Victoria Holt - The House of a Thousand Lanterns

There was no doubt Joliffe had a gift with children. He never looked down on them and they never failed to look up to him. He didn’t treat them as children; he could enter into a game as an equal. He seemed to be able to cast off the years and be a boy at a moment’s notice, yet he was always the hero, the one who knew. He always made sure he had plenty of time for Jason. It was as though he must make up for the years of their separation.

They would fly their kites together, for Jason had never grown tired of his kite. Often I saw them high in the sky. No kites are quite like Chinese kites. I used to watch them from the topmost rooms of the house and all my fears would evaporate as I thought of them together.

They were often on the water. Joliffe used to take Jason out in his lorcha and they used to go out round the bays and across to Hong Kong Island. They knew many of the people who lived in the floating villages and sometimes when I saw Jason he would call a greeting to a woman with her baby on her back or some fisherman busy with his nets.

Joliffe made friends with the utmost ease. He was well known as Adam could never be. I thought Jason would be the same as his father.

Before my marriage I had been the center of Jason’s life. It was to me he always came for comfort; he did often now, but there were two of us and I could see that Joliffe represented security to him as I could never have done. There had always been in Jason’s attitude towards me a certain protectiveness. It strengthened now, but it was Joliffe who was the strong man to whom he himself would turn. I was pleased in a way. I suppose every boy needs a father and certainly Jason could not have had a more devoted one.

It was not only that Joliffe represented security; it was this ability to be a playmate which was so appealing. They played guessing games together; they shared secret jokes from which even I was shut out.

Watching them I used to ask myself why there had to be this nagging fear, this occasional awareness of impending disaster. Why did I have to think so often of poor Bella taking herself to the window and flinging herself down because life was so intolerable? Why did I have to think of Lilian Lang’s gossip and Elspeth Grantham’s covert warnings?

Joliffe and Jason used to play Chinese shuttlecock. In this, instead of batting a cork into which a circle of feathers had been stuck, the feet were used. They became quite adept at it and their favorite place for playing was just outside the walls of the house—near the pagoda.

It was while they were playing this game that they found the trap door.

They came into the house full of excitement. I was lying down.

I had felt a little unwell on rising. There had been a return of the dizzy feeling I had had before. It had passed, but always on such days I felt a certain limpness and a desire to rest for a few hours in the afternoon.

I heard Joliffe calling me, so I slipped hastily off the bed and went to meet him.

“Jane! Come and look. A most extraordinary thing. I’m sure it’s a trap door.”

I went out of the house with them; through the three gates to the pagoda.

The square slab of stone had been covered by bushes and Joliffe had to pull them aside to show me.

“Jason’s shuttlecock landed right in the middle of all the bushes,” he explained, “and when I hunted for it, I found this.”

I was excited.

Since my marriage my enthusiasm for discovering the house’s secret had been overlaid by other matters. Now it returned.

I was sure we were on the verge of discovery.

Joliffe was excited too. We must have the bushes cleared away. We must take up the paving stone. We had both made up our minds that this led down to a subterranean passage which would take us to the legendary treasure.

We were unsure what we should do. Should we try to lift the stone ourselves or get others to help? Joliffe thought it would be unwise to call in outside aid. The House of a Thousand Lanterns had been a legend so long that it would attract much attention.

“I’m sure,” I said, “that there is some other part of the house which we have to discover. It’s The House of a Thousand Lanterns and we have only found six hundred.”

Joliffe’s enthusiasm was boundless. He was certain that we were going to find a fortune. He imagined the richest treasures. “You know what it’s going to be, Jane. The original Kuan Yin. It’ll be worth a fortune.”

“We should give it to some museum, I suppose,” I said.

“The British Museum,” said Joliffe. “But what a find!”

“The Chinese might not wish it to go out of the country.”

“They would have to put up with that.”

“Well, we’ll see, but we haven’t found it yet.”

We cleared away the shrubs and sure enough there was the slab of stone, but there was no indication of how it could be lifted up.

The only thing to do, said Joliffe, after we had thoroughly examined it for a secret spring, was to take it up and see what was below.

It was difficult to perform such an operation without attracting some attention. The servants were aware of what we were doing. Adam called and joined us.

“This could well be the answer to the mystery,” he said, his eyes gleaming.

We were all visualizing a flight of steps which would lead us to vaults below the house in which the treasure had been hidden.

What a disappointment was in store for us! After a great deal of effort the men managed to move the stone slab. There was nothing but earth beneath it—the home of what looked like thousands of scurrying insects.

Joliffe and Adam lifted the slab between them and as they did so it slipped from their hands. They jumped hastily out of its way as it dropped and fell crashing against the wall of the pagoda.

There was a rumbling sound of falling masonry.

We were all too stunned by the disappointment to see immediately what damage had been done, but when we stepped inside the pagoda to my horror I saw that the crash had broken off part of the crumbling stone goddess.

The top of her head lay in fragments on the floor.

Joliffe said with wry humor: “It seems the lady has indeed lost face.”

* * *

It was inevitable that the damage to the statue should be considered an evil omen.

We—the foreign devils—had done this. The goddess would be angry with us. Carelessly we had allowed her image to be damaged.

Lottie said: “Very bad for house. Goddess not pleased.”

“She’ll know it was an accident.”

She shook her head and giggled.

When I came in later that day I found the money sword hanging on the wall over the bed.

“Who put that there?” I asked.

Lottie nodded indicating that she had done so.

“Why?”

“Better,” she said. “It protect. Is best place.”

It was clear that she thought I was in very special need of protection.

I said: “Listen, Lottie. I didn’t lift the slab. I was just looking on. Why should I be the one to need protection from the goddess’ wrath?”

“You Supreme Mistress. The House belong you.”

“So, therefore, I’m held responsible for what goes on in it?”

Lottie implied by a nod that this unfair assessment was true.

To please her I let the money sword remain where she had put it. Yet I must confess I felt a little comfort to see it there. I was becoming superstitious as people often do when they fancy they are threatened.

Lottie and I had been to the market and were returning in a rickshaw when passing Chan Cho Lan’s house I saw Joliffe. He had clearly come out of the house. I watched him walk the short distance to The House of a Thousand Lanterns.

I shrank into my seat. I asked myself why I should be so disturbed. I knew of course. I kept remembering scraps of conversation which I had heard at Elspeth Grantham’s house; I could see the sly smile of Lilian Lang.

“What would you call that sort of business in our country?”

Why should Joliffe visit the house of Chan Cho Lan? I asked myself. Then it was as though Lilian Lang answered: She makes arrangements… not only for Chinese but for Europeans… And Elspeth Grantham: Many of the men here keep Chinese mistresses in secret…

I laughed at the idea. How could that be? I thought of the intensity of the passion between us. There was nothing lacking in that side of our marriage. Joliffe couldn’t pretend to that extent.

Yet why would he be going to the house of Chan Cho Lan? He had arrived home when Lottie and I returned. I went up to our bedroom. I knew he was there because I could hear him whistling the Duke’s famous aria from Rigoletto.

I went straight to him.

“Hello, darling,” he said. “Been shopping?”

“Yes.”

I looked at him. One of the qualities about Joliffe was that when you were with him you could believe anything in his favor however incredible. It immediately seemed impossible that he could have gone to Chan Cho Lan’s house for anything but business reasons.

I said: “Where have you been today?”

“Oh, I went to the Go-Down and then out to see an Englishman who is interested in that rose quartz figurine. You know the one I mean.”

But I had just seen him coming from the house of Chan Cho Lan.

My apprehension was only faint because he was there giving me his frank open smile. But I knew my fears would grow when I was alone, and I had to say something.

“You’ve been to Chan Cho Lan’s house.” For a moment he looked startled and I went on: “I saw you coming out not very long ago.”

“Oh that… yes.”

“I thought you’d been to see about the rose quartz figurine?”

“I have. I called in at Chan Cho Lan’s later… on the way home in fact.”

“Do you often go there?”

“Oh, now and then.”

I looked at him challengingly. “Why?”

He came to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “The lady is a power in Hong Kong. She knows a great many people.”

“Rich mandarins who are anxious to make… alliances?”

“Exactly. Rich mandarins who are also looking for valuable pieces or perhaps wish to sell them from collections which have been in their families for centuries. This is how we find our most exciting pieces.”

“So you go there to meet these people?”

“I seize every opportunity. So does Adam.”

“Does Toby go too?”

Joliffe laughed. “Dear old Toby. Elspeth would never allow him to set foot in the place. She’d be terrified he’d be seduced.”

“And should I be terrified on your account?”

He held me to him. “Not in the least,” he said. “You know I’m completely yours.”

Of course I believed him.

* * *

Jealousy is insidious. One laughs at the idea that the loved one could be unfaithful; one tells oneself that to have imagined it is due to an intensity of love. But the doubts would come to me suddenly, and I would ask myself how much I really knew of Joliffe. This much I did know: he was extremely attractive—not only to me but to others. Lilian Lang would make sly references to this fact whenever I met her; and in Elspeth’s prim smile there was a touch of righteous pleasure because those who made their beds had to lie on them.

Joliffe’s first wife was discussed. I knew these women half believed that it was not illness which drove her to take her life but some failing in Joliffe.

Elspeth believed that once marriage vows had been exchanged they should be adhered to, no matter what happened. In her eyes Joliffe was unreliable and the fact that I had preferred him to her brother meant that I was a fool.

She had no more patience with fools than with rogues and therefore she implied that I deserved all that was coming to me.

When Lottie came to me with an invitation from Chan Cho Lan I accepted it eagerly.

This strange woman was of greater interest to me than ever. I wanted to see her at close quarters, perhaps even talk with her.

“She wish you take Jason,” said Lottie.

Jason was delighted at the prospect and we set out with Lottie.

The pigtailed servant opened the gate for us and there stood the house in its courtyard—charming in the sunlight with its three stories one protruding over another and its ornamental roof.

This was a different occasion from the last for we were the only visitors. I wondered why she had wanted to see me, and the thought occurred to me that Joliffe may have told her that I had been anxious to know why he came here.