Tai-Pan (41 page)

There were cheers.

“This is the first opportunity I’ve had for many a day of addressing you all. I would say that we have hard times ahead. But let us not falter. We must all pull together. We must put our backs to the plow and then, with God’s good help, we’ll conquer the heathen to the glory of Her Britannic Majesty and the glory of the Colony of Hong Kong.”

There were three cheers for the queen and three cheers for the colony and three cheers for Longstaff. And the Chinese onlookers chattered and watched and laughed.

“Now, if Mr. Brock will kindly take his mind off the loose change of The Noble House, I will declare the auction open!”

Brock and Gorth smoldered as the laughter swooped over them.

Longstaff stepped off the platform and Glessing moved closer.

“I must reiterate, Your Excellency,” Glessing said, “that due to the lack of time not all the lots have been accurately surveyed.”

“Details. Details, my dear fellow. What does a few feet matter? There’s land enough for all. Please carry on, Culum, my dear chap. Good day to you.” Longstaff walked off toward his cutter, and as he passed Struan he smiled and raised his hat. “Tomorrow at noon, Dirk.”

Culum wiped the sweat off his face and glanced at the little man beside him. “Mr. Hibbs?”

Henry Hardy Hibbs drew himself up to his full five and a half feet and mounted the platform. “Day, gents,” he said with an unctuous smile. “ ’Enry ’Ardy ’Ibbs. Of London Town, late o’ the firm of ’Ibbs, ’Ibbs and ’Ibbs, Auctioneers and Estate Agents, official auctioneer to ’Is Hexellence, the Right ’Onorable Longstaff. At yor service.” He was an untidy, verminous gnome with a bald head and fawning manner. “Lot Number One. Now, wot’m I bid?”

“Where the devil did you find him, Culum?” Struan asked.

“Off one of the merchantmen,” Culum heard himself say, wishing the day over. “He’d worked his passage from Singapore. He had had his pocket picked there and all his money stolen.”

Struan listened as Hibbs efficiently and dexterously wheedled the price upward and upward. He scrutinized the crowd, and frowned.

“What’s the matter, Dirk?” Robb asked.

“I was looking for Gordon. Have you seen him?”

“Last I saw of him he was walking toward Glessing’s Point. Why?”

“Nae matter,” Struan said, thinking it very strange Gordon was not here. I would have thought he’d be bidding for land himself. What better investment could there be?

The bidding for the lots was brisk. All the traders knew that a colony meant permanence. Permanence meant land values would skyrocket. Especially in an island colony where level building land was in short supply. Land meant safety; land could never be lost. Fortunes would be made.

As the sale continued, Struan felt his excitement rising. Across the press of men Brock was waiting, equally on edge. Gorth was near him, his eyes darting from Struan to his men who were surrounding the bullion. Struan and Brock bought the lots they had agreed on. But the prices were higher than they had expected, for the bidding was hotly competitive. They bid against each other for some minor lots. A few Struan bought—on some he withdrew. The tension among the traders grew.

The last of the marine lots was offered and bought. Then the surburban and country lots were offered and they too were bought expensively. Only the knoll remained. It was the largest piece of land, and the best.

“Well, gents, that’s it,” Hibbs said, his voice hoarse from auctioneering. “Them wot has bought has to pay ’arf the nicker now. Receipts from the deputy colonial secretary. If you please!”

An astonished hush fell over the crowd.

“The sale’s not complete yet.” Struan’s voice split the air.

“Yus, by God!” Brock said.

“Eh, gents?” Hibbs said cautiously, sensing trouble.

“What about the knoll?”

“Wot knoll, Yor ’Onors?”

Struan pointed a blunt finger. “That knoll!”

“It, er, ain’t on the list, Guv. Nuffink to do wiv me, Guv,” Hibbs said hastily, and prepared to run. He glanced at Culum who was standing stock-still. “Is it, Yor ’Onor?”

“No.” Culum forced himself to look at his father, the silence choking him.

“Why is it na on the list, by God?”

“Because—because, well, it’s already been purchased.” The hairs on the nape of Culum’s neck crawled as he saw —as though in a dream—his father walk over to him, and all the carefully worked-out words vanished from his head. The reasons. How he had said to Longstaff this morning, in desperation, that it was his father’s thought to put a church there. For the benefit of all Hong Kong. It was the only way, Culum wanted to shout. Don’t you see? You’d’ve destroyed us all. If I’d told you, you’d never have listened. Don’t you see?

“Purchased by whom?”

“By me. For the Church,” Culum stuttered. “One pound a year. The knoll belongs to the Church.”

“
You took my knoll?
” The words were soft-spoken but barbed, and Culum felt their cruelty.

“For the Church. Yes,” he croaked. “The . . . deed . . . the deed was signed this morning. I . . . His Excellency signed the deed. In perpetuity.”

“You knew I wanted that land?”

“Yes.” All Culum saw was the blinding light that seemed to stream from his father’s eyes, consuming him, taking his soul. “Yes. Yes. But I decided it was for the Church. I did. The knoll belongs to the House of God.”

“Then you’ve dared to cross me?”

There was a frantic silence. Even Brock was appalled by the power that seemed to pour out of Struan and surround them all.

Culum waited for the blow that he knew was coming— that they all knew was coming.

But Struan’s fists unlocked and he whirled around and walked out of the valley.

Brock’s bellow of laughter shattered the sickening quietness, and everyone flinched involuntarily.

“Shut up, Brock,” Quance said. “Shut up.”

“That I will, Aristotle,” Brock said. “That I will.”

The traders splintered into whispering pockets and Hibbs called out tremulously, “If them wot has bought will kindly step this way. If you please, gents.”

Brock was studying Culum, almost compassionately. “I’d say thy days were numbered, lad,” he said. “Thee doan knowed that devil like I knowed him. Watch thy back.” He went up to Hibbs to pay for his land.

Culum was trembling. He could feel people watching him. He could feel their awe. Or was it horror?

“For the love of God, why didn’t you ask him?” Robb said, hardly over his shock. “Eh? Before you did it?”

“He wouldn’t have agreed, would he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. He might have. Or he might have left Brock holding—” He stopped weakly. “And don’t pay any attention to what Brock said. He’s just trying to frighten you. There’s no need to worry. None.”

“I think Father 
is
 the Devil.”

An involuntary shudder ran through Robb. “That’s stupid, lad. Stupid. You’re just overwrought. We all are. The bullion and—well, the excitement of the moment. Nothing to worry about. Of course he’ll understand when . . .” Robb’s words trailed off. Then he hurried after his brother.

Culum was finding it very difficult to focus. Sounds seemed to be stronger than before, but voices more distant, colors and people bizarre. His eyes saw Mary Sinclair and her brother in the distance. Suddenly they were talking to him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I just said that it will be a fine place for the church.” Horatio forced a smile. “A perfect place.”

“Yes.”

“Your father’s always wanted that knoll. Ever since he saw Hong Kong,” Mary said.

“Yes. But now it belongs to the House of God.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “But at what cost?”

Then they no longer were talking to him and he was looking at Hibbs.

“Yes?”

“Beggin” yor pardon, sirr, but it’s the receipts. For them wot has bought land,” Hibbs said uneasily.

“Receipts?”

“Yus. Land receipts. You’ve t’ sign ’em.”

Culum watched himself as he followed Hibbs to the stand. Mechanically he signed his name.

Robb was hurrying along Queen’s Road, careless of the appalled looks that followed him, his chest aching from the exertion of the chase. “Dirk, Dirk,” he called out.

Struan stopped momentarily. “Tell him I’ll see him on 
his
 knoll at dawn.”

“But, Dirk, Culum was only—”

“Tell him to come alone.”

“But, Dirk, listen a moment. Don’t go. Wait. The poor lad was only—”

“Tell him to come alone.”

That night in the middle watch the wind veered from east-northeast to east and fell off a knot. The humidity increased and the temperature rose a degree and the captains of the fleet stirred in their sleep and awoke momentarily, knowing that another monsoon had blown its course. Now the wind would blow wet-warm from the east for three months until May and then would veer as suddenly southward gathering heat and wetness. Then in the fall to east-northeast again, dry and cool, until the spring of next year, when it would once more veer to the east and fall off a knot.

The captains fell asleep again, but they slumbered less easily. The east wind heralded the time of the typhoons.

Brock shifted irritably in his bunk and scratched.

“What’s with thee, Tyler?” Liza said, awake and clearheaded instantly as a woman is when a mate is troubled or her child ill. She was in the bunk across the fetid cabin.

“Nothing, Liza. The wind be changed, that be all. Get thy rest.” He adjusted his flannel nightcap and yawned heavily.

Liza got up ponderously and plodded across the cabin.

“Wot be thee doing?”

“Opening porthole, lad. Go to sleep.”

Brock turned over and closed his eyes, but he knew that sleep had left him. He felt the tang of the wind sweep into the cabin. “There be fog soon,” he said.

Liza got back into her bunk, and the straw-filled mattress creaked. She lay comfortably under the covers. “It be the bullion that be worryin’ thee, baint it?”

“Yus.”

“Doan worry thy head now. Tomorrow’s the time for that.” She yawned and scratched at the bite of a bedbug. “It’ll be grand to be ashore again. Will it take long to build a house?”

“Not long,” he said, and turned over.

“This ball wot Struan be giving,” she said, choosing the words with great care. “That be a smack in thy face.”

“Ridikilus. Go to sleep.” Brock was instantly on his guard.

“Course, if we was dressed proper, that’d be a smack right back, eh, Tyler?”

Brock groaned but was careful not to let Liza hear. The news of the ball had swept the fleet the moment Struan had told Skinner. Every husband in Asia had denounced the Tai-Pan, for they knew that he had stolen their peace. And every man’s blood had quickened. The betting had begun. Shevaun Tillman was odds-on favorite. “Thee mean spike his guns with finery?” he said. “Good idea, Liza. Thee look proper smart in that red silk dress wot I—”

“That old rag?” Liza said with a contemptuous sniff. ‘Thee must be joking!”

“ ‘Old,’ thee says? Why, thee’s only worn it but three or four time. I think thee looks—”

“Three year I be wearing that. An’ thee be needin’ new dress coat and breechers and fancy waistcoat and wot not.”

“I enjoys the ones I got,” he said. “I thinks—”

“It be time I went shopping. Afore every decent bolt of silk in Asia be buyed up—and every seamstress be booked. Tomorrow I be going to Macao. In 
Gray Witch.”

“But, Liza! For a flipperty ball wot Dirk—”

“I be leavin’ on the noon tide.”

“Yus, Liza,” Brock said, recognizing that special tone in her voice, knowing that no amount of arguing would take the bit out of her teeth. The pox on Struan! But in spite of his fury, the thought of the prize and the judging stirred him. That be a marv’lous idea! Marv’lous! Now, why baint I athinking o’ that? The pox on Struan!

Liza adjusted her pillow and continued to ruminate about the ball. She had already decided that Tess was going to win the prize. And the honor. Whatever the cost. Yes, she told herself again, whatever it costed. But how to persuade Tyler to let Tess go t’ball? He be right pigheaded ’bout her.

“It be time to think about our Tess,” she said.

“Wot about her?”

“It be time thee be thinking about a mate for her.”

“Wot?” Brock sat upright in the bunk. “Be thee outa thy head? Tess be hardly outa nappies. She’s bare sixteen.”

“How old were I when thee married me?”

“That be different, by God! Thee were old for thy age, by God. Times is changed. Time enough and plenty for that flibberty folderol, by God! A mate for Tess? Thee be sick in thy head, woman! And wot a thing to say in’t middle of night! Now, doan be mentioning that again or I be takin’ my belt to thy back.” He turned his back on her furiously and slammed the pillow and closed his eyes.

“Yes, Tyler,” Liza said, smiling. She did not condemn him for the beatings he had given her. They had been few—and never with violence or in a drunken rage. And were a long time ago. For twenty years she had lived with him and she was content with her man.

“Liza, girl,” Brock said tentatively, his face still to the wall, “do Tess know about—well, about ‘things’?”

“Course not,” she said, shocked. “She be brought up proper!”

“Well, by God, it’s about time thee took her aside an’ tells her,” he fumed, sitting up again. “An’ thee better watch her careful like. By the Cross, if I catch any sniffing around our Tess . . . wot makes thee think she be old enough? Has the girl sayed anything? Be she acting different?”

“Course she be watched. Ridikilus to think not. Ridikilus!” Liza snorted. “You men be all the same. Huh! ‘Do this an’ do that,’ and threats and wot not when the girl’s just agrowing and readying to be wed! And I’ll thank thee not to swear so much, Mr. Brock. It baint nice and baint proper!”

“Thee’ll say no more about it, by God, and that be an end to it, by God!”

Liza smiled complacently to herself. Now, who’s it to be? Not that Nagrek Thumb, by God. Who? Young Sinclair? No brass, and too hoity-toity and churchy. But sound as a bell and a future, no doubt, and in the counsel of godrotting Longstaff. Nothing like a Reverend’s son in a family. Possible. The American, Jefferson Cooper? Better. Rich enough. Powerful enough. But a bleedin’ foreigner wot hates us English. Even so, Brock and Coo-per-Tillman joined together be making a nice knife in the gut of The Noble House. Gorth’d be good, but he be her half brother so he be out. Pity.