No longer could Robert stand this. Anger rushed in and drove rational thought out of his head. “No!” he said in a harsh voice, and he was angry. The girls had never seen him this volcanic before. He took hold of Ayaou and forced her to sit on one side of the kitchen table. When he let go of her arms, dark spots showed where he had grabbed her. He looked sternly at Shao-mei and pointed at the stool on the other side of the table. His eyebrows had become storm clouds. His lips were thin blades. Ayaou and Shao-mei expected lightning and thunder to appear from his head.
After Shao-mei sat, she hid her face in her hands. Robert wanted the look in his eyes to frighten her; that she’d seen something like it before from an executioner before a beheading. He was sure she wanted him to stop staring at her but feared saying anything.
“Do not move,” he said in a firm, demanding tone. Then he hurried upstairs to dress in his usual work clothes. After he finished getting ready for work, he reached under the bed for Guan-jiah’s whip. When he reached the kitchen, he found the girls still sitting where he’d put them. They looked meek and shrunken. Robert unfurled the whip and cracked it in the air above the girls’ heads. They jumped—their startled expressions full of fear and uncertainty.
“Damn it to hell!” Robert said. “I’m going to sell both of you! I’m going to sell you today, now! Pack up your things. I’ll send someone to get you. I never want to see either of you again!” He opened the front door and slammed it behind him. During the walk to the consulate, his temper subsided. He felt shame for losing control.
When Robert reached the consulate, Guan-jiah noticed the stricken look on his face. He also saw the bleeding scratch on his cheek. He made Robert sit and used a damp cloth to wash away the blood and clean the cut.
“I wanted to kill them,” Robert said, his voice a dull monotone. He stared across the room with dazed eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to hurt them, Guan-jiah. I’m sleeping with my pistol under my pillow. It’s loaded. I wake at every sound worried that Ward is coming. I hear things in my sleep, but when I wake, there is only silence. I also see things that are never there when I look closer. I’m losing my mind.” He’d taken out the folded accusation letter and was rubbing it between his thumb and index finger.
Guan-jiah went to the table and started to grind some pepper into a fine powder. His expression was a neutral one. There was no way to tell what he was thinking. When he returned to where Robert was sitting, he spoke softly in a soothing voice. “It is all right, Master. Your anger is gone. I am sure that you have not killed them. You are here now in the consulate and there is no reason to worry.” Guan-jiah carefully applied the pepper powder to the cut. The bleeding stopped.
“What is going on here?” Dr. Winchester asked, as he walked into the room.
“My master cut himself while shaving this morning,” Guan-jiah said. “I insisted on cleaning the wound since it would not stop bleeding.”
Dr. Winchester leaned in close to examine what Guan-jiah had put on Robert’s face. “What is that stuff?” he asked.
“It is pepper,” Guan-jiah said. “It will stop the bleeding and protect him from an infection.”
“Pepper?” Dr. Winchester said. “Nonsense.”
“I trust him,” Robert said. “If he says it will work, I’m sure it will.”
With a skeptical look on his face, Dr. Winchester examined Robert’s cheek. “Good Lord, it works. I cannot believe what I’m seeing. The pepper has formed a scab over the cut. I’ve never seen bleeding from a cut stop that quickly.” He pointed at a spot where the blood was still oozing. “You missed that.”
Guan-jiah carefully placed a pinch of pepper there.
Dr. Winchester squinted to see better. “Amazing,” he said. “I see the blood stopping as if you had built a barrier to keep it from flowing. You are a good man, Guan-jiah. Next time I cut myself shaving, I’ll try it.” He left the room mumbling to himself.
“Bury yourself in your work, Master,” Guan-jiah said. He leaned in close like a conspirator. “I know that you are uncomfortable talking about your concubines when other foreigners might hear. We can leave the consulate and talk before you return home tonight.”
Robert watched Guan-jiah leave the room to attend to his chores. He worried that he was allowing the eunuch to get too close, too familiar. After all, he was just a servant, and he wasn’t a Christian. The trouble was, Robert didn’t have anyone else to turn to. He started work.
Chapter 21
Robert didn’t know that reading Edgar Allen Poe was about to save his life.
In an attempt to find peace of mind, he tried to sleep at the consulate, but his thoughts were filled with the girls. Since he couldn’t sleep, he searched among his books and found a collection of John Donne’s poems.
Hoping it would lull him to sleep, he started to read. His plan didn’t work. When he reached Love’s Alchemy, he thought it fit his situation.
‘Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chained shot, whole ranks to die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.’
After finishing the poem, Robert felt as if it were his Cilice. He had known a devout Catholic at college in Belfast. The man wore a Cilice, a shirt woven from goat hair that was itchy and uncomfortable. He said he wore it to help him resist the temptations of the flesh.
Robert’s heart felt as if it had been burned. He wanted the girls to understand. They had to learn to rely on each other’s strengths to survive and to depend on each other’s love and kindness. He refused to treat them like his property, because he believed in their good nature and wisdom. He believed that a whip never created true peace.
Robert considered confiding to William Martin, the minister. He wanted someone else to talk to besides Guan-jiah. He had talked to Martin about the meaning of hypocrisy once. The two men agreed that a sinner could not judge others for the same sin, and he had watched Martin pay a prostitute.
However, he was still reluctant to talk to Martin about his problems. Depressed, he put aside John Donne’s Love’s Alchemy and picked up Edgar Allen Poe. He started to read from The Raven.
‘Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary—’
Robert stopped reading. That would not do. He turned to another page and started to read from The Tell-Tale Heart.
‘TRUE!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will you say that I am mad—’
He slammed the book shut and shuddered. He did not like his dark mood and decided to leave the consulate. With literature like this, he’d stay awake imagining the worst. He wanted to go home.
When he stepped outside the consulate gate, it was late. A thick, menacing fog had smothered the city filling the streets with a flood of mist that converted the buildings into threatening beasts, which reminded him of Poe’s stories.
His awareness of his surroundings magnified as he walked away from the safety of the consulate. He held his hand out in front of him. It vanished in the fog. It wasn’t until his fingers were inches from his nose that they were visible again. It was as if he were living inside one of Poe’s stories.
He was sure that Ward had sent the assailant that tried to club him outside his house. There had been a fog then too. What about that sailor who attempted grabbing Ayaou? A night like this was perfect for a thug to attack without warning.
Robert struggled to put his paranoia to rest. Then he heard what sounded like someone following him. When he listened carefully, he discovered the noise was all around him. It must have been an echo created by the fog and the buildings crowding the narrow, crooked street. The place had become an echo chamber.
He’d never noticed it before. The streets had always been crowded with people wh
en he’d been on his way home. His hand slipped into his coat pocket seeking comfort from the walnut grip of the Colt revolver. He was glad he had the pistol.
He walked faster. The sound he thought was an echo stayed at the old pace for a few beats. Then it sped up to match his footsteps. Alarmed, he stopped and put his back against a wall and held his breath. The footsteps continued for several more beats. Then they stopped and left a dreadful silence in their wake. A pit full of fear opened inside Robert threatening to spin him into a panic. His heart started to pound. His legs trembled and demanded that he run. He took several calming breaths and stood fast. He pulled the revolver from his coat pocket and slowly, quietly cocked the hammer.
The stranger took several halting steps then stopped. It was almost impossible to judge distance. A long moment went by without a sound.
Then a man’s voice said, “Curse it!”
Robert jerked from the shock of the man’s proximity. He was afraid of being discovered. The stranger was close. If he took one-step forward, he’d bump into the man.
“Where did that bugger go?” The voice had a British cockney accent.
The pounding of Robert’s heart accelerated. He started to sweat. He opened his mouth to challenge the man. Then he thought better of it. Speaking would give away his location. Retreat was the better choice. He had walked this way for months. He knew there was a narrow, side street close by.
He knelt and silently slipped his boots off. Then he slid along the wall in his stocking feet until something sharp stabbed the bottom of his left foot. He almost cried out in pain but forced his lips to stay sealed. It stung. He took another step. The sharp object was left behind. It must have been a pebble with an edge to it. When he reached the narrow alley he was looking for, he breathed easier.
“Bert,” the first voice called, “has that bloke reached you yet?”
“He mucking vanished, Nick. Maybe the place he lives is closer to the consulate than we thought.”
Robert shivered. These two men had set a trap to snare him.
“No, he always walks more than halfway through Ningpo when he’s going home. If we knew where he lived, we’d break in and take him like we was paid to and have him pressed into that King’s ship. If you didn’t keep losing him in the crowd, we’d know where he lived. Don’t forget we get paid five pounds once we deliver his carcass. All we have to do is whack him on the head and take him to that naval officer we were told to contact. It is easy money. Better than picking pockets.”
“These crooked streets are confusing, and I didn’t lose him alone,” the man to Robert’s left said. “You’re a bloody mucking fool. You’ve followed him before and lost him.”
Anger rushed in like a riptide and replaced Robert’s fear. Someone was willing to pay these scoundrels to press him into the Royal Navy. If they had succeeded, he would have opened his eyes inside the hull of that British frigate that had dropped anchor in the river six days earlier. It was scheduled to sail for the Pacific coast of North America in the morning. He was tempted to confront these rascals. After all, he had the pistol. If they wanted a fight, he’d give it to them.
He shook his head.
No, that was a foolish thought. Two against one in this fog was not a good idea. Robert started moving again. He had an urge to hurry. Ignoring the temptation, he continued to take slow steps. Then a puddle soaked his socks. The puddle smelled of urine. His stomach churned.
He had to find a different route to his front door. It sounded as if these thugs didn’t know where he lived. He wondered who hired them. It had to be Ward. Who else could it be?
Once he was near the house, he hesitated and listened for the longest time. What if they said they didn’t know where he lived to fool him? They could be waiting. The silence in the street was like the inside of a coffin. It was so quiet, Robert was sure he’d hear someone breathing twenty feet away.
“Thank you, Edgar,” he said in a whisper. If it hadn’t been for the mood Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven and the Tell Tale Heart had put him in, he would have walked into their trap. Then he smiled. He should also thank the evil spirits the Chinese kept out of their cities with the maze of narrow streets.
He tried the door and found it wasn’t locked. That was wrong. It should be locked all the time. All the fear and caution he had felt walking home rushed back. He leveled the revolver and pushed the door open. The door banged against the inside wall. He leaped into the room.
His girls screamed and jumped off the bottom step of the stairs where they’d been sitting side-by-side holding hands. They were staring at the Colt and not him.
“Do not kill us,” Shao-mei said. “Give us a chance to talk to our master first. Did he pay you to get rid of—” Her eyes came up, and she saw Robert’s face. He eased the hammer to its safe position and stuffed the weapon into his pocket. He closed the door and locked it. Once they realized who had stepped through the door, they rushed into his arms.
“You frightened us, Robert,” Shao-mei said. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“Yes, we thought it was someone coming to murder us or take us to be slaves and prostitutes for foreign devils,” Ayaou said.
“Then why did you leave the door unlocked?” he asked.
“We just came in,” Ayaou said.
“What do you mean? I told both of you not to leave the house.”
“You told us not to go out alone. We did not. We waited all day for you to send someone to get us. Then the fog came. There were noises outside the downstairs windows as if someone was trying to get inside.”
“Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “Murderers and rapists were coming for us. We were sure you sent them to punish us.”
“How did you reach that conclusion from noises at the window?”
“We talked about it after you left,” Ayaou said, “and decided that your anger would result in the worst punishment.”
“Which was murder and rape,” Shao-mei said, “so we went outside to hide in the fog.”
“What? Have you lost your common sense? You went outside to be safe from someone trying to break into the house to rape and kill you. That’s absurd.”
“No it is not, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “The floor upstairs kept making noises as if someone were walking around. We decided it was not safe, because there was no fog to hide in. We went out but could not lock the door. No one was inside to bar it.”
“Give us another chance, Robert,” Ayaou said. “We agree to behave.”
“Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “We were crazy. It won’t happen again.” They buried their faces in his coat.
“If you felt safer out in the fog, why did you come back inside?”
“I realized that if we were attacked outside and carried away,” Ayaou’s said, “you would not know what happened to us.”
“Yes, Robert,” Shao-mei said. “We agreed that you loved us too much to send someone to hurt us, so we came back inside. We were upset and forgot to lock the door.”
He shook his head and held their trembling bodies. He wanted to live the rest of his life like this. Robert had never had even one-woman love him as these two did.
Robert’s mother was a carefree person. She could laugh at almost anything. She allowed him to grow wild in his ways, but she never told him she loved him or hugged him. All he could remember of his father was the time each day the family spent studying scripture.
Father sat with his back straight like a pole. The closest that his father ever demonstrated love was the day Robert left for China. His father gave him fifty gold sovereigns. Robert was starved for the love his girls had an abundance of. He couldn’t stay away from it.
The next morning he stayed home waiting for the fog to burn off. He didn’t go to the consulate until the British frigate was scheduled to sail. Then he went to the river and checked that it was gone. If he’d been pressed into that British man-of-war, his life would’ve been turned into a hellish ordeal. What would have happened to his girls with him
gone?
He confided in Guan-jiah.
“It wouldn’t be good for that child to lose its father before it is born,” Guan-jiah replied.
“Yes, Guan-jiah, how could you be an uncle without me?” Robert said. They laughed.
After that, the eunuch routinely met him in the mornings on the way to the consulate. He also walked with Robert to his house each evening. For the next few weeks they never took the same route to the consulate in the mornings or on the way back to the house at night.
Before spring arrived, the house had become a garden of harmony. Shao-mei was huge with child—by Robert’s estimate, she was at least six months pregnant if not seven. A few weeks remained before the baby was due.
Special days lodged in his memory and doubled as lessons in Chinese culture. One example was a day Robert arrived home early to hear Ayaou scolding Shao-mei. They didn’t hear him come in. He stood still and listened thinking they were arguing.
“You have put too much wood in the stove,” Ayaou said. “The fire is too hot. You are going to ruin the dinner.”
The stove was made of brick and stood out from the wall. Shao-mei fed wood to the flames from behind while Ayaou cooked.
“What are you talking about?” Shao-mei replied. “If I do not keep the fire going, you could not cook.”
Small, meaningless scenes like this endeared the girls to him. If those men had hijacked him, this moment would have been lost.
He arrived home another day to find the girls had been painting. A river cascaded down the length of the chimney and one side of the stove. It wasn’t the greatest art, but it was recognizable. Ayaou had stocked the river with bright-orange trout. There was a waterfall with one trout attempting to fling itself into the pond at the top. Those trout were the ugliest malformed fish he’d ever seen, but he was not going to tell his girls that.
“Why fish?” he asked. “I mean it’s beautiful and brings this kitchen to life, but why not birds and clouds or trees?”
“Because Yu, fish, when spoken, sounds similar to another word that means to always have enough in life,” Ayaou said. “It will bring us luck—we will never go hungry or be without shelter.”
My Splendid Concubine Page 28