He exploded with pretended rage. “You are a miserable slave, by God! And I’ve a mind to sell you into the Street of the Blue Lanterns,” he shouted, naming the worst of the seamen’s streets in Macao, “though who’d want to buy a dirty baggage slave like you I dinna ken. You’re nothing hut trouble and I’ve a mind to give you to the lepers. Aye, by God! I paid eight thousand taels of good silver for you, and how dare you make me angry? I was cheated, by God! You’re worthless! Dirty slave—how I’ve put up with you these years I dinna ken!” He shook his fist in her face, and she recoiled. “Am I na good to you? Eh? Generous?
Eh? Eh?” he roared, and was pleased to detect fear in her eyes.
“Well?”
“Yes, lord,” she whispered, biting her lips.
“You dare to get clothes made behind my back and dare to wear them wi’out my approval, by God? Well,
do you?”
“Yes, lord.”
“I’ll sell you tomorrow. I’ve a mind to throw you out now, you miserable motherless whore! Kowtow! Go on, kowtow, by God!”
She blanched at his fury and kowtowed quickly. “Now keep kowtowing until I come back!” He stormed out of the room, and went into the garden. He jerked out his knife and selected a thin bamboo from a newly planted grove. He cut it and slashed the air and rushed back into the living room.
“Take your clothes off, you miserable slave! I’m going to flog you till my arm hurts!”
Trembling, she stripped. He seized the dress from her hand and threw it aside.
“Lie down there.
v
He pointed at the ottoman. She did as he ordered. “Please no to whip me too hard—I’m two months with child.” She buried her head in the ottoman.
Struan wanted to take her in his arms, but he knew that this would make him lose face in front of her. And a whipping was the only way to give her back her dignity.
So he slashed her buttocks with the bamboo. Hard enough to hurt, but not to damage. Soon she was crying out and weeping and squirming, but he kept on. Twice he deliberately missed her and slashed the leather violently, so that the noise was terrifying, for the benefit of Lim Din and Ah Sam who he knew would be listening.
After ten blows he paused and told her to stay where she was, and went over to the brandy bottle. He drank deeply, hurled the bottle against the wall, and resumed the whipping. But always with great care.
Finally he stopped and dragged her up by the hair. “Put on your clothes, you miserable slave!” When she was dressed, he bellowed,
“Lim Din! Ah Sam!”
They were trembling at the door in an instant.
“Wat for nae tea nae food, you miserable slaves! Get food!”
He hurled the bamboo at the side of the door and turned back to May-may.
“Kowtow, you motherless wreck!”
Aghast at the limitlessness of his fury, she hastily complied.
“Clean yoursel’ and come back here. Thirty seconds or I’ll start all over again!”
Lim Din served the tea and though it was just right, Struan said it was too cold and threw the teapot against the wall. May-may and Lim Din and Ah Sam rushed away and hurried back with more.
The food came with incredible speed also, and Struan allowed himself to be served by May-may. She whimpered with pain and he shouted, “Shut up or I’ll whip you forever!”
Then he fell silent, ominously, and ate, letting the quiet torture them.
“Pick the bamboo up!” he screamed as he finished.
May-may fetched the bamboo and handed it to him. He prodded her in the stomach. “Bed!” he ordered harshly, and Lim Din and Ah Sam fled, secure in the knowledge that the Tai-Pan had forgiven his Tai-tai, who had gained limitless face by enduring his righteous fury.
May-may turned around tearfully and went along the corridor toward her quarters, but he snarled, “My bed, by God!”
She ran into his room. He followed and crashed the door shut, and bolted it.
“So, you’re with child. Whose child?”
“Yours, lord,” she whimpered.
He sat down and extended a booted foot. “Come on, hurry up.”
She fell on her knees and pulled off the boots and then stood beside the bed.
“How dare you think I’d want you to meet my friends? When I want to take you out of the house, I’ll tell you, by God.”
“Yes, lord.”
“A woman’s place is in the home.
Here!”
“Yes, lord.”
He allowed his face to soften a trace. “That’s better, by God.”
“I did na want to go to ball,” she said in a tiny whisper. “Only to dress like . . . I never want ball. How for go ball—never never want. Only to please. Sorry. Very sorry.”
“Why should I forgive you, eh?” He began to undress. “Eh?”
“No reason—none.” Now she was crying piteously, silently. But he knew that now was too soon to relent completely.
“Perhaps, as you’re with child, I may give you another chance. But it better be a son, not a worthless girl.”
“Oh yes—please, please. Please forgive.” She kowtowed and knocked her head on the floor.
Her crying was tearing at him, but he continued to undress sullenly. Then he blew the lantern out and got into bed.
He left her standing.
After a minute or two he said curtly, “Get into bed. I’m cold.”
Later, when he could stand her weeping no more, he put his arms around her tenderly and kissed her. “You’re forgiven, lass.”
She cried herself to sleep in his arms.
BOOK IV
With the passing weeks spring became early summer. The sun gathered strength and the air became heavy with moisture. The Europeans in their regular clothes and long woolen underwear—
and bustled dresses and whalebone corsets—
suffered intensely. Sweat dried in the armpits and groin, and festering sores erupted. The usual summer sickness began—
the Canton gutrot, the Macao flux, the Asian distemper. Those who died were mourned. The living stoically endured their torments as unavoidable tribulations sent by the good Lord to plague mankind, and continued to close their windows against the air which all believed carried the noxious gases that the earth emanated in summer; they continued to allow their doctors to purge them and leech them, for all knew that that was the only real cure for sickness; they continued to drink fly-touched water and eat flyblown meats; they continued to avoid bathing, which all knew was dangerous to health; and they continued to pray for the cool of winter, which would once more clean the earth of its more deadlier poisons.
By June the distemper had decimated the ranks of the soldiers. The trading season was almost over. This year huge fortunes would be made. With joss. For never had the buying and the selling been so extravagant at the Canton Settlement. The traders and their Portuguese clerks and their Chinese compradores, and the Co-hong merchants, were all exhausted by the heat but more by the weeks of frantic activity. All were ready to relax until the winter’s buying could begin.