The Warning Voice (5 page)

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.

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.

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