glanced down at herself, more than pleased with her disguise. Her high-collared blue cotton robe draped her from neck to knees. Under the loose-fitting robe she wore the baggy trousers favored by Chinese men and women alike. With her distinctive gingercolored hair and most of her face covered by the straw hat, she hoped to pass unnoticed through the streets of Macao.
“Dressed like this, I daresay even Lady Blair wouldn’t recognize me,” Sarah said with some satisfaction.
“Lady Blair!” Paling, Abigail put her fingertips to her cheeks. “Oh, Sarah, do you think there’s a chance you might meet her? You mustn’t, you really mustn’t, go out if that’s the case. If she sees you or learns where you’re going, she’ll withdraw the invitations to her Venetian breakfast and spread the most awful gossip about you!”
It wouldn’t be the first time, Sarah thought wryly. The wife of the British East India Company’s Chief Factor did not approve of the elder Miss Abernathy. More than once, Lady Blair had dropped pointed hints that Sarah went too far in assisting her father with his work, particularly when that assistance involved carrying food to lepers or speaking out against the torturous practice of binding young girls’ feet. The formidable matron had been kind to Abigail, though, and invited her and the sister who acted as her chaperone to all the important social functions. For Abby’s sake, Sarah generally avoided crossing the overbearing woman.
“Abigail, pet, I was just funning you. Lady Blair won’t be about at this time of night, nor will she be in this part of the city.”
“But what if someone else should see you? Or learn where you’re going?” The beauty wrung her hands. “It would quite ruin your chances with that new clerk who’s just arrived from home, the one we met on the Praya Grande.”
Remembering the besotted young man who had trailed behind the two sisters like a lost puppy for most of their afternoon stroll along Macao’s wide, bayside boulevard, Sarah laughed.
“Mr. Silverthorne wasn’t the least interested in me, you goose. His gaze never left your face the whole time you walked with him.”
“Oh, no, never say so!” Tears sheened Abigail’s aquamarine eyes. “Truly, I only walked with him because he wished to speak to me about you.”
Charlie shook his head in disgust. “You’re not going to turn on the waterworks again, are you?”
Sarah sent her brother a stern look as she soothed the agitated Abigail. Despite Sarah’s every effort to discourage her foolish dreams, Abby still cherished fond hopes for her older sibling. In her sweet, unselfish way, she sang Sarah’s praises to the men who flocked to her side and refused to admit that her beloved sister was firmly and irrevocably on the shelf, an acknowledged spinster at the advanced age of twenty-four.
Sarah herself had long since accepted the fact that her lack of dowry and unremarkable face would win her no husband. She considered herself fortunate to have been given the responsibility of raising three lively brothers and a loving sister, thus fulfilling her maternal instincts most satisfactorily. If on occasion she tossed and turned at night, kept awake by less maternal urges, she accepted that as an inescapable fact of life. She was a woman, after all, but an eminently practical one. With time, those strange, unspecified longings would pass. Meanwhile, she had her family to care for and her papa to look after.
Assuming she could find him!
At the thought of her missing parent, Sarah patted Abigail’s shoulder a final time. “I must go now. Cook said Number Five Nephew will be waiting for me.”
“I wish you would not go,” Abigail whispered, valiantly battling her tears as she and Charlie trailed their sister out of the small bedroom.
“Don’t worry so. I’m just going to talk to Lord Straithe.”
“But Sarah, must you do so in a…” Abby caught herself just in time, glancing down at Charlie’s bright, inquisitive face. “Must you do so in that particular place?”
“Yes, I must. Since he refused to come to the Mission House, I have no choice but to beard him in his favorite den.”
“Sarah!” Charlie danced on one foot in excitement. “Never say you’re going to an opium den! Can I go with you?”
She ruffled his brown curls. “Of course I’m not going to such a disgusting place. And you may not go with me. You must stay and keep Abigail from worrying until I return.”
Charlie heaved a sigh, but even at his tender years he’d developed the family’s protective air for the overly sensitive Abigail. Nobly, he offered to hunt down a set of spillikins. The childish game would keep his sister occupied during Sarah’s absence.
“Thank you, Charlie,” she said gratefully.
At that moment, a slight, pigtailed figure glided into the room on silent feet. Bowing, he addressed Sarah by the honorary title he’d accorded her years ago.
“You go quick quick, Big Sister. Number Five Nephew no can waitchee long.”
Over Charlie’s head, Sarah met the impassive gaze of the man known to the Abernathys only as Cook. As usual, she couldn’t read the expression in his black eyes, shielded as they were by folded lids and beetling white brows. Sarah was never quite sure what Cook thought of the family of “foreign devils” he’d taken charge of. She knew only that she relied on this slender, graying servant far more than on her own father to keep the Abernathy household functioning.
“I’ll go at once,” she replied.
“Youngest granddaughter, Little One With A Limp, takes you.”
Sarah nodded to the youngster waiting respectfully behind her grandfather. The girl bobbed her head, clearly too overcome by shyness or too awed by her proximity to the Outer Barbarians to speak. After a few final instructions to Abigail and Charlie, Sarah pulled her hat brim down farther over her face, tucked her hands in her sleeves and followed the tiny girl out the back door of the Presbyterian Mission House.
Situated as it was on a steep hill in the shadow of the old Portuguese fort, the Mission enjoyed a spectacular view of Macao’s busy harbor during the day. Even now, as dusk settled in a velvet haze over the narrow peninsula, Sarah caught her breath at the vista below her.
In late July, the southwest monsoons brought traders from all over the world to the vast bay east of Macao. Hundreds of ships now lay at anchor, waiting for passes and Chinese pilots to guide them up the Pearl River to Canton, where all trading officially took place. Lantern lights winked from hulking, many-gunned East Indiamen far out in the bay. Closer in, frigates and sleek, two-masted schooners rocked on the waves. Junks and sampans of every size darted among the foreign ships, sculled by the boat girls who made their living catering to the needs of the sailors.
Sarah frowned at the thought of the boat girls, several of whom numbered among Cook’s many relatives. The Reverend Mr. Abernathy had launched a vigorous campaign during last year’s trading season to save these unfortunates from the sailors’ unbridled lusts. His efforts had proved spectacularly unsuccessful. Not only had the boat girls objected to this interference with their trade, but the sailors had grown most vociferous in their protests. Lord Blair, Britain’s senior representative, had been forced to step in to quell several near-riots. Closer to home, Cook had placed a series of inedible and highly suspicious dishes before the Reverend for weeks as a signal of his personal displeasure.
Sarah
