Part 36 (1/2)

”And if I drown your fiancee? I don't know anything about sailing.”

”I'll show you. It's very easy. Besides, Yae really knows more about it than I do.”

So Geoffrey after a short lesson in steering, tacking, and the manipulation of the centreboard, piloted his host safely over to British Bay, the exclusive precinct of the temporary Emba.s.sy on the opposite sh.o.r.e of the lake. He then made his way round French Cape past Russia Cove to the wooden landing-stage of the Lakeside Hotel.

There he found Yae, sitting on a bench and throwing pebbles at the geese.

She wore the blue and white cotton kimono, which is the summer dress of j.a.panese women. It is a cheap garment, but most effective--so clean and cool in the hot weather. Silk kimonos soon become stale-looking; but this cotton dress always seems to be fresh from the laundry. A rope of imitation pearls was entwined in her dark hair; and her broad sash of deep blue was secured in front with an old Chinese ornament of jade.

”Oh, big captain,” she cried, ”I am so glad it is you. I heard you were coming.”

She stepped into the boat, and took over the tiller and the command.

Geoffrey explained his friend's absence.

”The bad boy,” she said, ”he wants to get away from me in order to think about a lot of music. But I don't care!”

Under a steady wind they sheered through the water. On the right hand was Chuzenji village, a Swiss effect of brown chalets dwarfed to utter insignificance by the huge wooded mountain dome of Nantai San which rose behind it. On the left the forest was supreme already, except where in small clearings five or six houses, tenanted by foreign diplomats, stood out above the lake. A little farther on a Buddhist temple slumbered above a flight of broad stone steps. The sacred buildings were freshly lacquered, and red as a new toy. In front, on the slope of golden sand, its base bathed by the tiny waves, stood the _torii_, the wooden archway which is j.a.pan's universal religious symbol. Its message is that of the Wicket Gate in the Pilgrim's Progress. Wherever it is to be seen--and it is to be seen everywhere--it stands for the entering in of the Way, whether that way be ”_s.h.i.+nto_” (The Way of the G.o.ds), or ”_Butsudo_” (The Way of the Buddhas), or ”_Bus.h.i.+do_” (The Way of the Warriors).

There was plenty of breeze. The boat shot down the length of the lake at a delicious speed. The two voyagers reached at last a little harbour, Sh[=o]bu-ga-Hama--The Beach of the Lilies--a muddy sh.o.r.e with slimy rocks, a few brown cottages and a saw-mill.

”Let's go and see the waterfall,” suggested Yae, ”it's only a few minutes.”

They walked together up a steep winding lane. The fresh air and the birch trees, the sight of real Alderney cows grazing on patches of real gra.s.s, the distant rumble of the cataract brought back to Geoffrey a feeling of strength and well-being to which he had for weeks been a stranger.

If only the real Asako had been with him instead of this enigmatic and disquieting image of her!

The j.a.panese, who have an innate love for natural beauty, never fail to mark an exceptional view with a little bench or shelter for travelers, whence they can obtain the best perspective. If sight-seers frequent the spot in any number, there will be an old dame _en guerite_ with her picture post-cards and her Ebisu Beer, her ”Champagne Cider,” her _sembei_ (round and salted biscuits) and her tale of the local legend.

”_Irra.s.shai! Irra.s.shai_;” she pipes. ”Come, come, please rest a little!”

But the cascade above Sh[=o]bu-ga-Hama is only one among the thousand lesser waterfalls of this mountain country. It is honoured merely by an unsteady bench under a broken roof, and by a rope knotted round the trunk of a tall tree in mid-stream to indicate that the locality is an abode of spirits, and to warn pa.s.sers-by against inconsiderately offending the Undine.

Geoffrey and Yae were balancing themselves on the bench, gazing at the race of foam and at the burnished bracken. The Englishman was clearing his mind for action.

”Miss Smith,” he began at last, ”do you think you will be happy with Reggie?”

”He says so, big captain,” answered the little half-caste, her mouth queerly twisted.

”Because if you are not happy, Reggie won't be happy; and if you are neither of you happy, you will be sorry that you married.”!

”But we are not married yet,” said the girl, ”we are only engaged.”

”But you will be married sometime, I suppose?”

”This year, next year, sometime, never!” laughed Yae. ”It is nice to be engaged, and it is such a protection. When I am not engaged, all the old cats, Lady Cynthia and the rest, say that I flirt. Now when I am engaged, my fiance is here to s.h.i.+eld me. Then they dare not say things, or it comes round to him, and he is angry. So I can do anything I like when I am engaged.”

This was a new morality for Geoffrey. It knocked the text from under the sermon which he had been preparing. She was as preposterous as Reggie; but she was not, like him, conscious of her preposterousness.

”Then, when you are married, will you flirt?” asked her companion.

”I think so,” said Yae gravely. ”Besides, Reggie only wants me to dress me up and write music about me. If I am always the same like an English doll wife, he won't get many tunes to play. Reggie is like a girl.”