My Beautiful Enemy

by Thomas, Sherry

  The driver spoke with an accent she found difficult to understand—had he come from the provinces? But at least he did not say much, except to warn her to be careful as she climbed in.

  Rain still fell, stolid and gloomy. The pedestrians shielded themselves with large black umbrellas. The drivers of hansom cabs and private carriages hunched beneath their black raincoats. London was like a living photograph, leached of color, leaving behind only shades of charcoal and grey.

  Before his death the same night as Amah’s, Master Gordon, Catherine’s English tutor and her only true friend, had always liked to brew Darjeeling tea during Peking’s few wet days. Together, they would listen to the sound of rain falling on his roof.

  Once she had written out for him a Sung Dynasty song that her mother had loved. After his death, she had found the poem among his possessions, along with an English translation he had been working on.

  As a youth, I listened to the rain from the bowers of pleasure houses,

  Red silk drapes translucent in the glow of candlelight.

  In my prime, I listened to the rain as a traveler,

  The sky low, the river broad, the calls of the wild geese harsh and cold.

  Now, grey at the temples, I listen to the rain beneath the eaves of an abandoned cloister.

  Has mine been a futile life?

  I have no answers, only the sound of raindrops upon worn stone steps,

  And long hours yet to pass before the light of dawn.

  Catherine was not much younger than Master Gordon had been when she first met him. While this English rain had been to him the romantic embodiment of his youth, the music that accompanied carefree pleasure and easy lovemaking, it was for her very possibly the rain of the lone, weary traveler, one who was beginning to fear the wilderness of old age.

  A cold, gnarly pain gripped her side as she descended the hansom cab on St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The injury from the night of Lin’s death she had been able to contain; what she truly needed, however, was a long retreat, nothing but the building and repairing of chi, to expel all the poison.

  But she had too much to do now.

  The rain-slicked street was boxed in by imposing buildings that belonged to the General Post Office. Catherine asked at the poste restante office for any dispatches that had come for her during her travels—from Shanghai, before she left China, she had telegraphed a request for the office to hold her mail.

  There was a single telegram dated three weeks prior, from Da-ren’s secretary, alerting her to the fact that news of the jade tablets’ appearance in London had reached the Dowager Empress’s ear and that she had dispatched an agent of her own to find them for her.

  Had Lin been that agent? If so, he was no longer in the Dowager Empress’s service, but feeding fish at the bottom of the Atlantic. And with luck, Catherine would complete her task and depart England, the jade tablets in tow, before the Dowager Empress could send a replacement.

  Next she visited the Bank of England, to check on the funds she had wired from Shanghai. She withdrew a fraction of the money and headed to her next destination: the office of a private investigator.

  After she had saved Mrs. Chase, Catherine had found a staunch champion in Mrs. Reynolds. Not that Mrs. Reynolds hadn’t been kind and helpful before, but now she stressed repeatedly that Catherine must—must—allow her to do everything that a wealthy, well-connected widow could do for a young lady.

  When Mrs. Reynolds made such offers, Catherine believed her. She had therefore told Mrs. Reynolds that she would like to pay her respects at her former tutor’s final resting place. Would Mrs. Reynolds know how she could track down the late gentleman if all she had was a name?

  As soon as they’d disembarked in Southampton, Mrs. Reynolds had sent off a telegram to her man of affairs. And by the end of luncheon, Catherine had the name and address of a private investigator who could be relied upon to make discreet inquiries.

  Seated in Mr. Lochby’s clean but utilitarian office behind Bow Street, a cup of hot, overbrewed tea before her, Catherine laid out her case.

  “I am almost certain that Mr. Gordon arrived in China sometime around 1875. He passed away early in 1879. His remains were entrusted to the British Legation in Peking. And I’m afraid that is all I can tell you. I do not know his place or date of birth. Or the names of his family members.”

  “Was he a gentleman?”

  Sometimes Catherine still interpreted “gentleman” as “gentle man,” which Master Gordon certainly was. But Mr. Lochby was asking after Master Gordon’s pedigree, whether he came from that specific class of English landed gentry, a man of means and leisure.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “You have some idea of his age?”

  “He must have been around thirty-five or so when he died.”

  Mr. Lochby’s pen scratched as he wrote in a notebook. “It is my belief we probably do not have many native sons shipped back from the Far East in caskets. I should be able to cable the legation in Peking for more information. And I will send inquiries to harbormasters at our major ports of entry: Dover, Southampton, Liverpool, and so on. And in the meanwhile, I will also look into scholastic records—there are certain schools the gentry prefer for the education of their sons.”

  “That would be very good. Thank you, Mr. Lochby.”

  They discussed his fees and Catherine paid him a portion up front. As she rose to leave, she turned around at the door and said, as if in afterthought, “If possible, I would like to learn the contents of Mr. Gordon’s will.”

  Mr. Lochby was surprised. “Are you expecting a bequest, Miss Blade?”

  “No, not at all. I do, however, believe that a man’s will is the most succinct statement on whom he truly loved.”

  Master Gordon had possessed, at one point, both of the jade tablets that had left China—his father had acquired them from an antique expert in Nanking. One of the tablets Master Gordon had kept for himself; the other he had given, as a token of his affection, to the man he loved. That man died long ago, but he had a son, who would have inherited the other jade tablet.

  Master Gordon’s will could point Catherine in the direction of this son, which would prove helpful in her search. But what she wanted above all was for the will to lead her to someone who had adored Master Gordon as she had, and who, like her, felt the impact of his untimely death to this day.

  If nothing else, this alone would make the long journey to England worthwhile.

  The rest of Catherine’s afternoon was spent in her hotel room, sitting cross-legged on a rug before the fireplace, her breaths carefully controlled to aid the movement of her chi, laying siege to the knot of cold venom that Lin had left behind.

  At seven, she rose and ate two sweet buns that she had purchased from a bakery—after months of steamer travel, during which she had dined on a steady diet of Western foods, she had grown somewhat accustomed to the omnipresence of butter. Then she dressed and left the hotel on foot, since it had stopped raining and she was not going far.

  Brook Street, Regent Street, Oxford Street, Great Russell Street. And there it was, the British Museum, all granite façade and huge fluted columns, as imposing as Master Gordon had said it would be, even at night.

  Electrical illumination had been installed in the museum the previous year, Mrs. Reynolds had told her, and now the museum opened from eight to ten in the evening, every day of the week except Sunday. Tonight, according to the information given to the public, the ethnographic gallery, including the Asiatic Saloon, could be viewed.

  She passed under the grand, coffered ceiling of the entry hall, restraining herself from running up the stairs to the upper level. I believe someday I will donate this to the British Museum, Master Gordon had once murmured, gazing down at the jade tablet, as if it were a window through which he could see the years of his youth and the greenery of an English countryside.

  Then she hadn’t known what a museum was: The very idea of giving one’s collection of beautiful things to
a public institution had seemed breathtakingly radical. Now, well inside one of the greatest museums in the world, she still barely had any idea what a normal museum-going experience should be.

  She was very nearly sick with excitement. The interview with Mr. Lochby, the calls she intended to pay to London’s antique dealers, those were necessary steps. But deep down she had always known that it would be at the British Museum that she’d find the jade tablets—or at least the one that Master Gordon had kept.

  Her heart pounded dizzily; her fingertips shook. Her eyes perceived only slightly blurred shapes, ringed with the glow of the incandescent electric light from the ceiling.

  It would be—a bittersweet understanding pierced through her—almost like seeing Master Gordon again.

  At the doorway to the Asiatic gallery, she made herself stop and take slow, deep breaths. She could almost see it, the creamy radiance of the jade tablet, the ecstatic drift of the dancing goddess. Watch over me, you who were my truest friend, she prayed to Master Gordon’s spirit. Let me find you.

  The first thing she saw was the head of a Buddha—an excellent sign. The room seemed to be filled with religious artifacts, Buddhist, Hindu, and other faiths that she couldn’t readily identify.

  But no jade tablet among them. She moved a little farther, to cases of teapots, inlaid stoneware, and colored pottery bricks. And then past them to huge vases, small plates, bronze figures, wood carvings, and even musical instruments.

  The beating of her heart had slowed, but now each one felt like a hammer strike. She turned around. There in a table case, small, pale, rectangular, with vertical lines of Chinese characters—

  She rushed over. But a lurch in her stomach told her it was not the jade tablet she was looking for, but a different one, the mineral a very light green, the scene that of a well-tended garden rather than one of spiritual bliss. And the words were not those from the Heart Sutra, but a poem by Chien-lung Emperor, who had reigned a hundred years ago.

  She felt nauseated again—this time from dread. Table cases, wall cases, displays affixed to pillars, she went through them one by one, methodically, meticulously. And when she had exhausted all the items in the Asiatic Saloon, she went down the entire length of the Ethnographical Rooms, but though the gallery started with some Chinese weaponry, the main focus quickly shifted to far-flung islands from Java to Hawaii.

  She came back up the other side of the gallery and went through the Asiatic Saloon one more time, her footsteps heavy with disappointment.

  But it was a disappointment that did not last long. Already, as she walked out of the museum, she realized how ridiculous it was to think that on the same day she found out that her lover was alive, she would also locate the first of the two jade tablets.

  This was but a small setback—not even that, really; merely a correction of overly optimistic estimates. It was still a good day. An excellent day. The best day she’d had in a very long time, coming so soon on the heels of at last avenging her daughter: She had not killed the man she loved and she would never again live under that soul-crushing guilt.

  What Annabel had characterized as an intimate evening at home was now a gathering of more than thirty guests. Several of the guests sang lustily to Mrs. Chase’s accompaniment at the piano, and quite a few of the rest, Annabel included, were enjoying an impromptu dance, after having pushed the furniture to the walls.

  Annabel, of course, cut a dashing figure on the dance floor. Her golden hair had been done up in a Grecian style, which complimented the subtly Grecian draping of her white evening gown. Though she was engaged, the young man who was her partner still gazed at her adoringly, more than half undone by the beauty of her person and the vivacity of her presence.

  Leighton had met her not long after his return to England, on a night much like this, at a gathering of young people clamoring for fun and games.

  At some point during the evening, she had approached him. Sir, you are a man of handsome mien and independent means. And I have volunteered to inquire, on behalf of all the young ladies present, whether you are earnestly seeking a spouse or merely browsing the available selections.

  He had been charmed. I have been told I should be married.

  Her eyes twinkled. Ah, so you are one of those gentlemen making the rounds out of a sense of obligation.

  More or less.

  I see. If you will excuse me, I must return to my friends and report my findings.

  As she turned to leave, he had asked, And do those findings matter to anyone besides yourself, Miss Chase?

  Her response had been a cheeky wink.

  The present-day Annabel glanced in his direction and, as if reading his mind, gave him another comely wink.

  It would be an excellent story to tell his future children about how their parents had met. A proper, drawing room–friendly anecdote. No gore, no lies, no poisoned wound that would never heal.

  Only sunshine and sweetness.

  The dance ended. Immediately another man came up, clamoring for Annabel’s next dance: Edwin Madison, her second cousin and Leighton’s former colleague in India. If Mrs. Reynolds meant to introduce Miss Blade around, then inevitably she and Madison would meet.

  The girl he could not forget had spoken excellent Turkic. Her facility in that language, along with her blue-grey eyes, had made him assume that she was who she had appeared to be, a stray from a nomadic tribe.

  Miss Blade spoke nearly perfect English. But this time, he could not possibly accept the façade she so capably presented, that of an Englishwoman visiting the homeland for the very first time, not when he was already certain that she was an agent of the Ch’ing government. Did he, then, have an obligation to pull aside Madison, a fellow agent of the crown, for a word of caution?

  But what could he say without giving himself away? And if he had met her for the first time today, would he have believed there to be any danger to this slightly dowdy–looking woman, whose every smile seemed to finish on a note of melancholy?

  Oddly enough, it was not her melancholy that unfurled the old pain in his heart, but her dowdiness. There had always been a trace of sadness to her, even during their days along the ancient caravan route; but there had been fire, too, a fierce resolve to not let herself be defined by everything she had lost. And because of that, though she had dressed little better than a beggar, she had been utterly dashing. Riveting.

  Now the light had gone out of her, a flame reduced to a coil of smoke, a shadow of its former self.

  “One can always count on you to be the center of calm, Captain, when there is a frenzy of merrymaking going on,” said Mrs. Reynolds, coming up to stand next to him.

  She was a good hostess—the reason he stood apart was so that she would approach and make sure that he was enjoying himself.

  “One could say the same of you, ma’am,” answered Leighton.

  “But I’m twenty years your senior, Captain. When I was your age I took an active part in the merrymaking.”

  He smiled, allowed a few seconds to pass, then said, “Mrs. Chase seems to have recovered well from her ordeal.”

  Mrs. Reynolds glanced at her sister, who was having herself a riotous good time. “Well, thank goodness.”

  “And you, ma’am?”

  “I am also in fine form.”

  She slid her fingers along the closed fan in her other hand. Leighton willed her to speak of the one he truly wanted to hear about. Mrs. Reynolds exhaled, a rather heavy sigh, and gazed up at the overcast sky outside the window.

  “Something the matter, ma’am?”

  “A little worried for Miss Blade, that’s all.”

  For all that he had been expecting it, her name fell upon his hearing with the force of boulders. “Oh?” he made himself say lightly.

  “I wish she had agreed to stay with us. Somehow I feel that dealing with that awful man has weakened her and that I am remiss in not having her under my roof and taking care of her.”

  Was she injured? Was that why she h
ad looked so fragile?

  He remembered the near reverence with which he had looked after her, when she had been crumpled and helpless. It was the first and only time he had ever had the care of someone stronger than himself, and he had been driven with the need to see her restored to her former glory.

  But then it had taken nearly a dozen bandits—with rifles—to drive her to the edge of defeat. Who could have single-handedly taken her on?

  Unless it was the man she had been running from for half of her life . . .

  “A Chinese man, Mrs. Chase had said, was it not?”

  Mrs. Reynolds hesitated. “I am not entirely certain—I saw him only briefly. And he spoke French.”

  Leighton knew of a man, reputed to be half French, half Vietnamese—a man who could scale any wall, penetrate into any fortress, and crack the skull of any who stood in his way. In fact, only a week ago Leighton had returned from the Côte d’Azur, in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the lair of the Centipede, so called because the man always left behind a brush-and-ink drawing of a centipede.

  “You and Mrs. Chase met him on Gibraltar?”

  “Only my sister did. Miss Blade and I went ashore together; my sister did so with two other ladies from our steamer. When we returned, she said she had met a French gentleman named Monsieur Dubois who had spent some time in Gibraltar, and was now headed to England. Only after the chaotic events of the night did she claim that he was instead Chinese.”

  Leighton would have liked to ask more questions, but he judged he could proceed no further without betraying too great an interest, especially given the probability that Mrs. Reynolds, like he, suspected some sort of physical intimacy between Mrs. Chase and her assailant before their eventual falling-out. “Well, now you need to think no more about him.”

  “A very comforting notion, that.” Mrs. Reynolds sighed again, opened the window, and leaned out slightly. “Ah, a bit of fresh air.”