China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

“He will be doing something useful and good. That,” Mrs. Lomond said with firmness, “is what curates are for.”

—

So John Trader and Agnes Lomond were married, and it was a most successful event. The groom with his piratical eye patch looked very dashing. The bride was lovely. Later that year, they went to Macao, where they took a pleasant house above the port.

“We won’t be here all that long,” Trader told her. “My guess is that in a couple of years most of the British colony will be settled on Hong Kong. We’re starting to build there already.”

For the time being, however, Agnes found herself in a pleasant community where people lived the same sort of way that they did in Calcutta, but with a little less formality and rather more enjoyment. And if people found her a little reserved sometimes, they didn’t mind, because they understood that in due course, when John had made his fortune, she would be just what he needed.

They had a charming little villa high up the hill, with a wonderful view over the sea. Agnes had chosen all the furniture and decoration so well that, as she rightly said, “We might be up at the hill station, except for the sea.”

And those who had access to her boudoir noticed and thought it charming that on her dressing table, just behind the tortoiseshell hairbrushes that her mother had given her as a wedding present, stood the handsome miniature of her beloved husband that his friends had given him before he first left Calcutta for China. It was the last thing she looked at each night before retiring.

Of course, there were the months when John and Tully Odstock were away with all the other merchants in Canton. For trade was busy. But there was plenty of news to talk about.

If Canton was left alone, the British were by no means done with China. Having confirmed, without a doubt, that British arms could obtain what they wanted, the London government had recalled Elliot and sent out a sterner commander to complete the business.

Up the coast he went, in the spring of 1842, from port to port, smashing every defense. Some of the fighting was grim, especially in the summer, when John was back on Macao. On one of his occasional courtesy calls, Cecil Whiteparish brought them an especially significant piece of news.

“We’ve taken a place called Zhapu. A very pretty little coastal town, I understand, with a fort garrisoned by Manchu bannermen—but these were the real old Manchu warrior clans, you know, who conquered China originally. They fought to the last man. Truly heroic. The point is,” he continued, “the way is now clear. There are no more garrisons to take until we get to the forts on the coast below Peking itself.”

As Whiteparish was leaving, Trader remarked to him quietly, “It sounds as if that Zhapu business was pretty frightful.”

“Yes. Women and children, too, though I didn’t want to say that in front of your wife.”

“We’re fortunate, you and I, that we’ve never actually seen anything like that,” Trader remarked.

And just for a moment it seemed that Cecil Whiteparish might have said something more. But he didn’t.

—

A few weeks later Agnes Trader gave her husband a healthy baby boy. He invited Cecil Whiteparish round, and they shared a bottle of champagne. It seemed the right thing to do.

And three days after that, Trader was able to tell his wife some joyful news. “Peking’s capitulated. Signed a treaty. We’ve got everything we wanted. Five ports open to us…Well, four, really—they’ve thrown in a little place called Shanghai to make up the fifth. But that’ll do. A British consul in every port. Hong Kong formally ceded, of course. And an indemnity, can you believe it, of twenty-one million dollars!”

“That seems a lot,” Agnes remarked.

“I know.” John gave a wry smile. “It almost makes one feel guilty.”

1853

Guanji had been five years old when his mother showed him how to kill himself. All the preceding day, the battle between the Manchu bannermen and the British and Indian troops had raged along the shore. Not until evening had the barbarians dislodged the brave bannermen from the Buddhist temple near the waterfront. But by the next morning, the devils from the sea were advancing on the Zhapu garrison itself, and Guanji’s father had gone with the other men to defend the eastern gate.

The walled town of Zhapu formed roughly a square, divided into four by cross streets running north to south and east to west. The northeastern quadrant contained the garrison enclosure where Guanji lived. If the barbarians got through the town’s eastern gate, those in the garrison would be trapped with no means of escape.

“Bring me those two knives from the table,” his mother told him. And she had made him hold one of them against his neck, placed her hand over his, and gently guided the blade around his throat. “Just move the blade like that, and press hard,” she said. “It won’t hurt.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Now, you know where your Hangzhou uncle’s house is. Try to get there if you can. Maybe you’ll be safe there. But don’t let the barbarians see you. If they catch you, then use the knife and kill yourself right away. Do you promise me?”

“I promise.” His father’s elder brother. His name was Salantai—not that it mattered, since Guanji always called him Uncle from Hangzhou, which was where he had his business. The house where his uncle resided, however, was in a suburb outside Zhapu.

“Is Father coming back?”

“If he comes back, he’ll find you at your uncle’s.”

“I want to stay with you.”

How pale she looked. When the mortar shell exploded, the roof had collapsed, and a falling beam had pinned her to the floor and crushed her leg. He could see a jagged bone poking out through the flesh and the blood forming in a pool beside it.

“No!” she cried. He could see