Moonflower Madness

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘There can be no question now, of course, of your sharing a home with Serena and her husband,’ her uncle was saying in clipped, curt tones. ‘Nor of your living alone at Sutton Hall. You have shown yourself to be totally untrustworthy. I can only assume that your Italian blood is to be held responsible for your scandalous behaviour …’

  Gianetta was too heartsick to care what he assumed. Not only had her heady taste of freedom and adventure come to an abrupt end, so had the camaraderie between herself and Zachary.

  As she allowed herself to be escorted up the shallow flight of steps, she found it hard to believe that, all the time they had been together, he had believed her to be both scheming and devious. Had he believed her when, a moment ago, she had told him that he had been grossly wrong in his assumptions? And if he hadn’t, would she have any further opportunity of persuading him of the truth?

  ‘My father was always vehemently opposed to your parents’ marriage, and all his worst fears have come to fruition,’ her uncle was saying as their host led them into a large, plainly furnished sitting-room. ‘No good could ever have come out of such an alliance. The Italian nation has always been recklessly hot-headed and regrettably hot-blooded …’

  ‘I think it would be wisest if no more was said on the subject, Sir Arthur,’ his host said with surprising asperity. ‘Your niece is obviously in need of rest and refreshment …’

  ‘She’s in need of a good whipping,’ Sir Arthur responded, ‘And where she is going she may very well receive one.’

  Gianetta looked around the room. There was no sign of Zachary.

  ‘And where do you intend me to go?’ she asked, finally giving her uncle the benefit of her attention.

  ‘An Anglican convent,’ Sir Arthur said with crisp satisfaction. ‘You will remain there until you are twenty-one.’

  Gianetta stared at him, horrified. ‘But I can’t bear feeling closed in, you know I can’t. Let me go to Lady Margaret Hall. I’ll work hard there and …’

  ‘Oxford?’ Sir Arthur snorted derisively as a Chinese maid brought a tea tray into the room and set it down on a low cane table. ‘After the way you have behaved in China, I certainly have no intention of allowing you to run loose in Oxford. You’re going to go where an eye can be kept on you, young lady.’

  ‘But I don’t need an eye keeping on me,’ Gianetta protested vehemently, ‘I need an education in order that I can earn my own living. I need to go to Lady Margaret Hall. I need …’

  ‘You will need to do as you are told,’ her uncle interrupted bluntly. ‘We shall leave first thing in the morning for Chung King. Until then you will have no further communication with Mr Cartwright.’ He turned his attention to their host. ‘I trust that you will give me your full support in this matter, Reverend Daly?’

  ‘I shall certainly try and ensure that your niece isn’t further distressed,’ Lionel Daly replied a trifle obliquely.

  Sir Arthur frowned, unhappy at not receiving a more reassuring response. ‘Then oblige me by making it known to Cartwright that his presence here is offensive. It is unthinkable that he and my niece should spend tonight beneath the same roof.’

  ‘It is certainly regrettable and I will, of course, suggest to Mr Cartwright that he finds lodging for the night in Peng. If, however, he chooses to remain at the mission then it is an arrangement that will have to be accepted. No-one is ever turned away from here, no matter who they are or what their alleged crimes.’

  ‘Then you will one day find yourself murdered in your bed,’ Sir Arthur snapped caustically. ‘I take it you will have no objection to my niece being locked in her room tonight?’

  ‘As long as the key is on the inside of the door, none at all.’

  ‘I have arrangements to make,’ Sir Arthur said, realising that he was not receiving the whole-hearted support that was his due. ‘I trust I can leave my niece in your care for half an hour or so?’

  Lionel Daly nodded and without so much as a glance in Gianetta’s direction, Sir Arthur strode from the room.

  When the sound of his footsteps had died away, Lionel Daly said gently,

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Hollis?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  He poured her a cup, handed it to her, then sat down in a chair twin to her own.

  The tea was hot and sweet and wonderfully reviving and she looked across at him gratefully.

  ‘My father always used to turn to tea in a crisis,’ she said with a small smile of reminiscence, ‘Now I understand why.’

  Lionel Daly smiled, his elderly eyes creasing at the corners. ‘Yes, it’s a wonderful restorative. The Chinese use it for anything and everything.’

  For several minutes they sat in a silence that was strangely companionable. After a little while she said:

  ‘Could you persuade my uncle to allow me to speak with Mr Cartwright before we leave tomorrow morning?’

  Lionel Daly’s smile faded. ‘I think that would be most unwise, my dear. Whatever the true circumstances of your relationship with this man …’

  ‘We were friends. Nothing more.’ Her voice was bleak. ‘All his assumptions are false. I didn’t ride after him with the intention of compromising him into marrying me.’ Her eyes burned with the need to be believed. ‘I rode after him because I wanted to be a member of his expedition; because I wanted to go to Kansu to find blue Moonflowers.’

  There was the unmistakable ring of truth in her voice and he said quietly, ‘I believe you, but regretfully, I doubt if the world at large will believe you. Your uncle was acting in your best interests when he suggested to Mr Cartwright that he marry you.’

  ‘He didn’t suggest. He demanded.’ Gianetta’s voice was tight. It would be a long time before she forgot the humiliation of that moment, or the way in which Zachary had so emphatically refused to comply with the demand.

  Lionel Daly regarded her with wise eyes. ‘Whatever your reason for riding after Mr Cartwright and for remaining with him, your best course of action now is to acquiesce to your uncle’s wishes. An Anglican convent can be an extremely educational place. It could serve as very good preparation for life at Lady Margaret Hall.’

  At the mention of the convent Gianetta shuddered. No doubt the convent would be in Lincolnshire. Her room would be spartan and the convent grounds would be bounded by high walls. Anything less like the freedom she had recently enjoyed was impossible to imagine. She thought of the nights spent sleeping beneath the stars by the banks of the gently murmuring Kialing; of the mountains that had dominated the far horizon; of the heady scent of wild roses and jasmine and honeysuckle.

  ‘I think I would like to go to my room now,’ she said, her throat painfully tight.

  Lionel Daly nodded, rising to his feet. ‘Jung-shou will show you to it,’ he said, lifting a small bell from the tea-table and giving it a sharp ring.

  The young girl who had earlier brought in the tea-tray re-entered the room.

  ‘Please show Miss Hollis to her room,’ Lionel Daly said to her, his gaunt figure looking stooped and rather tired.

  Gianetta felt a stab of guilt. He was older than her uncle, possibly in his seventies, and the unpleasant scene between her uncle and Zachary must have distressed him considerably. Feeling suddenly exceedingly tired herself, she followed the Chinese girl from the room, seeing immediately why it was that Zachary had so easily and swiftly disappeared from view.

  The inner doors led onto a covered but open-sided walkway and running diagonally from it at each end were a series of simply built bungalows.

  ‘Are the bungalows for guests?’ Gianetta asked, wondering what she would do if Zachary suddenly stepped into view. Her uncle had said that she was to have no further communication with him but she hadn’t agreed to the demand. She had made no promises whatsoever.

  ‘They a’e sick’ooms and school’ooms and guest’ooms,’ Jung-shou said with shy pride.

  In one of the bungalows Gianetta could see small children sitting cross-legged on the floor and
she could hear, but not see, an English woman instructing them. She wondered if the unseen teacher was perhaps Mrs Daly. There was no sign of a tall, masculine figure in an open-necked shirt, riding breeches and boots. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  She continued following Jung-shou along the covered walkway, aware that, where Zachary Cartwright was concerned, her emotions were in such turmoil that it was impossible for her to know which was uppermost. When he had walked away from her into the mission, she had been seized with a feeling of such acute desolation that she had wondered how she was going to survive it. And she had been angry as well. Indignantly, furiously angry. How dare he have assumed that she was husband-hunting? The more she thought about it, the angrier she grew. If that was his arrogant assumption, the least he could have done was to have confronted her with it. Then she could have swiftly disabused him.

  Jung-shou crossed the open-ended square towards one of the bungalows, and Gianetta followed her. Had Zachary walked straight out to these bungalows and spoken to the English teacher teaching the children? Or perhaps he had met another resident of the mission and been escorted to a guest room, just as she was now being escorted. Would he seek her out in order to say goodbye to her? And did she want him to do so?

  The guest bungalow Jung-shou led her into was small and plainly furnished. On one of the white-washed walls was a framed print of Holman Hunt’s, ‘Light of the World,’ and on a small cane table beside the narrow bed was an oil lamp, a box of matches and a Book of Common Prayer.

  If she was not going to be able to see him again in order to disabuse him of his notion that she had been trying to trap him into marriage, then she didn’t want to see him again at all. It would be too humiliating.

  ‘You will be comfo’table?’ Jung-shou was asking anxiously. ‘Is the’e anything that you’equi’e?’

  Gianetta shook her head. ‘No. Nothing. Thank you, Jung-shou.’

  When Jung-shou had closed the door behind her, Gianetta sat down slowly on the bed. Her adventure was finally and utterly over. She had nothing to look forward to now but three years of stultifying boredom. Unless she took matters very dramatically into her own hands …

  It was twilight now, and the room was quickly growing dark. Gianetta didn’t rise to her feet to light the lamp. Instead, she continued to sit on the edge of the bed, thinking hard. There had to be a way out of her present dilemma. She couldn’t simply passively accept the future that her uncle had so insensitively mapped out for her. There had to be some course of action she could take which would allow her to have some say, however small, in her immediate future.

  Bouncy optimism was part of her nature, and slowly but surely it began to reassert itself. There was a way. There had to be.

  The darkness was now total, and she lit the oil-lamp. Shadows flickered on the plain white-washed walls. Gianetta was suddenly reminded of her childhood bedroom in the Villa Simione. Vines had grown thickly outside her window and on hot, sunny afternoons, when she had been taking her siesta, she had watched the dancing shadows of the leaves on the pristine white walls of her room.

  Italy. She wondered if it would ever be her home again. She closed her eyes, remembering the scent of lemon groves; the glitter of the sun on Lake Garda; the sound of church bells signalling early morning Mass.

  Her eyes flew open. Mass. Despite being married to an Anglican, her mother had always attended early morning Mass. One of the main reasons for her grandparents refusing to come to terms with her mother’s marriage had been because of her father’s Anglicanism. The breach had deepened after her own birth when her parents had agreed she be baptised and brought up as an Anglican.

  The breach had continued until the present moment, but Gianetta was quite sure that contact would be re-established if she were to ask her mother’s family to save her from three years in an Anglican convent.

  If it had not been for the gulf that now existed between herself and Zachary, Gianetta would have been dizzily happy. She had always wanted to be reconciled with her Italian grandparents, and now she was sure that she would be able to. It was a reconciliation between herself and Zachary that was now the immediate problem.

  There was a soft tap on her door and she flew to open it. As she found herself facing a middle-aged, primly dressed Englishwoman, disappointment engulfed her. For a brief, exhilarating moment she had been certain that the caller was Zachary; that he had come to say goodbye to her and that she was going to be able to persuade him that his assumptions about her were wrong.

  Her visitor had a homely face but a stunningly sweet smile.

  ‘Hello. I am Elizabeth Daly. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to introduce myself earlier, but I was taking a class when you arrived and then afterwards there was a problem in the dispensary. Supper will be served in about fifteen minutes. I’m sure you must be very hungry …’

  Gianetta wasn’t at all hungry, nor did she relish the prospect of sitting at table next to, or opposite, her uncle.

  ‘Would you mind very much if I didn’t join you?’ she asked, a little apologetically. ‘I’m not at all hungry, but I am very tired, and I thought I would go to bed early.’

  ‘If that is what you would prefer to do, then of course we don’t mind. Would you like me to bring you some biscuits and a glass of hot milk?’

  ‘That would be lovely. Thank you.’

  Elizabeth Daly hesitated for a moment and then said awkwardly, ‘Mr Cartwright has ridden to Peng and will be spending the night there. If you would like to have your biscuits and milk in the mission sitting-room …’

  ‘No,’ Gianetta said firmly, hoping that her reaction to Elizabeth Daly’s news wasn’t showing on her face. ‘I really am very tired.’

  Elizabeth Daly nodded understandingly. ‘I’ll be back with the milk and biscuits in five minutes.’

  She took her leave, Gianetta closed the door, leaning heavily against it. He had gone. And he had gone without troubling to say goodbye to her. Her sense of loss was shocking in its intensity. She didn’t know at what point she had begun to think of him as a friend and not as an adversary, but that she had done so at some time in their spiky relationship was beyond question. And she had done so mistakenly. Friendship required reciprocated feeling and the feelings she had begun to entertain for Zachary Cartwright were quite obviously very far from being reciprocated.

  The pain of this knowledge was so acute that she could deal with it only by succumbing once again to anger. His accusation that she had followed him from Chung King to trap him into marrying was unforgivable, as was his suggestion that she had pre-arranged the meeting with her uncle. If he thought of her as being so scheming and devious, Gianetta wanted nothing further to do with him. She would leave in the morning with her uncle for Chung King, and she would write immediately to her maternal grandparents, telling them of her uncle’s plans for her immediate future. Her Italian grandparents would be appalled at the mere mention of an Anglican convent. They would seize on the chance to further the war between themselves and her father’s family and they would, she hoped, be delighted at the prospect of a reunion. She would suggest to them that she attend Lady Margaret Hall. She would study botany and one day she would return to China. One day she would find blue Moonflowers for herself.

  Her decisions made, she was able to greet Elizabeth Daly with equanimity when she returned with hot milk and biscuits. Elizabeth told her that a boat had been engaged for the journey back to Chung King, and that it was lying at anchor in the centre of the river.

  ‘You are fortunate that the river is quite deep at the moment. That means a punt will have to be used to take you out to it. The last time we had a visitor travelling down to Chung King, the river was low and he had to endure the indignity of being carried out across the mud-flats pick-a-back.’

  Despite her still simmering anger where Zachary Cartwright was concerned, Gianetta smiled. The thought of her uncle being carried in so undignified a fashion was highly amusing. Then she thought of Ben
, and a slight frown furrowed her brow.

  ‘Will Ben have to travel out to the boat by punt as well?’

  ‘Ben?’ It was Elizabeth Daly’s turn to frown in perplexity. ‘I didn’t know there was another visitor …’

  ‘My pony. Or, to be more exact, my uncle’s pony.’ At the thought of her eventual parting with Ben, Gianetta felt her throat tighten. He had been such a loyal friend. She didn’t know how she was going to be able to bear saying goodbye to him.

  ‘Ponies usually swim the short distance to the boat,’ Elizabeth Daly said reassuringly. ‘He’ll have to be well behaved once he’s aboard, though. There’s very little room for livestock and he’s quite likely to find himself tethered on the open deck amongst the oarsmen.’

  ‘Ben is always well-behaved,’ Gianetta said, trying not to think how disappointed Ben was going to be at finding himself back in his stall at the Residency.

  Detecting the faint catch in Gianetta’s voice and misinterpreting the reason for it, Elizabeth Daly rose from the chair in which she had been sitting and said gently,

  ‘I’ll go now, and let you get to bed. Goodnight and God bless.’

  Gianetta saw Elizabeth to the door and closed it behind her, grateful for her sensitivity. Thinking about the inevitable parting with Ben had distressed her deeply.

  As she began to free her hair from its queue she wondered how old he was, if he would still be alive when she eventually returned to China as a botanist, and then she began to wonder if it would be possible to take him with her to England or whether the long sea journey would be distressing to him.

  She undressed and slipped her nightdress over her head. The only person who would know such a thing was Zachary and, much as she wanted an answer to her question, she had no intention of asking Zachary Cartwright anything, ever again.

  She slid between cool cotton sheets and turned the lamp down low, overcome by an almost suffocating wave of desolation. Even if she had felt differently, she would have been unable to question Zachary, because he was no longer there. He was in Peng and, no doubt, from Peng he would continue travelling north to Kansu.