“Your leisure activity isn’t worth a salary.”
Amelia’s hands twitched at her side. “My leisure activity represents hundreds of hours of labor. I was stuck in India and nobody British would talk with me and nobody not British would trust me. I was all of seventeen and married and entirely alone. And you act as if I am now going off with some completely unknown person—”
“You are.”
“But Leland sent a letter of introduction, and Leland knows him. Leland vouched for him.” In a way, he mostly had. “I know more about him than I would have known about Mr. Alden Flappert.”
Her mother turned away and snorted. “Your brother is overly idealistic about human nature. That counts for little.”
Amelia could hear the cart finally arrive in the clatter of wheels outside. She hefted her trunk. It was heavy, so heavy she could scarcely lift it, and yet so light to contain her entire life.
“Amelia,” her mother said, coming up behind her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t go. Every time I think of how I found you when you were just a tiny thing with big eyes, and so, so thin… All I want is to protect you. That is still all I want.”
That hand squeezed her shoulder.
Amelia’s heart contract.
“I love you,” her mother said. “You don’t need to do this. It may turn out well, but the risks. Just think of the risks if Leland is wrong and this man is not what he says he is. Think of how absurd his story is. He wants to hire a girl scarcely into adulthood to make tele-something what’s-it-called? Think of how that sounds. Why wouldn’t he hire a man who had experience? Why you? I just want what is right for you.”
Amelia felt as if she were perched on a blazing divide. Of course she doubted herself. Why was she running off with Captain Hunter? Was it simply because she was attracted to him? Was it because she’d lost her mind?
I just want what is right for you, she could hear her mother say, and for a second, she wanted to retreat from the bargain she had just struck with Captain Hunter, retreat from the dog she was getting, retreat from everything and cry and put her face in her mother’s skirts while she received reassuring pats.
She wanted to trust someone else’s judgment because honestly, who was she to believe herself worthy of fifty dollars a year?
Then she remembered. “You thought I should marry Mr. Smith.”
There was a moment of silence. Her mother stared at her in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“You thought I should marry Mr. Smith,” Amelia repeated. “You’ve never protected me from people who didn’t care about me. Even now, the thing you’re saying in my supposed defense is that I’m not good enough and nobody could ever see my strengths. I know you want what’s right for me, but you don’t even think people should care about my feelings before marrying me.”
There was a moment of silence. Amelia took three steps to the door, still open.
“Amelia!” Her mother called behind her. “That’s not it. The world is not kind, not to women like you, raised as you were, being who you are. I know people see only your features—foreign on the outside—and don’t really understand that you’re as English as they are—”
“Am I?” Amelia looked into her eyes. “Am I as English as they are, if I have never been allowed to be?”
“I know it’s hard to accept. But just because a thing is hard doesn’t mean you should avoid it.”
“You believe that I have to learn to bear this.” Amelia shook her head and walked out the door. Light clouds had come in, magnifying the humidity of the day. “I can’t. It’s not bearable.”
“But what is the alternative?”
“I’m not certain, but I think I’m more likely to find it following Captain Hunter than I am staying here. What he says about my position makes me feel hopeful, and I had not realized how little hope I had.” Amelia handed her trunk to the cart driver, who placed it in the back. She passed him a coin and asked him to start back down to the ship, if he pleased.
“Of course he does.” Her mother came up behind her. “When the devil comes courting—”
Amelia interrupted her. “At least he’s come courting at all, instead of saying that I’m a little Chinese girl whose feelings he doesn’t have to consider.”
Her mother shut her mouth with a snap.
“I don’t have time.” Amelia shook her head. “I’m sorry. I have to go. The tide won’t wait, and he’s leaving with it.”
“Amelia.” Her mother reached out and took hold of her wrist. For a moment—just one moment—Amelia thought she was going to be restrained. But then her mother loosened her grip. “Not like this. Please don’t leave me like this, not in the middle of an argument. Please.”
“I haven’t any time. I have no choice.” Her nose twitched mulishly. “And I didn’t start the argument.”
“One minute,” her mother begged. “Please. You’ve made up your mind, and you won’t change it. Let me just wish you well and tell you that I love you. If things go badly, come home. You can always come home, no matter what happens, do you understand? There is nothing you could do, no choice you could make, nothing that would make me not welcome you. I knew you were mine from the moment I set eyes on you, and there is no power on this earth that would ever alter that. I love you.”
Amelia felt tears spark in her own eyes. “I love you too. I will write. I promise.”
“Go.” Her mother leaned in for an embrace, squeezing her tightly. “I will send all my love and my apologies when you send me your address. And please, please, please, Amelia. Come home if you need to. Come home if you want to.” Her voice sounded harsh with tears.
Amelia didn’t want to leave, not on those words. She did not want to pull away from her mother’s embrace. She almost changed her mind yet again.
But her mother was not a life, not by herself, and living with her mother meant enduring the Mrs. Flapperts of the world again and again and again. The next Mr. Flappert might be acceptable the way Mr. Smith had been acceptable—enough to send her mother into a delighted tizzy, and to make Amelia feel as if she really ought to accept and give up her life once again.
Amelia wanted to believe that Captain Hunter was telling her the truth. She wanted to believe that she was necessary and important and worth fifty dollars a year.
And she wanted a dog.
It was that simple. She kissed her mother’s cheek, wiped the tears from her own eyes, and set off down the hill after the cart and her trunk, as fast as she could go.
It had not taken Amelia long to accustom herself to the hum of the steam engine; here, trundling downstream at a few miles per hour, it was little more than idle noise in the background.
There were five hills in Fuzhou, each covered with trees. The corners of familiar residences poked out of those leaves. The farther they went, the more the details disappeared into an indistinct haze of greenery: first the furthest hill, built up with Chinese residences of gray brick walls topped with curving roofs melded into the hillside. The residences of the Westerners lingered in her vision the longest, white stone and waving flags lingering on the edge of visibility for miles. Finally, all she could see was trees and the occasional wisp of smoke.