Tan-chun’s shoulders began to shake as she said this and she ended up by bursting into tears.
Aunt Zhao did not really have an answer to what Tan-chun had said, so she tried another tack.
‘If Lady Wang is so fond of you, you ought to use your position to give us a helping hand. The fact is, though, you are so anxious to keep in her good books that you forget about us altogether.’
‘Of course I don’t forget about you,’ said Tan-chun. ‘But what do you mean by giving you a “helping hand”? A good mistress will always be favourable to those who try hard and make themselves useful, and a good servant doesn’t need any “helping hand” in order to keep in her favour.’
Li Wan hovered between them, still trying to act the peacemaker:
‘Please don’t be angry, Mrs Zhao. You mustn’t blame Tan-chun. I’m sure she’s most anxious to give you all the help she can; but you could hardly expect her to say so.’
‘Don’t talk such stuff, Wan!’ said Tan-chun impatiently. ‘Help whom, for goodness sake? Whoever heard of the young mistress in a family helping the servants? Their private interests are no concern of mine, as you perfectly well know.’
‘We’re not talking about “servants”, we’re talking about me,’ said Aunt Zhao angrily. ‘If you hadn’t been in charge now, I’d never have asked you. At this particular moment you happen to be in charge here. Very well. Your mother’s brother has just died. If you decide to give an extra twenty or thirty taels towards his funeral, Her Ladyship isn’t going to stop you, is she? Of course she isn’t. We all know what a good, kind person Her Ladyship is. It’s mean, tight-fisted people like you interfering that stop her being generous. I simply don’t know what you’re worried about. It isn’t your money you’re spending. I’d been hoping that one of these days when you grew up and got married you’d be able to do our Zhao family a bit of good. But not you! You’re in such a hurry to find a higher branch to perch on, you’ve forgotten the nest even before your feathers are full-grown!’
Tan-chun went white, and for a moment anger deprived her of her breath. When she regained it she broke into louder sobs.
‘Who is this “mother’s brother”? The only mother’s brother I know about is the one who has just been appointed Inspector-General of Armies in the Nine Provinces. I’m sure I always try to show respect where it is due, but no one ever told me that I ought to think of Zhao Guo-ji as my uncle. If so, how is it that he always stood up for Huan and walked behind him on his way to school in the mornings? Why didn’t he insist on being treated as an uncle by Huan? But what’s the point? Everyone knows it was you who bore me. Two or three months never go by without your making a scene about something or other just to give yourself an opportunity of proclaiming the fact. And you talk about face! It’s a good job I understand your little game. If I were a simple-minded person and not very sure of my position, it would have driven me distracted long ago.’
The ever more agitated attempts at peace-making by Li Wan and continuing gabble of complaint from Aunt Zhao which followed this outburst were suddenly interrupted by a call from the women outside:
‘Here’s Miss Patience with a message from Mrs Lian.’
At once Aunt Zhao fell silent. She advanced fawningly on Patience as she entered:
‘Is your mistress any better, Patience? I’ve been meaning to go round and see her, but I just haven’t had the time.’
Li Wan asked Patience what she had come for.
‘Mrs Lian heard that Mrs Zhao’s brother had died and she was afraid you might not know what to give. She said according to the rule it should be twenty taels, but in this particular case Miss Tan should feel free to add on a bit if she sees fit.’
‘Oh? On what grounds, I wonder?’ said Tan-chun, who had by this time wiped the traces of tears from her face. ‘I’m not aware that there was anything very special about this person. His mother didn’t carry him for twenty-four months before he was born. He didn’t rescue his master on the battlefield from under a heap of corpses and carry him to safety on his back. It is very ingenious of your mistress, getting me to break the rules so that she can take the credit for being generous, but if she wishes to play the Lady Bountiful by giving away other people’s money, I’m afraid she will have to wait. Tell her that I absolutely refuse to take responsibility for any change in the rules. If she wants to make a change, let her wait until she is better. Then she can add on as much as she likes!’
Patience had already had a rough idea of the situation when she arrived and by the time Tan-chun finished speaking she had sized it up completely. Observing the anger in Tan-chun’s face, she did not presume to reply in the joking, light-hearted manner she would normally have adopted with her, but stood in silence, with her arms held submissively at her sides.
It was now about the time when Bao-chai usually came over from Lady Wang’s apartment for discussion. Tan-chun and Li Wan stood up to greet her as she entered and invited her to sit with them. Before they had a chance to begin talking, however, one of the women who had been waiting outside came in to make her report.
Because Tan-chun had recently been crying, three or four maids had already been to fetch water and towels and a hand-mirror so that she could wash her face. As she was at this moment sitting cross-legged on a low wooden couch, the maid carrying the hand-basin went down on both her knees to bring it to a convenient level for her, whereupon the girls bearing the towels, hand-mirror, cosmetics and so forth also knelt down on either side. Seeing that Tan-chun’s body-servant Scribe was not present, Patience hurriedly stepped forward, rolled back Tan-chun’s sleeves for her, removed her bracelets and tucked a large towel round her neck to protect the front of her dress. As Tan-chun stretched out her hands to begin washing, the woman who had just entered began to make her report:
‘Excuse me Mrs Zhu; excuse me Miss Tan. The school want to draw this year’s allowance for Master Huan and Master Lan.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ snapped Patience. ‘Haven’t you got eyes in your head? Can’t you see that Miss Tan is washing? You ought to be waiting outside. What do you mean by bursting in like this? Would you behave like this if Mrs Lian were here? Miss Tan is a kind young lady and lets you get away with it, but if I tell Mrs Lian when I get back how little respect you show her, you’ll be in serious trouble – and don’t say I didn’t warn you!’
Thoroughly alarmed, the woman put on her broadest smile and retreated, apologizing, from the room.
Tan-chun, who had finished washing and was now making up her face, looked up at Patience with a sardonic smile:
‘It’s a pity you didn’t come a bit earlier. You missed the best part of the comedy. Wu Xin-deng’s wife, who has spent a whole lifetime in service, came here without having bothered to look up the records, in the hope of making us look foolish. Fortunately I thought to ask her what the rule was; but then she had the effrontery to tell me that she had forgotten. I told her that I didn’t think she would forget things and have to go off and look them up if it was your mistress that she was dealing with.’
‘I should think not, indeed!’ said Patience. ‘If she had ever tried a trick like that on Mrs Lian, she’d have some nasty scars on her backside to show for it, I can tell you! Don’t you believe any of them, miss! They think that because Mrs Zhu is such a kind, saintly person and you are such a quiet, shy young lady they can get away with anything.’
She turned to address the women who were standing outside the door:
‘Keep it up all of you! Just carry on with these little tricks! See what happens to you when Mrs Lian is better!’
‘Now, now, you know us better than that, miss!’ said the women, laughing. ‘“Let him face the summons that did the offence”. We wouldn’t pull the wool over a young mistress’s eyes. We know perfectly well that if a young unmarried lady like Miss Tan was to get really angry with us, it would be more than our lives was worth.’
‘Well, as long as you know, that’s all right,’ said Patience drily. She t
urned back to Tan-chun. ‘I’m sure you must realize, miss: Mrs Lian is much too busy to think of everything and there must be quite a few things that she’s overlooked. They say “the bystander sees all”, and during the years that you’ve been quietly looking on as a bystander you may have noticed cases in which more or perhaps less ought to be given that Mrs Lian herself has never got around to dealing with. If you were to take this opportunity of putting them right, you’d be doing Her Ladyship a good turn and at the same time it would be a kindness to my mistress which I’m sure she would appreciate.’
Before she had finished, Bao-chai and Li Wan were both laughing.
‘Patience, you’re wonderful! No wonder Feng is so devoted to you. The way you’ve just put it, you make us feel that even if there are no grounds for altering the rules, we ought to try and find some, just so as not to disappoint you!’
Tan-chun joined in their laughter:
‘I still feel very angry. Until she came along, I was hoping to work some of it off on her mistress, but she’s been so reasonable about it all that I hardly know what to do!’
She called in the woman whom Patience had chased out a few minutes earlier.
‘What are these allowances for Master Huan and Master Lan that the school is asking for?’
‘Eight taels each a year, miss. It’s for paper, writing-brushes and refreshments.’
‘But these expenses are already provided for in the monthly allowances,’ said Tan-chun. ‘Mrs Zhao gets two taels a month for Huan, Aroma gets two a month for Bao-yu from Her Ladyship, and Lan’s expenses are covered by Mrs Zhu’s allowance. Why should we pay an additional eight taels for each of them to the school? Is that what they go to school for, to collect the money? I think we should cancel that payment from now on. Patience, go back and tell your mistress: I insist that these payments should be discontinued.’
‘They should have been long ago,’ said Patience. ‘Mrs Lian had decided to stop them last year, but with so much going on over the New Year, she forgot about it.’
The woman who had come for the allowances had to go off empty-handed.
Women from Prospect Garden now arrived carrying food-boxes containing Li Wan’s and Tan-chun’s lunch. They were preceded by the maids Scribe and Candida who carried a little table between them which they put down in front of their mistresses. Patience busied herself by taking dishes from the food-boxes and putting them on the table; but Tan-chun stopped her:
‘If you have nothing more to say, you had better be about your own business. There is nothing for you to do here.’
‘I haven’t got any other business,’ said Patience, smiling. ‘That’s why Mrs Lian sent me here. Partly it was to bring you the message, but partly it was because she was afraid the servants here might be giving you trouble and she thought I might be able to make myself useful.’
‘Why hasn’t Miss Bao’s lunch been brought here so that she can eat with us?’ Tan-chun inquired.
At once one of the maids went outside and gave an order to the women who were waiting there under the eaves:
‘Miss Bao’s going to have her lunch here with the other young ladies. Tell them to bring it here.’
The raised voice of Tan-chun, who had overheard her, issued from behind her in reproof:
‘Who are you ordering about like that? Those are stewardesses out there and senior members of the domestic staff. You can’t make them run to and fro fetching and carrying things for you. Have you no respect for seniority? Patience is standing around here with nothing to do: why don’t you get her to go?’
Not waiting to be ordered, Patience murmured something and hurried out; but the women outside silently waylaid her and with broad smiles prevented her from going.
‘We can’t let you go, miss: that would never do! In any case, we’ve already sent someone.’
They dusted the steps with their handkerchiefs and invited her to sit down:
‘There you are, miss, sit there in the sun and rest yourself. You must be tired after standing about for so long.’
Patience was about to sit down when two women from the tea-kitchen rushed up to her with a rug:
‘That stone’s too cold to sit on. Here’s a nice clean rug. You sit on this, miss.’
Patience smiled and nodded:
‘Thank you very much.’
Another woman came out carrying a cup of tea for her on a tray.
‘Here you are, miss,’ she whispered. ‘This isn’t the tea we usually drink. This is the kind we make for the mistresses. Try some of that for a change.’
Patience bowed and took the cup, then, shaking a reproving finger at the women, she admonished them in a voice that she kept low so as not to be audible inside:
‘You’ve gone too far this time and no mistake! Miss Tan is a real little lady, but just because she is too well-bred to throw her weight about, it doesn’t mean that you can afford to take advantage of her. On the contrary, you ought to respect her all the more for it. If she were ever to get really angry, my word you would be in trouble! It wouldn’t just be a question of saying “sorry” then. If she took it into her head to throw a tantrum, even Her Ladyship would have to give in to her. Mrs Lian certainly wouldn’t stand in her way, she wouldn’t dare. So just what makes you so bold against her I do not know. You might just as well pelt a rock with eggs as set yourselves up against her!’
‘We wouldn’t dare set ourselves up against her,’ said the women. ‘This was all Mrs Zhao’s doing.’
‘Oh, come on now!’ said Patience, still speaking in a half-whisper. ‘Everyone likes to push a falling wall. We all know that Mrs Zhao isn’t the most sensible of mortals. She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going half the time. It’s just a bit too easy to blame it all on her when things go wrong. Do you think after all the years I’ve been here I don’t know how unmanageable and how ruthless you can be? If Mrs Lian were just a shade less determined, she’d have been finished off by you lot years ago. As it is, you only need half a chance to start making things difficult for her. Many and many’s the time she’s nearly come unstuck because of your whispering. Everyone’s always saying what a holy terror she is and how you’re all afraid of her. I’m probably the only one who realizes that in her heart of hearts she’s actually afraid of you. As a matter of fact she and I were talking about this only the other day. We both agreed that if you didn’t make yourselves a bit more accommodating, there were sure to be one or two explosions. Miss Tan may be only a young girl, but you’re completely mistaken in treating her like this. Even Mrs Lian is a tiny bit scared of Miss Tan. Of all the young ladies in this household Miss Tan is the only one she feels that way about. And yet you think you can do what you like with her!’
Just then Ripple approached and the women all crowded round to greet her.
‘Better stay outside with us for a bit, miss,’ they said. ‘They’ve just laid for lunch inside. Better wait until they take the table away before going in to report anything.’
‘I’m not like you,’ said Ripple loftily. ‘I can’t wait.’
She began mounting the steps.
‘Come back at once!’ Patience called after her.
Ripple looked back and saw that it was Patience.
‘Oh, what are you doing here? Sentry duty?’
She came down again then and sat beside Patience on the rug.
‘What have you come about?’ Patience asked her in a low voice.
‘I want to ask about Bao-yu’s and our allowances for this month. We’ve been wondering when we’re going to get them.’
‘Oh that!’ said Patience. ‘That’s not very important. Go back and tell Aroma this – say I told you to tell her: no matter what it is, don’t come here asking for anything today. Anything you ask for will be refused. If you ask for a hundred things, one after the other, the answer will be “no” every time.’
‘Why’s that?’ said Ripple.
Patience and the women explained, pointing out that to go in and ask for some
thing on Bao-yu’s behalf at the very moment when Tan-chun was looking around for someone of consequence to make an example of would be simply courting disaster.
‘There’s no sense in your going in now,’ said Patience. ‘Either way it will be awkward. If they make an example of Bao-yu they will risk offending Their Ladyships; if they don’t make an example of him You Know Who will call it favouritism and complain that they daren’t provoke anyone who has Their Ladyships behind them and only take it out on the weak ones who can’t protect themselves. You wait and see: they’ll even turn down one or two requests from Mrs Lian before they’ve finished, just to stop certain people talking.’
Ripple stuck her tongue out in a grimace.
‘It’s a good job I met you here. I should only have got smut on my nose if I’d gone inside. I’d better go back straight away then and tell the others.’
She rose and went away.
Presently Bao-chai’s lunch arrived and Patience went inside again to help serve it. By this time Aunt Zhao had already left. The three young women sat cross-legged on the wooden settle around the low lunch-table which had been placed upon it, Bao-chai facing south, towards the doorway, Tan-chun facing west and Li Wan facing east. Only their personal maids stayed inside the room to serve them; no one else dared enter. The women waited quietly on the verandah outside, discussing the situation in whispers:
‘Better keep out of trouble from now on. Better not try any more funny business. Look what happened to Mrs Wu, and she’s ever so much senior to us!’
Their whispered conversation continued intermittently until lunch was over. They knew it was over when the sound of chopsticks on bowls and dishes ceased and only an occasional low cough could be heard from inside. Presently a maid appeared in the doorway and held the portière up high to let two other maids through who were carrying out the lunch-table. Another three maids with wash-basins were already waiting outside who went in as soon as the other two had finished carrying out the table. Soon they too came out again, each carrying a wash-basin as before and also a spittoon. Then Scribe, Candida and Oriole arrived, each with a covered teacup on a tray, and went in. A little later this last trio reemerged. As they did so, Scribe stopped for a moment to admonish the junior maids who were remaining behind: