The Painted Cage (19 page)

‘Now that is a pity,' Matthew said after consideration. ‘It should not be, it need not be, if you wished it different.'

‘I have just never thought about such things,' she answered.

‘Yes, I expect that is it,' he said. She wished she
understood
all the things he talked about.

‘Well now,' he smiled, ‘perhaps we had better be on our way. I must get at least a little work done, otherwise I would be content to sit here all day.'

They retraced their way down the slope and across the sunny clearing, light refracting from the stream in liquid veins. The incline backing the Fujiya Hotel seemed now as sheer as the descent down a ladder. Matthew offered his hand again, and Amy was obliged to take it to save herself from slipping. It was a powerful, comfortable hand. Once he stopped so suddenly she collided with him. He held out an arm to bar her way and looking down she saw a snake, slim and endless as a coil of brown rope, slide noiselessly across the path before them. She shuddered and kept as close to him then as propriety allowed. Soon they reached the Fujiya Hotel and she said goodbye to Matthew, who was staying at a Japanese inn further down the road. She walked back beside the neat white fence, past the bachelor quarters. On the
verandahs
, shaved and dressed now, the men still lazed upon long chairs, threshing gossip and news. As she turned into the hotel gate Dicky Huckle waved and came towards her.

‘We were worried – we couldn't find you. We thought of sending out a search party.' Dicky was delighted to have discovered her. He took her to Mabel who adorned a verandah, stretched out upon a chaise longue.

‘For goodness sake, where were you? You don't know this place. You could fall down a gorge or into a geyser. And look at you, where have you been? There is grass in your hair and your face is all burned.' Mabel was a
schoolteacher, sullen with migraine and responsibility. She sipped a glass of lemonade.

‘Sengenyama?' she exclaimed when Amy explained. ‘But what did you want to go up there for? A dilapidated teahouse a hundred feet up with only an average view?' Mabel had no sympathy. Dicky laughed.

‘You should have come with us to Kiga,' Ada said, appearing with her arm through Enid's.

‘It's only a short walk and all on the level.' Enid picked a leaf from Amy's hair.

Amy felt impatient with them all. She remembered her happiness in the clearing before Matthew Armitage appeared. It was not something for ridicule. About her meeting with Matthew she remained silent. There was nothing she could tell that they would not laugh at; they laughed at everyone except themselves. She turned away and went up to her room. It was as if they always played a game, rejecting reality for a charade. For the first time she had met someone against whom she could compare them. She felt angry and banged the door of her room behind her.

She did not see Matthew Armitage again, although she looked out for him. The next days passed lazily, stupefied by the heat, they made few excursions. Amy walked sometimes with Enid and Ada along the Jokotsugawa gorge to a teahouse at Kiga, to see the waterfalls and feed the goldfish there with rice-cakes. They walked once up to Kowakidani, the Valley of the Lesser Boiling. The name was only an allusion to a cluster of small sulphur springs. They decided to leave the long trek to the terrifying
Owakidani,
the Valley of the Greater Boiling, until Reggie and possibly Guy le Ferrier arrived at the weekend. On Thursday the Cooper-Hewitts and Figdors came up in dust-covered
rikishas,
weary with discomfort. Mrs
Cooper-Hewitt
had been pitched out head-first over her runner when the fellow stumbled on a rabbit hole. Her hands still trembled with the shock; she held them out to
demonstrate.
There was a cut on her nose and her smelling salts had broken, covering her with a fierce odour. They brought news that Reggie would arrive the following day.
Amy felt depressed. He would spend his time with the Cooper-Hewitts and the Figdors and not mix with Mabel's crowd. He would scrutinize her constantly, watching her manner with Dicky Huckle, Rowly Bassett and any
bachelor
who was near. She would have to change tables and sit with the Cooper-Hewitts and make polite remarks. And what if Guy le Ferrier really came? Her agitation grew.

On Friday morning in the gardens of the Fujiya Amy sat beneath a tree, watching Cathy and Rachel under the shade of a wisteria arch. The gardens were still and hot, in places the lawns were scorched. There was the sound of birds and running water. A man worked in a fir tree, thinning out needles, clipping and pruning. The garden and the hills beyond whirred ceaselessly with cicadas. A sketchbook lay open upon Amy's knee at a page of Mabel's orchids. She had thought she might draw the climbing hydrangea on a trellis near the tree. But she was not in the mood for anything. She stared at the passive vista of the hills, in dread of Guy le Ferrier arriving. She watched a group of early dragonflies, their bodies metallic in the sun. From a bush a praying mantis turned a green bulbous head to observe her. She flicked through the pages of the sketchbook.

‘They're not at all what I expected,' said a voice from behind. She looked up to see Matthew Armitage inspecting the sketches over her shoulder. He wore a crumpled linen suit and a panama hat with a red bandeau about it. His pipe curled as usual from his mouth. She knew then she had been waiting for him.

‘
Lilium
auratum,
Lilium
japonicum,
also
speciosum
and
longiflorum
and, I think, a good old tiger lily. You seem inordinately fond of the genus, if I may say so,' Matthew Armitage remarked. She was forced to tell him then of Mabel's conservatory and the orchids she brought her to sketch.

Matthew sat down beside her, cleaned his pipe and refilled it with tobacco. ‘May I look at the rest?' he asked. Amy nodded, unable to escape. Matthew took the
sketchbook
and turned the pages slowly in silent consideration.

‘They're not really fine enough,' Amy said to hide her embarrassment. ‘They will not turn out as I want them to, delicate and light.'

‘Ah, you mean without body or life, limp and ethereal, without sap in their veins or leaves that adhere firmly in the right places? Yes, I know the kind of thing you mean, the refined efforts of drawing room ladies. No, these, Mrs Redmore, are certainly different. They're remarkable. In fact, I am amazed. You have talent. Don't think so little of yourself.' She looked at him, surprised, thinking he only humoured her, but he nodded in confirmation.

‘I think you're very good. I'm compiling a book on Japanese wild flowers. It's nearly finished, but my
illustrator,
a talented young man, a student of mine at the university, died recently of consumption. The fact is, I am searching for a new illustrator. You have talent and a style that would blend with what is already done. May I offer the proposition, Mrs Redmore? It would be a
business
arrangement. I should be delighted to meet your husband and put the matter before him.' He spoke politely and persuasively.

She was taken aback by his praise and the proposition; excitement ran through her. Reggie's consent would, however, be needed; she might sometimes have to meet Matthew Armitage other than by accident. At the thought of Reggie, her enthusiasm collapsed. She could see him already, a taunt in his eyes, summing up Matthew Armitage, noting his battered panama hat and his
crumpled
suit with a stain upon the lapel. The achievements of his intellect would be pulped beneath Reggie's ridicule. Matthew Armitage had neither the usefulness nor the money to command his respect. Or if there were money, then his priorities were at fault, for Matthew would not spend it on a pony or a yacht. He would not even join the club; he was not of Reggie's world. The excitement left her, she mustered her defence. It would be useless to approach Reggie on the derisory subject of wild flowers; she could already hear his scorn. But it would be difficult to refuse or even explain such inevitabilities to Matthew
Armitage. Her own talent had trapped her. Matthew watched her quizzically, waiting for an answer.

‘It is not that I wouldn't like to do it,' she replied, twisting her rings. ‘But my husband is not an easy man.' She was forced to admit it for want of a better excuse.

‘Ah, I see the problem,' he smiled at once. ‘Well, let us not anticipate. Let me put it to him if you agree.'

‘I would love to do it, but I think it probably will not be.' She spoke in a low voice, guilty in spite of everything to show disloyalty to Reggie so quickly with a stranger. ‘He will arrive tomorrow.'

‘I see. He is not here yet.' Matthew drew on his pipe, leaning back upon the bench. She looked at him curiously. His strange talk and crumpled suit might be rejected by Reggie, but she felt reassurance beside him. He was not a man of appearances; he lived with different priorities in another world.

The swarm of blue and green dragonflies darted about. One alighted on the edge of the seat, its wings mercurial in the sun. Matthew pointed to it. ‘There are more than fifty varieties,' he informed her in his usual instructive way. ‘Those blue and green ones are the commonest and come out in the hottest part of summer. Here, you know, they believe certain dragonflies are ridden by the dead. During the festival of O Bon they are said to carry the souls of ancestors back to their former homes. At that time children are forbidden to molest them, especially any that enter a home,' Matthew explained. ‘There is a vast literature in Japan not only of dragonflies, but of all insects. I think a people who can find such delight, century after century, in watching the ways of insects and in making verses about them must have comprehended much better than we the simple pleasure of existence. They may not describe the magic of nature as our great Western poets have done, but they rejoice in a simple and whole-hearted way, like inquisitive and happy children. I envy them.' He gave a diffident smile.

Amy listened in interest. He knew so much about Japan.

‘I shall leave you to sketch that hydrangea.' Matthew
smiled again and stood up. The dragonfly flew off, hovering, then jerking as if pulled about on an invisible wire. Matthew turned and walked away. Amy watched him wandering through the gardens.

Cathy struggled fractiously in Rachel's arms a distance away. Amy walked over and took the baby from her. She followed a stream through the gardens to a rocky pool at a lower level and squatted down with Cathy on her lap. Fat carp swam up, expecting to be fed, smooth bodies of grey and mottled gold alive with the sun beneath the water. Cathy gurgled with delight and splashed her small hands in the pool. Looking up suddenly, Amy glimpsed Matthew in conversation with a gardener, then he walked on. She felt restless and in need of more than her life allowed. He divided and confused her. Cathy tugged at her sleeve in terrified delight as a great carp thrashed the water. Amy smiled and kissed the excited child. Matthew Armitage disappeared out of the gate of the Fujiya Hotel.

The crowd at the Fujiya grew the next day when, as well as Reggie and Guy le Ferrier, a party came up from Tokyo: Sir Hugh Fraser, the British Minister, and his pretty blonde wife, Baron and Baroness d'Anethan of the Belgian Legation and Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, on his way to climb Mount Fuji. The Russian Ambassador, venerable, benign and inscrutable behind a long grey beard, had arrived some days before. Valentine Chirol,
The
Times
correspondent dined alone at a corner table, chewing carefully, eyes alert. Mabel was delighted with such company and took even longer over her toilette.

For Amy nothing could touch the intolerable fact that she must spend the weekend with both Reggie and Guy le Ferrier, the three of them stranded on a tiny plateau up amongst the hills. For once she was glad of the Figdors and Cooper-Hewitts, who provided release during meals from the proximity of Guy. Mr Cooper-Hewitt's sarcastic lips curled incessantly in gossip and boasts, his small eyes knowing above a long nose. Reggie replied in senseless banter, wine or brandy near at hand, a cigar between his lips. Amy hated to be part of their boorish company. Mr
Figdor regarded her constantly with his loose, wet smile, his eyes consummating thoughts he could not hide. She refused to look at him. Mrs Figdor spoke loudly to cover her humiliation. She looked disapprovingly at Amy's dress, picked authoritatively at words and swallowed. Reggie was alert behind aimless talk to wherever Amy placed her eyes, waiting to see who she singled out, what men flattered her with a glance. She deliberately sat with her back to Guy. She faced a table with the Tokyo people, the Frasers, the d'Anethans and Basil Hall Chamberlain, and was amazed to see within their circle Matthew Armitage. He looked, as usual, comfortably creased and unconventional, but smart with an oversized watch chain and a purple cravat. When he spoke the men listened with respect; they appeared to know him well. Sir Hugh Fraser relit his cigar and filled his glass with wine. Amy caught his eye unintentionally; she had stared too long in surprise. Matthew smiled in warm acknowledgement. The Baroness d'Anethan turned in inquiry and also smiled at Amy, inclining a gracious head. Nothing was lost upon Reggie.

‘I see you have new friends,' he remarked, censure in his voice. Mrs Cooper-Hewitt's mouth tightened with her smile; she exchanged a glance with Mrs Figdor.

Amy sighed in exasperation. ‘Mr Armitage admired my sketchbook this morning in the garden.' It was better to admit it, and prepare Reggie for Matthew Armitage's proposition.

‘I see,' said Reggie. ‘Admired your drawings, did he now?'

‘Matthew Armitage? I've heard him called Mad Mat,' Mr Cooper-Hewitt chuckled. ‘Eccentric, they say, but a friend of Chamberlain and the Frasers too. All these cerebral Professors of Nirvana come here and get carried away. Chamberlain's one of those too, in spite of his power. They say he can teach Japanese and Japan to the Japanese. Starry-eyed, hypocritical Japan-lovers I call them, whatever their positions,' Mr Cooper-Hewitt spat out maliciously. Reggie's eyes remained upon Amy. She
concentrated on her
côtelettes
de
mouton
and hoped she gave nothing away.