The Secret Mandarin. Sara Sheridan

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СКАЧАТЬ as could be procured arrived daily now, packed with sachets of lavender and mothballs. A notebook wrapped in brown paper from Bond Street as a present from Jane. Ribbons, a shawl for the evening, a bible, two day dresses from King Street and an evening gown from Chandos Street—everything I would need. And in Jane and Robert’s room the other trunk, identical to mine but packed with a few clothes, a box of Robert’s favourite tobacco from Christy’s (‘No one mixes the same,’ he always blustered as he exhaled), some botanical books, a map, more books to read on the journey (all on the subject of the Chinese). And then items for sale—prints of London and of the Queen for the homesick abroad, copies of Punch and the London Illustrated News.

      Robert continued to be tired. I saw him mostly at dinner if he came home in time. He was working out his notice at the greenhouses in Chiswick, determined to leave everything in his care in perfect condition. Our only family outing was to a photographic studio in Chelsea ten days before we left. We took two hansom cabs and as the horses picked their way along the colourful West London streets I sat straight and eager with Henry asleep on my lap. I was delighted to see the city at last after being confined for so long.

      On the route there were market stalls and apothecary shops, rag-and-bone men and ladies out walking. Even the strong smell of hops from the brewery delighted me but the children scrunched up their noses and complained. Towards Chelsea my attention was drawn particularly by old posters for the plays at Drury Lane that had opened weeks before. The tall, dark lettering on thin paper captured me immediately—Othello and The Dragon’s Gift at the Theatre Royal. I wondered who was on the bill and if the parties were as much fun backstage as they used to be. Did the ladies still drink laudanum for their nerves and the gentlemen arrive with garden roses and boughs of bay? Helen followed my line of sight, seeing my eyes light a little, I suppose, on the thin, posted papers, and being a girl who was naturally curious, she leaned forward to read more easily and Jane, sitting next to her, pulled her daughter firmly back against the cushion as if out of harm’s way.

      At the studio Jane held Henry in her arms with Robert behind us, and the older children to one side. In the photograph none of us is smiling and Robert looks exhausted, the sepia only highlighting the bags beneath his eyes and the indents of his hollow cheeks. At least we would have a record of the last weeks we were together.

      ‘You will carry it with you, Father?’ Thomas asked.

      ‘All the way to China,’ Robert promised. ‘And when I return you will have grown beyond all recognition. You will be tall and speak Latin perfectly.’

      A mere five years before, we had had another photograph taken. John, their eldest boy, now away at school, was held by Jane while I had little Helen on my knee. All of us were in jovial spirits that day. I was playing Cleopatra at the Olympic and had not yet encountered William. The kohl around my eyes had been almost permanent that summer. The dark lines did not come off fully until weeks after. They lent me an air of mystery, a sense of the forbidden.

      In India the women wear kohl. They paint their skin with henna and scent themselves with moonflowers. The Hindus will not eat animals. But there is gold cloth as fine as muslin and as many servants in each household as work a whole terrace in London. I studied Hindustani from a book. ‘Fetch this. Bring that.’ So I could give orders. But still I did not want to leave.

      In my last week, Jane and I engaged the nanny together. Harriet whistled as she worked, very pleased at this development, for it would greatly ease her workload. Jane’s too, I suppose, for though principally in the house for Henry, the girl would also undertake duties for Helen and Thomas. With William’s money in hand, Jane had placed a newspaper advertisement. She offered ten pounds a year plus board and we had over twenty enquiries.

      We interviewed the more eloquent applicants—a mixed bag of ages and experience. Jane was drawn towards the older women, the more prim the better. They came with references, of course, each woman from one wealthy family or another fallen on hard times and making her way as she could. For my part, I wanted laughter in the nursery and I took to asking, ‘What games do you play with your charges?’ The women Jane favoured invariably faltered at this. I despaired that we would come to an agreement and I had to concede that it was my sister, after all, who had to live with the successful candidate.

      Our second but last interview was with a younger girl, new to the city. Her name was Charlotte. As soon as she opened her mouth and we heard her accent, it was as if a spell was being cast. Charlotte came from a little town not ten miles from where Jane and I were raised. Scarce seventeen and plain, there was a familiarity about her that we liked immediately. As a nursemaid she had looked after a family of two children outside London as well as having experience of her own, large family. ‘There are many at home. I am the eldest of eight,’ she grinned. She was well versed in poetry, I was glad to hear, and her favourite game was hide and seek. On Jane’s list of priorities, Charlotte’s manner was businesslike and respectful and although she had only one reference, it was excellent and, in addition, she was acquainted with many of the farming families we remembered from our childhood. After a fifteen-minute interview, Jane and I knew we had found someone who fulfilled our requirements and we offered her the job.

      Charlotte’s trunk arrived later that very afternoon and the children took to her immediately. Jane was quietly delighted at having another servant in the house.

      ‘You will call her Nanny Charlotte,’ she told Helen and Thomas, proudly.

      It seemed to me she might have added, ‘In the hearing of as many of the neighbours as possible’, for to have a third domestic servant in the house was a leap up the social ladder indeed, whatever circumstances had brought about the engagement in the first place. We ordered a uniform of course, and Jane wrote to William to inform him of what she had done. I had no heart to add a postscript of my own.

      ‘I will miss you horribly,’ I declared as Jane and I mended the last of the packing together, darning stockings and sewing buttons. The five months of the shipwreck was the longest we had ever been apart. ‘I know I will be lonely.’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided me. ‘We will write every week. India will be wonderful. It is the perfect place for you, Mary.’

      My sister lifted the cotton shirt up to her nose as if it was a veil.

      ‘You will write to me of dusky beauties,’ she twitched the material. ‘And I will write of the children.’

      I noticed that she breathed in, smelling the shirt before she put it down. Perhaps the soap and starch reminded her of Robert. The way he smelt on Sundays, freshly pressed, freshly dressed. When she took his arm and they walked together along the crescent, to church. That was how my sister loved her husband—well turned out and in public.

      ‘Well,’ she said, ‘he is getting on. Nurseries pay well for the exotic and this trip will bring in a good fee plus anything Robert can sell on top. God will bring him home again and keep him safe.’

      I had no fear for Robert. Nor for myself. After all, I had survived a shipwreck a thousand miles from London and still come home. I am of the view, however, that it was less God’s business and more blind luck. And no one could deny that we were of a lucky disposition, all of us.

      ‘He will be fine,’ I said. ‘Of course he will.’

      When the trunks were packed we had sherry in the drawing room. Robert was booked on the Braganza, due to set sail for China from Portsmouth on the same tide as I. Jane had arranged for us to travel to the port together. She was stoic, of course, but had placed vases of lilies in each room. The funereal scent pervaded the house and matched her hidden mood. Jane might be exasperated by me but we had been close all our lives. This time it was not only I who was leaving but her husband СКАЧАТЬ