An hour before dusk, the American turned the gunboat’s prow toward Shanghai. Exhilarated by their victory, the Taipings were swarming over the Imperials’ remaining outposts. When the Holy Soldiers’ yellow-and-crimson banners blossomed on both banks of the Long River, Gabriel Hyde felt he was sailing through broad fields of daffodils.
CHAPTER 22
April 3, 1856
SHANGHAI
Sarah Haleevie was once again startled by her daughter’s behavior. She was also gratified, a feeling Fronah aroused less frequently. She nodded approval of the beige kaftan the girl wore instead of a furbelowed European dress over a tight corset that indecently accentuated her bosom. Fronah’s tawny hair was not tortured into an elaborate European coiffure, but hung loose under a green cotton scarf. The modesty of her dress and demeanor gladdened her mother’s heart.
The concubine Maylu leaned on the girl’s arm as they left the house on Szechwan Road for a Friday afternoon’s shopping in the South City. Fronah’s latest passion was collecting Chinese fans. For decorum’s sake, the girl’s personal amah walked respectfully three steps behind the ladies. Her daughter’s behavior, Sarah reflected, had been exemplary for the past several weeks. Perhaps too exemplary? She reproached herself for that unworthy thought. Why must she assume the girl was acting deceitfully when there was not the slightest reason for suspicion?
Fronah had even smiled at young Samuel Moses, who should have been in the counting house dealing with the last-minute rush before the Sabbath. Sarah was not concerned with the breach of her husband’s discipline, but with the growing intimacy between her daughter and the twenty-year-old apprentice Saul had brought from Bombay four months earlier. Samuel pleased Sarah because he was obviously attracted to her willful daughter. Instinct told her the youth’s affection was sincere, inspired primarily by neither the generous dowry Fronah would bring him nor the prospering business and the property Saul Haleevie’s only child would some day inherit. Besides, the Moseses were rich enough so that young Samuel had no need to seek a wealthy bride. But a sensible young man’s heart would of course range more freely where the money was.
Delighted by Samuel’s interest, Sarah wondered when the children would speak of their mutual affection. They were, naturally, shy, though at seventeen Fronah should already be betrothed. Parents could, of course, arrange a marriage, as her own marriage to Saul had been arranged. But it was better if spontaneous affection sprang up between the bride and groom beforehand. That was the modern way, and they were living in the modern age—as Fronah constantly reminded her.
For the first month or so, the girl’s attitude toward the slender youth had puzzled Sarah. She had wondered whether her daughter was put off by his swarthiness and the Baghdad robe he wore, a coarser, high-buttoned version of the garment Saul had abandoned. But Fronah had flirted modestly with Samuel for the past few weeks, and they often took a walk together after the day’s work. Sarah was doubly pleased: her daughter was behaving with maidenly reserve, while the slow growth of mutual affection promised a long, happy marriage.
Aaron and David Lee were not pleased by Samuel’s intrusion, although Fronah’s mock engagement to Aaron had lapsed of its own accord. Sarah did not understand the ramifications of the legal processes by which she and Saul had adopted the boys before their father was taken to Kansu Province, some two thousand miles away, to labor in the Imperial Jade Mines in perpetual exile.
After the formal adoption, Saul laughed at her worries over the betrothal of convenience. Aaron and Fronah could now never marry, he told her, because they were brother and sister. Not that there had ever been any real danger. He had not told her that Chinese families often adopted prospective bridegrooms for only daughters just as Jewish merchants took apprentices with the same consummation in mind.
Fronah had even taken the curtailment of her social life with good grace. She was apparently content to attend an occasional dinner under the eye of her teacher, Margaret MacGregor, who, Sarah had decided after two meetings, was a good woman. Realizing that her parents were acting for her own welfare, Fronah had not protested. Despite her natural restlessness, Fronah was a dutiful daughter. Sarah thanked the Lord God for His blessings, though much credit was, of course, due her husband’s wisdom.
“Fronah,” Sarah called impulsively, “just a minute!”
The slim girl in beige and the Soochow woman in the narrow azure gown slit to reveal black satin trousers waited beside the gatepost with the brass plates reading in English and ideograms: HALEEVIE & LEE.
“Here, my dear.” Sarah counted out five silver Maria Theresa dollars. “In case you find a very pretty fan. Enjoy yourselves.”
Fronah kissed her mother’s soft cheek. Her eyes misted as she inhaled the fragrance of attar of roses, which had breathed loving security all her life. Smiling reminiscently, she led Maylu into Szechwan Road, eager for the pleasures the afternoon would bring.
“You won’t be late for evening prayers, will you, Fronah?” Sarah called. “Mr. Henriques is coming to dinner, the English gentleman who brought a letter of introduction from your Uncle Solomon. Your father wants him to enjoy a real family Friday night. He’s very religious, Solomon says.”
Whatever curiosity Fronah might have felt was quelled by her mother’s recalling their guest’s devoutness. His name sounded terribly grand and terribly English: Lionel Howard Seymour Henriques. But he was probably just another stuffy middle-aged Jew with a long beard.
As they strolled along the lane of the fan makers, Maylu chattered apprehensively about the Taiping victories that were sweeping the Yangtze Valley after the relief of Chenkiang. Despite her hatred for the Manchus, whom she, like the rebels, called Imps, the concubine was frightened by the tide of Holy Soldiers surging toward Shanghai.
“They don’t rape and loot, everyone says,” Maylu said. “But how can you believe that? Soldiers are soldiers.”
“They won’t dare touch the Foreign Settlement,” Fronah consoled her absently. “Sometimes I think you want to be raped, you talk so much about it.”
They did not stop at the fan makers, though Fronah glanced avidly at the jewel-like displays. Darting into a side alley so narrow that they had to edge sideways around the bales stacked on the cobbles, they stooped under strings of drying fish translucent and flat like bleached leaves with fragile spines and ribs. How different, Fronah mused, their salty stench was from her mother’s attar of roses. The South City was a Chinese world far removed from her parents’ cozy Jewish enclave within the smug Foreign Settlement. She smothered a pang of guilt. It was ridiculous to feel disloyal because she was not always wholly candid with her parents and because she feigned attraction toward that swarthy youth, Samuel Moses. She was simply equally at home in two different worlds.
Maylu turned into a doorway beneath the discreet sign: OLD MOTHER WANG, MIDWIFE. Fronah climbed apprehensively behind the concubine, who clung to the splintered handrail the midwife had installed so that patients with golden lilies could clamber up the steep stairs. The amah trotted easily up the staircase to the third floor, her youthful vitality unhampered by bound feet. The poor farmers who were her parents could not afford to bestow the erotic and social advantage of that disfigurement on their daughters, since the girls’ labor in the fields—or the small sums they could earn as servants—were essential to the family’s survival.
The woman nodded to Old Mother Wang, who sat in the dark anteroom among the accouterments of her trade: the low hoop of a birthing stool, the long examination couch, the newly washed bandages, and the earthenware jars containing medicinal plants or animals’ organs. While the concubine and the amah sipped tea with the midwife, Fronah slipped into the bedroom cubicle to transform her appearance.
A quarter of an hour later, Maylu emerged into the alley. Two maidservants wearing short tunics and wide trousers decorously followed her through the lane of the silversmiths to the square surrounding the scarlet teahouse. Fronah’s tawny hair was tucked under a black scarf, the s
tiff fabric drawn forward to shadow her face. With her eyes cast down her features were invisible to passersby, and she mimicked the young amah’s splayed gait. Having settled the concubine in the teahouse, the maidservants, released from the slow pace imposed by Maylu’s golden lilies, scampered through the lanes toward the South Gate of the Chinese City. Leaving Fronah, the amah reminded her to return on time, and the girl darted past the guards toward the Tongkadoo.
Under the eye of a barefoot Chinese groom, three ponies bent their short necks to crop the coarse grass on the lawn surrounding the cathedral. Iain Matthews sprawled on the lawn in the shadow of the spire, meditatively chewing a stalk of grass. The frown that clouded his vulpine features cleared, and he rose to his feet with insolent grace. He had been wondering whether she would appear, for she had been skittish lately. His watery blue eyes glowed in triumph, and his small mouth pursed in self-satisfaction. Caricaturing a profound bow, he offered her a slender packet wrapped in silver-and-mauve paper.
“Your new fan, milady,” he smirked. “Hope Mama will approve your choice.”
“I’m sure it’s lovely, Iain, and not too gaudy. Do keep it for me till we get back.”
“Of course, my dear. You’ll like it, I promise.”
Iain cupped his hands to help Fronah mount before vaulting with ostentatious ease into his own saddle.
“Mafoo,” he told the groom, “you no come longside. Stay this place waitee us come back.”
“No, Iain, he’s to come with us.” Fronah stifled a giggle at his clumsy pidgin. “You promised.”
“What are you worried about? Afraid I’ll eat you?”
“No, Iain, not that, but something else. Remember, you promised.”
“All right, Fronah, if you insist.”
The girl took the lead, riding exuberantly along the path through the stubble-tufted paddy fields. April was wonderful, Fronah exulted, a glorious respite between winter’s chill and the humid heat of summer. The swallows hunting beetles amid the stubble wheeled and swooped with pure joy.
“Mafoo, no forgetee my words.” Iain Matthews drew his finger across his throat before cantering after Fronah. “Suppose forgetee, Master cuttee neck.”
“Me savee, Master.” The groom knew his family could not survive without his monthly salary of three silver dollars. “Mafoo behave proper, Master.”
“Suppose Mafoo behave proper, he catchee two string cash.”
Iain Matthews was delighted with his preparations for the afternoon. Fronah’s Chinese costume shielded her from scandal—and protected him, as well. During one ride only the groom’s alertness had prevented their discovery by a rowdy cavalcade racing across the green shoots of flooded fields. Though the Haleevies were isolated, the gossip would have reached her father’s ears. Fronah would have been locked up, and he would at least have taken a wigging from his taipan.
With Fronah disguised, any foreigners they met would merely think it odd that young Matthews’s Chinese popsy could ride. The griffins, the young bloods of the Foreign Settlement, were prohibited from marrying until they were twenty-five and had served in Shanghai for five years. Besides, unattached European ladies were not only rare but virtually forbidden. The griffins might, however, divert themselves with native women—as long as they avoided the public gaze.
European women were different, though Iain’s messmates, making a fetish of their deprivation, insisted “Yellow meat’s tastier than white.” He’d had more experience, and he knew it wasn’t so. Besides, he needed a change, he told himself with deliberate cynicism, reluctant to acknowledge the tenderness the tawny-haired girl awakened in him.
When Iain joined her, Fronah’s glance lingered on the sun glowing through his yellow hair and lighting his face. The perspiration gleaming on his bare forearms excited her oddly, and her smile taunted him. It did not matter that they had little to say to each other, for their silence was companionable. It was lovely to be appreciated, and it was glorious to canter through the afternoon sunbeams free of her mother’s nagging and her father’s silent disapproval.
When a cloud drifted before the sun, shadows darkened the path—and Fronah’s mood altered minutely. Iain was, she had to admit, occasionally tedious. She admired the refined English words that now sprang spontaneously to her mind. Tedious was just the word, though he was, of course, only occasionally a little tedious.
Nonetheless, if her parents weren’t so unreasonable, it would all have been over several months ago. Why should she blame herself for behaving as any high-spirited young woman would? If she did not assert her independence by seeing Iain against their wishes, she would never mature. She had to make her own mistakes or she would never learn. Since her parents forced her to act slyly, the guilt she felt was really their fault.
“Come on, Iain!” Fronah cried with forced exuberance to dispel her depression. “I’ll race you to the trees over there.”
“What forfeit?”
“A kiss, just a little kiss.”
“Hold up, Fronah.” He clutched her reins. “The mafoo’s in trouble. Looks as if his pony’s gone lame. We’ll have to wait.”
“Forget the mafoo, Iain!” She slapped the pony’s neck. “I’m racing you, not the mafoo. You’re not afraid of losing?”
The pony’s hoofs threw up clumps of grass from the narrow path between the fields. Since Iain’s bigger mount could still overtake them, she shrilly urged her pony on. The path widened as it approached the grove, and raindrops stung Fronah’s face. Leaning forward in his saddle, Iain swept past her into the dense canopy formed by the plane trees. Though the rain rattled on the leaves like gravel, they were snugly sheltered.
Laughing in exhilaration, Fronah slid from her saddle. Iain dropped from his pony to help her. He stiffened in excitement when he felt her breasts and thighs, unfettered under her flimsy tunic and trousers, press against him. The rain that confined them to the grove could not have been more opportune, while the mafoo, nursing his opportunely lamed pony, would not reappear that afternoon.
“Not much of a forfeit, that.” He pouted when she slipped out of his embrace. “Fair’s fair. Give us a proper kiss.”
Fronah leaned forward, bending from the waist so that only their faces touched, and brushed her lips against his.
“Now, Iain,” she chided. “You promised … and it’s only afternoon.”
“What’s that to do with it? I hardly ever see you any more … not properly … with Maggie MacGregor watching like a Gorgon.”
“It just isn’t right in the afternoon. Anyway, we came for a ride.”
“Ride in this downpour? But hands off, if you say so. Here, have some brandy to keep you warm.”
Young ladies did not drink brandy from gentlemen’s hunting flasks. Perhaps with ginger beer and a slice of lemon in a long glass, but neat brandy was a man’s drink. Still, it was cool in the shaded grove.
“Just a sip, Iain,” she agreed. “Just to keep warm.”
The brandy was sweet in her mouth, unlike the harsh whiskey she had tried once when he dared her. It trickled smoothly down her throat, and the delicious warmth tingled outward to her limbs. Perhaps it wasn’t quite ladylike, but why should gentlemen always have the best of things? A little more, just another sip, would do no harm. Surely a tot of brandy was better than catching cold.
“Looks as if we’ll be here awhile,” Iain said. “Might as well settle down. Do take off that ridiculous scarf.”
He unbuckled the blanket rolled behind his saddle and spread it over the layers of old leaves that carpeted the grove. Fronah hesitated. Joining him on the blanket was daring, even reckless, but he was insistent. Yet there was really nothing to worry about. No one could possibly discover them, and Iain was always the perfect gentleman. A quick word or a hurt look always stopped him from becoming too ardent.
“You will be good, won’t you, Iain?” she remonstrated. “Remember, I’m not one of your Chinese popsies.”
Feeling vulnerable in the thin Chinese clothing, Fro
nah clasped her arms around her knees. She would be careful, though Iain was really no more dangerous than a friendly puppy, a golden puppy with floppy ears. His chuckle mocked her posture of maidenly modesty. She deliberately leaned back on her elbows, though her breasts thrust against the flimsy cotton jacket.
“Don’t worry, my dear.” His words were minutely slurred. “I won’t attack you. A little more brandy?”
Fronah smiled her acceptance. She only sipped, while he gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. The more he took, the more easily she could keep him within bounds. Drink made him clumsy and sheepish.
Relaxed and confident, Fronah did not draw away when his mouth came down on hers and his arms slipped around her. For the first time, they lay stretched beside each other as if on a bed. His caressing hand was gentle on her shoulders. The brandy was surely making him drowsy, as it was herself. She did not protest when his hands cupped her breasts over her jacket, nor when he fumbled at the buttons. That much she had already permitted him—and enjoyed. She would, of course, permit him no more.
Fronah gasped when Iain opened the jacket and inched up her gauzy chemise to free her breasts. She thrust him away feebly, but relaxed again when he whispered to her. His tongue flicking in her ear sent a galvanic shock through her body, and she pushed him away firmly.
“Just want to look at you … and touch you a little,” he slurred. “No harm in that. By God, you’re beautiful. So beautiful.”
She blushed, the blood rising from her bare bosom to dye her throat and face. Suddenly aware of the glaring daylight, she clutched the jacket around her. He murmured soothingly as he gently unclasped her hands and pushed the jacket off her shoulders. Unthinking, she lifted her arms to let him slip off the sleeves.
Mandarin Page 19