The Secret Mandarin

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘It is only natural for them to be curious,’ he whispered. ‘Pay it no heed.’

  As we walked further from the settlement I noticed rats moving in the squalid shadows. There were dingy pawn shops and ships’ chandlers and huge warehouses, their produce piled up on display, the eyes of the merchants expectantly upon us as they stood in the doorway.

  ‘You want to buy, mister?’ one man asked Robert. ‘Come in and I will prepare some tea.’

  ‘No, no.’ Robert waved him off.

  We walked on. Near the end of the town I spotted two corpses in the street, side by side, covered only with a thin, white cloth, the still outlines clear in the sunshine. They had not started to smell yet. I wondered how they had died. Was there malaria here, or typhoid? But we did not stop. As we reached the very fringes, the crowd dispersed saving one elderly man who continued to follow us most of the day, never coming close enough to hear our conversation but never far enough away to lose sight.

  The hills rose steeply and it was not long before Robert spotted one or two interesting plants that had him climbing rocks and excavating root systems. When I suggested pressing onwards and leaving the men to dig, he insisted that all the work must be done in his sight. Sing Hoo, evidently feeling far better now he was on land, loitered behind Wang so all three men were stationed around the muddy excavation. It was very dull and I was keen to get on. I wondered if we might come across a cottage, or indeed, a family. I had yet to speak even indirectly to a native other than our own servants. The hills were charming and it was in my mind that we might find the elevation for some stunning views.

  Robert would not budge, however. He worked carefully. Sing Hoo kept his eyes fixed on his master. Since Robert had toppled him during his screaming fit he had a new respect for my brother-in-law and watched reverently as Robert jotted down Latin names in his journal and made rough sketches of the terrain. Waved on by Robert, who seemed discomfited by my lingering, I decided to climb ahead alone and hiked a further four hundred yards. I rested on a flat rock looking down onto the valley though I stayed, of course, within sight.

  Settling to wait I wondered if it was raining in London. At this time of the morning Jane or now, I supposed, Nanny Charlotte, would be supervising the nursery lunch. If I were at home I would only just be rising to a breakfast tray in the small brick house I used to rent in Soho. My maid had been called Mary—a fact that had always amused me. Jane became cross if I mentioned it in company, but I liked that we shared a name. Mary, as far as I know, had done well when I had dismissed her. Jane would not have my staff in the house and I had become too big with Henry to ignore my situation any longer. Without any money coming in and with respectable hopes for my unborn child in mind, I had had to comply. My dresser, who visited me in Gilston Road during my confinement, told me that Mary went to work for a courtesan in Chelsea when I had disappeared from society entirely. It struck me as a strange hand of cards. I wished I had not met William or better still that I had snubbed him. I wished I was sipping my chocolate and Mary was still in my employ.

  Close to where I sat, the ground levelled out and there was a banyan tree. Robert was not interested in these, I knew, and already had cuttings and seeds from several. However, some unusual foliage by the trunk caught my eye. The smooth, long shape of the leaf and its pretty reddish colour drew my attention. There was an extended seed pod. I decided to investigate but as I came closer I was caught by a foul aroma. It was like a cesspool in the height of the summer. I drew my handkerchief to my nose and gagged, backing off.

  ‘Robert,’ I called from the flat rock. ‘I am coming down.’

  Robert looked up only momentarily from his diagram and was still working on it when I reached him.

  ‘It smells dreadful up there,’ I said. ‘Worse than the port at Amoy. There must be a carcass or something of that nature.’

  ‘Which way?’ Robert questioned.

  ‘Up there at the banyan tree. There is the strangest plant but the stench is dreadful.’

  Robert sprang to his feet and scrambled up the hillside towards the horrible odour.

  ‘Show me the plant,’ he said.

  I pointed laconically, unwilling to return to the vicinity of the smell.

  ‘Come on,’ he insisted and grabbed my arm, hauling me up in his wake.

  ‘You do not attend me, Robert,’ I protested.

  But he merely continued to pull me up the hill.

  Of course, there was no carcass. It was the plant that stank.

  ‘Poederia foetida,’ Robert said triumphantly, packing it into the vasculum eagerly.

  Wang and Sing Hoo scrunched their noses and looked on disbelieving. I hung back. Though the vasculum was airtight the odour lingered all afternoon.

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Well done finding it, Mary. Well done.’

  This was not my idea of entertainment. Things got worse and worse the longer I continued, the more I decided that I would try.

  Robert said nothing, only passed me his hip flask. I think he had no idea.

  Coming back to Chimoo we attracted once more a large entourage. Robert had decided to hike to the north and reenter the settlement from that direction. He did not wish to re-cover old ground. Wang had taken charge of the vasculum with the poederia and tramped sullenly at a distance. Sing Hoo was laden with equipment and a few smaller flowering plants that Robert had identified. He had, it seemed to me, the far better deal.

  ‘They think all white men carry firearms here,’ Robert commented, nodding his head to indicate the first few of our followers. ‘The war saw to that. We are devils to them. They will come no closer.’

  Then, an hour or so from the harbour, one or two of this company began to remonstrate with Sing Hoo, gesticulating wildly and trying to turn us back. Within half a mile the company had swollen. They were all Chinese, a mixed bunch, though mostly men, hands outstretched, pointing us back in the direction we had come from, trying to make us stop. It made me uneasy and I tried to keep an eye on the figures milling around me. I did not know what they might do.

  Robert was ever single of purpose. The East India Company had evidently chosen the right man for the job—nothing would sway him.

  ‘We are not supposed to leave the port,’ he said. ‘The cheeky blackguards are telling us off for straying outside the allowed boundary. Come along. They dare not touch us. Ignore them.’

  The crowd grew to a dozen. They were ragged people, thin and dishevelled.

  ‘Perhaps we should go back,’ I urged.

  They were coming too close now. It was not normal.

  ‘We are returning to the bay by the most direct route. Show no fear, Mary. It is fine.’

  It did not feel fine and, besides, Wang and Sing Hoo were becoming anxious. The old man who had followed us all day was no longer anywhere in sight and I took this to be a bad sign along with the fact that now and again I felt a pull at my skirt as if someone was pawing the fabric.

  ‘Robert knows what he is doing,’ I told myself. ‘Simply get through this and in an hour you will be in your cabin.’

  The crowd, however, had other plans. All at once a young man suddenly pointed at us and shouted. I have no idea what he said but Wang and Sing Hoo took off, bolting at full pelt and leaving us behind. Two or three ran after them but the rest of our hangers on became still, as if hesitating, and then all at once fell upon Robert and me. I let out a whimper.

  My scarf was pulled from my shoulders, the remainder of our provisions was seized and several hands ripped at my skirt, tearing it badly. Robert was flailing his arms, fighting his way out. The crowd had a natural wariness of him and in a temper he was especially strong. They stole his hat and a pocket watch he had been carrying, but when someone removed his journal Robert launched such a furious defence that it was dropped. Three of Robert’s assailants lost their footing and rolled down the slope. I did not like to hit out. I have never brawled in my life and worse, it was two old women who had fallen on me. B
ut they were ripping my skirt to shreds. I plucked up my courage and punched hard, catching one squarely on the jaw. It felt surprisingly good to vent my anger. My blood was high. Then, kicking and flaying my arms I fought my way over to station myself behind Robert for protection. He was bleeding from the nose and still thrashing out at all comers, but as it stood so far, he had seen off over half the mob. His face was covered in sweat and he was breathing very deeply. The remainder of the crowd poked and picked for a minute, tearing the pocket of Robert’s jacket so that a couple of coins sewn inside fell to the earth and were stolen away before he could catch the assailants. Some were not so lucky and felt the full force of his blows. I was glad to be able to shield myself with Robert’s frame and my fighting became quite tactical as a result. One man tried to grab me and I kicked him hard in the shins for his trouble before he backed off. Robert had a good right hook, I have to say, and after a few more rounds the remainder of the crowd scattered.

  We sat on the dry, yellow earth, our sweat turning to mud in the dust.

  ‘Are you all right, Mary?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My skirt is ripped to a shred that is all.’

  ‘I don’t understand it. Do you think they would have attacked us if we had turned back?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I pulled a small piece of fabric loose and mopped Robert’s nose where there was blood. My ankle was aching but the skin had not been broken. I thought I might be sick.

  ‘Come on.’ He pulled me up. ‘They may return.’

  We hurriedly made our way to the south, back towards the bay.

  Wang and Sing Hoo were sitting on the ground five minutes on. The plants they had been carrying were ripped to pieces. Petals and leaves were strewn across the ground. Those fleeing Robert had mined through the canvas bags looking for something of value. The stinking vasculum lay to one side, the fetid pod unharmed. Robert closed the box and surveyed the men. Sing Hoo was topless, his shirt stolen. He had only one shoe. Wang seemed unharmed but sat with his head in his hands and did not acknowledge us. Robert poked the fallen petals with his foot, turning over the dusty soil.

  ‘There is nothing to salvage here,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  Limping and half-clothed we made it back to the ship. There need be no speculation about the shape of my legs now for we had nothing to cover them save the shredded remnants of my cotton underskirt. Robert tried to shield me. He directed Wang and Sing Hoo to walk one close behind and the other to my left while, proprietorially, he hovered on my right with his eyes to the ground.

  ‘I do see what they meant about your ankles, Mary,’ he commented wryly. ‘Let us hope the citizens of Chimoo Bay are less observant than the reviewers of Fleet Street.’

  I thought it kind of him to try to cheer me up, though we attracted less attention arriving back at the dock than we did departing. At the ship Landers spotted us immediately from his vantage point on deck. He was the only person who appeared to realise that we had been robbed and came immediately to our aid. He ordered hot water to the cabins and covered me in his coat.

  ‘What did they take?’ he asked Robert.

  ‘My watch, the clothes and some money.’ Robert’s voice was flat.

  ‘I will post the news so others coming this way might know of it,’ Landers promised.

  There was no more he could do. We should not have been there in the first place. The port boundary was our limit. That was the law.

  In my cabin I bound my ankle. There was swelling to one side but nothing serious. I wrapped my dressing gown about me and washed myself slowly all over. It seemed to me that we would surely die inside China’s borders.

  ‘What have I done?’ I whispered.

  And I sat on the bed and cried for a long time.

  The Buddhists have a meditation upon the subject of death and at length I thought that it might help, or at least divert me. I pulled a book from my trunk and found the page that described this custom. Its purpose, I suppose, was to prepare for the end—to be ready before there was an urgent need. The practice was to think upon three good deeds done. Only three. And yet, when I tried for myself that evening, I found it difficult to choose. I kept thinking that I had left Jane with all my responsibilities. Here I was, moaning about being abandoned when I was not the one in London responsible alone for four children. How many good deeds would it take to compensate for that?

  At length, when I considered it, I realised that the best of my actions were small things. Picking flowers and cooking food for my mother when she had been unwell, spending an afternoon with the children, sending money to my sister or kissing goodbye Henry’s tiny head as he slept in the nursery before I left. I thought of every detail and afterwards I felt better. Hellfire and brimstone never have appealed to me and I admit I become easily confused thinking of right and wrong. But I do understand kindness. I had tried my best, of course, but I realised I was not the only Penney woman alone in the world.

  The subject of death always brought my father to mind. Now long passed, he seemed a mythical creature to me—a man a poet might describe as being completely insubstantial, constructed only of light and shade. Mother erected a small cross two or three years after he died. She said her delay was to let the ground settle but she need not have left it so long and, as we grew older, both Jane and I knew it. It occurred to me aboard the Dundas that night that we had all lived in his dappled shadow long after he was buried. Jane was fleeing from the darkness in his wake and I was running blindly towards any spot of light I could find, dreaming of being dazzled again. One of us his favourite and the other cast out. And here I was in China still searching for my dazzling dream while Jane was in London running from the dark.

  We had ten days to Chusan and, confined now to the ship, I endeavoured to learn to use chopsticks. Wang tutored me patiently. I dare say he and Sing Hoo found Robert and me hopelessly eccentric. Between Robert’s obsession with plants and my interest in mundane aspects of Chinese life I cannot say I blame them. Lifting the sticks was easy enough but eating with them took longer. Wang set an assault course of empty shells and I practised hard. Landers found this most amusing.

  One evening I took my place at table and instead of knife and fork, sticks were laid beside the plate. The captain beamed over the tabletop with his customary enthusiasm. It was time for some fun.

  ‘Well, Miss Penney,’ Landers said, ‘inspired by you we have all gone jungly.’

  Robert looked nervous. He could think of nothing more shaming. He picked up his sticks and dropped them immediately. Landers motioned to the boy attending the table and three steaming bowls were laid before us. They were brimful of noodles of the kind sold on the dockside. I speared a pea with one stick.

  ‘It is a challenge,’ I said.

  ‘Quite so. Come along.’

  Of course, Landers was proficient and managed the noodles very well. Robert and I were novices. We carefully manoeuvred the sticks in an ungainly fashion.

  ‘I think you will starve if you continue so politely,’ Landers laughed, propelling his food towards his mouth Chinese-style, quickly and without ceremony. ‘They lift the plates to their mouths, you know,’ he encouraged us.

  I managed a clump into my mouth. It was soft and delicious. I could taste ginger and garlic. I bit off the end and realised that a noodle was draped down my cheek. Robert motioned to me.

  ‘It is not civilised, that much is sure,’ Landers chuckled.

  Robert cupped his bowl near his chin and copied the captain.

  ‘Not too poor for a first try,’ he pronounced proudly.

  After dinner we retained our sticks. One after the other we lifted the salt cellar, tried to pour wine (somewhat disastrously) and held a mock sword fight for the prize of the last orange on board.

  ‘There is a garrison at Chusan,’ Landers said past midnight and two bottles down. ‘Will Miss Penney continue from there or is she to settle? It is either there or Shanghae that are the last safe place
s for a lady.’

  Robert sobered. He must have liked Landers for normally he would not have answered such a remark. But his views on my behaviour had not changed and our encounter at Chimoo Bay had not put him off hauling me with him on his mission. I was still an embarrassment to be contained.

  ‘Mary stays with me. I cannot leave her anywhere,’ he said, his face set very hard.

  ‘I see,’ replied Landers, who could, I suppose, push no further.

  The mapping inside China was unclear and somewhat contradictory. Many of our vessels sailed the waters between Hong Kong in the south and Shanghae to the north and the maps of the coastline and of those places a day or two’s journey from port were excellent. The mystery was further inland. For the tea countries, particularly the black tea region of Bohea, where Wang was born, there was a mere sketch for guidance. Robert’s notebook was not only a horticultural compendium and a comprehensive list of all outgoings (including the cost of goods and plants sent home), but also a journal of even the most throwaway remark about the interior. He noted everything. The mention of a great river, another of a canal system, and a rough sketch of a giant, smoke-blue monkey he had been told inhabited the northern forests were all noted in meticulous fashion.