Party in Peking

by Margaret Pemberton

  ‘Doctor Sinclair,’ she cried again. ‘Doctor Sinclair!’ and then, desperately, ‘Lewis!’

  He spun round, searching the crowds for a glimpse of her. With a sob of relief, she raised her arm, waving and then the vicious flick of a bamboo rod sent her stumbling to her knees. She was lost beneath a mêlée of feet and cantering hooves. Instinctively, she covered her face with her hands, rolling over on the ground with her knees hugged tight against her chest. The dust gouged up from the horse’s hooves was choking her. Something hard hit her in the centre of her back, but she couldn’t tell if it was a foot or a hoof or the comer of the sedan chair. She was gasping, choking for air, and then out of the nightmare a strong hand seized her, hauling her upright. She could barely see him, she was so dazed and stunned. He grasped her shoulders, shaking her as if she were a puppet.

  ‘What the hell,’ he demanded, his face white with rage and fear, ‘are you doing?’

  ‘I…’ She gulped for air, trying to speak, aware that the sedan chair had halted and that the occupant was demanding to know why his passage was being delayed. She wondered vaguely, through a sea of pain, if she had unseated one of the accompanying riders.

  ‘I was trying to find my way to the Anglican Mission,’ she explained at last and then halted as the curtain of the sedan chair was flung angrily aside, her face so ashen that Lewis Sinclair swung her up into his arms, convinced that she was about to faint.

  ‘Of all the idiotic, stupid, senseless things to do…’ he was saying savagely, but she was no longer listening to him. The occupant of the sedan chair was Phillippe.

  Chapter Five

  Her head was on his shoulder. His arms were around her, strong and secure. With savage intensity he stormed through the ragged and panic-stricken crowds, Sister Angelique and Lan Kuei in his wake. Not even at the door of the Anglican Mission did he set her once again upon her feet.

  She did not try to free herself. Shock and exhaustion had taken their toll. The fanatical hatred on the faces of the Boxers who had attacked the villa seemed to have merged crazily into the furious anger which Phillippe had displayed to the crowds when his sedan chair had been momentarily halted. She was tired. She was hungry, and she was confused.

  ‘Lay her down here, Dr Sinclair,’ Sister Angelique was saying in gentle tones.

  Lewis looked round the cramped, noisy confines of the Mission massed with weary peasant women and wailing babies, and shook his head. ‘ They need every inch of space there is. She isn’t hurt. Only exhausted. The best place for her is the legation quarter.’

  ‘But surely you must see Bishop Favier?’ Sister Angelique was saying, a new expression in her voice. ‘If things are as bad at the North Cathedral as they are here…’

  Olivia fought through a wave of all-encompassing tiredness. Why was Sister Angelique, who was always so serene and calm, sounding so anxious? And why, now that he had delivered Sister Angelique and Lan Kuei to the Anglican Mission, should it be important that Lewis also see Bishop Favier, the Roman Catholic Vicar-Apostolic of Peking?

  ‘I shall go there first,’ he said grimly, ‘and then I will make sure that Miss Harland reaches the legation quarter safely.’

  She knew that she should be demanding to be set upon her feet but it was pleasingly comfortable in his arms. A tiny rivulet of perspiration ran down the olive skin of his neck. She wondered what it would taste like if she were to lick it away. The male scent of him was as heady as frangipani flowers. His sweat. The faint odour of horseflesh. The still perceptible tang of his cologne. She could feel the slam of his heart against her chest and as he held her, the warmth of his touch spread through her, soothing and easing her. She felt her eyelids droop and lightly close.

  They flew open again as he moved suddenly, swinging purposefully on his heel, striding from the dim interior of the Mission and out into sun-bright streets.

  ‘Where are we going?’ He was not heading eastwards towards Legation Street, but towards the high, blind, purple-stained walls of the Imperial City.

  ‘To the Peitang.’

  His voice was crisp and curt and she knew that he was furiously angry with her. The feeling of comfort and ease fled. ‘What is the Peitang?’ she asked, as he stormed a way through the crowd.

  ‘The Northern Cathedral,’ he replied brusquely.

  She wanted to ask why they were going there, but his sunbronzed face was hard and uncompromising and she fell silent, acutely aware of the indecent ease with which he was carrying her and the feeling of near nakedness as her breasts in their light covering of linen were pressed firmly against the lean, strong muscles of his chest.

  Lewis had no need of outriders with bamboo rods to make a way for him. He forged his way through the crowd with ease, not hesitating as he approached the Tien An Men Gate, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, that led into the Imperial City. Olivia’s arms tightened involuntarily around his neck. She had entered the Imperial City only rarely and was well aware of what lay at its heart. The bright enamelled roofs of the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace where Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi held court.

  The city reminded her of a delicately carved box that her father had given her when she was a child. When it was opened another smaller box lay within and when that was opened there was another box, and then another. In Peking there was first the Chinese City and then the Tartar City which housed the legations, and the Anglican Mission. Then, through the Tien An Men Gate lay the Imperial City and within that the pink and yellow walls of the Forbidden City and Empress Tzu-hsi’s palace, the Empress ruling like a spider at the centre of a magnificent web.

  ‘Do you think the Empress is encouraging the Boxers?’ she asked as he shouldered his way towards the Peitang.

  ‘Yes.’ His voice was clipped and unforthcoming. Bitter tears stung the back of her eyes. She had helped no one by her impulsive dash through the streets. She had barely seen the inside of the Anglican Mission and certainly would not be able to give a coherent account of conditions to Phillippe. Phillippe. Her heart contracted painfully. Where could he possibly have been going in such haste? His outriders had laid about them with their bamboo rods with vicious indiscrimination. His journey must have been vitally urgent.

  She looked up into Lewis Sinclair’s grim, impassive face and realized for the first time that he did not know who the occupant of the sedan chair had been. Something of great importance had obviously happened in the city and he was still, so far, unaware of it.

  ‘Lewis. The man in the sedan chair. It was Phillippe.’

  For an instant she felt the arms around her stiffen into rigidity. He halted, staring down at her, his eyes incredulous. ‘Phillippe? Phillippe who?’

  ‘Phillippe Casanaeve, my fiancé.’

  His breath hissed between his teeth and for a second she thought that he was going to let her fall.

  ‘Something must have happened in the city of great importance,’ she said nervously, aware that his anger was no longer that of being merely inconvenienced by her presence, but went far deeper. ‘He was in a dreadful hurry. He wouldn’t have allowed his outriders to behave like that unless it was a matter of life and death.’

  ‘Casanaeoel!’ He uttered the name as if it were a blasphemy. It had been Monsieur Casanaeve that he had spread-eagled on the floor of the French Legation after he had made his insulting remark about Pearl Moon.

  She nodded, filled with sudden disquiet. There was a savagery in his handsome features that she had never seen before. ‘It wasn’t his fault that I was knocked to the ground,’ she said hurriedly. ‘He wouldn’t have known about it. If he had known that someone had been injured, he would have stopped, no matter how important his mission.’

  The ferocious expression in his narrow black eyes sent a shiver of fear down her spine.

  ‘You think that?’ he spat at her, letting her go so suddenly that she fell with an alarmed cry into a heap at his feet. ‘You think a man like Casanaeve would care if he hurt anybody on his way from one soirée to another?’<
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  Furiously she stumbled to her feet. ‘Of course he would care!’ she shouted, forgetting all about politeness, propriety, good manners. Not caring that they were in the middle of the street. That she looked like a street urchin and was behaving like one. ‘ Phillippe is a gentleman! He wouldn’t have allowed his outriders to behave as they did unless he was on his way from the Summer Palace with vital information for his minister!’

  For a second his eyes widened in disbelief, and then he began to laugh but there was no mirth in his laughter.

  ‘My God! You really believe that, don’t you? You believe that what happened to you a half-hour ago was a rare occurrence. That your precious Phillippe was not even aware that his sedan chair had knocked anyone to the ground?’

  Her hair fell around her shoulders, tumbled and dishevelled. There were smuts of dirt on her nose and cheeks and her Chinese garments were covered in layers of dust. ‘Of course he didn’t know!’ she shouted in rage. ‘If he had known, he would have stopped, no matter how important his mission!’

  ‘Your gentlemanly Phillippe was on no mission!’ Lewis yelled back ather. ‘He’s a junior diplomat, not a minister! The only reason for his “life and death” hurry would be to ensure that he wasn’t late for his next social engagement.’

  ‘Liar!’ she hissed, drawing back her hand to deliver a stinging blow to his cheek.

  ‘Idiot!’ he shouted back, catching her wrist in a steel-like grip. ‘You nearly died back there! You could have been trampled to death by the horses. By the crowds. And if you had been, Casanaeve wouldn’t even have stopped!’

  ‘He would!’ she hurled back at him fiercely, trying to free herself from his hold and failing.

  For a long second he stared down at her, his anger diminishing and dying. ‘ He wouldn’t,’ he said at last, and this time his voice was oddly flat. ‘He knew that someone had been pushed into the path of his sedan chair. That was why it momentarily halted. He didn’t ask if anyone was hurt. His only concern was in urging his bearers to continue as quickly as possible.’

  Olivia knew that there was noise all around her. That pedlars were hawking their wares. That children were crying. That donkeys and mules were vying with camels for space on the beaten earth of the street. The uproar and tumult and clamour of the city was deafening. Yet in that moment, as she stared up at him and saw the pity in his eyes, it seemed as if she was entombed in silence. She could hear nothing but the beating of her own heart, the slight catch in her throat as she tried to breathe normally.

  What he said was true. Somewhere, deep down, she had known it all along. The charming, exquisitely mannered companion that she had said she would marry was the same man who had so furiously yanked back the curtain of his sedan chair and demanded that his bearers continue without hesitation on their way. He had known that someone had been hurt, and he had not even asked after their welfare.

  She looked up at him and he felt his heart throb and jar beneath his breastbone. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

  The world seemed to have spiralled down so that it held only the two of them. The blood surged through his body like a hot tide and he knew that he was ablaze with what had previously only smouldered. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her. To stroke her hair; to wipe the smuts of dust from her face; to kiss the soft, vulnerable mouth; to make love to her. He passed his hand briefly across his eyes. He had loved once and he had not thought to love again.

  A wry smile touched the corners of his lips. His fellow Europeans had been united in their opinion that his choice of Pearl Moon as a wife had been deplorably unsuitable. Yet Olivia Harland would make an even more unsuitable wife. She would not be happy to live, as Pearl Moon had, in the distant province where his work took him. In Chihli and Shansi. The mere idea was madness and when he lowered his hand his eyes revealed nothing of the fierce emotion that held him in its grip.

  ‘Because he is a European,’ he said dispassionately in reply, ‘ and he thought that you were a Chinese.’

  She nodded; and knew that in the noisy, crowd-packed street, her life had changed its course. She would not marry Phillippe Casanaeve. She would remain a spinster if need be, but she would never marry a man who had not the strength to show good manners and kindness to those weaker than himself. A man like Lewis Sinclair.

  ‘Shall we continue towards the Cathedral?’ she asked, her throat so tight that it was a physical pain.

  He nodded. ‘Can you manage?’

  Maturity settled on her as tangibly as a cloak. ‘I can manage,’ she said steadily. She would manage today and tomorrow and all the other days for the rest of her life. She would manage on her own and without him because she had no alternative.

  ‘Why do you need to see Bishop Favier?’ she asked, trying to still her trembling as he took hold of her arm, steering her once more through the crowds.

  ‘Because my son is in his charge,’ Lewis said as they side-stepped a street barber touting for custom. ‘That was my main reason for riding south to Peking. To leave Rory in the relative safety of Peking with Bishop Favier who is an old family friend, and to try and convince Sir Claude and his fellow ministers of the seriousness of the rapidly deteriorating situation outside Peking and the urgent need for troops.’

  ‘I see.’ She had thought that she had experienced pain but now she knew that she had never known the meaning of the word. It sliced through her like a knife. His son. It was foolish of her, but she had never thought that there might be a child.

  The giant grey stone façade of the cathedral towered above them. In the compound surrounding it was an orphanage, a convent, a dispensary, and a school, all jammed to the doors with frightened-faced refugees.

  ‘Where can I find Bishop Favier?’ Lewis shouted across to one of the black-robed Sisters of Charity.

  ‘He’s in the dispensary, Doctor Sinclair,’ the nun replied, barely hesitating in her swift trot towards the storeroom, a couple of Chinese boys in her wake.

  As they pressed and pushed their way forward, Olivia gasped. ‘The other refugees, the thousands that are still trying to reach the city, where will they go? Who can possibly look after them? There’s less room here than there was at the Mission.’

  ‘The legations are going to have to open their doors,’ Lewis said as the imposing figure of Bishop Favier strode to meet them, grasping his hand warmly.

  Olivia thought of the beautifully tended grounds surrounding the British Legation. It was impossible to imagine them swarming with children, but Lewis was right. There was nowhere else in Peking for them to go. There were eleven legations in the legation quarter, and all were spacious. Lady Glencarty had already set an example by inviting Ch’un and Cheng-yu into her home. Where Lady Glencarty led, surely others would follow.

  The mêlée of children around them were so noisy that Lewis had to shout as he introduced her to the Bishop. Olivia was not quite sure how she should greet the Vicar-Apostolic of Peking and then was suddenly relieved to discover that under the present circumstances protocol no longer mattered. There were more important things to think about than the right way of addressing the head of Peking’s Roman Catholic community.

  ‘It must have been a dreadful journey for you,’ Bishop Favier was saying to her. ‘ Let’s go inside. I can’t offer you rest or refreshment I’m afraid, but at least the noise level will be a little lower.’

  ‘How many refugees are sheltering here?’ Olivia asked him and then, just as Bishop Favier shook his head in despair, saying ‘thousands’, a little boy detached himself from the throng and threw himself upon Lewis.

  ‘Papa! Papa! You said it would be weeks, months, before I should see you again!’ His skin was no darker than that of his father; his hair was thick and black, tumbling over his eyebrows in a way so reminiscent of Lewis’s that Olivia felt her heart catch in her throat. His eyes were grey and almond-shaped, and as Lewis caught him up in his arms and swung him round, they were alight with such naked joy that Olivia had to look swiftly away, terr
ified that her tight control would break at any moment.

  ‘I have told our Minister repeatedly,’ Bishop Favier was saying to her as they entered a minuscule room at the rear of the dispensary that, by some miracle, was strewn with books and paperwork and not refugees, ‘that the religious persecution being waged against both Catholic and Anglican missionaries would lead to persecution against all Europeans. The Boxers will attack the city, I know it. The local community know it. But nothing I say will convince our Minister, Monsieur Pichon, that an attack is imminent.’

  Olivia tried to give the Bishop her full attention but it was difficult when she was so acutely aware of Lewis’s joyous reunion with his son. She kept her head firmly averted from them, determining to leave at the first opportunity. Bishop Favier could probably procure a Peking cart for her. She felt Lewis touch her arm lightly and then he was saying, ‘Rory, I would like to introduce you to Miss Olivia Harland.’

  Reluctantly she turned and held out her hand to Lewis Sinclair’s son. He took it confidently and without shyness.

  ‘Papa says you are very brave.’

  Olivia felt her heart leap and her voice trembled slightly as she said, ‘It was very kind of your father to say that about me, Rory.’

  ‘He says you are his friend,’ Rory continued, his eyes shining. ‘Will you be my friend too?’

  Remembering that hideous moment when she had declared so vehemently to Lan Kuei that Lewis Sinclair was no friend of hers, Olivia felt her cheeks heighten with colour as she said steadily, ‘Yes, Rory. I would like to be your friend.’

  Rory beamed happily and though she strove to return her glance directly to Bishop Favier, her willpower failed her. Instead, she raised her eyes from Rory’s shock of dark hair and met those of his father. His eyes were alight with amusement and she knew that he was remembering the incident as clearly as she was. A smile lurked at the corners of his mouth and her discomfort fled. There was a bond between them now. Unspoken and intangible, yet there nonetheless. Not even his violent anger over her defence of Phillippe had dispelled it.