On the second day of his visit he had asked me where I took my meals.

“Sometimes with my mother in her sitting room, sometimes in the servants’ hall.”

“While I dine in solitary state. It won’t do. You shall dine with me… tête-à-tête, how’s that?”

His word was law. He lightly assumed the place of head of the house while Mr. Sylvester was away. Mrs. Couch without hesitation laid a place for me in the dining room where Mr. Sylvester entertained his guests. I sat at one end of the long table, Joliffe at the other. This amused him, but I felt uneasy wondering what Mr. Sylvester would say if he returned and found me here.

I soon forgot my apprehension though in the intoxicating company of Joliffe Milner.

I remember on the third day after his arrival my mother came to my room.

She said: “Joliffe is very interested in you, Jane.”

“Oh yes,” I said, “it’s the work. He’s in the same business as his uncle.”

My mother looked at me strangely. If feeling exultation in a certain person’s presence, and when he was not there being completely deflated, was being in love, then I was in love with Joliffe Milner. It was clear, I supposed. Even I looking in the minor could see the change in myself.

“Do you think he is a serious young man?” she asked.

“Serious? I hadn’t thought of that. He laughs about most things so one could hardly call him serious.”

I was halted then by the look on my mother’s face and the fleeting thought struck me that she had changed in the last year. Her color was as vivid as ever but her face had fined down a little; her eyes seemed brighter than usual. There was about her a rather secretive look. This was scarcely perceptible but I who knew her so well might be one of the few who noticed. There was a change. Why? I asked myself. What is it? Then I forgot it because my thoughts at this time were dominated by Joliffe Milner.

“He is a very charming man,” said my mother. “Your father was a charming man, but…”

She shrugged her shoulders and my thoughts were too far away to ask her to continue what she was about to say.

I put on my riding kit—my mother’s gift to me—and went out riding. I was joined, as I had hoped I would be, by Joliffe.

And there passed another of those enchanted mornings.


* * *

I had my duties and in spite of this new excitement in life I must not ignore them. There was some post to be dealt with. I had always enjoyed working in the little study adjoining Mr. Sylvester’s Chinese Library; I had felt a certain sense of responsibility which was gratifying.

But since Joliffe was at the house, I longed to be out with him.

I had made a habit of going two or three times a week into what I still called the showroom. I had always been thrilled to unlock the door and cross the threshold and to be entirely alone with those precious objects which by now were becoming familiar to me.

But because of Joliffe’s presence in the house I had neglected to go there and when I realized this decided to do so at once.

I went in, shut the door and stood looking round. My eyes always went immediately to the bronze Buddha which had struck me the first time I had entered this room, and from the Buddha to the Kuan Yin. Then I thought it would be a good exercise to compare her with the new one which had so excited Mr. Sylvester when he had brought it home.

I went to the glass showcase in which he had placed it. I stared. The figure was not there.

It could not be so, for she had been there when I was last in this room.

But that was before Mr. Sylvester had gone away.

There was only one explanation. He had taken the figure with him. He had not told me, which was strange. He might have been sure that I would miss it. How odd that he should take it and say nothing.

I was so disturbed by this that I could not concentrate on anything else. I carefully locked the door and went back to my room. I was a little shaken. I could not understand why, having talked so earnestly about the importance and value of the statue, he should have taken it and said nothing.

I went to my window and looked out at the barred windows of the showroom.

No one could have got in. I was the only one in the house who had a key. The answer was simple, Mr. Sylvester must have taken the image with him. Perhaps he was going to have some test made on it.

I went out riding with Joliffe and that was enough to make me forget everything else. It was wonderful to pick our way through the forest and canter across the glades. We stopped at an old inn for cider and farmhouse sandwiches, and sitting in that inn parlor with its stone floor and hams and sides of bacon hanging on the rafters, the brass gleaming in the open fireplace, I was happier than I had ever been in my life and I knew that the reason was Joliffe.

As we sipped our cider which was a little potent and ate the homemade bread and freshly baked ham, I asked him how often he came to Roland’s Croft.

“Not often.”

“They behave as though you are there every day. You enjoy your visits there I believe.”

“Never one as much as this one.”

He turned his blue eyes on me and they undoubtedly implied that this was the best of visits because I was there.

We were quiet as we rode back. I thought he was on the verge of saying something that would be very important to us both so I was in a state of great expectancy. It was strange for him to be silent. It was like discovering a side to his nature which I had not suspected existed.

We returned in the middle of the afternoon and I did not see him for the rest of the day. He left word that he had an appointment and would not be in to dinner. My mother and I dined alone in her sitting room. She was in a strange mood. She talked a great deal about the days when my father had courted her.

“Do you know, Janey,” she said, “I used to have qualms. You see if he hadn’t married me they wouldn’t have cast him off, would they? He would have had a comfortable income, instead of that meager annuity, wouldn’t he?”

“He would rather have had us,” I assured her.

“He must have told me so a thousand times. I’d like to see you settled, Janey. Of course you have this post here with Mr. Sylvester and he’s a very kind gentleman but…”

She looked at me as though asking me to tell her something. I knew that she was hoping that Joliffe would ask me to marry him. She wanted me to know the happiness she had enjoyed with my father.

“Mind you,” she went on as I remained silent. “You’re young yet. Only eighteen, but I was eighteen when I married your father. We met and we knew at once. It was as quick as that.”

She was hoping for confidences. But I had none to give her.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay awake thinking of the inn parlor and the manner in which Joliffe had looked at me. I went over our conversation and in the middle of it all I remembered that the Kuan Yin was not in the showroom and the strangeness of this struck me afresh.

I dozed and dreamed I was in the room and the eyes of the bronze Buddha suddenly moved and they were accusing me.

After an hour of this I got up and went to the window. I looked across at the barred window as I used to when I first came to the house. How different the place looked in moonlight—mysterious, eerie—the sort of place in which anything could happen.

I was getting cold but I knew I would not sleep so I sat there and quite suddenly I saw the flickering light. I could not believe it. That light was behind those barred windows. There was no mistaking it. Someone—something—was in the showroom.

I had begun to tremble and the match shook as I lighted my candle. I went back to the window. It was dark and then… there it was… that flickering will-o’-the-wisp.

Thieves! I thought. And Mr. Sylvester away and I am responsible!

I put on my dressing gown and thrust my feet into slippers. I had to go and see.

Swiftly I mounted the stairs. I was standing outside the door. I took the handle and slowly turned it. The door was locked. It was then that the goose pimples rose on my skin and a feeling of sheer terror came over me. Burglars did not seem half as terrifying as that something which had clearly been—and perhaps still was—in the room.

I sped back to my room. I took the key from the sandalwood box and came back, I tried the door again. It was still locked. I turned the key and went in.

How eerie the room looked. I lifted my candle and because my hand was shaking my shadow danced on the wall. The candlelight fell on the now familiar objects. There was the Buddha. He was terrifying in candlelight. His eyes half closed, his expression malevolent, his effortless lotus pose making him aloof and disdainful.

My heart was racing, my throat was parched, I was prepared for anything to happen. Yet I advanced into the room. I must not dismiss the idea that that light had been brought in by a human being who had entered the room by some means and may have stolen something.

There was the valuable Ming vase. The jade cabinet was intact.

Then I stared. For in the glass case smiling benignly at me was the Kuan Yin which this morning had not been there.

I was imagining it. I opened the case. I touched her. In truth she was there. Yet this morning she had been missing.

Something very strange was happening here. I looked about the room. It was uncanny. These objects had been in the world for centuries; they would have passed through so many hands. Was it true that seemingly inanimate objects became imbued with the tragedies and comedies of the lives of those to whom they had belonged?

Then to my horror I heard a noise. Surely it was a stealthy footstep. I had the feeling that I was about to be trapped.

I moved forward so that I was sheltering behind the bronze Buddha. I saw the flickering light at the door. A dark figure was there.

I caught my breath audibly. A voice said: “Who’s there?”

Floods of relief swept over me for it was Joliffe’s voice.

“It’s you, Joliffe,” I said.

“Jane!”

I came out into the room and we stood facing each other, our candles in our hands.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered.

“What are you?”

“I thought I saw a light in here. I came to see what was happening.”

“I heard someone moving about. I came to investigate.”

“Who could it have been?”

“You were the one I heard.”

“But I saw a light here.”

“Do you think there’s a burglar in the house?”

“The door was locked. How could he have got in?”

“He wouldn’t have come in and carefully locked the door after him. It was a trick of light you saw.”

“It couldn’t have been.”

“It was. How lovely you are, Jane, with your hair loose like that.”

His presence always intoxicated me. I could only think that we were alone together and although in incongruous circumstances it didn’t matter.

He came closer to me. “What good fortune to meet like this.”

“How ridiculous. We can meet during the day.”

“This is exciting.” He put his candle down and took mine from me. Then he put his arms about me and held me tightly.

“I love you, Jane,” he said.

I just wanted to lie against him, for I loved him too and I was happy as I never had been before.

He took my face in his hands and said: “Jane, there has never been anyone like you.”

“There was never anyone like you, I’m sure.”

“This was inevitable. Did you sense from the first day we sheltered beneath the parapet?”

“I think I did.”

“Oh Jane! Life will be good, won’t it? You’ll let it be, won’t you?”

“I only want to be with you,” I answered.

We kissed and I had never dreamed that there were such kisses. I was in a state of euphoria and the transition from terror to bliss was too sudden. Everything seemed unreal. I was in love with a man I had so briefly known and we were here together half clad in this room which for me had always seemed like part of a fantasy.

I expected to wake at any moment to find that I had dreamed of that flickering light and I would find myself seated at my window where I had dozed off.

But no, I was here, and Joliffe’s arms were about me and he was telling me that he loved me and he was urging me to love him completely and utterly.