4

Old Hsia's wide empty sleeves hung down by her sides. Her arms had managed to wriggle into the body of her roomy padded jacket to hug herself across the bosom, a favourite trick of hers in winter-time. It was cold in the vast cellar-like kitchen under the murky electric light. The dawn outside the small barred window was the greyish-green colour of crabs. A cock was crowing in the backyard, astonishingly loud and near, the long wavering croak like a cracked bamboo pole shakily extended skywards.
The cook had gone marketing. 'Second knife,' the cook's helper, and another man who did odd jobs around the kitchen were shuffling about the backyard gargling, yawning, spitting, coughing, rinsing rice under the spluttering faucet. Every one of these early morning sounds gave old Hsia a not unpleasant shiver.
She had been with the Yaos many years, drifting from post to post, unwanted because of her fondness for garlic and later because she had gone almost completely bald. She pinned on a false bun no bigger than a silver Mexican dollar and not much thicker. The glistening pate she painted with soot in a manner that was more stylized than realistic. Now though she had found a place with Second Master's bride. The new Second Mistress was entitled to four amahs and two slave girls like the other young mistresses, so she had been assigned to her just to make up the right number.
A girl in a pink padded jacket and russet silk trousers came into the kitchen rubbing her eyes, her pigtail fuzzed with sleep. 'Morning, Mistress she said. She put out a hand to feel one of the kettles caked with black soot sitting on the whitewashed mud stove. The water was not hot. She grimaced when she saw her stained fingers and tried to wipe them on Old Hsia's head.
'What are you doing, you little devil?' Old Hsia cried shying away from her.
'Let me smear it on for you.'
'Stop it, Lahmei.'
Lahmei looked down at her fingers and found that they were even blacker than before. 'So you've done your hair already,' she grumbled wiping her hand on the cook's soiled blue apron hanging on a nail on the wall. 'That's why you came down so early. So nobody will see you putting on your hair.'
`Don't talk nonsense. If I come down late I won't be able to get any hot water. Every morning there's a fight over the water. I'd be waiting for ages for a kettle to boil and somebody would snatch it right under my nose.'
Lahmei pushed back her sleeves reaching across the stove to feel another kettle. 'What's the matter with this one?' she said as she lifted it off the fire. 'It's warm enough.'
'Hey, that's mine! There is such a thing as first come, first served.'
'Big Mistress is waiting to wash her face. She'll scold if I'm late.'
'Second Mistress will also scold.'
'She can't, she's still practically a bride.'
'Huh! You just haven't heard her.'
'How? What does she say?' Lahmei whispered leaning over, interested at once. Old Hsia tried to wrest the kettle from her.
'Give it back quick.'
'I wonder where Cook is getting our oil now. Won't Second Mistress be offended if we buy it elsewhere?'
'That will do from you. Now give it back.'
'See? Spill it all and there's none for anybody. Why don't you take that one over there, it's humming already.' 'I don't hear anything.'
'You must be getting stone deaf, Mistress Hsia.'
After the girl had gone off with the kettle Old Hsia found that she had been deceived. The other kettle was only lukewarm. Muttering she resigned herself to another long wait. But more people were coming in. She had better take it upstairs before they could lay hands on it. It would have to do.
The light was on in every room. There was a lot of muffled activity with amahs and slave girls scurrying about. The daughters-in-law were getting ready to go and wish Old Mistress good morning. She was an early riser.
'I thought you'd dropped dead downstairs,' Yindi turned around and whispered between her teeth. The hairdresser-amah was putting finishing touches to her hair.The bangs were pushed up with a small, ivory comb because she had not yet washed her face.
'I waited and waited but somebody always comes along and grabs it. This time it was Big Mistress's Lahmei. Like robbers every one of them.'
'Why do you let them? Are you dead?' Her voice rose although Second Master was still sleeping. A pair of large silver hooks hung motionless outside the closed bed-curtains of pale turquoise silk.
Old Hsia said nothing. But turning around to pour water into the enamel basin on the rosewood stand with her back to Yindi her lips moved strenuously in the set face framing a silent stream of protests. All this talk of 'Are you dead?' and 'Thought you'd dropped dead' was especially unhealthy first thing in the morning. And all in front of the hairdresser-amah who was much behind her in seniority. Call it bad luck to be working for this branch, put into situations like these. It's difficult for servants and the others are dogs presuming on the owners' power. Let her go down herself next time and see for herself how it is.
'Rice pot, good for nothing but to hold rice,' Yindi muttered going to the wash-stand. Old Hsia expected another explosion when she found out how cold the water was but she was in too much of a hurry. All she did was wipe the corners of the eyes, then mix some face powder with water cupped in her palm and smear it on. She tore off a piece of crimson cotton wool, dipped it in the basin and rubbed it on her lower lip making a perfectly round red spot, the current abstract representation of the small cherry mouth. She had noticed that the women of the house used much more rouge than was customary and there were heavily painted middle-aged women among their relatives. They were northerners, countrified by Shanghai standards. Their clothes also─all the fashionable pale colours were forbidden─too like light mourning. Old Mistress would say, 'I'm not dead yet, no need to wear mourning.' Pale cheeks were also called funereal. Yindi steeled herself to smear both palms red and simply draw them down the sides of her face from eyelids down.
She was helped out of her overall cape. The two little slave girls were waiting with her rings and gold nail sheaths for the two little fingers where she had let the nails grow. The hairdresser helped to straighten her tight fur-lined jacket with a tug from behind as she hurried from the room.
She was late again. There was no one in the anteroom where they waited for their mother-in-law to wake up. Through the half-closed door and scarlet felt curtain she could hear Old Mistress loudly, gratingly clearing her throat in two syllables with the accent on the second, khum khum! Her wooden platform soles hit the floor as she got up, a flat hard thump. Being very small she always sat with her feet off the ground.
It was one of her pet notions to hang a red dishcloth of feather-patterned gauze on the brass door knob to wrap it around the polished handle every time the door was opened or closed, so it would not be tarnished by hands touching it. Yindi realized that she had forgotten to make use of the cloth when she saw Old Mistress look at her oddly.
'Mother,' she murmured.
Old Mistress acknowledged the greeting with a faraway 'Tim' at the back of the nose. She sucked at her long pipe, her sharp chin curling out from the little walnut face. She turned to her right and aimed the chin at Big Mistress. 'We must seem like country bumpkins, getting up at dawn.'
Big Mistress and Third Mistress smiled discreetly into their handkerchiefs.
She directed her chin at Third Mistress. 'We're behind the times. Nowadays people no longer have shame, nothing like before.'
Nobody dared smile any more. Late rising could only mean one thing, especially with newly-weds. In her case with the bridegroom in such poor health, the bride must be really rapacious and inconsiderate. Yindi's colour drained away instantly leaving the rouge stranded on her face like the crimson patches on a green apple. Old Mistress scarcely ever spoke to her as a rule except to ask about Second Master's health. But she seemed to want to make things easier for her, telling the others, 'Second Mistress is new here, she doesn't know our ways. She's a southerner, their customs are different,' when the real difference between her world and theirs was not geographical. Now she knew her period of immunity as a bride was over.
The large whitewashed room was well-ventilated, chilly with just a brass brazier on a low claw-footed wooden tripod painted scarlet and gold.
'Shut that window, the wind has shifted,' Old Mistress told a slave girl. She was a weather station in herself. 'Open this one part way. The top pane, you fool, look at that draught. Go and rub that door knob. It's impossible to keep it bright with people pawing it all the time.' She knocked out the ashes of her pipe on the rosewood couch. 'The winters here are not so bad compared to Nanking. Of course there the brick floor made a difference. Huh! you should have seen the main bedroom─a whole row of paving bricks caved in where the daughters-in-law stood at attention all day. You people don't know how well off you are.'
The children of the eldest branch came in to greet their grandmother, hanging back near the door with their own amahs behind them just outside ready to answer any questions from Old Mistress. After them came the old concubines. Next to put in an appearance was the eldest son. Yindi murmured 'Big Master' together with Third Mistress. He answered 'Ai' quickly with a half startled air as if he had not known they were here, bobbing his head vaguely in their direction without looking, as was proper. He sat down while they remained standing. He was tall and thin with large eyes and a bony well-cut face. Old Mistress asked him about tonight's dinner party and a letter from the keeper of the ancestral graves. Soon he mumbled something about an appointment and got away.
At about eleven o'clock Old Mistress asked, 'Third Master not up yet?'
'I don't know, I'll tell them to go and see.' Third Mistress went to speak to one of her amahs waiting outside the door but Old Mistress stopped her.
'Let him sleep. He came back late again didn't he?' she said accusingly.
'No, he was early last night but I heard him coughing. It may have kept him awake.'
'It's the weather. I have a cough coming on too,' Old Mistress said.
'Will you have some almond milk, Mother? It may help,' Big Mistress said. 'We'll make it ourselves. The servants' hands aren't clean.'
Old Mistress nodded. 'How is Second Master?' she turned to Yindi. 'How is his asthma?'
Reprieve. She had been spoken to.
'Second Master is better today. He says the new prescription seems to help.' She had to be careful not to sound hoarse; her voice had not been used for so long. She stood at ease, back in the world again.
Old Mistress set the slave girls to cut rings out of red paper and loop them around narcissus stems. The daughters-in-law joined in the work. The plants had been bought for the New Year, set in rows in porcelain bowls, shallow rectangles filled with pebbles and water. The yellow-centred white blossoms were considered too funereal for the New Year, a dash of red had to be added for luck.
She had sent the carriage for a grand-niece. Lunch was served in the bedroom. Ordinarily she ate alone with the daughters-in-law in attendance but she made them eat with her today to keep the little guest company. The dishes rested on fluted tin bowls filled with hot water, except for the chicken which was in a big earthen pot. Yindi had learned to be wary of the soup which looked deceptively cool, the steam being sealed off by the thick film of yellow grease broken only by the drumsticks that stuck out like tilted masts. Old Mistress liked her food scalding hot.
'Huh! this chicken is older than I, the Old Mistress,' she said chewing. 'The addled egg of a cook is padding his accounts. The incestuous turtle egg. Lain by a dog.' She swore like a mandarin, having been a widow and head of the house so long she had become mannish. Yindi had never heard anything like it. She took a spoonful of soup. 'Huh! this chicken is even saltier than I, the Old Mistress.'
She cursed so much she slipped. The daughters-in-law looked down into their own rice bowls. It was always safer not to smile. The thin chain connecting a pair of silver chopsticks tinkled in the silence.
After she had lain down for her afternoon nap they retired to the anteroom and sat around a table peeling almonds which had been soaked first in hot water. Their hands were pale against the scarlet rug spread over the table.
'Let's play mahjong,' Big Mistress whispered giggling. 'Spread another blanket over the table and you can't hear from the next room.'
'There's only three of us,' Third Mistress said. `Wait till Third Master gets up,' Yindi said.
'Third Master will never play for such small stakes.' Big Mistress crossed her legs and looked rather doubtfully at her new shoes of black gauze open-work over pink satin with a foreign word cut out. 'I wonder what it means,' she said to Third Mistress. 'I asked your Third Master to write me a foreign word when I was making these shoes. When Big Master saw them he said it says "horse hoof. And that's the fitting word for you." '
Everybody laughed. The stunted bound feet could be hoof-like.
'Big Master was teasing you,' said Third Mistress.
'I don't know. It's just like Third Master to think of a thing like that.'
'He's capable of anything,' his wife agreed.
Both the brothers learned English as a bypath to officialdom. Boys who did not do well at classical studies and had no hope of passing the imperial examinations were usually set to study foreign affairs. The Yaos had a resident foreign tutor guaranteed to be a real Englishman. He lived by himself in a three-storey house in the garden. The brothers were supposed to go to him bringing him questions on sheng, guang, hua, dien, sound, light, chemistry, electricity, generally conceded to be foreigners' special province. The teacher had to stay in waiting for them although they seldom ever came. When they did come they had fun teaching the tutor to swear in Chinese. Once a year on the ninth of the ninth moon when it's good luck to go up a hill or any high place, the Englishman was asked beforehand to vacate the premises so the ladies could come to his house and climb up to the third storey. It was the highest building for miles around and commanded a pretty view. They could see the Bund, the Race Course and the fashionable Chang Park.
'Why don't you trace the word on a piece of paper and have somebody take it to the foreign teacher and ask him?' Yindi said.
'You can't do that,' Big Mistress said, blushing a little. 'Who knows what it says? Maybe worse than horse hoof.'
Yindi said giggling, 'I know. Just wait till the foreigner is out walking in the garden and you walk past him in these shoes. If he laughs it must be horse hoof.'
The other two had a look of constraint on their faces although they joked constantly among themselves. She examined her nails, they ached and felt stuffed from peeling almonds. She purposely rinsed her fingers sacrilegiously in the water soaking the nuts, got up and looked out of the window. They lived in what was called a merry-go-round building with a small courtyard in the centre of the house. The upstairs windows looked down into the dark stone-paved square as into a well. There was nothing to see but it happened that she had not stood there for long when a private ricksha came out of the corridor walk and parked in the courtyard.
'Look who's here!' He looked like his big brother actually except that his eyebrows and eyelashes were thicker and his hair grew low. Even shaved to make a high forehead there was the green shadow of a widow's peak. 'Why I thought Third Master is still in bed. How is it he's just back?'
'Oh?' Third Mistress said vaguely. 'He must have slipped out then.'
'See what a model wife she is,' Yindi said to Big Mistress, 'telling lies to shield her husband.'
'Who's shielding him? How was I to know if he was out or not? I've been with you people all the time.'
'All right, all right, we're all with you,' Yindi said. 'If Old Mistress gets angry everybody is done for.'
The young man who stepped off the ricksha had disappeared into one of the rooms behind the porch. A feather duster dyed bright pink and green was stuck at the back of the seat like a tail held high. The ricksha-puller took it down and started to dust the new vehicle with obvious pride and pleasure. It had four acetylene lanterns, called water-moon lamps because of the bluish white brilliance. Third Master liked to ride around at night illuminated from top to toe like a singsong girl answering summonses to dinner parties.
'We must tell Third Master what a good wife he has, and he's so ungrateful, running out day and night.'
Third Mistress didn't say anything, so Big Mistress came to her rescue. 'Big Master is just as bad. Who's like Second Master, staying home all the time to keep you company?'
'Yes, we've always said you're better off than any of us, Second Sister-in-law', Third Mistress chimed in. 'Really husbands as good as Second Master are hard to find.'
Yindi had turned back to the window. Third Master's ricksha-puller was sitting on the foot perch puffing at his pipe, pulling up his long white cloth socks.
'Looks like he's going out again any minute,' she said.
''What took so long at the book-keeper's office?' she said.
Her sisters-in-law went on talking about clothes for the New Year. They knew why as well as she did. Everybody needs money for the New Year.
A manservant crossed the courtyard bearing a large wooden tray laden with dishes and a rice pot heading for the book-keeper's room.
'Lunch, this late? Or is it breakfast? For two,' she observed the two pairs of chopsticks.
Next came a basin of hot water for the diners to wash their faces. Another man fetched the spare box of combs that Third Master kept in his study. He seemed to want his pigtail rebraided.
'He might as well move in with the book-keeper,' she giggled. 'Really, with our Third Master it's "Whoever has milk is Mother." '
An amah came in and said to Third Mistress, 'Miss, Third Master wants his sable-lined gown.' Old Li had come with Third Mistress from her maiden home as a 'room companion', a useful institution designed to make things easier for the young bride suddenly uprooted and dropped into the midst of hostile in-laws. Every time she called her Miss it reminded Yindi that she herself had not brought any.
`Oh, is he upstairs?' Third Mistress felt for the bunch of keys that dangled from the button under her arm.
'No, he sent a man up.' The exchange was in semiprivate whispers.
'Don't get it for him, Third Mistress,' Yindi said loudly with mock authority. 'Never home except for a change of clothes, and off again he goes.'
`Well, if it's all right with Third Mistress, we shouldn't be busybodies,' Big Mistress said half laughing.
'I'll be a busybody just for this once. I can't stand the way he bullies your young lady, Old Li. Go and tell him to come and get it himself.'
Old Li smiled but made no move to leave the room. Third Mistress also smiled as she searched among her keys.
'Don't let him have it, Third Mistress. Why are you so afraid of him?'
'Who's afraid of him? Only I'd just as soon he goes out, more peace and quiet. We're not such a loving couple as you and Second Master.'
'Us! a good thing you're not like us.'
'It's just that I don't want to quarrel with him. Old Mistress will say I'm driving him away from home.'
`Yes, the woman always gets the blame,' Yindi said. `You'll be blamed too if Old Mistress finds out you've been covering up for him.' And Third Mistress felt sickeningly certain that she would hear of it soon. 'She'd say that you let him do whatever he likes just to please him.'
''Yes, it's always the wife's fault,' said Third Mistress.
'Old Li, go tell Third Master that Old Mistress asked for him,' Yindi said half laughing. 'We're all in for it when it gets known that he's gone without coming in.'
Old Li looked at Third Mistress, who dropped her eyes and jerked her head slightly towards the door. Old Li went.