Close to the tomb of Nichiren stood a Japanese Salvationist, a zealous pimply young man, wearing the red and blue uniform of General Booth with kaiseigun (World-saving Army) in Japanese letters round his staff cap. He stood in front of a screen, on which the first verse of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," was written in a Japanese translation. An assistant officiated at a wheezy harmonium. The tune was vaguely akin to its Western prototype; and the two evangelists were trying to induce a tolerant but uninterested crowd to join in the chorus.
Everywhere beggars were crawling over the compound in various states of filth. Some, however, were so ghastly that they were excluded from the temple enclosure. They had lined up among the trunks of the cryptomeria trees, among the little grey tombs with their fading inscriptions and the moss-covered statues of kindly Buddhas.
Asako gave a penny into the crooked hand of one poor sightless wretch.
"Oh, no!" cried cousin Sadako; "do not go near to them. Do not touch them. They are lepers."
Some of them had no arms, or had mere stumps ending abruptly in a red and sickening object like a bone which a dog has been chewing. Some had no legs, and were pulled along on little wheeled trolleys by their less dilapidated companions in misfortune. Some had no features. Their faces were mere glabrous disks, from which eyes and nose had completely vanished; only the mouth remained, a toothless gap fringed with straggling hairs. Some had faces abnormally bloated, with powerful foreheads and heavy jowls, which gave them an expression of stony immobility like Byzantine lions. All were fearfully dirty and covered with sores and lice.
The people passing by smiled at their grim unsightliness, and threw pennies to them, for which they scrambled and scratched like beasts.
Namu my[=o]h[=o] renge ky[=o].
Asako's relatives spent the day in eating, drinking and gossiping to the rhythm of the interminable prayer.
It was a perfect day of autumn, which is the sweetest season in Japan. A warm bright sun had been shining on the sumptuous colours of the waning year, on the brilliant reds and yellows which clothed the neighbouring hills, on the broad brown plain with its tesselated design of bare rice-fields, on the brown villas and cottages huddled in their fences of evergreen like birds in their nests, on the red trunks of the cryptomeria trees, on the brown carpet of matted pine-needles, on the grey crumbling stones of the old graveyard, on the high-pitched temple roofs, and on the inconsequential swarms of humanity drifting to their devotions, casting their pennies into the great alms-trough in front of the shrine, clanging the brass bell with a prayer for good luck, and drifting home again with their bewildered, happy children.
Asako no longer felt like a Japanese. The sight of her countrymen in their drab monotonous thousands sickened her. The hiss and cackle of their incomprehensible tongue beat upon her brain with a deadly incessant sound, like raindrops to one who is impatiently awaiting the return of fine weather.
Here at Ikégami, the distant view of the sea and the Yokohama shipping invited Asako to escape. But where could she escape to? To England. She was an Englishwoman no longer. She had cast her husband off for insufficient reasons. She had been cold, loveless, narrow-minded and silly. She had acted, as she now recognised, largely on the suggestion of others. Like a fool she had believed what had been told. She had not trusted her love for her husband. As usual, her thoughts returned to Geoffrey, and to the constant danger which threatened him. Lately, she had started to write a letter to him several times, but had never got further than "Dearest Geoffrey."
She was glad when the irritating day was over, when the rosy sunset clouds showed through the trunks of the cryptomerias, when the night fell and the great stars like lamps hung in the branches. But the night brought no silence. Paper lanterns were lighted round the temple; and rough acetylene flares lit up the tawdry fairings. The chattering, the bargaining, the clatter of the geta became more terrifying even than in daytime. It was like being in the darkness in a cage of wild beasts, heard, felt, but unseen.
The evening breeze was cold. In spite of the big wooden fireboxes strewn over their stall, the Fujinami were shivering.
"Let us go for a walk," suggested cousin Sadako.
The two girls strolled along the ridge of the hill as far as the five-storied pagoda. They passed the tea-house, so famous for its plum-blossoms in early March. It was brightly lighted. The paper rectangles of the shoji were aglow like an illuminated honeycomb. The wooden walls resounded with the jangle of the samisen, the high screaming geisha voices, and the rough laughter of the guests. From one room the shoji were pushed open; and drunken men could be seen with kimonos thrown back from their shoulders showing a body reddened with saké. They had taken the geishas' instruments from them, and were performing an impromptu song and dance, while the girls clapped their hands and writhed with laughter. Beyond the tea-house, the din of the festival was hushed. Only from the distance came the echo of the song, the rasp of the forced merriment, the clatter of the geta, and the hum of the crowd.
Starlight revealed the landscape. The moon was rising through a cloud's liquescence. Soon the hundreds of rice-plots would catch her full reflection. The outline of the coast of Tokyo Bay was visible as far as Yokohama; so were the broad pool of Ikégami and the lumpy masses of the hills inland.
The landscape was alive with lights, lights dim, lights bright, lights stationary, lights in swaying movement round each centre of population. It looked as if the stars had fallen from heaven, and were being shifted and sorted by careful gleaners. As each nebula of white illumination assembled itself, it began to move across the vast plain, drawn inwards towards Ikégami from every point of the compass as though by a magnetic force. These were the lantern processions of pilgrims. They looked like the souls of the righteous rising from earth to heaven in a canto from Dante.
The clusters of lights started, moved onwards, paused, re-grouped themselves, and struggled forward, until in the narrow street of the village under the hill Asako could distinguish the shapes of the lantern-bearers and their strange antics, and the sacred palanquin, a kind of enormous wooden bee-hive, which was the centre of each procession, borne on the sturdy shoulders of a swarm of young men to the beat of drums and the inevitable chant.
Namu my[=o]h[=o] renge ky[=o].
Slowly the procession jolted up the steep stairway, and came to rest with their heavy burdens in front of the temple of Nichiren.
"It is very silly," said cousin Sadako, "to be so superstitious, I think."
"Then why are we here?" asked Asako.
"My grandfather is very superstitious; and my father is afraid to say 'No' to him. My father does not believe in any gods or Buddhas; but he says it does no harm, and it may do good. All our family is gohei-katsugi (brandishers of sacred symbols). We think that with all this prayer we can turn away the trouble of Takeshi."
"Why, what is the matter with Mr. Takeshi? Why is he not here? and
Matsuko San and the children?"
"It is a great secret," said the Fujinami cousin, "you will tell no one. You will pretend also even with me that you do not know. Takeshi San is very sick. The doctor says that he is a leper."
Asako stared, uncomprehending. Sadako went on,—
"You saw this morning those ugly beggars. They were all so terrible to see, and their bodies were so rotten. My brother is becoming like that. It is a sickness. It cannot be cured. It will kill him very slowly. Perhaps his wife Matsu and his children also have the sickness. Perhaps we too are sick. No one can tell, not for many years."
Ugly wings seemed to cover the night. The world beneath the hill had become the Pit of Hell, and the points of light were devils' spears. Asako trembled.
"What does it mean?" she asked. "How did Takeshi San become sick?"
"It was a tenbatsu (judgment of heaven)," answered her cousin. "Takeshi San was a bad man. He was rude to his father, and he was cruel to his wife. He thought only of geisha and bad women. No doubt, he became sick from touching a woman who was sick. Besides, it is the bad ingé of the Fujinami family. Did not the old woman of Akabo say so? It is the curse of the Yoshiwara women. It will be our turn next, yours and mine."
No wonder that poor Asako could not sleep that night in the cramped promiscuity of the family dead.
Fujinami Takeshi had been sickly for some time; but then his course of life could hardly be called a healthy one. On his return from his summer holiday, red patches had appeared on the palms of his hands, and afterwards on his forehead. He had complained of the irritation caused by this "rash." Professor Kashio had been called in to prescribe. A blood test was taken. The doctor then pronounced that the son and heir was suffering from leprosy, and for that there was no cure.
The disease is accompanied by irritation, but by little actual pain. Constant application of compresses can allay the itching, and can often save the patient from the more ghastly ravages of disfigurement. But, slowly, the limbs lose their force, the fingers and toes drop away, the hair falls, and merciful blindness comes to hide from the sufferer the living corpse to which his spirit is bound. More merciful yet, the slow decay attacks the organs of the body. Often consumption intervenes. Often just a simple cold suffices to snuff out the flickering life.
In the village of Kusatsu, beyond the Karuizawa mountains, there is a natural hot spring, whose waters are beneficial for the alleviation of the disease. In this place there is a settlement of well-to-do lepers. Thither it was decided to banish poor Takeshi. His wife, Matsuko, naturally was expected to accompany him, to nurse him and to make life as comfortable for him as she could. Her eventual doom was almost certain. But there was no question, no choice, no hesitation and no praise. Every Japanese wife is obliged to become an Alcestis, if her husband's well-being demand it. The children were sent to the ancestral village of Akabo.
CHAPTER XXV
JAPANESE COURTSHIP
O-bune no
Hatsuru-tomari no
Tayutai ni
Mono-omoi-yase-nu
Hito no ko yuye ni.
With a rocking
(As) of great ships
Riding at anchor
I have at last become worn out with love,
Because of a child of a man.
When the Fujinami returned to Tokyo, the wing of the house in which the unfortunate son had lived, had been demolished. An ugly scar remained, a slab of charred concrete strewn with ashes and burned beams. Saddest sight of all was the twisted iron work of Takeshi's foreign bedstead, once the symbol of progress and of the haikara spirit. The fire was supposed to have been accidental; but the ravages had been carefully limited to the offending wing.
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro, disgusted at this unsightly wreckage wished to rebuild at once. But the old grandfather had objected that this spot of misfortune was situated in the northeast corner of the mansion, a quarter notoriously exposed to the attacks of oni (evil spirits). He was in favor of total demolishment.
This was only one of the differences of opinion between the two seniors of the house of Fujinami, which became more frequent as the clouds of disaster gathered over the home in Akasaka. A far more thorny problem was the question of the succession.
With the living death of Takeshi, there was no male heir. Several family councils were held in the presence of the two Mr. Fujinami generally in the lower-house, at which six or seven members of the collateral branches were also present. Grandfather Gennosuké, who despised Takeshi as a waster, would not listen to any plea on behalf of his children.
"To a bad father a bad child," he enunciated, his restless jaw masticating more ferociously than ever.
He was strongly of opinion that it was the curse of Asako's father which had brought this sorrow upon his family. Katsundo and Asako were representatives of the elder branch. Himself, Gentaro and Takeshi were mere usurpers. Restore the elder branch to its rights, and the indignant ghost would cease to plague them all.
Such was the argument of grandfather Gennosuké.
Fujinami Gentaro naturally supported the claims of his own progeny. If Takeshi's children must be disinherited because of the leprous strain, then, at least, Sadako remained. She was a well-educated and serious girl. She knew foreign languages. She could make a brilliant marriage. Her husband would be adopted as heir. Perhaps the Governor of Osaka?
The other members of the council shook their heads, and breathed deeply. Were there no Fujinami left of the collateral branches? Why adopt a tanin (outside person)? So spoke the M.P., the man with a wen, who had an axe of his own to grind.
It was decided to choose the son-in-law candidate first of all; and, afterwards, to decide which of the girls he was to marry. Perhaps it would be as well to consult the fortune tellers. At any rate, a list of suitable applicants would be prepared for the next meeting.
"When men speak of the future," said grandfather Gennosuké, "the rats in the ceiling laugh."
So the conference broke up.
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro had no sooner returned to the academic calm of his chaste reading room, than Mr. Ito appeared on the threshold.
The oily face was more moist than usual, the buffalo-horn moustache more truculent; and though the autumn day was cool, Ito was agitating a fan. He was evidently nervous. Before approaching the sanctum, he had blown his nose into a small square piece of soft paper, which is the Japanese apology for a handkerchief. He had looked around for some place where to cast the offence; but finding none along the trim garden border, he had slipped it into his wide kimono sleeve.
Mr. Fujinami frowned. He was tired of business matters, and the worry of other people's affairs. He longed for peace.
"Indeed, the weather becomes perceptibly cooler," said Mr. Ito, with a low prostration.
"If there is business," his patron replied crisply, "please step up into the room."
Mr. Ito slipped off his geta, and ascended from the garden path. When he had settled himself in the correct attitude with legs crossed and folded, Mr. Fujinami pushed over towards him a packet of cigarettes, adding;
"Please, without embarrassment, speak quickly what you have to say."
Mr. Ito chose a cigarette, and slowly pinched together the cardboard holder, which formed its lower half.
"Indeed, sensei, it is a difficult matter," he began. "It is a matter which should be handled by an intermediary. If I speak face to face like a foreigner the master will excuse my rudeness."
"Please, speak clearly."
"I owe my advancement in life entirely to the master. I was the son of poor parents. I was an emigrant and a vagabond over three thousand worlds. The master gave me a home and lucrative employment. I have served the master for many years; with my poor effort the fortunes of the family have perhaps increased. I have become as it were a son to the Fujinami."
He paused at the word "son." His employer had caught his meaning, and was frowning more than ever. At last he answered:
"To expect too much is a dangerous thing. To choose a yoshi (adopted son) is a difficult question. I myself cannot decide such grave matters. There must be consultation with the rest of the Fujinami family. You yourself have suggested that Governor Sugiwara might perhaps be a suitable person."
"At that time the talk was of Sada San; this time the talk is of Asa
San."
A flash of inspiration struck Mr. Fujinami Gentaro, and a gush of relief. By giving her to Ito, he might be able to side-track Asako, and leave the highway to inheritance free for his own daughter. But Ito had grown too powerful to be altogether trusted.
"It must be clearly understood," said the master, "that it is the husband of our Sada who will be the Fujinami yoshi."
Ito bowed.
"Thanks to the master," he said, "there is money in plenty. There is no desire to speak of such matters. The request is for Asa San only. Truly, the heart is speaking. That girl is a beautiful child, and altogether a haikara person. My wife is old and barren and of low class. I wish to have a wife who is worthy of my position in the house of Fujinami San."
The head of the family cackled with sudden laughter; he was much relieved.
"Ha! Ha! Ito Kun! So it is love, is it? You are in love like a school student. Well, indeed, love is a good thing. What you have said shall be well considered."
So the lawyer was dismissed.
Accordingly, at the next family council Mr. Fujinami put forward the proposal that Asako should be married forthwith to the family factotum, who should be given a lump sum down in consideration for a surrender of all further claim in his own name or his wife's to any share in the family capital.
"Ito Kun," he concluded, "is the brain of our business. He is the family karo (prime minister). I think it would be well to give this Asa to him."
To his surprise, the proposal met with unanimous opposition. The rest of the family envied and disliked Ito, who was regarded as Mr. Fujinami's pampered favourite.
Grandfather Gennosuké was especially indignant.
"What?" he exploded in one of those fits of rage common to old men in Japan; "give the daughter of the elder branch to a butler, to a man whose father ran between rickshaw shafts. If the spirit of Katsundo has not heard this foolish talk it would be a good thing for us. Already there is a bad ingé. By doing such a thing it will become worse and worse, until the whole house of Fujinami is ruined. This Ito is a rascal, a thief, a good-for-nothing, a——"
The old gentleman collapsed.
Again the council separated, still undecided except for one thing that the claim of Mr. Ito to the hand of Asako was quite inadmissible.
When the "family prime minister" next pressed his master on the subject, Mr. Fujinami had to confess that the proposal had been rejected.
Then Ito unmasked his batteries, and his patron had to realize that the servant was a servant no longer.
Ito said that it was necessary for him to have Asa San and that before the end of the year. He was in love with this girl. Passion was an overwhelming thing.
"Two things have ever been the same
Since the Age of the Gods—
The flowing of water,
And the way of Love."
This old Japanese poem he quoted as his excuse for what would otherwise be an inexcusable impertinence. The master was aware that politics in Japan were in an unsettled state, and that the new Cabinet was scarcely established; that a storm would overthrow it, and that the Opposition were already looking about for a suitable scandal to use for their revenge. He, Ito, held the evidence which they desired—the full story of the Tobita concession, with the names and details of the enormous bribes distributed by the Fujinami. If these things were published, the Government would certainly fall; also the Tobita concession would be lost and the whole of that great outlay; also the Fujinami's leading political friends would be discredited and ruined. There would be a big trial, and exposure, and outcry, and judgment, and prison. The master must excuse his servant for speaking so rudely to his benefactor. But in love there are no scruples; and he must have Asa San. After all, after his long service, was his request so unreasonable?
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro, thoroughly scared, protested that he himself was in favour of the match. He begged for time so as to be able to convert the other members of the family council.
"Perhaps," suggested Ito, "if Asa San were sent away from Akasaka, perhaps if she were living alone, it would be more easy to manage. What is absent is soon forgotten. Mr. Fujinami Gennosuké is a very old gentleman; he would soon forget. Sada San could then take her proper position as the only daughter of the Fujinami. Was there not a small house by the river side at Mukojima, which had been rented for Asa San? Perhaps she would like to live there—quite alone."
"Perhaps Ito Kun would visit her from time to time," said Mr. Fujinami, pleased with the idea; "she will be so lonely; there is no knowing."
The one person who was never consulted, and who had not the remotest notion of what was going on, was Asako herself.
* * * * *
Asako was most unhappy. The disappearance of Fujinami Takeshi exasperated the competition between herself and her cousin. Just as formerly all Sadako's intelligence and charm had been exerted to attract her English relative to the house in Akasaka, so now she applied all her force to drive her cousin out of the family circle. For many weeks now Asako had been ignored; but after the return from Ikégami a positive persecution commenced. Although the nights were growing chilly, she was given no extra bedding. Her meals were no longer served to her; she had to get what she could from the kitchen. The servants, imitating their mistress's attitude were deliberately disobliging and rude to the little foreigner.
Sadako and her mother would sneer at her awkwardness and at her ignorance of Japanese customs. Her obi was tied anyhow; for she had no maid. Her hair was untidy; for she was not allowed a hairdresser.
They nicknamed her rashamen (goat face), using an ugly slang word for a foreigner's Japanese mistress; and they would pretend that she smelt like a European.
"Kusai! Kusai! (Stink! Stink!)" they would say.
The war even was used to bait Asako. Every German success was greeted with acclamation. The exploits of the Emden were loudly praised; and the tragedy of Coronel was gloated over with satisfaction.
"The Germans will win because they are brave," said Sadako.
"The English lose too many prisoners; Japanese soldiers are never taken prisoner."
"When the Japanese general ordered the attack on Tsingtao, the English regiment ran away!"
Cousin Sadako announced her intention of studying German.
"Nobody will speak English now," she said. "The English are disgraced.
They cannot fight."
"I wish Japan would make war on the English," Asako answered bitterly, "you would get such a beating that you would never boast again. Look at my husband," she added proudly; "he is so big and strong and brave. He could pick up two or three Japanese generals like toys and knock their heads together."
Even Mr. Fujinami Gentaro joined once or twice in these debates, and announced sententiously:
"Twenty years ago Japan defeated China and took Korea. Ten years ago we defeated Russia and took Manchuria. This year we defeat Germany and take Tsingtao. In ten years we shall defeat America and take Hawaii and the Philippines. In twenty years we shall defeat England and take India and Australia. Then we Japanese shall be the most powerful nation in the world. This is our divine mission."
It was characteristic of the loyalty of Asako's nature, that, although very ignorant of the war, of its causes and its vicissitudes, yet she remained fiercely true to England and the Allies, and could never accept the Japanese detachment. Above all, the thought of her husband's danger haunted her. Waking and sleeping she could see him, sword in hand, leading his men to desperate hand-to-hand struggles, like those portrayed in the crude Japanese chromographs, which Sadako showed her to play upon her fears. Poor Asako! How she hated Japan now! How she loathed the cramped, draughty, uncomfortable life! How she feared the smiling faces and the watchful eyes, from which it seemed she never could escape!
Christmas was at hand, the season of pretty presents and good things to eat. Her last Christmas she had spent with Geoffrey on the Riviera. Lady Everington had been there. They had watched the pigeon shooting in the warm sunlight. They had gone to the opera in the evening—Madame Butterfly! Asako had imagined herself in the rôle of the heroine, so gentle, so faithful, waiting and waiting in her little wooden house for the big white husband—who never came. What was that? She heard the guns of his ship saluting the harbour. He was coming back to her at last—but not alone! A woman was with him, a white woman!
Alone, in her bare room—her only companion a flaky yellow chrysanthemum nodding in the draught—Asako sobbed and sobbed as though her heart were breaking. Somebody tapped at the sliding shutter. Asako could not answer. The shoji was pushed open, and Tanaka entered.
Asako was glad to see him. Alone of the household Tanaka was still deferential in his attitude towards his late mistress. He was always ready to talk about the old times which gave her a bitter pleasure.
"If Ladyship is so sad," he began, as he had been coached in his part beforehand by the Fujinami, "why Ladyship stay in this house? Change house, change trouble, we say."
"But where can I go?" Asako asked helplessly.
"Ladyship has pretty house by river brink," suggested Tanaka. "Ladyship can stay two month, three month. Then the springtime come and Ladyship feel quite happy again. Even I, in the winter season, I find the mind very distress. It is often so."
To be alone, to be free from the daily insults and cruelty; this in itself would be happiness to Asako.
"But will Mr. Fujinami allow me to go?" she asked, timorously.
"Ladyship must be brave," said the counselor. "Ladyship is not prisoner. Ladyship must say, I go. But perhaps I can arrange matter for Ladyship."
"Oh, Tanaka, please, please do. I'm so unhappy here."
"I will hire cook and maid for Ladyship. I myself will be seneschal!"
Mr. Fujinami Gentaro and his family were delighted to hear that their plan was working so smoothly, and that they could so easily get rid of their embarrassing cousin. The "seneschal" was instructed at once to see about arrangements for the house, which had not been lived in since its new tenancy.
Next evening, when Asako had spread the two quilts on the golden matting, when she had lit the rushlight in the square andon, when the two girls were lying side by side under the heavy wadded bedclothes, Sadako said to her cousin:
"Asa Chan, I do not think you like me now as much as you used to like me."
"I always like people when I have once liked them," said Asako; "but everything is different now."
"I see, your heart changes quickly," said her cousin bitterly.
"No, I have tried to change, but I cannot change. I have tried to become Japanese, but I cannot even learn the Japanese language. I do not like the Japanese way of living. In France and in England I was always happy. I don't think I shall ever be happy again."
"You ought to be more grateful," said Sadako severely. "We have saved you from your husband, who was cruel and deceitful—"
"No, I don't believe that now. My husband and I loved each other always. You people came between us with wicked lies and separated us."
"Anyhow, you have made the choice. You have chosen to be Japanese. You can never be English again."
The Fujinami had hypnotized Asako with this phrase, as a hen can be hypnotized with a chalk line. Day after day it was dinned into her ears, cutting off all hope of escape from the country or of appeal to her English friends.
"You had better marry a Japanese," said Sadako, "or you will become old maid. Why not marry Ito San? He says he likes you. He is a clever man. He has plenty of money. He is used to foreign ways."
"Marry Mr. Ito!" Asako exclaimed, aghast; "but he has a wife already."
"They will divorce. It is no trouble. There are not even children."
"I would rather die than marry any Japanese," said Asako with conviction.
Sadako Fujinami turned her back and pretended to sleep; but long through the dark cold night Asako could feel her turning restlessly to and fro.
Some time about midnight Asako heard her name called:
"Asa Chan, are you awake?"
"Yes; is anything the matter?"
"Asa Chan, in your house by the river you will be lonely. You will not be afraid?"
"I am not afraid to be lonely," Asako answered; "I am afraid of people."
"Look!" said her cousin; "I give you this."
She drew from the bosom of her kimono the short sword in its sheath of shagreen, which Asako had seen once or twice before.
"It is very old," she continued; "it belonged to my mother's people. They were samurai of the Sendai clan. In old Japan every noble girl carried such a short sword; for she said, 'Better death than dishonour.' When the time came to die she would strike—here, in the throat, not too hard, but pushing strongly. But first she would tie her feet together with the obidomé, the silk string which you have to hold your obi straight. That was in case the legs open too much; she must not die in immodest attitude. So when General Nogi did harakiri at Emperor Meiji's funeral, his wife, Countess Nogi, killed herself also with such a sword. I give you my sword because in the house by the river you will be lonely—and things might happen. I can never use the sword myself now. It was the sword of my ancestors. I am not pure now. I cannot use the sword. If I kill myself I throw myself into the river like a common geisha. I think it is best you marry Ito. In Japan it is bad to have a husband; but to have no husband, it is worse."
CHAPTER XXVI
ALONE IN TOKYO
Kuraki yori
Kuraki michi ni zo
Iri-nu-beki:
Haruka ni terase
Yuma no ha no tsuki!
Out of the dark
Into a dark path
I now must enter:
Shine (on me) from afar,
Moon of the mountain fringe!
Some days before Christmas Asako had moved into her own little home.
To be free, to have escaped from the watchful eyes and the whispering tongues to be at liberty to walk about the streets and to visit the shops, as an independent lady of Japan—these were such unfamiliar joys to her that for a time she forgot how unhappy she really was, and how she longed for Geoffrey's company as of old. Only in the evenings a sense of insecurity rose with the river mists, and a memory of Sadako's warning shivered through the lonely room with the bitter cold of the winter air. It was then that Asako felt for the little dagger resting hidden in her bosom just as Sadako had shown her how to wear it. It was then that she did not like to be alone, and that she summoned Tanaka to keep her company and to while away the time with his quaint loquacity.
Considering that he had been largely instrumental in breaking up her happy life, considering that every day he stole from her and lied to her, it was wonderful that his mistress was still so attached to him, that, in fact, she regarded him as her only friend. He was like a bad habit or an old disease, which we almost come to cherish since we cannot be delivered from it.
But, when Tanaka protested his devotion, did he mean what he said? There is a bedrock of loyalty in the Japanese nature. Half-way down the road to shame, it will halt of a sudden, and bungle back its way to honour. Then there is the love of the beau geste which is an even stronger motive very often than the love of right-doing for its own sake. The favorite character of the Japanese drama is the otokodaté, the chivalrous champion of the common people who rescues beauty in distress from the lawless, bullying, two-sworded men. It tickled Tanaka's remarkable vanity to regard himself as the protector of this lonely and unfortunate lady. It might be said of him as of Lancelot, that—
"His honour rooted in dishonour stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."
Asako was glad on the whole that she had no visitors. The Fujinami were busy with their New Year preparations. Christmas Day passed by, unheeded by the Japanese, though the personality and appearance of Santa Claus are not unknown to them. He stands in the big shop windows in Tokyo as in London, with his red cloak, his long white beard and his sack full of toys. Sometimes he is to be seen chatting with Buddhist deities, with the hammer-bearing Daikoku, with Ebisu the fisherman, with fat naked Hotei, and with Benten, the fair but frail. In fact, with the American Billiken, Santa Claus may be considered as the latest addition to the tolerant theocracy of Japan.
Asako attended High Mass at the Catholic Cathedral in Tsukiji, the old foreign settlement. The music was crude; and there was a long sermon in Japanese. The magnificent bearded bishop, who officiated, was flanked by two native priests. But the familiar sounds and movements of the office soothed her, and the fragrance of the incense. The centre of the aisle was covered with straw mats where the Japanese congregation was squatting. Chairs for the foreigners were placed in the side aisles These were mostly members of the various Embassy and Legation staffs. For a moment Asako feared recognition. Then she remembered how entirely Japanese she had become—in appearance.
Mr. Ito called during the afternoon to wish a Merry Christmas. Asako regaled him with thin green tea and little square cakes of ground rice, filled with a kind of bean paste called "an." She kept Tanaka in the room all the time; for Sadako's remarks about marriage with Ito had alarmed her. He was most agreeable, however, and most courteous. He amused Asako with stories of his experiences abroad. He admired the pretty little house and its position on the river bank; and, when he bowed his thanks for Asako's hospitality, he expressed a wish that he might come again many times in future.
"I am afraid of him," Asako had confided to Tanaka, when the guest had departed, "because Sada San said that he wants to divorce his wife and marry me. You are to stop here with me in the room whenever he comes. Do not leave me alone, please."
"Ladyship is daimyo," the round face answered; "Tanaka is faithful samurai. Tanaka gives life for Ladyship!"
* * * * *
It was the week before New Year. All along the Ginza, which is the main thoroughfare of Tokyo, along the avenue of slender willow trees which do their gallant utmost to break the monotony of the wide ramshackle street, were spread every evening the stock-in-trade of the yomisé, the night shops, which cater their most diverse wares for the aimless multitudes sauntering up and down the sidewalks. There are quack medicines and stylograph pens, clean wooden altar cabinets for the kitchen gods, and images of Daikoku and Ebisu; there are cheap underclothing and old hats, food of various kinds, boots and books and toys. But most fascinating of all are the antiquities. Strewn over a square six feet of ground are curios, most attractive to the unwary, especially by the deceptive light of kerosene lamps. One in a thousand perhaps may be a piece of real value; but almost every object has a character and a charm of its own. There are old gold screens, lacquer tables and cabinets, bronze vases, gilded Buddhas, fans, woodcuts, porcelains, kakémono (hanging pictures), makimono (illustrated scrolls), inro (lacquer medicine boxes for the pocket), netsuké (ivory or bone buttons, through which the cords of the tobacco pouch are slung), tsuba (sword hilts of iron ornamented with delightful landscapes of gold and silver inlay). The Ginza at night-time is a paradise for the minor collector.
"Kore wa ikura? (How much is this?)" asked Asako, picking up a tiny silver box, which could slip into a waistcoat pocket. Inside were enshrined three gentle Buddhas of old creamy ivory, perfectly carved to the minutest petal of the full-blown lotus upon which each reposed.
"Indeed, it is the end of the year. We must sell all things cheaply," answered the merchant. "It is asked sixty yen for true ancient artistic object."
"Such a thing is not said," replied Asako, her Japanese becoming quite fluent with the return of her light-heartedness. "Perhaps a joke is being made. It would be possible to give ten yen."
The old curio vender, with the face and spare figure of Julius Caesar, turned aside from such idle talk with a shrug of hopelessness. He affected to be more interested in lighting his slender pipe over the chimney of the lamp which hung suspended over his wares.
"Ten yen! Please see!" said Asako, showing a banknote. The merchant shook his head and puffed. Asako turned away into the stream of passers-by. She had not gone, ten yards, however, before she felt a touch on her kimono sleeve. It was Julius Caesar with his curio.
"Indeed, okusan, there must be reduction. Thirty yen; take it, please."
He pressed the little box into Asako's hand.
"Twenty yen," she bargained, holding out two notes.
"It is loss! It is loss!" he murmured; but he shuffled back to his stall again, very well content.
"I shall send it to Geoffrey," thought Asako; "it will bring him good luck. Perhaps he will write to me and thank me. Then I can write to him."
The New Year is the greatest of Japanese festivals. Japanese of the middle and lower classes live all the year round in a thickening web of debt. But during the last days of the year these complications are supposed to be unraveled and the defaulting debtor must sell some of his family goods, and start the New Year with a clean slate. These operations swell the stock-in-trade of the yomisé.
On New Year's Day the wife prepares the mochi cakes of ground rice, which are the specialities of the season; and the husband sees to the erection of his door posts of the two kadomatsu (corner pine trees), little Christmas trees planted in a coil of rope. Then, attired in his frock-coat and top hat, if he be a haikara gentleman, or in his best kimono and haori, if he be an old-fashioned Japanese, he goes round in a rickshaw to pay his complimentary calls, and to exchange o medet[=o] (respectfully lucky!), the New Year wish. He has presents for his important patrons, and cards for his less influential acquaintances. For, as the Japanese proverb says, "Gifts preserve friendship." At each house, which he visits, he sips a cup of saké, so that his return home is often due to the rickshaw man's assistance, rather than to his own powers of self-direction. In fact, as Asako's maid confided to her mistress, "Japanese wife very happy when New Year time all finish."
* * * * *
On the night following New Year, snow fell. It continued to fall all the next morning until Asako's little garden was as white as a bride-cake. The irregularities of her river-side lawn were smoothed out under the white carpet. The straw coverings, which a gardener's foresight had wrapped round the azalea shrubs and the dwarf conifers, were enfolded in a thick white shroud. Like tufts of foam on a wave, the snow was tossed on the plumes of the bamboo clump, which hid the neighbour's dwelling, and made a bird's nest of Asako's tiny domain.
Beyond the brown sluggish river, the roofs and pinnacles of Asakusa were more fairy-like than a theatre scene. Asako was thinking of that first snow-white day, which introduced Geoffrey and her to the Embassy and to Yaé Smith.
She shivered. Darkness was falling. A Japanese house is a frail protection in winter time; and a charcoal fire in a wooden box is poor company. The maid came in to close the shutters for the night. Where was Tanaka? He had gone out to a New Year party with relatives. Asako felt her loneliness all of a sudden; and she was grateful for the moral comfort of cousin Sadako's sword. She drew it from its sheath and examined the blade, and the fine work on the hilt, with care and alarm, like a man fingering a serpent.
No sooner was the house silenced than the wind arose. It smote the wooden framework with an unexpected buffet almost like an earthquake. The bamboo grove began to rattle like bones; and the snow slid and fell from the roof in dull thuds.
There was a sharp rap at the front door. Asako started and thrust the dagger into the breast of her kimono. She had been lying full length on a long deckchair. Now she put her feet to the ground. O Hana, the maid, came in and announced that Ito San had called. Asako, half-pleased and half-apprehensive, gave instructions for him to be shown in. She heard a stumbling on the steps of her house; then Ito lurched into the room. His face was very red, and his voice thick. He had been paying many New Year calls.
"Happy New Year, Asa San, Happy New Year!" he hiccoughed, grasping her hand and working it up and down like a pump-handle. "New Year in Japan very lucky time. All Japanese people say New Year time very lucky. This New Year very lucky for Ito. No more dirty business, no more Yoshiwara, no more pimp. I am millionaire, madame. I have made one hundred thousand pounds, five hundred thousand dollars gold. I now become giin giin (Member of Parliament). I become great party organizer, great party boss, then daijin (Minister of State), then taishi (Ambassador), then soridaijin (Prime Minister). I shall be greatest man in Japan. Japan greatest country in the world. Ito greatest man in the world. And I marry Asa San to-morrow, next day, any day."
Ito was sprawling in the deck chair, which divided the little sitting-room into two parts and cut off Asako's retreat. She was trembling on a bamboo stool near the shuttered window. She was terribly frightened. Why did not Tanaka come?
"Speak to me, Asa San," shouted the visitor; "say to me very glad, very, very glad, will be very nice wife of Ito. Fujinami give you to me. I have all Fujinami's secrets in my safe box. Ito greatest man in Japan. Fujinami very fear of me. He give me anything I want. I say, give me Asa San. Very, very love."
Asako remaining without speech, the Japanese frowned at her.
"Why so silence, little girl? Say, I love you, I love you like all foreign girls say. I am husband now. I never go away from this house until you kiss me. You understand?"
Asako gasped.
"Mr. Ito, it is very late. Please, come some other day. I must go to bed now."
"Very good, very good. I come to bed with you," said Ito, rolling out of his chair and putting one heavy leg to the ground. He was earing a kimono none too well adjusted, and Asako could see his hairy limb high up the thigh. Her face must have reflected her displeasure.
"What?" the Japanese shouted; "you don't like me. Too very proud! No dirty Jap, no yellow man, what? So you think, Madame Lord Princess Barrington. In the East, it may be, ugly foreign women despise Japs. But New York, London, Paris—very different, ha! ha! New York girl say, Hello, Jap! come here! London girl say, Jap man very nice, very sweet manner, very soft eyes. When I was in London I have five or six girls, English girls, white girls, very beauty girls, all together, all very love! London time was great fine time!"
Asako felt helpless. Her hand was on the hilt of her dagger, but she still hoped that Ito might come to his senses and go away.
"There!" he cried, "I know foreign custom. I know everything.
Mistletoe! Mistletoe! A kiss for the mistletoe, Asa San!"
He staggered out of his chair and came towards her, like a great black bird. She dodged him, and tried to escape round the deck chair. But he caught hold of her kimono. She drew her sword.
"Help! Help!" she cried. "Tanaka!"
Something wrenched at her wrist, and the blade fell. At the same moment the inner shoji flew open like the shutter of a camera. Tanaka rushed into the room.
Asako did not turn to look again until she was outside the room with her maid and her cook trembling beside her. Then she saw Tanaka and Ito locked in a wrestler's embrace, puffing and grunting at each other, while their feet were fumbling for the sword which lay between them. Suddenly both figures relaxed. Two foreheads came together with a wooden concussion. Hands were groping where the feet had been. One set of fingers, hovering over the sword, grasped the hilt. It was Tanaka; but his foot slipped. He tottered and fell backward. Ito was on the top of him. Asako closed her eyes. She heard a hoarse roar like a lion. When she dared to look again, she saw Tanaka kneeling over Ito's body. With a wrench he pulled Sadako's dagger out of the prostrate mass. It was followed by a jet of blood, and then by a steady trickle from body, mouth and nostrils, which spread over the matting. Slowly and deliberately, Tanaka wiped first the knife and then his hands on the clothes of his victim. Then he felt his mouth and throat.
"Sa! Shimatta! (There, finished!)" he said. He turned towards the garden side, threw open the shoji and the amado. He ran across the snow-covered lawn; and from beyond the unearthly silence which followed his departure, come the distant sound of a splash in the river.
At last, Asako said helplessly: "Is he dead?"
The cook, a man, was glad of the opportunity to escape.
"I go and call doctor," he said.
"No, stay with me," said Asako; "I am afraid. O Hana can go for the doctor."
Asako and the cook waited by the open shoji, staring blankly at the body of Ito. Presently the cook said that he must go and get something. He did not return. Asako called to him to come. There was no answer. She went to look for him in his little three-mat room near the kitchen. It was empty. He had packed his few chattels in his wicker basket and had decamped.
Asako resumed her watch at the sitting-room door, an unwilling Rizpah. It was as though she feared that, if she left her post, somebody might come in and steal Ito. But she could have hardly approached the corpse even under compulsion. Sometimes it seemed to move, to try to rise; but it was stuck fast to the matting by the resinous flow of purple blood. Sometimes it seemed to speak:
"Mistletoe! Mistletoe! Kiss me, Asa San!"
Gusts of cold wind came in from the open windows, touching the dead man curiously, turning over his kimono sleeves. Outside, the bamboo grove was rattling like bones; and the caked snow fell from the roof in heavy thuds.
* * * * *
O Hana returned with a doctor and a policeman. The doctor loosened
Ito's kimono, and at once shook his head.
The policeman wore a blue uniform and cape; and a sword dragged at his side. He had produced a notebook and a pencil from a breast pocket.
"What is your name?" he asked Asako; "what is your age? your father's and mother's name? What is your address? Are you married? Where is your husband? How long have you known this man? Were you on familiar terms? Did you kill him? How did you kill him? Why did you kill him?"
The questions buzzed round Asako's head like a swarm of hornets. It had never occurred to the unfortunate girl that any suspicion could fall upon her. Three more policemen had arrived.
"Every one in this house is arrested," announced the first policeman.
"Put out your hands," he ordered Asako. Rusty handcuffs were slipped over her delicate wrists. One of the policemen had produced a coil of rope, which he proceeded to tie round her waist and then round the waist of O Hana.
"But what have I done?" asked Asako plaintively.
The policeman took no notice. She could hear two of them upstairs in her bedroom, talking and laughing, knocking open her boxes and throwing things about.
Asako and her maid were led out of the house like two performing animals. It was bitterly cold, and Asako had no cloak. The road was already full of loafers. They stared angrily at Asako. Some laughed. Some pulled at her kimono as she passed. She heard one say:
"It is a geisha; she has murdered her sweetheart."
At the police station, Asako had to undergo the same confusing interrogatory before the chief inspector.
"What is your name? What is your age? Where do you live? What are your father's and mother's names?"
"Lies are no good," said the inspector, a burly unshaven man; "confess that you have killed this man."
"But I did not kill him," protested Asako.
"Who killed him then? You must know that," said the inspector triumphantly.
"It was Tanaka," said Asako.
"Who is this Tanaka?" the inspector asked the policeman.
"I do not know; perhaps it is lies," he answered sulkily.
"But it is not lies," expostulated Asako, "he ran away through the window. You can see his footmarks in the snow."
"Did you see the marks?" the policeman was asked.
"No; perhaps there were no marks."
"Did you look?"
"I did not look actually, but—"
"You're a fool!" said the inspector.
The weary questioning continued for quite two hours, until Asako had told her story of the murder at least three times. The unfamiliar language confused her, and the reiterated refrain:
"You, now confess; you killed the man!"
Asako was chilled to the bone. Her head was aching; her eyes were aching; her legs were aching with the ordeal of standing. She felt that they must soon give way altogether.
At last, the inspector closed his questionnaire.
"Sa!" he ejaculated, "it is past midnight. Even I must sleep sometimes. Take her away to the court, and lock her in the 'sty,' To-morrow the procurator will examine at nine o'clock. She is pretending to be silly and not understanding; so she is probably guilty."
Again the handcuffs and the degrading rope were fastened upon her. She felt that she had already been condemned.
"May I send word to my friends?" she asked. Surely even the Fujinami would not abandon her to her fate.
"No. The procurator's examination has not yet taken place. After that, sometimes permission can be granted. That is the law."
She was left waiting in a stone-flagged guard-room, where eight or nine policemen stared at her impertinently.
"A pretty face, eh?" they said, "it looks like a geisha! Who is taking her to the court? It is Ishibashi. Oh, so! He is always the lucky chap!"
A rough fellow thrust his hand up her kimono sleeve, and caught hold of her bare arm near the shoulder.
"Here, Ishibashi," he cried; "you have caught a fine bird this time."
The policeman Ishibashi picked up the loose end of the rope, and drove Asako before him into a closed van, which was soon rumbling along the deserted streets.
She was made to alight at a tall stone building, where they passed down several echoing corridors, until, at the end of a little passage a warder pushed open a door. This was the "sty," where prisoners are kept pending examination in the procurator's court. The floor and walls were of stone. It was bitterly cold. There was no window, no light, no firebox, and no chair. Alone, in the petrifying darkness, her teeth chattering, her limbs trembling, poor Asako huddled her misery into a corner of the dirty cell, to await the further tender mercies of the Japanese criminal code. She could hear the scuttering of rats. Had she been ten times guilty, she felt that she could not have suffered more!
* * * * *
Daylight began to show under the crack of the door. Later on a warder came and beckoned to Asako to follow him. She had not touched food for twenty hours, but nothing was offered to her. She was led into a room with benches like a schoolroom. At the master's desk sat a small spotted man with a cloak like a scholar's gown, and a black cap with ribbons like a Highlander's bonnet. This was the procurator. At his side, sat his clerk, similarly but less sprucely garbed.
Asako, utterly weary, was preparing to sit down on one of the benches. The warder pulled her up by the nape of her kimono. She had to stand during her examination.
"What is your name? What is your age? What are your father's and mother's names?"
The monotonous questions were repeated all over again; and then,—
"To confess were better. When you confess, we shall let you go. If you do not confess, we keep you here for days and days."
"I am feeling sick," pleaded Asako; "may I eat something?"
The warder brought a cup of tea and some salt biscuit.
"Now, confess," bullied the procurator; "if you do not confess, you will get no more to eat."
Asako told her story of the murder. She then told it again. Her Japanese words were slipping from the clutch of her worn brain. She was saying things she did not mean. How could she defend herself in a language which was strange to her mind? How could she make this judge, who seemed so pitiless and so hostile to her, understand and believe her broken sentences? She was beating with a paper sword against an armed enemy.
An interpreter was sent for; and the questions were all repeated in
English. The procurator was annoyed at Asako's refusal to speak in
Japanese. He thought that it was obstinacy, or that she was trying to
fool him. He seemed quite convinced that she was guilty.
"I can't answer any more questions. I really can't. I am sick," said
Asako, in tears.
"Take her back to the 'sty,' while we have lunch," ordered the procurator. "I think this afternoon she will confess."
Asako was taken away, and thrust into the horrible cell again. She collapsed on the hard floor in a state which was partly a fainting-fit, and partly the sleep of exhaustion. Dreams and images swept over her brain like low-flying clouds. It seemed to her distracted fancy that only one person could save her—Geoffrey, her husband! He must be coming soon. She thought that she could hear his step in the corridor.
"Geoffrey! Geoffrey!" she cried.
It was the warder. He stirred her with his foot. She was hauled back to the procurator's court.
"So! Have you considered well?" said the little spotted man. "Will you now confess?"
"How can I confess what I have not done?" protested Asako.
The remorseless inquisition proceeded. Asako's replies became more and more confused. The procurator frowned at her contradictions. She must assuredly be guilty.
"How many times do you say that you have met this Ito?" he asked.
Asako was at the end of her strength. She reeled and would have fallen; but the warder jerked her straight again.
"Confess, then," shouted the procurator, "confess and you will be liberated."
"I will confess," Asako gasped, "anything you like."
"Confess that you killed this Ito!"
"Yes, I confess."
"Then, sign the confession."
With the triumphant air of a sportsman who has landed his fish after a long and bitter struggle, the procurator held out a sheet of paper prepared beforehand, on which something was written in Japanese characters.
Asako tried to move towards the desk that she might write her name; but this time, her legs gave way altogether. The warder caught her by the neck of her kimono, and shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. But the body remained limp. He twisted her arm behind her with a savage wrench. His victim groaned with pain, but spoke no distinguishable word. Then he laid her out on the benches, and felt her chest.
"The body is very hot," he said; "perhaps she is indeed sick."
"Obstinate," grunted the procurator; "I am certain that she is guilty.
Are you not?" he added, addressing the clerk.
The clerk was busy filling up some of the blanks in the back evidence, extemporising where he could not remember.
"Assuredly," he said, "the opinion of the procurator is always correct."
However, the doctor was summoned. He pronounced that the patient was in a high fever, and must at once be removed to the infirmary.
So the preliminary examination of Asako Fujinami came to an abrupt end.
CHAPTER XXVII
LADY BRANDAN
Haru no hi no
Nagaki omoi wa
Wasureji wo,
Hito no kokoro ni
Aki ya tatsuramu.
The long thoughts
Of the spring days
Will never be forgotten
Even when autumn comes
To the hearts of the people.
The low-flying clouds of hallucination had fallen so close to Asako's brain, that her thoughts seemed to be caught up into the dizzy whirlwind and to be skimming around and round the world at the speed of an express aeroplane. Like a clock whose regulation is out of order, the hour-hand of her life seemed to be racing the minute-hand, and the minute-hand to be covering the face of the dial in sixty seconds or less, returning incessantly to the same well-known figures, pausing awhile, then jerking away again at an insane rate. From time to time the haze over the mind began to clear; and Asako seemed to look down upon the scene around her from a great height. There was a long room, so long that she could not see the end of it, and rows of narrow beds, and nurses, dressed in white with high caps like bishops' mitres, who appeared and disappeared. Sometimes they would speak to her and she would answer. But she did not know what they said, nor what she said to them.
A gentle Japanese lady with a very long, pock-marked face, sat on her bed and talked to her in English. Asako noticed that the nurses and doctors were most deferential to this lady; and that, after her departure, she was treated much more kindly than before. A name kept peeping out of her memory, like a shy lizard out of its hole; but the moment her brain tried to grab at it, it slipped back again into oblivion.
Two English ladies called together, one older and one younger. They talked about Geoffrey. Geoffrey was one of the roman figures on the clock dial of her mind. They said good things about Geoffrey; but she could not remember what they were.
One day, the Japanese lady with the marked face and one of the nurses helped her to get out of bed. Her legs were trembling, and her feet were sorely plagued by pins and needles; but she held together somehow. Together they dressed her. The lady wrapped a big fur cloak round her; and with a supporter on either side she was led into the open air, where a beautiful motor-car was waiting. There was a crowd gathered round it. But the police kept them back. As Asako stepped in, she heard the click of cameras.
"Asa Chan," said the lady, "don't you remember me? I am Countess
Saito."
Of course, Asako remembered now—a spring morning with Geoffrey and the little dwarf trees.
The notoriety of the Ito murder case did Asako a good turn. Her friends in Japan had forgotten her. They had imagined that she had returned to England with Geoffrey. Reggie Forsyth, who alone knew the details of her position, had thrown up his secretaryship the day that war was declared, and had gone home to join the army.
The morning papers of January 3rd, with their high-flown account of the mysterious house by the river-side and the Japanese lady who could talk no Japanese, brought an unexpected shock to acquaintances of the Barringtons, and especially to Lady Cynthia Cairns and to Countess Saito. These ladies both made inquiries, and learned that Asako was lying dangerously ill in the prison infirmary. A few days later, when Tanaka was arrested and had made a full confession of the crime, Count Saito, who knew how suspects fare at the hands of a zealous procurator, called in person on the Minister of Justice, and secured Asako's speedy liberation.
"This girl is a valuable asset to our country," he had explained to the Minister. "She is married to an Englishman, who will one day be a peer in England. This was a marriage of political importance. It was a proof of the equal civilisation of our Japan with the great countries of Europe. It is most important that this Asako should be sent back to England as soon as possible, and that she should speak good things about Japan."
So Asako was released from the procurator's clutches; and she was given a charming little bedroom of her own in the European wing of the Saito mansion. The house stood on a high hill; and Asako, seated at the window, could watch the multiplex activity of the streets below, the jolting tramcars, the wagons, the barrows and the rickshaws. To the left was a labyrinth of little houses of clean white wood, bright and new, like toys, with toy evergreens and pine-trees bursting out of their narrow gardens. This was a geisha quarter, whence the sound of samisen music and quavering songs resounded all day long. To the right was a big grey-boarded primary school, which, with the regular movement of tides, sucked in and belched out its flood of blue-cloaked boys and magenta-skirted maidens.
Count and Countess Saito, despite their immense wealth and their political importance, were simple, unostentatious people, who seemed to devote most of their thoughts to their children, their garden, their dwarf trees, and their breed of cocker spaniels. They took their social duties lightly, though their home was a Mecca for needy relatives on the search for jobs. They gave generously; they entertained hospitably. Good-humour ruled the household; for husband and wife were old partners and devoted friends.
Count Saito brought his nephew and secretary, a most agreeable young man, to see Asako. The Count said,—
"Asa Chan, I want you to tell Mr. Sakabé all about the Fujinami house and the way of life there."
So Asako told her story to this interested listener. Fortunately, perhaps, she could not read the Japanese newspapers; for most of her adventures reappeared in the daily issues almost word for word. From behind the scenes, Count Saito was directing the course of the famous trial which had come to be known as the Fujinami Affair. For the Count had certain political scores of his own to pay off; and Asako proved to be a godsend.
Tanaka was tried for murder; but it was established that he had killed Ito in defending his mistress's honour; and the court let him off with a year's hard labour. But the great Fujinami bribery case which developed out of the murder trial, ruined a Cabinet Minister, a local governor, and a host of minor officials. It reacted on the Yoshiwara regulations. The notoriety of the case has gone far towards putting an end to public processions of oiran, and to the display of prostitutes in the windows of their houses. Indeed, it is probably only a question of time for the great pleasure quarters to be closed down, and for vice to be driven into secrecy. Mr. Fujinami Gentaro was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for causing bribes to be distributed.
Meanwhile Countess Saito had been in correspondence with Lady
Everington in England. On one bright March morning, she came into
Asako's room with a small flowerpot in her hands.
"See, Asa Chan," she said in her strange hoarse voice, "the first flower of the New Year, the plum-blossom. It is the flower of hope and patience. It blooms when the snow is still on the ground, and before it has any green leaves to protect it."
"It smells sweet," said Asako.
Her hostess quoted the famous poem of the exiled Japanese statesman,
Sukawara no Michizané,—
"When the East wind blows,
Send your perfume to me,
Flower of the plum;
Even if your master is absent,
Do not forget the spring."
"Asako dear," Countess Saito continued, "would you like to go to
England?"
Asako's heart leaped.
"Oh yes!" she answered gladly.
Her hostess sighed reproachfully. She had tried to make life so agreeable for her little visitor; yet from the tone of her voice it was clear that Japan would never be home for her.
"Marchioness Saméjima and I," continued the Japanese lady, "have been arranging for a party of about twenty-five Red Cross nurses to visit England and France. They are all very good, clever girls from noble families. We wish to show sympathy of Japan for the poor soldiers who are suffering so much; and we wish to teach our girls true facts about war and how to manage a hospital in war-time. We thought you might like to go as guide and interpreter."
It needed no words to show how joyfully Asako accepted this proposal. Besides, she had heard from Geoffrey. A letter had arrived thanking her for her Christmas gift.
"Little darling Asako," her husband had written, "It was so sweet of you and so like you to think of me at Christmas time. I hope that you are very happy and having a jolly good time. It is very rotten in England just now with the war going on. It had broken out before I reached home; and I joined up at once with my old regiment. We have had a very lively time. About half of my brother officers have been killed; and I am a colonel now. Also, incidentally, I have become Lord Brandan. My father died at the end of last year. Poor old father! This war is a ghastly business; but we have got them beat now. I shall be sorry in a way when it is over; for it gives me plenty to do and to think about. Reggie Forsyth is with his regiment in Egypt. Lady Everington is writing to you. I am in the north of France, and doing quite a lot of parley-voo. Is there any chance of your coming to England? God bless you, Asako darling. Write to me soon.