Kimono Part 35

But Asako did not want to go to Chuzenji. All her thoughts were centred on the little house by the river.

"Geoffrey darling," she said, stroking his hair with her tiny waxen fingers, "it is the hot weather which is making you feel cross. Why don't you go up to the mountains for a week or so, and stop with Reggie?"

"Will you come?" asked her husband, brightening.

"I can't very well. You see they are just laying down the _tatami_: and when that is done the house will be ready. Besides, I feel so well here. I like the heat."

"But I've never been away without you!" objected Geoffrey, "I think it would be beastly."

This side of the question had not struck Asako. She was so taken up with her project. Now, however, she felt a momentary thrill of relief.

She would be able to give all her time to her beloved j.a.panese home.

Geoffrey was a darling, but he was so uninterested in everything.

"It will only be for a few days," she said, "you want the change; and when you come back it will be like being married again."

CHAPTER XVIII

AMONG THE NIKKO MOUNTAINS

_Io chikaki Tsumagi no michi ya Kure-nuramu; Nokiba ni kudaru Yama-bito no koye_!

Dusk, it seems, has come To the wood-cutter's track That is near my hut; The voices of the mountainmen Going down to the shed!

Geoffrey left early one morning in a very doubtful frame of mind, after having charged Tanaka to take the greatest care of his lady, and to do exactly what she told him.

It was not until half-way up the steep climb between Nikko and Chuzenji that his lungs suddenly seemed to break through a thick film, and he breathed fresh air again. Then he was glad that he had come.

He was afoot. A coolie strode on before him with his suit-case strapped on his back. They had started in pouring rain, a long tramp through narrow gorges. Geoffrey could feel the mountains around him; but their forms were wrapped in cloud. Now the mist was lifting; and although in places it still clung to the branches like wisps of cotton-wool, the precipitous slopes became visible; and overhead, peeping through the clouds at impossible elevations, pieces of the mountain seemed to be falling from the grey sky. Everything was bathed in rain. The sandstone cliffs gleamed like marble, the luxuriant foliage like polished leather. The torrent foamed over its wilderness of grey boulders with a splendid rush of liberty.

Country people pa.s.sed by, dressed in straw overcoats which looked like bee-hives, or with thin capes of oiled paper, saffron or salmon-coloured. The kimono s.h.i.+rts were girt up like fishers--both men and women--showing gnarled and muscular limbs. The complexions of these mountain folk were red like fruit; the Mongolian yellow was hardly visible.

Some were leading long files of lean-shanked horses, with bells to their bridles and high pack-saddles like cradles, painted red. Rough girls rode astride in tight blue trunk-hose. It was with a start that Geoffrey recognised their s.e.x; and he wondered vaguely whether men could fall in love with them, and fondle them. They were on their way to fetch provision for the lake settlements, or for remote mining-camps way beyond the mountains.

The air was full of the clamour of the torrent, the heavy splas.h.i.+ng of raindrops delayed among the leaves, and the distant thunder of waterfalls.

What a relief to breath again, and what a pleasure to escape from the tortuous streets and the toy houses, from the twisted prettiness of the Tokyo gardens and the tiresome delicacy of the rice-field mosaic, into a wild and rugged nature, a land of forests and mountains reminiscent of Switzerland and Scotland, where the occasional croak of a pheasant fell like music upon Geoffrey's ear!

The two hours' climb ended abruptly in a level sandy road running among birch trees. At a wayside tea-house a man was sitting on a low table. He wore white trousers, a coat of cornflower shade and a Panama hat--all very spick and span. It was Reggie Forsyth.

"h.e.l.lo," he cried, "my dear old Geoffrey! I'm awfully glad you've come. But you ought to have brought Mrs. Harrington too. You seem quite incomplete without her."

"Yes, it's a peculiar sensation, and I don't like it. But the heat, you know, at Tokyo, it made me feel rotten. I simply had to come away.

And Asako is so busy now with her new cousins and her j.a.panese house and all the rest of it."

For the first time Reggie thought that he detected a tone in his friend's voice which he had been expecting to hear sooner or later, a kind of "flagging" tone--he found the word afterwards in working out a musical sketch called _Love's Disharmony_. Geoffrey looked white and tired, he thought. It was indeed high time that he came up to the mountains.

They were approaching the lake, which already showed through the tree-trunks. A path led away to the left across a rustic bridge.

"That's the way to the hotel. Yae is there. Farther along are the Russian, French and British Emba.s.sies. That's about half an hour from here."

Reggie's little villa stood at a few minutes' distance in the opposite direction, past two high j.a.panese hotels which looked like skeleton houses with the walls taken out of them, past sheds where furs were on sale, and picture post-cards, and dry biscuits.

The garden of the villa jutted out over the lake on an embankment of stones. The house was discreetly hidden by a high hedge of evergreens.

"William Tell's chapel," explained Reggie, "a week in lovely Lucerne!"

It was a j.a.panese house, another skeleton. From the wicket gate, Geoffrey could see its simple scheme open to the four winds, its scanty furniture unblus.h.i.+ngly displayed; downstairs, a table, a sofa, some bamboo chairs and a piano--upstairs, two beds, two washstands, and the rest. The garden consisted of two strips of wiry gra.s.s on each side of the house; and a flight of steps ran down to the water's edge, where a small sailing-boat was moored.

The landscape of high wooded hills was fading into evening across the leaden ripples of the lake.

"What do you think of our highland home?" asked Reggie.

There was not a sign of life over the heavy waters, not a boat, not a bird, not an island even.

"Not much doing," commented Geoffrey, "but the air's good."

"Not quite like a lake, it is?" his host reflected.

That was true. A lake had always appealed to Geoffrey, both to his sense of natural beauty and to his instinct for sport. There is a soothing influence in the imprisoned waters, the romance of the sea without its restlessness and fury. The freshness of untrodden islands, the possibilities of a world beneath the waters, of half-perceived Venetas, the adventure of entrusting oneself and one's fortunes to a few planks of wood, are delights which the lake-lover knows well. He knows too, the delicious sense of detachment from the sh.o.r.e--the sh.o.r.e of ordinary affairs and monotonous people--and the charm of unfamiliar lights and colours and reflections. Even on the Serpentine he can find this glamour, when the birds are flocking to roost in the trees of Peter Pan's island.

But on this lake of Chuzenji there was a sullen brooding, an absence of life, a suggestion of tragedy.

"It isn't a lake," explained Reggie; "it's the crater of an old volcano which has filled up with water. It is one of the earth's pockmarks healed over and forgotten. But there is something lunar about it still, some memory of burned out pa.s.sions, something creepy in spite of the beauty of the place. It is too dark this evening to see how beautiful it is. In places the lake is unfathomably deep, and people have fallen into the water and have never been seen again."

The waters were almost blue now, a deep dull greyish blue.

Suddenly, away to the left, lines of silver streaked the surface; and, with a clapping and dripping commotion, a flight of white geese rose.

They had been dozing under the bank, and some one had disturbed them.

A pale figure like a little flame was dimly discernible.

"It's Yae!" cried Reggie; and he made a noise which was supposed to be a _jodel_ The white figure waved an answer.

Reggie picked up a megaphone which seemed to be kept there for the purpose.

"Good night," he shouted, "same time to-morrow!"

The figure waved again and disappeared.

Next morning Geoffrey was awakened by the boom of a temple bell. He stepped out on to his balcony, and saw the lake and the hills around clear and bright under the yellow suns.h.i.+ne. He drank in the cool breath of the dew. For the first time after many limp and damp awakenings he felt the thrill of the wings of the morning. He thanked G.o.d he had come. If only Asako were here! he thought. Perhaps she was right in getting a j.a.panese home just for the two of them. They would be happier there than jostled by the promiscuity of hotels.

At breakfast, Reggie had found a note from the Amba.s.sador.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" he cried, "I must go over and beat a typewriter for two or three hours. I must therefore break my tryst. But I expect you to replace me like the immortal Cyrano, who should be the ideal of all soldiers. Will you take Yae for an hour or two's sail? She likes you very much."