The Secret Mandarin (36 page)

‘Jane,’ Robert stuttered at the sight of his wife.

My sister glided to my side. Oddly, I was glad to see her.
I had no time to plan my reaction. It just happened. My mouth twitched, the start of a smile on my lips and my arms reaching out to hold her, completely uncomprehending as she raised her arm and struck me a blow on my face that had me reeling.

‘How dare you?’ she spat furiously. ‘Do you think I am a fool? Did you think I would bide at home with your bastard son while you steal off with Robert? Dear God, Mary, what will it be next?’

We had our chests unloaded and the men housed. Wide eyed and shocked, we dispensed
cash
at the bustling port and, as I had promised, supplied a feast for our tea gardeners that, under Sing Hoo’s watchful eyes, lasted three days. Jane had, it transpired, been six weeks at port, waiting. From London she had sent letters that were forwarded to Ningpo and as a result she had been in correspondence with Bertie for over a year. Alone for the first time, we were all in a carriage, bound for the house Jane had let and where we would now be staying together. There was no point in denying her suspicions.

‘How did you know?’ I asked.

‘It’s you!’ She was venomous. ‘You disappear off with a man, my man, I might add. What else would happen? You are nothing if not predictable. You steal everything, Mary. Being married is the only thing that I ever wanted! The only thing that mattered.’

There were tears in her eyes.

‘Jane, it is my fault, not Mary’s,’ Robert cut in.

‘You!’ Jane snapped at him. ‘I thought you were a gentleman, Robert Fortune.’

Robert’s eyes fell to the rush matting on the tiny floor.

‘No,’ he countered his wife. ‘You wanted to make me a gentleman. And, Jane, that is what I have been doing.
Elevating us. It would not have been possible without Mary. It is what you wanted, is it not?’

‘Money! Pah!’

Truly, I had never seen my sister in such a temper. Her pale skin was shining.

‘We have ten years’ worth of money sitting in the bank and it means nothing. I hate you. I hate both of you! How dare you!’

She broke down furiously. ‘It is not for money!’ she kept saying over and over. ‘Not for that.’

My heart ached to see my stoic sister so upset. I swear, not when our mother died or when, once, she lost a child in her belly, had she cried like this.

‘Jane,’ I reached out to comfort her, to try to explain, but she pushed my arm away and with her eyes hard, spat back at me.

‘Don’t! Just don’t!’

As we dismounted and entered the house I thought we might perhaps be able to talk. In the event, both Major Vernon and Sir Pottinger were waiting with another man, an East India Company representative called Thomas Gerard.

‘A great achievement, Fortune,’ Pottinger blustered as he burst out of the drawing room towards us and grabbed Robert by the hand. ‘Congratulations!’

Jane hovered in the hallway, barely controlling herself. It was clear there had been an upset. Her cheeks were wet. Our guests ignored it, pulling us into the drawing room with good-humoured bluster.

‘And I hear, Miss Penney,’ Major Vernon said, ‘that you were invaluable. Quite the lady in a fight. That’s the spirit! You must be so proud of them, Mrs Fortune.’

Jane bit her lip and I saw her fingers twitch but she kept her silence.

That afternoon there was little time to be had alone together. Closeted in the study with a set of maps and endless bottles of port, we poured out our story. Pottinger dispatched three ships of recruits from Happy Valley to Foo Chow Soo on the next tide and wrote an emergency dispatch to London to be taken by Captain Harper who was due to sail westwards that very night. I hoped that it saved brave Major Gilland and his men.

All the while, Jane sat regally on a red velvet chair by the window and listened silently to our tales. For the most part she knew our route, for the goods dispatched home had made that much clear. Still, Robert’s espionage activities were all news to her, as were the full extent of our dangers and successes. The account of our flight through the Bohean Hills and escape from Foo Chow Soo provoked a spontaneous bout of cheering from Vernon. The fact that Robert had procured boxes of precious tea seeds elicited a quiet smile from Mr Gerard. That he had almost died of the fever, I noticed, moved Jane, and I took it from that that all was not lost. It was a glimmer that forgiveness might be possible. But it was not offered yet.

By the time the men left it was late and we were all of us drunk, I think. Pottinger promised a grand reception at the Governor’s Mansion and Vernon, kissing both my hand and Jane’s in taking his leave, swore to dance with both of us. As the door of the house closed behind our guests, the three of us on our own at last, Robert turned.

‘I hope there are three bedrooms in this house,’ he said to his wife.

Jane, like a child, pushed him.

‘You think I would share a bed with you? I despise you,’ she said.

I caught his eye. We were unrepentant, we sinners. Neither of us had apologised, I realised, and neither of us would.

‘Come on,’ Robert said. ‘I am exhausted. Jane, it is for you, I think, to allocate the sleeping quarters.’

And that night, between heavy, cool sheets, I slept in a room to one side of the house where, I noticed, the floorboards were creaky. I slept alone.

The next day brought gifts delivered before breakfast and a flurry of invitations. Our arrival in the colony had caused much excitement. Pottinger was as good as his word and had set an evening aside for an official reception. We were quite the celebrities. Slight acquaintances from our last docking at Hong Kong had written notes of congratulations, many enquiring if my plan was still to settle here for they had a position I might like to consider. I left the letters by my bed.

When I came downstairs Jane had not yet risen and Robert was in the study. He was surveying an accounts book when I entered although he had been up for hours reading his correspondence, the piles of letters on the study desk attesting to it. Robert’s editor at the
Monthly Review
had sent two missives tersely enquiring why he had received no more reports about the plant life of China. There was a letter from a colleague from the Royal Horticultural Society who had written with some questions about the care of a particular orchid. There was confirmation of some of the new species that we had found—it was like a strange kind of dream—all these people carrying on their normal lives, with queries and problems addressed thousands of miles away as if their small London lives were of paramount concern. Robert had read all these and then turned his attention to the auction reports and the ledger Jane had kept. She was, of course, an excellent administrator.

‘Dear God,’ he said, looking up. ‘She was telling the truth about the money. Mary, we are rich! Or rich enough! And we
are carrying goods to the value of the same as all this again in our retinue at present—bar what we had to fire overboard, of course. But still…I had no idea we would do so well! The gardenias alone sold for fifty pounds! Those large soapstone carvings have raised three hundred between them.’

I slipped into a chair on the other side of the desk.

‘That is good news,’ I observed, ‘but Jane is very angry.’

Robert nodded. He laid down the book at once. ‘I am sorry for that but I think it changes very little,’ he said solemnly.

It was not fair, I knew it. But he was right. We must just try to get through it.

Over breakfast Jane perused the invitations, all addressed to us in trio, Robert read a newspaper from London that was only three months out of date, and I stared out of the window at the house’s pretty little garden.

‘Your plan is to stay here, Mary?’ Jane enquired.

She was, I think, assessing the situation. Getting rid of me once more. I nodded. Robert lent over the top of his paper.

‘Mary will stay here. I will return with you via India, to London. Then, Jane, I will come back to Hong Kong.’

Jane laid down her butter knife.

‘You have everything planned to perfection,’ she sneered. ‘Well, everyone will know of it, Robert. I will divorce you, you know.’

Robert betrayed no emotion. ‘That is your prerogative,’ he said.

‘And you,’ Jane spat, turning to me, ‘you would just love that! Playing into your hands!’

‘I don’t want you to divorce your husband, Jane,’ I said. It was the truth.

‘Oh,’ Jane squealed in frustration. ‘It is not up to you! You are always the golden girl. Well, it’s not up to you!’

The fact was that Jane would never divorce Robert. It would taint her children’s reputation and, however angry she might be, she would never do that. None of us said so, however.

‘You feel trapped, don’t you?’ I started. ‘Jane, neither of us planned this. But it has happened.’

‘And you,’ Jane raised her voice, ‘I suppose had no hand in it? It happened! You really expect to get away with this, don’t you? The same as you get away with everything and I am the one who is hurt and punished and has to put up with it?’

‘Stop it!’ Robert stood up. ‘Stop it at once! You will not blame Mary. I will not let you.’

I held up my hand, motioning him to retake his seat. ‘This is my fault as much as Robert’s but it is honest. These are honest feelings. You are my sister and I love you and I can see that what we have done is wrong, but we have done it anyway. You have every right to be angry, Jane. But things have changed here. They have changed forever. The truth is though, that there is no punishment in this for you. None whatever.’

‘I can never have him again! Not now! You fool!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.

Robert turned pink with anger.

‘Please do not pretend that I am a loss to your bed! Tell me, did you want me inside you even once while I was away? My arms around you? Once?’

Jane’s eyes were blazing.

‘And that is what this is all about. Your disgusting, filthy, animal habits! That is all you care about!’

Robert turned to me. He took a deep breath.

‘Mary,’ he said. ‘Would you mind if I had a word with my wife, alone?’

I was glad to get away and I suppose that the discussion
that ensued was of a private nature. We still had privacies from each other, despite what had happened, I assured myself. I left the room and descended to the kitchens where I asked Wang to climb the Peak with me. I never had achieved it when we were here before. It was, after all, the site of the beginning of his adventures with us, that rainy day when he brought me home. For this trip I attired myself in a Chinese outfit with stout shoes—far more suitable for such a climb than a lady’s get up and, as it was still early, we started out before the sun was high and the humidity oppressive. When we left the house, Jane and Robert were still closeted but their voices were no longer raised. I was glad of that.

The Peak rose behind us. The overgrown tropical plants were no longer alien, but the view still took my breath away. From the top I could make out the garrison at Happy Valley and the shanty town at Wanchai. We found birds of paradise and double-headed roses in among the lush, green vegetation and, as we were accustomed, took cuttings of course. Coming back down to the busy streets easily this time in my Chinese shoes, I bought dumplings and there I spotted the old lady who had so admired my Lady Macbeth when we had dinner the night before we left on our adventures. She was travelling in a sedan chair. When I greeted her, poor thing, she was quite confused.

‘It is I, Miss Penney, Robert Fortune’s sister,’ I explained, as I waved her down.

She looked at me aghast.

‘Have you not heard? Robert and I were in the interior. We travelled as Chinese, you know.’

‘My dear, of course,’ she smiled, ‘but how very convincing you are! And you are promised as my Ariel, are you not? Though this outfit will never do! My, my.’

‘I think I must memorise my lines again,’ I admitted.
‘It has been some time. I am so sorry that I never replied to your note.’

The old lady eyed me. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘perhaps you should come to tea and you can tell me what has knocked our precious Bard clean out of your head! Was it not terrifying?’

‘Edifying,’ I assured her. ‘I shall call later in the week.’

‘When will you leave for Ta Eng Co, Master?’ Wang enquired on our way back to the lodging.

‘You shall be dismissed very soon, Wang. Very soon.’

‘And you will see a steam ship?’

‘No, Wang. Mr Fortune is leaving, but I will stay here.’

Wang looked confused.

‘We both have business to see to,’ I explained.

I did not want to think about it too closely.

On our return to the house, Jane completely ignored me and I half-wondered if she even recognised me in these clothes. She stormed past and disappeared into the morning room.

‘Mary, come with me,’ Robert directed.

My palms felt sticky with fear, for I did not know what had happened while I was out. Robert anticipated this and whispered kindly, ‘Don’t worry. She is impossible, but she will come round. She has to. For now we must pay off our men, don’t you think?’

I nodded.

‘We must make it as easy as we can for her, Robert,’ I said. ‘Promise me.’

‘Of course,’ he put his hand on my shoulder. ‘I promise. Of course.’

We saw to our business. Robert called Wang and Sing Hoo into the study one by one and gave each a bag of silver coins (a small fortune for two years’ wanderings and easily
five years’ salary had they stayed at the docks). He also offered them their choice of gift. Sing Hoo said he wanted gold. Wang smiled. He asked for a necklace for his wife. Both these I arranged that afternoon and delivered to them personally, with my thanks.

That evening, Wang set off. The journey back to Bohea would take him until the winter at least and he was keen to make it before the snows. He had made a grand profit from the escapade. As he said goodbye I sensed no unhappiness, only excitement. He thanked both Robert and I profusely and bowed coldly to Sing Hoo before leaving the house with one small bag of clothes and all that money. I saw him proceeding down the road, as jolly and capable as the day he had first found me and I was glad we had climbed the hill that morning together.