The Warning Voice (15 page)

He stood and gazed at the tree. They were Du Mu's lines, written on his last visit to Hu-zhou, when he met the beautiful young dancer of a dozen years before and found that she was now a married woman with a brood of children. How did it go?

‘That bird must have come here when the tree was in
blossom,' he told himself. ‘What he's singing is a lament at finding the blossoms gone. You can tell it's a lament by the sound. Pity Gong-ye Chang, who understood the language of birds, isn't around! I could have asked him what it was saying. I wonder if it will remember to come here next year when the apricot-tree is in flower again?'

His reverie was interrupted by a sudden burst of flame beyond the rockery which caused the bird to fly off in alarm. Bao-yu was almost as startled as the bird. The brief crackle of flames was followed by an outburst of angry shouting.

‘Nénuphar, you little wretch, how dare you burn paper offerings here in the Garden! I'm going straight off to report you. You're in for a whipping, my girl.'

Wondering what on earth could be happening, Bao-yu hurried round to the other side of the rockery to investigate. A tear-stained Nénuphar crouched on the ground, holding the chafing-dish with which the recent blaze had been kindled, and gazing with a sorrowful expression at the charred, still smouldering remains of a pile of gold paper ‘spirit money'.

‘Who's it for?' he asked her. ‘You really shouldn't burn it here, you know. I suppose it must be for one of your parents – or is it for a brother, perhaps? Tell me the person's name and I'll get my boys to go out and buy a proper
baofu
for you and write the name on it.'

When she saw that it was Bao-yu, Nénuphar closed her lips tightly and no amount of questioning would elicit an answer from her. Just then the woman he had heard shouting came hurrying back, an evil expression of triumph on her face, and seized hold of the girl.

‘Well, I've reported you to the young mistresses,' she said, ‘and they're very, very angry.'

Nénuphar was still only a child. Terrified of the humiliation that awaited her, she now made a childish attempt to resist going.

‘I said all along you were getting above yourselves,' said the woman. ‘You can't do as you please in here like you could outside. It's different here. We like to have a bit of law and order.' She pointed to Bao-yu. ‘Even Master Bao has to abide by the rules. I don't know what sort of a young madam you
think you are to come along here and start breaking them. Come on! It's too late to start being afraid now. You'll have to come along and see them.'

‘That's not spirit money,' said Bao-yu hurriedly. ‘It's waste paper she's been burning for Miss Lin. You should have looked more carefully before you reported her.'

To Nénuphar in her desperation Bao-yu's appearance on the scene had been an added terror. She could hardly believe her ears when she heard him covering up for her. Her fear gave way to a surprised delight and she plucked up courage to defend herself.

‘Yes, what makes you so sure it was spirit money? That was used writing-paper of Miss Lin's.'

But the woman was unimpressed. Stooping down, she picked out one or two of the unconsumed fragments from the ashes.

‘Don't argue with me! Here's evidence! You'll have to come with me to the jobs room and explain yourself to them there.'

She took hold of Nénuphar by the sleeve and began dragging her off; but Bao-yu held her by the other sleeve and struck at the woman's hand with his walking-stick until she let go.

‘Take those bits of paper to them if you must,' he said. ‘I suppose I shall have to tell you. Last night I dreamed that the Spirit of the Apricot-tree came to me and said that if I wanted to get better quickly, I must have an offering of spirit money made to her. She said it had to be made by a stranger, not by anyone from my own room, and no one else must know about it. And now, after I've been to the trouble of getting the stuff and finding this girl to make the offering for me, it's all wasted, because you saw her doing it. This is the first day I've been up since my illness. If I get ill again now, it will be your fault. Do you still want to take her? Nénuphar, go with her and see them. Tell them exactly what I have just said. And when my grandmother gets back I shall tell
her
what happened. I shall tell her that this woman interrupted you deliberately.'

Nénuphar was by now thoroughly cock-a-hoop. Now it was she who was tugging at the woman. The woman threw the bits of paper to the ground and addressed herself beseechingly to Bao-yu, a sickly smile on her face:

‘I didn't know, really I didn't. If you tell Her Old Ladyship that, it will be all up with me.'

‘Don't report back then, and I won't tell her.'

‘But when I reported just now, they said I was to bring her,' said the woman. ‘I'd better tell them she's been called away by Miss Lin.'

Bao-yu thought for a bit and then nodded. The woman went off to do as she had said. When she had gone, Bao-yu resumed his questioning.

‘Who
was
it for then? I'm sure it wasn't for anyone in your family. Is it a secret?'

Nénuphar was grateful to Bao-yu for having protected her. Knowing now that he was a kindred spirit and to be trusted, she could hardly refuse him any longer. There were tears in her eyes when she answered:

‘Besides myself there are only two other people in the world who know about this: Parfumée in your room and Éitamine in Miss Bao's. After what happened today, I think I shall have to let you be a third; but you must promise never to speak about it to anyone else.'

She began to cry.

‘It's no good,' she said. ‘I can't say it to your face. After you've got back, when there's no one else around, you can get Parfumée to tell you.'

She slipped away then, leaving him full of curiosity.

Continuing his walk to the Naiad's House, he found Dai-yu looking thinner than ever but feeling, she assured him, very much better than she had been a few days earlier. She noticed how much thinner
he
had become, and the recollection of what had caused them both to look so haggard provoked the shedding of a few tears. They had not been speaking for more than a few minutes when, mindful that he was still convalescent, she urged him to go back and rest and he felt obliged to obey her.

When he got back, he was anxious to ask Parfumée about Nénuphar's secret, but Xiang-yun and Caltrop had just arrived and were engaged in lively conversation with her and Aroma in the adjoining room. Fearing that if he called her to him the others might ask questions, he resolved to be patient.

After a while Parfumée went off with her foster-mother to have her hair washed. Her foster-mother had already let her own daughter wash her hair in the water. When Parfumée noticed this, she was loud in protest.

‘What, give me the water your daughter's washed in? Considering you take the whole of my monthly allowance, I think I deserve better than left-overs!'

Angry – the more so because she was in the wrong – the woman shouted back at her.

‘Ungrateful little wretch! I'm not surprised they say players are hard folk to handle. However good a person may be to start with, once they get into that profession, they're ruined. You'd never think a scrubby little creature like this could have so many airs and graces. Nothing but the best for young madam! Sixes or aces, nothing else! And such a spiteful, sharp little tongue if she doesn't get what she wants! Worse than a biting mule!'

The two of them began to go at it then, hammer and tongs. Aroma sent someone outside to quieten them:

‘A little less shouting, you two! Just because Her Old Ladyship isn't here, nobody seems able to say anything without hollering at the tops of their voices!'

‘It's that Parfumée making trouble,' said Skybright. ‘I don't know what makes her think she's so wonderful. Just because she knows a few plays, you'd think she'd won the war or something!'

‘It takes two to make an argument,' said Aroma. ‘The older one shouldn't be so unjust and the younger one shouldn't be so unpleasant.'

‘You can't blame Parfumée,' said Bao-yu. ‘“Any departure from the straight or even causes things to give voice.” A famous philosopher wrote that. She's here without parents or anyone to look after her. This woman takes her money and then doesn't treat her properly. If that's not a departure from the straight and even, I don't know what is. You can hardly blame her for giving voice about it! How much does she get a month, anyway?' he asked Aroma. ‘Wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if
you
took the money and looked after her yourself?'

‘I don't mind looking after her,' said Aroma, ‘but if I do, it certainly won't be for the money. It wouldn't be worth making enemies over.'

She got up as she said this and, going into the other room, took a little bottle of Oil of Flowers, some hen's eggs, some soap and a hair-string and told one of the old women to convey them to Parfumée outside.

‘Tell her to stop quarrelling. Tell her she can get some more water and wash her own hair with these.'

Unfortunately the foster-mother chose to regard this as a public humiliation for her and grew even angrier.

‘You wicked child,' she said to Parfumée, ‘pretending that I keep back your money!'

She dealt her a couple of slaps, whereupon Parfumée burst out crying. Bao-yu was about to rush outside, but Aroma restrained him.

‘What are you doing?
I
'll speak to her.'

But Skybright had already darted outside and was pointing at the woman angrily:

‘You ought to know better, at your age! If we give her the things to wash her hair with that you wouldn't give her yourself, you ought to feel ashamed. I don't know how you can have the face to hit her. You wouldn't have dared hit her if she'd been in the school still, carrying on with her training.'

‘I hit her for trying to show me up in public,' said the woman. ‘I'm her foster-mother. I've a right to.'

‘Musk,' said Aroma, ‘I'm no good at arguing with people and Skybright is too excitable.
You'
ll have to go and deal with her.'

Musk hurried over.

‘All right, all right. There's no need to shout. Let me just ask you this one question. When have you ever seen anyone punishing their daughter in the master's or mistress's presence – I don't just mean here, I mean anywhere in the whole Garden? Even in the case of a real daughter, not just a foster-daughter, once she's left home and gone into service it's for her master or mistress to punish her or the senior maids. We can't have
parents
chipping in all the time – otherwise how should we ever manage to train a girl? I don't know!
You people, the older you get, the worse you seem to behave! It's not so long ago that we had Trinket's mother in here making a scene. I suppose she must be your model. But don't worry. During these last few days what with this one ill and that one ill and Her Old Ladyship busy all the time with other matters we haven't had a chance to report anything. But give us a few more days. We shall find an opportunity. We'll tell her everything. Then perhaps we shall see some of you highhanded people taken down a peg. And another thing. There's Bao-yu in there only just beginning to get better – even
we
daren't raise our voices above a whisper – yet here are you hitting a girl outside his room and making her cry like a howling wolf or a banshee. The top people only have to be away from the house for a day or two and already you are behaving as if you were above the law. No one is safe from you. A few more days and you'll be hitting
us
, I shouldn't wonder! If you ask me, you're the sort of foster-mother the girl could do without. If you think the plant will only flourish with
your
tender care, you're very much mistaken!'

Bao-yu was so angry that he banged on the threshold with his stick.

‘These old women have hearts of stone. It's bad enough that they can't look after the girls, but to go maltreating them as well…!

Almighty earth and heaven, what's to do?'

‘What's to do?' said Skybright. ‘Send the lot of them packing, useless baggages!'

The woman, shamed into silence by Musk's tirade, made no reply.

Musk looked at Parfumée, in her crabflower-red padded tunic and patterned green silk trousers unbound at the ankles, her glossy black hair hanging down her back, crying as if her heart would break. It was a spectacle so different from her more familiar stage appearances that Musk could not help laughing at its incongruousness:

‘I must say, you don't look much like Cui Ying-ying at the moment. Reddie after her beating, though: now that's a part you could play without having to make up for it!'

Skybright led Parfumée away and washed her hair for her. When she had towelled it dry, she did it up for her in a ‘lazy knot' and told her to go back to Bao-yu's room when she had finished dressing.

Shortly after, a woman arrived from the kitchen to say that the food was ready, should they send it over yet? One of the junior maids went inside to ask Aroma.

‘What does the clock say?' Aroma asked. ‘With all that rumpus going on outside, I didn't hear it strike.'

‘It didn't,' said Skybright. ‘The wretched thing needs repairing again, I don't know why.'

She fetched a watch from somewhere and inspected it.

‘It's about half a cup of tea off dinner-time,' she said. ‘Tell them we'll be ready directly.'

The girl went off to relay this message.

‘Come to think of it,' said Musk, smiling, ‘that Parfumée
deserved
a slap or two for being so mischievous. She was the one who made the clock stop by playing about with the pendulum yesterday.'

She began getting things out and laying them in readiness for the meal. Presently junior maids carrying food-boxes came into the room and stood there while Skybright and Musk removed the covers and inspected the contents: a bowl of soup and the now familiar rice-gruel flanked by four different kinds of pickle.