by Dawn Farnham
‘Is it the divorce?’ Shilah said, a light glinting in her eye.
Charlotte sighed. ‘No, of course not. Shilah, Robert cannot divorce Teresa. You might as well get used to it.’
Shilah’s face fell and Charlotte regretted her tone. Amber went to her mother’s side.
‘My dear, I am sorry. But it is the truth. Robert can love you and live with you and your children but, under the laws of England, he cannot marry you.’
Shilah said she felt unwell and took to her room. A servant was sent for Robert, who arrived in a state of undue excitement which turned to annoyance when he found out his child was not in the process of being born and he had had to struggle through the rain. When he came from Shilah’s side he looked pointedly at his sister.
‘Well, well, Kitt. What is all this? You send for me when I am busy and in such a storm. I have a town full of addicts and criminals and more each day pouring in. I have no money for …’
‘Robbie, be quiet. I have come to make a proposition and it concerns Amber.’
Robert listened, walked a little around his living room, and listened some more.
‘I am not against this plan, Kitt. After all, they are not even cousins so it is even more appropriate.’
Charlotte threw a glance of warning at her brother.
‘All right, of course, they will never know. And it does serve, it does serve. Amber is sixteen and must marry in any case. But will Alexander have her? There’s the rub.’
‘I have no more patience,’ she snapped. ‘He will accept it or he will not. If he does not he may find he has no finances. I will settle his debts in Scotland for Aunt Jeanne is worried sick, but beyond that he may have to find work as a clerk in Bousteads or Jardines. Serve him right.’
‘This is a change of mind, sister. You have always spoilt him.’
‘Agreed. And now I have come to realise it. I have financial troubles in Java. Such things have a way of settling the mind. If nothing is done, no-one shall have a fortune.’
‘A whisky, sister?’
‘A wee tot, perhaps.’
Brother and sister shared a smile. She felt the emptiness at the heart of her but she had made up her mind. She would cover it all up and go away on The Queen of the South and settle her business like a clever Scottish woman. It was almost a relief. Love was such a slavery.
‘If he agrees, they shall be married,’ Charlotte went on, ‘at Brieswijk, under Dutch law. Alexander will be given responsibility for the estate and share in its profits. If he agrees and proves himself, it will all pass to him, Amber and his heirs when I die.’
Robert handed the glass of whisky to his sister.
‘This is a new resolute you,’ he said and raised his glass.
‘Robbie. I have had a terrible fright. Three years of complacency and now, sudden upheaval. First the Caldwell business. I lost a lot of money.’
Robert turned down his mouth. They had still not located Caldwell, the Court Registrar who acted as agent for land purchases and had run off with a hundred thousand dollars.
‘We continue to search. We will find him, but of the money …’
Charlotte raised her hand. ‘Never mind. I have accepted that. But I have neglected everything in Batavia and I must straighten it out. Nicolaus, Tigran’s eldest son, has died, God bless him. He was a good man and it seems that he has not been forthcoming about some of the decisions of the company. I need to understand. If it is too bad, I may have to sell off some parts of the business for I cannot run such an enterprise myself.’
She turned the whisky in the glass.
‘I have broken with Zhen.’
Robert was so startled he put his glass down with a thud.
She put up her hand. ‘I can’t speak of it.’ Tears sprang to her eyes and she brushed them away quickly.
‘Sister, why?’
‘No, not now,’ she said. ‘Please, Robert.’
Robert nodded his head and stayed silent.
‘But there is Lily. I have to tell Alex immediately. He will not be in Singapore five minutes and he will find out.’
Robert nodded. ‘Yes. For heaven’s sake just tell him. What will he do? Sulk? Run away? Cry?’
Charlotte smiled ruefully. ‘Frankly, at this moment, I don’t give a damn.’
Robbie settled in a chair. A silence fell between them.
‘Since you are in such a frame of mind, perhaps you can speak to Teresa?’
Charlotte glanced at her brother who smiled.
* * *
The rain had done nothing to dampen the trade at the Heaven’s Gate brothel. Men were lined the length of the corridor and out under the five-foot way, huddled against the rain, but, Min thought, it had not been a good day. Another girl had eaten opium, ending her life in drugged oblivion. This one had been so very fast. She had been only three weeks in the brothel. Sixteen and dead. In one month seven girls had taken their lives, two had died of beatings by a client and one had stabbed her attacker to death and been taken away.
Min looked over at Zhen, passed out on her bed.
He had been half drunk when he’d arrived and had drunk even more, pouring the arrack down his throat. When he needed to do this, to find some sort of oblivion, he came here, to her. He had not been in almost three years and she knew it was about the fight he had had with the Mah Nuk woman.
She fingered the paper that informed all members of the Grand Triad that Zhen was the new leader.
Ironfist Wang stood downstairs, guarding his Lord. The whole town knew he had broken with the English concubine but it was not enough. She had humiliated and hurt the Shan Chu. He lay upstairs in a drunken stupor because of her. She was dangerous and Wang’s job was to eliminate those he considered dangerous to the kongsi leader.
15
In the pale dark before dawn, Alexander Manouk stood on the deck as the ship ploughed white-lipped furrows on the dark waters of the Straits of Malacca.
Three years of icy Scottish winds had dulled his memory of the soft warmth of the breezes. The rhythmic splash of the paddle wheel casts its hypnotic spell and he lost himself in this moment of pure, cool happiness. He knew it would not last long. The sun would burn it up.
His home, Singapore, was ahead. He had cast off the shackles of childhood and the irksome constrictions of Scotland’s tiresome morality.
He saw Miss McNair approaching. She was joining her brother, the private secretary to the new Governor, and they had sailed from Calcutta together. He had flirted with her briefly but he had curbed the natural instincts and impulses of his nature. He had not tried to seduce her. She was pretty enough but he was in such trouble he had no wish to add to the store.
Nevertheless he ran his lips over her hand and smiled his handsome smile and knew that, at virginal sixteen, she would be so easy to seduce. A kiss perhaps, no harm in that, he thought, as she gazed into his eyes.
But he was saved, as was she, from the dangers of such thoughts with the arrival of her nanny, a woman of ample figure and voice.
‘My dear,’ she said and Miss McNair, with a brief look of disappointment, turned away. Alexander forgot her instantly. He turned his face eastwards and his thoughts to what awaited him in Singapore.
An angry mother, no doubt, but at least no overbearing father to set him straight or force him into the navy or some such. Uncle Robert might have a word with him, but on the whole Alexander thought he might be quite lucky. His mother, at the first sight of him, would forget all about his past sins in the pleasure of having him home. Then he would, as quickly as was seemly, renew his acquaintance with Min, the brothel keeper in Chinatown to whom his honorary Uncle Zhen had introduced him when he turned thirteen.
Alexander knew well that it was this early introduction to the fleshpots of Chinatown which had made him itchy. That’s what it was. His schoolfriends, of whom he had many, all said so. He was an itchy boy. Women were the balm.
Alex smiled. The sun came up, bursting onto the sea, scything its long gold
en rays into the vast green jungle. A jabbering of monkeys echoed down the hillside. The ship’s men called in Hindustani and the Javanese crew began a song.
He felt intensely happy, the call of the East bringing him home.
* * *
Charlotte stood at the end of Dalhousie Ghaut upon which the passengers would disembark. It stood almost exactly where she had lived with Robert when she first came to Singapore. The police offices had stood on this very spot and she looked over at the fort and down towards Tanjong Rhu, remembering her first nights in this beautiful place.
Her gaze went out over the harbour. HMS Valiant was still there. She had thought of writing to Edmund but had rejected it. What was the point and it was unworthy to think of him simply because her relations with Zhen had gone so terribly wrong.
Her mind slipped to him and she closed her eyes, willing tears away. She heard nothing of him or from him. The river was like a wall of silence between two towns, two cultures, and she had never felt it more intensely than now. From here she was glad that she could not see his godown, way beyond the bend in the river. She waved the fan before her face and settled her emotions.
Robert and Amber came to her side.
Amber was smoothing the flounces of the blue organza over the hooped petticoat. The top hugged her figure emphasising the slenderness of her waist. Her hands moved in constant, convulsive motions. Her face was flushed and she never took her gaze for a moment off the water.
The sampans and lighters were jostling for place in the river mouth. The tremendous rains had washed away the filth in the gutters and the canals. The tide was high and the air smelt crisp and clean.
‘There, there,’Amber squealed and hopped up and down with excitement.
All eyes turned and Charlotte saw him, standing, holding the mast of the sampan. Instinctively she raised her hand and Alex saw his mother and waved wildly.
As the sampan knocked against the steps of the Ghaut he leapt out and ran quickly up to his mother, picking her up in his arms.
Charlotte’s anger at him fled. She was so happy to see him. He appeared like a breath of air, filled with vigour, tall and handsome. She could see Zhen’s features in him. It seemed so obvious, but perhaps only to her eyes.
‘Welcome home, my love,’ Charlotte said, her voice thick with emotion.
‘Welcome home, Alex,’ Robert said and Alex grinned.
‘Thank you, Uncle. I’m prodigiously glad to be here.’
Alex’s eyes strayed to the young girl standing at his mother’s side.
‘Amber?’ he asked hesitantly. He slowly looked her up and down.
Amber was delighted at this response and curtsied elegantly to him. He had grown more handsome than a god and she was somewhat breathless, but she pulled herself under control.
‘Why Alexander Manouk, did you not recognise me?’ She cocked her head on one side and smiled widely.
He went up to her and took her hand, putting it to his lips. She smelled of roses and he took her in from beneath his lashes, the slenderness of her waist, the swell of her bosom, the fine skin of her cheek, the deep brown of her eyes.
Robert coughed. ‘Alex, you shall dine with us tonight.’ He turned to his daughter. ‘Come with me, Amber. Leave the boy and his mother.’
Amber began to protest but she saw her father’s face and curtsied obediently and left with small glances backwards.
When the carriage arrived at Charlotte’s town house, the servants gathered round. Many had known him as a boy and Alex greeted them enthusiastically.
When these duties were done, he threw himself into an armchair in the drawing room.
‘By heavens, Mother, Amber has certainly grown up.’ His accent, Charlotte noticed, had taken a decided Scottish turn.
‘Why yes, my boy, that’s what girls do, they grow into women. You have grown too, you look well.’
And he did. His shoulders were wider, stronger, his waist was narrow and he looked well in the tight-fitting jacket and breeches which were the fashion. His black hair had changed. He no longer wore it long. It was shorter but she was glad he had not taken to the beard. He was fine featured, the dark eyes and the strong jaw those of his father. But he seemed utterly unaware of the storm he had unleashed on Jeanne and on her and his insouciance was irksome.
‘I am well, very well and very happy to be home.’
Charlotte took a deep breath. Alex waited. He knew she must have her say.
‘I am sorry you have returned under such a cloud.’
‘Mother, you will forgive me. I have been somewhat liberal and headstrong I admit, but oats must be sown, Mama.’
‘You have caused Jeanne great anxiety. You have behaved badly and become indebted. It won’t do, really. So I hope you have sown all the oats you intend.’ She turned away and rang for tea.
Alex gazed at his mother. She looked prodigiously well.
‘Well, Mama, I am still very young so it is hard to say.’ He laughed and Charlotte’s face became serious.
‘It is no laughing matter. You have consorted with a married woman, been ejected disgracefully from your school and Jeanne is hounded by your creditors.’
‘Straight to it, then, Mother. Well for the first, the married woman was quite consenting, even demanding. For the second, the college was increasingly pointless; and for the third, I had not thought money to be such a concern.’
Charlotte gazed at her son. ‘The morality of your actions with the Dean’s wife, I shall not dwell upon. You know very well. Your lack of concern for your Aunt Jeanne seems to point to a certain heartlessness. As for money, well it is never a concern for those who do not earn it.’
‘I am not heartless. I am sorry if Aunt Jeanne has been worried, naturally.’
‘Not enough to curb your behaviour apparently. Really, Alexander.’
‘I had not realised that the money was so important. I had presumed you would pay it. So what are you saying? That those who do not earn money do not understand its value. So am I to earn it then?’
‘Yes. If you want it from me, then yes.’
Alex’s eyes opened wide. He had expected to be met with a small wall of annoyance but his mother seemed determined to make a mountain out of a molehill.
‘Mother, I am hardly arrived.’
‘No time like the present.’
The tea tray arrived and for the space of several minutes neither mother nor son spoke.
Alex rose and went to gaze down on the street. A series of Chinese coolies passed in the distance carrying goods on their long poles. He smiled. He had missed Singapore and the Chinese girls especially. He was sobered by the extraordinary sight of a line of black-hooded monks parading along the street. Monks? He shook his head.
‘I should be most obliged if you would settle down and marry Amber.’
He turned. ‘Amber?’
‘Alexander, you must marry. It will settle you from all this … this womanising you seem to have adopted as a profession.’
‘I see.’
‘I want you to agree to this marriage which Amber most decidedly wishes. I think the girl is madly in love with you.’
‘Is she?’
Alexander smiled. He had always known Amber was in love with him. It allowed him to disdain and ignore her as it suited him. There was that in him, the disregard for women who chose to adore him.
‘If you agree, then you will take her to Brieswijk. You will assume control of the estate. Things are not as they should be in the company. We must see to it.’
‘Well, Mother. My head is reeling. May I have a moment to consider.’ Alexander sat and took up his tea cup.
Charlotte gazed at her son. She realised she had absolutely no idea what, if anything, was going on inside his head.
‘In a fortnight the Queen will be here and I shall set sail for Batavia, with, I hope, you affianced to Amber. The wedding will take place in Brieswijk and you shall learn how to take care of a great estate.’
‘Well, I see y
ou have thought this through. I am somewhat stunned.’
‘No you’re not. You have known half your life that Brieswijk is your destiny. And yes I have had ample time to think this through. In return for all this I will settle all your debts and you shall prove you can be a master.’
Alex smiled wryly. ‘And if I do not?’
‘Then I suggest you find work with Bousteads as a clerk and look for lodgings in the town.’
Alexander laughed. Charlotte had expected a variety of reactions but amusement was not amongst them.
‘Well that is a horrid alternative. May I take a day or so to think about it. Unless Mr. Boustead is in urgent need of a useless clerk.’
‘You may take a day or two, of course. But no more. I need your answer.’
The mother that confronted Alex was not the one he had left. They had not met for more than three years and he had left as a young boy. Perhaps she had always been more resolute than he remembered her. It was something of a shock and he realised that she was serious.
‘You understand that I am not in love with Amber.’
This caused Charlotte to pause. Alexander saw it. ‘Do you wish me to marry a woman I do not love?’
Charlotte frowned. ‘We marry for many reasons, Alexander. I did not love Tigran when first I married him, but I grew to do so. Marriage and children will settle you, give you something to strive for.’
Alex gazed steadily at his mother. ‘Why did you marry him, Mother?’
Charlotte shot a look at her son. ‘That is not the question at hand and don’t change the subject.’
Charlotte turned away.
‘There is something else,’ she said and went to the window.
She watched the Malay gardeners moving slowly across the grass clearing the great quantity of branches and leaves which lay, tossed and broken from the storm.
‘I have a child, a daughter.’
Alexander stared at his mother’s back. It was tense. She drew her shoulders together and turned her neck, almost imperceptibly, to one side as if her head was heavy.
‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘I mean I have a daughter.’
‘You mean you have remarried? To whom?’