Noble House by James Clavell
“What story?”
He laughed. “Some wives have stories just as fascinating as their husbands’, sometimes more so. One of the wives you met today, she’s a nympho an—”
“Oh come on, Peter! It’s like Fleur says, you’re making it all up.”
“Perhaps. Oh yes, but some Chinese ladies are just as … just as predatory as any ladies on earth, on the quiet.”
“Chauvinist! You’re sure?”
“Rumor has it…” They laughed together. “Actually they’re so much smarter than we are, the Chinese. I’m told the few Chinese married ladies here who have a wandering eye usually prefer a European for a lover, for safety—Chinese adore gossip, love scandal, and it’d be rare to find a Chinese swinger who’d be able to keep such a secret or protect a lady’s honor. Rightly, the lady would be afraid. To be caught would be very bad, very bad indeed. Chinese law’s quite strict.” He took out a cigarette. “Maybe that makes it all the more exciting.”
“To have a lover?”
He watched her, pondering what she would say if he told her her nickname—whispered gleefully to him by four separate Chinese friends. “Oh yes, ladies here get around, some of them. Look over there, in that box—the fellow holding forth wearing a blazer. He wears a green hat—that’s a Chinese expression meaning he’s a cuckold, that his wife’s got a lover, actually in her case it was a Chinese friend of his.”
“Green hat?”
“Yes. Chinese are marvelous! They have such a terrific sense of humor. That fellow took out an ad in one of the Chinese papers some months ago that said, ‘I know I wear a green hat but the wife of the man who gave it to me had two of his sons by other men!’”
Casey stared at him. “You mean he signed his name to it?”
“Oh yes. It was a pun on one of his names, but everyone of importance knew who it was.”
“Was it true?”
Peter Marlowe shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The other fellow’s nose was neatly out of joint and his wife got hell.”
“That’s not fair, not fair at all.”
“In her case it was.”
“What did she do?”
“Had two sons by anoth—”
“Oh come on, Mr. Storyteller!”
“Hey look, there’s Doc Tooley!”
She searched the course below, then saw him. “He doesn’t look happy at all.”
“I hope Travkin’s all right. I heard Tooley went to examine him.”
“That was some spill.”
“Yes. Terrible.”
Both had been subjected to Tooley’s searching questions about their health, knowing the specter of typhus, perhaps cholera, and certainly hepatitis still hung over them.
“Joss!” Peter Marlowe had said firmly.
“Joss!” she had echoed, trying not to be worried about Linc. It’s worse for a man, she thought, remembering what Tooley had said: Hepatitis can mess up your liver—and your life, forever, if you’re a man.
After a moment she said, “People here do seem to be more exciting, Peter. Is that because of Asia?”
“Probably. The mores are so different. And here in Hong Kong we collect the cream. I think Asia’s the center of the world and Hong Kong the nucleus.” Peter Marlowe waved to someone in another box who waved at Casey. “There’s another admirer of yours.”
“Lando? He is a fascinating man.”
Casey had spent time with him between races.
“You must come to Macao, Miss Tcholok. Perhaps we could have dinner tomorrow. Would 7:30 be convenient?” Mata had said with his marvelous old world charm and Casey had got the message very quickly.
During lunch Dunross had warned her a little about him. “He’s a good fellow, Casey,” the tai-pan had said delicately. “But here, for a quai loh stranger, particularly someone as beautiful as you, on a first trip to Asia, well it’s sometimes better to remember that being over eighteen isn’t always enough.”
“Got you, tai-pan,” she had told him with a laugh. But this afternoon she had allowed herself to be mesmerized by Mata, in the safety of the tai-pan’s box. Alone, her defenses would be up as she knew they would be tomorrow evening: “It depends, Lando,” she had said, “dinner would be fine. It depends what time I get back from the boat trip—I don’t know if it’s weather permitting or not.”
“With whom are you going? The tai-pan?”
“Just friends.”
“Ah. Well, if not Sunday, my dear, perhaps we could make it Monday. There are a number of business opportunities for you, here or in Macao, for you and Mr. Bartlett if you wish, and Par-Con. May I call you at seven tomorrow to see if you are free?”
I can deal with him, one way or another, she reassured herself, the thought warming her, though I’ll watch the wine and maybe even the water in case of the old Mickey Finn.
“Peter, the men here, the ones on the make—are they into Mickey Finns?”
His eyes narrowed. “You mean Mata?”
“No, just generally.”
“I doubt if a Chinese or Eurasian would give one to a quai loh if that’s what you’re asking.” A frown creased him. “I’d say you’d have to be fairly circumspect though, with them and with Europeans. Of course, to be blunt, you’d be high on their list. You have what it takes to send most of them into an orgiastic faint.”
“Thanks much!” She leaned on the balcony, enjoying the compliment. I wish Linc were here. Be patient. “Who’s that?” she asked. “The old man leering at the young girl? Down on the first balcony. Look, he’s got his hand on her butt!”
“Ah, that’s one of our local pirates—Four Finger Wu. The girl’s Venus Poon, a local TV star. The youth talking to them is his nephew. Actually the rumor is that he’s a son. The fellow’s got a Harvard business degree and a U.S. passport and he’s as smart as a whip. Old Four Fingers is another multimillionaire, rumored to be a smuggler, gold and anything, with one official wife, three concs of various ages and now he’s after Venus Poon. She was Richard Kwang’s current. Was. But perhaps now with the Victoria takeover she’ll dump Four Fingers and go back to him. Four Fingers lives on a rotten old Aberdeen junk and hoards his enormous wealth. Ah, look there! The wrinkled old man and woman the tai-pan’s talking to.”
She followed his glance to the next box but one.
“That’s Shitee T’Chung’s box,” he said. “Shitee’s a direct descendent of May-may and Dirk through their son Duncan. Did the tai-pan ever show you Dirk’s portraits?”
“Yes.” A small shiver touched her as she remembered the Hag’s knife jammed through the portrait of her father, Tyler Brock. She considered telling him about it but decided not to. “There’s a great likeness,” she said.
“There certainly is! Wish I could see the Long Gallery. Anyway, that old couple he’s talking to live in a tenement, a two-room, sixth-floor walk-up over in Glessing’s Point. They own a huge block of Struan stock. Every year before each annual board meeting, the tai-pan, whoever he is, has to go cap in hand to ask for the right to vote the stock. It’s always granted, that was part of the original agreement, but he still has to go personally.”
“Why’s that?”
“Face. And because of the Hag.” A flicker of a smile. “She was a great lady, Casey. Oh how I would like to have met her! During the Boxer revolt in 1899–1900, when China was in another of her conflagrations, the Noble House had all its possessions in Peking, Tiensin, Foochow and Canton wiped out by the Boxer terrorists who were more or less sponsored and certainly encouraged by Tz’u Hsi, the old dowager empress. They called themselves the Righteous Harmonious Fists and their battle cry was ‘Protect the Ch’ing and kill all foreign devils!’ Let’s face it, the European powers and Japan had pretty much partitioned China. Anyway, the Boxers fell on all foreign business houses, settlements, the unprotected areas, and obliterated them. The Noble House was in terrible straits. At that time the nominal tai-pan was again old Sir Lochlin Struan—he was Robb Struan’s last son, born with a withered arm. He
“Where do you get all this information, Peter?”
“I make it up,” he said grandly. “In any event, the Hag needed a lot of money fast. Gornt’s grandfather had bought up a lot of Struan’s paper and he had lowered the boom. There was no normal source of finance, nowhere she could borrow, for all Asia—all the hongs—were equally in turmoil. But that fellow’s father, the father of the one the tai-pan’s talking to, was the King of the Beggars in Hong Kong. Begging used to be a huge business here. Anyway, this man came to see her, so the story goes. ‘I come to buy a fifth part of the Noble House,’ this man said with great dignity, ‘is it for sale? I offer 200,000 taels of silver,’ which was exactly the amount she needed to redeem her paper. For face they haggled and he settled for a tenth, 10 percent—an incredibly fair deal—both knowing that he could have had 30 or 40 percent for the same amount because by that time the Hag was desperate. He required no contract other than her chop and her promise that once a year she, or the tai-pan, would come to him or his descendents wherever he or they lived, to ask for the vote of the stock. ‘So long as the tai-pan asks—the voting power is given.’
“‘But why, Honorable King of the Beggars? Why save me from my enemies?’ she asked.
“‘Because your grandfather, old Green-Eyed Devil, once saved my grandfather’s face and helped him become the first King of the Beggars of Hong Kong.’”
Casey sighed. “Do you believe that, Peter?”
“Oh yes.” He looked out at Happy Valley. “Once this was all a malarial swamp. Dirk cleaned that up too.” He puffed his cigarette. “One day I’ll write about Hong Kong.”
“If you continue to smoke you’ll never write anything.”
“Point well taken. Okay, I’ll stop. Now. For today. Because you’re pretty.” He stubbed the cigarette out. Another smile, different. “Eeeee, but I could tell some stories about lots of the people you met today. I won’t, that’s not fair, not right. I can never tell the real stories, though I know lots!” She laughed with him, letting her eyes wander from the strange old couple down to the other stands. Involuntarily she gasped. Sitting in the lee of the members’ balcony she saw Orlanda. Linc was with her. He was very close. Both were very happy together, that was easy to see, even from this distance.
“What’s th—” Peter Marlowe began, then he saw them too. “Oh! Not to worry.”
After a pause she took her eyes away. “Peter, that favor. May I ask for that favor, now?”
“What do you want as a favor?”
“I want to know about Orlanda.”
“To destroy her?”
“For protection. Protection for Linc against her.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t want to be protected, Casey.”
“I swear I’ll never use it unless I honest to God feel it’s necessary.”
The tall man sighed. “Sorry,” he said with great compassion, “but nothing I could tell you about her would give you or Linc protection. Nothing to destroy her or make her lose face. Even if I could I wouldn’t, Casey. That really wouldn’t be cricket. Would it?”
“No, but I’m still asking.” She stared back at him, forcing the issue. “You said a favor. I came when you needed a hand. I need a hand now. Please.”
He watched her a long time. “What do you know about her?”
She told him what she had learned—about Gornt supporting Orlanda, Macao, about the child.
“Then you know everything I know, except perhaps that you should be sorry for her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s Eurasian, alone, Gornt her only support and that’s as precarious as anything in the world. She’s living on a knife edge. She’s young, beautiful and deserves a future. Here there’s none for her.”
“Except Linc?”
“Except Linc or someone like him.” Peter Marlowe’s eyes were slate color. “Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad from his point of view.”
“Because she’s Asian and I’m not?”
Again the curious smile. “Because she’s a woman and so are you but you hold all the cards, and the only real thing you have to decide is if you really want that war.”
“Level with me, Peter, please. I’m asking. What’s your advice? I’m running scared—there, I’ll admit it to you. Please?”
“All right, but this isn’t the favor I owe you,” he said. “Rumor has it you and Linc are not lovers though you obviously love him. Rumor has it you’ve been together for six or seven years in close proximity but with no … no formal contact. He’s a terrific fellow, you’re a terrific lady and you’d make a great couple. The key word is couple, Casey. Maybe you want money and power and Par-Con more than you do him. That’s your problem. I don’t think you can have both.”
“Why not?”
“It seems to me you choose Par-Con and power and riches and no Bartlett, other than as a friend—or you become Mrs. Linc Bartlett and behave and love and be the kind of woman there’s no doubt in hell Orlanda would be. Either way you have to be a hundred percent—you and Linc are both too strong and probably have tested each other too many times to be fooled. He’s been divorced once, so he’s on guard. You’re over the age of a Juliet blindness so you’re equally on guard.”
“Are you a psychiatrist too?”
He laughed. “No, nor a father-confessor, though I like to know about people and like to listen but not to lecture and never to give advice—that’s the most thankless task in the world.”
“So there’s no compromise?”
“I don’t think so, but then I’m not you. You have your own karma. Irrespective of Orlanda—if it’s not her it’ll be another woman, better or worse, prettier though maybe not, because win, lose or draw, Orlanda’s quality and has what it takes to make a man content, happy, alive as a man. Sorry, I don’t mean to be chauvinistic, but since you asked, I’d advise you to make up your mind quickly.”
Gavallan hurried into Shitee T’Chung’s box and joined the tai-pan. “Afternoon,” he said politely to the old couple. “Sorry, tai-pan, Crosse and the other fellow you wanted had already left.”
“Blast!” Dunross thought a second, then excused himself and walked out with Gavallan. “You’re coming to the cocktail party?”
“Yes, if you want me there—afraid I’m not very good company.”
“Let’s go in here a second.” Dunross led the way into his private room. Tea was laid out and a bottle of Dom Pérignon in an ice bucket.
“Celebration?” Gavallan asked.
“Yes. Three things: the General Stores takeover, the Ho-Pak rescue and the dawn of the new era.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” Dunross began to open the bottle. “For instance you: I want you to leave for London Monday evening with the children.” Gavallan’s eyes widened but he said nothing. “I want you to check on Kathy, see her specialist, then take her and the kids to Castle Avisyard. I want you to take over Avisyard for six months, perhaps a year or two. Six months certain—take over the whole of the east wing.” Gavallan gasped. “You’re going to head up a new division, very secret, secret from Alastair, my father, every member of the family including David. Secret from everyone except me.”
“What division?” Gavallan’s excitement and happiness showed.
“There’s a fellow I want you to get close to tonight, Andrew. Jamie Kirk. His wife’s a bit of a bore but invite them to Avisyard. I want you to slide into Scotland, particularly Aberdeen. I want you to buy property, but very quietly: factory areas, wharfage, potential airfields, heliports near the docks. Are there docks there?”
“Christ, tai-pan, I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”
“Nor have I.”
“Eh?”
Dunross laughed at the look on Gavallan’s face. “Not to worry. Your initial bud
“Christ, where the hell’s a million coming fr—”
“Never mind!” Dunross twisted the cork and held it, deadening the explosion neatly. He poured the pale, oh so dry wine. “You’ve a million sterling to commit in the next six months. A further 5 million sterling over the next two years.”
Gavallan was gaping at him openly.
“In that time I want the Noble House, oh so quietly, to become the power in Aberdeen, with the best land, best influence on the town councils. I want you laird of Aberdeen—and as far west as Inverness and south to Dundee. In two years. All right?”
“Yes but…” Gavallan stopped helplessly. All his life he had wanted to quit Asia. Kathy and the children too, but it had never been possible or even considered. Now Dunross had given him Utopia and he could not take it all in. “But why?”
“Talk to Kirk, beguile his wife, and remember, laddie, a closed mouth.” Dunross gave him a glass and took one for himself. “Here’s to Scotland, the new era and our new fief.” Then he added in his most secret heart, And here’s to the North Sea! All gods bear witness: The Noble House is implementing Contingency Plan One.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
5:50 P.M.:
The stands were empty now but for the cleaners, most of the boxes dark. Rain cascaded from the sky, a solid sheet of water. It was near twilight. Traffic was snarled all around the racecourse. The thousands plodded homeward, sodden but light of heart. Next Saturday was another race day and another fifth race and oh oh oh, another challenge and this time the tai-pan will surely ride Noble Star and perhaps Black Beard will ride Pilot Fish and those two devil quai loh will kill themselves for our amusement.
A Rolls going out of the members’ entrance splashed some of the pedestrians and they shouted a barrage of obscenities but none of the Chinese really minded. One day I’ll have one of those, everyone thought. All I need’s just a little fornicating joss. Just a little joss next Saturday and I’ll have enough to buy some land or an apartment to rent out, to barter against a piece of a high-rise, to mortgage against an acre of Central. Eeee, how I’ll enjoy riding in my Rolls with a lucky number plate like that one! Did you see who it was? Taximan Tok who seven years ago drove a bo-pi, an illegal taxi, and found 10,000 HK on his backseat one day and hid it for five years till the statute of limitations had passed, then invested it in the stock market in the boom of three years ago to immense profit then took the profit and bought apartments. Eeee, the boom! Remember what Old Blind Tung wrote in his column about the coming boom! But what about the stock market crash and all the bank runs?