At the same instant, Foo saw and recognised him. With surprise and elation dawning on his face, he cried:
‘Mr. Sallust! You are sent by God to help us! I saved you from being stoned to death by the caravan men. I beg you to save us from these bandits now.’
Hauling himself over the lip of the platform, Gregory replied, ‘They are not bandits, Foo, but the Lord Tû-lai and his retainers. Although you made a quixotic gesture in saving me from the caravan men, you have many other things to answer for. And you stole this lady from the Lord Lin’s house, so he has every right to reclaim her.’
Flinging an arm round the lovely flower-faced little person beside him, Foo cried, ‘I will not have her taken from me! We would rather die together! For over two years we have loved one another desperately and we would rather jump to death over the precipice behind us than be separated.’
It was at that instant that a great light dawned in Gregory’s mind. There was no reason whatever to suppose that Foo was a Communist or a murderer. He was the young law student of San Francisco, whose love letters had been found in Josephine’s room.
21
A Try for a Throne
Ten days later Foo and Josephine were married with all the ancient rites and ceremonies in the great House of Lin.
At first Tû-lai had opposed an early marriage, because it might interfere with his own plans. He knew that the Council’s original object in sending an invitation to Josephine to come to the island was that she should choose a husband from among seven candidates for her hand, each representing one of the Seven Families, and that her consort should be accepted as Emperor. For her to arrive there already married would invalidate this method of appointing a new ruler; so Tû-lai foresaw that, instead of being welcomed and rewarded by the Council for producing her, he might be met with reproaches for causing them pointless embarrassment.
From the Ma-tien River they had made their way back by slow stages; as Josephine, being unaccustomed to riding, had suffered severely from her five days on pony-back, so had to be carried in a hammock. During the journey Gregory and Tû-lai had on several occasions hotly debated the question of the marriage. It was Gregory who had finally made terms with Foo for his surrender; and they had been to the effect that, while he was prepared to regard Josephine as Tû-lai’s ward, their engagement was to be sanctioned, he was to retain his freedom, be given accommodation in the House of Lin, and permitted reasonable access to his fianceé.
At the time it had been clear that unless Foo had been granted the terms he demanded the young couple were quite prepared to commit suicide, and Gregory was determined to see that the bargain he had made with Foo should be kept. Tû-lai had not actually suggested going back on the agreement, but he had argued that no stipulation had been made about the length of the engagement, and that it would be time enough for the marriage to take place when they arrived in the Island.
Gregory had quickly guessed the way Tû-lai’s mind was working. He was hoping that once Josephine was in the Island the glamorous prospect of becoming the Empress of it would tempt her into breaking off her engagement to Foo; so that he, Tû-lai, could after all reap the kudos of being responsible for the foundation of the new dynasty. To Gregory it seemed most unlikely that Josephine would give Foo up; but, in any case, now that he once more regarded Foo as his own protégé, he did not mean to allow any risk of the young man’s prospects being sabotaged.
In consequence, he had played on Tû-lai’s sentiments, pointing out what desperate ordeals Foo had been through during four long months to win his love, and pleading that it would be most ungenerous to make him wait even a day longer than was necessary to enjoy the fruits of his stupendous effort.
Tû-lai was by nature of a kindly and romantic disposition; so by the fourth day, when they reached the House of Lin, he had almost been won over, and Madame Fan-ti overcame his last flickers of resistance. Their arrival, and the extraordinary story they had to tell, roused that poor lady from her lethargic grief to a new animation. With brimming eyes she listened to Foo’s account of Josephine’s adventures and his own, then she took the young lovers to her heart and ordered immediate preparations for a wedding on a grand scale.
Foo’s story was that he had not learned of Madame Août’s death until two days after it had occurred. He had at once hurried to her apartment only to learn that Josephine had disappeared without leaving any address. Distraught with anxiety, he had made fruitless inquiries of everyone who might give him a clue as to where she had gone, and called day after day at the flat hoping that she would return or send for her things. When the yacht arrived in San Francisco on the first of July he was still calling there two or three times a week, so he soon learned that other people had started to make inquiries about her. It had been easy for him to trace back to the yacht those who were hunting for her, and as Tsai-Ping’s persistent investigation among Madame Août’s acquaintances had gone on for a month, it seemed to him that anyone so wealthy and determined must succeed in tracing Josephine in the long run. In consequence, when he saw the yacht being provisioned for a voyage, he determined to stow away aboard her, in the hope that her owners would eventually lead him to his beloved.
During the voyage he had not deceived Gregory about a thing, except in giving a false name and saying that his reason for being on board was to get to China so that he might give his parents proper burial. After swimming ashore he had gone up to Antung-Ku, knowing that whoever landed from the yacht would have to pass through the town on their way into the interior. When the sampan had arrived he had gone aboard that night not only because he was penniless and hoped to borrow money from Gregory, but also to try to find out the sampan’s destination. In both matters he had succeeded, as Gregory had told him that the party was going up to Tung-kwan.
He had got there by going overland, and on the way had had a stroke of luck. While in the city of Kai-feng, some minutes after a passenger beside whom he had been sitting in a bus had got out, he noticed that the man had dropped his wallet. By then Foo was getting very short of money, and was at his wits’ end how to raise enough to complete his journey; so instead of handing the wallet to the conductor, he had stuffed it into his pocket. On examining this windfall he had found that the notes in it amounted only to a small sum, but it also contained the papers of a Communist agent. It was that which gave him the idea of posing as its owner.
To do so, had he been remaining in Kai-feng, would have been exceedingly dangerous; but since he was moving on he thought the risk of being caught worth running; for by presenting himself as an official he would be able to get free travel on the railways, and, by throwing his weight about in small inns, bluff frightened people into giving him free meals. With some of the money that he had left he had taken a third-class ticket on to Cheng-chaw, and there began his imposture.
By these means he had reached Tung-kwan a week ahead of the sampan, and had only to wait for it to turn up. To prevent himself being recognised he had adopted the thick-lensed spectacles and the voluminous garments of a traveller in those parts, then loitered about in the courtyard of the inn until he had overheard Kâo make his bargain with the caravan master. As there was no other way up to Yen-an, he had then shown his papers and joined the caravan himself.
On his third day in the House of Lin, he said, his heart had almost stopped beating; for after a hundred and thirty-seven days of separation, misery, and often near-despair, he had at last once more seen Josephine. Two days later he had again seen her cross the courtyard, and managed to give her a bunch of flowers he had ready with a note hidden in its centre. Next day, while receiving from him another bunch, she had passed him a reply. On paper bedewed with tears of happiness at knowing that her faithful lover had come seven thousand miles to find her, she gave him directions how to set about carrying her off. From that point they had managed to correspond daily, and she had smuggled him out a jewel to sell in Yen-an, so that he could buy ponies and have money with which to bribe one of the duennas
to let him get in to her on the night that they had escaped.
When giving an account of their escape to Madame Fan-ti, Foo learned that three women were being punished either for negligence or on suspicion of having admitted him to the women’s quarters; so he and Josephine begged clemency for them all, and this was granted.
Josephine’s story was known to all of them, except for the first part of it which had occurred in San Francisco. Foo had already had it from her; so he retailed it, aided now and then by her in the deaf and dumb finger language that they used between them.
Her mother had told her nothing at all of the offer made by General Chiang Kai-shek to provide for them on a handsome scale if they would both go to Formosa, or of the threat from the Communists which had followed it. In consequence, her mother’s death had come as a complete shock to her, and she had at first supposed it to have been caused by a genuine accident.
On leaving the hospital after her mother died, she had intended to go straight to Foo, both to seek comfort in his tender regard for her and his counsel on what she had better do now she was left alone in the world; but a woman had waylaid her as she came out of the hospital. The woman had said that she represented a Chinese Insurance Company with whom Madame Août had had a policy and that Josephine must come with her at once to the office to fill up certain forms, otherwise she might later have difficulty in claiming the money.
Madame Août had never told Josephine that she held a life insurance, but as her mother was inclined to be secretive about money matters, Josephine had assumed the woman’s story to be true and accompanied her in a taxi down to Chinatown. On the way, the woman had explained that the company was run in connection with the biggest Tong fraternity in San Francisco, and that its president was a very busy man, but it was essential that Josephine should be interviewed by him personally; so she must not mind if she had to wait for some time before he could see her.
In Grant Avenue she had been taken up to the sixth-floor of a big block and left in a waiting room at the back of the building. It was already late in the afternoon so she did not become really worried until about seven o’clock. For another hour she was put off with excuses, then told that the president’s car had had a breakdown, but as a great favour would see her at his private house when he got home. By then she was a prey to grave misgivings, but the office appeared highly respectable and the people there seemed anxious only to help her. Eventually, soon after nine, she was taken by the woman and a polite young Chinaman down to a car, but instead of running them out to one of the residential districts it drew up a quarter of an hour later at a deserted wharf. As the door of the car was opened she tried to run away, but she could not cry out for help, and taking her firmly by the arms they practically carried her to a waiting motor launch. For the next twenty minutes she was almost overcome with terror, as her imagination conjured up all sorts of terrible things that might be about to happen to her: but her fears were groundless. After being carried up a ship’s ladder and taken down to a big day cabin richly furnished with Chinese antiques, to her immense relief she had found herself in the presence of Mr. Lin Wân, whom she knew as an old friend of her mother’s.
Mr. Lin Wân had apologised profusely for the steps that had been taken to bring her there, and excused them on the grounds that in a time of such distress he had thought it unlikely that she would accept a simple invitation from one whom she could only regard as an acquaintance. He had gone on to break it to her that her mother had been murdered by Communists, and that knowing her to be threatened with the same fate, he had taken the liberty of having her kept safely out of the way until darkness had fallen and she could be brought to his ship without any risk of her enemies knowing where she had gone into hiding. He had then had her taken to a luxurious cabin by a stewardess, who gave her a sleeping draught.
Next day Mr. Lin Wân had stressed the extreme danger she would be in if she remained in San Francisco, and offered her a comfortable home in his wife’s care if she liked to accompany him back to his house near Yen-an. He had not pressed her for an immediate answer, but suggested that she should take the day to think it over.
That evening, she had told him about Foo, and said that she would be glad to accept his offer of a home provided that Foo, if he were willing, should be allowed to accompany them to China. Mr. Lin Wân had at once agreed; so she had written a letter to Foo explaining the circumstances in which she found herself, and asking if, for love of her, he would sacrifice his career as a lawyer. To the letter she had had no reply; so she had sadly come to the conclusion that he put a higher value on his prospects as a citizen of the United States, than on herself. Two days later the ship had left San Francisco.
While at Yen-an, she said, she had received nothing but kindness, particularly from Madame Fan-ti and Mr. Lin Wân, to whom she could never be sufficiently grateful for having saved her; and now that her brave Foo had so clearly demonstrated his love, her cup of happiness was overflowing.
Foo, of course, had never received her letter; and, although Gregory kept the thought to himself, he had little doubt that the reason for that was because Lin Wân had never posted it. By this time, too, he was also extremely sceptical about Chiang Kai-shek’s offer and the Communist threat. To him they looked remarkably like inventions by Lin Wân to induce Josephine to accompany him to China. But there was still no direct evidence of that, or what part, if any, Kâo had played in this extraordinary plot.
During the few days before the wedding, Gregory saw quite a lot of Josephine and came both to like and admire her greatly. In appearance, she was as unlike Shih-niang as a small gay delicately tinted butterfly is to a big richly-marked moth, and the difference in mentality between the two girls was still more strongly defined. As was only to be expected, having been sold into a brothel in her early teens, Shih-niang had been almost illiterate, whereas little Josephine was widely read in both the Chinese and European classics. Moreover, she was highly intelligent, possessed charming manners and had a good sense of humour. But the thing that impressed Gregory most about her was the remarkable way in which she overcame her terrible disability. Although she was incapable of uttering a word, by frequent small gestures and the constant change of expression on her lovely features she somehow succeeded in conveying the impression that she was actively participating in every conversation.
On her wedding day she looked positively radiant and everyone declared that they had never seen a more handsome couple than the bride and bridegroom. Both were apparelled in costly garments provided from the cedar store chests of the house and as they moved their elaborate headdresses scintillated with the sparkle of scores of jewels. Yet, above all, it was their faces which attracted all eyes, for the ecstatic happiness which glowed upon them seemed heaven-inspired and a benediction on the spectators.
As they approached, Tû-lai whispered to Gregory, ‘How right you were to insist on this; I would have committed a crime had I endeavoured to prevent it.’ But, all the same, he had no thought of abandoning his plans for taking them to the island.
From the morning of the wedding, for three whole days the great House of Lin was given over to revelry and feasting. After that, the newly-weds were to be allowed seven days’ retreat in a pavilion set apart for them. At the end of the week, if Tû-lai’s arrangements went as he expected they were to leave with Gregory and himself for Shanghai, where they would all board one of the family ships.
Of Tü-lai’s elder brothers, one was in the United States and the other in hospital, in Pekin, recovering from an operation; so he had sent for the brother next in seniority to himself to come up from Shanghai and take over affairs at the family headquarters. In the meantime, he continued to spend several hours each day going through his father’s papers.
Although he had already found three secret drawers in different bureaux, there had been nothing among their contents to throw further light on the conspiracy between Kâo and Lin Wân, and it was not until three days after the wedding celebrations
were completed that the latter’s secret diaries were discovered. They would not have been found then, had it not been for the arrival of Tû-lai’s brother, who said he had an idea that their father had kept his most personal papers in a cache up in the ceiling. After an hour’s fumbling among the elaborately-carved scrollwork they found a boss which when pressed released a sliding panel, and on the woodwork all round it lay more piles of papers.
That evening Tû-lai took Gregory to the room and showed him the relevant entries in the diaries. They still left certain matters unexplained, but with the few more bits of information that Tû-lai had wrung from P’ei, and some admissions that Foo had got out of him after beating him up, they practically completed what now transpired to be an extraordinarily grim picture of ruthlessness and double-dealing.
After they had discussed the matter for some while, Gregory asked, ‘How do you feel about going to the Island now,’
Tû-lai shrugged. ‘I see no reason why this should make any difference to my plans. As Kâo’s elder brother is still alive, he is not yet even a member of the Council; so he still has a long way to go before he can achieve his ambitions. He is bound to meet with much opposition, and I may be able to help thwart them. Besides, I have a personal reason for wishing to go there.’
‘There is a lot in what you say,’ Gregory agreed, uneasily aware that Tû-lai’s ‘personal reason’ was A-lu-te. ‘And since you have the means of getting me there I shall certainly go with you. To some extent I am under an obligation to do so; and now we know the game Kâo is playing, I intend to do my utmost to spike his guns. It was of Josephine that I was thinking. In the light of our new knowledge I don’t think it would be right to take her.’
The Island Where Time Stands Still Page 38