The Daughters of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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.

      Lydia could understand a little of April’s unhappiness. It was far from easy being even part Chinese in San Francisco, where oriental labor was bought for a penny and where their number and reputation made the Caucasian population uneasy, an uneasiness that grew into prejudice and distrust, ultimately to hatred. April was extremely beautiful; yet in spite of her loveliness, she could not hide the fact that she was part Chinese, and bigotry invariably trumps beauty.

      Lydia turned from the window and drew on her gloves. If April weren’t visiting old Kim Lee in the afternoons, then where was she spending her time? Her daughter, surly and resentful for so long, had actually been pleasant of late. Almost friendly, Lydia thought as she tucked the papers she’d been studying into her reticule.

      Well, she couldn’t think of April now. There was too much to be done. Empress Cosmetics was operating again. This time it was her own money that was financing it and she was making a handsome profit. For the first time in her life she was learning how it felt to be rich, to not have to worry about money. Those earlier years as a missionary’s daughter in China, hard as they had been, had been a comfort when compared to some of what she had endured since.

      “The carriage is here,” the housekeeper said, breaking into Lydia’s memories.

      “Thank you, Nellie.”

      She would be glad to be rid of her memories, Lydia told herself as she tied her light half-cape about her shoulders and started out of the salon with its lead glass windows and its perfect view of the city from atop Nob Hill.

      Outside the air was hot and damp from the previous night’s fog. A summer sky of delphinium blue hung over the harbor where Balclutha, the three-masted sailing ship, was laying at anchor after having just completed another trip around Cape Horn. When it sailed again, it would be carrying cases of her latest beauty creams en route to her new markets in the south while the new railroads carried her Empress Cosmetics to the north and east.

      A trolley clanged as the carriage started down the hill, making the horse whinny and grow skittish. The wheels sank into the trolley track grooves, making the carriage lurch sideways before correcting itself. Lydia gripped the arm rest to steady herself. She felt a familiar pang as she passed a large three storied house with tiers of leaded windows and gingerbread trim. There were several such mansions on Nob Hill but this one was particularly unwelcome to her eyes, though she found she could never keep from looking at it.

      She never wanted to see Peter MacNair again and why she’d purchased a mansion within a stone’s throw of his she did not know. Of course Nob Hill was convenient and it did represent the epitome of success and respectability, a respectability she had coveted greatly. Why should she have to feel intimidated and live elsewhere simply because the MacNairs had their mansion on Nob Hill?

      Lydia drew back in her seat