The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  My emotions underwent a sudden, unsettling shift. I felt no longer defiant towards him, but flattered by his praise. Once more, as in Brussels, he had invoked his power to make me desirous of his good opinion, even though I knew him to be my enemy.

  “The bargain you propose is a fair one,” Kuan said. “I shall postpone my interrogation of you, and you may interrogate me. Is it agreed?”

  He extended his hand towards me. My small, unexpected victory startled me so much that my mouth fell open. We shook hands. His grasp was firm, his slender fingers like iron sheathed in silk. I had a disturbing sense that I had agreed to much more than an exchange of information. Even more disturbing was the way our new comradeship gladdened my spirits.

  “Well, Miss Brontë?” said Kuan. “I await your questions.”

  All I could think to say was, “Who are you?”

  Kuan nodded his approval; he settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “This is an instance when a short question requires a long answer. I trust you are intelligent enough that by the time I am finished, you will deduce why I wish you to know my story in such detail. Who I am extends beyond my mere identity and has deep roots in the past. In China, a man’s history begins not with himself, but with his forebears. Mine were rice merchants in Shanghai, the great trading city on the eastern coast. The family business was prosperous, but my father aspired to join the ruling mandarin class, and I—his eldest son—was chosen to elevate our family’s station. His wealth bought the best tutors for me. I studied for long years. At age twenty, I passed the examination for entry into the civil service of the emperor.”

  This sounded indescribably foreign to me. Kuan’s words seemed to waft me upon a breeze laden with Oriental spices. I found myself mesmerized by his voice. Vague scenes of Chinese pagodas and palaces took shape in the mist outside the window; the gulls’ cries became the babble of Chinese merchants.

  “I was then appointed district magistrate of a village in Fukien Province,” Kuan continued. “There I learned the skills of statesmanship and administration. For the next seventeen years, I worked in various posts throughout the land.”

  I found myself unable to look away from his steady, black, vertiginous eyes; an eerie stupor relaxed me. Kuan’s beauty grew more alluring and less repellent by the moment. I didn’t feel the same attraction towards him as I felt towards Mr. Slade; yet he exerted upon me a pull that I couldn’t define. Did my character predestine me to be smitten by Kuan? Did some magnetic current flow from him to me, as between lodestone and iron? I began to fathom some part of his motive for telling me his life story: He sensed how drawn I am to the lure of things dramatic and fantastical, and he wanted to sink his hooks into my mind.

  His suave, musical voice went on: “Those were tumultuous years. While I was a judicial commissioner in Sinkiang Province, it became embroiled in a war against the followers of a prophet called Mohammed. Two years later, when I was financial commissioner in Hunan, rebel attacks beset the province. By this time I had married; my wife had borne my son T’ing-nan. Our two daughters followed.” Dark memories swirled in Kuan’s eyes. “I eventually attained a post as secretary to the governor of the city that your people call Canton.”

  The part of my mind that remained rational comprehended that Kuan hadn’t yet said anything to explain his actions.

  “Canton is located in the tropic region of south China,” he continued. “It is a busy port where merchants from Europe, Arabia, the Orient, and the New World come to trade. These foreign traders live separate from the townspeople, in factories on the bank of the Whampoa River. There are vast fortunes to be made in tea and silk, by Chinese and foreigners alike. It was a most advantageous post for me.”

  “Then why did you leave China?” I asked boldly. “What brought you to England?”

  He regarded me in silence, his eyes narrowed to slits, as though measuring how much I deserved to hear—or how far he could trust me. At last he folded his hands on the desk and said with an enigmatic smile, “Those are questions that I shall answer on a future occasion. You are dismissed. Until I summon you again, you will continue teaching my son—if you can.”

  30

  I SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY IN SOLITUDE. T’ING-NAN NEVER REAPPEARED for more lessons. I surreptitiously tried the doors and windows—and found them all tightly secured: I was a prisoner. That night I heard an argument between Kuan and T’ing-nan. The son screamed in Chinese; the father never raised his voice. Later I heard stealthy movements in the cellar. I had a frightening sense that there were many more people in the house than I had encountered. The atmosphere was so turbid with menace that I vowed to stay not a moment longer. The next morning, I was dressed in cloak and bonnet when the key turned in the lock and opened my cell. I hurried out and intercepted Hitchman in the foyer.

  “Good morning, Miss Brontë,” he said, surveying me in his insolent fashion. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “To town, if you please,” I said.

  I regretted that I could not take my bags, which would alert him that I had no intention to return; but I would gladly escape with only the clothes I was wearing. I tried to hide my nervousness, but I must have failed, because Hitchman looked askance at me.

  “Why must you go to town again so soon?” he said.

  “I need to post a letter,” I said, holding up the envelope that contained a message written to Papa, Emily, and Anne. “My family will wish to know that I arrived here safely.”

  Hitchman said, “Give me the letter. I’ll see that it’s posted.”

  “Oh, but I’d rather do it myself and spare you the trouble.” Dismay sank my spirits, for he had clearly been instructed not to allow me to leave.

  “Hadn’t you better attend to your duties?” Hitchman said.

  “I doubt that Master T’ing-nan will mind waiting for his lesson,” I said.

  Hitchman regarded me with suspicion alerted by my urgent need to be gone. “Go to the schoolroom, Miss Brontë. I’ll send your pupil to you.”

  Defeated, I turned to obey, but he grabbed my arm and swung me around to face him. “I have something to say to you first. You have somehow earned Kuan’s good opinion, but until you’ve proven to me that you’re trustworthy, I’ll be watching you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, breathless with fright. He, unlike his master, had no gentleness nor magic to lull me. “May I go now?”

  “Not just yet.” Hitchman smiled, relishing my fear. “I’ll have you know that I owe my life to Kuan. I’ve repaid him by doing more than I’ll mention now. And I’ll do more yet to further the plans we’ve laid and reap the rewards we expect.”

  Was it more than lucre and gratitude that inspired his loyalty? Perhaps he, too, had fallen under Kuan’s mysterious spell.

  “Isabel White stole money from Kuan before she ran away from him,” Hitchman said, and finally I learned how she’d come by the thousand pounds she’d sent her mother. “She died for her mistake. If you do anything to betray Kuan, I’ll kill you.”

  Hitchman’s merciless gaze and emphatic manner assured me that his threat was sincere. I went faint with the terror that he would discover my deception—or that Kuan would. Hitchman released me, but I felt the lingering ache from his grasp as I stumbled into the schoolroom. Overwhelmed by helplessness, I collapsed in the chair at my desk and cradled my head in my hands. What if I was never to escape the house? Would Mr. Slade rescue me?

  Presently, T’ing-nan arrived. He mumbled a greeting and seated himself at his table. He seemed unnaturally subdued, perhaps because of the altercation with his father the night before. I set him a lesson in writing. He clenched the pen in his fist and produced an illegible scrawl.

  “Hold your pen this way,” I said, demonstrating.

  He tried, but seemed unable to follow my example. “You please show me?” he said humbly.

  I should have known that he had mischief up his sleeve, but I was too addled by my encounter with Hitchman to be on my guard. I po
sitioned myself beside T’ing-nan, took his hand in mine, and arranged his fingers around the pen.

  He seized my wrists. “Hah!” he crowed. “I got you!”

  “Let me go,” I ordered, angered by his trick and my own gullibility.

  His eyes danced with malicious glee as I struggled to pull away. He rose and jerked me to and fro, twisting my arms.

  “Stop that!” I cried, fearful that he meant me serious harm, perhaps because he wanted to vent on me his anger at his father. “Help! Help!” I screamed.

  A loud voice commanded, “Stop!”

  We both froze, then turned to see Kuan standing in the doorway. He spoke disapprovingly in Chinese to his son. T’ing-nan released me and glared at Kuan.

  “Come with me, Miss Brontë,” said Kuan.

  As he ushered me up the stairs, into his office, I felt as though I’d been plucked from a frying pan and cast into fire. He seated me in the chair I’d occupied yesterday, and himself at his helm behind the desk.

  “I apologize for the crude behavior of my son,” Kuan said; yet he did not appear sorry. Rather, he seemed gratified, as if at an opportunity that T’ing-nan had furnished him. “But then he is not the first unruly young man you have ever had the misfortune to know.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “I am referring to your brother.”

  My defenses reared inside me as they always did upon mention of Branwell. “Branwell is nothing like your son.”

  “I beg to disagree,” Kuan said, calmly folding his hands. “Your brother is, according to the people of your village, a constant trial to his family, as my son is to me.”

  “Branwell would never attack a woman,” I protested.

  Kuan gave me a pitying smile. “Would you like to hear what my spies have learned from your village folk?”

  I didn’t want to learn more than I already knew about my brother’s misdeeds, and particularly not from Kuan. Goaded and indignant, I said, “What I would like is that you should honor your promise to let me inquire about you.” If I couldn’t yet deliver him into Mr. Slade’s hands, at least I might learn what he was and what were his intentions.

  Again he seemed pleased, rather than annoyed, by my forwardness; perhaps he welcomed an audience. Contemplation narrowed his gaze. “Perhaps the time has come for me to answer the question you asked me last night: Why did I leave China?” His eyes took on that distant, musing look of recollection. “Why indeed, when Canton had everything to offer an ambitious civil servant such as I was.”

  Once more, his mellifluous voice and the mention of foreign locales began weaving a spell around me. On the sea outside the window, a ship seemed a Chinese junk floating on eastern waters. I fell into the same languorous yet attentive state as yesterday.

  “Wealth flowed into Canton from distant lands,” Kuan said. “Foreign merchants paid duties to the emperor and fees for lodging. Chinese merchants paid taxes and tributes. Much of this money found its way into the hands of officials like myself, the secretary to the governor. And the most profitable commerce was the trade in opium.”

  I flinched at his mention of the drug that had ruined my brother and caused my family such woe. Kuan’s spies must have discovered Branwell’s habit. It seemed no coincidence that Kuan would speak of Branwell and opium in the same conversation.

  “Opium is the fruit of the poppy and a substance of miraculous powers,” Kuan said. “When ingested—or smoked in a pipe, as is done in China—it eases pain and induces a feeling of tranquillity and euphoria. Worries fade; the senses grow keener. The world seems delightful.”

  Often had I wondered why Branwell took opium, to his own detriment. Now I began to comprehend.

  “Hence, the use of opium is widespread in Canton,” said Kuan. “The servants in my house indulged. So did clerks and officials in the governor’s service. But opium is not a pure boon to mankind. It induces a disinclination to do anything but lie dreaming amidst clouds of smoke. A habitual user abandons his duties, ceases to eat, and grows weak. Even should he wish to reverse his decline, he finds the habit most difficult to break. Cessation causes stomach cramps, pains, nightmares, and extreme nervous agitation.”

  How well I knew, from observing Branwell.

  “The poor wretch will do anything rather than give up his opium,” Kuan continued. “When he has spent all his funds on the drug, he will steal. Money has vanished from the government treasury, stolen by officials. Thieves roam the city. And the problems extend far beyond Canton. Across the kingdom, merchants, peasants, soldiers, priests, and the finest young men and ladies of society have taken up the habit. So have the emperor’s bodyguards and court eunuchs. It is estimated that China harbors some twelve million opium smokers.”

  I was amazed to hear that what I’d thought a private problem was such a vast calamity in the faraway Orient.

  “And the scourge continues,” Kuan said. “Every autumn, the ships arrive in Canton, laden with thousands of chests of opium from British poppy plantations in India. British merchants in the foreign settlements strike deals with Chinese opium brokers. Chinese silver pours into foreign hands, while the opium is carried inland along creeks and rivers, like poison flowing through the kingdom’s blood.”

  Kuan suddenly addressed me: “What did you do when your brother fell under the evil spell of opium?”

  Startled into frankness, I said, “I tried to stop him using it.” Indeed, I’d searched the house for bottles of laudanum, thrown them away, and remonstrated with Branwell.

  “That is exactly what we in China attempted with our many opium smokers,” Kuan said. “Imperial edicts were issued, outlawing opium use and trade. Under orders to stem the scourge, I led raids on opium dens, arrested dealers. I seized Chinese opium boats and confiscated the cargo. Smokers were punished by beheading. Dealers and opium den operators were strangled. By discharging my duty, I made myself unpopular with the users whose opium I made scarce, the officials who profited by the trade, and the dealers whose property I destroyed.” Kuan’s expression turned dark with memory. “There was a price on my head.”

  His crusade to save his people had earned him threats. I had experienced the same from Branwell by trying to save him. I began to see another piece of his intention in telling me his story: Kuan meant to forge our common experience into a bond between us—and in spite of my awareness, he was succeeding.

  “But the profits from the opium trade were so great,” Kuan said, “that new dealers replaced those executed. The only solution was to attack the source of the opium: the British merchants. They who brought their foreign mud to poison our people must be banished from China.”

  The hatred I saw in his eyes when he spoke of the British merchants surprised me. I had never thought to hate the people who supplied opium to Branwell; I had blamed him alone for his condition. Now I felt my perspective revolving, like a globe turning in Kuan’s hand to reveal new continents.

  “The importation of opium was banned,” Kuan went on. “British ships were searched, and their opium cargo seized. But corrupt officials pocketed bribes from British merchants and turned a blind eye to the trade. Although opium ships were barred from Chinese waters, they still came, for we lacked a navy strong enough to repel them. Chinese brigands formed secret societies to smuggle opium from the ships into China. Nonetheless, during the winter of 1838, we executed more than two thousand opium smugglers.”

  Kuan sat motionless while he spoke, yet radiated the fire of a zealot championing his cause. I watched him like a disciple mesmerized by a prophet.

  “A new imperial commissioner arrived from Peking the next spring. Under his orders, I investigated civil servants and army officers suspected of collusion in the opium trade. By summer, I had caused the downfall of some sixteen hundred people. The commissioner ordered the British merchants to surrender all their opium and pledge to refrain from the trade forever. But they refused. The commissioner then halted all trade and imprisoned them inside their settlement. Finally,
after many days under armed guard, the British surrendered their twenty thousand chests of opium, which we dumped into the ocean.

  “But our triumph was brief. The British were outraged by our treatment of them, and their financial loss. They demanded reparations. They concentrated fifty battleships and several thousand troops at Hong Kong. There, the first shots of the war over opium were fired. The British forces began arriving in Canton the following year, in June 1840.”

  An image of battleships in full sail, heavy with guns and troops, advancing on a harbor, filled my mind. I saw the scene in more vivid detail than Kuan depicted in words. Was this my vision, or was his memory transmitted to me by some magical power?

  “We were aghast at the size and strength of the fleet,” Kuan said. “When it began to bombard our fortresses, we were horrified that our actions had provoked such retaliation.”

  My heartbeat sped with the fear that he must have experienced. I heard cannons booming across water, saw towers on shore in flames. Kuan’s consciousness seemed to merge into mine, so that I lived his story—as he intended me to do.

  “Our army fought valiantly, but it was no match against the British,” Kuan said. “They blockaded the river and seized Chinese merchant junks. As they stormed nearby coastal cities, they revived the opium trade. They furnished arms to Chinese smugglers, who fought their way past our army. Sentiment in the kingdom turned against those of us who had most zealously pursued the crusade against opium. We were blamed for the war. The emperor decided that the British could be pacified, and the war halted, if he punished us. That August, I was among various officials relieved of their duties and assigned to faraway posts. My dedication had brought me the worst disgrace.”

  My perspective revolved further beyond my own moral foundation. I could not help but view Kuan as heroic and unjustly disgraced for trying to protect a kingdom from the ills that Branwell suffered.