Tai-Pan (8 page)

“What debt?”

“You stopped the beatings. You stopped them too late, but that wasn’t your fault.” She got up from the bed and put on a heavy robe. “I won’t tease you any more. Please hear me out and then you can do what you like.”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“The emperor has appointed a new viceroy to Canton. This Viceroy Ling carries an imperial edict to stop opium smuggling. He will arrive in two weeks, and within three weeks he will surround the Settlement at Canton. No European will be let out of Canton until all the opium has been surrendered.”

Struan laughed contemptuously. “I dinna believe it.”

“If the opium is given up and destroyed, anyone with cargoes of opium outside of Canton will make a fortune,” Mary said.

“It will na be given up.”

“Say the whole Settlement was ransomed for opium. What could you do? There are no warships here. You’re defenseless. Aren’t you?”

“Aye.”

“Send a ship to Calcutta with orders to buy opium, all you can, two months after it arrives. If my information is false, that gives you plenty of time to cancel the order.”

“Wang told you this?”

“Only about the viceroy. The other was my idea. I wanted to repay my debt to you.”

“You owe me nothing.”

“You were never whipped.”

“Why did you na send someone to tell me secretly? Why bring me here? To see you like this? Why make me go through this—this horror?”

“I wanted to tell you. Myself. I wanted someone other than me to know what I was. You’re the only man I trust,” she said with an unexpected, childlike innocence.

“You’re mad. You should be locked up.”

“Because I like going to bed with Chinese?”

“By the Cross! Do you na understand what you are?”

“Yes. A disgrace to England.” Anger swept her face, hardening it, aging it. “You men do what you please, but we women can’t. Good Christ, how can I go to bed with a European? They couldn’t wait to tell others and shame me before all of you. This way no one’s harmed. Except me, perhaps, and that happened a long time ago.”

“What did?”

“You’d better know a fact of life, Tai-Pan. A woman needs men just as much as man needs women. Why should we be satisfied with one man? Why?”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Since I was fourteen. Don’t be so shocked! How old was May-may when you bought her?”

“That was different.”

“It’s always different for a man.” Mary sat down at the table in front of the mirror and began to brush her hair. “Brock is secretly negotiating with the Spaniards in Manila for the sugar crop. He’s offered Carlos de Silvera ten percent for the monopoly.”

Struan felt a surge of fury. If Brock could work that trick with sugar, he could dominate the whole Philippine market. “How do you know?”

“His compradore, Sze-tsin, told me.”

“He’s another of your—clients?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else you want to tell me?”

“You could make a hundred thousand taels of silver from what I’ve told you.”

“Have you finished?”

“Yes.”

Struan got up.

“What are you going to do?”

“Tell your brother. You’d better be sent back to England.”

“Leave me to my own life, Tai-Pan. I enjoy what I am and I’ll never change. No Europeans—and few Chinese—know I speak Cantonese and Mandarin except Horatio and now you. But only you know the real me. I promise I will be very, very useful to you.”

“You’re off home, out of Asia.”

“Asia is my home.” Her brow furrowed and her eyes seemed to soften. “Please leave me as I am. Nothing has changed. Two days ago we met on the street and you were kind and gentle. I’m still the same Mary.”

“You’re na the same. You call all this nothing?”

“We’re all different people at the same time. This is one me, and the other girl—the sweet, innocent virgin nothing, who makes silly conversation and adores the Church and the harpsichord and singing and needlework—is also me. I don’t know why, but that’s true. You’re Tai-Pan Struan—devil, smuggler, prince, murderer, husband, fornicator, saint and a hundred other people. Which is the real you?”

“I’ll na tell Horatio. You can just go home. I’ll give you the money.”

“I’ve money enough for my own passage, Tai-Pan. I earn many presents. I own this house and the one next door. And I’ll go when I choose in the manner I choose. Please, leave me to my own joss, Tai-Pan. I am what I am, and nothing you can do will change it. Once you could have helped me. No, that’s not honest either. No one could have helped me. I like what I am. I swear I will never change. I will be what I am: either secretly, and no one knowing except you and me—or openly. So why hurt others? Why hurt Horatio?”

Struan looked down at her. He knew that she meant what she said. “Do you know the danger you’re in?”

“Yes.”

“Say you have a child.”

“Danger adds spice to life, Tai-Pan.” She looked deeply at him, a shadow in her blue eyes. “Only one thing I regret about bringing you here. Now I can never be your woman. I would like to have been your woman.”

Struan had left her to her joss. She had a right to live as she pleased, and exposing her to the community would solve nothing. Worse, it would destroy her devoted brother.

He had used her information to immense profit. Because of Mary, The Noble House had almost a total monopoly of all opium trade for a year, and more than made back the cost of their share of the opium—twelve thousand cases—that had ransomed the Settlement. And Mary’s information about Brock had been correct and Brock had been stopped. Struan had opened a secret account for Mary in England and paid into the account a proportion of the profit. She had thanked him but had never seemed interested in the money. From time to time she gave him more information. But she would never tell him how she started her double life, or why. Great God in Heaven, he thought, I’ll never understand people . . .

And now, on the beach, he was wondering what Horatio would do when he found out. Impossible for Mary to keep her second life secret—she was sure to make a mistake.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Struan?” Horatio said.

“Nothing, lad. Just thinking.”

“Do you have a ship leaving today or tomorrow?”

“What?”

“Going to Macao,” Horatio said with a laugh. “To take Mary to Macao.”

“Oh, yes. Mary.” Struan collected himself. “Tomorrow, probably. I’ll let you know, lad.”

He shoved his way through the merchants, heading for Robb, who was standing near one of the tables, staring out to sea.

“What’s next, Mr. Struan?” Skinner called out.

“Eh?”

“We’ve the island. What’s the next move of The Noble House?”

“Build, of course. The first to build’ll be the first to profit, Mr. Skinner.” Struan nodded good-naturedly and continued his way. He wondered what the other merchants—even Robb—would say if they knew he was the owner of the 
Oriental Times
 and that Skinner was his employee.

“Na eating, Robb?”

“Later, Dirk. There’s time enough.”

“Tea?”

“Thanks.”

Cooper wandered over to them and lifted his glass. “To ‘Struan’s Folly’?”

“If it is, Jeff,” Struan said, “you’ll all come down the sewer with us.”

“Aye,” Robb said. “And it’ll be an expensive sewer if Struan’s has anything to do with it.”

“The Noble House does do things in style! Perfect whisky, brandy, champagne. And Venetian glass.” Cooper tapped the glass with his fingernail, and the note it made was pure. “Beautiful.”

“Made in Birmingham. They’ve just discovered a new process. One factory’s already turning them out a thousand a week. Within a year there’ll be a dozen factories.” Struan paused a moment. “I’ll deliver any number you want in Boston. Ten cents American a glass.”

Cooper examined the glass more closely. “Ten thousand. Six cents.”

“Ten cents. Brock’ll charge you twelve.”

“Fifteen thousand at seven cents.”

“Done—with a guaranteed order for thirty thousand at the same price a year from today and a guarantee you’ll only import through Struan’s.”

“Done—if you’ll freight a cargo of cotton by the same ship from New Orleans to Liverpool.”

“How many tons?”

“Three hundred. Usual terms.”

“Done—if you’ll act as our agent in Canton for this season’s tea. If necessary.”

Cooper was instantly on guard. “But the war’s over. Why should you need an agent?”

“Is it a deal?”

Cooper’s mind was working like a keg of weevils. The Treaty of Cheunpi opened up Canton immediately to trade. On the morrow they were all going back to the Settlement in Canton to take up residence again. They would take over their factories—or hongs, as their business houses in the Orient were called—and stay in the Settlement as always until May when the season’s business was over. But for The Noble House to need an agent now in Canton was as foolish as saying the United States of America needed a royal family.

“Is it a deal, Jeff?”

“Yes. You’re expecting war again?”

“All life’s trouble, eh? Is that na what Wolfgang was trying to say?”

“I don’t know.”

“How soon will your new ship be ready?” Struan asked abruptly.

Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “How did you find out about that? No one knows outside our company.”

Robb laughed. “It’s our business to know, Jeff. She might be unfair competition. If she sails like Dirk thinks she’ll sail, perhaps we’ll buy her out from under you. Or build four more like her.”

“It’d be a change for the British to buy American ships,” Cooper said tensely.

“Oh, we would na buy them, Jeff,” Struan said. “We’ve already a copy of her lines. We’d build where we’ve always built. Glasgow. If I were you, I’d rake her masts a notch more and add top ta’ gallants to the main and mizzen. What’re you going to call her?”

“
Independence
.”

“Then we’ll call ours 
Independent Cloud
. If she’s worthy.”

“We’ll sail you off the seas. We beat you twice in war, and now we’ll beat you where it really hurts. We’ll take away your trade.”

“You haven’t a hope in hell.” Struan noticed that Tillman was leaving. Abruptly his voice hardened. “An’ never when half your country’s based on slavery.”

“That’ll change in time. Englishmen started it.”

“Scum started it!”

Yes, and madmen are continuing it, Cooper thought bitterly, remembering the violent private quarrels he was always having with his partner, who owned plantation slaves and trafficked in them. How could Wilf be so blind? “You were in the trade up to eight years ago.”

“Struan’s was never in human cargo, by God. And by the Lord God, I’ll blow any ship out of the sea I catch doing it. In or out of British waters. We gave the lead to the world. Slavery’s outlawed. God help us, it took till 1833 to do it, but it’s done. Any ship, remember!”

“Then do another thing. Use your influence to let us buy opium from the goddam East India Company. Why should everyone but British traders be totally excluded from the auctions, eh? Why should we be forced to buy low-quality Turkish opium when there’s more than enough from Bengal for all of us?”

“I’ve done more than my share to wreck the Company, as you well know. Spend some money, laddie. Gamble a little. Agitate in Washington. Push your partner’s brother. Isn’t he a senator from Alabama? Or is he too busy looking after four godrotting blackbirders and a couple of ‘markets’ in Mobile?”

“You know my opinion on that, by God,” Cooper snapped. “Open up the opium auctions and we’ll trade you off the earth. I think you’re all afraid to compete freely, if the truth was known. Why else keep the Navigation Acts in force? Why make it law that only English ships can carry goods into England? By what right do you monopolize the biggest consuming market on earth?”

“Na by divine right, laddie,” Struan said sharply, “which seems to permeate American thinking and foreign policy.”

“In some things we’re right and you’re wrong. Let’s compete freely. Goddam tariffs! Free trade and free seas—that’s what’s right!”

“Struan’s is with you there. Do you na read the newspapers? I dinna mind telling you we buy ten thousand votes a year to support six members who’ll vote free trade. We’re trying hard enough.”

“One vote, one man. We don’t buy votes.”

“You’ve your system and we’ve ours. And I’ll tell you something else. The 
British
 were na for the American wars, either of them. Or for those godrotting Hanoverian kings. You did na win the wars, we lost ’em. Happily. Why should we war on kith and kin? But if the people of the Isles ever decide to war on the States, watch out, by God. Because you’re finished.”

“I think a toast is in order,” Robb said.

The two men tore their eyes off each other and stared at him. To their astonishment he poured three glasses.

“You’ll na drink, Robb,” Struan said, his voice a lash.

“I will. First time on Hong Kong. Last time.” Robb handed them glasses. The whisky was golden-brown and distilled exclusively for The Noble House at Loch Tannoch where they were born. Robb needed the drink; he needed the keg.

“You swore a holy oath!”

“I know. But it’s bad luck to toast in water. And this toast’s important.” Robb’s hand shook as he raised his glass. “Here’s to our future. Here’s to 
Independence
 and 
Independent Cloud.
 To freedom o’ the seas. To freedom from any tyrants.”

He took a sip and held the liquor in his mouth, feeling it burn, his body twisting with the need of it. Then he spat it out and poured the remainder on the pebbles.

“If I ever do that again, knock it out of my hand.” He turned away, nauseated, and walked inland.

“That took more strength than I have,” Cooper said.

“Robb’s sick in the head to tempt the Devil like that,” Struan said.

Robb had begun to drink to the point of insanity six years ago. The preceeding year Sarah had come to Macao from Scotland with their children. For a time everything had been grand, but then she had found out about Robb’s Chinese mistress of years, Ming Soo, and about their daughter. Struan remembered Sarah’s rage and Robb’s anguish, and he was sad for both of them. They should have been divorced years ago, he thought, and he damned the fact that a divorce could be obtained only by Act of Parliament. At length Sarah had agreed to forgive Robb, but only if he would swear by God to immediately rid himself forever of his adored mistress and their daughter. Hating himself, Robb had agreed. He had secretly given Ming Soo four thousand taels of silver, and she and their daughter had left Macao. He had never seen them or heard of them again. But though Sarah relented, she never forgot the beautiful girl and child and continued to salt the ever-open wound. Robb had begun drinking heavily. Soon the drink ruled him and he was besotted for months on end. Then one day he had disappeared. Eventually Struan had found him in one of the stinking gin cellars in Macao and had carried him home and sobered him; then he had given him a gun.