Gai-Jin (30 page)

“Oh! Oh, thank you!” She brightened seeing that two were from Colette, one from her aunt, the last from her father. “We’re such a long way from home, no?”

“Paris is the world, yes; yes, it is. Well, I expect you’ll want some privacy, you can use the room across the hall. If you’ll excuse me …” Vervene motioned at his heaped desk, his smile self-deprecating. “Affairs of State.”

“Of course, thank you. And thank you for your good wishes, but
please
, not a word ….” She swept out graciously, knowing that within hours her marvelous secret would be common knowledge, whispered from ear to ear. Is that wise? I think so. Malcolm did ask me, didn’t he?

Vervene opened his letters, scanned them, quickly saw they both asked for money but no other bad news, at once put them aside to read and enjoy later and began the dispatch for Seratard—with a secret copy for André Poncin—delighted to be the bearer of good tidings. “Wait a moment,” he muttered, “perhaps it’s like-father-like-daughter and just the usual exaggeration! Safer to report it as
a few minutes ago Mademoiselle Angelique whispered in confidence that
… then the Minister can make up his own mind.”

Across the hall, in a pleasant antechamber that faced the small garden off the High Street, she had settled herself expectantly. Colette’s first letter gave her happy news of Paris and fashion and affairs and their mutual friends so delightfully that she raced through it, knowing she would reread it many times, particularly tonight in the comfort of her bed when she could savor everything. She had known and loved Colette most of her life—at the convent they had been inseparable, sharing hopes and dreams and intimacies.

The second letter gave more exuberant news, ending about her marriage—Colette was her own age, eighteen, already married a year with one son:
I am pregnant again, dearest Angelique, my husband is delighted but I am a little fretful. As you know the first was not easy though the Doctor assures me I will be strong enough. When will you return? I cannot wait
…

Angelique took a deep breath and looked out of the window and waited until the twinge had passed. You must not leave yourself open, she repeated to herself, near tears. Even with Colette. Be strong, Angelique. Be careful. Your life has changed, everything changed—yes, but only for a little while. Do not be caught unawares.

Again a deep breath. The next letter shocked her. Aunt Emma wrote the awful news of her husband’s fall and:
now we are destitute and my poor poor Michel languishes in Debtors’ Prison with no help in sight! We’ve nowhere to turn, no money. It’s terrible, my child, a nightmare
…

Poor darling Uncle Michel, she thought, weeping silently, a shame he
was such a bad manager. “Never mind, dear darling Aunt-Mama,” she said aloud, filled with a sudden joy. “Now I can repay all your kindnesses, I’ll ask Malcolm to help, he’ll certainly …”

Wait! Would that be wise?

While she pondered that she opened her father’s letter. To her surprise the envelope contained only a letter, without the expected sight draft she had asked for, on money brought with her from Paris and deposited in the Victoria Bank, money that her uncle had generously advanced to her—on the solemn promise that she must not tell his wife and that her father would instantly repay the loan the moment she reached Hong Kong, which he told her he had done.

Her eyes could not read on, her brain in turmoil. Oh my God! What business opportunity? Is he gambling all that I have in the world?

It was nearly two o’clock and McFay was weary, his stomach empty, his mind filled with gloom. He had written a dozen letters, signed half a hundred chits, paid dozens of bills, checked the previous day’s books, which showed trading was down, found that all goods ordered from America were either cancelled, held up or offered at increased prices, all business with Canada and Europe equally affected in some degree by the American civil war. No good news either in any dispatches from Hong Kong—a lot of bad from their branch in Shanghai, though Albert MacStruan, the power there, was doing a sterling job. My God, he thought, it’d be a catastrophe if we have to evacuate Shanghai, with all our investments there.

The city was again in turmoil and the three foreign concessions under British, French and American control beset with rumors that armies of rebel irregulars of the immense Tai’ping Rebellion, based in and around Nanking—a major city southwards they had captured nine years ago and used as a capital—were again on the move. The clipping from the
Shanghai Observer
read:

More depressing news from home. Monumental rains had washed out the harvest and famine was expected in Ireland and other areas—though not like the Great Potato Famine when hundreds of thousands died. Vast unemployment in Scotland. Destitution in Lancashire with most cotton spinning mills silent, including three owned by Struan’s, because of the Union embargo on Southern cotton and blockade of all Southern ports. With Southern cotton England had supplied cloth to the world. A Struan clipper ship crammed with teas, silks and lacquer inbound London had been lost. In the stock market Struan’s was down badly, Brock’s up with the successful arrival of the first of the season’s teas.

Another letter from his fiancée of five years, Maureen Ross, more bad: …
when am I to arrive? Have you sent the ticket? You promised this Christmas would be the last to be apart
…

“It can’t be this Christmas, lassie,” he murmured with a scowl, much as he liked her. “Can’t afford it yet, and this isn’t the place for a young lady.”

How many times had he written and told her, knowing that really Maureen and her parents wanted him to work for Struan’s in England or Scotland or better still to leave “that infamous company and work at home like a normal man,” knowing that really he wanted her to break off the engagement and to forget him, knowing that most British wives soon hated
Asia, loathed Asians, abominated the Pleasure Girls, raged against their ready access, despised the food, moaned for “home” and family, making their husbands’ lives a permanent misery.

Knowing, too, that he enjoyed Asia, loved his work, adored the freedom, treasured their Yoshiwara and would never happily go home. Well, he thought, not until I retire.

The only good in the mail were the books from Hatchard’s in Piccadilly: a new illustrated edition of Darwin’s explosive
On the Origin of Species
, some Tennyson poems, a newly translated pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called
The Communist Manifesto
, five copies of
Punch
, but most important of all another edition of
All the Year Round
. This was the weekly started by Charles Dickens, and contained the fourteenth installment of
Great Expectations—to
be published in twenty parts.

In spite of all that he had to do, McFay, like everyone else who had received a copy, locked the door and consumed the installment rapaciously. When he read the last line, “to be continued next week,” he sighed. “What the devil will Miss Havisham do next, evil old bitch? Reminds me of Maureen’s mother. Hope to God it all works out for Pip. Somehow or other it has to! Hope to God good old Dickens gives us a happy ending ….”

For a moment he was bemused, lost in admiration of the man and his marvelous range of stories, from
Oliver Twist
more than twenty years ago, through
Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield
and a dozen others to the riveting
Tale of Two Cities
. Dickens is the greatest writer in the world, no doubt about it.

He got up and stood at the window, watching the sea and sending good thoughts to the fleet at Yedo and to the mail ship that need not now be diverted but would continue on her regular route to Shanghai instead of direct to Hong Kong with Malcolm Struan, worrying about him and the future that somehow quickly became mixed up with Pip and Miss Havisham, wondering how Pip would extract himself from the mess he was in and would the girl fall in love with him. Hope so, poor lass. What about my lassie, Maureen? It’s time I had a family …

A knock. “Mr. McFay. May I see you a moment?” It was Piero Vargas, his assistant.

“Just a moment.” Feeling a little guilty he put the copy under the pile, stretched and opened the door.

Piero Vargas was a handsome, middle-aged Eurasian from Macao, the tiny Portuguese enclave, forty-odd miles west of Hong Kong, set like a pimple on a slip of Mainland China and occupied since 1552. Unlike the British, the Portuguese considered Macao equal to the mother country and not a colony, encouraged their settlers to intermarry with Chinese, and accepted Eurasian offspring as nationals, allowing them permanent access to Portugal. British intermarriage was greatly discouraged, though many had
families. Their offspring, however, were not accepted in Society. By custom those born in Shanghai took their father’s name, in Hong Kong their mother’s.

Ever since the British came to China, they had contentedly employed the brightest Macaoans as shroffs—money changers—and compradores, who, of necessity, spoke English as well as dialects of Chinese. Except the Noble House. Their compradore was the enormously wealthy Gordon Chen, the illegitimate son of their founder, Dirk Struan, by one of his many mistresses, though not the last, the fabled May-may.

“Yes, Piero?”

“Sorry to interrupt, senhor,” Piero said, his English liquid and sweet-sounding. “Kinu-san, our silk supplier, asks for a personal interview with you.”

“Oh, why?”

“Well, it’s not really for him but for two buyers who arrived with him. From Choshu.”

“Oh?” McFay’s interest picked up. Almost two years of tentative probes from the daimyo of Choshu, the fief far to the west on the Straits of Shimonoseki, had produced some very important business last year, authorized by the Head Office in Hong Kong and arranged by them: a 200-ton paddle steamer with a very private cargo—cannon, shot and ammunition. Paid for promptly in gold and silver, half in advance, half on delivery. “Bring them in. Wait, better I see them in the main reception room.”

“Sí
, senhor.”

“Is one of them the same fellow as last time?”

“Senhor?”

“The young samurai who spoke a little English?”

“I did not take part in the discussion, senhor, I was on leave in Portugal.”

“Ah, yes, now I remember.”

The reception room was big, with seating for forty-two at the oak table. Matching sideboards and tallboys for silver plate and glass fronted display cases, gleaming and well kept, some with arms. He opened one of them, took out a belt and holstered pistol attached. He buckled the belt around his waist, making sure the pistol was loaded and loose in the holster. It was always his custom when meeting samurai to be as armed as they were. “A matter of face,” he told his subordinates, “as well as safety.” As a further prop he leaned the Spencer rifle against a chair, and stood by the window, facing the door.

Vargas came back with three men. One was middle-aged, fat, unctuous and swordless, Kinu, their silk supplier. The other two were samurai, one young the other in his forties though it was difficult to tell. Both short, spare, hard-faced and armed, as usual.

They bowed politely. McFay noted that both men had instantly seen the breech-loader. He returned the bow in kind.
“Ohayo,”
he said. Good morning. Then,
“Dozo”—
please—indicating the chairs opposite him, a safe distance away.

“Goo’d morning,” the younger said without a smile.

“Ah, you speak English? Excellent. Please sit down.”

“Speak ’ritt’re,” the youth said—the l’s sounding like r’s because there was no “l” sound in Japanese, v’s being equally awkward. For a moment he spoke to Vargas in Fukenese, their common Chinese dialect, then the two men introduced themselves, adding they had been sent by Lord Ogama of Choshu.

“I am Jamie McFay, chief of Struan and Company in Nippon, and am honored to see you.” Again Vargas translated. Patiently Jamie went through the obligatory fifteen minutes of enquiries after their daimyo’s health, their own health, his health and that of the Queen, the outlook in Choshu, in England, nothing particular, everything bland. Tea was served and admired. At length the young man came to the point.