simply of “white chrysanthemums, tuberoses, and maiden-hair fern.” The church was filled to overflowing with white flowers and palms. The bridesmaids, all Lilla’s sisters—the younger Edith and Dorothy and the as-yet-unmarried Ada—carried “white flowers in dainty baskets and wore gold cash bracelets, a gift of the bridegroom.” Alice herself may have gone a little over the top. Her blue-gray silk dress was trimmed with black lace and solid beads of jet. Her headdress was a concoction of black and gold net “trimmed with autumn foliage.” Andrew Eckford—no mention in the North China Daily of “stepfather,” no mention of Charles Jennings at all—gave Lilla away. Toby Elderton was best man.
The reception was held at the Cornabé Eckford offices, known by the firm’s Chinese hong, or trading, name of Hokee. Lilla and Ernie’s 250-odd wedding presents were spread out on display. Tall silver coffeepots and squat silver teapots. Heavily engraved silver punch bowls and telegraph-pole candlesticks. Silver toast racks, mustard pots, salt-cellars, and ice buckets. And photograph frames of such delicate silver lace that they looked as though they might crumble between your finger and thumb.
Lilla and Ernie’s wedding. Standing, left to right: Toby Elderton, Ada, Reggie, Ernie, Vivvy’s wife Mabel, Vivvy. Seated: Andrew Eckford, Lilla, Alice. At front: Edith, Dorothy.
But by the time the wedding party went outside to be photographed, some of the day’s gloss must have started to wear thin. The picture I have shows a cross-legged Edith and Dorothy sulking in the front row. Alice sits behind with a terrifyingly stern expression on her face. Ernie, standing, stares impatiently to the side, as if he can barely wait to be away. And Lilla looks quite miserable. Almost as if she is about to dissolve into tears.
Something must have gone wrong.
But the North China Daily tells us only that, shortly afterward, “amid hearty cheers and showers of rice and shoes,” Ernie whisked Lilla off to the smaller seaside resort of Tungshin, a couple of miles down the coast.
Two days later, they set sail for Calcutta.
Chapter 3
A “ NOT QUITE PRUDENT ” MARRIAGE
CALCUTTA, INDIA, NOVEMBER 1901
Calcutta was the political and trading capital of British-run India and many, many times the size of Chefoo. Grand municipal buildings and smooth-carved statues of generals towered over narrow streets packed with rickshaws and open carts overflowing with fruit, bags of rice, and chickens, live and dead. Vast steamers sailing to and from every corner of the world jostled for space with the city’s debris in its dark-watered, dark-smelling harbor on the Hooghly River. Even on land, Calcutta was crowded. Houses were jam-packed together as in the oldest quarters of medieval cities. Property was so expensive that even many of the British living there could barely afford it.
As their ship eased into Calcutta’s harbor, Lilla would have been burning with excitement. Arriving in a new city is always exciting, and this was the beginning of her marriage, the greatest adventure of her life. In any case, whatever happened next had to be better than the past three weeks at sea. Ernie’s seasickness meant that he had spent the entire journey green and grumpy. Now that they were reaching dry land, Lilla must have assumed that her husband’s ill humor was over and that a protracted honeymoon was about to begin.
Lilla seems to have more or less decided to be besotted with Ernie, just as she had seen Ada was with Toby. But once she had made this decision, her feelings for Ernie appear to have taken on a life of their own. Part of this was probably sexual. Ernie’s photographs show him to have been handsome—strikingly handsome, really quite a hunk, with those powerful shoulders and that square-cut jaw. And part, I’m sure, was because it gave her a role to play, and she longed to weave around him the magic that her mother had shown her and
The reception was held at the Cornabé Eckford offices, known by the firm’s Chinese hong, or trading, name of Hokee. Lilla and Ernie’s 250-odd wedding presents were spread out on display. Tall silver coffeepots and squat silver teapots. Heavily engraved silver punch bowls and telegraph-pole candlesticks. Silver toast racks, mustard pots, salt-cellars, and ice buckets. And photograph frames of such delicate silver lace that they looked as though they might crumble between your finger and thumb.
Lilla and Ernie’s wedding. Standing, left to right: Toby Elderton, Ada, Reggie, Ernie, Vivvy’s wife Mabel, Vivvy. Seated: Andrew Eckford, Lilla, Alice. At front: Edith, Dorothy.
But by the time the wedding party went outside to be photographed, some of the day’s gloss must have started to wear thin. The picture I have shows a cross-legged Edith and Dorothy sulking in the front row. Alice sits behind with a terrifyingly stern expression on her face. Ernie, standing, stares impatiently to the side, as if he can barely wait to be away. And Lilla looks quite miserable. Almost as if she is about to dissolve into tears.
Something must have gone wrong.
But the North China Daily tells us only that, shortly afterward, “amid hearty cheers and showers of rice and shoes,” Ernie whisked Lilla off to the smaller seaside resort of Tungshin, a couple of miles down the coast.
Two days later, they set sail for Calcutta.
Chapter 3
A “ NOT QUITE PRUDENT ” MARRIAGE
CALCUTTA, INDIA, NOVEMBER 1901
Calcutta was the political and trading capital of British-run India and many, many times the size of Chefoo. Grand municipal buildings and smooth-carved statues of generals towered over narrow streets packed with rickshaws and open carts overflowing with fruit, bags of rice, and chickens, live and dead. Vast steamers sailing to and from every corner of the world jostled for space with the city’s debris in its dark-watered, dark-smelling harbor on the Hooghly River. Even on land, Calcutta was crowded. Houses were jam-packed together as in the oldest quarters of medieval cities. Property was so expensive that even many of the British living there could barely afford it.
As their ship eased into Calcutta’s harbor, Lilla would have been burning with excitement. Arriving in a new city is always exciting, and this was the beginning of her marriage, the greatest adventure of her life. In any case, whatever happened next had to be better than the past three weeks at sea. Ernie’s seasickness meant that he had spent the entire journey green and grumpy. Now that they were reaching dry land, Lilla must have assumed that her husband’s ill humor was over and that a protracted honeymoon was about to begin.
Lilla seems to have more or less decided to be besotted with Ernie, just as she had seen Ada was with Toby. But once she had made this decision, her feelings for Ernie appear to have taken on a life of their own. Part of this was probably sexual. Ernie’s photographs show him to have been handsome—strikingly handsome, really quite a hunk, with those powerful shoulders and that square-cut jaw. And part, I’m sure, was because it gave her a role to play, and she longed to weave around him the magic that her mother had shown her and
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