Part 6

“Nay, do not look so, sweet mistress,” she implored; “the gods will not desert you. His Majesty himself has deigned to adopt thee, and to-morrow thou wilt go to the great capital as his ward.”

Sado-ko’s hands fell from her face. Her voice was not childlike, and quite hoarse.

“Pray thee, lead me below, honorable maid.”

* * * * *

It was lighter now in the palace, for a wan sun was creeping upward in the pale heavens. There were signs of a dreary day about to dawn. Through the winding corridors of the palace the princess and the maid moved toward the august chamber of death. At its door they paused and the princess’s hand dropped from that of the maid. Having permitted her attendant to push the sliding doors apart, she entered the chamber alone. Without, the maid bent her face to the mats, stifling her sobs in her sleeves. Within, the little princess hesitated a moment in doubt, then rushed to the death couch, threw herself down by the still form there, and unmindful of those within, encircled it with her arms. But no cry escaped her lips, for well had she been bred as a Daughter of the Sun-god by the old Empress Dowager.

The days that followed were hazy and unreal to Sado-ko. Strange women and men, with cold impassive faces, were about her at all times. She could scarcely tell one from the other, and it wearied her to be forced to listen to their words of caution and counsel. Then she made a journey. Strangely enough, when she was lifted into the covered palanquin and the curtains drawn about her, she knew that now she was to be carried beyond the gray palace walls. The journey was made at night, and the tired little princess slept throughout it, so that she was spared the tediousness of time.

In the morning her eyes opened upon a new world. As the day streamed through the bamboo curtains of her norimon, she pushed them aside, to see that they were passing along what seemed to be a stone road, upon either side of which were endless buildings unlike anything she had ever seen before. Although there were throngs of people everywhere, a strange and solemn silence prevailed, as the norimon and parade of the princess passed along, and the people bent their heads to the earth. Sado-ko could see that many of the women and some of the men wept. She did not know that the whole nation had gone into mourning for the one she had loved so well.

Sado-ko, passive and unquestioning, saw the great funeral of the Empress Dowager; a dumb little shadow, she lingered with other relatives in the hall for the mourners, and still, with little understanding, she was carried in her norimon under the escort given only to a royal princess, through a bamboo grove and over the Yumento Ukibashi—“The Bridge of Dreams.” The mortuary hall was reached. The Empress Dowager, whose dearest wish had been to be buried close to her summer palace, where she had spent her declining years, was interred far away from it among the tombs of her thousand ancestors.

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CHAPTER III

MASAGO

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CHAPTER III

MASAGO

FROM a poor but honored farmer of Echizen, Yamada Kwacho had grown to be a rich and prominent merchant of Tokyo. At the advice of the Lord of Echizen, Kwacho had gone to Tokyo soon after the Restoration, where, taking advantage of the modern craze for Western things then raging in the capital, he had invested the price of his little farm in one of the first “European” stores in Tokyo. His business had prospered and grown rapidly to huge dimensions. Now, while Kwacho was still in the prime of life, he found himself richer in worldly wealth than his former master the Lord of Echizen even in his best days.

The young farmer of Echizen had been content to remain in his humble class, though honors were offered him by his lord. The rich and prominent merchant of Tokyo was still at heart the conservative and independent young farmer of Echizen. Despite the fact that his great wealth would have purchased for him an entrée to a high society, Kwacho made no effort to emerge from his life of quiet and obscure ease. Possibly, too, an experience of his early married life caused him to look askance and with disfavor upon the lives of the society people. At all events a pretty home in a suburb of Tokyo, and the society of a few simple neighbors, quite contented him.

Whether the ambitions of Ohano kept the level of those of her husband, was not a matter of any determination. The mistress of a comfortable home, the comely wife of a respected citizen, and the mother of five sons and one daughter, she appeared contented with her lot.

There had always been a weak and soft element in the character of Ohano, however. In youth it had come near to being the cause of her complete ruin. But for the sturdy nature of her husband, Ohano might never have recovered morally. In latter years this weakness of disposition took the form of an almost childish delight in dwelling secretly in her own mind upon experiences in her life which she would not have breathed aloud even to her favorite god, much less to her sombre husband. Strangely enough, too, Ohano had far more affection for her daughter than for her sons,—a most uncommon thing in a Japanese woman.

As a little girl, Masago had been remarkable chiefly for her docile and quiet ways. This apathy of nature, peculiar in a child of her class, had been variously regarded by the teachers in the public school she had attended. Some had pronounced her dull and even sullen, while others insisted that her impassiveness showed an innate refinement and delicacy of birth and caste. Masago was very pretty after a delicate Yamato fashion. Unlike her sturdy young brothers, round-faced, rugged, and brimming over with health and spirits, Masago was oval-faced, her eyes were long and dreamy, her mouth small, the lips thin and prettily curved. Her skin was of a fine texture, and her little hands were quite as beautiful as those of the princesses who attended the Peeresses’ school.

Masago’s schoolmates thought her quiet disposition indicative of secretiveness and even slyness. She had never been known to express herself on any question, though no one gave closer attention to any matter under controversy than she. The consequence was that as she grew older her girl friends, at first sceptical and dubious of her quiet, unexpressive face, finally ended in confiding to her their various secrets; for well they knew that while they might expect no exchange of confidences, their secrets were well guarded within Masago’s silent little head and as safe as if unspoken.

Ohano, too, was quick to take advantage of the child’s listening talent and receptive mind. In spite of the fact that Masago was coming to an age when all such confidences should have been strictly kept from her, Ohano found herself gradually pouring out to her daughter those fascinating and forbidden secrets which still remained in her mind. She would sit opposite her daughter for hours at a time and describe graphically the palaces of Kyoto. It would have occurred to one older than Masago that, for one in her caste, Ohano’s knowledge of these places was unusual. But the child asked few questions and appeared to be absorbed in her mother’s glowing narrative. Only once she said, lifting her strange long eyes to her mother’s face:—

“It is in the palace I belong, mother, is it not?” And before Ohano was conscious of her words she had replied:—

“There, indeed, you belong of right, Masago.”

When Masago had reached her seventeenth year, she expressed her first independent wish to her family. It was that she be sent to a finishing school in Kyoto.

At her suggestion, made directly to him, Kwacho was disgruntled. She had had sufficient education for a maiden of her class, he insisted. What was more, he desired her to make an early marriage and had already begun negotiations for her betrothal.

Masago listened to her father’s words without replying, beyond a wordless bow of submission to his will. She did not argue the matter with him, since she knew that Ohano, without diplomacy and craft, had yet great influence with Kwacho. So the young girl went quietly to her mother, whom she found happily employed in washing a small barking chin on the rear veranda of the house. She looked back smilingly at her daughter over her shoulder as she rubbed the dog’s twitching little body.

“He is white enough,” said Masago, quietly, indicating the chin with a slight movement of her head. At this verdict Ohano released the dog. He darted about the veranda for a moment, shaking his still wet little body, then rushed through the shoji indoors, disappearing under a mat over a warm hibachi, where he shivered in comfort.

Ohano emptied out the water across a flower bed, and unrolled her sleeves. She was flushed with her exercise, and the water had splashed her gown. Her hair, too, was dishevelled, but she was the picture of the healthy housewife, as she turned to her daughter.