Gai-Jin (40 page)

“Merde!
Of course it’s true! He’s asked you, hasn’t he?” He shook her again, his fingers rough. “Hasn’t he?”

“You’re hurting me, André. Yes, yes he’s asked me.”

He gave her a handkerchief, deliberately more gentle. “Here, dry your eyes, there’s not much time.”

Meekly she obeyed, began to cry, stopped herself. “Why’re you so-awfulllll?”

“I’m the only real friend you have here—I’m truly on your side, ready to help, the only real friend you can trust—I’m the only friend you have, I swear it, the only one who can help you.” Normally he would add fervently, I swear by God, but he judged her hooked, reserving that for later. “Better you hear the truth secretly. Now you’ve time to prepare. The news won’t arrive for at least a week, that gives you time to make your betrothal solemn and official.”

“What?”

“Struan’s a gentleman, isn’t he?” With an effort he covered the sneer. “An English, sorry, a Scottish, a British gentleman. Aren’t they proudly men of their word? Eh? Once the promise is public he can’t withdraw whether you’re a pauper or not, whatever your father has done, whatever his mother says.”

I know, I know, she wanted to scream. But I’m a woman and I have to wait, I’ve been waiting and now it’s too late. Is it? Oh, Blessed Mother, help me! “I don’t … don’t think Malcolm will blame me for my father or—or listen to his mother.”

“I’m afraid he has to, Angelique. Have you forgotten Malcolm Struan is a minor too, however much he’s tai-pan? His twenty-first birthday’s not till May next year. Until then she can put all sorts of legal restraints on him, even annul a betrothal under English law.” He was not completely sure of this but it sounded reasonable and was true under French law.

“She could put restraints on you too, perhaps take you to court,” he added so sadly. “Struans are powerful in Asia, it’s almost their domain. She could have you hauled into court—you know what they say about judges, any judges, eh? She could have you dragged before a magistrate, accuse you of being a coquette, a deceiver, just after his money or worse. She could paint a nasty picture to the judge, you in the dock and defenseless, your father a gambling, bankrupt ne’er-do-well, your uncle in Debtors’ Prison, you penniless, an adventuress.”

Her face became haggard. “How do you know about Uncle Michel? Who are you?”

“There are no tricks, Angelique,” he said easily. “How many French citizens are in Asia? Not many, none like you, and people like to gossip. Me, I’m André Poncin, China trader, Japan trader. You’ve nothing to fear from me. I want nothing but your friendship and trust and to help.”

“How? I’m beyond help.”

“No, you’re not,” he said softly, watching her carefully. “You love him, don’t you? You would be the best wife a man can have, given the chance, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, yes of course …”

“Then press him, beguile him, persuade him any way you can to make your betrothal public. I can guide you perhaps.” Now, at last, he saw that
she was really hearing him, really understanding him. Gently he delivered the coup de grâce. “A wise woman, and you are as wise as you are beautiful, would get married quickly. Very quickly.”

Struan was reading, the oil lamp on the table beside his bed giving enough light, the door to her room ajar. His bed was comfortable and he was engrossed in the story, his silken nightshirt enhancing the color of his eyes, his face still pale and thin with none of its former strength. On the bedside table was a sleeping draft, his pipe and tobacco and matches and water laced with a little whisky: “Good for you, Malcolm,” Babcott had said. “It’s the best nighttime medicine you could have, taken weak. Better than the tincture.”

“Without that I’m awake all night and feel dreadful.”

“It’s seventeen days now since the accident, Malcolm. It’s time to stop. Really to stop, not good to rely on medicine to sleep. Best we stop it for good.”

“I tried that before and it didn’t work. I’ll stop in a day or two…. ”

Curtains were drawn against the night, the room cozy, the ticktock of the ornate Swiss timepiece peaceful. It was almost one o’clock, and the book,
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
, was one that Dmitri had loaned him this morning saying: “Think you’ll like it, Malc, it’s what they call a detective story. Edgar Allan Poe’s one of our best writers—sorry, was, he died in ’49, the year of the Gold Rush. I’ve a collection of his books and poems if you like this one.”

“Thanks, you’re very kind. Good of you to drop by so often. But why so glum today, Dmitri?”

“News from home is bad. My folks … it’s all bad, Malc, all mixed up, cousins, brothers, uncles on both sides. Hell, you don’t want to hear about that. Listen, I’ve lots of other books, a whole library in fact.”

“Go on about your family, please,” he had said, the pain of the day beginning. “Really, I’d like to hear.”

“All right, sure. Well, when my granddaddy and his family came over from Russia, from the Crimea—did I tell you our family were Cossacks—they settled in a little place called Far Hills in New Jersey, farmed there till the War of 1812—my granddad was killed in it—great place for raising horses too, and we prospered. The family stayed in New Jersey mostly, though two of his sons moved south, to Richmond, Virginia. When I was in the army, oh, fifteen-odd years ago—it was just the Union Army then, not North or South. I joined the cavalry and stayed for five years, spent most of my time in the South, South and West, the Indian Wars if you could call them that. Spent part of the time in Texas, a year while it was still a republic, helping them blow off their Indians, then a couple after she joined the
Union in ’45, we were stationed out of Austin. That’s where I met my wife, Emilie—she also comes from Richmond—her pa was a colonel in Supplies. My, that’s pretty country around Austin, but more so all around Richmond. Emilie … Can I get you anything?”

“No, no thanks, Dmitri, the pain will pass. Go on, will you … talking, your talking helps me a lot.”

“Sure, all right. My Emilie, Emilie Clemm was her name—she was a distant cousin of Poe’s wife, Virginia Clemm, which I didn’t find out till later but which’s why I’ve a collection of his works.” Dmitri had laughed. “Poe was a great writer but a bigger drunk and cocksman. Seems like all writers are bums, drunks and/or fornicators—take Melville—maybe that’s what makes them writers, me I can’t write a letter without sweating. How about you?”

“Oh, I can write letters—have to, and keep a journal like most people. You were saying about this Poe?”

“I was going to tell you he married Virginia Clemm when she was thirteen—she was also his cousin, imagine that!—and they lived happily ever after but not very if what was reported in the newspapers and gossip was true—he was a randy son of a bitch though she didn’t seem to mind. My Emilie wasn’t thirteen but eighteen and a Southern belle if ever there was one. We were married when I got out of the army and joined Cooper-Tillman in Richmond—they wanted to expand into armaments and ammunition for export to Asia, which I’d learned a lot about, that and shooting Indians and horse trading. Old Jeff Cooper figured that guns and other goods outward bound from Norfolk, Virginia, would go well with opium up the China coast, silver and tea inbound to Norfolk—but, you know Jeff. Cooper-Tillman and Struan’s are old friends, eh?”

“Yes, and I hope it remains so. Go on.”

“Nothing much more, or everything. Over the years, others in the family moved down South and spread out. My ma was from Alabama, I have two brothers and a sister, all younger than me. Now Billy’s with the North, New Jersey 1st Cavalry, and my little brother Janny—named after my grand-daddy, Janov Syborodin, Janny’s cavalry too, but with the 3rd Virginian, Advance Scouts. It’s all crap—those two know crap about war and fighting and they’ll get themselves killed, sure as hell.”

“You … are you going to go back?”

“Don’t know, Malc. Every day I think yes, every night yes and every morning no, don’t want to start killing family, whatever side I’m on.”

“Why did you leave and come to this godforsaken part of the world?”

“Emilie died. She got scarlet fever—there was an epidemic and she was one of the unlucky ones. That was nine years ago—we were just about to have a kid.”

“What rotten luck!”

“Yes. You and me, we’ve both had our share…. ”

Struan was so concentrated in his mystery book that he did not hear the outside door to her suite softly open and close, nor the lightness of her tiptoeing, nor notice her peer in for an instant, then disappear. In a moment there was an almost imperceptible click as her inner, bedroom door closed.

He looked up. Now listening intently. She had said that she would look in but if he was asleep she would not disturb him. Or if she was tired she would go straight to bed, quiet as a mouse, and see him in the morning. “Don’t worry, darling,” he had said happily. “Just have a good time, I’ll see you at breakfast. Sleep well and know I love you.”

“I love you too,
chéri
. Sleep well.”

The book was resting in his lap. With an effort he sat upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed. That part was just bearable. But not getting up. Getting up was still beyond him. His heart was pounding and he felt nauseated and lay back. Still, a little better than yesterday. Got to push, whatever Babcott says, he told himself grimly, rubbing his stomach. Tomorrow I’ll try again, three times. Perhaps it’s just as well. I’d want to stay with her. God help me, I would have to.

When he felt better he began to read once more, glad for the book, but now the story did not absorb him as before, his attention wandered, and his mind started to intermix the story with pictures of her about to be murdered, and corpses, him rushing to protect her, other glimpses becoming ever more erotic.

At length he put the book away, marking the place with a page she had given him, one from her journal. Wonder what she writes in it, knowing her to be as diligent as anyone. About me and her? Her and me?

Very tired now. His hand reached for the lamp to turn the wick down, then stopped. The little wineglass with sleep in it beckoned. His fingers trembled.

Babcott’s right, I don’t need it anymore.

Firmly he doused the light and lay back and closed his eyes, praying for her and his family and that his mother would bless them, and then for himself. Oh, God, help me get better—I’m afraid, very afraid.

But sleep would not take him. Turning or trying to gain comfort hurt him, reminding him of the Tokaidō and Canterbury. Half asleep half awake, his mind buzzing with the book, the macabre setting and how would it finish? Adding all kinds of pictures. And more pictures, some bad, some beautiful, some vivid, every little movement to get more comfortable bringing blossoms of pain.

Time passed, another hour or minutes, and then he drank the elixir and relaxed contentedly, knowing that soon he would be floating on gossamer, her hand on him, his hand on her, there on her breasts and everywhere, hers equally knowingly, equally welcomed, not only hands.

FRIDAY, 3RD OCTOBER
:

Just after dawn Angelique got out of bed and sat at her dressing table in the bay windows overlooking the High Street and harbor. She was very tired. In the locked drawer was her journal. It was dull red leather and also locked. She slid the little key from its hiding place, unlocked it, then dipped her pen in ink and wrote in it, more as a friend to a friend—her journal these days seemed her only friend, the only one she felt safe with:

Blessed Mother, give me strength! she thought. Then there’s the other. I try not to worry but I’m frantic. The day approaches. Then I’ll be free from that terror, but not from penury.

She began to write again.

Her gaze left the paper and went to the window and to the ships in the bay. I wish I were on one of them, going home, wish I’d never come here. I hate this place … What if … If Malcolm doesn’t marry me I’ll have to marry someone else but I’ve no dowry, nothing. Oh God, this isn’t what I’d hoped. If I managed to get home, I’ve still got no money, poor Aunt and Uncle ruined. Colette hasn’t got any to lend, I don’t know anyone rich or famous enough to marry, or far enough up in society so I could safely become a mistress. I could go on the stage but there it’s essential to have a patron to bribe managers and playwrights, and pay for all the clothes and jewels and carriages and a palatial house for soirees—of course you have to bed the patron, at his whim not yours, until you are rich and famous enough and that takes time, and I don’t have the connections, or have any friends who do. Oh dear, I’m so confused. I think I am going to cry again….