THEY FOLLOWED HER through that small door at the back of the council chamber and found themselves in a garden. Miss Lee turned right along a paved path and led them up some steps into a room something like Chang’s except that no pictures of birds hung among the weapons on the walls. A single spray of a flowering shrub stood by itself in a tall blue-green vase on a black pedestal. Miss Lee did not stop here but went on through a passage, and into another room. They went in after her and stood gaping.
Walking into that room was like walking into Europe out of Asia. There were a couple of deep easy-chairs. There were cushions everywhere. There was a table with a reading-desk and a reading-lamp. There were bookshelves all round the walls. There was an English fireplace, with a coal-scuttle and fire-irons beside it, its mantelpiece covered with photographs. There was a coloured picture of some green lawns, big trees, and ancient buildings with water flowing past them. There was a varnished oak plaque over the mantelpiece with a shield painted on it with a lion flourishing a fore-paw in each of the four quarters. On the mantelpiece, among photographs of young women with large sprawly signatures, there were ornaments, matchstands, vases and such, mostly in white china and all decorated with that same coat of arms. On a little table in one corner there was a signed photograph, much larger than the others, in a black and gold frame, of a middle-aged woman with a firm mouth, clever, wise eyes, and white hair brushed back from her forehead. In another corner of the room was a hockey-stick. Beside the reading-desk, on the table, was an ashtray on which were resting three little bamboo pipes, the only Chinese things in the room except for Miss Lee herself, who stood there in her black silk coat and trousers and her gold shoes, smiling quietly, enjoying the astonishment of her visitors. She unbuckled her cartridge-belt and her pistol-holster and hung them on a clothes hook behind the door as if she had been out for a walk and was hanging up a mackintosh.
‘Now,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Dulce domum. Please make yourselves at home.’
Roger was staring at a large photograph of a school hockey team. There was a back row of girls standing. ‘Pretty beefy,’ Roger murmured to himself. There was a front row of girls sitting down holding their hockey-sticks. Roger looked at Miss Lee and turned again to the picture. Third from the right. He looked at Miss Lee again, jogged Titty’s elbow, and pointed to one of the seated figures.
‘Yes,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Half-back.’
‘They look a jolly tough team,’ said Nancy. ‘Were you at school in England?’
‘Gleat Marlow,’ said Miss Lee.
The door opened and the little old woman who had stood behind Miss Lee’s chair in the council chamber came in, followed by a man with a teapot and a steaming kettle on a tray and another man with a trayful of cups and a dish of little cakes.
‘My amah,’ said Miss Lee. ‘My nurse. My father sent her to England with me and she speaks English.’
‘How do you do?’ said the little old woman. ‘Velly fine weather.’
‘How do you do?’ said five of the visitors. Roger was the sixth. He said nothing. He hardly heard what was being said by other people. He had moved out of the way of the men bringing in their trays, and, in doing so, had seen the book that was lying closed on Miss Lee’s slanting desk. It was a Latin-English Dictionary.
Miss Lee nodded, and the amah and the two men went out.
‘We will have English tea,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Stlong . . . with milk . . . And plenty of sugar. You are surplised?’
‘Well, yes, rather,’ said John. ‘We didn’t expect . . .’
‘I will explain,’ said Miss Lee, sitting down at her table, pushing the reading-desk a little further to one side, and beginning to pour out tea. ‘Sit down. Take cushions. Sit how you like. On the floor. Like a Camblidge sing-song. Solly no more chairs. Tomollow. And now, tell me your names again.’ As each one took a cup of tea Miss Lee asked, ‘Your name, please,’ and when, with cups of tea and cakes they were sitting down, Peggy in one of the armchairs, with Nancy and Susan one on each arm, and John on the floor beside Roger who had gone down gladly because standing up or in a chair he would not have been able to keep his eyes from wandering back to the dictionary, Miss Lee pointed to each in turn. ‘John . . . SuSan . . . Peggee . . . Nansee . . . Tittee . . . Loger . . .’ Not a word about that dictionary. Perhaps, thought Roger, she had not opened it. Well, he would have to tell her later.
They had left one of the armchairs empty. Miss Lee brought her teacup from the table, bowed to them slightly, sat down and began to talk.
‘My father,’ she said, ‘was a velly gleat man. I will tell you how. There are thlee islands here, Dlagon, Turtle and Tiger. This is Dlagon Island. Now the men of these thlee islands have lived by what you call pilacy since the world began. They used to take junks and cargoes and plisoners. The owners paid velly well to get the junks back, paid for the cargoes, paid for some of the plisoners . . .’
‘What happened to the others?’ asked Roger, cheerful again now that it was clear that the talk was not to turn on books.
John gave him a look, but Miss Lee, just making a slight motion of her hand, as if it were a sword hitting the back of her neck, went on:
‘The old Taicoon, the chief of Dlagon Island, took my father out of a Foochow junk. That junk fought with guns and went down and the Taicoon picked my father out of the water. My father was a velly little boy but he hit the Taicoon with his fists. One of the men took my father to throw him overside but the Taicoon said, “No. That is a good boy. Keep him and see what comes.” He thought someone would pay for him. But my father lost all his family when that junk went down. My father never knew who was his father but he lemembered that he was a mandalin, with peacock feather and gold button. The Taicoon had no sons and my father glew up in his house. He glew up velly good pilate. But in those days there was much tlouble. Gunboats came to smash up pilacy. That was not so bad. Gunboats came but they went away again. But the worst tlouble was quallelling between the thlee islands. Tiger Island men fought Turtle men. Dlagon Island junks came back with plisoners and Turtle Island men fought to stop them coming into the liver. Velly, velly bad.
‘Bimeby, when the old Taicoon died, the Dlagon Island men made my father their Taicoon. My father sent to Tiger Island and to Turtle and asked their Taicoons to meet him. Each one said “Velly pleased,” but each one wanted to have the meeting on his own island. Nobody tlusted anybody. My father said, “Better meet on a junk.” They said, “All light, but whose junk?” At last they agleed to meet on that little island where you landed in your small boat. They met there and my father told them his plan to make things better. The Taicoon of Turtle Island said “No.” Then there was fighting. The men of Dlagon Island and Tiger Island fought the men of Turtle Island. They won. The Taicoons met again, and agleed that my father was to be chief of the thlee islands, and each island was to work for all thlee. So no more fighting. My father did more than that. He made a law, never to take English plisoners to the islands. And after that there was no more tlouble with gunboats.
‘All this was a long long time ago when the old Empress was in Pekin. In those days many pilates all along the China coast. Now my father was a velly gleat man. He said, “Tax-collectors are licher than pilates. Pilates had better turn tax-collectors. No more pilacy. Thlee Islands men will plotect tladers flom pilates.” And my father built up a nice quiet business, good for evellybody. Evellybody velly pleased to pay a bit to Thlee Islands men for plotection. Nobody dare touch a tlader who paid Thlee Islands men. Thlee Islands men paid a bit to the mandalins to keep quiet and evellything went velly well. Of course they sank junks that had not paid and took plisoners, lich passengers, never poor ones, like your Lobin Hood. Good business, because lich men are in a hully to get back to their counting-houses, and pay quick. And afterwards they know better and pay Thlee Islands men for plotection. Some of my father’s best customers were old plisoners. And no Chinese asks for gunboats, because he knows that if gunboats were to smash up the Thlee Islands men there would be no plotection for anybody. English are diffelent, so my father made that law. He made much money, and Thlee Islands men were happy and contented. Then came the Levolution. Lepublic. Yuan Shih Kai . . . No matter. Mandalins go. Other men come. We paid the same squeeze and evellything went on as before.
‘Now my father never forgot that his father wore the peacock feather and was a learned man. Himself, he had no time for learning. My mother died when I was a little girl. He had no sons. He was at the velly top of his plofession and he said his daughter must have an English education. He had a fliend in Hong Kong, an old customer, and he sent me to him to go to school there and I was velly happy there and learned as fast as I could. And when I came home for the first time, for holidays, my father said “And what do you call yourself now?” And I said “Miss Lee,” and after that no one ever called me anything else. And even when I was a velly little girl, he used to make me sit beside him in the council when the gong sounded twenty-two times, and sometimes he would not give judgment himself but ask me. All the Thlee Islands men knew Missee Lee, my father’s daughter. And then he sent me away to England with my amah, and I went to school at Gleat Marlow. “Work hard,” he said, “but never forget that you are my daughter and your place is here.”
‘England was so far away that I could not come back in the holidays, and in his letters my father said nothing about Thlee Islands business. He would say “The junks are doing well,” or “Good harvest,” but that was all, and then he would say “He who would order others must first learn.” But there was leally no need for that, because I loved my books and went quickly up the school. The mistless there was a velly learned woman and I wanted to be like her. She lead all languages and lote books herself and she said that I was a velly good pupil and ought to pass examinations and go to Camblidge. My father agleed. And I forgot about the islands and worked hard and passed examinations . . . Higher Certificate with Honours . . . and she told me that I should go to Camblidge and be a learned woman, and I was velly happy. I thought I should go on passing examinations and perhaps spend all my life, like her, in learning and teaching. I went to Camblidge and listened to lectures and made fliends (there were many there who hoped to teach). And then in my velly first year, my father sent me a letter with only two words in it, “Come home”. So I came home, by big steamer to Hong Kong, leading my books in my cabin, to lose no time, thinking of my examinations. A junk from the Thlee Islands came to Hong Kong to fetch me. I came home to Dlagon Island and I saw that my father was a velly old man.
‘I could not leave him to go back to Camblidge. I stayed here, and he taught me all his business. He sent me out in the junks, so that the men should see I was my father’s daughter and not afraid. He was velly ill. He said there was no need for me to go back to Camblidge. He said I had learned enough.’
‘Jibbooms and bobstays!’ exclaimed Nancy. ‘No more schoolbooks and piracy instead . . . I mean protection,’ she added.
Miss Lee looked at her sadly. ‘No more Camblidge,’ she said. ‘And I should never be able to go on with my examinations and become a Bachelor of Arts.’
She paused and then went on with her story. ‘At last my father called a Thlee Islands Council. He was too weak to walk to his chair when the gongs sounded. They callied him. The chairs were set above the courtyard so that the fighting men of all thlee islands could be there. And I was there, and my father’s old fliend, the counsellor, whom you saw today. (Roger’s fingers strayed unconsciously to his chin.) There were new Taicoons now on Tiger and Turtle. You have seen them. My father spoke to them all and asked them what they would do when he died. The Dlagon Island men looked at my father. But the Tiger men looked at Chang, and the Turtle men looked at Wu, and my father saw that fighting might easily begin all over again. He laughed and he spoke to them all. He said that Chang was a velly good man and so was Wu but he did not think the Turtle men would want Chang for a Taicoon, and he did not suppose Chang’s men would follow Wu. Then he told them the story I have told you, how the Thlee Islands came together and he said, better keep it so. He pointed to me, sitting beside him. He said that he had taught me evellything he knew. He told them that I had gone to far countlies to learn more. He leminded them that they had heard me giving good judgments. And then he said that he could lead them no more. He made the men lift him and hold him up. He made me sit in his chair. And they sounded the twenty-two gongs for me, Miss Lee, with my heart in Camblidge. And when the last gong sounded, my father bowed towards me, and the old counsellor, and Wu and Chang, and they all swore that they would obey me, Miss Lee, as they had obeyed my father.
‘That night my father said that it was his whole life that he had put into my hands. He said that all would be well with the islands while they were one, but that if I were to fail them, there would be quallelling and all he had built would be undone. And in the morning he was dead. He had chosen the place for his glave, on the little island where he had had that meeting with the other Taicoons many many years ago. We buried him there. That little house you found on the island is the temple we built over his glave. I go there sometimes to honour his glave and to be alone with my books. So you know now why I shall never see Camblidge any more.’
There was a long silence. Then John spoke with, in spite of himself, a shake in his voice. ‘I hope you will forgive us for sleeping in the temple. We didn’t know what it was, and, you see, we had been shipwrecked, and there was nowhere else.’
‘Quite all light,’ said Miss Lee. ‘I think my father velly pleased.’
‘I used your kettle,’ said Susan. ‘And the Primus. I never thought we weren’t coming back. And we left all our things there.’
‘We will get them when I go next to my father’s glave,’ said Miss Lee. ‘No one else goes there without my orders. No one would touch them in the temple.’
‘We took some of your tea, too,’ said Susan.
‘Polly left husks on the floor,’ said Titty.
But Miss Lee was not listening. She had got up from the armchair and moved to the table. Roger scrambled up from the floor.
‘Who wrote in this book?’ asked Miss Lee, sitting down at the table and opening the dictionary on her slanting desk.
‘I did,’ said Roger, very red indeed. ‘I’m very sorry. I did it without thinking.’
‘Not Latin,’ she said, ‘that last line, but velly good.’
‘Our chaps always put in it,’ said Roger, whose face was like sunshine breaking through clouds. ‘I thought you’d just forgotten to finish it.’
‘Do you know any more?’ asked Miss Lee.
‘No Latin ones,’ said Roger. ‘Of course the men who haven’t really started Latin sometimes put something in English.’
‘What do they write?’ asked Miss Lee.
‘Very dull,’ said Roger. ‘They just write:
“He who takes what isn’t his’n
When he’s caught shall go to prison.”’
‘His’n,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Possessive emphatic . . . His own . . . I see.’
‘We don’t bother about Latin,’ said Nancy. ‘But we’ve got a rhyme like that to put in the beginning of books. We write:
“If this book should chance to roam
Box its ears and send it home.”’
‘Why punish the book and not the thief?’ said Miss Lee. ‘The one in the dictionary is better and Loger’s last line and the picture make it a warning even for uncultured persons.’
She thought for a moment, and went on. ‘Velly lucky you went to my father’s glave. Velly lucky Loger lote in my book. I will tell you. I sent my amah to fetch my books. She told me people had been at my father’s glave. I sent men to kill. A fisherman saw you and he told Turtle Island men. They too were on their way to kill when I sat down to do some tlanslation and saw what Loger had litten in my dictionary. It was like a message flom my father’s glave to say, “These persons are not thieves but students.” Quick, quick, I sent a message not to kill. Wu’s men from Turtle Island saw you go across to Tiger. So I sent orders to Chang to bling all plisoners to my yamen today. Chang thought I knew evellything. So he blought all, even his Lord Mayor . . . whom I knew nothing about. Chang meant to keep him and say nothing because of my father’s law.’
‘Gosh,’ said Roger. ‘Was that why he looked so mad when that message came? That whistling was signalling, wasn’t it?’
Miss Lee smiled proudly. ‘When I was in England I was a Girl Guide,’ she said. She tapped with her fingers on the table, giving the call up sign in Morse. ‘No teleglaph in Chinese. So I made a signal code for Thlee Islands men. My father was velly pleased. We can talk from Dlagon Island to Tiger or Turtle and no one knows what is said, only the whistlers. Velly difficult because of Chinese language. I taught twelve men English letters so that they could whistle messages . . .’
‘How did you teach them?’ asked Roger.
‘Bamboo,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Velly uncultured men.’
‘Can we send a message somewhere to say we are all right?’ asked Susan.
‘No.’ Miss Lee frowned. ‘Bling gunboats,’ she said and shook her head. ‘You are English,’ she said. ‘All English . . . except your Captain James Flint, Lord Mayor of San Flancisco . . .’ She looked hard at Nancy.
‘But we were picked up at sea,’ said Nancy. ‘We ought not to be prisoners at all.’
‘That captain who picked you up was one of Chang’s men, a Tiger Island man. He knew my father’s law. He knew velly well he ought to leave you alone.’
‘But what could he do?’ said Nancy.
‘Leave you dlown,’ said Miss Lee. ‘But Chang is a velly gleedy man. Chang wants to get lich quick. And when your Captain Flint told him he was Amelican and Lord Mayor of San Flancisco, Chang said to himself, “Amelican is not English.” He knew I would not allow, but he thought quite safe to keep him and get a lot of money flom Amelica.’
Miss Lee’s six guests looked at each other uncomfortably.
‘Chang hoped I should know nothing,’ Miss Lee went on. ‘He will make Lord Mayor San Flancisco lite a letter to Amelica and get plenty of money, and keep all that money for Tiger Island men.’
‘But now that you know?’ said Nancy.
‘Listen,’ said Miss Lee. ‘We all bleak my father’s law together. I think my father velly pleased for me. I cannot go to Camblidge so I make my Camblidge here. Only my father’s old counsellor not pleased. And Wu. They say English and Amelican are all one. Chang says quite safe to keep Amelican plisoner not English. I told them Chang could keep San Flancisco and that I would keep you. No one would know. No one would come to look for you. Chang agleed, but he wanted to keep Tittee. I said No. The others wanted to kill evellybody and keep my father’s law and have no tlouble with gunboats. I said No. You stay in my yamen. Chang has San Flancisco.’
‘But if Uncle Jim writes to America,’ said Nancy, with something of a sparkle in her eyes, ‘won’t that be just as bad as us sending a message to Hong Kong?’
‘No,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Amelica is far away. Chang thinks he will send a letter by a messenger. No one will know where it comes from or where the answer goes.’
‘But when he lets Captain Flint go?’ said Susan.
‘Chang says there will be no need to let him go. First get the money, then . . . No head, no talk.’
‘But that’s beastly,’ said Roger.
‘The money’ll be a long time coming,’ said Nancy with a grin.
Miss Lee looked at her through half-closed eyes. ‘I think so too,’ she said.
‘I mean it’s a long way to America and back,’ said Nancy hurriedly.
‘Chang’s got my parrot,’ said Titty.
‘And he’s got Gibber,’ said Roger. ‘My monkey. In the prison, next door to Captain Flint’s cage.’
‘Pallot?’ said Miss Lee. ‘Monkey?’
‘Ours,’ said Titty and Roger.
‘I will send a message,’ said Miss Lee. ‘Too late for them to come today, but you shall have them tomollow. You will be my guests. You will be velly happy. I think it is lucky I saw Loger’s liting in my book. I think my father velly pleased I have a class of students. Not quite Camblidge. But we will study here. We will study evelly day. We will tlanslate Virgil. We will lead Caesar . . .’
‘But Peggy and I don’t know any Latin,’ said Nancy.
‘Neither do I,’ said Susan.
‘I only picked up a little while Roger was doing lessons,’ said Titty. ‘I’ve never learnt properly.’
‘I will teach you from the beginning,’ said Miss Lee.
‘But we’ve got to get home,’ said Susan.
‘You will stay here,’ said Miss Lee. ‘And now my amah will show you where you will sleep.’
She clapped her hands, and the old Chinese woman, who must have been waiting outside, hurried into the room. Miss Lee said a word or two in Chinese.
‘My speak velly good English,’ said the old amah. ‘You belong walkee. My show you.’
One after another, led by John, they shook hands with Miss Lee as if it had been an ordinary party. Then, almost stunned by what they had heard, they followed the old amah out of the room, out of Miss Lee’s house, along the path to a small one-story house on the further side of the council chamber. There were three or four small rooms in it besides a big one looking out into the garden. The old amah pointed to plank beds with cushions and quilts. She seemed to guess that in such things Susan was the one who mattered. She pulled Susan by the hand and showed her a Chinese bathroom, with a huge earthenware water kong and a dipper for dipping out the water. ‘Missee Lee think of evellything,’ she said, and pointed out a small packet with a printed label, ‘Wright’s Coal Tar Soap’ and three or four big sponges on a bamboo rack above a row of towels.
‘Thank you very much,’ said Susan.
‘You belong live here . . . My belong bling man fan . . . chow,’ said the old amah. ‘If you wantee piecee anything you belong clap hands . . . so.’
She bowed to them all and left them.
‘She can’t mean to keep us for ever,’ said Susan.
‘But she does,’ said Titty. ‘She said so.’
‘She’s practically bought us,’ said John. ‘You heard what she said about keeping us herself and letting Chang have Captain Flint.’
‘Listen,’ said Roger. ‘That whistling again. She’s telling Chang he’s jolly well got to give up Polly and Gibber.’
‘Barbecued billygoats,’ said Nancy. ‘We’re all right, unless she really means all that stuff about Latin. But what about Captain Flint? She knows he isn’t American. I could see that. And when Chang finds out he’ll be furious. They’ll have his head off first thing . . .’
‘It’s jolly lucky I did write in her dictionary,’ said Roger.
‘We’re not all right,’ said Susan. ‘What about Daddy? What about Mother and Mrs Blackett at Beckfoot? What about Bridget?’
‘Bridget won’t mind,’ said Roger.
‘Mother will,’ said Susan.
‘Look here,’ said John. ‘Nobody’s expecting to hear from us for ten days or a fortnight at least. They won’t begin worrying yet. It’ll be all right if only we get away in time.’
‘But how?’ said Susan.
‘We’re prisoners just as much as Uncle Jim,’ said Peggy.
‘Let’s see if we are,’ said Nancy. ‘We can get into the garden, anyhow, and there’s another door at the back.’
They tried the door and found that they could open it. They looked out into the great courtyard, empty now and silent, except for voices from the gateway where the guards, their rifles leaning against the wall, were playing cards, sitting on their heels. They turned back, closed that door and went warily out into the garden. Keeping out of sight of Miss Lee’s house, they dodged through orange trees, and found themselves looking down on steep terraces with winding paths. There were willow trees drooping over a little pond in which they caught the golden glow of fish. There were trellises covered with purple and scarlet flowers. There were dwarf trees like pines and oaks. And far away, below the garden, they could see the water of the river and, in the distance, range upon range of blue hills.
‘Look,’ whispered Roger.
On one of the paths below them two figures were earnestly talking. One was the aged counsellor and the other was Miss Lee herself.
‘We’d better go back,’ said Susan.
They went back into their house and chose their rooms for the night, one for John and Roger, one for Titty and Susan and one for Nancy and Peggy.
‘Three cabins,’ said Roger. ‘It’s like being back in the Wild Cat.’
No one answered him, and Roger himself pinched his lip between his teeth. If only Gibber had not set fire to the Wild Cat they would not be prisoners now.
‘It’ll be all right in the end,’ said Nancy at last. ‘For Uncle Jim too. It always is.’
The old amah came in with a man bringing them their supper, big bowls of rice with pigeon’s eggs and bowls of congee soup. The old amah, who had nursed Miss Lee when she was a little girl, stayed and watched them. She began to treat them as if they were all small children, even John, and stopped first one and then another because they were not using their chopsticks in the proper way. ‘You belong live Missee Lee yamen,’ she said. ‘Belong chow-chow China fashion.’
Long after they had eaten their supper and seen the trays of empty bowls carried away, Miss Lee came to look at them, but only for a moment. She gave them no chance of asking questions. She just looked at them with a pleased smile. ‘You come to me tomollow,’ she said, ‘and have bleakfast Camblidge fashion . . . Ham and eggs . . . Then we begin study . . . Good night. Sleep well.’ She bowed and was gone.
‘She looked at us as if we were pet rabbits,’ said Roger.
‘Oh, well,’ said Nancy. ‘We ought to be jolly pleased. People don’t cut off pet rabbits’ heads.’