The moment P'ing Erh arrived, she obtained a fair insight (into lady Feng's designs), so when she heard the present remarks, she grasped a still more correct idea of things. But perceiving an angry look about T'an Ch'un's face, she did not have the temerity to behave towards her as she would, had she found her in the high spirits of past days. All she did therefore was to stand aloof with her arms against her sides and to wait in rigid silence. Just at that moment, however, Pao-ch'ai dropped in, on her return from the upper rooms. T'an Ch'un quickly rose to her feet, and offered her a seat. But before they had had time to exchange any words, a married woman likewise came to report some business.

But as T'an Ch'un had been having a good cry, three or four young maids brought her a basin, towel, and hand-gla.s.s and other articles of toilette. T'an Ch'un was at the moment seated cross-legged, on a low wooden couch, so the maid with the basin had, when she drew near, to drop on both her knees and lift it high enough to bring it within reach.

The other two girls prostrated themselves next to her and handed the towels and the rest of the toilet things, which consisted of a looking-gla.s.s, rouge and powder. But P'ing Erh noticed that Shih Shu was not in the room, and approaching T'an Ch'un with hasty step, she tucked up her sleeves for her and unclasped her bracelets. Seizing also a large towel from the hands of one of the maids, she covered the lapel on the front part of T'an Ch'un's dress; whereupon T'an Ch'un put out her hands, and washed herself in the basin.

"My lady and miss," the married woman observed, "may it please you to pay what has been spent in the family school for Mr. Chia Huan and Mr..

Chia Lan during the year."

P'ing Erh was the first to speak. "What are you in such a hurry for?"

she cried. "You've got your eyes wide open, and must be able to see our young lady washing her face; instead of coming forward to wait on her, you start talking! Do you also behave in this blind sort of way in the presence of your lady Secunda? This young lady is, it's true, generous and lenient, but I'll go and report you to your mistress. I'll simply tell her that you people have no eye for Miss T'an Ch'un. But when you find yourselves in a mess, don't bear me any malice."

At this hint the woman took alarm, and hastily forcing a smile, she pleaded guilty. "I've been rude," she exclaimed. With these words, she rushed with all despatch out of the room.

T'an Ch'un smoothed her face. While doing so, she turned herself towards P'ing Erh and gave her a cynical smile. "You've come just one step too late," she remarked. "You weren't in time to see something laughable!

Even sister Wu, an old hand at business though she be, failed to look up clearly an old custom and came to play her tricks on us. But when we plied her with questions, she luckily had the face to admit that it had slipped from her memory. 'Do you,' I insinuated, 'also forget, when you've got anything to report to lady Secunda? and have you subsequently to go and hunt up all about it?' Your mistress can't, I fancy, be so patient as to wait while she goes and inst.i.tutes proper search."

P'ing Erh laughed. "Were she to have behaved but once in this wise," she observed, "I feel positive that a couple of the tendons of her legs would have long ago been snapped. But, Miss, don't credit all they say.

It's because they see that our senior mistress is as sweet-tempered as a 'P'u-sa,' and that you, miss, are a modest young lady, that they, naturally, shirk their duties and come and take liberties with you. Your mind is set upon playing the giddy dogs," continuing, she added; speaking towards those beyond the doorway; "but when your mistress gets quite well again, we'll tell her all."

"You're gifted with the greatest perspicacity, miss," the married women, standing outside the door, smiled in chorus. "The proverb says: 'the person who commits a fault must be the one to suffer.' We don't in any way presume to treat any mistress with disdain. Our mistress at present is in delicate health, and if we intentionally provoke her, may we, when we die, have no place to have our corpses interred in."

P'ing Erh laughed a laugh full irony. "So long as you're aware of this, it's well and good," she said. And smiling a saturnine smile, she resumed, addressing herself to T'an Ch'un: "Miss, you know very well how busy our lady has been and how little she could afford the time to keep this tribe of people in order. Of course, they couldn't therefore, be prevented from becoming remiss. The adage has it: 'Lookers-on are clear of sight!' During all these years that you, have looked on dispa.s.sionately, there have possibly been instances on which, though additions or reductions should have been made, our lady Secunda has not been able to effect them, so, miss, do add or curtail whatever you may deem necessary, in order that, first, Madame w.a.n.g may be benefited, and that, secondly, you mayn't too render nugatory the kindness with which you ever deal towards our mistress."

But scarcely had she finished, than Pao-ch'ai and Li Wan smilingly interposed. "What a dear girl!" they e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "One really can't feel angry with that hussy Feng for being partial to her and fond of her. We didn't, at first, see how we could very well alter anything by any increase or reduction, but after what you've told us, we must hit upon one or two things and try and devise means to do something, with a view of not showing ourselves ungrateful of the advice you've tendered us."

"My heart was swelling with indignation," T'an Ch'un observed laughing, "and I was about to go and give vent to my temper with her mistress, but now that she (P'ing Erh) has happened to come, she has, with a few words, quite dissuaded me from my purpose."

While she spoke, she called the woman, who had been with them a few minutes back, to return into the room. "For what things for Mr. Chia Huan and Mr. Chia Lau was the money expended during the year in the family school?" she inquired of her.

"For cakes," replied the woman, "they ate during the year at school; or for the purchase of paper and pens. Each one of them is allowed eight taels."

"The various expenses on behalf of the young men," T'an Ch'un added, "are invariably paid in monthly instalments to the respective households. For cousin Chia Huan's, Mrs. Chao receives two taels. For Pao-yu's, Hsi Jen draws two taels from our venerable senior's suite of apartments. For cousin Chia Lan's, some one, in our senior lady's rooms, gets the proper allowance. So how is it that these extra eight taels have to be disbursed at school for each of these young fellows? Is it really for these eight taels that they go to school? But from this day forth I shall put a stop to this outlay. So P'ing Erh, when you get back, tell your mistress that I say that this item must absolutely be done away with."

"This should have been done away with long ago," P'ing Erh smiled. "Last year our lady expressed her intention to eliminate it, but with the endless things that claimed her attention about the fall of the year, she forgot all about it."

The woman had no other course than to concur with her views and to walk away. But the married women thereupon arrived from the garden of Broad Vista with the boxes of eatables. So Shih Shu and Su Yun at once brought a small dining-table, and P'ing Erh began to fuss about laying the viands on it.

"If you've said all you had," T'an Ch'un laughed, "you'd better be off and attend to your business. What's the use of your bustling about here?"

"I've really got nothing to do," P'ing Erh answered smiling. "Our lady Secunda sent me first, to deliver a message; and next, because she feared that the servants in here weren't handy enough. The fact is, she bade me come and help the girls wait on you, my lady, and on you, miss."

"Why don't you bring Mrs. Pao's meal so that she should have it along with us?" T'an Ch'un then inquired.

As soon as the waiting-maids heard her inquiry, they speedily rushed out and went under the eaves. "Go," they cried, directing the married women, "and say that Miss Pao-ch'ai would like to have her repast just now in the hall along with the others, and tell them to send the eatables here."

T'an Ch'un caught their directions. "Don't be deputing people to go on reckless errands!" she vociferated. "Those are dames, who manage important matters and look after the house, and do you send them to ask for eatables and inquire about tea? You haven't even the least notion about gradation. P'ing Erh is standing here, so tell her to go and give the message."

P'ing Erh immediately a.s.sented, and issued from the room, bent upon going on the errand. But the married women stealthily pulled her back.

"How could you, miss, be made to go and tell them?" they smiled. "We've got some one here, who can do so!"

So saying, they dusted one of the stone steps with their handkerchiefs.

"You've been standing so long," they observed, "that you must feel quite tired. Do sit in this sunny place and have a little rest."

P'ing Erh took a seat on the step. Two matrons attached to the tea-room then fetched a rug and spread it out for her. "It's cold on those stones," they ventured; "this is, as clean as it can be. So, miss, do make the best of it, and use it!"

P'ing Erh hastily forced a smile. "Many thanks," she replied.

Another matron next brought her a cup of fine new tea. "This isn't the tea we ordinarily drink," she quietly smiled. "This is really for entertaining the young ladies with. Miss, pray moisten your mouth with some."

P'ing Erh lost no time in bending her body forward and taking the cup.

Then pointing at the company of married women, she observed in a low voice: "You're all too fond of trouble! The way you're going on won't do at all! She (T'an Ch'un) is only a young girl, so she is loth to show any severity, or display any temper. This is because she's full of respect. Yet you people look down on her and insult her. Should she, however, be actually provoked into any violent fit of anger, people will simply say that her behaviour was rather rough, and all will be over.

But as for you, you'll get at once into endless trouble. Even though she might show herself somewhat wilful, Madame w.a.n.g treats her with considerable forbearance, and lady Secunda too hasn't the courage to meddle with her; and do you people have such arrogance as to look down on her? This is certainly just as if an egg were to go and bang itself against a stone!"

"When were we ever so audacious?" the servants exclaimed with one voice.

"This fuss is all the work of Mrs. Chao!"

"Never mind about that!" P'ing Erh urged again in an undertone. "My dear ladies, 'when a wall falls, every one gives it a shove.' That Mrs. Chao has always been rather topsy-turvey in her ways, and done things by halves; so whenever there has been any rumpus, you've invariably shoved the blame on to her shoulders. Never have you had any regard for any single person. Your designs are simply awful! Is it likely that all these years that I've been here, I haven't come to know of them? Had our lady Secunda mismanaged things just a little bit, she would have long ago been run down by every one of you, ladies! Even such as she is, you would, could you only get the least opportunity, be ready to place her in a fix! And how many, many times hasn't she been abused by you?"

"She's dreadful," one and all of them rejoined. "You all live in fear and trembling of her. But we know well enough that no one could say that she too does not in the depths of her heart entertain some little dread for the lot of you. The other day, we said, in talking matters over, that things could not go on smoothly from beginning to end, and that some unpleasantness was bound to happen. Miss Tertia is, it's true, a mere girl, and you've always treated her with little consideration, but out of that company of senior and junior young ladies, she is the only soul whom our lady Secunda funks to some certain extent. And yet you people now won't look up to her."

So speaking Ch'iu Wen appeared to view. The married women ran up to her and inquired after her health. "Miss," they said, "do rest a little.

They've had their meal served in there, so wait until things have been cleared away, before you go and deliver your message."

"I'm not like you people," Ch'iu Wen smiled. "How can I afford to wait?"

With these words on her lips, she was about to go into the hall, when P'ing Erh quickly called her back. Ch'iu Wen, upon turning her head round, caught sight of P'ing Erh. "Have you too," she remarked with a smile, "come here to become something like those guardians posted outside the enclosing walls?"

Retracing, at the same time, her footsteps, she took a seat on the rug, occupied by P'ing Erh.

"What message have you got to deliver?" P'ing Erh gently asked.

"I've got to ask when we can get Pao-yu's monthly allowance and our own too," she responded.

"Is this any such pressing matter?" P'ing Erh answered. "Go back quick, and tell Hsi Jen that my advice is that no concern whatever should be brought to their notice to-day. That every single matter reported is bound to be objected to; and that even a hundred will just as surely be vetoed."

"Why is it?" vehemently inquired Ch'iu Wen, upon hearing this explanation.

P'ing Erh and the other servants then promptly told her the various reasons. "She's just bent," they proceeded, "upon finding a few weighty concerns in order to establish, at the expense of any decent person who might chance to present herself, a precedent of some kind or other so as to fix upon a mode of action, which might help to put down expenses to their proper level, and afford a lesson to the whole household; and why are you people the first to come and b.u.mp your heads against the nails?

If you went now and told them your errand, it would also reflect discredit upon our venerable old mistress and Madame w.a.n.g, were they to pounce upon one or two matters to make an example of you. But if they complied with one or two of your applications, others will again maintain 'that they are inclined to favour this one and show partiality to that one; that as you had your old mistress' and Madame w.a.n.g's authority to fall back upon, they were afraid and did not presume to provoke their displeasure; that they only avail themselves of soft-natured persons to make scapegoats of.' Just mark my words! She even means to raise objections in one or two matters connected with our lady Secunda, in order to be the better able to shut up people's mouths."

Ch'iu Wen listened to her with patient ear; and then stretching out her tongue, "It's lucky enough you were here, sister P'ing," she smiled; "otherwise, I would have had my nose well rubbed on the ground. I shall seize the earliest opportunity and give the lot of them a hint."

While replying, she immediately rose to her feet and took leave of them.

Soon after her departure, Pao-ch'ai's eatables arrived, and P'ing Erh hastened to enter and wait on her. By that time Mrs. Chao had left, so the three girls seated themselves on the wooden bed, and went through their repast. Pao-ch'ai faced the south. T'an Ch'un the west. Li Wan the east. The company of married women stood quietly under the verandah ready to answer any calls. Within the precincts of the chamber, only such maids remained in waiting as had ever been their closest attendants. None of the other servants ventured, of their own accord, to put their foot anywhere inside.

The married women (meanwhile) discussed matters in a confidential whisper. "Let's do our downright best to save trouble," they argued.

"Don't let us therefore harbour any evil design, for even dame Wu will, in that case, be placed in an awkward fix. And can we boast of any grand honours to expect to fare any better?"

While they stood on one side, and held counsel together, waiting for the meal to be over to make their several reports, they could not catch so much as the caw of a crow inside the rooms. Neither did the clatter of bowls and chopsticks reach their ears. But presently, they discerned a maid raise the frame of the portiere as high as she could, and two other girls bring the table out. In the tea-room, three maids waited with three basins in hand. The moment they saw the dining-table brought out, all three walked in. But after a brief interval, they egressed with the basins and rinsing cups. Shih Shu, Su Yun and Ying Erh thereupon entered with three covered cups of tea, placed in trays. Shortly however these three girls also made their exit. Shih Shu then recommended a young maid to be careful and attend to the wants (of their mistresses). "When we've had our rice," she added, "we'll come and relieve you. But don't go stealthily again and sit down!"