Victoria Holt - The House of a Thousand Lanterns

“You’ve taken to this place, Janey.”

“I was excited by it the moment I saw it. There’s the forest and the Treasure Room and Mrs. Couch and all of them, and of course Mr. Sylvester Milner.”

“He wants to talk to you, Jane.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“How… strange! What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. But I believe your father knows how anxious I am about the future. I believe he is doing something about it.”

“Do you think he forgave me for trespassing?”

“You were young. I think he forgave that.”

“But he is so… strange.”

“Yes,” said my mother slowly, “he is a strange man. You never know what he’s thinking. It could be quite different from what he’s saying. But I think he’s a kind man.”

“When am I to see him?”

“He wants you to take tea with him tomorrow.”

“Do you think he’s going to tell me he doesn’t want inquisitive people in his house?”

“It couldn’t be that after all this time.”

“I’m not so sure. He might like to keep people on tenterhooks. It’s a kind of torture.”

“We haven’t been on tenterhooks. I never gave the matter a thought after those Christmas holidays.”

“I’m not sure. I often thought he was watching me.”

“Janey. You’re imagining again.”

“No. I saw him twice at his window when I was in the garden.”

“Now don’t start working up one of your fantasies. Be patient and wait till you see him tomorrow.”

“It’s hard because tomorrow seems a long way off.”

Young Ted Jeffers came out and took the jingle round to the stables. I went into the kitchen. Mrs. Couch wiped her floury arms on a towel and embraced me. “Amy,” she called. “Jess. She’s here.” And there they were, so pleased to see me and telling me I’d grown and would have to get more color in my cheeks and was quite the young lady.

“Now she’s here we’ll have the tea so don’t stand gaping,” said Mrs. Couch.

It was certainly coming home. There was Mrs. Couch’s pride with WELCOME HOME, JANEpink icing letters on white icing, and her special potato cakes and Chelsea buns, all my favorites well remembered.

“They say it’s going to be a hot summer,” said Mrs. Couch. “All the signs. Not too much sun, I hope. It’s bad for the fruit Then I shan’t be able to get my plums the right flavor. Last year’s sloe gin has come up better than ever and the elderberry’s ready for tasting.”

There was a slight change in everyone—Amy was flushed with a kind of radiance because the gardener was planning as she told me later “to make her his own”; Jess had a glitter in her eyes and she and Jeffers flashed secret messages to each other. Mr. Catterwick unbent for a moment to say it was like the old days to have someone home to the house from Cluntons’, and I felt happy to be there.

After tea I went to the stables to look at Grundel the pony which Mr. Sylvester Milner had allowed me to ride the last time I was here.

“She’s been waiting for you, Miss Jane,” said the young boy whom Mr. Jeffers was training as a groom. And as she nuzzled up against me, I believed she had.

Then I took my usual walk through the copse to the enchanted forest and I thought how wonderful it all was and that I had come to love this place. And all the time at the back of my mind was the thought: Tomorrow I shall see him. Perhaps he will tell me what he really thinks of me, why he did not forbid me the house after I had behaved so badly as to trespass in his secret room; why he watches me—as I was sure he did—from the windows of his apartments.

The next day I was ready about an hour before I was due to go to his sitting room. I had combed my hair and tied it back with a red ribbon. I put on the best gown I possessed. My father had chosen it for me a few months before he died. It had been my birthday present and I recalled the September day when we had gone to buy it. It was light navy in color with small scarlet silk-covered buttons down the front. It was my favorite dress, and my father had said it became me well.

My mother came into my room, a slight frown between her eyes.

“Oh, you’re ready, Jane. Yes, that’s right. You look neat.”

“What should he want to say to me. Mother?”

“You will know soon enough, Jane. Be careful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t forget that we owe all this to him.”

“You work hard here. I daresay he is glad to have you.”

“He could find another housekeeper easily. Don’t forget he has allowed you to come here, to live here, almost as a member of the family. Not many would have done that and I can’t imagine what we should have done but for that.”

“I’ll remember,” I said.

“Are you ready?” I nodded and together we mounted the stairs to his apartment.

My mother rapped on the door. His rather high-pitched voice bade us enter.

He was seated in a chair wearing his mulberry velvet coat and smoking cap. He rose as we entered. “Come in, Mrs. Lindsay,” he said.

“Here is my daughter,” she said unnecessarily, for his eyes were already on me.

He nodded.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay.” Then to me, “Pray sit down, Miss Lindsay.”

My mother stood hesitantly for a moment and then left us. I took the chair that he indicated and he sat down in the one he was occupying as we entered.

“I have been aware of you since you came to my house,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“So you knew.”

“I thought I saw you looking at me from your windows.”

He smiled. My frankness seemed to amuse him.

“How old are you, Miss Lindsay?”

“I shall be seventeen in September.”

“It’s not a very great age is it?”

“In a year I shall be eighteen.”

“Ah, that is what we are coming to. Now we will have some tea.” He clapped his hands and as if by magic Ling Fu appeared.

Mr. Sylvester Milner said something to him in what I later learned was Cantonese. Ling Fu bowed and was gone.

“You think it strange that I should have a Chinese servant. Miss Lindsay, because you have never known anyone to have a Chinese servant before. Is that so?” He did not wait for an answer. “The fact is it is not strange at all. It is very natural. I spend a great deal of my life in China—in Hong Kong chiefly and there it is normal to be Chinese. I have a house there. You will have heard that I am away from this house for months at a time. Well then I am in my other house. What do you know of Hong Kong, Miss Lindsay?”

I racked my brains. I did not want to appear to be an ignoramus. I desperately wanted to seem intelligent in his eyes. I felt this was very necessary to my future. “I believe it is an island off the coast of China. It is a British protectorate I think.”

He nodded. “The British flag,” he said, “was first hoisted at Possession Point in January 1841. The island was merely a barren point then. There was hardly a house on it. That has changed in forty-five years. It is very different now. The end of the Opium War put us in possession as it were. What do you know of the Opium War, Miss Lindsay?”

I said I knew nothing.

“You will have to learn. I think you will find it interesting. We are a great trading nation. How do you think we have become great? We became great through trade. Never despise it. It brings the good life to so many. I doubt not you have noble ideas of the flag, eh. It floats over Canada, India, Hong Kong… and that makes you proud. But who put the flag there? The traders. Miss Lindsay. That is something you must never lose sight of. China went to war with us in 1840, forty six years ago, because we supplied opium which we brought from India to China. We were wrong you would say. We introduced many to the drug. Yes, it was wrong. It was bad trade but even that brought work and wealth to some. One of the things you will have to learn is that there is never only one side to any question. There are always many. Life would be very simple if there were but one. We should all know exactly what to do because there would be the right and the wrong. But nothing is wholly right nothing wholly wrong. That is why we make our blunders. Here is the tea.”