HER HOUSE IN ORDER
Left alone, Campanula sat, her hands folded in her lap—a Lost One
indeed.
Before her mental vision, beyond Japan, beyond that desolate country
always surrounded with ice, the country where the bluebells grew—beyond
all this lay the land where O Toku San had gone that day, the land where
one never regrets, one never forgets, one never remembers.
He had gone to find happiness. Not one word had she spoken to hold him
back or keep him by her, this true daughter of Dai Nippon, soul sister
of O Gozen San, daughter in spirit of the immortal Hirose.
Cleopatra with the asp and all the mouthing heroines of history would
seem cheap indeed beside this small and faithful figure to whom death
was nothing, passion and personal happiness nothing beside the happiness
of the being she loved.
She sat for an hour scarce moving; then she rose up. She had no more
time for personal thoughts; all things had to be left in order, and her
trust to the least detail faithfully fulfilled.
She called the Mousmés to her, and told them that now Leslie San had
left, they would be discharged until he came back. They could go that
evening to their homes in the city below. She would pay them their wages
and a month in advance, and a little present for each out of money of
her own. And the three kow-towed, delighted at the prospect of change
and the month’s money for doing nothing, and the little present besides.
They never thought to ask her what she would do herself in the house
alone, their butterfly brains were so filled with the thoughts of
pleasure.
Then she made Lotus-bud bring all the bills owing, bills yard long and
extraordinarily minute in detail. These she discharged. There were chits
out, but these were Leslie’s affair, and he had no doubt settled them.
She thought of Sweetbriar San the cat, and as he was fondest of
Pine-breeze, she gave Pine-breeze a small sum to take him home and keep
him, applying to M’Gourley San if more money were needful.
Then she went upstairs to her own room and folded neatly the obis and
kimonos in the drawers of the great lacquer cabinet. In one of these
drawers were things she had only, as it were, dropped from her hand; the
toys she had played with as a child. Here was the doll bought in Nikko,
and bouncing balls, ever so many; and in a piece of rice paper, still
ferocious, but terribly old and warped, the famous dragon.
She took him out and tried to remove the paper from his sugar-candy
sides, but it was stuck too tight. She put him back, and, holding the
drawer with both hands, pressed her forehead against them.
As she stood like this, mute and utterly motionless, the night breeze
came through the window, bearing the perfume of the azaleas.
It was as if they were calling to her, and she closed the drawer gently
and turned, as if to say, “I hear.”
Then she came down and found the three Mousmés waiting, each with a
lighted lamp on the end of a stick, and her frail belongings on her
back, luggage consisting of cardboard boxes, except in the case of
Pine-breeze, who was also burdened with a basket containing Sweetbriar
San.
They had received their wages, and there was nothing left for them now
to do but go; which they did, after profound salaams, murmurs and
declarations of personal unworthiness.
Then Campanula found herself standing alone. The only living thing
beside herself in the house was the mushi, that musician of the night,
already saluting its mistress with a thin stream of song. She went to
the doorway where it hung, and unhooked the little cage.