Tired of livin' like a blind man.
She fingered the spoon absentmindedly, looking out at the landscape that she could see through her window, the curtains drawn back halfway. The moors were covered with fog, perhaps an after-effect of the unrelenting rain of a few days ago. All she could make out was the distant wall that marked the border of the Shinomori property, and the bit of driveway and greenery that was located just beneath her second-storey window.
"Are you done with your breakfast, Miss Makimachi?" asked Okon, peeking in at the doorway. The resemblance between her sister and her was almost uncanny, Misao felt.
"Not yet, Okon-san," she said. That much Japanese she could not keep out of her sentences, she had realised; 'mister' and 'miss' never quite conveyed the sort of respect she was trying to portray. "I'll bring the bowl down to the kitchen when I'm done."
Okon looked doubtful for a minute, then nodded her thanks and closed the door after her as she left. Misao went back to stirring her porridge around discontentedly, wanting more substantial food than this lumpy substance. Perhaps not even substantial – she would love green tea at this point, even. It was strange that in a household with a Japanese master and servants, the food and the style of living could be as Western as any other English house.
Had she been bored in the past three days? When she thought about it she could say, strictly speaking, no. She had had her thoughts to keep her company, but it had surprised her that she could sit for hours on end curled up on her windowsill, staring out at the gently waving grass of the moor that stretched around them as far as the eye could see. That was not like her – she was the type of person who could never sit still for more than five minutes, who couldn't keep quiet for more than five minutes, and here she was, not even wanting to go out and run around in the gardens outside, something that was a very tempting prospect back home. Perhaps her parents' death had affected her after all.
She thought back to the one time she had seen her guardian ever since her arrival, and blushed furiously at the very thought. She had been restless that first day, wanting to know more about where she was and what the place was like. So she had snuck out, regardless of the consequences, and not even bothering to ask Omasu or Okon whether she was allowed to or not. She was not used to authority, anyway – Jiya, the old man who had always taken care of her, her 'grandfather,' had never exerted his right to order her around, and her parents … well, frankly speaking, she had been quite surprised that they even remembered to entrust her to a guardian in their lifetimes. She had barely known them, and most of the time she wondered whether they even knew that she was alive.
But Shinomori-san had surprised her. She knew that her original guardian had been his father, not him, but she hadn't really expected him to look only a little older than twenty-five. Well, technically, he was just a little older than twenty-five, but … she had expected to see an older man, someone with greying hair and a benevolent smile, even though her mind told her that none of her parents' friends' children could be more than ten years older than her. And apart from her initial shock, there was something about him that made her writhe uncomfortably under his cool, blue-grey gaze. Had his mother been a gaijin? It was his eyes that had made her think that – the colour of his eyes, and the fact that he had an entire mansion here in England, that could quite possibly have been passed to him through his mother – it was unlikely that his father had bought it, all the way here in England, however rich he was.
Despite that, she couldn't deny that she had liked him, in that short, awkward meeting they had had in the doorway of his room. There was no doubt that she had embarrassed herself irrevocably in front of him, but she had found herself wanting to grin like an idiot at his dry comment about it being the afternoon instead of morning. Perhaps it was his wry sense of humour that appealed to her, so unlike her own slapstick humour. Perhaps it was the way his hair fell over his eyes, so that you could only catch glimpses of the gleaming grey-blue depths. Perhaps it was the way he spoke, with that strange inflectionless tone that she couldn't quite copy. Whatever it was, she did like him, and she was willing to bet anyone that he would make a decent guardian, whatever people might think.
It was on that note that she went downstairs, holding the now empty bowl of porridge above her head as she jumped down the stairs, taking them two at a time like she was wont to do. She found herself outside the kitchen, face to face with Omasu, who took the tray from her hands and ushered her back upstairs, telling her that she would be sending a girl from the village up to clean in a little while – she hadn't come for the past couple of days due to the rain.
Misao nodded, bounding up the stairs once more. Her room, though still as untouchably lavish as it had been the first time she had seen it, at least for her, had taken on the look of occupancy, making her feel a lot more comfortable as she stepped into it than it had two days ago. Had it really only been two days? She felt as if she'd lived here for years, the pattern seemed so familiar. Smoothing out her one and only skirt, she seated herself on the soft feather-bed, squirming in annoyance as she sank into the middle of it. She had yet to sleep on it – she always slept next to it on the floor, unable to make herself feel at ease behind the velvet hangings and silken sheets. She was practicing learning to sit on it, but it took work.
She was busy trying to balance herself cross-legged in such a way that she stayed on level with the rest of the bed and did not land herself in a hollow in the middle when there was a knock on the door, and she tumbled off the bed completely, landing in a tangle on the floor.
"Come in!" she called exasperatedly, expecting it to be Omasu or Okon with some sort of message, but instead found herself faced by a timid looking young girl, perhaps five or six years younger than her, peeping around the edge of the door.
"May I – May I come in, Miss?" she asked, her fingers tightening where they clutched the wood of the door, her knuckles whitening in the process.
Why on earth is she so nervous? She motioned with her hand, inviting her to enter. She did, clutching a broom to her chest as if it were her most precious possession in the entire world. Her clothes were neatly stitched in many places, but the careful darning could not erase the fact that they had been handed down, turned up and lengthened in turn countless times. The girl wore a short white apron over her brown dress, which came till her knees.
"Th-Thank you," she stammered, closing the door carefully behind her. The almost inaudible snap it made almost made the girl wince. "I – I've come to clean."
"Of course," she said with a smile, hoping to put the girl at ease. "Where will you start? Would you like me to help?"
The girl looked dumbstruck at her suggestion. She held on to the broom handle for dear life, as if it was the only thing that kept her hold on sanity. Misao could see her fingers whitening again, the blood draining from her face as well as her knuckles. "N-N-No!" she gasped finally. "I can do it myself, Miss, th-th-thank you!"
There was something about the girl, an air of depleted self-worth, which prompted her to take her at her word. "Okay," she said, smiling. "I'm sure you can manage it on your own."
The girl smiled tremulously, as if not quite sure whether to believe her. But Misao could sense a vague sense of pride pervade the air around her, as if she was glad someone had that much faith in her, and Misao felt inexplicably pleased with herself.
"So," she said, disentangling herself and scrambling onto the bed again, looking at the gaijin girl as she bent at the grate in the wall opposite her, "what's your name?"
The girl started, then stammered, "Ts-Ts-Tsubame." Her face went red as she spoke, her movements jerky and uncertain as she wiped the edges of the fireplace with a damp cloth.
Misao frowned, slightly puzzled. The girl was obviously English; there was no slant to her eyes, no accent to her voice, but the name was obviously Japanese. "Aren't you European, though?" she asked perplexedly, almost overbalancing once again.
"English, yes," said the girl, her hands now blackened by the coal in the grate. "But – you see, my – my cousins' father used to be a gardener here when – when Mr. Shinomori's parents used to be alive, and he used to think … he used to think that Japanese names were p-p-pretty."
"Your cousins' father?" she asked. "How come he named you, then?"
"Well, my parents passed away when I was only a few months old, so since then I've lived with my cousins," she said, a faint blush still on her face but a little more confidence in her voice than there had been previously.
"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, uncrossing her legs with some difficulty, and to her delight not falling backwards on the bed.
The girl made a small sound of agreement, her short hair now blackened thoroughly as she pushed it back from her face. She was just beginning to transfer the coals from the grate to the pail she had brought with her that there was a knock on the door again, and, this time without invitation, a girl walked in, carrying a wooden bucket in one hand and a mop in the other.
"Here, I'll take care of it now, Tsubame," said the girl briskly, albeit a little tenderly. "You go see if Miss Omasu will get you something to eat in the kitchen."
"Th-Thank you, Kaoru," stammered the girl, grabbing her pail and broom and backing out of the room with a respectful glance at Misao.
The new girl, who looked to be a year or so older than her, set her things down beside the grate and bent down in front of it herself, securing her hair back with a dull blue handkerchief. She looked completely gaijin, too, but again, her name was Japanese. Misao assumed she must be one of the cousins Tsubame had talked about.
"Hello," she said, in her best friendly voice. "I'm Misao. Your name's Kaoru, right?"
The girl, like Tsubame, looked a little surprised to be spoken to, but did not seem to be uncomfortable at all. "Yes," she said, her movements practiced and measured as she cleaned out the grate with experienced ease. "I come up to the manor every day except on Sundays to clean and such. Missed the last few days because of the rain."
She nodded. "Yes, Omasu-san told me. Do you live down in the village near the station?"
The girl nodded too, the coals clinking as she dumped them into her pail. "Yes, I do. With my cousins and brother and sisters. There's a total of eight of us living in that house, and I have to support all of them." She sighed, her vicious sweeping at odds with her resigned look.
"Eight of you?" she said, surprised. It was a new notion to her; always a bright, happy child, she and Jiya had been more than enough company for each other, both being of much the same disposition, the older man's only tempered by time and wisdom. She had never longed for the company of other children her own age, and had never really had it. 'Family' was a strange concept, when she thought about it.
"Yes," said the girl, a slight smile on her face. "My cousin, Tsubame, who you just met. My ten-year-old brother, Yahiko, and my two younger sisters, who are seven and five. And then there's my older sister, who's training to be a nurse but doesn't earn. And, of course, my two freeloaders … " She shook her head in feigned disgust, but Misao could sense her pride as she talked about her family, especially the freeloaders.
"That means … you earn for all of them?" she asked, a little surprised, then chiding herself for being so, for it was obvious by the state of the girl's clothes and her half-starved look that she had to scrape together a living with great difficulty.
"Yes," said the girl, punctuating her statement by a savage swipe at the grate. "It's not so bad, really – Mr. Shinomori pays well, and I've seen people in the village work in places that aren't half as good as this – nor half as safe. I don't mind."
Misao looked at her back, the rough grey cloth of her dress stretching taut across her thin frame. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she said, "How long have you worked here?"
"Almost two years now," she answered, getting up from the clean grate, the front of her smock smeared with black soot. "Like I said, Miss, I don't mind at all."
"Misao," she said, waving off the English address. "So … do you know Mr. Shinomori, then, Kaoru-san?"
Kaoru blinked at the '-san' she had added to her name, not quite sure what it meant. Even after two years spent working at the manor, no one had ever spoken Japanese to her face. "Well, Miss Misao," she said, deciding that the 'miss' would probably match the '-san', "I've only cleaned for him once or twice, 'cause he's not usually in the room when I'm sent in to sweep."
"So you don't know anything about him?" she asked disappointedly, teetering as she struggled to stand on the bed on one foot.
"Well … " said Kaoru, obviously wanting to talk but looking unsure of how to say whatever she wanted to. "He's out of the country most of the time, that much I know. I've heard it said that its business, but personally I think he just likes getting away from this house, know what I mean? I'm sure quite a bit of it is business, but still … Apart from that, I don't know much about him. The townspeople talk a lot, but I don't give crap about that." She covered her mouth quickly, as if ashamed that she had let some of her more uncouth language slip, and went on with a slight blush on her face, "As far as I've seen, I think he's a decent person. A sad person, if you get my meaning. Most people get all put off by his iciness, but if you ask me, I'd just feel plain sorry for him after all he's been through."
"What's he been through?" she asked immediately, her curiosity piqued.
The girl suddenly looked evasive. "Oh … things … It isn't my place to tell you all that stuff, you know, Miss Misao … it is just village gossip, after all. I mean … yes, its just village gossip, seriously. You should ask him yourself, you being his ward and all."
She almost laughed at that idea. "Ask him what? Shinomori-san, what do village people say about you? I've only met him once, after all, Kaoru-san!"
The girl laughed, albeit a little nervously. "Well, it's been nice meeting you, Miss Misao … I daresay Tsubame will be back to dust the rest of the room in a while, just as soon as she gets something to eat … and I have the rest of my chores to do, so … good-bye, Miss Misao." She darted out of the room before Misao could say anything, leaving her to stare up at the ceiling and wonder exactly what townspeople could have to say about her guardian. He didn't seem the sort of social, outgoing person who usually became the victim of scandalous gossip. But then, that was in Japan … who knows, maybe it was different here in England.
With those thoughts pushed out of her head, Misao devoted her full attention to attempting to stand on the four-poster bed with one foot in the air – an extremely difficult endeavour, considering she couldn't even sit straight on it without tumbling off. When Omasu finally came upstairs to see what was causing the repeated thuds, all she found was a very bruised Misao glaring at a badly battered feather-bed with murder in her eyes.