Fortune is a Woman (37 page)

And then Edward's lips were on hers and she wanted him in a way she had never wanted Josh. She wasn't seeking solace or comfort in Edward Stratton's arms, she wanted him the way a woman did.

She pushed him away and sat up, tossing back her loosened hair and quickly twisting it into a knot. With her hair tied firmly back she felt more in control of herself.

Edward was a man of tradition. He knelt in front of her and took her hand in his and said, "Will you please marry me, Francesca?"

She gasped. She was flustered, flattered, tempted. "But I can't," she said. "We've known each other such a short while.... You know so little about me."

"That's easily remedied. Come home to Scotland with me, stay at Strattons, meet my children. Bring your son and then we'll all get to know each other. Just say yes, Francie. I've never felt like this before about any woman, not even Mary. She was my childhood friend, I knew her all my life; but you are different." He kissed the hand he was holding. "I feel passionately about you, Francesca. Please say you'll marry me."

She was so tempted she could hardly think straight. "I can't say yes," she said weakly. "But maybe one day I'll visit you at Strattons."

He sighed. At least he had achieved half his goal. "I warn you, I'll ask you again," he said, "over and over until you say yes."

CHAPTER 28

Lai Tsin had returned many times to Nanking in the past few years and every time he had retraced the fateful steps from the waterfront through the alleys of the city, searching for the square where the flesh-peddler sold his wares, but he had never again been able to find it.

He told himself it was a futile quest, that he would never find the man and that he was lucky because it meant that his soul would not be stained with his murder. Because if he ever found him he would surely kill him.

But in all this time and through all his travels in China, seeking the best sources and suppliers for his business, he had never returned to his home village on the banks of the Ta Chiang. Now he knew he could put it off no longer. He must return and exorcise his demons or forever live with a troubled mind.

The long trip upriver on the small shabby steamer was filled with memories and he stood by the rail watching the passing landscape, reliving that other terrible journey. At Wuhu, the stopping point for the steamer, he disembarked and hired a small shabby junk to take him farther upriver to his village. As they approached, he went to the small cabin and dressed himself in the long deep-blue embroidered silk robe that signified he was a man of means and no longer a mere field worker. He put on the stiff new silk hat, but this time the button in the center was not of silk but of precious white jade. He put on his new black leather shoes and then he walked back onto the deck as the junk maneuvered its way to the rickety wooden jetty.

When they saw it was docking at their insignificant little village, people came running to see who it was, staring respectfully at the important-looking man in his grand blue-silk robes. Some kowtowed before him as he stepped down the gangplank and stood at last on his home ground. Lai Tsin did not look into their faces as he flung a shower of coins in their direction and walked by, but he heard them scrambling, fighting for his largesse as he set his feet on the familiar path to his village, the very same path along which they had driven the poor little white ducks on their way to the river and their deaths in Nanking.

The road was hot and dusty, a yellowish clay ribbon stretching through the drab, hazy landscape of gray-green rice fields. He saw the children still paddling the big wooden waterwheels, wading through the mud with their heavy baskets, following the water buffalo, planting the new shoots and praying for a good crop.

The
fung-shui
grove was on the outskirts of the village to the west and it was there he went first. He walked slowly, searching for the place where the body of his favorite little brother, Chen, had been left for the dogs and birds to take. Even after all these years the terrible night was so indelibly imprinted on his mind that he recognized the very tree, and he knelt before it and bowed his head, offering a prayer to the gods for the soul of his baby brother, who had been considered too young to have one —though Lai Tsin had known better.

After a while, he left the
fung-shui
grove and made his way toward the village. Nothing had changed. To the left was the village lord's reedy pond with the same white ducks and a man tending them. Lai Tsin glanced at him as he walked by, but it was not his father's face. He did not recognize him and so walked on, reminding himself that his father had been an old man of more than sixty years when he had left and that he must be long since dead.

The village of baked-yellow-clay houses rose from the flat, featureless landscape identical to a thousand other villages along the Yangtze, but he knew every inch of it. His eyes darted this way and that, seeking out the familiar places, the strange gnarled willow that grew where there was no water, the wooden temple with its carved cornices and curved eaves, its red paint worn to a vague brown. There was the same pack of scrawny dogs circling the houses looking for food, the same poor children dressed in their elder brothers' cast-offs, the same tattered red-paper slogans pasted over the entryways and the same desolate little stalls selling minute portions of meat and spices, incense and charcoal. The clay walls that had once enclosed the village were crumbling, disappearing back into the earth from which they came, and many of the small houses stood empty. The few people about stopped to stare at him, looking distrustfully at the grand stranger in their midst, and he nodded politely and bade them good day.

The house of his father, Ke Chungfen, was at the very end of the tiny village and his footsteps slowed as he approached it. A child of about three years was playing in the dirt by the door and the sound of voices raised in argument came from the house. He paused and listened. It was not his father, but it might have been; it was the same haranguing tone, the same violent, careless words, the same harsh threats. He walked to the door and called out the name "Ke Chungfen" and there was a sudden stunned silence. Then a voice shouted, "Ke Chungfen went to his ancestors many years ago. Who is it that calls out his name?"

"It is the son of the
mui-tsai,
Lilin," he replied calmly. "Lai Tsin."

There was a crash from inside and then the door was hurled open and Ke Chungfen's son by his Number One wife stood there, glaring at him. He was short and powerfully built, like his father, and his brutish face had the same discontented scowl; his clothing was poor and patched and his hands callused from work in the fields. His glowering expression changed as he took in Lai Tsin's prosperous appearance.

"Well, well, Number One auntie's son," he exclaimed, for concubines were traditionally given the honorary title of "aunt." What brings you home after all these years?" He stepped back with an oily smile, waving him inside. "Welcome, welcome, Lai Tsin." Calling his wife, he roughly ordered her to prepare tea for their illustrious visitor. "For I can see you have come far in the world, Lai Tsin," he added. "Of course, it was wrong of you to run away and leave your brothers to take up the burden of the extra work necessary to keep this humble roof over our heads, and care for Ke Chungfen in his final years. But now you have returned to make reparation for such wrongdoing."

"I will not take tea with you, Elder Brother," Lai Tsin told him quietly. "Nor will I discuss my business with you. I am here to ask you one favor, for which I will pay you well. My mother, the
mui-tsai
Lilin, was not granted the honorable burial her ancestors would have expected. They are angry and upset that her soul still wanders far away from them. They have asked me to build her a temple where her spirit will join that of her son, Little Chen, so that she may be remembered on this earth forever, and their spirits may rejoice again in the company of their ancestors."

He reached into his pocket and took out a leather purse. "In here is sufficient money to buy the best materials, and to pay for expert construction. I know about these matters, Elder Brother, and cannot be fooled. I have already purchased the plot of land on the hill sometime ago and in six months I will return to inspect your work. If it is good, then I shall pay you handsomely, and I shall pay you a small sum each year after that to maintain the temple. If you try to cheat me I shall have you run out of this village and cast to the very dogs they gave my little brother to."

Elder Brother nodded his head eagerly, he could hardly believe his luck. "How much shall you pay me, Ke Lai Tsin?" he asked, magnanimously adding "Ke," the honorable family name of his father, to the concubine's son.

Lai Tsin stared at him, remembering the years when he had slept on the grass bedmat at his mother's side in the freezing little room with the ricepaper windows, his belly crawling with hunger and his limbs aching from his work in the fields, while Ke Chungfen and his brothers slept cosily by the charcoal stove covered in padded quilts, replete with rice and meat. He flung a handful of coins onto the earthen floor, watching contemptuously as Elder Brother groveled to pick them up, his lips moving as he counted them gleefully.

"You are generous, Little Brother," he exclaimed, beaming.

Lai Tsin shook his head sorrowfully as he walked to the door. He knew poverty only too well; he understood that it could turn men to demons selling their souls to find food and shelter for their families or opium for the pipe of oblivion. But the man before him had sold his soul many years before for far lesser reasons, and he despised him.

"Do not forget, I shall return to the ancestral temple in six months' time," he called over his shoulder.

Elder Brother bowed his head, dithering excitedly on the doorstep, the money still clutched in his hand. His haggard young wife peeked from behind him as he called, "It will be done, Honorable Little Brother, just as you wished."

Lai Tsin walked to the village burial ground, but though he searched every inch, there was no place marked with Lilin's name and he could not remember its position. Nevertheless he knelt and bowed, touching his forehead to the yellow earth nine times, and in his prayer he told her that soon she would roam the spirit world no longer. At last she would have a home where her ancestors could find her and she could join them in their happiness.

Elder Brother had shouted his good fortune aloud to the village and as Lai Tsin walked back people rushed from their crumbling houses to stare at the rich man in his magnificent embroidered silk robes with the precious white jade button in his hat. "He is a Mandarin," they gasped, "a man of learning and power. He has achieved much for the son of a
mui-tsai."

But Lai Tsin ignored them as he strode on toward the great Ta Chiang, turning only once to look back at the village. "Soon," he promised, "all this will be no more. The wind will eat away the walls of clay, the sun will dry the ponds and the drought will wither the rice fields. Then the clay will turn to dust and the wind will carry it away, layer by layer until the great Ta Chiang rises to cover it." As though already implementing his prophesy, the wind soughed along the arid little road, fluttering the dry trees as he lifted his eyes to the distant hill where his mother's temple would stand. "And then there will be nothing left but the temple to the memory of the woman Lilin and her child. It is as it should be."

Turning, he walked resolutely away. The junk was waiting by the riverbank and he climbed on board, and without a backward glance sailed back to Wuhu and Nanking and Shanghai. And then to Hong Kong and Francie.

***

Francie was alone with Edward Stratton. She told him about her problem getting enough cargo to fill their big new ship.

"We don't want to steal the hongs' trade—and anyway, that's impossible," she said. "All we want are the crumbs from their tables, the shipments that are too small or too much trouble. We can fill half the ship with our own goods, but it must sail with a full load or we will lose money."

"I'll help you," Edward promised, "but only on one condition. That you come to the governor's reception with me tonight."

She laughed. She knew she shouldn't, but she said yes.

Government House was an impressive white granite building set in its own gardens. Lanterns flickered in the trees, a string quartet played a selection of operatic melodies and the British governor, Sir Henry May, told Francie, laughing, that Edward was a good fellow and she had better hurry and say "yes" and put him out of his misery.

"Everybody's here tonight," Edward told her, scanning the crowd expertly. "All the taipans who have said no to you are going to change their minds tonight. All you have to do is charm them."

It was true. All the men who had sent their underlings to offer her sherry and biscuits were only too pleased to be introduced to her at Governor Sir Henry May's residence. Beautiful women were a rarity in Hong Kong—or at least beautiful
ladies
were, they explained to her. And when Edward mentioned her little difficulty with the family business and the need to fill the ship, they immediately promised to help. Even though they might not have any cargo themselves, there were plenty of the smaller Chinese traders who might need space on a San Francisco-bound vessel.

And when Lai Tsin returned a week later, Francie took him to their rickety godown. She unlocked the brand-new padlock and removed the chain while he looked on, mystified, and then she showed him the shelves filled with bales of goods and wooden crates. She told him the story and he congratulated her on her first big success.

***

There were two things left for Lai Tsin to do before he returned to San Francisco. The next morning he met Francie and they walked down Des Voeux Road, past rows of tall, important-looking buildings until they came to an empty, weed-strewn lot dotted with ramshackle mat sheds and rickety foodstalls. The aroma of ginger and spices wafted from blackened woks balanced precariously over a dozen charcoal braziers and the high-pitched Chinese chatter competed with the noise of the traffic and the grinding and hammering coming from the building sites across the road. Small children ran underfoot, smiling beguilingly up at them as they pressed a few coins into their hands, and curious faces stared after the beautiful barbarian lady and the Mandarin in his grand blue robes as they paced the length of the lot that Lai Tsin had won from Chung Wu years ago.