The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  What was he thinking of? The image of Shen Ping’s face asleep on the pillow came vividly to his mind. Her little flat nose, the lips smiling even in sleep. A loose hair on her forehead. As he rode through the millet fields, Frank realised the extent of his loss. His chest heaved with despairing sobs, and hot tears funnelled down his cheeks. He had to halt his horse a short way before the railway camp to give himself time to bring his features back to some sort of order before he met Herr Fischer.

  As he rode through the encampment, Frank could not fail to notice that the railway had come on a long way since he was last here. Six weeks ago only the first piles had been laid in the riverbed, but now the superstructure of the bridge was well developed, and he could observe a swarm of coolies clambering over the top works, or heaving on the pulleys to bring up the big beams and planks from the barges below. The bed of the railway line had been dug and narrowed off towards the Black Hills in the distance. He knew that another gang was tunnelling and dynamiting in the hills. Once the tunnel was through, this section would join the line that led to Tientsin on the other side of the mountain. Then it would only be a matter of laying the sleepers and tracks, and the first locomotives would come steaming into Shishan. Frank had been absorbed in all stages of the project. A railway link to Tientsin and the Taku port would considerably cut his costs and reduce his delivery schedules. Today he registered the details of the progress but he could not summon up his usual enthusiasm.

  Herr Fischer’s office was located in a small tent in the centre of the camp. When Frank arrived he and his young assistant, Charlie Zhang, were busy revising the plans of the tunnel in the light of new geological information from a recent survey. Hermann Fischer was a short, grizzled engineer from Berlin, a devout Lutheran, a simple man who spent most of his leisure hours reading the Bible. Frank liked him, because he was always cheerful, for all that he had a rather ponderous sense of humour. Zhang Dongren, or Charlie as he liked to be called, had studied the rudiments of engineering in Shanghai and was an appointment of the Board of Commissioners in Peking. He reported directly to the director, Mr Li Tsoi Chee, and was said to have had the patronage of Minister Li Hung-chang himself; indeed that statesman had always taken a personal interest in this project and was still honorary chairman of the board. Frank found young Zhang to be a modest, light-hearted fellow, with a cheeky manner he found appealing. He knew he was competent at his job and could win the trust of the workforce in often trying circumstances. Frank had got to know him well and agreed with Herr Fischer, who relied on him, that this was just the kind of man who would lead China into modernisation and the twentieth century. He wished he had people of the same calibre working for him at Babbit and Brenner. Charlie’s hair was tied in a queue and he wore Chinese dress, but Frank often thought of him as having the mind of a European. Both Zhang and Fischer gave him a warm smile of welcome.

  ‘My dear Mr Delamere. My dear Mr Delamere,’ said Herr Fischer, leaving his charts. ‘It is a happy surprise to see you. You have been forgetting us, I fear.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Frank. ‘It’s you fellows who’ve been busy. My goodness, your bridge has come on a long way. Well done.’

  ‘You must come one day to see the tunnel,’ smiled Zhang, also speaking fluent English, with a remarkably plummy accent. ‘We’ll be doing the first blasting any time. Perhaps we can all celebrate with a picnic? I like your picnics, Mr Delamere. Good French wines and cheese.’

  ‘Mr Zhang, Charlie, where are your manners?’ bustled Herr Fischer. ‘We must prepare for Mr Delamere some of that American coffee he likes so much. We know your fussinesses, Mr Delamere. Ah, what a pleasure to see old friends! Now sit down here and tell me what is all the news. I never go to the town now. I am too busy here.’

  ‘Nothing much has been happening that I’m aware of,’ said Frank, blocking the sad response that was uppermost in his mind. ‘I might have a new business venture in northwest Manchuria. That’s quite exciting.’

  ‘Very, very exciting,’ said Fischer. ‘I congratulate you. See, Charlie, how these rich merchants make more and more money, while we engineers just live in our tents, working and working for nothing.’

  Zhang laughed happily while he laid the coffee cups on the table. ‘Mr Delamere is the king of all the merchants!’ He grinned.

  ‘Hardly that,’ said Frank. ‘Old dogsbody, that’s me.’ His spirits were beginning to lift a little in the warmth of his welcome and the banter of his friends. ‘Actually, I’ve come here to get some news from you. Wondered if you’d heard any more about Mr Manners and his party. Jolly glad your chap is helping bring my lot up here, by the way.’

  ‘Ja, ja, of course,’ said Fischer. ‘The China railway is naturally at the disposal of our friend Mr Delamere, especially his beautiful daughter. Charlie, what is the latest news?’

  ‘Not much since the first letter I sent to you, Mr Delamere.’ Zhang carefully poured the coffee. ‘I got the message that they would all be travelling together, as I told you. They should have left Tientsin some ten days ago now. I would think they might arrive any day.’

  ‘Any day? Well, that’s something. For some reason I’d thought it would take much longer.’

  ‘No,’ said Fischer. ‘Our mule trains travel very quickly. We have a picked team of good drivers. It’s exciting, no? Your daughter coming? Some big changes in Shishan, ja? Society at last. The doctor Airton is telling me that I must practise my violin. And, Charlie, you must learn the western dances too, ja? The waltzes. The polkas.’

  ‘I’m quite pleased an assistant is coming,’ said Frank. ‘Won’t have to travel so much to the sticks as I used to.’

  ‘We too are getting an assistant. The Honourable Henry Manners. Some sort of Junker, ja?’ Frank could not help noticing a quick, meaningful glance between Zhang and Fischer. ‘No doubt his experience is just what we need. He is to help us with political relations. I am sure that there are wise heads in the board who know exactly why we should need such a man for political relations.’

  ‘Political relations? I thought Dr Airton was your go-between with the Mandarin.’

  ‘Ja? Well, now we are even more fortunate. We have two such go-betweens. Even better, no? And how is your coffee? Is it—up to scratches?’

  ‘Charlie’s a master,’ said Frank, sipping the ill-tasting brew. ‘Delicious.’

  Zhang preened. Sensing there was some sensitivity about the subject of Manners, Frank asked after the latest progress of the railway, and soon they were all absorbed in a growing pile of maps and charts, the two enthusiasts proudly elaborating on the details of their grand design. After a while Frank noticed that one of the coolies was hovering by the flap of the tent. Zhang was reluctant to be disturbed in mid-flow, but went over to talk to him, and came back with a broad grin on his face.

  ‘Mr Delamere, it seems your timing is one of perfection,’ he said. ‘That was a rider from the tunnel works at the Black Hills. Your daughter and her party have arrived and are on the way here now. They should be with us within the hour.’

  Frank’s first feeling was one of shock. There was really too much happening to him today. He wasn’t ready for Helen Frances. He hadn’t prepared anything. Christ, he hadn’t even shaved. He still had to negotiate more rooms in the courtyard of his hotel. There was the whole business of Shen Ping. Then he was overwhelmed by a rush of joy. His little girl would be here within the hour. Oh, God, he realised, he was going to blub again.

  * * *

  Helen Frances saw her father, and galloped her horse to where he was waiting. He had been eager to be the first to greet the party but he was gazing abstractedly in the wrong direction. She flung herself off the animal and into his arms. She immediately smelt the familiar aroma of boiled beef and tobacco, and felt his hot tears on her cheeks as they ran down to his bristly moustache. ‘My little girl,’ he was crying, ‘is it really you?’

  ‘Yes, Papa, it is. It is. I’m back,’ she said incoherently. She was weeping too, and hugged him t
ighter.

  A stunned Frank hugged her back. He was not sure whether he was dreaming. The girl in his arms who had thrown herself off her horse and was now kissing his cheeks was the image of his long-dead wife. After what seemed a happy eternity he relaxed his embrace and looked up to see two young men sitting on horses smiling down at him. One was a lithe, dark-haired man with a moustache, the other a big, blond, oaflike fellow with a red face.

  ‘Papa, this is Henry Manners, who brought us here. He was very brave. There were Boxers, and beheadings.’ Her words were still coming out in a rush. Boxers? Beheadings? thought Frank, bewildered. ‘And in the Black Hills we thought we might have had a brush with bandits but they went away when Mr Manners fired his gun.’

  ‘Mr Delamere, happy to meet you. Your daughter is exaggerating wildly,’ smiled Manners.

  ‘And, Papa, this is Tom,’ she said, pulling him towards the other man. ‘Tom brought me out from England. He’s come to work for you. Papa, we’re engaged,’ she said.

  Frank was still too overwhelmed to appreciate exactly what she meant. ‘Engaged?’ he said stupidly. ‘Engaged in what?’

  ‘Engaged!’ She laughed. ‘You silly. We’re engaged to be married, of course!’

  ‘With your permission, sir,’ said Tom.

  Frank could have been poleaxed. His headache seemed to reverberate with renewed vigour. His mouth opened and closed. ‘But I—I—you. Who…?’

  Herr Fischer seemed to appear from nowhere, a wild grin on his face. ‘An engagement!’ he was crying manically. ‘This is splendid, ja? You never told me, you sly one, you.’ He thumped Frank on the back. ‘Charlie, the schnapps, the schnapps!’ And next minute an idiotically beaming Charlie Zhang was thrusting glasses into everybody’s hands.

  Four

  We dig in the fields and find only blackened husks.

  The news of the young people’s engagement, and of Frank Delamere’s displeasure, spread quickly through Shishan. By breakfast on the second day Nellie Airton, who was concerned for the dinner party she was supposed to be arranging for the new arrivals, had become convinced that the doctor should call on Delamere’s hotel to find out what was happening.

  She knew that the three of them—Delamere, his daughter and the young man, Cabot—had departed for the hotel after the hysterical scene Frank had made at the railway camp two days before. They had not been seen since. Rumours, especially among the Chinese merchants and servants, had been flitting through the town. Nellie had been receiving ever more alarming bulletins: that De Falang had locked his daughter into her room; that there had been a fight between her father and her lover, and that guests in the hotel were being terrorised by a constant scream of imprecations and abuse coming from the Delamere courtyard; De Falang was drinking whisky morning, noon and night; he had taken a razor into his bathtub and was contemplating suicide; alternatively, he had sent a man to his godown to bring him back a gun … The latest rumour was that De Falang’s red-haired daughter had hanged herself from the curtains. Frank’s clerk, Liu Haowen, claimed the credit for this final sensation. He had it from one of the servants in the hotel who had spotted a brown dress and some boots dangling in the window. Liu had told Wang Puching, the secretary of Jin Shangui the merchant, whom he came across in the dawn vegetable market buying cabbages. Wang had in turn passed on the message to his friend from the hospital, Zhang Erhao, during their morning chess game in Ren Ren’s dumpling shop. Zhang brought the news back to the mission, and that was how Ah Sun heard about it when she walked down from Dr Airton’s house to collect the laundry from the wards. She naturally relayed the by now much-embroidered story to her husband, Ah Lee, on her return to the kitchen. It was a triumphant Ah Lee who had finally delivered a gory account to Nellie and the children as he served them scrambled eggs and bacon over the breakfast table. Jenny and George were wonderfully impressed by the details of the swollen black tongue and the staring purple eyes (Ah Lee’s narrative style was dramatic: he pirouetted on his cloth shoes, one hand clutched to his throat, as he mimed the hanging victim, while miraculously balancing the tea tray in his other hand) but for Nellie this was the last straw. As soon as her husband had come in from his early-morning surgery, before he even had a chance to drink his first cup of tea, she was insisting that he go over there straightaway to sort out whatever was the matter.

  ‘They’re just resting after the journey,’ Airton had grumbled. ‘I’m sure they don’t want to be disturbed. It’s not our business anyway.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is, if I’m to prepare a big dinner for all of you in the next two days. Anyway, who’s the busybody in our family? You know you’re longing to go down there and find out what’s happening.’

  ‘I resent that, Nellie.’ Airton had stood on his dignity. ‘I resent that utterly.’

  ‘Does the whole of your body go blue if you’re hanged, Mummy?’ asked George.

  ‘Can I go with Daddy to see the corpse?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘The two of you can go straight off to your nursery without another word,’ snapped Nellie. ‘I tell you, Edward, if you don’t see to this, then I will. This is turning into a circus.’ She noticed Ah Lee, who was smiling with rheumy eyes by the sideboard. ‘And you can stop grinning like a loon, you old mischief-maker. How dare you tell such dreadful stories to my children?’ Ah Lee, pretending not to understand a word, grinned and nodded happily. ‘Little more bacon, Missy? Or flied blead?’

  Airton finally agreed to call on Frank Delamere at lunchtime after he had finished with his outpatients.

  * * *

  It was with some trepidation that he made his way through the narrow streets to the hotel. The last thing he wanted was another domestic imbroglio on his hands. He had been preoccupied enough during the last few weeks over the disappearance of Hiram Millward. His several visits to the yamen had come to nothing. The Mandarin had been sympathetic but would not act officially unless he had a petition from the boy’s father. He had explained that the extra-territorial treaty rights that missionaries had been granted tied his hands completely. Unless he had a complaint or proof that a crime had been committed by a Chinese that required his intervention, the matter remained a foreign affair, especially in this instance where, by all accounts, the boy had left his family of his own volition and with the apparent agreement of his father. Airton had argued that the boy was a minor and needed protection from himself. The Mandarin had answered that customs were different in China. At the age of fifteen he himself had left his home and was already a soldier fighting the Taipings. Age was immaterial. In any case, the final authority rested with the parent. Let the father bring him evidence of wrongdoing and he would act with the full power of the yamen.

  Dr Airton had been equally frustrated in his attempts to reason with Septimus. At first he had thought that his words were having some effect: the man’s face had crumpled with agony and worry when the doctor expressed his concerns about his son’s safety. Airton had told him that all the searches in the city had proved fruitless. He was beginning to fear that the first rumours, that Hiram had gone to seek the bandits in the Black Hills, might have been true. Septimus had listened attentively. Sometimes he bowed his head, and appeared to weep. He was much diminished from the angry man who had recited gibberish in the square. He had lost weight and his pigtail and beard hung lankly from his drawn face. As he sat there, surrounded by his silent family, the atmosphere reminded the doctor of a wake. He had been affected himself by the depression in the room. Clearly, he had been wrong in his first impressions of the Millwards. They had a deep love for their son and his continued absence was a bitter loss to every one of them. Their misery was almost palpable. Yet, try as hard as he could, he could not persuade Septimus to write the petition that would bring the Mandarin’s help. ‘“Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,”’ Septimus had intoned at him in a wooden voice, ‘“and unto God the things that are God’s.” It is the Devil who has taken my son, Dr Airton, and only through the grace of the Lo
rd will he be returned to us. There is nothing you or I can do.’

  ‘But this is a case where Caesar can help you,’ Airton had argued, in the patient tone that one used when talking to the slightly insane. ‘And you don’t have to render anything except a letter.’

  Septimus’s red-rimmed eyes were distracted—but he remained immovable.

  ‘“Put not your trust in princes,” Doctor, “nor in any child of man: for there is no help in them.” I know that you mean well. But who am I to gainsay the will of the Lord?’

  Despite the implacability of his words, his tone was almost pleading. Airton could only imagine the contradictory emotions heaving in the man’s breast. ‘You can’t believe it’s God’s will for your son to be lost and in possible danger? Anyway, what about the saying “God helps those who help themselves”? What we need is a proper, well-mounted search party to go out to the Black Hills.’

  ‘Doctor, I would give my life to have my boy, Hiram, my beloved son, back in the bosom of his family again and walking in the way of the Lord. But He is testing His servants, Doctor. The Almighty has a purpose. It’s not yet revealed, but there is a purpose. “We only see through a glass darkly,” as the Apostle said. But He has called us among the heathen to be foot soldiers in His service, and however the tides of battle turn we must await and obey His commands.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Laetitia, who was echoed by her children.

  Mad, the doctor had thought. Mad. They’re all raving mad. He had heard of the strange cults that appeared to take root so easily in the United States: the extraordinary Mormons with their harems of wives, the faith healers, the speakers in tongues. He was more than ever convinced that the Millwards were no part of any ordinary vocational establishment. He had met several representatives of the Oberlin Foundation and other American missions operating in north China. They were mostly Congregationalists, a bit fervid and evangelical for his tastes, but respectable enough, dour sort of folk with a disciplined, rational commitment to spreading the gospel, and doing good work as far as he knew. The Millwards, on the other hand, were fanatics, and quite beyond the influence of any normal persuasion. He wondered what strange, overriding impulse had brought this eccentric family across the sea to China, and to Shishan of all places. They seemed to be living in a world of their own, populated by demons and angels. He knew what answer Septimus would give him if he asked: God had called him here. Airton doubted whether divine intervention would go very far in helping him find Hiram.