The Warning Voice (42 page)

Xiang-yun was rather pleased with her little poem and wrote it out on a slip of paper to show Bao-chai. After that she went to look for Dai-yu and showed it to her. Dai-yu read it and smiled.

‘It's good. Both charming and original.'

‘We've never done song-lyrics at any of our poetry meetings,' said Xiang-yun. ‘Why don't you call a meeting for tomorrow and we'll all do some? It would make a nice change.'

Dai-yu was becoming infected by Xiang-yun's enthusiasm.

‘It's a good idea,' she said. ‘I will.'

‘It's a lovely day today,' said Xiang-yun. ‘Why not have the meeting today?'

‘I don't see why not,' said Dai-yu.

She told the servants to prepare some suitably dainty things to eat, while a couple of them went off to summon the other cousins to the meeting. Meanwhile Dai-yu and Xiang-yun agreed that ‘Willow Floss' should be the subject of the poems and decided on the stanza-patterns that they should conform to. All this was written down on a sheet of paper which was pasted up on the wall. When the cousins arrived, they first of all read the notice on the wall and then read Xiang-yun's poem. Some little time after that was devoted to praising it.

‘I'm not much good at song-lyrics,' said Bao-yu, ‘but I suppose I had better do what I can.'

Everyone drew lots then to see which stanza-forms they were to use. Bao-chai lit a stick of Sweet Dreams incense, and then everyone settled down to think. Dai-yu was the first to have something ready and write it down. Just as she had finished, Bao-qin began hurriedly writing hers.

‘I've thought of mine,' said Bao-chai, ‘but I'd like to look at yours first before I show it to you.'

Tan-chun laughed.

‘Why does the incense seem to be burning so quickly today? I've only done the first half of mine.' She turned to Bao-yu. ‘How about you? Have you done yours yet?'

Bao-yu had in fact written a few lines of one, but, feeling dissatisfied with what he had written, had crossed it all out and begun again, by which time the incense had almost burned itself out.

‘Bao-yu's failed to make the grade as usual,' said Li Wan, laughing. ‘But what about Miss Plantain?'

Tan-chun promptly began to write down what she had composed. The others read the words as she wrote them. It was the first half of a
Nan-ge-zi
lyric.

‘Very good,' said Li Wan. ‘But why don't you finish it?'

Bao-yu had been willing to concede defeat. When he saw that the incense was running out, he could see no point in writing an indifferent conclusion just for the sake of finishing, and so he had laid down his brush and occupied himself instead in reading what Tan-chun had written. As he did so, he had a sudden inspiration, and picking up his brush again, quickly scribbled out a second half for it:

The girls were amused.

‘You're a funny fellow. You can't do your own, yet you can do someone else's without any trouble. It's very good, but unfortunately it doesn't count.'

The others admired it, but with reservation.

‘Pity it's so gloomy,' they said. ‘Still, there's no denying, it
is
very good.'

Then they had a look at Bao-qin's. She had written a
Xi-jiang-yue:

‘A more virile type of melancholy,' said the others, laughing. ‘Very typical! That “In many a courtyard…” couplet is good.'

‘I don't agree,' said Bao-chai. ‘I think it suffers from the same pessimism as Cousin Dai's. Willow floss is a light and airy thing. It seems to me that the best way to avoid the clichés that this subject invites is to give it a light and airy
treatment. That is the principle on which I have tried to compose my poem; but you may not think I have succeeded.'

‘Don't be so modest!' said the others. ‘It's sure to be good. Come on, hand it over! Permit us to admire!'

It was a
Lin-jiang-xian
that she had written.

‘Bravo!' said Xiang-yun. ‘“Wind-whorled, into trim fluff-balls forming”: that line is better than anything the rest of us have written.'

They read on.

They thumped the table enthusiastically.

‘Undoubtedly this poem is the best. There is a more haunting melancholy perhaps in River Queen's poem and more liveliness and charm in Cloud Maiden's; but all in all this is far and away the best poem. This time Little Xue and Plantain Lover fail to make the grade. We shall have to think of a penalty.'

‘That's fair enough,' said Bao-qin, laughing, ‘but what about someone who failed to submit anything at all? What should
his
penalty be?'

‘Don't worry about him,' said Li Wan. ‘He will be punished too –
exemplarily
!'

Just at that moment there was a crashing noise outside the window which made them jump. It sounded as if an outer casement had somehow come unfastened and fallen into the bamboos. The maids ran outside to look. Other maids, who had been waiting outside there all the time, told them what it
was: a large kite shaped like a butterfly which had fallen down and got caught in the tops of the bamboo.

‘What a beauty!' said the maids from inside. ‘I wonder whose it is. They must have cut the string. Let's try and get it down.'

‘I recognize that kite,' said Bao-yu. ‘It belongs to Uncle She's new girl, Carmine. Let's take it down and give it back to her.'

‘There must be other kites like that besides hers,' said Nightingale. ‘I think it's silly to say that it
must
be hers. Anyway, I don't care. I'm going to get it down for
us.'

‘How mean you are, Nightingale!' said Tan-chun. ‘You've got a kite of your own already. And if you keep someone else's, aren't you afraid of catching their bad luck?'

‘You're right,' said Dai-yu. ‘We don't know
whose
bad luck it mightn't be bringing us. Take it away! Let's take out
our
kite and get rid of
our
bad luck.'

Nightingale told the maids, who had by this time succeeded in getting the kite down, to take it to the women at the gate and hand it into their keeping. If anyone came looking for it, they were to give it back to them. The other maids rushed off excitedly to fetch Dai-yu's kite. It was the kind called a ‘pretty lady'. While two of them carried out the kite, one of them brought out a stool to stand on, another fastened the crosspiece to the raising-stick, and another paid the string out from the winder. Bao-chai stood with the other cousins at the gate of the courtyard, directing operations. She told the girls to fly the kite in the open ground outside the courtyard.

‘This kite of yours isn't nearly as pretty as Cousin Tan's,' Bao-qin told Dai-yu. ‘She has one shaped like a phoenix, with wings that move.'

‘Why don't you get yours and fly it then?' Bao-chai said, turning to Tan-chun's maid Ebony.

Ebony hurried off excitedly to do so. Bao-yu, catching the enthusiasm, sent a maid off to fetch one of his own.

‘Bring the big fish one that Lai Da's wife sent me yesterday,' he told the girl.

After a long time gone, the girl came back empty-handed.

‘Skybright flew it yesterday and let it go.'

‘Really!' said Bao-yu. ‘And I hadn't even flown it once myself.'

Tan-chun laughed.

‘Never mind! At least she's got rid of your bad luck for you!'

‘All right,' said Bao-yu to the girl. ‘Go and fetch the big crab one.'

The girl went off and returned accompanied by two or three other maids carrying a large pretty lady kite and a winder.

‘Miss Aroma says she gave the crab one to Master Huan yesterday. She says why don't you fly this one instead? It was sent to you yesterday by Mrs Lin.'

Bao-yu inspected it. The pretty lady was certainly a beautifully constructed creature. He was secretly pleased and told the girls to fly it.

Tan-chun's kite had also arrived by now and Ebony was already standing on a little hill getting it up with the assistance of a few helpers. Bao-qin had sent for her kite, a large red bat, and Bao-chai, beginning to share the excitement herself, had had hers fetched too: it was a line of seven large geese flying one behind the other. Soon all the kites but one were up in the air being flown successfully. Bao-yu's pretty lady was the exception. He said it was because the maids didn't know how to do it properly and insisted on flying it himself; but after a good deal of manoeuvring he could get her no higher than the roof, and even then it was only to flop down weakly again upon the ground. Bao-yu was getting into quite a state and the perspiration stood out in beads upon his brow. The cousins all laughed. At this he became so exasperated that he picked the kite up, threw it down on the ground again, and pointed his finger at it in anger.

‘If you weren't a lady, I'd stamp on you and smash you into pieces!'

Dai-yu laughed.

“The string isn't fastened on right. If you could get someone to refasten it for you properly, it would fly just as well as any other.'

Bao-yu sent someone to take the kite back for restringing
and fetch him another pretty lady that he could fly in the mean time.

All the cousins were now standing with their faces turned upwards, watching the kites as they soared higher and higher into the sky. A maid came round offering them all sweets. Presently there was a cry from Nightingale:

‘The wind's getting stronger, Miss. Do you want to release it now?'

Dai-yu made her handkerchief into a pad for her hand and tested the tension on the string. The wind was certainly pulling it with some force. She took over the winder from Nightingale and let it run free, so that the kite could pull itself away in the wind. There was a whirring noise as the last of the string ran out. Dai-yu asked the others if any of them would like to cut it for her.

‘No, we've all got our own,' they said. ‘You do yours first.'

‘It's fun to see them fly away,' said Dai-yu, ‘and yet it seems rather a pity.'

‘But that's the main reason for flying kites,' said Li Wan, ‘the pleasure of seeing them fly away. Not to mention the fact that it is supposed to get rid of your bad luck. You of all people ought to let yours go, so as to get rid of your illness.'

‘Come on, Miss, you've sent plenty of kites off in your time!' said Nightingale. ‘Why be so stingy all of a sudden? If you won't cut it, I'll cut it for you.'

She snatched a little pair of West Ocean silver scissors out of Snowgoose's hand and snipped through the kite-string, an inch or so from the winder.

‘Go away, kite!' she cried merrily. ‘And take my mistress's illness with you!'

The kite began to swoop and soar. Soon it appeared no bigger than an egg. A few moments later and it was only a dot in the sky. Another moment and it had disappeared from sight altogether.

‘Hurrah! Hurrah!' cried the cousins, as they watched it disappear.

‘What a pity we don't know where she will land!' said Bao-yu. ‘It would be nice if she landed somewhere where there are people and some little child were to find her. But suppose she
lands in some uninhabited wilderness: how lonely she will be! I think I shall send my lady after her, to keep her company!'

He asked for the scissors and cut the string himself, and a second pretty lady went hurrying after the first one until it, too, disappeared.

Tan-chun was just about to cut the string of her phoenix when another phoenix appeared in the sky, not far from hers.

‘I wonder whose that is?' said Tan-chun.

‘Don't cut yours yet,' the others cried. ‘It looks as if that one is going to get caught up in it.'

And that is just what happened. The other phoenix drew nearer and nearer until the two strings crossed and tangled. The maids were all for winding Tan-chun's kite in and capturing the other kite with it, but the owner of the other kite was not prepared to yield, and after a good deal of tugging and heaving on both sides, the strings finally snapped and the two phoenixes flew off companionably together. The cousins clapped their hands delightedly.

‘Well, I've released my kite and now I'm tired. I think I shall go in and rest,' said Dai-yu.

‘Just wait until we've released ours,' said Bao-chai, ‘and then we can all go.'

So she and Xiang-yun and Bao-qin each cut their kite-strings and watched their kites fly away, after which all of the cousins went back to their own apartments.