The Concubine's Daughter

by null

  Angus turned more serious. “There’s one thing I ask of you.”

  Sing had become extremely fond of him. “Anything, Angus, whatever you wish.”

  “Don’t go past the five-bar gate and into the birch wood until I take you myself. That garden is out of bounds to Ah-Kin and has been let grow wild, in keeping with Ben’s wishes. It’ll be riddled with snakes. I’ll have it cleared, perhaps in a month or two, when you’ve got your sea legs.”

  Her first week beneath her father’s roof was one of sound, untroubled sleep. From the Pavilion of Joyful Moments, she found peace before the altar of a dawn sky. And as the new day bloomed around her, she drank the air and called upon the White Crane, sending down her chi to find its roots, until an apricot sun was balanced on the rim of the world.

  Angus had been concerned at leaving her alone in the vast old house, and Toby had assured her that Winifred Bramble would be delighted to keep her company until things were settled. She had thanked them all, but asked to be allowed to make her peace with the Villa Formosa, and whatever ghosts remained, alone. She was more than happy, she said convincingly, with the attentions of Ah-Kin and his family.

  Sing’s favorite room in these new and sumptuous surroundings was her father’s study. She spent hours examining his books and paintings, the scale model ships made by his own hand, the collection of meerschaum pipes, the aroma of his tobacco jar. Even his monogrammed notepaper, with the Double Dragon chop in scarlet and gold on every sheet, had been replaced in the drawers of his gigantic desk, the original inkwells, cigar box, and crystal decanter displayed on its green leather top. The most personal items she found were placed in a top drawer: a bottle half filled with a delightful cologne labeled BAY RUM, and beside it a flat silver flask of brandy, his name embossed on its leather case. Next to these lay a little ivory container of silver toothpicks, a bunch of keys to the desk drawers, a cigar cutter, fingernail clippers, a solid-gold snuff bottle, and a pair of Double Dragon cuff links.

  Her father’s desk seemed the perfect place to keep the contents of the Tanka sling she had carried so far. From it, she took the precious journals, the finger jade, the happiness silk, and the Double Dragon dollar, placing them neatly in the drawer beside his personal items. Last, she removed the dragon claw from its worn leather pouch.

  She had never looked at it thoroughly, but now realized it was of the same scale, design, and metals as the inlay that covered the desk so lavishly. “I know nothing of its purpose or its value,” the Fish had told her, “but Li-Xia said that it was precious.”

  The desk, Angus had explained, had been made to Ben’s strict specifications. Sing examined the claw carefully. Could it be some kind of key?

  At first she found nothing to suggest a locking device hidden in the desk. Patiently, she inspected every separate panel, deeply carved and inlaid with ivory, turquoise, and coral, until she found one that included the crest of the Double Dragon, cleverly concealed in the rich extravagance of its elaborate scrollwork—the imperial dragon of China entwined with the legendary dragon of Saint George.

  Looking even more closely at the tracery, she saw that the claws of each outstretched talon were missing, leaving minute spaces where they should have been. Carefully, she fitted the dragon claw into the recessed spaces. The pins lined up, and she pushed them into place, but sprang no hidden lock. She was about to put away the pouch when a slip of paper fell to the floor, bearing a drawing of the Pa-kua, with its eight sacred trigrams of three broken and unbroken lines, and the words The Double Dragon Has Eight Eyes.

  The panel was placed low in the back of the desk, and Sing needed to kneel in order to study it. She found that the Double Dragon crest was repeated by a replica below, the bulging eyes of each creature inset with beads of turquoise. Again, although each moved easily when she pressed it with a fingertip, no hiding place emerged. Studying the tiny symbol, she remembered Master To’s instructions in Pa-kua: We must always face the trigram correctly, or chaos will reign.

  Sing tried again, using the sequences of broken and unbroken lines as a guide to press the dragons’ eyes in new combinations, until, with a series of eight definite clicks, a wide, shallow drawer sprang smoothly open. Inside lay a collection of files tied with tape, several ledgers, and numerous sealed envelopes. The top one of these was addressed with two words: My Child.

  Trembling, Sing broke the wax seal, to find a folded vellum sheet embossed with her father’s chop. She moved to the window, where sunlight fell on the boldly written lines:

  My precious child,

  I pray to what gods there may be of both East and West that you will one day read these words. Know above all things that your mother gave her life so that you might live, placing you in the hands she trusted most in this world. Know that your father was a decent man who loved her as deeply as one can love another.

  We cared nothing of race or the conventions of a savage society. We breathed the same sea air, were warmed by the same bright sun and cooled by the same ocean breezes. We were together beneath the same miraculous sky, the same kindly moon, and the same brilliant stars. These things I had lived with for a lifetime … but it was your mother who showed them to me.

  I can only hope with all my heart that life has not been too cruel and that you may one day find such a love. The world is a lonely place without someone to share both joy and sadness.

  That you are reading this letter means those I trusted have carried out my wishes. This house was a dream of mine. It was meant to shield the people I loved from those who could not see true beauty or understand the concept of innocence. That the dear one who was your mother should have these taken from her so cruelly and unjustly has left me with nothing but despair.

  May the Villa Formosa and its gardens give you shelter and make some small recompense for any injustices you may have suffered from being of my blood and carrying my name in a world so violently thrust upon you.

  Seek no further, my dear child; your true journey begins here, where Li-Xia’s ended.

  Your loving father,

  Benjamin Devereaux

  Among the papers, she found a collection of files labeled YELLOW DRAGON, but she turned her attention first to her father’s personal diaries. It was early the following morning by the time she finished reading Ben Devereaux’s account of his life. The diaries ended abruptly on the date of her mother’s death—the page as blank as the life that had ended except for a single name scrawled across the page as though by another hand: Chiang-wah.

  One morning, as she stepped from Ben’s study onto the terrace, Ah-Kin turned from tending the urns of marigolds to bow to her politely. “Forgive me, mistress. May I beg a moment of your time? There are things I must show you that are for your eyes alone.”

  Sing returned his bow. “It will be my honor to follow wherever you may lead in these blessed gardens.” She followed the gardener to an old stone wall behind a screen of black bamboo, down a short flight of steps to the little shrine of Pai-Ling. Opening its scarlet doors, he stepped aside to reveal a golden statue of Kuan-Yun, bathed in a blaze of rainbow light. “The heavens have forgiven my master Di-Fo-Lo. In his grief, he flung the goddess from the cliff. For years she lay at the bottom of the sea, until fishermen raised her in their nets. They were afraid that the ghost of Di-Fo-Lo would haunt them if they did not return it to the shrine.”

  He beamed with pleasure as Sing bowed before the statue. “When Kuan-Yun was returned, I knew that you would soon follow. I have kept her safely in my home with other things that were precious to your mother.”

  At the feet of the goddess, among fresh flowers and ripe fruit, lay a box encrusted with seashells, a child’s bamboo flute, a sheaf of letters bound with a golden ribbon, and a pair of sandals splendidly woven from flax grass.

  From the Yellow Dragon files in her father’s office, Sing learned the true nature of the triad threat against the House of Devereaux. Under a plain black cover, the first journal outlined the history of the Yellow Dr
agon secret society—from its centuries-old origins as an underground resistance army pitched against tyranny and corruption, to one of Shanghai’s most notorious tongs—and named the controlling family dating back several generations as the House of Ho-Ching, whose eldest sons served as supreme overlords, or dragon heads. Focusing on the years from 1880 to 1900 and the dragon head Ho-Tzu “Titan” Ching, it detailed crimes from extortion, torture, and murder to kidnapping, arson, and blackmail against prominent government officials of the day. It was signed “Jean-Paul Devereaux.”

  Angus had told Sing of the empire her grandfather had built with the staggering profits of dealing in opium. It had been taken from him, and his properties burned to the ground with the Boxer Uprising of 1900. The second journal was similarly laid out, but in the more flourishing hand of her father. It covered major Yellow Dragon activities in Hong Kong and Macao—under the dragon head J. T. Ching.

  When she had read each page twice and digested every word, she called Angus Grant and told him of her find.

  “Have you told anyone else, anyone at all?” he asked immediately. Sing assured him she had not.

  “Good lass,” he said. “Put them away under lock and key until I get there.”

  He arrived in less than forty-five minutes, and insisted she fetch the file to him so that he would not see the secret drawer. “If Ben had wanted me to know, he’d have told me.” Sing had never seen the usually easygoing lawyer look so tense.

  He poured himself a Glenfiddich from the bottle she had set aside for him. “I want you to bring me the file on J. T. Ching; I’ll copy it and bring it back. Tell no one of this, not even Toby or Miss Bramble. If it is what I think it is, it might as well be a case of dynamite on a short fuse.”

  CHAPTER 33

  The Cloud Garden

  Winifred Bramble announced a Flood Relief Ball to be held in the Peninsula Hotel, with the proceeds to be used to help rebuild the ruined village of Tai-Po. On Winifred’s advice, Sing attended the ball in Western dress, an evening gown of oyster-colored silk and a string of black pearls. Her hair was dressed in gleaming coils high upon her head, showing the length of her neck and the matching pearls in her ears.

  She knew that people wondered and whispered about her. Being in the company of foreigners had taught her to look and act as they did, to use the English language and avoid the subject of her heritage. If any Chinese she encountered muttered against her, she pretended not to hear or understand. She was well aware that the English ladies looked down at her; for all of Winifred’s efforts to introduce her into society as “a young friend from Macao,” Sing knew she was dismissed as “Captain Hyde-Wilkins’s Eurasian bit of fluff.”

  She had quickly learned that to observe much and say little was her best defense. She would not allow herself to be intimidated into staying home, especially when the cause was so close to her heart.

  On this evening, Sir Justin Pelham’s party was second in importance only to the governor and his entourage, so she expected little in the way of confrontation. Every prominent Hong Kong family or enterprise was represented, including the foreign consulates and the wealthiest members of Chinese society.

  Sing stepped from the Rolls-Royce on Toby’s arm, to follow Sir Justin and Lady Pelham past the gushing fountain and up the wide marble steps to the famous foyer of the hotel. Both Colonel Pelham and Captain Hyde-Wilkins were resplendent in their dress uniforms, with miniature medals and decorations on scarlet cutaway jackets and golden cummerbunds to match the braided trappings of rank.

  Elegant in a velvet evening dress and her beloved garnets, Winifred Bramble was escorted by Angus Gordon in the dark blue uniform of a major in the Hong Kong Volunteers. But it was the stunning girl on the arm of Captain Hyde-Wilkins who turned heads as they entered the grand ballroom.

  The colonel’s table was in pride of place, close to the raised stage but enough to one side to suggest exclusivity. Sing listened to the speeches, enjoyed the music of the string orchestra, and played her part in the proceedings when called upon to do so, but in truth she was uncomfortable and would welcome the evening’s end. With the speeches over, Toby led her to the dance floor. She held her head high, looking neither right nor left.

  As if he read her thoughts, Toby held her close and whispered in her ear, “They stare because you are the most breathtaking woman in the room. It is called good old-fashioned jealousy.”

  She felt safe in his arms, her love for him growing stronger with each day, but she was not yet free to show it. When they returned to the table, a man stood with his back to them, talking with Lady Pelham—a short, stocky man dressed in an expensive American tuxedo, the jacket stretched across once-powerful wide shoulders. When he turned to face them, Sing found herself looking into the flushed face of J. T. Ching.

  It was as shocking as if she had been suddenly disrobed. The sounds of the ballroom seemed to melt away as Lady Pelham introduced her.

  “Ah, there you are my dear. This is Mr. Ching, one of our most important guests. And a most generous one, I might add, when it comes to helping those less fortunate.” She gestured gracefully. “Mr. Ching, may I present Miss Devereaux, a new friend of ours from Macao.”

  Sing’s heartbeat quickened as the taipan offered his hand. She saw the dawning of surprise become a smile that spread across his broad face but did not reach his eyes. Only deep-rooted discipline stopped her from snatching her hand away. Instead, she smiled politely as he lifted it slowly to his loose lips to plant a lingering kiss.

  “Miss Devereaux was of great help in the aftermath of the typhoon,” Lady Pelham went on, “even though she was herself quite badly injured at Tai-Po.”

  Ching’s expression did not waver. Only the light of triumph in his eyes told her that a change of fortune could not hide the truth of who she was.

  He bowed with exaggerated elegance. “It is always an honor and a great pleasure to meet those who show concern for our underprivileged people.” His hot hand let go of hers reluctantly. “I too am always happy to help in my humble way …”

  “Mr. Ching is too modest,” Margaret Pelham broke in. “It was he who founded the floating clinic in Shatin and the tuberculosis wing of Queen Mary Hospital, not to mention the civic center that bears his name.” She laughed melodiously. “I could go on, but I fear I might embarrass the poor man.”

  Sing took her seat beside Toby, while Ching remained standing, smiling down at her. “Surely we have met before,” he said, his tone communicating clearly to Sing that he would enjoy this game immensely.

  “I do not think so, sir,” she said quietly.

  Ching persisted, the smile twisting his mouth unpleasantly. “How could I not remember such a charming young lady?”

  “I think you must be mistaken, Mr. Ching,” Toby said briskly. “You and I have met, but Miss Devereaux is quite new to the colony.”

  Toby was so convincing that Sing could almost believe he had not witnessed her humiliation at the Tavern of Cascading Jewels. Taking heart from his steadfast gaze, Sing recognized there was nothing to do but play Ching’s game and see where it led.

  Ching had been drinking, brandy fumes strong on his breath. He did not seem to hear Toby’s remark. Taking a wallet from his breast pocket, he selected a card of compressed gold leaf that he presented to Sing with a smirk.

  “Hong Kong streets are not always as gentle as those of old Macao. Allow me to put my office at your disposal. I hope you will find time to visit me… . I am sure there must be something we can assist you with while you are here. If you call this number at any time, I will send a car to pick you up.”

  The roof gardens of the Ho-Ching Asia complex in the North Point district of Hong Kong Island had been designed to J. T. Ching’s precise requirements. The place he called the Cloud Garden was a private retreat that few had been privileged to see.

  In a city where extravagance was the hallmark of success, the three HCA towers dominated all other landmarks. Rising from the docklands like mammoth blades
of steel and glass, the angles of its shadow were designed to cast shar-chi—the arrows of darkness—upon surrounding competitors. The superstitious called its creeping menace the “sundial of destruction,” some believing that the colossal foundations were laid in the configuration of the triad symbol.

  Several days after the Flood Relief Ball, Sing had telephoned the number on J. T. Ching’s business card. Toby had been hastily called back to his regiment, and though he had begged her not to do anything rash, Sing thought that the time had come when the most dangerous course was inaction. She had no illusions about the ruthlessness of the man who believed he owned her. By presenting his card without revealing their past connection, he had issued both a warning and a summons.

  Wearing an austere Western-style business costume of charcoal gray, her hair severely dressed, Sing wore no makeup or adornment of any kind. She had left the Villa Formosa satisfied that she bore as little resemblance as possible to the apprentice pipe-maker from Macao.

  As the limousine sent to fetch her sped smoothly along, Sing did not notice the sweep of open water that had always beguiled her. Her mind was on the challenge she was about to face, and the contents of the slim aluminum briefcase she held in her lap.

  A uniformed security guard escorted her from the car into the opulent foyer of the Executive Tower, across a wide expanse of marble to a private elevator. A young woman, smartly dressed in a white cheongsam, accompanied her silently on the smooth ride up to the pent house. She led the way through a whisper-quiet anteroom to the base of a wide staircase lined with priceless artwork, then bowed and departed.

  At the top of the stairs stood a pair of gigantic doors of burnished steel, guarded by two standing Buddhas on the same enormous scale, resplendent in a coating of gold leaf. More gold leaf, in delicate, postage-stamp squares, stood in a crystal bowl on a gold plinth in front of each statue. She did not need to be told that to be admitted, she must first pay homage to Siddhartha Guatama, the Most High. She took a square from each bowl, adding them to the thin crust of pure gold that gave the Buddhas their shining glory. The doors parted with barely a whisper, revealing the astonishing vista of the Cloud Garden.