Beginning of a story

I thought I might share the occasional story I've written. This is not as easy as it sounds as I try to write personalized stories, and even if there is nothing particularly explicit in them, they still have (to me at least) a sense of intimacy I usually would rather not betray. However, this one, which I wrote a few years ago, was near the beginning of an online correspondence. I didn't know the person behind the character very well, so there is a lot less to betray. I changed the name of the character in this version.

The story below is set in the Far East of 1934. It's written, like many of the personalized stories I write, in the second person, and from the perspective of the heroine. I like this story as it gives some idea of the fairly extensive research some of my stories can require. I hope you enjoy it as I roll out subsequent chapters.

Emma Davies and the Great Race

Chapter 1 - Hong Kong

The great horn of the luxury liner Orient bellows as the steamship docks in the rugged harbour of Hong Kong . You take a last look at the decks and halls of the cruise ship, decorated lavishly in the streamlined, art deco style, full of long-lined elegance. The Orient has been your home for two weeks as you sailed to meet your uncle here in Hong King, half-way around the world from England .

You are dressed in the latest styles of the New Year, 1934. For the first time since the stock market crash, fashion is losing its droopy, wilted look. Your new dress is cut to mid shins, matched with a fitted jacket with shoulder pads. Over it was a long dark red coat – appropriate for chilly winter in England , but heavy for the delightfully cool and dry weather of Hong Kong this time of year. Your shoes are heeled lace ups, a little too much like those of a governess for your tastes but good for walking in the hilly streets of the colony. Your long black hair is swept up under a white wide-brow hat that sweeps seductively over one eye. Dressed so impeccably fashionably, you turn approving heads as you walk by admiring fellow travellers.

You have been invited by your uncle, dear, fabulously wealthy Uncle Ned, who has no children of his own and so has always said he would make you his heiress. No doubt he has invited you to his home overlooking this exotic city to formalize these arrangements.

You are delighted to be on such a grand adventure. In fact you love adventures -- with Uncle Ned’s encouragement, and despite your parents’ dismay, you took up flying lessons, and are now a qualified pilot. You have already flown across the Channel – although that was with an instructor!

You wonder what Uncle Ned will look like – you haven’t seen him in years! You are one of the first off the boat, porters carrying your trunks down the gangway. Immediately you are assaulted by the sounds, crowds, and smells of Hong Kong . Everybody seems to be in a frenzy of activity: stevedores unloading the ship; fishermen with wide conical hats jumping on and off junks with the catch of the day; vendors selling everything imaginable from spices to livestock – and all cheek by jowl, jostling like a bees’ nest in the bustling, bruising daily life of Hong Kong.

You wonder how you are going to get to your uncle – you don’t read Chinese, the port is packed with people, and there is no observable organization to anything! Just before you start to worry, a smiling, beefy English face comes up to greet you. Doffing his bowler ever so crisply, the tall, rotund man says, “Miss Emma Davies, I hope? Your uncle Edward sent me to meet your ship. My name is Carruthers.”

Yes, you look just like a Carruthers, you think with an inward smile. But right now a friendly face in this bedlam of commerce is exactly what you’d like to see. “Pleasure to meet you, Carruthers.”
“The pleasure is all mine. Your uncle has provided you with lodging at the Mandarin Hotel – the finest in Hong Kong . But first I’m to take you to your uncle’s offices, Miss Davies.”

“Very well,” you say. “Is Uncle Ned there?”

“No, Miss. He is away. But all will be explained in his offices, I assure you. No need to worry. Please direct me to your bags.”

You indicate the two trunks full of clothes. Carruthers orders the porters to load them onto a rickshaw, then helps you in. You and he ride up the winding, chaotic streets of Hong Kong, with its slanting overhanging roofs and narrow alleyways zigzagging every which way. More jostling, fruit sellers by stalls that barely seem to avoid sliding downhill; small groups of workers cooking lunch in the street – all these foreign sights and pungent smells of coriander and ginger fill your senses. Occasionally children stop and gawk at you, so obviously foreign to them.

As you ascend the hill, the pandemonium subsides like a receding tide; the buildings get bigger, more imposing, more….colonial, in a word. Your rickshaw stops at one of them, and indeed you recognize it as your uncle’s office building from pictures he has shown you. It is a regal stone edifice from the 1890s, with a wrought iron gate sealing off a small garden which separates the front door from the street.

A valet, dressed in morning suit with tails and gloves, approaches the rickshaw, and helps you out. Carruthers instructs the driver to take your luggage to the hotel. You walk with the valet in front and Carruthers behind you, into the building.

Inside, marble floors and alabaster moldings dominate an opulent reception hall. Wide corridors extend left and right, and a majestic curved staircase leads up to the next floor. You have hardly lived poorly yourself, but this office seems more like a palace than a place of work! Uncle Ned has done very well for himself.

A tall thin, impeccably dressed man with a thin mustache greets you in the entry hall. “Ah, Miss Davies – may I call you Emma? I feel I know you after all the many times your uncle has talked about you. Allow me to introduce myself – Clive Osgoode, your uncle’s solicitor. Please, come with me to your uncle’s chambers – there is no need for alarm, all will be explained there.”

Osgoode extends his thin, bony hand to the heavy mahogany doors of the study. You enter a mahogany paneled library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with tomes. Osgoode offers you a seat in a large leather chair opposite a wide desk. You note with some distaste that Osgoode himself sits behind the desk – you feel only your Uncle Ned should sit there.

“Now, Emma,” Osgoode begins, “My employer, Edward Nesbitt, has instructed me to tell you that he is prepared to name you his sole heiress to his vast fortune. But he needs to make sure that you are capable of such a responsibility. He has therefore set up a sporting challenge for you – one that he hopes will be an enjoyable adventure for you. Completion of this challenge will entitle you to inherit his estate.”

You swallow hard. Uncle Ned was a bit eccentric – this kind of idea was not at all beyond him. But you want to know more about what he has in mind. “Excuse me, Mr Osgoode, but could you tell me where Uncle Ned is? And what his challenge is supposed to be?”

“Why certainly,” Osgoode says cheerily. “First, you will find your uncle at the end of this challenge. He intends to send you on a treasure hunt. You will have to figure out several clues along the way to reach the next destination. You are to be given all the resources you need – clothes, money….and, as you are an aviatrix, a beautiful brand new De Havilland DH82 Tiger Moth – a state of the art biplane which is waiting for you at the airfield!”

Your breath is almost taken away! You don’t know how to react, it’s all so sudden!

Osgoode senses your hesitation. “Don’t worry my dear, your Uncle Ned is not sending you into any danger. He has people to keep an eye on you every step of the way, as I am here to guide you while you are in Hong Kong . No, he simply wants to see how resourceful you are as proof that you are fit to run his many business concerns after he departs from this earth.”

Well, you think, that doesn’t sound quite so risky. “All right, what do I do next?” you ask.

“I have a document for you to sign, acknowledging Mr Nesbitt’s challenge.” He shows you a document on the table. You read it; it merely says you accept the challenge wherever it leads you. You sign it with an elegantly thin fountain pen.

“Very good,” says Osgoode. “Now, your first clue is waiting at your hotel room.” Osgoode smiles weakly.

“Then I shall go there presently!” you say jauntily, beginning to warm up to this adventure!

“The valet will show you out,” Osgoode concludes. “Good day, and a pleasure meeting you, Emma.”

You are led out to the waiting rickshaw. Osgoode watches your departure through a front window. The valet returns to the house and asks the lawyer, “So, we are just going to let her go?”

“No,” says Osgoode. “I am going to let her check into the hotel. You see? We have her signature that she was here, then the hotel check-in will show that we delivered her safely to the Mandarin Hotel, after which, she passed out of our care and knowledge. But of course,” Osgood takes out a pocket watch as if thinking of a timetable, “shortly thereafter she shall disappear….forever!”

Part 2
You ride in the rickshaw, unaware of Osgoode‘s foul plot against you, but arrive in high spirits at the Mandarin Hotel. Dozens of Chinese porters and staff bustle around the enormous lobby as the Western managers look after the guests. You stride up to the registration desk and announce yourself. An elderly Englishman smiles from behind the desk. “Ah, Miss Davies, we have been expecting you. Your uncle must be very fond of you, for he has reserved the Pearl Suite for you. Shall I have your luggage taken there?”

“Please.” You look around – the hotel lobby is a swirl of white alabaster balustrades, huge ferms and palms in potted in marble urns, and a huge window on one side that looks out over the bay. It’s well into the afternoon already. You think you might like to freshen up in your room before dinner..

The receptionist holds the room key out for you. “You’ll find the Pearl Suite quite secluded and relaxing.” He motions for one of the Chinese porters to escort you to your room. You wave him off, indicating you are content to find your room yourself.

“Very well,” the receptionist says. “You can take the centre elevator to the top floor; turn left once out of the elevator and walk straight to the end of the hall.”

“Thank you,” you say with a demure smile, then walk toward the gilt-decorated elevators. The wide, modern elevators carry you softly up to the 10th floor of the hotel. The doors open, and a sign says “Pearl Suite” with an arrow to the left. You walk down the carpeted hallway, the corridor silent, but opulent. You finally get to the Suite, insert your key, and open the door.

An enormous suite lies behind the door. Your trunks have already been brought up and have been placed on stands at the far side of the room. You walk down a small hallway into the sitting room of the suite, mesmerized by the splendid view you have from the window – a window that opens up to a small breakfast balcony. Next to the sittogn room, off to the right, is a beautiful bedroom piled high with pillows and linens.

You are so entranced by your suite that you do not notice at first that there are two figures in the sitting room to the left, around the corner from the hallway you have just come through.

“Miss Emma Davies?” asks one in a thick Cantonese accent. You are startled at first, but then you relax. They are two Chinese bellboys, in red jackets braided with gold, black pants and pillbox caps – like something out of a Chinese version of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

“Yes?” you respond. Maybe they are waiting for a tip. Ah, some conventions are universal, you think to yourself. You open your purse to give them something.

“No, no, Miss Emma. We do not want for your money!” says one bellboy, approaching you and smiling while he waves a white-gloved hand in a gesture of refusal.

“Ah, yes, well, then, what do you want?” you ask.

“You,” says the bellboy as his cohort rushes toward you and clamps a heavy white cloth over your nose and mouth.

“What? What is the meaning of thi…mmppphhfff!” you exclaim as the second, taller bellboy grabs you and holds the cloth over your face. Ughh! The cloth is wet, and it smells sickly sweet. You struggle, kicking wildly to get free, but both bellboys and holding you fast, as you breathe in the noxious fumes from the cloth. You start to feel funny, disoriented, weak.

“Don’t fight or it will be worse for you,” says the smaller bellboy as he holds you and keeps you from fighting off the one holding the cloth over you.

“Mmpphhfff!” is all you can exclaim as they hold you. You become confused, dazed; you start to feel sleepy.

“She is weakening!” says the smaller bellboy, who lets go of you. You are now so weak and dazed that you can’t fight off even the one still holding you. You eyes can barely focus but you see the small bellboy pulling some ropes out of his jacket pocket.

“No!” you want to say, but are too intoxicated by the fumes to say or do anything. You think, this must be what chloroform smells li…..

You pass out before you can complete the thought, slumping into the arms of your two kidnappers.