My Splendid Concubine (5 page)

Ningpo was about fifty miles to the south. Shanghai was a bit fa
rther to the north. If you sailed west into the bay, you eventually reached the city of Hangzhou. Robert recalled a conversation he and Guan-jiah had. It took place during the trek to the house that morning with the others from the
Maryann
.

“
Guan-jiah,” Robert said, “before I came to China I read
The Travels of Marco Polo
. Do you know of him?”

“
No, Master,” Guan-jiah replied.

“
He came to China from Europe more than six hundred years ago and served under Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty. Polo wrote that Hangzhou was the finest and noblest city in the world.”

“
Hangzhou was the capital of the Southern Sung Dynasty, Master,” Guan-jiah said. “I’ve heard it is beautiful. Sung philosophy says that we have the power in our minds to overcome our emotions.”

“
Marco Polo believed it was God’s will that he came back from China so others in the West might know what he’d seen.” Robert turned to his servant, who was the last in line. “Do you believe in this Sung philosophy, Guan-jiah?”

“
The Sung said that if you know yourself and others, you would be able to adjust to the most unfavorable circumstances and prevail over them.”

“
That’s admirable, Guan-jiah. You never mentioned you were a scholar. If the Sung Dynasty was that wise, I want to see Hangzhou one day.”

“
I am no scholar, Master, but I must believe in the Sung philosophy to survive. I have read and contemplated much literature. However, I am like a peasant and have never mastered calligraphy. It is a skill that has eluded me.”

“
How old were you when you studied this philosophy?”

“
I was eleven, Master, two years after I was sent to Peking.”

That meant Guan-jiah had been neutered at nine. How unfo
rtunate. Robert didn’t want to offend the eunuch, but he was curious. “Why were you sent to Peking?” he asked.

“
To work, Master. My family was starving. It was the only way I could help, but I failed.” He stared at his feet in shame.

“
How can you say you failed?” Robert said. “After all, you are paid well compared to most Chinese peasants. Your family does not go hungry, and they have shelter.”

“
But they suffered for many years,” Guan-jiah said, “and that is my burden. After I failed in Peking, I went into a Buddhist monastery. One of the older monks spoke English, and he became my teacher. When I was fourteen, I returned to Ningpo and went to work for foreign merchants. Now I work in the consulate for you.”

Roundtree
’s voice intruded on Robert’s thoughts and brought his focus back to the dinner table. “I heard that you spelled your name differently with another ‘r’ in front of the’t’. If that’s true, why did you change it?”

“
What?” Robert asked, thinking the question was directed at him. Then he realized that the question had been directed at Patridge. No one noticed he’d spoken.

“
I never changed my name,” Patridge responded. “Why would I?”

“
I’ve heard it said a man named Partridge caused some mischief about 1841 back in London. He dropped that first ‘r’ so his name would become Patridge making it harder to be tracked down.”

Patridge shook his head with a look
of feigned innocence. “Nothing happened to cause me to change my name. It’s always been Patridge.”

Robert wondered what this
was about. Right then the main course arrived, and he was distracted. He was so hungry that he forgot what he’d been thinking. Dinner consisted mainly of a leg of boiled mutton, several roast pheasants, roasted goose and a juicy piece of bacon.

“
Here’s another story,” Patridge said, pounding the table for emphasis while laughing.

This was like the food Robert ate at home in Ireland. Until that moment, he hadn
’t realized how much he had missed the taste of food like this. Saliva filled Robert’s mouth. He reached for the platter of meat. As he was spearing the meat with his fork, his eyes searched the table taking in the mashed potatoes and the bowl of brown gravy. His stomach grumbled in anticipation.

After Patridge regained his composure, he said,
“We were halfway between Hong Kong and Shanghai becalmed in a small cove. Just a mile from us, but closer to the beach, were the pirates who’d been chasing us.”

“
Are you talking about the
Iona
?” Robert asked.

“
Of course,” Patridge said. His eyes opened wider. “You were there too.”

Robert vaguely remembered seeing him on board the schooner, but he had not seen him once during the pirate episode.

“Chinese pirates are devils,” Roundtree complained. “You’d think the blasted Imperial navy would do something about them.”

“
If Sir John Bowring wasn’t handing out licenses to fly the British flag to every smuggler and pirate along the coast, maybe the Chinese navy might be able to do something about it,” Robert said.

A stunned silence settled around the table until one man cleared his throat. Robert squirmed in his seat. He wondered wh
at he had said to cause this response. Maybe it was best to keep his mouth shut and listen.

“
It doesn’t matter what Sir John is doing,” Patridge said, breaking the uneasy silence. “We didn’t need the Chinese Imperial navy on the
Iona
. A little adventure adds flavor to life if it doesn’t hurt profits. Don’t you remember me telling the captain to lower the ship’s boats so we could row over and give those pirates a fight?”

“
I must have been below deck when that happened,” Robert replied. He decided to say nothing more on the subject. He didn’t care much for braggarts. After all, Patridge wasn’t a bad sort. The meal was a feast, and Robert was stuffing himself. No need to embarrass his host.

“
That blasted captain said the water was too choppy,” Patridge continued, “and when that calm ended, we set sail. Very disappointing. I was looking forward to a good fight.”

If Patridge was changing the facts to suit his storytelling, what else was he embellishing? Robert shrugged it off. If the man wanted to make himself sound like a lion, who was Robert to complain?

The warm but fresh air, the conversation, the bounty of good food and the lovely concubines made for a satisfying evening. Patridge treated his concubines like servants. Robert was confused. He wasn’t sure what the status of a concubine was yet. Maybe it was a combination of things besides keeping a bed warm at night.

After
a while, Robert noticed that each of the six men had a concubine serving him—one standing behind each man.

Patridge started another story about a me
rchant at a port in China. “This merchant was lonely, so he bought a Chinese woman for seventy-two yuan. The girl was warranted sound, virgin, and respectably connected. However, the merchant heard her speak English and Bengali. It turned out she’d been a common whore for the commonest sailors, and the merchant ended with syphilis!” Patridge laughed.

All the men joined in except Robert. He didn
’t see the humor. The merchant had been cheated, and syphilis wasn’t fun. Hart knew all about it. While in college, he came down with an illness the doctor identified as syphilis. He was first prescribed Guajacum and then mercury. They were administered to the infection in a paste, which Robert had to rub on.

“
He paid too much,” Roundtree said, after the laughter died. “He should’ve had a virgin princess for that much. Since you can buy most girls for much less, it sounds like he was a fool.”

More like a victim, Robert thought, but anyone who tra
fficked in flesh deserved whatever he got. He sipped slowly on his second glass of wine. Everyone else was starting on a fourth or fifth.

The concubine serving Robert was called Willow, and she brought him plum pudding, mince pie and tarts. Robert wondered how he was going to eat it all. He decided to take it slow, one bite at a time. He was not going to pass up eating any of this food.

When Willow wasn’t getting food or drink, she stood close behind Robert, and he felt the heat from her body. She was petite with a small mouth and a set of leaf shaped eyes. Her nose was almost a blade it was so thin. Her long black hair was tied in a bun on the back of her head. A wooden pin with bright colored hanging glass decorations held the bun together. When her head tilted this way or that, the glass tinkled like a wind chime. Her skin was the color of pure ivory, and she glided gracefully when she moved. She reminded Robert of a fragile porcelain statuette he’d seen in a museum.

After coffee, the six men took a walk along the top of the hill. Captain Patridge had a string of fruit trees bordering a trail along the ridge lead
ing from his hill to the next. They walked in the shade of the trees as the sun set in a blaze of orange and purple fire along the western horizon. Fruit hung heavy in the trees. Robert smelled the sweet, ripening scent of peaches, plums and apricots. If he hadn’t been so full, he would have picked one to eat.

Willow walked behind him.
She did not speak a word of English and kept her gaze on the ground. When she answered his questions, he had to strain to hear her whisper. Her village dialect confused him. She never asked a question and at times could not answer some of Robert’s. His tongue still found the Mandarin he was learning cumbersome. Though she didn’t say she couldn’t understand him, he saw her nodding at the wrong times. Was it possible she didn’t understand the Ningpo and Shanghai style of Mandarin Robert was learning? This bothered him. He was curious to know more about her. China was a strange land with one written language and many spoken ones.

After the walk, they gathered on the veranda to enjoy the soot
hing breeze. The temperature, though humid and warm, was cooler than Ningpo. The greatest blessing was there were no mosquitoes. Robert didn’t miss Ningpo in the slightest. He was glad he’d come even if he had to listen to Patridge’s outrageous stories.

Patridge
’s summerhouse was built in a Mediterranean style with a wide, covered veranda overlooking the ocean. From the veranda, streams were visible running down from the hills. The walls were made of thick, plastered stone, which kept the house cool on the hottest days. Blue glazed tiles covered the roof. An open garden in the Roman style was located at the center of the rectangular house. All the outside doors were made of thick sturdy timbers and the windows had shutters that could be barred from the inside.

A natural spring fed into a storage tank, which took up half the kitchen.
The water was refreshing and worth the trip since the water in Ningpo tasted bad.

When Patridge had guests, which was often, he entertained in a large room that faced west. He slept with his concubine of the moment in a large bedroom office combination on the north side of the cour
tyard. The guest bedrooms were on the south side. All the rooms, except the servant and concubine quarters, had doors that opened on the enclosed garden. The Chinese servants and about a dozen concubines lived in a separate building behind the kitchen. That’s where Patridge had sent Guan-jiah.

The stables were built against the servants
’ quarters, and those rooms smelled of manure and horse piss. This building was taller than the house and offered a windbreak when storms came howling across the island from the east.

Robert thought
if he ever had a house like this, he would build the stables so no one had to smell the animals. He had to admit Patridge had done well for himself in China. He wondered if he would match the man’s success.

Captain Patridge passed around a box of gold tipped Egy
ptian Shah cigarettes for an after dinner smoke. Robert searched his pockets for a match, but Willow appeared with a candle. He took hold of her hand to steady the flame. Her skin was warm and smooth. He didn’t want to let go.

With the sun gone, the sounds of frogs and crickets filled the night with their mating calls. One of the other concubines lit a half-dozen lanterns along the veranda. The dim, flickering lights drew in some moths and a few beetles.

“It’s been a good day, gentlemen,” Captain Roundtree said, as he stubbed out his cigarette and stood. “There were no pirates. We have women to keep us warm and none of us is hungry or broke. I’m going to turn in. It was a long, hard trip from Hong Kong. The weather was a beast.” Captain Roundtree left with the concubine who’d been serving him through dinner. His third officer and the two midshipmen also excused themselves and left with their concubines.

“
Where can I find a supply of these?” Robert asked, holding up the cigarette.

“
I’ll connect you with the man I buy them from,” Captain Patridge replied. He put a hand over his mouth to cover a yawn before continuing. “He lives in Shanghai but will have no problem getting some to you in Ningpo.”

There was one lantern
left glowing. The concubine who’d lit them had extinguished the others. Captain Patridge’s concubine had already gone inside.