Fragrant Flower by Barbara Cartland

like her mother – that was impossible! But even though she was dark and not prettily pink-and-white like the twins, she could not believe there was not a man somewhere in the world who would love her.
    Perhaps one day she would find him, and together they would defy her uncle.
    Even to think about it made Azalea tremble.
    Sir Frederick was intimidating, and she knew that if, as her legal Guardian, he intended her not to marry – as he had said – she would not be able to do so.
    “Mama would have wanted me to be happy,” she told herself.
    They had talked together of marriage.
    “You love Papa very much, do you not, Mama?” she had asked.
    “I love him with all my heart and with all my soul, Azalea,” her mother replied. “One day you will fall in love, and you will realise, as I did, that money and social position are completely unimportant beside the fact that one is loved and one loves!”
    There was something in her mother’s voice and the smile on her lips which made Azalea know she had found something very wonderful and very beautiful.
    “Love is beauty,” she told herself now, “the beauty that I long for, the beauty that I lost when I left India.”
    Azalea played with the children every afternoon and sometimes in the morning, until gradually the sea grew calmer, the air warmer, and they were through the Straits of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean.
    The grown-up passengers began to recover and the stewardesses told Azalea that they could no longer allow the children of the Third Class passengers to come up to the Writing Room in the Second Class.
    Soon she found herself spending any time she was free in Mrs. Chang’s cabin, and they became friends.
    “How I thank you for gracious kindness me and Jam Kin?” Mrs. Chang asked.
    “You have been kind to me,” Azalea said. “I should have been very lonely if I had not been able to talk to you.”
    She paused and then she said a little tentatively,
    “I wonder if I might ask you something?”
    “Please ask,” Mrs. Chang replied.
    “I want to learn Chinese,” Azalea said, “and I do not know how to start about it.”
    “I teach,” Mrs. Chang said.
    “No, no! I did not mean that!” Azalea answered quickly. “I would not wish to impose upon you. It is just that I thought you might have a book or something very simple by which I could start to understand the language.”
    “I talk Mr. Chang. You wait.”
    Mrs. Chang left Azalea with Jam Kin and after a short while came back to say excitedly,
    “Come! Come meet Mr. Chang.”
    Azalea was only too willing to follow her. She was very anxious to meet Mr. Chang. She had wondered so often what he was like.
    Mrs. Chang led her into the Sitting Room which lay between the two sleeping cabins.
    Seated in a comfortable chair was a Chinese gentleman who looked, Azalea thought, exactly as she might have expected.
    He was dressed in an exquisitely embroidered Chinese robe and his feet were in padded slippers. On his head he wore a small round cap and his queue, which fell down his back, was thick, even though it was nearly white like his beard.
    He had a fine face, Azalea thought, but while she had a quick impression of his appearance, she was embarrassed as Mrs. Chang went down on her knees and prostrated herself.
    “Honourable husband,” she said in English, “may humble insignificant wife present kind and honourable English lady.”
    Mr. Chang rose to his feet and bowed with his hands inside his wide sleeves. Azalea curtsied, even though she was certain that her aunt would disapprove of her curtsying to a Chinese.
    “I understand from my unimportant wife that she and my son Jam Kin are greatly indebted to you, Miss Osmund,” he said in almost perfect English.
    “It has been a great pleasure, Mr. Chang, to be able to help a little while your wife has been so ill.”
    “Women are bad sailors,” Mr. Chang said. “Will you honour me by sitting down, Miss Osmund, on this inferior and uncomfortable