Fortune is a Woman (48 page)

The broad river flowed on, sometimes between high banks ten times as tall as their little ship, and sometimes so flat that only the reeds showed where the river ended and the land began. As they approached the little jetty nearest his village, Lai Tsin changed into his embroidered blue robes and put on his hat with the button of rare white jade. The beautiful white ship edged its way to the rickety wooden jetty and the smart sailors leapt to tie her up.

A crowd gathered as the gangplank was lowered and Lai Tsin and Francie stepped on shore. Astonished, they stared at the strange barbarian woman with the pale hair and eyes of piercing blue fire, turning away their heads in fear because they had never seen a
gwailo
woman before. Many of them kowtowed before such important personages, as they walked amongst them and Lai Tsin gave them coins from his purse. And then with Francie by his side, he set off on the long, familiar walk to his village.

***

On the way he pointed out all the things he had mentioned when he told her his story the night Ollie was born: the duck pond glowering like a sheet of steel under the gray skies and the sleepy white ducks, the endless gray-green rice fields and the children working in them, the desolate
fung-shui
grove where the body of Little Chen, with his merry eyes and his face as round and flat as a pancake, was left in a wicker basket for the birds and the dogs to take, and in the distance, glowing like an icon on the hill, the vermillion ancestral hall of Lilin.

The yellow-clay walls circling the village were now only a pile of stones and rubble and many of the tumbledown dwellings stood empty. Only Elder Brother's house had strong rice paper in its small windows and a charcoal brazier sending smoke into the cold air. Elder Brother's young wife had quickly swept the outside when she glimpsed them from a distance and now she lurked timidly behind her husband in the doorway, for the Mandarin never set foot over their threshold. Her eyes grew wide with astonishment as she saw the barbarian woman walking at the Mandarin's side and Elder Brother shouted an oath. "Will the
mui-tsai'
s
son never cease to bring shame on the name of Ke Chungfen, bringing a
gwailo
to his family home." But he said it softly enough that Lai Tsin would not hear and cease paying him the money that filled his rice bowl each night and replenished his flask with rice wine more frequently than it should.

His young wife ran from behind him and knelt before Lai Tsin and the barbarian woman. She touched her forehead to the ground and said, "Welcome, welcome Honorable Younger Brother Ke Lai Tsin, and welcome his Honorable Guest."

Lai Tsin smiled gently at her, and taking her hand he helped her to her feet, thanking her for her kind welcome. Elder Brother bowed stiffly, trying his best not to look at the barbarian woman, yet his eyes were drawn to her. He had never before in his whole life seen a
gwailo
woman and he thought she must be the ugliest creature on earth, with eyes of such terrifying blueness they must be a devil's and hair so pale she must surely be a hundred years old.

"Welcome, Younger Brother," he said, smiling at Lai Tsin and ignoring Francie. "We have expected your visit and you will see that the ancestral hall of Lilin is swept and kept clean. The gilding was worn away by the big winds of the winter and I was forced to spend money to replace it. Each week Number One wife goes to pay her respects to your ancestors and you will find everything as you would wish it."

"Thank you for your report, Elder Brother," Lai Tsin replied. He turned to Francie and said in English, "This is the second son of Ke Chungfen by his Number One wife. The others have long since left to find work in the cities, but he is lazy and he drinks too much. His little wife has a good heart and she would be better off without him, but she is Chinese and she will obey the traditions and stay with him, even though he beats her and treats her worse than a servant. That is the way it still is in China."

Francie smiled at the girl and she ducked shyly out of sight again behind her loutish husband. Lai Tsin handed a small leather purse to Elder Brother, who bowed and quickly thanked him, his harsh expression changing to an oily smile again.

The villagers had gathered and stood watching at a respectful distance, but they shrank back as they turned and walked past them, some hiding their faces from Francie's gaze, fearful that the Mandarin's companion was a devil.

They walked together along the path that ran through the rice fields and the merry-eyed children came running, unafraid of the
gwailo
woman because she was with the Mandarin and he always gave them coins and small presents from his pockets.

Together they climbed the rocky path to Lilin's ancestral hall and when they reached it Francie gasped in admiration. The vermillion walls shone like satin from the dozens of coats of paint carefully applied—coats of lacquer, each layer rubbed thin with glass paper before the next was applied, until it shone like the richest satin. The pierced carving was of the finest workmanship and the handmade tiles on the curved roof were an opalescent green. Inside the walls were inlaid with lacy patterns of mother-of-pearl and a marble slab inscribed in gold bore the names of Lilin and her two dead children.

Lai Tsin lit sticks of incense in the little bronze holders and kowtowed many times. Then he said to Francie, "I have brought you here because I can no longer live with the sins on my conscience. All I ask is your patience in listening to my story. I will tell you the two truths and then you may judge me as you wish." He took a deep breath and said, "Let us sit together in my mother's house, and I will tell you the deepest secrets of my soul."

She looked again at the tablet on the wall that was all that remained of Lilin and her children, and at Lai Tsin's gentle face and sad eyes and she said, "My dear friend, whatever is in your soul you may share it with me. Have no fear of my judgment, for who am I to judge others? And there is nothing you can say that would ever destroy our friendship and the love I have for you."

"We shall see," he said quietly.

***

The story was a long one and when he had finished there were tears in her eyes. Her heart ached for him and she put her arms around him in a loving embrace. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Everything you have done was only for good. I am honored to have the friendship of such a person."

They left the temple and walked back down the rocky path together, the dark, delicate Mandarin in his sumptuous robes and the tall, blond barbarian woman in her simple pleated blue skirt, back to the beautiful white steamship that would take them on the same journey Lai Tsin had taken all those years ago with Mayling, and which he would never take again.

CHAPTER 36

Francie sailed from Hong Kong for Europe the following week. She was to meet Annie in Paris, and then go in search of vines for the ranch. The British ship was filled with families returning on home-leave and the pallid hard-drinking men from the upriver rubber plantations in the jungles of Malaya who boarded at Singapore, and the sunburned tea-planters picked up at Colombo, as well as the usual sprinkling of foreign diplomats and businessmen.

As taipan of one of the richest hongs, Francie was seated at the captain's table along with the most important passengers, and she played her role perfectly. Each night she dressed discreetly but beautifully in one of her Paris dresses. She put jeweled jade ornaments in her high-piled blond hair, wore her wonderful pearls and her delicious jasmine scent. She smiled at her fellow guests and she spoke charmingly to them when they spoke to her, but she never encouraged their admiring glances and she never lingered after dinner. As she swept from the dining saloon back to the solitude of her stateroom, the men speculated about her in hushed tones but none of them ever made advances to her, because everyone knew she was the concubine of the great taipan, the Mandarin Lai Tsin.

Francie knew what they thought and she did not care, she only wanted to be alone. The ship steamed across the Indian Ocean, calling at Bombay and Port Said en route to the Mediterranean. Francie's spirits began to rise as she surveyed the lovely pine-fringed shores of southern France and she wished enviously that she had time to linger in the pretty little resort of Nice, where she disembarked. But she had a reservation at the Ritz in Paris, and Paris was the city she had always dreamed of visiting, ever since she was a child learning French from her governesses.

The manager showed her personally to her suite overlooking the rue Cambon; he knew her importance and her wealth and there were vases of tall red roses, bowls of fresh fruits, and a bottle of excellent champagne to greet her. She inspected her new quarters, thinking of Annie as she tested the perfect bed springs and inspected the fine linens and the impeccable bathrooms. Annie was considering opening a hotel here and she would be arriving in four days. Meanwhile, she was on her own with all of Paris as her playground and without wasting another second she left excitedly, guidebook in hand, to inspect its wonders.

***

Buck was driving to the American Embassy from the Elysées Palace, where as head of an important trade mission he had just had a meeting with the President of France. He was in his favorite city in the world, he'd been there exactly three days and he hadn't had a moment to enjoy it. But his bags were already packed and in an hour he would be back on the boat train on his way to Cherbourg and the liner
Normandie,
sailing that evening for New York. He gazed longingly out the window of the chauffeured limousine. The last time he had been in Paris was with Maryanne and all she had wanted to see was other important people.

He wanted to stroll leisurely across the city's beautiful bridges, not drive quickly over them, and to stop to admire the vistas instead of glimpsing them fleetingly from a car window; he wanted to linger on her chestnut-lined boulevards and browse in her fabulous museums. He wanted to drink the wine and eat long, leisurely meals and admire her beautiful women.
And by God, he was going to.

At the embassy, he quickly canceled his sailing, said good-bye to the ambassador, sent his bags over to the Crillon and strolled at a leisurely pace through the Place de la Concorde. He took a seat at a sidewalk cafe and ordered a Pernod, contemplating his freedom. He was alone in Paris and for once his time was his own. He glanced at the woman on his right absorbed in her guidebook and his heart jumped. Her back was toward him but he would have known her anywhere. It had been almost a year since he'd had tea with her in New York, and he still carried in his wallet the note she had sent him thanking him for the painting. He'd been to San Francisco several times since—more often than was strictly necessary for business, always in the hope of seeing her, but Annie Aysgarth had been as closed-mouthed as a sphinx; she'd always told him vaguely that Francie was traveling or at her ranch. And now, six thousand miles away in Paris, fate had sent her to him.

She looked as beautiful as ever in an amethyst-color wool jacket braided in black; her short skirt showed off her slender black-stockinged legs and her hair was tied back with a large black silk bow.

Feeling his eyes on her, Francie turned and saw him. "Oh," she said. Her heart lurched and she dropped her guidebook in confusion. "Buck Wingate. What a surprise." She bit her lip, blushing like a girl as he picked up her book, took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips, French-style.

"I couldn't ask for a better one," he said, smiling into her eyes. "You look about nineteen years old with that bow in your hair, and lovelier than ever."

She laughed. "There's something about this city that makes a woman
feel
nineteen again. It must be something in the air—or maybe it's just the Pernod. But what are you doing here?"

"Oh, business." He grinned. "As a matter of fact, I'm playing hookey. I should have been on the
Normandie
sailing for New York tonight and suddenly I just couldn't bear the thought of it. I've been in Paris three days and I haven't been to any of my favorite haunts or eaten in any of my favorite bistros. So—I canceled the sailing, checked into the Crillon, and met you. Now, Francie Harrison, if that is not fate, I don't know what is."

She thought how nice he was, and how handsome; again she noticed his eyes crinkled at the corners when he laughed, and that his hair was a little grayer at the temples, and he was tall and lean and devastatingly attractive. She said cautiously, "I admit we seem destined to meet on street corners."

"Ah, but that's because it's impossible to meet you anywhere else. I've tried, but Annie Aysgarth won't let me near you."

Francie's heart skipped another happy beat; she couldn't deny the little crackles of electricity between them. She knew she should say good-bye to him right now but she'd not felt like this since Edward. And besides, she was alone in Paris, the loveliest and most romantic city in the world.

She met his eyes and said conspiratorially, "Annie won't be here for another four days," and they both laughed.

"Would madame care for a guide?" he cried. "I am at your service. We'll start right away." He held out his hand and she took it feeling like the girl he had said she looked instead of the mature woman she was. She let herself be swept happily into a taxi to inspect some of the wonders of the Louvre, and then on to Notre Dame, where they heard a choir sing a soaring anthem beneath the glowing light from the famous rose window, and then on to browse through the piles of secondhand books at the
bouquineries
lining the banks of the River Seine, stopping occasionally in their breathless whirl to drink reviving rich black coffee out of small thick white cups. And when he asked her where she would like to go for dinner she said unhesitatingly, "Maxim's," and he said, "Maxim's it is."

She dithered in front of her closet in an agony of indecision, lifting out dress after dress, holding them anxiously up against her, gazing in the mirror then tossing them onto the bed. Finally, she decided on an ankle-length dinner dress of deep aquamarine crepe de chine, cut on the bias so that it just skimmed the body. The long, tight sleeves were cut into points at the wrists and she clipped a pair of leaf-shaped diamond pins at the corners of the wide square neckline. She swept up her hair and pinned it with the jade combs, then she took it down again and tied it back with a ribbon the way he'd admired it that afternoon. And when she was ready she looked at her reflection in the mirror and knew she had dressed to please him.