The Secret Mandarin

by Sara Sheridan

  It was like floating on a high cloud. Like flying. My limbs felt light and my spirit soared. We stroked each other, confident and gentle. When we had kissed so much that my lips tingled he pulled back for an instant and then lay on top of me. I moaned with pleasure and gently, with mounting intensity, he tupped me till the sweat dripped from us and I was screaming his name. Afterwards he held me close and kissed my hair, breathing in deeply and taking in my scent. He pulled a quilt to cover us and we were almost asleep when a maid came with some tea and buns.

  ‘What is this?’ Robert roared at the intrusion.

  The girl kept her eyes on the floor and, I must admit, looked horrified. To her, I suppose we were two gentlemen, and though such things were accepted in China they still merited a level of shock, especially, I suppose, in one so young. The girl silently crossed the room, opened the shutters and then scampered out again, her hand to her face. The sun had risen again, in fact, it was quite high. We had been up all night.

  As she closed the door we heard first whispering and then giggling outside. A moment later I heard Wang telling Sing Hoo. After the giggles there was a whispered ‘they both look like men—poor girl!’ and then another rattle of laughter. This is the first time they have been united in anything, I thought to myself.

  Robert and I ate breakfast in bed before exhaustion took us.

  ‘I have never known such passion,’ I whispered to him.

  I felt shy.

  ‘I have never known such love,’ he returned, a cheeky smile on his face.

  I thought of my mother and my father, rolling downhill together. I thought of how lucky I was to have found my match. I thought how Jane did not like what Robert did to her, and I was glad of it. I’d never have another man again. One night with Robert was worth a thousand shallow suitors with their tawdry desires or a million declarations of devotion from those titled tomcats I had been accustomed to. I was utterly contented. Such a night cannot be shaken from a woman’s memory. Such a night changes one’s life forever.

  When I woke it was the afternoon and the tousled bed was empty beside me. I stared at the dark wooden ceiling and reached out my hand without looking to feel the indent where he had laid. Then slowly I rose and threw open the window to air our room. I found a small bottle of lilac oil and lit a tallow in it to scent the place. Then I called for the maid and ordered a bath. The tub arrived and two maids brought hot water to fill it, in buckets they had heated over the kitchen fire. This took a long while and in the meantime I sprinkled rose oil on the water and made ready drying cloths and my clothes. For the first time since we had left Ning-po I wished I might dress in a European outfit to show off my waist and my cleavage. I wanted to move sinuously and swing my hips. But, of course, that was out of the question. Instead I chose a long Han jacket of a delicate green and gold, which I laid out ready on the stool. I sent the maid to fetch cut flowers and put them into a pale yellow painted vase on the dresser. I, myself, made the bed. When Sing Hoo arrived with some items he had washed, he showed no sign of his bout of giggles with Wang outside the door.

  ‘Master,’ he bowed.

  ‘It is all right, Sing Hoo.’

  When all was ready I dismissed everyone from the room. I know the servants at the inn found it strange. A mandarin would surely visit the town’s bathhouse to complete his ablutions. I expect I had the reputation of a strange, shy gentleman. The scented water was luxurious and relaxing. As I dropped my clothes to the floor and slipped into the bath a feeling of complete ease came over me. I floated in the old tub, surveying my body, admiring myself as I truly was. I let my dark ponytail fan out and drew it through the water behind me as I bobbed on the surface. I did not hear Robert enter the room for my head was ducked under. He pounced on me playfully, and I screamed, splashing out.

  ‘This room smells like a boudoir, Mary,’ he teased.

  ‘That is because you have made a woman of me,’ I said, and I kissed him deeply.

  Settling beside the tub Robert languidly stroked my skin, smooth in the hot water, and I drifted this way and that, turning so he might lay his hands on my back as easily as my front side.

  ‘You are reckless,’ he said with a celebratory tone in his voice.

  This made me laugh, for in London he had uttered exactly such words but in derision. I pulled off his jacket and he slipped out of his clothes as I drew him into the water with me, causing a spill over the high sides of the tub. The perfume of the room was intoxicating and the light breeze from the open window was refreshing as Robert and I moved together, kissing in the water. The intensity of the night before returned and I clung to him as he mounted me, biting his shoulder so I wouldn’t scream, for now it was daytime and such cries would surely bring the servants running.

  ‘I love you,’ Robert breathed in my ear. ‘I have never felt this before for anyone. I never will again.’

  To hear these words only increased my passion and I found myself swinging round in the water, positioning myself on top of him and kissing his mouth deeply. We moved together frenetically, excited, unable to stop ourselves. It was unbridled and I wanted to devour him, to be only one rather than separate. Like Robert, I had never had such feelings before. We spent ourselves and then sat back at opposite ends of the bath. My lips were swollen and my colour high. Robert’s cheeks burnt too and he eyed me with a lazy satisfaction.

  ‘My God,’ he said. ‘I never imagined.’

  He crossed the bath and kissed me before reaching for the soap and washing himself in the water. I watched as he lathered his body. I enjoyed every movement, such was my languid desire.

  At length we clambered out and dried ourselves. I blew out the flame in the lilac oil and threw my silk jacket over my nakedness, leaving the ties unfastened, knowing that he might peek at me as I moved. I wanted to afford Robert every pleasure I could. I sat by the window and he called for the bath to be removed, which was a laborious process as the water had to be taken away in buckets before the tub could be lifted. I hid myself while the work was done. Around the bath, the wooden floorboards were sodden and the maids were busy mopping up the puddles. Outside the farm, workers were coming down from the mountain for the night, their baskets piled high. It was almost dark.

  ‘Mary,’ Robert said from the other side of the room once everything had been cleared. ‘Wang has made great progress.’

  In truth, we had been almost ready to leave even before Wang returned, and his skills had all but completed our preparations. The distance to the coast was several thousand li and we would travel for two months at least. Eight weeks. My last weeks of freedom, camping at the roadside discovering tiny villages and bustling, dusty towns. I thought of the cramped tents. I imagined waking with the sun, in Robert’s arms, or staying in the hostelries we would find by the road, sneaking under the covers and relishing each other. This was worth becoming a woman again and eight weeks felt like a long time from where I was sitting. I even felt excited that I would see the sea again after so long. The Great Water. I was immersed in the present now, unworried about what was to come. The impossible choices. They’d have to wait. We had promised each other this time and we must take it.

  ‘Let’s make no decisions, my angel,’ Robert soothed me. ‘Let us only enjoy it.’

  ‘When do we leave?’ I asked.

  Robert smiled as he crossed the room. He took my hand and pressed it to his lips.

  ‘Two days.’

  The road for the most part was in good condition and the weather fine. The highway was busy all year. It was, after all, the main road to the coast and as such it was peppered with inns and other stopping places so that by Robert’s estimation we need only make camp with the men one night in three. We were a large party. In addition to the tea gardeners, who acted as bearers for the journey, we had another six men to help with the loads and the animals. Our company was both animated and highly organised with Wang and Sing Hoo clearly in charge and a hierarchy that quickly established itself under their lead. The
men ate two meals a day, both of rice congee. The first was served just after sunrise and the second at sunset, which was accompanied by tea and a rough rice wine we carried with us as part of our provisions. This stuff was a fearful brew, native to Bohea. It stung the mouth and brought tears to the eyes. The men seemed to like it, though I must say it brought out the best and the worst of the petty rivalries and friendships that were bound to flourish in such a tight-knit group. Managing so many bearers was the only difficult task, for in every other respect this journey was considerably easier than any of our other wanderings, the road being in good condition, the weather warm and the direction clear.

  At night Robert and I took to the countryside alone, walking hand in hand under the vast sky, away from the camp. This time was, I suppose, our honeymoon. Each night was different—each special in my memory, for as we explored each other and our new situation, our love deepened and grew. Once we came upon a pool and swam naked under the bright, low moon, our skin almost luminous, translucent in the pale light, and shining as our limbs splashed in the cool, black, satin water. Another time we entered a wood of fig trees and Robert pressed me against the rough bark in the darkness under the canopy and took me where I stood. I was eager for him, always soft, always yielding. The most intimate thing now, I realised, were the silences, desirous, comfortable and intense. A glance was enough to express concern or interest. A smile enough to denote pleasure or desire. I loved the way his eyes moved over my body in the daytime, surveying his territory. I loved the way my mind could wander. We both longed for the end of each day, as the tents were pitched, the darkness fell and the men cooked dinner. The camp was lit by firelight or the occasional torch of rags and we would eat and leave, eager to be alone.

  While Wang and Sing Hoo certainly marked the change in us, the bearers were oblivious. They had not, after all, known us before. They believed me to be a male secretary and Robert my master. On the road eastwards I heard more than once Robert and I referred to as ‘brothers’. I suppose it was not uncommon for the higher classes to separate themselves from the lower. Even had they thought us male lovers I expect it would have made little difference to them. What would hang you in London would excite mere comment in the Orient. Nonetheless, I admit there was a certain frisson, which I enjoyed as a secret woman, a secret mistress, sharing a forbidden love with Sing Wa, my secret mandarin.

  On the road the inns were variable. Some were so dirty and flea-ridden that we would rather camp for the night than stay indoors. Other times the hostelries were luxurious, with their own restaurants, theatre and a suite of rooms that was bright and pleasant, the beds hung with buttercup-gold awnings that cast a glow upon our private nakedness, marking our lovemaking even more brightly in my memory.

  ‘You are blossoming, Mary,’ Robert flattered me, though I admit I felt more confident and secure than ever before in my life.

  Robert for his part seemed taller, somehow, and happier. He approached each day with a passion that surprised me. It was as if his ardour leaked into all his pursuits. Before, his organisation had always seemed obsessive, if effective. The mark of a man taking his duty beyond the call of the ordinary. Now, without doubt, he had a new vibrancy to his vision. He ate to enjoy the taste of the food. Robert had become hearty.

  Within a week we found that riding in the sedan chairs was tedious. Even side by side with the curtains drawn so that we could converse, it proved tiresome. To address this, Robert bought horses when we came across an inn with a stableyard. They were ponies really. A chestnut for me, a wonderful beast whose veins stood up on her neck and legs when I cantered her. She came with an embroidered leather saddle that fitted perfectly. This made us think she was far from home, for Robert was sure such fine work was from the north, perhaps Mongolia. My eyes narrowed as I pictured the map.

  ‘Near Russia,’ Robert proffered, and so I named her Romanov.

  Robert’s steed, on the other hand, was a dirty white pony he named Murdo, after the bully in his class when he was at infant school in the village where he was born. This animal was as much a thug as his namesake and would snap at my poor Romanov if he felt she was getting too much attention.

  Aside from Prudence the mule, whose top speed was a smartish trot, I had not ridden since I was a young girl and I was nervous. However, both Robert and I were keen for sport. Our caravan moved slowly and we found we could canter a long way for our amusement, thundering along the road or crossing the country at a gallop, clearing fences, chasing the clouds. This way we could be alone. The road was safe, our provisions plentiful and we were mostly not needed. Occasionally we would come across an unusual ficus or olea and interrupt our race to take cuttings. Mostly though, we explored, the wind in our faces. The caravan’s pace was so steady that after several hours of a detour we would always find it exactly where it was expected on the road. Wang and Sing Hoo, both with their eyes on their promised bonuses, proved more loyal and steady than at any other time, and, while I have no doubt that Sing Hoo traded some of our provisions of rice wine, there were no serious incursions.

  A month from the coast Robert and I came across a village on our daily excursion away from the caravan. We stopped and spoke to the headman. It was an ordinary enough place—a few scattered huts and some fields that had been cultivated, rice paddies cut into the hillside. It did not seem to me, however, that there were enough people there. Perhaps, I hazarded, the majority were away, working part of the land we had not ridden through. I thought no more of it.

  Beyond the village the soil changed and it was difficult for Romanov and Murdo to keep their foothold. The land was steep and the earth seemed to fall away, as if it was not bound properly together. The going was treacherous and we tried to loop round the patch but it went on for quite a while. As we proceeded over the crest of a hill there was a large lake. It was unusual to find this, rather than a spring or waterfall, and the pool itself was flat and deep. Frustrated with our lack of progress, Robert and I dismounted and checked over the horses. Both animals drank deeply from the pool and Murdo wandered off to make a meal of the nearby vegetation—he was the kind of pony that ate anything, we had come to realise.

  Robert sat at the water’s edge but soon moved on, slapping his skin.

  ‘Midges,’ he swore. ‘I have not seen the like of it since my last summer in Kelloe and then I cannot have been more than thirteen.’

  The little dots skimmed the top of the water. They were far more interested in Robert than in me, I noticed.

  ‘Come on, let’s keep going,’ he said. ‘This will drive me mad. I cannot believe I am a Scotsman and bothered by midges. Why aren’t they going for you, Mary?’

  I shrugged my shoulders and laughed.

  Past the pool we came upon a burial ground, mostly overgrown, though there were new coffins placed off the earth to one side in the traditional manner. Some of these, I realised, were children’s caskets. I wondered if here were the missing villagers. I counted upwards of ten, not an incidental number for a village of perhaps thirty souls, and all dead within months of each other, if the encroaching vegetation was anything to go by.

  ‘Could be anything,’ Robert said sagely. ‘An attack, an accident or some sickness or other.’

  I laid a stone on each of the coffins in remembrance and we moved on.

  By the end of the day we had rejoined the caravan at a small town on the main road and instructed the men to make camp and see to our horses. While the mules needed little attention, Romanov and Murdo were ridden hard daily and required rubbing down and a careful feed. All this was done for us while Robert and I took rooms. I could already see that Robert was not quite himself, but it did not overly concern me. By later that evening, however, I noticed he had become jumpy and his skin felt clammy to the touch.

  ‘You should lie down,’ I ventured. ‘I am worried that you have caught some kind of infection.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Mary,’ he insisted, ‘I am fine,’ and he unpacked the small overnight valise Sing Hoo
had brought from the servants’ camp.

  When it came time to order dinner Robert was indecisive and had little appetite. I ordered for myself and suggested some chicken soup for him. Something light. By the time the soup came his skin was hot to the touch and he was running a fever.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he murmured once more, but I could feel the burning and insisted on taking command.

  ‘Is there a cold stream?’ I asked the innkeeper, a fat man in the habit of carrying a knife with him, I noticed, though I only ever saw him use it to carve meat off the joint.

  He nodded and pointed away from the settlement towards the higher ground.

  ‘Have them bring me a bucket of water from it,’ I directed. ‘Cold.’

  When the maid arrived with the bucket it was icy enough to bring Robert’s temperature down if I doused him in it, I was sure.

  ‘Come now.’ I took him by the arm and guided him to the bed.

  He seemed confused.

  ‘But dinner…’ his voice trailed.

  He was getting hotter.

  At first I had no other thought than perhaps this was a chill and that with a good night’s rest and some cooling he would recover. I knew what to do. Jane and I had made cold compresses to ease Helen’s fever when she was little. The freezing flannels had broken the child’s burning overnight. I started to cool Robert’s skin with the spring water and, after protesting at first, he let me.

  ‘Bring me another bucket of this water,’ I directed the maid.

  After some time I realised that Robert’s fever was not breaking and the cold compresses were curiously ineffective. By midnight he was all but delirious. The sweat dripped off his pale skin and the cloth of cool water became hot in my hand almost immediately I held it to his forehead or swabbed his chest.

  ‘Doctor?’ Wang offered.

  ‘No. No.’