by Cao Xueqin
Felicity produced several large keys.
‘Mrs Lian says the little tables already in use may not be enough and we’d better open the upstairs storeroom and get some more out, just for today. She meant to come over herself and see to it, but she’s with Her Ladyship at the moment and can’t get away, so she says would you mind opening the storeroom for her and getting some of the servants to carry them down?’
Li Wan sent Candida to the storeroom with the keys and told one of the old women to go to the inner gate and get some of the pages on duty there to help with the carrying. She herself went and stood in the courtyard behind Prospect Hall and watched from below while the Painted Chamber was opened up and the tables were one by one carried down from it. The team of maids, pages and old nannies worked together with such enthusiasm that soon more than twenty of the little tables had been manhandled downstairs into the courtyard.
‘Gently now, gently!’ said Li Wan as they were moving them. ‘No need to go at it as if all the devils in hell were after you! You’ll chip the edges off them if you’re not careful.’
She turned to Grannie Liu.
‘Wouldn’t you like to go up and have a look?’
The old woman needed no second asking. Holding Ban-er tightly by the hand, she scrambled up the stairway and looked inside. The interior was stacked high with folding screens, tables, chairs, lanterns and furniture of every kind. Much of what she saw she could not identify, but the dull gleam of gold, the rich glow of coloured lacquers, and the artistry and sumptuousness of the objects drew many a pious ejaculation from her before she descended. The door of the storeroom was then locked and the remaining maids came down.
‘I wonder how energetic Lady Jia will be feeling today,’ said Li Wan. ‘Perhaps while you are about it you had better get out the oars and punt-poles and paddles and some boat-awnings as well, in case she decides to go on the water.’
‘Yes’m,’ said the maids, and proceeded to unlock the storeroom again and carry down the items specified. Li Wan meanwhile sent one of the pages to tell the boatwomen that they were to pole a couple of punts out from the boathouse and have them by in readiness.
While this activity was still in progress, Grandmother Jia arrived at the head of a troupe of females. Li Wan hurried forward to greet her.
‘You are very energetic this morning, Grandmother; I didn’t expect you in the Garden so soon. I was hoping that you would still be doing your hair. I’ve picked some chrysanthemums for you to wear and I was just about to send them round to you.’
Even as she was saying this, Casta arrived carrying a large dish of peacock-green glaze shaped like a lotus-leaf, in which chrysanthemum-flowers of many different colours were being kept in moisture. Grandmother Jia chose a dark red one to fasten in the side of her hair. As she turned her head to do so, she caught sight of Grannie Liu and smiled at her in welcome.
‘Come over here! You must have one too!’
Before she had finished, Xi-feng had already seized the old woman by the hand and was dragging her over.
‘Come on, let me dress you up properly!’
She began sticking the chrysanthemums into her hair, putting them in at every angle, and continued until all the flowers in the dish had been used up. The effect was so ludicrous that Grandmother Jia and the rest all burst out laughing. Grannie Liu, not a whit perturbed, good-humouredly joined in the laughter.
‘I don’t know what my poor old head can have done to deserve so much honour,’ she said.
‘You ought to pull them out and throw them in her face,’ said the others. ‘She’s made you look like an old vamp!’
‘I may be getting on now,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘but I used to be a stylish young woman in my time. I loved to have a bit of powder for my cheek and a flower to wear in my hair. ’Tis no matter: now I shall be a stylish old ’un.’
During this exchange they had been moving towards Drenched Blossoms Pavilion. Maids went on ahead with a rolled-up patterned rug which they spread out on one of the bench-boards that ran along the inner sides of the balustrades. Seating herself on the rug with her back against the railings, Grandmother Jia invited Grannie Liu to sit down beside her and tell her what she thought of the Garden.
‘Holy Name!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘You know, we country folk like to get a picture at the New Year that we can stick up on the wall. Every year just before New Year the farmers come into town to buy one. Many’s the time of an evening when the day’s work was done we’ve sat and looked at the picture on our wall and wished we could get inside it and walk around, never imagining that such beautiful places could really be. Yet now I look at this Garden here, and it’s ten times better than any picture I ever saw. If only I could get someone to make a painting of it all, just the way it is, that I could take back to show the others, I do believe I should die content!’
Grandmother Jia smilingly pointed a finger in Xi-chun’s direction.
‘You see my little great-niece over there? She can paint. Shall we get her to do you a painting of it?’
Grannie Liu jumped up and going over to Xi-chun, took her impulsively by the hand.
‘Dear Miss!’ she said. ‘To think that one so young and pretty should be so gifted and all! I do believe you must be one of the holy spirits born in a human shape!’
The simple earnestness with which this was uttered made the others all laugh. After resting a little longer, Grandmother Jia, who intended to show her guest as much of the Garden as possible, got up again and resumed the tour.
The first place they came to was the Naiad’s House. The green bamboos engulfed them as they entered the gate and brilliant green moss carpeted the ground beneath. Through the midst of the bamboos a raised cobbled path wound its way towards the house. Grannie Liu stepped aside to let Grandmother Jia and the rest walk on it while she herself walked on the ground below. Amber held a hand out to draw her up.
‘Walk on the path, Grannie! You’ll slip on the moss down there.’
‘Don’t you mind me, my dear!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I’m used to it. You keep to the path, though, with the rest. You don’t want to muddy those fancy shoes of yours.’
Unfortunately the necessity of looking up to talk to someone who was walking at a higher level had distracted her attention from the ground beneath, and even as she said this, her feet slipped on the treacherous moss, her legs flew out from under her, and she landed on her posterior with a thump. The girls clapped their hands delightedly. Grandmother Jia laughed too, though trying her hardest to sound cross.
‘Little monsters!’ she said. ‘Don’t just stand there laughing. Help her up!’
But Grannie Liu had already scrambled up unaided, and was laughing herself.
‘It serves me right,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken so soon!’
‘Are you sure you haven’t hurt your back?’ Grandmother Jia asked her. ‘Let one of the maids massage it for you.’
‘God bless my soul!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I’m not that delicate! I don’t suppose a day goes by but what I take a tumble or two. If I was to have meself massaged every time, it would never do!’
Nightingale was already waiting with the bamboo blind raised for them to enter. Grandmother Jia led her party through the doorway and sat down inside. Dai-yu waited on her in person, offering her tea in a covered cup which she carried on a little tray.
We shan’t be taking tea, niece,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Don’t bother to pour for the rest of us.’
Hearing this, Dai-yu ordered one of the maids to fetch the chair by the window that she normally sat on herself and bring it up for her aunt to sit on. Grannie Liu noticed the inkstone and brushes on the table in front of it and all the books on the bookshelves and said that she supposed this must be ‘the young gentleman’s study’.
Grandmother Jia smiled and pointed to Dai-yu.
‘It belongs to her – my little grand-daughter.’
As though incredulous, Grannie Liu studied Dai-yu attentively for some momen
ts in silence.
‘It doesn’t look at all like a young lady’s room,’ she said finally. ‘It looks to me like a very high-class young gentleman’s study.’
‘Where is Bao-yu, by the way?’ said Grandmother Jia.
‘He’s on the lake in one of the punts,’ said the maids.
‘Oh? Whose idea was it to get the punts out?’ she asked.
‘It was my idea,’ said Li Wan hurriedly. ‘It occurred to me just now when we were getting things out of the storeroom that you might perhaps feel like going on the water today.’
Grandmother Jia was about to make some comment when Aunt Xue’s arrival was announced and she rose up, together with the rest of the company, to welcome her.
‘Aren’t you energetic today, Lady Jia!’ said Aunt Xue smilingly when all were seated once more. ‘Here already!’
‘We were just discussing what sort of fine to impose on late arrivals,’ said Grandmother Jia teasingly. ‘We didn’t have you in mind, of course!’
A certain amount of good-humoured banter followed. In the course of it Grandmother Jia chanced to notice that the gauze in Dai-yu’s windows was faded, and drew Lady Wang’s attention to it.
‘This kind of gauze looks very well on a window when it’s new,’ she said, ‘but after a while it loses its greenness. Green isn’t a suitable colour for the windows here in any case. There are no peach or apricot trees outside to make a contrast when they are in flower, and there is already enough green in all those bamboos. I seem to remember that we used to have four or five different shades of window gauze somewhere or other. You must look some out tomorrow for her and have this changed.’
‘The other day when I had to open the silk-store,’ said Xi-feng, ‘I came across a lot of rose-coloured “cicada wing” gauze in a long wooden chest. It was a beautiful fresh colour and the material was beautifully soft and light. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any quite like it before. I’d like to have taken a couple of lengths of it for facing quilts with. I’m sure it would make lovely quilts.’
‘Pooh!’ said Grandmother Jia scornfully. ‘I thought you were supposed to be such an authority on materials – and you can’t even name a gauze properly! You’re not as clever as you thought, my girl! You’ll have to watch your tongue a bit in future.’
Aunt Xue put in an extenuating word for her niece, while laughing with the rest at her discomfiture.
‘However much of an authority she may be, I’m sure she would never presume to compete with you, Lady Jia. If she is wrong about the gauze, you must give her the benefit of your greater experience and put her right. I am sure the rest of us would like to know too.’
‘As a matter of fact that gauze is a good deal older than any of you here,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘so it is not very surprising that Feng mistook it for cicada wing. There is a certain resemblance, and cicada wing is what anyone would most likely take it to be who hadn’t seen it before. The proper name for it, though, is “haze diaphene”.’
‘What a pretty name!’ said Xi-feng. ‘I must have seen several hundred different gauzes in my time, but I must confess I’ve never heard that name mentioned before.’
Grandmother Jia laughed.
‘And what great age have you now reached, my dear, to be talking so freely about your vast experience? Haze diaphene used to come in four colours: “clear-sky blue”, “russet green”, “pine green” and “old rose”. Hung up as bed-curtains or pasted in windows it looks from a distance like a coloured haze. That’s why they called it “haze diaphene”. The old rose kind is sometimes called “afterglow”. You won’t find fabric made as fine or as soft as that nowadays, not even among the gauzes made for the Imperial Household.’
‘Never mind about Feng,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘I’ve never heard about this kind of gauze before either.’
While they continued to talk about it, Xi-feng sent someone to fetch a piece from the storeroom.
‘That’s right, that’s it!’ said Grandmother Jia when it arrived. ‘When we first had it, we used it only for covering windows with, but later on we began experimenting and found that it made very good quilts and bed-curtains as well. Get a few lengths of it out tomorrow. You can use the “old rose” kind to re-cover these windows with.’
Xi-feng promised to see to it. Meanwhile the others were examining the gauze and admiring its quality. Grannie Liu was particularly impressed, uttering a whole series of ‘Holy Names’ as she subjected it to close and careful scrutiny. ‘I could never hope to get anything as good as this to make a dress with,’ she said. ‘It seems a terrible waste to use it on windows.’
‘Actually it isn’t much good for clothing,’ said Grandmother Jia.
‘What about this, then?’ said Xi-feng, pulling out a flap of the quilted crimson gauze dress she was wearing underneath her jacket and holding it up for them to see.
‘Yes, very fine,’ said Grandmother Jia, examining it. ‘Ah, yes, now there you are! This is a modern Imperial Household gauze; but you see it’s still not as good as that one there.’
‘Well, what do you make of that?’ said Xi-feng. ‘That one there is only an “Official Use” fabric, yet this one I’m wearing, which isn’t as good quality, is “Imperial Household”!’
‘Anyway, have another look tomorrow,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I think you’ll find that besides the “old rose” pieces you saw in that chest, there’s a lot of “clear-sky blue” somewhere as well. If there is, get it all out; give a length of it to our kinswoman here; I should like two lengths myself for a set of bed-hangings; and any left over can be matched with suitable lining-material and made up into waistcoats for the girls. There’s no point in keeping it until it gets mildewed.’
Xi-feng, having first promised that she would do all these things, told the servant who had brought the sample to take it back to the storeroom.
‘We’re a bit cramped in here,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Let’s move on to somewhere else now.’
‘They say that “great families live in great houses”,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘and truly, when I first went into Your Ladyship’s apartment yesterday and saw those great chests and cupboards and tables and beds, the size of everything fairly took my breath away. That great wardrobe of yours is higher and wider than one of our rooms back home. I’m not surprised you keep a ladder in the back courtyard. When I first saw it, I thought to myself, “Now what can they need a ladder for? They don’t ripen things on the roofs as we do, so it can’t be for that.” And then of course I realized: it must be for getting things out of the compartment on top of that wardrobe of yours, for you could never reach it else. And yet this place here, for all it’s so much smaller, seems to me more perfect than your big one. The things here are all so pretty. I don’t know what they are, some of them, but the more I look at them, the less I want to leave!’
‘There are other pretty places besides this,’ said Xi-feng. ‘We’re taking you to see them all.’
As they left the Naiad’s House, they could make out, at some distance from where they stood, a number of people punting on the lake. Remarking that since the boats were already out they might just as well use them, Grandmother Jia conducted her little party in the general direction of Amaryllis Eyot and Flowery Harbour. Before they had reached the water’s edge, however, a number of elderly women approached, each bearing one of those large summer food-boxes of the kind they make in Soochow, with tops and bottoms of varicoloured lacquer-work delicately patterned in needle-engraving of gold, and panels of gilded bamboo basket-work in their sides. Seeing them approach, Xi-feng asked Lady Wang where she wanted lunch to be laid.
‘Ask Grandmother,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Wherever she wants it, of course.’
Grandmother Jia, who had been moving on, now turned back to tell them.
‘Your Cousin Tan’s would be a nice place to have it. You go on ahead and lay it there, and the rest of us will follow by boat.’
Xi-feng, accompanied by Li Wan, Tan-chun, Faithful and Amber, led the women
with the lunch-boxes by a short cut to the Autumn Studio. They put out a couple of tables there in the Paulownia Room.
‘We’re often hearing how the gentlemen at their parties outside have a buffoon to provide them with their laughs,’ said Faithful while they were getting ready. ‘Today we’ve got a buffoon of our own – a female one.’
Li Wan, being a good, simple soul, did not understand what she meant; but Xi-feng knew immediately that she was referring to Grannie Liu and gleefully agreeing that they should have some laughs at the old woman’s expense, at once began plotting something with Faithful.
‘You two are awful!’ Li Wan protested laughingly. ‘Anyone would think you were a couple of mischievous children. And what will Lady Jia say?’
‘Don’t worry, Mrs Zhu!’ said Faithful. ‘You won’t be involved in this one little bit. I promise to keep you out of it.’
Grandmother Jia now arrived with the others, the company sat down informally, and maids went round and served everyone with tea. When they had all finished their tea, Xi-feng came in carrying a bundle of silver-tipped and silver-ornamented ebony chopsticks wrapped in a West Ocean linen napkin, and proceeded to lay the places.
‘Put that little yellow cedar-wood table next to my place so that Mrs Liu can sit by me,’ said Grandmother Jia.
As the maids hastened to comply, Xi-feng tipped a wink at Faithful, who took the opportunity presented by this diversion to draw Grannie Liu aside and quietly brief her on the decorums to be observed by anyone eating with the family.
‘It’s part of the rules of this household,’ she told the old woman in conclusion. ‘If you don’t do it properly, they will laugh at you.’
The places being now all laid, the company sat down to table, with the exception of Aunt Xue, who had eaten already and continued sitting where she was, drinking tea. Bao-yu, Xiang-yun, Dai-yu and Bao-chai sat at one of the two large tables with Grandmother Jia at their head, and Ying-chun, Tan-chun and Xi-chun sat at the other one, presided over by Lady Wang. Grannie Liu had a little table of her own next to Grandmother Jia.