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sir. It will heal. "
"You must see a doctor. Do you live around here?"
Tom answered. "We live in Chinatown. "
"Then you'll have to come with us in the car. " Long tried to protest, but the
man was already speaking to the child, his voice measured and reassuring.
"Mary, my brave girl, I need you to help me. Your mama's all wet and cold and
she needs me to carry her to the car. This nice man here hurt himself helping
Mama; can you take care of him and his boy? Do you think you can bring them to
the car for me?"
The child's pale eyes considered the situation, and then she clambered out of
her mother's sodden embrace and extended her hand to Tom. The man swung his
wife up easily, waited until Tom had got his father upright, and led the way
across the sand.
It was Tom's first ride in a motorcar, and he was torn between the softness of
the upholstery and the hisses his father let out, like a prodded kettle, every
time the car bumped and swayed. At the end of the ride, the white man pulled
into the drive of a house so grand Tom wondered if he was the mayor. He turned
off the motor and trotted around to lift his protesting wife out of her seat
and carry her to the door, which opened an instant before they reached it.
They vanished inside; a stern-looking white woman peered out of the doorway,
and appeared to be coming out until a command from within made her hesitate.
She said something, at which a voice so sharp it could be heard from the car
made her turn and retreat inside, leaving Tom, his father, and the little girl
seated in the car.
Child and boy looked at each other in the silence, self-contained blue eyes
meeting apprehensive black ones.
"What's your name?" she asked. Behind the piping lisp of youth, her voice
sounded like her mother's, some kind of accent, Tom thought.
"My name is Tom. "
"Mine's Mary. Is your papa okay?"
"He hurt his shoulder in a fall a while ago. I think he's hurt it again
helping your mother. "
The pale gaze travelled from the cradled arm to the Chinese face. "I'm sorry,
" she said.
Long had to smile at her seriousness he did not know young children well, Tom
having come to him half-grown, and the size of Western infants always confused
him, but despite her fluent speech he didn't think this one could be older
than three. "It will be fine, missy, " he reassured her.
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"Does it hurt?"
"A little, yes. "
"My papa will make it better for you, " she said, without a doubt in the
world. "Would you like to come in?"
"I think your father will have someone take us home, " Long said. He couldn't
afford any more doctors, and in any case there was little to do but strap the
shoulder and keep it still. He just wished the man would hurry; the sun had
gone and his clothes were soaked. He stifled a shiver, then grunted at the
effects the motion had on his grating bones; the child saw, and frowned.
"Are you cold?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer, stood and pulled
herself over the front seat, balancing over the seat with her feet dangling
free while she stretched down, then slid back clutching the corner of the
plaid travelling-rug the man had wrapped around his wife. Ignoring Long's
protests, she arranged it over him, tucking the thick, soft wool around his
knees in a child's imitation of adult nurturing. "There, " she said, admiring
her handiwork, and then looked up at an approaching figure.
It was the stern woman from before, come to snatch her employer's child from
the wicked Orientals. She yanked the car door open and, without sparing the
Longs a glance, pointed one finger at the ground by her
feet.
"Come out here. " Her command brooked no argument, but to Tom's astonishment,
the infant's chin came up and her eyes narrowed.
"Papa said to take care of them. "
The woman's eyes flashed and she reached over Long's Knees for the child.
"Your father didn't intend for you to sit in a dark motor with a pair of
heathen "
"Miss MacPherson!" The male voice from behind her gave the woman pause; with a
glance at the wide-eyed faces of Tom and his father, she stood back from the
car door.
"The child " was as far as she got.
"We'll be fine, Miss MacPherson. Perhaps you could go and heat some water for
the doctor, and see if Philips needs any more warm bricks for my wife's feet.
Thank you. "
The woman hesitated on the brink of insubordination, then thought the better
of it and stalked away. The blond man laid one arm across the roof of the car
and leant inside, his unruly hair falling forward onto his high brow.
"Sorry about her, " he said. "She becomes a bit mother-hennish. Let's get you
in and comfortable. The doctor will be here in a minute. "
Long tried to protest, but the man already had his hands on Long's legs to
swing them to the ground. He seemed to sense which motions would be difficult
for a man with a bad shoulder, and his supporting hand was there to help. In
moments, the man was propping his damp, sand-clotted Chinese guest on an
immense leather sofa before a fire and giving succinct orders to the servants
who appeared.
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The fire was built up and a hot drink fetched. When the doctor arrived,
although he was allowed upstairs to check on the woman first, he was soon
retrieved and told firmly to patch Long together. When the re-snapped
collarbone had been securely if excruciatingly strapped and Long's wet
clothing replaced by ridiculously long but dry substitutes, a thick soup was
brought, oddly flavoured but restorative. And at
the end of it, a car arrived to take Long and Tom home, not a taxi, but
commercial nonetheless.
"You're not to take any money from these people, " the blond man told the
driver. Then he moved to
the back window and took out a slim bill-fold.
"Sir, please, " Long protested. "I hope you are not offering me payment. "
The man hesitated, glanced briefly with his peculiar blue eyes at Tom's
heavily worn, too-small shoes, and stood uncertainly, slapping the bill-fold
against his hand. "You saved my wife's life. "
"As you would have done for mine, " Long replied firmly.
The look the two men exchanged seemed to go on a long time, and said a great
deal. Would this tall, beautifully dressed white man have thrown himself into
the waves after the wife of the short Chinese man with the much-mended
trousers? Most would not. But this one?
In the end, the man slid the bill-fold away into his breast pocket, and held
out a hand to Long.
"Thank you, " he said. And then he closed the door of the car, which
negotiated the streets from the heights to Chinatown. The driver stopped
before the greengrocer's, even getting out to hold the door for them as if
they were white, or rich. A very worried Mah bustled onto the pavement, coming
to a dead halt at the sight of the uniformed driver. The man tipped his hat to
her, got into his vehicle, and drove away before Long could search his pockets
for a tip.
The next afternoon, while Tom was off with a delivery for the grocer's and Mah
was scrubbing shirts at the laundry down the street, there came a knock at the
door of the apartment. Long, who had ached all day as if all his broken bones
had come to pieces instead of just the one, laboriously got to his feet and
answered it. The blond man filled the doorway.
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