Whatever the background of this remark might be, it was obvious to Aroma that this would be an extremely inopportune moment to go in; and yet it was already too late for her to turn back. The best she could do was to advertise her presence. She deliberately made a heavier noise with her feet and called out to Patience through the window. Patience came hurrying out to welcome her.
‘Is Mrs Lian in?’ Aroma asked her. ‘Is she quite better yet?’
By now she was inside the house; but Xi-feng had already had time to get up on the couch and pretend that she had been lying down. She rose to her feet as Aroma entered.
‘Yes, I am a little better, thank you. It is kind of you to remember me. It seems quite a time since you last came round here.’
‘Knowing you weren’t well, I ought by rights to have been coming every day,’ said Aroma. ‘On the other hand, when you are poorly, you need lots of peace and quiet for resting, and I was afraid that if I came too often it might disturb you.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind the disturbance,’ said Xi-feng smiling. ‘But I realize that it isn’t easy for you to get away from Master Bao. Although he has so many girls to wait on him, you are the one he really relies on. Patience tells me you are always asking her how I am; so you see, even though you can’t get over here, I know that you are concerned about me.’
She asked Patience to bring a stool over and put it down beside the couch she was reclining on for Aroma to sit on. Felicity came in with some tea. Aroma inclined herself politely as she accepted it and murmured something about Felicity troubling herself.
While she was talking to Xi-feng, she noticed a junior maid go up to Patience in the outer room and quietly announce that Brightie had arrived and was waiting at the inner gate. She heard Patience answer the girl in the same guarded undertone:
‘Good. Tell him to go away for a few minutes and come back later. Tell him not to hang about outside this courtyard.’
Aroma knew from this that Xi-feng must have business of some kind, so after sitting for a minute or two longer, she got up to go. Xi-feng made no attempt to stop her.
‘Come again when you can,’ she said. ‘It does me good to talk to you.’
She summoned Patience to see Aroma out. As Aroma followed Patience through the outer room, she saw two or three junior maids waiting there, obviously scared out of their wits and looking as if they scarcely dared to breathe. Aroma passed through the courtyard gate and continued on her way back alone, wondering what could be the matter.
As soon as she had finished seeing off Aroma, Patience went in again to report to Xi-feng.
‘Brightie came, but because Aroma was here, I said he was to go and wait in the front. Shall I have him called in now straight away, or shall I let him wait a bit? What do you want me to do?’
‘Call him in,’ said Xi-feng.
‘Tell me,’ said Xi-feng in the interval while they were waiting for him to arrive, ‘what exactly was it you heard?’
‘It was that girl I sent out just now who actually heard it,’ said Patience. ‘She said that while she was waiting at the inner gate, she heard two of the pages talking to each other on the other side of it. One of them said, “The new mistress is even prettier than the old one and ever so much better-tempered.” Then she heard someone else – she thought it might have been Brightie – telling the other two off. “What’s this’ new mistress’ ‘old mistress’ you’re talking about? You’d better keep your voices down. If anyone inside gets to hear about this, you’ll have your tongues cut out!”’
At this point one of the junior maids came in.
‘Brightie’s waiting outside, ma’am.’
A chilling little laugh from Xi-feng.
‘Tell him to come in.’
The little maid went outside again.
‘The mistress says you are to come in.’
‘Hei!’
Brightie stepped smartly inside, dropped his knee to the ground, and ended up standing stiffly to attention in the doorway leading to the inner room.
‘Come here,’ said Xi-feng. ‘I want to talk to you.’
Brightie came into the room and stood in front of his mistress, a little to one side.
‘Your master’s got himself a woman outside,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Did you know?’
Brightie dropped his knee to the ground once more.
‘I spend all my time on call at the inner gate, madam. I’ve no means of knowing what the master does outside.’
Xi-feng’s smile was full of malice.
‘Of course you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t stop other people talking about if you did, would you?’
Brightie realized from this that the words he had recently been saying to the other pages must have been overheard and that it would be impossible now to deceive her. He fell on his knees to reply.
‘I really don’t know, madam. I just happened to hear Joker and Happy talking a lot of nonsense, so I shouted to them to be quiet; but I really couldn’t tell you the exact circumstances they were talking about; I should only be making it up if I tried. You want to ask Joker, madam. When the master’s here, he spends most of his time with him outside.’
Xi-feng spat with great force.
‘Black-hearted, worthless scum the lot of you! You are all in league against me, do you think I don’t know? Go out and find that little pimp Joker and bring him here. And don’t go away when you’ve done that, either. Wait here. I’ll have a few questions to ask’ you when I’ve finished with him. – Wonderful!’ she commented to herself. ‘This is my trusted servant whom I employ on all my most confidential business!’
‘Yes, madam. Very good, madam.’
Brightie knocked his head upon the floor, then scrambled to his feet and went off to look for Joker.
Joker was in the counting-house fooling about with some of the other pages when word came to him that he was ‘wanted by Mrs Lian’. Startled, but never for a moment imagining that his master’s secret had been blown, he hurried off after Brightie to Xi-feng’s apartment to find out why he was wanted. When they got there, Brightie went in first.
‘Joker is here, madam.’
‘Bring him in!’
Even before he had seen her, the mere sound of that strident summons was enough to throw Joker’s thoughts into confusion. But there was nothing for it: he had to screw up his courage and follow Brightie into the inner room.
‘Well, my little man,’ said Xi-feng as he entered, ‘this is a fine thing you and your master have been up to! I think you had better tell me all about it.’
Joker heard the words, he saw the anger in Xi-feng’s face and the terrified looks of the maids who stood motionless to left and right of her, and his legs became so weak that he sank involuntarily to his knees and began kotowing.
‘I’ve been told that this business has really nothing to do with you,’ she said. ‘Your only fault is in not having come to me and reported it. I am willing to overlook that if you tell me the truth. But woe betide you if you tell me a single word that is false! If you had a dozen heads, I should have each one of them!’
Joker rose up, trembling, to his knees:
‘What is it the master and I have done wrong that you want to know about, madam?’
It was as though the fire that smouldered in Xi-feng had suddenly burst into flame.
‘Strike the mouth that said that!’ she shouted, beside herself.
Brightie advanced, with hand upraised, to do her bidding.
‘Not you, idiot!’ Xi-feng shouted. ‘I am asking him to strike himself. Don’t worry, I shall have you striking your own mouth too before we are finished!’
Joker, still kneeling, began opening his arms to left and right of him and bringing them forcibly together, so as to slap his hands simultaneously upon his face. Xi-feng allowed him to do this a dozen or more times before shouting to him to stop.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘what’s all this about the “new mistress” your master has married? I suppose you are going to tell me yo
u know nothing about it?’
Joker, gathering from this that the whole story was out, became quite desperate. Plucking his hat off, he began bumping his head on the floor in a frenzy of self-abasement.
‘Only spare my life, madam! I swear that every word I tell you shall be the truth.’
‘Get on with it, then!’
Joker knelt stiffly upright in order to do so.
‘I didn’t know about this business at the beginning, madam. I think it started during the time when Sir Jing’s body was still lying at the temple. Yu Lu went out there one day to ask Mr Zhen for some money and when Master Rong came back into the city to see about it, the master came with him. On their way they got talking about Mrs Zhen’s two sisters, and the master said how much he admired the new mistress – er, the other Mrs Lian, and Master Rong, be said, joking-like –’
Xi-feng spat.
‘Turtle’s egg! What “other Mrs Lian”?’
‘Beg pardon, ma’am!’ said Joker hurriedly, and kotowed again.
When he had risen once more on his knees, he fixed his eyes miserably on the ceiling, unable to go on.
‘Well?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Is that all? Why don’t you go on?’
‘You’ll have to bear with me, madam,’ said the wretched Joker, ‘otherwise I daren’t.’
‘Bear with you?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Bear with your mother’s arsehole! I advise you to get on with your story: it will be very much better for you if you do!’
‘Master Rong said he could arrange for the master to marry her. The master was very pleased. Then – well, I don’t know how exactly, but he did.’
The very faintest of smiles hovered briefly over Xi-feng’s face.
‘I don’t suppose you do know. No doubt if you did, it would make a very complicated story. All right, go on. What happened after that?’
‘After that Master Rong found the master a house.’
‘Oh?’ said Xi-feng sharply. ‘Where is it?’
‘A few streets behind our place,’ said Joker. ‘Not very far.’
‘So!’ Xi-feng turned and looked hard at Patience. ‘You heard that? You and I are both dead, Patience. We don’t exist any more!’
Patience dared not reply.
Joker continued his story.
‘Mr Zhen gave a lot of money to the Zhangs so that they wouldn’t object to the wedding.’
‘Now we have a Zhang family in the story,’ said Xi-feng. ‘This is getting rather complicated.’
‘Ah yes, you see, madam, the other Mrs Lian –’
Joker suddenly realized what he had said and dealt himself a slap across the mouth. Xi-feng laughed in spite of herself and the maids to right and left of her puckered up their faces and giggled. Joker thought for a bit.
‘The elder of Mrs Zhen’s two sisters –’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Get on with it! What about her?’
‘The elder of Mrs Zhen’s two sisters was engaged when she was little to someone called Zhang. I think his name is Zhang Hua. Nowadays he and his family are very poor – beggars, almost. Mr Zhen promised them some money in return for breaking off the engagement.’
Xi-feng nodded, then turned to look at the maids: ‘You hear this, all of you? This is the little monster who was telling us a few minutes ago that he didn’t know anything!’
Joker continued:
‘After that Mr Lian had the new house redecorated and she came there for the wedding.’
‘Where from?’ said Xi-feng.
‘From her mother’s place,’ said Joker.
‘Hm, I see. Was she escorted by anyone?’
‘Only Master Rong and a few maids and nannies. No one else.’
‘What about Mrs Zhen?’
‘She came along a couple of days later with some presents.’
Xi-feng laughed and turned to address Patience behind her.
‘There you are! Don’t you remember there were a couple of days when he hardly stopped praising Mrs Zhen and telling us what a wonderful person she was?’
The smile on her face quickly vanished as she turned back again.
‘And who waits on them there? – You, of course.’
Joker hurriedly kotowed but did not attempt to reply.
‘Come to think of it,’ said Xi-feng, ‘I suppose all those times he told me he had to be away because he had business to do for our Ning-guo cousins, it was really this that he was up to.’
‘Sometimes he really was doing things for them, sometimes he was at the new house,’ said Joker.
‘Who’s living with her there?’ said Xi-feng.
‘Her mother and her younger sister – leastways, the younger sister was living with her, but the day before yesterday she cut her throat.’
‘Why did she do that?’ said Xi-feng.
Joker told her the whole story of San-jie and Liu Xianglian.
‘He was a lucky man,’ said Xi-feng when he had finished telling it. ‘I’ve no doubt that if he’d married her she would have made him a most notorious cuckold. – Have you anything else to tell me?’
‘I’ve told you all I know, madam, and every word I’ve told you is true. You can ask other people. If you find a word of a lie in what I’ve told you, you can beat me to death and I shan’t complain.’
Xi-feng bowed her head for some moments, reflecting. Eventually she looked up again and pointed her finger at him.
‘You are a wicked little wretch and I ought by rights to kill you for imagining that you could deceive me. I suppose you thought that by deceiving me you would do that stupid master of yours a favour and your new mistress would love you for it. If it weren’t that I thought you were too frightened just now to have lied to me, I should have broken both your legs.’ Her voice rose to a shout. ‘Get up!’
Joker kotowed several times, scrambled to his feet, and retreated as far as the threshold of the outer room, not daring to leave altogether.
‘Come back!’ said Xi-feng. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’
Joker turned and advanced some steps and stood with his arms held stiffly at his sides and his body inclined forwards in a respectful attitude of attention.
‘What’s the hurry?’ said Xi-feng. ‘Is your new mistress waiting to give you something?’
Joker dared not look up.
‘From now on you are not to go there any more,’ said Xi-feng. ‘From now on, if I call for you at any time of any day, I shall expect you to be there straight away – and I warn you, you’d better see to it that I’m not kept waiting! All right. Be off!’
Again he withdrew. This time he got as far as the steps outside the door.
‘Joker!’
‘Madam?’ He turned back once more.
‘Off to tell the master all about it, aren’t you?’
‘Oh no, madam! I wouldn’t dare.’
‘All right, go then; but if you breathe a word of this outside, I’ll have you flayed!’
‘Yes, madam. Very good, madam.’
Joker now made his final exit.
‘Brightie!’ Xi-feng called.
‘Yes’m!’ Brightie came bounding forward.
Xi-feng opened her eyes very wide and stared at him for the length of time it would take to say two or three sentences; then finally she spoke.
‘So, Brightie. Very good. Excellent. Now go. And if anyone outside breathes a word about this, I shall hold you responsible.’
‘Yes’m.’
Brightie withdrew very slowly from her presence; but in his case there was no recall.
‘Pour the tea,’ said Xi-feng.
This was taken by the junior maids as a signal for them to withdraw, which they did immediately, leaving Xi-feng alone with Patience.
‘You heard all that?’ said Xi-feng. ‘That’s good.’
Patience smiled, but dared not say anything.
Xi-feng appeared to be thinking, and to be growing angrier and angrier the more she thought. She lay back with her head on the pillow and gave herself up wholly to h
er thoughts. Presently she frowned as if an idea had just occurred to her.
‘Patience, come here.’
‘Madam?’
‘I’ve thought what to do,’ said Xi-feng. And she proceeded to tell Patience what she had planned.
But in order to know what that was, you must wait for the following chapter.
CHAPTER 68
Er-jie takes up residence in Prospect Garden And Xi-feng makes a disturbance in Ning-guo House
When Jia Lian made his second expedition to Ping-an in the tenth month, he found that the Military Governor was away on a tour of inspection; and since no one seemed willing to predict when he would be back, there was obviously nothing he could do but sit in his lodgings and wait for that elusive official to turn up. It was in fact several weeks before he did, so that by the time Jia Lian had finished transacting his business and made the journey back home again, almost two months had elapsed since he set out.
But we anticipate. Let us return to the point at which we left off in the last chapter.
After hearing Joker’s revelations, Xi-feng deliberately concealed her knowledge from Jia Lian for several weeks. It was not until he had started out on his journey to Ping-an that she began putting her plan into execution.
The first thing she did was to call in the workmen – carpenters, decorators, paperers and so forth – and have the three-frame building on the east side of her and Jia Lian’s courtyard converted into a smaller replica of the main apartment. On the fourteenth of the tenth month, when the decorating and furnishing of this apartment had been completed, she went to see Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang and announced her intention of going out first thing next morning to burn incense in a certain convent-temple in the vicinity. She would take only four companions with her, she said: Patience, Felicity, Zhou Rui’s wife and Brightie’s wife. She waited until they were about to get into their carriages on the morning of the fifteenth before revealing to her companions what their actual destination was to be. They were going to Er-jie’s house. Xi-feng had previously given instructions to the manservants who were to accompany them that they were to be dressed in mourning and that the carriage she rode in was to have mourning trappings. This was because Er-jie, she had discovered, had not long since suffered a second and greater bereavement: old Mrs You, who had never quite recovered from the shock caused by her third daughter’s suicide, had, only two or three weeks previous to this date, taken a nap which turned out to be her last. Joker was told to lead the way, and it was he who, arriving at the house a little before the rest of the party, knocked on the gate to give the occupants warning of its coming. The Mattress came to the door. Joker had by this time resolved the problem of nomenclature to his own satisfaction: