China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “Did you always seek this?”

  “Since I was a boy. But I did many bad and foolish things along the way.”

  “Many people, hurt or disappointed by the world and its imperfection, seek purity. That desire is not unusual.”

  “It is what we seek.”

  “But you seek it here on Earth.” Cecil Whiteparish sighed. “And Christians understand that a perfect world is not possible on Earth. We say it was lost when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The purity you seek can be found only in Heaven.”

  “We shall make Heaven here.”

  “It cannot be done on Earth.”

  “Why?”

  “Human nature.”

  “Then we shall change human nature.”

  “A noble desire, Nio. But history shows this path leads to tyranny.”

  “You are supposed to be a missionary.”

  “Yes. These are the lessons that missionaries learn.”

  Nio was silent for a few moments. “You should not stay here,” he finally said.

  “Why?”

  “You argue too much. But I will arrange a safe conduct for you.”

  “When must I leave?” Cecil asked.

  “Today.”

  “Can I go up the Purple Mountain? It looks beautiful.”

  “No.” Nio walked a few paces in silence. “I have a message for you. From the Heavenly King.”

  “I am listening.”

  “Tell your rulers that we worship the One True God. The Manchu are idolaters and they will never give you what you want. You should help us destroy them. That is all.”

  Cecil Whiteparish left that afternoon with a guard of six horsemen. His parting from Nio was polite. Perhaps each of them wanted to show more warmth. Cecil knew that he did; and he thought the same was true of Nio, but it was hard to tell.

  * * *

  ◦

  It was the second of December when John Trader reached Hong Kong. He didn’t plan to stay there long. He meant to see Cecil Whiteparish before he left, of course. Indeed, he had already prepared a short note to make the missionary aware of his presence.

  But since he bumped into him on the dock, while the men were still unloading his traveling trunks, there was no need to send it.

  “Cousin John!” cried Whiteparish. “Welcome back. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “I’ve written you a note to tell you. But here you are, which is better.”

  “It’s been more than a year. Did you find your estate in Scotland?”

  “We did. Just twenty miles from the Lomond estate, where the general and my mother-in-law rent the dower house now. My wife is overjoyed. And the children love the place.”

  “And you?”

  “It’s everything I always dreamed of.”

  “You’ll reside in Scotland?”

  “Yes.” Trader nodded. “As you may know, I bought out the Odstocks a while ago. Now I’ve sold two-thirds of the firm, which will continue here under new partners. I’m retaining a third for myself, and I shall manage the business in Britain.”

  “You’ll still have to go to London, I suppose.”

  “Every so often. But with the new railway, one can make the entire journey from Glasgow to London in only twelve and a half hours. That’s four hundred miles. Thirty-two miles an hour!”

  “Astounding. Unimaginable when we were boys.” Whiteparish shook his head in wonderment. “So you’ve come to sell your house in Hong Kong.”

  “I have.”

  “Will you stay there meanwhile?”

  “No. It’s too much trouble. I have lodgings in the lower town.” He glanced up towards the Peak above. “My wife never liked it up there.”

  “She wasn’t alone,” Whiteparish agreed. “Almost all the big merchants that built places up on the Peak seem to have had problems—cracking walls, leaking roofs…something’s always going wrong.”

  “She was quite right to take the children back to Macao. Young children and all that.”

  “She always came here to keep you company, though.”

  “A week every month, without fail. She was very good about that.”

  “We were glad to see her, too. She took a great interest in the mission. As did you, of course,” Cecil added quickly.

  Trader gave a wry smile. My wife’s enthusiasm, he thought, and my money. But he didn’t say so.

  Cecil Whiteparish had his own views about Agnes Trader. In the early days of her marriage, when she and John had lived in their charming hillside villa on Macao, they’d certainly been busy. John was making a fortune. Agnes gave birth to four children. And he himself had been busy enough with his missionary work. A couple of times a year, however, they’d ask him up to the villa for dinner, and these were always pleasant occasions.

  Gradually, however, the British community was moving across to Hong Kong. As yet, the place was more spartan and lacked the Mediterranean charm of Macao. He’d set up the mission there. Some time afterwards, the Trader family had followed.

  And Agnes hadn’t liked Hong Kong. Cecil could understand, but he thought that for John’s sake she should have shown it less. And when she’d taken the children back to Macao, he’d felt disappointed in her. She might have been scrupulous about spending a week with her husband each month, but when one considered that John often had to be away at the factories in Canton, it had seemed to Cecil that his cousin was getting a raw deal.

  Whenever she was in Hong Kong, Agnes made a point of visiting the mission, sometimes having quite long conversations with him, and ensuring that John made a handsome contribution to the mission’s work each year. This was all very well, and he was grateful for the money, of course. But he still thought privately that she could have behaved better.

  She’d got what she wanted, anyway. The estate in Scotland.

  “Agnes has become very religious recently,” Trader suddenly said.

  “Indeed?” Whiteparish wasn’t sure how to respond. “By the way,” he remarked, “I am about to get married myself. Next week, in fact. Would you come to my wedding?”

  “My dear fellow!” Trader shook him by the hand. “How splendid. I had no idea.”

  “It happened rather suddenly.”

  “You were kind enough to come to my wedding. I certainly wouldn’t miss yours.”

  Whiteparish glanced towards the ship and saw two men bringing Trader’s bags.

  “Will you dine with me tomorrow?” he asked. “Simple fare. But I can introduce you to my fiancée.”

  “Delighted,” said John Trader. And indeed, he had to admit, he was quite curious to see the lady.

  * * *

  —

  He liked her at once. How could he not? After all, he thought, if someone is so obviously good and at the same time matter-of-fact and friendly, one would have to be a strange kind of person to dislike them.

  He also noticed, with amusement, that this neat little Scottish lady had already made some changes to Cecil’s spartan quarters near the mission chapel. A vase of flowers, a perfectly laid table: small signs of a woman’s hand that his bachelor cousin would probably never have thought of.

  He wondered, though, how much Cecil had told her about him.

  He didn’t imagine she approved of his business any more than Cecil did. On the other hand, since most of the small British community on Hong Kong were connected with the opium trade in one way or another, he supposed she’d decided it wiser to keep her thoughts to herself. As for his past love life, it was long ago and hardly scandalous, he thought, even to a puritan.

  She asked him about his children.

  “We have four, Miss Ross. James is the eldest. He’s at boarding school with his brother, Murdo; he’ll go to Eton in a couple of years. My daughters, Emily and Constance, are at home with a governess.
” He noticed Whiteparish give his fiancée a glance suggesting that even if he disapproved of the source of the Trader family wealth, his missionary cousin was still just a little bit pleased to have such aristocratic-seeming connections. “So like my own wife, Miss Ross, you are Scots, but from the east coast rather than the west, I think?”

  “Indeed, sir, my father is a minister in Montrose.”

  “And what brought you to Hong Kong?”

  “The family by whom I was employed in Edinburgh asked me to accompany them here. When I consulted my father, he told me that I should go and see the world, if I wished.”

  “What an adventurous soul you have, Miss Ross, and what a wise father.” Trader smiled.

  This seemed to please her. But she wanted to draw something else to his attention. “Has your cousin told you about his own recent adventure on the mainland?” she asked. And when Trader looked uncertain, she turned to her fiancé.

  “Ah,” said Cecil. “Indeed. This might be of interest to you. I have been to Nanjing, to see the Taiping.”

  “That’s a dangerous undertaking.” Trader looked at Whiteparish with a new respect. Then he glanced at Minnie Ross. “Weren’t you worried?”

  “No,” she replied simply. “Whatever happened to him, it would be God’s will.”

  “Oh,” said Trader.

  “I’ll tell you about it over dinner,” said Cecil with a smile.

  * * *

  —

  They had completed the main course by the time he’d finished. Trader was fascinated and thanked him warmly.

  “Would you say they were Christian?” he asked his missionary cousin.

  “I’d hoped, of course. Perhaps they can be made into Christians. But many things concern me. Their leader, by claiming to be the brother of Jesus, is trying to make a cult of himself. That is never good.”

  “You don’t think he could mean it in a general sense, as we might speak of ‘brothers and sisters in Christ’?”

  “I think he means it literally. As for having seventeen wives…”

  Trader glanced at Minnie Ross.

  “These Taiping speak of their Heavenly Kingdom,” Minnie said, “yet they killed every Manchu in Nanjing—women and children, too.”

  “It’s true,” said Cecil. “I asked.”

  “I don’t much care for their idea that all private property should be abolished, either,” Trader remarked. “There is, however, another consideration. Namely, that whether these people are genuine or not, it may not really matter. At least to the British government.”

  Minnie Ross looked puzzled, but Whiteparish nodded. “I was afraid you’d say that,” he murmured sadly.

  “The British government is unhappy, Miss Ross,” Trader explained. “The treaty of 1842 promised our merchants access to five ports, consuls in those ports as well—all the usual things that we, and other nations, expect in other countries. Apart from Canton and Shanghai, it hasn’t happened, and even in those places there have been difficulties.”

  “The Chinese feel those concessions were made under duress,” Cecil added. “And the reparations we demanded were crushing.”

  “All treaties following a defeat are made under duress. History’s full of them,” Trader countered. “Though I agree about the reparations. But the fact remains that we, the French, even the Americans, are growing impatient with a regime we see as corrupt and obstructive.”

  “And the Taiping are seen as a possible alternative?”

  “Back in London, a Christian government in China looks an attractive proposition.”

  “You remember, Cousin John,” the missionary said, “how we all learned in school the ancient doctrine that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For centuries, Britain preserved itself by pitting the great continental powers of Europe against each other, and it worked pretty well. But I believe there are two potential fallacies in the doctrine.”

  “Expound.”

  “The first fallacy is simple. Your enemy’s enemy may seem to be your friend today, but not tomorrow. Say you help him to victory, and then, being more powerful, he may turn on you. We may help the Taiping gain power, but as soon as they’ve got it, they may treat us worse than the Manchu did.”

  “The idea was to keep rebalancing the powers. But I agree, there’s a danger in changing any regime. Better the devil you know. What’s the other fallacy?”

  “It is more insidious, I think,” said Whiteparish. “It is the moral fallacy. Consider: Your enemy is a bad man. You know without a doubt that he is evil. The man who opposes him, therefore, the man who can strike him down, must be good. But it’s not so. There is no reason at all to suppose he is good. Very likely, he is just another bad man.” He paused. “So you try to find out if your enemy’s enemy is good or bad, and he tells you that he is good. For this will bring you and others to his cause. And this pleases you.” He paused again, then shook his head. “But he is lying. He is just another bad man, perhaps worse than the first.”

  “And the Taiping?”

  “They say they are Christian. So we think they must be good. We want to think them good. We may even close our eyes to their evil, because we do not wish to see it. A man puts on a coat like mine, so I think he must be like me. But he is not.”

  “A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  “Exactly so. As my dear Minnie has just pointed out, the Taiping say they are Christian and that they mean to build a kindly Heavenly Kingdom; yet their first act has been to slaughter an entire population of innocent women and children. I will work to convert them into better Christians; but you certainly shouldn’t give them any guns.”

  “I thought missionaries were supposed to be more idealistic,” Trader said with a smile.

  “They may be idealistic until they get into the field. Then they see real life, and it’s not pretty.”

  “They carry on, though.”

  “That’s the test of faith.”

  “You’re a good man, Cousin Cecil,” said Trader warmly. “I admire you. And when I get back to London I shall repeat what you say. I just hope,” he continued quietly, “that they listen.”

  * * *

  —

  When their meal was over, the two men walked Minnie Ross back to the house where she was governess. “A few more days, and you will not have to do this anymore,” she remarked to him with a smile as he kissed her on the cheek at the door. Then the two men made their way slowly towards Trader’s lodgings.

  “Tell me,” Whiteparish ventured, “are you keeping a third share of the business for your son to manage one day?”

  “One of them, perhaps. If either of them is interested.” Trader smiled. “That’s a long way off. I just like to keep my hand in. I’m far too young to retire, even though I can afford to.”

  “You’ll keep yourself busy in Scotland. I’m sure you’ll be a model landlord.” Cecil paused. “I thought that perhaps the next generation…”

  “Would prefer to avoid the dirty old opium trade. You can say it.” Trader walked on a few steps. “In ten, fifteen years’ time, the opium trade may not even be important. It’s ironic, but I suspect that if China became less defensive and opened her ports up to more general trade—in other words, if we could sell her more—the problem would disappear. The country is so huge and potentially rich. I’m not alone in thinking this. The men at Jardine Matheson, whose operations dwarf the rest of us, anticipate a far more general trade in the future.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  They came in sight of Trader’s lodgings.

  “There is one thing I’d like to ask you,” Trader said. “It’s a private matter.”

  “Then it will remain so.”

  “Thank you.” Trader nodded slowly. “It concerns Agnes. She has always shown a proper respect for the church. But in recent years her religion has become…”—
he hesitated—“more intense. Had you ever noticed?”

  “That’s rather hard to say. She’s been very good to the mission, of course.”

  “Has she ever discussed matters of faith with you?”

  “Now and then, as far as I recall.”

  “Has she ever discussed the question of marriage and children?”

  “Let me see.” Cecil thought a moment. “I think I remember one conversation. This was quite a long time ago, you know. We spoke about it in a general way.”

  “Did she discuss Saint Paul or Saint Augustine, might I ask?”

  Whiteparish took another moment to consider. “I believe,” he answered slowly, “she asked me about Saint Paul and marriage. The saint was celibate himself, of course, which was unusual amongst the Jews. Along with his strictures against lust, he recommended celibacy—if it could be managed. One has to remember that in those early days, the Christian community expected the world to end within their lifetime.”

  “And after Paul?”

  “You really come to Saint Augustine, over three centuries later. People still awaited the end of the world, but its date was unclear. Augustine thought that devout Christians could marry, but that the act of procreation should be for the purpose of having children. Otherwise, he argued, it became lust and was therefore sinful. That was generally the doctrine of the early church.”

  “Have your children. Then abstain.”

  “Yes.” The missionary smiled. “I’m not saying it was adhered to.”

  “And nowadays?”

  “The marriage service, as you know, speaks only of regulating the natural affections. Not many clergymen would want to go further than that.”

  “You told this to my wife?”

  “Yes. As doctrinal history.”

  “You did not…recommend?”

  “Oh.” Cecil stared at his cousin in surprise. “No, I did not. I would not.” He frowned, then gave his kinsman a curious look. “I should be happy to write to your wife to clarify the subject, if you wish.”