by Meira Chand
Few people brought out their own domestics. For crystal, crockery, fashion or edibles there could be no improvisation, but for native servants who refused to be shaped there was no dearth of tolerance upon the Bluff. There were not many of her kind and station to form a community for Jessie Flack. She must needs be a starveling on the edge of a lush society. Beyond the world of those she served there was not the comfort of her own hierarchy. There was only a cosmos of Japanese servants, heathen, incompetent and incomprehensible, fit only for derision. By them Jessie Flack was held in awe, a peg below her mistress, one of the same strange foreign breed. It was a situation to frustrate and diminish on the one hand and to swell false pride upon the other. Such, Jessie Flack soon found, was her position in Yokohama. Her life was narrow and unregenerative. It was a corridor in which the colour and pulse both above and below were inaccessible.
It was important, Amy realized from the beginning, that she should have a friend. A year before Mrs Phelps had also brought out a nursery nurse from Switzerland – an excellent girl, she had heard. Mrs Phelps, when the position was explained to her, asked them all for tea: Amy, the children and Jessie Flack.
The day was bright and portended well; the first primulas had been seen. Cathy, Tom and the three Phelps children provided in the nursery an animus for exploration between Jessie Flack and Bertha Kaufmann. Amy was satisfied with Bertha’s appearance, she was neat and plumply ingrained with the indissoluble primness of the Swiss. In her round and healthy face her eyes digested things with alacrity. They glittered in a testing way, almost unforgiving. She would not be a bad influence, Amy decided, upon their Jessie Flack. They might do well together.
‘An excellent girl,’ said Mrs Phelps of Bertha, pouring tea beside the fire. ‘Conscientious in the extreme.’ Amy prepared for a tedious hour.
‘You were not at Monday’s entertainment by the Mosquito Yacht Club? Mr Redmore was there, of course. We’ve all remarked how often he’s alone. Were you indisposed?’ Mrs Phelps interrogated.
‘My old malaria,’ Amy lied.
‘Horrid, I’m sure,’ Mrs Phelps agreed, ‘but it’s not wise to leave a man so much alone. Not in Yokohama. And you missed Mr Coghill-Jackson and Mrs Campbell singing “Oh Maid of Witching Grace” from The Artist’s Model.’ Mrs Phelps chattered on. Amy sipped her tea.
‘We’re grateful to Mr Redmore for organizing our protest,’ Mrs Phelps continued.
‘Protest?’ Amy queried, not remembering the fuss about the ending of extra-territoriality, by which law until now each foreign enclave had governed itself.
‘Our protest against the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. We intend Her Majesty to feel our disapproval of her agreement to the change of law. In less than two years we shall be abandoned to Japanese rule. It’s unimaginable. We’ll have no more rights, not even courts of our own. We shall be at the mercy of the Japanese. Mr Redmore suggested our celebration take the form of commissioning a statue of Lord Kimberly emptying his pockets into the hands of the Japanese. And Mr Cooper-Hewitt suggested any funds left over from the erection go to supplying Japanese pickles and green tea to all British residents.’ Mrs Phelps nodded sarcastically. ‘That would show them in London how strongly we feel.’
It seemed suddenly unendurable. It was all that Amy had escaped through Matthew, closing round her again. Once more her life was a wasteland of similar dinners of similar dishes and similar talk and jokes. The same people passed and reappeared in endless merriment. Each year the same boats came and went. In clubs and committees the same people unwearyingly discussed the same topics and reached the same conclusions. Same. Endless. Endless. The words knocked about in her head; there was no escape. Pleasure was worse than duty. She remembered in contrast the hours she had spent with Matthew.
‘My dear, are you all right?’ Mrs Phelps leaned forward. Amy steadied the cup in her hand.
‘I can see you’re still groggy, you’ve gone quite pale. Should you go home and rest?’ Mrs Phelps inquired in concern. Amy took refuge in deceit. The children and Jessie Flack were recalled to the drawing room.
‘Not going,’ Tom announced in fury, his cheeks growing dangerously red. Behind him Jessie and Bertha were alight with the discovery of complicity. Excitement made them kind, they fussed about the children.
‘Let them stay,’ Mrs Phelps decided. ‘They can return later. Bertha can go with them.’
Amy departed by herself. She urged the rikisha runner to speed, stones spurted up beneath the wheels and clattered on the undercarriage. It was as if the rattling pace could exorcize her frustration. Dr Charles passed her in a rikisha, a black bag on his knee, and waved. At the sight of him impatience bubbled within her again. It was not yet late, she would ride Nikko up to the course at Negishi. Dicky Huckle would be there, hanging about, hoping she would come. Nothing else seemed to stir her but to ride Nikko madly, the wind stinging her face. She was in need now all the time of extremes to make her feel alive. With Matthew the slightest nuance of emotion had been enough to fill her for days.
The light was already fading when she reached the course. Dicky Huckle waited disconsolately, kicking at the turf, a groom rubbed down his pony. She was unprepared for the transfiguration she saw in his face as he caught sight of her. It filled her with a rush of powerful feelings. With the failing light the course, instead of diminishing, seemed to diffuse and expand, it seemed to go on and on. She urged Nikko into a gallop, the evening streamed past. Nikko’s hooves thudded below her, throwing back the track, taking them forward like one creature into the darkening cusp on the edge of night and day. The white shirt of a man riding towards her glowed, he passed and was gone. Trees blurred to a single shape, black against the sky, clouds became ink, spilling, spreading. She soon heard, as she knew she would, the pounding of hooves behind her and the yelp of Dicky’s voice, as if the sound would catch and slow her. She pushed Nikko into a reckless gallop. Her hat blew off in the wind, her laugh echoed about her in the dusk. When she reached the grandstand she waited, and allowed the thunder behind to capture and enfold her.
His breath knotted in his throat. ‘I thought I would not see you today,’ he gasped and held out her hat. In the dusk his face was a pale sphere; the smell of sweating horses rose between them. She knew he was in love with her. She had no right to feel ungrateful, he wished to be of use to her in any way he could. She liked him. His company was unpretentious but sometimes so naïve that she found herself impatient with him. She turned her pony and trotted back the way she had come. Dicky rode beside her, contentment at her presence enough to fill the night. They left the course and the horses clopped together along the Bluff. Dicky insisted he see her home. He stabled his horse at a livery off Camp Hill. It was convenient, he said, now that he had moved to 160 The Bluff. From her bedroom Amy could look across gardens to his window in Mrs Jackson’s boarding house. She knew he had moved to be near her.
As Amy reached home the groom came running to open the stable doors. At the same moment a posse of rikishas clattered up to discharge the children and Jessie, breathless and giggling from their ride. Bertha had accompanied them with the Phelps children, all crammed together into one rikisha. Amy dismounted. Dicky bent forward to catch her hand, his horse snorted and shook its head.
‘Shall you be at the course tomorrow?’
‘Maybe,’ she teased him, irritated suddenly by his insistence. ‘If the weather is good.’ She shook her hand free from his with a laugh and waved it in goodbye. The children were already jumping about her, excited with the horses. She turned to shepherd them indoors and was aware of Jessie and Bertha staring at her with a single, reproachful look. She remembered then that she had left the Phelps’ in a state of supposed ill health.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she remarked, ‘what fresh air can do. I feel completely recovered.’ She turned quickly into the house to hide a sudden wish to giggle.
*
The notes of the piano struck in the echoing room, bright and full of gallop. Th
e heavy thump of children’s feet flattened a path through the polka.
‘Stop!’ cried Miss Fricklesby in distress. ‘We are not elephants, children. We are dancers, fairies on our feet.’ The piano started again. Cathy Redmore pulled a reluctant partner energetically round the floor. Her brother pinched his on the arm, disrupting the dancing again.
Jessie Flack and Bertha Kaufmann sat on chairs along the wall, separate from the Japanese amahs in Miss Fricklesby’s dancing class.
‘Go on,’ urged Bertha, impatient to resume their conversation.
‘He comes in for tiffin when the master is out, or sometimes later in the afternoon. She ties a handkerchief on the upstairs balcony as a signal he can come. I seen her. And they ride, too. In the hills. Alone,’ Jessie whispered.
Bertha nodded knowingly. ‘He’s not the first, that Mr Huckle. Many people are gossiping about her. Before you came there were also other men. Many men. It is true. I heard my mistress speaking with her friends. It was shameful. Women like that, they are mad,’ Bertha pursed her lips in conclusion.
‘She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Who’d have thought it? Oh, the shame. And her family in Somerset so well thought of, so respectable. And the master such a nice man, too. How can he allow it? I’ve only read about such goings-on in novels.’
‘As for Mr Redmore, there are things they say about him too. Of course he is a man and all men are like that, though not my master, I must say. Don’t be so trusting. You should take care in a house like that. You must protect yourself,’ Bertha clarified.
‘The master’s all right. He’s kind. He likes me,’ Jessie said.
‘That’s what I mean,’ Bertha replied.
‘Well, I didn’t mean it like that.’ Jessie was shocked and blushed.
‘You be careful,’ Bertha warned. The piano had stopped, Bertha retied her bonnet. ‘You could lose your own reputation in a house like that.’
Tom appeared suddenly at Jessie’s knee. ‘Come on, Jekky. Finished. Stupid dancing. Stupid Miss Fricklesby.’ Tom tugged at Jessie’s sleeve. She shook him free and stared at Bertha anxiously.
‘What d’you mean? What can I do?’ she inquired, struck suddenly by insinuations she had been ignorant of before. Beside her a window looked out onto the street and a group of squatting, emaciated rikisha runners, their greasy faces wide-boned and grinning. One stood up to urinate against a wall. Jessie Flack looked away in haste, his sudden exposure thumping through her. All at once she hated Yokohama. She longed for England, a place where, whatever might happen, you still knew exactly where you were. People behaved as expected, and even the discomforts of quarters or the idiosyncrasies of employers were reliable in their unchanging familiarity. Here was only an alien land whose ways and speech were incomprehensible. And besides this, in the small, enclosed world that should have been familiar nothing was what it seemed. People who appeared upright and English behaved in unimaginable ways. An earth that looked docile and solid could erupt and crack and kill without warning. A snake could slide from a flowering bush and the sky could darken with vindictive force to smash homes or blow you from a cliff. In good faith and innocence she had journeyed all these miles to this dangerous deception.
‘Come on, Jekky. Let’s go Bluff Gardens now.’ Tom stamped his foot impatiently. Cathy came up with the Phelps children. Jessie and Bertha stood up.
‘You just be careful,’ Bertha hissed.
*
She wore a grey silk dress fitted tight with a neckline so low it made you blush. She was going out to dinner, but it was early yet to change into a dress like that. It meant he must be coming. When she bent, the neckline was enough to incite the male of any age. Her own son reached up a hand from the nursery table to stroke her soft flesh in bewilderment. Jessie Flack pursed her lips.
‘Did Master Tom take the cough syrup, Jessie?’ Amy laughed. The blue of her eyes was dark, almost violet. She looked so innocent, and yet the things that mouth, that body must have done. It made you angry. It made you sick to even think about it.
‘Yes, Ma’am, he drank it like a good boy,’ Jessie replied, her eyes giving nothing. Many men, Bertha had said. She went about with them, alone. Her mouth was wide, the upper lip as full as the lower, always soft, moist and coloured. They never cracked like Jessie’s own lips in the winter, peeled until they were sore. Such things were not a matter of station, they were apportionments of God – or in this case, most clearly, the Devil.
‘Good boy? Yes, course, good boy. Always good boy.’ Tom held up his arms to his mother. In the nursery the setting sun awoke the room and blazed like fire upon the windows of Mrs Jackson’s boarding house, across neighbouring gardens. Amy laughed and picked Tom up. He kissed her, coiling about her like a small monkey.
‘Don’t spoil me, Tom. I’m going out,’ she pleaded.
She tried to put him down, but he clung to her, burying his face in her breast, nuzzling noisily until she ripped him off her in exasperation.
‘When we grow up,’ Cathy announced, withdrawing her attention from a book, ‘the Reverend Percival told us in Sunday School we must wear dresses to our chins. Dresses like you wear tempt the Devil and send you to hell. Can a dress send you to hell, Mama?’
‘Nonsense,’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Old Reverend Percival knows nothing about fashion. Don’t listen to him, my darling.’ She laughed, but Jessie saw a blush heighten her cheeks. You couldn’t deceive a child, Jessie thought. And what an example she set them. Their own mother, the shame of it.
They heard the sudden knock on the front door downstairs and sounds of entry. Amy patted her hair, kissed her hands to them and darted from the room. They stared after her in silence. Slowly Cathy returned her attention to her book.
‘Drink your milk, Master Tom,’ Jessie admonished to establish normality. The sound of Dicky Huckle’s voice came up clearly from the hall. Amy laughed flirtatiously in reply. Then there was the shutting of the drawing room door, and silence once again.
‘Huckle, duckle, muckle, buckle. One, two, buckle my shoe.’ Tom gurgled the words into his milk.
‘Mr Huckle, if you please,’ Cathy instructed. She returned her eyes to her book but did not read, a frown pulled her brows together. Jessie watched them, angry at the harmony Amy’s intrusion had dispersed. She was fond of the children and they were disturbed. Anybody could see that.
‘Huckle, duckle, muckle.’ Tom blew bubbles into his milk.
‘Master Tom,’ Jessie warned.
‘Going see Buckle my shoe,’ Tom suddenly decided and scrambled off his chair, scuttling from the room before Jessie could catch him. She did not hurry. She let him go, shouting after him, following, but short of a pace that would intercept. She let him reach and open the door of the drawing room.
It was darkening, the small, low lamps reflected. They faced the mirror together, their backs to Jessie. She saw their faces, side by side within the glass. The man’s hands were upon the woman’s bare shoulders, clasping them, her head swung back against him. Her neck and that deep vee of naked flesh, spreading fuller and lower and softer than ever in the diffused light, seemed to overflow. Jessie Flack could not take her eyes from Amy Redmore’s brimming, luminous breast. The room fell away around the two people before the mirror. Anger filled Jessie. It seemed to screw up into a tight ball every cell within her body. Many men, Bertha had said. Many men. The words echoed in her head. How could the master allow it?
There was a small carved stone on a velvet ribbon he had tied about her neck. A present. In the glass they admired it. Amy Redmore smiled at Dicky Huckle, the soft mouth opening, spreading, enticing him. Her body arched against him, her perfume filled the room. She laughed in a low, soft sound at the back of her throat, an animal sound. She had that elusive power, the command of men. She was naked always in their eyes. It was the Devil at work within her. The man dropped his head to kiss the warm hollow of her neck, gently, briefly. Jessie let out a cry. Dicky Huckle’s hands fell quickly to his sides. Tom ru
shed into the room.
‘One, two, buckle my shoe.’ Tom danced about. ‘Go away, I hate you, Buckle, silly muckle,’ Tom screamed.
Amy turned to Jessie who stood, thin and stricken, in the doorway. ‘Take him away. How dare you let him come here!’ She hissed like a full, white-breasted swan disturbed upon her nest. Jessie scooped him up and left the room. Amy slammed the door upon her.
*
It was silent. They were not yet back. The children slept, Jessie lay upon her bed. The blood throbbed through her when she remembered the image of them before the mirror. She sat up, holding her head, her chest gripped by something hard. Many men, Bertha had said. The things she must have done, wicked as a whore. Jessie got up and drank down a glass of water. The mirror before her threw up her thin face like a scar upon its spotted surface. Her face was not one that mirrors warmed to; they did not expand to greet her as they did Amy Redmore. She had made mistakes, she had even sinned, thought Jessie, taking account of her life, but she had never yet lain with any man and never would like a common whore. She stood up and ran a hand across her forehead. If only the image of them, so ripe it had filled the room, would leave her. She opened the door and went onto the landing. The house was still, the stairwell dark; a lamp burned in the hall below for the Redmores’ return. The pendulum of the grandfather clock knocked back each minute; they would not return for hours. Jessie opened the door of Amy’s room.
Rachel had turned back the bed and put on a low lamp. She had spread out the nightgown with its full lace yoke and satin buttons. There were embroidered silk slippers upon the floor, side by side, waiting. Silver brushes, bottles of perfumes, a glass bowl of dusting powder, Jessie picked up and examined each in turn. From the wardrobe came the smell of lavender bags and the obsessive power of silk, spangled and patterned, worked or thin as water, that had offered her up from within its soft swathings to whichever man she chose to spread herself beneath. Jessie Flack clenched her fist and tore a dress from its hanger, a soft fall of gauze, a dress like she had never worn, the apparel of another race. She held it up before her. It fell loosely against her, its neckline limp and disinterested upon her flat chest. Its colour drained her so that even the mirror seemed impatient to discard her. She stuffed the dress back into the cupboard and sat down on a stool before the dressing table. Behind her in the glass was the huge carved bed upon which Amy Redmore slept with her husband. She who went to other men. He who went to other women. It made no sense and it was shameful. She, Jessie, had been deceived, her priorities violated and, according to Bertha, her own reputation was in danger through these iniquities.
