The Secret Mandarin by Sara Sheridan

this.
    Once I had dressed I sneaked down to the kitchen. Wang was still there, eating noodle soup from a bowl. Between ugly, gulped mouthfuls, he asked a question in Cantonese and the maid rebuked him.
    ‘What did he say?’ I asked.
    The girl had good enough English.
    ‘Stupid man. He ask if you have seen the ship that sails without wind. No such thing.’
    ‘I have seen it. A steam ship. The Sirius. ‘
    ‘He wants to work on this ship.’
    ‘Tell him it is in London—a long way from here.’
    Wang continued to eat and as my words were relayed he barely stopped long enough to laugh.
    ‘He come from inland,’ the girl motioned. ‘No good sailor anyway. From Bohea.’
    ‘Bohea?’ I said gleefully. What a stroke of good luck—this was Robert’s other tea country. The home of black tea.
    ‘Fetch the master,’ I directed. ‘Bring him now.’
    Much to the maid’s displeasure I picked up a spoon and tasted the noodle soup from the pot that still lay hot beside the range. Unlike us, the servants ate exotic fare. There were noodles and dumplings, chickens’ feet and rice. The cook made a plum sauce that was delicious. The plums were delivered fragrant, still ripening on the bough. They smelt enticing. Unlike the mangoes and bamboo shoots, the melons and fresh ginger, they reminded me of home.
    ‘Fetch him,’ I motioned to her, ignoring her look of disapproval as I took another mouthful.
    Robert’s acquaintance had evidently left and Robert had retired to his study. He arrived in the kitchen seconds after the maid had bid him and his eyes lit up when I explained where Wang came from. He was so excited that thankfully he did not mention his friend, rebuke my coldness or tell me, as he had become accustomed to, that I really must play the hostess more. Instead he asked Wang a series of questions that he fired like bullets. Wang answered slowly. He knew how to grow tea and how to dry it. He had made black tea but preferred to drink green. Bohea was hilly and the best way to travel in the province was by sedan chair. By the end of the conversation Robert had engaged Wang for his trip. Like Sing Hoo, despite the obvious dangers, Wang was tempted by the money, and, of course, at firsthe did not fully understand the import of what Robert was to do. While principally interested in tea, Robert asked general questions about geography and did not concentrate overly on the tea plantations that were his real prize. Neither Wang nor Sing Hoo were to know for some time that Robert had their country’s main export in his sights. Meanwhile the man nodded furiously and beamed whenever Robert spoke, for he had been engaged at a monthly rate two times what he might expect in the normal run of things. His information about Bohea would prove invaluable.
    ‘Well done, Mary,’ Robert pronounced and disappeared upstairs once more.
    Sing Hoo and Wang did not take to each other. From the beginning it was clear they were constitutionally opposed. At first I wondered if the natives of Bohea and Hwuy-chow were generally at odds, like supporters of opposing teams, but this was not the case. The men simply disliked each other on sight. I think their rivalry was not helped by the fact that Robert could not tell them apart. While their facial features and general size was similar, I have to say they were not indistinguishable by any means. Sing Hoo was a good ten years the senior for a start. Robert simply did not appear to see this or any other difference and clearly felt they were unimportant in any case as long as one or the other did his bidding.
    The last few days in Hong Kong were punctuated by bickering between the men that degenerated rapidly into sly punches, nips and kicks whenever they could manage.
    ‘I do not fancy a year’s wanderings with those two,’ I jested to Robert. ‘They will kill each other in a month.’
    Robert was unperturbed. ‘Servants,’ he said vaguely, as if the other staff could regularly be seen punching