The Daughters of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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      David felt a pressure inside his head, like the welling up of a force so determined it made his eyes blur. He held April closer. “I don’t know how, or even when, my darling,” he said, “but one day I will take you home to where you will be happy.”

      “Where we will both be happy,” she said, clinging to him. “My father will protect you, David. He is a very powerful man, a cousin to the Empress herself, and amah told me that Li Ahn, my little brother, is an heir to the throne. Oh, David, they would welcome us.” She pressed closer. “When, David? When can we leave?”

      “Soon, my darling. I will have to make arrangements, of course, and we will have to be sensible and make plans. We’ll need money, and your mother....”

      April looked up sharply, her eyes fearful. “We must never let Mother know we are even seeing each other, let alone planning to elope. I told you how much she hates your family. And you must not tell your father about us either, David. You haven’t, have you?”

      “No.” He felt cowardly. “But darn it, April, you told me that Father knew you and liked you. Surely he’d not object to our being together.”

      “He’d try and stop us, just as Mother would. There’s a feud between them. They’ll do anything to spite each other. You and I marrying is the last thing they would approve of.”

      She turned reflective. “They knew each other in China, from what I gathered. It all has something to do with a scent mother stole from the Imperial Palace, the Empress’s exclusive scent. When we were put ashore here in San Francisco, we had nothing but the clothes we were wearing, and the Empress’s perfume. So Mother went into competition with your father’s cosmetic firm. She wants to duplicate the perfume—Nightsong, she calls it—but so far none of the chemists have been successful.”

      “Your mother’s firm seems to be doing all right,” David said.

      “Empress Cosmetics is making us wealthy—but there’s something about that perfume—I don’t think it’s just the money, though mother says it will make us a fortune—I think it’s something to do with your father, with outdoing him in some way.”

      “You’re probably right about that. I heard him and mother talking the other day—or rather, shouting, as they usually do. She mentioned your mother’s products, she said all the women were raving about them, and he said she didn’t have to remind him, that he knew his P.M. Cosmetics was second rate and had little hope of being anything else but second rate. He said he had to have Nightsong.” David looked embarrassed. “I thought at the time that it was some kind of magic formula.”

      April squeezed his hand. “It is, if it can be duplicated. When we were in The Forbidden City, Mother took care of the Empress’s personal creams and scents and powders. It was forbidden for anyone but the Empress to wear them.”

      “And your mother took them?”

      April nodded. “She would have been executed if the Empress had caught her.” April’s mouth turned down. “Of course, Mother isn’t Chinese. She doesn’t understand the importance of such things. She deserves to be punished.”

      “Hush, April. You shouldn’t say such things about your mother.”

      “Why not?” April said, looking petulant. “She’s treated me horribly all of my life.” She felt a sudden stinging behind her eyes. “Because of her I was forced to stay in a terrible place where the Chinese smoked opium, and I was locked in my cabin all during the voyage from China, because of her. And when we lived with her Uncle Richard they were both so mean and cruel, always making me work and study.” She turned her eyes up to his. “I told you how she let everyone think I was her servant because she was ashamed of me.”

      “Surely she had her reasons?”

      April stamped her foot. “How dare you take her part, David MacNair!”

      She let the tears come and fought against his efforts to take her in his arms, but after a minute she collapsed against him.

      “I am not trying to excuse what your mother did to you, my darling. I am sorry if I’ve upset you. Only....”

      “Only what?” April sobbed, searching for the handkerchief in his breast pocket. “She’s selfish and mean and contemptible. All she cares about is her silly cosmetics company and men.”

      “April, don’t say that!”

      “Well, it’s true. She ran away from my father and took up with Mr. Bates, which was why they kept us away from all the other passengers on the boat. Then, when we came here, she met that rich Mr. Hanover.”

      David’s eyes widened. “Walter Hanover? The one who lives near us on Nob Hill?”

      “Yes. Mr. Hanover moved us out of my Uncle Richard’s and set Mother up financially. There was some kind of disagreement about money, I think; then my mother met your father and seduced him.”

      “April!”

      She was too angry and hurt to be stopped and she resented David’s taking her mother’s part. “It’s true,” she said again, more petulantly. She wiped her eyes and softly blew her nose. “I know because I heard your father in her room one night. He stayed with her until it was light. I stood at my window and saw him leave.” A new flood of tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, David, please take me away from here.”

      “Yes, April,” he said, recovering. “Of course I will. We’ll start making plans right away.”

      * * * *

      That night April prayed, but not to the incomprehensible god that her mother had spoken of to her, nor to the gods of China where wisdom was honored more than saintliness. No, she prayed to a woman she’d never met. She prayed to the Dowager Empress.

      “I will come back,” she promised silently. “I will remain your subject and I will return to China and to you...to my homeland.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Lydia Nightsong saw her daughter leave the house and hurry down the hill, hair swinging freely. She knew April hadn’t told the entire truth when she said she spent her afternoons with Kim Lee, the old tutor who lived over the bake shop. Lydia had run into the old Chinese one morning and had playfully admonished him for indulging her daughter with all his romantic tales of China. The old man hadn’t understood, saying he hadn’t seen April in several weeks.

      In one way Lydia was relieved that April wasn’t spending all her time with Kim Lee. The old tutor lived with too many fantasies, embroidered too many Utopian tapestries of the China he dreamed of returning to one day, a China that no longer existed. It was wrong to fill the young girl’s head with romantic pictures, clouding her eyes to the truth. The China Lydia knew was a hard, cruel place where people groveled at the feet of the rich and where killing, cruelty and torture were traditions. They were an enigmatic race who would gladly lay down their lives to give honor to a friend, and on the other hand just as willingly feed a newly born infant to the dogs if it happened to be a female child.

      She knew; she’d seen all the pagan horrors with her own eyes, horrors she tried so hard to keep from April. Now, however, Lydia thought perhaps she should not have protected the girl from all those terrors. Perhaps if April had seen what Lydia herself had seen, things would be different now and April would be more content with her life.

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