Lanterns had been set up at intervals along this pergola; there was one on either side of the porch and a big one hanging down over the center. I immediately thought: There must be a thousand such lanterns in this house.

“Mama, look,” screeched Jason. He had discovered the dragons on either side of the porch. “They’re like the ones at Roland’s Croft only bigger.”

I told him that he would probably see a great many dragons now. He put his finger into the mouth of one of the dragons and looked up at me to see if I were watching. He shivered with pleasure.

We mounted three steps and were on the marble platform where a Chinese servant appeared to materialize like the genii of the lamp; he opened the door.

We were in a hall which was paved with marble. Two wooden columns supported the roof it seemed for they disappeared through the ceiling on which a delicate design had been traced. The wooden pillars were painted red and there was a delicate tracery of gold. I looked closer and saw that the tracing represented the ubiquitous dragon.

The alien quality of the place enveloped me. I was not sure whether there really was an atmosphere of unfriendliness or whether it was merely the strangeness of everything that made me imagine this.

About the hall hung six lanterns. I found myself counting them. A thousand is a great many, I told myself. Where will they put them all?

A strange smell of something like incense was in the air and as we stood in the hall silent figures appeared. There were twelve of them—Sylvester’s servants who took care of this house when he was away.

They arranged themselves in a neat line and one by one they bowed first to Sylvester and then to me. Then they all knelt and bowed their heads so low that they touched the floor.

Sylvester stood for a moment surveying them; then he clapped his hands and they rose. He said: “Haou? Tsing, tsing!” which meant: “Are you well? Hail and Hail.” It was the conventional Chinese greeting. Then he said in English: “I am glad to be here. Peace be with you.” He took my hand and it was as though he were presenting me to them.

They bowed and inclined their heads acknowledging me.

Then they bowed to Jason.

“You shall be taken to the rooms which have been prepared for us,” said Sylvester. “You will get to know the servants in time.”

I thought I never would for they all looked alike to me.

Sylvester’s rooms were on the ground floor owing to his disability which prevented his mounting stairs easily. Leaving him and gripping Jason’s hand I followed a servant up the stairs. We came to a corridor. Lanterns hung from the ceiling. There were still more stairs to climb before we reached the apartment which had been allotted to me. I was pleased to find a small room leading from it which was to be Jason’s temporarily.

These rooms had been furnished in the European style, but there were one or two touches to remind me that I was far from home. The draperies were of blue satin embroidered in white silk. The bed was European with silk cushions and a coverlet to match. There were low stools instead of chairs, and a few delicately etched scrolls on the wall. There was a very fine mirror in a gilded wooden frame on a dressing table but it looked alien in this room. In fact the touches which I learned had been put there for my comfort seemed out of place. The carpet was rich Chinese depicting a fire-breathing dragon. Jason noticed it first of all and was on his knees studying it.

The room which led from mine and which was to be his for a time at least was a kind of dressing room. It was very simply furnished and I learned afterwards that Tobias had had these quarters prepared for us when he knew we were coming.

“I hope you will not be too tired to join me for dinner,” Sylvester had said.

Indeed I was not tired. My mind was stimulated by my new surroundings and I wanted to absorb as much as I could as quickly as possible.

Some of my bags arrived and I started to unpack as I faced a barrage of questions from Jason. This was a funny house, he said. He liked Roland’s Croft better. He wondered what Mrs. Couch was doing. Would she come here? He was momentarily sad when I told him this was unlikely but his mood soon passed. Like me he had too much that was new to interest him.

Some food was brought for him by one of the servants. He frowned at it; it wasn’t like the food he had had at Roland’s Croft nor on the ship, but he must have been hungry for he ate it. It was some kind of fish cooked with rice and there was fruit.

I wondered how he would feel about being left alone in his room while I dined with Sylvester. He was intrigued by the lantern which hung from the ceiling and which could be pulled down on a chain and then went up again on its own accord when released. I said it should be left burning all night. He would be perfectly safe with the communicating door left open.

This knowledge comforted him and he was asleep almost before he was undressed.

I left the door open, unpacked a few things, changed my dress and went down to find Sylvester.

When I shut my bedroom door the alien quality seemed to close round me.

I looked along the corridor at the rows of lanterns and was not sure which way to turn. There must have been about ten lanterns suspended from the ceiling. Every other one was alight. As I stood there a figure seemed to materialize at the end of the corridor.

A cold feeling of horror gripped me, and for a second I knew what people meant when they said they were paralyzed by fear, for if I had tried to move I should for a few seconds have been unable to. The light shed by the lanterns was sparse but that was a face looking at me out of the gloom. As the use of my limbs came back to me my first impulse was to run in the opposite direction. The figure had not moved. It appeared to be just standing there. I forced myself to take a step forward. Still it remained motionless. As I advanced it had taken on shape and I could see now that it was a statue of life-size proportions.

A figure of wood and stone. Nothing more. How could I have been so foolish? Because this house had lived in my imagination for so long I had built fantasies about it and now that I saw it, I had the feeling that it was even more mysterious, more strange, more menacing perhaps than I had imagined it.

I went close to the figure. It was Kuan Yin—the benevolent goddess. This one looked slightly less kindly than others I had seen. Her eyes seemed to look straight into mine… veiled eyes. I could almost imagine she was telling me to go away which was what a benevolent goddess would do to someone who was in danger.

In danger! Why should that have come into my mind? I thought of my son alone in his room while I was away.

That was absurd. I should be in the house.

I ran back to my room. Quietly I opened the door. I looked into Jason’s room. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his fingers gripping the edge of the sheet, a happy smile on his face. His dreams were evidently pleasant. I wanted to pick him up and hug him but I dared not for fear of awakening him. So I tiptoed out of the room, turned my back on the figure of Kuan Yin and found the staircase which I had ascended.

Sylvester had come out into the hall. He stood leaning on his stick watching me descend.

“Oh there you are, Jane,” he said. “Dinner is about to be served.”

He took my arm and leaned rather heavily on me as we went into the dining room. It was dim because the draperies had been drawn across the window and there was only the light from the lantern which hung from the ceiling.

There was something alien about the room, and I was discovering what it was. It was this mingling of East and West. The table and the chairs looked as though they had come out of a French château—so did the marble console table with the gilded legs. It was as though one culture had been overlaid with another.

Sylvester read my thoughts. He had an uncanny way of doing this which often disturbed me. I felt either he had special powers of discernment or I was too easy to read.

“Yes,” he said, as though continuing a conversation, “it’s not in keeping, is it? You’ll find that throughout the house. Western furniture has been brought in for greater comfort. But these rooms on the ground floor are all paneled which makes them more unusual still.”

We took our places at the table.

Immediately a servant brought in bowls of soup; the soup was appetizing and I must have been more hungry than I thought. We ate in silence while the servants padded in and out. The soup was followed by salted meat and fish served with rice and tea. There was also some kind of drink which was not unlike whisky and which Sylvester told me was made with rice.

The meal was something of a ceremony. I felt the servants were watching me intently and I was sure Sylvester, like myself, was relieved when it was over. We retired to a small room which was furnished like a study. It was dimly lighted by the lantern which hung from the ceiling.

“So, Jane,” said Sylvester, “we are here.”

“It’s hard to believe.”

He had seated himself in a carved chair and I sat on a pouf of embossed leather.

“What do you think of it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Too soon to decide,” he said. “But you’ll be fascinated. Everyone is. They undergo a change when they come into this house. The servants… everyone. Even my imperturbable nephew Adam is not as immune from its influence as he pretends to be.”

“He is a very taciturn young man.”

“Oh, he’s very serious. He’s more like me than any other member of the family. And that he should be Redmond’s son is extraordinary. He certainly doesn’t take after his father. Tobias would have liked to stay to dine with us, but I think this is not the time. Tomorrow we’ll talk business.”

“He must have a lot to tell you.”

“He intimated that. I want you to be present, Jane. I want you to learn as much as you can about the business. You’ll get to understand how things work out here much more than you could in London. We’ll get Tobias to show you over the warehouses down by the harbor. They’re called ‘Go-Downs’ here. You’ve a great deal to see.”

There was an excitement about him. He was delighted not only to be here but to have me with him. That he liked my company I knew but it was more than that even. He wanted me to learn his business; and I knew that he was thinking that one day Jason would control it and that I should be there to help him.

“And the house?” he said. “What do you think of the house?”

I looked over my shoulders for I had the eerie feeling that the house itself was listening.

“I have hardly seen it. It was almost dark when we arrived.”

“It is the strangest house I ever knew,” he said slowly. “There are some who say that it should never have been built.”

“Who says that?”

“The superstitious. It is built on the site of an old temple, you see. And there’s evidence of that. The pagoda was actually part of the temple.”

“What pagoda?”

“You haven’t seen it. It’s in the garden just beyond the outer wall. You’ll see it from your window in the morning. It’s rather fine. It’s built of stone and imbedded in the walls are colored stones which glisten in the sunshine… There are some amethysts and topaz. It’s a wonderful sight. The servants regard it as a holy place. They’re in awe of it.”

“Wasn’t the temple dedicated to Kuan Yin and wasn’t she supposed to be benevolent?”

“Yes, the Goddess of Mercy,” he said. “But even she, so they think, might not be pleased to find a house built where once her temple stood, and that house in the possession of a barbarian! Oh yes, we are all barbarians. They call us Fân-kuei, which means foreign ghost. We’re spirits or devils. Foreign devils they call us.”

“Not very complimentary.”

“I’m sorry to say that it implies a certain respect, for they respect what they fear.”

“Yet one of them gave this house to your grandfather.”

“Perhaps it was not a very suitable gift… but I’m glad he gave it to him. My father loved the place. He used to talk a great deal about it, and he left it to me not only because I was the eldest son but because he knew I had more feeling for the house itself than the others had. You will see for yourself in time, Jane. You feel the spell of the place. Now I think you must be tired for I am.”