The Crab-Flower Club

by Cao Xueqin

  Lady Xing blushed crimson with embarrassment.

  ‘I have tried several times to dissuade him, without success. I am sure you must realize that I have acted against my will in this matter.’

  ‘You did what you were told, all the same,’ said Grandmother Jia sharply. ‘Would you do what you were told if he asked you to kill someone? Just reflect for a moment. There is only your sister-in-law, poor, simple soul – she is always ailing from something or other – to worry about the responsibilities of this household. It’s true that she has Lian’s wife to help her, but she has so much to do that she hardly knows which way to turn – always “putting the rake down to pick up the broom”. And I have to cut down on all my activities nowadays. So if there is ever anything that your sister-in-law and Feng have overlooked, Faithful is the only one left to make sure that my needs are attended to. She is a child who notices things. If she sees that I lack something, she will either ask for it herself or have a word with one of the other two and make sure that I get it. Think of all the hundreds and thousands of things there are to be done in this household. If I hadn’t got Faithful, how could the other two avoid overlooking something once in a while? So what would you have me do then? Would you expect me to start worrying about all these things myself? Should I have to start calculating what I needed every day and go running off to the other two to ask them for it? Of all the girls I’ve ever had, Faithful is the only one left me now who is a bit older and more responsible than the rest – who understands my little ways and knows how I like things done. There’s a genuine bond between us – for example, she would never take advantage of our relationship, as some girls would, to ask other people for clothes or money for herself. One consequence of this is that not only Feng and your sister-in-law, but everyone else in the household, from the highest down to the lowest, is able to trust her. It means that quite apart from the fact that I have someone I can rely on, Feng and your sister-in-law are saved a great deal of worry; because with a girl like that to look after me, I don’t suffer when they occasionally forget something, and that keeps me in a good temper. If Faithful were to leave me now, who would you get for me to put in her place? And even if you could find such a jewel, she’d need to have a tongue in her head too. She’d be no use to me if she didn’t have my Faithful’s gift for expressing herself. As a matter of fact I’ve been thinking of sending someone round to your husband to tell him that if he would care to buy himself a girl, he’d be very welcome to do it with my money. I don’t mind if it costs me eight thousand – ten thousand even – but if it’s this girl of mine he wants, I’m afraid he can’t have her. Tell him that if he wants to be a dutiful son, he’ll be doing more for me by leaving me my Faithful, to serve me during the few years that yet remain, than if he were to come over and wait on me in person, morning, noon and night. It’s turned out very conveniently, your coming over just now: you’ll be able to take this message back to him yourself and I can be sure of its being properly delivered.’

  She called for the servants.

  ‘What’s happened to everybody? We were just in the middle of a nice chat when suddenly everyone went away.’

  The maids, with answering cries, went off to look for the others. Soon all had been reassembled except Aunt Xue, who showed some resistance to the summons.

  ‘I’ve only just got back,’ she said. ‘What’s the point of going out again?’

  ‘Have a heart, Mrs Xue!’ said the maid. ‘Her Old Ladyship is in a passion. If you don’t come, no one else will ever shift her out of it. If it’s the walking that bothers you, I’ll carry you there on my back!’

  ‘Get along with you, little monkey!’ said Aunt Xue, laughing. ‘A few hard words won’t hurt you.’

  She went with the maid nevertheless. On her arrival she was cordially welcomed by Grandmother Jia.

  ‘What shall we do?’ said the old lady. ‘Shall we play cards? Come and sit by me, Mrs Xue. You haven’t had much practice. If the two of us sit together, there will be less chance of Feng confusing us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘You will have to keep an eye on my hand and help me out a bit. Is it to be just the four of us, or shall we have one or two more?’

  ‘Just us four, surely?’ said Lady Wang.

  ‘No, let’s have one more,’ said Xi-feng. ‘It will make it more interesting.’

  ‘Go and call Faithful, someone,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘She can sit below me. Mrs Xue’s eyesight isn’t too good. Faithful will be able to keep an eye on both our hands.’

  Xi-feng laughed.

  ‘I know you can read and write,’ she said to Tan-chun. ‘I suppose you haven’t learned how to tell fortunes too, by any chance?’

  ‘What a strange question!’ said Tan-chun. ‘You should be concentrating all your energies on winning some of Grandma’s money, not thinking about having your fortune told.’

  ‘I thought you might be able to tell me how much I’m going to lose today,’ said Xi-feng. ‘No question of winning anything. Look how Grandma’s got me ambushed on every side before we’ve even started playing!’

  Presently Faithful arrived and sat in the place below Grandmother Jia. Xi-feng sat below Faithful. A red blanket was spread over the table, the cards were shuffled, the players cut for deal, and the game began.

  After they had been playing for some minutes, Faithful noticed that Grandmother Jia had a nearly full hand and only needed a Two of Coins to go out. She made a sign to Xi-feng, whose turn it was to discard. Xi-feng pretended to be in great doubt as to what she ought to play.

  ‘I’m sure Aunt Xue is hanging on to the card I want. I’d better let her have this one, and then perhaps she’ll part with it.’

  ‘I’m sure I haven’t got anything you want,’ said Aunt Xue.

  ‘I’d need to look at your hand before I believed that,’ said Xi-feng.

  ‘You’re very welcome to,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘Come on, now! Put that card down and let’s see what it is.’

  Xi-feng laid the card down in front of Aunt Xue: Two of Coins.

  ‘It’s no good to me,’ said Aunt Xue, ‘but I’ve an idea your grandmother may be going out now.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ cried Xi-feng in mock dismay. ‘It’s a mistake. I didn’t mean to discard that one.’

  But Grandmother Jia, with a crow of triumph, had already thrown down her cards.

  ‘You dare take that back! You shouldn’t make mistakes!’

  ‘I told you I needed a fortune-teller,’ said Xi-feng. ‘Well, I played the card, so I suppose I’ve no one but myself to blame.’

  ‘I should think so too!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘Give yourself a good hard slap on the face if you want to know where the fault lies!’ She turned to Aunt Xue. ‘You mustn’t think I’m grasping, Mrs Xue. I don’t play for the money; but I do so enjoy winning!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Aunt Xue. ‘No one would be so idiotic as to suppose that you played for the money.’

  Hearing this, Xi-feng, who had meanwhile been counting out the money she had lost, abruptly stopped, and threaded the coins back onto the string.

  ‘Right!’ she said, speaking to the others present. ‘That settles it! She doesn’t play for the money, she just enjoys winning. Well I am mean and grasping, I’m afraid, and when I lose, I like to know how much. But if that’s the way she feels, back it all goes again!’

  When Grandmother Jia played cards it was her unvarying custom to let Faithful shuffle for her. She had been talking to Aunt Xue throughout Xi-feng’s bit of by-play, but broke off when she became aware that Faithful had made no move.

  ‘Come child,’ she said. ‘You’re not too upset to shuffle for me, are you?’

  Faithful took up the cards with a laugh.

  ‘No, only Mrs Lian hasn’t paid up yet.’

  ‘Oh, hasn’t she?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘She’ll be lucky if she gets away with that!’ She called one of the junior maids to her. ‘Take that string of cash from in front of Mrs Lian and bring it here.’ />
  The little maid did as she was bid and laid the money on the table beside Grandmother Jia.

  ‘Please let me have it back,’ Xi-feng pleaded, ‘ – so that I can give you the right amount.’

  ‘Feng really is rather mean,’ said Aunt Xue jokingly. ‘It’s only a game, after all.’

  Xi-feng stood up and, laying a hand on Aunt Xue’s arm, pointed out to her the wooden chest in which Grandmother Jia kept her money.

  ‘You see that, Aunt? I don’t know how much of my money has at one time or another found its way in there. Before I’ve been playing half an hour, my money in the chest begins calling to my money on the table to come and join it. All I have to do now is wait until it’s called it all in, then the game will be over and Grannie will be in a good temper again and I shall be able to go and get on with my work.’

  By the time she had finished saying this, Grandmother Jia and all the others present were laughing. They were still laughing when Patience, fearing that her mistress might have insufficient money by her, came in bringing another string of cash.

  ‘Don’t put it down in front of me,’ Xi-feng told her. ‘Put it down beside Her Old Ladyship, so that all my money can go into the chest together. We don’t want the money in the chest to have to go through the business of calling for it all over again.’

  This made Grandmother Jia laugh so much that she scattered the cards she was holding all over the table.

  ‘Tear her mouth!’ she said to Faithful, giving her a playful push.

  Patience laid the money down as she was bidden, and after laughing a while with the others, went out again. On her way out of the courtyard she ran into Jia Lian, who was just about to enter the gate.

  ‘Where’s Lady Xing?’ he asked her. ‘Sir She has sent me to look for her.’

  ‘She’s been standing in there with Her Old Ladyship for the last half hour,’ said Patience. ‘She hasn’t dared to move yet, but I dare say she’ll get away as soon as she can. Her Old Ladyship has been in quite a tizzy this morning, but thanks to the Mistress, who’s been all this time humouring her, she’s gradually beginning to calm down a bit.’

  ‘Oh well, when I go in I shall say that I’ve come to find out if Her Old Ladyship is going to Lai Da’s place on the fourteenth, so that I know whether or not to have the carriages ready,’ said Jia Lian. ‘I can mention that Lady Xing is wanted as an afterthought. And after that perhaps I shall stay on and chaff the old lady a bit for a few minutes. That should be all right, shouldn’t it?’

  ‘If you’re asking my opinion, I think you’d do much better not to go in at all,’ said Patience. ‘Everyone’s been in trouble with her today – even Her Ladyship and Bao-yu. If you go in now, you’ll walk straight into it.’

  ‘Oh, surely it’s all over now, isn’t it?’ said Jia Lian. ‘Surely she’s not going to start all over again? It’s nothing to do with me, in any case. And Sir She did ask me to go and fetch Mother myself. If he finds that I’ve sent someone else to do it, he’s in such a bad temper already, that he’ll probably use that as an excuse to take it out on me.’

  He began to go in, and Patience, to whom this sounded reasonable enough, turned back and followed him in across the courtyard. Entering Grandmother Jia’s outer door, Jia Lian crossed the reception room on tiptoe and peered into the inner room at the back. He could see his mother standing there.

  Xi-feng, who had sharper eyes than the rest, spotted him at once and made a sign to him not to enter and another sign to Lady Xing indicating that she was wanted outside. Lady Xing could not simply walk out, so she filled a cup with some tea and set it down in front of Grandmother Jia. This caused the old lady to turn round; and as Jia Lian chanced at that very moment to be looking in at the doorway and was unable to withdraw his head in time, she caught a momentary glimpse of him before he disappeared.

  ‘Who’s that outside?’ she said. ‘It looked like one of the boys peeping in there just now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Xi-feng, quickly rising to her feet and going over to the doorway, ‘I thought I saw someone’s shadow there just now.’

  Jia Lian walked smiling into the room.

  ‘I’ve come to ask if you are going on the fourteenth, Grandma, so that I shall know whether to get the carriages ready or not.’

  ‘In that case why didn’t you come in straight away,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘instead of lurking around outside?’

  ‘I could see that you were playing cards,’ said Jia Lian with a somewhat artificial smile. ‘I didn’t like to interrupt you. I was hoping to get my wife to come out so that I could ask her.’

  ‘And what is there so extraordinarily urgent about this that you needed to ask her now?’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘If you’d waited until she got home, you could have asked her all you wanted to then. Why this extraordinary conscientiousness all of a sudden? Eavesdropping is what you were up to more likely, or spying for somebody else. Whatever it was, you gave me a nasty turn, creeping around in that sneaky, underhand way. Disgusting creature! Your wife will be with me a long time yet playing cards. Better get back to that Zhao Er woman while you have the chance and carry on where you left off with your plans for poisoning her!’

  The others all laughed.

  ‘It was Bao Er’s wife, my old love, not Zhao Er’s,’ said Faithful, laughing.

  ‘That’s what I said, didn’t I?’ Grandmother Jia snapped. ‘Well, “Zhao” or “Bao” or brown cow – how can I be expected to remember such things? The very mention of them makes me feel angry. There were three generations of the family above me when I came to this household as a young bride, and now there are three generations below me, and I’ve seen many shocking and many wicked and many peculiar things during the fifty-four years since first I came here, but this sort of thing is simply outside my experience. Now be off with you!’

  Jia Lian bolted, not daring to say a word. Patience, who had been standing meanwhile outside the window, quietly mocked him as he came out:

  ‘I told you so, but you wouldn’t listen. You walked straight into the net, didn’t you?’

  Just at that moment Lady Xing came out.

  ‘This is all Father’s doing,’ said Jia Lian. ‘Now we have to face the consequences.’

  ‘Unfilial wretch!’ said Lady Xing. ‘Some people would die for their fathers, but you – a few harmless words and you are already whining and complaining. What’s the matter with you? You haven’t been hurt yet – though I should look out, if I were you: Father’s been pretty angry these last few days.’

  ‘Come on, you must hurry back, Mother,’ said Jia Lian. ‘He sent me to fetch you a long time ago.’

  He saw his mother out of the main part of the mansion and round to Jia She’s quarters next door. Lady Xing then gave her husband, in briefest possible outline, a report of what had happened; and since it was now evident that nothing more could be done about Faithful, Jia She had to put up with his mortification as best he could. He did, however, from that day onwards, discontinue all duty calls on his mother on the pretext of being ill. Lady Xing and Jia Lian were sent to make the mandatory calls on her in his stead.

  Meanwhile his agents scoured the market for likely girls. A suitable one was eventually purchased for the sum of five hundred taels – a seventeen-year-old girl called Carmine, who was duly installed in his room. But that is another part of our story.

  The card-game continued until dinner-time, and it was not until after dinner that the company finally broke up.

  Of the day or two which followed these events our story preserves no record.

  The fourteenth came. Before it was yet daylight, Lai Da’s wife came round once more to renew her invitation. Grandmother Jia responded enthusiastically and, taking Lady Wang, Aunt Xue and the young people along with her, spent a considerable part of the day in the Lai family’s private garden.

  Lai Da’s garden was not, of course, to be compared with Prospect Garden; nevertheless it was spacious and well-made, and among its pools, rocks, trees and
pavilions were to be found several features of striking interest or beauty.

  The menfolk who were gathered in the reception hall at the front or ‘outer’ part of the establishment included Xue Pan, Cousin Zhen, Jia Lian, Jia Rong and a number of the more closely related members of the Jia clan outside the immediate family. Jia She was conspicuously absent. Young Lai had also invited some of his office-holding colleagues and a few young men of good family as congenial company for the Jias.

  One of these last was a young gentleman called Liu Xiang-lian whom Xue Pan had met on some previous occasion and hankeringly remembered ever since. The discovery that he was a keen amateur actor – one, moreover, who specialized in romantic roles – had led Xue Pan to jump to the wrong conclusion and assume that he must share the same ‘wind and moonlight’ proclivities as himself. Eager to make his closer acquaintance but hitherto denied any opportunity of doing so, he was overjoyed at finding him among the company on this occasion and consequently in a state of excitement which rendered his behaviour extremely unpredictable.

  Cousin Zhen had also heard of Liu Xiang-lian and admired him. Today, under pretext of being a little drunk, he had taken the liberty of asking him to perform for them, and Liu Xiang-lian, supported by the hired professional players, had obliged by appearing on the stage in two operatic numbers. When he rejoined the company, Xue Pan took the opportunity of moving over to his table and began plying him with all sorts of questions and insinuations.

  Liu Xiang-lian was a young man of excellent family who, having lost both his parents in early youth, had failed to complete his education. He was of a dashing, impulsive nature, impatient of niceties. His chief pleasures were exercising with spear or sabre, drinking, and gambling; but he was not averse to gentler pastimes: he frequented the budding groves and could play on both the flute and the zither. Because he was so young and handsome, many who did not know him mistakenly supposed that, being an actor, he must have the usual actor’s propensities. Lai Da’s son Lai Shang-rong had been a good friend of his for years and it was only natural that he should invite him on this occasion to help him entertain his guests. Under these circumstances Liu Xiang-lian was prepared to put up with a certain amount of drunken horseplay; but Xue Pan was too much for him, and soon his attentions were becoming so distasteful that Xiang-lian resolved to leave at the earliest opportunity in order to escape from them. Before he could break away, however, Lai Shang-rong detained him.