Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, scene 4

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1602:

Below is the fourth scene of the short story Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, which I am putting in this newsletter for free, every Tuesday and Thursday. However, if you want to read my earlier post on why I wrote this story, go HERE.

But first, a brief check-in: After several days wrestling with different compression bandages for my elbow, all failing to maintain consistent pressure without just pushing the fluid somewhere else on my arm, a compression sleeve I had ordered came. It goes from my wrist to my upper arm, isn’t too uncomfortable, and now to see if will finally help bring down the swelling. Otherwise, several calls yesterday, a good deal of cleaning off and on, and a semi-successful attempt at ignoring the news, which is making me heart-sick. I also started doing my newspaper research. Today, I have no phone calls scheduled, and I hope to get to the newspaper work.

Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong: A Victorian San Francisco Story
by M. Louisa Locke
Copyright 2014

Scene 4

“Mr. Wong,” Annie turned on the wooden bench so she could see her companion’s face. “I hope you aren’t offended by Miss Greenstock’s request that we wait here in the chapel while she consults her mother. They seem to be very conscious of protecting their charges’ safety. And, when you think about it, they really don’t know me all that well.”

Wong nodded slightly, then looked down at his hands, which lay folded in his lap.

Annie rushed on. “As I explained earlier, one of my clients, one of the few who knows me as myself––I mean not as Madam Sibyl––recommended me. My client serves on the Ladies Protection and Relief Society with Mrs. Greenstock and suggested they consult with me on some financial matters. I don’t really know that much about the Refuge personally, and I can imagine that you might feel their mission work is, at the very best, misguided. I am sorry....”

Annie heard how defensive she sounded and stopped speaking. Until today she hadn’t thought about how someone like Mr. Wong would feel about outsiders like the Greenstocks determining what was best for young Chinese women. How he might feel about their efforts to convert them.

He hadn’t said a word more about the mistake he believed the women running the Refuge had made, although the pace he set on their trip to the Chinese Mission demonstrated how urgent he felt their errand to be. She’d thought his silence was based on a prudent desire to avoid any unwanted attention while they were together in public. The agitation against the Chinese might not be at the fever pitch it was three years ago, but a Chinese man seen speaking to a woman such as herself could be attacked without cause. But what if he was simply too polite to say what he thought of the good women of the Chinese Mission.

Annie sighed. She’d spent a good portion of the past seven or so years railing, at least in private, against the treatment she encountered as a woman––dismissed and devalued by her husband, dependent on her in-laws, forced to pretend she got her business expertise through clairvoyance. Yet, compared to Mr. Wong––or those poor women in the Refuge––her life had been one of privilege.

“Please, Mrs. Fuller. There is no reason for you to apologize.” Wong said quietly and then turned to look out of one the windows as he continued. “What I feel is sadness and shame. Sadness that my nation is so poor that families must sell their precious daughters in order that their remaining children will survive. Shame that these young women cannot get the protection they deserve from their own people here in America. Who among us can judge what poverty will do to honor? Who among us must not judge when greed is the cause of others’ dishonor?”

The uncharacteristic anger in Wong’s last statement startled Annie, and she wondered if it came from personal experience. She really knew very little about him besides the fact he had worked as a servant for the same family since the early eighteen-fifties. She didn’t know how young he had been when he came over or what his life had been like in China. His movements and his stamina at work suggested a man in his middle years, but the number of white strands threaded throughout his long braided queue and the network of delicate creases on the backs of his hands proclaimed his greater age.

“Miss Greenstock mentioned that many of the women in the Refuge had been rescued by young men from China who wished eventually to marry them,” she said. “It must be hard for a man, so far away from home, with so few marriage possibilities. May I ask, were you ever married, Mr. Wong?”

Wong turned and looked steadily at her, causing her a momentary qualm. I shouldn’t have asked him so personal a question.

Then he gave her one of his rare smiles and said, “Ah, Mrs. Fuller, might the question of marriage be of particular interest to you right now? I believe that I overheard that you had recently become engaged to Mr. Dawson.”

Annie blushed and smiled back.

Wong’s smile then vanished, and he said, “Yes, I was once married. A young woman of the Hakka, my father’s people. My mother’s people, the Punti, were not pleased. She died in childbirth, as did the child.”

“Oh, Mr. Wong, I am so sorry.” The sharp pain of her own losses always resurfaced with any glimpse at another’s grief.

“Well...more than thirty years have passed. I left soon after to take up another life here, met Master Voss, and in time his family became mine.”

Annie wondered if that meant he had adopted his master’s religion as well. If so, he might not be averse to the religious goals of the Chinese Mission. She knew Matthew Voss had been a long-time member of the First Presbyterian Church in the city. Yet, when she worked in the Voss household as the parlor maid, it was Wong who was expected to work all of Sunday while the other servants got time off to attend to their respective spiritual needs.

Her own religious upbringing had been ecumenical at best. As a young girl, her life on the ranch outside of Los Angeles meant that Sunday religious observance consisted of reading out loud to her invalid mother, whose Unitarian beliefs meant she was as likely to be reading Thoreau’s essay on Walden Pond as the Bible. Annie did attend a mass with the wife of one of the Mexican ranch hands, and she had fond memories of when their Chinese cook, Choy, let her light the incense sticks he put in front of a miniature statue he had in his room off the kitchen. She’d thought he said the man with long flowing mustaches was confused, but later she realized Choy said it was a statue of Confucius.

Once Annie moved to New York after her mother’s death, Sundays were spent with her father, reading through the weekly and daily newspapers as he instructed her to look for clues to determine what the stock markets would do on Monday. During her ill-fated marriage and the years after her husband’s death when she was forced to live with whichever branch of his family needed her unpaid labor the most, her in-laws expected her to join them at Henry Ward Beecher’s fashionable Brooklyn Presbyterian church. In 1874, when the notorious women’s rights advocate, Victoria Woodhull, accused Beecher of committing adultery with a member of the congregation, Annie hadn’t been surprised when her in-laws firmly sided with Beecher. She was used to them professing a devotion to Christian principles they never put into practice. Coming full circle, she now found some comfort, when she had the time, in attending the San Francisco Unitarian Society just four blocks away on the 100 block of Geary. She appreciated the fact that the members of this congregation didn’t seem particularly interested in converting anyone, certainly not the Chinese here or abroad.

A sound interrupted these thoughts, and Annie saw that Miss Greenstock and her mother stood just inside the door, along with the older Chinese man that Annie recognized as Chan Ho Fan, the Mission staff member. He was holding onto the little girl’s hand. She wasn’t crying this afternoon, but her drooping head, with wisps of black hair escaping from her embroidered cap, and her eyes, dull and red-rimmed, painted a picture of despair. Annie noted she was still wearing the top with the dragon and bird entwined.

Beside her, Wong, who had stood up, said under his breath, “As I suspected, long feng boa.”

Before she could ask what he meant, Wong put his clasped hands up to his forehead and bowed. He said a few words to Chan Ho Fan, in what Annie assumed was a Cantonese dialect, since this man kept nodding. Wong then turned to the Greenstocks and said, “Please, may I approach and speak with the little Miss?”

Mrs. Greenstock said, “Mr. Wong, I have been assured that you are a member of the Hakka clan and a respected member of the Yan Wo Society, so I will permit this. However, do try not to upset her further. She is beyond exhaustion, and we fear for her wellbeing if we cannot get her to eat or sleep.”

Wong moved slowly forward and then stopped a few feet away from the little girl and began to speak quietly in a language that neither Annie nor, from the puzzled looks on their faces, the Greenstocks recognized. But the effect of his words on the little girl was little short of miraculous. Her head went up, her eyes brightened, and she uttered a little cry and went running into Wong’s waiting arms, where she buried her head into his shoulder. For several minutes he stood, holding her tightly as he asked questions and listened intently to her whispered answers.

He then looked at the Greenstocks and said, “She is Mei. She is seven and her parents are recently deceased. She was traveling with her grandfather, Li Wing Chung, a prominent Hakka merchant who died mid-way in the crossing. He wrote several months ago to the leaders of the Yan Wo Society asking about opportunities for the Hakka in San Francisco. I was told of the letter because I was related by marriage to the Li clan. I was told Mei’s grandfather had gotten into some difficulties, sided with the wrong faction in the ongoing struggles between the Punti people and the Hakka in Guangdong, and was looking to emigrate. Unfortunately, I don’t believe there are any direct relatives from Li clan here in San Francisco to claim Mei.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Greenstock said. “That is unfortunate. Under such circumstances, the U.S. Customs usually sends the individual back to China. I can’t imagine she would survive the passage. And so young! How could we determine if there are any family members back in China to take care of her? But with your help, maybe we can get her to settle down with us, at least until we know what is best to do for her.”

As she spoke, Mrs. Greenstock moved towards Wong, her arms outstretched to take Mei back from him. Mei cried out and wrapped her arms and legs tightly around Wong, clinging desperately to him and sobbing. Mrs. Greenstock stepped hurriedly back.

Wong whispered to the little girl and patted her back, but she just continued to cry. Finally, he said something sharp, and she reared her head back in what Annie thought was shock. Wong said a few more stern words, and Mei stopped crying and nodded reluctantly. He leaned over and placed her gently on the ground and pointed to the Greenstocks. Mei moved slowly towards them, looking back to Wong, who nodded encouragingly.

“Please Madam,” Wong then said, looking at Mrs. Greenstock “If Mr. Chan will take a note from me to my housekeeper, who is also Hakka, she will come immediately to stay with Mei until needed.”

“Mr. Wong, that would be most appreciated. I do understand that you must return to your....”

“No, you misunderstand me. There is simply no time to be wasted. As I suspected from Mrs. Fuller’s description of the dragon and phoenix embroidered on Mei’s jacket, she wasn’t traveling alone with her grandfather. She is long feng boa—a blessed twin. When your Reverend Jensen took her off of the ship, he separated her for the first time in her life from her twin brother, Song. And I fear since the captain did not stop this and no one from the Hakka community has come for Mei that this may mean that Song has fallen into the hands of one of the enemies of the Hakka. I must find him immediately and reunite these two, or I fear for both of their lives.”

…to be continued.

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