* * *

In a few days she had become part of the household. I was delighted with her. She was so gentle, so eager to please, and I was enchanted by her exotic beauty.

Jason had taken a great fancy to her. He confided to me that she was funny but nice. She called him Little Master, a term which he relished. In return he called her Lottie, and somehow the name began to be used by us all. Perhaps it was a pity; she was like a flower but Lottie seemed better for everyday use.

She was amused by it.

“Very good,” she said. “I have family name. It makes me a family.”

Her English was quaint and I was not so eager as Sylvester was to change it, for the manner in which she spoke suited her.

It was through Lottie that I began to understand something of the land in which I was living. What to me was quite extraordinary was to her quite natural, and once she had overcome her awe of me and I had broken her of the habit of bowing low every time she saw me, she began to chatter freely.

“Perhaps I never come to serve Great Lady,” she said, “but for the big Tai Pan.” I discovered that she was referring to Adam’s father.

“One day he find me in the street. I am left there. Perhaps I will die of cold for it was winter. Perhaps the wild dogs will come along and eat me. Instead comes the Tai Pan.”

“In the street. What were you doing there?”

“Little girl child.” She shook her head. “Girl child are no good. They not wanted. Boy child is treasure. He will grow up and work for his father, he will look after him in old age. Girl child…” She made a gesture of disdain and shook her head. “No good. Perhaps marry but too long to keep. So girl child is put into street. She will die of cold or starve or the dogs will have her… and if by morning none of these have happen she is swept up and put in the pit with the dead ones and buried there.”

“This is not possible.”

“Is possible,” she replied firmly. “Girl child no good. There I would die but big Tai Pan find me and he take me to Chan Cho Lan to live in her house; I have English father. Not good. Not Chinese… not English… not good.”

A pitiful story I thought, the liaison between East and West and the result was that this exquisite child had been put out into the streets to die.

I asked Sylvester if this could be true.

“Oh yes,” he replied, “it is a shameful custom. I have heard that four thousand female babies perish during a year in Peking alone. These poor innocent creatures whose only fault is to be born female are abandoned, and starving dogs and swine are let loose to devour them.”

“It’s monstrous!”

Sylvester shrugged his shoulders. “They must be judged against their times, their customs and beliefs. The poverty of these people is hard to conceive. They cannot afford to feed their girls from whom they gain little. The women of China are little more than slaves.”

“And she was really found?”

“Yes, by my brother Redmond. I remember now hearing of it. He brought the child in from the streets and found a home for her.”

“Why did he choose her amongst all the girl babies which must have been exposed on that night?”

“It was luck for Lotus Blossom that he came across her. ‘Good Joss’ she would call it. It would seem to her that the gods had some special reason for preserving her.”

Her coming into the house had had a great effect on me. So fragile, so dependent she seemed at times, at others she would assume the role of protectress. The rickshaw would take us into the center of the town and we would shop together. She would bargain with the traders while I stood by, marveling at the manner in which her gentle humility changed to shrewdness. The soft accents would become indignantly shrill as she and the salesman berated each other. I feared they would come to blows, but she assured me that it was all part of the business of buying and selling and expected.

With her, I felt completely at home in those alien streets, and because she was with me I attracted less attention than I would with someone of my own race. She would chatter away in her own tongue and then turn to me and make some acid comment such as “He very dishonest man. He ask too much. He think he get from you because you not Chinese.” Her voice would become strident, her flower-like hands would express contempt and outrage. I never ceased to find pleasure in watching her. Together we would explore the alleys known as Thieves’ Market. There would be displayed antiques of all description, among them Buddhas, some in ivory, jade, and rose quartz. They fascinated me and whenever we had an hour to spare I would want to go there. There were also vases, ornaments, and scrolls. I delighted in assessing their age. Once I bought a Buddha in rose quartz and delightedly took it back to the house for Sylvester’s inspection. I had found a bargain he assured me; and I remember now how when I told Lottie she took the figure and hugged it ecstatically to her little breast; then she knelt and took my hand and said: “I will serve you as long as I live.”

She charmed me in a hundred ways and soon I couldn’t imagine the household without her.

I gave lessons to Jason every day and Lottie came to join them. They would sit at the table and Jason would labor over his copperplate writing, his tongue peeping out from one side of his mouth as though to inspect what his hands were doing. Lottie was learning to write too and we all read together in English. I had brought books with me, some old annuals which I had had as a child and which contained colored pictures and stories with a moral.

Both of them would listen gravely to these stories and then they would read them aloud. I was very happy with them and there was no doubt that Jason was growing fond of Lottie. She had become nurse to him; they would play in the gardens together. Often I would see them from my window walking hand in hand.

I was beginning to love the little half-Chinese girl. She was very accomplished and could embroider and paint exquisitely on silk. I liked to watch the beautiful Chinese characters flow from her hand when she wrote.

“You teach me to speak better English,” she said. “I teach you Chinese.”

Sylvester was delighted at the thought of so much learning going on.

“You will find it a difficult language,” he warned me. “But if you could master even the rudiments it would be of great use to you. The original Chinese characters were simply hieroglyphics like the ancient Egyptian ones. It’s important of course that you should understand the modern language. The Sung-te is the form used in printing. It’s very beautiful as you’ve noticed.”

I smiled inwardly but affectionately. Sylvester always made me feel like a student and I had never lost my desire to shine in his eyes. It was a strange relationship for husband and wife but then ours was no ordinary marriage.

“It was an excellent plan of Adam’s to send the girl to us,” he said. “It’s good for Jason. He’ll get to understand something of the Chinese way of life and she’ll be a help in that. I’ve plans for Jason.”

I guessed what those plans were. He wanted my son to learn, from him and me, the joy of buying and selling works of art, the eternal quest for the masterpiece which never flags. And how could he better be inspired than by living here where these particular treasures might be found?

I had discovered that Sylvester was a very rich man—the house in England, this one here, the warehouses on the waterfront, the offices in London, meant that his interests stretched far and wide. Since he had been in sole control his business had extended considerably. I wondered often how much Adam’s attentions to us were due to a desire to join forces with him again.

Sylvester talked of his nephew now and then. He was undoubtedly pleased that they were friendly. I gathered that at the time his father Redmond had broken away the relationship between them had been very cool indeed. Sylvester had a high opinion of Adam, and I was sure that had things not turned out in the way they had he would very likely have made Adam his heir. He was quite obviously the favorite of the two nephews. Sylvester’s opinion of Joliffe was not very good. I imagined that he had always thought him irresponsible, but in view of what had happened he had no time for Joliffe now.

I understood the way in which Sylvester’s mind was working. He looked on Jason as his own son and wanted to make him his heir. Everything had changed since the birth of my boy. I wondered how much Adam guessed of this.

I found Adam somewhat taciturn and I had the impression that he disliked me. I was not really surprised, for if he had an inkling of what was in Sylvester’s mind he would naturally be displeased that my son might displace him and that would be very galling, especially if his own business was not flourishing.

I was growing more and more friendly with Tobias Grantham. It was a great pleasure to go down to the warehouse when Sylvester was not feeling well enough as I used to go to the London office. There I would work a while with Toby. We would have tea together sometimes in his office and once he took me to his home where I met his sister. She was a stern-faced woman several years his senior and to enter her neat little house was like being transported to Edinburgh. Her accent was more pronounced than Toby’s and she was inclined to be censorious of anything alien to the Scottish way of life, a rather uncomfortable woman, as Sylvester had said; but her devotion to her brother was obvious and I found myself liking her in spite of a rather prim and unrelenting manner.