The Secret Mandarin (21 page)

Robert stood over the packing cases watching the even, small leaves of better quality being trod into the boxes by children wearing straw shoes. The farmer was encouraging them to pack in as much as possible. When he spotted here and there an area he felt had not been properly bedded down, he pulled the child across the box to see it was done correctly.

‘And of green tea?’ Robert asked, ‘like the
gweiloh
prefer?’

The man snorted. ‘The salesmen add dye,’ he said. ‘My brother went down to Shanghae once with a big harvest. He sold it to a merchant and stayed to help with the colouring. When he came home his hands were blue.’

‘Blue?’ Robert tried to question further, but the man knew no more.

‘Blue for the foreign barbarians,’ he confirmed.

It was a puzzle, though after two weeks of persistently asking every farmer he talked to, Robert was able to procure some samples of the dye. He packed them carefully to be
sent to London for analysis. It was some months, of course (and by then we had moved on) but we found out latterly that it was Prussian blue and gypsum that were used. The tea also contained a dye of which Robert had not heard before. It was made from a Chinese plant with beautiful blue flowers, which grew in the foothills.

‘
Isatis indigotica,
’ Robert chose its name.

It had not been known at home before. Robert, of course, took cuttings and collected seeds.

‘This is easy money,’ he commented ecstatically, for to find a new species with such a clear application to business was a boon.

Our rooms came to resemble large potting sheds. We pinned drawings to the walls, nurtured seedlings at the window and dried herbarium specimens at the fireside. Boxes piled up full of seeds and heavy papers with specimens between. One evening I counted over a thousand drawings I had made. I packed them in folios, each clearly marked and cross-referenced. In the end there were a total of twenty boxes, like wooden packing trunks, that housed all our goods. Six were filled with carvings that Robert had come across, for up in the hills he had found a mason, working only over the winter months, who wrought extravagant statues, mostly of trees. These were magical, elegant pieces so fine and perfect that they seemed almost like dancers striking a pose. We heard later they had made excellent prices at auction at Turnbull’s on the Strand. We wished we had bought more.

To occupy myself over the weeks while Robert laboured, I became interested in scents, making flower oils and combining them in small flasks in different combinations. I fancied myself quite the olfactory chemist and set up a room near the courtyard as my workshop. I installed a long wooden table, some cupboards, mixing bowls and all the
apparatus for extracting the oils. In the morning I picked wild flowers and herbs in baskets and even employed three women to help, showing them my preferred plants and then sending them to the hills to pick enough for me to work with. From these I extracted scented oils as my mother had done when I was a child, for where we lived there were meadows of thyme, lavender and mint, which the local women picked and processed for the apothecary in the town nearby.

I thought of myself mixing the fragrance of a certain day—the heavy musk of the hillside after the rain with the lightness of fresh blossoms doused in the downpour. I thought of each little bottle as the essence of a happy day or a sad one. I mixed the scent of a lonely moment—sandalwood and bergamot lingering over a rich, peppery base. As the harvest proceeded I made oil from peaches, apples and melons that added sweetness to my concoctions. Sometimes the scent of the rooms was overwhelming, on a hot day especially.

Robert chose from my collection a gentle, plummy oil as his own and added it to his shaving water. The fragrance lingered. On my part I preferred roses and peaches mixed so that the scent of the flowers just crept up on the scent of the fruit.

Then, one day, some weeks after we had arrived, I was walking back from an excursion on the hillside. I had been lost for some time in my olfactory experiments and was so at ease with life in Hwuy Chow Foo that I was surprised that when I saw the man in the distance, he so drew my attention. My heart began to pound. Although dressed like a Chinaman, I could see from half a mile that he was European. The way he moved was so different. His whole body jerked as he hammered solidly down the hill towards the road. Excited, I began to run in his direction, clasping
the basket of herbs I had picked to my chest, ready to drop it if need be. Here was a compatriot—who was he? What was he doing here? And would he bear news? I had not realised I had so missed the company of my countrymen. I did not want to shout, just in case someone heard me screaming in English or in case, just in case, I had imagined the man and he wasn’t a European at all. At length he spotted me and I waved to signal to him to stop. He nodded and waited on the track.

‘
Waiyee,
’ he greeted me as I approached.

And then the sport of it struck me and I greeted him in Cantonese to see if I might get away with the ruse.

‘Where are you from, sir?’ I asked, carefully modulating the tenor of my voice to sound more male, forcing myself not to stare too closely at his appearance, for in China this would be considered unforgivably rude.

‘The hills,’ he replied. ‘Are you in trouble? Do you need my help?’

Even in a tongue as foreign as Cantonese I could hear his accent was from the North of England—near Liverpool or Cumbria perhaps. His manner was straightforward and he was not the least bit threatened by me, which must be unusual, I thought. Any white man approached so forwardly by a Chinese would be forgiven for being on his guard, but this fellow was at ease completely. I got the impression he was tired—he was a big chap and wore a beard but there was something about his demeanour that made me feel he was truly exhausted. I immediately felt guilty at trying to trick him. He had asked me if I needed help but my instinct was that he was the one who needed assistance or, at the very least, some respite.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, raising my voice to its normal pitch and coming clean. I was so glad to encounter a fellow
gweiloh
and was itching to hear his tales. ‘I could not help
but see if you could tell that I am not Chinese at all. My name is Mary Penney.’

His face lit up. On hearing me speak English he took on the expression of a ten-year-old boy.

‘My God,’ he peered, ‘you’re a woman?’

I laughed.

‘Yes, and very pleased to meet you, sir,’ I held out my hand. ‘Who are you?’

‘Edward. Father Edward.’

‘One of Bertie’s priests!’ I shouted gleefully, and I was so excited I flung my arms around the poor fellow, who seemed quite bemused by my enthusiasm.

‘You must come back to our lodgings,’ I insisted. ‘My brother-in-law is there—he will be delighted to make your acquaintance.’

Robert took a room for Father Edward at the inn. The man had little money and had been sleeping rough.

‘But what are you doing here?’ he enquired as we toasted each other with the final bottle of port that Robert had concealed among his things.

‘Collecting plants,’ Robert gesticulated. The entire inn was packed with specimens.

‘What about you? Where are you going, Father?’

‘Back to Ning-po. It will take a while, but that is what I have decided. I have done all the good I can in the interior. I was north of here and there were five of us, but the nuns died of typhoid and I am limited as to what I can do alone.’

‘We were in Ning-po only a few months ago. I am sure Bertie will be delighted to see you. I can give you some money if you like. It will speed your journey,’ Robert said generously.

Father Edward shook his head. ‘I am fine,’ he said simply.
‘I have enough to buy food and that is all I need. A bed for the night is a luxury though. Thank you.’

We spent the evening discussing what we had seen of China. Father Edward told us of the farms where he had come from, about the mission he had set up and the work they had embarked on, helping the old and sick.

‘It is so poor,’ he said, ‘China.’

‘Not here,’ I countered.

‘No. Here there is industry, though the people are taxed too heavily. And the troops are vicious. I saw awful things before the war, when I was nearer the coast. They punished their own people for reporting the white man’s incursions. In England a man turning in information is rewarded, but in China, if there is any question of helping a foreigner, even in error, it lays a death sentence on the unfortunate man’s head. People giving directions of any kind were killed on the spot.’

‘Yes,’ said Robert, not saying that this probably worked in our favour. ‘What they do to their own people is terrible. And the sickness. I have seen some dreadful things in the villages.’

Sing Hoo cooked a sumptuous dinner and we lingered at the table. I told Father Edward about the Women’s Mission in Ning-po and about Bertie’s impersonation of a humble priest and how we had been duped. Father Edward was a serious man and he did not laugh when I told the story, only regarded me carefully.

‘It made no difference to Mary,’ Robert told him, ‘though I admit it made me think twice about what I had confessed in Bertie’s presence.’

Father Edward sighed.

‘You are tired, Father,’ I said. ‘We are being selfish, wanting to keep you up too long.’

‘I am sorry,’ he replied. ‘It has been quite a time since
I have spoken English. You two have each other and it is not strange to you.’

The next day the priest accompanied Robert to a tea farm and it was there, I think, he realised Robert’s true mission. When the men returned there was a strained atmosphere and Father Edward said that he was leaving.

‘Oh, please,’ I begged him. ‘Will you take a letter to Bertie for me? Don’t leave yet. Stay another night. It will take me a while to write.’

‘Does the Bishop know why you have come here?’ Father Edward asked coldly.

‘Yes. Of course. Bertie is a great friend. What is the matter?’

He snorted as if my question was foolish.

‘The treaty is unequal enough as it is, don’t you think? Do you know how poor these people are? Do you know what your actions here will mean? First we make them trade with us so that the mandarin population is slave to our opium and then we steal the only commodity they have to pay for it!’

‘I find it difficult to believe you are on their side,’ Robert said, incredulous.

It was clear they had started this conversation out on the land and were now merely continuing it.

‘I am only on the side of fairness,’ Father Edward countered. ‘You have been kind to me but I cannot in good conscience stay here. If what you are doing succeeds, these people will lose their livelihood. It is not moral. You are stealing from them, Mr Fortune.’

I hung my head.

‘How dare you?’ Robert snarled. ‘You think they are keeping the treaty? With their secret tariffs and the level of their troops? This is nonsense. You have lost your senses. Every nation must look to its own business and do the best
for its people. How long have you been here, Edward? How long did it take for you to forget you are British and a subject of the Queen?’

Father Edward cast his eyes to his feet.

‘It is my conscience and I will not lie about it. My duty first is to God’s law and not man’s accommodation of politics.’

‘God!’ Robert declared.

Thankfully he did not launch into a discourse on spirituality. Father Edward turned away from Robert at this blasphemous outburst and it was clear he had no more to say on the matter.

‘Write your letter, Miss Penney, and I will wait.’

‘Do not fret, Father Edward, I will not ask you to carry anything for me,’ Robert snapped.

That evening the priest walked out of the town. I had sent Sing Hoo with a parcel of food, but Edward did not take it with him. I watched him leave all but empty-handed from the window of my room.

‘He will not report us,’ Robert said. ‘He may have some strange convictions but he wouldn’t dare!’

It had not even occurred to me that there was a danger.

For two days I felt both guilty and disappointed as I debated the storm Father Edward had started in my mind. We were stealing perhaps in one sense, but then, why should any plant belong to one nation? The seeds could as easily blow on the wind out of bounds. Why was it worse to take a tea plant than a yellow camellia? Was it a more serious offence to remove a cutting rather than a seed? Besides, Robert had paid his way amply. I wished Father Edward had stayed so I could reason with him. I wished the original promise of excitement had paid off. Who would have ever thought a white man would come strolling across our
path the first time in months and that if he did that we might quarrel? Talking to Robert about it was pointless. We had become too cosy, perhaps, and the shock of Father Edward’s intrusion took a good week to subside.

I do not know what happened to the priest. His journey on foot back to Ning-po should have taken two months, maybe three. Perhaps he fell foul of troops stationed on the way. One way or another, my letter never reached Bertie and Father Edward, God rest his soul, never returned to British soil.

Ten days after Edward left, Robert and I made an excursion to the fields and we misjudged our distances. When the sun set it was as if the land simply disappeared and we realised we had left it too late to get back to our lodgings if we were not on the main road already. There was nothing for it, we were caught up in the hills with acres of tea around us, a stream to one side and nothing else for miles. It was next to impossible to travel at night. The tracks were dangerously uneven, there were few landmarks and not one single signpost. That night, in addition, the moon was not out and we were as good as blind men. Luckily there seemed to be few wild animals—the odd fox, perhaps, but little else, so it was not dangerous. Robert had some fruit and bread, which we shared. Then we sat for a while on a large, flat rock, which protruded from a gully. After a while Robert rose. He walked to the running water and bathed his feet.

‘Hot,’ he explained.

‘Well,’ I said, settling down, ‘if an odd fish like Father Edward can manage this, so can we.’