Coming to your senses, my son, means returning to Hong Kong at once, the very latest by Christmas Day, alone but for Jamie McFay (and Dr. Hoag, should you wish to have his company) to discuss your future plans, to take up pressing duties and prepare for the position you have trained all your life for. Should you prove to be satisfactory, I will make you tai-pan on your twenty-first birthday, May 21/.
I have shown this to Gordon Chen and asked him to comment where necessary--our compradore must, MUST, by Dirk's Law, be a party to the handing over of power. yr devoted mother. P.s. I love you and an added P.p.s.: Thank you for your news from Parliament about more of their usual stupidity (via the curious channel of our archenemy Greyforth. Beware of him, he's up to no good but then you know that better than I). Yes we had heard the rumours, the Governor still denies any knowledge. I had already written to our Parliamentarians on the first rumour telling them to stop the nonsense if it was true, and to Bengal forewarning them. In response to your letter I have written again. It really is time you came home to apply yourself to your duty and our mounting problems.
"Duty!" Malcolm shouted at the wall, balled the letter and hurled it at it, hurting himself with his violence. He stumbled to his feet, lurched to his bureau. The little bottle contained his evening dose. He drained it, smashed it on the oak top cursing, and almost fell as he groped to his chair.
"She can't! Can't! That... that bitch can't do that... can't! "Go back alone" only means without Angel Histo discuss"... I won't and she won't interfere..." and he continued to half think and half speak imprecations until the opiate entered his bloodstream and began its deadly solace.
In time he noticed the other letter from Compradore Gordon Chen--his father's stepbrother, one of many illegitimate children sired by Dirk Struan.
"Three that we know about," he said aloud.
My dear dear nephew: I've already written how sorry I was about your bad joss, the wounds and accident. I'm even more sorry to hear there is an estrangement between you and your mother that promises to become dangerous and could disrupt our Noble House--therefore it is my duty to comment and advise. She showed me her letter to you. I have not shown mine to her, nor will I. In mine I will confine myself only to the position of tai-pan, other than to give you my very private advice about the girl: be Chinese.
Facts: though you are formally my stepbrother's heir, your mother correctly says you have not undergone the obligatory ceremony, attestations, oaths and signatures laid down in my Honourable Father's Will and Legacy that are necessary before you can be tai-pan, which, to be valid, must be witnessed personally and attested to in writing as properly executed by the current compradore, who must be of my branch of the House of Chen. Only then is the chosen one the tai-pan.
Before your father died he did in fact appoint your mother tai-pan. It was correctly done in all details. I witnessed it. She is tai-pan legally and has power over the Noble House. It is true that your father and mother expected the position to be passed over to you quickly, but she is also correct that one of the tai-pan's obligations is to attest before God to the integrity of his successor, and also true the Noble House is governed only by what the tai-pan, he, or she, decides, particularly the choice and timing of any succession.
My only advice is: be wise, swallow your pride, return at once, kowtow, kowtow and kowtow, accept a "trial" period, become again a dutiful son, honouring your ancestors, for the good of the House. Obey the tai-pan. Be Chinese.
Malcolm Struan stared at the letter, his future in ruins, past in ruins, everything changed. So she is tai-pan! Mother is! If Uncle Gordon says it then it's true!
She's cheated me out of my birthright, she has, my Mother has.
But isn't that really what she's wanted all the years? Didn't she always cajole, beg, whine, plot do whatever was necessary to dominate father, me and all of us. Her maddening family prayers every day and church twice on Sunday, us trailing along when once on Sundays is more than enough. And drinking! "Drunkenness is an abomination" and quoting the Bible all day long to the point of insanity, no fun in our lives, Lent observed to the letter, fasting, forever carping on the brilliance of Dirk Struan, God curse him, always saying how terrible to have died so young--never bringing up that he died in the typhoon with his Chinese mistress in his arms, a fact that was and still is the scandal of Asia --always sermonizing on the evils of the flesh, Father's weakness, the death of my sister and the twins ...
Suddenly he sat up solidly in his high-back chair. Insanity? That's it! he thought. Could I put her in an insane asylum?
Maybe she is. Would Uncle Gordon help me to... Ayeeyah! It's me who's mad.
It's me who's...
"Malcolm! It's lunch time."
He looked up and saw himself talking to Angelique, saying how pretty she was but would she mind very much going without him as a few serious things had to be decided, letters to be written--no, nothing that affected her, no really, just a few business problems--all the time remembering "return alone" and "kowtow, she's tai-pan" grinding into his head. "Please, Angelique."
"Of course, if that's what you want, but you're sure you're all right, my love? You don't have a fever do you?"
He allowed her to feel his forehead and caught her hand and pulled her into his lap and kissed her and she kissed him back and laughed gaily and straightened her bodice saying she would be back after her piano lesson and not to worry and for the picture he must wear his evening clothes and oh you'll be so impressed with my new ball gown.
And then he was alone with his thoughts again, the same words grinding his brain: "return alone...
She's tai-pan." How dare she cancel the order for rifles--what does she know about this market?
Tai-pan legally. So she really does rule the roost, and me. Certainly until I'm twenty-one and ever afterwards. Until she's not.
Until...
Ah, is that the key? Is that what Uncle Gordon meant when he wrote:.be Chinese.
Be Chinese how? Just be patient? How would a Chinese handle my whole predicament?
Just before he went into his special sleep, he smiled.
As it was Saturday and a pleasant afternoon a football match had been arranged on the bluff. Most of the Settlement was watching andwiththe usual fights and hysteria, on and off the pitch, when one side or the other scored a goal, Army versus Navy, fifty men per side. The score was Navy 1, Army 2, and the first half not yet over. Hacking permitted, brawling permitted, almost everything permitted and the only purpose to force the ball through the opposing posts.
Angelique, seated on the halfway line with Sir William and the General, was surrounded by the rest of his lunch guests--Seratard and other Ministers, Andr`e and Phillip Tyrer--who had decided to come en masse to watch. Crowding them and vying for her attention were British and French officers, Settry Pallidar and Marlowe, the only British naval officer, amongst them--Jamie nearby. When she had hurried back to Malcolm to tell him she was cancelling her piano lesson, which was another excuse not to have to sit with him, and to ask him if he would like to go to the game, he was still asleep. So she had asked Jamie to escort her.
"Yes, best to let him sleep--I'll leave him a note," Jamie had said, welcoming any excuse to distract him from looming disaster. "Pity he won't see the match, Malcolm was a sports enthusiast, as you know, a grand swimmer, a fine cricketer as well, tennis of course. Sad that he's, well, not his old self."
She could see that he was as gloomy as Malcolm but that did not matter, she thought, men were generally serious and she was pleased to have company as a foil against the others. Since the great day when that which was growing had ceased to be, and her health and vigor had returned, better than ever, she had found it unwise to be alone with any of them. Except Andr`e. To her delight he had changed, no longer threatening or referring to the help he had given her, all of it she would like to forget, no longer looking at her with rough and heavy-lidded eyes, too easy to read the cruelty behind them, though sure the cruelty still lurked within him.
Important to keep him friendly, she thought, aware how vulnerable she was. Listen but beware.
Some of what he says is good: "Forget what happened before, it never happened."
Andr`e's right. Nothing happened. Nothing, except he's dead. I really do love Malcolm, I'll bear him sons and be the perfect wife and hostess and our salon in Paris will be...
A roar distracted her. A mob of Navy players had forced the ball between the Army posts but the Army fought the ball away and now a general riot began, the Navy claiming a goal, the Army disputing it. Dozens of seamen swarmed on to the pitch to join the melee, then soldiers and soon there was a free-for-all, traders and others cheering and laughing and enjoying the spectacle, the referee, Lunkchurch, desperately trying to stay out of the fight and, meanwhile, get some order back on the field.
"Oh, look... that poor fellow's being kicked to death!"
"Nothing to worry about, Angelique, just horseplay, clearly it wasn't a goal," the General said confidently. The man was Navy so of little concern. Sir William, the other side of her, was as excited as any, nothing like a good brawl to lighten the spirits. Nonetheless, conscious of Angelique, he leaned over to the General.
"Think we should get on with the game, Thomas, eh?"
"Quite right." The General motioned to Pallidar.
"Break it up if you please--reason with them."
Pallidar of the Dragoons went onto the pitch, took out his revolver and fired a salvo into the air. Everyone froze. "Listen, you lot," he called out, all eyes on him now, "Everyone off the pitch except the players. The General's order: another riot and the match is cancelled and those involved will be disciplined. Move!" The field began to clear, many hobbling, the injured dragged off by supporters. "Now, Mr.Referee, was it a goal or not?"
"Well, Captain, yes and no, you see ..."
"Was it or not?"
The silence was strong. Lunkchurch knew whatever he said was going to be wrong. He decided the truth was best: "A goal for the Navy!"
Amid cheers and countercheers, threats and counterthreats, Pallidar walked back, tall and very pleased with himself. "Oh, Settry, what bravery!" Angelique spoke with such appreciation that Marlowe and others were riven with jealousy. "Good work, old boy," Marlowe said reluctantly as the game--the fight--began in earnest to cheers drowned by the boos and curses.
"Jolly good game, Thomas, what?" Sir William said.
"Clearly that wasn't a goal, the Referee's a--" "Poppycock! Five guineas says the Navy will win."
The General's neck had gone a darker shade of red and this pleased Sir William and helped to get him out of his ill humor. Nothing but quarrels in the Settlement and Drunk Town, irritating letters and complaints from the Bakufu and Customs House, and he had not forgotten the General's stupidity at the riot.
Added to these woes, the last mails had brought more foul news and forecasts from the Foreign Office that lack of financial support in Parliament would herald major cutbacks of Diplomatic personnel "even though the coffers of the Empire are overflowing, there will be no salary increases this year. The American war promises to be the most savage in history because of the newly invented shell, bronze cartridge, breech-loading rifle, machine gun and breech-loading cannon; with the defeat of Union forces at Shiloh and the Second Battle of Bull Run the war is presently expected to be won by the Confederates, most pundits in the City having written off President Lincoln as weak and ineffectual, but, dear Willie, H.m.'s policy remains the same: to back both sides, keep our heads down and stay to hell out of this one..."