Chapter 24
Caroline had been right, Lisan thought, upon waking. She had needed a nap. For once, she had slept peacefully. Then she realized
from the amount of daylight coming through the window that she had slept through supper and it was now the next morning. She
got up, aghast at having missed her morning meeting with Caroline. She rushed to wash her face and get dressed. A knock on
the door, and she opened it to Chin, holding out an envelope.
“A note from Missy Caroline,” he said, standing on the threshold. “She went out and left this for you. I’m supposed to wait
for your instructions.”
Lisan, I need to go out for a bit this morning. Could you please work with Chin to take turns sitting with Thomas? Please
call Dr. Ellis if he changes for the worse. I’ll be home in a few hours.
“She would like us to take shifts watching Master Thomas while she’s out,” she said. “She’ll be away for just a few hours.
How is he today, Chin?”
“Worse, I would say,” Chin said. “And you should know that both Liao and Little Liao left this morning. Liao was most upset after Missy Caroline complained to me that things have been moved around in her parlor. Small ornaments on the mantelpiece, a footstool, her sewing box. She’s had to put them back.
Liao looks after that room and swears he doesn’t move anything. He decided it was the suicide ghost.”
“Mrs. Stanton has been under a lot of strain lately,” she said. “She may be forgetting that she moved things around herself.
Perhaps Liao was just offended at the accusation?”
She never knew that Caroline was experiencing strange incidents. Why hadn’t Caroline told her? Probably for the same reason
she hated confiding in Caroline—for fear of the other person thinking she was going mad.
“No, Miss Liu. He was genuinely afraid.” The head servant paused. “There’s something else, Miss Liu. Do you recall when Missy
Caroline told me to put rat poison in the attic? And under all the furniture?” He hesitated again. “I keep the poison in a
metal canister in the butler’s pantry, locked in a cupboard.”
“What are you saying, Chin?” she said, catching his unease.
“There’s less in there now than last week,” he said. At her skeptical frown, he sighed. “I know how much was in that can.
I’m very careful.”
“Are you saying someone has stolen rat poison?” Lisan said.
“I don’t know.” He looked uncomfortable. “I’m the only servant with keys to the butler’s pantry. Missy Caroline has all the
keys, since she’s mistress of the house.”
“What about Master Mason?” she said, thinking of the conversation between Mason and Caroline, the menace in Mason’s voice.
“Would he still have all the keys from before?”
Chin looked thoughtful. “Yes, he would do. He never used the pantry keys though; he never went into the butler’s pantry or
kitchen to check on stores.”
“Have you asked the other servants?” she said. “Perhaps somehow they took some of the poison to put down in their own rooms,
when the cupboard happened to be unlocked?”
But Chin didn’t answer. He had turned slightly and was staring at Rosalie’s portrait.
All color drained from his face, and he put one hand on the door frame as though trying to steady himself.
Shock and distress contorted his features.
At her questioning look he stood straighter, regained his composure.
“I’ve questioned all the house servants, and they all said they didn’t take anything,” he said, “and Da Wu pointed out that
they have a canister of their own for the servants’ quarters. Miss Liu, I can sit with Master Thomas for the next two hours.”
Inside the hothouse, the pink jasmine was still in bloom, but the flowers were beginning to age. The vines sent out a pungent,
cloying perfume. Lisan had always preferred the white variety of jasmine, a lighter scent.
Yao was at work in the utility area, a space hidden by screens of trellises, and at her approach, he looked up. His smile
was the same as always, welcoming and friendly. Just the sight of that smile used to make her feel better, safer. More grounded.
Only a few days ago, his calm presence would’ve been a solace to the turmoil in her mind.
But it wasn’t the same anymore. At one point she’d believed there was something special, fateful even, in the way the sight
of his smile warmed her. Now that she knew more, it left her wondering what it was exactly that she had felt for him. He was
part of machinations that had kept the truth from her all these years, a betrayal that hurt less today than it did when she
first found out.
When she thought of Yao, of Master Liu, she wavered between trust and doubt, the opposing emotions washing over her one after the other like a river tide.
The relief she’d felt upon knowing Yao would be coming to Canada had now ebbed away, leaving behind the realization that his kindness and attention had been for Prince Tsai’s daughter, not for her, Lisan.
Yet despite this, she still wanted to be near him.
Yao was examining a penjing, a red pine, one of his own that he’d potted since coming to Lennox Manor. She climbed onto a wooden stool and watched him
work from across the battered wooden table. Yao belonged here in the gardener’s domain, between aisles of greenery, a place
where he pruned unruly shoots, or coaxed a twist of vine to cling onto a bamboo support. He was at such ease here.
“Parallel branches,” she said, pointing at one of the graceful stems. “Will you remove the upper or lower one?”
“You have a good eye,” he said. “Master Liu’s training?”
“Just from watching him all my life,” she said. “I would remove the upper branch.”
Master Liu’s gentle voice echoed in her mind as she watched Yao take small penjing shears to the plant.
Branches that cross, overlap, that are parallel or symmetrical should be cut short or removed to achieve a good shape.
Wiring may be needed to bend them to the desired shape.
At the time she had admired the artistry of penjing.
Now it made her shudder. A life bent and shaped by force.
“What will you do with your collection when you leave?” she said, indicating the shallow containers of miniature trees. Not
“when we leave”; he wasn’t leaving China for her, he was doing it for his master, for her father.
“I’ll leave them with Master Liu,” he said, “but I’ll take one with me to Canada.”
Canada. She rolled the syllables around in her mind.
A country that spoke English. Master Liu had explained this was why he’d sent her to St. Clare’s; it had been part of their plan for her to learn foreign language and customs, foreign histories.
To understand countries where emperors didn’t ruin lives through arrogance and petty whims. To make sure she would never want to be a princess, a member of the royal court that was now blundering to survive.
Between St. Clare’s Hall and the cosmopolitan culture of Shanghai, she couldn’t help but be aware that a tidal wave of change
was imminent. China had to change. The Qing empire was failing, all of China knew it was only a matter of time, the only question
being whether or not civil war would come first. Her own father, once a prince, was working toward the fall of the Imperial
government.
“Do you remember any more of your childhood now,” Yao said, as though sensing her disquiet, “from before Shanghai?”
“No, nothing at all,” she said. Only grayness and fog, an impression of chaos, dirty streets. And for some reason, a maple
seedling blown by the wind, spinning like a small pinwheel as it descended onto gray paving stones. “Nothing. But I do get
nightmares.”
“Still?” he said. She nodded.
But now she knew the nightmares were fragments of memory, of her last moments with her mother and sisters. She yearned to
see their faces, not stiffly posed in a photograph like the one Masako Kyo had given her, but with their eyes meeting hers,
lively and loving, lips on the verge of breaking into laughter. And yet the thought of regaining those memories terrified
her so much her mind virtually shut down if she even tried.
During her time at Lennox Manor, those nightmares had become more vivid.
Now the dreams were more physical. She could feel the ache in her short legs as she hurried to teeter up the steps.
When she looked down at her small feet, the details on her shoes were so clear, bright red silk embroidered with bats.
Bats for good luck. She could even feel the discomfort of a fold in her left sock.
Booming sounds and screams, a smell of sulphur and smoke.
Through cloth soles, her toes could feel the edge of the veranda.
And the voice, which she now realized must’ve been her mother’s, saying those terrible words in the kindest, gentlest manner. Now jump.
Even now, just remembering it, she flinched. They were beginning to feel more real than her waking life, and worse, now her
childhood nightmares were merging into troubled dreams about Rosalie. She felt certain that if she stayed much longer at Lennox
Manor, the dreams would persist and overtake her. She might not wake up in time and she would step off the veranda. She might
remain trapped under the willow trees, her hair dripping with rain, forever wandering through the garden, crying for rescue.
Come find me.
But then she looked at Yao, at his capable hands, his strong, stocky torso, his generous smile, and clarity returned, morning
light lifting her gloom.
“Master Liu used to say perhaps I couldn’t remember my past because it was too terrible,” she said, “but now I know and still
I can’t remember. Yao, did you know my mother? My sisters?”
“I knew who they were. I was just a gardener,” Yao said, “and not even that. Just a gardener’s helper, never allowed to speak
to any of you. But you loved the garden, you know. One day you wanted to plant camellia flowers and took my trowel to do it.
I had to tell your maidservant to explain to you that flowers wouldn’t grow.”