The Jade Widow

by Deborah O'Brien

  Devastated by his death, Amy had grieved in private and focused all her hopes for the future on the baby growing inside her. ‘It will be a boy,’ she had told Eliza. ‘I know it from the dream I had on the night before Charles died.’ In August, 1873, Amy gave birth to a son, a tiny version of his dead father, graced with bronze skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes. He was a gift from God and a comfort in her loss, but she feared that he too would be taken from her. She watched over him night and day, afraid that the slightest cough or sniffle might be the start of whooping cough or scarlet fever or the dreaded diphtheria.

  Meanwhile, Eliza observed her silently and prayed that as time passed Amy would come to realise that her constant vigilance was unhealthy, both for herself and the child. But in point of fact, the opposite happened. Amy became increasingly obsessive about Charlie’s welfare. She wouldn’t allow him to play with other children – apart from his cousin, James – for fear that her son would catch a deadly disease from them. In 1879, when yet another diphtheria epidemic threatened to sweep through Millbrooke, Amy and Charlie took refuge in Sydney with her Aunt Molly, her mother’s sister. The following year Millbrooke experienced a couple of cases of typhus, and she did the same. Sometimes Eliza wished she had never shown Amy those journals containing Professor Pasteur’s research.

  In the three years that Eliza had been away, nothing had changed. If anything, the situation had grown worse. Amy treated Charlie as though he were one of the delicate porcelain figurines in her china cabinet, a fragile boy whose bones might shatter at the slightest impact.

  In spite of her concerns, Eliza never said a word to her friend. There was a certain steeliness about Amy which made it impossible to broach such a subject. What’s more, in quarantining her son, the young woman had built a barrier nobody could surmount. Not even her best friend.

  ‘Eliza, are you awake?’ It was Amy’s muffled voice at the door.

  ‘Yes, the kookaburra woke me.’

  Garbed in her nightdress with her hair arranged in pin-curls, Amy poked her head around the door. ‘It rained a little overnight,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t hear it,’ said Eliza. ‘I was dead to the world. Yesterday was such an enervating day, what with the heat and then the news about the Soudan. Come in, and we can chat as we used to do when we were girls. Remember how Matilda would bring us breakfast in bed and you would pretend to be Elizabeth Bennet when she fell ill at Mr Darcy’s house.’

  ‘Actually, it was Jane Bennet,’ said Amy with a smile. ‘And the gentleman was Mr Bingley.’ Amy arranged herself on top of the coverlet with her feet tucked under her. After a moment she said, ‘Do you really think Daniel will have to go overseas?’

  ‘I am praying that it will be over by the time the Imperial Cabinet makes its decision.’

  ‘I hope so, for your mother’s sake.’

  ‘So do I.’ Eliza took a deep breath and continued, ‘Amy, there is a matter I have been intending to raise with you. It has been worrying me for a long time.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Amy tentatively.

  ‘It concerns Charlie.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s consumptive, do you?’ Amy asked anxiously. ‘He had a little cough last winter but it seems to have gone now.’

  ‘He’s as fit as a fiddle.’

  ‘Well, that is a relief. Is it his behaviour then? I’m sorry for that episode yesterday involving James and the palm branch. It was most unseemly.’

  ‘No, it’s not the palm incident. Anyway, they are just children. They didn’t mean anything by it. Actually, the matter at hand involves you . . .’ Eliza swallowed hard and continued, ‘and the way you treat Charlie.’

  Amy’s mouth dropped open. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You are a good and loving mother, Amy, but sometimes you try too hard to protect him. How can he ever learn about the world if you keep him tied to your apron strings?’

  Although Amy was glowering at her, Eliza continued nonetheless. ‘He will be twelve in August. A young man. You cannot continue to cosset him as if he’s a baby. One day he will need to make a life for himself, but how will he do that when his mother has always controlled his every move?’

  Eliza watched Amy’s eyes narrow and her pale complexion turn scarlet.

  ‘I do not say this to hurt you, Amy. You are the dearest person in the world to me. But someone has to tell you the truth before it’s too late.’

  ‘It appears the Miller family has discussed my mothering and found it wanting,’ said Amy with an imperious toss of her head.

  ‘Nobody has discussed this matter, Amy. I have no idea what they think about it. But I do know my father never cosseted any of us, even after two of his children died of illness in infancy. And when Charles came into our family, my parents treated him exactly as they treated their own offspring.’ Eliza was about to add that Joseph, who had lost his wife in childbirth, had never mollycoddled James either, but she could see Amy was upset. No need to rub salt into the wound.

  ‘The two situations are hardly comparable, Eliza. You have two parents, a mother and a father to share the burden of parenting. I am a widow doing the best I can to raise my son.’

  ‘I know that, Amy, and I do not wish to sound harsh, but if Charles were still alive, do you think he would want his son to be fearful of the world?’

  ‘Fearful?’

  ‘You are teaching him to be afraid with your warnings and rules and mollycoddling. Don’t you want him to be like his father – courageous and independent of mind? Remember how Charles stood up in that town meeting and spoke out for the welfare of the Chinese prospectors. I can even remember him wearing a turquoise waistcoat – how that must have incensed the anti-Chinese league. And you used to be quite the rebel yourself, Amy Chen. Reading novels in secret, going to dances when your father prohibited it, sneaking out to meet Charles down by the creek. You were positively fearless when it came to your love for him. And if I recall correctly, it was you who convinced him to elope with you. Wasn’t it by reciting a stanza from “Lochinvar”?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Yes, and also the fact that I told him I would suffocate in my father’s house.’

  Eliza took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Whatever happened to that brave, determined girl?’

  Amy answered in a whisper, ‘She died the night the strangling angel stole her husband.’

  ‘She is still living inside you, Amy. She is the person who can help young Charlie become the man that his father would want him to be.’

  Amy dabbed at her eyes with the hem of her nightdress. ‘And how might I go about finding her?’

  ‘By letting Charlie have a life of his own. By spending some time looking after yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know how to do that, Eliza.’

  ‘Perhaps you might consider enrolling Charlie at a school in Sydney.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that he become a boarder? That would mean I’d only see him in the holidays. And how would he cope with all those other boys? He might fall ill, and then who would look after him?’

  ‘Charlie needs to be around other boys so that he can learn to be a man. And those schools have matrons to monitor the health of the pupils.’

  ‘But why couldn’t he stay here in Millbrooke? I could enrol him in the local school instead of tutoring him myself. Wouldn’t that be a suitable solution? Then we could be together.’

  Eliza paused for a second before answering. ‘He needs to go away to school, Amy. It is the best course for both of you.’

  Amy was silent for a very long time. Finally she said, ‘But what about his race? I couldn’t bear it if the boys picked on him and called him terrible names.’

  ‘People will pick on anyone who is different. Whether it’s because they’re wearing glasses or they have red hair, or even because they’re women who have chosen to study Medicine. The sooner Charlie learns to cope with it, the better.’

  ‘I don’t know, Eliza. If he stays in Millbrooke, he has all of us as a buffer.’


  ‘You cannot keep him hidden away forever.’

  ‘I only took the regular course.’

  ‘What was that?’ enquired Alice.

  ‘Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’

  the Mock Turtle replied;

  ‘and then the different branches of arithmetic

  – Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’

  LEWIS CARROLL

  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter IX

  III

  AMY

  Monday 16th February, 1885

  Amy sat opposite her son in the dining room of their house in Paterson Street, watching him work through the slate of sums she had prepared for him. While Charlie struggled with long division, Amy pondered yesterday’s early morning conversation with Eliza. For the past day she had thought of nothing else, even during the church service when she should have been listening to Reverend Brownlow’s memorial sermon about General Gordon and his eternal soul. In her heart Amy knew Eliza was right. All the same, she couldn’t send Charlie to Sydney. That was simply out of the question. But perhaps there was an alternative which would allow him to spend weekends in Millbrooke.

  Whenever Amy visited Granthurst, the nearest big town, she always admired a collection of turreted buildings situated not far from the railway station. Attached to a fancy cast-iron gate was a sign saying: ‘St Cuthbert’s School for Boys’. If she were to send Charlie to St Cuthbert’s, he could catch the train back to Millbrooke every Friday afternoon and return to Granthurst on Sunday evenings. The newly built branch line connected Millbrooke to Granthurst, and the journey between the two towns, which had once taken almost half a day by coach, had been reduced to an hour and a half.

  ‘Mama, I have finished the sums. Could you mark them for me, please?’ Charlie asked, handing her the slate.

  Amy picked up a duster and chalk, preparing to mark out any errors, but every answer was correct. ‘You are a better mathematician than I,’ she told him. ‘Thank goodness you take after your father and not me.’

  ‘Is that why Uncle Jimmy handles the accounts at the emporium?’ asked Charlie with a cheeky grin.

  ‘It is indeed.’ She smiled at him indulgently. ‘Now, Charlie, there is something we need to talk about. It concerns your education.’

  He had adopted the earnest expression she loved. So much like his father.

  ‘You are already better than I am at arithmetic and Latin. And soon you will have outgrown my teaching skills altogether. It is time you learned algebra and Ancient Greek – they are subjects a young gentleman needs if he is to be a success.’ As she spoke those words, she realised they were something she had heard her father say to her younger brothers. After a while she asked, ‘How would you feel about going to school?’

  ‘You mean the school where James goes?’

  ‘I was thinking of a private college.’

  ‘There is no college here in Millbrooke.’

  ‘But there is one in Granthurst.’

  Charlie gave her an odd look she couldn’t decipher. ‘A boarding school, Mama?’

  ‘You could come home on weekends.’ She scanned his face, searching for a reaction.

  ‘A school with other boys?’

  ‘Yes. But if you really don’t want to go, I wouldn’t insist.’

  ‘What is the name of this college?’

  ‘St Cuthbert’s.’

  ‘The place which looks like a castle?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘They have a cricket field, don’t they? And tennis courts.’

  ‘I believe they do.’

  ‘And I would stay there from Monday till Friday?’

  ‘That’s right. I know it would be hard for you at first, but you would get used to it.’

  ‘How many pupils are there?’

  ‘I don’t know. We could find out if you like.’

  Charlie was silent for a long time.

  ‘Do you think you might like to go to St Cuthbert’s?’ Amy asked softly.

  ‘I think I would,’ replied Charlie with such lack of hesitation that Amy was nonplussed.

  ‘You really would? You’re not just saying that to please me?’

  ‘No, I mean it. Sometimes I get lonely on my own.’

  Amy suppressed a gasp before it could escape from her mouth. ‘Lonely?’

  ‘I don’t mean to offend you, Mama, but it would be nice to have other boys around. Like having brothers.’

  ‘Like having brothers,’ she repeated, trying to steady her voice. ‘Well, that’s settled then. I shall write to the school today.’

  That very afternoon, Amy headed for the post office with a letter to the headmaster of St Cuthbert’s in her basket, leaving Charlie behind to parse a paragraph of Mr Dickens. It was a task she used to set for Eliza in the long-ago days when the two of them were tutor and pupil.

  ‘Every single word?’ Charlie had asked.

  ‘Of course. Including definite and indefinite articles,’ she had replied. ‘A thorough knowledge of grammar is the mark of a good student. When you are finished, I shall meet you at the emporium. We can help your Uncle Jimmy unload the new tea chests.’

  After dropping the envelope into the pillar box outside the post office, Amy continued down the hill. She was almost at the bakery when she spotted a familiar figure – her father – walking briskly in the opposite direction. Both had become expert at pretending the other didn’t exist. Matthew Duncan had begun the grim game more than a decade earlier, not long after Charles’s death. That day he had crossed the street to avoid her as if she were a prostitute, when her only offence had been to fall in love with a Chinaman. From then on, whenever she passed him, she always stared straight ahead. Even so, the first fleeting glimpse of him, a bulky figure in a dog collar with thinning hair and a rusty beard, was enough to produce a sharp pain in her chest. It never lasted more than a second or two, and then it was gone, leaving no vestige of its presence. But no matter how many years had passed or how skilled she had become at ignoring him, she could never seem to avoid that moment of pain.

  Taking a deep breath, she headed in the direction of the emporium. On the block beside it, which had once housed the boot shop and Thompsons’ store, a new building would soon be rising, a grand edifice with iron-lace verandahs and tall chimneys. For now it was only a set of blueprints, but in a few months the foundations would be dug and then the bricklayers would start the walls. It was Amy’s own project, a long-held dream to build a place she had dubbed the Emporium Hotel. She had invested a large percentage of her savings in it, her share of the profits from the emporium, accumulated over the past decade. As she surveyed the site and pictured the finished building, she smiled to herself. It would be the most luxurious hostelry in country New South Wales.

  Next door, the emporium looked exactly as it had done when Amy first arrived in Millbrooke all those years ago – a ramshackle building with cast-iron dragon brackets and a striped metal awning shading the front. She paused to look at the sign above the doors:

  C. CHEN, PROPRIETOR

  She and Jimmy had chosen not to change the sign. Even though they had jointly inherited the emporium, it would always belong to Charles, no matter what the legal documents might say. Then she crossed the threshold as she had done a thousand times before, but nothing could bring back the magic – neither the fragrance of the teas nor the sight of the glossy porcelain nor the lustre of the silks. Not even the glow of the jade figurines. Once upon a time the emporium had been her Aladdin’s cave of treasures; now it was filled with question marks hanging silently in the air – a storehouse of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’.

  Charlie was unpacking porcelain bowls from a tea chest and placing them on the shelves according to colour and pattern while Jimmy was at the counter, doing the ubiquitous accounts.

  ‘Good afternoon, Amy,’ Jimmy said. ‘Such sad news about General Gordon. In China we call him Chinese Gordon. He good man.’

  ‘Thank you, J
immy. It is indeed a very sad time. And I’d forgotten that the General spent time in China.’

  ‘He help Chinese people and save them from rebels. Emperor make him titu.’

  ‘What does titu mean, Uncle Jimmy?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Titu? Very important title. Like Lord Nelson. Only Emperor has power to bes . . . what is word, Amy?’

  ‘Bestow.’

  ‘Yes, only Emperor has power to bestow title.’

  Jimmy returned to his paperwork and Amy helped Charlie arrange the porcelain. She always felt comfortable in Jimmy’s presence. He possessed the same gentle, dignified manner that had characterised her husband. Over the years Amy had tutored Jimmy and his wife, May – or Mei Lin as she was known in Chinese – in the complexities of English, and they had reciprocated by helping her with Cantonese. They even tutored Charlie a couple of times a week. As a result of more than a decade of lessons, Amy could read Chinese characters proficiently and speak well enough to converse with the Chinese merchants in Sydney. For his part, Jimmy could speak English fluently, even though he struggled with verbs and was wont to speak in the present tense.

  ‘Did you post the letter, Mama?’ Charlie asked his mother.

  ‘I did indeed.’

  ‘When do you think we shall hear from them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she laughed. ‘One might assume you were anxious to escape your current teacher.’

  ‘Of course not, Mama,’ he said with a smile. ‘You are the best teacher in the world. But I don’t like being the only pupil. I’ll have many friends at St Cuthbert’s.’

  ‘What is this about St Cuthbert’s?’ a deep voice interrupted.

  It was Joseph standing at the entrance to the emporium, with James in tow.

  ‘Mama has decided that I shall be a boarder there,’ said Charlie. ‘Isn’t that good news, Uncle Joseph?’