“The House of a Thousand Lanterns!” I echoed.
He smiled. “Ah, I see the name arouses your interest. It is intriguing, is it not? It is the name of my house in Hong Kong.”
“Does it really contain a thousand lanterns?”
“There are lanterns in each room. There must have been a thousand there at some time for it to have been so named.”
“That is a great many lanterns. It must be a big house.”
“It is. It was presented to my grandfather for some great service he did to a highly placed mandarin.”
“It sounds like something out of the Arabian Nights,” I said.
“Except,” he answered, “that this is Chinese.”
I knew that my eyes were shining with excitement. I felt that he had opened a door to me and that I was looking into a strange exotic world.
I said: “I long to begin learning.”
That pleased him. “I like your impatience, and your curiosity. They are what I need. But you have to learn of course. It may well be that when you have seen how much there is to learn you will not wish to continue. You have a year before you need decide.”
“I have decided,” I answered firmly.
He was pleased. “If you have finished tea I will take you to my showroom. As I have said, you shall have a key and go there when you will. Study what you see there. Compare these things with replicas and pictures you will see in the books I give you. Note their grace, learn how to discover the period in which a piece was created. Some of the objects are not merely hundreds of years old but thousands. Come with me now and we will go to the showroom.”
I followed him and he unlocked the door and once more I was in that room.
My eyes immediately went to the bronze Buddha which had struck me as being malevolent and which had frightened me so much when I was locked in this room.
His gaze followed mine. “You noticed that?” he said. “It’s a fine piece. I could never bring myself to part with it. It dates back to the third or the fourth century A.D. At that time Buddhist missionaries from India came to China. You will read about this in your history. They came traveling in caravans and sometimes on foot. They traveled for years and as they passed across Asia they rested for a while and carved shrines where they could worship during their brief sojourns. It was during the Tang Dynasty that Buddhism reached its highest influence in China and it was at this time that this image was made.”
“How very old it must be.”
He smiled at me. “Old by English standards. By Chinese…” He shrugged his shoulders.
“There is something evil about it,” I said. “The eyes follow you.”
“Oh that is the skill of the artist.”
“It seems to have some living quality.”
“All great Art has. Look at this. This is a figure of Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy and compassion. Do you not think that is a beautiful piece?”
It was the figure of a woman sitting on a rock; she was carved in wood and painted with exquisite colors and gold leaf.
“It is said that she hears all cries for help,” he said. “Now she would be of the Yuan Dynasty which was the thirteenth and fourteenth century.”
“How valuable these things must be!”
He laid a hand momentarily on my arm. “That is so. That is why I will not sell some of them. You will have to learn about the various dynasties and what art was produced during them. A good deal of study will be necessary and then when you leave school at the appropriate time you will be ready to take over your duties.”
He showed me some scrolls with delicate landscapes painted on them.
“That is an art to be absorbed over many years,” he said. “You must not take too big a bite at first. I will send a book for you to read and we will have tea again together very soon. Then I shall tell you more.”
I said very earnestly: “I want so much to learn.”
I went straight to my mother who was waiting in my bedroom for me to come.
She looked at me anxiously and I flung myself into her arms.
“The most wonderful thing has happened,” I told her. “I am going to learn about Chinese Art and his collection. I am going to work with him. He is going to train me.”
My mother withdrew herself and held me at arm’s length. “What’s all this?”
“That’s why he wanted to see me. He liked my curiosity. I’m going to learn, I’m going to be his secretary… no, his assistant! I shall learn until I leave school and then I shall know a great deal and I shall work with him.”
“Tell me properly Jane, please. No imagination now.”
“It’s true. I’m going to learn. The future is assured. No governessing. I shall not be a companion to some horrid old woman. I am going to learn about China and I’m going to work with Mr. Sylvester Milner.”
When my mother realized that this was indeed so, she said: “Your father has arranged this. I knew he was looking after us.”
I brought all my enthusiasm to the new project. During those summer holidays I read voraciously. I spent a great deal of time in what I ceased to call the Treasure Room. It was now the showroom. I was very proud to be the only one in the house apart from Ling Fu and Mr. Milner who had a key. I occasionally took tea with Mr. Milner; we were becoming good friends.
The household regarded me with a kind of awe. Although I had been accepted with affection in the servants’ hall they now conceded that I was not quite one of them. It was true I had all the time been attending Cluntons’ but now Mr. Sylvester Milner himself had selected me for special attention.
My mother blossomed in her gratification. She would watch me, her head a little on one side, her lips pursed and sometimes they moved as though she were talking to my father. I knew she did when she was alone, I heard her say once when I came upon her unexpectedly, “Well, we didn’t do so badly without the high and mighty Lindsays.” She was sure that she shared her pleasure and pride with my father. Mr. Sylvester Milner was the fairy godfather who had swept away our anxiety with a wave of his magic wand.
What golden days they were! I spent hours lying in the fir copse, a book propped up before me while I was conveyed right back into the past. “Begin as early as you can,” Mr. Sylvester Milner advised me.
I read of the Shang and Chou Dynasties and the coming of Confucius who with his disciples compiled books which related the traditions and customs of his times. I skimmed through the Tsin and Han Dynasties to the Yuen and the Ming and learned of a civilization far more ancient than our own.
Knowing a little I was able to assess the vases and ornaments more easily and to understand what they expressed, and the more I learned the more fascinated I became. By the end of that summer I was dedicated and it was with great regret that I went back to school for the winter term.
If I was interested in a subject I could always excel at it and now what I wanted most of all was to leave school and to start my new work. I applied myself to lessons but I was remote from the world of schoolgirls. Their little comedies and dramas seemed childish to me; I was not exactly unpopular but I was aloof and my yearning to leave became intense.
I decided that when I went home—as I began to think of Roland’s Croft—I would ask if I might not leave at once and not wait until my eighteenth year.
That Christmas, to my great disappointment, Mr. Milner was away. It was spent much as it had been the previous year, but I was no longer so excited by the decorating of the tree and the hall, and tasting of the pudding.