A Most Immoral Woman (3 page)

As they seated themselves by the hearth with their coffees, Dumas accidentally set Mrs Ragsdale off on an exposition on her health, alarming in its thoroughness. Her constitution was evidently more delicate than her sturdy architecture suggested. Miss Perkins, plainly familiar with the topic, nodded sympathetically but distantly, playing all the while with the ribbons on her skirt. She managed to appear both bored and charming.

The Victorian in Morrison found Mrs Ragsdale’s catalogue of complaints vulgar. If he was also wont to dwell on his own indispositions, at least he did so in private—most of the time, anyway. But his focus was elsewhere. Much attracted to the maiden preening on the chaise before him, he feared that she considered him but some vainglorious and avuncular figure. To presume more might lead to the sort of humiliation that he did not need on a day that had begun with rheumatic pains and the discovery of incipient jowls. And yet there was that most
interesting business with the pheasant. He could not help but wonder if there was a message there for him.

Just as Mrs Ragsdale blessedly ran out of steam on the subject of her maladies, an American missionary couple entered the drawing room and made a beeline for their party. Morrison’s heart sank. He had taken tea in Reverend Nisbet’s grim parlour soon after settling in Peking seven years earlier. He would never forget his first sight of the anaemic Mrs Nisbet, perched on a comfortless armchair underneath an engraving of
The Soul’s Awakening
by James Sant. With an expression eerily parallel to that of Sant’s rapture-stricken subject, and in a voice as thin as her own neck, she avowed that she had never felt the Lord so near to her as in China. She had urged Morrison to join their prayer meetings. Though he came from a God-fearing family and carried with him a thumbnail-sized book of psalms his sister had given him, Morrison was not enamoured of the Church. He had avoided the Nisbets ever since.

‘We’ve been in the Philippines,’ Mrs Nisbet announced in a flat, Midwestern voice. ‘Awful place. Hot and pestilent. I don’t know why we had to go acquiring it from Spain.’

Her husband concurred, reciting a litany of horrors. Amongst these was a lack of natural modesty and innocence in the native women, which, from his observation, was a common problem across the Extreme Orient.

The Nisbets found a sympathetic listener in Mrs Ragsdale. Back in California, Mr Ragsdale had been active in the anti-coolie movement. When an unsolved murder, in which a Chinese laundryman was a suspect, inflamed racial tensions in Sonoma County, he editorialised in
The Daily Republican
that the Chinese were a race that possessed ‘neither conscience, mercy or human
feeling’, and was composed of ‘monsters in human form, cunning and educated, therefore more dangerous and vile’. It had come as something of a shock to both Mr and Mrs Ragsdale to find that the road out of scandal and financial ruin in the US led them to China itself. To the Nisbets, Mrs Ragsdale now confessed that her experience of China had only deepened her natural suspicion not just of Chinese but of native cultures generally.

‘They are so very, very far from Christendom and civilisation,’ Reverend Nisbet agreed.

‘Not to mention soap and carbolic,’ interjected Mrs Nisbet. ‘Despite all our efforts. You’ve been in China for years now, Dr Morrison, and have travelled widely in this region. Have you not also found it difficult living in heathen society for as long as you have?’

‘I can’t say that I have, Mrs Nisbet. I, myself, found Manila a highly civilised city. And whilst I confess I came to China possessed of the strong racial antipathy towards the Chinese common to my countrymen, that feeling has long since given way to one of lively sympathy, even gratitude. In spite of the Boxers. For the most part, I have experienced uniform kindness and hospitality from the Chinese, not to mention the most charming courtesy.’

Mrs Nisbet looked as though she was trying to smile through a mouthful of lemon juice. Reverend Nisbet studiously fumbled lumps of sugar into his coffee.

Miss Perkins, who had scarcely uttered a word in all this time, caught Morrison’s eye. A complicit twinkle passed between them. Turning to the others, she said, ‘I find what you say quite fascinating, Mrs Nisbet.’

Mrs Nisbet’s eyes filled with dewy gratitude. Both Nisbets glowed devotionally at Miss Perkins. Like many who laboured in
voluble service for the poor, the Nisbets lived in tacit awe of the rich.

‘I, for one,
adore
native cultures,’ Miss Perkins continued. ‘They can be so clever. I think the Chinese are perfectly marvellous for inventing silk and gunpowder and printing, and for those lovely scrolls they do. In fact,’ she said, pausing for effect, ‘sometimes I think it would be wonderfully instructive to take a native husband.’

Reverend Nisbet had been sipping his coffee as Miss Perkins spoke. The quantity he did not instantly expel, he sucked down the wrong set of pipes. It took some muscular back-thumping on the part of the surprisingly strong Mrs Nisbet before he fully recovered.

Dumas let out another squeak, and both he and Morrison found themselves beset by minor fits of throat-clearing.

‘Oh, Miss Perkins has such a sense of humour,’ Mrs Ragsdale rushed to say, her smile tight. It was clear that, entrusted as she was with Miss Perkins’s moral as well as material welfare, Mrs Ragsdale was near palpitations at the thought it could all end in miscegenation.

Morrison would have found such an outcome equally scandalous. But he believed that which Mrs Ragsdale only willed to be true: the maiden was having a joke. He told himself that he should never fear boredom in the company of one so audacious.

‘Dr Morrison,’ Miss Perkins said. ‘You are so very knowledgeable about this fascinating country. I have many questions I would like to ask you. We two shall go sit over there by the window. That way, we will not bother the others, who, not being as interested in the topic, might find our conversation tedious.’

Moments later, her heels were clicking over the parquet in the direction of the window seat. Morrison, bowing a half-hearted apology to the others, followed post-haste.

As they seated themselves, he said, ‘I fear I’m not that much of an expert, Miss Perkins. But what would you like to know?’

She leaned forward, smiling mischievously. ‘Nothing really. I just wanted to escape that dull conversation and have you to myself. Goodness, but don’t the missionaries speak badly of the natives!’

‘You should hear how the natives speak of the missionaries.’

She laughed. ‘You are not fond of missionaries either?’

She has a naughty giggle
. ‘It has been my observation that the primary effect of civilising by the missionaries is to make the natives of any country lying, fawning, cringing, deceitful and as bad as possible. The only time I ever found myself in agreement with the Empress Dowager was when she asked why missionaries didn’t stay in their own countries and be useful to their own people.’

Miss Perkins’s eyes filled with horror. ‘Oh, but dear God, no! Then we should never be free of them. I don’t think I would be able to take it. You know,’ she said, glancing back at the Nisbets, ‘Mrs Nisbet’s irritation with the Philippines may stem from disappointment at not being sent somewhere like Africa, where she at least would have had the chance of seeing Reverend Nisbet boiled and eaten.’

Morrison chuckled. He had not expected such a wicked wit in one already so blessed with beauty and sensuality.

She leaned towards him, breasts straining against her bodice. ‘Dullness is a terrible crime against society, don’t you agree, Dr Morrison?’

‘Certainly. And please, call me Ernest.’

‘Then you must call me Mae.’ She studied him for a moment and smiled wistfully. ‘You remind me of someone, Ernest. Someone back home.’

‘I hope it is someone you care for and not the opposite,’ he said, awkward as a lad.

A cloud passed briefly over her eyes. ‘I shall tell you about him another time.’ She looked up again, her expression impenetrable.

Morrison simultaneously darkened at the thought of this mysterious other and brightened at the promise held out by her use of the future tense. He recalled Dumas mentioning something about a scandal. His imagination threw up several florid scenarios. All involved some version of a passionate deflowering and its aftermath. He concluded that this would not be a bad antecedent. To the contrary, it was ideal. The consequences of seducing the virgin daughter of an upstanding, wealthy and prominent family were not worth thinking about.
Oh pray God, do not let her be a virgin.
In the next instant, he berated himself for his presumption.

‘A penny for your thoughts.’

Her eyes, he felt, were already unwrapping them. ‘Oh, I was…I was just reflecting on the latest developments in the war.’
Pompous! Stupid!

‘I did not expect you to say that. But Martin—Mr Egan—has told me that you are a great booster of the Japanese cause.’

‘That I am. The Japs won the Liaotung Peninsula fair and square in the Sino-Japanese War eight years ago. It was wrong for the Chinese to lease Port Arthur to the Russians.’

‘Is it not their port to lease to whomever they like?’ She shook her head. One curl came loose, momentarily mesmerising Morrison with its languid sway. ‘I don’t know much about it but I can’t help feeling that war is rarely a good thing. If I hear of a ship sunk in battle, all I can think about are the poor sailors who sank with it.’

‘Women are natural pacifists. But sometimes there’s good reason for war. Your own President Roosevelt once said he’s not
sensitive about killing, as long as the reason is adequate.’ Her ears, he noticed, were exquisite—delicate shells the colour of cream.

‘I know you are a brave and proven man, Dr Morrison—Ernest—so I don’t mean this personally. But it has been my experience that it is normally men not themselves called to battle who maintain the most zealous appetite for war. I have known good, brave boys from the Mount Tamalpais Academy who burned with desire to serve their country as officers and gentlemen. Those who had the chance rarely returned with the same lustre about them. My own dear brother Fred nearly didn’t come home at all from the Spanish-American War—and for what? For people like the Nisbets to go tormenting our new subjects with their dreary pieties?’

Here was a lively one!
Morrison’s last lover, the customs official’s wife, had proven insufferably insipid when they finally got around to talking. It had not been an isolated experience, and went some way towards explaining his enduring bachelorhood. ‘I admire the moral sentiment that drives your argument,’ he said. ‘Yet some wars are just and necessary. Your own Civil War, whilst brutal, did end slavery and maintain the unity of the nation.’

‘True,’ she said, her tone conciliatory. ‘So the Russo-Japanese War would, in your opinion, be a righteous war?’

‘Most definitely,’ he answered with gusto. ‘The British Empire has brought good governance and peace to backwards and downtrodden peoples wherever it has touched them. Japan’s constitutional monarchy, which subscribes to the values of the Enlightenment, has similar ambitions.’

‘You are very passionate about this.’

‘Truth be told, if there had been no war, I would repine that my whole work in China had been a failure.’ What had begun as a
flirtatious conversation was in danger of turning into a political discourse, Morrison realised. In as jaunty a tone as he could muster, he added, ‘Besides, if war failed to break out, I should hardly have known how to pass the winter.’

‘Is that so?’ she responded playfully, twirling the errant curl around one finger. ‘I would have thought a man of your resources, and passion, could have found other diversions easily enough.’

Her expression, Morrison couldn’t help but feel, suggested one or two. Yet perhaps he only hoped that was the case. He proceeded with care. ‘So, what brings you to China, Miss…Mae?’

‘It’s a long story. But I do adore travel for its own sake. It’s most broadening. I know that you are a great traveller, too.’

‘It’s in my blood, actually. My family hails from Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. Our clan badge is a piece of driftwood.’

She laughed. ‘Travel is in my blood, as well. My papa made his first voyage as a twelve-year-old stowaway. Now, of course, he owns a shipping company. Our home in Oakland is full of maritime portraits. When I was little, I used to stare at the paintings of boats and imagine where I might go. I had the most darling little sailor suit. So I was very cross to learn that a girl couldn’t be a sailor. It seemed terribly unfair. I am twenty-six now and have only just got over the injustice of it all.’

‘So why China?’ he asked, picturing her in her sailor suit.

‘Well, I’d been to Europe.’

‘That’s it?’ he teased. ‘You’d been to Europe?’

The mysterious shadow passed over her features once more. Though it piqued his curiosity, she quickly recovered her natural ebullience.

‘One cannot deny the allure of the Orient. I am quite mad for Japan, too. I’ve seen the
Mikado
three times. Yet I hadn’t thought Japan to be such a popular destination until I sailed from Honolulu on the SS
Siberia
and Captain Tremaine Smith—’

‘I know Tremaine Smith. Fine figure of a man.’

‘Indeed.’ She dimpled. ‘Well, Tremaine…Captain Smith told me his ship is always packed to the gunwales with people who are crazy for Japan. All the men are in love with geishas, or at least the idea of them, and all the women want to become them, or so it seems. Captain Smith said to me,’ and here she adopted the accent of a Liverpudlian, ‘“They all think they’re about to disembark in the Town of Titipu!”’

She is very entertaining.
‘I don’t understand the frenzy over the geisha myself. Amongst other things, I find their habit of blackening their teeth with dye of powdered gall-nut and iron quite repellent.’

‘And yet the idea of the geisha, who turns every aspect of being a woman into art and who may love freely, with neither limitation nor compunction, is so romantic. We have nothing like that in the West. It seems one can only be a good woman or a prostitute. I admit that I, too, have been in love with geishas since seeing the sublime Sada Yacco perform in San Francisco a few years ago.’