Wang fetched the vasculum case and, always patient, the boatman waited. There was clearly no change in the scenery that merited such a stop and I paced the cabin as Robert sallied out, climbing a small hill to one side of the barracks while directing Wang to stop and take cuttings here and there. From my vantage point I noticed Wang pulling the roots of the plants Robert pointed out and Robert ignoring him doing so. They moved out of sight, gone for a good twenty minutes, that frankly felt more like an hour or two to me. Any Chinaman, mandarin or not, caught poking around a barracks might be questioned and this place was large and probably heavily fortified. I paced the barge praying, I admit, for Robert’s safe return in short order and I felt a wave of relief when I saw him appear again over the top of the hill, cheerfully making his way down towards us—in fact, I don’t believe I have ever been so glad to see anyone in my life. There was a nonchalant look on his face as he strolled towards us. There would, I guessed, be more strange orders for goods going to the Chinese merchants in Ning-po.
In Che Kieng City we docked overnight and, inspired by our mandarin friend, we thought to order a meal to be delivered to our cabin that evening as a treat. There were many hostelries nearby. It was as a result of this that we discovered Sing Hoo’s delinquency had taken a turn for the worse and Robert, of course, had to deal with it.
Our money was carried on strings, being minted with a hole in the middle for the purpose. We kept mostly silver dollars that were concealed in our luggage and on Robert’s person. However, we had some strings of bronze cash for making small purchases and these coins were stowed in a box in the cabin. That afternoon Robert ventured to take a string of cash to order our meal and buy provisions. When he opened the box, however, he saw the strings were not equal and that two or three had been ‘clipped’. This was a thinning of the metal at the edges and resulted in an uneven string of coins that any merchant would notice immediately. The clipped metal could be fashioned into new, whole coins but what was left behind was almost worthless. Both Wang and Sing Hoo knew where the strings of cash were stowed and, as it was clear that this operation must have been undertaken over several days, it was only our own servants who would have the necessary access to perpetuate such a fraud. We discussed this and then summoned the men to the cabin, leaving the money box open on the table.
Wang stood upright, his chest out and his eyes clear. Sing Hoo behaved like a dog, his eyes cast low and his back bent. It was clear where the guilt lay. It was one thing to steal a few provisions, quite another to progress onto cash and Robert took it as a grave matter.
‘There is money missing,’ he said and Sing Hoo sealed his guilt by babbling, ‘But I have not been in the box to damage it.’ Robert had not yet mentioned any damage, only the theft.
To make matters worse, we were not the only ones checking our money as we came into town. At that very moment our boatman knocked on the door and on entry he furiously swung into the room and grabbed Sing Hoo by the throat. This caused such a commotion that everyone nearby rushed to find out what was afoot (except our opium smoker, of course) and in no time the cabin was crowded with babbling passengers and crew. Upon Robert disentangling the two of them, the boatman claimed that Sing Hoo had asked him to change a silver dollar for cash earlier in the day and that, trying to spend it, he then discovered the dollar to be bad. Sing Hoo maintained, screaming, that the bad dollar was not his and the boatman was blaming him, having discovered counterfeit elsewhere in his money. It seemed unlikely.
Robert took charge immediately. I must say he presented a fine figure, barring everyone from our cabin and, saying he would pronounce his judgement from the only area large enough for everyone to witness it, he shepherded the assembled throng out onto the deck. Sitting on a barrel while he pondered, Robert questioned each of the parties like a seasoned judge.
‘Sing Hoo is my servant, and I will punish him,’ he proclaimed, refunding the boatman’s money and telling Sing Hoo that this repayment would be taken over time from his wages.
Robert himself was to flog the man.
I don’t blame Robert for deciding on drastic action. Sing Hoo could have jeopardised our whole expedition with the sheer bad will that his thieving brought. In such circumstances Robert could not let it pass, though the punishment he settled on was too medieval for my blood.
Sing Hoo stood with the crowd around him as Robert readied himself, steely eyed and taut. Then, with Sing Hoo tied in place, he lashed two dozen vicious blows to the man’s bare back with a makeshift whip. There was blood running down Sing Hoo’s legs and his cries were pitiful. A crowd of passersby gathered beside the boat, anxious to find out what was going on. Afterwards, Robert flung salt on the raw skin to stop any infection and, of course, Sing Hoo wailed even more. The blood dripped dirty onto the wooden deck and Sing Hoo’s face twisted with pain. I could smell him—the stench of sweat and blood and acrid fear. And piss too, for when Sing Hoo was let down he fell over and lost all control. The crowd seemed vindicated and almost pleased at what they witnessed—justice done—and people started to disperse. For my part, I felt my stomach turn, my grasp on the rail weaken, and I thought I might be sick before finally everything went black and I was gone. ‘What will they all think of me?’ the only words that passed through my mind as I tumbled.
When I came to I was lying on the bed. Robert sat beside me. The barge was moving and we had left the town. I cursed my squeamishness and immediately measured myself against my sister. Jane was so stoic, she never would have wilted. I must try harder.
‘I did not think myself so weak,’ I said, finding my throat dry.
Robert passed me a small cup of tea and I sat up to drink it.
‘I forget you are a lady,’ he said. ‘I should have asked you to leave.’
‘Is Sing Hoo all right?’
Robert nodded. ‘I had to take a firm hand,’ he started as if to justify his actions, but I waved him to stop.
‘You did right,’ I said. ‘You always do.’
That night, I had a dream. I was a child again. I was hidden, for I had been playing a game and was stowed in my mother’s crockery cabinet. I could taste bread and lard in my mouth as if I had just had breakfast and it lingered on my tongue. Peering out, I could see that my father was in the kitchen, Jane over his knee as he beat her hard. Her skin was raw pink but she was silent as his hand came down sharply again and again. Her eyes were alight with fury, staring right at the cabinet as if she knew I was there. What did she want of me? What? I woke in a sweat, unable to tell whether it was a true memory or only fantasy. I never remembered Da hurting Jane, though I know he picked on her for half nothing, while I got away with blue murder. I felt horribly guilty. I had a feeling that it was my fault, that Jane was protecting me by taking the beating. I was only a child and she’d been so brave, so silent. If she had cried I would have tried to protect her, I’m sure of it.
The further I got from home the more I realised that I did not remember Da so very much. It vexed me. If he was so vicious, how could Mother have loved him and still been happy that he was gone? Losing a parent is hardly unusual and yet, it seemed to me, I had missed out on something intriguing by simply being so young that I could not quite remember it. People who inspire such contradictory emotions must be worthwhile, I reasoned. Jane, I knew, loved me very much. In adulthood she had protected me when she could have turned her back and yet she found me difficult and frustrating too. What would my son think of me? Poor Henry. No mother nearby and William as good as absent, no doubt. I could not help feeling that both Henry and I deserved better than we had got. And Jane too, perhaps. He had formed us, our father, I realised. He had been the key to our closeness and the source of our differences.
I lit the tallow beside my bed and pulled out a notebook, ripping a page.
Dear Jane,
I am writing to you from inside China. I want you to know that I think of you often. I want you to know, though we are not in the habit of saying such things, I love you very m
uch. You have stood by me always.
Thank you.
Mary.
I blotted the ink and folded the paper. I would ask Robert to dispatch it at the next opportunity.
After four more days of journeying, our mandarin friend disembarked at one of the small villages beyond Che Kieng, taking over half the contents of the hold with him. I stood on deck, watching with surprise as the men hoisted three coffins on deck. They loaded them onto a cart and Wang explained that the mandarin was delivering these caskets to his family burial grounds nearby. The delivery of coffins was not considered a priority in Chinese households and often years would pass before the trip was made.
I was to discover that the coffins were often not buried at all but laid out above ground in the family plot. This man might be making a journey that had been hanging over him for some months or even years. On my part, I had not realised we had slept so close to the mandarin’s dead relations, stowed directly beneath our quarters. I am sure that I might not have slumbered so soundly had I known. No wonder the poor man did not feel sociable and resided alone in his cabin in an opium haze.
As the mandarin departed I noticed Sing Hoo was dallying on the dockside and, as well as buying some leafy, green vegetables for our congee, he seemed to be selling a small bag of rice to a local village man. He looked shiftily in my direction, hoping no doubt that I had not realised the portent of his transaction. The rice was either ours or belonged to the boatman as Sing Hoo, like Wang, carried no provisions of his own. When the few cash were handed over another fight broke out. I could not make out whether it was about the price agreed or some change that was due. Standing beside me, Wang sighed.
‘I do not want,’ he said, his eyes darting towards Sing Hoo below us. ‘He will have us murdered by someone he swindles. I do not want to be murdered.’
I could not help feeling Wang had a point. Later Robert found him packing his things in the hold, intending to leave. By coercion only, Robert bought him out, promising a bonus on the journey’s completion.
I, however, was of the view that Sing Hoo was incorrigible. Nothing seemed to make the slightest difference to his behaviour. He simply took whatever punishment was meted out to him, while still selling the contraband nonetheless. We had cast our lot, though. We needed to keep both servants with us, be they bound to the expedition by love, trust or money. Sing Hoo knew our secret and that meant he had to stay. Still, Robert locked the cash box, hid the key and it was clear, to the satisfaction of both Wang and the boatman, that Sing Hoo was no longer trusted even if he was not to be dismissed.
As we proceeded onwards the land became hillier and there was a general air of dilapidation. Abandoned pagodas littered the slopes in various stages of disrepair. It was a strange place. Many families seemed to have their burial grounds between Che Kieng and the town of Kiang Nan. It seemed to me we were travelling through the Dead Lands. Some coffins were left above ground and had been there so long that wild roses were growing over them in a tangled mass, as if the earth had come up to meet the dead.
I have never been fond of horror stories or ghosts. Robert had no such qualms and the notion of a good yarn from beyond the grave appeared to boost his spirits. He tried to draw me in, bringing up first the ghost of Hamlet’s father and then the story of the Borgias. In these grim and shadowy surroundings, where coffins littered the landscape, I became jumpy.
‘Please don’t,’ I begged like a ten year old, as we walked by the boat in the twilight before supper. ‘It makes me afraid.’
‘But surely you must enjoy the death pact at the end of Romeo and Juliet? I thought that would appeal to you, Mary.’
‘It does. But of spirits from beyond…’ I shuddered.
‘So might you be perturbed if one of these coffins was to creak slowly open and the bones of the head of the Dynasty were to sit up?’ he teased, his voice low and theatrical.
When he tapped my shoulder lightly I pushed him and, I am ashamed to say, a squeal left my lips.
Thereafter, for several days I confined myself to the barge, declining to take up Robert’s offer of a constitutional walk along the bank. I felt as if I left the moving boat the dead would cling to my ankles. It made me maudlin and I thought again of home, my mind drawn back.
‘I bought my father a marble gravestone before I left,’ Robert confided one day. ‘It is thirteen-feet high. When I ordered it from the mason he tried to sell me something smaller. He said my father was only a servant. But I wanted his grave marked properly. It was the least I could do. He taught me everything. He was the only one ever to teach me. Everything else I have found by trial and error.’
I expect we were both of us thinking very much of home, and fathers too. All those no longer with us, whose influence was keenly felt.
Then after a grim week, slowly the scenery brightened and even the food improved. The hills became more majestic, and I came out of the cabin and sat on deck to enjoy it. Robert apologised for his schoolboy pranks in the Dead Lands and tempted me onto the towpath to walk with him again. We talked for hours. Our conversations were of our days in Hong Kong and our time in Ning-po. Of the day we shaved our hair off and became Chinese. Of the foods we missed most from England (all, we realised, of the sweet and creamy variety) and the sensation of sleeping on a proper bed, with proper sheets. And, best of all, of bathing in an enamel bath with hot water and (oh, heaven!) soap.
‘Nettle soap,’ I decided. My maid used to buy smooth nettle soap from an apothecary in Chiswick. It left my skin like alabaster.
Over the days, as we went higher, the air felt clear and thin. Time passed and we came closer to Hwuy Chow Foo, following our progress on the map when we started in the morning and before we lay down at night.
I was below deck reading when our pleasant journey was interrupted by an absolute howling. I swear, it was like a banshee. As I jumped up and rushed out to see what had come to pass, I witnessed Robert screaming on deck and jumping up and down. I felt frantic. Had some dreadful new calamity befallen us? As I looked round in panic I checked that there was nothing wrong with any of the men and the boat was unharmed. Then I realised that on the contrary, Robert was not upset. He was in ecstasy. He was pointing ahead.
‘My God,’ he said, recovering his faculty of speech. ‘On the hill. Look, Mary.’
Ahead of us I stared up at the mountains and, realising what I could see, I felt excitement rising in my belly. There on the slopes were the first of the tea plantations. I felt like screaming with exhilaration, as Robert had. It shocked me and I held my tongue. Instead, we stood together on the deck, watching and hardly able to form a sentence between us. Within three li the emerald hills were littered with tiny farms.
‘It is here. It is here,’ he breathed at last, and I grasped his hand, squeezing it tightly.
The tea countries were upon us.
Chapter Eight
We set up near Hwuy Chow Foo for some time. I was pleased that the dogs in the streets no longer barked at either Robert or me. Our Chinese diet meant that now we even smelt local. Despite the occasional craving for hot chocolate and Welsh rarebit, I had become accustomed to tea with no sugar or milk; to spring rolls and egg rolls and congee; to noodles doused in soya sauce with chickens’ feet and to roasted pigeon that arrived with the head on.
Robert took rooms for us at a local inn, having decided that staying in the centre of the town was too risky and we were better out of the way. The inn was dreary. What furniture there was, was worn, but our rooms were large and clean. Sing Hoo cooked for us—his cooking was much more palatable than our first night’s meal of over-salted vegetables and fatty pork which we agreed immediately was not to be repeated.
‘I’d pay not to eat the filthy stuff,’ Robert swore.
And, in fact, we did, for the arrangement he came to with the innkeeper allowed Sing Hoo use of the kitchen at a fee roughly equivalent to what it would have cost to order our food there anyway. We deemed it money well spent.
Much
of the time we ventured abroad, travelling mostly by bamboo sedan chair, our knees and feet swathed in oiled paper to keep us dry in the rain and our heads covered by an umbrella whatever the weather—for the sun was harsh when it wasn’t raining. We were fortunate there was little military fortification in the area and, after our experiences in Che Kieng and Hang Chow Foo, we were relieved to be able to wander easily around the town and up into the farms surrounding it with little threat of a military presence, for it was only the very occasional company of soldiers that marched through.
In the hills we passed streams of coolies carrying wooden boxes full of tea, headed eventually for Shanghae, the main port for the region. There was no better way to transport this cargo along the treacherous mountain paths than on a man’s back. Where the path narrowed to a single track the men stood precariously balanced to one side to let us pass. They were perilously close to the edge of the mountain, but seemed unperturbed by the danger.
‘Lord, that’s risky,’ Robert commented, ‘but I expect they have it in the blood.’
I drew many of the coolies in my notebook. Some balanced their tea boxes on long wooden sticks when they rested rather than allowing the chest to sit on the damp ground and risk it becoming tainted by moisture. To my mind, the men seemed too old and frail to be carrying the heavy loads at all—so light themselves that a strong breeze might topple them. I did not share Robert’s faith in their sense of balance.
Our first trip was made to the hill at Sung Lo Shan. This was a pilgrimage. High above the plains, the hill was where tea was said to have been discovered. I had by now read a good deal of the Ch’a Ching and could provide Robert with information from each of its three volumes. Some of the legends were lovely. I especially enjoyed the story of the eighteen tea trees maintained solely for the Emperor’s use and also the information regarding the plant’s medical applications. Tea was thought to help heart disease, to be good for the kidneys, and to increase fertility in women. The leaves were chewed and applied to chilblains to ease the pain. I passed on all this and Robert made notes here and there, although only if he felt the point in question had a valid industrial or medicinal use.
The Secret Mandarin Page 18