A Most Immoral Woman

by Linda Jaivin

  As the three were finally seated, Morrison remarked as if inconvenienced and not uplifted by the attention, ‘It is a professional hazard of the journalist, who envisions himself as a hunter and gatherer of news, to be perceived by others as a mere pantry or storeroom of information to be raided at will.’

  ‘You are much sought after,’ Menzies replied, adding awkwardly, ‘as ever. But more than ever. Now with the war and all.’

  Morrison nodded. By force of will and discipline, he stayed on the topic of the war all the way through to the blancmange.

  ‘Will we be seeing you tomorrow night?’ Dumas asked as the men advanced on the line of rickshas outside the club. The Tientsin Amateur Theatrical Corps would be performing The Yeomen of the Guard, in which Mrs Dumas, who had arrived back in the country, had a minor role. As part of his general campaign of appeasement, Dumas had promised his wife he would bring along friends who could be counted upon to applaud cheerfully at curtain call. She had specifically asked him to invite Dr Morrison.

  Morrison had forgotten all about it. ‘Of course. I will see you there.’

  His next rendezvous with Mae was the following morning. He slept poorly and awoke befogged from dreams in which he was back in the siege, though this time the tasselled spears of the Boxers resembled nothing more than giant dental probes.

  In Which Morrison, upon Discovering What He

  Has in Common with an Almeda Pharmacist, the

  Son of the Richest Man in the World and a

  Congressman from Tennessee, Spoils the Linen

  Mae turned up at the Astor House with a basket on her arm. In it lay neat stacks of letters, tied up with loving care in wide pink satin ribbon.

  Taking up one packet, she loosened the bow and dealt the envelopes onto the table before choosing one, extracting the letter and reading it aloud. And then another. And another, the ribbons lining up on the desk like military decorations.

  And so it was that Morrison, torn between reluctance and curiosity, heard yet more seductive and disturbing tales. She told him about her faithful three-time fiancé, George Bew, a pharmacist from Almeda with a plan to get rich by breeding Belgian hares, who called her ‘my own darling little sweetheart’ and wrote every day, even after she had broken off the engagements and despite the mockery dished out by rival suitors: ‘poor George, his dough has been baked into cake’ one had cruelly remarked. He heard about dalliances at cotillions and lawn parties with young naval officers with names like Edgar and Walton, and how she had made love in the fragrant, moonlit orange groves behind a quaint old Florida fort with a dean of law from Providence, Rhode Island. She told him about playing golf in summer with Judge Fred Clift, with whom she slept for seven months, and about sleighing in winter with Bobby Mein, who had her for five. ‘I dropped Bobby because he drank too heavily. I do not like a man’s breath to be eight parts whisky,’ she explained.

  ‘Indeed. It should be four parts champagne at least,’ Morrison quipped, his head reeling. ‘That is quite some catalogue,’ he added. ‘It’s little wonder that women make better novelists than they do journalists.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not fiction. It’s all true, honey.’

  ‘I just meant,’ he continued lamely, ‘no editor could keep you to six hundred words.’

  She was not close to finished. The Fifth Avenue heir Willie Vanderbilt Jnr had pressed her up against the cool Algerian-marble walls of the ballroom at his family’s Newport mansion, given her gifts and proclaimed himself her ‘most devoted’ admirer. There were letters from Captain Kay-Stewart Thompson of the P.M. Agency in Hong Kong, whom Morrison knew, Harry Handford, and others too numerous to name or remember. His head swam with other men’s endearments: How lovely you were…The day is awfully dull for me when I cannot see you at least once…My darling little sweetheart…I think often of our drives—Sweet, oh!…A thousand and one kisses…How I longed for you last night, and how I wish you were here by my side now…Do not write such endearments on postals for I am often out when the mail arrives, and other boys at the Academy may read them…I wonder if you ever do think of your little boy out east…you little witch, you win, you got me too much interested in you…I never yearned for anyone as badly in all my days…You cannot know one half the desire I possess in the longing for your letters…Remember those 5 o’clock rides we had out on Castro and Market Streets…My own darling little sweetheart—remember your promises to me…you were so very good to come again this afternoon to see your lover…I want you now…I want you ever…I beg you if you love me, please tear up these letters once you have read them…I will try to get you to the phone—to hear once again the sweet voice that has been music to me so often…My darling Mae…I have learned to love you more than I thought any man could possibly love a woman…My Dear Sweet Mae…you charm and bewitch…I am crazy to see you…that wonderful ride in which you saw a marvellous thing of his…I love you enough to promise always to yield to your pleasure…I am crazy for a glimpse of you…I knew you were a spoon but you beat my expectations…kiss yourself for me a thousand times till I see you again…

  Morrison heard about dancing the cakewalk in Chicago with this lover and bobsledding in Maine with that one, tales of trysts and buggy rides, of long drives in four-in-hands with the storm-sides up, of assignations with Billie and Harry and William and Lloyd and Fred and others named and unnamed, until he was tormented by a vision of his darling Mae laid out under men from Oakland to Tientsin.

  ‘Who was the most formidable?’ Vain hope thickened his inflection.

  ‘Hmm.’ She inclined her head. Her gaze flickered as though she was reviewing the pages in a photograph album. ‘Linton Tedford was the most formidable fornicator I have ever encountered,’ she finally pronounced. ‘But others wrote better love letters. They’re good, don’t you think?’

  ‘Remarkable,’ Morrison responded, dazed. ‘Truly remarkable.’ Any one sufficient to convict her of unchastity. As if chastity were ever a possibility. The fictional Anna Lombard was looking more and more like a shining exemplar of feminine virtue. ‘Is that the whole collection?’

  ‘It’s all that’s left. There were more. Mama discovered the rest and burnt the lot. Her health is frail and argument sends her to bed. I didn’t raise it with her. There was no point. The letters were gone.’

  Her fingers dawdled on his thighs. He tried to summon the will to push them off, but the will would not be summoned. His legs, long and hard-muscled from a lifetime of tramping, walking and riding, offered a sinewy landscape for tracing, even in repose. Willie bloody Vanderbilt Jnr would not have such legs! When she fluttered her hand upwards, he trimmed his stomach in anticipation for the more intimate caresses that would follow as surely as lover followed lover in her stories.

  ‘Dare I ask which of the many beaux I have heard of is the one you say reminds you of me?’

  Her hand stopped roaming. ‘I have not yet told you about him. He’s maybe one year older than you.’ She wore a faraway look. ‘John Wesley Gaines. They say he is the most handsome congressman in the whole United States.’

  ‘Congressman?’

  ‘Democrat from Tennessee. Women have been known to trip over their own skirts for staring at him as he passes. You should see how parasols twirl and handkerchiefs drop when he’s about.’

  ‘And what is it exactly about him then that makes you think of me? I have never noticed much parasol-twirling or handkerchief-dropping in my vicinity.’

  ‘Ha! You are so much alike. He does not notice either. Or pretends not to.’

  Even worse. ‘What else do I have in common with this acme of manhood?’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Jealousy, darling. Not attractive.’

  ‘Ah, he was jealous too.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. Though it is true. And it was a problem. Also like you, he was intelligent, witty, accomplished, strong in his opinions and highly regarded. And agreeably talented in bed.’

  Such a style of compliment! ‘How did you make the a
cquaintance of the lucky Mr Gaines?’

  ‘At a social function in Washington when I was visiting Papa about six years ago. I was nineteen or twenty at the time. Papa and he are not even on the same side of politics—isn’t that funny?’

  ‘Very droll.’

  Mae reproached him with a look. ‘Oh, and like you he is a medical doctor, though he has studied law besides. He also has great acumen in business. And his career in Congress has been a brilliant one.’

  Morrison hated him more and more.

  ‘There was this one time—it still makes me laugh to think of it—the House was debating pensions for soldiers who had served in the Civil War. The President had put forth some bill that would override the decisions of the Commissioner of Pensions, arguing that the commissioner was doing injustice to the soldiers. At this, John Wesley stood up and asked, most ironically, “Why does not the distinguished President turn that commissioner out and put in one who will do justice?” Isn’t that just so very clever?’

  ‘Very.’ Morrison’s voice was steeped in vinegar.

  Morrison could have stopped her from then describing how John Wesley Gaines stroked her with his hands and with his voice, a mellifluous deep Southern drawl she imitated to perfection. How she’d been his bad little girl and how he had spanked her for it. How he’d tied her hands with ribbon and had her against the walls of his office, hard and powerful. She confessed that she still ached for him. She missed his keen wit, and keener desire, to which his careful letters rarely gave expression. Letters written in a proud, precise attorney’s hand. His deep-set eyes of green, their intense, sardonic gaze. His aura of wealth, intelligence and power, enhanced by his shock of thick brown hair, high brow, arrogant nose and proud, sensual mouth. His chiselled features thrilled her eyes; the soft bristle of his prominent chin excited her thighs. His tongue was so clever, and not just at speech. She had loved him so much her heart bled to think about it.

  As if on cue, the site of the old spear wound in Morrison’s sinuses haemorrhaged. Seeing the blood streaming from his nose, Mae gave a little cry and rushed to get a flannel. She then ministered to him with such unaffected kindness and devotion—and a considerable quantity of hotel linen—that he was brought to mind of his Calcutta angel, Mary Joplin.

  As he had told Moberly Bell, Morrison had not long before considered giving up reporting from China on account of his chronic poor health. Meeting Mae had revived him and given him an illusion of youth. Now proof of the opposite was written all over the ruined sheets. ‘You must be thinking what a poor specimen I am,’ he mumbled, humiliated, feeling all the worse for having just heard tales of so many athletic predecessors.

  She shook her head and stroked his cheek with a sweetness that made his heart ache. ‘Not at all. I was thinking about the intrepidly adventurous life you have led and how marvellous it is that at your age you are suffering not from rheumatoid aches and pains but only from the effects of an old spear wound.’

  Dear, dear girl. He was relieved that he had never mentioned his arthritis.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, her eyes alight with good humour, ‘with all this blood on the sheets, the staff of the hotel, if no one else, will be quite convinced that I was a virgin before I met you.’

  They hadn’t left the room all day. The sun slowly sank over Victoria Park, sprinkling the room with golden light. Plates of half-eaten food and empty champagne bottles littered the carpet. There was the sound of a light knock and then an envelope slipped under the door.

  Mae looked over Morrison’s shoulder as he opened it.

  COME WHW JAMES URGENT.

  ‘That sounds most mysterious. Who’s James?’

  ‘Lionel James. He must be in Wei Hai Wei.’ He started to tell her about James when he remembered the unopened telegram in his jacket pocket. ‘This one says, “Come WHW James.” That was yesterday. Today it is urgent. Deuced nuisance.’ He was more concerned than he let on. He was well aware that he had been neglecting his work rather badly.

  ‘Perhaps you should go.’

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere,’ he said. They both saw the next envelope slide under the door. The content was identical to the previous two except it said “Very Urgent”.

  ‘You must go to Wei Hai Wei before that poor Mr James explodes with frustration,’ she said. ‘Have I mentioned that I will be accompanying Mrs Ragsdale to Shanghai in a few days? Come to Shanghai after Wei Hai Wei. We’ll have a high old time there together. But first, Ernest, honey, promise me something.’

  ‘Anything.’ He was still ashen-faced from his nosebleed.

  ‘You won’t go with any fast women whilst we’re apart, will you?’

  Morrison blinked. She was perfectly serious. Astounding himself, he gave her his word.

  In Which Our Hero is T’aken Captive by ‘Yeomen of the Guard’ and the Perfidious C.D. Jameson Makes an Unwelcome Appearance

  That evening found Morrison slumped in his seat in the auditorium at Gordon Hall, staring at the stage from under his lowered brow. In poor, untrained voices, the singers tortured the melodies whilst stout matrons old enough to be grandmothers coquetted about pretending to be fair maidens. Stolid bankers playing young gallants flung their pork-knuckle hands here and there in lieu of acting. The painted set fell over in the first act and, when one of the younger actresses made a hash of her lines, she burst into tears. The most astonishingly rotten amateur performance I have ever seen, Morrison thought morosely. Dull ye gods! Not that much in the way of theatre could hope to compete with the performances to which I’ve been witness these last few days!

  On Morrison’s right sat Menzies, rigid and dutiful even in his approach to entertainment. On his left, Dumas squirmed, apologetic. The only uplifting aspect of the evening was the sight in the crowd of a handsome and amorous young couple whom Dumas identified to Morrison as Zeppelin and his fiancée. She had arrived the day before from Holland.

  After congratulating Mrs Dumas and company, Morrison pleaded exhaustion and an early start the next morning. He returned to a hotel room redolent of sex, perfume, blood and champagne and thickly haunted by the ghosts of other men.

  That night, he dreamed feverishly of cakewalks and sleighing and buggy rides, of men, men and more men, around, on and in his Maysie, in her sweet cunt, her squeezable arse, her smiling lips, her soft, moist lips, her red, red lips. He woke with a start in the middle of the night, covered in sweat, though he had thrown the eiderdown clear off the bed. His tooth hurt. His joints ached. His nose threatened another eruption. Bloody Willie Vanderbilt. Son of the richest man in the whole world. How could one compete with that? Should one have to? Morrison rolled over in a huff, as though to leave Mae’s vast collection of beaux out of sight on the other side of the bed. Her sweet cunt. Her squeezable arse. Her soft red lips.

  With a great effort, he turned his thoughts to more appropriate concerns, the subjects of his other conversations in Tientsin. The war. The politics of the railways. The war. Shipments of coal and arms. The ongoing Siege of Port Arthur. The coolie trade to South Africa. The war. The port of Tientsin doomed by its sandbar worsening every year. The war. The arms trade. The war. And what the devil was up with James—URGENT, URGENT, URGENT? Morrison yawned, felt the ache in his jaw, and thought that if he met Mae in Shanghai he could see the dentist there as well. That, in turn, caused him to recollect the tale of Jack Fee. He groaned. Her smiling lips, her sweet cunt. Blood. He finally fell asleep, a paltry three hours before he was due to rise for his train to the port, where he would catch the steamer sailing southeast through the Gulf of Bohai to Wei Hai Wei.

  Morrison was nervy with a dearth of sleep when Kuan, who had been distinctly underemployed for several days, woke him for the train. At the station they ran into C.D. Jameson, just off the train from Peking and plainly as thrilled to see Morrison as Morrison was to see him.

  ‘Well, hello.’

  ‘Morning, Jameson. What brings you to Tientsin?’

  Jameson mumbled something about
mines and concessions. He smelled of rum, even at that hour.

  Jack Fee, Bobby Mein, George Bew and Willie bloody Vanderbilt were of the past, Zeppelin out of action with the arrival of his fiancée, and Martin Egan, he had ascertained, safely back in Japan for the moment. But Jameson? Even Mae had her limits, surely. Morrison refused to place Jameson within the frame of this increasingly crowded picture. The grubby old duffer had merely heard the rumours and thought to start one about himself.

  ‘And you, old chap?’ Jameson’s rheumy eyes flickered. He adjusted his false teeth with his pinky. ‘What’s been your business here? Seeing Miss Perkins, I presume?’

  Morrison, the nerves behind his eyes hammering, felt his hackles rise. He is down after the fair Mae, that is certain sure. He shoved his gloved hands deep in his pockets. ‘I may have seen her in passing. This city of one million is a small town, after all. Ah, there goes the whistle. I shall bid you adieu. Good day, sir.’

  In Which Morrison Is Reminded to Guard His

  Yang and His Old Friend Molyneux Offers

  Some Startling Advice

  The Hsin Yu, piloted by the burly, red-faced Captain Richards, got away in good time. Kuan by his side, Morrison leaned on the rail of the little steamer and watched T’ang-ku recede into the distance. The noise of the engine and the ship’s vibrations under his palms and feet compounded his headache and the sickness behind his eyes; he hid behind his sunglasses from the thin, milky sunlight.

  As the wave of nausea passed, Morrison relished the sensation of being on open water. Breathing in, he let the viscid spray numb his face and hands. Tientsin had begun to feel claustrophobic. His world had shrunk to the size of his hotel room or, more precisely, his hotel bed, and that had suddenly seemed absurdly overpopulated.