My Splendid Concubine (75 page)

Robert returned to Peking to endless meetings at the Yamen. A stack of letters from Ayaou waited, but he had no time to read them. He was aware that if it were not for his crushing schedule, he would have felt as lonely as he had in Canton when he had lived there without Ayaou during the Arrow War.

Robert
’s workdays often ran twenty hours. He slept between midnight and four in the morning and would be in his office before dawn. He was too tired to even dream about Ayaou.

When he
wasn’t in meetings, he was composing drafts telling the Manchu ministers what he was learning from his agents throughout China. In addition, he had to write follow-up reports when there were changes and revisions.

He was also involved in the details of establishing the pilo
ting service and harbor regulations. These were sensitive issues. He had to hire harbor pilots for each port. For the sake of China’s national defense, the imperial government wanted him to hire only Chinese pilots.

It took several frustrating months to learn that none of t
he Chinese pilots was any good since they hadn’t been professionally trained.

“
If I hire any of these men and a foreign ship is wrecked, whose face will suffer?” he said to Wen-hsiang, hoping the minister would speak for him inside the Forbidden City, the one place Robert wasn’t allowed to visit since it was closed to all foreigners.

“
It won’t be mine,” Robert said. “It will belong to those ministers demanding I hire people that are not qualified. My recommendation that we do not hire these people will be part of the imperial record. I am not going to lose face over this.”

It didn
’t take long before he was allowed to hire foreign pilots.

Only then did he find
time to read and spent an evening going through Ayaou letters. Near the end, she said that Guan-jiah was arranging the move to Shanghai. They should be there to greet him when he returned from Peking.

He read the stack again and
was pleased to discover that his little girl was sleeping through the night. Ayaou said Anna was getting into everything. She had to be watched all the time to make sure she didn’t hurt herself and Fooyen had her hands full. Robert chuckled at the image.

Soon, Anna would be three. He wanted to be home when she ce
lebrated her birthday.

A few weeks later, Robert was on his way to Shanghai, and he had no idea if Ayaou would be there. He had to do something about improving the mail service in China. The challenge was finding the time. There was so much to do.

He
fears vanished when he arrived in Shanghai to find Guan-jiah waiting in a sampan to greet him as the ship dropped anchor.

How had
the eunuch known?

“
Master,” Guan-jiah said, “I found a suitable house inside the walled portion of the Chinese city as you instructed.”

He wanted to take Guan-jiah in his arms and hug him but didn
’t. After all, now that he was Inspector General, he had an image to uphold.

Guan-jiah took charge moving the luggage to the new house.

The layout and size of the house was similar to the one in Canton. The difference was in the light since there were many windows. It made the rooms pleasant, especially during sunny days, as Robert would discover. The shadows of trees projected on the floors through the glass made the atmosphere exuberant.

When he stepped inside
the house for the first time, Ayaou was sitting on a bench prim and proper with her back held straight as a board. She was dressed in white silk pants and blouse. Her hair had been combed to a high gloss and braded in one long strand down her back. This revealed her pixy ears and long neck, two things he’d always admired and loved to smother with kisses.

Fooyen stood to the side and was holding Anna. Robert took a step toward his daughter. Looking shy, Anna stuck a thumb in her mouth and hid her face against Fooyen
’s chest.

“
I have been gone too long,” he said. “She’s forgotten who I am.” He was disappointed. With a sinking feeling, he realized how much he had loved to hear her call him Ba Ba.

Fooyen brought Anna
to Robert, and said, “You cannot forget who your father is.” She thrust Anna toward him, but the child twisted away and the thumb stayed in her mouth as she whimpered.

“
Give her time to remember you,” Ayaou said. “Take Anna to her room.” Fooyen took the child and left.

“
No one will bother you, Master,” Guan-jiah said, before the eunuch hurried deeper into the house.

Robert had been so busy working endless days and nights, he
’d forgotten Ayaou’s beauty. Tears filled his eyes and he went down on one knee to rest his head on her lap.

Seconds
later, her fingers arrived to explore his face and hair. Part of him yearned for their old life in Ningpo when he had been a lowly interpreter for the British.

Her eyes glowed and her body advertised its excitement.

“Show me the bed,” he said. Once they were upstairs behind a closed and locked door, he pulled Ayaou into his arms while his hands explored her body and savored the smooth, inviting warmth of her skin.

Ayaou was pregnant before the end of January 1862.

Chapter 47

F
or most of 1862, Robert was on the move along China’s coast and rivers. He felt like a migrating bird when he returned to Peking. Since he traveled on an armed, imperial junk with a large crew, pirates left them alone.

He was so busy that he had only a few minutes each
day for letter writing when he managed to jot off brief notes to Ayaou.

“
This is horribly lonely work,” he said in one midnight letter. “Some nights, I consider quitting so I can come home to stay, but those are foolish thoughts.

“
It grieves me that I am missing every achievement Anna makes. I wasn’t there when she started to sleep nights. I missed seeing her learn to crawl, walk, and eat on her own. I feel that I am failing as a father.

“
Then I think if I quit, who would replace me? Moreover, would that person have China’s interests at heart? Whenever I make a decision, I always think of what is best for China. I want you to know that it is through you that I have learned to love your country.

“
China is like another concubine, and she’s in trouble. I cannot abandon her.”

He sealed the letter
in an envelope with hot wax then rested his head on his crossed arms and cried. He missed both his families, the one in Ireland and the other in Shanghai. While tears streamed down his cheeks, he started to laugh and that soon turned to hiccups.

It was ironic. Here he was with two loving families. He had el
even brothers and sisters and both of his parents still lived. He had Ayaou and Anna with another child on the way. He had friends in every major coastal and river port in China. He was a rich and important man, yet he was feeling sorry for himself.

That night, Shao-mei visited him in his dreams. In the morning, he had a pounding headache and struggled with depression all day.

Along with his developing skills for solving problems b
etween the foreign powers and China, he was gaining a reputation for keeping secrets.

This reputation started late one afternoon in Peking when Mi
nister Wen-hsiang approached Robert while he was strolling in the Yamen’s garden.

They walked together as the minister confided that he had a n
ephew who was addicted to opium. The minister’s first wife and her sister, the boy’s mother, were agonizing over it. Wen-hsiang didn’t know what to do.

“
How old is your nephew?” Robert asked, feeling a twinge of guilt from his years working with Captain Patridge. He hoped he could help Wen-hsiang somehow. Maybe this would be a way to atone for those sins.

“
Nineteen. He has two wives and three children. Do you know what we should do to help him?”

Robert found it strange that the minister felt he might know of a sol
ution. On the other hand, it made sense. After all, Westerners were responsible for the addiction. “Send him to an isolated monastery in the Yellow Mountains in Anhui province. That way, he will be as far from opium as possible.”

Several weeks later, after another trip along China’s coast, Robert was back in Peking working at the Yamen. Wen-hsiang asked, “Did you tell anyone about my nephew?” It was well after dark and everyone else had gone.

“
Are you talking about the nephew addicted to opium?”

The minister nodded.

“I told no one,” Robert replied.

“
It never occurred to me that you would not talk to anyone about it,” Wen-hsiang said. “I thought it best to live with the gossip instead of hearing my wife and her sister crying over the boy all the time.”

Robert held a thumb and finger to his lips and made as if he were bu
ttoning them. “I hate gossip,” he said. “When you sought my advice, I was honored that you saw me as someone you could confide in. How is your nephew?”

“
He is hidden away in the Yellow Mountains suffering. I have been told he sweats and screams and vomits and cannot eat. We also hired an acupuncturist to help with the healing process.”

They had stopped working. Robert went to the stove where a te
apot was simmering. He poured two cups. “Tell whoever is watching your nephew to make sure he doesn’t swallow his tongue. They should tie him to the bed, so he does not fall and hurt himself. Recovering from an opium addiction is difficult.”

Wen-hsiang accepted the offered tea and sipped.
“Be careful, it is hot,” he said, and blew on the tea. “There is nothing to worry about. Besides the acupuncturist, there is a trusted doctor, who has several servants keeping watch so my nephew does not come to harm.”

“
I’m glad to hear that. I’m sure he will be fine.” Robert finished the strong, bitter cup of black tea and returned to the report he was working on.

“
Your advice on how to catch the Forbidden City thief was also correct,” Wen-hsiang said a few minutes later. “We followed your instructions carefully.”

Robert was surprised. He had forgotten that incident and had heard nothing for months. He put his pen down.
“Did you catch this burglar?” He crossed his arms on the desktop and leaned forward. “I’m interested to hear the outcome.”

“
One of the child spies found the jewel merchant that was buying the stolen items just as you described. We offered another valuable piece of imperial jewelry as bait. After the jeweler bought that, the children took care that the jeweler would not know they were watching.

“
Two nights after the last theft, the jeweler was followed through the streets to a teahouse where he met a foreign devil. Our agents witnessed the sale.” Wen-hsiang stopped and peered about as if looking for someone listening to the conversation. There was nothing but deserted desks in the large room. Even the servants had been dismissed.

“
Go on,” Robert urged. “I’m a captive, eager audience waiting to discover what happened.” To think that he had helped catch a thief was exciting.

Wen-hsiang leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. He talked in a conspiratorial tone, which Robert found humo
rous. “The Empress Tsu Hsi was so impressed with your methods that her spies are being trained to use them.”

“
I’m flattered,” Robert said. “What happened to the thief?”

“
It is a long story, and it is late.”

“
Don’t leave me in suspense. My imagination will keep me awake wondering what happened. We still have time. It isn’t midnight yet.”

Wen-hsiang smiled slyly.

“You old devil,” Robert said. “You are playing with me.”

Wen-hsiang smiled
and shrugged. “It is half the fun of telling a good story. Well, the foreign devil and the Han jeweler were placed in chains. The imperial torturer questioned them and discovered that this foreign devil worked for a British man who was planning the thefts, similar to how you wrote out the directions used to catch them. We also learned the name of a eunuch inside the Forbidden City that was putting the stolen items in hollowed out gourds to float across the Grand Canal.”

Robert held up a hand.
“So there were five thieves: the bannerman, a young eunuch, the foreign devil, the jeweler and a British man. Was the first foreign devil you caught also British?”

“
No, he was Japanese.”

“
You are sure he was Japanese?” Robert asked, wondering if he was the same man that followed him in 1856, when he still worked for the British in Ningpo.

“
Yes.” Wen-hsiang nodded. “He lost his Chinese while being tortured, and we had to find someone who understood his barbaric, island tongue. Shall I continue?”