The Warning Voice (48 page)

‘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.