All the multifarious guests ritually praised the Sekloong hospitality, which was as remarkable for its scope as for its lavishness. Sir Jonathan was making a new world that would blend East and West. He was its creator, the object of its devotion—and its benevolent ruler.
“Sometimes,” Harry Sekloong observed, “the old man confuses God with himself. He may know he didn’t create Eve, but he’s determined to use her.”
Hilary Metcalfe was irritated by that quip, though Harry’s subtle deflation of Jonathan’s pretensions usually amused his old friend. Harry’s pointed jest distressed Hilary, who traced Sir Jonathan’s changing attitudes to Mary’s entry into the family. A fiercely chauvinistic Chinese patriot before 1901, despite his expedient cooperation with the British, Jonathan Sekloong was beginning to accept that cooperation as a virtue in itself. The guiding principle of his new realm was gradually being transformed from straight forward exaltation of the Sekloongs and China to exaltation of the Sekloongs and the Sino-European endeavor to bring China into the modern comity of nations.
Four years after Mary’s marriage to Charles, Sir Jonathan’s realm was asserting its unique power, with Mary as the pampered crown-princess. She was ostentatiously displayed to the throngs that had assembled to savor the Sekloong hospitality and to pay tribute to the Sekloongs’ increasing power. Hilary Metcalfe knew that Sir Jonathan esteemed his daughter-in-law more highly than he did the artistic wonders that adorned his palace, if, perhaps, a shade less than the grotesque edifice itself.
That evening, however, Jonathan’s attentions were patently excessive. A resentful Charles reflected that his father, whose motivations were as complex as his ambitions were grandiose, sought to attain not one, but several diverse purposes by his fulsome introductions. Why else should he commit the gaucherie of not merely presenting Mary as the mother of his four favorite grandchildren, but intrusively recalling her social triumph with Prince William in 1900?
The master of the House of Sekloong was deliberately strengthening his ties with the British by recalling an incident that would in retrospect appear trivial anywhere else than Hong Kong. Royal approbation had, however, not only established Mary’s status in Colonial Society, but had touched her with imperishable glamour. Sir Jonathan, who had weighed Hong Kong’s essential pettiness, was catering to his British audience. His guests, in turn, courteously affected to remember only Mary’s social triumph, while forgetting her father’s lowly position. At the same time, Sir Jonathan was impressing upon his Chinese associates the high esteem in which the British held the Sekloongs; prestige that in no wise vitiated the clan’s loyalty to China and Chinese customs. He was also, Charles assumed, placating Mary’s outraged dignity.
The extravagant introductions, Charles felt, punished him. They relegated him to second place by demonstrating that the House of Sekloongs’ continuity did not depend on a weak reed like himself. Though still a vigorous fifty-two, Sir Jonathan was displaying his possession of legitimate grandsons to succeed him and legitimate granddaughters to form new alliances by marriage.
As etiquette dictated, Charles played host to the second table when the forty-eight honored guests sat down to dinner after the others had left. As their own protocol further dictated, Lady Lucinda sat at her husband’s left at the first table while Mary sat on his right. Like the family itself, Sekloong etiquette was a unique mélange of Eastern and Western practices. The Old Gentleman’s personal force made the mixture unexceptionable—if not wholly palatable—even to the Honorable Rachel Wheatley. She fumbled with her chopsticks on Charles’s left, and greedily downed repeated thimble-cups of warm rice wine.
After the traditional New Year’s dumplings, when the guests were toying with glasses of aromatic tea in silver-gilt holders, the host signaled to his intimates. Those outside the inner circle made their farewells, for a Chinese dinner sensibly ends with the food. The ladies withdrew in deference to British customs. But Sir Jonathan grasped Mary’s arm with playful insistence.
“Tonight, we defy both Western and Chinese etiquette.” He raised his voice to carry. “You must sit with us and endure my tales.”
Sir Jonathan led his guests into the rosewood-paneled library and settled them in deep leather chairs before a granite fireplace large enough to roast a whole calf. Hilary Metcalfe sat beside his host, Mary on his other side, while Charles perched on the arm of her chair. Crotchety Richard Wheatley, an acidly ambitious seventy-one, sipped his brandy. Mosing Way, Sir Jonathan’s young protégé, abstemiously balanced a cup of tea on the ebony sidetable, but appreciatively drew on a Havana panatella. After taking aboard a heavy cargo of wines and spirits, the plump Colonial Secretary was somnolent beside a bright-eyed young man introduced as Mr. S. Y. Tong. He had returned from studies in the United States and Britain to represent both the decaying Viceregal Court at Canton and the republican rebels who were determined to destroy the Empire. The conversation was slow-paced and seemingly casual.
“The Japanese are grinding down the Russians,” Sir Jonathan remarked, gazing into the fire. “The Russo-Japanese war is all but over, and the balance in the Far East is shifting rapidly. The Russian fleet is finished, and Japan’s Home Fleet—Britain’s ally, they say—is almost as strong as the British Far East Fleet. But the contract for the Canton-Kowloon Railway is still unsigned.”
“I’ve told London a dozen times already,” Wheatley said testily, “if we don’t build that railway, Hong Kong is finished. Without that link, Hong Kong perishes as the entrepôt for South China.”
“And if the fleet withdraws …” the Colonial Secretary ventured.
“If the British fleet goes,” young S. Y. Tong said hotly, “all China will be open to the Japanese dwarfs.”
“Well, it’s not going tomorrow, Mr. Tong, is it?” Metcalfe interjected. “But in a few years, perhaps. In a few years, we might just decide to leave it to the Japanese.”
“A disaster for China,” Sir Jonathan interjected, “and for Britain.”
“Unless we get that railway started!” Wheatley spoke with single-minded commercial insistence.
“I remember when Britain was supreme,” Mosing Way observed gently. “Then came the Boxers and Britain’s alliance with the other powers. It was folly. Britain’s now just another country scrabbling for a place in China.”
“It’s not that bad, Way,” Wheatley interrupted. “We’re not leaving just yet. We’re expanding. And we’ll get those duffers in Whitehall off their bums—pardon, Mrs. Sekloong.”
Mary smiled abstractedly, too immersed in the conversation to bother with the pretense of ladylike fluster at the rude word.
“And are the Japanese our allies, truly?” she asked disingenuously.
“Yes, Mary, but for how long?” Hilary Metcalfe answered. “Bigger question is the size of their appetite. Can’t have an ally who’s determined to devour all he sees. He’ll end up eating us, too.”
“After he eats all China,” young Tong said bitterly. “The dwarfs made a good start in the Sino-Japanese War in ’95. How many years do you give the Manchus, Mr. Metcalfe? How many years before they collapse of their own weight and corruption? How many years before China ‘dissolves like a sheet of sand,’ as Dr. Sun Yat-sen puts it?”
“Not many, Mr. Tong,” Sir Jonathan spoke with grave authority. “The Civil Service examinations are abolished, and the Imperial Civil Service must disintegrate. Who then will rule China—even badly?”
“You know the answer as well as I, Sir Jonathan,” Tong replied. “Only one man can pull China together—Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Build your railway by all means, even maintain Imperial rule for a while to prevent anarchy, but put your money on Dr. Sun.”
“You’ve come to plead for Dr. Sun, Mr. Tong?” Mosing Way asked sleepily.
“Not to plead, Mr. Way. He’ll win in any event. Just to advise you to act in your own self-interest—and China’s.”
“A few rag-tag bare-bummed—pardon, Ma’am,” Richard Wheatley spoke sharply from the leather dep
ths of his chair. “A few rebels scattered around the world. They’ll inherit China? I’ll bet on the Manchus or any one of a dozen viceroys and generals loyal to the Imperial tradition.”
“Those ragged rebels will inherit China, I assure you,” Tong rejoined. “And don’t you forget it, Mr. Wheatley. The Empire is dying, in protracted, unseemly throes. Seven rebellions threaten the Manchus at this moment. But the republicans will triumph. You’ve all drawn your own conclusions, I’m sure.”
“And with what guarantees of commercial access?” Metcalfe asked. “Where will this group stand? Where will Hong Kong stand?”
“Dr. Sun is a republican, not an anarchist or a socialist. Trade will be bigger and more profitable when modern-minded men rule China.”
“Worth thinking about, eh, Jonathan?” Metcalfe observed.
“Certainly, Hilary, certainly. We must look to our trade and our profits. Otherwise, we serve neither Britain nor China.”
“Well, we’ll just have to see,” the Colonial Secretary pronounced magisterially, rising from his chair. “It’s getting late. Wonderful dinner, Sir Jonathan. But I must be at the salt mines early. Only time I get any work done is on holidays—no one to bother me.”
“The salt mines,” Charles whispered to Mary, “are the new golf course at Fanling.”
Charles and Mary joined Sir Jonathan and Lady Lucinda to bid the guests good-night. The party milled about the brass-bound doors to the front courtyard. Attentive servants helped the ladies with their wraps and barked peremptorily at chair coolies and torchbearers.
The Wheatleys left first, for the Honorable Rachel asserted her own precedence and her husband’s primacy as the preeminent taipan over even the complaisant Colonial Secretary. As they stood in the doorway waiting for their sedan chairs, Mary heard the Honorable Rachel’s high-pitched whisper.
“Did you see, Richard?” she asked. “Did you see that woman?”
“Eh, what woman?”
“That Vorobya woman who left before dinner with young Spriggens. Calls herself Countess Vera Vorobya, but I know she’s Madame Rachelle’s niece, the dressmaker’s niece. Richard, she’s carrying on with Charles Sekloong. They’ve been seen entering Dick Daley’s Owl Grill—and you know what that means.”
The shrill voice became muffled as the Honorable Rachel drew the curtains of her sedan chair. Mary stood frozen.
The barrage of firecrackers that had sounded intermittently all through the evening rose to a booming, deafening crescendo to hasten the Old Year’s passing. Distant bells pealed and cymbals crashed to proclaim the midnight. The guns of the warships in the harbor flashed in thunderous welcome to the Year of the Snake.
February 5, 1905
Charles Sekloong ostentatiously devoted himself to creating a perfect knot in the dove-gray tie that complemented the velvet lapels of his pearl-gray suit. He had already eaten a full breakfast of spiced rice-porridge, preserved eggs, and grilled kidneys in the morning-room on the ground floor, while his wife crumbled honeyed toast and sipped tea on the first floor in the big bed they had not shared for three months. Mary was curled catlike on the chaise-longue in their dressing room. In a violet-sprigged robe over a satin nightdress, her slender, full-breasted body was still exciting, even after four pregnancies. Her husband peered into the mirror on the dresser, avoiding the level glance of her violet eyes beneath the burnished auburn hair caught in a loose knot at her nape.
“Charles,” she said evenly, “I’d like a word.”
“Yes, Mary what is it? I’m in a hurry. New Year’s calls, you know. A devil of a day. The old man says he and Mother will receive callers while I trot around town like a messenger boy.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go with you,” Mary said. “But next year, I’ll surely—”
“Count yourself lucky to be out of it. Couldn’t the talk wait? Some teapot tempest, I suppose.”
“Yes. Certainly a tempest, but not a tempest in a teapot.”
“All right, Mary,” he sighed. “But make it fast, will you? I’m already overdue.”
“Charles, who is Countess Vorobya?”
Mary’s light-voiced question shattered the pretence that they were merely chatting. Charles braced himself for the onslaught he had been dreading since the previous night’s revelations.
“Vorobya? Vera Vorobya?” he said. “I’m not sure I—”
“Vera Vorobya. Who is she, Charles?”
“Calls herself ‘Countess’—maybe she is. Some distant relation of Madame Rachelle’s, the dressmaker, you know. Why?”
“Charles, you’re too casual. You’re always too casual when you’ve got something to hide.”
“Nonsense. Look, can’t it wait ’til this evening? I’m late already.”
“No, it can’t wait.” Mary’s tone was frosty. “I want to know now. Who is she, and what is she to you?”
“To me?” he exploded. “What’s the matter with you? Who gave you that idea?”
“You did. Just now!” Her tone grew icy. “I wasn’t sure before. But your nervousness proves what I heard. The Golden Lily is one thing …”
“Ah,” he interjected, “I wondered when you’d throw that teahouse rumor in my face. There’s no truth—”
“Not for want of trying, I’m sure,” Mary snapped. “But I’m not talking about Golden Lily. I want to know about Countess Vera Vorobya and your assignations at Dick Daley’s Owl Grill.”
“You seem to know all about it,” he sulked. “Or think you do.”
“I’d rather not know, Charles, much rather not. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“If you insist—yes. What the hell do you expect? You pregnant all the time, and then throwing me out of bed.”
“And whose fault is that? I didn’t marry you just to breed heirs for your sacred family. You know I want you. But I simply won’t have more children for a while. It’s up to you anyway; there are things you can use.”
“And I’ve told you a hundred times that as a Catholic I can’t do anything about it.”
“And that justifies your philandering?” she demanded. “How does that go with your precious Catholicism?”
“Sometimes a man strays, especially when his wife … but I can’t break the Church’s fundamental law on contraception.”
Mary’s gaze dropped to her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her rage was so overwhelming she did not trust herself to speak. Mistaking her silence for yielding, Charles pressed his counterattack.
“Why did you marry me, then?” His cheeks flushed crimson with self-vindicating anger. “Did the Sekloong money make you overlook the Sekloong blood? I suppose a damned chink was all right—as long as he had the brass.”
“Charles, I loved you. I still love you.”
“Love!” His defensive anger fed itself. “Love! More like love of money. Why a man should have to run after tarts.… Men are different than women.”
“That I’ve learned. Your attitude disgusts me, your Chinese contempt for women. We’re playthings or brood-mares. But you will not create a public spectacle. I won’t have it, Charles!”
“You bloody well will,” he shouted. “You think you’re so pure, so British, so white, so far above us. But you squirmed and squealed in bed like any other tart before you turned into an icicle.”
Mary rose to face her husband. She drew her hand back and slapped him across the cheek.
Charles stood stunned for a moment. A crimson tide rose from his choker-collar to his hairline. He grasped her shoulders and shook her violently.
“Bitch!” he cried. “Bloody British bitch! Bloody, bloody—fortune-hunting, British bitch!”
Mary went limp in his grasp. Her head snapped back and forth, the pain so great she thought her neck would snap. Since she offered no resistance, he flung her onto the chaise-longue.
“Bloody, useless icicle!” He screamed at her bowed head. “White-skinned tart!”
His arm swept the crystal bottles off her dressing table. Powder, scent, and rouge expl
oded against the golden fleur-de-lis on the wallpaper. Her jade-and-ruby hairpin fluttered to the blue carpet, the butterfly trembling on its golden spring.
“Damned frigging British bitch,” Charles shouted. “The devil with you!”
The door slammed behind him; the impact reverberated through the dressing room. Beyond emotion, Mary lay numb where he had flung her.
The pendant, light-pink flowers called hanging bells glowed in the Metcalfes’ heavy drawing-room. Livelier Edwardian taste had not yet displaced solid Victorian furnishings in distant Hong Kong. But thick shrubs of peach blossoms and the “great luck” plant—miniature orange-trees promising good fortune in the new year—brightened the heavy teak tables, horsehair sofas, and betassled glass lampshades. Unthinking as a wounded doe, Mary had retreated to her one certain refuge.
The Metcalfes’ calm sympathy and candid good sense was balm to her pain. Apparently ageless, Hilary was gruffly perceptive as always, his head tucked tortoiselike between his heavy shoulders. Elizabeth was slightly grayer, but just as energetic, and the familiar beads cascaded on her deep bosom.
“It’s not really the end of the world, Mary,” Hilary Metcalfe counseled, deliberately filling his pipe. “Worse things happen at sea, as the soldiers say. You yourself will live through worse things.”
“That’s cold comfort, Hilary,” his sister chided. “You’re a true Job’s comforter.”
“Dammit, Liz, it’s true! But how can we help, Mary? Liz is right. Talk’s no help just now, though I’m convinced your best course is the Taoist recipe—wu-wei, do nothing.”
“You will help me, Hilary?”
Mary clutched the damp scrap of her handkerchief. She had not cried when Charles left her like a discarded ragdoll; she had not cried as she dressed; and she had not cried as she made her way by sedan chair, Peak Tram, and foot to the house on Wyndham Street. She had wept only when she told the Metcalfes why she had come to them. She had wept for her marriage, for her children—and for her husband.
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