Instead he took a glass of champagne from a silver platter held by a liveried manservant and said, "To be in the presence of two such lovely ladies, we are lucky! Your healths."
Everyone drank, and continued to compare. Zergeyev was too worried to follow suit, much more concerned with what other foul news had arrived with Prancing Cloud, particularly for the other Ministers.
An urgent, coded dispatch from St.
Petersburg--three months old--had arrived.
First, it related the usual trouble with Prussia, troops massing on their Western borders, six armies sent there; trouble expected soon with the Ottoman Empire and Moslems to the south, three armies sent there; famine everywhere, with intellectuals such as Dostoyevesky and Tolstoy advocating change and liberalization.
Second, it ordered him to press the Japanese to remove their fishing villages from the Kuriles and Sakhalin under threat of "serious consequences." And third, much trouble for him personally: You are appointed Governor General of Russian Alaska. In the spring the warship, Tsar Alexandre, will arrive with your replacement for the Japans, and then carry you and your entourage to our Alaskan capital Sitka where you will be in residence for at least two years to expedite Friendship.
"Why so glum, friend?" Sir William asked in Russian.
Zergeyev saw that Angelique was again surrounded, so drew him aside and told him about his new posting. But not about "Friendship." This was the code name of a top-secret State plan to facilitate enforced, massive immigration of hardy Siberian tribes into their vast Alaskan-American territories that spread hundreds of miles inland, adjoined Canada and hugged the coast southwards to end not far from the American-Canadian border. Hardy, tough, warlike peoples who could, and would, over a generation or three, trickle southwards and eastwards to the vast prairies and warm exotic lands of California, eventually to possess America. The plan had been proposed by an uncle twenty-five years earlier. "Two years! A fornicating prison sentence!"
"I agree." Sir William felt equally uncomfortable with the vicissitudes of his own Foreign Office, their aptitude for sudden postings, equally olympian. "Alaska? Ugh!
Know nothing about it--have you ever been there? Last year, the ship I was on stopped at Vancouver, in our colony there. It's just an outpost, and we went no further north."
"Sitka's not much further. I was there as a youth once. Now we've permanent settlement, lots of traders, a few hundred shacks,"
Zergeyev said sourly. "Furs, freezing, lawlessness, illiterates, Indians, drunks, and no society. The place is a foul wasteland, discovered by Bering and Chirikov a hundred odd years ago... at first they thought it was just part of our northern territories, fifty-odd miles across an inlet, not realizing it was a Strait they named after Bering.
Sixty-odd years ago, one of my granduncles helped form the Russian American Fur Company, our fur-trading monopoly, and appointed an imperious son of a whore--a cousin called Baranof--to be Director who moved the capital to Sitka. It's on an island off the coast, totally miserable and called, guess what, Baranof Island. Unfortunately my family made Alaska a special interest. Hence the posting. Matyeryeybitz! Both of them."
Sir William laughed and Angelique turned back to them. "May I share the joke?"
"Er, it wasn't well, very funny, my dear," he said, docketing the highly interesting data for transmission to London, "just a Russian vulgarity."
"English humor, Angelique," Zergeyev laughed. "And on that happy thought, it is time for dinner."
Gallantly he bowed, went over and took Maureen into the dining room, Sir William and Angelique followed, then the others.
Abundant silver on refectory table, liveried menservants behind each chair, others to bring in huge quantities of meats and borscht and beets and pies and jugs of iced vodka, champagne and French wines and sorbets.
Gypsy musicians from the Russian warship, then later Cossack dancers from his entourage for entertainment.
Conversation buzzing and all of them still comparing: tiny and tall, French against one of us, delightful French accent, comfortable Scots. Both beddable, Angelique much more so, both eligible, and marriageable, Maureen much more so.
Saturday, 3rd January
Saturday, 3rd January: "Mass'r down stair, Missee-tai-tai."
"Master Gornt?"
Ah Soh shrugged, standing in the doorway of Angelique's boudoir. "Kwailoh Mass'r." With her hand she indicated someone tall, and closed the door with a customary bang.
Angelique glanced quickly in the mirror.
Her suppressed excitement was all the makeup she needed. A moment while she locked her journal and put it away. A final check and she swept out. Black silk dress with many petticoats, hair tied with a neat chiffon scarf, also black. Signet wedding ring. Down the staircase oblivious of the servants at their early morning chores.
Into the tai-pan's office. Gornt stood by the window, looking out at the bay. Chen waited lugubriously.
"Good morning, Edward."
He turned and smiled a welcome. "'morning Ma'am."
"Can I order coffee, or champagne?"
"Nothing thank you, I've had breakfast. Just wanted to tell you about Hong Kong, and your shopping list, hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Thank you. Chen, wait outside, heya."
The moment they were alone she said softly, "This is Albert's office now, I'm borrowing it while he's in the counting office with Vargas so we may not have much time--it's hard to have somewhere to talk privately. Let's sit here, Edward," she said, motioning to the table in the window, the curtains open. "Passersby can see us, that should be safe, you were Malcolm's friend. Please quickly, what happened."
"May I say first how marvelous you look?"
"So do you." Her anxiety was open now.
"Please?"
"It went very well, I think," he said, as quietly, "Tess would make a great poker player, Angelique, so I can't be sure.
At our first meeting I told her about my Brock information as we agreed, saying several times in different ways it was because of you I was seeing her. Not th--"
"Were you the first to see her from the ship?"
"Yes, I'm quite sure because I went ashore on the pilot boat before Prancing Cloud docked, with Captain Strongbow. After I told Tess about the Brocks, there wasn't much of a reaction, she listened intently, asked a few questions and then said, Please come back tomorrow, with your evidence, shortly after dawn. Use the side door in the alley, it will be unlocked, and be muffled up and careful, the Brocks have spies everywhere. The next day..."
"Wait! Did you tell her about, about Malcolm dying, and about our marriage?"
"No, I let Strongbow do that," Gornt said. "I'll start from the beginning. We went ashore together on the pilot boat, at my suggestion, keeping quiet about it, and Hoag out of the plan--he's a loose mouth. I had volunteered to support Strongbow and help because I was a witness to part of it... the poor fellow was scared to death though it really was his duty to tell her. When he blurted out that Malcolm was dead she went white. In a few seconds she had recovered her composure, astonishing how fast, but she did and then she asked, her voice flat, she asked him how Malcolm had died. Strongbow was distraught and he stuttered, "I brought the death certificate, Mrs. Struan, and inquest findings and a letter from Sir William and it was from natural causes and happened aboard Prancing Cloud. We found him dead in the morning, after the night he was wed"..."
"She shot to her feet like an arrow and screeched, "You married my son to that woman?"' Strongbow almost died and gabbled out the story as fast as he could, about Pearl, about the duel, me saving Jamie's life killing Norbert, finding Malcolm, telling everything he knew, how you were in shock. The sweat was pouring off him, Angelique. I must admit I was sweating too --after the first screech Tess just stood there, eyes on fire like a Medusa. Then he gave her some letters, I saw one was from Sir William, mumbled sorry but it was his awful duty to tell her and he stumbled away."