SQ 04 - The English Concubine

Passion and power in l860s Singapore

(Volume 4, The Straits Quartet)

D
AWN
F
ARNHAM

Contents

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10

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Glossary

Map of Singapore Town in 1862.

About the Author

Copyright

This book is dedicated to all those who strive to keep alive the rich historical heritage of Singapore
.

In particular, Geraldine Lowe-Ismael who has been an advocate for and dedicated guide to the stories and memories of Singapore’s past for over forty years
.

Also to the Friends of the Museums of Singapore, an organisation of passionate volunteers who support heritage in Singapore. There is no doubt that my time as a docent in the Peranakan Museum inspired this series
.

1

‘The whole of Singapore is going to the dogs.’

As if to lend credence to these words, half a dozen rib-caged mongrels on the riverside set about each other, growling and snarling over some slops hurled onto the fetid bank of low tide.

For the thousands of inhabitants of the squat kajang-roofed boats, the river served every daily purpose. When the river water dragged away to its rendezvous with the ocean, the wind carried the stench of the muddy sludge over the government offices, which lay mere feet away, and a choice had to be made between cloacal odour and sweltering heat. The newspapers said it killed the Chinese and Klings who lived on and along it even though scores of Indian convicts laboured up to their knees on every low tide, bucketing out the foul mud and filth that built up against the quay walls.

The press raised fears of the noxious gases rising from the rubbish-dumped upper river which endangered the town. Dr. Cowper, the military surgeon, said the gangrenous bodies of sick Chinese and the improper disposal of corpses was to blame for the cholera epidemic in Chinatown and Kampong Glam. Heated debate went back and forth in the newspaper regarding the controversial theory that the disease was spread by polluted water and not foul air with neither side winning the argument. In the meantime the bodies of the dying continued to litter the streets and the riverside, and ten funerals in the Chinese and native cemeteries took place every day.

The Chinese didn’t read the newspapers and held firecracker-popping processions with drums and gongs, carrying palanquins of deities and great smoking tubs of joss. Only in this way could they exorcise the power of
huoluan
, the sudden chaos, which they knew perfectly well was caused by the malign forces of demons serving the Wangye, the Kings of Pestilence.

Robert Macleod, Commissioner of Police, rubbed his shoulder, a dark mood hanging on him like the river smell. An old wound had begun to give him trouble but this was not the cause of his bad temper.

The editor of
The Straits Times
blamed the police for not ensuring more sanitary conditions to dispel the noxious odours in their districts and accused them of misreporting deaths. The proliferation of half-starved men and dogs was a bane on his life. The crazed man in China who thought he was the brother of Jesus Christ had ignited a vast uprising and brought thousands of criminals and desperate men on every junk to Singapore. Piracy was carried out within sight of the shore. The
Free Press
reported that there were more whores in Singapore than respectable women and that two-thirds of the Chinese male population were opium addicts.

But despite this formidable litany of ills, none of these was the cause of his bad temper.

He transferred his attention to the men atop Government Hill. From the river’s edge they looked like scurrying ants. The house, which had been the Governor of Singapore’s home since Raffles’ time, had been demolished and hundreds of Chinese coolies and Indian convicts were building up and flattening the top of the hill, rock by rock.

‘A fort,’ he spluttered. ‘Ridiculous to set a fort miles from the shore all for the sake of a mutiny which took place a thousand miles away. Just because it scared the damned Indian government to death. What has that to do with us? Who will attack us and how, with a fort on this hill, out of range of enemy ships, overlooking the very town it should defend, will we avoid blowing the place to bits? The cannon are trained on Chinatown, for God’s sake. And it is to be named for that stupendous idiot Charles Canning, the man virtually responsible for the mutiny in the first place. It’s intolerable. And all these new names for perfectly good streets. I hardly know what anyone is talking about. Did you know that Tavern Street is now Bonham and Commercial Square renamed Raffles Place. Why …’

Charlotte Manouk placed a hand on her brother’s arm.

‘Robbie, for heaven’s sake, I know, but I want to talk to you of Alexander.’

In truth Charlotte, too, like all of the town, was aghast at the works into which poor Singapore had been thrown because of the rebellion in India two years ago. The British government had got a terrible fright. In consequence the Crown had gathered the government of India into the Colonial Office, ending a hundred years of East India Company rule. At this news, the Straits Settlements pricked up their ears and sought to extricate themselves from their own indifferent Company authority and petitioned to be made a Crown Colony with direct appeal to London. But that was not to be. She was to continue to be governed from Calcutta who cared not a whit for the island of Singapore or its interests, yet, like all of Her Majesty’s colonies, must be fortified whether she needed it or not.

Robert ignored his sister.

‘We need more police. Crime is rampant because the coolies have no means of livelihood. Moving Tock Seng’s hospital from Pearl’s Hill to the swamps of Balestier Plain means a death warrant and no-one dare go there and wail if they are dragged away. I have fourteen police officers in a town of over fifty thousand. Yet funds are found for useless forts which will never fire a shot and Collyer runs around building batteries and redoubts, barracks and magazines, walls and fortifications as if his life depended …’

‘Robbie!’

Robert threw an annoyed glance at his sister though these considerations were also not the cause of his bad temper.

‘Well, don’t bother me with Alexander. You have spoiled him rotten, indulged his every whim and financed his appalling habits. You have known this for the past two years. And now he has gone too far. What is it? A married woman, the Dean’s wife no less. No, sister. It is your fault and you must find a way out.’

Charlotte looked downcast.

‘Rob, don’t be angry. I know you’re right. But I have no idea how to tell him about, well, about, any of this.’

Robert sighed and folded Charlotte’s arm into his. They walked slowly back towards the Court House.

‘I know. You are scarce less scandalous than him. Worse, actually.’

His laugh was tinged with irony.

‘Did you hear the new pastor has fulminated from the pulpit about fornicators etcetera? That means you. And me. And the whole town.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Charlotte sighed. ‘We will not inherit the Kingdom of God. At least this one has not mentioned me by name and put the mark of Cain on me. And he seems a little more concerned about the drug addictions of virtually the entire town. But I was talking of Alex.’

He patted her hand. ‘You have spoiled him because of guilt. Because there are secrets and lies between you. Tell him the truth.’

He stopped and turned Charlotte to face him.

‘Tell him all the truth.’

Charlotte shook her head. ‘Not all. I dare not.’

Robert dropped his sister’s arm.

‘Then you will pay the price. He is coming back from Scotland under a cloud, but older, eighteen, a young man with all his wits. He will find out. Be warned.’

Robert’s tone was severe. He was fed up with Charlotte’s nonsense with the boy who needed a good slap. But this was most certainly not the cause of his bad temper.

‘Well, I’m in a terrible mood and not worth the talking to. I must sort out this divorce business by hook or by crook.’

Charlotte turned away, now as annoyed as her brother.

‘For heaven’s sake Robbie, Teresa will never divorce you and you cannot find grounds to divorce her. You might as well get used to it.’

Robert glowered at her and strode away.

Charlotte was sick to the back teeth of the question of Robert’s blessed divorce. If he wasn’t moaning about the state of the town and lack of money he was going on and on about this divorce until he drove all his acquaintance distracted. Really he had become grumpy and self-centred.

Ever since Shilah, his Anglo-Indian mistress, and mother of his eldest daughter Amber, had become pregnant he talked of nothing else. He had become a bore on the subject of the new Matrimonial Causes Act, which he knew by heart, and now so did Charlotte and all his long-suffering friends.

The Act made marriage a contract rather than a sacrament and made allowance for divorce in a civil court. To rid himself of a wife a man had only to prove his wife’s adultery which, since Teresa lived an exemplary life with their son Andrew amidst the copious numbers of aunts and uncles of the enormous da Souza family, there was nothing he could do. Not an ounce of scandal attached itself to Teresa and it drove Robert mad.

He had married Teresa because she was upright and respectable and he had been too ambitious and too scared to risk condemnation by marrying a half-blood woman, the illegitimate child of convicts. But Charlotte was sure that he had loved Teresa too, as she still loved him, and he had been happy and contented with his wife for many years. Yet somehow this passion for Shilah had been re-ignited and he had found the courage to leave Teresa, even after the birth of Andrew; had risked losing his position, risked his reputation. He had survived it all, to his credit, because he was invaluable to the town, and recently had risen to the official position of Commissioner. Now, with a new child on the way, he had become obsessed with marrying Shilah.