Fragrant Flower Page 3

  “That must have caused a commotion,” Captain Widcombe exclaimed.

  “It has!” his friend agreed. “What is more, he has given permission for the Chinese to build where they wish and – more explosive than anything else – he actually invites Indians, Malayans and Chinese to his official entertainments and has made personal friends amongst them!”

  “Good Lord!” Captain Widcombe exclaimed, “I see you have a social revolution on your hands!”

  “Something very like it,” Lord Sheldon agreed. “But you do see my difficulties?”

  “And what does the War Office think?”

  “Need you ask?” Lord Sheldon replied. “The natives must be kept in their place at all costs. We must show our white superiority or God knows where it will all end!”

  “Well, all I can say is, I do not envy you!” Captain Widcombe exclaimed. “Give me the responsibility of guarding Buckingham Palace and you can keep the whole of the East as far as I am concerned!”

  “You are insular, George, that is what is wrong with you!” Lord Sheldon answered. “It would do you good to take up the white man’s burden in some far-flung outpost of the Empire. It might even broaden your mind – if you survived the experience!”

  “It is an experience I have no intention of trying – unless it is forced upon me!” Captain Widcombe remarked.

  Listening, Azalea heard him rise to his feet.

  “Come on, Mirvin, let us leave this mausoleum and go and enjoy ourselves. I learnt in the Club of a new place where they have the prettiest and most delectable little ‘soiled doves’. Many of them, I hear, are French, and to my mind they are always gayer and more amusing than the English variety.”

  “I will take your word for it,” Lord Sheldon answered. “Personally I am going home. I have a great deal of work to do. I cannot waste my time chasing pretty Cyprians, however attractive you make them sound!”

  “The trouble with you, Mirvin, is that you are growing serious! If you are not careful you will find yourself being walked up the aisle by a milk-faced creature who is still wet behind the ears!”

  “That is one thought you can dismiss from your impertinent mind!” Lord Sheldon replied. “I have no intention of getting married, George, and as you are well aware, having been my friend for many years, I like picking flowers when they are in bloom!”

  “And the flower I saw you with last time I was in London,” Captain Widcombe said, “was an exquisitely rare bloom, and I do not suppose there was a single man in the restaurant who did not envy you!”

  “Thank you!” Lord Sheldon replied. “I am glad that you approve my taste, George.”

  “No one has ever questioned that it is impeccable!” Captain Widcombe laughed.

  Azalea heard the two gentlemen put down their glasses and make towards the door.

  She was glad they were leaving. She had stood for a little while behind the curtain and then, because she was tired, she had lowered herself very gingerly onto the floor.

  As she did so she made a very slight noise with her foot on the uncarpeted boards in front of the window.

  She had held her breath, but there had been no pause in the conversation and she was quite certain it had passed unnoticed.

  Now she waited breathlessly until she heard the door close.

  Rising to her feet, conscious that the draught through the window or the March wind which was whistling round the house had left her chilled, she pulled aside the curtain intending to go and warm herself before the fire.

  As she did so she stood transfixed.

  One of the gentlemen was still in the Study, standing with his back to the door!

  He was looking at her and she was quite certain that it was Lord Sheldon who stood there!

  Just for a moment she felt unable to move, then as her eyes wide and frightened were on his, he moved towards her saying,

  “I hope what you overheard, my little eavesdropper, was of use to you? Would it be impertinent to enquire why you were so interested?”

  Azalea drew in her breath and moved from the window so that the curtains fell to, behind her.

  “I – I did not – mean to – eavesdrop,” she said. “I just – hid when I heard you – come in.”

  “Why?”

  The question was sharp.

  “I did not wish you to – see me.”

  “For any particular reason?”

  Azalea made a little gesture with her hands.

  “I was not dressed for a party.”

  “No, that is obvious,” Lord Sheldon said looking down at her apron. “What is your position here?”

  Azalea did not answer and after a moment he said,

  “You sound a little too cultured for a housemaid. You are too young to be the housekeeper. Perhaps you are a companion who is giving an extra hand because there is a party?”

  Again Azalea did not reply and he said,

  “You may think I am inquisitive, but I assure you that it is my job to be suspicious of people, especially attractive young women who listen to conversations that should not be overheard and hide themselves behind curtains!”

  Azalea did not speak and with his eyes on her face, he went on,

  “You do not look English. What nationality are you?”

  The way he spoke and the searching manner in which he looked down at her face made Azalea know that he suspected her of having an ulterior motive for listening to what he had said to his friend.

  Then she told herself he had no right to question her.

  “I assure you, my Lord,” she said quietly, “I am not interested in anything you have said.”

  “How can I be sure of that?” Lord Sheldon enquired.

  “You could perhaps believe what I have – told you.”

  “I could do that,” he replied. “At the same time I may have been somewhat unguarded in what was an entirely private conversation. In which case I am of course interested in your reaction.”

  There was something in the way he spoke which annoyed Azalea.

  He was making a mountain out of a molehill. Granted it had been reprehensible of her to hide herself and listen to what he was saying. At the same time, she thought that if he had behaved in a gentlemanly manner, he could simply have laughed it off and told her it was of little consequence.

  She saw that he was better looking and more overpowering than she had thought he would be when she listened to him from behind the curtain.

  There was something, too, in the expression in his grey eyes which was disconcerting, and he aroused in her a strange antagonism that she had never felt before where a man was concerned.

  With a proud movement she put up her chin.

  “Are you really interested?”

  It was a challenge and, as if he recognised it as such, Lord Sheldon replied insistently,

  “But of course! Are you frank – or brave enough – to tell me the truth?”

  He could not have said anything which would have annoyed Azalea more.

  She prided herself on her bravery and without thinking she answered,

  “Very well then. I will tell you. I think that the remarks you made about women show you to be insufferably, bumptiously conceited! Those which concerned Hong Kong are just what I would expect from a hide-bound Englishman who believes that the only way to assert his supremacy is to trample underfoot those who have been conquered by force of arms!”

  She saw the surprise her words evoked reflected in his Lordship’s face. But regardless of the consequences, she continued,

  “Do you ever think it might be a change for the better if we as a Nation behaved with kindness, consideration and clemency to people in foreign lands?”

  She drew in her breath and said,

  “I have been reading about Hong Kong and I have learnt that three years ago, Lord Ronald Gower was deeply shocked by the supercilious attitude towards Orientals of the young officers of the 74th Regiment which was stationed in the Colony.”

  Lord Sheldon did not speak.
Thinking that his expression was no less supercilious, she went on angrily,

  “‘No wonder,’ Lord Ronald wrote, ‘we English are so disliked wherever we go. There is no one more abhorrent to a foreigner than an English civilian, unless it be a military Englishman!’”

  Azalea made a gesture with both her hands.

  “Does that mean nothing to you?” she asked. “No – I am quite certain that if you had heard what Lord Ronald said, you would have swept it away as being much too humane to be tolerated by your stiff-necked superiority.”

  “Those are hard words!” Lord Sheldon said as Azalea paused for breath, “very hard words, and I could answer them with the same violence that you expended on me. Instead I will quote you a Chinese proverb.”

  He spoke very quietly and because of that, Azalea felt her anger subsiding a little.

  “The proverb says, ‘Sweet persuasion more effective than hard blows’.”

  There was a smile on his lips as he finished speaking. Then to Azalea’s astonishment he put out his arms and drew her close to him.

  “I like your courage,” he said. “Let me try and see if sweet persuasion will be effective.”

  Before she could answer him, before she could move, he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his. Then astonishingly, bewilderingly, his lips were on hers.

  For a moment she was unable to move because she was so surprised. Then, as she lifted her hands to press them against his chest and thrust him away from her, she felt his lips evoke a strange and utterly confounding sensation.

  It was a feeling she had never known before in her whole life. Something warm and wonderful crept up through her whole body into her throat and quivered on her lips beneath his.

  It was an emotion such as she had never dreamt of or realised could be possible. A wonder which came from inside herself and was part of her whole being.

  She could not understand it – she hardly believed it was possible. Only she was unable to move – unable to take her lips from his.

  She felt his arms tighten a little around her, but still she could not thrust him away.

  Vaguely at the back of her mind she thought that what was happening to her was part of the sunshine she had missed, the colour for which she had yearned, the music she had lost.

  It was all there, in the glory and the wonder that was suddenly a rapture because a man was holding her mouth captive with his.

  As he raised his head, she looked up into his eyes and felt that he mesmerised her to the point when her brain no longer belonged to her but, like her lips, had become part of him.

  Then, with a little cry she turned from him, to run blindly in a wild panic from the room.

  Chapter Two

  “How could I have let him do it? How could I?” Azalea asked herself not once but a thousand times in the days that followed.

  She hardly had a moment to think, because there was so much packing to do before they finally left for Hong Kong – but at the back of her mind the question repeated itself over and over again, interspersed with the words, “I hate him! I hate him!”

  Lord Sheldon stood, she thought, for everything that she and her father had most disliked, the autocratic, superior Englishman who despised those under his authority and who had no respect for any race except his own.

  She knew that she should not have raged at him, but as she listened behind the curtains to what he was saying to his friend, she had felt her anger rise like a flood tide.

  When he practically accused her of being a spy she could not control the words which burst from her lips.

  In retrospect she thought it had probably been indiscreet of her to mention what Lord Ronald Gower had said.

  She had found notes on his views in the file which the General had been given by the War Office on being told of his new appointment to Hong Kong.

  Azalea knew she had no right to touch, let alone read what were her uncle’s private papers, and the file was clearly marked, ‘Hong Kong – Secret and Confidential’.

  But when, on its arrival at Aldershot, the General had left it casually on his desk, she had been unable to resist the temptation to glance inside.

  Once she saw what it contained her curiosity could not be assuaged until she had read everything in the file. It was her job to pack up the General’s belongings in the house they were occupying and to unpack them again when they arrived at Battlesdon House in Hampstead.

  Azalea made it one of her jobs to dust and tidy the General’s Study in what had been her grandfather’s house, and every day she managed to read more and more of the memoranda, communications and notes which were contained in the file on Hong Kong.

  Most of the correspondence was from General Donovan complaining about the Governor’s new policies which, if he was to be believed, not only infuriated the military authorities in the Colony, but also aroused alarm and anger amongst all the Europeans.

  In fact, the only criticism of the military came from Lord Ronald Gower.

  His opinion had been brought to the notice of the War Office because, shocked by what he considered to be the boorish arrogance of the officers of the 74th Regiment, he had refused to tour Japan with a group of them who were going there on leave.

  It was obvious to Azalea that her uncle had every intention of maintaining the sterner attitude forcibly expressed by General Donovan.

  “Donovan has the right idea!” he said to his wife during one meal at which Azalea was present. “I shall follow his methods in trying to keep the criminals in check with the threat of what will happen to them if they do not behave themselves. The Governor’s ‘mercy’ programme has proved completely hopeless!”

  “In what way?” Lady Osmund asked, but in a voice which told Azalea she was not really interested.

  “Robbery, murder and arson are on the increase since the Governor showed the populace that he was both weak and sentimental.”

  “What sort of crimes do they commit?” Azalea asked because she was so interested.

  “Robbery is of course the most lucrative crime,” her uncle answered. “The Chinese, having inventive minds, use the storm-water drains to creep under the town and tunnel their way through into the vaults of banks, jewellery stores, and what are known as the ‘go-downs’ of bigger merchants.”

  “Good Heavens!” Lady Osmund exclaimed, “they might tunnel their way into Flagstaff House!”

  “You are quite safe, my dear,” the General replied drily. “When the vaults of the Central Bank of Western India were broken into, the thieves got away with thousands of dollars in notes and eleven thousand pounds’ worth of gold ingots!”

  “That was clever!” Azalea exclaimed before she could prevent herself.

  Her uncle gave her his usual contemptuous glance.

  “Clever! That is hardly the word I would use to describe such criminals!” he said coldly. “Make no mistake, as soon as I arrive I shall advocate that public floggings and branding in the neck are re-introduced, and I shall make quite certain that the Governor’s ‘humane gaol’ is very uncomfortable for these felons!”

  “Do you really believe that such brutal methods will be an effective deterrent to crime?” Azalea enquired.

  “I will make sure they are!” the General replied menacingly.

  Lady Osmund did not appear to be interested. Her mind was too preoccupied with purchasing elegant dresses for the twins and being fitted for the evening gowns she would wear at Government House, however much her husband might disapprove of the Governor.

  The Government House in every British Colony was the focal point of social life, and Lady Osmund was, Azalea knew, quite certain that it was there that Violet and Daisy would meet the right sort of young men who would make them rich and commendable husbands.

  She was however somewhat perturbed when she returned to Battlesdon House one afternoon after taking tea with the widow of the previous Colonel.

  “Do you know what Lady Kennedy has told me, Frederick?” she asked the Genera
l as soon as he returned.

  “I have no idea,” he replied.

  “She tells me that there was an attempt made by the Chinese to murder all the British by adding poison to the bread they ate for breakfast! Is that true?”

  The General hesitated a moment before he answered.

  “It did happen – but a long time ago, in 1857 in fact.”

  “But I understand that Lady Bowring, whose husband was then governor of the Colony, became delirious and was forced to return to England, where she died.”

  “I believe it is very debatable whether Lady Bowring’s death was the effect of poison or not,” the General replied. “In fact the War Office reports affirm that no deaths were directly attributable to the plot, although some people believed their health to be permanently undermined.”

  “But Frederick, how can we go to a place with the girls when we might be murdered with every mouthful of food we eat?”

  “I assure you, Emily, that the whole story has been much exaggerated. What happened was that one bakery, which was considered by European housewives to make the best quality bread, was found to have used arsenic in considerable quantities in both their brown and white loaves.”

  “It is terrible! Horrible to think about!” Lady Osmund exclaimed.

  “I quite agree,” the General said. “But in fact the whole plot was instigated by the Mandarins of Canton as part of their war of nerves and the punishments inflicted on the perpetrators of the crime will, I am quite certain, prove an effective deterrent for all time.”

  “I do not believe it!” Lady Osmund said, “and I assure you, Frederick, I am not going to put my children’s lives and certainly not my own, in danger from those horrible, sinister Chinese!”

  “I promise you, Emily, that your fears are exaggerated,” the General answered.

  “And what about the pirates?” Lady Osmund almost screamed. “Lady Kennedy tells me that they are a continual menace to shipping.”

  “That is correct,” the General agreed.

  “Then why isn’t it stopped?”