Then, one by one, we were funnelled into a high-sided alleyway where the road was uneven, and I found that I had my head back and I was laughing, exhilarated, walloping along and delighted as I caught sight now and again of a thin stream of blue sky between the high buildings.
Over the weeks, while we waited for Mr Thom to return, I stayed in town while Robert made several forays to the hills. I liked Ning-po and found that my time passed easily.
I had taken each evening to watching the crowd at the back door that assembled for a cup of Bertie’s soup. It occurred to me that I rarely saw a woman among them. Usually there were fifty men and always ten ragged children, but hardly ever a woman. When I pointed this out, Bertie explained that for a Chinese lady to be beholden was considered shameful and, it seemed, even the gift of a cup of soup marked an indebtedness considered inappropriate.
‘Well then, Bertie, why not let them sing for their supper?’ I suggested.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, they can pay by sweeping the floor or polishing a brass,’ I replied. ‘As if you require assistance and are only paying them in kind.’
The light dawned on Bertie’s face.
‘That is inspired, my dear,’ he smiled slowly. ‘I am only sorry I had not thought of it before. We shall start with them at the Church Hall then. It is far more fitting there, I think, and there is more to do.’
Within the week a ladies’ soup kitchen was set up where the women could come and pay for their meal by offering some small service to the Church. Bertie took to the task with gusto. He supplied squares of paper so the women could fashion pretty flowers from them, and a sewing box so that small repairs might be made to the linen. Robert took no real interest in this, of course, but he smiled indulgently when I was discussing the matter.
‘Mary notices everything,’ he said.
The soup kitchen flourished and soon was catering for almost a hundred. Many evenings I went to help. Most of the women were very poor. Some toothless. Some balding. Their clothes were worn and grimy. However, I noticed one who was none of these things and I felt for her in particular. She was of my own age. Her feet had been bound so she moved very slowly, and her bearing was that of a fine Han lady. What marked her out were her beautiful eyes. They were deep as dark pools, bright and clear and, however worn the old dress she wore, they showed her as special. Her name was Ling. Unlike many of those who came for free soup, she did not sit ragged on the streets of Ning-po. I never saw her anywhere except each evening at the Church Hall.
One night my curiosity got the better of me and I resolved to follow Ling when she left. The evening streets were busy and it was not difficult to fall in behind her at a distance. Ning-po at night became a bustle of stalls and the town centre smelled of frying fish and steaming tea kettles. As we moved through the alleyways I was aware that I drew far more attention than my quarry. White women did not walk alone, and certainly not in the dark. I ignored the glances and walked very deliberately, as if I knew exactly what I was doing and was meant to be there. Ling continued as far as the riverbank. She intended to sleep there. This shocked me and in all good conscience I could not leave her for the night, but I hesitated a moment, for I was not sure how to approach a lady of honour with my proposition. If the language of Chinese commerce is flowery, the comings and goings in society are even more so. In my moment of hesitation, a Chinaman passed. The man kicked poor Ling—an urchin, only in his way. He walked on. Such unkindness was not uncommon. I rushed forward, words forming in my mind. I hoped I could get them right.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘I have seen your needlework at the Mission and if you might be kind enough to help with the household linen then my friend, Bertie Allan, would be honoured to have you stay. It would be a great help to us all. I hope I do not disturb you.’
‘I could not accept such charity,’ Ling said as she struggled to her feet.
The man had hurt her leg and she was limping.
‘No charity,’ I reassured her. ‘Your stitching is so beautiful. We beg you to come and help us.’
Ling regarded me slowly. For a moment I wasn’t sure what she might do. She was a proud woman, clearly, and my proposition left her torn. There was no question of her accepting charity and, I realised, she was considering staying where she was.
‘Please,’ I said in a rush, ‘the linen is in a terrible state and I cannot manage it alone.’
And then, thank heavens, she relented.
‘I will help if I can,’ she said.
Ling followed me back to the house with her eyes low to the ground. Inside, the housekeeper furnished an ointment for her leg. I had one of my Chinese jackets brought down for I noticed despite the mild weather she seemed cold. I picked a bloom from the garden, a Chinese rose, and gestured for her to fix it in her hair. Chinese noblewomen dress their hair beautifully and I thought it might cheer her.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘You are safe here.’
And then we sat in silence and ate peaches on the terrace.
When he came back that evening and saw my refugee, Bertie said he would make arrangements. There was a nunnery at Shanghae if Ling was prepared to go. He would put it to her that the nuns had much good to do and not enough hands to do it, which he promised me ‘was not a lie—not even an exaggeration.’
‘You have found a favourite, then, Mary,’ he said.
My feeling seemed reciprocated, for Ling favoured me too. For three days she stayed at the mission and followed me silently almost everywhere I went.
‘What do you think happened to her?’ I asked Bertie, when we were alone.
He looked sad but as ever Bertie understood the ways and means of all around him. ‘Her feet have been bound—perhaps to assure her a good marriage. Sometimes families do that to their daughters to try to elevate their status. If a marriage doesn’t transpire it’s difficult. The girl has been brought up above her station and she’s crippled, in effect.’
It was true. Ling couldn’t do much manual work.
‘What happens to those women?’ I asked.
Bertie shrugged. ‘Sometimes they are deliberately abandoned. That might not be what happened to Ling, of course. Perhaps there was a downturn in the family fortunes—a death or dishonour, and she was left defenceless and alone. She will not talk of it, Mary. Of that I have no doubt.’
I didn’t ask. Instead, Ling and I arranged flowers for the hallway, darned Bertie’s linen and walked in the garden—such as her bound feet would allow. The maid helped to change her bandages, bathing the tiny, broken stumps at the end of her leg in warm water and herbs. Bertie said that to unbind her feet now would only cause poor Ling more pain and leave her open to infection. Her feet already smelt rotten but when I asked to see them Ling blushed and I did not like to push her. It was plain to see that huge damage had been done, from which she would never recover. Of all the harsh behaviour I had been subjected to, I realised that I had never been so roughly treated as this poor Chinese rose or indeed the millions like her, for foot binding was commonplace among Han women.
When I waved Ling off on the third day, I had the overwhelming feeling that I had been lucky simply to have been able to help her. In London I doubt I would have ever reached out to such a person and it seemed to me that these months of watching and listening, second-guessing words and phrases, seeing so much that was new, had somehow changed me. Perhaps Robert had been right and at home, in England, I had been selfish, unaware of anyone except myself, and anything except my own immediate desires. I had been spoilt.
If our time at Ning-po was one of realisation for me, then it proved so for Robert too. On the evening of the day Ling made her way to Shanghae, Bertie and I were sitting in the long shadows of the fire after supper when suddenly there was a battering at the front door. We went into the hallway where we discovered that the commotion was caused by Robert’s early return from one of his forays. It was strange—at this hour the city gates were closed for the night and none should be
admitted.
‘I climbed over,’ Robert explained. ‘One look at me, and the sentinel fled. “Gweiloh!”‘ White devil. White ghost. He postured, imitating the man and drawing a mock sword.
Bertie offered a brandy. ‘You must have wanted to come back to Ning-po very much,’ he teased. ‘We have had adventures in your absence. Mary saved a soul, I think. Though it was not her own.’
Behind Bertie, Wang and Sing Hoo were unloading boxes in the courtyard. Robert’s journey had been fruitful. I caught sight of hydrangeas and chrysanthemums, some bamboo plants and numerous cuttings. It was not like Robert to forgo seeing these bedded down personally. Something was wrong.
‘Are you all right, Robert?’ I asked.
Robert lowered his eyes.
‘What happened?’
‘It was a misunderstanding,’ he said. ‘In a village. They had nothing.’
We had seen such villages often—muddy houses and a single, dirt track. There were smoke-filled cottages too poor to have a chimney and no livestock for miles. The people were jaundiced and thin. Robert always said that it was the Chinese with their peculiar diet and dirty habits that caused so much sickness. That it was unnecessary. We had passed on loftily, never giving a closer inspection. They were just poor people, that was all.
‘They thought I was a doctor. A medical missionary,’ he said. ‘They came—everyone came to be cured. Out of nowhere. In an instant. And I could not help. I think there were a hundred of them.’
It must have been dreadful to have that descend upon him. The limbless and the old. The blind and the dying. Boils to be lanced, crusted, gangrenous wounds, the sickening smell of putrid flesh and everyone expecting him to help. Likely the only white men they had seen were the Church’s doctors.
‘The fools,’ Robert shouted, his hands shaking. ‘I gave them money. Much good it would do.’
Bertie laid his hand gently on Robert’s arm.
‘We cannot save everyone,’ he whispered. ‘We must pray for these poor and desperate people and for you, Robert, helpless in the face of their suffering.’ And he fell, there in the hallway, to his knees.
Afterwards we curled up by the fire once more, all of us silent. I noticed, I thought, a single tear on Robert’s cheek in the fire’s dim glow. I decided not to tell him about Ling. It seemed selfish, somehow, after what he had seen, for me to have helped when he could do nothing. Here, as at home, the poor were pox-ridden, dying and desperate. It was only that in China we had opened our eyes. Bertie put pine cones onto the fire and they crackled and filled the room with the scent of the forest. No one said as much as goodnight and I cannot remember what time it was when we finally retired to bed.
His brush with the unfortunates deeply affected Robert for some days. That such a misunderstanding could occur and that he had been powerless to take any action to prevent it weighed on his mind.
‘If I die inland,’ he mused, ‘no one will know for months at least. If they execute me, most likely no one will know at all.’
‘Ah, but when you return unexecuted and very alive,’ Bertie pointed out, ‘you will swell the Empire’s coffers and return to London a celebrity.’
He took a bronze cash from his pocket and flipped it.
‘Which shall it be?’ he asked.
‘I think you are both morbid,’ I declared.
Robert was doodling on my notepad. He had drawn a tall monument with angels mounted above a grave.
‘Lord, Robert,’ I said, ‘your finds will commemorate you better. Do you think it impossible now to procure what you have been sent for?’
‘No,’ Robert replied, adding the word ‘FORTUNE’ to the mausoleum in his sketch.
It entered my mind that there might be nothing left of me for posterity. All Henry had was a photograph, and that was only if they let him keep it. Was he calling my sister ‘mother’ now? I did not mind, of course, if he was. At least he had her there.
‘I wonder what our children will think of us,’ I pondered.
Robert flushed, realising that if I had said this, Bertie must know my secret.
‘I am sorry. Mary has embarrassed you with her private business, Bertie. Our family disgrace.’
Bertie met Robert’s eye. He had great strength, Bertie. Great resources.
‘Oh, no,’ he said steadily. ‘God’s will is in everything, you see. I would never blush at the Lord’s design.’
And at that, Robert fell silent.
For the first time then I thought perhaps things had happened for the best. For some days after I did not consider myself reckless, wicked or unthinking. It was all part of the Lord’s design, after all. Any mistakes made were allowed. In fact, any mistakes made were for the best. I was absolved. I walked with a lighter step wherever I chose to go. I strolled at night in Bertie’s garden. The house was completely still, a single light flickering. I skipped between the fruit trees, shadows in the darkness. I slept late and when breakfast came I relished it. I had been forgiven. It felt as if I was meant to be in Ning-po, in Robert’s wake, bringing home distressed Chinese gentlewomen and dispatching them to nunneries further north. I was meant to live these days in the house of a Catholic missionary.
‘My life here is so very far from home,’ Bertie pondered over breakfast, ‘I think this place has healed me as much as it is healing you, Mary. We can really help here, you see.’
I squeezed his arm. I suspect that Bertie had ridden out a scandal of his own, though he never spoke of it. In fact, he revealed very little about himself and we knew him far less than we imagined as it turned out, for Bertie had a surprise for us up his long, embroidered, satin sleeves.
Mr Thom, our Consul, returned after some weeks and the news came to us upriver. Bertie had suggested a day trip to watch the fishermen. They had trained cormorants that were tethered to the boat and dived for fish at their master’s command. Of course, we wanted to see this for ourselves. To prevent the birds from guzzling the catch the fishermen tied their necks with a length of cord just tight enough to stop them swallowing. The cords were removed only briefly each evening when the clever creatures were fed with eels, by hand. Trained cormorants were worth many dollars and the fishermen were prosperous. Perhaps this was one reason why Bertie had organised the trip. In the nearby villages the children were plump and contented. The old were well dressed.
By negotiation at the river bank, Robert bought a pair of the cormorants for six dollars, and later, together with a tank of live eels for food, sent them to London as a curiosity. As it happened, the news reached us after several months that the eels had spilled out and to save the poor birds starving on the ocean the captain had slit their throats, so London never did see the wonders we had witnessed on the riverbank outside Ning-po.
Wang came towards us with the news we had been waiting for all these weeks.
‘Consul Mr Thom is returned to Ning-po,’ he announced.
‘Oh,’ said Bertie in a curious, mystified tone that seemed to imply that he would have somehow expected to know this before anyone else.
Robert meanwhile jumped to his feet enthusiastically. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘We must go back at once.’
He bundled Bertie and I into the small bark we had hired for the trip and then went back onto the riverbank to shout at the servants, who were dismantling our picnic. Bertie and I continued to nibble on the ham, which we had kept in hand. Robert meanwhile practically threw our oarsman into his place and jumped on board with such force that the little bark rocked perilously.
‘Lord, Robert. Is this man your true love?’ I teased.
‘Ning-po,’ Robert ordered the oarsman fiercely and then settled down without making any reply.
As we set off I was still licking my fingers clean.
Mr Thom was a tall, languid man with eyes that drooped slightly in the corners. Despite the weather he wore an English suit made of wool.
‘Ah, Bishop,’ he greeted Bertie warmly.
Bertie bowed low while both Robert and I
gaped. Bishop? The truth of it is that had we known we never would have confided our secrets in Bertie.
‘Your Honour,’ Bertie greeted Mr Thom.
Robert recovered his senses more quickly than I did and shook hands with the Consul, while I was so shocked that I neglected to curtsey, surveying Bertie wide eyed instead.
Mr Thom laughed. ‘Ah, it is difficult to believe, I know, Miss Fortune. Our dear Bertie does not blow his own trumpet but he is the man in a crisis. Be it one of the soul or something merely in politics.’
Then Robert disappeared into the Consul’s study with some papers that he had promised to deliver by hand from Chusan. That, it seems, was what we had been waiting for. Bertie and I remained in the drawing room.
‘Bishop Allan,’ I scolded him and he looked quite contrite, in fact. ‘You should have told us. Really, Bertie, you are the end!’
After that Robert started to address him as ‘Your Grace’, which caused Bertie no end of hilarity.
‘The one thing of which I am quite sure,’ he said, ‘is that the Lord sees me as a man. Not as a bishop. And that is quite good enough for me.’
During our stay in Ning-po Robert’s store of information had swelled. He heard tales of natives taunting monkeys so they would hurl tea leaves down the hills, saving them labour in time of harvest. He visited the Chinese bathing houses and came home with stories of steam rooms such as the Turks enjoy, of luxurious, private baths scented with menthol or rosemary, massage beds awash with towels, and gifts of tea and tobacco. He was invited, with Bertie, to dine at Dr Chang’s. It was a wonderful feast of thirty courses that they left after four hours, and allegedly only halfway through. But now the maps were in order. Supplies were secured and shipments dispatched. It was clear we were leaving.
Robert wrote three gardening columns, one after the other. On our last afternoon Robert and I planted some seedlings in Bertie’s garden. Robert chose strawberry plants as a gift to the Bishop. He had reared them secretly and now laid out the seedlings near the fruit trees. We had never seen strawberries or raspberries in China but Robert was sure there was no reason they would not flourish. We watered the plants carefully and left instructions with Bertie’s garden boy. Bertie, though delighted with the gift, declared he was saddened that it signalled the end of our stay. We were all sad, I think.
The Secret Mandarin Page 14
