Mandarin

by Elegant, Robert;

  “Or what, Mother? And don’t say must to me.”

  “I’ll say must as often as I think it necessary. Or, as I was about to say, Heaven will punish you—as Heaven punished your father.”

  “My father suffered and died not because of Heaven, but because …”

  He checked his tongue. No more than Yehenala did the Tung Chih Emperor wish to open an irreparable breach between them: she because she loved him and needed him; he because he still loved her and feared her greatly. Though she now ignored his slip, she would, he knew, never forget that he had come to the verge of accusing her of murdering his father.

  “Not because of Heaven, but because of evil men,” he resumed doggedly. “And I’ve learned to protect myself from plotters.”

  “You’ve learned to protect yourself!” Yehenala laughed in cold amusement. “As the lamb’s learned to protect itself from the tiger.”

  “And please don’t say must to me. It’s not fitting.”

  “Only I, my little treasure, I will say must to you whenever it’s necessary as long as I live. And you shall kowtow to me as long as I live, even when you’re crowned Emperor. Not only because of my position, but to demonstrate your filial piety. An Emperor who is not filial would be the final affront to Heaven. And I say you must not touch the pipe or the eunuchs—or Heaven will certainly punish you.”

  “I’ll try, Mother,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’ll try hard, I promise you.”

  “A sacred promise before the Imperial Ancestors?” she pressed.

  “All right,” he conceded. “I promise solemnly before the Imperial Ancestors.”

  “That’s better, treasure,” she purred. “Much better. You know I keep after you only because I love you. You can become a great Emperor—equal to Kang Hsi or Chien Lung—if you only try.”

  That evening the bride Aluta left the mansion of her father, who had been made a duke because he might soon be the grandfather of an Imperial Heir. Preceded by Prince Kung and the Minister of Finance, the ceremonial go-betweens, the bride departed at precisely 11:30, a quarter past the double-hour of the horse, the auspicious moment determined by the Court Astronomers. The cumbersome wedding procession would require two hours to traverse three miles of avenues strewn with golden sand before reaching the moated Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, where the Emperor waited to receive his bride.

  Aluta was shielded from the eyes of the vulgar by the Imperial-yellow curtains of the golden palanquin borne by sixteen Court eunuchs. Bannermen from the eight flag corps of the decadent Manchu Army were posted along the route before screens erected to prevent any commoner from seeing the Imperial bride. The soldiers had warned all householders to close their shutters so that they would not be tempted to profane her with their curiosity.

  Prince Kung bestrode his mount with conscious dignity, since he knew that thousands of eyes were watching. What, as he had quizzically asked the new Duke, would be the point of the splendid display if no one saw it?

  Twenty bands marched in the procession, the yellow plumes in their hats like golden links joining its segments: eunuchs in crimson-and-yellow robes carrying Aluta’s dowry, each piece of furniture, jewelry, and clothing displayed on its own platform; several hundred eunuchs carrying poles on which great paper lanterns swayed, some painted with flowers, others shaped like mythical beasts; wave after wave of shimmering silken banners; cavalrymen on horses caparisoned in Imperial yellow; and seven-tiered umbrellas embroidered with the phoenix that was the symbol of the Empress.

  As the head of the procession approached the immense Gate of Heavenly Peace, the chief portal of the Imperial City, the mounted musicians of the Imperial Guard pounded their kettledrums and blew their conch horns. Those ancient Manchu war instruments proclaimed the union of two pure Manchu blood lines and reminded the subject race that no Chinese woman might ever be called into the Forbidden City. But the fireworks that soared above the three gold-tiled roofs of the Gate of Heavenly Peace were wholly Chinese in inspiration. The common people, who were, of course, not watching, as Prince Kung amiably observed, deserved that spectacular entertainment.

  In the secret room in the Six Western Palaces, the Baronet Jung Lu held Yehenala’s hand as the rockets cast their brilliance over the Forbidden City. Tears runneled her makeup, but she did not touch her handkerchief to her cheeks. She pointed unspeaking to the sky. Above the Meridian Gate, an enormous purple orchid was unfolding. Lan, the former Emperor had often called her, Orchid. An identical display had lit the sky over the Hall of Supreme Harmony on the evening of the banquet celebrating the present Emperor’s man-yueh, his first full month of life. Prince Kung had remembered.

  Yehenala turned and pressed her face against Jung Lu’s chest. For the first time in years, she sobbed without restraint. The Empress Dowager wept for her son and for her youth.

  CHAPTER 66

  November 7, 1872

  SHANGHAI

  Gabriel Hyde had returned by rickshaw from the new shipyard that was gingerly constructing a small gunboat. Although he was fascinated by the shipwright’s adroit use of ancient Chinese tools to build a modern craft, he was pleased to escape the din. No shipyard was restful, but a Shanghai shipyard outdid all others in clangor, if not efficiency. He would spend several weeks with the eager foremen upon his return from Tientsin, where he was summoned to confer with the Mandarin Li Hung-chang.

  He would also hire a pony trap from Smith’s Livery Stables. The bumpy ride behind a coolie sweating between the shafts of a rickshaw was not only uncomfortable but distasteful. Although he could bear being carried in a sedan chair, he acutely disliked sitting at ease behind a man trotting like a horse. Though the do-gooders believed the new conveyance enhanced human dignity, the coolie’s dignity was not enhanced by being transformed into a draft horse, while the passenger’s dignity was hardly enhanced by jiggling precariously on two spindly wheels. Besides, rickshaws were chancy. Driven by their competitive spirit—and hope of bigger tips—the coolies raced through crowded streets, often smashing their flimsy vehicles or tossing out their helpless passengers.

  Bathing in the Haleevies’ luxurious guest bathroom, the American whistled “Marching Through Georgia,” and a baritone “So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea …” resounded from the Italian tiles as he toweled himself. He ran through “John Brown’s Body” while slapping bay rum on his face and dressing in his steel-gray suit: the jacket high-waisted, with grosgrain lapels, the lighter gray trousers cut tight.

  “Only a simple family meal, Gabriel,” Sarah Haleevie had said, flushed by her culinary activity. “Just Fronah, Judah, and ourselves. They’ll be glad of some decent food after the Chinese muck they’ve been eating.”

  Since his hostess was obviously not planning a simple meal, Gabriel felt it proper to dress for the occasion. He was looking forward to seeing Fronah, who had returned the previous afternoon from Nanking—and to resuming their comfortably jocular relationship. He remembered the uninhibited girl he had first met with fondness, while he was ashamed of his callousness toward the young matron whose illness he had thought was not serious. She had, of course, been very ill, for a disturbance of the mind was just as painful as a bodily complaint.

  “But his soul goes marching on!” Still singing, Gabriel loped across the veranda into the garden.

  The autumnal nip of the early-November twilight recalled New England in September. The concentric circles of Saul’s prize roses still flaunted their orange, yellow, and red blossoms, and a few pink flowers lingered furtively on the spear-leafed oleanders. It was an evening to make a man sing.

  Curiosity drew him toward the Nest of Joy, though he hesitated to intrude upon Fronah. Remembering her vanity, he thought she would still be primping.

  He might run into young Judah, the eleven-year-old grandson Saul praised with embarrassed enthusiasm. Gabriel had last seen the lad as a robust three-year-old. What, he wondered, had the union of the sparkling Fronah with the cold Lionel Henriques produced? Saul h
ad conceded, pride overcoming his normal reluctance to boast, that the boy “shows promise … definite promise … of someday being a worthy heir to the business.”

  Gabriel felt old at the thought of meeting Fronah’s son. A shadow drifted across his dark eyes. Jane’s boy, his boy, would be four years old if he had lived. What, Gabriel wondered, would it be like to have a son of one’s own? One thing was reasonably clear. He would probably not be in Shanghai today, if things had turned out otherwise. He would certainly not be alone in Shanghai. Despite the Haleevies’ hospitality, he was for a moment terribly lonely.

  He shivered and forced himself to inspect the garden. The spruces that towered above him had been spindly saplings when he last walked among them. The ivy that draped the terrace like a living green curtain had not even been planted, and the rhododendrons that thrust emerald against the sky had been dwarfs.

  He slipped behind a thick spruce after glimpsing a figure in a spreading dove-gray skirt standing on the terrace, apparently also inspecting the garden. He did not wish to intrude, but he had already caught her eye.

  “Gabriel, it is you, isn’t it?” The light voice that could grow provocatively throaty had not altered. “Stop hiding and come and say hello.”

  Sheepish at being caught out, the American mounted the steps to the terrace. Though he paused a few feet from her, Fronah stepped forward and craned to kiss his cheek. Her hand lingered for a moment on his shoulder, and the light fragrance of violets filled his nostrils. He remembered the musky perfumes she had formerly worn as she smiled with frank pleasure.

  “It’s so nice to see an old friend,” she said. “Come and sit on the bench. You’re looking very distinguished, I must say.”

  “Didn’t mean to intrude,” he apologized. “I was sure you’d still be getting ready. You know you’ve hardly changed. You’re the one who’s distinguished.”

  “You mustn’t say distinguished to a lady.” Her smile was as warm as he remembered, though no longer archly coquettish. “I’m not that old yet. But it doesn’t take me as long to dress nowadays.”

  “Damned pretty, then. And if you can get that effect in a short time, you’re even cleverer than you used to be.”

  Gabriel disliked the heavy gallantry as he uttered it. Why, he wondered, did he fall automatically into the half-mocking banter that had been their way more than a decade ago? Perhaps because she had really not altered greatly. Her accent was still hauntingly musical, though purged of the chichi lilt he had teased her about when they met at the Fourth of July ball more than fifteen years ago. By God, it was seventeen years. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen then.

  “Perhaps I have learned a little,” she said. “But you are distinguished. I like that touch of gray above your ears.”

  “Thanks, Fronah. Though I could do without being reminded I’m a little worn around the edges.”

  When he sat beside her on the bamboo bench he saw that she had changed subtly. No single aspect of her appearance or her demeanor had altered sharply. However, her features were finer, and grave in repose, while her manner was no longer ingenuous. He sensed that she was a different person from either the feckless girl he had first known or the neurasthenic young wife he had pitied. She only faintly resembled the wan and beautiful lady, framed by the dingy window of the hospital, whose touch had sent a shock through him. She was, at once, more serene and more certain. She conveyed a sense of power, perhaps because she had found her purpose.

  “You’re pensive, Gabriel,” she said lightly. “Is it such a shock seeing what I’ve become?”

  “If it’s a shock, Fronah, it’s a pleasant one. I was just thinking of the past.”

  “Let’s forget the past, Gabriel. Let’s just remember we were good friends and hope we’ll be good friends again—nothing more and nothing less.”

  Gabriel smiled. He had finally grasped the essential distinction between the Fronah of ten years ago and the Fronah of today. This young woman was decisive and self-assured, where the other had been impulsive and stubborn. She had, however, regained her sparkle and her wit.

  She had also warned him off. Quite clearly, she did not ever wish to discuss—much less seek to rekindle—the spark that had leaped between them in the hospital.

  “Your father tells me you’ve become a very important young lady,” he said. “High in the counsels of the mighty.”

  “Hardly that, but I do keep busy. And I believe what I’m doing is of value.”

  “What is the Mandarin like nowadays, Fronah?”

  “Terribly grand and terribly imperious and not above lining his own pockets. Not above—what do you Americans call it?—carpetbagging. He’s also wholly devoted to building a new, modern China. Fortunately, those two pursuits don’t seem to conflict.”

  Her astringent humor was stronger, though even her dress declared her new dedication. The dove-gray Italian silk of the high-cut bodice was set off by no more than a flare of cream lace cuffs just below her elbows. Only the costly fabric and the expensively simple cut distinguished it from a dress a superior servant might wear. Though no housekeeper would flaunt the triple strand of black Caspian pearls that circled her slender throat and spilled across her rounded bosom.

  The pearls that had been her husband’s gift were as good as a sign reading “Noli me tangere!” or, more prosaically, “Keep off the grass!” the American reflected wryly.

  “We’ll have lots of time to talk about politics.” Fronah’s slender fingers twined among her pearls. “First tell me what’s been happening to you all these years.”

  “Another war, Fronah. A lot of shooting—and even more pointless waiting. Not so different from fighting the Taipings. A few years of teaching at Yale University and a few years of wandering. I was adrift when I got David’s letter. So I thought, why not try China again? China’s always interesting and, quite frankly, lucrative.”

  The eternal mercenary, Fronah concluded, and her not wholly unpleasant tension began to dissipate. He was really just a carpetbagger who had come to China for the spoils. Yet his rapacity had not marked his open features. The laugh wrinkles at the corners of his dark-blue eyes and the creases in his forehead were startlingly white against his ruddy sailor’s complexion. Although his face was slightly fuller, the clean line of his jaw was sharper and his full mouth was more vulnerable. He had, she concluded, been tempered, perhaps refined as well. But he was still an adventurer looking for plunder in an alien land he really didn’t care a fig about.

  “Besides, it’s something I can really get my teeth into.” Gabriel looked into the distance. “Great things are happening here, and I want to be part of them. Like you, I believe I can do something of some value. Also, I couldn’t stay away from China.”

  Inexplicably nervous again, Fronah felt tension rise within her. The sensation was somehow pleasant, though disquieting.

  He must be married. If he were planning a long stay, why had he left his wife behind? She had not wanted to ask, but her omission, she realized, was more pointed. She was curious, and she was fond of him. But she told herself she felt no more than curiosity about an old friend and no more than fondness for an old friend.

  “Judah!” She called through the French windows. “We mustn’t keep Grandmama and Grandpapa waiting. Stop fiddling with your ship models and wash your hands.”

  “I’m coming, Mama,” the boy’s voice answered. “Just a minute.”

  “Gabriel,” Fronah said impulsively, relieved to have broken the tension, “I know we’ll do great things together.”

  He smiled, and she blushed—as she had not blushed for years. She had rashly revealed the strong affection for him that was so suddenly revived—though she had only meant to say that their joint work for the Mandarin Li Hung-chang would certainly produce notable achievements.

  “For China, I mean,” she blurted. “We’ll do great things for China.”

  Her precipitate disavowal, she realized, had made her feelings even more blatant. How could she make h
im understand that she was offering friendship, no more? It was just as well that he was leaving for Tientsin tomorrow. She would not—must not—allow herself again to be diverted from her soul-satisfying work and her duty to China by a man.

  CHAPTER 67

  January 16, 1873

  SHANGHAI

  “You must try harder, dear,” Sarah Haleevie chided. “Your brothers are doing so well, but you’re looking sickly again. You mustn’t give up.”

  The bare-limbed cattleya in the emerald pot did not respond. The orchid did not even have the grace to look ashamed of his nakedness among his neighbors’ opulent cream-white flowers. Though the mid-January morning was overcast and the sky was ashen above the glass conservatory, most of her orchids and bird-of-paradise plants were bright with blossoms amid the feathery ferns.

  Sarah still felt foolish when she talked to her plants, as the article in The Ladies’ Companion at Home and Abroad urged. The author of the gardening column was, however, quite certain. Every plant, even a great oak, she insisted, benefited greatly from conversation. Denied attention, plants felt neglected and sulked like abandoned children.

  Though Saul chuckled meaningly when he surprised her conversing with her orchids, most were thriving—and she would keep talking to her beloved flowers. Two days ago she had caught him urging his roses to surpass themselves next spring.

  “Every day it’s more like a jungle here,” Saul grumbled behind her, perhaps summoned by her thoughts. “Still chattering to your darlings?”

  “Of course. How would you like to be alone in the dark with never a friendly voice?” She saw that he wore his black alpaca office jacket and carried a heap of files and newspapers. “But what are you doing here so early in the morning?”

  “There’s no use buying them spectacles.” He chuckled. “But I just thought I’d take a cup of tea with you.”