Moonflower Madness (31 page)

Remembering the surging torrents she and Zachary had seen when riding along the Kialing's banks, Gianetta felt a thrill of excitement. It was obvious from the ease with which her uncle had travelled from Chung King to Peng and the ease with which Charles had engaged their own boat, that boats could negotiate the more dangerous stretches of the river, but when they had been riding on the bank she had never seen one doing so.

An hour later the sail was lowered and the crew manned the oars.

‘Here we go,' Charles said tensely, fearful for the safety of his horse and wishing to God his arm wasn't uselessly bound in splints and a sling. If the worst happened and they capsized, he would be gravely disadvantaged.

Turbulent eddies caught hold of the boat. Spray rained on their faces. The crew began to shout out a rhythmic
‘ai-oh, e-oh, ai-oh, e-oh,'
which increased in volume and intensity as the skipper, handling the giant rudder-pole with practised ease, negotiated the boat through the foaming maelstrom of water.

When they emerged once more into calm, no harm had been done. Charles's horse, his legs carefully packed about with soft, plump sacks, was blithely unconcerned by the experience. Gianetta had loved every moment of it.

‘Perhaps we should form an expedition of our own,' he said to her with a grin. ‘We could sail up the Amazon or search for the source of the Mekong.'

Despite her heartache, Gianetta laughed, knowing his remark was merely a piece of nonsense. Charles was not a committed explorer and botanist as Zachary was. She doubted if, when he returned to London, he would ever again venture further from it than to Paris or Nice or Florence.

As they sailed southwards the landscape began to change. Bluffs and cliffs and gorges gave way to much gentler countryside. Thickets of bamboo grew denser and more sumptuous; carefully tended orange groves began to appear.

Their days were spent sitting companionably in the prow on the soft sacks of cargo, and at night Charles joined the crew in their games of dice.

Zachary was rarely mentioned. Charles was too mystified by his friend's behaviour to be able to throw any light on it. Gianetta hugged all her thoughts of him to herself.

By the time Chung King was in sight, Gianetta appeared to be the same vibrant and vivacious girl who had ridden out from it such a short time ago. Only her eyes betrayed the profound change she had undergone and the depth of the unhappiness she was hiding.

As they moored beneath the great high wall that was Chung King's river frontage, she was relieved by the knowledge that her uncle would, by now, have apprised her aunt and Serena of her wedding; Serena would not be happily expecting that she had returned with Charles as his fiancée.

‘Lord, how I hate this ascent,' Charles said to her as they disembarked and waited for sedan-chairs. ‘Why couldn't they have built the town in a more accessible position? Why does every visitor arriving by river have to risk life and limb just to be able to enter it?'

She didn't answer him. When she had left Chung King, Gianetta had been certain that she wouldn't be returning until after she had journeyed nearly to the roof of the world. Until after she had found the blue Moonflowers. Now, here she was again, having journeyed no farther than Peng.

‘Cheer up,' Charles said to her as their chairs arrived. ‘Serena is going to be overjoyed to see you.'

‘My uncle isn't,' she said dryly. ‘He thought he had seen the last of me. Now he's going to have to endure travelling with me all the way to Shanghai.'

Charles shuddered. ‘And to board the steamer for Shanghai we'll have to descend this cliff-face again,' he said as they both stepped into their chairs. ‘It doesn't bear thinking about.'

Gianetta was uncaring of the steep ascent to the town and the perilous descent. She had been looking forward to scaling much steeper and far more dangerous heights. Zachary had told her that the Min-Shan range in Kansu was nicknamed ‘the stone mountains', and she had been determined to emulate Gertrude Bell's exploits in the Alps by climbing where no European woman had ever climbed before.

She hated the confining mustiness of the sedan-chair. It reminded her of the intense claustrophobia she had suffered all the time she had lived in Chung King. Even worse was the sensation she experienced when, after being carried up the long stone flights of steps and traversing the narrow streets, she once again entered the Residency grounds.

Dusk was fast falling and from behind the lightly curtained dining-room windows she could see the flicker of candles.

She stepped from the sedan-chair, more grateful than ever that she was not alone and that Charles was with her. She hoped he had been right when he had said that Serena and her aunt were waiting for her uncle's return before setting out for Shanghai. A long stay at the Residency would be more than she could endure.

‘Mrs Zachary Cartwright and Lord Rendlesham,' Charles said to the minion who opened the door for them.

Almost before they had stepped into the chandelier-lit entrance-hall, news of their arrival had spread.

‘Gianetta!' Serena shrieked, running towards the head of the grand-staircase along the balcony that overlooked the entrance-hall. ‘Oh my life!
Gianetta!
'

Aunt Honoria erupted from the downstairs drawing-room in a sea of violet satin, her aristocratic face stunned almost into stupidity. ‘Gianetta! What on earth are you doing here? And with Lord Rendlesham? Has there been an accident? Is Mr Cartwright injured?'

As Serena hurtled down the stairs and as her aunt waited impatiently for an explanation, her uncle marched into the hall.

‘What the devil are you doing here?' he demanded unceremoniously. ‘Where's Cartwright?'

‘He's is continuing with his expedition to Kansu,' she said coolly before Charles could answer for her and then, her explanation made, she ran towards Serena with open arms. Two hours later, when dinner was over and when Charles had convinced her aunt and uncle that there was nothing odd or suspicious about their returning to Chung King together, Gianetta was still trying to convince Serena that she had married Zachary because she had wanted to and that she had never, at any time, been remotely in love with Charles.

‘But I simply don't
understand
,' Serena said for the umpteenth time as they sat together on her bed. ‘Lord Rendlesham told me he was in love with you and that he wanted to marry you.'

‘But I have never been in love with him,' Gianetta said patiently, trying hard not to remember that, if Serena hadn't been so convinced otherwise, Charles might never have rejoined Zachary and herself, that she and Zachary might still be together.

‘And you married Mr Cartwright and he
abandoned
you?' Serena asked incredulously. ‘Why on earth would he do such a thing?'

‘He didn't marry me because he loved me,' Gianetta said, keeping her voice steady with a great effort. ‘He married me in order that I would be free of your father's guardianship.'

Serena's grey-green eyes widened. ‘But Papa isn't a tyrant,' she protested with daughterly loyalty. ‘Why would Mr Cartwright think him one?'

Gianetta thought of Ben, her uncle's pistol pressed close against his head.

‘I don't know,' she lied, not wanting to cause Serena unnecessary hurt. ‘And now that I have told you everything that has happened to me, don't you think it's about time you told me of the arrangements for your wedding?'

The wedding was held in the Anglican Church in Shanghai. On the day she walked down the aisle behind Serena, Gianetta bitterly regretted her earlier, lovingly given promise to be her matron-of-honour.

The notes of Handel's ‘Wedding March'filled the church, and the memory of her own wedding was almost more than she could bear. As the vows that she and Zachary had exchanged were echoed by Serena and Henry, Gianetta needed every ounce of her inner strength in order to remain composed.

There was to be no Chinese honeymoon for the bride and groom. Immediately the wedding reception was over, the wedding party left for the port and the ship that was to take them to England. If several of the guests were bemused at the bride's newly married cousin being accompanied by the eminently eligible young Lord Rendlesham, it was a bemusement they kept to themselves. Sir Arthur and Lady Hollis had let it be known that Lord Rendlesham was accompanying Mrs Cartwright on the voyage to England at her husband's request, and that he was an old and trusted family friend.

Once aboard the ship, Gianetta made her way to the highest deck. She looked beyond Shanghai, turbulent and sprawling, to the vast countryside beyond. It was flat and monotonous, bearing no similarity to the glorious landscape in the far west and the north. Her eyes ached as she strained to see into the heat-haze where sky and land shimmered and merged. Somewhere, over a thousand miles away in the crystal-clear brightness of Kansu, Zachary was searching for plants, drawing and documenting them, waiting for them to seed. She wondered if he would find a blue Moonflower and, if he did, if he would think of her.

Tears stung her eyes as the hawsers were released and the massive ship began to move slowly away from the dock-side. She was seeing her last of China. From now on there would be no towns crammed with pedlars and street-barbers and rope-dancers; no distant wooded hills crowned with small temples or red-roofed pagodas; no foaming, rushing rivers.

With intolerable sadness she remained on deck, watching as Shanghai slowly disappeared from view, watching until dusk fell and the flat, dun-coloured land could be seen no longer.

In the uplands of Kansu's borders, Zachary sat alone before his camp-fire. A little distance away, Ben and Bucephalus were loosely tethered in companionable closeness. Further away, the bearers were gathered around a camp-fire of their own, their pack-mules fed and rested and tethered in the shadows.

Zachary stared grimly into the leaping flames. Gianetta and Charles would be on the high seas now, heading towards the white cliffs of Dover. He didn't have any doubts that, where Gianetta was concerned, he had made the right decision in insisting that she return with Charles to England. Charles would immediately hand the letter he had given him to his lawyer and no doubt by next spring, when he arrived in England to apprise Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society of his findings, the annulment of their marriage would be a
fait accompli
, save for his signature on the relevant documents. Gianetta would then marry Charles and, as Lady Rendlesham, would be instantly taken into the bosom of London's high society and live in luxury for the rest of her life.

The fire hissed and crackled, sending showers of sparks into the velvet-dark air. For his part, he would continue with his life as if their insane marriage had never taken place.

A log rolled from the fire and Zachary rose to his feet, kicking it savagely back into place with a booted foot. He would learn to live without Gianetta by his side, and he would discipline himself to stop thinking about her. He would continue with his journey into Kansu, and next year he would mount an expedition further west, into Tibet. And he would travel as he had always travelled. Apart from bearers, he would travel alone.

A month later, he wondered how it was that he had mounted and completed so many previous expeditions to remote corners of the globe without ever once being lonely. He was crucifyingly lonely now. At his feet, a tributary of the Wei-Hor tumbled white-spumed over its rocky bed. The Kialing and its headwaters had long since been left behind and it had been the mighty cliff-edged Wei-Hor that had led him into Kansu's heartland.

Zachary gazed broodingly down into the gushing water, his hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets. His trek had so far been highly successful. His field-book bulged with notes. His portable presses were full almost to capacity. He had found a large number of first class hardy plants unknown in England, and in the autumn he would take seed from them. Instead of feeling highly satisfied with the results he had achieved, instead of the all-pervading joy he had always previously felt in such a spectacular, stunning landscape, he felt only a deep black depression that nothing pierced.

One thing was certain. If he wanted to remain sane he would have to avoid meeting Gianetta when he returned to London. The mere thought of seeing her, arm in arm with Charles, was enough to make him clench his fists until the knuckles were white. He would not return to his Chelsea home, where she would be living until the annulment was finalised. He would book into a hotel, make his report to Kew and the Royal Horticultural Society, give the public lectures that would be expected of him and then immediately leave town without seeing either her, or Charles. Somehow he would survive his intolerable longing for her. Some day he would, eventually, forget her.

It was three weeks later when he found the Moonflower. He made camp some distance from it, so that his nightly vigils would not be disturbed by his bearers or their mules.

On the night that the pale spray of delicate blue petals opened, it took him all his time to steady his hand in order to reverently sketch it. Then, his sketches complete, he sat in the moonlit darkness, gazing at it and breathing in its heady fragrance, thinking of Gianetta and wishing that she were with him. It was then he knew that she was in his blood and in his bones and that his hope of one day being able to forget her was futile. He would never be able to forget her. Not as long as he lived. Not ever.

In London, Gianetta was beginning to think herself the only one of Charles'friends who was still in town and not basking on the sea-front at Nice or Biarritz. Charles' mother had invited her to holiday at the family home in the Scottish Highlands, but she had politely declined the invitation. The gentleman who was privately tutoring her in the natural sciences had expressed his willingness to continue with her lessons through the summer, as had her botanical drawing tutor, and the thought of being able to concentrate on her lessons for a few weeks, without any social diversions, was a pleasant one.