A HAZARD OF HEARTS (37 page)

Pearl drank, and drifted off to sleep.

This time, when she awoke, sunlight filtered
through the canvas, revealing it to be a large tent lined with chests and a
small cupboard fitted with many drawers. In one corner a brazier threw off a
pungent herbal odour. A bowl of sand set beneath a hanging silk scroll held
several incense sticks with wisps of smoke rising. A carpet had been spread and
on a pile of cushions the tall Chinese who had attended her sat cross-legged,
working a pestle and mortar. He looked up when she turned her head.

‘I am Doctor Hsien Lo. Your throat has been
injured, but not permanently, if you do not attempt to speak for another day. I
will endeavour to supply answers to questions which will be in your mind.’ The
high, twittery voice was strangely reassuring. She was in capable hands. She
could afford to let go her vigilance.

But the moment she relaxed, memory swept back
in, and she began to relive the scene in the forest. Sweat broke out on her
forehead. A keening moan rose in her throat. She struggled to obliterate the
all-too-vivid pictures with happier memories of her years in the mission on the
Yantgse, and her mother... and immediately she saw Cato’s rough hand close over
her mother’s gold earrings, heard Redbeard’s enraged shout. With a cry she
flung her hand over her eyes, trying to blot out the horror.

An arm slipped under her neck to raise her and a
chirping voice penetrated her nightmare, demanding that she listen. Enveloped
by a soothing odour of herbs, she began to take in the words.

‘Know that serenity is the master of
restlessness and an integral being is placid, never departing from the centre
of his own being. The things of the world change constantly. There is a time
for things to move ahead, and a following time for things to retreat; a time to
withdraw internally, and a following time to expand. This is your time to
withdraw, to centre your being and allow healing to take place.’

Needles pricked her flesh and a delicate
pulsation began through her body. Calm enveloped her as the Doctor’s voice rose
and fell in gentle cadence, the words sometimes familiar, sometimes imparting
truths she thought she had always known yet not considered in relation to
herself.

Had she been too busy struggling for life, for
freedom, for a place of her own? Now, drifting, awake and yet not awake, and
wonderfully at peace, she began to examine her life in depth, amazed to find
how little it meant. Where was her goal? What was her purpose? Finding Li Po
had been an excuse, she now saw. She had used it as a reason to escape the old
pattern, without any plan beyond that moment of culmination. She had no path to
follow. Had she really meant to hand over her future to a stranger, to abdicate
her hard-won freedom and self-sufficiency?

Much later she noticed with amazement how her
thoughts had completely turned away from her recent dreadful ordeal. In some
way the agony of mind she’d expected to suffer had been pushed into the back of
her consciousness, still there, yet diminished, leached of much of the terror
and grief and overlain with a meditative calm.

During the following days she realised that the
new fascination with her future had been fostered by Doctor Hsien Lo. His
unusual treatments, his detailing of ancient Chinese medical lore allied to the
teachings of Lao Tzu, interested her and she listened to him by the hour. When
he treated other patients she followed his activities closely, and when he was
absent he always left one of his servant assistants with her to explain the
various contents of the herb chests and, as she soon realised, to give her a
sense of security. The fear of being alone and vulnerable was the one thing she
couldn’t yet deal with. In the meantime her body and mind healed.

The Doctor explained the rudiments of his
profession: the fundamental substances, the most important of which was Qi, the
life-force affecting the whole body, mind and spirit; the Yin organs deep
within; and the more external organs, the Yang, and their functions. He
discussed the origins of disharmony, the precipitating factors in illness, and
the ways to examine signs and symptoms, plus the use of the needle therapy to
tap in to the meridians or unseen channels that carry Qi, nourishment and
strength throughout the body.

She learned how every Chinese physician must
have a complete grasp of the meridian system and the three-hundred and
sixty-five main points where these may be intercepted in order to rebalance
disharmonies. Pearl watched her mentor insert needles with total confidence,
saw the patient relieved of his toothache or liver pain by an insertion in some
other part of the body.

 Sometimes he burned a tiny portion of moxa, a
herbal mix, sending heat into the pressure point to achieve his aim, pointing
out how the intervention with moxa or needles can ‘reduce what is excessive,
increase what is deficient, warm what is cold, cool what is hot, circulate what
is stagnant, move what is congealed, stabilize what is reckless, raise what is
falling and lower what is rising. And then, there is the use of herbs.’

Pearl glanced at the chests. ‘There must be
hundreds.’

‘More than five thousand, if we include animal
ingredients and minerals. Herbology is an art applied to a body of knowledge
extending back to the Han Dynasty. There are some five hundred common classical
prescriptions with which to begin. However, since each patient’s body is
unique, these must then be adjusted to the individual.’

‘It’s a life’s study.’

‘It is so.’

~*~

One day Pearl asked the Doctor for a
mirror. He paused for a long moment before replying, ‘The face you have now is
altered, but not the being behind the mask. You have seen what was done to your
body and you have accepted. It is time to learn whether you can accept another
change.’

Pearl, knowing the Bowie knife had been used on
her face, was as prepared as she would ever be. She held out her hand for the
mirror.

The almond eyes had not been touched. Her button
nose retained its shape. But from the corner of her delicate mouth the
knife-tip had drawn a line across her cheek up to the temple, splitting the
skin like overripe fruit and distorting the curve of her upper lip into a
permanent lopsided smile. Livid and raw, with the stitches showing like jagged
teeth, it was utter defacement, which might improve with time but could never
be restored.

 Pearl stared impassively at her reflection, as
if at a stranger, the anger and distress she had expected to feel surprisingly
absent, as though this thing had been done to someone else.

‘It could have been worse,’ she remarked, giving
back the mirror. She fingered the hole in her upper arm where once the brand of
a slave had shown. She thought about the damage done to the rest of her body. ‘I
don’t have to hide myself from others, like a leper.’

Doctor Hsien Lo looked grave. ‘Later you will
feel grief. Remember this time when you are grateful to be alive and able to
function. Your face is scarred, but not hideously, and your mind is resilient.
You were ready to know The Way.’

‘I was taught to be a Christian, and to use
Western medicine. How can I reconcile these with the Tao teachings and the
methods you use to heal?’

He spread his thin hands. ‘I am a Buddhist. The
Way is open to all who are willing to listen. It is not a religion but a
philosophy of living, a pathway of subtle truth which allows us to perceive the
gentle operation of the universe.

‘As for the medicine, perhaps there is room for
both eastern and western streams. However, I cannot see a way of bringing them
into confluence. The western healer views the human body as a machine, governed
by mechanical laws, a working system of separate components which can be
treated in isolation from the whole, even removed. A doctor of the east views
the human being as a microcosm of Nature, a smaller universe in which a damaged
part must necessarily throw out the balance of the whole. He is more interested
in preventing disease than in treating it. In all my years of study I have
acquired only a portion of the knowledge encompassed by this profession. I see
the pattern, yet can follow only part.’

Pearl acknowledged the truth of this humble
declaration with its unspoken implication that skill in the use of Chinese
medicine was beyond her. What doctor would teach a woman such mysteries? Yet
she longed to know more of them. Wasn’t she living proof of their efficacy?

However, to her surprise, the Doctor apparently
deemed her a suitable pupil, and she soaked up his teaching week after week,
healing mentally and physically while absorbing the intricacies and seeming
contradictions of the Taoist philosophy as he interpreted it. She was content,
and not anxious to disturb the even passage of time.

Then one evening after the last patient had left
and Pearl was packing away the herb chest, without warning, the Doctor
announced, ‘I have made enquiries. Your brother, Li Po, has been found at a
place named Chinaman’s Gully, on the western slopes of White Horse Range, but
he has not been told of your search.’

Pearl sat down suddenly. ‘How did you know about
him?’

‘You revealed many things when your mind
wandered. Will you go to him?’

Suddenly faced with re-entering the world,
unprotected, Pearl quailed inwardly. She felt like a turtle that had lost its
shell. She felt naked. Still, she must go some time. It might as well be now. ‘Tomorrow,’
she said. ‘I’ve hidden in your shadow long enough, venerable Doctor.’

A smile cracked the smooth surface of his face,
crazing it into a thousand wrinkles. His lips parted to show pointed, yellow
teeth, and he made a hissing sound of pleasure. ‘You should have been a son.
Your father would have taken pride in you.’

Pearl responded with a grimace. ‘My father
addressed me only as Second Girl, and sold me when he could. I give my loyalty
and respect to one who earns it. You, venerable Doctor, I can never repay. You
may ask of me what you will.’

‘Ah. Then you will attempt to follow The Way, in
virtue and self-mastery?’

‘I will try.’

‘And you will remember that one of natural,
integral virtue helps all people impartially. Thus, no one is abandoned. This
is called “embodying the light of the subtle truth.”‘

‘You’re saying, “forgive your enemies” and “turn
the other cheek”.’

‘Only by cultivating the virtue of wholeness and
by returning injury with kindness can there be true harmony.’

‘I killed a man.’

‘Who died trying to kill you. There is no law
against self-preservation.’

Pearl sighed. ‘I have such a long way to go.’

‘Despair is unwarranted. The path of subtle
truth of the universe always supports those who are wholly virtuous, and even
those who simply “will try”. Come. Take this pack of the herbs whose properties
you have learned. Use them as I have shown you, with care and with kindness
towards all those in need.’

The Reverend John Barton’s cottage proved
to be close by the Bathurst coaching inn, but as far from its cosy welcoming
aura as an ice house on the moon. Elly and Paul were not invited in beyond the
hall with its bare scrubbed boards and smell of boiling sheets, while the
minister himself, tight-mouthed and rigidly erect, greeted them with more
relief than warmth.

‘The young woman you have come to collect will
require the strictest supervision. She appears not to have been taught the most
basic principles of behaviour.’

Startled, Elly glanced at Paul, whose brows rose
half-comically.

‘Is she a naughty lass?’ he asked. ‘I expect my
cousin spoiled her.’

Barton snorted. ‘If you call smearing the inside
of my wife’s best teapot with soap and cutting off the brim of my Sunday beaver
“naughty”. I call it malice aforethought. She needs to feel a birch broom about
her legs.’

‘Surely not!’ Paul and Elly found themselves in chorus,
with Elly adding, ‘She’s seventeen years old, Mr Barton. This sounds like quite
childish behaviour. Have you treated her as a child, instead of a young woman?’

The door at the end of the hall opened and a
figure erupted through it in a flurry of skirts.

‘Oh, Cousin Paul, how wonderful! You’ve come to
save me. Take me away from this horrid place. Do you know they locked me in my
room on bread and water and threatened to whip me?’ Lucy Whatmough threw
herself into Paul’s arms.

A pocket Venus, Elly thought, with the face of a
flower and quite the most improbably long lashes she’d ever seen.

Extricating himself from an embrace that brought
colour to his cheeks, Paul set Lucy on her feet and held her off like an
over-welcoming puppy. ‘Lucy, you must not say such things. It was kind of the
Reverend Barton and his good lady to take you in when you had nowhere to go.’

The girl’s face set mutinously, yet Elly’s
flower simile was only strengthened – a dewy, opening bud, fresh and
enchanting.

Glossy brown curls danced as Lucy shook her
head. ‘They were mean and hateful...’

Elly moved past the two, holding out her hand to
the indignant minister. ‘I see you have had your difficulties, sir, and on
behalf of Mr Gascoigne I thank you for your Christian charity towards an
orphan. I expect you made allowance for her grief, which might give the
appearance of wilfulness.’