Kimono Part 41

Asako was shaking her head gently like an automaton, understanding not a word of all this outburst. Her mind was on one thing only, her husband's infidelity. His mind was on one thing only, the shame of his wife's money. They were like card-players who concentrate their attention exclusively on the cards in their own hands, oblivious to what their partners or opponents may hold.

Asako remaining silent, Mr. Ito began to speak. His voice seemed more squeaky than ever.

"Captain Barrington," he said, "I am very sorry for you. But you see now true condition of things. You must remember you are English gentleman. Mrs. Barrington wishes not to return to you. She has been told that you make misconduct with Miss Smith at Kamakura, and again at Chuzenji. Miss Smith herself says so. Mrs. Harrington thinks this story must be true; or Miss Smith do not tell so bad story about herself. We think she is quite right--"

"Shut up!" thundered Geoffrey. "This is a matter for me and my wife alone. Please, leave us. My wife has heard one side of a story which is unfair and untrue. She must hear from me what really happened."

"I think, some other day, it would be better," cousin Sadako intervened. "You see, Mrs. Barrington cannot speak to-day. She is too unhappy."

It was quite true. Asako stood like a dummy, neither seeing nor hearing apparently, neither a.s.senting nor contradicting. How powerful is the influence of clothes! If Asako had been dressed in her Paris coat and skirt, her husband would have crossed the few mats which separated them, and would have carried her off w.i.l.l.y-nilly. But in her kimono did she wholly belong to him? Or was she a j.a.panese again, a Fujinami? She seemed to have been transformed by some enchanter's spell; as t.i.tine had said, she was bewitched.

"Asako, do you mean this?" The big man's voice was harsh with grief.

"Do you mean that I am to go without you?"

Asako still showed no sign of comprehension.

"Answer me, my darling; do you want me to go?"

Her head moved in a.s.sent, and her lips answered "Yes."

That whisper made such a wrench at her husband's heart that his grip tightened on the frail _shoji_, and with a nervous spasm he sent it clattering out of its socket flat upon the floor of the room, like a screen blown down by the wind. Ito dashed forward to help Geoffrey replace the damage. When they turned round again, the two women had disappeared.

"Captain Barrington," said Ito, "I think you had better go away. You make bad thing worse."

Geoffrey frowned at the little creature. He would have liked to have crushed him underfoot like a c.o.c.kroach. But as that was impossible, nothing remained for him to do but to depart, leaving the track of his dirty boots on the shining corridor. His last glimpse of his cousins'

home was of two little serving-maids scuttering up with dusters to remove the defilement.

Asako had fainted.

As Reggie had said in Chuzenji, "What actually happens does not matter: it is the thought of what might have happened, which sticks."

If Reggie's tolerant and experienced mind could not rid itself of the picture conjured up by the possibility of his friend's treachery and his mistress's lightness, how could Asako, ignorant and untried, hope to escape from a far more insistent obsession? She believed that her husband was guilty. But the mere feeling that it was possible that he might be guilty would have been enough to numb her love for him, at any rate for a time. She had never known heartache before. She did not realise that it is a fever which runs its appointed course of torment and despair, which at length after a given term abates, and then disappears altogether, leaving the sufferer weak but whole again.

The second attack of the malady finds its victim familiar with the symptoms, resigned to a short period of misery and confident of recovery. A broken heart like a broken horse is of great service to its owner.

But Asako was like one stricken with an unknown disease. Its violence appalled her, and in her uncertainty she prayed for death. Moreover, she was surrounded by counsellors who traded on her little faith, who kept on reminding her that she was a j.a.panese, that she was among her father's people who loved her and understood her, that foreigners were notoriously treacherous to women, that they were blue-eyed and cruel-hearted, that they thought only of money and material things.

Let her stay in j.a.pan, let her make her home there. There she would always be a personage, a member of the family. Among those big, bold-voiced foreign women, she was overshadowed and out of place. If her husband left her for a half-caste, what chance had she of keeping him when once he got back among the women of his own race? Mixed marriages, in fact, were a mistake, an offence against nature. Even if he wished to be faithful to her, he could not really care for her as he could for an Englishwoman.

As soon as Geoffrey Barrington had left the house, Mr. Ito went in search of the head of the Fujinami, whom he found at work on the latest literary production of his tame students, _The Pinegrove by the Sea-sh.o.r.e_.

Mr. Fujinami Gentaro put his writing-box aside with a leisurely gesture, for a j.a.panese gentleman of culture must never be in a hurry.

"Indeed, it has been so noisy, composition has become impossible," he complained; "has that foreigner come, to the house?"

He used the uncomplimentary word "_ket[=o]jin_" which may be literally translated "hairy rascal". It is a survival from the time of Perry's black ships and the early days of foreign intercourse, when "Expel the Barbarians!" was a watchword in the country. Modern j.a.panese a.s.sure their foreign friends that it has fallen altogether into disuse; but such is not the case. It is a word loaded with all the hatred, envy and contempt against foreigners of all nationalities, which still pervade considerable sections of the j.a.panese public.

"This Barrington," answered the lawyer, "is indeed a rough fellow, even for a foreigner. He came into the house with his boots on, uninvited. He shouted like a coolie, and he broke the _shoji_.

His behaviour was like that of Susa-no-O in the chambers of the Sun-G.o.ddess. Perhaps he had been drinking whisky-sodas."

"A disgusting thing, is it not?" said the master. "At this time I am writing an important chapter on the clear mirror of the soul. It is troublesome to be interrupted by these quarrels of women and savages.

You will have Keiichi and Gor[=o] posted at the door of the house. They are to refuse entrance to all foreigners. It must not be allowed to turn our _yashiki_ into a battlefield."

Mr. Fujinami's meditations that morning had been most bitter. His literary preoccupation was only a sham. There was a tempest in the political world of j.a.pan. The Government was tottering under the revelations of a corruption in high places more blatant than usual.

With the fall of the Cabinet, the bribes which the Fujinami had lavished to obtain the licences and privileges necessary to their trade, would become waste money. True, the Governor of Osaka had not yet been replaced. A Fujinami familiar had been despatched thither at full speed to secure the new Tobita brothel concessions as a _fait accompli_ before the inevitable change should take place.

The head of the house of Fujinami, therefore, being a monarch in a small way, had much to think of besides "the quarrels of women and savages." Moreover, he was not quite sure of his ground with regard to Asako. To take a wife from her husband against his will, seems to the j.a.panese mind so flagrantly illegal a proceeding; and old Mr. Fujinami Gennosuke had warned his irreligious son most gravely against the danger of tampering with the testament of Asako's father, and of provoking thereby a visitation of his "rough spirit."

CHAPTER XXI

SAYONARA (GOOD-BYE)

_Tomo ni narite Onaji minato wo Izuru fune no Yuku-ye mo shirazu Kogi-wakari-nuru!_

Those ships which left The same harbour Side by side Towards an unknown destination Have rowed away from one another!

Reggie Forsyth, remaining in Chuzenji, had become a prey to a most crushing reaction. At the time of trial, he had been calm and clear-sighted. For a moment he had experienced a sensation of relief at shaking off the shackles which Yae's fascination had fastened upon him. He had been aware all along that she was morally worthless. He was glad to have the matter incontestably proved. But his paradise, though an artificial one, had been paradise all the same. It had nourished him with visions and music. Now, he had no companion except his own irrepressible spirit jibing at his heart's infirmity. He came to the reluctant conclusion that he must take Yae back again. But she must never come again to him on the same terms. He would take her for what she really was, a unique and charming _fille-de-joie_, and he knew that she would be glad to return. Without something, somebody, some woman to interest him, he could not face another year in this barren land.

Then what about Geoffrey, his friend who had betrayed him? No, he could not regard him in such a tragic light. He was angry with Geoffrey, but not indignant. He was angry with him for being a blunderer, an elephant, for being so easily amenable to Lady Cynthia's intrigues, for being so good-natured, stupid and gullible. He argued that if Geoffrey had been a wicked seducer, a bold Don Juan, he would have excused him and would have felt more sympathy for him. He would have thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with him to a discussion of Yae's psychology. But what did an oaf like Geoffrey understand about that bundle of nerves and instincts, partly primitive and partly artificial, bred out of an abnormal cross between East and West, and doomed from conception to a life astray between light and darkness?

He had been disillusioned about his old friend, and he wished never to see him again.

"What frauds these n.o.ble natures are!" he said to himself, "these Old Honests, these sterling souls! And as an excuse he tells me, 'Nothing actually happened!' Disgusting!"

'To play with light loves in the portal, To kiss and embrace and refrain!'

"The virtue of our days is mostly impotence! l.u.s.t and pa.s.sion and love and marriage! Why do our dull insular minds mix up these four entirely separate notions? And how can we jump with such goat-like agility from one circle of thought into another without ever noticing the change in the landscape?"

He strolled over to the piano to put these ideas into music.

Lady Cynthia had decided that it would be bad for him to stop in Chuzenji. Mountain scenery is demoralising for a nature so Byronic.

He was forthwith despatched to Tokyo to represent his Emba.s.sy at a Requiem Ma.s.s to be celebrated for the souls of an Austrian Archduke and his wife, who had recently been a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Serbian fanatic somewhere in Bosnia. Reggie was furious at having to undertake this mission. For the mountains were soothing to him, and he was not yet ready for encounters. When he arrived in Tokyo, he was in a very bad temper.

Asako had heard from Tanaka that Reggie Forsyth was expected at the Emba.s.sy. That useful intelligence-officer had been posted by the Fujinami to keep watch on the Emba.s.sy compound, and to report any movements of importance; for the conspirators were not entirely at ease as to the legality of abducting the wife of a British subject, and keeping her against her husband's demands.

Asako had received that day a pathetic letter from Geoffrey, giving detail for detail his account of his dealings with Yae Smith, begging her to understand and believe him, and to forgive him for the crime which he had never committed.

In spite of her cousin's incredulity, Asako's resolution was shaken by this appeal. At last, now that she had lost her husband, she was beginning to realise how very much she loved him. Reggie Forsyth would be a more or less impartial witness.

Late that evening, in a hooded rickshaw she crossed the short distance which led to the Emba.s.sy. Mr. Forsyth had just arrived.

Mr. Forsyth was very displeased to hear Mrs. Barrington announced. It was just the kind of meeting which would exasperate and unnerve him.