Tai-Pan (71 page)

“Yes,” Gorth said. He looked directly at Struan. “Mayhaps there baint any left for sale, Da’.”

“I imagine there’re others, Gorth,” Struan said easily, “if you’re prepared to track them down. By the way, Tyler, as soon as the new land lots are surveyed, perhaps we’d better discuss our position.”

“My thort too,” Brock said. “As before, Dirk. But thee pick first this time.” He passed the deed back to Tess, who caressed it.

“Culum, be thee still deputy colonial secretary?”

“I think so.” Culum laughed. “Though my duties have never been specified. Why?”

“Nothing.”

Struan finished his wine and decided that it was time. “Now that Happy Valley’s abandoned and solved, and the new town’s to go up at the Crown’s cost, Hong Kong’s future’s assured.”

“Yus,” Brock said expansively, some of his humor returning, “now that the Crown be risking along o’ us’n.”

“So I think there’s nae need to delay the marriage. I propose Tess and Culum marry next month.”

There was a shocked silence.

Time seemed to be standing still for all of them. Culum wondered what was behind the smile that Gorth wore so badly, and why the Tai-Pan chose next month, and—oh God, let it be next month.

Gorth knew that next month would obliterate his hold over Culum and that, by God, this must not come to pass. Whatever Da’ says, he swore, no marriage soon.

Next year perhaps. Yes, perhaps. Wot’s in that devil’s mind?

Brock too was trying to divine Struan’s purpose—for Struan must have a purpose and it boded no good for him or for Gorth. His instinct immediately told him to delay the marriage. But he had sworn before God to give them safe harbor—as Struan had—and he knew that such an oath would bind Struan as it would bind him. “We could have the first banns read next Sunday,” Struan said, deliberately breaking the tension. “I think next Sunday would be fine.” He smiled at Tess, “Eh, lass?”

“Oh yes. Yes,” she said, and held Culum’s hand.

“No,” Brock said.

“It’s too fast,” Gorth snapped.

“Why?” Culum asked.

“I was just thinking of you, Culum,” Gorth said placatingly, “and your uncle’s sad loss. It’d be unseemly haste, very unseemly.”

“Liza, luv,” Brock said throatily, “you an’ Tess be excused. We be joining thee after port.”

Tess threw her arms around his neck and whispered, “Oh please, Da’,” and the four men were left alone.

Brock got up heavily and found the bottle of port. He poured four glasses and handed them around.

Struan sipped the wine appreciatively. “Very good port, Tyler.”

“It be the year of ’31.”

“A great year for port.”

Another silence fell.

“Will it be convenient to postpone your leaving for a few days, Mr. Brock?” Culum said uncomfortably. “I mean if it’s not possible—but I’d certainly like Tess to see the land and the architect.”

“With abandonment and land sale and all, we baint leaving now. Least,” Brock said, “Gorth and me baint. Liza and Tess and Lillibet should, soon as possible. Macao be healthful this time of year. And cooler. Baint it, Dirk?”

“Aye. Macao’s fine now,” Struan said, lighting a cheroot. “I hear the inquiry into the archduke’s accident will be next week.” He looked searchingly at Gorth.

“That were bad joss,” Brock said.

“Yes,” Gorth echoed. “Guns be going off all over.”

“Aye,” Struan said. “Just after he was hit, someone shot the leader of the mob.”

“I did that,” Brock said.

“Thank you, Tyler,” Struan said. “Were you fighting too, Gorth?”

“I was for’ard getting afloat.”

“Yus,” Brock said. He tried to remember if he had seen anyone firing. He recalled only sending Gorth forward. “Bad joss. Mobs be terrible, and at a time like that who knowed wot might happen.”

“Aye,” Struan said. He knew that if the bullet had been aimed, Gorth was the culprit. Not Brock. “Just one of those things.”

The oil lamps that hung from the rafter swung gently to the heel of the ship as the wind backed slightly. The seamen, Gorth, Brock and Struan, were suddenly alert. Brock opened a porthole and sniffed the breeze. Gorth was peering out the stern windows at the sea, and Struan listened to the spirit of the ship.

“Baint nothing,” Brock said. “Wind’s backed a few degrees, that be all.”

Struan went out into the passageway where a barometer was hanging. It read 29.8, steady. The air pressure had varied but a fraction in weeks. “It’s bonny steady,” he said.

“Yus,” Brock replied. “But soon it baint steady and then we be battening down. I see thee’s set storm buoys off thy wharf in deep water.”

“Aye.” Struan poured more port and offered the bottle to Gorth. “You want some more?”

“Thankee,” Gorth said. “Dost smell storm soon, Dirk?”

“Nay, Tyler. But I like to have the buoys ready just in case. Glessing’s ordered them set out for the fleet, though.”

“Thy suggestion?”

“Aye.”

“I hear rumors he be marrying young Sinclair’s sister.”

“Seems that marrying’s in the air.”

“I think they’ll be very happy,” Culum said. “George idolizes her.”

“Be right hard on Horatio,” Gorth said, “her leaving him abrupt-like. She be all the kin he has. An’ she’s young, under age.”

“How old is she?” Culum asked.

“Nineteen,” Struan said.

The tension increased in the cabin.

“Tess is very young,” Culum said, his voice anguished. “I wouldn’t want her hurt in any way. Even though—well, can we . . . what do you think, Mr. Brock? About the marriage? Next month? Whatever’s best for Tess is right for me.”

“She be very young, lad,” Brock said, fogged with the wine, “but I be glad that you be asaying what you be saying.”

Gorth kept his voice kind and steady. “A few months baint troubling you two, eh, Culum? Next year’s hardly half a year away.”

“January’s seven months away, Gorth,” Culum said impatiently.

“It baint up to me. Wot’s good for the two of you is good for me, says I.” Gorth drained his glass and poured some more. “Wot say you, Da’?” he said, deliberately putting Brock on the spot.

“I be thinking about that,” Brock said, examining his glass carefully. “She be very young. Haste be unseemly. You knowed each other bare three month and—”

“But I love her, Mr. Brock,” Culum persisted. “Three months or three years won’t make any difference.”

“I knowed, lad,” Brock said, not unkindly. He remembered the joy that had bloomed in Tess when he told her that he would accept Culum. “I just be thinking for thy good, for her good. I needs time to think.” To figure what’s in thy mind, Dirk, he said to himself.

“I think it would be very good for them and for us.” Struan could feel the warmth that radiated from Culum. “Tess is young, yes. But Liza was young too, and so was Culum’s mother. Marrying young’s the fashion. They’ve money to spare. And a rich future. With joss. So I say that it would be good.”

Brock rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. “I be thinking. Then I’ll tell thee, Culum. It be a sudden idea, that be why I needs time.”

Culum smiled, touched by the sincerity in Brock’s voice.

For the first time he liked and trusted him. “Of course,” he said.

“How much time do you think you’ll need, Tyler?” Struan asked bluntly. He saw that Culum was softening in the face of their false amiability, and he felt that pressure would make them show their true colors. “We should na keep the youngsters like hooked fish, and there’ll be a lot to plan. We have to make this the greatest wedding Asia has ever seen.”

“As I recalls it,” Brock said curtly, “it be bride’s Da’ wot gives wedding. An’ I be quite compitent in knowing wot be right and wot be not.” He knew that Struan had him hooked and was playing him. “So any plan for wedding be our’n.”

“Of course,” Struan said. “When will you let Culum know?”

“Soon.” Brock got up. “We be joining the ladies.”

“How soon, Tyler?”

“Now, you heared Da’,” Gorth said hotly. “Why rile him, eh?”

But Struan ignored him, and continued to stare at Tyler.

Culum feared that there would be a fight, and that this would change Brock’s mind about their marrying at all. At the same time he wanted to know how long he would have to wait and was glad that Struan was pressing Brock. “Please,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Brock won’t—will consider the idea carefully. Let’s leave it for the present.”

“What you want to do is your own affair, Culum!” Struan said with pretended rage. “But 
I
 want to know now. I want to know if you’re being used or if they’re cat-and-mousing you, by God.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Culum said.

“Aye. But I’ve finished with you for the moment, so hold your tongue.” Struan whirled back on Brock, knowing that his rebuking Culum had pleased both Brock and Gorth. “How much time, Tyler?”

“A week. A week, no more, no less.” Brock looked at Culum and again his voice was kind. “No harm in asking for time, lad, and no harm in asking for answer man to man. That be proper. A week, Dirk. Do that satisfy thy godrotting bad manners?”

“Aye. Thank you, Tyler.” Struan walked to the door and opened it wide. “After thee, Dirk.”

Safe in the privacy of his quarters aboard 
Resting Cloud,
 Struan told May-may all that had happened.

She listened attentively and delightedly. “Oh good, Tai-Pan. Oh very good.”

He took off his coat and she hung it in the wardrobe for him. A scroll fell out of the sleeve of her tunic gown. He picked it up and glanced at it.

The scroll was a delicate Chinese water-color painting with many characters. It was a fine sea-landscape and there was a tiny man bowing before a tiny woman below vast misted mountains. A sampan floated off the rocky shore.

“Where’d this come from?”

“Ah Sam got it in Tai Ping Shan,” she said.

“It’s pretty,” he said.

“Yes,” May-may said calmly, awed again by the marvelous subtlety of her grandfather. He had sent the scroll to one of his minions in Tai Ping Shan, from whom May-may bought jade from time to time. Ah Sam had accepted it unsuspectingly as a casual gift for her mistress. And though May-may was sure that Ah Sam and Lim Din had examined the picture and the characters very carefully, she knew that they would never know that it contained a secret message. It was too well concealed. Even her grandfather’s private family chop was cleverly overlaid with another. And the verse—“Six nests smile at the eagles, Greenfire is part of the sunrise, And the arrow harbingers nestlings of hope”—was so simple and beautiful. Now, who but she could know that he was thanking her for the information of the six million taels; that “greenfire” meant the Tai-Pan; and that he would be sending her a messenger, bearing some form of arrow as identification to help her in any way possible.

“What do the characters mean?” Struan was asking.

“Difficult to transtalk, Tai-Pan. I dinna know all the words, but it says, ‘Six bird houses smile at great birds, green fire is in the sunup, arrow brings’ ”—she frowned, seeking the English word—“ ‘brings little hope birds.’ ”

“That’s gibberish, by God.” Struan laughed.

She sighed happily. “I adore you, Tai-Pan.”

“I adore you, May-may.”

“This next time we build our house, first a feng-shui gentlemans, please?”

At dawn Struan went aboard the 
Calcutta Maharajah,
 the merchantman that was taking Sarah home. The ship belonged to the East India Company. She was to sail with the tide in three hours, and seamen were making last-minute preparations.

Struan went below and knocked on the door of Sarah’s stateroom.

“Come in,” he heard her say.

“Morning, Sarah.” He closed the door behind him. The cabin was large and commodious. Toys and clothes and bags and shoes were scattered about. Lochlin was querulously half asleep in a tiny crib near the porthole.

“You all set, Sarah?”

“Yes.”

He took out an envelope. “This is a sight draft for five thousand guineas. You’ll get one every two months.”

“You’re very generous.”

“It’s your money—at least, it’s Robb’s money, na mine.” He put the envelope on the oak table. “I’m just following his will. I’ve written to arrange the trust fund that he wanted, and you’ll be getting the papers on that. Also I’ve asked Father to meet the ship. Would you like to have my Glasgow house until you find one you like?”

“I want nothing of yours.”

“I’ve written our bankers to honor your signature—again according to Robb’s instructions—up to the amount of five thousand guineas once a year in excess of your allotment. You must realize that you’re an heiress, and I must advise you to be careful, for many’ll try to take your wealth away. You’re young and there’s life ahead—”

“I want none of your advice, Dirk,” Sarah said witheringly. “As to taking what’s mine, I can look after myself. I always have. And as to my youth, I’ve looked into the mirror. I’m old and ugly. I know it and you know it. I’m used up! And you sit nicely on your godrotting fence and play man against man and woman against woman. You’re glad Ronalda’s dead—she’d more than served her stint. And that clears the way nicely for the next. Who’s it to be? Shevaun? Mary Sinclair? The daughter of a duke, perhaps? You always set your sights high. But whoever it is, she’ll be young and rich and you’ll suck her dry like everyone else. You feed off others and give nothing in return. I curse you before God, and I pray that I live to spit on your grave.”

The child began to wail pathetically, but neither heard the cries as they stared at each other.

“You forgot one truth, Sarah. All your bitterness comes from your belief that you picked the wrong brother. And you made Robb’s life a hell because of it.”

Struan opened the door and left.

“I hate the truth,” Sarah cried to the emptiness that surrounded her.

Struan was slumped morosely at his desk in the factory office, hating Sarah but understanding her, and tormented by her curse. “Do I feed on others?” he unwittingly said aloud. He looked at May-may’s portrait. “Aye, I suppose I do. Is that wrong? Do they na feed off me? All the time? Who’s wrong, May-may? Who’s right?”