The Warning Voice (39 page)

When the three of them arrived in Grandmother Jia's apartment, the old lady was talking to Bao-yu and the girls – such conversations, enlivened by much joking and laughter, being nowadays her principal source of amusement. Seeing Xi-feng come in accompanied by a beautiful young woman, she screwed up her eyes and peered at the latter with curiosity.

‘Well now, who is this charming young person?'

‘Have a good look, Grandma,' said Xi-feng, taking Er-jie by the hand and drawing her forwards. ‘Tell me what you think of her. – Quick, make your kotow!' she whispered to Er-jie. ‘This is Lian's grandmother.'

When Er-jie had completed her obeisance, Xi-feng pointed to each of the cousins in turn and told her their names.

‘You can make your curtseys to them later, after you have been to see Their Ladyships,' she said.

Er-jie had to greet each of the cousins by name, as if she were meeting them for the first time. After that she stood, with head demurely lowered, to one side.

Having studied her face for some moments, Grandmother Jia raised her head to think, but presently gave up with a laugh.

‘It's no good,' she said. ‘I can't think who it is. But I'm sure I've seen her somewhere else before.'

‘Never mind about that, Grandma,' said Xi-feng laughing. ‘Just tell me what you think of her. Is she prettier than me?'

Grandmother Jia put on a pair of spectacles.

‘Bring the child a little closer,' she told Faithful and Amber. ‘Let me have a look at her skin.'

Amid suppressed titters from the others present, Er-jie was hustled forward. Grandmother Jia looked her up and down very carefully.

‘Hold her hand out,' she said to Amber. ‘Let me look at her hand.'

When the hand had been inspected, Grandmother Jia took off her spectacles and laughed.

‘Flawless. Yes, she's prettier than you.'

Xi-feng laughed too, then, kneeling down, proceeded to repeat, more or less word for word, what she had told You-shi she would say.

‘Will you be very kind and let her stay here, Grandma? She wouldn't begin living with Lian until next year, when she is out of mourning.'

‘Yes, that's perfectly all right,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘Very good of you to have suggested it. I'm very glad. Provided, as you say, that she and Lian don't start sleeping together until next year.'

Xi-feng kotowed. Then she asked Grandmother Jia if she would mind deputing two of her women to take Er-jie round to see Lady Xing and Lady Wang, and whether it would be all right for them to say that Er-jie was being installed on Grandmother Jia's initiative. The old lady consented and Er-jie was led off to see the other ladies. Xi-feng's failure to take adequate steps for procuring her husband an heir had for some time now been a source of anxiety to Lady Wang, for she knew that her niece's reputation must be suffering as a consequence. She was therefore delighted, when Er-jie was presented to her as Jia Lian's new concubine, to learn that it was Xi-feng herself who was responsible for the arrangements. Now that Er-jie's union with Jia Lian had been brought into the open, it was possible to move her from the Garden into the
apartment in Xi-feng's courtyard that had been prepared for her.

Meanwhile Xi-feng's agents were secretly inciting Zhang Hua to claim his affianced wife, promising that she would come to him with a generous trousseau and that they would give him a substantial sum of money to set up house with. It was no easy task persuading him, since from the very start he had had little stomach for this case. His apprehensions seemed justified when, in answer to the summons, Jia Rong's representative eventually appeared in court and made the following statement:

‘Zhang Hua had already broken off his engagement with the young lady before she entered our house. She did so, in any case, merely as a kinswoman, already related to the family by her sister's marriage. There was never any talk of forcing her into matrimony. Zhang Hua trumped up this case against my master because my master was attempting to recover some money owing to him which Zhang Hua was unable to pay.'

The Censor, whose past connections with both the Jia and Wang families, not to mention the substantial bribe he had pocketed only the night before, inclined him to accept this as a reliable version of the facts, ruled that Zhang Hua was a person of untrustworthy character, driven by destitution to make a number of malicious and defamatory accusations against the defendants, none of which could be substantiated. The charges in the indictment were dismissed and Zhang Hua was sentenced to be flogged and driven from the court. By distributing money in the right quarters, Cheerful was able to ensure that the flogging administered was a light one and got to work again on Zhang Hua as soon as it was over.

‘There's no question you
were
betrothed to this girl. If you go back and tell them that it's the girl you want and nothing else, they're sure to give judgement in your favour.'

Zhang Hua was induced to do this and the court, after further persuasions from Wang Xin, did in fact give judgement in his favour.

‘Zhang Hua is to repay the full amount owed by him to the Jia family within the period specified. But provided that he does so, his affianced wife is to be restored to him as soon as he is in a position to receive her.'

This judgement was confirmed in the presence of Zhang
Hua's father, who was specially summoned to the Court of Censors to hear it. When Cheerful explained to the old man that this meant that he and his son were to get not only the promised money but also Er-jie and her trousseau as well, he was naturally delighted and at once went along to the Jia mansion to claim the bride. Xi-feng went in feigned alarm to report this latest development to Grandmother Jia.

‘It's all the fault of Cousin Zhen's wife,' she said. ‘It seems that the Zhang family had never agreed to break off this earlier engagement, and now they have sued us and the court has given judgement against us.'

Grandmother Jia summoned You-shi from the other mansion and rebuked her for her carelessness.

‘It seems that your sister's betrothal before she was born to this Zhang person was never properly broken off, and now his family are suing us. I can't imagine what you thought you were at when you made this arrangement!'

‘But it
was
broken off,' You-shi protested. ‘They even took our money.'

‘When Zhang Hua was giving evidence, he said he'd never seen any money,' Xi-feng chipped in. ‘He said no one had ever approached him about breaking off the engagement. His father said your step-mother mentioned something about breaking it off but there was nothing final. He said that when your step-mother died, you moved your sister in regardless and married her to Lian as his Number Two. No one present at the time was able to refute those statements, so they were able to get away with them. It's a good job Lian hasn't slept with the girl yet. As far as that goes, there is nothing to stop her going back to Zhang. The only thing is, it would be a frightful loss of face for us to let her go again having once moved her in.'

‘Yes, but as you say, Lian hasn't touched her yet,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘It would be even worse for our reputation to hold on to someone who by rights is somebody else's wife. Much better hand her over to him. We can easily find someone else for Lian.'

‘The engagement really was broken off,' said Er-jie, and named the date on which it had occurred. ‘My mother gave the Zhangs twenty taels for doing it. It must be because they
are so hard up that they have brought this case against you. The things they have been saying are quite untrue. My sister made no mistake.'

‘It only goes to show how dangerous people like this are to provoke,' said Grandmother Jia. ‘Well, in that case, Feng, you had better go and see what you can do about it.'

Whatever reluctance she may have felt, Xi-feng was obliged to say that she would. She had Jia Rong summoned to her room to talk to him about it. Jia Rong knew her feelings well enough – but after all, how could a family like the Jias really contemplate handing over one of their women to a beggar? The idea was preposterous. When he reported the conversation to his father, Cousin Zhen sent someone to have a word privately with Zhang Hua.

‘Look here, you've had a lot of money out of them,' the man said. ‘Why do you
have
to have the woman as well? If you insist too hard, my master is likely to start getting angry with you, and frankly I wouldn't give much for your chances if he does. Why don't you and your father go back to where you came from? With the money you've already got you'd have no difficulty in finding yourself a very nice little wife, and if you decide to go away, I can promise you some more money towards your travel expenses.'

This sounded to Zhang Hua like good advice, and after talking it over with his father, he agreed that if the money he had already received were to be made up to a total of one hundred taels, he and his father would undertake to make themselves scarce. The money was handed over, and father and son rose at four o'clock next morning to begin the journey back to their native village. As soon as he had made sure of their departure, Jia Rong went round to tell Grandmother Jia and Xi-feng.

‘Zhang Hua and his father have run away. The charges in the indictment were all fabricated and they lost their nerve because they thought they were going to be found out. The court knows all the facts now but has decided not to prosecute. So that is the end of the affair.'

Xi-feng was not as put out by this as might have been expected.

‘After all,' she told herself, ‘even if I
bad
insisted on Zhang Hua taking her away, there was always the possibility that Lian might get back in time to reclaim her. He would only have had to give Zhang a little money and Zhang would surely not have refused to give her back. Perhaps it's just as well that she's staying here. I have her here safely under my thumb while I think of some other way of dealing with her. But I don't like this idea of Zhang going off nobody knows where. Suppose he talks? Or suppose one day he finds some means of reopening the case? Everything I have done up to now will turn out to have been simply working towards my own downfall. Oh, I should never have put a weapon like this into somebody else's hand!'

She began to grow more and more worried and eventually thought of a plan. Calling Brightie to her she told him to find out where Zhang Hua was and procure his death, either by laying a false accusation of robbery against him and leaving it to the magistrates and yamen runners to finish him off judicially, or else by employing an assassin. Only by such root-and-branch methods, she felt, could her fears be allayed and the threat to her reputation be removed.

Brightie went off agreeing to do what she had asked, but when he got home and had time to think about it, he began to feel misgivings.

‘The fellow's already gone away,' he thought. ‘Surely that's the end of the matter? Why does she need to make such a great issue of it? Taking a man's life is no children's game; it's a serious business. I'll just have to humour her for the time being and think of some way out of this later.'

Having so resolved, he went into hiding for a few days before coming back and reporting to Xi-feng.

‘Three days after Zhang Hua and his father ran away, somewhere near Jing-kou in the early hours of the morning Zhang Hua was knocked down and killed by a highwayman for the sake of the money he was carrying. The old man died of a heart-attack shortly afterwards in a near-by inn. There was an inquest on the bodies and both of them were buried there, where it happened.'

Xi-feng did not believe him.

‘I'll probably be sending someone to make inquiries shortly,' she said. ‘If I find out that you've been lying, I'll have every tooth in your head broken.'

But in the event she did nothing and let the matter drop.

From that time onwards her demeanour towards Er-jie was affable in the extreme. No sister could have shown a greater interest in her well-being.

Jia She was for once very pleased with him and praised him for his capability. He gave him a hundred taels as a reward and a seventeen-year-old girl from his own room called Autumn as a concubine. Jia Lian kotowed to receive his presents. He felt enormously pleased with himself; but there was a slightly hang-dog expression on his face when, after he had seen Grandmother Jia and the rest, he appeared once more before his wife.

To his surprise there were none of the expected recriminations. Xi-feng seemed, indeed, to have become a different person. She came out to meet him with Er-jie at her side, confined herself to questions about his health, his stay in Ping-an and the journey back home, and made not a single reference to his deception. When the time came for him to tell her about Autumn, he was unable to prevent a certain pleased smugness from stealing over his face. At once Xi-feng ordered two of the married servants to go round in a carriage to collect her. Here was another thorn in her bosom, even before the first one had been extracted! Yet not a trace of what she felt was allowed to show itself in her expression. With the same unchanging
smile she ordered a ‘welcome home' dinner for her husband and took Autumn to make her kotows to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang. Jia Lian privately marvelled at the extraordinary change that had come over her.

It need hardly be said that Xi-feng harboured feelings about Er-jie very different from the ones her outward show of friendliness might have suggested. Once or twice when they were alone together she confided to her (in a sisterly manner, of course) that her reputation in the family was a very unsavoury one.

‘There is a nasty little story going around, my dear, that you weren't all you should have been before you were married. They say you were much too thick with Cousin Zhen. I'm afraid even Lady Jia and Lady Wang seem to have got hold of it. They are beginning to ask me why I picked someone whom no one else would have, and why I don't put you away and choose somebody more suitable. Needless to say, when I first heard this story I was flabbergasted. I've tried to find out who started it, but I've had no success. Oh, these servants! Just as I thought I'd done something to feel proud of, I find that I've got a fish's head like this on my plate to contend with!'

Xi-feng's sympathy for Er-jie was so great that, after telling her all this a couple of times, her indignation against these anonymous traducers. caused her to become quite ill; she refused all food and drink and began to spend the greater part of her time lying down in her room. The servants, with the sole exception of Patience, speculated freely about the cause of their mistress's illness, and Er-jie, though seldom named, came in for frequent criticism.

Because Autumn had been presented to Jia Lian by his father, she had a very high opinion of her own importance, showing scant respect for Patience or even for Xi-feng, let alone for a poor, unwanted creature like Er-jie, who was commonly known to have been a fallen woman before she married. When Xi-feng noticed this she was secretly pleased.

Since Xi-feng's pretended illness, she had ceased to eat with Er-jie, whose meals, on Xi-feng's instructions, were now served to her in her own room. Invariably the food that was given her was inedible. Patience was so disgusted that she
took to buying her things to eat with her own money, or, on the pretext of going for a walk with her in the Garden, taking her to the Garden kitchen where she could be given nourishing soups to eat under her supervision. Because it was Patience who did this, none of the other servants dared to inform against her. Unfortunately Autumn once came upon them there and, feeling no such compunction, went straight off to denounce her to Xi-feng.

‘Patience is going out of her way to give you a bad name, Mrs Lian. That Er woman wastes the good food you give her and goes into the Garden with Patience every day to sneak food from the kitchen.'

Xi-feng abused Patience angrily.

‘Most people keep a cat to keep down the mice for them.
My
cat seems to eat the chickens!'

Patience dared not answer back, and from then on kept away from Er-jie; but she secretly hated Autumn because of this.

Bao-yu and the girls were privately concerned about Er-jie. Though none of them would venture to speak out openly on her behalf, they all of them felt sorry for her. Sometimes, when no one else was about, one or other of them would get into conversation with her. Invariably she would be crying and wiping her eyes all the time they were talking to her; but she never uttered a word of complaint against Xi-feng – indeed, since Xi-feng was careful never to reveal herself in her true colours, it is hard to see what she could have complained of.

Jia Lian for his part failed to notice that anything was wrong. Since his return he had been completely taken in by Xi-feng's show of magnanimity towards her rival; and in any case he was at present somewhat preoccupied. The sight of his father's many maids and concubines had often in the past aroused libidinous feelings in him which he had perforce repressed; while on her side Autumn had often in the past, by flutterings of the eyelids and various other signals, expressed a marked interest in her master's handsome son. It may be imagined what sort of blaze was kindled in the brushwood when two such eager bedfellows were brought together
with full parental approval of their union. Day after day he spent in Autumn's company –