Victoria Holt - The House of a Thousand Lanterns

“And tomorrow they will have forgotten?”

“Some forget their dead… others never do.”

We were silent for a while.

Then he said: “Very soon now, Jane, I shall not be here.”

I said vehemently: “Please stop. For so long now you have been almost courting death.”

“I knew He had entered the house, Jane, and I knew for whom He had come.”

“That’s nonsense. You have just seemed to lose the will to live.”

“I lost it because it was taken from me.”

“By whom?”

Then he said a strange thing. “I am not sure.”

“Sylvester, what do you mean?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “In any case, my time has come. It is part of the pattern. I knew what I must do. This house will be yours, Jane, when I am gone.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He laughed gently. “Don’t say that. The house is listening. No one likes to be unwanted. It makes for a loss of face. Yes, I know this is what I must do. This house and this business will be yours, Jane. I have trained you for this. You have the dedication… the serious mind. You are the one and you will train the boy and in time he will be there to take it from you. As for the house… with its secret, I believe that you have found the truth. Fear is in the mind, Jane. That is the answer to the riddle. You will live here in peace.”

I said: “You cannot have left all this to me… a woman.”

“I have always had a great respect for women, you know. And you are my wife. These years with you have been the happiest I have known since I lost Martha to Magnus. You changed everything when you came. And you learned… you learned so quickly. Your pleasure, your enthusiasm, your dedication were my delight.”

I said: “I should not be fit…”

“Nonsense. Who was it who reminded me that anyone could do anything if that one made up his or her mind.”

“You believe that?”

“I do.”

“Then believe that you will get well. You will get well. I will nurse you. I will cook everything for you myself…”

I stopped short, horrified by what I had said. It was as though the house had held its breath and was waiting, it was as though some unknown voice had whispered those words to me.

“It’s too late, Jane,” he said. “The time has come. You will know how to carry on. You will find Toby a good man. A reliable man. Trust Toby. I care for these treasures of mine. I have been a successful businessman with my skillful buying and shrewd selling, but I have loved my merchandise. As you know some things I have kept because I could not bear to part with them. I have covered everything, I believe, taken care of every contingency. It has occurred to me that you may not wish to be alone.”

“What do you mean, Sylvester?” I asked sharply.

“I know you well, Jane. I do not think you are a woman to want to live alone. You may decide to marry.”

“Oh, do not talk of such things. I have a husband who has been good to me.”

“Bless you, Jane. But let us look facts straight in the face. When I am no longer here, you will be lonely. You may need someone. Choose wisely, Jane. Once…” He stopped for I had winced. I knew he was thinking of Joliffe. He went on quickly: “I have, as I said, taken care of possibilities which may occur. Jason is very young. So are you, but if anything should befall you I have appointed Adam as Jason’s guardian until such time as he comes of age. But you, Jane, shall be in command for as long as is possible.”

He was hinting that if I married he would like Adam to be my husband—Adam or perhaps Toby. He trusted Toby absolutely but Adam was his own family. What he was most anxious to do was to keep Joliffe out.

“I want you to be well,” I cried. “I want you in command.”

“You are good to me, Jane,” he said. “You have always been good to me. It has been a good life… on the whole. There was sorrow but I learned to control it and the Chinese say that the more talents are exercised the more they will develop.”

He fell silent and I believed him to be asleep.

I sat beside him and thought back over the past, of the first time we had met and how I had feared that my mother and I would be turned away.

Then the enormity of what he had said swept over me and I would not think of it. I wanted to sit still and listen to the quiet of the house, the sudden distant sound of the gongs from the hillside.

That night Sylvester died in his sleep… the night of the day of the Feast of the Dead. He would have said it was an appropriate time to die.

I had become not only a widow but a rich woman.

It was a time of great activity for me. I had so much to learn; I had to assume a new dignity; I had to convince not only those with whom I did business that I was capable, but myself as well.

Whenever I felt inadequate I would assure myself: Sylvester believed in you. He was certain you could do it.

There were many formalities to be gone through; I spent hours with the lawyers. I was astounded by the extent of Sylvester’s business which I had inherited in a kind of trust for Jason. I was determined to keep that business flourishing not only to convince myself that I could, but for him.

I seemed to grow in stature; I learned to make firm decisions; I understood how to deal with people and preserve a friendly formality. I even began to look forward to new difficulties because I found such satisfaction in overcoming them.

I sensed that Adam would have liked to take over. “You must let me deal with these things,” he said. “It’s too much for a woman.”

“That was not Sylvester’s idea,” I told him.

“Well, if there is anything I can do…”

“Thank you, Adam.”

He moved out of The House of a Thousand Lanterns. He couldn’t very well stay there now that Sylvester was dead. He rented a small place near us.

“You’ll know I’m not far if you want anything,” he told me.

Deeply I mourned Sylvester. I had not realized how much he had meant to me until I lost him. Sometimes I would awake in the night with a horrible sense of desolation and I would lie sleepless thinking of the many kindnesses he had shown me. I determined to try to do everything he would have wished me to.

We had buried him in the English cemetery. The Chinese of the household were disappointed that we did not observe their rites. They would have liked to have seen a funeral procession to the hillside with incense and offerings and the family taking money and garments to the tomb so that Sylvester might make use of them in the world of spirits. I did, however, bow to their conventions in one respect. I dressed myself and Jason in white.

Lottie was thoughtful. “Great Lady will marry again,” she said.

“Marry!” I said. “What put that into your head?”

She spread her hands and looked at me wisely.

I said: “An English widow does not think of marriage until she has been a widow for a year.”

“So?” she said, her head on one side birdlike. “Then in a year you marry.”

She seemed content with that.

A year, I repeated to myself.

Joliffe had come to the house for the funeral. I was aware of his smoldering eyes on me.

The will was read after the funeral according to the English custom. I was not surprised, having been warned by Sylvester of its contents; I was only astonished that there was so much. It was left to me but as he had told me there was a proviso. Sylvester could be trusted to cover all contingencies. In the event of my death before Jason reached the age of twenty-one, Adam was to control affairs.

I wondered whether he had been afraid that I would marry Joliffe and wished to exclude him.

It was the day after the funeral when Joliffe came to the house. He was shown into the drawing room and when I went down to see him he approached me with outstretched hands.

I avoided them. I was afraid of his touch. That was how vulnerable I was.

He said: “I must talk to you, Jane. There is much we have to discuss. We are free now, Jane… both of us.”

I turned away. I could almost see Sylvester there in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands in dismay.

“Please, Joliffe,” I said, “I am a widow of a week. Have you forgotten that?”

“It is because of this, that we have so much to say.”

“Not here,” I said. “Not now…”

He hesitated for a moment and then he said: “Later then but soon.”

I escaped to my room and thought of Joliffe and those days when we had been in Paris together. I remembered well the reckless joy of meeting Joliffe, of falling in love with him; then there came pictures of that dreadful day when Bella had arrived. If one reaches the pinnacle of ecstasy, the descent is very great indeed.

One thing I had often said to myself during the years after I had lost Joliffe was: Never again if I could help it would I put myself in a position to suffer like that. I recalled some wise words of Sylvester: “To be involved is to suffer. One should make sure that one does not too lightly become involved.”

Another thing he had advised me: “Never make hasty decisions. Look at your problem from all angles, weigh up carefully each aspect.”

Sometimes I felt that Sylvester was very near to me, watching over me, so often did I remember his words of wisdom.

It was a few days later when Lottie came to tell me that Joliffe was in the pagoda and was asking if I would go to him there.

I went and as I entered he came up from behind me and put his arms about me.

“No, Joliffe,” I protested.

“But yes,” he answered, turning me round and kissing me in such a way that I was transported back to the days of our passion.

“Please, Joliffe,” I said. “Let me go.”

“Not yet. When shall we be married?”

“I would not dream of marrying for a year.”

“That old convention! It is not as though you were ever anybody’s wife but mine.”

I drew myself away from him. “I was never your wife. You had a wife when you went through a form of marriage with me.”

“Forms!” he said. “Names signed on dotted lines. Do they make a marriage?”

“It is generally believed to be so,” I said.

“No,” he said. “You were my wife, Jane. You and I were meant for one another. If you knew what it was like when you went away…”

“I did know, Joliffe,” I said quietly.

“Then why do you hesitate?”

“I was young and reckless, inexperienced of the world. I shall never be that again. I have become serious.”

“The businesswoman!” he said. “All Hong Kong is talking of you. They wonder how long it will be before you have a husband to take the burden from your shoulders.”

“If burden it is, it is one I am determined to relinquish to no one. Sylvester has trained me well over many years. He believed me capable. I have a son to work for. Perhaps I have enough in life.”

“What nonsense! You will have many sons. You are not a woman to put love out of your life forever.”

“I have to discover what sort of a woman I am, Joliffe. I’m constantly surprising myself.”

“You were hurt, weren’t you? I love you, Jane. I didn’t want to tell you about Bella. Not then. I would have told you later when you were older and more tolerant of youthful follies. Besides I thought it was an incident closed forever. And then she came back from the dead as it were—and you left me! Oh Jane, how could you have done that!”

“It seemed to me the only way.”

“Conventional Jane, she couldn’t love without the marriage lines and she can’t go to her true husband now because she must wait a year after the death of a husband who was no husband.”

“Joliffe, please don’t talk about Sylvester. He was good to me. He meant a great deal to me. Perhaps our relationship was something you couldn’t understand.”

“I understand it perfectly.”

“No, Joliffe, you don’t. He was my best friend for years. I owe everything to him… even meeting you.”

“How like you, Conventional Jane, to put an aura round the dead. They immediately become sanctified in the minds of some people. Sylvester was a man of genius in business. He also had his eyes to the main chance. He married you because he wanted a nurse, a pupil and a son, and you could provide all those needs. Let’s be practical. Here in this place we can talk freely. That house stifles me.”