The Breath of the Gods Part 44

"Well!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd, as she lifted her lorgnette to survey the long hall and the gathered company, "a regular sewing-bee, isn't it? And I see, Yuki, you've got the piano upstairs, after all. I didn't believe you'd get it up those steps."

Yuki had, of course, met them at the door. She and Gwendolen fell, through force of habit, far in the wake of the bustling dame. Mrs. Stunt kept well beside the leader. The two girls clasped hands shyly, and looked at each other with side glances, like happy children in the first embarra.s.sment of play. Many of the j.a.panese ladies lifted glances of interest to the tall blonde girl. This must be she of whom the Princess Hagane had spoken, the girl with the face of the Sun G.o.ddess Amaterasu,--with the strayed soul of a Nipponese. She wore this afternoon a simple costume of golden-brown silk. It was just the transition tone between her golden hair and the darker brows and lashes.

A wide hat of bronze-colored velvet piled high with paler plumes balanced itself on her delicate head. Bronze-colored gloves ran up the slender arms to the elbow, where the sleeves fell away in a deep pointed ruff. A belt of dull yellow shark's skin and bronze boots completed the costume. The seated women, ignoring the advancing bulk of Madame Todd, the restless insistency of her companion, let smiling eyes rest on Gwendolen, then nodded to each other, and exchanged glances, as if in corroboration of Yuki's previous words.

"I am keeping seats for your party, dear Mrs. Todd, over there by that most sunshine window," said Yuki. "Please see that a chair is held for Mrs. Wyndham, who is so very kind to sing for us. Ah, I hear many peoples arriving. I see Mrs. Wyndham now. I will advance to her." Yuki hurried off, and soon returned with the prima donna, whom she delivered into Mrs. Todd's efficient hands.

"My _dear_ Mrs. Wyndham," cried that lady. "Oh, I beg pardon. Mrs.

Stunt, Mrs. Wyndham; my daughter, Miss Todd, Mrs. Wyndham. I didn't realize that you had not met Miss Todd."

"I called at your Legation last Tuesday,--the proper day, I am sure,--but failed to see Miss Todd," said the Englishwoman, stiffly.

Mrs. Todd flushed crimson. Mrs. Stunt turned away to hide her satisfaction. A public slight to Gwendolen generally meant, for Mrs.

Todd, attempted annihilation of the offender. She turned angered eyes to Mrs. Wyndham, and would have spoken, but Gwendolen pressed her arm. "No, mother dear, don't defend me; I deserve it. Let me speak. Mrs. Wyndham, I am mother's despair at the Legation. I forget reception-days half the time. I--I--" here she lowered her voice to a delicious, confidential whisper, "the fact is I--I _shirk_ them. So many old frumps, you know!

It's getting to be a regular hen-roost. But, honest, I am sorry I was out last Tuesday, and I want you to give me another chance." Gwendolen could generally be irresistible when she chose. Now she chose not only to win Mrs. Wyndham, to whose high-bred English face she had taken an instant liking, but to deal another blow to her enemy Mrs. Stunt.

In both efforts she was successful, though Mrs. Wyndham did not capitulate all at once. The sparkling hazel eyes and the gray ones met.

Suspicion lived a little longer in the latter. "Please," murmured Gwendolen. Suspicion died. "I am always at home on my Wednesdays," said the Englishwoman.

"I'll be there," laughed Gwendolen. "Have me a place set at your breakfast-table!"

Yuki had vanished to perform her duties of hostess. Mrs. Todd and her small party took the "sunshine" seats, and a j.a.panese lady whom they had not met brought them foreign sewing materials. Work had not begun with them when a low, plaintive voice leaned to Mrs. Todd's large ear.

"Please, please, help me in all ways you can, dear Mrs. Todd. This is much worse than that reception I held downstairs. So many foreign ladies are come,--and they all look at everybody so very hard! Ask kind Mrs.

Wyndham to sing just as soon as she are ready, and soon, please."

Mrs. Wyndham rose instantly, and looked with composure over the sea of lifted heads. Every chair was now taken, and servants brought up new ones from the rooms downstairs. She was used to audiences, also to commendation. In her hands she held a roll of music. Mrs. Wyndham was one of those colonists--a large cla.s.s in the Far East--who never forgive j.a.pan for not being England. She emphasized her homesickness by withdrawal from all native interests, except, as now, when she could give pleasure and a.s.sistance by her voice. It was her pride that she ate no j.a.panese products. Everything on her table was "imported." Even her garden held only English flowers. That great sea of spiritual and physical beauty which lies in j.a.panese character, and in its environment, was to her nonexistent. Such dwellers in the East are like children who, in springtime, search the gra.s.s for fallen apples, and never once lift their disappointed faces to the pink canopy of bloom.

As may be inferred, all j.a.panese music was, to Mrs. Wyndham and her intimate a.s.sociates, mere squeaking, caterwauling, an excruciating discord. She spoke constantly of "civilized" music. She was fond of referring to the English school of harmony. She was exaggerated in her use of English method.

"Shall I be compelled to play my own accompaniment?" now asked Mrs.

Wyndham. Her pretty face showed concern.

"If the music is not too hard I will try," said Gwendolen, springing from her chair, while scissors and thimble fell clattering to the floor.

She gave the fallen articles a contemptuous glance, and, without a motion to rescue them, followed Mrs. Wyndham to the piano.

A group of young j.a.panese girls, put in a corner to themselves, exchanged looks of delight, and began to t.i.tter like wrens. "How much do the ways of the honorable foreign scissors and thimble resemble those of j.a.panese scissors and thimble!" they confided one to another.

"My thimble generally rolls off the veranda and buries itself among pebbles. I think it possesses an imp!" laughed one.

"Mine goes always into the red coals of the hibachi," giggled another.

"That is precisely the conduct of my worthless article," added a third.

"The water-kettle has to be taken aside, and grandmother scowls. Then we all dig for the thimble with the copper fire-sticks. When we find it, it is quite black, and--Ma-a-a!--so hot, that it must be dropped at once into cold water, where it hisses like the head of a small serpent."

"Now what shall I sing for such a crowd as this?" mused Mrs. Wyndham, as she shuffled the loose leaves of her music. Her words had the sound of inner meditation.

"What would the j.a.panese like best?" asked Gwendolen, in a low tone.

"Oh, my _dear_! I wasn't thinking of them!" protested the other. "They are incapable of appreciating any real music. I was thinking of our foreign friends."

"Yuki Hagane is a j.a.panese. She loves the best music. Brahms is almost a pa.s.sion with her. She says that he sounds like the wind in pine-trees, high above a great battle."

"Oh, Brahms!" said the other. "I never sing Brahms. He is too harsh and unpoetic. These bellowing contraltos affect him. As for me, I must have something light, poetic, full of melody."

"Here is our American McDowell," murmured Gwendolen, and bent her face that its expression might not be seen. "Being patriotic by profession I plead for McDowell."

"You do not consider him,--over their heads?" asked the Englishwoman, dubiously.

"Oh, well, you can give them Sullivan next time, and bring down the average!" Mrs. Wyndham bent a suspicious look, but Gwendolen's lifted gaze was that of a seraph over a last harp note. "I'll try McDowell. Can you play the accompaniment?"

"I can at least attempt it," said Gwendolen, meekly, and forthwith rippled out the prelude with an ease that further deepened suspicion.

The song began with a single note, long sustained, the voice striking in abruptly among hurrying chords. Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful voice took it like a star. Suddenly, with another upward swerve, the note wavered, pa.s.sed into a new kindling as into the life of a bird, and swept along on higher currents with motionless, outspread wings.

The foreign ladies exchanged glances of rapture. The j.a.panese workers, on the other hand, stared first in astonishment, then with growing apprehension. Surely this was not singing! Something must be going wrong with the honorable insides of the kind lady! They stole timid looks toward their hostess, and by her calm, interested face were rea.s.sured.

Still the piercing note went higher. The singer's throat swelled slightly, and her face turned red. From the group of j.a.panese girls one hysterical chuckle escaped. That set off the whole lot. Staid matrons bowed convulsed faces to folds of cotton cloth; silken sleeves came into requisition. A few of the foreign ladies looked about and frowned. Yuki half rose from her chair.

Now, fortunately, the highest note was reached. It broke its flight with a great twitter of wings. The bars of a staccato love-song began. Again the j.a.panese women stared, but now in admiration as well as wonder.

Never were singing notes so light, so delicate, so silvery! As the song ended (and indeed it had been exquisitely given), the foreign ladies burst into simultaneous applause. Led by the bolder among them, the j.a.panese followed suit.

"Oh, we can't let you stop at _that_, dear Mrs. Wyndham," came Mrs.

Stunt's high, rasping voice. "Won't you give us that lovely thing of Goo-nowd's you sung at our last Charity concert?" Mrs. Wyndham consented. After Gounod it was an English ballad, then another and another, until at length the singer, with pretty petulance, turned from the piano saying that she had already monopolized too much time. A great buzzing of thanks and congratulations surged about her. No expression of admiration was too exaggerated. In fact there was none that pretty Mrs.

Wyndham had not heard many times before. She accepted these tributes now, as usual, with deprecating smiles, and little protesting shakes of the head, finally declaring that they would make her conceited if they didn't stop.

No one noticed the American girl, still at the piano. She gave a swift look around, and seeing that the biwa player had not come, began whispering to the keys the first notes of one of Chopin's most delicate fantasies. Like the down on a moth's wing, it came. Like crystal raindrops, then, mixed with the perfume of bruised petals, and sometimes the distant yearning of a bird. This was music that even the untutored j.a.panese girls could feel. It held the sound of their own koto strings,--it breathed whispers of their own trees, and winds, and sighing sea-stretches. Gradually all voices in the room ceased. Faster the notes came, though still with a suggestion of whispering.

Gwendolen's white hands became a misty blur. The theme drew closer, with now a wind-driven swish of rain and scurrying petals; now the nearer cry of a bird, and a low under-rhythm of human sorrow. The sounds whirled and lifted into melodious agitation. The caged bird seemed to give low plaints of fear; the wind and the rain drove close, dashed into the face of silence, and drew back. Then all sounds died away in waves of exhausted sobbing. Gwendolen sprang up, leaving the piano vibrant. She hurried to the nearest window, turning her face from all in the room.

Mrs. Wyndham was the first to speak. Her light laugh had an artificial sound. "And to think, my dear, that I insisted upon knowing whether you could manage my accompaniments!"

Gwendolen did not heed. She was tingling with the excitement and unrest that Chopin's music so often brought her. Yuki came softly, slipping a little scarred hand into that of her friend.

"I hate Chopin!" cried the American girl, in a low, angry voice. "I wonder why I keep on playing him! Every time I say I won't, and then I go and do it! He is morbid, he is childish, he is French! One sees his weak chin quiver, and the tears roll down his cheek! He wants you to see them. I hate him, I say! But, oh, he is a compelling genius!"

"Yes, he do like every one to see him when he cries. But when I hear him I think, 'Oh, what must it be to a person's soul to be able to cry such tears of music!'"

A sound at the main entrance-door caused the little hostess to turn.

"Ah, there is the Satsuma biwa player! I must now go to him. He, too, makes tears, Gwendolen, but of a different sort. Perhaps you will not wish to cry for him. You may even think him to be funny, as many of the j.a.panese ladies thought Mrs. Wyndham's beautiful singing to be funny.

You must not try to stay,--you and Mrs. Todd,--if it will tire you."

As she hurried away Mrs. Wyndham drew slowly near. "You naughty one! I shall owe you a grudge for this. You are not to be forgiven until you promise to come often--often--and let us play sometimes together. You are a genius!"

"Not quite that, I think," said Gwendolen, smiling. "Though, indeed, I have never known a friend to take music's place, except Yuki; and now that she is a princess, I suppose I can't feel her to be so much my own.

I shall love to come to you and play. Your voice is like sunshine on an English fountain."

"Ah!" said the other, "what a charming speech! No man could say anything half so pretty! Now, as reward, I am going to give you a piece of valuable advice." She leaned confidentially near. "Make your escape while you can." She nodded significantly toward the biwa player, who, with Yuki beside him, stood shrinkingly in the doorway. "I've heard him once,--or one like him. It is what you Americans might call 'the limit'!"

"You mean for me to go? But I have never heard any j.a.panese music at all!" protested Gwendolen.

"Oh, in that case--" said Mrs. Wyndham, with her delicate shrug. "If you care for the experience!" She hurried off with many protestations of regret. Several other ladies followed her example.