Tai-Pan

by James Clavell

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s a good custom,” she said, her eyes innocent, “that when a man leaves his woman, he brings her present. Jades. Things like that.”

  “Nae jades. But next time I’ll be more attentive.”

  She shrugged. “Good custom. Your poor old mother’s werry impoverish. We eat later, heya?”

  “Aye.” Struan went to his own staterooms on the next deck above. Lim Din bowed. “Bathe werry cold, all same, Mass’er. Wantshee?”

  “Aye.”

  Struan took off his limp clothes and lay in the bath and let his mind consider the implications of Sir Charles’s news, his fury at Cunnington’s stupidity almost overwhelming him. He dried himself and dressed in fresh clothes, and in a few moments his shirt was damp with sweat again.

  Best I sit and think it out, he thought. Let Culum take care of the land. I’ll bet my life Tess told her father about his plan for the hill. Maybe Culum’ll be trapped into overbidding. The lad did well; I must trust him with this.

  So he sent word to Culum to bid for The Noble House, and also told him to buy a small but good lot on Queen’s Road. And he sent word to Horatio that Mary was poorly and arranged for a lorcha to take him immediately to Macao.

  Then he sat in a deep leather chair and stared out a porthole at the island and let his mind roam.

  Culum bought the marine and suburban lots, proud to bid for The Noble House and to gain more face. He was asked by many where the Tai-Pan was—where he had been—but he answered curtly that he had no idea and continued to imply a hostility he no longer felt.

  He bought the hill—and the lots that made the hill safe—and he was relieved that the Brocks did not bid against him, thus proving that Tess could be trusted. Even so, he decided to be more cautious in the future, and not put her in such a position again. It was dangerous to be too open with some knowledge, he thought. Dangerous for her and for himself. For example, the knowledge that the thought of her, the slightest touch of her, drove him almost frantic with desire. Knowledge that he could never discuss with her or his father but only with Gorth, who understood: “Yes, Culum lad. I knows only too well. It be terrible pain, terrible. Thee can hardly walk. Yes—and it be terrible hard to control. But doan worry, lad. We be pals and I understands. It be right to be frank, thee and me. It be terrible dangerous for thee to be like monk. Yes. Worse’n that, it be storing up troubles in the future—and even worse, I heared tell it be making for sickly offspring. The pain in thy guts be the warning of God. Yes—that pain’ll sicken a man all his life, and that be the mortal truth, so help me God! Doan thee worry—I knowed a place in Macao. Doan thee worry, old lad.”

  And though Culum did not truly believe the superstitions that Gorth pronounced, the pains he endured day and night sapped his will to resist. He wanted relief. Even so, he swore, if Brock agrees to let us marry next month, then I won’t go to a whorehouse. I won’t!

  At sunset Culum and Struan went aboard the White Witch. Brock was waiting for them on the quarterdeck, Gorth beside him. The night was cool and pleasant.

  “I be decided about thy marrying, Culum,” Brock said. “Next month be unseemly. Next year be probable better. But the third month from now be Tess’s seventeenth birthday, and on that day, the tenth, thee can marry.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Brock,” Culum said. “Thank you.”

  Brock grinned at Struan. “Do that suit thee, Dirk?”

  “It’s your decision, Tyler, na mine. But I think three months or two’s nae different to one. I still say next month.”

  “September suit thee, Culum? Like I sayed? Be honest, lad.”

  “Yes. Of course. I’d hoped, but—well, yes, Mr. Brock.” Culum swore that he would wait the three months. But deep inside he knew that he could not.

  “Then that be settled proper.”

  “Aye,” Struan echoed. “Three months it is, then.” Aye, he told himself, three months it is. You’ve just signed a death warrant, Tyler. Maybe two.

  “And, Dirk, mayhaps thee’ll give me time tomorrer? We can fix dowry and wot not.”

  “At noon?”

  “Yus. At noon. And now I thinks we be joining the ladies below. You be staying for supper, Dirk?”

  “Thank you, but there are some things I have to attend to.”

  “Like the races, eh? I’ve to hand it to you. Proper smart to brung that Blore fellow out from home. He be a proper young spark. The last race o’ every meet be the Brock Stakes. We be putting prize money.”

  “Aye. So I hear. It’s fitting we have the best track in Asia.”

  Blore had made the announcement at the land sale. Longstaff had agreed to be the first president of the Jockey Club. The annual membership fee was set at ten guineas, and every European on the island had immediately joined. Blore was besieged with volunteers to ride the cavalry mounts the general had agreed to provide.

  “Thee can ride, Dirk?”

  “Aye. But I’ve never raced.”

  “Me likewise. But mayhaps we should try our hands, eh? You ride, Culum?”

  “Oh, yes. But I’m not an expert.”

  Gorth clapped him on the back. “We can get mounts in Macao, Culum, practice a little. Mayhaps we can take on our Da’s, eh?” Culum smiled uneasily.

  “Aye, we might at that, Gorth,” Struan said. “Well, good night. I’ll see you at noon, Tyler.”

  “Yus. Night, Dirk.” Struan left.

  During dinner Culum tried to heal the antagonism that existed between Gorth and Brock. He found it strange that he liked them both, could see through them both—could understand why Gorth wanted to be Tai-Pan and why Brock would not pass over control, not for a time. And strange why he felt wiser in this than Gorth. Not so strange, really, he thought. Gorth hadn’t suddenly been left alone for seven long days with all the responsibility. The day I marry Tess I’m throwing away Brock’s twenty sovereigns. Not right to keep them now. Whatever happens, we’re starting afresh. Only three months. Oh God, thank you.

  After dinner Culum and Tess went on deck by themselves. Both were breathless under the stars, holding hands and aching. Culum brushed her lips in a first tentative kiss, and Tess remembered the roughness of Nagrek’s kiss and the fire that had followed his hands and the pain that he had caused—not pain really, but an agony-pleasure that in the remembrance always made her burn anew. She was glad that soon she would be able to quench the fire inside her. Only three months, then peace.

  They returned to the fetid cabin below, and after Culum had left, she lay in her bunk. Her longing racked her and she wept. Because she knew that Nagrek had touched her in a way that only Culum should have touched her, knowing that this knowledge must be held secret from him for all eternity. But how? Oh, my love, my love.

  “I tell thee, Da’, that were a mistake,” Gorth was saying in the great cabin, keeping his voice low. “A terrible mistake!”

  Brock slammed the tankard down and beer slopped onto the table and the floor. “It be my decision, Gorth, and that be the end of it. They be wed come September.”

  “And it were mistake not to bid on the hill. That devil’s stolen another march on us’n, by God.”

  “Use thy brains, Gorth!” Brock hissed. “If we’d done that, then young Culum’d knowed for sure that Tess be telling me innocent wot’s sayed and wot baint. The hillock were unimportant. Mayhaps there be a time when she be saying somethin’ wot’ll gut Dirk, and that’s wot I wants to know, naught else.” Brock despised himself for listening to Tess and for using her unknowingly to spy on Culum, and as a tool against Dirk Struan. But he loathed Gorth more, and distrusted him more than ever. Because he knew that Gorth was right. But he wanted Tess’s happiness more than anything, and this knowledge made him dangerous. Now the fruit of Struan’s godrotting loins would join with his adored Tess. “I swear to Christ I’ll kill Culum if he hurts a hair on her head,” he said, his voice terrible.

  “Then why let Culum marry her fast, by all that’s holy? Course he’ll hurt her and use
her against us’n now.”

  “And wot’s changed thy mind, eh?” Brock flared. “Thee was for it—enthusiastical for it.”

  “I still be, but not in three month, by God. That be the ruination of everything.”

  “Why?”

  “Course it ruin everything,” he said. “When I were for it, Robb were alive, eh? Then the Tai-Pan were leaving this summer for good and passing over Tai-Pan to Robb—then to Culum in a year. It be the truth. They’s marrying next year’d be perfect. But now the Tai-Pan be staying. And now that thee agree to marrying in three month, the Tai-Pan’ll take her away from thee and train Culum against us’n and now I thinks he be never leaving. And certainly never while yo’re Tai-Pan of Brock and Sons!”

  “He never be leaving Asia, wotever he sayed to Culum. Or Robb. I knows Dirk.”

  “And I knows thee!”

  “When he be leaving—or deaded—then I be leaving.”

  “Then he better be deaded right smartly.”

  “Thee better possess thyself with patience.”

  “I be patient, Da’.” It was on the tip of Gorth’s tongue to tell Brock the vengeance he had planned on Struan—through Culum—in Macao. But he did not. His father was more concerned with the happiness of Tess than with becoming Tai-Pan of The Noble House. His father no longer had the necessary consuming ruthlessness that Struan possessed in a measure that made being the Tai-Pan possible. “Remember, Da’—he outsmarted thee with the bullion, on their house, the marriage, even on the ball. Tess’s thy weakness,” he stormed. “He knowed it, and thee beed set up with her as they wrecker’s beacon and thee’s heading for disaster.”

  “I baint. I baint! I knowed wot I be doing,” Brock said, trying to keep his voice low, the veins in his temples like the knots in a cat-o’-nine-tails. “An’ I warned thee afore. Doan go after that devil by thyself. He’ll cut off thy balls and feed ’em to thee. I knowed that devil!”

  “Yes, that you do, Da’!” Gorth could smell the age of his father, and knew for the first time that in truth he could crush him, man to man. “So get thee out of the way and let a man do a man’s job, by God!”

  Brock slammed to his feet and the chair crashed over. Gorth was up and waiting for his father to snake for his knife, knowing that now and forever-more he could afford to wait, for he had the measure of him.

  Brock saw clearly that this was his last chance to dominate Gorth. If he did not go for the knife, he was lost. If he went for the knife, he would have to kill Gorth. He knew that he could—but only by cunning, no longer by strength alone. Gorth be yor son, yor eldest son. He baint enemy, he told himself. “Baint right,” he said, stifling his desire to kill. “Baint right for thee—for thee ’n’ me—like this’n. No, by God. I tell thee a last time, thee go after him, thee’ll meet thy Maker.”

  Gorth felt the thrill of victory. “Only joss’ll get us’n out of this mess.” He kicked his chair out of the way. “I be going ashore.”

  Brock was alone. He finished the tankard, and another, and another. Liza opened the door but he did not notice her and she left him to his drinking, and she went to bed and prayed for the happiness of the marriage. And for her man.

  Gorth went ashore. To Mrs. Fortheringill’s house.

  “I’m not wanting your business, Mr. Brock,’” she said. “The last one were hurt brutal.”

  “Wot’s a monkey to you, you old witch? Here!” Gorth slammed twenty gold sovereigns on the table. “An’ here’s the same to keep yor trap shut.”

  She gave him a young Hakka girl and a cellar far to the back of the house.

  Gorth abused the girl, flogged her brutally, and left her dying.

  The next day he set out in the White Witch for Macao, forty miles southwest. All the Brocks were aboard except Brock himself. Culum also stood on the quarterdeck, his arm linked with Tess’s.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Five days later was race day.

  And during this time the foundations of the new town had been laid. Following the lead of The Noble House, the traders had harnessed all the labor and skills of Tai Ping Shan into digging and carrying and building. The traders poured back into the land all the bullion Longstaff had given them. The brickmakers in Macao and the timber makers in Kwangtung—and all those who were concerned with the building of houses or factories or wharves—began to work night and day to satisfy the frantic zeal of the traders to replace that which had been abandoned. Wages rose. Coolies began to be in short supply—The Noble House alone employed three thousand bricklayers, builders and artisans of all kinds—even though each tide brought more workers. These quickly found well-paid work. Tai Ping Shan swelled even more. The foreshore around Glessing’s Point pulsated with energy.

  And race day marked the fourteenth day since Struan and May-may had left their house in Happy Valley to move aboard Resting Cloud.

  “You dinna look well, lassie,” Struan said. “Best stay abed today.”

  “I think I will,” she said. She had been restless all night and her head and neck and back had begun to ache. “It’s nothing, never mind. You look terrifical good.”

  “Thank you.” Struan was wearing new clothes that he had had made in honor of the meet. Dark green riding coat of the finest, lightest wool. White drill pleated trousers thonged under his half boots, waistcoat of primrose cashmere, green cravat.

  May-may eased the ache in her shoulders and Ah Sam settled the pillow more comfortably for her. “It’s just a summer devil. I send for doctor. You go ashore now?”

  “Aye. The meet begins in an hour. I think I’ll get our doctor, lass. He’ll—”

  “I will send for doctor. Chinese doctor. And that’s the end of that. Now, dinna forget, twenty taels on number-four horse in fourth race. The astrologer said it was absolute good winner.”

  “I will na forget.” Struan patted her cheek. “You rest yoursel’.”

  “When I win, I feel fantastical better, heya? Go along, now.”

  He tucked her up and saw that fresh tea was brought and an earthenware bottle filled with hot water for her back. Then he went ashore.

  The racetrack had been laid out to the west of Glessing’s Point and was mobbed with people. Part of the foreshore, near the post that marked both the starting and finishing lines, had been cordoned off for Europeans against the hordes of curious Chinese who swarmed around. Tents had been set up here and there. A paddock and betting stands had been constructed. Flags on bamboo poles marked the oval track.

  The betting was heavy, and Henry Hardy Hibbs had the biggest book. “Take yor pick, gents,” he shouted in his sonorous voice, thumping his blackboard upon which he had chalked the odds. “Major Trent, up on the black stallion, Satan, be favorite in the first. Even money. Three to one the field!”

  “God rot you, Hibbs,” Glessing said testily, sweating in the heat of the day. “Three to one the field and you’re bound to win. Give me six to one on the gray mare. A guinea!”

  Hibbs glanced at the blackboard and whispered hoarsely, “For you, Capt’n, sir, five it is. One guinea it is. On Mary Jane.”

  Glessing turned away. He was furious that he was not in Macao and that Culum’s promised letter had not arrived. Oh God above, he thought, frantic with worry, I should have heard from him by this time. What the devil’s the delay? What’s that bugger Horatio doing? Is he hacking at her again?

  He walked moodily down to the paddock and saw Struan and Zergeyev together, but Longstaff joined them so he did not stop.

  “What’s your choice, Your Highness?” Longstaff was saying jovially.

  “The gelding,” Zergeyev replied, leaning on a stick. The excitement and the smell of the horses refreshed him and lessened much of his constant pain. He wished that he could be a rider, but blessed his luck that he had survived the wound. And blessed Struan. He knew that without Struan’s operation he would have died.

  “La, Your Highness,” Shevaun said as she strolled up on Jeff Cooper’s arm. She was dressed in shimmering green and
shaded by an orange parasol. “Have you a tip for me?” She favored all of them with a smile. Particularly Struan.

  “The gelding’s the best horse, but who the best rider is I don’t know, Shevaun,” Zergeyev said.

  Shevaun glanced at the big brown horse, its coat sleek and eyes full.

  “La,” she said with a mischievous twinkle, “Poor horse! If I were a horse and that’d been done to me, I swear I’d never run a foot. For no one! Barbaric!”

  They laughed with her.

  “Are you betting the gelding, Tai-Pan?”

  “I dinna ken,” he said, worried about May-may. “Somehow I favor the filly. But I think I’ll make my final choice when they’re at the starting gate.”

  She studied him for an instant, wondering if he was speaking in parables.

  “Let’s take a closer look at the filly,” Jeff said, forcing a laugh.

  “Why don’t you, Jeff, my dear? I’ll stay here and wait for you.”

  “I’ll come along,” Longstaff said, missing Cooper’s flash of irritation. Cooper hesitated, then they walked off together.

  Brock lifted his hat politely as he passed Shevaun and Struan and Zergeyev, but did not stop. He was glad that Struan had decided not to jockey one of the horses, for he was not fond of riding himself and his dig at Struan had been involuntary. God curse him, he thought.

  “How is your wound, Your Highness?” Shevaun said.

  “Fine. I’m almost whole again, thanks to the Tai-Pan.”

  “I did nothing,” Struan said, embarrassed by Zergeyev’s praise. He noticed Blore down by the paddock in private conversation with Skinner. I wonder if I gambled correctly on the lad, he thought.

  “Modesty becomes you, sir,” Shevaun said to Struan and bobbed a graceful curtsy. “Don’t they say ‘noblesse oblige’?”

  Struan marked Zergeyev’s open admiration for the girl. “You’ve a fine ship, Your Highness.” The Russian vessel was four-masted, eight hundred tons burden. Many cannons.