"IF THIS BE FORGETTING"
The sailing-master of the yacht _Barbara_, with his mate and crony, sat
in the main saloon, whiling away a tedious hour.
The room bore all the earmarks of "a rich man's plaything." It was
tastefully and luxuriously furnished. The upholstery was of dark green
brocade, thin Persian prayer-rugs were on the hardwood floor, and
electric bulbs in clusters were set in silver sconces, which swung with
a long, slow motion as the yacht rocked to the deepening respiration of
the sea. At one side a small square table held the remains of a
comfortable refection, and by it, on a stand, sat a phonograph with
which the two men had been gloomily diverting themselves.
But though the _repertoire_ of the instrument was extended, it had
brought little satisfaction to-night. The last irksome fortnight of
inactivity had made each selection trite and familiar. Moreover, the
captain's spirits were not of the best. The abrupt change of ownership,
followed hard by the death of the yacht's former master, was a
_bouleversement_ that had confused his automatic temperament, and the
sight of the double-locked cabin-door in the saloon was a daily
depressant. He had never seen the yacht's new owner, though she had
written him that he might expect her at any time, and the enigma of a
future under a woman's orders troubled his sturdy and unimaginative
mind.
"Wish to the Lord she'd come, if she's ever coming!" he muttered, as the
phonograph ran down with a wheeze. "This is two days I've kept the
dinghy lying at the _hatoba_."
The mate nodded. It was not the first time the remark had been made. "I
wonder why she ordered his cabin door kept locked?" he said.
"Papers," returned the captain sapiently. "Wants to seal 'em up for the
executor. New owner must be rich, I guess. I'd like to know what she
paid for the outfit. First time I ever signed under a new skipper sight
unseen!"
"Miss Barbara Fairfax," mused the mate. "Nice name. Curious only one
piece of mail should come for her--and second class, too." He picked up
a thin package from the table, folded in dark paper. This had been made
sodden by the rain; now it parted and a flat, black disk of hard rubber
slipped from it and rolled across the floor.
"Blamed if it isn't a phonograph record," he said, as he picked it up.
"It's out of the wrapper now--let's try it." He set it in place and
rewound the spring, and the saloon filled with a chorus of chirps and
tinklings from quivering catgut smitten by ivory plectrums.
"_Samisen!_" said the captain. "I've heard 'em in the tea-houses. Give
me a fiddle for mine, any day."
The yacht's cabin-boy entered. "The dinghy's coming, sir," he said.
"Lady and gentleman aboard of her."
The captain got up hastily, put out a hand and stopped the machine.
"Take away those dishes, and be quick about it," he ordered. "Mr.
Rogers, pipe up the men."
He hurried on deck and watched the bobbing craft approach. Under the
rising wind the sea was lifting rapidly and the dinghy buried its nose
in the spray. Presently he was giving a helping hand to the visitors at
the break in the rail, looking into a pair of brown eyes that he thought
were the saddest he had ever seen, and replying to a voice that was
saying:
"I am Miss Fairfax, Captain Hart, and this is my uncle, Bishop
Randolph."
* * * * *
The train which brought Barbara and the bishop from Tokyo had crawled
for miles along what seemed a narrow ribbon laid on a yellow floor. The
steady, continuous downpour had flooded the rice-fields and the
landscape was a waste of turbid freshet, the rivers deep and swollen
torrents. At one bridge a small army of workmen were dumping loads of
stone about a pier-head and shoring-up the track with heavy timbers. The
train crossed this at a snail's pace, that inspired anxiety.
"I'm not an engineer," the bishop had said, "but I prophesy this bridge
won't be safe to-morrow unless the water falls."
The early daylight dinner at the hotel had been well nigh a silent
ceremonial. That day, with the temple solitary, Barbara had gone down
into a deeper Valley of Shadow. Just as her longing to go to him in her
trouble had seemed to her overwrought, so now her grief was strangely
poignant. When she thought of him her mind was a confusion of tremulous
half-thoughts and new emotions. She could not know that the voice she
dimly heard was the call of blood--that she was in the grip of that
mighty instinct of filiation which strengthens the life-currents of the
world. Her grief--mysterious because its springs were haunting and
unknown--added its aching pang now to the misery that had encompassed
her. She had felt the fierce bounding of the stout little boat, the
gusts of windy spray that flew over them, with a tinge of relief, since
the buffeting made the inner pain less keen.
As she stood at length, with her task, in the cabin whose door had been
so long locked, she remembered the white-robed priests of Kudan Hill,
stalking barefooted across the hot coals. Her soul, she thought, must
tread a fiery path on which rested no miracle of painlessness, and which
had no end. Above her she could hear the irregular footfalls of the
bishop on the tilting deck, and the shrill humming of the wind in the
ventilators. It seemed to be mocking her. Before the world she was
living a painful pretense. Even her uncle believed her to be grieving
for the man whose life had gone out that night at Nikko!
When all had been done and the papers sealed in a portmanteau for
delivery to the Consul-General, Barbara came into the brilliant saloon.
The yacht was pitching heavily and she could stand with difficulty.
Steadying herself against the table, she saw the empty wrapper addressed
to herself. It bore a Nikko postmark. Who could have sent it here? As
she stood holding the paper in her hand, the bishop entered.
"Captain Hart thinks we would better stay aboard to-night, Barbara," he
said. "There is a nasty sea and we should be sure of a drenching in the
dinghy. We have no change of clothing, you know."
"You will be quite comfortable, Miss Fairfax," the captain's voice spoke
deferentially from the doorway. "The guest-rooms are always kept ready."
"Very well," she said, a little wearily. "That will be best, no doubt."
She held up the torn wrapper. "What was in this, I wonder?"
The captain confessed his indiscretion with embarrassment, and she
absolved him with a smile that covered a sharper pang than she had yet
felt that evening. For that thin disk had been on the hillside that
Nikko night--perhaps had heard that quarrel, had seen that blow, had
watched a man crawling, staggering foot by foot, till he collapsed
against the frame that held it! By what strange chance had it been sent
to her here?
Her uncle bade her good night presently, being an indifferent sailor,
and betook himself to bed. The room that had been prepared for her
opened into the saloon. She was too restless to retire, and after a time
she climbed up the companion-way to the windy deck.
The vaulted sapphire of the sky had been swept clean of cloud and the
stars sparkled whitely. Off at one side, a flock of sinister shadows,
she could make out the Squadron of battle-ships, and beyond, in a
curving line, the twinkling lights of the Bund. Could it ever again be
to her that magical shore she had first seen from a ship's deck, with
hills which the cherry-trees made fairy tapestries of green-rose, and
mountains creased of purple velvet and veined with gold? The great white
phantom lifting above them--would it henceforth be but a bulk of ice and
stone, no longer the shrine of the Goddess-of-Radiant-Flower-Bloom? The
sky--would it ever again seem the same violet arch that had bent over a
Tokyo garden of musk flowers and moonlight? Would the world never seem
beautiful to her again?
All about her the foam-stippled water glowed with points of
phosphorescence, as though a thousand ghostly lanterns were afloat. It
made her think of the festival of the _Bon_, of which Thorn had told
her, when the _Shoryo-buné_--the boats of the departed spirits--in
lambent flotillas, go glimpsing down to the sea. How unbelievable that
she should never see him again! She felt a sudden envy of the placid
millions encircling her to whose faith no life was ever lost, whose
loved ones were ever coming back in the perennial cherry-blooms, the
maple-leaves, the whispering pines.
Her love would come back to her only in bitter memories, in painful
thoughts that would shame and burn. All else beside, she had been Austen
Ware's promised wife. How could she still feel love for the man who had
caused his death? Yet--if she must--if she could never tear that image
from her breast!
Like the reflection of a camera-obscura, memory painted a sudden picture
on the void; she saw herself sitting amid the branches of a tulip-tree,
while some one sang--a song the wind was humming in the cordage:
"Forgotten you? Well, if forgetting
Be yearning with all my heart,
With a longing, half pain and half rapture,
For the time when we never shall part;
If the wild wish to see you and hear you,
To be held in your arms again--
If this be forgetting, you're right, dear,
And I have forgotten you then."
Great, slow tears gathered in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.