Produced by Anne Reshnyk, Lois Gaudard, Gloria Bryant,
Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
THE SHADOW OF THE EAST
By E. M. Hull
1921
“_The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's
teeth are set on edge_.”
_Ezekiel xviii 2_.
CHAPTER I
The American yacht lying off the harbour at Yokohama was brilliantly lit
from stem to stern. Between it and the shore the reflection of the
full moon glittered on the water up to the steps of the big black
landing-stage. The glamour of the eastern night and the moonlight
combined to lend enchantment to a scene that by day is blatant and
tawdry, and the countless coloured lamps twinkling along the sea wall
and dotted over the Bluff transformed the Japanese town into fairyland.
The night was warm and still, and there was barely a ripple on the
water. The Bay was full of craft--liners, tramps, and yachts swinging
slowly with the tide, and hurrying to and fro sampans and electric
launches jostled indiscriminately.
On board the yacht three men were lying in long chairs on the deck.
Jermyn Atherton, the millionaire owner, a tall thin American whose keen,
clever face looked singularly youthful under a thick crop of iron-grey
hair, sat forward in his chair to light a fresh cigar, and then turned
to the man on his right. “I guess I've had every official in Japan
hunting for you these last two days, Barry. If I hadn't had your wire
from Tokio this morning I should have gone to our Consul and churned up
the whole Japanese Secret Service and made an international affair of
it,” he laughed. “Where in all creation were you? I should hardly have
thought it possible to get out of touch in this little old island. The
authorities, too, knew all about you, and reckoned they could lay their
hands on you in twelve hours. I rattled them up some,” he added, with
evident satisfaction.
The Englishman smiled.
“You seem to have done,” he said dryly. “When I got into Tokio this
morning I was fallen on by a hysterical inspector of police who implored
me with tears to communicate immediately with an infuriated American who
was raising Cain in Yokohama over my disappearance. As a matter of fact
I was in a little village twenty miles inland from Tokio--quite off
the beaten track. There's an old Shinto temple there that I have been
wanting to sketch for a long time.”
“Atherton's luck!” commented the American complacently. “It generally
holds good. I couldn't leave Japan without seeing you, and I must sail
tonight.”
“What's your hurry--Wall Street going to the dogs without you?”
“No. I've cut out from Wall Street. I've made all the money I want, and
I'm only concerned with spending it now. No, the fact is I--er--I left
home rather suddenly.”
A soft chuckle came from the recumbent occupant of the third chair, but
Atherton ignored it and hurried on, twirling rapidly, as he spoke, a
single eyeglass attached to a thin black cord.
“Ever since Nina and I were married last year we've been going the devil
of a pace. We had to entertain every one who had entertained us--and a
few more folk besides. There was something doing all day and every day
until at last it seemed to me that I never saw my wife except at the
other end of a dining table with a crowd of silly fools in between us.
I reckoned I'd just about had enough of it. Came on me just like a flash
sitting in my office down town one morning, so I buzzed home right away
in the auto and told her I was sick of the whole thing and that I wanted
her to come away with me and see what real life was like--out West or
anywhere else on earth away from that durned society crowd. I'll admit I
lost my temper and did some shouting. Nina couldn't see it from my point
of view.
“My God, Jermyn! I should think not,” drawled a sleepy voice from
the third chair, and a short, immensely stout man struggled up into a
sitting position, mopping his forehead vigorously. “You've the instincts
of a Turk rather than of an enlightened American citizen. You've not
seen my sister-in-law yet, Mr. Craven,” he turned to the Englishman.
“She's a peach! Smartest little girl in N'York. Leader of
society--dollars no object--small wonder she didn't fall in with
Jermyn's prehistoric notions. You're a cave man, elder brother--I put my
money on Nina every time. Hell! isn't it hot?” He sank down again full
length, flapping his handkerchief feebly at a persistent mosquito.
“We argued for a week,” resumed Jermyn Atherton when his brother's
sleepy drawl subsided, “and didn't seem to get any further on. At last
I lost my temper completely and decided to clear out alone if Nina
wouldn't come with me. Leslie was not doing anything at the time, so I
persuaded him to come along too.”
Leslie Atherton sat up again with a jerk.
“_Persuaded_!” he exploded, “A dam' queer notion of persuasion.
Shanghaied, I call it. Ran me to earth at the club at five o'clock, and
we sailed at eight. If my man hadn't been fond of the sea and keen on
the trip himself, I should have left America for a cruise round the
world in the clothes I stood up in--and Jermyn's duds would be about
as useful to me as a suit of reach-me-downs off the line. Persuasion?
Shucks! Jermyn thought it was kind of funny to start right off on an
ocean trip at a moment's notice and show Nina he didn't care a durn.
Crazy notion of humour.” He lay back languidly and covered his face with
a large silk handkerchief.
Barry Craven turned toward his host with amused curiosity in his grey
eyes.
“Well?” He asked at length.
Atherton returned his look with a slightly embarrassed smile.
“It hasn't been so blamed funny after all,” he said quietly. “A Chinese
coffin-ship from 'Frisco would be hilarious compared with this trip,”
rapped a sarcastic voice from behind the silk handkerchief.
“I've felt a brute ever since we lost sight of Sandy Hook,” continued
Atherton, looking away toward the twinkling lights on shore, “and as
soon as we put in here I couldn't stand it any longer, so I cabled to
Nina that I was returning at once. I'm quite prepared to eat humble pie
and all the rest of it--in fact I shall relish it,” with a sudden shy
laugh.
His brother heaved his vast bulk clear of the deck chair with a mighty
effort.
“Humble pie! Huh!” he snorted contemptuously. “She'll kill the fatted
calf and put a halo of glory round your head and invite in all the
neighbours 'for this my prodigal husband has returned to me!'” He ducked
with surprising swiftness to avoid a book that Atherton hurled at his
head and shook a chubby forefinger at him reprovingly.
“Don't assault the only guide, philosopher and friend you've got who has
the courage to tell you a few home truths. Say, Jermyn, d'y'know why I
finally consented to come on this crazy cruise, anyway? Because Nina
got me on the phone while you were hammering away at me at the club
and ordered me to go right along with you and see you didn't do any dam
foolishness. Oh, she's got me to heel right enough. Well! I guess I'll
turn in and get to sleep before those fool engines start chump-chumping
under my pillow. You boys will want a pow-wow to your two selves; there
are times when three is a crowd. Good-bye, Mr. Craven, pleased to have
met you. Hope to see you in the Adirondacks next summer--a bit more
crowded than the Rockies, which are Jermyn's Mecca, but more home
comforts--appeal to a man of my build.” He slipped away with the
noiseless tread that is habitual to heavy men.
Jermyn Atherton looked after his retreating figure and laughed
uproariously.
“Isn't he the darndest? A clam is communicative compared with Leslie.
Fancy him having that card up his sleeve all the while. Nina's had the
bulge on me right straight along.”
He pushed a cigar-box across the wicker table between them.
“No, thanks,” said Craven, taking a case from his pocket. “I'll have a
cigarette, if you don't mind.”
The American settled himself in his chair, his hands clasped behind his
head, staring at the harbour lights, his thoughts very obviously some
thousands of miles away. Craven watched him speculatively. Atherton
the big game-hunter, Atherton the mine-owner, he knew perfectly--but
Atherton the New York broker, Atherton married, he was unacquainted with
and he was trying to adjust and consolidate the two personalities.
It was the same Atherton--but more human, more humble, if such a word
could be applied to an American millionaire. He felt a sudden curiosity
to see the woman who had brought that new look into his old friend's
keen blue eyes. He was conscious of an odd feeling of envy. Atherton
became aware at last of his attentive gaze and grinned sheepishly.
“Must seem a bit of a fool to you, old man, but I feel like a boy going
home for the holidays and that's the truth. But I've been yapping about
my own affair all evening. What about you--staying on in Japan? Been
here quite a while now, haven't you?”
“Just over a year.”
“Like it?”
“Yes, Japan has got into my bones.”
“Lazy kind of life, isn't it?”
There was no apparent change in Atherton's drawl, but Craven turned his
head quickly and looked at him before answering.
“I'm a lazy kind of fellow,” he replied quietly.
“You weren't lazy in the Rockies,” said Atherton sharply.
“Oh, yes I was. There are grades of laziness.”
Atherton flung the stub of his cigar overboard and selecting a fresh
one, cut the end off carefully.
“Still got that Jap boy who was with you in America?”
“Yoshio? Yes. I picked him up in San Francisco ten years ago. He'll
never leave me now.”
“Saved his life, didn't you? He spun me a great yarn one day in camp.”
Craven laughed and shrugged. “Yoshio has an Oriental imagination and
quite a flair for romance. I did pull him out of a hole in 'Frisco but
he was putting up a very tidy little show on his own account. He's
the toughest little beggar I've ever come across and doesn't know the
meaning of fear. If I'm ever in a big scrap I hope I shall have Yoshio
behind me.”
“You seem to be pretty well known over yonder,” said Atherton with a
vague movement of his head toward the shore.
“It is not a big town and the foreign population is not vast.
Besides, there are traditions. I am the second Barry Craven to live in
Yokohama--my father lived several years and finally died here. He was
obsessed with Japan.”
“And with the Japanese?”
“And with the Japanese.”
Atherton frowned at the glowing end of his cigar.
“Nina and I ran down to see Craven Towers when we were on our wedding
trip in England last year,” he said at length with seeming irrelevance.
“Your agent, Mr. Peters, ran us round.”
“Good old Peters,” murmured Craven lazily. “The place would have gone to
the bow-wows long ago if it hadn't been for him. He adored my mother
and has the worst possible opinion of me. But he's a loyal old bird, he
probably endowed me with all the virtues for your benefit.”
But Atherton ignored the comment. He polished his eyeglass vigorously
and screwed it firmly into position.
“If I was an Englishman with a place like Craven Towers that had been in
my family for generations,” he said soberly, “I should go home and marry
a nice girl and settle down on my estate.”
“That's precisely Peters' opinion,” replied Craven promptly with a
good-tempered laugh. “I get reams from him to that effect nearly every
mail--with detailed descriptions of all the eligible debutantes whom he
thinks suitable. I often wonder whether he runs the estate on the same
lines and keeps a matrimonial agency for the tenants.”
Atherton laughed with him but persisted.
“If your own countrywomen don't appeal to you, take a run out to the
States and see what we can do for you.”
The laugh died out of Craven's eyes and he moved restlessly in his
chair.
“It's no good, Jermyn. I'm not a marrying man,” he said shortly.
Atherton smiled grimly at the recollection of a similar remark
emphatically uttered by himself at their last meeting.
For a time neither spoke. Each was conscious of a vague difference in
the other, developed during the years that had elapsed since their last
meeting--an intangible barrier checking the open confidence of earlier
days.
It was growing late. The sampans had nearly all disappeared and only an
occasional launch skimmed across the harbour.
A neighbouring yacht's band that had been silent for the last hour
began to play again--appropriately to the vicinity--Puccini's well-known
opera. The strains came subdued but clear across the water on the
scent-laden air. Craven sat forward in his chair, his heels on the
ground, his hands loosely clasped between his knees, whistling softly
the Consul's solo in the first act. From behind a cloud of cigar smoke
Atherton watched him keenly, and as he watched he was thinking rapidly.
He was used to making decisions quickly--he was accustomed to accepting
risks at which others shied, but the risk he was now contemplating meant
the taking of an unwarranted liberty that might be resented and might
result in the loss of a friendship that he valued. But he was going to
take the risk--as he had taken many another--he had known that from the
first. He screwed his eyeglass firmer into his eye, a characteristic
gesture well-known on the New York stock market.
“Ever see _Madame Butterfly_? he asked abruptly.
“Yes.”
Atherton blew another big cloud of smoke.
“Damn fool, Pinkerton,” he said gruffly, “Never could see the attraction
myself--dancing girls--almond eyes--and all that sort of thing.”
Craven made no answer but his whistling stopped suddenly and the
knuckles of his clasped hands whitened. Atherton looked away quickly and
his eyeglass fell with a little tinkle against a waistcoat button. There
was another long pause. Finally the music died away and the stillness
was broken only by the soft slap-slap of the water against the ship's
side.
Atherton scowled at his immaculate deck shoes and then seized his
eyeglass again decisively.
“Say, Barry, you saved my life in the Rockies that trip and I guess a
fellow whose life you've saved has a pull on you no one else has. Anyhow
I'll chance it, and if I'm a damned interfering meddler it's up to you
to say so and I'll apologise--handsomely. Are you in a hole?”
Craven got up, walked away to the side of the yacht and leaning on the
rail stared down into the water. A solitary sampan was passing the
broad streak of moonlight and he watched it intently until it passed and
merged into the shadows beyond.
“I've been the usual fool,” he said at last quietly.
“Oh, hell!” came softly from behind him. “Chuck it, Barry. Clear out
right now--with us. I'll put off sailing until tomorrow.”
“I--can't.”
Atherton rose and joined him, and for a moment his hand rested on the
younger man's shoulder.
“I'm sorry--dashed sorry,” he murmured. “Gee!” he added with a half shy,
half humorous glance, wiping his forehead frankly, “I'd rather face a
grizzly than do that again. Leslie keeps telling me that my habit of
butting in will land me in the family vault before my time.”
Craven smiled wryly.
“It's all right. I'm grateful--really. But I must hoe my own row.”
The American swung irresolutely on his heels.
“That's so, that's so,” he agreed reluctantly. “Oh damn it all,” he
burst out, “have a drink!” and going back to the table he pounded in the
stopper of a soda-water-bottle savagely.
Craven laughed constrainedly as he tilted the whisky into a glass.
“Universal panacea,” he said a little bitterly, “but it's not my method
of oblivion.”
He put the peg tumbler down with a smothered sigh.
“I must be off, Jermyn. It's time you were getting under way. It's been
like the old days to have had a yarn with you again. Good luck and a
quick run home--you lucky devil.”
Atherton walked with him to the head of the gangway and watched him into
the launch.
“We shall count on you for the Adirondacks in the summer,” he called out
cheerily, leaning far over the rail.
Craven looked up with a smile and waved his hand, but did not answer and
the motor boat shot away toward the shore.
He landed on the big pier and lingered for a moment to watch the launch
speeding back to the yacht. Then he walked slowly down the length of the
stage and at the entrance found his rickshaw waiting. The two men who
were squatting on the ground leaped up at his approach and one hurriedly
lit a great dragon-painted paper lantern while the other held out a
light dustcoat. Craven tossed it into the rickshaw and silently pointing
toward the north, climbed in. He leaned back and lit a cigarette. The
men sprang away in a quick dog-trot along the Bund, and then started
to climb the hillside at the back of the town. They wound slowly up the
narrow tortuous roads, past numberless villas, hung with lights, from
which voices floated out into the quiet air.
The moon was brilliant and the night wonderfully light, but Craven paid
no attention to the beauty of the scene or to the gaily lit villas.
Atherton's invitation had been curiously hard to decline and even now
an almost overpowering desire came over him to bid his men retrace
their steps to the harbour. Then hard on the heels of that desire came
thoughts that softened the hard lines that had gathered about his mouth.
He pitched his cigarette away as if with it he threw from him an
actual temptation, and resolutely put out of his mind Atherton and the
suggestion of flight.
Still climbing upward the rickshaw passed the last of the outlying
European villas and turned down a side road where there were no houses.
For a couple of miles the men raced along a level track cut on the side
of a hill that rose steeply on the one hand and on the other fell away
precipitously down to the sea until they halted with a sudden jerk
beside a wooden gateway with a creeper-covered roof on either side of
which two matsu trees stood like tall sentinels.
Waiting by the open gate was a short, powerful looking Japanese dressed
in European clothes. He came forward as Craven alighted and gathering up
the coat and hat from the floor of the rickshaw, dismissed the Japanese
who vanished further along the road into the shadows. Then he turned
and waited for his master to precede him through the gateway, but Craven
signed to him to go on, and as the man disappeared up the garden path
he crossed the road and standing on the edge of the cliff looked down
across the harbour. The American yacht was the biggest craft of her kind
in the roads and easily discernible in the moonlight. The brilliant deck
illumination had been shut off and only a few lights showed. He gave a
quick sigh. Atherton's coming had been like a bar drawn suddenly across
the stream down which he was drifting. If Jermyn had only come last
year! The envy he had felt earlier in the evening increased. He thought
of the look he had seen in Atherton's eyes and the intonation of his
voice when the American spoke of the wife to whom he was returning. What
did love like that mean to a man? What factor in Atherton's strenuous
and adventurous life had affected him as this had done? What
were the ethics of a love that rose purely above physical
attraction--environment--temperament; a love that grew and strengthened
and absorbed until it ceased to be a part of life and became life
itself--the main issue, the fundamental essence?
And as Craven watched he saw the yacht steam slowly down the bay. He
drew a deep breath.
“You lucky, lucky devil,” he whispered again and swung on his heel. He
paused for a moment just within the gateway where on the only level part
of the garden lay a miniature lake, hedged round with bamboo, clumps
of oleander, fed by a little twisting stream that came tumbling and
splashing down the hillside in a series of tiny waterfalls, its banks
fringed with azalea bushes and slender cherry trees. Then he walked
slowly along the path that led upward, winding to and fro through
clusters of pines and cedars and over mossy slopes to the little house
which stood in a clearing at the top of the garden surrounded by fir
trees and backed by a high creeper-clad palisade.
From the wide verandah, built out on piles over the terrace, there was
an uninterrupted view of the harbour. He climbed the four wooden stairs
and on the top step turned and looked again down on to the bay. The
yacht was now invisible, but in his mind he followed her slipping down
toward the open sea. And Atherton--what were his thoughts while pacing
the broad deck or lying in his cabin listening to the screw whose every
revolution was taking him nearer the centre of his earthly happiness?
Were they anything like his own, he wondered, as he stood there
bareheaded in the moonlight, looking strangely big and incongruous on
the balcony of the little fairylike doll's house?
He shrugged impatiently. The comparison was an insult, he thought
bitterly. Again he stared out to sea, straining his eyes; trying vainly
to pick up the yacht's lights far down the bay. It was very still, a
tiny breeze whispered in the pines and drifted across his face the sweet
perfume of a flowering shrub. A cicada chirped in the grass at his feet.
Then behind him came a faint rustle of silk. He heard the soft sibilant
sound of a breath drawn quickly in.
“Will my lord honourably be pleased to enter?” the voice was very low
and sweet and the English very slow and careful.
Craven did not move.
“Try again, O Hara San.”
A low bubble of girlish laughter rippled out.
“Please to come in, Bar-ree.”
He turned slowly, looking bigger than ever by contrast with the slender
little Japanese girl who faced him. She was barely seventeen, dainty
and fragile as a porcelain figure, wholly in keeping with her exquisite
setting and yet the flush on her cheeks--free from the thick disfiguring
white paste used by the women of her country--and the vivid animation
of her face were oddly occidental, and the eyes raised so eagerly to
Craven's were as grey as his own.
He held out his arms and she fluttered into them with a little
breathless murmur, clinging to him passionately.
“Little O Hara San,” he said gently as she pressed closer to him. He
tilted her head, stooping to kiss the tiny mouth that trembled at the
touch of his lips. She closed her eyes and he felt an almost convulsive
shudder shake her.
“Have you missed me, O Hara San?”
“It is a thousand moons since you are gone,” she whispered unsteadily.
“Are you glad to see me?”
Her grey eyes opened suddenly with a look of utter content and
happiness.
“You know, Bar-ree. Oh, Bar-ree!”
His face clouded, the teasing word that rose to his lips died away
unspoken and he pressed her head against him almost roughly to hide the
look of trusting devotion that suddenly hurt him. For a few moments she
lay still, then slipped free of his arms and stood before him, swaying
slightly from side to side, her hands busily patting her hair into order
and smiling up at him happily.
“Being very rude. Forgetting honourable hospitality. You please
forgive?”
She backed a few steps toward the doorway and her pliant figure bent for
an instant in the prescribed form of Japanese courtesy and salutation.
Then she clasped both hands together with a little cry of dismay.
“Oh, so sorree,” she murmured in contrition, “forgot honourable lord
forbidding that.”
“Your honourable lord will beat you with a very big stick if you forget
again,” said Craven laughing as he followed her into the little room.
O Hara San pouted her scarlet lips at him and laughed softly as she
subsided on to a mat on the floor and clapped her hands. Craven sat down
opposite her more slowly. In spite of the months he had spent in Japan
he still found it difficult to adapt his long legs to the national
attitude.
In answer to the summons an old armah brought tea and little rice cakes
which O Hara San dispensed with great dignity and seriousness. She drank
innumerable cupfuls while Craven took three or four to please her and
then lit a cigarette. He smoked in silence watching the dainty little
kneeling figure, following the quick movements of her hands as she
manipulated the fragile china on the low stool before her, the restraint
she imposed upon herself as she struggled with the excited happiness
that manifested itself in the rapid heaving of her bosom, and the
transient smile on her lips, and a heavy frown gathered on his face. She
looked up suddenly, the tiny cup poised in her hand midway to her mouth.
“You happy in Tokio?”
“Yes.”
It was not the answer for which she had hoped and her eyes dropped at
the curt monosyllable. She put the cup back on the tray and folded her
hands in her lap with a faint little sigh of disappointment, her head
drooping pensively. Craven knew instinctively that he had hurt her and
hated himself. It was like striking a child. But presently she looked
up again and gazed at him soberly, wrinkling her forehead in unconscious
imitation of his.
“O Hara San very bad selfish girl. Hoping you very _un_happy in Tokio,”
she said contritely.
He laughed at the naive confession and the gloom vanished from his face
as he stood up, his long limbs cramped with the uncongenial attitude.
“What have you been doing while I was away?” he asked, crossing the room
to look at a new kakemono on the wall.
She flitted away silently and returned in a few moments carrying a small
panel. She put it into his hands, drawing near to him within the arm
he slipped round her and slanted her head against him, waiting for his
criticism with the innate patience of her race.
Craven looked long at the painting. It was a study of a solitary fir
tree, growing at the edge of a cliff--wind-swept, rugged. The high
precipice on which it stood was only suggested and far below there was a
hint of boundless ocean--foam-crested.
It was the tree that gripped attention--a lonely outpost, clinging
doggedly to its jutting headland, rearing its head proudly in its
isolation; the wind seemed to rustle through its branches, its gnarled
trunk showed rough and weather-beaten. It was a poem of loneliness and
strength.
At last Craven laid it down carefully, and gathering up the slender
clasped hands, kissed them silently. The mute homage was more to her
than words. The colour rushed to her cheeks and her eyes devoured his
face almost hungrily.
“You like it?” she whispered wistfully.
“Like it?” he echoed, “Gad! little girl, it's wonderful. It's more than
a fir tree--it's power, tenacity, independence. I know that all your
work is symbolical to you. What does the tree mean--Japan?”
She turned her head away, the flush deepening in her cheeks, her fingers
gripping his.
“It means--more to me than Japan,” she murmured. “More to me than
life--it means--you,” she added almost inaudibly.
He swept her up into his arms and carrying her out on to the verandah,
dropped into a big cane chair that was a concession to his western
limbs.
“You make a god of me, O Hara San,” he said huskily.
“You are my god,” she answered simply, and as he expostulated she laid
her soft palm over his mouth and nestled closer into his arms.
“I talk now,” she said quaintly. “I have much to tell.”
But the promised news did not seem forthcoming for she grew silent
again, lying quietly content, rubbing her head caressingly from time
to time against his arm and twisting his watch-chain round her tiny
fingers.
The night was very quiet. No sound came from within the house, and
without only the soft wind murmuring in the trees, cicadas chirping
unceasingly and the little river dashing down the hillside, splashing
noisily, broke the stillness. Nature, the sleepless, was awake making
her influence felt with the kindly natural sounds that mitigate the awe
of absolute silence--sounds that harmonized with the peacefulness of the
little garden. Tonight the contrast between Yokohama, with its pitiful
western vulgarity obtruding at every turn, and the quiet beauty of
his surroundings struck Craven even more sharply than usual. It seemed
impossible that only two miles away was Theatre Street blazing and
rioting with all its tinsel tawdriness, flaring lights and whining
gramophones. Here was another world--and here he had found more
continuous contentment than he had known in the last ten years. The
garden was an old one, planned by a master hand. By day it was lovely,
but by night it took on a weird beauty that was almost unreal. The
light of the moon cast strong black shadows, deep and impenetrable, that
hovered among the trees like sinister spirits lurking in the darkness.
The trees themselves, contorted in the moonlight, assumed strange
forms--vague shapes played in and out among them--the sombre bushes
seemed alive with peeping faces. It was the Garden of Enchantment,
peopled with a thousand djinns and demons of Old Japan. The atmosphere
was mysterious, the air was saturated with sweet heavy scents.
Craven was a passionate lover of the night. The darkness, the silence,
the mystery of it appealed to him. He was familiar with its every phase
in many climates. It enticed him for long solitary rambles in all the
countries he had visited during the ten years of his wanderings. Nature,
always fascinating, was then to him doubly attractive, doubly alluring.
To the night he went for sympathy. To the night he went for inspiration.
It was during his midnight wanderings that he seemed to get nearer
the fundamental root of things. It was to the night he turned for
consolation in times of need. It was then that he exorcised the demon of
unrest that entered into him periodically. All his life the charm of the
night had called to him and all his life he had responded obediently. As
a tiny boy one of his earliest recollections was of slipping out of bed
and, evading nurses and servants, stealing out into the park at Craven
Towers to seek the healing of the night for some childish heartache. He
had crept down the long avenue and climbing the iron fence had perched
on the rail and watched the deer feeding by the light of the moon until
all the sorrow had been chased away and his baby heart was singing with
a kind of delirious happiness that he did not understand and that gave
way in its turn to a natural childish enjoyment of an adventure that
was palpably forbidden. He had slid down from the fence and retraced
his steps up the avenue until he came to the path that led to the rose
garden and eventually to the terrace near the house. He had trotted
along on his little bare feet, shivering now and then, but more from
excitement than from cold, until he had come to the long flight of stone
steps that led to the terrace. He had laboriously climbed them one foot
at a time, his toes curling at the contact with the chill stone, and at
the top he had halted suddenly, holding his breath. Close to him was
a tall indistinct figure wrapped in dark draperies. For a moment fear
gripped him and then an immense curiosity swamped every other feeling
and he moved forward cautiously. The tall figure had turned suddenly and
it was his mother's sad girlish face that looked down at him. She had
lifted him up into her arms, wrapping her warm cloak round his slightly
clad little body--she had asked no questions and she had not scolded.
She had seemed to understand, even though he gave no explanation, and
it was the beginning of a sympathy between them that had developed to an
unusual degree and lasted until her death, ten years ago. She had hugged
him tightly and he had always remembered, without fully understanding in
his childhood, the half incredulous, half regretful whisper in his ear,
“Has it come to you so soon, little son?”
The hereditary instinct, born thus, had grown with his own growth from
boyhood to manhood until it was an integral part of himself.
And the lure of the eastern nights--more marvellous and compelling even
than in colder climates--had become almost an obsession.
Little O Hara San, firm believer in all devils, djinns and midnight
workers of mischief, had grown accustomed to the eccentricities of the
man who was her whole world. If it pleased him to spend long hours of
the night sitting on the verandah when ordinary folk were sensibly shut
up in their houses she did not care so long as she might be with him. No
demon in Japan could harm her while she lay securely in his strong arms.
And if unpleasant shadows crept uncomfortably near the little house she
resolutely turned her head and hiding her face against him shut out all
disagreeable sights and slept peacefully, confident in his ability
to keep far from her all danger. Her love was boundless and her trust
absolute. But tonight there was no thought of sleep. For three long
weeks she had not seen him and during that time for her the sun had
ceased to shine. She had counted each hour until his return and she
could not waste the precious moments now that he had really come. The
djinns and devils in the garden might present themselves in all their
hideousness if it so pleased them but tonight she was heedless of them.
She had eyes for nothing but the man she worshipped. Even in his silent
moods she was content. It was enough to feel his arms about her, to hear
his heart beating rhythmically beneath her head and, lying so, to look
up and see the firm curve of his chin and the slight moustache golden
brown against his tanned cheek.
She stirred slightly in his arms with a little sigh of happiness, and
the faint movement woke him from his abstraction.
“Sleepy?” he asked gently.
She laughed gaily at the suggestion and sat up to show how wide awake
she was. The light from a lantern fell full on her face and Craven
studied it with an intensity of which he was hardly aware. She bore his
scrutiny in silence for a few moments and then looked away with a little
grimace.
“Thinking me very ugly?” she hazarded tentatively.
“No. Very pretty,” he replied truthfully. She leaned forward and laid
her cheek for a second against his, then cuddled down into his arms
again with a happy laugh. He lit a cigarette and tossed the match over
the verandah rail.
“What is your news, O Hara San?”
She did not speak for a moment, and when she did it was no answer to his
question. She reached up her hands and drawing his head down toward her,
looked earnestly into his eyes.
“You loving me?” she asked a little tremulously.
“You know I love you,” he answered quietly.
“Very much?”
“Very much.”
Her eyes flickered and her hands released their hold.
“Men not loving like women,” she murmured at length wistfully. And
then suddenly, with her face hidden against him, she told him--of the
fulfilling of all her hope, the supreme desire of eastern women, pouring
out her happiness in quick passionate sentences, her body shaking with
emotion, her fingers gripping his convulsively.
Craven sat aghast. It was a possibility of which he had always been
aware but which with other unpleasant contingencies he had relegated
to the background of his mind. He had put it from him and had drifted,
careless and indifferent. And now the shadowy possibility had become a
definite reality and he was faced with a problem that horrified him.
His cigarette, neglected, burnt down until it reached his fingers and
he flung it away with a sharp exclamation. He did not speak and the girl
lay motionless, chilled with his silence, her happiness slowly dying
within her, vaguely conscious of a dim fear that terrified her. Was
the link that she had craved to bind them closer together to be useless
after all? Was this happiness that he had given her, the culminating
joy of all the goodness and kindness that he had lavished on her, no
happiness to him? The thought stabbed poignantly. She choked back a sob
and raised her head, but at the sight of his face the question she would
have asked froze on her lips.
“Bar-ree! you are not angry with me?” she whispered desperately.
“How could I be angry with you?” he replied evasively. She shivered and
clenched her teeth, but the question she feared must be asked.
“Are you not glad?” it was a cry of entreaty. He did not speak and with
a low moan she tried to free herself from him but she was powerless
in his hold, and soon she ceased to struggle and lay still, sobbing
bitterly. He drew her closer into his arms and laid his cheek on her
dark hair, seeking for words of comfort, and finding none. She had read
the dismay in his face, had in vain waited for him to speak and no tardy
lie would convince her now. He had wounded her cruelly and he could make
no amends. He had failed her at the one moment when she had most need
of him. He cursed himself bitterly. Gradually her sobs subsided and her
hand slipped into his clutching it tightly. She sat up at last with
a little sigh, pushing the heavy hair off her forehead wearily, and
forcing herself to meet his eyes--looked at him sorrowfully, with
quivering lips.
“Please forgive, Bar-ree,” she whispered humbly and her humility hurt
him more even than her distress.
“There is nothing to forgive, O Hara San,” he said awkwardly, and as she
sought to go this time he did not keep her. She walked to the edge of
the verandah and stared down into the garden. Problematical ghosts and
demons paled to insignificance before this real trouble. She fought
with herself gallantly, crushing down her sorrow and disappointment and
striving to regain the control she had let slip. Her feminine code Was
simple--complete abnegation and self-restraint. And she had broken down
under the first trial! He would despise her, the daughter of a race
trained from childhood to conceal suffering and to suppress all signs of
emotion. He would never understand that it was the alien blood that ran
in her veins and the contact with himself that had caused her to abandon
the stoicism of her people, that had made her reveal her sorrow. He had
laughed at her undemonstrativeness, demanding expressions and proofs
of her affection that were wholly foreign to her upbringing until her
Oriental reserve had slipped from her whose only wish was to please him.
She had adopted his manners, she had made his ways her ways, forgetting
the bar that separated them. But tonight the racial difference of
temperament had risen up vividly between them. Her joy was not his
joy. If he had been a Japanese he would have understood. But he did not
understand and she must hide both joy and sorrow. It was his contentment
not hers that mattered. All through these last months of wonderful
happiness there had lurked deep down in her heart a fear that it would
not last, and she had dreaded lest any unwitting act of hers might
hasten the catastrophe.
She glanced back furtively over her shoulder. Craven was leaning
forward in the cane chair with his head in his hands and she looked away
hastily, blinded with tears. She had troubled him--distressed him.
She had “made a scene”--the phrase, read in some English book,
flashed through her mind. Englishmen hated scenes. She gripped herself
resolutely and when he left his chair and joined her she smiled at him
bravely.
“See, all the djinns are gone, Bar-ree,” she said with a little nervous
laugh.
He guessed the struggle she was making and chimed in with her mood.
“Sensible fellows,” he said lightly, tapping a cigarette on the verandah
rail. “Gone home to bed I expect. Time you went to bed too. I'll just
smoke this cigarette.” But as she turned away obediently, he caught her
back, with a sudden exclamation:
“By Jove! I nearly forgot.”
He took a tiny package from his pocket and gave it to her. Girlishly
eager her fingers shook with excitement as she ripped the covering from
a small gold case attached to a slender chain. She pressed the spring
and uttered a little cry of delight. The miniature of Craven had
been painted by a French artist visiting Yokohama and was a faithful
portrait.
“Oh, Bar-ree,” she gasped with shining eyes, lifting her face like
a child for his kiss. She leaned against him studying the painting
earnestly, appreciating the mastery of a fellow craftsman, ecstatically
happy--then she slipped the chain over her head and closing the case
tucked it away inside her kimono.
“Now I have two,” she murmured softly.
“Two?” said Craven pausing as he lighted his cigarette. “What do you
mean?”
“Wait, I show,” she replied and vanished into the house. She was back
in a moment holding in her hand another locket. He took it from her
and moved closer under the lantern to look at it. It hung from a thick
twisted cable of gold, and set round with pearls it was bigger and
heavier than the dainty case O Hara San had hidden against her heart.
For a moment he hesitated, overcoming an inexplicable reluctance to open
it--then he snapped the spring sharply.
“Good God!” he whispered slowly through dry lips. And yet he had known,
known intuitively before the lid flew back, for it was the second time
that he had handled such a locket--the first he had seen and left lying
on his dead mother's breast.
He stood as if turned to stone, staring with horror at the replica of
his own face lying in the hollow of his hand. The thick dark hair, the
golden brown moustache, the deep grey eyes--all were the same. Only the
chin in the picture was different for it was hidden by a short pointed
beard; so was it in the miniature that was buried with his mother,
so was it in the big portrait that hung in the dining-room at Craven
Towers.
“Who gave you this?” he asked thickly, and O Hara San stared at him in
bewilderment, frightened at the strangeness of his voice.
“My mother,” she said wonderingly. “He was Bar-ree, too. See,” she added
pointing with a slender forefinger to the name engraved inside the case.
A nightbird shrieked weirdly close to the house and a sudden gust of
wind moaned through the pine trees. The sweat stood out on Craven's
forehead in great drops and the cigarette, fallen from his hand, lay
smouldering on the matting at his feet.
He pulled the girl to him and turning her face up stared down into
the great grey eyes, piteous now with unknown fear, and cursed his
blindness. Often the unrecognised likeness had puzzled him. He dropped
the miniature and ground it savagely to powder with his heel, heedless
of O Hara San's sharp cry of distress, and turned to the railing
gripping it with shaking hands.
“Damn him, damn him!”
Why had instinct never warned him? Why had he, knowing the girl's mixed
parentage and knowing his own family history, made no inquiries? A wave
of sick loathing swept over him. His head reeled. He turned to O Hara
San crouched sobbing on the matting over the little heap of crushed gold
and pearls. Was there still a loop-hole?
“What was he to you?” he said hoarsely, and he did not recognise his own
voice.
She looked up fearfully, then shrank back with a cry--hiding her eyes to
shut out the distorted face that bent over her.
“He was my father,” she whispered almost inaudibly. But it sounded to
Craven as if she had shouted it from the housetop. Without a word he
turned from her and stumbled toward the verandah steps. He must get
away, he must be alone--alone with the night to wrestle with this
ghastly tangle.
O Hara San sprang to her feet in terror. She did not understand what had
happened. Her mother had rarely spoken of the man who had first betrayed
and then deserted her--she had loved him too faithfully; with the girl's
limited experience all western faces seemed curiously alike and the
similarity of an uncommon name conveyed nothing to her for she did not
realize that it was uncommon. She could not comprehend this terrible
change in the man who had never been anything but gentle with her. She
only knew that he was going, that something inexplicable was taking him
from her. A wild scream burst from her lips and she sprang across the
verandah, clinging to him frantically, her upturned face beseeching,
striving to hold him.
“Bar-ree, Bar-ree! you must not go. I die without you. Bar-ree! my
love--” Her voice broke in a frightened whisper as he caught her head in
his hands and stared down at her with eyes that terrified her.
“Your--love?” he repeated with a strange ring in his voice, and then he
laughed--a terrible laugh that echoed horribly in the silent night and
seemed to snap some tension in his brain. He tore away her hands and
fled down the steps into the garden. He ran blindly, instinctively
turning to the hillside track that led further into the country,
climbing steadily upward, seeking the solitary woods. He did not hear
the girl's shriek of despair, did not see her fall unconscious on the
matting, he did not see a lithe figure that bounded from the back of the
house nor hear the feet that tracked him. He heard and saw nothing. His
brain was dulled. His only impulse was that of the wounded animal--to
hide himself alone with nature and the night. He plunged on up the
hillside climbing fiercely, tirelessly, wading mountain streams and
forcing his way through thick brushwood. He had taken, off his coat
earlier in the evening and his silk shirt was ripped to ribbons. His
hair lay wet against his forehead and his cheek dripped blood where a
splintered bamboo had torn it, but he did not feel it. He came at last
to a tiny clearing in the forest where the moon shone through a break in
the trees. There he halted, rocking unsteadily on his feet, passing his
hand across his face to clear the blood and perspiration from his eyes,
and then dropped like a log. The next moment the bushes parted and his
Japanese servant crept noiselessly to his side. He bent down over him
for an instant. Craven lay motionless with his face hidden in his arms,
but as the Jap watched a shudder shook him from head to foot and the man
backed cautiously, disappearing among the bushes as silently as he had
come.
The breeze died away and it was quite still within the moonlit clearing.
A broad shaft of cold white light fell directly on the prone figure.
He was morally stunned and for a long time the agony of his mind was
blunted. But gradually the first shock passed and full realization
rushed over him. His hands dug convulsively into the soft earth and he
writhed at his helplessness. What he had done was irremediable. It was
a sudden thunderbolt that had flashed across his clear sky. This morning
the sun had shone as usual and everything had seemed serene to him whose
life had always been easy--tonight he was wrestling in a hell of his
own making. Why had it come to him? He knew that his life had been
comparatively blameless. Why should this one sin, so common throughout
the world, recoil on him so terribly? Why should he, among all the
thousands of men who had sinned similarly, be reserved for such a
nemesis? Why of him alone should such a reckoning be demanded? Surely
the fault was not his. Surely it lay with the man who had wrecked his
mother's life and broken her heart, the man who had neglected his duties
and repudiated his responsibilities and who had been faithful to neither
wife nor mistress. He was to blame. At the thought of his father an
access of rage passed over Craven and he cursed him in a kind of dull
fury. His fingers gripped the ground as if they were about the throat of
the man whom he hated with all the strength of his being. The mystery
of his father had always lain like a shadow across his life. It was a
subject that his mother had refused to discuss. He shivered now when he
realized the agony his perpetual boyish questions must have caused her.
His petulance because “other fellows' fathers” could be produced when
necessary and were not shrouded away in unexplained obscurity. He
remembered her unfailing patience with him, the consistent loyalty she
had shown toward the husband who had failed her so utterly, the courage
with which she had taken the absent father's place with the son whom
she idolized. He understood now her intolerant hatred of Japan and
the Japanese, an intolerance for which--in his ignorance--he had often
teased her. One memory came to him with striking vividness--a winter
evening, in the dawn of his early manhood, when they had been sitting
after dinner in the library at Craven Towers--his mother lying on the
sofa that had been rolled up before the fire, and himself sprawled on
the hearthrug at her feet. Already tall and strong beyond his years and
confident in the full flush of his adolescence he had launched into a
glowing anticipation of the life that lay before him. He had noticed
that his mother's answers were monosyllabic and vague, and then when he
had broken off, hurt at her seeming lack of interest, she had suddenly
spoken--telling him what she had all the evening nerved herself to say.
Her voice had faltered once or twice but she had steadied it bravely
and gone on to the end, shirking nothing, evading nothing, dealing
faithfully with the whole sex problem as far as she was able--outraging
her own reserve that her son might learn the pitfalls and temptations
that would assuredly lie in wait for him, sacrificing her own modesty
that he might remain chaste. He remembered the vivid flush that had
risen to his face and the growing sense of hot discomfort with which he
had listened to her low voice; his half grateful, half shocked feeling.
But it was not until he had glanced furtively at her through his thick
lashes and seen her shamed scarlet cheeks and quivering downcast eyes
that he had realized what it cost her and the courage that had made it
possible for her to speak. He had mumbled incoherently, his face hidden
against her knee, and with innate chivalry had kissed the little white
hand he held between his own great brown ones--“Keep clean, Barry,”
she had whispered tremulously, her hand on his ruffled hair--“only keep
clean.”
And later on in the same evening she had spoken to him of the woman who
would one day inevitably enter his life. “Be gentle to her, Barry-boy,
you are such a great strong fellow, and women, even the strongest women,
are weak compared with men. We are poor creatures, the best of us, we
_bruise_ so easily,” she had said with a laugh that was more than half
a sob. And for his mother's sake he had vowed to be gentle to all women
who might cross his path. And how had he kept his vow? Tonight his
egoism had swallowed his oath and he had fled like a coward to be alone
with his misery. A great sob rose in his throat. Craven by name and
craven by nature he thought bitterly and he cursed again the father
who had bequeathed him such an inheritance, but as he did so he stopped
suddenly for a soft clear voice sounded close to his ear. “No man need
be fettered for life by an inherited weakness. Every man who is worthy
of the name can rise above hereditary deficiencies.” He lay tense and
his heart gave a great throb and then he remembered. The voice was
inward--it was only another memory, an echo of the young mother who had
died, ten years before. Overwhelming shame filled him. “Mother, Mother!”
he whispered chokingly, and deep tearing sobs shook his broad shoulders.
The moon had passed beyond the break in the trees and it was dark now in
the little clearing and to the man who lay stripped of all his illusions
the blackness was merciful. He saw himself as he was clearly--his
selfishness, his arrogance, his pride, and a nausea of self-hatred
filled him. The eagerness with which he had sought to lay on his father
the blame of his own sin now seemed to him despicable. He would always
hate the memory of the man whose neglect had killed his mother, but the
responsibility for this horror rested on himself. He had made his own
hell and the burden of it lay with him only. That he had never known
the manner of his father's life in Japan and that during the time he had
himself been living in Yokohama he had cared to make no inquiries was no
excuse. He alone was to blame.
The air seemed suddenly stifling, his head throbbed and he panted
breathlessly. Then as suddenly the sensation passed and he rolled over
on his back with a deep sigh, his limbs relaxed, too weary to move. For
a long time he lay until the first pale streaks of early dawn showed
above the tree tops, then he sat up with a shiver and looked around
curiously at the silent trees and bamboo clumps that had witnessed his
agony. His head ached intolerably, his mouth was parched and the cut
in his cheek was stiff and sore. He staggered to his feet and stood
a moment holding his head in his hands and the thought of O Hara
San persisted urgently. He shivered again as the image of the girl's
distraught face and pleading eyes rose before him--in a few hours he
would have to go to her and the thought of the interview sickened him.
But he could not go now, his appearance would terrify her, she might be
asleep and he could not wake her if nature had mercifully obliterated
her sorrow for a few hours. In his mad flight he had lost all sense of
distance and locality, but as the dawn grew stronger he recognised his
surroundings and started to tramp to his own bungalow at the top of the
Bluff. He stumbled through the woods, hurrying wearily to reach home
before the full light. It was still dusk when he arrived and crossing
the verandah went into his bedroom and flung himself, dressed as he was,
on to the bed. And the stealthy footsteps that had tracked him through
the night followed softly and stopped outside the open doorway. The Jap
stood for a few moments listening intently.