The House of a Thousand Lanterns

I

I tried to keep the bargain. Joliffe did not write again. Often I walked in the forest and my footsteps invariably took me to that ruin where we had sheltered and first met. I used to hope that I would find him there, that I would hear his voice calling me. If he had come to me I am sure I should have forgotten everything but my love for him. I looked for letters every day; when I was near the station if a train came in I would watch the people coming out hoping that one of them would be Joliffe.

But he did not come or write. I wondered what was happening in Kensington and if Bella was with him. At one moment I upbraided him to myself. He had not come because his uncle had threatened to disinherit him if he did. At another I feared that he would return and that I would throw all convention aside and go to him.

I worked hard. I studied books and the objects of art which were brought to the showroom. I learned as quickly as I could. I looked for and won Mr. Sylvester’s approval. I thought: He is right. This is the crutch on which I can lean until I grow stronger.

He entertained more often than before and our guests were not all those concerned in his profession. He had become more neighborly and he visited and was visited by people who lived round about. Our immediate neighbor was Squire Merrit who owned a large estate. He was a great favorite of Mrs. Couch’s for he was a good trencherman and never failed to show his appreciation of her dishes. During the season he would send a brace or two of pheasants over to her by one of his servants and he used to say that no one could cook a pheasant as she could and he hoped he’d be invited to share these.

Mrs. Couch would purr and murmur as she rocked back and forth in her chair and said that it was like the old days when gentlemen were gentlemen. She much preferred him to some of the men and women who came to talk about Art. I didn’t agree, although Squire Merrit was a jolly enough man. I found much more gratification when I was asked to attend a dinner party—as I often was—and could join intelligently in the conversation. Sometimes out walking I would catch a glimpse of the beautiful birds in Squire Merrit’s woods and I was sorry to think that they were being carefully nurtured only to be shot.

When the season started, we often heard the sound of guns. I would be glad when it was over. Mrs. Couch, however, rocked back and forth and expounded on the ways of cooking pheasant.

She had done a great deal to help me since I had been back. Her affection was warm and genuine. She would shake her head often over “that Mr. Joliffe.” But I could see that she was fond of him and she did not adopt that censorious attitude towards him which Mr. Sylvester did, and I liked her for it.

She had always been interested in what was in the future and often at tea she would make us all turn our cups upside down and then she would read the future in the leaves. Sometimes she used the cards as well and would lay them out on the kitchen table and clucking over the spades and hearts.

Dear Mrs. Couch, she had been fond of my mother and had taken on herself the duty to look after me as best she could.

I began to feel that in spite of my dire misfortune I was lucky in having such a household to return to where I might lick my wounds and prepare myself for whatever was to come.

It was a weekend. Squire Merrit was entertaining a shooting party to which Mr. Sylvester had been invited but he had declined the invitation. He confided to me that he preferred to see the picture of a beautiful bird on a vase or a scroll rather than lying dead on the grass for a dog to retrieve.

I was in the kitchen with Mrs. Couch and we were discussing the next day’s dinner as friends of Mr. Sylvester were expected.

“If it’s that Mr. Lavers,” Mrs. Couch was saying, “he’s fond of a good roast. Nothing fancy mind. He likes his food plain. A good bit of roast ribs of beef would suit him I reckon and I’ll make some of my own horse radish. I’ll have to give that Amy a talking to. She’s getting that absent-minded. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear she was expecting…”

Amy had married the gardener and Mr. Jeffers now had his eyes on one of the village girls. “He’s got the wandering eye, if you ask me,” said Mrs. Couch, “and wandering eyes never rest long in one place.” She glanced out of the window. “My patience me! What’s this?”

Her red face was a shade paler and her chins shook a little as her mouth dropped open.

I sprang up and looked through the window.

Two of the gardeners were carrying what looked like an improvised stretcher and on it was Mr. Sylvester Milner.

It was a silent house. It seemed as though fate was determined to deal one blow after another. Life was becoming like a nightmare. It seemed as though everywhere the life I had known was slipping away from me.

They had carried Mr. Sylvester in and the doctor had come immediately. He had said that an operation would have to be performed without delay and they had taken him away.

There was nothing we could do but sit around and talk. All we did know was that a bullet had lodged in his spine and would have to be removed.

Mrs. Couch made pot after pot of tea in the big brown kitchen earthenware teapot and we all assembled at the big table and talked of what had happened. Amy, protuberant enough under her apron to confirm Mrs. Couch’s conjectures, was the center of attraction for once because Jacob, her husband, had been one of those who had helped carry the stretcher into the house.

“There was all this shooting going on,” she said, “so nobody noticed. How long he’d been lying there is anybody’s guess. The shooting started after their lunch and it was four when he was found. Could have been half an hour or more. One of the guns, they say it was, don’t they, Jake?”

Jacob nodded. “One of the guns,” he repeated.

“You could have knocked Jake down with a feather couldn’t you, Jake?”

Jacob said: “Yes, you could have.”

“There he was coming back with some of the weed killer he was getting for the weeds.”

“The weeds is something shocking,” said Jacob, and looked embarrassed to have contributed to the conversation.

“When he suddenly stumbles and there’s Mr. Milner lying there… bleeding, wasn’t he, Jake?”

“Something shocking,” Jacob confirmed.

“So he gave the alarm and then they made this stretcher and brought him in.”

Mrs. Couch stirred resolutely. “I don’t know,” she said, “it’s like fate. Death don’t walk single. Death begets death, like they say in the Bible. When I was pulling the blinds down for poor dear Mrs. Lindsay I said to myself: ‘And who’ll be the next?’”

“Mr. Milner isn’t dead,” I reminded her.

“As near to it as makes no odds,” said Mrs. Couch. “There’s change coming in this house. I’ve felt it in my bones these last weeks, I wonder who the next owner will be, and who they’ll want to keep. Might be more like a house should be. There’s that about it. But Mr. Milner, he was a kind man in his way.”

I cried out: “Please don’t talk of him as though he’s dead. He’s not.”

“Yet,” added Mrs. Couch prophetically.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I turned and ran out of the room. As I did so I heard Mrs. Couch say: “Poor Jane. It’s her mother going off like that. Enough to upset any of us.”

Mr. Sylvester did not die. The operation was a success in that his life was saved, but he would not recover the full use of his limbs and was semi-paralyzed. The doctors called it a miracle as they had performed the tricky operation of removing a bullet from his spine. This was proved to have been fired from a gun which had come from Squire Merrit’s gun room though it was uncertain which member of the party had fired the actual shot. The obvious explanation was that Mr. Sylvester had ventured too near the shooting party and a shot intended for one of the birds had accidentally caught him.

Three weeks after the accident he was recovered enough to receive visitors and I went to see him.

He looked smaller and younger, I thought, without his smoking cap; his light brown hair was plentiful and only faintly touched with grey.

He was very pleased to see me.

“Well, Jane,” he said, “this will put an end to my wanderings for a while.”

“It may not be so.”

“They have explained to me rather fully what has happened. I have to be prepared for the existence of a semi-invalid.”

“Even if that were so you have many interests.”

“There you are right. I can still buy and sell, but sellers will have to come to me. It is a good thing I have trained you well.”

I said: “If I can be of the least service to you I shall be glad.”

“You will be. You are looking sorry for me. That shows you have a kind heart and that is a good thing to have. Sympathy for the troubles of others and courage in our own. That is one of the greatest gifts any human being can have. The fates are being good to you, Jane. They are giving you a chance to learn this lesson.”

“I’d rather fate had been a little less good.”

“Never rail against fate, Jane. What is to be will be. That is how the Chinese see it. Accept your fate meekly, submit to it, look upon it as experience. Never rail against it. Then you will come through.”

“I shall try.”

“You will come to see me again. Bring any letters, any papers. We will work on them together.”

“Would your doctors allow that?”

“My doctors know that fate has decided to immobilize me to a certain extent. I must learn to adjust myself and any time I spend in mourning for what I have lost can bring me no good. That is something we must remember. Like a good general I must re-form my forces and go on with the battle. You will help me, Jane.”

“I will do everything I can.”

“Come then tomorrow and we will talk business. You will see how quickly I will recover then.”

So I went each day to the hospital while he was there and I took with me any letters that came; there were also books and catalogues which we looked over together.

These sessions were salvation to us both.

And then the suspicions which had been with me for some time were confirmed.

I was pregnant.

In due course Mr. Sylvester came back to the house. He had already regained a little use in his legs and could manage to hobble very slowly on a crutch. This was great progress. Enquiries were still going on as to how he had come to be shot and from whose gun the fatal bullet had been fired, but there was no satisfaction in this. The inference seemed to be that it was a case of accidental shooting, not the first of its kind by any means.

The household settled back into a slightly new routine which soon became normal. Instead of Mr. Sylvester’s going away, guests came to see him. They often came for dinner and sometimes stayed for a night or two. I was housekeeper, hostess, and secretary, which kept me busy. I was grateful for that.

Joliffe wrote twice more. The first of these letters implored me to come to him. In the second which came two weeks later I sensed his desire for me to do so was less urgent. He was going to “move heaven and earth” he wrote to free himself; then all would be well.

He was constantly in my thoughts yet I felt that I was seeing him differently. In my unworldly eyes when I had been blindly in love with him I saw a perfect being, but now I saw a new Joliffe, a young adventurer, not always sure of himself, taking chances, not always strictly honorable… I saw Joliffe the sinner. It was as though I had been looking at a painting through a veil which made it mystic but wonderful and when the veil was removed the flaws began to show themselves. I did not, I think, love him less. I knew that I could still be charmed, but I saw him differently and I wanted to look more and more deeply into what was there.

Strange as it seems I was glad of the respite. It may have been that my body was changing and my needs changed with it. A new life was growing in me and this in itself will always be a miracle to the woman to whom it happens, commonplace occurrence though it may seem to the rest of the world.

In the first few days when I became certain, the wonder of what was to happen obscured all else. I was glad therefore to be by myself, to think of what this meant. I could not at this stage look at the practical side. I could only think of the wonder of having a child of my own.

Then I began to ask myself how my child would be born. I was not a wife so how could I with decorum become a mother?

There was something uncanny about Mr. Sylvester Milner. It had always seemed so. He would sit in his chair with that inscrutable smile on his face and I often thought when he turned his eyes on me that he was looking straight into my mind.

It seemed this was so because he said to me one day: “Am I right in thinking that you are with child?”

The blood crept up from my neck to the roots of my hair.

“Is it… obvious?” I asked.

He shook his head. “But I guessed.”

“I was not sure myself until a few days ago. I should not have thought…”

He lifted a hand. “It was a certain serenity in your demeanor, a certain peace, a kind of contentment… I cannot describe it. You see it in the women’s faces in some of the later Chinese pictures. An indefinable quality but these artists caught it. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I have looked so much at these portrayals that I recognize it.”

“Yes,” I said, “I am going to have a child.”

He nodded.

It was a few days later. I had dined in the servants’ hall because there were no guests and on these occasions Mr. Sylvester took his meals in his own room.

Mrs. Couch was talking about the way things had changed. She knew now about Joliffe’s marriage. It was impossible to keep that secret from them and it had been the great topic of conversation in the hall, although when I was present the matter was not discussed. I had grown used to the sudden embarrassed pause when I entered a room.

Mrs. Couch shook her head and occasionally referred to Joliffe as though he were dead. Then her eyes would sparkle at the memory of him. “He was a one,” she would say, “and my word, didn’t he like my sloe gin!”

She would sit at the table with her hands folded and purr over the cards, her face assuming innumerable expressions as she read out the warnings.

“Hearts, ah, I always did like them. Good fortune and wedding bells. A handsome dark man… ha, here he is… looking straight at you.” But when the spades turned up a shudder would reverberate throughout the kitchen. She prided herself on seeing things coming. She had seen my mother’s death. “It was there in the cards as much as a year before she died.” She had seen, but then she hadn’t liked to say it, that my relationship with Joliffe meant tears. “There they were as real as you are sitting there. I could have told you that.” And now Mr. Sylvester’s accident. “Plain as a pikestaff. I saw it as death… well, he did come near it and it was that heart card that saved him.”

I could smile at her always and wondered what she would say she had seen in the cards when she knew of my condition.

She was just preparing to lay the cards, as she called it, for me, when Ling Fu slipped quietly into the kitchen.

Mr. Sylvester was asking if I would go to his room.

I went up at once.

“Ah Jane,” he said, “there is something I want to say to you. I have been thinking this over for some little time and I’m now going to put a suggestion to you. Of course you may think it ridiculous, absurd, but at least I think that, in your circumstances, you should consider it.”

I waited curiously.

“You have, I am sure, thought carefully of your position. You are to have a child but you are an unmarried woman. I know that you were deceived and this is no fault of yours, but the fact remains. This as the years go on could create an embarrassing situation not only for you but for the child. It is for this reason that I have decided to put this plan before you.”

There was a pause and he looked at me as though he was considering how best to put this suggestion which I might think ridiculous.

“When your child is born you cannot be known as Miss Lindsay. That would create an impossible position for you. You can of course call yourself Mrs. Milner, but you will in fact have no right to this name. You are in a difficult position. But for the child you could have put this experience behind you and started a fresh life. With a child it will not be possible.”

He seemed as though he were talking round the subject. It was not like him. He showed no outward embarrassment but I sensed it was there.

He paused for a moment while he regarded me gravely. “You could, of course, become Mrs. Milner in truth by… marrying me.”

I was astounded. It was the last thing I had expected. I really could not believe that I had heard him correctly.

I was silent and he said ruefully: “I see the idea is repugnant to you.”

Still I could not speak.

He went on: “It seemed to be a… solution.”

My voice sounded unnaturally high as I replied: “Would you consider marrying to provide a solution for someone else’s difficulties?”

“It is not entirely so. You have been wronged by a member of my family. You believed yourself to be married and there is to be a child. If you married me that child would be called Milner. I would see that he or she was brought up as my son or daughter. You would have no financial anxieties. That is your side of the case. Mine is that I have always wanted a son or daughter of my own. I never married. Perhaps I sometimes felt I might… but somehow it never happened. Now my accident has made it impossible for me to beget a child. The doctors have told me that. If we married I would regard your child as mine. I should have your companionship… your help in my work. You see the advantages are not all on one side. What do you think?”

“I… I’m afraid I can’t think very clearly just now. I want you to know that I appreciate your goodness to me… and to my mother. From the moment we came here we found security. She was very grateful to you.”

He nodded. “You have qualms. You do not see me as a husband. Do understand that I should not be a husband in every sense of the word. You know my disabilities. It would be a marriage of friendship, companionship, you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Think about it. You would be mistress of this house, your child’s future would be secure. He or she would have the best of educations and a comfortable home. For myself I should have someone to look after my house, and be a companion to me, someone who shares my interests and could help carry on my business. I need that help now, Jane. You are the only one who could give it. You see it would indeed be a convenient marriage for us both.”

“Yes,” I said, “I do see that.”

“And your answer?”

“I was unprepared for this.”

“I understand. You would like a little time to consider it. But of course. There is no hurry… except of course… the child.”

I went to my room. The last months had been so eventful that I wondered what would happen to me next.

Oh Joliffe, I thought, where are you now? Could I wait for him?

Could I go to him? What of my child? I must think first of the child. Indeed the child filled my thoughts excluding Joliffe. It was so painful to think of him. Would he ever come back to me? What if he did and I was married to his uncle? I pictured his reproaches and Sylvester’s standing by and explaining that it had seemed so convenient.

I had begun to picture what my life would be if I married him. It was an indication that I was actually considering such a possibility.

A marriage of convenience! Why did people talk about them with a faint touch of pity. Why should not a marriage of convenience be a happier union than one of sudden passion which was no marriage at all?

I wanted to forget Joliffe. Somewhere deep down in my mind born of my newly acquired knowledge of life, was the conviction that I must forget Joliffe. I knew Joliffe was not free; I did not believe Bella would ever release him; nor could I ever be quite sure of what I must expect from him. He was too charming; life had given him too much; he expected fortune’s gifts to be showered on him and he took them without asking himself what right he had to them.

Joliffe was a wonderful companion for a romantic-minded young girl, but was he for a serious-minded woman with a child to care for?

Moreover, I was not the same girl who had sheltered under the parapet in an enchanted forest with one of the gods come down from Olympus. Oh no. I was a woman in a difficult situation. I would be an unmarried mother and I had a child to plan for.

In this house I could look after my child as my mother had looked after me. Sylvester Milner had been a fairy godfather to us. He was still, for he was putting a proposition to me which could solve my troubles.

What if I did not marry him? Could I stay here? Perhaps. But my child would have no father. Sylvester had offered to become that. With such a father the child’s future would be assured.

I was not a romantic girl. I was about to be a mother. My child must be my first consideration.

I knew then that I was going to accept Sylvester’s proposal.

II

Mrs. Couch was delighted and Mr. Jeffers said you could have knocked him down with a feather. Mrs. Couch could never be knocked down by such flimsy objects while she had her cards and teacups to warn her. This she had seen in the teacups.

“A new mistress to the house,” she had said. “I saw it clear as daylight.”

“Clear as mud,” scoffed Mr. Jeffers.

There was a feud between them because of his “goings on” with young females.

“There it was—one little grout beside a big one. I said to myself ‘That’s a woman beside the master’ and there in the corner was the marriage sign.”

She was delighted nevertheless. They all were.

“Though who’d have thought it of him,” said Amy.

“Men,” added Jess, who was quite knowledgeable on that subject, “you never can tell with them.”

“My word,” said Mrs. Couch. “We do see life with you about, young Jane. I suppose we’ve got to call you Madam now. The mistress, eh?”

“I daresay the master would appreciate that,” I replied.

Mrs. Couch nodded. Later she said: “In front of the servants just to make it right and proper. But to me you’ll always be young Jane.”

She was pleased. “It’ll be like a proper house. The Hall is very pleased. And a little baby too. It’s a good thing you got that before. Poor Mr. Sylvester Milner could never accommodate… if you know what I mean. But with a little one on the way I reckon the wedding will be prompt. It has to be when there’s a nipper on the way.”

And so I prepared for my convenient wedding.

Sometimes I was almost on the point of calling it all off.

What was I doing? It was a year since I had joyously gone to Joliffe as his bride. I had no doubts then, no qualms.

And what had I known of Joliffe? What did I know of Sylvester?

I tried to think of him dispassionately. I liked him; I could say I was fond of him. He had interested me from the moment he had discovered me in the Treasure Room. I was never bored in his company; we had this great interest between us. I was stimulated to learn as I was sure he was to teach me. It can be a success, this marriage, I thought.

He had implied very clearly that ours would be no intimate relationship. We should have our own rooms; there would be little difference in the life I was leading now and what would follow. I should look after the house and help with his business as I did at this time; the difference would be that I should be his wife and my child would be born in comfort, to security. I should not have to scheme for mine as my mother had for hers.

I could almost hear her voice saying: “We arranged this for you, Janey, seeing how things went. Your father and I arranged it.”

The marriage ceremony would be in the little church a quarter of a mile from the house. It would naturally be a quiet wedding.

A week before it was to take place I was going through the post with Sylvester as I did every morning. He would read through his letters and if they were business ones he would pass them to me. In due course I would be traveling to sales as he used to, but I was not quite knowledgeable enough for that just yet. Later I should be able to buy and sell, but my apprenticeship was not yet completely served.

Sylvester suddenly paused and looked up at me.

“Here is a letter from my nephew. He proposes to come to the wedding.”

“Joliffe,” I began, my heart leaping uncomfortably.

“No, no. This is Adam, my brother Redmond’s son. He is home in England after two years in Hong Kong.”

“So he is coming here.”

“I did not expect any of my family to come,” he said.

My heart leaped, turned over and seemed to stop for a second when I saw Adam. The reason was of course that he was standing with his back to me in the sitting room, holding a figure in his hands, and from the back he looked just like Joliffe.

When he turned the resemblance was scarcely perceptible. This man was an inch or so shorter than Joliffe, but still tall; his broader shoulders made him look less tall still. His features were like Joliffe’s but his eyes were different; where Joliffe’s were blue, this man’s were grey, a rather cold color as the sea is on a dull day. He lacked those black lashes which were such a startling feature in Joliffe’s face. And of course he lacked the charm.

The illusion did not last long. It was just a faint family resemblance.

Sylvester was seated in his chair.

He said, “Jane, this is my nephew, Adam Milner. Adam, the lady who is to be my wife.”

He bowed rather stiffly. Every minute he was growing less like Joliffe.

“It is fortunate that I shall be in England at the time of the wedding,” he said.

He was studying me intently and I thought I detected a faint hostility in his glance.

“Come and sit down, Jane,” said Sylvester. “I have asked Ling Fu to bring us tea. What did you think of the figurine, Adam?”

“Very pleasant,” he answered.

Sylvester raised his eyebrows and grimaced at me. “That is all he can say of our beautiful piece, Jane. It’s genuine Sung.”

“I doubt that,” said Adam. “It’s later than that.”

“I could swear it’s Sung,” said Sylvester. “Jane, take a look at it.”

As I took the figure from Adam I felt the eyes of this man on me and they were cynical. I said: “I’m afraid I’m not sufficiently competent to make a judgment.”

“Jane is very cautious,” said Sylvester, “and overmodest I think. She has learned a good deal since she came here.”

“You came here with your mother, did you not, when she started to keep house?” said Adam.

“Yes,” I answered.

“And now you are becoming a connoisseur.”

His voice was pleasant enough but his eyes mocked me. I fancied he was implying that he thought me an adventuress. I felt angry towards him. I disliked him not for his attitude but for being enough like Joliffe as to remind me of him and to bring back poignant memories of the days when I was innocent enough to believe I would live happily ever after.

“I am certainly not a connoisseur. Sylvester”—I said his name with difficulty and always with a faint touch of embarrassment—“has been kind enough to teach me all I know.”

“I’ve no doubt that you have learned a great deal,” he said and there was insinuation behind his words. I was reading his mind. He thought that I and my mother were adventuresses. We had come here in the first place, made a cosy spot for ourselves, then I had married Joliffe and come to grief so I had returned and brought Sylvester into my net.

I began to dislike this Adam.

Ling Fu brought in the tea. I presided over the tray and was silent while the men talked.

Adam seemed to direct the conversation into channels which could exclude me.

He wanted to hear all about the accident. He “had been very anxious,” he said.

“I’m flattered,” replied Sylvester.

“Oh these rivalries, they are friendly enough,” said Adam Milner. “The family feeling is apart from business.”

I sat listening to him, and sensing his hostility to me, I believed he had come to try to dissuade his uncle from marrying.

Later I asked Sylvester if this was his intention.

Sylvester laughed. “He’s astonished at the thought of my marrying,” he admitted. “Clearly Adam was of the opinion that I’m in my dotage. It’s amusing that he should suddenly become so interested. However I assured him that I’m perfectly sane and that I believe my marriage to be one of the wisest steps I ever took.”

“He seems rather a dour young man.”

“He’s serious minded and I believe already has a name in the trade for a keen eye. His knowledge of the Second Great Chinese Empire is said to be greatly respected. He’s an expert on the T’ang and Sung Dynasties. Redmond used to be very proud of him. He’s really dedicated and determined to succeed, I think. He was always so much more serious than er…”

“Than Joliffe,” I said quickly. “He seems to resent me.”

Sylvester smiled. “Not you personally. I have an idea that Adam might now like me to join up with him. Clever as he is he may find the going a little difficult on his own. I have an idea that he thought that because of my accident I should be glad to have him… on his terms. But I have you to help me and I have always wanted to keep the reins firmly in my own hands. Neither of my nephews is of the kind who likes to take a back seat. I shall not amalgamate. And now that I have you to help me there is absolutely no reason from my point of view why I should. That is what he resents.”

“It seems rather an unpleasant outlook.”

“It’s business,” answered Sylvester. “As a matter of fact Adam is a very worthy young man. Serious minded, alert, knowledgeable. But since his father and I parted company I prefer to be on my own.”

“I suppose he came to see what I was like.”

“He must have found you interesting. I’m sure he did. I could tell by his manner.”

“I don’t think he altogether liked what he found.” Sylvester laughed.

I was married to Sylvester on a typical April day—the sun shone one moment and there was a downpour the next. The church was decorated with daffodils and narcissi and little bunches of violets. There was a freshness in the air.

Sylvester walked on his crutch to the altar. It must have seemed a very unconventional wedding. I was in a blue gown cut full to hide my pregnancy and a hat of the same blue with a curling ostrich feather.

Squire Merrit, who regarded himself in some measure as responsible for Sylvester’s accident and was constantly displaying a desire to make amends, gave me away. I had a strange feeling in that church as the question was asked if anyone knew of any just cause or impediment why the ceremony should not be performed; I held my breath almost expecting a voice from the church to say: “Yes, you are my wife. You know you are… and always will be.”

Joliffe, I thought in panic. Oh, where are you?

But there was no Joliffe to interrupt the ceremony.

In the pews sat the servants, headed by Mrs. Couch who wiped her eyes and declared later that it had been beautiful and she felt as though the bride was her very own daughter. “It’s so dramatic,” she had said, “when you think of Mr. Joliffe and it’s his baby and Mr. Sylvester coming in and marrying you. It’s a true romance it is really.”

Adam Milner was there, aloof, cold, and disapproving. And so I became Mrs. Sylvester Milner.

After my marriage, life went on just as it had before and in a few weeks I ceased to marvel at it.

The very ceremony of marriage had somehow created a new intimacy between us. I began to think of him as Sylvester and that made it easier for me to call him by that name.

As for him he changed a little. He seemed contented, reconciled to his disability.

I was now looking forward to the birth of my child and that tended to make me forget all else. Sylvester was very concerned about my health; I had the impression that he wanted the child almost as much as I did. I knew his philosophy of life was that of the Chinese. One accepted what the fates offered and was thankful for it and it was one’s own fault if one did not distil some goodness from it.

I must be aware of his kindness and the comfort that was given me in that house.

Often I thought of Joliffe, but the child was beginning to take up my entire thoughts. I was now very much aware of its physical existence and I was content to lie and think of it while I longed for the day of its birth. Mrs. Couch was delighted.

“Children in the house. It’s what I’ve always wanted. No house is right without ’em, little minxes… into this and into that. But they make a home.”

Amy who had given birth to a daughter assumed great importance. She regarded herself as an oracle. She greatly enjoyed advising me as to what I should and should not do.

Jess said it made her feel like settling down.

And there was Sylvester. He behaved as though the child were his and there was no doubt that when my baby was born that was how it would be regarded. He had plans for it and he became much more human than he ever had been when he talked of it.

“He will be brought up here in this house. He will learn to love beautiful things. We will teach him together.”

“What if it should be a girl?”

“I do not think sex is a barrier. If the baby should be a girl she shall have all the advantages that a boy would have had.”

I was touched that he should want to help plan the nursery. We had turned a room next to mine into this. I had it papered in pale blue with a frieze of animals as a kind of dado, and the entire household was excited when the white wood cot arrived with its blue coverlet.

I used to go into the room and look at it with wonder. The others did too. We were constantly finding someone there, as though in silent worship of the infant who soon was to make its longed-for arrival.

We talked of it constantly. Sylvester and I grew closer to each other, I tried to thank him for his goodness to my mother and me, but he only shook his head and said he had derived nothing but comfort and pleasure from our coming to his house.

I was fond of him. I had always respected him. I used to try to tell myself that I had been fortunate. And then memories of Joliffe would come to me and I would be transported to the house in Kensington and I thought of Joliffe and myself together there—then life seemed hard to bear until my longing for my baby overcame all other emotions.

Sylvester insisted on my seeing a London gynecologist and Mrs. Couch traveled up to London with me. I was deeply touched by his joy when the report came that all was normal. However he insisted on the midwife’s staying at the house for more than a week before she was needed.

And in due course my child was born. To my great joy he was perfect in every way. I called him Jason after my father.

He dominated the household—a lively little boy with the lustiest pair of lungs imaginable.

Sometimes I used to think he would be horribly spoiled for there was not a member of that household who did not dote on him.

Mrs. Couch wanted to make special dishes for him, and I had to watch that she didn’t overfeed him. Amy and she quarreled over this, Amy for once standing out against the formidable cook.

“Poor mite,” cried Mrs. Couch. “Some people would like to starve him. But I’m not having that.”

“Babies’ digestions are not like ours,” Amy declared pontifically.

And they were off.

“Just because you’ve had a baby…”

“Which is more than you have.”

“The impertinence! You take care. Madam Amy.”

I had difficulty in making the peace.

Even Jeffers who had hitherto rarely expressed his appreciation of any but young women, put his head on one side and said, “Didums.”

Of course my son was the most intelligent baby that ever had been born. When he had his first tooth Mrs. Couch wanted to make a cake to celebrate the occasion; when he gurgled something that sounded like “Brrh” we all declared he had said “Mama.” “Chattering away he was,” said Mrs. Couch and I must confess we thought it only the slightest exaggeration. I used to take him into the sitting room when we had tea and display him in all his glory to Sylvester’s admiring gaze.

On his first birthday we had a party in the servants’ hall. A cake with one candle. His bright eyes regarded the cake with appreciation and a chubby hand had to be restrained from seizing the flame.

“Well, I never did,” said Mrs. Couch. “He knows what it’s all about, don’t you. Master Sly Boots.”

Amy’s little daughter who was present picked a piece of icing from the cake when she thought no one was looking and was pounced on by Mrs. Couch which meant further trouble with Amy.

Jess rocked Jason in her arms with a faraway look in her eyes which meant she was thinking that having a good time here and there was all very well but it was babies that counted.

And when I carried him up to his nursery and bathed him, for I would not have a nurse to look after my baby, and laid him in his blue-and-white cot I gave way to my favorite daydream which was that Joliffe stood beside me as we looked down on our son. I felt that bitter loneliness then, that longing which was sometimes so great that I felt that nothing—not even Jason—could quite make up for the loss of Joliffe.

When the baby was asleep and I was in my lonely bed I used to go over every minute of that honeymoon with Joliffe.

I used to say to myself then that if I had never experienced love and passion I should not have known what I had missed. Yet without them how could I have had my precious Jason.

The child had become my whole life. He brought me comfort; he filled the emptiness I must feel without Joliffe, though even he could not do this completely.

I wanted Joliffe. I could not disguise the fact. And I was growing more and more aware of the barrenness of my life.

I thought of the years ahead, those years which Sylvester had so carefully planned for Jason—they would be sterile years, because to make life secure for Jason I had married a man of whom I was fond in the way in which one could be fond of a respected teacher. But I was young; I had known deep passion; I had loved. I had to be truthful with myself—I still loved—a man who was another woman’s husband.

When I look back I think of Sylvester’s great understanding and humility. He was, I know, far more considerate of my feelings than I was of his.

He understood that I loved Joliffe and that Joliffe had betrayed me—although perhaps he was not to blame for this. Yet I was sure Sylvester believed he was. Sylvester thought Joliffe irresponsible; he had not wanted me to marry him because he had thought he would not make a suitable husband. He had known Joliffe from his boyhood. Of course they were such entirely different people. How could they be in sympathy with each other?

Sylvester did everything he could to make my life interesting—and interesting it was. It was merely that the vital force was lacking. I was young and by no means of a frigid nature. I had tasted the sweets of a union with a lover and I could never forget it.

The great interest between us was of course Jason, but in addition he took me more and more into his confidence. I read a great deal after Jason was in bed and I was becoming moderately knowledgeable in Chinese matters. I learned of the religion and customs of that country. I went up to London once or twice to Sylvester’s offices in Cheapside. I met his staff there and transacted some business for him. I was delighted with my success and so was he.

“It is wonderful,” he said. “You are indeed becoming my right hand.”

Which was small repayment for what he had done for me.

I thought then that it might be that Jason would one day take over his business and I would want to be beside him to advise and help. I had an added incentive.

Sylvester sensed this and encouraged me. He told me about the London office which was small compared with their premises in Kowloon. “There the bulk of the business is done. There we have our warehouse and offices. One day, Jane, you will go there.”

“I shall have to wait until Jason is older.”

He nodded. “I should like to go with you. I want very much to see again my House of a Thousand Lanterns.”

Whenever that name was mentioned for some strange reason I felt a tingling in my blood.

He used to talk of it quite a lot. He tried to describe it to me but it eluded my imagination and I could not visualize it. A house built years ago on the site of a temple.

I could feel excited at the prospect of seeing it.

“Perhaps I could make the journey,” he said.

“That would surely be impossible?”

“Don’t the philosophers say nothing is impossible?”

“How could you go?”

“I can walk across the room with a stick. I walk a little in the gardens. Perhaps if I made up my mind I could overcome my disability sufficiently to make the journey.”

His eyes glowed at the thought and although I believed it was impossible, I let him go on imagining it.

Whenever he spoke of The House of a Thousand Lanterns a change came over him; he seemed younger, more vital than he did at any other time. Then I could almost believe in the possibility of our making the journey there.

One day when Jason was eighteen months old I took one of my trips to London. I looked forward to these days. I liked to feel myself growing more and more knowledgeable about the business, and the excitement of seeing Jason when I returned made a happy ending to my day.

Jeffers would drive me to the station and at the end of the train journey I would take a cab to the office in Cheapside. When I had finished what I came to do I would have a cab back to the station and Jeffers would meet me at the other end. It had become a routine. I was no longer a young girl. I was a matron.

On this occasion all went according to plan.

I arrived at the office where they were expecting me. I met John Heyland, Sylvester’s head clerk, his two assistants and the young man in charge of the storeroom. There I saw the jade ornaments which would be delivered to buyers. Luncheon was brought in from a nearby restaurant and I took this with Mr. Heyland who talked of the old days before the family had split up. He thought it was a pity. Now there were three firms where there had been one—with Mr. Sylvester, Mr. Adam, and young Mr. Joliffe all working on their own. He had been in the Hong Kong office with Sylvester’s father who would, he assured me, turn in his grave if he knew there was all this division in the family.

I decided that I would do some shopping before I caught my train, so I arranged to leave the office early, and as I came out into the street there was Joliffe.

“Why, Jane!” he cried, his eyes alight with excitement so that poignant memories flooded my mind and for a few seconds I was happy simply because he was there.

Then I stammered: “How did you know I was here?”

All the old charm was in his smile and there was a hint of mischief in it too. He used to say “Didn’t you know I was the omniscient one?”

“Simple detection,” he said now. “A nod, a wink, a word in the right direction.”

“Someone in there told you,” I said aghast. “Oh Joliffe, you had no right…”

He took my arm and held it firmly. “I had every right.”

“I have to catch a train.”

“Not just yet,” he said.

My heart leaped in a joyous expectation as I reminded myself that I had left two hours for shopping.

“I must talk to you, Jane.”

“What is there to be said? It’s all clear, isn’t it?”

“There is so much to be said. So much to be made clear.”

“I must not miss my train. Jeffers will be waiting.”

“Let him wait. In any case your train won’t leave for two hours. We’ll get a cab. I know a place where we can have tea. We can be quite alone…”

“No, Joliffe,” I said firmly.

“All right then. We’ll go to the station. I’ll be with you till the train leaves. That will give us a little time to talk.”

Before I could answer he had hailed a cab. We sat side by side and when he took my hand and looked into my face, I turned away, afraid of the emotions he could arouse in me.

“So we have a son,” he said.

“Please, Joliffe…”

“He is my son,” he went on. “I should see him.”

“You can’t take him from me,” I said fearfully.

“As if I would. I want him and you… but mostly you, Jane.”

“It’s no use.”

“Why? Because you made that foolish marriage?”

“It was not foolish. It was the right thing to do. The baby has a wonderful home. He will grow up in the security he needs.”

“And which he couldn’t have with me?”

“How could he when you have a wife living?”

“Jane, I swear to you I thought she was dead. You must believe me.”

“Whatever I believe the fact is that she exists. She would be there always in our lives. How could a child be brought up happily in such circumstances?”

“You left me before you knew there was to be a child. You didn’t love me, Jane.”

The cab stopped at the station. We alighted and he gripped my arm firmly as though he feared I would run away. We went into the station buffet. It was noisy as such places are. Every now and then we heard the shunting of the trains, the shrill whistles, and the shouts of porters. It was not the ideal surroundings in which to discuss such a highly emotional problem.

We had two cups of tea which neither of us wanted, for all we desired then was to be in each other’s arms and leave explanations until later.

“What are we going to do?” he asked desperately.

“I shall go back to Roland’s Croft. You will go to your wife.”

“You can’t do this.”

“What do you suggest I should do?”

He stretched across the table and took my hand.

“Don’t go back,” he said earnestly. “Don’t catch that train. You and I will go away together.”

“You must be mad, Joliffe. What about my son?”

“You could bring our son with you. Go back now then and get the boy. You, I and he will go away together. We’ll go right out of the country. I’ll take you to Hong Kong. We’ll start a new life…”

For a moment I gave myself the luxury of believing that it was possible. Then I withdrew my hands.

“No, Joliffe,” I said. “It may sound possible to you but not to me. In the first place you have a wife. She is with you now, isn’t she?”

He was silent and I felt a sick pain in my heart because I knew she was. I pictured her in the house where I had been so happy. So it was a fact that they were together. Annie and Albert would look after her as they had looked after me. It was more than I could bear.

“You know how it happened,” he said. “I was young and reckless. And again I swear to you that I believed her to be dead.”

“It seems to me that you accepted this solution rather gladly.”

“I’ll be frank with you,” said Joliffe earnestly. “I was relieved. You wouldn’t understand this, Jane. You are not as impulsive as I am. I was caught… as many young men are. I married Bella and then almost immediately regretted it. When I thought she was killed I admit I was relieved. It was like fate wiping out a mistake so that there was a clean slate to go on with.”

“Poor Bella! So you thought of her death as an act of a benign fate which brought relief to you! What of her?”

“Oh come, Jane, I’m telling you the truth. I’m no saint. I made about the biggest mistake a young man can make. I had tied myself for life to Bella. Naturally it seemed a relief when I thought that episode was wiped out forever.”

“What a shock for you when she came back!”

“The biggest in my life.”

“It would have been better if you had never had your temporary relief… for you… for Bella perhaps and certainly for me.”

“You’ve changed. You’ve become hard.”

“I’ve learned something of the world. I’m less easily deceived perhaps. I have a child to fight for now.”

“Who is mine too.”

“Yes, Joliffe. But he regards Sylvester as his father now.”

Joliffe brought his fist down on the table. “How could you, Jane! How could you marry him… an old man, my own uncle!”

“He is a good man and has brought me nothing but good. He loves the child. He will give him all that a child needs.”

“And his true father?”

“You have a wife. I can see endless trouble. I would not allow my son to be brought up in circumstances where there could be trouble at every turn. He now has a good home, a secure and peaceful home. How could he ever have had that when you had a wife who could appear at any moment? He is Jason Milner, and he has every right to that name. I think I have done the best thing possible in the circumstances for my child and that is my main concern.”

“What of me?”

“It is over, Joliffe. Let us try not to remember.”

“You might as well ask the sun not to shine or the wind not to blow. How could I ever forget? How could you?”

I stirred the tea which had grown cold.

Then I said: “Joliffe, what are you doing now? Tell me.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Wanting you all the time,” he said. “I had to see you. I have a friend in your husband’s office. He told me when you were coming… so I waited.”

“He had no right to do that. It was disloyal to Sylvester. Who was he?”

He smiled and shook his head. “He took pity on me,” he said.

“So Bella has moved into the house?” I asked.

He nodded. “At first I went away to a hotel. She would not leave. She threatened all sorts of things if I left her.”

“So you went back to her.”

“Not back to her. We live in the same house. There it ends. I am planning to go away in a few weeks’ time. I have business in China. I shall go to Canton for a while and then to Kowloon. I shall stay away. I can manage things very well from over there where the main business of buying is done.”

“She will go with you.”

“It is to escape from her that I go.”

“So you will leave her in your house…” I thought of it as our house. I pictured her going across into the Gardens to feed the swans on the Round Pond, and I longed for those days when I had been so blissfully happy.

The clock which hung in the refreshment hall had a malicious face I decided; its hands were turning far too quickly. The precious time was romping away.

He followed my gaze. “So little time left,” he said. “Jane, come away with me.”

“How could I?”

“You are really my wife.”

“No, I am Sylvester’s wife.”

“That marriage is a mockery of a marriage. What is marriage? Is it loving? Is it sharing? Is it living in that intimacy which makes you part of each other? Or is it signing your name on a contract? You are my wife, Jane. You are part of me and my life and when you take yourself from me, when you attempt to sever that intimacy which is between us… you have broken our marriage. We belong together. Don’t you know that?”

I said: “You are married to Bella and I to Sylvester. And it must remain so.”

“What do you know of love? It is clear that you know nothing.”

I retorted angrily: “If you knew how I had suffered… if you could understand…”

He took my hand.

“Jane, Jane, come away. Bring the child and come.”

I looked at the clock.

“I must go.”

He rose with me, his hand gripping my elbow.

I shook my head. I must get away from him. I was afraid that at any moment I would say what he wanted me to. I felt a wild impulse to throw everything away except my life with Joliffe. That was what I wanted more than anything: Joliffe and my son. The three of us belonged together.

But even in that moment common sense was telling me that what I wanted was impossible.

The train was coming into the station—and only a few more moments were left to us.

He took my hands; his eyes were pleading.

“Come, Jane.”

I shook my head; my lips were trembling and I could not trust myself to speak.

“I shall go away soon,” he said. “It will be for a long time.”

Still I could not speak.

“We belong together, Jane… the three of us,” he said.

The train was in the station. I withdrew my hands. He opened the door for me. I went into the compartment and stood at the window. He was on the platform, all the longing which I felt myself, clear in his eyes.

The train started to move. I stood at the window after I could no longer see him and I said to myself: This is what they mean when they say one’s heart is broken.

I did not go to London for some time after that. I made excuses and cut off my visits. When I finally did go I believed Joliffe had already left for China.

My child was my consolation. No boy ever had a happier home. He was completely secure and this made him contented. He was an inquisitive little boy as Mrs. Couch used to say fondly “into everything.” No child was ever more greatly loved. To me he was everything in the world. Sylvester, I knew, doted on him. I don’t think he had ever visualized such contentment—even incapacitated as he was. I was glad that his marriage had not been a failure for him. As for Mrs. Couch her greatest pleasure was to have Jason in the kitchen and she was overcome with delight when he sat on the floor and played with the saucepan lids. Nothing we could give him attracted him so much up to the time he was two as those saucepan lids and it delighted Mrs. Couch that these desirable objects came from her domain.

His second birthday was celebrated by a cake with two candles and I don’t think Mrs. Couch put as much loving care into anything she had ever cooked before. To her he was “Master Sly Boots” or “Sir Know It All” or “Me Lord into This and That.” “Under my feet morning, noon and night,” she would say with a cluck of the tongue. Of course he loved her. He would take currants and nuts from the table when she wasn’t looking; she would pretend to chase him with her rolling pin and when he was tired she would gather him up on her ample lap and sing him to sleep.

His coming had changed the household, but perhaps most of all it had affected Sylvester.

I learned a great deal about him. He had always been overshadowed by his brothers—Joliffe’s father and Redmond. He had been aloof and never able to shine in company. He had made up for it by a certain business ability which the others could not rival. I wondered why he had not married until he had married me—and I often thought that ours was such an unusual marriage that it could scarcely be called one at all.

Once he told me that years ago he had thought of marriage. She was a young actress, beautiful, lively, charming—he ought to have known she would never seriously have considered him. She had married Joliffe’s father.

Yes, I was learning.

And his feelings for me. I had interested him from the moment I came into his house. I had a vitality, a curiosity, a desire to learn which won his respect.

My mother had brought a homely atmosphere to Roland’s Croft; when I came home from school for holidays the place was like a home. He had always wanted a home. Then of course his accident had happened and his whole life was changed.

Marriage between us had offered a smoothing out of our problems.

I was to have a home for a child, a name, security, as for him he acquired that family which he had always wanted and as soon as Jason was born he regarded him as his son.

He said on more than one occasion: “It worked out well, did it not?”

And I assured him that it did.

Jason’s third and fourth birthdays were celebrated as the main events of the year. Christmases were now important occasions. There was a great tree in the kitchen and I was surprised when Sylvester wanted one in his sitting room. I decorated them with the help of Jason. And in the kitchen he helped Mrs. Couch hang sugar mice and bags of humbugs on the tree. “And no taking the eyes off mice when my back’s turned. Nor popping humbugs into your mouth,” admonished Mrs.Couch. “The place for eyes is on the mice and humbugs in their bags.”

But she would be the first one to pop a sweet into his mouth and if she occasionally overindulged him in such matters the love she bestowed on him made up for that.

Sometimes I wondered what Sylvester was thinking when he listened to the whoops of delight and the blasts from tin trumpets, for Jason greatly loved noise of any sort.

I did not have to ask myself. He loved it as we all did for the pivot of our existence was this son of mine—mine and Joliffe’s.

It was during Jason’s fourth Christmas that the idea became a certainty.

We had decorated the rooms and among the paper fripperies were some small Chinese lanterns. They had stumps of candles inside them and looked very pretty when they were lighted.

Sylvester stared at them when we put them up.

After Jason had gone to bed he said to me: “They remind me of my house in Hong Kong.”

“The House of a Thousand Lanterns,” I said. “Are they like these then?”

“No, quite different. I must go there, Jane. I am going there.”

“Do you really think you could make that journey?”

“If you came with me.”

“Leave Jason!”

“I wouldn’t ask such a thing.”

“Then you mean take him with us?”

“I want him to learn the business as he grows up. You can’t begin too early. If you are steeped in these things from childhood they become part of your life.”

“But to take a child all that way!”

“He will not be the first. You teach him yourself. So he will go on learning his lessons as he travels and later in Hong Kong. It is six years since I was there. I get reports of what is happening but it is not enough. I must go. And Jane, I want you to come with me.”

The more I thought of the idea the less impossible it seemed. I asked him to tell me more about this house of the lanterns. He tried to explain it but it defeated my imagination.

I knew that it was an old house, that it had been built on the site of an ancient temple, that it was in the center of several walled courtyards which extended all round it. “It is rather like a Chinese puzzle,” said Sylvester. “You go through one gate into the first, then through another and another. There are four of these walled courtyards and in the center the house itself.”

I longed to see it. I had fought hard over the last few years to forget Joliffe but I had not succeeded. I often thought of Bella and pictured her living in the house which had so briefly been my home. Was it true that they had lived their separate lives? How much had Joliffe withheld from me? I did not entirely know Joliffe. No, I told myself fiercely, that was why he excited me. There would always be so much to discover.

My absorption with my child had saved me perhaps from running away with Joliffe, for I did not believe I could have endured the barren years if I had not had my beloved child.

Now the thought of going to a new land, to see that house which had deluded my imagination filled me with excitement.

Jason’s fifth birthday was celebrated and, soon after, the decision was made. Sylvester’s doctors thought that the journey was possible and no harm could come through it; in fact one of them thought the stimulation would be good for him.

Mrs. Couch was horrified. The thought of taking little children among heathens was something beyond her comprehension. She was indignantly tearful and I knew it was because, as she said, her kitchen wouldn’t be her kitchen without Master Sly Boots in and out of everything.

She was sullen for some time. I said I did not think the visit would be prolonged but she continued to shake her head. She brought out the cards and saw disaster there. There was even the ace of spades which kept turning up. The teacups gave due warning. There was a journey over water and no good would come of it.

In spite of these prognostications of evil we made our plans.

And on an autumn day when Jason was nearing his sixth birthday we sailed from Southampton for the Far East.