by Meira Chand
‘Your dress is so perfect,’ sighed Amy. ‘I’ve no idea where to start upon things here.’
‘The little cutter at Nozawaya’s is a gem, but you have to be firm with her,’ Mabel explained.
‘I’ve really almost nothing to wear,’ Amy was forced to confess. ‘Mould and white ants finished everything off in Sungei Ujong. Singapore lives in eternal summer. They had neither the styles or cloth for winter there. And now I’m in this dreadful condition.’ Amy looked down at the ripeness of her pregnant form.
‘Yes, I noticed,’ said Mabel. Amy was unsure if the remark dismissed her condition or her clothes.
‘I could take you along to Nozawaya’s,’ Mabel condescended. Amy grasped assistance eagerly, excited at the prospect of friendship with Mabel Rice.
‘I’ll collect you tomorrow after tiffin,’ Mabel decided as they waited with their husbands in the Easely’s porch before a queue of rikishas. Patrick Rice had a carriage of his own imported from Shanghai, and this arrived with a flourish amongst the spindly rikishas with their bony runners.
‘Let us give you a lift.’ Patrick Rice offered. Reggie accepted with alacrity, no less pleased than Amy with their new acquaintance.
‘Certainly won’t do no harm to know them,’ Reggie chuckled afterwards. ‘That fellow Rice is where I aim to get soon in Yokohama.’
*
The following day Mabel Rice arrived at the Club Hotel and tactfully refrained from comparisons with the Grand. As they rolled along in their rikishas Mabel talked whenever the carriages came together. She explained they had been on their way to live in Shanghai when waylaid by Yokohama.
‘Money actually, to be precise. There’s a deal more here than in Shanghai. In the hand quicker too, or so Patrick tells me,’ Mabel shouted across their bouncing rikishas. ‘But of course in Shanghai we wouldn’t ride in these absurd perambulators. Everyone has a carriage.’ In Mrs Easely’s drawing room Mabel Rice, Amy recollected, for all her conspicuousness had not talked in this terse and unrefined way. She took the familiarity as a compliment.
They had to wait for the fitter when they reached Nozawaya’s. Amongst bales of silk and velvet Mabel accounted for her interest in Amy. ‘You know, don’t you, there are not many people like us in Yokohama. I’m not counting the diplomatic corps of course, or people like the Easelys. But it is a fact that the best people live in Tokyo. They’re all little people here, come to make their fortunes. Those Ewarts, for example, or the Cooper-Hewitts. Or that man Figdor and his wife. Unbearable. And all of them British. I’d no idea until I arrived here of the idiosyncrasies of your race. Oh, and the missionaries!’ Mabel rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘None of them of course, you realize, will be able to block you in the LLT & CC if your husband gets that place in the club.’ Mabel turned to finger a bale of silk. She pulled it loose before a mirror, then let it tumble to the floor before turning her attention once again to the problem of Amy’s clothes.
It had not been possible in the tropical backwater of Sungei Ujong for Amy to ascertain that every garment she had been married with was now obsolete. It was impossible to explain the inevitability of decline in Sungei Ujong to Mabel Rice. It could never happen to Mabel. Amy looked down at herself in despair.
‘You’re no shape at all, quite apart from your present condition. There is a different kind of corset now. And a suit. Have you never had a suit? They’re all the rage,’ said Mabel critically, pacing the floor, her own hourglass figure an engineered art, unimpeachable in a turquoise outfit with exaggerated sleeves. It was elegant and severe, very Mabel Rice and American. Her blonde hair was perfectly coiled under a hat of feathers, tilted at an angle.
‘We’ll have to wait for the corset now,’ said Mabel with a twitch of eyebrow. ‘And as for the clothes, perhaps we should alter your others. Later you can throw them away. That would see through these tiresome months and get rid of the horrid things too.’ They looked in frustration at Amy’s thickening form.
‘We’d better concentrate on hats and shoes.’ Mabel sounded rather bored.
Looking Amy up and down Mabel Rice, against her better judgement, produced some warmth of feeling and wondered why she felt responsible. There appeared in Amy something in need of excavation and she could never resist the power of reshaping the nondescript. The interior of a house or room, the design of a dress, a friend, each became her own creation, each changed and grew at her instruction like a painting or a sculpture. In different circumstances, Mabel dreamed, she could be a great hostess, a patron of artists and writers, their source of inspiration, critic of their work. She possessed the insight and the arrogance to wrest order from creation. But fate had not placed her with the cream of the world; she must make do with Amy Redmore.
It did not matter to Amy that not many people liked Mabel Rice. The fear she inspired in lesser women seemed to Amy and to Mabel justifiable and comic. At the end of the afternoon, within twenty-four hours of meeting, they could already exchange a private smile at the loud-voiced hysteria in Nozawaya’s of a raw-boned matron in an apricot dress whose father, whispered Mabel, was a butcher in Edinburgh or Carlisle.
*
Amy had just returned to the hotel room when Reggie burst in and picking her up swung her about, laughing loudly.
‘We’ve done it,’ he shouted. ‘We’re part of Yokohama.’ At the club he had been unanimously accepted. His eyes flashed, reflecting happiness. He smelled of drink, the anxiety of the afternoon and the gratuitousness of success. He pulled her to him, his mouth wet, words and excitement bubbling from him. He poured a brandy and made her toast their new life in Yokohama.
‘It was right to come. Don’t you feel so, Amy? You’ve seen the Bluff, you’ve seen the life. It’s splendid, we could not have chosen better.’ His cheeks and neck were flushed. ‘It’s a good post at the club, a job of prestige, a way of knowing those who count. This is not an easy town. People quickly shut you out.’ He rubbed his hands about his glass. ‘I mean to make my way here, Kitten. One day, I’ll go into silk or tea. It’s a great place, Yokohama.’ She was glad to see him released, like her, from the imprisonment of isolation, anxiety and depression. She told him of the afternoon with Mabel Rice, the flattery of her interest.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Reggie replied. ‘She’s just the type to recognize a bit of class. She’s from new money, as it sounds. You’ll do us both proud in Yokohama.’ He turned away to pace the room in exuberance and tell her about the election. His tone grew loud and boisterous and he swung his arms about.
‘Ssh. People will hear you,’ she implored with sudden irritation. In the middle of her happiness Reggie’s excited words illuminated their life in a way she had not foreseen.
In the isolation of Sungei Ujong, remote from people and conventions, they had been reduced to no more than themselves, a balance of strengths and traits. There had been no need to view themselves beyond that insular functioning. But suddenly now, for the first time, she heard him speak with vulgarity. A bit of class. How she hated to hear him talk like that. The use of those words in reference to her, and the manner in which Reggie phrased them, made her feel exploited, made him in some way diminished. She bit her lip, filled with discomfiting emotions.
Reggie was busy before the mirror, brushing his sideburns, smoothing his hair. ‘I must go back again to the club, they’re waiting for me. I’ll be late. Will you mind a quiet dinner by yourself?’ His voice was coaxing. She knew he already planned his success in a universe far from her.
‘Of course not,’ she told him, glad suddenly to be alone. He smiled at her in the mirror without turning his head. This evening was only a foretaste, she thought, of a pattern that would dominate their lives. Reggie was now bound to the welfare of others, to their convenience and command. He changed, and she brushed his coat and then watched from the window as he strode from the hotel and turned in at the club next door. He stopped to wave, then disappeared. She continued to sit, her chin on her hands at the windowsill. Below, the street wa
s silent and the sea beyond dark against the lights of fishing boats and liners. The waves slapped against the wall of the Bund, a comforting sound, unalterable and consistent.
She had no idea what time it was when Reggie at last returned. She awoke to his weight flopping down, fully dressed, beside her. Beyond the window the light was grey, and there were sounds outside as if the day already stirred. Reggie caressed her with desire. She pulled back as she always did now, frightened for the child.
‘It does no harm, they say it does no harm,’ Reggie whispered. His chin was rough with stubble, his voice blurred by drink. At her resistance he pushed her away.
‘As you wish, then. There is no need; I can have my fill in Yokohama.’ His voice slurred into sleep, and soon she heard him snore. She felt relief, but instead of finding sleep again she lay awake until light crept across the floor.
*
Mrs Easely had not lied about the dearth of vacant houses on the Bluff. They found several in the Settlement, unsuitable to their status. On the Bluff there was only one to be considered. An agent took them to it on a day miserable with rain.
The house was not as Amy had imagined any home on the Bluff to be. It was a green-painted, two storeyed clapboard affair in an unprepossessing hollow. It was narrow and awkward; the garden was tiny with a ragged pine and loquat trees and a few azalea bushes. The kitchen and the servants’ quarters were separate from the house. There was a stable for two horses. The rooms were not large, and had a sadness about them that no efforts would correct. There was no dressing room for Reggie. But the glassed-in verandah that adjoined the main bedroom could be used as such, suggested the agent who showed them the place.
‘Always a trouble to find accommodation up here. Wait on in the hotel, I would suggest. The spring always sees a good turnover, much more on the market then. They’re all settled in for the winter now.’
She could wait no longer, Amy decided. Already she was awkward and heavy; bending and stretching were an effort. There was no choice. It did not help, she thought, that they saw the house in rain. The large bay window, set at the top with a frieze of stained glass, could be a small conservatory and the balcony of the drawing room was both southerly and broad. It would have to do.
She would have liked a house like Mabel’s; charming, white and ivory-covered with turrets and gables, lawns and shady trees. Mabel’s conservatory was set with plants thicker than a jungle. And within the house her taste, perfect in itself, was unrestricted by the meagre thoughts of meagre people, bogged down within finance. Mabel’s visions took wing upon Patrick Rice’s easy fortune. There were rooms of precious chinoiserie, there were carpets from China and Persia, a study with books and leather chairs where Patrick Rice relaxed, surrounded by paintings and photographs. Mabel’s boudoir was a pink satin world of extravagant femininity. It was impossible to think Mabel Rice could live with less.
Amy looked at the peeling green paint of the house before her. Even if the home of her dreams were available, they did not have the money to acquire it or to pay the rent. In a way, Amy thought carefully, it was all for the best. Considering the need to move somewhere quickly, so obvious to all, and the lack of any house but this, no one – not even Mabel – need know they had not the money to hope at this moment for better.
But the house was little different in or out of rain. The only bonus was to discover on a sunny day, from the bedroom window, the summit of Mount Fuji. Mabel Rice was silent as she walked about the empty rooms.
‘There was nothing else available,’ explained Amy. ‘You know I can’t wait, not in my condition. I can’t have a baby in a hotel. It will have to do to settle us in. I’ve no choice but to be practical.’ Amy did not lie.
Mabel Rice sighed and threw up her hands, she wore a hat made entirely of bows. ‘What can you do with a monstrosity like this? I would never have considered it.’ She sounded annoyed. Her ingenuity would be taxed to make even a little of a place like this. It went without saying that she would supervise the house.
‘We’ll have to go down to Bentendori and to Arthur Bond’s and Lane Crawford tomorrow. You’ll have to place furniture orders quickly, or even buy secondhand. There’s always a lot of that around in a community with so many comings and goings,’ Mabel snapped. She had hoped Amy would establish herself upon the Bluff with more aplomb than this green and lugubrious house. Still, no one could deny the dearth of houses and the need of the poor woman to move somewhere quickly. Nothing need reflect upon Mabel.
Slowly, in the weeks ahead, the house began to take some shape. Whatever shape it could, as Mabel caustically remarked. Windows were draped and walls recovered, paint smelled throughout the place. The house consumed both women like a benighted cause, cementing them in intimacy. Amy felt already established in Yokohama through the aura of Mabel Rice.
At last the house was ready. The Redmores moved in and took up their position upon the Bluff in a neat, green residence in a dull cul-de-sac that left much to be desired. But the best had been made of a bad situation, they moved in on a wave of pride and prepared for the pleasures that were now their right as residents of the Bluff.
5
Yokohama, 7 January 1897
The Japan Weekly Mail summary of news:
His Imperial Majesty the Emperor is slightly indisposed through a cold.
The plague is increasing in Bombay. Further rains have fallen in many parts of India and the winter prospects are improving.
HM the Czar has authorized collections throughout the Empire for the benefit of Armenian immigrants.
On the 1st inst. the Tokyo Tramway carried 95,295 persons from whom yen 2,123 was received as fares.
On Tuesday the Princes of the Blood were given a New Year’s entertainment at the Palace. Owing to indisposition His Majesty was absent.
THIRD DAY OF TRIAL
Once more the court room was packed; many had come from Tokyo. It was the thing to attend. Gentlemen who could not be present sent their wives instead. Seats were cordoned off for ambassadors and dignitaries. The secret darkness of reality was irresistible. Everyone knew the Redmores; it was close enough to be indecent. It made you feel sick, said Winnie Ewart in the Ladies’ Reading Room. She had stamped out a book for Mrs Redmore a week before the murder. But they did not yet know if it was murder, reminded Miss Brittain, the missionary. God’s ways are wondrous, sighed the Reverend Percival; the woman was a faithless flirt and it was terrible to hear the details, like the madness of the heathen. He hardly knew how to sit in court. She had eaten roast beef at the Redmores’ and there had been also an ice cream bombe, Mrs Figdor remembered. The food seemed to lie in her stomach still. A grand chap, Reggie Redmore, they agreed at the club, but if you forgot to respect her as the man’s wife it was easy to see what Mrs Redmore was. Gossip stopped bridge parties and legation balls, men took extra time at the club to discuss it, women affected a shudder as they fingered a glove, waiting for more news. Exasperated hostesses declared the topic taboo, a special card game was introduced at tea parties to divert the conversation. The train from Tokyo was packed as the trial began. In faraway London, The Times and the News of the World were reporting the case in full. During the long weeks of arrest in her room at the Consulate jail, such excitement meant little to Amy. Movement stilled as she entered the court and took her chair again.
The prosecution had been through and through endless medical evidence. They determined what Amy already knew, the presence of arsenic in Reggie. The grisly details of dissected viscera continued until her stomach turned at the mention of livers weighed, bladders spliced, intestines cleaned and measured. And worse – these parts belonged to poor Reggie for whom, in spite of all, she wished no such gruesome revenge. In the end they established, to her surprise, the presence of lead and some specks upon the stomach wall of solid white arsenic. This was something apart from the Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic Reggie had taken for years and that, before his death, Amy had openly bought for him. She had seen then nothing to hide.
The traces of Fowler’s Solution found in Reggie were determined insufficient to account alone for death. Jack Easely fought hard to establish that Amy had never bought the white arsenic so mysteriously found in Reggie’s guts.
Dr Dixon had performed the post-mortem. He was a narrow-shouldered man with a face of mournful, kindly folds. He had no patience for the way Robert Russell set effusively about work that might end in a hanging. He braced himself for the sarcasm favoured by the Crown.
Then the question of arsenic tolerance comes in. Do you know of cases?’ Robert Russell’s eyes were steely.
‘Facts are plentiful,’ Dr Dixon replied, looking across at the woman in the dock in whose face he could define no evil, ‘to show that in some persons arsenic can be increased slowly until ordinarily poisonous doses can then be taken with impunity. I almost know of a case of tolerance to Fowler’s Solution of Arsenic, because I know the person and I know of his marvellous tolerance to other narcotics and am told on the best authority that it extends to Fowler’s Solution.’ Dr Dixon rambled on. The prosecution did not interrupt.
‘Have you heard of a well-authenticated case of tolerance to Fowler’s Solution?’ Robert Russell leaned forward with an inquiring smile.
‘No, I have not,’ Dr Dixon was forced to admit.
‘You don’t know of cases of addiction to Fowler’s Solution?’ Mr Russell echoed, his smile gone.
‘No.’
‘Are they common?’ snapped Mr Russell.
‘I do not know of cases,’ Dr Dixon repeated.
‘Except the case you have stated?’ Robert Russell drew back scornfully.
‘That’s the only case I know, but since this trial began I have heard of men making the wildest statements as to the quantity of arsenic they have taken….’
‘You are not asked for hearsay,’ Judge Bowman interceded. Mr Russell nodded in agreement. Dr Dixon exuded quiet misery. No mention had been made by the prosecution of his evidence at the inquest. This was left to Jack Easely to resurrect in his cross-examination. But first came the need to chastise Dr Dixon’s dislike of his putrid work.