A LADY OF OLD JAPAN
One afternoon Sister and I were sewing in my room when Hanano came in.
It was warm weather and the paper doors had been lifted off so that the
entire fronts of the rooms facing the garden were open. We could look
across and see Mother sitting beside the dining-room fire-box, holding
her long, slender pipe in her hand and gazing out into the garden as if
her thoughts were far away.
"Mother is happy in this home," said Sister. "Her face has the calm,
peaceful look of the August Buddha."
"I wonder," said Hanano thoughtfully, "if Honourable Grandmother was
ever really, strongly, _terribly_ excited in all her life."
Sister looked at Hanano with a strange smile.
"I never saw her _seem_ excited," she said slowly. "It was a terrible
time when we left the old home, but Mother was calm and steady. She
commanded like a general on the battlefield."
"Oh, tell me!" cried Hanano, sitting up very straight. "Tell me all
about it."
"Perhaps it would be well, Sister," I said. "Hanano is old enough to
know. Tell her all of Mother's life that you can remember."
So she told how Mother, when only thirteen years of age, was lifted
into her wedding palanquin and, accompanied by a long procession of
attendants, headed by spearmen and followed by her father's guards,
journeyed to her new home. Father was First Counsellor of the
daimiate, and his bride came to a mansion so spacious that in all the
years she lived in it there were rooms in which she never set her foot.
She saw little of her husband, for his duties as ruler obliged him to
make frequent journeys to the capital, and the young wife filled her
time in writing poems on slender cards of gold and silver, or playing
dolls with her attendants; for, after all, she was only a child.
In time, a son and two daughters were born; but the little girls, with
nurses to take every care from their mother, were a good deal like
beautiful playthings to her; and her son, the heir who was to carry
on the family name, had so many attendants with various duties that
she saw him only at stated intervals. He was like a precious jewel for
which she had strong affection, but still stronger was the feeling
of pride. So in the big, peaceful mansion the girl-wife passed the
pleasant, uneventful years.
Then changes came, for clouds of war were gathering slowly over the
land. Her husband gradually told her of many important things, and one
day he left home on a mission that filled her heart with dread. She
was not far out of her teens, but she knew the duties of a samurai's
wife, and with suddenly awakened womanhood she called her son's tutor
and they disguised in shabby clothing her small son, whose life as
heir would be forfeit if his father came to harm, and sent him, in the
care of faithful Minota, to the protection of our ancestral temple
on the mountain. Then she waited, while every day the clouds grew
more threatening. One dark, rainy night there came a warrior to her
home bearing the tidings that Father was a prisoner and on his way to
the capital. Near the midnight toll of the temple bell he would pass
the road at the foot of the mountain, and she would be permitted an
interview.
She looked at the messenger steadily. If there should be treachery what
would become of her son?
"Are you a samurai?" she asked.
Solemnly the man put his hand to the hilt of his sword.
"I am a samurai," he answered.
"Whether friend or enemy," she said, "if you are a samurai, I will
trust you."
Though she believed him, those were dangerous days, and so she washed
her hair and put on her death-robe, covering it with an ordinary dress.
Then, slipping her dagger into her sash and bidding her faithful
servant Yoshita to be loyal to his young master, whatever happened, she
told the messenger she was ready.
Through the rain and darkness they went--the warrior, his wet armour
shining in the lantern-light, followed by Mother in her hidden
death-robe. They passed through empty streets and along narrow paths
of lonely ricefields until finally they came to the road which curved
around the foot of the mountain. There they waited.
Presently lights came swaying through the darkness and they could hear
the dull, soft thuds of trotting carriers, coming nearer and nearer,
then to a stop. A palanquin covered with a rope net was rested on the
ground, a warrior on each side. The carriers stood back. Mother looked
up and saw Father's pale face gazing at her through the small square
window. The crossed spears of the warriors were between them. There was
a moment's silence, then Father spoke.
"My wife, I trust you with my sword."
That was all. Both knew that listening ears were eager for word of the
son. Mother only bowed, but Father knew that she understood.
The reed screen was dropped before the face of the prisoner, the
warriors shouldered their spears, the carriers lifted the poles of
the palanquin to their shoulders, and the little procession passed on
into the darkness. The guide she had trusted raised his bowed head and
turned toward the ricefields, and poor Mother followed, carrying with
her the knowledge of a sacred trust; for those few words from Father's
lips meant: "Death is before me. I trust to you the son who will
continue the name of Inagaki and thus insure the heavenly salvation of
hundreds of ancestors."
Again poor Mother bore the heavy burden of anxious uncertainty, until
one autumn night when a messenger brought word that the plain was full
of soldiers marching toward Nagaoka. For that she had been waiting; so,
calm and fearless, she commanded that the entire house be arranged as
for honoured guests. The most treasured roll pictures were hung, the
rarest ornaments placed on _tokonomas_, then the retainers and servants
were ordered to leave by a rear gateway and to scatter in various
directions.
Sister was only a child of seven, but she remembered every detail of
that awful night. She and little Sister were awakened by frightened
nurses and hurried into dress and sash--for even in their haste and
horror the sash, emblem of virtue to every Japanese girl, could not be
forgotten by the trusted servant of a samurai family--and taken part
way up the mountain to wait in the darkness for Mother, coming more
slowly with Honourable Grandmother and two menservants.
Sister smiled faintly as she told how Honourable Grandmother and
Mother looked as they came up the narrow path, disguised as farmers.
Honourable Grandmother's straw coat kept pulling apart and showing her
purple dress, which was of a kind worn only by a retired mistress of
her rank, and which she had stubbornly refused to have removed. And she
would _not_ walk with her toes turned out as peasants do.
Leaving Honourable Grandmother with them on the mountain-side, Mother
went back to the mansion with Yoshita. They could see the two,
carrying torches of twisted paper, as they passed from point to point,
Yoshita piling straw and Mother lighting with her own hands the fires
to destroy her home. Honourable Grandmother sat perfectly quiet, gazing
straight before her, but the servants knelt on the ground swaying back
and forth, sobbing and wailing, as servants will. Then Mother, with
dishevelled hair and smoke-stained face, came toiling up the path, and
by the pale light of early dawn the two little girls were dressed in
servants' clothes from the bundle on Yoshita's back, and the nurses
were told to take them in different directions to places of safety.
Servants were trustworthy in those days. To each was given a dagger
with orders to use it in case capture was inevitable. Those crested
daggers are still held as treasures in the families of the faithful
nurses.
Sister said it was a long time before she saw Mother again. Her nurse
took her to a farmer's family where she dressed and lived as they did,
and her nurse worked in the ricefield with the farmer's wife. Every
night, after her bath, she was rubbed with a brown juice squeezed from
wild persimmons--for castle people are lighter than peasants--and was
told to talk like the children she played with. She was treated like
the others in every way except that always she was served first. "I
know now," explained Sister, "that the farmer suspected who I was,
but we were in one of the districts where Father had bestowed upon
the headman the privilege of owning two swords, and so we were not
betrayed. Little Sister was in a similar place of safety."
In the meantime, Honourable Grandmother and Mother, in the care of
Yoshita, all wearing the dress and wide, drooping hats of peasants, had
been wandering from place to place, sometimes living in the mountains,
sometimes in a farmer's family, and sometimes for a few weeks finding
refuge in a temple. More than two years this dreadful time lasted;
always hiding, always hunted; for though Father was a prisoner and his
cause lost, conquest was not complete until the enemy had extinguished
for ever the family and name.
"At last," Sister went on, "Mother came to the farmhouse where I was.
She looked so thin, so brown, and so wild that I didn't know her, and
cried out. That night Minota brought Brother. He told us that the
priest, in order to save the child's life, had given him up, and for
several months he had been a prisoner with Father. Both had been very
near the honourable death, but a message that the war was ended and all
political prisoners were pardoned had saved them. Brother seemed to
have almost forgotten me and would not talk much, but I heard him tell
Mother that, one day, when soldiers were seen coming up the mountain,
the priest had put him in a book chest and, covering him with rolls of
sacred writings, had left the cover off and seated himself beside it
as if arranging papers. Brother said that he heard rough footsteps and
falling furniture, and when all was quiet and he was lifted out, he saw
that spears had been thrust through the closed chests standing in the
row with the one where he was hidden."
The next day Mother had gathered her family together and Yoshita found
a place where they could live. Then Father came, and in a modest way
life began all over again.
"So you see, Hanano," said Sister, "your grandmother's life has not
always been full of peace."
"It was a wonderful life," said Hanano in a tone of awe,
"wonderful--and terrible. But Honourable Grandmother _did_ things! Oh,
she _did_ things!"
I looked at the lithe young body, held so straight, at the uplifted
head and the tightly clasped hands. She was very like Mother. One
generation removed from the ancient pride and rigid training; one
generation ahead of the coming freedom; living, alas! in the sad
present--puzzled, misunderstood, and alone!
Sister remained with us throughout the autumn and into the winter. I
shall always be doubly thankful for her visit, for those weeks were
Mother's last with us, and they were happy ones. The long talks when
she and Sister lived over the old days were like those of friends
rather than mother and daughter; for there was only fourteen years
between them and Sister was as old-fashioned in many ways as Mother.
And when the sorrowful time came, Sister's presence was an especial
comfort to me, for she was familiar with all the old customs and could
direct with a tenderness that no other could have shown.
On our sad journey to the temple, as we followed the death _kago_
swaying on the shoulders of the white-robed coolies, my thoughts went
back to another day long before, when I, a child of eleven, walked in
a procession of mourning friends, my little hands clasped tight about
the tablet bearing my father's name. Over the narrow paths of the
ricefields we wound after the chanting priests, while from the high,
tossing baskets carried on long poles by their attendants showered
hundreds of tiny pieces of the five-coloured sacred paper. They filled
the air with clouds of soft colours, floating and mingling as they
drifted downward to settle gently on the straw hats and white robes of
the mourners.
Now, everything was different. Even the honours we show our dead must
bow to the world's changes, and the services for Mother were the
simplest possible to be in accord with her former rank. But she had
requested that, in addition to the rites for herself, there should be
held the ceremony for "The Nameless."
My noble, loyal mother! True to her wifehood and to her husband's
family, even as she was entering the door of death she had remembered
poor Kikuno, for whom no prayer was ever offered except in this lonely
service. And since Brother, the head of the family, was a Christian,
she knew it would never again be observed.
All through the calm and peaceful intoning, beneath which sounded the
rhythmic throb of the wooden drum, my mind was on my gentle mother's
life of unswerving duty to her highest belief, and I wondered what
power had kept her so strong and true. Then, dully, I became aware that
the soft music was melting into a weird and mournful chanting that
carried my thought to the hopeless soul who had lost the way to Heaven
because of her great sin. And so, once more, the descendants of the
name she had dishonoured, sat, lowly bowed, while the priests chanted
the prayer that help be given to guide the wanderer on her lonely path.
When we came to the pause in the music where the high priest chants
the arrival of the dead at the gates of Heaven to present the plea
for mercy, the priests raised their cymbals above their heads, and,
bringing them slowly together, clashed a long, quivering accompaniment
to the soft, muffled beat of the wooden drum. Before my misty eyes
the swinging sleeves made a blur of purple, scarlet, and gold, and,
listening to the wailing and pleading prayer that had for almost three
hundred years winged its way through the curling incense, I wondered if
the long-remembering God of Vengeance would not, if only in pity for
Mother's unselfish faithfulness, grant this last plea for the erring
one of long ago.
At the temple door I made my last bow to my mother's dear body, and,
with a heavy ache in my heart, stood watching the swaying _kago_ with
its curving roof and gilded lotus blossoms as it disappeared at a
turn in the road leading to the cremation grounds. Then we returned
to the lonely home, and for forty-nine days the candles burned and
the incense curled its fragrant way through the carvings of the little
whitewood shrine. On the last night I knelt in my mother's old place
and breathed a Christian prayer to the God who understands. Then I
slowly closed the gilded doors upon my prayer, believing sincerely that
my mother's journey had ended in peace; and that, wherever she was or
whatever she might be doing, she was faithfully taking her part in
God's great plan.
My minister was sorely troubled that I should have observed these
last Buddhist rites--unnecessary after my mother had passed beyond
the knowledge or the hurt of their neglect. I told him that, had I
died even one day after I became a Christian, my mother would have
been faithful, to the minutest detail, in giving me the Christian
burial that she believed would satisfy my heart; and that I was my
mother's daughter. Influence? Yes. The influence of loyalty, sympathy,
understanding; all of which are characteristics of Our Father--hers and
mine.