I saw the horror dawn in Toby’s eyes and I couldn’t bear it.
“Does Joliffe know?” he asked.
“Of course he knows,” I blustered. “We discussed it together. It seemed only right as Joliffe is Jason’s father that he should be his guardian.”
“Jane, you are in danger. We have to look at every possibility… however distressing, however remote it may seem.”
“Sylvester died but Joliffe was not there when that happened,” I said triumphantly.
Then horrible thoughts like mischievous imps danced through my mind. I remembered how he had bribed one of Sylvester’s clerks to let him know when I would be going to the Cheapside office. I heard Mrs. Couch’s voice coming to me over the years: “Servants… he can get round them. They’d go and jump in the lake if he told them to.”
Toby did not speak.
I found myself defending Joliffe as though I were a counsel for the defense. I went on: “Sylvester died in this way, after suffering the symptoms you mention. I’ve certainly been affected by those symptoms. And I’ve proved that it was in the tea. It’s someone in the house. It’s someone who was in the house when Sylvester was alive.”
Because he still did not speak I grew frantic. I knew the meaning for his silence. He suspected Joliffe.
Joliffe’s reputation would put him under suspicion. The wife who had died… mysteriously. The coroner’s censure. The visits to Chan Cho Lan.
I could picture Elspeth Grantham’s discussing the scandals with Toby rather triumphantly implying that I was now suffering for my folly.
I said: “Joliffe had been often to Chan Cho Lan’s lately because he has been arranging a marriage for Lottie. He had told me the truth about Lottie. She is his half sister. That is why he takes an interest in her and wants to see her happily settled.”
Toby continued to regard me sadly.
“What’s the matter?” I cried. “Why do you look like that?”
“It’s not true, Jane. Lottie is Redmond’s daughter. He had always been secretly proud of the fact. Chan Cho Lan was his mistress and this was known in some circles. He saved Lottie and was her guardian until his death. Then Adam took his place in looking after her. His father had asked him to do this. Adam has been arranging Lottie’s marriage.”
I felt as though the world was shaking under me. I was numbed. I would not believe what was staring me in the face.
Toby put a hand gently on my shoulder.
“You should not go back, Jane.”
“Not go back! Leave The House of a Thousand Lanterns. Leave my son.”
“You and he could stay with Elspeth.”
“Toby, you’ve gone mad.”
“I’m just looking at facts.”
“It’s not true,” I cried.
“Look at it calmly, Jane.”
But how could I look at it calmly? Joliffe… trying to kill me! I wouldn’t believe it.
“Elspeth will look after you. Go to Elspeth. Take Jason and go.”
“I am going back to the house,” I said. “I am going to talk to Joliffe.”
He shook his head. “That will do no good. He will make excuses. When you told me that you had changed Sylvester’s arrangement everything fell into place. Don’t you see, Jane… the motive…”
But I loved Joliffe. I would not look at the logic of Toby’s argument. I could only see the man I loved and would go on loving until I died.
“I’m going back,” I repeated firmly. “My son is in the house. I must go back for Jason.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. I’m going alone. I will get Jason and come back perhaps. I can talk about it… think about it more clearly when I know Jason is with me.”
He could see that I was determined.
I walked out to my rickshaw.
I returned to the house. I walked through the courtyard vaguely hearing the tinkle of the wind bells. How silent was the house! I stood in the hall, and momentarily I thought of the figure in the mask which must have sped down the stairs and into the paneled room. Someone who knew that secret cupboard existed… someone who had known the house since his boyhood. Someone had staged my hallucination. I heard Joliffe’s voice at the Feast of the Dragon: “That’s the Mask of Death.”
A slow lingering death. The safe kind of death. One went into a slow decline so that when the final hour came no questions were asked.
I should never have come to this house. There was warning in the silence, the alien quality, the wind bells and the enigmatic lanterns. Six hundred and one of them—and where are the others to make up the thousand?
Perhaps I should leave, take Jason with me and go to Elspeth. That would be running away from Joliffe. I had done that before. It was like an ugly pattern. Perhaps that was what it was meant to be.
I felt a sudden urgency to see my son. For if I were in danger what of him?
He was not there. I looked through the window. There was no sign of his kite in the sky. At this time he was usually in the schoolroom doing the lessons I had set for him. Lottie was generally with him. I went to the schoolroom, to find it empty.
And where was Lottie?
She had come into the schoolroom and was standing behind me. Her expression was impassive.
I said: “Where’s Jason? I expected to find you both here.”
“Jason not in house.”
“Then where is he?”
She bowed her head and was silent.
“Come,” I said impatiently, “I want to know where he is.”
“At Chan Cho Lan’s house.”
“Chan Cho Lan’s house! What is he doing there? Who took him?”
“I take.”
“Without my permission?”
“Chan Cho Lan say bring.”
“That’s no reason why you should take him without asking me first.”
“You not here.”
“What happened? Tell me.”
“Chan Cho Lan sent servant. Chin-ky wish to play with Jason. Send Jason.”
“Lottie,” I said, “we are going at once to Chan Cho Lan. We will bring Jason home. And don’t ever dare to take him there unless I say he may go.”
Lottie nodded.
We walked through the courtyards and across the grass to Chan Cho Lan’s house.
My heart was beating angrily. I hated the woman. How dared she send for my son in this arrogant fashion. I hated her because she was beautiful in her strange alien way and I believed that she was Joliffe’s mistress and Chin-ky was their son. No wonder Joliffe called often to see her. Horrible suspicions kept crowding into my mind. Did he want me dead so that he could marry Chan Cho Lan? That could not be so. And yet…
Jealousy and anger overcame all fear.
The pigtailed servants sprang up to open the gate and with Lottie close behind me, I went into the house.
I was taken straight to Chan Cho Lan. She was waiting for me. She looked exquisite in pale mauve silk, jewels gleaming in her black hair, her skin delicately tinted and perfumed.
“You bring,” she said to Lottie. “That good.”
“I have come for my son,” I said. “I did not give him permission to go out and I am surprised that he was brought here.”
“Your son,” she repeated smiling and nodded her head.
Lottie watched us breathlessly.
“Come,” said Chan Cho Lan. “I take you to your son.”
I said: “I know that he enjoys playing with your little boy. But I must impress on him that he is not to leave the house without my permission.”
“It is good of great lady to honor my miserable house,” said Chan Cho Lan. “Good of clever boy to fly his kite with my unworthy son.”