His door swung open and the Legation Number One Boy, an elderly, rotund Chinese dressed in linen coat, black trousers and black skullcap and ladened with mail barged in.
"Heya, Mass'r, all same mail-ah, never mind!" He plonked the letters and packages on the ornate desk, gawked at the girl, and belched as he left.
"My God, these foul-mannered people are enough to drive one mad! A thousand times I've told that cretin to knock first! Excuse me a moment."
Quickly Vervene leafed through the letters.
Two from his wife, one from his mistress, all postmarked two and a half months ago: Both asking for money, I'll wager, he thought sourly.
"Ah, four letters for you, More'selle." Many nationals sent their mail in care of their nearest Legation. "Three from Paris and one from Hong Kong."
"Oh, oh thank you!" She brightened seeing that two were from Colette, one from her aunt, the last from her father. "We're such a long way from home, no?"
"Paris is the world, yes yes it is. Well, I expect you'll want some privacy, you can use the room across the hall. If you'll excuse me..." Vervene motioned at his heaped desk, his smile self-deprecating, "affairs of State."
"Of course, thank you. And thank you for your good wishes, but please, not a word...." She swept out graciously knowing that within hours her marvelous secret would be common knowledge, whispered from ear to ear. Is that wise? I think so, Malcolm did ask me, didn't he?
Vervene opened his letters, scanned them, quickly saw they both asked for money but no other bad news, at once put them aside to read and enjoy later and began the dispatch for Seratard--with a secret copy for Andr`e Poncin--delighted to be the bearer of good tidings. "Wait a moment," he muttered, "perhaps it's like-father-like-daughter and just the usual exaggeration! Safer to report it as a few minutes ago Mademoiselle Angelique whispered in confidence that... then the Minister can make up his own mind."
Across the hall, in a pleasant antechamber that faced the small garden off the High Street she had settled herself expectantly. Colette's first letter gave her happy news of Paris and fashion and affairs and their mutual friends so delightfully that she raced through it knowing she would reread them many times, particularly tonight in the comfort of her bed when she could savor everything. She had known and loved Colette most of her life--at the convent they had been inseparable, sharing hopes and dreams and intimacies.
The second letter gave more exuberant news, ending about her marriage--Colette was her own age, eighteen, already married a year with one son: I am pregnant again, dearest Angelique, my husband is delighted but I am a little fretful. As you know the first was not easy though the Doctor assures me I will be strong enough.
When will you return, I cannot wait...
Angelique took a deep breath and looked out of the window and waited until the twinge had passed. You must not leave yourself open, she repeated to herself, near tears. Even with Colette. Be strong, Angelique. Be careful. Your life has changed, everything changed--yes but only for a little while. Do not be caught unawares.
Again a deep breath. The next letter shocked her. Aunt Emma wrote the awful news of her husband's fall and: now we are destitute and my poor poor Michel languishes in Debtor's Prison with no help in sight!
We've nowhere to turn, no money. It's terrible, my child, a nightmare...
Poor darling Uncle Michel, she thought, weeping silently, a shame he was such a bad manager. "Never mind, dear darling Aunt-Mama," she said aloud, filled with a sudden joy. "Now I can repay all your kindnesses, I'll ask Malcolm to help, he'll certainly..."
Wait! Would that be wise?
While she pondered that she opened her father's letter. To her surprise the envelope contained only a letter, without the expected sight draft she had asked for, on money brought with her from Paris and deposited in the Victoria Bank, money that her uncle had generously advanced to her--on the solemn promise that she must not tell his wife and that her father would instantly repay the loan the moment she reached Hong Kong, which he told her he had done.
Hong Kong, September 10. Hello my little cabbage, I hope that all is well and your Malcolm idolizes you as I do, as the whole of Hong Kong does. It's rumored his father is at death's door. I will keep you advised. Meanwhile I write in haste as I leave for Macao on the tide. There's a wonderful business opportunity there, so good that I have temporarily pledged the money instruments you left in safekeeping and will invest for you as an equal partner. By the next post I will be able to send you ten times what you wanted and tell you the wonderful profit we have made--after all, we have to think of your dowry, without which... eh?
Her eyes could not read on, her brain in turmoil. Oh my God! What business opportunity? Is he gambling all that I have in the world?
It was nearly two o'clock and McFay was weary, his stomach empty, his mind filled with gloom.
He had written a dozen letters, signed half a hundred chits, paid dozens of bills, checked the previous day's books which showed trading was down, found that all goods ordered from America were either cancelled, held up or offered at increased prices, all business with Canada and Europe equally affected in some degree by the American civil war. No good news either in any dispatches from Hong Kong--a lot of bad from their branch in Shanghai, though Albert MacStruan, the power there, was doing a sterling job. My God, he thought, it'd be a catastrophe if we have to evacuate Shanghai, with all our investments there.
The city was again in turmoil and the three foreign concessions under British, French and American control beset with rumors that armies of rebel irregulars of the immense Tai'ping Rebellion, based in and around Nanking--a major city southwards they had captured nine years ago and used as a capital--were again on the move. The clipping from the Shanghai Observer read: Two years ago when our valiant force of British and French troops, ably assisted by the local mercenary army, organized and paid for by our merchant princes, both European and Chinese, under the command of the gallant American soldier of fortune, Frederick Townsend Ward, drove off the rebels for a thirty-mile radius, we all presumed the threat was put away forever.
Now eyewitnesses report an irresistible army of half a million rebels, with some European officers, have massed to come against us, and another half million will again stab north for Peking. Their opposing Manchu armies are unreliable and helpless, their Chinese levies mutinous, so this time we will not survive. It is hoped that Her Majesty's Government will prevail on the Manchu authorities to appoint Captain Charles Gordon to command of Mr. Ward's force, grievously wounded in action, and to the position of overall command of Manchu training. Your correspondent believes this will be, as usual, too little too late.
We need a fully equipped British Army stationed in China, permanently--nervousness in India over the recent, dreadful Indian Mutiny of native sepoys notwithstanding.
Business continues to be disastrous with the price of silk and tea at an all-time high. Famine conditions exist in most areas within five hundred miles...
More depressing news from home. Monumental rains had washed out the harvest and famine was expected in Ireland and other areas--though not like the Great Potato Famine when hundreds of thousands died. Vast unemployment in Scotland.
Destitution in Lancashire with most cotton spinning mills silent, including three owned by Struan's, because of the Union embargo on Southern cotton and blockade of all Southern ports. With Southern cotton England had supplied cloth to the world. A Struan clipper ship crammed with teas, silks and lacquer inbound London had been lost. In the stock market Struan's was down badly, Brock's up with the successful arrival of the first of the season's teas.