To Mr. John Edwards, Esq.
Mr. John Edwards, Esq.
No. 7 Thackeray Row
Dear Jack,
I know there is no hope of you receiving this letter much before my own return from my travels, so I write you to console myself and try to hear your wise voice in my head, dear friend. And should anything befall me, you, at least, will have some slim chance of knowing what truly occurred. The Queen of the Horizon is a true marvel of teak and canvas and steam and I write you tonight from so far above the Earth that my very spirit might soar to Heaven. Perhaps it is this fancy which has my concerns astir.
You are the only man aside from me and those privileged inside the Company to have seen my orders. I am to be responsible for the “inspection, collection, and transport of five ‘blossoms of summer’ a.k.a. the ‘Forbidden Flowers’” including the “maintenance of the specimens' health and discovery of their unique needs, such that the specimens shall be delivered in the prime of beauty,” and this is the part that now concerns me: “for the benefit of private investors under utmost discretion.” Have you heard through society talk, I wonder, whom these investors might be? I fear, reading over the tone of the instructions and what I perceive to be the future of the specimens I collect, that unlike the beauties brought by Mr. Fortune and his predecessors which were cultivated and celebrated in gardens across the land, that these may be kept secret, accessible only to an anointed few. Indeed, I am taken to understand that there may be something of a diplomatic incident were the word to get out, and following so quickly on the heels of the Opium War as we are, no one wants that. So the need for secrecy has been well-impressed upon me. And yet, I worry.
Of course if they are honorable men, the Company’s directors will appoint me as promised to the position I covet, and all shall be well in my world, but I cannot help but worry that disappointment will follow when my discoveries are not trumpeted like those of the botanist adventurers before me. And beyond that, of course, I worry most that if true secrecy is to be maintained, that my own silence can ultimately be bought only with the ultimate price.
Oh, but these are the flights of fancy of a man unmoored from the Earth! No one shall murder me over flowers! Wish me luck, Jack, for tomorrow I set foot on soil only rarely trod by any Occidental foot!
Yrs,
Rbt.