Moonflower Madness (30 page)

‘I'm sorry,' Charles said bleakly as he approached her, his boyish face haggard. ‘I shouldn't have spoken to him as I did last night. I had no idea how things stood between you.'

She didn't ask what things he had said to Zachary. She didn't need to. He had told her himself that he had thought she was in love with him. No doubt he had told Zachary the same. Whatever he had said, there had been no need for Zachary to have believed him.

‘It wasn't your fault, Charles,' she said, moved to compassion by his very obvious anguish.

She stood for another moment or so, staring northwards. Zachary and Bucephalus were no longer visible. All that she could see were gently rolling hills and ever denser thickets of woods until, far far away, they merged into the fairytale landscape of Kansu's distant mountains.

The shock which had numbed her nearly beyond all feeling was beginning to ebb. She hugged her arms, wished that she could remain frozen, wishing there was some way she could escape the pain she knew she would now have to live with.

Wondering how on earth she was going to survive it, she turned and began to walk back towards the dying campfire.

‘I shall, of course, look after you,' Charles was saying awkwardly. ‘I know you said you didn't want to marry me, but I still very much want to marry you …'

She bent down to her sleeping-bag, beginning to roll it tightly.

‘… the minute we reach London I'll talk to both Zac's solicitor's and my own, and find out what the position is regarding an annulment or a divorce. It will probably take some time but …'

‘No,' she said gently, standing upright again. ‘When we spoke this morning I was telling you the truth. I love you as a friend, Charles, but I'm not in love with you. And I'm married to Zachary. If he wants an annulment then he will have to put it in hand himself. I am not going to do it for him.'

Her eyes held his gravely, and he understood at last. Deep personal regret swamped him. Despite the ease with which he had overcome his disappointment when he had proposed and she had told him she was married to Zachary, he knew beyond any shadow of doubt that marriage to her would give him life-long happiness. For a few bewildering and turbulent seconds he had thought that such happiness was again within his reach. Now he saw that it was not and never would be.

He picked up his bedding-roll. ‘You'll still allow me to be your friend though, won't you?'

Incredibly, she felt a ghost of a smile touch the corner of her mouth. ‘I'll always think of you as a friend, Charles,' she said truthfully.

He began to kick the remains of the fire and she walked with her bedding-roll and carpet-bag towards Ben.

He hurrumphed in pleasure at her approach, and the frozen feeling which had enabled her to keep her emotions under such super-human control finally deserted her.

As the pony nuzzled her with his head, tears scalded her cheeks. There was no way she could take him with her back to England. He would have to be left with Zachary's bearers in Peng.

‘But you will be well looked after, Ben,' she said thickly, her fingers curling in his mane. ‘And you'll travel to Kansu and be far happier than you were in the Residency stables.'

It was a long time before she felt able to walk him over to where Charles was attempting one-armedly to saddle his horse.

‘Let me help,' she said, wondering how he would have managed to camp by himself if he had failed to catch up with them the previous night.

His equable good-temper had already reasserted itself and he grinned ruefully. ‘Your aunt thought I was a maniac riding north again alone and with an arm in a sling.'

‘For once, my aunt was right.'

There was an echo of her old vitality in her pert rejoinder but he saw with pain that tears were glittering on her eyelashes.

Damning Zachary for being the biggest fool in all Christendom, Charles swung himself with difficulty into his saddle. Perhaps when Zac finally returned to London, he would be able to make him see sense, perhaps there was still a chance that the two people he loved most in all the world could be reunited.

‘I can't ride in my skirt,' she said to him as he waited for her. ‘You carry on and I'll change into my riding breeches and catch you up.'

Knowing that there was more than modesty in her request, and that she wanted to be on her own for a few moments, he nodded acquiescently and nudged his horse into movement.

For the last time she turned and looked northwards. There was no pinprick of movement that could have been Zachary and Bucephalus. Presumably they were in one of the many valleys and gulleys running between the hills.

It was very peaceful. On her right-hand side the Kialing surged glitteringly southwards. On her left, high on the wooded hill-side, the russet-red roof of the pagoda peeped gleamingly above the trees. She remembered the precious, passion-filled moments when they had stood in the twilight before the carved figure of the giant Buddha. She remembered the heat of his lips as they had crushed hers; the spring of his hair as it had curled beneath her palms; the strength and hardness of his body.

From the north a light breeze blew, tugging gently at her hair. She brushed a stray tendril away from her face. She would never forget. Not ever.

She mounted Ben, knowing with an aching heart that she was doing so for the last time, and then she turned him round and began the long, bleak journey south.

They met Zachary's bearers on the shallow stone steps leading to Peng's north gate.

‘Mr Cartwright wants you to take Miss Hollis's pony with you,' Charles said to Tien Tang as they all came to a halt amidst a crush of pedestrians. ‘He isn't a pack mule, so you're not to load him up too heavily.'

‘You're not to load him at all,' Gianetta said fiercely, slipping from the saddle, her eyes stinging as she fought to hold back her tears.

‘It might take you a day or two to catch up with Mr Cartwright,' Charles said, privately wondering if they would ever succeed. ‘He set off at quite a pace this morning.'

‘Is all'ight,' Tien Tang said to him confidently. ‘We follow Kialing. We find him.'

For Ben's sake, Charles hoped they did. He dismounted, tucking Gianetta's bedding-roll under his good arm and picking up her carpet-bag.

‘It's time for us to be on our way,' he said to her gently.

She nodded. They were being jostled on all sides. A pedlar with a yoked pannier of rice-cakes barged between them; a housewife clasping a bulky sack in her arms bustled in his wake.

She slid her arms up and around Ben's neck. ‘Goodbye,' she whispered thickly, ‘Be happy in Kansu.'

The bearers had wasted enough time.

‘We go now,' Tien Tang said impatiently, attaching Ben's rein to that of the mule he was riding. ‘Goodbye. Best wishes to King Edwa'd.'

The string of mules began to clatter away down the shallow stone steps, Ben alongside them.

‘Zac will look after him,' Charles said, offering her the only comfort he could think of.

She nodded. She knew that Ben would be all right. She knew that, when the journey to Kansu was over, Zachary would make sure that he continued to be well cared for. And she knew that she was going to miss him dreadfully.

‘The first thing we must do is acquire a boat,' Charles said as they walked up the remaining steps to the north gate. ‘I know where the town landing-stage is, so that isn't going to be a problem. Lord, but I hate the stink of Chinese towns! You'd think a culture thousands of years old would have devised a decent sewage system by now.'

From the middle of the town they descended to the landing-stage via a series of long, narrow alleyways. There were several junks at anchor and Charles went expertly from one to another, trying to find one that had plenty of room aboard.

‘I'm not gliding down to Chung King amid a pile of rotting cargo,' he had said determinedly, before setting out on his quest. ‘The boat I sailed upriver in was loaded to the gunwales with putrefying fruit.'

The boat he eventually engaged was carrying only a few plump and tidy-looking sacks.

When Gianetta was safely aboard and his horse had also been boarded and carefully tethered, he stretched himself out on the most comfortable sack that he could find.

‘Ah, bliss,' he said, beaming at her with boyish pleasure. ‘This by far the most sensible way to see China.'

‘But it's not the easiest way to pick flowers,' Gianetta said as the boatman galvanised his three-man crew into action and they began to move slowly and surely into the centre of the river.

‘Nonsense,' Charles responded equably, closing his eyes and turning his face up to the heat of the mid-day sun. ‘We can always drop anchor and swim to the shore if we want to pick flowers.'

Gianetta smiled faintly at his idiocy, but the smile didn't reach her eyes. As the boat glided downstream and the town receded, the mission could clearly be seen. Small and white, surrounded by the English flowers Elizabeth so carefully tended, it looked exquisite. She could see the bungalows at the rear, the adjacent church in which, a mere twenty-four hours ago, she had been married; the verandah on which her wedding breakfast had been served.

Zachary's ring was still on her finger. She touched it, her heart aching. It was going to remain there. Even though he didn't consider himself truly married to her, she felt herself to be married to him. She would ask Charles not to deliver Zachary's letter to his solicitor. If Zachary wanted an annulment of their marriage or a divorce, he would have to put it in hand himself when he returned to London. She was not going to do so on his behalf.

The boat drew abreast of the mission. Jung-shou was sweeping the verandah. There was no sign of Elizabeth or Lionel Daly. She remained seated in the prow, not calling out, not waving.

Slowly the distance between the boat and the mission widened. Slowly Jungshou and the flowers and the church grew blurred and indistinct. She remained looking in their direction long after they were no longer distinguishable, her face pale, her eyes bruised dark with misery.

At dusk the boatmen moored to the shore. Within a very short time, rice was being boiled. They all ate together while ducks and herons massed on the river shingle in anticipation of leftovers.

‘What reason will you give your aunt and uncle for returning to England without Zachary?' Charles asked her as the dusk deepened into night.

‘I'll tell them that Zachary thought it would be best if I returned to London and waited for him there.'

Charles nodded. She would not be telling any lies, and he doubted if Sir Arthur and Lady Hollis would find it strange that she was not accompanying her husband into such a remote region as Kansu.

‘I don't know about you, but I'm ready for bed,' he said, as the boatmen gathered in a circle at the stern of the boat and, squatting down, began to roll dice.

‘Do we sleep on the boat or on the shore?'

‘On the boat.' He pushed himself up from the sack on which he was still comfortably sprawled and went in search of their bedding-rolls.

When he returned with them, he spread them out on the cramped deck space.

‘Sorry about the close proximity,' he said a little awkwardly. ‘There's nothing else for it, I'm afraid.'

‘It's all right,' she said truthfully. ‘I shall be glad to know that you're nearby, and I won't cause any embarrassment by undressing. I'm growing quite accustomed to sleeping in my clothes.'

His teeth flashed in the darkness as he gave her a broad grin. ‘Me too. Thank the Lord we'll be able to have a decent bath when we reach the Residency.'

The Residency. Her thoughts had been too full of Zachary for her to have thought yet about her impending arrival in Chung King. She squeezed into her bedding-roll and lay looking up at the stars. Her uncle would not yet have arrived there. When he did, she would be so hard on his heels that she would arrive before he had time to depart for Shanghai with her aunt and Serena.

A ray of warmth touched her heart. She and Serena would be reunited. She would be able to travel to Shanghai with her, and she would be able to be her matron-of-honour when she married Henry Plaxtol.

Charles wriggled with difficulty into his bedding-roll, hampered by his injured arm.

‘Goodnight, God bless,' he said with deep affection when he had eventually made himself comfortable.

A small smile touched the corners of her mouth. Their easy camaraderie had become almost fraternal.

‘Goodnight,' she said, grateful for his friendship and his nearness. ‘Sleep well.'

Within a very short time, Charles's breathing deepened and he began to give an occasional snore. From the stern there came the sound of dice being rolled across the deck.

Tired as she was, Gianetta remained awake, wondering if she would be able to travel to England with Serena and Henry, or if they would be honeymooning in China before sailing home. If they were, then she would travel with Charles. She knew that her aunt and uncle would be appalled by such an arrangement, and didn't care. She was a married woman now and, as such, she could make her own decisions.

Her heart hurt as she thought of Zachary. She had been so sure that he had fallen as suddenly and as violently in love with her as she had with him, and she had been so very wrong.

She wondered where he was sleeping; if he was again by the banks of the Kialing; if his bearers had managed to catch up with him and if Ben was again tethered near to Bucephalus.

At the stern end of the boat the dice fell silent, Charles's snoring became more deeply rhythmical and finally, more emotionally exhausted than she had ever been in her life, she fell into a troubled sleep.

When she woke, the boat was already under sail.

‘Breakfast is served,' Charles said to her with a grin, proffering a bowl of dried apricots. ‘The sooner you rise and shine and we pack the bedding-rolls away, the better. The skipper tells me we'll be reaching the first of the rapids quite soon.‘