The Motor Maids in Fair Japan Part 10

"Oh, they are a group of fanatical young persons opposed to foreigners.

Most of them are descendants of the samurai. They believe in old j.a.pan.

They talk the wildest kind of nonsense, and while their beliefs are opposed to progress, they represent in j.a.pan what the Nihilists represent in Russia and the Anarchists and such people in other countries. They will outgrow it in time. Some of the finest men in j.a.pan once belonged to these clubs of _soshi_, as they are called. In another generation there will be very few of them left. In the meantime they are quite dangerous occasionally. About fifty years ago a band of them attacked the English Legation at Takanawa and there was a fierce fight. But I feel perfectly sure that they wouldn't attack people now. Only motor cars and the like."

"That would have been bad enough," remarked Billie, patting the wheel of the "Comet."

Mme. Fontaine smiled pleasantly.

"After the great excitement may I not have the pleasure of offering you a reviving cup of tea at my house? It would make me very happy."

Miss Campbell would have much preferred to go straight home, but to decline the invitation would have seemed ungracious and she accepted promptly.

Along the broad streets of Tokyo, under out-stretched boughs heavy with blossoms, they rolled, and at last Billie paused as directed at a gate in a wall behind which was a charming little house, set in the usual beautiful garden.

If Mme. Fontaine was fascinating and elegant, so also was her home. The drawing-room, which seemed to occupy most of the second floor, was furnished in European fashion with deep chairs and couches, Oriental rugs and rich hangings. There was a grand piano near the windows, and on the walls were the rarest and most beautiful j.a.panese prints. It was a blending of the East and West and was one of the most artistic and delightful apartments the girls had ever seen. In the dim shadowy confines they caught glimpses of teakwood cabinets in which were carved ivories and pieces of fine porcelain. The girls would have liked well to linger another hour among all these interesting and strange objects, but Miss Campbell, for some reason, was in her most conventional mood. While her manner toward Mme. Fontaine left nothing to be desired and she was graciousness personified, she cut the call to twenty-five minutes by the French clock on the mantel, and then go she would. As they were leaving Mary noticed on a table near the door two splendid swords, one very large and heavy and one with a double-edged blade of much smaller size.

"Oh, are these the swords of a samurai warrior?" she demanded, with excited interest.

"Yes," answered Mme. Fontaine. "They belonged to my great grandfather."

Not until they were back in the "Comet" and well on the way home did they realize the meaning of her words.

"Then," exclaimed Nancy, "she is half j.a.panese."

"And I've invited her to dine the day after tomorrow," Miss Campbell remarked irrelevantly.

The adventure on Arakawa Ridge was far-reaching in its results as a matter of fact, but the most immediate one was a severe punishment administered by that usually kind and gentle person, Mr. Campbell, on no less a victim than the "Comet." Just what the punishment was you will find out when the Motor Maids themselves discover it.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE COMPa.s.sIONATE G.o.d, JIZU.

Miss Campbell was very dubious about having invited Mme. Fontaine to dine.

"Of course she was very kind," she remarked, "and we owe her a great deal, but I wish we could show our appreciation in some other way. We don't know anything about her: who she is; where she came from; whether she has any family."

"But, my dear cousin," said Mr. Campbell, who had wandered about the world so much that he was accustomed to taking people without any questions, "what difference does it make? You say she is refined and well-bred. We know she is kind because of what she did for us. But I will make some inquiries about her if you like--"

"I never liked mixed bloods," interrupted Miss Campbell, not listening to her relation.

"Everybody has some mixture of bloods," laughed Billie. "Look at Mary--French and English; look at Elinor--Scotch and Irish."

"No, no," protested Miss Campbell "Those aren't the kinds of mixtures I referred to. It's those queer Oriental bloods--yellow people and white people."

The others all smiled indulgently. Miss Campbell was just a little old-fashioned lady with old-fashioned restricted views, they thought. She was the only one of the motor party who had not fallen under the spell of Mme. Fontaine, and apparently the only cause for her objection was because this charming stranger was part j.a.panese and wrote for the newspapers.

That evening Mr. Campbell endeavored to set her fears at rest.

"I have inquired about your mysterious Mme. Fontaine," he said. "She is a widow. Her husband was editor of a paper in Shanghai. She herself is a writer and a newspaper correspondent. She has written several novels published in Shanghai, and she is generally considered to be a very bright person. She has been living in Tokyo not quite a year and goes out very little."

This fragment of her history only seemed to deepen the atmosphere of romance which enveloped the "Widow of Shanghai," as Mr. Campbell would call her, and the Motor Maids rather eagerly awaited the evening when she was to dine with them.

In the meantime, they were to receive a ceremonious call from the family of Yoritomo Ito, and he himself was to act as interpreter for the three j.a.panese ladies, his mother, his aunt and his sister. They appeared one afternoon in two jinrikshas and such a bowing and smiling was never seen before. The day had been sultry and hot and tea was served in the summer-house in the garden by the little maids attached to the household.

Miss Campbell was sorry that the pretty Onoye, flower of the staff, did not appear. However, these things were all left to O'Haru, and she said nothing.

Yoritomo's sister, O'Kami San (that is to say: the honorable Miss Kami), spoke a very little English. This fact she had bashfully hidden from the girls on the occasion of their first meeting. But when Billie, through Yoritomo, asked his sister to walk in the garden, she answered herself:

"Receive thanks. Honorable walk will confer pleasure."

a.s.suredly the j.a.panese-English dictionaries and phrase books must all use the most stilted and ceremonious English words, so Billie thought.

"'Receive thanks and confer pleasure!' How absurd!"

But then Billie did not realize that the j.a.panese language abounds in such ceremonious words and high-sounding phrases and, in order to keep the spirit of the original, translations are generally literal.

Off they trooped down a garden path, followed by the reproachful eyes of Miss Helen Campbell, who found it a decided strain on the nerves to keep a second-hand conversation going. Nancy lingered behind and helped her out by giving Yoritomo an account of their accident on Arakawa Ridge.

This he immediately pa.s.sed on to his mother and aunt.

In the meantime, O'Kami San, trotting along beside Billie, with Mary and Elinor following behind, might have just stepped out of a j.a.panese fan.

She was so entirely unreal and cunning that the girls had no eyes for the rosy rain of cherry blossoms dropping from the trees, nor the lovely vista of garden with its flaming bushes of azaleas and cool green clumps of ferns. Out of compliment to the season O'Kami San wore a robe of delicate pink embroidered all over with sprays of cherry blossoms in deeper shades. Her obi, or sash, was of pale green silk. Her hair was elaborately pompadoured and drawn up in the back into a large glossy roll held in place with tortoise sh.e.l.l pins. No doubt it had taken hours to arrange; two, at the very least.

Billie patted her own smooth rolls serenely.

"Suppose I had to sleep with my neck on a little wooden bench every night to preserve my _coiffure_," she thought. "I think I'd just lay my head on the executioner's block and say, 'Strike it off. It's not worth the trouble.'"

"Think garden pretty, O'Kami San?" began Mary, whose method of talking with the j.a.panese was to preserve only the framework of a sentence and drop all articles and small words.

"Much pretty. Me--like honorable garden and beautiful American ladee,"

answered O'Kami, speaking slowly and distinctly.

English p.r.o.nunciation never seemed to trouble the j.a.panese. It was only choice of words and construction.

"What do you do all day, O'Kami San?" asked Elinor.

"Much honorable work," answered the j.a.panese girl. "Cook-ing; sew-ing"; she pointed to her kimono; "mu-seek; book-stu-dee. Ah, much work to become wife."

"You are not thinking of marrying, surely? Your brother says you are only sixteen," protested Mary.

O'Kami nodded her head and smiled.

"Arrange all the day before to this."

"Do you love him?" asked Mary, in an awed tone of voice.

O'Kami looked puzzled. The word "love" she had not learned.