Mandarin-Gold by Leasor James

Author:Leasor, James [Leasor, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: James Leasor Limited
Published: 2011-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

'Possibly he will stand,' suggested the head interpreter, indifferent to the question.

'But this is ridiculous,' Elliot protested. 'You must bring a seat. He cannot be expected to stand.'

Napier agreed; on no account would he stand while inferiors sat. In any case, one row of chairs had their backs to the portrait of George IV, and this, surely, was insulting to the Sovereign? He had already been insulted when the Emperor had refused to accept the picture as a gift. A further slight would be insupportable. Napier therefore ordered that all the chairs should be reversed so that no-one sat with their back to the King's picture, and he chose the centre seat for himself, with a mandarin on either side, and facing the third.

When the Hong merchants arrived to check arrangements for the meeting, they immediately begged Lord Napier to put the chairs back as they were. The mandarins would be offended beyond all apology if they did not face south. They would fine the Hong merchants heavily, and maybe even cause them to be beaten with bamboos, for they would be blamed for this calculated affront.

'I cannot alter anything now,' retorted Lord Napier when this was translated to him. ‘This is our factory. They will sit as I say.'

Usually, he would have replied in a more conciliatory way, but something about Canton, the hot, humid climate and the endless prevarications of the Chinese to what he regarded as reasonable requests, with Jardine on one side demanding fierce and instant action, and Elliot on the other advising caution, provoked a mounting irritation about his assignment and its vague responsibilities.

He sent back his reports to London, but to receive any reply would take six months — assuming that the Foreign Secretary wrote immediately, which was unlikely. After all, European problems were infinitely more pressing than what did or did not happen on the other side of the world to a handful of British merchants and privateers, even allowing their vast financial contribution to the East India Company. And in any case the problem would have resolved itself, for good or bad, long before Napier received his Government's instructions. He had to make his own decisions — but how could he do so when the Chinese acted without any reference to realities? Also, he had not been feeling well for some weeks. Each night he would lie awake in his hot bedroom, shutters closed against the noxious fumes of night, listening to gongs and firecrackers and the high-pitched wailing that the Chinese called music, wondering how his wife and daughters were faring at Macao, how his estate in Scotland was being managed, whether his sheep were being given the care he could have given them were he home instead of in this nightmare, alien land.

At eleven o'clock precisely Napier sat down in the centre chair. He and his staff waited, but no mandarins arrived. Half-past eleven; twelve; one o'clock passed and still no mandarins. Then at a quarter past one they walked in, hands in their sleeves, smiling and bowing.

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