"It's a deal." He offered his hand. Malcolm shook it.
McFay said, "I'll draw up the paper this afternoon and have it for your signatures at 5:00 P.m. all right?"
"Good. Thanks for coming to see me, Dmitri, you're always welcome. Dinner's at 8:30."
After Dmitri left McFay could not stay quiet. "That's a lot of money."
"dis528,000 to be precise. But Colt's got a new order for a hundred thousand rifles of a radical new design. By the time our letter of credit clears their shares will have doubled so we've just made half a million dollars."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'm sure."
"You'll sign the promissory note?"
"Yes. If you tell me I can't because I've no authority because of what my mother has or has not said, I will take no notice whatsoever and sign it anyway." Malcolm lit a cheroot, continuing, "If it's not honored that will backfire and ruin Struan's like nothing in our history. I'm tai-pan, like it or not, until I resign or until I'm dead, whatever she says."
They both watched a smoke ring rise and vanish and then McFay nodded, slowly, his misgivings overcome by Malcolm's strange surety and authority that he had never experienced before. "You know what you're doing, don't you?"
Malcolm's eyes lit up. "I know many things I didn't when I first came here. For example, if you insist on leaving... Come on, Jamie, I'm sure in your heart you've decided, and why shouldn't you? You've been treated shabbily--I know I haven't helped but that's all over, if I were you I'd do the same.
You've decided, haven't you?"
McFay swallowed, disarmed. "Yes, I'm going to leave, but not until Struan's business here is optimum, six months or so, unless she fires me first. Christ, I don't want to leave but I must."
Malcolm laughed. "You've taken a moral position."
McFay laughed too. "Hardly. It's crazy."
"No, I'd do the same. And I'm sure you'll be a huge success, so much so a hundred thousand of the dollars I've just made--I have, Jamie, no one else--will be an investment in McFay Trading. For a..." He was going to say forty-nine percent share but changed that, to give McFay face, and thought, You deserve it, my friend, I'll never forget the mail you could have hanged for--Sir William would have caught us, I'm sure of that too. "... a sixty percent share?"
McFay said, "Twenty-five," without even thinking.
"Fifty-five?"
"Thirty-five."
"Forty-nine percent."
"Done, if!"
They both laughed and Malcolm said what McFay had been thinking, "If the shares double."
Then he added seriously, "And if they don't I'll find it another way."
McFay looked at him for what seemed a long time, his mind in a thought pattern of questions but no answers. Why has Malcolm changed?
Heavenly? The business over the mails? The duel? Surely not. Why does he want to see the Admiral? Why does he like Gornt who's a crafty if I ever saw one?
And why did I blurt out, Yes I'm going to leave, before I knew it, making the decision I'd been thinking about for months: to take a chance before I die. He saw Malcolm watching him, weak in body, but tranquil and strong. He smiled back, glad to be alive. "You know, I'm sure you will."
Angelique was taking her pre-dinner siesta, a coal fire merry in the grate. Curtains were drawn against the wind and she was curled under down covers and silk sheets, half asleep half awake, one hand comfortably between her legs as Colette had taught her in the convent when they would sneak into bed with one another after the nuns had left the dormitory and were snoring behind their curtained cubicles. Fondling and kissing and whispering and chuckling under the covers, the two young girls sharing secrets and dreams and wants, pretending to be grown-up lovers--as described in the romantic but forbidden street pamphlets that were smuggled in by the chambermaids and circulated from hand to hand amongst the students--all make-believe and healthy and amusing and harmless.
Her mind was on Paris and the wonderful future ahead, Malcolm softly content beside her, or already out in the Struan countinghouse, now headquartered in Paris, rich and tall, all his bad health a memory, her bad not even a memory, a baby son in the nursery along the corridor of this their chateau, his own nanny and maids watching him, her body again strong and as well shaped as now, his birth easy. Then there would be visits with Colette to Struan's fabulously successful silk factory that she had persuaded Struan's to build after learning so much about the harvesting and growing of the silkworms: "Oh Colette," she had just written, these little worms are extra-ordinary, eating mulberry leaves for food, and then you cure the cocoons and unravel the silk....
I never thought I could be so interested. Vargas is my secret informant and he sneaked the silk seller in to show me some, but I have to be so careful --I started talking about my idea for a factory with Malcolm and Jamie and they laughed.
Malcolm said not to be silly, making silk was a highly complex business (as if I didn't know) and not to worry my little head about business. I do believe they want us to be cocoons, to use or abuse at their whim, and that's all. Colette, send all the books on silk you can find...
How lovely to have one's own countinghouse, and money, she thought. Living in Paris there will be visits to London, occasionally to Hong Kong, dinners and soirees and lavish balls for my Prince Charming and his special friends...
She glanced at the letter to Colette on the bureau she had just sealed. More secrets shared, at least, in part: This Edward Gornt is becoming a real friend, so charming and attentive, a real friend, not like Andr`e. I'm sure, dear Colette, he will be a friend for life because my darling Malcolm seems to enjoy his company too. Isn't that strange--when Edward works for those awful Brocks I've told you about, and Norbert Greyforth who gets more venomous-looking every day, like the warlock he is!
Tonight we are having another BIG soiree.
Everyone will be there, Andr`e is playing, Edward, he is a dancer, light as a butterfly...
She had not written that the last time they had danced, at a dinner given by Sir William, he had held her hand differently, dangerously, with enough pressures to talk to her, once his little finger curled in his palm touching hers: the language of lovers, I want you in bed, yes or no and when --don't say no!
She had moved her hand, coolly and firmly.
He had said nothing, his eyes smiling, and she knew that he knew she was not really angry, merely beyond reach, engaged.
Nor was she angry at Andr`e, really angry. A few days ago they had met by chance at the French Legation. "You're looking well, Angelique, I'm delighted to see you. Can I have a word, privately?"' She had said, of course, and when they were alone he had told her it was about the money he had lent her. "I'm badly strapped, could you let me have it, please?"' "But I thought the... the other transaction covered that." Her heart had skipped a beat being reminded of their stratagem over the lost earrings.
"Sorry, no it didn't. That paid for the mama-san's advice and the medicine."
Her flush had been sudden. "We agreed never to mention the, the matter, ever again, don't you remember?"' she said quietly, wanting to shout at him for disturbing their solemn agreement. "It never happened, it didn't, that's what we agreed --it was just a bad dream!"
"I agree it never happened but you mentioned the transaction, Angelique, I didn't bring it up, just about the money. Sorry but the money's pressing." His face had gone cold.
Warily she had bottled her anger, damning him for disturbing her peace. She had convinced herself nothing had ever happened--except for the one man who could dispute it, nothing had. That was the truth. But for him. "About the money, dear friend, I'll return it as soon as I can. Malcolm doesn't give me money as you know, just lets me sign chits."
"Then perhaps we'd better arrange another "loss."
"No," she had said, her voice honeyed, and put a hand on his arm to soothe the flash of anger, "That's not a good idea." Though she purged the whole affair from her mind, for the most part, whenever it came back to haunt her, particularly at night, she was aware it had been a dreadful mistake. "Perhaps I can think of another way."
"I need it now, Wednesday at the latest.
Sorry."
"I'll try, I'll really try." And she had. Yesterday she had seen Henri Seratard and tearfully begged and pleaded, saying she needed money for a surprise for Malcolm, that she would be always in his debt and signed another piece of paper, pledging her diamond engagement ring as surety.
Wisely she had borrowed twice as much as she owed. This morning she had repaid Andr`e. He had thanked her and thanked her. No reason to be angry with him. He's my good and trusted friend and I did borrow the money. What did I need it for? I forget. Sans faire rien, that's one debt repaid.
Half the rest she had taken to McFay.