The Warning Voice

by Cao Xueqin

  ‘This smuggling is a very serious business, Mrs Lian. No doubt the things we are looking for got into the Garden by the same way. I think you ought to look into this.’

  ‘I fully intend to do so,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I don’t need you to tell me.’

  They took leave of Xi-chun then and made their way to Ying-chun’s. Ying-chun was asleep when they arrived and the maids had already gone to bed. They had to knock a long while at the gate before anyone answered.

  ‘There’s no need to disturb your mistress,’ Xi-feng said to the girl who admitted them, and made straight for the maids’ room, followed by the rest of the party. Knowing that Wang Shan-bao’s wife was Chess’s maternal grandmother, Xi-feng watched her very attentively to see if she would show any favouritism. Wang Shan-bao’s wife began on the trunks of the other maids. None of them contained anything of interest. Coming to Chess’s trunk last of all, she merely picked up one or two things lying on the top of it before hurriedly pronouncing that there was ‘nothing there’, and would have shut it up again if Zhou Rui’s wife had not intervened to prevent her.

  ‘Now just a minute. Whether there is or not, you’ve got to go through it properly, the same as you did the rest, out of fairness to the others.’

  She stretched her own hand out as she said this and, diving into the trunk, fetched out, successively, a pair of men’s padded socks, a pair of men’s satin slippers, and a packet containing a little Loving Couple ornament and a letter. All these things she handed over to Xi-feng.

  From handling so many bills, invoices and accounts during her years as a household manager, Xi-feng had learned to recognize quite a large number of characters and was able to make out the whole of the crude missive, written on pink Double Happiness notepaper, that Zhou Rui’s wife had just thrust into her hand.

  Since your visit last month my parnts have fund out about us but cant do any thing til Miss Yings marrid if you can meet me in the garden send word by mrs Zhang we can talk more frely in the garden than at home PLEASE TRY I have reed the two rosearys I send you this bag it shows you what I dream of!! PLEASE KEEP IT!!! your loving kit cousin PAN YOU-AN

  Xi-feng could hardly restrain herself from laughing out loud.

  Wang Shan-bao’s wife knew nothing of the romantic history that lay behind this letter; but she had already had an uncomfortable feeling that all was not well when she saw the men’s socks and shoes; and now, as she watched Xi-feng reading the words on the pink notepaper and laughing at what she read, she became even more apprehensive.

  ‘What is it, madam? An account?’ she said. ‘I suppose you are laughing because there is some mistake in it.’

  ‘It certainly doesn’t balance properly,’ said Xi-feng, laughing. ‘If you are Chess’s grandmother, shouldn’t her kit-cousin be a Wang?’

  Wang Shan-bao’s wife found the question a very strange one.

  ‘She has a kit-cousin on her father’s side, her father’s sister’s son. Pan You-an, that boy who ran away – he’s her kit-cousin.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Would you like me to read you the letter?’

  She proceeded to do so, to the great astonishment of all present. Wang Shan-bao’s wife, who had sought out the wrongdoing of others with such single-minded persistency, was now mortified to discover that the only wrongdoer she had succeeded in unmasking was her own granddaughter.

  ‘Did you hear that, Mrs Wang?’ said Zhou Rui’s wife, who, like the other women, had signalled her astonishment by sticking her tongue out and wagging her head incredulously. ‘Couldn’t be clearer than that, could it? No talking a way out of that one! So what do we do now?’

  Wang Shan-bao’s wife heartily wished that it were possible to slip through some crack and disappear into the ground. Xi-feng contemplated her for some moments with enjoyment, her lips puckered up with suppressed laughter.

  ‘One must look on the bright side,’ she said to Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘The girl has quietly gone off and chosen herself a husband. At least her grandmother is saved the bother of choosing one for her!’

  Zhou Rui’s wife laughed, and added some pleasantry of her own. Wang Shan-bao’s wife was left with no one but herself on whom to vent her anger, so she slapped her own face and reproached herself.

  ‘Silly old fool! You’ve lived too long, that’s your trouble! Look what you’ve brought on yourself! Why couldn’t you have kept your mouth shut? Now you’ve got to suffer for your own foolishness.’

  The others had not the heart to laugh, but could not help feeling pleased, either because she had made them suffer in the past and it was sweet to see her suffer now in her turn, or from a more detached belief that they were witnessing the working-out of divine retribution on one who had richly deserved its visitation.

  Xi-feng noticed with surprise that Chess, who all this time had been standing by with bowed head, saying nothing, had no trace of fear or shame in her expression and wondered if she might be planning to make away with herself. As it was obviously too late that night for questioning her, she deputed two of the women to watch over her until morning. She herself went off with the other women, taking the things with her as evidence.

  It was her intention to deal with the matter in the morning, after a night’s sleep, but during the course of the night she was several times obliged to get out of bed, and each time she did so she found that she was losing blood. By the time next morning came, she was too weak and dizzy to get up. A doctor was called. He took her pulses, wrote a prescription, and left, saying that she would need to rest. His findings, reported to Lady Wang by the old nannies who went to have the prescription made up, plunged that already depressed gentlewoman into yet greater gloom. Thus judgement on Chess’s affair was, for the time being, postponed.

  *

  You-shi, as it happened, called in that day to see Xi-feng and sat for a while talking with her. After that she went on to see Li Wan and talked with her. While she was there, a maid arrived to ask if she would mind calling in to see Xi-chun, so she went along to Xi-chun’s. As soon as she arrived, Xi-chun launched into a long and detailed account of what had happened the previous night. She also sent someone round to ask Zhou Rui’s wife for the things that had been found in Picture’s trunk. You-shi verified that they had indeed been given by Cousin Zhen to Picture’s brother.

  ‘Stupid creature!’ she said, turning to rebuke Picture, who was standing by.

  ‘Why do you call her names?’ said Xi-chun. ‘It was your laxness which made her the way she is. It’s too bad. None of the other girls has been let down like this by her maids. How shall I be able to face them after this? I told Cousin Feng last night to take her away, but she wouldn’t. I am glad that you have come, because now you will be able to. I don’t care what you do with her – beat her, kill her, sell her – I just want to be rid of her.’

  Picture knelt down and implored her mistress most piteously not to send her away. You-shi and Xi-chun’s nurses also did their best to talk Xi-chun out of dismissing her.

  ‘It was only a single lapse on her part,’ said You-shi. ‘I’m sure she won’t do it again. Think of all the years of service she has given you.’

  But Xi-chun, in whom the natural waywardness of youth was reinforced by a perverse contrariness that was all her own, remained adamant in the face of both argument and entreaty and insisted that Picture must go.

  ‘And it isn’t only Picture that I don’t want to see any more,’ she told You-shi. ‘The same goes for all the rest of you. From now on I propose to stop going round to your place altogether. There has been a lot of talk about you people of late. If I continue to go round, I am afraid I might get involved in it.’

  ‘Who has been talking about us?’ said You-shi. ‘And what, pray, have they found to talk about? I think you might begin by considering who you are – and who we are. If you have heard people talking about us, I should have thought it was up to you to ask them what they meant by it.’

  ‘That’s rather strange advice comi
ng from you,’ said Xi-chun sneeringly. ‘A girl like me is supposed to keep well away from scandal, not go running headlong towards it. You know the saying: “A father should help a son and the son his father, but not in slaying or in doing evil.” The same principle holds good for you and me. I can only answer for my own integrity. If you people end up by getting yourselves into a mess, I don’t want to have anything to do with it.’

  You-shi was half angered and half amused by her young sister-in-law’s rudeness.

  ‘I can see now why people speak of Miss Xi as young for her age,’ she said, addressing the grown-up servants below the kang. ‘“Young and foolish” I have heard her called. I used not to believe it of her, but finding her now so unreasonable and so lacking in any sense of proportion, I really do begin to despair of her.’

  ‘She is still very young,’ said the women placatingly. ‘You must expect a few knocks in your dealings with her, Mrs Zhen.’

  ‘I may be “young”,’ said Xi-chun scornfully, ‘but there is nothing “young” about what I have just been saying. And since none of you people can even read or write, how can you have the nerve to call me “foolish”?’

  ‘You are the great scholar, of course,’ said You-shi sarcastically, ‘the Top of the List candidate! Stupid people like us cannot hope to compete with you in understanding.’

  ‘There’s certainly not much understanding in what you have just said,’ Xi-chun retorted. ‘Your assumption that a Top of the List candidate cannot be stupid is a vulgar fallacy typical of the great mass of blind, undiscriminating worldlings. A true sage can be identified by the very first step he takes, not by examination results.’

  ‘Goodness!’ said You-shi mockingly. ‘A moment ago we had the great scholar; now, it seems, the great preacher has come to enlighten us!’

  ‘I lay no claim to enlightenment,’ said Xi-chun, ‘though I can see that most people are no better than Picture – and that they are as little worth bothering about.’

  ‘You are a cold-hearted little monster,’ said You-shi.

  ‘If I seem cold, it is because I wish to keep myself un-corrupted,’ said Xi-chun. ‘Why should I want to get involved with you and allow myself to be dragged down to your level?’

  You-shi was highly sensitive to remarks about her family’s reputation and had already been embarrassed and upset by Xi-chun’s reference to ‘people talking’. Because Xi-chun was only a girl, she had done her best not to lose her temper; but this last remark was too much to stomach. Unable to contain herself any longer, she burst out angrily.

  ‘What do you mean, “dragged down to my level”? You turn your maid’s offence into an occasion for making a completely unwarranted attack upon me, and when I bear your ridiculous attacks with patience, it seems merely to encourage you to indulge in further insults. Very well, Miss Holy Purity! I shall be careful to keep away from you in future, in case your priceless reputation is sullied by my presence.’

  She swept out angrily, indicating to her maids as she went that they should bring Picture with them.

  ‘It will be much better for all concerned if you don’t ever come here again,’ Xi-chun called out after her. ‘It will save a lot of argument.’

  You-shi heard this and grew even angrier; but reflecting that Xi-chun was, however vexing, a young unmarried daughter of the family and therefore not a person with whom she could engage in open wrangling, she swallowed her anger and hurried off without answering, out of the Garden and into the inner part of the mansion.

  What she heard there will be related in the chapter which follows.

  CHAPTER 75

  Midnight revellers are startled by a sound of evil omen And Mid-Autumn moon-watchers listen to quatrains of unequal merit

  When You-shi swept angrily out of Xi-chun’s apartment, it had been her intention to visit Lady Wang, but one of the old women in her suite whispered in her ear to advise her against going there.

  ‘Some people from the Zhen family have just arrived there, madam, with a lot of things. I think it’s something secret they’ve come about. It probably wouldn’t be very convenient for you to go there now.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ said You-shi. ‘I heard your master saying last night that he had read in the Gazette that the Zhens had been attainted. It said that there was a search and confiscation order on their estate and that the family were being brought under arrest to the capital for questioning. What can any of them be doing here?’

  ‘You may well ask, madam. It was some of the womenfolk we saw there. They were in a terrible state, very worried and frightened. I expect they are doing something they ought not to be.’

  You-shi abandoned her idea of visiting Lady Wang and went back to see Li Wan, with whom she had been talking a little earlier when Xi-chun called her away. Li Wan had been visited in the meantime by her doctor; and as she was feeling much livelier than she had done for some days, she had remained sitting up after her visit. You-shi found her propped up on pillows and with the bedclothes pulled up round her, eager for conversation. Unfortunately You-shi, who had been so affable on her earlier visit, was now in no mood to talk and sat at Li Wan’s bedside silent and preoccupied. Li Wan wondered if she was feeling hungry.

  ‘Have something to eat,’ she said. ‘What would you like?’ She turned to Candida. ‘What nice little snack have we got that we could offer Mrs Zhen?’

  ‘Please don’t bother,’ said You-shi. ‘You’re hardly likely to have interesting snacks in the house after being an invalid for so many days. And in any case I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Someone sent me some rather good wheatmeal tea yesterday,’ said Li Wan. ‘Why don’t you try a bowl of that?’

  She told Candida to mix some for her with sugar and boiling water. You-shi made no reply and continued to brood. The women and maids who had come with her tried to think of some means of distracting her.

  ‘You haven’t done your face yet since this morning, madam,’ said one of them. ‘Why not take this opportunity of having a wash?’

  You-shi nodded. Li Wan at once sent Candida for her dressing-case and mirror. Candida offered You-shi the use of her own make-up.

  ‘Our mistress doesn’t use make-up, Mrs Zhen. If you don’t mind using my stuff, you’re very welcome to some of this.’

  ‘It’s true that I haven’t got any,’ said Li Wan, ‘but you ought to have borrowed some from one of the young ladies to lend her. Fancy offering her your own, and in front of everyone else! It’s a good job it was Mrs Zhen. Some people would have been most offended.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said You-shi, and began to wash. The maid with the basin bent down to hold it out to her.

  ‘Where are your manners, girl?’ said Li Wan reprovingly, whereupon the maid at once went down on her knees.

  ‘Manners!’ said You-shi. ‘The outward frills of respectability! Those are the things our servants are so good at. What they actually get up to doesn’t bear much investigating.’

  Li Wan realized that she must be referring to the events of the previous night.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked smilingly. ‘What has who got up to that doesn’t bear investigating?’

  ‘Need you ask?’ said You-shi. ‘You’ve not been so ill that you’ve lost the use of your faculties!’

  Before Li Wan could reply, Bao-chai’s arrival was announced. Li Wan and You-shi both called out to her to come in. You-shi, hurriedly wiping the water from her face, got up to welcome her and made her sit down with her at the side of the bed.

  ‘On your own?’ she asked her. ‘Where are all the others?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I haven’t seen them yet. Mother isn’t very well today, and as her two senior maids are also both ill in bed and I don’t trust any of the others, I thought I had better go and stay with her for a few days. At first I was going to tell Lady Jia and Aunt Wang, but then I thought that as this is rather a small matter and I shall in any case be coming back again as soon as Mother is better I wo
uldn’t bother them but simply have a word about it with Cousin Wan.’

  Li Wan and You-shi exchanged smiles and glances. Presently, when You-shi had finished her toilet, the three of them each had a bowl of wheatmeal tea.

  ‘I must send someone to see how your mother is and find out what she is suffering from,’ said Li Wan. ‘I can’t go in person, unfortunately, because I am ill myself. Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll send someone to look after your apartment while you are away. Do come back soon, though, or I shall be blamed for your going.’

  ‘Whyever should you be?’ said Bao-chai. ‘There’s nothing unusual about my going. You are not being asked to connive at a gaol-break. And incidentally, I don’t see why it should be necessary to send anyone to my apartment. Why not simply invite Cousin Shi to stay with you for a few days? Wouldn’t that be simpler?’

  ‘While we are on the subject, where is Cousin Shi?’ said You-shi.

  ‘I sent her off just now to look for Cousin Tan,’ said Bao-chai. ‘She was to bring Cousin Tan here so that I could explain to her about going to Mother’s too.’

  By coincidence ‘Miss Shi and Miss Tan’ were at that very moment announced. As soon as they were seated, Bao-chai told Tan-chun about her intention of moving outside for a few days to look after her mother.

  ‘Very wise,’ said Tan-chun. ‘But why only stay outside until Aunt is better? Why not move outside altogether?’

  ‘That’s rather a strange way to talk,’ said You-shi, laughing. ‘It’s as though you wanted to drive our kinswoman out.’