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| �Well, then perhaps you won�t want what I brought you after all,� he said, sitting down in the chair where they had taken turns watching after her. West felt almost as if he were dealing with a petulant child as he brought the carved ivory box out of his coat pocket, offering it to her like a sweet. �But if you really would like your strength to catch up with your thoughts, these would help. A great deal, in fact.� Rose Hannah did not take the box, but instead lay there for a moment, gazing at him intently. �Tar,� she said finally. �That�s the other smell. Opium and tar. Where did get this?� �How do you know what opium smells like, Miss Munro?� �I treated a man once, a lady�s nephew who was an addict. Answer the question, please.� �From a man I know in Limehouse,� he said, and opened the box to reveal a number of grey, nondescript pills. �I�m not taking them.� �What? Why not?� �I�m not taking anything if I don�t know what it is. Particularly from Limehouse.� West sighed. �Doctors are the worst patients,� he muttered. �And strong enough to argue after all. Don�t turn your nose up, either�Xiang Qiu has forgotten more than you and I will ever know about medicine, frankly.� Ham had driven him down to Limehouse, down past the crumbling whorehouses and the raucous fantan parlors and the opium-eaters� ratholes, and found that Xiang Qiu still rented the rooms across from the tea warehouse by the docks. The old man�s son ran a more mundane apothecary shop in the front room downstairs. The son recognized West at once, though some four or five years had passed since their last meeting, and sent him upstairs to see the old herbalist, who refused to see most of the people who came ringing the bell�rich white men who were not sick, who had heard of magical things that Chinese medicine could do, who used up precious resources better given�given away, even�to the used-up whore or the ragged errand boy on his sickbed. Not that Xiang Qiu gave away his knowledge or his herbs out of altruism; he drove hard bargains when he felt like it. Mostly he refused callers out of spite, and only took clients when the mood struck him. But the old man even smiled when he saw West. East-West, you come to me again, he said in Chinese, using the sobriquet he had given him. The only reason Xiang Qiu made exceptions for West was because he had needed the younger man�s help himself a long time ago. �He�s helped me before, and I trust him,� West said staunchly. "So should you.� �Fine,� she said. �What are they made of?� �Eastern herbs.� The pills in the box were wrapped in paper; he pulled down the topmost fold again to read the herbalist�s notations: �Ginseng. Ginkgo�� �Let me see�why, it�s in Chinese!� �Of course it is.� �You speak Chinese?� �Not well, but I can read the pinyin. See there? R�n sh?ng, ginseng, and b�i gu?, ginkgo� and tribulus terrestris, garlic flowers�� �Garlic flowers?� �In this type of compound, the smell is minimal,� he assured her. �The Chinese have been using it for hundreds�if not thousands�of years to treat wounds like yours. If you would let me continue now� there�s also angelica sinensis�they call it the queen of Chinese herbs, that�s what he�s written right there, �medicine for the young lady,� but to be careful�your skin is so fair that the angelica will make you very sensitive to sunlight.� �How does he know my skin is fair?� asked Rose Hannah. He thought there was a smile hiding in her lips. �Because I told him,� West said. �The day you were born, which your father told me�the color of your hair, the shade of your skin�he needed to know. He asked about you, he needed to know to mix the proper quantities.� �Did you tell him I was beautiful?� she asked; if she were stronger, her tone would have been outright teasing. West sighed, unable to tell if this was Miss Munro�s way of dealing with her illness or if it were a symptom of the illness itself; he had seen drastic personality changes in the most demure women and had come to dread them in these cases. The worst part of tending such patients was the way their flirtations bloomed even as their beauty hardened and sharpened, finally cracking to fall away at the moment of death. At the moment she was not beautiful. The old Miss Munro glimmered in his mind, a lively creature that made him think of autumn mornings and the gleam of sunlight through dark honey. At the moment she was not beautiful with shadows smudged under her eyes, but at least she had not gone hard and hungry yet. �I told him you were very ill,� he said, emerging from his reverie. �There�s also deer antler velvet. Mixed in the pills� That�s the last thing. Very expensive, it was.� �Why?� asked Rose Hannah, who did not seem to have noticed his pause. �We�ve deer running about all over the place. In the country, at least�� �It�s rather hard to collect in practice� and highly sought-after. It�s a cure-all, but also has� rather euphoric effects. I was concerned, but Master Xiang insisted, it was too important to be left out.� �Euphoric effects.� �Yes. Such as are� sometimes unbecoming in a lady.� �Sometimes unbecoming,� Rose Hannah repeated with a sly look; he thought he caught a glimmer of the old Miss Munro for a moment. �But not always?� He smiled to himself and looked away�to catch Miss Wilkins giving him the evil eye. Rose Hannah saw it too; she cleared her throat and said, �What else do the pills do?� He pointed out the words in the herbalist�s cramped script, b? z�, b? x�e, ji? qi�ng : �To give strength and energy, to enrich the blood, to rejuvenate. Which you certainly need.� �And there, that part, what does that say?� She pointed to the very top of the list, a part he had not read to her yet: M�i F?r�n. �Madame Rose,� he said, and for some reason that made him smile a little. �That was the only name I gave him. But he wanted to know. So: will you take them now?� �Since you and your friend went to so much trouble,� she said, �I might as well. Everything seems reasonable enough� with the exception of your unbecoming euphoria there, but we shall have to take our chances on that.� Rose Hannah took one of the pills with her tea and slept the rest of the afternoon; no matter how she protested, even a normal conversation had exhausted her. West took off to make his rounds in East End, expecting her to still be sleeping when he returned that evening. But to his surprise, she was dressed, wrapped up in a shawl by the sitting room fire, reading. Night fell. They brought her supper; she smiled and said that she was starving. He had seen it before, but rarely so soon�she was weak but already like a night-blooming flower, like a white-skinned flower he knew called the datura. In India they spoke of prostitutes who poisoned clients with datura, holy men who hallucinated under its heady fragrance, virgins who gave themselves away in a drugged haze. Her face was deathly white, but her eyes glittered. |
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| To be continued: Chapter 4, weekend of October 17 Would you like to sign up for our electronic dispatch? |
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