The Painted Cage Read online

  THE PAINTED CAGE

  MEIRA CHAND

  Contents

  Title Page

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Note

  1: Yokohama, 5 January 1897

  2: Somerset and Sungei Ujong, 1888–90

  3: Yokohama, 5 January 1897

  4: Yokohama, 1891

  5: Yokohama, 7 January 1897

  6: Yokohama, 1892–93

  7: Yokohama, 9 January 1897

  8: Yokohama, 1894–95

  9: Yokohama, 13 January 1897

  10: Yokohama, 1896

  11: Yokohama, 20 January 1897

  12: Yokohama, 1896

  13: Yokohama, 26 January 1897

  14: Yokohama, 1896

  15: Yokohama, 29 January 1897

  16: Yokohama, 3 February 1897

  Note

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I should like to express my thanks for the help given to me in researching this book by the staff of the Yokohama Archives, Yokohama, Japan, and Miss White and the staff of the Noters Section at the Home Office, London.

  M.C.

  The story of Amy Redmore is a purely imaginative interpretation of the life and trial of Edith Carew, a British resident of Yokohama from 1891 to 1897. As such, this novel makes no claims to solving the enduring controversy about the verdict of the trial, or to present Edith Carew in any biographical way. Facts and personalities were no more than a springboard for the leap into fiction.

  1

  Yokohama, 5 January 1897

  The clerk of the court, Mr Moss, stood up.

  ‘The indictment is as follows: “Robert Charles Russell, the Crown Prosecutor in Japan for our Lady Queen, presents and charges that Amy Jane Redmore on the twenty-second day of October in the year of our Lord 1896 feloniously wilfully and of her malice aforesight did kill and murder Reginald Percy Redmore against the peace of our Lady, the Queen, her crown and dignity.”’

  ‘I am not guilty,’ the prisoner said in a clear voice.

  Then she sat down.

  *

  They had come at nine-thirty that morning for her, two warders with a rikisha. The day was bright and cold. A wind from the sea cut across the Bluff, there was no warmth in the sun. They set off in procession slowly, one warder in front, the other behind. It was easier to run than walk with a rikisha. Amy watched the stress upon the runner’s shoulders beneath his short cotton coat. He shivered in the wind, his feet bare in rough straw sandals. He was a thin fellow with a consumptive cough, yet he might live longer than she. The brutal simplicity of his life now seemed a thing to envy. Amy smoothed down a pleat of her skirt, her clothes were those of mourning. The oilskin hood of the rikisha was up, she could not see much of the road. People stopped and stared. She had no wish to see their faces. The Native Town was quiet, the deadness of the New Year holidays still thick upon the trade, but in the Foreign Settlement all was life; a ship with the mail was soon to dock and called loudly from the bay. Amy Redmore was pulled slowly down to the post office end of Main Street.

  She concentrated on her face, so that it might be as a Japanese face, a smooth wall before emotion. This was how she must be throughout the next weeks, devoid of expression. Cruel eyes would search her now, they would knead her for cracks from which to squeeze out the soft, naked grubs of truth. Their truth. She drew back in the darkness of the hood then, under the rickety oilskin ribs that reminded her of bat’s wings.

  Outside the British Consulate a crowd stood about in serious conversation. Such a lack of hilarity was unusual for Yokohama; gravity was the aftermath of earthquakes or typhoons. On this Tuesday morning at five minutes to ten talk stopped as Amy Redmore vacated her rikisha. Her face was calm, she took no notice of these first eyes that sought already to sum her up, in voyeurism or condemnation. She looked down at her hands and composed her face to show only determination. Inside the Consulate the court room was small and filled to overflowing. All standing room was taken, the entrance hall was blocked. The room had normally little light or air and the thick brown curtains, dusty as moles, made the place oppressive. Smells of old paper and righteousness seeped beneath the odour of bodies. Wood gleamed with the polish of years, cool as sentences witnessed. There was hardly a face Amy did not know, but now they were all strangers. This must be a play, she thought, or a dream to wake from; there was that sense of waiting for a curtain to rise, on fantasy or reality.

  Jack Easely, her defence lawyer, came and spoke encouragement. Robert Russell hurried in and out in wig and gown, full of the importance of the prosecution and a piety lent by the Crown. Soon Judge Bowman, in red robes lined with ermine, strode in with Mr Moss. The mouths and eyes before Amy stilled. What they had been waiting for now begun. She felt she might already be dead, that this was some eternal post-mortem in hell that would never end. She watched as Mr Moss stood up and prepared to read the indictment.

  Afterwards there was a rustle of silk, a cough, a whisper as people settled. The sun caught a monocle, a gold watch chain and the bald head of old Mr Porter. The women were turned out in a subdued kind of splendour, mostly in mauves and greys, clinging to those twilight shades. Amy Redmore had never seen them so determined to prove sobriety, even Lettice Dunn in navy blue with a demure lace collar. The morals of Yokohama would now be on view as far away as London. She was like the leak in a foolproof pot through which the sour stench of the brew was smelled. Their upturned faces recoiled from her. They were out, one and all, to save their own skins and the Great British Reputation. And those who were her keepers, strutting about in the robes and wigs of archaic fantasy, they had long wished to clean up the morals of Yokohama’s younger set. They would make an example of her to stretch across the world. In spite of a plethora of missionaries, God felt far from Yokohama. Robert Russell’s voice now filled the court like a slit of cold light in a corridor.

  ‘The prisoner married the deceased in 1888. The deceased was then in government service in the Straits Settlements. In 1890 he resigned his appointment on account of ill health and came to Yokohama where he was appointed secretary of the Yokohama United Club, a post he held until the time of his death. Since their arrival here two children have been born to them, a boy and a girl. In March last year Jessica Mary Flack came out from England as nursery governess to take charge of the children. Of these people the household consisted. The servants were: Rachel Greer, a Eurasian girl who was Mrs Redmore’s lady’s maid. Hanayue Asa, a Japanese girl and housemaid. Ah Kwong, a young Chinese boy. Yazana, the cook; a coolie of no name; a betto or groom, Kuroyanagi Junyu; and a small boy, also of no name, who assisted in the stable.

  ‘From the time of their arrival in Yokohama, Dr Charles was their family doctor and regular medical attendant until the time of Mr Redmore’s death on 22 October last. Dr Charles looked upon him as a healthy man, perhaps given to too much good living and sometimes also given to drinking more than was good for him – but on occasions only.’

  But on occasions only. Oh, the lies, the lies. Already they had begun.

  2

  Somerset and Sungei Ujong, 1888–90

  Amy’s father, and Reggie later, called her by a pet name. Both chose the image of a small, inquiring animal. Kitten was Reggie’s name for her, and Little Squirrel her father had called her as a child. Not a squirrel, said her mother sharply, hiding her fear in a hint of scorn. Not a squirrel but an actress. Or a chameleon who took on the colour about, changing with each shaft of light, each reflection and each day. She observed Amy with brooding anxiety in her level eyes. She saw something in her that should not have been there, something to be disapproved of, something to be curbed. Amy had a compressed and sensual energy; her face did not hide, it refle
cted, throwing up the perplexities of emotion into violet eyes. There was nothing of fashionable beauty sculptured in her face, her features were pert, determined as her wilful hair, resentful of imprisonment. Her beauty was vitality and an awareness of her own unspoken essence; she was a woman whom men observed. Her lips followed her face in its full snubbed curve. She was restless, she was bright.

  The Sidleys were known in Somerset, born and dying in untroubled succession in the same great rambling house upon their large estate; Cranage, it was called. Mr Sidley was a puritan given to the gravity of local politics, a famous eccentric in the area who refused to take a gun to game, so pacifist were his principles. Mrs Sidley solicited prudence and good causes. She was a stern-faced woman who played the piano and would have rendered occasionally the gaiety of a waltz, if not for her husband’s frown. There was rigidity in the house. It waited about the tall, silent outline of Mrs Sidley and Mr Sidley’s smoking chair. Silence and industry was their motto; Amy felt herself no child of theirs.

  Sarah Jenkins’s house was her spiritual home. The Jenkins’s estate bordered the Sidleys’, Sarah’s parents were young and their home alive with parties. There were always clothes and more clothes to try on or rejoice over, charades and chocolate from London. Or when they were younger, lumps of peppermint toffee, supplied surreptitiously by Sarah’s brother, Frank. This toffee was often archaically dusty from long confinement in a pocket, but was picked clean and devoured in a dark attic beneath old rafters. There, the three of them and Amy’s younger brother, Rob, played amongst old furniture and silk-lined trunks, cracked mirrors and broken vases. Far below nanny and governess rushed, searching for their charges. They were not heard. Beyond humdrum existence in make-believe, Amy glittered within a transparent world.

  But besides the realm of fantasy beneath those musty rafters, there were also Frank Jenkins’s eyes. They followed her in a way it was difficult to ignore. He was rough and bold and kicked his sister on the shins, but between himself and Amy there existed a silence. Across it she observed the passing years, noting his awkward spurts of growth, the odour of manhood seeping suddenly from him, the hairs that thickened on his wrist and shadowed his upper lip. There was a strange, unfocused light in his eyes now sometimes when he stared at her. It embarrassed as it excited her, it made her look away. Frank Jenkins lounged and laughed, looking at her quizzically, leaning against an apple tree in the orchard of his home.

  It was the summer before he left for university. Frank exuded a pent-up fire, his eyes upon her, burning her. Away from him she felt them still, pushing through to a secret core in herself where no one else had been. As if in some way she was naked before him. At this thought she could not heed the vigilance of her mother. ‘If a girl’s mind is not pure and cannot shrink from evil, may God help her!’ Mrs Sidley regularly admonished. ‘For then the wisest safeguards parents and friends may provide will never be sufficient to secure her from danger.’ For Mrs Sidley, safety was chastity. Her words were backed by the task of guarding an innocence Amy seemed born without. Her thoughts slid easily back to Frank and that strange light in his eyes. She wondered what it would be like to be forced to be naked before him by some accident of fate.

  There was a lake where they boated each summer. They took a picnic that day, Amy and Frank, Sarah and Rob and cousins of the Jenkinses. They pushed the boats out on to the still lake. Amy shared one with Frank, who rowed off before anyone could join them.

  ‘You must take Rob or George,’ Sarah shouted. Frank scowled as her crowded boat drew level and prepared to discharge cousin George, who planted a fat foot in each boat. There was a clash of oars, the sky swayed as they were all tipped into the lake. Amy screamed and thrashed, weeds wrapped about her, the weight of her skirts pulled her down. Suddenly Frank was behind her, grasping her to him, his cheek against hers as he swam. They were not far from the shore, soon he dragged her to her feet. Her thin muslin dress clung wetly, her breasts pushed blatantly through, nipples exposed. She watched his eyes upon them, forced to let him look for as long as he desired. She did not turn away. Beneath her embarrassment something terrible and bold held her rooted to the spot. Frank leaned forward to pick a weed from her neck, and his fingers brushed her. Then he shook his hair like a wet dog and water showered her again.

  A few days later Frank was gone. She could not say she missed him, but she felt deprived, as if something vital to herself had been snatched away. She was left with a restlessness that nothing stilled.

  It was at a hunt ball the following year that Amy first met Reggie Redmore. She had been twenty the week before; Reggie was thirty-five. He stood across a crowded ballroom, his legs planted wide in self-assurance, his face warmed by drink and the blood that flowed freely in his veins. He had a broad, prosperous, well-oiled look whose scent was cigars, pomade and leather. His features were generous in a loose, florid way. He knew how to draw an audience, his voice was expansive; he had the gift of the gab. But people of intellect rejected him, however polite their demeanour. A crudeness of manner repelled the very men he wished to cultivate and soon he turned scornfully against them. To compensate, he exaggerated his geniality, roughness and bonhomie. He was a man who would later turn to fat, to the appearance of a well-stuffed ram, but when Amy first saw him his thick neck and fair hair appeared romantically Grecian; to her he was a handsome man. Occasionally, as he talked, his eyes became still within his jovial face with the cunning of an animal. It was beyond Amy to judge with insight then. She had love waiting ripely within her, and no one on whom to place it.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Amy, observing Reggie from behind a feathered fan, its soft plumes brushing her face. The dancers whirled past her, the violin soared.

  ‘Only a friend of a distant cousin,’ Sarah replied, adjusting a ruby brooch. ‘A very distant cousin and one who’s always in need of charity. At first we suspected Mr Redmore might also have a similar need. But thank goodness, he came only to deliver a letter from a friend of Papa’s in the colonies. He stayed on for the hunting and cut quite a figure, as you would have seen if you’d joined us and not been indisposed. It’s a pity he’s so old.’

  ‘Old?’ Amy echoed. ‘I suppose he is, but he looks different from everyone else.’ The room and its male occupants faded about him; he demanded all her attention.

  ‘Just old.’ Sarah pulled a face. ‘He’s in the Foreign Service. He was invalided home a year ago and is soon to return abroad. No woman would want to live where he does. It’s no wonder he’s still a bachelor.’

  ‘Then introduce me,’ Amy whispered, giggling at Sarah’s horror.

  But speech dried in her mouth when Reggie asked for a dance. She moved without speaking in his arms and he made little effort to break a silence more replete than mundane words.

  ‘Are you from these parts, Mr Redmore?’ It was all she could say, so low she was forced to repeat it. He inclined his head to hear better, and his eyes met and held her own. She noticed the whiteness of his teeth behind a clipped moustache. His nose was crooked as if it might once have been broken, there was already grey in his thick fair hair.

  ‘I’m near enough from here,’ Reggie smiled. ‘I’m from Cornwall. But I’ve lived mostly abroad, I joined the Navy as a lad. I could tell you more about Sarawak than Cornwall now, sad as that may be. Will you save another dance for me?’ he asked as the music ended.

  He returned to talk with a group of men. Amy heard the names of strange places slip easily from his lips. He had seen the pyramids of Egypt, Ming tombs in China and slaves on American sugar plantations. He had worked for the white Rajah of Sarawak. He enjoyed the attention, he liked to impress, but his experiences flowed from him without pretence; they were true, there was no doubt. He took Amy further from the dull red soil of Somerset than her escape through endless novels. Men grouped about him and pressed him for facts of trade in silk or tea, for tales of daring and disaster on exotic-sounding seas. In the middle of their solid country life, he was as flamboyant as the lacquer
-red Chinese brocade he had brought Sarah and her mother.

  Reggie stood before a marble mantelpiece beneath a tall gilt mirror which looked down on the dancers and reflected to Amy the back of his head. His eyes sorted through the young women there, appraising each ripe, firm piece of flesh, but always returned to Amy. They rested on her motionless, pale as sky or glass. Expression was everywhere in Reggie’s face, but never in his eyes. They filled her with strange feelings. It was as if something dark and naked in her opened and unfolded. She did know then that this was not love. What uncoiled within her was a taste that could never be lost. She returned Reggie’s gaze, she danced with him again. Beneath the beating of her heart, deliberate as her stare, that sinuous opening within her grew ever wider, ever deeper, ever darker. What lay exposed between them then was like contamination. The dissipation she sensed in Reggie was like the sweet, rotting scent of some carnivorous flower that draws in and consumes its prey. He recognized her at a glance within that crowded room. He showed her to herself.

  She woke at night or never slept. Outside, the wind-swept trees seemed as feverish as herself. From the beginning, without words something seemed established between them. Sarah was not approving, Reggie’s age to her mind could not be overcome.

  ‘You’re mad, quite mad,’ she admonished. ‘How can you be in love with him?’ She shook her head to lose the thought.

  ‘Well I am, that’s all, ‘Amy answered, but could find no other words to explain her strange obsession. She sat before a looking-glass and smoothed back thick coils of hair. The sun in a shaft enclosed her as if mesmerized by her will. Sarah looked at her in awe, her commonsense almost shameful before the daring Amy showed. She entered with reluctance into the conspiracy Amy demanded so as to stay within a close orbit of Reggie. She engineered occasions, verified excuses and sometimes told outright lies. The Sidleys were innocent of their daughter’s purpose or the sly light in Reggie’s eye.