The Concubine's Daughter (66 page)

She spent two days in the hastily erected depot where families gathered in hope of news of their lost ones, wailing in terrible grief as their corpses were revealed. She wanted to join the search, but Toby gently pointed out that she would only slow down the efforts. At her request, they went to the Tai-Po temple, to light joss sticks and beg Kuan-Yin for Ruby’s safe return … or for her safe journey to the afterlife. After going without sleep for two days and nights as she looked into a thousand faces, alive and dead, Sing accepted the truth and began to bury her grief.

N
o more than a
few acres in any direction, Stonecutters Island was a tiny bastion of Englishness in the bustling Chinese mass of Hong Kong, ceded to the British in 1860 along with the Kowloon Peninsula. The granite quarry that gave the island its name had been used to build a prison in 1866. Later it became an isolation hospital for smallpox and cholera victims.

Apart from this grim reminder of the past, the island had been transformed into a sanctuary of verdant woods, loud with missel thrushes and blackbirds, bred by homesick English expatriates a hundred years before.

At the base of a high hill someone had named Wuthering Heights lived an elite community mainly made up of high-ranking British officers and their families. Cut off from the rest of Hong Kong, except for water taxis that operated day and night and the official Stonecutters ferry that ran to a schedule, the island’s two landing jetties were closely guarded by a platoon of Sikh policemen.

Sing was both excited and curiously nervous at the prospect of meeting the English lady who had known her parents so well. Having rested well for a day and a night in a small, comfortable hotel owned by a friend of Toby’s, she had taken the cotton frock from its box. Beneath it, in separate tissue, were two sets of filmy white underwear, as beautiful to touch and look upon as the cream-colored frock printed with palest pink roses. The wide red belt emphasized her tiny waist, and the shoes
were a perfect fit, making her two inches taller and adding the slightest swing to her hips. She had washed and combed her deep auburn hair to lie in long, soft curls over her shoulders. The hat of light straw she tied loosely beneath her chin.

Toby was drinking coffee in the lobby when she appeared. The look in his eyes made her blush with pleasure. “I have truly never seen anything more lovely in my life,” he breathed.

They took the same motor launch that had carried them in search of Indie Da Silva, this time with the uniformed coxswain at the helm. Toby looked dashing to her in cream slacks, a cream polo shirt, and his regimental blazer. He handed Sing the Tanka sling that he had been keeping for her. “I thought you might want to show some of your things to Miss Bramble.”

Toby was smartly saluted as they disembarked at the landing wharf and entered the car, a vintage burgundy Bentley, sent to fetch them.

Winifred Bramble’s bungalow, the Elms, was large and spacious, built around the turn of the century by someone who wanted to bring a breath of rural England into the midst of an alien land. Its wide gated entrance was flanked by two towering elms, its rambling gardens thick with rhododendrons and the neat flower beds of an English estate.

The door was opened by a white-jacketed amah, who showed them into a sitting room crammed with comfortable furniture covered in floral uphostery, its window seat scattered with books and magazines, and vases of carefully arranged flowers everywhere.

The lady who stood awaiting them was smiling and gracious, slightly stout but straight backed and surrounded, Sing saw immediately, by an energy far younger than her years. She was smartly and simply dressed in a skirt of homespun Scottish tweed and a coffee-colored silk blouse, unadorned but for a single string of matched pearls and one of equal luster in the lobe of each ear. Her silver hair was perfectly groomed and waved, the hazel eyes keenly alert behind lightly tinted glasses.

She held out her hands to Sing at once, her eyes bright with the threat
of tears. “Welcome, my dear … what an absolute joy this is.” She embraced her visitor warmly. “For more years than I care to count, I have prayed for this moment.”

Sing bowed her head. “I too have dreamed of such a moment. I thank you with all my heart for allowing it to come true.”

Miss Bramble beamed with pleasure, then turned to Toby, taking his outstretched hand. “Lady Margaret Pelham, the wife of your commanding officer, is a dear friend of mine, Captain Hyde-Wilkins. She speaks most highly of you, as of course does the colonel.”

She waved them to the comfortable armchairs. Sing reached for the beaded bag and took out the photograph of her parents. “This has been close to my heart since the treasures in this bag were given to me on my tenth birthday.”

Using both hands, in the way in which all things of great value are exchanged, Sing proffered the photograph.

Winfred Bramble was unable to suppress a single tear. “This was taken by my own hand so many years ago. I still have the Brownie box camera I used on the deck of
Golden Sky
to capture the moment they became man and wife.

“I believe our meeting was decreed by a destiny greater than we can begin to imagine, and there are important things to discuss. However, I propose some light refreshment before we proceed.” She paused, while the amah wheeled in a trolley holding a silver tea service, an array of delicate sandwiches, and an assortment of extravagant pastries.

Miss Bramble effortlessly served them both. “Afternoon tea, Miss Devereaux, an old English habit I simply refuse to abandon: Darjeeling, and pastries from Gaddi’s restaurant in the Peninsula Hotel, greatly enjoyed by your dear mother.” She filled dainty, hand-painted cups, passing them around and offering milk and sugar, while she chatted breezily of her garden and life back in East Sussex.

Finally, with pleasantries completed, Miss Bramble’s manner became brisk and businesslike. “There can be no doubt that this delightful and courageous young lady is the child of Li-Xia and her husband, Ben; it is as though they stand before me. You have been blessed with the best of
both of them.” Crossing to a Victorian rolltop desk, she returned with two sealed envelopes and turned to Sing. “I have something rather momentous to tell you, my dear.”

She looked at Toby. “As you no have no doubt discovered, for many years Captain Devereaux’s trusted Hong Kong solicitor and friend was a gentleman named Alistair Pidcock. Sadly, he has passed away, leaving me as the sole executor of the Devereaux Hong Kong Trust. The instructions were to invest the fund in the name of Captain Devereaux’s missing daughter for ninety-nine years. If during the course of that time the daughter was found and identified upon the basis of my judgment, she would become the legal heiress to his entire fortune, which I am able to tell you is very considerable indeed. It includes the deed to the Devereaux estate at Repulse Bay known as the Villa Formosa.”

She turned the warmth of her smile upon Sing. “It is a most beautiful place, though I believe the house is in need of restoration. You must see it as soon as you recover your strength.

“You see, my dear, your father did not leave Hong Kong before investigating every possible clue to your disappearance. He apparently tracked down the amah, Ah-Ho, learning from her that your mother’s personal servant, fondly known as the Fish, was believed to have taken you with her into the hinterlands of Central China … a challenge that even a man of your father’s caliber and connections would find most daunting. Nevertheless, he tried. For two years he sailed his flagship,
Golden Sky
, for thousands of miles in search of word that might lead him to you.”

Again Miss Bramble paused, this time with a frown of disapproval. “I am ashamed to say that the officials in Hong Kong had little interest in your mother’s death and your apparent kidnapping. Had this terrible event involved a British or European family, or even that of a high-ranking Chinese, there would have been a full-scale investigation.”

Setting down her cup, Miss Bramble shook her head. “Your father was forced to abandon all hope of discovering your whereabouts … but not before he had posted a vast reward for any information from any source, including, I understand, the secret societies known as the triads.” She
picked up the pair of envelopes, squaring them efficiently on the table’s polished surface, before handing one of them to Sing. “This is a letter to Mr. Adrian Lau, chairman of the Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank, who was also well known to your father. It will give you immediate access to everything you are likely to require in further assessments. And this,” she added, handing her the second envelope, “is to the most trustworthy man I know, Angus Grant, who was a very close friend of your father’s and may know something of his activities in Shanghai. He is the solicitor who took over Alistair’s practice, and as such I have appointed him coexecutor of the trust.”

She held out her hand, clasping Sing’s firmly. “Congratulations, my dear, and welcome home.”

The lovely old bungalow was the perfect place for Sing’s recovery. Miss Bramble tended her like a doting mother. She was surprised and pleased at the speed of her improvement, her color returning steadily, her remarkable eyes clear and possessed of a calm that made it a pleasure to be in her company.

They had, as Miss Bramble had foretold, many things to talk about. Sing brought forth the books from her beaded bag. “This,” she said of the red and gold volume, “is the private journal of my mother, Li-Xia.” Sing reached for the second book with its faded cover of peach-colored silk. “This is also the chronicle of a difficult life, written by one who fought hard to find her voice as a woman. I am told it is the work of my grandmother.”

“It will be my great privilege and joy to read them, my dear,” said Miss Bramble. In return, Miss Bramble never tired of telling stories of Sing’s mother Li-Xia, and of her father’s legendary adventures,

Winifred was often out for the day on her social engagements and community rounds, but always returned with some thoughtful gift—a piece of fresh fruit or pastry or the quite wonderful thing she called chocolate. “For the healing,” she said emphatically, “of the heart and the mind.”

Sing set up a table in the garden, where she practiced the art of calligraphy. Winifred looked on admiringly. “There are certain things, my dear, that I was privileged to teach your mother. She was an avid student, with a capacity for learning the ways of her husband’s people that society requires. I would be delighted to share the same basic requirements with you whilst you are here.”

She paused to watch the tip of Sing’s brush dip and swirl from strokes bold and full to the finest of lines no thicker than a hair. “And perhaps,” Winifred added, “you might show me how to create such magic. It has always struck me as good for the soul.”

Miss Bramble’s cheerful kindness enclosed Sing in a cocoon of generosity. As her strength returned, Sing enjoyed her lessons in the refinements of English behavior, and began rebuilding her physical and spiritual well-being in the ways she had been taught. Winifred, who had never seen the practice of Chinese folk medicine or the astounding grace and agility of
wu-shu
, was fascinated by the burning of moxa sticks and the insertion of hair-fine acupuncture needles in the most extraordinary parts of the body. She never complained of the strange odors from the brewing herbs. Pleased by her genuine interest, Sing explained her procedures with patience and care.

Colonel Pelham’s married quarters were no more than a stroll away. The colonel returned to Stonecutters Island each weekend, bringing his adjutant with him. Toby spent every hour he could at the Elms, and he and Sing were frequent dinner guests of Sir Justin and Lady Margaret, who sometimes joined them for an evening of whist or gin rummy, which Sing learned to play with alacrity. When they were alone, she and Toby sometimes spoke of marriage, but it was clear she still had too many unanswered questions about her past to be fully ready to embrace her future.