Lies and Weddings(118)
*4 The legendary boarding school in Scotland much beloved by Prince Philip and much detested by his son King Charles III, who was made to go on shirtless runs (no matter the weather) and take ice-cold showers every morning, and where his classmates eagerly boasted of kicking him in the testicles at every opportunity during rugby practice.
XVII
Mount Nicholson Road
THE PEAK, HONG KONG ? LATER THAT DAY
The elegant verandah of the art deco–style bungalow situated on what was arguably the most expensive residential street on the planet boasted three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views all the way from Victoria Peak to Deep Water Bay and the outlying islands of the South China Sea. Rosina was enjoying the glorious view with her morning yu juk[*1] and reading the gossip column in The Post when she came across this item:
Martha Dung will unveil her newly restored Venetian palace for the wedding of Lady Beatrice Gresham and Whitney Payne Cabot V, a descendant of the illustrious Boston clan. Lady Beatrice is the Eurasian daughter of Count Rufus Gresham[*2] and Hong Kong–born Countess Arabella Gresham. The countess is the sister of Peter Leung. Lady Beatrice’s sister, Lady Augusta, recently married Prince Maximillian of Liechtenburg, and her brother, Viscount St. Abs, is rumored to be engaged to none other than Martha herself. No doubt many highborn families from Asia, Europe, and North America will be in attendance.
Rosina immediately picked up her phone and dialed Arabella’s number. The call went straight to voicemail, so she left a message:
“Arabella! My goodness, I go on safari for two weeks and look what happens![*3] Bea’s getting married! And Rufus engaged to Martha! You must be on cloud nine!”
Twenty seconds later, her phone rang—it was Arabella on the line, sounding like she had a stuffy nose. “I’m screening my calls.”
“I figured. Where’s our invitation to the wedding in Venice? Peter will be very hurt if he doesn’t get an invitation even though he is far too busy to attend.”
“There are no invitations—at least, not from me. I’m not going to any wedding.”
“And why not?”
“My daughter is dead to me. My useless husband, my useless son, my other useless daughter, they are all rotting corpses as far as I’m concerned.”
Rosina rolled her eyes. “Hiyah! What happened? Isn’t Rufus getting engaged to Martha? That’s what The Post is reporting.”
“For once I wish the gossip in The Post were true. No, the boy that was once my son is too stupid to get engaged to Martha. He has been ensorcelled by that witch Eden Tong.”
“Eden Tong! There’s something about that girl that has always bothered me. I’ve never quite put my finger on it…”
“She’s a scheming little ghat jat.[*4] She is the architect of our destruction. Twelve generations of Greshams have lived at Greshamsbury Hall, and all of it is to be lost now because of this cursed girl. Sum toong, ah!”
“At least Bea’s going to be marrying into American royalty…”
“What are you talking about? Bea’s marrying a ghastly charlatan ten times her age only because she’s pregnant with his child!”
“My god!” Rosina gasped.
“My god is right! I tried to convince Rufus and Francis to defend her honor, but they ignored me and took off for Venice to celebrate this tragic union. Francis has treated me terribly; you won’t believe the horrid things he said to me. You know what I’ve realized? I am the victim of racism within my own family! I don’t have a drop of British blood, but the rest of them all do, which is why they’ve ganged up on me like this,” Arabella cried.
“You poor thing,” Rosina sighed supportively as she googled “Whitney Payne Cabot V” on her phone. Some pictures from a family wedding in Nantucket immediately popped up. “Oh wait, she’s marrying that long-winded shaman from Augie’s wedding? The one with the iridescent turbans and the beard?”
“That’s the one. I think he must have lice in that beard.”
“He may have lice, but at least he is a Cabot!”
“What’s that?”
“Hiyah, don’t you know? The Cabots are an old-guard family from Boston! Haven’t you heard the saying ‘Where Lowells speak only to Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God’? The Kennedys, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers—they’re all peasants compared to the Cabots.”
“Are you sure? Is the family so old that they’ve lost all their money? He behaves like he’s penniless.”
“Arabella, he’s a WASP. They all behave like they’re penniless. They’re exactly like all the frightfully grand Brits that you know.”
“Grand or not, Bea’s about to disgrace herself. She’s going to be bulging obscenely in whatever wedding gown she wears, and that ginger guru will be dressed up like a Bollywood clown. I can’t be there to witness it, I just can’t, I will never stop vomiting with shame. Hiyah, kids today have no shame. In our day, who could have imagined being visibly pregnant when you got married? It was unheard of! It’s still considered shameful in Asia, am I right, or am I old-fashioned?”
“Of course it is. My boys might have gotten a few of their girlfriends and mistresses pregnant here and there, but those are mistresses, never the wives. I remember when my dear friend Mary Gao got pregnant, it was so unfortunate. She desperately wanted to keep the baby and we all had to gang up on her and convince her that it would ruin her life! Imagine trying to be an unwed mother in Hong Kong! She would have been finished, no one good would have married her. And she had to marry money! Her family was respectable but not very rich, and her only asset was her beauty. She was a former Miss Hong Kong, you know?”