The Secret Mandarin. Sara Sheridan

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       Chapter Four

      Robert busied himself with his preparations. There were only three weeks before he was due to sail for the Chinese mainland and leave me behind. In that time he had to engage a guide, sell the plants he had brought with him and make plans for his journey. I was to settle. Given that I liked the island and was most diverted by its delights after the long confinement of the voyage, I found this surprisingly difficult. Banishment is an unpleasant sensation. I continued both angry and frustrated but hid my feelings from all around. The August weather was stifling and without the breeze of the moving ship the humidity sunk me. There had been a malaria outbreak at the barracks at Happy Valley and the town was greatly concerned—hundreds of soldiers had died and there seemed no containing the spread of the disease. Some of the ladies refused to go out at all.

      Robert was pragmatic. He had no time for such fancies. Major Vernon, the head of the battalion, visited our lodgings shortly after our arrival. The marshy ground at Happy Valley was conducive to the epidemic and Robert recommended vegetation to counteract its effects. Vernon commenced planting straight away. Thus introduced to the British community as an expert and a welcome addition to their ranks, Robert’s now-forsaken job at the Royal Society made him friends easily and he visited someone new every day. He brought plant cuttings for the enthusiasts and snippets of news about London—changes to familiar streets, accounts of mutual acquaintances and detailed descriptions of new planting in Kew Gardens, Hyde Park and Chelsea. It seemed such was the excitement of receiving fresh news that most people were prepared to disregard the danger of us contaminating them. Nor did Robert consider that our new acquaintances might contaminate us. The contact was too valuable.

      His new friends helped him plan his journey, poring over maps for hours, telling of the dangers in taking on the mandarins, who were the ruling class in the interior, and volunteering letters of recommendation to the few European missionaries living inside. China’s borders were closed to white men. Only five of her ports had any kind of British community and those had only become official since we won the war the year before. The ports supported British trade in the region, but the Chinese were hostile and resentful of our victory and the enforced terms we had imposed. We made them buy our Indian opium but the Emperor had banned his people from taking the drug as he considered it dangerous. I had seen what opium could do—there were dens in the West End, I knew, where some chased the dragon to the detriment of everything else. But then there were those who could not rise without their shot of brandy either. Some people will fall victim to anything for it is in their nature, but that is no reason, to my mind, to ban a drug outright. Such extremes are a far cry from the laudanum that I and my friends sometimes relied on for a touch of comfort. Why, even Jane used the tincture from time to time, when she had the cramp and the apothecary recommended a grain or two. The Emperor’s stance seemed some kind of hysterical reaction to me.

      Of greater threat to his empire, as far as I could see, was Robert’s mission. Tea was China’s greatest export and the Emperor’s men guarded the tea plants and the secrets of their production carefully. In this venture my brother-in-law was taking his life in his hands—the Chinese would kill him and his entourage if they knew what he was up to. In Hong Kong, however, everyone rallied to the pluck of Robert’s expedition and in the fine mansions on the slopes of the Peak all appeared to have one or two scraps of information about the interior that were invaluable in planning the trip. It would have been difficult to continue without such help and people were extremely generous.

      I was invited on all these visits. I expect Robert was keen to present me as much as he could to maximise my chances of finding employment and also to establish me so I was less likely to leave.

      ‘My wife’s sister has decided to settle here,’ he would say. ‘Might I ask you to keep an eye to her interests while I am gone? No, no she is Miss Penney. Quite unmarried. For the time being in any case.’

      Had my skin not been swollen pink and puffy with the heat I am sure it would have crawled with discomfort, but his words washed over me as if the opium that had won us the island was embedded in the hot, heavy air. Distracted by the activity that Robert generated in making his plans, it was as if I had simply disappeared.

      One afternoon Robert returned to the lodging house with a Chinaman he had engaged down at the bay. The man was underfed and fell upon the bread and tea sent up for him from the kitchen as Robert quizzed him in my presence. In a mixture of Cantonese, which Robert had studied for some months now, and the man’s patchy English, it became clear he was from Hwuy-chow, one of the tea countries Robert had determined to visit. СКАЧАТЬ