Culum was finding it very difficult to focus. Sounds seemed to be stronger than before, but voices more distant, colors and people bizarre. His eyes saw Mary Sinclair and her brother in the distance. Suddenly they were talking to him.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I just said that it will be a fine place for the church.” Horatio forced a smile. “A perfect place.”
“Yes.”
“Your father’s always wanted that knoll. Ever since he saw Hong Kong,” Mary said.
“Yes. But now it belongs to the House of God.”
“Yes,” she said sadly. “But at what cost?”
Then they no longer were talking to him and he was looking at Hibbs.
“Yes?”
“Beggin” yor pardon, sirr, but it’s the receipts. For them wot has bought land,” Hibbs said uneasily.
“Receipts?”
“Yus. Land receipts. You’ve t’ sign ’em.”
Culum watched himself as he followed Hibbs to the stand. Mechanically he signed his name.
Robb was hurrying along Queen’s Road, careless of the appalled looks that followed him, his chest aching from the exertion of the chase. “Dirk, Dirk,” he called out.
Struan stopped momentarily. “Tell him I’ll see him on
his knoll at dawn.”
“But, Dirk, Culum was only—”
“Tell him to come alone.”
“But, Dirk, listen a moment. Don’t go. Wait. The poor lad was only—”
“Tell him to come alone.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
That night in the middle watch the wind veered from east-northeast to east and fell off a knot. The humidity increased and the temperature rose a degree and the captains of the fleet stirred in their sleep and awoke momentarily, knowing that another monsoon had blown its course. Now the wind would blow wet-warm from the east for three months until May and then would veer as suddenly southward gathering heat and wetness. Then in the fall to east-northeast again, dry and cool, until the spring of next year, when it would once more veer to the east and fall off a knot.
The captains fell asleep again, but they slumbered less easily. The east wind heralded the time of the typhoons.
Brock shifted irritably in his bunk and scratched.
“What’s with thee, Tyler?” Liza said, awake and clearheaded instantly as a woman is when a mate is troubled or her child ill. She was in the bunk across the fetid cabin.
“Nothing, Liza. The wind be changed, that be all. Get thy rest.” He adjusted his flannel nightcap and yawned heavily.
Liza got up ponderously and plodded across the cabin.
“Wot be thee doing?”
“Opening porthole, lad. Go to sleep.”
Brock turned over and closed his eyes, but he knew that sleep had left him. He felt the tang of the wind sweep into the cabin. “There be fog soon,” he said.
Liza got back into her bunk, and the straw-filled mattress creaked. She lay comfortably under the covers. “It be the bullion that be worryin’ thee, baint it?”
“Yus.”
“Doan worry thy head now. Tomorrow’s the time for that.” She yawned and scratched at the bite of a bedbug. “It’ll be grand to be ashore again. Will it take long to build a house?”
“Not long,” he said, and turned over.
“This ball wot Struan be giving,” she said, choosing the words with great care. “That be a smack in thy face.”
“Ridikilus. Go to sleep.” Brock was instantly on his guard.
“Course, if we was dressed proper, that’d be a smack right back, eh, Tyler?”
Brock groaned but was careful not to let Liza hear. The news of the ball had swept the fleet the moment Struan had told Skinner. Every husband in Asia had denounced the Tai-Pan, for they knew that he had stolen their peace. And every man’s blood had quickened. The betting had begun. Shevaun Tillman was odds-on favorite. “Thee mean spike his guns with finery?” he said. “Good idea, Liza. Thee look proper smart in that red silk dress wot I—”
“That old rag?” Liza said with a contemptuous sniff. ‘Thee must be joking!”
“ ‘Old,’ thee says? Why, thee’s only worn it but three or four time. I think thee looks—”
“Three year I be wearing that. An’ thee be needin’ new dress coat and breechers and fancy waistcoat and wot not.”
“I enjoys the ones I got,” he said. “I thinks—”
“It be time I went shopping. Afore every decent bolt of silk in Asia be buyed up—and every seamstress be booked. Tomorrow I be going to Macao. In
Gray Witch.”
“But, Liza! For a flipperty ball wot Dirk—”
“I be leavin’ on the noon tide.”
“Yus, Liza,” Brock said, recognizing that special tone in her voice, knowing that no amount of arguing would take the bit out of her teeth. The pox on Struan! But in spite of his fury, the thought of the prize and the judging stirred him. That be a marv’lous idea! Marv’lous! Now, why baint I athinking o’ that? The pox on Struan!
Liza adjusted her pillow and continued to ruminate about the ball. She had already decided that Tess was going to win the prize. And the honor. Whatever the cost. Yes, she told herself again, whatever it costed. But how to persuade Tyler to let Tess go t’ball? He be right pigheaded ’bout her.
“It be time to think about our Tess,” she said.
“Wot about her?”
“It be time thee be thinking about a mate for her.”
“Wot?” Brock sat upright in the bunk. “Be thee outa thy head? Tess be hardly outa nappies. She’s bare sixteen.”
“How old were I when thee married me?”
“That be different, by God! Thee were old for thy age, by God. Times is changed. Time enough and plenty for that flibberty folderol, by God! A mate for Tess? Thee be sick in thy head, woman! And wot a thing to say in’t middle of night! Now, doan be mentioning that again or I be takin’ my belt to thy back.” He turned his back on her furiously and slammed the pillow and closed his eyes.
“Yes, Tyler,” Liza said, smiling. She did not condemn him for the beatings he had given her. They had been few—and never with violence or in a drunken rage. And were a long time ago. For twenty years she had lived with him and she was content with her man.
“Liza, girl,” Brock said tentatively, his face still to the wall, “do Tess know about—well, about ‘things’?”
“Course not,” she said, shocked. “She be brought up proper!”
“Well, by God, it’s about time thee took her aside an’ tells her,” he fumed, sitting up again. “An’ thee better watch her careful like. By the Cross, if I catch any sniffing around our Tess . . . wot makes thee think she be old enough? Has the girl sayed anything? Be she acting different?”
“Course she be watched. Ridikilus to think not. Ridikilus!” Liza snorted. “You men be all the same. Huh! ‘Do this an’ do that,’ and threats and wot not when the girl’s just agrowing and readying to be wed! And I’ll thank thee not to swear so much, Mr. Brock. It baint nice and baint proper!”