The Forbidden Orchid Page 13

  “I went out for a walk in the morning, and when I returned, I found this.”

  “This looks very bad, very bad indeed,” Sir William said. “Have you sent for constables yet?”

  “Dear me, no. No need. I expect this is the work of street urchins up to mischief. Nothing stolen that I can make out.”

  “But, Papa,” I said. “Surely this vandalism cannot go unreported.” I searched through the mess. “What about your journal, your map of China? I couldn’t find it earlier. Perhaps this is the work of the man who stole my orchid.”

  Papa shelved the book he was holding and then knelt down next to the pile of books he’d gathered, shuffling through them so quickly that the pile collapsed. “It’s in here, I’m sure I saw it.”

  I knelt down next to him to help him search, but he shot me a look so fierce that I stood up. I had never been afraid of my father before, but if I were honest, I was wary of him now.

  “Are you feeling quite well, Buchanan?” Sir William grasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward a little, gazing at father intently.

  “I’m very well.” He discarded another book. “Only a small headache. I’m afraid my daughter overreacted. I’m sorry she took you away from your work.”

  Papa would not look at Sir William or me. He kept on at his task, squinting at the spine of each book. And then he threw up his hands. “The journal must be here!” He was growing ever more frantic.

  “Papa, we have to face the truth that the journal was stolen. Can you paint it again from memory?”

  “Maybe,” he replied. “I don’t know.” He went to the couch and lifted up the cushions, throwing them onto the floor. The pot shards crunched under his feet as he moved.

  “Papa, let me fetch a brush and pan to clean the shards. You’ll cut yourself.”

  I knew this was a mistake as soon as I said it. Papa’s shoulders stiffened.

  “Shall we have a spot of lunch? I’m sure a hot meal and a pot of tea will do your headache some good,” Sir William asked.

  “An excellent notion, Sir William, but I’m not hungry,” Papa said. “Elodie may go with you if she wishes.” Papa addressed this remark to another pile of books.

  “I believe I’ll cry off, too, Sir William,” I said. “But thank you all the same.”

  Sir William hesitated; glancing at Papa and then me, as though loathe to leave us in the room together. “Well then. I’ll leave you to it, Buchanan.”

  Papa nodded and studied another book. “Good day to you, sir.”

  I followed Sir William outside. “I think this was the work of the same man who stole my orchid. The man with the hook. Do you know of him?”

  Sir William inclined his head. “Yes, I know of him. Luther Duffey. He’s dangerous, no one to trifle with. Because no one other than your father has been able to locate the Queen’s Fancy, it’s known as a lost orchid, and therefore worth a fortune. Your father keeps the locations of all of his plants secret, and he is well-known for doing so. His secrecy has made him very successful but at the same time susceptible to attack from men like Luther Duffey. If he is able to read your father’s map, then he holds the key to a veritable treasure chest.”

  The cold spring wind blew around me, sending the fringes of my shawl flapping.

  “The map doesn’t say where he’s traveling to. Surely China is a large country.”

  Sir William nodded. “This is true. Duffey would have to have knowledge of the port your father was headed to. Before the China Wars there were only a few ports open to foreigners, but now with China’s loss there are many more. As long as his destination remains a secret, your father has nothing to fear.”

  “Will the people he hires in China look after him well? Will they be good to him?”

  “I’m afraid he insists on traveling alone this time, with only a few servants known as coolies. He doesn’t want to imperil anyone else. He told me he wishes to travel as unnoticed as possible.”

  “Will the coolies look after him? Should something go wrong?”

  Sir William hesitated.

  “Please tell me the truth, Sir William. I’m not a child.”

  He sighed. “Very well. The answer to that question is no. And not because the Chinese are heartless or hate Westerners, although some of them are and many of them do. It’s because of their culture. If a Chinese person cares for an ill person and he dies, the Chinaman is liable for the dead man’s funeral expenses, and that can be quite a hardship for a coolie, who barely earns enough to afford rice and a roof over his head.”

  “If no one will help, will he be able to manage on his own?” In actuality, I was asking Sir William if my father would survive the journey. I felt dread rise in me, and my eyes prickled with tears again. What if something happened to him on the journey? We’d never know what befell him. What if he became injured and died in the wilderness all alone, with no one to comfort him, no one to bury his remains? Mamma would go mad with not knowing.

  Uncertainty glimmered in Sir William’s expression, but then he smiled. “I’m quite sure, Miss Buchanan. I’m quite sure all will be well.” He touched his hat and took his leave.

  I waited until Sir William disappeared into the landscape of Kew before I stepped into the cottage to fetch a brush and pan, to help Papa in any way I could, even though that help was unwanted.

  THAT NIGHT I WAS AWAKENED BY THE SOUND OF PAPA SCREAMING—A terrifying high-pitched wail that echoed through the cottage. I rushed down the stairs to his side, but he had fallen back to sleep. He had thrown the blanket off, and sweat beaded on his forehead. I sat in the battered rump-sprung chair for the rest of the night, my knees tucked up under my nightdress, watching over Papa as he slept in his pallet.

  I returned to my bed before he awoke. I knew then that it was impossible. If Papa went alone to China, he’d never return to us alive.

  THIRTEEN

  When we arrived at the Osprey the next morning, Papa bade me to wait on the dock with Kukla and went aboard to find Alex and his father.

  I watched the sailors at work, climbing the masts, shouting orders, and running to and fro. My curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to stand on that ship’s deck, to feel its boards under my feet, and to see the world from its vantage point, if only for a moment. The Osprey could be boarded by a small bridge-type apparatus that spanned the water from the dock to the ship, and so I stepped aboard the little bridge, taking care to hold tight to the hemp ropes on either side, Kukla following behind me, and in seconds I was onboard the Osprey. Everything was tidy and neat as a pin. Ropes lay coiled up like springs, and perfectly spaced and tied lines held the canvas sails to the masts. Even though the ship had fulfilled its mission, there appeared much work to do still. Several boys knelt in a line on the deck, each one slowly scraping a stone against the boards. Their actions likely accounted for the stark white boards underfoot. Another group of older boys knelt in a circle pushing oakum into cracks on the boards. The term shipshape and Bristol fashion suddenly made a great deal of sense. Kukla, happy to be home, ran off in the direction of the cabin.

  A bearded man appeared from below and stood for a moment scowling at the boys. He was dressed in canvas trousers and a patterned jersey, a blue cloth knotted around his neck. He held a long narrow strap in his hand, and this he flicked against his leg as he watched the boys toil. After a moment he made his way toward the first group of boys and said something to the smallest, a thin boy with dark, stick-straight hair that hung in sheets around his face. The boy replied, but clearly his answer was not to the man’s liking, and his scowl deepened. He crossed his arms over his chest, the strap dangling from his hand, and asked something else. This time the boy shook his head and stared at the deck, stilling the stone in his hand. The man looked away for a moment and then shouted, pulling his arm back as though to strike the boy with the strap. The boy shrank away, mouth open in fear.

&nbs
p; The man did not bring the strap down; the boy’s cowering seemed enough to please him, and so he dropped his arm and backed away. The boy knelt closer to the deck, so close he was almost doubled in half, and returned to the task of scrubbing with his stone, this time, picking up the pace. The man grinned and said something to a red-haired lad next to his victim, who laughed and punched the boy on the arm.

  The man looked up and saw me watching him. His jovial expression left his face only to be replaced by that same scowl he had directed at the boy. In a trice, he crossed the deck.

  “What is your name, miss?” he asked when he reached me. His accent was foreign. I guessed he was Scandinavian or from one of the Low Countries. He wore his long blond hair clubbed at the nape of his neck. His face was very rugged and browned by the sun, brown as a biscuit. So tan was his skin that his dark blue eyes seemed quite piercing. He was very handsome in a fierce way. A dangerous way.

  “Elodie Buchanan,” I replied.

  “Egon Holst at your service.” He bowed his head briefly, a small illusion of manners, because the look on Mr. Holst’s face was anything but polite. “Well, Miss Buchanan, are you lost?”

  “Not at all,” I replied. I looked around, hoping that Alex was close by.

  “Have you business on this ship?”

  “Yes, I brought Kukla back to Alex. And I’m waiting for my father.”

  “I suggest you wait for him on the dock,” he said flatly.

  “I apologize, sir. I had no idea I was in the way. Perhaps I’ll wait over there.” I gestured toward the end of the ship, unwilling to yield to him and show him he had intimidated me as he had intimidated the boy. He was not my master, after all.

  “You are not in the way. You are unwelcome.” Up close, I could see the strap was a kind of riding whip. It was even more menacing up close—a folded piece of black leather about a foot long, held together with a brass tack and finished with a braided handle. It was decorated along the edges with an interlinking star design. The black color had worn to silver on the ends—perhaps from the whip being wielded often.

  “I beg your pardon?” I was humiliated by the man’s unfriendly words and not a little offended by his holding the whip in my presence. Across the deck I could see the boys were still hard at work, but their toil was less ardent, their eyes directed toward us.

  “Women have no place aboard this or any other working vessel.” The whip twitched in his hand, and I had the feeling he would dearly love to employ it on me. “Females are bad luck, very bad luck. The only woman allowed aboard is the figurehead, and unless you are carved from wood, I’ll thank you to take your leave.”

  Unwilling to continue engaging with such a man, and knowing I would never be the winner of the field, I turned to depart the ship, planning to wait for my father on the quayside, when Alex came across the deck. He spied the man standing next to me, and stopped short.

  “Leave her be, Holst,” he called.

  “A woman shouldn’t set foot on this ship, Balashov, and you know that well.” Holst’s tone was cordial, but I could sense the ghosts of past arguments and disagreements between them lying just under the surface.

  “She’s a guest of the captain’s.”

  Holst’s eyes raked my figure from top to toe and then back up again. “She’s a bit young for the captain’s taste.”

  “Exactly what are you implying, sir?” I said, outraged.

  Alex came over and stood in front of me so that Holst could no longer stare at me. The two men were tall and faced one another evenly. Neither one looked willing to back down. “Have a care, Mr. Holst,” Alex said quietly.

  “I do beg your pardon for my bad manners, miss,” Holst finally said. “We sailors have little use for swaying about and hoity-toity nonsense. We have work to do.”

  “Manners cost nothing, sir,” I said. “It takes as much time to be rude as it does to be polite.”

  He barked out a short laugh and then touched two fingers to his forehead. “I’ll take my rude self away, then.” Holst went off, tapping his whip against his leg. As he passed by the boys stuffing oakum, he swung the leather and let it fall against a boy’s back with a heavy slap.

  Alex muttered something in Russian and then turned to me. “I’m sorry about Holst. He’s a very superstitious man. Many sailors believe women on board a ship are bad luck, and he is the worst of them.”

  “He looks like a bully.”

  “Nothing makes him happier than to see people cower. My father steps lightly around him because he’s the best carpenter to be found and can repair nearly anything while out at sea, and he knows how to navigate, as well. Holst’s status has given him a sense of his own importance, and he thinks he can do as he wishes.”

  “I didn’t mean to create trouble for you or your father. I didn’t know there was a rule about women. I should have waited on the quayside.”

  “You are not making a problem. You are as welcome as anyone. Your father is supervising the loading of his cargo and asked me to keep you company.” He looked over toward Holst. “But I think we’d better leave the ship for now.”

  I looked around the ship once more and reluctantly followed Alex over the little bridge.

  “Thank you for looking after her,” Alex said as we walked along the quay at the East India Docks the next afternoon. Alex said that the angry sailor’s ship had left the day before, so little Kukla could once again walk freely alongside Alex. She ran ahead to chase some seagulls, and then she came bounding back to her master to trot alongside him, head cocked, her eyes always on him, as though to make sure he wasn’t going away. “I’m sure she had a good holiday with you, but I did miss her. I’m so used to her being by my side that I kept looking around for her.”

  “She did enjoy it.” My conversation with Violetta left me feeling self-conscious around him. I felt a little tongue-tied in his presence, unsure of what to say to him. I found myself worrying about how my hair looked and if my bonnet ribbons were tied neatly. Ridiculous, really. What did it matter? I was sure Alex didn’t notice a thing about me.

  “What will you do now?”

  “Return to Kent. Help Mamma with the children. Work in my little conservatory.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t sound an exciting life compared to yours, I’m sure.”

  Alex shook his head. “It sounds a fine life to me. My life has not always been so pleasant.”

  I felt suddenly ungrateful for saying what I did. “Of course. Forgive me. I forgot you . . .” You are a dolt, Elodie, I thought.

  He stopped walking. “You forgot I was once an orphan. You can say it. I don’t mind. In England it’s a humiliation to be without parents and a family. But I don’t see it as others do. Sometimes bad things happen in order to lead us to good things. And good people.”

  “How did you come to be on the Osprey? If you don’t mind my asking, that is.”

  “I don’t.” He shrugged. “I was born in Russia but we lived in Sevastopol during the Crimean war. My parents were killed early on in the war, when I was twelve.”

  “I’m so sorry, Alex.” I tried to picture Alex as a little boy on his own, forced to make his way after his parents died in that terrible war that claimed so many lives.

  “I found work on a British naval vessel and ended up in China. When I turned fourteen, I was without a job and living in the streets of Foochow. I was desperate to leave China, so I smuggled myself and Kukla aboard the Osprey, and we became stowaways. I hid in the hold amidst the cargo for a week before I showed myself. The captain saw something in me and made me his ward. It’s one of the reasons why Holst hates me so much.”

  Something behind me caught his attention, and I thought I saw a flicker of resignation cross his face. When he returned his gaze to me, it held a sorrowful expression. “The captain has run up the blue peter. We must all make our way back. We sail in the morning, as soon as the tide is high. I mu
st bid you farewell now.”

  I turned to look at what Alex was talking about. A square blue flag inset with a white square was inching its way up the mast, and Papa was coming toward us.

  “Will you . . . will you keep an eye on Papa for me?” I asked Alex. “While he’s on the ship, I mean. I worry about him so. You yourself said he looked a walking skeleton when he was released from that prison. I’m afraid he’s not going to make it home to us. I wish I could travel with him. . . .” My voice trailed off because I couldn’t say any more. I felt sick inside, and a mounting feeling of dread began to take hold of me. My mind flashed to Papa lying in a jungle, in a catatonic state as he was in the train station, perhaps brigands robbing him of everything he owned. Stuck in the wilderness, perhaps lost and bewildered. I could feel my bodice grow damp with perspiration. If Alex tried to jolly me along by assuring me that Papa would be fine, I would scream.

  Mercifully, Alex did nothing of the kind. Instead he took my hand in his. “I understand what it’s like to worry about your family, Elodie. Of course, I shall assist him in any way I can.”

  “There are things he does at nighttime,” I said. “He has these terrors where he cries out. I leave him alone when he does so, and he seems to prefer this. Perhaps you can put the captain in the picture and any of those who might have contact with him?”

  “Of this you have my promise.” He squeezed my fingers and dropped my hand.

  Kukla chose that moment to come flying back down the dock and leap up between us, into Alex’s open arms. And I was glad she did, because I suddenly couldn’t see for the tears misting my eyes.

  A moment later, Papa reached us. “Your father has need of you, my boy,” he said. “I’ll see Elodie settled and then I’ll return to the ship.”

  Alex nodded and set the dog on the dock. He put his hand on my shoulder. “I owe you much for looking after Kukla. I’m forever in your debt. Farewell, Elodie. Do svidaniya.”

  “Take care of yourself,” I replied.