‘Ours is such a large household,’ said Xi-feng, ‘and, as the saying goes, you can know a man’s face, but never his heart. With all the commotion of a search, everyone is bound to hear, and the thief will be so scared of the consequences that rather than be caught, he could well panic and destroy the evidence – the jade itself – and then where would we be? No, my advice, for what it is worth, is that we should let it be known that Bao-yu threw it away in disgust and that it really doesn’t matter. Everyone must be very discreet so as to keep Her Old Ladyship and Sir Zheng from knowing. Meanwhile we can search everywhere in secret, and if we’re clever we should end up with both the jade and the thief. Does that make sense to you, Aunt?’
After a long pause Lady Wang replied:
‘It’s all very well, but will we ever succeed in keeping this from Sir Zheng?’
She called Jia Huan to her.
‘It was very silly of you to go shouting your head off about Bao-yu’s jade, just because they asked you about it. If the thief has heard and destroys the jade, you will pay for it with your life!’
‘I promise never to mention it again! wailed Jia Huan in terror. This time Aunt Zhao held her tongue.
‘There must be some places left where you haven’t looked,’ Lady Wang continued, addressing the assembled maids. ‘It must be somewhere here. It’s hardly going to fly away, is it? But when you look, be as quiet as possible. Aroma, I give you three days to find it. If we still haven’t found it by then, we shan’t be able to keep it from Her Old Ladyship and Sir Zheng any longer. And everyone knows what that will mean!’
Bidding Xi-feng accompany her, Lady Wang set off for Lady Xing’s apartment, for further consultations on how to apprehend the thief.
Li Wan and the others continued to debate what to do. They sent for the various domestics in charge of the Garden and gave orders for the gates to be securely locked. Steward Lin’s wife was also summoned and given confidential instructions.
‘Tell the servants on both gates that absolutely no one is to be allowed out of the Garden for the next three days. We can allow freedom of movement within the Garden, but no one must leave. Say that something has been lost and that no one can go out until it’s found.’
‘Yes, Mrs Zhu,’ said Lin’s wife. ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ she went on, ‘but we lost something at home the other day – nothing of any value of course, but my husband was determined to find it, and he went and consulted one of those word-diviners that set themselves up at street corners. Iron Mouth Liu I think this one’s name was. His reading was very clear. My husband followed his instructions, and found the missing item straight away.’
When Aroma heard this she begged her to help them.
‘Oh, Mrs Lin! Please go and ask your husband to consult this man for us!’
‘Indeed I will. Straight away.’
Lin’s wife bustled off. Xing Xiu-yan now had a suggestion to make.
‘If you ask me, those word-diviners and fortune-tellers you find on street corners are all charlatans. But when I knew Adamantina, in the South, before she came to live here, I heard of her gift for the planchette. Why don’t we ask her to hold a séance for us? Didn’t Bao-yu’s jade have a mysterious origin anyway? It would surely lend itself to that sort of approach.’
The others seemed greatly surprised to hear this, and reflected that in all the time they had known her, Adamantina had never once mentioned such a gift. Musk earnestly beseeched Xiu-yan:
‘Oh, Miss! I don’t think she would agree to do it for anyone but you! Please, please, will you ask her for us? I’ll kotow to you – if she finds the answer, I’ll be indebted to you for a lifetime!’
She was about to perform a kotow, but Xiu-yan raised her from the ground. Dai-yu and the others added their entreaties to Musk’s, and Xiu-yan left with all speed for Green Bower Hermitage.
No sooner had she gone, than Steward Lin’s wife returned from her mission.
‘Ladies!’ she announced with great jubilation. ‘I bring good news! My husband has been to see the man, and he says the jade is sure to turn up. Someone will definitely bring it back.’
She had yet to convince her audience however – except for Aroma and Musk, who were ready to grasp at the slightest hope. Tan-chun asked:
‘What word came up, and what was the reading?’
‘He said a lot,’ replied Lin’s wife, ‘and some of it I couldn’t understand. But I know the word was shang (1) meaning “to reward”. Iron Mouth Liu took one look at it and said, “You’ve lost something, haven’t you?”!’
‘Goodness! He sounds pretty good!’ exclaimed Li Wan.
Lin’s wife continued:
‘Then he went on to say that as shang was made up of xiao (2) meaning “small” on top, with kou (3) meaning “mouth” in the middle, the lost object was small enough to fit inside the mouth. It must be some jewel or precious stone.’
Amid cries of ‘Miraculous!’ and ‘Go on!’, Lin’s wife continued:
‘Then he said that we should be careful to notice that the radical element was bei (4) meaning “a cowry shell” and not the similar radical jian (5) meaning “to appear”, hence the object’s disappearance … And the top element of the word taken as a whole was very like dang (6) meaning “to pawn”, so we should go straight to the pawnshop. Then he pointed out that by adding a ren (7) “man” to the left-hand side, the compound chang (8) meaning “to redeem” was formed. Find the man in the pawnshop, pay the price, and the lost object will be redeemed …’
‘What are we waiting for?’ cried the girls. ‘Search the neighbourhood! If we work our way through the pawnshops, we’re sure to find the right one sooner or later. And once we’ve found the jade, it will be easy enough to find the thief.’
‘Find the jade and we needn’t even bother who the thief is,’ said Li Wan. Turning to Steward Lin’s wife she continued: ‘Go and tell Mrs Lian what you have just told us. Then she can tell Her Ladyship and set her mind at rest. And ask Mrs Lian to send someone out to search the pawnshops.’
Lin’s wife set off at once.
Things seemed more hopeful now, and relative calm was restored. They were waiting in a somewhat bemused state for Xiu-yan to return when they saw Tealeaf beckoning from the gateway to one of the junior maids. She ran out and he said:
‘Quick! Go in and tell Master Bao and their Ladyships and the ladies and young misses that I’ve got the most wonderful piece of news!’
‘Well come on!’ burst out the maid. ‘What is it? Out with it!’
Tealeaf started laughing and clapping his hands.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. And then you can go in and tell them, and we can split the reward between us. Guess what? The most reliable information has reached me as to the whereabouts of the Missing Jade!’
The outcome of all this excitement will be related in the next chapter.
Chapter 95
A rumour comes true and the Imperial Consort passes away
A counterfeit is deceptively like the real thing, and Bao-yu loses his wits
There was Tealeaf at the entrance to Green Delights, proclaiming his discovery of the missing jade. A junior maid hurried in to tell Bao-yu. The others, when they heard, propelled Bao-yu towards the entrance to question Tealeaf, while they stood listening in the covered gallery. Bao-yu, greatly relieved at the news, walked out and asked Tealeaf:
‘Where did you find it? Come on, give it to me.’
Tealeaf replied:
‘I’m afraid I couldn’t bring it with me. I need a guarantor.’
‘But how did you find it? Tell me, and I’ll send someone to fetch it.’
‘I heard that Steward Lin was going to consult the word-diviner,’ said Tealeaf, ‘so I went along with him. When I heard the word ‘pawnshop’, I didn’t wait to hear the rest, but went racing round the pawnshops. I described the jade to them, and eventually one of them said, “We’ve got it.” I asked him to hand it over, but he insisted on having the pawn-ticket. When I asked hi
m how much it had been pawned for, he said he had one for three hundred taels and another for five hundred. The one for three hundred was brought in the day before yesterday, the one for five hundred came in today.’
‘Quick,’ interrupted Bao-yu. ‘Take three hundred taels and five hundred. Get them both, and we can see which is the right one.’
But Aroma called out jeeringly from within:
‘You’re not going to take any notice of him, are you? I remember my elder brother telling me when I was a little girl, that the people who deal in that kind of jade pawn one or two from their stock when they are short of cash. Every pawnshop must have at least one of them.’
At first everyone had been carried away by Tealeaf’s story. But now, after reflecting on what Aroma had just said, they all began to laugh.
‘Come inside, Master Bao. Don’t listen to that fool. Whatever it is he’s talking about, it obviously isn’t the real thing.’
Bao-yu laughed too. At that moment, Xiu-yan returned from her mission.
On her arrival at Green Bower Hermitage, she had come straight to the point. Would Adamantina consult the planchette for them? Her request met with a scornful laugh.
‘I thought you were above such worldly things, Xiu-yan. I am sure we should never have been such friends if I had known you would ever let idle talk induce you to come bothering me. Anyway, I’m afraid this planchette you mention is something I am not familiar with.’
With this, she clearly intended to dismiss the subject, and Xiu-yan regretted ever having come. She knew what a difficult disposition Adamantina had. But now that she had broached the subject, it seemed such a pity to return empty-handed. She made no attempt to insist on her friend’s psychic powers, but instead tried to win Adamantina around by speaking of the urgent light in which Aroma and the others viewed the loss. At this, Adamantina showed signs of relenting, and Xiu-yan rose to her feet and bowed humbly before her several times. Adamantina sighed.
‘Are we to be at everyone’s beck and call? Since I have been here, I have kept this a secret. Now, if I make an exception for you, I shall never be left in peace.’
‘I felt I had to come, their need seemed so great,’ replied Xiu-yan. ‘I knew that you would feel sorry for them. If anyone else should ask, you will be quite free to say no. No one would ever press you into it.’
Adamantina laughed. She told one of the lay-sisters to light some incense, and went herself to fetch the tray of sand and the planchette-wand from a chest. After writing out the requisite incantation, she told Xiu-yan to kneel and pray. When this was done, they both stood and held the wand by its double handle. Before long it began to move across the tray. The characters it traced with a rapid motion in the sand read as follows:
ALAS!
IT LEFT NOR TRACE
NOR SIGN.
GONE TO GREENSICKNESS PEAK, TO LIE
AT THE FOOT OF AN AGE-OLD PINE.
WHY TRAVERSE COUNTLESS MOUNTAINS,
SEARCHING FOR YOUR FRIEND?
FOLLOW ME AND LAUGH TO SEE
YOUR JOURNEY AT AN END!
The writing ceased, and the wand came to rest.
‘Which spirit did you invoke?’ asked Xiu-yan.
‘Iron Crutch Li,’ replied Adamantina.
Xiu-yan copied down the writing, and asked Adamantina to give an explanation of the lines.
‘How could I?’ she replied. ‘I don’t understand them myself. Take it back to the others. Many of them are far cleverer than I am, I’m sure.’
Xiu-yan did not press her, but returned to Green Delights. On her arrival, she was besieged with questions.
Tell us what happened!’ they all cried.
Instead of giving them a lengthy description of the séance, Xiu-yan handed her transcript straight to Li Wan. The girls and Bao-yu crowded round to read it. Between them they came to the following interpretation of the lines: the jade would not be found by looking for it, and yet it was not irretrievably lost. At some unforeseeable time, when no one was looking for it, it would just turn up. But as for Green-sickness Peak, no one had any idea where that could be.
‘It may be some sort of hidden clue,’ suggested Li Wan. ‘We’ve certainly never had such a mountain in our garden, and one is not going to spring suddenly from nowhere. The only explanation I can think of is that whoever stole the jade lost his nerve and threw it away, and now it’s lying beneath some miniature mountain in a rockery somewhere near a pine-tree. But what’s all this about ‘follow me’ at the end?’
‘Who was the spirit invoked?’ asked Dai-yu.
‘Iron Crutch Li,’ Xiu-yan informed her.
‘He’d be a hard one to follow!’ protested Tan-chun.
Aroma, meanwhile, in her desperation, took the words quite literally and set to in earnest, searching blindly everywhere. She left no stone in the garden unturned, but all to no avail. When she returned, Bao-yu did not even ask her if she had had any success, but just gave her a silly grin.
‘Little ancestor!’ cried Musk. ‘For pity’s sake tell us where you lost it! At least then if we have to suffer for it, we will know why!’
‘You wouldn’t listen to me when I said I’d lost it outside,’ protested Bao-yu. ‘How am I supposed to know any better now?’
Li Wan and Tan-chun suggested that they had all had a long and tiring day. It was now eleven o’clock. Dai-yu, they observed, had been too weary to stay up any longer, and had gone home on her own.
‘We should all go to bed now,’ they proposed. ‘Tomorrow we can start afresh.’
The gathering dispersed. Bao-yu went straight to sleep. Aroma and the other maids, however, were quite unable to get to sleep, and sat up all night long, weeping and brooding by turns.
*
But we must leave them for a while, and turn our attention to Dai-yu. When she reached home, her thoughts turned once more to the subject that had always preoccupied her, the bond of gold and jade between Bao-yu and Bao-chai. On this occasion, her conclusions were more gratifying than usual.
‘How can there have been any truth in the prophecy made by the Monk and the Taoist?’ she argued with herself. ‘If there really were a bond of gold and jade, how could Bao-yu lose his jade like this? Perhaps I am an unforeseen circumstance that has broken the bond …’
More reflections of this kind brought her an unwonted peace of mind. Her weariness after the day’s exertions seemed to fall from her, and she began reading again. Nightingale, however, was worn out, and urged her mistress repeatedly to go to sleep. Dai-yu lay down, but continued to think. This time it was the crab-trees that occupied her thoughts.
‘Bao-yu’s jade is no ordinary stone. He was born with it, and whatever happens to it is highly significant. If the crab-blossom were a good omen, then why should he lose his jade at the same time? It must be inauspicious. I’m afraid something unlucky will happen to him.’
Down went her spirits again. And then she saw it in yet another light, and became optimistic once more. Perhaps both the blossoming and the loss of the jade were meant to happen, were both in some way timely and auspicious. She lay awake in the throes of these conflicting emotions, and only fell asleep in the early hours.
Early the next morning, Lady Wang sent servants to make inquiries in the pawnshops, while Xi-feng set in motion her own secret investigations. Several days went by, but despite their combined efforts, there was still no sign of the missing jade. Luckily word of the disaster had as yet reached neither Grandmother Jia nor Jia Zheng. But Aroma and the other maids lived from day to day in unbearable suspense, while Bao-yu, who had now been absent from school for several days, was becoming progressively more morose, listless and silent. Lady Wang was not too worried by this, judging it to be a temporary affliction brought on by the loss of his jade.
She was sitting one day lost in thought, when Jia Lian came into her room, and having paid his respects, announced with a complacent smile:
‘Uncle Zheng has today had word from Yu-cun that Uncle Wang Zi-teng has bee
n promoted to a position in the Grand Secretariat. He has received an Imperial Decree to proceed to the capital. His official instatement is to be on the twentieth of the First month of next year, and an urgent dispatch has been sent to summon him from the frontier. He will be travelling day and night, and should be here in half a month or so. I have come especially to bring you this news, Aunt.’
Lady Wang was absolutely delighted. She had only just been thinking how few of her own family she had around her, a deficiency that had been highlighted during her sister’s latest troubles. Her brother Zi-teng had been too far away to be able to wield any influence on their behalf. But now, with his new appointment and return to the capital, she could expect a revival of Wang family prestige from which Bao-yu too would be able to benefit. For the time being she felt able to dismiss her anxiety over the missing jade, and looked forward more and more to her brother’s return.
A day or two later, Jia Zheng came in unexpectedly, and with tear-stained face and voice choking with emotion, told her:
‘You must inform Mother immediately that her presence is required at once at the Palace. There is no need for a large party to go. It will be sufficient if you escort Mother. Her Grace has suddenly been taken ill, and has fallen into a coma. There is a court eunuch waiting outside. He says the official diagnosis by the College of Physicians is an incurable stroke.’
Lady Wang burst into tears.
‘This is no time for crying,’ said Jia Zheng. ‘You must go and tell Mother at once. Break it to her gently. We must not cause the old lady too much of a shock.’
So saying, Jia Zheng went out to give the staff their instructions. Lady Wang dried her eyes and went in to Grandmother Jia’s apartment. She said simply that Yuan-chun was ill, and that they must go to the Palace to present their respects.