The Silver Lotus Page 11

  One day matters came to a head when a telegram arrived from the sailing master of The Silver Lotus. It was a truly sad communication that spoke of the death of Able Seaman Billy Starkey, who, by all appearances, had fallen overboard sometime after the refurbished ship had set out for trials. A passing trawler found his body two days later. The message said that the boy’s papers and personal effects had been sent on for Captain Hammond to sort through and send on to his relatives. It also affirmed that Hammond & Yee owed Starkey 168 dollars in wages, and a death-at-sea bounty of two hundred dollars payable to his heirs. His grandmother’s address was included in the message.

  The captain decided not to tell Lady Yee about Billy’s death, as the boy had always been a great favorite in her considerations. And knowing the stress she was already under with her first child, the soon-to-be father chose the lesser of two evils and remained silent. But one day when the captain was away on business in town, a Wells Fargo freight wagon delivered a common sea chest. It was addressed to Captain Hammond, but the name carved into the wooden lid was that of Billy Starkey, and below that was carved the name of the ship, The Silver Lotus.

  Lady Yee had no compunction about opening the chest. She knew the moment it came through the door that death lingered in its presence. A covering letter from the sailing master explained the cause of death and the circumstances surrounding the accident. But after examining the contents of the chest only superficially, Lady Yee knew instinctually that the covering letter, though hardly an attempt to manipulate the facts, was incorrect in several particulars.

  Later that afternoon, when the captain returned home, Lady Yee took him aside, showed him the sea chest and the letter, and discussed the matter with him. The captain was surprised to find his wife very calm and methodical. She told him that, in spite of all the evidence indicating an accident, young Billy had ended his own life by leaping overboard when no one was watching. Lady Yee acknowledged that it was an act of willful self-destruction, to be sure, but one with brassbound motives for a poor unsophisticated sapling of twenty who’d been at sea since he was eleven years old.

  When her husband patiently asked what had led her to believe this to be the case, Lady Yee showed him a photograph of a man and woman standing behind three children. Billy could be identified as the oldest child. There was a black mourning ribbon affixed around the corner of the picture, and a note on the back indicating a date eight months prior. A card of condolence from the funeral home came attached to a newspaper obituary that mourned the passing of Mr. and Mrs. Starkey and their two youngest children from the ravages of a typhoid epidemic that took twelve lives in Pine Island Cove, Massachusetts. Then Lady Yee brought forth a poorly written letter from a girl in New Bedford telling of her upcoming nuptials to Billy’s cousin, Stanhope Starkey, and hoping that Billy would understand that she didn’t feel right about waiting for him to return any longer. And lastly, Lady Yee showed her husband a large vial of mercury pills prescribed by a French doctor in Pondicherry for an undisclosed ailment. However, it took little imagination to deduce just what that ailment might be. In Asia, at least, such a dangerous prescriptive could only indicate symptoms of syphilis, leprosy, or worse, in any event mortal diseases that were, despite exotic and dangerous medications, incurable in the main, and spiritually debilitating to endure. Even Lady Yee confessed that she would choose poison over lingering decay and madness, and so she saw no reason why Billy should not choose a more dignified departure for himself as well. She encouraged her husband to imagine the shame, humiliation, and sense of loss that must have inspired such a deed, and then to employ compassion. She suggested that the pills and the girl’s letter be removed before the chest was sent on to Billy’s grandmother. She also suggested that a personal letter of condolence from the boy’s captain would go a long way toward softening the blow for other relatives, and she was sure Billy’s back pay and bounty would be well received. Her husband agreed with everything and, for Lady Yee’s sake, he had a bank draft drawn up for five hundred dollars, which he included with his own letter. These he placed in the sea chest before it was secured and sent east by special freight.

  Six weeks later a packet arrived for Captain Hammond. Inside was a note from his sailing master saying that the enclosed letter had been discovered under Starkey’s berth only recently. The sealed envelope was marked for Captain Hammond, but there was no address, which seemed to indicate that when the time came, the missive was to be delivered by hand. When the captain opened the envelope he found a short letter written in pencil. In it Billy sincerely apologized to his captain for deserting the ship without notice. He hoped Captain Hammond would not see this as a reflection on his command or a result of any dissatisfaction. Rather, Billy pleaded that the recent passing of his family, and his own rapidly failing health, left him with little choice but to leave the ship without notice. He said he realized that in doing so he forfeited all rights to back salary, but that couldn’t be helped under the circumstances, and he said he harbored no ill will as a result. Besides, he said, the money was too little to do him much good where he was going. In closing, Billy especially asked to be remembered to Lady Yee as a person he regarded with the greatest respect and affection. He requested that the included gift be passed on to her as a token of fond remembrance and loyalty. The article, wrapped in old tissue paper, turned out to be Billy’s cap ribbon, with the name of the ship printed in silver paint. Billy, like all sailors, preferred dressing well when ashore, and he always wore his cap ribbon with pride.

  It only took a moment for the captain to decide not to show Lady Yee the letter just yet, if at all. And since it was certain that time would hardly alter matters, he felt it could easily wait until after she had delivered her child, and had happier things to contemplate. And yet he couldn’t help but be deeply impressed with his wife’s powers of deduction, and her ability to sense the truth of a situation even at a distance. She had always been an insightful person, but with the advance of her pregnancy she had become downright clairvoyant, and that, he could confidently presume, would present its own set of difficulties in time.

  8

  LADY YEE at last gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who, in spite of inheriting her father’s blue-gray eyes, auburn-blond hair, and sardonic smile, was the very image of her mother. Captain Hammond wandered around with a stupid grin on his face for days. He fell instantly in love with his new daughter and was hardly surprised when Lady Yee introduced her as Macy Yee Hammond. She was so small and jewel-like that her father nicknamed her Wee-Yee by way of a bad Irish pun, and somehow the name stuck until she was four. Then one day she demanded to be called Macy and refused to answer to anything else.

  Captain Hammond adored his baby daughter. He veritably doted on her whims, and took every opportunity to spend time entertaining her regardless of the game. It would be fair to say that Macy adored her father in turn. No matter what the cause of the tears, he could always make her laugh and smile. Sometimes he would take Macy for little adventures in the gardens, and Lady Yee would later discover them fast asleep on the grass in the shade like a couple of exhausted puppies.

  There were several factors that helped to influence the captain’s decision, of course, but one day while he and Lady Yee picnicked among the dunes of Del Monte overlooking the bay, which shimmered like blue steel, the captain told his wife that, after long deliberation and personal reflection, he had decided to retire from the sea altogether. Lady Yee was rather surprised by this offhand revelation since she had no idea her husband was even entertaining such thoughts. He went on to explain that he had recently been offered a very lucrative full partnership in a fine new Portland-built steamship. However, the arrangement was predicated on the proviso that he take full command of the vessel and manage the Asian trading relationships for at least five years. He said the arrangement was liberally generous with bonuses and bounties, and he could carry a portion of cargo under his own manifest. In all, the offer was extremely attractive.

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p; Lady Yee fully expected her husband to immediately ask her opinion of the proposition, but he didn’t. Instead, he just told her that he would never go to sea again on business, but the offer had inspired him to think about making a similar offer to his own sailing master, so he could reduce company costs and liabilities.

  When Lady Yee, now somewhat taken aback by her husband’s disclosure, asked what had motivated his decision, Captain Hammond hemmed and hawed and seemed shy about giving a direct answer. Then Lady Yee cocked one eyebrow, indicating the seriousness of her question, and again asked what had influenced his choice.

  Captain Hammond rose from his place and paced for a moment trying to decide what to say. Just then little Macy came toddling into view a few feet ahead of the pursuing maid. She was a veritable bouquet of giggles and flapping arms, and she immediately ran up to her father and embraced his leg as if it were the trunk of a tree. Macy instinctually knew her father was safe ground, where nothing remotely unpleasant, like an impending bath, could get at her. She squeezed his leg and giggled away with the delight of an escaped fugitive. Captain Hammond shook his head and looked over at his wife with a perplexed expression. He felt like a fox caught between two dogs.

  Then he glanced down at his beautiful daughter and smiled. After a moment he looked back to his wife and said he wasn’t going back to sea again because Macy had said he couldn’t. When his wife laughed and asked how long he’d been taking sailing orders from his daughter, Captain Hammond mocked wounded pride and declared that he had always listened to the best advice of his business partners. He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew an envelope with a flourish, and presented it to his wife.

  Lady Yee read the enclosed document with surprise and smiled. Her husband, quite unbeknownst to her, had restructured their business to include a new partner. The company stationery now read Hammond, Macy & Yee. The captain picked up his bubbling, doe-eyed daughter, and mocking a stage whisper, told Macy that this was the first thing he’d done in years that her mother hadn’t predicted beforehand. He said he felt rather good about that. With a chuckle, he openly surmised that perhaps his wife’s prognostic tendencies were fading with the passing of time.

  LADY YEE MADE A POINT of not going about the town in any social capacity, or to trade at the grocery and dry goods emporiums like the other women. She was astute enough to realize that her wealth was enough to admit entry, of course, but any attempt to fit into the common weave would most likely be misunderstood and frowned upon as being far too familiar for someone of her exalted station. For most of the people of Monterey, she was ever the mysterious, exotic, regal, and diffident Lady Yee, respected and even occasionally revered at a distance by the local citizenry. Rather than strain against the halter of social ignorance and biased mythology, Lady Yee suddenly realized a profound opportunity was now at her disposal. It was far easier to fulfill public expectations. If Monterey wanted to believe Lady Yee was some fairy-tale Chinese princess, swept off her feet and saved from some ancient barbarous practice by the dashing and handsome Captain Hammond, then so be it. If the good people of Monterey County wanted an aloof Chinese princess, then that’s just what she would give them, Oriental imperiousness in spades.

  Besides, Lady Yee immediately realized that she could affect far more by utilizing her financial prowess remotely through a third party, specifically a figure of her own invention. It was thus that the Macy Trust was born. With the captain acting as agent, Lady Yee employed a young and reputable San Jose attorney named J. W. Bishop to act as the public face for the trust. Then, when all business coefficients had been neatly racked into place, Lady Yee plumed her publicly perceived role by retiring behind her beautiful walled gardens. And there, unbeknownst to all except her husband, she worked her philanthropic machinations through the culturally neutral face of J. W. Bishop, Esq., and the mysterious Macy Trust.

  As might be expected, the first target of Lady Yee’s benevolent machinations centered on the impoverished conditions manifest in the lives of the local Chinese fishing communities of Monterey Bay. To that end, she sent her brilliant but misanthropic cook, Ah Chu, and her maid, Li-Lee, out on missions that were disguised as shopping excursions. They’d purchase Chinese vegetables at one market, Oriental dry goods at another, and fresh fish from any number of Chinese stalls. At each location they were to make friends of the proprietors, haggle only where appropriate, and listen to everything said by the people around them. If called into conversation by local merchants, they were to ask questions and never voice opinions. In short, Ah Chu and Li-Lee were to discover what the fishing villages needed most in the way of basic services.

  Captain Hammond knew that the only reason she posed the question was to have her own pre-drawn conclusions verified. They both knew, from experiencing coastal Chinese enclaves all over Asia, that her personal evaluation was dead on the mark. The three weakest elements for the laboring poor were competent medical care, basic education, and a system of internal financing and monetary support for small business ventures. Obviously the poor Chinese in Monterey lacked a chartered bank to look after their best interests. And such financial novelties, even if Chinese owned, were usually suspected by the poor as being too Western, so they shunned them out of fear of the local tongs, who in turn feared any rivalry to their own power and influence. If there were to be money made by loaning out funds at interest, they would be the ones to do it. Which was all very well, except for the sad condition of their treasuries. The local tongs were as penurious as their constituents but too proud to admit the truth even to themselves.

  Lady Yee saw this rather bleak situation as a marvelous opportunity. Rather than compete with the prosaic and blinkered old burghers who ruled the tongs, she would find a way to make them work for her. And Captain Hammond had no doubt she could do just that if she set her mind to it.

  Lady Yee mapped out a campaign that took several months of logistical planning to bring about, but the result was a scheme meticulous in every detail, and insinuating to the point of invisibility. Her first moves entailed a program of informal, though very pointed, publicity. She encouraged her agents, Ah Chu and Li-Lee, to begin circulating subtle rumors, all of them truthful in the main, concerning Lady Yee’s esteemed family background, her influence with the most powerful traders in Asia, and her unlimited power to affect anything in which she held a proprietary interest. Setting aside all modesty for the greater good, they were to suggest that their mistress possessed wealth beyond measure, and power beyond reckoning, while at the same time letting it be known that Lady Yee was a person of enlightened habits, scholarly piety, and modest demeanor.

  Ah Chu, being a creature with artistic as well as theatric instincts, took even greater pleasure embroidering gruesome tales about Lady Yee’s defeat of the Pearl River pirates of the Red Flag. To hear Ah Chu tell it, every corsair on the coast of China now went in mortal fear of crossing pikes with Lady Yee and her great ship, The Silver Lotus. Ah Chu’s performance was a delight to witness. He would begin by luring in the grocery man, or the spice vendor, with some lurid and tantalizing image of his famous mistress, and then pretend he had spoken out of turn, and that his slip of the tongue should be ignored. Natural curiosity, like gravity, did most all the work. While feigning reticence at every turn, Ah Chu grudgingly and gradually gave way to inquisitive appeals, and theatrically unveiled the whole marvelous chronicle of the celebrated sea battle of Hainan Island, and the heroic leadership displayed by the incomparable and indomitable Lady Yee. Chinese tradesmen, like people everywhere, always savored scintillating, heroic tales, and this account, thanks to Ah Chu’s colorfully augmented interpretation, was pretty grand in every dimension. As might be surmised, the entertaining narrative made the rounds of the local fishing villages faster than typhoid fever strips a prison ship of inmates.

  On the other hand, Lady Yee’s maid, Li-Lee, had been encouraged to spread remarks reflecting her mistress’s all-abiding concern for the well-being of those in her employ, her credent
ialed heritage, and her broad philanthropic concerns. Lady Yee was correct in her assumption that this posture would encourage the village people to talk more freely in Li-Lee’s presence. It was only natural for working folk to seek sympathy for everyday tribulations, disappointments, and complaints, and Lady Yee told Li-Lee to lend a thoughtful and patient ear to every such conversation, and to report them accurately if the sentiments expressly merited further consideration.

  With the help of her faithful servants, Lady Yee soon compiled a fairly accurate picture of the lives led by the Chinese fishermen on the bay, as well as information about a good number of other people in Monterey. She knew what they had, what they lacked, and what they needed to make their lives more bearable. She was also aware of something else. She knew that nothing would or could be done to improve their condition without the wholehearted collaboration of the elders who directed the village tongs. These grizzled old burghers guarded their prerogatives jealously, and they maintained a traditional belief in the righteous dominance of their gender. Allowing a strange woman, albeit a wealthy and prominent woman, to direct matters for their village constituents was not a matter that would garner support, no matter how philanthropic the motive or viable the endeavor.

  Lady Yee was well aware that a very tenuous line of demarcation separated success and failure when it came to dealing with the social insecurities expressed by the poorer classes of Chinese, but this had always been so. No one, regardless of station or wealth, wished to hazard reputation and status by taking instructions from a woman, so Lady Yee chose a course by which the tong elders would find it in their best interest to cooperate. And the best way to accomplish that was by letting the tong elders believe the whole business was their idea in the first place, but stalking that elusive horse would take careful planning and very subtle execution.