“Would you feel embarrassed if he was at the wedding?”
“As the only blood relation I can produce?” He paused. “I’m afraid your husband wouldn’t be too pleased.”
“Funnily enough, you’re wrong. He’d roar that the man was a kinsman and that blood is thicker than water. He can get very tribal, you know.” She smiled. “But I have the feeling that your conscience is telling you you ought to invite him. Am I right?”
“It’s mean-spirited of me. I may as well admit it.”
“You judge yourself a bit severely. By the way, you haven’t told me this young man’s profession. Does he have one?”
“He’s a missionary,” said Trader.
“A missionary?” She threw back her head and laughed. “My dear John, your troubles are over. You should certainly invite him.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Firstly, nobody wants to appear discourteous to a missionary. It’s very bad form. The fact you’ve got one in the family is all to your credit. Secondly, people expect missionaries to be a bit peculiar, you know. I remember one of old Lord Drumossie’s sons became a missionary. He was certainly peculiar, not a bit like the rest of the family.” She nodded to herself. “This is good news, not bad at all.”
“He doesn’t approve of the China trade. I just hope he doesn’t start in on that.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he’s kept on a tight rein.”
“Really? How?”
“My friend the vicar. I’ll ask him to keep a weather eye. He’s very wise.” Her face suddenly lit up. “My dear, I’ve just remembered, he’s got a young curate. We’ll invite him, too. He will be given strict instructions that he is to look after the missionary and never leave his side. We shall all make them welcome. And even if he did tell some of the guests that he didn’t approve of the China trade, they’d hardly be surprised. Everyone will be happy,” she concluded blithely.
“Except possibly the curate.”
“He will be doing something useful and good. That,” Mrs. Lomond said with firmness, “is what curates are for.”
* * *
—
So John Trader and Agnes Lomond were married, and it was a most successful event. The groom with his piratical eye patch looked very dashing. The bride was lovely. Later that year, they went to Macao, where they took a pleasant house above the port.
“We won’t be here all that long,” Trader told her. “My guess is that in a couple of years most of the British colony will be settled on Hong Kong. We’re starting to build there already.”
For the time being, however, Agnes found herself in a pleasant community where people lived the same sort of way that they did in Calcutta, but with a little less formality and rather more enjoyment. And if people found her a little reserved sometimes, they didn’t mind, because they understood that in due course, when John had made his fortune, she would be just what he needed.
They had a charming little villa high up the hill, with a wonderful view over the sea. Agnes had chosen all the furniture and decoration so well that, as she rightly said, “We might be up at the hill station, except for the sea.”
And those who had access to her boudoir noticed and thought it charming that on her dressing table, just behind the tortoiseshell hairbrushes that her mother had given her as a wedding present, stood the handsome miniature of her beloved husband that his friends had given him before he first left Calcutta for China. It was the last thing she looked at each night before retiring.
Of course, there were the months when John and Tully Odstock were away with all the other merchants in Canton. For trade was busy. But there was plenty of news to talk about.
If Canton was left alone, the British were by no means done with China. Having confirmed, without a doubt, that British arms could obtain what they wanted, the London government had recalled Elliot and sent out a sterner commander to complete the business.
Up the coast he went, in the spring of 1842, from port to port, smashing every defense. Some of the fighting was grim, especially in the summer, when John was back on Macao. On one of his occasional courtesy calls, Cecil Whiteparish brought them an especially significant piece of news.
“We’ve taken a place called Zhapu. A very pretty little coastal town, I understand, with a fort garrisoned by Manchu bannermen—but these were the real old Manchu warrior clans, you know, who conquered China originally. They fought to the last man. Truly heroic. The point is,” he continued, “the way is now clear. There are no more garrisons to take until we get to the forts on the coast below Peking itself.”
As Whiteparish was leaving, Trader remarked to him quietly, “It sounds as if that Zhapu business was pretty frightful.”
“Yes. Women and children, too, though I didn’t want to say that in front of your wife.”
“We’re fortunate, you and I, that we’ve never actually seen anything like that,” Trader remarked.
And just for a moment it seemed that Cecil Whiteparish might have said something more. But he didn’t.
* * *
—
A few weeks later Agnes Trader gave her husband a healthy baby boy. He invited Cecil Whiteparish round, and they shared a bottle of champagne. It seemed the right thing to do.
And three days after that, Trader was able to tell his wife some joyful news. “Peking’s capitulated. Signed a treaty. We’ve got everything we wanted. Five ports open to us…Well, four, really—they’ve thrown in a little place called Shanghai to make up the fifth. But that’ll do. A British consul in every port. Hong Kong formally ceded, of course. And an indemnity, can you believe it, of twenty-one million dollars!”
“That seems a lot,” Agnes remarked.
“I know.” John gave a wry smile. “It almost makes one feel guilty.”
1853
Guanji had been five years old when his mother showed him how to kill himself. All the preceding day, the battle between the Manchu bannermen and the British and Indian troops had raged along the shore. Not until evening had the barbarians dislodged the brave bannermen from the Buddhist temple near the waterfront. But by the next morning, the devils from the sea were advancing on the Zhapu garrison itself, and Guanji’s father had gone with the other men to defend the eastern gate.
The walled town of Zhapu formed roughly a square, divided into four by cross streets running north to south and east to west. The northeastern quadrant contained the garrison enclosure where Guanji lived. If the barbarians got through the town’s eastern gate, those in the garrison would be trapped with no means of escape.
“Bring me those two knives from the table,” his mother told him. And she had made him hold one of them against his neck, placed her hand over his, and gently guided the blade around his throat. “Just move the blade like that, and press hard,” she said. “It won’t hurt.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Now, you know where your Hangzhou uncle’s house is. Try to get there if you can. Maybe you’ll be safe there. But don’t let the barbarians see you. If they catch you, then use the knife and kill yourself right away. Do you promise me?”
“I promise.” His father’s elder brother. His name was Salantai—not that it mattered, since Guanji always called him Uncle from Hangzhou, which was where he had his business. The house where his uncle resided, however, was in a suburb outside Zhapu.
“Is Father coming back?”
“If he comes back, he’ll find you at your uncle’s.”
“I want to stay with you.”
How pale she looked. When the mortar shell exploded, the roof had collapsed, and a falling beam had pinned her to the floor and crushed her leg. He could see a jagged bone poking out through the flesh and the blood forming in a pool beside it.
“No!” she cried. He could see that she was using the last of her strength. “Go now, Guanji. Before the barbarians get here.”
“Are you going to kill yourself?”
“Don’t ask questions. Do as your mother tells you. Go! Quickly, quickly!”
So he turned and ran.
* * *
—
Guanji’s memory of that day was like a dream. There were bangs, and shouting from the eastern gate like a distant echo. Yet the street was strangely empty as he ran away from his home. The wall of their neighbors’ house had been partly blown down, and between the wall’s jagged edges he could see in. They had a well in the middle of their yard.
The head of that family was an old man. Guanji did not know the old man’s name, but in his youth he had come to Zhapu from Beijing, so everybody called him Old Man from Beijing. His sons had gone out to fight, but he was standing there with his son’s wife and her three little children. The old man saw Guanji and stared at him blankly. He had a broad Mongolian face, but his brow and cheeks were creased with such deep vertical lines that it looked as if the skin had been put in a vise and compressed.
It seemed that the old man had also decided that the garrison was about to fall. For turning his gaze back to his grandchildren, he sadly picked up the first, a boy about Guanji’s age, and dropped him down the well. Then he picked up a little girl and did the same. Their mother, a pretty young woman, had a baby in her arms. At a nod from her father-in-law, she climbed over the side of the well, and they both disappeared.
Guanji stood there, watching. Old Man from Beijing gazed back at him. Guanji suddenly thought that maybe the old man was going to come for him, too, and he prepared to run for his life. But instead, Old Man from Beijing slowly sat down with his back to the well, and taking out a knife, he calmly drew it across his throat, almost absently, as if he were doing something else. Guanji watched as the red line began to spurt blood. Old Man from Beijing turned his eyes towards Guanji again. They looked sad. Then Guanji heard shouts at the end of the street, so he stopped looking at the old man and bolted.
The way to his uncle’s house led through a series of familiar alleys to a small side door in the garrison wall, guarded by half a dozen men. “We’re closing the door in a minute,” one of the guards told him. “You won’t be able to get back.”
“My mother sent me to my uncle’s house,” he cried. Nobody tried to stop him.
Running westward, he soon came to the big north–south street, from which he could see that the northern gate was still open. He ran out quickly before the guards there even had time to question him and took a small lane that led through straggling suburbs. His uncle’s house lay a mile away. Fortunately, he didn’t see any barbarians on his journey.
Years ago, when his uncle had got permission to live outside the garrison, he’d built up a pleasant family compound of small two-story houses. The most important building, revered as a temple, though it looked more like a small barn, was the Harmony Hall, which contained the memorial tablets to the family ancestors. In a modest courtyard to one side were some strange little shrines. They were used only occasionally, at deaths and marriages, by the shaman priests—who still at such times would remind the Manchu clans of their ancient ways, when they lived in the northern forests and plains, above the Great Wall of China.
His uncle wasn’t home, but his aunt and her children were. Her daughter was fourteen years old, her elder son was twelve. The third child was a girl of about his own age. The baby of the family was a boy of three. When she saw him, his aunt didn’t look too pleased, but when he explained what happened, she nodded grimly. Then she noticed the knife he was carrying.
“Give me the knife, little Guanji,” she said. But he shook his head and backed away.
If the barbarians came and they all had to kill themselves, Guanji was going to use the knife the way his mother had shown him. When Old Man from Beijing had slit his throat, it didn’t look too bad. He didn’t know if his aunt was planning to drown her children. But he was determined about one thing. He didn’t want to go down any well. So he clutched the knife tightly and kept out of her reach. His aunt looked angry, but she was too preoccupied to insist upon it.
* * *
—
An hour passed. They saw smoke rising from the garrison. But nobody from the garrison came out their way; neither did the British barbarians. Finally his aunt told them all to go into the house. But she didn’t join them. She kept watch at the gate until, at the end of the afternoon, her husband arrived, having ridden as fast as he could from the city of Hangzhou.
* * *
—
There was no more fighting at Zhapu that night. In the morning, his uncle went out to assess the situation. He came back at noon.
“The British have the garrison, and they’ll leave a small force to hold it. They’re not interested in anything else. Their object is Beijing. They want a treaty from the emperor.”
“And the defenders…?” his wife began before he signaled her not to ask.
He turned to Guanji. “Little nephew, you can be a very proud boy today. Your father died defending the gate to the last. He died a hero,” he said firmly. “A Manchu hero!” he cried to them all. “An honor to our noble clan.”
“And my mother?” Guanji asked.
“She must have been in pain when you left her. You know her leg…”
“Yes, Uncle. I saw.”
“I think she ended her life just after you left. Her death would not have been painful.” He glanced at his wife. “It would have been before the troops came.” He turned back to Guanji. “The British officer has given me permission to remove both your parents’ bodies for proper burial. Everything will be done as it should be.”
And so it was. And little Guanji had this comfort: His mother had not suffered, and his father was a hero.
* * *
—
Not every boy is taught to be a hero. But Guanji was. He didn’t mind. It meant they gave him a pony.
Since he’d lost both his parents, his uncle adopted him as an extra son, and certainly no father could have been kinder or taken more trouble to bring him up in the best Manchu tradition. Even before he was six years old, Guanji could answer his uncle’s catechism perfectly.
“What is our clan?”
To a Han Chinese, it was his family that mattered, his parents and grandparents who must be honored; and when asked who he was, he gave the family name first, then his personal name. But for a Manchu, the wider clan, the tribe, was everything. The true Manchu did not have a family name. He went proudly by only a single personal name within his clan.
“We are the Suwan Guwalgiya,” Guanji would answer. “We can trace our ancestry for seven hundred years.”
“Where is the spirit pole of our clan?”
“In Beijing.”
“Who is the founder of our branch of the clan?”
“Fiongdon, the archer and commander, companion of Khan Nurgaci of the Golden Clan, who brought the Jurchen tribes together and founded our Manchu royal house.”
“How did Khan Nurgaci show his love for Fiongdon?”
“He offered him his own granddaughter as a bride.”
“What happened when Fiongdon died?”
“The sun changed its course, thunder and lightning filled the sky, and Khan Nurgaci himself was chief mourner at his funeral.”
“How many sons had Fiongdon?”
“Twelve, the seventh of whom was Tulai, the great cavalry commander.”
“What did they do?”
“They drove the Ming dynasty from the throne of China.”
“How many generations separate you from Fiongdon?”
“Nine.”
“What ranks did Fiongdon hold?”
“Before his death, Lord of the Bordered Yellow Banner and one of the Five Councillors. After his death, he was made Duke of Unswerving Righteousness. Twice again, as generations passed, his rank was raised
higher. A hundred and fifty years after his death, he received the highest rank of all.”
“What is that?”
“Hereditary Duke, First Class.”
“Sometimes, Guanji,” his uncle explained, “a man may rise high during his life, but after his death, his reputation may fall. He may even be disgraced. But Fiongdon’s name and rank have grown over time. That is the proof of his worth.” He smiled. “One day, little Guanji, you, too, could bring such honor to our clan.”
* * *
—
The pony was a sturdy, shaggy little Manchurian roan, with a big head and a white patch on his face. His name was Wind over Grasses, but little Guanji just called him Wind and loved him very much. One of the old Manchu warriors in the garrison began to teach him to ride in a small field near the house.
After six months the old warrior gave him a toy bow and taught him how to pull it and shoot arrows while he was riding, and before long Guanji could race past the target and hit it every time. The old warrior praised him, and sometimes his uncle came to watch, and Guanji was very proud and happy. After a year they gave him another bow, not quite so small, and soon he was just as accurate with that, too.
Sometimes, after his riding and archery lessons, the old man would take Guanji to the teahouse where he met his Manchu friends, and they’d tell the little boy Manchurian folktales and sing the zidi songs, accompanied with a hand drum, about the glorious deeds of the Manchu past. They’d encourage Guanji to sing along with them, and soon he knew a dozen of the rhythmic songs by heart, and the men were delighted and called him Little Warrior; for there was no other small boy in the Zhapu garrison who knew so much.
“You know what they say,” the old man would declare with a nod, “a boy who is strong in body will be strong in mind.”
When he was seven, his uncle put him in the garrison’s junior school. “You will learn to read and write Chinese characters,” his uncle told him, “but you will learn to speak and write Manchu as well. Even many bannermen can’t speak our language anymore, but the court in Beijing still uses Manchu in all official documents. If you rise high, therefore, this may be useful to you, and it will certainly please the emperor.”
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