Sylvester was very shaken. He understood me so well that he must have been fully aware of the effect Joliffe’s return had had on me in spite of my efforts to hide it. He was apprehensive. Sometimes I was amazed at the depth of the feelings I had aroused in this quiet, restrained man. I knew that it was not only his relationship with me which he felt might be in jeopardy but he feared for Jason. There was something aloof in his nature which made an intimate relationship difficult for him to achieve. It had occurred to me that our marriage may have seemed to him the perfect one… a marriage without a physical relationship which had yet miraculously brought him a son who had the blood of his family in him.

He seemed to shrink from physical contact. Or did I think that because I was so much aware of Joliffe’s overwhelming masculinity? He looked pale and shaken and I knew he was suffering from one of his headaches, but he had been firm enough when he had forbidden Joliffe the house.

When I went down to the Go-Down Toby looked very serious.

He was angry with Joliffe.

“He should never have come here,” he said. “He knew the complications his return would give rise to.”

“He has his business,” I said, hearing myself actually defending Joliffe.

“He has managed all this time with his agents. It is only now that you are here…” He looked at me earnestly, trying to assess what effect Joliffe’s return had had on me.

I hoped I preserved my calmness.

“Whatever existed between us is over now,” I said. “It has been for a long time.”

Toby frowned. “It’s difficult in a place like this not to see people.”

“Perhaps he won’t stay,” I said.

Toby sighed. I knew that was what he hoped for.

Adam mentioned his cousin to me. “I hear his wife is now dead,” he said, studying me closely.

“I believe that is so.”

“He shouldn’t have come here. He could have left any business to his agent.”

“Why should everyone be so concerned?”

Adam frowned. “It’s nonsense to pretend. We know that you went through a form of marriage with him. We know that Jason is his son. This creates a difficult situation. Joliffe has always been sublimely indifferent to the embarrassment—or feelings—of others. He’s like his father. You have settled down with Sylvester now. He should have had more sense than to come back.”

“There is no need for anyone to make this fuss. Until this week it was years since I’d seen him.”

Adam nodded. “He’s got the famous Eddy charm which was said to come down through our grandmother. She ran away with a lover. It’s a certain feckless streak in the character and it comes out in some of us.”

“It didn’t come out in you, Adam.”

“You seem to pity me for that.”

I shook my head. “Oh no, I’m congratulating you.”

“Yet everyone finds these irresponsible people so attractive. You must have done. Or why did you marry Joliffe—or think you married him?”

I wanted to say: Because I loved him. Because I thought then—and it seemed I was right—that he was the only one in the world for me. How could one say such things to prosaic Adam? I said: “For the same reason that most people marry.”

“People marry for varying reasons. Some because it seems expedient to do so.”

“You are cynical.”

“But realistic. Didn’t you marry my uncle Sylvester for that reason?”

I said angrily: “You always resented my marrying him, didn’t you?”

He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. I was angry with him, but whenever Joliffe was mentioned I could never trust myself far and I wanted now to escape from him.

He looked over his shoulder and said: “Don’t forget you married my uncle… and whatever happens you are still married to him.”

“Am I likely to forget it?”

“Some people forget their marriage vows,” he said, and was gone.

He was a most uncomfortable person. All my old resentment of him returned.


* * *

There was a note from Joliffe. He wanted me to see him. I ignored the note. There came another. Jason was his son, he wrote. If I would not see him, he was determined that he would see his son. That was his right.

I was determined to enter into no negotiation with him that Sylvester did not know about, so I went to him and told him what Joliffe was asking.

He looked pale and wan; his stick was propped up by his chair and I felt a deep pity for him.

“He has some right to see the boy,” he conceded.

“He has not bothered with him for more than five years,” I said.

“Yet he is his father.”

“I wish he would go away,” I said, but even as I spoke I felt false for I meant no such thing. I couldn’t bear him to go away, and I knew by the manner in which Sylvester looked at me that he was aware of my feelings.

He was just, and I think, too, that he knew that I must not turn my back on life. He was aware of the emptiness of my existence; he knew of my secret longings. There was something of the fatalist about Sylvester. It was almost as though he were saying: Here is Joliffe; he can offer you ardor, youthful passion and enchantment which you and he may call love; he can offer all that with insecurity. On the other hand I can give you affection, calm, quiet, faithful companionship, a serene home for your child, a future which is assured. Fate is offering you a choice. It is for you to decide.

I knew that he feared that one day I would go away with Joliffe because it was quite clear that that was what Joliffe intended, and that I would take Jason with me and he, Sylvester, would be alone again. His fatalist attitude may have come to him through his study of Chinese philosophy, but it was there. He feared and yet he made no attempts to put temptation from me.

I told myself I was not going to be tempted. I knew where my duty lay to my husband and my precious child. That was what I told myself, and it was the reason I must not see Joliffe. It had been enough to see him once to know that I could easily forget everything but my need of him. And that was something I was determined should not happen.

I would contrive never to see him alone. But he should see Jason.

Sylvester said: “In due course the child will know who his father is. He might hold it against us if we did not allow them to meet. Joliffe should not tell him of their relationship but he should see him.”

It was arranged that Lottie should take Jason to the hotel where Joliffe stayed. She was not to let Jason out of her care and the meeting should be only of an hour’s duration.

In return for this concession, which was arranged by Adam, Joliffe should give his word that the child would be returned to The House of a Thousand Lanterns at the end of the hour.

I wondered at the wisdom of this after that first meeting. Jason returned starry-eyed. Adam’s cousin was the most wonderful man. He had a kite and they flew them together because he had taken his to show him. In the gardens of the hotel they had watched them soar up into the sky.

“His went highest,” said Jason ruefully. “He’s going to give me a new one.”

“But you’ve got the one Lottie gave you,” I reminded him.

He was reflective. “But the one he’ll give me will be a bigger and better one. He said so.”

“Lottie might be hurt.”

“Oh I’ll fly the one she gave me sometimes. Mama, when am I going to see Adam’s cousin again?”

The charm had worked on Jason too.


* * *

What an uneasy state of affairs it was! Once I saw him when I was riding in a rickshaw and my heart turned over. On another occasion when I came out of the Go-Down he was waiting for me as once he had waited in Cheapside.

His eyes were pleading; he looked a little haggard and I thought: He’s as unhappy as I am.

He stood before me almost abjectly. “Jane, this is absurd. We must talk.”

“There’s nothing to say,” I replied.

“We’ve got to work out something.”

“It’s all been worked out. Go home, Joliffe. Go back to England. It’s better that way.”

“You don’t know what it’s been like.”

“I don’t know!” I was angry. “I knew when I discovered that I was not in truth your wife.”

“I’m free now, Jane.”

“You forget I’m not.”

I turned to the rickshaw which was waiting for me.

“There’s the boy,” he said. “Think what it would mean to him.”

“It’s just for this reason that you should go away,” I retorted.

I stepped into the rickshaw. The man picked up the shafts, his face impassive.


* * *

Lottie knew how uneasy I was.

She said the goddess had lost face because a house had been built on her temple, and there was no good joss for those who lived in it.

“It’s nothing to do with the goddess, Lottie.”

“Serenity has gone,” she said.

How right she was! I suppose I had been serene in a way before—quietly pursuing my life, trying to pretend that I was content.

I often found Lottie’s eyes on me. They were mournful, watching. She knew that the coming of Joliffe had changed me.

It was she who took Jason on his visits to Joliffe. Adam accompanied them; it was all very ceremonious. Adam told me that he waited in the hotel while Jason went to the gardens with Joliffe and he sent Lottie out to sit in the gardens too.

There had been three meetings between Jason and Joliffe and already Jason adored him. He would ask every day: “How many days to Adam’s cousin, Mama?” And he would mark them off on a calendar.

I said to Sylvester: “It’s a mistake to let them meet. He is charming the boy. I don’t like it.”

I knew Sylvester was very much afraid but that fatalistic attitude seemed to take possession of him; it was as though he wanted not only me to choose between him and Joliffe, but for Jason to do so also.

One day I received a fright because Jason was not in his room. He had said he was going there to read his book as he often did in the afternoon and when I went for him it was to find him gone.

I called for Lottie but I couldn’t find her either. As they were both missing I was not as disturbed as I might have been.

I went down into the courtyard and as I did so I looked up in the sky and saw the two kites flying—the well-known one which was Jason’s and the big flamboyant one which I guessed Joliffe had acquired.

They are together, I thought.

I went out through the gates and made my way to the pagoda.

As I came close I could hear voices.

“Look at mine. Look at mine!” cried Jason.

“It’ll fly higher yet,” answered Joliffe.

They had their backs to me so they did not see me, but I had seen not only them but Lottie seated on the grass, her back to me as she regarded them.


* * *

I sent for Lottie.

She looked fearful and shame-faced. She had brought Jason home an hour ago.

I did not ask him where he had been. I waited for him to tell me. I was shocked that he did not mention he had been with Joliffe.

That was why I wanted to talk to Lottie.

I shut the door and bade her be seated. I saw that her hands were trembling.

“You look guilty, Lottie,” I said.

She hung her head and I went on: “So you took Jason out to meet someone?”

She nodded wretchedly.

“You know that those meetings should take place at the hotel and not in the pagoda. Don’t you, Lottie?”

She nodded again.

“And yet you deceived me. You teach my son to deceive me.”

“You must whip this miserable wicked one,” she said, kneeling and laying her forehead on the floor.

“Lottie, get up and don’t be silly. Why did you do this?”

“Jason loves so much to meet Mr. Joliffe.”

“Jason meets him once a week. That has been arranged. But you have taken it upon yourself to change this.”

She lifted her face to me; her eyes were wide, awestruck. She looked over her shoulder as though she expected to see someone there.

“Mr. Joliffe is Jason’s father,” she said.

“Who told you this?” I demanded.

She lifted her shoulders helplessly. “It is so. I know this.”

Of course she had heard it. Adam had talked of it. So had Sylvester and I. When were families able to keep secrets from their servants. And Lottie understood English.