CHAPTER XXII

THE COMING HOME OF JUNZO

THOUGH samurai by birth, the Kamura family were of gentler nature than their stern ancestors, and so no feeling of anger or bitterness had been cherished against their son Junzo. His parents made their sad apologies to their guests, who hastily departed, cloaking their feelings behind their well-bred, stoic faces. Yamada Kwacho alone lingered to speak a word of gruff sympathy to the parents, and to offer what aid was in his power. When they insisted that their son was surely ill, Kwacho said at once he would go to Tokyo and personally seek the young man in the capital.

Meanwhile, the Kamura family kept a tireless, ceaseless watch for Junzo. Though days and weeks and then a month slipped slowly by, each member of the household took his place by day at a small lookout station to watch for any sight of ani-san (elder brother). By night a light turned to the east burned at the casement of Junzo’s chamber, while mother and father knelt at shoji doors, keeping the watch. Thus would they watch by day and night, so any hour he might come would find them waiting patiently.

Two months had passed since Junzo left Kamakura, when the belated word came from Tokyo. Yamada Kwacho had found the wandering Junzo.

No member of the Kamura family retired that night. Even the smallest child knelt by the shoji and watched for Junzo. A series of heavy rains had darkened the days and nights. The clinging fog of the Hayama hung heavily in the atmosphere.

Not a star or gleam of moon shone out to soften the blackness of the night sky. When the slothful morning crept in timid wonder over the hills, and pushed with soft, gray hands the night away, the watchers saw the fog was vanquished, and that the pale morning mist bespoke a brighter day to dawn.

When the first gleam of the long-looked-for sun came up the eastern slope, Junzo staggered down the hills of Kamakura toward his home. Those watching at the shoji saw him as he passed with down-bent head within the gate. Then the calm of caste and school broke down before the throb of parenthood. Father and mother hastened down the garden path to meet their son.

“The fog!” It was the mother who spoke in sobbing tones, as she fondled the hands of her eldest son. “You honorably did lose your way, Junzo.”

His restless eyes wandered from hers, and he pushed back, absently, the long black locks that tumbled on his brow.

“It was the fog that kept you, Junzo?” she urged.

“The fog?” he said dazedly. “No—that is, yes. It was the fog, good mother.”

“So dark at night! Oh, son, we thought that you might wander from the path and come to the river bank.” She shuddered at the thought.

“Yet, you came down from the direction of the hills,” said his father, anxiously. “Did you abide there last night?”

“Yes,” said Junzo, “throughout the long, long night, my father.”

The silent Kwacho shook his head, then whispered in the father’s ear:—

“We arrived last night, good friend, quite early, but Junzo, as you see, is ill and I could not leave him for a moment. Hence, Oka being nowhere at hand, and not a vehicle in sight, I sought to lead him homeward. But no, he turned his feet in new directions. He stumbled here and there across the fields and up and down the hills, and finally we reached the walls of Aoyama. I could not lead him, since he would not have it so, and so I humored his strange fancy, and hence, good friend, have spent the night crouched down beside the palace walls, without covering, indeed, without the much-desired good sleep.”

“Oh, come indoors, at once,” the mother entreated, for Junzo lingered absently on the threshold. “Your face is pale, dear son, and oh, your clothes are quite soaked with dew.”

He followed her mechanically, though he seemed, as yet, to have noted nothing of the haggard aspect of their loving faces. His thoughts seemed far away. When his youngest brother, a little boy of five, came with running steps to meet him and called his name, he simply tapped the child upon the head.

The anxious mother had now become the zealous nurse and housewife. She clapped her hands a dozen times, and sent two attendants speeding for warm tea and dry clothes. The children were put in charge of Haru-no, who took them immediately to a neighbor’s house. Soon there was no one left in the apartment save mother and son.

“We will take good care of you, my son,” she said, “and when you are quite recovered, we will have another council.”

He repeated the word stupidly.

“Of what council do you speak?”

She stroked the damp hair backward with her tender fingers.

“My Junzo always was the absent-minded son, so given to his studies and his art he could not spare a thought for other matters.”

He put his hands upon those on his head, and drew his mother about until she was before him. Then, looking in her face with searching, troubled eyes, he said:—

“Was there a council of our family?”

“Why, yes, my son,—that day you went to Tokyo.”

He passed his hand across his brow, then seemed to listen for a space. Slowly a look of horror crept across his face.

“It was my marriage council!” he gasped.

“Why, yes, dear Junzo; your marriage to the maid Masago. Ah, you are quite ill, my son.”

He sprang to his feet, and stood in quivering thought. She heard him mutter half aloud, despairingly:—

“But she had gone away—to Tokyo. They told me so.”

“Why, no, it is a mistake. Who told you that she went to Tokyo, my son?”

“The palace guards,” he said, not looking at his mother.

“Oh, you are surely ill, my son.”

“I am not ill,” he said, with persistent gentleness; “but I am speaking truth, dear mother. Do I not know of what I speak, for was I not close by the palace walls throughout the length of one whole night? I tell you, mother, that I _saw_ her go to Tokyo.”

His mother threw her arms about his neck, then, bursting into tears, clung to him.

“Son,” she sobbed, “do not speak of Tokyo. The parent of your fiancée, Yamada Kwacho, is even now within our domicile, and the chaste maiden is safe in her home.”

He spoke with slow and hazy positiveness:—

“She went to Tokyo that night. I was so close unto her norimon that I could even touch it, and through the fog and the dim night I cried her name aloud. It sounded wildly in the night air.”

He undid the clinging arms about his neck, and stood as though plunged deep in moody thought. When his father and brother came into the room, he did not lift his head.

“Junzo, do you know your brother?” asked the youth Okido, stepping to his side.

Junzo raised his head.

“Why, yes, you are my younger brother, Kido-sama. Good morning!”

“Oh, ani-san!” cried the youth, in mournful tones. “How strangely you speak, how strangely you look!”

“Son,” said the father, sternly, laying his hands on Junzo’s shoulder, “it is your father speaking now. I named you Junzo (obedience). From youth you have obeyed my voice. Now come! I bid you go to your chamber. There you shall lie, your mother and young sister will attend you, and Kido here shall hasten for a learned doctor, a foreign man of science lately come to Kamakura. You are distraught and ill.”

“But I am well, most honored parent.”

“I say that you are ill.”

“I am quite well, excellent father, and I must go at once to Tokyo.”

“I command obedience to my will! Come, Junzo!”

“Command! A little while ago—or maybe it was long ago, within another lifetime, she said it was an ancient practice to obey parental command. Yet I always was so fond of the old rules of life that I will recognize my duty, father. I bow in filial submissiveness to your high will.”

But as he bowed his head in mock obedience he was so weak he would have fallen down, but that the sturdy Kido and his father supported him.

For days and weeks the artist-man of Kamakura tossed upon a bed of illness, a prey to violent fever of the brain, so termed by the great Dutch doctor visiting the little town. After many days there came a calm. Junzo slept and dreamed.

He thought the angel face of Sado-ko bent over his heated head, and that she brushed the tumbled locks back from his brow, and cooled it with her own soft, lovely hands. He cried her name and whispered it again and yet again. Was it only fancy, or did he truly hear that low, low voice, sighing back in answer, and soothing him with tender words of love?