The Blue Dress Girl

by E. V. Thompson

  The conversation took place in the hospital kitchen, when the last large meal of the day had been cooked and distributed. Many of the Chinese helpers had left, but Esme was present during the discussions and as Chang spoke excellent English, she was not excluded from them.

  As Kau-lin considered the proposal, Esme said, ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity, Kau-lin. A chance to do something with your life. To be someone. After all, what is there for you here? What will you do if you stay in Hong Kong?’

  ‘Mrs Jefferies wants me to become a Christian.’

  ‘The Taipings are Christians,’ said Chang. ‘I know they are not accepted by any of the missionaries as being true Christians, but they are eager to learn more. Your own brother says as much in his letter.’

  ‘What a golden opportunity!’ enthused Esme. ‘On the ship travelling to China I heard military men talking about the Taipings. They declared they have the ability to conquer all China. Think of what would happen if they set out with pure Christian ideals. With God on their side they could not fail. It would be a true crusade, and victory would bring four hundred million souls to Jesus. How truly wonderful to be part of such a glorious army! An apostle for Christ in China!’

  ‘You could be part of that army, Miss Pilkington.’ Chang had watched the enraptured Esme and now a more calculating expression replaced his initial astonishment. ‘The Tien Wang – Cousin Hung – would welcome you. He too has a vision of a Christian China. Come with us to the Taipings, Miss Pilkington.’

  Reality momentarily took the place of fervour. ‘It isn’t possible, Chang. I would need permission from Mrs Jefferies and from the Mission authorities. Even if it were given, which is extremely doubtful, how would I travel to Nanking?’

  ‘Permission for what, Miss Pilkington? To go out and take Christianity to China? You already have it. This is why you are here in my country. Besides, what would have happened if all the great evangelists had sought permission for every step they took in going out and spreading the Word of God? There would have been no Saint Paul, no disciples … and who would have given permission to Our Lord? No, Miss Pilkington, despite all that others may say, I believe Cousin Hung was sent to earth as part of a divine plan to help my people. Take up the challenge with him and you will gain more converts than a whole army of missionaries could gather in a thousand years.’

  Chang’s reasoning refuelled Esme’s fervour. ‘You’re right, of course. I know you are. But without Hannah Jefferies’ approval I’ll never obtain the consul’s permission to travel in China, and without it how will I get to Nanking?’

  ‘I’ll take you there, Miss Pilkington. You and Kau-lin.’ His glance shifted to She-she, and remained on her for longer than was polite. ‘You are Kau-lin’s friend, why don’t you come too?’

  Kau-lin rounded upon Chang. ‘I haven’t said I’ll go yet. Anyway, why are you so keen to go to Nanking? I thought you were settled here as Minister Legge’s number one convert. Mrs Jefferies told me you would one day be the mission’s very first Chinese Protestant minister. Why should you want to join up with the Taipings?’

  ‘For the reasons I have given to Miss Pilkington. I’m convinced that with the backing of the European nations Cousin Hung can convert the whole of China to Christianity.’

  ‘He might also become Emperor of China if he wins this war – this crusade. Do you expect to gain something in this world, or will you be content to wait for your reward in the next?’

  ‘Cousin Hung has already suggested I might care to become one of his ministers. He needs men around him he can trust, just as our Lord needed his disciples. There is nothing to say I cannot serve Cousin Hung and God at the same time.’

  Chang returned his attention to She-she. ‘You have said nothing in answer to my suggestion. What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve said nothing because there was nothing for me to say. This is a discussion about your family and your family’s religion. I have no place in either.’

  She-she’s thoughts were still with the missing Kernow. She could find no enthusiasm for Chang’s idea.

  ‘I’ll make a place for you. If we all go to Nanking, to the Taipings, will you come with us? You will be happy there, I am sure. Cousin Hung has great respect for women.’

  She-she knew very little about the Taipings. Until her arrival in Hong Kong she had thought them to be just another army of rebels, of which there were perhaps half-a-dozen in every Chinese province. The thought of a rebellious group being powerful enough to topple the throne of China was hard to believe. That she might hold a favoured position within such a group seemed equally far-fetched.

  But there was nothing to keep her here now Kernow had gone. In fact, she would be relieved to get away from the memories that Hong Kong held for her.

  ‘I will go if Kau-lin does, but I agree with Miss Pilkington. Without official authorisation it will be difficult to travel through China.’

  ‘We will travel by boat along the Yangtze river. But first we need to find a way to get to Shanghai. From there it will be a simple matter.’

  She-she thought that Chang was being unduly optimistic about the whole idea. However, it was nothing she needed to concern herself with immediately. Before it became ‘a simple matter’ they needed to reach Shanghai – and that great city was a thousand miles away.

  Chapter 19

  THE NEWS THAT Kernow had been taken captive by the Chinese army horrified everyone at the mission hospital and all in the colony who knew him. Sally Merrill was among those who were particularly upset. The news came as she and her father set sail for Shanghai where he was to take up the post of United States consul. Her father could offer no glimmer of hope for Kernow’s survival. The fate of Europeans who fell into Chinese hands at such times as these was well known. Consul Merrill doubted whether Kernow had lived for more than a few hours after his capture.

  Even Nancy Calvin spent an extra five minutes on her knees at bedtime that evening. She prayed he might be spared the suffering that had befallen so many others who had ventured into China to help others and by so doing had found martyrdom.

  Kernow’s loss hit Arthur Calvin particularly hard. He had looked upon Kernow as his friend – and Arthur had never found it easy to make friends. Because he knew that She-she also grieved for Kernow, he spent more time than usual with the two Chinese girls. This did not please his mother and arguments between the two became commonplace.

  One morning, when he felt he could take no more, Arthur decided to absent himself from lessons at the mission hospital school. Leaving the house soon after the others had gone, he made his way aimlessly through Wanchai. A sleazy, Chinese-occupied area, it extended along the waterfront to the east of the capital, Victoria.

  Wanchai was an area studiously avoided by the missionaries. This was where the merchant seamen and off-duty soldiers and sailors found their pleasures.

  Hong Kong was one of the busiest trading ports in the world and the Chinese were astute businessmen. Once they discovered how off-duty Fan Quis enjoyed spending their money, they set out to satisfy their needs. Vice of all descriptions flourished here.

  Wanchai had as many seedy beerhouses and brothels as any port in the world. Enough to cater for the sailors of the many ships anchored in the harbour – and they were enjoying a busy time.

  The typhoon had raged across the South China Sea before devastating Hong Kong. Many of the vessels reaching harbour had been fortunate to survive. After such an experience, their crews came ashore with a single purpose: to celebrate being alive.

  At midday Arthur was casually watching a cargo of livestock from the Chinese mainland being unloaded on the narrow beach when a boat from one of the merchantmen was run ashore nearby.

  Half-a-dozen seamen, on their first visit to the colony, jumped ashore and looked about them with an air of eager expectancy. One of them spotted Arthur and called, ‘Hey, mate! Where can a bloke find a cold drink around here?’

  ‘A cold drink and a hot woman,’ corrected one of th
e other seamen, prompting howls of agreement. ‘I’m not sure,’ said Arthur, embarrassed as much by being singled out for their attention as by the question. ‘But I can find out for you.’

  Turning to one of the Chinese coolies who was driving a squealing pig up the beach by the simple but painful expediency of gripping the pig’s tail and twisting it cruelly, Arthur repeated the seaman’s question in Chinese.

  The coolie gave directions to the ‘best drinking house in Wanchai’. He guaranteed it to have ‘clean women’ and added that it was owned by a cousin who had spent many years as a sailor and whose sole aim in life was to bring happiness to the Fan Qui.

  Arthur passed on this information and the sailors went on their noisy way, with the exception of the man who had made the enquiry about a beerhouse.

  ‘You speak their lingo well.’

  ‘Not as well as some,’ replied Arthur, honestly.

  ‘You come from Birmingham too, same as me, I think?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Arthur had recognised the distinctive accent when the man first spoke to him.

  ‘What you doing here? You’re not from one of the ships?’

  ‘No. My parents are missionaries.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ The seaman looked at Arthur in disbelief. He could see immediately that Arthur was not ‘kidding’ and added, ‘I didn’t even know there were any missionaries out here. Come and have a drink with us. You can tell us all about Hong Kong.’

  Normally, Arthur would not have dreamed of joining a crowd of seamen in a beerhouse, but he had been wandering the streets of Wanchai for some hours. He was thirsty and hungry and felt desperately lonely.

  ‘All right.’

  On the way to the beerhouse Arthur learned that his companion’s name was Bill, and that he and his shipmates had not seen England for more than a year. They had also lost two fellow crewmen overboard when the edge of the typhoon struck the ship, a couple of hundred miles off the China coast.

  Not all the sailors were pleased to have Arthur join them. However, when he spoke to the owner of the beerhouse in Chinese and succeeded in almost halving the price asked for their drinks, he was accepted as a useful member of the party.

  Arthur had rarely tasted strong drink and before long his head was swimming. Fortunately, he did not particularly like the taste of either the gin, brandy or ale being swilled down by the seamen and so drank far less than any of them.

  Soon after their arrival in the beerhouse they had been joined at their table by a number of Chinese girls. Each was drinking a highly coloured but innocuous ‘lady’s drink’ on which they received commission. This was an area where all Arthur’s persuasion failed to win a price reduction, although his knowledge of their language earned the praise of the girls.

  At some time in the afternoon, the seamen announced they were going upstairs en masse with their young hostesses. Arthur was invited to go with them. When he asked what they intended doing they set up a howl of derision. Arthur felt a sudden urgent need to get outside in the air, away from tobacco smoke, alcohol fumes and more foul language than he had ever heard before.

  Stumbling through the doorway of the beerhouse he weaved his way towards the mission house. He tried to walk in a straight line, but his gait was stiff-legged and jerky and he was convinced that everyone was stopping to look at him.

  It was with a feeling of great relief that he eventually tripped through the doorway of the mission house. He had made it!

  The stairs presented a more serious problem than had the streets outside. At his first attempt he missed his footing and fell down three stairs. He was trying again when Kau-lin and She-she, attracted by the noise, came from the kitchen and found him.

  Kau-lin was filled with concern for him, ‘Arthur! Where you been? Your mother came back at noon. She said you didn’t go to school this morning. What matter? You ill?’

  ‘No, I’m … fine. Fine….’

  He accompanied his words with a dismissive flap of his hand that would have unbalanced him once more had Kau-lin not been at hand to support him.

  Suddenly Kau-lin turned to She-she who stood at the foot of the stairs watching in some concern. Wrinkling her nose she said to She-she, ‘He’s not ill. He’s been drinking!’

  Both girls looked at each other in disbelief, then they began to laugh.

  ‘What’s funny? What you laughing at? You’re laughing at me, Kau-lin. I don’t like you laughing at me.’

  ‘Come, Arthur. Not laugh. Help you upstairs.’

  ‘His mother will be home soon. I don’t think she will find it funny,’ She-she warned.

  Kau-lin had managed to ease Arthur up two more stairs. Now she paused. ‘His mother must not see him like this.’ She hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘We’ll put him in our room for a while.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Look at him. He needs help. He needs friends. You stay here in case anyone comes in while I’m upstairs. I’ll be down as soon as I’ve settled him.’

  Settling Arthur was not as simple as Kau-lin would have liked. When he lay down he complained that the room was moving about him. Then he said he felt sick. Fortunately, he was not ill, but then he began apologising to Kau-lin for being such a nuisance to her. He came close to tears, and this she found hardest of all.

  When Kau-lin eventually persuaded him to lie down on the bed and remain down, his mumbled apologies became quieter and less intelligible. When they ceased altogether she tiptoed across the room to the door. Arthur was asleep.

  As Kau-lin came downstairs the missionaries returned from the school. Nancy’s first thought was of her son.

  ‘Have either of you girls seen Arthur?’

  ‘Yes, came home this afternoon. Went out again. Said not feel like going school.’ Not looking at She-she, Kau-lin added, ‘I think he miss friend, Lieutenant Keats.’

  ‘That’s no excuse for not attending school. I’ll have something to say to him when he returns.’

  Hannah Jefferies was less concerned than his mother. ‘I think Kau-lin is probably right. Arthur’s worked really quite hard recently. I’m certainly not going to get upset because he takes a day off once in a while.’

  Before Nancy could argue with her, Hannah said, ‘You haven’t forgotten we’re all attending a talk given by the Shanghai superintendent of missions tonight? We don’t want to be late, Nancy.’

  Turning her attention to She-she and Kau-lin, she said, ‘I’d like you two girls to come too. I’ve told the superintendent a great deal about you both and he’s expressed a wish to meet you.’

  Kau-lin grimaced, as though in pain. ‘She-she will go. I would like to, but I have a very bad headache. I think it might be the weather. I hope there is not another typhoon on the way.’

  ‘We’ll all say amen to that, dear. The superintendent will be very disappointed, but if you don’t feel well then perhaps you ought to go and lie down. The weather has become terribly heavy again.’

  Kau-lin allowed Arthur to sleep until all the others had left for the mission superintendent’s talk. It was almost dark outside and the house was quiet. She thought it an ideal time to wake him. She would tidy him and take him to his own room before the others returned.

  Waking Arthur from his drunken stupor did not prove to be as easy as she had expected. He did not want to wake. But eventually, with the aid of a sponge and cold water, Kau-lin got through to him.

  ‘That better,’ she said when he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet on the floor. ‘You have some tea now?’

  ‘I don’t know what I want – unless it’s to die.’

  ‘Must not say that. No good to talk of dying. Why you like this? Why you go drinking? Who with?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Kau-lin,’ Arthur groaned. ‘You sound just the way I know my mother will when she catches up with me. Where is she now, by the way – and what’s the time?’

  ‘Time you went your own room while mother can’t see. She go talk missionary man. All go. I stay, get you back
your room before big trouble.’

  ‘Thank you, Kau-lin. I appreciate it.…’ He had trouble with the word ‘appreciate’ ‘… but there’s going to be trouble whatever you do. I’ve decided I’m not going to the mission school again. I’ve had enough.’

  ‘You right. She make big trouble. Why you feel this way, Arthur? Who you drink with today?’

  ‘I met some sailors, in Wanchai. They took me drinking.’

  ‘Ai-yah! You drink with sailors? Big surprise you come back at all. Where sailors now? Go back ship?’

  ‘No.’

  Kau-lin was curious about Arthur’s obvious embarrassment. ‘Where sailors go? Why you leave them, come back here?’

  ‘They … they went off with some women. Wanchai women.’

  ‘Wanchai women very bad, but sailors like bad women. Why you not go with them? You no like Chinese women?’

  ‘I … I like you, Kau-lin. It … I … I don’t think I could have come back here and faced you if I’d gone off with one of those women. Besides … I wouldn’t have known what to do. They’d probably have laughed at me … like you did when I was trying to climb the stairs.’

  It was a very honest baring of his soul and it had not come easy for Arthur. Kau-lin recognised it for what it was and she was deeply touched.

  ‘You very gentle man, Arthur. I like you very much too – but I no good for you. Be plenty trouble.’

  ‘I don’t care about that. You’re the first girl who I’ve ever really liked. The first one who’s ever said she liked me. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.’

  ‘It does, Arthur. One day you know that. But good for now, maybe.’

  Kau-lin reached up and laid the palm of her hand against his cheek. ‘I like you, Arthur. You like me. I teach you about women. You not be afraid again….’