Aunt Xue at once saw the force of this.
‘You are quite right, my child. I was being silly.’
‘Dear Mamma! But now you are being sensible. He doesn’t fear you, and he won’t listen to anyone else. He just goes on getting worse and worse. One or two good, sharp shocks like this might bring him to his senses.’
Meanwhile Xue Pan lay on the kang in his bedroom, cursing Xiang-lian by every name he could think of and calling on his boys to smash up his house, to beat him to death, to have the law on him. Aunt Xue shouted to them that they were to do no such thing. To Xue Pan she explained that Xiang-lian was in any case beyond the reach of his vengeance.
‘Xiang-lian behaved very badly because he was drunk. When he came to himself afterwards he was very sorry; and now, because he is afraid of the consequences, he has fled the country.’
When Xue Pan heard that, he –
But you shall learn that (if you wish) in the following chapter.
Chapter 48
The Love Deluded One turns his thoughts to trade and travel
And the Poetry Enthusiast applies herself to making verses
XUE PAN gradually calmed down when his mother told him that Xiang-lian had fled.
After four or five days the pain of his injuries had subsided, but not the bumps and bruises; and as, while these still disfigured him, he was unwilling to meet any of his acquaintance, he kept to his room on the pretext that he was still too ill to go out.
The tenth month soon came. Several of the employees working in Xue Pan’s shops in the capital wanted to go back home for the annual settling of accounts and Xue Pan found himself giving a farewell party for them in his room. Among those present was one Zhang De-hui, the sixty-year-old manager of his largest pawnshop. He had worked with the family since he was a lad and now had a household of his own and an income of two or three thousand taels. He was planning to leave with the others but not return until half way through the following year, as he explained to Xue Pan on this occasion.
‘There’s a great shortage of stationery and perfumed goods just now,’ he said. ‘These things are sure to fetch high prices next year. I’m proposing to send my eldest boy here after New Year to look after the shop, so that I can travel back later. I shall buy up supplies of stationery and sandalwood fans on my way, aiming to get back here in time for the Double Fifth. I reckon it should be possible to make several hundred percent profit, even after the excise and all the other expenses have been deducted.’
This gave Xue Pan an idea.
‘I haven’t felt like seeing anyone since that beating,’ he thought, ‘and some excuse for getting away from everybody for a year or so is just what I’ve been looking for. Obviously I can’t go on staying indoors and pretending I’m ill indefinitely. And for another thing, I haven’t done very much with my life to date: I’m neither a scholar nor a soldier, and though I call myself a merchant, I’ve never handled a pair of scales or an abacus in my life, not to mention the fact that I know nothing about the places and peoples of the Empire or its roads and waterways. Why don’t I get a bit of capital together and spend a year or so travelling around with Zhang De-hui? It won’t matter much whether I make any money or not; the main thing is that it will get me away from my disgrace; and there is the added advantage that I shall be able to put in a bit of sight-seeing as well.’
Having so decided, he waited until the other guests had gone and then, making himself as agreeable as he knew how, informed Zhang De-hui of his decision and asked him to delay his departure by a few days so that he would have time to prepare.
That evening he told his mother.
Aunt Xue’s initial reaction was one of pleasure, but this quickly gave way to misgivings. It was not that she attached much importance to the loss of a little capital; she was concerned about the scrapes he might get into away from home. And so she ended up by refusing.
‘I think you’d better stay here with me. I should worry less. After all, you don’t need to make this money. It isn’t as if you haven’t got enough to spend.’
But Xue Pan had made his mind up and was not to be put off.
‘You’re always telling me how inexperienced I am and how ignorant and how unwilling to learn; yet now that I’m making a real effort to turn over a new leaf by standing on my own feet at last and learning a bit about the business, you won’t let me. What do you want me to do? I’m not a girl, to be shut up at home all the time: you’ll have to let me out some time or other. Besides, Zhang De-hui is an old, experienced person and he’s worked for our family all his life. If I’m with him, I don’t see how anything can go wrong. Even if I did ever slip up, I’m sure he’d soon tell me off about it and put me right. And as he knows all there is to know about prices and so forth, I should naturally always consult him on business matters. You couldn’t ask for better conditions; yet you won’t let me go. Very well, I’ll get ready in secret and leave without telling you. You’ll see me when I come back next year, after making a fortune! I’ll show you!’
With that he went off to bed in a huff.
Aunt Xue discussed the matter with Bao-chai after he had gone.
‘It’s good that he should want to occupy himself with something serious at last,’ said Bao-chai. ‘The trouble is, of course, that however fair-sounding his intentions may be now, once he’s outside he may succumb to his old weaknesses again, and then it will be that much more difficult to control him. However, I suppose that is a risk one has to take. If he is really going to reform, then this experience may prove a lifelong blessing. If he is not, I don’t see that there is very much left that you can do. After all, there is only so much one can do for another person: the rest must be left to Heaven. Pan is a grown man now, Mamma. If you maintain that he is too ignorant of the world to be allowed out into it, you are not going to make him any less ignorant by keeping him shut up indoors. And since he is being so reasonable for once, I should make up your mind that you are going to lose eight or nine hundred taels and hand it over to him to see how he manages. After all, he will have someone from our own business helping him and they may well feel some compunction about cheating him; so it’s by no means a foregone conclusion that he will lose it all. And for another thing, away from home there won’t be those worthless companions of his to egg him on; nor, on the other hand, will he have anyone to fall back on if he gets into trouble. He will have to fend for himself: eat when he can and go hungry when he can’t. And when it dawns on him that he is on his own and has no one he can lean on, he may begin to behave a bit better. Surely it’s worth trying?’
Aunt Xue pondered her daughter’s words for some minutes.
‘I think you are probably right,’ she said eventually. ‘I certainly don’t mind using up some of our money on the experiment. If he can learn a bit of sense from it, it will have been money well spent.’
Having thus concluded their discussion, the two of them went to bed.
Next day Aunt Xue had Zhang De-hui invited round once more, and while he was being entertained by Xue Pan in the study, stationed herself in the loggia at the back and, addressing him through the window from this hidden vantage point, entrusted her boy, with many a fond and careful instruction, to his care. Zhang De-hui gave vigorous assurances of good intent, and having finished his meal, stood up and took his leave, stopping on his way out to add a few words to Xue Pan about arrangements for their departure:
‘The almanac says the fourteenth is the best day for travelling. I should start packing and hiring mules straight away if I were you, Mr Xue, so that we can make a start first thing on the fourteenth.’
Xue Pan, delighted at the prospect of getting away so soon, hastened to relay this to his mother.
Assisted by Bao-chai, Caltrop and a couple of old nannies, Aunt Xue devoted the whole of the next few days to packing. She selected five male members of the domestic staff to accompany Xue Pan on his travels: the husband of his old wet-nurse, two experienced older servants who had been in service w
ith his father, and two of the pages who normally waited on him. Three heavy carts were hired for the luggage and four travelling-mules. Xue Pan himself planned to ride on a mule from his own stables – a large, sturdy animal with an iron-grey coat. He also planned to take a saddle-horse of his own as an alternative mount. When all other preparations had been completed, Aunt Xue and Bao-chai devoted the remaining evenings to exhortation and admonishment of the prospective traveller.
On the thirteenth Xue Pan went to take leave of his Uncle Wang’s family in the city, after which he went round the two mansions saying his good-byes to the Jias. There was some talk of Cousin Zhen and one or two of the others seeing him off next day for a parting cup on the road; but whether or not anything came of it our narrative does not disclose.
Early on the morning of the fourteenth Aunt Xue and Bao-chai accompanied him to the outer threshold of the inner gate and watched him with tearful eyes until they could see him no more.
When Aunt Xue moved from Nanking to the capital, she had brought only four or five couples with her in addition to the handful of old nannies and young unmarried maids of her immediate household. Now that five of the menfolk had gone off to accompany Xue Pan on his travels, only one or two male servants were left. The very day that Xue Pan started on his journey, Aunt Xue went into his study, had all the small furniture, blinds, curtains and other movables carried out and stored in her own apartment, and ordered the wives of the absent menservants to move in with her to sleep. She also ordered Caltrop to tidy up Xue Pan’s sleeping quarters, lock the door, and move into her apartment with the rest.
‘But Mamma,’ Bao-chai protested, ‘you’ve already got all those others to keep you company. Why not let Caltrop move in with me? It gets lonely in the Garden now that the nights are longer: another companion to sit with me in the evenings when I am sewing would be very welcome.’
‘Of course,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘I was forgetting. I should have thought of it myself. I was telling Pan only the other day: Apricot is so young and scatter-brained and Oriole on her own really isn’t enough for you. We really ought to buy you another girl.’
‘Buying is all very well if you know what the girl is going to be like,’ said Bao-chai; ‘but if you make a bad choice, then not only have you wasted your money – that’s a small consideration – but you have a very great deal of trouble on your hands. If we are going to buy a girl, it would be much better to take our time over the inquiries and not get one until we are quite sure about her background.’
She told Caltrop to get her bedding and toilet things together and ordered Advent and one of the old nannies to carry them for her to Allspice Court. Then she and Caltrop went into the Garden together.
‘I was dying to ask the Mistress if she would let me move in with you after Mr Xue had gone,’ said Caltrop, ‘but I was afraid she might think I only wanted to get into the Garden to play. How wonderful that you should have asked her for me!’
‘I knew you’d had your heart set on this Garden for some time past,’ said Bao-chai with a smile, ‘but you haven’t really been free till now. Dashing in and out for a few minutes each day wouldn’t have given you time to enjoy it properly. That’s why I have waited for this opportunity before asking. Now you will be able to settle in and spend a whole year here. You get your wish, you see, and I gain a companion!’
‘Dear Miss!’ said Caltrop. ‘Now that there is the time and the opportunity, will you teach me how to write poetry, please?’
Bao-chai laughed.
‘You’re like the famous general: “one conquest breeds appetite for another”. I advise you to take things more gently. Today is your first day in the Garden. If I were you, I should go out of that corner gate and, beginning with Lady Jia’s, call in at all the different apartments and pay your respects to everybody. You needn’t go out of your way to tell them that you have moved into the Garden; but if the subject should happen to arise, tell them that I have brought you in as my companion. After that, when you get back into the Garden, you ought to go round and call on all the young ladies.’
Caltrop was just going off to do as Bao-chai advised, when Patience came hurrying in. She was in a state of some agitation, which she smilingly masked, however, in response to Caltrop’s eager greetings.
‘I’m bringing her in here to live with me as my companion,’ Bao-chai explained. ‘I was just about to report the matter to your mistress.’
‘You don’t need to do that, Miss!’ said Patience. ‘Whatever next?’
‘On the contrary,’ said Bao-chai. ‘It’s the correct thing to do. “Every inn has its landlord and every temple its priest,” as they say. Even though it is not a very important matter, I think I should report it, if only so that the women on night-watch may know that there are two more girls – her and Advent – living in the Garden now, and make no difficulties about letting them in and out. Anyway, if you will tell your mistress when you get back, I won’t bother to send anyone about it myself.’
Patience promised that she would.
‘Now you’re here,’ she said to Caltrop, ‘you ought to go and introduce yourself to your new neighbours.’
‘I was just sending her off to do that when you came,’ said Bao-chai.
‘Well, you can leave us out,’ Patience told Caltrop. ‘Mr Lian is ill at home in bed.’
Caltrop murmured a reply and went off to make her calls, beginning with Grandmother Jia.
As soon as she had gone, Patience seized Bao-chai’s hand and asked her, in a low and urgent voice, whether she had heard ‘their’ news.
‘No,’ said Bao-chai. ‘I’ve been so busy these last few days helping to get Pan off that I haven’t heard anyone’s news. I haven’t even seen any of the girls during the past day or two.’
‘Sir She has beaten Mr Lian so badly that he can hardly move. Do you mean to say you haven’t even heard that?’
‘I heard something to that effect,’ said Bao-chai, ‘but I didn’t know whether to believe it or not. I’d been thinking of going to ask your mistress about it when you came in just now. What did he beat him for?’
‘It was that toad Jia Yu-cun’s doing,’ said Patience bitterly. ‘Horrible man! It was a bad day for this family when they got to know him. I don’t know how much trouble he hasn’t stirred up in the few years since first he came here. Last spring Sir She saw some antique fans somewhere which so impressed him that when he got home and looked at his own collection he decided that they were all no good and at once sent everyone scouring around for some more. Now there was a certain poor, unlucky devil they call “Stony” – that’s a nickname, of course: I don’t know what his real name is – so hard up that he never had enough to eat but who, it so happened, was the owner of a collection of twenty antique fans that he guarded very closely, not even allowing them to be taken out of his door. Mr Lian had a terrible job even getting to see this man. In the end he did though, and eventually, after a great deal of persuasion, managed to get himself invited into the house to have a look at the fans. Mr Lian said he was only allowed a glimpse of them even then, but he said you could see at once that they were the kind of fans that simply can’t be had anywhere today. The fansticks were made of very special kinds of bamboo – naiad’s tears, black bamboo, fawnskin and jadewood – and the paintings on them were all by old masters. When he told Sir She about them, Sir She said at once that come what may he must have them and that Stony could name his price. But Stony didn’t want a price – not if they offered him a thousand taels a fan, he said. He said he would rather die of hunger and cold than sell them. There was nothing Sir She could do about that, of course, except swear all the time at Mr Lian for being “incompetent”. But I ask you, Miss: Mr Lian had already promised five hundred taels cash down and still old Stony had refused, so what more was there he could do? The matter might have rested there if that black-hearted villain Jia Yu-cun hadn’t got to hear about it. He soon thought of a way. He made out that Stony owed the government some money, had him ha
uled off to the yamen, and when he got there, told him they would have to distrain on his property to pay off the debt. Then he sent his officers round to Stony’s house, seized the fans, valued them at a government price, and sent them to Sir She as a present. Poor old Stony! I don’t know whether he’s alive now or dead. What I do know is that when Sir She was telling Mr Lian how he had come by the fans at last, Mr Lian couldn’t help remarking that he didn’t see anything very “competent” about ruining a man and stripping him of all he possessed for so trifling a reason. That made Sir She very angry, because of course he assumed that Mr Lian was really getting at him. That was the main reason for the beating; but then there were a number of smaller things a few days later – I don’t even remember now what they were. They seem to have brought things to a head, because he suddenly went for him. He didn’t pull him down and beat him with a flat-stick or a cudgel in the normal way either: he just picked up the first thing that came to hand – I don’t know what it was – and started hitting him with it where he stood. He cut his face open in two places. We heard that Mrs Xue has got some kind of lotion for injuries of this sort and I wondered if you’d mind letting me have a tablet.’
Bao-chai at once sent Oriole for the tablets and told her to bring two of them.
I won’t go and see your mistress now, under the circumstances,’ she said, when she handed them to Patience. ‘Give her my regards, though, won’t you?’
Patience thanked her and left.
Our story returns now to Caltrop. After dinner, by which time she had finished making her calls, while Bao-chai went to join Bao-yu and the others in Grandmother Jia’s apartment, Caltrop went off on her own to visit the Naiad’s House.