Dynasty

by Elegant, Robert;

  Harry concluded somberly that he himself had had no choice. George Peakton had to die, because he had committed a fatal mistake. He had obstructed the way of history; and he had placed the Sekloongs in danger of trial for piracy by learning of Harry Sekloong’s part in the hijacking. Harry gazed with loathing at palms still stained by the black powder of the revolver, and thrust his hands into his pockets to hide them. No such gesture could expunge his guilt. The murder was necessary. It was not excusable.

  Steering well east of shipping channels, the shrimp-junks met no other vessels on the broad South China Sea as they raced toward sanctuary in Bias Bay. When late afternoon shadows darkened the whitecaps, a puff of smoke drifted on the horizon to the southwest. As the minutes passed, the closing course of the unseen craft was marked by a trail of wind-blown smoke.

  Harry Sekloong braced himself against the foremast shrouds, lifted his powerful Zeiss binoculars, and struggled to focus on the distant smoke. He finally centered the feathered smoke-banner in the binoculars’ bright disc and slowly brought them down to glimpse an elongated funnel. Against the funnel’s vermillion side pranced the golden winged dragon on a royal-blue field. The smoke signaled the hard-pounding approach of Regina, his father’s eighty-five-foot steam-launch.

  Regina butted into the waves. White water foamed around her sharp cruiser-bows and broke on her foredeck. Her white superstructure and gold-striped blue awnings shone in the pale sunshine. The binoculars revealed Sir Jonathan Sekloong, immaculate in blue blazer and white flannel trousers, braced straddle-legged on the open bridge. Beside him stood a square figure in the high-frogged blue-gabardine tunic of a prosperous Chinese merchant. Beneath a full head of hair parted in European style, the tanned round face displayed a long, straggling mustache. He did not wear the braided pigtail, the queue the Manchus had imposed upon their Chinese subjects as an outward mark of their subservience.

  Regina drew abeam the junk, her bow pointing into the waves, her bulk sheltering the junk from the gusting wind. The shrimp-boat came alongside Regina, sails flapping. Ropes tumbled from the launch onto the junk’s stained decks.

  Harry took formal leave of Elder Brother Lee, who replied briskly, “Forget it now. You did what you had to do. We’ll make a sea-rover of you yet.”

  The rope-ladder from Regina was braced by wooden treads and kept from the launch’s side by teak props. After his perilous climb to the Taishan’s deck, it was like boarding an ocean-liner on a stable gangplank. Sir Jonathan and his companion waited at the rail.

  “Shen-ma tou nung-hao-la ma?” he asked in Mandarin. “Everything go off all right?”

  “No real problems, Father. The cargo is all aboard.”

  “That’s splendid,” Sir Jonathan said. “Mr. Hwang, this is my son. I present you to Mr. Hwang Hsing.”

  The militant editor Hwang Hsing was second only to Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the revolutionary United League. He paused before clambering down the ladder to the heaving deck of the shrimp-boat to say, “Hao! Hao! Fei-chang hao!”

  “Good! Good! An outstanding job!” The accolade rang in Harry’s ears. Hwang Hsing was the field commander of the revolution in China. Dr. Sun was chiefly occupied abroad, raising money among the overseas Chinese for the revolution and seeking the support of foreign governments.

  When Hwang Hsing’s feet touched the scarred deck-planks of the junk, the sailors cast off the ropes that bound their craft to Regina. The convoy curved in a broad arc to the southwest, while Regina turned due south toward Hong Kong.

  In the paneled saloon, Harry lolled in the embrace of a red-leather easy-chair, relaxed for the first time since sailing from Bias Bay five days earlier. He sipped a pink gin and contemplated the thick-carpeted saloon with its gold-mounted decanters, its attentive steward, and its two-hundred-year-old scroll-painting of Tien Mu Hou, the Goddess of the Sea. He was home again.

  “Well, Harry,” his father asked, “any problems at all?”

  “No, Father, not really. Only one thing …”

  Sir Jonathan listened silently to Harry’s account of the battle and the death of George Peakton.

  “I regret you had to, but it was the only way,” he finally commented. “No joy, was it? But you couldn’t let him live to report your presence. There could have been a trial, disgrace, bankruptcy. Forget it now, boy.”

  “I’ll try, Father.” Harry could not quite shift the burden to his father’s willing shoulders. “But it was the devil. Not just the fight, but Peakton!”

  “I know, son. A revolution isn’t exactly a garden party. You did what you had to do.”

  “I hope so. And now they’ll make a bonfire that’ll spread across all China—a funeral-pyre for King Opium.”

  “Harry,” Sir Jonathan said softly, “they won’t burn the opium.”

  “What? Not burn it? I thought …”

  “I know, but I can’t force hotheaded revolutionaries and old-fashioned brigands to burn the opium. Besides, I wouldn’t if I could.”

  “What’s to become of it, then?” Harry demanded, setting his glass down so hard the pink liquid slopped on the rosewood table. “It’s a betrayal.”

  “Careful with the drink, Harry,” Sir Jonathan advised equably. “Your mother wouldn’t like the finish stained. However, I assure you it’s not betrayal. Far from it.”

  “What’s to become of the opium?” Harry’s voice was tense. “Is this just another way to fill the coffers of the noble House of Sekloong? Did young Peakton die to make you richer?”

  “By no means. The cargo’ll be transhipped to ocean-going junks. Their destination is Vinh in Indo-China.”

  “And there, what? More chicanery?”

  “Harry, that’ll do!” Sir Jonathan snapped. “Hear me out. Remember we embarked fifty chests of our own on Taishan to camouflage our intentions. And we won’t get a penny from the sale.”

  “How not? Who profits?”

  “A syndicate of French officers is buying the opium—with the genial approval of the thieving Governor-General of Indo-China. Some will end up in France. Most will be peddled to the Tonkinese and Annamese. Not to our people, not to Chinese.”

  “And in return?”

  “A substantial quantity of gold. The revolution needs greater funds than Dr. Sun can raise in the Chinese communities of America, Canada, and Southeast Asia. Equally important, arms will move across the Indo-China border into Yunnan and Kwangsi Provinces—field-pieces, rifles, and mortars. The revolution must be armed.”

  “I don’t like it,” Harry protested, only slightly mollified. “I don’t like it at all. We’re exporting misery and suffering.”

  “Fair enough. You may be right. But what would you suggest? Can you make a revolution with inspirational tracts and passive resistance?”

  “Maybe not. But victimizing another people and enriching corrupt Frenchmen. It stinks like week-old fish.”

  “Harry, our first concern is the Chinese people. We’re not anointed to save the whole world. Our first concern is China and our second …”

  “The House of Sekloong, no doubt. What does this charade do for your sacred hong?”

  “Harry, don’t bait me. I understand your indignation, but don’t take it out on me. A little trust might not come amiss.”

  “I’m sorry, Father. I’m tired. But my question stands. What of the House of Sekloong?”

  “I’ll answer in the same spirit. We’ve diverted a large quantity of opium from China, and we’ve struck a major blow at the China Opium Corporation. My esteemed step-father Dick Wheatley’s been badly hurt. In time, he’ll know who struck the blow. But he’ll never be able to prove it.”

  “I can’t argue with that. But …”

  “Nor can you argue with the general result. The opium traffic’ll dwindle further. Costs’ll go up as fear of hijacking forces merchants to hire more guards. Smuggling will become much harder. Even the Imperial authorities will act a little more forcefully—in the time left to them.”

  “And the House
of Sekloong, Father? I don’t want to insist, but …”

  “Since you do insist, I’ll spell it out. We’ve lost a goodish sum. Call it an investment. We’ve risked your life to consolidate our position with the revolutionaries. Mutual confidence is now sealed in blood, fortunately not your blood. When they triumph, we’ll help them rebuild China. The profits, honest profits, won’t be small.”

  “All right, Father,” Harry wearily conceded. “I see your point. But I tell you honestly it still goes against my grain.”

  Sir Jonathan lit a panatella while he pondered his reply. Despite his caution, he thereupon committed the worst mistake he ever made in dealing with his hotheaded, idealistic second son. The consequences of that error were not to manifest themselves for many years. They would then be catastrophic.

  “Harry,” Sir Jonathan said slowly, “a revolution consumes blood and gold. The chonicles of progress are written in blood and paid for with much treasure. Your muzzy ideals must recognize those realities. Otherwise, Harry, you’ll never be able to lead—to command. And Mary knew the plan. She didn’t want you to go, naturally enough. But she knew the entire plan, including the disposal of the opium. And, Harry, she approved—after kicking up her heels for a while.”

  January 29, 1909

  The marble-walled room with the marble bath sunk in its marble floor was called “Mary’s Folly,” the name bestowed by a bemused Elizabeth Metcalfe. During the year Mary and Charles lived with the elder Sekloongs in The Castle while their own Small House was being completed, Mary had skirmished stubbornly against the wilder fancies of the exquisite “interior decorator” Sir Jonathan imported from England. But she had yielded on her own bathroom, and had subsequently found unexpected pleasure in its extravagance.

  Chubby, pale-gold-plaster cherubim frolicked on the cerulean ceiling. The white-veined walls of emerald marble were inset with four gilt-framed mirrors cunningly placed to repeat their reflections endlessly. The round bath with gold, swan-shaped taps was the pale-green of new grass. Light diffused through apple-green glass completed the illusion of a secluded hollow under a cloudless Mediterranean sky.

  Mary lay in the marble bath early on the evening of January 29, 1909. Her red-gold hair was caught up on top of her head, which was supported by a small damask pillow. The jasmine scent in the bath water mingled with the sandalwood oil her masseuse had kneaded into her skin. She was totally relaxed, half-dreaming in the fantasy chamber that was her secure refuge from the world.

  With detached approval, she contemplated her white legs shimmering incorporeally under the green-tinged water. Her waist was still slender, and her full breasts floated deliciously weightless in the perfumed water. Quite adequate, she concluded, more than adequate for a matron approaching her twenty-ninth birthday. Even after five children, the firm swell of her abdomen was unmarred by the striations her mother’s generation considered the unavoidable wound stripes of motherhood. Dr. Moncriefe, who insisted that she exercise during her pregnancies, had advised Sir Jonathan to find the Shanghai masseuse who still served her. Each day, they performed the gentle, intense exercises the Europeans called “soft shadow-boxing” and the Chinese called Tai Chi Chüan—“Fists of the Ultimate.” She was always wryly amused when she recalled that the fearsome Boxers had used the same exercises to prepare for battle.

  Mary Sekloong sighed languorously. Her hand found the green-silk bell-rope and, after a moment’s hesitation, summoned her amah. The door concealed behind the far mirror opened, and Ah Fung sidled into the steamy bath chamber. She unfolded a six-foot-square bath-towel from its heated rack.

  Mary rose, scented water dripping from her rounded hips, and ascended the three marble steps from the sunken bath into the towel’s warm embrace. While Ah Fung patted her dry, her mood shifted from its demi-dream of mindless pleasure. She smiled at her own fancies, in which the Small House was like the dollhouse with the removable façade her daughters adored. Family and servants were bustling about their separate business in the different rooms, invisible to one another, but revealed to the curious eyes of the gargantuan beholder of Mary’s imagining.

  In the basement, a swarm of servants was chopping food, stirring saucepans, and polishing silver in the glow of massive cast-iron stoves. A formal dinner was to be served to twenty-four that evening to bid farewell to the master of the household, who sailed in the morning for a year’s stay in Europe on the business of the House of Sekloong. The scene in the kitchen would be familiar to any privileged Edwardian child, although the maids’ flushed faces framed Chinese eyes and they exchanged coarse jests in strident Cantonese.

  In the drawing-room, the butler was just closing the blue-silk drapes embroidered with golden winged dragons. After he had laid out the wines, spirits, and cordials in the pantry, his stately tread would carry him to the red-velvet dining room to inspect the table setting of Georgian silver. Ah Sam, the former pirate with the amiably ferocious grin, had been transformed into the simulacrum of a dignified English butler—except for his incorrigible habit of dropping pungent comments into family conversations. Her father’s former Number One Boy had assumed his new role as if his earlier life were no more than a rehearsal for attending the wife of the heir of the House of Sekloong and, incidentally, the heir himself.

  In the nursery, the older children were having supper with reasonable propriety, though Jonathan, just seven, protested volubly at “eating with the baby girls.” Guinevere and Charlotte, six and five years old, already gave themselves the airs of young ladies. Mary reserved an hour each day to frolic with the two small red-haired girls and gravely discuss their party wardrobes of satins, silks, and tulles. Nonetheless, she feared that the amahs, who resented her interference, were spoiling the “Little Ladies.” Anticipating the girls’ every possible wish, the servants’ constant attentions further encouraged them to make peremptory demands.

  The small boys, Thomas, just past four, and James, three, were quite different from each other, but, nonetheless, inseparable. They were playing with their tin soldiers, having already finished supper in their own nursery. Yawning broadly, Thomas was quite ready to retire obediently to his miniature bed. The younger James was protesting that it was much too early for him to climb into his crib, which was palisaded with carved bars. But he would finally allow himself to be tucked in by his Uncle Harry, who told excitingly frightening tales of pirates, soldiers, and princes.

  In his own bathroom, the master of the house was shaving with a shining Sheffield steel razor. Floridly handsome at thirty-two, Charles regularly took his pleasure in beds other than his wife’s. Even his concubine, the Swatow girl who had borne him two daughters, was neglected as he sought new sensations with ingenious courtesans. Still, he was discreet, while Mary had reached a plateau of toleration, sustained primarily by his conviction that she was “cold.” His vanity compelled him to the self-vindicating conclusion that Mary’s unreasonable fear of pregnancy had destroyed the sensual passion she formerly displayed. The same vanity rendered him incapable of either realizing that she actually shrank from him or of suspecting that she too might have found consolation elsewhere. Charles firmly believed that Mary devoted her energies to the family enterprises in order to compensate for the joys of the nuptial bed she had renounced.

  Mary herself reveled in the freedom and the fripperies sanctioned by the Edwardians after the stuffy solemnity of the Victorian Age. The new fashions were more amusing, more daring, and slightly less constricting than the multitude of stiff petticoats and the whaleboned corsets that had confined her a decade earlier. Deeply cut décolletés revealed that a lady possessed two softly molded breasts, rather than a single formidable shelf of a bosom, while low-cut slippers with high heels allowed glimpses of ankles in silk stockings amid softly swirling petticoats. It was more “fun”—that old word just revived—to be a woman than it had been a decade earlier. Mary delighted in putting off her sober daytime self to become a pampered feminine being, rather than an indispensable cog in the intric
ate machinery of the House of Sekloong.

  Wearing only a thin silk wrapper, Mary sat before her mirrored dressing table. She was still glowing from the bath, and the warmth of the small cast-iron fireplace was comforting. Frowning in concentration, she dusted her face with a swansdown powder-puff and touched her lips with rouge from a round enamel box that had once served Manchu Court ladies like those painted on its lid. Only in the past three years had ladies again begun to enhance their attractions with cosmetics, under Victoria the mark of the actress or the harlot. Mary still felt a wicked thrill when she “painted” her face, though the Colony had accepted the new mode without demur. Chinese ladies had never relinquished the ancient feminine prerogative; and Hong Kong’s customs were much influenced by its enormous neighbor, despite its pretence of preserving the purity of English manners.

  The coal fire was making her drowsy. She spoke softly to the little amah, who was brushing her hair. Diverted from that comfortingly monotonous task, Ah Fung opened the mullioned casement window a crack. She shivered ostentatiously and glanced reproachfully at her mistress. Everyone knew the dank night-air on The Peak abounded with evil humors, but Tai-tai, so sensible in most matters, insisted on opening windows.

  Mary ignored Ah Fung’s pantomimed disapproval and threw off her silk wrapper. When she raised her arms so that the amah could slip her ivory-silk shift over her head, her breasts rose proudly. On the bed was laid out the “under-paraphernalia,” as she called it, of formal female attire: the corset with light whaleboning; the sheer pink silk stockings; three petticoats, the outer a delicate rose; and the shamefully flimsy knickers of cream satin.

  The little amah held out the corset, but Mary gestured her aside. Anxious to look her best, she wanted to inspect again the evening-gown hanging on the cupboard door. The exclusive design by Worth of Paris had cost her a round sum.