There was one thing that continued to be sadly missing in my life. I still longed for Joliffe. While I had been expecting Jason and in the first year or so of his life he had absorbed it, but now that he was growing up and acquiring a little independence I began to be more and more aware of that aching emptiness. I was a normal woman; I had known a period of happy marriage and I wanted Joliffe.

How sensitive Sylvester was, how discerning. He understood me far more than I ever understood him. From the moment I had entered his house, he once told me, he had been aware of a strong affinity. He had known that I was to be important in his life.

“Things changed,” he said, “when you came. I think it started at the moment I saw you in that room with the yarrow sticks in your hand. When you went off with Joliffe I was desolate. It seemed as though the pattern had gone wrong. I was unhappy not only because of my loss but for you. I knew you had made a mistake. That you and I should marry seemed incongruous at that time. I knew that in normal circumstances you would not think of me as a husband. But you see how fate worked… and here we are together… as I know we were intended to be.”

This mingling of mysticism and shrewd business instincts was surprising and yet I suppose Sylvester was no more complex than other people, for I was learning that we are all a mass of contradictions.

In any case he was very kind and considerate to me. He understood, even more than I, the meaning for my restlessness. He knew that I longed for Joliffe.

“You should ride now and then,” he said. “Adam has stables. I’ll ask him to find a good mount for you. Tobias can accompany you.”

Then I began to see more of the country. I saw the paddy fields where the rice—the staple food of China—grew. I saw the manner in which the land was irrigated and watched the working of the water wheel. I saw the ploughs which were sometimes drawn by asses or mules, oxen and water buffalo or even men and women; I saw the tea plants which was one of the main sources of China’s wealth and learned the difference between souchong, hyson, and imperial bohea. I watched the fishermen with their nets and wicker traps and I believed Toby when he told me that China gets more from one acre of land than any other country.

I would enjoy my rides with Toby. We had become the greatest friends; we shared jokes and our minds were in tune. He knew a great deal about the Chinese and we would discuss the mysticism of the East and then go to his house for tea and a douche of Scottish common sense from his sister Elspeth. I looked forward to these occasions so much that I began to think that if I had never met Joliffe and was not now married to Sylvester I could have quietly fallen in love with Toby. Well, perhaps that is not the way to describe it. Having once fallen in love the term had a special meaning for me and I knew that I could never recapture the ecstasy I had known with Joliffe. The fact was that I was beginning to feel a deep affection for Toby.

Adam noticed my growing friendship with Toby. Typically he took action and when I went to the stables for my horse, I found him there too.

“I shall accompany you and Tobias,” he said.

I raised my eyebrows. He certainly had a rather irritating didactic manner.

“Oh,” I said, “did Toby invite you to join us?”

“I invited myself,” he said.

I was silent and he went on: “It’s better so. The two of you are so much together.”

“So you are here as a sort of chaperon?”

“You could call it that.”

“I’m sure that is unnecessary.”

“In some respects, yes, but there is a certain amount of comment.”

“Comment?”

“People have noticed. They talk, you know. It’s not good… for the family.”

“What nonsense. It was Sylvester who suggested Toby should accompany me.”

“Even so, I will come.”

When Toby arrived he showed no great surprise to see Adam. We rode off together. Adam was interesting and informative but his presence had a sobering effect on us.

After that I became accustomed to these threesome rides and in time Adam seemed to unbend a little and the three of us would talk about Chinese Art and treasures so enthusiastically that the rides became as enjoyable as ever.

One day when we came near to the waterfront we saw a big blaze in the sky.

We spurred up our horses to see where the fire was and to our honor it was discovered that it was Adam’s home. I shall never forget the change in him.

He leaped from his horse and ran. I heard afterwards that he had gone into the house and rescued one of the Chinese servants—the only one who was trapped in that blazing furnace.

Everyone else was safe but it did mean that Adam was without a home.

It was only natural that he should come to The House of a Thousand Lanterns. Sylvester insisted on it.

“There’s plenty of room here,” he said. “I should be offended if you did not come.”

“Thank you,” replied Adam stiffly. “But I promise you I shall do my best to find somewhere to live as quickly as possible.”

“My dear nephew,” protested Sylvester, “you know very well there is no need to hurry. You have had a great shock. Don’t think about burning. We shall be delighted to have you. Isn’t that so, Jane?”

I said of course we should.

Adam looked at me ruefully, and I was reminded of the first time we had met when I had had the impression he had thought me something of an adventuress.

I was almost certain that he regarded me as an interloper.


* * *

The fire had gutted the house. It was nothing but a shell. Adam ruefully told us that although it was insured he had lost some valuable pieces which were irreplaceable. He was very disconsolate. He told me in detail what had been lost and I commiserated with him. “We might never again find such pieces,” he mourned.

“There’s a kind of challenge in the search though,” I reminded him. “You won’t find the same pieces, of course, but might there not be something equally rewarding?”

He looked at me quizzically and with a sudden intuition I realized he was comparing my tragedy with his. I had lost Joliffe; he had lost his treasured collection. Might we not both find something equally compensating?

From that moment my relationship with Adam changed. It was as though he cast off a mask which revealed new phases of his character. I came to the conclusion that he was a man who armed himself against life because of something he feared from it; now it was as though he had laid aside some of his defensive weapons.

We entertained now and then. There was quite a social life in the colony.

“The English community sticks together here,” Sylvester explained to me. “Naturally we visit each other’s houses.”

We gave the occasional dinner party and sometimes visited friends who had known Sylvester and his family for years. I enjoyed these parties and once or twice when Sylvester was not well enough to attend them, he insisted that I go with Adam. The conversation was usually lively and although it was not always about Chinese Art, manners, and customs, which Sylvester so much enjoyed, it often revolved round the affairs of the place.

I was beginning to settle into this way of life.


* * *

One day Lottie came to my bedroom. She looked enchantingly secretive, her dark eyes sparkling.

“Great Lady, I have big favor to ask,” she said.

“What is it Lottie?”

“Very great lady begs you visit.”

“Begs me visit her? Who is this great lady?”

Lottie bowed as though in reverence to some absent deity. “Chan Cho Lan asks you come.”

“Why does she ask me? I don’t know her.”

Lottie’s face puckered. “Great Lady must come. If not Chan Cho Lan lose face.”

I knew that the last thing any Chinese wished to do was to lose face. So I said: “Tell me more about this lady.”

“Very great lady,” said Lottie in awestruck tones. “Daughter of mandarin. I was in her house when I am little girl. I serve her.”

“And now she wishes to see me.”

“She asks if honorable great lady will visit her miserable house. You not come she lose bad face.”

“Then I must go,” I said.

Lottie smiled happily. “I serve her… I serve you. So she see you and she say ‘How does that miserable one who once serve me and now serve you?’”

“I shall say that I am fond of her and she is certainly not miserable.”

Lottie lifted her shoulders and giggled—a habit which some might have found irritating because it could indicate embarrassment, sorrow or pleasure so that one could never quite be sure of her feelings. I found it rather charming.

And so I went to the house of Chan Cho Lan.


* * *

I was surprised that we had no need of a rickshaw. The house was quite close to ours. I had been unaware of it because it was surrounded by a high wall. So Chan Cho Lan was our nearest neighbor.

I left Jason with Ling Fu, and Lottie and I walked the short distance. A Chinese servant opened the gate for us and we went into the courtyard. The lawn was very similar to our own. There were the miniature trees and shrubs and a bamboo bridge. These were dwarfed by the great banyan tree which spread itself over the grass.

I was astonished at the sight of the house which was almost an exact replica of The House of a Thousand Lanterns with one exception—the lanterns were missing.

The tinkle of wind bells sounded like a gentle warning as we approached. A man in black trousers and frogged tunic appeared suddenly. Pigtailed and conical-hatted, he bowed. Then he clapped his hands. Lottie walked past him and we mounted two steps to the marble platform on which the house was built. A door opened and we stepped inside.

A gong sounded and two more Chinese who seemed identical to those I had seen before came towards us bowing.

They signed us to follow them.

It was gloomy in the house and I was immediately aware of the silence. The same uneasiness struck me as that which I had experienced when I had first entered The House of a Thousand Lanterns.

In what appeared to be a hall, two Chinese dragons stood side by side at the foot of a staircase; the walls were hung with embroidered silk and I knew enough to realize that they depicted the rise and the fall of one of the dynasties. I couldn’t help attempting to assess their value, such a collector had I become. I should like to have examined them more closely and I immediately thought of bringing Adam here and asking his opinion.

Lottie was signing to me that we must follow the servant.

He pushed aside a curtain and we were in another room. Here again the walls were hung with similar exquisitely embroidered silk. Beautifully colored Chinese rugs were on the floor. There was no furniture but a low table and a number of tall cushions—rather like the articles we called poufs at home.

We stood waiting and then Chan Cho Lan came into the room.

I was startled at the sight of her. Beautiful she undoubtedly was, but hers was a different beauty from the fresh and natural kind I so admired in Lottie. This was the cultivated beauty—the orchid from the hothouse rather than the lily of the field.

I could not take my eyes from her. She could have stepped right out of a painting of the Tang period.

She did not so much walk as sway towards us. I later heard the movement described as the waving of a willow stirred by a faint breeze and this described it aptly. Everything about Chan Cho Lan was graceful and completely feminine. Her gown was of silk of the palest blue very delicately embroidered in pink, white and green; she wore trousers of the same silk material; her abundant black hair was dressed high on her head and two bodkins stuck in crosswise held it in place. Jewels sparkled in her hair in the form of a Chinese phoenix (the foong-hâng, Lottie afterwards told me, for she talked of Chan Cho Lan ecstatically when we returned to The House of a Thousand Lanterns). The face of this exquisite creature had been delicately painted and her eyebrows curved to what Lottie called the young leaflet of the willow but which reminded me of a new moon.

A delicate aroma clung to her. She was a creature made to adorn any place in which she happened to be. I was very curious as to who she was and what her life had been.