“I’ve thought about divorce,” she admitted.
“Put it out of your mind; I won’t have it. I will not have a public scandal. You must finally let Harry go to marry. But there’s time. And you must be very discreet. We, the House, couldn’t survive a scandal.”
“Why, Father?” she asked rashly. “Tolerance isn’t really your long suit.”
“Because I must put up with your foolishness—can’t alter what’s done. I need you for the future. And the child is, regardless, a Sekloong—another arrow in my quiver. You’re a damned attractive woman. I understand Harry, can’t understand Charles.”
Her laughter at his heavy gallantry smoothed the double line of strain between her russet eyebrows.
“But I’m thinking of something more important to me and the family, really more important to you.”
“Impossible. Nothing could be more important than Harry.”
“Let me finish. I know it’s not been easy for you these past few years. I can appreciate your joy, though it must be temporary. But I’m offering something permanent.”
“And,” she asked, “that is?”
“I need your help, your capabilities.”
A shadow crossed his pale features, momentarily dulling even the silver sheen of his hair. For an instant, he was a tired old man, rather than the vigorous, self-confident figure the world saw.
“The chronicle of a woman’s life, the Chinese say, is the men to whom she successively makes submission: father, husband, then son,” he resumed. “But for you, I’m convinced, there can be much more. Remember, the chronicle of a man’s life is not only his women, but other men—the men he challenges and the men who challenge him. Eventually, the old bull must yield to the young bulls. But my young bulls have no fire in their bellies.”
“That’s not true,” she protested. “Certainly Harry—”
“You’re blind there.” He dismissed her objection. “But you have the fire, and it’s tempered your steel. I need both your fire and your steel. I need an ally I can trust implicitly. I need an ally with your intelligence and drive. Frankly, an ally who can never turn against me.”
“Can’t turn against you?”
“No woman could, not even you.” His male certainty was absolute. “So my offer serves my needs as well as yours. Anyway, I’m partially to blame for your unhappiness, your foolishness.”
“It was my doing. I knew what I was doing when I married Charles.”
“Did you? I wonder. I shouldn’t have allowed it. But nothing can be done now.”
“Harry,” she asserted, “Harry and I could—”
“Harry won’t.” He brusquely dismissed her protests. “You know that, don’t you? Harry’ll go just so far. He’ll never elope with you.”
She nodded silent agreement.
“Harry ’til he marries. I’ll put up with that, have to. But I’m offering what you really want: your own power, and your own wealth. Much more too, a hand in shaping the next century. Not just in Asia, but in Europe and America. My fight with the Wheatleys is secondary, though it must be won. Even the family’s secondary, though it must be bound with steel bands. I’m offering you a role on the stage of history.”
“Why should I want that? After all, I’m just an ordinary woman.”
“That you’re not,” he laughed. “You’re the most unordinary woman I’ve met. I know you want power because you understand power and the use of power. Even now, your eyes are shining with excitement at the prospect.”
If the Old Gentleman thought her extraordinary, how precisely was she to assess him? His actions were widely at variance with both his professed moral standards and his avowed prejudices. He could not only recognize a woman’s superiority over men in the male bastion of commerce, but his cold realism could tolerate her behavior, which was both adulterous and incestuous. Those crimes were as heinous to the Confucian morality of his ancestors as they were by the code of his own Catholicism. Was Jonathan Sekloong, Mary wondered, moved solely by his own ruthless logic to acknowledge unalterable circumstances and turn them to his advantage? Or was he also moved by compassion toward three human beings for whose predicament, he had said, he was partially responsible? She simply could not resolve the enigma. Nonetheless, his dominant purpose was clear, however complex his deeds. The welfare of the House of Sekloong transcended all else in Sir Jonathan’s calculations.
“But your terms?” she finally demanded. “What exactly must I do?”
“I won’t tire you,” he replied. “I’d forgotten my new partner’s condition, so I’ll explain fully later. Of course, you do agree?”
“No, not completely, though I’ll think hard. I must know your conditions and exactly what you want of me. But I warn you, my own conditions will be hard.”
He laughed and kissed her cheek.
“Then it’s agreed, even if you don’t know it. You’ll find me a hard bargainer, too.”
“Now that,” she jabbed, “will be a surprise.”
Part III
MARY AND HARRY
November 23, 1908–September 11, 1909
November 13, 1908
Hilary Metcalfe glanced inquiringly at Sir Jonathan and Harry Sekloong, who sipped after-dinner brandies. On the embossed Tientsin carpet of the library in The Castle lay a gold-and-crimson-embroidered, stiff-silk bridal-coat, just delivered by courier from Peking. Mary coveted the gorgeous garment, though its real importance was the tightly rolled rice-paper sheaf Metcalfe had extracted from its hem.
“Don’t stop,” Mary urged. “It’s fascinating.”
“The time,” he calculated, massaging the broad bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger, “would be ten P.M. on the thirteenth day of November in this year of Our Lord, 1908.”
“Get on with it,” Sir Jonathan urged. “Rather you than me translating that damned Mandarin’s language.”
“Can’t you just give us the gist?” Harry asked impatiently.
“No,” his father replied. “I want you and Mary to hear it in his own words. Then you’ll see why I pay this young eunuch well to report what really goes on behind the walls of the Forbidden City. I want you to understand how precarious Manchu rule is—and why. We must know every detail. Our own future is at stake.”
Her Imperial Majesty, being sorely afflicted summoned the Chief Eunuch at the penultimate hour of the 21st day of the tenth month of the 34th year of the reign of the Kuang Hsü Emperor. [Metcalfe resumed his translation of the dispatch from Sir Jonathan’s confidential agent at the Court of the Great Pure Dynasty.]
My venerable superior bent low in dutiful attention to the Empress Dowager. Her features were drawn and aged. Despite the charcoal braziers on the dais and the silk-padded quilts on Her rosewood bed, She shivered. Though She thought to speak softly, the habit of fifty years made Her high-pitched voice ring like a bell.
“… and, so, it must be done tonight. The Emperor, my sister’s son, is very ill. He suffers. It is time He was allowed to rest.”
“As you command, Holy Mother.”
My superior bowed low. He began to withdraw, walking backward with practiced steps. The Old Buddha raised a hand so frail the lamplight shone through it, and the Chief Eunuch again drew close to Her bed.
The red glow of braziers and the yellow radiance of oil lamps flickered on Her matte-white skin and Her ebony-black hair. My superior inclined his head, and his queue susurrated on his silken back. I recalled that he had by faithful service accumulated vast wealth and become, after the Empress Dowager Herself, the most powerful person in the broad domains of the Great Pure Dynasty.
The events of that night had their genesis ten days earlier, on the morning of Her seventy-third birthday, when the Holy Mother received the Emperor. The Son of Heaven was emaciated; furrows plowed His bloodless cheeks; and He tottered unsteadily between two eunuchs. After paying His respects, the Emperor returned to his yellow-curtained palanquin.
The Dalai Lama next made obeisance to Her Imperial Highnes
s before his return to his many-terraced palace amid the ice-rimmed mountains of distant Tibet. The Eleventh Reincarnation of the God Junresi was attended by six lesser lamas, their red robes stinking of sweat and rancid butter.
The Holy Mother and His Holiness spoke privately for half an hour. He withdrew after knocking his head on the floor nine times in the formal kowtow, groaning audibly and grimacing in outrage. When the barbarians left, we sprinkled the hall with perfume, but their stench lingered.
During the afternoon of The Birthday the Holy Mother disported Herself with Her ladies. Wearing the flowing robes of Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, in the mode of the Tang Dynasty, She was as beautiful as the sixteen-year-old Manchu maiden who had come into the bed of the Hsien Feng Emperor as a concubine of the third rank more than fifty years earlier to bear Him an heir; become the principal Empress; and, after His untimely death, assume the cares of state on behalf of, first, Her infant son, the Tung Chih Emperor, and, later, Her nephew, the Kuang Hsü Emperor.
The Holy Mother first recalled Her recent visit to the Zoological Gardens, frowning when she spoke of the elephant presented to Her some years earlier. The Mandarin charged with its care pocketed the silver appropriated to feed the great beast’s enormous appetite. One morning, the emaciated elephant died, toppling comically from its broad feet. The Holy Mother ordered the Mandarin decapitated, but later commuted the sentence to exile in Central Asia.
I believe even that punishment was excessive. The Mandarin did no more than allocate a portion of public monies to himself—as his responsibility to his family demanded, as we all do.
The Empress Dowager then spoke of Queen Victoria, regretting that the English Queen had never called upon Her. She had admired the older woman, though that Queen’s rank was much inferior to her own.
Convinced by Her own vigorous enjoyment of that carefree afternoon that Her protracted ailment was finally cured, the Empress Dowager consumed three plates of stewed crab-apples and clotted cream. That evening she was severely afflicted with the dysentery that had intermittently weakened Her for the past nineteen months.
The Dalai Lama sent a small gilt Buddha to be enshrined on the altar in the mausoleum prepared for the Holy Mother amid the tombs of the Dynasty in the Fragrant Hills. The Pontiff promised the life of the Empress Dowager would thereupon be greatly prolonged.
However, the Emperor’s condition grew appreciably worse after the Imperial pair on November 9 received the Commissioner for Education of the Northern Provinces. Her Majesty sternly charged the Commissioner to suppress the revolutionary intrigues of the students in that last formal audience She was to grant.
Concerned for the Son of Heaven, the Holy Mother called master physicians from afar and summoned all senior Mandarins to the capital. Before lapsing into a coma, the Emperor set His seal to a brief decree prepared by the Empress Dowager’s Secretariat. It regretted His inability to attend upon Her and urged Her to appoint an heir to the Throne immediately.
She selected Pu Yi, the infant son of Prince Chun, who was the older brother of the Kuang Hsü Emperor; she spurned the adult Prince Pu Lun, direct descendant of the Tao Kuang Emperor, who ruled from 1821 to 1850. Since She believed She would live many years longer, She set upon the Dragon Throne an infant who would be attentive to Her wisdom, as would his father, the Co-Regent. The Imperial Council protested, and the dying Emperor contended that an infant should not be elevated to the Throne in a time of turmoil. But the Holy Mother’s will prevailed, as always.
The Chief Eunuch summoned me in the early morning of November 14, shortly after our visit to the Empress Dowager’s bedside with which this humble account began. The Emperor, he said, was failing fast. Fortunately, a courier had just delivered a precious packet from Lhasa to the Empress Dowager. It contained a root shaped like a tiny man, which grew high on two sacred Tibetan mountains.
The Chief Eunuch gave me a powder ground from the root, instructing me to burn it in saucers placed around the Emperor’s bed. The fragrant smoke would immediately relieve His congested breathing, and the Son of Heaven would soon recover.
The Empress Consort Herself at first questioned the remedy. But She knew that the Empress Dowager, who was Her own aunt as well as the Emperor’s, cared only to preserve the Son of Heaven. The Empress Consort finally sighed and instructed me to convey Her thanks to the Holy Mother.
I rejoiced as the Son of Heaven’s breathing became easier. Yet I was disturbed when I saw on the Emperor’s side table a document written in His own hand. I could make out only the first three lines.
“We were the second son of Prince Chun,” the Emperor had written, “when the Empress Dowager selected Us for the Throne. She has always hated Us since that time …”
Sorrowing that the Emperor’s mind was wandering, I retired. I was, however, awakened the next morning to be told that the Emperor could not live out the day. The magical Tibetan herb had failed. He died at 5 P.M., having refused to don the Robes of Longevity in which all His Predecessors had attired Themselves for Their final journey.
You should know that the Emperor’s last Decree reviewed His endeavors to harmonize the time-proven Confucian way of government and life with Western technical and administrative innovations. The Son of Heaven’s last rescript further reiterated His thwarted desires to establish an independent judiciary and to give the Realm a Constitution.
The very day after the Son of Heaven ascended the Dragon, the Holy Mother put aside Her natural grief. She rejoiced at having adroitly arranged the succession of the infant Pu Yi, thus averting Court intrigues and public disturbances after the demise of the Kuang Hsü Emperor. She was painfully cognizant of the many threats that menaced the Dynasty: the rebellious southerners who desire a republic; the greedy foreigners with their aggressive religion and their murderous cannon; the heightened tension between Chinese subjects and Manchu rulers; as well as the rivalry between Her own branch of the Imperial family and the senior line.
The designs of even the most puissant of mortals are subject to the Will of Heaven. The Holy Mother’s far-seeing measures to consolidate the new reign had made Her grandnephew Pu Yi the Hsüan Tung Emperor and His father, Her nephew, Prince Chun the Younger, Her Co-Regent. But the Motherly and Auspicious swooned while planning the ceremonies of enthronement intended to calm the commonalty by demonstrating the untroubled continuity of the Dynasty. Her limbs twitched uncontrollably, while expressions of grief and terror passed across Her exquisite features.
When She awakened, the Empress Grand Dowager summoned the young Empress Dowager, who was the widow of the just-deceased Kuang Hsü Emperor; the Co-Regent; and the Imperial Council to Her bedside. The voice that had guided the Dynasty for almost a full cycle of sixty years conveyed Her final instructions. Her formal Valedictory Decree was hastily drafted by Her Secretariat. Her emendations impressed upon future generations the manifest truth that She had initially been forced to assume the Regency in order to preserve the Dynasty. She further recalled Her intention of promulgating a Constitution and Her decree that all traffic in opium must cease after eleven years.
Two hours before the Holy Mother ascended the Dragon, we begged Her to bestow upon us Her final commands as the Rites prescribe. She replied forcefully: “Never again allow any woman to hold supreme power in the State. The practice is against the house-laws of Our Dynasty and should be strictly forbidden.”
At three in the afternoon of November 15, the Holy Mother straightened Her limbs and turned Her face to the south in accordance with the Sacred Rites. The watchers by Her bedside saw Her spirit fly from Her mouth and ascend unto Heaven.
Hilary Metcalfe laid the spy’s report down and chuckled disconcertingly.
“I don’t see the humor,” Harry Sekloong protested. “It’s a wicked tale. The decadence, the corruption, the agonies—they may amuse Europeans. But I’m Chinese enough to …”
“Sorry, Harry,” Metcalfe said. “But the eunuch omitted one detail. Dr. Morrison reported to The Times that
the Empress Dowager’s very last words were the injunction: ‘Take great care to prevent eunuchs meddling in affairs of state.’”
“So she did kill him, the old she-devil.” Sir Jonathan ignored Hilary Metcalfe’s macabre amusement. “I suspected—we all suspected—but no one was sure. That tale Dr. Morrison didn’t report.”
“What’s this magical Tibetan root?” Metcalfe asked. “Devilish, nasty, a drug so deadly its fumes kill within hours?”
“Not to worry, Hilary,” Sir Jonathan advised. “No one’ll ever know just what drug Tzu Hsi used to kill her nephew—who was, perhaps, her son.”
“Gentlemen!” Mary’s tone expressed her own horror at the spy’s tale. “I hate to intrude on your male love of gossip. But, I’d like to know, what does this all mean for us and the future?”
“We can now plan definitely. The Manchu Dynasty must come apart in the next few years. No constitution will be promulgated to appease those reformers who’re still monarchists. Even they must, therefore, support the republicans. Revolution’s inevitable, and the republicans are the strongest, best-organized rebels. The Manchu Dynasty must fall. Barring miracles, Confucian monarchy itself must perish.”
Sir Jonathan paused, shocked by his own implacable logic.
“Two unashamed thieves now rule China, the young Empress Dowager and Prince Chun, the Regent, supported by the infinitely corrupt eunuchs. That pair are as stupid as they’re greedy. They manipulate an infant Emperor, who’s probably degenerate, he’s so inbred. The Court’s split into a hundred factions. The jackals are fighting for fair shares of the carcass. The government’s tottering, ineffectual, and indecisive. So much for the Great Pure Dynasty. Strike it from the books.”
“And the House of Sekloong?” Harry interposed. “How do you answer Mary’s question, Father?”
“I’ll say after Hilary says what it means to Hong Kong.”
“If you insist, I’ll state the obvious. Hong Kong and Shanghai’ll become much more important. For a long time, the treaty-ports’ll be the only points of political or economic stability. It won’t be all peaches and cream—hard cheese too. We’ll have to cope with thousands, tens of thousands, fleeing war and pestilence, famine and floods, looting and rapine.”
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