Lottie was watching me covertly.

“You like visit?” she asked.

I said it had been very interesting. “Why did she ask me?” I said.

“She want show her son… see yours.”

Lottie giggled and I asked myself: How much does Lottie know? Or does she merely suspect?


* * *

I brooded on that visit to Chan Cho Lan. I said to Joliffe: “Chan Cho Lan invited me to her house.”

“Ah. She likes to be on good terms with the family.”

“She has a son… a little younger than Jason. She seemed very anxious for me to see him.”

“The Chinese are proud of their sons. It would have been different had it been a daughter.”

“Then I suppose she would have trained her to make some… alliance.”

“Doubtless she would.”

“She said the boy had an English father.”

“She should know,” replied Joliffe.

He seemed imperturbable and I was ashamed of my suspicions when I was in his presence. It was only when I was alone that the doubts returned.

Soon after that visit my health began to deteriorate. The dizzy spells were more frequent, the listlessness more persistent. What’s the matter with me? I asked myself. All sorts of fears obsessed me. Suspicions kept coming into my mind. Chan Cho Lan… and her son; Bella and her untimely end. What did it all mean? I didn’t believe these suspicions and yet I couldn’t rid myself of them.

Sometimes I tried to talk to Joliffe about them, but when I was with him I thought they seemed ridiculous. How could I say to him: Are you the father of Chan Cho Lan’s son? That was the suspicion which had come to me. But how could I say such a thing? When he was there, bantering, tender, his eyes full of love for me, how could I in seriousness ask such a question?

And there was Bella. I wanted to know more of Bella. What had been the true relationship between them when she had thrown herself out of that window?

Joliffe hedged away every time I got near the subject. There was one thing I did understand about him. He wanted to live all the time in the sunshine. He lived for the moment. Some people said this was how life should be lived. He believed that everything would come right in the end; he wanted to push aside difficulties, anything that might seem unpleasant.

I was different. I liked to look unpleasant things in the face and decide what to do about them. I would always be the sort of person who looked ahead. I had done this when I married Sylvester. I had been looking then to Jason’s future. Perhaps the basis of our attraction for each other was in the difference in our natures. If I upbraided Joliffe for his rather reckless and impulsive outlook, he teased me about my careful one.

I didn’t talk to him about the change in my health. I tried to ignore it; sometimes when the awful listlessness was creeping over me I would go up to our bedroom and lie down for a while. A short sleep very often was all I needed. But it was a strange feeling and I kept thinking of Sylvester and how tired he had been on some days.

Lottie knew about it. She would creep in and draw the blinds; sometimes I would find her little face creased into lines of anxiety She would lift her shoulders; the half-moon brows would shoot up and then she would give her nervous giggle.

“Sleep,” she would say, “and then better.”

One afternoon I slept longer than usual and awoke with a start. Something had aroused me. Perhaps it was a bad dream. Then I was aware that I was not alone. Someone… some thing was in the room. I raised myself on my elbow. A movement caught my eye. Then I saw that the door was slightly open and something evil was there.

I caught my breath. I was dreaming. I must be. The thing was there at the door… and luminous eyes were watching me from a cruel face.

It was not human.

I gave a little scream for I thought it was going to rush at me. Time seemed to slow down and I felt as though my limbs were paralyzed and I could not move, such utter terror possessed me I was completely defenseless.

But, mercifully, instead of approaching me the thing disappeared. I caught a flash of red as it moved.

I sat up looking about me. My heart was beating so fast that it was like a drum in my ears. It could only have been a nightmare. But what a vivid one. I could have sworn I had awakened and seen the thing. But I was awake now. I couldn’t have been dreaming.

Was I becoming so vague that I didn’t know whether I was asleep or awake?

I got off the bed. My legs were trembling. I noticed that the door was open. Surely I had not left it open?

I went to it and looked out into the corridor. At the end of this was the figure of the goddess. I half expected her to move.

I forced myself to walk up to her.

I put out a hand and touched her. “Nothing but an image,” I whispered.

It was a dream… a dream when I was half waking. What else could it have been? I wasn’t suffering from hallucinations.

No. It was a dream, but it had shaken me thoroughly.

I put on a dress and combed my hair. While I was doing this Lottie came in.

“You sleep long,” she said.

“Yes, too long,” I answered.

She looked at me oddly.

“You feel well?”

“Yes.”

“You look like you been frightened.”

“I had an unpleasant dream, that’s all. It’s time the lanterns were lighted.”


* * *

Joliffe went away for a few days. He was going to Canton to buy jade.

“I’m worried about you,” he said. “When I come back we should go away for a while—you, I, and Jason.” He took my face in his hands. “Don’t take any notice of the old prophets of evil. They’re bound to say that the goddess is displeased because part of her face fell off. That statue has been standing there for years and bits have been falling off for as long as I remember. But they’ll make something out of it if they can.”

“Don’t be away too long,” I begged.

“You can be sure I’ll be back at the earliest possible moment.”

When he had gone I went to the Go-Down. Toby was now recovered and was busy, he told me, catching up on everything that had piled up while he had been away. I tried to be animated about some bronze goblets we had acquired, but I obviously failed for Toby looked at me anxiously and said: “You’re not well, Jane.” His voice was tender. “Is anything wrong?”

I shrugged his enquiries aside. “I don’t think it’s anything. I just feel tired, listless sometimes, and a little dizzy in the mornings.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“I don’t think it’s bad enough for that.”

“You should see him. You must.”

“Perhaps I will.”

“Is there anything else, Jane?”

I hesitated; then I told him of the figure I had thought I saw.

“You must have been dreaming.”

“Of course, but it seemed so real and I actually thought I was awake.”

“Some dreams are like that. It must have been a dream. What else?”

“I don’t know… except that Lottie is always talking about dragons and I thought I saw one.”

He smiled at me gently and I thought how kind his eyes were, how gentle and how I could explain to him what I could not to Joliffe.

With Joliffe I always wanted to be all that he desired me to. Joliffe hated sickness.

“It was a dream, Toby,” I said. “It must have been for if it wasn’t it was a hallucination. It seemed that I was awake. That’s what worried me.”

Toby smiled at me gently.

“Perhaps you had a high temperature,” he said, “and this image came into your semiconsciousness. It’s nothing, but I still think you should see a doctor.”

“Perhaps I will,” I said.


* * *

But I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to. It sounded so foolish. To be disturbed by a bad dream. The farther I grew from it the more it seemed like a dream on waking. That was what it was.

I did not need to go to the doctor: I could cure myself. I would cease to be afraid. That was what was at the root of my trouble. Fear. I had become too concerned about the legends which abounded here. This talk of bad joss, of goddesses losing face and turning their wrath on those who had ignored their code, had had its effect on me, and all because I could not stop certain questions coming into my mind. Sylvester… what had really been wrong with him? What had Bella really felt when she had stood at the window and thrown herself down? Why had her life become intolerable?

And now Bella was dead and Joliffe was married to me and I was a rich woman. I controlled many interests; and when I died these would pass into Joliffe’s hands because he would hold them in trust for Jason. After I had made those arrangements in secret I had begun to feel ill.

These were thoughts that were chasing themselves round and round in my mind; this was why I had reduced myself to a state of nervousness as I asked myself whether it was true that I was threatened in some way.

Was the house really telling me this, or was it my ridiculous imagination at work again? And if I was threatened, who was threatening me?

“Go to a doctor,” said Toby, his kind eyes full of concern for me.

I thought how easy it would be to tell him all that I feared. He would listen gravely. Strange that I should feel it might be easier to tell him than to tell Joliffe.

With Joliffe away it was easier to think. I tried to look at my situation dispassionately.

Words Adam had once used came floating back to me: “Do you realize the extent of your affairs? Do you understand all that Sylvester has left to you?”