The Secret Mandarin Read online

  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 edit
ion—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.