Victoria Holt - The House of a Thousand Lanterns

“Sylvester… how did he die?”

“You know he was ailing for a long time. That accident was the beginning of the end for him.”

“He was well enough in England. He had an injury but it was not the sort of thing that kills. Yet he came here… and suddenly he began to deteriorate.”

“It’s like that sometimes.”

“He was listless; he had hallucinations; he walked in his sleep. The same thing happened to me.”

“People walk in their sleep when they’re run down.”

“They can be ill because they are being given something to make them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I sometimes think someone in this house is trying to kill me.”

“Jane! You’ve been dreaming.”

“It has been a long dream, going on for weeks. As soon as I saw that piece of red material in the paneling I knew. It was obvious. Someone was trying to frighten me, to undermine my health—in the way Sylvester’s was undermined—so that in time I could pass quietly away and it would all seem inevitable.”

He held me against him. I could hear his heart beating fast.

“You haven’t been well. You’ve been working yourself up to a state of anxiety about something that doesn’t exist. You saw the mask in the procession. It caught your imagination. You dreamed of it.”

“I dreamed of it before I saw it in the procession.”

“Darling Jane, it’s in every procession. You’ve seen it right from the first.”

“But I saw someone in it. It was in the secret cupboard. That was how I discovered the cupboard was there, because it was protruding.”

“Oh Jane, who would do such a thing?”

“It seems very important to me to find out. There’s so much I don’t know.”

“Understand this, Jane. I am here. No one shall hurt you while I’m here. This is not like you. You were always so bold, so brave. And you have me beside you.”

So strange it was that there in the intimacy of our bed I believed him, I trusted him absolutely.

“You are close now,” I said. “Sometimes you seem far away.”

“You’ve been suspicious about things, haven’t you? It started with Bella. I didn’t tell the whole truth, did I, and you didn’t trust me after that. I didn’t want to tell you that she had killed herself. I knew how it would affect you. You’re very sensitive, Jane. You brood; you look back; you remember.”

“Don’t you remember, Joliffe?”

“I remember what is good to remember and try to forget what is unpleasant.”

“That’s true enough.”

“It’s weak, selfish probably. But life is for enjoying, not for brooding. We had our tragedy. For all those years we were apart. I lost you and my son and now I have you back. I knew how you’d feel about Bella if you were aware of the whole unpleasant truth. You’d have some guilt feeling and imagine all sorts of things that were not accurate. So I didn’t tell you all that happened.”

“You said she died of her illness.”

“She did. It was because she knew she was going to have a painful end and that it was imminent, that she killed herself. That was dying of her illness. It was her decision, Jane, and only she had a right to make it. I believe it occurred to you that I might have pushed her out of the window. There was that nightmare of yours. I feel limp with horror every time I think of it. What might have happened on that night if I hadn’t found you?”

“How did you find me, Joliffe?”

“I heard the sound of footsteps, as I told you. I came up to the room. I saw you there and Lottie had come up too. Because she had heard you…”

“So if you hadn’t come, Lottie would have been there to save me?”

“She is so fragile and you seemed so determined. I doubt if she could have held you back. I have never ceased to be thankful that I heard you, Jane.”

“I have often thought of it… So you came up and found Lottie there with me?”

He kissed me. “Don’t talk of it, Jane. Even now it terrifies me.”

I believed him then—such was the magic of our intimacy.

“Tell me about Chan Cho Lan,” I said.

“Chan Cho Lan!” He hesitated for a moment.

I went on: “You visit her… frequently. I have seen you going in and coming out of her house. I have been watchful.”

“Jane!”

“It was wrong, wasn’t it? Spying you might say. That’s an ugly way of putting it. I had to, Joliffe. I had to find out what is going on.”

“I should have told you. I am the one who has been in the wrong. Yes, I go to her house. I have been frequently. It’s about Lottie.”

“You are planning Lottie’s future?”

“There’s a reason for it. I should have told you before. It’s ancient history now and involves others… but I should have told you. Chan Cho Lan as you know was one of the court concubines.”

“I know of this,” I said.

“My father was fascinated by her. She became his mistress. There was a child. That child was Lottie.”

“So Lottie is your half sister then!”

“Yes. That is why I want a good marriage arranged for her. When Chan Cho Lan would have exposed the child to the streets where she would have shared the fate of many other girl children, my father determined to save her. Because he feared his wife might become suspicious if he were concerned in the affair he induced Redmond to rescue her and give her into the care of Chan Cho Lan and to be her guardian. Chan Cho Lan would have lost face if she had had a child of her own that was only half Chinese, but if this child was rescued from the streets and she was implored and perhaps paid to rear it that would be acceptable. Redmond continued to look after Lottie’s interests when my father died. He would not allow her feet to be bound. Now you know the Story. Our family have always been on terms of friendship with Chan Cho Lan. I should have told you all this in the first place, of course, but it is a long ago secret and I did not want you to think our family too disreputable. I thought it was best forgotten. Adam knows this of course. That is why Lottie was brought to you.”

“Poor child, I felt drawn towards her from the first.”

“What happened is due to no fault of hers. I want her to make the best marriage possible. We shall provide her with a dowry and this will ensure that she makes a good marriage.”

“I wish you had told me,” I said. “I had visions of your going to your beautiful Chinese mistress who was tempting you away from me.”

He laughed and said: “No one would have the power to do that, Jane. I love you and I know the value of that love. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

How happy I was! How easy it was to slip into this pleasant euphoria.

How I laughed at myself in the velvety darkness, with Joliffe beside me.

But the doubts came back with the daylight.

* * *

Lottie was putting my linen into drawers.

I said to her: “I often think of that night when I walked in my sleep.”

She stood very still; she looked like a statue.

“Yes,” I went on, “I think of myself walking up to that room, to the window.”

“You ill,” said Lottie. “Better now.”

“You sleep lightly, Lottie.”

She looked blank as though she did not understand.

“I mean,” I went on, “you heard me.”

“I hear,” she answered.

“Did you see me leave my room?”

She shook her head.

“So you just heard.”

“Just heard,” she echoed.

“And when you came into the room I was there at the window?”

“And Mr. Joliffe is holding you back.”

“So… he was there before you?”

She nodded giggling.

“I always wanted to know,” I said faintly, “but didn’t want to think about it when I was ill. Now I’m better I feel curious. So he was there before you.”

“He there before,” she confirmed.

It was not what he had told me.

Oh God, I thought, what does it mean?

I went down to the Go-Down to see Toby. He took me into his private office and closed the door.

“Jane,” he said, before I could speak, “I feel very uneasy about you.”

“I feel very uneasy about myself,” I replied.

“I have been delving into books on Chinese drugs and medicines and I have found something I must show you.”

“Please do.”

“The book is at home. You must come and see it. But briefly there is an account of an old Chinese recipe. It contains opium and the juice of some rare poisonous plants. It was used centuries ago by some of the most efficient poisoners. It produces certain symptoms.”

“Yes?” I said faintly.

“The victim suffers first a listlessness, a lethargy. He is disturbed by dreams, hallucinations too. Shadows form into threatening shapes. While he is under the influence of this drug he will walk in his sleep. Gradually his health becomes undermined and he goes into what at home we would call a decline, until he eventually dies.”

“Sylvester…” I whispered.

“And… yourself?”

“It seems as if someone is trying to destroy me.”

“I’m afraid for you, Jane.”

“I did not suffer from hallucinations. I saw the figure on the stairs. I found the robe in which someone was dressing up.” I explained what happened.

“But you were in such a state as to believe it was a hallucination.”

“At first, yes. Then I walked in my sleep. If Joliffe had not been there…”

I paused. Why had Joliffe been there? Why should he say that Lottie had been there when he arrived and she say that she had come into the room to find him there with me? What did this discrepancy in their stories mean? I was fighting the suspicion that he had administered that Chinese poison, that he had led me in my drugged state up those stairs and was attempting to throw me from the window when Lottie appeared. It was absurd. He would not have wanted to have two wives who killed themselves by jumping out of windows! I was however known to be ailing. Perhaps the idea was that the fact that his first wife had died in this way would have preyed on my mind.