The Warning Voice (12 page)

To Dai-yu, as to the girls, Nannie Li, for all her failings, was an old woman whose words carried the weight of experience. If she said it was all up with Bao-yu, it must be all up with him. There was a horrible sickening sound as she vomited up the medicine she had just taken, followed by a dreadful paroxysm of silent coughing that seemed to rack every nerve and fibre of her body. She coughed until her face was scarlet and her hair was in disorder, until her eyes bulged and the veins stood out on her forehead, coughed until she was so breathless that she was unable to lift her face up from the bed. Nightingale at once began thumping her, but Dai-yu raised herself with an effort from the pillow and, after struggling for some moments to regain her breath, pushed her away:

‘Don't do that. Get a rope and strangle me – that would be kinder!'

‘But I didn't say
anything
,' Nightingale protested. ‘I was only joking. He must have taken me seriously.'

‘Surely you know better by now than to joke with him?' said Aroma. ‘He's such a fool, he always takes everything seriously.'

‘Whatever it was you said to him,' said Dai-yu, ‘you'd better go over there straight away and unsay it. That might bring him back to his senses.'

Nightingale climbed hurriedly off the bed and accompanied Aroma to Green Delights. Unfortunately Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang were also there when they arrived. At the sight of Nightingale, Grandmother Jia's eyes flashed angrily.

‘Wicked creature! What did you say to him?'

‘I didn't say anything,' said Nightingale. ‘I was only pulling his leg.'

There was a sudden ‘Aiya!' from the bed. It was Bao-yu, who had just caught sight of Nightingale and who now, to everyone's relief, burst into tears.

Grandmother Jia seized hold of Nightingale and thrust her towards him. She supposed that Nightingale had offended
Bao-yu in some way and that he would find relief in beating her. To her surprise, instead of doing any such thing, he clung to her imploringly:

‘If you're going, take me with you!'

No one could make head or tail of this until Nightingale had been questioned and explained to them the nature of her hoax.

‘So that's all it was!' said Grandmother Jia in tears. ‘And I was thinking it must be something serious!' She chided Nightingale, but less unkindly now: ‘You're normally such a sensible girl. Surely you know he's inclined to be a bit simple at times? What on earth possessed you to tease him like that?'

Aunt Xue urged a less serious view of Bao-yu's derangement:

‘It's true that he is a simple-hearted child; but his Cousin Lin came here when they were both little and they have grown up together and are closer to each other than any of the other children. I think you would
expect
him to be upset, suddenly out of the blue like that being told that she was going away. Never mind a simple-hearted child, I should think even a sophisticated grown-up would be! This isn't a serious illness, Lady Jia. I'm sure you and my sister have no reason to feel worried. A dose or two of medicine and he'll be perfectly all right again.'

Just at that moment the wives of Lin Zhi-xiao and Lai Da were announced, ‘come to see how the young master was'.

‘How thoughtful of them!' said Grandmother Jia. ‘Tell them to come in.'

But at the sound of the name ‘Lin' Bao-yu began threshing about wildly on the bed, calling out that the Lins had come to fetch Dai-yu and insisting that they should be sent away.

‘Yes, send them away,' said Grandmother Jia, while at the same time she did her best to soothe him: ‘There, there, there. That wasn't anyone from the Lin family. The Lins all died out long ago. There aren't any of them left to fetch her. Don't worry!'

‘I don't care who it was,' said Bao-yu. ‘I don't want
any
Lins here, apart from Cousin Lin.'

‘There aren't any Lins here,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘All the Lins in this place have been sent away.'

She turned to the servants:

‘In future Lin Zhi-xiao's wife is not to be allowed inside the Garden. And I don't want the word “Lin” to pass your lips even. Is that clearly understood, everyone?'

‘Yes, madam,' the servants replied in chorus, not daring to laugh.

Presently Bao-yu's eye chanced to light on a little metal self-propelling boat – a West Ocean toy – which stood on one of the alcove shelves in the carved partition. Immediately he became excited again.

‘Look!' he said, pointing, ‘the ship that's come to fetch her – that's where they've docked it, over there.'

At a hurried order from his grandmother, Aroma took it down from the shelf. He held his hand out to receive it, and as soon as it was in his possession, hid it under the quilt, chuckling with satisfaction as he did so:

‘They won't get away now!'

All this time he continued to hold tightly on to Nightingale with his other hand.

The doctor's arrival was announced and Grandmother Jia gave orders that he should be brought in immediately. Lady Wang, Aunt Xue and the girls withdrew into the inner room. Grandmother Jia herself continued to sit beside Bao-yu on the edge of the bed. As her attendants also remained, there were a good many people in the room when the doctor entered. It was Dr Wang. He paid his respects to the old lady before proceeding to take Bao-yu's pulse, mystified by the presence of a shame-faced Nightingale, who, unable to leave Bao-yu's side, could only stand there and hang her head.

After feeling the pulse for a while, Dr Wang rose to his feet.

‘The young gentleman is suffering from a delirium caused by a phlegmatic occlusion of the cardiac orifices. The ancients recognized three main types of this form of dementia: in the first type the delirium is associated with an anaemic deficiency, when the body is failing to absorb its nourishment; in the second, it is brought on by some violent emotional disturbance, such as anger; in the third, the occlusion occurs as a result of shock. This is a delirium of the third type. In this
type, fortunately, the occlusion is only a temporary one, so it is less serious than the other two.'

‘Just tell us whether it's dangerous or not,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘We're not asking you for a treatise on medicine.'

Dr Wang laughed deprecatingly and bowed:

‘He'll be all right.'

‘Will he
really
be all right?'

‘Unquestionably,' said the doctor. ‘I give you my word for it.'

‘Very well,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘Then perhaps you will go outside now and write your prescription. If he recovers, I promise you a handsome reward, and Bao-yu himself shall bring it to you and kotow to you when he brings it. But if he
doesn't
get better, I shall have the main hall of the College of Physicians pulled down about your ears!'

‘How kind! How kind!' The doctor, bowing and smiling at the prospect of a ‘handsome reward' and Bao-yu kotowing at his feet, could not have heard the threat which followed, for he continued to say ‘How kind!' after it had been uttered and left the room pursued by a wave of laughter.

The medicine he prescribed was soon concocted and Bao-yu did, after taking it, become a good deal calmer. But he would not release Nightingale.

‘If she goes,' he said, ‘I shall know that they are leaving for Soochow.'

Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang saw that there was nothing for it but to let Nightingale stay with him. Amber was sent to look after Dai-yu in her place. Dai-yu's other maid, Snowgoose, was kept busy running to and fro for news of Bao-yu's condition. By evening this was sufficiently improved for Grandmother Jia and the other visitors to feel that they could return to their own apartments. They continued to inquire after him by messenger, however, throughout the course of the night.

Nannie Li came again, bringing Mamma Song and several other old nannies to help watch over him. Nightingale, Aroma, Skybright and Musk kept up a constant vigil at his bedside throughout the night. From time to time Bao-yu would drop off, but invariably he would wake up with a start from some
dream and tearfully announce to them either that Dai-yu had already gone or that people had come to take her away. Each time this happened Nightingale was the only one who could calm him. Grandmother Jia had sent over various nostrums –pills and powders she had heard recommended as sovereign specifics in cases of mental disorder – and they used these to dose him with when he woke up.

Next day, after another dose of Dr Wang's medicine, Bao-yu was distinctly better. His mind was clear now, but because he did not wish to lose Nightingale yet, he pretended that it was still affected. Nightingale regretted what she had done and bore the antics of this pseudo-madman and the weariness of waiting on him both night and day with uncomplaining fortitude.

‘It's only right that you should have to nurse him, seeing that you were the one who set him off,' said Aroma, relieved that Bao-yu was only play-acting. ‘You should have known better. He's a case, this young master of ours. Tell him the wind's blowing on a fine day, and next minute he can hear the rain! Heighho! What he'll be like when he's grown up doesn't bear thinking of!'

But she did not pursue the subject.

Once, when no one was about, he took Nightingale's hand in his own and drew her to him.

‘Why did you scare me like that?'

‘I was pulling your leg,' said Nightingale. ‘It was only a joke, but you took it seriously.'

‘That was no joke,' said Bao-yu. ‘It was too well-reasoned.'

Nightingale laughed.

‘I made it all up. There's no Lin family – leastways, if there
is, they're very, very distant relations, and not in Soochow, either, but scattered all over the place, in different provinces. And even if one of them did come to take her away, Her Old Ladyship would never let her go.'

‘I
wouldn't, even if
she
did,' said Bao-yu.

‘I wonder,' said Nightingale. ‘I think you're only saying that. You're not a child any longer now. You're already betrothed. Another two or three years, when you're married, you won't have time for anyone else.'

Bao-yu heard her with astonishment.

‘Betrothed? To whom?'

‘Just before New Year I heard Her Old Ladyship say that she was betrothing you to Miss Qin. That's why she makes so much of her, isn't it?'

Bao-yu burst out laughing.

‘Everyone calls me a simpleton, but you're an even bigger simpleton than I am. That was only a joke. Qin's already betrothed to Academician Mei's son. Do you think I would have taken it so calmly if I
had
been betrothed to her? Don't you remember the scene we had last time, when I swore all those oaths and tried to break
this
beastly thing' – he pointed to his jade – ‘and you had such a job trying to stop me? What are you trying to do? Start me off again?'

He ground his teeth.

‘If only I could die this minute and my heart burst out of my body so that you could
see
how true it is! After that I shouldn't care if all of me – flesh, blood and bones – was burned to ashes, and the ashes turned to smoke, and the smoke blown by the winds into every corner of the earth!'

Big tears rolled down his cheeks. Nightingale covered his mouth up in alarm; then, as she wiped his eyes for him, she spoke to him soothingly as to a child:

‘There, there. There's no need to get so worked up about it.
I
'm the one who needs to worry. That's why I said those things: to test you.'

‘You?'
said Bao-yu in surprise. ‘What have
you
got to be worried about?'

‘You know I never belonged to the Lin family, don't you,' said Nightingale. ‘I was originally one of Her Old Ladyship's
servants, like Faithful and your Aroma. I was transferred to Miss Lin, but as it turned out I got on very well with her – ten times better, as a matter of fact, than the maid she brought with her from Yangchow – and since then we've become inseparable. Lately I've been worried by the thought that she might have to leave here – in which case, of course, I should want to go with her. But all my family is here. If I didn't go with her, it would seem like a betrayal after what we've been to each other all these years. On the other hand if I did go, it would mean leaving my family behind. I wasn't sure about how serious you were in wanting her to stay. That's why I made those things up. I wanted to test you. I never imagined you were going to make such an uproar, or I wouldn't have said them.'

‘So that's what was worrying you!' said Bao-yu, smiling. ‘Well, you are a simpleton. Please don't worry about that any more. Let me try to put it for you in a nutshell. In life we shall live together; in death we shall mingle our dust. How will that do?'

Nightingale said nothing, but appeared to be thinking. One of the old women came in to announce that Jia Huan and Jia Lan had come to inquire after Bao-yu's health.

‘Tell them it's very kind of them,' said Bao-yu, ‘but not to come in here, because I've only just gone to sleep.'

‘Very good,' said the old woman, and went off to relay the message.

‘Now that you're better,' said Nightingale, ‘you ought to let me go back to see how my other invalid is getting on.'

‘Yes, you're right,' said Bao-yu. ‘I was meaning to tell you last night that you could go back, but I forgot. I am completely better now. You can go back straight away.'

Nightingale began tying up her bedding and getting her toilet things together.

‘I notice you've got several mirrors in your vanity box,' said Bao-yu. ‘Why don't you give me that little one with the pattern of caltrops on it as a keepsake? I can keep it by my pillow to use when I'm in bed, and it will be handy to take with me when I go out.'

Nightingale gave him the mirror, then, having first
arranged for someone to carry over her things, took leave of the other maids and returned on her own to the Naiad's House.

During the past few days Dai-yu's anxiety for Bao-yu had led to a relapse and had been the occasion of several fits of weeping. On inquiring nervously why Nightingale had returned, she was relieved to hear that it was because Bao-yu was better. As Amber's services were now no longer needed, she sent her back to Grandmother Jia.

That night, when all the others had gone to bed and she had undressed and was lying not far off from her mistress, Nightingale addressed her, in guarded undertone, on the subject of Bao-yu's intentions.

‘Bao-yu really is a simple soul. Do you know what made him ill? It was because he heard that we were going away.'

Dai-yu said nothing. After waiting in vain for a reply, Nightingale went on as if speaking to herself.

‘Much better stay where we are. You couldn't ask for a better family than this. And the two of you have grown up together and know each other's likes and dislikes. Where else would you find someone who understood you so well?'

Dai-yu snorted at her disgustedly.

‘Aren't you tired after all your exertions during these last few days? I can't understand why, instead of chattering away to yourself, you don't take this opportunity to get a bit of rest.'

‘It isn't just chatter,' said Nightingale. ‘I'm concerned about your future, Miss. It's been worrying me for years. You've no father or mother or brothers: there's no one else who
will
concern themselves about it. The important thing is to get it all properly settled while Her Old Ladyship is still well and in her right mind. You know what they say: “Good health in the old is like warm weather in winter: you can't depend on it.” If anything were suddenly to happen to her, the chance of getting someone you really liked would have passed you by. No doubt they would do their best to marry you to someone of good family, but look how many of these young aristocrats keep concubines, and how changeable they are in their affections. Some of them if they were married to the Queen
of Heaven would tire of her in a week. And neglect is not the worst part of it; often there are hard words and harsh treatment to follow. When that happens, if the wife has a powerful family to stick up for her, it isn't so bad; but what about someone in your position? As long as Her Old Ladyship is alive you'll be all right, but once she's gone, you'll be at everyone's mercy. That's why I say we've got to make our minds up.