“It is nice, Iain, very nice,” she sighed. “But no more. Remember, you promised.”
He looked up at her and smiled lazily. His lips brushed her breast, and his tongue circled her nipple. She shivered in delight, though she knew she should call a halt. But the new sensation at once thrilled and lulled her. Besides, he was always a perfect gentleman. Even far from any other people, she could control him. Her arms tightened of their own accord, pressing his face to her breast.
Fronah smiled dreamily when his hands slipped to her hips and strayed lower to cup her buttocks. Iain looked up adoringly at her slack features. Her hand trailed of its own volition down his bare chest.
Fronah stiffened in outrage. This was wrong, she realized, completely wrong. Knowing she must resist, she pushed her palms against his chest. But the gesture was feeble, her arms somehow powerless, and he only chuckled in his throat. She felt a fierce pulsing between her thighs, a rush of wetness. It seemed only natural when his hand slipped under her loose waistband to caress her stomach. She arched her back to help him slip off the trousers.
She was naked, Fronah saw with detached surprise. She was naked, and Iain’s hands were roving eagerly over her body. She should, she felt vaguely, make him stop. But she could not. Her resistance was overwhelmed by her body’s demands. Half aware, she opened her legs in response to the urgent pressure of his hand between her thighs. It was delicious, absolutely delicious—and it was only natural.
“Not rape, Maylu! You couldn’t call it rape.” Fronah protested, her fears fanned by the concubine’s horror. “It was my fault, too. Really, he couldn’t help himself. And he was so sorry afterward.”
“Afterward, Small Lady, afterward!” the concubine replied bitterly. “Being sorry afterward is too late!”
“But, Maylu, I couldn’t stop him.… Somehow, I just couldn’t.” Fronah stammered. “And you always talk about … about, you know … as if it didn’t really matter.”
“My sin, Small Lady, my stupidity!” The concubine’s voice shrilled toward hysteria. “I’m a stupid slave. I should never have helped you meet him. What to say to your mother?”
The concubine had fretted when the girl returned an hour late. She was skeptical when Fronah blamed her tardiness on the rain and a lame pony. The girl was pale, her manner was abstracted, and she clasped her hands to keep them from trembling.
Maylu had wandered into Old Mother Wang’s bedroom cubicle, where Fronah normally washed away the horse smell before resuming her normal clothing. When her eyes were caught by the smears of blood on Fronah’s thighs, Maylu reached the inevitable conclusion. The girl could not deny the concubine’s suspicion, though she had looked for sympathy and comfort, not paroxysms of grief and wild accusations.
“You should never have let it go so far. But it’s my fault. I’m evil. I should commit suicide to wipe out my sin. I would if I had the courage. I will.”
“Then everyone would know.” Knowing the Chinese, Fronah did not take the threat lightly. “And what would Uncle Aisek say? Please, Maylu, no!”
“You’re right. This slave cannot even suicide to erase her sin.” Maylu’s shrill tone subsided. “I must look after you, Small Lady. Remember, if something happens, Old Mother Wang has medicines.”
“Something? What something? Oh, you mean if …” Fronah had not even thought of pregnancy. “But it doesn’t always, does it, Maylu?”
“No, not always, Small Lady. But it’s good to remember Old Mother Wang. And your mother must never know.” Maylu moved away from frenzy toward calculation. “We’ll tell her we’re late because I twisted my ankle. Do you have the fan or must we buy one?”
“Maylu, is it always … you know … always so …?”
“No, my dear, not so swift and so unpleasant. He was clumsy, your foreign devil. And it was your first time. The first time’s always unpleasant.”
“It wasn’t so unpleasant, Maylu.” Fronah sought refuge from shock in detachment. “It wasn’t enjoyable, of course. Certainly not ecstasy! It was quite pleasant for a moment, but then disappointing.”
“He’s spoiled you,” Maylu moaned in renewed self-condemnation. “You’re a spoiled virgin, though no one must know. And he’s spoiled you for pleasure too.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Maylu!” Fronah consoled her consoler. “It was fine, lovely until he … he … until then.”
“Never! You must never again!”
“Maylu, there must be more to it. After all, so many people … so many women, you’ve told me, they love to … But how can I face my mother? One look and she’ll know.”
“It’s not so easy to see, Small Lady.” The concubine was again practical. “Remember, you fell trying to help me when I stumbled. We were accosted by—no, that won’t do. She’d never let us out of the house again. Not that I’ll ever help you meet him again. You fell and hit your head. Simpler is better.”
Sarah Haleevie glanced up distractedly from the candles she was lighting when she heard the front door open. A shawl draped her hair, where the tawny highlights of her youth were fading. Striving to concentrate on the ritual, she could not put her worry about Fronah out of her mind. The girl should have been home an hour ago to join her in Friday evening prayers. Their heads piously covered, Saul and their Chinese sons, Aaron and David, watched from their chairs at the dining-room table. Their guest, Lionel Henriques, a most improbable-looking Jew, murmured devoutly. A black skullcap was perched incongruously on his blond head.
After the opening door broke Sarah’s concentration, she hurried through the prayer. Perfunctorily blessing the candles, she turned to her impromptu congregation.
“Dinner will be ready in a moment,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “I think I heard them come in.”
Fronah and Maylu, who had been waiting for the rite to end, entered the dining room with exaggerated decorum. Sarah felt something was amiss, but it couldn’t be serious. They had, after all, spent the afternoon shopping innocently. But Maylu leaned heavily on Fronah’s arm, and her daughter’s face was pinched.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” She did not wish to embarrass their guest. “Why are you so late? Are you ill?”
“It’s nothing really, Mama,” the girl replied. “Maylu tripped and twisted her ankle. When I tried to catch her, I fell and hit my head on a stone.”
“Are you all right?” Sarah’s flicker of suspicion died. “Does it hurt badly?”
“It’s all right, Mama. I was just dazed. There’s no blood, not even a bump.”
The lean houseboy silently set a blue-and-white tureen on the mahogany table. He was nonplused when he saw the chopped chicken liver untouched and the crisp rolls unbroken. Normally they would have finished the first course by this time. Normally the menu would have been quite different, but his mistress had consulted with her friend Clara Weinstein to plan a meal that would please their English guest’s taste better than their own more highly seasoned dishes. Normally, too, they were as punctual as clocks, and the houseboy prided himself on producing each course at the precise moment they finished its predecessor.
An awkward pause followed the houseboy’s intrusion. Embarrassment drew all eyes to the tureen. Flecked with yellow droplets, the clear chicken soup steamed invitingly. Fluffy dumplings floated just beneath the surface like white clouds reflected in a golden sea.
“My word, Mrs. Haleevie,” Lionel Henriques said heartily. “I haven’t seen such perfect chicken soup since I left London. It’s like being home again.”
The Englishman’s light-blue eyes unobtrusively assessed the girl. She was, he concluded judiciously, a beauty, quite virginal, though perhaps a little overblown. She was fetching in the kaftan that flirted discreetly with her figure but avoided crass display. Her eyes were shadowed after her mishap, and their lids appeared bruised. She was hurt and vulnerable, altogether most attractive.
Fronah shyly acknowledged her father’s introduction. Mr. Lionel Howard Stanley Henriques of Samuelson and Company, Merchant Bank
ers. The name had a grand ring, and the man carried it well. He was slim and tall; his skin was fair; his nose was aristocratically arched; he wore a gold signet ring with an incised coat of arms on the little finger of his left hand; and his gray frock coat was cut with restrained elegance. His nonchalant manner seemed to declare that, since he had already seen everything, nothing could ever surprise him or shake his composure.
“As I said, Mr. Haleevie, I’m here to keep an eye on Derwents,” the guest resumed. “Since they have substantial obligations to Samuelsons, it was felt my presence in Shanghai would be helpful.”
“You’ll be here long?” Saul asked.
“Oh, indefinitely, Mr. Haleevie, indefinitely.” Henriques spoke in a pleasant tenor. “Of course, Derwents are fundamentally sound. Samuelsons merely thought I might be of assistance, you see. So I’ll be in China for quite a while, perhaps a year or two.”
Saul genially nodded his understanding. Nonetheless something about this Henriques jarred upon him. Perhaps the man was just a shade too English for a good Jew. Yet his brother Solomon’s private letter in Hebrew, which recommended Henriques glowingly, had arrived on the same ship as the letter of introduction in English and its bearer. He must, Saul chided himself, learn to suppress his instinctive reaction against men like this Anglicized Jew. Although Sarah felt he was himself veering from the straight Mosaic road, he could not let her prejudices divert him from the great success upon which he was determined.
Fronah gratefully let the men’s talk drone past her. She was relieved that her mother had accepted her story so easily. She was so relieved she could almost forget the dull ache inside her. Mr. Henriques’s presence was a God-given distraction. Except for his advanced age, he was a most attractive man. Some day, when Iain was more mature, he would look as elegant as Mr. Henriques, she reflected spontaneously, and he would speak with the same imperturbable confidence.
Iain! The name intruded violently into her thoughts. My God! Iain! He had acted like a wild beast. Though she had been a little weak, his behavior was inexcusable. She would not think about Iain! But there had been a while when it was not unpleasant at all.
CHAPTER 23
April 18, 1856
SHANGHAI
“You’ve been impossible for weeks now.” Sarah’s tone was elaborately casual. “What’s wrong, my dear?”
“Impossible?” Fronah fenced. “What do you mean, Mama? I’m just the same as always.”
Fronah had been withdrawn and irritable for more than two weeks, staring into the distance and snapping when addressed. Even her confidante Maylu was alternately ignored and stabbed by her sharp tongue. After flirting with Samuel Moses, Fronah now refused to grant him a single word. Offered ten dollars to add to her fan collection, she had declared that she was totally bored by both fans and the South City. To Sarah’s astonishment, she had brusquely refused an invitation to dine at Derwent and Company, though her father and his new acquaintance, Lionel Henriques, urged her to accept.
Sarah had asked Fronah to help her that late April morning, hoping the cosy atmosphere would draw her daughter out. Fronah had loved the kitchen since she was barely tall enough to crane over the counter-tops. She particularly delighted in the bustle of preparing kreplach, the large meat-filled dumplings for which Saul had acquired a taste from Carl and Clara Weinstein, the only German-Jewish family in the Shanghai community. If Sarah allowed the cook to prepare them, he complained that they had a Chinese flavor. Kreplach should not, he protested, taste of ginger, anise, and soy sauce.
Glad of the excuse to use her own kitchen, Sarah had early initiated Fronah into the mysteries of preparing the dumplings. They normally joked and gossiped, their laughter punctuated by the slapping of dough on the flour-dusted marble slab and the soft soughing of the rolling pin. Today Fronah was making little pretense of helping. She had barely got her hands white before seating herself on a tall stool to stare moodily through the basement window at the feet of the coolies carrying bales into the godown.
“Is the view that fascinating?” Sarah tried again. “What is bothering you, dear? You’ve been out of sorts ever since you bumped your head. Maybe Dr. MacGregor should have a look.”
“Don’t keep on at me, please. I’m just bored. Haven’t you ever been bored?”
“Not often, my dear. But Dr. MacGregor must give you a good going-over.”
“He looked at my head when I had my lesson with Margaret,” Fronah lied evenly, afraid the physician’s eye would discover her secret. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“It’s not your time of the month, is it? Maybe that’s why you’re cranky. You’re not having troubles, are you?”
“Mama, I said I was fine. But it does feel as if it’s coming on. I think I will go and lie down.”
Sarah stared in frustration as her daughter’s gray morning dress retreated through the kitchen door. Fronah had always been secretive when she was troubled. Sarah sighed and vigorously kneaded the unoffending dough.
Fronah did not lie down, though the light filtered soothingly through the violet-sprigged curtains of her bedroom. Instead, she swept aside the jumble of Chinese writing brushes and paper-bound books on her leather-topped escritoire. Drawing a sheet of note paper from a cubbyhole, she dipped a steel-nibbed pen into the crystal inkwell and began to write:
Dearest Iain.
No, that wouldn’t do. She drew out a fresh sheet and printed the date and the hour in the upper-right-hand corner. My dear lain, she wrote, and cocked her head to admire the blue letters on the cream paper. But that was too formal. Chewing on the pen, Fronah blankly regarded the blank sheet.
She loved him, she knew, and she had forgiven him. He couldn’t help himself, for she had been provocative, almost shameless. It was all the brandy’s fault, not his or even hers.
She did love him—with all her heart. And he loved her, too. She knew beyond doubt that he loved her deeply.
But what could account for his silence since that day in the grove? Perhaps, as some novels warned, he’d had his way with her and no longer respected her. But that couldn’t be. Not her Iain.
Perhaps he was ashamed to face her. Why otherwise could he not send her a note or contrive a chance meeting. They could not, of course, go riding again, but would have to find another way to cover their tracks, since Maylu flatly refused to conspire at their secret meetings. Any future shopping excursion to the South City would be just shopping. For the moment, Maylu wouldn’t even go shopping because she feared the girl would slip away. Fronah could only send Iain secret notes with her amah, who was bound to secrecy by generous tips.
Perhaps he was afraid, as well as ashamed. She’d written six times and had not had a single word in reply. Though she still hoped a messenger would slip a note into her hand, she no longer lingered by the gate or strolled along Szechwan Road. She feared he would never reply, although she had assured him that no one would ever know what they had done—and had repeatedly told him how much she longed to see him. Miserable at his neglect, she was growing angry with Iain.
Still, one more note would do no harm—and might just move him to reply. A sincere message, she decided, the more straightforward the better. Her pen nib scratched decisively on the third sheet of note paper. Darling Iain, she wrote, I must see you. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t answered my letters. I understand and …
His small mouth set, Iain Matthews took the envelope from the amah. He thrust it into his pocket and glanced around furtively to reassure himself that no one had seen the amah come to the wharf where he was checking a consignment of tea chests. He would read the note in his bedroom when his messmates were out. That much he owed Fronah.
He also longed to see her again. Somehow, the air was brighter when she was near, as if the day itself responded to her sparkle. The last few weeks had been dreary without Fronah.
His messmates were twigging him unmercifully about her notes, knowing from his earlier broad hints exactly who wrote them—and why. Unfortunatel
y, their taunts made good sense, damned good sense. Iain Matthews was not only frustrated and confused by his own feelings. He was also badly frightened.
“Look here, Foxy,” Duncan Finlayson, Jardines’ senior cadet, had volunteered. “You’ve landed yourself in a beastly mess. Better stick to Chinese doxies from now on.”
It was, Finlayson had explained, damnably dangerous to fool about with a Jewess. “Worse than Sicilians for revenge, the Yids are,” he’d said. For all Iain knew, a gang with long beards and long knives would jump out of the shadows one night when he was innocently strolling along the Bund. “They’ll cut your throat, of course. Probably carry away a cup of your blood to make matzahs. But, first, they’ll hack off your bollocks.”
Naturally he was frightened. She’d told him how jealous her father was—not wanting her to go to parties. The old Jew with the reddish beard would stop at nothing. Look how ruthless he was in business.
“And she’s got those Chink brothers,” Finlayson had added. “The Chinks are worse. They’d make you eat your bollocks before they chopped off your head. Slice you up a little for fun first. You’ve heard of the death of a thousand cuts. It happens, Foxy! And you’re a prime candidate.”
Iain was almost as terrified that Jardines’ taipan would learn of his affair with Fronah. The firm might have been hand in glove with Chinese pirates smuggling opium, and it might still shave customs dues. There was, after all, nothing wrong with opium or with diddling the Chinks. But scandal was another matter.
Griffins weren’t allowed to have anything to do with white women—for very good reasons. They couldn’t marry till they had proved themselves and the taipan’s wife had approved their brides. Anyway, dalliance with European ladies always seemed to come out. Since the small Foreign Settlement could be riven by the consequent dissension, any griffin involved in a scandal was immediately sent home. And how could he explain to that strait-laced person his father, who had made so many sacrifices to give his son a flying start toward making his fortune?
Mandarin Page 20