The Island Where Time Stands Still (10 page)

Gregory picked upon the mention of the island's secrets to get in a sly dig at the doctor by inquiring if he thought the faking of antiques, for sale at prices greatly in excess of their real value, was in keeping with the Confucian tradition; but Ho-Ping was not to be caught. Smiling blandly, he replied:

‘Different races have different ideas about what constitutes beauty, but such ideas are not constant, and again in each race differ in different centuries. It so happens that in the present era cultured people in the West see beauty in many objects which were made in old China only for their usefulness, or for religious purposes; the age of these objects plays no part whatever in this. The Western connoisseur concerns himself with the age of these objects only because he believes that certain shapes, colours, textures and glazes could have been produced in no other. It is our good fortune that we hold the secrets of producing from uncut stone and unbaked clay these particular attributes which he so greatly admires. If we offered them to him cheaply and for what they are, he would either refuse to buy them, or imagine a difference that does not exist and continue to hanker after originals. As it is he pays a price out of all proportion to the intrinsic value of the object, but he gets a thing that his particular sense of beauty has urged him to acquire and rejoices in its possession. I see no cause for shame in making money by satisfying such desires.'

This specious argument entirely ignored the question of integrity on the sellers' part; but Gregory let it pass because he was inclined to agree that if a buyer could not tell the difference between a genuine antique and a fake he suffered no great hardship, and that in such transactions dealers were certainly fair game. The thought prompted
him to inquire the means used to dispose of the goods.

‘That side of the business is entirely in the hands of the Seven Families,' Ho-Ping replied. ‘As I have told you, no one but their male members is ever allowed to visit the cities of the outer world. That is because it is only with them we can rest assured that our secrets are safe. Several of them live abroad for a term of years while running depots we have established in such places as Hong Kong, Hanoi, Singapore, Suez and San Francisco. From these our goods are filtered through to the great cities of Europe and America.

‘But sometimes we make use of our young men when they go overseas to complete their education. As you may have guessed from the fact that I speak fluent English, I am of the Mandarin caste. I took my degree at Cambridge. While there I was provided with ample money, so it did not appear at all strange that I should form a valuable collection of jade scent bottles. Before going down to become a medical student at Guy's, I gave out that I had overspent myself and disposed of my collection at a handsome figure to a London dealer.'

Dr. Ping laughed happily at the recollection, and Gregory laughed too; but it was one of the very few occasions during those days that even a pretence of mirth stirred in him. His meals were brought to him regularly, but he had no visitors other than Ho-Ping. Apart from the servants, he saw no one except Sze Hsüan, and that only once. The Mandarin had just arrived back in his palanquin—presumably from a meeting of the Council of State—and was accompanied by a younger, larger and much fatter edition of himself, whom Gregory later learned was his brother and heir, Kâo Hsüan. Both of them were wearing the full Chinese mourning of unrelieved white, and walked to the house in silence with their hands buried in the sleeves of their robes and their eyes cast down. Gregory chanced to see them only because one of his periodical strolls in the grounds had brought him round to the front entrance; but most of the time he sat doing nothing on the small
veranda of his garden house, so, apart from the change of scene, his routine differed little from the life he had led while in the cage.

On the fourth afternoon A-lu-te and the plump, fussy, middle-aged lady whom Gregory had seen on the night of his arrival came out and joined him. A-lu-te introduced her companion as Madame Pan-chieh, and added:

‘You will see a great deal of her, as it is customary here for an older woman to be present whenever a young one of my birth receives a man or goes to a party to which men are invited. She is my father's second senior concubine; the others employ themselves in running the house. I chose her for my companion because, although stupid, she has a kindly and placid disposition. She does not understand English, so you need not fear to offend her should you feel like criticising some of the customs that make life in this island so narrow and wearisome.'

Gregory smiled at Madame Pan-chieh and installed her comfortably in a bamboo chair. She was indeed a placid woman, and he soon found that she was content to sit sewing for hours at a stretch, simply preserving the conventions by her presence, but otherwise intruding upon them no more than a piece of furniture. When all three of them were settled, he said to A-lu-te:

‘I gather that the death of the Emperor has been a great blow to you all, and I should like to offer you my condolences upon it.'

She nodded. ‘Thank you. I suppose you have heard the details?'

‘No; since I saw you last I have spoken only to Dr. Ho-Ping, and he did no more than confirm what I had already heard—that death was due to a wasp sting on the tongue.'

‘There is not very much to tell. My uncle Kâo Hsüan was the gentleman-in-waiting on that night. He saw the Emperor to his room a little after eleven o'clock, presented his opium pipe to him, and left him. A half-bitten preserved apricot was found on the floor, so evidently he helped himself to
one from a bowl of crystallised fruit at his bedside during the night, and the wasp was lurking in it. His custom was to ring for his valet at about six o'clock, but occasionally he slept late, so it did not occur to the man that anything might be wrong until half-past seven. Not daring to enter the bedchamber without having been summoned, he sent for my uncle to take that responsibility. At about eight they knocked on the door and receiving no answer, went in. Just inside lay the Emperor, dead. Apparently he had made an effort to reach it, but had collapsed before he could do so.'

‘A wasp sting takes effect pretty quickly,' Gregory remarked, ‘but all the same, it seems a little surprising that he should not have had time to summon help.'

‘Although not an opium addict, he was at times given to smoking several pipes. It is thought that this may have been such an occasion, and that the effects of the drug had deprived him of the power to make any great effort.'

‘How about his women, though? As he was quite a youngish man I should have thought that he would always have had one of them with him, or anyhow in an adjoining chamber.'

‘No; they occupy a different part of the palace, and with regard to them the custom of old China is observed. In the ante-chamber to the Emperor's bedroom there is a table on which lie seven jade tablets. One is inscribed with the name of the Empress; the others with those of the six concubines. On his way to retire he turns over the tablet bearing the name of the lady whose company he desires for the night. She is then carried to him wrapped up in a fleecy blanket. In old China that service was performed by one of the chief eunuchs, but here the horrible custom of making boys into eunuchs has been discontinued. Their functions are now performed by old concubines who have been either in the household of the previous Emperor or those of deceased Mandarins. But sometimes the Emperor preferred to sleep alone, and it was so on the night of his death.'

‘I take it the new, er—Son of Heaven, must still be a child;
or at most a youth in his teens,' Gregory observed.

A-lu-te shook her dark head. ‘No; it is that which doubles our misfortune. The Emperor had no heir. Tragedy has twice stricken within a few weeks. His sons were both drowned less than a month ago. They were beautiful little boys of seven and nine, and were taken one afternoon to enjoy a sail along the coast; but the boat overturned and their attendants were unable to save them. It is only a few days ago that we went from full mourning into half mourning on their account.'

Gregory immediately recalled the two children he had seen down by the harbour. That had been within a day or two of his first leaving his room to sit out on the terrace, and he remembered now that on the following day Ho-ping had given the impression that something had occurred which caused him considerable distress. On his describing the boys A-lu-te at once confirmed that they were the two little Princes.

‘What happened to their attendants?' Gregory asked, curious to know the fate of the nurse who had allowed her charges to be taken sailing without her.

‘Their usual attendants were not with them,' A-lu-te replied. ‘Had they been it is unlikely that the tragedy would have occurred. The Emperor had issued an order that they were never to be taken outside the reef. The Imperial boatman knew that, and so did their amah. By some mischance the Imperial boatmen were not warned for duty that afternoon; so rather than disappoint the children the Harbour-Master sent them out with two of his men. It was in the rough sea outside the reef that the boat overturned. The men managed to swim ashore, but as soon as the Harbour-Master learned what had happened he naturally had their heads cut off, in the hope that the immediate action he had taken would help to placate the Emperor.'

‘And did it?'

‘The Emperor was a just man. The Harbour-Master had sought only to save the children from disappointment, and he vowed that he had told his men not to take them out to
the open sea; so the Emperor did not hold him responsible for the tragedy.'

‘What about the amah?'

‘The real blame lies with her. Had she accompanied the children, as was her most positive duty, she would have prevented the boatmen from taking them beyond the reef. As it was, for some private purpose of her own she remained behind. When she appeared at the harbour to meet them the news that they had been drowned threw her into a frenzy of remorse. She snatched a knife from one of the Harbour-Master's people, ran off behind a hut, and before she could be stopped stabbed herself to death.'

As Gregory had seen a coolie half-persuade, half-pull the amah in through the doorway of one of the warehouses, he felt that in having lured the woman from her duty the man was as much to blame as she was; but since he could not have given the vaguest description of the coolie there seemed nothing to be gained by mentioning the matter. After a moment, he asked:

‘Will the Emperor be succeeded by a younger brother, or some more distant relative?'

‘Neither. He was an only son; and, most unfortunately, the last of his line.'

‘To whom will the throne go, then?'

A-lu-te shook her head. ‘I have no idea. It lies with the Council of State to decide. The problem is an intensely worrying one for my father and his fellow Mandarins.'

‘When a Monarch dies without an heir-apparent, it is usual for him to nominate his successor in his will. Didn't the Emperor leave even an indication of his wishes?'

‘No. Until less than a month ago the succession was assured by his two healthy sons. As he was still quite young it was natural for him, and everyone else, to assume that he would make good their loss by begetting others; so no provision at all was made to meet a situation so unexpected as this.'

‘How about the Empress? Could she not be made ruler?'

‘Oh no; that is quite out of the question.'

‘Why? The old Empress Dowager reigned in China for nearly as long as Queen Victoria reigned in England.'

‘You are mistaken. The Great Empress Mother acted only as Regent for her son, and later for other members of the Imperial Family.'

‘Whatever her status this one would have infinitely less power. She would be no more than a figurehead, and entirely in the hands of her Council.'

‘They would never agree to that,' A-lu-te asserted. ‘The fact that she is not of the Imperial blood rules her out absolutely.'

Gregory could see that A-lu-te was a prey to acute anxiety, and he guessed the reason. Giving her a shrewd glance he asked, ‘Who are the two strongest personalities in the island?'

Without hesitation she replied, ‘Ho-Ping's elder brother and my uncle, Kâo Hsüan. The one is already a Mandarin and the other, as my father's nearest male relative, will be when he dies. Both of them are extremely ambitious.'

‘I see,' Gregory nodded. ‘Then, since the Emperor has no legitimate successor, you are afraid that these two will fight it out between them, and that this island paradise is about to become a field of blood?'

This question of the succession seemed to occupy A-lu-te's mind to the exclusion of nearly everything else, and when she came out to join Gregory in the garden the following afternoon she told him that the Council had held another long but unsatisfactory meeting. Ho-Ping's brother Tsai-Ping had pointed out that as the Council of State had always done the real governing in the name of an Emperor, there was no reason why it should not continue to do so without one.

To this the other Mandarins were strongly opposed; both because the creation of any form of Republic would have been entirely contrary to their cherished traditions, and because they feared that without an Emperor to wield permanent authority over them Tsai-Ping's ambitious nature might lead him into attempting to become a dictator. But the sudden extinction of their own branch of the Imperial Family had left them at their wits' end, as they could think of no male member of any other branch whom they would care to invite to ascend the throne.

‘Surely,' Gregory remarked, ‘if they wish to observe tradition, it is not a question of “caring”. Provided the Prince who has the best claim is sound in mind they should accept him. Anyhow there must be some precedent to go on. How was the last Emperor selected?'

‘He inherited the throne. His father and grandfather reigned before him. We have had three Emperors since the island was first colonised in 1913.'