Ch'un, Pao-yue and the rest; and Pao-yue also brought out, with extreme care, the string of Ling-ling scented beads, which had been given to him by the Prince of Pei Ching, and handed them, in his turn, to Tai-yue as a present.
'What foul man has taken hold of them?' exclaimed Tai-yue. 'I don't want any such things;' and as she forthwith dashed them down, and would not accept them, Pao-yue was under the necessity of taking them back. But for the time being we will not allude to them, but devote our attention to Chia Lien.
Having, after his arrival home, paid his salutations to all the inmates, he retired to his own quarters at the very moment that lady Feng had multifarious duties to attend to, and had not even a minute to spare; but, considering that Chia Lien had returned from a distant journey, she could not do otherwise than put by what she had to do, and to greet him and wait on him.
'Imperial uncle,' she said, in a jocose manner, when she realised that there was no outsider present in the room, 'I congratulate you! What fatigue and hardship you, Imperial uncle, have had to bear throughout the whole journey, your humble servant heard yesterday, when the courier sent ahead came and announced that Your Highness would this day reach this mansion. I have merely got ready a glass of mean wine for you to wipe down the dust with, but I wonder, whether Your Highness will deign to bestow upon it the lustre of your countenance, and accept it.'
Chia Lien smiled. 'How dare I presume to such an honour,' he added by way of rejoinder; 'I'm unworthy of such attention! Many thanks, many thanks.'
P'ing Erh and the whole company of waiting-maids simultaneously paid their obeisance to him, and this ceremony concluded, they presented tea. Chia Lien thereupon made inquiries about the various matters, which had transpired in their home after his departure, and went on to thank lady Feng for all the trouble she had taken in the management of them.
'How could I control all these manifold matters,' remarked lady Feng; 'my experience is so shallow, my speech so dull and my mind so simple, that if any one showed me a club, I would mistake it for a pin. Besides, I'm so tender-hearted that were any one to utter a couple of glib remarks, I couldn't help feeling my heart give way to compassion and sympathy. I've had, in addition, no experience in any weighty questions; my pluck is likewise so very small that when madame Wang has felt in the least displeased, I have not been able to close my eyes and sleep. Urgently did I more than once resign the charge, but her ladyship wouldn't again agree to it; maintaining, on the contrary, that my object was to be at ease, and that I was not willing to reap experience. Leaving aside that she doesn't know that I take things so much to heart, that I can scoop the perspiration in handfuls, that I daren't utter one word more than is proper, nor venture to recklessly take one step more than I ought to, you know very well which of the women servants, in charge of the menage in our household, is easy to manage! If ever I make the slightest mistake, they laugh at me and poke fun at me; and if I incline a little one way, they show their displeasure by innuendoes; they sit by and look on, they use every means to do harm, they stir up trouble, they stand by on safe ground and look on and don't give a helping hand to lift any one they have thrown over, and they are, one and all of them, old hands in such tricks. I'm moreover young in years and not able to keep people in check, so that they naturally don't show any regard for me! What is still more ridiculous is that after the death of Jung Erh's wife in that mansion, brother Chen, time and again, begged madame Wang, on his very knees, to do him the favour to ask me to lend him a hand for several days. I repeatedly signified my refusal, but her ladyship gave her consent in order to oblige him, so that I had no help but to carry out her wish; putting, as is my wont, everything topsy-turvey, and making matters worse than they were; with the result that brother Chen up to this day bears me a grudge and regrets having asked for my assistance. When you see him to-morrow, do what you can to excuse me by him. 'Young as she is,' tell him, 'and without experience of the world, who ever could have instigated Mr. Chia Cheng to make such a mistake as to choose her.''
While they were still chatting, they heard people talking in the outer apartments, and lady Feng speedily inquired who it was. P'ing Erh entered the room to reply. 'Lady Hsueeh,' she said, 'has sent sister Hsiang Ling over to ask me something; but I've already given her my answer and sent her back.'
'Quite so,' interposed Chia Lien with a smile. 'A short while ago I went to look up Mrs. Hsueeh and came face to face with a young girl, whose features were supremely perfect, and as I suspected that, in our household, there was no such person, I asked in the course of conversation, Mrs. Hsueeh about her, and found out eventually that this was the young waiting-maid they had purchased on their way to the capital, Hsiang Ling by name, and that she had after all become an inmate of the household of that big fool Hsueeh. Since she's had her hair dressed as a married woman she does look so much more pre-eminently beautiful! But that big fool Hsueeh has really brought contamination upon her.'
'Ai!' exclaimed lady Feng, 'here you are back from a trip to Suchow and Hang Chow, where you should have seen something of the world! and have you still an eye as envious and a heart so covetous? Well, if you wish to bestow your love on her, there's no difficulty worth speaking of. I'll take P'ing Erh over and exchange her for her; what do you say to that? that old brother Hsueeh is also one of those men, who, while eating what there is in the bowl, keeps an eye on what there is in the pan! For the last year or so, as he couldn't get Hsiang Ling to be his, he made ever so many distressing appeals to Mrs. Hsueeh; and Mrs. Hsueeh while esteeming Hsiang Ling's looks, though fine, as after all a small matter, (thought) her deportment and conduct so far unlike those of other girls, so gentle and so demure that almost the very daughters of masters and mistresses couldn't attain her standard, that she therefore went to the trouble of spreading a banquet, and of inviting guests, and in open court, and in the legitimate course, she gave her to him for a secondary wife. But half a month had scarcely elapsed before he looked upon her also as a good-for-nothing person as he did upon a large number of them! I can't however help feeling pity for her in my heart.'
Scarcely had she time to conclude what she had to say when a youth, on duty at the second gate, transmitted the announcement that Mr. Chia Cheng was in the Library waiting for Mr. Secundus. At these words, Chia Lien speedily adjusted his clothes, and left the apartment; and during his absence, lady Feng inquired of P'ing Erh what Mrs. Hsueeh wanted a few minutes back, that she sent Hsiang Ling round in such a hurry.
'What Hsiang Ling ever came?' replied P'ing Erh. 'I simply made use of her name to tell a lie for the occasion. Tell me, my lady, (what's come to) Wang Erh's wife? why she's got so bad that there's even no common sense left in her!' Saying this she again drew near lady Feng's side, and in a soft tone of voice, she continued: 'That interest of yours, my lady, she doesn't send later, nor does she send it sooner; but she must send it round the very moment when master Secundus is at home! But as luck would have it, I was in the hall, so that I came across her; otherwise, she would have walked in and told your ladyship, and Mr. Secundus would naturally have come to know about it! And our master would, with that frame of mind of his, have fished it out and spent it, had the money even been at the bottom of a pan full of oil! and were he to have heard that my lady had private means, would he not have been still more reckless in spending? Hence it was that, losing no time in taking the money over, I had to tell her a few words which, who would have thought, happened to be overheard by your ladyship; that's why, in the presence of master Secundus, I simply explained that Hsiang Ling had come!'
These words evoked a smile from lady Feng. 'Mrs. Hsueh, I thought to myself,' she observed, 'knows very well that your Mr. Secundus has come, and yet, regardless of propriety, she, instead (of keeping her at home), sends some one over from her inner rooms! and it was you after all, you vixen, playing these pranks!'
As she uttered this remark, Chia Lien walked in, and lady Feng issued orders to serve the wine and the eatables, and husband and wife took their seats opposite to each other; but notwithstanding that lady Feng was very partial to drink, she nevertheless did not have the courage to indulge her weakness, but merely partook of some to keep him company. Chia Lien's nurse, dame Chao, entered the room, and Chia Lien and lady Feng promptly pressed her to have a glass of wine, and bade her sit on the stove-couch, but dame Chao was obstinate in her refusal. P'ing Erh and the other waiting-maids had at an early hour placed a square stool next to the edge of the couch, where was likewise a small footstool, and on this footstool dame Chao took a seat, whereupon Chia Lien chose two dishes of delicacies from the table, which he handed her to place on the square stool for her own use.
'Dame Chao,' lady Feng remarked, 'couldn't very well bite through that, for mind it might make her teeth drop! This morning,' she therefore asked of P'ing Erh, 'I suggested that that shoulder of pork stewed with ham was so tender as to be quite the thing to be given to dame Chao to eat; and how is it you haven't taken it over to her? But go at once and tell them to warm it and bring it in! Dame Chao,' she went on, 'just you taste this Hui Ch'uean wine brought by your foster-son.'
'I'll drink it,' replied dame Chao, 'but you, my lady, must also have a cup: what's there to fear? the one thing to guard against is any excess, that's all! But I've now come over, not for any wine or eatables; on the contrary,
