The Cloud Leopard's Daughter

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘I’ve already said how much our fee will be.’

  ‘Yes, well, thank you.’ Five guineas with a bit extra for inflation wasn’t going to cover the cost of everything Friday Woolfe was offering.

  ‘I’m not looking forward to taking Tahi shopping,’ Amber grumbled.

  ‘Haunui can do that,’ Kitty suggested.

  Aria reappeared carrying a long and heavy-looking parcel wrapped in a bed sheet. She laid it across the arms of a chair and removed the sheet, revealing an extraordinarily beautiful cloak patterned with dense horizontal bands of kiwi and pheasant feathers woven into a base of flax fibre as soft as linen, with a wide taniko hem.

  ‘This is a kahuhuruhuru made for my father, who died ten years ago. It was sent to me after my mother also passed. It is Nga Puhi so it is fitting that your fiancé wear it on the occasion of his marriage.’

  ‘His grandmother was Hareta Atuahaere,’ Kitty said, rashly letting out a secret she’d kept for decades and wondering why.

  ‘Wife of Tupehu? He is Tupehu Atuahaere’s moko?’

  ‘No, he’s the grandson of Haunui Atuahaere, Tupehu’s brother. Tahi’s mother was Haunui and Hareta’s daughter. She died here in Sydney in 1840, when Tahi was born.’

  ‘Ah.’

  No judgment whatsoever in that single little word, Kitty noted.

  ‘Hareta was my great aunt,’ Aria went on. ‘I did not know her well. She left our hapu when she married Tupehu. I believe I only met her once.’

  ‘So you and Tahi are related?’ Kitty asked. Goodness.

  ‘It seems so.’ Aria reached into her pocket and brought out another parcel, this one wrapped in a square of silk and tied with ribbon, and offered it to Amber. ‘Perhaps you would like to wear these?’

  Opening the little packet, Amber gasped as she uncovered a tall, thin hair comb exquisitely carved from bone, and a pair of feathers Kitty recognised as those of the New Zealand huia bird.

  ‘Ma, look! They’re lovely! And only a princess can wear huia feathers. Haunui told me that.’

  ‘Not with the veil,’ Enya said quickly. ‘The teeth on the comb will ruin it.’

  ‘Then I won’t have a veil. You don’t mind, do you?’

  Kitty thought Enya looked as though she did mind, but she very graciously said, ‘It’s your day, sweetheart. You can wear whatever you like.’

  Amber beamed at Aria. ‘Thank you, Miss Aria. And for the cloak. I know Tahi will appreciate it.’

  ‘Won’t he look like a chook, with that over his suit?’ Friday commented.

  ‘Shut up, Friday,’ Aria, Harrie and Sarah said in unison.

  *

  As soon as Kitty and Amber left the brothel they belted along to Elizabeth Street – nearly as commercially busy as George Street these days – to the General Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, where they found Rian, Haunui and Tahi in the act of applying for a marriage licence. Kitty immediately felt guilty for doubting Rian, and wondered why she had. He’d never let Amber down before.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Rian said. ‘How did your meeting go at . . . er . . .’ He eyed the dour-looking clerk examining a sheet of paper, his red ears almost visibly flapping. ‘With our new confederates?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘No fisticuffs?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky. No, everything’s been arranged.’

  ‘Good.’

  The clerk stamped the paper so vigorously that everything on the counter rattled, then announced pompously to Tahi, ‘You may expect to hear whether your application has been successful within eight to ten days.’

  Or two, according to Friday, Kitty thought, her fingers crossed.

  ‘Right, then, I’ll see you back at Enya’s,’ Rian said.

  ‘Why, where are you lot going?’

  Rian looked at her. ‘I don’t know what Haunui’s doing but I’m off to find Wong Kai to see what I can get out of him about Bao.’

  ‘By yourself? He won’t talk to you, you know.’

  ‘How do you know he won’t?’

  ‘Because he’s . . . difficult. I’ve dealt with him before, remember.’

  ‘No, I don’t specifically remember,’ Rian said. ‘I was indisposed, if you care to recall.’

  Kitty hesitated; she was treading on very delicate ground here. At the time that Rian had been abducted and was seriously injured, prompting her to call on Wong Kai for help, she’d recently taken her comfort with Daniel Royce.

  ‘Well, he is,’ she said. ‘Very difficult. He helped us then, but only because it suited him. He’s a snake, Rian, and we should treat him like one.’

  ‘I’m not scared of snakes.’

  ‘You should be.’

  ‘Time to go, boy,’ Haunui said to Tahi.

  But before they could move, Kitty asked, ‘Will you take Amber back to Enya’s, please?’

  For a moment Amber looked as though she might protest, but in the end she merely took Tahi’s hand.

  Kitty and Rian watched them go.

  ‘The Chinese quarter, then?’ Rian said.

  *

  The ‘Chinese quarter’ wasn’t an exclusively Oriental trading precinct, but an area on lower George Street near the wharves where more Chinese-operated businesses could be found in Sydney than anywhere else.

  ‘Where will he be hiding?’ Rian wondered aloud as they stood outside a draper’s and tailor’s owned, according to the brightly painted shingle above the shop front, by someone called Lau Chi Ho.

  ‘He won’t be hiding,’ Kitty said. ‘He’ll be around here somewhere, squatting like a big fat spider in his fancy rooms counting his money.’

  ‘Is he fat?’

  ‘No, actually he isn’t. He looks a lot like Fu.’

  ‘Shall we ask in the draper’s here? They all seem to know one another’s business.’

  While Rian liked Wong Fu very much, and a handful of other hong with whom he’d established good commercial relationships in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Macau, he was, in general, wary of the Chinese. In his opinion they could be secretive, suspicious and extremely wily. He did, however, remind himself that that could apply to businessmen of all stripes, including himself – perhaps it was the impenetrability of their languages that bothered him. The Katipo crew had enough smatterings of different European languages to eavesdrop successfully on many vendors’ and buyers’ conversations, but they had no hope of that with the Chinese. And the Chinese had a genuine reason for mistrusting and resenting Europeans: they were mistreated everywhere they went beyond their homelands, and had suffered for decades from the influx of opium forced onto their people by the bloody British.

  ‘We can try, I suppose.’

  Rian followed Kitty into the store, which smelt of cotton and something else he couldn’t place. A Chinese man wearing smart European clothes stood at the counter folding a length of fabric.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Kitty said. ‘We’re looking for a gentleman named Mr Wong Kai. Would you know where we could find him, please?’

  The man stopped his folding and looked at Kitty for a long, calculating moment. ‘Good afternoon, madam. He has rooms above Sun Lee Sing’s furniture store. But you will need to speak to Mr Sun first.’

  ‘Of course. Thank you for your help.’

  Outside, Kitty and Rian passed a laundry, a fruit and vegetable market, a Chinese herbalist, three boarding houses for Chinese men, a shop advertising services such as letter writing, grog shops, cook shops, several general stores selling imported Chinese products, and what were clearly a couple of gambling dens before entering Sun Lee Sing’s emporium.

  ‘Mr Sun?’ Kitty asked as they were approached by yet another Chinese man wearing better clothes than Rian owned.

  The man bowed.

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Wong Kai and were directed here,’ Kitty said.

  ‘A business matter?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Rian replied.

  ‘One moment.’

  Mr Sun went to the back of the store
and struck a small gong, which reverberated right through Rian’s head, then stood in repose, as still as one of his pieces of furniture.

  Eventually another man appeared, this one wearing traditional Chinese dress.

  ‘Oh,’ Kitty said, sounding surprised. ‘Hello, So-Yee.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Farrell, Captain Farrell. You wish to speak with Wong Kai?’

  Puzzled, Rian looked at her. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘You won’t remember him. He was there when we rescued you.’

  Rian felt his shoulders tense; Christ, that annoyed him. It made him sound so pathetic. And no, he didn’t remember the man, the sour-looking bastard.

  ‘He works for Wong Kai,’ Kitty went on. ‘And, yes, please, we do need to speak to him,’ she said to So-Yee.

  ‘Come.’

  They followed him through to the back of the store, upstairs and down a long corridor, seeing no one. So-Yee knocked on a door and ushered them in.

  A man sat behind a vast, highly polished desk on a chair that was, Rian thought, ridiculously close to a throne. He looked so much like Fu that he had to be Wong Kai.

  He didn’t get up, though he did say, ‘Mrs Farrell, how delightful to see you again.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Wong,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s good to see you again, too. This is my husband, Captain Rian Farrell. Rian, this is Mr Wong Kai.’

  Rian nodded. ‘Mr Wong. Please accept my belated gratitude for your help when, er, I required it.’ The words stuck in his throat, but they needed to be said.

  It was Kai’s turn to nod, as if saving abducted people from crazed criminals was all in a day’s work. He gestured with a lazy hand. ‘Please, sit. I trust you have recovered from your travails in Ballarat and Melbourne?’

  ‘Well, I should have,’ Rian said. ‘It was nine years ago.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘You’ve cut your hair,’ Kitty remarked.

  Rian gave her a look: it seemed a very intimate thing to say.

  She met his gaze. ‘The last time Mr Wong and I met he wore his hair in the Manchu style.’

  Many Chinese still did shave their foreheads and wear the long braided queue, but more and more, Rian was noticing, were cutting their hair into European styles, as Kai had done.

  ‘You haven’t joined the Taipings, have you?’ he asked.

  Kai smiled a bit unpleasantly and with such ease that Rian wondered whether he ever smiled any other way. ‘You understand that the queue is a symbol of subjugation to the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty? And that failure to wear the hairstyle is punishable by beheading?’

  ‘Yes, actually,’ Rian replied, regretting his comment now.

  ‘What do you know about the God Worshipping Society?’ Kai asked.

  Understanding that he was referring to the Taiping rebels, Rian said, ‘Not much.’

  ‘They have been at war against the Qing dynasty for thirteen years. They were formed by a man named Hong who believes he is the brother of your Jesus Christ.’ Kai spread his hands in a ‘what can I say?’ gesture. ‘He has based his new dynasty, the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, on Christian precepts and declared himself Heavenly King. They have outlawed prostitution, slavery, foot-binding, the subjugation of women, adultery, gambling, opium smoking, and the use of alcohol and tobacco.’

  Kitty asked, ‘You don’t agree with outlawing slavery, foot-binding and the subjugation of women?’

  Kai shrugged. ‘Who am I to attempt to change the customs of a thousand years? That is the emperor’s job. Or God’s, which in our culture is the same thing. The Taipings’ God, however, knows no mercy whatsoever. Their army is a million strong and they have raged through the south-eastern provinces of China. Twenty million people have lost their lives.’ He sat back. ‘No, Captain Farrell, I have not joined the Taipings. I have adopted a European hairstyle and clothing because the businessmen I treat with find a European countenance to be more acceptable. But you did not come here to talk about the God Worshipping Society, did you?’

  ‘No, we did not,’ Kitty said. ‘We’d like to talk about your niece, Bao.’

  Kai remained silent.

  ‘We were recently in Dunedin, where we saw Fu,’ Rian said. ‘He told us that Bao was sent away by you without his permission, and that she’s to marry someone as part of a business deal. Is he correct in assuming that?’

  Kai eyed him for a long moment. ‘This is family business, Captain, and Chinese family business at that. Fu is a weak man. And ill. He should not speak of our affairs outside the family.’

  ‘The tong, you mean,’ Kitty said. ‘This is to do with you gaining power, isn’t it?’

  Kai brushed an invisible speck of something off his immaculately cut, pure linen waistcoat. ‘If I may be so forthright, Mrs Farrell, that is not your affair.’

  Rian saw the set of his wife’s jaw and leant back in his chair, waiting for the explosion.

  ‘Yes. It. Is,’ she said, her voice frosty enough to blacken the leaves of the hardiest of plants. ‘We’re very fond of Bao and so is my daughter. We’re extremely concerned for her, and for Fu. He’s asked us to find her and return her to him, so we would appreciate you telling us where she is, please.’

  Kai laughed. ‘I am afraid I cannot do that.’

  ‘Cannot, or will not?’

  ‘All right, will not, if you insist.’

  Kitty took a second to smooth the fabric of her skirt, her head down, lips pursed. Then she said, ‘You know, Mr Wong, when you and I did business in Melbourne, I thought the deal we struck concerning the gold was fair. And of course I’ll always be grateful for your assistance regarding the matter of Avery Bannerman.’ She looked up. ‘But you didn’t do that for me, did you? Bannerman and Lily Pearce were rivals and you had to get rid of them. You don’t do anything if it doesn’t benefit you, do you? You’re as selfish and greedy as Fu is kind and wise. It’s no wonder he’s the Cloud Leopard and you’re not.’

  Kai’s face remained impassive as he said, ‘Captain, please control your wife’s behaviour.’

  ‘Haven’t been able to so far.’

  Kitty crossed to Kai’s desk and leant over it as far as she could reach. ‘Where is she, Kai? Who’s got her?’

  Alarmed now, Rian also stood.

  ‘China isn’t that big, you know,’ Kitty went on. ‘We know she must be there somewhere. We’ll find her.’

  Unperturbed, Kai replied, ‘Are you sure my brother’s intelligence is correct? She could be anywhere. And China is very big.’

  Rian took Kitty’s arm. ‘We should go. This isn’t getting us anywhere.’

  Kai said, ‘Yes, please do leave. And if you persist in trying to find my niece, you will very much regret it.’

  Outside in the hallway So-Yee was waiting to escort them back downstairs, which he did in silence. In the doorway of Sun Lee Sing’s furniture store, where they all stood blinking in the sunlight, he said suddenly, ‘I am very fond of Bao. She is in Hong Kong. If you locate a man named Yip Chun Kit, also known as the Frog, you will find her.’

  Rian and Kitty stared at him. Kitty said, ‘You sent Fu the letter!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell him Bao had been sent to Hong Kong?’ Rian asked. ‘Would have saved us all a lot of time.’

  So-Yee fixed him with a hard look. ‘When I wrote the letter I did not know. But now you do. She has faith in you, and so must I. Please bring her back.’

  Rian met So-Yee’s gaze for a moment, then gave him a firm nod.

  Chapter Five

  It rained a little on the morning of Amber and Tahi’s wedding day, but no one cared. Amber looked gorgeous, with a veil after all, arranged to safely accommodate Aria’s comb and huia plumes, and Tahi a very suitable consort in the feathered cloak fastened over his new morning suit. The cats, Delilah and Samson, did attend the ceremony, though not as bridesmaids despite the satin ribbons they wore around their necks. Pierre and Simon sneaked them into the church in wicker baskets, though the
cats gave themselves away by yowling during the consecration. Nonplussed, the reverend stared intently into the small congregation, who gazed resolutely back while Amber giggled into her bouquet of cream daffodils.

  Rian gave Amber away and Kitty was her maid-of-honour, wearing her indigo velvet skirt and a tightly-fitting jade brocade jacket made by Harrie Downey. Haunui was Tahi’s best man, squeezed into a suit of clothes, hired for the occasion, that were really not big enough. He spent half the service wriggling about trying surreptitiously to encourage the seat of the trousers out of his backside

  Pierre was, as usual, splendidly attired. He wore a cream satin brocade waistcoat embroidered with tiny sprigs of forget-me-nots over a white linen shirt, a navy blue velvet coat and off-white trousers and reeked of lavender scent, and received the usual hectoring from the crew for it, which he nobly ignored. The standard of dress went down from there, terminating in Mick, whose best trousers had a tear in the knee and who’d spilled rum on his shirt even before they’d arrived at the church.

  ‘That went well,’ Rian said to Kitty as they exited St James’s after the ceremony.

  ‘It did,’ she replied happily. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  They looked fondly at Amber standing with Tahi and Israel. She was laughing uproariously at something, her head thrown back, her glorious hair tumbling down her back. Tahi was gazing at her, and so was Israel. But who wouldn’t? Kitty thought. She was such a bright and vivacious girl. Then Israel thumped Tahi on the back, so hard in fact that Tahi took a step forwards, then said something that must have been equally funny because they all laughed like hell again. Then Israel waved to Mick, gave Amber a quick peck on the cheek, and trotted off.

  ‘I hope he doesn’t feel too left out,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Israel, now that Amber and Tahi are married.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Rian said, ‘it’s a ship’s crew I’m running here, not a bloody schoolyard. Are you ready to go? I’m starving.’

  Friday and Aria provided a truly delicious wedding breakfast at the Siren’s Arms, including soup, oysters, fish, poultry, joints, several game pies, boiled and roasted vegetables, fancy jellies, pastries and tarts, a wedding cake with two sugar cats prancing across the top (decorated by Harrie), ale, spirits and French wine, some very fine pekoe tea and good percolated coffee. Even Pierre approved.