“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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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.