The House of a Thousand Lanterns

I

It was a time of great activity for me. I had so much to learn; I had to assume a new dignity; I had to convince not only those with whom I did business that I was capable, but myself as well.

Whenever I felt inadequate I would assure myself: Sylvester believed in you. He was certain you could do it.

There were many formalities to be gone through; I spent hours with the lawyers. I was astounded by the extent of Sylvester’s business which I had inherited in a kind of trust for Jason. I was determined to keep that business flourishing not only to convince myself that I could, but for him.

I seemed to grow in stature; I learned to make firm decisions; I understood how to deal with people and preserve a friendly formality. I even began to look forward to new difficulties because I found such satisfaction in overcoming them.

I sensed that Adam would have liked to take over. “You must let me deal with these things,” he said. “It’s too much for a woman.”

“That was not Sylvester’s idea,” I told him.

“Well, if there is anything I can do…”

“Thank you, Adam.”

He moved out of The House of a Thousand Lanterns. He couldn’t very well stay there now that Sylvester was dead. He rented a small place near us.

“You’ll know I’m not far if you want anything,” he told me.

Deeply I mourned Sylvester. I had not realized how much he had meant to me until I lost him. Sometimes I would awake in the night with a horrible sense of desolation and I would lie sleepless thinking of the many kindnesses he had shown me. I determined to try to do everything he would have wished me to.

We had buried him in the English cemetery. The Chinese of the household were disappointed that we did not observe their rites. They would have liked to have seen a funeral procession to the hillside with incense and offerings and the family taking money and garments to the tomb so that Sylvester might make use of them in the world of spirits. I did, however, bow to their conventions in one respect. I dressed myself and Jason in white.

Lottie was thoughtful. “Great Lady will marry again,” she said.

“Marry!” I said. “What put that into your head?”

She spread her hands and looked at me wisely.

I said: “An English widow does not think of marriage until she has been a widow for a year.”

“So?” she said, her head on one side birdlike. “Then in a year you marry.”

She seemed content with that.

A year, I repeated to myself.

Joliffe had come to the house for the funeral. I was aware of his smoldering eyes on me.

The will was read after the funeral according to the English custom. I was not surprised, having been warned by Sylvester of its contents; I was only astonished that there was so much. It was left to me but as he had told me there was a proviso. Sylvester could be trusted to cover all contingencies. In the event of my death before Jason reached the age of twenty-one, Adam was to control affairs.

I wondered whether he had been afraid that I would marry Joliffe and wished to exclude him.

It was the day after the funeral when Joliffe came to the house. He was shown into the drawing room and when I went down to see him he approached me with outstretched hands.

I avoided them. I was afraid of his touch. That was how vulnerable I was.

He said: “I must talk to you, Jane. There is much we have to discuss. We are free now, Jane… both of us.”

I turned away. I could almost see Sylvester there in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands in dismay.

“Please, Joliffe,” I said, “I am a widow of a week. Have you forgotten that?”

“It is because of this, that we have so much to say.”

“Not here,” I said. “Not now…”

He hesitated for a moment and then he said: “Later then but soon.”

I escaped to my room and thought of Joliffe and those days when we had been in Paris together. I remembered well the reckless joy of meeting Joliffe, of falling in love with him; then there came pictures of that dreadful day when Bella had arrived. If one reaches the pinnacle of ecstasy, the descent is very great indeed.

One thing I had often said to myself during the years after I had lost Joliffe was: Never again if I could help it would I put myself in a position to suffer like that. I recalled some wise words of Sylvester: “To be involved is to suffer. One should make sure that one does not too lightly become involved.”

Another thing he had advised me: “Never make hasty decisions. Look at your problem from all angles, weigh up carefully each aspect.”

Sometimes I felt that Sylvester was very near to me, watching over me, so often did I remember his words of wisdom.

It was a few days later when Lottie came to tell me that Joliffe was in the pagoda and was asking if I would go to him there.

I went and as I entered he came up from behind me and put his arms about me.

“No, Joliffe,” I protested.

“But yes,” he answered, turning me round and kissing me in such a way that I was transported back to the days of our passion.

“Please, Joliffe,” I said. “Let me go.”

“Not yet. When shall we be married?”

“I would not dream of marrying for a year.”

“That old convention! It is not as though you were ever anybody’s wife but mine.”

I drew myself away from him. “I was never your wife. You had a wife when you went through a form of marriage with me.”

“Forms!” he said. “Names signed on dotted lines. Do they make a marriage?”

“It is generally believed to be so,” I said.

“No,” he said. “You were my wife, Jane. You and I were meant for one another. If you knew what it was like when you went away…”

“I did know, Joliffe,” I said quietly.

“Then why do you hesitate?”

“I was young and reckless, inexperienced of the world. I shall never be that again. I have become serious.”

“The businesswoman!” he said. “All Hong Kong is talking of you. They wonder how long it will be before you have a husband to take the burden from your shoulders.”

“If burden it is, it is one I am determined to relinquish to no one. Sylvester has trained me well over many years. He believed me capable. I have a son to work for. Perhaps I have enough in life.”

“What nonsense! You will have many sons. You are not a woman to put love out of your life forever.”

“I have to discover what sort of a woman I am, Joliffe. I’m constantly surprising myself.”

“You were hurt, weren’t you? I love you, Jane. I didn’t want to tell you about Bella. Not then. I would have told you later when you were older and more tolerant of youthful follies. Besides I thought it was an incident closed forever. And then she came back from the dead as it were—and you left me! Oh Jane, how could you have done that!”

“It seemed to me the only way.”

“Conventional Jane, she couldn’t love without the marriage lines and she can’t go to her true husband now because she must wait a year after the death of a husband who was no husband.”

“Joliffe, please don’t talk about Sylvester. He was good to me. He meant a great deal to me. Perhaps our relationship was something you couldn’t understand.”

“I understand it perfectly.”

“No, Joliffe, you don’t. He was my best friend for years. I owe everything to him… even meeting you.”

“How like you, Conventional Jane, to put an aura round the dead. They immediately become sanctified in the minds of some people. Sylvester was a man of genius in business. He also had his eyes to the main chance. He married you because he wanted a nurse, a pupil and a son, and you could provide all those needs. Let’s be practical. Here in this place we can talk freely. That house stifles me.”

“That was why you wished to see me here?”

He nodded. “Part of the house and yet not it. There’s something about the pagoda. I always thought so.” He looked at the crumbling figure of the goddess, at the shaft of sunlight penetrating the roof. “I used to come here as a boy. And I thought: In the pagoda I can talk to Jane.”

“There is nothing we have to say as yet,” I answered. “I need time to think. I am unsure of many things.”

“You need your specified year,” he said.

“Yes, I need my year.”

“And you will not marry within that year?”

“I will not.”

“And how am I to live a year without you?”

“I suggest in the same way that you have been living so far.”

“You ask a lot, Jane.”

“When we truly love we are prepared to give a lot.”

He regarded me steadily. “I have never felt towards anyone else as I do towards you. I shall live for the time when we are together. One year to the day I shall be back for you. Then we shall go through that ceremony the second time, only the next time it will be binding.” Then he came to me again and took me into his arms and he kissed me and there was the same magic in his embrace that I remembered so well.

A few days later Adam told me that Joliffe had left Hong Kong.

There was not a great deal of time for riding. I wondered whether I should engage a governess for Jason but it would have probably meant bringing someone out from England and I enjoyed those lessons so much. Jason was so bright and it was not merely maternal pride which made me think so; and Lottie’s quaintness amused me and her eagerness to learn delighted me. I could not give up my little schoolroom which I had set up in one of the top rooms. I had put up a big wooden table and there was a cupboard in which books could be kept. Over the table hung the center lantern. Jason loved to be allowed to light the oil lamp inside it. From the window we could see the pagoda, which dominated the view from all windows on that side of the house.

I was confiding a great deal in Toby. I made a point of going to the Go-Down every day after the first few weeks. I was learning more and more from Toby and he was delighted to teach me. Our friendship grew warmer. I knew he was a man whom I could trust. I told him I would not stay in Hong Kong forever. There would come a time when I could no longer teach Jason and he would have to go away to school. That would be in a few years’ time and I would not consider the idea of his being in England while I was here.

“There’s time to work that out,” said Toby.

“Plenty of time,” I answered. “Sylvester was delighted to be able to leave everything in your good hands. That was the only reason he could stay in England as long as he did.”

“You can rely on me as he did,” he answered earnestly and when he looked into my face I did not want to meet his gaze. That he hoped for a deeper relationship I knew. I had been aware of this before even though Toby was too honorable a man to have willingly given me an inkling of this while Sylvester lived—but I had sensed it.

Sometimes I used to think what an admirable solution that would be… as far as the business was concerned. I could never have had a better manager. He could be firm and certainly his opinions and ideas of how things should be done were unwaveringly honorable, and he was almost always right. I knew that he was completely trustworthy.

As for my feelings for him they went deep. I respected him; I admired him; I liked his company for he had a light wit which was the best sort since it did not depend on hurting others to achieve its point. I could have seen marriage with him as a happy ending… if I had never known Joliffe. I could have had a life of peaceful contentment.

Strangely enough my relationship with Adam had begun to change. I was stimulated by his company where at one time I had been irritated. I found his serious, aloof, and rather critical approach amusing.

One day we went independently to a mandarin’s palace where certain objects of art were being offered for sale. I had taken to going to such places alone more and more often, which had caused some surprise in the beginning but now was being accepted. It was recognized that I was an unusual woman. I was known as Madam Milner, the wife of the great Sylvester Milner, one of the richest traders in the Far East. And he had left everything to me. At first it was believed that this was the action of a man in his dotage who was enamored of a wife so much younger than himself. But I had done well, it seemed. Perhaps it was due to Toby’s influence that I was accepted. I was different because I was a woman. I had a woman’s intuition. My knowledge of Chinese Art was becoming formidable. And I kept a good manager in Toby Grantham who, everyone knew, was of the best. He remained loyal to me although it was rumored that he had had attractive offers from other companies. It seemed that I was not to be lightly dismissed.

My rickshaw man was a familiar sight in the town and I noticed passers-by watch me with lowered eyes. They would murmur something about Madam and the strangeness of foreign devils who set up their women as though they were goddesses.

On this particular occasion as the house was some miles away in the country I rode there on horseback. At first on these expeditions I had taken Toby with me but later formed the habit of going alone.

The mandarin’s house looked like an ivory carving as I approached; it was gilded and ornate like The House of a Thousand Lanterns and stood upon a platform paved with beautiful mosaics.

My horse was taken by a servant and I went into the house. The door opened onto a large square hall which again reminded me of our own at The House of a Thousand Lanterns. The beams of the roof were supported by columns which were painted in bright colors. I made out the form of the ubiquitous dragon.

In this room were several objects for display and these were what I and several others had come to see. Most of the people assembled were Europeans and many of them known to me. I was greeted on all sides and I felt a little glow of satisfaction by their manner which told me clearly that I was accepted as one of them.

There was one beautiful leaping figure which I admired very much. I was standing looking at it when I felt someone close behind me, and, turning, saw Adam.

“I see we have one thought in mind,” he said.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I can’t quite place the period.”

“Chou Dynasty, I think.”

“As far back?”

“It’s probably copied by someone in a later century but the Chou influence is there.” His face glowed a little. “There’s such movement in it. Definitely Chou influence. It betrays the kind of people they were—lively and barbaric.”

I said admiringly: “I wish I were as knowledgeable as you.”

“I’ve had a little longer to learn. Besides with me it’s a full-time occupation… or dedication if you like. You have had other things to absorb you.”

“I’m still eager to learn all I can.”

“Good, but you’ll never catch up.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“You have a child who is more to you than Art of any kind.”

“Perhaps that makes me appreciate beauty all the more.”

He shook his head. “Emotional entanglements take the mind off Art.”

“It’s not borne out. Great artists have often been great lovers.”

“Yet the one great love of their lives is their Art. The gods and goddesses of the Arts would not tolerate rivalry. But I’m not an artist, I’m only an appreciator. To learn of these things is entirely absorbing, so much reading, so much research. There isn’t time for anything else.”

“I don’t agree with you. Artists and appreciators of Art would know nothing of life if they didn’t experience it.”

“This is not the sort of conversation to carry on here. Let’s continue it later. I shall try for the Chou figure. What of you?”

“I want it,” I said.

“May the best man… or woman… win.”

We looked at other things. There were some beautiful ivory pieces. I bid for some of these and got them and I found a beautiful Ming vase which delighted me.

These would be collected later by someone whom Toby would send from the Go-Down. Then I went back to the Chou piece intending to bid for it.

To my dismay it had gone.

Adam was smiling at me sardonically.

“A little negotiating,” he said.

“But…”

“It sometimes happens. You see, there are certain things you have yet to learn.”

I was put out not only to have lost my chance of getting the piece but to have been proved wanting… and by Adam.

“Never mind,” he said. “Next time perhaps we could go together and I could give you a little advice. I shall accompany you back for I do not think it is wise for you to ride through the country alone.”

I was about to protest but having been shown my lack of experience in one matter I was a little subdued.

As we rode back, he talked about the various dynasties and he glowed with a kind of inner radiance. I could have listened entranced for hours.

“This Woman Supreme idea at the moment is absorbing,” he said. “You are doing very well, but you’ll grow tired of it.”

“If you mean carrying on as my husband intended me to I can assure you I won’t.”

“You could always have a say in how everything was run. But won’t there be times when family matters take over?”

“My son’s education you mean?”

“That, of course, but if you were to marry again…”

I was silent.

“You are young and attractive. There will be offers. After all you yourself have a good deal to offer. You are a woman of substance.”

“Quite a good catch, in fact,” I said.

“There must be some who are aware of it.”

“So I am bait for the fortune hunters?”

“I’ll swear there are one or two who would be delighted to take charge of your interests.”

“Perhaps, and they will find that I intend to keep charge of these myself.”

“You should marry,” he said gently. “But be careful, be wary before you take a hasty step in that direction.”

“I promise you I shall be very wary.”

He leaned towards me suddenly and laid his hand on mine.

Then he withdrew it sharply.

“If at any time you need my help on any matter,” he said, “I shall be glad to give it.”

“Thank you.”

When he helped me from my horse I fancied he held me a little longer than was necessary; our eyes met briefly; his gaze had lost its coldness.

Later the Chou piece arrived at the house. It was addressed to me and when I saw what it was I went to Adam and told him that there had been a mistake. The piece he had ordered to be sent to him had come to me.

He smiled at me. “It’s no mistake. It was for you.”

“But you bought it.”

“True and now it’s yours. A gift from me.”

“Adam!” I cried. “But it’s so beautiful!”

“I should not want to give you something you did not think desirable.”

I turned away. I felt a new emotion.

He said quietly: “I’m glad it pleases you.”

And I knew suddenly that there were three men who wished to marry me.

Joliffe who had said so vehemently, Toby who had shown me through his devotion, and now Adam who had told me so with a Chou figure.

I had the hazy impression that the house was laughing at me. Three men indeed! The answer is not hard to find. You are by no means old. You are moderately attractive and you are very rich.

With all the practical matters which had had to be settled since Sylvester’s death I had not at first thought so much about the house; then suddenly the realization that I was the owner of The House of a Thousand Lanterns began to obsess me.

I went from room to room. I liked to be alone, to shut myself in, to brood, to ask myself if it was true that these strange emotions which the place aroused in me had grown out of my imagination. How easy it was to believe that a house such as this was a living thing, that it was saying something to me.

I longed for Sylvester to be there, to talk to me as we used to. I missed him so much and found it impossible to stop grieving for him. I had relied on him. I was constantly wanting to ask his advice about some new discovery and longed to be able to talk to him about so many things. Sometimes I would wake from a hazy dream in which I was touching some article which had delighted me. I would be saying: “I must show this to Sylvester.” Then would come the sad realization that I could never show him anything again. Not my gratitude, my respect, my love… yes, I had loved him deeply.

Lottie talked about the house as though it were alive. She feared it had lost face because it now belonged to a woman.

I retorted that the very goddess on whose temple it was said to have been erected had been a female. Wouldn’t she therefore be pleased rather than dismayed?

Lottie was certain this was not so. “Women,” she would say and shake her head grimacing, “of no account. Men… that is different.”

Lottie herself would have had evidence of the lack of importance of her sex. She would remember that at the time of her birth she had been put out into the streets to die; every day in the floating city of sampans one would see baby boys tied to the boats so that they could not fall over into the water and drown, while no such precaution was taken with baby girls. I felt indignant on behalf of Chinese women. Their feet were mutilated if they were of the upper classes and their only education was how to embroider and paint on silk and serve the men who would be chosen as their husbands. Even then when they were given in marriage they must suffer their husband’s concubines under the same roof.

When I considered all this I saw Lottie’s point that the house which was essentially Chinese might be affronted to be in the possession of a woman.

“In a year you marry,” said Lottie confidently. “Then master in the house. No more lost face.”

I said: “It would still be my house.”

Lottie lifted her shoulders and laughed. She didn’t believe that.

Since he had given me the Chou figure my relationship with Adam had changed.

We had taken to going to sales together and we often met at dealers. I think Toby was a little piqued at our growing friendship although he was too discreet to mention it.

Adam was like a man with a purpose; there was about him a quiet determination. I knew that when my year of widowhood was over he was going to ask me to marry him.

And so was Toby.

I pondered about them a great deal but Joliffe was always in my thoughts for he would be back. It was impossible to consider Joliffe dispassionately as I could the others. When I thought of his breaking into Sylvester’s Treasure Room and taking away the goddess to have it valued, I reminded myself that Toby would say that was unethical for Toby was a man of honor. And Joliffe? Joliffe was an adventurer; in the old days he would have been a buccaneer. I could imagine him on the high seas storming ships and carrying off their treasure… and perhaps their women. I had loved Joliffe; but I did have an affection for both Adam and Toby. Yet I think I was not involved with them. Was that being in love? I could stand outside my relationship with Adam and Toby, but I could not as far as Joliffe was concerned. I might make up my mind to take one course of action with him and when he was there he could completely change it. There was one other with whom I was deeply involved—my son Jason. But he must come first. I had married Sylvester for his sake, and now if I married again, Jason should once more be a major consideration.

Both Toby and Adam seemed to realize what an important part Jason would make in my choice.

Of the two Toby was Jason’s favorite. Jason was perfectly happy in his company. Both Adam and Toby had given him riding lessons and at that time riding was his passion. Toby knew how to handle him; he had the right amount of firmness and friendship; he never talked down to him; they were man to man and at the same time Jason looked up to him. Adam was more aloof. He was not a boy’s man at all but I noticed that Jason had a great respect for him.

Once I asked my son whether he liked Adam.

Oh yes, he answered, he liked him. “Joliffe’s his cousin,” he added, as though that were the reason.

I should marry in time. I was not a woman to want to live my life alone. Jason was growing up; he needed a father. So as the weeks passed I thought often of marriage and living out my life—perhaps between England and Hong Kong as Sylvester had done. I wanted more children; I wanted a full life. I wanted the comfort of a large family and a man beside me to be my companion, and at the same time I wanted the satisfaction of increasing my knowledge and the thrill of the hunt for treasures. Strangely enough all the three men who were constantly in my thoughts could share my interests.

I wanted someone to share this house with me, and as these thoughts refused to be banished from my mind I was trying not to think too much of Joliffe. Oh Sylvester, I would think, if you were here I would not be in this dilemma.

One day when Adam and I were returning after a visit to a sale we talked of the house. I said: “I expect you will laugh at me, but since it passed into my hands I feel it is different.”

“Different in what way?” he asked.

“I can’t explain. It’s a subtle difference. When I’m in a room alone I feel that there’s a presence there… that something is being conveyed to me.”

He smiled. “That was at dusk I’m sure.”

“It might have been.”

“Shadows set the imagination working and in a place like The House of a Thousand Lanterns the imagination would be on the alert.”

“What is it about the house that makes me feel this aura of mystery… and that there is something rather sinister about it.”

“It is the house of an Oriental. Despite your knowledge of things Chinese, it is alien to all you were brought up to expect in life. It’s a strange house, too, I grant you that. All those rooms… every alcove fitted with lanterns.”

“And you think this is the only reason why I feel this strangeness?”

“I think it very likely.”

“Sylvester said that it contained some treasure.”

“That’s the legend.”

“Where could it be?”

“Who can say?”

“If there is something, there must be a secret hiding place in the house.”

“If there is it has eluded all the previous owners. They have searched in every room.”

“Do you think it is just a legend that has grown up?”

“I think that may well be.”

“I am the first woman to own this house. It seems a challenge in a way.”

“What will you do?”

“I shall try to find the solution.”

“Where will you begin?”

“I shall have to wait for some inspiration. Where would the treasure be likely to be?”

“It depends what the treasure is.”

“Sylvester did not think it was gold or silver or precious gems. He believed it was something more subtle. Do you know it has occurred to me that it could be the statue of Kuan Yin. You know the statue. The one every dealer seeks to find.”

“Whatever gave you that idea!”

“This house was built on the site of a temple. There is a statue of her in the pagoda and one in the house.”

Adam was looking at me intently. His eyes had darkened with an excitement he sought to suppress. To find the Sung Kuan Yin was the dream of every dealer.

“Do you think that if the mandarin who gave my great-grandfather the house had possessed Kuan Yin he would have given her away?”

“It might have been the ultimate sacrifice. His wife and son had been saved.”

“Your imagination runs away with you, Jane.”

“That’s what my mother used to tell me. It may be a wild idea, but I am going to find that piece if it is in this house.”

“How?”

“I shall search every room.”

“That’s been done a hundred times.”

“Yet the secret must be there.”

“If there is one, no one has discovered it in over eighty years.”

“Perhaps I shall be the one.”

Adam gave me one of his rare smiles.

“I am going to join forces with you. Where shall we begin?”

“That is what I shall have to discover. Perhaps the house will tell me.” I smiled at him, for I saw the curl of his lips.

He was the most practical of men. He would never be given to flights of fancy. Perhaps he was the man I needed in my life. I asked myself: Was I right in thinking Sylvester meant this? He must have trusted Adam since he had named him Jason’s guardian.

And Jason? Jason liked him. He felt the confidence children feel in a strong man—besides he was Joliffe’s cousin.

II

We were going to visit Chan Cho Lan. Adam, Lottie, and myself.

Adam explained to me.

“The lady is quite a power in the district. The family has known her for some years. At one time she acted as a kind of liaison between us and some of the wealthy mandarins. She is of a good family and there is no one quite like her in Hong Kong for like you she is mistress of her house and has no husband now. She keeps a large establishment in which she trains girls in the graces of social life.”

I told him that Lottie had taken me to her and we had already met.

“Lottie holds her in great awe,” I said. “I think she was afraid when she took me that I should not observe the correct etiquette. Lottie, being brought up in her house for a time, was well aware of it. I found it all fascinating. Why does she invite us again?”

“She invites members of our family now and then. It is to show she maintains good will towards us.”

I remembered last time I had been there and the strange grace of this woman. I dressed myself in white silk chiffon, as I was still in mourning for Sylvester. It was a color becoming to me and I was glad. Not that I would attempt to rival the beauty and grace of Chan Cho Lan but I did feel that I should look as well as possible.

Lottie was delightful in a light green silk cheongsam; her hair was loose and she wore a frangipani flower in it.

We walked the short distance and as we went through the gates I heard the sound of a gong and the strains of that peculiar tinkly offkey Chinese music. When we were ushered in, Chan Cho Lan rose from a cushion to greet us.

I recognized the fragrance of jasmine and frangipani as she swayed before us—beauty in person. Her robe was of pale lilac color embroidered with gold; her lovely hair was held up by jeweled pins and the delicate coloring of her face was exquisite.

Adam towered above her and she bowed low to him. Then they closed their hands and lifted them two or three times towards their heads.

Adam said: “Haou? Tsing Tsing.”

“Tsing Tsing,” murmured Chan Cho Lan.

Then she greeted me in the same way.

With Adam walking beside her she led the way from the reception room into a dining room where a round table was laid with china bowls, china spoons, and ivory chopsticks.

Chan Cho Lan and Adam talked together in Cantonese in which Adam seemed very fluent. He sat beside our hostess; and Lottie and I took the places allotted to us. I was surprised that Lottie was included, and I wondered whether Adam had asked for this. He had shown more than once his interest in her, and he had made it very clear how pleased he was that she fitted into my household.

A servant came with hot damp cloths on a tray. We picked them up with tongs and wiped our hands; they were fragrant, smelling of rose water.

Jasmine-scented tea was then brought to us and this was clearly the prelude to the meal. Chan Cho Lan said how much we honored her miserable table and with what happiness she welcomed us. Adam replied on our behalf. He gave the impression that he knew exactly what was expected and that dining in such circumstances was an everyday occurrence with him.

Our hostess studied me with interest. I did great honor to Hong Kong, she said. I was a lady of great importance. Very illustrious. Adam lifted his small cup of tea and gave a toast to two illustrious ladies while Chan Cho Lan lifted her hands and shook her beautiful head from side to side, obviously denying her claim to the description.

“We live close,” said Chan Cho Lan.

“Neighbors,” replied Adam. “Therefore it is good to be neighborly.”

She clearly did not understand and Adam explained to her in Cantonese.

Lottie, silent and awestruck, looked on with a kind of wonder. Adam seemed to have abandoned his usual rather taciturn manner and was quite capable of keeping the conversation going either in Cantonese or the sort of basic English he used with Chan Cho Lan.

When the great bowl came in which was filled with fragments of chicken and duck and we were expected to help ourselves from it, Adam picked out pieces which he fed to Chan Cho Lan implying that he sought the best pieces for her. This was the custom and Lottie did the same for me.

It was very ceremonious and it was fortunate that I was aware of the procedure for there are few places where it is easier to commit a breach of good manners than at a Chinese dinner table. Through the meal from the deem sum, or hors d’oeuvres, through the meat dishes—flavored with lotus seeds and wrapped in the finest dough—to the soup which was made from birds’ nests and the dessert, fruit dipped in a sweet substance that was like toffee, I contrived to do what was expected of me. Toasts were intermittently drunk in shau-shing, a wine distilled from rice. It was sweet and cloying.

“Yam seng,” said Adam and Chan Cho Lan bowed her beautiful head and repeated with him “Yam seng,” as they drained their small porcelain cups.

The rose-scented damp cloths were brought round several times and we wiped our hands; then Chan Cho Lan rose to her feet. Adam took her hand and we fell in behind them while she tottered to another room. Here we sat on pouf-like cushions. There was a dais at one end of the room where musicians were seated.

A gong sounded and dancers came in. I have rarely seen dancers so graceful as those I saw in Chan Cho Lan’s house that day.

The costumes of the dancers were colorful and gay and I quickly realized that there was something symbolic in the dances. They were about lovers and one of the dancers before the dance began would tell us what these movements were meant to portray.

First of all there was the meeting of lovers. Eight young and lovely girls performed this, going through coquettish motions as they approached and retreated. Courtship was portrayed by the girls playing in the fields chasing butterflies. They carried ribbons in their hands and as they danced they released them to form symmetrical shapes; they laughed joyously as they circled and were joined by girls dressed as young men in gay costumes. This was falling in love and the expressions of the dancers ranged from frivolity to seriousness.

Then there was the bridal dance with one graceful girl representing the bride, the other the groom. More dancers—guests at the wedding—performed with joyous abandon.

It stopped when the bridegroom led off his bride and the other dancers fell in behind them.

“Now they live happy ever more,” said Chan Cho Lan.

We clapped our hands and Chan Cho Lan nodded gravely.

“Before you go,” she said, “I wish you see the shrines.”

She was looking at me so I said that I should be delighted.

She bowed and with Adam beside her again led the way along a passage which was lit by lanterns rather similar to those in my house. We came to a door which was covered by brocade. As she opened it, an odor of incense enveloped us. It came from joss sticks burning in the room. An aged man with a long beard, wearing a silk robe which reached to his ankles and with a round hat on his head, bowed to us and stood aside.

There was a hushed air in the room. Then I saw the shrine. It was dazzling; and there dominating it was a statue of Kuan Yin. The goddess was carved in wood and seated on what appeared to be a rocky island. Her beautiful benevolent face smiled at us. Joss sticks burned on the shrine.

“The Goddess of Mercy,” murmured Chan Cho Lan.

“She presides over the shrine,” whispered Adam to me. “And on the walls you see Chan Cho Lan’s ancestors.”

I looked at the paintings of men who all looked alike in their mandarins’ robes with their long beards and hands clasped before them.

I was more interested in the shrine, for around it were etchings portraying the story of the goddess’ life on earth. There she was as a princess being beaten by her father because she refused to marry. In the second picture she was in a nunnery working as a scullery maid. She was seen in various stages of persecution by her wicked father and finally going to paradise. When her father was sick she descended to earth to nurse him. Deified, glorified, she was the goddess to whom all turned in their need.

It was clear that this room with its shrine dedicated to her and Chan Cho Lan’s ancestors was a sacred place and I was surprised that she had allowed us as barbarians to enter it.

We took a ceremonious farewell with much bowing and talk on her side of how miserable the entertainment had been and on ours how unworthy we had been to have been given it, which I must say I found a little irritating. I wanted to thank her and tell her what a wonderful experience it had been and I did so.

As we walked across to The House of a Thousand Lanterns I thought Lottie looked as if she had paid a visit to the paradise of Fō. Yet she was a little sad. I guessed it was because she herself had been brought up in that establishment, yet Chan Cho Lan had never trained her as a dancing girl to entertain her guests, nor had she prepared her for a grand alliance by crippling her feet.

I wondered why. In due course, I promised myself, I would find out.

I talked about it afterwards with Adam.

“Chan Cho Lan seems to be very friendly with you,” I said.

“Our family has been friends with hers for many years and she regards me as the head of ours since Sylvester died. She has quite a history. When she was a child she was chosen to be one of the Emperor’s concubines. He had a great many and some of these were never even seen by the Emperor. To qualify for a concubine a lady must be of noble family. She is sent to the palace and selected for her beauty, grace, and accomplishments. The Emperor does not do the selecting. His mother or his major domo does that. The girls go to the palace at an early age but some of them never have a chance of catching the Emperor’s eyes; they remain in seclusion guarded by eunuchs, always hoping I suppose that the summons will come. It never came for Chan Cho Lan. If it had I am sure the Emperor would have been pleased. It is influence and relations at court who draw their lord’s attention to a girl. In the meantime they live as girls do in a school, and paint on silk and embroider and talk of themselves and what they know of the world—which is precious little—and when they are past their first flush of youth, which is about eighteen years old, they may leave the Emperor’s court and husbands are found for them. Chan Cho Lan was passed to an old mandarin who lived but a year or so after the wedding. Since then she has become a lady of distinction in her own right. Because she was trained in all the graces to charm an Emperor, she decided not to waste her gifts but to bestow them on girls of her choosing. So she took under her wing the selected girls and some she trains to be dancers, as those we have seen today. Others, if they are young enough when they come to her, have their feet bound and are brought up to make good alliances. She assesses the girls and trains them for what she thinks will suit them best. She is a kind of matchmaker or marriage broker, a very profitable business, and it is said that she is one of the richest women in Hong Kong.”

“She seemed interested in me,” I said. “Or did I imagine that?”

“She is—it is because you have a reputation for being an astute businesswoman—very different from her profession of course, but she would wish to know someone who could be as successful as she is. Life has dealt similarly with you, as she would see it, although you are a world apart. Moreover you are a member of our family, and for that alone she would be interested.”

“I have rarely seen you so eager to please,” I could not resist saying.

“I must return politeness with politeness. Moreover in the past she has introduced many a mandarin to my father and me, someone who is looking for some rare statue or painting. She would let us know if someone of her acquaintance had something to dispose of. I want her to continue to do so.”

“Oh,” I said with a smile, “so it’s business after all.”

I could not forget the exquisite grace of the dancers. As for Lottie, she continued to appear bemused.

“You have like dance?” she asked.

“Yes, I liked that.”

“And all leading to the marriage.”

“I suppose it is a common theme,” I said.

Lottie did not understand that. “It was for you,” she said. “It is a sign. You marry soon.”

“It had nothing to do with me personally. It was just the theme of the dance.”

“Was for you,” she said wisely. “One year nearly up.”

“Why Lottie,” I said, “are you not content with things as they are?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Not good for house. The house ask for Master,” she said.

“Well, I am the one who must decide that, Lottie,” I reminded her.

“You decide,” she said confidently. “One year from end of Master you decide.”

Lottie seemed to have made up her mind that I would marry. I was not so sure.

As I lay in bed I looked up at the lantern swinging from the ceiling.

A thousand lanterns, I thought. Was the secret of this house in the lanterns?

It must be. In what way was this house different from any other? By the fact that it was said to contain a thousand lanterns. I looked round the room. It was not one of the largest in the house. There was the huge lantern hanging from the center and smaller ones placed at intervals round the walls. I counted twenty. Then there was the room in which Jason slept. There must have been about fifteen there.

I said to myself: The secret must be in the lanterns.

There was a pressure of business that day and I forgot about the lanterns, but I remembered that evening.

I had dined and was having coffee when Adam called. I was surprised to see him at this hour but his visit was explained by his excitement over an interesting piece he had bought that day.

“I couldn’t wait to show you,” he said, “I’m sure it’s a discovery. What do you think of it?”

He unwrapped it from a calico bag and held it reverently in his hands.

“It’s an incense burner,” I said.

“That’s so. What dynasty would you say?”

“I should imagine it’s about the second or the first century B.C. If so, I should say the Han Dynasty.”

He smiled at me warmly. He always seemed to be a different person at such times and it was on these occasions that I found myself liking him more and more.

“Where did you find it?” I asked.

“A mandarin friend of Chan Cho Lan wanted to dispose of it. She saw it and I had first chance.”

“I remember an incense burner that Sylvester was particularly fond of,” I said. My voice faltered and Adam looked at me sharply.

“It’s lonely here in this house for you,” he said.

“I’m all right. I have Jason… and Lottie is a great comfort to me.”

He looked gratified and nodded as though to remind me that he had brought her to me. “You are pale,” he went on solicitously, almost tenderly. “Do you get out enough?”

“Why yes.”

“But you can’t take walks as you did in England. Would you like to take a walk now? We’ll go round the gardens and to the pagoda. What do you think?”

“Yes,” I said, “I would like to. I’ll get a wrap.”

I went upstairs, looking in at Jason who was fast asleep and came down to Adam.

Walking was always an interesting experience at The House of a Thousand Lanterns. In the courtyards were paths over which were arches covered in climbing plants; one could walk right round the house along these paths. But I always felt it was restricting within the walls, and I liked to go through all four gates and outside to the pagoda.

This we did and I could never step inside the place without thinking of Joliffe’s waiting for me there and stepping out to catch me as I entered.

The pagoda was eerie by night. A faint shaft of light shone through the roof and fell on the face of the goddess.

“I should have loved to see it as it was when it was a temple,” I said.

Adam agreed with me.

“What a still night. It will soon be the Feast of the Dragon. On the fifth day of the fifth month he is supposed to be in a cruel mood. You’ll see some fantastic craft on the water and on land too. Dragons breathing fire, and gongs beating to divert him from his wicked purposes.”

“Jason will be thrilled. And I must say I always find these processions exciting. I suppose I shall get used to them in time… if I stay here.”

“But of course you’ll stay here. Your life will be spent here… and at home. But that’s how it is with all of us.”

“How long before you go home?” I asked.

“It depends on so much.”

“Shall you go before the year is out?”

“No,” he answered firmly.

“Doesn’t it depend on what happens then?”

“I know I shall be here for a while yet.”

I thought: He will wait until the year is up and then he will ask me to marry him.

I looked at him in the moonlight. He looked strong, serene, and a man of dignity. He was as dogmatic as he ever was but I was no longer annoyed by that in him. It amused me. I liked to pit my wits against his. In a way he was a challenge to me as Toby would never be. Toby would agree with me almost always—or at least try to see my point of view; Toby was kind and good and reliable. I was not quite sure of Adam. I only knew that the more I was with him the more he interested me.

I said suddenly: “I woke up this morning with the conviction that the secret of the house is in the lanterns.”

He turned abruptly to look at me.

“How in the lanterns?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we have to find out. It is called The House of a Thousand Lanterns. Why?”

“Presumably because the lanterns are a feature of the house.”

“A thousand lanterns,” I said. “I am going to count them. Has anyone ever counted them?”

“I don’t know. And what would be the point?”

“I don’t know that either. At least I would like to satisfy myself that the thousand are here. Will you join in the counting?”

“I will. When?”

“Tomorrow. When the house is quiet.”

“It’s a secret then?”

“I think for some reason I don’t want anyone to know I’m counting.”

“Tomorrow then,” he said, “when the house is quiet.”

It was afternoon; the house was silent; only occasionally through a window would one hear the tinkle of the wind bells. Adam and I stood together in the hall; he was holding a paper and pencil for we were determined to take careful notes. We started counting in the hall, and went into the lower rooms watching the total grow.

“I’m beginning to wonder,” said Adam, “how they can possibly have crammed a thousand into the house.”

“That’s what we will find out.”

Through the lower rooms we went; then through every room on the next floor. One of the servants saw us and must have wondered what we were doing but his expression was impassive, and we had become used to this seeming indifference to our actions.

We came to the top of the house which was used very little. There was nothing Occidental in these rooms which had retained their Chinese furnishings. There were Chinese rugs on the floor—in lovely shades of blue and almost all decorated with a dragon; there were paintings on the walls of delicate misty scenes such as originated in the paintings of the T’ang Dynasty and have been part of Chinese Art ever since.

“They are really exquisite,” I said. “We should use these rooms.”

“It’s such a big house. You would need a very large family to fill it. Perhaps,” he added, “you will have that one day.”

“Who can say?”

He came a little closer to me and for a moment I thought: Could I wholly trust Adam? I would never really know him, but that could make life exciting. There would always be discoveries to be made about him.

He seemed to sense my thoughts. He touched my hand briefly and I thought then that he was on the point of asking me to marry him.

He withdrew his hand immediately and for a moment was almost aloof. He would be thinking that it was not seemingly to mention marriage until I had passed a year in widowhood. How different from Joliffe!

“Such a big house,” I said lightly. “I wonder whether the house was built for the lanterns or the lanterns put in as an afterthought?” I hesitated for a moment, then I cried out: “Perhaps that’s the clue. Was the house built to accommodate the lanterns?”

“Whoever heard of such a thing? Who would want a thousand lanterns?”

“The builder of this house did or he wouldn’t have put them in. Adam, I am now certain that the clue to the mystery is in the lanterns.”

“Well let us get on with the counting as the first step.”

So we went on counting.

“How many now?”

“Five hundred and thirty nine.”

“But we have nearly been through the entire house and we’re nowhere near a thousand. You see, it’s a misnomer. It’s not The House of a Thousand Lanterns.”

I went to the window and looked out. I could see the pagoda which never failed to excite me. Adam came and stood beside me. “It fascinates me,” I said. “I suppose because it’s part of the old temple. Can you picture it, Adam?”

He nodded and half closed his eyes. “The pagoda with its three decorated stories and the decorations then would not have been crumbling away with time,” he mused. “The temple itself… where this house now stands; the paved path leading to the portico, colossal stone figures supporting each of the granite pedestals—terrifying guards to the temple probably representing Chin-ky and Chin-loong, great warriors of renown. We would pass through a door and the lay-out would be rather as it is now; we would step into a courtyard with trees and paths and then through another door and so on until we came to the temple. There the priests would be assembled; imagine the chanting and the sound of gongs as they kowtowed to the great goddess. Priests would have lived close to the temple for it would be their duty to tend it and worship daily.”

“I can picture it all so clearly,” I said. “I can almost see the priests wandering out from the pagoda and hear the sound of the gongs. But I believe you think I am too fanciful for good sense.”

“What I do think is that you combine the two. The danger is that you let one get the better of the other and if that should happen to be the imagination you might make a false judgment.”

“You are too prosaic,” I said.

“Then if I am so and you err on the side of fancy we are well matched.”

I moved away from him. “What is the tally now?” I asked.

He looked at the paper. “Five hundred and fifty three.”

“There is not much left. Where are these thousand lanterns?”

When we had gone through the house the figure was five hundred and seventy.

“Of course,” I said, “this would include the courtyards too. Come. We have to complete the list.”

We went round the courtyards and into the pagoda. There were thirty more lanterns which brought our total to six hundred.

“There couldn’t be any more,” said Adam.

“There must be.”

“Then where are they? We are still far off the grand total.”

We stood in the pagoda and I looked up at the glint of sky through the roof. I listened to the faint sound of the wind bells which I fancied had a teasing note.

I said: “I am sure the solution to the mystery is in the lanterns. I know it is. It’s almost as though the house is telling me.”

“You’re not like the famous Joan who heard her voices, are you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, Jane!”

I turned to him a little impatiently. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I first heard the name of the house when I was a schoolgirl and I knew it was going to mean something to me. The house and I have a kind of… what do you call it? An affinity. You don’t understand that, Adam, do you?”

He shook his head.

“But I believe it. I think Sylvester knew it. I’m determined to discover the secret of this house.”

Adam laid his hand on my arm. “The secret,” he said. “There is no secret. The house was given to my great-grandfather; it was built on the site of an old temple. Legend grew up round it for this reason. Then someone had the idea to fill it with lanterns.”

“And it became The House of a Thousand Lanterns. A thousand though!”

“It’s clear that the house is crammed full of them and they couldn’t have got any more in. No, a Thousand Lanterns was a picturesque name so it was used without relation to the actual fact which was that they hadn’t quite reached that number.”

“Your reasoning sounds logical.”

“I’m always logical I hope, Jane.”

“I suppose I’m not… always.”

“It’s said to be a feminine characteristic to be a trifle illogical at times.”

“And you deplore this feminine trait in me?”

“Actually I found it not unattractive but…”

“But what, Adam?”

“I think that all women like you need someone to take care of you.”

There is something about the pagoda, I thought. People grew reckless in it.

I said quickly: “We are some four hundred lanterns short. We must discover where they are. If we do we may have the answer to the puzzle.”

On the way back to the house we argued a little. Adam was sure that the house had been given the name because it sounded poetic; I was certain that there was more in it than that. I continued to believe the secret lay among the lanterns.

Lanterns! I dreamed of lanterns. The first thing I saw on waking was the lantern which hung from the center of the room and in which an oil lamp burned all night. When the Feast of Lanterns came I was delighted with the varying kinds as I had been the previous year. Sylvester had been alive then and we had gone to the waterfront to watch the procession. What an array of lanterns of all kinds! Many of them made of paper and silk. Ours were of wrought iron and solid.

After the Feast of Lanterns I studied the patterns on ours and to my delight I saw that the scenes engraved on them were similar. They all depicted lovers. In the lower hall the lovers were meeting for the first time. There girls were dancing, throwing ribbons exactly as I had seen them do at Chan Cho Lan’s house; all the lanterns on the first floor seemed to bear the same engraving; but when I went upstairs I saw that those on the next floor were engraved with two lovers hand in hand.

On the next floor the lovers were embracing.

It was exciting. It was a kind of story. They met; they fell in love, and I presume the last engraving suggested marriage.

This was interesting but when I told Adam he laughed at the idea. It was clever, he said, to have discovered that there were different engravings on each floor, but that seemed the natural sequence of events and he could see nothing in that which might lead to the discovery of the secret.

“Have you ever heard the maxim ‘Leave no stone unturned’?” I asked.

“Many times,” he replied.

“Then don’t you think it’s a good one, because I do and that’s what I’m doing now.”

He smiled at me indulgently; but I continued to be fascinated by the lanterns.

The time was approaching when the Feast of the Dead would be celebrated.

It was so like last year. I remembered well how the atmosphere in the house had changed; how duties were neglected and an air of excitement pervaded the house. Everyone it seemed had some dead relative who must be made aware that he or she was not forgotten.

From the windows I could see people making their way to the hills; riding near I saw the burial grounds where the mat houses were being erected beside the tombs which were all shaped like the last letter of the Greek Alphabet, Omega, which might have been significant. Food was being taken up to the hillside and soon the feasting would begin.

I was transported back to the day when Sylvester had died. I remembered our last conversation. I could not forget the sight of him, his face emaciated, parchment color, and he so certain that the end had come and so anxious that he should have left his house in order.

And on the night of the 5th April—the culmination of the Feast of the Dead—he had died.

It had seemed a coincidence at the time. Now the thought occurred to me more insistently that it was strange that he should have died on that night.

The day had come. There was tension throughout the house. All the servants had gone to the hillside.

“You will wish to be with your grief,” Lottie told me before she went off. “You do not feast at his tomb but you will think of him.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I still think of him.”

“In China lady mourn for lord three years. Foreign spirits mourn only one.”

“Sometimes they mourn for a long time, Lottie.”

“You say one year and you marry.”

“I said I should not marry before one year.”

“But you will marry. House want it.”

“You are still worrying about the goddess losing face because a woman owns the house built on her temple?”

Lottie gave her enigmatic giggle. “House pleased now soon there be master.”

She had a basket full of titbits from the kitchens which she was taking to the grave of her ancestors.

“Must take care of ancestors,” she said. “It is the greatest sin not to. Buddha says a good man cares for his dead. If I did not I should never go to Fō.”

I nodded for I had discussed Fō with Sylvester. It was the paradise inhabited by the followers of Buddha—a kingdom of gold where the trees bore glittering gems instead of fruit. It was dominated by the magic seven. There were seven rows of trees, seven fences, and seven bridges and the bridges were made of pearls. Above it all presided the Buddha seated on a lotus flower. Everything in Fō was perfect. There no one was ever hungry nor thirsty; there was no pain and no one ever grew old. It was the hope of everyone, man and woman, to reach this paradise and only through good deeds could he or she achieve it. And as man’s chief duty was to respect and cherish his ancestors one of the most important days of the year was the Feast of the Dead.

I went to the sitting room. There was Sylvester’s empty chair. I wished that he were alive so that I could tell him how grateful I was to him, how I would never forget that I owed him everything.

I could not say that I did not cherish my possessions for I did. I was proud to be the head of the business he had built up. I was proud too to be the owner of The House of a Thousand Lanterns.

How still the house was! They would all have gone to the hillside. Ling Fu had taken Jason to the Go-Down; he and Toby were riding that afternoon. I should have accompanied them but I had a strange feeling that I wished to be by myself in the house on this afternoon.

No sound… only the occasional tinkle of the wind bells and every now and then in the distance the sound of a gong as some procession made its way to the hillside.

There was one thought which kept going round in my head. Your year is up.

As I Stood there in Sylvester’s room and thought of his last hours, there was great booming throughout the house. It was as though everything had become alert suddenly waiting.

I felt my heart begin to hammer. I had an idea what this might mean.

It was the gong at the side of the porch and meant that we had a visitor.

I knew who it was and the familiar joy and apprehension fought with each other.

I went to the door.

He said: “I’ve come as I said I would.”

Then he stepped in and shut the door behind him.

“I was determined not to wait a minute longer,” he went on.

And he took me in his arms and I knew that I had never seriously considered Adam or Toby, for there was no one in the world for me—nor ever would be—but Joliffe.