Kimono | Page 4

a small table a large market-basket, in which was lying a huge
red fish, a roguish, rollicking mullet with a roving eye, all made out of
a soft crinkly silk. In the basket beneath it were rolls and rolls of plain
silk, red and white. This was an offering from the Japanese community
in London, the conventional wedding present of every Japanese home
from the richest to the poorest, varying only in size and splendour. On
another small table lay a bundle of brown objects like prehistoric axe
heads, bound round with red and white string, and vaguely odorous of
bloater-paste. These were dried flesh of the fish called katsuobushi by
the Japanese, whose absence also would have brought misfortune to the
newly married. Behind them, on a little tray, stood a miniature
landscape representing an aged pine-tree by the sea-shore and a little
cottage with a couple of old, old people standing at its door, two
exquisite little dolls dressed in rough, poor kimonos, brown and white.
The old man holds a rake, and the old woman holds a broom. They
have very kindly faces and white silken hair. Any Japanese would
recognise them at once as the Old People of Takasago, the
personification of the Perfect Marriage. They are staring with wonder
and alarm at the Brandan sapphires, a monumental parure designed for
the massive state of some Early-Victorian Lady Brandan.
Asako Fujinami had spent days rejoicing over the arrival of her
presents, little interested in the identity of the givers but fascinated by
the things themselves. She had taken hours to arrange them in
harmonious groups. Then a new gift would arrive which would upset
the balance, and she would have to begin all over again.
Besides this treasury in the dining-room, there were all her clothes,
packed now for the honeymoon, a whole wardrobe of fairy-like
disguises, wonderful gowns of all colours and shapes and materials.
These, it is true, she had bought herself. She had always been
surrounded by money; but it was only since she had lived with Lady
Everington that she had begun to learn something about the thousand

different ways of spending it, and all the lovely things for which it can
be exchanged. So all her new things, whatever their source, seemed to
her like presents, like unexpected enrichments. She had basked among
her new acquisitions, silent as was her wont when she was happy,
sunning herself in the warmth of her prosperity. Best of all, she never
need wear kimonos again in public. Her fiancé had acceded to this, her
most immediate wish. She could dress now like the girls around her.
She would no longer be stared at like a curio in a shop window.
Inquisitive fingers would no longer clutch at the long sleeves of,
crinkled silk, or try to probe the secret of the huge butterfly bow on her
back. She could step out fearlessly now like English women. She could
give up the mincing walk and the timid manner which she felt was
somehow inseparable from her native dress.
When she told her protectress that Geoffrey had consented to its
abandonment, Lady Everington had heaved a sigh.
"Poor Kimono!" she said, "it has served you well. But I suppose a
soldier is glad to put his uniform away when the fighting is over. Only,
never forget the mysterious power of the uniform over the other sex."
Another day when her Ladyship had been in a bad mood, she had
snapped,--
"Put those things away, child, and keep to your kimono. It is your
natural plumage. In those borrowed plumes you look undistinguished
and underfed."
* * * * *
The Japanese Ambassador to the Court of St. James proposed the
health of the bride and bridegroom. Count Saito was a small, wise man,
whom long sojourn in European countries had to some extent
de-orientalised. His hair was grizzled, his face was seamed, and he had
a peering way of gazing through his gold-rimmed spectacles with head
thrust forward like a man half blind, which he certainly was not.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is a great pleasure for me to be

present on this occasion, for I think this wedding is a personal
compliment to myself and to my work in this splendid country. Mr. and
Mrs. Geoffrey Barrington are the living symbols of the Anglo-Japanese
Alliance; and I hope they will always remember the responsibility
resting on their shoulders. The bride and bridegroom of to-day must
feel that the relations of Great Britain and Japan depend upon the
perfect harmony of their married life. Ladies and gentlemen, let us
drink long life and happiness to Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Barrington, to
the Union Jack and to the Rising Sun!"
The toast, was drunk and three cheers