The Secret Mandarin Read Online Free PDF Page B

postscript of my own.
    ‘I will miss you horribly,’ I declared as Jane and I mended the last of the packing together, darning stockings and sewing buttons. The five months of the shipwreck was the longest we had ever been apart. ‘I know I will be lonely.’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ she chided me. ‘We will write every week. India will be wonderful. It is the perfect place for you, Mary.’
    My sister lifted the cotton shirt up to her nose as if it was a veil.
    ‘You will write to me of dusky beauties,’ she twitched the material. ‘And I will write of the children.’
    I noticed that she breathed in, smelling the shirt before she put it down. Perhaps the soap and starch reminded her of Robert. The way he smelt on Sundays, freshly pressed, freshly dressed. When she took his arm and they walked together along the crescent, to church. That was how my sister loved her husband—well turned out and in public.
    ‘Well,’ she said, ‘he is getting on. Nurseries pay well for the exotic and this trip will bring in a good fee plus anything Robert can sell on top. God will bring him home again and keep him safe.’
    I had no fear for Robert. Nor for myself. After all, I had survived a shipwreck a thousand miles from London and still come home. I am of the view, however, that it was less God’s business and more blind luck. And no one could deny that we were of a lucky disposition, all of us.
    ‘He will be fine,’ I said. ‘Of course he will.’
    When the trunks were packed we had sherry in the drawing room. Robert was booked on the Braganza, due to set sail for China from Portsmouth on the same tide as I. Jane had arranged for us to travel to the port together. She was stoic, of course, but had placed vases of lilies in each room. The funereal scent pervaded the house and matched her hidden mood. Jane might be exasperated by me but we had been close all our lives. This time it was not only I who was leaving but her husband as well.
    Robert was late home from work that night. We did not wait for him. Cook sent up sandwiches and we ate them by the fire, toasting the cheese until it bubbled and spat. It made us thirsty and Jane had more sherry than usual.
    ‘He must have made you feel wonderful,’ she mused, drawing her hand down to smooth her navy skirts. ‘Did you like it? What William did to you?’
    I sipped my sherry and let it evaporate a little inside my mouth before I swallowed. Jane and I had never discussed our carnal desires and the truth was, William was not my first, though neither of my other lovers had inspired me to the heights that the ladies talked of in the dressing rooms. For myself, if anything, I missed being held. I like the strength of a man’s arms around me. I avoided my sister’s question entirely.
    ‘Do you like it, Jane?’
    Her eyes moved up to the shadows dancing on the ceiling.
    ‘I love my children,’ she said, ‘and it does not last long.’
    It is true that I had never seen Jane flush for Robert. They never seemed like lovers—did not lie in bed all morning or dally on the stairs. But this was a step beyond what I had imagined. It seemed so cold.
    ‘William,’ I said, ‘was a terrible lover. But I know it can be…’ I paused, ‘very satisfying.’
    My sister sighed. ‘Before I married Robert, Mother tried to warn me, but it is beyond imagination, is it not? She said that it was like rolling downhill. But that scarcely touches the truth and makes it sound pleasant. The whole business is just so animal. I think I will never get used to it. A gentleman becomes quite unlike himself. I am lucky I fall pregnant so quickly and can have done with it.’
    I was not sure what to say to that. Robert and Jane had been married a long time and they had only three children. If she had fallen pregnant quickly each time, they had perhaps only rolled down the hill on a handful of occasions in all the years.
    ‘He is doing so well,’ I commented, and topped up our glasses from the