“Maybe we won’t have to convince that bugger,” he said shortly, eyes icy.
“Eh?”
“That bugger won’t always be in power.”
Struan’s interest heightened. This was a new slant, and unexpected. Skinner was a voracious reader of all newspapers and periodicals and a most well-informed man on “published” parliamentary affairs. At the same time—with an extraordinary memory and a vital interest in people—Skinner had sources of information that were manifold. “You think there’s a chance for a change in Government?”
“I’ll bet money that Sir Robert Peel and the Conservatives will topple the Whigs within the year.”
“That’d be a devilish dangerous gamble. I’d put money against you mysel’.”
“Would you gamble the
Oriental Times
against the fall of the Whigs within the year—and a retention of Hong Kong by the Crown?”
Struan was aware that such a wager would put Skinner totally on his side and the paper would be a small price to pay. But a quick agreement would show his hand. “You’ve nae chance in the world of winning that wager.”
“It’s a very good one, Mr. Struan. The winter at home last year was one of the worst ever—economically and industrially. Unemployment’s incredible. Harvests have been terrible. Do you know the price of bread is up to a shilling and twopence a loaf according to last week’s mail? Lump sugar’s costing eightpence a pound; tea seven shillings and eightpence; soap ninepence a cake; eggs four shillings a dozen. Potatoes a shilling a pound. Bacon three shillings and sixpence a pound. Now take wages—artisans of all sorts, bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters—at most seventeen shillings and sixpence a week for sixty-four hours’ work; agricultural workers nine shillings a week for God knows how many hours; factory workers around fifteen shillings—all these
if
work can be found. Good God, Mr. Struan, you live up in the mountains with incredible wealth where you can give a thousand guineas to a girl just because she’s got a pretty dress, so you don’t know, you can’t know, but one out of every eleven people in England is a pauper. In Stockton nearly ten thousand persons earned less that two shillings a week last year. Thirty thousand in Leeds under a shilling. Most everyone’s starving and we’re the richest nation on earth. The Whigs have their heads up their arses and they won’t face up to what anyone can see is outrageously unfair. They’ve done nothing about the Chartists except to pretend they’re anarchists. They won’t face up to the appalling conditions in the mills and the factories. Good Christ, children of six or seven are working a twelve-hour day, and women too, and they’re cheap labor and they put the men out of work. Why should the Whigs do anything? They own most of the factories and mills. And money’s their god—more and more and evermore and to hell with everyone. The Whigs won’t face up to the Irish problem. My God, there was a famine last year, and if there’s another this year, the whole of Ireland’ll be in revolt again and it’s about time. And the Whigs haven’t lifted a finger to reform banking. Why should they—they own the banks too! Look at your own bad luck! If we’d had a rightful proper law to protect depositors from the cursed machinations of the cursed Whigs—” He stopped with an effort, his jowls shaking and his face florid. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make a speech. Of course the Whigs have got to go. I’d say if they don’t go in the next six months, there’ll be a blood bath in England which’ll make the French Revolution look like a picnic. The only man who can save us is Sir Robert Peel, by all that’s holy.”
Struan remembered what Culum had said about conditions in England. He and Robb had discounted it as the ramblings of an idealistic university undergraduate. And he had discounted the things his own father had written as unimportant. “If Lord Cunaingtoa’s out, who’ll be the next Foreign Secretary?”
“Sir Robert himself. Failing him, Lord Aberdeen.”
“But both’re against free trade.”
“Yes, but both are liberal and pacific. And once in power, they’ll have to change. Whenever the Opposition get power and responsibility, they change. Free trade is the only way England can survive—you know that—so they’ll have to support it. And they’ll need all the support they can get from the powerful and the wealthy.”
“You’re saying I should support them?”
“The
Oriental Times,
lock, stock and printing press, against a fall of the Whigs this year. And Hong Kong.”
“You think you can help that?”
“Hong Kong, yes. Oh, yes.”
Struan eased his left boot more comfortably and leaned back in his chair again. He let a silence hang. “A fifty percent interest, and you have a deal,” he said.
“All or nothing.”
“Perhaps I should throw you out and have done with it.”
“You should, perhaps. You’ve more than enough wealth to last you and yours forever. I’m asking you how much you want Hong Kong—and the future of England. I think I’ve a key.”
Struan poured himself some more whiskey and refilled Skinner’s glass. “Done. All or nothing. Would you care to join me in some supper? I’m feeling a little hungry.”
“Yes, indeed. Thank you. Talking’s hungry work. Thank you kindly.”
Struan rang the bell and blessed his joss that he had gambled. Lim Din arrived and food was ordered.
Skinner swilled his whiskey and thanked God that he had judged the Tai-Pan correctly. “You’ll not regret it, Tai-Pan. Now, listen a moment. The loss of Longstaff—I know he’s a friend of yours, but I’m talking politically—is a huge piece of luck for Hong Kong. First he’s a highborn, second a Whig, and third he’s a fool. Sir Clyde Whalen’s a squire’s son, second no fool, third a man of action. Fourth, he knows India—spent thirty years in service to the East India Company. Prior to that he was Royal Navy. Last, and most important of all, even though he’s a Whig outwardly, I’m sure he must secretly hate Cunnington and the present Government and would do anything in his power to cause their downfall.”
“Why?”
“He’s an Irishman. Cunnington’s been the spearhead of most of the Irish legislation for the past fifteen years, and directly responsible—all
Irishmen
feel—for our disastrous Irish policy. That’s the key to Whalen—if we can find a way to exploit it.” Skinner chewed an ink-stained thumbnail.
Lim Din and another servant returned with plates of cold meats and pickled sausages and sweetmeats and cold pies and cold tarts and huge tankards of chilled beer, and champagne in an ice bucket.
Skinner smiled greedily. “A feast fit for a millowner!”
“Fit for a publisher-owner! Help yoursel’.” Struan’s mind was racing. How to twist Whalen? Will the Whigs fall from power? Should I switch my power to the Conservatives now? Stop supporting men like Crosse? By now word will be back in England that The Noble House is still The Noble House and stronger than ever. Do I gamble on Sir Robert Peel?
“When you publish this dispatch, a panic will hit everyone,” he said, closing in for the kill.
“Yes, Mr. Struan. If I wasn’t utterly opposed to letting Hong Kong go, I’ve the future of my paper to think of.” Skinner stuffed more food into his mouth, and talked as he chewed. “But there’re ways of presenting news and other ways of presenting news. That’s what makes newspaper work so exciting.” He laughed and some of the food dribbled down his chin. “Oh yes—I’ve the future of
my
paper to think of.” He turned his full attention to the food and ate monstrously.
Struan ate sparingly, lost in thought. At last, when even Skinner was replete, he stood and thanked him for the information and advice.
“I’ll inform you privately before I publish the dispatch,” Skinner said, bloated. “It’ll be in a few days, but I need time to plan. Thank you, Tai-Pan.” He left.
Struan went below. May-may was still tossing in her sleep. He had a bunk made up in her room and let himself drift into half sleep.
At dawn May-may began to shiver. Ice was in her veins, in her head, and in her womb. It was the fifteenth day.
May-may lay fragile and helpless as a baby under the weight of a dozen blankets. Her face was gray, her eyes ghastly. For four hours her teeth chattered. Then abruptly the chills changed to fever. Struan bathed her face with iced water but this brought no relief. May-may grew delirious. She thrashed in the bed, muttering and screaming in an incoherent mixture of Chinese and English, consumed by the terrible fire. Struan held her and tried to comfort her, but she didn’t recognize him, didn’t hear him.
The fever disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Sweat gushed from May-may, drenching her clothes and the sheets. Her lips parted slightly and she uttered an ecstatic moan of relief. Her eyes opened and gradually began to focus.
“I feel so good, so tired,” she said feebly.
Struan helped Ah Sam change the soaking pillows and sheets and clothing.
Then May-may slept—as the dead sleep, inert. Struan sat in a chair and watched over her.
She awoke after six hours, serene but depleted.
“Hello, Tai-Pan. I have Happy Valley fever?”
“Aye. But your doctor’s got medicine to cure it. He’ll have it in a day or so.”
“Good. Very good. Dinna worry, never mind.”
“Why’re you smiling, lassie?”
“Ah,” she said, and closed her eyes contentedly and settled deeper into the clean sheets and pillows. “How else can you dominate joss? If you smile when you lose, then you win in life.”
“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “Fine. Dinna worry.”
“I have no worries for me. Only you.”
“What do you mean?” Struan was exhausted by his vigil, and anguished by the fact that she seemed thinner than before, wraithlike, her eyes deeply shadowed. And aged.
“Nothing. I would like some soup. Some chicken soup.”
“The doctor sent some medicine for you. To make you strong.”
“Good. I feel fantastical weak. I will have the medicine after soup.”
He ordered the soup and May-may sipped a little, then lay back again.
“Now you rest, Tai-Pan,” she said. She furrowed her brow. “How many days before next fever?”
“Three or four,” he said miserably.
“Dinna worry, Tai-Pan. Four days is forever, never mind. Go and rest, please, and then later we will talk.”
He went into his own cabin and slept badly, waking every few moments, then sleeping and dreaming that he was awake, or almost asleep and getting no rest.
The dying sun was low on the horizon when he awakened. He bathed and shaved, his brain jumbled and unclean. He stared at his face in the mirror and did not like what he saw. For his eyes told him that May-may would never survive three such battles. Twelve days of life remained for her at most.
There was a knock at the door.
“Aye?”
“Tai-Pan?”
“Oh, hello, Gordon. What news?”
“None, I’m afraid. I’m doing everything I can. How is the Lady?”
“The first attack has come and gone. Nae good, lad.”
“Everything’s being done. The doctor sent some medicine to keep her strength up and some special foods. Ah Sam knows what to do.”
“Thank you.”
Gordon left, and Struan turned again to his reflections. He groped agonizingly for a solution. Where do I get cinchona? There must be some somewhere. Where would Peruvian bark be in Asia? Na Peruvian bark—Jesuits’ bark.
Then his vagrant thought exploded into an idea. “For the love of God!” he shouted aloud, his hope quickening.
“If you want horseflies, go to a horse. If you want Jesuits’ bark—where else, you stupid fool!”
Within two hours
China Cloud
was ripping out of the sunset-painted harbor like a Valkyrie, all sails set but tightly reefed against the thickening monsoon. When she broke through the west channel and hit the full force of the Pacific swell and the wind, she heeled over and the rigging sang exultantly.
“Sou’ by sou’east!” Struan roared over the wind.
“Sou’ by sou’east it is, sorr,” the helmsman echoed.
Struan peered aloft at the shrouds, etched against the implacable coming of night, and was chagrined to see so much canvas reefed. But he knew that with this easterly and with this sea the reefs would have to stay.
China Cloud
came onto the new course and gained way into the night but still fought the sea and the wind. Soon she would turn again and have the wind astern and then she could run free.
After an hour Struan shouted, “All hands on deck—ready to ware ship!”
The men scurried from the fo’c’sle and stood ready in the darkness on the ropes and hawsers and halyards. “West by sou’west,” he ordered, and the helmsman swung the tiller wheel to the new course and the clipper swung with the wind. The yards screeched and strained to leeward and the halyards howled and stretched and then she was on the new course and Struan shouted, “Mains’l and top ta’ gallants reefs let go!”
The ship tore through the waves, the wind well abaft the beam, the bow wave cascading.
“Steady as she goes,” Struan ordered.
“Aye, aye, sorr,” the helmsman said, straining his eyes to see the nickering light of the binnacle and maintain a steady course, the wheel fighting him.
“Take over, Cap’n Orlov!”
“It’s about time, Green Eyes.”
“Perhaps you can get more speed,” Struan said. “I’d like to be in Macao forthwith!” He went below.
Orlov thanked God that he had been prepared, as always, for instant departure. He had known the moment he saw the Tai-Pan’s face that
China Cloud
had better be out of harbor in record time or he would be without a ship. And though his seaman’s caution told him so much sail at night in such shoal and rock-filled seas was dangerous, he shouted exultantly, “Let go reefs fore-royal and upper top ta’ gallants,” and reveled in the freedom of being at sea and in command again after so many days at anchor. He inched the ship a point starboard and let go more reefs and drove her relentlessly. “Get the for’ard cutter ready, Mr. Cudahy! God knows, it better be ready when he comes on deck—and get the pilot’s lantern aloft!”
“Aye, aye, sorr.”
“Belay the pilot’s lantern! We’ll not get one at this time of night,” Orlov said, correcting himself. “I’ll not wait for dawn and any shark-guts pilot. I’ll take her in myself. We’ve urgent cargo aboard.”