James Clavell - Gai-Jin

Angelique hesitated. "I'll wait till we see the cutter, then I'll leave."

"Thank you. I'll be sorry to leave you, now that we've met. I've never had a real friend."

Maureen put her arm in hers, and looked back at Atlanta Belle.

"Ayeeyah," Chen was whispering disgustedly in Four Village dialect that he and Vargas spoke fluently. "Why can't those two whores be sensible and wait indoors until the cutter arrives, then we don't have to wait in the cold either."

"Jami won't be pleased to hear you call her that!"

"Fortunately he doesn't speak this dialect, or even Cantonese, and anyway I wouldn't call her whore in front of him or any foreign devil--though that's what we call all their women as you know--nor would I use such blunt words around them. I'd use "Morning Flower" or one of a thousand other names which we both know means "whore" but foreign devils think means "Morning Flower."" Chen chortled, warm in his long padded jacket. He looked up at the sky as the moon came briefly through the overcast. "That Morning Flower thinks she'll be Jami tai-tai." Again he chortled. "She never will be."

"No, not after today," Vargas said gloomily.

"She's the right size for him, time he was married and it would have been good to have children here." Vargas missed his own, six of them, that he had left with his two wives in Macao until he could afford a house of his own here. "What about Missee-tai-tai and this Shanghai Gornt? Will he increase her money?"

"If he does it will be for his benefit not hers.

What I want to know is what's in those papers?"

"What papers?"

"The ones Lun saw when Willum tai-pan was dozing by his fire. The ones from Long Pointed Nose. Dew neh loh moh that Lun can't read French. Willum tai-pan was in plenty shock so Lun said."

"What would Pointed Nose send Willum from the grave?"

Chen shrugged. "Trouble for Missee-tai-tai.

Perhaps it was about Dark of the Moon, eh?"

"That's only a rumor."

Chen said nothing, keeping that secret as Noble House Chen had ordered after Malcolm's death.

"Whatever happens, Tess tai-tai will grind Missee-tai-tai and the Shanghai foreign devil into dust."

"Oh? What have you heard?"

Chen rolled his eyes. "Tess tai-tai is tai-pan now, that's what Noble House Chen says--he told us in the last mail and to beware. Did you ever hear of an Empress giving away power once she's got it? Any woman for that matter? Never in all our five hundred centuries of history. She's tai-pan now according to Noble House Chen and he should know."

"I thought Shanghai Albert was to be tai-pan."

"Never. She'll grind him into dust too-- Old Green-eyed Devil forced him and his brother on the Noble House. Rumor is Tess tai-tai hates them because they are secret bastards of that foreign devil missionary's daughter--the one of Many Lovers by Green-eyed Devil himself."

"Harbor Master Glessing's wife? Mary Sinclair? Never!"

"It could be true, she made One-Leg Glessing wear a green hat a dozen times."

"Made him a cuckold? That's another legend," Vargas said, guarding her reputation like all her ex-lovers. Now she was in her forties, used, but still as hungry as ever he thought, the opposite to Tess Struan who abominates fornication and drove her husband Culum to drink and other women. "Tess tai-tai should have married the tai-pan--and not his son Culum. He could have lubricated her majestically which was her real lack, and still have more than enough left for Second Wife May-may and Third Wife Yin Hsi as well."

"True," Chen said, "then we'd be strong with lots more sons to follow, and not weak and fleeing from One-eye Devil Brock." He added ominously, "Noble House Chen is worried."

"Sad that Number One Son Malcolm died as he did."

"The gods were out that day," Chen said wisely.

"Listen, you kowtow to the foreign devil god, has he told you why gods spend more time out than watching over our affairs?"

"Gods are gods, they only talk to one another... look, Belle's leaving..."

Maureen said, "Atlanta Belle on her way, Angelique."

God speed, Angelique thought, squinting against the slight wind, the ship only a vague shape.

"And there's the cutter."

"Where? My goodness your eyes are sharp, I can hardly see her." Angelique gave Maureen's arm a friendly squeeze. "I'm sure you and Jamie will..." She saw the color had gone out of her. "Don't worry, Maureen, it will be all right, I'm sure."

Maureen muttered. "I dinna think I can face him now."

"Then... then you run off, I'll say you had a headache and will see him tomorrow that will give you time to think, it will be better tomorrow."

"Tonight, tomorrow, my mind's made up," Maureen said.

Both women watched the cutter's riding lights becoming steadily more visible. In a little while they could make out the tall figure of Jamie in the cabin lights. He was alone.

Angelique said, "'night, Maureen, I'll see you tomorrow."

"No. Please stay, I canna' do it alone. Please stay."

The cutter was barely fifty metres from the jetty. They saw Jamie lean out of the window and wave. Maureen did not return the salute.

Behind them the oil lamps were fine along the promenade, and in the big houses and warehouses that had remained untouched. Somewhere men were singing. Over at the French Legation Vervene was playing the flute. Maureen's eyes were fixed on the approaching man. Again he waved, then swung on deck. "Maureen!" he hollered, clearly so happy to see her.

Angelique glanced back at her and saw Maureen's eyes soften and knew she was forgotten. Rightly so, she thought and smiled to herself.

Maureen will weep and rave and swear she's leaving but she won't, she'll make him suffer, but she will forgive him and never forget and stay--she'll stay because she loves him--how silly we women are.

Quietly, unnoticed, she walked away, glad to be alone.

The night was pleasant. In the bay the bells were sounding the hour. Out to sea, beyond the headland her emissary was launched aboard Atlanta Belle on his voyage of conquest, a voyage of no return for both of them. And for the enemy, the Woman of Hong Kong.

Edward will squeeze that awful woman and we'll live happy ever after, we'll spend more than two months every second year in Paris, we'll summer in Provence and I will start a dynasty--with five thousand guineas of my own, I'm an heiress, and every sou I spend will remind me of her.

How silly of Edward to think I would ever, could ever be her friend, would ever want to be.

That woman's vile. I will never forgive her for the things she did and wrote. Illegitimate, eh? I will never forget that, and we will be revenged, my Malcolm and I, for all the anguish she caused us, him and me. We will be revenged on that hag.

I like that name, she told herself, smiling. That's one of my new secrets. That's what I knew she was from the first moment I met her, and during the few times we met and times we dined, barely talking to me, always disapproving of me, much as I tried. She's a hag. Even though she's thirty-seven. She is and always will be Hag Struan to me.

Angelique was eighteen and a few days over six months old and she walked into the Struan foyer under the entwined Red Lion of Scotland and Green Dragon of China and up the great staircase and into her own suite. There she bolted the door and then, so happily, went to bed-- to sleep snug.

Seven days later, at his request, Yoshi met Sir William and the Ministers at Kanagawa and soothed them, content that Anjo had again fallen into his trap to use a big stick that was no stick at all--though equally astonished the gai-jin had not sailed away from the devastation. His salve was to be a meeting with the Shogun, as soon as the Shogun returned.

And when would that be? Sir William asked, and he replied, I will arrange it quickly, overruling the tairo if need be, he's so sick poor man, though still tairo.