‘Francis Carver—in Guangdong?’ said Ah Sook.
‘In Canton; yes, it’s very likely,’ said Mrs. Wells, mistaking Ah Sook’s question for a statement. ‘Captain Carver was based in Canton. He was based there for many years. Come along into the parlour.’
She shepherded Ah Sook into the parlour, pointing to the far corner of the room. ‘You will sit upon a cushion—there,’ she said. ‘You will observe the faces around you, and contribute a cool air of judgment to our mystical séance. We shall call you the Eastern Oracle—or the Living Statue of the Orient—or the Dynastic Spirit—or some such thing. Which do you prefer, Anna? The Statue—or the Oracle?’
Anna did not have a preference. It was clear to her that Lydia Wells and Ah Sook recognised each other, and that their shared history had something to do with Francis Carver, and that the widow did not wish to speak of it aloud. She knew better than to press the point, however, and asked, ‘What will be his purpose?’
‘Merely to observe us!’
‘Yes, but to what end?’
The widow waved her hand. ‘Didn’t you see the spectacle at the Prince of Wales? Nothing sells tickets like an Oriental touch.’
‘He’s not unknown in Hokitika, you know,’ Anna said. ‘He’ll be recognised.’
‘As will you!’ Mrs. Wells pointed out. ‘That won’t matter a jot.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Anna Wetherell,’ said Mrs. Wells, with pretended annoyance. ‘Do you remember last Thursday, when I proposed hanging the sketch of the Bagatto at the top of the stairs, and you protested, claiming that the print would be shadowed by the attic landing, and then I hung it anyway, and the light was quite as perfect as I promised it would be?’
‘Yes,’ Anna said.
‘Well—there,’ said Mrs. Wells, and laughed.
Ah Sook had not understood a word of this. He turned to Anna and frowned very slightly, to show her that she needed to explain.
‘A séance,’ Anna said, uselessly.
Ah Sook shook his head. He did not know the word.
‘Let’s try it,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Come—come to the corner—Anna, get the man a cushion to sit upon. Or would a stool be more ascetic? No, a cushion: then he can fold his legs as the Eastern men do. Yes, come here—further—further. There.’
She pushed Ah Sook down upon the cushion, and took several quick steps backwards, to appraise him from the other side of the room. She nodded with delight.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Do you see, Anna? Do you not think it fine? How solemn he is! I wonder if we might ask him to smoke a pipe of some kind—for the curling smoke around his head would be rather nice indeed. But smoke indoors makes me ill.’
‘He has not yet given his consent,’ Anna observed.
Mrs. Wells looked faintly irritated; she did not protest this observation, however, but advanced upon Ah Sook, smiled, and peered down at him, her hands on her hips. ‘Do you know Emery Staines?’ she said, enunciating clearly. ‘Emery Staines? Do you know him?’
Ah Sook nodded. He knew Emery Staines.
‘Well,’ the woman said, ‘we are going to bring him here. Tonight. And speak with him. Emery Staines—here.’ She pointed at the floorboards with a lemon-scented hand.
A ray of understanding passed over Ah Sook’s face. Excellent: the prospector must have been found at last—and found alive! This was good news.
‘Very good,’ he said.
‘Tonight,’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Here, at the Wayfarer’s Fortune. In this room. The party will begin at seven; the séance, at ten.’
‘Tonight,’ said Ah Sook, staring at her.
‘Precisely. You will be here. You will come. You will sit, as you are sitting now. Yes? Oh, Anna—does he understand? I can hardly tell; his face is such a perfect statue. You see what gave me the idea—the Living Statue!’
Slowly, Anna explained to Ah Sook that Lydia was requesting his presence, that evening, at a meeting with Emery Staines. She used the word séance several times; Ah Sook, who had no reason to have ever learned that word, deduced by context that it was a gathering or meeting of some scripted kind, which Emery Staines had been invited to attend. He nodded to show that he understood. Anna then explained that Ah Sook was invited to return, that evening, and take his place upon the cushion in the corner, exactly as he was sitting now. Other men had also been invited. They would sit in a circle, and Emery Staines would stand in the centre of the room.
‘Does he understand it?’ said Mrs. Wells. ‘Does he understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Ah Sook, and then, to show her: ‘A séance with Emery Staines, tonight.’
‘Excellent,’ said Mrs. Wells, smiling down at him in the same way that one might smile at a precocious child after the recitation of a sonnet—which is to say, with an admiration that was a little distrustful, and somewhat contrived.
‘A whore in mourning and an Eastern mystic,’ she went on. ‘It is quite perfect; I am chilled simply thinking of it! Of course a séance is not an Oriental tradition’—in response to Anna’s earlier question—‘but have I not said every day this fortnight that in this business, the ambience is half the battle? Ah Sook will do us very well.’
Anna looked away, and said, lightly, ‘Of course he must be recompensed.’
The widow turned upon Anna with a very chilly look, but Anna was not looking at her, and could not receive it; in the next moment, her expression cleared again. Carelessly she said, ‘Of course! But you ought to ask him how much he thinks he deserves for such easy work. Ask him, Anna; seeing as you are his special friend.’
Anna did so, explaining to Ah Sook that the widow was willing to pay him a fee for his contribution to the séance that evening. Ah Sook, who had not yet understood that Emery Staines was going to be present in spirit only, thought this a wonderful proposition. He was rightly very suspicious of the offer, and made his suspicion known. A rather absurd negotiation followed, and at length Ah Sook agreed, more for her sake than for his own, to receive a fee of one shilling.
Ah Sook was no fool. He knew very well that he had not really comprehended what was to happen that evening. It was very strange to him that Anna had placed such a high emphasis upon the fact that Emery Staines would stand in the very centre of the room, with all the others ranged around him, and it was even stranger still that the widow was willing to pay him a wage for doing nothing at all. He concluded that he was to play a part in a scripted drama of some kind (in which guess, of course, he hit very close upon the mark) and reasoned that whatever humiliation he might suffer as a consequence, it was surely worth it, to get a chance to speak to Mr. Staines. He accepted the widow’s invitation, and her promise of payment, in the certainty that his uncertainties would resolve themselves in time.
With this, their negotiations were concluded. Ah Sook looked at Anna. They held one another’s gaze a moment, Ah Sook steadily, and Anna—it seemed—with a cool detachment that the hatter did not recognise at all. But was that even detachment? Or was he simply unused to the clarity of her expression, now that her features were not overlaid by opium’s thick veil? She was so changed. If he had not known her better he might have almost called her expression haughty—as though she fancied herself a cut above Chinese society, now that she was no longer a whore.
Ah Sook decided to take her cool expression as a cue to leave, and rose from his cushion. He had calculated that he had time enough to walk to Kaniere and back again before the sun went down, and he wished to inform his compatriot Quee Long that Emery Staines would be present, that very evening, at the Wayfarer’s Fortune on Revell-street. He knew that Ah Quee had long desired an audience with Staines, wishing to interrogate the young prospector upon the matter of the Aurora gold; he would be very pleased to discover that Staines was alive.