Ah Lai replied: “You, sir, are not alone. Winter Cherry, here, finds her sex suspected by Wang Wei, who is inclined to hint at the improper. Liu Shen-hsu has his own ideas, too, and desires to draw advantages from them, and the two singing-girls look askance at her. No, assuredly you are not alone.”
“But that is not all,” Li Po went on, as if he had not heard what Ah Lai had said. “When I gaily walked out of my Porcelain Pavilion, the affair had the outlines of a prank, such as is amusing to middle-aged fools like myself. Han Im regarded it as an escape for himself and a good deed for the girl. Had that been all it would have been all. But a while ago they tell me that a traveller passed through from Chang-an, and politics seem to have combined with major strategy to undo us. In short, they say that the rebel An Lu-shan has gathered his forces and is marching on the Capital. T’ung Kuan Pass has fallen. The road lies open. The Emperor’s forces are almost in a state of rebellion, saying that as the result of government by girls and eunuchs they are ill-armed and ill-trained, and that unless the Lady Yang is sent away they can no longer be counted on as soldiers. Nevertheless the Emperor has prevailed on the officers of his guard to withdraw with him from the Capital to the South, leaving An Lu-shan an empty triumph. Alas, this is the South, and, if they should pass through here, as is most likely, I fear that an angry, disappointed Emperor and the officers of a dissatisfied army will display to me little of the courtesy to which I am accustomed. I fear that I, too, must flee before they come.”
“I should have done better to have put myself down a well,” Winter Cherry said. “I have brought disaster on all of you three.”
“When will they be here?” Ah Lai asked, and the poet shook his head.
“Tomorrow, at earliest,” he replied. “But I shall not wait for them. You, boy, will come with me. I owe it to my sister’s dead husband to safeguard you.”
Ah Lai cried: “Then, my uncle, it is a debt you will not pay, for I shall stop here, to see that no ill befalls the girl. She, surely, is in much greater danger than you, who can always charm anger away with a jade phrase. And Han Im, too, is more in danger. What of his plans?”
Li Po said: “He must decide. But even I cannot waste the time to argue with a stubborn nephew. I have told you my plans. What you do now, if you disobey me, is your own affair.”
Winter Cherry cried: “You must go with him. I will not endanger your life and your relations with your family.”
“I shall not go,” Ah Lai declared.
Then Wang Wei entered, bringing with him an atmosphere of decision.
“I have heard the news,” he said. “As host it therefore frees me to arrange what is to be done. As you will be aware, when my wife died (I had seen thirty-one summers at the time) I left all official duties and returned to a small place on the western slope of this mountain. There I enjoy peace and sufficiency, save for an occasional revisit to the world of men. My coming here was really a courtesy to Liu Shen-hsu, who showed a regrettable reluctance to leave my roof. I therefore came with him. That courtesy has, I feel, extended far enough. I am going home alone. But to you, Li Po, I have always extended the shelter of my poor roof: you shall come with me, if you will. Liu goes elsewhere, at his own pleasure. Ah Lai, I know would prefer to remain here (for reasons which he is reluctant to admit, and which I shall not state). Han Im stays, too, since he feels that, whatever may come, it is unfitting for a man of his figure to be running round the country looking for cover.
“But the trouble does not materialise until tomorrow, and I have invited a friend, Peng Yeh, who lives near here at Ma Wei, to dinner. Therefore that dinner shall be held, and at early dawn the party will break up. Have you anything to say, Li Po?”
Li Po replied at once: “With your permission, I shall leave immediately to prepare your household for your return. It was my purpose, when I left on this wild scheme, to remove myself from danger and boredom. If, now, danger and boredom follow me, I must go further. My nephew—I leave him at your care, Wang Wei. The ties of blood engendered by a sister’s choice and nightly efforts cannot now control me, I take it that you will see that Han Im does not lack comforts? We left Chang-an without the time even to collect money. At least, he did. To you, girl, who caused all this, my farewells and good wishes. All my life I have found women and trouble delightfully interlocked. The technique of cutting that union is only gained by considerable experience, and others, less skilled, are apt to be jealous of that technique. In fact, you will say that I am selfish. I am. Farewell to you all.”
He went out without looking behind him. Wang Wei laughed.
“He was always able in self-protection,” he said. “We shall eat towards the end of the hour of the cock. And, girl, I think you had better abandon this masquerade and return to the clothes of your proper sex, which is proclaimed by every line of you.”
When he had gone, Ah Lai and Winter Cherry stood looking at each other.
“That is as it may be,” she said, “but I have no clothes other than those of yours, and there are the two other troubles—Liu Shen-hsu and my father. You did not know that my family name is Peng?”
She told him of Wang Wei’s invitation to her parent to attend the dinner.
Honeysuckle sniffed.
“If a father cannot recognise his own daughter, even when she is dressed and painted as a singing girl, can it really be said that he is a fit person to control her?” she demanded. “I should have thought that it would have been simple for her to go to some other place.” She busied herself with making the most of Winter Cherry’s remaining hair, with the aid of a headdress which concealed much of it.
Clear Rain, mixing powders, said: “Of course, this boy here seems to think that he knows best, and Winter Cherry listens to what he says as if he were one of the seven wise men. Still, we will try.”
“And if she had gone away,” Ah Lai laughed, scornfully, “Wang Wei would have told her father, and then she would have been searched for and brought back. Now Wang Wei will regard the whole thing as a joke of his own making, and will not reveal her secret. But we shall be compelled to introduce Winter Cherry by some other name, as a girl who came here after you two, being prevented by illness from coming earlier. That will excuse her poor performance, for I do not imagine that she is as skilled in the arts of entertainment as you two. She shall, be called Foam on the Stream. I have never met one of that name, and thus we can remedy the omission.”
“Go away while I change her clothes,” Clear Rain said. “To remain would be a privilege of which you are unworthy. I have no proof so far that you have demonstrated yourself to be a man.”
Ah Lai replied: “A man must have opportunity first.”
Honeysuckle laughed: “Make it,” and the three of them pushed him out of the door. “Tell the honourable Wang Wei of her new name.”
Winter Cherry had been dressed and powdered in the conventional way, and now she. Honeysuckle and Clear Rain sat side by side on the bed talking together as if they had known each other for many moons.
“I am reminded,” Clear Rain was saying, “of stories—many stories—of young romance, but I had never hoped to assist, myself, in the attainment of the happy ending which these stories sometimes have.”
Winter Cherry put down the polished copper mirror in which she was trying to recognise herself, and said: “I do not expect a happy ending. Such things only happen to people in stories. But, though some people have been kind to me before, Ah Lai is the first man who has ridden straight towards the threatening spears of circumstance.”