It was only after these a.s.surances that Pao-yu"s spirits began at length, once more to revive, and dame Li then directed the waiting-maids what to do. "You remain here," she enjoined, "and mind, be diligent while I go home and change; when I"ll come back again. Don"t allow him,"
she also whispered to "aunt" Hsueh, "to have all his own way and drink too much."
Having said this, she betook herself back to her quarters; and during this while, though there were two or three nurses in attendance, they did not concern themselves with what was going on. As soon as they saw that nurse Li had left, they likewise all quietly slipped out, at the first opportunity they found, while there remained but two waiting-maids, who were only too glad to curry favour with Pao-yu. But fortunately "aunt" Hsueh, by much coaxing and persuading, only let him have a few cups, and the wine being then promptly cleared away, pickled bamboo shoots and chicken-skin soup were prepared, of which Pao-yu drank with relish several bowls full, eating besides more than half a bowl of finest rice congee.
By this time, Hsueh Pao Ch"ai and Lin Tai-yu had also finished their repast; and when Pao-yu had drunk a few cups of strong tea, Mrs. Hsueh felt more easy in her mind. Hsueh Yen and the others, three or four of them in all, had also had their meal, and came in to wait upon them.
"Are you now going or not?" inquired Tai-yu of Pao-yu.
Pao-yu looked askance with his drowsy eyes. "If you want to go," he observed, "I"ll go with you."
Tai-yu hearing this, speedily rose. "We"ve been here nearly the whole day," she said, "and ought to be going back."
As she spoke the two of them bade good-bye, and the waiting-maids at once presented a hood to each of them.
Pao-yu readily lowered his head slightly and told a waiting-maid to put it on. The girl promptly took the hood, made of deep red cloth, and shaking it out of its folds, she put it on Pao-yu"s head.
"That will do," hastily exclaimed Pao-yu. "You stupid thing! gently a bit; is it likely you"ve never seen any one put one on before? let me do it myself."
"Come over here, and I"ll put it on for you," suggested Tai-yu, as she stood on the edge of the couch. Pao-yu eagerly approached her, and Tai-yu carefully kept the cap, to which his hair was bound, fast down, and taking the hood she rested its edge on the circlet round his forehead. She then raised the ball of crimson velvet, which was as large as a walnut, and put it in such a way that, as it waved tremulously, it should appear outside the hood. These arrangements completed she cast a look for a while at what she had done. "That"s right now," she added, "throw your wrapper over you!"
When Pao-yu caught these words, he eventually took the wrapper and threw it over his shoulders.
"None of your nurses," hurriedly interposed aunt Hsueh, "are yet come, so you had better wait a while."
"Why should we wait for them?" observed Pao-yu. "We have the waiting-maids to escort us, and surely they should be enough."
Mrs. Hsueh finding it difficult to set her mind at ease deputed two married women to accompany the two cousins; and after they had both expressed (to these women) their regret at having troubled them, they came straightway to dowager lady Chia"s suite of apartments.
Her venerable ladyship had not, as yet, had her evening repast. Hearing that they had been at Mrs. Hsueh"s, she was extremely pleased; but noticing that Pao-yu had had some wine, she gave orders that he should be taken to his room, and put to bed, and not be allowed to come out again.
"Do take good care of him," she therefore enjoined the servants, and when suddenly she bethought herself of Pao-yu"s attendants, "How is it,"
she at once inquired of them all, "that I don"t see nurse Li here?"
They did not venture to tell her the truth, that she had gone home, but simply explained that she had come in a few moments back, and that they thought she must have again gone out on some business or other.
"She"s better off than your venerable ladyship," remarked Pao-yu, turning round and swaying from side to side. "Why then ask after her?
Were I rid of her, I believe I might live a little longer."
While uttering these words, he reached the door of his bedroom, where he saw pen and ink laid out on the writing table.
"That"s nice," exclaimed Ch"ing Wen, as she came to meet him with a smile on her face, "you tell me to prepare the ink for you, but though when you get up, you were full of the idea of writing, you only wrote three characters, when you discarded the pencil, and ran away, fooling me, by making me wait the whole day! Come now at once and exhaust all this ink before you"re let off."
Pao-yu then remembered what had taken place in the morning. "Where are the three characters I wrote?" he consequently inquired, smiling.
"Why this man is tipsy," remarked Ch"ing Wen sneeringly. "As you were going to the other mansion, you told me to stick them over the door. I was afraid lest any one else should spoil them, as they were being pasted, so I climbed up a high ladder and was ever so long in putting them up myself; my hands are even now numb with cold."
"Oh I forgot all about it," replied Pao-yu grinning, "if your hands are cold, come and I"ll rub them warm for you."
Promptly stretching out his hand, he took those of Ch"ing Wen in his, and the two of them looked at the three characters, which he recently had written, and which were pasted above the door. In a short while, Tai-yu came.
"My dear cousin," Pao-yu said to her smilingly, "tell me without any prevarication which of the three characters is the best written?"
Tai-yu raised her head and perceived the three characters: Red, Rue, Hall. "They"re all well done," she rejoined, with a smirk, "How is it you"ve written them so well? By and bye you must also write a tablet for me."
"Are you again making fun of me?" asked Pao-yu smiling; "what about sister Hsi Jen?" he went on to inquire.
Ch"ing Wen pouted her lips, pointing towards the stove-couch in the inner room, and, on looking in, Pao-yu espied Hsi Jen fast asleep in her daily costume.
"Well," Pao-yu observed laughing, "there"s no harm in it, but its rather early to sleep. When I was having my early meal, on the other side," he proceeded, speaking to Ch"ing Wen, "there was a small dish of dumplings, with bean-curd outside; and as I thought you would like to have some, I asked Mrs. Yu for them, telling her that I would keep them, and eat them in the evening; I told some one to bring them over, but have you perchance seen them?"
"Be quick and drop that subject," suggested Ch"ing Wen; "as soon as they were brought over, I at once knew they were intended for me; as I had just finished my meal, I put them by in there, but when nurse Li came she saw them. "Pao-yu," she said, "is not likely to eat them, so I"ll take them and give them to my grandson." And forthwith she bade some one take them over to her home."
While she was speaking, Hsi Hsueh brought in tea, and Pao-yu pressed his cousin Lin to have a cup.
"Miss Lin has gone long ago," observed all of them, as they burst out laughing, "and do you offer her tea?"
Pao-yu drank about half a cup, when he also suddenly bethought himself of some tea, which had been brewed in the morning. "This morning," he therefore inquired of Hsi Hsueh, "when you made a cup of maple-dew tea, I told you that that kind of tea requires brewing three or four times before its colour appears; and how is that you now again bring me this tea?"
"I did really put it by," answered Hsi Hsueh, "but nurse Li came and drank it, and then went off."
Pao-yu upon hearing this, dashed the cup he held in his hand on the ground, and as it broke into small fragments, with a crash, it spattered Hsi Hsueh"s petticoat all over.
"Of whose family is she the mistress?" inquired Pao-yu of Hsi Hsueh, as he jumped up, "that you all pay such deference to her. I just simply had a little of her milk, when I was a brat, and that"s all; and now she has got into the way of thinking herself more high and mighty than even the heads of the family! She should be packed off, and then we shall all have peace and quiet."
Saying this, he was bent upon going, there and then, to tell dowager lady Chia to have his nurse driven away.
Hsi Jen was really not asleep, but simply feigning, with the idea, when Pao-yu came, to startle him in play. At first, when she heard him speak of writing, and inquire after the dumplings, she did not think it necessary to get up, but when he flung the tea-cup on the floor, and got into a temper, she promptly jumped up and tried to appease him, and to prevent him by coaxing from carrying out his threat.
A waiting-maid sent by dowager lady Chia came in, meanwhile, to ask what was the matter.
"I had just gone to pour tea," replied Hsi Jen, without the least hesitation, "and I slipped on the snow and fell, while the cup dropped from my hand and broke. Your decision to send her away is good," she went on to advise Pao-yu, "and we are all willing to go also; and why not avail yourself of this opportunity to dismiss us in a body? It will be for our good, and you too on the other hand, needn"t perplex yourself about not getting better people to come and wait on you!"
When Pao-yu heard this taunt, he had at length not a word to say, and supported by Hsi Jen and the other attendants on to the couch, they divested him of his clothes. But they failed to understand the drift of what Pao-yu kept on still muttering, and all they could make out was an endless string of words; but his eyes grew heavier and drowsier, and they forthwith waited upon him until he went to sleep; when Hsi Jen unclasped the jade of spiritual perception, and rolling it up in a handkerchief, she lay it under the mattress, with the idea that when he put it on the next day it should not chill his neck.
Pao-yu fell sound asleep the moment he lay his head on the pillow. By this time nurse Li and the others had come in, but when they heard that Pao-yu was tipsy, they too did not venture to approach, but gently made inquiries as to whether he was asleep or not. On hearing that he was, they took their departure with their minds more at ease.
The next morning the moment Pao-yu awoke, some one came in to tell him that young Mr. Jung, living in the mansion on the other side, had brought Ch"in Chung to pay him a visit.
Pao-yu speedily went out to greet them and to take them over to pay their respects to dowager lady Chia. Her venerable ladyship upon perceiving that Ch"in Chung, with his handsome countenance, and his refined manners, would be a fit companion for Pao-yu in his studies, felt extremely delighted at heart; and having readily detained him to tea, and kept him to dinner, she went further and directed a servant to escort him to see madame w.a.n.g and the rest of the family.
With the fond regard of the whole household for Mrs. Ch"in, they were, when they saw what a kind of person Ch"in Chung was, so enchanted with him, that at the time of his departure, they all had presents to give him; even dowager lady Chia herself presented him with a purse and a golden image of the G.o.d of Learning, with a view that it should incite him to study and harmony.
"Your house," she further advised him, "is far off, and when it"s cold or hot, it would be inconvenient for you to come all that way, so you had better come and live over here with me. You"ll then be always with your cousin Pao-yu, and you won"t be together, in your studies, with those fellow-pupils of yours who have no idea what progress means."
Ch"in Chung made a suitable answer to each one of her remarks, and on his return home he told everything to his father.
His father, Ch"in Pang-yeh, held at present the post of Secretary in the Peking Field Force, and was well-nigh seventy. His wife had died at an early period, and as she left no issue, he adopted a son and a daughter from a foundling asylum.
But who would have thought it, the boy also died, and there only remained the girl, known as Ko Ch"ing in her infancy, who when she grew up, was beautiful in face and graceful in manners, and who by reason of some relationship with the Chia family, was consequently united by the ties of marriage (to one of the household).