My Splendid Concubine (58 page)

Guan-jiah managed to pry her off.
Then she rolled into the shape of a ball, placed her forehead on the floor and sobbed with great gulping sounds. The eunuch kept a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

The guilt Robert felt was terrible.
“If something happens to me, take care of her? I am counting on you, Guan-jiah. I have no one else I can trust.”

The eunuch stared at the floor and didn
’t reply.

“
Guan-jiah,” he said, “you are like a brother. I depend on you.”

“
Stay, you will be safer here,” Ayaou said. Her face was flushed and wet with tears. Guan-jiah seemed to notice that she was naked. He started to leave.

“
Guan-jiah, stay with her. She’s in no shape to be alone, and I have to go.”

“
Master, she has no clothes on.”

“
Guan-jiah, you’ve seen naked women before. What’s the difference? Besides, she can put clothes on. Did you hear me, Ayaou? Get dressed. This isn’t acceptable.”

Guan-jiah found clothes and attempted to dress her but she did not cooperate. She kept her arms wrapped around her knees and rocked back and forth.

“This is impossible, Master.”

“
Nothing is impossible. She will settle down. Get a blanket around her. Keep her warm.”

Guan-jiah found a blanket. Then he did something Robert had never seen before. He wrapped his arms around her as if she were a child and started to hum. Ayaou turned and pressed her face against the eunuch
’s chest. Her arms went around his neck. Guan-jiah rocked her and patted her back while he hummed. Her sobs subsided.

Robert
hesitated. He was glad his servant wasn’t a real man. He couldn’t make himself open the door, so he knelt on one knee in front of Ayaou. “I have to go,” he said in as gentle a voice as he could muster. “It’s my duty. To stay here would brand me as a coward in my colleagues’ eyes. I can’t live with that. Besides, Commissioner Parkes knows about this house and has forbidden me to come here. If I’m not in my quarters, he’ll send soldiers to find me.”

“
What about your duty to your child?” Her tears had stopped, her face was puffy and a defiant look had appeared in her bloodshot eyes.

Guan-jiah
’s head snapped up, and his eyes fastened on Robert. “The mistress carries a child?” he said. “I did not know that, Master, or I would have told you.”

He saw a gleam of hope in the eunuch
’s eyes. Robert almost groaned. His servant was thinking he was going to have a second chance to become an adopted uncle again. “Maybe we didn’t hear her right,” he said. “What did you say, Ayaou?”

“
What do you expect after having planted your dragon-seeds in me so many times? I have to carry it for a while before we find a way to get rid of it.”

“
Get rid of him!” Blood rushed into his head along with anger. “What are you talking about?” He signaled Guan-jiah. “Get a robe on her!”

The eunuch rummaged in the
standing closet. When he returned, he had a satin robe and draped it over her.

“
Get up,” Robert said. She stood and let the robe hang open revealing her nudity.

“
You don’t look pregnant.”

She barked a laugh.
“You want to be blind. What does it matter what you believe? I am not your wife.” She waved her arms and the robe slid off.

“
Guan-jiah,” he said.

“
Master, she isn’t cooperating.” Ayaou walked about the room as the servant chased her attempting to put the robe on.

Her face was twisted and ugly. She stopped, placed fists on her hips and leaned toward him.
“I am not even your concubine. I still belong to Ward. I do not want to be shamed.”

Why does she keep throwing this at me? Then he reme
mbered Uncle Bark’s words of advice and fought his anger.

Guan-jiah
managed to get the robe on her, and he struggled to tie the cord. She lifted her arms and the robe slid off. Guan-jiah looked embarrassed as he pulled the robe around her again. She ignored him and focused her fire on Robert. This time the robe stayed. Guan-jiah looked relieved.

Robert ignored the furious look on her face.
“What’s important is that he is our child,” he said. His anger struggled to break free, but he managed to keep his voice calm. “How long have you known?”

“
What does it matter when it started to grow?” she said. “It is a foreign devil’s seed. This creature will be condemned in China. When they see it on the streets, they will spit on it.”

“
How long?” Maybe the child belonged to another man. The anger was winning. He closed his eyes and thought of Uncle Bark’s words. “
When her tongue tests you, remember the good times before Ward murdered Shao-mei
.”

“
April!” she replied. “I knew in April!”

“
I want him, Ayaou. This child is mine, and he belongs to God. We have no right to take his life. I’ll think of a way. Now I have to go. The Taipings could be invading the city. Every man is needed.” He hurried to the front door.

She followed with Guan-jiah close on her heels. The robe star
ted to slip from her shoulders again, since it was too large for her. It was one of Robert’s. Guan-jiah pulled the robe back up.

“
I do not believe in your silly, filthy God,” she said.

He stepped outside the house and looked back.
“Don’t talk about God like that,” he said. The anger locked inside felt like fists pounding to escape. “Don’t let her out of the house, Guan-jiah. Keep her safe.”

Guan-jiah had a look in his eyes that Robert recognized. He was thin
king of the baby that had died with Shao-mei when she had been murdered.

Dear God, spare me
, he thought. “Yes, Guan-jiah,” he said. “I know what you want. You can be the adopted uncle. Heaven knows the child will need someone to watch over him—someone I can depend on when I’m not here. Someone who will love him as I will.”

Guan-jiah smiled.
“Mistress Ayaou, we must get inside. You could get sick standing here half-dressed. We must think of the child.”

“
Close the door,” Robert said.

The look on Ayaou
’s face changed from anger to one of loss and her face dissolved into pain. That was the last thing Robert saw before the door closed.

Ayaou
’s expression followed him down the street. He shouldn’t have left, but he didn’t have a choice. War was calling. He thought about the time Ayaou had saved his life after Ward’s defeat at Sungkiang when he had been wounded and Ayaou managed to hide him in an abandoned farmer’s hut where he had recovered. She could have left him and saved herself. Instead, she risked her life.

He knew that behind her angry words, she still loved him. Then he stumbled when a bright flash lit the sky followed by the rumble of another explosion. The ground trembled. Robert started to run.

Back at the commission, Robert asked the first officer he met what had happened.

“Rebels blew up the northwest corner of the city wall and got inside,” the officer replied. “They managed to occupy two city blocks, but we beat them back.”

The man
’s face was smudged with gunpowder. His eyes pulsed with excitement. “The royal engineers are repairing the breech as we talk.”

A little after two in the afternoon, Robert was walking from Colonel Walsh’s quarters toward his when a rocket hit the ground in front of him sending sparks in every direction. Some of the sparks hit his face burning him and he leaped from the heat. Thank goodness the rocket didn’t explode. If it had, he would have been blown to pieces.

There wouldn
’t have been anything left to bury if that had happened. Ayaou would have been crushed into insanity and their unborn child would’ve grown-up without a father and treated as an outcast. Then he remembered the look in Guan-jiah’s eyes.

No, the child wouldn
’t grow up without a father. He would have his adopted uncle, who couldn’t have children of his own.

If anything happened to him, Guan-jiah would raise the child if Ayaou didn
’t want it. And even if she kept the baby, Robert was sure Guan-jiah would stay close. The child would not go without love. He was sure Guan-jiah had enough for a dozen children. It was a relief that he had someone like Guan-jiah to depend on.

He stared at the rocket sticking out of the ground. Half of it was buried in the dirt. The shock drained the strength out of his legs. He leaned against the nearest wall to keep from collapsing.

Men came running. “Good god,” a colonel said. Several soldiers attempted lifting the rocket.

“
What are you doing?” the colonel said. “It might explode. It could have a delayed fuse.”

Everyone ran. Robert managed to get his legs moving and fo
llowed. Once he was inside peering around a sturdy doorframe at the rocket, he thought, Ayaou could’ve been a widow without ever having been a wife.

He resolved to write his last will and testament and leave what li
ttle money he had to Guan-jiah, who could use it to care for Ayaou and the child.

The thought of dying without making provisions for the woman he loved and the child she carried horrified him. The next time he talked to Guan-jiah, he would tell h
is servant what he wanted done if he was killed.

The Western forces poured out of the city a few hours later and counterattacked. British and French gunboats in the river pounded the rebel positions. The shelling killed hundreds. Soon after the shelling and the counterattack, the rebel forces retreated north. English and French scouts followed and reported that the rebels numbered several thousand.

Robert joined Parkes as he attended
endless funerals while Chinese bands played music in the background. The Chinese seemed to celebrate every funeral as if it were a birth and not a death.

However, h
e’d seen enough death and stopped attending the funerals. With Ayaou and the baby in his thoughts, he decided to risk his life and see her one more time before he sent her to Macau. Now that she was pregnant, there was no way she was going to stay in Canton.

Chapter 34

Robert had crossed the roofs risking life and limb a second time. Inside the house, he led Ayaou to the bedroom. As stark as this worn-out house was, the bedroom was the closest to being a home of sorts. The other rooms made him feel uncomfortable as if they were designed to be coffins.

“
Guan-jiah, I want you too.”

“
Master?” Guan-jiah looked shocked as if he were going to be asked to join them on the sleeping mat and take part in the lovemaking.

“
Don’t worry,” Robert said, stifling his laughter while keeping his face composed. “I only want to talk. You’re both going to Macao tomorrow.” Robert held out twenty pounds. “Take the money.” It was more than one-hundred-twenty yuan.

“
I am not leaving without you,” Ayaou said.

“
You have no choice!” Anger flooded his face, and his voice roared. “Do not be difficult now! This is not the time or place!”

She talked louder
. “I have never been to Macao. I do not know what the place is like. I might get lost there. You might not find me. My father told me it happened to a concubine that belonged to Captain Patridge. He forgot about her!”

Swallowing the anger, he said,
“You have nothing to worry about.” He caressed the side of her face. “Guan-jiah will look after you and stay in touch with me.”

“
You want to get rid of me, because I carry your child.”

He threw
up his hands in frustration. “What am I going to do with you?” No matter what he said or did, he couldn’t convince Ayaou that he wasn’t going to abandon her. “I curse your father for the poison he planted in your head. I curse the fortuneteller who has filled your mind with nonsense.”

“
Do not talk about my father like that. If my father told me to leave you, I would.”

Guan-jiah moved between them.

“Leave the room,” Robert said.

Hurt
appeared on the eunuch’s face, but he didn’t move. Guan-jiah was a gentle man. Robert doubted he’d hurt a fly. “It’s okay. You may leave.”

The eunuch
’s words came in a rush with nervous gulps of air between phrases. “No, Master, I have never seen you this angry—you might hit her—she deserves it—but you said I was the child’s adopted uncle.”

Guan-jiah shifted his gaze to his feet then his words came slo
wer. “It is my duty to protect him. I have to protect him. You know that I would help you beat her if it weren’t for him. Beat me instead.”

Robert
’s anger evaporated. Guan-jiah was willing to die to protect the unborn child. The look in his eyes said so. Robert pitied any Taiping that came near Ayaou in her condition for it was obvious Guan-jiah would fight to the death.