The Warning Voice

  ‘Tell Mrs Er,’ he said blandly, ‘that Mrs Lian is here.’

  The immortal parts of the late Droopy’s relict leaped through her cranium and described several somersaults in the air. She rushed inside to inform her mistress. Er-jie was no less startled than her servant when she heard the message, but even in such an extremity she could do no less than receive her visitor with the expected courtesies. Adjusting her dress, therefore, she went into the front courtyard to meet her. By this time Xi-feng’s carriage had arrived outside the gate and its occupants were in process of descending from it. Er-jie watched her visitor curiously as she entered the outer gate, supported by Zhou Rui’s wife, and Brightie’s wife, one on either side. She was dressed in half-mourning, with hair-ornaments of silver and white and a spencer of some black material with a silver thread in it over the palest of pale blue gowns. Underneath the gown she was wearing a plain white satin skirt. Er-jie was particularly struck by her eyes:

  Brows a branched twig with two high-pendant leaves,

  And trigon phoenix-eyes, slant, hard and bright.

  And she was very beautiful:

  Pretty as a peach-tree in the spring,

  Even in austere autumn’s dress.

  Er-jie advanced to meet her as she entered the courtyard and dropped her a low curtsey, adopting, in the first words she uttered, the form of address that an inferior wife uses in speaking to her chief.

  ‘Forgive me, sister, I had no idea that you were planning to favour me with an inspection or I should have gone outside to meet you.’

  This was followed by another low curtsey, which Xi-feng, smiling graciously, returned. After curtseying had continued for some moments on either side, Xi-feng took Er-jie impulsively by the hand and the two young women walked hand in hand into the house. Inside, Er-jie made Xi-feng sit down in the place of honour and ordered one of the maids to bring a cushion and put it down in front of her on the floor.

  ‘I am still very young,’ she explained to Xi-feng. ‘Since I first came here, everything has been decided for me by others, either my mother, when she was still with us, or my elder sister. Now that you have come, I hope – if you do not think me too unworthy – that you will allow me to take all my instructions from you. I promise to serve you with all the devotion of which I am capable.’

  Having concluded her little speech, she knelt down on the cushion and kotowed. Xi-feng rose from the chair and bowed.

  ‘I am as young and inexperienced as you are, sister,’ she said. ‘What I have done for Mr Lian has always been for his own good, as far as a silly, inexperienced woman like me could tell what that was. I begged him, as I am sure you would have done in my position, not to go sleeping out “under the willows” (you know what I mean) both for his health’s sake and because I knew it would worry his parents; but Mr Lian completely misunderstood the spirit in which that advice was offered. It wouldn’t have mattered so much if he’d deceived me about taking a mistress; but marrying a second wife is a very serious business. He really ought to have told me. It isn’t as if I hadn’t begged him to take a second wife. If he were to have a son, no matter by whom, I should stand to benefit as much as he would. It would be a support for me in my old age. But no. Mr Lian has got it firmly fixed in his mind that I am the sort of jealous woman who cannot tolerate a rival. And so he has to go off and do this without telling me. It’s so unfair. Who am I to explain myself to? Only Heaven above knows what a great injustice he has done me. When I first got wind of your marriage about ten days ago, I realized at once that it was this mistaken notion he has about my being so jealous that had prevented him from telling me. I have waited until he is away before visiting you because I wanted this opportunity of getting to know you properly. But that is not the only purpose of my visit. I want to ask you – to entreat you – to show your understanding of my position by leaving this place and coming back with me to the mansion, Let us live together, side by side, like sisters. Let us join forces in looking after him: seeing that he performs his duties properly and takes good care of his health. Surely that is how it ought to be? Just imagine what it will be like for me if you continue living here outside. Quite apart from my feelings, think of the effect it will have on my reputation – and on yours, too, for that matter. And even if you think our reputations are unimportant, as no doubt they are, consider what the effect will be on Mr Lian’s reputation, which is a far more serious matter. I expect the servants say all sorts of nasty things about me behind my back. It is their way of having their revenge on me for being strict. I suppose it is only natural. You know the proverb. The woman who runs a household is like a water butt: all the dirt washes off on her. In our household I have three lots of seniors above me and cousins and sisters-in-law both single and married in my own generation. If I were really hard to get on with, how do you think all those people would have managed to put up with me for so long? Would I have come to you today if I were such a terrible person? Many wives hearing that their husband had married another woman and was living outside with her in secret would be unwilling even to set eyes on her. Heaven knows I’ve tried to accommodate Mr Lian. I’ve even offered him my Patience as a chamber-wife. I think Heaven and Earth and the Lord Buddha must have taken pity on me in letting me know about this marriage. They didn’t want me to be destroyed by a pack of scandal-mongering servants. That’s why I am asking you to come and live with me. I promise that your treatment will be exactly the same as mine in every respect: accommodation, service, clothing-allowance, everything. There is so much that an intelligent person like you could do to help me if you had a mind to. Working side by side together, we shall not only give the lie to this malicious tittle-tattle of the servants which I find so wounding; we shall also be able to show Mr Lian when he gets back how wrong he has been in making me out to be jealous. The three of us will live in perfect harmony together. And all this I shall owe to you! But if you won’t come with me, I am perfectly prepared to move in here with you. Provided that you put in an occasional good word for me with Mr Lian so that I am still left some ground to stand on, I should even be willing to hold your basin and comb your hair for you and wait on you like a servant.’

  She concluded this discourse by breaking into noisy weeping. Indeed, so pitiful a spectacle did she present that Er-jie herself could not help weeping with her. After further bowings and curtseyings the two women sat down together as first and second wife and Patience came forward to make Er-jie her kotow. From the superior quality of her dress and general air of refinement Er-jie could guess who she was and hurriedly rose to prevent her.

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t do that! You and I are equals.’

  Xi-feng stood up, too.

  ‘Nonsense! Let her kotow to you,’ she said, laughing. ‘She is only a maid. She is your maid as much as mine now and in future you must treat her as such.’

  She ordered Zhou Rui’s wife to take the First Meeting presents out of the bag she was carrying: four lengths of best quality dress material and four pairs of pearl and gold earrings with hair ornaments to match. There was more bowing and curtseying as Er-jie received them. The two wives sat down once more. Tea was served, and they began to talk things over as they sipped their tea. Xi-feng insisted that what had happened had chiefly come about through her own fault.

  ‘I blame no one else,’ she said. ‘All I am asking for is a little sympathy.’

  Er-jie was so lacking in guile herself that she had no difficulty in believing that Xi-feng was a good woman who had been slandered.

  ‘After all,’ she told herself when she recollected the alarming things that Joker had said about Xi-feng’s character, ‘servants do often revenge themselves by saying nasty things about their employers.’

  And so, abandoning all caution, she began pouring her heart out unreservedly, confident that in Xi-feng she had found a friend. Confirmation of this favourable view in the form of tributes to the excellence of Xi-feng’s household governance were not wanting from Mesdames Zhou and Brightie in
the background.

  ‘She puts herself out too much for other people, that’s her trouble. She gets no thanks for it, though. People only complain about her the more.’

  They told Er-jie about the apartment that Xi-feng had made ready for her.

  ‘Beautiful, Mrs Er! You wait till you’ve seen it!’

  Er-jie longed to live with Jia Lian inside the mansion like a respectable married woman and was therefore only too willing to comply with Xi-feng’s request.

  ‘I ought to go back with you, sister: it is no less than my duty. But what about this place?’

  ‘Oh, that’s no problem!’ said Xi-feng. ‘Just get the boys to move out your boxes and bags for you. You won’t be needing the furniture, you can leave that here. All you need to do is name whoever of your people is most reliable and we will get whoever it is to stay here and look after it for you.’

  ‘Now that I’ve met you, I should like to leave all those sort of decisions to you,’ said Er-jie hurriedly. ‘I haven’t been here very long and have no experience of running a household. I’m not able to decide things like this for myself. Why don’t you take charge of these chests and boxes, sister? I have got hardly any things of my own. Almost everything in this place belongs to Mr Lian.’

  Xi-feng told Zhou Rui’s wife to make a mental note of all the movables and have them carried over later to Er-jie’s new apartment. She then urged Er-jie to dress herself as quickly as possible for going out, and as soon as she was ready, walked hand in hand with her to the waiting carriage. Inside the carriage she insisted that Er-jie should sit beside her on the same seat.

  ‘This is rather a strait-laced household we are going into,’ Xi-feng confided to Er-jie when they were alone in the carriage together. ‘Neither the old lady nor Lady Wang knows a word yet about your marriage. They would probably kill Mr Lian if they found out that he had married you while he was still in mourning. There is a very large garden at the mansion which all the young people live in and which other people very seldom go into. I think when we get back it would be better if you didn’t meet Their Ladyships straight away but stayed in there for a few days while I think of some way of explaining about you to them.’

  ‘I leave all that to you, sister,’ said Er-jie. ‘I will do whatever you think best.’

  The boys accompanying the carriage had received advance instructions not to enter the mansion by the main gate on their return journey but to go straight in at the back. Descending from the carriage on her arrival, Xi-feng, having first shooed away a knot of curious bystanders, led Er-jie through the rear entrance of Prospect Garden and took her to meet Li Wan and the girls in Sweet-rice Village.

  By this time nine out of ten of the Garden’s inhabitants had heard about Jia Lian’s second marriage, and when the news spread that Xi-feng was bringing the new wife into the Garden, curiosity drew numbers of them to Li Wan’s place to meet her. All were impressed by her beauty and by her gentle, pleasing manner. After introducing them, Xi-feng warned each of them individually that she would kill anyone who mentioned Er-jie’s presence to an outsider. The nannies and maids who worked in the Garden were all terrified of Xi-feng and knew in any case that Jia Lian’s marrying a new wife in a period of family and national mourning was a very serious offence. They needed no persuading, therefore, to have as little to do with the matter as possible.

  Xi-feng had a private word with Li Wan requesting her to look after Er-jie for a few days while she herself thought of some way of explaining about her to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang. Li Wan knew that Xi-feng already had an apartment ready for Er-jie to move into at her own place and could well understand that a certain amount of secrecy had to be maintained about a marriage contracted when in mourning; she could not therefore refuse to give Er-jie temporary lodging.

  Xi-feng took Er-jie’s own maids away from her and substituted a servant of her own. She also gave secret instructions to the older women to keep an eye on Er-jie, threatening them with the direst penalties if they allowed her to stray outside or deliberately run away. Having thus disposed of Er-jie for the time being, she went off to attend to the next stage of her plans. But of that, for the moment, we will say nothing.

  Everyone who knew about this affair was mystified by the strange forbearance that Xi-feng had so far shown towards her rival and could not help wondering what had come over her. Er-jie for her part, observing how well all the young people in the Garden got on together, felt thoroughly reassured about her future in the bosom of so delightful a family.

  But then, after a few days had gone by, there was an unpleasant incident with Mercy, the new maid whom Xi-feng had given her in place of her own. Er-jie had run out of hair-oil and told Mercy to run over to Xi-feng’s and ask her for some.

  ‘I think you might be a bit more considerate, Mrs Er,’ the maid said insolently. ‘Every day of her life Mrs Lian has to dance attendance on Their Ladyships and Lady Xing, she has two or three hundred servants waiting from daybreak every morning for a word from her to tell them what to do, she has at least a dozen important matters and thirty or forty little ones to deal with every day, all the family’s social contacts to attend to, from Her Grace at the Palace and princes and dukes and other high-ups down to other families like our own, thousands of taels of silver to approve the spending of – and you want to go bothering her for some hair-oil! My advice to you, madam, is to be a bit more patient. After all, your marriage to Mr Lian was rather a hole-and-corner affair, wasn’t it? It’s only because of Mrs Lian’s unheard-of generosity that you have been treated so well. A less tolerant person might have turned you out into the gutter – and not much you could have done to stop them!’

  At the end of this verbal drubbing Er-jie could only hang her head in silence. If that was what other people thought about her, minor inconveniences like the lack of hair-oil would have to be endured.

  But that was not the end of it. Following this outburst, Mercy began to grow more and more careless about serving Er-jie’s meals. Either they came much too early or much too late, and the food she brought consisted invariably of stale old left-overs. Er-jie once or twice tried speaking to her about it, but Mercy only glared at her and lifted her voice up in noisy self-justification. Fearing that if the others heard the shouting they would think of her as one of those vulgar, shrewish women who are always quarrelling with their servants, Er-jie felt obliged to drop the matter and put up with the hardship as best she could.

  After a week or so Xi-feng came to visit her. She was all smiles and loving sympathy, ‘my dear’ this and ‘my dear’ that.

  ‘If the servants are not giving you satisfaction, my dear, or are being insubordinate, do let me know and I shall have them beaten.’

  She turned and spoke harshly to the maids and older women who were present.

  ‘I know you lot. I know how you bully the gentle ones. It’s only the hard ones like me that you are afraid of. Once out of my sight you think you can get away with murder. But take care! If I hear one word of complaint from Mrs Er, I shall have you slaughtered!’

  Er-jie was impressed by the concern that Xi-feng showed for her.

  ‘With her to stick up for me,’ she thought, ‘there is really no need for me to do anything myself. Servants often are insolent. If I speak up about this girl and get her into trouble, people will say that I lack the forbearance that a wife – especially one in my position – is always supposed to show.’

  And so, far from complaining, she covered up for Mercy and the other servants and insisted that the service they gave her was satisfactory.

  *

  All this time Brightie was making inquiries on Xi-feng’s behalf into Er-jie’s background. He quickly established that Er-jie had indeed been previously betrothed. Her affianced, now a young man of nineteen, was a gambler and a wastrel. After gambling his way through all his family’s possessions, he had been turned out of doors by his father and now made the gambling-dens his home. The fact that his father had been to see Mrs You and rece
ived twenty taels from her in return for breaking off the engagement was still unknown to him. The name of this unpromising youth was, as Joker had said, Zhang Hua. When Brightie passed this information on to Xi-feng, she promptly wrapped twenty taels up in a packet and told him to go back and promise them to Zhang Hua if he would bring a written indictment against Jia Lian before the court. It should say that Jia Lian had, in a period of both national and private mourning and without the knowledge or consent of his parents, brought unlawful pressure to bear on the plaintiff’s parents, causing them to break off an existing engagement between the plaintiff and his betrothed, and had then, setting his own wife aside in an unlawful manner, taken to wife the plaintiff’s betrothed in her stead.

  A strong instinct of self-preservation at first prompted Zhang Hua to refuse. When Brightie told Xi-feng this she was furious. A young idiot, she called him; a lame dog who wouldn’t allow one to help him over the stile.

  ‘You will have to explain it to him very carefully. Tell him he can charge this family with high treason for all I care; all I want is a pretext for making it hot for them. But tell him that if things show any sign of getting too hot, I am perfectly well able to cool them down again.’

  Another idea occurred to her as Brightie was on the point of leaving.

  ‘He could put your name on the indictment,’ she said. ‘Then you could go along to the court and answer it yourself.’

  She gave him careful instructions as to what in that event he should say and do, assuring him that she would be able to handle the consequences herself. Confident of her support, Brightie persuaded Zhang Hua to write out an indictment in which he himself would be named.