The Secret Mandarin (22 page)

A bed on the ground is more comfortable than the berth on a barge, I discovered and, having checked for stones and found leaves on which to lay my head, I was comfortable. Even in summertime the night could be chilly and we were on high ground.

‘Aren’t the stars an astonishment?’ Robert breathed, and I could feel his chest rise and fall.

He was right—they were like gemstones scattered across the velvet sky, for it was not cloudy. The hills were so silent that I could hear the movement of the branches off into the distance. To feel so tiny in the face of the wide sky was as marvellous as the anonymity of being unjudged and unnoticed.

‘It has become,’ Robert commented as we lay on the dark hill, ‘most companionable with you, Mary. I could not hope to have such a variety of drawings without your help.’

I smiled in the darkness and realised then that I was committed to this mission. Despite what Father Edward said, I admired my brother-in-law and what he wanted to achieve. Edward had lost himself. He had become confused. A man has to know where he comes from and stick to that. The kind of confusion to which Edward was subject would never happen to Robert and, in that silent moment, I realised that despite my empathy for the Chinese it would never happen to me either. I might think in their language and find myself entirely comfortable in this land, but my loyalty was to the Queen, not the Emperor. I knew my place in the scheme of things.

‘I am on your side, you know,’ I whispered to Robert.

He did not answer. It was pitch black but I thought I saw the gleam of his teeth as he smiled.

A moment or two passed and I decided to change the subject.

‘So, what are we to do with all my drawings, then?’ I asked.

‘Shanghae would be the best port, I think,’ he ventured. ‘The
Helen Stuart
makes regular voyages. We shall send them west when we leave for the south. They will return to England. The catalogue will be part of the record of what we have done.’

And I found myself wondering with a tinge of sadness if everything I cared about in China was destined to go home in the end. I certainly did not want to.

‘I think,’ I said, ‘I will never go on the stage again after this.’

I could hear Robert turn. ‘Why? What is it that you do wish to do?’

‘Be here.’

‘Mary Penney! And your boxes of baubles and feather ornaments?’ Robert teased. ‘Your streams of admirers and fine French lace? All the claret? The slices of lamb and pale Cheshire cheese, my lady? What are you here for, if not to be able to show off in London about it!’

‘Better to be a well-kept secret by far. Can you bear to go back and lecture at the Society? To have them think well of you despite your low birth, when here you are free to be whoever you please?’

Robert fell silent for a moment.

‘I long to,’ he said. ‘Both to have their respect and merit their attention.’

‘We are opposite in that,’ I replied as I stared at the inky sky, my limbs so relaxed that I almost floated. I had never been so satisfied, so happy, in all my life.

Late that night I half wakened and, with my eyes accustomed to the darkness, I noticed Robert had moved off to the side and was sitting against a tree, his knees to his chest, unable to sleep it seemed. I wondered what had disturbed him. It seemed to me that he had been pacing up and down, although now he was still, his back against the bark.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Why did you move away?’

‘Shhhh,’ he soothed, and averted his eyes.

‘What is the matter?’

‘You sleep, Mary.’

I did as he asked and turned over.

In the morning I woke in the half-light. The dew had come down and the ground was damp. We hiked along the path a mile or so and feasted on wild cherries from a tree by the track. The juice ran down Robert’s chin.

‘I am torn,’ Robert said meditatively, ‘between the freedom of this adventure, and the benefits of civilisation despite its constraints. I don’t know how yet, but I hope that perhaps I can share my time between both.’

I was glad that he cared for freedom enough to think of it so. For my part, though I was still British, and for all that I had Henry there, and Jane too, London could go hang.

One day, after several weeks in the province, it was finally time for Sing Hoo to visit his family. We had seen the tea harvest in the North and soon we would progress to the black tea countries to do the same, travelling south and then waiting for the spring and the early harvest in April. I knew that Robert had been reviewing his notes, making plans as ever. If Sing Hoo didn’t go now it would be too late.

It was difficult to extract information as to the exact location of the man’s village as Sing Hoo refused to read any of our maps. This Robert put down to a mixture of stupidity, stubbornness and a vague intention to escape our service if he could by simply disappearing.

‘He will want to stay at home when he returns to his village,’ Robert grumbled. ‘And besides, he may expose us. Had you thought, Mary?’

‘It seems to me unlikely he would tell them who we are,’ I ventured. ‘He has never told anyone before. After all, better servant to a grand mandarin than a criminal in the service of foreigners. He is not reliable, it’s true. But he will want to impress his family.’

Nonetheless, Robert insisted that we accompany Sing
Hoo, and we finally established the village was at some three days’ distance.

‘Perhaps we shall find some interesting plants on the way,’ Robert said, trying to make the best of things.

I chose a small carving, a miniature copy of the great stone ship at the Summer Palace, as a gift. Sing Hoo puffed out his chest and grinned openly when he realised that his family were to receive presents. His stock would no doubt rise and he was nothing if not a show-off. In the end we also took some sesame oil, bags of rice, half a dozen phials of my perfumes and some of the dwarf conifers, which we had no use for in our retinue.

‘Sing Wa honours my family,’ Sing Hoo beamed.

Robert nodded sagely, making his point. ‘It is you we are honouring,’ he said. ‘Your family will be proud of you.’

Despite all his failings we needed to keep Sing Hoo with us. It was far easier that way.

Wang was distraught at all the attention that was being showered on his rival. He served a supper the evening before we set off that belied the meagre cooking facilities of the inn.

‘We can visit your family in Bohea,’ I comforted him. ‘We will bring them gifts too, Wang. Bohea will be our home in only a few months.’

But the man was inconsolable. He hung his head and that evening I saw him sitting on the low wall of the courtyard throwing stones into the inky blackness beyond. Robert gave him a few
cash
with which to amuse himself while we were gone, and a list of strict instructions about the care of the nursery.

When we set off early the next morning, Wang had given himself up entirely to despair. He was already drunk and had a flagon of five grain spirit hanging from his belt. I expect the poor man had been up all night emptying it.

‘He doesn’t have a family,’ Sing Hoo jibed cheerfully. ‘Everyone dead.’

I looked back up the road, making out the lonely figure of Wang staring after us from the gates of the inn.

‘Poor chap,’ I murmured.

‘Come along now,’ Robert urged. ‘I doubt that is true. And besides, we must make our time.’

In the end we did better than planned and our journey was only two days. Sing Hoo became more excited at every turn of the road and spoke so quickly it was difficult to pick up what he was saying. As the hills became less steep and we came to a gentle valley he ran ahead, shouting, and it was clear we had almost arrived.

‘Imagine going home after so many years,’ Robert smiled.

Sing Hoo had not seen his people in ten years at least. How long might it be for us, I wondered.

The village was tiny, perhaps six or eight houses. Sing Hoo’s family lived in the first we came to, which comprised two storeys. They flooded out into the street to his cries and I saw immediately that Sing Hoo looked like his relations, with their small eyes and wide, misshapen mouths. I recognised his expression of delight on their faces as they flung their arms around him and then, the suspicious glances cast as they realised that their relative had arrived with a fine mandarin and his secretary. Sing Hoo wasted no time in showering his relations with the gifts we had supplied and we were duly welcomed. The brother’s wives smelt the flacons of perfumed oil and laughed, delighted. The brothers set the carving of the boat beside the door of the dwelling. Sing Hoo, I realised, had saved some weeks’ wages and presented them ceremonially to the family. It would be the same with Jane, I realised. We might give her presents, tell some tales, but would she ever be able to really understand what the journey had been like for us?

That evening we ate rice and chicken cooked over an open fire and sat on rough pillows laid on the floor as we listened to the family’s babble. Sing Hoo mourned his mother briefly, who had died some years before. He had not known that she was dead. But as the younger children squabbled he was drawn away from any grief and seemed happy again to simply be at home. I watched carefully as Sing Hoo’s sister-in-law, with fingers roughened in the fields, served tea of her own picking. It was not long, after years away, to have only one night, but at least for Sing Hoo it was a jolly one. As he babbled his adventures, augmenting the tales to enlarge his role in them, my mind drifted away. My thoughts were already directed to our onward journey.

‘Do you think we could leave him here?’ I whispered to Robert. ‘It seems safe enough and he is a terrible troublemaker.’

Robert considered a moment and shook his head.

‘No. We need him, Mary. Who could replace Sing Hoo now? He knows.’

I expect Robert was right.

The next morning I woke to the sound of crying. Sing Hoo brought me some tea and congee and said that his brothers were giving a gift to Robert, who was in the main living room, and that I should not mind the crying—it was only one of the women, an aunt who did not wish him to leave.

It seemed to take forever until we could go. The family fussed around Sing Hoo, clinging to him and wailing as if they were never to be consoled. Eventually Robert, losing patience, practically prised the man from their arms and insisted we set off at once. Sing Hoo was quiet for most of the journey back to Hwuy Chow Foo. He walked behind us at a slow, steady pace.

We slept in the open that night as if we were old hands at it, and rushed the next day to make it as far as the inn, taking the risk of travelling the last mile or so of familiar road in the dark for we were determined to sleep that night in our own beds. Upon our arrival Wang skulked around, making tea and eyeing Sing Hoo jealously as if in his time alone with us he had been up to something underhand. The fires were lit, for it was cold that evening, and I settled under my cover in the glow of it, eating a slice of melon with green skin and rosy, sweet flesh. In the hallway I could hear the muted tones of Wang and Sing Hoo squabbling with each other over nothing, as usual.

After that, our work in the province was done. The harvest was over. The farmers were tending their plants in readiness for collecting the seeds and had directed their attention to wintertime pursuits. There came a week when the weather turned much colder, there was frost sometimes in the mornings and the sky became streaked with winter clouds. I unpacked my padded jacket and my scarves and Robert gave me a fine fur hat, for with my shaven head I felt the cold badly, but still we had decided two days were as long as we could safely leave it. When Robert’s tea seeds were delivered he inspected them carefully, making sure they had been properly cleaned and were sealed appropriately in lined, wooden containers.

He engaged seven men to transport the myriad of packing cases and plants in the opposite direction to the one we would take. They were heading to Shanghae, the load at first on their backs, then on carts (once the roads were wider) and lastly by canal boat. The shipment was to be delivered to a local merchant and from there, discreetly, to the British Consul with a letter outlining Robert’s instructions for their transport onwards. Some were for the East India Company and others destined for the Royal Society,
for auction, or for the nursery with which Robert had his arrangement.

This journey, all to be taken in our absence and mostly over ground we had covered and knew well, was minutely planned. The plants were under the care of Li, a boy of perhaps fifteen years of age, who had often accompanied Robert as a bearer when he had collected specimens in the hills. He had proved a careful and reliable servant and was trusted to tend the plants as his sole duty. The money for the trip was given to his older cousin, also known as Li, who was to oversee the whole operation, organise the carts and the barges and ensure the men were careful with the trunks. Robert outlined exactly what was in each case for the Consul’s information and instructed bonuses to be paid to each of the Lis if all was in order when they delivered. Of this they were informed. And, of course, there was the mandatory coded letter too—a rather short one, I imagine, for the tea countries had not provided us with much in the way of military information, though perhaps Pottinger would be interested in the absence of troops all the same.

The tea seeds were to travel with us, such was their value. The penalty for the sale of these to a foreigner was death. It was too dangerous to send these boxes across country. Instead they were loaded with our personal possessions for the journey in the opposite direction—into unknown territory. We were heading over the mountains to the south.

‘Like Hannibal!’ Robert joked with me as we surveyed our luggage, which was, to say the least of it, extensive.

‘I do feel like a Nomad Queen.’

‘King,’ Robert corrected me.

‘You may call me Your Majesty,’ I volleyed back.

We would be months in the high ground and as our maps were not detailed we knew there might be surprises on the route. The black tea countries retained a certain
mystery despite Bertie’s help, which had been considerable, and details gleaned from the farmers at Hwuy Chow Foo, some of whom had visited their Bohean cousins. For this expedition Robert had packed tents and had procured some oil lamps. It would shortly be too cold to sleep in the open and as there were few settlements in the hills we would have to make our own shelter and sleep at least two to a tent, simply for warmth. On the higher mountains there was already snow, although our planned route was over the gentler hills as far as possible. However, there was a large mountain range once we were through Kiang See province that we would certainly have to climb. We took many provisions as it was not clear where we might be able to restock our supplies or how often. Six experienced men from the village were to travel with us and came with two carts and four mules. Two of the men knew the mountain passes well and had travelled there before. Once we reached Bohea they would return home again.