Victoria Holt - The House of a Thousand Lanterns

She had gone and I was left there in that chamber.

I went to the coffin and lifted Jason out.

I carried him in my arms and sat down on the marble steps of the tomb.

Silence, and Jason and I in the light of the lanterns—four hundred in this chapel and the labyrinth which led to it—waiting for the miracle that would save us.

A certain relief had flooded over me because Joliffe was not involved.

And I thought. What will he do when he finds me gone?

I looked up. Over my head was The House of a Thousand Lanterns. I was immediately under it. Somewhere above me Joliffe might be. He might be asking: “Where is the mistress? Where is Jason?”

Oh Joliffe, I thought, forgive me for my doubts and, oh God, let me get out of here.

I laid Jason gently on the floor. He had been heavily drugged and I was glad in a way that he was not aware of what was happening.

I went to the altar; there stood the two deadly phials. So she had ordered Lottie to murder Sylvester that her own hands might not be stained; and I was to kill myself and my son that she might be guiltless of murder. When she learned that the will had been changed and that it was Joliffe who would inherit she saw this as yet another obstacle which fate had put in her way to test her and she would set about eliminating him.

The goddess’ eyes looked straight into mine. Kuan Yin who was supposed to listen to pleas for help. Never would she have heard any more urgent than mine.

I would not die. I would find some way out. But how? I had to save not only Jason and myself but Joliffe. I went to the door and pushed it with all my might. That was foolish. I could achieve nothing by that.

Oh Lottie, I thought desperately, how could you have been such a traitor? She it was who had tried to frighten me in the Mask of Death, Lottie the daughter of Redmond—not Magnus as Joliffe believed. Lottie was Adam’s half sister who had been saved from the terrors of the streets by her father. I saw now that Lottie had hoped I would marry Adam and then I suppose Chan Cho Lan believed that Adam would have had control over The House of a Thousand Lanterns. How strange that Adam should be so involved—Adam, the taciturn man who was father of Chin-ky. And how deeply was he concerned?

Poor Lottie, she would believe that she owed an eternal debt to her ancestors.

Would it really be that in twenty years’ time little Chin-ky would be installed with his wife in The House of a Thousand Lanterns as both Lottie and Chan Cho Lan believed the gods wished it to be?

I will give up the house, I promised the goddess. I will never ask for anything else but my life with my husband and child… if only I can get out of here.

I prayed: “Please, God, help me. And Kuan Yin, who is said to hear the pleas of the helpless, listen to me now.”

* * *

Jason stirred. The effects of the drug were passing. I was relieved and yet frightened. I did not want him to wake up in this place.

I called out: “Joliffe.”

My voice echoed about the tomb. They would never hear it overhead.

I thought of the ceremonies that would have gone on in the place right beneath us. The ceremony of the dead. I thought of the mandarin who had loved his wife and buried her here that he might visit her grave and mourn in secret.

I can’t die here, I thought. There is so much I have to live for. I must see Joliffe again. I must tell him of my hideous suspicions and ask him to forgive me. I will tell him that I love him… as he is. Whatever he has done in the past, whatever he does in the future, nothing can alter that. I would love him forever.

And what am I doing talking of loving forever with death staring me in the face.

* * *

It was difficult to assess the passing of time. Jason stirred and muttered something.

I bent over him. “It’s all right, Jason. I’m here. Your father will soon be with us.”

I was trying to calm myself, to prepare myself for the moment when he emerged from his drugged sleep. He must not be frightened.

“Joliffe,” I prayed, “come to me. I want a chance to tell you of what I have been thinking. I want to tell you how much I love you and always have loved you even when I believed you were trying to be rid of me. Could there be any greater proof of love than that?”

How quiet it was in the tomb! And how the mandarin must have loved his wife. I pictured his coming here to mourn for her.

And in this place, dedicated to love, I was to die.

Oh, Joliffe, you are just above me. Miss me. There may have been someone who saw me come here. Is it true that when a loved one is in danger there are certain premonitions? Your loved ones are in this tomb, Joliffe—your son and your wife.

Something, someone must lead you to us. Who? How?

Jason had stirred again. I took his hand and his fingers curled round my palm.

And if we drank the contents of the phials, what then? Painless sleep. And by night Chan Cho Lan’s servants would come and take our bodies. They would put them into sacks and throw them into the sea. We should never be heard of again. It would be one of the mysteries of this mysterious land. I could hear Lilian Lang talking of it at dinner parties, and eyes would be turned to Joliffe. His first wife had died violently; his second had disappeared.

Oh, Joliffe, I thought, you are in danger too.

Thoughts were chasing themselves round and round in my mind and the minutes were ticking past. How much more time would be given me?

At any moment a face would appear at the grille.

* * *

Footsteps! I went to the grille.

I could not believe it. I was dreaming. It could not be. How could Joliffe come to me here?

But it was not a dream. It was his face—taut and anxious and then suddenly so joyous that my heart was filled with happiness.

“Jane!” he shouted.

“Joliffe,” I answered.

The door swung open and he caught me in his arms.

Lottie had saved me. She had broken down and confessed everything to Joliffe. She had obeyed instructions and brought about the death of Sylvester. Chan Cho Lan had believed that The House of a Thousand Lanterns would belong to Adam when Sylvester died and that he would have left it in time to Chin-ky. Lottie had obeyed instructions not because she would gain anything by doing so but because she believed it was the will of her ancestors that Sylvester should die.

When it was revealed that The House was mine, Chan Cho Lan had thought that I should many Adam who would be willing to return the house to its rightful owner who was after all his own son Chin-ky. When I married Joliffe I was doomed and Lottie was ordered to remove me in the same way as she had Sylvester. Jason would have followed. But Lottie was in a quandary. She had grown to love us both but Adam was her half brother and so was Chin-ky and as the daughter of Chan Cho Lan she owed her duty to her family. She had been, Chan Cho Lan complained, dilatory in carrying out her task, and I had gone on living. Perhaps I was younger and stronger than Sylvester and better able to resist this slow poison. She had been commanded by Chan Cho Lan to produce the hallucination for me as she had done for Sylvester. Chan Cho Lan had known of the secret cupboard behind the panel and had put the robe there that it might be safe from prying eyes.

And Lottie had obeyed. Poor Lottie, torn by her emotions, had put the money sword in my bedroom to warn me that I must prepare for death. Half English, half Chinese, brought up to think as a Chinese and then to have been thrust into an English environment, she had been bewildered. She wanted to kill me and yet save me. Bemused, she had been afraid to carry out Chan Cho Lan’s instructions and yet afraid to disobey them. Because I had not fallen so easily under the spell of the slow poison as Sylvester had, she had sought to hasten matters. That was why she had thought of throwing me from the window. She had heard of Bella’s death and had thought it would please Chan Cho Lan if I died in a similar way. In desperation she had drugged me effectively and led me to the upper room. Perhaps that would have been the end if Joliffe had not come up in time. I liked to think that it was his love for me that awakened him at precisely the right moment. I believe it was so.

As for Lottie, I could feel no rancor towards her. I understood how her mind worked for I had learned something of Chinese customs and logic.

* * *

I was greatly relieved that Jason did not come out of his drugged sleep until we were safely back in The House of a Thousand Lanterns. He was astonished to wake up to find himself lying on his bed.

“Where’s Chin-ky?” he said. “She was going to take me to him. First she gave me tea… and then I fell asleep.”

I said: “It’s all right. You’re back here now. I came to look for you and found you asleep, so I brought you back.”

He accepted this and asked when he was going to play with Chin-ky again.

Joliffe and I discussed at length these strange events which had been going on around us and all my fears and suspicions had been revealed. He was incredulous that I could have believed such things of him.

So was I now that I knew the truth.

“I’m wild,” he said, “I’m reckless. I haven’t always told you all I should. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you Bella committed suicide… but believe me, Jane, it was because she knew she was doomed. I knew you’d be distressed. I knew you might think that I had driven her to it and I took the easiest way out. I told you she had died of her illness convincing myself that in a round about sort of way that was so. I really did believe Chan Cho Lan when she told me that Lottie was my father’s daughter. Listen, Jane, don’t look for perfection in me. You won’t find it. I’m devious, I hate trouble, I go to all sorts of lengths to avoid it. I’m wild if you like. I accept all this. You’ll never be sure of what I’m going to do. There’s only one thing in life you can be sure of, and that is that I love you.”

“That’s enough,” I said, “while I’m sure of that I’ll be ready to face anything that may come.”

* * *

Chan Cho Lan took her own life by drinking the poison which had been intended for me. This was due to loss of face. She had failed to eliminate us and restore The House as she believed to its rightful owners. She had produced a daughter who was half foreigner—it was different to have had a son—and that in itself was enough to create the wrath of the gods. Her daughter had betrayed her to the foreign devils just as she was about to expiate her sin in loving a foreigner. She had failed and in a way which meant she would never be able to bring about the desired result. In Chan Cho Lan’s mind there was only one thing she could do. It was the classic solution when so much face that could never be regained had been lost. She could sanctify herself by joining her ancestors.

Adam decided that he would leave Hong Kong for a while. He had always hid his feelings and he did so now. It was difficult for me to adjust my view of him, so completely had I been deluded. And so, I assured myself, had Sylvester. Who would have thought this rather solemn man of apparently stern morals, was all the time the lover of the woman who had been his father’s mistress, and that she had borne him a son.

He convinced us that he had had no part in Chan Cho Lan’s schemes for murder. He had believed at first that he would marry me and so get control of the business and it had been a great blow to him when I had married Joliffe. Chan Cho Lan had kept her secrets even from him, for although he was her lover he was a “foreign devil” and she knew that he would never be reconciled to her reasoning.

He was without doubt deeply upset by what had happened and his great concern was to look after Chin-ky now that the boy’s mother was dead. Before he left he put him into the care of an uncle, a respected mandarin of Canton. There was Lottie. How sorry I was for her. She wept often silently and the manner in which she sat so still while the tears ran unheeded down her cheeks was more than I could bear.

I tried to make her see that I held her guiltless of Sylvester’s death and her attempts to kill me. Others had planned it and misled her into thinking that it was her duty. She declared that she was a miserable creature who had failed in her duty to her ancestors. She had betrayed her mother because she could not allow me and dear little Jason to die.