‘Punhyqua’s plight cannot be pinned on me,’ cried Innes. ‘It is the mandarins who are to blame. You cannot hold me responsible for their idiocy.’
Everybody was so absorbed in the argument that only Dent seemed to notice Bahram’s entry. He greeted him with a brisk nod and gestured to him to take the empty chair between himself and Mr Slade.
As he was sitting down Bahram heard Jardine intervene, in his usual placid, equable tones: ‘Well Charles, you must admit that Innes has the right of it there. The Celestials have made a great muddle of it all, as always.’
‘But sir,’ responded King, ‘the present situation has arisen solely because of Mr Innes’s actions. It is in his power to resolve it – all he has to do is to leave. Considering the suffering and inconvenience his presence is causing surely it is only reasonable that he should depart immediately?’
This drew a forceful response from Mr Slade who had been stirring restlessly in his seat. ‘No! Mr Innes’s fate is not the only thing that is at stake here. There is a more important principle at issue and it has to do with the powers of this Chamber. Under no circumstances can this Chamber be allowed to dictate to any free merchant – that would be an intolerable encroachment upon our liberties.’
Dent had been nodding vigorously as Slade was speaking and now he spoke up too: ‘Let me be perfectly clear: if the Chamber attempts to set itself up as a shadow government then I shall be the first to resign from it. This body was established to facilitate trade and commerce. It has no jurisdiction over us and it is of the utmost importance that this principle be preserved. Or else the Celestials will attempt at every turn to use the Chamber to bend us to their will. This is clearly why they have asked to meet us today – and in my opinion that gives us a very good reason to stand together in support of Mr Innes.’
‘Support Innes?’ A note of disbelief had entered Charles King’s voice now. ‘A crime has been committed and we are to support the perpetrator? In the name of freedom?’
‘But nonetheless, Charles,’ said Jardine calmly, ‘Dent is right. The Chamber does not have jurisdiction over any of us.’
Charles King raised his hands to his temples. ‘Let me remind you, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘of what is at stake here: it is Punhyqua’s head. He has been a good friend to all of us and his colleagues of the Co-Hong are coming here to plead for his life. Are we going to turn them away on the grounds of a legalism?’
‘Oh please!’ retorted Slade. ‘Have the goodness to spare us these Bulgarian melodramas! If you were not so wet behind the ears it would be evident to you that there are more…’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!’ Jardine broke in before Slade could finish. ‘I must appeal to you to restrain yourselves. We may have our differences on this matter but this is surely not the time or place to air them.’
As he was speaking a steward had come in to whisper in his ear. Jardine gave him a nod before turning back to the others. ‘I have just been informed that the Hongists have arrived. Before they are shown in I would like to remind you that no matter what our personal opinions, it is Mr Lindsay who must speak on our behalf – he and no one else. I take it this is clearly understood?’
Jardine’s gaze swept around the room and came finally to rest on Charles King.
‘Oh, is that how it is to be then?’ said King, with an angry glint in his eye. ‘You have already settled the matter between you?’
‘And what if we have?’ said Jardine calmly. ‘Mr Lindsay is the President. It is his prerogative to speak on behalf of the Chamber.’
Mr King made a gesture of disgust. ‘Very well then. Let us be done with this charade. Let Mr Lindsay say what he will.’
A steward entered now to announce the arrival of the Co-Hong merchants and everyone present rose to their feet. The delegation consisted of four merchants, led by the seniormost member of the guild, Howqua. All of them were wearing their customary formal regalia, with buttons, panels and tassels of rank displayed prominently on their robes and hats.
At any other time there would have been a great deal of chin-chinning between the Hongists and the fanquis but today, as if in deference to the gravity of the situation, the members of the delegation stood at the door, wearing severe, unwavering expressions, while their servants rearranged the seating in the salon, placing four chairs side-by-side, in a row, facing the rest. Then the magnates marched straight in and seated themselves in stiffly formal attitudes, with their hands lying invisible on their laps. Their agitation was apparent only in the occasional fluttering of their sleeves.
Now, without any of the usual preambles and speech-making, a linkister stepped up to Mr Lindsay and handed him a roll of paper. When the seal was broken, the writing inside was discovered to be in Chinese – but Mr Fearon, the Chamber’s translator, was at hand and he took the scroll off to an anteroom to make of it what he could.
In his absence, which lasted a good half-hour, very little was said: the elaborate refreshments that had been prepared for the visitors – syllabubs, cakes, pies and sherbets – were waved away by the Co-Hong merchants who sat immobile all the while, looking directly ahead. Only Charles King attempted to make conversation but such was the severity of the Hongists’ expressions that he too was quickly quelled.
Every man in the room could remember exchanging toasts and gossip with the magnates of the Co-Hong, at innumerable banquets, garden parties and boat-trips. Everyone in that room was fluent in pidgin and they had all, on occasion, used that tongue to discuss things they would not have talked about with their own wives – their lovers, their horoscopes, their digestions and their finances. But now no one said a word.
Sitting on the left was the thin, ascetic Howqua: it was he who had presented Bahram with his beloved desk. On the extreme right was Mowqua, who had once entrusted Bahram with the job of purchasing pearls for his daughter’s wedding; in the centre, was Moheiqua, a man so trustworthy that he had been known to refund the cost of an entire shipment of tea because a single chest had been found to be substandard.
The ties of trust and goodwill that bound the Hongists to the fanquis were all the stronger for having been forged across apparently unbridgeable gaps of language, loyalty and belonging: but now, even though the memory of those bonds was vitally alive in everyone present, no trace of it was visible in the faces that confronted each other across the room.
When Mr Fearon returned, the air seemed to crackle in anticipation of his report. Addressing himself to Mr Lindsay, the translator began by saying: ‘I fear I have not been able to translate the communication in its entirety, sir, but I will endeavour to provide the gist. Fortunately it repeats some parts of the Co-Hong’s earlier communications with us.’
‘Please proceed, Mr Fearon. You have our full attention.’
Mr Fearon began to read from his notes: ‘ “We, the merchants of the Co-Hong, have again and again sent to you gentlemen copies of the laws and edicts that regulate our trade in Canton. But you, gentlemen, thinking them of no importance, have cast them aside without giving them the least attention. A seizure has recently been made by the government of some opium which Mr Innes was endeavouring to smuggle into the city. In consequence of this one of our colleagues has been sentenced to the punishment of publicly wearing the cangue. You, gentlemen, have all seen or heard of this.” ’
The words sent a shiver through Bahram: the sight of Punhyqua, labouring under the weight of the cangue, still festered in his eyes. How many palms had Punhyqua greased over the years? How many beaks had he wetted? Over his lifetime he had probably distributed millions of taels amongst the province’s officials; even the men who had come to arrest him had probably profited from his largesse at some time or another. And yet, it had not served to prevent his arrest.