The Forbidden Orchid

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  “It’s the climate. It takes people that way sometimes, especially those who are new to it. Here, lie down.” Alex slid down the bed a bit to give me some room. And after hesitating for a moment, I stretched out and lay my head on his lap.

  Alex removed the pins from my hair one by one. I heard them clink as he dropped each one in a dish on the nightstand. He searched through my hair for the last remaining pin, then smoothed my hair out and began to rub my forehead. I could feel my muscles relaxing under his touch.

  “I miss Kukla. Don’t you?”

  His hands slowed. “Very much. It feels odd without her.”

  “My sisters will care for her. I wish I were there to see their faces when Robin brings her to my home. They will be so happy.”

  “Hmmm,” Alex said.

  “Will you miss the ship?”

  “I’ll miss the captain and the routine of it. The knowing what was coming next.”

  “I know what you mean. I felt like that at home.” I slid my hand under my face and felt the ring press against my cheek. “The ring is beautiful. I was surprised that you had one. Where did you find it?”

  “It was my mother’s,” he said. “The three bands represent the holy trinity. In Russia brides wear their rings on the right hand. You can put it on the left if it means more to you like that.”

  I looked at the ring, turning it round on my finger. “No, I like it there.” It made my heart crack a little to think of Alex cherishing the ring and keeping it safe even when he was a penniless orphan. He could have sold it many years ago and made his life better, at least for a little while.

  But he didn’t, and now he had given it to me. I thought about his father choosing the ring for his mother, about her wearing it when they made Alex, and when she gave birth to him.

  “What were your parents’ names?” I asked.

  “My mother’s name was Anna and my father’s, Pyotr,” he said.

  “You don’t have any sisters or brothers? I never thought to ask you.”

  “I had an older brother, Maxim. He was a soldier at sixteen, but he went missing. Several people who knew him said he was killed.” Alex explained this to me in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he had said the words many times, getting used to the sound of them. “You mentioned your sister before. Do you have others?”

  “I have eight sisters,” I said.

  A little snort of laughter escaped him. “Well . . . that’s quite a lot of family.”

  “There should have been ten of us,” I said. “My mother’s firstborn was a boy, but he died as a baby. My parents keep trying for a boy.” I shrugged. “But all they have are girls. I know my mother will love you. When she meets you, I mean. She’ll like having a son-in-law.”

  Alex made no comment, and I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t know if Alex planned to come back to England to meet my mother and sisters. Perhaps I would never see Alex again after this. Suddenly a lump rose to my throat.

  “How is your headache now?” he said.

  “It’s easing, thank you.”

  Alex’s fingers left my hair and his lips fell upon my brow. “There,” he said.

  I opened my eyes and found Alex looking back at me—his eyes dark and smoky as peat. His mouth curved into a smile.

  I could raise my chin and our lips would touch. Only an inch, only a breath lay between us. I never wanted anything more in the whole of my life than to kiss Alex then, to feel the warmth of his mouth on mine. To lay my palm on the nape of his neck where his hair met the coarse linen of his neck handkerchief, to tangle my fingertips through his hair and touch the skin underneath. What would he do? What would he say if I were that bold?

  I lifted my chin, but Alex was already there. His mouth brushed against mine, a whisper of a kiss.

  I slid my hand up to his neck and cupped the back of his head, drawing him into the kiss, hoping he wouldn’t pull away.

  He didn’t.

  I was so taken aback that my mind couldn’t grasp the truth—I was kissing Alex, and he was kissing me. My worries, my fears, my hurt slid from me and into a puddle on the floor. I knew only Alex and that moment. At first we started shyly, touching our lips together again and again. But then we grew a little bolder and the kisses deepened. We kissed each other for a long time.

  And then, just like that, it was over.

  Alex lifted his head. He cleared his throat. “Elodie, please forgive me. I forgot myself.”

  I sat up. My gaze skipped over the contents of the room; desperate to alight on anything but the one thing I wanted most to look upon—Alex. “Don’t apologize,” I said.

  He touched my shoulder. “You’re not angry with me?”

  “No,” I said. I pasted a smile on my face. “What are a few kisses between friends?” I laughed at my stupid joke, but I was dying inside of embarrassment. I had kissed him as much as he had kissed me. Surely he must have known that?

  What did I expect anyway? That at the completion of our vows Alex would immediately fall in love with me? How absurd to assume that someone so dashing as Alex could love me.

  That night, Alex and I lay in bed like two logs, no longer lighthearted; no longer laughing and whispering long into the night. Instead we held ourselves tightly, not touching, saying nothing. Tentatively I leaned my head on his chest, but Alex did not rest his hand on my shoulder, as he usually did. I turned away from him and wrapped my arms around myself, wishing that were enough to build a wall around my heart.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Alex had already gone down to breakfast when I woke the next morning. I was heading down the stairs when I saw Mr. Howell standing below on the landing leaning on his walking stick, one ankle crossed over the other. I paused, two steps above him, one foot hovering. “Good morning, Mr. Howell,” I said slowly. He gazed up at me, his face fixed with a determined expression.

  “Ah, just the girl I wanted to see. So . . . I hear from our innkeeper, old Briarwood, that you and the handsome Russian are newlyweds.” He put one hand on his chest and bowed. “My congratulations to you.” He squinted. “However, Briarwood couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell me why you’re trailing along behind old McGregor. Perhaps I can winkle it out of you, especially since McGregor isn’t around to stop you from speaking, hey?”

  I took up my skirt in my hand. “Let me pass, Mr. Howell. I wish to go to breakfast.” I had no plans to answer a single question he asked. I wasn’t going to get tricked into giving information away ever again.

  He lifted his stick and stubbed it against the bannister’s railing, blocking my way. “Secrets, secrets. Seems everyone has a secret,” he said. “Would you like to know Hugh McGregor’s secret?”

  “Not particularly, no,” I said, raising my chin. Any truth that came out of that man was bound to be tainted by yellow journalism.

  “He used to be in Jardine, Matheson and Company’s employ.”

  “So what if he did?” I had heard of the company before, as it was well known in England, but never in connection with Papa. Jardine, Matheson & Company exported tea, cotton, and silk from China. Papa had nothing to do with those manufactures. He was a plant hunter, not a tea merchant.

  Mr. Howell scrunched up his narrow face, thinking. “I should rephrase. McGregor smuggled opium for them. ‘Work’ implies he toiled in an honest occupation, when of course that can’t be true.” He smiled, waiting for my reaction.

  “What do you mean?”

  “For years he’s carried opium to the villagers between here and Wuyishan. Opium.” He twiddled his fingers in front of him. “In little cakes wrapped in newspaper. McGregor carried it in those glasshouses. The ones he stows his plants in. What does he call them?” He snapped his finger. “Wardian cases.”

  That Christmas, when Papa had given the girls the dollhouse. I remembered what he’d said: Wardian cases are the very reason why your papa is the success he is. O
f course at the time I thought he meant because it had allowed him to ship plants home protected. Had the one he’d given the girls housed opium? Papa had told me if I knew the whole truth, I’d be horrified. Did Mamma know? Of course she knew. And that was the reason why they fought all the time.

  No. It couldn’t be true. “You’re telling tales, Mr. Howell. I don’t appreciate it one bit! Jardine, Matheson is an important firm. Why would they want to hurt the Chinese people?”

  “Open your eyes, young lady! Do you think the world is nothing but a benevolent society?” He rubbed his fingers together. “Anything for money, even if that means making money on the backs of the poor and the ignorant. A young lady like yourself probably has no idea what caused the fracas here in China, hey?”

  “The capturing of a British ship.”

  “That was just a handy excuse. No. It was over the very thing McGregor smuggled in,” he whispered. “Opium. Yang-yao, the foreign drug, the Chinese call it. They didn’t want it, but the Westerners forced it in so that they could afford to buy what the Chinese prized—tea. And now, millions of people in China can’t go without their opium—such captive and docile customers they are, too.”

  He leaned toward me. He was so close I could see the toast crumbs in his moustache, smell the smoked kippers on his breath. I wanted to clap my hands over my ears so I couldn’t hear this vitriol he spouted, but God help me, I could not. I stood riveted, unable to move, waiting to hear what he had to say next.

  “Soldiers cannot leave an opium den to fight, and a man will sell his wife and children to buy more opium. A wealthy man will pawn the last brick in his house and live in a ditch before he’ll give up the habit. A neat and tidy little venture, what?” He laughed. “He’s so sanctimonious, old McGregor, acting as though my newspaper is not fit for him to wipe his boots on. Yet he was happy to visit misery on a people so that he’d have the funds to search for his little plants.”

  I found my feet and barged past Mr. Howell, not caring if I pushed him down the stairs.

  “It’s unlucky to cross on the stairs,” he called after me. “You’ll want all the luck you can get where you’re headed.”

  I turned and stared up at him. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a reason I remain in the safety of this inn, miss, and don’t head out into the theater of war. If I wait long enough, the stories come to me. You see, every Westerner heading out into the interior of China stops here first. Including a plant hunter named Luther Duffey.”

  “What was he after? Did he tell you?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t converse with him. I treasure my limbs too much for that. I don’t need a matching set of broken legs. He was here about two days ago.” He looked at me carefully, almost hesitantly. And then he spoke. “I see that you judge me. But we all need a story, Mrs. Balashov. For a story is the best defense. Its cut is much sharper than a knife’s blade.” He touched his forehead with the handle of his cane. “I bid you good day.”

  I COULDN’T WAIT TO LEAVE THE INN, MR. HOWELL, AND THE HUMILiation of my wedding night behind. I felt numb and uncertain about Papa. I didn’t know what was true anymore. I had built my father up into a hero, a dashing adventurer. Perhaps Violetta was correct when she said Papa was a figment of my imagination. Maybe everything I had thought about him was untrue. I had defended him, and now I looked the fool.

  But then I felt ashamed for believing Mr. Howell over Papa. I had no proof that he was telling the truth about him. I had no one to ask to corroborate his story. Perhaps Mr. Howell wanted to get back at Papa for embarrassing him. That was all.

  Reluctantly, Papa had agreed that Alex and I could go along. Two days after we left the Osprey, we set off on a path that snaked alongside the Min, traveling in sedan chairs, each of us carried aloft by four coolies. I hated being carried about like that, so much so that every step the men took made me feel as though I was losing a part of my soul. People were not meant to be beasts of burdens, and the guilt lay heavily on me. Each coolie looked so slight and so thin that I couldn’t imagine how he lifted anything. To make matters worse, the men didn’t walk; they jogged. Up and down hills and through ravines without breaking stride or complaining. Porters behind them bore our goods on poles over their shoulders, and they moved just as quickly. I understood the men earned their living this way, and indeed my father planned to pay them well, but I felt as though my status meant my life was greater than theirs. We were all God’s creatures; none of us better than the others, no matter how we came into the world. I wanted nothing more than to get out and walk. I couldn’t wait until this part of the journey ended. Thankfully, it only lasted two days and nights.

  Whenever we rested, I tried to offer the coolies water to drink, but they huddled in a group, staring at me suspiciously when I approached holding out a tin canteen that contained our boiled water. Alex finally explained that Chinese only drink tea, never water, especially not cold water, and would go thirsty if tea was not available. So the next time we stopped, I made sure they had time to make a fire to brew their tea, and I was rewarded for this kindness with smiles. Alex told me that I had made them rise in status because I had dared to notice them.

  Papa grew ever more agitated when the soldiers joined us, leaning away from them and flinching whenever they addressed him. The soldiers seem to find this behavior funny, and began to pull jokes on him, like throwing lit matches at him and hiding his bags.

  The soldiers also quarreled with the chair bearers. When we stopped for lunch, Alex told me he’d overheard them trying to “squeeze” the coolies, forcing them to give them a share of their wages. When Alex found this out, he forbade the soldiers to talk to the coolies. I don’t think the soldiers realized that Papa and Alex understood Mandarin as well as they did. They left off their harassment after that but turned sullen and taciturn, refusing to respond to Alex or Papa when they asked questions.

  I’d wanted adventure, but those two days were anything but—I was afraid of the orchid thief, upset about Papa, and embarrassed over my wedding night. So much so that I couldn’t get past my emotions to see the beauty of the land. Everywhere I looked I expected to see the orchid thief’s jack-o’-lantern grin. Whenever I brushed against Alex, I felt him pulling away from the kiss. And each time I glanced at Papa I saw him as a villain.

  Papa spent those two days away from us, writing in his journal or packing and repacking the supplies. I tried to talk to Papa, but whenever I started to speak he would stand up and move away from me. Despite his attitude toward me, I tried to be as useful as I could. I attempted to help as I had at Kew, but Papa refused to let me. I tidied up the camp, but he took everything apart and redid it. He cut his hand on a tinned lid, and I rushed for the medical kit, but he stood up and walked away from me when I tried to take his hand to bandage it. I watched him for any sign of a fit starting, but he knew I was studying him, and when he caught me at it, he grew angry. I started to feel more resentful than hurt. In a way I wanted nothing other than to find the orchid and head home. The devil take my father.

  Alex was equally in his bad books. Every time Alex tried to help, Papa would refuse him. Especially when it came to building the fire. Papa kept the matches in his pocket and declined to relinquish them to Alex. I could see Alex was frustrated, but he backed away and let Papa carry on.

  I’d never slept outside before, and the first night I slept very badly. The ground was stony underneath my thin pallet, and every little sound frightened me into wakefulness.

  We reached the first village, Cui-Kau, late on the second day. Here we would travel on the river for eight days to the city of Yen-Ping, where we would then swap the boats for horses and mules and head out into the mountain forest. While the coolies loaded our goods onto the hired boats, Papa went off to the yamen to pay his respect to the local mandarin. The mandarins were the government officials who ruled the villages throughout China. We were required to announce ourselve
s to each one, who would then assign us fresh soldiers and send messages telling of our presence to the next mandarin.

  We slept on the decks of the boats that night and arose early in the morning to find ourselves floating on the Min, accompanied by other sampans filled with bamboo rods and fishermen and junks with square sails held aloft with bamboo masts.

  I thought of Mamma and my sisters constantly, and each time I grew more anxious to find the orchids. I’d stare at hillsides, hoping to see a flash of dark purple, the orchids appearing suddenly, but of course that was ridiculous. We had at least twenty more days to travel until we reached the orchid, and the time on the boat was interminable. It was not possible to make the craft travel any faster, as we were moving upstream and battling rapids and strong currents.

  My thoughts began to race, and I found myself sitting with balled-up fists most of the time. I had no control over the boats, so I fidgeted, darting from one task to the next, undoing things I’d already done and finding new ways to pack them. It was all I could do to keep myself from screaming out loud.

  I knew Papa was as anxious as I. He scanned the scenery constantly, looking for any signs of the orchid thief and perhaps something or someone else. Alex was the only one who appeared calm.

  The Thames and the Medway in Kent were the only rivers I had ever seen. But the Medway and the Thames were tamed by locks and weirs, whereas the Min had never been conquered. It felt larger, wilder. The banks of the river shot straight up into grand hills, reminiscent of pictures I’d seen of the Swiss Alps. The only sign of civilization marked the smaller hills, which were terraced and cultivated with crops. The beauty of the land almost made me forget that a war had raged here recently, and that scars had been left. The air was clear and sweet, filled with the scent of honeysuckle, which set off a pang of homesickness in me. Honeysuckle was Mamma’s favorite perfume, and her bedroom always smelled of it. Edencroft seemed so distant to me now, as though it were slumbering and would only awaken upon my return, like a village in a fairy tale.