Heart and Soul (39 page)

“Jade,” he said, “how are we to go to Can—Guangzhou, while the foreigners are restricted to the island of Shameen?”

“I’ve thought of that,” she said, amid a flutter and rustle of silks.

Since she was pretending to be his wife, he had insisted on giving her a wardrobe befitting her supposed dignity. Nothing very elaborate, but enough silks and satins and British fashions that no one would presume to question their attachment. If he dared be truthful with himself—something he would much rather not do—he would admit that he had bought her clothes because he had enjoyed it. Because he derived pleasure from dressing her and watching how splendid she looked in her British attire.

They had bought the garments at one of the modistes in Hong Kong, who was skilled at copying patterns from French and British publications, and had a bevy of apprentices as fast with the needle as the ones who made Nigel’s suit had been.

When they picked up the dresses, two hours after purchasing them—hours Nigel had spent taking a hurried leave from John Malmsey, while promising to return soon and spend some real time with John and his family—Jade had modeled each gown for Nigel.

Torn between wishing to see her in those much better gowns to which Mrs. Oldhall would be entitled and the pleasure of seeing her outfitted as Mrs. Enoch Jones, Nigel had found himself wishing very much that someone could wave a magic wand and make all this real.

Only, Jade was the princess of a mystical kingdom, and he was…just Nigel Oldhall, second son of Lord Oldhall. Time would come that he would himself be Lord Oldhall, but if truth be told, his domains were barely larger than those of a village squire, and what were the chances she would aspire to be the lady of such a limited dignity?

Preventing himself from sighing as he buttoned his waistcoat, he heard her say, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe the best way is to take a boat in the night. We’ll cloak you and I can use magic, for limited amounts of time, to make you look different than you are. My mother taught me the spell. She learned it as a beautification device, you know?”

“Oh, I can make those spells, too,” he said. “They will last only a few minutes, but they will pass.”

“Very well,” Jade said, from behind the wardrobe door.

Having finished dressing himself, he stood where he was and said, “But if it is that easy to penetrate China, beyond the places where foreigners are allowed—”

“No,” Jade said. “If you used such subterfuge to get into a city without a native guide, you would very shortly get caught. And you must understand, though I have no use for the present usurpers…” She paused, and from the rustling of cloth he presumed some part of her toiletry occupied her. “I do not think that it is just for the protection of their own regime that they keep China closed. There is a very strong strain among the people themselves, which both suspects and fears foreigners. I don’t think we can make—I mean, even if Wen should recover the throne, it will take time for the people to trust foreign devils.”

“Yes,” Nigel said, amused. “I can see that, considering the name we’re given.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No. It is amusing, given the names we have for various groups…I mean, it’s only fair that at least one people should consider themselves superior to Europeans.”

There was a pause from the other side of the door, and then a half-dismayed question: “You don’t think…That is…You don’t consider the Chinese superior?”

It occurred to Nigel that Jade, too, through all the time of her growing up, had been very isolated, just like her country. And while she might have loved her mother, she’d always seen her mother in a position of outcast and stranger, in the midst of a civilization that the daughter had been raised to believe was superior.

He tried to speak in a way that wouldn’t hurt or shock her. The byzantine conditions of her mother’s marriage and how that might have affected her daughter was something he didn’t wish to think about or explore.

“Lady Jade, I, too, was raised to consider my people superior to all others in the world. In fact, I think this is a normal default position of all humans. That they think of their tribe, their group, their family as the best, or sometimes the only true people. I studied languages, and I can tell you that often the name of the people or the tribe is synonymous for
human.
It seems to be normal to the human mind to think that. But I have since traveled the world, and while I think that some places, some rulers, some tribes do a better job of providing for their citizens, when it comes to people, to…persons, one on one…I don’t think it can be said that any race is superior to the other, or that any has virtues or qualities that make them intrinsically superior or inferior.”

“But…” Her steps, tentative, approached the wardrobe door, and then she paused, just on the other side of it. “Are you decent?”

“Yes,” he said. And before he could close the door and get out of the way, she looked around the door, her eyes wide, her expression so much that of curiosity and interest, mingled, that he wanted to kiss her, or twirl her about in his arms, or something even he, himself, couldn’t define.

“But, wouldn’t you say that China, being the most ancient civilization of mankind, must therefore be the wisest?”

He frowned at this. “I don’t know,” he admitted, at last. “There are things in which it seems you’ve achieved greater wisdom than we have, but…By being who you are, and having self-sufficiency upon your own land, you’ve also…not learned from the other peoples around the world. It is like a very intelligent child who is isolated, and therefore can learn only what he makes up in his own mind. Not that,” he added, frowning, “it would always be a good thing to rush upon the world with open arms, after a long isolation. I’ve seen cultures trying to adopt all the worst of Europe and none of the best.” He was thinking of the Hyena Men and their idea that reducing those who had the power would help Africa. “But I think if your brother does win his throne back, he should consider opening up China little by little—cautiously enough to not allow the inexperienced tradesmen and artisans to be exploited, but daring enough that China can learn from the rest of the world. And the rest of the world can learn from China.” He blinked at her and felt heat rise to his cheeks, and added, not quite knowing what he said, “I’d like to learn from China.”

She seemed to take him utterly at his word, her eyes large and solemn, those black eyes that seemed to hide in their depths that odd almost lapis-lazuli spark. “China has a lot to teach,” she said. “In philosophy and law, and in history so long that it can at least teach where the perils are, even where…we went wrong.”

She was wearing a gown of heavy silk, in a delicate peach color, which emphasized both the almost golden tone of her skin, and the soft blush on her cheeks. Her look, turned to him, was so pleading that he had to say, softly, “I’m sure you can teach me much, Lady Jade.”

He closed the wardrobe door carefully, as though it might disturb their thoughts if it were shut too quickly, and offered her his hand. “If you’ll come with me,” he said, “you can wait by my chair on the flight deck, while I land the ship.”

She cast a look at the small trunk with both of their clothes, and sighed. “It will be a pity,” she said, in a soft, almost sad tone, “to lose all those pretty gowns. I know I needed some of them for verisimilitude sake, but it seems terrible that you had six of them made, and I only got to wear two.”

He offered her his arm, and when she rested her hand on it, very correctly, probably in the way her mother had taught her—the same way she’d apparently been taught her deep curtseys—he patted her slender fingers with his other hand. “But you don’t need to lose them,” he said. “We shall leave our bags at the Victoria Hotel, and will pay them for storage. I shall say we’re visiting friends on the isle and will eventually pick up our luggage or take a room.”

“Won’t they find it odd that we wish to store our clothes when we are going to be visiting somewhere on the isle?”

The proper answer was that, yes, they would find it odd, but carpetship flight magicians were odd anyway, and no one would give it a second thought—at least not if Nigel paid them well enough. The personnel at the hotel was not, after all, in the business of guarding public morality. And if two of the visitors to the isle chose to wear the same clothes for several weeks, or alternately to go about in a state of nature in whatever little wilderness subsisted around here, it could not possibly be any of hotel personnel’s business.

But Nigel could feel behind the tentative question the sort of experience of growing up in a small clan, in a closed society, and of everyone’s business being everyone else’s. So he explained. “No. Carpetship magicians are odd, and they will think we’ve made some alternate arrangements. And provided I pay them enough—which I will—they will keep our clothes safe for us.”

“But…” Jade said, then sighed—a heavy, doleful sound.

“But?” he asked.

“It seems like such a terrible waste.” She blushed a little and looked up at him. Her head was just at the level of his chin, which, his being accounted a tall man, even in his own country, must make her freakishly pre-possessing among her people. “You see, I won’t wear this sort of gown ever again. Not…in my brother’s court.”

“You are then expecting to stay in your brother’s court?” And he would have glued his traitorous mouth shut right after he said it, would have called back the words. The look she shot him, all alarm and confusion, made his heart drop. “I don’t mean—” he started, and was about to explain he didn’t mean to startle her with the vehemence of his affections. Particularly because he wasn’t sure they were affections, exactly. Just that she had charmed him and enchanted him, and brought to his life again all the joy and mystery he’d thought vanished from it forever.

But before he could speak, she composed herself and said, soberly, “I suppose Wen might marry me off. I’d not thought of it. You see, I am…I’ve been so used to looking after Wen, because of his debilitating addiction, that it never occurred to me…That is, I never thought he would be able to dispense with me eventually. But of course that is the whole point of this, and of what Third Lady is undertaking. That Wen will, eventually, be able to rule on his own. And he is naturally kind and intelligent, and I believe he will make as good a ruler as our ancestor Yu the Great, but…with all that…” She smiled and made a face. “I will have to be brave and get used to not being needed.”

Nigel wanted to reassure her. To tell her that she would always be needed. With her beauty, her courage, her intelligence, it wasn’t possible for her to simply pass from the lives of others leaving no mark behind. But he had no right to speak. And then, too, in his mind, there was the thought that this was all foolishness.
An infatuation, like a schoolboy’s. I thought myself in love with Emily because she was the most exotic female I knew. And now I fancy myself in love with Jade because she’s even more exotic. Like a little boy picking unusual sweets from a candy store.

But people were not sweets, and one couldn’t pick them for color and variety. He sighed deeply. “Come, Mrs. Jones,” he said. “We will now land this carpetship in the port at Shameen. Not that,” he added with a chuckle, “we are such a long way from the ground that landing will be a difficult feat.”

WHERE THE ROSE IS NOT WITHOUT THORNS

Hettie had bided her time aboard the carpetship to
Hong Kong. For one, she thought, it would be ridiculous to try to escape from Captain Corridon in the midst of the trip. Where could she go, unless she threw herself out of the carpetship while it was flying over Africa or over the ocean?