'Lucky Nick!' smiled Ling San mischievously, while they were all shaking hands.
As is the way with such encounters, it was decided to repair to one of the hotel bars for a drink and a gossip. Maggie soon discovered that Dietrich Hauser was the Hong Kong representative of a German banking company, and that he and Ling San had been married only a few months.
'And how long have you been married, Maggie?' Ling San enquired.
Maggie felt her cheeks flush as she replied, 'Nearly a week.'
There was a short silence and she could almost hear what the two opposite were thinking. Only a week and he's gone back to the U.K. without her!
'You haven't met her husband, Blake Morden, have you, Dietrich?' Nick put in rather too hastily.
The German shook his blond head, his bright blue eyes fixed on Maggie thoughtfully. 'Not yet. The word has gone round that he's coming to H.K. to put up the new Elizabeth Complex out at Shatin.'
'Not at Shatin,' Maggie put in quickly. 'That was the original idea, but the site has been changed since then.'
Nick smiled at her and then at the other two. 'Maggie will be working on the job with Blake, when he returns,' he said. 'She's an expert in her own right, I may tell you.'
Ling San exclaimed, 'You are a builder? I think that is wonderful! I like to hear of women doing important things. I, too, may do important things one day.'
She laughed up at her handsome husband, who gazed back at her proudly. 'Ling San thinks of starting her own—what do you call it, liebling?—beauty shop, isn't it?' and Ling San nodded her glossy little head enthusiastically.
'What a marvellous idea,' Maggie put in. 'May I be your first customer?'
It was all very pleasant and friendly, and when they finally rose to part it had been agreed that Maggie should visit the Hausers' flat in Hong Kong when they all returned there the following day.
Dietrich and Ling San went into the gaming rooms and Maggie and Nick wandered out of the hotel on to the waterfront. It was still very hot and humid, although the sound of the gently lapping water in the darkness seemed to make the air feel cooler. 'Ling San's a darling, isn't she?' Maggie sighed. 'And so lovely! Somehow you don't think of Chinese women as being so glamorous. I suppose it's the picture we have of mainland China, with all the women in baggy trousers and those peaked caps.'
Nick laughed. 'I can't see Ling San in a peaked cap. The Hong Kong Chinese are quite different, of course, and Dietrich is extremely prosperous. He can indulge his little wife in every way. He adores her excessively.'
Maggie was silent as they stood looking over the sweep of the bay, with the myriad lights from the hotel behind throwing coloured reflections on to the smooth water. It was so peaceful under the banyan trees. The pools of shadow seemed to enclose them intimately. And the treacherous longing came back in a flood, for Blake to be there beside her. She yearned for him so painfully that she could almost believe that one could die of love.
Nick said, 'Over there is the island of—' He broke off. 'Why, what's wrong, Maggie? You're crying!'
Her shoulders were shaking as she fought to control her tears and Nick's arm came round her comfortingly. He held her close against him, as he had held her in the cemetery, and she buried her head against his shirt and sobbed her heart out. He didn't try to stop her. He thought she was missing Blake and that was all there was to it, of course.
'Poor little Maggie,' he said softly, and put his cheek against her hair. 'It's a hell of a honeymoon for you, but he'll soon be back.'
He pulled out a folded handkerchief and she mopped her eyes. 'I don't know why you put up with me, Nick, I'm really wet just now, in every way. I think you should forget about me and leave me to mope on my own.'
He was looking down at her, but she couldn't see the expression on his face. He said huskily, 'It would take more than a few tears to persuade me to do that, my dear.' And before she realised what he was going to do he had bent and kissed her.
His kiss was slow and gentle, not exactly a kiss of consolation but not an invitation to passion either. Gratefully Maggie kissed him back and whispered, 'You are a darling, Nick. I almost wish—'
He put a large hand over her mouth. 'Don't say it,' he laughed rather unevenly, 'or you'll be putting ideas into my head! Now, come along, to bed with you, my girl, and tomorrow morning we go back to Hong Kong. What with all the bustle there the time will fly, you'll see, and it won't seem any time at all until Blake's back with you.'
They made their way back to the hotel arm-in-arm, and neither of them took much notice of the little group of people they met coming out. If they had done Maggie might have recognised the red hair and curious eyes of the woman who had seemed to be so interested in them earlier in the day, in the cemetery.
Nick was right about Hong Kong. From the moment they stepped off the jetfoil on to the ferry pier Maggie was aware of the brash, exciting atmosphere of the place. A taxi took them from the ferry through streets congested with traffic to the offices that the Morden Corporation had leased on the top floor of a towering white skyscraper overlooking the harbour. The office was humming with activity already, although the actual building work wasn't due to start for a couple of weeks. A small team had been sent out from London and reinforced by local talent—several earnest, well-dressed young Chinese men bent industriously over their desks or drawing-tables.
'Wonderful workers, the Chinese,' Nick whispered, as they passed through the main office to the Manager's section. 'They're so anxious to make their way and get rich that it's unbelievable the amount of work they'll get through.
One or two of the office staff from London were already vaguely known to Maggie, and she smiled at them as she walked beside Nick. She was conscious of the odd looks they gave her. No doubt the news of her marriage to Blake Morden had reached Hong Kong through the Corporation grapevine already, and it was only natural that they should be curious to see the girl who had captured the Chairman's son—the charismatic Blake Morden. If only they knew just how much satisfaction it had brought her, she thought with a pang.
In the Manager's office a tall, grizzled man with a narrow, clever face got up from his desk to greet them. Robert Denby was one of the Corporation's most trusted senior officers and although Maggie had never had much to do with him in the course of her work, she was familiar with his reputation as a stickler for discipline—a man who guarded jealously the reputation and good name of the Morden Corporation.
He came round the desk, holding out his hand to her. 'Mrs Morden—delighted to welcome you to Hong Kong.' He nodded a greeting to Nick and pulled out a chair for Maggie. 'Your husband called in to see me before he flew back to London. How unfortunate that he should be recalled when you'd only just arrived. However, he explained to me that Nicholas here was looking after your comfort, and I hope you haven't been too put out by the change of arrangements.'
Maggie sank into the chair, somewhat overcome by this rather ponderous speech and smiled politely, not being able to think of any reply.
The Manager pressed a buzzer on his desk. 'You would like coffee I'm sure, Mrs Morden. I'll get my secretary to produce one.'
The door opened to admit a rather plain, red-haired young woman whose face was vaguely familiar to Maggie. As her pale eyes alighted on Maggie she blinked quickly but gave no other sign of recognition. She turned to the Manager. 'Yes, Mr Denby?'
'Mrs Morden has just arrived from Macau, Dorothy,' he said. 'Do you think you could provide her with a coffee? And one for Mr Grant too, of course.'
The red-haired secretary's eyes went to Maggie again, then to Nick, who smiled at her.
'Hullo, Dorothy, how are you?' Nick evidently knew her. 'Enjoying Hong Kong?'
She blinked again. She had very light eyelashes, which gave her a slightly foxy look. 'Oh, I'm fine, thank you, Mr Grant,' she mumbled, and slid quickly out of the office and closed the door.
Well, thought Maggie, what's on her mind? Then she forgot all about it as Mr Denby launched into a l
ong account to Nick of a consignment of air-conditioning units which had apparently been lost somewhere on route from Japan. She tried to concentrate on what they were saying, in case she should be involved later on in dealing with the matter. Then she stopped listening, as she remembered that as soon as Blake got back she would be concerned no longer with the business of the Morden Corporation.
They drank their coffee and managed eventually to get away from Mr Denby and his complaints. Nick showed Maggie his own small drawing-office and the much larger office that had been allocated to Blake and herself to share.
'It's a super office,' She walked over to the wide plate-glass window and stood looking down over the harbour far below, thronged with shipping of all descriptions. 'Super!' she repeated, and could have wept as she thought of Blake sharing it with someone else when she had gone.
Nick joined her at the window. 'Nice view,' he observed casually, looking down into her face. He added tentatively, 'You are looking forward to working here with Blake on this job, aren't you, Maggie?'
She almost panicked. Nick was perceptive; he was on the verge of finding out that something was really wrong.
'Oh yes, it's what I want more than anything in the world,' she told him, and that was the truth anyway.
There was a short silence, then he said, 'That's all right, then,' but she wasn't sure she had convinced him.
He took her arm. 'Come along, then, I'm going to take you to the hotel where we're all being housed for the duration.'
A taxi deposited them, with Maggie's luggage, at a large hotel a short distance out from the centre of the city. Blake, as befitted his status, had an elegant suite of rooms on the twenty-third floor.
When the porter had left them Nick said, 'You'll be comfortable here until Blake gets back?'
Maggie looked round the spacious rooms. 'The lap of luxury,' she said lightly.
Nick said, 'My room is a much humbler affair a few floors down, overlooking the car park.' He gave her the number and told her to contact him at any time if she needed assistance.
'Of course I will,' said Maggie, 'and thank you for looking after me so well, but I'm sure I can stand on my own two feet now. I mustn't impose on your good nature any longer.'
Nick gave her an odd look. 'If you think I'm going to let you cope on your own you're dead wrong, my girl. Blake left me as a stand-in for him and a stand-in I shall remain, however inadequate.' He stood quite still, looking down into her face, a half-smile on his mouth, his eyes soft. 'You'll not object, Maggie?'
Suddenly she choked up and was unable to speak. She shook her head dumbly.
'That's O.K., then.' He looked pleased. 'I'll ring you later on and we'll fix a time for dinner.' He turned and went out of the room rather quickly.
Maggie sank down on to the bed. She was almost sure now that Nick guessed that all was not well between her and Blake, and that he was going to be on the spot to step into Blake's place if he could.
She sighed deeply, wondering how things were going to turn out.
The days passed. It was nearly a week since Blake had left Macau and Maggie had heard nothing from him.
Part of each day she spent at the office, although there was little she could do without Blake's direction at this stage. But at least she could hold a watching brief and familiarise herself with the office set-up. Just as if, she thought dismally, she was going to be there to see the work through.
The office staff welcomed her as one of themselves. They were a friendly bunch—all except Mr Denby's red-haired secretary, Dorothy Steel.
'Don't take any notice of her,' advised Joan, who was in charge of the typists. 'She's always a bit of a pain in the neck. She got a thing about Nick Grant back in London, a few months ago, and she's probably feeling livid that he should be taking care of you until Mr Morden comes back.'
Nick was taking care of her very thoroughly indeed. With the work at this stage he seemed able to please himself how much time he took off.
He and Maggie lunched together each day and in the afternoons they pretended they were tourists and explored Hong Kong. In the daytime the crowded streets were colourful enough, with the shop-windows packed with tempting goods, the street markets like Aladdin's caves, stacked with every fruit and vegetable imaginable, and gaudy with the reds and yellows and blues of the banners that hung low over the heads of the teeming crowds that thronged the streets, shouting to make themselves heard as they haggled and bargained with the stallholders. Maggie couldn't understand at first why the shop signs should all hang downwards, until Nick pointed out that Chinese characters read up and down, and not from left to right.
But if Hong Kong was brash and exciting in the daytime, at night it was fantastic. One night Nick took Maggie on the Peak Tram to the highest point of Hong Kong Island and they looked down on the dazzling lights that turned Hong Kong and Kowloon, below, into a fairyland. High up on the Peak the lights shone whitely through the trees, while farther down in Central District the glow was more golden, and the great blaze of coloured neon lights was reflected far out in the water of the harbour.
They stood on the heights, looking down, and up here there was a mercifully cool breeze. Nick said suddenly, 'Have you heard anything from Blake? Telex? Phone call?'
Maggie shook her head. 'Not a word.'
'He should be coming back soon. Things are going to be held up, waiting for him if he isn't careful.'
'Yes,' said Maggie. There seemed nothing else to say. The days and nights had taken on a completely unreal quality and her life had no meaning or direction any longer.
She visited the little Chinese wife of Nick's German banker friend, and listened to Ling San's plans for her beauty shop.
'I love to change a girl's looks,' Ling San explained. 'It gives her such a kick to look quite different.' She put her little head on one side and added, 'I could make you look quite different, Maggie.'
Maggie smiled. 'Better?'
'Oh, I don't mean that,' the kind Ling San said hastily. 'Just different. Your hair is so pretty.' She sighed. 'I envy Western girls their hair. Ours is always so much the same, whatever we do to it. If you had yours cut and shaped—so—' she gathered the shining brown curls up in one hand, tweaking out a wisp here, a frond there. 'You see?' She led Maggie to a mirror.
Maggie stared at her reflection. She had always taken her appearance for granted. So long as she looked groomed and glowingly healthy she hadn't thought much about it. As she grew up in her teens she was aware that most of her friends had become almost obsessed with their looks. They talked about nothing but clothes, hair-styles, make-up. But somehow Maggie had missed out on all that. She had been too busy working for her A-levels and after that for her degree, and in her spare time she had preferred tennis or badminton or swimming to discos.
The local boys seemed to her very young and rather gauche, and even more so by the time she had started to work at Mordens and had caught sight of Blake Morden. Maggie never knew when she had fallen in love with Blake, but it was long before she rose to the position of his assistant.
Looking at her reflection now she wondered fleetingly if it would have made any difference if she had set herself out to charm him, as his girl-friends did, if she had pored over the beauty magazines and haunted the dress departments in the Kensington store where her mother shopped.
Would Blake have seen her less as a capable colleague, a 'good sort', and more as a desirable young woman if she had looked more glamorous? She didn't know, but it was too late now even to contemplate it.
She smiled at the pretty Chinese girl. 'Yes, I see what you mean, Ling San. Perhaps, one day, I'll let you try to make me over.'
'When I get my shop you shall be my first customer,' Ling San bubbled enthusiastically.
Just a week after Blake had left for England it was arranged that the staff should make up a party to go to Aberdeen, to dine at one of the famous floating restaurants there. Maggie tried to get out of it, but Nick persuaded her to go along. 'It'll ke
ep up your spirits,' he'd joked, 'until Himself sees fit to return.'
She thought she heard, once again, the edge of criticism in his voice. Nick thought that Blake was treating her shabbily. 'He'll be back soon,' she said brightly, 'and then I shan't need parties to keep my spirits up.'
'Well, come along just the same,' Nick urged, and she agreed to go, rather than spend the evening alone in the hotel.
She looked through the clothes hanging in her closet and finally selected the most glamorous of the dresses she had brought—a scarlet chiffon, with glittery sequin trim on the shoulder-straps and across the low-cut top. Her mother had chosen it, she remembered. 'I've heard that Hong Kong society is very sophisticated,' she had said seriously. 'You'll want to feel right.' Maggie had thought the dress rather too flashy for her, and had never imagined she would wear it, but suddenly tonight she had a feeling that she must look confident and radiant, as a new bride should look, whatever she might be feeling inside.
The party was a success. They went by taxi to Aberdeen, to where junks and sampans were jammed so close together that you could hardly see the water of the harbour in between. Nick, who knew about Hong Kong, told her that there were more than twenty thousand people living on three thousand of these picturesque but rather ramshackle vessels in the harbour. It was a strange way of life, Maggie thought, but the people seemed happy enough, and the children skipped around from one sampan to the next like little monkeys. Lines of washing hung out everywhere and cooking smells did nothing to sweeten the humid evening air.
The party was ferried out to the enormous floating restaurant, blazing with neon lights. They dined off expensive and succulent seafood and drank the local wine, and as the evening progressed they became very merry indeed. Maggie laughed and joked with them all, and Nick put his head close to hers and told her she looked fabulous.
The sour looks that Mr Denby's red-haired secretary aimed at her told her the same thing, but she didn't care. Tonight she was past caring about anything.
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