The Breath of the Gods Part 20

We have trespa.s.sed too long on Mrs. Onda's hospitality; now let us join our unfortunate visitor at the gate and have him ride home with us, I have something of importance to say to him."

Yuki gave a little sob of grat.i.tude and relief. Mrs. Todd, partly comprehending, heaved upward to her feet. "Yes," she said to Gwendolen, but with a disapproving glance poured, full-measure, upon the j.a.panese girl, "let us ask him to ride home. The poor fellow looked as if the earth had crumbled under his feet."

Yuki felt the reproach. She could have laughed aloud at the irony of it.

Mrs. Todd walked in what she supposed a stately fashion across the room.

Her feet pressed into the soft matting as into a stiff dough, leaving behind her a track of shallow indentations.

At parting Gwendolen whispered in her friend's ear, "I understood. Your father has been watching all along. I will make things clear to the other."

When the panelled gate was closed once more, and the little bell cold after long reverberation, Yuki felt a great physical shudder. Her nerves demanded of her the respite of tears, but still she held herself in check. The luxury of weeping and the hidden letter alike must wait until a night hour when the rest of the house was asleep.

She went out into the sunshine of the garden, well within sight of the house. She tried not to think, or to allow forebodings. Against the old plum-tree she leaned, catching idly the white drifting petals. Each might have been a separate poem, so freighted is j.a.panese lore with fancies and exquisite imagery drawn from this favorite flower. The transience of life, its sweetness, fidelity to natural law, wifehood and womanly tenderness, rebirth, immortality,--all these thoughts and more came to her softly as the petals came. Through each mood, like the clang and clash of bra.s.s through low melody, recurred the vision of Pierre--of his yellow hair beneath the old plum-tree. But with the petals fell uncounted moments, heaped less tangibly into hours. So pa.s.sed the day and succeeding days.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The short interval between the Todds' visit and Prince Hagane's banquet was wrought, within the confines of the Onda home, of small, shifting particles of disquiet, discontent, despondency,--a sort of mist that kept the spirit dark and chill.

Tetsujo found difficulty in meeting his daughter's gaze; though, when her face was averted, he looked long, and moodily enough. He had spoken to her more than once, always in forced, crisp speech, chopping his words into inches and weighing each separate cube. Through this mechanical means he informed her that she was to attend Prince Hagane's banquet without fail, and ride there in a double jinrikisha with him, her father. Iriya and the servants were permitted to resume normal relations with the culprit. Externally things went into their old domestic grooves.

It came to the girl, not with a shock of surprise, but rather as an insidious growth of conviction, that the decision behind Tetsujo's demeanor was inspired by no less a person than Lord Hagane. At first it seemed incredible that so great a man could concern himself with the affairs of a mere girl. At this very moment he was in the midst of a threatened national crisis. Friendship with her father could scarcely account for all. Hagane must have some personal suspicion of the existence of Pierre, of Pierre's family, and of his att.i.tude toward her.

Her mind went back to her meeting with the Prince in Washington. She had been the one to introduce Pierre. Now she tried to recall every look and word of that morning interview, which followed her debutante ball. Again she saw Hagane's stern, scarred face, thrilled to the kindness of his voice as he spoke of her childhood, and pondered anew his meaning in the final admonition to loyalty. Perhaps even then he suspected that she and Pierre were more than friends. No, she could not believe it! Even if he did suspect, it was not certain that he would disapprove. Hagane was known everywhere as a friend to foreigners. He had travelled much, and had seen with his own eyes the splendor and the opportunities of foreign courts. He would know that, as wife of a diplomat, no matter what his country, she could serve her own.

At any rate she was soon again to meet the ex-daimyo. She was glad at least of this, and until she judged for herself, would not believe absolutely that the great man was against her. The thought of seeing him, of standing near him, gave her a sort of gentle strength and calm, as one feels when standing beside a great tree. If she could only get a warning to her lover,--to that less strong but dearly loved Pierre!

Toward him she was beginning to feel, not only a girl's romantic devotion, but a mother's protecting tenderness. Here in her own country she longed to have her arms around him, shielding and at the same time preventing him from ignorance and prejudice. At Hagane's villa he was possibly to face an ordeal, unwarned by a hint from her. A little hope crept closer. Pierre was a pa.s.sionate admirer of all the arts of j.a.pan, Hagane an untiring collector. At the Tabata banquet pictures would surely be displayed. It was possible that Pierre's intelligence and appreciation might win him the most powerful of friends.

Most of the night before the banquet the young girl lay awake. The faint light of the andon flowed across her, melting into soft grayness at the far end of the room. It ruled, as with a heavy pencil, the overlapping boards of the ceiling. She counted them, but to no purpose. Sleep perched higher.

"A flock of sheep that leisurely pa.s.s by,--one after one; bees murmuring--" she quoted under her breath, and lay still as a fallen rose. Sleep grinned down from the small, high branches of night. She thought of dark running water, of a green curtain stretched across nothingness, of a deep, bottomless pool; but sleep, the raven, never stirred a feather.

Beside her bed, on the soft, matted floor, lay a white prayer-book, a tiny vase containing a few sprays of ume (plum-flower), and a chatelaine watch set with pearls. The watch had been a graduation present from Gwendolen. From time to time Yuki lifted the animated toy, turned its face toward the andon, and held it to her ear, only to fall back with a smothered sigh.

"Will the blessed daylight never come?" thought Yuki for the hundredth time. Just as she had relinquished all hope of it, slumber darted down, but in its harsh beak was a dream.

She wandered, silent, on a great black moor. Near her feet, as she moved, a dull light flickered, turning all the dry gra.s.s red, and making, as it were, a m.u.f.fled pathway for her guidance. She was searching, searching, searching,--for what, for whom, she could not recall. Her memory was darkened like the moor, and its dull flashes showed alike only empty s.p.a.ce. Suddenly, far off to the right, a steadier beacon sprang. Stars seemed to be climbing up by a stair as yet invisible. The moor quivered into an even glow,--a mist rising as from a sea of blood. Not fifty paces from her eyes stood Pierre. He smiled, and stretched out his arms to her. The red glare whitened as it fell on him.

Then she knew for what she had been searching. She would have fled to him, but found she could not move at all.

Out of the Eastern light now came armed men, lances, falchions, spears, all glittering in the unreal glow. She knew it for a daimyo's procession. It came forward swiftly to the gap which held her wide from Pierre. Decked horses, bullock-carts with huge black-lacquered wheels, and countless warriors, some mounted, some on foot, must pa.s.s her. There was movement of tramping; the horses reared and struck heavily on the earth, yet no sound came. Staring at that point from which the long procession rose, she saw it still curving up from an illimitable horizon,--first points of spears and banners; then heads; then men, horses, chariots,--an endless chain. She crouched nearer to the ghosts within her reach, hoping to recognize a friendly face, or at least a kind one, whom she could importune to let her through the line. She peered under hoods and helmets and into the bamboo-blinds of bullock-carts, then fell to earth with a scream, for the faces were not human; each was an ape that grinned at her. In j.a.pan no dream is more prophetic of evil than a dream of apes.

At the agonized cry Suzume ran from her room at the far side of the house. From the adjoining room came Iriya. Fusuma were flung wide.

"Forgive--forgive--my rudeness in honorably disturbing you at this hour," gasped the girl. "It was a dream, so terrible a dream!"

"Oh, tell it to the nanten-bush, Miss Yuki. There is one beside your doorstone!" screamed little Maru as she came.

"Too late!" muttered Suzume. "Already she has broken silence."

"She shivers with fear, poor jewel," said Iriya, chafing the icy hands.

"Suzume, if a coal of fire can be found, brew hot tea for her. That will be best."

"A coal always sleeps in my ashes," boasted the nurse. "I shall at once prepare the drink."

"Mother, you must not remain awake with me at such an hour," chattered the girl.

"Dawn is very near, my child. I hear,--yes, listen,--I hear the first sparrow."

"Little friendly sparrow, how I thank you!" cried Yuki, aloud; then throwing herself into her mother's arms, she began to sob.

That afternoon, when Yuki stepped into the big double kuruma where Tetsujo was already seated, she had never, in spite of sleeplessness and bad dreams, looked more beautiful. Iriya, as her daughter had predicted, found on this last day many excellent reasons for staying at home.

The robing of Yuki had occupied several hours. First, the thick black hair must be done in the latest fashion. Happily this, ever changing, was for the moment in a style peculiarly becoming to her. A great wing stood out at each side, concealing all but the lower tips of the ears. A third division, puffed high above the forehead, completed a shining framework to the pale, spiritual face. Among the coils at the back, a strip of dull pink silk was interwoven,--a flesh-colored centre to a great orchid of jet. She wore a single hairpin, a filigree toy of gold and tinsel representing fireflies in a tiny cage. Her gray kimono of thin silk showed the pink undergarment. The delicate hue appeared in puffed and wadded edges also at throat, wrists, and around the hem.

Cherry-flowers were dyed at intervals into the substance of the gray.

The obi, that crowning glory of a j.a.panese woman's dress, was of blue gray satin, with embroidered fireflies of gold.

Even surly Tetsujo smiled as this fair vision stood upon the doorstone.

Little Maru set the high lacquered clogs with pink velvet thongs in readiness. Iriya held out the long black adzuma-coat, while old Suzume shook odors of incense and sandalwood from the craepe folds of the head-kerchief called "dzukin."

"Sayonara danna san! (master!) Sayonara o jo san!" called the three women on their knees in the doorway.

"Sayonara, arigato gozaimasu!" (I thank you!) cried Yuki in return, waving a slender hand from the side of the jinrikisha. Tetsujo seemed not to hear.

The unusual proximity brought to the girl, and, as she justly surmised, to Tetsujo also, an unwholesome embarra.s.sment. Each met the difficulty in a characteristic way,--Yuki by throwing her full interest into flashing street scenes about her; Tetsujo by a morose withdrawal into his feudal sh.e.l.l. Twice Yuki spoke concerning some sight that gave her pleasure. Her father's discouraging reply, in both cases, was a grunt.

On the slope of Tabata he got out, shook himself like a great dog, and sent Yuki on in the jinrikisha until level land was reached. The girl thought sadly of another hill-ascent, so short a time before; of Tetsujo's kind, loving face as he mounted the slope of Kobinata, his hand on the arm of her little vehicle, his eyes free to her own. Now she was being carried by this same father before a judge, before a man who could help to rule his empire, and yet who, if her fears proved stable, now stooped to coerce a wilful girl.

The entrance gate and court of the Tabata villa had taken on, strangely, the look of its master. The gate was of unpolished cedar, studded with bra.s.s nails half a foot across, and barred with hinges that might have swung a hill. The ma.s.sive panels now stood hospitably ajar. Above them leaned a single pine, red-stemmed and tall, of the indigenous j.a.panese variety. It, too, resembled Hagane. The house beyond was but little larger or more pretentious than that of Onda the kerai; but the variety of woods used in finishing bespoke both taste and great wealth. The roof, with its dark-blue scalloped tiling was edged at the rim with flattened discs of baked clay, and in the centre of each, in rough intaglio, curved the crest of the Hagane clan.

Sombre shoji opened, before the visitors had time to dismount. Just within, a superb suitate, or single screen of gold, painted in snow-laden bamboo trees, shut out interior vistas. Yuki was conducted to a woman's apartment, where she could remove her wraps and examine her shining blue-black coiffure for a misplaced hair. Tetsujo strode to the guest-room. At sight of Prince Hagane seated, still alone, he gave a great sigh of relief. Hagane turned with a smile,--"You love not our foreign friends, good Tetsujo."

"I love them as our cat loves pickled plums, my liege."

Hagane laughed indulgently. "At least you can distinguish the men from the women,--be sure to give me the signal should one of the young males prove to be he who was with Yuki on the hatoba, and who so rudely forced an entrance to your premises."

"I shall not forget," said Tetsujo.

The wide room was unchanged but for an unusually elaborate flower-composition in the tokonoma (recess). A most valuable set of pictures, three in number, and all mounted alike on priceless brocade, filled the soft, gray tinted s.p.a.ce beyond the flowers.

Yuki entered alone. Neither of the men had heard her soft stockinged step, nor her gentle pushing aside of a golden fusuma.

"Go kigen (august health), your Highness," she murmured, sinking where she stood and touching her forehead to the floor.

"Ah, it is Yuki-ko. Come nearer, child," said the host, kindly. As she moved toward him, his eyes rested with frank delight on the vision of her beauty. "You are now truly a maiden of j.a.pan. That last image of you in Washington, if I remember rightly, was of a small brown wren of Paris."

"So at the time you observed, Augustness, and my spirit thereat was poisoned by deep shame."