The Black Isle (17 page)

A gong went off, making me jump. It continued until I realized it was just a grandfather clock in the hallway chiming half past eleven. The sound only seemed excessively loud because it was deathly quiet inside the house. Had my client expired in the half day between my inquiry and my arrival?

I’d come prepared to endure a full interview. But the chief of the household staff, a delicate woman of thirty with aristocratic features, instantly smiled her approval when she entered the room and we exchanged our first words. She, too, was from Shanghai and eager to converse in our native tongue.

“Mrs. Wee is expecting you,” she said. So my client was still alive. Was she Mrs. Ignatius Wee? I wondered.

The Shanghainese filled me in quickly. The Wees were an old family by Island standards, meaning that they could be traced back almost fifty years—the ancestral patriarch had been an inventory clerk with the East India Company. His grandson, Ignatius Wee, had his hand in many businesses, including a rubber brokerage, and chaired the local Chinese chamber of commerce. Nobody else in the family worked.

“Yes, I know, it’s very quiet here,” she stage-whispered as she took me along the echoing hallway and up the stairs toward the boudoir, where the ailing Mrs. Wee rested. “They desperately need the laughter of children in this house. But children are afraid to visit. You can’t really blame them, can you?”

“What kind of illness does she have?”

“A tumor in her brain. It affects her vision.”

Mrs. Wee’s lair was the first room at the top of the stairs; it was as big as the downstairs parlor. The thick damask curtains were drawn, leaving it dark as night. I expected to find the old woman asleep. But a light clicked on and there she was—sitting upright in a wingback chair, awake and keen. She wasn’t old either, at most sixty.

“Come here.” Her voice was more forceful than I’d imagined.

I stepped forward.

“Closer,” she purred, stretching out her withered hand. “I’m not contagious.”

I obeyed, moving in until she could reach my face. She examined me with her fine, sinewy hands, her fingers running across my cheeks like tarantulas to massage my forehead and temples, her impervious eyes staring fixedly ahead. This was clearly a grande dame accustomed to having both looks and money; even with her infirmity, she was the most forceful woman I’d met—after Mother, of course.

Satisfied with her tactile inspection, she turned to me. “I’m not blind. Not completely, anyway.” She said this defiantly, as if I would think less of her if she was. “Your forehead is quite high and slightly protruding.”

I held my breath.

“It is an auspicious forehead,” she declared. “And you have a Phoenix Pearl. If you don’t know what that is, and I suspect you don’t because you have done nothing to accentuate it, it is the swelling at the tip of your lips, just below the nose. It’s considered very lucky to have one—if you’re in the market for a husband. It more than makes up for your nose, which, though symmetrical, is too angular. Do you have any moles?”

“I’m not sure.” Her directness perturbed me. I’d never been appraised like a leg of mutton before. “There’s a tiny spot in the middle of my left cheek.”

“Where? Let me see.” She meant let her touch. I leaned forward and she felt for the spot. “Ah.”

I froze.

“This is a mixed blessing. It means you will achieve some kind of social prominence. But you will care too much about this, and it will cause you much pain when it is taken away from you.” She shook her head gravely. “Although you seem strong and confident on the outside, you have a fatal weakness: You derive your sense of worth from how others perceive you. You crave approval; you want to be adored. Therefore any loss of love or attention affects you aversely—even dangerously.”

“You can tell all this from just one little spot?”

“My readings are never wrong. And besides,” she added, softening, “I have that very same mole myself.”

Indeed she did. But hers was larger, older, uglier. There was a strained silence. I had no idea how to respond; anything I said could be construed as a rejection or an insult. I decided to make myself useful instead.

“Would you like me to read to you, Mrs. Wee?”

“No, no. I don’t care for stories.” She waved her hand, and I suddenly realized that the Shanghainese had been standing in the room with us all this while. “Cancel the other appointments,” she told the girl. “I’m too tired to be choosy. This one will do.”

At once, the curtains were pulled apart by the Shanghainese, flooding the room with harsh tropical daylight. Mrs. Wee stared at me, studying my features, and I shivered when I saw her face. She was a dead ringer for Mother. Prettier and more weathered perhaps, yet the resemblance was unmistakable. At least, from my fading memory.

“You can start today.” It wasn’t a question or even a request.

“What would you like me to do?” My voice wobbled.

“I would like you to go to bed.”

“Now, madam?” It was not even noon.

“I know it’s not your accustomed bedtime, but while you are working for us, it shall be. Your responsibility is to watch me sleep. Tonight and every night, until…well, until I no longer require your services.” Now she was finished. “Little Girl will show you to your quarters.”

The Shanghainese nodded and we departed.

“Why does she call you Little Girl?” I whispered to my compatriot as we descended the creaking stairway.

“I came here when I was seventeen, but because I was so malnourished, Mrs. Wee always insisted I was twelve.” She laughed, a little wistfully. “I don’t think she even knows my real name.”

“Is she from Shanghai, too?”

“Oh no. Her family’s been in the Nanyang for at least three generations. Why?”

“She looks a lot like somebody I used to know.”

Little Girl smiled ruefully. “Of course she does. Everybody here looks like somebody back home.”

She led me through the sweltering, cramped kitchen that had as its centerpiece an enormous stove with eight burners, two of which were actively boiling pots of bone stock. Four porcelain cups and an elaborate glass-tube contraption for brewing coffee sat on the counter waiting to be rinsed. A pair of pigtailed apprentice cooks squatted over day-old newspapers, grimly peeling a hillock of live, wriggling prawns while a wireless hissed out Cantonese madrigals of old China. The girls shuffled aside on their wooden clogs to let us pass, but neither looked up. Even though I was sure they couldn’t understand Shanghainese, I waited for them to be out of earshot before I asked my guide the question that had perplexed me most:

“Why does Mrs. Wee want me to watch her sleep?”

“She’s terrified of being alone at night, not that she’ll ever admit it. That tumor affecting her eyes? It makes her see things that aren’t there.” Little Girl stopped walking and lowered her voice some more. “She thinks she sees ghosts. It’s that old wives’ tale, you know, about those close to death being able to see the other side. You must think she’s a little unusual, not to say crazy, but—”

“I don’t think that at all.”

“The good news is you won’t have to fight ghosts or anything like that.” Little Girl laughed. “All you have to do is sit with her in the dark and reassure her that nothing is there when she wakes up hallucinating. She’s just afraid of death, that’s all.”

“Why doesn’t she ask you to do it?”

“I have to run the house, silly! Besides, she’s too proud to let me see her in a state of panic.” She smiled complacently. “She knows me too well. I’m almost like a daughter to her.” Yes, a daughter paid a pittance to be her maid.

We stepped from the well-stocked pantry out into a Chinese-style courtyard. Poles were fluttering with fresh laundry—colorful cotton dresses, chiffon skirts, and tailored white shirts, some quite fashionable and none of which looked like anything Mrs. Wee would wear. She must have had many children, grown children—at least seven or eight from the number of garments I saw.

“How many children does she have?”

“Just two.”

A floral-print skirt flew upward in the breeze, catching its hem on a wooden peg.
Rraahrrrr!
I had been spotted by a snarling Rottweiler. Even in its cage, it was threatening, and knew it. The beast was making a big show of its teeth, repeatedly leaping forward and bashing its snout against the mesh until the whole thing rattled.

“Agnes!” Little Girl shouted at the rotten thing, to no avail. The dog didn’t like me. Dogs never did. “I’m so sorry. Agnes was trained to attack intruders.”

We came to a small white stucco wing that looked as if it was once part of the house but had since been pulled off like a doll’s arm and flung aside. The windows had uncompromising bars, which were painted black. They reminded me of the plantation hives—a more benevolent version to be sure, but still close enough to give me the shivers. I knew this was where I would sleep, like a lowly Milkmaid.

A young woman stood on the threshold of the open doorway, sporting the blue tunic and black pants worn by apprentice amahs from Canton. She was staring at us placidly, like the phantom that she was. Little Girl appeared not to see her.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked Little Girl.

She gave me a noncommittal smile. “In the old country, maybe. Not here. The Island’s too new, too innocent—and it’s still mostly jungle. There hasn’t been century after century of war and famine. Why would there be any ghosts here?”

“Why do you think Mrs. Wee is so frightened, then?”

Little Girl stepped over the threshold and through the ghost. I saw her shiver slightly and then dismiss the feeling with a shrug. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Never mind.”

She led me to a room at the far end of the servants’ wing. No stacks of bunk beds, thankfully. Just a single bed with fresh linens, a writing desk, and a surprisingly beautiful teak cupboard slightly scuffed from rough use, doubtless an exile from the main house. The room already had an occupant—an old Sikh, sitting on the floor in one corner. My cellmate. He saw me and instantly leapt out the window, through the prison bars.

“Have a good nap,” Little Girl said to me as she closed the door. “I sincerely hope you’re not afraid of the dark.”

Unpacking, I found a yellowed Bible in the cupboard. I picked it up and thumbed through the Old Testament. Fires, plagues, floods—an endless catalog of earthly disasters. I’d forgotten how enjoyably sadistic these stories were. The sun had been down for an hour before I managed to drift off. It was a miracle I slept at all considering the lumpiness of the mattress and the fact that I ordinarily went to bed at midnight.

Three firm knocks on the door roused me at ten o’clock. Little Girl entered before I could tell her to wait.

“You’re wanted. Mrs. Wee’s about to go to sleep.”

She escorted me past the barking caged Rottweiler and back into the moonlit house, where the only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock.

“Don’t expect me to wake you every night or chaperone you like this,” Little Girl whispered. “Buy yourself an alarm clock and be ready for her at ten every night. She doesn’t appreciate tardiness.”

“Yes.”

We passed a window that flooded the stairway with the fierce blue glow of the night sky. Little Girl stepped back and, with a cocked eyebrow, assessed my black blouse and matching skirt. “Are you going to a funeral? Why on earth are you dressed like this? She’ll take it personally. Wear something less eccentric tomorrow. If you don’t have anything, I’ll lend you some. Then you’re on your own.”

“Very well.”

“If she wakes up in the middle of the night and starts babbling about ghosts, just stay calm and tell her nothing’s there. No matter what, your job is to keep her calm. I’ll be honest, it can be terrifying when she starts wailing in the dark, but don’t let it bother you. It usually doesn’t happen more than, oh, once or twice a night. If she gets…difficult, her doctor has approved the use of spirits—cognac and the like. Offer her a few sips, no more. The decanter’s on the bureau. Above all,
never
bring up the events of the night with her in the morning. She does hate being embarrassed.”

“Not a problem.” Strange, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

“One final thing. Agnes roams the grounds at night, so I wouldn’t leave the main house if I were you. We’ve both seen how she reacts to you. I’d hate to find you in pieces in the morning.” She left me at Mrs. Wee’s doorway with a sly smile. “The best of luck.”

The room was pitch-black. It took at least a minute for my eyes to tease out the contours from earlier.

“Mrs. Wee?”

“Do you need a formal invitation, girl? Come in. Sit over here.”

I was eighteen years old, and yet hearing her orders, I felt like a scared little girl all over again. Her silhouette emerged against the murky gray—she was in her bed and wanted me in the stiff wooden chair by her side.

“Can I give you a nickname?”

“Yes, madam.”

“What about Shadow?”

“It’s perfectly fine.”

“Do you know why I chose Shadow?”

“No, madam.”

“Because there’s something negative about you, something dark. You know how some people have a radiance about them? Well, you’re the opposite of that. You’ve made no attempt to smile or look cheerful whatsoever. I only took you on, you know, because you said you went to St. Anne’s. I called Sister Nesbit and she told me I absolutely had to take you, that you were the brightest Catholic girl on the market and extremely discreet. By the way, I very much dislike your attire. I thought I told you I wasn’t blind.”

“I won’t wear it again, madam.”

“Well then, Shadow, I’m about to go to sleep. There’s a tray of finger sandwiches on that little table next to your chair, in case you get hungry. But no water. I don’t want you running off to the toilet during the night and abandoning me. Understood? All right, then, I’ll see you in the morning.”

She lay still for a few minutes. Her breathing soon settled into a slow, steady tempo. I’d never known anyone who didn’t toil in the fields who could fall asleep so quickly, let alone a woman who was supposed to be in great pain. Morphine, perhaps? It was too dark to read, not that I’d thought to bring along a book. There was now nothing left to do but sit and wait for dawn, and once dawn came, sit and wait until Madam woke up. If this weren’t wearying enough, I had to sit perfectly still because, I soon discovered, the wooden chair squeaked each time I shifted my weight, however minutely. Of course, this meant taking a nap was out of the question.