Sara Sheridan
The Secret Mandarin

The Secret Mandarin is dedicated to the memory of Daniel Lindley. I do wish you were still around.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Historical Note

Further Reading

Points For Discussion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Prologue

Indian Ocean, 1842

When the ship went down the other women were praying. The captain had ordered us stowed below decks, out of the way, while the crew battled the storm. I sat silently in the candlelit gloom, keeping my balance as best I could while the boat pitched violently. As the others mumbled on their knees, my heart was dancing along with my stomach in a strange, whirling tremor that brought me out in a sweat. We did not know what would happen and there was nothing any of us could do. It had been hours.

In the end it was sudden. The ship was noisy, the timbers creaking before they finally broke, the wind screaming. Outside, the scale of the weather was titanic and I remember thinking that we were so tiny, so vulnerable. The whole ship split open like the cracking of an egg—just one almighty crash and then the shrieks of terror, my own among them, quickly silenced by the rush of water.

There was no point fighting the storm. Besides, it happened so fast there was little opportunity but to move where the water threw us. Another world, it was completely silent under there—a relief after the long, noisy hours of terrifying anticipation. I became an observer, my panic quelled, as if this was only a strange dream that I was swimming through. The currents rushed, all bubbles and smashed pieces of the ship, as the faces of the others loomed in and out of my line of vision, never close enough to reach out, to cling together. I surfaced once into a blinding torrent of tropical wind and rain and grabbed three long, desperate breaths before the waves crashed over me once more. The towering currents were impossible to scale. It seemed safer, somehow, under the surface.

‘Just swim upwards,’ I told myself. ‘Watch for the bubbles and swim upwards as much as you can.’

Swimming was familiar and the action itself rid me of any anxiety. The water had always been my friend. I was put in mind of my sister, Jane, and our childhood outings to the pond at the bottom of the big hill about half a mile from the house where we were raised. We used to discuss our plans endlessly at that pond. In the summer we splashed about in the sunshine, squealing as we jumped off the rocks. Now in the middle of this wild monsoon, my mind transported itself to happier times. I comforted myself that I was safe and at home again. Truly, I must have been hysterical, half out of my mind. But I did not struggle. The storm was nothing. The storm was gone and in its place my childhood swirled around me.

‘I want to be married,’ Jane said down by the water, ‘to a gentleman. A gentleman is always kind and looks after his wife.’

I spat at her as I surfaced—a long jet of ice-cold water. Jane was barefoot in her pinafore and blouse, sitting at the edge while I dived in and out like a baby seal that sunny summer day.

‘A gentleman,’ I scoffed.

Such people were above our station. Jane, however, had decided. She was in possession of a novel, which she read in secret. She hid it under the washstand. In my opinion, it had given her airs.

‘Yes,’ she said, attacking my dreams because I had laughed at hers. ‘Better than wanting to be Fanny Kemble.’

‘When Fanny Kemble played Juliet grown men cried. Gentlemen,’ I told her. ‘Anyone with the talent for it can be a great actress, Jane. But gentlemen marry ladies.’

‘Then I shall be a lady,’ she said simply.

I moved off without a splash.

Now Jane was Mrs Fortune and I, well, I had failed.

I cannot remember any more of the storm, only swimming and swimming. The water felt like a living thing as it moved around me. I truly believed my dear Jane was waiting on the side, dangling her feet as she read passages aloud from her foolish love story. And then, warm and very drowsy, my vision narrowed to a tiny beam of light, the arms of the ocean entombed my body and I was gone.

When I opened my eyes again the storm had faded and I could see a beach. I had come up on a rocky outcrop. My clothes were torn and my arms purple and yellow with bruises that ached as I moved. Confused, shaking and dry-mouthed, I crawled over the rocks, pushing aside the splintered flotsam and jetsam that had ridden the current with me. The shattered dreams of the others. Wedding trousseaux. Photographs torn at the edges, still trapped beneath the glass—families far away. They would never see Calcutta now.

The sand was bleached a dazzling white. It stretched a long way in both directions. The sea, now completely calm, was the colour of bluebells. A strange, spicy fragrance hung, intoxicating in the hot air. I had hardly an ounce of strength and lay dreamless for a long time. Then I heard voices.

‘Une femme. C’est une femme!’

I opened my eyes and blurred, through the haze, I saw two, half-naked, black children running towards me, and a white man, leading a horse. His tunic was dark with sweat and his grey hair had come loose and shielded his eyes. He was old—fifty at least.

‘Mon Dieu!’ he said.

I was safe, thank God. The man gave the reins to one of the children. He leant over and gently poured warm water from his flask into my mouth. It tasted heavenly.

‘The others?’ I said, still woozy. ‘Les autres, monsieur?’

My French did not extend very far. The man shrugged his shoulders and shook his head sadly.

‘Personne.’

Even in a daze, half battered to death, I could hardly believe that I was the lone survivor. Were they all gone? The stinking deckhands, seadogs every one, the gruff captain with his two surly officers, the elderly, unsmiling chaperones who had attended our cabin and, of course, those like me, the companions of my shameful voyage—Miss Cameron, Miss Hughes, Miss Lucas, Miss Thornton and more. Punished by our families—sent away forever. Each on the run into the arms of the first Company man who would have her. And now, every soul aboard swallowed up by the wild and tropical sea. Every soul that is, except me.

‘Où est ici?’ I hazarded as the man lifted me up and placed me, floppy as a rag doll, on his horse.

I could not sit upright and lay flat instead with my head on the animal’s long mane and my fingers curled loosely around the reins.

‘Ici c’est Réunion,’ the man smiled.

‘I want to go home,’ I said.

My heart was in London. I had never wanted to leave. The whole journey had been forced upon me, after all. A banishment. A casting out. I had hated every minute even before the sea reared up. Now it occurred to me, perhaps the storm was a sign.

The old man clicked his reins and the horse began to walk up the beach. The movement below me felt awkward on the uneven sand and even my bones ached, but I smiled through my exhaustion. I had survived.

‘Allons nous à St Denis,’ the old man said. ‘Il y a un docteur.’

Chapter One

I think my family were glad that I had died. It must have been a relief. Crystal clear, I can see Jane now, wringing her tiny hands while she reads out the news from the evening edition—the first they know of the storm. As her lips form the words she is all too aware that her tidy navy dress with the red buttons is inappropriate attire in the circumstances, and that she will have to unpack the mourning clothes she used when our mother died. She wonders if she will be expected to organise a memorial service or a monumental stone.

‘What is it one does,’ she thinks, ‘when there is no body to bury?’

Robert, her husband, in his dark jacket and carefully chosen cravat, is pacing the thin carpet of their Wedgwood-green drawing room, circling around her like a wiry, wily woodland predator as he listens to the article read out from the paper. It is five weeks after the ship went down and all they have are the scantiest of details—a dry little column about the ferocity of the storm and the notorious waters of the Indian Ocean—fifty souls on board, no survivors and no mention of me.

Even if you are at sea, the weather in England is unlikely to kill you. Drama on the high waters off the Cornish coast or in the North Sea is not unheard of, but fatalities are very rare. Of course, there is plenty that will carry you off. The pox, the cutthroats fired up on gin who will burst your skin for a shilling, or the sheer poverty, the circular fortunes of the slums. If you have no money you can’t eat so the poor are thin, the unlucky starve and, for the most part, the likes of Jane, Robert and I don’t notice. But whatever filthy, threadbare, rat-infested, desperate horrors you might encounter in London, the weather all on its own is unlikely to take you, whatever Miss Austen might have her readers believe about the frailty of English women subjected to a summer rainstorm.

In the Indian Ocean it’s quite different. I can’t imagine Jane cried at the news of my demise. Her soft voice doesn’t waver as she reads the report aloud. My sister does not find it strange or tragic that I have been borne away by the sea. I imagine she thinks of it as the ‘sort of thing Mary would do.’ Always stoic, her dark eyes dart emotionless, like a tame bird. She copes uncomplainingly with everything and causes no fuss. I am the wild one.

She did cry, however, three weeks later, when I came back. I paused at the front door, wondering if I should have sent word from Portsmouth rather than simply a note from St Denis. The doctor had had good English. He made idle chatter as he inspected my bruises and cuts, pressing gently where the skin had swollen.

‘You will be marked for life,’ he pronounced, ‘but you will recover.’

Then he had them feed me bone marrow and a little brandy. Now, weeks later, the bruises were gone but there were scars that still ached. I was back in London after an uncomfortable voyage home on a trading ship. The city was my lifeblood and I was glad to be there, but my heart was pounding too, for I did not know what my family would make of my return. It had been five months since I was here last and I had disgraced them. I reached out and let the knocker strike and then waited.

The maid opened up and revealed my nephew behind her in the hallway. He froze as soon as he saw me and I thought he looked rather like a photograph, a perfect picture of England. His little body was already taut and strong in the image of his father and his skin was so pale in his charcoal grey shorts that his knees seemed somehow luminous against the shiny, dark, wooden floorboards.

‘Aunt Mary!’ he shouted when he found he could once more speak. There was panic rising in his voice and his eyes were wide.

‘Now, now, Thomas,’ I said to comfort him, as I advanced into the house past the plump, open-mouthed serving girl and laid my hat on the satinwood table. The poor child backed away as if I was a spectre and I realised straight away that my note had not yet arrived. They had evidently been mourning me.

‘A good thing that I can swim, don’t you think?’ I said gently, smiling to make light of it.

Thomas was taking lessons at the new pool in Kensington. We had discussed the subject on many occasions and he had vouched that it was his ambition to dive into the deep end from the balcony. Now, far braver than taking a fifteen-foot drop, he put out his hand and touched my cheek.

‘There now,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever believe a bad review, Thomas. Let that be a lesson to you.’

By this time we had been too long without being announced and Jane appeared from the morning room to investigate. She was holding the baby. My baby. I think it was only there in the hallway that I realised how much I had missed him. He had grown in my absence and there was a rash on his cheek. I found I was smiling quite involuntarily as I stared at it. It was a relief to see that he looked chubby and healthy, dressed in a little smock. They had kept their word. Jane hesitated at the sight of me and seemed to deflate—the black skirt of her mourning dress was huge and she too small within it.

‘He must be almost six months old now. He looks well,’ I smiled.

‘Mary,’ she mouthed.

I reached out to hold her in greeting and as I pulled back I saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘I was washed ashore,’ I whispered. ‘I wrote to you but I must have overtaken the letter…’ My voice trailed.

I put out my arms and she gave me the baby. I hugged him close. I never will understand how it is possible to so love a child—a child you cannot possibly know. A new baby. Heavens, a new baby can turn into anyone—a family disgrace or lord of the manor. How ever do you know if you will like him or not? Clutching onto my son, though, after all those months, finally I felt whole again. I felt like myself.

‘What have you called him?’ I asked, giving him my finger to grasp as I stared into his handsome blue eyes.

But the shock of seeing me again had been terrible and instead of replying, my sister folded over and landed on the carpet.

I loosened the stays of her bodice with my free hand. I swear she was as small as a child. My niece, Helen, came out of the morning room in a jumble of mahogany ringlets and black, lace-edged ribbons. I sent her to fetch water and told Thomas to bring a pillow for Jane’s head while the maid fanned my sister’s prostrate form with a copy of the morning paper.

‘I told Mother you couldn’t die,’ Helen said defiantly.

Carefully, I sprinkled water on my sister’s ashen cheeks. As she opened her eyes I couldn’t decide whether she was simply shocked that I was alive or dreading that I was home again. When she sat up the pins in her hair had loosened and a strand fell down like a blackbird’s broken wing. It trembled in the wake of the maid’s vigorous attempts at fanning with the London Times. Jane waved her off to one side.

‘Stop that at once, Harriet,’ she directed. ‘And bring us some tea.’

Harriet had taken the children to the park. The day was bright if a little cold. My sister said nothing as she poured. After the initial exchange of information, there was, I suppose, little to say until the details had been digested. Jane bit her lip. She was thinking. I examined myself in the mirror over the fireplace. I looked respectable enough—my chestnut hair was piled into a bun and my hazel eyes shone bright and healthy. I had healed well. In fact I looked better nourished than my pale sister. I always thought Jane worked too hard and was thin as a waif, albeit a ladylike one.

After a few minutes the front door opened and crashed closed and I heard Robert storming across the hallway—a familiar pause as he removed his hat, coat and gloves. I caught Jane’s eye and a flicker of a smile crossed both our lips. As children and, truth to tell, sometimes even as adults, we used to play hide and seek. Until Jane was ten we could both fit in the cupboard in my mother’s kitchen—behind the loose piles of crockery. Now we said nothing and didn’t move an inch, only sat waiting on the plump pink sofas by the fire. There would be no games today.

‘Jane,’ he roared.

She did not call back to him, only raised an eyebrow and went to the door. I stared into the fire. There was anger in his voice already. It did not bode well. Right enough, Robert’s eyes were alight as he pushed into the room past his wife and stood on the carpet in front of me, staring.

‘After all your indiscretions! Mary, have you no shame?’

‘I was washed ashore,’ I started.

But he was not listening.

‘We have tried everything for you.’

Jane slipped back into her seat. She must have sent a message to the Gardens while I was talking to the children and dandling baby Henry on my knee. Robert never came home in the afternoon except in the middle of winter when it was dark early and his beloved plants could not be tended. I had often remarked to Jane that her husband treated his orchids with more care than his three children.

She used to shake her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Mary.’

I realised that we should have discussed this between ourselves before Robert returned. I also realised that Jane had decided not to.

‘You are reckless, Mary Penney,’ Robert snapped, the fury dripping from his lips. He ran a hand over his dark hair, in desperation, I expect. ‘The worst of it is that you are reckless not only for yourself but for all of us.’

He strode to the chair beside Jane’s and sat down. He was wiry but strong and his body was tense with anxiety. When he was angry he did not blink. Jane tried to calm her husband. I knew that she wanted me to stay, however shocking my return.

‘You do not feel it time enough then, Robert?’ she asked. ‘A few months?’

I hung my head. I could see the difficulty I brought them. They could have done far worse than send me away to start a new life. Many in their position would have.

‘I will go back to the theatre,’ I declared.

At that Robert jumped out of his chair with his cheap pocket watch bouncing against his peacock-green waistcoat.

‘And forsake us all?’ he raised his voice. ‘You go back to the stage and you will be dead to the children. It is enough, Mary.’

He meant it. And in that moment I knew that I’d never act again. Having the baby had changed me. It had changed everything. The day had come and gone when I would risk anything for a chance to play Rosalind. I had been foolish but still my blood rose and I could feel the colour in my cheeks. If I did not leave and could not go back to the stage then I would be a spinster—the children’s penniless, spinster aunt. I was unmarriageable to anyone in polite society for all my tiny waist, my smooth skin and indeed, my talent. Still, I did not want to leave. England was my home and I was sure all that awaited me abroad was a string of second-rate suitors. My choices were limited and I railed against all of them. As far as I was concerned, I had been happy before all of this in London. I wanted to be happy here again.

‘They die in Calicut,’ I said. ‘There is dysentery and worse.’

Jane sipped her tea silently. Between us we had scarcely caught a chill all our lives. When little Helen was only two she had a fever. Both Jane and I had been shocked. We had so little experience of sickness that we had to nurse her from a household manual, learning page by page. Penney women were small but strong. Our mother had been a full sixty years of age when she died.

‘You will not catch it,’ Jane said.

‘We will secure another passage,’ Robert added. ‘We will send you to India again.’

This, of course, would take some weeks and I resigned myself to the decision slowly. For a woman like me there are few options. I had, I realised, come back to London hoping for something that was no longer there—an insubstantial promise of love that I had trusted like a fool—a promise, that, despite everything, I could not believe was truly gone. I had hoped that a few months’ absence, might, at the least, allow me some shadow of the life I had before. I missed my friends in Drury Lane—the bright-eyed actresses and their dowdy dressers, our plump and jolly regulars backstage who accompanied us on afternoon trips to Regent Street and Piccadilly, shopping in Dickins, Smith & Stevens or setting out to James Smith’s to buy umbrellas or fancy parasols. I missed the fun of sherry and shortcake in the early evening and the backstage parties later on, the lazy band tuning up in a side room and the whores plying their trade on our doorstep. If I had expected to return to any of that I was mistaken—in the event of wanting to keep my son respectable, that is. I was at my family’s disposal once more. It hurt. Still there were many women in a far worse position than I.

It’s so easy to fall. From my sister’s house in leafy Kensington, on Gilston Road, it is but a small drop to some damp room down by the river where you grow very thin and are used very harshly. I wanted no son of mine to dwindle to a stick. Too many children, half abandoned, live their lives hungry. Open your eyes and you’ll see them in the filthy, dark corners, angular and ravenous. Even their hair is thin. Their mothers, poor souls, have nothing to give as they disappear into the quicksand, penny whores if they’re as much as passingly pretty and washerwomen if they’re not. Most people of our acquaintance do not even notice the desperation of the thousands, but there are plenty who regularly pawn their clothes for a little bread and would sell their honour, their spirit and their children if they could, for a life less comfortable than a nobleman’s dog.

We were doing our best to salvage my mistake and, with a little stake money, India at least offered a decent chance for Henry (who, raised respectably with his cousins, would be free of my disgrace) and for me (since abroad I might still marry tolerably well).

I moved into my old room at the back of the house. Like a beating heart, in the background the city pulsed with vitality, but I might as well have been in Calcutta for all I could partake of it. I had nothing to do apart from spend time with the children for a few hours in the morning but I accepted that, for Henry’s sake.

‘He has your smile, Aunt Mary,’ Helen said.

‘I am not sure I am pleased by that,’ I told her. ‘Henry has no teeth yet.’

And this set us giggling. We drew pictures with coloured pencils and I kept Helen and Thomas amused with stories. I liked to hold Henry. I allowed myself to dote on him for hours until Harriet came to take him out in the perambulator after lunch.

Then, most afternoons I read an old copy of Moll Flanders and pondered on a woman, fallen like me, and attempting to be practical while indulging a hopeless love. I ran over again and again what had happened and cursed the unfairness of it. Damn William and his upper-class sang-froid that had left me abandoned like this. And yet I did not believe I was capable of settling for what Jane had. My spirit is too unruly. I loathed Robert and his like—their grasping, scraping self-righteousness. The lack of passion. The awful fear of what Others May Think. It seemed to me preposterous that Jane should love him—a man who calculated every step from a very high horse. To Robert what I had done was incomprehensible. For myself, I regretted what had happened, but running over the events in my mind, I knew why I had made my choices. I had been unlucky.

The night Henry was conceived William had been courting me for a year with what gentlemen call ‘no satisfaction’. He took me to his private rooms for dinner. The hangings on the wall glowed sumptuous red in the candlelight. We ate roasted boar with pear relish and crisp parsnips studded with rock salt, all served on silver platters that seemed to dance as the light flickered down from the sconces on the wall. As he downed French burgundy, I sipped champagne and William wove a wonderful spell. He would keep a house for me, he said. Anything I desired. Anything. Of course, such promises of devotion fired a passion in me that was blinding. I lived to be adored and here was a Duke’s son, on his knees.

When I surrendered he kissed me all over and I hardly blushed. In the end he was so gentle that it surprised me. William was a large man and so much of the world that I expected him to make a hearty lover. Instead, ‘You beautiful woman,’ he moaned, the sweat dripping off him as he fumbled like some schoolboy. I should have known then how weak he really was. Instead, his vulnerability touched me and excited by the jewels and promises I took pity on him and forgave his physical frailty. I trusted him completely.

Now, in the cold bedroom at the back of my sister’s house, the pale walls blue in the fading light of the afternoon and my cheeks already wet with tears, I cried for myself and my poor baby boy—whatever might become of us. I was sequestered—all respectable doors bar these were closed to me, and though Drury Lane would have welcomed me back with open arms, I had Henry to consider. It was a sacrifice all right and a shock to find that in six months nothing had changed. Still, I comforted myself that there is always hope and I did not wish for one second that the storm had done its job.

One afternoon about a week after I returned to Gilston Road, Harriet knocked on my bedroom door. She curtseyed, unwillingly, I thought, and held out a tiny salver with a calling card. I expected no visitors and eagerly turned it over to see who might have arrived. My stomach lurched as I read the name—William. A warm surge of hope fired through me. Perhaps everything would be all right after all. I told Harriet that I would come down shortly.

‘Where are the children?’ I asked as she left.

My voice was casual—at least I hoped it sounded so. My hands shook.

‘Upstairs, Miss Penney.’

‘Thank you.’

In the mirror my colour was high, my heart racing. Of course, I had rehearsed this moment—meeting William by chance in public, perhaps in Hyde Park, or seeing him on the other side of the street. But since his absolute abandonment, my letters returned, the long hours of waiting, the humiliation of being shunned, well, I had never imagined that he would actually call. All my thoughts had been directed to being beautiful at a distance. Of taking him by surprise and prompting him to adore me once again. The father of my child was downstairs. And Jane—Jane was out.

I laid my palms on my cheeks and took as deep a breath as I could, confined by my corset. Usually when I acted I did not tie my stays so tightly. The night I met William I had not worn a corset at all. I was Titania, Queen of the Fairies, all flowing chiffon and trailing beads. He had kissed my hand and remarked that the part had become me—henceforth he would think of Titania no other way.

‘Do you think of Titania often, your Lordship?’ I drawled, all confidence.

‘From now on I shall,’ he bowed.

Now, blushing, I hurried downstairs to the drawing room, my confidence much dented since my fairy days. William was standing by the fireplace. He looked as handsome as ever. As I entered, Harriet brought in a tray of tea things and laid them on the table next to the sofa. She curtseyed and left. I kept a steady gaze on the tall figure by the mantle. William did not meet my eye. I would not, I swore inwardly, take him back unless he begged.

‘You are well?’ he enquired at length.

‘Yes.’

‘You look well.’

I waited and in agony indicated the teapot. ‘Might I offer you…’ My voice trailed off.

William nodded. My hands were shaking too violently—I did not want to attempt pouring the tea so I crossed the room and sat down instead. I couldn’t bear it.

‘Monsoon, eh?’ he commented. ‘I expected you to be battered and walking with a limp! Half drowned when the Regatta went down and look at you. You’re some gal, Mary!’

I stared. What on earth was the fool trying to say?

‘William, why are you here?’ I asked.

His eyes fell to the carpet.

‘It was a boy, I heard,’ he said. ‘We have only daughters. My wife has never borne a son.’

My heart sank and I felt a rush of anger. A female child would not have prompted the visit and, clearly, neither had I.

‘The claim of a natural child in such circumstances is strong. I will recognise him, Mary. I have discussed him with Eleanor.’

I got up and poured the tea after all. It would occupy me at least.

‘Eleanor is one of seven girls, you know,’ William continued. ‘It runs in the family.’

It seemed impossible I had ever kissed the mouth that uttered these words. Of course, a wiser woman might have flattered him. A wiser woman might have tried to woo him back. A wiser woman might not have felt anger rising hot in her belly or at least might have ignored it. Not I.

‘And so you plan Henry to be your heir?’ I said, ‘and I will be nothing to either of you. I will sail again for Calcutta. Henry will stay in this house.’

‘Oh, of course,’ William said. ‘Certainly until he is old enough to go to school. I have no objection to it.’

‘You have no objection! No objection! You have never seen the boy, William. In point of fact you have not seen me since last summer and by God, you were not a man of honour on that occasion!’

I was working up a fury. A vision of Henry at twenty-one visiting his half-sisters. Him being whispered of as the bastard child of his wealthy father. ‘To some actress, I heard,’ they would nudge and wink, my name unknown. I saw William an old man, paying the bills, passing on a lesser title. While in Calcutta or Bombay I would outlive a husband I was unlikely to love. I would not matter to anyone.

I thought I might pelt William with the shortbread that Harriet had placed on the tray. Perhaps pick up the poker by the fire and smash something, hit him, anything. Had I survived the shipwreck just for this? I was searching for the words to shame him, ready to launch an attack, when, like the angel she is, Jane swept into the room. She probably saved me from a charge of murder.

‘Your Lordship,’ she curtseyed to William.

‘Mrs Fortune,’ he smiled.

‘I have asked Harriet to bring down the baby so you might see him,’ she said. ‘I hope I have done the right thing?’

It was so like my sister to easily fit in with whatever was going on and simply make the best of it. William looked relieved.

‘Yes, yes. I have told Mary that I will own him. It is all decided.’

‘I have not decided,’ I said.

Jane sat down next to me.

‘Shush, Mary,’ she soothed, before turning her attention to business. She was right, of course. This was the best thing that could have happened for the baby even if William’s offer was somewhat late. Scarce more than a year ago he had said he loved me. He had sworn on his life.

Jane picked up the plate of shortbread and began to serve, passing the biscuits smoothly as she spoke. She, at least, was thinking with logic.

‘Now, your Lordship, might I ask how much you were thinking of annually?’

Money was always tight. When Robert had his first appointment at the Royal Horticultural Society he earned a hundred pounds a year. Before my disgrace I was paid three times as much at Covent Garden—and then there were the gifts. Trinkets, baubles and fancies. Frills and sparkles. A dressing room so full of flowers it made you sneeze. I was never a star but I had admirers, a retainer and a portion of the receipts.

After Mother died I began to give money to Robert and Jane. Five pounds a month sometimes. Robert kept an account so he could repay me. He had an eye to the business of plants. Once when I had scoffed at his obsession, his ridiculous interest in soil types and root systems, Robert pulled out the newspaper and read a report of an auction—prices paid for tropical flowers arrived the week before from the East Indies. It ran into thousands.

‘Rubber, tea, sugar, timber,’ he enumerated, leaning over the dining table counting on his fingers. ‘They’ve all been brought back to London. Tobacco, potato, coffee, cocoa beans. I will find something,’ he muttered, ‘and it will pay.’

At the time Robert’s ranting seemed like the crazy ramblings of a Lowland Scot. Not that Robert had kept his accent. It diminished daily.

‘I will not end up like Douglas,’ he swore, ‘mad, penniless and alone.’

I nibbled the cheese on my plate. You could not argue with Robert about plants and my interest in any case was limited.

The thirty guineas a year most generously settled on Henry was the first money that had come from my side of things in eighteen months. It had been difficult for Robert and Jane, I knew. As in any household, extra money was a boon. So this windfall provided a nanny, covered all Henry’s expenses and, with what William had referred to as his ‘dues for the last several months’, Jane paid for another ticket to send me back to India, for, unspoken as William rose to leave, was the understanding that I was troublesome and the money would only be forthcoming if I was removed. If I had daydreamed of dallying in London, I had been squarely woken from it.

The Filigree was due to sail at the end of the month.

I found myself restless and unable to sleep. Things weighed uncomfortably on my mind. One night, some days after William’s visit, I was late and wakeful. I visited Henry in the nursery but at length I grew tired of watching him and had it in mind to cut a slice of bread and have it with some of Cook’s excellent raspberry conserve. I sneaked down to the kitchen like a naughty child, barefoot in Jane’s old lawn nightdress. I had not bought anything to wear after the wreck and had only the clothes kindly provided for me on the island—Parisian cast-offs, well worn—and some hand-me-downs from my sister.

The slate was cold on my feet. The air in the house heavy and silent—not even the ticking of a clock. The bread was wrapped in cloth and, as I unwound it, I jumped, spotting Robert, red-eyed, crouching beside the stove. He looked worn out—far more than I. His skin was as white as the nightshirt he was wearing over his breeches and the curl of hair that protruded at the top of his chest, clearly visible above the linen collar, looked dark against it.

‘Sorry, Mary,’ he said. ‘I could not sleep. I have not rested properly in days.’

The house, it struck me, was a shell and we were restless spirits within it, seeking respite. Though I could not see what reason Robert had to prowl about in the dark.

I had planned on opening the heavy back door and sitting on the step while I ate. Everyone in the family had done that from time to time. It was something of a tradition. That night it was too cloudy to see the stars but the moon was almost full. It cast an opaque light through the misty sky.

‘Well,’ Robert said, ‘perhaps we should have some milk?’

He brought the jug from the pantry and poured. I cut two slices of bread and spread them thickly with butter and jam. We swapped, pushing our wares over the tabletop. I glanced at the door.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘We should sit down.’

There was a breeze in the garden. Very slight but delicious. The fresh air blew in as we sat companionably on the step listening to the church bell sounding three. As the night wears on, the chiming sound echoes so. It is different once it’s dark and the streets are quiet. I thought this could not be anywhere but England. The touch of cool night air on my skin and the bells in the distance. There were those, I knew, who had been out half the night at cards or dancing or worse, who were only now in some dark carriage on their way home. Robert shifted uncomfortably. He had a fleck of jam on his forearm and when I pointed it out he brought his arm to his mouth and sucked the sweetness away. This left, I noticed, a pale pink mark on his skin.

‘I am going, Mary,’ he said. ‘I am commissioned.’

Robert did not look at me though an eager, almost shy, smile played around his lips. He had been given his chance. I assumed that he meant that the Society was sending him abroad to collect botanical specimens. It had been his ambition for some time.

‘Where will you go?’ I asked.

‘China. Camellia sinensis. Tea plants.’

‘You would think they had tea plants aplenty at Kew.’

‘Those are Indian tea plants, not Chinese ones. Besides, I am not going for the Society,’ Robert whispered. ‘They do not pay anything more for travelling and whatever I bring back is not mine. I will go for the Honourable East India Company, Mary. Whatever new plants I collect outside the terms of the commission will belong to me. I will sell them to a private nursery for profit.’

‘How long will you be gone?’

Robert stared towards the garden wall. ‘More than one year certainly. Perhaps two or three. If I can find something it will make us, Mary. And of all the specimens to come from the Orient I cannot believe I will not make a discovery there.’

He had not touched the food. It lay in his hand. When Robert had secured his position at the Society it seemed the pinnacle of his career. This was a leap beyond. For all his efforts to fit in, all his fears about my behaviour, Robert was audacious on his own part. He worked every daylight hour. I could not find it in my heart to begrudge him this success, however difficult a time I was having.

‘Well done,’ I said, holding up my milk in a toast. ‘I hope you discover something England cannot live without!’

We tapped the cups together, though as he drank I could see a flash of uncertainty in his eyes. Robert had fought hard to scramble up the rough battlements of advancement. He had become everything his betters wanted—a hard worker, a respectable family man and a prudent and underpaid employee. Now he had thrown over the Royal Society and struck out for himself. A mission to a barbarian land would be both dangerous and difficult. It was daring. No wonder he couldn’t sleep.

‘If anything happens to me,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I worry that they will fall. They will go hungry. I could stay at the Society, of course, but then we will never have the money to move up. I want the children to marry well.’

A few months ago I would have considered these words only proof of Robert’s desperate desire for his own advancement, but now, having Henry, I recognised the father in him. Besides, he showed more spirit that evening than I had seen in him in ten years.

‘No one could know more than you do. You have an eye for it—a feel for the plants that has brought you this far and will take you further. Strike out for yourself, I say, Robert. Jane will not be for starving if I know my sister. You are doing the right thing,’ I promised him.

He took a hearty bite of his bread and jam.

‘They do have a fund at the East India Company,’ he murmured. ‘For widows.’

We said no more.

The following afternoon I took the atlas from the morning room and sat by the fire. The tea countries are hilly and lie away from the coast. Robert was set to travel far further than I. With my finger I traced the outline of Madagascar, the largest island in the Indian Ocean. Réunion lies to its east. My fingers followed the fine line of the coast. The map seemed too small to contain the vast, empty sea, the expanse of beach, the two miles to St Denis that I had been led on horseback, half dead. What lay for me in the maze of streets behind the tiny black dot that marked Calcutta and where was my sense of adventure that I so strongly resisted its allure? Unlike Robert I would not travel in unwelcoming territory. Bohea and Hwuy-chow were closed to white men. In India I would be welcomed with open arms.

I stretched my hand across the open page, my thumb on London, my fingers lighting on Calcutta and Hong Kong, Robert’s landing point in China. We would be very distant. Weeks of sea between us. William did not love me any longer. He had dispatched me as easily as a lame horse or a hunting dog. Bought and paid for.

That week, Jane ordered two trunks from Heal’s. We packed them together.

‘I did not expect to love Henry so much,’ I admitted.

‘You cannot have everything you want, Mary,’ she chided me.

The truth was I had nothing I wanted. Neither William nor Henry nor my life on the stage—only a sense of doing what was expected. I had fought against that all my life.

‘Mother should have come with you to London,’ Jane said wistfully, as if that might have kept me in check.

I giggled. Our mother loved a rogue. She probably would have encouraged me with William, if I had the measure of her.

‘It is not funny,’ Jane retorted. ‘You treat everything as if it doesn’t matter. It matters when you hurt people, Mary.’

But as far as I could make out I had hurt no one but myself and I let the matter drop, instead lingering by the open window. I love the smell of the horses wafting up as they pass. You can only just catch it. The sound of hooves and the whiff of hide that reminds me always of the stables near our old house, where we grew up, Jane and I. She and the children were my only family now and there was a bond between us that I simply could not bear to break.

‘Do you remember Townsend Farm?’ I asked. ‘Father took me there once. He let me ride a pony. A white one.’

Jane stiffened. She banged the lid of the trunk down. She thought we were better off without him. Mother had agreed. ‘We might have no man about the house but we can do for ourselves,’ she used to say. I missed my father though, for I had been his favourite. I was not quite eight and Jane perhaps only ten when he died. Why he had cared for me more, I have no idea. Nor why he had taken almost a dislike to my sister—for he had been fierce with her, though I could not remember much of it. The bonds between a family are strange indeed. Jane had sheltered me when many would have slammed the door in my face and yet she would not talk about him. If I mentioned our father she simply clammed up, drawing her protective armour around her. Saying nothing. Our children make us so vulnerable. Our parents too, I suppose.

‘It’s all right for you,’ Jane snapped. ‘I have to pack, Mary. I have to organise everything. There is no time for your dilly-dallying. Come along.’

I had lost everything aboard the Regatta—love tokens, letters, my books and clothes. With William’s money in hand, such replacements as could be procured arrived daily now, packed with sachets of lavender and mothballs. A notebook wrapped in brown paper from Bond Street as a present from Jane. Ribbons, a shawl for the evening, a bible, two day dresses from King Street and an evening gown from Chandos Street—everything I would need. And in Jane and Robert’s room the other trunk, identical to mine but packed with a few clothes, a box of Robert’s favourite tobacco from Christy’s (‘No one mixes the same,’ he always blustered as he exhaled), some botanical books, a map, more books to read on the journey (all on the subject of the Chinese). And then items for sale—prints of London and of the Queen for the homesick abroad, copies of Punch and the London Illustrated News.

Robert continued to be tired. I saw him mostly at dinner if he came home in time. He was working out his notice at the greenhouses in Chiswick, determined to leave everything in his care in perfect condition. Our only family outing was to a photographic studio in Chelsea ten days before we left. We took two hansom cabs and as the horses picked their way along the colourful West London streets I sat straight and eager with Henry asleep on my lap. I was delighted to see the city at last after being confined for so long.

On the route there were market stalls and apothecary shops, rag-and-bone men and ladies out walking. Even the strong smell of hops from the brewery delighted me but the children scrunched up their noses and complained. Towards Chelsea my attention was drawn particularly by old posters for the plays at Drury Lane that had opened weeks before. The tall, dark lettering on thin paper captured me immediately—Othello and The Dragon’s Gift at the Theatre Royal. I wondered who was on the bill and if the parties were as much fun backstage as they used to be. Did the ladies still drink laudanum for their nerves and the gentlemen arrive with garden roses and boughs of bay? Helen followed my line of sight, seeing my eyes light a little, I suppose, on the thin, posted papers, and being a girl who was naturally curious, she leaned forward to read more easily and Jane, sitting next to her, pulled her daughter firmly back against the cushion as if out of harm’s way.

At the studio Jane held Henry in her arms with Robert behind us, and the older children to one side. In the photograph none of us is smiling and Robert looks exhausted, the sepia only highlighting the bags beneath his eyes and the indents of his hollow cheeks. At least we would have a record of the last weeks we were together.

‘You will carry it with you, Father?’ Thomas asked.

‘All the way to China,’ Robert promised. ‘And when I return you will have grown beyond all recognition. You will be tall and speak Latin perfectly.’

A mere five years before, we had had another photograph taken. John, their eldest boy, now away at school, was held by Jane while I had little Helen on my knee. All of us were in jovial spirits that day. I was playing Cleopatra at the Olympic and had not yet encountered William. The kohl around my eyes had been almost permanent that summer. The dark lines did not come off fully until weeks after. They lent me an air of mystery, a sense of the forbidden.

In India the women wear kohl. They paint their skin with henna and scent themselves with moonflowers. The Hindus will not eat animals. But there is gold cloth as fine as muslin and as many servants in each household as work a whole terrace in London. I studied Hindustani from a book. ‘Fetch this. Bring that.’ So I could give orders. But still I did not want to leave.

In my last week, Jane and I engaged the nanny together. Harriet whistled as she worked, very pleased at this development, for it would greatly ease her workload. Jane’s too, I suppose, for though principally in the house for Henry, the girl would also undertake duties for Helen and Thomas. With William’s money in hand, Jane had placed a newspaper advertisement. She offered ten pounds a year plus board and we had over twenty enquiries.

We interviewed the more eloquent applicants—a mixed bag of ages and experience. Jane was drawn towards the older women, the more prim the better. They came with references, of course, each woman from one wealthy family or another fallen on hard times and making her way as she could. For my part, I wanted laughter in the nursery and I took to asking, ‘What games do you play with your charges?’ The women Jane favoured invariably faltered at this. I despaired that we would come to an agreement and I had to concede that it was my sister, after all, who had to live with the successful candidate.

Our second but last interview was with a younger girl, new to the city. Her name was Charlotte. As soon as she opened her mouth and we heard her accent, it was as if a spell was being cast. Charlotte came from a little town not ten miles from where Jane and I were raised. Scarce seventeen and plain, there was a familiarity about her that we liked immediately. As a nursemaid she had looked after a family of two children outside London as well as having experience of her own, large family. ‘There are many at home. I am the eldest of eight,’ she grinned. She was well versed in poetry, I was glad to hear, and her favourite game was hide and seek. On Jane’s list of priorities, Charlotte’s manner was businesslike and respectful and although she had only one reference, it was excellent and, in addition, she was acquainted with many of the farming families we remembered from our childhood. After a fifteen-minute interview, Jane and I knew we had found someone who fulfilled our requirements and we offered her the job.

Charlotte’s trunk arrived later that very afternoon and the children took to her immediately. Jane was quietly delighted at having another servant in the house.

‘You will call her Nanny Charlotte,’ she told Helen and Thomas, proudly.

It seemed to me she might have added, ‘In the hearing of as many of the neighbours as possible’, for to have a third domestic servant in the house was a leap up the social ladder indeed, whatever circumstances had brought about the engagement in the first place. We ordered a uniform of course, and Jane wrote to William to inform him of what she had done. I had no heart to add a postscript of my own.

‘I will miss you horribly,’ I declared as Jane and I mended the last of the packing together, darning stockings and sewing buttons. The five months of the shipwreck was the longest we had ever been apart. ‘I know I will be lonely.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided me. ‘We will write every week. India will be wonderful. It is the perfect place for you, Mary.’

My sister lifted the cotton shirt up to her nose as if it was a veil.

‘You will write to me of dusky beauties,’ she twitched the material. ‘And I will write of the children.’

I noticed that she breathed in, smelling the shirt before she put it down. Perhaps the soap and starch reminded her of Robert. The way he smelt on Sundays, freshly pressed, freshly dressed. When she took his arm and they walked together along the crescent, to church. That was how my sister loved her husband—well turned out and in public.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he is getting on. Nurseries pay well for the exotic and this trip will bring in a good fee plus anything Robert can sell on top. God will bring him home again and keep him safe.’

I had no fear for Robert. Nor for myself. After all, I had survived a shipwreck a thousand miles from London and still come home. I am of the view, however, that it was less God’s business and more blind luck. And no one could deny that we were of a lucky disposition, all of us.

‘He will be fine,’ I said. ‘Of course he will.’

When the trunks were packed we had sherry in the drawing room. Robert was booked on the Braganza, due to set sail for China from Portsmouth on the same tide as I. Jane had arranged for us to travel to the port together. She was stoic, of course, but had placed vases of lilies in each room. The funereal scent pervaded the house and matched her hidden mood. Jane might be exasperated by me but we had been close all our lives. This time it was not only I who was leaving but her husband as well.

Robert was late home from work that night. We did not wait for him. Cook sent up sandwiches and we ate them by the fire, toasting the cheese until it bubbled and spat. It made us thirsty and Jane had more sherry than usual.

‘He must have made you feel wonderful,’ she mused, drawing her hand down to smooth her navy skirts. ‘Did you like it? What William did to you?’

I sipped my sherry and let it evaporate a little inside my mouth before I swallowed. Jane and I had never discussed our carnal desires and the truth was, William was not my first, though neither of my other lovers had inspired me to the heights that the ladies talked of in the dressing rooms. For myself, if anything, I missed being held. I like the strength of a man’s arms around me. I avoided my sister’s question entirely.

‘Do you like it, Jane?’

Her eyes moved up to the shadows dancing on the ceiling.

‘I love my children,’ she said, ‘and it does not last long.’

It is true that I had never seen Jane flush for Robert. They never seemed like lovers—did not lie in bed all morning or dally on the stairs. But this was a step beyond what I had imagined. It seemed so cold.

‘William,’ I said, ‘was a terrible lover. But I know it can be…’ I paused, ‘very satisfying.’

My sister sighed. ‘Before I married Robert, Mother tried to warn me, but it is beyond imagination, is it not? She said that it was like rolling downhill. But that scarcely touches the truth and makes it sound pleasant. The whole business is just so animal. I think I will never get used to it. A gentleman becomes quite unlike himself. I am lucky I fall pregnant so quickly and can have done with it.’

I was not sure what to say to that. Robert and Jane had been married a long time and they had only three children. If she had fallen pregnant quickly each time, they had perhaps only rolled down the hill on a handful of occasions in all the years.

‘He is doing so well,’ I commented, and topped up our glasses from the decanter.

‘Oh, yes,’ she enthused. ‘God willing.’

My poor darling.

The day we left London it was raining. It rained all day. Jane rose early and saw to it herself that the children were breakfasted and dressed. By eight they were waiting to say goodbye, assembled uncomfortably in the morning room. These are awkward moments, I think, the moments of waiting, the time in between. Robert gave a short speech, advising them to be good, saying he was going away for everyone’s benefit and when he came back he would expect great things of them. Thomas’ lip quivered. Helen stared ahead, emotionless. I said nothing, only climbed up to the nursery where Henry was asleep and silently kissed his little head goodbye.

‘Look after him,’ I said to Nanny Charlotte.

‘He’s a lovely baby, Miss. Don’t you worry about him,’ her syrupy vowels soothed me.

I gave her a shilling and stumbled back downstairs. I shouldn’t be leaving. I shouldn’t be leaving. But here I was, almost gone, my sister kissing my cheek, her hands shaking.

‘You can trust me with Henry,’ she whispered. ‘Never fear,’ and then she turned and kissed Robert smoothly—a mere peck to which he scarcely responded. It was difficult to go. I stood on the steps until Robert grasped my arm and guided me firmly to the kerb.

When we mounted the carriage I could see the shades of self-doubt in my brother-in-law had hardened into righteousness. At the Society he had always been treated shabbily—a garden boy made good. Brave men have been broken that way. Douglas risked his life to bring fir trees from Canada and the seeds were left to rot in the Society’s offices. He died unrecognised for his achievements, an irascible old drunkard, half blind and mad. Robert was now privately commissioned.

‘On our way! On our way!’ he said gleefully as the carriage pulled off. It seemed he had no thought for those he left behind.

Jane remained dry eyed. The last time I saw her was through the coach’s moving window. The children were bundled upstairs. She stood on the doorstep of her house alone. It felt to me as if too much was unsaid, that words would have helped her if only she had used them. Everyone dear to me was now in that white, stucco house on Gilston Road and all in Jane’s care. For the second time that year I waved goodbye as I watched the house recede. When the carriage turned left I saw my sister spin round and walk through the doorway, the sweep of her skirt slowing her haste. She slammed the black door quickly, almost before she was fully through. And we were gone.

Chapter Two

The road was muddy and it slowed us down. The hired carriage, uncomfortable to drive in at the best of times, bumped along the uneven surface. If I lost hold of it, the rug simply jolted off my knees.

When I had first arrived in London I walked there. It was more than a hundred miles and took me a week. I left home with my mother’s blessing. I was fifteen by then and fired with visions of myself on stage, my name on billboards, fêted. I arrived with a shilling in pennies, a change of clothing and a fanatical light burning in my eyes that made me shine in any part I was offered. I bribed the scene-changers, forced my way into auditions and, once I had hijacked the part, stole the attention of the audience by fair means or foul—anything to act, to lose myself for a few brief hours on stage and bask in the limelight and the applause. My tactics worked. In my ten years in London I had managed everything I had hoped for—even two love affairs that had not inspired a single sentence in the scandal sheets and which, for a long time, saw me better provided for than most young actresses. Then I had met William. I hated being swept under the carpet like this. It was simply not in my nature.

Robert, by contrast, was in good humour. He clutched his pencil eagerly and wrote notes in a moleskine—comments on the weather or trees he had spotted by the road or over the tops of the brick-walled gardens as we rode out of Fulham, past Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park.

As we left the reaches of the city we followed a route now familiar to me, scattered with villages along the way—Claygate, Chessington and Esher. The clean air cut unexpectedly through the dampness, my head cleared and I felt calmer. I realised that I had been closeted too long in my sister’s blue back bedroom at Gilston Road.

‘I will simply have to make the best of this,’ I thought. ‘Perhaps I am an exotic flower and Calcutta will have me blooming. Maybe my instincts are wrong.’

Outside the window the puddles splashed as we drove through.

Robert sat back smugly. ‘Headed for warmer climes, eh, Mary? We English travel well,’ he remarked.

‘You are not English,’ I laughed.

Robert pulled at his greatcoat. I had irked him. So far from home I could see he would enjoy not being placed. He could be born a gentleman, an Englishman, whatever he chose.

‘I’m sorry. I did not intend to hurt you,’ I apologised.

‘It is the least of what you’ve done, Mary,’ he retorted tartly.

I straightened the rug over my knees and lowered my eyes. I did not wish to quarrel. We had hours until we reached the port. He drew a small volume from his pocket and settled down to read. Glancing over, I could see maps of India, drawings of tea leaves and tables of humidity readings. I contented myself with the thought that Robert was insufferably dull.

The rain made the countryside doubly green and lush. The dripping sycamores were beautiful. I watched the passing of each field. The tropics would be very different and these, I realised, were my last glances of England. The last time I had passed in this direction, many months before, I had been so distressed after Henry’s birth and William’s abandonment that I did not look out of the window once. My recollection was that I had been distracted by my own body—it was so soon after the birth that I ached all over. Coming home again I had willed myself every mile to London and was so intent on reaching the city that I scarcely noticed the scenery on the way. Now, entirely recovered and not at all intent on my destination, my curiosity was piqued by the view from the carriage window.

‘Robert,’ I enquired, ‘are there sycamore trees in India? Are there horse chestnuts?’

Robert looked up. His blue eyes were bright. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not in Calcutta,’ he tapped his pencil against the cover of his notebook. ‘The seed does not travel easily. I know of a nursery on this road. We could obtain cuttings. The Society would be fascinated, Mary, if you could make the trees take on Indian soil.’

‘No, no,’ I insisted. His eagerness was simply too bookish. What did I care for the Royal Society and their no doubt copious information about what trees will grow where? ‘It was not for that. I only wondered,’ I said, cursing inwardly that I had started him off.

He laid down his notebook and continued.

‘They have been cultivating tea plants in India for sixty years, you know. The bushes have died even on the high ground. It is in the tending of them. That is the thing. If I can crack that conundrum I will be there.’

I could think of nothing more tiresome.

‘Does nothing else in China interest you?’ I asked in an attempt to stave off the information that was coming, no doubt, about soil alkalinity and water levels. ‘Strange dress or customs? The food?’

Robert looked thoughtful. ‘I heard they train cormorants to fish. The Chinese keep them on leashes. Perhaps I will collect bird skins. I can dry them with my herbarium specimens.’

A sigh escaped me.

‘And what of you in India? What interests you?’ he snapped.

It saddened me. ‘It is not by choice I am sent away,’ I said. ‘I have no interest there. I am cast out, Robert. You know that.’

He simply ignored me. He picked up his book and continued to read.

In the middle of the day we stopped in the muddy courtyard of an inn. Robert and I sat silently over a side of ham. I had not thought that we would stop. It was only for the horses. The road was hard on them.

Robert said, ‘We will go faster in the long run if we see to them now.’

I wished we had travelled by train or taken the public coach. When the innkeeper stared at me, half in recognition, Robert became flustered. Perhaps the man had seen me on stage. We were not so far from town that it was inconceivable. Robert hurried our host away from the small side room and closed the door.

‘’twas not the end of the world if the man had been to Drury Lane,’ I said.

Robert checked the tiny window to see if the carriage might be ready.

‘You do not fully understand what you have done, Mary. You have some regret but you do not understand. It is as well you are away.’

My jaw tightened but I could not stop the tears.

‘You have never been in love,’ I spat. ‘There is no love in you.’

Robert rounded on me. ‘It is not love to beget a bastard out of wedlock, Mary. That is not love.’

It was a comment I could not allow to pass.

‘Henry will be fine. As you are fine,’ I said pointedly.

Robert’s parents were not married when he was born. Only after. Jane had told me about it years before, when she had been considering Robert’s proposal of marriage, in fact. It was a secret he had not known I possessed and it infuriated him now.

He pushed me against the mantle. His eyes were hard and I realised how strong he was. The material of his greatcoat cut against my neck and his voice was so furious that the words felt like barb-tipped arrows.

‘You will never say that again, Mary Penney.’

Robert was often short-tempered but I had never seen him violent. I thought to strike him but I believe in that state he would have struck back. His cheeks were burning. Jane’s husband had not a Lord for a father. Not like Henry. Robert’s father was a gardener, a hedger on an estate in Berwickshire, or had been until he died. The man’s talent with plants was not a wonder. No, the wonder of Robert was how effectively he had expunged the two-room cottage where he was born and in its place put all the comforts of his house on Gilston Road. The carved wood of the mantle cut painfully into my skin.

‘Let go, you brute,’ I squirmed. ‘Are you set to beat me because I defended myself ? What would Jane say, Robert? Get off !’

Robert’s hands fell to his side as he brought his temper under control.

‘You try me, Mary,’ he said.

I hated him horribly but I bit my lip and said nothing. It was clearly fine for Robert to insult Henry, but not acceptable for the same words to be used of him. I comforted myself that this journey would be over soon enough and then I would be free of the tiresome bully. I stalked back out to the carriage and, refusing help, I took my own seat. Robert said not one word the rest of the journey and that was fine by me.

On the coast it was not raining but it was cold. At Portsmouth we were to stay with Mrs Gordon. Jane had written and reserved the rooms. All being well with the weather, we had a night to wait. Jane had thought we would prefer to spend the time on land together rather than make our way to separate cabins. This was a treat that I had not been accorded before William’s money came to bear. I regretted the arrangement, but now we had arrived there was nothing else for it.

Mrs Gordon’s house was on a busy side street close to the docks. At the front door, I dismounted and was welcomed by our cheery landlady, a fat woman wearing a plum-coloured day dress that set off the copper hair beneath her starched white cap.

‘Come in, ma’am, sir,’ she smiled. ‘I am Mrs Gordon and you will be Mr Fortune and Miss Penney, I’ll be bound,’ and she swept us inside on a tide of efficient courtesy.

The house was clean and comfortable and smelled pleasantly of sage and lavender. In the generous, wood-panelled hallway Mrs Gordon ushered our luggage into place and told us the arrangements for dinner.

‘Your rooms are the two on the left at the top of the stairs. They overlook the street,’ she informed us. We were set to ascend when a door opened and a cross-looking lady emerged from the drawing room with her husband. Mrs Gordon introduced them as the Hunters.

Mrs Hunter fiddled with a chain around her neck. She reminded me of a dog playing with its tail, the links twisting round her fingers never quite satisfying her, the amethyst and pearl locket constantly out of reach.

She inspected me plainly while Mrs Gordon introduced us.

‘We are off to inspect the Filigree before it gets dark,’ she said. ‘We sail tomorrow.’

‘You will be my shipmate, then, Mrs Hunter,’ I smiled.

‘How nice. What takes you to Calcutta?’

Behind me, Robert froze.

‘I will visit relations,’ I lied smoothly, aware of his eyes on me. ‘And my brother here is to board the Braganza.’

Mr Hunter nodded towards Robert. ‘Well now, you must envy your sister, Mr Fortune. Hong Kong is no match for the delights of India.’

This topic was no better for Robert than that of my reasons for going to Calcutta. The East India Company did not wish his mission to be common knowledge. I realised my mistake and tried to divert the conversation. This chance encounter was rapidly becoming unexpectedly difficult.

‘So you have been to India already?’ I attempted.

The Hunters giggled good naturedly as if I had said something particularly amusing.

‘Half our lives,’ Mr Hunter replied. ‘Is it your first voyage to the East, ma’am?’

I shook my head. ‘This time I hope to arrive, though.’

‘It was you who survived the Regatta? Oh my,’ Mrs Hunter’s voice rose, ‘how exciting! Freddy, Miss Penney shall be our lucky charm. No one has ever gone down twice! You must wish very much to visit your relations. What are their names? Perhaps we are acquainted.’

Myself, I would have concocted a name, but before I could answer, Robert cut in, unable to bear it any longer.

‘Mary will marry in India,’ he barked, staring pointedly at Mrs Hunter. ‘There is no more to tell.’

My cheeks burned with discomfort and quickly the Hunters excused themselves and hurried out of the front door. Such rudeness was entirely unnecessary and I rounded on Robert as the door closed behind them.

‘Did you think I would be able to embarrass you halfway across the world?’ I snapped, though in truth I pitied him. The poor man would never be free of himself. He pushed me forward a little to escort me upstairs, past the trunks that were now piled on the landing—ours and the Hunters’. He could scarcely wait to stow me away.

‘I have enough to think of, Mary. You and your bastard child are the least of my worries.’

That settled it—I had had enough. Incensed, I turned on him and as I did I saw a cricket bat piled up among Mr Hunter’s things. I grabbed it.

‘How dare you?’ I raised the bat, furiously swiping as hard as I could. ‘You pompous, self-important, short-sighted fool!’ I lost my temper.

Robert backed downstairs, away from my blows and nonchalantly and with his hackles down, easily wrestled the bat from my hands, tripping me up so that I landed with a thump on the thin carpet. The man was all muscle. My blood boiled even further.

‘You must rest, Mary. You leave tomorrow,’ he said coolly to dismiss me.

I scrambled to my feet and, disarmed and furious, I ran to the first room, slamming the door behind me. There were tears in my eyes. I cursed Robert as I sank onto the bed. How dare he? After a minute there was a soft knock at the door. I threw a pillow at it.

‘Go to hell, Robert,’ I said.

I thought he surely must regret behaving so callously but when the door opened it was the ample figure of Mrs Gordon that entered.

‘Now,’ she said, her tone comforting and motherly, ‘here is some arnica cream, Miss Penney. My guess is that fall will leave a fine bruise.’

‘Thank you,’ I sniffed.

Jane had picked our lodgings well. Mrs Gordon’s kindness only provoked me to cry more. I was in a torment of anger and humiliation. I felt like hammering the mattress with my fists.

‘Some polka you danced there with your brother,’ Mrs Gordon remarked. ‘I keep an orderly establishment as a rule. But,’ she smirked, ‘the look on his face when you took up that bat has me inclined to allow you to stay the night.’

I had no idea we had been seen.

‘I am glad to be gone tomorrow,’ I snivelled.

Mrs Gordon nodded. ‘Perhaps I will see to it that you have dinner in your room. I shall send the girl with a tray at seven.’

‘Thank you,’ I sniffed as she helped me unhook myself and I smoothed on the cream.

That night I dreamt of my dressing room at the theatre. I was drawn back vividly to everything I was leaving behind. I could smell the jars of rouge. The broken handle on my dressing table had not been fixed. There was a door in the corner that led to dark rooms, new places beyond the scope of backstage. There were fur rugs and long benches padded with comfortable cushions, and the wax had burnt very low so the flames flickered, lending the dimmest glow to the endless labyrinth of windowless rooms. The place had the air of a funfair with a dark helter skelter in one corner and a Punch and Judy show too. And somewhere I knew there was a baby, but I could not find him. I dreamt of myself wandering, tormented, searching and moving on. Leaving Henry had disturbed me.

When I woke after this restless sleep it was already light. I shook off my misgivings and dressed for breakfast. Downstairs, Robert was just finishing. He drained his glass. I wished him a good morning and slipped uncomfortably into a seat. It transpired that the Hunters had gone to church early. St Peter’s held special services for travellers about to embark and my shipmates were, it seemed, of a pious disposition. It would be awkward now but I would do my best to befriend them once we were underway. It was a long voyage, after all.

In silence, I sipped some cocoa and nibbled on a slice of bread. Outside the little window the weather was perfect for getting off. The dockside was bustling with activity, ships loading last-minute supplies and sailors turning out of the waterside inns, some drunker than others. Robert paid our bill.

‘I will escort you to the Filigree,’ he said. ‘I promised Jane I would make sure you were safely aboard. I have sent the luggage.’

I felt like a schoolgirl, but there was no point in arguing.

‘Lead on,’ I replied, falling into step along the cobbles of the sea front. I told myself it would be fine. I was set to try. Perhaps India would be wonderful and I would lead a life of exotic adventure in the Raj. Shortly, we came to a halt at the ship, right under the name, emblazoned in white above our heads. Robert gave me my passage money. I squared up to him and held out my hand.

‘I know you only want rid of me. You might not believe it but I wish you the best, Robert. Come home safe and wealthy from your adventures.’

Robert peered at my hand and then reached out to take it.

‘Goodbye, Mary,’ he said. ‘It seems unlikely we will meet again.’

He did not stay to watch me up the gangplank. I held the railing studiously. William’s money had secured a more expensive passage for me this time. The ship was bigger than the Regatta and well finished. Mostly she was laid out to cabins. Up the other gangplank they were loading boxes and casks—the final supplies for the voyage. I stood at the top of the plank and with some satisfaction, my gaze followed the figure of Robert as he made his way towards the Braganza and disappeared into the throng of bobbing heads.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘at least I am on my own reconnaissance now. I shall find my cabin.’

I drew myself up and turned to face the deck, and my future.

This resolve, however, did not last me thirty seconds for I had no sooner moved than Mr Hunter appeared from a doorway near the poop deck.

‘Miss Penney,’ he greeted me curtly.

I nodded back, at a loss how to explain Robert’s poor behaviour the day before. Mr Hunter, however, showed no sign of discomfort at all.

‘I have come to check our cabin. Clara will follow me shortly. Perhaps I could help you to yours?’ He took my arm.

For one moment I thought perhaps it would be fine, and then my blood ran cold as Mr Hunter placed his free hand on my waist, coming too near to whisper:

‘I realised last night that your face was familiar. No one on this ship or indeed in Calcutta need know, Miss Penney, of your particular talents or your misfortune.’

I pulled back. Would I never be free of the reputation afforded me in those damn scandal sheets?

‘We can come to some arrangement, my dear. I did not expect you to be childish.’ The blaggard pushed up against me so that I could smell the tobacco on his skin and the claret on his breath. His contemptible intentions were all too clear.

‘Would Mrs Hunter find it childish?’ I challenged him.

‘A man being married never troubled you before as I understand it.’

‘I can find my own cabin, thank you,’ I retorted and turned away, catching the sneer he gave me, the half-muttered threat under his breath.

‘You don’t have a choice, you harlot.’

Robert, it occurred to me, would probably agree with him. For that matter so would William. I was fair game.

But there on the deck, quite suddenly I found that I did have a choice. I did not have the choice I wanted, of course, but that was by the by. In a flash I realised that if I was to be labelled with my shame and preyed upon wherever I went, then why should I go anywhere? Especially not on William’s say-so or indeed, Robert’s. Damn them all, why should I do what they say? It was for Henry’s welfare, certainly, but then who was to know if I didn’t embark? Who was to berate me or penalise him? In fact, the only thing that mattered was that William wouldn’t find out. Robert would be gone, I reasoned. Jane hardly left the house and certainly never went as far as Drury Lane. I had lost my family whether I went to Calcutta or not and I was never expected to return. I had tried to come back and it had not worked out as I had hoped. Now I might as well make myself happy, or as happy as I could be. I would not be subjected to Mr Hunter’s odious desires. Why should I?

Once the idea presented itself I was taken. My heart fluttering with anticipation, I climbed the steps to the poop deck without a word, leaving Mr Hunter behind me. Above, the captain was not at his post but the first officer presented himself. I had made the decision.

‘Take my trunk off,’ I said. ‘I will not be sailing today.’

‘But Miss Penney, your passage is part-paid. We cannot wait for you.’

‘I am not going,’ I said very definitely. ‘Keep the money.’

Mr Hunter had left the deck when we came back down. No doubt he thought he had the whole voyage to prowl me. I watched as my trunk was carried off and I paid tuppence to have it taken back to Mrs Gordon’s. A plan was taking shape, even as I walked away from the Filigree and all my good intentions. I could pitch up in London and use a different name. I had always wanted to be named Georgiana. The more I thought of it, the better it seemed. Would William even recognise me, I wondered, if I changed my name and my appearance? Dyed my hair darker with the walnut, plucked my eyebrows thin and wore an old-fashioned mole? I would disappear into the world of London’s theatres. Better for me to stay in England surely, than go to Calcutta. Why should I be banished when I was not the one who had broken my word? I had tried what they wanted, now I would make my own way and best of all they never need know.

Fired up, I cut along the dock, avoiding the Braganza, and walked uphill towards Mrs Gordon’s. With luck I could take the public coach back to London the following morning and have, if not everything, at least some chance of happiness. I would be in Shaftesbury Avenue in time for the evening shows. I still had friends there, people I could call on easily and who would welcome me back with a role if I wanted it. They would keep my secret, I knew, for Drury Lane is full of confidences and cover-ups and its residents are adept at their workings. Quite suddenly I felt exhilarated. I had been so cooped up that even walking alone along the narrow streets was an adventure and now here I was unexpectedly at the start of a new career. Another twist in my life prompted by a damn blaggard, I reflected, but still this felt good.

‘I shall call myself Georgiana Grace,’ I decided. It had a ring to it. Oh, yes, I would dine well at Mrs Gordon’s house and, better still, I’d play Rosalind yet.

I rapped on Mrs Gordon’s door and the maid answered. The trunk had followed me up and was now deposited in the otherwise empty hallway. Mrs Gordon hurried down from her chamber and I made my requests, checked the Hunters were now gone and, paying one night’s lodgings, I settled by the fire with a bottle of burgundy to myself, a plate of cheese and some bread.

‘I do not wish to be disturbed,’ I said and Mrs Gordon asked me no questions. It occurred to me in any case that she was the kind of person who knew the answer before the question was posed.

‘The London coach leaves at nine tomorrow. I’ll have the maid rouse you with time to spare,’ she said.

I ate, read and daydreamed. I thought perhaps that after some months had passed I might manage to see Henry in the park. I could walk there when Nanny Charlotte was sure to be taking the children out and I could keep my distance, but watch him nonetheless—see him grow up a little. The loss of Henry was at the heart of me and while I knew I would never see my sister again—that simply was not possible—perhaps, I hoped, I might be able to keep an eye on my son. The more I thought of it the more I liked my plan. At length the Filigree sailed and when it was gone, and I could no longer change my mind, I felt freedom beyond measure and I decided to take an afternoon stroll. The weather was fine and I was eager. I pulled on my gloves, checked my hat in the glass and set out to work up an appetite for my evening meal.

I wonder often what might have happened had I not left Mrs Gordon’s that afternoon. I wonder what might have happened had the Braganza set sail an hour or two before she did. For I had made my decision to disappear and it was not in my mind that Robert, of course, was still in Portsmouth. In fact, I was not thinking of Robert at all and, while I avoided the docks and set out in the opposite direction, I had no thought that he might see me. I expected him to be in his cabin or sitting on deck reading some dull and worthy textbook as he set out to sea.

Robert, however, believing I had gone, had repaired to a public house to celebrate before his ship set off. He was not a drinker as a rule but I expect I had tried him and he had hoped to blow off some steam. The place he had chosen was not a bawdy house. It lay away from the docks on the path I happened upon for my afternoon stroll. It was frequented mostly by naval officers, many of whom followed Robert into the street when he spotted me through one of the small windows and dashed outside in rage and disbelief. He bellowed my name so loudly it echoed.

I froze and so did he. Both of us stopped on opposite sides of the narrow street, staring in incredulity and horror at the sight of each other. We hesitated. Then I turned and ran, pelting up the cobblestones, cutting into a muddy alleyway with no thought but to flee, blood pumping through me so fast that my heart was hammering. Of course, a lady is at a great disadvantage when it comes to a chase and I did not get far.

He caught me roughly and bundled me back down the hill, dragging me most of the way. I could not imagine where he was going, could not make out the furious muttering under his breath. His fingers were gripping my arm so tightly that I thought he would draw blood. People avoided us, stepping out of the way and deliberately not meeting my eyes. I was crying. As we came closer to the port such was Robert’s fury that I feared he was going to throw me over the side and into the stinking, green sea. Instead he clutched me by the shoulders and pushed me aboard the Braganza.

I shouted, ‘No, no, no,’ over and over. I cursed him for his hateful snobbery. I shrieked every insult I had kept to myself all the weeks I had been home. ‘You liar! You bastard, Robert Fortune! You are nothing but a Scottish pretender! Even your wife can’t bear to touch you! I’ll embarrass you now, by God! What would Jane say if she could see you like this? You’re a beast and a bully! No gentleman at all!’

Robert did not reply. He bundled me across the deck and flung me through the door of his cabin, slamming it shut and turning the key before I could round on him. I sank to my knees, pulling the clothes off the bed, flinging papers, scattering his precious tobacco on the bare floor. I wanted to rip everything apart, to smash my way through the thick, wooden walls and destroy everything.

‘Let me out,’ I screamed, hammering so hard my palms hurt. ‘Let me out! You have no right, Robert! No right!’

No one came. As my wrath wore down I lay on the floorboards and cried until at last my tears ran out. I waited a long time, the ship creaking, footsteps passing by the doorway, until at length the sounds of the ship changed, voices were raised and we cast off. Outside the tiny porthole the skyline seemed to move. We were in motion. Robert had clearly decided that if I could not be trusted to leave England alone then he would escort me himself. I could imagine nothing worse.

I sank down onto my knees and for once I prayed. ‘Dear Lord, please,’ I said, ‘not to sea with Robert. Not with Robert. Anything, anything else.’

But as the ship rocked this way and that, setting out from Portsmouth on her long voyage, it seemed that that was exactly what God had in mind.

Chapter Three

Robert and I did not speak for a month. He waited until we were suitably far from shore before he let me out of his cabin. He had it in his consideration, I expect, that I might have jumped ship and swum back had he not left a few miles of open water between England and me.

‘You swine,’ I hissed at him, my voice acid and my heart black, as he led me to my own quarters that first afternoon.

I had never hated anyone as much as I hated Robert then—not even William. If I had had the opportunity I would have cheerfully pushed him overboard but our passage to the cabin newly assigned to me took us nowhere near the fringes of the ship. As it was, my trunk had been fetched from Mrs Gordon’s, a small ship’s cot had been made up for me and from there on, as Robert closed the door, not a word passed between us as we sailed south. My meals arrived from the galley on a wooden tray. Robert dined with the captain and the officers. Everyone avoided me. I had been hauled aboard red-faced and screaming, and I could only guess what Robert had told them.

My isolation made the days and nights both long and lonely. There is little enough to do on a voyage, no privacy outside the dark, wooden cabin and scarcely any space or, indeed, occupation outside your own mind—if no one will speak a civil word to you, that is. I passed Robert frostily on deck every day that first week or two and neither he, the officers or the main body of the crew acknowledged me once. I was a pariah.

At night I had a strange dream, that Henry, his body still that of a baby, but his face as old as his father’s, screamed abuse at me for leaving him behind. As the ship sailed further I felt the lack of him like a hunger—a physical sensation—that woke me often in the night. I had not had this on my last voyage for I had not known the child at all and my mind had been focused on William’s betrayal. Now, I tried not to dwell on these dreams and, during the long days and their endless line of blue outside my porthole, I continued with my Hindustani lessons out of sheer boredom, and read about India’s history and the customs of the Bengali region around Calcutta. Of elephant-headed goddesses and golden temples. Day after day after day, my hours in the dark cabin were punctuated only by a short and uncomfortable stroll along the deck with all eyes upon me. With a sinking sadness I resigned myself to this punishment and to my banishment once more.

One such dreary afternoon, the line of blue at the porthole grew a streak of vibrant, tropical green and, unable to take my eyes from it, I flung open my cabin door to discover we were pulling into dock. I rushed across the deck, excited, halting in my tracks only when I saw Robert standing at the rail, his brown suit buttoned up and cravat in place. As if he sensed my movement he swung round, his blue eyes hard.

‘Is this Tenerife?’ I asked in a breathless rush, quite forgetting my hatred of him in the excitement.

We had stopped here on the Regatta and the ladies had bought trinkets. Robert strode across the deck towards me and almost swept me off my feet with the force of his anger as he pushed me to the side of the steps that led up to the poop deck. I still did not immediately understand what he was doing and I continued to babble.

‘They have parrots here, as I recall,’ I said, pushing back against him. ‘Let me pass, Robert. It is quite a spectacle.’

The crew were all about their business on the deck, securing the sails and making ready. The captain was above us, instructing his officers. I heard a snippet of their orders—a list ofprovisions required and names of the men who were allowed ashore.

‘Robert,’ I started, distracted and enthusiastic still. ‘What are you doing?’

He had taken a thin rope and expertly tied a knot, which he slipped quickly over my left hand and then the right, before I had time to set myself free. Then he tethered me to the post at the foot of the stairs.

‘No. No. I promise,’ I whispered, desperate with embarrassment. ‘I will not jump ship here. Please, Robert, don’t. Please.’

But it was no use. He grunted like an animal about to attack and then he moved off.

‘How could you? How could you?’ I shouted.

My cheeks were burning. My brother-in-law turned, his eyes as sharp as a hawk’s trained on its kill. I knew he was thinking of hauling me back to my cabin if I made a fuss. Damn him. My stomach turned over in fear and a single tear slipped down my cheek as I bowed my head, trying to contain my fury. I did not want to be confined to my cabin for the rest of the trip. I could not have borne it.

‘I will be quiet,’ I said, tight-lipped and unwilling.

It was better at least to stand on deck and see the loading and unloading on the shore. I kept my head high. The whole crew were in good spirits as the stocks of fresh water, fruit, meat and vegetables were replenished.

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ they said, tipping their caps as they passed me, acknowledging my existence for the first time since I came on board.

No one mentioned the rope that bound me or even looked at it and I tried not to dwell on what Robert had done though I was furious with him.

Robert had written to my sister and now at length I saw her name on a packet that was passed down to the dockside. As it passed me by, I felt sad that Jane would know I had been caught trying to get away. She always worried so, as if the spectre of our father might be waiting in the wings to punish any wrongdoing. I did not wish to add my own missive home. I could think of no words that would calm her. Robert, I surmised, would make a better job of that. My apology could wait. Had he told her, by postscript, I wondered, that he had tethered me to the ship? That he had confined me by force? That in a matter of weeks he had struck me, kidnapped me, bound me and bullied me? He had a fire in his belly that belied his bookish existence in London—how could my sister have married such a brute? But then I could not be sure whether Jane would be more horrified by my behaviour in sneaking off the Filigree or her husband’s in press-ganging me to his own voyage.

All in all, I was left for four hours tied to the deck that day in Tenerife. My wrists were as painful as my furious heart as I tried and failed to loosen the bonds. When we sailed away from the port at last, heading back to sea, I watched the yellow houses on the dockside recede until they were only tiny pinpricks on the blue horizon—a final goodbye to all that was even vaguely familiar. The coast of Africa lay ahead.

When Robert came to cut me free my body tightened with fear and anger. God knows what he might do next. I said nothing, only regarded him with clear disdain and held his gaze defiantly as he removed the ropes. Still he did not speak, only stood back to let me return to my cabin.

Over the following week Robert maintained his silence. Whenever I saw him he was tending his plants. Glass cases like huge trunks had been bolted into the deck. He watched over them devotedly, like a child with a fallen fledgling. And they thrived. As the weather became warmer he appeared to relax. He worked without a jacket, or when he was not working he sometimes sat reading. The day he first said something to me it was a week since the ship had pulled out of the Canaries. I had taken to walking the deck for an hour each morning, as there were gulls and jumping fish to watch where we followed the coastline.

‘These Ward’s cases have done well,’ he said as I passed him on my way down the deck.

There was no sign of viciousness in his voice. It was as if we were in the habit of passing our time chattering to each other and this casual comment was not a landmark—he sounded just as he used to in the drawing room at Gilston Road. For a moment I found it difficult to comprehend that Robert had spoken to me at all and I was not sure how best to reply.

‘Ward’s cases,’ Robert repeated, tapping the top of the glass box.

I could see out of the corner of my eye the cabin boy stop coiling rope and silently watch us. The child was the only person on board who routinely acknowledged my presence. He never spoke but always nodded in recognition when I passed him and was often sent to deliver my tray. One time I had offered him a scrap of cloth to bind a cut on his arm, but he had fled from my cabin in terror. It made me wonder what reputation I had been afforded among the crew. Robert sat down on the deck and continued.

‘At first I was troubled by weeds. But what I realised, Mary, is that if unwanted seed can germinate on board so can wanted ones. On the way home I shall try it. I shall embark with bags of seed and arrive with saleable seedlings worth a great deal more.’

He poked his trowel at a bougainvillea plant he had brought on board. The flowers were a beautiful, deep pink. They bloomed in abundance all over the wiry stems. Robert picked one and passed it to me.

‘Robert, you know that you have bullied me half to death,’ I accused him. I was not that easy. ‘And you seem to expect simply to take up normal society. I am angry.’

I held the flower in my hand.

‘Yes,’ he said, a slight tremor in his voice. ‘I am angry too, Mary. You lied. You did not keep our agreement. But we are beyond Europe and there is no point in argument now and every point in coming to terms.’

‘No apology then,’ I suggested.

Robert’s body became tense at once and he leant forward, his voice too low for anyone else to hear. I think he wanted to strike me, but he was holding himself back.

‘And did you apologise? You are headstrong, Mary Penney. You simply do whatever you please. I took in your son for Jane’s sake but that lodging did not come free of charge. If you leave he will be recognised a Duke’s grandson, one day a Duke’s son, too, with a title of his own. Don’t you want that for him? For us all? And I catch you in Portsmouth and your ship has sailed. Come now.’

I bit my tongue but I am sure my eyes flashed with fury.

‘Think on it,’ he said. ‘I have done what’s best for the boy.’

And he returned to his work as I stalked away. He had a point, of course, God damn him. I knew he did.

In my cabin, I placed Robert’s flower in a tiny glass of water on my bedside table. It was the brightest thing I owned by far.

That night, after dinner, I took my life in my hands and crossed the deck to Robert’s cabin. The weather had become hotter and I was uncomfortable despite the breeze. My only sleeveless gown was of a pale eau de nil tulle. I coiled my hair in the French style to keep it off my shoulders. I had come to try for a peace. Some kind of resolution. Robert was right—there was no point in quarrelling so far from home though it was difficult to quell the anger in me. I paused a moment, took a deep breath and then knocked.

‘Come in.’

Inside, lit by two oil lamps, Robert was surrounded by his books. He stuck stringently to his suits the whole voyage and was still wearing evening dress, having dined earlier with the captain. His face was dark from the sun and lines of paler skin showed at his wrists. If he was surprised to see me he showed no sign of it.

‘Mary,’ he said. ‘Can I offer you…’he gestured towards a decanter on the side table.

I shook my head.

‘Robert,’ I started with my heart pounding, ‘I have come to ask you, where am I heading? You have kidnapped me and I don’t have a clue of your plans.’

‘I had no choice, Mary,’ he started his defence.

My fingers quivered. I did not intend to fight with him—that would not get me what I wanted and I knew now that he would simply force me to do whatever he decided was best. Straining against my instincts, I stepped further into the room and shut the door behind me.

‘You were probably right,’ I conceded. ‘I had promised to leave. Only that fellow Hunter recognised me. He threatened me and I walked off the ship. He wanted…relations I was not prepared to accord. And now, Robert, I merely want to know where I am going and when I might get there.’

Robert shifted uncomfortably before he replied.

‘Oh, Mary. I had no idea that man had…’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said miserably. ‘You are right in that I intended to stay in England and I should not have done so.’

I waited momentarily and Robert nodded, clearly deciding that I was at least rational.

‘The captain’s plan is to dock somewhere on the western side of the Indian continent but he told me he must consider weather conditions to the other side of Africa before he can be sure.’ Robert jerked his head to the left indicating the general direction of the land mass. ‘It is only then he will make his judgement where we will port.’

‘Will you leave me there?’ I asked plainly.

My hands were still quivering.

‘We are bound for Hong Kong,’ he said quietly. ‘I have paid your passage.’

The truth was, of course, that Robert did not trust me to stay in India. I can hardly blame him. Shortly after we embarked he amended his original plan. He discarded Calcutta and chose to take me somewhere remote that had the advantage of a less regular passage, as well as being a hub for his own voyage. His plan was to use Hong Kong as a rallying point at the end of his trip. He would therefore be able to check on me over time. It made sense now I thought of it.

‘I see,’ I said, hiding my surprise.

‘We have another eleven weeks or so. The current to the other side will bear us more swiftly.’

I hung my head. I knew the currents around the African coastline only too well. I had to be practical and control myself. Robert took my silence for fear.

‘There are no monsoons at this time of year, Mary. I trust Captain Barraclough. He is prudent.’

This half-hearted attempt at comfort annoyed me but I said nothing. I was further and further from London, that was all. At least now I knew.

‘Did you tell Jane that I am here?’

Robert nodded. ‘As briefly as I could,’ he said.

I suppose that was fair of him.

That night I stayed up late. As the humidity increased I found myself keener on the clear, balmy, black skies than the midday swelter. I excused myself from Robert’s cabin and took a turn around the deck. The wide sky was breathtaking, more pinprick stars coming into focus every minute. The only sound was the boat cutting through the water, slapping against the swell. I have always been a night owl rather than a lark. It felt like a very long voyage as we sailed into the inky blackness ahead. I was childish, I suppose, but with tears on my cheeks I surreptitiously snapped the stem of one of Robert’s stupid plants in a silent rebellion. I ripped the bright flower to pieces and threw it over the side.

When we came to cross the equator, the traditional initiation to the Southern Hemisphere was due for anyone who had not passed that way before. The ship was all excitement and the cabin boy—the only person on board who had not been that way before—was nowhere to be found.

On my first voyage it was only the ladies who had not previously crossed the line. The crew showered us with buckets of seawater on deck and we toasted our luck with Madeira. It had been a fête of good spirits. The Braganza’s cabin boy, however, was not treated so kindly—he was found hiding in an empty barrel. They bound his hands with rope and then hauled him over the side. He emerged minutes later, spluttering, bruises appearing on his childish skin and bad cuts where the rope had chafed him. The crew made him drink more than he was able, holding his nose and pouring rum down his throat.

‘Enough of that!’ I said, horrified. ‘Enough. Stop it!’ But no one listened and my voice was lost in the jeers of the horde, while Robert held my arm tightly in his grip as we watched from a distance. I expect he worried that I might fling myself among the sailors and attempt a rescue.

My eyes filled with tears though I knew it was foolish. It had not been so long since I spluttered seawater myself.

‘It’s cruel,’ I said simply. ‘That boy is so young.’

‘Sometimes you are too soft, Mary,’ Robert chided me. ‘I hope you are not going to make a fuss. It will be worse for the lad if you do.’

I let it be though my blood boiled. The life at sea is hard and I did not at that time realise that being half drowned was the least of the child’s worries. Drunk and exhausted they let him fall asleep.

Later that day, alone in my cabin, I put my mind to remembering everything I had heard about Hong Kong. It was an island; I had seen that on the map. And it had not long been British. The London Times had been sceptical when China had handed it over. They said the place was hardly worth taking. The truth was that it sounded even worse than Calcutta—some god-awful backwater full of second-rate pioneers. As I stacked the now useless Indian books in one corner of my trunk, I resolved to ask Robert to let me read some of his books about China because, apart from this scanty impression, a Chinese embroidered shawl the wardrobe mistress used at Drury Lane, and a beautiful lacquered cabinet William had in his London drawing room, I knew not one thing about where we were going.

My bougainvillea was already wilted and I slipped the faded bloom inside a flyleaf to press it as I packed my things away. ‘The colour was bound to dampen down,’ I thought sadly and wondered if Hong Kong might supply as steady a contingent of suitable husbands as had been expected from the Indian colony.

‘Is this the best I can hope for?’ I asked myself but, of course, there was no one to reply.

There was still a long way to travel. Even by the time we had reached the Cape of Africa we had not yet covered half the miles. It felt as if I had spent a whole year at sea. When we encountered the storm it scared me more than I expected. Thankfully, my voyage home through these waters had been uneventful, the variety of weather limited. This time the sea reared mountainously and we were closeted below decks. The petty officer escorted us to the hold. The ship was keeling so hard that it was difficult to remain on the wooden bench, though it was bolted to the floor.

‘You will not lock us in,’ I begged.

The officer did not answer me. He directed his comments to Robert.

‘Stay below decks,’ he said. ‘It is safer. Some will be swept away in this.’

Then he fastened his greatcoat and left.

We were below for hours as the weather raged. The winds were high, the water towering exactly as it had the day the Regatta went down. Robert paced up and down, worried only about his Ward’s cases, while every tiny creak had my heart pounding as I waited for the ship to split in two. This time would I be lucky enough to be driven towards the shore or would I be swept further south to the open ocean? Robert hardly noticed my anxiety, such was his concern for his plants. He muttered under his breath about the ropes holding the canvas covers he had fitted in place. He worried about how low the temperature might drop or if the cases would flood. He had no sense of our mortal danger at all. From time to time a sodden deckhand passed and sent up another man to relieve him.

At last, after several hours, Robert could not bear the uncertainty. Despite the petty officer’s warning he pulled on his coat and went to check the damage. The ship pitched and rolled. The storm had not abated. I thought longingly of home. Not London, but my childhood home. I admit, it crossed my mind that should Robert be swept away I would return there. When he did come back I could see he had properly realised our peril. He was drenched to the skin, his pink flesh icy and a cut on his leg.

‘One case has smashed,’ he reported, indicating the bloody slit. He must have fallen against the broken glass. ‘The one with the bougainvillea,’ he said absentmindedly, for the plants were less important to him now he had seen the height of the storm.

At that moment there was a loud crash above us as some part of the rigging came free on deck. I screamed, my whole body taut, waiting for the force of the water to smash everything and toss us away. Robert placed a hand on each of my shoulders and shook me.

‘Stay calm, Mary,’ he directed sharply.

At first I could not speak for terror. Then I found my voice.

‘This is how it happened before,’ I said, trying to explain, ‘the ship split. That noise…’

Robert cut me off. ‘Your panic serves no one.’

‘Those who have not been stung will not fear a bee the same as those who have,’ I retorted.

He really was hardly human sometimes.

Robert took his handkerchief from his pocket and bound his wound. He took a draught from his hip flask and offered it to me. I shook my head.

‘Go on, Mary. It will help,’ he said.

I took it but did not thank him. The man was unbearable but his brandy warmed me. I could feel myself flush.

‘I know you want sympathy. But my sympathy will do you no good, Mary. We have to do our best if Captain Barraclough does not succeed in riding the storm. If we will die, we will die.’

I snorted, handing back his flask. The brandy instantly made me drowsy. I have never been one for spirits on an empty stomach and now I sank down on my knees. Low to the boards I was rocked by the movement of the ship without fearing I might fall, and, despite all my apprehensions, the lateness of the hour prevailed, exhaustion overtook me and I drifted fretfully to sleep.

When I awoke the ship was steady and Robert was gone.

‘We are safe,’ I breathed and climbed the wooden ladder onto the deck.

The sky was clear as far as I could see. It was as if there had been no storm at all. As I emerged into the scorching heat Robert was salvaging battered plants from the end case. The bougainvillea petals were smeared over the shattered glass, the soil soupy with seawater.

‘Help me, Mary,’ he directed.

My fury stung me. It was clear these stupid plants meant more to Robert than I or anyone else. I could not forgive the fact that his first comments did not concern the welfare of the crew or our good fortune in surviving the storm. I surveyed the battered plants with no pity.

‘If they will die, they will die,’ I pointed out and swept past him back to my cabin.

I was not allowed ashore at the Cape although Robert must have trusted me more by then because I was at least allowed my freedom. I sat on deck under a makeshift parasol and watched the supplies being loaded. Bare-chested men with gleaming ebony skin carried boughs of fruit on board. They brought sacks of cornmeal and barrels of palm oil on their heads while I fanned myself regally with an ostrich feather, which I had bought leaning over the side and bartering in sign language with an old Indian man on the dock who seemed fascinated by the whiteness of my arms. While the loading of the ship diverted me, I admit that the views above the bay held my attention more. The flat mountain and the verdant countryside were entrancing. I found it difficult to harbour a grudge in such a setting.

Robert repaired his case and restocked it. He chose grape vines that were delivered in terracotta pots and slotted into the empty spaces under the newly puttied glass.

‘Perhaps,’ he hazarded, ‘we shall start a vineyard or two in China. They make rice wine, you know. And five grain spirit. Now they can try a hand at a decent claret.’

This amused the captain, who had come to stand with us as Robert bedded down the vines and soaked them well.

‘Are you recovered from the storm, madam? My petty officer tells me you were distressed,’ he said.

Before I could answer this Robert stood upright.

‘My sister is now quite recovered,’ he said as if this should end the matter.

Captain Barraclough, however, persisted. ‘I can imagine how frightening such an experience must be for a lady.’

‘Tell me,’ I asked, ‘are the crew all right? Did anyone…’

The captain nodded. ‘All present. One man hurt an arm when the rigging snapped but everyone was held fast with rope. No one overboard.’

At this news my eyes filled with tears, a vision of those long past, another crew, another captain. Barraclough looked concerned.

‘I was on the Regatta,’ I said simply.

Robert looked furious at my admitting this but Barraclough’s face softened into understanding. He evidently thought that here he had found the reason for my behaviour when I boarded ship.

‘I knew James Norman,’ he said, naming the captain.

There was a moment’s silence. I could think of nothing more to say. Then Barraclough bowed, having evidently decided I was not mad after all.

‘Will you do me the honour tonight of dining with myself and my officers?’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘I will.’

When the captain turned back towards the poop deck, I waited for Robert to reprove me. Instead he surveyed his planting.

‘I will say nothing to cause you embarrassment,’ I promised.

‘I suppose ‘tis well enough,’ Robert nodded curtly.

That evening, like a debutante, I enjoyed dressing for dinner. I put on my finest dress and piled my hair into a bun with trailing wisps. For scent I chose lavender oil with a touch of violet. I pinched my cheeks ferociously to heighten my complexion and gazed at myself in the tiny glass with pride. To enter society again was exhilarating. I blew myself a kiss.

The tales I had heard of high jinx and drunkenness in the captain’s cabin aboard British ships proved unfounded that night. Barraclough and his two officers, Matthews and Llewelyn, were easy company and civil. All had been to China before and were patient as I quizzed them about our destination while the very cream of our replenished supplies were served—a side of boar and some exotic fruits I had never tasted before, which were as honey in their sweetness. As the salty night air seeped into the candlelit room I simply felt happy to have conversation and company. No one mentioned the storm or my time on the Regatta and I was grateful for that.

‘The highlight of London on my last visit,’ Llewelyn admitted, ‘was Hamlet with Mr Charles Kean.’

Barraclough smiled indulgently. ‘Llewelyn is one of our artistic officers,’ he explained. ‘He takes drama very seriously.’

‘I know the production. So tell me, sir,’ I ventured, ‘how did you find the tights?’

Llewelyn shrugged his shoulders. ‘Tights, madam?’

‘Why yes. It was the chap playing Horatio. For you know, Hamlet—that is Mr Kean—is a most exacting gentleman and the young fellow, at the Royal for the first time as it would happen, lost the dark tights that were provided for his role. His “mourning garb”. He scrabbled about everywhere but could find no replacement save a scarlet pair, that were rather patched. For Horatio? Can you imagine? Knowing that each of Horatio’s scenes are played with Hamlet and that Mr Kean would not let such slovenliness pass, he visited the great man’s dressing room to explain and receive permission to wear the scarlet hose until a replacement could be procured. “Ah,” said Mr Kean when he heard the story, “I will forgive you, but” and here the great man pointed skywards, “will you be forgiven there?”

‘Actors!’ I declared as the men laughed. ‘They do take the whole business rather seriously, don’t you think? Did you as much as notice the famous tights, Mr Llewelyn? That’s what I want to know.’

Robert cut in, of course, as soon as the laughter subsided. ‘I shall tell you the story of the cultivation of the potato now,’ he announced and diverted the attention away from me just as the cheese came to the table.

Although I sighed inwardly, I do admit that the details of his tale did appear more interesting somehow at sea than they ever had in the drawing room at Gilston Road.

When the ship’s bell struck ten Robert walked me to my cabin door and bid me goodnight.

‘I enjoyed myself,’ I said. ‘Thank you for letting me attend.’

In my cabin, alone again as I pulled off my gloves and considered getting ready for bed, I heard a footstep on the corridor. I waited a moment or two as it receded and then checked the door. At the footplate Robert had left two books. One was on the subject of the Han Dynasty, the other an examination of Chinese porcelain production. I took them in greedily and flicked through the pages. It was difficult to sleep in the heat. Even in the dead of night it was humid and uncomfortable. I often read until my eyes were dry with tiredness. It was comforting that this gift meant Robert was set to forgive me a little and was entering into the spirit of the peace pact I had hoped for.

In the second tome a detail caught my eye—an unusual china plate with a star pattern. At dinner the captain had mentioned how different the stars were when he viewed them from the south and I thought to show him what I had found. Perhaps he might be able to identify the stars in the illustration. We had a long way to go together. I grabbed the book and left my cabin once more.

In the moonlight I crossed the deck and rapped on the captain’s door, not waiting for an invitation to enter. I had left him so lately that I still expected there to be company in the room. As it turned out there was. The cabin boy. As the startled child ran past me, a flash of bare flesh and rags, it struck me that he could not be more than twelve years of age. His breeches were not fastened properly and I could smell a grown man’s sweat—the smell of sex on his skin. My blood ran cold.

Barraclough squared up with his shirt tails trailing. He ignored the boy’s flight entirely.

‘Ah, Miss Penney,’ he said. ‘Can I help you in some way?’

I am no prude and no innocent either. I know of such things. Unlike Jane, I have moved in many circles and some are circles of the night, of gambling dens and seedy brothels, of smooth young boys and richer men. There were reasons Robert did not wish me to admit to my life in Shaftesbury Avenue, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Talent might not be thoroughly unrespectable but some of the places it can take you are. This child had been tampered with. I thought of the bruises I had seen on his arms and legs over the weeks, his treatment at the equator, the way he had fled from me when I offered to bind his wound and now this. Barraclough was despicable. Had he done this every night of the voyage? Had he dismissed the company he entertained at dinner in order to terrorise this child? And if I accused him openly what might he do? Buggery is no mild offence. At home they hang you. For the captain, the stakes could rise no higher. I did not want to corner him and make him fight. I only wanted to save the boy if I could.

‘It is nothing. It doesn’t matter,’ I said and left at once.

The child was nowhere to be seen. I ducked inside my cabin with my mind racing. My only point of appeal for injustice was to the captain. On the water they are as kings. I thought of telling Robert. I almost did but the captain was the captain and Robert cared for no one.

The next morning I approached the child on deck at his duties. He was afraid and lashed out at me.

‘Go away!’ he hissed.

‘What is your name?’ I tried.

He regarded me plainly.

‘I am Mary,’ I said.

He hunched his shoulders, clearly calculating whether talking to me could cause him any harm.

‘Simon,’ he said. ‘I am Simon Rose. Please leave me alone, Miss. They will beat me.’

No child should have to endure such wickedness but on board there was little I could do. I resolved, however, to take whatever action I could think of. When the invitation came to join the captain’s table that night I declined. I declined every night from then on.

Perhaps a week later, Barraclough passed me as I strolled on the deck. He tipped his hat. ‘We miss your company, madam,’ he said.

‘Manners maketh not the man,’ I replied, gliding on. ‘I have seen what you have done.’

He did not answer and kept away from me then.

‘Lord, Mary,’ said Robert, some time later, when he realised finally that I was avoiding the captain. ‘You are never at ease. What fuss is it you are making now?’

I almost rebutted him. I almost told him, but it would have done no good. He was not a person who cared for cabin boys and servants, actresses or illegitimate sons. I had no more power to help the child than my sister had had to help me. I offered what little I could but the child would not accept even a scrap of food from me (for I tried that) or the whispered offer that he might, if he wished, sleep outside my door for protection.

When Robert later wrote the memoir of his travels he did not dwell on the voyage. He said, I think, that his passage of four months to Hong Kong was ‘uneventful’. After all, of more interest to his readers were his wanderings in China, the allure of the East and the plants he found there, along with some account of the people. The book sold well. It secured his children’s education and saw Gilston Road polished and repaired, hung with fine curtains hand-embroidered in Soo Chow and fitted out with intricate papers on the walls. I can see Jane pulling her cashmere stole around her, enjoying the spoils. Of course, I was not mentioned—his companion on the uneventful voyage. He did not tell of the storm at the Cape nor mention any of the crew. Those days are unrecorded. The late night games of rummy in my cabin. The night we ate spices off the coast of Alleppey. Or the day Simon Rose’s body was committed to the Indian Ocean, covered in bruises and swaddled in sackcloth, for the child did not even have a hammock to be buried in and had slept on the bare floor.

After that I retired to my cabin for the rest of the voyage, tiresome though it was to be closeted and alone. I read and pondered, thinking often of my baby, wondering about his progress and hoping Nanny Charlotte was right and he was fine. The tiny porthole allowed me to daydream, my eyes on the cloudless sky and my heart in London still. It was a heavy burden. I decided to write to Jane when we got there.

By Hong Kong I was the only person on board who had not been off the ship in eighteen weeks. The air in the bay was dripping with humidity. I put on my most fitted corset for the disembarking, aware that I would be noticed and commented upon. I piled up my hair and wore a hat. The atmosphere was so full of water I noticed every hot, heavy movement, my legs damp with sweat. Still, as the lush, green bay grew closer my heart pounded. I looked up at the Peak, making out one or two houses being built.

‘Bamboo scaffolds,’ Robert said delightedly. He had brought up his binoculars. ‘An excellent idea. Ingenious.’

My notice, however, had fallen to the dock, which was coming steadily closer. It teemed with tiny figures despite the fact there were only five other ships in the bay. I took a deep breath or two, as if I were waiting in the wings, and decided that I would try my best. The island looked lush and green and not at all the unpleasant, arid rock I had expected. Perhaps my time in Hong Kong would pass well if only I could make myself amenable. By now I could make out individual faces in the mass of people going about their business. Wide-faced women were selling noodles and hot tea. Coolies with wooden chests balanced on their backs were scurrying from the docked vessels towards the town. And rows of Englishmen in red uniforms wearing pith helmets to protect their flushed faces from the sun were overseeing the activity, checking papers and directing traffic. Back from the main bustle young Chinese girls in brightly-coloured satin dresses lazily eyed the soldiers.

I watched Barraclough disembark, the first to stride down the gangplank and towards the harbour master’s office with his lading papers in hand. I was glad to come down after him and stared icily as Robert shook his hand and we said goodbye. Perhaps Robert did have some notion of what had gone on, for Barraclough was in Hong Kong a week or more and Robert did not invite him to dine.

As we watched our trunks unloaded and waited for the Ward’s cases to be unbolted and brought down, Robert breathed deeply with satisfaction. I crept off to one side, finding my land legs hard to come by. The ground seemed to sway and I felt quite in a haze, as if I had taken a swig of laudanum in the backroom at the theatre as was pleasant from time to time. Along the dock there was a wooden shrine with a cloud of incense around it and I decided to try out the solid ground and make for that. There were two old women there on their knees before it, praying, one whirling a wooden clacker and the other beating on a brass gong. The latter approached me and offered a handful of incense sticks, gesturing for payment. I scrabbled inside my purse for a small coin, which she inspected, shrugged her shoulders and then carefully stowed away. I suppose it is normal to use English coins around the world. The island was ours, after all.

‘Come, come,’ she gestured me forward and then put her hands together to indicate that I should pray at the shrine.

As I came closer I saw there was a figure, roughly hewn from wood, and small pots with tropical flowers beneath gold and red Chinese script. There was so much incense already stuck into piles of sand, I was surprised that the whole thing had not ignited, but I decided that I would light my own anyway as a gesture, foolish perhaps, for my arrival. As the sticks started to smoke I made a wish, concentrating hard on it. Please let us be all right, I prayed, as the fragrant smoke wound like a spell around me. Henry and I. Jane and the children. Let us all do well. And it was only as I walked away from the little temple that I realised I had not included Robert in my thoughts. I had just spent months on end with him and now, two minutes apart, he was the last thing on my mind.

‘A place of adventure, Mary,’ Robert commented stiffly on my return, surveying the dock with obvious delight. ‘And full of adventurous men.’

His plans for me had evidently not been changed in any respect other than location. However, I liked this little city. I bought a cup of green tea from a stall and sipped it. I had become accustomed to the island quickly, enjoying the feel of solid ground. And, as Barraclough strode back up the gangplank to give his directions, I was only vaguely uneasy that perhaps an adventurous man was not what I was truly looking for.

Chapter Four

Robert busied himself with his preparations. There were only three weeks before he was due to sail for the Chinese mainland and leave me behind. In that time he had to engage a guide, sell the plants he had brought with him and make plans for his journey. I was to settle. Given that I liked the island and was most diverted by its delights after the long confinement of the voyage, I found this surprisingly difficult. Banishment is an unpleasant sensation. I continued both angry and frustrated but hid my feelings from all around. The August weather was stifling and without the breeze of the moving ship the humidity sunk me. There had been a malaria outbreak at the barracks at Happy Valley and the town was greatly concerned—hundreds of soldiers had died and there seemed no containing the spread of the disease. Some of the ladies refused to go out at all.

Robert was pragmatic. He had no time for such fancies. Major Vernon, the head of the battalion, visited our lodgings shortly after our arrival. The marshy ground at Happy Valley was conducive to the epidemic and Robert recommended vegetation to counteract its effects. Vernon commenced planting straight away. Thus introduced to the British community as an expert and a welcome addition to their ranks, Robert’s now-forsaken job at the Royal Society made him friends easily and he visited someone new every day. He brought plant cuttings for the enthusiasts and snippets of news about London—changes to familiar streets, accounts of mutual acquaintances and detailed descriptions of new planting in Kew Gardens, Hyde Park and Chelsea. It seemed such was the excitement of receiving fresh news that most people were prepared to disregard the danger of us contaminating them. Nor did Robert consider that our new acquaintances might contaminate us. The contact was too valuable.

His new friends helped him plan his journey, poring over maps for hours, telling of the dangers in taking on the mandarins, who were the ruling class in the interior, and volunteering letters of recommendation to the few European missionaries living inside. China’s borders were closed to white men. Only five of her ports had any kind of British community and those had only become official since we won the war the year before. The ports supported British trade in the region, but the Chinese were hostile and resentful of our victory and the enforced terms we had imposed. We made them buy our Indian opium but the Emperor had banned his people from taking the drug as he considered it dangerous. I had seen what opium could do—there were dens in the West End, I knew, where some chased the dragon to the detriment of everything else. But then there were those who could not rise without their shot of brandy either. Some people will fall victim to anything for it is in their nature, but that is no reason, to my mind, to ban a drug outright. Such extremes are a far cry from the laudanum that I and my friends sometimes relied on for a touch of comfort. Why, even Jane used the tincture from time to time, when she had the cramp and the apothecary recommended a grain or two. The Emperor’s stance seemed some kind of hysterical reaction to me.

Of greater threat to his empire, as far as I could see, was Robert’s mission. Tea was China’s greatest export and the Emperor’s men guarded the tea plants and the secrets of their production carefully. In this venture my brother-in-law was taking his life in his hands—the Chinese would kill him and his entourage if they knew what he was up to. In Hong Kong, however, everyone rallied to the pluck of Robert’s expedition and in the fine mansions on the slopes of the Peak all appeared to have one or two scraps of information about the interior that were invaluable in planning the trip. It would have been difficult to continue without such help and people were extremely generous.

I was invited on all these visits. I expect Robert was keen to present me as much as he could to maximise my chances of finding employment and also to establish me so I was less likely to leave.

‘My wife’s sister has decided to settle here,’ he would say. ‘Might I ask you to keep an eye to her interests while I am gone? No, no she is Miss Penney. Quite unmarried. For the time being in any case.’

Had my skin not been swollen pink and puffy with the heat I am sure it would have crawled with discomfort, but his words washed over me as if the opium that had won us the island was embedded in the hot, heavy air. Distracted by the activity that Robert generated in making his plans, it was as if I had simply disappeared.

One afternoon Robert returned to the lodging house with a Chinaman he had engaged down at the bay. The man was underfed and fell upon the bread and tea sent up for him from the kitchen as Robert quizzed him in my presence. In a mixture of Cantonese, which Robert had studied for some months now, and the man’s patchy English, it became clear he was from Hwuy-chow, one of the tea countries Robert had determined to visit. His name was Sing Hoo.

I admit I did not take to Sing Hoo. He had been poorly treated and unlucky in seeking his fortune, that much was clear. But he had a shifty look about him as if he was always sizing up the possibilities. When he finished his tea he tapped the side of the porcelain surreptitiously as if checking its quality. When he realised I had seen this he shifted uncomfortably.

‘The Chinese will not meet a woman’s eye,’ Robert commented sagely for he had not noticed Sing Hoo’s action—only seen my stare and the Chinaman turn his head away.

I said nothing.

Over the following day or two Robert listened to everything Sing Hoo had to say about tea. He had been brought up on a smallholding and had grown tea plants there since his childhood.

‘Can you take me there? Can you show me this?’ Robert asked each time a particular process was detailed.

Interspersed with more general questions of horticultural interest, Robert took copious notes of everything, any detail about the soil, the weather or the farming of the tea plant. When Sing Hoo explained the process of drying the picked leaves, heat levels used or aromas added, Robert drew what he understood—a drying rack or a mixing bowl, and Sing Hoo hooted with laughter, grabbed the drawing paper and amended the sketch.

After two or three days the man lost his hungry look, but my view was still that his eye was to the main chance. When Robert opened his maps and called Sing Hoo to help plan the expedition he became vague and uncooperative. Distrustful, I expect that if he told what he knew he might no longer be needed. Robert’s face showed his frustration as he tried to find details of jurisdictions and journey times, navigating the strange interior at a distance to foresee as much as he could. I knew he was finding ways to send home seeds and plants no matter what might happen to him once he crossed the forbidden boundary into China’s interior.

I passed my time walking out. I felt an affinity with the island. The freedom to wander was most welcome after the confinement of the ship and Hong Kong felt like a vast and exciting half-discovered world—an alien dream that entranced me with its lush greenness. There was plenty to see. Splashes of vibrant colour burst from the foliage—an abundance of fascinating, angular pink, red and orange flowers I did not know the names for. I never asked. I did not want Robert to launch into an explanation that would diminish their exotic magic with details of pollination or water systems.

I liked the calm water of the bay in contrast with the bustling dock. I liked the stacked baskets of chickens and the sheen of the brightly coloured satin displayed in its bales. The toothless ancients outside the little temples fascinated me, their bodies like stick insects, angular and dry as they sat in the shade and begged alms. Dusty-skinned Chinese children hovered nearby their fathers who had fought in the war. There were many missing an arm or a leg and others with scars on their faces where hand-to-hand combat had torn their skin to pieces. Still-eyed, bony and eager they watched me as I passed. Their children, fingers twitching, all set to cut my purse should the chance arise, the bolder ones circling at a safe distance like birds round a fishing boat, ready to swoop. With my heart racing at the thrill of my proximity to something so foreign and dangerous, I hovered only on the fringes of their territory, never entering the fetid shanty town itself. I peered down the narrow, hot streets that ran with stinking, steaming excrement over the beaten earth and came as close as I could. It was like holding an entrancing but venomous snake that might strike at any moment. I was fascinated, but I kept it at arm’s length.

It was on one of my expeditions I encountered Wang. Abandoning my attraction to the shanty for the day, I had decided to hike up the hill to take in the view of the bay. It was a difficult climb with only a muddy pebble track but I was sure it would be worth the effort. The top of the Peak was very high and the outlook undoubtedly spectacular. Robert had gone to the other side of the island to sell some of his plants and had no need for or interest in my company. After lunch I set off with only a flask of boiled water to sustain me.

I started fine. The road was not too steep but as I climbed higher the gradient increased dramatically. I was not a third of the way up when I decided that this was not an expedition for a solitary lady. My boots stung and I was perspiring furiously. I found a large rock to lean against and sipped the water.

‘I had best go down,’ I thought.

I did not want to be beaten by the hill, however, and I resolved to try again another day with more appropriate footwear and stays less closely bound. The view was already opening out. To the west I could see smoke rising from a thousand cooking fires down in the grubby settlement and ant-like figures moving along the makeshift alleyways. Every one of them appeared to carry a parcel of some kind either bound to their backs or carried in front. I would come back, I decided to enjoy this view again, and climb even higher.

The air had been thick all day. Close to the sea my guess was that a refreshing breeze might come off the water, but the weather defied such expectations. We were not in Europe any more. Now, within seconds, a tropical rain shower broke. I pulled myself under a large, flat-leafed tree but it did not afford much protection. My skirt was soaked immediately and I watched horrified as the path I had followed up the hill flooded into a muddy morass and the pebbles that had helped me to keep my foothold became as slippery as polished glass. I had been gone from the lodgings less than an hour. Getting back was going to take far longer.

In the midst of this I saw large branches suddenly thrashing beside the path, as some creature made its way through. I glanced round frantically, calculating where I could run. My first emotion was a reserved relief when it was a man who emerged. His loose trousers and coolie shirt were thoroughly soaked and a brace of dead pigeons was slung over his shoulder. He was as startled to see me as I was to see him. It cannot have been common to come upon a muddy white woman underneath the dripping trees. I backed away, noticing a sheathed knife slung through a scarf of material binding his waist. There was no one around for at least a mile. My breathing became shallow as I contemplated bolting despite the treacherous path ahead.

Then Wang said something in Chinese. I did not understand so he pointed first at me and then down the hill, motioning me to follow. He smiled a brown-toothed grin and did not make for his knife. I weighed it up for a moment and, heart in my hands, I decided to go. Getting down by myself would be too difficult.

Far more slowly than he would have made the journey without me, I am sure, we picked our way through the trees. It was the natural way to descend the slope when it was so wet. Roots bound the earth together and there were branches to hold. But the jungle was very overgrown and if you did not have your bearings it was easy to get lost. Wang led me sure-footedly down. We emerged near the town.

‘Um goi,’ I said. Thank you.

He seemed so competent I doubted he was hungry but he had done me a good turn and I wanted to reward him. I motioned him to come with me this time. Back at the house I could give him a coin or two. Now we were in the city he walked behind, the sodden game still over his shoulder, splashing whenever it hit his body. The pigeons were as effective as sponges.

‘This way,’ I said.

By the time we entered the front door Robert had returned. He strode out of the drawing room in a bad temper.

‘Where in the devil have you been?’ he snapped. ‘Look at you.’

‘This man brought me home through the storm,’ I explained.

Robert fumbled in his pocket, gave Wang a small coin and directed him to the kitchen for some food.

‘I think I shall go up,’ I said.

It was odd Robert had not pushed me for an explanation of where I had been or exacted any kind of punishment—it was not like him when his blood was up. But, as I alighted the first step, I could see the reason. There was a figure in the drawing room. An old man. He inclined his head and came to the door.

‘This the girl?’

Robert nodded.

‘Yes, my sister-in-law, Mary. Rather overtaken by the weather,’ he said.

My stomach turned over so fast my kidneys felt as if they had been hit. Robert was plotting. The old man eyed me avariciously. Even in the heat my fingers drained ice cold.

‘Well, my dear, you have settled upon Hong Kong, then?’ he said. His teeth were yellowing and his thin lips seemed almost blue-grey. He was seventy, this fellow, if he was a day.

‘I must get changed,’ I replied coldly and walked up to my room.

I would rather be a spinster than be sold off, traded in, whatever they might call it. I had lost all my trust after William and the world of love and marriage was no longer somewhere I wished to travel. Marriage carried with it a long list of things I could not, should not do. Some say once you’re married you can do as you please but that isn’t true if you marry someone who wilfully restricts you. You have a great deal less control over a man’s life than he has over yours. I began to look on Robert’s plans for me as if they were some kind of unhealthy obsession on his part. I knew that he had good intentions. He wanted a rich husband to support me. In Hong Kong I must make my living and the pickings for a woman on her own were slim. Robert would leave me with a little money, of course, and I might find a job that would earn a meagre keep, but the drop here if I did not marry was no less than it would have been in London. I tried to ignore this.

Once I had dressed I sneaked down to the kitchen. Wang was still there, eating noodle soup from a bowl. Between ugly, gulped mouthfuls, he asked a question in Cantonese and the maid rebuked him.

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

The girl had good enough English.

‘Stupid man. He ask if you have seen the ship that sails without wind. No such thing.’

‘I have seen it. A steam ship. The Sirius.‘

‘He wants to work on this ship.’

‘Tell him it is in London—a long way from here.’

Wang continued to eat and as my words were relayed he barely stopped long enough to laugh.

‘He come from inland,’ the girl motioned. ‘No good sailor anyway. From Bohea.’

‘Bohea?’ I said gleefully. What a stroke of good luck—this was Robert’s other tea country. The home of black tea.

‘Fetch the master,’ I directed. ‘Bring him now.’

Much to the maid’s displeasure I picked up a spoon and tasted the noodle soup from the pot that still lay hot beside the range. Unlike us, the servants ate exotic fare. There were noodles and dumplings, chickens’ feet and rice. The cook made a plum sauce that was delicious. The plums were delivered fragrant, still ripening on the bough. They smelt enticing. Unlike the mangoes and bamboo shoots, the melons and fresh ginger, they reminded me of home.

‘Fetch him,’ I motioned to her, ignoring her look of disapproval as I took another mouthful.

Robert’s acquaintance had evidently left and Robert had retired to his study. He arrived in the kitchen seconds after the maid had bid him and his eyes lit up when I explained where Wang came from. He was so excited that thankfully he did not mention his friend, rebuke my coldness or tell me, as he had become accustomed to, that I really must play the hostess more. Instead he asked Wang a series of questions that he fired like bullets. Wang answered slowly. He knew how to grow tea and how to dry it. He had made black tea but preferred to drink green. Bohea was hilly and the best way to travel in the province was by sedan chair. By the end of the conversation Robert had engaged Wang for his trip. Like Sing Hoo, despite the obvious dangers, Wang was tempted by the money, and, of course, at first he did not fully understand the import of what Robert was to do. While principally interested in tea, Robert asked general questions about geography and did not concentrate overly on the tea plantations that were his real prize. Neither Wang nor Sing Hoo were to know for some time that Robert had their country’s main export in his sights. Meanwhile the man nodded furiously and beamed whenever Robert spoke, for he had been engaged at a monthly rate two times what he might expect in the normal run of things. His information about Bohea would prove invaluable.

‘Well done, Mary,’ Robert pronounced and disappeared upstairs once more.

Sing Hoo and Wang did not take to each other. From the beginning it was clear they were constitutionally opposed. At first I wondered if the natives of Bohea and Hwuy-chow were generally at odds, like supporters of opposing teams, but this was not the case. The men simply disliked each other on sight. I think their rivalry was not helped by the fact that Robert could not tell them apart. While their facial features and general size was similar, I have to say they were not indistinguishable by any means. Sing Hoo was a good ten years the senior for a start. Robert simply did not appear to see this or any other difference and clearly felt they were unimportant in any case as long as one or the other did his bidding.

The last few days in Hong Kong were punctuated by bickering between the men that degenerated rapidly into sly punches, nips and kicks whenever they could manage.

‘I do not fancy a year’s wanderings with those two,’ I jested to Robert. ‘They will kill each other in a month.’

Robert was unperturbed. ‘Servants,’ he said vaguely, as if the other staff could regularly be seen punching each other and the enmity between the men was perfectly normal.

Supplies for the trip were piled high in the hallway. Robert had procured a gun, a stove, a tent, a trunk of goods for barter as well as Chinese currency. This last was a strange-looking collection of coins that he secreted in the internal pockets of his coat, in the hollow heels of his shoes, in the false bottoms of his travelling trunks, and sewed into the hems of his trousers. The large coins were silver. The smaller, bronze coins were called cash. They had holes through the centre and came strung together.

During his time in Hong Kong Robert had bought goods to be sent home and sold. There were ten inlaid chests, several bales of embroidered fabric, sundry porcelain items and a selection of carved ivory and mother-of-pearl fan sticks. He split this consignment in two and organised transport back to London on separate ships to halve his risk. It would be sold for a profit at auction before he returned and provide Jane with a nest egg.

‘It will be cheaper still in the interior,’ he said gleefully. ‘I shall send more from there. This is only the start.’

I admired Robert’s tenacity and determination in Hong Kong. He had arrived with only an outline plan and had succeeded in filling it in great detail. He organised the trip in the three weeks allotted, set up a line of credit for his export plans and tried his best to see me settled. It was to his mind the honourable thing to do and I was glad that we were settled on friendlier terms than on the Braganza. Sometimes in the evenings we talked nostalgically of England as if we had been away for years rather than months. As if we were friends rather than enemies. I have to admit it was pleasant to have such society once more, albeit with a man I scarcely ever agreed with. We came to an uneasy truce, putting the journey to Hong Kong behind us and, in the face of his departure, I found some real forgiveness within me at last.

Still, it was not all easy. Twice more he brought elderly men to the house to peruse me despite my evident unwillingness to participate in this activity. He mentioned to everyone he met that I required some form of employment. One or two families offered positions teaching English to their young children. Among those brought up by Chinese nursemaids some had started speaking Cantonese more than English. The horrified parents sought to redress the balance. Robert accepted both positions on my behalf. Two visits a week would hardly keep me but it was, he pointed out, ‘necessary to have something, Mary’. The money might, I thought, go at least halfway. The fact I had little interest in other people’s children was neither here nor there. Robert also took lodgings on my behalf and paid six months in advance. The rooms were fine but I could not see how I was going to afford them beyond the allotted time. There was little to employ a lady on the island and if I was going to survive on the longer term I would have to capitulate a very great deal. I wondered how far my credit might extend, given that Robert was set to return and could be relied on to settle my debts. I had no idea how long as a white woman I might last in the shanty, if it came to that, and, if the worst came to the worst, how I was ever to afford my passage back to London if I did not even have enough money to pay rent.

‘Perhaps,’ I said to Robert one evening after dinner, ‘I shall export. I could pick out things myself. I have a good eye. I could charter a ship and send goods to auction in London.’

Robert laughed.

‘But you have done it…’ I started.

Robert held up his hand to prevent any further discussion.

‘You are a woman,’ he said and downed his drink. ‘It is not done.’

He was right. I had a notion that over the several thousand miles I could conceal my identity so the merchant in London would not know. That somehow I would manage it. They would know, of course, in Hong Kong.

‘You may teach,’ said Robert. ‘You may keep books, perhaps. Something will turn up if you are willing.’

‘I could perform,’ I countered.

‘For God’s sake,’ Robert exploded. ‘Will you never stop?’

He had done everything he could. I realised I must have tried him horribly. Robert was fulfilling his lifelong desire to make his fortune. I was far from realising any of my dreams. I told myself that I must keep my eyes open. There had to be something—surely the choice was not between a decrepit husband of advancing years or a bookkeeper’s role.

‘Is this where I am meant to be?’ I thought to myself. A drawing-room lady in a remote colony. A spinster. As good as invisible.

‘What is the point of travelling so far in order to become so small? I am not a teacher, Robert. I am not a convenient wife for some old soul you might meet in planning your excursions. I want to be myself .’

Robert’s face wore an expression as if he had tasted sour milk.

‘Yourself,’ he echoed. ‘There is no place anywhere I know for yourself, Mary. It is pure indulgence.’

‘I like Hong Kong,’ I said.

‘Good, good.’ He was not listening.

‘But I have nothing worthwhile to do here.’

I had written letters to Jane all the way from Cape Town though I had not included the truth about the cabin boy and Barraclough or, for that matter, her husband. Instead they were full of my observations from the deck of the ship, details of exotic and unusual foodstuffs and lively questions about Henry. I had not dispatched one of them. Robert had forwarded a single short missive telling his wife we were well and had arrived thus far. I found myself unable to communicate with my sister, probably for the first time in my life. The truth was that I was afraid, I missed my son and I felt truly lost to the world. I could not tell her any of that.

Robert was, as ever, unperturbed. While brief in his writings to the family, he had regularly furnished a gardening journal with his lengthy observations on the plant life wherever we had docked. These were set to appear monthly in the form of a regular column. It irked him that they would be published out of their proper season but there was nothing he could do. The passage west was as irregular as it had proved eastwards and his words would appear in print whenever they happened to arrive in England. Should my sister wish to see what her husband had been occupied with some five months out of time she need only subscribe to the periodical for his views on exotic blooms, ferns, palms and unusual fruits and vegetables.

It was this that held up Robert’s departure by two days, for he was committed to sending copy and in his rush to prepare for the journey had not done so. Hong Kong had proved a font of horticultural excitement and Robert paced the drawing room as he attempted to edit the weeks’ experiences down to a page or two. Plants were not a subject about which he was naturally abrupt, and he had some difficulty. In the end he settled upon providing material for two columns—one on the subject of Hong Kong’s indigenous flora and fauna and another on the cultivation of imported species. Many of these had been brought recently to the island by our new friends and reared from seed.

I made myself scarce. The prospect of Robert’s departure unsettled me. He would sail to Amoy first, via Namoa. I had traced his route on the map. I knew the flat paper was deceptive. What was a finger or two’s width could take weeks to traverse and once on the mainland the overland route would be arduous. Robert was not set to return to Hong Kong for at least a year and I would be alone. He was the only person in a thousand miles who knew me or had my interests (or so he thought) to heart. I felt hemmed in by my homesickness and fear—the trepidation of not knowing what was to become of me and the sinking feeling that I was between the devil and the deep blue sea. In all likelihood there was no way forward that was in the least appealing. Though Robert and I were settled on friendlier terms, it surprised me now to realise that I was going to miss him. The truth was that I would by far have preferred to stay with my brother-in-law for all his faults than take on any of the ancient worthies he had lined up as my suitors.

I decided to sit in the garden. A long pagoda had been erected on the lawn and it afforded a good deal of shade. I set aside my worries and instead decided to try once more to write to Jane. It was difficult to know what to say but before Robert left I was determined to send her something. There was no option but to square with her what had happened but whenever I sought to write it down I knew my sister’s reaction would be so horror-stricken that I was inhibited. After an hour I had merely three lines.

Dearest Jane

I have arrived in Hong Kong. Here Robert can keep a close eye on me. I have taken a teaching position. The island is lovely although malaria is rife. I am trying hard. My dear, I am so sorry, to have let you down once more. Please forgive me.

I laid down my pen. On the Regatta I had written pages posted home from each port en route. Missives arrived from exotic locations at least twice after my family thought I was drowned. I had committed every thought to paper. Now I felt I had nothing to say. At least, nothing pleasing. I was being abandoned on this rock, left to fare for myself. There were no doubt far fewer single men here than in Calcutta and little employment to speak of. In two days Robert would be gone. I was acutely aware that there was no middle way that was acceptable both to my family and to me. Something would have to give.

That evening we ate at the Governor’s mansion. The hallway was splendid with candles. I wore my shoulder-less evening gown and the sheen of the material came to life in the glow.

‘My dear,’ a lady resplendent in a carved jade necklace that matched her intricate bodice said to me, ‘your brother is leaving. You must be very proud. But will you manage alone?’

I smiled. ‘We each have our adventure,’ I said. ‘He has taken rooms for me but I must find something to do.’

It was not the answer she had expected and I think she did not know what to make of me. I had been supposed to simply say I would miss him but that I would be fine. I had never had an appetite for glossing over such things and I was unsure how to develop one.

We had ten courses for dinner, and afterwards withdrew to hear Miss Pottinger, the Governor’s niece, play the piano. It was a lovely night. The mansion had been ransacked some months before but the insurgence was quelled and every piece of looted finery replaced. Our people in the colonies lived daily with such things. No one seemed to find it alarming.

As his niece stepped down from the piano, Sir Henry rose. ‘Who shall be next?’ he asked. ‘Miss Penney?’

He said this teasingly, no doubt expecting me to blush and giggle—Fortune’s quiet sister-in-law, all set to disappear. However, I rose to his challenge. I was in the humour for it.

‘I cannot play the piano, sir. Certainly not. But I can

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