Jia She interrupted Jia Lian:
‘Go and tell your aunt Wang about this straight away. But don’t trouble your grandmother at present.’
So Jia Lian went to report to Lady Wang. For the sequel, please turn to the next chapter.
Chapter 103
Jin-gui dies by her own hand, caught in a web of her own weaving
Yu-cun encounters an old friend in vain, blind to the higher truths of Zen
Jia Lian gave Lady Wang a full account of Jia Zheng’s misfortune. The next day he paid another call at the Board of Civil Office, and on his return reported once more to Lady Wang, assuring her that he had done his utmost to put in a word for Jia Zheng in the right quarters.
‘So you’re sure the news is genuine?’ she asked. ‘Well, I dare say your Uncle Zheng will be none too displeased. In fact it will come as something of a relief to us all. He was never really suited to a provincial posting, and if he had not come home now I’m afraid those rascals would one day have ruined him altogether!’
‘How is it that you are so well informed in this matter?’ asked Jia Lian.
‘Ever since your uncle Zheng has been at this post,’ replied Lady Wang, ‘not a penny has been remitted. On the contrary. He has been secretly sending here for considerable sums. You have only to look at the way the servants’ wives are already decking themselves out in all sorts of fancy gold and silver ornaments to know what’s been going on. It’s obvious that their husbands have been making money behind your uncle Zheng’s back. He just lets them get away with it. If it had gone any further, not only would he have lost his job but the inherited family rank might have been forfeited as well!’
‘You’re quite right, Aunt,’ said Jia Lian. ‘I confess that I was very shocked when I first heard the news. But now that I know the full facts of the case I feel considerably easier about it. It will be much better for Uncle Zheng this way. He will be able to work here in the capital in peace and quiet for a few years, without endangering his reputation any further. I think even Grandmother will be quite relieved when she hears the whole story. But I feel you should break it gently to her all the same.’
‘I will,’ said Lady Wang. ‘You had better go now and see what else you can find out.’
Jia Lian was on his way out when one of Aunt Xue’s old serving-women came running past in a great lather. She went directly into Lady Wang’s apartment and without any preliminary courtesies burst straight out with: ‘Our Madam says I’m to tell Your Ladyship there’s terrible trouble at home again! Things have come to a pretty pass this time and no mistake!’
‘What sort of trouble?’ asked Lady Wang.
‘Oh, something terrible! Just terrible!’
‘You stupid old creature!’ exclaimed Lady Wang with a snort of exasperation. ‘If something serious has happened, for goodness’ sake try to tell me what it is!’
‘Master Ke’s away and we haven’t got a man in the house! It’s a crisis and we just don’t know what to do! Please will Your Ladyship send one or two of the Masters over to sort it out for us!’
Lady Wang still had not the slightest idea what she was talking about.
‘Sort out what in heaven’s name?’ she asked impatiently.
‘It’s Mrs Pan! She’s dead!’ blurted out the old woman at last.
‘Pfui!’ exclaimed Lady Wang when she heard this. ‘So that baggage is dead! Is that what all the fuss is about?’
‘But it wasn’t reg’lar, Your Ladyship. I mean, the way she died. Such a to-do! Please, Your Ladyship, send someone over right away!’
She set off back to the Xue compound. Lady Wang was both annoyed and amused:
‘Honestly, what a hopeless old woman! Lian, go and have a look will you? It’s a complete waste of time trying to make head or tail of anything that old creature says.’
The first part, about ‘going and having a look’, failed to reach the old woman’s ears. She only caught the words ‘a complete waste of time’ and went running home in a great huff to Aunt Xue, who was anxiously awaiting her return:
‘Well, who is Lady Wang going to send?’
The old woman sighed demonstratively:
‘Fat lot of use family are at a time of crisis, I must say! Her Ladyship wouldn’t lift a finger for us! All she did was call me a stupid creature!’
This seemed to make Aunt Xue angry, and she became rather flustered:
‘If Her Ladyship wouldn’t help, what about our own Mrs Bao?’
‘I didn’t even bother to tell her,' replied the old woman. ‘How could she be expected to stand up for us if Her Ladyship wouldn’t?’
Aunt Xue spat at her, and cried indignantly:
‘Are you out of your mind? Her Ladyship is one of the Jias; but Bao-chai is my own child. She wouldn’t let me down!’
The distinction suddenly seemed to dawn on the old woman.
‘Lawks! I’d better go back and find her right away!’
As they were speaking, Jia Lian came in. He paid his respects to Aunt Xue, and after expressing his condolences went on to explain to her:
‘When Aunt Wang heard that Mrs Pan was dead, she questioned your serving-woman but was unable to extract any sense from her at all. Aunt was very worried and sent me to find out what was going on and to give you a hand. If anything needs doing, Aunt Xue, just let me know and I’ll do what I can.’
Aunt Xue had been working herself into a state of great indignation with the old woman, and had become so distraught she could do nothing but weep. On hearing Jia Lian’s words she became articulate once more:
‘I’m most obliged to you, Lian. I was sure my sister would stand by me. I’m afraid this old woman completely misunderstood you, and gave me a totally misleading impression. Now, please sit down and let me tell you the whole story.’
After a slight pause she continued: ‘How shall I put it …? Well, in a nutshell, my daughter-in-law did not die a natural death.’
‘I suppose it was suicide?’ ventured Jia Lian. ‘Was it despondency at Cousin Pan’s imprisonment that drove her to take her own life?’
‘If only it had been! Alas, no. Let me explain. For several months she’d been rampaging about the whole time, barefoot and with her hair in a terrible state. When she heard that Pan was facing a death sentence, after an initial fit of weeping she began painting herself up dreadfully with rouge and powder. Any remonstrations on my part would only have led to more atrocious scenes, so I tried to turn a blind eye. Then suddenly one day, for some reason unknown to me, she came and asked me if she could have Caltrop to keep her company. I said to her: “You’ve already got Moonbeam. Do you really need Caltrop as well? You’ve never liked her, so why go asking for trouble?’ But she insisted, and I had no choice but to send Caltrop over to her room. The poor girl didn’t dare disobey my orders and she went, ill though she was.
‘Funnily enough, my daughter-in-law treated her very well. I was delighted; and although Chai suspected some ulterior motive, I was prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, a few days ago, Caltrop fell ill again, and Jin-gui cooked her some soup. She even made a point of serving it to her with her own hands. Poor Caltrop! There was the most unfortunate accident. Jin-gui dropped the soup just as she was coming up to the bedside, scalded herself and broke the bowl as well. I would have expected her to have blamed Caltrop; but no, she wasn’t in the least angry, just went off at once to fetch a broom, swept up the pieces and gave the floor a good clean. Afterwards the two of them still seemed on friendly terms.
‘Then yesterday evening she told Moonbeam to go and make two bowls of soup, which she said she would drink with Caltrop. It was a little later that we heard this terrific hullabaloo coming from her apartment. First Moonbeam started screaming her head off, then Caltrop screamed too and staggered out, leaning on the wall for support and calling for help. I went in at once and found Jin-gui writhing on the floor, with blood streaming from her nose and eyes; she was clutching feverishly at her stomach with both hands, and ki
cking both feet in the air. I was scared out of my wits. I asked her to tell me what had happened, but she was too far gone to answer, and after a few more minutes of agony she died. It looked very much like a case of poisoning to me.
‘Then Moonbeam started wailing again and laid hold of Caltrop, claiming that it was her doing. But I hardly think Caltrop is that sort of person. Besides, she was almost too ill to get out of bed; how could she have had the strength to do such a thing? Moonbeam insisted, however, and still insists, that Caltrop is the culprit. My dear Lian! What was I to do? In the circumstances I had no choice but to tell the old women to bind Caltrop, to hand her over to Moonbeam and to lock them both in the room. Bao-qin and I have been up all night keeping watch, and we sent word to you the moment the gates were opened this morning. Lian, you know about such things. What’s the proper course of action for me to take?’
‘Do Jin-gui’s family know yet?’ asked Jia Lian.
‘I thought it better to try to disentangle the whole affair ourselves before letting anyone know.’
‘I would advise you to report what’s happened to the authorities first and let them reach their own conclusions. It’s only natural that we should suspect Moonbeam, but they might ask what Moonbeam would have stood to gain by poisoning her own mistress. And in a way it might almost seem more plausible to them that Caltrop should have done it.’
As they were speaking, some serving-women from Rong-guo House came in to announce the arrival of Bao-chai. Jia Lian decided that, although strictly speaking she was his younger cousin’s wife, he need not withdraw; after all, she was also his cousin and he had known her from childhood. She greeted her mother and Jia Lian, and went in to sit with Bao-qin in the inner room. Aunt Xue joined her there and told her the story.
‘Surely, by binding Caltrop we are virtually admitting her guilt?’ was Bao-chai’s immediate response. ‘If Moonbeam made the soup, then she should be bound. And we must let the Xia family know, and report the death to the authorities.’
This seemed logical enough to Aunt Xue. She asked Jia Lian for his opinion:
‘Chai is absolutely right. I’d better go and have a word with someone at the Board of Punishment, to make sure there’s no trouble at the inquest. But I think it will be a bit hard to justify releasing Caltrop if we then bind Moonbeam instead.’
‘I never wanted to bind Caltrop in the first place,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘but I was afraid that this unjust accusation, coming on top of her illness, might drive her to desperate measures. She might try to commit suicide, and then we’d have another death on our hands. It was for her own safety that I tied her up and handed her over to Moonbeam.’
‘Quite,’ said Jia Lian. ‘But still, we have rather played into Moonbeam’s hands. I think our principle now must be that, if one of them is bound, both must be bound; if one is set free, both must be set free. They were both present at the time of Jin-gui’s death. Meanwhile we must send someone to comfort Caltrop.’
Aunt Xue told her serving-woman to open the door of Jin-gui’s apartment and go in, while Bao-chai ordered some of her own women to accompany them and help them tie up Moonbeam. When they arrived they found Caltrop sobbing her heart out and Moonbeam gloating over her. Moonbeam fought back tooth and nail when they laid hands on her, but the women were too strong. After much shouting from Moonbeam they tied her up, and left the door open so that the two suspects could be more conveniently watched over.
Word had already been sent to Jin-gui’s family. The Xias had originally lived outside the capital, but recently their circumstances had become much reduced, and partly for this reason, partly to be near Jin-gui, they had moved into town. Jin-gui’s father was already dead, and the only surviving members of her family were her mother and her newly adopted brother, Xia San, a ne’er-do-well who had succeeded in squandering what remained of the family’s resources. Now that they were living in town, he became a frequent visitor at the Xue household. Jin-gui was a fickle creature, little suited to the role of the faithful, pining wife. Her failure to entrap Xue Ke had left her ravenous for the slightest morsel, and now even this adopted brother of hers seemed an acceptable means of assuaging her desire. Xia San, however, was a trifle on the slow side, and although he sensed her intentions soon enough, held back from steering his craft directly into her capacious harbour. Jin-gui paid more and more frequent visits to her family, taking with her presents of money to pave the way for Xia San’s eventual capitulation.
On the day in question, the day after Jin-gui’s sudden death, he was eagerly awaiting one of these visits, and when the Xue servants arrived, he assumed that they had been sent by his sister to deliver one of her little parcels. When they told him instead that she was dead, and that it was, by all accounts, a case of poisoning, he flew into a storm and began ranting and raving at them. Mrs Xia, when she heard the news, wept volubly:
‘She was doing quite nicely for herself there! What could she possibly want to go and take poison for? It must have been one of them that did it!’
Still weeping and protesting loudly, she called Xia San to accompany her, and set off at once on foot, without waiting to send for a carriage. The Xias were originally business-people with little breeding, and now that they were poor had no residual concern for appearances. Xia San went ahead, and his adoptive mother followed him out of the gate, weeping and wailing all the while, accompanied by a lame old serving-woman. She eventually hailed a rickety old cart that was passing in the street, and it carried them at full speed to the Xue compound, where she went in without a word of greeting, sobbing, ‘My child! My darling!’
Jia Lian had gone to enlist support at the Board of Punishment, and Aunt Xue, Bao-chai and Bao-qin were holding the fort on their own. Mrs Xia’s dramatic entry quite nonplussed them, and at first they were too frightened to say anything. Bao-chai and Bao-qin withdrew to the inner room. When Aunt Xue tried to reason with the intruders, Mrs Xia completely ignored her.
‘What good has my daughter ever had from this family of yours?’ she cried. ‘Day and night she’s had to put up with beatings and abuse. In the end you decided to separate her from her husband come what may, and even managed to get my son-in-law locked up in prison. You and your daughter were comfortable enough, thanks to all those important relatives of yours, but my daughter’s very existence was still a thorn in your flesh, so you wanted to get rid of her for good and finally found someone to poison her. Poisoned herself indeed!’
She lunged at Aunt Xue, who backed out of her way, exclaiming:
‘Mrs Xia! Kindly go and examine your daughter for yourself and speak to Moonbeam first, before making such wild accusations!’
As Xia San was still there in the room, lurking in the background, Bao-chai and Bao-qin were unable to come to Aunt Xue’s defence and could only remain anxiously closeted in the inner room. By a fortunate coincidence, however, Lady Wang had just sent Zhou Rui’s wife over to see how things were. When she came in and saw this elderly woman abusing and threatening Aunt Xue, she deduced that it must be Jin-gui’s mother and approached her at once:
‘Would you be Mrs Xia, ma’am? I suppose you know that Mrs Pan took poison? That’s how she died, and it has nothing whatever to do with Mrs Xue. There is really no call for you to slander her in this way!’
‘And who might you be?’ asked Jin-gui’s mother.
Aunt Xue, her confidence a little restored by the arrival of reinforcements, answered for Mrs Zhou:
‘This good woman works for our relations the Jias.’
‘Oh! Does she now?’ sneered Mrs Xia. ‘We all know about your wonderful relations! No doubt it’s thanks to them that you managed to get your own son locked up in gaol. And now I suppose you are hoping to get away scot-free with the murder of my daughter too!’
She seized Aunt Xue.
‘Out with it!’ she cried. ‘How did you do it? Let me see the body.’
Zhou Rui’s wife attempted to pacify her:
‘By all means. Go and have a look. But
kindly take your hands off Mrs Xue!’
She finally succeeded in pulling Mrs Xia away from Aunt Xue. Xia San now emerged from the shadows to leap to his mother’s rescue:
‘Think you can attack my mother like this and get away with it just because you’re one of their servants?’
He threw a chair at Mrs Zhou, which luckily missed. The servants who were with Bao-chai in the inner room heard this rumpus break out and came hurrying in to see what was happening. Fearing that Mrs Zhou might come off worst in the fray, they all surged forward and tried to calm the combatants down. Their threats and cajolements were in vain: mother and son merely grew more strident in their protestations and more desperate in their actions.
‘We don’t need reminding how powerful your Rong-guo relations are! What do we care! Now that Jin-gui’s gone, we might as well fight it out to the death!’
Mrs Xia charged at Aunt Xue again with all her might. Despite their numbers, the servants could not withstand her. As the saying goes:
If a man stakes all on his attack,
Ten thousand men won’t hold him back.
It was at this moment of crisis that Jia Lian returned, accompanied by seven or eight servants. Seeing how things stood, he ordered his men to drag Xia San outside, and told the ladies to stop fighting at once:
‘Surely you can settle your differences in a more civilized fashion? Now, tidy the place up. The officers from the Board of Punishments will be here any minute to conduct the inquest.’
Mrs Xia had been in full spate when Jia Lian made his entrance. She was somewhat overawed by this strange gentleman with his retinue of servants, some of whom were already barking orders while others stood respectfully to attention, and she wondered which member of the Jia family it could be. Then she saw her adopted son taken away, and heard that the Board of Punishments had been informed and would shortly be holding an inquest, which ruined all her plans. She had originally intended to inspect her daughter’s corpse, create a terrific fuss and go crying for justice; but now they had beaten her to it, and the wind was quite taken out of her sails. Aunt Xue for her part was too frightened to do anything. It was Mrs Zhou who said to Jia Lian: