Gai-Jin (42 page)

With a visible effort Struan shoved away his anger but could not still his racing heart. “Sorry, sorry, but I …” He shrugged helplessly. “Sorry.”

“That’s not necessary. I’m not trying to interfere in your private life. Your health depends on many factors. It seems she’s a major one. Hence my question. I ask for medical reasons—not family reasons. So, Miss Angelique Richaud?”

Struan wanted to sound manly and calm but could not contain his frustration and burst out, “I want to marry her and it’s driving me mad lying here like a … lying here helpless. For Christ’s sake, I can’t even get out of bed yet, can’t pee or … can’t do a God-cursed thing, can’t hardly drink or eat or anything without it hurting like hell. I’m going mad and much as I try I don’t seem to be getting better …” He continued ranting until he weakened. Hoag just listened. Eventually Struan stopped. He mumbled another apology.

“May I take a look at you?”

“Yes…yes, of course.”

With great care Hoag examined him, put his ear to his chest to listen to his heart, looked in his mouth, took his pulse, peered at the wound and smelt it. His fingers probed the stomach walls, searching for the organs beneath, the extent of the damage: “Does that hurt … This … Is it easier here?” Every little push caused Malcolm to groan. At length, Hoag stopped.

Struan broke the silence. “Well?”

“Babcott has done a very good job with what would have by this time killed a normal man.” Hoag’s words were measured and full of confidence. “Now we will try an experiment.” Gently he took Struan’s legs and helped him to sit on the side of the bed. Then, his arm around Malcolm’s shoulders, taking most of the weight with his surprising strength, he helped him stand. “Careful!”

Struan could not stay upright by himself, but he had the impression of standing and this encouraged him. After a moment or two Hoag settled him in the bed again. Struan’s heart was thumping from the pain but he was greatly satisfied. “Thanks.”

The doctor sat back in the armchair and gathered his own strength. Then he said, “I’m going to leave you now, got to get myself organized. I would like you to rest. After I’ve seen Babcott I’ll come back again. We’ll probably come back together. Then we’ll talk. All right?”

“Yes. And…Thanks, Ronald.”

For an answer Hoag just patted him on the arm, picked up his belongings and left.

Once alone, the tears seeped down Struan’s cheeks and these happy tears took him in sleep. When he awoke, he felt rested, for the first time refreshed, and he stayed without moving, glorying in the fact that he had stood up—with help, yes, but he had been on his feet and made a beginning, and that now, now he had a real ally.

From where he lay, slightly turned on his left side, he could see out of the window toward the sea. He loved the sea and hated it, never at ease on it, fearing it because it was uncontrollable and unpredictable like on the sunny day when the twins and the Bosun rowed offshore a hundred yards or so and a wave came and overturned the boat and a current took them down, all of them swimmers, the twins like fish, but all gone except the seaman. The shock devastated him and almost killed his father. His mother stayed in one of her walking comas, saying repeatedly: “The will of God. We must go on.”

Won’t think about my brothers, or Dirk Struan, he told himself, glad to be safe ashore. But our past is bound to the sea, inexorably, and our future. Isn’t our ultimate strength in our clippers and steamers—and China?

Japan’s a small market, interesting but small, never to be compared with China. We can make money here certainly—selective armaments and ships and British skills will make a bundle. I’m going to tell Jamie to conclude the Choshu order. Let them kill themselves and the quicker the better. Sir William’s weak-kneed dillydallying, waiting for London’s approval to war is stupid. If it were up to me I would order them to hand over the murderers, to pay up at once or tomorrow a state of war would exist between us, and the first act would be to stamp out Yedo. I will never, never forgive the bastards!

The horizon beckoned. Soon I must go back to Hong Kong to take charge. A week or so. No hurry. Plenty of time.

What’s the time now?

There was no need to turn and look at the clock, the angle of the sun told him it was about noon and he thought that normally he would order lovely rare roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with rich gravy and roast potatoes, a bowl or two of diced roast chicken with fried rice and mixed vegetables, and other Chinese dishes that Ah Tok would make and he enjoyed—however much his mother and brother and sisters decried as tasteless, without nourishment, probably poisonous and only fit for heathens….

A slight sound. Angelique was curled up in the armchair, dwarfed by it, her face tearstained, and more unhappy than he had ever seen her.

“Christ, what’s the matter?”

“I’m—I’m ruined.” Her tears began again.

“For God’s sake, what’re you talking about?”

“This, it was in today’s mail.” She got up and handed him a letter, tried to speak, couldn’t. The sudden movement he made to take it twisted him and he barely managed to stop crying out.

The paper was green, like the envelope, dated Hong Kong, 23rd Sept., the letterhead Guy Richaud, Richaud Frères, and in French, which Struan could read adequately:

Struan’s mind was in a turmoil. “Why are you ruined?”

“He’s … he took all my money,” she whimpered, “stole all my money and lost that as well, he’s a thief and now—now I’ve nothing in the world. He stole all that I have, oh Malcolm, what am I going to do?”

“Angelique, Angelique, listen!” She seemed such a waif, so melodramatic, that he almost laughed. “For goodness’ sake, listen, that’s no problem. I can give you any money you wa—”

“I can’t accept money from you,” she cried out through her tears. “That’s not right!”

“Why not? Soon we’ll be married, won’t we?”

The crying stopped. “We … we will?”

“Yes. We’ll—we’ll make the announcement today.”

“But Father, he’s …” She sniffed tearfully like a child. “André told me he was sure that there was no business deal in Macao or anywhere and never was. It seems Father was a gambler and must have gambled it all away. Father had promised, he had promised Henri, Henri Seratard, he would stop, and pay his bills…. Everyone knew but me, oh Malcolm, I never knew, I feel so terrible I could die, Father stole my money, he swore to keep my money safe!” Another burst of crying and she ran over to him and was on her knees beside the bed, her head buried into the counterpane.
Tenderly he stroked her hair, feeling very strong and in command. The door opened and Ah Tok strode in.

“Get out,” he bellowed.
“Dew neh loh moh!”
She fled.

Genuinely frightened, Angelique cowered deeper into the covering. She had never known his anger. He caressed her hair. “Don’t worry, my darling, don’t worry about your father, I’ll see what we can do to help him later, but now you mustn’t worry, I’m looking after you,” his words ever more tender. Her sobbing lessened, the vast weight off her now that she had told him the truth and given him the news before he heard it from others—and that he
did not
seem to care.

André’s a genius, she was thinking, exhausted with relief. He swore that this would be Malcolm’s reaction: “Just be honest, Angelique, tell Malcolm the truth, that you didn’t know your father was a gambler, that this is the first you’ve heard about it and you’re shocked beyond words, that your father has stolen your money—important you use the words ‘stolen’ and ‘thief’—tell the truth, show him his letter and with the right amount of tears and tenderness this will bond him to you forever.”

“But André,” she had said miserably, “I daren’t show him Father’s letter. I daren’t, his postscript sounds so awful—”

“Look! Without the second page the postscript just says,
my hopes for a quick recovery
. Perfect! The second page? What second page? There, it’s torn up and never existed.”

André’s nimble fingers glued the last shred of the reassembled second page into place. “There, Henri,” he said, and pushed it across the desk. “Read for yourself.” It had taken him no time at all to rebuild the page from the pieces he had seemingly thrown carelessly into his wastepaper basket.

They were in Seratard’s office, the door locked. The page read:

“That’s not so terrible,” Seratard said uneasily, “just a father’s panic advice, reaching for straws. Struan is without doubt a wonderful catch for any girl and Angelique… who could blame a father?”

“That depends on the father. This, if used at the correct time in the correct way, is another weapon over her, therefore over the Noble House.”

“Then you think the poor girl will be successful?”

“We must work to make it so. Now that we’ve this evidence to use, if necessary, we must assist her as a matter of policy.” André’s lips were a thin cold line. “Not that I think she’s a poor girl. She’s the one who’s prepared to snare him by
any means necessary
. Eh?”

Seratard sat back in the red leather chair. His office bureau was tatty except for a few oils of modern, little-known French painters, Manet amongst them, that he collected cheaply through a Paris agent from time to time. “What’s she doing but reacting to a young man’s love?” He shoved the paper back. “I don’t like these methods, André. They’re distasteful. You encouraged the girl into the morass of half-truths by telling her to give him half the letter.”

“Machiavelli wrote, ‘It is necessary for the State to deal in lies and half-truths, because people are made up of lies and half-truths. Even princes.’ And certainly, by definition, all Ambassadors and politicians.” André shrugged. Carefully he folded the letter. “Perhaps we won’t have to use it, but it’s good to have it because we represent the State.”

“Use it how?”

“The fact that she tore it up and …”

“She didn’t,” Seratard said, shocked.

“Of course,” André said coldly. “But it’s her word against mine and who wins that contest? The fact that she tore up the second page and only showed Struan the first should be enough to damn her in his eyes. This gives him a perfect excuse to annul any promise of marriage “as he had been deceived.” His mother? If she knew about this she would concede us all sorts of concessions to gain possession of it, if he insists on marrying Angelique, against her advice.”

“I don’t like blackmail.”

André flushed. “I don’t like lots of methods I’m obliged to use for our, I repeat,
our
purposes.” He put the page with the fine writing into his pocket. “Circulated in society or published, with the details, this document would destroy Angelique. In a court it would damn her. Perhaps it only shows the truth: that she is just an adventuress, in conspiracy with her father who is—who is at best a gambler and soon to be bankrupt, like her uncle. As to encouraging her, I only tell her what she wants to know and say. To help her. It’s her mess, not mine or ours.”

Seratard sighed. “Sad. Sad that she is embroiled.”

“Yes, but she is, isn’t she, to our advantage?” André’s lips smiled but not his eyes. “And yours personally, Monsieur? Judiciously used this would guarantee her into your bed, would it not, if your undoubted charm failed, which I doubt.”

Seratard did not smile. “And you, André? What are we going to do about Hana, the Flower?”

André looked at him abruptly. “The Flower is dead.”

“Yes. And under such strange circumstances.”

“Not strange,” André said, his eyes suddenly flat as a reptile’s. “She committed suicide.”

“She was found with her throat cut, with your knife. The mama-san says you spent the night with her as usual.”

André was trying to work out why Seratard was probing now. “I did, but this is none of your business.”

“I’m afraid it is. The local Bakufu official sent a formal request for information yesterday.”

“Tell him to kill himself. Hana, the Flower, was special, yes, she was mine, yes. I paid the very top pillow price for her, but she was still only part of the Willow World.”

“As you said so rightly, people are made up of lies and half-truths. The complaint reports that you had a violent row with her. Because she had taken a lover.”

“We had a row, yes, and I wanted to kill her, yes, but not for that reason,” André muttered, choked. “The truth is … the truth is she did have some clients. Three—in the other House, but this was … this was before she became my property. One of them … one of them gave her the pox. She gave it to me.”

Seratard was aghast.
“Mon Dieu, syphilis?”

“Yes.”

“Mon Dieu
, you’re sure?”

“Yes.” André got up and went to the sideboard and poured some brandy and drank it. “Babcott confirmed it a month ago. No mistake. It could only have been her. When I asked her about it, she …”