BEHIND THE SHIKIRI
Mr. Y. Nakajima, the almond-eyed guide of gold-filled teeth, came to the
end of his elaborate conversation. He turned from the old servant,
leaning on his pruning knife, and spoke to the man who stood waiting
outside the wistaria-gate in the Street-of-the-Misty-Valley.
"He say Mr. Philip Ware stay here," he announced, "but house is
ownerships of his friend, Mr. Daunt, of America Embassy. He regret sadly
that no one are not at home."
Ware reflected. Daunt's house? He lived in the Embassy compound--so they
had said at dinner last night. Why should he maintain this native house
in another quarter of Tokyo? There came to his mind that hackneyed
phrase "the custom of the country," the foreigner's specious
justification of the modern "Madame Butterfly." In this interminable
city, with its labyrinthine mazes, who could tell what this or that gray
roof might shelter? Was this a nook enisled, for pretty Japanese
romances "under the rose"? He had loaned it to Phil--they were friends.
Ware struck his stick hard against the hedge. He scarcely knew what
thought had entered his mind, so nebulous was it, so indefinable. If he
had thought to use this discovery, he knew no way; if it was Daunt's
covert, here was Phil in possession.
"Ask him if he has any idea where he is."
The guide translated. The servant was ignobly unacquainted, as yet, with
the _danna-San's_ illustrious habits. He arrogantly presumed to suggest
that he might augustly be in any one of a hundred esteemed spots.
Ware thought a moment, frowningly. "Tell him I am Ware-_San's_ brother,"
he said then, "and that I have just arrived in Tokyo. I shall wait in
the house till he comes."
The old man bowed profoundly at the statement of the relationship. He
spoke at some length to the guide. The latter looked at Ware
questioningly but hesitated.
"Well?" asked the other tartly.
"He think better please you wait to the hotel."
Ware struck open the gate with a flare of irritation. "You can go now,"
he said to the guide, and disdaining the servant, strode along the
gravel path to the house entrance.
The old man looked after him with an enigmatic Japanese smile. It was
not his fault if the foreigners (the _kappa_ devour them!) ate dead
beasts and were all quite mad! He tucked up his _kimono_, stacked his
gardening-tools neatly under the hedge, and betook himself across the
street for a smoke and a game of _Go_ with the neighbor's _betto_.
Under the trailing vine Ware slid back the _shoji_ and entered the
house.
As he stood looking at the interior his lip curled. He hated the
cheapness and vulgarity to which Phil turned with instinctive liking,
and he had long ago come thoroughly to despise his younger brother and
to relish the whip-hand which the law, with its guardianship, gave him.
The place fitted Phil, from the cigarette odor to the loud photograph in
the dragon-frame and the partly open wall-closet with its significant
array of bottles. It expressed his idea of "a good time!"
He slid open a _shikiri_. It showed a room, evidently unused, littered
with tools, a dusty table with models of curious wing-like propellers, a
small electric dynamo and a steel-lathe. He opened another, and stood
looking at the room it disclosed with a faint smile. It was scrupulously
clean and orderly, and, in contrast to the outer apartment, had an
atmosphere of delicate refinement. On the wall hung a tiny gilt image of
Kwan-on and below it on an improvised shelf an incense rod was burning
with a clean, pungent odor. At one side was suspended a mosquito-bar of
dark green gauze, and across a low stool was laid a _kimono_, with
silver camelias on a mauve ground. He picked this up and looked at it
curiously, half conscious of a faint perfume that clung to it.
He shut his teeth. The camelia had always been Barbara's favorite
flower!
* * * * *
Meanwhile the girl thus incongruously in his thought had felt a
gray shadow across her sunshine. She found her uncle greatly
perplexed and troubled. Haru's Bible, found on the Chapel doorstep,
had been brought to him that morning. He had sent at once to the
Street-of-Prayer-to-the-Gods and the messenger had returned with news of
her disappearance. The fact that she had taken clothing with her showed
that the flight was a deliberate one.
It pained him to think what the return of the book and the little cross
might mean. In his long residence in Japan the bishop had grown
accustomed to strange _dénouements_, to flashing revelations of subtle
deeps in oriental character. But save for one instance of many years
ago--which the sight of Barbara must always recall to him--he had never
been more saddened than by to-day's disclosure. What he told her had
left Barbara with an uneasy apprehension. She drove away pondering. The
anxious speculation blurred the glamour of the afternoon.
The homeward course took her through Aoyama, by unfrequented streets of
pleasant, suburban-like gardens and small houses with roofs of fluted
tile as softly gray as silk. Here and there a bean-curd peddler droned
his cry of "_To-o-fu! To-o-fu-u!_" and under a spreading _kiri_ tree a
blind beggar squatted, playing a flute through his nostrils, while his
wife, also blind and with a beady-eyed baby strapped to her back,
twanged a _samisen_ beside him. In the road groups of little girls were
playing games with much clapping of hands and shouting in shrill voices.
In one of the cross-streets a dozen coolies strode, carrying flaming
white banners painted in red idiographs. The last bore a huge
_papier-maché_ bottle--an advertisement of a popular brand of beer. A
brass band of four pieces, discoursing hideously tuneless sounds, led
them, and between band and banners stalked a grotesquely clad figure on
stilts ten feet tall, the shafts pantalooned so that his legs seemed to
have been drawn out like India-rubber. The spidery pedestrian was
followed by a score of staring children of all ages and sizes.
Suddenly Barbara rose to her feet in the carriage. She had seen a girl
emerge from a small temple and turn into a side street.
"Fast! Drive fast, Taka," she called quickly. "The street to the left!"
He obeyed, but a _soba-ya_ had halted his shining copper cart of
steaming buckwheat, and momentarily delayed them.
The hastening figure was farther away when they rounded the turning.
Barbara clasped her hands together. "It _was_ Haru! It _was_ Haru! I am
_sure_!" she whispered.
The girl slipped through a gateway hung with wistaria. As Barbara sprang
to the ground she was hurrying through the garden.
"Haru!" But the flying figure did not seem to hear the call.
Barbara ran quickly after her along the gravel path.
* * * * *
In the house, Austen Ware, standing with the _kimono_ in his hand, had
heard the rumble of carriage wheels. He had left the outer _shoji_ open,
and through the aperture he saw the slim form hastening toward the
doorway. An exclamation broke from his lips. Behind her, just entering
the gate, was Barbara!
For a breath he stared. A cool, thriving suspicion--one bred of his
anger and humiliation, that shamed his manhood--ran through him.
Barbara, _there_? Was it another _rendezvous_, then? The fierce,
self-dishonoring doubt merged into the mad jealousy that already burned
him like a brand.
He dropped the _kimono_, drew back the _shikiri_ of the unused
apartment, and stepped inside.
Swiftly and noiselessly the light partition slipped into place behind
him.