Read Fragrant Flower for Free Online

exclaimed.
    “I quite agree,” the General said. “But in fact the whole plot was instigated by the Mandarins of Canton as part of their war of nerves and the punishments inflicted on the perpetrators of the crime will, I am quite certain, prove an effective deterrent for all time.”
    “I do not believe it!” Lady Osmund said, “and I assure you, Frederick, I am not going to put my children’s lives and certainly not my own, in danger from those horrible, sinister Chinese!”
    “I promise you, Emily, that your fears are exaggerated,” the General answered.
    “And what about the pirates?” Lady Osmund almost screamed. “Lady Kennedy tells me that they are a continual menace to shipping.”
    “That is correct,” the General agreed.
    “Then why isn’t it stopped?”
    “Because literally nothing is known about the bases of the pirates who prey on Hong Kong, nor of those who finance them, although we imagine the source is again Canton.”
    “Surely the Navy can do something?”
    “We have gunboats patrolling the harbour and the coastline, and we have set up a special piracy court and prohibited arms and munitions on Chinese junks.”
    “But it is ineffective!” Lady Osmund snapped.
    “Piracy is less of a menace than robberies and burglaries by armed gangs.”
    “Armed?” Lady Osmund’s exclamation was a shriek.
    “It is undoubtedly the Governor’s weak policy which encourages them!”
    “Then you must challenge it!”
    “That is exactly what I intend to do,” the General replied grimly.
    “Well, until you can do so, I will not set foot on Hong Kong!”
    It took great efforts on the part of the General to calm his wife down.
    She reiterated over and over again that she was now afraid of going to Hong Kong!
    Azalea felt with a sinking of her heart that, if Lady Osmund persisted in her attitude, not only would she and the twins not sail on the Orissa but Azalea herself would also be left behind with them in England.
    Fortunately the importance of the General’s position in Hong Kong overcame Lady Osmund’s fears, and finally she agreed with a somewhat exaggerated show of reluctance to proceed with their plans.
    Azalea, as it happened, had read about the arsenic plot and she could understand the horror the Europeans in Hong Kong had felt when one January morning at every breakfast table there arose the simultaneous cry of “poison in the bread!”
    There was a report of the occurrence in the General’s file from which she had learnt that Doctors, themselves in pain, scurried from house to house and “emetics were in urgent request by every family.”
    But Azalea was not only concerned with European and military difficulties in Hong Kong.
    Ever since she was a child she had been fascinated by thoughts of the huge expanse of China about which there was so much mystery and speculation.
    She knew from what her mother had told her that the Chinese were great craftsmen, and Azalea had also learnt a little about the Confucian religion from her.
    Her grandfather had been a writer on philosophical subjects which had inevitably led him to study the religions of the Orient.
    His home was in the South of Russia where both the climate and the people were warm and friendly, but he had journeyed to India when he was a comparatively young man because he was interested in Hinduism and especially in Yoga.
    Once there he had settled in the foothills of the Himalayas where he had furthered both his studies and his writing.
    It was on a visit to Lahore that Ivan Kharkov had met the daughter of a Russian Envoy to India.
    He fell wildly, passionately in love, and after they were married and because they both adored India, they decided to make it their home.
    Azalea’s mother, Feodorovna, who was their only child, was beautiful, graceful and clever – as might have been expected with such unusually intelligent parents.
    It was her beauty that had attracted Derek Osmund to her first, when he was spending his leave from