Noble House

"Shall we have coffee on deck?" Gornt got up.
"Good idea. A cuppa coffee's ever so good after grub." Grey used the word deliberately, knowing it would offend them, not caring now, suddenly tired of the banter, hating them and what they represented, hating being the odd-man out here, wanting one of the girls, any one. "Marlowe and his Yankee friend used to roast beans in the camp when the rest of us were starving," he said, his face stark. "Used to drive us mad." He looked at Peter Marlowe, his hate open now. "Didn't you?"
After a pause, Peter Marlowe said, "Everyone had coffee some of the time. Everyone roasted coffee beans."
"Not like you two." Grey turned to Casey. "They had coffee every day, him and his Yankee friend. Me, I was provost marshal and I had it once a month if I was lucky." He glanced back. "How did you get coffee and food while the rest of us starved?"
Casey noticed the vein in Peter Marlowe's forehead knotting and she realized, aghast, that no answer was also an answer. "Robin . . ." she began, but Grey overrode her, his voice taunting.
"Why don't you answer, Marlowe?"
In the silence they all looked from Grey to Peter Marlowe, staring at each other, even the girls tense and on guard, feeling the sudden violence in the cabin.
"My dear fellow," Gornt interrupted, deliberately using that slight nuance of accent he knew would goad Grey, "surely those are ancient times and rather unimportant now. It is Sunday afternoon and we're all friends."
"I think 'em rather important, Sunday afternoon or not and Marlowe and I aren't friends, never have been! He's a toff, I'm not." Grey aped the long a he loathed and broadened his accent. "Yes. But the war changed everything and us workers'll never forget!"
"You consider yourself a worker and me not?" Peter Marlowe asked, his voice grating.
"We're the exploited, you're the exploiters. Like in Changi."
"Get off that old broken record, Grey! Changi was another world, another place and other time an—"
"It was the same as everywhere. There was bosses and the bossed, workers and them that fed off the workers. Like you and the King."
"Stuff and nonsense!"
Casey was near to Grey and she reached out and took his arm. "Let's have coffee, okay?"
"Of course," Grey said. "But first ask him, Casey." Grimly Grey stood his ground, well aware he had, at long last, brought his enemy to bay in front of his peers. "Mr. Gornt, ask him, eh? Any of you . . ."
They all stood there in silence, embarrassed for Peter Marlowe and shocked with the implied accusations—Gornt and Plumm privately amused and fascinated. Then one of the girls turned for the gangway and left quietly, the others following. Casey would have liked to have gone too but she did not.
"Now is not the time, Mr. Grey," she heard Gornt say gently and she was glad he was there to break it up. "Would you kindly leave this matter alone. Please?"
Grey looked at them all, his eyes ending up on his adversary. "You see, Casey, not one's got the guts to ask—they're all his class, so-called upper class and they look after their own."
Barre flushed. "I say, old chap, don't you th—"
Peter Marlowe said, his voice flat, "It's easy to stop this nonsense. You can't equate Changi—or Dachau or Buchenwald with normality. You just can't. There were different rules, different patterns. We were soldiers, war prisoners, teen-agers most of us. Changi was genesis, everything new, upside down, ev—"
"Were you a black marketeer?"
"No. I was an interpreter in Malay for a friend who was a trader and there's a lot of difference between trading and black marketing an—"
"But it was against camp rules, camp law, and that makes it black marketing, right?"
"Trading with the guards was against enemy rules, Japanese rules."
"And tell them how the King'd buy some poor bugger's watch or ring or fountain pen for a pittance, the last bloody thing he had in the world, and sell it high and never tell and cheat on the price, cheat, always cheat. Eh?"
Peter Marlowe stared back. "Read my book. In it th—"
"Book?" Again Grey laughed, goading him. "Tell 'em on your honor as a gent, your father's honor and your family's honor you're so bloody proud of—did the King cheat or didn't he? On your honor! Eh?"
Almost paralyzed, Casey saw Peter Marlowe make a fist. "If we weren't guests here," he hissed, "I'd tell them what a shower you really were!"
"You can rot in hell. . . ."
"Now that's enough," Gornt said as a command and Casey began to breathe again. "For the last time, kindly leave this all alone!"
Grey tore his eyes off Marlowe. "I will. Now, can I get a taxi in the village? I think I'd rather get home meself by meself if you don't mind."
"Of course," Gornt said, his face suitably grave, delighted that Grey had asked so that he did not have to finesse the suggestion into the open. "But surely," he added, delivering the coup de grace, "surely you and Marlowe could shake hands like gentlemen and forget about th—"
"Gentlemen? Ta, but no. No, I've had gentlemen like Marlowe forever. Gentlemen? Thank God England's changing and soon'll be in proper hands again—and the very British Oxford accent won't be a permanent passport to gentry and power, not ever again. We'll reform the Lords and if I have my way . . ."
"Let's hope you don't!" Pugmire said.
Gornt said firmly, "Pug! It's coffee and port time!" Affably he took Grey's arm. "If you'll excuse Mr. Grey and myself a moment . . ."
They went on deck. The chatter of the Chinese girls stopped a moment. Secretly very pleased with himself, Gornt led the way to the gangway and went ashore onto the wharf. Everything was turning out far better than he had thought.
"Sorry about that, Mr. Grey," he said. "I had no idea that Marlowe . . . Disgusting! Well, you never know, do you?"
"He's a bastard, always was, always will be—him and his filthy Yank friend. Hate Yanks too! About time we broke up with that shower!"
Gornt found a taxi easily.
"Are you sure, Mr. Grey, you won't change your mind?"
"Ta, but no thanks."
"Sorry about Marlowe. Clearly you were provoked. When are you and your trade commission off?"
"In the morning, early."
"If there's anything I can do for you here, just let me know."
"Ta. When you come home give me a tinkle."
"Thank you. I will, and thanks for coming." He paid the fare in advance and waved politely as the taxi drove off. Grey did not look around.
Gornt smiled. That revolting bastard's going to be a useful ally in the years to come, he chortled as he walked back.
Most of the others were on deck, drinking coffee and liqueurs, Casey and Peter Marlowe to one side.
"What a bloody berk!" Gornt called out to general agreement. "Frightfully sorry about that, Marlowe, the bugger pr—"
"No, it was my fault," Peter Marlowe said, clearly very upset. "Sorry. I feel terrible that he left."
"No need to apologize. I should never have invited him—thanks for being such a gentleman about it, he clearly provoked you."
"Quite right," Pugmire said to more agreement. "If I'd been you I'd've given him one. Whatever happened is in the past."
"Oh yes," Casey said quickly, "what an awful man! If you hadn't stopped it, Quilian, Grey wou—
"Enough of that berk," Gornt said warmly, wanting the specter laid to rest. "Let's forget him, let's not allow him to spoil a wonderful afternoon." He put his arm around Casey and gave her a hug. "Eh?" He saw the admiration in her eyes and he knew, gleefully, he was getting there fast. "It's too cold for a swim. Shall we just cruise leisurely home?"
"Good idea!" Dunstan Barre said. "I think I'm going to have a siesta."
"Smashing idea!" someone said to laughter. The girls joined in but the laughter was forced. Everyone was still unsettled and Gornt felt it strongly. "First some brandy! Marlowe?"
"No thank you, Mr. Gornt."
Gornt studied him. "Listen to me, Marlowe," he said with real compassion and everyone fell silent. "We've all seen too much of life, too much of Asia, not to know that whatever you did, you did for good and not evil. What you said was right. Changi was special with special problems. Pug was locked up in Stanley Prison—that's on Hong Kong Island, Casey—for three and a half years. I got out of Shanghai barely with my skin, and blood on my hands. Jason was grabbed by the Nazis after Dunkirk and had a couple of dicey years with them, Dunstan operated in China—Dunstan's been in Asia forever and he knows too. Eh?"
"Oh yes," Dunstan Barre said sadly. "Casey, in war to survive you have to stretch things a bit sometimes. As to trading, Marlowe, I agree, most times you have to equate the problem to the time and place. I thank God I was never caught. Don't think I'd've survived, know I wouldn't." He refilled his port from the decanter, embarrassed to be speaking real truths.
"What was Changi really like, Peter?" Casey asked for all of them.
"It's hard to talk about," he said. "It was the nearest to no-life that you could get. We were issued a quarter of a pound of dry rice a day, some vegetables, one egg a week. Sometimes meat was . . . was waved over the soup. It was different, that's all I can say about it. Most of us had never seen a jungle before, let alone Chinese and Japanese and to lose a war … I was just eighteen when Changi began."
"Christ, I can't stand Japs, just can't!" Pugmire said and the others nodded.
"But that's not fair, really. They were just playing the game according to their rules," Peter Marlowe said. "That was fair from the Japanese point of view. Look what wonderful soldiers they were, look how they fought and almost never allowed themselves to be captured. We were dishonored according to their standards by surrendering." Peter Marlowe shivered. "I felt dishonored, still feel dishonored."
"That's not right, Marlowe," Gornt said. "There's no dishonor in that. None."
Casey, standing beside Gornt, put her hand on his arm lightly. "Oh yes. He's right, Peter. He really is."
"Yes." Dunstan Barre said. "But Grey, what the devil got Grey all teed off? Eh?"
"Nothing and everything. He became fanatical about enforcing camp rules—which were Japanese rules—stupidly, a lot of us thought. As I said, Changi was different, officers and men were locked up together, no'letters from home, no food, two thousand miles of enemy-occupied territory in every direction, malaria, dysentery, and the death rate terrible. He hated this American friend of mine, the King. It was true the King was a cunning businessman and he ate well when others didn't and drank coifee and smoked tailor-made cigarettes. But he kept a lot of us alive with his skill Even Grey– He even kept Grey alive. Grey's hatred kept him alive, I'm sure. The King fed almost the whole American contingent— there were about thirty of them, officers and men. Oh they worked for it, American style, but even so, without him they would have died. I would have. I know." Peter Marlowe shuddered. "Joss. Karma. Life. I think I'll have that brandy now, Mr. Gornt."
Gornt poured. "Whatever happened to this man, this fellow you call the King? After the war?"
Pugmire interrupted with a laugh, "One of the buggers in our camp who was a trader became a bloody millionaire afterwards. Is it the same with this King?"
"I don't know," Peter Marlowe said.
"You never saw him again, Peter?" Casey asked, surprised. "You didn't see him back in the States?"
"No, no I never did. I tried to find him but never could."
"That's often the rule, Casey," Gornt said casually. "When you leave a regiment all debts and friendships are canceled." He was very content. Everything's perfect, he told himself, thinking of the double bed in his cabin, and smiled at her across the deck. She smiled back.
Riko Anjin Gresserhoff went into the foyer of the V and A. It was crowded with those having early-afternoon tea or late lunches. As she walked to the elevator a tremor went through her, the eyes bothering her—not the usual lusting eyes of European men or the dislike in the eyes of their women—but Chinese and Eurasian eyes. She had never experienced so much general hatred. It was a strange feeling. This was her first time outside of Switzerland, other than school trips to Germany and two journeys to Rome with her mother. Her husband had taken her abroad only once, to Vienna for a week.
I don't like Asia, she thought, suppressing another shudder. But then it's not Asia, it's Hong Kong, surely it's just here, the people here. And surely, there is right on their side to be antagonistic. I wonder if I'll like Japan? Will I be alien, even there?
The elevator came and she went to her suite on the sixth floor, the room boy not opening her door for her. Alone and with the door bolted, she felt better. The red message light on the phone was blinking but she paid it no attention, quickly taking off her shoes, hat, gloves and coat, putting them at once in a vast closet, the clothes already there neat and organized, like her three pairs of shoes. The suite was small but delicate, a living room, bedroom and bath. Flowers from Struan's were on the table and a bowl of fruit from the hotel.
Her fingers slid the gift wrapping away neatly. Inside was a rectangular black plush box and she opened it. Warmth went through her. The pendant was on a thin gold chain, the jade green with flecks of lighter green, carved like a cornucopia. Light shimmered off the polished surface. At once she put it on, studying it in the mirror, admiring the stone as it lay against her breast. She had never been given jade before.
Underneath the black, plush-covered cardboard was the envelope. It was a plain envelope, not Struan's, the seal equally plain, made of ordinary red sealing wax. With great care she slid a paper knife under the seal and studied the pages, one by one, a small frown on her forehead. Just a jumble of numbers and letters and an occasional symbol. A tiny, satisfied smile touched her lips. She found the hotel letter-writing folder and, settling herself comfortably at the desk, began to copy the pages, one by one.