The Secret Mandarin. Sara Sheridan

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СКАЧАТЬ into the deep end from the balcony. Now, far braver than taking a fifteen-foot drop, he put out his hand and touched my cheek.

      ‘There now,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever believe a bad review, Thomas. Let that be a lesson to you.’

      By this time we had been too long without being announced and Jane appeared from the morning room to investigate. She was holding the baby. My baby. I think it was only there in the hallway that I realised how much I had missed him. He had grown in my absence and there was a rash on his cheek. I found I was smiling quite involuntarily as I stared at it. It was a relief to see that he looked chubby and healthy, dressed in a little smock. They had kept their word. Jane hesitated at the sight of me and seemed to deflate—the black skirt of her mourning dress was huge and she too small within it.

      ‘He must be almost six months old now. He looks well,’ I smiled.

      ‘Mary,’ she mouthed.

      I reached out to hold her in greeting and as I pulled back I saw there were tears in her eyes.

      ‘I was washed ashore,’ I whispered. ‘I wrote to you but I must have overtaken the letter…’ My voice trailed.

      I put out my arms and she gave me the baby. I hugged him close. I never will understand how it is possible to so love a child—a child you cannot possibly know. A new baby. Heavens, a new baby can turn into anyone—a family disgrace or lord of the manor. How ever do you know if you will like him or not? Clutching onto my son, though, after all those months, finally I felt whole again. I felt like myself.

      ‘What have you called him?’ I asked, giving him my finger to grasp as I stared into his handsome blue eyes.

      But the shock of seeing me again had been terrible and instead of replying, my sister folded over and landed on the carpet.

      I loosened the stays of her bodice with my free hand. I swear she was as small as a child. My niece, Helen, came out of the morning room in a jumble of mahogany ringlets and black, lace-edged ribbons. I sent her to fetch water and told Thomas to bring a pillow for Jane’s head while the maid fanned my sister’s prostrate form with a copy of the morning paper.

      ‘I told Mother you couldn’t die,’ Helen said defiantly.

      Carefully, I sprinkled water on my sister’s ashen cheeks. As she opened her eyes I couldn’t decide whether she was simply shocked that I was alive or dreading that I was home again. When she sat up the pins in her hair had loosened and a strand fell down like a blackbird’s broken wing. It trembled in the wake of the maid’s vigorous attempts at fanning with the London Times. Jane waved her off to one side.

      ‘Stop that at once, Harriet,’ she directed. ‘And bring us some tea.’

      Harriet had taken the children to the park. The day was bright if a little cold. My sister said nothing as she poured. After the initial exchange of information, there was, I suppose, little to say until the details had been digested. Jane bit her lip. She was thinking. I examined myself in the mirror over the fireplace. I looked respectable enough—my chestnut hair was piled into a bun and my hazel eyes shone bright and healthy. I had healed well. In fact I looked better nourished than my pale sister. I always thought Jane worked too hard and was thin as a waif, albeit a ladylike one.

      After a few minutes the front door opened and crashed closed and I heard Robert storming across the hallway—a familiar pause as he removed his hat, coat and gloves. I caught Jane’s eye and a flicker of a smile crossed both our lips. As children and, truth to tell, sometimes even as adults, we used to play hide and seek. Until Jane was ten we could both fit in the cupboard in my mother’s kitchen—behind the loose piles of crockery. Now we said nothing and didn’t move an inch, only sat waiting on the plump pink sofas by the fire. There would be no games today.

      ‘Jane,’ he roared.

      She did not call back to him, only raised an eyebrow and went to the door. I stared into the fire. There was anger in his voice already. It did not bode well. Right enough, Robert’s eyes were alight as he pushed into the room past his wife and stood on the carpet in front of me, staring.

      ‘After all your indiscretions! Mary, have you no shame?’

      ‘I was washed ashore,’ I started.

      But he was not listening.

      ‘We have tried everything for you.’

      Jane slipped back into her seat. She must have sent a message to the Gardens while I was talking to the children and dandling baby Henry on my knee. Robert never came home in the afternoon except in the middle of winter when it was dark early and his beloved plants could not be tended. I had often remarked to Jane that her husband treated his orchids with more care than his three children.

      She used to shake her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Mary.’

      I realised that we should have discussed this between ourselves before Robert returned. I also realised that Jane had decided not to.

      ‘You are reckless, Mary Penney,’ Robert snapped, the fury dripping from his lips. He ran a hand over his dark hair, in desperation, I expect. ‘The worst of it is that you are reckless not only for yourself but for all of us.’

      He strode to the chair beside Jane’s and sat down. He was wiry but strong and his body was tense with anxiety. When he was angry he did not blink. Jane tried to calm her husband. I knew that she wanted me to stay, however shocking my return.

      ‘You do not feel it time enough then, Robert?’ she asked. ‘A few months?’

      I hung my head. I could see the difficulty I brought them. They could have done far worse than send me away to start a new life. Many in their position would have.

      ‘I will go back to the theatre,’ I declared.

      At that Robert jumped out of his chair with his cheap pocket watch bouncing against his peacock-green waistcoat.

      ‘And forsake us all?’ he raised his voice. ‘You go back to the stage and you will be dead to the children. It is enough, Mary.’

      He meant it. And in that moment I knew that I’d never act again. Having the baby had changed me. It had changed everything. The day had come and gone when I would risk anything for a chance to play Rosalind. I had been foolish but still my blood rose and I could feel the colour in my cheeks. If I did not leave and could not go back to the stage then I would be a spinster—the children’s penniless, spinster aunt. I was unmarriageable to anyone in polite society for all my tiny waist, my smooth skin and indeed, my talent. Still, I did not want to leave. England was my home and I was sure all that awaited me abroad was a string of second-rate suitors. My choices were limited and I railed against all of them. As far as I was concerned, I had been happy before all of this in London. I wanted to be happy here again.

      ‘They die in Calicut,’ I said. ‘There is dysentery and worse.’

      Jane sipped her tea silently. Between us we had scarcely caught a chill all our lives. When little Helen was only two she had a fever. Both Jane and I had been shocked. We had so little experience of sickness that we had to nurse her from a household manual, learning page by page. Penney women were small but strong. Our mother had been a full sixty years of age when she died.

      ‘You will not catch it,’ Jane said.

      ‘We will СКАЧАТЬ