Part 3

“No,” said Koma, clinching his hands at his side, “I would not.”

“Then you will go to this England, like a good son. The time has come.”

Koma remained plunged in gloomy thought.

After a moment he lifted his head and looked at the elder missionary.

“How do we know the time has come?”

“Because, my son, you have arrived at the years of manhood.”

“I am but sixteen years.”

The younger minister answered, quickly:

“It will require four or five years, at least, in England to learn the language and ways of your people thoroughly.”

“I already speak that language,” said Koma, flushing darkly. “Do I not, sir excellency?”

“No and yes. You have been brought up to speak the language. It is intelligible, but queer—wrong, somehow. You speak your father’s language like a foreigner.”

“Very well,” agreed Koma, bitterly. “Let us admit that. But may I inquire whether it will be necessary for me to go all the way to England to learn that language?”

“Well, yes. Four years in an English school will do much for you.”

“Four years; and when those four years are ended I still will lack one year from my majority.”

“That’s right,” said the missionary. “In England one attains one’s majority at twenty-one. So you would have a year in which to return, if you wish it, to Japan, previous to settling in England.”

“I do not know if I shall ever do that,” said the boy, sadly.

“It was the wish of your father,” said Aoi, pathetically.

“Yes, it was his wish,” repeated Koma. “Yet I will come back each year.”

“That is right,” said the old minister, patting him on the shoulder.

“Your father _never_ came back,” said Aoi, sighing wistfully.

“It would be entirely out of the question for you to return each year. Be advised by me, Komazawa; I have your interest at heart,” said the young minister, earnestly. “Stay in England four years, then return and visit your mother and sister.”

“Let the good excellency decide for us,” said Aoi, glancing appealingly at her old friend. He drew his brows together.

“Wait till the time comes to decide that,” he concluded. “If the boy is old enough to leave home, he is of an age, also, to choose what he shall do. Let us not attempt to curb him.”

VIII

The new missionary assumed that Hyacinth was the sister of Komazawa. His interest in her was less than in Komazawa, since the boy was his father’s heir. Possibly, too, this might have been because of the natural antagonism with which the little girl had from the first met his overtures to her. From the moment when she became acutely aware that the new minister was practically responsible for the departure of her beloved Koma, the child conceived a violent dislike for him.

When the old minister, worn with his years of labor, quietly resigned his pastorate into the hands of his successor, and the new minister had taken up the management of the little church, Hyacinth refused henceforth even to enter the mission-house. All the entreaties and threats of Aoi were in vain, and, with Koma gone, she soon realized the fruitlessness of attempting to force her to do anything against her will. Comprehending the turbulent nature of the child, she knew that Hyacinth would only disgrace them both if she were forced into the church. So the departure of Komazawa meant at least the Sunday freedom of Hyacinth.

Nor was this the only result. The child, whose strange, independent nature had never been controlled by any one save by Koma, now that he was gone broke all restraints. She wandered at will about the bay, hiding in hollows in the rocks among the tombs when they sought to find her. Her little vagabond existence was not unlike that which Koma himself had led in his early childhood, save that she was not so easily restrained by the reproaches of Aoi. Like him, at this time, she scorned the companionship of other children. Like him she wandered away from her home in fits and starts, passive for an interval, and then bursting all bounds and disappearing sometimes for the space of an entire day or night, to return ragged and ravenously hungry.

But when the winter came, and the snow and icicles crested the trees and whitened the hills, poor Hyacinth was like a little, languishing, caged bird. Her face grew wistful and mournful. She would remain for hours with her face pressed against the street shoji, staring out into the white, cold world that bounded the horizon on all sides. If you had asked her what she was waiting for, she would have replied:

“I am waiting for the summer, for the summer brings Koma. He has promised.”

Yet when the summer came no Koma returned with the flowers and the sun.

Little Hyacinth grew accustomed to her solitude. The following year she came under the new edict of education, compulsory everywhere in Japan, and, in spite of her protests, was forced into school with a half-score of Japanese children of her own age.

At first she regarded with a fierce detestation the school and all connected with it. Did not the sensei (teacher), on the very first day, perch his spectacles upon his nose, and, drawing her by the sleeve to one side, examine her with the curiosity he would have bestowed upon some small animal. The children eyed her askance. One or two of the larger ones pointed at her hair, and, laughing shrilly, called her a strange name. If familiarity breeds contempt it also breeds toleration with the young. Hyacinth in the beginning had merely excited the curiosity, not the antipathy, of the Japanese teacher and his scholars. But as time passed they became accustomed to the difference between her and themselves. Gradually she slipped into being regarded and treated as one of them.

Then Hyacinth’s small, lonesome soul expanded to stretch out timid though passionate glad hands of comradeship to all the world. She became a favorite, the very life and soul of the school. Japanese children are painfully docile and passive. Never were such strange spirits infused into a Japanese class before.

So the years passed, not unhappily, for Hyacinth. Koma at the end of the second year was a mere memory, at the end of the third he was forgotten—wholly forgotten. Such is the fickle mind of a child of the nature of Hyacinth.

The fourth year brought him back to Matsushima. He had become very tall, taller than any of the inhabitants of Sendai he seemed, quite a head over them. He wore strange and unpleasant-looking clothes, such as those worn by the Reverend Mr. Blount, who was disliked as heartily as his predecessor had been beloved.

Koma was now an object of the greatest curiosity to Hyacinth. At first his strange appearance in the house frightened her into speechlessness. Never had she seen in all her minute experience such a strange-apparelled being, save, of course, the “abominable Blount.” In concert with the small children of the neighborhood, and in spite of the remonstrances of Aoi, Hyacinth would shout strange names whenever the gaunt figure of the white missionary appeared. “Forn debbil! Clistian!”—such were the names this little Caucasian bestowed upon the representative of her race.

She had become the most utter little backslider, if she could ever have been considered a member of the church. Respect and awe for the teachings of a careful and pious Shinto teacher, and association with a score of Shinto children, had had their due effect upon Hyacinth, and the influence of Aoi waned with the years. Little if anything of the ethics of the two religions did she understand, but to her the gods were bright, beauteous beings, whose temples were glittering gold, and whose priests kept them fragrant with incense and beaming lights by night. The mission-house was empty, ugly, dark, and damp—so it seemed to her—and an odious man, with terrible, long hairs falling from his chin, shouted and gesticulated to a congregation which often wept and groaned in unison.

The small children shouted derisively and often threw stones at the “abominable Blount” when in little groups together. But when one of their number met the minister alone, he would run from him in a sheer agony of fright.

So when Komazawa returned to Sendai, clad in the garments worn by the missionary, Hyacinth regarded him with mingled feelings of terror and fascination.

Though he made ceaseless efforts to speak to her, she could not be brought to utter one word in response. His every movement mystified her. She would sit on the floor through an entire meal watching him with wide eyes while he ate in a fashion she had never seen or heard of before.

Koma had discarded the chop-sticks, and now used, to the extreme joy and agitation of Aoi, great silver knives and forks, which she brought forth from a mysterious recess, which even the inquisitive Hyacinth had never discovered before.

Koma, distressed over the change in his little playmate, sought to win her friendship with presents purchased in England, boxes of strange sweetmeats—at least he told her they were sweetmeats. But they were coated with a black-brown covering which the little girl regarded suspiciously. She pushed almost fearfully from her the harmless chocolate drops. The sugar-coated biscuits tempted her to touch one with the tip of her tongue, but she retreated the next moment when she found the red coloring upon her fingers.

Koma regarded the girl with an expression half whimsical, half tragical, and, turning to his mother, said:

“Why, the little one is even more Japanese than I.”

Aoi nodded her head, smiling tenderly at the flushing face of Hyacinth.

“Will you not even speak to Komazawa?” she inquired, reproachfully. “Why, that is not kind. Do you not love your august brother?”

As Hyacinth made no response, Koma held out his hands to her.

“Come here, little one,” he said, bending to her till his face was quite close to hers.

Her fascinated eyes wandered from his strange apparel to his face. His eyes held hers with their strong, tender, reassuring expression. Half unconsciously she went closer to him.

“Do you not remember me, then?” he queried, in a soft voice, whose reproachful tones thrilled the girl.

Wistfully she approached him still closer, only to retreat in panic the next moment. She was like a little wild bird, shy and fearful, yet half anxious to make friends with a strange being.

Suddenly she began to cry, drawing her sleeve across her eyes and turning her face to the wall. She could not have told why she wept. Was it fear, childish conscience, or a slow recognition of her old, beloved Koma, whose name had become but a word to her?

If she remembered Koma at all, the memory bore no resemblance to this tall man-boy who had returned so suddenly to their home. To her he seemed a stranger, a fearful intruder.

Hurt to the quick, Madame Aoi whispered to her son. He arose without a word and disappeared into his room. Fifteen minutes later, Hyacinth, playing with a regiment of Japanese doll soldiers on the floor, having forgotten all her tears of a few minutes since, leaped to her feet suddenly, with a strange, little cry.

There in the middle of the room she stood, holding tightly in her hand her doll, and staring, as if fascinated by the smiling figure on the threshold. It was the same stranger surely, yet, ah, not the same. A few minutes had wrought such a change in his appearance. He had discarded the heavy, dark, mysterious clothes. He appeared like any other Japanese youth, save that he was much taller, and his face smiled down upon the little girl with an expression whose power she had been unable to resist even when he had worn those outlandish garments. He called to her, softly.

“Now, come, little one; come, give me that welcome home.”

Her hand unclinched, the doll dropped to the floor. With a sudden impulse she ran blindly towards him, and he caught her in his arms with a great hug, which was as familiar to her as life itself.

IX

It was late in December, the time of Great Snow. Komazawa was still in Sendai, and Hyacinth had been taken from the school. She was now twelve years of age, still undeveloped in body and childish in mind.

Hyacinth, like most impressionable children, had quickly succumbed to the influence of the school-teacher. In his hands she had yielded like plaster to the sculptor. Out of crude, almost wild, material had been developed what seemed on the surface an admirable example of a Japanese child.

Komazawa, fresh from four years of training at an English school and intimate association with English students and professors, now set about the task of undermining all that the sensei had taught Hyacinth.

This was no light task. Hyacinth could not unlearn in a few months that which had practically become ingrained. Quite useless it was, therefore, for Komazawa to seek to turn the child’s mind to a new and alien point of view, when, too, this view-point was, in a measure, an acquired thing with Koma himself. Yet he was patient, and labored unceasingly.

No; the people in the West were not all savages and barbarians.

“Did they not look like the Reverend Blount?” would inquire his small pupil.

“Yes, somewhat like him.”

“Ah, then, they perhaps were not savages, but they certainly were monsters.”

“No; they are very fine people—high, great.”

“But only monsters and evil spirits have hair growing from the chin and awful, blue-glass eyes,” protested Hyacinth.

Whereupon Koma quietly brought a small mirror from his room, held it before her face, and bade her look within.

She stared curiously and somewhat timorously.

“What do you see?” he inquired, quietly.

“Little girl,” she said, in a faint voice.

“Yes, and what color are her eyes?”

The eyes within the glass became enlarged with excitement. The lips parted. Hyacinth put her face close to the glass.

“They are blue, also,” she said, shrinking.

“Very well, then. You, also, have blue eyes, Hyacinth.”

“Me!” She stared up at him, aghast.

“Certainly. Is not the little girl in the glass you?”

“No!” Her dilated eyes strained at the glass, then looked behind it and about her. She could see no other little girl in the room. There was only that face in the shining glass, with its blue, shiny eyes. With spasmodic working of features, she regarded it.

“This is you—certainly,” repeated Koma, pointing to the reflection.

An uncanny fear took possession of the little girl. Suddenly she raised her hand, knocking the glass from that of Koma.

“That’s not me. No! That’s lie. I am here—here! That’s not me.”

She burst into a passion of tears.

Raising the glass, Koma put it aside. He sought his mother immediately, and, with concern and perplexity in his face, told her of the incident of the mirror.

“Hyacinth was frightened—yes, actually afraid of the mirror. What can be the matter?”

“That is only natural,” said Aoi. “And I am much distressed that you should have frightened her with the glass.”

“But why should it affright her?”

“Because she has never seen one before.”

“Never seen a mirror before?”

“No. It is only of late years that they have come to Sendai, my son.”

“Why, the mirror is as old as the nation.”

“Oh, son, but not for general use. Until recent years they were regarded as things of mystery, and were very precious and priceless.”

“Yet as a child I had often seen my father’s mirror. Our house contains one, does it not?”

“True; but it is locked away in our secret panel.”

“But why?”

Aoi hesitated.

“It was, perhaps, a useless custom, my son. But in my younger days maidens were not permitted to see their own faces. The mirror was for the married woman only. Thus, a maiden was saved from being vain of her beauty.”

Koma frowned impatiently.

“A useless and foolish custom, truly. And now, here in these enlightened times, you put it into practice with Hyacinth. Why, you are prolonging the customs of the ancients here in this house, which should be an example of the new and enlightened age.”

Meekly Aoi bowed her head.

“You are honorably right, my son; yet there was another reason why the mirror was kept from the sight of the little one.”

“Yes?”

“How could I blast the little one’s life by letting her know of—of her peculiar physical misfortunes?”

“Physical misfortunes! What do you mean?”

“Why, the hair, eyes, skin—how strange, how unnatural!”

Koma threw back his head and laughed with an angry note.

“Oh, my mother, you are growing backward. You are seeing all things from a narrowing point of view. Because Hyacinth is not like other Japanese children, she is not ugly. Why, the little one is beautiful, quite so, in her own way.”

Aoi appeared troubled.

“You did not consider my father ugly, did you?”

“Ah no.”

“Well, but was he not fair of face?”

“It is true,” she admitted; then, sighing, added, “But I fear the little one would not agree with us in the matter. It might terrify her to see her own face—so different from that of her play-mates. In heart and nature she is all Japanese.”

“Nay; her natural parts have had no opportunities. She, like you, has seen only one side of life and the world. Now, is it not time to educate her real self?”

With an unconscious motion of distress, Aoi wrung her hands.

“The task is beyond me, my son. How can I effect it? Alas! as you say, I am in the same condition, for am I not all Japanese? My lord is gone these many years. I cannot keep step with the passage of time. Yes, son, I slip backward into the old mode of life and thought. When you were by my side, you were the prop that kept me awake, alive. But you were gone so long. Ah! it seemed as if time would never end.”

“Oh, my mother,” he cried, “I will never leave you again. It is I who am all wrong, wrong—I who am the renegade. But we will remain here together, and you, dear mother, will teach me all over again the precepts of my childhood. For these four years I have been studying, acquiring a new method of thought and life, yet I fell into it naturally. My father’s blood was strong in me. Yet, dear mother, now I feel I have been wrong in leaving you, and I will not return.”

“Oh, son,” she said, with trembling lips, “you are all Engleesh—all your father. And it is right. Do not speak of remaining here with us. A mother’s eyes can see deep beyond the shallows into her child’s soul. I know your restless heart cries for the other world. It is there, indeed, you belong. And you must return to this England and the college.”

“But I shall not remain,” he said, throwing his arm about her shoulder. “No; I shall come back when I am through college, for you and Hyacinth.”

Aoi did not speak. Her poor little hands trembled against his arms.

Fluttering to the door came Hyacinth. The tear-stains were gone from her face. In her hand she carried the small English mirror. Evidently she had overcome her repugnance and fear of it, and now regarded it as some strange and active possession.

Aoi looked up at her son with questioning eyes.

“The little one’s new education must commence at once,” he said, slowly.

He went to the child and took the mirror from her hand and again held it before her face.

“This is the beginning,” he said. “Let her become acquainted with herself as she is. This will force a new trend of thought.”

Then to the child:

“Who is this within?” he asked.

“It is I,” she said, simply.

She had discovered the secret of the mirror, and somehow it had lost all terror for her—nay, it held her with a strange delight and fascination.

“Little one,” said Komazawa, kneeling beside her, “look very often into the honorable mirror—every day. There you will see your own image. You will not be ignorant of yourself. You will learn much which the sensei cannot teach you. Also, go each day to the mission-house. No; do not shake your head so. But every day you must go to the school class. Then very soon, maybe in three years, I will return and complete the teaching.”

Hyacinth looked timidly up into his earnest face a moment. Then she suddenly smiled and dimpled.

“Very well,” she said, in English, in a tone whose note expressed as words could not her perplexed emotion.

A smile overspread Koma’s face.

“Ah,” he said, with a glance back at his mother, “the little one has not forgotten.”

“Yet,” said Aoi, “she has not spoken it, son, since you left Sendai five years ago.”

X

The Reverend Mr. Blount knocked sharply at the door of Madame Aoi’s house. There was no response at first to his summons, beyond a slight stir and bustle at the rear. After a pause the sliding-doors were pushed aside and the fat face of Mumè appeared for a moment, to disappear the next. She was heard chattering, in a grumbling voice, to some one within.

The visitor, grown impatient, rapped hard upon the panelling. A moment later there was the light patter of feet along the hall and Aoi appeared. She hastened towards the visitor with an apologetic expression.

Would the honorable one pardon her great discourtesy? She had been taking her noonday siesta and had not heard the visitor’s knock. She would immediately reprove her insignificantly rude and ignorant servant for not having shown the illustrious one welcome and hospitality.

“I want to see Hyacinth,” said the caller, entering the guest-room and slowly removing his kid gloves.

Hyacinth, Aoi informed her visitor, was also taking her noon sleep. Would the honorable one deign to excuse her, or should she disturb the little one?

“Asleep?” he repeated, disapprovingly. “How can that be, madame, since I only just saw her at the window?”

“She must have awakened, then,” said Aoi, simply.

The other nodded curtly. “No doubt,” he said. He seated himself stiffly in the only chair in the room, and when Aoi had quietly seated herself on a mat some distance from him, he clasped his hands together and leaned forward towards her.

“Madame Aoi,” he said, “I have just heard the most improbable, ridiculous tale about Hyacinth.”

Madame Aoi elevated her eyes in gentle question.

“That she is, in fact—er—engaged——that is, affianced—you know what I mean.”

Aoi smiled beamingly. Yes, she admitted, her daughter was, indeed, betrothed to Yamashiro Yoshida, “son of our most illustrious and respected and honorable friend in Sendai, Yamashiro Shawtaro.”

“But,” said the visitor, after a moment of speechless surprise, “this is the most preposterous, impossible of things. Why this—this Yamashiro Shawtaro, the father of the boy, is one of the most rabid Buddhists, and, besides, it is barbaric, an unheard-of thing, to think of marrying a girl of her age to any one.”

“The betrothal,” said Aoi, with a slight smile, “was all arranged by the Yamashiro family. The boy is the father’s salt of life. He cast eyes of desire upon the little one, and as he is the richest, noblest, and proudest youth in Sendai, we have accepted him. All the town envies us, excellency.”

“Does her brother know about this?” demanded Mr. Blount, severely.

“Oh yes, surely.”

“And what does he say? He is English enough to perceive the utter impossibility of such a marriage.”

“We have not heard from my son yet in the matter,” said Aoi, simply.

“Well,” said the other, “I can assure you that when he knows the truth he will refuse to countenance it.”

“But, illustrious master, how can he do so? He has not that right.”

“He has not the right! Why, even your Japanese law makes him her rightful guardian. He is still a citizen of Japan. A brother, in Japan, is his sister’s legal guardian. I know this to be a fact.”

“Ah, but, honored sir, you do not know everything.”