Ever since the departure of Parfumée, Fivey had given up all idea of coming to serve at Green Delights; but then, when Xi-feng gave orders for her to be taken into Bao-yu’s service, she was more excited about it than Bao-yu himself. To her surprise, after her arrival the generally distinguished and dignified manner in which Bao-chai and Aroma conducted themselves made a deep impression on her, and she found herself coming to respect and admire them greatly, whereas Bao-yu by contrast seemed to her to have degenerated into a complete idiot, and to be not half so handsome as he used to be. Besides she knew that Lady Wang had dismissed some of the maids for flirting with Bao-yu, and she therefore decided to dismiss any foolish and romantic notions she might previously have entertained concerning him. But now here he was, the simpleton, evidently taking a fancy to her (she knew nothing of the process by which his feelings for Skybright had been transferred to her).
Both her cheeks were burning. She did not dare say anything out loud, but whispered:
‘Mr Bao, please go ahead and rinse your mouth!’
He smiled and took the cup in his hand. She could not tell whether he ever did rinse his mouth or not, as the next she knew he was giggling and asking her:
‘Weren’t you friends with Skybright?’
Fivey didn’t understand what he was getting at.
‘Of course. We were all of us on good terms.’
Bao-yu lowered his voice to a whisper:
‘When Skybright was so very ill, I went to visit her. You were there, weren’t you?’
Fivey smiled and nodded her head.
‘Did you hear her say anything?’ asked Bao-yu.
‘No,’ replied Fivey, shaking her head.
Bao-yu held Fivey’s hand. He seemed to be completely carried away. She blushed fiercely and her heart missed a beat.
‘Mr Bao!’ she whispered. ‘Whatever’s on your mind, just go ahead and say it. But please stop behaving like this.’
Bao-yu let go of her hand.
‘ “If I’d known in advance that it would be like this, I might have behaved rather differently …” That’s what Skybright said. Surely you must have heard?’
It seemed quite plain to Fivey what manner of ‘different behaviour’ he had in mind. She felt she must protest:
‘If that’s what she said, she should have been ashamed of herself! No decent girl would suggest a thing like that!’
‘Don’t you start preaching at me too!’ snapped Bao-yu irritably. ‘I was thinking how like Skybright you looked – that’s the only reason I told you what she said. How dare you slander her!’
Fivey could no longer discern Bao-yu’s true intentions.
‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘You really should go to sleep and not sit up like this. You might catch cold. Didn’t you hear what Mrs Bao and Aroma said just now?’
‘I’m not cold,’ said Bao-yu. As he said this, it suddenly struck him that Fivey was most inadequately clad, and that she might catch a chill just as Skybright had done.
‘Why aren’t you wearing a proper robe?’ he asked her.
‘You called, and it sounded important,’ she replied. ‘I was hardly going to take time off to dress! I would have, mind you, if I’d known you were going to keep me talking this long.’
Bao-yu handed Fivey the pale blue silken padded jacket that was lying on the bed, and told her to put it on. But she refused.
‘You keep it – I’m not cold. And anyway, I’ve a perfectly good robe of my own.’
She went across to her bed and put on a long robe. She listened out for a moment. Musk was sound asleep. She crossed slowly back to Bao-yu:
‘I thought you were supposed to be having a quiet night?’
Bao-yu smiled.
‘To tell you the truth, that was never my intention. Actually, I was hoping to meet a fairy …’
His words strengthened her suspicions.
‘Who do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you if you like,’ he replied. ‘But it’s a long story. You’d better come up here and sit next to me …’
‘But you’re all tucked up in bed!’ she protested, blushing again and smiling coyly. ‘How can I possibly sit next to you?’
‘Why not? One night a year or two ago, when the weather was cold and Skybright stayed up to play a trick on Musk, I was afraid she was going to catch a chill, so I tucked her under my quilt to keep her warm. What’s wrong with it? People shouldn’t be so prudish.’
Fivey thought he was merely putting ideas into her head. She did not know that he sincerely meant every word he said. She contemplated her dilemma. She could hardly escape; and yet if she remained, it would be equally awkward for her to remain standing or to sit down beside him. She gave him a little glance and her face puckered into a smile:
‘Don’t say such silly things! People might hear. No wonder you have such a reputation. How can you still need to go flirting, with two such beautiful ladies as Mrs Bao and Aroma by your side! Don’t you ever suggest such a thing again, or I’ll report you to Mrs Bao. And then you’ll have cause to be ashamed!’
As she was speaking there was a sudden noise outside, which startled them both, and shortly afterwards Bao-chai could be heard coughing in the inner room. Bao-yu made a quick motion with his lips, and Fivey hurriedly extinguished the lamp and stole back to bed. In fact, earlier that evening, both Bao-chai and Aroma had gone straight to sleep, exhausted after their previous sleepless night and the day’s exertions, and both of them had slept soundly through this conversation between Bao-yu and Fivey. It was the sudden noise in the courtyard that had woken them too. They listened for any further sound, but all was quiet. Bao-yu meanwhile lay down in bed again, and was thinking to himself:
‘That noise must surely have been Cousin Lin! She came, and then, when she heard me talking with Fivey, she decided to give us both a fright.’
He lay there tossing and turning, a thousand wild fancies running through his head, and only nodded off some time after three in the morning.
Bao-yu’s advances had left Fivey with a guilty conscience, and when Bao-chai coughed she feared that they had both been overheard, and lay awake worrying about it all night. Early the next morning she rose, and seeing Bao-yu still fast asleep, began quietly tidying the room. Musk was already awake.
‘Why are you up so early?’ she asked Fivey. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been awake all night …’
This led Fivey to suspect that Musk had overheard them too. She smiled awkwardly and said nothing. Presently Bao-chai and Aroma got up, opened the door and came into the outer room, where they were greatly surprised to find Bao-yu still asleep. It puzzled them that he should have slept there so soundly on two consecutive nights.
When Bao-yu awoke and saw them all standing around him, he sat up at once and rubbed his eyes. He thought back over the night. No, there had still been no dream. He had met no one. He consoled himself with the words of the old saying:
Fairies and mortals tread different paths,
And ne’er the twain shall meet.
As he climbed slowly down from his bed, Fivey’s words about Bao-chai and Aroma were still ringing in his ears: ‘two such beautiful ladies’. Yes, she was right, he thought to himself, and proceeded to stare at Bao-chai. Bao-chai thought he was drifting into one of his brown studies, and felt certain it must be to do with Dai-yu again, though she still had not enquired whether his dream had been fruitful or not. She soon began to feel uncomfortable under his penetrating gaze, and finally asked:
‘Well, did you meet a fairy last night or not?’
Bao-yu concluded from this that she must have overheard his tête-à-tête with Fivey. He gave a nervous little laugh and replied with feigned surprise:
‘What do you mean?’
Fivey for her part was feeling more and more guilty and apprehensive, and silently observed Bao-chai’s reaction. Bao-chai turned to her next and asked with a smile:
‘Well, did Mr Bao talk in his sleep last night?’
At
this Bao-yu, muttering some incoherent excuse, walked rather sheepishly from the room. Fivey blushed fiercely and replied as evasively as she could:
‘He said something or other early in the night, but I didn’t quite catch it. Something about “knowing in advance that things would be like this”, and then something about “behaving rather differently”. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, so I just told him to go back to sleep. Then I fell asleep myself, and if he said any more I certainly didn’t hear it.’
Bao-chai lowered her head in thought:
Obviously something to do with Dai-yu. If I let him go on sleeping in the outer room he’s bound to get more and more of these weird ideas into his head, and who knows what strange apparitions and flower fairies we’ll have then. It is his weakness for our sex that has always been his vulnerable spot. How can I win him over myself? Until I can do that, this will never stop.’
A fierce and somewhat unmaidenly blush came to her cheeks, and she walked back into the inner room in something of a fluster to do her toilet.
During the two-day birthday festivities, Grandmother Jia had overeaten, and on the second evening she was a little off colour. The following day she had a painfully bloated feeling in her stomach, which Faithful wanted to report to Jia Zheng. But Grandmother Jia forbade her:
‘I’ve just been a bit greedy over the past couple of days. A fast will soon put me right. Don’t you go making a fuss.’
Consequently Faithful told no one.
That evening, when Bao-yu returned to his apartment and saw Bao-chai come in from paying her respects to Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang, he recalled the incident in the morning and blushed with shame. His embarrassment was evident to Bao-chai. For someone subject to such extremities of feeling (she thought to herself) the only remedy lay in the manipulation of those very feelings themselves.
‘Will you be sleeping outside again tonight?’ she asked.
Bao-yu did not seem keen to pursue the matter:
‘I really don’t mind one way or the other.’
Bao-chai could think of no suitable retort.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ protested Aroma. ‘I don’t believe you really slept so soundly out there …’
Fivey promptly leapt to Bao-yu’s defence:
‘Mr Bao had a very peaceful night, apart from talking in his sleep. I couldn’t make head or tail of what he said, and it seemed best not to argue with him.’
‘I shall sleep out there tonight,’ announced Aroma, ‘and we’ll see if I talk in my sleep. You can go ahead and move Mr Bao’s bedding back into the inner room.’
Bao-chai made no comment. Bao-yu was too full of remorse to object, and went along meekly with Aroma’s plan. He was eager to make it up with Bao-chai, while her concern that too much introspection and grief would injure his health caused her to be especially tender towards him; she was quite deliberately trying to ‘graft herself’ on to the ‘stem’ of his affections, drawing him closer to her and usurping Dai-yu’s place in his heart. When Aroma went to sleep in the outer room that evening, Bao-yu was in a frame of mind to exhibit his penitence, and Bao-chai naturally had no intention of rejecting him. As a result, their marriage was that night physically consummated for the first time, and they tasted to the full the joys of nuptial intercourse. From this union Bao-chai conceived a child. But that belongs to a later part of our story.
When Bao-chai and Bao-yu rose in the morning, Bao-yu performed his ablutions and went ahead to call on Grandmother Jia. She had that very morning had a sudden fancy to give something to her darling grandson and to her devoted granddaughter-in-law, and had told Faithful to open one of her trunks and take out an antique Han dynasty jade thumb-ring, a family heirloom of hers. She knew it could not compare with Bao-yu’s original jade, but thought nevertheless that it would make rather an unusual pendant. Faithful found it and handed it to Grandmother Jia.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen this before. How could you remember so clearly where it was after all these years? You knew exactly which casket and which trunk. With your instructions I was able to find it straight away. What do you want it for, ma’am?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to know about this ring,’ replied Grandmother Jia. ‘It was originally given to my father by my great-grandfather, and then when I was married my father sent for me and made me a present of it. He told me it was a very precious thumb-ring made in the Han dynasty, of the variety known as “broken circle”. He wanted me to keep it as a memento. I was very young at the time and didn’t think much of it; I just put it away in a trunk. And when I came to live here, and saw so many other treasures around me, it didn’t seem so very special. I’ve never even worn it. It must have been lying in that trunk for over sixty years. I was thinking today what a good grandson Bao-yu is to me; and since he has lost his own jade, I thought I might give this to him, just as my father gave it to me.’
Presently Bao-yu arrived to pay his respects.
‘Come here,’ said Grandmother Jia with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Come and have a look at something.’
Bao-yu walked over to the couch where she was lying, and Grandmother Jia handed him the jade thumb-ring. He took it in his hands and inspected it. It was about three inches in circumference, slightly elliptical in shape like an elongated melon, of a reddish hue. It was a very beautiful piece of workmanship. Bao-yu was most taken with it and enthused at some length.
‘Do you like it?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘This was handed down to me from my great-grandpa, and now I’m passing it on to you.’
Bao-yu smiled, and dropping one knee to the ground to express his thanks, said he would like to go and show the ring to his mother.
‘When she sees it she will tell your father,’ Grandmother Jia teased him, ‘and then he will say that I love you more than I ever loved him. They have never even set eyes on it before.’
Bao-yu smiled and went out, leaving Bao-chai to stay for a while and chat with Grandmother Jia before taking her leave.
The old lady fasted for two days, but she still had a painfully bloated stomach, and began to cough and have dizzy spells. The ladies found her in good spirits when they paid their duty calls, but they sent a message to Jia Zheng that she was indisposed. He came immediately, and on leaving her apartment sent at once for a doctor to take her pulses and give a diagnosis. The doctor came presently and after a consultation pronounced that the condition was nothing unusual for a person of Grandmother Jia’s age. Faulty diet had caused a slight chill, which a little dispersant medication would soon put right. He wrote out a prescription, and Jia Zheng, seeing that it contained nothing out of the ordinary, told one of the maids to brew the ingredients up and administer the decoction to Grandmother Jia.
Jia Zheng visited Grandmother Jia morning and evening. After three days, when there was still no sign of improvement, he said to Jia Lian:
‘You must get in touch with a better doctor and ask him to come and look at your grandmother as soon as possible. I’m afraid none of our regular doctors is good enough.’
Jia Lian thought for a moment:
‘I remember a while ago when Bao-yu was ill, we ended up calling in a doctor who was not strictly speaking a regular practitioner at all – and yet he was the one to put Bao-yu right. Why don’t we send for him again?’
‘Medicine is certainly a subtle art,’ Jia Zheng mused aloud. ‘And sometimes the ablest physicians are not recognized as such. By all means send someone to fetch this man.’
Jia Lian departed at once, only to return with the news that the doctor in question had recently left town to instruct his disciples and would not be coming back for another ten days. As the matter was urgent, Jia Lian had invited another, who was already on his way. Jia Zheng waited anxiously for this doctor’s arrival.
During this illness, all the ladies were in constant attendance on Grandmother Jia. On one occasion, when there was quite a gathering of them in her apartment, one of the old women whose duty it was to watch
the side gate of the Garden came in with a message.
‘Sister Adamantina from Green Bower Hermitage in the Garden has heard that Her Old Ladyship is ill, and has come specially to call.’
‘She so rarely visits,’ they commented. ‘Go and invite her in at once.’
Xi-feng went over to the bedside to tell Grandmother Jia, and Xiu-yan, Adamantina’s old friend, went out to meet her. Adamantina was wearing the head-covering of an unshorn nun, and a pale blue plain silk gown with a patchwork full-length sleeveless jacket over it, bordered with black silk; she had gathered her gown with a russet-green woven sash, beneath which she wore a long white damask-silk skirt decorated with a pattern in grey. She drifted in with her usual otherworldly air, holding a fly whisk and fingering a rosary, and followed by one of her attendants. Xiu-yan greeted her:
‘When I lived in the Garden too, I could come and see you often; but recently the Garden’s become so deserted, and it’s been difficult for me to go in there on my own. And anyway the side gate is usually closed. That’s why I haven’t been able to visit you for so long. How lovely it is to see you again!’
‘You and the others were always too caught up in the hustle and bustle of life,’ replied Adamatina. ‘That’s why even when you lived in the Garden I didn’t visit very often. But I’ve heard of the recent troubles, and learned that Her Old Ladyship has fallen ill; I’ve been thinking of you and I wanted to see Bao-chai. What difference does it make to me if the gates are closed or not? I chose to come, and I came; if I hadn’t chosen to come, it would have made no difference how much anybody wanted me to.’
Xiu-yan laughed.
‘You haven’t changed a bit, have you!’
By now they had entered Grandmother Jia’s room. The ladies all welcomed Adamantina, and she went up to the bedside, enquired after the old lady’s health and chatted with her for a while.