SQ 04 - The English Concubine (3 page)

This was bad news. Tay was a Teochew with his power base in Johor, the second biggest merchant after Wei Sun Wei. Hong was a Hokkien with the only remaining plantations in Singapore, as well as in Johor and Riau. He was the chief coolie broker in Singapore, the main supplier of girls to the brothels and held the spirit farm. The business of the plantations of gambier and pepper and their coolies, the business of the kongsi and the business of the excise farms were inextricably bound. Any power struggle spelled trouble for everyone.

‘But how can either displace you,’ he said, looking at the Deputy.

‘I am too old and have not enough power to hold. I do not control labour.’

‘Hong is wealthy and vindictive,’ Cheng interjected. ‘I am Kapitan at Riau, with the opium farm, but Hong has a network of smugglers who unload tons of chandu from his illegal farms and drive the price into the ground. I have my own chintengs, who police as best they are able but there are a thousand islands and the Dutch Resident sympathises but has little interest once he has the excise revenue.’

‘I’m not sure how I can help,’ Zhen said.

‘You have no interest in the syndicate. Yet you have great wealth through your fleet of ships and your domination of the rice and hardwood trade.’

‘Perhaps,’ Zhen said cautiously, ‘but I have no power to control the labour force.’

‘I inherit my late father-in-law’s Johor plantations.’

‘I see,’ Zhen said, though he was still not absolutely sure what was going on.

‘I would bid to become the Shan Chu but, though I am heir to Wei Sun Wei, I am, at this time, unknown in Singapore or Johor. At this precarious time, the Grand Triad needs a man who can hold it together, has no interests in the syndicate rivalries. A man respected for his good works in the kongsi, and for his diplomacy.’

Cheng leant forward and gazed at Zhen intensely.

‘It needs you.’

Zhen was astounded. ‘Me?’

‘We have spoken to the Temenggong, of course. He agrees with us. You have an amicable relationship with him and the agent Kerr and lawyer Napier.’

Zhen could only nod. They had thought this out carefully.

‘If we back you, it is possible to block both Tay and Hong until the opium farm has been leased again for another year, through a new syndicate.’

‘Your syndicate,’ Zhen said, seeing where this was going.

‘It is for the good of the kongsi,’ Cheng said.

Zheng looked back to the Deputy. Clearly they wanted a puppet to hold on to things until they could put their syndicate together. In the meantime, he would be caught in the middle of the in-fighting which would take place. He would spend all his time doing nothing but placating a lot of greedy men intent on ruining each other.

The Incense Master looked down and the Vanguard searched in his ear with his long fingernail for some morsel. The Deputy merely gazed at Zhen and sucked his tea.

This was not a request. These men didn’t make requests to a bondsman. How can I wriggle out of this, Zhen thought.

‘I am perhaps too close to the Europeans.’

‘On the contrary,’ Cheng said, ‘you are trusted by all members of the community. A good relationship with the English government benefits the kongsi. I hope you will do everything you can to introduce me to the ruling elite. To be known to the governor and the high officials will help with my bid for the farms.’

‘You speak their language fluently. You are the acceptable face of China for the ang moh,’ the Deputy said.

Zhen was beginning to understand why he had been chosen.

‘But there is perhaps one other problem. I have a close relationship with the police chief and his sister.’

Cheng’s face remained impassive. ‘Yes, of course. All the more reason for your recommendation to the government on matters Chinese to carry weight.’

Cheng turned away to pick up a tea cup.

‘Though for the duration of your stewardship, that particular closeness might be misread by the general populace. Trust in you must be infinite and unquestionable to people with limited imaginations. Coolies are the most ignorant and superstitious of men, attributing their own actions or natural disaster to bad luck and malefic influences. The influence of a blue-eyed ghost woman over the head of the kongsi for example. You understand. Ignorance, but that is how they think.’

Zhen listened but he didn’t like it. The man was ordering him to stay away from Xia Lou. The vanguard and the incense master were nodding. They all thought that way, not just the coolies. Zhen knew it.

‘Mrs. Manouk is a Scottish woman, not a blue-eyed ghost. You allow yourself to talk most freely about my personal life.’

‘Forgive me. It is regrettable I agree but these are the facts. She does not live under your roof and thus is seen not under your control, able to spread her malign influence more freely. No, I think it is safer, for the short time, to distance yourself from the personal nature of that relationship.’

Zhen stood and glared at Cheng.

‘Please, I apologise. I am simply stating some facts as they are seen by others.’

Silence fell between the two men. Zhen thought furiously.

‘We have more connections than you think.’

Cheng placed his cup carefully on its stand and looked at Zhen.

‘My first daughter is the third wife of the Kapitan Cina of Batavia. Your eldest daughter is principal wife to his eldest son. My sister is the principal wife of the Shan Chu of the Semarang Kongsi, son of the Goei family.’

Zhen nodded. The Goei were the oldest and richest family of Straits Chinese in Semarang. Semarang was a great port in central Java. Much timber was shipped through it. Whoever controlled the kongsi there controlled the labour force which brought the logs to the mill and thence to the port. Cheng was telling him that he had influential tentacles in many levels of the Chinese society of the Dutch East Indies. This may have been the reason Wei Sun Wei had married his daughter to Cheng in the first place.

In one breath Cheng had threatened both Charlotte’s business interests and his own, for the Manouk House had sugar lands and factories in Semarang. His commercial interests needed the Semarang labour force, but Zhen knew, too, that there was trouble in the Manouk House with debts linked to the sugar lands. Any such trouble now could cause her great financial distress.

Cheng rose and bowed to Zhen. ‘I would be most obliged and would attempt to grant you any favours you might ask. We can be friends. It is only for a short time.’

The iron fist in the silken glove. All things considered, Zhen saw he had little choice.

‘For the kongsi,’ Zhen said.

3

‘They say his leg was shot away and he has no use of one arm. What a sight he must be.’ Sarah Blundell giggled and put her hand in front of her mouth, somewhat ashamed.

‘How must it be for his poor wife? How on earth do they, well,
you know
.’

The two girls shared a look and giggled even harder.

‘Do you think he has a wooden leg? Gosh, it must clonk on the floor and drive everyone distracted.’

The girls began to limp woodenly around the room, their legs becoming entangled in their skirts until they collapsed on the sofa in laughter.

Sarah arranged her blue and white voile dress more decorously over her silk petticoat. Amber too, took a moment to straighten her yellow figured organza over her hoop petticoat, making sure Sarah got a good look at this new item of apparel. Sarah chose to ignore it. The fashion for hoops and layers of petticoats, whalebone ribbing and vast flounces had recently arrived in Singapore but her father forbade it on grounds of extravagance and health.

‘She must love him, mustn’t she, with all that clanking,’ Sarah said. ‘I shall only marry for love. My cousin, Victoria, married some rich old stinker in Calcutta. For his money.’

‘Gosh, I’ll only marry for love too. Imagine, some old rich stinker with a big fat belly. Horrid.’

The girls giggled and picked up their teacups. Amber Macleod looked at her friend.

‘But how shall it be for you, Sarah, when your father leaves? You shall miss him terribly.’

Sarah Blundell, last child of the eleven children of Governor Edmund Augustus Blundell, smiled at Amber.

‘Oh not in the least bit. We girls have so little to do with him, after all; and he is so unpopular, you know, since he tried to sell off the land before the Beach Road houses and asked for a harbour tax. Everyone complains of him and he has probably had enough. I shall stay with Ann until I marry. Ann’s husband, James, is popular with the other officers and I shall be thrown amongst them. And I am happy to be with Mother.’

Amber sipped her tea. Of course. Sarah’s mother would not be returning to England with her father. She was Burmese and not actually the Governor’s wife at all, but his nyai. She was a slightly built, shy woman who, naturally, never attended official functions and kept very much to herself. She had a small coterie of Burmese friends and family with whom she spent most of her time.

‘It seems hard for your mother,’ Amber said.

‘It’s hard to say. She says so little. But Father has made sure she is well cared for. He has bought her the new house at Kampong Glam, she has her friends and my widowed sister Mary with her children who will live with her. And of course they are both now so old, so perhaps she shall not miss him so much.’

Amber nodded. Of course, the Governor was decrepit, almost sixty. But still, his Burmese mistress had been by his side for more than thirty years and borne him eleven children. Can it truly be said that she would not be distressed at his departure? This was a subject which Amber thought on often, for the idea of her own father deserting her mother and sailing away to the other side of the world was one which she found most distressing. She was glad he was seeking to marry her. It was only right. She gave no thought to Teresa, her father’s legitimate wife. She cared for her half-brother Andrew, of course, who was sweet, but she wished, with no more thought than a moment, that Teresa would stop being so stubborn.

Since she had been old enough to understand such things, she found this habit of English men living almost the whole of their lives with an Asian mistress then simply returning home to marry some so-called respectable matron in their doting years extremely distasteful. Of course they took care of their offspring. Sarah’s sisters, like Sarah herself, had all been educated at the girls’ school at the Institution. Her brothers were schooled in Calcutta. One had joined Jardines in Hong Kong and another was at university in Oxford. But still.

But go he chose to do, resigning his position, and he was to be replaced by the new governor, William Orfeur Cavenagh, and his wife Elizabeth. This was exciting news for Colonel Cavenagh was a war hero, a saviour of the Indian Mutiny when he had held Fort William from the savage and ungodly hordes.

‘I have heard that Colonel Cavenagh has two good-looking sons. They are at school in Calcutta with my third brother. Perhaps I shall marry one of them.’

‘Not likely,’ retorted Amber. ‘His snooty sons will not be doing with half-blood creatures like us. They must have white horse-faces with pedigrees like Emily Blackwood.’

Both girls fell into a fit of giggles.

‘Alexander is returning. My aunt is all of a dither.’

Sarah looked at her friend. ‘The English concubine, your scandalous aunt.’

Amber smiled. ‘Yes, my scandalous aunt.’

‘And now the scandalous Alexander. Are you still madly in love with him?’

Amber blushed. ‘Silly girl. I grew up with him. He’s my cousin.’

Sarah nodded and threw a knowing look at her friend. The sound of conversation began in the hall and she rose.

‘Here is Ann with little Thomas to visit Mother and finish sorting out all her things. We shall be moving out tomorrow.’

Amber rose and kissed her friend. ‘I shall see you at the ball next Friday. We shall see how the new governor dances with his peg leg.’

Both girls went off in peals of merry laughter.

Amber left the ramshackle mansion on Leonie Hill which had become the residence of the Governor of Singapore since the demolition of the house on Government Hill. It was so far from the town and so unsuitable for large functions that the governor held all such events at the Court House. So it was to be for his official farewell and the welcome of Colonel Cavenagh. There would be the officers from the Royal Navy on their way to China and, too, the Rajah Brook of Sarawak who was passing through on his way to London. He was said to be old and ailing and his face was a positive horror of pox marks. With such pleasures in store she could hardly wait.

Amber’s thoughts turned to Alexander with a tremor of anticipation. She had been in love with him since childhood though he barely took any notice of her at all. She longed to see him again. This scandalous business of some woman in Scotland meant nothing to her. In her heart she forgave him everything and hoped against hope that, when he saw her again, now she had grown so pretty, that he would fall madly in love with her.

She directed the Indian syce to take her to the house of her friend Lian, the daughter of her aunt’s Chinese lover. It always made her giggle and quickened her blood to think of him this way. Zhen was an object of intense interest to all the girls at school. He was handsome and spoke excellent English. He was tall and well-made and exuded an exotic excitement. Lian was her school friend and lived with her crazy aunt who Lian said still lusted after her brother-in-law. She, Lian and Sarah chattered endlessly about all this.

She waved her fan to catch the air. It was so hot and these petticoats and flounces were the very devil in the climate. She had no intention, however, of returning to the soft voiles and cool cottons of her youth. She was no longer a girl and the most hated garment in her wardrobe was the plain blue dress and white cotton apron all the girls were forced to wear at school. She longed to wear the French lace corset she had seen in Little’s Store on Raffles Place but her father would not allow it.

Amber dismissed the syce at Thomson’s Bridge. He hated to go into the Chinese town because of the cholera but she didn’t care. No European had caught it and she certainly wouldn’t. Her Malay maid trailed along behind her. Unlike most girls her age, she never went about with an older chaperone. Her mother had not thought it necessary and her father paid no attention. Aunt Charlotte had spoken to her about the impropriety of walking alone and everyone had agreed the maid would be sufficient.