The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  This, coming from Li Wan, effectively silenced Bao-chai’s objection.

  Some time was now spent in trying to guess answers to the riddles concealed in these poems, but all of their guesses were wrong.

  The days in winter are very short and in no time at all, it seemed, they were trooping back into the mansion for their dinner. While they were there, a message arrived for Lady Wang to say that Aroma’s brother, Hua Zi-fang, had come and was waiting outside in the front.

  ‘His mother is seriously ill and has been asking to see Aroma,’ said the messenger. ‘He asks if, as a special kindness, you will allow her to go home and see her.’

  ‘We shouldn’t dream of preventing a mother from seeing her daughter under such circumstances,’ said Lady Wang. ‘Of course she may go.’

  She called for Xi-feng and, having explained the situation to her, left it to her to decide what arrangements should be made for Aroma’s departure. Xi-feng promised to attend to the matter and hurried back to her own apartment to do so. She told Zhou Rui’s wife to break the news to Aroma about her mother. She also gave detailed instructions for the visit.

  ‘Get hold of another of the women in your group to go with you as second chaperone. And take two of the junior maids with you as well. And you’ll want four of the grooms from the front. Take responsible ones: not too young. Tell them you’ll need two carriages, one large and one small. You two can sit in the larger one with Aroma, and the two maids can go in the smaller one.’

  Zhou Rui’s wife was on the point of going off to execute these orders, but Xi-feng had evidently not finished.

  ‘Aroma’s a girl who doesn’t like fuss. You’d better tell her that it’s my wish that she should dress herself up in the very best things she’s got. Tell her to take a good big bundle of extra clothes with her as well. The cloth it’s wrapped in is to be of the highest quality. Her hand-warmer is to be a good one, too. And tell her that before she goes I want her to come here so that I can have a look at her.’

  Zhou Rui’s wife went off to do her bidding. In due course Aroma herself arrived, dressed up in all her finery. She was accompanied by Zhou Rui’s wife and the other woman and by two little maids, one carrying her bundle and the other one her hand-warmer. Xi-feng proceeded at once to inspect her, beginning at the top. Aroma’s hair, liberally studded with pearled and golden jewellery, was satisfactory; her clothing, it seemed, less so. She had on an ermine-lined silk tapestry dress of peach-pink satin, sprigged with a pattern of different sorts of flowers, a leek-green padded skirt embroidered in couched gold thread and coloured silks, and a black satin jacket lined with squirrel.

  ‘I see. These are all things that Her Ladyship gave you. That’s good. But the jacket is too plain. And it’s not warm enough for the time of year, either. You want something with a heavier fur in it.’

  ‘This is the only one she gave me,’ said Aroma, ‘and the only other one I’ve got is lined with ermine. She promised me one with a heavier fur in time for the New Year, but I haven’t been given it yet.’

  ‘I’ve got one with a heavier fur which I haven’t worn because the trimmings don’t suit me,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I’d been meaning to get it altered, but I could let you have it now if you like and you can give it back to me to have altered Her Ladyship gets this other one made that she’s promised you. We’ll call it a loan.’

  The servants laughed.

  ‘You like to have your little joke, Mrs Lian. All the year round you’re handing things out on the quiet that Her Lady-ship has overlooked, yet you never ask her for anything back for them. Why so stingy all of a sudden about a little old jacket?’

  ‘Her Ladyship can’t be expected to remember everything,’ said Xi-feng, ‘and these are, after all, rather trifling matters. Of course, someone has to think about them, for the sake of appearances. Even if it leaves me a bit out of pocket, I’ve got to see that everyone is dressed decently. If that gets me a reputation for being generous – well, that’s just one of the hardships I must learn to put up with! It would be much worse to have everyone going around looking like tramps. Think of the jokes I should hear about my housekeeping then!’

  ‘There can’t be many like you, Mrs Lian,’ said the women admiringly, ‘so considerate towards Her Ladyship and yet at the same time so thoughtful towards us servants. You really do think of everything.’

  While they were praising her, Xi-feng was already ordering Patience to fetch the jacket she had mentioned. It had in fact arrived from the tailor’s only a day or two previously. It was a very grand one, in slate-blue satin, with eight large, embroidery-like silk tapestry roundels woven into it, and with a lining of arctic fox. After giving Aroma the jacket, Xi-feng inspected her bundle. The carrying-cloth was of silk gauze in a nondescript black-and-white pattern, lined with strawberry-coloured silk. All she had got wrapped up in it were a couple of padded dresses, by no means new, and her other fur-lined jacket. Xi-feng told Patience to fetch a better carrying-cloth – one made of a good-quality foreign broadcloth and lined with turquoise-coloured silk – and a snow-cape to add to the contents of her bundle. Patience went off to get them. When she came back she was carrying not one snow-cape but two: one of them, in dark-red felt, showed signs of wear; the other, in dark-red camlet, seemed to be almost new.

  Aroma protested.

  ‘I can’t possibly take both of these,’ she said. ‘Even one of these would seem a bit on the grand side for me.’

  ‘Just pack the felt one,’ said Patience. ‘You can carry the other one on your arm and on your way out get someone to take it over to Miss Xing. Yesterday when we had that heavy snow there were ten or a dozen of them all wearing felt or camlet snow-capes. They made quite a picture in their red capes against the background of white snow. She was the only one there who hadn’t got one. She looked all hunched-up with the cold, poor thing: I felt really sorry for her. Let her have the camlet one.’

  ‘See how liberal she is with my possessions,’ Xi-feng expostulated jokingly. ‘Heavens, girl, I give enough away already without needing you to help me!’

  ‘Like mistress, like maid,’ said the woman who had spoken before. ‘It’s because you yourself are so considerate towards Her Ladyship and so kind to us servants that she feels free to behave in that way. If you were a mean, tight-fisted sort of person, she’d never dare.’

  Xi-feng laughed.

  ‘I suppose you could say that she understands me a bit – about thirty per cent perhaps!’

  She turned back to Aroma to deliver her parting instructions.

  ‘We must hope that your mother recovers, but if by any chance she doesn’t, you will obviously have to stay on for a bit. Let me know, in that case, and I’ll have your bedding sent on to you. Don’t use their bedding or any of their toilet things.’ She turned to Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘You know our rules, don’t you? I don’t need to go over them again.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘All their people are to keep away from us while we are there, and if we stay they have to give us one or two inside rooms to ourselves.’

  With that she accompanied Aroma outside and called to the pages to fetch lanterns, for it was already getting dark. The little party then made its way to the carriages, and having disposed themselves inside them, were driven off to Hua Zi-fang’s house, where our story leaves them.

  Back at the mansion Xi-feng summoned two of the nannies from Green Delights.

  ‘I doubt very much whether Aroma will be coming back for a day or two,’ she told them. ‘You’d better tell whichever two of the senior maids you think are most reliable to be on call at night in Bao-yu’s room while she is away. And keep an eye on things yourselves. See that he doesn’t get up to mischief.’

  The two women went off, saying that they would attend to the matter, and a little later came back to report on what they had arranged.

  ‘We’ve put Skybright and Musk on night-call in his room. There are always four of us outside, of course. We take it in turns to
be on duty throughout the night.’

  Xi-feng nodded.

  ‘See that he goes to bed early and doesn’t get up too late.’

  The old women promised, and went back into the Garden.

  Not long after this Zhou Rui’s wife returned with the message that Xi-feng had been half expecting: Aroma’s mother had already breathed her last and Aroma would be unable to come back. Xi-feng went off to report this news to Lady Wang. She also sent someone into the Garden to collect Aroma’s bedding and toilet things. Bao-yu stood by and supervised, while Skybright and Musk got them ready.

  When Aroma’s things had been despatched, the two girls removed their hair ornaments and changed into their nightclothes. Skybright showed no disposition, after changing, to remove herself from the clothes-warmer over which she was crouched.

  ‘Now don’t start acting the young lady,’ said Musk. ‘I advise you to stir yourself a bit.’

  ‘I’ll stir myself soon enough when you are out of the way,’ said Skybright. ‘As long as you are around, I might as well take it easy.’

  ‘Now come on, there’s a good girl!’ said busy Musk. ‘I’ll make his bed and you can put the cover over the dressing-mirror and fasten the catch. You’re taller than I am.’

  She bustled off and began making up Bao-yu’s bed.

  ‘Hai’ said Skybright disgustedly. ‘Just as I was beginning to get warm!’

  Bao-yu, who up to that moment had been sitting apart, abstractedly wondering about Aroma’s mother (he had still not been told of her death), chanced suddenly to catch this remark. At once he got up, went into the next room, and attended to the dressing-mirror himself.

  ‘Carry on warming yourself,’ he said with a smile to Sky-bright as he came in again, ‘I’ve done it for you.’

  ‘I don’t think I shall ever get warm,’ said Skybright. ‘And I’ve just remembered: I haven’t brought in the hot-water bottle.’

  ‘How thoughtful we are all of a sudden!’ said Musk. ‘He never has a hot-water bottle. And we shan’t need one tonight. It’ll be much warmer in here on the clothes-warmer than it is on the kang in the other room.’

  ‘You’re not both going to sleep on the clothes-warmer, are you?’ said Bao-yu. ‘I shall be scared, all on my own in the closet-bed with nobody near me. I shan’t be able to sleep.’

  ‘Well, I’m sleeping on the clothes-warmer at all events,’ said Skybright. ‘Let Musk sleep beside the closet-bed.’

  The time was well after nine. Musk, who had by this time let down the curtains, moved the lamp to its night-time position, and lit the slow-burning incense, now helped Bao-yu into bed and tucked him up. After that she and Skybright themselves settled down for the night, Skybright on top of the clothes-warmer and Musk outside the curtains which separated the alcove of the closet-bed from the rest of the room.

  Some time in the middle watch of the night Bao-yu called out for Aroma a couple of times in his sleep and, not getting the customary response, woke up. Awake he remembered, with some amusement, that Aroma was not there to answer. The noise he made had woken Skybright, who called out from where she lay to Musk.

  ‘Musk! He’s even woken me up, over here. Do you mean to say you really haven’t heard anything, lying there right beside him? You must sleep like a corpse!’

  Musk turned over and yawned.

  ‘He was calling for Aroma; what’s it got to do with me? – What do you want?’ she asked Bao-yu.

  ‘I want some tea,’ he said.

  Musk hopped out of bed to get him some. She was wearing only a quilted red silk tunic.

  ‘You’ll get cold,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Put my fur gown on.’

  She picked up the winter dressing-gown that lay always ready beside him, in case he should need to get up during the night. It was lined with the orange-yellow chest fur of pine-martens and had a big fur collar. Slipping the gown over her shoulders, Musk first washed her hands in the basin, then she poured him a cup of hot water and held the spittoon for him to spit into when he had washed his mouth out. After that she took a teacup from the shelf where the tea-things were kept, rinsed it out with hot water, and filled it from a pot in a padded wicker case in which ready-brewed tea was kept warm for such emergencies. Having ministered to Bao-yu’s wants, she rinsed her own mouth out with the hot water and poured half a cup of tea out for herself.

  ‘Musk,’ Skybright called out to her, ‘give us a drop too, there’s a dear!’

  ‘What a nerve!’

  ‘Go on!’ said Skybright. ‘Tomorrow night you can lie back all night long and let me wait on you.’

  Musk held out the spittoon, as she had done for Bao-yu, while Skybright rinsed her mouth out, then fetched her half a cupful of tea.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep yet, you two,’ she said, as soon as Skybright had been attended to. ‘Keep talking while I go outside for a bit.’

  ‘There’s a ghost waiting for you out there,’ said Skybright.

  ‘There’s no ghost out there, but there’s a very fine moon,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Go ahead: we’ll keep talking, don’t worry!’

  He coughed significantly.

  Musk opened the door and lifted up the felt portière. There was, as Bao-yu had predicted, a beautiful moon outside. As soon as she had gone out, Skybright slipped down from the clothes-warmer and tip-toed after her, intending to give her a scare. Physically the hardiest of the maids and, as a rule, the one who was least afraid of the cold, she went as she was, with nothing but a short tunic to cover her. Bao-yu tried to dissuade her from going out.

  ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. If you catch cold, it won’t be quite so funny.’

  But Skybright motioned impatiently to him to be quiet and crept out of the door.

  The moonlight outside was like water. Suddenly she heard the wind. It was only a brief, faint gust, but the chill of it penetrated to the marrow of her bones and made her shudder.

  ‘It’s certainly true what they say about a warm body fearing the wind,’ she reflected. ‘This cold is really no joke.’

  She was still determined to frighten Musk; but just as she was about to do so, Bao-yu called out in a loud voice from indoors.

  ‘Careful Musk! Skybright’s outside.’

  Immediately Skybright ran in again.

  ‘What an old woman you are!’ she said. ‘The shock wouldn’t have killed her.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking about that,’ said Bao-yu. ‘I was worried about your catching cold; and besides, if she’d called out when you startled her she might have woken somebody up, and you know what it would have been like then. They’d never have believed it was a practical joke, they’d have said, “Just look, Aroma only away for a single night and already the girls in his room are seeing things. Not one of them’s to be trusted.” Come on, come over here and tuck this quilt in for me.’

  Skybright went over to arrange his bedding. While she was doing so, she stuck one of her hands inside the cover and held it against his skin.

  ‘Your hand is freezing!’ he said. ‘I told you you’d get cold.’

  He noticed how red her cheeks were and put out his hand to touch them. They were as cold as ice.

  ‘Quick, you’d better get inside here and warm up,’ he said.

  Just as she did so, there was a loud bang and Musk rushed giggling into the room, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Whew, what a shock!’ she said. ‘I thought I saw someone crouching down in the shadows behind the rockery. Actually it was that long-tailed pheasant. I was just going to cry out, when it heard me coming and flew up into the light, so that I could see what it was. If I’d lost my head and started screaming, I might have woken everybody up.’

  She said this while washing her hands. Presently she finished washing and laughed.

  ‘Did you say Skybright had gone outside? I wonder why I didn’t see her. I bet she went outside to scare me.’

  ‘What’s this lump here then?’ said Bao-yu. ‘She’s down in here getting warm. She did go outside. If I hadn’t calle
d out when I did, she would have scared you.’

  ‘She doesn’t need me to scare her, silly little goose!’ said Skybright, laughing, from inside the bedclothes. ‘By the looks of it she’s perfectly capable of scaring herself!’

  She emerged from Bao-yu’s bedding now and crossed the room to the clothes-warmer to get inside her own. Musk gazed at her incredulously as she did so.

  ‘Is that all you were wearing when you went outside, that circus rider’s outfit you’ve got on now?’

  ‘That’s all she was wearing,’ said Bao-yu.

  ‘You’ll die before your time!’ said Musk. ‘What, standing around with only that on? It’s enough to freeze the skin off you!’

  She took the copper cover off the brazier and damped down the glowing charcoal by shovelling some ash on to it with the fire-shovel. Before replacing the cover, she threw on a couple of pieces of agalloch to sweeten the air. Then she went behind the screen and trimmed the lamp up. After that she too went back to bed.

  The effect on Skybright of the sudden change of temperature was to make her sneeze. Bao-yu groaned.

  ‘I told you so. You have caught a cold.’

  ‘She was complaining that she didn’t feel too good when we got up this morning,’ said Musk, ‘and she hasn’t eaten properly all day. Yet instead of looking after herself she has to go playing pranks on people outside. It will be her own silly fault if she is ill tomorrow.’