The nearness of land as yet invisible gave to the ship next morning that
access of animation noted in the approach to Hawaii, and in the
day-distant interval from the Golden Gate.
Most of the passengers, scorning to notice a few rough waves, buzzed or
moved in groups about the deck. Games were put away. Marine glasses and
kodaks came into vogue. Gwendolen's bright eyes, with a pair equally
alert and bright beside them, strained vision for the first land. The
increase of motion, however slight, served to excuse Yuki's absence. Two
persons only assigned a different reason,--her roommate, Gwendolen, and
her fiancé, Pierre Le Beau.
Pierre had not breakfasted in the salon,--a fact noted by Gwendolen. He
came to the upper deck very late, and lacked his usual eager look.
Gwendolen saw him instantly. Making some excuse to the group about her,
she went to him, saying in her direct, disconcerting way,--"What have
you done to my Yuki-ko? She did not sleep all night, and I am sure she
was crying! To cry is an unknown thing for Yuki."
Pierre met her indignation with pathetic sweetness. He smiled. It was
difficult to be harsh with Pierre. He looked past her to the shining
water. "If Yuki did not speak of her feeling, should I, even though I
knew?" he asked, with the extreme of gentleness.
Gwendolen flushed under the implied rebuke. Her purpose, however, was
not turned aside. "Yuki is a person whose confidence or whose love
should not be forced. From what I know of you both, I believe you coaxed
and persuaded her, last night, into some new pledge that her own heart
shrank from giving. If this is true, allow me to tell you that you have
made a fatal error, Pierre Marie Le Beau."
Pierre wheeled to the sea. It was as well that she could not see his
face. No longer gentle, it flared into a cruel anger. His sole answer
was the slightest, most exasperating of shrugs.
Gwendolen saw these signs of irritation, and cried to herself, "Halt."
With a laugh that was quite successful for its kind she exclaimed,
"Come, Pierre, we must not quarrel just because we both love Yuki. I
know I seem rude, but I became Yuki's champion at school, and the habit
clings. Forgive me for Yuki's sake."
He took the slim, outstretched hand and kissed it, but allowed himself
no further words. The girl felt baffled and uncomfortable. She recalled
a saying of her father's, "Free speech is a luxury possible only to
those whose opinions mean nothing." She felt herself herded with that
undesirable class.
"Well, I must get back to them," she cried, nodding in the direction of
the group lately deserted. "I promised them I'd come back at once."
"Is Yuki indisposed this morning?" asked Pierre. "May I not expect her
on deck?"
His tone was condescending. Gwendolen writhed under it. "She'll be up in
half an hour, I guess," she gave answer, and hurried away, rubbing the
back of her hand against her dress as she went.
Dodge made room for her at the rail. She wedged herself in place with a
sigh of content. "Look hard, now!" whispered her companion. "The others
haven't a hint. Yes, right out there in front, _hard_!"
Gwendolen stared obediently. Surely there was something strange,
prophetic on that far blue rim. "Is it--oh, can it be--that little
roughened thread in the warp and woof of blue--is it--Japan?"
The rumor spun about the ship,--was caught up in
whispers,--tangled,--tossed on to the next group. "Japan,--some one has
seen Japan!"
Men, with feet very much apart, steadied themselves behind beetle-like
marine glasses. "By Jove, there she is!" The waves outside fawned and
bounded in answering excitement. Dolphins leaped high in air. A whole
fleet of "Portuguese men-o'-war" rose to the surface and scurried on
before them as if leading a swifter way.
"I shall simply pass away with ecstasy!" cried Gwendolen. "Oh, why
doesn't Yuki come? Look, Mr. Dodge; I believe I see sails--away off
there, between us and the phantom land!"
"Doubtless a squad of detached fishing-smacks," said Dodge, with that
courier-like precision which seemed part of him on land or in sight of
land.
"Oh! oh! oh!" shrieked she, jumping up and down like a child. "We are
rushing straight for one. It has a square sail laced across the slits
with white shoestrings. Oh, we are going to run it down!"
"My _dear_!" remonstrated Mrs. Todd at the girl's impetuous manner. Her
own kindly face beamed.
"Not on your life," said Dodge the Oracle. "They know how to look out
for number one. You just watch 'em." Even as he spoke the small skiff
darted impudently into the very shadow of their looming bulk, and sped
off again like a swallow. Two impassive brown faces lifted for an
instant from the great shining heap of bonito in the bottom of the boat,
and were lowered.
"Not much floral-anchor business about those two, eh, Captain?" asked
Mr. Todd, genially, of that magnate, as he strolled toward them.
"I admit the coast population to be amphibious," laughed the Captain,
"but you can't make admirals out of fishermen. Miss Gwendolen, it will
soon be time to look for Few-ji."
"Oh, oh!" cried Gwendolen again. She was made up, this morning, of
wind-tossed golden hair and expletives. "Certainly no one ever saw it,
truly, at such a distance!"
"I have," boasted Dodge. "On a clear day I've seen the thing a hundred
miles off, when it looked like a little white tee on a blue golf links,
don't you know."
"Golf links!" echoed Gwendolen. "What an unworthy simile!"
"Why not links?--first-class thing, a good links! Don't you play, Miss
Todd?"
"No," answered Gwendolen, truthfully, "I don't play, but I like to pose,
the costumes are so utterly fetching; and I dote on standing with my
driver behind me, like girls in illustrated picture papers."
She turned to search the shimmering horizon for the vision it would not
yield. "Oh, where is that mountain! I wish Yuki would come. It might
appear directly for Yuki-ko."
"Here is Yuki," said the low, strange voice that could have belonged to
no other.
Gwendolen seized her. "Good-morning, Miss Onda," smiled Dodge. "Now we
are all fit. Kindly invoke your enchanted summit to our wondering gaze.
I have been told that it was bad luck to land after a long journey
without a glimpse of Fuji-san."
"I think the bad luck for only Nipponese," said Yuki.
"And the good luck too, I presume, if it turns that way? How
inhospitable!"
"Yes, I think so. The good luck and the bad luck," was Yuki's serious
reply.
Pierre, strolling at the rear end of the passenger deck, must have seen
Yuki. He made no sign, however, and continued to stroll alone, smoking
cigarettes, with a pleasant look or reply for any chance acquaintance,
but a mind evidently involved in its own problems.
Neither of the girls saw him. They leaned together now upon the rail.
Gwendolen had an arm about her friend. Together they stared out toward
the land. Dodge had been called away. Mr. and Mrs. Todd were seated, the
former carefully counting out bills for various "tips" soon to be
distributed. The schoolmates were practically alone.
The land showed clearly now its hill and rock formation. Layer after
layer, set upright from the sea, vanished into hazy distance. Promontory
after promontory tapered down at the far point to a surf-beaten line of
rocks. Farther peaks rose in tones of blue,--some thin as water, others
rich and dark, like great gentians. On the nearer hills, forests and
shaven spots of green appeared. The water around them shone and stirred
with sails, the square-laced sails of junks. Bronze-colored boatmen,
scantily clad, stood on the swaying edge of a boat and shaded their eyes
to peer upward at the strange, white-faced "seiyo-jin." Among the junks,
sailless sampan, propelled by one crooked oar, tumbled like queer
sea-beetles with a single jointed leg.
"Gwendolen," said Yuki, in a very low voice, "do you see a long, green
patch, like moss, over on that brown slope?"
"Yes; I was thinking it looked like curled parsley."
"That is really a forest,--quite a big little forest,--made of sugi, and
camphor, and camellia trees. Listen; I thought then that I heard the
deep sound of a bell!"
"I hear nothing but water and the wind."
"It was the temple bell," insisted Yuki. "And now, dear, look more
close. Do you not see, right on the edge of beach, a small red
something?"
"Why, yes; there is a little square of red like the framework of a
door."
"It is torii,--red torii, or sacred gate; and beyond that gate are many,
many stone steps leading up to the temple. Ah! such steps as those,--so
quiet, so deep, so still! They lead the heart up before ever the clumsy
feet have climbed."
* * * * *
A little steam launch, bearing the flag of the rising sun, came puffing
and squealing toward them. The ship's steps were lowered. Grave, correct
Japanese officers took possession. Their news was astounding. War's
breath already heated the land. The Japanese minister at St. Petersburg
even then made preparation for instant departure, and his Russian
colleague in Yedo did the same. The severance of diplomatic relations
between the countries meant, of course, no less than a declaration of
war.
From the moment of hearing this, neither Mr. Todd nor his secretary had
a thought for anything besides,--no, not even for pretty Gwendolen, who,
for a while, sulked alone, then, seeing it useless, sought consolation
in engaging herself to all the unmarried male passengers, one after the
other, and most of the ship's officers, irrespective of connubial ties.
Pierre and Yuki had met, neither looking with entire frankness into the
eyes of the other. To Yuki the promise given meant a haircloth shirt
beneath her robe of gladness, a stone dragging her back from flight. To
Pierre it was, in all sincerity, their one substantial pledge of future
happiness. He was the man. It was for him to judge, not Yuki; and he
believed the very reluctance with which she gave the word, a proof of
its necessity. It was characteristic of both that no reference was made
to the subject most vital in their thoughts. Yuki watched with apparent
composure the slow approach to Yokohama Bay, Awa's cone-shaped masses,
and the long, green northern coast fading into eastern haze. Fuji had
not shone for them,--in spite of a cloudless day. "It sometimes went
away like that," Yuki had assured the disappointed ones. "Children
thought that it went visiting to the gardens of the gods."
The harbor channel was free. The ship went slowly, majestically, like a
great deliberate swan, sheer to the stone steps of the wharf. Yuki's
reserve faltered. "My people,--oh, my dear people! I think I see their
faces in that waiting crowd!" they heard her whisper. She stretched out
her arms. A sob choked in her throat. Four years,--four long, long
years, and yet how familiar the look of her native land! The little
wind-bent pines along the stone dyke had not changed a leaf. Those long,
waiting rows of empty jinrikishas might hold one that had been waiting
for her through an hour of shopping in the foreign stores of Yokohama.
And, oh, the dear welcoming friends there on the steps!
Their party was the first to cross the platform of the lowered flight of
stairs. Yuki touched the first stone step, and gazed eagerly above her.
Yes, that was her mother, that gentlest, sweetest, most beautiful face
among them all! Behind her stood Onda Tetsujo, Yuki's father, with his
plain blue robes, and gray, nobly poised head.
"Mother! Okkasan,--Shibaraku!" (How long the absence!) cried the girl,
with a broken note of rapture in her voice. Bounding up the steps, she
clasped and was clasped again by the slender gray figure. Tetsujo drew
back, a fleeting look of perplexity in his face. He had not recognized
Yuki, thus seen, for the first time, in her perfectly adapted foreign
garments; but Iriya had known, from the moment her eyes caught the small
brown-clad figure at the rail. The mother in her swept away, for the
instant, high barriers of Japanese etiquette. She clung to her child,
fondling her, pressing trembling lips to the soft young cheeks, and
murmuring, "My baby,--my little one,--my treasure, who has come back to
me!"
A moment later they had drawn apart, both with wet eyes and quivering
lips, and small, bashful side-looks of love; for such public
demonstration is practically unknown among samurai women. Already these
two were a little ashamed of it. Tetsujo realized at last that it was
his daughter, but, because of her strange conduct, wore still an
uncomprehending wrinkle between his heavy brows.
The Todd party, Pierre and Mr. T. Caraway Dodge included, came
hesitatingly near. The Japanese crowd drew back, some in distaste, some
in politeness, some because their own friends had arrived, and there was
no longer a reason for staying. Yuki, with a hand on Gwendolen's arm,
began the introductions. When it came to the two young men, she
hesitated slightly. Her father's deep, keen eyes rested on the faces
first of one, then of the other. The two names, as she hurried them
over, were practically unintelligible.
Kind-hearted Mrs. Todd, observing Yuki's embarrassment and feeling that
she had at least a hint as to its cause, rushed gallantly into the
breech. Her efforts centred on shrinking Mrs. Onda. "Are you really
Yuki's mother?" she demanded in a loud, playful voice. "You look to me
like her sister. I wouldn't believe, unless I were told, that you had
more than five years between you."
Yuki threw a glance of gratitude toward the speaker. "Mother, Mrs. Todd
says that you appear augustly young to be indeed the daughter of a big
girl like me."
Iriya flushed and bowed, looking more than ever like her daughter. She
answered in Japanese, "Please honorably to thank the lady for her
compliment, but acquaint her with the fact that I am already lamentably
old. On my next birthday I shall be thirty-nine."
Tetsujo, having accomplished his share of stiff bows,--not forgetting an
extra one for the new American minister,--said to his daughter, "My
child, we are indeed happy to welcome you. Now thank your good friends
in my name. Suitable presents shall be sent them. We must depart for
Yedo." He moved one finger toward three waiting jinrikisha men near-by,
and the vehicles, like magic, stood beside him.
"Now, already it must be 'Sayonara.' My father desires me to go," said
Yuki, and smiled a little tremulously from one foreign face to another.
These farewells at the end of a long and pleasant journey are never
careless things to say. "Of course I will see all--every one--very
soon!"
"Yuki! Why, we never thought of this. You mustn't leave us so!" cried
Gwendolen, in consternation.
"No!" added Pierre, with more vehemence. "It isn't to be thought of.
Tell your father that we are counting on you for the day." He stepped
close to her. Yuki instinctively shrank. The puzzled look came again to
the face of Tetsujo.
"Be careful, Pierre! Look at his face! You will make a false move at the
start," came Gwendolen's whisper.
"Do you expect me to stand here patiently and see her carried away? Non!
Mon Dieu, it was to have been the consecrating day of our lives! I do
not give it up. I will try speaking myself with her father."
"Gwendolen is right. Do not speak!" panted Yuki.
But Pierre was not one to relinquish bliss so easily. No move seemed to
him quite as undesirable as the one about to take place. Facing the
astonished samurai, he began a series of bows which he fondly conceived
to embody the finer points of both French and Japanese etiquette.
"Monsieur Onda,--Onda San," he commenced eagerly, "Miss Yuki must not
go. Ikimasen! Stay here with friends,--tomodachi. She can go your
house--afternoon. Please do not take her now."
Onda looked blankly and in silence upon the antics of the strange
creature. Not one gleam of comprehension enlivened his fixed gaze.
"Here, man, let me get to him," said Dodge, thrusting himself in front
of Pierre. "I'll translate what you are trying to say, though it isn't a
particle of use. Shall I go on?"
"Merci."
Speaking slowly, in fairly good Japanese, Dodge said, "We having hoped
to enjoy the company of your daughter on this first day of landing, I am
requested to entreat your august permission to allow her to remain. If
you and your wife will join our party also, we shall feel honored by
your condescension." "Never told a bigger lie in my life!" was his
mental note after this last remark.
Tetsujo replied by the courtesy of a stiff bow. With no further glance
or word for the speaker, he stepped up into his jinrikisha, and once
seated, said to Yuki, "Reply to the speech of the foreigner, my child."
"I am to go with my parents, of course," said Yuki, nervously. "I wish
it. I did not know you were planning so sure for me to remain. I must go
now, at once, but will see you as soon as I may, to-morrow, or perhaps
this very afternoon."
Iriya had bowed to the foreigners and entered her jinrikisha immediately
after Tetsujo. Yuki now climbed into the remaining one, neither Dodge
nor Pierre retaining enough self-possession to assist her. The three
coolies caught up the shafts for starting.
"Here, stop, stop!" cried Gwendolen, springing forward. "Yuki, we don't
even know your Tokio address!"
Tetsujo gave a gesture and a "cluck." The coolies sprang into action.
"Ko-ishikawa, Kobinata, Shi--j[=u]--" trailed off Yuki's voice into the
rattling of the streets.
"The ogre! I'll catch the next train for Tokio," cried Pierre.
"Better stay with us and see about your baggage, Pierre," said Mr. Todd,
speaking for the first time. "The girl should go with her people, and
you know it."
"But, poor boy," said Mrs. Todd, soothingly, her hand touching his arm,
"I know how he has counted on seeing the sights with Yuki."
* * * * *
Onda Tetsujo's spoken order had been "stenshun!" (station), for so have
the Japanese incorporated our familiar word. A train was just leaving
for Yedo. Three second-class tickets were bought, and the kuruma-men
overpaid and dismissed. Had they been merely "paid," a later train would
have been taken.
The short encounter on the Yokohama pier evidently remained in the
master's mind as a most disagreeable impression. While in no sense a
stupid man, the quality of Onda's intellect was torpid rather than
alert. Things came to him slowly, and remained long.
It happened that their train was a "local," stopping at all the
small intermediate stations. Between Yokohama and the next
stop,--Kanagawa,--not a word was spoken. Yuki felt bewildered, dazed,
distressed. What had happened? What was spoiling her home-coming? The
promise was not all, for here were her parents, moody and ill at ease,
and they as yet knew nothing of her pledge. Surely the few injudicious
words Pierre tried to speak should not have wrought all this. Poor
Pierre, with his hurt blue eyes and outstretched hand of longing! Well,
the American girls used to say that true love never did run smooth. Here
she gave a sigh so deep that Iriya started. All three gazed heavily from
the windows, only half seeing the villages sweep past, and the wide,
gleaming rice-fields in their winter flood, and the long edge of Yedo
Bay set with pines, and flecked with shining sails. The gaudy fluttering
of small banners above the tea booths of Kawasaki brought a momentary
light of pleasure into the girl's eyes. It died down as quickly. Her
father's averted face clouded her sun. Yet unconsciously the charm and
the glamour of the country was stealing back. At Omori, perhaps the most
beautiful of these suburban villages, their compartment, being toward
the rear of the train, stopped, it would seem, in the very midst of a
grove of "umé" flowers, just coming into bloom. It is an old orchard,
knowing many generations of loving care. It is trimmed and tended for
beauty alone, the small sour fruit called by foreigners "plums" being
uneatable, and no more to the Japanese marketer than are "rose-apples"
to us. The trees, set close together so that tips of branches met, were
entirely leafless, and frosted over with a delicate lichen growth. On
this silver filigree of boughs the blossoms shone, white, crimson, or
pink,--translucent gems of flowers. The odor, stealing softly to Yuki in
little throbs, smote her as with an ecstasy of remembrance. There is no
subtler necromancer than perfume. Through it the past may be
reconstructed, dead love quiver into life, and sorrow, often more
precious than joy itself, steal back like a loving ghost.
Yuki seemed to wake suddenly, as from a troubled sleep. "Why," she cried
to herself, "I am at home again! This is Japan!" She sat upright now,
eager and vivid, looking from one window to another, a new brightness in
her face. The locomotive, which had been restlessly inactive for a few
moments past, gave a long, shrill whistle, drew itself together, and
prepared for another run. Just as the wheels were turning, a broad-faced
woman of the peasant class, with a fat baby on her back, a toddler of
two years led by one hand, and a pair of squawking geese held in the
other, wriggled herself through the turnstile and waved the shrieking
fowls, as signal for the train to stop. The gatekeeper, clutching after
her, seized a limb of the sleeping infant. Instantly a human scream
added to the clamor of the geese. Heads were thrust from car
windows,--the guard, dropping the infant's leg, seized its mother by the
sash. He chanced to be a small man, she an unusually large woman. As a
consequence she dragged him after her. At this sight a train official,
leaning as far outward as he could for laughing, signalled the engineer
to "back." The victorious one hurled herself and her living burdens into
an already overcrowded third-class car. A place was made for her, not
without many exclamations, such as "Domo! Osoi!" (It is late.)
"Kodomo-san itai ka!" (Is Mr. Baby hurt?) and a few gruff sounds of "Iya
desu yo!" (How disagreeable!) The locomotive, as if conscious of a good
deed, tooted more loudly than before, and made another start.
Yuki sparkled with delight. "Think of a train official doing that in
America!" she laughed aloud.
Iriya's answering smile was pathetic in its quickness of response. She
moved closer, pressing against Yuki's smart, foreign shoulder. The two
began to watch, like happy children, the passing scenes.
Tetsujo drew forth his pipe and smoked himself into serenity. He
listened now to what the women said. There were other passengers, of
course, but Tetsujo and his companions had preëmpted a little corner
in the rear. Iriya spoke of old Suzumé, who was waiting so impatiently
at home to see her charge,--of little Maru San, a distant connection
of Suzumé, who, since Yuki's departure, had been employed as
maid-of-all-work about the house. Messages of welcome from friends and
relatives were given. At the last, dropping her voice impressively,
Iriya spoke of the coming war. "It is inevitable," she said. "Prince
Hagané informed Tetsujo only this morning. There can be no doubt."
The old scenes, the old interests, glowed anew in the girl's heart.
Really they had never left it, but, like certain writing, illegible
except in warmth, the pictures slept until the breath of her own land
awaked them. She had a strange sense of being slowly turned back to a
child. In an English fairy-book a certain Alice could grow tall or short
at will by nibbling at a magic mushroom. There had always been magic
mushrooms in the East, long, long before that book was written,--strange
mountain growths which are the only food of the ghost deer that attend
the genii of the forest. Perhaps the little brown sembei which she had
just bought at Omori from an insistent peddler was, in reality, a scrap
of an enchanted mushroom. Perhaps she was really turning back into the
little Japanese Yuki who had never been to America at all, who had never
known a foreign lover, or given a promise which her reason told her to
refuse. Her heart stopped beating for an instant. She took a second bite
of sembei. Again the trouble faded. Yes, surely, it was a magic
mushroom.
Now merry talk flowed from her smiling lips. Tetsujo moved nearer. She
called him "Chichi Sama," as in baby days, and her mother "Haha San."
The train made its final stop. A torrent of blue-robed occupants poured
out from every car. The sound of wooden clogs upon the concrete floor
was like innumerable hollow shells scraped, lip down, upon an empty box.
Yuki's heart swept in with the throng. She loved the noise, the bare
station, the hissing car, the very dust of the travellers' feet. Tetsujo
and Iriya exchanged glances behind her back, and smiled. Their eyes
said, "This is our dear one,--our own; not an American changeling, but
the daughter for whom we have been yearning."