Fortune is a Woman (2 page)

She had told the laundry workers in the basement exactly how much starch should be used on the pink damask tablecloths and she had been known to show the chambermaids how to properly clean a bathtub. She personally had decided the color schemes, fabrics, and furnishings for each of the twenty suites, and supervised the decoration of the entire hotel, choosing the English country-house look for the public rooms and the modern art deco green-and-silver mirrored decor for the cocktail bar. She always supervised the menus and the buying of the wines, and the coffee was specially blended to her taste. Nothing at the Aysgarth Arms was ever left to chance or in charge of a mere manager. Annie was a stickler for cleanliness and quality and she ran her smart hotel the same way she had run her father's house in Yorkshire, all those wasted years.

Satisfied that everything was as it should be, she strolled back to the marble hallway and with a little gold key opened the door to the private golden bird-cage elevator that took her directly up to the penthouse. She sighed pleasurably as it whooshed silently upward, and wondered why people preached that it was wrong to enjoy luxury. The lift stopped, the door slid open, and she was in her own world. Dropping her velvet coat onto a chair she walked straight to the windows, as she always did.

The penthouse was twenty stories high, the floor-to-ceiling windows ran the full forty feet of her drawing room and the view over the nighttime city was magical. Traffic roared through the streets below, but up here all was silent and the city unrolled before her in a million sparkling points of light. She sighed with satisfaction, pleased that it still gave her the same thrill it had when she had first seen it, then turned and looked around her, smiling. She had wanted her home to be completely different from everything she had ever known, and therefore she had consulted a famous interior decorator.

The decorator was shrewd, talented, successful, thin, and ugly, and Annie was shrewd, talented, successful, and plumply pretty, and they had taken to each other immediately. "Look at me," Annie had demanded, taking up a dramatic pose in the center of the huge, empty room. "You may be looking at a short, plump, brown-haired Yorkshirewoman of a certain age, but inside I'm tall and blond and glamorous. And ten years younger. That's the woman I want you to design this apartment for."

The decorator had laughed and said she knew exactly what Annie meant and then she had gone ahead and created a white and silver, silk and satin, lacquer and crystal apartment just like a Hollywood film set. The floors were laid with costly white marble and covered with velvety cream rugs, the enormous windows were hung with hundreds of yards of billowing cream silk taffeta, the walls were mirrored and lit with filigree silver sconces, the opulent sofas were white brocade, and there were little glass tables and alabaster, chrome, and crystal lamps with pleated silk shades. Annie's huge bed was canopied in creamy satin and topped with a silver corona, and it looked, Annie said fondly, like a tart's boudoir.

The chests and cabinets were lacquered white and dotted with the tall vases she kept filled with fresh long-stemmed white roses, whatever the season. The designer had told her she had used at least fifty different shades of white to create her effect, and the apartment cocooned Annie in a feeling of lightness and luxury and well-being, far away from the brown oilcloth and threadbare Turkish carpets of her youth. And she knew she would not have any of it if it were not for the Mandarin and Francie. And of course, Josh—who was the beginning of it all. It was all due to fate, or happenchance, as they would have called it in Yorkshire, and nothing seemed so far away as the place that had been her home for the first twenty-six years of her life.

But tonight her mind wasn't on her past, nor the sumptuous decor and the sparkling nighttime view; it was on Francie. Picking up the copy of the
San Francisco Chronicle
she sank into a sofa, rereading the gossip column she had already read half a dozen times that day. It was headed Death of the Mandarin, Lai Tsin.

***

The Mandarin Lai Tsin, a notoriously mysterious businessman, died yesterday at the estimated age of seventy, though no one knew his age for certain. He was said to have been born in a small village on the banks of the Yangtze River in China, and no one knows how he came to the United States, only that he arrived in San Francisco before the turn of the century and quickly made his first fortune as a merchant, using the old Chinese loan system of rotating credit.

But it was his scandalous liaison with Francesca Harrison, daughter of Nob Hill millionaire Harmon Harrison, the Yankee founder of one of our most important banks and top San Francisco socialite, that enabled the Mandarin to move into areas impenetrable to the Chinese in those early days. It was Francie Harrison who fronted all Lai Tsin's business dealings here in the U.S. and also in Hong Kong, and it's said by many that she was the guiding force that turned the Mandarin into a billionaire.

Lai Tsin was generous with his fortune, creating foundations to finance schools for Chinese children, endowing scholarships at the nation's top colleges and universities, as well as building hospitals and orphanages. It was said that he was trying to make up for his own deprived childhood and lack of education. If so, then he did not succeed, for not one of the colleges he endowed ever gave him an honorary degree, and he was never a member of the board of any of his schools, orphanages, or hospitals.

The Mandarin was a private man whose life—apart from his very public liaison with his so-called concubine—remained a secret. But the biggest secret of all now is whether the ever-youthful and still beautiful Francesca Harrison will inherit his fortune—and how much it is worth.

San Francisco waits with baited breath to hear the latest episode in the saga of San Francisco's most mysterious, most notorious, and richest man.

***

Annie wondered if Francie had read the piece, and how much the gossip still hurt her. Annie hadn't attended the Mandarin's funeral at sea, even though she had known and loved him as long as Francie; she had understood Francie was carrying out the old man's last wishes and saying a special, private good-bye.

Impatiently throwing the newspaper to the floor, she picked up the phone, called reception and ordered her little dark-green Packard to be brought to the front. She threw the soft fur-collared velvet coat over her shoulders, stuffed the copy of the
Chronicle
into her pocket and took the elevator back down to the lobby.

She stopped in the lobby for a quick word with the duty manager. "Have Senator and Mrs. Wingate already left?" she asked casually, pulling on her gloves.

"Yes, ma'am, about a half hour ago."

As she swept through the tall glass doors, she nodded good evening to the top-hatted doorman, then climbed behind the wheel of the little green Packard. She knew one thing for certain: she wasn't going to mention to her friend Francie that Buck Wingate was in town with his wife, Maryanne, and that they were dining with Francie's hated brother, Harry.

***

Ah Fong, the Chinese houseboy who had been with Francie for more than twenty years, opened the door to Annie and told her that Francie was upstairs, comforting Lysandra.

"Tell her not to hurry. I'll wait," Annie said, crossing the hall to Francie's small sitting room.

She poured herself a large brandy, took a seat, and glanced around appreciatively. There were three other large reception rooms in the house, as well as a library stocked with more than twenty thousand books, and the Mandarin's study, which was as bare and austere as a monk's cell. But Francie's own small room was feminine and cosy. The paintings she had collected from all over the world jostled for space on the walls, a collection of precious white jade filled a tulipwood Sheraton display cabinet, and books and magazines spilled from shelves onto chairs and tables. The pale rugs were Turkish Ottoman Empire, the amber sofas were deep and draped with soft paisley throws, and the heavy gold-silk curtains were drawn against the cold misty San Francisco night.

She glanced up questioningly as the door opened and Francie came in.

"Lysandra is sleeping at last," she said with a sigh. "She's going to miss him, Annie."

"Aren't we all?" Annie said sadly. "And I can think of hundreds more who had cause to be grateful to him. He was a great man."

She tossed the newspaper over to Francie. "Did you read this? It's the
Chronicle
—but it's the same in all the others."

"I've read it." Annie watched her anxiously; she looked calm and composed, but her beautiful heart-shaped face had lost its color and she noticed that Francie's hand shook as she carefully folded the newspaper and placed it on the table. She thought Francie was still as lovely as the day she had met her; her blue eyes were dark with sadness, but they still had that same sapphire intensity of youth. Her long, smooth blond hair was swept up at the sides with sparkling jeweled combs and coiled into a chignon at the back, and her white fine-wool crepe dress emphasized her slender, graceful figure.

"Better have a glass of brandy," Annie suggested, adding bluntly, "you look ill."

Francie shrugged. Refusing the brandy, she sank back into the soft cushions of the sofa.

"I asked him not to leave his money to me," she said. "I have more than enough, as well as this house and the ranch. There were many bequests, a substantial amount— ten million dollars—to the Chen family in Hong Kong, but he left the bulk of it to Lysandra. A personal fortune of three hundred million dollars and a business worth at least three times as much." She fingered the single strand of enormous pearls at her neck worriedly. "The mansion on Repulse Bay and all his art treasures and priceless antiques were donated to Hong Kong as an art museum, with an endowment for future acquisitions. And, of course, the Mandarin Foundation is already autonomous."

Annie looked at her, stunned. "I didn't realize how
much
money he had. I mean I knew he was rich... but..."

"Oh, Annie," Francie exclaimed, her blue eyes full of pain, "the sad thing is that it couldn't buy him the things he really wanted. An education, culture—and acceptance. He was forced to get his learning from the streets and he acquired culture by his instinct for beauty. But he was never accepted. I blame myself for that. If it were not for me, then at least the Chinese would have accepted him."

"That may be true, but San Francisco society never would. And that's what he wanted. For your sake."

Francie took a parchment scroll tied with red tape from the pretty little Empire desk by the window and as she unrolled it Annie saw the Lai Tsin chop, the great gold seal.

"He wrote his will himself in Chinese," Francie told her. "I want you to hear what he says."

The Mandarin had written each fine brushstroke of the Chinese characters as exquisitely precise as a miniature painting.

"It is my decree that no male heir of the Lai Tsin family shall ever occupy the highest position in the corporation. Instead they will be compensated with money with which to start up their own companies, to pursue their own business interests and to make their own way in the world, as men should.

"Through the years it has been proven to me many times that women are more worthy than men. Therefore I decree that women shall always carry the fortunes of the Lai Tsin family. The Lai Tsin women will be as powerful as the great dowager empresses of the Chinese dynasties. But they will always be modest, they will never allow the Lai Tsins to lose face, and they will never bring disgrace to the family, either in business or in their personal lives. Those who do will be banished from the family without delay and shall never be reinstated. So, when she is eighteen, I decree that Lysandra Lai Tsin will become owner and taipan of the Lai Tsin Corporation. And until she -attains eighteen years, Francesca Harrison shall control the corporation and have total power and final say in any major decision."

"It's not right to burden a girl with all that responsibility," Annie exclaimed. "Lysandra's still a child, we don't even know if she will be clever enough, or strong enough —or if she'll even
want
to run the Lai Tsin Corporation. Francie, it'll just be the past all over again, she'll be a woman in a man's world. And you, of all people, know how hard that is."

Francie closed her eyes, unwilling to remember. "Believe me, Annie, I didn't want Lysandra to be the Lai Tsin heiress. You'll see, as soon as the newspapers get hold of the story she'll be branded the 'Richest Little Girl in the World.' They'll make a freak out of her! I just wanted her to have a normal childhood, to get married, have children...
be happy.
This is what
the Mandarin
wanted. He planned her destiny. When she finishes her schooling she will leave San Francisco and go to Hong Kong. She will live with the comprador's family and begin to learn about Lai Tsin and how the business is run. She will learn how to be taipan of one of the world's major trading companies."

Annie's mouth tightened. "You can't let her go to Hong Kong. And besides, when are you going to tell her the truth?"

Francie didn't answer. She walked across to the window and pulled back the heavy silk curtain, staring out into the night. The lights of San Francisco twinkled below in the mist, but she didn't see them; instead she saw the Mandarin's face as he lay on his deathbed and asked her to repeat her promise to him.

"Annie," she said slowly, "even you don't know the whole truth."

Annie stood up, smoothing her skirt over her ample hips. "Francie Harrison," she said angrily, "we've been friends all these years and there's not a secret in my life you don't know. And now you tell me you've been keeping things from me. Not that it matters—except if it concerns Lysandra, then I have a right to know."

The thin parchment crackled as Francie waved the Mandarin's will under her nose. "You know everything there is to know about Lysandra. Here, read it for yourself—"

"You know I can't read Chinese... and anyway, that's not what I meant."