanimity of her informants that made them think her so. Was not she, Wang Shan-bao’s wife, one of Lady Xing’s oldest and most trusted servants? Did not even Lady Wang have to show her a certain measure of deference? A mere chit of a girl like Tan-chun was not going to intimidate her. She had, in any case, the distinct impression that it was Xi-feng and not herself that Tan-chun was angry with. At all events, she resolved to show how little she held Tan-chun in esteem by indulging in a little horse-play at her expense. Going up to Tan-chun, she took hold of a corner of her jacket and turned it back, grinning all over her face.

‘There!’ she said. ‘Now I’ve even searched Miss Tan, and there’s nothing on her either!’

Xi-feng was shocked.

‘Good gracious, woman! Are you – ?’

But before she could finish there was a resounding smack! and a large red mark appeared on the old woman’s face where Tan-chun had hit her.

Tan-chun was in a towering rage.

‘Who do you think you are? How dare you touch me? It seems that the respect that I and the others show you, even though it is only for Her Ladyship’s sake and out of consideration for your age, merely encourages you to make mischief for us and abuse your borrowed powers. That, in all conscience, is hard enough to bear. But now, to lay hands on me – that is really too much! If you have reckoned on my being a poor, timid creature like your Miss Ying whom you can bully and impose upon at your pleasure, you have made a very big mistake. You may search my things if you wish and I shall not complain; but I will not be made a laughing-stock. Here!’ – with one hand she began feverishly undoing her buttons, while with the other she pulled Xi-feng’s hand towards her and placed it beneath her jacket – ‘Search me! I would rather be searched by you than submit to being pawed over by a slave!’

Xi-feng and Patience quickly buttoned her up again and straightened out her dress, shouting angrily at Wang Shan-bao’s wife as they did so.

‘You have been drinking again, Nannie. Why do you do it, if it makes you behave so badly? You’d better get out of here, before worse happens!’

Patience did her best to comfort Tan-chun.

‘Dear miss! Please don’t distress yourself. She isn’t worth your getting upset about!’

Tan-chun gave a humourless laugh.

‘I’m not upset. If I’d been upset I should have beaten my brains out before I’d have let her touch me. I shall see Grandmother and Lady Wang about this first thing tomorrow, and after that I shall call on Lady Xing and make whatever amends she likes to ask for.’

Wang Shan-bao’s wife had retreated hastily from the room after her discomfiture and was now lurking outside the window complaining bitterly of the outrage to her dignity.

‘This is the first time anyone has ever struck me. I shall see Lady Xing tomorrow and ask her to let me go back to my old home. If this is the way I am to be treated, I had rather not go on living!’

‘Do you hear what that woman is saying?’ Tan-chun asked her maids. ‘Are you waiting for me to go out there and argue with her myself?’

Scribe, needing no second prompting, hurried outside to take up the cudgels for her mistress.

‘If I were in your shoes, Mrs Wang, I should have the sense to keep my mouth shut. We should all be only too pleased if you really did go back to your own home; but I’m afraid that when it comes to it, you won’t be able to tear yourself away. After all, if you go, who will there be left to worm her way into Her Ladyship’s confidence and make all our lives a misery by having searches made?’

Xi-feng was greatly amused.

‘Good for Scribe! “Like mistress, like maid”!’

‘Oh,’ said Tan-chun coldly, ‘we thieves have ready wits. We are all capable of turning a phrase or two. It’s only when it comes to going behind other people’s backs and stirring those in authority up against them that we are not quite so clever.’

Patience made some soothing remark to Tan-chun, simultaneously making a grab at Scribe and pulling her back into the room, while Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women did their best to be conciliatory. Xi-feng remained until she had seen Tan-chun safely put to bed before leading her party off in the direction of Xi-chun’s Spring in Winter room in the Lotus Pavilion, briefly taking in Li Wan’s place on the way.

As Li Wan was unwell and had already taken her medicine and settled down for the night by the time they arrived, they went into the maids’ room straight away without disturbing her. After searching each of the maids’ boxes in turn and finding nothing, they continued on their way to Xi-chun’s apartment.

Being younger and more immature than the other cousins, Xi-chun was much more frightened by this visitation and at first seemed to be quite bewildered by it. It took all of Xi-feng’s efforts to calm her. Unfortunately, while they were searching in Picture’s trunk, they came upon a large packet containing thirty or forty silver medallions, a carved jade belt-buckle, a pair of men’s boots and a pair of socks. Even Xi-feng turned pale.

‘Where did these come from?’ she asked the unhappy maid.

Picture knelt down and tearfully confessed the truth.

‘They were given to my brother by Mr Zhen, madam. Since our parents went to live in the South, our uncle and aunt have been looking after us. They both drink and gamble a lot, and my brother was afraid that if he left anything with them they would sell it and spend the money, so he made a secret arrangement with one of the old nannies to bring things in to me so that I could look after them for him.’

Xi-chun, a naturally timorous child, was terrified by this discovery.

‘I knew nothing about this!’ she cried. ‘It is very wicked of her. If you want to beat her, cousin, please do it outside. I’m not used to hearing such things. I think it would distress me.’

Xi-feng smiled.

‘If what you say is true,’ she told Picture, ‘you can be forgiven for looking after these things. But your brother had no business to choose such a way of getting them in to you. If these things could be smuggled in without anyone knowing, then so could anything else. It’s the person who brought them in who is the really guilty party. Of course, if what you say is not true, you may as well give up hope of living!’

‘I wouldn’t dare lie to you, madam,’ said Picture, weeping. ‘You have only to ask Mr and Mrs Zhen. If they say my brother wasn’t given these things, I shan’t complain if you beat us both to death.’

‘I shall certainly ask,’ said Xi-feng. ‘But even if he was given them, you are still to blame. Who said that you could have things brought in to you secretly? I shall let you off this once if you will tell me honestly who brought them in, but you mustn’t ever do this again.’

‘Don’t let her off!’ said Xi-chun. ‘There are so many maids. If the older ones see her getting away with it, there’s no knowing what they will get up to. You may want to forgive her, but I don’t.’

‘She seems to me a pretty sensible girl as a rule,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We all make mistakes sometimes. I’m only proposing that we should let her off this once. If she does anything like this again, we shall punish her for this offence as well. – Come on now, what about this person who brought you the things?’ she asked Picture. ‘Tell me who it was.’

‘Oh, I can tell you that,’ said Xi-chun. ‘It’s sure to have been that old Zhang woman from the rear gate. She’s always around here, whispering guiltily to the maids and doing little favours for them – in return for which, of course, they give her their protection.’

Xi-feng told one of the women to make a note of this. The silver and the other things she gave to Zhou Rui’s wife to take care of until Picture’s statement about their provenance could be verified.

This old Mamma Zhang whom Xi-chun had named as the go-between who had brought things in for Picture’s brother was a close kinswoman of Wang Shan-bao’s wife, being in fact the mother-in-law of one of her children.’ However, since becoming Lady Xing’s chief confidante, Wang Shan-bao’s wife had had little time for kinsfolk or former colleagues, and her treatment of Mamma Zhang had caused that matron to take umbrage. On two occasions there had been words between them, and for some time now the two of them had not been on speaking terms. The satisfaction of learning that the guilty bearer of these objects was a hated enemy almost compensated Wang Shan-bao’s wife for the indignity of being slapped by Tan-chun and taunted by Tan-chun’s maid. She endeavoured to impress Xi-feng with the gravity of what they had discovered.

‘This smuggling is a very serious business, Mrs Lian. No doubt the things we are looking for got into the Garden by the same way. I think you ought to look into this.’

‘I fully intend to do so,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I don’t need you to tell me.’

They took leave of Xi-chun then and made their way to Ying-chun’s. Ying-chun was asleep when they arrived and the maids had already gone to bed. They had to knock a long while at the gate before anyone answered.

‘There’s no need to disturb your mistress,’ Xi-feng said to the girl who admitted them, and made straight for the maids’ room, followed by the rest of the party. Knowing that Wang Shan-bao’s wife was Chess’s maternal grandmother, Xi-feng watched her very attentively to see if she would show any favouritism. Wang Shan-bao’s wife began on the trunks of the other maids. None of them contained anything of interest. Coming to Chess’s trunk last of all, she merely picked up one or two things lying on the top of it before hurriedly pronouncing that there was ‘nothing there’, and would have shut it up again if Zhou Rui’s wife had not intervened to prevent her.

‘Now just a minute. Whether there is or not, you’ve got to go through it properly, the same as you did the rest, out of fairness to the others.’

She stretched her own hand out as she said this and, diving into the trunk, fetched out, successively, a pair of men’s padded socks, a pair of men’s satin slippers, and a packet containing a little Loving Couple ornament and a letter. All these things she handed over to Xi-feng.

From handling so many bills, invoices and accounts during her years as a household manager, Xi-feng had learned to recognize quite a large number of characters and was able to make out the whole of the crude missive, written on pink Double Happiness notepaper, that Zhou Rui’s wife had just thrust into her hand.

Since your visit last month my parnts have fund out about us but cant do any thing til Miss Yings marrid if you can meet me in the garden send word by mrs Zhang we can talk more frely in the garden than at home PLEASE TRY I have reed the two rosearys I send you this bag it shows you what I dream of!! PLEASE KEEP IT!!! your loving kit cousin PAN YOU-AN

Xi-feng could hardly restrain herself from laughing out loud.

Wang Shan-bao’s wife knew nothing of the romantic history that lay behind this letter; but she had already had an uncomfortable feeling that all was not well when she saw the men’s socks and shoes; and now, as she watched Xi-feng reading the words on the pink notepaper and laughing at what she read, she became even more apprehensive.

‘What is it, madam? An account?’ she said. ‘I suppose you are laughing because there is some mistake in it.’

‘It certainly doesn’t balance properly,’ said Xi-feng, laughing. ‘If you are Chess’s grandmother, shouldn’t her kit-cousin be a Wang?’

Wang Shan-bao’s wife found the question a very strange one.

‘She has a kit-cousin on her father’s side, her father’s sister’s son. Pan You-an, that boy who ran away – he’s her kit-cousin.’

‘That makes sense,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Would you like me to read you the letter?’

She proceeded to do so, to the great astonishment of all present. Wang Shan-bao’s wife, who had sought out the wrongdoing of others with such single-minded persistency, was now mortified to discover that the only wrongdoer she had succeeded in unmasking was her own granddaughter.

‘Did you hear that, Mrs Wang?’ said Zhou Rui’s wife, who, like the other women, had signalled her astonishment by sticking her tongue out and wagging her head incredulously. ‘Couldn’t be clearer than that, could it? No talking a way out of that one! So what do we do now?’

Wang Shan-bao’s wife heartily wished that it were possible to slip through some crack and disappear into the ground. Xi-feng contemplated her for some moments with enjoyment, her lips puckered up with suppressed laughter.

‘One must look on the bright side,’ she said to Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘The girl has quietly gone off and chosen herself a husband. At least her grandmother is saved the bother of choosing one for her!’

Zhou Rui’s wife laughed, and added some pleasantry of her own. Wang Shan-bao’s wife was left with no one but herself on whom to vent her anger, so she slapped her own face and reproached herself.

‘Silly old fool! You’ve lived too long, that’s your trouble! Look what you’ve brought on yourself! Why couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut? Now you’ve got to suffer for your own foolishness.’

The others had not the heart to laugh, but could not help feeling pleased, either because she had made them suffer in the past and it was sweet to see her suffer now in her turn, or from a more detached belief that they were witnessing the working-out of divine retribution on one who had richly deserved its visitation.

Xi-feng noticed with surprise that Chess, who all this time had been standing by with bowed head, saying nothing, had no trace of fear or shame in her expression and wondered if she might be planning to make away with herself. As it was obviously too late that night for questioning her, she deputed two of the women to watch over her until morning. She herself went off with the other women, taking the things with her as evidence.

It was her intention to deal with the matter in the morning, after a night’s sleep, but during the course of the night she was several times obliged to get out of bed, and each time she did so she found that she was losing blood. By the time next morning came, she was too weak and dizzy to get up. A doctor was called. He took her pulses, wrote a prescription, and left, saying that she would need to rest. His findings, reported to Lady Wang by the old nannies who went to have the prescription made up, plunged that already depressed gentlewoman into yet greater gloom. Thus judgement on Chess’s affair was, for the time being, postponed.

You-shi, as it happened, called in that day to see Xi-feng and sat for a while talking with her. After that she went on to see Li Wan and talked with her. While she was there, a maid arrived to ask if she would mind calling in to see Xi-chun, so she went along to Xi-chun’s. As soon as she arrived, Xi-chun launched into a long and detailed account of what had happened the previous night. She also sent someone round to ask Zhou Rui’s wife for the things that had been found in Picture’s trunk. You-shi verified that they had indeed been given by Cousin Zhen to Picture’s brother.

‘Stupid creature!’ she said, turning to rebuke Picture, who was standing by.

‘Why do you call her names?’ said Xi-chun. ‘It was your laxness which made her the way she is. It’s too bad. None of the other girls has been let down like this by her maids. How shall I be able to face them after this? I told Cousin Feng last night to take her away, but she wouldn’t. I am glad that you have come, because now you will be able to. I don’t care what you do with her – beat her, kill her, sell her – I just want to be rid of her.’

Picture knelt down and implored her mistress most piteously not to send her away. You-shi and Xi-chun’s nurses also did their best to talk Xi-chun out of dismissing her.

‘It was only a single lapse on her part,’ said You-shi. ‘I’m sure she won’t do it again. Think of all the years of service she has given you.’

But Xi-chun, in whom the natural waywardness of youth was reinforced by a perverse contrariness that was all her own, remained adamant in the face of both argument and entreaty and insisted that Picture must go.

‘And it isn’t only Picture that I don’t want to see any more,’ she told You-shi. ‘The same goes for all the rest of you. From now on I propose to stop going round to your place altogether. There has been a lot of talk about you people of late. If I continue to go round, I am afraid I might get involved in it.’

‘Who has been talking about us?’ said You-shi. ‘And what, pray, have they found to talk about? I think you might begin by considering who you are – and who we are. If you have heard people talking about us, I should have thought it was up to you to ask them what they meant by it.’

‘That’s rather strange advice coming from you,’ said Xi-chun sneeringly. ‘A girl like me is supposed to keep well away from scandal, not go running headlong towards it. You know the saying: “A father should help a son and the son his father, but not in slaying or in doing evil.” The same principle holds good for you and me. I can only answer for my own integrity. If you people end up by getting yourselves into a mess, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.’

You-shi was half angered and half amused by her young sister-in-law’s rudeness.

‘I can see now why people speak of Miss Xi as young for her age,’ she said, addressing the grown-up servants below the kang. ‘“Young and foolish” I have heard her called. I used not to believe it of her, but finding her now so unreasonable and so lacking in any sense of proportion, I really do begin to despair of her.’

‘She is still very young,’ said the women placatingly. ‘You must expect a few knocks in your dealings with her, Mrs Zhen.’

‘I may be “young”,’ said Xi-chun scornfully, ‘but there is nothing “young” about what I have just been saying. And since none of you people can even read or write, how can you have the nerve to call me “foolish”?’

‘You are the great scholar, of course,’ said You-shi sarcastically, ‘the Top of the List candidate! Stupid people like us cannot hope to compete with you in understanding.’

‘There’s certainly not much understanding in what you have just said,’ Xi-chun retorted. ‘Your assumption that a Top of the List candidate cannot be stupid is a vulgar fallacy typical of the great mass of blind, undiscriminating worldlings. A true sage can be identified by the very first step he takes, not by examination results.’

‘Goodness!’ said You-shi mockingly. ‘A moment ago we had the great scholar; now, it seems, the great preacher has come to enlighten us!’

‘I lay no claim to enlightenment,’ said Xi-chun, ‘though I can see that most people are no better than Picture – and that they are as little worth bothering about.’

‘You are a cold-hearted little monster,’ said You-shi.

‘If I seem cold, it is because I wish to keep myself un-corrupted,’ said Xi-chun. ‘Why should I want to get involved with you and allow myself to be dragged down to your level?’

You-shi was highly sensitive to remarks about her family’s reputation and had already been embarrassed and upset by Xi-chun’s reference to ‘people talking’. Because Xi-chun was only a girl, she had done her best not to lose her temper; but this last remark was too much to stomach. Unable to contain herself any longer, she burst out angrily.

‘What do you mean, “dragged down to my level”? You turn your maid’s offence into an occasion for making a completely unwarranted attack upon me, and when I bear your ridiculous attacks with patience, it seems merely to encourage you to indulge in further insults. Very well, Miss Holy Purity! I shall be careful to keep away from you in future, in case your priceless reputation is sullied by my presence.’

She swept out angrily, indicating to her maids as she went that they should bring Picture with them.

‘It will be much better for all concerned if you don’t ever come here again,’ Xi-chun called out after her. ‘It will save a lot of argument.’

You-shi heard this and grew even angrier; but reflecting that Xi-chun was, however vexing, a young unmarried daughter of the family and therefore not a person with whom she could engage in open wrangling, she swallowed her anger and hurried off without answering, out of the Garden and into the inner part of the mansion.

What she heard there will be related in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 75

Midnight revellers are startled by a sound of evil omen And Mid-Autumn moon-watchers listen to quatrains of unequal merit

When You-shi swept angrily out of Xi-chun’s apartment, it had been her intention to visit Lady Wang, but one of the old women in her suite whispered in her ear to advise her against going there.

‘Some people from the Zhen family have just arrived there, madam, with a lot of things. I think it’s something secret they’ve come about. It probably wouldn’t be very convenient for you to go there now.’

‘That’s funny,’ said You-shi. ‘I heard your master saying last night that he had read in the Gazette that the Zhens had been attainted. It said that there was a search and confiscation order on their estate and that the family were being brought under arrest to the capital for questioning. What can any of them be doing here?’

‘You may well ask, madam. It was some of the womenfolk we saw there. They were in a terrible state, very worried and frightened. I expect they are doing something they ought not to be.’

You-shi abandoned her idea of visiting Lady Wang and went back to see Li Wan, with whom she had been talking a little earlier when Xi-chun called her away. Li Wan had been visited in the meantime by her doctor; and as she was feeling much livelier than she had done for some days, she had remained sitting up after her visit. You-shi found her propped up on pillows and with the bedclothes pulled up round her, eager for conversation. Unfortunately You-shi, who had been so affable on her earlier visit, was now in no mood to talk and sat at Li Wan’s bedside silent and preoccupied. Li Wan wondered if she was feeling hungry.

‘Have something to eat,’ she said. ‘What would you like?’ She turned to Candida. ‘What nice little snack have we got that we could offer Mrs Zhen?’

‘Please don’t bother,’ said You-shi. ‘You’re hardly likely to have interesting snacks in the house after being an invalid for so many days. And in any case I’m not hungry.’

‘Someone sent me some rather good wheatmeal tea yesterday,’ said Li Wan. ‘Why don’t you try a bowl of that?’

She told Candida to mix some for her with sugar and boiling water. You-shi made no reply and continued to brood. The women and maids who had come with her tried to think of some means of distracting her.

‘You haven’t done your face yet since this morning, madam,’ said one of them. ‘Why not take this opportunity of having a wash?’

You-shi nodded. Li Wan at once sent Candida for her dressing-case and mirror. Candida offered You-shi the use of her own make-up.

‘Our mistress doesn’t use make-up, Mrs Zhen. If you don’t mind using my stuff, you’re very welcome to some of this.’

‘It’s true that I haven’t got any,’ said Li Wan, ‘but you ought to have borrowed some from one of the young ladies to lend her. Fancy offering her your own, and in front of everyone else! It’s a good job it was Mrs Zhen. Some people would have been most offended.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said You-shi, and began to wash. The maid with the basin bent down to hold it out to her.

‘Where are your manners, girl?’ said Li Wan reprovingly, whereupon the maid at once went down on her knees.

‘Manners!’ said You-shi. ‘The outward frills of respectability! Those are the things our servants are so good at. What they actually get up to doesn’t bear much investigating.’

Li Wan realized that she must be referring to the events of the previous night.

‘Why do you say that?’ she asked smilingly. ‘What has who got up to that doesn’t bear investigating?’

‘Need you ask?’ said You-shi. ‘You’ve not been so ill that you’ve lost the use of your faculties!’

Before Li Wan could reply, Bao-chai’s arrival was announced. Li Wan and You-shi both called out to her to come in. You-shi, hurriedly wiping the water from her face, got up to welcome her and made her sit down with her at the side of the bed.

‘On your own?’ she asked her. ‘Where are all the others?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I haven’t seen them yet. Mother isn’t very well today, and as her two senior maids are also both ill in bed and I don’t trust any of the others, I thought I had better go and stay with her for a few days. At first I was going to tell Lady Jia and Aunt Wang, but then I thought that as this is rather a small matter and I shall in any case be coming back again as soon as Mother is better I wouldn’t bother them but simply have a word about it with Cousin Wan.’

Li Wan and You-shi exchanged smiles and glances. Presently, when You-shi had finished her toilet, the three of them each had a bowl of wheatmeal tea.

‘I must send someone to see how your mother is and find out what she is suffering from,’ said Li Wan. ‘I can’t go in person, unfortunately, because I am ill myself. Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll send someone to look after your apartment while you are away. Do come back soon, though, or I shall be blamed for your going.’

‘Whyever should you be?’ said Bao-chai. ‘There’s nothing unusual about my going. You are not being asked to connive at a gaol-break. And incidentally, I don’t see why it should be necessary to send anyone to my apartment. Why not simply invite Cousin Shi to stay with you for a few days? Wouldn’t that be simpler?’

‘While we are on the subject, where is Cousin Shi?’ said You-shi.

‘I sent her off just now to look for Cousin Tan,’ said Bao-chai. ‘She was to bring Cousin Tan here so that I could explain to her about going to Mother’s too.’

By coincidence ‘Miss Shi and Miss Tan’ were at that very moment announced. As soon as they were seated, Bao-chai told Tan-chun about her intention of moving outside for a few days to look after her mother.

‘Very wise,’ said Tan-chun. ‘But why only stay outside until Aunt is better? Why not move outside altogether?’

‘That’s rather a strange way to talk,’ said You-shi, laughing. ‘It’s as though you wanted to drive our kinswoman out.’

‘Well, why not?’ said Tan-chun bitterly. ‘Better be driven out now by me than by someone else later on. Kinsfolk are lucky. They don’t have to stay here. Not like the members of this happy family – all glaring at each other like angry fighting-cocks, wondering which will be the first one to strike!’

You-shi laughed.

‘I think today must be my unlucky day. I seem to have caught all you young ladies in a thoroughly unpleasant mood.’

‘If you don’t like the heat, you should stay away from the fire,’ said Tan-chun. ‘Who’s been upsetting you then?’ She thought for a bit. ‘It’s not likely to have been Cousin Feng. Not this time. So who was it?’

You-shi’s vague answer evaded the question. Tan-chun knew that she was afraid to speak openly for fear of causing trouble.

‘Come on!’ she said tauntingly. ‘Don’t act the innocent! It’s not high treason to tell us. No one’s going to chop your head off. Look at me. Last night I slapped Wang Shan-bao’s wife’s face. That’s an offence deserving hard labour at the very least, yet nothing’s happened so far, bar a bit of muttering. I don’t think anyone is going to give me a beating.’

‘Did you really slap her face?’ Bao-chai asked incredulously.

Tan-chun treated them all to a lively account of what had happened, after which You-shi, seeing that there was no longer any point in concealment, proceeded to tell them about her recent encounter with Xi-chun.

‘Oh, she’s always like that,’ said Tan-chun. ‘It’s her nature. Xi-chun is so peculiar, nothing the rest of us say or do is ever going to alter her. By the way’ – she returned to the subject that was uppermost in her mind – ‘I made some inquiries first thing this morning to find out why nothing was happening. Apparently it’s because Cousin Feng is ill again. I also sent someone to inquire about Wang Shan-bao’s wife. It seems that she has been given a beating. For interfering.’

‘Quite right, too!’ said You-shi and Li Wan. But Tan-chun took a more cynical view.

‘It would be a comparatively easy way of disarming suspicion. We must wait and see.’

You-shi and Li Wan looked thoughtful, but neither made any comment.

Shortly after this the maids came in to say that dinner was ready. Xiang-yun and Bao-chai went back to their apartment to pack, in preparation for their respective moves. Our narrative leaves them at this point.

You-shi and Tan-chun, after taking their leave of Li Wan, made their way to Grandmother Jia’s apartment. The old lady was reclining on her couch listening, while Lady Wang told her about the Zhens: the offences they had been charged with, the confiscation of their property and their coming up to the capital now for questioning. Grandmother Jia was obviously much shaken by what she heard, but brightened up somewhat when You-shi and Tan-chun arrived.

‘Where have you both come from?’ she asked them. ‘I suppose you know that Feng and Wan are both ill now? I wonder how they are today.’

‘They are both a little better,’ said You-shi.

Grandmother Jia nodded and sighed.

‘I think we’ve heard enough about other people’s troubles for the time being. It’s time we started thinking about the arrangements for our Mid-Autumn party.’

‘The catering arrangements have all been made,’ said Lady Wang. ‘It only remains for you to decide where you want it. I suppose the nights are getting too chilly now for us to have it out in the Garden.’

‘We can always put on a bit more clothing,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Of course we must have it in the Garden. That’s what the Garden is for.’

While they were speaking, some of the women came in carrying the dinner-table between them. Lady Wang and You-shi laid chopsticks and carried in the rice. When all was ready, Grandmother noticed that in addition to her own dishes there were two large food-boxes containing dishes from the other apartments. It was a long-established custom that the occupants of other apartments should send her samples of what they were planning to eat that day themselves as a way of showing her their respect.

‘I’ve told you all a number of times to stop doing this,’ she said. ‘Why won’t you ever do as I say?’

‘These are only very ordinary things here,’ said Lady Wang, referring to her own contribution. ‘It’s one of my fast-days today, so I have only vegetarian dishes. I know you don’t much like bean-curd fried in batter, which is one of the things I am having. The only thing of mine I think you might like is a salad pickle of chopped water-mallow in pepper sauce.’

‘That sounds rather nice,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I think I’d like to try some of that.’

Faithful quickly took the saucer containing it out of the box and put it down in front of her. Bao-qin, having first apologized to each of her seniors for sitting down in their presence, took her place at one side of the table. Grandmother Jia said that Tan-chun should eat with her as well, whereupon Tan-chun too made her apologies and sat down. She sat at the other side of the table opposite Bao-qin. Scribe quickly fetched her a bowl and chopsticks. Meanwhile Faithful was pointing out the other dishes to Grandmother Jia.

‘I can’t make out what these two here are. They are from Sir She. The stuff in this bowl is creamed chicken and bamboo. It’s from Mr Zhen.’

She brought the bowl of sliced bamboo-shoot over and put it down on the table. Grandmother Jia made a couple of dips into it with her chopsticks. She ordered all the other dishes to be taken back to their senders.

‘Tell them thank you very much I’ve tried some, but not to send things to me any more. If I ever want anything, I shall let them know.’

The women made some reply and went off with the boxes.

‘Now bring me my rice-gruel and I’ll have a bit of that,’ said Grandmother Jia.

You-shi stepped forward with a bowl of gruel. It was made with red ‘Emperor’ rice, she told her. After drinking about half of it, Grandmother Jia ordered the other half to be taken to Xi-feng. She pointed to one of the dishes.

‘And this is for Patience.’ She turned to You-shi. ‘I’ve finished. Now you can eat.’

‘Thank you,’ said You-shi, but waited all the same until the old lady had rinsed her mouth and washed her hands and was walking up and down on Lady Wang’s arm for her digestion before she ‘begged to be seated’. By this time Bao-qin and Tan-chun had finished eating. They got up as You-shi sat down, excusing themselves from keeping her company while she ate.

‘Oh,’ said You-shi, ‘I’m not used to eating at a big table like this all on my own.’

‘Faithful and Amber can eat with you for company,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘Good!’ said You-shi. ‘I was about to suggest that.’

‘I like to see people eating together,’ said Grandmother Jia. She pointed to Butterfly. ‘Now here’s a good girl. Why shouldn’t she eat with you as well? Go on, child! Go and eat with your mistress. As long as you are here with me, it doesn’t matter if you break the rules for once.’

‘Come on!’ said You-shi to the maid encouragingly. ‘Don’t pretend to be bashful!’

Grandmother Jia stopped walking up and down and stood with her hands clasped behind her back to watch them eat. It suddenly struck her that the rice being served was the plain white rice normally eaten by the servants and that You-shi, too, was eating it.

‘Why are you giving Mrs Zhen this stuff?’ she asked them.

‘There isn’t any of Your Old Ladyship’s rice left,’ said the maids. ‘You had an extra young lady eating with you today, don’t forget.’

‘Meals are made to measure nowadays,’ said Faithful. ‘We can’t afford to be extravagant the way we used to be.’

‘There have been so many floods and droughts during the past few years,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Our farms haven’t been able to make up their quotas. These special kinds of rice are particularly hard to come by. We have had to start rationing them rather carefully.’

‘Even the cleverest housewife can’t make rice-gruel without rice.’ Grandmother Jia quoted the proverb amidst general laughter.

Faithful turned to address the women waiting outside the door.

‘If Her Old Ladyship’s rice is all finished, you can get the rice that Miss Tan would have eaten if she hadn’t been eating with us and bring it here for Mrs Zhen.’

‘No need,’ said You-shi. ‘What I’ve got here is quite enough for me.’

‘I dare say it is,’ said Faithful, ‘but what about me?’

The women hurried off to fetch the rice.

Presently Lady Wang went off to have dinner in her own apartment, leaving You-shi to entertain Grandmother Jia. The time passed quickly, with much good-humoured teasing and laughter, and the first watch had already begun before Grandmother Jia noticed how late it was getting.

‘You’d better be getting back now,’ she told You-shi.

You-shi took her leave. Outside the inner gate she got into her waiting carriage. Her women pulled the blind down, then, taking all the maids with them except Butterfly, who was riding in the carriage with her mistress, hurried on ahead so that they could be waiting for You-shi when she arrived in the other mansion. The men from both gates walked some way along the street to keep it clear of pedestrians while six or seven pages pushed and pulled the carriage (it seemed too short a distance and too late an hour for mules) as far as the interior of the Ning-guo gateway. There the pages retired, old women came forward and raised the blind, and Butterfly dismounted and helped out her mistress. You-shi noticed that there were four or five large carriages waiting below the stone lions which flanked the gate and commented to Butterfly on their presence.

‘I wonder how many horses there are in the stables? If this number came by carriage, you may be sure that a much greater number will have come on horseback.’

As she and Butterfly entered the outer courtyard, Jia Rong’s wife at the head of a party of maids and older women carrying lanterns advanced to meet them.

‘I’ve been dying for I don’t know how long to have a look at the men while they are gambling,’ said You-shi, ‘but so far I haven’t had an opportunity. Tonight is the best chance I shall ever get. Let’s go along the wall in front of the windows so that we can peep in at them.’

The women with lanterns made a detour towards the building in which the men were congregated. One of them went ahead and warned the pages waiting outside not to announce their arrival to the men or make any other noise that would warn those inside of their coming. You-shi and her party were thus able to steal right up to the windows and could hear everything that was going on inside. Among the medley of sounds that met their ears, numbers seemed to predominate, some uttered exultantly and with raucous shouts of laughter, others angrily or despairingly and to the accompaniment of curses and profanities.

Cousin Zhen had found the ban on amusements during the seemingly interminable period of mourning for Jia Jing which convention imposed on him extremely irksome. Archery, for some reason, was permitted, and a few months previously he had hit on archery as a means of getting round the ban. A number of young men from the wealthy and aristocratic households of his acquaintance were invited round to the Ning-guo mansion to participate. Shooting was to be competitive.

‘Random shooting is quite useless,’ he explained to them. ‘You not only don’t make any progress; it actually spoils your form. You’ve got to have incentives of some kind to keep you on your toes, and the best way of doing that is to bet on something.’

Butts were set up in the shooting gallery below the Celestial Fragrance Pavilion and every day after lunch the young men came along to compete. Since, as Bereaved Son, it would have been unseemly for Cousin Zhen himself to have been named in this connection, the nominal convenor and organizer of these gatherings was Jia Rong. All those invited were rich, profligate, dashing young fellows, accustomed to spending their time in cock-fighting, dog-racing and even more questionable amusements. After some discussion it was decided that the responsibility for providing dinner after the day’s archery should fall to each one of them in turn. It became a point of honour to make these dinners as lavish as possible, so that the daily junketings at Ning-guo House came more and more to resemble the Diet of Lintong in the well-known play of that name, except that whereas Duke Mu’s princely guests competed in the bravery of their commanders and the magnificence of their regalia, it was in the skill of their chefs and in masterpieces of culinary art that the members of the Ning-guo archery club strove to outdo each other.

When this had been going on for a couple of weeks or so, Jia Zheng and Jia She got to hear about it. The report that reached them cannot have been a very accurate one, however, for, far from being critical of these goings-on, they spoke of them with approval.

‘Since Rong obviously has no aptitude for book-learning,’ Jia Zheng observed, ‘Cousin Zhen does right to encourage him in the martial arts. The boy does, after all, hold a military commission.’

They even made Bao-yu, Jia Huan, Jia Cong and Jia Lan participate. The four of them had to go over every day after lunch and not return until each of them had taken his turn at the butts.

But it was not of course in the archery that Cousin Zhen was interested. On the grounds that resting the muscles was an important part of one’s training, he was soon advocating a little cards or dice in the evenings as a means of relaxation. At first they played only for drinks, but soon they were playing more and more for money; the time spent on gaming gradually encroached on the time devoted to archery; betting became more open; and finally, with the formal opening of a ‘bank’ some three or four months previously, regular, organized gambling for heavy stakes had become a daily routine. The Ning-guo servants, who grew fat on the pickings, were delighted with these new arrangements and, anxious that they should go on, if possible, for ever, took very good care that no one outside the mansion should get to hear about them.

Lady Xing’s brother, Xing De-quan, himself a keen gambler, had lately become a frequenter of this establishment; so, inevitably, had Xue Pan, who was never so happy as when he was throwing away his money.

Xing De-quan was very unlike his sister. Drinking, gambling and debauchery were his only interests; consequently whenever any money came into his hands, he spent it like water. The singular obtuseness he showed in all his dealings had earned him the nickname of ‘Uncle Dumbo’. And since Xue Pan was already known to all and sundry as ‘the Oaf King’, the two of them when they were together were referred to by the young men as ‘Uncle Dumbo and Cousin Oaf’.

The situation when You-shi peeped inside was as follows. Cousin Oaf and Uncle Dumbo, each with a partner, were playing six-dice Grabs on the kang in the outer room. Simultaneously another dicing game, Driving the Sheep, was being played by several players sitting round a large table on the floor below. The inner room, where a slightly more intellectual group were playing Tin Kau, was devoted to dominoes. The servants were all pages of fifteen or under. There was also a pair of male prostitutes, powdered, overdressed youths of seventeen or eighteen, whose duty was to ply the guests with drink. It was this pair who first caught You-shi’s eye when she looked in.

Xue Pan had been having the sulks earlier on because he was losing, but then his luck had changed: he had not only recouped his losses but made a lot of extra money. He was therefore in a very good mood indeed. Cousin Zhen suggested that this might be a good point at which to stop and have dinner. They could go on playing afterwards if they wanted to.

‘What about the two other lots?’ he inquired.

It transpired that the Tin Kau players in the next room were in process of settling up after finishing the game and were in fact beginning to think about their dinner, but that the group at the big table playing Driving the Sheep had not yet reached a suitable point at which to break off. Cousin Zhen ordered dinner to be served for all those, himself included, who were ready. Jia Rong was to wait and have dinner with the other players when they had finished.

Xue Pan, elated by his success, sat with a cup of wine in one hand and his arm round the shoulders of one of the pretty pot-boys. With a victor’s expansive generosity he ordered the other boy to pour some wine ‘with his compliments’ for Uncle Dumbo. But Uncle Dumbo was thoroughly out of temper at having lost the game, and the two cupfuls he drank now in rapid succession served merely to make him tipsily aggressive. He vented his anger on the two young ganymedes, who, he claimed, had treacherously withdrawn their favours from him and transferred them to the winner.

‘Heartless brood of unnatural little whore’s gits!’ he grumbled. ‘You’ve had plenty of favours off me in the past – and off everyone else here. Now, just because I’ve lost a few taels, I’m not good enough for you. What makes you so certain you won’t ever need my help again in the future?’

The other guests all knew that he was drunk. Those of them who were losers themselves smiled wryly and said nothing, but one or two of the winners magnanimously expressed their sympathy.

‘That’s right, Uncle. Rotten little bastards! That’s just the way they do behave.’

‘Why don’t you pour Uncle a drink and tell him you’re sorry?’ said another of them.

The two young ganymedes, practised professionals in every trick of the trade, were on their knees at Uncle Dumbo’s side in a moment, offering him wine, fondling his thigh, and gazing with simpering archness into his eyes.

‘Don’t be angry with us, dear old friend. We are only children. We have to do as we are told. Our teacher always tells us, “It doesn’t matter what they are like or what your own feelings are, the person who at any moment has the most money is the one you must be nice to.” Just win a lot of money later on this evening, old friend, and you’ll see how nice we shall be to you!’

The disarming frankness of this made everyone laugh. Even Uncle Dumbo, though he tried hard not to, was forced to join in.

‘All right, I forgive you,’ he growled as he took the proffered winecup. ‘Though I don’t mind telling you, if I hadn’t been so fond of you two, I’d have kicked the stuffing out of your little tum-tums!’

He shot his foot up as he said this, by way of demonstration. The two boys scrambled to their feet in mock alarm. Each of them carried a long woman’s handkerchief of flowered silk. With mincing gestures, still holding their handkerchiefs in their hands, they guided the winecup towards his lips. Uncle Dumbo’s loud gurgles of delight were briefly interrupted while he threw his head back and drained the cup. Then, still laughing, he pinched their cheeks.

‘Little dears!’ he said. ‘How I loves them!’

His mood changed abruptly as he remembered a grievance. He smote the table angrily and glared at Cousin Zhen.

‘I had a quarrel with your Uncle She’s wife yesterday, did you know that?’

‘With Aunt Xing?’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘No, I hadn’t heard that.’

Uncle Dumbo sighed self-pityingly.

‘About damned money, as usual. You don’t know the history of our Xing family, dear boy. When my old mother died, I was still too young to know what was going on. I have three elder sisters. The eldest is your precious aunt. When your aunt married, she took everything we had with her. Everything. My second sister had to marry without a dowry. She and her husband are paupers. My third sister is still unmarried. She lives on a pittance paid out to her by that old bitch, Wang Shan-bao’s wife, who has charge of all our money. Well, I went along yesterday to ask her for a few coppers. Not Jia money, mind you: our Xing money is good enough for me. But would she give me any? Not she! And that’s the reason why I get treated by you lot like a poor relation.’

Cousin Zhen knew that he was drunk, but as it was embarrassing that these unsavoury details of family history should be paraded in front of outsiders, he did his best to mollify Uncle Dumbo and get him onto another tack.

All this was clearly audible to You-shi outside.

‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered to Butterfly, who was standing beside her. ‘That’s Lady Xing they’re talking about. If her own brother talks about her in that way, you can hardly wonder that other people complain about her.’

She would have said more, but checked herself in order to attend to what was going on inside. The group playing Driving the Sheep had now broken off and were calling for wine.

‘Who was upsetting Uncle Dumbo just now?’ asked one of them. ‘We couldn’t quite catch what it was about. Tell us what happened, Uncle, and we’ll see you get fair play.’

Uncle Dumbo proceeded to tell them how the two boys had forsaken him because he had no money.

‘Good grief!’ said the young man who had asked the question. ‘I don’t blame you for being angry. – What do you mean by it?’ he asked the boys. ‘He’s only lost a bit of money, hasn’t he? He hasn’t lost his prick!’

The company roared with laughter. Uncle Dumbo’s mouthful of rice was spattered over half the floor.

‘You dirty bugger!’ he said. ‘Can’t you open your mouth without being crude?’

You-shi gave a little snort of disgust.

‘Just listen to those animals! By the time they’ve swilled a few more cups of wine, heaven knows what filth they’ll be coming out with!’

She moved on her way – having seen and heard quite as much as she wanted to – returned to her apartment, undressed, and went to bed. Cousin Zhen did not get to bed until after two. He spent what remained of the night in Lovey’s room.

As soon as he was up next morning, someone came in with a message to say that the melons and mooncakes he had ordered were now ready and it only remained for him to say who they were to be sent to.

‘Ask your mistress to see to it,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I have got other business to attend to.’

Lovey took this message to You-shi, who proceeded to go through the list deciding how much should go to whom and making arrangements for the delivery. She had barely finished doing this when Lovey came back again with another message.

‘The master wants to know if you are going out today, madam. He says we can’t keep Mid-Autumn properly on the fifteenth because we are in mourning still, but there would be no harm in having a little family party tonight.’

‘I don’t want to go out,’ said You-shi, ‘but with Mrs Zhu and Mrs Lian both ill in bed, I don’t see how I can refuse to go next door and lend a hand.’

‘The master says, if you have to go out, will you at any rate try to get back as early as you can?’ said Lovey.

‘Better hurry up with the lunch then,’ said You-shi. ‘The sooner I can get away, the sooner I’ll be back.’

‘The master’s having lunch in the front today, madam. He says please have your lunch here without him.’

‘Who’s he got there?’ said You-shi.

‘Somebody told me it’s two people just arrived from Nanking,’ said Lovey, ‘but I don’t know who they are.’

Jia Rong’s wife came in while Lovey was talking. Shortly after that lunch was served. After lunch, You-shi changed into her going-out clothes and went over to Rong-guo House. She did not return until evening.

While she was away, Cousin Zhen went ahead with arrangements for an intimate family party. He had a whole pig boiled, a whole sheep roasted, and an infinite number of vegetable dishes and entremets prepared. When You-shi got back that evening, he conducted her and the little concubines and Jia Rong and Jia Rong’s wife to the Bosky Verdure Pavilion where it was all laid out. This was in the All-Scents Garden, as they continued to call the little remnant still left them after the main part was incorporated in Prospect Garden.

They had dinner first. The wine was brought in after they had finished eating, so that they could apply themselves singlemindedly to games and mirth and the enjoyment of the Mid-Autumn moon, which now (for by this time it was already the beginning of the first watch) shone brightly in a clear, fresh sky, filling the world above and below with its silver light. Cousin-Zhen invited the four little concubines to sit at the same table as him and You-shi and join with them in games of Plumstones and Guess-fingers. Presently – for the drink was beginning to make him sentimental – he called to them for some music, and Flower sang for them in a clear, sweet voice, accompanied by Lovey on the vertical bamboo flute. Everyone was deeply moved by the performance. After it was over the games continued.

The hours slipped by. Soon it was nearly midnight. Cousin Zhen was by now more than a little drunk. They had all just put on some extra clothes and had some hot tea; the wine-cups had been cleared and clean ones put in their place and a fresh lot of newly heated wine was just being poured, when suddenly a long-drawn-out sigh was heard from the foot of one of the garden walls. It was heard by all of them, quite clearly and unmistakably, and they could feel the hair on their scalps rise as they listened to it.

‘Who’s there?’ Cousin Zhen shouted in a voice that he tried to make fierce and challenging. But though he repeated the question several times, there was no reply.

‘It’s probably one of the servants,’ said You-shi.

‘Nonsense!’ snapped Cousin Zhen. ‘There are no servants living behind any of these walls. In any case, that’s the Hall of the Ancestors over there. What would anyone be doing behind that wall?’

A rustle of wind passed, at that very moment, along the foot of it and a distant sound like the opening and closing of a door could be heard from inside the ancestral temple. An oppressive feeling of dread came over them; the night air seemed suddenly to have grown colder; the moon appeared less bright than it had been a few minutes before; and they could feel their skins crawling with terror.

Shock had made Cousin Zhen almost sober; but though he managed to keep better control of himself than the others, he was very much shaken and had lost all appetite for enjoyment. Nevertheless he forced himself and the others to sit a little longer before retiring finally to bed.

He rose quite early next morning. It was the fifteenth, one of the two days in each month on which offerings have to be made to the ancestors. Entering the ancestral temple with the other male members of the family, he took the opportunity of looking round inside it very carefully; but everything was as it should be; there was no sign whatever of anything untoward having happened. He put down the previous night’s terror to the effects of drunkenness – a mild attack of the horrors – and resolved to make no further mention of it. When the service was over, he shut the temple up again and made sure that the doors were securely locked and barred.

After dinner that evening Cousin Zhen went over with You-shi to Rong-guo House. He found Jia She and Jia Zheng in Grandmother Jia’s room. The two of them were sitting on the kang, talking and laughing with the old lady, while Jia Lian, Bao-yu, Jian Huan and Jia Lan stood on the floor below. After greeting them and exchanging a word or two with each of them in turn, he sat, or rather half-sat, in polite discomfort, on a stool next to the door. Grandmother Jia vouchsafed a gracious smile in his direction.

‘How is your Cousin Bao’s archery these days?’

Cousin Zhen jumped to his feet to reply.

‘Greatly improved, Lady Jia. It isn’t only his form that is better; he is beginning to handle the bow with much greater strength.’

‘That’s the point at which to stop then,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘We don’t want him straining himself.’

‘No, no, certainly not,’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘I quite agree.’

‘Those mooncakes you sent yesterday were very good,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘The melons looked all right, but there’s not much inside them when you cut them open.’

‘Those mooncakes are good, aren’t they?’ said Cousin Zhen. ‘They were made by our new pastry-cook. I tried them myself to make sure they were all right before venturing to send you any. As for the melons: we’ve been lucky in previous years, but for some reason none of them this year seem to be any good.’

‘I think we must blame the weather,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘The rains this year were excessive.’

‘The moon must be up by now,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Let’s go and make our Mid-Autumn offering.’

She got up and, leaning on Bao-yu’s shoulder, led the way into the Garden. The main gate was wide open and hung with great horn lanterns. When they reached Prospect Hall, they found servants with lighted lamps waiting for them on the terrace and a table on which incense smoked in a square container and on which offerings of melons and other fruit and mooncakes had been set out on dishes. Lady Xing and all the other female members of the family were waiting inside the hall.

Moonlight and lanterns gleaming pale
Through a thin aromatic veil –

it was indeed a scene of indescribable beauty. A carpet for kneeling on had been laid on the terrace at the foot of the table on the side nearest the hall. Grandmother Jia washed her hands, lit some sticks of incense, knelt down on the carpet, bowed down, and offered up the incense. The others followed her example.

‘The best place for enjoying the moon from is the top of a hill,’ she told them when they had finished. She suggested the pavilion on the summit of the ‘master mountain’ behind Reunion Palace (of which Prospect Hall was a part) as the place to have their party. The servants at once went off to make it ready. Meanwhile Grandmother Jia sat talking with the others inside Prospect Hall, resting and drinking tea. Presently the servants came back to report that the mountain-top pavilion was now ready. The old lady stood up again and, supported on either side by her maids, prepared to make the ascent.

‘I’m afraid the moss on the steps might make them rather slippery,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you went up in a chair?’

‘The servants sweep them every day,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘How can there be any moss? They are good, level steps and not too steep. The exercise will be good for me.’

Jia She and Jia Zheng led the way, followed by a couple of old women with horn lanterns. Faithful, Amber and You-shi supported the old lady on either side, and Lady Xing, Lady Wang and all the others followed in a close procession behind. It was only a hundred or so steps up the zig-zag path to the summit.

The pavilion was a rectangular building with one completely open side looking onto a terrace. Because it was situated on the convex grassy summit of the little ‘mountain’, it was called Convex Pavilion. Two tables with chairs round them had been set out on the terrace, separated from each other by a large screen. The tables and chairs, like the moon and melons and mooncakes, were all round, in honour of the occasion. Grandmother Jia sat at the head of one of the tables with Jia She, Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian and Jia Rong on her left hand and Jia Zheng, Bao-yu, Jia Huan and Jia Lan on her right. Between them they filled only about half the places round the table.

‘I never felt in the past on these occasions that we were a small family,’ Grandmother Jia commented. ‘Looking at us today, though, I must say we do make a very miserable turnout. I can remember Mid-Autumns when there were thirty or forty of us sitting down together. Ah, what times we had then! We shan’t ever have numbers like that again. Let’s have the girls to sit with us. See if we can’t fill up that gap!’

Someone went over to the table presided over by Lady Xing on the other side of the screen to fetch Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun. Jia Lian, Jia Rong, Bao-yu and the other boys got up while the chairs were rearranged and the girls were installed at the table. Then they reseated themselves in their proper order, Jia Lian and Jia Rong with Ying-chun and Xi-chun between them, and Bao-yu and Jia Huan on either side of Tan-chun.

Grandmother Jia asked someone to fetch a spray of cassia and made one of the women sit behind the screen and drum for them, so that they could play Passing the Branch. Anyone whose hand the branch was in when the drumming stopped had first to drink a cup of wine and then tell a funny story. The drumming started and the branch passed from Grandmother Jia to Jia She and so on round the table. It stopped just as the branch had reached Jia Zheng’s hand on its second time round. He raised the winecup to his lips to the accompaniment of much secret nudging and pinching among the younger folk, to whom the notion of Jia Zheng telling a joke was in itself unbelievably funny.

Jia Zheng could see how much the old lady was enjoying herself and was anxious not to spoil her pleasure. Before he could begin his story, however, she saw fit to give him notice that he must expect to be punished if he did not make her laugh.

‘I can only think of one joke,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘If you don’t find it amusing, you will just have to punish me.’

‘Very well, tell us your one joke then,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘It is about a hen-pecked husband,’ said Jia Zheng.

He got no further. Already his audience were convulsed. It was not that what he had said was the least bit funny, simply that they had never heard him talking about such things before.

‘This is sure to be good,’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘In that case,’ said Jia Zheng, laughing himself, ‘let me persuade you to drink a cup of wine.’

‘Very well,’ said Grandmother Jia.

At once Jia She and Jia Zheng rose to their feet. Jia She held a winecup in both his hands while Jia Zheng poured wine into it from a wine-kettle. Then Jia Zheng took the cup from Jia She and ceremoniously set it down in front of Grandmother Jia. The two men stood in stiffly deferential attitudes beside her while she drank some, then, having completed their little pantomime, resumed their places.

Jia Zheng proceeded with his story.

‘This hen-pecked husband was so afraid of his wife that he never dared stay long away from the house. But one Mid-Autumn Festival he chanced to be out shopping in the street when a friend caught sight of him and insisted on dragging him off to his house for a drink. Without meaning to, the husband became very drunk – so much so that he had to stay at his friend’s house for the night. When he woke up the next morning, he was full of remorse. However, there was nothing for it but to hurry back home and apologize. When he got back, his wife was washing her feet.

‘“Very well,” she said when he had finished apologizing, “if you will lick my feet clean, I will forgive you.”

‘The man began to lick, but a feeling of nausea overcame him and he showed signs of wanting to be sick. When his wife saw this, she was furious.

‘“How dare you?” she screamed, and looked as if she was about to give him a beating.

‘The husband knelt down in terror and begged to be forgiven.

‘“Please, my dear! It isn’t that I find your feet in the least distasteful. It’s just that I drank rather a lot of yellow wine last night and ate lots of very rich mooncakes, so today I am feeling a little queasy.”’

Grandmother Jia and the rest all laughed and Jia Zheng poured Grandmother Jia another cup of wine.

‘Someone had better change this yellow wine for samshoo,’ she said. ‘We don’t want you husbands having this sort of trouble with your wives tomorrow!’

This produced another laugh.

The drumming recommenced and the branch, starting from Jia Zheng, began circulating again. This time it stopped with Bao-yu. Bao-yu had been feeling uncomfortable to start with because of Jia Zheng’s presence, but became ten times more so when he found himself stuck with the branch.

‘If I tell a joke and it’s no good,’ he thought, ‘he will say I’ve no invention. But if I tell a good one, he’ll say I have no aptitude for serious things, only frivolous ones, and that will be even worse. I’d much better not tell one at all.’

Having reached this decision, he stood up and asked his father to excuse him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell jokes. May I do something else, please?’

‘You may compose a poem on the theme of “Mid-Autumn Moon”,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘If it is good, I shall reward you; if it is not – I shall deal with you tomorrow.’

‘This is a game we are playing,’ said Grandmother Jia testily. ‘Do you have to make the boy write poetry?’

‘He can do it if he wants to,’ said Jia Zheng. He was smiling.

‘Very well, let him do it then,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Fetch him a brush and paper somebody.’

‘No padding, now!’ Jia Zheng told Bao-yu. ‘No “crystal”, “ice”, “jade”, “silver”, “light”, “bright”, “white” – anything of that sort. I want something original that will give me some idea of what you have been doing with your mind during this past year or two.’

Bao-yu found these injunctions by no means uncongenial, and having succeeded, in quite a short time, in thinking of a quatrain, he wrote it out and handed it to his father. Jia Zheng said nothing, but was observed to nod after he had finished reading it, which Grandmother Jia interpreted to mean that he could not have found the poem too bad.

‘Well?’ she asked him.

Jia Zheng wanted to make her happy.

‘Not at all bad,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity he won’t study, but his verses are really quite elegant.’

‘Well, that’s all right then,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘You ought to encourage the boy, so that next time he tries even harder.’

‘You are quite right,’ said Jia Zheng. He turned to one of the old women in attendance. ‘Tell my boys to get out two of the fans I brought back with me from the South, will you, and give them to Bao-yu for me.’

Bao-yu came forward and kotowed. After he had gone back to his seat, the game continued. This time the branch stopped in Jia She’s hand. He drank his wine and then told the following story.

‘This one is about a dutiful son whose mother was ill. He tried everywhere to get a doctor for her, but couldn’t find one, so in the end he was reduced to calling in an old woman who practised acupuncture. Now this old dame knew nothing of physiology, nevertheless she assured the son that it was inflammation of the heart that his mother was suffering from and that she could cure it instantly with her needle. The son became very alarmed.

‘“If metal in any form comes into contact with the heart,” he said, “it means death. Surely you’re not going to put a needle in her heart?”

‘“No, no, I shan’t put it in the heart,” said the old woman. “I mean to put it in here, over the ribs.”

‘“But that’s too far from the heart,” said the son. “Surely if you put it in there, it won’t do any good?”

‘“Oh yes it will,” said the old woman. “A mother’s heart always inclines towards one side.”’

The others all laughed, and Grandmother Jia was persuaded to drink another half cup of wine. After a long pause she said somewhat wryly,

‘Perhaps I could do with a bit of the old dame’s acupuncture myself.’

Jia She realized, too late, that his somewhat tactless choice of story could be interpreted as a criticism of his own mother. Hurriedly rising to his feet, he held up his cup to toast her with and did what he could to change the subject. Fortunately the old lady made no further reference to his gaffe and the game soon continued. This time the branch stopped with Jia Huan.

Jia Huan had lately been making modest progress in his studies. He was even beginning to show a certain interest in verse, though his tastes in it were decidedly peculiar. When Bao-yu’s poem was praised earlier on, he had been dying to demonstrate his own talent, but had not dared risk the charge of showing off in his father’s presence. Now that the luck of the game had given him free licence, he called for paper and writing-brush and, in a matter of moments, wrote out a quatrain which he handed to his father. Jia Zheng was not impressed. It was a somewhat weird little poem, and whatever advances Jia Huan might lately have made in his schoolwork, they certainly did not reveal themselves in his choice of words.

‘It is easy to see that you and Bao-yu are brothers,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘Whether in your ideas or the language you express them in, you show the same distaste for sound classical models. The “Two Incomparables” we should call you, not because you are incomparable in virtue like Chen Yuan-fang and his brother, but because you are incomparably hard to knock any sense into: though whereas Bao-yu seems to think that he has inherited the mantle of the Airy Fairy school and fancies himself as a second Wen Ting-yun, you apparently prefer the Spooks and Spectres style of poetry and see yourself as a latter-day Cao Tang.’

This (not because anyone understood it, but because it sounded funny) provoked general laughter.

‘Let me see that poem,’ said Jia She. He took it from Jia Zheng and almost immediately began praising it.

‘I like this poem, it’s got guts in it. Boys from families like ours don’t need to read themselves half blind in order to get started on a career. Provided they’ve read enough to show that they are better educated than the rabble and are capable of holding down a job, they can hardly fail to get on. Why waste a lot of time and energy on turning the boy into a book-worm? What I like about this poem is that it is just the sort of good amateur, not-too-brainy poem you’d expect a young chap of our class to write.’

He sent someone to fetch various objects of his to give to Jia Huan as a reward and smilingly patted him on the head.

‘You go on writing poems like this, young fellow! We’ll have no trouble getting you a posting when the time comes, don’t you worry!’

Jia Zheng protested.

‘Whatever you think of the poem, it hardly justifies talking in this way about the boy’s future.’

Mean while the servants had begun pouring more wine so that the game could continue; but Grandmother Jia intervened.

‘Why don’t you two go now? I’m sure your gentlemen must be waiting for you, and it would be discourteous to neglect them. Besides, it must be all of ten o’clock and if you go now it will give the children a chance to enjoy themselves unconstrainedly for a while before they go to bed.’

The two brothers at once got up to go, and after a parting cup offered to them on behalf of all the rest, they went off, taking Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian with them, but leaving Bao-yu and the two younger boys with the womenfolk.

What happened after their departure will be related in the following chapter.

Chapter 76

Flute-playing at Convex Pavilion provokes too much melancholy And linked verses at Concave Pavilion betray a morbid sensitivity

After Jia She and Jia Zheng had left, taking the two younger men with them, Grandmother Jia had the screen removed and proposed that those sitting at both tables should combine to make a single party. The serving-women cleared and wiped the table, replenished and replaced the plates of foodstuff, and set out clean winecups and chopsticks. While they were doing this, Grandmother Jia and the other members of the family were putting on more clothing, washing their hands, rinsing their mouths out, and drinking tea. When all was ready they arranged themselves round the one table. As they did so, Grandmother Jia noticed, for the first time that evening, that Bao-chai and Bao-qin were not there. With Li Wan and Xi-feng also away ill, the family gathering seemed sadly depleted. She commented on this fact to Lady Wang.

‘In past years, when Sir Zheng was away, we invited your sister to enjoy the Mid-Autumn moon with us. To be sure, we had some very happy times with her, but the recollection that one of our dear ones was missing – in my case a son, in yours a husband, in the children’s a father – somewhat dampened our enjoyment. This year, now that he is back, I was looking forward to a really jolly family party; but now, unfortunately, it’s your sister and her children who can’t be with us. Well, I suppose as she’s got two more members of her family with her this year we could hardly expect her to leave them behind and come over here simply to keep me amused. But what a pity that Feng should have chosen this time to be ill! She is always such a tonic – as good as ten other people at a party! It only goes to show. One can’t have everything.’

She sighed.

‘Fetch me a bigger cup,’ she said presently, ‘and pour me some good hot wine.’

Lady Wang smiled.

‘You have both your sons with you this year, Mother. Surely that is a gain? There may have been more females present in previous years, but surely having all your own children about you is better?’

‘Yes, yes, of course it is,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I am very happy. That is why I have asked for a larger cup. You must all have larger cups too.’

It was getting very late now and the other ladies had no real inclination for carousing; but as Grandmother Jia showed no signs of flagging, they were obliged to keep her company. The effect of forcing themselves to drink with her was that they became unbearably sleepy.

Grandmother Jia called for a carpet to be spread out at the top of the terrace steps. The remaining mooncakes, melons and other eatables were carried over there and the maids and womenservants invited to sit round in a big circle, eating them and enjoying the moon.

Grandmother Jia, too, looked up at the moon. It had now reached its meridian and was even clearer and more beautiful than it had been earlier in the evening.

‘To get full enjoyment of so fine a moon,’ she said, ‘the music of a flute is indispensable.’

She had the girls of the family’s little ten-piece orchestra summoned; but when they arrived, they were informed that not all of them would be required to play.

‘Too much sound would spoil the effect,’ she said. ‘The flute on its own will be enough. And we should like to hear it from quite a long way away.’

The flautist went off obediently to do her bidding. A moment after she had left, one of Lady Xing’s women came hurrying up and whispered something in Lady Xing’s ear.

‘What is it?’ said Grandmother Jia.

‘It’s Sir She,’ said Lady Xing. ‘On his way back just now he tripped over a rock and twisted his ankle.’

Grandmother Jia at once sent two of her own women to see how he was and told Lady Xing that she was to go back immediately and look after him. Lady Xing rose and took her leave.

‘Zhen’s wife may as well go back now too,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Then I shall go home to bed.’

‘I don’t intend to go back at all tonight,’ said You-shi. ‘I have resolved to spend the night here with you.’

‘That will never do!’ said Grandmother Jia, laughing. ‘Tonight of all nights a young couple like you ought to be together. I can’t have you staying away from your husband for my sake!’

You-shi coloured.

‘Really, Grandma, what a thing to say! I suppose Zhen and I are still comparatively young, but we have been married nearly twenty years, you know: we are both nearly forty. And in any case, we’re still in mourning for Sir Jing. I’d much better spend the night here with you.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’d quite forgotten you were still in mourning. Poor Sir Jing! It must be more than two years now – but I ought not to have forgotten. I shall drink this big cupful as a punishment! All right, you’d better stay and keep me company then. Let Rong’s wife see Lady Xing out. After that she can go back home herself.’

You-shi instructed her daughter-in-law accordingly, whereupon little Hu-shi accompanied Lady Xing as far as the main gate of the mansion. There both ladies got into their carriages and went their separate ways.

Meanwhile the company had been over to the other side of the terrace to admire the cassia. They now took their places at table once more and were served with freshly heated wine.

In the midst of their chattering and laughter, suddenly startling them into silence, the undulant, lamenting sound of a flute came floating up to them from the cassia-trees below. Beautiful at any time, such music heard in the stillness of the night under the great vault of the sky with a bright moon above and only the cold, invisible night wind stirring in the earth below steals like a balm over the soul, soothing and dissolving all earthly griefs and cares. They listened, rapt and silent, with upturned, attentive faces. The music continued for about the space in which one could comfortably have drunk two cups of tea and then stopped. The momentary silence which followed it was broken by cries of admiration from all present. The winecups were replenished with warm wine.

‘You see,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It is good, isn’t it?’

‘It truly is,’ they agreed. ‘Who could have imagined anything so beautiful? If it weren’t for you, Grandma, we might never have had this experience.’

‘It could have been much better,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘To get the full benefit you need to hear something really slow.’

She had a large cup of wine poured and ordered one of her women to take it to the flautist.

‘Tell her to take her time with this, and say that when she’s finished drinking it, I’d like her to play us another piece, only more softly this time.’

While this woman went off with the message and the wine, the two women she had sent off earlier to inquire after Jia She’s ankle returned.

‘We’ve had a look at Sir She, Your Ladyship. His right ankle is rather swollen, but he’s taken some medicine and the pain is not so bad now. It doesn’t look very serious.’

Grandmother Jia nodded and sighed.

‘You see? The truth is, I worry too much. He was trying to make out that I don’t care about him at all!’

While she was saying this, Faithful appeared carrying a large cape and hood.

‘Here, put these on,’ she said. ‘It’s getting very late. You don’t want to be outside when the dew falls. Aren’t you afraid of catching cold? I think when you’ve sat a little longer, you ought to come back home to bed.’

‘Just when I’m enjoying myself you have to start nagging me to go to bed,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m drunk. I’ve decided to stay up till dawn.’

She called rebelliously for more wine, but did put the cape and hood on notwithstanding. The other ladies drank with her for company and did their best to be amusing. Then, silencing them once more, the sound of the flute concealed in the cassia-bushes below came stealing into their ears, this time more plaintive even than before. Indeed, this time the combination of the flute’s melancholy with the effects of nocturnal stillness and ghostly moonlight induced a feeling of such overpowering sadness in the listeners that they turned their backs on it and sought, with talk and somewhat forced laughter, to escape it. Fresh wine was called for and the flautist told to stop playing.

‘I’ll cheer you up, Lady Jia,’ said You-shi. ‘Let me tell you a funny story. I learnt it specially for the occasion.’

‘Ha, ha, ha. Yes, that would be very nice, a joke. Do tell me,’ said Grandmother Jia with a jollity that seemed somewhat strained.

‘There were once four brothers,’ You-shi began. ‘The eldest had only one eye, the second had only one ear, the third had only one nostril, and the fourth, though he had all his parts in order, was dumb.’

She had got no farther with her story when she became aware that the old lady’s head was nodding down upon her bosom and her eyelids drooping as though she was about to go to sleep. She broke off at once, and she and Lady Wang both called gently to her to wake up. Grandmother Jia opened her eyes wide and laughed.

‘I’m not sleeping, I was just resting my eyes. Go on with your story. I’m listening.’

‘It’s very late,’ said Lady Wang. ‘The air is cold tonight and there is a lot of dew. Won’t you go home and rest now, Mother? We can have another moon-party tomorrow night, if you feel like it. The moon on the sixteenth is still well worth watching.’

‘What time is it?’ Grandmother Jia asked.

‘Past two o’clock,’ said Lady Wang. ‘The children couldn’t hold out any longer. They have all gone off to bed.’

Grandmother Jia looked round the table. Only Tan-chun was still sitting there in the semicircle of empty chairs.

‘Well,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘they are not used to staying up late. Considering the amount of weakness and sickliness there is among them, I suppose it is just as well. But there’s my little Tan, sitting there all on her own, poor child! You go to bed too, my dear. We’ll end the party now.’

She got up herself as she said this, and after taking a sip or two of green tea, climbed into her bamboo carrying-chair and was borne out of the Garden by two women, the rest walking beside her or following close behind. But of her and them no more.

One of the women who remained behind to clear the table and stack the crockery noticed that a single porcelain cup was missing. After looking everywhere for it unsuccessfully, she appealed to the other servants.

‘I suppose one of you must have dropped it accidentally and thrown it away somewhere. Do please tell us, and let us have the broken pieces, so that when we report the loss we shan’t be accused of having stolen it.’

‘None of us has broken it,’ said the others. ‘It might have been a maid of one of the young ladies that broke it. If you can think who it might have been, I should go and ask them.’

‘You are right,’ said the woman, suddenly recollecting. ‘I remember Kingfisher coming to fetch a cup for her mistress. I must go and ask her for it.’

She had not far to look. A short way along the paved path at the bottom of the steps she came upon her and Nightingale walking along together. It was Kingfisher who spoke first.

‘Oh, has Her Old Ladyship ended the party then? I suppose you don’t know where my mistress has gone?’

‘I’ve come to ask you what you’ve done with one of our teacups,’ said the woman, ‘and you ask me about your mistress!’

Kingfisher laughed.

‘I poured out a cup of tea some time ago and handed it to her, and the next thing I knew was she’d disappeared – with the teacup.’

‘Her Ladyship said just now that the young ladies had all gone to bed,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t know where you two can have been larking about all this time not to know anything about it.’

‘I’m sure our mistresses wouldn’t have slipped off to bed without telling us,’ said Kingfisher. ‘More likely they just went off for a walk. Perhaps when Her Old Ladyship left they joined the others to see her back to her apartment. We’ll go over there now and have a look. If they are there, we shall know where your cup is. Why don’t you come round and ask me for it tomorrow? There’s no pressing hurry for it now, is there?’

‘There’s no hurry as long as I know where it is,’ said the woman. ‘I’ll call round and ask you for it tomorrow.’

She went back to the pavilion then, to finish stacking the crockery.

Lady Wang was wrong. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun had not gone to bed. The sight of all those Jias enjoying the moonlight (in spite of Grandmother Jia’s complaint that the numbers were so few) and the thought of Bao-chai and Bao-qin enjoying a moon-party of their own with Aunt Xue and the two Xue males made the occasion a painful one for Dai-yu. She had slipped away not in order to go to bed but to lean on the terrace railings and cry. Bao-yu on this occasion had little thought for anything but Skybright’s illness, which had lately taken a serious turn for the worse, and after several appeals from his mother to go to bed, he had availed himself of the excuse for going back in order to find out how she was. Tan-chun was still feeling too much out of temper after the recent domestic upheavals to have any appetite for amusement. Ying-chun and Xi-chun might have kept Dai-yu company, but since they did not as a rule get on with her very well, it would not have occurred to them to do so. That left only Xiang-yun to offer her some comfort.

‘Now coz, this won’t do! You’re an intelligent girl: you must take more care of yourself. I must say, it is too bad of Chai and Qin. All that talk about spending Mid-Autumn night enjoying the moon together and using the occasion to revive the Poetry Club with another linked couplets session – and then, when the time comes, they leave us in the lurch and go off to enjoy the moon by themselves! No Poetry Club, no linked couplets, nothing! It’s all the fault of those wretched men! You remember the remark made by the first Song emperor: “No one but me is allowed to snore in this bedroom!” That’s the menfolk’s attitude at a party. Never mind. Since the others haven’t come, we’ll make up some linked couplets ourselves and take them along tomorrow to shame them with.’

Xiang-yun was so enthusiastic a comforter that Dai-yu felt she could not show herself wholly unresponsive.

‘The trouble is, all these people here are making so much noise,’ she said. ‘It’s not an atmosphere very conducive to poetic inspiration.’

‘Although the hilltop is a good place for enjoying the moon from,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘the moon would look even better over water. I don’t know whether you realize it, but one side of this hill does actually give onto the lake. There is a little building there called the Concave Pavilion nestling in a hollow quite close to the water’s edge. Whoever made this Garden must have been quite an educated person. The place where we are now is obviously called the Convex Pavilion because it is on top of the convex hill, and Concave Pavilion must have been given its name because it is in a hollow. Those two words “concave” and “convex” are very seldom encountered in literature. Their use in landscape gardening for the naming of features must be even rarer. To my mind the linking together of these two pavilions by so unusual a pair of names suggests that they must have been specially designed for viewing the moon from: Convex Pavilion for those who like the small, remote moon of the mountains and high places, Concave Pavilion for those who prefer the silky whiteness of the great orb reflected in the surface of the water. “Convex” and “concave” are often thought of as vulgar, unpoetical words, but that is only because of their modern associations. Some people even call that well-known line of Lu You’s vulgar:

In well-worn concave patch the ground ink settles;

but I find that criticism rather silly.’

‘Lu You is by no means the only writer to have used those words in a work of literature,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Jiang Yan uses them in his prose-poem “Moss”, Dong-fang Shuo uses them somewhere in his Book of Marvels, and in Lives of the Painters they turn up in a description of Zhang Seng-yao’s decoration of the Ekayāna Monastery at Nanking. In fact, there must be countless instances in literature. I think it’s merely ignorance that nowadays leads people to dismiss them as “unpoetical”. To tell you the truth, it was I who gave these two pavilions their names. That year when Bao-yu did all the naming of places in the Garden there were several places left over afterwards which he either hadn’t got round to naming or had given names to that were thought unsuitable, and the task of naming them was given to us girls. The names we made up were taken to the Palace for Cousin Yuan’s approval and she sent word back saying that provided Uncle Zheng approved of them they were to be used. So that’s how I came to name these two pavilions. All right, let’s go down then.’

The two girls descended the slope of the little mountain. A few steps round a turn in the pathway which skirted the foot of it took them to the pavilion. Near the water’s edge, linking it with Lotus Pavilion farther along the shore, was a bamboo railing. The two old women who were on night watch in it, little imagining that an overspill from the hilltop party would come their way, had long since put their light out and gone to sleep. Dai-yu and Xiang-yun laughed when they saw that the pavilion was in darkness.

‘They’ve gone to sleep. Never mind. All the better. Let’s sit outside here on the covered verandah and look at the moonlight on the water.’

They found a couple of drum-shaped bamboo stools to sit down on. A great white moon in the water reflected the great white moon above, competing with it in brightness. The girls felt like mermaids sitting in a shining crystal palace beneath the sea. A little wind that brushed over the surface of the water making tiny ripples seemed to cleanse their souls and fill them with buoyant lightness.

‘If only I were in a boat now, with some wine to drink!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘If this were my own home, I should jump into a boat now immediately.’

‘There’s an old saying: “Who seeks perfection must abandon joy”,’ said Dai-yu. ‘If you ask me, I think we are very well the way we are. Why do we have to be in a boat to enjoy this?’

Xiang-yun laughed.

‘“One conquest breeds appetite for another.” That applies to most of us, you know, not only to generals.’

While she was speaking, a flute began to play. They listened for some moments to its plaintive rise and fall.

‘Grandma and Aunt Wang are obviously enjoying themselves,’ said Dai-yu, smiling. ‘The flute is a very happy touch. We shall put it to our own purposes, you and I. It shall inspire our verse. We both like pentameters, don’t we? Let’s do linked pentameters as we did on that other occasion.’

‘What rhyme?’ said Xiang-yun.

‘We could use a number for a rhyme,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Let’s count the uprights in the railing as far as that angle over there. Whatever the number is shall be our rhyme.’

‘That’s a very ingenious idea,’ said Xiang-yun.

The two girls got up and walked along the railing to count.

It turned out that there were exactly eight posts from one angle of the railing to the next.

‘Hmn,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Eight. I wonder how far we shall get with that rhyme. The danger with this sort of thing always is that after a time the rhyming becomes forced – or else one simply can’t go on at all. Well, you begin.’

‘I’d like to have been able to see afterwards which of us had done better,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but unfortunately we haven’t got anything to write with.’

‘I’ll write it out tomorrow,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I may not be very clever, but I’ve got a reasonably good memory.’

‘All right,’ said Dai-yu. ‘I’ll start with something very prosy and obvious.’

DAI-YU:

Fifteenth night of the Eighth, Mid-Autumn moon –

Xiang-yun thought a bit before following.

XIANG-YUN:

Whose joys the First Full Moon’s do emulate. Under your crystal-constellated heaven –

DAI-YU:

The sounds of music everywhere pulsate.
At many a board the reckless winecups fly –

‘Ha! I like the “reckless winecups”,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I must try to do them justice. Let me see.’

‘She thought for a bit.

XIANG-YUN:

Where friends are met your feast to celebrate.
The air is crisp, the wind more bracing blows –

‘You finished the couplet very well,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but that second line is a bit weak, isn’t it?’

‘We’ve got a long way to go and the rhyming will soon begin to get harder,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I want to save up any good ideas I may have until later.’

‘Mind you produce some good lines later then,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Otherwise you are going to look pretty silly!’

She proceeded to finish the couplet.

DAI-YU:

In the clear sky the cold stars scintillate.
Grey hairs are mocked when they for cakes dispute –

‘I don’t like that line,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘It sounds like an allusion, but I think you have just made it up to confuse me.’

‘That shows you don’t read much,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It’s a perfectly good allusion. There’s a story about quarrelling over cakes in the Official History of the Tang Dynasty. I’ll show you it tomorrow.’

‘Well, anyway, I’m not going to be confused,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I can cap that line.’

XIANG-YUN:

Green girls divide the melons, eight and eight.
New scents the jade-like cassia have enriched –

‘Now that really is a bogus allusion,’ said Dai-yu.

‘We’ll look both our allusions up tomorrow and the others can judge between us,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘In the meanwhile, let’s get on with this and stop wasting time.’

‘That’s all very well,’ said Dai-yu, ‘but I don’t like your other line either. We ought to be able to manage without clichés like “jade-like cassia”. I call that mere padding.’

DA.-YU:

Closed day-lilies the morrow’s gold gestate. A blaze of candles gilds the radiant feasters –

‘“Gold gestate”!’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Well, that’s one way of getting a rhyme – a pretty cheap one if you ask me! And your second line is quite as much padding as mine was.’

‘If you hadn’t started with “jade-like cassia”, I shouldn’t have brought in my gold-gestating day-lilies,’ said Dai-yu. ‘And as regards my second line, I should have thought a few words on the brilliance of the feast were called for, in order to do justice to the occasion.’

Since Dai-yu was evidently not going to concede anything, Xiang-yun was obliged to finish off the couplet.

XIANG-YUN:

Whom frequent sconcings soon inebriate. Competing, they observe the game’s strict order –

‘Ah, that’s a good line!’ said Dai-yu.
She thought a bit before capping it.

DAI-YU:

And rules for ‘I spy’ gravely promulgate.
Some shake the pretty dice and make them roll –

‘I like “gravely promulgate”,’ said Xiang-yun, laughing. ‘It lifts a vulgar subject up and gives it tone. But then your “dice” in the next line bring us back again to the banal.’

She followed as best she could.

XIANG-YUN:

Or, to the drum’s quick beat, the branch rotate.
The clear rays glint on roofs and courts below –

‘Well capped!’ said Dai-yu. ‘But then in your next line you wander off the track. Is that the best you can do, padding out with that stuff about moonlight?’

‘In point of fact we haven’t said much about the moon yet,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Surely a few words on the subject are in order? Isn’t that what our poem is supposed to be about?’

‘All right, let it pass,’ said Dai-yu. ‘We’ll have another look at it tomorrow.’

She continued.

DAI-YU:

And all in silvery light illuminate.
Prizes and forfeits impartially they ponder –

‘Oh dear! are we back with that lot again?’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Why not something about ourselves for a change?’

XIANG-YUN:

Sibling verse-contests they adjudicate.
Poets lean on railings, seeking inspiration –

‘You’ve managed to get round to us at last!’ said Dai-yu.

DAI-YU:

Or hunt for rhymes, propped up against a gate.
The excitement lingers, though the party’s over –

‘Oh, does it?’ said Xiang-yun.

XIANG-YUN:

The sounds of music softly terminate.
Slowly the talk and laughter fade to silence –

‘It’s getting harder all the time now to rhyme,’ said Dai-yu.

DAI-YU:

Leaving a moonscape hushed and desolate.
On dewy steps the tiny toadstools sprout –

‘Just a minute, I can’t think how to rhyme this,’ said Xiang-yun.

She got up and paced to and fro, hands clasped behind her, thinking.

‘Ha, yes, that’ll do!’ she said after some moments. ‘Good job I thought of that word, otherwise I might have had to give up.’

XIANG-YUN:

Tight-curled albizzia bushes pernoctate.
A rain-swelled swirl rips through the brook-bed rocks –

Dai-yu leapt to her feet, unable to restrain a cry of admiration.

‘You wretch! You certainly have left the good things till last. “Pernoctate” is a splendid word. But what is “albizzia” for goodness’ sake?’

‘I came across it yesterday in the Prose Anthology,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘I was going to look it up because I didn’t know what kind of tree it was, but Cousin Chai told me I didn’t need to: she said it was another name for what we nowadays call “mimosa”. I didn’t believe her, so I looked it up all the same. She was right. That girl knows everything.’

‘Well, it was very clever of you to have thought of it,’ said Dai-yu, smiling, ‘especially as mimosa does in fact close up at night. But that “rain-swelled swirl” line is brilliant. That single line is worth all the lines we have made up so far put together. I shall have to think very carefully before capping it. I very much doubt whether, even so, I shall be able to think of anything as good.’

After thinking for a while, she produced the following.

DAI-YU:

And wind-combed leaves on ledges congregate.
The Weaving Maid in lonely splendour shines –

‘Your capping line is not at all bad,’ said Xiang-yun, ‘but that second line wanders off the track a bit. Still, I suppose you could say your “Weaving Maid” is saved from being mere padding by the “lonely”. It introduces an element of feeling into the line.’

XIANG-YUN:

Damp airs the silver Toad of the moon inflate.
See where the Hare immortal medicine pounds –

Dai-yu nodded silently for some moments before reciting her own two lines.

DAI-YU:

Thither Chang E was forced to emigrate.
A man moves upwards through the constellations –

Xiang-yun, gazing up at the moon, also nodded.

XIANG-YUN:

A raft floats skywards with a human freight.
Waxing or waning, the moon’s face, ever changing –

‘That capping line is not good,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It merely repeats what my line said in other words. You manage to get clear again with your second line. I suppose you wanted to compensate for the sameness of the first couplet by making a big jump in the second.’

DAI-YU:

Its substance changeless and inanimate.
Soon the clepsydra’s night-long drip will cease –

Xiang-yun was about to continue when Dai-yu drew her attention to a black shape in the middle of the lake.

‘Look, in that dark shadow there, like a human shape! Do you think it could be a ghost?’

Xiang-yun laughed.

‘Oh, she’s seeing ghosts now! I’m not afraid of ghosts. I shall throw a stone at it.’

She bent down to pick up a pebble and hurled it into the centre of the lake. They heard a plop and saw the distorted image of the moon expand and contract as concentric ripples travelled outwards from the shattered surface. There was a loud squawk, and from the middle of the dark shadow a white stork flew up and flapped his way across the water in the direction of Lotus Pavilion.

‘So that’s who it was!’ said Dai-yu. ‘I wasn’t expecting him to be there. He gave me quite a shock.’

‘I’m very grateful to that stork,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘He’s given me a first line for the next couplet.’

XIANG-YUN:

Black shades the lamp’s last gleams annihilate
A stork’s dark shape crosses the cold, bright water –

Dai-yu murmured admiringly, but stamped with vexation when she began to think about finishing the couplet.

‘Wretched stork, coming to her aid like that! This is not like the “rain-swelled swirl” couplet: I’m not going to be able to complete it by paralleling the whole line. A contrast for the dark moving shape is the most I can hope for. But your line is so natural, so simple and expressive. I feel almost like giving up.’

‘Perhaps if we both thought about it we could finish it together,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Or, if you prefer, let’s break off now and you can try again tomorrow.’

Dai-yu stared up at the sky, ignoring her. Suddenly, after remaining immobile for some seconds, she gave a little laugh.

‘Stop your chatter, girl! I can finish this couplet. Listen:

DAI-YU:

Where, moon-embalmed, a dead muse lies in state.

Xiang-yun clapped her hands.

‘Excellent! Couldn’t be better! I love your “dead muse”!’ She sighed. ‘I mean excellent from a purely poetic point of view, because it’s so original. It’s a bit morbid, though. I don’t think it can be good for a person in your state of health to indulge in such chilling fantasies.’

‘With you to compete against, how else could I keep my end up?’ said Dai-yu. ‘Because I put so much into that last line –’

Just at that moment a figure stepped out from behind the spur of rock beyond the railings.

‘Bravo! An excellent line!’ said this person. ‘But it is, indeed, a little too melancholy. Don’t do any more. If you go on from there, the danger is that you may produce something forced and mechanical, which instead of offsetting the beauty of your line will merely spoil it.’

Startled by this unexpected interruption, the two girls looked hard in the direction from which it came and with some surprise recognized the speaker as Adamantina.

‘What are you doing here?’ they asked her.

‘Hearing the sounds of your moon-watching party, followed later by the sound of a flute playing, I was tempted to come out and enjoy the moon myself. I wanted to see it over this open expanse of water, where it appears to most advantage, and as I approached, I could hear you both reciting. Such pure refinement constrained me to stay and listen. But there were lines which, in spite of their excellence, contained a note of almost decadent melancholy, lines which made me fearful for the person uttering them. That is why I came out of my concealment and prevented you from going on. Lady Jia has long since broken up the party. Everyone else in the Garden must be in bed by now. I wonder where your maids are. Doubtless they are somewhere looking for you. Are you not afraid of catching cold? Come with me, and I shall give you some hot tea to drink. It must be nearly dawn.’

Dai-yu laughed.

‘I’d no idea the night was so far advanced.’

The three of them walked together to Green Bower Hermitage. A faint light still flickered in the Buddha shrine and the incense in the burner gave off a tiny smoke. All the old lay-sisters were asleep. A little maid, nodding sleepily on Adamantina’s meditation mat, appeared to be the only person still up. She roused herself when Adamantina called to her and made some tea with water from the already boiling kettle. Just at that moment there was a knocking at the gate and the little maid hurried to open it. It turned out to be Nightingale and Kingfisher with two or three old womenservants, looking for their mistresses. They found their mistresses drinking tea inside.

‘Well!’ they said. ‘You’ve led us a fine old dance! We’ve been all over the Garden looking for you. We even tried Mrs Xue’s outside. In the end we happened to go to that little pavilion under the mountain, just as the caretakers were waking up. When we asked them about you they said, “There were two people talking outside on the covered verandah a while ago, then a third one came along and we heard them saying they were going to the Hermitage.” That’s how we knew you were here.’

Adamantina told the little maid to take them round to the back where they could sit down and have some tea. She herself took paper, inkstone, brush and ink and began writing out the poem in linked couplets at the other two’s dictation.

Dai-yu was impressed by Adamantina’s enthusiasm.

‘I have never before liked to ask for your opinions about poetry because I have never before seen you show so much interest,’ she said; ‘but since you now obviously are in the mood for discussing it, won’t you please favour us with some criticism? If you think that what we have done is no good at all, let us burn it; but if you can see ways of improving it, do please correct it for us.’

‘I certainly would not presume to alter any of it,’ said Adamantina smiling; ‘but as there are no less than twenty-three couplets here, I am pretty sure that all your best lines must have been used up by now, and that if you were to go on, there would be a danger that you might begin to flag. What I should have liked to do would have been to go on for you myself; but I am afraid that if I did, I might only succeed in adding a dog’s tail to your leopard-skin!’

Dai-yu had never seen Adamantina compose poetry before and took her up eagerly on her obvious willingness to do so now.

‘Oh please do, if you have a mind to! Though our verses may be of little value, they will gain distinction by being associated with yours.’

‘In order to conclude what you have done so far,’ said Adamantina, ‘it will be necessary to bring the poem back to what we Buddhists call the “proper aspect”. If we continue to abandon reality and go chasing after the bizarre and the supernatural, we shall be guilty not only of unmaidenliness but also of losing sight of our subject.’

Mesdemoiselles Lin and Shi agreed.

Adamantina picked up the brush and began, muttering and writing by turns, until, having knocked off some dozen or so couplets, all in the same apparently effortless manner, she laid the brush down again and handed the paper over for the other two to read. This is what she had written:

In golden censers figured incense burns;
Unguents in their jade pots coagulate.

A flute provokes the grieving widow’s weeping;
She craves some warmth her bed’s chill to abate.

Its cheerless hangings stir in the wind of autumn,
Its love-ducks mock a mistress without mate.

Thick dews make treacherous the slippery moss,
And spears of frost the tall bamboos serrate.

Better the winding lakeside path to follow,
Or lonely hilltop to perambulate.

Bound demons seem to writhe in the tortured rock-shapes;
In the trees’ black shadows wild things pullulate.

Light’s harbingers begin with the dark to struggle,
And morning’s first dews to accumulate.

Birds in a thousand treetops wake the woodland;
In the echoing valley sad apes ululate.

My footsteps tread the path’s familiar turnings,
Nor need the stream’s source to investigate.

From Green Bower convent sounds the matin bell;
And Sweet-rice cocks the dawn anticipate.

Why should this rapt enjoyment end in sorrow,
Or timid cares our conscience irritate?

Poets ought in themselves to find their pleasure,
Not in the message they communicate.

As daylight breaks let none of us plead tiredness,
But over tea continue our debate.

At the end of these couplets she had written down the title for the whole poem:

Mid-Autumn Night in Prospect Garden: A Poem in Thirty-five Couplets

Dai-yu and Xiang-yun were full of admiration.

‘Strange that we should be always looking round for poetic talent,’ they said, ‘and all the time we have had a poet like you on our very doorstep! These verses of yours make anything we have ever done look very amateurish.’

‘I must have another look at them tomorrow and touch them up a bit,’ said Adamantina smiling. ‘It’s already dawn. We really must go to bed.’

Dai-yu and Xiang-yun got up and took their leave. Their maids left with them. Adamantina saw them outside the gate and stood a long while watching them go. They had already covered a good part of the way back when she at last went in again and closed the gate after her.

Kingfisher wanted Xiang-yun to go to Li Wan’s place to sleep.

‘The people at Mrs Zhu’s are expecting you, miss. You ought to go there.’

‘Drop in there on the way and tell them not to wait up for me any longer,’ said Xiang-yun. ‘Mrs Zhu is still ill. If I went back there to sleep now, I’m afraid I might disturb her. If I’m going to disturb anyone, let it be Miss Lin.’

When they reached the Naiad’s House, they found half the servants there asleep. The girls took off their ornaments and outer clothes, washed, and got into bed. Nightingale let down the bed-curtains, and having set the lamp down within easy reach of the bed, went out and closed the door.

But neither of the girls could sleep, Xiang-yun because she always had difficulty in getting to sleep in a strange bed, and Dai-yu because her anaemic condition always made sleeping difficult for her, and because on this occasion she had long since passed beyond tiredness, so that for her sleep was in any case out of the question. For a long time the two of them lay tossing and turning on the bed.

‘Can’t you get to sleep?’ Dai-yu asked Xiang-yun eventually.

‘I can never get to sleep in a strange bed,’ said Xiang-yun with a rueful laugh. ‘Anyway, I’m too tired to get to sleep. I’ll just have to lie and rest. Can’t you get to sleep either?’

Dai-yu sighed.

‘This is no novelty for me,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose I get more than ten really good nights’ sleep in a year.’

‘No wonder you’re always ill,’ said Xiang-yun.

Our story continues in the following chapter.

Chapter 77

A wronged maid takes a loving last leave of her master And three young actresses seek to escape matrimony in the cloister

To Lady Wang it appeared that, with the passing of the Mid-Autumn festival, Xi-feng’s condition had improved considerably. True, she was still far from well, but she could get about in the house now and even venture out of doors. The physician, who, notwithstanding this improvement, had on Lady Wang’s instructions been requested to continue his daily visits, was now recommending a course of pills designed to regularize her periods and make some new blood to replace the quantities she had lost. Observing that the prescription for these pills included two ounces of the best quality ginseng, Lady Wang ordered her maids to get out her own supply. After much rummaging they found a few pieces not much thicker than a large hairpin in one of the little medicine-boxes. When they showed them to Lady Wang, she thought them of too inferior a quality and ordered the maids to look again; but further searching produced only a large packet of ‘whiskers’ broken off from the rootlets.

‘When one doesn’t need this stuff, there is always plenty of it,’ said Lady Wang testily. ‘It is only when we want some that you can’t find any. I am always telling you: you must keep a proper check on things and you must keep them together, but you won’t do as I say: you will leave things lying around all over the place, and then afterwards you never know where to look for them.’

‘I think this is all the ginseng we’ve got,’ said Suncloud. ‘That time Lady Xing came for some, I think she must have taken it all.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Lady Wang. ‘Go and look again. And look properly this time!’

Suncloud had to go off and search some more. She came back bearing several packets of herbs.

‘I don’t know what is in these, Your Ladyship. If there isn’t any ginseng in any of these, then we really haven’t got any.’

Lady Wang opened the packets. She had no recollection of what they contained and could not identify the contents, but she could tell at a glance that none of them contained any ginseng. She sent someone to Xi-feng’s room to ask if Xi-feng had got any herself. Xi-feng came over to reply.

‘I’ve only got extract of ginseng,’ she said. ‘Actually I have got a few dried leaves and whiskers, but they are not of good quality and I use them every day in my infusions.’

Lady Wang was obliged to ask Lady Xing; but she, too, was unable to oblige.

Lady Wang was now reduced to going round in person to Grandmother Jia and begging some from her. Grandmother Jia at once asked Faithful to get out whatever remained of her own supply. Fortunately there was still a large packetful. The roots were of various sizes, but mostly about the thickness of a finger. Faithful weighed out two ounces and gave them to Lady Wang, who carried them back to her own apartment and there handed them over to Zhou Rui’s wife, together with the packets of unidentified herbs, instructing her to get one of the pages to carry them to the doctor. While he was about it, she said, he could determine what the herbs were and write their names on the packets.

When Zhou Rui’s wife reappeared some time later, she was carrying not only the packets of herbs but also the ginseng.

‘He’s written the names on the packets,’ she said. ‘But this ginseng – he says it’s very high quality ginseng, but it’s too old. He says ginseng isn’t like other medicines: no matter how good it is, after a hundred years or so it turns into dust. This ginseng here hasn’t turned into dust yet, but he says it’s already dried-up, like rotten wood. It’s got no goodness in it. He told me to bring it back. He said tell Her Ladyship to try and get hold of some a bit fresher than this. It doesn’t matter about the roots being a bit on the thin side as long as it’s fresh.’

Lady Wang bowed her head and thought for some moments in silence.

‘I suppose there’s nothing else for it. We shall just have to buy two ounces. – Take this stuff away!’ she said, feeling no inclination to examine the packets. One of the maids removed them while she continued with her instructions to Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Tell our buyer to pick out ginseng of the very best quality. He is to get it as cheaply as he can, of course, but it must be high quality ginseng. Oh, and if Lady Jia should ask any of you about this, tell her that we used the ginseng she gave us. Don’t go prattling to her about what the doctor said.’

Zhou Rui’s wife was about to go off on her errand when Bao-chai, who happened to be sitting in the room, smilingly intervened.

‘Just a minute, Aunt. There is really no good ginseng to be had in the shops nowadays. If the dealers ever get hold of a whole root, they cut it into two or three sections which they carve into shape and graft crowns and rootlets onto so that they can make more money by passing off each section as a whole root. Our firm has quite a lot to do with the ginseng suppliers. If I had a word with Mamma about this, I am sure Pan could arrange for one of our people to get two ounces of whole, uncut root from the suppliers. It might cost rather a lot, but at least you could be sure that you were getting ginseng of the very highest quality.’

‘You are so knowledgeable!’ said Lady Wang gratefully. ‘Would you do that then? I am sure it would be better for the request to come from you.’

Bao-chai left immediately and was gone for a long time.

‘He’s sent someone to see about it,’ she said when she got back. ‘We shall have a reply by this evening. That means that we ought to be able to get the stuff first thing tomorrow. That isn’t too long to wait, is it?’

Lady Wang was delighted, though her comment was a somewhat rueful one.

‘We have always kept a supply of ginseng in the past, and we have given I don’t know how much away to other people; but now that we want some ourselves, we have to run around looking for it elsewhere.’

She sighed.

‘Although ginseng is so costly, it is only a medicine,’ said Bao-chai consolingly. ‘As such it ought to be given away to others, so that its benefit may be spread as widely as possible. People in our position cannot behave like ill-bred parvenus who hoard their ginseng like an heirloom and can only under the most exceptional circumstances be induced to part with any.’

Lady Wang nodded.

‘Yes, I suppose you are right.’

A little later, after Bao-chai had gone and there was no one else with her in the room, Lady Wang called Zhou Rui’s wife over to ask about another matter.

‘When you made that search in the Garden the other day, did you find what you were looking for?’

Zhou Rui’s wife had already consulted Xi-feng about what Lady Wang should be told and Xi-feng had insisted that there should be no concealment; she therefore told her everything. Lady Wang was deeply shocked. When she had somewhat recovered from her surprise and begun thinking what to do, it occurred to her that, as Chess was Ying-chun’s maid and therefore really a member of Lady Xing’s establishment, it would first be necessary to acquaint Lady Xing with the facts before proceeding any further. Zhou Rui’s wife had her own ideas on the subject.

‘Lady Xing was so angry with Wang Shan-bao’s wife for meddling that she boxed her ears and Wang Shan-bao’s wife has kept at home ever since, pretending to be ill. She certainly won’t have spoken to Lady Xing about this matter because Chess is her own daughter’s child and it would be like slapping her own face if she did so. I expect she’s pretending to have forgotten all about it and is just waiting for the whole affair to blow over. If I report it, Lady Xing will like as not take umbrage and say that I am interfering. It would be best simply to take Chess and the things we found along to her and let her work it all out for herself. Probably she’ll give Chess a beating and have her married to one of the boys and pick another maid for Miss Ying and that will be the end of the matter. But if I just go along and tell her, without taking Chess or the things, she’ll probably think up some excuse for doing nothing. “If your mistress has found this out,” she’ll say, “why doesn’t she deal with it herself? Why do you come here asking me about it?” That way it will get put off. Then suppose when no one is looking the girl finds some means of doing away with herself? We shall have a fine to-do on our hands! She’s already been under guard now for two or three days. If we don’t do something about her soon, we shall be simply asking for trouble.’

Lady Wang reflected for some moments.

‘Yes, you are right,’ she said at last. ‘Do as you have suggested straight away then, and after that we will deal with our own young harpies.’

Now that she had her commission, Zhou Rui’s wife got together several of the other women and took them with her to Ying-chun’s apartment. Ying-chun listened with tears in her eyes while Zhou Rui’s wife explained what she had come about, and it was evident that the idea of parting with Chess distressed her; on the other hand, as she had now heard something about the raid from the other maids and knew that this matter was connected in some way with morality, she felt that however painful the parting might be, there was probably nothing she could do to prevent it. Chess was unaware of this. She had pleaded with Ying-chun the morning after the discovery and was convinced that Ying-chun could save her if she had a mind to. It could only be her habitual reluctance to speak out, her usual weak irresolution, that now kept her silent. When it became clear that her mistress was determined to say nothing and that there was to be no escape for her, Chess fell down on her knees and reproached her tearfully.

‘You have a cruel heart, miss! All through these last few days you have allowed me to go on hoping, but now, when the time comes, you won’t say a single word to help me!’

‘You surely don’t expect Miss Ying to keep you?’ said Zhou Rui’s wife indignantly. ‘Even if she did, what would all the other people in the Garden say? And how would you be able to look them in the face after what you have done? Take my advice: the best thing you can do is to pack your things up and get out of here as quickly as possible, before anyone else has had a chance of finding out what you have been up to.’

‘I know that you have done something serious,’ said Ying-chun tearfully. ‘If I speak up for you or try to keep you, it will be all up with me too. Apart from that, look how quickly they got rid of Picture, in spite of all the years she had served Miss Xi: just “Out!” and out she went. I don’t think it will stop at you and Picture. I think they must be planning to get rid of all the older girls in the Garden. We are all going to be separated sooner or later. If you ask me, I think you and I might just as well part now as any other time.’

‘There, you see?’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Miss Ying understands. There’ll be plenty of others dismissed after you have gone, don’t you worry!’

Since there was to be no respite, Chess, struggling to hold back her tears, made a last kotow to her mistress and said good-bye to the other maids. As she was leaving, she leaned forwards and whispered in Ying-chun’s ear:

‘Try and find out what’s happening to me, miss. Put in a good word for me if you hear I’m suffering.’

‘Of course I will,’ said Ying-chun. There were tears in her own eyes as she said it.

Those were the last words spoken before Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women took Chess away. Two old women accompanied them carrying her things. They had gone no more than a few steps out of the courtyard gate when little Tangerine came running after them and handed Chess a silk purse, while with the other hand she wiped her streaming eyes.

‘This is from the mistress. She says it’s hard to lose you after all the years you and she have been together and she wants you to have this to remember her by.’

As she received the purse, Chess was unable to restrain a further outburst of tears, and for some moments she and Tangerine clung together weeping, until Zhou Rui’s wife, growing impatient, began hustling Chess on her way, forcing the two girls apart.

Chess spoke to the women imploringly:

‘For charity’s sake, couldn’t you turn a blind eye just for a few minutes while I say good-bye to the maids in the other apartments? Some of the older ones I have known so long, they have become almost like sisters to me.’

Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women all had work of their own to do which they had left unwillingly and were anxious to get back to; moreover all of them deeply resented the overbearing manner which Chess and the other senior maids had adopted towards them in the past; there was therefore little chance of their being moved by her plea.

‘If I were you I should stop all this shilly-shallying and be’ on your way,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife coldly. ‘We’ve got more important things to do than sit around waiting while you say your good-byes. In any case, they’re not your real sisters, so what’s the point of seeing them? It’s only playing for time. You’ve got to leave in the end, however long you delay. You might just as well get it over with now, as quickly as possible.’

She hurried on towards the rear corner gate of the Garden. The hapless Chess, not daring to say another word, had to follow her out of it.

By coincidence, just as they were coming out of the Garden, they ran into Bao-yu who was returning to it from outside. Seeing Chess in the company of this grim escort and with the two older women behind her carrying a lot of things, he realized that she must be leaving the Garden for good. He had heard something now about the raid and had noticed that Skybright’s sickness had grown more serious since her interview with his mother (though he could not induce her to say why). The realization that he was witnessing Chess’s dismissal came as all the greater shock in the light of these other happenings. He stepped forwards impetuously and barred their way.

‘Where are you going?’

Zhou Rui’s wife knew Bao-yu from of old and greatly feared that they were now to be held up indefinitely with a lot of pointless chatter.

‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ she said, smiling grimly. ‘You get back to your books!’

‘Just stop a moment, there’s a good woman,’ said Bao-yu appealingly, ‘just long enough to hear what I’ve got to say.’

‘Her Ladyship told us we were under no circumstances to delay,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘There’s nothing to be said. We’ve got our orders from Her Ladyship, that’s all We’re concerned about.’

Chess clung to Bao-yu and wept.

‘There’s nothing they can do. If you want to save me, you’ll have to speak to Her Ladyship.’

Bao-yu was deeply upset. His eyes filled with tears.

‘I don’t know what terrible thing you are supposed to have done,’ he said, ‘but I know that something has upset Skybright and made her ill, and now you are going. What on earth is happening?’

Zhou Rui’s wife turned on Chess angrily.

‘You’re not a lady’s maid now, you know. Now if you don’t do what I tell you, I have the right, to beat you, just like any other servant. You can’t play fast and loose with us now and then run to your mistress to save you from the consequences. I’ve told you a number of times to be on your way, but you take no notice. A maid holding on to a young master – whoever heard of such a thing!’

At this the other women laid violent hands on Chess and hurried her away. Bao-yu, fearing that if he said anything it would only make matters worse, glared at them in silence; but he could not resist pointing his finger at them when they had gone and – sotto vote – giving bitter vent to his feelings:

‘Strange, the way they get like this when they marry! It must be something in the male that infects them. If anything they end up even worse than the men!’

The old women on duty at the gate overheard this and could not help laughing at him.

‘In that case all girls must be good and all women must be bad,’ they said. ‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘Indeed I do,’ said Bao-yu feelingly. ‘That’s precisely what I do believe.’

Just at that moment some other old women came hurrying up to them.

‘Make sure you’re all here in case Her Ladyship wants you,’ said one of them. ‘She’s in the Garden now, making an inspection. And someone go and get Skybright’s cousin and his wife, so that they’ll be ready to take her away presently.’ She chuckled. ‘Holy Name! The Lord has opened his eyes at last! With that little pest out of the way, it will be a better place for all of us!’

At the old woman’s mention of his mother’s presence, Bao-yu, fearing that it might bode ill for Skybright, had rushed off immediately, so that he had missed the gloating remark which followed it. When he arrived at Green Delights, he found a small crowd of women waiting outside the door. His mother was sitting inside the room with anger written all over her face. She deliberately ignored him as he entered. Skybright, who had taken no nourishment of any kind for the past four or five days and was in too weak a state to get up, had been dragged from the kang and now stood facing her, propped up between two women. Her hair was in disarray and her face looked as if it needed washing.

‘Throw out the clothes she has been wearing,’ Lady Wang was saying. ‘She can take them with her. The rest can be kept here and given to more deserving maids to wear.’

Having finished with Skybright, she ordered all the other maids to be called in, from Aroma down to the most junior maid-of-all-work, to be subjected to her scrutiny. Each and every one of them was in Lady Wang’s opinion a potential corrupter of her boy.

‘Which is the one whose birthday is on the same day as Bao-yu’s?’ she asked.

Since the girl herself would not answer, one of the old women pointed her out.

‘This is the one, Your Ladyship: Citronella. She’s called “Number Four”. she’s the one whose birthday is on the same day as Bao-yu’s.’

Lady Wang examined the girl closely. Although not half as good-looking as Skybright, she had a certain gracefulness about her, and intelligence shone out in her every feature. She was moreover better dressed than the other maids. Lady Wang sniffed scornfully.

‘Another shameless young baggage! This is the one who said that those with the same birthday are destined to be husband and wife. You did say that, didn’t you? You think that because I live away from here I don’t know these things; but though I may not come here often myself, I have my eyes and ears here, watching you and listening to you all the time. Do you imagine that I would willingly allow my only son to be corrupted by creatures like you?’

Number Four reddened, hearing from Lady Wang’s own lips the words she once said to Bao-yu in private. It was useless to deny that she had said them. She hung her head and wept.

‘Tell her people to come and take her away,’ said Lady Wang. ‘She can be paired off with one of the boys.’

Exit Number Four.

‘Now which is the one with the foreign name?’ said Lady Wang.

Parfumée-Aventurin stepped forward.

‘Oh, it is you. One expects an actress to be a vampire, but one had hoped, after you turned down the opportunity to go free and insisted on staying here, that you would make some effort to behave. Instead, it seems, you have turned your attentions on my son and been encouraging him to get up to I don’t know what sorts of mischief.’

Parfumée smiled.

‘I haven’t encouraged him to get up to anything.’

Lady Wang smiled back at her.

‘You would argue with me, would you? I suppose it is hardly surprising, considering the way you treated your own foster-mother while I was away. – Call her foster-mother!’ she ordered. ‘I make her a present of this girl. She can marry her to whomever she likes. And you can give her her things to take as well.’

Having thus disposed of Parfumée, she went on to give orders that none of the remaining ex-actresses were to stay any longer in the Garden. Their foster-mothers were to be summoned to collect them and allowed to dispose of them as they wished. The delight and gratitude of these women when they received the message can be imagined. They arranged among themselves to visit Lady Wang in a body and kotow their thanks to her before going into the Garden to collect the girls.

Lady Wang now proceeded to inspect Bao-yu’s things. Anything which looked at all unfamiliar she had put on one side. The whole lot were then wrapped up in one big bundle and carried to her own apartment.

‘Much better make a clean sweep of these things,’ she said. ‘There will be that much less for people to gossip about.’

In conclusion she admonished Aroma and the remaining maids.

‘Now be careful! From now on if I hear of anything the slightest bit untoward happening, I shall have no mercy! I can’t move you out yet, because there are still investigations in progress, but next year I shall have the whole lot of you moved back into the mansion, and then perhaps I shall be able to set my mind at rest.’

She went off at the head of her little troop of women, not even staying for a cup of tea.

When Bao-yu heard from the old woman of his mother’s visit, he had expected something unpleasant but of no great consequence: perhaps another inspection of the maids’ possessions. He was therefore quite unprepared for the raging tempest that had just passed over him. The things his mother had charged the maids with showed so uncanny a knowledge of even his most intimate conversations with them that there seemed little point in denial. He felt wretched enough to die, but it was clear that even self-immolation could achieve nothing while his mother’s anger was at its height. He therefore followed after her in silence, until he had seen her as far as Drenched Blossoms Pavilion half-way across the bridge, when she peremptorily ordered him to return.

‘Go back – and get on with your studies! Then next time your father asks you about them, you will at least be able to say that you have made a start.’

Bao-yu turned back. All the way back to Green Delights he was thinking to himself:

‘Who’s been blabbing? No one outside knows about these things. How did Mother get to hear about them?’

The question was continuing to trouble him when he entered his room. He noticed that Aroma was in tears.

‘Well, she would be if any of the senior maids was leaving,’ he thought. ‘It’s only natural.’

He flung himself down on the bed and broke into loud sobs. Aroma tried to talk him out of his despair. She knew that, whatever might become of anyone else, it was Skybright that he was chiefly concerned about.

‘Oh, do get-up!’ she said. ‘What’s the use of crying? I tell you, Skybright will be better off where she is going. Back at home she will at least be able to have a few days to herself in peace and quiet. And if you really can’t bear to be without her, you have only to wait until Her Ladyship’s anger has cooled down a bit and then go and ask Her Old Ladyship to have her brought back again. It shouldn’t be difficult. Her Ladyship was acting in anger. Probably she had heard someone gossiping about her.’

‘But what heinous crime is Skybright supposed to have committed?’ said Bao-yu.

‘Maybe she isn’t,’ said Aroma. ‘Maybe Her Ladyship just thinks she is too good-looking. She probably thinks that anyone who is so good-looking must be unreliable. She knows these very beautiful young women are often trouble-makers. Probably she dislikes Skybright just for being beautiful. It’s better to be a plain, gawky person like me!’

‘Who said that beautiful women are trouble-makers?’ said Bao-yu. ‘There have always been lots and lots of beautiful women who were nothing of the kind. But never mind all that. What I can’t understand is, how did Mother get to hear about all those private jokes of ours? No one outside could have told her. It’s very, very strange.’

‘Look how careless you are,’ said Aroma. ‘Once you get a bit excited you are capable of saying anything, regardless of who else is around. Many and many’s the time I have given you a look or made some sign to warn you, but you never notice.’

‘Maybe,’ said Bao-yu, ‘but tell me this. How is it that she’d heard something damaging about every single person in this apartment except you and Musk and Ripple?’

Somewhat taken aback by this question, Aroma hung her head and pondered it for some moments, but she was unable to think of an explanation. She laughed embarrassedly.

‘I agree, it is rather strange. We three must often have made careless remarks that could have been used against us. I wonder why Her Ladyship didn’t mention any? Perhaps she’ll come back and deal with us three later.’

‘You?’ said Bao-yu, laughing incredulously. ‘The famous paragon of all the virtues? There’s little danger of her finding fault with you. Or with those other two, whom you trained and moulded in your own image. Parfumée I can understand: she is young and precocious and inclined to use her intelligence for putting other people down, so it’s hardly surprising that she should be disliked. Number Four’s unpopularity I blame myself for. It dates from that time when you and I had quarrelled about something and I allowed her to wait on me in your place. The others must have resented my giving her special treatment, and that, ultimately, must be the reason for what has happened to her today. But why Skybright? You and she started together with my grandmother when you were little girls. It’s true she is a bit better-looking than the rest of you, but she has never taken advantage of that fact: no one has ever been made to feel threatened by it. Even her forthrightness – and she could be quite sharp-tongued on occasion – has never, as far as I am aware, given serious offence. I suppose it must be as you say: her good looks have been her undoing.’

He concluded by once more bursting into tears.

Mulling over what he had just said, Aroma concluded that it could only mean that he suspected her. There seemed little point in protesting. She sighed.

‘There’s One above who knows the truth of the matter; but I don’t suppose we shall find out who it was for a while yet. At all events, crying isn’t going to help. Much better keep your spirits up and next time Her Old Ladyship is feeling cheerful, explain what has happened and ask to have Skybright back again.’

‘You only say that to humour me,’ said Bao-yu bitterly. ‘According to you I am to wait until Mother’s anger has subsided and after that wait until a favourable opportunity arises for talking to Grandmother; but what makes you think that Skybright’s illness will wait that long? Ever since she came into our family as a child she has lived comfortably. She has never had to experience a single day of real hardship. Sending her to that place now is like taking a potted orchid that has just started putting out its first tender spears of growth and setting it down in a pigsty. Apart from being physically ill, she must be in a terrible state mentally as well. And she has no kind parents to look after her, don’t forget: only that worthless cousin and his wife. I doubt she’ll last there a fortnight. I may not even be able to see her again.’

‘Curfew for the common people, but the Prefect can light a fire,’ said Aroma drily. ‘What a fuss you’d have made if I’d said anything so unlucky! How can you bear to talk so glibly about her dying?’

‘It isn’t unlucky to talk about what has already been foretold,’ said Bao-yu. ‘There was a portent of her coming death last spring.’

‘Oh?’ said Aroma in some surprise. ‘What was that?’

‘The crab-apple tree in the courtyard here: only one half of it budded this year; the other side seems to have died. I knew at the time that something awful must be going to happen; now I can see that it must have been a portent of her death.’

Aroma laughed out loud.

‘Forgive me, but I just can’t help myself. You really are an old woman! And you supposed to be so educated! How can what happens to trees and plants have anything to do with human beings?’

Bao-yu sighed.

‘What do you know about it? Not only plants and trees, but all things that live and grow have feelings. And like us, they are most responsive to those who most appreciate them. There are plenty of examples from history: the juniper tree in front of the temple of Confucius, the milfoil that grows beside his tomb, the cypress in front of Zhu-ge Liang’s shrine, the pine-tree that grows in front of Yue Fei’s grave: all those paragons of the vegetable world, mightily endowed with vital essence and able to withstand the ravages of the centuries, have withered and dried up in times of disorder, only to flourish once more when times were prosperous. In the course of a thousand or more years all of them have died and come to life again several times over. If those are not portents, what are they? On a somewhat less exalted level there are the peonies beside Yang Gui-fei’s Aloeswood Pavilion, the rhododendrons of the Duan-cheng-lou and the evergreen grass on Lady Bright’s grave. Surely you can’t deny that all these are instances of sympathy between plants and humans? I see no reason to doubt that our crab-apple tree too was reacting to a human situation.’

By the time his idiotic discourse had ended, Aroma did not know whether to laugh or groan.

‘You really make me angry,’ she said, ‘comparing Sky-bright with all those famous people! What sort of creature do you think she is anyway? And even if she is so wonderful, you seem to forget that I have precedence over her among your maids. If the crab-apple is connected with any of us, it ought to be me. It must mean that I am going to die.’

Bao-yu clapped his hand over her mouth.

‘Now, now, that’s enough of that! I’m already worried enough about her as it is, I don’t want to have to worry about you as well. Let’s say no more about it. Three people is quite enough to lose in one day!’

Aroma was secretly glad to hear him say this.

‘If I hadn’t said that to stop him,’ she thought, ‘heaven knows where this nonsense would have ended!’

‘There’s something else I want to discuss with you,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’m not quite sure whether you’ll agree to this or not. Couldn’t we somehow, without letting any of the family know about it, contrive to let her have her things? Perhaps we could also send her a few strings of whatever money we have managed to save, so that she has got something to buy medicines with. Could you, for the sake of all your years together, do this for her?’

Aroma laughed.

‘Do you really think I need asking? What a mean, inhuman sort of person you must think I am! I’ve got her clothes and all her other things piled up over there, ready to send her. I can’t send them now, in broad daylight. With so many prying eyes about it would be simply asking for trouble. But as soon as it’s evening I shall get Mrs Liu to take them to her. I’ve got several strings of cash that she can take to her as well.’

Bao-yu nodded.

‘I am a, paragon of all the virtues, don’t forget,’ said Aroma teasingly. ‘It’s worth spending a bit of money to keep up my reputation!’

Bao-yu smiled and said a few words to comfort her. He was afraid that she might have taken what he said earlier to heart.

That evening, when things had quietened down a bit, he slipped out on his own to the rear corner gate of the Garden and begged one of the old women there to take him to Sky-bright’s house. At first she refused absolutely to help. She was too scared, she said. What would become of her rice-bowl if Lady Wang got to hear of it? In the end, after he had pleaded with her very insistently and also promised her some money, she agreed to take him.

Skybright was in the first instance purchased, when she was barely ten years old, by the Chief Steward Lai Da as a little slave-girl for his wife, who often took Skybright with her when she went to work in Rong-guo House. It was in this way that she first came to the attention of Grandmother Jia. Grandmother Jia took a great fancy to the beautiful, intelligent little girl, and when Lai Da’s wife noticed this, she gave Skybright to the old lady as a present. It was because the old lady thought so highly of Skybright that she later on gave her as a maidservant to her beloved grandson.

Skybright had no recollection of her parents or of the place where she was born. The only relation she knew of was a cousin somewhat older than herself, said to be her father’s sister’s son, who was in bondservice elsewhere. After her instalment at the mansion she begged Lai Da’s wife to have this cousin purchased too and find him some employment with the Jias. The stewardess was touched by the gratitude and respect that Skybright continued to show her after her advancement. At her insistence Lai Da purchased the cousin, gave him a small job as a buyer, and even provided him with a wife.

Unfortunately Skybright’s cousin was a timorous, poor-spirited creature, whereas the wife Lai Da had chosen for him was a lively and rather attractive young woman. Finding her husband unable to provide her with what she wanted, she soon took to going out every day, dressed up to the nines, to exercise her charms on the other servants. She was aided in this by a highly expressive pair of eyes which seldom failed to convey their message. The men were drawn towards her irresistibly, like flies towards carrion, so that there was seldom any lack of volunteers to fill the gap left by her neglectful husband.

The couple lived in an apartment not far from the rear side gate of the Garden, and it was to this place that Skybright was taken after her dismissal. The cousin’s young wife had little stomach for nursing a sick relation, and as soon as she had eaten, was off on her customary rounds, leaving Skybright alone and untended in the outer room.

When Bao-yu arrived at the house, he told the old woman who had brought him to wait at the gate and keep a look-out while he went inside. Raising the cotton door-curtain he looked into the room. He could see Skybright at once, lying on an old rush mat on the kang (fortunately she still had her own bedding) but no one else appeared to be at home, and he wondered for a moment what he should do; then, going over to the kang, he plucked timidly at the quilt in which she was wrapped and gently called her name. His eyes were full of tears.

Skybright, who had been ill to start with, had been made even more so by the detestable things said to her by her cousin and his wife since her arrival. After coughing through most of the day, she had recently dozed off into a fitful sleep, and it was not until Bao-yu had called her name for the second time that she opened her eyes. What surprise, delight, sorrow, anguish all mixed in one when she saw who it was! She gripped his hand tightly in hers, but for a long time she could only sob. At last she managed to speak.

‘I didn’t think I should ever see you again.’

After that she coughed and coughed. Bao-yu was sobbing now himself.

‘Holy Name, it’s a good job you’ve come!’ she said. ‘Could you get me half a cup of tea? I’m so thirsty, but though I’ve called and called, no one ever comes.’

Bao-yu hurriedly wiped his eyes.

‘Where’s the tea?’

‘It’s over there on the stove,’ said Skybright.

Bao-yu looked at the brick-and-mud-built stove against the wall. There was only a sort of blackened earthenware skillet on it that bore no resemblance to a tea-pot. He found a teacup on the table whose greasy, rancid odour reached his nostrils even before he picked it up. Having located some water, he washed it twice, rinsed it twice, dried it with his handkerchief, sniffed it (it still smelt) and half filled it with a dusky, reddish liquid from the skillet. Was it tea? He tasted it dubiously. It had a bitter, acrid taste with only a slight suggestion of tea about it.

‘That’s tea,’ said Skybright, who had raised herself on the pillow. ‘Please let me have it. You can’t expect it to be as good as ours.’

Bao-yu handed it to her and she gulped it down greedily as if it were the most delicious nectar. He watched her with tears running down his cheeks, suddenly ashamed of his own fastidiousness.

‘If there’s anything you want to tell me,’ he said, ‘you’d better tell me now, while there’s nobody else about.’

‘What have I got to tell?’ said Skybright. ‘I’m living now from day to day and from hour to hour. I know I’m done for: it can’t be more than four or five days now at the most. If it weren’t for one thing, I could die content. I know I’m a bit better-looking than the others, but I’ve never tried to make up to you. Why will they insist that I am some sort of vampire? It’s so unfair. And now I have so little time left. I ought not to say this, but if I’d known in advance that it would be like this, I might have behaved rather differently.’

She began to cry again.

Bao-yu took her hands in his own. They felt like bundles of dried twigs, so wasted had she become. She was still wearing a pair of silver bangles on either wrist.

‘Better take these off,’ he said (he was crying himself as he spoke). ‘You can put them on again when you are better.’

He took them off for her and put them under the pillow.

‘It’s a pity about these nails,’ he said. ‘It took you such a long time to grow them. By the time you are better, I expect you’ll find that quite a lot of them will have broken off.’

She wiped her eyes, curled the third and fourth fingers of her left hand back against the side of her mouth and with a supreme effort half bit half tore off the two two-inch lengths of scallion-like nail that projected from them.

‘Here!’ She put the pieces into his hand. ‘To remind you of me.’

Then she reached down inside the bedding and managed, after a great deal of struggling, to take off the old red chemise she was wearing and hold it out to him. Because of her weakness, the effort of doing this made her pant so much that she could not speak; but Bao-yu understood what she wanted. He removed his outer garment, took off the shirt he was wearing underneath it and laid it over her, and put on the chemise she was holding out to him. He did not bother to do the buttons up, since it would be hidden anyway beneath his outer garment. While he was fastening his belt on again, he noticed that she was staring at him, trying to say something.

‘Help me up!’

Even with Bao-yu’s assistance it cost her a good deal of effort to sit fully upright. Once she was sitting up, she stretched one of her arms out and tried drawing the shirt on herself. Bao-yu draped it over her shoulders and eased each of her arms in turn into the sleeves, then gently laid her down again.

‘If anyone sees that when you get back and asks you whose it is,’ said Skybright, weeping, ‘there’s no need to tell them any lies. Tell them it’s mine. Since I’ve got such a bad reputation anyway, I might as well have something to show for it when I’m gone!’

At that moment the door-curtain was lifted and the cousin’s wife came into the room, all dazzling smiles.

‘Very nice! I’ve heard all that you two have been saying. ‘She directed a bold look at Bao-yu. ‘And what are you doing, a young master like you, coming to see us servants in our quarters? Bet you heard I was young and good-looking and came here to flirt with me!’

‘Please, I beg of you, don’t speak so loud!’ said Bao-yu entreatingly. ‘I shouldn’t really be here, but your cousin was with me for many years: I came here to see her because she is ill.’

The young woman smiled and nodded approvingly.

‘That’s right. They say you have a good heart.’

She took him by the hand and pulled him after her into the inner room.

‘If you don’t want me to make a noise, you can easily stop me. You have only to do one little thing.’

She got her backside up onto the kang and drawing him down on top of her, put up her legs and gripped him tightly between them. This was something totally outside Bao-yu’s experience. His heart started pounding wildly, his face turned scarlet, and his whole body began to tremble. It would have been hard to say what feeling was at that moment uppermost in his mind: embarrassment, shame, fear or annoyance. All he could manage to say was:

‘Don’t fool about, please!’

The young woman leered up at him through half-closed eyes.

‘Get away with you! From what I’ve been told, you’ve had plenty of practice with other girls. What makes you so bashful today all of a sudden?’

Bao-yu became even redder.

‘Please let me go. If you’ve got anything to talk about, let’s discuss it like reasonable human beings. There’s an old woman outside there listening. What do you think you are doing?’

‘There’s no old woman out there,’ she said. ‘I saw her when I got back and told her to wait for you at the Garden gate. Come on! I’ve waited a long time to get my hands on you. If you won’t do what I ask, I’ll call out. You’re a bold one, aren’t you, coming here! What will Her Ladyship say if she finds out? I was listening to you two outside the window for quite a while. From what I could make out, you and she have nothing between you. Well, more fool she, if that’s the case! You needn’t expect me to be so daft!’

She began to get to work on his clothing, while Bao-yu made frantic efforts to pull himself away. They were still struggling when a voice was heard outside the window asking for Skybright. The young woman gave a start and let go of Bao-yu. Bao-yu was so shaken and confused that he had not heard the voice, and Skybright, listening to what was going on in the next room, was so overcome with shame and anger that she had fainted clean away. This left only the cousin’s wife to answer the caller – or rather callers, for when she went outside to look, it turned out to be Cook Liu and Fivey with a bundle containing Skybright’s things. Cook Liu was also holding several strings of cash.

‘We’ve brought these from Miss Aroma for your young lady,’ she said. ‘Which room is she in?’

The young woman laughed.

‘This room here. Where else would we keep her?’

As Cook Liu and Fivey went into the outer room, a lurking figure dodged into the inner room at the back. Cook Liu knew something of the young wife’s reputation and assumed that it must be one of her lovers. Since Skybright appeared to be asleep, she put the things down beside her and hurried out again. But Fivey had sharper eyes than her mother and had recognized the lurking figure as Bao-yu.

‘Didn’t Miss Aroma say when we were leaving that she’d been looking for Master Bao?’ she asked her mother.

‘Goodness, I nearly forgot!’ said Cook Liu. ‘Mrs Song told me just now that she thought she’d seen him go out of the side gate. And there was someone waiting for him outside the gate too, wasn’t there? They’ll be wanting to close presently.’

She turned back and asked the young woman if she had seen him.

‘No,’ said the cousin’s wife, beginning to feel nervous. ‘What would Master Bao be doing at our house?’

Hearing her say this, Cook Liu began to go again; but Bao-yu, partly because he was afraid of being shut out of the Garden and partly because he feared that the cousin’s wife might return to the attack if he remained after the visitors had gone, threw discretion to the winds and, lifting up the door-curtain, came rushing out after them.

‘Mrs Liu! Wait for me! We’ll go back together!’

Cook Liu was mightily astonished.

‘My dear young master! Whatever has brought you to this place?’

Bao-yu sped on ahead without replying.

‘Call him back, Ma!’ said Fivey. ‘Tell him not to be in so much of a hurry. He’ll, run into someone if he’s not careful and they’ll find out what he’s been up to. There’s no need for him to hurry in any case. That person we saw waiting for him will see to it that the gate’s kept open for him.’

She and her mother ran after Bao-yu to try and catch up with him. The cousin’s wife stared after them disconsolately: her beautiful young gentleman had got away.

Bao-yu did not stop running until he was inside the Garden gate. Only then did he feel safe again, though his heart was still beating wildly. Fortunately no one appeared to have noticed his absence, and when he got back to Green Delights he managed to put Aroma off by saying that he had been visiting Aunt Xue.

Shortly after this, as she was making up his bed, Aroma asked him how they should sleep.

‘Oh, anyhow,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I don’t mind.’

It should be explained that during the year or two that had elapsed since her unofficial promotion by Lady Wang, Aroma had been taking herself very seriously and no longer, either at night or when they were alone together in the daytime, permitted herself those affectionate intimacies that had been customary between her and Bao-yu in the past. A slight distance seemed to have grown up between them since their younger, more carefree days. Partly it was being so much busier that kept her from him: for although the most important matters remained outside her control, it was she who organized the sewing and other maid’s-work, took care of Bao-yu’s and the junior maids’ pocket-money for them, attended to their clothing and other equipment, and assumed responsibility for the general maintenance of the apartment. Partly it was because she had a fear of infecting him: for she still continued, though very infrequently, to cough blood.

It was mainly for this last reason that she had for some time now ceased sleeping in the same room. But Bao-yu was nervous at night and liked to have someone near at hand whom he could call to when he woke up. Because she knew that Sky-bright was a light sleeper, Aroma entrusted all the night-time duties, like answering him when he called, getting up and making tea for him and so forth, to her, so that it had long since been the custom for Skybright to sleep in the same room with him beside his bed. Now that Skybright was no longer with him, Aroma made her own bed up beside Bao-yu’s in Skybright’s place.

Observing the somewhat dazed manner in which Bao-yu was conducting himself that evening, Aroma urged him to go to bed early, and as soon as she had got him settled, went to bed herself. But he seemed very restless. As she lay in her own bed she could hear him sighing and muttering to himself in his. This went on until well after midnight. Only then did he fall silent and appeared to have gone to sleep. Relieved, Aroma began drifting off herself. But only for a moment. Before she had a chance to get fully off to sleep, she heard him call out:

‘Skybright!’

‘What is it?’ said Aroma, instantly alert again.

Bao-yu said that he wanted some tea, so she got up and poured him out a cup. He sighed as she handed it to him.

‘I’m so used to calling her, I forgot that it was you.’

Aroma laughed.

‘The first night she slept with you, you were calling out in your sleep for me. It took you a while then to get used to the change.’

They both lay down again. Again Bao-yu was restless and continued so for the space of about two hours. It must have been four o’clock before he finally got to sleep. Just as he was dropping off, Skybright walked into the room looking exactly as she used to do before she was ill. She came right up to the bed and spoke to him.

‘Enjoy your lives, all of you! Mine is already over.’

Immediately she had said that, she turned round and walked out again. Bao-yu called out after her. His calling awoke Aroma, who assumed that he was once more calling Skybright’s name instead of her own from force of habit. But when she went over to ask him what he wanted, she saw that he was crying.

‘Skybright’s dead,’ he said.

Aroma laughed.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Whatever would anyone think if they heard you say such a thing?’

Nevertheless Bao-yu insisted that Skybright was dead and waited impatiently for the daylight when he could send someone to find out the circumstances of her death. But daylight brought a little maid knocking at the front corner gate of the Garden with a message from Lady Wang.

‘You must tell Bao-yu to get up immediately and come over to Her Ladyship’s as soon as he is washed and dressed. The Master is invited out to a chrysanthemum-viewing, and because he was so pleased with the poem Bao-yu made at the party the other night, he wants to take him and the other young masters with him. Have you got that message? Be as quick as you can, please. And tell him to hurry. The Master is in the main room with Her Ladyship. They are waiting for Bao-yu to come so that they can start their breakfast. Master Huan is there already, so be quick. And someone take the same message to Master Lan, please.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the women, hurriedly buttoning up their clothing, and two of them hurried off to deliver it, one to Green Delights and the other to Sweet-rice Village.

Aroma knew that something unusual must be toward for someone to be knocking so early at the courtyard gate and called to one of the old women to go and find out what it was while she herself got up and put her clothes on. When she heard the message, she sent someone out for washing-water and roused up Bao-yu. She told him to wash himself as quickly as possible while she went to fetch him some clothes. Since it was Jia Zheng he was going out with, she chose his second best, judging his best to be too showy.

As there was now obviously no possibility of following out his original intention, Bao-yu washed and dressed and hurried over to his parents’ apartment immediately. When he got there he found Jia Zheng already sipping his wheatmeal tea and apparently in very good humour. Bao-yu made his morning salutation to his parents after which he in turn was greeted by Jia Huan and Jia Lan. Jia Zheng ordered the three of them to sit down and drink their wheatmeal tea.

‘Bao-yu is not as diligent as you two in his schoolwork,’ he told the two younger boys, ‘but he is much better than you at making up poems and couplets. No doubt all three of you will be called upon to contribute poems at this place we are going to. Bao-yu will have to help you out a bit.’

This was music indeed in the ears of Lady Wang, who had never before heard her husband praise Bao-yu in such terms. She waited until Jia Zheng and the boys had gone before getting up to make her morning call on Grandmother Jia; but before she could get away, Parfumée’s foster-mother and two of the other foster-mothers came in saying that there was something they wished to speak to her about.

‘Ever since Your Ladyship was good enough to let me take Parfumée home with me,’ said Parfumée’s foster-mother, ‘she’s been refusing to eat and drink and behaving like a crazy girl, and now Nénuphar and Étamine are the same. The three of them have been carrying on something dreadful, threatening to kill themselves and I don’t know what. All they want, they say, is to shave their hair off and become nuns. Well, I thought, they’re only children; after a day or two they’ll get over this. But not a bit of it: two days have gone by already and they’re worse than ever. Neither words nor blows have any effect on them. We’re all at our wits’ end. We’ve come to ask Your Ladyship if you will either let them have their way and go into a convent or else deal with them as you see fit and hand them over to somebody else, because we can do nothing with them.’

‘Nonsense!’ said Lady Wang impatiently. ‘It’s not for them to decide what is to become of them. The Buddhist vocation is not to be undertaken on a mere childish caprice. Give each of them a flogging and see if they misbehave then!’

It was the custom for nuns from the various temples which the Jia ladies patronized to visit the mansion over the Mid-Autumn festival bringing the first-fruits of their offerings. Euergesia, the prioress of Water-moon Priory, who had come along with the rest, had been invited to stay on for a few days and happened to be at hand during this interview. This holy old fraud pricked her ears up when she heard of three young persons wanting to become nuns. A few young novices to wait on her and help about the priory were just what she was looking for. She set to work on Lady Wang accordingly.

‘No doubt it is because this is such a blessed household (thanks to all Your Ladyship’s good works) that these young people’s hearts have been turned towards the faith,’ she said. ‘It is true that the Buddha’s gate is not to be entered lightly; but it is also written that the Buddha’s truth is for all sorts and conditions of men. And not only men, for when the Blessed Lord made his vow, it was to work for the salvation of all sentient beings. These three young people have no parents and are far from the place where they were born. Having had a taste of luxury during their years here with you, yet being born to a lowly fate and trained in a profession that at best is vanity, they cannot but tremble when they think what the future may hold for them. I believe that is why, out of the midst of this sea of suffering, they have turned towards the light and resolved to abjure the world and its vanities and prepare themselves for the life to come. That is a noble decision, Your Ladyship. I don’t think you ought to stand in the way of it.’

Lady Wang was a good woman at heart and had only opposed the young actresses’ determination to become nuns because she thought it proceeded from mere childish waywardness and feared that when put to the test they would find the vows of celibacy and abstinence too much for them and fall into mortal sin. But what the old nun said sounded plausible; and besides, she was at this moment very much preoccupied with other matters. Lady Xing had sent someone over to say that she wanted Ying-chun to spend a few days with her so that she could be exhibited to the representatives of a family seeking her in marriage, and Lady Wang herself was facing a visit from an official match-maker who was coming to discuss the matrimonial prospects of Tan-chun. She was far too worried by these other matters to be unduly concerned about the fate of a few entertainers. The answer she gave Euergesia, therefore, was a favourable one.

‘Very well then. Would you be prepared to take them as your disciples?’

‘Now blessings be upon you!’ said the old prioress. ‘It would be a holy thing if you would let me, it would indeed. Praise his Holy Name!’

She pressed her palms together and bowed down almost to the ground.

Lady Wang turned to the three foster-mothers:

‘All right, go and ask them. If they are really serious about this, they can kotow to Mother Euergesia in my presence and formally make themselves her disciples.’

The three women went off and presently reappeared, bringing the three girls with them. Lady Wang questioned each of them closely about her decision and when she was satisfied that they were utterly resolved to go through with it, allowed them to make their kotows to the old nun. After that they kotowed to her. Now that she was convinced of their determination and saw that nothing could deflect them from it, she began to feel quite sorry for them and ordered the servants to get out various things to give them. She also gave several presents to the prioress.

Thus Parfumée, Nénuphar and Étamine left the sinful world behind them and went off with Euergesia to embark on a new life at Water-moon Priory.

What followed thereafter will be related in the following chapter.

Chapter 78

Jia Zheng commissions the Ballad of the Winsome Colonel And Bao-yu composes an Invocation to the Hibiscus Spirit

After the departure of Euergesia and the three girls, Lady Wang was at last able to make her morning call on Grandmother Jia. Finding the old lady in excellent humour, she decided that this was as good a time as any to report on her recent activities.

‘There is a girl in Bao-yu’s room called Skybright,’ she said. ‘She is already of age; she has been constantly ill during the past year; she gives much more trouble than any of the others; and she is lazy. During her latest spell of sickness, which must have been going on now for the better part of a fortnight, we’ve had her looked at by the doctor and he says she’s got some kind of consumption – a kind that is quite common, apparently, in unmarried girls; so I’ve sent her back to her own people and told them that we shan’t be wanting her here again if she gets better, they can find a husband for her themselves. I also took it upon myself to send away those young actresses. For one thing, like most people trained in that profession, they use the most appalling language: I don’t think it’s very nice for the other girls to be exposed to it. And for another thing, as we no longer require them to perform for us, which is what they were trained for, I think it is only right that we should let them go. We have far too many maids as it is. If Bao-yu or the girls need any more, we can supply them from the regular staff; they don’t need young actresses to wait on them.’

Grandmother Jia nodded.

‘That sounds quite sensible. I had been thinking along those lines myself. About Skybright, though: I always thought she was an excellent maid: she expressed herself well; she was much the best needlewoman I ever had; I had been thinking of eventually giving her to Bao-yu to keep. I’m sorry to hear she has changed so much for the worse.’

‘I’m sure you were not mistaken in her,’ said Lady Wang, smiling. ‘Let’s just say that the girl was not destined to be fortunate – hence this perpetual sickness. “For a growing girl there are eighteen hazards” the proverb says. Quite apart from that, I think these very gifted people are apt to play up a bit, as I am sure you, Mother, with all your rich experience must have noticed. Three years ago I, too, was thinking about choosing someone permanent for Bao-yu, and to begin with I, too, thought of Skybright as the likeliest choice. But after watching her very carefully, I came to the conclusion that, although better qualified than the others in so many particulars, she is not really a very dependable person. For all-round dependability I think Aroma is very much her superior. I know they say “a wife for virtue and a concubine for beauty”, but even in choosing a concubine I think the girl with a considerate nature and a sense of responsibility is to be preferred. Aroma may not be as good-looking as Skybright, but in other respects I should rate her qualifications as a chamber-wife very highly. Her behaviour is so mature, and yet at the same time she is such a simple, good-natured girl. During all the years that she has been with Bao-yu she has never once misbehaved herself; in fact, whenever Bao-yu gets into one of his wild or silly moods, she does her best to talk him out of it. I waited two whole years to see if she was really as good as I thought she was, and when, at the end of all that time, I had found no fault in her, I made a private arrangement to have her maid’s allowance stopped and two taels paid to her each month out of my own allowance. Aroma herself was the only person I told about this, because I thought she could do with the encouragement. I deliberately kept it from everyone else, partly because if Sir Zheng had got to hear about it he would almost certainly have said that Bao-yu was too young for a chamber-wife and that having one would distract him from his studies, and partly because if Bao-yu himself thought of her as a chamber-wife, he would be less inclined to listen to her good advice and would become more ungovernable than ever. That is the reason, Mother, why I haven’t told you about this before.’

‘I see,’ said Grandmother Jia, smiling. ‘Oh well, that’s all right then. Even better. Aroma never had much to say for herself, in my recollection. I always thought her rather a dull little stick. However, you obviously know her much better than I do. I’m sure you can’t be wrong. I certainly think it very wise of you not to have told Bao-yu himself about this, and I hope all of us here will continue to keep quiet about it. I am sure you are right in thinking that he is the sort of person who, when he is married, will never listen to a wife’s or a concubine’s advice. He’s a strange boy. I don’t really understand him. I’ve certainly never known another one like him. His other kinds of naughtiness I can understand; it’s this passion for spending all his time with maids that I find so hard to make out. It used at one time to worry me: I thought it must be because he had reached puberty and was having experiences with them; but after watching him very carefully, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that at all. It’s very, very strange. Perhaps he was a maid himself in some past life. Perhaps he ought to have been a girl.’

Lady Wang and the others laughed. Lady Wang then went on to tell Grandmother Jia how highly Jia Zheng had spoken of Bao-yu that morning and how he had taken Bao-yu and the other two boys with him on an outing. Grandmother Jia was delighted.

Not long after this Ying-chun appeared, dressed in her going-out clothes, to take leave of Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang before going next-door to stay with Lady Xing. Xi-feng called in, too, for her morning duty call and stayed to wait on the old lady while she took her lunch and to joke with her for a while after it was finished. When the old lady had settled herself down for her after-lunch nap, Lady Wang called to Xi-feng to accompany her back to her own apartment. She asked her whether she had started taking the ginseng pills yet. No, not yet, Xi-feng told her, because she was still taking the infusions; but her aunt was not to worry, because she was now feeling completely better. Observing that she certainly seemed to have got her old cheerfulness back, her aunt was inclined to believe her. She told her about her dismissal of Skybright and the other girls. This led her to another topic.

‘Why did your Cousin Chai go back home without telling anyone? Doesn’t anyone know? When I was making my inspection yesterday, I decided to take a look at Wan’s servants as well. That new nurse she has got for little Lan is quite unsuitable; in fact, I don’t like the look of her at all. I said to Wan, “I don’t care how you do it, my dear, but you must get rid of that woman at once. Lan is old enough to do without a nurse now in any case. He certainly doesn’t need a nurse like that one!” I asked her if she knew about Bao-chai. She said yes, Bao-chai had told her that she was going, but it was only for two or three days, until her mother was better, and then she would be moving in again. Well I know for a fact that there is nothing much wrong with your aunt: a bit of a cough and some back-ache, but then she always gets that at this time of year. I am sure there is some other reason for her leaving. Can anyone have offended her? She is such a serious child. I should hate to think of anyone offending her after our two families have been getting on so well together all these years.’

‘Who could possibly have offended her?’ said Xi-feng, smiling.

‘I wondered if Bao-yu might have done,’ said Lady Wang. ‘He is so careless about what he says, so tactless. When he gets excited he is capable of saying almost anything.’

‘I don’t think you have much to worry about on that account,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Bao-yu may behave foolishly in company, but when he is with our girls, or even the maids, he is always extremely considerate. His greatest anxiety is always how not to offend them. He is certainly the last person I should expect to hear any of our girls complain about. I should think Cousin Chai’s leaving has much more to do with that search we carried out in the Garden the other night. She would naturally infer from it that the people in the Garden are not trusted; and since she knew we would never search her people because of her position here as our guest, she might well conclude that the only way in which she could clear them of suspicion would be to move outside. I’m sure that’s why she went: to avoid suspicion.’

To Lady Wang, too, this seemed the most likely explanation. She studied the floor thoughtfully for some moments; then she had Bao-chai summoned, explained to her what had happened, and assured her that she must not think herself under the least suspicion. She must move back into the Garden at once and continue living there as before.

Bao-chai smiled courteously but held her ground.

‘I had been meaning to move out some time ago, Aunt, but did not like to mention it to you because I knew you were so much occupied with other matters. It was the coincidence of Mamma’s being poorly and her two most reliable maids both going sick at the same time which decided me to move out when I did. Now that you know about my leaving, I should like to ask formally for permission to move out my things.’

Lady Wang and Xi-feng both laughed.

‘You are too unbending,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Do, please, move in again. Do not allow a trifle like this to come between us.’

Bao-chai smiled.

‘I assure you, Aunt, you are quite mistaken. It really isn’t because of what you think that I am leaving the Garden. It is because Mamma has been in rather low spirits lately and there’s no one but me for her to rely on during the night. And besides, Pan is getting married shortly, and there is still a lot of sewing to do and household things to get. Mamma badly needs to have me at hand all the time to help her with the preparations. You know how things are in my family, so you know that I am not making this up. And there is another reason. Ever since I first moved into the Garden, the little south-east corner gate has been left open. This was done specially for our convenience, but of course there is nothing to prevent anyone else using it who wants to take a short cut. No one going through it is ever questioned. Now suppose the wrong person got in by that way and something awful happened. It would make it very awkward for all of us. When I first moved into the Garden it didn’t matter much one way or the other if I spent the nights there. We were all very much younger then and there wasn’t so much that needed doing at home. It seemed better for me to be sewing or playing in the Garden with the other girls than moping at home on my own. But now we are older it is rather different. I am sure that the worries you have had during this past year or two have been aggravated by the fact that the Garden is too big to keep all the time under your surveillance. Any reduction in the number of people living there means some reduction in the number of your worries. That is why I am not only determined to move permanently out of the Garden myself, Aunt, but would seriously urge you to make whatever other reduction in numbers may be necessary. You mustn’t think that for a great household like yours to retrench would be undignified. Look how modestly we live nowadays. It was a very different style we used to live in when I was a little girl.’

It was unusual for Bao-chai to speak at such length. When she had finished, Xi-feng turned with an amused expression to Lady Wang.

‘I think you will have to let her have her way, Aunt. You can’t force her to move in if she doesn’t want to.’

Lady Wang nodded.

‘I find what you say unanswerable,’ she told Bao-chai. ‘You will have to do as you think best.’

While she was speaking, Bao-yu came in to report that he was back.

‘Father is still at the party,’ he said. ‘He told us to come back now because he was afraid it might be going on much longer and he didn’t want us coming back in the dark.’

‘I hope you didn’t disgrace yourself,’ said Lady Wang anxiously.

‘Not in the least,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Look at all the loot we’ve brought back!’

The old women from the inner gate who, as he entered, had relieved his pages of the things they had been carrying, now came forward with them for Lady Wang to inspect. There were three fans, three fan-pendants, three boxes of writing-brushes, three boxes of ink-sticks, three rosaries and three jade belt-buckles: one of everything for each of the three boys.

‘The fans and fan-pendants are from Academician Mei,’ said Bao-yu, ‘the ink-sticks and brushes are from Vice-President Yang, and the rosaries and buckles are from Under Secretary Li.’ He fished out a little sandalwood Buddha-charm from inside his jacket. ‘This is from the Duke of Qing-guo. He only gave one to me.’

Lady Wang questioned him about the other people who had been present and the poems that had been composed. She told someone to take Bao-yu’s share of the presents and go with him and the other two boys to see Grandmother Jia. Grandmother Jia was of course delighted, and Bao-yu found himself having to answer all the same questions over again. His anxiety to learn about Skybright made him anxious to get away, and after answering a few of them, he told his grandmother that he had been riding rather fast and was aching all over from his ride.

‘You must go back to your room at once then and change into more comfortable clothes,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had a chance to relax; but don’t, whatever you do, lie down.’

Bao-yu left his grandmother’s without more ado. Musk and Ripple, with two of the junior maids from Green Delights, were waiting for him outside. Ripple took charge of his share of the presents and she and the other two trotted along after him as he strode into the Garden.

‘Phew! I’m hot,’ he said, divesting himself of hat, belt and outer garment as he walked along and handing them to Musk to carry. He was wearing a gown of lined damask underneath, whose viridian green contrasted strikingly with the flashes of blood-red trouser revealed through the side-slits as he walked along. Ripple recognized the trousers as Skybright’s handiwork.

‘“Objects remind us”,’ she said, quoting from the well-known proverb. Musk nudged her reprovingly and tried to change the subject.

‘Yes,’ she said lightly, ‘the red of the trousers goes very well with the dark green of the gown. What with them and his blue-black boots and his greeny-black hair and his snow-white face he makes quite a picture!’

Bao-yu, walking slightly ahead of them, pretended not to have heard; but after going only a few steps further, he halted abruptly.

‘Oh dear, I have to pay a little call!’ he said. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘That’s all right,’ said Musk. ‘We’re not going to lose you in broad daylight!’

She told the two junior maids to go with him.

‘Ripple and I will come back for you when we’ve got rid of these.’

‘Can’t you wait?’ said Bao-yu. ‘I shan’t be a moment.’

‘Oh, do let us get rid of these things first!’ said Musk. ‘Whatever must we look like, traipsing after you with all this stuff? Like the Wardrobe Master and the Clerk of the Inkhorn in a royal procession!’

Bao-yu, who had been hoping that they would go, indicated that they might do so and went off with the two junior maids to a secluded corner behind some rocks where he could question them.

‘Did Aroma send anyone to Skybright’s place after I had gone?’

‘Yes, she sent Mamma Song,’ said one of the girls.

‘What did Mamma Song say when she got back?’

‘They told her that Skybright was lying with her head back calling out all night long, but in the early morning she stopped calling and closed her eyes. They said it looked as if she was going.’

‘Who was she calling for?’ Bao-yu asked hurriedly.

‘Her mother,’ said the girl. ‘They said she just went on calling “Mamma!” “Mamma!” all night long.’

‘Didn’t she call for anyone else?’ said Bao-yu, brushing away a tear.

‘They didn’t mention anyone else,’ said the girl.

‘Oh, you’re a silly girl!’ said Bao-yu impatiently. ‘I’m sure you must have misheard.’

‘She certainly is a silly girl,’ the other little maid piped up. A sharp little creature, she had sensed at once what Bao-yu was hoping for and was willing to supply it. ‘I not only heard exactly what Mrs Song said; I even managed to slip out and see Skybright myself.’

‘How did you come to do that?’ Bao-yu asked her.

‘Remembering how much kinder than any of the other senior maids Skybright had always been to me,’ said the girl, ‘I thought to myself that though I couldn’t do anything else for her in her trouble, I could at least go to visit her. Even if someone saw me and reported me to Her Ladyship and I got a beating, it would be worth it after all she had done for me. So, at the risk of a beating, I stole round to her cousin’s place to see her. Although she was so near death, her mind was quite unaltered. She held my hand and opened her eyes wide when she saw me. “Where’s Bao-yu gone?” she said. When I told her, she sighed. “Oh,” she said, “I shan’t be able to see him, then.” “Can’t you hold out a bit?” I asked her. She smiled at me. “No,” she said. “You see, I’m not really dying; I’m going to heaven to be a flower-spirit. The Jade Emperor has given me the job of looking after the flowers.” She said, “I have to leave at half-past two to take up the job, and Bao-yu won’t be home until a quarter to three, so we shall miss seeing each other by only a quarter of an hour. Usually when people are dying, King Yama sends his demons to fetch their souls, and if you want to delay a bit, all you have to do is burn a bit of spirit money and make a little offering of some rice and tea, and they will leave you alone for a few minutes while they go after the money and stuff. But when the heavenly messengers summon you, it’s different. You can’t keep them waiting for a single moment.” At the time I didn’t quite believe her, but when I got back I kept my eye on the clock and sure enough it was exactly a quarter to three, as she’d said it would be, when they told us you’d got back and we were to go over and wait for you.’

‘You can’t read,’ said Bao-yu, ‘so you wouldn’t know about these things. But there are in fact flower-spirits: I’ve read about them. Not only is there a spirit in charge of all the flowers, but there are also lesser spirits in charge of each separate kind of flower. I wonder which Skybright is going to be.’

The little maid quickly glanced round the Garden for inspiration. Her eye lit on some hibiscus bushes which, this being now the second half of autumn, were already in full bloom.

‘I asked her myself,’ she said. ‘“Tell me what kind of flower you are going to be responsible for,” I said, “so that after you are gone we shall know where and when to make you offerings.” “I’ll tell you,” she said, “but you mustn’t let anyone else but Bao-yu know about it. These are immortal matters which are supposed to be kept secret.” Then she told me: the hibiscus flower.’

Bao-yu found nothing extraordinary in this. On the contrary, after hearing it, his sorrow turned instantly into delight. He looked round and smiled happily as his eyes rested on the hibiscus bushes.

‘Such a flower is worthy to be looked after by such a person!’ he said. ‘I felt sure that someone of her qualities would have work to do in the world. But –’ he became sad once more as he reflected – ‘although her sufferings are over, it still means that I shall never see her again.’

Then it occurred to him that, though he had failed to be with her at the end, there was nothing to stop him going to see her now and paying his last respects to her body. After the five or six years she had been with him and all that she had done for him in that time, he surely owed it to her. He hurried back to carry out this resolve, running into Musk and Ripple on his way. They had just started out again to look for him.

Back at Green Delights he hurriedly dressed up again and, telling the girls that he was going to pay a call on Dai-yu, slipped out of the Garden and made his way, on his own this time, to the place where he had visited Skybright the day before, expecting to find her laid out there in her coffin.

Skybright had died not, as the lying maid had said, that afternoon, but early in the morning. As soon as she had breathed her last, the cousin and his wife had gone to the mansion to tell Lady Wang in the hope of getting some money out of her for the funeral. Lady Wang had given them ten taels and told them to get the body out of the house as quickly as possible and have it cremated.

‘The girl died of a consumption,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t keep the body in the house, whatever you do.’

Impressed by this advice, they had hurried off with the money and made arrangements to have the body encoffined and carried to the burning ground outside the city without delay. Skybright’s clothes and jewellery, worth between three and four hundred taels, they kept for themselves: a nice little sum to put by for their old age. When all the arrangements had been completed, they shut up the house and accompanied the hearse outside the city to see the body cremated. Bao-yu arrived, therefore, to find the house locked up and nobody at home. Once more frustrated, he stood for some minutes gazing blankly at the door. Finally, since there was nothing else he could do, he turned round and walked back to the Garden. The thought of returning to his room was distasteful to him. He decided to call in at Dai-yu’s on the way back; but Dai-yu’s maids told him that their mistress was out.

‘She’s gone to see Miss Bao,’ they said.

Bao-yu made his way to All-spice Court. To his surprise he found it silent and deserted, and when he peeped inside, he could see that it had the empty, cheerless look of an uninhabited house. He had a vague recollection of having heard some days previously that Bao-chai was thinking of moving out; but he had been so busy with homework during the past few days that it had gone out of his mind. Now it appeared that she really had moved.

A sort of blankness came over him. Chess had gone. Picture had gone. Parfumée and the other four little actresses had gone. Skybright was dead. Now, it seemed, Bao-chai and her lot had gone, too. And though Ying-chun was supposed to have left only temporarily, to judge from the number of visits made by match-makers during the past weeks, it would not be very long before she was getting married. The Garden’s little society was breaking up.

‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘no good fretting about it now. I’ll go and enjoy Dai-yu’s company for a while; and after that, I’ve still got Aroma to go back to. It looks as if we three will soon be the only ones left.’

In that philosophical frame of mind he went back to the Naiad’s House; but Dai-yu had still not returned. Just as he was wondering where else he could go, a maid from Lady Wang’s apartment came up to him with a message from his mother.

‘The Master’s back now and wants to see you. He says he’s got a good subject for a poem and you are to come at once.’

Bao-yu was obliged to accompany the girl to his mother’s apartment; but by the time he got there, his father had already gone. Lady Wang ordered some of her women to accompany him to his father’s study outside. He found Jia Zheng discussing the highlights of the chrysanthemum-viewing party with his literary gentlemen.

‘Shortly before the gathering broke up,’ he was telling them, ‘there was some discussion about an episode from the history of the last dynasty. It was a story in which the romantic, the edifying, the heroic and the pathetic were all exemplified – indeed, one of the most remarkable, stories I have ever heard. Everyone present agreed that it deserved a poem to commemorate it.’

‘Pray tell us the story,’ said the literary gentlemen, intrigued.

‘It seems that there was a member of the Imperial clan called Prince Heng,’ Jia Zheng began, ‘who had gone out to become Military Governor of Qing-zhou. As well as being a fanatically keen soldier, the Prince was inordinately fond of female company, and in the free time left over from his official duties, found a way of combining these two interests by recruiting a large number of beautiful young women whom he had trained in military arts. Every day these young women would be made to engage in mock combat and other warlike exercises for the Prince’s entertainment. The most beautiful and also the most militarily accomplished of these young women was a certain Miss Lin, who, because she was the fourth daughter in her family, was known by the name of “Fourth Sister Lin”. Prince Heng thought so highly of her that he gave her a colonelcy and put her in command of the whole female troop. From then on he took to calling her “Colonel Winsome” or “the Winsome Colonel”.’

‘How priceless!’ exclaimed the literary gentlemen rapturously. ‘“The Winsome Colonel”! What a marvellous combination! Surely this Prince Heng must have been one of the most eccentrically romantic persons the world has known?’

‘One could certainly call him that,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘But there is stranger still to follow.’

‘Stranger still?’ said the literary gentlemen with surprise. ‘Then this must be a very strange tale indeed.’

‘In the second year of his governorship,’ said Jia Zheng, ‘a horde of bandits, latter-day descendants of the Yellow Turbans and Red Eyebrows of the Han period, swept over the whole of Shantung Province, looting and pillaging as they went. The Prince, scorning to mobilize fully against an enemy whom he regarded as a mere rabblement of sheep and curs, took the field against them himself at the head of only a light force of cavalry. But the rebel leadership, by an unexpected combination of cunning and low trickery, defeated him in two successive engagements. In the second of these the Prince himself died fighting.

‘In Qing-zhou the civil and military authorities were in a panic.

‘“What could you or I hope to do when the Prince himself has failed?” they asked each other, and began to make plans for yielding up the city to the rebels.

‘But Fourth Sister Lin’s reaction to the grim news was to gather her fellow-officers together and address them as follows:

‘“Our beloved Prince’s goodness to us was such that we could never have repaid even a small fraction of it as long as we lived. Now that he has laid down his life for his country, I feel that we in turn ought to lay our lives down for him. Those who feel as I do, follow me. Those who do not are free to leave now, while there is time.”

‘“We will follow you!” the girls cried with a single voice; and that night, under the cover of darkness, they rode out from the walls of Qing-zhou into the midst of the rebel camp. At first, because the rebels were unprepared, they succeeded in killing and decapitating several of their leaders; but it was not long before those in the camp realized that the raiders were a party of women who could easily be overcome if offered determined resistance. Seizing their weapons and rallying themselves together, they fell upon Fourth Sister Lin and her band with such ferocity that soon the girls’ heroic vow to die for their Prince was fulfilled, for not a single one of them was left alive.

‘The Emperor and the entire Court were deeply affected when news of this was brought to them. It is to be assumed that a suitable person was then appointed to command operations against the rebels and that the rebel horde melted away at the first appearance of the Imperial forces – we are not concerned with that. But what of Fourth Sister Lin, gentlemen? Do you not find her an admirable person?’

‘Admirable indeed!’ said the literary gentlemen. ‘And what a marvellous subject for a poem! We must all of us try to make one up about her.’

One of their number took a writing-brush and inkstone and wrote down the story almost exactly as Jia Zheng had told it, slightly modifying it here and there in the interest of style, to serve as a short preface for their poem. When he had finished it, he handed it to Jia Zheng for his approval.

‘Yes, that seems to me exactly as it should be,’ said Jia Zheng after glancing briefly through it. ‘It was a preface rather like this one that started off the discussion at our gathering. An Imperial directive was received at the Department yesterday asking for a search to be made in the records of this and the preceding dynasty for hitherto neglected instances of outstanding merit deserving some posthumous recognition. No class of persons was to be excluded: monks, runs, beggars, women and girls – all were eligible. Wherever exceptional merit could be established, a brief account of it was to be forwarded to the Board of Rites for inclusion in the list of recommendations. The preface they were discussing at our gathering was a copy of the account sent in by our Department to the Board. It was reading that preface that gave those present the idea that they should write a “Winsome Colonel” poem in commemoration of Fourth Sister Lin’s heroic loyalty.’

‘And very right that they should!’ said the literary gentlemen smilingly. ‘But what is most admirable of all about this story is the tireless benevolence of the present Court which led to the unearthing of this forgotten heroism. Surely this is a thing unparalleled in any former age? The Tang poet’s line

This holy age, when nothing good’s omitted,

might almost have been written in anticipation of the present reign.’

‘Indeed!’ Jia Zheng nodded gravely.

By this time Jia Huan and Jia Lan had also arrived. Jia Zheng allowed the three boys to look at the preface and then told them that he wanted a poem from each one of them. He would award a prize to whoever completed one first and another prize for the best poem.

Jia Huan and Jia Lan had several times recently been called upon to compose in company and so were not unduly nervous on this occasion. After reading the preface, all three boys went off into separate corners to think. Jia Lan was the first to finish a poem and Jia Huan, fearful of being outstripped by his young nephew, made haste to follow. The two of them had already written their poems out while Bao-yu was still thinking. Jia Zheng and the literary gentlemen decided to look first at what the two younger boys had written. Jia Lan’s contribution was in the form of a quatrain.

Fourth Sister Lin was the Winsome Colonel’s name:
She was beautiful and gentle, yet her valour none could tame.
In Qing-zhou where, her Prince to avenge, she threw her life away,
The very ground on which she fell is fragrant to this day.

The literary gentlemen praised the little poem enthusiastically.

‘For a young boy of his years to produce such a poem is proof of a highly cultured upbringing,’ they said.

‘Childish prattle! Childish prattle!’ Jia Zheng laughed deprecatingly. ‘Still, for one of his tender years it is quite a creditable effort.’

Next they read Jia Huan’s contribution. It was a Regulated Verse poem in pentameters.

The lovely lady would not sit and grieve;
For sterner thoughts her warlike breast did fill.
She dried her woman’s tears and fearless rode
Through Qing-zhou’s gates to be killed and to kill.
‘However great the odds,’ she said, ‘I can
‘My debt repay, if not avenge this ill.’
The inscription graved upon her tomb shall be:
‘Here buried lies the world’s fidelity.’

‘Ah yes!’ said the literary gentlemen. ‘What a difference those few years between them make! This is quite a different approach.’

‘I suppose it’s not too bad,’ said Jia Zheng, ‘but it doesn’t really do justice to the subject.’

‘Oh well, as to that –!’ said the literary gentlemen. ‘After all, our young friend is not so very much older than his nephew. Old heads are not to be expected on young shoulders! Give them a few more years and I don’t doubt we shall have a pair of poets in our midst to rival Ruan Ji and his nephew Ruan Xian!

‘Come, come, they are not as good as that!’ said Jia Zheng, smiling. ‘They don’t study hard enough, that’s their trouble.’

He asked Bao-yu how he was getting on.

‘After all this careful chiselling, Mr Bao’s poem is sure to be something of quite a different order from these two we have just heard,’ said the literary gentlemen‘– one, no doubt, in which the romantic and tragic aspects of the theme will both be fully exploited.’

Bao-yu smiled.

‘I don’t think Regulated Verse is quite the right medium for this subject. It calls for something longer – a song or ballad in the Old Style – to do it justice.’

‘You see!’ said the literary gentlemen, some jumping to their feet, some nodding or clapping in their enthusiasm. ‘We said that his contribution would be quite different! It is the sign of a good, experienced writer to be able to gauge immediately what form will be most appropriate to the subject. With a title like this and a preface, clearly what is called for is either a long narrative poem like Bo Ju-yi’s “The Everlasting Remorse” or an Old Style ode like Wen Ting-yun’s “On Hearing Guo Dao-yuan Play the Musical Glasses” or Li He’s “Return from Gui-ji”, in which narrative and lyrical elements combine. Only the greater freedom of the Old Style allows for the smoother, more flowing development that this subject calls for.’

Jia Zheng was of the same opinion. He took brush and paper and prepared to write.

‘So be it, then. Recite your lines, my boy, and I shall take them down for you. They had better be good after this boastful preliminary, or I shall beat your bottom!’

Bao-yu recited his first line:

Prince Heng was fond of a pretty face and of martial arts also –

Jia Zheng copied the words down and then shook his head over what he had written.

‘Vulgar and pedestrian!’

‘No, no, it isn’t vulgar,’ said one of the literary gentlemen. ‘That is what the Ballad Style is like. Wait and see how it goes on.’

‘All right, we’ll let it pass,’ said Jia Zheng.

Bao-yu continued.

So he trained the ladies of his court to ride and draw the bow.
In ravishing songs and beguiling dances the Prince took no delight,
But to watch the pike-drill he was fain of fair maids in a row.

He waited while Jia Zheng finished writing down the lines. The literary gentlemen professed themselves particularly impressed by the’ ravishing songs’ line, claiming to see a quality of ‘rugged strength’ in it which they deemed highly appropriate in a ballad. The fourth line, which they called ‘pure narrative’, was also, they thought, exactly as it should be.

‘You shouldn’t praise the boy so,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘You will turn his head. Let’s see how he manages to develop this in his second stanza.’

Bao-yu recited:

As he watched them drill, he scarcely saw the clouds of dust arise;
’Twas the lovely Colonel’s lamplit face that swam before his eyes.

‘Bravo!’ shouted the literary gentlemen. ‘“He scarcely saw the clouds of dust” leads us on to the “lamplit face” of the heroine. A most ingenious development! The way every word is used in these two lines is quite masterful!’

Bao-yu continued:

When the rosy lips framed their harsh commands he could smell the mouth’s sweet breath;

But the weapons oft shook in the fair white hands, too weak for such exercise.

The literary gentlemen laughed and clapped their hands.

‘What a wonderful picture! I think friend Bao must have been among those present at the time. He saw the white hand shake and smelt the perfume. How else could he describe it all so vividly?’

Bao-yu laughed.

‘Women drilling, however bold and fierce they might be, could never look quite the same as men. One can assume the occasional softness creeping in without having had any special experience.’

‘Oh, get on!’ said Jia Zheng. ‘We can do without the comment.’

Bao-yu thought a little before beginning the next stanza.

The lotus belt round the Colonel’s waist in a clove-shaped knot was tied –

‘The change of rhyme from “eyes” to “eyed” is one example of that smooth, flowing development we were just now talking about,’ said the literary gentlemen. ‘Also, this line has just that touch of charm and prettiness that the subject calls for.’

‘I don’t agree,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘I don’t like this line at all. We have already heard about her “mouth’s sweet breath” and her “fair white hand” in the last stanza. Why does he need to go on in this strain? I think it is mere weakness of invention that leads to this piling up of descriptive bric-à-brac.’

‘A long ballad needs a few ornamental, descriptive passages,’ said Bao-yu, ‘otherwise it would seem too bare.’

‘You are continuing the same kind of description into a new stanza,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘When are you going to get on to her warlike side? If you have another two or three lines of this kind of stuff, it’s going to seem like drawing legs on a snake!’

‘All right,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’ll try to make a quick change to the warlike side and then finish the whole description off in this one stanza.’

‘What a genius!’ said Jia Zheng sarcastically. ‘You begin with a line that looks like the first item in a long catalogue, and now you are talking about instant changes and abrupt conclusions. I think you may find that you have bitten off rather more than you can chew!’

Bao-yu hung his head and pondered a while before finally coming out with this line:

Yet it was not strung pearls that hung from it, but the good sword at her side.

‘Will that do?’ he asked anxiously.

The literary gentlemen banged on the table and cheered.

‘We’ll leave it,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘Carry on.’

‘If it will do, I’ll continue as I’ve planned,’ said Bao-yu. ‘If not, it would be better to cross it out and I’ll try to think of something completely different and develop in another direction.’

Jia Zheng shouted at him angrily.

‘Hold your tongue, sir! Do it again if it’s not good enough, indeed! How many times do you propose to go on trying? Ten times? A hundred? Save your energy and get on!’

Bao-yu resigned himself to developing from the line he had just recited. He thought for some moments before continuing.

When late at night the jousting ended, her courage was quite spent, And her handkerchief with carmine sweat from her streaming face was dyed.

‘That’s the end of another stanza,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘Now how are you going on?’

Bao-yu continued:

Next year the whole North-east land with rebels was a-run,
Like ravening beasts, or swarming bees after the queen has flown –

‘“A-run” is good,’ said the literary gentlemen. ‘It is little touches like that that show the master-hand at work. The narrative style in this stanza is good, too. Lively.’

Bao-yu continued:

The Prince led forth the Emperor’s men the rebel hordes to quell.

He fought them once and he fought them twice, but his army was overthrown.

A stench of blood upon the wind blighted the standing corn,

And on empty tents and an empty camp the setting sun went down.

‘Twas the rainy time, and sounding rills down the lone green hillsides sped

When Prince Heng, his fighting ended, on the battlefield lay dead.

Now rain has washed the white bones clean, but not the blood-soaked grass,

And as the moon rises, shivering ghosts stand at each corpse’s head.

‘Brilliant!’ cried the literary gentlemen. ‘The narrative style, the imagery, the choice of words are all quite perfect. But now what about Fourth Sister Lin? What ingenious new development will bring her back upon the scene?’

Bao-yu recited:

The officers refused to fight for fear they might be killed,

And with no defenders, Qing-zhou’s fate seemed already to be sealed.

But though the men were all afraid, the girls were loyal and true:

And among them Prince Heng’s favourite with especial zeal was filled.

‘Neatly turned!’ said the literary gentlemen.

‘It took four lines to do it, though,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘Too much! And I expect there is more useless verbiage to follow.’

Bao-yu continued:

Now who the Prince’s favourite was to you shall be revealed:
Fourth Sister Lin she was by name, the Winsome Colonel called.
She rallied her companions fair and issued a command,
And like a troop of lovely flowers they rode into the field.

Their heavy saddle-cloths are wet with tears of the spring sky’s woe,
And the iron of their armour chills them, as through the cold night they go.
Though the outcome may be uncertain, they have taken a solemn vow,
Whate’er befall, before they die, for the Prince to strike a blow.

But what chance against their savage foe had that gallant band?
Like gentle flowers they perished, crushed by a brutal hand.
The horses’ hooves are fragrant yet that trod them in the mud;
Near the city walls their poor ghosts flit, where they made their final stand.

A courier riding through the night to the Emperor’s city came,
And all who heard his heavy news with sadness did exclaim.
The Son of Heaven looked aghast when he learned of Qing-zhou’s fall,
And his captains and his counsellors all hung their heads for shame.

The captains and the counsellors and men of high degree
Were put to shame by Fourth Sister Lin’s fidelity.
For Fourth Sister Lin my heart with grief doth swell,
And though my song is ended now, my thoughts on her still dwell.

The literary gentlemen broke into loud acclaim as Bao-yu finished. It seemed at first as if they might go on indefinitely. Subsiding at last, they read the whole poem through again from the beginning.

‘It is certainly a very long poem,’ said Jia Zheng, smiling, ‘but for all that, I don’t think it really does justice to the subject.’

He turned to the three boys:

‘All right, off you go!’

The three of them went off, feeling like condemned prisoners who have suddenly been given a reprieve. For the two younger ones it was the end of their day: a blessed nothingness until bedtime. But Bao-yu was still grieving for Skybright. The sight of the hibiscus by the lake reminded him of what the little maid had told him about her. As he stood gazing sorrowfully at the bushes, an idea suddenly came to him.

‘Since I wasn’t able to see her in her coffin, why don’t I pay my last respects to her here, in the presence of her flowers?’

He was on the point of kneeling down in front of them when another thought occurred to him.

‘That’s all very well, but I can’t do it just anyhow. In order to show proper respect I must first make sure that I am dressed correctly. And I must prepare a little ceremony and make her some sort of offering.’

This led to further cogitation.

‘It says somewhere in the classics, “Where there is faith enough and goodwill, duckweed boiled in puddle-water is an offering acceptable to the gods and a dish fit to be set before princes.” Proper respect evidently has nothing to do with the value of the offering. And I could always write something to read out before I made it.’

He began to plan what he would write. ‘An elegy’ it would be called. It would be a bit like one of those long Chu poems – Li sao or The Summons of the Soul– but with elements of other things as well. And of course a lot of it would be original. He sat down and began writing it as soon as he got back to his apartment. As it was to please himself, he could be as wild and extravagant as he liked and compose as quickly as his imagination would let him. Soon the draft was finished, and he took a piece of white material of the kind they call ‘mermaid silk’, which he knew Skybright had been fond of, and after first writing the title on it in large characters:

THE SPIRIT OF THE HIBISCUS: AN ELEGY AND INVOCATION

he copied out the text in a neat kai-shu hand and carried it with him into the Garden. The little maid who had told him about Skybright’s transformation had to follow him with some things for the offering on a tray: a cup of tea, some autumn flowers in a vase of water, and some charcoal in a little burner for starting a fire with. When his solomn bowings and kneelings were over, he hung the silk up on the branches of a hibiscus and began tearfully to read out the words:

The year being one in the era of Immutable Peace, the month that in which the sweet odours of hibiscus and cassia compete, the day, a heavy and doleful day, I, most wretched and disconsolate JADE of the House of Green Delights, having with due reverence prepared and got together buds of flowers, silk of mermaids, water of the Drenched Blossoms stream and Fung Loo tea (all things of little value in themselves, yet sufficient to attest the devotion of a true believer) do here offer them up in sacrifice to her that has now, in the Palace of the White God, become SPIRIT OF THE HIBISCUS, having power and dominion over the flowers of autumn.

It is now sixteen years since the BLEST SPIRIT descended into the world of men. As to her native place and the lineage in which she was born, they were long since forgotten; but for five years and eight months of that time she was, in my rising up and lying down, in my washings and combings, in my rest and play, my constant close companion and helpmate.

It is to be recorded of her that in estimation she was more precious than gold or jade, in nature more pure than ice or snow, in wit more brilliant than the sun or stars, in complexion more beautiful than the moon or than flowers. Who of the maidens did not admire her accomplishments? Who among the matrons did not marvel at her sagacity?

But if baleful scritch-owls that hate the heights can cause the kingly eagle to be taken in a net, and rank and stinking weeds, envious of another’s fragrance, can cause the sweet herb of grace to be uprooted, it is not to be thought that a shrinking flower could withstand the whirlwind’s blast, or a tender willow-tree be proof against the buffetings of the tempest. When the envenomed tongue of slander was wagged against her, she pined inwardly with a wasting sickness: the red of her cherry lips faded and only sad and plaintive sounds issued out of them; the bloom of her apricot cheeks withered and none but lean and haggard looks were to be seen upon them.

Slanders and slights crept from behind every curtain; thorns and thistles choked up the doors and windows of her chamber. Yet truly she had done no infamous thing. She entered a silent victim into the eternal, a wronged innocent into the everlasting: a more notable martyr (though but a mere girl) to the envy of excellence than he who was drowned at Long Sands; a more pitiable sufferer from the peril of plain dealing than he that was slain upon Feather Mountain.

Yet since she stored up her bitterness in silence, none recognized the treasure that was lost in her, cut off so young. The fair cloud dispersed, leaving no means to trace the beauteous outline of its former shape. It were a hard thing to hunt out the Isle of the Blest from among the multitudinous islands of the ocean and bring back the immortal herb that should restore her: the raft is lost that went to look for it.

It was but yesterday that I painted those delicate smoke-black eyebrows; and who is there today to warm the cold jade rings for her fingers? The medicine she drank stands yet upon the stove; the tears are still wet on the garment she once wore. The phoenix has flown and MUSK’s vanity-box has burst apart for sorrow; the dragon has departed, and RIPPLE’s comb has broken its teeth for grief. The magpie has forsaken my chamber: it is in vain for the maidens to hang up their needles on Seventh Night and pray for nimble fingers. My buckle with the love-ducks is broken: the seamstress is no more who could repair the silk-work of its girdle.

And this being the season of autumn when the power of metal predominates and the White God is master of the earth, the signs themselves are melancholy. I wake from dreams of her on a lonely couch and in an empty room. As the moon veils herself behind the trees of the garden, the moonlight and the sweet form I dreamed of are in the same moment extinguished; as the perfume fades from the hangings of my bedchamber, the laboured breath and whispered words I strove to catch at the same time fall silent. Dew pearls the pavement’s moss; the launderer’s beat is borne in unceasingly through my casement. Rain wets the wall-fig; a flute’s complaint carries uncertainly from a near-by courtyard.

Her sweet name is not extinguished, for the parrot in his cage under the eaves ceases not to repeat it; and the crabtree in my courtyard whose half-withering was a foretokening of her fate stands yet her memorial. But no more shall the sound of her lotus feet betray her at hide-and-seek behind the screen; no more will her fingers cull budding orchids for the game of match-my-flower in the garden. The embroidery silks are thrown aside in a tangle: never again will she cut them with her silver scissors. The sheeny silk lies creased and crumpled: never again shall her hot-iron smooth out its perfumed folds.

In her last hour, when I might else have gone to her, I was called in haste from the Garden by a Father’s summons; when, grieving, I sought to take leave of her abandoned body, I could not see it because it had been removed by a Mother’s command; and when I was told that her corpse had been consumed, I repented of my jesting vow that we should share the same grave-hole together, for that were now impossible, and that our ashes should commingle, for ash she is already become.

In the burning-ground by the old temple, green ghost-fires flicker when the west wind blows. On its derelict mounds, scattered bones gleam whitely in the setting sun. The wind sighs in the tall trees and rustles in the dried-up grasses below. Gibbons call sadly from tombs that are hidden in the mist, and ghosts flit weeping down the alley-ways between the tombs. At such times must the young man in his crimson-curtained bed seem most cruelly afflicted; at such times must the maiden beneath the yellow earth seem most cruelly ill-fated.

The tears of Ru-nan fall in bloody drops upon the wind, and the complaint of Golden Valley is made to the moon in silence. Vengeance is for demons and baleful bogles; the gentle spirits of maidens are not wont to be jealous, though wronged. Natheless shall the backbiters not lightly escape her; their mouths shall be squeezed in vices; the hearts of those cruel harridans shall be ripped: for her anger is kindled against them.

Though the bond between us was a slight one, yet can it not easily be broken; and because she was ever close to me in my thoughts, I could not forbear to make earnest inquiry concerning her. Thus it was revealed to me that the God had sent down the banner of his authority and summoned her to his Palace of Flowers, to the end that she who in life was like a flower should in death have dominion over the hibiscus. At first when I heard the words of the little maid touching this appointment, I thought them fantastical; but now that I have pondered them in my heart, I know them to be worthy of perfect credence. How so?

Did not Ye Fa-shan compel Li Yong’s sleeping spirit to compose an epitaph? And was not the soul of Li He summoned in order that he might write a memorial in heaven? The circumstances may differ, but the principle is the same. God chooses his ministers according to their capabilities, else how could they discharge the duties that are required of them? And who more fit and meet than her to be given this charge that has been laid upon her? Truly, here at last she has a work that is worthy of her.

And because I would have her descend here in this place, I have composed these verses to invoke her with, fearing that the common speech of mortals might be offensive to her immortal ear.

The Invocation

All’s clearest azure above • where her team of white wyverns through the welkin wends,

And the world in a haze below • as her chryselephantine car to the earth descends.

Her awning’s relucent splendour • outshines Antares and his starry band,

Her guidons and gonfalons go before • and the stars of Aquarius guard her on either hand.

Cloudcleaver follows as escort • Moondriver gallops to clear the way ahead.

I can hear the creak and trundle of chariot-wheels • of her phoenix-figured car’s majestic tread.

I can smell the enveloping perfume • of her cincture from fragrant stalks of asarum twined,

See the dazzle of her dress • gleaming with moon-jade ouches, fretted and lined.

I’ll strew the altar with lily-of-the-valley leaves • and have waterlilies for lamps fed with orchid oil,

And in chalices cunningly fashioned from calabash • pour rarest metheglin flavoured with pennyroyal.

As I fasten my gaze on the clouds • methinks I see a faint glimmer of her face;

As I strain my ear on the silence • I seem to hear a faint echo of her voice.

But she, on a tryst with eternity, brooking no coarctation • has abandoned me, cruel, here in the dust to lie,

Calling on Windlord in vain to drive me up after her • to ride side by side with her across the sky.

My heart is all wracked with teen • yet it boots not to weep and wail:

You are gone now to your long sleep • against Nature’s order no power on earth can prevail.

In the grave-vault secure you rest • the bourne after which there is no more transformation.

But to me still in bonds in this hateful wen below • O Spirit, succouring come for my consolation!

O Spirit, come and abide for my consolation!

But what though she is present in this place? She is girt about with silence; she is veiled in a mist of invisibility; I cannot see her:

Only the green wreathed creepers that make her side-screens,
And the ranks of tall bullrushes, her guardsmen’s spears.
The sleepy willow-buds waken as she approaches;
And the bitter lotus-seeds sweeten as she nears.
The White Virgin waits for her on cliffs of cassia;
From Orchid Island the water-sprite comes to greet her.
Jade-player plays for her on a little organ,
And Cold-keys sweeps the iron spine with his metal beater.
The God of the Mid Peak’s consort comes at her bidding;
The crone of Li Mountain is summoned forth to meet her.
The Luo River turtle brings her his magic offering;
To the heavenly music wild beasts gambol and prance.
In the deeps of Red River the dragons are humming the melody;
And in pearl-tree groves the Birds of Paradise dance.

Seeing my reverence and my devoutness of heart (notwithstanding that I have neither vessels of gold nor vessels of bronze in which to make my offering) she drove forth her chariot from the City of Sunrise to meet me; but even now her banners are returning to the Garden of Night. For a little moment it seemed that the invisible would become visible; but murky vapours rose up suddenly between us and we were cut off.

Clouds and mists drifted and drew together,
Rain and fog veiled the heaven’s light;
Then rolling back, revealed the high stars
And earth all radiant in the noon of night.

My mind is in a turmoil, uncertain whether I wake or dream. I gaze at the sky with sighs of disappointment; I wait in uncertainty with weeping eyes. My speech grows silent: only the music of the wind in the grove of bamboos is to be heard, and the wing-beats of birds as they fly off startled, and the plopping sounds of fish as they nibble at the surface of the water.

Blest Spirit, may my lament go up to thee; may my rite be acceptable to thee.

Wubu aizai! Receive this offering!

When he had finished reading, he made a little flame with the burner and set fire to the silk. Then he poured the tea out on the ground as a libation, scattered the flowers, and emptied the water out of the vase. He continued to linger there after he had finished, as though unable to tear himself away, and the little maid had to remind him several times that they ought to be getting back. He had just started to go when a laughing voice called out ‘Stop a minute!’ and the maid, turning to look behind her, saw with terror that a female form was stepping out of the bushes.

‘Help!’ she cried. ‘It’s a ghost! Skybright’s spirit really has come back!’

Bao-yu looked back too. But whether or not it was a ghost he saw will be revealed in the following chapter.

Chapter 79

Xue Pan finds to his sorrow that he is married to a termagant And Ying-ebun’s parents betroth her to a Zbong-shan wolf

At the end of the last chapter our story had reached a point at which, just as Bao-yu and the little maid were beginning to walk away after completing the sacrifice to Skybright, they were startled by the sound of a human voice coming from the direction of the flowering hibiscus bushes. When Bao-yu looked, he saw that the person who had called out was Dai-yu. She advanced towards him smiling.

‘A highly original elegy! It deserves to have a permanent place in literature alongside the Elegy for the Shaman’s Daughter by Han-dan Chun!’

Bao-yu blushed and laughed sheepishly.

‘Most elegies one sees are so stale and derivative, I thought I’d try my hand at writing something a bit different. It was only for my own amusement; I hadn’t intended that anyone else should hear it. Perhaps now that you have heard it, you will let me know of any glaring errors you may have noticed and help me to correct them.’

‘Where is the original text?’ said Dai-yu. ‘I should need to have a careful look at the text first before venturing on any criticism. It was such a long piece, I could barely make out what most of it was about. There were a couple of lines somewhere near the middle that caught my attention:

The young, man in his crimson-curtained bed must seem most cruelly afflicted;

And the maiden beneath the yellow earth must seem most cruelly ill-fated.

The general sentiment is all right, but I thought “crimson-curtained bed" a trifle shop-worn. I don’t see why you used that image when there is a much better one to hand.’

‘Oh, what’s that?’ said Bao-yu.

‘We’ve all got this rose-coloured haze diaphene in our windows,’ said Dai-yu. ‘Instead of “the young man in his crimson-curtained bed”, why not say “the young man at his rosy-misted casement”?’

Bao-yu stamped his foot and laughed delightedly.

‘Excellent! How clever of you to have thought of it! It only goes to show that there is always something to hand if only one will take the trouble to look. Stupid people like me fail to think of the obvious. Actually though, I haven’t got that sort of gauze in my windows; so though “rosy-misted casement" is a great improvement, I don’t think I had better use it. It would be fine for you to use it, but I think if I did it would be a bit presumptuous.’

‘But why?’ said Dai-yu, smiling. ‘My window is your window. It is unfriendly to be so punctilious. Look at the ancients who used to “lend furs and horses and feel no resentment when they came back the worse for wear". And that was to mere acquaintances: we two are members of the same family.’

‘I agree with you that one ought to share with one’s friends,’ said Bao-yu, ‘and not only furs and horses, but even more precious things if one has them. But for a mere male to arrogate to himself what properly belongs to you girls would be quite a different matter. It would be better to alter “young man" and “maiden" and let it be Your elegy. After all, you were always very well-disposed towards Skybright. I’d rather give the elegy to someone else than throw away your “rosy-misted casement". Let’s make it:

The mistress by her rosy-misted casement must seem most cruelly afflicted;

And the maid beneath the yellow earth must seem most cruelly ill-fated.

I should be very happy to alter it in that way, even though it would mean that the elegy would cease to have anything to do with me.’

‘She wasn’t my maid,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Besides, “mistress” and “maid” are such an unpoetical combination. I might want to use this version when Nightingale is dead, but that won’t be for a long while yet, I imagine.’

‘Come now, it’s not very nice to talk about Nightingale dying,’ said Bao-yu, laughing.

‘You started it,’ said Dai-yu.

‘I know what,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I’ve got a still better solution.

Why don’t we just say:

I by my rosy-misted casement seem most cruelly afflicted;

And you beneath the yellow earth seem most cruelly ill-fated?’

Dai-yu momentarily changed colour; yet though the words filled her with an almost unbearable feeling of premonitory dread, she masked it with a smile and nodded approvingly at his suggestion.

‘Yes, that’s a great improvement. Better not tamper with the words any more or you will spoil them. You ought in any case to be getting back now. I’m sure you must have more important things to attend to. When I saw your mother just now, she was briefing someone to tell you that you are to go to your Aunt Xing’s place first thing tomorrow morning. It seems that your Cousin Ying’s betrothal has been decided on. I expect they want you there for the ceremony.’

‘What’s the hurry?’ said Bao-yu, a trifle pettishly. ‘I’ve not been feeling particularly well lately. I may not be well enough to go there tomorrow.’

‘How typical!’ said Dai-yu. ‘I should try to grow out of these childish ways if I were you. You are getting too old –’

She broke off in a fit of coughing. Bao-yu at once became concerned about her.

‘There’s a nasty wind here. I don’t know why we are standing around in the cold like this. We’d better be getting back now. There’s no sense in making ourselves ill.’

‘I ought to be going back now in any case,’ said Dai-yu. ‘It’s time I went to bed. We’ll see each other again tomorrow.’

She began to walk away. Bao-yu began gloomily walking off in the opposite direction. Suddenly it occurred to him that Dai-yu was unaccompanied and he told the little maid to run after her and see her back to her apartment.

Back at Green Delights he found some old women with a message from his mother. It was as Dai-yu had said. He was to go over first thing next morning to his Uncle She’s house.

The family that Jia She was proposing to marry his daughter into was called Sun. They were a Da-tong family whose menfolk had all, for several generations, been Army officers. A former head of the family had placed himself under the patronage of the Ning and Rong brothers, so their claim to a special relationship with the Jia family was a strong one. Only one member of the family was at present living in the capital, a young man called Sun Shao-zu who had been given the post of Military Provost in the metropolitan garrison as an hereditary entitlement. He was a tall, powerfully-built, impressive-looking young man; he drew a good bow, had a good seat on a horse, and knew how to bear himself well in company and please those whom it was important to please. Still under thirty and with his family’s not inconsiderable wealth behind him, he had excellent prospects. Already the War Department had marked him out for promotion. And he was unmarried. From every point of view – the special relationship between their two houses, the Sun family’s wealth, and the personality of the young man himself – Jia She regarded this as being the almost perfect match and informed Grandmother Jia of his choice. Grandmother Jia by no means shared his enthusiasm; however, after reflecting that the couplings of young people are to a large extent fated and that, as Jia She was after all the girl’s father, it was not really for her to interfere, she made some neutral response such as ‘I see’ or ‘Oh, are you?’ and left it at that.

Jia Zheng felt a much more positive antipathy to the match. He detested the Suns. Though the connection between the two families was a long-standing one, it had come about because Sun Shao-zu’s grandfather, who had been the worst possible sort of social climber, had wormed his way into the patronage of Jia Zheng’s grandfather and great-uncle for the sole purpose of concluding some dubious business that he could not have brought off on his own. In Jia Zheng’s view they lacked both education and breeding. He spoke to Jia She on two separate occasions advising him very strongly against the match; but as Jia She refused to take the slightest bit of notice, there was nothing much he could do.

Bao-yu had never met Sun Shao-zu before. Obliged to do so at his uncle’s place next day and to make such small-talk as he was capable of, he was appalled, in the course of conversation, to discover just how soon the marriage was to be: it seemed that Ying-chun would be going to her husband’s house before the end of that year. When-some time later Lady Ying came over to tell Grandmother Jia that she now wanted to move Ying-chun out of the Garden for good, he became even more depressed. That strange apathy they had observed in him on previous occasions again came over him. The news that Ying-chun would be taking four maids with her to the Sun household provoked some stamping and groans and the remark that ‘five more decent people were now lost to the world’; but it was only a momentary outburst.

He took to wandering about for hours on end in the neighbourhood of Amaryllis Eyot, now shuttered and forlorn and with only one or two women of the night-watch on duty in it. The very reeds and knotgrass along its banks and the caltrops and pondweed in the water seemed to have taken on a wilting, dejected look, as if they too were missing the presence of their former tenant. All the charm and colour which had once endeared the spot to him seemed now to have abandoned it. So strong was this feeling, that it eventually began forming itself into a poem, the words of which came almost unbidden to his lips.

The pool’s pink-petalled lotus crowns have gone, By one night’s nipping wind of autumn blown; Like stricken mourners, knotgrass and caltrop-heads Under the weight of frost and dew bow down; And the board whose Go-stones clicked the long day through With mud of sluttish swallows is blotched brown. Old poets for parted friends made such a din: What grief must mine be then for closest kin?

Just as he had finished reciting this poem, Bao-yu heard a laugh behind him.

‘What are you mooning about for this time?’

Bao-yu glanced back and saw that it was Caltrop. He turned to greet her.

‘My dear Caltrop! What brings you here today? You are becoming quite a stranger in this Garden.’

Caltrop clapped her hands as if she found his question a great joke.

‘I am always longing to come here,’ she said, ‘but now that your Cousin Pan is home again, I am no longer a free agent. Just now Mrs Xue was trying to get hold of Mrs Lian and they told her that she was in the Garden. I asked for the job of going to look for her simply as an excuse for coming here. I have just seen Mrs Lian’s maid and she told me that her mistress is with Mrs Zhu in Sweet-rice Village. I’m on my way there now. Tell me, how is Aroma these days? And how was it that Skybright died so suddenly? What was wrong with her? And Miss Ying – she moved out very suddenly, didn’t she? Just look at this place, it already looks deserted!’

Bao-yu did his best to answer her. He also invited her to accompany him back to Green Delights and have some tea there.

‘I can’t at the moment,’ said Caltrop. ‘Wait till I’ve seen Mrs Lian and given her my message and I’ll come and see you then.’

‘What’s this important message that you are in such a hurry to give her?’ said Bao-yu.

‘It has to do with your Cousin Pan getting married.’

‘I see,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Who did they finally settle on? They seemed to be wrangling about it for months. It seemed to be Miss Zhang one day, Miss Li the next, and the day after that Miss Wang. One wondered what the unfortunate girls had done to deserve being considered for such a fate.’

‘Well you can forget about them now,’ said Caltrop, ‘because it’s all been settled.’

‘What family does the one they’ve chosen belong to?’ said Bao-yu.

‘A family that was related to our family by marriage once before,’ said Caltrop. ‘Your Cousin Pan called in on them last year during his travels. They are Imperial Purveyors like us, registered with the Ministry of Finance, and one of the wealthiest families in the capital. All your folk here seemed to have heard of them when we told them. In fact everyone in the city, from Imperial Princes to shopkeepers, has heard of the Cassia Xias.’

‘Oh,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Why do they call them that?’

‘They are, as I say, very, very rich,’ said Caltrop, ‘and they own a great deal of land. Several hundred acres of their land are devoted just to growing cassia alone. All the cassia sold in shops in the city is supplied by them, and all the cassia, both cut flowers and potted plants, on display in the Palace. That’s how they got the nickname. Old Mr Xia that used to be head of the business is dead now. There’s only his widow left and a young Miss Xia. No son. It’s sad to think that the family may die out.’

‘Spare your sorrow,’ said Bao-yu. ‘What about this young lady? Why did Mr Xue take a fancy to her?’

‘Partly I suppose it was because they were destined for each other and partly it was a case of “beauty in the eye of the beholder”,’ said Caltrop smiling. ‘Years ago when they were little and their two families were often visiting each other, your cousin and Miss Xia used to play together and call each other’s parents “Auntie” and “Uncle”. When your cousin went to call on them last year, Mrs Xia, having no son of her own and seeing him now for the first time as a grown-up man, felt more as if she was welcoming a long-lost son. She was quite overcome, laughing and crying by turns; and of course she insisted that he and her daughter should see each other. Well it seems that the daughter has grown into a great beauty, and is educated, too, having been taught by a private tutor. Your cousin was quite bowled over. Mrs Xia even had the older men from the shop who were travelling with your cousin to stay with her. They must have spent three or four days in her house. She’d like to have kept them even longer and they had quite a job persuading her that they needed to be getting back. When they did get back, your cousin could speak of nothing else. Almost as soon as he’d set foot in the door he was telling Mrs Xue that she must get him the young lady for his wife. Mrs Xue was quite agreeable. She’d seen Miss Xia when she was a little girl, and she knew the families were well-matched. So after talking it over with Her Ladyship and Mrs Lian, she sent someone to see Mrs Xia about the betrothal and it was settled almost immediately. The only snag is, they’ve fixed the date for the wedding a bit on the early side, which means a terrible rush to get ready. Still, I’m longing for her to be here. Think of it: another person to write poetry with!’

‘Hmn, maybe,’ said Bao-yu. ‘All the same, I am a bit worried for you.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Caltrop. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand you.’

‘I should have thought it was obvious enough,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Isn’t there a fear that if somebody else appears on the scene Cousin Pan will lose interest in you?’

Caltrop’s face reddened and she stared back at him coldly.

‘What sort of talk is that? I used to think that we respected each other, you and I. Now I am beginning to understand what people mean when they say that you are the kind of person with whom it is impossible to be friendly.’

She turned on her heel and walked away, giving him no chance to reply.

A sense of desolation came over Bao-yu. It was as if a part of him had been irretrievably lost. For some minutes he stood vacantly staring after her, like an idiot. Returning at last in great dejection to Green Delights, he shortly afterwards went to bed. But he did not sleep well that night. Several times in the course of it he called out Skybright’s name in his sleep or woke up in terror from some frightful dream. His body next morning was feverish and he seemed to have lost all appetite for food and drink.

The events of the past few weeks – the raid on the Garden, Chess’s dismissal, Ying-chun’s departure, Skybright’s death – and all the attendant humiliation, shock and grief had been too much for him. They now combined with the effects of the chill he had taken in his recent loiterings in the autumnal Garden to lay him on his back for several weeks. Grandmother Jia came over daily to Green Delights to visit him and Lady Wang began to regret that her concern about Sky-bright had caused her to deal with him so harshly. However, she gave no outward indication of this change of heart beyond renewing her orders to the womenservants to take special care of him. Twice every day the doctor called to take his pulses and supervise his dosing. It was a whole month before he began to show signs of improvement, and even then the doctor insisted that he would require a hundred days of convalescence before he could return to a normal diet or be allowed to set foot outside his courtyard.

The restraints of this period of convalescence, during which all his amusements had to be taken inside his own room, soon, proved extremely irksome. By the time forty or fifty of the hundred days had gone by, he was already fairly exploding with impatience; but all his pleading and all the ruses he adopted to get the sentence altered were in vain. Both Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang were adamant. Resigned at last to another fifty days of confinement, he concentrated his energies on thinking up ever more ingenious and outrageous ways in which he and his maids could pass the time.

News reached him in his confinement of the superb plays and banquets with which Xue Pan celebrated the arrival of his new bride. Everyone said she was good-looking, and not only that, but literate and able to write a tolerable hand. Bao-yu would have given anything to go over and meet her; but of course he could not.

Not long after that came news of Ying-chun’s wedding, and Bao-yu realized with a pang that the affectionate, brother-and-sister-like relationship of their childhood years was now at an end: from now on, even if they ever met, they would have to be formal and distant with each other. It made him doubly despondent when he reflected that he had not even been able to see her before she left. However, he decided to keep his troubles to himself. For the time being he continued to concentrate on thinking up new ways of passing the time. At least there was one good thing about his confinement: he no longer had Jia Zheng urging him and threatening him about his studies. During those hundred days of convalescence he and the maids all but took Green Delights apart. No form of diversion was too wild or hare-brained for him to try, and things were done then that cannot have been thought of before or since. We will not tax the reader’s credulity by attempting to describe them.

After delivering her snub for what she mistakenly believed to be a deliberate rudeness, Caltrop decided that in future it would be best to keep away from Bao-yu as much as possible, even to the extent of avoiding visits to the Garden altogether. This was not difficult, since she was at the time fully occupied with preparations for Xue Pan’s wedding.

Caltrop had persuaded herself that when there was another woman in the house – someone who would take a share of the responsibilities and whose authority she herself could fall back on – life would be somehow easier for her than it was at present. The young lady Xue Pan was marrying was said to be not only beautiful but educated; it followed, in Caltrop’s reasoning, that she must be gentle and ladylike as well. Caltrop awaited her arrival even more impatiently than Xue Pan, and resolved to serve her, when she came, with all the devotion and care of which she was capable.

The young lady of whom Caltrop entertained such high expectations was still only seventeen. It is true that she was not at all bad-looking; she could even read quite a number of words; and if subtle deviousness of character had been an examinable qualification, she might have come out a good second to Xi-feng. Her chief drawback sprang from the fact that she had lost her father at a very early age; and as her widowed mother had no other child of her own and doted on her excessively, she had been thoroughly spoiled. By treating her every whim as law and gainsaying her nothing, her mother had turned her into a monster. In her own estimation Miss Xia was a bodhisattva; all other creatures were as dust beneath her feet. The exterior she presented to the world made one think of the flowers in spring; underneath it there were lightnings and tornadoes. At home, in the bosom of the family, her maids learned to gauge the severity of her tantrums: if she was only slightly vexed, she would curse them; if she was gravely displeased, they would be beaten. As for her views on matrimony: Miss Xia – or Xia Jin-gui to give her her full name – considered that if she wanted to be mistress in her own house, it behoved her to put her maidenly modesty and the gentleness that was habitual with her aside and show a little authority. It would be necessary to keep the others in their place. Xue Pan in particular, because of his wilfulness and intransigence, must be broken in as quickly as possible, or she would never be able to establish her dominion and plant her flag in this new territory. The discovery that there was a beautiful and intelligent young concubine in this household she was entering aroused feelings in her akin to those expressed by the founder of the Song dynasty when he likened the world to a bedroom and declared that none but he should snore in it.

Because of her name ‘Jin-gui’, which means ‘cassia’ and the abundance of cassia-trees cultivated by her family, Xia Jin-gui had always insisted on strict avoidance of the syllables ‘jin’ and ‘gui’ and the word ‘cassia’ by her maids and any other inferiors who had to do with her. Of course, cassia-flowers had from time-to time to be referred to somehow or other, so, bearing in mind the myth about the cassia-tree that grows beside the palace of Chang E in the moon, she decreed that cassia should always be referred to in her presence as ‘Chang E’s flower’. The notion that in doing this she was in some way conferring on herself the status of a moon-goddess was perhaps not entirely absent from her mind. At all events, the luckless maid who carelessly let out a ‘jin’ or a ‘gui’ in her presence or who was incautious enough to utter the dread word ‘cassia’ was in for a savage beating and would probably lose her pay for a month or two as well.

Now Xue Pan was one of those fickle natures always ready to be ‘off with the old love and on with the new’; and in spite of all his bluster, he was only pot-valiant, having little stamina, or stomach either, for a long-drawn-out trial of strength. While the novelty of his marriage still lasted, he was, in any case, only too willing to defer in everything to his beautiful young bride. Jin-gui quickly grasped what sort of person she had to deal with and exploited her advantage to the utmost. During the first month of their marriage things stood about equally between them, but by the end of the second month Jin-gui’s star was definitely in the ascendant.

One day, after drinking rather more than was good for him, Xue Pan went to see Jin-gui about something he wanted them both to do. On meeting with determined opposition to his proposal, he finally lost patience with her and, after some angry shouting, walked out on her in a temper. Jin-gui wept abandonedly, refused to eat or drink, and eventually succeeded in persuading everyone that she was ill. A doctor was summoned who pronounced her to be suffering from a ‘collision of blood and air’ and prescribed a lenitive medicine to ease the clogged passages of the breath.

Aunt Xue gave Xue Pan a furious dressing-down.

‘You’re a married man now and soon you’ll be a father. I don’t know how you can carry on like this. Here’s a girl as rare as a phoenix chick, a beautiful, delicate creature, reared up with I don’t know how much loving care by her family – they only let her marry you because they thought you had enough human decency to look after her properly – and what do you do? Instead of making an effort to control yourself and settling down to live in peace and harmony with her as a husband ought to do, you carry on just as you always did, drinking too much and treating the girl like a barbarian. So now we have to spend money on expensive doctor’s bills and put up with this quite unnecessary anxiety, all because of you.’

Xue Pan felt thoroughly remorseful after this lecture and went back to Jin-gui to try and make it up with her. But Jin-gui had heard the lecture too and was encouraged by it to behave even more outrageously than before. Xue Pan’s pacific overtures were ignored. He had to humble himself still further. It took a fortnight of patient wheedling to talk his wife into a more satisfactory frame of mind. By that time the self-assurance that had once been characteristic of him was very much in abeyance.

Having already, in this first encounter, caused her husband to lower his colours and at the same time discovered that her mother-in-law was harmless, Jin-gui began pressing forwards in quest of yet further victories. At first she would do no more than consolidate her ascendancy over Xue Pan; then, using her feminine charms to make him her instrument, she would extend her dominion over Aunt Xue; and finally Bao-chai too should be brought under her control. But Bao-chai saw through her sister-in-law’s little game very quickly and was able to meet ruse with ruse – even, by means of an occasional quiet but well-placed remark, to give her ambitions some check. Finding that she was not to be taken with cunning, Jin-gui began looking for occasions for a direct confrontation with her; but as Bao-chai was equally careful not to give her any, she was for the time being obliged, albeit reluctantly, to treat her with respect.

One day, having nothing better to do, Jin-gui engaged Caltrop in conversation. When, in answer to her questions, Caltrop told her that she had no recollection of her home and parents, Jin-gui was displeased. She felt sure that Caltrop knew really but was withholding the information out of malice.

‘Who gave you the name “Caltrop"?’ she asked her.

‘Miss Bao,’ said Caltrop.

Jin-gui sneered.

‘People are always saying how clever your Miss Bao is. I can’t see that she showed much cleverness in choosing you that name.’

‘If you say that of Miss Bao,’ said Caltrop warmly, ‘it must be because you have never had occasion to test her knowledge. Even Sir Zheng has often spoken admiringly of Miss Bao’s learning.’

Jin-gui’s reaction to that remark will be related in the chapter which follows.

Chapter 80

Unfortunate Caltrop is battered by a philandering husband And One Plaster Wang prescribes for an insufferable wife

Jin-gui reacted to Caltrop’s defence of Bao-chai’s intelligence with a toss of the head, a scornful curl of the lip and a couple of loud, contemptuous sniffs.

‘The flowers that girls are named after are supposed to be beautiful, sweet-smelling ones. What is there beautiful or sweet-smelling about a caltrop-flower? If you’re going to call caltrop-flowers sweet-smelling, then what are you going to say of the flowers that are really fragrant? It’s a ridiculous choice for a name.’

‘But caltrop-flowers are sweet-smelling,’ said Caltrop. ‘A lot of water-plants are. Even lotus-leaves and lotus-pods have a certain fragrance – not to be compared with the scent of flowers, perhaps; but in very still weather, especially very early in the morning or very late at night, they have a delicious, cool fragrance that is in some ways superior to that of flowers. Even caltrops themselves and cock’s heads and the roots and leaves of reed-grass have a lovely fresh scent after dew or rain; it makes you feel good just to smell it.’

‘To hear you speak,’ said Jin-gui, ‘anyone would think that orchid and cassia were not particularly fragrant.’

Caltrop, warming to the argument, momentarily forgot Jin-gui’s taboo.

‘Ah now, orchid and cassia are quite different,’ she began; but before she could get any further, Moonbeam was pointing a finger in her face and crowing over her in malicious triumph:

‘You’ll catch it now! That’s the mistress’s name you’ve just said.’

Caltrop was overcome with confusion and hurriedly apologized for her lapse.

‘I’m truly sorry, madam. It was a slip of the tongue. I hope you won’t hold it against me.’

Jin-gui smiled magnanimously.

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter. You don’t need to worry about that. About this name of yours, though: I really don’t think that “Caltrop” is very appropriate. I should like to change it, but I don’t know whether you would be willing to let me.’

‘Oh, madam, what a thing to say!’ said Caltrop, smiling. ‘I am your chattel, to do with exactly as you wish; who am I to be willing or unwilling? If you wish to change my name, my name already is whatever you wish to change it to!’

Jin-gui smiled, somewhat unpleasantly.

‘You may say that, but I fear your Miss Bao may be rather less happy about it.’

‘Ah no, madam. You see, when I was bought by the family, I used first to work for Mrs Xue: that’s how Miss Bao came to give me my name, not because I was Miss Bao’s own maid. Then after that I served the master. Miss Bao has nothing to do with me – especially now you are here. In any case, she’s a very sensible young lady – not at all the sort of person to make a fuss about a little thing like this.’

‘Very well,’ said Jin-gui: ‘in that case, since a water-lily is a much more appropriate flower to name someone after than a caltrop, I think we ought to call you “Lily”.’

‘Very good, madam, let that be my name then,’ said Caltrop, smiling.

“Lily” she became then from that moment. Bao-chai, when she heard about it, appeared totally unconcerned.

Xue Pan was in some respects like the general of old in whom ‘conquest did but breed appetite for further conquest’, for when, after his marriage to Jin-gui, he discovered that she had an attractive, rather coquettish maid called Moonbeam, he was continually calling to her to bring him things – cups of tea and the like – so as to have an opportunity of flirting with her. Moonbeam perfectly well understood what he was up to but had to behave circumspectly from fear of Jin-gui, whom she studied carefully for some sign which would indicate how she wanted her to respond.

Jin-gui had indeed noticed Xue Pan’s interest in her maid and reasoned within herself as follows.

‘I’ve been wanting to deal with Caltrop, but so far haven’t found a way of getting at her. Since he’s already taken a fancy to Moonbeam, I might just as well let him have Moonbeam, because he’s sure to grow cooler towards Caltrop as a consequence and I shall be able to take advantage of that in order to get rid of Caltrop; and with Caltrop out of the way, settling Moonbeam’s hash ought to be easy, because Moonbeam is my own servant.’

Having decided on a strategy, she had only to await a suitable opportunity of putting it into practice. Such an opportunity occurred one evening when Xue Pan, having drunk himself into a state of cheerful inebriation, called as was his wont to Moonbeam to bring him some tea. While Moonbeam was handing him the cup, he deliberately gave her fingers a squeeze; Moonbeam, with a very unnatural affectation of modesty, drew back her hand; and since neither of them had their minds on what they were doing, the cup crashed to the floor, splashing hot tea over Moonbeam’s skirt and everything else round about. Xue Pan tried to cover up his embarrassment by pretending that Moonbeam had not handed him the cup properly, while Moonbeam for her part said that the master had not ‘taken a proper hold’.

Jin-gui hooted at them contemptuously.

‘You two really are a comedy! You must think I’m an idiot.’

Xue Pan hung his head and laughed sheepishly and Moonbeam fled blushing from the room. When, not long after this, it was time to go to bed, Jin-gui tried to turn Xue Pan out of the bedroom and make him sleep elsewhere. She said she was tired of seeing him go around all the time looking as if he was wasting away with passion. Xue Pan smiled foolishly and said nothing.

‘If you want to do something, why don’t you tell me?’ she said. ‘All this groping in corners will get you nowhere.’

Encouraged by her words and fortified by what he had drunk against any feeling of shame, he knelt down on the bed-covers beside her and seized her hand.

‘Listen, lover,’ he said: ‘if you will let me have your Moonbeam, I’ll give you anything you ask for – anything at all. If it’s human brains you want, I shall see that you have them.’

‘What nonsense you talk!’ said Jin-gui. ‘What do I care who you go to bed with? Just don’t make a fool of yourself by carrying on in front of the others, that’s all I ask.’

Xue Pan was so pleased and grateful that it seemed he would never stop thanking her. That night he performed his conjugal duties with exemplary thoroughness. Every sinew was strained to give Jin-gui pleasure. He did not go out next morning, but hung around at home, waiting for an opportunity of exploiting his new-found licence.

A little after midday Jin-gui rather pointedly went out in order to leave the coast clear. Xue Pan lost no time in setting to work on Moonbeam, who, since she now had a pretty good idea of her mistress’s intentions, put up only a token resistance to his advances. Carnal congress seemed imminent. But Jin-gui had been waiting for this moment only in order to frustrate it.

Jin-gui had a maid called Orfie who had been with her in her mother’s house since she was a child. Orfie had lost both her parents when she was little and had no one else to look after her, so when she first entered service with the Xias, she was invariably referred to as ‘the little orphan’. Her name ‘Orfie’ was simply a convenient contraction of this. Orfie’s duties were normally of a rough and menial kind, but on this occasion she was employed by her mistress on a task requiring some finesse.

‘Orfie,’ said Jin-gui, ‘do you think you could tell Lily to fetch my handkerchief from my room and bring it to me? You needn’t let her know that it was I who sent you.’

Orfie went off to look for Caltrop.

‘Miss Lily,’ she said when she had found her, ‘the mistress has left her handkerchief in her room. Why don’t you go and get it for her?’

Caltrop had recently been puzzled by Jin-gui’s hostility, and, in her efforts to overcome it, was constantly thinking of things that she could do to please her. Since Orfie’s suggestion seemed to offer a means of winning favour, she sped off without a second thought to do the errand, bursting into the room at the very moment when Xue Pan and Moonbeam were in the interesting situation we have just described. She turned back, blushing to the tips of her ears, but not in time to escape the notice of the other two.

Xue Pan himself was fairly unconcerned. Jin-gui was the only person he feared, and as Jin-gui had given her consent, he cared nothing about what anyone else might think. He had not even bothered to shut the door. But Moonbeam minded very much. Being by nature a disputatious, somewhat self-righteous young woman, she found it peculiarly galling that Caltrop of all people should have seen her at such a moment. Pushing Xue Pan away from her, she ran out of the room, protesting, with cries of angry complaint, that he had been attempting to rape her.

The effect of this upon Xue Pan was that all the excitement generated by his tussling with Moonbeam was transformed into animosity against Caltrop. He rushed outside and spat at her.

‘Little harlot! What do you mean by it, wandering around the place like a damned disembodied ghost?’

He might have done her an injury, but Caltrop, sensing that she was in mortal danger, ran as fast as her legs would carry her and managed to get away. Abandoning the chase, he went back to look for Moonbeam but could find no trace of her. This increased his anger against Caltrop, whom he cursed once more in her absence. After dinner that evening, when he had once again drunk himself merry, he decided to take a bath. On testing the water with his foot and finding it to be too hot, he insisted that Caltrop had done it deliberately, intending to harm him, ran after her, stark naked as he was, and gave her a couple of kicks. Caltrop had long grown unused to such savage treatment; but things had now reached such a pass that she dared not complain and ran off to weep alone and nurse her injuries in silence.

Meanwhile Jin-gui had secretly instructed Moonbeam to place herself at Xue Pan’s disposal that very night in Caltrop’s bedroom. She ordered Caltrop to move in with her, and when she refused, said she supposed that it was because she found her room dirty or was too lazy to wait on her at night. She pretended to think that it was Xue Pan who had inspired her refusal.

‘That master of yours is such a barbarian,’ she said. ‘He has only to look at a girl to want her for himself. Now he’s taken my maid away, yet he won’t let me have you in her place. What’s his idea, I wonder? Does he want to drive me to my death?’

Xue Pan, for whose ears this was, of course, intended, became apprehensive that the difficulties Caltrop was making might once more prevent him from enjoying Moonbeam, and he came rushing into Caltrop’s room to rebuke her.

‘Don’t you realize, this is an honour your mistress is doing you? You do as you’re told and sleep with her, or I’ll give you a beating!’

Caltrop had now no choice but to roll up her bedding and carry it into Jin-gui’s room. Jin-gui told her to make her bed up on the floor. This order too she had to obey. As soon as she had settled down for the night, Jin-gui called to her for some tea. Caltrop brought her the tea and lay down again. A little after that Jin-gui called to her to come and massage her legs. And so it went on, seven or eight times in the course of the night, so that it was impossible for Caltrop to get right off to sleep or even to rest properly.

Now that Xue Pan had got Moonbeam, he was like a man who has come into possession of a priceless jewel. He forsook all other interests for her. This secretly enraged Jin-gui, who could not forbear some jealous mutterings when she was on her own.

‘Enjoy yourself while you can, my friend,’ she would say. ‘I shall get round to you in the end. And when I do, you had better not complain!’

For the time being, however, she refrained from outbursts and set about laying a trap for Caltrop. About a fortnight after Caltrop moved into her room she suddenly pretended to be ill. She complained of agonizing pains in the heart and appeared unable to move her limbs. Nothing they did for her seemed to bring relief. The servants said it must have been brought on by something Caltrop had done to upset her.

A couple of days later, as one of the maids was shaking out Jin-gui’s pillow, a cut-out paper mannikin fell out of it. It had the eight symbols of her nativity written on it and five needles sticking into it, one in the heart and one in each of the limbs. This item of news was thought sufficiently interesting to be reported to Aunt Xue, instantly throwing that poor lady into a highly inflammable state of nervous commotion. The effect the news had upon Xue Pan was even more violent. He was for having all the servants flogged immediately until one of them confessed to having planted the paper figure; but Jin-gui prevented him.

‘Why make the innocent suffer?’ she said. ‘I expect it’s Moonbeam who did it, to get me out of the way.’

‘That’s most unfair,’ said Xue Pan. ‘When, during this past week or two, has Moonbeam had the time to go inside your room?’

‘Who else could it have been then?’ said Jin-gui. ‘I suppose you don’t think I’d do it to myself? Moonbeam is the only one who’d dare go in my room.’

‘But Lily’s been in here with you all the time,’ said Xue Pan. ‘She must know, if anyone does. She’s the one to flog if we want to find out.’

‘What’s the good of flogging anyone?’ said Jin-gui. ‘They’ll never confess anything. If you ask me, you’d much better pretend you haven’t heard about it and let the matter drop. When all’s said and done, it doesn’t much matter if I die. You can always find yourself a better wife when you feel like it. If we’re going to be honest, the fact of the matter is, you all three hate me, don’t you?’

She began crying bitterly. Xue Pan was so enraged that he snatched up a door-bar and rushed off in search of Caltrop straight away. He began hitting her with it as soon as he found her, on the head, on the face, on the body, shouting accusations at her but giving her no chance to deny them. Aunt Xue came running out in answer to Caltrop’s anguished cries and shouted to him to stop.

‘How can you beat the girl like that without first making an attempt to find out what has happened? She’s given us years of faithful service: it’s unthinkable that she’d do a thing like that. Time enough to start laying about you after you’ve made a serious attempt to get to the bottom of it.’

When Jin-gui heard her mother-in-law saying this, she was afraid that Xue Pan might weaken. Her crying rose in pitch into a sort of plaintive yell.

‘You have monopolized Moonbeam now for over a fortnight and refused to let anyone but Lily sleep with me. You rush to Moonbeam’s defence when I say you ought to flog her, and now you get in a temper and start beating Lily. I don’t know why you don’t stop all this play-acting and get rid of me; then you will be free to pick a really rich, good-looking girl to marry.’

Her words had the intended effect of further inflaming Xue Pan. Aunt Xue could see that her son was being manipulated and was thoroughly disgusted by the unscrupulous way in which Jin-gui maintained her hold on him. But what could she do? She knew the weakness of her son’s character and realized that his subservience to Jin-gui had already become a habit. Evidently he had seduced Jin-gui’s maid, that much was clear; yet Jin-gui was one moment accusing him of forcibly ‘monopolizing’ the girl, while the next moment she seemed to claim credit for deferring like a good wife to his wishes. And who could be responsible for the black magic? The proverb says that even the wisest judge will hesitate to pronounce on household matters. Adapting it to the present circumstances, it might be said that even a parent finds it difficult to pronounce on the marital problems of his offspring. Aunt Xue, certainly, felt quite helpless when confronted with those of her son. She could only shout at him in exasperation.

‘Worthless creature! Even a dog would behave in a more seemly manner than you do! Now, it seems, you have got your muddy paws onto your wife’s own maid that she brought with her from her home. You’ve heard her yourself accusing you of taking the girl away from her. How are you going to show your face anywhere when other people get to hear about it? And this other business: Heaven only knows who is responsible; yet here you go, lashing out at this poor child here before making the slightest effort to find out what really happened. We all know what a fickle creature you are, but really! What a return for the years of loyal service she has given you! I don’t care how dissatisfied you are with her, you ought not to beat her. I’ll get a dealer here right away and have her sold; that’s the only way to settle this. Then you won’t be troubled by her any more. Come, girl!’ she said to Caltrop, ‘get your things together and come with me.’ She turned to the other servants. ‘Quickly now, go and get the dealer! It doesn’t matter what we sell her for; just let’s get rid of this – this thorn in the flesh, and perhaps we shall have a bit of peace again in this household!’

Xue Pan, seeing that his mother was really angry, stood with bowed head throughout this tirade and made no attempt to reply. It was Jin-gui’s strident wail from inside the window that answered her.

‘Whether you want to sell the girl or not, Mrs Xue, I think you might leave me out of it. Are you implying that I’m such a vinegar-wife that I can’t tolerate an inferior? And what do you mean, “thorn in the flesh”? Thorn in whose flesh? Even if I did hate her so much, I wouldn’t let him have my own maid to replace her with.’

‘What sort of manners are these?’ Aunt Xue was trembling all over and her voice was choking. ‘Since when did it become acceptable for a young woman to shout at her mother-in-law through the window? I was under the impression that you had been brought up in an educated household. All this shouting and screaming – I can’t make out what you are trying to say.’

Xue Pan stamped his foot and shouted at Jin-gui despairingly.

‘Oh stop, stop! You’ll have everyone laughing at us.’

Jin-gui, thinking, no doubt, that having gone so far she might as well go all the way, only shouted the louder.

‘Why should I care if people laugh at us? Your darling chamber-wife has been trying to do me in. Is this a time to start worrying about whether people are laughing at us or not? Why don’t you keep her and sell me instead? Everyone knows how rich the Xues are and how they make use of their money in order to trample on other people. And everyone knows about their fine relations who will always step in and slap anyone down for them who is giving them trouble. What are you waiting for? I don’t know why you married me in the first place if you find me so unsatisfactory. I’m sure I didn’t ask you to come running round to our house, begging and entreating my mother to let you have me as your wife.’

She rolled about on the bed, weeping and screaming and beating her bosom. Xue Pan was beside himself. Whether he rebuked her, reasoned with her, beat her, or begged her to be silent, it seemed unlikely that anything he did would have much effect. He could only stump in and out of the room, sighing and groaning inarticulately, and concluded by exclaiming, with great bitterness, that he was ‘a very unlucky man’.

Meanwhile Bao-chai had persuaded her mother to come indoors. Aunt Xue continued to insist that Caltrop must be sold. Bao-chai smilingly expostulated.

‘People like us don’t sell servants, Mamma, we only buy them. I think anger is interfering with your judgement. What would people think if they heard that we were planning to sell a servant? They would laugh us to scorn. If Pan and his wife are dissatisfied with Caltrop, let her stay here and work for me. I could do with another maid.’

‘If we keep her, it will seem to them like a provocation,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Much better send her away and be done with it.’

‘I can’t see that it makes any difference,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Provided she never goes into the front part of the house, then as far as they are concerned, it will be just as if she had been sold.’

Caltrop was already at Aunt Xue’s feet begging to be allowed to stay and protesting her willingness to serve Bao-chai as a maid. Aunt Xue was obliged to relent.

From now on Caltrop spent all her time with Bao-chai and stopped going into the front part of the house altogether. She had at least security now; but for all that she was not entirely happy. Sometimes on fine, clear nights she would gaze wet-cheeked at the moon; at other times she might be heard unaccountably sighing to herself while she trimmed a lamp.

The fact was that although she had lived with Xue Pan for several years, she had never borne him a child. Some defect in the blood had made her unable to conceive. And now she was ill too. The effect of all the emotional and physical outrage to which she had recently been subjected was that a flood of fiery humour was released into her liver, leading eventually to a drying up of the menstrual fluid. She became very thin, yet had lost all interest in food. The doctor was called in and medicines were prescribed, but they seemed to do her no good.

Meanwhile Jin-gui had had several more scenes with her husband. Sometimes, when drink had made him bold, Xue Pan would try to assert himself. Once or twice he went for her with a cudgel or a knife; but Jin-gui only offered him her body to belabour, or stretched her neck out and defied him to do his worst; and of course he could not; he could only bluster. This soon became the established pattern of their quarrels. The only result of it was that Jin-gui’s power over her husband grew all the stronger.

At this point Jin-gui began directing her attention on Moonbeam, picking on her and finding fault with her. But Moonbeam was made of more inflammable stuff than Caltrop. Up to now she and Xue Pan had got on together so swimmingly that she had all but dismissed Jin-gui from her mind. Finding herself now under attack from that quarter, she was unwilling to yield an inch and gave back as good as she got. When, after a few slanging-matches, Jin-gui grew really angry and began not only to curse her but to lay hands on her as well, she did not quite dare to return blow for blow, but she put on a fine display of hysteria, shrieking, rolling about on the floor and threshing about with her limbs. Thereafter she was constantly threatening suicide, and at any hour of the day or night they might have to snatch knives or scissors from her grasp or take down the noose which she had fastened for herself over a beam. Between the two of them Xue Pan was driven half distracted. He could only look on helplessly while they quarrelled, until finally the rumpus got too much for him and he would slip out of the house and take refuge elsewhere.

Sometimes in the intervals between quarrelling, if she was feeling cheerful, Jin-gui would gather a few people together to play at dice or cards. She was inordinately fond of gnawing bones, especially the bones of fowls. To satisfy this craving she had ducks and chickens killed every day. The meat she gave to other people; it was only the bones, crisp-fried in boiling fat, that she kept for herself, to nibble with her wine. Sometimes, if the bone she was gnawing was giving her trouble and she grew impatient, she would swear like a trooper.

‘That ponce and his poxy strumpet seem to enjoy themselves,’ she would say self-pityingly. ‘Why can’t I get any enjoyment?’

Aunt Xue and Bao-chai no longer attempted to intervene. Now they could only sit in their own room and weep in silence while they listened to the profanities next door. Xue Pan was helpless. He bitterly regretted the brief madness which had led him to chain himself to this demon wife. Soon everyone in the two mansions, both masters and servants, had heard about the Xues’ predicament and all felt sorry for them.

By this time Bao-yu’s hundred days of convalescence had ended and he was allowed to go out. One of the first things he did was to call on Jin-gui. There was nothing exceptionable in her behaviour or appearance on the occasion when he saw her: she seemed to be just the same sort of delicate, flowerlike creature as all the other girls. How did so beautiful a person come to have so appalling a character? It was a mystery which continued to occupy him for some time after the visit.

When, a few days later, he called in to wish his mother good morning, his visit happened to coincide with that of Ying-chun’s nurse. She brought distressing news about Sun Shao-zu’s behaviour.

‘Whenever she is on her own, the young mistress does nothing but cry,’ said the woman. ‘She’s longing for you to send for her so that she can enjoy a day or two of freedom.’

‘I’ve been meaning for some days to send for her,’ said Lady Wang, ‘but so many disagreeable things have been happening lately that I keep forgetting. Bao-yu spoke to me about this when he got back from his visit the other day. Tomorrow is a good day, according to the calendar. We will send for her tomorrow.’

Just then a servant arrived from Grandmother Jia’s with a message for Bao-yu. He was to go first thing next morning to the Tian Qi Temple to burn incense in payment of a vow she had made for his recovery. Eager for outings after his long confinement, he was hardly able to sleep that night for excitement.

Next day he rose at dawn, and as soon as he had washed and dressed, set off by carriage, accompanied by two or three old nannies, and drove through the West Gate of the city to the Tian Qi Temple outside the walls.

The Taoists of the temple had spent the previous day preparing the place for his arrival. Because of his nervous disposition he did not care to get too close to the hideous guardian deities and other horror-inspiring images for which this temple was famous. As soon as he had presented the paper figures, spirit money, food and so forth which constituted the offering, he withdrew to the residential part of the temple and, after taking lunch there, set off on a sight-seeing tour of the temple and its precincts, accompanied by the old nannies and by Li Gui and the other grooms. But the sight-seeing soon fatigued him and he withdrew to the monks’ quarters again for a rest. The old nannies considered that it would be bad for him to sleep so soon after eating and called in the Taoist priest-in-charge, Father Wang, to sit and talk with him.

This Father Wang had knocked about the world in his time as an itinerant vendor of panaceas and even now had his name-plate hung up outside the temple with an impressive list of the pills, powders, plasters and potions that he was prepared, for a consideration, to dispense. He was a frequent visitor at the Ning and Rong mansions and was known to everyone there – as to everyone else outside – as ‘One Plaster Wang’ from his habit of always concluding the patter with which he recommended his medicaments with the same formula: ‘One plaster will suffice, ladies and gentlemen; one single plaster will suffice.’

When One Plaster Wang arrived, Bao-yu was reclining on the kang looking half-asleep and Li Gui and the others were doing their best to keep him awake.

‘Ah, Father Wang!’ they said as he entered. ‘You’ve come just in time. Everyone’s always saying how good you are at telling funny stories. Won’t you tell one now for our young master?’

‘I think I had better,’ said One Plaster Wang, smiling. ‘We don’t want him sleeping after his lunch. The batter he’s just eaten might start battering his insides.’

This was not a bad beginning. At least it made them all laugh. Bao-yu, laughing with the others, got up and straightened out his clothes. One Plaster Wang ordered one of his acolytes to ‘make some good, strong tea’.

‘Master Bao doesn’t want any of your tea,’ said Tealeaf. ‘Your room stinks of medicine.’

‘O fie!’ said One Plaster Wang in comic outrage. ‘O monstrous imputation! Never has medicine of any kind found its way into this room. Moreover, for the past three or four days, ever since I heard your master was coming here, I have been burning incense to sweeten it.’

‘I’m always hearing about your plasters,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Tell me, what sort of things are they good for?’

‘My plasters?’ said the old Taoist. ‘Ah, now you’ve started something! It’s impossible to do them justice in a few words. To begin with, there are one hundred and twenty different ingredients in the ointment I use on them. Some of them dominate over the others like a prince over his subjects, some of them combine with each other in equal strength; some generate heat, some coolness; some of them are cheap and some expensive. Internally they stabilize and fortify the humours, enrich the blood, stimulate the appetite, tranquillize the spirits, banish excessive heat and cold, aid digestion and loosen phlegm; externally they regularize the pulses, relax the muscles, draw out the old, corrupt flesh, promote new growth, expel rheums and neutralize poisons. Their efficacy is miraculous, as you yourself may see if you ever have occasion to use one.’

‘I can hardly believe that a single plaster can do so many things,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I wonder if the trouble I am thinking of could be cured by one.’

‘My plasters will cure any illness you like to mention,’ said the old Taoist. ‘If they don’t give you instant relief, you are at liberty to pluck me by the beard, slap my old face, and pull my temple down! What is the illness you have in mind?’

‘Try and guess,’ said Bao-yu. ‘If you can guess right, I shall believe in the efficacy of your plasters.’

One Plaster Wang thought for a bit.

‘Hmn, difficult.’ He smiled slily. ‘Of course, there are some things that it’s not very convenient to use plasters for.’

Bao-yu told all the servants but Tealeaf to go out of the room.

‘This room is too small for so many people,’ he said. ‘The air in it is becoming foul.’

Tealeaf lit a stick of Sweet Dreams incense and Bao-yu made him sit close to him, with the lighted incense in his hand, so that he could lean on him for support. Watching this little pantomime, the cunning old Taoist had a sudden inspiration. His face broke into a broad grin. Coming up closer to Bao-yu, he bent down and spoke softly into his ear.

‘I think I’ve guessed. Could it be that you have started bedchamber exercises already and are looking for a little something to help things along?’

Almost before he had finished, Tealeaf was shouting at him indignantly.

‘Get away with you! Dirty old man!’

Bao-yu had not understood.

‘What’s that?’ he asked Tealeaf, puzzled. ‘What did he say?’

‘Never mind what he said,’ said Tealeaf. ‘Silly rubbish!’

‘You’d better tell me yourself what it is, Master Bao,’ said One Plaster Wang, unwilling to risk another guess.

‘The thing I want to know about is jealousy,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Could one of your plasters cure a woman of being jealous?’

One Plaster Wang clapped his hands and laughed.

‘Now there you have me! Neither my plasters nor anyone else’s could do that!’

‘They are not such great shakes after all then,’ said Bao-yu, smiling.

‘I said plasters couldn’t,’ said One Plaster Wang. ‘I know of an infusion that might. The only thing is, it would take rather a long time. There’s no lightning cure for jealousy.’

‘What is this infusion called?’ said Bao-yu. ‘How do you make it?’

‘It’s called Pirum saccbarinum,’ said One Plaster Wang. ‘You take one very good autumn pear, two drams of crystal sugar, one dram of bitter-peel and three cups of water and simmer them all together until the pear is soft. If the sufferer can be made to eat one such pear, together with its juices, first thing every morning, she will, eventually, be cured.’

‘I don’t think much of that,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I can’t see that working.’

‘If it doesn’t work the first time, perhaps it will by the tenth,’ said the old Taoist. ‘If one year’s treatment is insufficient, she must persevere for a second. And so on. At all events, these are wholesome ingredients. A pear prepared in this way is soothing to the lungs and stomach, innocuous to the health, sweet to the palate, lenitive for a cough and in every way agreeable. Sooner or later the woman will die; and as there is no jealousy (that I know of) after death, it could be said that by that time she had been cured.’

This set Bao-yu and Tealeaf off into fits of laughter. ‘Oily-tongued old ox’ they called him.

‘Well, what’s the harm?’ said One Plaster Wang. ‘It’s only a bit of nonsense to stop you sleeping in the middle of the day. Making you laugh is worth much more than any medicine. Even my plasters are only tomfoolery. Do you think if I really had a magic formula I’d be sitting here talking to you now? I’d have taken it myself long ago and gone off to join the immortals.’

The hour of sacrifice had now arrived and Bao-yu was invited to offer his libation and set fire to his paper hecatomb. What remained of the more substantial part of the offering – the foodstuffs and the wine – was shared out among the Taoists and the others present. Having completed what he came out for, he drove back into the city.

By the time he got home Ying-chun had already been back an hour or more. The servants who brought her were being entertained to dinner before returning to the Sun household. Ying-chun meanwhile was in Lady Wang’s room giving her and the cousins a tearful account of her matrimonial troubles.

‘Sun Shao-zu is an out-and-out libertine. Gambling, drinking and chasing after women are the only things he cares about. He has corrupted practically every maid and young woman in the house. I have protested to him about it more than once, but he only swears at me. He calls me a “jealous little bitch”. He says that Father borrowed five thousand taels from him and spent it all, and that though he has been round time and again to ask for it, Father refuses to pay it back. Then he points his finger at me and shouts: “Don’t put on the lady wife act with me, my girl! You’re no better than a bought slave – payment in kind for the five thousand taels your old man owes me – and if you’re not very careful I shall give you a good beating and send you to sleep with the maids.” He says it was Great-grandfather who took the initiative in making the alliance between our families because theirs was so rich and influential, so that by rights he ought to be Father’s equal. He says he was a fool to marry me, because that makes Father his senior; and besides, he says, it has given people the impression that he needed our help, whereas in fact quite the reverse is true.’

Ying-chun sobbed bitterly while she told them this and the others wept as they listened. Lady Wang did her best to comfort her.

‘He’s obviously an unreasonable man,’ she said; ‘but now that you’re married to him, there’s really nothing to be done. I remember your Uncle Zheng speaking very strongly against the marriage to your father, but your father was so set on it, he wouldn’t listen. It’s a bad business. My poor child! I’m afraid it must be your fate.’

Ying-chun wept.

‘I can’t believe that it was my fate to be so unhappy. After losing my mother as a tiny child, it seemed such bliss when you brought me here to live with Cousin Wan and the girls. And now, after just a few years of blessedness, I am to end like this!’

Lady Wang tried once more to comfort her. She suggested that Ying-chun herself should decide where she wished to sleep.

‘Since the very first moment I left I have been longing every minute of the day and night to be back here with the girls,’ said Ying-chun. ‘And next to them I have missed my beloved Amaryllis Eyot. If only I might spend another four or five days in the Garden, I think I could die content. Who knows if I shall ever be allowed to come and stay here again?’

‘Now, now, that’s a foolish way to talk!’ said Lady Wang. ‘A little jangling between newly married couples is the commonest thing in the world. There is no cause at all to be so tragic about it.’

She gave orders for the rooms on Amaryllis Eyot to be made ready as quickly as possible, and told the cousins to keep Ying-chun company and do their best to distract her from her troubles. She particularly impressed upon Bao-yu that no word of this was to reach the ears of Grandmother Jia.

‘If I find that Grandmother has got to hear of this,’ she warned him, ‘I shall hold you alone responsible.’

Bao-yu had to promise that he would say nothing.

That evening saw Ying-chun installed once more in her old apartment, with everyone round her, cousins and servants alike, doing their utmost to make her feel cherished. Three days she spent in her old apartment in the Garden; after that she had to go and stay with Lady Xing. Before doing so she called on Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang to say good-bye. Her leave-taking with the cousins which followed was extremely painful. It was all that Aunt Xue and Lady Wang could do to calm the young people in their grief.

Ying-chun stayed two days with Lady Xing and it was to Lady Xing’s place that the Sun family servants came to collect her. Needless to say, she felt little inclined to go with them; but fear of her husband’s evil temper made her conceal her reluctance and hurry over her leave-taking. Lady Xing had never been much interested in her daughter’s welfare – during the two days that Ying-chun was with her she never once inquired whether her relations with her husband were harmonious and the duties required of her in her new household not too onerous – and such expressions of maternal sentiment as she may have indulged in at her departure were of only the most perfunctory and superficial kind.

As to what followed her departure: to know that, dear reader, you will have to look into another volume.

EXPLICIT TERTIA PARS LAPIDIS HISTORIAE

Appendix I

Sandal, Musk and Skybright

In the domestic hierarchy of the Jia household a clear distinction was made between senior maids or ‘body servants’ who spent all their time in personal attendance on their master or mistress, and junior maids or ‘little maids’ who could only enter the master’s or mistress’s presence when summoned and were generally subject to the orders and discipline of the senior maids. The senior maids received fixed monthly allowances, and a strict protocol governed the number of them assigned to each member of the family. The girl cousins and Li Wan seem to have had two each. Grandmother Jia appears to have had four. Bao-yu is surrounded by a whole bevy of maids, but apart from Aroma, who belonged to his grandmother and was on his grandmother’s payroll until surreptitiously transferred to Lady Wang’s, only four of them seem to have been seniors.

In manuscript versions of the novel Musk, who is undoubtedly a senior maid, several times has her name associated with that of another maid called ‘Sandal’. The two names make a pair, like ‘Casta’ and ‘Candida’, and were obviously invented simultaneously. In the Chinese ‘Musk’ is ‘She-yue’, which means ‘Musk Moon’, and ‘Sandal’ is ‘Tan-yun’, which means ‘Sandalwood Cloud’. (Musk and sandalwood are, of course, both perfumes.) It is clear, therefore that Sandal, like Musk, must be a senior. In chapter 24, when Crimson usurps the function of a senior maid to the great indignation of Emerald and Ripple, the absence of each of the other senior maids is accounted for: Aroma, we are told, is away doing a job for Bao-chai, Musk is on sick leave, and Sandal has gone home for her mother’s birthday. In Gao E’s edition this is the only prose appearance of ‘Sandal’ in the whole novel.¹ There are two other prose appearances

of ‘Sandal’ in the manuscripts, but in Gao E’s edition they have been edited out. Yet the two verse instances of ‘Sandal’ occur in all extant versions of the novel, printed and manuscript alike: the first in the ‘Summer’ poem from the ‘Garden Nights’ sequence in chapter 23 (The Golden Days, p. 461)

Pale moonbeams on an opened mirror fall,
And burning sandal makes a fragrant pall.

The real meaning of the couplet is

By the bright window Musk opens the dressing-mirror,
And in the smoke-wreathed chamber Sandal burns palace incense.

The second instance comes in the ‘Invocation to the Hibiscus Spirit’ in chapter 78:

The phoenix has flown and MUSK’S vanity-box has burst apart for sorrow;

The dragon has departed and SANDAL’S comb has broken its teeth for grief.

Since ‘Sandal’ belongs to an earlier version of the novel and has only strayed into the text of this version by oversight, I have got rid of her in these two verse passages, in the first instance by deliberately mistranslating the couplet and in the second instance by substituting the name of another senior maid (Ripple). As for her solitary prose appearance in chapter 24, she becomes ‘Skybright’ there in my translation (as she was in Gao E’s draft) since Skybright is the only senior maid who remains unaccounted for; but since Skybright has no mother – indeed, had never known her parents – I have changed ‘mother’ to ‘cousin’. I doubt very much whether the rules of the Jia household would have allowed a maid to go home for the birthday of so junior a person as a cousin, but the strain placed on the reader’s credulity by this correction does not seem to me to be a very great one.

APPENDIX II

Suncloud, Sunset and Moonrise

Apart from Golden and her sister Silver, there are two senior maids of Lady Wang who make a number of appearances in Volumes Two and Three and significantly contribute to the action: Suncloud and Sunset. Confusions in the text surrounding these two names have led me to conclude that they were meant to be one person. ‘Suncloud’ (Chinese ‘Cai-yun’, literally ‘Colourful Cloud’) was, I believe, renamed ‘Sunset’ (Chinese ‘Cai-xia’, literally ‘Colourful Redcloud’) in the final version, but a number of ‘Sunclouds’ escaped the notice both of the author and of his collaborators and slipped through into the text. Sunset (Cai-xia) is last heard of in chapter 72. We are there told that she has been sent back home to her parents because of illness and is to be betrothed against her will to the hideous wastrel son of Xi-feng’s servant Brightie. She is never mentioned again; but there is a strong presumption that in a fuller final version of the novel we should have been told of her death by suicide or from consumption, bringing her into the same category of unfortunate maidservants as Golden, Skybright and Chess.

The Suncloud/Sunset confusion begins in chapter 25 in which we learn for the first time that Sunset is Jia Huan’s sweetheart. There is a passage early on in that chapter in which Jia Huan is making a nuisance of himself by ordering about his mother’s maids. He asks one of them for a cup of tea. In one manuscript it is Suncloud he asks but Sunset who brings it, in another it is Sunset he asks and Sunset who brings it, and in a third it is Suncloud he asks and Suncloud who brings it. Later on in the same chapter all extant versions agree in making Sunset the girl who massages Bao-yu’s legs, thereby becoming the unwilling cause of Jia Huan’s jealous attack on his half-brother. Thereafter, in all extant editions of the text, the Jia Huan – Sunset/Suncloud relationship develops as follows:

(1) In chapter 30 Golden tells Bao-yu that if he is looking for amusement he ought to ‘go into the little east courtyard and catch Suncloud and Jia Huan at it’.

(2) In chapter 39 (Golden is already dead by this time) there is a discussion between Bao-yu and the girls about the various principal maids. Bao-yu and Tan-chun agree that Lady Wang’s Sunset is a good sort, etc. No mention of Suncloud.

(3) In chapter 61 Suncloud owns up to having stolen a bottle of Essence of Roses to give to Jia Huan. She has stolen for him many times, she admits, at Aunt Zhao’s instigation. Bao-yu covers up for her. This makes Jia Huan very jealous, and in chapter 62 he quarrels with her and throws out all her presents. There is no mention of Sunset anywhere in these two chapters.

(4) In chapter 70 the future of the various principal maids is being discussed. We are told that Suncloud has developed an incurable illness as a result of the distress caused by her breach with Jia Huan and she is sent back home to her parents. No mention of Sunset.

(5) In chapter 72 Brightie’s wife asks Xi-feng and Jia Lian for their help in obtaining Lady Wang’s maid Sunset, who has been sent back home because she is ill, as a wife for their son. Aunt Zhao, who had always liked Sunset and hoped that she would eventually become Jia Huan’s concubine, makes an unsuccessful bid to prevent the betrothal. No mention of Suncloud. Sunset thereafter disappears from the novel.

It seems to me self-evident that this is the story of a single maid, Sunset, who became Lady Wang’s principal maid after Golden’s suicide (Silver taking the place of Number Two). ‘Suncloud’ is simply an earlier version of the name, probably altered to avoid confusion with the ‘sunny clouds’ of the verses in chapter 5, which are there meant to symbolize another maid, Skybright (‘Fairweather Cirrus’). It seems unlikely that Gao E failed to notice the Suncloud/Sunset confusion when he was editing the novel. Why, in that case, did he not just alter all the remaining ‘Sunclouds’ into ‘Sunsets’? The answer is quite simple. Lady Wang’s principal maid in the novel’s last two dozen chapters is a girl called ‘Suncloud’. She survives there, I think, because she belongs to an earlier version of the novel in which her character had not yet been developed – no love affair with Jia Huan, no quarrels, no sickness, no tragedy: her only role was to be Lady Wang’s maid, and she continued to fulfil it (since there was no reason why she should stop doing so) until the novel’s end.

How do I know that Cao Xueqin did not intend to have two maids, Suncloud and Sunset, one of whom died tragically while the other one survived? Or how do I know that ‘Sunset’ is not the earlier name and ‘Suncloud’ the later version? The answer is that paired names like ‘Golden’ and ‘Silver’ represent sisters. In the Chinese such pairs of names have a common element. Thus Golden in Chinese is ‘Jin-chuan’, which means ‘Golden Bracelet’, and Silver is ‘Yu-chuan’, which means ‘Jade Bracelet’. If Lady Wang had had, besides Golden and Silver, a pair of maids called ‘Cai-yun’ and ‘Cai-xia’ (Suncloud and Sunset), they too would have been sisters. But Sunset’s younger sister Moonrise, who makes a brief appearance in chapter 72, has the Chinese name ‘Xiao-xia’ (‘Little Redcloud’). The common element in their names is not ‘cai’ but ‘xia.’ The name ‘Sunset’ therefore belongs to the ‘developed’ character and so represents the later version.

I have followed Gao E to some extent in allowing Suncloud and Sunset to be not one but two persons in the earlier part of the novel in order to prepare for Suncloud’s appearance in Volumes Four and Five; but in order to make the sub-plot involving Jia Huan intelligible, I have changed ‘Suncloud’ into ‘Sunset’ in chapters 30, 61 and 62. This means in effect that in my translation Suncloud makes only a couple of insignificant appearances in chapters 23 and 25; but at least she exists, which is the important thing, without ruining the sub-plot by masquerading as Sunset in Volumes 2 and 3, as she does in the Chinese text.

I imagine that in a completed final version Lady Wang would have had a succession of three principal maids: first Golden, who was (in effect) destroyed by Bao-yu, then Sunset, who was (in effect) destroyed by Bao-yu’s half-brother Jia Huan, and finally, in the last part of the novel, perhaps Silver. In this translation it would, I suppose, have been possible to eliminate Suncloud from the first eighty chapters altogether and turn all the Sunclouds in the last forty chapters into Silvers; but I think that Gao E’s principle that the text of the last forty chapters should not be tampered with except when absolutely necessary was a sound one.

Appendix III

You San-jie, Liu Xiang-lian and Jia Lian’s Journeys

An undated marginal comment on a fragmentary copy of the Red Inkstone recension of 1754 says, with reference to the author’s statement in chapter I that ‘A Mirror for the Romantic’ was the title given to the novel after one of its revisions:

There was an earlier book by Xueqin called ‘A Mirror for the Romantic’ with a preface [or ‘prefaces’?] by his brother Tang-cun. Now Tang-cun is dead. When I [= Red Inkstone?] look at the new [version?] I am reminded of the old [one?]. I have therefore continued to follow [make use of?] it.

What this comment really means has been much disputed. It seems to imply that ‘A Mirror for the Romantic’ was originally the name not of an earlier version of The Story of the Stone but of a different book. The magical mirror which presumably gave Cao Xueqin’s ‘earlier book’ its name makes an appearance in chapter 12 of the version of the novel which we read today. It is given to Jia Rui by the lame Taoist in an unsuccessful attempt to cure him of his fatal infatuation with Xi-feng. The same eccentric Taoist reappears in chapter 66, where he is responsible for the conversion of Liu Xiang-lian after San-jie’s suicide.

Both episodes, the story of Jia Rui’s infatuation and death and the story of San-jie’s betrothal to Liu Xiang-lian and suicide, fit rather awkwardly into the surrounding narrative, and their somewhat crude supernaturalism seems out of place. I suspect that the original Mirror for the Romantic was a collection of episodes in which the salacious and the supernatural were combined, loosely strung together by the appearances of the lame, eccentric Taoist with his magic mirror, and that the book was later dismembered and its more successful episodes fed into an earlier version of the Stone, which was then renamed after it.

The Jia Rui episode begins ‘in the eleventh month’ and covers a period of nearly a whole year. After Jia Rui’s death at the end of chapter 12 we simply move back to ‘the end of the year’ and carry on as if Jia Rui had never existed. The graft is a somewhat clumsy one but at least has no harmful effect – indeed no effect at all – on the surrounding tissue. But the insertion of the San-jie episode into the story of Jia Lian’s secret marriage and its tragic outcome produced complications and led to a whole series of difficulties which no amount of editing could overcome.

Consider the plot as it might have been before the story of San-jie and Xiang-lian was inserted.

In chapter 63, towards the end of the fourth month, Jia Jing’s death is announced. Mrs You and her daughters move into Ning-guo House. Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian return from the Imperial Mausoleum. After about a month in the city, they accompany the coffin to the family temple outside. On a brief visit home, Jia Rong suggests to Jia Lian that he should marry Er-jie, and on the third of the sixth month Jia Lian does so secretly and installs her in a little house in the city (chapter 65). Some time towards the end of the seventh month, Jia Lian is ordered by his father to go on a secret mission to Ping-an which is expected (chapter 66) to take ‘fifteen or sixteen days’. Owing to delays when he gets there it takes much longer, so that altogether he is away for about two months. While he is away, Xi-feng finds out from Joker, who has been left behind to look after Er-jie, that her husband has taken another wife. She visits Er-jie, and inveigles her into accompanying her home. Jia Lian returns to find Er-jie installed in the mansion. He is given the concubine Autumn by his father as a reward for the successful accomplishment of his mission. Er-jie, who is now three or four months pregnant, is maltreated without his knowledge, has a miscarriage, and, after much illness and wretchedness, takes her own life. Her funeral (chapter 70) takes place ‘near the end of the year’. According to this timetable Jia Lian would have returned about the end of the tenth month and Xi-feng and Autumn would have had about six or seven weeks in which to drive Er-jie to her death.

Consider now what happens when the San-jie story is inserted into this narrative.

First of all Jia Lian has to meet Xue Pan and Liu Xiang-lian on the way to Ping-an and then return from Ping-an almost as soon as he gets there, though with an undertaking to make another trip there ‘in the tenth month’. The reason why he dashes back so precipitately after his first visit when on the second occasion he is prepared to wait around for weeks on end is never explained. (It is, of course, the exigency of the plot, which requires him to come back and tell San-jie about the betrothal.) He is around when Liu Xiang-lian returns to the capital (chapter 66) asking to have the swords back, and is present at San-jie’s suicide, and at her burial, which takes place apparently on the same day (a record, if we except the case of Skybright, a maid, who was cremated on the same day after dying of consumption). Two days later (chapter 67) Xue Pan tells someone at a party that Jia Lian has left for Ping-an again. However, when Xi-feng learns from Joker on the same day about Jia Lian’s secret marriage, she warns him not to tell his master that she knows. True, she tells Patience a moment later that she has thought of a plan and that ‘it will not be necessary to wait until Mr Lian returns’; but then in the next chapter (chapter 68) we are told – after some irrelevancy about Jia Lian’s mission to Ping-an taking two months because of delays – that she waited until he had set out before planning to visit Er-jie, which she did on the fifteenth of the tenth month (Jia Lian had been told to revisit Ping-an ‘in the tenth month’, remember). She found Er-jie alone, old Mrs You having apparently vanished or died (without anyone noticing) some time between San-jie’s funeral and the occasion of this visit. Jia Lian returns in the middle of the twelfth month (having spent two months away) and is praised and rewarded by his father – who had signally failed to react to the successful conclusion of the first visit. The slow erosion of Er-jie’s health and spirits and her miscarriage and suicide all have to take place in about a week.

I mentioned in the Preface that there are two quite different versions of chapter 67. The one used by Gao E is greatly superior to the other one in style but no more successful than it in removing the absurdities created by the grafting of the San-jie story onto the plot. The most obvious of these are the puppet-like appearances and disappearances of Jia Lian: now you see him, now you don’t. My solution has been to suppress Xue Pan’s reference in the middle part of the chapter to Jia Lian’s leaving, and Xi-feng’s reference at the end of it to his being away. This means that Jia Lian is at home all the time from his return in the eighth month until his departure at the beginning of the tenth, six weeks or so after Xi-feng’s discovery of his secret marriage: not a very satisfactory solution, perhaps, but the only one I can think of which does not involve drastically altering the text.

Appendix IV

Old Mrs You and the Zhangs

Chapter 64 as well as chapter 67 was missing from Red Ink-stone recensions of the first eighty chapters made during the author’s lifetime, but a version or versions of it seem to have turned up not long afterwards, since Gao E, writing less than thirty years after his death, mentions only that ‘some manuscripts’ had chapter 67 missing, but says nothing about chapter 64. Like chapter 67, chapter 64 exists in two quite widely differing versions. Towards the end of it, when the arrangements are being made for Jia Lian’s secret marriage to Er-jie, one of the versions has Cousin Zhen summoning both Zhang Hua’s father and Zhang Hua himself to the mansion in order to get the existing betrothal revoked. This clashes with what we are told about Zhang Hua in chapter 68 (obviously a late development of the plot) viz., that he was living elsewhere, having been turned out of doors by his father, and knew nothing about the breaking off of the engagement. In the version of chapter 64 used by Gao E, which is the one I have followed, old Zhang is the only one summoned to the mansion, and it is to him alone that Mrs You pays the twenty taels.

Old Mrs You is a considerable embarrassment to the author (or his editors) after her installation in Little Flower Lane. (Before the grafting-on of the San-jie story, I suggest, she and San-jie never moved into the house with Er-jie at all and therefore did not need to be accounted for.) In chapter 65 the author (or editor) seems uncertain what to do with her during the outrageous scenes following Cousin Zhen’s visit, and by the time Xi-feng appears on the scene in chapter 68, she has dwindled away altogether. Towards the end of chapter 68 Xi-feng refers to her as someone who is dead.

The failure to account for Mrs You’s disappearance is so obviously due to an editorial oversight that I thought no reader could object to my liquidating her myself. Xi-feng’s turning up at the house in half mourning was almost certainly meant to be a reminder that Jia Lian had married Er-jie illegally in a period of national and family mourning – what we should nowadays call a ‘put-down’. I have deliberately misinterpreted it as a gesture of sympathy for Er-jie’s bereavement in order to have an excuse for introducing a couple of lines about old Mrs You’s demise. They are not to be found in any Chinese text.

Appendix V

Fivey, Bao Er and The Mattress

In one of the two versions of chapter 64 the domestic arrangements made for the house in Little Flower Lane where Er-jie is to be installed after her secret marriage are entirely in the hands of Cousin Zhen. They include the transfer to this new establishment of a married couple called Bao Er and his wife from the staff of Ning-guo House. Thereafter, in chapter 65 et seq., the woman is invariably referred to as ‘Bao Er’s wife’. In the more colourful version followed by Gao E it is Jia Lian who chooses the couple and Bao Er is identified with the servant whom Jia Lian cuckolded in chapter 44 and whose unfortunate wife hanged herself after the discovery of her adultery by Xi-feng. His new wife, we are told, is none other than our old friend The Mattress. Her husband, the drunken cook Droopy Duo, had finally succumbed to the drink and she had married Bao Er en secondes noces. That this is a late afterthought in the development of the plot is confirmed by the fact that in chapter 65 the wife is referred to merely as ‘Bao Er’s woman’.

This late identification of Er-jie’s housekeeper with The Mattress creates problems farther on in the novel. In chapter 77, when Bao-yu visits the dying Skybright in her cousin’s squalid house and is nearly seduced by his wife, one version identifies the cousin and his wife with Droopy Duo and The Mattress. (The Chinese name for The Mattress in this chapter is slightly different from the one given in chapter 21, but it is fairly clear that the same person is intended.) In this version the woman abandons her assault on Bao-yu’s virtue out of respect for his decency towards Skybright. In the version which Gao E followed, Skybright’s cousin is a young man called Wu Gui – a pun on the Chinese word for ‘cuckold’ – and his wife is left anonymous. Bao-yu is rescued not by the wife’s change of heart but by the arrival of Fivey and her mother on an errand from Aroma.

The earlier version is in no sense a ‘better’ one, because what it tells us about Droopy conflicts with what we are told about him in chapter 21. (In chapter 21 he appears to be a houseborn servant with parents still living; in chapter 77 he appears to be an orphan who was originally in service outside.) My translation fairly consistently follows the version found in Gao E’s edition, but I have left Skybright’s cousin anonymous.

The duplication of the name ‘Bao Er’ found in the earlier version of chapter 64 (one a servant of Jia Lian and one a servant of Cousin Zhen) was no doubt unintentional. If we regard it as an error, we can say that nevertheless it was a creative one, since it suggested the wholly successful identification of the two characters – the cuckold of chapter 44 and the housekeeper’s husband of chapter 65. It can be paralleled by other, less creative duplications which I have deliberately not reproduced in my translation in order to avoid confusion. In the Chinese text there are two pages called ‘Shou-er’. One, in chapter 28, is Bao-yu’s page. I call him ‘Oldie’. The other is Cousin Zhen’s page and appears in chapter 65. I call him ‘Lively’. There are also two pages called ‘Xing-er’. One, who appears in chapter 53, is Cousin Zhen’s page. I call him ‘Merry’. The other is Jia Lian’s page ‘Joker’, who appears in chapters 65, 66, 67 and 68.

Appendix VI

Euergesia and the Little Actresses

In the Chinese text of chapter 77 there are not one but two nuns staying with Lady Wang after the Mid-Autumn Festival, one from Water Moon Priory and one from the Convent of the Saviour King. The names given them do not appear anywhere else in the novel. That given to the nun from Water Moon Priory, ‘Zhi-tong’, is reminiscent of the Chinese names of Euergesia’s little acolytes in chapter 15, Zhi-shan (whom I call ‘Benevolentia’) and Zhi-neng (whom I call ‘Sapientia’). It is presumably Mother Euergesia – although the Chinese text does not name her there – who visits the mansion with Sapientia in chapter 7 (The Golden Days, p. 172). In chapter 77 Parfumée goes off with Zhi-tong to Water Moon Priory while the other two ex-actresses, Étamine and Nénuphar, go with the other nun to the Convent of the Saviour King. Later on, in chapter 93, however, it seems to be implied that the three girls are all living together at Water Moon Priory. Chapter 93 contains a further confusion involving the name of the priory and that of the family’s Temple of the Iron Threshold which my friend John Minford has explained in an Appendix to Volume Four. In order to anticipate what is said in chapter 93, I have eliminated one of the two nuns in chapter 77 and transformed the other one into Mother Euergesia. I have, in any case, a strong suspicion that Euergesia is intended here and that Xueqin simply forgot what he had called her in that much earlier part of the novel.

Characters in Vol 3

ABBOT ZHANG an old Taoist, chief priest of the Lunar Queen Temple

ACADEMICIAN MEI Xue Bao-qin’s prospective father-in-law

ADAMANTINA a genteel and eccentric young nun residing in Prospect Garden

ADVENT Caltrop’s maid

ALTHÉE one of the Jia family’s troupe of child actresses, later attached to Shi Xiang-yun

AMBER maid of Grandmother Jia

AROMA principal maid of Bao-yu

ARTÉMISIE one of the Jia family’s troupe of child actresses, later attached to Tan-chun

AUBERGINE one of the Jia family’s troupe of child actresses, later attached to You-shi

AUNT ER see YOU ER-JIE

AUNT FENG see WANG XI-FENG

AUNT SAN see YOU SAN-JIE

AUNT XING see LADY XING

AUNT XUE widowed sister of Lady Wang and mother of Xue Pan and Bao-chai

AUNT ZHAO concubine of Jia Zheng and mother of Tan-chun and Jia Huan

AUNT ZHOU Jia Zheng’s other concubine

AUTUMN concubine given to Jia Lian by his father

AVENTURIN see PARFUMÉE

AVIS and AVOCET maids of Lady Wang

AZURE one of Jia She’s girl concubines

BAO-CHAI see XUE BAO-CHAI

BAO ER servant of Jia Lian cuckolded by his master and later installed by him in Er-jie’s household

BAO-QIN see XUE BAO-QIN

BAO-YU see JIA BAO-YU

BRIGHTIE and BRIGHTIE’S WIFE couple employed by Xi-feng in various
kinds of confidential business

BUTTERFLY You-shi’s maid

CALTROP Xue Pan’s ‘chamber wife’; originally daughter of Zhen Shi-yin, kidnapped in infancy

CANDIDA maid of Li Wan

CARDAMOME youngest of Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Xue Bao-qin

CARMINE concubine purchased by Jia She

CASTA maid of Li Wan

CHAI see XUE BAO-CHAI

CHAMBERLAIN ZHOU eunuch official in the Imperial Palace

CHEERFUL page employed by Xi-feng

CHESS principal maid of Ying-chun

CICADA junior maid working for Tan-chun

CIGGY see CICADA

CITRONELLA see NUMBER FOUR

‘CLOUD MAIDEN’ poetry club pseudonym of SHI XIANG-YUN

COOK LIU chief cook in the Prospect Garden kitchen; mother of Fivey

COUSIN BAO see JIA BAO-YU

COUSIN CHAI see XUE BAO-CHAI

COUSIN DAI see LIN DAI-YU

COUSIN FENG see WANG XI-FENG

COUSIN LIAN see JIA LIAN

COUSIN LIN see LIN DAI-YU

‘COUSIN OAF’ see XUE PAN

COUSIN PAN see XUE PAN

COUSIN TAN see JIA TAN-CHUN

COUSIN WAN see LI WAN

COUSIN XING see XING XIU-YAN

COUSIN YING see JIA YING-CHUN

COUSIN ZHEN son of Jia Jing; acting head of the senior (Ning-guo) branch of the Jia family

DADDY XIA see XIA BING-ZHONG

DAI-YU see LIN DAI-YU

DOVE concubine of Cousin Zhen

DOWAGER PRINCESS OF NAN-AN, THE high-ranking acquaintance of Grandmother Jia

DR WANG see WANG JI-REN

EBONY maid of Tan-chun

ÉLÉGANTE member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Grandmother Jia

EMERALD maid of Bao-yu

ER-JIE see YOU ER-JIE

ÉTAMINE member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Bao-chai

EUERGESIA elderly nun in charge of Water Moon Priory

FAITHFUL principal maid of Grandmother Jia

‘FARMER SWEETRICE’ poetry club pseudonym of LI WAN

FATHER WANG see ONE PLASTER WANG

FELICITY maid attendant on Xi-feng

FENG see WANG XI-FENG

FIVEY consumptive daughter of Cook Liu

FLOWER concubine of Cousin Zhen

FORTUNE maid of Aunt Zhao

‘FROWNER’ see LIN DAI-YU

GOODY FEI trusted elder servant of Lady Xing

GRANDMOTHER Jia widow of Bao-yu’s paternal grandfather and head of the Rong-guo branch of the Jia family

GRANDMOTHER YOU see MRS YOU

HAPPY page of Cousin Zhen

HU JUN-RONG a dangerously incompetent physician

HU-SHI Jia Rong’s second wife

HUAN see JIA HUAN

JIA BAO-YU incarnation of the Stone; the eldest surviving son of Jia Zheng and Lady Wang of Rong-guo House

JIA BIN obscure member of the Jia family in the same generation as Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian

JIA CHANG junior member of the clan given casual employment by the Jias

JIA CONG little son of one of Jia She’s concubines

JIA GUANG obscure member of the clan in the same generation as Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian

JIA HENG (I) obscure member of the clan in Jia Guang’s generation

JIA HUAN Bao-yu’s half-brother; the son of Jia Zheng and his concubine ‘Aunt’ Zhao

JIA JING father of Cousin Zhen and nominal head of the Ningguo branch of the family, living in retirement in a Taoist monastery outside the city

JIA JUN young schoolboy attending the Jia family school

JIA LAN Li Wan’s little son

JIA LIAN son of Jia She and Lady Xing and husband of Wang Xi-feng

JIA LING junior member of the clan given casual employment by the Rong-guo Jias

JIA QIAO-JIE little daughter of Jia Lian and Wang Xi-feng

JIA QIONG obscure member of the Jia family in the same generation as Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian

JIA RONG son of Cousin Zhen and You-shi

JIA SHE Jia Zheng’s elder brother; father of Jia Lian and Ying-chun

JIA SI-JIE younger sister of Jia Qiong made much of by Grandmother Jia

JIA TAN-CHUN daughter of Jia Zheng and ‘Aunt’ Zhao; half-sister of Bao-yu and second of the ‘Three Springs’

JIA XI-CHUN daughter of Jia Jing and younger sister of Cousin Zhen; youngest of the ‘Three Springs’

JIA XI-LUAN younger sister of Jia Bin, made much of by Grandmother Jia

JIA YING-CHUN daughter of Jia She by a concubine; eldest of the ‘Three Springs’

JIA YUAN-CHUN daughter of Jia Zheng and Lady Wang and elder sister of Bao-yu; the Imperial Concubine

JIA ZHEN see COUSIN ZHEN

JIA ZHENG Bao-yu’s father; the younger of Grandmother Jia’s two sons

JIN-GUI see XIA JIN-GUI

JOKER trusted page of Jia Lian

KINGFISHER Shi Xiang-yun’s maid

LADY JIA see GRANDMOTHER JIA

LADY WANG wife of Jia Zheng and mother of Jia Zhu, Yuan-chun and Bao-yu

LADY XING wife of Jia She and mother of Jia Lian

LADY ZHEN wife of Sir Zhen of Nanking and mother of Bao-yu’s double

LAI DA Chief Steward of the Rong-guo mansion

LAI SHENG Chief Steward of the Ning-guo mansion

LI GUI Nannie Li’s son; Bao-yu’s foster-brother and chief groom

LI QI Li Wan’s cousin; younger sister of Li Wen

LI WAN widow of Bao-yu’s deceased elder brother, Jia Zhu, and mother of Jia Lan

LI WEN Li Wan’s cousin; elder sister of Li Qi

LIAN see JIA LIAN

LILY name given to Caltrop by Xia Jin-gui

LIN DAI-YU incarnation of the Crimson Pearl Flower; orphaned daughter of Lin Ru-hai and Jia Zheng’s sister, Jia Min

LIN ZHI-XIAO and LIN ZHI-XIAO’S WIFE domestics holding the highest position
in the Rong household under the Chief
Steward Lai Da

‘LITTLE XUE’ poetry club pseudonym of XUE BAO-QIN

LIU XIANG-LIAN young man of independent means friendly with the younger Jias; later betrothed to You San-jie

LIVELY page of Cousin Zhen

LOTUS junior maid of Ying-chun

LOU-SHI Jia Jun’s mother

LOVEY concubine of Cousin Zhen

MAGPIE maid of Aunt Zhao

MAMMA HE Swallow’s mother and foster-mother of Parfumée

MAMMA XIA old woman assigned share of work in Garden; Swallow’s aunt and Cicada’s maternal grandmother

MAMMA SONG old servant attached to Bao-yu’s apartment, mainly employed on errands

MAMMA TIAN old servant in charge of gardening at Sweet-rice Farm

MAMMA YE old woman in charge of gardening at Green Delights; Tealeaf’s mother and godmother of Bao-chai’s maid Oriole

MAMMA ZHU old woman in charge of bamboo cultivation in Prospect Garden

MARQUIS OF JIN-XIANG, THE nobleman on visiting terms with the Jia family

MASTER BAO see JIA BAO-YU

MASTER HUAN see JIA HUAN

MASTER LAN see JIA LAN

MASTER RONG see JIA RONG

MATTRESS, THE widow of Droopy Duo; later installed with her second husband Bao Er as Er-jie’s housekeeper

MERCY maid assigned to You Er-jie by Wang Xi-feng

MISS BAO see XUE BAO-CHAI

MISS LIN see LIN DAI-YU

MISS LIS, THE see LI WEN and LI QI

MISS QIN see XUE BAO-QIN

MISS SHI see SHI XIANG-YUN

MISS TAN see JIA TAN-CHUN

MISS XI see JIA XI-CHUN

MISS XIA see XIA JIN-GUI

MISS YING see JIA YING-CHUN

MISS YUN see SHI XIANG-YUN

MOONBEAM maid of Xia Jin-gui favoured by Xue Pan

MOONRISE younger sister of Lady Wang’s maid Sunset

MOTHER EUERGESIA see EUERGESIA

MR LIU see LIU XIANG-LIAN

MR ZHANG see ZHANG DE-HUI

MR ZHEN see COUSIN ZHEN

MRS ER see YOU ER-JIE

MRS FEI see GOODY FEI

MRS LI Li Wan’s widowed aunt; mother of Li Wen and Li Qi

MRS LIAN see WANG XI-FENG

MRS LIN see LIN ZHI-XIAO’s WIFE

MRS LIU see COOK LIU

MRS SHAN see WIDOW SHAN

MRS WANG see WANG SHAN-BAO’s WIFE

MRS XIA Xia Jin-gui’s widowed mother; Xue Pan’s mother-in-law

MRS XUE see AUNT XUE

MRS YOU You-shi’s widowed step-mother; mother of You Er-jie and You San-jie

MRS ZHAO see AUNT ZHAO

MRS ZHEN see YOU-SHI

MRS ZHU see LI WAN

MUSK maid of Bao-yu

NANNIE LI Bao-yu’s former wet-nurse

NÉNUPHAR member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses, later attached to Dai-yu

NIGHTINGALE principal maid of Dai-yu

NUMBER FOUR junior maid of Bao-yu, formerly called CITRONELLA

‘OAF KING, THE’ see XUE PAN

OLD MRS ZHU official marriage-broker acting for the Sun family

ONE PLASTER WANG a Taoist quack-doctor acting as priest-in-charge at the Tian Qi Temple

ORFIE junior maid of Xia Jin-gui

ORIOLE principal maid of Bao-chai

PAN see XUE PAN

PAN TOU-AN cousin and childhood sweetheart of Ying-chun’s maid Chess

PARFUMÉE member of the Jia family troupe of child actresses later attached to Bao-yu and renamed by him first YELÜ HUNNI and then AVENTURIN

PARROT maid of Grandmother Jia

PATIENCE chief maid and confidante of Wang Xi-feng

PEARL maid of Grandmother Jia

PERIWINKLE Bao-qin’s maid

PICTURE principal maid of Xi-chun

‘PLANTAIN LOVER’ poetry club pseudonym of JIA TAN-CHUN

PRINCE OF BEI-JING, THE see SHUI RONG

QIAN HUAI Aunt Zhao’s nephew; unsuccessful suitor for the hand of Cook Liu’s daughter Fivey

QIAO-JIE see JIA QIAO-JIE

QIN see XUE BAO-QIN

QIN XIAN’s WIFE aunt of Chess given brief control over Cook Liu’s kitchen

RICH trusted page of Jia Lian

RIPPLE maid of Bao-yu

‘RIVER QUEEN’ poetry club pseudonym of LIN DAI-YU

RONG see JIA RONG

SAN-JIE see YOU SAN-JIE

SCRIBE principal maid of Tan-chun

SHI XIANG-YUN orphaned great-niece of Grandmother Jia

SHUI RONG Prince of Bei-jing; princely connection of the Jia family friendly with Bao-yu

SI-JIE see JIA SI-JIE

SIGNET Xing Xiu-yan’s maid

SILVER maid of Lady Wang; younger sister of her deceased maid Golden

SIMPLE half-witted maid of Grandmother Jia

SIR JING see JIA JING

SIR SHE see JIA SHE

SIR WANG see WANG ZI-TENG

SIR ZHENG see JIA ZHENG

SKYBRIGHT maid of Bao-yu, posthumously worshipped by him as a flower-spirit

SNOWGOOSE maid of Dai-yu

SUN SHAO-ZU brutal sensualist to whom Jia She insists on marrying Ying-chun

SUNLOUD and SUNSET maids of Lady Wang

SWALLOW junior maid attached to Green Delights; daughter of Parfumée’s foster-mother, Mamma He

TAN see JIA TAN-CHUN

TAN-CHUN see JIA TAN-CHUN

TANGERINE maid of Ying-chun

TEALEAF Bao-yu’s principal page

‘UNCLE DUMBO’ see XING DE-QUAN

UNCLE SHE see JIA SHE

UNCLE ZHENG see JIA ZHENG

WANG JI-REN doctor in regular attendance on the Rong-guo Jia family

WANG SHAN-BAO’S WIFE a meddlesome old woman; trusted servant of Lady Xing; Chess’s grandmother

WANG XI-FENG wife of Jia Lian and niece of Lady Wang, Aunt Xue and Wang Zi-teng

WANG XIN a member of the Wang household employed by Wang Xi-feng

WANG ZI-TENG elder brother of Lady Wang and Aunt Xue; Inspector-General of Armies in the Nine Provinces

WIDOW SHAN one of the senior Rong-guo stewardesses

WU XIN-DENG Clerk of Stores at the Rong-guo mansion

WU XING and WU XING’S WIFE servants of Lady Wang who were orginally
members of her father’s household

XI-CHUN see JIA XI-CHUN

XI-FENG see WANG XI-FENG

XI-LUAN see JIA XI-LUAN

XIA BING-ZHONG eunuch Master of the Bedchamber in the Imperial Palace

XIA JIN-GUI termagant wife of Xue Pan

XIANG-LIAN see LIU XIANG-LIAN

XIANG-TUN see SHI XIANG-TUN

XING DE-QUAN Lady Xing’s good-for-nothing brother; father of Xing Xiu-yan

XING XIU-YAN niece of Lady Xing befriended by Adamantina, later betrothed to Bao-chai’s cousin Xue Ke

XIU-YAN see XING XIU-YAN

XUE BAO-CHAI daughter of Aunt Xue

XUE BAO-QIN niece of Aunt Xue and younger sister of Xue Ke

XUE KE Xue Bao-qin’s elder brother

XUE PAN the ‘Oaf King’, al. ‘Cousin Oaf’; son of Aunt Xue and elder brother of Bao-chai

YELÜ HUNNI see PARFUMÉE

YING see JIA YING-CHUN

YING-CHUN see JIA YING-CHUN

YOU ER-JIE elder of You-shi’s two step-sisters

YOU SAN-JIE younger of You-shi’s two step-sisters

YOU-SHI wife of Cousin Zhen and mother of Jia Rong

YU LU junior steward at Ning-guo House

YUAN-CHUN see JIA YUAN-CHUN

YUN see SHI XIANG-YUN

ZHANG DE-HUI manager of Xue Pan’s shop

ZHANG HUA dissolute young gambler betrothed since infancy to You Er-jie

ZHANGS, THE destitute family of which Zhang Hua was a member

ZHAO GUO-JI brother of Aunt Zhao

ZHEN see COUSIN ZHEN

ZHENG HUA and ZHENG HUA’S WIFE servants of Lady Wang orginally
members of her father’s household

ZHENS, THE powerful Nanking family having dose ties with the Jias

ZHOU RUI and ZHOU RUI’S WIFE trusted senior servants on the staff of Rong-
guo House

ZHU-ER’S WIFE daughter-in-law of Ying-chun’s former wet-nurse

Genealogical Tables

He just wanted a decent book to read …

Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.

We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’
Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books

The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.

So wherever you see the little bird – whether it’s on a piece of prize-winning literary fiction or a celebrity autobiography, political tour de force or historical masterpiece, a serial-killer thriller, reference book, world classic or a piece of pure escapism – you can bet that it represents the very best that the genre has to offer.

Whatever you like to read – trust Penguin.

www.penguin.co.uk

Join the conversation:

Twitter                  Facebook

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

This translation first published 1980

Copyright © David Hawkes, 1980
All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-14-191281-3

Preface

1. Or however many chapters this last part of the novel was divided into. Xueqin’s statement in chapter 1 and certain features of the Red Inkstone manuscripts suggest that the earliest versions may have had no chapter divisions at all.

Appendix I

1. Curiously enough the text of the manuscript I call ‘Gao E’s draft’ has got ‘Skybright’ instead of ‘Sandal’ here. Gao E’s eventual preference for ‘Sandal’, which he presumably found in other texts available to him, must have been based on a misunderstanding of what was wrong in the text of his draft: Skybright’s mother. His published text – in the only editions that are available to me – besides reverting to ‘Sandal’, has also substituted ‘mother’s illness’ for ‘mother’s birthday’. I am unable to assess the significance of this without access to more of the manuscript and printed editions than are at present available to me.