Free The Silver Lotus by Thomas Steinbeck Page B

with Lady Yee.
    It had been the captain’s intention to gather up his wife, tell her what had transpired at the bank, and take her to see the property so she could make her own judgments. They had only two days before they were scheduled to sail west to Canton and then to the Philippines. If any business was to be accomplished at all, momentum was required.
    However, Lady Yee had already thought out several matters that pertained to buying property in California, and one of them was based on the obvious discrimination practiced against the Chinese, though
they weren’t the only minorities to feel the toe and heel of white cultural insecurity. Her awareness of the racial tensions, as well as her business instincts, inspired her to tell her husband that if she accompanied him to see the house, and it became known to the bank that he had married a Chinese, the price of the house would go up, if only to hinder a purchase by the “wrong” sorts. She told her husband to avoid an auction for the same reason. If he really thought the property a sound investment, then he should purchase it on that basis alone. She pointed out that since they were hardly going to move in at once, if ever, what the bank didn’t know was, in fact, best for everybody. Lady Yee advised her husband that if it came down to doing business on the fly, he should bypass all talk of auction, find out what the heirs wanted for the property, and pay it. Or better still, have the bank finance the property and deposit just enough money to cover the mortgage, tax, and maintenance for at least five years. If the captain later changed his mind, so be it. If the property was all Mr. Hodges said it was, they could always sell it on. But if they decided to keep the property, by then it would be far too late for anyone to muster financial interference, or even voice prejudiced objections that would matter to anyone.
    Lady Yee reminded her husband that for most narrow-minded people the world over, there was nothing like the impressive plumage of a healthy fortune to soften most bigoted sentiments or objections. Americans, no less than any other breed, were always willing to amend their prejudices in the presence of great wealth. Even among cultured Chinese, great fortune denoted power because the first could only be acquired through the skilled application of the second. But for the present, Lady Yee demurred from the idea of giving people more information than they needed.
    By eleven-thirty the next morning, Captain Hammond walked out of the bank as the new owner of a fifteen-acre property overlooking Monterey Bay. He smiled to himself as he pocketed the keys and went
back to gather up Lady Yee. For sound reasons of her own, Lady Yee later accompanied her husband to see the house dressed as her own maid. She said that as a servant, people would look right through her without making any assumptions whatsoever, and she was right.
    Lady Yee was very taken with the house, the property, and especially the extensive walled gardens and the orchard. Except for occasional visits by the heirs, the house had been essentially empty for eight years, and though he’d purchased the house partially furnished, almost no maintenance had been done to the property. Lady Yee saw at once that the gardens and orchards needed immediate attention, and the house itself a thorough cleaning and care. A new coat of paint all around would brighten things considerably as well.
    Captain Hammond agreed, and after some judicial inquiries at Watson Hay & Feed, he hired a highly recommended Japanese nurseryman to set the orchards and gardens in order. Through the helpful offices of the bank, he found a contractor who would see to all repairs and repaint the house, barn, and outbuildings, and a bank representative would pass on all the work before payment was made. They were happy to do so, as Captain Hammond was now their fourth-largest single depositor, and they were certainly aware