The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  As cousins and intimates having no secrets from one another, Cousin Zhen and Jia Lian had always felt free to come and go in each other’s apartments without formality, and so, when Jia Lian approached the main sitting-room of Cousin Zhen’s apartment, the old women at the door simply raised the portière for him and let him go in unannounced.

  Looking round him as he entered, Jia Lian saw only Er-jie and a couple of maids sewing together on the kang at the southern end of the room. The mother and the other sister were not in evidence. He went up and greeted her. In response to her smiling invitation to join her, he climbed up and sat with his back resting against the openwork partition along the eastern side of the kang, insisting that Er-jie should take the place of honour. After a few generalities, he asked her where Mrs You and San-jie were.

  ‘Just gone out the back to see about something,’ said Er-jie. ‘They’ll be here again in a moment.’

  The maids now went outside to fetch tea, leaving the two of them alone together. Jia Lian ogled Er-jie meaningfully, but she merely smiled, keeping her eyes demurely downwards, and pretended not to notice. At this stage, he judged, a physical advance would be premature. He noticed that as she sat there her hands were continuously playing with a length of silk handkerchief to which a tiny embroidered bag was attached. To fill in the embarrassed silence that was developing, he pretended to be feeling for something at his waist.

  ‘Oh, I’ve come out without my betel! Give me some betel, my dear, if you’ve got any.’

  ‘I have got some,’ said Er-jie, ‘but it’s not for other people.’

  Jia Lian laughed and made a movement towards her, as if he intended to snatch the handkerchief and its little pouch from her by force, whereupon Er-jie, rather than risk someone coming in and finding them in the midst of an unseemly tussle, threw it across to him with a little laugh. Jia Lian caught it in mid-air, emptied the contents into the palm of his hand, selected one single half-eaten nut which he popped into his mouth and began chewing, and stuffed all the rest back into the bag. He was just going to hand it back to her when the two maids came in again with the tea. Jia Lian took a cup from one of them and began sipping it. While the maids were not looking, he contrived to unfasten a Han jade girdle pendant in the form of nine tiny interlocking dragons that he wore attached to his belt, tie it onto the handkerchief and toss it back for Er-jie to catch. But Er-jie pretended not to have noticed. She allowed the handkerchief with the two small objects attached to it to fall beside her on the kang and went on calmly sipping her tea.

  Just then there was a rattle of the portière and old Mrs You and San-jie came into the room from the back, attended by two little maids. Jia Lian signalled with his eyes to Er-jie that she should pick the handkerchief up, but Er-jie continued to ignore him. In somewhat of a panic by now and wondering what Er-jie could be at, he rose to his feet and advanced to meet San-jie and the old lady. When, after exchanging courtesies with them, he glanced back behind him, Er-jie was standing unconcernedly in the same place, with the same inscrutable smile on her face; but the handkerchief had vanished. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  When they were all seated and a few pleasantries had been exchanged between them, Jia Lian remembered the business on which he was supposed to have come.

  ‘Zhen’s wife says that she sent a packet of silver to you the other day to look after for her. It’s wanted now to pay some bills with, so Zhen has sent me to ask you for it and also to find out if everything at home is all right.’

  Mrs You at once told Er-jie to take the key of the chest and fetch the money for her.

  ‘I’m also glad of the opportunity my errand gives me of offering you my respects, ma’am, and of seeing the young ladies again,’ Jia Lian continued after Er-jie had gone. ‘I must say, you are looking extremely well. But I am sorry the young ladies should have to put up with the inconvenience of moving into a strange house.’

  ‘Tut, for one’s own kin!’ said Mrs You, smiling. ‘You are too polite, Mr Lian! It’s of no consequence where we stay: one bed is as good as another. To tell you the truth, things have been very difficult for us since Mr You passed away. If it hadn’t been for the help given us by my daughter’s husband, I really don’t know how we should have managed. To look after the house for him in his time of trouble is the very least we can do in return. It can certainly not be spoken of as an inconvenience.’

  Er-jie had now returned with the silver and handed it to her mother; her mother handed it to Jia Lian; and Jia Lian ordered one of the maids to call in one of the old women from outside, whom he then instructed to take it to Yu Lu and tell him to wait for him in the front.

  While the old woman was going off with the money, Jia Rong’s voice could be heard outside in the courtyard and a few moments later he appeared. He greeted his grandmother and two aunts before turning with a smile to Jia Lian:

  ‘Sir She has been asking about you, Uncle. He says there’s something he wants you to do for him. He was going to send someone to fetch you from the temple, but I told him you were already on your way into the city. He told me that if I ran into you on my way back, I was to tell you to hurry.’

  Jia Lian hastily rose to go, but delayed to hear something that Jia Rong was saying to Mrs You.

  ‘You know the other day I was telling you that Father has found a husband for Aunt Er, Gran. In looks and build he has quite a strong resemblance to Uncle Lian. Does that please you?’

  Since he was pointing a finger at Jia Lian and simultaneously making a face at Er-jie while he said this, the question appeared to be meant as much for Er-jie as for her mother. If so, Er-jie was too embarrassed to answer. Not so her sister, however.

  ‘Little monster!’ San-jie shouted, half angrily and half in jest. ‘Keep your dirty little mouth shut – unless you want me to come over and shut it for you!’

  Jia Rong retreated, laughing, from the room; and Jia Lian, taking a laughing farewell of the old lady and her daughters, went out after him. He stopped in the hall again on his way out to admonish the servants: not to gamble, not to drink, and so forth. Then, after a private aside with Jia Rong in which he urged him to return with all speed to the temple and speak about a certain matter to his father, he went with Yu Lu to the other mansion and gave him the balance of the amount owing. Having dispatched Yu Lu, he went in to see what his father wanted, and after that to Grandmother Jia’s apartment to pay his respects. But these are formalities with which we need not concern ourselves.

  We return, then, to the Ning-guo mansion, where Jia Rong, concluding, when he saw Yu Lu go off with Jia Lian, that there was nothing more for him to do, went back to the inner apartments for further badinage with his young aunts before setting off once more for the temple. It was evening when he arrived there and reported back to his father.

  ‘Yu Lu got the money all right. And Lady Jia is now completely recovered. She is no longer taking medicine.’

  He availed himself of the opportunity to tell his father about Jia Lian: how, on the journey into town, he had expressed a desire to take Er-jie as his Number Two and how he proposed to set her up in a separate establishment, keeping Xi-feng in ignorance of the marriage.

  ‘His sole reason for taking a Number Two,’ Jia Rong explained, ‘is that he wants a son. And the reason he particularly wants Aunt Er is because he feels it would be better to keep things in the family and have someone he knows, than risk taking some unknown person from outside. He was very insistent that I should speak to you about this.’

  He omitted to mention that he was the author of this plan.

  Cousin Zhen, after reflecting on it, seemed well disposed.

  ‘Actually, it’s not a bad idea. I wonder whether your Aunt Er would be willing, though. You’d better go in again tomorrow and have a word with your Grandmother You. Tell her to talk to your Aunt Er about it and see if she accepts. If she does, we can go ahead and fix it up properly.’

  After a good deal more advice to Jia Rong on how he was to conduct himsel
f, Cousin Zhen went inside to see You-shi and told her about the plan. You-shi could see at once that it would not work and did her best to dissuade him; but Cousin Zhen’s mind was made up; and in the end, since she was accustomed to giving in to him, and since Er-jie was in any case only a step-sister, for whom therefore she felt only limited responsibility, she allowed the menfolk to go ahead and washed her hands of the whole affair.

  Jia Rong went into town next morning and told his grandmother what his father had told him to say. He also added a good deal of his own. He told her what a capital person Jia Lian was; how Xi-feng was ill and not expected to get better; how Jia Lian was planning to buy a house outside and install Er-jie in it temporarily, but how in a year or two, as soon as Xi-feng was dead, he would move her inside and make her his Number One. He went on to tell her about the gifts Cousin Zhen would give for the betrothal and of the wedding presents that Jia Lian was planning for his bride; how Jia Lian was prepared to look after Mrs You in her old age; and how in due course he would see San-jie provided with a husband. The Liang dynasty preacher on whom the heavens rained down flowers could not have spoken with greater eloquence. Mrs You could hardly fail to agree, particularly in view of the fact that she depended on Cousin Zhen for her livelihood and that it was he who was sponsoring the marriage. And Jia Lian was such a fine young gentleman – infinitely superior to that Zhang boy. She would go to Er-jie at once and talk it over with her.

  You Er-jie was a highly impressionable young woman. Already, in the past, she had compromised herself with her sister’s husband. And she had always resented the arbitrary betrothal to Zhang Hua (as the Zhangs’ boy was called) which seemed to condemn her to a lifetime of poverty. If Jia Lian loved her and her brother-in-law was prepared to give her away, what possible objection could she have to the marriage? Her consent was given with a nod, conveyed at once to Jia Rong by her mother, and in due course reported to Cousin Zhen.

  Next day Cousin Zhen invited Jia Lian to the temple to hear from his own lips that Mrs You had consented. Jia Lian, delighted that the matter had been settled with so little trouble, at once began discussing what to do. Agents had to be engaged to look round for a suitable house, jewellery for Er-jie’s trousseau had to be ordered, and furnishings had to be purchased for the house. Within a few days all this had been done. A twenty-frame house in Little Flower Lane about two thirds of a mile north of Two Dukes Street had been bought, furnished throughout, and two little maids purchased to go with it.

  Jia Lian was at first uncertain what to do about older servants. If he used servants from his own household, their transfer was sure to be detected; on the other hand a married couple purchased from outside would be strangers, and therefore of uncertain loyalty and impossible to trust. Suddenly he remembered Bao Er, whose unfortunate wife had hanged herself after being attacked by Xi-feng in a fit of jealous rage. At the time Jia Lian had given him some money and promised him a new wife. The wife he had eventually chosen for him was none other than the Mattress, widowed since the drunken cook ‘Droopy’ Duo had finally drunk himself to death. Bao Er had had prior experience of her charms and knew that he was getting a good bargain; and the Mattress for her part was glad to be married to someone who (thanks to Jia Lian’s subvention) could afford to be free with his money. This couple, united in their loyalty to Jia Lian and dislike of Xi-feng, seemed an ideal choice for the new establishment and were to their immense satisfaction installed in it, along with the newly-purchased maids, to be at Er-jie’s disposal when she arrived.

  There remained only the matter of Zhang Hua to be dealt with. It was Zhang Hua’s grandfather who had originally held the managerial post on one of the Imperial Farms. His father simply inherited the post when the old man died. While holding it, he had made the arrangement with Mrs You’s first husband, who was his good friend, as a result of which Zhang Hua and Er-jie were engaged to each other from their earliest infancy. Some time after that he lost all his possessions in a lawsuit and the family were reduced to penury so dire that even food and clothing were a problem, and taking on a new daughter-in-law was, for the time being, wholly out of the question. Then Er-jie’s mother had remarried, and for fourteen years or more they had been completely out of touch. Their whereabouts were eventually traced, however, and Zhang Hua’s father summoned to Ning-guo House and induced to sign a deed of revocation releasing Er-jie from her betrothal. He did not want to sign it, but was too intimidated by Cousin Zhen’s air of affluence and authority to object. After he had signed, Mrs You handed him twenty taels, and that was that.

  Everything had now been taken care of. All that remained was for Jia Lian to name the day. The calendar was consulted and the third of the sixth month, which was just beginning, was found to be the earliest auspicious day. On that day, it was decided, Er-jie should be received as a bride in her new home.

  But for that event you must await the following chapter.

  CHAPTER 65

  Jia Lian’s second marriage is celebrated in secret And the future marriage of San-jie becomes a matter of speculation

  By the second day of the month, the arrangements jointly agreed on by Jia Lian, Cousin Zhen and Jia Rong had been completed and Mrs You and San-jie moved into the new house. A brief inspection of it satisfied Mrs You that, if not quite what Jia Rong had led her to expect, it was at least excellently furnished, and it could be said that both she and San-jie were reasonably happy about the move. Bao Er and his wife could not do enough for them. It was ‘yes, milady’, ‘no, milady’ whenever they were talking to Mrs You; and San-jie, for the first time in her life, found herself being addressed as ‘Miss You’, or sometimes even as ‘madam’.

  In the last watch of that same night, only an hour or two before the dawning of the third, Er-jie, seated in a plain chair without bridal trimmings, was carried to her new home. The incense and paper-offerings for the ceremony, the wedding-feast and marriage-bed had all been made ready long before she arrived. Jia Lian, also in a small, plain carrying-chair, arrived shortly afterwards. The bride and groom made their prostrations to Heaven and Earth, the paper offerings were set fire to, and Mrs You conducted her heavily-veiled daughter into the marriage-chamber, gratified to observe the transformation wrought by a completely new and expensive-looking outfit of clothes and jewellery.

  The phoenix-gambollings of the nuptial couch and the mutual delight and cherishing which they engendered are here passed over. Suffice it to say that the more Jia Lian saw of Er-jie, the more he loved her, until the desire to make some gesture expressive of his feelings became overwhelming. All he could think of was to behave in every way as if Er-jie was his only wife and Xi-feng did not exist. He ordered Bao Er and his wife to call her ‘Mrs Lian’ and always referred to her himself in that way when he was speaking to them. When he went back to Xi-feng, as from time to time he was obliged to, he would tell her that he had been doing something at the Ning-guo mansion; and Xi-feng, knowing how well her husband got on with Cousin Zhen and how frequently he was consulted by him, suspected nothing. In spite of their numbers, few of the Rong-guo domestics concerned themselves much with Jia Lian’s activities, and even the few who had the time and curiosity to nose out what he had been up to were more anxious to win favours by playing up to him than to gamble on the uncertain advantages of giving away his secret. Everything seemed to be working out very smoothly and Jia Lian felt immensely grateful to Cousin Zhen for having made it all possible.

  The allowance Jia Lian made to cover the day-to-day expenses of his little household was fifteen taels a month. On days when he was unable to come, Mrs You and her two daughters dined together. On days when he was there, he and Er-jie would dine together and Mrs You and San-jie would eat separately in their own room. Besides paying Er-jie the allowance, Jia Lian handed over all his private savings to her to look after for him. He told her everything about Xi-feng, down to the most intimate bedroom particulars, and promised her that as soon as Xi-feng died, she should move into the mansion and live there ope
nly as his wife. It cannot be said that Er-jie found any of this displeasing. In the meantime the little household was managing very comfortably.

  *

  Two months passed quickly by. One evening, as Cousin Zhen was returning from a day of Buddhist ceremonies at the Temple of the Iron Threshold, he bethought him that it was some considerable time since he had enjoyed the company of the two You sisters and decided to pay them a visit. First, though, he sent a boy to the new house to find out if Jia Lian was there. Delighted when the boy brought back word that he was not, he ordered most of the servants to return to Ningguo House without him, keeping only his two most trusted pages to accompany him on foot to the Yous’ house. They did this walking one on either side of his horse’s head and holding on to his bridle.

  It was already lighting-up time when they got there, but the courtyard gate was still open. Their arrival was so quiet and discreet that they managed to get inside it unobserved. The pages tied the horse up in the stable and took themselves off to the servants’ quarters to await further orders, while Cousin Zhen entered the living-room alone. He found San-jie and her mother sitting there. The lamp had just been lit. Shortly after he had finished exchanging greetings with them, Er-jie herself appeared and made him welcome. Tea was served. Cousin Zhen smiled over his cup at her as he sipped his tea.

  ‘Well, do you think I’d make a good marriage-broker? If the husband I picked for you is no good, I doubt I could find you a better! Your sister will be coming to see you shortly, by the bye, and bringing you a present.’

  Er-jie had already given orders for food and wine to be brought and for the courtyard gate to be barred. Since their visitor was a member of the family, it seemed reasonable that the usual restraints should be relaxed. Presently Bao Er came in with some things and took the opportunity of offering his respects to Cousin Zhen.

  ‘You’re a good fellow, Bao,’ said Cousin Zhen affably. ‘I’m sure that’s why Mr Lian chose you for this job. No doubt there will be even more important work for you in the future. So don’t go drinking outside and getting yourself into trouble, will you? If you do as I tell you, I promise to make it worth your while. And let me know if there’s anything you want here. Mr Lian is a busy man, and not all the people in his household are to be trusted. It’s better to ask me. He and I are not only cousins, you know; we are also very good friends.’