by Cao Xueqin
“I should hope not, after I’ve brought it back to you. But how are you going to thank the man who found it?”
“Don’t be silly. He’s a young gentleman. It’s only right he should return what he finds. How could I reward him?”
“If you don’t, what am I to say to him? Besides, he told me repeatedly he wouldn’t let me give you this unless you offered him some reward.”
A short silence followed.
“All right,” came the answer at last. “Give him this from me to thank him. But swear you won’t let on to a soul.”
“If I do, may a boil break out in my mouth and may I die a miserable death!”
Then a note of alarm was sounded.
“Goodness! We’ve been so busy talking, what if someone’s eavesdropping outside? We’d better open the windows. Then if people see us they’ll assume we’re just chatting. And if anyone comes near we’ll see her and can change the subject.”
Baochai could hardly believe her ears.
“No wonder they say wicked people have always been cunning!” she thought. “How they’re going to blush when they open the window and see me! One of them sounded like that sly, conceited Xiaohong who works for Baoyu. She’s a strange crafty creature if ever I saw one. ‘Desperation drives men to rebel and a dog to jump over a wall.’ If she thinks I know her secret there may be trouble, and that would be awkward for me. Well, it’s too late to hide now. I must try to avoid suspicion by throwing them off the scent....”
That same instant she heard the thud of a window opening. At once she ran forward as noisily as she could, calling out laughingly:
“Where are you hiding, Daiyu?”
Xiaohong and Zhuier, who had just opened the window, were staggered to see her before them.
“Where have you hidden Miss Lin?” Baochai asked them merrily.
“Miss Lin? We haven’t seen her,” Zhuier answered.
“Just now, from the other bank, I saw her crouching here dabbling in the water. I meant to take her by surprise but she spotted me coming and dashed off to the east. And now she’s disappeared. Are you sure she’s not hiding in there?”
She deliberately went in and made a search before going on.
“She must have popped into some cave in the rocks,” she muttered. “If a snake bites her, serve her right.”
With that she went off, laughing up her sleeve at the way she had foxed them and wondering what they were thinking.
Xiaohong, in fact, had been quite taken in. As soon as Baochai was safely out of earshot she caught Zhuier by the arm.
“Heaven help us!” she whispered. “If Miss Lin was here she must have overheard us.”
Zhuier said nothing, and a long pause followed.
“What shall we do?” asked Xiaohong.
“What if she did hear? This is none of her business.”
“It wouldn’t have been so bad Miss Xue overhearing. But Miss Lin’s narrow-minded and likes to make cutting remarks. If she heard, and gives us away, what shall we do?”
A stop was put to this discussion by the arrival of Wenguan with Xiangling, Siqi and Daishu. The two girls chatted with them as if nothing had happened until Xiaohong saw Xifeng beckoning from the slope. Leaving the other girls, she ran over to her.
“Can I do anything for Your Ladyship?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
Xifeng had a close look at her and was favourably impressed by her neat good looks and pleasant way of talking.
“I didn’t bring my maids with me today,” she said. “But now I’ve remembered something I want done. Do you think you could deliver a message correctly?” Xiaohong smiled.
“Just give me your instructions, madam. If I don’t get the message right and hold up your business, you can punish me.”
“Tell me, which of the young ladies do you work for? Then I can explain where you are if she asks for you.”
“I’m attached to Master Bao’s apartments.” Xifeng chuckled.
“I see. That accounts for it. All right, if he asks, I’ll let him know where you are. Now go to my house and tell your sister Pinger that she’ll find a packet containing a hundred and sixty taels of silver under the stand of the ju-ware plate on the table in the outer room. That’s for the embroiderers. When Zhang Cai’s wife comes, she’s to weigh it in her presence and let her take it. And there’s another thing. I want you to bring me the pouch which is by the pillow on the bed in the inner room.”
Xiaohong went off to carry out these orders. She returned presently to find that Xifeng had vanished. But Siqi had just emerged from a cave and stopped to fasten her skirt. Xiaohong approached her.
“Know where the Second Mistress has gone?” she asked.
“I didn’t notice.”
Xiaohong looked around and went to ask Tanchun and Baochai, who were watching the fish not far off.
“You’ll find her with Madam Li Wan, I think,” Tanchun told her.
Xiaohong promptly set off to Paddy-Sweet Cottage, but on the way met Qingwen and half a dozen other maids.
“Still prancing about!” exclaimed Qingwen as soon as she set eyes on her. “You haven’t watered the flowers, fed the birds or lit the tea-stove in our courtyard, yet you gad about outside.”
“Yesterday Master Bao said the flowers needn’t be watered today— once every other day would do,” Xiaohong retorted. “I fed the birds while you were still asleep.”
“And what about the tea-stove?” demanded Bihen.
“It’s not my turn today, so don’t ask me whether there’s any tea or not.”
“Just listen to the way she talks,” jeered Yixian. “You’d all better keep quiet and let her fool about.”
“Who says I was fooling about?” snapped Xiaohong. “I’ve been on an errand for the Second Mistress.”
With that she showed them the pouch to silence them, and they parted company.
“No wonder!” Qingwen snorted as they walked on. “Now that she’s climbed to a higher branch of the tree, she won’t pay any more attention to us. Our lady may have thrown her a word or two, without even knowing her name, and she’s already eaten up with pride. What’s so marvellous about running a little errand? We shall see if anything comes of it or not. If she’s all that clever she’d better clear out of this Garden and stay perched on the top of the tree.”
Xiaohong could hardly have it out with her. Swallowing her resentment she went on and found Xifeng, sure enough, chatting in Li Wan’s apartment. She stepped forward to make her report.
“Sister Pinger said, madam, that as soon as Your Ladyship left she put away the money; and when Zhang Cai’s wife came for it, she weighed it in her presence and gave it to her.” She handed the pouch to Xifeng and continued, “Sister Pinger asked me to tell Your Ladyship: Just now Lai Wang came to ask for your instructions before setting out to the mansion where you sent him, and she sent him off after explaining Your Ladyship’s wishes.”
“How did she explain my wishes?” Xifeng smiled. “She said, ‘Our lady sends her compliments to Her Ladyship. Our Second Master is away from home now, so Her Ladyship shouldn’t worry over a couple of days’ delay. When the Fifth Mistress is better, our lady will come with her to see Her Ladyship. The Fifth Mistress sent a servant the other day to report that our lady’s sister-in-law had inquired after Her Ladyship in a letter, and hoped her sister-in-law here would oblige her with two longevity pills. If Her Ladyship has any to spare, please send them to our lady, and the next person to go that way will deliver them to her sister-in-law.”’
“Mercy on us!” cut in Li Wan with a laugh. “I’ve lost track of all these ladies and mistresses.”
“I don’t blame you.” Xifeng smiled. “There are five families involved.” She turned to Xiaohong. “You’re a good child and deliver messages clearly, not like some who mince their words or buzz like mosquitoes. You know,” she turned to Li Wan, “my dear sister-in-law, I can’t stand talking to most of the maids, apart from, the few in my service. They don’t know it, b
ut I find it quite maddening the way they pad out a sentence and then break it down into several, the way they mince, drawl and stutter. Our Pinger used to be as bad as the rest. I asked her: Does a pretty girl have to buzz like a mosquito? And after a few scoldings she improved.”
Li Wan laughed.
“Not everyone is a termagant like you.”
“But I like this girl,” Xifeng continued. “Admittedly, her two messages weren’t long, but she spoke to the point.” She smiled at Xiaohong. “You must come and work for me. I’ll make you my adopted daughter and see that you turn out all right.”
Xiaohong burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” demanded Xifeng. “Do you think, because I’m not much older than you, I’m too young to be your mother? If so, you’re crazy. Just ask around. There are plenty of people twice your age eager to call me mother—if only I’d let them. I’m doing you an honour.”
“That wasn’t why I laughed,” replied Xiaohong. “I laughed because Your Ladyship has got my generation wrong. My mother’s Your Ladyship’s adopted daughter, yet now you talk of me as a daughter too.”
“Who’s your mother?”
“Don’t you know her?” put in Li Wan with a smile. “This child is Lin Zhixiao’s daughter.”
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Xifeng in surprise. “Why, you can’t get a word out of Lin Zhixiao and his wife, not even if you stick an awl into them. I’ve always said they were a well-matched couple, deaf muses the pair of them. Who could have believed they’d produce such a clever daughter? How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Next she was asked her name.
“I was first called Hongyu,” she answered. “But because of the ‘yu’ in Master Bao’s name they call me Xiaohong now.” Xifeng frowned and tossed her head.
“Disgusting! You’d think there was something special about ‘yu,’ the way everybody wants that name. So in that case you can work for me. You know, sister-in-law, I told her mother, ‘Lai Da’s wife has her hands full, and anyway she’s no idea who’s who in this household. You choose a couple of good maids for me.’ And she promised that’s what she’d do. But instead, she sends this daughter of hers somewhere else. Did she think the girl would have a bad time with me?”
“How suspicious you are,” teased Li Wan. “This child was already here by then. How can you blame her mother?”
“In that case, I’ll tell Baoyu to ask for someone else and send this girl to me—if she’s willing, that is.”
Xiaohong smiled.
“Willing? As if that were for us to say! But if only I could work for Your Ladyship, I’d learn some manners and get more experience.”
As she said this a maid came from Lady Wang to summon Xifeng, who took her leave of Li Wan. And Xiaohong went back to Happy Red Court, where we leave her.
Let us return to Daiyu, who had risen late after a sleepless night. When she heard that the other girls were farewelling the God of Flowers in the Garden, for fear of being laughed at for laziness she made haste to dress and go out. She was crossing the courtyard when Baoyu came in.
“Dear cousin, did you tell on me yesterday?” he greeted her laughingly. “You had me worrying the whole night long.”
Daiyu turned away from him to Zijuan.
“When you’ve tidied the rooms, close the screen windows,” she instructed. “As soon as the big swallows come back, you can let down the curtains. Hold them in place by moving the lions against them. And cover the censer once the incense is lit.”
As she said this, she walked on.
Baoyu attributed this cold behaviour to the lines he had quoted at noon the previous day, having no idea of the incident in the evening. He bowed and raised his clasped hands in salute, but Daiyu simply ignored him, walking straight off to find the other girls.
Baoyu was puzzled.
“Surely what happened yesterday can’t account for this?” he thought. “And I came back too late in the evening to see her again, so how else can I have offended her?”
With these reflections, he trailed after her.
Daiyu joined Baochai and Tanchun, who were both watching the storks dancing, and the three girls were chatting together when Baoyu arrived.
“How are you, brother?” asked Tanchun. “It’s three whole days since last I saw you.”
“How are you, sister?” he rejoined. “The other day I was asking our elder sister-in-law about you.”
“Come over here. I want to talk to you.”
The pair of them strolled aside under a pomegranate tree away from the other two.
“Has father sent for you these last few days?” asked Tanchun. Baoyu smiled. “No, he hasn’t.”
“Oh, I thought someone told me he sent for you yesterday.”
“That someone must have misheard. He didn’t.” Tanchun chuckled.
“These last few months I’ve saved a dozen strings of cash. I want you to take them. Next time you go out you can buy me some good calligraphy and paintings, or some amusing toys.”
“In my strolls through the squares and temple markets inside and outside the city,” Baoyu told her, “I haven’t seen anything novel or really well made. Nothing but curios of gold, jade, bronze or porcelain, which would be out of place here. Or things like silk textiles, food and clothing.”
“That’s not what I mean. No, but things like you bought me last time: little willow baskets, incense-boxes carved out of bamboo roots, and tiny clay stoves. They were so sweet, I just loved them! But the other people fell in love with them too and grabbed them as if they were treasures.”
Baoyu laughed.
“If that’s what you want, those things are dirt cheap. Just give five hundred cash to the pages and they’ll fetch you two cartloads.”
“Those fellows have no taste. Please choose some things which are simple without being vulgar, and genuine instead of artificial. Do get me a whole lot more, and I’ll make you another pair of slippers. I’ll put even more work into them than last time. How’s that?”
“That reminds me.” Baoyu grinned. “I was wearing your slippers one day when I met father. He asked me disapprovingly who’d made them. It wouldn’t have done to tell him it was you, sister; so I said they were a present from Aunt Wang on my last birthday. There wasn’t much he could say to that, but after an awful silence he commented, ‘What a waste of time and energy and good silk.’ When I told Xiren she said: ‘Never mind that, but the concubine Zhao’s been complaining bitterly, “Her own younger brother Huan’s shoes and socks are in holes yet she doesn’t care. Instead she embroiders slippers for Baoyu. ““‘ Tanchun frowned.
“Did you ever hear such nonsense?” she fumed. “Is it my job to make shoes? Doesn’t Huan have his fair share of clothes, shoes and socks, not to mention a whole roomful of maids and servants? What has she got to complain of? Who’s she trying to impress? If I make a pair of slippers in my spare time, I can give them to any brother I choose and no one has any right to interfere. She’s crazy, carrying on like that.”
Baoyu nodded and smiled.
“Still, it’s natural, you know, for her to see things rather differently.”
This only enraged Tanchun more. She tossed her head.
“Now you’re talking nonsense too. Of course she sees things differently with that sly, low, dirty mind of hers. Who cares what she thinks? I don’t owe any duty to anyone except our parents. If my sisters, brothers and cousins are nice to me, I’ll be nice to them too, regardless of which is the child of a wife or the child of a concubine. Properly speaking, I shouldn’t say such things, but really that woman’s the limit!
“Let me tell you another ridiculous thing too. Two days after I gave you that money to buy knick-knacks, she complained to me she was hard up. I paid no attention, of course. But after my maids left the room, she started scolding me for giving my savings to you instead of to Huan. I didn’t know whether to laugh or lose my temper. So I left her and went to Her Ladyship.”
B
ut now Baochai called to them laughingly: “Haven’t you talked long enough? It’s clear you’re brother and sister, the way you leave other people out in the cold to discuss your private affairs. Aren’t we allowed to hear a single word?”
They smiled at that and joined her.
Meanwhile Daiyu had disappeared, and Baoyu knew she was avoiding him. He decided to wait a couple of days for the storm to blow over before approaching her again. Then, lowering his head, he noticed that the ground was strewn with balsam and pomegranate petals.
“She’s too angry even to gather up the blossom,” he sighed. “I’ll take these over and try to speak to her tomorrow.”
At this point Baochai urged them to take a stroll.
“I’ll join you later,” he said.
As soon as the other two had gone, he gathered up the fallen flowers in the skirt of his gown and made his way over a small hill, across a stream and through an orchard towards the mound where Daiyu had buried the peach-blossom. Just before rounding the hill by the flower’s grave he caught the sound of sobs on the other side. Someone was lamenting and weeping there in a heart-rending fashion.
“Some maid’s been badly treated and come here to cry,” he thought. “I wonder which of them it is.”
He halted to listen. And this is what he heard:
As blossoms fade and fly across the sky,
Who pities the faded red, the scent that has been?
Softly the gossamer floats over spring pavilions,
Gently the willow fluff wafts to the embroidered screen.
A girl in her chamber mourns the passing of spring,
No relief from anxiety her poor heart knows;
Hoe in hand she steps through her portal,
Loath to tread on the blossom as she comes and goes.
Willows and elms, fresh and verdant,
Care not if peach and plum blossom drift away;
Next year the peach and plum will bloom again,
But her chamber may stand empty on that day.
By the third month the scented nests are built,
But the swallows on the beam are heartless all;