Pan laughs delightedly also. “I knew that you would like it,” he says, putting his arm around her. “I wanted to make you laugh, after all that you’ve been through.” He stops short of saying “after all that I’ve put you through,” but she knows that that is what he means, nevertheless.
She sees his simple pride and joy at amazing her and her mother, and realizes that this is why it is so difficult to harden her heart against him. She puts her arms around him, torn between laughter and tears. “Welcome home, Pan. I’m glad you’re back.”
3
“You wanted to see me, ma’am?” Cook Liu stands in the doorway of Xifeng’s front room, nervously drying her red hands on her apron.
Xifeng does not look up from the ledger on her desk. Very deliberately, she makes an infinitesimal check in the margin beside one of the numbers, before raising her eyes from the ledger. She puts down her ink brush.
“I have been going over household accounts,” she says. Still not looking at the cook, she pulls another ledger, this one for kitchen expenditures, from the corner of the desk. She opens it to a page marked with a bamboo slip.
Finally, she looks up. “It seems to me that you have been spending quite a bit more than you used to.”
“Oh, my lady.” Cook Liu’s hands twitch under her apron, as she rushes to explain. “It’s getting close to New Year’s, you know, and with all the parties, and visitors, and preparing for the sacrifices, we’ve been spending three or four times as much as we do in a usual month—”
“If you think I don’t know that, you’re more of a fool than I supposed,” Xifeng interrupts. “No, I don’t mean just the last month or two. I mean that for the last six months or more, the kitchens have consistently exceeded their budget. And with things as tight as they are, we simply can’t afford to be so extravagant. Take this, for example.” She runs her finger down the page in the ledger and finds a line near the bottom. She lays the bamboo slip below it, to mark the place, and turns the heavy ledger so it faces the cook.
Cook Liu steps forward and squints at the tiny characters. “ ‘Two dozen black-boned chickens,’ ” she reads.
“And how much did they cost?” Xifeng prompts.
“Twenty-four taels.”
“One tael apiece, for chickens! And we already have a standing order for twenty-five chickens a month to begin with. To order more chickens, and by far the most expensive kind at that—”
“But, my lady,” Cook Liu says, opening her eyes wide. “Surely you know that we stew one every couple of mornings with some jujubes and ginkgo nuts for Miss Ping’er. You know that chickens, especially the black-boned kind, are good for pregnant women, with how much blood and qi they lose at delivery, and nursing the baby—”
Xifeng cuts her off. “Well, with things as tight as they are, we really can’t afford it. Please don’t order them anymore.” She shuts the ledger and pushes it back to the corner of the desk. She picks up her writing brush again.
The cook, however, remains standing there, still twisting her hands in her apron. Xifeng turns to a new page in the ledger and begins to tally up the columns.
“The moment he heard she was pregnant,” the cook says, “Master Lian came to the kitchens himself. He told us to see that she got a stewed black-boned chicken every few days.”
“Did he give you the money to pay for them?” Xifeng does not look up.
The cook shakes her head.
“If he wanted her to have them, he should have paid for them,” Xifeng tells her.
“But he’s away down south!”
“That’s not my problem, is it?” Xifeng reaches for her abacus and begins to click the beads.
A few days later, when Ping’er is opening the lacquered box that the kitchen has delivered for her breakfast, she says, “That’s strange.”
“What is?” asks Xifeng, glancing over from the dressing table, even though she knows perfectly well. Now that Lian has been gone for more than a week, Xifeng and Ping’er have fallen back, on the surface at least, into something of their old companionship.
“Well, I used to get some stewed black-boned chicken every morning, but for the last few days I haven’t been getting it.”
“Really?” Xifeng gets up and walks over to where Ping’er sits on the kang, with the just-opened box steaming before her. There is an egg custard, its creamy yellow surface dotted with dried scallops, some tiny silver fish crusted with salt, pickled radishes, a few mantou, and tofu, as well as shreds of crisp-fried pork and a bowl of rice porridge.
“You’re right,” she says. “Well, Cook Liu was saying just the other day that the prices of things, eggs and so on, have gone up so much these days that they’ve really had to tighten their belts.”
“Is that so?” Ping’er picks up her chopsticks, shrugging. “Oh, well. There is plenty without it.”
Xifeng goes back to her dressing table. As she picks up her comb again, some impulse makes her say, “But a pregnant woman can’t be too careful about getting proper nutrition, you know.” She smiles at Ping’er. “I’ll talk to Cook Liu, and tell her to set aside all the chicken necks and wings to make a nice stew for you every morning.”
Ping’er looks up from her breakfast, her eyes shining with pleasure. “That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s no problem.” She begins to comb her hair again. “Your morning sickness is better, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. I’ve felt a lot better since the beginning of the Twelfth Month. I have even been meaning to go out to the Water Moon Priory to burn incense to Guanyin for a safe delivery.”
“That’s a good idea.” Guanyin is the goddess of childbirth, as well as of mercy. Xifeng had miscarried so many months before her baby was due that she had not gotten a chance to go to the temple to pray to her. She makes an effort to speak lightly. “When you go out there, let me know, will you? I have something to deliver to the Abbess.”
“Of course.”
Autumn comes in. “There’s a servant here from Feng Ziying. He says that Master Lian owes him a debt from dice. He says he wouldn’t ordinarily bother you while Master Lian is gone, only he needs the money right away to pay a debt to someone else.”
“Is that so?” Xifeng rises from the dressing table, irritated. “Well, you can tell him that he’ll just have to wait until Lian comes back to get paid, because I am certainly not going to throw away money on his gaming debts—”
“How much is the debt for?” Ping’er interrupts.
“One hundred taels,” Autumn says.
“I can pay it,” Ping’er says, struggling to rise from the kang. “Lian left me some money.”
Torn between indignation that Lian has kept money without her knowledge, and triumph that she is about to discover where he hides it, Xifeng rushes to help Ping’er off the kang. Ping’er does not really need help, but she wants an excuse to follow Ping’er into her bedroom. In the bedroom, Ping’er points to the far corner of the kang. “It’s under a loose brick.”
Xifeng kneels on the kang, turning back the rug. She dislodges the brick and finds a small bag. She empties it out, noticing with a feeling of contempt that it is not quite enough, only about eighty taels. She also finds a tiny drawstring bag. She feels it with her fingers and realizes it contains the small stone block carved with Lian’s name, which he uses to imprint official documents.
Concealing her excitement, she says, “There isn’t enough. I’ll have to give you twenty taels or so.”
“Thank you. I’m sure Lian will repay you when he gets back.”
She grunts skeptically, wondering at Ping’er’s naïveté.
In the afternoon, she sends Ping’er on an errand elsewhere in the mansion, and goes into Ping’er’s bedroom with an unsigned loan agreement. The Countess of Xiping has repaid her, and now the Abbess has helped her set up an even larger loan. She takes out the chop from its hiding place and prints Lian’s name in the corner of the loan agreement with red ink. Because women cannot make contracts, the agreement will
be more binding if Lian’s name is on it. She hears a sound in the front room and hurries out, carefully folding the document.
Chess, Xichun’s maid, is waiting for her. “Mrs. Lian, I wish you’d come over to Miss Xichun’s apartment. Her pearl and gold phoenix necklace is missing!”
“Missing!” Lady Jia had given the Two Springs the matching necklaces last year, the most costly pieces of jewelry that each of them owns. “Did you ask Miss Xichun and the other maids about it?”
“Yes, but they all say they haven’t seen it.”
“Is anything else missing?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Very well. I’ll go over with you.” While Xifeng has resigned herself to a certain amount of petty theft in a household of this size, this is the first time something so valuable has disappeared.
When they arrive at Xichun’s apartments, Xichun has her nose buried in a book on the kang.
“What’s this about your pearl and gold necklace disappearing?” Xifeng demands.
“Oh.” Xichun looks annoyed. “It’s nothing. Why did Chess have to go bothering you about that?”
“What do you mean it’s nothing? Do you know where the necklace is or not?”
Xichun shrugs. “I’m sure it will turn up sometime.” She looks back down at her book.
Xifeng snatches the book out of her hands, noticing that it is a sutra, as usual. “What do you mean it will turn up sometime? How long has it been missing?”
“I don’t really know.” Xichun blinks up at her, as if surprised by her anger.
“Where did you keep it?”
Chess answers, pointing. “We kept it in a box in Miss Xichun’s dressing table drawer.”
Xifeng pulls open the drawer. All the smaller pieces, the bracelets and rings and hairpins, seem to be in their places. Only the largest box is empty. “You should really keep better track of your things.”
“Why should I? The sutras say we shouldn’t have attachments to the material world—”
“Is that so?” Xifeng cries, losing her patience. “Why don’t you explain that to Granny when she asks you where your necklace is at New Year’s?”
Xichun looks scared. Xifeng begins to suspect that Xichun knows who took the necklace but is afraid to say.
She sits down on the kang beside her sister-in-law, trying to speak calmly. “Don’t you understand that if there’s a thief here, it’s a serious matter? Who knows what she will take next, and not just from you?”
She pauses, waiting for Xichun to speak. Xichun looks down at her hands.
“Well.” Xifeng rises. “If you really have no idea, I’ll have to question the maids one by one. If no one speaks up, I’ll have to beat it out of them.”
“No!” Xichun cries.
“Why not?”
“It isn’t one of the maids.”
Xifeng pounces on this. “If you know it isn’t one of the maids, then you obviously know who did it.”
Xichun starts to cry.
“It’s no use crying. Until I find out who it is, I will beat every person who has reason to come to these apartments.”
Chess bursts out as if she can no longer restrain herself, “Nanny Li took the necklace!”
Xichun starts to cry harder.
Xifeng whirls to stare at Chess. “Nanny Li?” She cannot, for the moment, place the name.
“Miss Xichun’s wet nurse.”
“Ah!” No wonder Xichun is protecting her. “How do you know?”
Chess is almost crying now too. “It’s not the first time she has taken something to pawn. I’ve begged Miss Xichun, but she refuses to do anything about it. I’ve told her again and again that she had to stop it, or else we’d all end up getting in trouble.”
“What on earth does Nanny Li need all that money for?”
“At night, some of the old women in the Garden have a gambling ring,” Chess says.
“What!” In her surprise and alarm, Xifeng takes a quick step backwards and almost falls against the kang. She steadies herself quickly. “A gambling ring? Where?”
“They stay up late in the gatehouse after everyone goes to bed. Lots of the stewardesses and gardeners and old nannies play. Nanny Li is one of the bankers.”
“You knew about this? And didn’t tell me until now?” Suddenly, her palm itches to slap Chess. She controls herself, knowing that if she beats the bearers of bad news, no one will ever tell her anything. She turns to Xichun. “You knew, too, and didn’t tell me?”
Xichun and Chess both stare at her as if bewildered by her anger.
“Don’t you understand? With gambling comes drinking, and with drinking comes carelessness, and letting in strangers who have no business in the Inner Quarters! We should count ourselves lucky that all that happened was that a necklace was stolen. What if a man had snuck in?”
She sees Xichun’s eyes widen with fear. She continues, wanting to impress her with the seriousness of the situation, “At night, there’d be no one to protect you but some maids.”
She feels a chill of fear at her own words. Xichun and Chess both begin to sob again. The way they cling to each other, their ineffectual tears, make her feel alone. They can sob all they want, but she will be blamed if any of the terrible things she imagines come to pass. She decides to resolve the matter quickly, before Granny Jia can hear anything about it. She has Nanny Li dragged in and beaten. After a few strokes of the bamboo, Nanny Li breaks down and confesses. It is worse than Xifeng imagined: more than two dozen women gather in the gatehouse nearly every night. She cannot believe that it has come to this without her being aware of it. Two hours later, she has dismissed Nanny Li and the other two ringleaders, and identified the regular and occasional participants. She tells Mrs. Lai to have them all beaten twenty strokes and to dock them two months’ salary.
When Xifeng rises from her chair in Xichun’s room to return to her own apartment, she is hoarse from yelling. Xichun, who has not offered her so much as a cup of tea, is still weeping on the kang. “Why are you crying?”
“Because my wet nurse was dismissed,” Xichun sobs. “I’ve been disgraced in front of the whole household, because she was my servant. None of the other girls’ servants were dismissed.”
Xifeng realizes that this is true. Most of the gamblers were gardeners and porters and gatewomen, rather than personal servants. “Then let this be a lesson to you. You have no one to blame but yourself. It’s your duty to keep your servants in line. If you had done something about it earlier, it wouldn’t have come to this.” Unbidden, an old saying comes to her: The beast of a thousand legs is more than a day in dying.
Xichun weeps, “If only I could be a nun, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this shouting and beating.”
“What kind of nonsense is this?” She knows that Xichun constantly pores over Buddhist texts, but she has never heard her mention becoming a nun before. Praying and making offerings at the temple is one thing; it is another matter entirely to shave one’s head and cut oneself off from one’s family.
“If I could join a nunnery, I wouldn’t have to live here, and deal with all the servants—”
“You’d be a servant, in all but name! Who do you think does the Abbess’s laundry, and washes her dishes? Don’t you know enough to be grateful for what you have—”
Xichun ignores her. “I want to withdraw from the ‘red dust’ of the world and read sutras.”
“Girls from families like ours don’t leave home to become nuns. Only girls from poor families, who can’t arrange decent matches for them, are sent off like that. It would be considered a real disgrace if someone like you entered a nunnery!”
“I don’t care.”
She shakes Xichun by the shoulders, unable to contain her exasperation. “You’d better not let Granny hear you speaking like that.”
She leaves Xichun crying helplessly, and starts to cross the Garden, fuming at her sister-in-law’s foolishness. Dusk is falling, and it is almost time for her to go to Granny’s
to prepare for dinner. It is not enough that Xichun lives pampered and protected from every worry and household care. It is not enough that she never has to lift a finger. She still wants to “escape” to what she imagines to be the peace and seclusion of a nunnery. Xifeng must speak to Lian when he comes back. He does not usually concern himself with his sister, but he might bestir himself for something like this, affecting the reputation of the entire family.
She is so absorbed in her thoughts as she skirts the frozen lake that she almost screams when a man in dark robes comes out of the leafless rosebushes onto the path in front of her. Her first panic-stricken thought is that her words have come true: the gatewomen have already grown so slack that a strange man has managed to slip into the Garden. Her whole body throbs with a visceral panic, and her instinct is to run away. Then she remembers she is not some innocent girl, to be stricken by terror at the sight of a strange man. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she shouts. She is pleased by how loudly and fiercely her voice echoes in the silence of the Garden.
The man is only a few feet from her. She sees from his face in the gathering dusk that, far from lying in wait for her, he looks as startled as she is. “I’m sorry I scared you. I’m here with permission.”
“Whose permission?”
“Lord Jia’s. I’m a friend of his.” He lowers his head and shoulders in a little kowtow. “My name is Jia Yucun.”
“Jia Yucun?” she repeats. After a moment, it comes to her: he is the distant cousin that Uncle Zheng had befriended in the fall. “If you are here to visit Uncle Zheng, you should wait for him out in his study, not in the Women’s Quarters.”
“I often visit him here in his private apartments.”
“Really?” She is disturbed. The only men allowed into the Inner Quarters are close relatives. It is unlike Uncle Zheng of all people to break the rules like this.
She peers at the young man curiously. Now she sees through the dimness that he is wearing official robes. He looks young, at most Lian’s age. He is good-looking, with pale, clear-cut features. She notices he is looking back at her, and feels flustered.
The Red Chamber Page 15
