By Eastern windows

by Gretta Curran Browne

  ‘Scotland,’ she said suddenly. ‘Why don't we go to Scotland? Wouldn't it be just wonderful if our child was born in Scotland, and I could meet your mother at last.’

  ‘No, not Scotland,’ he said, ‘not yet. The Atlantic can be very cold and choppy. And apart from that, the voyages there and back would take six to eight months before we spent even a day there. My holiday leave is only for six months.’

  ‘Take as long as you need, dear boy!’ General Balfour had said compassionately. ‘If a holiday will help Jane to recover, then have whatever time it takes to get her well again. She's an Army wife, after all. Must look after our own.’

  Lachlan stood up and moved over to a cane bookcase by the wall where Major Oakes’military books lined every shelf. He searched for an Atlas, found one, and brought it back to her.

  ‘You choose,’ he said. ‘I honestly don't care where I go as long as I can enjoy a long and relaxing sea voyage with plenty of fresh air. Choose some place you would really enjoy seeing.’

  The whole time she sat studying the Atlas, Lachlan stood by the window watching her. She turned page after page of the Atlas and seemed to be carefully studying each one. Then she turned another page and instantly her demeanour changed. She looked up at him, eyes sparkling.

  ‘China,’ she said. ‘Oh, Lachlan, I have always wanted to see China, haven't you?’

  China was in the tropics.

  ‘Always,’ he said.

  *

  Nine days later, on the 17th May, they boarded the Cambridge and set sail for Macao, a peninsula of the China coast, south of the tropic of Cancer.

  Bappoo, Marianne, and George Jarvis went with them, full of both fear and excitement at going out of India and seeing another part of the world.

  ‘Chin people small,’ Bappoo said authoritatively to George Jarvis, ‘but very wise.’ He pointed to his brain. ‘Very wise.’

  ‘How you know?’ George asked curiously.

  ‘Ship captain's servant tell me. He say Chin people very wise – but speak all time to confuse us.’ Bappoo pointed a warning finger at George and said cunningly, ‘So! – we no let Chin people confuse us!’

  ‘Confucius!’ Jane said smiling. ‘I think, Bappoo, you will find that the captain's servant was talking about Confucius, a Chinese philosopher of ancient times.’

  ‘Chut!’ Bappoo looked shame-faced as George peeled out a laugh and Lachlan restrained one.

  After only a week on the sea Jane's spirits rose and the lovely blushing colour came back to her cheeks. Lachlan could actually see her recovery happening before his eyes.

  After three weeks on the sea he wrote a letter each to Colin Anderson and John Forbes, eager to give his friends `pleasing accounts of my Angel's improving health.’

  Captain Lestock Wilson was the master of the Cambridge, and as they sailed across the Indian Ocean towards the South China Sea, Jane won his approval with her good humour. Most of the women Captain Forbes had sailed with had spent all their time complaining in a weak and whining way, but young Mrs Macquarie was brave and hearty and always happy to sit up at night for dinner in the captain's cabin. She was very beautiful, very pleasant, and there was a wit in her conversation which rendered her truly fascinating in his eyes.

  ‘What is supposed to be wrong with her?’ Captain Wilson quietly asked Lachlan one day, while Jane was sitting in her cabin busily writing a list of the names of all the children of her friends for whom she wanted to buy toys and presents in Macao.

  Lachlan shrugged. ‘The medical profession of Bombay is primitive, to say the least. They don't seem to have the slightest idea of what is wrong with anyone who is sick, and so they prescribe quinine and mercury for all. And buffalo milk, of course.’

  ‘Have you ever had malaria?’ Wilson asked.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  ‘I've had every fever including malaria.’ Wilson held up his two hands. ‘And I would need more than the fingers on these hands to count all the times I’ve been told I was at the door of death.’ He boomed a laugh. ‘And look at me now – still hale and hearty!'

  ‘It's terrible, just the same,’ Lachlan said, ‘the fright that doctors often give to people.’

  ‘Well, your fellow did at least recommend a sea voyage which is proving the correct remedy. What else did he recommend?’

  ‘Plenty of red wine...’

  ‘Oh, wonderful!’ Captain Wilson laughed, topping up their two glasses with more red wine.

  ‘Red wine,’ Lachlan repeated, ‘mixed with spices.’

  ‘Ugh! That doctor must want to make her sick again to keep up his fees!’

  ‘Mercury...’

  ‘Naturally!’ Wilson grinned. ‘Where would we be without good old mercury, eh? It doesn't do you a damned bit of good but it eventually burns the mouth off you just for spite.’

  ‘And three daily doses of tincture of yellow bark.’

  ‘Yellow bark? That's a new one! What is that for?’

  Lachlan shrugged. ‘Well, of course, Jane thinks all this medicine is to dispel her weakness and make her strong for carrying the baby.’

  Lestock Wilson sat still. Now that was the sad part. The poor girl convincing herself she was pregnant. He said: ‘When are you going to disillusion her, and tell her what the doctor said – that she has made a very big mistake?’

  Lachlan sat back and sighed. `I’m not going to tell her anything, or believe anything that Dr Kerr has said. He’s made mistakes before. If she’s not pregnant, then in time she will realise that for herself. All I believe now is the evidence I see before my own eyes, that she seems well and full of health again.’

  Lestock Wilson lifted his glass and grinned. ‘She looks healthier than both of us!’

  *

  Always one for rising early, Lachlan often went up on deck as the morning watch was relieved, the most peaceful time of the day. The sea and winds were calm and the ship simply ghosted along at no more than four knots an hour. One morning Jane joined him at the deck rail with a smile. He was surprised to see her up so early.

  ‘A beautiful day ahead, I think,’ she murmured.

  Lachlan followed her gaze. The sea and the sky were very blue, the sun rising into a red dawn. At peaceful times like this he wished he were a poet. He looked into her face and smiled to see her looking so well.

  ‘And what is amusing you now?’ she asked.

  He lifted her hand from the rail and kissed it, then held it against his cheek as he stared out to sea. Her returning health had given a life-spring to his soul. With Jane he had discovered there is a kind of love so true, so perfect, that just the thought of its end was enough to break the heart utterly. He could not have borne it, and now he would not have to. Thank God the doctor had been right about the sea voyage.

  But then, he reflected, he should have known it was not in Jane's nature to go under at the first sign of sickness. It was her nature to be courageous and happy. And there was nothing mentally wrong with her. No imbalance that he could detect. So maybe she was pregnant. Yes, maybe she was … after all, she would know whether she was pregnant or not better than any doctor.

  He turned to look at her and asked softly, ‘How is the future young general?’

  She smiled and put a hand on her stomach. ‘Very well behaved. Not making me feel sick anymore.’

  ‘You truly feel well again?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You do look well.’

  ‘So do you,’ she observed, for he was the one she believed to have been ill. Both had spent weeks worrying about the other's health, and now both were very relieved.

  And suddenly, as he looked at her, Lachlan was convinced that Jane was pregnant. That she was right and the doctor wrong. Women knew these things before ever consulting a doctor. His hand moved to join hers on her stomach, and it did feel roundly swelled; the familiar flatness he had known for years was gone.

  ‘How many months pregnant are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Five,’ she ans
wered.

  ‘And when did you know for sure?’

  ‘When three months had passed, just before I wrote to you.’ She was looking at him strangely. ‘I have told you all this before, Lachlan.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said with a sigh, ‘but I was not listening before.’

  ‘Thank you very much! I think I'll go back to bed.’

  He caught her in his arms and held her, and with her he held the fullness of his life. And once again he felt the excitement and happiness he had felt that day in Ceylon, on the road from Point de Galle to Colombo, the day he had read Jane's letter telling him she was going to make him a happy, happy father.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered, and kissed her on the eyes, the mouth, and the forehead, his lips covering her with love, until presently she put her hands to his face and kissed him back.

  ‘Is that what you came on deck to see?’ he said suddenly, looking beyond her.

  ‘What?’ She turned her head and stared. ‘Where?’

  He pointed to a small black peak far into the distance. ‘China, on the horizon.’

  She turned and gripped the rail in excitement.

  ‘Are you going back to bed,’ he asked at length.

  ‘No, I'm wide awake now.’ She linked her arm through his and they remained together, standing by the deck rail in the warm morning sun, looking towards China.

  *

  At daybreak on the 2nd of July, the Cambridge reached Macao. Captain Wilson sent word to prepare to disembark into a small boat that would take them into the harbour. The voyage from Bombay had taken six weeks.

  All through the previous night a gale had blown against them, and now Lachlan watched Jane eating a hearty breakfast and wondered how she could possibly eat a thing with the ship rocking and lurching.

  She had risen at daybreak and packed all her clothes and trunks herself, leaving Marianne with nothing to do but keep George Jarvis company as he ran on deck, staring in wild excitement at the packed and busy harbour of Macao. Bappoo stood behind them, reprimanding them severely for their unruly noise, whilst trying himself not to jiggle with excitement.

  ‘Bappoo – why all boats have eyes painted on front?’ asked George Jarvis.

  Bappoo didn't know. All three stared at the hundreds of small Chinese junks tossing about in Macao harbour with a large eye painted on each side of their bow.

  ‘Why all boats have eyes painted on front,’ Captain-Sahib?’ George asked later when Lachlan came on deck.

  Lachlan didn't know either, but he came up with a possibility. ‘So the boats can see where they are going?’

  ‘Yes, by God, by Jove!’ Bappoo cried exultantly. ‘That is what!’ And George Jarvis let out another shout of delighted laughter - Bappoo knew nothing, but Lachlan-Sahib knew everything.

  ‘Boats have eyes to see where going,’ George said to Marianne, and Marianne nodded and giggled at the cleverness of the Chin people.

  An hour later the baggage, children, and Bappoo were all packed with Lachlan and Jane into the large Chinese junk that was to take them through Macao's outer harbour to the inner harbour, where they finally disembarked after a further two hours on the water, the wind and tide both being against them.

  Captain Wilson travelled ashore with them, and as they set foot on land he was amazed to see that the person who did not seem in the least fatigued from sitting so long in the windy boat was young Mrs Macquarie. He watched her as she stepped ashore, looking wonderfully strong and in high spirits as she rallied everyone to the exciting time ahead in China.

  She was young, he thought, and how indomitable were the young. She had recovered from her illness and proved the doctor wrong. Good girl. And since she had spoken to him of her child, he too was now certain that under the masking folds of her skirts she was carrying a baby for her husband. Lucky man.

  And the face she now turned on Macao – a city built on seven hills around the harbour – was so full of excited anticipation that Captain Wilson saw in her all the beauty of youth that knows no complaints and no tiredness.

  He looked at Lachlan. And the Major – how old was he? Thirty? Thirty-one? And he too seemed full of youth as he helped the sick-looking little Indian girl ashore.

  Captain Wilson slapped Lachlan on the back. ‘So! Here we are, my friend! In Macao – the opium gateway into China.’

  ‘Opium!’ Lachlan stared at him in dismay. ‘Here, too?’

  ‘Everywhere in the East. clever men make a fortune from it, stupid men are destroyed by it.’ Wilson shrugged. ‘Bright silver and slow death bargaining daily with each other. That, my friend, is the opium trade.’

  ‘Every ounce of it should be dumped in the sea,’ Lachlan said with disdain.

  Captain Wilson had to smile. ‘I suspect you do not know that it was the British who first brought opium from India to China, and sold it at a colossal profit. There are many rich families in England whose wealth comes from the sale of Bengal opium, and thousands of opium addicts left behind in China.’

  Lachlan looked at him, taken aback. He had always believed it was the British who were trying to stop the opium trade in India, not making a wholesale profit from exporting it to China.

  Wilson nodded. ‘Only this year, the Emperor Tao Tuang issued an edict banning the drug. But all that will do is make it more expensive for the Chinese addict and keep the pirates in business. The traders of the Honourable East India Company will now smuggle the opium into China, and the Co-Hong merchants in Canton will simply corrupt their own Chinese officials with bribes and pay-offs and the trade will go on as before. But now...’ Lestock Wilson smiled, ‘you are on holiday, so no more talk of opium.’

  He moved to Jane and turned her to look east. ‘Over there, my lady, less than forty miles away, is Hong Kong.’

  Jane was only interested in Macao – one of the main trading centres of the East, teeming with life and noise and running rickshaws pulled by men with hair worn in long black pigtails. She couldn't wait to get into the thick of it, but first they must rest and dine and take possession of the house they had rented.

  It was for that purpose Lachlan looked around him searchingly until he saw a very obvious-looking Englishman pushing his way through the streams of coolies working on the waterfront.

  As he was out of uniform and dressed elegantly civilian, the Englishman looked uncertainly at Lachlan. ‘Major Macquarie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Lachlan shook hands with the man. ‘Mr David Reid?’

  ‘At your service,’ Reid replied with a smile; and the introductions began.

  ‘My wife, Mrs Jane Macquarie.’

  Mr Reid seemed delighted at Jane's pretty youth. He bowed over her hand. ‘Mrs Macquarie, what a singular pleasure it is to welcome you to Macao.’

  Lachlan continued the introductions. ‘Captain Lestock Wilson, our voyage master ... Bappoo, Marianne, George.’

  Mr Reid bore patiently with the last three – one was not usually introduced to servants.

  ‘I have some disappointing news for you, I'm afraid, Major,’ Reid said. ‘In accordance with the letters I received from both yourself and Mr John Forbes which, I hasten to say, I received only two days ago, I have succeeded in renting a house for you in a clean and airy part of Macao, quite near my own, actually, with a good view of the sea. But unfortunately the house is without furniture and the new furnishings will not be completed until tomorrow.’

  ‘So what do we do until then?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘Stay with me, of course. Be delighted to have you! There are not many of us British here in Macao, so it's always good to see a new face. The place is overrun with Chinese of course. Not to mention the Portuguese! They own Macao, you know? The Portuguese.’

  Lachlan was feeling distinctly uncomfortable due to the fact that he had invited Captain Wilson, now a friend, and whose ultimate destination was Canton, to bide a while and spend a few days in Macao with himself and Jane, in the hospitality of their own house.

  ‘You will come along too, will you
, Captain Wilson?’ said Reid, solving the problem. ‘Be delighted to have you. The more the merrier!’ Reid smiled merrily. ‘As I say, always a joy for us exiles in the British factory to have some more of our own amongst us. Now then, Mrs Macquarie dear, shall we be off?’

  Jane was scooped away into a waiting rickshaw and the rest left to follow in other rickshaws.

  Their stay in Mr Reid's house lasted not one day, but two days and two nights; and throughout they had no time to venture into the town and markets of Macao because every British resident of Macao's small trading post of the East India Company, responsible for the export of tea and silk, called to pay their compliments to Major and Mrs Macquarie.

  Jane found herself sitting until almost midnight, eating sweets and talking animatedly to Mrs Beale and Mrs Drummond about the European fashions of Bombay, which were at least two years behind London.

  Lachlan and Jane's bedroom in Mr Reid's house, they were pleased to discover, had eastern windows, facing the rise of the sun.

  ‘The best sun is the morning sun,’ Lachlan had often said, and Jane had always agreed with him, because in India and Antigua, only the morning sun was soft and mild with a gentle radiance that warmly awakened a room and its occupants to a new day.

  They awoke on the third morning to see the golden rays creeping through the louvered shutters. Jane stretched her body luxuriously in anticipation of a new day that promised to be the best so far. ‘This morning, we move to our own house,' she said. ‘And this afternoon we go into Macao to buy some presents.’

  Lachlan freed the arm that was deadened from her sleeping on it, and blinked at the clock. ‘It's not yet six.’

  ‘That early? Oh my land...’ She rolled onto her side and dived under the silk sheet like a young porpoise, and went back to sleep.

  At seven o'clock a Chinese servant whispered into the room with a tray of early morning tea and whispered out again.

  By ten o'clock they had moved into their own house, a two-storey stone villa built in the Portuguese style, with Chinese long windows and a sloped attic roof.