Ying-ying stared down at the table, at a refinished spot where she had tried to carve her name into the wood.
“I found your mother tottering on a chair, trying to put her head through a noose. He had left her with nothing but a big belly. But she was too young to die, only nineteen.”
That would make Mother twenty-eight now. Ying-ying never knew her age.
Amah sighed. “I still remember the day you were born. I had a big basin of water to drown you if you turned out to be a girl. A son could advance in the world, and repay the suffering of his mother. What good was a girl but another mouth to feed?”
Ying-ying gaped at her in disbelief. Drown her? Of course, she knew that lots of people, particularly in the south, killed infants, most often girls, that they couldn’t afford. But those were illiterate, ignorant people. How could anyone as cultured as Mother even think of such a thing? Drown her? Her?
“After you came, I sent the midwife away and told your mother to pull the bedcover over her head. She was crying. I had forgotten to tell the midwife not to give you to her. She had seen you and held you.” Amah’s voice was losing its steeliness. “Newborns are usually wrinkled and bloody. But you were a sweet-looking baby, all pink and clean, eyes wide open. My hands shook and shook when I tried to lower you to the water. And I’ve killed grown men in my time without so much as a backward glance.”
Ying-ying’s teeth hurt. She looked down and realized she had been biting on the rim of her bowl. She stuffed her knuckles in her mouth instead. Obviously she had survived, but she was frightened nevertheless.
“I held you by the neck, my thumb against your cheek. Just when the back of your head touched water, you turned your face and started sucking on my thumb. And I couldn’t bear to put you in any further. That was when your mother bolted up in bed and screamed, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Give her back to me.’ I did. Then the two of us huddled over you and cried until we had no more tears left.” Amah fell silent for a long time. “That was the last time I cried.”
Ying-ying felt a hot wetness on her face. She didn’t know whether she was weeping for her own lucky escape or for the despair of the two women who couldn’t manage to kill her.
“So she kept you and went back to the brothel.” Amah picked up where she had left off, her voice once again steady. “The next year Da-ren met her on a visit to Shanghai, when she was engaged to appear at a feast put on for him. And within three months we were all in Peking.”
Ying-ying’s throat burned, yet her fingers were cold. “Does…does anyone else know I’m a foreign devil bastard?”
“Besides Fu-ren and me?” Amah shook her head. “No one, except perhaps Da-ren. I don’t know whether he knows.”
Did Da-ren and Mother ever speak of her past? On his visits they often talked deep into the night—sometimes Ying-ying could see their silhouettes upon the window of Mother’s room, their heads bent toward each other. Once she had asked Amah what they talked about, and Amah, instead of telling her to mind her own business, as she so often did, had said that they might be discussing past precedents of great reforms, as they were both well-versed in history.
The next day Ying-ying had started to read the history books in Mother’s study.
No, she thought, she could not imagine Mother ever wanting to bring up the past. Not just the sordidness of it, the anguish and fear of being all alone in the world, but the betrayal of her own family, a wound that would never heal. Was this why sometimes she gazed out the window and looked haunted, despite what Ying-ying considered the absolute perfection of her life?
“Do you understand why I have told you everything?” asked Amah. “Your mother has raised you to be like her—she probably still has hope of a respectable marriage for you. But your birth and parentage are too irregular. No one who is anyone will allow their son to marry you as a first wife. Even if Da-ren himself intercedes, he might at best place you as third concubine to some official he’s trying to influence.”
Ying-ying drew her hand from her mouth and gazed, unseeing, at the red teeth marks around her knuckles. Boss Peng, who owned several grain shops in the district, had acquired a young third concubine not long ago, age sixteen or seventeen. He was sixty years old and had a granddaughter who was older than his new concubine.
Was this what awaited Ying-ying beyond the confines of her childhood, beyond the walls of these beautiful courtyards?
She couldn’t breathe.
“Can’t…can’t Mother just keep me with her? I’ll look after her in her old age.”
Amah looked at her. Was that a trace of pity in her eyes?
In her mind Ying-ying saw Mother turning to one side, coughing into her bright scarlet handkerchief that would not show any flecks of blood. Was this Amah’s way of hinting that there would be no ripe old age for Mother? That life as Ying-ying knew it might be upended any moment?
She realized that part of the reason she desperately wished to be a daughter to Da-ren was because she wanted Mother to stop worrying about her. She hadn’t needed the entirety of the truth to be ashamed—she had always known, deep down, that there was something unspeakable about her origins. That Mother’s small frowns and almost inaudible sighs over her imperfect brushstrokes and much worse zither playing were not just about music and calligraphy, but about her future.
About what would happen to a girl raised in the lap of luxury who yet did not belong anywhere.
But if Da-ren valued her then she would always belong, and Mother needed never fear again, at least not on her behalf.
Da-ren certainly valued Bao-shun, who was handy with a broadsword. Was there a possibility that he would find Ying-ying worthy if she were to become a tremendously skilled martial artist?
Or would he instead be horrified? Mother no doubt would be, if she knew what Amah intended. If she knew that the woman she trusted to look after her daughter not only wielded deadly blades, but was a fugitive from the law.
Ying-ying pressed her hands to either side of her head, but she could bring no order to the chaos inside. “Suppose I had your martial skills. What do I do with them?”
Besides getting into trouble in the middle of the night.
“Suppose a marriage has been arranged for you to a man thirty years your senior, whom you’ve never laid eyes on before. What would you do?”
Ying-ying grimaced, shutting her eyes tight.
“I know you. You’d want to run away. But how will you survive beyond the walls, soft, pampered girl that you are? Do you think you will even last a day before you are robbed—or worse?”
“So I learn how to crush skulls and the bad people leave me alone. But then what? Do I go and become a servant like you? What good are those skills to you?”
Amah’s face turned hard. Ying-ying shrank a little, afraid she’d gone too far. But Amah only rose and piled the dishes back into the bamboo steamer. “Well, if you prefer to warm an old man’s bed—it’s more comfortable that way.”
Ying-ying felt as if a giant hand had clutched around her lungs. “Is—is this the only choice I have?”
“It’s more choice than Fu-ren ever had,” Amah answered quietly.
Ying-ying watched her bowl—and her unfinished meal—being taken away. Reluctantly, but of her own volition, she bowed her head. “I understand now, Master.”
Chapter 6
The Guardian
The morning after Father’s passing, Mother returned home looking pale and tense. She descended from the carriage alone. When she was in the drawing room with Sir Curtis, a dogcart pulled up and let out Marland and her maid.
Leighton, from the window of his room, noticed this precaution on her part. Looking back, he realized that Marland had never been presented to Sir Curtis. On the latter’s infrequent visits, Marland had always been excused as having a cold, a tummy ache, or some other troublesome but not particularly dangerous ailment.
Only Leighton, who looked very much like Father, who was quiet and self-contained, and who could qu
ote the scripture in both English and Latin, was ever put forward for Sir Curtis’s inspection.
Leighton had always considered himself grown-up, someone who dealt calmly and competently with everything that came his way. Now he realized how little he actually knew of life, that the “everything” he had felt himself so capable of handling was actually the most privileged, most sheltered existence imaginable. The adults around him conducted their own lives with sacrifice and secrecy so that he could have this peaceful, even-keeled childhood.
So that he could go about his days largely free of the fear that they endured. So that he would not see that everyone around him was a prisoner of some sort: Father, whose freedom depended upon his “good” conduct; Mother, who could experience happiness only a few days at a time; even Herb, weighed down by the heaviness inherent in the Atwoods’ lives, the heaviness inherent in any kind of incarceration of the spirit.
It was probably always going to fail, this precarious protection. But now it had fallen apart and exposed the inner workings of their household to Sir Curtis’s all-too-sharp gaze. How long would it be before he learned that Mother hadn’t been visiting some elderly relative? That Mother and Father had been quietly permitting, perhaps even encouraging, each other to embark on the kind of conduct that suggested Sodom and Gomorrah to Sir Curtis?
Leighton had once thought Father’s fears exaggerated. No more. The kind of cruelty that could drive a grown man to take his own life…Did Mother understand her peril?
Did any of them understand their peril?
Leighton took the jade tablet from his nightstand drawer and smoothed his finger over a line of raised characters. As soon as he had left the scene of Father’s death the day before, he had gone to the library and taken the jade tablet from the display case. What Herb never said aloud but Leighton now understood was that it had been a present to mark Father and Herb’s love for each other, much as it—together with the tablet still in Herb’s hands—once celebrated Herb’s parents’ desire to spend their lives together.
If Sir Curtis knew, he would confiscate the jade tablet, perhaps even destroy it.
Leighton could see Father’s face so clearly, the first time he had shown the tablet to Leighton. The corners of his eyes had crinkled as he smiled at Herb. Do you want to tell Leighton the legend?
Leighton had loved those rare, glowing smiles. He had loved the long walks with Father to the railway station to meet Herb’s train, five miles of eager anticipation. And more than anything else, he had loved the sensation of closing the library door behind himself after he had said his good-nights, the safe, replete feeling of knowing that Herb would still be there in the morning and Father would still be happy.
Two drops of liquid splashed onto the jade tablet. Leighton wiped them away with his fingers. Two more drops came. And two more.
He tilted his face up to the coffered ceiling, the blue-and-white pattern a complete blur. Father was dead. He didn’t know where Herb was. Nor could he extract Mother from her unpleasant interview with Sir Curtis.
He wrapped the jade tablet in a silk cloth, hid it more carefully, washed his face, then went to the nursery.
“It’s a nice day,” he said to Marland’s nursemaid. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to take my brother to the trout stream.”
They could not keep Marland out of Sir Curtis’s sight forever. But they could for another day.
Marland ran to Leighton and wrapped his arms around Leighton’s legs.
Leighton lifted him up. “Come, Master Marland. Let’s go skip some rocks.”
The fact that Father had died by his own hand was hushed up. The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death due to the unanticipated discharge of an antique firearm while being cleaned.
The tale, as trumped up as it was, did not encounter much resistance—it was still less unlikely than suicide on the part of a man who seemed to have everything to live for, and who had appeared, in the days immediately preceding his untimely demise, to have been in the finest of both health and spirits.
His funeral was thickly attended and many extravagant words were spoken about his kindness, his generosity, his devotion to his duties and his family. Leighton had been afraid he would cry, but he remained dry-eyed through the eulogies, as if they sang the praises of a complete stranger.
When Leighton had been little, Father would secretly pass him a morsel of sweets on Sunday mornings, which would be Leighton’s to enjoy during the sermon, as long as he kept his enjoyment still and silent. The Sunday after he turned seven he’d declined the bribe, feeling himself quite capable of suffering through the sermon like a man. Father had ruffled his hair. Seven going on twenty-seven, aren’t you?
Perhaps he was in danger of weeping, after all.
He blinked back the tears. Several mourners away, someone leaned forward slightly to look at him: Sir Curtis’s fiancée, Miss Saithwaite.
Before the funeral he had met Miss Saithwaite for the first time. She was almost eye-wateringly beautiful, blond and ethereal. But more than her beauty, he had been struck by her age: She could not be more than nineteen. And Sir Curtis, despite his slim figure and unlined face, was nearly fifty.
Her gaze was quite impersonal, almost Sphinx-like. And swift—a second later her attention had already turned back to the eulogist. Briefly Leighton wondered what kind of woman would marry Sir Curtis. If he’d been told, sight unseen, that Sir Curtis’s bride-to-be was nearly thirty years his junior, he would have guessed that she had been compelled by her parents to accept his suit.
But this girl, with her cool pride that verged on arrogance, was not the kind to allow herself to be compelled by anyone. She was marrying Sir Curtis because she wished to.
It was terrifying, the idea that there existed a kindred spirit for Sir Curtis.
Words of sympathy flowed Leighton and Mother’s way as they made their way out of the church. Many a hand came to rest on Leighton’s shoulder—he only wished that he could draw actual strength from the crowd of mourners. Or that they could form a true barrier between Sir Curtis and the rest of the family.
A man stood at the very back of the sanctuary, looking as if he hadn’t eaten or slept in a week. Herb! The backs of Leighton’s eyes stung. He wished he could run to Herb; he wished they could be alone. With him there would be no shame giving in to the tumult inside. They could weep, scream, or destroy an entire room at the needlessness and injustice of Father’s death.
But Leighton only dared give a tiny nod as he filed out behind Mother.
“Mr. Gordon is here,” he said to her, when they were out of earshot of Sir Curtis and his fiancée.
“Yes, I expect he has been asked by the solicitors to come and hear the will.”
She sounded nervous, yet half hopeful, as if she expected the reading of the will to be an emancipation.
Leighton should have thought of the question sooner, but he hadn’t. “Do you know whom Father appointed as our guardian, ma’am?”
Mother briefly laid her hand on his arm. “Not Sir Curtis. You can be sure of that.”
Father was buried at the family’s private cemetery, which gave out to a wide vista of rolling hills and green fields. They had often stopped here on their long hikes through the surrounding countryside. Leighton could still see Father as he was the last time, his coat on the grass, his sleeves rolled up, dividing a large sandwich into three, making sure that Leighton and Herb had the bigger pieces.
Herb, too, was at the interment, but he stood halfway down the slope, gazing up at the sight of his beloved being lowered into the ground. He wiped at his eyes.
Leighton was the last person to drop a handful of soil onto Father’s casket. Inside the casket, lying upon Father’s no longer beating heart, was an envelope that contained a copy of Leighton’s favorite photograph of the three of them together, on the bank of the trout stream before a canoe, each with an oar in hand.
On the back of the photograph, he had written, Rest in peace, Father.
I will look after everyone you loved.
In the nursery, Marland, who hadn’t attended the funeral because he was judged too young, was knocking over column after column of blocks. The moment he saw Leighton, he came running and grabbed Leighton’s hand. “Did they bury Father?”
Father had loved Marland, albeit with an anxiety that Leighton had not understood completely until he’d learned that Marland was not Father’s natural son: It had been the apprehension of a good man who had the charge of another man’s child. He must have worried about doing everything right by Marland, and perhaps he had been especially concerned that Marland should never feel he was treated differently from Leighton.
“Yes, they buried Father.”
“Will he be lonely?”
Leighton crouched down so he was at eye level with Marland. “We can visit him often, to keep him company.”
Tears rolled down Marland’s face. “Can we visit him now?”
The door of the nursery opened and in the doorway stood Sir Curtis. Marland stared at him. “Who are you?”
Sir Curtis did not answer. He looked from Marland to Leighton and back again, something like a pleased smile on his face. Without a word, he closed the door and left.
“Who was that?” Marland asked Leighton.
“Sir Curtis,” said Leighton.
The answer was good enough for Marland. “Can we go visit Father?”
The satisfaction Sir Curtis had derived from seeing Marland, however, chilled Leighton. He caressed Marland’s hair, so blond that it was almost white. “We can, but not now.”
Leighton slipped into the library from the secret entrance up in the gallery and listened to the reading of Father’s will, which the solicitor finished in only a few minutes.
Father had left handsome gifts to the seniormost servants. To Mother and Marland he gave a substantial settlement each. Starling Manor would come to Leighton when he reached majority, along with tracts of land in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. To Leighton himself he left the jade tablet. To Herb, his collection of stamps.
The Hidden Blade: A Prequel to My Beautiful Enemy (Heart of Blade) Page 6