Autumn Bridge by Takashi Matsuoka Read Free Book Online Page B

ashamed of you,” she said, looking disapprovingly first at one and then at the other. “You are Christian gentlemen, and should be setting an example for our hosts. Instead, you are behaving in a barbarous manner hardly distinguishable from the worst of their own.”
    “Surely I have a right to respond to insult intentionally given,” Robert said, still glaring at Charles, who, of course, also continued to glare at him.
    “If the truth is an insult,” Charles said, “then perhaps you ought to examine the heinous acts giving rise to it.”
    “What is more heinous than slavery?” Robert said. “We righteously put an end to it, along with your rebellion.”
    Charles laughed derisively. “As if you care a whit about the fate of any Negroes. That was a mendacious excuse, not a reason.”
    “Unless you cease this argument immediately,” Emily said, “I shall be compelled to ask you both to leave. Should I learn that you have engaged in any violence against each other, I will find it impossible to see either of you again. Ever.”
    Robert Farrington and Charles Smith both looked as ready to kill each other as ever, and would no doubt remain ready for the foreseeable future. Emily was equally sure that they would not do so, the reason being that the quarrel between them was not really about politics generally, or even the late war specifically. For one thing, Charles’s family had originally been Georgian, but that was several generations in the past. Charles himself had been born in Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Kingdom, as had both his parents. He was heir to a sugar plantation and a cattle ranch there, and had never even seen Georgia. Furthermore, Emily knew from earlier conversations that Charles had been a fervent abolitionist, and had contributed significant sums to the cause. No, in point of fact, the men’s ire arose from their mutual wish to win Emily’s hand in marriage.
    What made a man think he could win a woman’s heart with displays of murderous rage? It was as if in even the most civilized male breast, the residue of brutish prehistoric life was ever ready to resurrect itself to its former dominance. Truly, without the civilizing influence of women, even the best men of Christendom, such as Robert Farrington and Charles Smith certainly were, stood in constant danger of descending back into barbarism. For her part, she had made it eminently clear to them that any violence, even of the nonfatal kind, would immediately disqualify the perpetrator from her further consideration.
    Which one to accept was not a decision easily reached, though Emily was determined to shortly accept one or the other. The reason for her newfound haste was the same as the reason for her previous disinclination to consider any proposal whatsoever. Love. Love of the deepest and most unshakable kind. But a love, unfortunately, that she did not feel for either of the two gentlemen seeking her hand.
    After they departed, at an interval of fifteen minutes at her insistence, Emily went to her study to continue her translation of
Suzume-no-kumo
— “Cloud of Sparrows” in English — the secret scrolls of history and prophecy of Lord Genji’s clan, the Okumichi of Akaoka Domain.
    There, on her desk, was a single red rose, just as there had been every morning now since the vernal equinox. It was of the variety known to Genji’s clan as American Beauty, an unexpected name for a flower which bloomed only in the inner garden of Cloud of Sparrows Castle. She brushed its soft petals gently against her lips. For love’s sake, she would marry Robert or Charles, neither of whom she loved. She placed the rose in the small vase she kept handy for the purpose and put the vase on a corner of her desk.
    Today, she would begin a new scroll. Because they were not numbered or marked in any way, she was sometimes well into a scroll before she knew what part of the history it covered. That the first scroll she had translated six years ago had been the