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into the Jia household. But she has a vengeful plan involving a man named
Zhang Hua, to whom Er-jie had been previosuly engaged...
CHAPTER 69
Er-jie was full of gratitude when she heard what Xi-feng was
planning to do for her and gladly accompanied her to the inner
mansion. You-shi, feeling that - in spite of what had been
agreed - she could hardly stay away when her own step-sister
was being formally presented to the family, went along with
them, on the express understanding that she herself would say
nothing and that, in the event of there being any opposition,
Xi-feng would take sole responsibility.
When the three of them arrived in Grandmother Jia’s
apartment, the old lady was talking to Bao-yu and the girls -
such conversations, enlivened by much joking and laughter,
being nowadays her principal source of amusement. Seeing
Xi-feng come in accompanied by a beautiful young woman,
she screwed up her eyes and peered at the latter with curiosity.
‘Well now, who is this charming young person?’
‘Have a good look, Grandma,’ said Xi-feng, taking Er-jie
by the hand and drawing her forwards. ‘Tell me what you think
of her. - Quick, make your kotow!’ she whispered to Er-jie.
‘This is Lian’s grandmother.’
When Er-jie had completed her obeisance, Xi-feng
pointed to each of the cousins in turn and told her their names.
‘You can make your curtseys to them later, after you have
been to see Their Ladyships,’ she said.
Er-lie had to greet each of the cousins by name, as if she
were meeting them for the first time. After that she stood, with
head demurely lowered, to one side.
Having studied her face for some moments, Grandmother
Jia raised her head to think, but presently gave up with a laugh.
‘It’s no good,’ she said. ‘I can’t think who it is. But I’m
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hard up that they have brought this case against you. The things
they have been saying are quite untrue. My sister made no
mistake.’
It only goes to show how dangerous people like this are to
provoke,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Well, in that case, Feng, you
had better go and see what you can do about it.’
Whatever reluctance she may have felt, Xi-feng was
obliged to say that she would. She had Jia Rong summoned to
her room to talk to him about it. Jia Rong knew her feelings
well enough - but after all, how could a family like the Jias
really contemplate handing over one of their women to a
beggar? The idea was preposterous. When he reported the
conversation to his father, Cousin Zhen sent someone to have a
word privately with Zhang Hua.
‘Look here, you’ve had a lot of money out of them,’ the
man said. ‘Why do you have to have the woman as well? If you
insist too hard, my master is likely to start getting angry with
you, and frankly I wouldn’t give much for your chances if he
does. Why don’t you and your father go back to where you
came from? With the money you’ve already got you’d have no
difficulty in finding yourself a very nice little wife, and if you
decide to go away, I can promise you some more money
towards your travel expenses.’
This sounded to Zhang Hua like good advice, and after
talking it over with his father, he agreed that if the money he
had already received were to be made up to a total of one
hundred taels, he and his father would undertake to make
themselves scarce. The money was handed over, and father and
son rose at four o’clock next morning to begin the journey back
to their native village. As soon as he had made sure of their
departure, Jia Rong went round to tell Grandmother Jia and
Xi-feng.
‘Zhang Hua and his father have run away. The charges in
the indictment were all fabricated and they lost their nerve
because they thought they were going to be found out. The
court knows all the facts now but has decided not to prosecute.
So that is the end of the affair.’
Xi-feng was not as put out by this as might have been
expected.
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pretext of going for a walk with her in the Garden, taking her to
the Garden kitchen where she could be given nourishing soups
to eat under her supervision. Because it was Patience who did
this, none of the other servants dared to inform against her.
Unfortunately Autumn once came upon them there and, feeling
no such compunction, went straight off to denounce her to
Xi-feng.
‘Patience is going out of her way to give you a bad name,
Mrs Lian. That Er woman wastes the good food you give her
and goes into the Garden with Patience every day to sneak food
from the kitchen.’
Xi-feng abused Patience angrily.
‘Most people keep a cat to keep down the mice for them.
My cat seems to eat the chickens!’
Patience dared not answer back, and from then on kept
away from Er-jie; but she secretly hated Autumn because of
this.
Bao-yu and the girls were privately concerned about Er-jie.
Though none of them would venture to speak out openly on her
behalf, they all of them felt sorry for her. Sometimes, when no
one else was about, one or other of them would get into
conversation with her. Invariably she would be crying and
wiping her eyes all the time they were talking to her; but she
never uttered a word of complaint against Xi-feng - indeed,
since Xi-feng was careful never to reveal herself in her true
colours, it is hard to see what she could have complained of.
Jia Lian for his part failed to notice that anything was
wrong. Since his return he had been completely taken in by
Xi-feng’s show of magnanimity towards her rival; and in any
case he was at present somewhat preoccupied. The sight of his
father’s many maids and concubines had often in the past
aroused libidinous feelings in him which he had perforce
repressed; while on her side Autumn had often in the past, by
flutterings of the eyelids and various other signals, expressed a
marked interest in her master’s handsome son. It may be
imagined what sort of blaze was kindled in the brush-wood
when two such eager bedfellows were brought together with
full parental approval of their union. Day after day he spent in
Autumn’s company –
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tell you?’ she said. ‘It’s all rubbish anyway. How can I have
any influence on her? I have nothing to do with her.
The water in the well
And the water in the sea:
I’ve naught to do with you
Or you to do with me.
Precious little darling! She saw plenty of all sorts when she
was living outside. She didn’t suffer from any influences then,
why should she start suffering from them now, I wonder?
Anyway, there’s something I’d like to ask her. I’d like to ask
her where she got that child from. She may fool that cotton-
eared master of ours. As long as she gave him a child, it would
be all one to him whether it was a Zhang or a Wang. But do
you really care about that whore’s brat, Mrs Lian? I’m damned
if I do! What’s so special about having a baby? Give me a year
or ten months and I’ll have one myself - and it won’t have half
the city for its father, either!’
The servants hearing her were at some pains not to laugh.
It happened that Lady Xing had come over that day to pay her
respects to Grandmother Jia. Autumn took the opportunity of
complaining to her.
‘Mr and Mrs Lian are trying to drive me out of here. I
don’t know which way to turn. Put in a good word for me,
Your Ladyship, I beg of you!’
This led Lady Xing to give Xi-feng a severe telling-off,
after which she proceeded to give a piece of her mind to Jia
Lian.
‘Ungrateful wretch! Whatever the girl’s like, she was
given to you by Sir She. Fancy trying to turn her out for the
sake of an outsider! Have you no respect for your father at all?’
She walked off in a huff, giving him no opportunity to
explain. Autumn, now thoroughly cock-a-hoop, stood outside
Er-jie’s window and favoured the world at large with an
expanded and even more abusive version of what she had said
earlier to Xi-feng. Er-jie, lying inside, heard every word of it,
as she was meant to, and was deeply distressed.
That night, when Jia Lian and Autumn were in bed
together and Xi-feng was asleep in her own room, Patience
went to see Er-jie and tried to comfort her.
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‘You must try to get well,’ she said. ‘Don’t take any
notice of that animal.’
Er-jie clutched her hand. She was crying weakly as she
replied.
‘Sister, you have been so good to me, ever since I came to
this place. I don’t know how much unpleasantness you haven’t
had to put up with on my account. If I come out of this alive, I
promise I shall do my best to repay your kindness. I fear I
shan’t, though. I shall have to try and repay you in another
life.’
Patience could not help crying too.
‘All these things that have happened to you - it’s all my
fault. I was so stupid. I always told myself that I’d never
deceive my mistress, and so when I heard about you and Mr
Lian living together outside, I thought I had to tell her. I never
thought it would all turn out like this.’
‘You’re wrong to blame yourself,’ said Er-jie. ‘She would
have found out sooner or later, even if you hadn’t told her. It
was only a question of time. And anyway, I wanted to come
here. I wanted so much to be respectable. It really had nothing
to do with you.’
The two young women wept a while in silence. Once
more Patience tried to comfort her and urged her to get better;
then, because it was long past midnight, she left her to go and
get some sleep.
After Patience had gone, Er-jie lay thinking.
‘This illness seems to have got its grip on me. I’m losing
rather than gaining all the time. It doesn’t look as if I shall ever
get better. And now that I’ve lost the baby, there’s nothing
much left for me to live for. I don’t have to put up with all this
hatred and malice. Why don’t I just die and get it over with?
They say you can die by swallowing gold. It would be a better
way of dying than hanging oneself or cutting one’s throat.’
She struggled out of bed, opened one of her boxes, and
hunted out a nugget of raw gold. Then she wept a little. It was
four o’clock in the morning. Summoning up all the will-power
she could muster, she forced herself to swallow it. She had to
hold her head back and swallow many times before it would go
down; but in the end it did. Then she dressed herself hurriedly
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Jia Lian did not like the idea of Er-jie’s leaving the
mansion for the last time by way of the rear gate and into the
back streets beyond. He therefore opened up the gate in the
outer wall of Pear-tree Court giving on to the passage-way
between the two mansions which led into Two Dukes Street.
Awnings were put up on either side of this gate to
accommodate sūtra-chanting monks.
A beautifully-embroidered satin pall was draped over a
camp-bed and Er-jie’s body laid on it and covered over with a
sheet. On this it was carried by eight pages, followed by a
number of married womenservants, along the foot of the inside
walls and all the way to the room in Pear-tree Court which had
been made ready for it. The official geomancer had been
summoned and was waiting there in readiness. He lifted the
coverlet back to look at Er-jie’s face. She looked almost alive -
if anything even more beautiful than in life. The sight provoked
a fresh outburst of grief from Jia Lian. Once more he clung to
her and wept.
‘My poor wife!’ he sobbed. ‘You should never have died.
I blame myself for allowing this to happen.’
Jia Rong nervously urged restraint.
‘There, there, Uncle! Take it easy! She was unlucky, poor
Auntie. That’s all you can say about it.’
He pointed in the direction of the wall separating Pear-tree
Court from the mansion. Jia Lian, understanding his meaning,
lowered his voice, though he continued to reproach himself.
‘I was too careless. I should have noticed what was going
on.’ He addressed himself to the dead woman. ‘One of these
days I shall get to the bottom of this and you shall be
revenged.’
At last the coverlet was replaced and the geomancer made
his pronouncement.
‘I am assuming that she died at the end of the fifth watch.
In that case you won’t be able to take her out of here on the
fifth day, I’m afraid. It will have to be either the third or the
seventh. For the encoffining, the best time would be four
o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘The third day is much too soon,’ said Jia Lian. ‘It will
have to be the seventh. I couldn’t keep her here much longer
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than that, because my uncle and my cousin are both away and I
should need to have their permission; but I am planning to do
much more for her when we get her to the temple outside. I’d
like to keep her there for the full thirty-five days and give her a
really decent funeral with a requiem and so forth at the end of
it. We can take her south to Nanking and bury her in the family
graveyard next year.’
The geomancer agreed to all this, wrote out the burial
licence, and took his leave.
Various male kinsmen - Bao-yu was the first - came over
to help Jia Lian mourn. When they had gone, he went back to
his own apartment to look for Xi-feng and ask her for some
money to buy timber for a coffin with and pay for the funeral.
Now Xi-feng had used her illness as a pretext for not
accompanying the others to Pear-tree Court. She claimed that
she had received strict instructions from Grandmother Jia and
Lady Wang that until she had fully recovered she was to avoid
all places connected in any way with birth, sickness or death.
She refused to go into mourning for the same reason. The ban
did not however prevent her from slipping out into the Garden
when everyone else had gone, making her way round it
between the rocks and the perimeter wall to the foot of the wall
that separated it from Pear-tree Court, and eavesdropping on
what was going on inside. She could not hear very much, but
enough to send her scurrying back to Grandmother Jia to report
on what Jia Lian was up to. Grandmother Jia was indignant.
‘I never heard such nonsense! When a consumptive child
dies, one just burns it and scatters the ashes. Burying her in
Nanking indeed! What can the man be thinking of? If he feels
he has to do something special for her because she was his wife,
let him observe the Thirty-Five Days. But after that he should
either have her carried out and burned or else buried in the
common graveyard. Nanking, indeed!’
Xi-feng laughed.
‘That’s what I thought, but it wasn’t for me to say.’
Just then a maid arrived from Jia Lian, looking for her.
‘Mr Lian’s back, madam. He’s waiting for you to give
him some money.’
Xi-feng went back to see him.
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