Excerpt from Scandals of Tokyo
CHAPTER ONE
Tokyo 1896
Foreign Quarter of Tsukiji
Evelyn rested an elbow along the stone balustrade separating the Hotel Metropolis terrace from the glistening waters of Tokyo Bay and contemplated the man holding court near the hotel bar. “Are you positive that’s him?”
Aunt Prissy raised a fan between them for privacy’s sake as guests strolled past, their various languages lending a cheerful symphony to the evening atmosphere. Evelyn doubted they were inclined to pick up English phrases muttered between her and Aunt Prissy, but to make sure, she shifted nearer until they were shoulder to shoulder.
Aunt Prissy nodded at the man in question. “Without a shred of doubt. That’s Ned Taylor.”
Among tables filled with hotel patrons and waiters scurrying by with trays of champagne and sake, Mr Taylor stood beneath one of the terrace gas lamps, its light catching on his grin, which spread from his lips to the corners of his eyes and left affable creases atop his cheeks. His Japanese companions leaned forward as though to bask in its glow, pure and genuine as a freshly minted sovereign.
Invariably, the most accomplished charmers had that smile. Evelyn had met enough newspapermen in her twenty-two years to know. They lit up a room. Or the Hotel Metropolis terrace, apparently.
But the man not far from her couldn’t be older than thirty, which was too young to own a newspaper. Back in England, Papa hadn’t purchased his first broadsheet until he was nearly forty. Ten years later, he had more newspaper distribution outlets across the United Kingdom than one could count on two hands. Of course, Papa had been obliged to work his way through the ranks before investors were willing to back him. Ned Taylor, on the other hand, was the nephew of a duke, and nephews of dukes didn’t have to wait as long as sons of Hampstead brewers to establish themselves at the helm of their city’s foremost papers.
Also, there was the issue of Mr Taylor’s appearance. In Evelyn’s experience, newspaper owners were balding and rotund. This man was… She struggled for the best way to assess him with the objective lens of a soon-to-be international journalist. He was the kind of man women pounced upon at the earliest given opportunity.
With tousled, auburn hair and a profile that suggested a country gentleman returning from a vigorous hunt, the man brimmed with virility. Yet the easy interactions with his companions suggested an absence of the hunter’s aggression found in most newspapermen—charmers and otherwise. Evelyn had to conclude this man lacked a predatory bearing because he didn’t require it: unfailingly, prey fell at his feet.
Aunt Prissy waved her fan against the thick heat, sending the gentle scent of the camellia perfume she’d purchased that afternoon on Tokyo’s luxurious Ginza Boulevard towards Evelyn. “The lovely Mrs Anderson pointed him out to me at the reception for that appalling exhibit at the Tsukiji art museum. She said, ‘That’s Ned Taylor, owner of the Tokyo Daily News.’ What was that exhibit again? Oh, yes, ‘Demonic Masks in the Japanese Shinto Tradition.’ Frightening, those enormous eyes and bulbous noses.”
The woodblock prints in the Hotel Metropolis lobby came to Evelyn’s mind. A series of pictures told the story of the Americans’ arrival in Tokyo on Commodore Perry’s Black Ships. In contrast to the uniformly small, straight, and unblemished Japanese visages, the foreigners boasted ruddy complexions, hordes of unruly hair, and what Evelyn found to be unfairly exaggerated facial features. “Those masks bore resemblance to the foreigners in the lobby prints?”
A look came Evelyn’s way, and Aunt Prissy widened her eyes as she beat the air with the gold satin leaf of her fan. “No wonder we get stared at every time we leave the foreign quarter. The Japanese think we’re demons.”
