by Y. S. Lee
“Oh, hang it all!” he cried. Again, it was a rare and unnerving example of real emotion cracking his polished facade. “I’m sick to bloody death of her! I never want to see her face again. Have some compassion, Miss Quinn, I beg of you.”
Ah — now they were getting somewhere. She folded her arms. “Then make me an offer.”
He glared at her, all attempts at charm abandoned. “Five guineas.”
She almost laughed. “For Amy, certainly. But I don’t want your money.”
“What, then?”
“Information, of course: what you hoped to learn from Amy.” She daren’t be more direct. The thefts had been so well covered up that he’d be suspicious if she revealed knowledge of them.
“And in return, you’ll call off the b —”
“In return,” interrupted Mary, “I’ll do my best to convince Amy that marrying you is not in her best interests and that she’s better off accepting five guineas for her disappointment and suffering. I’ll need a check, by the way.”
“And if you fail, and she sues me for breach of promise?”
“She won’t. But if she does, I won’t testify on her behalf.”
“That’s all very well, but I need a bit more reassurance than that.”
Mary shrugged. “I’ve never lied to you. That’s more than you can say for yourself.”
It was a measure of Jones’s desperation that he held out for only half a minute; Amy must have been effective indeed when she ran him to earth. “Fine. It’s not very juicy, anyway: there’s some sort of scandal hanging about the Prince of Wales.”
“Not those preposterous rumors about the death of Ralph Beaulieu-Buckworth, I hope,” said Mary with feigned impatience.
“What d’you take me for?” snapped Jones. “Of course not. I’ve been working on Amy since early January — much too long to be distracted by that sort of half-baked gossip. No, this is something much more likely: a royal romance.” He caught Mary’s look of disbelief. “He mayn’t seem very appealing to you, but he’s still the heir to the throne. There’ve been a couple of sightings — the prince coming down to town at unusual times. A few letters sent. A morning ride in the park, after which the prince disappears for an hour or so.”
“Who’s the lady?”
Jones shook his head. “Not quite certain. It’s a family of four sisters, all between sixteen and twenty-two. Name of Hacken.”
“What a peculiar name.”
Jones’s mouth twitched. “Well, they’re not haut ton, or whatever’s left of it; otherwise it’d have a more euphonious pronunciation. Hacken père’s a jeweler. Done rather well for himself: big freehold pile in Mortlake, carriage and pair and all that. The older girls work in the shop. I expect that’s how he met them. They’re not exactly diamonds of the first water themselves”— Jones smirked at his pun —“but I suppose they’re fresh and just pretty enough. And from what Amy says of the prince, he’s a foolish pup. Probably he thinks he’s having a grand romantic adventure, thinking and doing things nobody’s ever thought or done before.”
“But have you evidence that this is a romantic entanglement?”
“As opposed to what?” demanded Jones. “You think he’s talking philosophy with the shopkeeper?”
Mary said nothing, except “Go on.”
“Anyway, I’ve been trying, through Amy, to pick up any tittle-tattle about all this, but the palace is a grim little pile of stones, ain’t it? No gossip, no fun, no high jinks by night.”
“What made you persist, then?”
Jones shrugged. “Well, one keeps hoping against hope. And Amy was a nice enough child. Besides”— he smirked again —“why wouldn’t I like a woman who ranks me higher than God? Until this, of course.”
Mary smiled for rather different reasons. Even men like Jones, who prided themselves on their worldly savoir faire, could be so easily hoodwinked by girlish enthusiasm. Privately, she thought there would be little difficulty in convincing Amy of Jones’s unsuitability; those five golden guineas would speak louder than words. “Why didn’t you simply get a job at the palace yourself?”
He feigned horror. “My dear, the hard work! It would be the death of me.”
“Yet it would be so much more reliable than other people’s distilled memories.”
“The newspaper pays me only so much, darling Mary — sorry — esteemed Miss Quinn. Certainly not enough to allow me to buttle. Assuming they’d have me.”
Mary only half believed him. Still, there was nothing to be gained in belaboring the point. “Very well, then. Anything else you’re keeping from me?”
“My dear Miss Quinn! After all you’ve promised to do for me?”
The answer was almost certainly yes: this was Octavius Jones, after all. But she could verify Jones’s interests with Amy herself — something he surely realized. And it was enough to rule out his interest in the heirloom thefts, Honoria Dalrymple, the death of Beaulieu-Buckworth, and the tunnels. It was the soundest bargain she’d driven since this case had begun.
Shock was an effective anesthetic, but it couldn’t last indefinitely. As Mary reentered the palace grounds, she felt a strange churning in her stomach that had nothing to do with her long-ago dinner. Her chest ached, her lungs were constricted, and her mouth was suddenly parched, despite a flood of intensely salty saliva. This would never do. She flew through the service entrance, hoping she’d not run into Mrs. Shaw. Her luck held, in a way.
On her way up the servants’ staircase, she nearly barreled into Honoria Dalrymple, in company with an older gentleman. Both whisked round, then Honoria relaxed. “Carry on, Quinn,” she said. Mary hesitated only for a moment — her need for privacy was stronger than anything else at this moment — but as she hurried past Honoria, she heard the lady-in-waiting say, rather loudly, “I’ll see you to the door, Papa.” Mary kept running.
She burst into her room — the room she’d used to share with Amy, now stripped half bare — and only just made it to the chamber pot. Retched. Choked. Finally gave up the remnants of her dinner. Dribbles of thin, sour acid. Then nothing at all, except air and muffled sobs and — yes, as they trickled down over her lips into her mouth — warm, salty tears.
She hadn’t the strength to fight them now. She’d used up all her wisdom and restraint: in recognizing her father and not breaking down then and there; in bullying him into telling her his story; in not demanding personal answers of him; in leaving him there, without ally. It was time to give up the glowing, idealized father figure she had cherished all these years. The good husband. The loving father. Above all, the brave sailor who’d sailed away on a mission of justice. For two years, she’d thought of her work at the Agency as a kind of homage to her father. Following in his vanished footsteps, as best she was able. She’d dreamed of his one day finding her, after years of searching. She’d imagined it as a homecoming, a reunion.
Instead, she had found him. Her tears flowed faster as she mourned her losses. The first, of her father to the sea, when she was a young girl. The second, of the image of her father, bright and brave and untarnished. She forced herself to renounce those childish ideals and summoned an image of Lang Jin Hai as he truly was: a pathetic stick figure — shivering, unwashed, possessed wholly by the desire for more opium. A despicable figure, charged with murder and unremorseful. And, if she was very honest with herself, the deepest wound of all: a man who had been in London and failed to contact her; had, indeed, denied his identity and refused to acknowledge her.
She was soon cried out. First came the drying of tears, then the mopping and blowing, and finally the hiccups. She stood with difficulty, legs half dead from having been folded beneath her for so long. Took a long drink of stale water. Lay down on the bed to think more about her disgrace of a father.
And yet she couldn’t quite join the chorus of condemnation. After all, she too had once been an accused criminal. She knew the despair that drove one to illegal acts, the instinct for survival that crowded out all others. But
this was only part of the matter. For larger than empathy, larger than understanding was the fact that no matter what he’d done or who he was, this Lang Jin Hai was still her father. Of that, at least, she had no doubt.
She made it through the evening — abovestairs dinner preparation, belowstairs tea and desultory tasks — and to bed without further incident. While Mrs. Shaw looked askance at her swollen face and bloodshot eyes, the housekeeper was not usually suspicious except of excess enjoyment and leisure. Mary’s symptoms were so clearly the product of misery that they went unremarked.
Sleep was a long time coming. It was unusually silent in the room; Mary had become used to Amy’s chatter and snores. And try as she might to focus on the tasks at hand — Honoria Dalrymple; Prince Bertie; those ever-more-mysterious thefts — her thoughts persistently circled back to Lang Jin Hai.
Mary woke in the early hours, rather surprised to find she’d slept at all. It was a rare clear night — the rain had stopped in the early evening — and the moon shone brightly even through the tiny garret window. It was the glowing, unearthly light by which Mary, as a child, used to rob houses. Perhaps that was why her thoughts returned to Lang Jin Hai with a sudden clarity that owed nothing to adult logic, her moral training at the Academy, or her responsibilities to the Agency. Suddenly, her path became clear. Rather than frittering away time on shifty ladies-in-waiting, hopeless kings-in-waiting, and petty thefts that might never be solved, she had to address the real responsibility at the core of her life.
She had to rescue her father.
It was the same sentry on duty when Mary turned up at nine o’clock in the morning. He looked surprised to see her again but admitted her readily enough. “You had a rare reception from the Chinaman yesterday” was his greeting.
Mary gave the smug smile of a certified do-gooder. “Sometimes, all these people want is a civil ear.”
“Don’t know why you ladies bother. He’ll be swinging from the neck inside a week.”
Cold terror clutched her stomach. “So soon?”
He shrugged. “Give or take. Ain’t no jury going to find for a Chinee what killed a toff.”
The guard was correct, of course. It was the reason she’d come. No matter how Queen Victoria felt about justice and truth, a jury of stolid Englishmen would always make a foreigner pay the heaviest price for his crime. “I don’t suppose he’s been seen by a physician.”
The guard snorted with amusement. “Oh, aye — and by the queen herself, too.”
She climbed the stairs to Cradle Tower, trying to damp down her hopes as far as possible. She’d shammed illness that morning as the simplest way of avoiding her palace tasks. It was irresponsible, of course. But nowhere near as reckless as what she was about to propose to this perfect stranger. Once more, Lang didn’t bother to raise his head as the turnkey announced Mary and unlocked the cell. He was still huddled beneath that stinking blanket — he mightn’t have moved since she’d last seen him — but his shaking was much diminished.
“Mr. Lang,” she said quietly, reaching once more into her reticule. She sloshed the bottle gently. This time she’d provided herself with several vials, buying from three different apothecaries in order to avoid suspicion.
As if on a string, he turned to face Mary and extended an expectant hand. She waited for him to down the tincture. Allowed another minute for it to take effect. Then, without permitting herself time to reflect or regret, she began. “I asked you a number of questions yesterday. I should like to begin today by telling you about myself.”
Lang blinked at her, only half focused. Those eyes were sunk deep in his head, whites yellowed, irises brown-black. And yet they were still her eyes. Today, they were bright with something other than laudanum: fever, thought Mary. It was unsurprising, given his vile surroundings, that untended gash on his right palm. She should have brought something to clean it. It was a detail she’d forgotten. One that would complicate the escape.
“I was born in Limehouse in 1841. My mother was Irish, a seamstress. My father was a Lascar.” He said nothing, but his features hardened, settled into determined neutrality. “We were a poor family but a happy one — until the year 1848 or 1849, when my father sailed on a voyage that was to be his last. His ship was wrecked. He was reported missing, presumed dead. My mother was pregnant at the time, and she miscarried from grief. A year later, she died — this time from poverty.
“Somehow, I survived. I was eventually taken in by a girls’ school, a charity. I said nothing of my father, concealed my race, for fear they might turn me away. But last year, I met a man who told me something of my family history. His name was Mr. Chen.”
Still no response from Lang, apart from a careful blankness.
Mary steeled herself to continue, although it was a struggle to keep her voice even. “Mr. Chen showed me a cigar box containing documents my father left in his care. These included a letter in which my father explained that his voyage was more than an ordinary commercial expedition. He described it as a ‘dangerous but necessary’ journey, and he left documents that, I believe, would have explained his reason for going. I was never able to read the documents. They were destroyed in a house fire before I could retrieve them. Mr. Chen’s body was found in the burned house.” She paused again. She’d hoped that news of his old ally’s death would move the man. And yet he failed even to blink. Mary swallowed. Prepared to produce her trump card.
“There was an item that didn’t perish in the fire, however.” She dipped a finger into her collar and drew out a thread-thin necklace. “The jade pendant you described yesterday. The gourd.” The tiny stone gleamed dully in the dim light — not that Lang bothered to look at it. His gaze was fixed somewhere in the middle distance, as if he were studiously avoiding seeing his only child there before him. She waited patiently, hoping the dim light was enough to conceal the slight shaking of her hands, the way her pounding heart made her bodice tremble.
And still he said nothing.
Eventually, she spoke. It was either that or flee the Tower. “You are my father,” she said in a voice shaking with unshed tears. “Do you deny that, given the evidence?”
Very slowly, his gaze sharpened and he looked her full in the eyes. “Yes.”
“You deny it?”
A pause. “I am not your father.”
“And what of this?” Mary snapped the necklace chain and brandished it in his face. “This pendant, which you described so accurately yesterday. It’s proof.”
But it was too late: he was withdrawing again, those weary eyes filming over into selective blindness.
She dropped to her knees, forcing her face into his line of vision. “I even look like you! I have your eye shape, and your mouth, and —” To her shame, her eyes welled over. She dashed away the tears with a vicious swipe. “And I’m your only child. You’re my only living relative. Does that mean nothing to you?
“Because it used to. You used to walk me round the streets of Limehouse at dusk while Mama prepared our tea. You used to tell me I had to grow up brave and strong, and always remember how much you loved me. You used to say that the truth would set me free, and always to tell it.” She was crying now, quietly, dripping tears onto her dress, the ragged bed linens, Lang’s gnarled hands. “You used to be my hero. And now you’re lying to me in the face of all logic and reason and compassion and everything else you taught me to value.”
She was fumbling in her bag for a handkerchief — why did she never have a clean handkerchief? — when he surprised her by speaking. “That man also used to say that character is destiny.”
Mary stared at him. “So you do admit —”
“I admit nothing. But your father said that character is destiny, and with that much I agree.” His eyes were sane, focused, despite their hectic glitter. “Look at me: a weak, vain man, corrupted and destroyed by opium.”
“But —”
“If I were your father,” said Lang, in tones so gentle that Mary nearly wept afresh, “and I were in
this position now, I would never acknowledge you as my daughter.” He caught her look. “Never. Not to cause you pain — certainly not that. But to spare you the shame of having to own such a man as your father.”
Her mind whirled, but only for a moment. “But I want to claim you as my father!” It was difficult not to shout the words, but, mindful of the jailer, Mary spoke with quiet vehemence. “I don’t care what you’ve done, or who you’ve killed, or what you’re addicted to. I know the worst there is to know about you, and I still want to be your daughter!”
He looked at her through half-shut eyes. “No. You are thinking with your heart right now. But once you think with your mind, you will understand that I’m correct.”
“Damn it!” She pounded the mattress, and a puff of brown smoke, acrid and salt-smelling, flew up into the air and made them both cough. “This is about love and families. I should be thinking with my heart.”
He looked down at her, and her heart staggered a beat. It was such a familiar expression of affectionate reproof, one she’d seen hundreds of times as a child. “Young woman, this is not merely about family bonds. It is also about survival. Your prospects. Your life as a free, educated, respectable lady.” The emphasis he laid on the last word was unmistakable. “You have been torn free of your roots; that was heartbreaking. But it would be a greater tragedy still to allow past griefs and the sins of others to destroy your life now.”
Mary closed her eyes, as though doing so would also stop her ears. He spoke sense, of course. Her father always had. And opium fiend or no, murderer or not, he was acting in her worldly best interests. She pictured him as he had been in his prime — gentle, handsome, kind — and when she opened her eyes, it was not so excruciatingly difficult to fit together the two Lang Jin Hais. Not now that he’d addressed her so. “What if I want to?” she asked, rising abruptly and beginning to pace the tiny cell. “What if I want to destroy my social prospects, my English life, this lie I’ve been living?”
