Dynasty

by Elegant, Robert;

  A son of the lower-middle class, Lieutenant Williams was one of the new officers the British Army was hesitantly commissioning—after repeated near disasters salvaged by the stolid bravery of the British private soldier and the rough ingenuity of the British noncommissioned officer, both as often Scots or Irish as English. He had won his commission by gaining a place at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst through merit. Even the Royal Wessex Fusiliers looked askance at such qualifications, and the Fusiliers did not stand high in the Army’s social hierarchy.

  Worse, John Williams lived on his pay or, at any rate, tried. Hong Kong expected every officer to maintain a household staffed with at least six servants who could, at an hour’s notice, provide a seven-course dinner for twenty-four with the appropriate wines and liqueurs. Fortunately, the Chinese money-lenders were accommodating, and Williams escaped the fatal charge of cheese-paring. But he winced when he contemplated his debts.

  Mary knew of the Lieutenant’s difficulties from the gossip that continuously circulated through the Colony’s small European community by “bamboo telegraph”—though she was denied entry to the upper reaches inhabited by the ladies of generals, colonels, senior civilian officials, and directors of the great trading companies, the hongs. Besides, her father had forthrightly sketched the prospects and the characters of both officers before warning her to see them infrequently or, better, not at all. As always, the Warrant Officers’ Mess knew more about the Regiment’s officers than did the Regiment’s colonel.

  Lieutenant John Williams might himself become a lieutenant-colonel some day—if he was lucky. He would always be pressed for cash, and he would never be fully accepted by all his brother officers. Her father had pronounced the final verdict: “Too much schooling, too little breeding—and a bad seat on a horse.” There was little else to say.

  Captain Lord Peter French was a bird-of-passage in both Hong Kong and the Royal Wessex Fusiliers. He was serving out a term of banishment from his own regiment, the elite Coldstream Guards. He was the younger son of the sixth Marquess of Langweyten; the first Marquess, a country baron, had been elevated when his sister was briefly mistress to King Charles II. Lord Peter would undoubtedly attain the rank of major general and a knighthood—unless he was most unlucky. With a touch of good fortune, he would end his career as a full general, endowed with a peerage of his own.

  Meanwhile, he was enjoying the limited diversions of the Colony. When he had done penance for his indiscretions, he would return to London to mount ceremonial guard on his Sovereign. He was eager to taste again the delights of the metropolis, which offered the most deliciously depraved pleasures of an age remarkably dissolute behind its granitic façade of respectability. Only the “damned prudishness” of his father and his colonel, Lord Peter complained, had required his exile. Goaded beyond the patience inspired by recollections of his own youthful escapades, the sixth Marquess had refused to settle his son’s gambling debts, some £7,000.

  “I’ve bailed out the puppy for £24,000,” he swore. “Let him wait and sweat it out hard in Hong Kong for a while.”

  Amid the whaleboned respectability commanded by the aged widow on the throne, the Army made its own rules, as did the self-indulgent aristocracy and the New Bohemians. The rigid conventions of Victorian society were observed chiefly by the middle classes. The colonel of the Coldstream Guards was, therefore, normally tolerant of his young officers’ pranks. But his tolerance had been strained beyond immediate forgiveness when Captain French smuggled two prostitutes in transparent tights into the wild hilarity of a regimental guest night. Too many outsiders were present. Lord Peter was offered the alternatives of resigning his commission or secondment to Hong Kong until the scandal cooled. He had astonished both his father and his colonel by choosing temporary exile.

  Mary Osgood warmed to both young men—against her own good sense and in defiance of her father’s heavy-handed good counsel. They were a pair of endearing puppies: John Williams a clumsy, loving St. Bernard; Lord Peter a high-strung, mischievous pointer. The big, blond lieutenant was as comfortingly familiar as her brother’s school friends. The slender, witheringly self-assured captain offered a dazzling glimpse of the aristocratic milieu she would never have seen on even remotely equal terms in England. She greeted them with a smile that was just a shade too warm.

  Hilary Metcalfe hurtled into the parlor, shattering the light social chatter and rattling the delicate teacups. His entrance stirred the humid air more than did the fringed punkah that swayed from the molded ceiling when the small, Chinese boy half-dozing outside remembered to pull its string. The green plush horsehair sofas, the geometrically patterned Chinese rug, and the deeply carved ebony tables all seemed to tremble.

  “Afternoon, Miss Osgood—French—Williams,” he boomed. “Have you heard? Li Hung-chang’s in the Colony. Supposed to meet Kang Yu-wei. Sun Yat-sen may turn up too.”

  Languidly astonished, Lord Peter contemplated the older man’s excitement through his polished eyeglass.

  “Li Hung what?” he asked. “And Kong? Kong? Sound like a firm of rice merchants and a brass band. Who are these fellows, Metcalfe?”

  “Can they call off the Boxers, Mr. Metcalfe?” John Williams asked. “Will we be too late? You know the Regiment’s alerted to sail for Peking.”

  “Well past time we took a hand,” Lord Peter added. “That German fellow who’s usurped command hasn’t arrived yet, and the others are dithering. Even this regiment could disperse those howling savages around the Legation Quarter in fifteen minutes!”

  “You’re quite an expert, French, even if you don’t know the name of the most important man in China—Li Hung-chang,” Hilary Metcalfe exploded. “It’ll take more than the sight of the Fusiliers to disperse the Boxers—not to speak of the Imperial troops and the fierce Moslem cavalry.”

  “I say, Sir,” Williams protested. “Surely any well-armed, well-disciplined modern troops could cope with that rabble, however fierce.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Metcalfe,” Mary quickly interposed, “who is Li Hung-chang, and what would he want here with—with—you said Kang Yu-wei? I know Sun Yat-sen’s the rebel who was released from imprisonment in the Chinese Legation on Portland Place. But it’s all so confusing.”

  Metcalfe’s gray eyes glinted, and his sister observed plaintively: “Hilary’s on his hobby-horse again.”

  “Sun Yat-sen, you know, wants a republic.” His irritation forgotten, Metcalfe was eagerly didactic. “He’s determined to overthrow the Empire, thinks it’s rotten beyond redemption. Besides, he’s American-educated. Wants to make China a modern nation. I assume even Lord Peter’s heard of Sun Yat-sen.”

  “Not really, Mr. Metcalfe,” the Captain drawled.

  “Do go on, Sir,” Lieutenant Williams urged. “We should know about them to fight the rotters.”

  “I shall go on.” Metcalfe’s vigorous recital rode over the antagonism between the young officers. “Li Hung-chang is the Viceroy of Canton and China’s greatest statesman. He likes the Boxer Uprising no more than you or I. He’s a reasonably loyal servant of the Empress Dowager, and he thinks it’s a disaster for the Empire. Besides, he knows Chinese troops are no match for the European and Japanese forces.”

  “And Kang Yu-wei, Mr. Metcalfe?” Mary persisted.

  “Now there’s an interesting chap, Mary … Miss Osgood. A great scholar, one of the last great Confucian scholars. But a man of today. The Empress Dowager sent him packing in ’98 after he talked the young Emperor into decreeing major reforms. The old lady locked the Emperor up, and Kang Yu-wei was sentenced to death. Took refuge right here. Almost all forward-looking Chinese’ve fled to Hong Kong or Shanghai one time or another.”

  “And so the Boxers?” John Williams prompted.

  “And so the Boxers, Lieutenant! A band of wild fanatics who think they’re immune to shot and shell. Called Boxers from their shadow-boxing exercises before battle and their own boastful name: Righteous Fists. Encouraged by the Empress Dowager, who b
elieves she can drive all the foreigners from China. That’s why the Queen’s Minister, Sir Claude MacDonald, along with more than two thousand others, including scores of ladies, are cooped up in the Legation Quarter under siege—eating horses, camels, and donkeys. They may be eating rats by the time the brave soldiery gets a move on—if they’re eating at all.”

  Mary shuddered, and Miss Metcalfe interjected: “Hilary, you’re being crude. And you’re exaggerating.”

  “Devil me if I am, Liz,” Metcalfe retorted. “The irony is Li Hung-chang hopes our estimable Governor, Sir Henry Blake, will hinder his going north. Li doesn’t want to get directly involved, but thinks he and Kang Yu-wei could contrive a compromise here to save the Manchu Dynasty—and the Empire.

  “But Sir Henry’s been told to pass the Viceroy through quickly. Whitehall doesn’t want to mix in internal Chinese politics. As if we weren’t already embroiled—with our missionaries slaughtered, our diplomats under siege, and our troops marching on Peking with traditional British pluck … and traditional British sloth.”

  “The damned niggers are holding things up,” Lord Peter interjected. “An eight-nation force, Japs, wops, frogs, and what all. It’ll never work, you know.”

  “I hear, Sir—” John Williams ignored the interruption—“that Government fears disturbances in the Colony. It’s reported Sun Yat-sen and Kang Yu-wei are raising men in South China for a new rising against the Manchus and collecting funds from wealthy Hong Kong Chinese.”

  “Disturbances, twaddle,” Metcalfe exploded. “Three posters bravely demanding: EXPEL THE BRITISH! RESTORE THE GLORY OF THE CHINESE EMPIRE! It needs more than posters to incite riots—just yet. But later!”

  He hunched his head into his shoulders like a great sea turtle.

  “Hong Kong will erupt if the Boxers massacre the diplomats—or the Allied forces take Peking and massacre thousands of Chinese. Then you’ll see your Hong Kong disturbances—full-fledged, gory riots. Best way out is encouraging Kang Yu-wei and Li Hung-chang to put their heads together. But London, in its wisdom, thinks we can wash our hands of internal Chinese politics. Might as well stick our heads in the sand while we’re at it. At least it’ll keep our ears warm and unsullied—though the part sticking up might get singed.”

  “Hilary,” his sister remonstrated, “your language!”

  “Are we really in danger, Mr. Metcalfe?” Mary asked.

  “Not just yet, Mary … Miss Osgood. But we will if we don’t act sensibly. You see—”

  “Hilary,” Miss Metcalfe interrupted firmly, “you’re frightening Miss Osgood. Gory politics are no more fit for young ladies’ ears than your language. And here’s Mrs. Wheatley.”

  An elongated woman in her late fifties swept into the parlor. Her sallow, scaly skin was drawn taut over sharp cheekbones; her bony nose was a parrot’s beak; and her small black eyes were reptilian dull, the left squinting through a disfiguring purple birthmark. The splendor of her mauve silk dress attempted to compensate for nature’s unkindness. The confection was pinched tight at the waist to thrust out a meager bosom, while the inadequacy of her scrawny hips was accentuated by rows of pink braid draped around a bustle of jutting immensity last seen in England in the mid-1880’s.

  “Rachel, may I present Miss Osgood?” Elizabeth Metcalfe said. “Lord Peter and Lieutenant Williams I believe you know. Mary … Miss Osgood … may I introduce you to the Honorable Rachel Wheatley? As you know, Mr. Wheatley is taipan of Derwent, Hayes.”

  “Miss Osgood.” The Honorable Mrs. Wheatley inclined her head minutely. “Lord Peter, how terribly nice to see you again. Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

  “Miss Osgood’s father is with the Regiment, Rachel,” Miss Metcalfe said. “She’s just arrived. We find her charming and hope to make her stay in Hong Kong very pleasant.”

  “Osgood? Osgood?” The thin lips mused. “I have not had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Your father—a major at least to have such a grown-up daughter—is he also a new arrival, Miss Osgood?”

  “No, Mrs. Wheatley,” Mary answered. “He’s been here for some time.”

  “Mr. Osgood is the Bandmaster,” Miss Metcalfe explained, “whose music gives us so much pleasure.”

  “Oh, I see,” pursed lips acknowledged. “Tell me, Hilary, do you fear that demonstrations and violence will mar the visit of His Royal Highness?”

  Mary’s heart shriveled. Her precarious self-confidence was shattered by three icy syllables. She had been casually snubbed in the past, but she had never suffered such a brutal dismissal. The grotesque woman whose husband controlled Hong Kong’s chief hong would not even acknowledge her existence.

  The Metcalfes had, perhaps, been too kind. Perhaps, as her father warned, she had been flying too high in Hong Kong’s caste-obsessed society. In the anachronistic Crown Colony, the distance between the consort of the leading man of commerce and the daughter of a warrant officer was almost as great as the distance between herself and a rickshaw coolie. Taking refuge behind downcast eyelashes, she feared she was indeed “coomin’ doon wi’ a boomp.”

  The visit of His Royal Highness Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, grandson of the old Queen Empress, could have only one effect on her own life. She would see her father even less frequently. The Regimental Band would parade for the twenty-six-year-old Prince and would play at splendid balls and receptions. She would be invited to none—certainly not to the grand ball at Government House. Though presentable unmarried young ladies were few in Hong Hong, she was not a young lady in the eyes of the Honorable Rachel Wheatley. She was a “young person.”

  Anger at the scarecrow woman’s arrogance overcame Mary’s practical discretion.

  “Certainly,” she smiled brightly, “no trivial political disturbances could possibly mar the Prince’s visit. We must keep a sense of proportion. A few Chinamen carrying on in their normal barbarous fashion—so unlike the cultivated British!”

  Mrs. Wheatley ignored Mary’s words as she would a beggar’s whining, but Elizabeth Metcalfe cast her a troubled glance. She was hurt by the open snub her protégée had suffered, and she was dismayed by Mary’s pertness.

  “No, Rachel, Miss Osgood’s right.” Hilary Metcalfe cast the radiance of his goodwill over Mary’s dejection. “You can rest easy. No serious disturbances quite so soon. You’ll certainly enjoy your big balls.”

  Mary blushed at his crudeness, though it was employed in her defense. She rose and gathered her skirts.

  “I’m afraid I must leave now.” She forced a smile. “Thank you so much, Miss Metcalfe. Good-bye, Lord Peter, Lieutenant Williams. It’s been a unique pleasure, Mrs. Wheatley.”

  The reptilian eyes flickered, but the Honorable Rachel Wheatley’s thin lips remained pursed.

  “Come back soon, Mary,” Hilary Metcalfe grinned. “You’re a joy, a ray of sunshine in this gloomy place.”

  “Yes, do,” Elizabeth Metcalfe echoed dutifully.

  To Mary’s surprise, Lieutenant Williams also rose.

  “Miss Osgood,” he asked formally, “may I see you home?”

  The blond officer’s good-humored gray eyes glowed in unaccustomed anger, and his fair cheeks were flushed as they left the small house together. He took a nosegay of asters from a young flower seller and dropped a ten-cent coin into a grubby hand.

  “May I give you these, Miss Osgood? They’re pretty little flowers, I think.”

  Mary murmured her thanks, astonished at John Williams’s challenging the power of the Honorable Rachel Wheatley embodied by seeing her home. The taipan’s wife had the ear of the General Officer Commanding, and John Williams had his way to make. It was a rocky way for a young officer who possessed neither influence nor wealth. Yet he had chosen to make a powerful enemy on her behalf. She had, of course, noticed that John Williams was “castin’ sheeps’ eyes,” as her father said. Did he, she wondered, feel more than the kind of interest aroused by any young woman who was neither outstandingly homely nor intolerably shrewish in a community where young ba
chelors outnumbered unmarried young women by twenty to one? She herself liked him well enough, but that was all. Yet she could easily grow to like him much better if she did not restrain herself.

  “That woman’s a menace, a nasty, rude old trout,” John Williams erupted. “I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Mary replied. “You’re very kind.”

  They strolled down the hill toward Queen’s Road Central in awkward, embarrassed silence. Despite John Williams’s kindness, Mary was still raging at the Honorable Rachel Wheatley’s snub. Her unappeased anger searched for an appropriate vengeance. But she was, she knew, a cipher in Hong Kong, a powerless nonentity who could no more strike back at the lofty Mrs. Wheatley than she could permit herself to become fond of the penniless Lieutenant Williams.

  “Miss Osgood,” John Williams gulped, “Mary … if I may?”

  “Mary, please. Better than Miss Osgood, less like a governess.”

  If John Williams was not smitten by her, he was obviously very much interested. His gauche approach was endearing, and she warmed to him.

  “Mary,” he stammered, “I don’t—don’t quite know how to say—but—”

  “Yes, John?”

  She was intrigued. They had known each other no more than a month, having taken tea together in the Metcalfes’ parlor three times and chatted when they met on the parade-ground. Elsewhere his bashful preliminaries might presage a proposal of marriage that would not be wholly unwelcome, though he was hardly her heart’s desire. In topsy-turvy Hong Kong, his clumsy approaches could presage—what? She simply did not know. They could presage almost anything. Still, a scheme was forming in her own mind. She was, after all, fond of him, and all the young officers were bidden to the Governor’s Ball for Prince William. The ladies of the inner circle and, above all, their daughters required dancing partners.

  “Mary, I’d like to—to see more of you.”