The Warning Voice (49 page)

While Zhu-er's wife and the two maids were still at it hammer and tongs, Bao-chai, Dai-yu, Bao-qin and Tan-chun arrived. Concerned that Ying-chun might still be feeling distressed about her nurse, they had met together by prearrangement and come over to try and cheer her up. Sounds of the wrangling going on inside were distinctly audible as they entered her courtyard. Tan-chun walked over and, peeping through the window, saw Ying-chun half-reclining on the day-bed reading a book, oblivious to the noisy argument that was going on only a few feet away from her. She laughed. Just at that moment two junior maids raised the portière for the visitors and announced their arrival.

At once Ying-chun put her book down and rose to welcome them. The sight of these newcomers – particularly as Tan-chun was one of them – caused the woman to stop of her own accord and she took the opportunity of slipping quietly outside.

‘Who was that talking in here just now?' said Tan-chun as she took a seat. ‘It sounded as if someone was having an argument.'

‘Oh, nothing,' said Ying-chun, pleasantly. ‘Probably only the servants making their usual fuss about nothing. Certainly not anything worth inquiring about.'

‘I'm sure I heard something about a “golden phoenix” just now,' said Tan-chun. ‘I distinctly heard someone say, “When she's short of money, she always asks us servants for some.” When
Who's
short of money? Not
you
, Ying, surely?
You
don't ask the servants for money, do you?'

‘You're absolutely right, miss, she most certainly does not,' said Chess and Tangerine indignantly.

Tan-chun smiled.

‘Well, Ying, if it wasn't
you
the woman I heard was talking about, perhaps it was
me
? You'd better call her inside again and let me ask her.'

‘Now you're being ridiculous,' said Ying-chun, laughing. ‘Why be like this? It has absolutely nothing to do with you.'

‘There you are wrong,' said Tan-chun. ‘You and I are in
the same boat. Our circumstances are very similar. What she says affects me as much as it does you. It would be just the same if you were to hear someone at my place complaining about me. You would feel almost as though you were being criticized yourself. As mistresses, you and I are above talking to servants about the petty cash. We may ask them for
things
sometimes, as and when we require them, but that is another matter. Tell me, though: how did a “pearl-and-gold phoenix” come to be mixed up in this discussion?'

Zhu-er's wife, terrified lest Tangerine should seize this opportunity to denounce her, came rushing in at this point and tried to put Tan-chun off the scent with her own extremely garbled account of what had happened. But Tan-chun showed that she had a better understanding of the case than the woman supposed.

‘I think you are being very stupid,' she said smilingly. ‘What you
ought
to do, now that your mother-in-law has already got herself into trouble, is to go to Mrs Lian before the money confiscated has been divided up and ask if you can have some of it back to redeem this jewellery with. Ideally, of course, it would have been better if you could have redeemed it before all this trouble broke out and saved yourselves a bit of face. But now that you have no face left to save, you'd much better make a clean breast of it and get the money. After all, your mother-in-law has already been found guilty. However many crimes she's committed, they can only cut her head off once. You take my advice. Go round to Mrs Lian's place as soon as possible and make a clean breast of it. Standing around here shouting is not going to get you anywhere!'

The woman was forced to admit that Tan-chun's reading of the situation was correct. But she was too scared to go to Xi-feng and confess.

‘If I hadn't heard you talking about this, it would have been none of my business,' said Tan-chun. ‘But now that I
have
heard, I think you had better let me take over and do the explaining for you.'

Unknown to the others, Tan-chun had tipped Scribe the wink a minute or two previously and Scribe had slipped outside
to summon help. It was no surprise to Tan-chun, therefore, that Patience should have walked in just as she was saying this; but to the others her appearance at that moment was little short of miraculous. Bao-qin clapped her hands delightedly.

‘I always knew Cousin Tan was a witch. Now here comes her familiar spirit!'

‘It's not witchcraft, it's generalship,' said Dai-yu. ‘Don't you remember what it says in
The Art of War
?

A look from Bao-chai caused the two girls to drop their bantering and talk of something else while Tan-chun addressed herself to the new arrival.

‘Is your mistress any better yet?' she asked Patience. ‘She seems to have completely lost her grip on things since she had this illness. It's very unfortunate for people like me who have to put up with the consequences.'

‘Oh?' said Patience in some surprise. ‘Has someone been giving you trouble, miss? If you will let me know what I can do, I am at your disposal.'

Zhu-er's wife was now in a panic. She bounded up to Patience and was all over her before Tan-chun could get a word in.

‘Sit down while I tell you, Miss Patience. I can explain it all.'

Patience gave her a long, hard look.

‘Miss Tan and I are talking. What right have you to come butting in like this? If you had any manners at all, you wouldn't even be in this room, you'd be waiting respectfully outside. Whoever heard of an outside servant going into one of the young mistresses' apartments without being asked?'

‘Manners?' said Tangerine. ‘You won't find many around here. People barge in and out of this apartment as they please.'

‘It's your fault then if they do,' said Patience sharply. ‘If Miss Ying is too gentle to do so, you ought to throw them out yourselves and then go and report them to Her Ladyship.'

Zhu-er's wife reddened at Patience's rebuke and took herself outside.

‘Now I can answer your question,' Tan-chun said to Patience. ‘This is not actually my affair. If it were, perhaps I shouldn't have minded quite so much. What happened is that this woman's mother-in-law, trading on the fact that she used to be Miss Ying's wet-nurse when she was a baby and taking advantage of Miss Ying's easy-going nature, took some of her jewellery without telling her in order to raise money for her gambling. As if that wasn't enough, this woman had the gall to pretend that Miss Ying owed them money in order that she could blackmail her into interceding for her mother-in-law. I found her and these two maids shouting at each other in Miss Ying's bedroom while Miss Ying sat by helpless. Now that you are here, I should like to ask you this question. Is this woman really so thick-witted that she doesn't know any better, or has someone else put her up to this? I mean, is there some plan to undermine Miss Ying first and then, when she is safely out of the way, to get to work on me and on Miss Xi?'

‘Oh
miss
!' said Patience, endeavouring to treat the question as a joke, ‘how
could
you? Mrs Lian is not as bad as that!'

‘I'm sure I don't know,' said Tan-chun coldly. ‘You know the saying: “Like grieves for like; for when the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.” When I saw what was happening to Miss Ying, I couldn't help feeling nervous.'

Patience turned to Ying-chun questioningly.

‘It would be easy enough to deal with this matter if it weren't that this woman is the wife of your foster-brother. It's really up to you, miss.'

Ying-chun had all this time been sitting shoulder to shoulder with Bao-chai, reading one of the stories in
Rewards and Punishments
. She had not even heard what Tan-chun had been saying and had only the haziest idea what was required of her when she suddenly found herself being addressed. She smiled back, however, and did her best to oblige.

‘Don't ask
me
!' she said. ‘There's absolutely nothing that
I
can do about it. If they will go getting themselves into trouble, they must face the consequences. All I can say is that I can't do anything to get their punishment reduced and I
won't do anything to increase it. As for that object they took from me without telling me, if they do bring it back I shall be happy to receive it; if they don't bring it back I shall not ask them for it. If either of Their Ladyships should ask me about it, I shall keep the facts hidden from them if I can do so honourably, in which case these people may consider themselves lucky; but if I can't, I shall just have to tell them the truth. It is quite out of the question that I should deliberately deceive Their Ladyships in order to cover up for them. You say I am too easy-going and indecisive: if you know of a better way of dealing with this matter that is both fool-proof and will not upset Their Ladyships, by all means go ahead with it; I shall certainly not interfere.'

The others were much amused by this answer.

‘Ying-chun makes me think of that monk who went on discussing theological matters while wolves and tigers prowled outside in his courtyard,' said Dai-yu laughing. ‘How on earth would she have controlled a great household like ours if she had been a man?'

‘That's begging the question,' said Ying-chun, smiling. ‘There are plenty of men who live off the fat of the land but who, in a crisis, are no better at dealing with things than I. Anyway,
Tai-shang
says that of all works of merit helping people when they are in trouble is the greatest. I may not be able to help anyone, but at least I am not going out of my way to make things worse for them. What is the point of gratuitously making enemies or exerting oneself for ends from which no one will benefit?'

Before she had finished, another visitor was heard arriving in the courtyard. Who this was will be revealed in the following chapter.

The visitor was Bao-yu. When it was known that one of the chief organizers of the gambling was Cook Liu's younger sister, Cook Liu's enemies in the Garden regarded this as a good opportunity for making another attempt to oust her from her kitchen. Going in a body to Xi-feng, they accused her of being in partnership with her sister and receiving equal shares of her takings, and they demanded that Xi-feng should take appropriate action to punish her. Cook Liu, when she heard this, was at first panic-stricken; then, remembering her friends at Green Delights, she hurried over there, taking great care that nobody saw her on the way, and begged Skybright and Aventurin to tell Bao-yu what had happened. It occurred to Bao-yu, when they told him, that as Ying-chun's nurse was in trouble for the same offence, it would be more effective to join forces with Ying-chun in pleading for clemency than to go along on his own and plead only for Cook Liu. It was in order to discuss this matter that he had come to see Ying-chun. Unfortunately, when he arrived, he found that she was not alone.

‘Are you better now?' the others asked him. (They supposed that he was still suffering from shock.) ‘What have
you
come for?'

He could not state the real purpose of his visit in front of so many people and merely told them that he had come ‘to see
how Ying-chun was getting on'. The others believed him, and a desultory conversation followed about nothing in particular.

Patience now went off to deal with the pearl-and-gold phoenix. Zhu-er's wife followed at her elbow, begging to be let off.

‘For charity's sake, don't tell her, miss! I promise you faithfully, that phoenix will be redeemed.'

‘So you keep saying,' said Patience, drily. ‘What a pity you couldn't have redeemed it a bit sooner and saved yourself this trouble! You want to wriggle out of this somehow without telling her, don't you? Well, I can't say that
I
am very keen on informing against you, myself. I'll tell you what: you get that thing back as quickly as possible and hand it over to me, and I won't say anything about it to my mistress.'

Zhu-er's wife was so relieved that she went down on her knees to thank her.

‘You carry on now with whatever you are doing, miss. I'll have it ready for you by this evening. I'll bring it to show you as soon as I've redeemed it, and then I'll take it back to Miss Ying's. How will that be?'

‘All right,' said Patience. ‘But if you don't turn up with it this evening, you will have only yourself to blame for what happens.'

The two young women then went their separate ways.

‘Well?' said Xi-feng, when Patience got back to her apartment. ‘What did Miss Tan want you for?'

‘She was worried that you might have been fretting over this gambling business,' said Patience, smiling. ‘She asked me how you'd been eating this last day or two.'

‘That's very kind of her,' said Xi-feng. ‘Oh, there's more trouble, by the way. Some of them have just been here accusing Cook Liu of being mixed up in the gambling business with her sister. They're saying, in fact, that she was the real organizer. However, remembering how insistent you always are that I should let well alone and only think of my health, I took no action. Last time I ignored your advice and had someone punished, I not only offended Lady Xing but also ended up by making myself ill. So this time I knew better. They can do as they please,
I
don't care. Someone else can do the worrying.
I have nearly destroyed myself by worrying and the only result of it is that everyone hates me. Very well. Now all I am going to think about is getting better. And when I am better, I am going to turn myself into a Mr Yes-yes. No matter what frightful things the others get up to, I shall just say “Yes, yes” when I hear about them. “Yes, yes,” I shall say, and not give them a single other thought!'

‘If only you
would
be like that,' said Patience smiling, ‘what a blessing it would be for us all!'

At that moment Jia Lian came in, sighing and striking his hands together with vexation.

‘More trouble! When I borrowed that stuff from Faithful the other day to pawn, how could Mother have got to hear about it? She had me over there just now and asked me to borrow two hundred taels for her. She said she wanted it for the Mid-Autumn festival. I said I didn't know who I could borrow two hundred taels from at the moment. “If you can't borrow the money, you can easily find something to raise it on,” she said. “Don't always make excuses. Don't know who to borrow it from, indeed! You could spirit all those things out of Lady Jia's room when you chose to, yet now you make difficulties about raising a paltry two hundred taels for me! You're lucky I haven't told anyone what you've been up to.” I'm certain Mother isn't really short of money. This is sheer, gratuitous trouble-making on her part.'

‘There were no outsiders here on that occasion,' said Xi-feng. ‘I wonder how the news could have leaked out.'

Patience, who had been listening to their conversation, tried hard to remember who had been present. After some moments it came back to her.

‘I know. There was no one else here that day while you were talking to Faithful, but in the evening, when she sent the stuff round, that mother of Simple's who works for Her Old Ladyship called in with some laundry and afterwards sat quite a long while talking in the kitchen. If she saw that great trunk there, it would have been only natural to ask what was inside it, and the maids might well have told her, without realizing that they were not supposed to. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's how it got about.'

She called some of the junior maids in to question them.

‘Which of you told Simple's mother the other day what was in that trunk?'

The maids knelt down in terror and swore by the most sacred oaths that they had said nothing.

‘We're always most careful not to say too much to anyone. When people ask us anything, we always say that we don't know. We'd certainly never have told her about
that
!'

Xi-feng considered the probabilities.

‘Somehow I don't think they
would
have told her. At all events, there is no point in harrving them about it now. We shall just have to put that question behind us. The important thing now is to make sure that Mother gets what she wants. I'd rather we went short ourselves than risk her making another lot of trouble.' She turned to Patience. ‘Take some of my gold things again and get us another two hundred taels. – As soon as she has the money ready, you can take it to Mother immediately, and that should be the end of the matter,' she told Jia Lian.

‘Might as well raise four hundred taels while you are about it,' said Jia Lian. ‘We could do with another two hundred ourselves.'

‘I don't see that at all,' said Xi-feng. ‘We don't really need two hundred taels ourselves. And in any case, if we raise so much now, where is the money coming from later for getting the things out of pawn?'

Patience fetched the now familiar gold necklaces and told Brightie's wife to take them to the pawnshop. Soon afterwards Brightie's wife was back again with the cash and Jia Lian went in person to hand it over to his mother.

While Jia Lian was taking the money to Lady Xing, Xi-feng and Patience continued to ask themselves who could have leaked the information about the surreptitious removal of Grandmother Jia's valuables.

‘It's too bad!' said Xi-feng. ‘Poor Faithful will be in trouble over this, and all because of us.'

While they were still wondering who it could have been, Lady Wang was announced. This was a surprise, for Xi-feng could think of no reason why she should be visiting them. She and Patience hurried out to greet her.

Lady Wang had only one maid, a trusted junior, in attendance.
There was an angry expression on her face and she walked swiftly through the house into the inner room and sat down grimly on the kang, all without uttering a word. Xi-feng, concealing her apprehension behind a smile, hurriedly served her with tea.

‘It's an unusual honour to have you here, Aunt.'

‘Patience, leave the room!' Lady Wang commanded.

‘Yes'm,' said Patience, wondering what on earth could be the matter, and hurried out, taking all the other maids with her. She stood by the outer door until they were all outside, then closed it after her and sat down at the top of the steps to prevent anyone going in.

As Xi-feng, now thoroughly alarmed, watched her aunt and wondered why she had come, Lady Wang, who appeared to be on the point of weeping, drew an embroidered pouch from her sleeve and threw it on the kang.

‘Look at that!'

Xi-feng hastily picked it up and found herself, to her great surprise, looking at a lewd picture, beautifully embroidered in silks.

‘Where did you get it from?' she asked.

The tears that had collected in Lady Wang's eyes poured down her cheeks now and the voice in which she answered was choked and trembling.

‘Where did
I
get it from?
I
sit all day at the bottom of a well. As you seemed such a conscientious young woman, I thought I could leave things to you and enjoy some leisure, but it seems that you are no better at managing than I. Fancy leaving a thing like that in the Garden – on a rockery, too, in broad daylight, where everyone could see it! It was picked up by one of Grandmother's maids. If your mother-in-law hadn't fortunately spotted the girl carrying it, it would have gone straight to Grandmother. I think it's for
you
to tell
me
how it came to be dropped there.'

It was Xi-feng's turn to look angry.

‘How do you know it's mine?'

Lady Wang sighed and shed a few more tears.

‘How can you ask me that? Who in this household apart from you and Lian
could
a thing like this belong to? The old
women would have no use for a thing like this and none of the girls would know where to get one from. Obviously that wretched, worthless Lian must have got hold of it from somewhere; and you, treating it, I suppose, as a great joke, were only too happy to receive it from him. I know that young couples
do
go in for this sort of thing; why try to deny it? But the young people in the Garden are still innocent. Suppose one of their maids had picked it up and shown it to them? It doesn't bear thinking of. Or suppose a maid had picked it up and told someone from outside that she had found it in the Garden? What sort of reputation would that leave our family with? It would be better to die than that such a thing should happen.'

A mixture of shame and exasperation caused the blood to rush into Xi-feng's face. She fell on her knees beside the kang. There were tears in her own eyes when she answered, but they were tears of anger.

‘What you say is no doubt very reasonable, Aunt, and I have no wish to argue with you, but I really
don't
own anything like this and I really must ask you to reconsider one or two of the things you have said. First of all, take another look at this bag. It wasn't made here. One can see at a glance that it is a poor commercial imitation of “palace” embroidery. Even the tassels are the kind you would buy outside. I may be young and frivolous, but I'd hardly be likely to want a trashy thing like this. Secondly, this isn't the sort of thing one would carry around with one. Even if it
were
mine, I should keep it hidden somewhere in a secret place, not walk around with it on my person, particularly if I were going into the Garden. The girls and I are always holding each other and pulling each other about, so that if I were wearing a thing like this, it would very quickly get noticed, and what should I feel like then, if one of the girls or one of the maids were to look at it? Thirdly, I may be the only young married woman with a husband
in the family
, but there are plenty of even younger married women among the servants who are often in and out of the Garden. How can you be so sure that it wasn't one of them who dropped this bag? Then there are those younger concubines of Sir She's, like Carmine and Azure. Mother often
takes one or two of them with her when she goes into the Garden. They would be even more likely to own a thing like this. And Zhen's wife herself isn't all that old, not to mention Lovey and Dove, whom she frequently takes with her when she goes there. How do you know it doesn't belong to one of them? And in any case, there are so many maids in the Garden, how can you be so sure that
all
of them are pure? There may be one or two of the older ones who are not so innocent. One of them could have slipped out on some pretext or other when no one was looking to flirt with the pages on the inner gate and got it from one of them. It's perfectly possible. But I can assure you that
I
have never possessed a thing like this, and I know that Patience hasn't either. So I really must ask you to reconsider.'

Lady Wang was somewhat overwhelmed by this torrent of words, but had to admit their reasonableness.

‘You can get up,' she said with a sigh. ‘It was wrong of me to accuse you. I ought to have known that a young woman of your breeding would not be guilty of such unseemliness. I am afraid I was overwrought and allowed anger to get the better of me. But what am I to do? Your mother-in-law saw fit to send this thing round to me by a messenger. I was terribly upset when I unwrapped it and saw what it was.'

‘The first thing to do is to try not to be so upset,' said Xi-feng. ‘If the servants become aware that something is wrong, the chances of Grandmother getting to hear about it will be much greater. If we can remain cool and carry out our investigations in secret, we are much more likely to get at the truth, and even if we don't, no one outside is going to be any the wiser. We should pick four or five of our most trusted servants to do the investigating – people like Zhou Rui's wife and Brightie's wife who can be relied upon not to talk – and send them into the Garden as replacements of the women who have been dismissed. The pretext for their investigations can be that there are various things connected with the gambling that still remain to be cleared up. The other thing we must do something about is the number of the maids. There are far too many of them. As they get older, they begin to get grown-up ideas, and one can never be quite sure
that they may not get up to some mischief. It's no good waiting until something has actually happened before doing anything, because then it will already be too late; on the other hand to begin large-scale dismissals straight away would be very distressing for the girls and probably for us as well. It would be better to wait until each maid either reaches a certain age or shows signs of growing insubordinate, and then use the first slip she makes as grounds for dismissing her and marrying her to one of the boys. In that way we can both avoid having trouble and at the same time make a considerable reduction in our expenses.'