The Opium Lord's Daughter

by Robert Wang

  “Miss Lee,” said Higgins, “it’s getting late, and we need to find a place to sleep for the night. Do you know of a hotel?”

  Su-Mei shook her head but pointed the way to the servants’ entrance of her home. Her father had designed it so it wouldn’t be visible from the street and didn’t look as though it was attached to the main house. The soldiers didn’t know it was there, and so it was left unguarded. Su-Mei showed Higgins the lock, which was also designed so that strangers would be unable to find it. She had never needed to open the door before, but Higgins mastered the mechanism in a moment. Inside, she led him through the kitchen and back to the servants’ quarters.

  Higgins set about firing up the coals in the cooking pit, but Su-Mei put a hand on his arm and shook her head. She mimed the smoke coming out of the chimney, which would alert the guards to their presence. He noticed a straw pallet in the kitchen—likely where the cook slept—and pointed to it. “I’ll sleep here tonight. You should find a bed in the servants’ quarters.”

  For the first time, Su-Mei noticed the straw mattresses and rough blankets the servants used. Accustomed to piles of soft, warm quilts as she was, she knew she would never be able to sleep there. Besides, it was freezing with the fire out.

  Without thinking, she headed toward the main house to find warmer bedding and some clean clothes. Higgins stopped her. “You stay here, where it’s safe. There may be a guard posted inside, or some tramps might have sneaked in.”

  He was back in a few minutes, empty-handed and rueful. “Oh, my dear Miss Lee, I’m sorry. Everything is gone or smashed to bits.” He rubbed his palms together. “We shall have to make do with what’s here, I’m afraid.”

  Su-Mei nodded wordlessly and retreated to the servants’ chamber. Overnight, her life had turned upside down. Kneeling on the hard, cold floor, she reached deep within herself to find strength, and she prayed for guidance, but she was so cold she couldn’t focus. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone in the world.

  Su-Mei woke for the third or fourth time that night, shivering. She couldn’t stand it anymore and summoned enough courage to go into the kitchen. Maybe Mr. Higgins is awake too, and we can talk and distract ourselves from the cold.

  Higgins was awake, but he pretended to sleep as he heard the door open. He reminded himself that he was a gentleman and would never do or even suggest anything that might be considered unseemly. You are the guardian of this woman’s virtue, he reminded himself.

  “Meesta Heegan?” Su-Mei whispered. “I so cold.”

  “Oh, my darling girl. Come and sit beside me. Bring your blanket.” Higgins moved to one side of the pallet, and Su-Mei gingerly sat beside him, wrapped in the thin blanket. She had never been so close to a man before, but his warmth was so inviting she couldn’t resist. She pulled her legs up and hugged her knees, and Higgins wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. She inhaled his scent, so strange and yet comforting, and let her cheek rest against his shoulder.

  What would Honorable Mother say if she could see me now? Or Pai Chu? Every part of her life at that moment was awkward, strange, and tragic—how could it possibly matter if she spent the night in a man’s arms? Sharing the meager warmth between them, they fell asleep in that position and didn’t wake until the cracks between the kitchen shutters turned gray.

  Su-Mei awoke and gently slid out of Higgins’s embrace while he slept. Wrapping the coarse blanket around her, she tiptoed out of the kitchen to see for herself what had become of her childhood home.

  As Higgins had said, the house had been ransacked. All the art and decorative pottery, every piece of furniture that a man could carry easily, had been stolen. Anything larger had been hacked open and the contents taken. Cabinet doors delicately inlaid with mother-of-pearl and exotic wood were scattered across the polished floor, now scuffed and dirty from soldiers’ boots. She had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on shards of porcelain. Su-Mei wandered from room to room, feeling like a ghost. All the beautiful things in her home, all her mother’s jewels and silks—not to mention her own—were gone. She cracked a shutter and peered out into the courtyard, where she could see the doors to the concubines’ wing hanging broken from their hinges. The thieves had been there too. She brushed away a few tears, then chided herself for blubbering about silly objects when her family’s lives were at stake. But the fact remained that she and Higgins needed clothing and money, and there was nothing here anymore.

  They sneaked out of the house before dawn. Su-Mei bought hot steamed buns with sweet pork inside with the little bit of money Higgins had as soon as the street vendors opened for business.

  “My dear Miss Lee—Su-Mei,” Higgins said as they wolfed the buns, “your parents are under guard, and you are a fugitive. I honestly don’t know what we can do to help them. Do you know of anyone we could speak to, someone you trust?”

  Su-Mei shook her head. Other than her grandfather, so far away, she didn’t know of a single powerful person who could look into her father’s situation and try to change his sentence. What am I doing here, putting Mr. Higgins in peril? she asked herself, not for the first time. She did know the location of her father’s tea and silk store, however—it was close by, and Shao Lin had taken her and Da Ping there a few times when they were young. It was as good a place as any to hide out while they made a plan and waited for the news promised by the notice on the wall. There might even be something useful in the shop, a list of names of his business associates, anything.

  The door to the shop was sealed like that of the family estate, but there was only one soldier standing guard, so it was easy for Su-Mei and Higgins to sneak into the side entrance. The main part of the shop was a spacious hall in which buyers could examine the bolts of silk for sale. At one end was a long counter where customers could relax and sample an array of the finest teas on offer in Canton. Shao Lin made his fortune in opium, but his decoy business had offered excellent wares as well and earned him a decent profit.

  Su-Mei led Higgins across the darkened hall and made her way to her father’s private office in the back. It had been ransacked and emptied of anything of value, but Su-Mei knew something the looting soldiers did not. One evening months ago, Da Ping, wanting to brag to his big sister about the important position he would soon have in the family business, had told her of a secret cache of silver their father kept for emergencies. In fact, Da Ping had had several such emergencies during rowdy evenings out with his friends.

  The heavy chest with the lacquered lid behind her father’s desk was exactly where Da Ping had told her it would be. It had been smashed open, and the lid had been ripped off its hinges. Su-Mei, with Higgins watching her curiously, reached into the chest and pressed a small hidden panel on the side that Da Ping had told her about. Instantly, the false bottom of the chest slid open to reveal a hole in the floor. Inside the hole was an iron box. Su-Mei flipped the lid of the box open and Higgins gasped. It was filled with stacks of silver taels.

  At least we won’t starve now, Su-Mei thought. She looked up at Higgins and smiled. “Silva,” she said matter-of-factly. Higgins nodded, still in shock. By any exchange rate, the silver in the box represented a small fortune.

  She lifted out a few taels and tucked them into her waistband. “Buy food, clothes.”

  “Su-Mei, is it safe for you to go about in public? If the authorities are looking for you?”

  Su-Mei tried to come up with the words to explain that her sheltered existence was finally working in her favor. Almost no one outside of her family and servants had seen Su-Mei and could recognize her as her father’s daughter. Not only that, but her feet were not the feet of a wealthy guan’s daughter. If she was very careful to hide her soft hands and pale, unblemished face in the streets, no one would guess that she was anything but what her clothing suggested: a household servant.

  The first things Su-Mei bought were warm, heavy coats for herself and Higgins, blankets, and a shaving knife so Higgins could maintain his di
sguise. His straw-colored beard stubble was beginning to show. She also purchased a small jug of strong liquor called maotai; she remembered hearing the servants speak of drinking it to keep themselves warm at night.

  When evening came, Su-Mei and Higgins returned to her family estate. After a dinner of more street food, Su-Mei offered the maotai to Higgins.

  “Make hot.”

  Higgins took a tentative sip. “This is very strong liquor, Su-Mei.” He took a longer pull and began to cough.

  Su-Mei laughed and took a small sip herself. It was her first experience with alcohol, and she wasn’t sure she liked it, but she could feel the heat building up inside her. She and Higgins traded sips until he gently took the jug away from her and set it down.

  “Quite enough for such a small lady as yourself, I think, my dear.” In truth, it was quite enough for Higgins. His head was swimming, and being so near to a beautiful woman he was in love with in an empty, dark house wasn’t helping.

  He smiled at Su-Mei, and she smiled back. Higgins reached out and touched her face, caressing her cheeks and jaw, drawing his fingers dangerously close to her lips. She didn’t pull away, just gazed at him, her eyes bright in the dim kitchen. Before he knew how it had happened, Su-Mei was wrapped in his arms, and his lips were touching her hair and then the skin on her neck. She shivered.

  “Oh, my love,” he whispered.

  Su-Mei didn’t know what to do with her hands. She slid her arms around Higgins’s waist and let her head fall forward against his strong shoulders as he was kissing her.

  “Su-Mei?” She looked up and saw a question in his eyes, and the only way she knew how to answer it was to put her arms around his neck and press her fingers into the thin hair on the back of his head. When his lips parted, her face was suddenly upraised to meet them.

  As his kisses grew more intense, Su-Mei felt a moment of panic, but it was overridden by the warmth of the liquor and by a sense of safety combined with euphoria, much like the way she had felt when she’d experienced the touch of the Holy Spirit. A sensation fluttered through her body from her toes to her head, assuring her that this was exactly what she was meant to be doing at that moment.

  Higgins was at first a little startled at the passion with which Su-Mei responded to his kisses and the corresponding desire that spread through his veins. The church and his proper English upbringing had drilled into him the correct order of these things: declare one’s love, wed, and then consummate the marriage. But the world was upside down—this was not England, and the future was a blank slate. We could both die tomorrow, he thought. He pulled his lips away from hers, breathing heavily.

  “Miss Su-Mei Lee, I love you. I want to marry you and live with you forever,” he whispered into her ear. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  Su-Mei heard herself responding before she’d even parsed his meaning. “Yes, I love you, and I do you onna of be you wife.” She pulled away for a moment, giddy. “You be my zhangfu?”

  Higgins laughed gently. “Yes, Su-Mei, I would be honored to be your zhangfu. Wo hen gaoshing,” he added, stumbling through the words. “You make me a very happy man.”

  Su-Mei giggled at his terrible accent and leaned forward to kiss him again. She was feeling warm and tingly, and she wanted to press as much of herself as possible against his body. Something like hunger was building in her belly, and she wasn’t sure how to sate it.

  Higgins put his hands on her shoulders and gazed down into her eyes, thoughtful. “Su-Mei?”

  “Yes, Tah—Tav—Meesta. Heegans?” Su-Mei was having trouble catching her breath, and she certainly wasn’t in any mood for trying to pronounce difficult English words, but if Mr. Higgins was to be her husband, she felt as though she ought to call him by his first name, as he did with her.

  “Su-Mei, I want to make love to you. Do you know what that means?” Higgins’s voice was rough with passion. “Usually, a man and a woman wait until they are married before they do this, but—”

  “Yes.” Su-Mei interrupted. “I want make love.”

  “Do you know what that means, my darling? It’s when a man and a woman—”

  Su-Mei interrupted him again by putting her small hands on the sides of his face and covering his lips with her own. She lowered her hands to his tunic and began tugging it upward, following some instinct to feel his naked skin next to her own. Higgins complied and helped her undress him. He waited before removing her clothing, letting her eyes rove over his body. How strange I must look to her, he thought, forgetting that Su-Mei had never seen a naked man of any race before.

  Suddenly shy, Su-Mei reached out a single finger to brush against the hair of his chest, He gasped. With a gleeful smile, she let the finger trail down his body, exploring. Higgins held his breath, his skin burning under her touch—he would not force her into anything before she was ready. At last she removed her hands from him and unfastened her own clothes, wriggling out of her trousers and kicking them away before she lay back on the straw pallet, which was suddenly the most comfortable surface in the world. As he settled the length of his body against hers, she reached for him and buried her face in his neck, tasting the sweat on his skin. “I make love you,” she said.

  When they woke together early the next morning, limbs tangled under the new blankets and clothing strewn across the floor, Higgins and Su-Mei exchanged a smile that only new lovers could share. The weight of the world had lessened, and Su-Mei felt a boundless optimism in the face of the difficulties lying in wait.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Canton, 1839

  Lee Su-Mei was seventeen years old, intelligent, and resourceful. And she had four hundred taels of silver. What more was needed to solve any problem?

  “Who can be help?” she asked, thinking aloud. “Who Onnabul Fada fend can help?”

  “Darling, I think the answer lies in the factories. Perhaps someone there will know what to do or whom to approach to assist your father.”

  Su-Mei smiled up at him, enjoying the feeling of being so close to a man who called her sweet nicknames. “Yes. We go factaly.” Da Ping, once again bragging about his future in the family business, had told her about the factories where the foreign traders stored their goods, and they seemed like as good a place as any to seek help.

  She and Higgins tried to blend in with the crowd as they walked through the city. It was a stroke of luck that Higgins was of average height for an Englishman; a tall man would have drawn too much attention. He kept his eyes to the ground, and Su-Mei hid her pale, aristocratic hands in her sleeves and covered her face with a scarf. On an ordinary day, their disguises would not have held up for long, but there was so much turmoil and fear in the streets that the residents of Canton were careful to mind their own business and not spend more than a moment looking at anyone else.

  The first thing they noticed when they reached the factories was all the new construction. Rough brick walls had been hastily put up around the perimeter, and there was trash all over the garden in front of the British factory. Higgins knew of a passage that he and other sailors used to leave the compound in their disguises in search of liquor. To his relief, he saw that it had not been obstructed by the brick wall. With Su-Mei a discreet few paces behind him like a dutiful Chinese wife, he picked his way across the fifteen-acre compound toward the factory building flying the Union Jack. Situated between the main gate and the Dutch factory, the New England Factory, as it was called, was the largest and best equipped building in the compound, two stories tall with very high ceilings and a view of the square. Higgins led Su-Mei into the ground floor area, which contained a cookhouse and storerooms for teas and other Chinese products. He was turning the corner to go up the stairs when the butt of a rifle smashed into his chest and dropped him to the floor. It knocked the wind out of him, and before he could say a word, two marines in uniform were standing over him with the tips of their bayonets pointing at his neck.

  “Fucking yellow monkey thief! Sneaking in to rob us while
Captain Elliot holds the line against that bastard emissary, are you?”

  “Stop!” gasped Higgins. “I’m Higgins, chief mate on the Scaleby Castle! Put your weapons down!”

  The sailors glanced at one another, perplexed. “Why the hell are you dressed like a bleeding Chinaman? And how did you get in?”

  “I’ll explain later,” said Higgins, waving the bayonets away and climbing to his feet. A line of fire stretched across his ribs where the first sailor had hit him. “Who’s left here? Who’s in charge?”

  “I am,” said a voice behind him. “Chief Superintendent of Trade, Captain Charles Elliot.” He stepped closer. “Stand down, men. Mr. Higgins, who, might I ask, is this woman with you?”

  “Chief Superintendent, sir,” Higgins said. “Thank God you’re here! This is Miss Su-Mei Lee, and we urgently need your help, sir!”

  “Why aren’t you on your ship?” Elliot asked, his gaze flicking between Higgins and Su-Mei.

  “Sir, Captain Robertson gave me permission to accompany Miss Lee into Canton.”

  “And you came here, of all places?”

  “Yes, sir, we did. We need your help. Miss Lee’s father, the Mandarin Lord Lee Shao Lin, is a close business associate of Mr. William Jardine. Lord Lee and his entire family were arrested while Miss Lee was in Macau. I offered to help her find someone—anyone—who might be able to sort this out and get her family released. I know Mr. Jardine would want to help his most important trader. Can you do anything, sir?”

  “Young man, you picked a very bad time to negotiate with the Chinese for his release,” replied Elliot. “This special emissary is flexing his muscles and refusing to negotiate, so I don’t know what we can do.” He paused. “We’ll see how tough he is when Her Majesty’s navy arrives.”