Fortune is a Woman (64 page)

"So you see, Beloved Ones," Lai Tsin wrote, "Mayling's story is Lai Tsin's, and Lai Tsin's story is Mayling's. When Lai Tsin met Francie Harrison on Nob Hill he told her the boy was an orphan he had rescued from the earthquake. It was only part of the truth. That boy was also his real grandson, Philip Chen. And the grandson of Harmon Harrison. It was always my sorrow that I could not admit he was of my own blood, but it was already too late. Too much time had passed and I had my new identity, but in my heart, Philip Chen was always the beloved son I never knew.

"I am telling you the truth now, Lysandra, because as a woman you are vulnerable not just to others, but to yourself. I was forced by circumstance to deny my womanhood in order to survive. And all my success, all my wealth, and my power as a taipan were never enough to compensate me for its loss.

"You will read this only when there is need and I counsel you now, dear granddaughter, to remember that first you are a woman. Do not deny your happiness in your search for yourself. Be strong and adventurous. Seek your own life wherever it might take you. To be a woman is your fortune. Use it wisely and with compassion and love."

***

Bitter tears rained down Lysandra's face as she replaced the Mandarin's letter in the envelope. Her heart burned with pity for Mayling and her terrible secret and her suffering, and she wished with all her heart she might turn back the clock and give a new start to the poor terrified Chinese child who had, through circumstance, become "the Mandarin."

She thought for a long time about the sadness of Mayling's life and the sacrifices she had made in order to survive. And her message was as clear to her as it had been to Francie, all those years before.

"Be strong, be your own woman."

Lysandra took the manila envelope and drove back to Po Shan Road. She went to her room and looked at herself in the mirror. She saw a thirty-two-year-old woman, still beautiful and desirable, but already with lines of strain around her eyes and mouth. She saw the years stretching emptily in front of her, with more success and more money and her biological clock ticking desperately away and she knew Matt was right—the Lai Tsin Corporation could go on without her. But she could not go on without him—not any longer.

She sent a prayer of thanks to the wise Mandarin for pointing the way to happiness. She took a small bag from her closet and packed it quickly with the few essentials needed for life in a thatched hut on a beach, then added a large bottle of her favorite gardenia perfume. Then she took the letter and walked to the fireplace, and lit a match; and as she watched Mayling's secret disappear in a quick flutter of flame and blue smoke, she felt closer to the Mandarin than she ever had before.

She called Philip Chen and told him what she had decided and asked for his help. "You know you always have that," he said quietly. He knew Matt and liked him and he didn't question her decision, and she was glad for that. She thought of what Lai Tsin had told her and said, "Philip..."

"Yes?"

She hesitated, the phone clutched to her ear. "Oh, nothing. Except, I just wondered if you ever knew just how much Lai Tsin loved you...?"

"He loved me like his own son, I know that."

His voice was calm, without any underlying meanings, and she said quickly, "Well, I just want you to know I love you, too, Philip. And I want to thank you... for everything."

"Good luck, little one," he said quietly. "Our thoughts will be with you. I'll do what I can to guide the company until you appoint a successor."

She sat for a while staring into space thinking of Philip, and Lai Tsin and Harmon Harrison. Then she shook herself back to reality and made a few calls to the important men who helped run the company. And then she called Robert.

He laughed when she told him. "You should have gone with him when he asked you, I told you that."

"Robert, do you think maybe I'm too late? Will he have fallen out of love with me by now?"

"No chance. Any man who falls for you is in for a life sentence."

"I hope you're right."

There was a silence and then he said abruptly, "I've got to rush, I was supposed to be at the hospital fifteen minutes ago. Good luck, Lysandra."

"I'll be in touch," she said a little wistfully, as she put down the phone again, feeling as though she was cutting off a whole part of her life.

She glanced at her watch as she gave the operator the number at the ranch; it was three in the afternoon in California. Buck answered and his cheery familiar voice suddenly brought a lump to her throat.

"How are you, baby?" he demanded. "Everything okay?"

"Oh, Buck, I'm in love," she said with a sob.

"Are you gonna cry about it?"

She sniffed. "No—no, I'm just happy, that's all."

"It's Matt, I hope?"

"Yes."

"Well, honey, he's a great guy, an individual; you surely won't have a run-of-the-mill routine life with a man like Matt."

"Then you approve?"

He laughed, "If I have to—and you promise to invite us to the wedding this time."

Lysandra felt herself blushing, "I turned him down the first time... I may have to ask him."

His laugh boomed down the line again. "You always were a girl who went after what she wanted. Good luck, baby, and remember, take care of yourself."

Francie got on the line and Lysandra caught her silent anxious vibrations across the thousands of miles of crackling cable and ocean as she told her her decision. "I guess I've always been looking for what you and Buck have, Mom," she said, "and this time I think I've found it. I just had to find out the hard way that love demands a lot from you. It has to come first."

Listening, Francie gazed abstractedly at the view through the open doors leading to the courtyard. She could see a pair of horses running in the paddock and the hillsides with their neat rows of vines interspersed with roses. The turbulence of her earlier life seemed light years away from the happiness and tranquillity of the present. She ran her hand worriedly through her hair, trying not to think of the disaster with Pierre. Matt was different, she knew that, and despite his itinerant lifestyle there was something solid about him. He'd been strong enough to walk out on Lysandra when she had been determined to call the tune, and she had given him credit for that because she knew how much he loved her. Still, she hoped he was the right one. "How can you be sure?" she asked.

"Oh, Mom." Lysandra's voice held amusement. "How can you, of all people, ask me that? How did you and Buck know? Pierre flattered me into believing I was in love. But Matt is reality-—for better, for worse. Besides, I opened the Mandarin's letter." She paused. "Mom, did you know what was in it?"

Francie sighed. "Yes, I knew. He took me to his old village and showed me the Temple of Lilin. But I gave my word to respect his secret—all his secrets—Lysandra, and I couldn't tell even you."

"Oh, Mom, he was so brave. He sacrificed so much and bequeathed us more than just his success and wealth. He bared his soul so he could help us—and now I'm taking his advice. I have to hurry, Mom, I've a plane to catch, so wish me luck, won't you?"

"Of course I wish you luck, darling, and happiness too."

Francie smiled as she walked out onto the porch where Buck was waiting. She sat beside him on the sofa and took his hand.

"She said she only wants what we have," she told him. "Do you think she's doing the right thing?"

He looked at her with love in his eyes, seeing the same beautiful woman he had met all those years ago. "You betcha," he said, smiling.

And early the next morning Lysandra Lai Tsin was on a plane to Australia, and Matt.

EPILOGUE

Many years later, when a beleaguered China opened her doors to the world again, Lysandra and her husband Matt took a shabby black-sailed junk upriver from Shanghai, past Nanking and Wuhu, sailing up the broad yellow Yangtze through the high gorges and past low-lying reedy banks, retracing her beloved Mandarin's fateful journey. On the way, she told Matt the story of Mayling and her brother Lai Tsin, of Little Brother Chen and the beautiful
mui-tsai
Lilin, who was their mother. But she did not divulge the Mandarin's secret, not even to the man she loved and the man who was the father of her three children, who had brought her more happiness than she ever believed possible.

They stood together at the rail as the junk edged its way to the bank, where an old wooden jetty dipped drunkenly into the river and coolies in high-necked blue Mao jackets leapt to fasten the thick mooring ropes. The flat land cowered like a beaten yellow beast under a lowering gray sky and the road that led to the Mandarin's old village was now little more than a track.

Holding tightly to Matt's hand, she ventured down the narrow clay path, gazing around her, searching for the places she felt she already knew; but the flat steely pond was dry and choked with reeds and no longer home to a thousand pretty, doomed white ducks; the rice fields had reverted to marshland and the
fung-shui
grove where Little Chen had been left to the birds and the dogs was but a few barren, leafless trees. The walls that once encircled the village had long since crumbled, there were no more hungry dogs roaming in search of food, and all that was left of the houses were a few piles of yellowish stones.

Lysandra shivered as she looked at the scene of desolation; there was nothing here to remind her of the Mandarin and she turned sadly away, wishing she had never come.

They took the overgrown path through the rice fields and suddenly saw on the hill in front of them, like a flame against the gray-gold landscape, the vermillion ancestral hall of Lilin. They scrambled breathlessly up the rocky path until they stood before it and even though its lacquer was faded and its gilt long since gone, they saw it was very beautiful.

They went inside and there, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was an ancient holyman. He was so old, his fragile bones could barely support their meager covering of flesh. His face was skull-like with a wisp of pointed, gray beard and his eyes seemed even older than the rest of him, steeped in knowledge and alive with goodness. Instinctively, Lysandra bowed to him.

He was sitting on his grass bedmat wrapped in his worn saffron robe and she sat beside him and addressed him in Chinese.

"Honorable Elder, I am sorry to disturb your peace with my humble presence, but I am here to pay my respects to my honorable ancestors."

The old man's eyes searched her features, but he did not question what she said. "Their spirits will be glad you have come," he replied in a thin, reedy voice.

"Tell me, holy man," she said. "All life has gone from this place. Why are you here?"

"Honorable Daughter," he replied gently, "I came across this small temple many years ago on my travels, and each time I pass this way I am drawn again to its peace and its beauty. Each time I stop and pass a few hours or a few days here, I do not know how long for I am so old I can no longer remember the passing of time."

"Then you remember this place Honorable Elder," Lysandra said eagerly. "You remember the village? And what happened to it?"

He nodded. "Even when I first came the village was poor and the village lord was stern and greedy. Drought followed upon drought each year, withering the rice fields and drying out the pond. The young people eluded the greedy lord's cruel grasp and ran to the cities in search of a better life. Great changes came to China and the village was abandoned. The houses crumbled and returned to dust and the winds came and blew away their dust. Then one year the great Ta Chiang rose and covered the land and there it remained until the summer, when it crept back into its bed and the drought began again. Each winter the Ta Chiang comes closer and stays longer and longer, and very soon all that will be left is the hill with the ancestral hall of the woman Lilin and her children."

Lysandra thanked him for his story and then she lit the sticks of fragrant incense she had brought with her and knelt on the floor and prayed, kowtowing many times to the spirits of her loved ones.

She said good-bye to the holy man and placed an offering in his bowl. A cool soft wind stroked her pale hair, touching her cheek gently as she turned for one last long look at the temple built by Mayling for her family, glowing like a beautiful scarlet beacon on its hill, and she smiled. "She knows," she said contentedly to Matt. "She knows I was here to say 'thank you.' "

The wind filled the sails of the shabby black junk as it pulled away from the riverbank on its return journey, sighing across the flat desolate landscape, carrying away the dust and the earth layer by layer, until very soon nothing would remain but the vermillion temple on the hill.