‘Canton’s placed many a foot on the ladder of fortune,’ said Fitcher, ‘and I was fortunate that mine was among them.’

‘And what is Canton like, sir?’ said Paulette. ‘Are there gardens everywhere?’

Fitcher gave one of his rare laughs. ‘Oh it’s nothing like that – it’s the busiest, most crowded city I ever saw. The biggest too, bigger even than London. It’s a sea of houses and boats and the plants are in places ee’d never expect. On the roof of a sampan, pouring over the top of a kewny old wall, hanging down from some sheltered balcony. There are carts that roam the streets, loaded with flower pots; there are sampans plying the river, selling nothing but plants. On feast and festival days the whole city bursts into bloom and flower-sellers hawk their wares at prices fit to make an English nurseryman turn chibbol-coloured with envy. Why, I m’self once saw a boatload of orchids sell out in an hour and that too, with each blowth valued at a hundred silver dollars.’

‘Oh how I long to see it, sir!’

Fitcher frowned. ‘But that ee won’t ee know.’

‘Oh?’ said Paulette. ‘But why not?’

‘Because European women aren’t allowed to set foot in Canton. That’s the law.’

‘But sir,’ cried Paulette in dismay, ‘how can that be so? What of all the merchants who live there? Do they not have their wives with them? Their children?’

Fitcher shook his head. ‘No. Foreign women can go no further than Macau – that is where they must remain.’

The discovery that she would not be able to travel to Canton came as a bitter disappointment to Paulette: it was as if a flaming sword had descended from heaven to shut her out of Eden, forever depriving her of the chance to inscribe her name in the annals of botanical exploration.

Paulette could feel tears starting into her eyes. ‘But sir! Will I not be able to go with you to Canton then? Where shall I stay?’

‘Many a respectable English family in Macau takes in lodgers. It’ll just be for a week or two at a time.’

Paulette had imagined that she would be collecting plants in the wild. Now cheated of her opportunity she burst into tears. ‘But sir, I will miss the best of it.’

‘Come now, Miss Paulette,’ said Fitcher. ‘Ee needn’t take it so hard. There’s a passel of islands along the coast where ee’ll be able to do some collecting. There’s no cause to be upset. Look, I’ll show ee …’

Fetching a chart of the south China coast, Fitcher pointed to the yawning mouth of the Pearl River and the hundreds of tiny islands that lay scattered across it. On the western hinge of the jaws lay the Portuguese settlement of Macau: this was where foreign ships had to go to obtain the ‘chop’ that would permit them to travel up the Pearl River to Canton. At the eastern end of the river mouth, lay a sizeable island called Hong Kong: it was a wind-swept, sparsely populated place and the people who lived there did not seem to mind if foreigners went ashore, men or women. Fitcher had been there once: it was the only time he had been able to collect in the field in China. He had found some fine orchids and had always wanted to go back, to give the island a thorough going-over.