The Silver Lotus (8 page)

Mr. Hodges said he had known Mr. O'Sheen for almost twenty-eight years, and having been his guest many times, he knew the property well. He told the captain the house was quite large, with five bedrooms and
all the amenities, including a cook's quarters, a large laundry room, and modern plumbing throughout. The ground story was constructed of heavy stone, and sat over a generous stone root cellar. The second story was constructed of stout timber and frame in the Dutch fashion, and overhung the ground floor by two feet all around the building. The large barn was constructed in like manner. There was a stone water tower attached to the house that also contained a dovecote below, and a lovely observation deck on the roof. Both the tower and the second-story bedrooms shared extensive views of Monterey Bay. The house was surrounded by extensive walled gardens and sat on fifteen acres of partially forested land. Besides the fine barn, the property boasted a carriage house and four acres of mature fruit and nut trees in a separate walled orchard. Mr. Hodges said that Mr. O'Sheen had spent a great deal of money enlarging and improving the house for his wife and children, and no convenience had been overlooked when it came to their comfort.

The residence was to be sold with or without its contents, but Mr. Hodges stated that the remaining furnishings were of the best quality and should be examined before disposal one way or another. The banker offered to give the captain the use of one of his clerks as escort and to open the house for inspection. The captain, who was intrigued by the descriptions, said he would return at two-thirty that afternoon and avail himself of the kind offer. Then he went off to confer with Lady Yee.

It had been the captain's intention to gather up his wife, tell her what had transpired at the bank, and take her to see the property so she could make her own judgments. They had only two days before they were scheduled to sail west to Canton and then to the Philippines. If any business was to be accomplished at all, momentum was required.

However, Lady Yee had already thought out several matters that pertained to buying property in California, and one of them was based on the obvious discrimination practiced against the Chinese, though
they weren't the only minorities to feel the toe and heel of white cultural insecurity. Her awareness of the racial tensions, as well as her business instincts, inspired her to tell her husband that if she accompanied him to see the house, and it became known to the bank that he had married a Chinese, the price of the house would go up, if only to hinder a purchase by the “wrong” sorts. She told her husband to avoid an auction for the same reason. If he really thought the property a sound investment, then he should purchase it on that basis alone. She pointed out that since they were hardly going to move in at once, if ever, what the bank didn't know was, in fact, best for everybody. Lady Yee advised her husband that if it came down to doing business on the fly, he should bypass all talk of auction, find out what the heirs wanted for the property, and pay it. Or better still, have the bank finance the property and deposit just enough money to cover the mortgage, tax, and maintenance for at least five years. If the captain later changed his mind, so be it. If the property was all Mr. Hodges said it was, they could always sell it on. But if they decided to keep the property, by then it would be far too late for anyone to muster financial interference, or even voice prejudiced objections that would matter to anyone.

Lady Yee reminded her husband that for most narrow-minded people the world over, there was nothing like the impressive plumage of a healthy fortune to soften most bigoted sentiments or objections. Americans, no less than any other breed, were always willing to amend their prejudices in the presence of great wealth. Even among cultured Chinese, great fortune denoted power because the first could only be acquired through the skilled application of the second. But for the present, Lady Yee demurred from the idea of giving people more information than they needed.

By eleven-thirty the next morning, Captain Hammond walked out of the bank as the new owner of a fifteen-acre property overlooking Monterey Bay. He smiled to himself as he pocketed the keys and went
back to gather up Lady Yee. For sound reasons of her own, Lady Yee later accompanied her husband to see the house dressed as her own maid. She said that as a servant, people would look right through her without making any assumptions whatsoever, and she was right.

Lady Yee was very taken with the house, the property, and especially the extensive walled gardens and the orchard. Except for occasional visits by the heirs, the house had been essentially empty for eight years, and though he'd purchased the house partially furnished, almost no maintenance had been done to the property. Lady Yee saw at once that the gardens and orchards needed immediate attention, and the house itself a thorough cleaning and care. A new coat of paint all around would brighten things considerably as well.

Captain Hammond agreed, and after some judicial inquiries at Watson Hay & Feed, he hired a highly recommended Japanese nurseryman to set the orchards and gardens in order. Through the helpful offices of the bank, he found a contractor who would see to all repairs and repaint the house, barn, and outbuildings, and a bank representative would pass on all the work before payment was made. They were happy to do so, as Captain Hammond was now their fourth-largest single depositor, and they were certainly aware that his sizable deposit represented only a small portion of his wealth. They hoped to embrace more of his business in the future, and the captain led the bank to believe that would be the case if matters worked out to his satisfaction.

On the morning tide the next day, with the ship's additional cargo loaded and secured, Captain Hammond and Lady Yee sailed out of Monterey Bay. It would be quite some time before they returned again. Fat little wars prosecuted by fat little despots were breaking out everywhere, and this always meant a boost in trade for basic supplies like grain, iron, copper, rubber, and other necessary staples. There were some in the trade who valued quick profits above all else, so much so that they would ferret about in the illegal trade of arms and explosives,
but Captain Hammond well understood that this was possibly the fastest way to have your ship seized, or sent to the bottom of the ocean. It was one thing to sacrifice wealth with a confiscated cargo, but it was another to place the ship's crew in jeopardy. A man could always buy another ship, but a sterling reputation for honesty and good sense could not be purchased at any price.

In the past the captain's ships had been boarded for inspection too many times to count. He found it always very helpful to order up a service of ham sandwiches and good coffee, sometimes laced with a little brandy to ward off the elements. Otherwise, he kept his books and his hatches open and his mouth closed. If he knew the inspecting officers, and in many cases he did, then he opened the spirits locker as well. In Muslim countries he served sweet tea, candied fruits, and honey-laced pastries. The captain's consideration and understated hospitality were always well remembered. The fact that his crews were always very well behaved while ashore also lent credence to his reputation as a captain who maintained steady discipline and kept his crews free of criminal elements.

But as the conflicts in Africa, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and southern China increased in intensity, so too did the inspections, harassment, and occasional confiscations, which had all the earmarks of out-and-out piracy. After two sanguine years of pointless military conflict and confusion, profits no longer compensated for all the sailing delays and legal complications. And insuring cargos destined for areas of conflict was becoming a very expensive proposition indeed. Only gunrunners and freebooters were realizing true wealth, but they didn't bother insuring their illicit cargos anyway. One successfully penetrated blockade could pay for three ships lost. But Captain Hammond didn't fancy the odds either way, so he and Lady Yee decided to leave the China trade for the more peaceful haunts of South America and Mexico. However, the blight of cross-cultural violence and intermittent revolution had spread there as well.

It was Lady Yee's firm opinion that the stars had now aligned against their interests. For years all their dealings and voyages had transpired with relative ease, and they had both realized great profits and shared remarkable adventures together. But having thrown the coins and noted the readings, Lady Yee had a sense that they should think about a different mode of living for a while. Ships were a great expense when not employed in trade, and employment was becoming more hazardous and unsure all the time. She suggested that they fit out for one more journey to India and China, and purchase a cargo of luxury goods on their own account.

With half-penny military conflicts popping up like poisonous mushrooms everywhere, these items would, by virtue of the cresting waves of social and political instability, soon become very hard to come by at any price. This would be particularly true for quality exports like fine silks, velvets, refined linens, and polished Indian cotton goods. She also mentioned art porcelains, fine bone china, rich furnishings, and even jewels if they were offered at rational prices. Lady Yee was particularly fond of pearls and believed that a last trip to Madagascar might prove rewarding in that regard as well. She suggested they could warehouse their cargo in the Americas somewhere and sell it off slowly as the market prices gradually increased, as they most assuredly would. In the meantime, they could put their ship in the lumber trade on the West Coast of the Americas and go ashore for a couple of years of well-deserved rest and modest luxury. She pointed out that
The Silver Lotus
was nearing her end of useful service in the Asian trade, and stood in need of a major refit, which would be expensive if effected all at once. Better to put her on light duty in the coastal trade and keep her close to home. Repairs could be accomplished as needed, and she could retire from her arduous Pacific voyages. Her sailing master was more than qualified to take over command, and everyone would continue to profit, albeit on a smaller scale, but balanced by lower costs as well.

Captain Hammond was always pleasantly surprised by his wife's grasp of business, especially its place in the context of political events. It wasn't so much that she could predict precisely what was going to happen next, although at times it appeared that way, but rather she possessed a profound sensitivity for distant and sometimes obscure wisps of information. However, the consummate skill and logic with which she pieced together a picture of the whole issue from mere scraps of intelligence were as precisely extrapolated as a mathematical equation, and she knew the critical nature of X, Y, and Z would usually bring her within a hair's breadth of the truth.

Lady's Yee's particular powers of observation and evaluation were buttressed in part by an insatiable appetite for newspapers and periodicals. These she devoured in Chinese, English, and French. Whenever they entered a port, she'd pay the deck boy, Billy Starkey, to get her all the current newspapers. They were usually the first items brought aboard ship after the customs inspector departed.

She also had a habit of asking pointed questions of officers from other ships. She wanted to know where they'd been, what cargos they carried and why, who was in power on such-and-such an island, and what kinds of duties were demanded for certain goods. If it hadn't been for the fact that Lady Yee was extremely attractive, cultured, and very personable in three languages, these hard-boiled old salts would have closed up tighter than clams at low tide, but for Lady Yee they would talk themselves blue in the face, and then thank her for the privilege of her company. Fortunately for the captain, she usually focused her keen efforts on more pragmatic targets like grain factors, ship chandlers, rubber brokers, teamster foremen, and the occasional customs officer.

Captain Hammond, after much deliberation and some discussion with his officers, came to the conclusion that Lady Yee's assessments of their trading prospects in the near future were correct. He knew from experience that what she had said about the ship's condition was
essentially correct as well. Even the crew was a little jaded about the Asia trade and longed for something closer to home, and with less time at sea. The captain also agreed with Lady Yee that there was at least one rich voyage left in
The Silver Lotus
, and it would be a shame to leave those rich waters empty-handed. If the profits held as projected, there would be plenty of money left over to refit the ship for the lumber trade.

Since this would be their last voyage in Asian waters, the captain said that those crewmen who wished to purchase cargo and trade in their own right could petition him to advance their wages in cash to make any legal purchases they wished. To lighten their burden, the captain promised to insure their investments with his own cargo manifest. He told them that if they chose their goods carefully, they could easily double or triple their investments. Of course, having few skills in such matters, those men who chose to dabble pooled their funds and went to Lady Yee and asked her to make their purchases for them. They gave her the freedom to choose whatever she thought would be most profitable at the end of their journey.

Captain Hammond felt somewhat slighted that they hadn't requested those services of him, but he had to admit their choice hosted less of a gamble in the long haul. Lady Yee possessed impeccable taste, which he admittedly did not, and all were aware that she would also guard her crew's investment like a mother bear, and it was that notable instinct that guided the men's ultimate choice. Lady Yee told her little pack of salt-caked investors that she would share the risk by only purchasing goods for them that she was loading on her own behalf. If she found fifty bolts of fine silk for herself, she would contract for a further five bolts on their behalf, and so on. This seemed to please them greatly. She suddenly became their lifeline to an easier future, perhaps a bid for a modest farm, a grocery, or a tavern, and of course, the chance to enjoy families, either existing or planned.