by null
As he placed the coin around her neck, her nearness claimed his senses so strongly he knew he must step back. Li felt the quickening rhythm of her heart as she stood for a long moment without moving, her fingertips tracing the fine links of the chain to the solid weight of the precious coin against her skin. She would have looked up at him then, but could not move. “How do you know of the great sage Sau-Sing Kung?” was all she could find to say.
“There are many things I know about your great country that are wise beyond all others, and these have taught me much.” He hesitated for a second. “I also know of things that are not at all wise … and these I cannot accept. But no more than those of my own people.”
In that brief moment of honesty, Li felt closer to him than she could admit. “I have done nothing to deserve such a priceless gift,” she said. “The kumquat tree is of no value and will soon wither and die. This is my first piece of gold, as it was once yours. It will stay with me forever.”
“The kumquat tree may also remain beautiful forever, if it is cared for. If its roots are strong and it is treated as it should be, it will grow even stronger and more beautiful. With its growth will come new fruit, bigger and more plentiful.”
Ben’s gentle finger lifted her chin, causing her to look directly into his eyes. “Let us speak just once of giving and taking. You did not ask me to come into your life. You were given no choice in the matter, nor can I be sure what made me bring you here. But it is done, and I am now responsible for your future, which I am both pleased and ready to be. I offer you whatever is needed to allow you to live the life of your own choice. Choice is the greatest of all gifts. It was brutally stolen from you, yet you blamed no one and did not cry for help. You played the cards you were dealt, and this I admire. I ask for nothing in return but your trust.”
The touch of his lips on her forehead seemed the sealing of a pledge, the lifting of her chin a simple gesture. Its effect on Li was instant. She would have reached for him, but he stepped away.
“You must sleep now, but before you do, I ask you to consider what it is you wish for your future. Tomorrow we shall breakfast together here on the balcony.” He smiled, a light hand upon her arm as he led her to the door. “Can you cook?”
“Only the very simplest of dishes meant for those who work hard in the fields.”
“Then we shall eat the simplest of dishes, and perhaps you will tell me more about being a scholar, and we shall speak of faith and choices and questions of gold.”
Li was not sure if it was relief or disappointment that accompanied her back to her room. The great house had never been so empty and silent, yet his powerful presence followed her as surely as her own heartbeat. Even the sound of his voice stayed with her. She was glad to close the door to her own small space, to gather her thoughts as she held the golden coin on its glittering chain before her eyes, shining proof that this was not a dream.
The first day of the new year burst brightly through the windows of Sky House. The rooftops of the city lay silent, deserted after the chaos of Little New Year. Even the pigeons that usually circled the cathedral were still at rest in its belfry. There was an air of great promise as, behind closed doors, people rich or poor shared their hopes and planned their futures. It was too early for the visiting of friends and exchanging of lucky money.
Li had prepared a breakfast of steamed dumplings, rice congee spiced with salted shrimp and chopped chives, dragon’s eye fruit, and lychees fresh from the garden. The dumplings and porridge were in bamboo steamers to keep them fresh and warm. She had made the English cow’s-milk tea, which the Fish had told her was his favorite, and set the pot into its padded raffia basket, beside it the folded South China Morning Post. He stepped in from the English garden as soon as she had set the tray down.
Something about him was different. At first she found it startling, so unexpected that she could only stare. His beard was gone; his newly shaved jaw, pale and smooth, showed more evidently the tinge of his Chinese heritage; a thin white scar ran down one cheek and across his chin. When he smiled, he looked much younger than she had thought him to be. No longer the barbarian, she said to her heart with a secret smile.
“Good morning, little sister. Kung Hai Fat Choy.” From behind his back, he held out a crowded bunch of small purple flowers. “Cornish violets, my favorite of all wildflowers.” Li took them with a bow, aware immediately of their exquisite perfume. “Good morning, young lord. Kung Hai Fat Choy.”
“Forgive me for picking them on this special occasion.” He laughed. “But there are plenty more to be found, and others will grow to replace them.” She felt his eyes upon her. He was pleased that he had made her face shine so.
“There are many flowers in heaven’s garden,” she breathed, “although none but these smell sweet as the breath of angels.”
Ben smiled. “They remind me of my boyhood. One sniff of Cornish violets and I am beside a hedgerow of hazelnuts and wild rose after the rain, watching the shadows chase each other across the moor.”
Holding out her chair, he insisted she take her seat before he sat down. “The personal assistant to the taipan does not bow and she does not stand while he sits.” There was a buoyant humor in his voice that put Li at ease. “This is not a day for business, or of masters and assistants; it is a day of discovery and preparation for the future. Let others gather their families around them and pray for prosperity, while we will do nothing that we do not wish to do.”
He passed a hand over the smoothness of his chin. “I have decided to make some changes this New Year. It is a time of good luck and great opportunity, a year for bold decision and bolder action.
“First, I must ask you if you have a god of your own to pray to on this special day. If you must attend the temple, then I will wait for you.”
Li shook her head. “I once asked the gods for help, but I was too small for them to see or hear me. They were so many, I did not know which one to bow to, so I bowed to them all. Perhaps the fault was mine, but my prayer was not heard by any of them. I am bigger now, but still do not know which one I should turn to. In things of great importance, I trust my heart.”
He seemed pleased by her answer. “I have two gods,” he said lightly, “one of my own making, and the other of ancient China and my mother. I pray to them both on the first day of each New Year. They also reside here.” He held a hand to his chest. “So we are not so different.”
They ate the small steamed dumplings the Fish had taught her to make, filled with fresh crabmeat and shrimp. “We call these dumplings dim sum,” she said, placing some on his plate. “It means ‘touch the heart,’ small pleasures that make us happy and do not cost too much.”
When they had finished, he sat back and stretched his arms wide, clasping them behind his head with obvious pleasure. “This is the time and the place for you to tell me of your hopes for the future, and perhaps for me to tell you mine.” She needed no further coaxing. From her pocket she slid the orange-peel finger jade, unseen. Its smoothness comforted her fingers, and the chi of Pai-Ling entered her heart.
Li chose her words carefully. “You are a man of business. When you speak of it, you want matters to be clear.” Ben nodded his agreement. “With little help, I have learned to read and write Chinese well enough not to be thought a fool. I have become fast and sure enough with the abacus to survive in any marketplace without being cheated.”
Li sat forward in her seat. “I want to be of use to you, not merely in matters of tidiness and comfort. I want to develop skills and gain knowledge that can help you in the business of your company. I learn fast, and I wish for nothing more.”
He nodded.
“My mother dared to rise above the expectations and limitations of others more fortunate, and for that she was punished. They crippled her for the vanity and pleasure of stupid men, and so that she could not escape those who owned her. They allowed her nothing but the service of the fool who became my father. She killed herself because she thought I had
been buried alive in the mustard field. They dumped her like a dog so that her ancestors could not find her.”
Ben was silenced by the pain in her eyes.
“I was spared by a white fox and cowardly superstition. Through this, perhaps, I received my mother’s spirit, and for that I too have been punished. If I have strength, if I have understanding beyond my years, it is because of her. I will not know happiness until she finds peace. Help me to become the scholar she was meant to be, a person of value, and I will serve you till the day I die.”
She ignored the tears that could not be stopped, searching his face for understanding. “I ask only one year to prove to you that I can learn to read and to write in your language, to calculate in your figures, and to understand your business and the ways of your people. You have said that this is a time of great opportunity and success.
“If after one year I do not satisfy your expectations, then I have taken the wrong path and I will leave Sky House, but you will not lose your investment in me. I will one day repay every copper coin that I may cost you one hundred times or more.”
“And if you are successful after one year? What would you wish to do?” he asked gently.
“That will be for you to decide. If you and my teachers think me worthy, I will continue to learn until I can be of true value to the Double Dragon wherever I am needed.” She closed the finger jade tightly in her fist. He seemed in no hurry to reply, and her heart sank at his silence.
“Tell me what you would you do that is not already done by someone else.” He smiled fondly. “How will you earn your pieces of gold?” Li lifted the pot to fill his cup. He tapped the table with his fingertips in the Chinese way of a silent thank-you.
“You have no comprador,” she replied confidently. “No Chinese who watches your side of the scales. To the Chinese, your good faith and belief in honesty are virtues too often seen as weakness, even foolishness, especially in one from foreign lands. They will squeeze you in every way they can, and you will never know it without a comprador of your own that you can trust.”
Ben frowned thoughtfully. “I have been successful in the China trade for years, trusting only my judgment and experience and that of my partner. We have no faith in compradors; it is well known that they line their own pockets before those of a foreign master. To squeeze and be squeezed is a part of life as old as the first mountain. I have learned to live with this.”
“You are wise; ‘squeeze’ is the way of Chinese business.” Li dared to smile openly. “Our ancestors would be displeased if we did not cheat the barbarian or each other as cleverly as we can. It would be an insult to the family and the clan”—she shrugged—“and great loss of face for the comprador.”
“How can you be so certain of such things?”
“Because I am Chinese.” She lifted her cup to sip the tea. “When you paid Ming-Chou for his raw silk, you paid for highest quality and honest measure. Many spools were inferior, the strands broken and knotted. The wooden spools were larger than they should have been, so held less thread and weighed too much—so slightly this could not be detected, except by a vigilant comprador interested only in your profit and not her own. I can learn to be that comprador.”
She took a breath. “I improve my skill with figures every day. The Fish has taught me to bargain in the marketplace, and I can haggle as well as any Hokklo fishwife for saffron worth its weight in gold or a catty of turnips worth a copper coin. I have learned about value for money at the lowest level. Business is business at any time, in any language, and in any place. In China that means every moment of every day and night.”
He rubbed his chin, his eyes suggesting she should continue. Li felt a thrill at commanding the full attention of a taipan.
“Already, I have thoughts that may be of value to you. I have not spoken of them because my respect for your venerable partner is great and I would not insult him with my notions without your permission. I am sure he must know how much is bought and sold that does not appear in any tally book.”
Ben spread his hands to show that nothing she had said surprised or concerned him. “Indie Da Silva will reward you well if you have thoughts that will save Double Dragon money or lead to higher profits. And so will I.”
Li sat straight backed, looking, she hoped, every inch a comprador. “In my studies of the coastal and river trade, it seems to me that much has been lost to the cost of ballast … unprofitable cargo. Many chests of tea and bolts of silk have been spoiled by seawater invading the holds in bad weather. Because of this, your schooners take on broken tiles, bags of sand, river stones, and rocks to fill the bilges and stabilize the vessel.” He nodded with interest.
“Your principal trade is in tea, silk, and porcelain and sometimes jade, which are carried separately. My thought is this … instead of worthless ballast taking up valuable cargo space, porcelain vases could be filled with jadeite and other precious stone, and stowed in the lower holds. The middle holds could carry chests of tea, with the silk in the upper holds. By such layering the vessel would take all weathers, and you would gain a cargo of porcelain and valuable minerals without spoilage.”
She bowed her head in appreciation for his patience. “Forgive me if this is a foolish thought. I am sure it must have already been considered.”
His eyes had not left her face. Was she indeed a fool to have made such a simple suggestion?
“It is not foolish to speak out; it is good that you are thinking of ways to improve our trade. All that you ask will be arranged. It is not a favor, but a business investment, as you wish it to be.”
He reached across the table with an open hand. “But first you must learn what it is to be English. I shall arrange for a tutor to teach you for one year, then we shall set an examination. If you pass, you will be taught the business of a comprador and paid accordingly. Is it agreed?”
She put her hand in his and shook it firmly. “It is agreed.”
Miss Winifred Barbara Bramble was a refined and pleasant lady of late middle age from the East Sussex village of Sparrows Green near Wad-hurst. She had spent most of her life in senior teaching positions, first in Zu rich and then with Hong Kong’s most prestigious finishing college for young ladies. Reluctantly retired after fifteen years as its principal, she had returned to England from a life of high activity and social responsibility, to find herself quickly bored by the relaxed pace of her old village.
When Captain Devereaux’s Hong Kong lawyer, Angus Grant, offered her a well-paid post to last for at least one year, with the option to renew, she had accepted with genteel enthusiasm. Confirming by tele gram that making English princesses of girls from wealthy Chinese families came as naturally to her as grooming promising fillies for the Grand National must come to the consummate trainer, she had sailed from Liverpool on the first available passenger ship.
Of the girl she was supposed to tutor, she had been told only that her Chinese name was Li-Xia and that she was fifteen years of age with a very limited education. This did not concern Miss Bramble; nothing fulfilled her more than molding and refining young ladies, and trying to do so within the very limited space of twelve months only heightened the challenge. When she arrived at Sky House three months later, however, she was surprised to find the young lady in question to be an orphan without inheritance or prospects of any kind—a far cry from the often-spoiled daughters of wealthy families she was accustomed to tutoring.
Winifred had used her Hong Kong connections to verify Captain Devereaux’s credentials and found them to be beyond reproach. She did not presume to speculate upon his interest in the beautiful girl, whom she found to be of charming manner. Any misgivings she might have had were soon put to rest by the girl’s quick mind, transparent honesty, and beguiling personality. When the captain, in strictest confidence, told her what he knew of Li’s frightful background, she found herself eager to help the child achieve her extraordinary ambitions.
Li liked the English teacher from the moment they were introduced over
tea in the study. Miss Bramble was smartly dressed in a way Li had never seen before, and was kind enough to explain the philosophy of Harris tweed, silk blouses, knitted twin sets, green pork pie hats, lisle stockings, and stout brogue walking shoes. Her impeccable hair was set in a cluster of silvery waves held in place by tortoiseshell clips; large garnets shivered from her earlobes and spilled across her throat like drops of crystalized blood. Similar stones adorned her wrists and perfectly manicured fingers. A large fan of lavender-scented lace seldom left her hand, a necessity, she claimed, for an Englishwoman in the tropics.
Her face, Li reflected, was nothing like the hideous behind of a baboon, as she had been warned. Free of makeup, her ruddy features were apple cheeked and kindly, her hazel eyes alert but friendly behind highly polished spectacles in their pale lavender frames. Her keen powers of observation and seemingly endless patience made her the perfect teacher.
Miss Bramble intended to inform her pupil of anything she cared to know about the British way of life without in any way diminishing the richness of her Chinese heritage and culture. A sensitive blending of the two, she assured Ben, should produce a young woman of outstanding qualities. “From the aptitude tests I have given her, she possesses quite a remarkable capacity for learning.”
Ben had made his study available as Miss Bramble’s classroom, confining his own work to the office on the Praia. He also made frequent visits to Hong Kong and Shanghai and several trips at sea extending up to five and six weeks. When he did return to Sky House, it was usually for a short period, accompanied by others who ate and drank late into the night. If he greeted Li at all, it was briefly, although he spent much more time speaking with Miss Bramble behind closed doors.
Li did not admit to herself that she missed Ben’s presence, that the sight, sound, and scent of him had become so much a part of Sky House it seemed to lose its luster without him. Her days were too crammed with interest to allow much time to wonder where he was and what he was doing. Even her evenings were spent studying, often late into the night. Miss Bramble was delighted by her appetite for knowledge and the depths of her character.