A mandarin’s procession was passing by. Lottie and I stood watching it. There was the exalted gentleman carried in his sedan chair by four bearers. These bearers had their attendants, for this was a very grand mandarin. In two files his attendants marched beside his chair. Two at the head of the procession carried gongs which they sounded every few seconds to warn people that a great man came this way. Behind the men with the gongs came others with chains, which they rattled as they walked. Some in the procession shouted at intervals something to the effect that a very grand man was among them. Members of the mandarin’s household followed, several carrying huge red umbrellas and others holding up boards inscribed with the mandarin’s titles.

As the procession passed, barefooted men and women stood in respectful poses, heads down, arms hanging at their sides. Any who looked up and did not show the proper respect received a cutting blow from one of the canes carried by several members of the mandarin’s household.

As we stood watching this show Lottie whispered to me: “Very great mandarin. He go to the house of Chan Cho Lan.”

I was hailed suddenly.

“Why if it isn’t Mrs. Milner.” And there was Lilian Lang smiling at me, her china blue eyes dancing with curiosity.

“Did you see the procession? Wasn’t it fun?”

I thought she should be wary for so many of the people spoke English and to hear a mandarin’s procession called “fun” might result in a loss of face for the mandarin and his customs.

I thought then that Lilian Lang was the sort of woman who could always be relied on to find the most tactless remark and produce it at the most awkward moment.

“He’s going to that mystery woman’s house,” she said in a loud voice.

Lottie was watching us with a smile on her face which could have meant anything.

I said: “Let us get into a rickshaw and have a chat.”

“Come with me,” she said. “It’s not far and we’ll have some of the ever-ready tea. It’s quite a ceremony, isn’t it? Never mind, I was always one for a cup of tea.”

I told Lottie to go back in one rickshaw and I went in another with Lilian to her house.

There she talked interminably while we drank tea together.

I said: “You go out alone?”

She opened wide baby blue eyes. “But why not? It’s quite safe, isn’t it? Nobody would hurt me.”

“I always take Lottie with me.”

“The little Chinese girl… or half Chinese, isn’t she? She’s a pretty creature. I said to Jumbo: ‘What an enchanting creature that little girl is… If I were Jane Milner I’d keep my eyes on her.’”

“Why?” I asked.

“These husbands,” she said archly.

I felt resentful, and told myself she was a stupid woman.

“And particularly Joliffe.”

“Why particularly Joliffe?”

“He’s always so popular, isn’t he? Poor Joliffe, that was a dreadful business. There was such talk. There always is, isn’t there?”

I wanted to scream at her to be silent and on the other hand I wanted to learn all I could.

I said: “I was not in England at the time.”

“That was a mercy because of what happened. They couldn’t say you were involved, could they? Do you mind talking about it?”

I wanted to slap her face. Did I mind listening to insinuations about my husband! What was she suggesting? That people had thought he had killed Bella?

“You know what they are… the law I mean. And then the press. She had a sister who gave them her life story… and there was this about Joliffe’s thinking her dead and marrying again. That was you, wasn’t it? What a romance. Well, it looked as if…” She paused.

“What?” I said.

“Your being there… you see, and having married him… or thought you had… and then she died like that… and here you are married to him… and there’s the dear little boy. It’s a good thing you’re here… far away. People will talk, won’t they? Jumbo says I should keep quiet. I’m afraid I say things when they come into my head. But I’m sure it’s going to be all right now. You’re so happy, aren’t you? So much in love. And Joliffe is so charming… quite fascinating. I always thought so… so did lots of others. Jumbo was quite jealous. Then I suppose lots of husbands have been. Joliffe is that kind of a man, isn’t he?”

I just wanted to get away. I wished I had never come with her. But I had had a feeling that if I did not she would shout her gossip throughout the market.

I wished she had not come to Hong Kong.

She saw how distasteful I found the conversation so she made a studied effort to change it.

“That mandarin… what a sight! He has a high opinion of himself. It seemed a shame to slash the poor things just because they don’t kowtow. He was going to that Chan Cho Lan. She’s supposed to be a very great lady. Her fingernails are four inches long.” She giggled. “It seems an odd way to judge breeding. It means she never uses her hands. If she did those glorious nails would break even though they are protected by jeweled nail sheaths. They say she’s a courtesan really. She and her girls whom she’s bringing up to make great marriages… well, alliances. A sort of charm school! Jumbo says that what she does is train the girls and then makes bargains with rich men—mandarins and the like and some rich Europeans—and sells them for so many taels of silver. Poor girls, they don’t have much to say in the matter. She’s a sort of marriage broker… without the marriage. She’s been a famous courtesan too… still is perhaps. Lots of men visit her. Isn’t it exciting?”

I wanted to get away from her. I was more than ever sorry I had come. I could not think much about Chan Cho Lan. My mind was full of what must have happened in the house in Kensington when Bella’s broken body had been found on the crazy paving.


* * *

About this time Toby fell ill. Joliffe took the opportunity of going into everything and was gratified by what he found.

“Sylvester was a good businessman,” he conceded. “No doubt about that. And Toby Grantham was his good and faithful henchman. Your affairs are in excellent order, my darling.”

“They’re our affairs really, Joliffe,” I said.

He shook his head ruefully. “Everything is yours. That was the stipulation.”

“It’s different with husband and wife. I hate to think we don’t share.”

He kissed me with great tenderness.

After a few days I called to see Toby.

His sister Elspeth opened the door for me and there was about her mouth that prim look of disapproval which I had noticed since my marriage.

The house shone and sparkled. No one would have believed it could have been in Hong Kong, it was so very Scottish in every way. Elspeth was the sort of woman who would not relinquish one of her customs. I was sure the house looked exactly as her home in Edinburgh had done.

There was crocheted macramé on the mantelpiece and some Staffordshire ornaments—one of a Highlander in his kilt playing the bagpipes. The cushions were of tartan which I knew was the color of their clan.

“Ee,” she said, “so you’ve come to see Tobias.”

“I hope he’s better?”

“Aye, he’s mending.”

She had a rather delightful Edinburgh accent which was more pronounced than Toby’s.

She took me to his bedroom. He was propped up in bed studying a batch of invoices.

He looked pale and tired.

“Hello, Toby,” I said. “How are you?”

“Much better, thank you.” His eyes showed his pleasure in my coming. “It was good of you to call.”

“Nonsense. I was anxious.”

“I’ll soon be back.”

“We miss you, Toby.”

“He’ll need to get his strength back before he returns,” said Elspeth shortly.

“Of course.”

“And it’s far from strong he is now. He’s been doing overmuch.”

She nodded her head, implying that he had worked too hard for those who didn’t appreciate him.

She would never forgive me for marrying Joliffe when I might have had her brother.

I sat down and we talked of business for a time until Elspeth interrupted and said it was time he rested.

So I said goodbye to him and in her sitting room she boiled a kettle on a spirit lamp and infused the tea. She brought out shortbreads, homemade from a Scottish recipe, while she talked to me about Tobias who had been overworking. She scorned me for refusing what she believed to be the best possible match any woman could have made—and all in favor of a man who had already proved himself to be unreliable. At least that was how it would appear to her prosaic mind.

“He worries,” she said, nodding towards the ceiling, indicating the room in which Toby lay. “I say to him: ‘It’s no concern of yours what others do. People make their own beds and must lie in them.’”

“That’s true enough,” I agreed.

“Tobias takes after his father. Gentle, too ready to take a step backwards. My mother used to say there wasn’t a better man in the world than the one she married and there wasn’t one more backward in coming forward either. I reckon you could say the same of Tobias. I wish he’d go back to Edinburgh.”

“We couldn’t do without him here.”

“I was thinking of what he could very well do without.”

“He wouldn’t want to go, would he?”

“I couldn’t be sure. All I know is that this life here is not for him. He’d be better in a good Scottish warehouse. He never took to the way of life here.”

“You’ve been here a long time. Miss Grantham.”

“Oh yes. I came out with Tobias and that was fifteen years ago. He was a young man of twenty then. I was ten years older. I wasn’t letting him come out to a place like this without someone to keep a home for him.”

She was fiercely militant in his defense. That was why she was angry with me for hurting him.

“Being here all this time, you learn things,” she said. “I know quite a bit about this place. It’s not always what it seems.”

“Is anything?”

“Perhaps not. But this is more different beneath the surface than most. I used to be afraid that he’d take a Chinese wife. I don’t like mixed marriages.”

“Did he ever seem likely to?”

“No. Tobias only seemed likely to marry the once. I used to worry though thinking he might take up with some Chinese girl like some of them do.” She frowned.

“But he never did.”

“He is a man who has the utmost respect for religion and marriage and all that goes with it. He’s a very good man, is my brother Tobias. That’s rare. So many of them here have their mistresses. It isn’t always known. You’ve heard of Chan Cho Lan, the fabulous marriage broker, with her school for young Chinese girls?”

“Yes, I have visited her.”

“These girls of hers… she arranges transactions for them… and not only with her fellow countrymen. Quite a number of European gentlemen keep their mistresses, you know. They say that matchmakers or brokers follow an old Chinese custom and it’s an honorable profession. Of course it is all done with tact. A man has to pay at least twenty thousand taels of silver for a girl and give her a servant, and there is a clause in the contract that when he has had enough of her he must find a husband for her. He must let her grow her nails and keep them four inches long—which is another way of saying she is not to do housework although how she could with her feet in the condition they’re in I can’t imagine. That is what happens and it is all glossed over and Chan Cho Lan is treated with great respect. People visit her and are her friends. I wonder why and what her business would be called in Edinburgh, or Glasgow.”

“Different countries have different customs. Miss Grantham.”

“Oh yes, there are excuses. What I’m saying is that my brother Tobias has never been near such establishments in all the years he has been here. He is a good and virtuous young man and one day, please God, he’ll make a good husband for some woman who has the good sense to recognize this.”

I found Elspeth Grantham as uncomfortable as Lilian Lang.

And I had the impression that they were both trying to warn me.

To warn me. First there was the money sword—now these two women.

Was I becoming fanciful? Was I looking for warnings where they did not exist?


* * *

Jason at least was happy. He had never missed a father but that did not mean he did not appreciate having one. He adored Joliffe. There could be no question of it. He spoke of him always as My Father. In fact he talked constantly of him and there was hardly a sentence in which “My Father” did not figure.