I was very young and inexperienced; love to me was a romantic and beautiful thing as my mother had always presented it to be. She and my father had met and loved romantically; they had married within three weeks of their meeting and he had sacrificed a life of comfort for her. That was love.

The bronze Buddha seemed to be looking at me with cold disdainful eyes.

“What a strange place for a lovers’ meeting,” said Joliffe. “Let’s get out of here.”

“I must go back to my room,” I said.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

He took me in his arms again but I couldn’t shut out the thought of the Buddha’s watching eyes. It was foolish. What was it but a piece of bronze and yet…

“I must get out of this room,” I said.

Resolutely I picked up my candle. He took his and we went out of the room together. I locked the door.

We faced each other in the corridor.

He was holding my hand firmly. “I can’t let you go,” he said.

“We may wake someone.”

“Come to my room… or I’ll come to yours…”

I drew back. “No, we couldn’t do that.”

He said: “Forgive me, Jane. I’m carried away by… all this.”

“We will talk about everything tomorrow,” I answered.

He held me in his arms again and I withdrew myself hastily and turning fled back to my room.

I set down the candle on the dressing table and looked at my reflection in the mirror. I could hardly recognize myself. My hair hung round my shoulders, my eyes looked brilliant and there was a faint color in my usually pale cheeks. I was looking at a new person. I was looking at Jane in love.

What a strange night! I had made two startling discoveries, but one had almost driven the other from my mind. Joliffe loved me. That Roland’s croft was all important. The fact that the Kuan Yin was back in its place when it had been missing and no one but myself had a key seemed of minor importance beside the overwhelming discovery that I loved and was loved. I could easily convince myself that I had been mistaken about the Kuan Yin. It was back in its place. That was all that mattered. One phrase kept echoing in my mind: Joliffe loves me.

I sat by the window looking across the courtyard. I looked long at the darkened window with the bars across it, and I went over every detail of the scene in that room, starting from the moment when I had seen the light of his candle.

I could feel his arms about me.

In the morning we would make plans for our wedding for I knew that Joliffe would be a very impatient man.


* * *

It was four o’clock in the morning before I went to bed and then I did not sleep. I drifted into doze after doze in all of which Joliffe was there.

I slept late and I awoke to find my mother standing by my bedside.

She was saying: “Wake up, Jane. Whatever’s come over you? You are a sleepyhead this morning.”

I sat up and memories of last night came back to me.

“Oh Mother,” I said, “I’m so happy.”

She sat down by the bed. “It’s Joliffe, isn’t it?”

“How did you guess?”

She laughed at me.

“We’re in love. Mother.”

“I daresay it’ll be an early wedding.”

“Yes, it will, of course.”

“When did he ask you?”

“Last night.” I did not tell her where and in what circumstances. I knew she would not like to think of our wandering round the house at night in our dressing gowns.

“So I expect you were awake until the early hours and then slept on.”

“That’s about it.”

I could see that she was delighted. “There’s nothing I could have wished for more,” she declared. “I longed to see you settled. A post with Mr. Sylvester is very nice but I want to see you with a husband to care for you.”

That indefinable change in her seemed to have disappeared. She was her old self; excited, rosy cheeked, bursting with energy.

She held me against her. “It’s what I wanted. I saw how you felt the moment you set eyes on him. He’s charming. He’s full of life. The exact opposite of your father who was always so serious, but I don’t hold that against him! I can’t tell you what this means to me. I feel your father is watching over us just as he has done from the moment he passed on. It’s what I’ve prayed for. Get dressed, Janey love. I’ll see you in a while.”

I did not know then that she went to Joliffe. I did not know what she said to him.

I think at that time she and I were both rather innocent.

When I was dressed and went downstairs my mother and Joliffe were talking together.

He rose and took my hands when I came in; he kissed me tenderly.

“Joliffe and I think there’s no sense in waiting,” said my mother.

“So you have made arrangements between you,” I said.

She laughed and Joliffe’s eyes were ardent.

This is the complete happiness, I thought.


* * *

Joliffe went away and said that he would be back very soon. There were one or two matters to be settled.

Mr. Sylvester Milner returned.

I debated whether to tell him about the disappearance and return of the Kuan Yin but I had almost convinced myself that I must have imagined its disappearance. I did not want him to think I was frivolous.

He showed me a few purchases that he had made. “They are not very spectacular,” he said, “but useful additions. I doubt though that I shall have much difficulty in placing them.”

I then blurted out that I was engaged to be married.

I was unprepared for the effect on him. I had known that he would not be pleased since he had taken such trouble to train me, but, I consoled myself, it was a contingency that he must certainly have been prepared for.

“Married!” he said. “But you are far too young.”

“I shall be nineteen in September.”

“You are just beginning to know something of Chinese Art.”

“I’m sorry. It seems ungrateful, but Joliffe and I…”

“Joliffe. My nephew!” His face had darkened. “That is impossible,” he added.

“He came here while you were away.”

His eyes narrowed. His benevolent smile had disappeared. He looked rather like the bronze Buddha.

“You scarcely know him.”

“It seemed enough time…”

“Joliffe!” he repeated. “Joliffe! No good will come of this.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Milner…”

“Not as sorry as you will be if you go on with this. I’ll send for Joliffe. I’ll talk to him.”

There was silence. I said: “Do you want me to do the letters now?”

“No, no,” he said. “This is far too upsetting. Leave me now.”

Disconcerted, bewildered, and unhappy I went to my mother’s sitting room. She was making herself a cup of tea.

“Why, whatever’s the matter, Jane?”

“I’ve told Mr. Milner about Joliffe and me. He doesn’t like it.”

“Well,” said my mother emphatically, “he’ll have to lump it.”

“I see his point. He’s trained me.”

“Stuff and nonsense! What’s training when a girl’s future’s at stake! I expect he wanted someone with money or something for his precious nephew.”

“He never struck me as being like that.”

“But he strikes me now.”

“I’m so sorry he’s upset. I like him. He’s been so good to us.”

“Well, he’s had a good housekeeper though I say it myself, and you were a good secretary to him. But times have got to change and there’s always the possibility of a girl’s getting married.”

“What if he dismisses you when I marry Joliffe?”

“Then he dismisses me.”

“But you thought it was so good here, and so it has been. Think how kind he’s been letting me stay here.”

“Well, so he has, but he doesn’t own us for all that. No, he’s been good to us but you’ve got your future to think of. I want to see you settled, Jane, with a good home and a good husband and in time babies. There’s nothing like it. I always wanted to see you settled before I went.”

“Went… went where?”

“To join your father.”

“What a silly thing to say! You’re here with me and you’ll stay here for years and years…”

“Of course, but I want to see you settled. I’m sorry Mr. High-and-Mighty Milner doesn’t think you’re good enough for his nephew, but I happen to think otherwise and so, bless him, does Joliffe.”

Mr. Sylvester Milner sent for my mother. I sat in her room waiting for her to return. When she came her color was high and she was in true fighting spirit. She had looked like that when she had talked of the Lindsays, my father’s family.

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he was very polite and gentle but he’s against it.”

“So he really doesn’t think I’m good enough to marry his nephew.”

“That’s what it amounts to, but he puts it the other way round. He says Joliffe’s not good enough for you.”

“Whatever does he mean?”

“He says he’s a ne’er-do-well. He’s never settled down and won’t be a good husband.”

“What nonsense! Is he going to turn you out when I marry?”

“He didn’t say that. He was very dignified. He said at the end: ‘I can’t stop your daughter marrying my nephew, Mrs. Lindsay, but I hope with all my heart that she will not. I have a high regard for your daughter, and if she is to marry I would rather she made a more suitable match.’ I stood my ground very firmly and I said: ‘My daughter will marry where her heart is, Mr. Milner, as her father did before her. We’re determined once we make up our minds. And perhaps we know best what’s good for us.’ We left it at that.”

“Is he very angry?”

“More sad I’d say. At least that’s what he wants us to think. He shakes his head and looks like some old prophet when he does it. But we’re taking no notice of him.”

It was all very well to say that, but my joy was dampened a little.


* * *

The excitement in the servants’ hall was great. Mrs. Couch rocked on her chair and her eyes were soft. “So you’re the one he’s chosen! I always knew you’d been born lucky. A housekeeper’s daughter going to Cluntons’ like a lady… and now along comes Mr. Joliffe. What a man! Mind you, you’ll have to watch him. Charmers like that don’t grow on every tree and there’ll always be them looking to pluck what don’t belong to them. Men like that Mr. Joliffe can need a lot of looking after.”

“I’ll look after him, Mrs. Couch.”

“I don’t doubt you will. As soon as I clapped eyes on you I said to Jess: ‘There’s a little Madam for you. She knows what she wants and she’ll get it.’ So I was right. You got Mr. Joliffe, and I reckon there’s been a lot of competition for that one.”

Amy said that she reckoned I’d got a handful there but what a handful! Her Jim whom she was marrying at Christmas was a good steady sort and right for her but Mr. Joliffe was a man any girl would fall for given half a beckon; Jess said he was a man and a half and I was lucky.

I went about during those days in a kind of haze of delight. Things looked different; the grass was more luscious, the flowers in the garden more colorful; the world had taken on a new beauty because Joliffe was part of it.

Mr. Sylvester was of course the only one who cast a gloom. He watched me covertly when I thought he did not notice. I supposed he was regretting all the time he had wasted on me.

One day he said to me: “I know it is no use trying to dissuade you. “I can only hope that you will be less unhappy than I fear. My nephew has always been irresponsible. He is wild and adventurous. Some people might find these characteristics attractive. I have never found them so. “I can only hope that you will never regret your decision. When we first met we tried the yarrow sticks. We will try them again before you go.”

On his table was the container with the sticks in it. He held it out to me and asked me to take some. I did so. As I handed them back to him he said, “The first question we will ask is, ‘Will this marriage be a happy one?’”

He proceeded to lay out the sticks. He looked at them, his eyes glowing beneath his skull cap. “Look at this broken line here. This means an emphatic No.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t believe in this fortune telling.”

“It’s a pity,” he answered sadly, and began to study the sticks he had laid out.


* * *

In November, Joliffe and I were married in a registrar’s office. It was a quiet wedding. Joliffe had got a special license for he said we didn’t want a fuss.