Read Online The Secret Mandarin by Sara Sheridan - Free Book Online Page B

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 embroideredshawl 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