Not Yet Drown'd

by Peg Kingman

  “I wonder you did not!”

  “We lose no more than a day. A mere matter of twenty-four hours. And there is so much to be gained!”

  “Twenty-four hours for your Leith workmen perhaps; it is more likely here to require a week! You promised me yesterday that both vessels would be ready for launch by next Saturday.”

  “Give me until Sunday then. And I warrant you this, sir—they both will beat any steam vessel on this river—side-wheel, stern-wheel, center-wheel, or what you will. And the stern-propelled one will perform better than the bow-drawn one. You may count on it.”

  The two vessels in question were twins—each a hundred feet long, of 132 tons burden; handsomely formed and stoutly built, of the best teak all through—keel, frames, planking, and all, the better to resist the insidious shipworm Teredo navalis. The hulls were already complete, or nearly so, when Hector’s steam engines arrived. There had been some misunderstanding about the configuration of the supports and mountings which the heavy engines would require, and the necessary modifications took longer than Mr Fleming thought reasonable. It was not that Mr Fleming sought the distinction of launching the Hoogly’s first steamships, although he was well aware that a paddle-wheel vessel was under construction at another yard on the river. Rather he was anxious not to miss a trading season if it could be helped. And it would be essential to conduct trial runs on the river and the Bay of Bengal before the new vessels could with any confidence be laden with so valuable a cargo as opium and then be expected to carry it safely so far as China. And it was off the coast of China that he expected the vessels to prove their real utility—namely, their ability to outmaneuver and outrun pirates and the emperor’s coastal patrols—upwind, downwind, or no wind at all.

  The boats were not ready for launch on Sunday. Nor were they ready on Monday, nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday.

  On Thursday, however, late in the afternoon, the first of them was launched, the one whose propeller shaft passed through her bow. And on Saturday morning, her sister ship, the one whose propeller shaft passed through her stern, joined the first one on the Hoogly.

  They both floated.

  Hector was pale and thin; the transparent skin around his eyes was deeply shadowed. A servant had been carrying his meals to him at the docks. Catherine had seen to it that a cot was set up there for him in a shed, because he no longer would come to the living quarters in the evening and waste entire nights on mere sleep.

  The fitting-up proceeded at a great pace now. The decks, the cabins, the superstructures, the holds for fuel and for cargo were all completed. Shipwrights and carpenters and metalsmiths swarmed over the vessels and the docks. The little ships had to be rigged with masts and spars and sails, too, with their shrouds and their stays, for when the wind was fair or when fuel was not to be had. Then there were chains and anchors and water barrels and stores. In fact, when all was fitted and done, the two doughty little ships did not have a great deal of cargo space. But then, best Indian opium was not a bulky cargo, and even a small quantity safely transhipped to the right Chinese buyer—payment received in silver—made for a very profitable voyage.

  DURING THESE HECTIC weeks, Mr Fleming did not forget about the outing to the botanical garden. He invited Catherine and Mr Sinclair, and the new factor now in charge of Crawford & Fleming’s premises in Howrah, a young Mr Morris. Also of the party were several other pleasant-seeming people to whom Catherine was introduced, and whose names she promptly forgot. The only other lady of the party was a married woman accompanied by her husband. Catherine still had encountered no sign of that disturbing and perhaps fictitious person, called Mr Fleming’s lady.

  Mr Fleming had arranged for a native pleasure boat, a budgerow, to carry them down the river. There was a pleasant airy cabin with windows all around, and on its roof was a commodious platform with chairs and tables for the entire party, all shaded by a pretty pink-striped canvas awning. The day was warm and clear and sunny. The air wafting off the river was deliciously cool and scented by the luxuriant flowering and fruiting trees and vines which grew exuberantly down to the water’s edge all along the shore, setting off the elegant and picturesque villas which adorned the whole long extent of the Garden Reach. It seemed to Catherine a perfect earthly paradise, and setting aside her usual awareness of time-running-short and Hector-must-eat, she gave herself up to the enjoyment and appreciation of the scene gliding past: a holiday.

  At the botanical garden’s landing place, Dr Wallich came down to greet them. “You must see the rhododendrons first of all,” he called to them even before they had attained solid ground. “For twenty-three years we have been waiting for the bhutanensis to bloom; it is shy of flowering even in its native mountains. It has never before bloomed for us here; we did not know if it ever would. Now at last, however, our patience is rewarded; and you are here to see it! The first bracts opened this morning. Come; this way…”

  Catherine was disappointed at the rhododendron from the Bhutanese mountains; such a graceless thing, pale and paltry! She preferred the billows of magnificent crimson blooms on the common Himalayan rhododendrons, now flowering so vigorously as nearly to hide the leathery green leaves drooping below. The hill men, said Dr Wallich, liked to suck the juice from the petals, claiming that it had an intoxicating effect. He himself had never experienced the effect, perhaps due to the low altitude here.

  Mr Sinclair, who had brought his colours and his folding easel, offered to record the rare bhutanensis. Nothing could have pleased Dr Wallich more; for, he said, the man who usually did the drawing had been incapacitated for nearly two weeks by a fever—unfortunate for him but also excessively inconvenient just now. Mr Sinclair set up his easel and his palette with an obliging alacrity, and was left there to work while Dr Wallich conducted the others through the rest of the garden.

  It was richly endowed with noble trees, including old natives—neem, peepul, mango, and banyan—which had been growing there even before the garden was begun forty-some years earlier, as well as younger exotic specimens. These had been collected by Dr Wallich himself and by his far-flung network of collaborators and colleagues, not only from the relatively nearby Nepal, Pulo Penang, Sumatra, and Java but from faraway Brazil, Australia, Africa, and the South Sea Islands. Catherine and the others admired what was shown them: a tender nutmeg tree, carefully swaddled against even the mild Bengal chill; a striking avenue of sago palms rising overhead like the nave of a Gothic cathedral; a grove of gigantic plantains that made everyone feel dwarfed; and even a wretched little oak, miserable and sickly in this climate, perpetually too warm and too wet to promote health or vigor.

  “But do not think I have forgotten, Mrs MacDonald,” said Dr Wallich at last. “It is the camellias you have come to see, and the Assamese camellia in particular. I have looked over my accession notes, and I have confirmed that it was indeed your brother, Mr Alexander MacDonald, who brought us these very interesting specimens. This way, if you please…”

  “When was that, sir?” asked Mr Fleming, who followed.

  “When? Let me think. It must have been about two years ago. Yes, that is right. He had just returned from Captain Edwards’s expedition up the Brahmaputra. It was just about the time the Burmese had stepped up their incursions into Assam. He had not yet completed his report for the Company; I was able to help with several identifications of certain specimens, both botanical and entomological. Ah, let us take a small detour here for Mr Fleming’s sake, as it is on our way. These, Mr Fleming, these are my prized specimens of the tea plant, Thea chinensis. This, Mrs MacDonald, is tea itself, and practically unknown outside of China!”

  “However did you get them?” asked Mr Fleming.

  Dr Wallich winked. “Oh,” he said airily, “these small specimens here were grown from seeds sent to me by a friend whose name I must not mention. And these larger ones were brought privately to me as young plants by another friend, whose name I must also not mention, as both these friends wish to continue to trade at Canton.” />
  The little shrubs were only about two feet high, rather attenuated, rather slender and yellow tinged, as though, thought Catherine, they were a little jaundiced, a little unhappy about the climate in which they found themselves. The leaves, alternating on thin straight ungainly branches, were substantial and slightly puckered, about two to three inches long, oval with a pointed tip, the edges finely serrated. The shrubs grew branchy and low; a few still had small white blossoms, rather shy, facing downward under the leaf axils. Most had finished blooming, however, and a few had set seedpods, quite large and covered with green scales. It was a plain, homely little shrub.

  “They would prefer a sharper-draining soil, I believe,” said Dr Wallich. “I am thinking of having them taken up and reset in a higher situation.”

  “Have you made tea from them?” asked Mr Fleming.

  “We plucked some leaves during the last rains, but the plants, as you see, are not robust, not very substantial yet, and we have hesitated to take too much.”

  “How did it taste?”

  “I fear we have not yet quite mastered the teamaker’s art. It was not, ah, not exactly what a tea wallah might call distinguished. Here, perhaps you would like to taste a leaf. And you, Mrs MacDonald?” Dr Wallich plucked two small leaves, giving them each one. Mr Fleming put his in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully; Catherine did likewise.

  It tasted like a leaf. Green and juicy. Tough, a little acidic. Still following Mr Fleming’s example, Catherine spit out the chewed green shreds. A pleasant sweet aftertaste spread over her tongue. She looked at Mr Fleming, whose awareness, she saw, was at this moment inward directed; his universe just now seemed to consist entirely of the taste on his tongue. “Hmm,” he said at last, returning to an awareness of their presence. “How interesting. And they have been manured with goat dung, I see.”

  “Yes. In the China gardens they use the night soil, I am told. But let us proceed. Pray come along this way. Over here begins our collection of camellias, which Mrs MacDonald has come to see.”

  “Oh! how beautiful!” exclaimed Catherine, surprised by their size—like young trees!

  “The japonicas you will have seen before now, in English and Italian gardens. These tall rangy specimens along here are quite certainly reticulata, and there is rusticana, from a higher altitude, a colder climate. The blooms on those lutchuensis are worth putting your nose into, for they have a distinct fragrance; most of the others have none at all. Along here we have sasanqua, and those on that bank are saluenensis. Now, come along. Here we are: this, Mrs MacDonald, is the Camellia assama, which your brother was so good as to bring us from Assam. They were small plants then, hardly six inches high. But look how they have grown; they are quite thriving.”

  They were indeed quite thriving, like a big robust version of the homesick tea plants they had just seen. The leaves were larger, some near five inches long, and of a much deeper, healthier green, but they were of the same shape and had the same finely serrated edges. Their white blossoms with a cushion of golden stamens in the center, also nodded shyly downward from their discreet seats in the axils, but they were proportionately larger than the blossoms which they otherwise so exactly resembled on Dr Wallich’s tea plants. Their green-scaled seedpods were likewise a larger version of the ones on the tea plants. They were less bushy, less branchy around their young stems or, rather, young trunks; more treelike, less shrublike.

  “Pretty,” said Catherine, and bent to put her nose into a blossom. “And fragrant.”

  “May I taste a leaf?” inquired Mr Fleming.

  “What? Of this assama? If you like; I daresay it will do you no harm,” said Dr Wallich.

  Mr Fleming plucked a small new leaf for himself and one for Catherine. It also tasted like a leaf—green, juicy, and bitter. It had the same sweet aftertaste spreading over her tongue, perhaps sweeter, perhaps broader, a little more grateful to the tongue perhaps.

  “Rich in complex alkaloids, all these ericaceous plants, of course,” Dr Wallich was saying, “but none of these camellias is known to be particularly toxic. That one, the assama, is said to be sometimes cooked and eaten as a vegetable by the hill men. Or used medicinally, as was reported to us by your brother, Mrs MacDonald. You can see that although it does slightly resemble my Thea chinensis in some respects, it is certainly not the same plant. No, no; it is quite distinct by virtue of its colour, leaf size, growth habit. Your brother was deeply disappointed to hear that I could not concur in his opinion that it was the same species; but no, this is undoubtedly a camellia—certainly not tea itself. He was most unwilling to hear it, most unwilling to be convinced.”

  “He always was very strong minded, my brother,” said Catherine.

  “I do not think he went away satisfied with my answer,” continued Dr Wallich. “I think he sought another opinion after mine. I have the impression that he went so far as to consult with Dr Carey, up at Serampore, for Dr Carey later mentioned to me that he had some specimens, too.”

  “But why could these Assamese plants not be tea?” asked Catherine. “Of course I see the differences, as you have pointed them out, but might these not be a natural variation within the species itself, just as horses may be any of several colours and a considerable range of sizes and shapes, and still be horses?”

  Dr Wallich smiled gently and made her a deferential little bow. “Of course, dear lady,” he said. “But at some point you have got an ass or a zebra instead, or perhaps a mule; but certainly not a horse at all. Taxonomy is an art and a science; but it is necessary to guard against wishful thinking. There is a great commercial desire, as I am sure you know, to discover that growing tea is viable outside of China. But we must not allow our commercial desire to cloud our scientific judgment. I told your brother I could not support his identification of the plant as a native variety of tea, that if asked by the agriculture commissioner, I would have to identify it only as Camellia assama. He did not go away happy. I am sorry for it, but what else could I do?”

  “It is a knotty question, I am sure,” said Catherine, “this business of taxonomy. And yet you did not hesitate to refer to the cocoons of all those different caterpillars as silk, despite their having been produced by caterpillars of quite different species.”

  Dr Wallich smiled again, with some brittleness this time. “Madam, you have your brother’s rhetorical skills,” he said. “Yet ‘silk’ is not a scientific term.”

  “Is ‘tea’ a scientific term?”

  “Yes, Mrs MacDonald, it is. It refers to the leaf of the Thea chinensis plant only, and to no other.”

  “I see,” said Catherine, though she saw only his testiness. They walked back the way they had come, and found the others. The steward had called the bearers to bring out tables and chairs and refreshments; all were seated under the shade of a magnificent old peepul tree to eat sweets and drink tea.

  Tea.

  Mr Sinclair had finished his task of recording the rare rhododendron and presented the portrait to Dr Wallich. Everyone admired it: the lifelike appearance, the delicate colouring; a complete simulacrum to life. After their meal, the entire party made their way back to the landing place, and reboarded the budgerow in time to ride back up to Calcutta on the boisterous afternoon tide.

  Mr Fleming seated himself at Catherine’s side, and she smiled at him. “It was so kind of you to arrange this outing for us all,” she said. “I know your energies have been much occupied by this matter of steam engines.”

  “Very true, which is why I was much in need of a holiday—for gliding on the river and strolling in a garden—in pleasant company,” he said.

  “And an opportunity to investigate the doings of yet another of us MacDonalds.”

  “Ah! Our clever and determined Alexander does not seem to have made a great friend of Dr Wallich.”

  “No, nor did I,” said Catherine ruefully. “I am afraid I was rather argumentative.”

  Mr Fleming laughed. “He did not much enjoy the sharpness of your argument, did
he? It was interesting to hear how assured, how positive he was. I do think that just a dash of diffidence—even pretended diffidence—is more becoming in anyone. But I hope you will agree to another outing soon—upriver, to Serampore? I should like to show you that. And I should like for you to meet my friend Dr Carey, who is a very different kind of expert.”

  “I shall look forward to it,” replied Catherine.

  ANIBADDH HAD SET her heart upon a gold bangle, just such a one as adorned the wrist of every woman in India. As for money, she had not only the sum which Mrs MacDonald had paid her, but also her quarterly wages from Mrs Todd. Until now, Anibaddh had never thought of owning an ornament; until now she had never seen nor even imagined the warm gleam of gold against dark brown skin. But now she had seen it, and she was determined to acquire a gold bangle of her own.

  “Very well,” Sharada had said, “I will take you to the goldsmiths in the bazaar.” So on the day when the MacDonalds had gone down to the botanical garden, and when Mrs Todd had gone with a large party to the last race meeting of the season, Sharada called for Anibaddh at the attorney’s house, and the two of them went on foot through the narrow crowded streets of the native district to the old bazaar.

  “What’s all those painted figures?” asked Anibaddh, for they were everywhere. Large trays in the stalls displayed identical little clay figures, brightly painted: a hideous dancing black-skinned, bare-breasted woman with long witchy black hair, her mouth wide open, her tongue thrust out, wearing garlands of skulls about her neck and her hips, and her several hands brandishing decapitated heads by their hair, and bloodstained knives.

  “That is Kali, the black goddess. The small figures are for a special festival two days hence, a burra din in honour of Kali, who is the particular goddess of this place, you see.”

  “A goddess! These are idols, then?” whispered Anibaddh. She had heard preachers rant about the sin of idolatry, but she had never expected to lay eyes upon an actual idol, nor meet an idolator.