‘Yes, of course … but then, you see, the agent at the estate at Kiyojimachō has been good enough to arrange things. It’s more or less agreed that he shall be taken by a very respectable office worker and his wife who’ve been wanting a child. They haven’t said anything about it’s being Kazuya’s child, but – well, it seems they know where he comes from and they appear to be pleased about it. They should be coming to fetch him in another month or so.’

‘What a lucky boy, really, to have his grandmother look after everything for him. But after all, though he’s not the eldest he’s your grandson, and you’ll be expecting a lot of him in the years to come, won’t you?’

Making tea as she spoke, Shin kept a watchful eye on Tomo.

Neither Yumi nor Naoichi seemed to attach much importance to the fact, but it was Tomo and not Yukitomo who, come rain come shine, had looked after Yumi and her children since she had been left a widow. Even though the late Iwamoto was her nephew, to put herself out so on behalf of a former mistress of Yukitomo’s was not something to be dismissed lightly. Shin knew that the prosperity of the Shirakawas was really founded less on any ability of Yukitomo’s than on the thankless labors of Tomo, and she would reflect ruefully on the indifference of her own relatives. Kayo, the maid from Michimasa’s who was now lodging upstairs and who was a mere girl of eighteen, had got herself pregnant by Kazuya, now a student in the economics department of Keio University, and it was Tomo who had arranged that she should have the child here.

With Shin leading the way Tomo pulled herself by the bannister up the steep and narrow flight of stairs that led up from a corner of the parlor.

‘Here’s Mrs. Shirakawa from the big house to see you,’ Shin declared with one hand ready to open the sliding door that blocked the way at the top of the stairs.

‘Gracious!’ exclaimed a youthful voice, and Kayo came into sight as she sat up in the bed where she had been lying with her baby beside her.

‘It’s all right – you just stay lying down now,’ said Tomo from behind Shin as she followed her into the room, but by then Kayo had already clutched together the front of her kimono over her ample, white-skinned bosom and was waiting as deferentially as when she had been in service at Tsunamachi.

‘First, I must congratulate you on a safe delivery. I meant to come rather sooner, but the New Year, you know …’