The Mandarin preceded Fronah into the reception room, which was sparsely furnished since she had sold what remained of the rich furniture after the mob’s vandalism. She needed every penny, for she found it almost impossible to turn away a child in need.
“Pu kan tang …” she replied when the Mandarin complimented her on the neat three-decker beds in the dormitories. “I am unworthy of praise. Actually, Your Excellency, I feel terribly inadequate. So many children need help, but I can take in so few.”
“Mrs. Henriques, you’re an example for us all,” the Mandarin declared as they entered the schoolroom. “Aside from my fondness for your brother, that’s why I had to call upon you. I’ve also come to shame my own people because a foreign lady is doing what they fail to do. I’ve told my Mandarins they mus learn from your achievements. It’s extraordinary, the energy and tenacity o a European lady. If all were like you, they’d move mountains.”
“I am unworthy of your praise.” Fronah repeated the rote self-deprecation. “Besides, I don’t want to move mountains, only a few little hills.”
“Mrs. Henriques, I see the children are studying the Classics, as well as some English.”
“They must learn whatever they can, so that they can be useful to themselves—and to China. I trust I don’t presume in teaching them the elementary Classics.”
“Quite frankly, I’m of two minds, Mrs. Henriques. But I’ll take the tea you offered. Perhaps you’ll tell me how you came to this work.… Why a foreign lady cares so much for our unfortunate children.”
The Mandarin’s effusive praise was almost embarrassing, and his fine features were lit with good humor. However, Fronah felt a premonitory chill at his hint that he did not wholly approve of her manner of educating her charges. Had the Mandarin come to demand that she curtail her work?
She was, nonetheless, charmed by his graciousness. When they sat on hard chairs in the bare reception room, she told him of her initial resolution and her subsequent difficulties. She was totally candid, since the amahs, stiff with awe as they served tea, could not understand the Officials’ Language. The Mandarin’s good humor grew as he ate the delicacies of his native Anhwei Province, which David had advised her to prepare.
“I was playing, Your Excellency, only playing until the refugees broke in,” Fronah began. “When I had only thirty-five children and the house was beautifully furnished, I was playing with flesh-and-blood children the way I used to play with plaster-and-muslin dolls when I was small. But after the mob stormed the home, I committed myself to really looking after hundreds.”
Her father had been appalled at the prospect of Fronah’s devoting her life to a “parcel of dirty brats.” Though his love for her clashed with his own concern for the refugees, he somewhat uneasily continued to help her. It was more difficult to persuade her mother that she was not throwing her life away by turning her back on all men.
Fronah’s conviction that God had meant her for that task sustained her in those confrontations. Her certainty that she was carrying out the important deeds of which she had dreamed as a girl emboldened her to storm the citadels of the taipans, who provided the essential support. The hostile missionaries, of course, gossiped maliciously about her terrible rages.
Though she could endure being called a shrew, the suspicion rampant among the refugees themselves was wounding. Like all barbarians, they whispered, the benevolent lady was sly and deceitful. She only pretended she would not drench the children with magical water that transformed them into barbarians—and then sell them as slaves or, worse, kill them to make elixirs from their organs. Why else should she care for children who were not of her own people? Why else should the barbarian merchants give money to house and feed Chinese children?
Most painful was her loneliness. Her devotion left hardly time enough for the normal routines of her daily life—and no time for society. Yet she had no choice. It would be not only cruel but wicked to rescue children from squalor and, a few months or a few years later, send them back to wretched hovels. She knew she must follow her lonely road for the rest of her life.
Fronah paused, abashed by the naked candor with which she was speaking to the man she had met only an hour earlier. As the devoted David had told her, the Mandarin Li Hung-chang not only inspired trust but compelled confidences.
“I’m not complaining, Your Excellency,” she said. “It’s just that you asked.”
“I understand. I honor your efforts, but I have come to ask you to give them up.”
“Your Excellency, I feared you might have something like that in mind. My answer, with great respect, is No. Under no circumstances will I abandon these poor children.”
“It’s not quite what you suspect, Mrs. Henriques,” the Mandarin smiled. “I have a greater task for you—one even better suited to your talents. At least hear me out.”
“Please forgive my vehemence, Your Excellency. I’ll listen, of course.”
“I know I disturbed you by remarking that I was not necessarily pleased with your educating these waifs,” he observed. “It’s not your teaching them the elementary Classics that worries me, while I’m delighted that they’re learning some English. But too many children are taught only the Classics. That concentration precludes even more important education.”
“More important than the Classics, Your Excellency?” Fronah was astonished at the opinion of a man who, like his ancestors for ten generations, had qualified for an official career, the only career for a Chinese gentleman, by demonstrating his mastery of the Sacred Books of the Confucian state creed in the civil service examinations. “What could be more important than studying the Classics?”
“Mrs. Henriques, the Classics are all right as far as they go. Certainly young boys—even girls, perhaps—must learn to read and write by studying the simpler classical texts. Of course they’ll never become Mandarins. Who would support them during decades of study? However, the Classics have become a straitjacket for the best minds of China.”
“A straitjacket, sir?” David asked. “How else discipline young minds? How else can men prove their fitness to administer the Empire?”
“A straitjacket, David, which warps young men’s minds and stultifies the best talent in the Empire. We live in a new era. Men like you are needed, men with Western learning gained through foreign languages.”
“You’d do away with the civil service examinations, Your Excellency?” Fronah asked the blunt question David could not. “What would take their place?”
“Not abolish the examinations, young lady—not yet, at least. China must move forward slowly. But China must move forward.”
“By what means, Excellency?”
“Foreign powers can now virtually dictate to us. They are strong because of their science and industry—their discipline, too. I’m awed by the disciplined dedication of a foreign lady like you. Only the junior Empress Dowager is comparable among our ladies. I am also frightened by the ease with which European armies scatter our troops. We must be just as strong. We need steamships and warships, quick-firing cannon, rifles, and telegraph lines. We must develop our mines, build railroads and arsenals to make China powerful and independent of bar—ah … foreign pressure.”
“A great prospect, Your Excellency.” Though she sensed she was expected only to listen and to agree, Fronah nudged the Mandarin back to his original theme. “How would you alter education to serve that purpose?”
“Foreign affairs should be a regular course of study. Official examinations should test candidates for office in their knowledge of outside nations. We should further require schools to teach mathematics, physics, geography, and engineering. Their students could not possibly study the Classics as well, not in one lifetime. But those students must be given the opportunity to rise in the Mandarinate. That’s where you come in, young lady.”
“Your Excellency, I have no knowledge of such things.”
“The key to Western learning is foreign languages. Few men possess the knowledge of bo
th Chinese and foreign languages necessary to teach my young Mandarins. Most such men are employed in their countries’ diplomatic service or the Maritime Customs. There are fewer women, but you, young lady, are one—perhaps the only one.”
“What do you propose, Your Excellency?”
“I am setting up a school of foreign languages. I’d like you to organize the English department for me.”
“Your Excellency, I am honored far beyond my deserts by your proposal.” Fronah almost giggled at the thought of a little Jewish girl from Bombay teaching English to the future rulers of China. “I am overwhelmed, but I’m afraid I really can’t.”
“I considered my proposal most thoroughly before putting it to you,” the Mandarin Li Hung-chang said. “In fairness, you should take some time to think about it. Though I know you’re not concerned about money, the recompense would be generous. And you would hold a unique position of honor in my province. Later, certainly, a unique position in the Empire. We are ruled by a young and intelligent Manchu lady, the junior Empress Dowager. Why should a young and intelligent foreign lady not assist in reviving China’s power with Western learning? I need your help, Mrs. Henriques.”
“I’ll consider your flattering offer most seriously, Your Excellency,” Fronah answered slowly. “But I feel I should warn you now that I …”
“You know, Mrs. Henriques, whatever you decide, I won’t change.” Disdaining blackmail, the Mandarin allayed her fears as he rose to leave. “I won’t interfere with your children’s home if you refuse. But, please, do not refuse. I offer you far more important work—a vital task.”
Fronah curtsied as the Mandarin Li Hung-chang returned to his palanquin. Exultation bubbled in her veins. She had always envisioned playing a significant role in the world, though opportunities were few for women. The Mandarin was offering her an opportunity to realize her dreams on a far greater stage than the orphanage. She knew she had won that opportunity by her own resolution and determination. But how could she desert her helpless children?
CHAPTER 59
November 13, 1863
SHANGHAI
The night of November 13, 1863, was unseasonably warm after a week of cold rain interspersed with sleet and hail. At her rosewood desk in the morning room of the villa called Lo Wo, the Nest of Joy, Fronah brushed a bead of perspiration from her forehead before her steel-nibbed pen returned to the bond paper.
She had considered changing the name of the villa that was her father’s wedding present. Infected by the universal superstition of China, she almost believed her home had proved inauspicious because that name challenged fate. However, the Chinese, who hated innovation, would have gone right on calling it the Nest of Joy, while the foreigners, who affirmed their devotion to progress, would have been almost equally loath to propitiate fate by using a new name. The raw city, which prospered amid instability, loved its ready-made traditions, perhaps because it possessed so few of them.
Nest of Joy indeed! She grimaced ruefully at the irony. Her marriage had been singularly lacking in joy, except for two-and-a-half-year-old Judah Haleevie-Henriques. She delighted in Judah all the more because her devotion to the welfare of hundreds of less fortunate children kept her apart from him so much. But she despised his scapegrace father, who had left her, she reflected bitterly, two years, three months, and eight days earlier. She could never forgive Lionel for deserting their infant son, and she did not believe she could forgive him for deserting her—when, if ever, he fulfilled the promise reiterated in his infrequent messages and returned. Besides, she had found a certain quiet contentment in her lonely life.
The strings of glass beads hanging in the open French windows of the terrace to deter flies tinkled soothingly. Though summer was long past, she kept forgetting to have the beads taken down. She neglected her own home for the children’s home, and she was now neglecting the children’s home not only for the Language Schools but for the additional commission for which she had made a veiled proposal to the Mandarin Li Hung-chang a few days earlier. It was a brilliant idea, he had readily agreed. He would, he had added, laughing, allow her a week to prepare a compelling summary in English of the Memorials, dispatches, private letters, and intra-office memoranda relating to the campaign he had pressed against the Taipings for the past eighteen months. Since a month would hardly be long enough, he would give her a full week—but no more.
She was torn by the contending demands of Judah, the orphans, and her work for the Mandarin. That tension was, however, alleviated by her knowledge that she was doing significant—perhaps supremely important—work. She retied the belt of her red velvet dressing gown with the gold-mounted garnet buttons and the white flare of ermine at its cuffs and neckline. She was content, she assured herself, though the flowing dressing gown and the cream satin nightdress with the daring lace inserts she wore beneath it were the most frivolously feminine garment she allowed herself nowadays.
Fronah rubbed her smarting eyelids with her fingertips and reminded herself that she must keep firm her resolution to devote herself wholly to her duty to China, forgetting all men. She sighed in annoyance at the coals burning in the marble fireplace under the scroll painting of a fisherman by Ma Yüan. She should have told Old Woo, the number-one houseboy, that she didn’t need a fire, though he felt that glowing fireplaces belonged as immutably to November as the chestnut hawkers in the streets. However, she should not allow her housewifely instincts to plague her with trifles when her brain was heavy with fatigue.
Still, she was comforted by the soft glow of the coals, as well as the light chiming of the glass beads. When she stared into the flames, ruddy highlights danced on her cheeks.
She was still three months away from her twenty-fifth birthday, but Fronah’s features displayed a new maturity in the diffused light of the oil lamp she preferred to the harsh gas lights on the walls. Her full lower lip was sensuous, and the slight fullness around her jaw was provocative. Yet her mouth was firmer and less vulnerable than it had been a year earlier. Her chestnut hair with the russet glints was combed off the high, narrow forehead she had once disliked—and concealed—because it was unfashionable and, she felt, unfeminine. The minute crease between her dark eyebrows was imperceptible in the fire’s glow.
Most foreigners, she sensed, considered her a strange, desexed creature, somewhere between a Jewish Joan of Arc and a fanatical Florence Nightingale. They would be surprised at the pleasure she felt when her errant thoughts reminded her of her undeniable attractiveness. Few would believe that frivolousness still bubbled beneath her grave demeanor. None would imagine that she sometimes ached with physical longing. Not only a female fanatic like herself but all ladies were assumed to be above the passions of the flesh, which only common women felt.
She must put all that behind her, though she knew she had, in all her life, been deeply attracted to only three men. First, the unspeakable Iain Matthews. She could not remember the face she had once thought the epitome of masculine beauty, but she could still feel his hands tearing at her clothes and the grass springy beneath her under the plane trees. Her feeling for Gabriel Hyde, she now acknowledged, had been far stronger than she would acknowledge at the time. But Gabriel had left her for another war when she was extremely ill. Lionel Henriques was the one man to whom she had unreservedly pledged both her heart and her body. But the one man who should have commanded her love evoked instead disgusted revulsion.
Lionel was also the only man with whom she had truly made love, though she had never known the raptures at which novelists hinted. Fronah dismissed that disturbing thought. Women were apparently not made to feel fleshly ecstasy, despite all assertions to the contrary. Such wild transports occurred only in the fevered imagination of novelists, not in life.
If only her own flesh did not so often ache with desire, she would be tranquil, though not joyous. If only she could forget the little girls at Old Mother Wang’s, she might not feel so bitter toward Lionel. However, she admonished herself, she must get back
to work.
Whatever else, she possessed engrossing occupations. The Mandarin Li Hung-chang had originally appeared content with the compromise she suggested. She would not abandon the children’s home, where six hundred girls and boys were growing up sturdy and healthy rather than dying, or surviving maimed by malnutrition. Instead, she would give half her time to the School of Foreign Languages. Overriding the missionaries’ antipathy, she had recruited three of them as teachers. Their Chinese was serviceable, though not up to her own. Their English was presumably far better than hers, though she sometimes wondered. At any rate, her reports of the progress of the young officials and the younger scholars who were the Mandarin’s protégés seemed to satisfy him.
At David’s suggestion, which she subtly inspired, the Mandarin had two months ago summoned her from the classroom to complain that his Translation Bureau was in disarray. David had found two Cantonese and one Shanghai-lander who wrote passable Chinese and claimed a reading knowledge of English. Their translations of works on geography, strategy, and mechanics were hardly polished, the Mandarin said. Worse, he, who could “superficially at least” grasp most subjects, found their sense elusive. In fact, he added, many passages made no sense at all. Drastic changes were required if the practical benefits of Western learning were to flow from the Translation Bureau to his armies and his new arsenals.
He would not ask Fronah to undertake the translations herself, since writing with precision and grace in literary Chinese was beyond anyone not rigorously trained in the Classics since the age of four. He would only ask her to compare the Chinese versions to the original English to ensure that they were accurate.
Fronah unhesitatingly agreed, amused and gratified at her success in winning the courtly Mandarin’s confidence—and in manipulating that master manipulator. She thoroughly enjoyed being close to power, and she delighted in work that contributed significantly to the essential modernization of the Manchu Empire. Moreover, Saul Haleevie benefited greatly because both his son and his daughter were protégés of the Provincial Governor. She had, however, deliberately feigned resistance to the Mandarin’s latest commission until his normally urbane tone became sulky and menacing.
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