The Warning Voice (52 page)

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.

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.

‘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.