The Masters Read online

  The confession in Yokohama had been a revelation. He had never doubted that Mama had had a past, but it was not one in which he had hitherto been particularly interested: it had been too remote from his own surroundings, his own conception of things. But to think of Mama having a lover, and a man who had become head of the family...and who was now no more! He had looked at the whole situation with different eyes. Peter and Alexei in their splendid uniforms! Aunt Jennie, statuesquely handsome! Sophie and Patricia, so beautiful and animated...even if Patricia, at the least, clearly regarded him as an inferior. He had never had much time for girls in the past; he had occupied himself with rowing and football. In Port Arthur there was too much time, there was the trouble, save for Georgei.

  He was surprised at how eager the Russian was to be friends: Georgei was exactly twice his age. He seemed to have been everywhere and done everything, at least in Russia, and now, China. “China,” he said, “is a huge, vast mystery. The oldest civilisation in the world, yet totally uncivilised, as your mother and my sister discovered. The most learned people in the world, and yet totally ignorant of everything that is important in life. With one exception.” He glanced at Duncan. “Have you ever had a Chinese woman? Of course you have not.” He frowned. “They do have Chinese in America, though.”

  “Not in Boston,” Duncan said.

  “Ah! Well, my young cousin, I can tell you that there is nothing like a Chinese woman in the world...except perhaps an Indian. But there I speak from hearsay. Chinese...would you like to sample one?”

  “Me?” Duncan was astounded. And rather scared.

  Georgei was frowning again. “You are not a virgin?”

  “Well...” Duncan flushed, and hated himself for it.

  “Good God! And you are nineteen years old? You are a Russian. Well, half Russian. And you are a Bolugayevski. You should be ashamed of yourself.-

  “It’s just that, well, there has never been time. In Boston,” Duncan added lamely.

  “Sex is something for which you must make time,” Georgei said, seriously. “We will go tonight.”

  *

  Anna frowned when she was told that Duncan was accompanying Georgei down to the port that evening. “Well,” Duncan said, cheeks pink, “I guess he wants to show me something of the night life down there.”

  “Is there a night life in Port Arthur?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out, Mom.”

  She went in search of Jennie, who smiled reassuringly. “Young men will be young men. Poor Georgei, he is a lonely fellow. Peter and Alexei, well...they have never really been friends with him. And he is too old for the girls.”

  “Why isn’t he married?” Even if the young man was, as Colin had suggested, homosexual, all Russian men married.

  Jennie sighed. “Finding a good wife for a bastard is not as easy in 1894 as it was in 1854. Then, the fact that he was a prince’s bastard would have mattered. Now...people seem to have respectability on their minds. And Georgei, well, he had a somewhat wild youth, which is well known in Moscow and Petersburg.”

  “And now he’s taking my Duncan off,” Anna remarked.

  “Oh, they’ll probably go to a gambling den and lose some money,” Jennie said.

  Anna knew that Jennie would always have a soft spot for Georgei, not only as her first-born but because, as she had said, he was somewhat apart from the rest of the family. But perhaps if the boy had had a stricter upbringing, the man might have been more attractive. “I have to ask you,” she said. “Georgei doesn’t smoke opium, does he?”

  Jennie raised her eyebrows. “Not to my knowledge.”

  Anna reflected that she would just have to rely on Duncan’s good sense — and his devotion to athletics.

  “I wish Georgei would take me into the port at night,” Patricia grumbled.

  The house was a-glitter with lanterns, which lit up the front, and illustrated the blue dragon which gave the place its name. The paying customers were invited to take part in the fun. The fun! Duncan was extremely nervous, less of what he was being encouraged to do than of his total ignorance, his fear that he was going to make an ass of himself, and his awareness that as the two white men made their way through the sidestreets of Port Arthur, everyone would know where they were going.

  Georgei was clearly well known here. He was greeted almost with affection as they were shown into a brightly lit inner room, where there was a considerable number of people. More than half were women, mostly young. Duncan was overwhelmingly aware of naked flesh in a way he had never encountered before. Wherever he looked were glimpses of naked shoulders and thighs, breasts and even nipples, half-concealed by clinging silk drapes, and everywhere too there was hair, thick and black and lacquered on the head, hardly less thick and black at the crotch. But where he could have openly stared and admired, he was embarrassed by the men, some Chinese, but more Caucasian sailors, amongst whom were a smattering of silk-hatted gentlemen. They were drinking, and laughing, and talking, and fondling the girls with the greatest freedom and apparently mutual pleasure.

  A somewhat older woman engaged Georgei in conversation, speaking Chinese. Georgei responded in kind, and Duncan’s envy of him grew. The woman laughed, and pointed in various directions. “This is Madame Pin,” Georgei explained. “She owns The Blue Dragon. She is calling some of her girls for you to look at.” The girls came forward, and amongst them, to his consternation, Duncan realised there was a boy, also diaphanously clad, at once rouged and perfumed, pretty and aroused. “Take your pick,” Georgei told him. “How many do you think you can manage?”

  “I don’t think more than one.”

  “You’d be surprised. Two can be more amusing. But suit yourself. Choose one.”

  Duncan gazed down the row of slant-eyed faces. One or two were startingly pretty. Most of the breasts were small. When he thought of the thrusting bodices displayed by Mama or Aunt Jennie...or even Patricia! But now was not the time to think of Patricia. “That one,” he said. She looked the youngest, and would therefore be the least experienced, he hoped.

  Georgei nodded, and spoke with Madame Pin, who seemed pleased. “Her name is Li-su,” Georgei said. “That is all you need to know. But she has a word or two of English. You see, most of their clients here are visiting sailors.”

  Duncan wanted to change his mind. But she was holding out her hand, and smiling, and he realised for the first time that she was heavily made up. He heard laughter as he was led down the corridor, checked to look back at Georgei, and saw, to his consternation, that Georgei was following...with the boy.

  He was led into a room by the girl, who closed the door behind them. Duncan stood still, unable to make up his mind what to do, and she sidled up to him, put her arms round him, and nuzzled his chest — she did not come up to his face. He responded by hugging her in turn, whereupon she unfastened his vest and then his belt. As he still had his coat on, he remained uncertain what to do, and let her get on with it, while sliding his hands over her flesh, which had the texture of velvet; she wore only a few strips of silk, suspended from a band round her neck and caught at her waist with a silk cord, and his fingers found it very easy to slip between. He was desperate to touch her breasts, but he didn’t know if this was allowed either, and so contented himself with fondling her buttocks. She didn’t object, being more interested in unbuttoning his flies and pulling down his pants. She gave a little giggle at the sight of his drawers, but had clearly encountered such a garment before, because she dropped it with a similar expertise. “Beeg,” she remarked.

  But a long way from being big enough, mainly because of his embarrassment, which grew as he conceived of the evening turning into the most utter disaster, with Georgei’s contempt at the end of it. But Georgei, with a boy! Did Aunt Jennie know that? And they shared a room! But Georgei had never made a pass at him.

  Li-su did not seem the least concerned at the absence of an erection. She released him, stepped away from him, and with two quick movements disposed of bo
th her waist band and her neckband, so that she was naked. “You likee?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes. Very much.” And he meant it.

  “I likee,” she agreed, and she came back to him, and eased his coat from his shoulders.

  “May I touch?” he asked. She raised her nearly non-existent eyebrows.

  “Touch.” Tentatively he stroked her breast. “Touch!” She giggled. “You touch, all over.”

  He did so, while she continued undressing him. “Muchee clothes,” she commented.

  But then he was naked and they were on the bed and she was in his arms. It was all terribly quick. It was all terribly easy, as well. Then she gently pushed him off her and sat up. “You likee?” she asked.

  He realised that it was all also somewhat disappointing. But he felt obliged to say, “Oh, yes. You likee too?”

  “I likee,” she agreed, but she immediately got off the bed and dressed herself. “I go now,” she said.

  “But...” He wanted to touch again, and reached for her.

  She looked down at him. “You pay double? You can do this?” He hadn’t thought about money before, but he didn’t reckon her second question had anything to do with money. She smiled at him, and closed the door behind herself.

  *

  “Well?” Anna asked. “Did you lose your shirt?”

  Duncan was sitting on the verandah, watching the sun rise into the September sky. Now his head jerked. “My shirt?”

  She sat beside him. “Your aunt says Georgei took you gambling, last night.”

  “Oh! Ah, yes. But I’m afraid he paid for everything. I really did feel rather guilty about it.”

  “I wouldn’t. Money means nothing to a Bolugayevski. even a bastard one.” She studied him, aware of a faint feeling of unease. “How much did you have to drink?”

  “Very little. I...I’m just tired, that’s all, Mom. For Heaven’s sake, Georgei is still in bed.”

  “Aunt Anna!” Patricia ran on to the verandah, holding her hat on her head and trailing yards of muslin behind her. “Come and see!”

  “Come and see what?”

  “It’s the Chinese fleet! You can see from the roof.”

  Anna followed her niece up the stairs to the roof verandah. Duncan went too. Jennie and Sophie were already up there, Jennie equipped with a telescope. “Aren’t they a splendid sight?” she asked, handing the glass to Anna.

  Anna focussed. The dozen ships certainly looked impressive, especially the two big ones — Anna had never seen ships as large.

  “Those are battleships,” Sophie explained. “They’re more than seven thousand tons each. The Japanese have nothing like that.”

  “Whose side are you on?” Anna demanded.

  “Well...” Sophie flushed. “The Chinese are our friends.”

  “Even when they cut people’s heads off?”

  Sophie looked at her mother, taken aback by her aunt’s sudden vehemence. “I’m sure there are faults on both sides,” Jennie said equably.

  “Listen,” Patricia whispered, standing against Duncan. “Will you take me down into the port? I want to see them close up.”

  “Well...” He glanced anxiously at the older women.

  “They wouldn’t let me go on my own,” Patricia said. “I’d be ever so grateful.”

  He looked down at her. His mind was still filled with the image of Li-su, and it was so easy to transfer that image to Patricia...save that the two women had nothing whatsoever in common. Patricia was tall, and strongly built, and startlingly fair, where Li-su had been short and dark and fragile. The thought of Patricia, naked in his arms, or just naked...he wasn’t sure white women behaved like that. He very much doubted they did in Boston. But from what Mama had told him of Russians...She was his cousin, and therefore forbidden fruit. He could still look, and imagine. “Sure, I’ll take you into town,” he said.

  They went to the stables beneath the house and began harnessing a horse in one of the traps. Rurik promptly appeared to do it for them. “Where would you like to go, Miss Patricia?”

  “Into town.”

  “Everyone will be very excited down there,” he warned.

  They could already hear the rippling explosions of firecrackers, which were now punctuated by the booms of the warships’ guns as they saluted with blank shot before bringing up. “Oh, we’re missing it,” Patricia said. “Hurry. There’s no need for you to come, Rurik. Mr Cromb will drive. You can drive?” she asked Duncan, anxiously, in English.

  “Of course I can drive,” he said, getting up to the seat and picking up the reins.

  Patricia scrambled up beside him. “There is no need to tell Mama or Aunt Anna where we’ve gone,” she said.

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Rurik said, uneasily, as the trap drove out of the yard. He turned, and gazed at Anna Cromb, standing in the shadows at the foot of the inside staircase.

  “A conspiracy?” Anna asked, softly.

  “Well, Your Excellency, you know what young people are. Even cousins can flirt.”

  Anna raised her eyebrows as she came towards him. “How old are you, Rurik?”

  “I am twenty-seven, Your Excellency.”

  “So...Igor Bondarevski was well past fifty when I left Bolugayen. That was in 1862. If you were born in 1867...”

  “I was the last of my father’s children, Your Excellency.”

  “But your mother...” As Anna recalled, Eudoxia Bondarevska had been even older than her husband. “My mother was Papa’s second wife, Your Excellency.”

  “Ah. And what did your father tell you of me, Rurik?”

  “My father died when I was two years old.”

  “Oh, Rurik!” She rested her gloved hand on his arm. “I am so very sorry.” And so very relieved, she thought. “But you grew up on Bolugayen.”

  “I grew up in the family’s service, Your Excellency, wherever it happened to be. Sometimes it was Bolugayen.”

  “I am thinking of returning to Bolugayen, for a visit,” Anna said, and squeezed his hand before releasing it. “Do you think that would be a good idea, Rurik?”

  “Your Excellency?”

  “Bolugayen holds so many memories for me.”

  “It has changed very little, Your Excellency.”

  “But what of the people?”

  “Those that remember, speak of you with the greatest affection, Your Excellency.”

  “That pleases me. Harness up another trap, Rurik. I feel like taking a ride.”

  “Into Port Arthur, Your Excellency?”

  “No,” Anna said. “I think I will picnic, in the hills. I will give instructions to cook. Be ready in an hour.”

  *

  The streets of Port Arthur were crowded with people, clustering towards the waterfront to look at the ships, shouting and cheering.

  “I wish I understood what these people are saying.”

  “They are saying that the fleet is on its way to the relief of Ping-yang. That is a Chinese fortress on the Yalu River in Korea.”

  He glanced at her, admiringly. “You speak Chinese?”

  “Well, Mandarin. Once you can speak Mandarin, you can generally understand most of the dialects, at least, here in the East. Oh, aren’t they magnificent!”

  They had arrived on the waterfront, still surrounded by jostling people, and the battleships, even if anchored off, appeared quite close to, because of their size. They were certainly the largest warships Duncan had ever seen, and he had been over USS Texas when she had paid a courtesy visit to Boston a few years previously. The two Chinese battleships, named respectively Ting Yuen and Chen Yuan, were no longer than the American, but were clearly heavier, with two funnels as opposed to one, and where the Texas had been armed with two twelve-inch guns in amidships turrets, the Chinese had four such guns, arranged in two turrets, one right forward and the other right aft. Only European navies, headed of course by the Royal Navy, had anything superior. “The Japanese don’t have a chance,” Patricia said.

  “How can a fleet
relieve a fortress on a river?” Duncan asked, deciding not to raise the matter of cutting off heads.

  “The people are saying that they’re escorting a fleet of transports to the mouth of the river,” Patricia explained. “From there the soldiers and supplies will be able to reach Ping-Yang. They think the Japanese may be intending to try to stop them, in which case there will be a battle. Oh, isn’t it exciting? I wish there were some way I could go with them.”

  “Well, thank God there isn’t,” he replied without thinking. “We wouldn’t want your lovely little head being cut off.”

  Then he realised what he had said, and looked at her with his mouth open. “Why, Duncan,” she said. “That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  “Is it really?”

  “Will you take me home, now, please?”

  Oh, Lord, he thought; I’ve offended her. He swung the trap, flicking the whip as he did so, and nearly ran into a group of Chinese women, also accumulated on the waterfront to watch the great ships. Hastily he dragged on the rein while they scattered with little shrieks, and he realised they were girls from the brothel, today very modestly if brightly dressed in street clothes; amongst them was Li-su, who waved her parasol. He pretended not to notice, got the horse back under control, and guided it towards the road leading out of town to the east. “I didn’t know you knew anyone in Port Arthur,” Patricia remarked. “You said you didn’t speak Chinese.”

  “I don’t on either count,” Duncan said, flushing.

  “But that girl knew you,” Patricia pointed out.

  “She must have been mistaken,” Duncan mumbled.

  “I’m sure she wasn’t. Duncan! She’s a tart!”

  “Eh?” They were clear of the houses now, and climbing the shallow slope above the harbour.

  “She’s one of those girls from the Blue Dragon! Where Georgei goes.”

  “How do you know where Georgei goes?”