Victoria Holt: The House of a Thousand Lanterns

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.

Joliffe and I set out to convince her.

We reiterated that she was not to blame. If Sylvester had died because of the poison she had given him, I and Jason were alive because of her. Did she not see that in saving two lives she had expiated her sin of taking one? It was an odd sort of reasoning but it worked. She was thoughtful. She confessed that she had meant to throw herself from the window from which she had planned to throw me, and we were afraid for some time that she would carry out her intention.

Adam, before he went away, joined his entreaties to ours, and I think his were the more effective. She was his half sister, and he commanded her to take notice of what he said. So strong was her feeling for her family that she would listen to him more readily than to me whom she loved.

Finally she was persuaded and she went away to prepare for the marriage which had been arranged for her in fact by Adam. Chan Cho Lan had pretended to consult Joliffe about the marriage and had led him to believe that his father was Lottie’s also because she wished to call him to the house frequently in order to make me uneasy. She apparently thought it would be a good idea to make trouble between Joliffe and me in case my death could be made to appear suicide. It was for this reason that she had invited me and shown me her son Chin-ky. She thought it as well that I should have a reason for suicide in case there should be enquiries after my death, and as Joliffe’s first wife had killed herself it could seem a good idea that his second did too.

Lottie’s husband was half English and half Chinese and had been educated in England. He was a good and intelligent young man and I believed she would be happy.

There was The House of a Thousand Lanterns. In the vaults below this, the mandarin had created a beautiful temple to his wife. There was no way to this temple through The House of a Thousand Lanterns; the only way was through Chan Cho Lan’s house where the mandarin had lived after he had given The House of a Thousand Lanterns to Joliffe’s great-grandfather.

His greatest treasure was the tomb of his wife and to her he had given the most prized statue of Kuan Yin.

The words he had had inscribed on the tomb when translated were:

Through the changing scene I loved you.

In life we were as one and death shall not part us

For our love is everlasting.

We went down to look at it. There was a hushed feeling in the vaults. It seemed a different place from that in which I had been imprisoned.

The benevolence of the goddess seemed to be fixed upon me and I said suddenly as though prompted to do so: “This must always remain. This was what he intended. The Kuan Yin must remain here where the mandarin put it.”

Adam said: “That statue is worth a fortune.”

I said quickly: “It doesn’t belong to us. We are aliens here. It is not for us to interfere.”

I spoke with authority. The House of a Thousand Lanterns belonged to me and this was part of the house.

And there in that underground haven I knew exactly what I would do.

I was going to relinquish The House of a Thousand Lanterns. It could never in truth be mine. That was what it had told me from the moment I had entered it.

It must be restored to those who would have lived there but for the mandarin’s quixotic gesture.

Adam would look after his son, and when Chin-ky was of age he should live with his wife and children in The House of a Thousand Lanterns.

There seemed to be a lightness in the air. The House had changed.

A few months later Joliffe, Jason and I left for England. I was pregnant and I wanted my child to be born at home. There was also Jason’s school to be thought of.

It was a wonderful day when we arrived at Roland’s Croft.

Mrs. Couch was at the door, fatter than I remembered, her red cheeks aglow, a slight glaze of tears in her eyes.

“Home at last then, young Jane,” she said. “But I suppose I’ve got to call you Madam.” Her eyes went from Joliffe to Jason and back to me… significantly studying me, knowing that I was what she would call “expecting.”

“It’s about time, too,” she said. “Now the house will be a home again.”