Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [185]
She ran along to the end of the long gal Ieri ed hallway to the Mandarin’s room, hesitating before opening the door and going in.
Lai Tsin’s were the only Chinese rooms in the big house, and Francie, who understood these things, had supervised their decoration herself. The first room was his study. Its walls and ceiling were lacquered a beautiful glossy red. Two walls held rows of heavy leather-bound books and a simply carved blackwood altar table stood against the wall nearest the door. The white azaleas he had favored bloomed in a pot near the window and a filigree iron lantern decorated with scarlet tassels hung over the low central table, around which were grouped the big square-backed slippery wooden chairs Lysandra had always complained were so uncomfortable.
She ran to his bedroom and peered in, but the austere white room looked as it always had. There was just a low Chinese wooden bed with a padded bedmat, a little charcoal brazier in the fireplace and tall windows with pierced Chinese screens and plain ricepaper shades. The Mandarin’s bedroom was bare of all decoration and it was empty.
Lysandra ran back along the gallery, down the stairs and across the hall, slipping and sliding on the polished wooden floorboards as she flung open the door to Francie’s sitting room. She heaved a great sigh of relief. Francie was curled up on the sofa fast asleep. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “there you are after all.”
Francie opened her eyes and stared bewilderedly at her. She glanced around the little sitting room, at the dead ashes in the fireplace and the lighted lamp and drawn curtains, as though she were reseeing them after a long journey and she shook her head wearily. She supposed she must have fallen asleep but her dreams of the past had been so troubled she still felt exhausted.
“It’s after six,” Lysandra said impatiently. “And you’re still dressed from yesterday. Didn’t you go to bed at all?”
Francie stretched her arms over her head, smiling. Lysandra still looked such a baby with her hair braided all wrong and her sweater on inside-out. She was always in such a hurry, she never had time to bother with boring things like dressing properly.
“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked automatically as she did every morning, and Lysandra shook her head guiltily.
“I forgot. I’ll do it after breakfast.” She ran to Francie and gave her a hug. “I couldn’t find you. I was frightened,” she whispered. “I thought maybe you’d gone away too.”
Francie hugged her back. “I’d never go away without telling you.” Then she smiled and said, “I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t you and I go to the ranch? I dreamed about it last night, about picking grapes for the new wine, and riding the horses for miles and miles and making pancakes. I think we need a little holiday and I’ll just bet Cookie and Mousie will be real happy to see you. If we leave right away we could be there in a couple of hours.”
Lysandra’s face lit up as she thought of the ranch and the dog and the cat—and her pony. She clapped her hands together, whirling delightedly around and around the room. “I just knew something nice would happen today,” she cried.
Watching her, Francie smiled. She was just a little girl and it was so easy to make her happy. But she wondered worriedly what would happen as she grew up and realized she was pretty Lysandra Lai Tsin, maybe the richest girl in the world with power over a business empire that employed thousands and earned millions of dollars. She sighed; it was not going to be easy. Lysandra was rarely still, she enjoyed life and action and the idea of her presiding over a boardroom table was remote. But the Mandarin had chosen her and he had never been wrong.
The de Soto Ranch and Winery was a lot different from the tumbledown clapboard buildings scattered over a few humble acres that it had been the first time Francie had gone there with her mother. Over the years, she