Drawing myself up to my full height, I spoke in the severe tone I had often used while a governess: “I am Charlotte Bronte. Your father has engaged me to teach English to you. It appears that you will benefit from a few lessons. You will also never startle me like that again.”
But my manner failed to produce the desired respect from T’ing-nan. Disdain twisted his mouth. “I no need teacher,” he said. “I not a child.”
A closer look showed me the dark stippling of whiskers on his face. He was not a child, but a young man, perhaps eighteen years of age. His small size had misled me to think him much younger.
“You no tell me what to do,” he said. “You servant. I the master.” His expression of smug superiority reminded me of many privileged, spoiled children I had taught. He reached out and shoved my shoulder. “You go away.”
Affronted, I stood my ground. “Your father engaged me. Whether I go or stay is his decision, not yours. And I doubt he’ll be pleased to hear of your misbehavior.”
Even while a scowl darkened T’ing-nan’s aspect, his boldness visibly deflated. I sensed in him a fear and dislike of his father. But the mischief in his eyes kindled anew. He prowled in a circle around me, forcing me to turn so I could watch him.
“Where you come from?” he said.
“Yorkshire,” I said. “That’s in the north of England-”
“England!” He spat the word in disgust. “It is small country. I see map. England look like bird shit on ocean.” Whoever had taught him what little English language he spoke, he had learned a coarse vocabulary. “England ugly. People ugly.” T’ing-nan’s look said this judgment included me. “I from China.” Now he swelled with pride. “China big. China beautiful.” He had also learned manners that would disgrace a ditchdigger. “Ladies in China wear pretty clothes. Why you wear plain, cheap dress? Your family have no money?”
“They have less than some people but more than others,” I said tartly. “As long as you’re in England, you should learn that proper behavior is expected here. A gentleman does not make insulting personal remarks to people, nor shove them, nor criticize their country.”
T’ing-nan waved away my instructions. “I no want learn. I hate England. My father hate, too. Someday we go home to China. Then I no need speak or act English.”
I spied a chance to learn more about my mysterious employer. “Why does your father hate England?”
“England bad for China,” T’ing-nan said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, eager to know what grudge his father had that justified murder.
But T’ing-nan only smirked, like a child enjoying a secret.
“If he hates England, then what is he doing here?” I said.
“Business,” T’ing-nan said bitterly.
“What kind of business?”
The youth stopped circling me, and his expression turned wary. “My father go here, go there,” he said, gesturing ambiguously. “Sometime make me go with him. Other time, leave me someplace. While he gone, men watch me. They keep me in house. Lock me up. Never let me outside except at night. Never by myself.” Angry resentment gleamed in his eyes. “At home, in China, I go wherever I want. I have friends. I have fun. But here, nobody. No fun. In England, I am prisoner.”
“Why?” I said.
“My father want no one see us.”
Chinamen are rare in England, and I surmised that the villain wished to avoid the notice that his and his son’s appearance would attract. Pity leavened my dislike of T’ing-nan. His loneliness and confinement must exceed that which I’d ever known.
“But surely you could be allowed to walk in the cove?” I said. “There you would be hidden from the public.”
T’ing-nan’s narrow gaze rebuffed my suggestion. “You watch.”
He stalked from the room, along a passage towards the back of the house. I followed. Nick suddenly appeared, interposing himself between us and the door.
“You let me out,” T’ing-nan said.
Nick shook his head, held his position.
“I go,” T’ing-nan insisted, grabbing for the door handle.
Hitchman and one of the men I’d seen earlier joined us. “You aren’t going anywhere, young fellow,” Hitchman told T’ing-nan. “Your father’s orders.”
As the youth yelled protests in Chinese, Hitchman and the other man seized his arms. They bore the kicking, screaming T’ing-nan up the stairs.
“Sorry for the trouble, Miss Bronte,” Hitchman called. “We’ll just let him calm down awhile, and you can start his lessons tomorrow.”
They passed from my view. I heard a door slam upstairs, and T’ing-nan pounding on it and shouting. Nick still guarded the door. His glowering silence spoke a clear warning to me: I, too, was a prisoner.
29
That evening i ate a dinner of roasted pilchards, served by Ruth the housekeeper, alone in the dining room. Hitchman ushered me upstairs to my room, where I lay awake, listening to the sea, until sleep claimed me. The next morning, I began teaching T’ing-nan. He was sullenly uncooperative. At noon he announced that he’d had enough learning, flung the schoolbooks onto the floor, and stomped off to his room. I coaxed and scolded him through the door, but he refused to come out.
“Lost your pupil, have you?” Hitchman said.
“It seems that way,” I said, irked by his mocking manner. But T’ing-nan’s behavior afforded me a pretext for leaving the house. “Since I have nothing to do here, I should like to go into town.”
“Very well,” Hitchman said.
He summoned Ruth to accompany me, and Nick drove us to Penzance. The weather continued cool and drizzly. As Ruth and I walked up the main street, Nick trailed close behind us. We passed stalls at which fisherwomen in scarlet cloaks and broad hats hawked their wares to town ladies wearing fancy lace caps. Ruth paused, her attention caught by the pungent displays of fish. A peddler’s cart separated me from her and Nick. Swiftly, I edged away from them; I looked frantically around. Where would I find Oyster Cottage? I saw Nick roving the street, scanning the crowd for me. I hurriedly bent over a basket of cockles at a stall. He walked on without noticing me.
A man’s voice hissed in my ear: “What in the deuce is going on?”
Startled, I turned and saw Mr. Slade standing beside me. He wore shabby clothes like a fisherman’s, and a cap pulled low over his face. A sob of relief welled in my throat.
“Don’t look at me,” Mr. Slade ordered in a harsh whisper. “Act as though we don’t know each other.”
I tore my gaze from him and pretended to examine the cockles as I whispered, “The man we seek is not at the house. He’s expected to arrive later.”
Mr. Slade stifled a curse. I saw Ruth and Nick approaching. “Here they come,” I said in a panic.
“Look upward to your right,” Slade said urgently. “Do you see that house with the blue trim and two gables?”
I saw it, on a hillside street beyond market, and nodded.
“That’s Oyster Cottage,” Slade said. “Go there if you feel in danger.”
There was no time to advise him of the rules that hindered my freedom. We moved apart, and the crowds separated us. Ruth and Nick joined me.
“Find what you wanted?” Ruth asked.
I picked up a cockle and paid the proprietor for it. “Yes,” I said.
A storm blew in from the sea that night, lashing the waves against the cliffs and rain against the house. Foghorns moaned through my sleep. I was awakened by thumps and voices that echoed up from the cellars. Footsteps mounted the stairs. I listened, but nothing more happened. I slept until the parlor clock chimed seven. After washing and dressing, I ventured downstairs. Ruth served me a solitary breakfast. Outside the dining room window, a pale, drifting mist obscured the sea. The dampness, chill, and seclusion produced in me a languorous depression of my spirit. No sooner had I finished eating, than Hitchman appeared.