The Secret Mandarin (9 page)

As his niece stepped down from the piano, Sir Henry rose. ‘Who shall be next?’ he asked. ‘Miss Penney?’

He said this teasingly, no doubt expecting me to blush and giggle—Fortune’s quiet sister-in-law, all set to disappear. However, I rose to his challenge. I was in the humour for it.

‘I cannot play the piano, sir. Certainly not. But I
can
recite,’ I said.

The Governor’s eyebrows rose. As I got up from my chair Robert blanched. He put out his hand ineffectually in a motion to stop me as I moved to the front of the room. It seemed no one else noticed him and I ignored it.

‘Delightful,’ said the Governor. ‘A recitation. What will it be?’

It was Lady Macbeth. I chose the speech where she urges Macbeth on, calls him half a man. I always found it stirring. The company fell to absolute silence. The Governor sank into his chair. I had missed Shakespeare. All the passion I could not express personally flooded into his words. I recited for five minutes to the point where Macbeth leaves his wife to kill his king. It was wonderful to act again, even if only for a moment. When I had done there was a long silence. Then, to my relief, everyone clapped and there was uproar. Miss Pottinger rose to her feet in a standing ovation.

‘My, my,’ said Major Vernon as he escorted me back to my chair. ‘We have a great talent among us.’

Robert eyed me with silent ferocity. No amount of praise would convince him that my performance was anything other than a betrayal.

‘The Governor asked me,’ I whispered in his direction, but it was no good.

‘You shall come to dinner once your brother-in-law has sailed,’ an older lady next to me declared. ‘Do you know
The Tempest
?’

‘I know the part of Ariel.’

‘Excellent. Why, Miss Penney, we must sponsor you to recite some more. Capital entertainment. Capital.’

I sat back in the mahogany chair and I admit that I felt a good deal better.

We were scarcely out of earshot in the rickshaw on the way home when Robert turned to me, his blue eyes blazing.

‘I wash my hands,’ he said. ‘You are incorrigible.’

I did not reply. Instead I looked upwards. The clear sky was studded with huge stars as if a whole constellation had come to rest on the Peak. After midnight, there was an unaccustomed stillness to the island. It was beautiful.

‘The stars are lovely, Robert. Look,’ I said.

‘You are all pretence. All show, Mary.’

‘I will not fight with you,’ I said. ‘You are gone the day after tomorrow. If I must make a life for myself here so be it.’

‘You shame me.’

‘By taking a round of applause? That is preposterous! I wager Sir Henry is not berating his niece for her skill with the piano.’

Robert was so agitated that he began to pick at the material of his trousers distractedly.

‘They will uncover it all now,’ he said. ‘We should have altered your name. Someone will write of it to a relation in London. Someone will realise what you have done. There will be talk of it. You were in the scandal sheets, Mary. Your name is known.’

I began to fear he would make a hole in his trousers.

‘Try to remain calm, for heaven’s sake,’ I said. ‘You must let me be.’

‘I shall have to remove you, Mary. Don’t you understand? If I cannot trust you I must take the responsibility. But to
Amoy? Ning-po? The interior?’ he said as if he was really considering it.

‘Robert, please get hold of yourself,’ I parried.

These ports were, by all accounts, rough places and tiny. If there was little occupation for me in Hong Kong there would be even less on the mainland where no white man could possibly expect his family to live.

‘Bad terrain. Too harsh for a woman,’ he went on.

‘There is no need to overreact,’ I said.

‘Overreact?’ Robert was now shouting. ‘When you persist in publicly embarrassing me? You take enjoyment in the threat of humiliation. I will return some day to Hong Kong and must rely on the good will of its citizens, Mary. I cannot leave you here to shame me further.’

At this moment we arrived at our lodgings. Robert sprung from the chair and entered the house without helping me to descend. When I came into the hallway I could hear him barking orders I could not understand at the maid who had appeared sleepily to greet us. He pointed at my valise that lay packed for removal the following day.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

He was a man possessed.

‘I cannot trust you, Mary. Your judgement is too poor. Within six months they will know it all, if not sooner.’

‘Will you have me spend my whole life running?’ I said. ‘It is madness. Sleep on this, Robert, and you will see the foolishness of your concern. It was a recitation. Women everywhere amuse themselves so.’

Robert ordered the maid below stairs. He grasped the banister in fury. I feared he was about to strike me, but then he appeared to deflate, as if defeated. Things had shifted since he had hauled me aboard the
Braganza
by force.

‘I do not know what to do,’ he said wearily. ‘You frustrate me at every turn. I only wish things to be right for us all.’

I scarcely slept though I could not imagine that Robert would carry through his threat. Everything I had read or heard about China proved that it was no place for a white woman to make her home. Still, the tales were intriguing. There were pleasure cities, masked dramas, snow-capped mountains, white tigers and mystic temples. There were legends of carved jade so exquisite it was priceless.

In the morning Robert finished his column and dispatched the text. He said he had particularly concentrated on azaleas and a lilac foxglove we had seen which was a member of the tea family. Dark eyed and heavy footed, it was clear he had not slept either and was under a considerable strain. In point of fact the whole household was ill at ease. The maid, our packing complete, had started to prepare the house for the next tenants with gusto. She spent the entire morning polishing. Wang had taken to checking the bags, counting them and ticking off a list he had made. He brandished the parchment proudly, perpetually rolling and unrolling it. Sing Hoo it transpired had never learned to read or write and jealously eyed his rival.

‘I thought the Chinese always respected their elders,’ I said in passing to Robert.

We were all of us waiting.

Clearly it was my duty to put Robert’s mind at ease. I had no desire to make things more difficult for him. I wondered if perhaps I had been hasty in my recitation after all and I should have left it until after he had quit the island. I could have chosen another night. I never seemed to be able to get things right. To fit in. To behave as I ought. Now both Robert and I were miserable and with our minds buzzing we agreed to walk down to a bird market of which we had heard. It would at least distract us.

The market, it transpired, was a small collection of rickety
bamboo cages that had been assembled off the main thoroughfare along a narrow, dingy, muddy track. We made our way in silence. I really could not see what I had done was so dreadful, but then given Robert’s fears about me, it was perhaps understandable that he had reacted so strongly. I supposed Robert and I were never going to see eye to eye.

The first few stalls were set out with trinkets and incense but these soon gave way to the cages. Some were hung from bamboo poles. There were pretty little songbirds and white doves that fluttered from side to side. The larger creatures were stowed on the ground and they were more exotic. There was a blue bird the size of a dog, a retriever perhaps, but on long, spindly legs like a heron. It had a fascinating red plume. Robert had settled upon his idea of collecting bird skins that he could dry, ready to be stuffed on his return to England. He examined the creatures carefully and I was glad that this would take his mind away from the immediate dilemma that he faced and I hoped that perhaps if things could only feel more normal again, it might allow him to relinquish his control over me.

‘It will make quite a show,’ he said, bending down to look at the peacocks, ‘although I would prefer to catch the birds myself in the wild, I think. I have heard there are white ones.’

‘You will make a sport of it?’

‘Indeed.’

He was clearly downhearted and I felt unaccountably sad. I wanted to make him understand that I knew what was really best for us all—those in London and the two of us abroad. I was coming to accept that I should submit and lead a quiet life. At least until Robert had made his trip and departed again for England. It was only a few months, after all. A year or two. Not so much to lay aside for my sister, her children and my only son. Perhaps I had been
hasty. I had baited Robert and I regretted it. As we walked back from the market I found my courage and took my chance to apologise before he sailed.

‘I will live small if I have to, Robert. I am sorry to have distressed you last night. I know what you want of me. I assure you I will do it.’

Robert nodded. He seemed taller at once as if the burden of my behaviour had weighed upon him. He had never wanted to bring me on his travels. I was a dreadful consideration for him. It was, I suppose, the promise he had been waiting for and now I had given it we both felt better.

We turned up to the house. A barrow had been brought from the dock and loaded. My bags were piled separately beside it, only waiting for the bearers to arrive. Wang still had his list to hand, the spidery Chinese writing running up and down the page in black ink. When he caught sight of us, he came over, reverently bowed and passed me a sealed note that had been delivered while I was out.

‘What do you say, Robert?’ I asked as I tore open the wax. ‘Will you take my word? Will you see me settled in my new rooms?’ The letter was from the older lady at dinner the night before. Robert did not answer my question. He was reading over my shoulder.

‘So looking forward to your Ariel. Wherever did you learn to recite so beautifully? Please come on Thursday,’ it said.

He glowered. That little piece of parchment changed everything. His hand was already tightly gripping my arm as he began to steer me towards the carriage.

‘I am sorry, Mary. It is too late. I cannot let them find out. Sing Hoo,’ he shouted at Wang, who still stood before us, ‘come now! Take Miss’s luggage to the ship.’

On the dockside I hurriedly amended the letter I had written to Jane, scribbling that Robert was taking me with him further on his travels.

‘This way we can look after each other,’ I wrote at the end. I could scarcely tell my sister that I was once more furious with her husband. That I had tried everything but it had done no good. ‘I will write again as soon as I can,’ I promised.

I dated it August; and the last thing I did before walking aboard the ship for Amoy was to leave the envelope, carefully addressed for dispatch, in the harbour master’s care.

As we came aboard the captain greeted us and a member of the crew made to lead me to my cabin. I scarcely noticed the man but I had no more than moved off when Robert pulled him up sharply, calling the captain over.

‘This man looked at Miss Penney,’ he said. ‘I will not have it.’

My mind was in London and I did not understand at first, though the man flushed and lowered his eyes.

‘Sir?’ the captain asked.

Robert pulled him aside. ‘He looked at her inappropriately,’ he whispered, though not too low for me to hear it clearly.

‘Seaman Lewis.’ The captain turned immediately.
‘Miss Penney is a lady. We will have none of that on my ship. Report to my cabin once we are underway and you best apologise. Now.’

The man stood to attention, his eyes straight ahead.

‘Sorry, Miss Penney,’ he barked in naval fashion.

‘Let me take you to the cabin, myself, ma’am,’ the captain offered. ‘I will punish the man later.’

And Robert nodded, satisfied. He might feel he had the right to force me on board but Lord help a simple sailor who looked longingly at my bustle.

I must admit my immediate thoughts were that I had brought upon myself a terrible mistake. White tigers and priceless jade aside, on closer inspection the ship upon which Robert had taken passage was ramshackle and the weather as we moved northwards became increasingly stormy. As the Peak shrank from view, disappearing, it seemed, into the ocean, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness. Had Robert disappeared I would have gone home immediately. In those circumstances I was sure that the Governor would have forwarded the funds for the ticket. Quite apart from Henry, I wanted to see my sister. Indeed, I think I missed her far more than Robert did.

As children it was Jane who was the natural carer. She was the one who had helped to rear Mother’s animals. At lambing she always picked a favourite and took it on. One summer I recall her leading several piglets round the bottom field and teaching them to jump the stile. I was too selfish, my mother pointed out. Perfect for churning butter or bottling berries, where your thoughts are turned inwards. All my childhood I churned butter to John Donne’s poetry or pickled vegetables to Marlowe, while Jane tended lambs and piglets at the back of the shed.

Having spent all summer rearing the litters Jane had no
difficulty in slaughtering them. In fact, by the time Jane was thirteen, she was a proficient butcher. She calmed the animals before she slit their throats and most died like loved ones, lulled in her arms. One autumn Mother had sold six pigs to the big house, to be delivered butchered. Jane slaughtered every one. When she emerged from the shed she was covered in their blood and not one squeal had come from the outhouse.

‘They went happy,’ she told me. ‘They had no idea.’

There was a steely core to my sister, very brave and terrible. And yet, despite that, there was a softness that bound us together. Like all of us, Jane had myriad of facets, different sides to her nature, though these, it seemed to me, decreased the older she got. For years after Da died, Jane woke often in the night, vulnerable and terribly fretful of having hurt him somehow.

‘I never told him,’ she said as I hugged her in the darkness of our tiny, shared attic room.

‘Told him what?’

‘That I loved him,’ she said.

Poor Jane. It was almost as if he was haunting her. Even then I knew it and cold fingered, though it was July, I stroked her hair and said, ‘He knows that, Janey. ‘Course he does.’

The small house in which we were brought up was still our own. The path that leads to the front door is the highway to too many memories for either of us to part with it. If Jane finds those memories haunting, I have often thought it is those same reminiscences that animate me. We talked, before I fell pregnant, of using the old place now and again as a country retreat—I think perhaps Jane thought if she took possession of the house it might exorcise her demons. It was not a grand building but very amenable, and we both had a fondness for its pretty pan-tiled roof and rough stone
walls, half covered with ivy and wisteria. We thought to take the children, to teach them something of farming and the countryside that no town-reared child can possibly glean. John had shown his father’s aptitude for horticulture and we considered it would be good for him to spend some time there during the holidays.

I think autumn is the prettiest time in the countryside. The hay is baled and stacked, the berries are out and the leaves are set to turn. There is blue-flowered scabious growing wild and the birds are finished nesting. ‘I will never see it again,’ I realised. The fields and woods with their hidden pools. The secret pathways and the muddy horse tracks.

‘Are you never homesick?’ I asked Robert now.

But it was no use. He did not even reply. The man had no feeling whatsoever.

We were to dock briefly at Namoa before continuing to Amoy and then we must change ships to go up the Formosa Channel to Chimoo Bay and the island of Chusan. Thus far the restrictions placed on white men were not as stringent as Robert had feared. In London some had said he would be entirely banned from Chinese soil, as was the agreement with the Chinese government. But, close to the five agreed British settlements, it seemed that as long as a man did not take a permanent residence he was allowed some freedom of movement. Trade was brisk and ships docked and sailed so quickly that it would be difficult to administer a ban on Europeans in any case.

I stayed mostly in my cabin, thinking of home. Apart from the few hours I spent walking on the deck and reading, I devoted most of my time to sitting on my bed, cursing William or crouching beside the small window daydreaming about how things might have been. Had I not
fallen in love I would be still in my dressing room at Drury Lane, visiting my sister on a Sunday afternoon and playing hoops with my niece and nephews on the nursery floor. Or better still, had William kept his word, I would have a place in the theatre still, a house of my own and Henry too. I could not completely regret the affair now Henry was born, of course, but try as I might the truth came back again and again. I would far rather be in England.

To make things worse, the journey itself was in stark contrast to what had gone before. Until this part of our trip, we had docked only at large ports accustomed to accommodating travellers’ needs. Hong Kong had been enough of China to be exotic and enough of England to be familiar. Now we were travelling northwards and close to the coast everywhere was truly alien and the settlements impoverished. We passed cottages open to the weather and Chinese nomads with scores of half-starved children camping in makeshift tents and fishing from the rocks. I saw one tiny boy eating his catch raw and still alive. There were rivulets of blood dribbling down his chin.

When we reached Amoy it was the filthiest place I have ever seen. From the opium warehouses with their sackcloth bales stacked behind slatted gates to the grubby shanty that stretched acres away from the port, the whole place stank so badly that my stomach turned. Robert showed no sign of notice and his attention was drawn instead to the strange rocks on an island in the bay called Koo Lung Soo. Misshapen trees hung like fronds from the angular rocks, their trunks growing straight out over the ocean. I spotted one entirely upside down. Amoy harbour was stowed out and there was hardly space to lay another anchor. Most of the ships were ferrying opium and, armed as usual with news of London, Robert found himself easily in demand with the merchants and captains alike.

There was nowhere suitable to stay on land so we arranged to keep our berths until we found our onward passage, for here we must change ships. While Robert called on the more promising-looking vessels I remained in my cabin. My soul was swamped with regret. I do not think of myself as unduly maternal—clearly I am not—but there was a bond between my baby and me that pulled him continually into my thoughts the further I travelled away.

In my cabin I went over and over the details of Henry’s birth and then imagined his future marriage. William’s money could procure my son a gentleman’s match, but I wondered if he would want one. I willed with all my might that Henry should have spirit—the manly bravery that William so clearly lacked. I hoped that quality, more than anything, might come from my side of things. Strange, really, to long for someone you do not know—to plot and plan for them. I tried to comfort myself that at least Henry’s fortunes were safe now. He was no doubt set to attend Eton and then Cambridge as his father had. William would provide. It was fine. Fine. And yet still I wondered if our features might be similar. If my son had inherited his father’s sly smile and his aristocratic bearing. His taste for forest green, roast lamb and malt whisky? Or if perhaps there might be a trace in him, a whisper, of my love of cherries, steaming bowls of hot chocolate and the very English scent of lilac.

In Hong Kong I had bought a book on the subject of Chinese mythology and to distract myself I read my way through the tales of fabulous creatures—phoenixes, unicorns, dragons, fox spirits, earth gods, the Buddha and the Monkey King. I began to understand more of the elaborate shrines set up on the dock by resident merchants with their display of gold and red ribbons, figurines and incense holders. I picked out the amulets
worn by the sailors, offerings to Tien Hou, goddess of navigators at sea.

After a few days we picked up a passage with a British ship journeying as far as Chusan. Though the vessel was smaller than those to which we had become accustomed, the berths were comfortable and half the crew European. The captain, Landers, was from Northumberland. A cheerful, red-faced giant of a man, he towered over Robert. He had been at sea for fifteen years and claimed he had never slept a night on shore since he was twelve.

‘Unusual for a lady to travel here,’ he commented. ‘Amoy is no place to linger.’

Robert bristled, but Landers continued uninhibited.

‘Are you missionaries?’ he asked.

I adopted my most pious expression. ‘No, Captain Landers,’ I said. ‘I am merely accompanying my brother-in-law in his research.’

Robert attempted to change the subject.

‘The conditions these poor heathens live under!’ he exclaimed. ‘As bad as Scotch cottages!’

I restrained myself from pointing out that living in a Scottish cottage appeared to have done Robert little harm. Though I expect a wry expression played on my face.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Poor things.’

Landers restored my faith in the honour of captaincy. He did not possess the polished manners of Barraclough and was not turned out at all well, but he proved a hearty and genuine soul and both Robert and I became fond of him. We moved our berths onto his ship, the
Dundas,
had the Ward’s cases bolted into the deck, and little by little my spirits rose.

It was at Amoy that Robert collected his first plants. Thus far he had always bought his specimens but now he decided
to travel away from the dock to the hills behind and see what he could find for himself. The
Dundas
would sail the following day so we were at our leisure. He took Sing Hoo and Wang and they set off just after dawn.

I admit I had little to occupy my time. Perhaps, I thought, the next occasion Robert hiked to the hills I would beg to come. Certainly, if Amoy was anything to judge by, it was so unpleasant to be at dock that it would be a relief to get away. I passed my time as usual, reading and taking a turn along the deck. Despite the rank air and the stench that rose from the waters, to watch the teeming crowds about their business was great diversion. It was easy to pick out the few Europeans from the throng even at a distance. The mass of Chinese somehow moved differently. I walked the boards, my handkerchief to my nose, trying to emulate the Cantonese women I could spot here and there, with their tiny steps and high shoulders, the beautiful stillness of their thin eyes and their wide, high-boned faces. I wondered what mistakes they might have made, as they moved smoothly through the crowd. Adultery. Dishonour. They could have done anything. Were any as wicked as I?

When Robert returned he was laden. The hillsides had been fruitful and the plants he brought aboard were fragrant in the thick, evening air. Wang stumbled under two small fig trees and there were vivid gold and bronze chrysanthemums in canvas bags strapped around his shoulders. Sing Hoo carried various Chinese roses of a delicate pink so pale it was almost white, while Robert was laden with jasmine. The metal vasculum boxes they had taken were brimming with cuttings and tightly strapped over Robert and Sing Hoo’s shoulders.

I was delighted. Who would believe so close to the squalor of Amoy such beautiful flowers bloomed? I helped Robert bed down the plants in the cases. My hands were filthy with
mud but the scent was heavenly redemption. We worked by lamplight while Robert explained where he had found his treasures, and complained of Wang and Sing Hoo’s incompetence when extracting the plants from the soil.

‘They pulled them,’ he shuddered. ‘I have shown them now but both are so lazy that I will not be able to trust them unsupervised.’

‘I can help,’ I offered.

‘Wang pulled an olea. The only one I could find. He has quite ruined it though I have kept it to dry for the herbarium.’

‘And in the herbarium,’ I ventured, taking an interest, ‘the plants are all dead?’

Robert looked as if I had slandered the memory of some dearly-loved relation.

‘Dried,’ he said acidly. ‘We have herbarium specimens more than a hundred and fifty years old at Kew.’