should leave.
They were drunk, na? Why didn’t you just ignore them?
How to ignore them, Seth? We gave all that money for the dinner and then they call us monkeys and niggers?
Fourteen
February 20, 1839, Markwick’s Hotel
My dear Maharanee of Pugglenagore – your servant Robin is proud to announce a Discovery! A most astonishing discovery – or perhaps it is only a conjecture, I cannot tell, and it does not matter, for along with it I also have some news – at last! – of your pictures. But I must start at the beginning…
The first part of this month flew by because of the Chinese New Year – for a fortnight nothing was done: the city was convulsed with celebrations and the lanes rang to the cry of ‘Gong hei fa-tsai!’ Scarcely had the festivities ceased when who should appear but Ah-med! You will remember him as the emissary who took me to Fa-Tee to meet Mr Chan (or Lynchong or Ah Fey or whatever you wish to call him). It had been so long since I last heard from Mr Chan that I had almost given up hope of seeing him again. That is why I was quite inordinately pleased to see Ah-med. I will not conceal from you, Puggly dear, that all my hopes in regard to the task Mr Penrose has entrusted to me are invested in Mr Chan – other than him I have not met a soul who has anything enlightening to offer on the subject of this mysterious golden camellia; no one has seen it, no one has heard of it; no one understands why anyone should think it worth a smidgeon of their attention. Indeed, so fruitless have my inquiries been that I had begun to wonder whether I ought not to consider returning the money Mr Penrose so generously advanced to me (but it really would not suit, dear, for it is already spent – a few weeks ago Mr Wong, the tailor, showed me an exquisite cloud-collar, trimmed with fur, and no sooner had I set eyes on it than I knew it would be a perfect New Year gift for Jacqua – and I was right. He loved it and thanked me so fulsomely, and in such interesting ways, that I could not imagine asking for its return…).
So there was Ah-med and there was I, and after we had gone through all the usual motions of chin-chinning, he told me that Mr Chan had returned to Canton for a few days and wanted to know if I had yet received any pictures from Mr Penrose. I said yes, they had been sent to me several weeks ago and I had been waiting impatiently all this while and would be glad to show them to Mr Chan at his earliest convenience. At this, Ah-med’s smile grew broader still and he informed me that his employer was nearby and would be happy to meet with me at once.
‘Can do, can do!’ I replied. It took but a moment to fetch the pictures from my room and then off we went.
I had imagined that Ah-med would lead me to one of the many teashops and eateries that commonly serve as meeting-places in Canton – on Thirteen Hong Street perhaps, or somewhere in the vicinity of the city walls. But this was not to be: Ah-med turned instead in the direction of the river. I wondered perhaps whether we were once again to take a boat, but no – it turned out that we were to go to Shamian!
I think I have mentioned Shamian before – it is a tidal island, a mudbank that shows itself when the river runs low. It lies at one end of Fanqui-town, not far from the Danish Hong, and although it is only a sandbank it does enjoy a certain kind of renown in the city; this is by virtue of its being the favoured mooring-spot for some of Canton’s brightest and most colourful ‘flower-boats’. It was on one of these, evidently, that I was to meet with Mr Chan – and that, too, in the middle of the morning!
Flower-boats are among the largest – and certainly the gaudiest – vessels on the Pearl River. Were you to see them in some other place you would think them to be figments of your imagination, so fantastical is their appearance; they have pavilions and halls and terraces, covered and open; they are festooned with hundreds of lanterns and ornamented with decorations made of silk. At the entrance of each vessel is a tall gateway, brightly painted in red and gold and decorated with a bestiary of fabulous beings: writhing dragons, grinning demons and toothed gryphons. The purpose of these fearsome gargoyles is to announce to all who approach that beyond lies a world that is utterly unlike the dull reality of everyday experience – and at night, when the river is dark and the boats are illuminated by lights and lanterns, these boats do indeed seem to become floating realms of enchantment. But as I said, this was around mid-morning, and in the bright light of day they looked, I must admit, rather tired and melancholy, more tawdry than gaudy, humbled by the sun and ready to accept defeat in their unwinnable war against mundanity.
When the river is at its height, Shamian can only be reached by boat, but when the tide runs low a brick causeway emerges magically from the water: we crossed over on foot and and Ah-med led me to one of the largest boats. The tall, gilded portals were firmly shut and the only person on deck was an elderly woman, busy with some washing. A shout from Ah-med brought her to her feet and a moment later the doors creaked open. I stepped inside, to find myself in a saloon that had the cluttered and disarranged air of a fairground after a long night. The floor was covered with rugs and laden with intricately carved wooden furniture; on the walls were scrolls with calligraphic characters and dream-like landscapes; the windows were shuttered and the room was fogged with the smell of smoke – of tobacco, incense and opium.
With hardly a pause, Ah-med led me through this saloon into the vessel’s interior. Ahead lay a corridor with cabins on either side – but the doors were all closed and there was not a sound to be heard except the odd snore. Then we came to a dark stairway: here Ah-med came to a halt and gestured to me to go on up.
I was now in a state of no little trepidation, and I made my way up in a gingerly fashion, not knowing what to expect. I emerged on to a sunlit terrace to find Mr Chan reclining on a cushioned couch. He was dressed, as before, in Chinese costume, a grey gown and black cap, but it was not in the Celestial fashion that he greeted me but in a manner eminently English, with a handshake and a ‘Holloa there!’ There was a chair beside the couch: he signalled me to it and poured me a cup of tea. He was sorry, he said, about the great length of time that had elapsed between our last meeting and this one, but his circumstances had been such, of late, that he had been forced to travel a great deal amp;c. amp;c.
Mr Chan is not a man who gives the impression of being enamoured of small talk; at the first pause I handed over Ellen Penrose’s illustrations of her father’s collection. To my surprise, he did not even open the folder; laying it aside he said he would examine the pictures later; for the time being there was another matter he wished to discuss with me.
By all means, said I, at which he proceeded to explain that it had come to his ears that I was closely related to Mr George Chinnery, the famous English painter, and that I was myself an artist in the same style.
Yes, I said, this was all true. So then he asked whether I happened, by any chance, to be acquainted with a certain painting of Mr Chinnery’s – a canvas that was generally known as ‘The Portrait of an Eurasian’?
‘Why yes,’ I said, ‘I certainly do!’ – and this was no more than the truth for it is a fact that I know this picture very well indeed. Of the work Mr Chinnery has done in China, I like none better – and as you know, Puggly dear, it has long been a habit of mine to make copies of pictures that make an impresssion on me. Fortunately I had not neglected to do so in this instance: the copy is small, but, even if I say so myself, perfectly faithful to the original. I have it in front of me as I write: it depicts a young woman dressed in a cloak-like tunic of blue silk, and wide, white trousers. The garments are sumptuous, yet negligently worn; the face has the delicate contours of a heart-shaped leaf and the eyes are black and startlingly large, with a gaze that is at once gentle and direct. A pink chrysanthemum peeps out of her glistening black hair, which is parted in the middle and pulled back so that it falls over her temples in graceful, rounded curves. Behind her, serving as a frame within a frame, is a circular window; it outlines her head and provides a view of a pair of misted mountains in the distance. Every detail is chosen to evoke a Chinese interior – the shape of the sitter’s chair, the tasselled lantern above her head, the high-legged teapoy and porcelain teapot. The face too, in the tint of the skin, and the angle of the cheekbones, is of a clearly Chinese cast – yet there is something about the woman’s smile, her stance, her pose that suggests that she is also, in some way, foreign, an alien at least in part.
The painting is, to my mind, one of Mr Chinnery’s finest, but I am not, as you know, Puggly dear, always the most impartial of judges. It may well be that my passion for this picture springs from a sense of sympathy with the subject – Adelina was her name – not only because she is of variegated parentage, but also because of what I know of the circumstances of her life and her death (and when you hear the story, as you presently shall, I think
