The Secret Mandarin

‘I will miss you horribly,’ I declared as Jane and I mended the last of the packing together, darning stockings and sewing buttons. The five months of the shipwreck was the longest we had ever been apart. ‘I know I will be lonely.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided me. ‘We will write every week. India will be wonderful. It is the perfect place for you, Mary.’

My sister lifted the cotton shirt up to her nose as if it was a veil.

‘You will write to me of dusky beauties,’ she twitched the material. ‘And I will write of the children.’

I noticed that she breathed in, smelling the shirt before she put it down. Perhaps the soap and starch reminded her of Robert. The way he smelt on Sundays, freshly pressed, freshly dressed. When she took his arm and they walked together along the crescent, to church. That was how my sister loved her husband—well turned out and in public.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he is getting on. Nurseries pay well for the exotic and this trip will bring in a good fee plus anything Robert can sell on top. God will bring him home again and keep him safe.’

I had no fear for Robert. Nor for myself. After all, I had survived a shipwreck a thousand miles from London and still come home. I am of the view, however, that it was less God’s business and more blind luck. And no one could deny that we were of a lucky disposition, all of us.

‘He will be fine,’ I said. ‘Of course he will.’

When the trunks were packed we had sherry in the drawing room. Robert was booked on the Braganza, due to set sail for China from Portsmouth on the same tide as I. Jane had arranged for us to travel to the port together. She was stoic, of course, but had placed vases of lilies in each room. The funereal scent pervaded the house and matched her hidden mood. Jane might be exasperated by me but we had been close all our lives. This time it was not only I who was leaving but her husband as well.

Robert was late home from work that night. We did not wait for him. Cook sent up sandwiches and we ate them by the fire, toasting the cheese until it bubbled and spat. It made us thirsty and Jane had more sherry than usual.

‘He must have made you feel wonderful,’ she mused, drawing her hand down to smooth her navy skirts. ‘Did you like it? What William did to you?’

I sipped my sherry and let it evaporate a little inside my mouth before I swallowed. Jane and I had never discussed our carnal desires and the truth was, William was not my first, though neither of my other lovers had inspired me to the heights that the ladies talked of in the dressing rooms. For myself, if anything, I missed being held. I like the strength of a man’s arms around me. I avoided my sister’s question entirely.

‘Do you like it, Jane?’

Her eyes moved up to the shadows dancing on the ceiling.

‘I love my children,’ she said, ‘and it does not last long.’

It is true that I had never seen Jane flush for Robert. They never seemed like lovers—did not lie in bed all morning or dally on the stairs. But this was a step beyond what I had imagined. It seemed so cold.

‘William,’ I said, ‘was a terrible lover. But I know it can be…’ I paused, ‘very satisfying.’

My sister sighed. ‘Before I married Robert, Mother tried to warn me, but it is beyond imagination, is it not? She said that it was like rolling downhill. But that scarcely touches the truth and makes it sound pleasant. The whole business is just so animal. I think I will never get used to it. A gentleman becomes quite unlike himself. I am lucky I fall pregnant so quickly and can have done with it.’

I was not sure what to say to that. Robert and Jane had been married a long time and they had only three children. If she had fallen pregnant quickly each time, they had perhaps only rolled down the hill on a handful of occasions in all the years.

‘He is doing so well,’ I commented, and topped up our glasses from the decanter.

‘Oh, yes,’ she enthused. ‘God willing.’

My poor darling.

The day we left London it was raining. It rained all day. Jane rose early and saw to it herself that the children were breakfasted and dressed. By eight they were waiting to say goodbye, assembled uncomfortably in the morning room. These are awkward moments, I think, the moments of waiting, the time in between. Robert gave a short speech, advising them to be good, saying he was going away for everyone’s benefit and when he came back he would expect great things of them. Thomas’ lip quivered. Helen stared ahead, emotionless. I said nothing, only climbed up to the nursery where Henry was asleep and silently kissed his little head goodbye.

‘Look after him,’ I said to Nanny Charlotte.

‘He’s a lovely baby, Miss. Don’t you worry about him,’ her syrupy vowels soothed me.

I gave her a shilling and stumbled back downstairs. I shouldn’t be leaving. I shouldn’t be leaving. But here I was, almost gone, my sister kissing my cheek, her hands shaking.

‘You can trust me with Henry,’ she whispered. ‘Never fear,’ and then she turned and kissed Robert smoothly—a mere peck to which he scarcely responded. It was difficult to go. I stood on the steps until Robert grasped my arm and guided me firmly to the kerb.

When we mounted the carriage I could see the shades of self-doubt in my brother-in-law had hardened into righteousness. At the Society he had always been treated shabbily—a garden boy made good. Brave men have been broken that way. Douglas risked his life to bring fir trees from Canada and the seeds were left to rot in the Society’s offices. He died unrecognised for his achievements, an irascible old drunkard, half blind and mad. Robert was now privately commissioned.

‘On our way! On our way!’ he said gleefully as the carriage pulled off. It seemed he had no thought for those he left behind.

Jane remained dry eyed. The last time I saw her was through the coach’s moving window. The children were bundled upstairs. She stood on the doorstep of her house alone. It felt to me as if too much was unsaid, that words would have helped her if only she had used them. Everyone dear to me was now in that white, stucco house on Gilston Road and all in Jane’s care. For the second time that year I waved goodbye as I watched the house recede. When the carriage turned left I saw my sister spin round and walk through the doorway, the sweep of her skirt slowing her haste. She slammed the black door quickly, almost before she was fully through. And we were gone.

Chapter Two

The road was muddy and it slowed us down. The hired carriage, uncomfortable to drive in at the best of times, bumped along the uneven surface. If I lost hold of it, the rug simply jolted off my knees.

When I had first arrived in London I walked there. It was more than a hundred miles and took me a week. I left home with my mother’s blessing. I was fifteen by then and fired with visions of myself on stage, my name on billboards, fêted. I arrived with a shilling in pennies, a change of clothing and a fanatical light burning in my eyes that made me shine in any part I was offered. I bribed the scene-changers, forced my way into auditions and, once I had hijacked the part, stole the attention of the audience by fair means or foul—anything to act, to lose myself for a few brief hours on stage and bask in the limelight and the applause. My tactics worked. In my ten years in London I had managed everything I had hoped for—even two love affairs that had not inspired a single sentence in the scandal sheets and which, for a long time, saw me better provided for than most young actresses. Then I had met William. I hated being swept under the carpet like this. It was simply not in my nature.

Robert, by contrast, was in good humour. He clutched his pencil eagerly and wrote notes in a moleskine—comments on the weather or trees he had spotted by the road or over the tops of the brick-walled gardens as we rode out of Fulham, past Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park.

As we left the reaches of the city we followed a route now familiar to me, scattered with villages along the way—Claygate, Chessington and Esher. The clean air cut unexpectedly through the dampness, my head cleared and I felt calmer. I realised that I had been closeted too long in my sister’s blue back bedroom at Gilston Road.

‘I will simply have to make the best of this,’ I thought. ‘Perhaps I am an exotic flower and Calcutta will have me blooming. Maybe my instincts are wrong.’

Outside the window the puddles splashed as we drove through.

Robert sat back smugly. ‘Headed for warmer climes, eh, Mary? We English travel well,’ he remarked.

‘You are not English,’ I laughed.

Robert pulled at his greatcoat. I had irked him. So far from home I could see he would enjoy not being placed. He could be born a gentleman, an Englishman, whatever he chose.

‘I’m sorry. I did not intend to hurt you,’ I apologised.

‘It is the least of what you’ve done, Mary,’ he retorted tartly.

I straightened the rug over my knees and lowered my eyes. I did not wish to quarrel. We had hours until we reached the port. He drew a small volume from his pocket and settled down to read. Glancing over, I could see maps of India, drawings of tea leaves and tables of humidity readings. I contented myself with the thought that Robert was insufferably dull.

The rain made the countryside doubly green and lush. The dripping sycamores were beautiful. I watched the passing of each field. The tropics would be very different and these, I realised, were my last glances of England. The last time I had passed in this direction, many months before, I had been so distressed after Henry’s birth and William’s abandonment that I did not look out of the window once. My recollection was that I had been distracted by my own body—it was so soon after the birth that I ached all over. Coming home again I had willed myself every mile to London and was so intent on reaching the city that I scarcely noticed the scenery on the way. Now, entirely recovered and not at all intent on my destination, my curiosity was piqued by the view from the carriage window.

‘Robert,’ I enquired, ‘are there sycamore trees in India? Are there horse chestnuts?’

Robert looked up. His blue eyes were bright. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not in Calcutta,’ he tapped his pencil against the cover of his notebook. ‘The seed does not travel easily. I know of a nursery on this road. We could obtain cuttings. The Society would be fascinated, Mary, if you could make the trees take on Indian soil.’

‘No, no,’ I insisted. His eagerness was simply too bookish. What did I care for the Royal Society and their no doubt copious information about what trees will grow where? ‘It was not for that. I only wondered,’ I said, cursing inwardly that I had started him off.

He laid down his notebook and continued.

‘They have been cultivating tea plants in India for sixty years, you know. The bushes have died even on the high ground. It is in the tending of them. That is the thing. If I can crack that conundrum I will be there.’

I could think of nothing more tiresome.

‘Does nothing else in China interest you?’ I asked in an attempt to stave off the information that was coming, no doubt, about soil alkalinity and water levels. ‘Strange dress or customs? The food?’

Robert looked thoughtful. ‘I heard they train cormorants to fish. The Chinese keep them on leashes. Perhaps I will collect bird skins. I can dry them with my herbarium specimens.’

A sigh escaped me.

‘And what of you in India? What interests you?’ he snapped.

It saddened me. ‘It is not by choice I am sent away,’ I said. ‘I have no interest there. I am cast out, Robert. You know that.’

He simply ignored me. He picked up his book and continued to read.

In the middle of the day we stopped in the muddy courtyard of an inn. Robert and I sat silently over a side of ham. I had not thought that we would stop. It was only for the horses. The road was hard on them.

Robert said, ‘We will go faster in the long run if we see to them now.’

I wished we had travelled by train or taken the public coach. When the innkeeper stared at me, half in recognition, Robert became flustered. Perhaps the man had seen me on stage. We were not so far from town that it was inconceivable. Robert hurried our host away from the small side room and closed the door.

‘’twas not the end of the world if the man had been to Drury Lane,’ I said.

Robert checked the tiny window to see if the carriage might be ready.

‘You do not fully understand what you have done, Mary. You have some regret but you do not understand. It is as well you are away.’

My jaw tightened but I could not stop the tears.

‘You have never been in love,’ I spat. ‘There is no love in you.’

Robert rounded on me. ‘It is not love to beget a bastard out of wedlock, Mary. That is not love.’

It was a comment I could not allow to pass.

‘Henry will be fine. As you are fine,’ I said pointedly.

Robert’s parents were not married when he was born. Only after. Jane had told me about it years before, when she had been considering Robert’s proposal of marriage, in fact. It was a secret he had not known I possessed and it infuriated him now.

He pushed me against the mantle. His eyes were hard and I realised how strong he was. The material of his greatcoat cut against my neck and his voice was so furious that the words felt like barb-tipped arrows.

‘You will never say that again, Mary Penney.’

Robert was often short-tempered but I had never seen him violent. I thought to strike him but I believe in that state he would have struck back. His cheeks were burning. Jane’s husband had not a Lord for a father. Not like Henry. Robert’s father was a gardener, a hedger on an estate in Berwickshire, or had been until he died. The man’s talent with plants was not a wonder. No, the wonder of Robert was how effectively he had expunged the two-room cottage where he was born and in its place put all the comforts of his house on Gilston Road. The carved wood of the mantle cut painfully into my skin.

‘Let go, you brute,’ I squirmed. ‘Are you set to beat me because I defended myself ? What would Jane say, Robert? Get off !’

Robert’s hands fell to his side as he brought his temper under control.

‘You try me, Mary,’ he said.

I hated him horribly but I bit my lip and said nothing. It was clearly fine for Robert to insult Henry, but not acceptable for the same words to be used of him. I comforted myself that this journey would be over soon enough and then I would be free of the tiresome bully. I stalked back out to the carriage and, refusing help, I took my own seat. Robert said not one word the rest of the journey and that was fine by me.

On the coast it was not raining but it was cold. At Portsmouth we were to stay with Mrs Gordon. Jane had written and reserved the rooms. All being well with the weather, we had a night to wait. Jane had thought we would prefer to spend the time on land together rather than make our way to separate cabins. This was a treat that I had not been accorded before William’s money came to bear. I regretted the arrangement, but now we had arrived there was nothing else for it.

Mrs Gordon’s house was on a busy side street close to the docks. At the front door, I dismounted and was welcomed by our cheery landlady, a fat woman wearing a plum-coloured day dress that set off the copper hair beneath her starched white cap.

‘Come in, ma’am, sir,’ she smiled. ‘I am Mrs Gordon and you will be Mr Fortune and Miss Penney, I’ll be bound,’ and she swept us inside on a tide of efficient courtesy.

The house was clean and comfortable and smelled pleasantly of sage and lavender. In the generous, wood-panelled hallway Mrs Gordon ushered our luggage into place and told us the arrangements for dinner.

‘Your rooms are the two on the left at the top of the stairs. They overlook the street,’ she informed us. We were set to ascend when a door opened and a cross-looking lady emerged from the drawing room with her husband. Mrs Gordon introduced them as the Hunters.

Mrs Hunter fiddled with a chain around her neck. She reminded me of a dog playing with its tail, the links twisting round her fingers never quite satisfying her, the amethyst and pearl locket constantly out of reach.

She inspected me plainly while Mrs Gordon introduced us.

‘We are off to inspect the Filigree before it gets dark,’ she said. ‘We sail tomorrow.’

‘You will be my shipmate, then, Mrs Hunter,’ I smiled.

‘How nice. What takes you to Calcutta?’

Behind me, Robert froze.

‘I will visit relations,’ I lied smoothly, aware of his eyes on me. ‘And my brother here is to board the Braganza.’

Mr Hunter nodded towards Robert. ‘Well now, you must envy your sister, Mr Fortune. Hong Kong is no match for the delights of India.’

This topic was no better for Robert than that of my reasons for going to Calcutta. The East India Company did not wish his mission to be common knowledge. I realised my mistake and tried to divert the conversation. This chance encounter was rapidly becoming unexpectedly difficult.

‘So you have been to India already?’ I attempted.

The Hunters giggled good naturedly as if I had said something particularly amusing.

‘Half our lives,’ Mr Hunter replied. ‘Is it your first voyage to the East, ma’am?’

I shook my head. ‘This time I hope to arrive, though.’

‘It was you who survived the Regatta? Oh my,’ Mrs Hunter’s voice rose, ‘how exciting! Freddy, Miss Penney shall be our lucky charm. No one has ever gone down twice! You must wish very much to visit your relations. What are their names? Perhaps we are acquainted.’

Myself, I would have concocted a name, but before I could answer, Robert cut in, unable to bear it any longer.

‘Mary will marry in India,’ he barked, staring pointedly at Mrs Hunter. ‘There is no more to tell.’

My cheeks burned with discomfort and quickly the Hunters excused themselves and hurried out of the front door. Such rudeness was entirely unnecessary and I rounded on Robert as the door closed behind them.

‘Did you think I would be able to embarrass you halfway across the world?’ I snapped, though in truth I pitied him. The poor man would never be free of himself. He pushed me forward a little to escort me upstairs, past the trunks that were now piled on the landing—ours and the Hunters’. He could scarcely wait to stow me away.

‘I have enough to think of, Mary. You and your bastard child are the least of my worries.’

That settled it—I had had enough. Incensed, I turned on him and as I did I saw a cricket bat piled up among Mr Hunter’s things. I grabbed it.

‘How dare you?’ I raised the bat, furiously swiping as hard as I could. ‘You pompous, self-important, short-sighted fool!’ I lost my temper.

Robert backed downstairs, away from my blows and nonchalantly and with his hackles down, easily wrestled the bat from my hands, tripping me up so that I landed with a thump on the thin carpet. The man was all muscle. My blood boiled even further.

‘You must rest, Mary. You leave tomorrow,’ he said coolly to dismiss me.

I scrambled to my feet and, disarmed and furious, I ran to the first room, slamming the door behind me. There were tears in my eyes. I cursed Robert as I sank onto the bed. How dare he? After a minute there was a soft knock at the door. I threw a pillow at it.

‘Go to hell, Robert,’ I said.

I thought he surely must regret behaving so callously but when the door opened it was the ample figure of Mrs Gordon that entered.

‘Now,’ she said, her tone comforting and motherly, ‘here is some arnica cream, Miss Penney. My guess is that fall will leave a fine bruise.’

‘Thank you,’ I sniffed.

Jane had picked our lodgings well. Mrs Gordon’s kindness only provoked me to cry more. I was in a torment of anger and humiliation. I felt like hammering the mattress with my fists.

‘Some polka you danced there with your brother,’ Mrs Gordon remarked. ‘I keep an orderly establishment as a rule. But,’ she smirked, ‘the look on his face when you took up that bat has me inclined to allow you to stay the night.’

I had no idea we had been seen.

‘I am glad to be gone tomorrow,’ I snivelled.

Mrs Gordon nodded. ‘Perhaps I will see to it that you have dinner in your room. I shall send the girl with a tray at seven.’

‘Thank you,’ I sniffed as she helped me unhook myself and I smoothed on the cream.

That night I dreamt of my dressing room at the theatre. I was drawn back vividly to everything I was leaving behind. I could smell the jars of rouge. The broken handle on my dressing table had not been fixed. There was a door in the corner that led to dark rooms, new places beyond the scope of backstage. There were fur rugs and long benches padded with comfortable cushions, and the wax had burnt very low so the flames flickered, lending the dimmest glow to the endless labyrinth of windowless rooms. The place had the air of a funfair with a dark helter skelter in one corner and a Punch and Judy show too. And somewhere I knew there was a baby, but I could not find him. I dreamt of myself wandering, tormented, searching and moving on. Leaving Henry had disturbed me.

When I woke after this restless sleep it was already light. I shook off my misgivings and dressed for breakfast. Downstairs, Robert was just finishing. He drained his glass. I wished him a good morning and slipped uncomfortably into a seat. It transpired that the Hunters had gone to church early. St Peter’s held special services for travellers about to embark and my shipmates were, it seemed, of a pious disposition. It would be awkward now but I would do my best to befriend them once we were underway. It was a long voyage, after all.

In silence, I sipped some cocoa and nibbled on a slice of bread. Outside the little window the weather was perfect for getting off. The dockside was bustling with activity, ships loading last-minute supplies and sailors turning out of the waterside inns, some drunker than others. Robert paid our bill.

‘I will escort you to the Filigree,’ he said. ‘I promised Jane I would make sure you were safely aboard. I have sent the luggage.’

I felt like a schoolgirl, but there was no point in arguing.

‘Lead on,’ I replied, falling into step along the cobbles of the sea front. I told myself it would be fine. I was set to try. Perhaps India would be wonderful and I would lead a life of exotic adventure in the Raj. Shortly, we came to a halt at the ship, right under the name, emblazoned in white above our heads. Robert gave me my passage money. I squared up to him and held out my hand.

‘I know you only want rid of me. You might not believe it but I wish you the best, Robert. Come home safe and wealthy from your adventures.’

Robert peered at my hand and then reached out to take it.

‘Goodbye, Mary,’ he said. ‘It seems unlikely we will meet again.’

He did not stay to watch me up the gangplank. I held the railing studiously. William’s money had secured a more expensive passage for me this time. The ship was bigger than the Regatta and well finished. Mostly she was laid out to cabins. Up the other gangplank they were loading boxes and casks—the final supplies for the voyage. I stood at the top of the plank and with some satisfaction, my gaze followed the figure of Robert as he made his way towards the Braganza and disappeared into the throng of bobbing heads.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘at least I am on my own reconnaissance now. I shall find my cabin.’

I drew myself up and turned to face the deck, and my future.

This resolve, however, did not last me thirty seconds for I had no sooner moved than Mr Hunter appeared from a doorway near the poop deck.

‘Miss Penney,’ he greeted me curtly.

I nodded back, at a loss how to explain Robert’s poor behaviour the day before. Mr Hunter, however, showed no sign of discomfort at all.