by Gai-Jin(Lit)
Andr`e smiled crookedly. "It would explain the clipper."
"It doesn't matter either way," she said evenly but her stomach was twisting. "Would you like a drink?"
"Thanks." He saw the bottle of champagne opened in its bucket of ice and a half-full glass on the table. "May I?"
"Please."
It was becoming her custom to watch the sun go down, or the gloaming and the night arrive, with champagne. Just one glass to prepare for the long evening and then the long night. Her sleep pattern had changed. She no longer put her head on the pillow and drifted off to wake at dawn. Now sleep eluded her. At first she had been frightened but Babcott had convinced her that fear only made insomnia worse, "We don't need eight or ten hours so don't worry. Use the time to your profit. Write letters or your journal and think good thoughts--and don't worry..."
Dearest Colette, she had written yesterday, his advice works but he missed the best opportunity and that is TO PLAN, so important because that woman is plotting my downfall.
God willing, I will be in Paris soon when
I can tell you all. Sometimes it's almost as though my life here is a play, or a Victor
Hugo story, and Malcolm, poor man, never existed. But I enjoy the quiet, am content with the waiting. Only a few more days, and then I will know about the child, if it is to be or not. I so hope and hope and hope and pray and pray and pray I carry his child--and also that your birthing will be smooth, and give you another boy.
I have to be wise. I've only myself to rely on, here. Jamie is a good friend but he cannot help much--he's no longer with the Noble House and this newcomer, Albert MacStruan is kind, a perfect gentleman, highborn British, and tolerates me only for the moment--until SHE orders otherwise. Sir William? He's government, British Government. Seratard?
God knows if he'll truly help, but it will only be for what use I can be to him. Mr.
Skye? He does his best but everyone hates him. Andr`e? He's too clever and knows too much, and I believe the trap he's in is driving him mad (i can't wait to hear what YOU
THINK!!!) My only hope is Edward
Gornt. He will have arrived Hong Kong and will have seen her by now. My prayers, and I know yours, for his success are abundant and daily.
So I use my night waking time to plan.
Now I've so many good plans and thoughts how to deal with every possible contingency--and plenty of strength to deal with the ones I haven't dared consider, for example if Edward fails me or, God forbid, he never arrives--there are rumours of terrible storms in the China seas, normal at this time of the year. Poor Dmitri's
Cooper-Tillman lost another merchantman.
Poor sailors, how terrible the sea is and how brave the men who sail her.
Andr`e, says, rightly, I cannot leave here nor make a move until SHE declares herself.
I am Malcolm's widow, everyone says so,
Mr. Skye has registered all sorts of papers with Sir William and has sent more to Hong Kong and more to London. I have enough money and can stay here as long as I want--Albert
MacStruan has said I can use Jamie's office when it is vacant and I have ten more chits that Malcolm chopped for me but left the amount blank--wasn't that thoughtful--that Jamie and now Albert have agreed to honor, up to a hundred guineas each.
When SHE declares herself I will join battle with her. I feel it will be to the death but I assure you, darling Colette, it won't be mine--this will be her Waterloo, not mine, France will be revenged.
I feel very strong, very fit...
She was watching Andr`e, waiting for him to begin.
His face was hard, the skin pale and stretched, and he was thinner. The first glass had been gulped.
And the second. Now he sipped the third.
"You're more beautiful than ever."
"Thank you. Your Hinodeh, how is she?"
"More beautiful than ever."
"If you love her so much, Andr`e, why do your lips tighten and your eyes pop out with rage when
I mention her name--you said it was all right to ask about her." A few days ago he had told her about their agreement. Part, not all. It had burst out when despair had overwhelmed him. "If you're so adamant about not making love in the dark and the huge price this Raiko demanded why did you agree in the first place?"
"I... it was necessary," he said, not looking at her. He could not tell her the real reason--it had been enough to see Seratard's lips curl and see him avoid making contact ever since, careful never to use the same eating utensils or glass even though it was only caught from a woman or a man
--wasn't it? "I just took one look at her and, mon Dieu, don't you understand what love is, how..." The words died away. He poured another glass, the bottle almost empty now.
"You cannot believe how crushingly desirable she was that once." He gulped the wine. "Sorry, I need money."
"Of course. But I have only a little left."
"You have paper, with his chop."
"Oh?"
His smile was, if anything, more crooked.
"Fortunately shroffs talk to shroffs, clerks to clerks. Fill in another tomorrow. Please.
Five hundred Mex."
"That's too much."
"Not half enough, ch@erie," he said, his voice barely audible. He got up and closed the curtains to the last of the sunset, then turned up the oil lamp that was on the table and reached for the bottle. The dregs went into his glass, and then he slammed the bottle back in its ice bucket. "Do you think I like doing this to you? You think I don't know it's blackmail?
Don't worry, I'm reasonable, I only want what you can presently afford. A hundred
Mex, or the guinea equivalent tonight, two hundred tomorrow, a hundred the next."
"That's not possible."
"Everything's possible." He took an envelope out of his pocket. The envelope contained a single sheet of paper that he unfolded carefully. Dozens of shreds of green paper were pasted meticulously on it to complete a perfect jigsaw. He laid it on the table, well out of her reach. At once she recognized her father's handwriting. The second page that she had seen
Andr`e tear up so long ago.
"Can you read it from there?" he asked softly.
"No."
"Your loving father wrote, he signed and dated it, "and hope, as we discussed, that you will arrange an early betrothal and marriage by whatever means you can. It's important for our future.
Struan will permanently solve Richaud
Fr@eres. Never mind th--"'"
"Never mind, Andr`e," she said as softly, no need now to disguise the venom. "The words are indelibly written on my brain. Indelibly.
Am I buying it, or is it a permanent threat?"
"It's an insurance," he said, folding it and replacing it with care. "Now it goes back to a safe place, with details of the Affair
Angelique, in case anything nasty happens to me."
Abruptly she laughed, unbalancing him.
"Oh Andr`e, do you think I'd try to murder you?
Me?"
"It would wreck any financial arrangement
Tess might offer, may be forced to offer, and put you in the dock."
"How silly you are." She picked up her glass and sipped her champagne and he noticed, disquieted, how steady her hand was. She was watching him placidly, thinking how foolish he was, foolish to let her know he had done what he had done and was a total cheat, but even more foolish to rile against Hinodeh for preferring the dark--perhaps he looks awful naked--and more foolish to scream about the price he paid because both are insignificant if she's everything he says she is. "I'd like to meet this Hinodeh.
Please arrange it."
"Eh?"
Amused at his expression, she said, "What's so strange about that? I have an interest in her,
I'm financing her, the love of your life.
Yes?"
Shakily he got up and went to the sideboard and poured brandy. "Would you like some?"
"No, thank you." Only her eyes had
moved.
Again he sat opposite her. A draft played with the flame and made her eyes glitter.
"A hundred. Please."
"When do I stop paying, Andr`e?" she asked pleasantly.
The brandy tasted better than the wine. He faced that question. "When she's paid for, before you leave."
"Before I leave? You mean I can't leave until then?"
"When she's paid for, before you leave."
She frowned and went over to the desk and opened a side drawer. The little purse contained the equivalent of about two hundred Mex in gold oban. "And if there's no money?"
"It will come from Tess, there's no other way.
She'll pay, somehow we'll make that happen."
""We" will?"
"I promised," he said, the whites of his eyes bloodshot. "Your future is my future. At least on that we both agree."
She opened the purse and counted half. Then, not knowing why, put them all back and handed it to him.
"There's about two hundred Mex there," she said, smiling strangely. "On account."
"I wished I understood you. I used to."
"Then I was a silly young girl. Now I'm not."
He nodded slowly. Then took out the envelope and held it to the flame. She let out a little gasp as the corner caught and then it flared and he put it into an ashtray and together they watched it curl and twist and die. He crushed the ash with the bottom of his glass.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because you understand about Hinodeh. And like it or not we're partners. If Tess doesn't pay you
I'm a dead man." He stuck out his hand. "Peace?"
She put her hand in his and smiled. "Peace.
Thank you."
He got up. "I'd better check on
Prancing Cloud. If Tess's aboard, it will speed things up."
After he had gone she sifted the ashes but not a single word could be seen. Easy for Andr`e to forge a copy and tear it up and present it as the original and burn it--and still have the restored original secreted away for later use. That's just the kind of stratagem he would adore. Why burn the false one? To make me trust him further, to forgive the blackmail.
Peace? The only peace from a blackmailer is when the deadly exposure he threatens you with no longer needs to be hidden. In my case that's when SHE has paid, and the money banked. And after
Andr`e gets what he wants--Hinodeh, perhaps.
What is it she wants? She hides from him in the dark. Why? Because of his color? To titillate?
For revenge? Because he's not Japanese?
I know now that the act of love can go from terror to ecstasy to delusion, with every variation in between. My first time with Malcolm was in the light, the second in darktime and both were beautiful. With him of the other life always in the light and he was beautiful and deadly, his color beautiful, everything beautiful and deadly and terrifying and blindingly powerful, nothing like my husband Malcolm whom I truly loved. And honored--and honor still, and will forever.
Her sharp ear caught the toot of the cutter's steam whistle. She opened the curtains and saw the launch hurrying away from their jetty, port and starboard lights clear, Albert MacStruan in the cabin. In the roads Prancing Cloud was scarcely visible, downing sails and easing for moorings.
Her mind swirled aboard and in her mind she saw her enemy--as ever, thin-lipped, pale-eyed, tall and stiff-backed, bony and badly dressed
--then sped away to the outer harbor and
Malcolm's burial and she smiled, glorying in that victory, the sound of her heart pulsing in her ears. Then she curled up in her chair again-- his chair, their chair, another victory--and watched the dark become darker, only riding lights to be seen, hardly able to contain her excitement.
Surely Edward would be aboard.
The door to Jamie's office swung open and
Vargas rushed in, out of breath, "Launch's left Cloud, senhor," he said, his heavy street clothes still on, hat and head scarf wrapped around his face, telescope in hand,
"four or five passengers."
"Is she aboard?" Jamie did not look up from the packing case he was filling with papers. When there was no immediate answer his voice edged, "Damn it, is she aboard?"
"I... I'm... I think so."
"I said to let me know when you were sure, not before!"
"I'm, I'm sorry, senhor, I was at the end of the jetty and looked through the spyglass and thought I'd better report and ask what, what
I should do."
"Go back and meet her, but first make sure all servants are ready, make sure there's a fire in the tai-pan's suite, she'll take that, Mr. MacStruan's sure to move out."
"But that will mean she'll be next door to Mrs.
Angeli--"
"I know that for God's sake but that's the tai-pan's suite and that's the one she'll have!"
Vargas fled. Unable to resist, Jamie hurried to the window. The cutter was nearing shore.
Just riding lights outside and dancing in the chop.
He focused his binoculars. Vague shapes in the cabin but positively one a woman. No doubt about the bonnet, and no mistaking her tall, erect carriage and the way she rode the pitch and toss and tilt of the boat.
"Shit!" The breath sighed out of his mouth.
To steady the image, he leaned against the window. Not much better. One of the shapes he identified as
Captain Strongbow more by his height and bulk than anything else. Two other men, no three-- one of them MacStruan.
The cutter came in fast, the storm damage on the prow still easy to see, not yet completely repaired. Curious bystanders waited under the swinging lantern on the dock, everyone muffled against the dreaded winter flux with hats and head scarfs that were now obligatory. Difficult to see faces but he thought he recognized Andr`e there, and... ah yes Vervene, Heavenly and, yes, and Nettlesmith. The vultures gathering, he thought, though like me, the main ones are watching from their windows.
Tonight the dark oppressed him. In his room his fire was good but now seemed to have lost its warmth.
His throat felt tight and his chest hurt.
Control yourself, he thought. She's not your problem.
Captain Strongbow was first onto the wharf in his heavy sea coat. Still difficult to see clearly but no mistaking him. Then, ah yes,
MacStruan. They turned and helped her up.
She was wrapped against the cold, stiff-backed, dark clothes, dark bonnet tied with the inevitable heavy scarf. Her size. Shit!
The other two passengers climbed onto the jetty. He recognized them. A moment's hesitation then he went out and along the passage to the tai-pan's office. Angelique was peering into the dark through a crack in the curtain, her fire glowing nicely, lamps lit and the room cozy.
"Ah, Jamie. I can't see them clearly.
Is she there?"
"'afraid so, yes." He saw no change in her expression. "Here." He offered her the binoculars. "I thought you might like these."
"No need for me to look, or be afraid,
Jamie. Who else?" Her voice was the thinnest it had ever been. "Who's with her?"
"Strongbow, Hoag and Gornt."
She turned back to the window to hide but for an instant he had seen the joy that flooded her face. Never mind if Jamie saw, she was thinking, dizzy with excitement. That woman and
Edward together? The two of them together, Hoag as well! Doesn't that portend success,
Edward's success, that he convinced her? "I'll be upstairs, dressing for dinner. If anyone wants to see me, I'll come down again.
Thanks, dear Jamie." Impulsively, she hugged him. And left.
He stared after her. Why the joy? If Tess is with Hoag, the heavy guns have arrived.
Haven't they?
He went back to his office perplexed, leaving the door ajar, and continued to pack papers and books, his fingers doing the work, his mind elsewhere: on Tess, the future, the shoya, Nemi tonight, the Noble House that he had given twenty years to-- Be honest, you don't real
ly want to leave and know it's a bad time to go out on your own--thinking about Angelique's grim future, tomorrow's meeting with the Swiss Minister and possible imports from their armament-watch factories, all mixed with the news of the incredible Yoshi meeting,
Babcott and Tyrer now in Yedo, the bullion the Bakufu had advanced already counted and accurate
