Moonflower Madness

by Margaret Pemberton

  Gianetta leaned forward and patted Ben’s neck. The first hurdle had been overcome. They were out of the city and on the open road; soon they would be in the hills. She began to hum to herself and then to sing an Italian folk-song that she had often heard her mother sing. It brought back childhood memories of Italy, of Lake Garda glittering beneath the summer sun, of hillsides dark with cypress trees, of the distant snow-capped peaks of the Alps. No snow-capped peaks confronted her now, only gently rolling golden hills, their upper slopes occasionally wooded with walnut and chestnut trees, their lower slopes thick with honeysuckle and larkspur.

  In less than half a mile she had left the Yang-tze and the stone causeway behind her and was following the beaten track north to Fu-tu Kwan. She wondered how far behind Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Carwright she was. There was no sign of them ahead of her. Nothing but the hills and the woods and a bird singing.

  At lunchtime she stopped to give Ben a rest and to have a picnic of bread and cheese. She wondered again what Lord Rendlesham would say when she caught up with him. She remembered the way his blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, the easy-going tolerance in his voice. Her heart began to beat in slow, thick strokes. Every instinct she possessed told her that he would be pleased to see her, that he would be delighted at the prospect of having her as a companion on his journey to Kansu.

  With a quick, sharp gesture she brushed breadcrumbs from her Chinese blue jacket. She must not start thinking of how delightful a companion he would be. She wasn’t riding in his wake because she had fallen violently in love with him. She was riding in his wake because she was sure that he was kind and honourable and because she wanted to travel far into the heart of China in search of blue Moonflowers.

  She coaxed Ben away from the short, sweet grass he was enjoying. Though she had no intention of catching up with them today, she knew that she would feel easier in her mind if she could see them in the distance before nightfall. The sun was high in the sky now, and hot. The little round hat she was wearing offered no shade and very little protection from the heat. She thought longingly of the wide-brimmed sunhat she had left behind her at the Residency. Perhaps Lord Rendlesham or Zachary Cartwright would have a spare hat with them that she could borrow. If not, then she would have to buy one of the broad-brimmed straw hats worn by the peasants in the fields.

  The hills closed round her on every side, but the track continued, clear and well-defined. Occasionally other travellers passed her, on their way to Chung King, but she always lowered her head at their approach, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the pommel of her saddle. Ben had long since settled down to a steady walk and needed so little guidance from her that once or twice she closed her eyes, falling into a light doze.

  The sun was just beginning to lose its heat, the vivid blue of the sky smoking towards dusk, when she saw Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Cartwright ahead of her. She had ridden high up the side of one hill and was just cresting it. Down the far side, nearly at the foot, were two well-recognised figures on ponies, a string of mules and a clutch of Chinamen in their wake, the wall of Fu-tu Kwan two miles or so ahead of them.

  She reined Ben to a hasty halt. If they saw her from that distance they would automatically assume her to be Chinese, but she knew that Zachary Cartwright carried strong field-glasses amongst his equipment and she didn’t want to run the risk of him training them on her.

  The hillside was heavily wooded and she stayed beneath the shade of the trees, watching as Zachary Cartwright led his party towards Fu-tu Kwan. She wondered if they would make camp before the town or beyond it. The countryside was wild and open and she was chillingly aware of how vulnerable a small camp, with little protection, would be. As she faced the prospect of camping out alone, with no protection whatsoever, Gianetta was fiercely tempted to dig her heels into Ben’s sides and spur him on so that he would catch up with the riders ahead. She fought back the temptation, knowing what would happen if she did so.

  Zachary Cartwright was only a day’s ride from Chung King. A lost day would not disrupt his plans irrevocably. He would insist that she was returned to Chung King and would no doubt carry out the task himself. She kept her hands motionless on the reins. No, she would not ride after them and catch up with them just because dusk was approaching. She would follow the plan she had set herself. She would wait another two or three days, until Zachary Cartwright was so far away from Chung King that not even her arrival would tempt him to return.

  She didn’t move from the trees until the horsemen ahead of her were so far away they were barely visible. Only then did she urge Ben into movement, grateful for the sure-footed way he descended the steep track. Wherever she stopped for the night, before Fu-tu Kwan or beyond, she would need fresh water and grazing for him. She knew that the Kialing river, one of the Yang-tze’s largest tributaries, was near at hand. Several times through the day she had caught glimpses of it. Although it wasn’t, at the moment, visible she knew that it couldn’t be more than half a mile away. If the riders ahead of her made camp at a stream that did not run down towards where she stood, then she would make for the banks of the Kialing.

  The light was growing muted as the walls of Fu-tu Kwan drew nearer, the white and dusty glare of day merging into the rose and purple of evening. The small figures ahead of her showed no signs of halting. It was obvious that Zachary Cartwright intended entering the town and, presumably, leaving it before nightfall.

  Dusk had fallen by the time she reached the main gate. It was only a small town, not remotely as grand as Chung King, and the stench that reached her nostrils from the overcrowded streets and insanitary housing made her retch.

  ‘Come along, Ben,’ she said to the tired pony. ‘Let’s leave these streets behind as soon as we can.’

  Ben plodded on stoically, carefully negotiating the rubbish in his way, the open, running sewers. There was no discernible main street through the town, only a maze of alleyways and ginnels, each one dirtier and narrower than the one before.

  ‘Come on, Ben,’ Gianetta repeated, overcome by tiredness. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  A tattered beggar leered at her from a doorway and then, with no warning, lunged towards her, grabbing her saddle with black, grimy hands.

  ‘Go away! Go away!’ she shouted furiously, digging her heels hard into Ben’s side.

  Deformed hands grabbed her jacket, closed on her legs. For a hideous moment she thought that Ben was too exhausted to summon up any remaining strength and make a gallop for it. Then, as she felt herself being pulled from the saddle, he gave a great buck with his hindquarters and, with a snort from his nostrils, surged into a headlong gallop. Pedlars and hawkers scrambled out of his way. Women screamed, hobbling to safety. The beggars gave chase for fifty yards or more and then fell back with high-pitched screams of manic laughter.

  Gianetta was half-sprawled over Ben’s neck as he charged down first one muddy dirty alleyway and then another. She had lost all sense of direction, but Ben seemed to have no doubt about which way to go. They dodged under poles of washing jutting out like flags from windows, they jumped over pools of stagnant waste, they raced on heedlessly and unhesitatingly, out of the warren of streets, through the town gate that was just about to be closed and into the blessed clean air and relative safety of the countryside beyond.

  ‘Oh, you angel!’ Gianetta panted as soon as she was able to push herself back into a sitting position in the saddle and tug restrainingly on the reins. ‘It’s all right now. You can slow down. They won’t come after us, the city gate is closing.

  Ben slowed to a canter and then to a trot. His flanks were heaving, his nostrils foam-flecked. She reined him in, patting his side, looking around her in the rapidly deepening twilight. There was no sign of Lord Rendlesham or Zachary Cartwright. She had no way of knowing if they were on the road ahead of her or if they had remained in the town.

  Behind her the city gate had closed. No-one would be allowed in and no-one would be allowed to leave until dawn
.

  ‘If Lord Rendlesham is ahead of us, he won’t be far,’ she said to Ben. ‘He’ll be getting ready to camp for the night, and that’s what we have to do.’

  Ben gave an agreeing hurrumph.

  ‘We have to find water and grazing before it gets too dark to see.’

  It was already nearly too dark to see and there was no promise of a moon.

  ‘Come on,’ she said encouragingly. ‘This way. The river flows to the left of the town. It can’t be far.’

  She urged him into an unwilling walk, straining her ears for the sound of water. It came, just as she was about to give up hope. She reined Ben to a halt, slipping off his back and running forward to where the Kialing surged silkily and glossily southwards.

  ‘We have our camp-site, Ben,’ she said, her voice determinedly cheery.

  She walked back to the pony, looking around her. In the darkness, the town could no longer be seen. There was no glow of a fire that might have signalled Lord Rendlesham’s camp.

  ‘But that also means that there are no beggars’or robbers’camps,’ she said, forcing herself to take comfort from the isolation and not to allow it to dispirit her. She unsaddled Ben and rubbed him down with the wadded saddle quilt. The darkness was deep and menacing and full of terrifying sounds, small animals hunting and being hunted; squirrels perhaps, or hares. She tried to think what other animals might be roaming in the darkness. Leopards were said to inhabit the hills. What if a leopard came down to the river bank for a drink? At what distance would it be able to scent human flesh?

  ‘Stop it!’ she said to herself sharply as fear bubbled up in her throat. ‘There isn’t going to be a leopard! There isn’t going to be anything!’

  Something slithered past her in the grass and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, silencing a scream. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘Why didn’t I realise it would be like this? Why didn’t I bring a gun? A knife! Anything!’

  Ben, serenely unperturbed, was drinking his fill from the river. She took comfort from his serenity. If there was danger, then Ben would sense it and warn her. She pulled her quilt from her carpet-bag and wrapped it around herself. She must sleep. If she didn’t sleep then she wouldn’t have her wits about her in the morning, and she might not locate Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Cartwright ever again.

  Determinedly she closed her eyes, but not until Ben moved close beside her, comforting her with the sound of his breathing and the heat from his body, did she fall into a restless sleep.

  When she awoke it was dawn, and she was cold and damp and stiff. A pair of goldfinches, bright as butterflies, were wrangling in a nearby shrub. The shrub was grey with yellow flowers that she had never seen before. She wondered if perhaps she ought to cut a sprig and put it in her carpet-bag. It might be one of the rare species that Lord Rendlesham was searching for.

  She stood up painfully and stretched. It was morning and she had survived the night. There had been no unwelcome visitors. Gianetta laughed with joy, gave Ben a good morning pat and walked down to the river to wash her face. What she saw there made her blood run cold. There were markings in the soft sand of the river bank. Animal markings. She had no idea to what animal they belonged, but something had drunk from the river during the night. Something wild; something that had been only yards away from her.

  Slowly she bent down, splashing her face with water. She wouldn’t camp alone again. There were too many risks. She would wait until Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Cartwright were camped and then ride up and confront them. Zachary Cartwright would not want to spend two days returning to the point where she had joined them. He would be furious with her, but he would have no choice but to allow her to stay with them. And she would be able to count on Lord Rendlesham’s support. Of that she was sure.

  She breakfasted on bread and cheese, while Ben munched at the grass that grew lushly by the side of the river. Then, with the sun still edging over the horizon, they set off at a gentle trot in search of Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Cartwright.

  When it was almost noon and she still hadn’t found them, Gianetta began to think Lord Rendlesham’s party was still in Fu-tu Kwan and that she would have to return there. She was just pausing, debating what to do, when a cloud of dust on the road ahead of her shimmered and dissolved, revealing a small group of ponies, mules and men.

  ‘There they are!’ she said exultantly to Ben. ‘Now all we have to do is to keep them in sight until nightfall.’

  The going was more arduous than it had been the previous day; there were many gullies which Ben scrambled up and down gallantly; often, the road disintegrated altogether, leaving small chasms which he jumped with nimble dexterity. There were more flowers, too, than there had been on the way from Chung King to Fu-tu Kwan: harebell poppies fluttering their petals like purple banners; pale lilac anemones with indigo hearts; carnations – their scent thick as smoke in the strong afternoon sunlight. She had taken a cutting of the grey shrub with the little yellow flower and wrapped the stem in a handkerchief soaked in water. Even if the plant was unbelievably common, she knew that Lord Rendlesham would not laugh at her but would appreciate her interest. And she was indifferent to what Zachary Cartwright might say or think.

  By late afternoon, the hills were not so steep or so wooded and Ben was able to walk with greater ease, the bells on his collar tinkling merrily.

  She wondered when and where Lord Rendlesham would make camp. They had passed several impoverished villages where children had run out, laughing and pointing at her strange round eyes, but none of the villages had been large enough to have possessed an inn. If her suspicions were correct, and Lord Rendlesham and Zachary Cartwright had stayed in an inn the previous night, they would not be able to find the same sort of accommodation for the coming night. No walled town was visible on the horizon, only bare, lion-coloured hills and, to the left, the bright, glittering sweep of the Kialing.

  As dusk approached, she felt the muscles in her stomach tighten. A score of times she had mentally imagined what Lord Rendlesham’s and Zachary Cartwright’s reactions would be when she rode up and confronted them. Now, in an hour or so, perhaps even less, she would find out if any of her imaginings had been even remotely correct.

  The party made camp just as the first stars were beginning to sprinkle the sky. She reined Ben in, watching from a distance. She would wait until they were settled, until the Chinese accompanying them had made something for them to eat, then she would ride out into the open. A small animal screeched in the undergrowth and she shivered, determined that, whatever happened, she would not spend another night alone, in the open.

  Half an hour passed and a wisp of blue smoke rose from the camp-site. They were having their evening meal. Her mouth watered. She wondered what it was. Whatever it was, it would be preferable to stale bread and hard cheese.

  ‘Another five minutes,’ she whispered to Ben, a pulse in her throat beginning to beat fast and light. ‘Just another five minutes and then we’ll join them.’

  She counted out the time and then, excitement rising up in her until she thought she would burst with it, she touched Ben’s flanks lightly with her heels and set off at a gallop towards her unsuspecting quarry.

  They had pitched camp on the banks of the Kialing. Gianetta could see the shapes of the Chinese moving backwards and forwards in the firelight as they tended the food they were cooking, their quilted jackets and narrow trousers identical to her own. The ponies and mules were loosely tethered and she could see a tall, broad-shouldered figure removing something from one of the saddle-bags. The other remaining figure was sitting in a canvas chair, one leg across a knee, head bent, writing intently.

  The small tableau was almost instantly disrupted. She heard cries of alarm from the Chinese, saw the seated figure leap to his feet, grabbing the rifle that had been lying on the ground at his side, saw the figure by the saddle-bags spin round, pistol in hand.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ she cried out in sudden alarm, as she galloped out of the tw
ilight towards them. ‘It’s not a bandit! It’s me! Gianetta Hollis!’

  Her pigtail bounced on her back, the little round hat, emblem of a house-servant, slipping precariously down over one eye. She heard Zachary Cartwright’s deep, dark voice utter an incredulous, ‘What the devil …’ and then she was among them, reining Ben in, slithering down from his lathered back.

  ‘It’s me,’ she said again unnecessarily, smiling around at them with far more confidence than she felt. ‘Is there anything good for dinner?’

  Zachary Cartwright covered the ground between them in one swift stride and seized her shoulders. ‘What the bloody hell’ he snarled viciously, ‘do you think you are doing?’

  Gianetta was aware that such expletives existed, but she had never imagined that she would hear them uttered so threateningly, or that when they were they would be directed at herself.

  ‘Kindly remove your hands from my person,’ she said icily, and then turned towards Lord Rendlesham who, as leader of the party, was surely the only person to whom she was answerable. He was standing to one side looking strangely ineffectual, his pistol still in his hand, his good-natured face bewildered.

  ‘If I could talk to you for a moment in private …’ she began, trying to sound as dignified as the situation would allow. Zachary Cartwright still held her tightly and was showing no signs of releasing her.

  ‘But, Miss Hollis …’ Lord Rendelsham said dazedly. ‘I don’t understand … Your clothes … Why are you dressed in such a peculiar manner? Who are you with? Where are your companions?’

  Gianetta had been manhandled for long enough by Zachary Cartwright. She kicked him viciously in the shin and at the same time tried to twist herself free of his grip. She failed. He merely gave an expletive even worse than those she had already heard and dug his fingers even harder into her shoulders.

  ‘I am dressed like this because I thought I would be safer,’ she said, directing her attention solely towards Lord Rendlesham and trying to sound level-headed and practical. ‘And I’m not with anyone. I rode here alone.’