“Gorth said that they’re closing their factory tomorrow. He’s going to summer in Macao. All the Brocks are.”
“We’ll be going to Hong Kong. The factory here stays open.”
“Gorth said it would be better to summer in Macao. He has a house there. We still have property there, haven’t we?”
Struan stirred in his chair. “Aye. Take a week or so, if you wish. Spend it in Macao, but I want you in Queen’s Town. And I’ll tell you again, watch your back. Gorth’s na your friend.”
“And I must tell you again, I think he is.”
“He’s trying to get you off balance, and one day he’ll cut you to pieces.”
“You’re wrong. I understand him. I like him. We get on very well. I find I can talk to him and I enjoy his company. We both know it’s difficult for you—and for his father—to understand, but, well, it’s hard to explain.”
“I understand Gorth too well, by God!”
“Let’s not discuss it,” Culum said.
“I think we should. You’re under Gorth’s spell. That’s deadly for a Struan.”
“You see Gorth through other eyes. He’s my friend.”
Struan opened a box and selected a Havana cheroot and decided that the time had come. “Do you think Brock’ll approve your marrying Tess?”
Culum flushed and he said impulsively, “I don’t see why not. Gorth’s in favor.”
“You’ve discussed it with Gorth?”
“I haven’t discussed it with you. Or with anyone. So why should I talk about it to Gorth?”
“Then how do you know he approves?”
“I don’t. It’s just that he’s always saying how well Miss Brock and I seemed to be getting on together, how she enjoyed my company, encouraging me to write to her, that sort of thing.”
“You think I’ve no right to ask your intentions toward Tess Brock?”
“You’ve the right, certainly. It’s just—well yes, I have thought about marrying her. But I’ve never said so to Gorth.” Culum stopped uncomfortably and mopped his brow. He had been shaken by the suddenness with which the Tai-Pan had touched on what was foremost in his own mind, and though he had wanted to talk about it he did not want his love defiled. Damn it, I should have been prepared, he thought, and he heard himself rush on, unable to stop. “But I don’t think my—my affection for Miss Brock is anyone’s concern at the moment. Nothing’s been said, and there’s nothing—well, what I feel for Miss Brock’s my own affair.”
“I realize that’s your opinion,” Struan said, “but that does na mean you’re correct. Have you considered that you might be being used?”
“By Miss Brock?”
“By Gorth. And by Brock.”
“Have you considered that your hatred of them tinges all your judgments?” Culum was furious.
“Aye. I’ve considered that. But you, Culum? Have you thought they might be using you?”
“Let’s say you’re correct. Let’s say I did marry Miss Brock. Isn’t that to your business advantage?”
Struan was glad that the problem was out in the open. “Nay. Because Gorth will eat you up when you’re Tai-Pan. He’ll take all we have and destroy you—to become The Noble House.”
“Why should he destroy his sister’s husband? Why shouldn’t we join our companies—Brock and Struan? I run the business, he runs the ships.”
“And who’s Tai-Pan?”
“We could share that—Gorth and I.”
“There can only be one Tai-Pan. That’s what it means. That’s the law.”
“But your law is not necessarily my law. Or Gorth’s. We can learn by others’ mistakes. Merging our companies would give us immense advantages.”
“That’s what Gorth has in mind?” Struan wondered if he had made a mistake about Culum. His son’s fascination for Tess and his trust in Gorth would be the key to destroy The Noble House and give Brock and Gorth all that they wanted. Only three months left and then I leave for England. Good sweet Christ! “Is it?” he asked.
“We’ve never discussed it. We’ve talked about trading and shipping and companies, that sort of thing. And how to bring peace between you two. But a merger would be advantageous, wouldn’t it?”
“Na with those two. You’re na in the same class. Yet.”
“But one day I will be?”
“Maybe.” Struan lit the cheroot. “You really think you could control Gorth?”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t need to control him. Any more than he’d need to control me. Say I do marry Miss Brock. Gorth has his company, we have ours. Separate. We can still compete. But amiably. Without hate.” Culum’s tone hardened. “Let’s think like a Tai-Pan for a moment. Brock has a beloved daughter. I ingratiate myself with her and with Gorth. By marrying her I’ll merely be softening Brock’s animosity to me while I gain experience. Always holding out the bait of a merger of the companies. Then I can savage them when I’m ready. A safe and beautiful ploy. The pox on the girl. Just use her—to the greater glory of The Noble House.”
Struan said nothing.
“Haven’t you considered these possibilities dispassionately?” Culum went on. “I’d forgotten you’re much too clever not to have noticed that I’m in love with her.”
“Aye,” Struan said. He carefully knocked the ash off his cheroot into a silver ashtray. “I’ve considered you—and Tess—‘dispassionately.’”
“And what was your conclusion?”
“That the dangers, for you, outweigh the advantages.”
“Then you totally disapprove of my marrying her?”
“I disapprove of your loving her. But the fact is you do love her, or think you do. And another fact is that you’ll marry her, if you can.” Struan took a long draw on the cheroot. “Do you think Brock will approve?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think he will, God help me!”
“I think he will, God help you.”
“But you won’t?”
“I told you once before: I’m the only man on this earth you can completely trust. Provided you dinna, with calculation, go against the house.”
“But you think such a marriage is against the interests of the company?”
“I did na say that. I said you dinna understand the dangers.” Struan put out the cheroot and stood up. “She’s under age. Will you wait five years for her?”
“Yes,” he said, appalled by the length of time. “Yes, by God. You don’t know what she means to me. She’s—well, she’s the only girl I could ever really love. I won’t change and you don’t understand, you can’t. Yes, I’ll wait five years. I’m in love with her.”
“Is she in love with you?”
“I don’t know. I—she seems to like me. I pray she will. Oh God in heaven, what am I going to do?”
Thank God, I’m na that young again, Struan thought with compassion. Now I know that love is like the sea, sometimes calm and sometimes stormy; it’s dangerous, beautiful, death-dealing, life-giving. But never permanent, everchanging. And unique only for a short span in the eyes of time.
“You’ll do nothing, lad. But I’ll talk to Brock tonight.”
“No,” Culum said anxiously. “This is my life. I don’t want you to—”
“What you want to do crosses my life and Brock’s,” Struan interrupted. “I’ll talk to Brock.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
Struan fanned a fly away from his face. “What about the twenty guineas, Culum?”
“What?”
“My coffin money. The twenty golden coins Brock gave me, and you kept. Had you forgotten?”
Culum opened his mouth to say no but changed his mind. “Yes, I’d forgotten them. At least they’d slipped my mind.” His anguish showed in the depths of his eyes. “Why should I want to lie to you? I almost lied. That’s terrible.”
“Aye,” Struan said, pleased that Culum had passed another test and learned another lesson. “What about the coins?”
“Nothing. Except you should remember them. That’s B
rock. Gorth’s worse because he’s na even got his father’s generosity.”
It was almost midnight.
“Sit thee down, Dirk,” Brock said, rubbing his beard. “Grog, beer or brandy?”
“Brandy.”
“Brandy-ah,” Brock ordered the servant, then motioned to the food on the table in the glittering candlelight. “Help thyself to vittles, Dirk.” He scratched his armpits which were thick with the sores called “prickly heat.”
“Godrotting weather! Why the devil baint thee suffering along with the rest of us’n?”
“I live right,” Struan said, and stuck his legs out comfortably. “I’ve told you a million times. If you bathe four times a day you will na get prickly heat. Lice’ll vanish and—”
“That be having nothing to do with it,” Brock said. “That be foolishness. Against nature, by God.” He laughed. “Them wot says thee’s shipmate o’ the devil mayhaps’ve put the finger on why thee’s as thee are. Eh?” He shoved his empty half-gallon silver tankard at the servant, who immediately filled it from the small barrel of beer that was set against a wall. Muskets and cutlasses were on racks nearby. “But thee’ll get thy reward soon enough, eh, Dirk?” Brock pointed a blunt thumb downward.
Struan took the large balloon-shaped crystal glass and sniffed the brandy. “We all get our rewards, Tyler.” Struan kept the brandy close to his nose to counteract the stench of the room. He wondered if Tess stank like her father and mother, and if Brock knew the reason for his visit. The windows were tight shut against the night and the monstrous hum from the square below.
Brock grunted and lifted the full tankard and drank thirstily. He was wearing his usual woolen frock coat and heavy underwear and high cravat and waistcoat. He studied Struan bleakly. Struan appeared cool and strong in his light shirt and white trousers and half boots, the red-gold hairs on his vast chest catching the candlelight. “Thee looks right proper naked, lad. Proper disgusting.”
“It’s the coming fashion, Tyler. Health!” Struan raised his glass and they drank.
“Talking of devil, I heared Maureen Quance be bending poor old Aristotle more’n maybe. Rumor sayed they be going home on next tide.”
“He’ll escape, or cut his throat before he does that.”
Brock guffawed. “When she come up sudden-like at ball, I baint laughing so much since Ma catched tits in’t mangle.” He waved a hand in dismissal and the servant left. “I heared all thy ships be off.”
“Aye. A great season eh?”
“Yus. And it be better when Blue Witch berth first in London Town. I heard she be a day ahead.” Brock drank deeply of the beer and sweated copiously. “Jeff Cooper sayed his last boat be gone so Whampoa be clear.”
“Are you staying in Canton?”
Brock shook his head. “We be going tomorrer. To Queen’s Town, then Macao. But we be keeping this place open, not like afore.”
“Longstaff’s staying. Negotiations’ll be going on, I suppose.” Struan felt tension in the air and his disquiet increased.
“Thee knowed there be no concluding here.” Brock was fiddling with the patch over his eye. He half lifted it and rubbed the jagged, scarred socket. The string that had held the patch over the years had worn a neat red channel in his forehead. “Gorth sayed that Robb’s youngest beed with fever.”
“Aye. I suppose Culum told him?”
“Yus.” Brock marked the sharpness of Struan’s voice. He drank heavily of the beer and wiped the froth off his whiskers with the back of his hand. “I be sorry to hear that. Bad joss.” He drank again. “Yor boy’n mine be just like old shipmates.”
“I’ll be glad to be afloat again.” Struan ignored the taunt. “I had a long talk with Jin-qua this afternoon. About the fever. They’ve never had it in Kwangtung, so far as he knows.”
“If it be truly malaria, then we’s a passel of troubles on our’n hand.” Brock reached over and took a breast of chicken. “Help thyself. I heard price on coolies be up. Costs is soaring terrible in Hong Kong.”
“Na enough to hurt. The fever’ll pass.”
Brock moved his girth painfully and drained the tankard. “Thee wanted to see me, private? To talk about fever?”
“No,” Struan said, feeling tainted by the stench and the perfume Brock wore and the smell of stale beer. “It was about a long-standing promise I made to come after thee with a cat-o’-nine-tails.”
Brock picked up the handbell on the table and rang it vehemently. The sound splintered off the walls. When the door didn’t open immediately, he rang it again.
“That cursed monkey,” he said. “He be needin’ a right proper kick in the arse.” He went over to the barrel of beer and, after refilling his tankard, sat down again and watched Struan. And waited.
“Wot about it?” Brock said at length.
“Tess Brock.”
“Eh?” Brock was astonished that Struan wanted to precipitate the decision over which he himself—and undoubtedly Struan, too—had fretted for so many nights.
“My son’s in love with her.”
Brock gulped some more beer and wiped his mouth again. “They’s met but once. At the ball. Then there were afternoon walks with Liza and Lillibet. Three.”
“Aye. But he’s in love with her. He’s sure he’s in love with her.”
“Are thee sure?”
“Aye.”
“Wot’s thy feeling?”
“That we’d better talk this out. In the open.”
“Why now?” Brock said suspiciously, his mind trying to find the real answer. “She be very young, as thee knowed.”
“Aye. But old enough to wed.”
Brock thoughtfully toyed with the tankard, looking at his reflection in the polished silver. He wondered if he had guessed Struan correctly. “Is thee asking, formal, Tess’s hand for thy son?”
“That’s his duty, na mine—to ask formal. But we’ve to talk informal. First.”
“Wot’s thy feeling?” Brock asked again. “About the match?”
“You know it already. I’m against it. I dinna trust you. I dinna trust Gorth. But Culum’s got a mind of his own and he’s forced my hand, and a father canna always get a son to do what he wants.”
Brock thought about Gorth. His voice was brittle when he spoke. “If thee’s so strong against him, beat some sense into him or send him home, pack him off. Easy to rid of that young spark.”
“You know I’m trapped,” Struan said bitterly. “You’ve three sons—Gorth, Morgan, Tom. I’ve only Culum now. So whatever I want, he’s the one that’s got to follow me.”
“There’s Robb and his sons,” Brock said, happy that he had read Struan’s mind correctly, playing him now like a fish.
“You know the answer to that. I made The Noble House, na Robb. What’s your feeling, eh?”
Brock drained the tankard thoughtfully. Again he rang the bell. Again no answer. “I’ll have that monkey’s guts for garters!” He got up and began to refill his tankard. “I’m equal against the match,” Brock said roughly. He saw a flash of surprise on Struan’s face. “Even so,” Brock added, “I be accepting yor son when he be asking me.”
“I thought you would, by God!” Struan got up, his fists clenched.
“Her dowry’ll be the richest in Asia. They be married next year.”
“I’ll see you in hell first.”
The two men squared up to each other ominously.
Brock saw the same chiseled face he had seen thirty years ago, the same vitality permeating it. The same indefinable quality that caused his whole being to react so violently. By Lord God, he swore, I baint understanding why Thee put this devil in my path. I only knowed Thee put him there to be broken, regilar, not with knife in’t back and more’s the pity.
“That be later, Dirk,” he said. “First they be marrying, fair and square. Thee’s trapped right enough. Not o’ my doing and more’s the pity, and I baint driving thy bad joss in thy face. But I beed thinking muchly—like thee—about they two and us’n, and
I thinks it be best for they and best for us’n.”
“I know what’s in your mind. And Gorth’s.”
“Who knowed wot’s to be, Dirk? Mayhaps there be a joining in the future.”
“Na while I’m alive.”
“On the other hand, mayhaps there baint a joining and thee keeps thine an’ we our’n.”
“You’ll na take and break The Noble House through a girl’s skirts!”
“Now you be alistening to me, by God! Thee brung this’n up! Thee sayed to talk open and I baint finished. So thee’ll listen, by God! ’Less thee’s lost thy guts like thee’s lost thy manners an’ lost thy brains.”
“All right, Tyler.” Struan poured another brandy. “Say your mind.”
Brock relaxed slightly and sat down again and quaffed his beer. “I hate thy guts and I always will. I doan trust thee either. I be mortal tired of killing, but I swear by Jesus Christ I be killing thee the day I see thee again’ me with a cat in thy hand. But I baint starting that fight. No. I doan want to kill thee, just crush thee regilar. But I beed athinking that mayhaps the young’uns be puttin’ at rights wot we—wot baint possible for us’n. So I says, let wot’s to be, be. If there be a joining, then there be a joining. That be up to they—not t’ thee and me. If there baint a joining—likewise that be up to they. Wotever they do be up to they. Not us’n. So I says the match be good.”
Struan drained his glass and shoved it on the table. “I never thought you’d be so gutless as to use Tess when you’re as opposed as I am.”
Brock stared back at him without anger now. “I baint using Tess, Dirk. That be God’s truth. She be loving Culum and that be mortal truth. That be only reason I be talking like this’n. We both be trapped. Let’s be talking obvious. She be like Juliet to his Romeo, yus, by God, and that’s wot I be afeared of. An’ you too if truth be knowed. I baint wanting my Tess to end on marble slab ’cause I hate thy guts. She love him. I be thinking of her!”
“I dinna believe it.”
“Nor I, by God! But Liza’s rit half a dozen time about Tess. She sayed Tess be mooning and sighing and talking about ball but only about Culum. An’ Tess’s ritted sixteen time or more about wot Culum sayed and wot Culum baint saying and wot she sayed to Culum and how Culum be looking and wot Culum be asaying back till I be fit to bust. Oh yus, she love him right enough.”