Through the changing scene I loved you.
In life we were as one and death shall not part us
For our love is everlasting.
We went down to look at it. There was a hushed feeling in the vaults. It seemed a different place from that in which I had been imprisoned.
The benevolence of the goddess seemed to be fixed upon me and I said suddenly as though prompted to do so: “This must always remain. This was what he intended. The Kuan Yin must remain here where the mandarin put it.”
Adam said: “That statue is worth a fortune.”
I said quickly: “It doesn’t belong to us. We are aliens here. It is not for us to interfere.”
I spoke with authority. The House of a Thousand Lanterns belonged to me and this was part of the house.
And there in that underground haven I knew exactly what I would do.
I was going to relinquish The House of a Thousand Lanterns. It could never in truth be mine. That was what it had told me from the moment I had entered it.
It must be restored to those who would have lived there but for the mandarin’s quixotic gesture.
Adam would look after his son, and when Chin-ky was of age he should live with his wife and children in The House of a Thousand Lanterns.
There seemed to be a lightness in the air. The House had changed.
II
A few months later Joliffe, Jason and I left for England. I was pregnant and I wanted my child to be born at home. There was also Jason’s school to be thought of.
It was a wonderful day when we arrived at Roland’s Croft.
Mrs. Couch was at the door, fatter than I remembered, her red cheeks aglow, a slight glaze of tears in her eyes.
“Home at last then, young Jane,” she said. “But I suppose I’ve got to call you Madam.” Her eyes went from Joliffe to Jason and back to me… significantly studying me, knowing that I was what she would call “expecting.”
“It’s about time, too,” she said. “Now the house will be a home again.”