also be produced. Do not indulge in delay and expectation!” ’
By the time the last words were read, the room was stirring with indignation. Nothing was said, however, until the young translator had been thanked and shown to the door. Then Mr Wetmore took his chair again, and gave Mr Burnham the nod.
Mr Burnham sank back into his chair and stroked his silky beard. ‘Let us be clear about what we have just heard,’ he said calmly. ‘An open threat has been issued against us; our lives, our property, our liberty are in jeopardy. Yet the only offence cited against us is that we have obeyed the laws of Free Trade – and it is no more possible for us to be heedless of these laws than to disregard the forces of nature, or disobey God’s commandments.’
‘Oh come now, Mr Burnham,’ said Charles King. ‘God has scarcely asked you to send vast shipments of opium into this country, against the declared wishes of its government and in contravention of its laws?’
‘Oh please, Mr King,’ snapped Mr Slade, ‘need I remind you that the force of law obtains only between civilized nations? And the Commissioner’s actions of today prove, if proof were needed, that this country cannot be included in that number?’
‘Are you of the opinion then,’ said King, ‘that no civilized nation would seek to ban opium? That is contrary to fact, sir, as we know from the practices of our own governments.’
‘I fear, Miss King,’ said Slade in a voice that was dripping with innuendo, ‘that your Celestial sympathies may have robbed you of your ability to comprehend plain English. You have misinterpreted my meaning. It is the nature of the Commissioner’s threats that show him to be a creature beyond the pale of civilization. Does he not, in his letter, threaten to incite the population against us? Does he not imply that he holds our property and lives at his mercy? I assure you, sir, that such proud, ostentatious and unheard-of assumptions would not be made against us by the representatives of any civilized government.’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Mr Wetmore broke in. ‘This is neither the time nor the place to conduct a debate on the nature of civilized government. Let me remind you that we have been issued an ultimatum and our friends from the Co-Hong are awaiting our answer.’
‘ “Ultimatum”?’ said Mr Slade. ‘Why, that very word is repugnant to British ears. To respond to it in any form would be to countenance an insult to the Queen herself.’
At this point Dent tapped the table with his forefinger. ‘I am not of a mind with you on this, Slade. To me, this ultimatum seems a most welcome development.’
‘Indeed? Pray why?’
‘The enemy has hoisted his colours and fired his first broadside. It falls to us now to respond.’
‘And what do you propose we do?’ said Mr Burnham.
Dent looked around the table with a smile. ‘Nothing. I propose we do nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Yes. Let us inform our friends in the Co-Hong that this is a matter of the gravest import and cannot be proceeded upon without due consideration and consultation. Let us tell them this process will take several days – that will give us time to see what this man Lin is made of. An ultimatum is easy to issue but difficult to act upon.’
Having had his say, Dent leant back in his chair and began to doodle upon a piece of paper. It was Mr Burnham who broke the silence. ‘Why Dent, you’re right! It is a stroke of genius. That is what we must do – nothing. Let us see if this Commissioner’s bite is as bad as his bark.’
Mr Wetmore shook his head in disagreement. ‘I don’t think our friends from the Co-Hong will be satisfied with such an answer. And let me remind you that they are expected shortly to return to the Consoo House, with a response from us.’
‘Well then, Wetmore,’ said Dent with a smile. ‘You must go to the Consoo House with them – you, and of course Mr King since he is so greatly beloved of the mandarins. I do not expect that you will have the slightest difficulty in explaining to them that we need a few days to consider the Commissioner’s demands; it is in every way an eminently reasonable proposition.’
Fifteen
Markwick’s: March 20, 1839
My dearest Puggly, you will remember that I said I would write to you again in four weeks? Well, it has been slightly longer than that – but what I have to tell you today will make up for all of it, I promise you! And you must not imagine that you have been absent from my thoughts in the meantime: I have been perusing your letters with the greatest eagerness and was fascinated to learn of all that has been happening on Redruth – most particularly of your discovery of a promising patch of land on Hong Kong, and of Mr Penrose’s decision to transfer a part of his collection to that spot. If this island of yours is as well-watered as you say, then it makes perfect sense that your poor plants should be given a holiday from their life aboard the Redruth. After all, plants were not meant to grow on ships, were they, Puggly dear? and it does seem cruel to deprive them of their natural element when it lies so close at hand. Indeed I can think of no reason why Mr Penrose should not contemplate setting up a little nursery on the island – I talked about this with Baburao and he says he might well be able to arrange for him to have the use of a suitable plot of land.
Just consider, my dear Principessa Puggliogne, how thrilling it would be to have a branch of the Penrose Nurseries sitting upon the edge of this vast continent: you could have all manner of plants shuttling back and forth between Cornwall and China, could you not? For all you know, it might become an exceedingly lucrative business – and if it does I hope you will remember to thank your poor Robin for planting the idea in your head!
But enough of all that: I’m sure you are impatient to learn of my doings in Canton – and I am delighted to inform you that these weeks have not gone by in vain: indeed, the principal reason for my silence is that I have had hardly a minute to spare. From the moment I accepted Mr Chan’s commission I knew he would be back exactly when he said and I was determined to have the picture of Adelie done in time for his return – and there, precisely, lay the rub, for the undertaking proved to be more ambitious than I had envisioned. After labouring for a week I realized that I would need help if my commission was to be properly and punctually discharged. I then conceived the idea of asking Jacqua to assist me (in return, of course, for an extremely generous fee), and this proved a capital notion: every day, when his work at Lamqua’s studio ended, Jacqua would come to my room for a while – and so agreeably did we contrive to spend our time together that it would be no exaggeration to say that those were some of the happiest and most instructive hours of my life! But whether the purpose of advancing the painting was always well served is perhaps better not asked: it is forever a temptation, you know, when Artists work in close proximity, to expatiate upon painterly matters – and in this regard we may have sinned a little more than most. The more time we spent together, the more curious we became about one another’s artistic inclinations; no length of time seemed excessive if it extended our understanding of each other’s methods and equipment. Why, even to place our hands upon each other’s brushes – at once so familiar and so different – was to experience the thrill of discovery! Never had we imagined, Puggly dear, that we had so much yet to learn about these beloved tools of ours: every minute seemed well-used if it furthered our knowledge of the subtle variations of their hairs and bristles; not a minute felt wasted if it was spent in exploring the feel of their slender but sturdy shafts; not an hour was begrudged that was expended in learning how to coax out the wondrous luminosities that lie hidden within them.
I am, as you know, Puggly dear, always greedy to learn, and Jacqua has taught me things that are sublimely ingenious (how I envy him his education and experience!). I have learnt to create extraordinary effects through subtle variations of the rhythms of the hand; I have seen how, through the regulation of the breath, the vital energies of the body can be brought to bear upon each movement of the brush; I have been initiated into the meditative art of emptying and concentrating the mind so as to make the most of the moment of attack; I have learnt to time my strokes so that they build up to epiphanic conclusions, with the very essence of each creation being both captured and expressed in the final, climactic thrust of the brush.
But it would be idle to deny that we were often distracted: there was so much to learn that the beautiful Adelina was sometimes not accorded the attention that was her due. Not until a few days ago did it come to my notice that she still lacked her draperies and her shoes; that the circular window and the distant view of mountains
