A Most Immoral Woman (7 page)

Later, en route from his library to the house to retrieve a book he’d left in the parlour, he spotted Yu-ti chopping vegetables in the courtyard. She was absorbed in her task and did not notice him at first. He tried to imagine how she might have felt when her red wedding veil was lifted and she first laid eyes on her middle-aged husband.

Morrison had heard Chinese defending the system of arranged marriage, saying that the love that grew out of it was stronger and more secure than that enjoyed by the romantic but fickle Westerner. The custom of arranged marriage did have a long history in the West as well of course. And he had certainly
appalled himself several times in the past by his passionate attachment to women such as Mary Joplin who, in the end, proved less than deserving. His thoughts resting on Mae, he suffered a moment’s doubt, then excoriated himself for it.
She is nowise like the others!

Yu-ti bowed her head, colouring. ‘Master,’ she said in Chinese.

He realised he’d been staring. ‘Carry on.’ He strode back to his study, having entirely forgotten the errand that had brought him out. He would have liked to talk to Yu-ti about her father and her upbringing. According to Kuan, Cook did not know about his father-in-law. Then again, Cook had always refused to be drawn on the subject of politics, saying he was a simple man and that his concerns in life had to do with the freshness of garlic shoots and the quality of bacon.

The next afternoon a telegram arrived from Moberly Bell. His editor wanted him to write six hundred and fifty words for
The Times
on the progress of the war.
Well, here at least is good news!

Morrison had every reason to travel to Tientsin now. As the hub of financial, academic and journalistic activity in north China, and a leading trade entrepôt, Tientsin was full of useful contacts—foreign and Chinese. It was said that whilst decisions were made in Peking, to hear of them one needed to travel to Tientsin. Morrison had no need to convince himself of the benefits of going to Tientsin. He would depart forthwith.

‘You looking forward to Tientsin, Kuan?’ Master and servant were at Ch’ien-men Station waiting for the train to Tientsin. It was Saturday, the fifth of March. ‘Good chow there, right?’

‘Number one. You want to eat Doggy Ignores Us buns?’

‘Mmm. Maybe.’ On their last trip, Kuan had taken him to a local eatery where Morrison had tried their famous meat buns,
kou bu li b’ao-tzu
. The buns were so popular that the chef, old ‘Doggy’ Kao, was too busy to chat to his customers, hence the name. Morrison was not entirely sure what distinguished them from other such buns he had tasted but he was reluctant to admit it. As Kuan suggested other local specialties they could try, including fried dough twists and mung-bean-and-sesame omelettes, Morrison’s mind wandered.

How shall we greet each other in company?
He wondered again why she had not written.

Around them in the train carriage the vapours of a dozen cigars mingled with the invisible exhalations of men with rotting teeth and inflamed gums, reminding Morrison that he needed to
make an appointment with the British dentist in Shanghai. Bothered by a sudden vision of Egan’s excellent teeth, Morrison levered open the window by his seat and was rewarded with a gust of cold air. He wrestled the sash back down. Noticing a Russian colonel he’d once met seated a few rows ahead, he got up to say hello but was unsurprised when his greeting wasn’t returned with much bonhomie.

After some four restless hours, Tientsin appeared, rising from the alluvial plains. Though here too the Allied troops had laid waste to the centuries-old city walls, the odd gate and tower still stood sentinel. The train trumpeted its arrival into the station that serviced the foreign settlements with a long, piercing blast of its whistle.

Stepping onto the platform, Morrison breathed deeply of the Tientsin air, saltier and more invigorating than that of closed, dusty Peking. He scarcely had time to stretch his legs when a clamour of ricksha pullers descended upon him and Kuan. Following a short but intense negotiation during which Kuan strode away twice, only to be rapidly called back, a pair of runners efficiently packed them and their belongings onto the cushioned seats.

Morrison’s runner stepped smartly over the shaft and lifted the ricksha with such vigour that Morrison was forced to grab the side rails for balance. They took off at a trot, tracked briefly by a brown hawk in the cloudless blue sky.

Morrison’s heart beat in time with the quick rhythmic slap of the runner’s feet on the macadamised road. As they crossed into the Italian Concession, the runner stopped to pay boundary tax to a pockmarked Chinese policeman and his curly-haired Roman counterpart. The transaction seemed to take forever. Then, crossing the iron bridge over the Pei-Ho River, they passed through the
French Concession, its grey-tiled chateaux a mirage of Paris. Another taxation stop at the stone boundary post for the British Concession, a salute from a black-turbaned Sikh with a waxed moustache, and at last they joined the busy traffic of Victoria Road, Tientsin’s own Wall Street: hustling rickshas, broughams and drays; pale, important-looking men on horses; swarthy farmers with produce-laden wheelbarrows; and peddlers whose wares bounced off the ends of their carrying poles. North China’s richest city had electric lights and a working telephone exchange; the ricksha in which he was riding even had rubber tyres. Westerners, Russians, Japanese and Chinese traders, entrepreneurs and investors bustled in and out of the grand public buildings, banks, trading firms and mining companies that lined the street.

If Peking was like a slow-moving, silk-gowned Mandarin who received his guests with rituals so arcane that one could learn more of his intentions from one’s place at his table than from his words, Tientsin—the foreign sector, anyway—was a smartly dressed comprador with a trilby and fluency in two or three languages, one of which was always business. The solidity of Victoria Road’s colonial architecture announced the British presence in the Far East as formidable and permanent. But on this day at least, the glories of empire were not foremost on Morrison’s agitated mind.

Finally, they arrived at Victoria Park, a public garden built on land that was once a noisome swamp. A wrought-iron bandstand, paved walkways and an imposing fire bell adorned the park, which was intended for the pleasure of the foreign community—Chinese were admitted only if they were looking after the children of foreigners. Gothic Gordon Hall, with its crenulated battlements, guarded one side of the path and the colonnaded veranda of the Astor House Hotel, Morrison’s destination, faced another.

In Tientsin the Boxers had fired more shells into the concessions than had fallen on South Africa’s Ladysmith during the famous four-month siege of the Boer War earlier that same year. The luxurious Astor House had taken its share of hits but was now restored to its former magnificence. It was a sign of the economic vigour of the foreign concessions—and the reparations forced upon the humiliated Chinese government—that the Astor House bore fewer scars than did the Great Wall at Dragon’s Head.

Whilst Kuan looked after the runners, Morrison swept past the potted palms and into the elegant lobby, boots squeaking on the lindenwood parquet. The manager, Mr Morling, looked up from his desk under the regal staircase, his look of surprise quickly giving way to deference. ‘Dr Morrison. A pleasure to see you again.’

‘A pleasure to be back.’ Burning with impatience, Morrison followed the hotel boy down wood-panelled corridors to his room overlooking Victoria Park. It was fitted out with a pair of armchairs covered in an identical floral chintz to the curtains, a small table on which stood a porcelain vase of silk flowers, a dresser, a wardrobe and a double bed with an eiderdown quilt. The bedposts were turned in the Portuguese manner to resemble stacked wooden balls. It was not the grandest of the Astor House’s rooms and suites, but it was the best Morrison could afford. Seating himself at the escritoire whilst Kuan unpacked his bags, Morrison fired off a series of chits for Kuan to convey to his contacts in the city, letting them know that he would be calling. Dumas, sadly, was out of town until the morrow. He then strode through the pale sunshine of early spring to the home of a fellow Australian, Major George Fielding Menzies.

Menzies was a man of standing in Tientsin and also enjoyed something of the aura of hero. During the Siege of Tientsin, when both British nationals and Chinese Christians gathered for safety in the basement of the Astor House, Menzies had taken charge of the defences. Under his command, the converts built barricades a mile long on the Bund Road out of whatever came to hand—cartons of condensed milk, bundles of camel hair, even furs. He currently served in the army of Viceroy Yuan Shih-k’ai, a man Morrison much admired. For all that, Morrison privately considered his compatriot
miraculously stupid
. In fact, he had also complained in his journal that Menzies was one of the most lethal, maddening bores in all of China.
My nose bleeds when Menzies is in the house.

Menzies had no idea that Morrison held him in such contempt. Like most Australians, Menzies was in awe of Morrison’s youthful feat of retracing the footsteps of the explorers Burke and Wills. With Menzies it was personal: Robert O’Hara Burke was his uncle. He was almost pathetically grateful to Morrison for paying him any heed at all. ‘Bless you for all your kindness,’ he once wrote. ‘I always feel that I owe much of the interest you take in me to the memory of my uncle. My endeavour shall be to prove worthy of that interest.’ Setting his jaw against his own hypocrisy, Morrison knocked on Menzies’s door. It was time to let him show his usefulness.

‘G.E.!’ Menzies’s expression was one of surprise and joy. He shook Morrison’s hand warmly. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’ Menzies’s voice was almost as resonant and deep as his own.

Morrison’s features composed into a mask of geniality. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’

In less than an hour, the two men were standing at the gate of the Ragsdales’ residence in the compact de facto American Concession, close to the British one. Morrison smoothed down the front of his jacket and ran his fingers through his hair. At his side, Menzies stood as though ready for military inspection, a foil for any suspicion that Mrs Ragsdale might have of Morrison’s intentions.

The Ragsdales’ Head Boy, Ah Long, opened the door. Collecting their calling cards, he ushered them into the parlour, returning with lidded cups of jasmine-flower tea before disappearing to inform the ladies of the house of their visit. Morrison, frantic with anticipation, attempted to calm himself by studying the décor. His eyes lit on a print of the famous late-nineteenth-century painting
The Doctor
by Luke Fildes, a depiction of a surgeon tending to a sick child. Morrison made a mental note to tell Dumas: it was their private theory that the more anxious people were to convince others of their respectability, the more likely they were to display a print of that very painting.

Menzies followed Morrison’s gaze. ‘Splendid painting,’ he commented hopefully.

‘Indeed,’ answered Morrison, poker-faced.

A lady’s footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs. Morrison replaced the lid on his cup with a clatter, and both men rose. The footsteps grew closer. They were not those of a lithe young woman.

‘Mrs Ragsdale. Thank you for receiving us. I believe you are well acquainted with Major George Menzies.’

Mrs Ragsdale professed herself delighted to see them both. However, when Morrison enquired after Miss Perkins, their
hostess’s face dropped so steeply that for a scarifying moment Morrison thought Mae had either died or gone home to California, and his heart clenched.

‘Miss Perkins is dreadfully indisposed,’ Mrs Ragsdale informed them. ‘I fear she is coming down with the grippe.’

Morrison, relieved, offered to see her. ‘I am, after all, a medical doctor.’

Mrs Ragsdale clasped her hands. ‘God bless you, Dr Morrison. But she’s sleeping. I feel we ought not disturb her.’

‘Of course,’ he conceded, pierced by a vision of her in bed.

‘I’ve applied a poultice of goose fat to her throat,’ Mrs Ragsdale assured him. ‘And she is well supplied with tea and lemon.’

Morrison forced a smile. ‘She’s in good hands. Please convey our sincere wishes for a speedy recovery.’

‘I do hope you gentlemen will return to dine with us this evening in any case. Mr Ragsdale and I should be honoured if you would.’

Menzies politely declined, sensing he had done his duty. Morrison accepted.
Perhaps she will be well enough to come down to dinner. Please God.

When he returned that evening, Mae was still too ill to join them. Yet just being under the same roof as that charming creature animated him to such a degree that, finding Edwin H. Clough of the
New York Journal
and several junior correspondents at the table as well, he was inspired to great wit and volubility, recording in his journal later that evening:
I entertained them very pleasantly, dare I say brilliantly.

The following day, Morrison, this time on his own, called upon the Ragsdales once again. ‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Ragsdale said, her voice
laced with regret. ‘Miss Perkins is recovering, but she is feeling too poorly to receive. She couldn’t even accompany us to church this morning. Please, do have some tea.’

Morrison stayed for an obligatory ten minutes, invented a previous appointment and set about his proper business.

On the seventh of March, his third evening in Tientsin, Morrison joined Dumas, who had returned to the city, for a modest supper of fish soup, roast lamb, green peas, potatoes and plum pudding at the Tientsin Club. ‘How does it go with our young heiress?’ Dumas asked, pinching a splash of gravy from his moustache.

‘It doesn’t. She is ill with the grippe.’

‘Have you seen her at all?’

‘No.’ It was not for lack of trying. He had dispatched as many loving notes as were feasibly consistent with a friendly concern for her health. None came back. He had stopped at the Ragsdales several more times, feeling as transparent as thinly blown glass. Each time, she was too ill to come downstairs. He saw no need to go into such detail. ‘Of course, I’ve been awfully busy,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I haven’t given it that much thought.’

‘Well, you still owe me for keeping Mrs Ragsdale occupied that time at Mountain-Sea Pass. That woman could talk the ear off a brass jug. What have you occupied yourself with in the absence of your fair maiden?’

‘Oh, I’ve been busy enough. I’ve seen the corruptible Chow of the China Merchants’ Steam Navigation Company; dull, fat Admiral Yeh; the very stupid Fenton, full of mystery and brimming over with impossible facts; our Japanese friends, as gracious and unforthcoming as ever; railway men and bankers; Wingate; and Yuan Shih-k’ai, whom I have concluded is the only
useful man in Tientsin. Present company excepted. I also called on Viceroy Yuan at his home on Wen-bo Road, accompanied by his interpreter, Ts’ai. I am consistently impressed by Yuan. I am convinced that he is the most forward-thinking and civilised Mandarin in all of China. His work promoting libraries, tree-planting, a unified currency, not to mention a Western-style police force, has been entirely meritorious.’

‘And yet he betrayed the movement for reform that you support.’

‘Tosh.’

‘It’s true,’ said Dumas, fortified by the wine. ‘You know it, G.E. At the crucial moment, the young Emperor, aware that his aunt was cooking up some plot against him, sent a note ordering Yuan to arrest her first. Yuan betrayed him. If Yuan hadn’t told the Empress Dowager what was afoot, she wouldn’t have arrested her nephew or had T’an Ssu-tung and the others executed. So—’

Morrison cut off his friend mid-sentence. ‘I’m not disputing the facts or the outcome. But Yuan had reason to doubt that the Emperor’s order to detain the Empress Dowager was genuine. Colour of the ink: it was written in black instead of the imperial vermilion. He had no choice but to reveal the plot to the court. The point is, if China has any hope today of becoming a strong and modern nation, it lies with the likes of Yuan. Even if not all of those on the side of the reformers can see this.’