CHAPTER 39
An inventive old county woman tells a story of somewhat
questionable veracity
And an impressionable young listener insists on getting to
the bottom of the matter
PATIENCE, you will recall, had just returned to the party.
‘What’s happened to your mistress?’ the others asked her.
‘Why doesn’t she come back and join us?’
‘She hasn’t got time,’ said Patience, laughing. ‘She’s sent me to ask if you’ve got any crabs left. She says she didn’t get a proper chance to eat any earlier on, and as she hasn’t got time to come here herself, would I ask you, if you’ve still got any, to let me take a few back for her.’
‘We’ve got plenty left,’ said Xiang-yun, and gave orders for ten of the largest to be put in a box for her to take.
‘Pick as many as you can with the round “navels”,’ said Patience to the old servant who was departing to do Xiang?-yun’s bidding.
Li Wan tried to make Patience sit down with them, but she refused.
‘You shall sit down!’ said Li Wan, eyeing her skittishly; and taking her by the hand, she drew her down beside her and held a cup of wine up to her lips so that she was forced to drink. Patience gulped down a mouthful of it and then rose again to go.
‘I won’t let you go!’ said Li Wan. ‘The only person you ever take any notice of is that precious Feng of yours; you think you don’t need to obey me; but you shall.’ She turned to the old woman, now waiting in readiness with the box of crabs, and told her to go on ahead with them and tell Xi-feng that Patience was being detained. The old woman went away.
She returned a short while after, still carrying the box, with a message.
‘Mrs Lian says thank you very much, and she hopes you didn’t think her greedy for asking. She’s put some caltrop?-cakes and some chicken-fat rolls in the box, that have just been sent her by the elder Lady Wang. She thought you and the young ladies might like to try them.’
There was a further message for Patience:
‘Mrs Lian says she thought she sent you to fetch something for her, not to stay here and amuse yourself. Anyway, she says, tell her not to drink too much.’
‘Oh,’ said Patience, laughing, ‘and what will happen to me if I do?’
As if in defiance of her mistress’s instructions, she fell to eating and drinking with great gusto. Li Wan meanwhile encircled her waist in an affectionate embrace.
‘What a pity that so distinguished-looking a young woman should have been born to so humble a fate!’ said Li Wan. ‘It’s you who should have been the mistress. You would have made such a good lady. No one who didn’t know would ever take you for a maid.’
Patience, who had continued eating and drinking with Bao-chai and Xiang-yun while Li Wan was saying this, now turned round and looked at her with a giggle.
‘Stop it, Mrs Zhu! You’re tickling me!’
‘Aiyo!’ said Li Wan. ‘What’s this great hard thing here?’
‘Keys,’ said Patience.
‘Keys?’ said Li Wan. ‘What has your mistress got so pre?cious that you need to carry keys round all the time? Do you know what I tell people about you? I tell them: Just as you can’t imagine a Tripitaka going off to India to fetch the scriptures without his white horse or a Liu Zhi-yuan conquer?ing the Empire without a Spirit of the Melon Fields to give him his armour, so you can’t imagine a Wang Xi-feng without a Patience alongside helping her. You are your mistress’s master-key. What does she need to make you carry these things around with you for?’
Patience laughed embarrassedly.
‘You are making fun of me, Mrs Zhu. I’m afraid you’ve had too much to drink.’
‘No, it’s true,’ said Bao-chai. ‘Whenever we start gossiping about personalities, we nearly always end up by agreeing what exceptional people you and the other chief maids are. And all exceptional in your own different ways, too— that’s what’s so interesting.’
‘It’s almost as though Nature had in each case designed the mistress and the maid to suit each other,’ said Li Wan. ‘Take Grandmother and Faithful, for example. Grandmother would be completely lost without Faithful. Who in the family from Lady Wang downwards would ever dare answer Grandmother back? Yet Faithful does. And what’s more, Grandmother will listen to her. And look at all the things that Grandmother has. No one else could ever remember them the way that Faithful can. Just think how Grandmother would be plundered and cheated if Faithful weren’t there to look after them. And on top of it all, she’s a very fair person. She’ll often put in a good word for someone. And though she has so much influence with Grandmother, she never, never uses it to do anyone else down.’
Xi-chun smiled.
‘Yesterday when Grannie was talking about Faithful she said, “She’s better than all you grandchildren!”’
‘Faithful’s a good sort,’ said Patience. ‘I don’t consider my?self in her class at all.’
‘Mother’s Suncloud is a good, honest soul,’ said Bao-yu.
‘She certainly is,’ said Tan-chun. ‘She’s got a mind of her own, though. You know what a Holy Buddha Mother is: she doesn’t notice a half of what goes on around her. But Sun-cloud does. And she is the one who always has to remind Mother about everything. She even knows about outside mat?ters. When Father is at home, it’s Suncloud who has to remind Mother about them when she forgets.’
‘I don’t know about Mother and Suncloud,’ said Li Wan, ‘but what about this young gentleman here?’ She pointed to Bao-yu. ‘Can you imagine the sort of state he would be in if he hadn’t got his Aroma to look after him? And Feng too. Even though she’s a regular Tyrant King, she still needs her Patience in order to be so efficient, just as much as the real Tyrant King needed his two strong arms in order to be able to lift up those hundredweight tripods.’
‘There were four of us when I first came here with Mrs Lian,’ said Patience, ‘but the others all either died or left. I’m the only one who’s stayed with her all along.’
‘You’re lucky then,’ said Li Wan. ‘And Feng is lucky, too. When I first came here to Mr Zhu, I had several maids, too, but — I don’t know why it was, for I’m sure you wouldn’t call me a hard mistress — they were always dissatisfied. So when Mr Zhu died, I took advantage of their being still young to get rid of them all. If only I’d had a dependable girl like you that I could have kept on with me, I shouldn’t feel quite so helpless now.’
Her eyes began to redden as she said this, and she seemed about to cry.
‘Oh, come now!’ said the others. ‘There’s no need to upset yourself. If you’re going to be like this, we might just as well break up the party.’
They did in fact begin washing their hands then and pre?sently decided to go off in a body to pay their duty calls on Grandmother Jia and Lady Wang. Meanwhile the old women and maids busied themselves with sweeping out the pavilion and stacking and washing up the cups and dishes.
Aroma left in the company of Patience. On the way back she asked Patience into Green Delights. She made her sit down and invited her to take tea, but Patience declined, saying that she would drop in another time, and rose to go. Aroma had something to ask her, however, and called after her as she was going.
‘What’s happened to this month’s allowances?’ she said. ‘Even Her Old Ladyship’s and Her Ladyship’s people haven’t had theirs yet.’
Patience spun round when she heard this and came back again.
‘Don’t ask me about that, please!’ she said in a low, agit?ated voice, after first glancing round to make sure that no one else was present. ‘Whatever it is, you’ll only have another day or two to wait, I promise you.’
Aroma was amused to see her so agitated.
‘Why, what’s the matter? Why should you be in such a state about it?’
Patience dropped her voice even lower.
‘Mrs Lian has already put the money for this month’s allow?ances out at interest. She’s waiting for the interest on some of her other loans to pay your allowances with. It’s all right for me to tell you this, but whatever you do, don’t let anyone else know about it!’
Aroma laughed.
‘But she’s not short of money, she’s got plenty. What does she want to go giving herself all this extra worry for?’
‘She’s certainly not short of money,’ said Patience. ‘Just in the few years since she started doing this, the amount she has got out on loan must have grown to several hundred times the original premium. And she doesn’t spend all of her own allow?ance, either. Whenever she’s got nine or ten taels saved up out of it, she invests them too. Why, just her profits alone after she’s deducted the allowances from the interest must be in the region of a thousand taels a year.’
‘You and your mistress are a nice pair, I must say!’ said Aroma. Keeping the rest of us short while you use our money to feather your own nests with!’
‘That’s most unfair!’ said Patience indignantly. ‘Any way, I’m sure you can’t really be short of money.’
‘Not myself, it’s true’ said Aroma. ‘In any case, I haven’t got anything to spend it on. I was thinking more of my young gentleman. I like to keep some by me in case he ever needs any.’
‘Look, if you’re in urgent need of money, I’ve got a few taels put by myself that I can let you have,’ said Patience. ‘You can have them as an advance on this month’s allowance, if you like.’
‘I don’t really need any at the moment,’ said Aroma, ‘but may I take you up on your offer if I ever do?’
‘Of course,’ said Patience, and left without further cere?mony.
Outside the courtyard gate a maid from Xi-feng was look?ing for her.
‘The Mistress wants to see you about something.’
‘What has she got so urgent that she has to keep pestering me like this?’ said Patience. ‘I’ve just had Mrs Zhu all over me to make me stay and talk to her. It’s not as if I’d run away.’
‘Better ask her yourself,’ said the girl. ‘It wasn’t my idea to fetch you.’
‘Cheeky devil!’ said Patience, and continued on her way.
When she got there, however, it was not Xi-feng she found waiting for her, but the old countrywoman she had admitted on a previous occasion as a suppliant, Grannie Liu, with her little grandson Ban-er. They were sitting in the side room on the kang with Zhang Cai’s wife and Zhou Rui’s wife on either side of them, while maids were emptying sacks of jujubes, melons and other farm produce on the floor below. The company rose hurriedly to their feet as Patience entered. Grannie Liu, who recognized her from her last visit, scrambled down from the kang and greeted her at once as ‘Miss Patience’ without any of the previous time’s confusion.
‘The family all send their regards, Miss. They’d have come themselves long since to see you and pay their respects to their Aunt Lian, only they’ve been too busy with the farm-work. Anyways, they’ve had a good harvest this year, thanks be, and it’s been a good year for the fruit and vegetables. This here that I’ve brought is the first pickings. We didn’t like to sell them, because we wanted our first-fruits to go to Mrs Lian and the young ladies. We thought that mayhap eating the rarities of earth and sea every day of their lives they might sometimes tire of delicate food and fancy a bit of plain country stuff for a change. Anyway, there you are! It’s a poor gift, but it’s given with a warm heart!’
‘It’s very good of you to have brought it,’ said Patience, and begged her to be seated, sitting down herself as she did so. She invited Zhou Rui’s wife and Zhang Cai’s wife to be seated as well, and ordered one of the junior maids to pour tea.
Mesdames Zhou and Zhang chaffed her on her appear?ance.
‘You’ve got the spring in your face, Miss. Your eyes are all red.’
Patience laughed.
‘I know. I don’t drink normally, but today Mrs Zhou and the young ladies got hold of me and just forced it down me. I was made to drink, against my will. That’s why my face is so red.’
‘Well I don’t know,’ said Zhang Cai’s wife. ‘Here’s me just dying for a drink, but nobody offers me one. Next time anyone invites you, Miss, you must take me with you.’
The others laughed.
‘I saw those crabs this morning,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘Great big things. There couldn’t have been more than two or three to a catty. And I should think altogether there must have been seventy or eighty catties in those hampers. Even so,’ she said reflectively, ‘there probably wouldn’t have been enough for all the staff to have some.’
‘Lots of them didn’t,’ said Patience. ‘It was only the top ones that got one or two crabs to themselves. The rest of them only got a taste – some of them not even that.’
‘Good crabs like that are selling at a pennyweight a catty this year,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘If one catty is a pennyweight, fifty catties is two taels ten, and another thirty is one and ten; ten and two is twelve and twice ten is a tael, that’s thirteen, and then there’s the wine and the other dishes. It couldn’t have cost less than twenty taels in all. Bless us and save us that’d keep a farmer and his family for a year!’
‘I take it you’ve already seen Mrs Lian,’ said Patience.
‘Yes,’ said Grannie Lu. ‘She told us to wait.’
She glanced through the open window as she said this and noticed that the day was drawing on towards evening.
‘It’s getting dark earlier these days,’ she said. ‘We’d better be on our way. We don’t want to find the city gates shut, or we shall be in a proper pickle.’
‘Just wait while I slip over and find out what the Mistress is up to,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. She left the room and was gone for some considerable time. When she eventually returned, she was full of smiles.
‘It’s Grannie’s lucky day,’ she said. ‘She’s struck lucky with both of them.’
‘How do you mean?’ said Patience.
‘Well,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife, ‘Mrs Lian was with Her Old Ladyship when I got there, so I went up to her and told her on the side that Grannie wanted to go now to make sure of getting to the gates in time. “Oh” she said, “she came such a long way with all that stuff. If it’s getting late, she’d better spend the night here and leave tomorrow morning.” Well, that was one piece of luck; but that’s nothing to what fol?lowed, because Her Old Ladyship had overheard this and asked her who this “Grannie Liu” was, and when Mrs Lian told her, she said, “Oh, I’ve been just longing for someone with a bit of age and experience to talk to! Bring her here! Introduce her to me!” Now that really was a stroke of luck!’
She urged Grannie Liu to leave her place on the kang and go over to the other apartment; but the old countrywoman was seized with a sudden attack of shyness.
‘Look at me! Dear soul, I’m in no fit state to see her now! Tell her I’ve already left!’
‘Go on, you go and see her!’ said Patience. ‘It’ll be all right. Our old lady is always very nice to poor or elderly people She’s not the least bit pretentious or stuck-up like some I could mention. If you’re nervous about meeting high-ups, Mrs Zhou and I will go with you to give you confidence.’
She proceeded, with Mrs Zhou’s assistance, to conduct the old woman to her interview.
When they saw Patience coming out of the courtyard, the pages on duty at the gate stood up, and two of them came run?ning up to her.
‘Miss! Miss!’
‘What’s it this time?’ said Patience.
‘I’ve been waiting to catch you for hours, Miss,’ said the first of the boys. ‘My ma’s took ill and I’ve got to go and fetch the doctor for her. Will it be all right if I take the night off?’
‘You’re a nice lot!’ said Patience. ‘It’s my belief that you’ve got it all worked out between you so that one of you gets a holiday every day. And instead of telling the Mistress properly, as you’re supposed to do, you come round to me with these sad stories and make me take the responsibility. When Stoppo did this the other day, the Master called for him while he was still away and I got into trouble by speaking jip for him. The Master accused me of doing favours. And now you want to do the same thing.’
‘His ma really is ill, Miss,’ said Zhou Rui’s wife. ‘I’m sure it would be in order for you to let him go.’
‘All right, then. But mind you’re back first thing tomorrow,’ Patience told the boy. ‘Now you heard that, didn’t you? First thing. Because I’ve got work for you to do. No lying in bed until you can feel the sun on your backside! And I want you to take a message to Brightie for me on the way. Tell him the Mistress says that if he hasn’t handed in the test of that interest by tomorrow, she won’t ask him for it again, because she’ll know that he’s keeping it for himself.’
The boy promised to deliver the message and scampered off, delighted to be released.
By the time Patience and her charges arrived at Grand?mother Jia’s apartment, all the young denizens of Prospect Garden had for some time been assembled there in attendance, so that as Grannie Liu entered the room, she was confronted by a bevy of unfamiliar young ladies, all resplendent in orna?ments of pearl and kingfisher, like a bed of beautiful flowers, none of which she could give a name to. In their midst a venerable old lady reclined on a couch. A young woman, pretty as a picture and dressed in silk and satin from top to toe, sat behind her, gently pounding her legs. Xi-feng, the only person there she could recognize, was standing to one side of her, evidently in the midst of telling her something amusing. Deducing that the old lady on the couch must be Grandmother Jia, Grannie Liu hurried up to her and made her an antique curtsey.
‘Your servant, my lady!’
Grandmother Jia inclined herself politely from the couch and asked Zhou Rui’s wife to bring up a chair for her to sit on. Ban-er, bashful as ever, would not attempt a greeting.
‘Now, old kinswoman,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘and what would your age be?’
‘Seventy-five this year,’ said Grannie Liu.
Grandmother Jia turned round to the others present.
‘That’s several years older than me. Fancy still being so fit and lively Heaven only knows what I shall be like at that age!’
Grannie Liu laughed.
‘I was born for a hard life, d’ye see, just as Your Ladyship was born for a soft one. We couldn’t all be like Your Ladyship, or there’d be no one to do the farming.’
‘Are your eyes and teeth still good?’ Grandmother Jia asked her.
‘All bar a back tooth on the left-hand side that’s getting a bit loose this year.’
‘There! and I’m already a useless old woman,’ said Grand-mother Jia. ‘Poor eyesight, poor hearing, memory going — I can’t even remember the names of old kinsfolk like yourself any longer. I’m scared to meet them when they come visiting, for fear they might laugh at me. There’s not much I can do nowadays except eat — what I can get my teeth into — and sleep. Apart from that, I share a joke or two with these young people when I need a bit of diversion, and that’s about all.’
‘Your Ladyship is lucky,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘I couldn’t have such a life if I wanted it.’
‘Lucky? No!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’m just an old crock!’
The others all laughed.
‘Our Feng has been telling me that you’ve brought a lot of fruit and vegetables with you,’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘I’ve asked the servants to bring them over. I’m so looking forward to some nice, fresh farm vegetables. The stuff we buy outside isn’t as tasty as your home-grown stuff, you know.’
‘That’s the countryman’s idea of a treat,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘He can’t afford meat and fish, so when he fancies a little luxury, he likes to eat his food fresh from the ground.’
‘Now that you’re one of the family,’ said Grandmother Jia, ‘I hope you will stay long enough to enjoy your visit. Don’t go hurrying back again. Stay here a couple of days or so, if you can put up with us. We’ve got a garden too, you know, and we grow a certain amount of fruit in it. Tomorrow you must try some of our stuff and you must take some back home with you when you go. It will seem more like a proper visit to rela?tions if you stay a bit, instead of popping in and popping straight out again.’
Xi-feng could see that Grandmother Jia took pleasure in the old woman’s company and added her own persuasion.
‘It’s probably not as roomy here as your farmyard, but I expect we’ll manage to tuck you in somewhere. And you’ll be able to tell our old lady all the village gossip.’
‘Feng!’ said Grandmother Jia, laughing in spite of herself. ‘Don’t make fun! She’s a simple countrywoman. You can’t expect her to stand up to your teasing in the way that we can.’
She gave orders for Ban-er to be given some sweetmeats. He was unwilling to eat in front of so many people, however, so she told them to give him some money instead, and to get some of the younger pages to take him outside to play.
After Grannie Liu had taken tea, she regaled Grandmother Jia with some anecdotes of village life, thus further endearing herself to her new acquaintance. She was still holding forth when Xi-feng, who had slipped out some time previously, sent someone round to invite her back for dinner. Grandmother Jia selected some food from her own dishes and sent them to Xi-feng’s place for Grannie Liu to try in addition to what Xi-feng was giving her.
Xi-feng could see that Grandmother Jia had taken a fancy to the old woman, so after dinner she sent her back to Grandmother Jia’s apartment. As soon as she arrived, Faithful ordered some of the older domestics to conduct her to a bath. She herself went off to fetch her a change of clothes. She selected two fairly modest items from her own wardrobe and sent them to the bathroom with instructions that Grannie Liu should change into them after her bath. Such goings-on were outside even the old grannie’s extensive experience, but she took them all in good part, and having submitted to the ordeal of the bath, quickly dressed herself in the proffered clothes and went in to take her place once more beside the couch and resume her role of raconteuse. In this she was eminently successful, since Bao-yu and the girls, now seated on all sides around her, found her simple country talk much more fascinating than any of the fictions told by the blind ballad-singers who sometimes visited the house.
Indeed, there was more than an element of fiction in what she told them: for Grannie Liu, though born and bred in the country, was a shrewd old soul to whom the years had given a pretty good understanding of human weakness, and when she sensed the old lady’s pleased excitement and the avid atten?tion of her younger listeners, she did her best not to disappoint them by supplying from her own invention whatever memory and experience were inadequate to provide.
‘We country-folk working out there on the land — year in, year out, rain or fine, spring, summer, autumn and winter — we never get any time off,’ she told them. ‘If we rest, it’s only as you might say ‘napping in harness’, like the old post-horse in the story. And many a strange happening do we see, out there on the land.
‘Take what happened last winter, for instance. It had been snowing for several days without a stop and the snow was two or three feet thick on the ground, and this particular morn?ing I rose up early, and while I was still indoors, I heard the sound of something stirring outside in the woodpile. I thought to myself, “That’ll be someone stealing the firewood.” So I put my eye to the hole in the shutter, and sure enough there was someone there; but it wasn’t anyone from the village.’
‘It was probably some traveller,’ Grandmother Jia inter?rupted. ‘He was feeling cold and helped himself to a bit to make a fire with, so that he could get warm.’
‘Ah, but it wasn’t a traveller,’ said Grannie Liu. ‘That was the strange thing about it. Now who do you think it was, my old soul? ’Twas a young woman, seventeen or eighteen years of age seemingly, pretty as a picture, and with no more on her but a red dress and a white satin skirt, and the hair on her bare head combed as sleek and shining as black lacquer paint—’
At that point her story was interrupted by a confused hub?bub of voices outside. One of them could be heard above the rest saying, ‘It isn’t serious. There’s no point in frightening Her Old Ladyship.’
‘What is it?’ the old lady asked in some alarm.
‘A fire has broken out in the South Court stables,’ said one of the maids. ‘It isn’t serious, though. They’ve already got it under control.’
Always the most timorous of mortals where fire was con?cerned, Grandmother Jia struggled to her feet, and supported by the maids, led the others out onto the loggia to see what was happening. Somewhere beyond the south-east corner of the courtyard the glare of flames was still distinctly visible. Terrified out of her wits, she began calling on the names of the Buddha, and hurriedly sent someone to burn incense before the image of the Fire God.
By now Lady Wang had arrived with the younger women, and added her voice to the others’ in assuring the old lady that the fire was well under control and urging her to go indoors; but Grandmother Jia insisted on staying outside until the last of the flames had been extinguished.
As soon as they were all inside again, Bao-yu began ques?tioning Grannie Liu about her interrupted story.
‘Why was the girl out in all that snow stealing firewood?’ he asked her. ‘She might have caught her death of cold.’
‘For goodness’ sake don’t ask about that!’ said Grandmother Jia. ‘It was talking about firewood that started that fire just now. Think of something else to talk about for goodness’ sake!’
Though privately far from satisfied, Bao-yu was obliged to let the matter rest while Grannie turned her inventive faculties in another direction.
‘In a farmstead east of ours there was an old dame of more than ninety who had fasted and prayed to the Buddha every day of her life. At last the Blessed Guanyin was moved by her prayers and appeared to her one night in a dream. ‘It was to have been your fate to be cut off without an heir,’ the Blessed Mother told her, ‘but because of your great piety, I have peti?tioned the Jade Emperor to give you a grandson.’
‘Now this old dame had an only son, and the son, too, had an only son who in spite of all their care had died when he was only seventeen or eighteen, to their sore and bitter grief. But after she had this dream a second grandson was born. He’d be thirteen or fourteen now — a very handsome lad, with skin as white as snow, and that sharp and clever you’d hardly credit it. So you see there are gods and Buddhas watching over us, whatever folk may say!’
The circumstances of this tale so perfectly accorded with the idea they had privately formed of their own situation, that both the senior ladies in her audience — Lady Wang no less than Grandmother Jia — were quite captivated by it. But Bao-yu, whose thoughts were still on the beautiful pilferer of fire?wood, looked glum and preoccupied. His sister Tan-chun observed this and sought to distract him.
‘We’ve got to make some sort of return for Cousin Shi’s party, Bao. Why don’t we go back now and discuss when the next poetry meeting is to be? We can have our party for Cousin Shi at the same time, and Grandma will be able to come and look at the chrysanthemums.’
‘Grandma’s already promised to give a return party for Cousin Shi herself,’ said Bao-yu, ‘and we are all invited. We’d better wait until that’s over before putting on anything of our own.’
‘The longer we delay, the colder the weather will be,’ said Tan-chun. ‘It won’t be much fun for Grandma if it’s too cold.’
‘But she loves parties when it’s raining or snowing,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Why don’t we wait until the first snowfall and have it then? Call it a snow-viewing party. Think how romantic: chanting poems in the falling snow!’
‘It would be more romantic still,’ said Dai-yu drily, ‘if instead of chanting poems we had a big bundle of firewood and took it in turns to tiptoe through the snow and pull out sticks from it.’
Bao-chai and the other girls all laughed, but Bao-yu stared at Dai-yu rather crossly and said nothing.
After the company had dispersed, Bao-yu finally managed to get Grannie Liu into a corner and question her in detail about the mysterious snow maiden. Grannie Liu’s inventive?ness was once more put to the test.
‘On the embankment that runs along the north side of our land,’ she said, ‘there is a little shrine. The image inside it is not a god or a Buddha, though. There used at one time to be a gentleman living in our parts—’
She broke off at this point and appeared to be trying to remember a name.
‘Never mind his name,’ said Bao-yu. ‘Don’t try to remem?ber it. Just tell me what happened.’
‘This gentleman had no son, but he had an only daughter called — I think it was Ruo-yu. She could read books as well as any scholar, this Ruo-yu, and the gentleman loved her more than all the treasure in the world. But sad to say, she took sick and died when she was only seventeen years old—‘
Bao-yu groaned and stamped his foot.
‘So what happened then?’
‘Because the gentleman loved her so dearly, he had this shrine built for her out in the fields and had a likeness of her made out of wood and clay to put inside it; and he arranged for someone to burn incense there and always keep a spark of fire going inside the burner. But as the years went by, both the gentleman and the people who used to tend the shrine for him all died, and now the shrine is falling into ruin and the statue has come to life and started haunting people.’
‘No, no,’ Bao-yu interrupted hurriedly, ‘that wouldn’t be the statue coming to life. People like that are never really dead, even after they have died.’
‘Holy Name!’ said Grannie Liu. ‘Fancy that now! And me thinking all along it was the statue. Well, whatever it is, every so often it takes on human shape and goes wandering abroad troubling people. And that’s what I saw when I looked out that time and saw someone taking our firewood. The people in our village are talking of breaking up the image and knocking the shrine down so as to put a stop to the haunting.’
‘Good gracious! they mustn’t do that!’ said Bao-yu. ‘That’s a terrible sin, knocking a temple down!’
‘Now I am glad you told me that,’ said Grannie Liu gravely. ‘When I get hack, I shall do my best to stop them.’
‘My grandmother and Lady Wang and in fact just about everyone in this family is terribly keen on good works,’ said Bao-yu. ‘There’s nothing they like better than repairing temples and restoring things. Tomorrow I’ll write out an appeal and collect some subscriptions for you. You can be the fund’s Treasurer, and when we’ve got enough money together, you can supervise the restoration, And I’ll get them to send you some money every month for incense, How would that be?’
‘Statue or spirit or whatever she is,’ said Grannie Liu, ‘I shall certainly be grateful to her for the money.’
Bao-yu pressed her for the names of the nearest farms and villages and the exact location of the shrine in relation to them as well as the distance to it and the general direction in which it lay. Answering all these questions with whatever came first into her head, Grannie Liu supplied a set of fictitious direc?tions which Bao-yu, believing them to be genuine, carefully committed to memory and carried back to his room, where he lay awake half the night planning what he would do for the beautiful wood-thief in the days ahead.
He went out of the Garden first thing next morning, and handing Tealeaf a few hundred cash, told him the directions for getting to the shrine as given him by Grannie Liu the night before, and instructed him to follow them, inspect the shrine, and report back on what he saw. He would await Tea-leaf’s report before deciding what to do next.
But once Tealeaf had gone he found the waiting very tedious, and as the day wore on and Tealeaf still failed to return, he became as fidgety as a worm on hot earth. He was obliged to wait until sundown before Tealeaf finally came back. When he did, however, he was looking extremely pleased with himself.
‘You managed to find it then?’ Bao-yu asked him eagerly. ‘Yes,’ said Tealeaf, smiling broadly, ‘but you couldn’t have heard the directions right. I had a terrible job finding it. The place where it is and the way to it are nothing like you said. That’s why I took so long. I was all day looking for it. In the end I found that there is a ruined temple in that area, but it’s not where you said: it’s at the east end of the north embank?ment, on a corner.’
Bao-yu’s face beamed with pleasure.
‘Grannie Liu’s a very old woman,’ he said. ‘It’s quite pos?sible that she misremembered when she gave me those direc?tions. Anyway, tell me what you saw.’
‘The temple was south-facing, like you said,’ Tealeaf re?plied, ‘and it was in a very tumble-down condition. I’d been searching neatly all day by then, so of course when I saw that, I was very relieved and hurried straight inside. But oh lot! when I looked at the image, I was so scared I hurried straight out again it was so real!’
Bao-yu laughed delightedly.
‘Of course. If she’s capable of coming to life, you’d expect a certain liveliness in the Statue.’
‘She?’ said Tealeaf. ‘This was no she. It was an ugly great Plague God with a blue face and red hair!’
‘Useless dolt!’ said Bao-yu angrily. ‘You can’t even do a simple little errand like this for me.’
‘That’s most unfair,’ said Tealeaf in a deeply aggrieved tone of voice. ‘You send me off on a wild-goose chase to look for something you’ve read about in some book or other or heard about in some old-wives’ tale, and then when I can’t find it (because there’s probably no such thing any way) you start abusing me.’
Bao-yu saw that he had hurt his feelings, and hastened to comfort him.
‘There, there, don’t be upset! Some time when you’re not too busy you shall have another look for it. If the old woman is deceiving us, you naturally won’t be able to find it. But if there really is such a place and you do, then you will have a share in the merit when it’s restored. And of course, I shall give you a very big reward.’
While he was talking to Tealeaf, one of the pages from the inner gate came up and said that ‘one of the young ladies from Her Old Ladyship’s room’ was at the gate asking for Master Bao.
Who it was and what she wanted will be revealed in the fol?lowing chapter.
