“‘China is a sleeping giant,’” Harry suggested. “‘Beware, for it will shake the earth when it wakes.’ Something like that.”
“That’s not it, not what I’m thinking of. It’ll come to me. Yes, I’ve got it. Napoleon advised playwrights to base their dramas on politics. He said roughly: ‘It is, after all, politics that leads to catastrophes without any formal crimes being committed.’”
“That cuts to the heart,” Harry acknowledged. “It may even be true. But we Nationalists are trying to head off catastrophes.”
“What do you want now?” Charles demanded suspiciously. “More money for your Bolshevik friends?”
“Not precisely, Charles. I want to draw my share of accumulated profits, and, yes, to ask for a little more. I need to buy airplanes: twelve Handley-Page V/1500 bombers and another twelve Sopwith Camels. Then we’ll sweep the warlords from China in two years.”
“Why don’t you ask your Soviet friends?”
“They’ve got no airplanes. Anyway, we don’t want to get too close to Moscow, though no other country’ll help us. Even the Communists, the Chinese Communists, would take only a token subsidy from Moscow when they set up their Party in 1921. That bushy-haired young fellow Mao Tse-tung … he’s working directly with us now, and he’s very strong on keeping a distance from Moscow. He’s a Communist all right, but a Chinese first. Not even the Chinese Communists want a Soviet-dominated China.”
“And,” Charles grudgingly completed the thought, “if you can’t get aid elsewhere, the Russians’ll move in?”
“Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Look at the foreigners still nibbling at China, particularly the Japs. If we don’t win, foreigners, probably the Japs, will dominate China. And where’ll your precious business be then? Or, if the Soviets dominate China, what then? Just look at the record.”
“What about the record?” Charles stalled.
“Oh, come, Charles,” Mary protested, “you know what he calls the record as well as Harry does. But I myself can’t see how anyone can change China, really change her.”
“No, Mary,” her husband answered stolidly, “I don’t necessarily know the record. You think China’s future is hopeless. That doesn’t mean it is. Let Harry have his say.”
Harry flashed her a grateful glance before resuming. She had adeptly maneuvered Charles into a receptive attitude by her own show of recalcitrance.
“You know that only two things kept the Jap dwarfs from eating up China like sukiyaki: China went to war in 1917; and the students rioted in Peking on May 4, 1919,” Harry resumed. “If we hadn’t declared war on the Central Powers, the Japs would’ve taken over half the country in the name of the Allies. They’d already grabbed the German concession at Tsingtao. And if the students hadn’t rioted in 1919, the warlord government in Peking would’ve signed away China’s sovereignty by accepting Tokyo’s Twenty-one Demands. God knows, the ministers had been paid enough, bribed lavishly by the Japs.”
“Just a minute,” Mary interjected. “I’m all in a muddle. I never really understood what happened after Viceroy Yüan Shih-kai died.”
“To put it simply,” Harry answered, “think of two opposed groups: the power-people and the word-people. All the warlords coming after Yüan Shih-kai are power-people, including the so-called President in Peking now. Their ideas didn’t change when the Empire fell. All they want is power and spoils.
“Now, the word-people were also as disunited till recently. But they have a clear purpose. They’re dedicated to making China a united, modern country, where no one’s oppressed and everyone can live in peace and prosperity.”
“Why do you call them the word-people?” Mary asked.
“Because they all believe in a power beyond naked force, the power of words, and the ideals the words stand for. That’s really the old Chinese way. Confucius was a word-man, not a power-man, and the Confucian Dynasties believed in justice beyond might. But the Confucian way couldn’t deal with the other power-people, the foreigners with their guns.”
“And then?” Mary prompted. “This is a new way of explaining things.”
“In 1917 the word-people began getting together. The words of Confucius were still the only ideal China possessed. But his words were outmoded, useless. So they set out to change the word. Instead of the classical style of writing, which took decades to learn, they wanted everyone to write in pai-hua, ‘plain language.’ That meant writing as we talk Chinese, so that everyone could understand. Some of the word-people wanted liberal Western representative government. ‘Science and democracy’ was their battle cry. Others said representative democracy couldn’t work in China. They wanted to change everything, and they adopted the word of Karl Marx—particularly after the Marxists won in Russia.”
“Mary’s not simple-minded, Harry,” the elder brother protested. “Don’t tell us a child’s story.”
“All right, Charles. I’ll be more specific.”
Harry recalled that Peking University was the center of the New Language and Literature Movement. In 1917, Professor Hu Shih, a liberal democrat with an American Ph.D., published an article calling for a new written language in the magazine, The New Youth. The editor was the Dean of Letters, Chen Tu-hsiu, who had studied in France.
“I remember bits and pieces,” Mary said. “But we were busy with other things in 1917. How did all this academic excitement affect the real world?”
“The Europeans and the Americans fixed that,” Harry laughed. “Fixed themselves too. After the Great War, Chinese idealists thought Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points meant justice for China, too. But the Versailles Conference let the Japanese keep the territory and privileges they stole during the war—and bound China to honor the secret agreement to accept Tokyo’s Twenty-one Demands. On May 4, 1919, the students of Peking University rioted and forced the warlord government to renege on those Twenty-one Demands. Honoring them would have made China virtually a Japanese province.
“But the students went further. They rejected Western liberal democracy and turned to authoritarian solutions. Dean of Letters Chen Tu-hsiu founded the Communist Party in 1921. Soon afterward, Dr. Sun Yat-sen himself turned to the Soviets. In January 1924, this year, the Kuomintang, his Nationalist Party, agreed to unite with the Communists. Agreed on other things, too. Mainly that we must build our own armies. That’s the only way to destroy the power of the warlords and their backers, the European and American capitalists.”
“As a capitalist,” Charles said stiffly, “I’m not impressed. We all cheered the May Fourth Movement, but where did it lead? To creating the Communist Party. You Nationalists haven’t touched the warlords yet. You’re talking, talking, but never fighting. Harry, it won’t work. Mary may be right. Maybe China is hopeless and we should be looking for other fields.”
“How can you talk that way?” Harry exploded. “China made you fabulously wealthy. Anyway, we’re not out to destroy capitalism or capitalists—just the foreign capitalists and their Chinese running-dogs who support the warlords. The only hope for an independent China is the new alliance of the Nationalists and the Communists, who’re both Chinese patriots. We’ll use the Communists—and then cast them aside like a squeezed lemon.”
“Look out they don’t squeeze you first.” Mary’s mouth puckered. “Besides, who can eat lemons?”
“One for you,” Charles laughed. “Mary’s beating you at your own game. All those fancy words. But have another drink and tell us just what you want.”
“I must raise a half million pounds sterling. The old man still has faith in Dr. Sun. He’s agreed that my share of accumulated profits, naturally less management costs, plus recompense for liaison services comes to about £250,000.”
“The same old Sekloong, isn’t he?” Mary smiled. “To the penny, I’ll wager. I’m sure the figure ends with something like sixteen shillings and ten pence, the last penny rounded in his favor.”
“You’re right,” Harry was briefly diverted. “I was worried about him after Mother
died. But I don’t see any change.”
“Oh, he misses her,” Mary said. “It’s not six months yet. He misses her, but won’t admit it. He’s still angry at her for daring to leave him, for giving up at sixty-seven, when he’s now seventy-one and going strong as ever.”
“Strong as ever with the ladies,” Charles added, “though Mary may not approve.”
“Mary approves heartily,” she interjected. “He’s not hurting anyone—and he can certainly provide for any children. But he misses Lady Lucinda—whatever he says or does.”
“And Matilda?” Harry asked. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Still the good gray mouse,” Charles answered. “She seemed happy enough looking after the old man, but there’s a German fellow dancing around her. Named Biederstein, Hans Biederstein. Mary thinks they’ll marry.”
“I’m certain she will,” Mary added. “Matilda wants to escape and Hans seems a strong man, so …”
“We’ll see,” Charles interjected. “But you were saying, Harry.”
“So that’s roughly a quarter of a million, my share. I need the same again. A loan or contribution—or a combination?”
“Why come to us?” Charles asked. “The old man makes those decisions. Of course, we might put in a little money of our own, but he’s the boss.”
“Not this time, Charles. He says he won’t help unless you and Mary agree. Says he’s getting on.”
“Nonsense,” Mary laughed. “He just wants to lay off the responsibility. He knows better than anyone that power and trade, politics and dollars march hand in hand. If he’s agreed, I don’t see how we could object.”
“Might put in a little on our own, too,” Charles repeated. “Can’t do any harm keeping in with your people. You’ll remember where the money came from?”
“How could I ever forget? You’ll remind me all the time.”
“We’ll talk it over, Mary and I. We can work out details later. I want to talk to the old man.”
“We’ll be going, then. Dinner with Mayling’s blasted cousins.” Harry paused at the heavy double doors.
“Mary,” he said lightly, “I might want to borrow Thomas and James for a while.”
“For a while? What do you mean, Harry? ‘Borrow them’?”
“We can talk about it later. Don’t worry. I’m not kidnapping them. Just borrowing them for a while.”
June 7, 1924–June 9, 1924
All the ridiculous traditions had been observed, every trivial convention honored seven times over, Mary told herself as she dressed in irritation after lunch on Saturday, June 7, 1924. Reading the warning signs in her mistress’s gestures and brusque orders, Ah Fung, the little amah whose appearance had hardly changed in twenty years, walked softly. The red-gold of her mistress’s hair had been only slightly dimmed by the passage of the years, though it was discreetly “touched up” at her daughters’ insistence. Tai-tai was not pleased, Ah Fung knew, and she took care not to provoke an explosion of anger. She was anxious to be done so that she could blacken her own glossy braid and put on her best flowered tunic for the wedding.
“All the stupid traditions,” Mary repeated aloud, “not a single stupidity omitted.”
A June wedding, of course. A nuptial high mass in the flying-buttressed Cathedral banked with chrysanthemums from Japan, orchids from Malaya, lilies from Taiwan, and gladiolae from Shanghai, all shipped in ice by fast steamer. Veritable squadrons of monsignori in purple robes surrounding the red-robed Bishop, who would perform the ceremony. Charlotte, a conventional bride-to-be, was conventionally swinging between apprehension and exultation; only two hours earlier she had agreed with joy and then rejected amid tears her mother’s renewed reminder that they could still call off the wedding. That foolhardy suggestion was Mary’s last desperate card, though she really knew that the preparations had already gone too far. Wedding presents arriving from Shanghai, Tokyo, Canton, New York, London, and Paris overflowed not only the spacious mansion called the Small House, but almost overflowed the Great Hall of The Castle. There was even a magnificent Georgian silver tea service from her own brother Thomas, still seeking a larger share of the Sekloongs’ legal business to hasten his progress from the back-benches of the House of Commons to a ministerial appointment.
Nothing had been omitted, no conceivable vulgarity or ostentation from the trousseau that frothed over three rooms to the eight-karat blue-white diamond set in jade that was the engagement ring. Charlotte’s would be the most lavish wedding Hong Kong had seen since her own marriage more than twenty-three years earlier. Hundreds would crowd the church, and thousands would attend the reception. The nuptial pair were to leave the reception to embark on the twenty-one-day voyage to San Francisco, whence they would travel by private railway car across the United States, after two months finally reaching London to spend six months in Europe. The uniting of two great houses was an occasion of state, though the Sekloongs were decidedly senior to the Ways. The pomp of Charlotte’s wedding had, therefore, been meticulously choreographed; it would almost equal, but not outshine the splendid ceremony in which the crown-prince Charles Sekloong had taken his bride.
And that bride, now the mother of the bride? Fiercely amused, Mary realized that the mother of the bride was behaving almost precisely as convention dictated. She swore she would not dissolve into public tears in the Cathedral as tradition further dictated. But she was edgy and nervous, wrung by doubts, and deeply unhappy. Charlotte had enraged Mary with the stubbornness inherited from her mother and her iron-willed grandfather. That wilfulness, coupled with her father’s quiet strength, allowed her to listen dutifully to her mother’s warnings for two months—and adamantly reject them. That morning’s scene had been no more than a repetition of the same stormy battles.
“Look, Mother,” Charlotte had finally said, removing the cold compress from her reddened eyes, “I may be doing a very foolish thing, but it’s my life. I know I’ll be a good wife to Manfei and a good mother too.”
Mary had finally abandoned the fight. An eleventh-hour victory would, in any event, be worse than defeat. Even Mary quailed at the scandal that would follow if Charlotte withdrew on the day of her wedding. But Mary remained convinced that her daughter was marrying the wrong man and, barely twenty years old, certainly at the wrong time.
Yet there almost seemed to be a cunning conspiracy to deprive her of all her children at one swoop. Guinevere, who had always tagged behind her strong-willed younger sister, was following Charlotte’s lead again. Amid her concern with Charlotte, Mary had abstractedly noted that Guinevere was not happy. She sat for long periods in silence, staring into the distance with her needlework forgotten in her lap, as if wrestling with a decision. Mary had ascribed her elder daughter’s distraction to concern for Charlotte that reflected their mother’s freely expressed misgivings. Guinevere normally worried more about others than herself. The older girl was, Mary felt, naturally unhappy at losing her lifelong companion to a stranger. Besides, even unselfish Gwinnie must be disturbed by her sister’s marrying while she herself, fourteen months older, was still unpledged. Mary had resolved to reassure Guinevere after the excitement of the wedding.
Her complacent explanations of her elder daughter’s moodiness had been exploded only the previous night. While the amahs fussed over Charlotte’s trousseau, Guinevere drew Mary aside.
“I’d like a little talk, Mother,” she said.
“Of course, my dear.” Mary was pleased to escape the cloying scene. “Is something wrong?”
“No, Mother, nothing’s wrong. Quite the contrary.”
Having withdrawn from the lacy and flowery fantasies that heaped Charlotte’s bedroom and her adjoining sitting-room, mother and daughter sat in the morning-room overlooking the rear terrace and the long sweep of the gardens.
“Well, Gwinnie my dear, what is it that’s so urgent? I know I’ve been neglecting you, but we’ll have lots of time to talk when this madness is finished.”
“Mother, Chart’s getti
ng married tomorrow. It’ll be a beautiful ceremony.”
“I’m not senile yet,” Mary snapped. “Even if your sister’s determined to make me a grandmother before my time. I could hardly be unaware of those two plain facts, could I?”
“No, Mother, of course not, though Charl’s the same age you were when you married Daddy.” The normally hypersensitive Guinevere did not react to her mother’s testy reply, although she automatically championed her sister. “I just wanted to tell you that I don’t want a grand wedding.”
“If that’s all, I can promise you won’t. You can please yourself.”
“Oh, thank you, Mother,” Guinevere said. “I knew you’d understand. I’m so happy.”
“I still have some influence over my own household and my own children, I hope.” Angry at her younger daughter’s defiance, Mary responded to her elder daughter’s words but not to their meaning. “When the time comes, there’ll be as little fuss as you want.”
“I’m so pleased, Mother. You are a dear. Then you don’t mind?”
“Mind?” Mary demanded, only half aware that she was talking at cross-purposes with the usually direct, uncomplicated Guinevere. “Mind what?”
“You don’t mind that George and I want a small wedding. Just Father Collins to preside, and only the immediate family. Even if Grandfather and Daddy …”
“No, of course not, dear.”
Mary smoothed her skirt over her hips as she rose. The flimsy material would ride up, and skirts were disgracefully, almost uncomfortably short—even though the girls teased her for refusing to show her kneecaps. She relapsed into the chair as the meaning of Guinevere’s words finally struck her.
“George?” she demanded. “George and you? George who? What are you talking about?”
“Mother, I can’t keep on calling him Uncle George or Dr. George. Not after we decided. You do see?”
“I only see that talking to you is like shouting through a sheet of glass. Either I’m an idiot or you are. Will you please tell me …”
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