Noble House

by James Clavell

  “I’m afraid that’s very temporary, Miss Tcholok, and only because our chief manager’s on sick leave. I’m retiring in a few months.”

  “To our regret,” Gornt said, then introduced Casey to the rest of this group: Lady Joanna Temple-Smith, a tall, stretched-faced woman in her fifties, and Richard Kwang and his wife Mai-ling. “Richard Kwang’s chairman of the Ho-Pak, one of our finest Chinese banks.”

  “In banking we’re all friendly competitors, Miss, er, Miss, except of course for Blacs,” Havergill said.

  “Sir?” Casey said.

  “Blacs? Oh that’s a nickname for the Bank of London, Canton and Shanghai. They may be bigger than we are, a month or so older, but we’re the best bank here, Miss, er …”

  “Blacs’re my bankers,” Gornt said to Casey. “They do me very well. They’re first-class bankers.”

  “Second-class, Quillan.”

  Gornt turned back to Casey. “We’ve a saying here that Blacs consists of gentlemen trying to be bankers, and those at the Victoria are bankers trying to be gentlemen.”

  Casey laughed. The others smiled politely.

  “You’re all just friendly competition, Mr. Kwang?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. We wouldn’t dare oppose Blacs or the Victoria,” Richard Kwang said amiably. He was short and stocky and middle-aged with gray-flecked black hair and an easy smile, his English perfect. “I hear Par-Con’s going to invest in Hong Kong, Miss Tchelek.”

  “We’re here to look around, Mr. Kwang. Nothing’s firm yet.” She passed over his mispronunciation.

  Gornt lowered his voice. “Just between ourselves, I’ve formally told both Bartlett and Miss Tcholok that I will better any offer Struan’s might make. Blacs are supporting me one hundred percent. And I’ve friendly bankers elsewhere. I’m hoping Par-Con will consider all possibilities before making any commitment.”

  “I imagine that would be very wise,” Havergill said. “Of course Struan’s does have the inside track.”

  “Blacs and most of Hong Kong would hardly agree with you,” Gornt said.

  “I hope it won’t come to a clash, Quillan,” Havergill said. “Struan’s is our major customer.”

  Richard Kwang said, “Either way, Miss Tchelek, it would be good to have such a great American company as Par-Con here. Good for you, good for us. Let’s hope that a deal can be found that suits Par-Con. If Mr. Bartlett would like any assistance …” The banker produced his business card. She took it, opened her silk handbag and offered hers with equal dexterity, having come prepared for the immediate card exchanging that is good manners and obligatory in Asia. The Chinese banker glanced at it then his eyes narrowed.

  “Sorry I haven’t had it translated into characters yet,” she said. “Our bankers in the States are First Central New York and the California Merchant Bank and Trust Company.” Casey mentioned them proudly, sure the combined assets of these banking giants were in excess of 6 billions. “I’d be gl—” She stopped, startled at the sudden chill surrounding her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes and no,” Gornt said after a moment. “It’s just that the First Central New York Bank’s not at all popular here.”

  “Why?”

  Havergill said disdainfully, “They turned out to be a shower—that’s, er, English for a bad lot, Miss, er, Miss. The First Central New York did some business here before the war, then expanded in the mid-forties while we at the Victoria and other British institutions were picking ourselves off the floor. In ’49 when Chairman Mao threw Chiang Kai-shek off the Mainland to Taiwan, Mao’s troops were massed on our border just a few miles north in the New Territories. It was touch and go whether or not the hordes would spill over and overrun the Colony. A lot of people cut and ran, none of us of course, but all the Chinese who could got out. Without any warning, the First Central New York called in all their loans, paid off their depositors, closed their doors and fled—all in the space of one week.”

  “I didn’t know,” Casey said, aghast.

  “They were a bunch of yellow bastards, my dear, if you’ll excuse the expression,” Lady Joanna said with open contempt. “Of course, they were the only bank that scarpered—ran away. But then they were … well, what can you expect, my dear?”

  “Probably better, Lady Joanna,” Casey said, furious with the VP in charge of their account for not warning them. “Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances. Mr. Havergill, were the loans substantial?”

  “At that time, very, I’m afraid. Yes. That bank ruined quite a lot of important businesses and people, caused an enormous amount of grief and loss of face. Still,” he said with a smile, “we all benefited by their leaving. A couple of years ago they had the effrontery to apply to the financial secretary for a new charter!”

  Richard Kwang added jovially, “That’s one charter that’ll never be renewed! You see, Miss Tchelek, all foreign banks operate on a renewable yearly charter. Certainly we can do very well without that one, or for that matter any other American bank. They’re such … well, you’ll find the Victoria, Blacs or the Ho-Pak, perhaps all three Miss K.C., can fulfill all Par-Con’s needs perfectly. If you and Mr. Bartlett would like to chat…”

  “I’d be glad to visit with you, Mr. Kwang. Say tomorrow? Initially I handle most of our banking needs. Maybe sometime in the morning?”

  “Yes, yes of course. You’ll find us competitive,” Richard Kwang said without a flicker. “At ten?”

  “Great. We’re at the V and A, Kowloon. If ten’s not good for you just let me know,” she said. “I’m pleased to meet you personally too, Mr. Havergill. I presume our appointment for tomorrow is still in order?”

  “Of course. At four, isn’t it? I look forward to chatting at length with Mr. Bartlett … and you, of course, my dear.” He was a tall, lean man and she noticed his eyes rise from her cleavage. She dismissed her immediate dislike. I may need him, she thought, and his bank.

  “Thank you,” she said with the right amount of deference and turned her charm on Lady Joanna. “What a pretty dress, Lady Joanna,” she said, loathing it and the row of small pearls that circled the woman’s scrawny neck.

  “Oh, thank you, my dear. Is yours from Paris too?”

  “Indirectly. It’s a Balmain but I got it in New York.” She smiled down at Richard Kwang’s wife, a solid, well-preserved Cantonese lady with an elaborate coiffure, very pale skin and narrow eyes. She was wearing an immense imperial jade pendant and a seven-carat diamond ring. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Kwang,” she said, awed by the wealth that the jewelry represented. “We were looking for Linc Bartlett. Have you seen him?”

  “Not for a while,” Havergill volunteered. “I think he went into the east wing. Believe there’s a bar there. He was with Adryon—Dunross’s daughter.”

  “Adryon’s turned out to be such a pretty girl,” Lady Joanna said. “They make such a nice couple together. Charming man, Mr. Bartlett. He’s not married, is he, dear?”

  “No,” Casey said, equally pleasantly, adding Lady Joanna Temple-Smith to her private list of loathsome people. “Linc’s not married.”

  “He’ll be gobbled up soon, mark my words. I really believe Adryon’s quite smitten. Perhaps you’d like to come to tea on Thursday, my dear? I’d love you to meet some of the girls. That’s the day of our Over Thirty Club.”

  “Thank you,” Casey said. “I don’t qualify—but I’d love to come anyway.”

  “Oh I’m sorry, dear! I’d presumed … I’ll send a car for you. Quillan, are you staying for dinner?”

  “No, can’t. Got pressing business.”

  “Pity.” Lady Joanna smiled and showed her bad teeth.

  “If you’ll excuse us—just want to find Bartlett and then I have to leave. See you Saturday.” Gornt took Casey’s arm and guided her away.

  They watched them leave. “She’s quite attractive in a common sort of way, isn’t she?” Lady Joanna said. “Chuluk. That’s Middle European, isn’t it?”

  “Possibly. It could be Mideastern, J
oanna, you know, Turkish, something like that, possibly the Balkans….” Havergill stopped. “Oh, I see what you mean. No, I don’t think so. She certainly doesn’t look Jewish.”

  “One really can’t tell these days, can one? She might have had her nose fixed—they do marvelous things these days, don’t they?”

  “Never occurred to me to look. Hum! Do you think so?”

  Richard Kwang passed Casey’s card over to his wife who read it instantly and got the same message instantly. “Paul, her card says treasurer and executive VP of the holding company … that’s quite impressive, isn’t it? Par-Con’s a big company.”

  “Oh my dear fellow, but they’re American. They do extraordinary things in America. Surely it’s just a title—that’s all.”

  “Giving his mistress face?” Joanna asked.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  9:00 P.M.:

  The billiard cue struck the white ball and it shot across the green table and slashed the red into a far pocket and stopped perfectly behind another red.

  Adryon clapped gleefully. “Oh Linc, that was super! I was sure you were just boasting. Oh do it again!”

  Linc Bartlett grinned. “For one dollar that red around the table and into that pocket and the white here.” He marked the spot with a flick of chalk.

  “Done!”

  He leaned over the table and sighted and the white stopped within a millimeter of his mark, the red sunk with marvelous inevitability.

  “Ayeeyah! I haven’t got a dollar with me. Damn! Can I owe it to you?”

  “A lady—however beautiful—has to pay her gambling debts at once.”

  “I know. Father says the same. Can I pay you tomorrow?”

  He watched her, enjoying her, pleased that his skill pleased her. She was wearing a knee-length black skirt and the lovely silk blouse. Her legs were long, very long, and perfect. “Nope!” He pretended ill humor and then they laughed together in the huge room, the vast lights low over the full-size billiard table, the rest of the room dark and intimate but for the shaft of light from the open door.

  “You play incredibly well,” she said.

  “Don’t tell anyone but I made my living in the Army playing pool.”

  “In Europe?”

  “No. Pacific.”

  “My father was a fighter pilot. He got six planes before he was shot down and grounded.”

  “I guess that made him an ace, didn’t it?”

  “Were you part of those awful landings against the Japs?”

  “No. I was in construction. We came in when everything was secured.”

  “Oh.”

  “We built bases, airfields in Guadalcanal, and islands all over the Pacific. My war was easy—nothing like your dad’s.” As he went over to the cue rack, he was sorry for the first time that he had not been in the Marines. Her expression when he had said construction made him feel unmanned. “We should go look for your boyfriend. Maybe he’s here by now.”

  “Oh he’s not important! He’s not a real boyfriend, I just met him a week or so ago at a friend’s party. Martin’s a journalist on the China Guardian. He’s not a lover.”

  “Are all young English ladies so open about their lovers?”

  “It’s the pill. It’s released us from masculine servitude forever. Now we’re equal.”

  “Are you?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’re lucky.”

  “Yes I know I’m very lucky.” She watched him. “How old are you, Linc?”

  “Old.” He snapped the cue into its rack. It was the first time in his life that he had not wanted to tell his age. Goddamn, he thought, curiously unsettled. What’s your problem?

  None. There’s no problem. Is there?

  “I’m nineteen,” she was saying.

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “October 27—I’m a Scorpio. When’s yours?”

  “October 1.”

  “Oh it’s not! Tell me honestly!”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  She clapped her hands with delight. “Oh that’s marvelous! Father’s the tenth. That’s marvelous—a good omen.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.” Happily she opened her handbag and found a crumpled cigarette package and a battered gold lighter. He took the lighter and flicked it for her but it did not light. A second and a third time but nothing.

  “Bloody thing,” she said. “Bloody thing’s never worked properly but Father gave it to me. I love it. Of course I dropped it a couple of times.”

  He peered at it, blew the wick and fiddled a moment. “You shouldn’t smoke anyway.”

  “That’s what Father always says.”

  “He’s right.”

  “Yes. But I like smoking for the time being. How old are you, Linc?”

  “Forty.”

  “Oh!” He saw the surprise. “Then you’re the same age as Father! Well, almost. He’s forty-one.”

  “Both were great years,” Linc said dryly, and he thought, Whichever way you figure it, Adryon, I really am old enough to be your father.

  Another frown creased her brow. “It’s funny, you don’t seem the same age at all.” Then she added in a rush, “In two years I’ll be twenty-one and that’s practically over the hill, I just can’t imagine being twenty-five let alone thirty and as to forty … God, I think I’d rather be pushing up daisies.”

  “Twenty-one’s old—yes ma’am, mighty old,” he said. And he thought, It’s a long time since you spent time with such a young one. Watch yourself. This one’s dynamite. He flicked the lighter and it lit. “What d’you know!”

  “Thanks,” she said and puffed her cigarette alight. “You don’t smoke?” she asked.

  “No, not now. Used to but Casey sent me illustrated pamphlets on cancer and smoking every hour on the hour until I got the message. Didn’t faze me a bit to stop—once I’d decided. It sure as hell improved my golf and tennis and …” he smiled. “And all forms of sports.”

  “Casey is gorgeous. Is she really your executive vice-president?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s going to … it’ll be very difficult for her here. The men won’t like dealing with her at all.”

  “Same in the States. But they’re getting used to it. We built Par-Con in six years. Casey can work with the best of them. She’s a winner.”

  “Is she your mistress?”

  He sipped his beer. “Are all young English ladies so blunt?”

  “No.” She laughed. “I was just curious. Everyone says … everyone presumes she is.”

  “That a fact?”

  “Yes. You’re the talk of Hong Kong society, and tonight will cap everything. You both made rather a grand entrance, what with your private jet, the smuggled guns and Casey being the last European to see John Chen, so the papers said. I liked your interview.”

  “Eh, those bas—those press guys were waiting on the doorstep this afternoon. I tried to keep it short and sharp.”

  “Par-Con’s really worth half a billion dollars?”

  “No. About 300 million—but it’ll be a billion-dollar company soon. Yes, it’ll be soon now.”

  He saw her looking at him with those frank, gray-green eyes of hers, so adult yet so young. “You’re a very interesting man, Mr. Linc Bartlett. I like talking to you. I like you too. Didn’t at first. I screamed bloody murder when Father told me I had to chaperone you, introduce you around for a while. I haven’t done a very good job, have I?”

  “It’s been super.”

  “Oh come on.” She grinned too. “I’ve totally monopolized you.”

  “Not true. I met Christian Toxe the editor, Richard Kwang and those two Americans from the consulate. Lannan wasn’t it?”

  “Langan, Edward Langan. He’s nice. I didn’t catch the other one’s name—I don’t know them really, they’ve just been racing with us. Christian’s nice and his wife’s super. She’s Chinese so she’s not here tonight.”

  Bartlett frowned. “Bec
ause she’s Chinese?”

  “Oh, she was invited but she wouldn’t come. It’s face. To save her husband’s face. The nobs don’t approve of mixed marriages.”

  “Marrying the natives?”

  “Something like that.” She shrugged. “You’ll see. I’d better introduce you to some more guests or I’ll get hell!”

  “How about to Havergill the banker? What about him?”

  “Father thinks Havergill’s a berk.”

  “Then by God he’s a twenty-two-carat berk from here on in!”

  “Good,” she said and they laughed together.

  “Linc?”

  They looked around at the two figures silhouetted in the shaft of light from the doorway. He recognized Casey’s voice and shape at once but not the man. It was not possible from where they were to see against the light.

  “Hi, Casey! How’s it going?”

  He took Adryon’s arm casually and propelled her toward the silhouette. “I’ve been teaching Adryon the finer points of pool.”

  Adryon laughed. “That’s the understatement of the year, Casey. He’s super at it, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Oh Linc, Quillan Gornt wanted to say hi before he left.”

  Abruptly Adryon jerked to a stop and the color left her face. Linc stopped, startled. “What’s wrong?” he asked her.

  “Evening, Mr. Bartlett,” Gornt said, moving toward them into the light. “Hello, Adryon.”

  “What’re you doing here?” she said in a tiny voice.

  “I just came for a few minutes,” Gornt said.

  “Have you seen Father?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get out. Get out and leave this house alone.” Adryon said it in the same small voice.

  Bartlett stared at her. “What the hell’s up?”

  Gornt said calmly, “It’s a long story. It can wait until tomorrow—or next week. I just wanted to confirm our dinner on Tuesday—and if you’re free over the weekend, perhaps you two would like to come out on my boat for the day. Sunday if the weather’s good.”

  “Thanks, I think so, but may we confirm tomorrow?” Bartlett asked, still nonplussed by Adryon.

  “Adryon,” Gornt said gently, “Annagrey’s leaving next week, she asked me to ask you to give her a call.” Adryon did not answer, just stared at him, and Gornt added to the other two, “Annagrey’s my daughter. They’re good friends—they’ve both gone to the same schools most of their lives. She’s off to university in California.”