Sweat soaked Struan. The effort of using the chamber pot was vast with little to show for all the pain, no feces and just a little blood-flecked urine.
"Jamie, now what's the bad?"
"Oh, well you see..."
"For Christ sake tell me!"
"Your father passed away nine days ago, same day the mail ship left Hong Kong direct us, not via Shanghai. His funeral was due three days later. Your mother asks me to arrange your return at once. Our mail ship from here with news of your, your bad luck won't arrive Hong Kong for another four or five days at the earliest. Sorry," he added lamely.
Struan only heard the first sentence. The news was not unexpected and yet it came as violent a slash as the wound in his side. He was very glad and very sad, mixed up, excited that at long last he could really run the company that he had trained for all his life, that for years had been hemorrhaging, for years held together by his mother who quietly persuaded, cajoled, guided and helped his father over the bad times. The bad was constant and mostly due to drink that was his father's medicine to cushion blinding headaches and attacks of Happy Valley ague, mal-aria, bad air, the mysterious killing fever that had decimated Hong Kong's early population but now, sometimes, was held in abeyance by a bark extract, quinine.
Can't remember a year when Father wasn't laid up at least twice with the shakes, for a month or more, his mind wandering for days on end. Even infusions of the priceless cinchona bark that Grandfather had had brought from Peru had not cured him, though it had stopped the fever from killing him, and most everyone else. But it hadn't saved poor little Mary, four years old then, me seven and forever after aware of death, the meaning of it and its finality.
He sighed heavily. Thank God nothing touched Mother, neither plague nor ague nor age nor misfortune, still a young woman, not yet thirty-eight, still trim after seven children, a steel support for all of us, able to ride every disaster, every storm, even the bitter, perpetual hatred and enmity between her and her father, godrotting Tyler Brock... even the tragedy last year when the darling twins, Rob and Dunross, were drowned off Shek-O where our summer house is. And now poor Father. So many deaths.
Tai-pan. Now I'm tai-pan of the Noble House.
"What? What did you say, Jamie?"
"I just said I was sorry, Tai-pan, and here, here's a letter from your mother."
With an effort Struan took the envelope.
"What's the fastest way for me to get back to Hong Kong?"
"Sea Cloud but she isn't due for two to three weeks. The only merchantmen here at the moment are slow, none due for Hong Kong for a week. Mail ship would be the fastest. We could get her to turn around right smartly but she's going via Shanghai."
After yesterday, the idea of an eleven-day voyage more than likely with bad seas, even typhoon, horrified Malcolm. Even so he said, "Talk to the captain. Persuade him to go direct Hong Kong. What else's in the mails?"
"I haven't been through them yet, but here..."
Greatly concerned with Struan's sudden pallor, McFay offered the Hong Kong Observer.
"Nothing but bad, I'm afraid: The American civil war's picking up steam, seesawing with tens of thousands of deaths--battles at Shiloh, Fair Oaks, dozens of places, another at Bull Run with the Union army the loser and decimated. War's changed forever now with breech-loading rifles and machine guns and rifled cannon. Price of cotton's gone sky high with the Union blockade of the South.
Another panic on the London Stock Exchange and Paris--rumors that Prussia will invade France imminently. Since the Prince Consort died in December, Queen Victoria still hasn't appeared in public--it's rumored she's pining to death. Mexico: we've pulled our forces out now it's apparent nutter Napoleon III'S determined to make it a French domain. Famine and riots all over Europe." McFay hesitated. "Can I get you anything?"
"A new stomach." Struan glanced at the envelope clenched in his hand. "Jamie, leave me the paper, go through the mails then come back and we'll decide what to do here before I leave..."
A slight noise and they both glanced back at the adjoining door that now was half open. She was standing there, elegant peignoir over her nightdress.
"Hello, cheri," she said at once.
"I thought I heard voices. How are you today?
Good morning, Jamie. Malcolm, you look so much better, can I get you anything?"
"No thank you. Come in. Sit down, you look wonderful. Sleep well?"
"Not really, but never mind," she said though she had slept wonderfully. Her perfume surrounding her, she touched him sweetly, and sat down. "Shall we breakfast together?"
McFay dragged his attention off her. "I'll come back when I've made the arrangements.
I'll tell George Babcott."
When the door had closed, she smoothed Struan's brow, and he caught her hand, loving her. The envelope slipped to the floor. She picked it up. A little frown. "Why so sad?"
"Father's dead."
His sadness brought her tears. She had always found it easy to cry, to make tears almost at will, seeing from a very early age their effect on others, her aunt and uncle particularly. All she had to do was to think of her mother who had died bearing her brother. "But Angelique," her aunt would always say tearfully, "poor little Gerard is your only brother, you'll never have another, not a real one, even if that good-for-nothing father of yours remarries."
"I hate him."
"It wasn't his fault, poor lad, his birth was ghastly."
"I don't care, he killed Maman, killed her!"
"Don't cry, Angelique...."
And now Struan was saying the same words, the tears easy because she was truly sad for him. Poor Malcolm to lose a father--he was a nice man, nice to me. Poor Malcolm trying to be brave. Never mind, soon you'll be well and now it's much easier to stay, now that the smell has gone, most of the smell has gone.
A sudden spectre of her own father came into her mind: "Don't forget this Malcolm will inherit everything soon, the ships and power and..."
I won't think about that. Or... or about the other.
She dried her eyes. "There, now tell me everything."
"Nothing much to tell. Father's dead. The funeral was days ago and I have to go back to Hong Kong at once."
"Of course at once--but not until you are well enough." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly. "What will you do when we get there?"
In a moment he said firmly, "I'm heir.
I'm tai-pan."
"Tai-pan of the Noble House?" She made her surprise seem genuine then, she added delicately, "Malcolm, dear, terrible about your father, but... but in a way not unexpected, no? My father told me he had been sick a long time."
"It was expected yes."
"That is sad but... tai-pan of the Noble House, even so, please may I be the first to congratulate you." She curtseyed to him as elegantly as to a king, and sat back again, pleased with herself. His eyes watched her strangely. "What?"
"Just that you, you make me feel so proud, so wonderful. Will you marry me?"
Her heart missed a beat, her face flushed.
But her mind ordered her to be prudent, not to hurry, and she pondered whether to be as grave as he was grave, or to release the exploding exuberance she felt at his question and her victory and to make him smile. "La!" she said brightly, teasing him, fanning herself with a handkerchief. "Yes I will marry you, Monsieur Struan, but only if you..." A hesitation and she added in a rush, "only if you get better quickly, obey me implacable, cherish me hugely, love me to distraction, build us a castle on the Peak in Hong Kong, a palace on the Champs-Elys`ees, fit out a clipper ship as a bridal bed, a nursery in gold, and find us a country estate of a million hectares!"