You see, Puggly, what a great challenge my epic tableau has already become? And I have shown you only a small part of it. There are so many others: the editor of the Canton Register for instance – Mr John Slade. He is hugely fat and has the look of a gargantuan salad, composed of diverse elements of the vegetable and animal kingdoms: what a treat it would be to paint him in the fashion of Archimboldo – his face as florid as a pomegranate; his whiskers glistening like the tail feathers of a dead pheasant; a belly with the contours of an ox’s haunch and a neck like that of a bull. Mr Slade’s voice is so loud that it has earned him the nickname of ‘Thunderer’ – and I can attest that it is well-deserved: I can hear him in my room when he is at the other end of the Maidan!
Then there is Dr Parker, who flaps about like a raven but is a most amiable man and runs a hospital where many Chinese patients are treated. And there is a Mr Innes who is some kind of Highland Chieftain and strides about the Maidan like a Crusader, picking fights with all who have the temerity to cross his path. Mr Karabedian says that he is persuaded that all his endeavours are willed by a Higher Power, even the selling of opium!
But in Fanqui-town this conviction is not unusual, even with the missionaries. There are several of them here – a horrid Herr Gut-something who is always hectoring everyone; and a Reverend Bridgman, who is insufferably priggish. I confess I detest these Missionaries, and it is not, I promise you, because they treat me with the pitying solicitousness that is the due of a Child of Sin. Mr Karabedian says they are utter hypocrites and he has seen them, with his own eyes, distributing Bibles from one side of a ship while selling opium from the other. But there is this at least to be said for them that they present a marvellous opportunity for an exercise in the Gothic style – what fun it would be to show them up for the ghouls and charlatans that they really are!
And that is still not the end of it, for I certainly could not leave out Mr Charles King. He does not, properly speaking, constitute a faction, being but a party of one – yet by virtue of the example he sets, he is counted a considerable force in Fanqui-town. He is the representative of Olyphant amp; Co., which is, according to Mr Karabedian, the only firm in Canton that has never traded in opium! Of course he gets no credit for this from the other fanquis – on the contrary he is reviled for his rectitude, and is forever being accused of toadying up to the mandarins. But neither threats nor mockery can sway Mr King: even though he is a mere stripling compared to the venerable greybeards who rule over Fanqui-town he has held stubbornly to his course – which takes, as you may imagine, no little courage in a pasturage where every other creature meekly follows the bellowing bulls who lead the herd.
Mr King is not quite thirty but he is already the Senior Partner in his firm (the founder, Mr Olyphant has long been gone from Canton). But to look at Mr King you would never think him to be a businessman – silly creature that I am, I cannot deny, Puggly dear, that one of the reasons why I am drawn to Mr King is that he bears a striking resemblance to the painter who stands higher in my esteem than any other modern Artist: the magnificent and tragic Theodore Gericault.
I have only ever seen one likeness of Gericault, a pen-and-ink drawing by a Frenchman whose name I cannot remember – it shows him in his youth, with dark curls tumbling over his brow, an exquisitely dimpled chin, and a gaze that is marvellously dreamy and yet a-glow with passion. Anyone who has ever studied that portrait will surely gasp (as I did) if they happen to set eyes on Mr King – for the likeness is quite startling!
You will remember, dear, that I once showed you a copy of Gericault’s masterpiece ‘The Raft of the Medusa’? You may recall also that we were so affected by his depiction of the plight of the doomed castaways on the raft that the print became quite damp with our tears? Only a man who had himself experienced great tragedy could create such a moving portrait of suffering and loss, we agreed: well, this is yet another aspect of Mr King’s resemblance to the Artist of my imagination – for there attaches to him an air of the most plangent melancholy. So striking is this element of his appearance that it does not come as a surprise to learn (as I did from Mr Karabedian) that he has indeed suffered an almost unendurable loss.
It appears that Mr King’s family circumstances were such that he had to leave his home, in America, when he was very young. He was sent to Canton when he was but seventeen years old – he was then even paler and more delicate in appearance than he is now, and was thus subjected to all manner of bullying and ballyragging by the rowdier fanquis. The tenor of their taunts will be apparent to you from the nickname he was given then – ‘Miss King’ (and you may not credit it, Puggly dear, but this appellation is still in use, being frequently whispered behind his back. This is not the least of the reasons why I am so much in sympathy with Mr King for I am myself no stranger to such names (‘Lady Chin’ry’! ‘Hijra’!)) I too know very well what it is to be tormented by packs of loutish budmashes (oh, if you only knew, Puggly dear, of all my encounters with langooty-ripping thugs; of the many times I have had to fight bare-chuted with badzats…).
But Mr King was luckier than I – Providence took pity on him and granted him a Friend. A year or two after he came to Canton, it happened that another American lad travelled to China to join the same firm. His name was James Perit and he was by all accounts a Golden Youth, brilliant in intellect, of charming address, and blessed with uncommon good looks (I have seen a picture of him – and had I not known that it was painted in Canton I would have thought the sitter was none other than Mr Gainsborough’s ‘Blue Boy’!).
I do not know if this is all in my own head, Puggly dear (and I think it may well be so, because I am, as you know, an unregenerate dreamer) – but I am persuaded that my Gericault and the Blue Boy enjoyed the most perfect Friendship in the short time that was to be granted to them. But it would not last – for barely had James Perit reached the age of twenty-one when he contracted a virulent intermittent fever…
Well I will not draw it out, my darling Pugglee-ranee (the blots on this page will show you how much this tragedy affects me). Suffice it to say the Golden Youth was struck down – he now lies buried in the foreign cemetery on French Island, not far from Whampoa.
Poor Mr King – to be given a taste of a kind of happiness that is rarely granted to mortals but only to have it snatched away! He was utterly stricken with grief and has since dedicated himself to religion and good works (Mr Karabedian says that in a town that teems with hypocrites, Mr King is one of the few true Christians).
I will not conceal from you, Puggly dear, that before I knew of all the circumstances, it did occur to me to wonder, for a few precious moments, whether Mr King might not be the Friend I have dreamed of. But of course this is the most absurd of idle fancies: Mr King is impossibly high-minded and must regard me as a flighty, frivolous creature and a pagan as well (for none of which could I, in all conscience, blame him). Yet, I am not without consolation, for Mr King is nothing if not kind and treats me always with the greatest courtesy and consideration – he has even assured me that he will soon commission a portrait! He does not strike me as at all the kind of man who likes to hang his own likeness upon his walls so I suspect that his intention is to make a good Christian out of me – but I do not care: I cannot tell you how eagerly I await this commission!
As for the others I think they must gossip a great deal about me (Mr Karabedian says he has never known a place where there’s more buck-buck than Fanqui-town). It is not uncommon for eyes to be sharply averted and voices to suddenly drop when I pass by. As to what is being said I need scarcely conjecture for many people here, especially the grandees, are well acquainted with Mr Chinnery for he has painted most of them: suffice it to say that I have so come to dread their sneers that I keep away from all who are within my Uncle’s circle of acquaintance.