Gai-Jin by James Clavell
“Best for you and others perhaps but not for my husband and therefore not for me. He has a right to be buried as h—”
“You must allow us to do what’s best, his body will—”
“My husband’s body will not, will not go back aboard that ship, nor will I,” she said quietly. “Tell me, old friend, if I was to go with him as you suggest, where would I stay? In the state room?”
He stared at her, that problem not having occurred to him. “No, of course not,” he said quickly. “Of course you have the pick of the cabins. I guarantee everything will—”
“I guarantee every little thing will be done as my husband wished.”
Jamie wiped his forehead, his mind working like never before, slightly sickened and out of balance whereas it was obvious she was nothing if not in control. A sudden idea. “Perhaps you’re right. Prancing Cloud’s wrong, perhaps. We’ll charter another ship—wait, the mail ship’s due to leave day after tomorrow, we’ll get space aboard her for you, Hoag and … and him, and I’ll persuade her captain to sail early. Tomorrow … That’ll solve everything, right?”
“No.” She sighed wearily. “Sorry, Jamie, no.” Now there was the barest edge to her voice that cut through plainly. “Please understand me, no. No! He will be buried here as he would wish. The day after tomorrow.”
“You can’t. Mrs. Struan must … I mean Tess Struan must be given time. We’ll send Prancing Cloud for her. She would want to be at the funeral, must be.”
“You can do what you like but my husband will be buried the day after tomorrow in the way he would want—I don’t think there would be time to do what you suggest. I’m not going to argue with you. Sorry, old friend, it’s you who are overwrought and I can well understand it. Please ask Sir William and Mr. Skye to come by together now, as soon as possible, and I will settle the matter formally.”
“For God’s sake, the family crypt in Happy Valley is where his grandfather, father and brothers and sisters are buried.”
“Jamie, I tire of repeating. Please ask Sir William and Mr. Skye to come here as soon as possible. Together.”
He did not know what to do so he shrugged helplessly and went out.
For a few minutes she sat still and breathed deeply. That wasn’t so bad, she thought, then stretched and got up and went into her own room. There she selected a clean dress, conservative, dark grey, put it on the bed. The wind rattled the windows but did not chill her. Her mirror beckoned her. She studied herself. Critically. No smile. What she saw pleased her. And the new person she had become also pleased her. It was like fitting into a new dress—no, a new skin. “I hope it lasts,” she said to her reflection. “We must work to make it last. This me is better than the other one.”
Then she took up the first of the letters, Tess Struan’s letters. She wanted to leave his to last.
Sir William was stony-faced. So was Jamie. Doctors Hoag and Babcott were frowning. Heavenly Skye had a glint in his eyes. All were sitting on chairs in front of Malcolm’s desk. She faced them from his tall chair, tiny but secure in it. Darker dress than before, three-quarter sleeves, square neckline, her back straight, coiffure perfect. Without makeup and somehow regal. “The day after tomorrow?” Sir William asked.
“Yes, please,” she said. “My husband should not be laid out for long for people to pay their last respects, if they wish to. Isn’t three days normal, Doctor?”
“Normally, yes, Angelique,” Hoag said. “But we’ve already made arrangements for the preservation of the body during the voyage home. Everything will be fine, you’ve no need to worry.” He added gently, “He should be buried there, he really should. We all agree.”
“You’ve embalmed him? Already?”
The men shifted uneasily. Hoag said, “No, that’s not usual. You, er, you use ice to ensure the preserv—”
“Would you relish being packed in ice and sent to Hong Kong like a carcass of mutton from Australia?”
The tension in the room spiraled, the men more embarrassed than before. Her voice remained quiet, firm and friendly, which tended to further infuriate them. Except for Skye for whom she was taking on a very new dimension.
Sir William said, “That’s not the point, Madame. We feel for his sake and his family’s sake that burial at home is wise.”
“He admired his grandfather, the tai-pan, didn’t he?”
“Indeed he did,” Sir William said. Abruptly, he relaxed, no longer concerned, for now he had the answer to the conundrum, whatever she said. “Everyone knows that. Why?”
“Many times, in various words, Malcolm said he wanted to live like him, be remembered like him and be buried like him. And that’s the way it will be.”
“Very correct, and wise.” Sir William added crisply, “His grandfather’s buried in the family crypt in the cemetery in Happy Valley.” He added kindly, “Angelique, I agree it should be the same for him. Now I unders—”
“But Dirk Struan wasn’t buried in Hong Kong,” she said, startling them. “Oh, I know his name’s carved into the stone, but he was buried at sea. My husband will be buried at sea, in the same way.”
“Sorry, Angelique, but you’re wrong,” Jamie said. “I was there, I’d just joined Struan’s, an apprentice China trader fresh from England, and went to the funeral. It was an immense affair, all Hong Kong went. There was even a huge, separate procession in Chinatown organized by Gordon Chen.”
“Sorry, Jamie, but you are wrong. An empty coffin was interred in the crypt, he was buried at sea with his mistress, May-may, in international waters off Hong Kong.” She felt tears near. No tears, she ordered herself, not yet. “He was buried at sea. It was a Christian service, done correctly as he wished, and the witnesses were Culum and Tess Struan, Gordon Chen and Aristotle Quance.”
“That’s not possible,” Jamie said.
“Oh, yes it is, and that’s what happened. Your Church hierarchy refused to allow them to be buried together, refused them a Christian burial in hallowed ground in Happy Valley.”
“But, Angelique, I saw the funeral. He was buried there, I don’t know where May-may was buried but I agree, she wasn’t with him.”
“You saw a sham, Jamie, the coffin was empty.”
“This is nonsense,” Sir William said.
“The hierarchy were adamant against a joint burial,” she said as though he had not spoken. “It was unheard of. They had been scandalized by Dirk Struan for many reasons, as you know only too well, Sir William, but the idea was too much for them. In his will, part of his Testament that’s handed down from tai-pan to tai-pan, he had written two weeks before he died that if he and May-may died together, they were to be buried together, that it was his intention to marry her and—”
“He actually wrote that? He was going to marry her?” Sir William said, the others equally shocked, for even today, marriage to a Chinese was unthinkable—ostracism would be permanent, even for Dirk Struan. “He actually wrote that?”
“Yes,” she said, seeing that Hoag alone did not share Sir William’s consternation.
The English, the British, are such awful people in many ways, she was thinking. Such hypocrites, bigots, uncivilized and different from us, only too aware of their antagonism to marriage of Protestant to Catholic, let alone their detestation of intermarriage with peoples of their Empire.
Why consider intermarriage a heinous sin, she wanted to shout, while you have native mistresses and children by them openly, such hypocrisy! It’s never been like that with us, in our French colonies or Empire. If a Frenchman marries a native woman she becomes not only his wife but French with all the protection of French law. We even encourage intermarriage, correctly. A man is a man, a woman a woman whatever the color of her skin, but not to you people. God protect me from becoming English, thank God I can never give up my French citizenship whoever I marry …
What am I saying, she thought with a jolt, bringing herself back to the room and these enemies of her husband. Time enough for such luxury later.
&n
“Quite right,” Sir William muttered.
“Yes,” she said. “If Hong Kong had been Catholic my Church would have been equally hostile. So the scandal threatened the Colony, and this when most of Hong Kong lay in ruins after the typhoon—with no ice,” she added thinly.
They shifted in their seats, except Skye who slouched in his chair with the same slight smile.
Babcott said gently, “It’s normal, correct medical practice for important people in these circumstances, Angelique. Your husband was and is important to us. You must believe that.”
“I do.” She took her eyes off him and addressed Sir William as before, continuing in the same matter-of-fact way: “To break the impasse, a compromise was arranged. The compromise was arranged by Aristotle Quance and Gordon Chen, it was oral, nothing in writing. Quietly—the word should be ‘secretly’ because that was what it was—the bodies were put aboard China Cloud. The Church of England ceremony was officiated at by a Naval Chaplain and Captain Orlov. It was a proper Christian burial. Dirk Struan and his mistress, May-may Sheng, were buried together as he had desired.”
“If it was so secret, how do you know this’s true?”
“It was recorded in the ship’s log, Sir William, which was at once put into the tai-pan’s private vault and all witnesses, Culum and Tess Struan, Aristotle Quance, and Gordon Chen, and of course the minimum crew aboard, were sworn by holy oath to secrecy. The Naval Chaplain, who he was I don’t know, was sent back to England at once. The other funeral took place with all the pomp due the tai-pan of the Noble House.”
The silence stayed in the room, broken only by the breath of the wind against the windowpanes, the afternoon outside fair. Sir William said, “Have you seen the log?”
“No, nor spoken to … to his mother about it.”
Jamie said, “Tess Struan could corroborate it, or Gordon Chen—if they would agree to break their oath—and if they wanted to.”
Skye straightened in his chair. “This morning Mrs. Struan asked me if this story her late husband had told her was true. Happily I was able to corroborate certain details.”
“And you know it’s true because … ?”
“I happened to meet one of the crew who was less susceptible to secrecy than the others. A seaman, Hennery Fairchild—I’ve no idea if he’s alive or dead now—but when I first came to Hong Kong, Sir William, I made it my business to learn all I could about the Noble House, the Brocks, Quance, about the founding of Hong Kong, and the … the various corruptions that took place in high places.”
Sir William nodded sourly, finding his bad breath and bad teeth more overpowering than usual, knowing some of the dirty scandals that had been kept from public view and had preceded him. “That’s hearsay evidence.”
“It would not have much weight in court, Sir William. But it is true.”
What to do? the Minister asked himself. Have to do the right thing, by God. The judgment of Paris? No, this is all a typhoon in a wineglass. “Very well, Madam, by all means let us respect his wishes. Jamie, send the body at once to Hong Kong for burial at sea,” he said crisply, and thought, Once there, Tess Struan can have at Angelique Struan and I’m damned if I’m going to get between them. What the devil’s come over Angelique, never seen such a change! “Quite understand you are loath to go by Prancing Cloud. We’ll arrange the mail ship.”
“Thank you,” Angelique said calmly, “but no, Sir William. My late husband will not be sent like a carcass, in ice, to Hong Kong. He will not.”
“By God, Madame, if I order it, it will happen.”
“True, if you order it. But, Sir William …” She glanced at Skye. “What is the legal position?”
“Legally the wishes of the husband, supported by his widow, would take precedence.”
“Before I answer that where is there any proof? There’s none. As to preference over whom?” Sir William said testily, “Over Mrs. Struan, Tess Struan, is that what you are saying? We should disregard any consideration of her?”
Skye began to answer but Angelique motioned him to stop, and said, “Not at all. If Prancing Cloud went at once. A fast time to Hong Kong is ten days there and ten days back, in fair weather. A few days to turn around. Dr. Hoag, is there time for your…your ice,” she said distastefully, “to preserve my husband’s mortal remains properly over that time for his mother to be brought here—if she wished to come?”
Hoag was thinking about Dirk Struan and his legendary May-may, his beloved beauty, and about intermarriage and how he himself wished he had not killed his wife, love of his life. He often felt he had. His love for her should have been great enough not to have married her, not to have taken her out of her safe, serene Indian life into the disaster he knew would be their lot. And was.
Once again your future is in the balance, Hoag old man. Do you help this girl or Tess Struan? Don’t forget it was your fault that bloody assassin lived to frighten her, near to death. “Medically it might be, but I would advise against it,” he said with a sideways glance at Babcott, cautioning him not to interfere. “The decision, Sir William, is really whether he should be sent back or not. If not, I think he should be buried as … as his wife wants.”
Sir William hesitated, irritated that his solution was not accepted. “Angelique, why are you opposed to going with the body to Hong Kong, if not by Prancing Cloud, by mail ship?”
“I am opposed because then he will not be buried in the way that he wishes, like his grandfather—his mother would never admit the other story, could not. I am his widow and I tell you his wishes are my wishes, with all my heart.”
Sir William was unsure of his legal grounds for assenting or dissenting, and massively concerned about Tess Struan, her position now as de facto head of the Noble House, her written opposition to the marriage, and what she would do if the body was not sent back.
She’ll scream bloody murder for one thing, he thought, almost wincing. Obviously she’d want the burial there, it should be there, at sea or not at sea, whatever the truth or untruth of the story, and fifty pounds against a bent farthing in any event she’ll try to overturn the marriage, with a fair chance of doing it. So you, poor lady, like it or not, are on a very dicey wicket. “I’m afraid you are making an already tragic happening even more complicated than it need be. The poor fellow can be buried at sea just as easily from Hong Kong as here. So the best thing …”
“Excuse me for butting in, Sir William,” Skye said, then added as a brilliant Queen’s Counsel cross-examining would, “but unless you are formally challenging the legality of my client’s marriage, she does have certain rights. May I therefore ask you to approve that her late husband’s wishes and hers prevail in this matter and let him be buried here.” Then, the same Queen’s Counsel finishing his summation for the defense, he said so softly, kindly: “Malcolm Struan was ours, Yokohama’s, as much as theirs. His tragedy began here, it should end here.”
In spite of her resolve, Angelique felt the tears begin. But she gave no sound of crying.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
For an hour after Sir William and the others left Skye and Jamie argued. She listened. Nothing they said made any difference. She had lost. Following Skye’s impassioned appeal, Sir William pronounced: “I regret I’ve heard nothing here this afternoon to change my mind. The body should go back to
Skye said bitterly, “If we were in Hong Kong I could apply for a writ on a dozen grounds, but here Sir William is court, judge and jury. There isn’t time enough to go there and back whatever we do.”
“Then there’s nothing more to be done.” Jamie was grim, rocked by her story. “You have to accept it, Angelique. There’s nothing more to be done, God rot it.”
“I cannot go to Hong Kong—I must be at the burial.”
“I agree,” Skye said, nodding.
“Why? What’s to stop you, Angelique?” Jamie asked.
“Tess Struan,” she said.
“What can she do? She can’t stop you going to the funeral and she can’t break the marriage. Nettlesmith’s afternoon editorial says it’s perfectly legal even though you’re both minors. Go with the mail ship, I’ll get her to sail at the same time.”
“No. Sorry, Jamie, Mr. Skye already said the editorial is only an opinion. I know Tess Struan won’t bury him at sea as he wanted, I’m sure she won’t. And she will attack me in any way she can. Here, read her letters to Malcolm.”
Both men were jolted by the intensity of venom. Skye said queasily, “Pity, there’s nothing actionable in them. She’d claim they were private letters from a mother to a son, desperately warning him against marriage as is her right, even to forbid it—as is her right. And the threats against you—you as a person, Mrs. Struan, there’s nothing we could attack her with.”
“That’s not fair,” she said.
“Heavenly, what about ‘if that woman ever steps foot in Hong Kong I’ll make sure …’ eh?” Not wanting to hurt Angelique further, Jamie did not read all of what Tess Struan had written: I’ll make sure every decent person in Hong Kong knows her history, her father’s, uncle’s and that her aunt was an itinerant actress in a travelling group of players, gypsies and mountebanks, and about her own personal finances.