Gai-Jin (68 page)

Before Marlowe could stop himself, he had said, “Excuse me, sir, she’s still undergoing major repairs.”

“I’m so glad to know you keep abreast of the state of my fleet, Mr. Marlowe, and that you keep your ears open,” the Admiral said witheringly. “Obviously
Pearl
can’t go on this expedition, so you’d best report back aboard and make sure she’s in first-class seagoing condition ready for any duty by sundown tomorrow or you won’t have a ship.”

“Yessir.” Marlowe gulped, saluted and rushed off.

The Admiral grunted and said to the General, “Good officer but not dry behind the ears yet—fine naval family, two brothers also officers and his father’s flag captain at Plymouth.” He looked at Sir William. “Don’t worry, his frigate will have stepped her mast by tomorrow and be in good order-he’s the best of my captains but, for God’s sake, don’t tell him I said so. He’ll guard you until I return. If there’s nothing else, gentlemen, I put to sea right smartly—so sorry I can’t join you for dinner.”

Sir William and the General finished their drinks and stood up. “Godspeed, Admiral Ketterer, may you come back safely with all hands,” Sir
William said sincerely, the General echoing him. Then his face hardened. “If I don’t get any satisfaction from the Bakufu I will leave for Osaka as planned, in
Pearl
or not, at the head of the army or not—but by God, go to Osaka and Kyōto I will.”

“Best wait until I return, best be prudent, best not swear by God to undertake such an ill-advised action, Sir William,” the Admiral said curtly. “God might decide otherwise.”

That evening, just before midnight, Angelique, Phillip Tyrer and Pallidar left the British Legation and strolled down High Street, heading for the Struan Building. “La,” she said happily, “Sir William certainly has a modest chef!”

They were all in evening dress and they laughed, for the food had been abundant English fare and especially delicious—a side of roast beef, trays of pork sausages and fresh crabs brought in on ice from Shanghai in the mail ship’s ice room as part of the diplomatic pouch and therefore not subject to customs inspection or duty. These were served with boiled vegetables, roast potatoes, also imported from Shanghai, with Yorkshire pudding and followed by apple pies and mince pies with all the claret, Pouilly Fumé, port and champagne the twenty guests could drink.

“And when Madam Lunkchurch threw a crab at her husband I thought I would die,” she said to more laughter but Tyrer, embarrassed, said, “I’m afraid some of the so-called traders and their wives are inclined to be boisterous. Please don’t judge all Englishmen, or -women, by their behavior.”

“Quite right.” Pallidar was beaming, delighted that he also had been accepted as part of her escort and conscious that his evening dress uniform and plumed cap made Tyrer’s drab frock coat, his old-fashioned and abundant silk cravat and top hat seem even more funereal. “Dreadful people. Without your presence, the evening would have been awful, no doubt at all.”

High Street and its side streets were still busy with traders, clerks and others weaving their way home to their dwellings or strolling the promenade, the odd drunk lying by the oil lamps that lit the length of it. An occasional cluster of Japanese fishermen, carrying oars and nets, and paper lanterns to light their way, trudged up from the shore where their boats were beached, or headed down from the village for their night’s fishing.

At the front door of the Struan Building she stopped and held out her hand to be kissed. “Thank you and good night, dear friends, please don’t bother to wait, one of the servants can see me back to the Legation.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Pallidar said at once, taking her hand and holding on for a moment.

“I—we’d be glad to wait,” Tyrer assured her.

“But I may be an hour or a few minutes, depending how my fiancé is.”

But they insisted and she thanked them, and she swept past the liveried, armed night watchman, up the stairs, crinoline billowing, trailing her shawl—still caught up in the excitement of the evening and the adoration that surrounded her. “Hello, darling, just wanted to say good night.”

Struan wore an elegant red silk dressing gown over a loose shirt and trousers with soft boots, cravat at his throat and he got up out of the chair, the pain deadened now by the elixir Ah Tok had given him half an hour ago. “I feel better than I have for days, my darling. A bit wobbly, but fine-how lovely you are.” The light from the oil lamp made his gaunt face more handsome than ever, and her more desirable than ever. He put his hands on her shoulders to steady himself, his head and body feeling strangely light, her skin creamy and warm to his touch. Her eyes were dancing and he looked down, loving her, and kissed her. Gently at first, then, as she responded, glorying further in her taste and welcome. “I love you,” he murmured between kisses.

“I love you,” she replied, believing it and weak with pleasure, so happy that he seemed truly better, his lips strong and seeking and hands strong and seeking but within bounds, bounds that suddenly, deliriously, she wanted to cast aside.
“Je t’aime, chéri…je t’aime …”

For a moment they stood in their embrace and then with a strength he did not know he had, he lifted her and sat again in the big, high-backed chair and cradled her in his lap, lips touching, one arm around her tiny waist, a hand quietly on her breast, the silk seeming to enhance the half-cupped warmth beneath. Wonder filled him. Wonder that here where every part of her was covered and forbidden, in the night, all was open and offered and was young, but now he was more euphoric and stimulated than he had ever been, yet at the same time controlled, no longer frantic with lust.

“So strange,” he murmured, and thought, but not so strange, the pain’s masked by the medicine. The rest isn’t, my love for her.

“Chéri?”

“Strange that I need you so much yet I can wait. Not long but I can wait.”

“Please not long, please.” Again her lips sought his, nothing in her mind but him, heat welding her memory closed and worry closed and never a problem anymore. For both of them. Then the sudden sound of a nearby gunshot from outside.

Their mood shattered, she sat upright on his lap and before she knew it was hurrying for the half-open window. Below she could see Pallidar and Tyrer—damn, I’d forgotten them, she thought. The two men were looking inland, then they turned, their attention directed towards Drunk Town.

She craned out of the window but saw only a vague group of men at
the far end, their bleary shouts wafted on the wind. “It seems to be nothing, just Drunk Town …” she said, guns and fights, even duels, not rare in that part of Yokohama. Then, feeling strange and chilled and at the same time flushed, she came back and looked at him. With a little sigh she knelt and took his hand and pressed it to her cheek, her head in his lap, but his gentleness and his fingers caressing her hair and the nape of her neck no longer drove the devils away. “I should go home, my love.”

“Yes.” His fingers continued their stroking.

“I want to stay.”

“I know.”

Struan saw himself, out of himself, the perfect gentleman, calm, quiet, helping her to her feet, waiting while she straightened her bodice and hair and draped her shawl around her. Then, hand in hand, walking slowly with her to the head of the stairs where he allowed himself to be persuaded to stay, permitting a servant to lead her below. At the door she turned once and waved a loving farewell and he waved and then she was gone.

It seemed to take him no effort to walk back and undress, letting his servant pull off his boots. Then into bed with no help at all, lying back at peace with himself and the world. Head fine, body fine, relaxed.

“How is my son?” Ah Tok whispered from the doorway.

“In the Land of the Poppy.”

“Good, good. No pain for my son there.”

The servant blew out the flame and then left him.

Down the High Street, the French soldier sentry, his uniform as sloppy as his manner, opened the Legation door for her.
“Bonsoir
, Mademoiselle.”

“Bonsoir
, Monsieur. Good night, Phillip, good night, Settry.” The door closed and she leaned against it a moment to collect herself. The delight of the evening had vanished. In its place, the spectres were crowding for attention. Deep in thought she walked across the hall towards her suite, saw a light under Seratard’s door. She stopped and, on a sudden impulse that this might be a perfect time to ask for a loan, she knocked and went in. “Oh! André! Hello, excuse me, I was expecting Monsieur Henri.”

“He’s still with Sir William. I’m just finishing a dispatch for him.” André was at Seratard’s desk, many papers spread around. The dispatch dealt with Struan’s, their possible arms deal with the Choshu, and the possible help that a possible French wife might render their fledgling arms industry. “Did you have a good time? How’s your fiancé?”

“He’s much better, thank you. The dinner was huge, if you like to eat heavily. Ah, to be in Paris, yes?”

“Yes.” My God, she’s beddable, he thought, and that reminded him of the infectious vileness eating him away.

“What is it?” she asked, startled by his sudden pallor.

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat and fought to control the horror. “Just out of sorts—nothing grave.”

He seemed so vulnerable, so helpless that abruptly she decided to trust him again and closed the door and sat near him, pouring out her story. “What am I going to do, dear André? I can’t get any cash … what can I do?”

“Dry your tears, Angelique, the answer is so simple. Tomorrow or the next day I will take you shopping,” he said, his mind quite clear for mundane matters. “You’ve asked me to go shopping with you, haven’t you, to help find an engagement present for Monsieur Struan. Gold cuff links with pearls, and pearl earrings for yourself.” His voice saddened. “But oh, so terrible, somewhere en route back from the jewelers you lose one pair—we look everywhere but to no avail. Terrible!” His pale brown eyes held hers. “Meanwhile the mama-san has her secret payment, I will make sure the pair you ‘lose’ more than covers the medicine, and all costs.”

“You’re wonderful!” she burst out and hugged him. “Wonderful, what would I do without you?” She embraced him again, thanked him again and virtually danced out of the room.

He looked at the closed door a long time. Yes, it will cover the medicine, and my twenty louis, and other expenses if I decide, he thought, curiously unsettled. Poor little cabbage, so easy to manipulate you. You embroil yourself in deeper and deeper whirlpools. Don’t you realize that now you become a thief and worse, you’re a criminal planning a willful fraud.

And you, André, you are an accessory to the conspiracy.

He laughed outright, a bad twisted laugh. Prove it! Will she tell a court about an abortion, will the mama-san be witness against me? Will the court believe the story of the daughter and niece of criminals against mine?

No, but God will know and soon you will be before him.

Yes, and
HE
will know I’ve done much worse. And intend to do even more evil.

Tears began to stream down his face.

“Ayeeyah, Miss’ee,” Ah Soh said, trying to help Angelique undress, who would not be still, again in a merry mood, her immediate problem solved. “Miss’ee!”

“Oh, very well, but do hurry.” Angelique stood by her bed but continued to hum her cheery polka, the room more feminine and friendly in the oil light than during the day, the glass windows slightly ajar with the slatted shutters barred.

“Miss’ee gud time, heya?” Nimbly Ah Soh began to untie the waist straps of the crinoline.

“Good, thank you,” Angelique said politely, not liking her particularly. Ah Soh was a big-hipped, middle-aged woman, a servant and not a real amah. “But she’s so old, Malcolm, can’t you find me someone young and pretty who laughs!”

“Gordon Chen, our compradore, chose her, Angel. He guarantees she’s completely trustworthy, she can brush your hair, bathe you, can look after your European clothes, and she’s my gift to you while she’s with you in Japan…. ”

The straps loosened and the crinoline fell away, then Ah Soh did the same with the petticoat and last the vast framework of hoops of bone and metal that gave the crinoline body. Long pantaloons, silk stockings, short slip and the boned cinch and corset that made her twenty-inch waist eighteen inches and swelled her breasts fashionably. As the maid unlaced the cinch-corset Angelique let out a deep sigh of contentment, stepped out of the sea of material and flopped on the bed and, as a child would, allowed herself to be undressed completely. Obediently she raised her arms to permit the flowery nightdress to be eased around her.

“Sit, Miss’ee.”

“No, not tonight, Ah Soh, my hair can wait.”

“Ayeeyah, t’morro no gud!” Ah Soh brandished the brush.

“Oh, all right.” Angelique sighed and scrambled off the bed and sat by the dressing table and allowed her to take out the pins and begin to brush. It felt very good. Oh, how clever André is! He makes everything so simple—now I can get all the money I need. Oh, how clever he is.

From time to time a benign sea breeze creaked the shutters. A hundred yards away, across the promenade, waves ran up the pebbled shore and departed and came again with a good sound that promised another gentle night that all in the Settlement had welcomed. The fleet had left with the light. Everyone not drunk or bedridden had watched with varying degrees of anxiety as the ships sailed off. All wished them Godspeed and a quick return. Except the Japanese. Ori was one of them and he had his eyes pressed to a crack in one of her shutters, well hidden and camouflaged by the tall camellia bushes that grew here abundantly and that Seratard, a keen gardener, had had planted.

Long before midnight Ori was in this ambush, waiting for her, time passing slowly, thinking and rethinking schemes, exhausting himself, nervously checking and rechecking that his short sword was loose in its scabbard and the derringer safe in the sleeve of his fisherman’s kimono. But when he had seen her approaching the Legation in the company of the two gai-jin, all his tiredness had vanished.