The Warning Voice (4 page)

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?'