Noble House

by James Clavell

  “I wouldn’t do that,” he said. “You should always hedge a bet.”

  Casey glanced across at him. “Some bets you don’t hedge.”

  “Some bets you can’t hedge,” he said, correcting her with a smile. Casually he lifted her arm and linked his with hers and settled his hand back in his lap. The contact pleased both of them. It was their first real touch. All during their stroll from the Mandarin Hotel to the ferry Casey had wanted to take his arm. But she had fought back the impulse and now she pretended not to notice their interlinking though, instinctively, she had moved a fraction closer.

  “Casey, you never finished your story of George Toffer—did you fire him?”

  “No, no I never did, not as I thought I would. When we’d won control I went to his boardroom. Of course he was fit to be tied but by that time I’d found out he wasn’t the hero he claimed to be and a few other things. He just waved one of my letters about the money he owed me in my face and shouted that I’d never get that back, never.” She shrugged. “I never did, but I got his company.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He’s still around, still cheating someone. Say, can we stop talking about him, it gives me indigestion.”

  He laughed. “Perish that thought! Terrific night, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” They had dined impeccably in the Dragon Room atop the skyscraper hotel. Chateaubriand, a few thread-thin French fries, salad and crème brûlée. The wine was Château Lafite.

  “Celebration?” she had asked.

  “Just a thank you for the First Central New York.”

  “Oh, Ian! They agreed?”

  “Murtagh agreed to try.”

  It had taken just a few seconds to fix the terms based on the bank’s agreeing to the financing that Casey had laid out as possible: 120 percent of the cost of both ships, a 50 million revolving fund. “Everything covered by your personal guarantee?” Murtagh had asked.

  “Yes,” he had said, committing his future and his family’s future.

  “We, er, I figure with Struan’s great management you’ll make a profit so our money’s secure and … but Mr. Dunross, sir, we gotta keep this secret as hell. Meanwhile, I’ll give it the old college try.” Murtagh was trying to hide his nervousness.

  “Please do, Mr. Murtagh. The very best old college try you can. How about joining me for the races tomorrow? Sorry, I can’t invite you to lunch, I’m crammed to the gills and overbooked, but here, here’s a pass if you’re free to join us from 2:30 on.”

  “Oh Jesus, tai-pan, you mean it?”

  Dunross smiled to himself. In Hong Kong an invitation to a steward’s box was like being presented at court, and just as useful.

  “Why the smile, tai-pan?” Casey asked, shifting slightly, feeling his warmth.

  “Because all’s well, at the moment, in the world. At least all the various problems are in their compartments.” Going ashore and out of the ferry terminal he explained his theory that the only way to deal with problems was the Asian way: to put them into individual compartments and take them up only when ready for them.

  “That’s good, if you can do it,” she said, walking close beside him but not touching now.

  “If you can’t you’ll go under—ulcers, heart attack, old before your time, your health broken.”

  “A woman cries, that’s her safety valve. She cries and then she feels better …” Casey had wept earlier, before leaving the V and A to meet him. Because of Linc Bartlett. Part rage, part frustration, part longing, and part need—physical need. It was six months since she had had one of her rare, very casual and very short affairs. When the need became too strong she would go away for a few days, skiing or sunning and she would choose whom she would allow into her bed. Then, as quickly, she would forget him.

  “But oh, isn’t it very bad, Ciran-chek,” her mother had once said, “to be so callous?”

  “Oh no, Mama darling,” she had told her. “It’s a fair exchange. I enjoy sex—I mean I enjoy it when I’m in the mood, though I try to keep the mood as infrequent as possible. I love Linc and no one else. But I th—”

  “How can you love him and go to bed with someone else?”

  “It’s, it’s not easy, in fact, it’s awful. But Mama, I work hard for Linc all hours, weekends and Sundays, I work hard for all of us, for you and Uncle Tashjian and Marian and the kids, I’m the wage earner now that Marian’s on her own and I love it, truly I enjoy it, you know I do. But sometimes it all gets too much so I just go away. And that’s when I choose a partner. Honestly, Mama, it’s just biological, there’s no difference that way between us and men, and now that we’ve the God-blessed pill we can choose. It’s not like in your day, thank God, my darling …”

  Casey stepped aside to avoid a phalanx of oncoming pedestrians and bumped Dunross slightly. Automatically she took his arm. He did not withdraw.

  Since she had asked him for equality this afternoon and had been turned down … No, that’s not fair, Casey, she told herself. Ian didn’t turn me down, he just gave me the truth from his point of view. From mine? I don’t know. I’m not sure. But the one thing I’m not is a fool and so tonight I dressed carefully, a little differently, and put on perfume and made my makeup more definite and tonight I bit my tongue three to thirty times and held back, not giving measure for measure, playing it more conventionally, saying sweetly, “That’s interesting!”

  And most times it was. He was attentive, entertaining and receptive and I felt marvelous. Ian’s certainly one helluva man. Dangerous and oh so tempting.

  The wide marble steps up to the V and A were ahead. Discreetly she let go of his arm and felt nearer to him because of her understanding. “Ian, you’re a wise man. Do you think it’s fair to make love to someone—if you don’t love them?”

  “Eh?” He was startled out of the pleasantness. Then he said lightly, “Love is a Western word, lady. Me, I’m China-man!”

  “Seriously.”

  He laughed. “I don’t think it’s time to be serious.”

  “But do you have an opinion?”

  “Always.”

  They went up the stairs into the foyer, crowded even this late. At once he felt many eyes and recognition which was why he had not left her on the steps. Every little bit helps, he thought. I must seem calm and confident. The Noble House is inviolate! I will not and cannot allow myself the luxury of normal fear—it would spill over and wreck others and do untold damage.

  “Would you like a nightcap?” she asked. “I’m not sleepy. Maybe Linc’ll join us if he’s in.”

  “Good idea. Tea with lemon would be fine.” The smiling headwaiter appeared miraculously. And an empty table. “Evening, tai-pan.”

  “Evening, Nighttime Gup.”

  “Tea and lemon’s fine with me too,” she said. A waiter scurried away. “I’ll just check my messages.”

  “Of course.” Dunross watched her walk away. Tonight, from the first moment in the Mandarin foyer, he had noticed how much more feminine she had seemed, nothing discernible, just a subtle change. Interesting woman. A sexuality that’s waiting to explode. How the devil can I help her to get her drop dead money quickly?

  Nighttime Gup was bustling around and he said quietly in Cantonese, “Tai-pan, we certainly hope you can deal with the stock market and Second Great House.”

  “Thank you.” Dunross chatted awhile, exuding confidence, then his eyes strayed back to Casey at the front desk.

  Nighttime Gup’s shrewd old eyes twinkled. “The gun-runner’s not in the hotel, tai-pan.”

  “Eh?”

  “No. He left early with a girl. Around 7:00 P.M., I’d just come on duty,” the neat old man said airily. “The gun-runner was dressed very casually. For a sail I imagine. A girl was with him.”

  Dunross concentrated now. “There are many girls in Hong Kong, Nighttime Gup.”

  “Not like this one, tai-pan.” The old man guffawed carefully. “Once she was the mistress of Black Beard.”

  “Eeeee, o
ld man, you have sharp eyes and a long memory. Are you sure?”

  “Oh very sure!” Nighttime Gup was delighted with the way his news was received. “Yes,” he added loftily, “since we hear the Americans may be joining the Noble House if you can extricate yourself from all those other fornicators it might be good for you to know that. Also that Golden Pubics has moved her ro—”

  “Who?”

  Nighttime Gup explained the reason for the nickname. “Can you imagine, tai-pan?”

  Dunross sighed, astounded as always at how fast gossip traveled. “She’s changed her room?”

  “Oh yes, it’s along the corridor, 276, on the same floor. Eeeee, tai-pan, I heard she was weeping in the night, two nights ago, and again this evening before she left. Yes. Third Toiletmaid Fung saw her crying tonight.”

  “They had a row? She and the gun-runner?”

  “Oh no, not a row, no shoutings. But, oh ko, if Golden Pubics knows about the Orlanda flower that’s cause enough for dragons to belch.” Nighttime Gup smiled toothily at Casey as she came back, a sheaf of cables and messages in her hand. Dunross noticed that now there was a shadow in her eyes. No message from Linc Bartlett, he surmised, getting up. Nighttime Gup solicitously pulled a chair away for her, poured her tea, continuing in his gutter Cantonese, “Never mind, tai-pan, Golden Pubics or not it’s all the same in the dark, heya?” The old man chuckled and left.

  Dunross glanced at her papers. “Trouble?”

  “Oh no, just more of the same.” She looked at him directly. “I’ve got them all compartmentalized for tomorrow. Tonight’s mine. Linc’s not back yet.” She sipped her tea, enjoying it. “So I can monopolize you.”

  “I thought I was doing the monopolizing. Isn’t—” He stopped as he noticed Robert Armstrong and Sinders come in through the swing doors. The two men stood at the entrance, looking for a table.

  “Your police work overtime,” Casey said, and, as the men’s gaze fell on them, waved back halfheartedly. The two men hesitated, then went to a vacant table at the other end of the room. “I like Armstrong,” she said. “Is the other man police?”

  “I imagine so. Where did you meet Robert?”

  She told him. “Still nothing on the smuggled guns. Where they came from or whatever.”

  “Rotten business.”

  “Would you like a brandy?”

  “Why not? One for the road, then I must be going. Waiter!” He ordered the drinks. “The car’ll be here tomorrow at twelve sharp to pick you up.”

  “Thank you. Ian, the invitation read, ‘Ladies Hats and Gloves.’ Do you really mean that?”

  “Of course.” He frowned. “Ladies have always worn hats and gloves at the races. Why?”

  “I’ll have to buy a hat. I haven’t worn one in years.”

  “Actually, I like ladies in hats.” Dunross glanced around the room. Armstrong and Sinders were watching him covertly. Is it a coincidence they’re here? he wondered.

  “You feel the eyes too, tai-pan? Everyone here seems to know you.”

  “It’s not me, it’s just the Noble House and what I represent.”

  The brandy came. “Health!” They touched glasses.

  “Will you answer my question now?”

  “The answer’s yes.” He swirled the brandy in the glass and inhaled it.

  “Yes what?”

  Abruptly he grinned. “Yes nothing, yes it’s not fair but yes it happens all the time and I’m not going to get into one of those lovely self-analyzing ‘Have you stopped beating your wife recently?’ things, though I do hear that most ladies like being beaten occasionally but with great care, with or without hats!”

  She laughed and most of her shadows vanished. “It depends, does it?”

  “It depends!” He watched her, his calm, easy smile on his face and he was thinking and she was thinking it depends on who and when and where and timing, circumstance and need, and right now it would be grand.

  He reached out with his glass and touched hers. “Health,” he said. “And here’s to Tuesday.”

  She smiled back and lifted her glass, her heart quickening. “Yes.”

  “Everything can wait till then. Can’t it?”

  “Yes. Yes, I hope so, Ian.”

  “Well, I’ll be on my way.”

  “I had a lovely time.”

  “So did I.”

  “Thanks for inviting me. Tomorr—” She stopped as Nighttime Gup bustled up to them.

  “Excuse me, tai-pan, telephone.”

  “Oh, thank you. I’ll be right there.” Dunross sighed. “No peace for the wicked! Casey, shall we?”

  “Sure, sure, tai-pan.” She got up too, her heart beating strongly, a sad sweet ache possessing her. “I’ll take care of the check!”

  “Thanks, but that’s already done. They’ll just send it on to the office.” Dunross left a tip and guided her toward the elevator, both of them conscious of the eyes following them. For a second he was tempted to go upstairs with her just to set the tongues wagging. But that’d really be tempting the devil and I’ve enough devils surrounding me already, he thought. “Good night, Casey, see you tomorrow and don’t forget cocktails 7:30 to 9:00 P.M. Give my best to Linc!” He waved cheerily and walked for the front desk.

  She watched him go, tall, immaculate and confident. The elevator doors closed. If this wasn’t Hong Kong you wouldn’t escape, not tonight, Ian Dunross. Oh no, tonight we’d make love. Oh yes, yes we would.

  Dunross stopped at the front desk and picked up the phone. “Hello, this is Dunross.”

  “Tai-pan?”

  “Oh hello, Lim,” he said, recognizing his majordomo’s voice. “What’s up?”

  “Mr. Tip Tok-toh just phoned, sir.” Dunross’s heart picked up tempo. “He asked me to try to reach you and would you please call him back. He said you could call him any time before two o’clock or after 7:00 A.M.”

  “Thank you. Anything else?”

  “Miss Claudia called at eight and said she’s settled your guest…” There was a rustle of paper. “… Mrs. Gresserhoff at the hotel and that your appointment in your office at 11:00 A.M.’s confirmed.”

  “Good. Next?”

  “Missee called from London—everything fine there—and a Dr. Samson from London.”

  “Ah!” Kathy’s specialist. “Did he leave a number?” Lim gave it to him and he scribbled it down. “Anything else?”

  “No, tai-pan.”

  “Is Number One Daughter back yet?”

  “No, tai-pan. Number One Daughter came in about 7:00 P.M. for a few minutes with a young man and then they left.”

  “Was it Martin Haply?”

  “Yes, yes it was.”

  “Thanks, Lim. I’ll call Tiptop then get a ferry home.”

  He hung up. Wanting more privacy, he went to the phone booth that was near the stationer’s. He dialed.

  “Weyyyy?”

  He recognized Tiptop’s voice. “Good evening, this’s Ian Dunross.”

  “Ah, tai-pan! Just a minute.” There was the sound of a hand being put over the mouthpiece and muffled voices. He waited. “Ah, sorry to keep you waiting. I’ve had some very disquieting news.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. It seems your police once again are like dog’s lungs and wolf’s heart. They have falsely arrested a very good friend of yours, Superintendent Brian Kwok. He—”

  “Brian Kwok?” Dunross gasped. “But why?”

  “I understand he’s been falsely accused of being a spy for the PRC, an—”

  “Impossible!”

  “I agree. Ridiculous! Chairman Mao has no need of capitalist spies. He should be released at once, at once—and if he wishes to leave Hong Kong he should be permitted to do so and go wherever he wishes to go … at once!”

  Dunross tried to get his mind working. If Tiptop said the man called Brian Kwok was to be released at once and permitted to leave Hong Kong if he wished, then Brian was a PRC spy, one of their spies, and that was impossible impossible impossible. �
�I … I don’t know what to say,” he said, giving Tiptop the opening he required.

  “I must point out Old Friends could hardly be expected to consider assisting Old Friends when their police are so errored. Heya?”

  “I agree,” he heard himself saying with the right amount of concern, his mind shouting, Christ almighty, they want to trade Brian for the money! “I’ll … I’ll talk to the authorities first thing tom—”

  “Perhaps you could do something tonight.”

  “It’s too late to call the governor now but….” Then Dunross remembered Sinders and Armstrong and his heart leaped. “I’ll try. At once. I’m sure there’s some mistake, Mr. Tip. Yes. It must be a mistake. In any event I’m sure the governor will be helpful. And the police. Surely such a … a mistake could be handled satisfactorily—like the Victoria’s request for the temporary use of the illustrious bank’s cash?”

  There was a long silence. “It’s possible that could be done. It’s possible. Old Friends should assist Old Friends, and help correct mistakes. Yes, it could be possible.”

  Dunross heard the unsaid when left hanging and automatically continued the negotiation, most of his mind still beset by what he had been told. “Did you happen to get my note, Mr. Tip? I’ve taken care of everything else. By the way, the Victoria will certainly assist the financing of the thorium.” He added delicately, “Also most other further requests—at advantageous terms.”

  “Ah yes, thank you. Yes, I received your note and your very kind invitation. So sorry that I was unwell. Thank you, tai-pan. How long would your government require the cash loan, if it was possible?”

  “I imagine thirty days would be more than enough, perhaps even two weeks. But it’s the Victoria, Blacs and the other banks and not the Hong Kong Government. I could tell you that tomorrow. Do we have the privilege of seeing you at the races for lunch?”

  “I regret not for lunch but perhaps after lunch, if that’s possible.”

  Dunross smiled grimly. The perfect compromise. “Of course.”

  “Thank you for calling. By the way, Mr. Yu was most impressed with you, tai-pan.”

  “Please give him my regards. I look forward to seeing him soon. In Canton.”