Moonflower Madness

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘None at all,’ Charles agreed easily. ‘And no reason for you to face the Consul’s wrath, when I can bring the pressure of my name to bear and when he will, rightly or wrongly, believe our innocence a little more readily from me than he would from you.’

  Gianetta felt her nerves begin to throb. She still had no intention of being returned to Chung King, though she still hadn’t a plan for how it could be avoided. But if the worst came to the worst and she was returned, she knew with devastating certainty that she didn’t want to return with Charles as her sole companion.

  Zachary Cartwright had put his pencil down and had turned to look at her. She knew by the expression in his narrow eyes that he also knew why Charles had suggested that he escort her, and that he believed her to be eager that he do so.

  ‘No, Charles,’ he said curtly, rising to his feet. ‘I am taking Miss Hollis back to Chung King. You will remain here with the stores and provisions.’

  It was such a direct order that even despite her relief, Gianetta was shocked. She saw a faint flush touch Charles’cheeks, and his jaw clenched.

  ‘Very well,’ he said shortly, and Gianetta knew that though he was taking great care not to sound it, inwardly he was furiously angry. ‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said, not looking at either of them, but slamming his empty tin mug down on the table and turning abruptly on his heels.

  ‘I have two specimens here that we collected yesterday, Miss Hollis,’ Zachary Cartwright said, as if the angry exit had never taken place. ‘Could you perhaps draw them for me in my field book while I make preparations for our journey?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, wondering how on earth she could persuade him that the journey was unnecessary; that no great harm would come to either his or Lord Rendlesham’s reputation if she was to continue with them; that she would be a helpful, useful member of their expedition, if only he would give her the chance.

  He strode away toward the ponies and mules and she picked up his pencil, beginning to draw the two flowers that stood in tiny jars of water on the desk. She wouldn’t go back. She wouldn’t. But how on earth was she going to be able to stay?

  Ten minutes later there came an agonized shout, and then a roaring sound as rocks and boulders crashed down into the river. She dropped her pencil, leaping to her feet, looking down-river to where, some fifty or seventy yards away, a great cloud of dust was billowing skywards.

  ‘It’s Charles!’ Zachary shouted. ‘The bank has given way!’ He sprinted away from the ponies and down along the river bank to where the cloud of dust was beginning to disperse and settle.

  There came another desperate shout, this time for help, and Gianetta began to run in Zachary Cartwright’s wake.

  The river-bank where they had camped had been shallow, and access to the water had been easy. Seventy yards away, at the point Charles had reached on his angry march, the ground rose steeply into a sandstone bank littered with rocks and boulders. He had been scrambling among these, trying to work off his rage at Zachary’s humiliating high-handedness, when he had dislodged one. The falling rock had hit and bounced off another and then the whole bank had given way, rocks and boulders and Charles, all tumbling down in a furious cascade into the water.

  ‘Keep your head up!’ she heard Zachary shout, and then Charles’ tight, frightened voice shouted back, ‘I can’t! I’ve hurt my arm!’

  She ran furiously in Zachary’s wake. When he reached the point where the bank had given way, he leapt and slithered down it, hurling himself into the river where Charles was painfully struggling.

  By the time she had reached the rock-fall, Zachary was swimming for the bank, hauling a white-faced Charles behind him.

  She took the bank as Zachary had done, slithering down it and wading out to help him bring Charles ashore.

  ‘My arm! It’s broken!’ Charles gasped. ‘Of all the stupid, nonsensical things to have done!’

  There was no disputing his diagnosis. His arm hung, ugly and deformed, the bone of the elbow protruding through the skin.

  ‘I can put a splint on it, but it isn’t a straightforward break,’ Zac panted, taking Charles’weight as they scaled the still-crumbling sandstone.

  ‘It hurts like the very devil!’ Charles looked as if he were about to faint. ‘Will it mend straight, do you think? It won’t heal short … or odd … or anything?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve had a closer look at it,’ Zachary said tersely and then, to Gianetta, ‘The first-aid box is with the stores. It’s clearly marked. Run ahead and get it out and opened.’

  She nodded, taking a last fleeting look at Charles’s dripping wet figure. He had begun to shake with shock and, as she sprinted back to the camp, she hoped fervently that there would be some brandy as well as the first-aid box amongst the stores.

  The Chinese were standing immobile, the expression on their faces one of alarm.

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ she said briefly. ‘Can you boil some water and make some tea?’

  She wasn’t sure if Zachary Cartwright would need boiling water for whatever he was about to do to Charles’ arm, but she was certainly in need of a cup of tea.

  The first-aid box, with a vivid red cross painted on the lid, was easily found, and by the time Zachary had helped Charles into camp and seated him in one of the canvas chairs, Gianetta had it open and at his side.

  ‘Is there any brandy?’ she asked Zachary. ‘The Chinese are boiling water for tea, but …’

  ‘There’s brandy in my saddle-bag,’ Zachary said briefly. ‘There’s no need for tea.’

  ‘Oh yes, there is,’ she retorted spiritedly. ‘I want the tea!’

  He looked towards her, his eyebrows raised, a flicker of grudging amusement in his dark eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’

  To her stunned surprise, she found herself flashing him a smile before she hurried off to search his saddle-bag for the brandy. When she returned, Zachary had removed Charles’ shirt, and Charles’face was grey, his jaw clenched against the pain.

  ‘It’s a compound fracture,’ Zachary was saying. ‘You’re going to have to decide whether you want me to do my best with it and continue with the expedition, or whether you want to return to Chung King for proper medical attention.’

  ‘What will happen if I stay?’ Charles asked, white-lipped.

  ‘It will heal. Healthy bones always do. But it will never be the same as it was before.’

  ‘And if I go back to Chung King?’

  ‘Then you’ll be able to have the bone set correctly. In three months’time it will be as good as new.’

  ‘How will I get back to Chung King? I won’t be able to ride.’

  ‘You will,’ Zachary said, taking a sling and bandages out of the first-aid box. Although Charles seemed not to notice, there was a subtle change in the inflection of his voice.

  Gianetta looked across at him. Charles was sucking his breath in sharply, clenching his teeth together as Zachary began to bind the arm in a secure sling. He wasn’t going to say so, but she knew that he was disappointed in Charles.

  If Zachary had fractured his arm she knew he would never, for one moment, have considered calling off the expedition and returning for medical help. Somehow or other, he would have continued. But Charles wasn’t Zachary. His commitment to the expedition was not as fierce, or as obsessed. To Charles, the expedition was merely an adventure, an adventure that had gone wrong and that he now wanted to have nothing more to do with.

  ‘Drink the brandy, Charles,’ Zachary said to him as Gianetta poured a generous measure into one of the tin drinking mugs. ‘I’m going to bind the sling very firmly against your body. You’ll be able to balance and ride with your good arm once the shock has worn off.’

  Charles downed the brandy, closing his eyes against the pain as Zachary began to bind his arm into position.

  After a while Charles said, ‘So we’re all going back? We’re all going to return to Chung King?’

  Zachary secured the broad bandaging w
ith a safety-pin and stood up, looking down at him. ‘I don’t think there’s any need,’ he said at last. ‘Gianetta has to return, and she might as well do so with you. Two of the Chinese can go with you. I’ll carry on as intended and pick up replacement men at the next town.’

  At the unexpected use of her Christian name, Gianetta’s eyes flew open wide. It was the first time he had referred to her as anything but Miss Hollis. She wondered if he was aware of his lapse into familiarity and if so, what had occasioned it. She also wondered how Charles felt at being considered a suitable escort only now that he was disabled.

  ‘Well … if you think that would suit,’ Charles said uncertainly. From the tone of his voice, Gianetta knew that he desperately wanted Zachary to return to Chung King with him, but that pride would not allow him to ask him to do so.

  ‘Yes I do,’ Zachary said, and the last flicker of hope died in Charles’ eyes. ‘It’s only a two-day ride and it isn’t over difficult country.’

  ‘But will you be able to continue with the expedition by yourself?’ Charles asked, a little colour beginning to return to his cheeks.

  Zachary grinned. ‘If I managed in the Himalayas, I can manage in Kansu. The local Chinese are very easy to train as assistant collectors, and they quickly pick up the art of changing drying papers. I shall be able to obtain all the help that I need.’

  ‘What are drying papers?’ Gianetta asked, interested.

  For once he spoke to her without harshness or anger. ‘When a plant has been collected and the field-notes have been written up, it has to be dried. This is done in presses between blotting paper. With fleshy plants, and in wet weather, the paper has constantly to be changed and dried.’

  ‘Which would have been one of my tasks,’ Charles said to her, forcing a ghost of his usual grin. ‘Even in good weather, the sheets have to be changed at least once a day to make sure that mould hasn’t attached itself to the plants, or insects eaten the best specimens.’

  ‘And how many plants will there be in the presses at any one time?’ Gianetta asked, sipping the tea one of the Chinese had brought across to her.

  ‘Three or four hundred,’ Zachary said, his mouth tugging into the hint of a smile at her stunned expression. ‘And though locals can be trained to do a certain amount of the changing, the job of arranging the plants in the press the first time is far too important to be delegated.’

  ‘Even to me,’ Charles said, with a return of his impish humour.

  ‘You don’t have the patience.’ Zachary looked down at him, his hands on his hips. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Shaky,’ Charles replied with naked honesty.

  Zachary frowned slightly. ‘The sooner you get to Chung King, the better. I’ll have the Chinese sort out enough provisions for you. The next town north is only thirty or thirty-two li away. Once there I’ll be able to replace both men and mules.

  ‘When do you think we should make a start?’ Charles asked, wincing as he repositioned himself in the canvas chair.

  ‘In about an hour.’

  Gianetta saw Charles flinch, and her own heart sank. Riding so far with a badly injured arm would not be easy for him. He would need all of her help. Ever since she had first conceived of the idea of travelling to Kansu, she had refused to admit that it might be an impossibility. Now, for the first time, defeat was staring her straight in the face. Charles could not return to Chung King without her. She had to return with him. She had no alternative.

  ‘Would you finish your drawings of the plants we collected yesterday?’ Zachary asked her, his hair still glistening with river water, his wine-red linen shirt clinging damply to his chest, the whipcord muscles clearly defined.

  She nodded. While Charles remained seated, sipping at another glass of medicinal brandy, and Zachary began to sort through the stores, ordering the Chinese to reload the mules, she began once again to draw.

  ‘You don’t realise it,’ Charles said, his voice sharp with pain. ‘But you’ve been paid a great compliment. Zac is a very talented artist himself and usually always does his own drawings. I’ve never known him to allow anyone else to draw for him, especially straight into his field-book.’

  ‘It’s nice to know he approves of something about me,’ Gianetta said drily, trying to resist the little rush of satisfaction that she felt.

  Charles managed a semblance of his old grin. ‘He is a bit of a bear, isn’t he? But take my word for it, his bark is far worse than his bite. My mother tells me he was an exuberant little boy until his parents died. Their deaths must have been a great blow to him.’

  Gianetta said nothing. She knew exactly how much of a blow it must have been. Like her, he had had to go and live with people who, though kind, had not truly wanted to be burdened with him. He had had to make do with a local grammar-school education when Charles, who had admitted that he didn’t have half of Zachary’s intelligence or ambition, had been sent away for the most privileged education that money could buy. Yet he had still achieved far more than Charles. She remembered Charles telling her that Zachary had gone up to Cambridge on a scholarship.

  ‘What college was it that he went to?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Christ’s,’ Charles said with a wry grin. ‘He took honours in the natural science tripos. Very humiliating for me. All I had to show for Oxford was a rowing blue!’

  They were laughing together when Zachary strode back towards them, his previous fleeting flash of good humour nowhere in evidence.

  ‘The mules have been reloaded. You will return with two Chinese and one pack mule. I will take the others.’

  ‘Do we need to rob you of the mule?’ Charles asked doubtfully. ‘We shall be in Chung King in two days’time. We don’t need much in the way of provisions. What we do need we can carry with us, surely?’

  ‘You’re going to have enough problems riding with one arm, without having to cope with extra baggage,’ Zachary said decisively. ‘One of the mules, with suitable provisions, goes with you. I’ve explained to the Chinese what is happening and paid them off. They’re both trustworthy men and they’ll stay with you until you reach the Residency.’

  The Chinese were already mounted and waiting expectantly.

  ‘Are we going now?’ Gianetta asked, putting down her pencil reluctantly.

  Zachary nodded. ‘The sooner you leave and the sooner Charles’ arm is seen to professionally, the better.’

  Charles rose cautiously to his feet. ‘This is a damned ignoble way to return,’ he said bitterly. ‘Perhaps we’ll have better luck next year, Zac. Perhaps we could go to the Himalayas or the upper reaches of Burma?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Zachary said non-committedly and Gianetta looked swiftly towards him, suddenly sure that Charles’ capitulation to his injury had wrecked any chance of Zac taking him again on a plant hunting expedition.

  Filled with an overwhelming sense of despair, Gianetta walked over to Ben and patted him lovingly.

  ‘It’s no use, Ben,’ she said softly. ‘We have to go back. There’ll be no more adventures; no searching for blue Moonflowers.’

  Ben nuzzled her with his head, understanding only that he was once again about to be ridden, and indicating his pleasure at the fact.

  She mounted him and as she did so Zachary helped Charles into his saddle. She heard Charles give a quickly suppressed cry of pain and walked Ben towards him.

  ‘Are you going to be all right?’ she asked him anxiously. ‘Would it be any easier if you rode behind me?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, thanks all the same, Gianetta. I’ve been riding since before I could walk. I can ride with one arm. Please don’t look so worried.’

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t loosen the bandage binding your arm to your chest,’ Zachary warned. ‘As long as they stay firm and your arm stays immobile, you’ll have no problem.’

  ‘Gianetta will look after me,’ Charles said with a strained smile. ‘And don’t frown like that, Zac. Her virtue will be safe. I might be able to ride, but if you mus
t know the truth, I feel like the very devil.’

  For the first time since she had met him, Gianetta saw Zachary Cartwright grin. ‘You’ll be all right. The Chinese can set bones more efficiently than any other nationality on earth.’

  Charles had walked his pony in front of Gianetta. The two Chinese had fallen into position behind them, with the pack mule on a leading rein. They were ready to leave.

  ‘See you in another ten or twelve months, Zac,’ Charles said, looking suddenly very young and very vulnerable. ‘Make sure you bring home something that will knock them cold at Kew.’ ‘I’ll do my best,’ Zachary promised. He looked towards her, seemed about to say something and then thought better of it, saying only, ‘Goodbye, Gianetta. I hope your uncle doesn’t give you too hard a time.’

  For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of sympathy in his near-black eyes, but she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘He won’t,’ she said bleakly, with far more confidence than she felt. ‘Goodbye.’

  Charles touched his pony’s flanks with his heels and began to move off at a steady walk. Zachary stood beside the still burning camp-fire, the collapsible table and chairs nearby incongruous in the vast, bare landscape. He looked very alone. Very lonely. She turned her head away from him, fixing her eyes firmly on Charles’ pony, knowing that if she looked back again the abandonment of her dreams would be too much for her. The tears glittering on her eyelashes would trickle down her cheeks and disgrace her.

  Considering the difficulty under which Charles was riding, they made very good time. As dusk approached she was able to recognise the landscape in which she had camped.

  ‘It was just outside Fu-tu Kwan,’ she said as the town became visible in the distance. ‘Near the river.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can hope to find the exact spot where you found your yellow potentilla,’ Charles said, his face sheened with sweat and exhaustion. ‘I think we’re going to have to disappoint Zac.’

  Gianetta thought so too. More than once she had thought that Charles had been about to fall from the saddle but the Chinese had ridden quickly up to him, genuinely caring, speedily helpful.