Gai-Jin (111 page)

Gornt’s smile was genuine, his teeth white, like Malcolm’s. He was of similar height but built lighter, his clothes less elegant, dark hair against the reddish-brown of Struan, brown eyes against the blue. “Mr. Greyforth wanted to confirm dates, weapons, etc.”

Jamie said, “You know this is all against the law, Mr. Gornt, and the duel formally forbidden by Sir William?”

“Yes, Mr. McFay.”

Jamie shifted uncomfortably, detesting his involvement more than ever, and further unsettled by the curious mood in the room. He could not
read it. Where there should have been ice and enmity, it seemed more a waiting moment, weirdly pleasant and preordained. “That being said, what did Norbert have in mind?”

“Today’s Tuesday. Would a week from today be okay?”

“I’d prefer Wednesday, the 10th,” Malcolm said at once. He had made a plan in the early hours. Sleep had eluded him. He had fought the dragon that was in the little bottle and had won, though the fight had taken its toll and this morning’s measure had been a pathetic relief.

Prancing Cloud
would arrive Sunday and was due to leave Wednesday evening. He would arrange secretly with her captain to sail the moment he could get aboard after the duel. Either he would have already smuggled Angelique aboard or would organize Jamie to escort her home in the next ship, to be decided at the last minute, the latest by Tuesday. It might be best to bring Jamie with Angelique, thus negating part of his mother’s fury against Jamie by being obedient to one of her wishes and, hopefully, make her withdraw the termination order—he owed it to Jamie to try in every way to extricate him. If Angelique was aboard, perhaps he could find a way to persuade Captain Strongbow to forget his mother’s orders.

It’s a long shot, he thought, a very long shot but a faint heart never won a fair lady and it’s the best I can do. Joss. “I’d prefer Wednesday.”

“I imagine that will be all right, suh. As to the place, we suggest first light at No Man’s Land twixt the village and Drunk Town, not the racecourse as that’s too public with early morning riders and so on.”

Malcolm laughed, not knowing why. “A good choice,” he said before Jamie could answer. Much better for me, more secluded, closer to the sea, much easier to slip out to the clipper from the Drunk Town wharf than ours. “It’s apparent you know a lot about Yokohama and you’re here only a day.”

“It was Mr. Greyforth’s suggestion, but I did check out both early this morning. No Man’s Land is better, safer.”

“That’s agreed. It will be difficult for me to walk my ten paces. I suggest we take our positions and on someone’s order, yours if you wish, aim and fire.”

“I will consult Mr. Greyforth.”

“What else?”

Gornt hesitated, then glanced at Jamie. “We can arrange details later, how our principals arrive, by what routes, which doctor we can trust who should be present, etc. Lastly, th—”

“You seem to be very well informed about duels, Mr. Gornt,” Jamie said thinly. “You’ve been involved in one?”

“Several, Mr. McFay. As a principal once, and twice as a second, while I was at the Richmond University.” Again the smile, warm, kind and sincere. “We take matters of honor very seriously in the South, suh.”

The pleasant unreality of the back and forth, and Jamie’s belief that
the tai-pan had been set up by Greyforth—notwithstanding Malcolm’s stubbornness—broke his control. “Then you should know Norbert was in the wrong,” he said angrily. “Norbert went out of his way to provoke the tai-pan, has done several times and there’s no doubt he should apologize and then we could all stop this stupidity.”

“Jamie!” Malcolm said sharply, and would have told him to leave but for yesterday. Yesterday’s debt was vast and forever, so he just said, knowing the real friend that Jamie was, “This isn’t your problem, and I know how you feel.” He looked back at Gornt. “He is right, you know—Norbert has been personally very difficult.” Gornt did not reply. Malcolm shrugged and smiled. “Joss. It’s not your problem either, Mr. Gornt. So, you were once a principal and twice a second. Clearly you won. The other man?”

“I didn’t kill him, suh, wasn’t trying to kill him. I just wounded him.”

Both men watched each other, weighing the other.

Jamie said nervously, “Then everything’s settled.”

“Yes, except weapons. Mr. Greyforth chooses swords.” Malcolm gasped and Jamie blanched.

“Duelling pistols were agreed,” Jamie said. “Agreed.”

“So sorry, suh, it wasn’t agreed. Mr. Greyforth as the challenged party has the right to choose weapons.”

“But it was ag—”

“Jamie, let me deal with this,” Malcolm said, astonished with his own detachment, expecting trickery from Norbert. “It was always presumed we were gentlemen and would use pistols.”

“I’m sorry but those aren’t my instructions, suh. As to gentlemen, my principal considers himself one, and chooses to defend his honor with a sword, which is quite customary.”

“Obviously that’s not possible.”

“Mr. Greyforth also said—I must tell you I do not approve of this and told him so—he also said if you wanted, he would agree to knives, swords or fighting irons.” Jamie began to get up but Malcolm stopped him.

“In my present state, that’s impossible,” Malcolm said, then gathered himself and said firmly, “If this is a ploy for Norbert to gain face, to humiliate me and call off the duel, then I spit in his eye and will continue to do so.”

Jamie flushed at the bravado, admired it and hated it, then suddenly realized this could be a perfect face-saver for both men. “Tai-pan, don’t you think—”

“No. Mr. Gornt, obviously I can’t, now, even use a sword. Please ask Norbert to accept pistols.”

“Well, suh, I will certainly ask, certainly the first duty of a second is to try to bring about a reconciliation and it seems to me there’s room enough for both you gentlemen in Asia. I’ll ask.”

Jamie said, “Mr. Gornt, I’ll be here. Anything I can do to help stop this insanity, just say the word.”

Gornt nodded, began to rise, but stopped as Malcolm said, “Perhaps I could have a private word, Mr. Gornt? You don’t mind, do you, Jamie?”

“Not at all.” Jamie shook hands with Gornt, then said to Malcolm, “There’s a meeting of all traders to discuss Sir William’s bombshell at noon in the Club.”

“I’ll be there, Jamie, though there won’t be much discussion, just a lot of shrieking and foul temper.”

“I agree. See you later, Tai-pan.” Jamie left.

In the fine office once more the two men watched each other. “You’re aware of our Parliament’s stupidity?”

“Yes, suh, I am. All governments are stupid.”

“Would you join me in a glass of champagne?”

“A celebration?”

“Yes. I don’t know why but I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Ah, then you felt the same? Not right, is it?”

Malcolm shook his head and rang the bell. Chen appeared and when the champagne was opened and poured he went away, his little eyes darting from silent man to silent man. “Health!”

“Health,” Gornt replied, savoring the chilled wine.

“I got the impression you wanted to speak privately.”

Gornt laughed. “I did indeed. Dangerous for an enemy to be able to read your mind, eh?”

“Very, but we needn’t be enemies. Rothwell’s is a good client, the hatred and blood feud between the Struans and the Brocks needn’t touch you, whatever Tyler or Morgan say.”

Gornt put his eyes on the cut-glass crystal and the bubbles, asking them if he was correct in thinking that the time was now or if he should wait. The tawny eyes considered Struan. He decided to dismiss the danger. “You are reputed to like secrets, to be trustworthy.”

“Are you?”

“In matters of honor, yes. Your reputation … do you like stories, legends?”

Malcolm concentrated, the unreality of the meeting and this man disorienting him. “Some better than others.”

“I’m here under false pretenses.” Gornt’s sudden smile lit up the room. “Christ Jesus, I don’t believe I’m truly here with the future tai-pan of the Noble House. I’ve waited and planned so long for this meeting and now it’s arrived—before I came here I had no intention of saying anything now, other than what Mr. Greyforth asked me to say. But now?” He raised his glass. “To revenge.”

Malcolm thought about that, unafraid and spellbound, then drank and poured again. “It’s a good toast in Asia.”

“Anywhere. First: I need your word of honor, the honor of the tai-pan of the Noble House, before God, that what I tell you will remain secret between us, until I release you.”

Malcolm hesitated. “So long as it’s a story.” Then he swore the oath.

“Thank you. A story then. Are we safe here? Can anyone overhear us?”

“In Asia, usually. We’re aware doors have ears as well as walls, but I can fix that. Chen!” he called out. The door opened at once. In Cantonese he said, “Stay away from the door, keep everyone else away, even Ah Tok!”

“Yes, Tai-pan.” The door closed.

“Now you’re safe, Mr. Gornt. I’ve known Chen all my life and he doesn’t speak English, I think. You speak Shanghainese?”

“A little, the same with Ning poh dialect.”

“You were saying?”

“This is the first time I have ever told this story,” Gornt said, and Malcolm believed him. “Once upon a time,” he began, no lightness now, “a family went to England from Montgomery, Alabama—their home for generations—father, mother, and two children, a boy and girl. She was fifteen, her name Alexandra, and her father was the youngest of five brothers. Wilf Tillman was the oldest.”

“The co-founder of Cooper-Tillman?” Struan said, jarred.

“The same. Alexandra’s father was a minor tea and cotton broker, an investor with brother Wilf in Cooper-Tillman, and he went to London to work with Rothwell’s on a three-year contract to advise on cotton—Cooper-Tillman was their major supplier. They stayed just under a year. Unfortunately both parents had gotten very ill, no wonder, eh, with the fogs and that weather, I nearly died myself while I was there—I spent two years in London training with Brock’s, one with Rothwell’s. Anyway, the Tillmans decided to go home. Halfway across the Atlantic Alexandra discovered she was pregnant.”

“Ayeeyah,” Malcolm muttered.

“Yes. The shock, on top of her adored father’s illness, killed him. He was thirty-seven. They buried him at sea. The Captain’s death certificate just said ‘brainstorm’ but both she and her mother knew the real cause was the bad news. Alexandra was just sixteen, as pretty as a picture. That was in ’35, twenty-seven years ago. Alexandra had a son, me. For an unmarried girl to have a child out of wedlock, to be a fallen woman … well, Mr. Struan, no need to tell you what a stigma and disaster that is, and Alabama’s Bible country, our part, and the Tillmans were gentry. Earlier we talked about honor, it’s true what I said, that we take honor seriously, and dishonor. May I?” Gornt motioned to the champagne.

“Please.” Malcolm did not know what else to say. The voice was lilting, pleasant, uninvolved, just a storyteller relating a history. For the moment, he thought grimly.

Gornt poured for Struan, then for himself. “My mother and her mother were ostracized by society, and the Tillman family—even her brother—turned against her. When I was three my mother met a Virginian, a transplanted Englishman—Robert Gornt, gentleman, tobacco and cotton exporter, card-playing enthusiast from Richmond—who fell in love with Mother and she with him. They left Montgomery and were married in Richmond. The story they fabricated was that she was a widow, married at sixteen to a Yankee cavalry officer who had been killed in the Sioux Indian wars. She was nineteen then.

“Everything was more or less all right for several years. Until ’42—the year after Dirk Struan practically single-handedly founded Hong Kong, the year before you were born. ’42 was a bad year for Hong Kong with its Happy Valley fever plague,
malaria
, the Opium War with China, the great typhoon that obliterated the city there, and unholy bad for the Noble House because the same typhoon killed the great Dirk Struan.” A sip of champagne. “He was responsible for Wilf Tillman’s death and for ruining the Tillman family.”

“I know nothing about that. Are you sure?”

Gornt smiled his smile, no animosity behind it. “Yes. Wilf Tillman was sick with the Happy Valley fever. Dirk Struan had cinchona bark that could have cured him, but wouldn’t give or sell it to him, wanting him dead, like Jeff Cooper.” His voice picked up an edge. “The Boston Yankee wanted him dead.”

“Why? And why should the tai-pan want Tillman dead?”

“He hated him—he had different views than Wilf. Among other reasons, Wilf had slaves, not illegal at that time, or now, in Alabama. And to assist Cooper to take over the firm. After Wilf died, Jeff Cooper bought his shares for a pittance, and cut off my family’s remaining money. Dirk was responsible.”

Malcolm said, “We certainly have a joint venture with Cooper-Tillman in cinchona bark, Mr. Gornt, and are old friends. As to the rest, I know nothing about it, or believe it. I’ll check the story the moment I get back to Hong Kong.”

Gornt shrugged. “Years later Cooper admitted he had never approved of Wilf Tillman. His exact words were, ‘Listen, young man, Wilf deserved everything he got, he was a slaver and useless, never did a day’s work in his life, your Southern gentleman was vile. Dirk was right to give the little cinchona he had to others who he judged deserved it. It’s been my work, mine, that made the company that’s paid for your mother, stepfather and you all these years …’”

Gornt’s face twisted, then he was calm again. Outwardly. “He said a few other things, suh, that … that’s unimportant now. But cutting off funds, our rightful money, was very important. It was then the rows between Stepfather and Mother began and we moved, downwards. It wasn’t till many years later I found out he had married her for her money, his cotton and tobacco businesses were shams, he was just a gambler and card player, not a successful one, and she had continually covered for him. When Mother was dying she told me all this. But he wasn’t bad to me, evil to me, just dismissed me. I’ve been dismissed all my life. Now it’s time for revenge.”

“I don’t see why you should blame me.”

“I don’t.”