Chapter 23
When Chin brought in the post, Caroline forced herself to leave the silver letter tray untouched. After breakfast she carried
the tray upstairs and shut the parlor door. She rummaged through the pile of mail, looking for the threat she knew would come.
And there it was, the pale blue envelope, and even though she’d been expecting it, she couldn’t hold back a gasp. Caroline
told herself she just had to move through the rest of the day as normally as she could. She tried to keep from constantly
touching the pocket of her skirt where she had crumpled the note from Grey, the paper lurking like a scorpion.
Since Caroline was not expecting visitors or going out, she didn’t need Lisan to help her dress, not for a simple blouse and
skirt.
“I can help with Master Thomas,” her secretary offered, “read to him or just sit with him in case he needs anything.” The
girl looked miserable and distinctly under the weather.
“You don’t look very well yourself,” Caroline said, “so you should get some rest. Don’t worry about helping with Thomas. The
servants are doing everything that’s needed.”
Mason came home for lunch, bringing Dr. Ellis with him. He seemed to have forgotten he had argued with her earlier over money,
or at least pretended all was well between them while in the doctor’s company.
“Dr. Ellis wanted to check on Thomas, my dear,” Mason said, “so I invited him for a bite of lunch.”
“I’ll have the houseboy put out two place settings in the dining room,” she said. “I’ve been eating in Thomas’s room so I
won’t join you, gentlemen; my apologies.”
“Ah, well, without a lady present we’ll have an extra whiskey and soda,” Mason said. “I need it after meeting with those bankers.
Donald? Shall I pour you one?”
“Yes, but I’ll go see Thomas first,” Dr. Ellis said. “I don’t blame you for wanting a drink. Bankers, always trying to gouge
you for whatever they can.”
“Go ahead and have a drink, Doctor,” Caroline said. “Give me ten minutes to have the houseboys clean things up a bit before
you see Thomas.”
Later, when Dr. Ellis examined Thomas, he found his patient dull and confused. The doctor confessed himself baffled that Thomas
hadn’t recovered yet, but maintained he was confident in his original diagnosis. After all, the laboratory had come back with
undeniable evidence. “Stomach parasites,” he said, “definitely that’s what it is. Well, keep going with the purgative tonic
and give him a bit more time.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Caroline said, “whatever you advise.” He was extremely certain, that much was clear.
She didn’t join the men for lunch and went downstairs only after they’d left.
She hadn’t eaten much lately, and it wouldn’t do for her to get lightheaded, not when she needed all her wits and strength.
There was soup in the tureen, and she ladled herself a small portion and nibbled on some bread.
Thomas was unconscious most of the time now and she made sure he stayed that way.
She couldn’t have him notice the anxiety that thrummed through her, the tenseness of her voice even when she kept it low, how she had to clutch her hands together for them to remain still in her lap.
In her small parlor, she rang for Lisan.
“I just want to tell you that I’m going out this afternoon, but not for very long,” she said, when Lisan came in. “I just
want to get out of the house for a bit on my own. I’m happy for you to spend your time reading, or you could go out and see
friends.”
Lisan nodded. “I’ll go over your invitations again and make sure I’ve canceled all your appointments. Will there be anything
else?” Caroline shook her head.
As Lisan’s footsteps receded along the hallway, Caroline realized the young woman’s unobtrusive manner had become discreet
to the point where she practically receded into the walls. Her gentle features bore her usual polite smile, but there was
no sweetness in the curve of her lips, no liveliness in her eyes. Whatever Masako Kyo had done or said, it had disturbed Lisan
greatly.
Caroline sensed something else bothering Lisan, but right now, she had other worries. She put her teacup and saucer down on
the walnut desk. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the blue envelope out of her pinafore pocket and read it one more time.
It was a brief note, just a where and when. The “where” was Les Trois Lanternes, the hotel in the French Concession that Grey
called home because he didn’t have enough money to rent a real apartment. The “when” was tomorrow, late morning. Obviously,
he expected her to simply drop whatever plans she had. Blackmailed for money, that was one thing. But this other—she wouldn’t
let the situation come to that. The mere thought of it, the prospect of submitting to him, made her clench her fists so tightly
her nails left crescents of red when she opened her hands.
If she allowed emotions to intrude, she wouldn’t be able to take control of her next meeting with Grey.
She knew the time and place, and now she would survey the surroundings and consider how to prepare.
She guessed at his state of mind, which she judged to be one of supreme confidence. That was to her advantage.
Caroline opened her diary, which Lisan had updated after canceling appointments for the next week. On the date of her meeting
with Grey, she wrote a time and place, his initials, and nothing else. Even though the details were engraved on her mind,
she wanted it down in writing. The note was a promise to herself, not a capitulation. Then she crumpled up Grey’s letter and
tossed it in the fireplace.
The most useful gift Thomas had given Caroline, purchased the week they had arrived, was a guidebook of Shanghai. It described
the city’s sights, its parks and neighborhoods, its significant buildings, hotels, and restaurants. Most useful of all, there
were small maps of different areas in the back pages. She unfolded one of the maps and looked for the street where Grey lived,
noted the names of some nearby restaurants and shops. She wanted a look at Grey’s hotel, its surroundings. There were few
things she could control about the meeting, but at least she could know what to expect about the location of Les Trois Lanternes.
Caroline got out of the car in front of a restaurant and told Gu to pick her up in an hour and a half at Dauphin Jewelers on Avenue Paul Brunat.
Inside the restaurant she paused to read the menu, all the while peering out the window to make sure Gu had driven away.
Then she smiled at the ma?tre d’ and shrugged as if the menu didn’t please her.
She walked just three blocks and found the street she was looking for, Rue Voisin.
The street itself was quiet but looked shabby, due to the run-down appearance of its restaurants and shops.
Les Trois Lanternes was a third-rate sort of hotel.
She peered at it from under her umbrella as she walked past, at the threadbare blue awning over its entrance, sagging from its own rain-soaked weight.
The mildew-streaked brick walls and aging curtains in its windows made her suspect it was more boardinghouse than hotel.
Next door to Les Trois Lanternes was a bar, its door in need of a fresh coat of varnish. An alley separated the two establishments,
and a side door of the hotel opened to the alley. From the amount of rubbish there, this narrow passage was used for dumping
unwanted items. Two large garbage bins leaned against one wall; piles of empty wooden crates were stacked up against the other.
Anyone entering the alley would have to weave between the stacks of crates and garbage bins.
There was a small tearoom across from the hotel and she went inside. She ordered a pot of tea and drank it slowly, looking
through the steam-fogged plate glass at the hotel entrance, at the alley, at the bar. A neon sign attached to the second floor
of the bar proclaimed a gambling parlor upstairs. She observed the number of passersby at this hour of the day. She hoped
it would rain tomorrow, that it would be a day like this, with not many pedestrians, all of them hurrying to get to their
destinations, shoulders hunched against the cold, umbrellas pulled down to protect against the driving rain. None of them
paying attention to anything except puddles. Tomorrow, she didn’t want anyone to notice her, witness her shame.
Caroline put some coins on the table. It was time to make her way to Dauphin Jewelers and wait for the car. It was time to
keep watch over Thomas.
She heard Lisan’s soft tap on Thomas’s bedroom door and called for her to enter. Chin and another house servant had moved
a small table and armchair to the window and she sat there to read books, magazines, and the letters that continued to arrive.
It was better than sitting by Thomas when he was asleep.
“Just how many charities are there in Shanghai?” Caroline said, forcing a playful tone as she opened another envelope.
“When I met these ladies at their various functions, I had no idea they only wanted me for my donations.” Requests for donations she expected, but also requests to join the board of an orphanage for mixed-race girls, to be patroness of a mission school.
And of a hospital. “What do you know of this hospital?” she asked Lisan.
“The Margaret Williamson Hospital for Women?” Lisan said, taking the letter from her. “It’s the only foreign hospital Chinese
women will use.”
In some very traditional families, her secretary explained, women remained inside their homes and went out only to pray at
a temple or to visit female friends and relatives. The only men they ever saw or spoke to were relatives. Traditional Chinese
doctors examined female patients from behind a curtain, making their diagnoses by taking the woman’s pulse. It was only when
the Margaret Williamson Hospital opened, staffed entirely by female doctors and female nurses, that families allowed their
women and girls to leave the house for Western medical treatments.
“Would you like me to write a response, Mrs. Stanton?” Lisan asked.
Caroline shook her head. “Leave it for now. I’m not in the mood to decide about any of these requests. None of them are urgent
and none as important as . . . as other things. Oh, there’s so much keeping me up at night. All sorts of things seem to disturb
my sleep.”
“What sort of things, Mrs. Stanton?” Lisan turned away from the window to look at Caroline, her eyes wide and troubled. “Have
you also had bad dreams since coming here?”
“Also? Are you having bad dreams, Lisan?” she asked. “I notice you seem tired lately.”
Her secretary flushed. “I suffered from nightmares as a child, and since coming to Lennox Manor, I’ve been having bad dreams again. That’s all.”
“Well, don’t tell the house servants,” Caroline said. “They would worry about ghosts, and then who knows, we might lose them
all.”
Lisan nodded, quite serious. “You’re right, they would leave. Now that Mr. Stanton is so ill, their main topics of conversation
have been about the supernatural, and whether or not Lennox Manor is haunted. Zhou the cook is very superstitious. I would
never mention nightmares in front of them, or the . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Or the what, Lisan?” Caroline prodded gently. She wanted to make light of things but it appeared her secretary was genuinely
worried.
“Or the sounds at night. Sometimes I hear sounds of a woman crying,” Lisan said, “but it must be my imagination from being
overtired. It’s the wind. Because if there’s a ghost, it would be the ghost of a man, of Charles Burnett, wouldn’t it? I should
be hearing a man’s voice.”
“Go to your room, Lisan,” she said gently, “get some sleep. I mean it.”
“Is it all right if I take your diary, ma’am? I’ll update my copy of your schedule, if you don’t mind,” Lisan said, “all those
cancellations.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, “it’s in my parlor. But after that, take a nap.”
Perhaps poor Charles Burnett’s ghost really did wander at night, Caroline thought.
If only it were a mere ghost she had to fear and not Andrew Grey, a far more potent danger.
She didn’t need any distractions right now—Grey on his own was enough of a worry.
She poured a second cup of tea and took it to the window.
Thomas’s bedroom looked down on a small Chinese-style garden, a walled courtyard where a stand of green bamboos swayed with each gust of wind and droplets of rain dripped from the bare branches of a plum tree.
There was a tranquility about the enclosed view, a simplicity that calmed her, helped her think.
Beyond the small courtyard was a view of green lawns, the lake and its willow trees.
After her second cup of tea, she knew what she had to do. There was no way around it.