New York & London
Harper & Brothers
Publishers MCMII
Copyright, 1902, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.
Published September, 1902.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: THE WOOING OF WISTARIA ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Decoration]
[Illustration: _A LOVE STORY OF JAPAN_]
I
WHEN after a life that had never lacked variety the Lady Wistaria came
to the years of tranquility, she was wont to say, with the philosophy
that follows dangerous times: “No one, man or maid, ever really began to
live before the time to which the first memory reverts.”
The first recollection of the Lady Wistaria goes back to an earlier
childhood than that of most mortals. This she ascribed to its terrible
and awful import. She could scarcely do more than move with the
uncertain direction of babyhood, when her father, always now in her
memory as gaunt, lean, haggard, tall, had taken her upon a long journey.
They had travelled partly by kurumaya, and, towards the end, on foot.
That is, her father had walked, carrying her on high in his arms.
When they halted at Yedo they stood amid a vast concourse of people, who
remained silent and respectful against the background of the buildings,
while in the centre of the road marched steadily and pompously a great
glittering pageant.
Wistaria had clapped her hands with glee and delight at the mass of
color, the glimmer of shield and breastplate, the prancing, snorting
horses. But her father suddenly had raised an enormous hand and in a
moment had stopped her delight. Wistaria lapsed into an acute silence.
Instantly she was awakened from her painful apathy by her father, who
moved her higher in his arms, and turned her head slowly about with one
hand, while with the other he pointed to a shining personage reclining
in a palanquin borne high on the shoulders of ten stout-legged
attendants.
“My daughter,” said her father’s hollow voice in her ear, “yonder rides
the man who killed your mother. It is through his crime that you are
orphaned and have no mother to care for you and love you. Look at him
well! Hush! Do not weep or shake with fear, but turn your eyes upon him.
Look at him! Look! Look! Yonder rides your mother’s murderer. Do not
forget his face as long as you live. It is your duty to remember it!”
Whereupon Wistaria, who, in obedience to her father’s commands, had
stared with wide eyes fixedly at the reclining noble, set up a most
extraordinary cry. It was unlike that of a little child—a wild, wailing
shriek, so weird and piteous that the by-standers started in horror and
fear. The noble raised himself lazily on his elbow, staring across the
heads of all, until his eyes rested upon the man with the child held on
high. He fell back with an uneasy shrug of the shoulders.
That was the Lady Wistaria’s oldest memory. There were others, but none
so vivid as this, the first of all. Even later, when she had ceased to
be a child, she had been unable to pierce the mystery of her father’s
life, or indeed her own.
One half of her earlier years had been spent in a small, whitewashed
cottage, built on the crest of a little wind-blown hill, far enough
removed from the dwellings in the village below to be entirely cut off
from them.
There was a touch of the uncanny and weird about the little village,
whose slender streets, ascending and descending, zigzagging up and down,
disappeared among hillocks and bluffs, though built in reality in the
hollow outskirts of a flourishing city at the foot of a small chain of
mountains. Though the land here was green and beautiful at all times of
the year, there came no one from the great city beyond to this solitary
settlement, whose inhabitants bore the impress of toil, pain, and
oppression.
Why her father, who, she had been told, was of noble blood, resided here
on this hill-top, isolated even from the strange people who dwelt in the
silent village below, the Lady Wistaria had never learned. When she had
questioned her uncle and aunt, she had been frigidly informed that
curiosity and inquisitiveness were degrading traits, which a maiden
should strive with all her strength to overcome. Neither did she ask her
father, who, taciturn and cold during her brief residence each year in
his house, gave her no opportunity for winning his confidence. His love
Wistaria had never dreamed of possessing.
Nevertheless, whenever she went to her father’s house, a wistful longing
and yearning for him possessed her whole being, and when she departed
she would hide her face in her sleeve, weeping silently, not knowing why
she should weep, and scarcely conscious of the fact that she wept for
lack of her father’s love.
In her father’s house there were no servants, no maids, no
attendants—only one weazened, blind, and infinitely old woman, who wept
tears from her sightless eyes upon her arrival, who sang and crooned to
her at night in a sobbing, sighing voice, that was as sweet and pure as
a girl’s.
She addressed the old woman as “Madame Mume,” and preserved always
towards her the reserved and dignified attitude of the mistress to the
maid. Yet her father addressed her as “Mother.” Wistaria knew the old
woman was not his mother, and she could not believe she was even akin to
them; for had she not always been taught that the family from which she
was descended was one of the oldest and noblest in Japan, while old
Madame Mume, though gentle and good, wore the garb of the poor heimin.
The other half of her childhood had been spent at the home of her uncle.
Here were countless retainers and servants, besides a host of samurai,
petty vassals, soldiers, peasants, and citizens, who lived upon his land
and owed their direct allegiance to him.
The garden walls surrounding her uncle’s palace were tall and of massive
structure, built of solid stone. Its gates were guarded by handsome,
bold samurai clad in thick armor. The steel upon their breasts and
shoulders glistened with a sinister sheen, and beneath their blazing
helmets fierce eyes burned out their unswerving allegiance and loyalty
to their lord and their scorn and defiance of all his enemies. Their
coats, all emblazoned and embroidered with golden dragons, bore two
crests, that of the Shogun Iyesada, and that of the powerful Daimio
under whom they served, the Lord of Catzu, uncle of the Lady Wistaria.
Here in her uncle’s palace Wistaria was watched over, cared for,
nurtured, and refined. Lackeys and servants were about her on all sides,
ready to spring to her service. As a child she had attended a private
school, kept by an old samurai, where with half a dozen other little
girls she had squatted on small, padded mats before writing-tables but
twelve inches high, and had been taught the intricacies of the language.
Two gorgeously liveried attendants always accompanied her to and from
the school-house, carrying her books, her writing-box, her
kneeling-cushion, and her little table.
When she grew older she attended the elementary school. After she had
left this, a silent woman of perfect manners and exquisite appearance
had come to her uncle’s palace and attached herself entirely to her.
With the coming of this governess, Wistaria ceased to pay her annual
visits to her father’s house. He himself came to the palace instead,
once every year. Upon these occasions Wistaria was brought into his
presence. He would put a few stern questions to her concerning her
knowledge of her duty to her parents, to which Wistaria would respond
with expressions of filial submission to his will in all things.
From the governess, Wistaria learned the elegancies of conversation and
how to act on meeting great personages at court. She had even been
drilled in certain graces which should not fail to enchain her lover,
when he, the proper one, should be chosen for her.
Now that she had reached the age of fifteen years, this perfect person
had departed from the palace to teach maidens of younger years. The Lady
Wistaria had arrived at an age when she could be said to have been
graduated from her governess’s hands as competent to pass the rest of
her life without further instruction, save that constant restraint
exercised over her by her aunt, the Lady Evening Glory of Catzu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Decoration]