It was inevitable that a lady of Mrs. Todd's social and confidential
temperament should already have acquired an inseparable friend. Mrs.
Todd had a perpetual thirst for what she called "sympathetic
comprehension," by which she meant, in reality, abject flattery. Her
husband sometimes treated her deepest emotions with levity. Gwendolen
often turned to her complaints a bright indifference more irritating
than the husband's soothing smile.
The present incumbent was a Mrs. Stunt, resident in Tsukiji, Tokio, wife
of an American merchant who had lived in Japan for nearly twenty years.
Naturally, Mrs. Stunt knew everything. She was a little woman, with
white hair brushed high from a smooth, pink forehead. Her face was round
and youthful. Although not an Englishwoman she exuded odors of pink
soap. Her eyes were blue, bright, and hard as glass. Her reputation was
that of a model wife and mother, a pattern housekeeper, and an exemplary
member of the church. People hastened to speak well of her; they raised
loud voices in her praise, yet every one knew that Mrs. Stunt, when
mounted upon the perfectly kept bicycle she affected, was a wheeled and
leaking reservoir of scandal.
To the new-comer, or the casual observer, she appeared the very
incarnation of trustful candor, speaking of her domestic affairs and
those of her neighbors with a simplicity and directness that startled
while they convinced. Mrs. Stunt, however, had her secrets. One of
these, unshared even by the conjugal ear of timid Mr. Stunt, was her
connection,--virtually that of foreign editor,--with a Tokio newspaper,
called, of course in Japanese terms, "The Hawk's Eye." In addition to
voluminous printed sheets of hurrying ideographs this journal dispensed
each day a page of excellent English, and for weekly supplement issued a
pamphlet entirely in the borrowed tongue. Mrs. Stunt was never seen to
enter the shabby gates of the "Hawk's Eye" building. She turned her face
away even in passing the place. She often denounced newspaper women,
and, more than once in the company of a friend who tingled or wept under
the lash of a personal item, joined in indignation against the cowardly
villain, and wondered aloud, "Who on earth that man could be!"
The very brief notice of Lord Hagané's coming marriage, tucked away in
important Japanese papers like a small spark in a chimney, might have
been altogether overlooked, for news of war came in daily, and political
excerpts from European papers took much space. But "The Hawk's Eye"
found that smouldering spark, the mysterious breath of the foreign
editor blew it into new heat, piling tinder of comment high about it,
fanned it with the wind of gentle persistency, and lo, the social world
of Tokio leaped into flames!
Long since, the demure little lady,--having in mind spring clothes for
four lanky daughters,--had extracted from her new intimate, saleable
particulars concerning Pierre's betrothal, Onda's persecution, and now
Yuki's forced acceptance of Prince Hagané. "Nonsense, my dear," had Mrs.
Stunt retorted to this concluding bit of romanticism. "Japanese girls
don't give a fig who they marry! For a catch like old Hagané your Yuki
would have thrown over a dozen spry young Frenchmen, blue eyes and all."
From the first instant of meeting Mrs. Stunt and Gwendolen had been
inimical. To herself Gwendolen had called the little lady a
"bargain-counter snob." In return Mrs. Stunt, keenly aware of the
impression she had produced and resentful of it as people usually are of
truth, began assorting items for the coming Saturday "Hawk's Eye."
Gwendolen's affair with Dodge, their quarrel, his immediate transfer of
outward devotion to the shrine of Carmen Gil y Niestra, and Gwendolen's
irritability ever since the disagreement, were as bill-boards to the
mental gaze of Mrs. Stunt. Kindly injudicious Mrs. Todd did not betray
her daughter. There was no need for it. When she wept above a "Hawk's
Eye" paragraph that called her idol a "raw Western heiress, who
naturally cultivated her acquaintance with ploughs and harrows," it was
the part of Mrs. Stunt to comfort her. That small lady, sitting near
some more generous and less judicious female friend, her eyes drooping
tenderly over a "pinafore for Nan," or a knitted sock for "Baby Tom,"
absorbed scandal as a sponge absorbs warm water.
Yet let us be just. Too much may have been ascribed to Mrs. Stunt.
Perhaps even without her thrifty and unfriendly zeal the marriage of so
great a lord as Hagané must inevitably have filled the papers and
overflowed in irresponsible wide tides of talk. Yet scarcely without her
would Pierre's hinted personality have been so openly involved, his
parentage stated, and his future course of action philosophized about.
The story in its parent "Hawk's Eye" was given with a wealth of
imaginative detail possible only to the born "society reporter." In
substance it was as follows: Miss Onda had come from America with the
Todds. With their approbation she had been openly betrothed, in
Washington, to a young Frenchman of pleasing appearance and high
connections. (Here a secret marriage, twisted about an interrogation
mark, found place.) When asked for his blessing the Japanese father,
hitherto unsuspicious of French designs, fell into a fit, out of which
three eminent physicians were required to haul him. Yuki was forbidden
to hold communication with her lover. The next step was to adorn her in
sacrificial and becoming robes and offer her in marriage,--or anything
else,--to a certain powerful nobleman, whose third wife,--or was it
really his sixth?--had recently, by a fortuitous occurrence, been
"returned." Touched by the sorrow of his faithful knight, and influenced
perhaps by the lackadaisical beauty of the girl, the nobleman agreed to
take her on trial, even going through the form of a legal marriage, that
the aspirations of the French lover might be the more certainly
destroyed. Pierre, who read and brooded morbidly on these things, was
neither soothed nor ennobled thereby. But what of it? Mrs. Stunt's four
lanky daughters each had a new spring dress with hats to match!
Japanese of the better class, brushing aside like gnats these stinging
personalities, approved openly of the father's conduct and of Yuki's
swift acquiescence. It was the only thing conceivable. Their only blame
for Yuki was that she had listened to a foreigner without first
obtaining her father's approbation, an encouragement that might now urge
him to be troublesome. They felt indignant that the rejected one should
continue to repine for what a Japanese prince had deigned to accept. Old
samurai blood grew warm. The daughter of Onda Tetsujo marry a Frenchman
with a Russian mother! The very gods held their Asiatic noses.
English and American men took, for the most part, the Japanese view.
Many Europeans, on the contrary, said openly that they hoped Le Beau
would yet "get even" with old Hagané for stealing his sweetheart. With
few exceptions, indeed, all women sympathized with Pierre. Pierre was
the beau ideal of a despairing lover. His sensitive, beautiful face took
on with ease the lines of sleepless grief. His blue eyes, at a moment's
warning, could darken from melancholy to tragic anguish. He could sigh
in such a manner that his quivering listeners, should Donne happen to be
familiar, might have quoted, "When thou so sighest thou sighest not
wind, thou sighest my soul away." Pierre's sorrow was genuine enough,
but he liked witnesses to his grief. Needless to say that Mrs. Todd and
her satellite Stunt were among Pierre's most vociferous supporters.
Gwendolen fought many a battle for her school-friend, but the bitterest
were pitched under her own roof.
"Now, my very dear Miss Todd," expostulated the "Hawk's Eye," "do you
not consider at all the misery of Monsheer Le Beau? Miss Onda is to be a
princess, happy, courted, with a position in the highest circles. Life
can offer her no more. On the other hand look at the jilted lover. I
never saw a face that expressed such patient grief. When he turns to me
those slow, beautiful blue eyes I'll declare I feel as if I'd like to
kill that girl for making him suffer."
"Pooh!" said Gwendolen, rudely; "and when he slowly turns them round to
me I want to open my parasol and say 'Shoo!' thinking it a cow. I like
Pierre well enough. A good deal better than you, I think, if the truth
were known, but he is among men what Chopin is among musicians. He
enjoys his sufferings and makes music out of them. Of course you
wouldn't understand that." Rudely she wheeled and walked away, Mrs.
Stunt following with venomous eyes.
Gwendolen scarcely recognized herself during these days of trial. She,
the joyous one, the sun-maid, now wished to quarrel with the whole
world. Of course Dodge's defection, and the ridiculous paragraphs
appearing in "The Hawk's Eye," had nothing to do with her nervous
condition. The causes were obvious,--Yuki's hurried marriage and
Pierre's mischievous pose of despair.
Meanwhile the absurdities of gossip increased. Once, stung beyond
endurance, the girl threw herself into her father's arms. "Dad, how
shall I endure these spreading slanders about my friend? Is there
nothing we can do,--nobody to shoot, or challenge, or anything like
that?"
"Go fire at those sparrows on the lawn."
"Don't joke. I can't stand it. Oh, father, you don't know what awful
things they whisper. They stop when I come near, saying it is because
'I'm not yet married.' Now just think of the pitchy subtlety of that.
Why should people talk so?"
Todd held her close. "My little girl," he began, "wherever lonely,
sour-hearted women--or men--congregate, there will the cancer-growth of
scandal spread. They are the disseminators of half our domestic
tragedies. It is a disease like other foul things,--cancer itself,
leprosy, diphtheria,--though not so fatal, for the thing they tackle is
a man's soul and character, immortal essences, never to be truly
tarnished but from within. As I figure it out, scandal is a good deal
like fungus. It may be planted anywhere, but it sticks and thrives only
where it finds a rotten spot."
"Oh, you help me, dad,--you do help me. Of course these rumors cannot
hurt the white heart of my darling,--but she must not hear them. One
question more, daddy--"
Todd stopped her. "It is mail-morning, and that means a busy one. You've
had a sermon long enough for one day. Come to think of it, why does
Dodge get out of the way when you appear? What have you been doing to my
secretary?"
Gwendolen gave a small gasp and vanished. Todd looked after her. "I
thought that would send her flying." He turned to his desk. His face was
very tender. "Poor little one," he murmured, "she's up against her first
experiences all in a bunch. God help her! Things hurt worse when we are
young. But all will come right, with His help. I know my child was made
for happiness. She has the hall-mark of it under her skin. But
Yuki--poor little Yuki--!" He shook his head, seated himself, and soon
became lost in the voluminous foreign mail.
* * * * *
Yuki, pale, white, and docile, moved like a determined ghost through
vistas of gray hours. In that quiet household came no hint of scandal,
and for Yuki's part, had she heard, she would not have greatly cared.
The first brief chapter of her life was gone, shut down, like a book,
and in its pages was the living flower of her love. She did not suffer
now. She felt a dull gladness that she was inevitably committed to her
duty. Temptation and further striving had vanished from her days. Except
for the sorrow of that dear one there would be no regret. What anguish
came personally, through remorse for her broken faith, she would be glad
to bear. She had, through faithlessness, won the level of a higher
faith. Let her wounds gape and her heart's blood fall like rain! She
wished to feel more sorrow than she felt, but nothing came very clearly
in these days of preparation. More than once she thought, with a tiny
pang of apprehension, "If I have lost the power to feel pain, then are
sacrifice and duty alike robbed of their essential oil."
Now, in place of averted faces and blank eyes, those of the Onda
household fawned about her. Onda made grim overtures. The giggling of
Maru San ceased only with her slumber--that, too, was audible--while old
Suzumé, darting about the rooms like a gray ferret, babbled out the many
titles that her nursling soon would wear, and made coarse jests and
prophecies about the future.
Iriya alone moved in the silence of her daughter's spirit. The two women
grew very close, though no spoken word was used to show it.
Wednesday, the marriage day, arrived softly. Yuki neither dreaded nor
welcomed it. She had not seen Prince Hagané since the night he took her
answer. Quite a number of her parents' relatives, some from distant
provinces, came in and gathered in the house to bid the bride farewell,
to throw, laughingly, the dried peas after her, to sweep the abandoned
dwelling to its farthest corner, and light a bonfire at the gate when
she passed through.
Yuki, in her white bridal robes and concealing veil of white silk, thin
in texture but stiffened in a way that brought it into angular folds
about her shoulders, stepped alone into a new jinrikisha. Tetsujo and
Iriya, in a double vehicle, followed. These three alone went to Tabata,
where they met a corresponding party of the same small number, Prince
Hagané, his nearest male relative, the old Duke Shirota, and young
Princess Sada-ko, the old duke's granddaughter.
Hagané was unmistakably preoccupied. His thoughts did not attach
themselves with ease to things or persons. He had an air of relief when
the short ceremony came to an end. Yuki now changed her white robe for a
dark-hued silk, superb in texture, the gift, according to Japanese
etiquette, of her husband. A hairdresser was in readiness to change
forever the wide loops of a girl's coiffure into the more elaborate
structure of a young matron. The Princess Sada-ko fluttered near,
talking prettily and congratulating herself on the acquisition of a new
relative. Yuki scarcely heard her. She felt almost nothing. As the last
touch came, the thrusting-in of a great tortoise-shell pin, she
shuddered very slightly, thinking of that ivory one broken with Pierre
Le Beau on the moonlit prow of a ship.
With a great clattering and stamping the Hagané coach of ceremony drew
up to the entrance-door. Magnificent gray horses in new trappings
snorted impatience to be off. Hagané stepped in without a word to Yuki,
who, at a nudge from the little princess, meekly followed. The domestic
retinue fell on its knees in the doorway and along the pebbled drive.
Hagané gave the order, "Shimbashi," waved a hand abstractedly, and the
equipage dashed away.
The short railway journey was made practically in silence. Hagané said
once, as if by way of explanation, "Important and somewhat alarming news
has come by secret wire to-day. It is necessary for me to ponder over
it."
"Honorably do not concern your august mind with a person so
insignificant," said Yuki. Far from resenting his silence, the girl was
thankful to be left to herself. She watched the scenes outside with eyes
at first vague and unintelligent, but which soon gained a soft,
increasing brightness. Earth was waking from its long sleep. Yuki felt
what many of her own and other races have in such crises felt,--a
gratitude to nature that human grief is given no part in it. The grass
still is busy, small waxen blossoms lift the leaves of a fallen year, no
matter what men may suffer. In moments of keen personal bereavement,
when the soul is dazed and blinded by the wonder of its agony, a certain
resentment comes. Like the Ayrshire poet we cry, "How can ye be so fresh
and fair?" But such grief was not yet Yuki's. Her emotion still partook
more of bewilderment than loss. Pierre was not dead. He might yet be
happy, happier than with her. This thought brought no personal sting.
Hers was not a nature for jealousy.
Because of her marriage, through this stern, grave man who sat beside
her, she was to be given her opportunity for loyal service. Mistrust of
self, apprehensions that mocked and taunted her, a certain shrinking
from responsibilities so thickly heaped, rushed inevitably to her mind.
On the other hand she had for guidance his great spirit of untarnished
patriotism; she had vindicated to her parents all filial obligation, and
springtime peeped at her from among the hills.
She saw that a thousand nameless, beloved little flowers traced with
bright enamelling the leaden dykes of fields. Seedling rice brimmed with
gold-green, small, separate pools. Straw-shod farmers trampled, one by
one, the rotting stubs of last year's crop into the slime of fields to
be new-planted. On low-thatched huts the old leaves of the roof-lilies
fed a springing growth. Everywhere decay passed visibly into re-birth.
So, thought little Yuki, "The very sorrow I have endured shall feed my
new resolves."
At the small Kamakura station jinrikishas were awaiting them,
accompanied by two persons, an old man and a comely woman of the peasant
class, whom Yuki rightly took for family servants. They prostrated
themselves upon the cement floor in an excess of demonstration,
whispering old-fashioned phrases of congratulation and of welcome.
Hagané came back for an instant to things around him.
"These are my faithful servants, Bunshichi and his daughter. I do not
now recall her name," said he to Yuki, with his kind smile. "They form
our entire domestic retinue at Kamakura, for it is here that I come only
when in need of true repose and relaxation."
"Hai! hai! Danna-San," cried the servants in polite corroboration, and
began a new series of deep bows.
"Hai!" murmured Yuki, as if in echo of their subservience. The woman,
for an instant, met her young mistress's eyes. There was something in
the look of wonder, of great kindness, and then,--or so it seemed to
Yuki,--of compassion.
Hagané entered his kuruma and started off. Yuki and the two servants
followed. And so, on this fair March day, the little Princess Hagané
approached the first of her many new homes.