The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  While Xi-feng was explaining this to Bao-yu, Wang Shan-bao’s wife was proceeding with her search.

  ‘Whose are these trunks?’ she asked, and demanded that the owners should come forward and open them.

  Aroma had suspected that some sort of trouble lay ahead when she saw the state that Skybright was in when she returned from her interview. The raid confirmed her premonition. Resignedly she set the other maids an example by opening her own trunks and boxes first. Nothing of interest was found in them. The searchers passed on. Each girl stood by her own things and opened them up as the searchers came to them. Finally only Skybright’s trunk remained.

  ‘Which girl’s is this?’ said Wang Shan-bao’s wife. ‘Why doesn’t she come forward and open it?’

  Aroma was on the point of opening it herself when Skybright, who, to judge from the state her hair was in, had only just got out of bed, came rushing into the room, flung the lid open with a bang, picked the trunk up by its bottom, and emptied its contents on the floor. Wang Shan-bao’s wife blushed scarlet with embarrassment.

  ‘There’s no cause to be angry with me, miss,’ she said. ‘I’m not carrying this search out to please myself, I’m here on Her Ladyship’s orders. If you don’t want your things to be searched, you have only to say so and I shall tell Her Ladyship. There’s no need to carry on like this about it.’

  At this Skybright’s wrath blazed up in fury. She pointed at the old woman’s face.

  ‘You say you are here on Her Ladyship’s orders. Well I’m here on Her Old Ladyship’s orders. Anyway, I thought I knew all the women who worked at Her Ladyship’s place and I’m sure I never saw a self-important, meddlesome old busybody like you there before!’

  Xi-feng, who had now rejoined them, was secretly delighted to see Wang Shan-bao’s wife getting the rough side of Skybright’s tongue, but because the woman was her mother-in-law’s favourite, she had to pretend that she was shocked, and shouted at Skybright to be silent. Wang Shan-bao’s wife looked angry and flustered and seemed on the point of retorting; but Xi-feng restrained her.

  ‘All right, Mrs Wang, that will do. You don’t have to put yourself on the same level by arguing with the girl. You get on with your searching. We’ve got all the other places to go to yet, and if we delay too long, word will get round that we are coming and they will be prepared for us. If that happens and you don’t succeed in finding anything, I shan’t consider myself responsible.’

  Though inwardly fuming, Wang Shan-bao’s wife was obliged to contain herself and spent the next minute or two rummaging tight-lipped among Skybright’s possessions. Having found nothing of importance, she then asked Xi-feng if they might go elsewhere.

  ‘Now have you looked really thoroughly?’ said Xi-feng. ‘You’re going to look pretty silly if you have to report back to Lady Wang tomorrow that you couldn’t find anything.’

  ‘We’ve been through everything,’ said one of the women. ‘There’s nothing here that there shouldn’t be. We did find one or two boy’s things, but they were the sort of things a quite small boy would use. Probably they belonged to Bao-yu when he was little. Anyway, they’re of no consequence.’

  ‘In that case we can be on our way,’ said Xi-feng, pleasantly. ‘On to the next place, then!’

  Off they went without more ado. Xi-feng turned to Wang Shan-bao’s wife as they walked along for a word in her ear.

  ‘I’ve got a suggestion to make, but I don’t know whether you’ll agree to it or not. Can we confine this search to members of our own household? I don’t think we ought to search the maids in Miss Xue’s room.’

  ‘Oh, I quite agree,’ said Wang Shan-bao’s wife. ‘It would never do to go searching the rooms of our guests.’

  Xi-feng nodded.

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  They had by now reached the Naiad’s House. Dai-yu had already gone to bed when the arrival of all these people was announced. Unable to guess what they could have come for, she was on the point of getting up to ask when Xi-feng came into her room and begged her to stay in bed.

  ‘Go to sleep. We shall be gone again in a moment.’

  She slipped out again after a few inconsequences and rejoined the others, who had already begun their searching. In the course of rummaging through the various trunks and boxes in Nightingale’s room they came across some old amulets whose period of effectiveness had long since expired and a set of two pouches and a fan-case designed for wearing on a belt. The fan-case had a fan in it, which they took out to examine. These were obviously masculine articles and had in fact been worn at one time by Bao-yu. Wang Shan-bao’s wife, congratulating herself on what she took to be a significant discovery, called Xi-feng over to witness it.

  ‘Look at these things, Mrs Lian! Now where would these have come from?’

  Xi-feng smiled.

  ‘These would be old things of Bao-yu’s,’ she said. ‘He and the girls here have been seeing each other for years – since they were little children. Their Ladyships would probably remember having seen these things on him. You could always ask them, if you don’t believe me.’

  Wang Shan-bao’s wife was at once all smiles.

  ‘If you recognize them, Mrs Lian, that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘There’s nothing here worth bothering about,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I think we should leave these folk in peace and hurry on elsewhere.’

  ‘We’ve had so many other things where these came from and given so many in return that I can’t keep track of them,’ said Nightingale laughing. ‘I couldn’t for the life of me tell you when he gave us these.’

  Xi-feng and Wang Shan-bao’s wife now conducted their little party to Tan-chun’s place. This time their arrival was anticipated. Someone had brought word of their coming, and Tan-chun, guessing that something serious must have happened to have provoked so ugly a reaction, was standing in the open doorway, surrounded by maids with lighted candles, waiting for the search party when it arrived.

  ‘Well?’ she asked, somewhat challengingly. ‘What do you want?’

  Xi-feng smiled an emollient smile.

  ‘Something has been missing and they have been questioning everyone for several days now without being able to find out who took it. It’s thought that whoever is responsible for the theft might try to incriminate one of the maids. We are making this search more for the sake of clearing them than because we really suspect any of them of taking it.’

  ‘Naturally all my maids are thieves,’ said Tan-chun affably. ‘As a matter of fact, I am their principal fence. If you want to search, you’d better look at my cupboards and boxes first, because anything they steal is automatically handed over to me.’

  She ordered the maids to open all her boxes. She also made them bring in her dressing-cases, jewel-boxes, bedding-rolls and miscellaneous wrapped-up bundles of clothing and open them all up for Xi-feng to inspect.

  Xi-feng laughed uncomfortably.

  ‘I’m only carrying out your mother’s orders, coz. There’s no point in getting offended with me.’ She turned to the servants. ‘Quickly, do these things up again for Miss Tan.’

  Scribe and Ebony, assisted by Patience and Felicity, began refastening the boxes and tying the bundles up again.

  ‘I’ve said that you may search my things,’ said Tan-chun, ‘but if you want to search my maids’, I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You see, I am a very hard mistress. I always insist on knowing what my maids have got; consequently everything they have – every needle and thread even – is taken care of by me; I don’t allow them to keep anything themselves. So if you want to do any searching, you will have to search me. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you have only to report to Lady Wang that I was obstructive and I will gladly face whatever the consequences are tomorrow. I must say, I cannot understand this eagerness to meet trouble half-way. The searching will begin soon enough in this household when the day of confiscation arrives. Didn’t you hear the news this morning about the Zhens? They tempted fate, just as we
are now doing, by carrying out a quite unnecessary search of their own servants, and now there is a confiscation order against them and they are being searched themselves. No doubt our time too is coming, slowly but surely. A great household like ours is not destroyed in a day. “The beast with a thousand legs is a long time dying.” In order for the destruction to be complete, it has to begin from within.’

  She began to cry. Xi-feng darted a look at the women, which Zhou Rui’s wife interpreted as a signal that they should go.

  ‘Since Miss Tan has said that the girls’ things are all here, Mrs Lian, can’t we go on to another place now and leave her in peace?’

  Xi-feng responded by rising to her feet and wishing Tan-chun good night.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve looked properly?’ said Tan-chun. ‘It’s no good coming back tomorrow and asking to look again, because I shan’t let you.’

  ‘If all the maids’ things are in here, there is no need to look,’ said Xi-feng, smiling.

  ‘No need to look, when I’ve gone to the trouble of having everything opened for you?’ said Tan-chun coldly. ‘I call that rather perverse. Tomorrow I suppose you will say that I covered up for my maids and wouldn’t let you look. I want to be told in plain language that you have searched as much as you want to. If you haven’t, you’d better do so now, while you have the chance.’

  Xi-feng smiled. She knew from past experience that she had to be more careful with Tan-chun than with any of the other girls.

  ‘I have already searched your maids’ things and your things sufficiently.’

  ‘And what about the rest of you?’ Tan-chun asked the women.

  ‘We’ve searched enough,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women, smiling.

  It was now that Wang Shan-bao’s wife showed her total lack of judgement – for she was in truth a very stupid woman. She had heard something of Tan-chun’s reputation in the past, but refused to believe that an unmarried girl of her years – particularly one who was a concubine’s daughter – could be as formidable as Tan-chun was said to be. No doubt, she told herself, it was the inexperience or pusillanimity of her informants that made them think her so. Was not she, Wang Shan-bao’s wife, one of Lady Xing’s oldest and most trusted servants? Did not even Lady Wang have to show her a certain measure of deference? A mere chit of a girl like Tan-chun was not going to intimidate her. She had, in any case, the distinct impression that it was Xi-feng and not herself that Tan-chun was angry with. At all events, she resolved to show how little she held Tan-chun in esteem by indulging in a little horse-play at her expense. Going up to Tan-chun, she took hold of a corner of her jacket and turned it back, grinning all over her face.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘Now I’ve even searched Miss Tan, and there’s nothing on her either!’

  Xi-feng was shocked.

  ‘Good gracious, woman! Are you – ?’

  But before she could finish there was a resounding smack! and a large red mark appeared on the old woman’s face where Tan-chun had hit her.

  Tan-chun was in a towering rage.

  ‘Who do you think you are? How dare you touch me? It seems that the respect that I and the others show you, even though it is only for Her Ladyship’s sake and out of consideration for your age, merely encourages you to make mischief for us and abuse your borrowed powers. That, in all conscience, is hard enough to bear. But now, to lay hands on me – that is really too much! If you have reckoned on my being a poor, timid creature like your Miss Ying whom you can bully and impose upon at your pleasure, you have made a very big mistake. You may search my things if you wish and I shall not complain; but I will not be made a laughing-stock. Here!’ – with one hand she began feverishly undoing her buttons, while with the other she pulled Xi-feng’s hand towards her and placed it beneath her jacket – ‘Search me! I would rather be searched by you than submit to being pawed over by a slave!’

  Xi-feng and Patience quickly buttoned her up again and straightened out her dress, shouting angrily at Wang Shan-bao’s wife as they did so.

  ‘You have been drinking again, Nannie. Why do you do it, if it makes you behave so badly? You’d better get out of here, before worse happens!’

  Patience did her best to comfort Tan-chun.

  ‘Dear miss! Please don’t distress yourself. She isn’t worth your getting upset about!’

  Tan-chun gave a humourless laugh.

  ‘I’m not upset. If I’d been upset I should have beaten my brains out before I’d have let her touch me. I shall see Grandmother and Lady Wang about this first thing tomorrow, and after that I shall call on Lady Xing and make whatever amends she likes to ask for.’

  Wang Shan-bao’s wife had retreated hastily from the room after her discomfiture and was now lurking outside the window complaining bitterly of the outrage to her dignity.

  ‘This is the first time anyone has ever struck me. I shall see Lady Xing tomorrow and ask her to let me go back to my old home. If this is the way I am to be treated, I had rather not go on living!’

  ‘Do you hear what that woman is saying?’ Tan-chun asked her maids. ‘Are you waiting for me to go out there and argue with her myself?’

  Scribe, needing no second prompting, hurried outside to take up the cudgels for her mistress.

  ‘If I were in your shoes, Mrs Wang, I should have the sense to keep my mouth shut. We should all be only too pleased if you really did go back to your own home; but I’m afraid that when it comes to it, you won’t be able to tear yourself away. After all, if you go, who will there be left to worm her way into Her Ladyship’s confidence and make all our lives a misery by having searches made?’

  Xi-feng was greatly amused.

  ‘Good for Scribe! “Like mistress, like maid”!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tan-chun coldly, ‘we thieves have ready wits. We are all capable of turning a phrase or two. It’s only when it comes to going behind other people’s backs and stirring those in authority up against them that we are not quite so clever.’

  Patience made some soothing remark to Tan-chun, simultaneously making a grab at Scribe and pulling her back into the room, while Zhou Rui’s wife and the other women did their best to be conciliatory. Xi-feng remained until she had seen Tan-chun safely put to bed before leading her party off in the direction of Xi-chun’s Spring in Winter room in the Lotus Pavilion, briefly taking in Li Wan’s place on the way.

  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 thes
e 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.