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“With you I am sure,” she answered in a breath. “You will be the first, and I am honored by it. I do not understand the love of a man, but with you I am happy.” Stepping close to him, she began to unbutton his shirt.
“Wait … ,” he said. Tenderly, he brushed her soft lips with his, her chin, her cheeks, her temples, her eyelids, the warm hollow of her throat. For Sing it was as though a captive bird had at last escaped, soaring into endless space. She found her mouth responding, returning his kisses with an ardor she had never felt before.
She could smell the warmth of his body as he leaned so close she could detect the sap of barley grass he had chewed as they walked through the field. She wondered again at the fairness of his hair, her hand reaching up to touch it, feeling its texture, fine to her as spun silk.
The feeling that welled inside made her suddenly bolder as she pushed her hand through his hair more strongly, letting the weight of it fall through her fingers again and again. She felt his hands close lightly on her waist and then hold her more firmly, their warmth reaching through the thin cotton of her vest.
Toby stepped backward, drawing her with him until the back of his legs touched the bed. Carefully, he lowered his body until he sat on its edge, leaving her standing before him, her hands still buried in his hair. His hands slipped to her hips as he pulled her to him, resting his head against her breasts. She could hear the thud of her heartbeat as his hands moved cautiously over the swell of her buttocks and down her legs to the backs of her knees, feeling the smoothness of her skin sliding under the coarse weave of cotton.
Quickly, almost roughly, his hands found her breasts, his palms brushing their growing hardness through the vest, its fabric so fine that the darker rings around her jutting nipples were clearly visible. Breathlessly, Toby slid his hands over her shoulders, holding her firmly, his mouth gently teasing through the tight skin of material.
His hands went still as her legs began to tremble, as though he was afraid she would break away from him. She made no move except to draw his cheek closer to her breast. They stayed for moments unmoving but for her fingers stroking his hair.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered softly. Standing slowly, carefully, he lifted her chin with a gentle finger. “You must never be afraid of me.”
The thrill of his touch seemed to weaken her limbs, filling her with sweetest wonder. How would it feel if there was nothing between them? Reluctant to detach herself from him, Sing quickly stripped the vest upward and over her head, allowing the eager warmth of his mouth to engulf her completely.
His fingers reached for the drawstring that secured her loose cotton pants. She felt them slip away; a second’s pause, then, more slowly, the silken fabric of her undergarment was removed. She gasped at the heat of his breath upon her skin, then fumbled for the fastenings of his clothes, eager to feel his nakedness against hers, stroking his muscular body in wonder.
He brought her close to the thunder and rain, but drew back until she gasped with longing. Finally, he entered her so carefully that she craved all of him, delighting them both with the passion that uncoiled with such urgency as she drowned in the blueness of his dazzling eyes.
Sing awoke to the voices of Po-Lok and his family returning from the village. The bed beside her showed the hollow of his body in the goose-feather mattress; his scent still lingered.
He had left a sprig of blossom on the pillow with a note:
My darling,
This would not have happened if we had not found love so quickly and so surely. Neither of us would have allowed it.
I will do all that I can to help you fulfil your dream, and if your father’s resting place is to be found, we will find it together. What ever lies in store for us, we have found each other, and that is miracle enough for me.
I will come for you early on Saturday, about 8 A.M.
Toby
Sing pressed the fleshy buds between her palms, breathing their tangy fragrance and knowing at last what it meant to love and be loved. She stretched languidly, then glanced at the box Ben had given her with the beautiful dress. She would try it on now and show it to Ruby, but she could scarcely wait for Saturday.
CHAPTER 31
The Storm
When the storm came on the following day, Sing and Ruby were high on the hillside, cutting the tiger grass to weave weatherproof capes for the coming winter. In just one more day, she would see Toby again and meet Miss Winifred Bramble, who would tell her about her parents and who might know where her father was buried. Meanwhile, Sing looked back over the cluster of square, whitewashed houses, the circular remains of the walled village, the perfect green lines of cultivation.
The scene, usually so serene to look upon, was suddenly bathed by an early twilight, a brassy glare that made everything unreal. From far below, the distant voice of Po-Lok’s son drifted up, urging mud-caked buffalo through the terraces to the shelter of the barn. She could see the ducks heading for the ponds as though it were the end of the day.
The first gust of wind snatched at Sing’s hat, flattening the grass around her like the sweep of a scythe. At first the change seemed welcome, as the day had begun still and humid. But Po-Lok had warned them that they should not go far up the hillside and must return quickly if the weather changed. Word had reached him that the observatory on the island of Hong Kong had hoisted a storm warning. This was the season of dai-fong—the big wind that the Westerner called “typhoon.”
Sing had known such signs before, when the lake looked like beaten copper under a sky of steel, when sampans sailed for the safety of the typhoon shelter and the reed-cutters closed their shutters and barred their doors. Sing had seen dragon winds scouring the surface of the lake, sending the yellow waters in rolling waves to swamp the reed beds, but passing them over like a beast in search of larger prey. Now she had only to look at the sulfurous hue of the sky, to see more birds soundlessly filling the trees, to know it was time to find shelter.
As abruptly as if a switch had been thrown, thunderheads piled up like molten rock to hide the sun. The valley seemed scorched by an eerie light. A flock of egrets, usually content to prowl the furrows, whirled upward to circle the highest trees.
Often the dai-fong passed them by, Po-Lok had informed them, or lashed its tail across the island and left the valley in peace. But this was coming directly for them, rearing over the valley like a rising bear. The gusts increased in sudden blasts heavy with the chill of rain.
Sing had become separated from Ruby; she heard her slashing the cane grass nearby but could not see her. Sing called her name, telling her to start down the slope. Before she could shoulder the bundle of grass, the first deluge arrived, fat drops thudding on the brim of her hat and smacking her shoulders with stinging force.
She had taken no more than a dozen steps before hail sliced across the slopes in icy sheets. Again she told herself she had seen such storms sweep the lake before moving on, but she could remember nothing that felt like this. From where she stood, the gray expanse of Tolo Harbor was lost in a blanket of rain driving in from the sea. There was no time to descend the slopes and reach the safety of the mill house. Leaving the bundle of grass on the path and calling out to Ruby again, urging her to take shelter, she waded into the thickest growth on hands and knees, burrowing into the densely packed roots until they protected her like a cage. She wormed herself farther into the dense jungle of stalks, still calling Ruby’s name, as winds slammed frozen sleet into the hillside with the impact of bullets.
She entwined her hands and feet into the mesh of roots, clinging to the earth. Flattened by the gale, the grass formed a thatch, deflecting the wind, absorbing the onslaught, holding off the full impact of the slashing rains that followed in wave after drenching wave.
She lost all sense of time as the storm swamped the hillside, penetrating the matted tiger grass and beginning its steep downward run. What started as a trickle quickly became a gushing torrent, finding its way from the higher slopes through t
he tangled roots in a flash flood, loosening the earth beneath her.
The harder she clung to the grass for safety, the more its roots came away, the cascade of mud and stones growing stronger with each moment. Chilled to the marrow, Sing fought against the downward rush, grasping for an anchor, feeling it torn away from her icy fingers. As one handhold was lost, she grabbed another, dragged from her hiding place by the gathering mudslide. The high, stony ground above the grassline began to crumble with the rush of yellow mud.
Boulders came free—first the smaller ones, bouncing ahead of the landslide, somersaulting high and wide as the hillside began its rapid collapse with the sound of a steam train torn from its rails. Trees that had stood for a hundred years were ripped from the peaks and flung into the valley below.
Over the shriek of wind, she heard her name called, uncertain at first, then definite and closer. Ruby’s mud-caked body rolled toward her from above, blood streaking her face. Sing snatched her arm and clung to it with all of her strength, but felt it slipping slowly from her grasp. Ruby was below her now, her grip feeble and her hand slick with mud. Sing called for her to hold on.
Ruby looked straight up into her face, as though she knew her weight was dragging them both down, her lips moving with words Sing would never hear. Her grip suddenly released, Ruby slipped away and disappeared into the cataract that yawned beneath them. Sing cried her name, as wind roared in her ears and she hurtled downward to the flooded valley and into darkness.
The blackness stayed with Sing, wrapping her in a clammy tomb. In place of howling wind and battering rain there was a deathly silence, broken only by the slow drip of water and faint sounds like those of a fast-beating heart. When she moved, pain shot through her like a white-hot blade. The sound persisted—the tick-tick-tick of a fast-running clock, rising and falling, coming closer and then receding.
She thought she heard a voice carried over a great distance, calling her name. She tried to answer, her lips numb. She fought against the darkness closing in, forcing it back like a deadly presence. Slowly it circled her, like a stealthy opponent looking for an opening in her defense. Then came an unearthly light and a glimpse of Ah-Keung staring down at her. She closed her eyes to rid the blackness of this apparition; when she looked again, it was the gentle face of the goddess Tien-Hau.
Toby had hardly slept in the twenty-four hours since the typhoon. Standing at the tiller of the naval cutter he had commandeered the moment he had come off duty, he could see the roofs of buildings on Po-Lok’s farm. The farmer and his family had reached safe ground moments before the storm had struck, but Kam-Yang said that Sing and Ruby had not come down in time from the hillside.
The boat glided through scenes of devastation that filled him with fear for Sing’s safety. The dense, steamy heat that had preceded the typhoon had settled over the desolation in a vaporous mist. Clouds of insects gathered in the suffocating stench that lay trapped across the valley floor. He could see no signs of life on the flat roofs that showed above the floodwaters. The trees, he saw through his field glasses, were still filled with birds, who shared the branches with the rotting carcasses of livestock.
He searched the floating debris of planks and lengths of broken fence. Complete wooden outbuildings drifted by, and waterlogged bales of cattle fodder had formed islands for ducks and small farm animals. There was no sign or sound of survivors; her name merely echoed in the eerie stillness when he called out to her.
The farm of Po-Lok was several miles from Tai-Po village, where the wall of water had rolled up the channel and followed the course of the river as far as a neighboring village before it had spent its full force. Hundreds of junks, sampans, and vessels had washed up as far as two kilometers inland. He had seen a junk high on a hill, rotting fish still hanging from its nets. More than ten thousand people had been reported drowned.
Toby fought against despair as he scanned the deserted buildings, the silent trees still half submerged. The floodwaters had raged through the valley, breaking over the rice terraces before being stopped by the surrounding hills.
Circling the deserted mill house, he called Sing’s name many times with no answer. He swept the devastated hillsides with the field glasses, hoping for a sign she had made for higher ground. He leaned on the tiller, steering the cutter in a wide arc, its bow headed toward the nearest dry ground.
He searched the lower slopes for an hour, calling her name, picking his way over the tides of drying mud and shale. The whole side of the valley seemed to have shifted. The clump of oaks that had sheltered the Temple of Tien-Hau had disappeared, leaving only broken ground, jagged stumps, ancient roots exposed like the rotting bones of a dinosaur. His last hope was that she might have somehow reached the middle ground safely and found shelter there… .
In the first terrible moment of finding Sing half submerged in the bed of silt on the temple floor, Toby thought she was dead. There was no sign of blood, but the mud had claimed her body like a grave, settling around her until only her face and hands showed above its silken surface.
She was unconscious, but he felt a definite, if sluggish, pulse. Frantically, he scooped away the compacted mud to reveal extensive bruising and a broken leg. He fashioned a splint from broken branches, binding it tightly with strips torn from his shirt, talking to her softly, unceasingly, certain she could hear him. Her flesh was ice cold; he cursed himself for not bringing blankets.
As though by magic, the ceiling of cloud over the valley peeled away, allowing a burst of brilliant sunshine to chase across the floodwater and brush the ravaged slopes. A single shaft of pure light penetrated the broken roof, illuminating the figure of Tien-Hau and, for fleeting seconds, the skin of the Last Tiger stretched upon the wall. He reached for it, to find it miraculously dry. It had been well cured and was reasonably soft. As he rolled her in it and carried her down to the boat, his heart thumped painfully with the thought of losing her.
The Royal Military Hospital was a rarefied enclave reserved for those who lived in the foreign embassies or the grand homes of British government officials and giants of Hong Kong commerce and industry. It was shrouded in mist when Toby pulled up outside the emergency entrance.
As he carried Sing up its wide tiled steps two at a time, a male orderly came from behind the reception desk with one of the wheelchairs lined against the wall. When he saw that the patient was a woman in the mud-caked tunic and trousers of a Chinese peasant, wrapped in the skin of a tiger, he stopped dead.
“It’s a woman, sir,” he said. “A Chinese woman … in a tiger’s skin.” He shook his head emphatically. “We can’t admit a Chinese civilian, not wrapped up in a tiger skin, sir.”
Toby ignored his protest, pushing past him through the door.
“Get me the matron,” he snapped, lifting Sing gently onto an examination bench.
“But, sir—,” the orderly stuttered. “It’s against the rules, sir …”
“The matron. Now!” Toby’s bark sent him scurrying away.
Sing was admitted under the name of Devereaux, signed in by Captain Hyde-Wilkins, remaining in intensive care for several days for a fractured shinbone, which was healing well due to immediate and expert attention, and for extensive bruising and abrasions, with a risk of minor organ damage and signs of fluid on the lungs.
On the fifth day, when she had been moved to a small room of her own through Toby’s machinations, he arrived bearing a huge bunch of pink, white, and red roses, along with the excellent news that Miss Winifred Bramble would be honored if the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Devereaux would complete her recuperation at her residence on Stonecutters Island, as soon as she was released.
“Or,” he offered with a grin, “you could marry me and I could take care of you. Or is it too soon to think of that?”
Her heart was too full to answer for a moment, but then she looked at her bandages ruefully. “I think it is not quite the right time.”
Toby nodded and kissed her gently on the top of her head. �
�I understand. And I’m afraid there is something else I must tell you.” He held her hand as he gave her the news that could not be avoided: Ruby’s body had not been found, but there was still a chance that she would be identified among the casualties. Sing had been right: The Indian driver, Raj, had been so taken with the little pipe-maker that he was heading the search party with the thoroughness of a military exercise.
If there were tears, he did not see them. She was clearly tired, though; he left quietly, thankful that she was in the best of care.
When he had gone, Sing allowed herself to think of the little pipe-maker with the passionate heart that had been so badly broken. For many sleepless hours she told herself that Ruby’s grip had weakened and she simply slipped away; that for all her training and the hidden powers she possessed, there was nothing she could have done to save her. Master To had said nothing on how to fight the storm … only that it would come.
Sing could have wept like a child, but knew that Ruby would not wish her to.
When Sing Devereaux was released from the hospital three weeks later, she insisted on being taken directly to Tai-Po village to see for herself.
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.
CHAPTER 32
Return to the Villa Formosa
No 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.