The Warning Voice by Cao Xueqin Page A

to her. She will probably consult Oriole’s mother whenever there is anything she is not sure about in any case. She may even elect to hand over to her altogether. But that would be entirely a private matter between the two of them. The other servants might resent it, but at least they couldn’t blame
us
. The advantage of this arrangement is that it would
look
fair as well as being effective.’
    Li Wan and Patience agreed. Tan-chun was more sceptical:
    â€˜That may be; but what if cupidity proves stronger than friendship?’
    â€˜Not likely in this case,’ said Patience. ‘Only the other day Mamma Ye was invited to become Oriole’s godmother. The three of them had a little party to celebrate. The two families are very close.’
    Tan-chun dropped her objection and proceeded, with the others, to deliberate on the rest of their choices – all of them women whom the four of them had mentally noted in the past for their dependability. As each one’s selection was confirmed, she made a little circle with her writing-brush against the corresponding name in the register.
    Shortly after this the women arrived back again to report that the doctor had gone and to hand in the prescription he had left. After studying it, Li Wan, Tan-chun and Bao-chai sent one of the women to obtain the drugs from outside and to supervise the making-up and administering of the medicine. Then Li Wan and Tan-chun told the women which of them were to have the cultivation of which parts of the Garden and what the conditions of their tenure were to be:
    â€˜You will be expected to give us, in due season, a fixed amount of your crops for our own use; but apart from that it will be up to you to make whatever profit from them you can.Accounts will be submitted and dues paid at the end of the year.’
    â€˜I’ve been having second thoughts about that,’ said Tan-chun. ‘If you are submitting annual accounts and paying dues, presumably it will be to the Office. But that means another lot of people with control over you and another layer skimmed off your profits. Now in thinking up this new arrangement and appointing you ourselves, we are already in a sense going above their heads, which is sure to anger them. They probably won’t dare to say anything about it now, but there will be nothing to stop them getting their own back later on when you go round to settle accounts with them at the end of the year. And there’s another thing. If
they
are going to be in on this, they are sure to expect a share of the produce. Whatever you agree to give us in the course of each year, they will expect the equivalent of half the amount for themselves. That’s an old, established rule. Everyone knows that. But since the new arrangement is
our
creation,
I
say let’s keep it out of their hands altogether. If there’s to be an annual settling of accounts, let it be done here, internally.’
    â€˜If you ask me,’ said Bao-chai, ‘I don’t think there should be any settling of accounts at all. You’d always be finding that this one had too much and that one too little. It would only be a lot of extra trouble. Why not get each of them to take over some regular item of your expenditure and pay for it out of their profits? That will keep it all inside the Garden. I’ve just been running over in my mind what your regular expenses are. They aren’t very many. There’s hair-oil, cosmetics, incense, paper: every mistress and her maids get a fixed amount of those every month. Then there are brushes, dust-pans, feather-dusters and food for the livestock (birds, rabbits, deer and so forth). That’s really all. Now suppose instead of drawing money from Accounts for all those things we gave these women the responsibility of paying for them: how much do you reckon the saving would be?’
    â€˜They’re small items in themselves,’ said Patience, ‘but I should think if