“Aye, but this is nae place for a Protestant English girl.”
A gaunt, tonsured monk came in. He wore simple robes—stiff with ancient bloodstains and spilled medicants—and a plain wooden crucifix.
“Good morning,” the monk said, his English cultured and accentless. “I am Father Sebastian. The patient’s doctor.”
“Good morning. I think I’ll take her out of your care.”
“I wouldn’t advise it, Mr. Struan. She shouldn’t be moved for a month at least.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“Her inside is disordered.”
“You’re English?”
“Is that so strange, Mr. Struan? There are many English—and also Scots—who acknowledge the true Church of Christ. But being Catholic doesn’t make me any less a doctor.”
“Do you have any cinchona bark here?”
“What?”
“Cinchona bark. Jesuits’ bark.”
“No. I’ve never used it. I’ve never seen any. Why?”
“Nothing. What’s wrong with Miss Sinclair?”
“It’s quite complicated. Miss Sinclair should not be moved for a month—better, two.”
“Do you feel well enough to be moved, lassie?”
“Her brother, Mr. Sinclair, does not object to her staying here. And I believe Mr. Culum Struan also approves of what I suggest.”
“Has Culum been here today?” Struan asked Mary.
She shook her head and spoke to the monk, her face tragic. “Please tell the Tai-Pan. About—about me.”
Father Sebastian said gravely, “I think you’re wise. Someone should know. Miss Sinclair is very sick, Mr. Struan. She drank a potion of Chinese herbs—perhaps poison would be a better word—to cause an abortion. The poison dislodged the fetus but caused a hemorrhage which is now, by the Grace of God, almost under control.”
Struan felt a sudden sweat. “Who else knows, Mary? Horatio? Culum?”
She shook her head.
Struan turned back to the monk. “ ‘Almost under control’? Does that mean the lass is all right? That in a month or so she’ll be all right?”
“Physically, yes. If there is no gangrene. And if it is the will of God.”
“What do you mean, ‘physically’?”
“I mean, Mr. Struan, that it is impossible to consider the physical without the spiritual. This lady has sinned terribly against the laws of God—against the laws of the Catholic Church and also your Church—so a peace, and a reckoning, must be made with God before there can be a healing. That’s all I was trying to say.”
“How—how did she get here?”
“She was brought here by her amah, who is a Catholic. I obtained special dispensation to treat her and, well, we put her in here and treated her as best we could. The mother superior insisted that someone be informed because we felt she was failing. Word was sent to a Captain Glessing. We presumed he was the—the father, but Miss Sinclair swears he is not—was not. And she begged us not to reveal the cause of her illness.” Father Sebastian paused. “That crisis, by the Grace of God, passed.”
“You’ll keep this secret? What—what has happened to her?”
“Only you, I and the sisters know. We have oaths to God that may not be broken. You need have no fear from us. But I know there’ll be no healing of this poor sinner without a peace and a reckoning. For He knows.”
Father Sebastian left them.
“The—the father was one of your ‘friends,’ Mary?”
“Yes. I don’t—I don’t regret my life, Tai-Pan. I don’t—I can’t. Or—or what I’ve done. It’s joss.”
Mary was looking out of the window. “Joss,” she repeated. “I was raped when I was very young—at least . . . that’s not true. I didn’t know what . . . I didn’t understand, but I was a little forced the first time. Then I . . . then it wasn’t necessary to force—I wanted.”
“Who was he?”
“One of the boys at school. He died. It was so long ago.”
Struan searched his mind but could remember no boy that had died. No boy that could have had the run of the Sinclair house.
“Then after that,” Mary continued haltingly, “I had a need. Horatio . . . Horatio was in England, so I asked—I asked one of the amahs to find me a lover. She explained to me that I . . . that I could have a lover, many lovers, that if I was clever and she was clever I could have a secret life and pretty things. My real life had never been pleasant. You know the father I had. So the amah showed me how. She . . . she procured for me. We—we grew . . . we grew rich together and I’m glad. I bought the two houses and she always brought only very rich men.” She stopped, and then after a long time she whimpered, “Oh, Tai-Pan, I’m so afraid.”
Struan sat beside her. He remembered what he had said to her only a few months ago. And her confident reply.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Struan was at the open window, moodily watching the crowded
pra
ça below. It was sunset. The Portuguese were all in evening dress and they strolled back and forth, bowing, conversing animatedly—the young
fidalgos and the girls flirting cautiously under the watchful eyes of parents and duennas. A few sedan chairs and their coolies plodded in search of customers or deposited latecomers to the promenade. Tonight there was a ball at the governor’s palace and he had been invited but he did not know if he would go. Culum had not returned yet. And word had not come from the bishop.
He had seen Horatio this afternoon. Horatio had been furious because Ah Tat, Mary’s amah, had disappeared. “I’m sure she’s the one who fed poor Mary the posion, Tai-Pan,” he had said. Mary had told him that she had by mistake drunk some herb tea she found in the kitchen—nothing more.
“That’s nonsense, Horatio. Ah Tat’s been with you both for years. Why should she do a thing like that? It was an accident.”
After Horatio had gone, Struan had searched for the men whom Culum and Gorth had been with last night. They were mostly cronies of Gorth and had all said that some hours after Gorth had left, Culum had left; that he had been drinking but was no drunker than the rest, than he usually was.
You stupid idiot, Culum, Struan thought. You ought to know better.
Suddenly he noticed an immaculate, bewigged liveried servant approaching, and he recognized the bishop’s coat of arms instantly. The man came unhurriedly along the
praia, but he passed the residence without stopping and disappeared down the
pra
ça.
The light was failing fast now, and the oil lights of the lanterned promenade began to dominate the gloaming. Struan saw a curtained sedan chair stop outside the house. Two half-seen coolies left it and lost themselves in an alley.
Struan rushed out of the room and down the stairs.
Culum was sprawled unconscious in the back of the chair, his clothes torn and vomit-stained. He stank of alcohol.
Struan was more amused than angry. He pulled Culum to his feet and threw him over his shoulder and, careless of the stares of the passersby, carried him into the house.
“Lo Chum! Bath, quick-quick!”
Struan laid Culum on the bed and stripped him. There were no bruises on his chest or back. He turned him over. Nail scratches on his stomach. And blotched love bites.