Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

“What are these risks you were speaking of, Mr Jorrocks?”

“Storm and tempest,” he replied. “Crack-brained captings. Pirates — and mandarins, who are much the same article.”

I did not understand.

“Vell, you see, the Henglish part of the trade is mostly in the hands of a few old firms which has a Nelson-hold on it and there’s no breaking into it. But John Company grows more of the weed each year and there is a great new market growing up in China: there lies the richest rewards, for the heathen will buy at any price. It is but a question of getting it to their hongs and go-downs and there’s the rub, for it is illegal by their quaint pagan laws although the sitivation is somewhat heased now that Jack Tar has won the glorious Hopium War. But the whole coast is a seething nest of pirates and immoral mandarins; the cargo is precious and the payments in bar-silver: every man’s hand is against them. Moreover, the prime rates is to be got from being the first to the Treaty Ports with the new season’s crop from the Calcutta auctions and the captings — broken Royal Navy men, most of them — fairly goes insane to outsail the others.”

“Yes?”

“Hindeed yes. And I means ‘insane’ to the letter. A capting in that line can be rich in three voyages, for he has a huge share and there is much to share, but my actuary friend at Lloyd’s puts his expectation of surwival at precisely two and seven-eighth voyages, haw haw! And even as I says it we are at the end of our own perilous woyage: Great Coram Street, home and beauty!”

To speak plainly, Mrs Jorrocks was not pleasing to look at, nor did she seem over-pleased to see us. She looked askance at my baggage until Mr J. whispered loudly to her that I was a great Dutch merchant-prince “travelling incog”, whereupon she creased her huge ham-like face into a smile and called me “Moungseer” each time she addressed me.

A shifty, snot-nosed boy was told off to carry my bags upstairs.

“And wash your hands first, Binjamin!” roared Jorrocks, “for I’m sure your thumb has been in my marmalade-pot as ever, you cupboard-headed little warmint!”

A pink, jolly maid called Batsay brought me hot water and a tin hip-bath. I did not look at her lasciviously for I thought it possible that she might furnish Mr J.’s own diversion in those times of the year when it is not permitted to chase foxes in England.

Scrubbed all over and wearing a change of linen, I went downstairs to find Mr Jorrocks pacing up and down, peering at a great gold watch in his hand. I read his mind for I, too, was ready for dinner.

“It will be but a snack, I fears,” he said apologetically, “for Mrs J. knew not when I was to return, nor that I would have the pleasure of your company and, indeed, she is but a few hours back from her mother’s in Tooting. But she has found a few prowisions in the cold larder — cheese, cold ham, cold beef, cold mutton — all the delicacies of the season as the sailor said, haw, haw! — and I daresay we shall make shift to tighten our weskit-buttons somewhat.”

Indeed, the repast was plentiful. First came a great tureen of gravy soup, a new thing for me but strong and appetising, into which Mr J. splashed quite the third of a bottle of brown sherry.

“Bristol Milk,” he chuckled. “I often lies avake vondering wot they feeds the cows on in Bristol!”

“Haw, haw,” I said politely.

Then we attacked the cold meats, of which there was great store: the round of beef was the size of a trap-drum and the other things were to the same scale. In between, we drank prime stout from the Marquess of Cornwallis hard by (he proved to be a tavern, not a nobleman, it was very puzzling) and toasted each other again and again with something called Crane’s Particklar (“hot and strong, real black-strap stuff, none of your French rot-gut,” Mr J. explained).

There was also a dish of hot buttered parsnips; they were very good. I ate them all, for Mr J. declared they spoiled his appetite for the meats. Then Batsay brought in a dish of things called “Poor Knights of Windsor”: these were pieces of bread and jam fried. They do not sound good but they are. Mr Jorrocks’s Stilton cheese was even better than Mr Creed’s; he pretended that it was “so werry frisky” that he had to hold it down on the table as I scooped, lest it walk away. This was a British joke, of course. We were by then, I think, a little drunk. He helped me to my bedroom, then I helped him to his, then he again to mine; this went on until Mrs J. appeared in a splendid déshabillé and coughed meaningfully.

In the morning — rather late in the morning — he and I breakfasted frugally off some cold mutton and bloaters and rich, dark marmalade from Oxford (where the English make capital sausages and also have a famous college called Belial) and then he lent me a curious little vehicle called a tub-trap, with the child Binjamin to drive, and a list of addresses of people who might have a shop-premise to let. By dinner-time I had made a bargain for a little shop with snug living-quarters above it, between a street called Strand and the cabbage-exchange of the Convent Gardens. We collected my Delft the next day and laid some of it out in an attractive fashion, using some good shop-fittings of the true San Domingo mahogany, racks and shelves and drawers, which I had seen lying in the back of Mr J.’s warehouse and which he let me have for one sovereign. This was not dear, for they were well-made, although dirty. The windows of the shop I washed myself, for in those days I had no stinking pride and Binjamin refused to do it for less than threepence. Then I put the shutters up and, on the way back to Great Coram Street, struck a bargain with a sign-writer to paint “C. VAN CLEEF & CO., WHOLESALE CHINA WAREHOUSE” in dirty white letters on the door-post, for I was learning how these things are done in England.

The next day Mrs J. condescended to come a-marketing with me: I bought a nice brass bedstead, a genuine hair mattress and a feather one to go on top of it, some bolsters and pillows and sheets and things of that kind, a little round-bellied stove, a kettle, a tea-pot and some drink. Yes, and some food. Then we went to a Foundling School and I bought a boy for a year to keep the place clean. I could have had a girl but I was wise, wise . The boy looked honest and stupid and, for his age, strong; when I showed him the place under the counter where he was to sleep, he was so happy he wept: he had never seen anything so comfortable. I could never quite make out his name so I called him “You”; he answered to it cheerfully. He was a good boy.

I took my leave, with much gratitude, of the good Jorrockses, kissing the hand of Mrs J., which made her even redder and to cry “Vell, I do declare!” I gave Batsay a shilling but nothing to Binjamin for I knew he had stolen quite so much as that from my breeches while pretending to brush them.

I did not open my shop the first day I entered it; I was sleepy; I slept all day and, to speak plainly, spent the evening whoring. You may depend upon it, there is no woman in the world to compare with a street-bred, fourteen-year-old London girl — and I speak as one who has sailed the Seven Seas and whored in most of their ports. Only the Japanese can compare. The one I selected was clean, well-finished at all points of her charming little body and, she told me, “new to the game”. She explained that she had taken up this profession because the food at home was meagre and she had an insatiable lust for little meat pies. The thought of them, it seemed, maddened her like wine. I bought her an abundance of these pies, hot; but only a little gin, for I had already long known that a girl full of food is flushed and beset with carnal thoughts, while a girl flushed with wine is often little more than a nuisance.