“Well let us get on with the counting as the first step.”

So we went on counting.

“How many now?”

“Five hundred and thirty nine.”

“But we have nearly been through the entire house and we’re nowhere near a thousand. You see, it’s a misnomer. It’s not The House of a Thousand Lanterns.”

I went to the window and looked out. I could see the pagoda which never failed to excite me. Adam came and stood beside me. “It fascinates me,” I said. “I suppose because it’s part of the old temple. Can you picture it, Adam?”

He nodded and half closed his eyes. “The pagoda with its three decorated stories and the decorations then would not have been crumbling away with time,” he mused. “The temple itself… where this house now stands; the paved path leading to the portico, colossal stone figures supporting each of the granite pedestals—terrifying guards to the temple probably representing Chin-ky and Chin-loong, great warriors of renown. We would pass through a door and the lay-out would be rather as it is now; we would step into a courtyard with trees and paths and then through another door and so on until we came to the temple. There the priests would be assembled; imagine the chanting and the sound of gongs as they kowtowed to the great goddess. Priests would have lived close to the temple for it would be their duty to tend it and worship daily.”

“I can picture it all so clearly,” I said. “I can almost see the priests wandering out from the pagoda and hear the sound of the gongs. But I believe you think I am too fanciful for good sense.”

“What I do think is that you combine the two. The danger is that you let one get the better of the other and if that should happen to be the imagination you might make a false judgment.”

“You are too prosaic,” I said.

“Then if I am so and you err on the side of fancy we are well matched.”

I moved away from him. “What is the tally now?” I asked.

He looked at the paper. “Five hundred and fifty three.”

“There is not much left. Where are these thousand lanterns?”

When we had gone through the house the figure was five hundred and seventy.

“Of course,” I said, “this would include the courtyards too. Come. We have to complete the list.”

We went round the courtyards and into the pagoda. There were thirty more lanterns which brought our total to six hundred.

“There couldn’t be any more,” said Adam.

“There must be.”

“Then where are they? We are still far off the grand total.”

We stood in the pagoda and I looked up at the glint of sky through the roof. I listened to the faint sound of the wind bells which I fancied had a teasing note.

I said: “I am sure the solution to the mystery is in the lanterns. I know it is. It’s almost as though the house is telling me.”

“You’re not like the famous Joan who heard her voices, are you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, Jane!”

I turned to him a little impatiently. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I first heard the name of the house when I was a schoolgirl and I knew it was going to mean something to me. The house and I have a kind of… what do you call it? An affinity. You don’t understand that, Adam, do you?”

He shook his head.

“But I believe it. I think Sylvester knew it. I’m determined to discover the secret of this house.”

Adam laid his hand on my arm. “The secret,” he said. “There is no secret. The house was given to my great-grandfather; it was built on the site of an old temple. Legend grew up round it for this reason. Then someone had the idea to fill it with lanterns.”

“And it became The House of a Thousand Lanterns. A thousand though!”

“It’s clear that the house is crammed full of them and they couldn’t have got any more in. No, a Thousand Lanterns was a picturesque name so it was used without relation to the actual fact which was that they hadn’t quite reached that number.”

“Your reasoning sounds logical.”

“I’m always logical I hope, Jane.”

“I suppose I’m not… always.”

“It’s said to be a feminine characteristic to be a trifle illogical at times.”

“And you deplore this feminine trait in me?”

“Actually I found it not unattractive but…”

“But what, Adam?”

“I think that all women like you need someone to take care of you.”

There is something about the pagoda, I thought. People grew reckless in it.

I said quickly: “We are some four hundred lanterns short. We must discover where they are. If we do we may have the answer to the puzzle.”

On the way back to the house we argued a little. Adam was sure that the house had been given the name because it sounded poetic; I was certain that there was more in it than that. I continued to believe the secret lay among the lanterns.


* * *

Lanterns! I dreamed of lanterns. The first thing I saw on waking was the lantern which hung from the center of the room and in which an oil lamp burned all night. When the Feast of Lanterns came I was delighted with the varying kinds as I had been the previous year. Sylvester had been alive then and we had gone to the waterfront to watch the procession. What an array of lanterns of all kinds! Many of them made of paper and silk. Ours were of wrought iron and solid.

After the Feast of Lanterns I studied the patterns on ours and to my delight I saw that the scenes engraved on them were similar. They all depicted lovers. In the lower hall the lovers were meeting for the first time. There girls were dancing, throwing ribbons exactly as I had seen them do at Chan Cho Lan’s house; all the lanterns on the first floor seemed to bear the same engraving; but when I went upstairs I saw that those on the next floor were engraved with two lovers hand in hand.

On the next floor the lovers were embracing.

It was exciting. It was a kind of story. They met; they fell in love, and I presume the last engraving suggested marriage.

This was interesting but when I told Adam he laughed at the idea. It was clever, he said, to have discovered that there were different engravings on each floor, but that seemed the natural sequence of events and he could see nothing in that which might lead to the discovery of the secret.

“Have you ever heard the maxim ‘Leave no stone unturned’?” I asked.

“Many times,” he replied.

“Then don’t you think it’s a good one, because I do and that’s what I’m doing now.”

He smiled at me indulgently; but I continued to be fascinated by the lanterns.


* * *

The time was approaching when the Feast of the Dead would be celebrated.

It was so like last year. I remembered well how the atmosphere in the house had changed; how duties were neglected and an air of excitement pervaded the house. Everyone it seemed had some dead relative who must be made aware that he or she was not forgotten.

From the windows I could see people making their way to the hills; riding near I saw the burial grounds where the mat houses were being erected beside the tombs which were all shaped like the last letter of the Greek Alphabet, Omega, which might have been significant. Food was being taken up to the hillside and soon the feasting would begin.

I was transported back to the day when Sylvester had died. I remembered our last conversation. I could not forget the sight of him, his face emaciated, parchment color, and he so certain that the end had come and so anxious that he should have left his house in order.

And on the night of the 5th April—the culmination of the Feast of the Dead—he had died.

It had seemed a coincidence at the time. Now the thought occurred to me more insistently that it was strange that he should have died on that night.

The day had come. There was tension throughout the house. All the servants had gone to the hillside.

“You will wish to be with your grief,” Lottie told me before she went off. “You do not feast at his tomb but you will think of him.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I still think of him.”

“In China lady mourn for lord three years. Foreign spirits mourn only one.”

“Sometimes they mourn for a long time, Lottie.”

“You say one year and you marry.”

“I said I should not marry before one year.”

“But you will marry. House want it.”

“You are still worrying about the goddess losing face because a woman owns the house built on her temple?”

Lottie gave her enigmatic giggle. “House pleased now soon there be master.”

She had a basket full of titbits from the kitchens which she was taking to the grave of her ancestors.

“Must take care of ancestors,” she said. “It is the greatest sin not to. Buddha says a good man cares for his dead. If I did not I should never go to Fō.”

I nodded for I had discussed Fō with Sylvester. It was the paradise inhabited by the followers of Buddha—a kingdom of gold where the trees bore glittering gems instead of fruit. It was dominated by the magic seven. There were seven rows of trees, seven fences, and seven bridges and the bridges were made of pearls. Above it all presided the Buddha seated on a lotus flower. Everything in Fō was perfect. There no one was ever hungry nor thirsty; there was no pain and no one ever grew old. It was the hope of everyone, man and woman, to reach this paradise and only through good deeds could he or she achieve it. And as man’s chief duty was to respect and cherish his ancestors one of the most important days of the year was the Feast of the Dead.