The Warning Voice (3 page)

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.

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.'