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

and in a way he was. But in truth, he was obeying the will of the Lord. At least he hoped so.

Everyone had told him not to make this journey. “Even if you reach the place,” they said, “you may not get out alive.” All, that is, except one. “Trust in the Lord,” she had told him. “I will wait for you.”

—

Minnie Ross had been educated by her father, who was a minister in Dundee. She’d come to Hong Kong as a governess. She was small, under five feet tall. She hadn’t a penny to her name. But she was very neat in her person, and the light of the Lord was in her eye. And she was going to marry Cecil Whiteparish.

They had known each other for a year before their courtship began. It was initiated by Minnie. And it was brief.

Whiteparish had been politely walking her home from a meeting at the London Missionary Society’s chapel in Hong Kong’s Lower Bazaar. The chapel had been built almost as soon as victory in the Opium War put Hong Kong in British hands. The modest colonial building with its plain portico had looked rather incongruous at first, in the untidy Chinese fishing village that looked across the water to Kowloon. But recently, a fire had burned most of the Chinese village, and now British builders were tidying the area up. It was all part of the expanding occupation, which brought not only the British and their dependents to the steep slopes of Hong Kong, but all manner of Chinese from Kowloon and Canton to service the new colony.

In British Hong Kong, the missionaries had at last been able to make some Chinese converts. The London Mission was already running a medical center and a thriving little school by the Lower Bazaar chapel.

“Tell me, Mr. Whiteparish,” Minnie Ross had inquired, “do you still hope to make converts on the mainland of China?”

“I do,” Cecil replied.

“But so far you have not.”

“Hardly anyone has,” he answered with a sigh. “After the Opium War, when the Chinese guaranteed British entry into five ports, we thought we’d be able to preach the Word freely. But in practice, the local governors still make it almost impossible even to trade in those ports, let alone have consuls and a British community. Canton is somewhat open. The only other place is Shanghai, much farther up the coast—which is curious, really. For Shanghai was only a very minor place at the time, you know, almost an afterthought, really—though it’s growing rapidly now.”

“But you still have faith in your mission?”

“Let us say that I am ten years older and a little wiser.” Cecil Whiteparish smiled. “The life of a missionary to China is dispiriting, Miss Ross. Many of the missionaries I knew when I first came have given up and returned home. One of them may even have lost his faith. I suppose I’m still here because I put so much effort into learning Chinese, so there’s more chance I might be useful in China than anywhere else. But I’ve no illusions. I’m a single Christian. If during my life I could bring even two others into the faith, especially if they have families, that would be a small numerical advance.”

“I’m sure you hope for more. Is it true that you are thinking of going into China illegally very soon?”

He stared at her and frowned. “That is supposed to be a secret.”

“I don’t think there are many secrets in Hong Kong, Mr. Whiteparish. They say you want to go to Nanjing.”

“This rebel army, the Taiping or whatever we are to call them, say they are Christians. Nobody knows quite what they are, but they number in the tens of thousands, and they may soon control an entire province. If they are truly Christians or can be made so, it could be of huge importance. Somebody has to go and find out.”

“A dangerous mission.”

“I’m a missionary. And I know something of the Chinese by now. If I can elude the Manchu authorities along the way and reach the rebels, I doubt they will harm me.”

“You’ll trust in the Lord.”

“It’s what I usually do.”

“You must go,” she said, as though she had decided the matter herself.

He gazed at her. What a strange little person she was. Apart from her smallness, there was nothing really noticeable about her. Mousy hair, nose thin and pointed, eyes small, cobalt blue—that was unusual. There was something quiet but very determined about the way she set about her tasks. He’d noticed that and assumed that she had a great certainty in herself. Not surprising, really, in a daughter of the manse. One had to respect her; and if sometimes he felt a desire to laugh—though he never did so—it would have been a laugh of affection.

He was quite unprepared for what came next.

“Isn’t it time you married, Mr. Whiteparish?”

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Not many women would want to share the life of a missionary; and my means are very modest. I’ve never considered myself in a position to marry.”

“I would marry you,” she said simply.

“Good heavens.” He hardly knew what to say. “Why?”

“Because you are a good man. What other reason could there be to marry?”

He stared down at her and realized that she was entirely serious. This was how she thought. Without meaning to, he burst out laughing.

“Why do you laugh, Mr. Whiteparish? Are you mocking me?” She looked hurt.

“No, Miss Ross. I was laughing with pleasure. At your goodness. Would you marry me, then?”

“Why, yes. I already said so.”

He gazed at her, then across the water. Then back at her again. “Well then,” he said, “it seems you know your mind, Miss Ross. I suggest we marry when I get back from Nanjing.”

“Not before?”

“Better that you should become a wife,” he said gently, “than a widow.”

—

Yet now that the gates of Nanjing were in front of him, and he was about to meet his destiny, what most impressed Cecil Whiteparish