Part 4

Mr. Blount looked over his gold-rimmed spectacles sharply, endeavoring to pierce beneath the softness of her tone. Japanese women were all guile was his inner comment.

“Well, now, suppose you explain to me why your son is not his sister’s guardian?”

“Because, august minister, he is not the little one’s actual brother.”

Mr. Blount started so that he actually bounded from his seat.

“What do you mean?” he jerked out to Aoi.

“The little one is only my adopted child,” said Aoi, smiling serenely.

The minister could scarcely believe he heard aright. The Japanese woman continued to smile in a manner whose guileless, impenetrable innocence of expression had the effect of irritating him excessively.

“If Hyacinth is not your child, Madame Aoi, who are her parents?”

“The gods forsaken little Hyacinth. She has no true parents.”

In his acute interest in the matter, the minister actually overlooked the slip of Aoi when she alluded to the “gods.” What he said, with his eyes fixed very sternly upon her face, was:

“You are deceiving me, Madame Aoi. You are hiding the truth from me.”

The slightest frown passed over Aoi’s face. Her color deepened, then faded, leaving her inscrutable and impassive once more.

The honorable one was augustly mistaken, for the humble one had nothing to hide. Since the affairs of her adopted child concerned only her foster-parent, it was impossible to deceive the honorable minister.

It was the visitor’s turn to flush, and he did so angrily. Plainly this Japanese woman was attempting to conceal, with the prevarication and guile of her people, some mystery concerning Hyacinth. If the girl was not the daughter of Aoi by her English husband, who then was she? She certainly was not pure Japanese. Could it be that she was not even in part Japanese? The possibility staggered the missionary.

“Madame Aoi, you are taking a most unusual attitude towards me to-day.”

Aoi inclined her head in a motion that might have meant either assent or negation.

“Hitherto,” continued the other, “you have not hesitated to accept my advice—”

“In matters concerning that religion, yes,” interposed Aoi, softly.

“Which surely concerns all other matters connected with your welfare and that of Hyacinth. No one knows better than you do that the lives of our parishioners, our children, are our particular care and charge. I take the interest of a parent in our little band. So you would not withhold your confidence from a parent?”

“What is it the honorable sir would know?”

“The history of Hyacinth—who she is, how you came by her, her people’s name—all information about her.”

“There is nothing to confide,” said Aoi, slowly, as though she chose her words carefully before replying. “The old excellency knew the history of the child. It was under his advice that the humble one adopted the little one.”

“Under Mr. Radcliffe’s advice!”

“Yes.”

“What did he know of Hyacinth?”

“The excellency deigned to make effort to discover the little one’s parents.”

“But you don’t mean to tell me that you did not know her parents?”

“Only the mother, and she lived but a day after the coming of the child.”

“Did Mr. Radcliffe fail to find her father?”

Nervously Aoi clasped her hands together. She did not answer.

“Did he find her father?” repeated Mr. Blount.

Aoi looked at him with a gleam of stubbornness in her glance.

“If the excellency did not make confidant of you before he died, why should I do so, also?”

“It is your duty, madame.”

She shook her head slowly.

“Certainly, it is your duty. It is perfectly plain that Hyacinth is a white—that she’s not pure Japanese, at all events.”

Aoi moved uneasily. Then she looked up very earnestly at her interlocutor.

“The little one knows nothing of her parentage, save that she is an orphan confided to my care. It would distress her to be told that—that she is not Japanese.”

“Then you admit that?”

“No; I do not so admit. I but begged the honorable one to put no such notion into her mind, so sorely would it distress her.”

“I wouldn’t think of keeping her in ignorance,” exclaimed the other, with some indignation. “She ought to have been told the truth long ago. I shall certainly tell her.”

“What can you tell her?”

Aoi had risen and was regarding the missionary with a strange expression.

“That I suspect she is not Japanese—not all Japanese.”

“She would not believe you,” said Aoi, thoughtfully.

“I will see her at once, if you will allow me,” said Mr. Blount, also rising. He was somewhat startled at the attitude and the reply of Aoi. She had placed herself before the door, as if to prevent the passage of any one desiring to enter.

“My daughter will not see visitors to-day,” she said. “You will excuse her.”

The next moment she had clapped her hands loudly. In answer to her summons, Mumè came shuffling into the room, hastily wiping her hands upon her sleeves, and looking inquiringly towards her mistress.

“The illustrious one,” said Aoi, with intense sweetness, “wishes to return home. Pray, conduct him to the street.”

She bowed with profound grace to the missionary, and stepped aside to permit him to pass.

He hesitated a moment, and then said, slowly and succinctly:

“Madame Aoi, I have only this to say. I shall immediately take it upon myself to unravel this mystery. I will communicate with the nearest open port at once, and find out whether my predecessor had correspondence with any one on this subject. Good-day.” He bowed stiffly.

XI

Meanwhile Hyacinth lay stretched upon the matted floor of her chamber, her chin in one hand, the other holding an ancient oval mirror. She was studying her face closely, critically, and also wistfully.

The head was quaintly Japanese, yet the face was oddly at variance. For the hair was dressed in the prevailing mode of the Japanese maid of beauty and fashion in Sendai. It was a very elaborate coiffure, spread out on either side in the shape of the wings of a butterfly. Upon both sides of the little mountain at top projected long, dagger-like pins; gold they were and jewelled—the gift of Yoshida.

Hyacinth no longer fretted under the hands of a hair-dresser, since it was her pride and delight to have her hair dressed in this becoming and striking mode. If the hair-dresser, who came once a fortnight, puckered her face and shook her head when the beautiful, soft, brown locks twisted about her fingers, and did not follow the usual plastic methods used upon the hair of most Japanese maids, Hyacinth cared little. When the operation was completed, her hair, dark, shining, and smooth, appeared little different from that of other girls in the village.

It was the face beneath the coiffure that distressed the girl. The eyes were undoubtedly gray-blue. They were large, too, and wore an expression of wistful questioning which had only come there, perhaps, since the girl had begun to look into the mirror and to discover the secret of those strange, unnatural eyes.

The whiteness of her skin pleased her. What girl of her acquaintance would not be glad of such a complexion? She had small use for the powder-pot, into which her friends must dip so freely. Her mouth was rosy, the teeth within white and sparkling. Her chin was dimpled at the side and tipped with the same rose that dwelt in her rounded cheeks. The little nose was thin and delicate, piquant in shape and expression.

Why should such a face have distressed her? She would not admit to herself that she was homely. Perfume, Dewdrop, Spring—what did their judgment amount to? They were rude, uncouth even to have hinted at her “deformities.” They were one-eyed, seeing but one type of beauty. There must be another kind, for she was surely, surely beautiful. Then she fell into a reverie in which she speculated upon the possible existence of another people whose maidens’ hair and eyes were not like the night, but reflected the day.

Yet Yoshida, the son of Yamashiro Shawtaro, had actually suggested to her once, with a shamefaced expression, that if she stood in the sun-rays the goddess might darken her skin and eyes! Also, he had brought her, all the way from Tokyo, a little box of oil with which to shade her hair!

The oil had disappeared in the bay, though the pretty box in which it had come had been placed with the other gifts of Yoshida. As for the sun-goddess—those at the mission-house had insisted that there was no such being. Great and wise were the mission-house people, since they had come from the land of Komazawa.

Komazawa represented to her all that was fine and great and good. He was the beloved of Aoi, and the good God had given him to her for a brother and a hero. He wrote to her every week from the other end of the world, never forgetting. His letters were the sun and light of Aoi’s life, and Hyacinth shared with her something of the joy of receiving them. These two talked of him always. They watched for his letters, and devoured them with eager little outcries to each other when they arrived.

He was in London. College was done for the year. He was going to Cheshire, though apprehensive of the welcome he would receive from his father’s people. But the lawsuit had been won, with scarcely any struggle. His claim, his papers, withstood the closest of legal scrutiny. Yes; he was now an Englishman, almost entirely. Yet, ah, how he longed for home—for his mother and for little Hyacinth. The estate was very large, his lawyers told him, so large that he could not live there alone. Soon he was coming to take back with him the little mother and sister. Yes; it would be strange at first, but they would soon become accustomed to it. It was a cold country, and the milk of human kindness ran not freely, but it satisfied the desires of an ambitious one.

So ran his last letter.

Hyacinth wondered, vaguely, what he would say when he returned to Japan and found that she could not accompany him. By that time she would be married—married to Yamashiro Yoshida, who was rich and owned large stores in Tokyo, and who sometimes wore an English hat, the envy and marvel of all the gilded youth of Sendai.

Upon her cogitations came Aoi, trembling and anxious. She hovered a moment over the girl, hesitation and worry depicted in her countenance.

In surprise, Hyacinth looked up at her, then, carefully slipping the mirror into her sleeve, raised herself erect.

“What is troubling you, mother? Why, your hands tremble. I will hold them. You have news from Koma? What is it?”

“No, little one; it is not of Koma I speak.”

“Of whom, then?”

“Of you.”

“Then smile instantly. I am an insignificant subject for mirth, not tears.”

“Little one, if the right of freedom were given you, would you leave the humble one?”

“No; not in ten million years. What sort of freedom would that be?”

“Yet the learned ones at the mission-house will surely persuade you to take some such step.”

Hyacinth laughed scornfully.

“One cannot persuade a hummingbird to come to one’s hand. No; nor can these ones of the mission-house persuade me to do aught against my will.”

“But they of the mission-house—Mr. Blount—insinuated that we have not the right to possess you.”

“He is foolish. He has blue eyes,” said she of the blue eyes, disdainfully.

“Yet it is true that we have no legal right to you,” said Aoi, sadly.

“No? And why have you not?”

“Because I am not your real mother, and the time may come when others may claim you.”

“Since my own mother is gone, has not my foster-mother all right over me?”

“I do not know the law as to that,” said Aoi. “Oh, if the old, good excellency were but still alive to enlighten and advise us.”

“Mother,” said Hyacinth, looking up with questioning, wistful eyes at Aoi, “I have never asked a question of you concerning my own mother. You were always enough for me. I needed no other parent, dear, dear one. Yet now I would ask, can you tell me aught concerning my people?”

“No, little one. The sick one gave to me no information of her people. The good excellency made effort to find them, but failed.”

“My mother was a stranger to Sendai?”

“Yes, a stranger.”

“And she left nothing—nothing for—me?”

Aoi hesitated a moment, then, crossing the room, slipped her hand deftly along the wall and pushed aside a small panel. Hyacinth arose slowly. Her eyes were apprehensive, her lips apart. She had grown white with expectation.

“Here, in your own chamber, little one, is all that the august one left. I would have given you them on your wedding-day.”

Fearfully the girl touched the things in the little cupboard. How long had they lain there untouched? There were a woman’s strange dress, white underwear, a queer, basket-shaped thing with dark feathers upon it, a pair of black Suède gloves, small shoes, and then, in a little heap, three rings—a plain gold band, one with a large diamond, another with a ruby set between two smaller diamonds. Also a little chamois-skin bag containing a little roll of green bills and some strange coin.

Upon her knees Hyacinth fell beside the little shelf, and she stretched her arms out over it, burying her face in her sleeves.

For a long time neither of the two uttered a word. When the girl raised her face, after a long interval, it was very white, and tears streamed down her cheeks. She put out a little, groping hand to Aoi.

“Oh, you were good to her, were you not—were you not?” she whisperingly cried.

Aoi could not speak.

After a time the girl arose and reverently pushed the panel into place.

“The things are Engleesh,” she said, slowly. “Is it not strange?”

“Yes,” said Aoi, brokenly.

Yet even then she did not tell the girl the truth. Why she had hidden this fact always from Hyacinth she could hardly have explained even to herself. She thought she had but waited for the girl to come to years of understanding. Afterwards, when the proud Yamashiro family condescended to seek alliance with her, Aoi, faintheartedly fearful lest they should refuse to permit the marriage if they knew the truth, had carefully guarded the secret even from the girl. She knew that only a few people in the little village of Matsushima had heard of the history of the girl. It was only recently that they had moved to the City of Sendai. This match with the Yamashiro family was a thing so splendid as to be regarded with awe by Aoi. It could not be possible that such a chance would ever come again to her adopted daughter.

Now she said to the girl, placing both her hands upon her shoulders:

“Promise me, then, that you will refuse to discuss this subject with the mission-house people.”

“I will not even see them,” said the girl, stooping to kiss the anxious face.

“For if you should do so,” said Aoi, sadly, “they might persuade you to abandon us.”

“Ah, no; never, mother. No one could ever do so.”

“Save Yamashiro Yoshida,” said Aoi, quickly.

A cloud stole for an instant over the girl’s face. She sighed as she repeated, half under her breath:

“Save Yoshida—perhaps.”

XII

About a fortnight later the honorable Yamashiro family condescended to pay a visit to the house of Aoi. Although they lived but a field’s length away, they came in their carriages, very elegant jinrikishas, drawn by liveried runners.

The father was imperious and lordly. A man of samurai birth, he had been one of the first to take advantage of the change in government and go immediately into trade, thus placing behind him all the traditions of caste. In Tokyo he had acquired an enormous fortune. He had a partnership there in a European store. He had purchased much of the land in the region of Sendai, and the townspeople looked with some apprehensions upon his steady advance, knowing that wherever he set his heel the land was despoiled of beauty.

Sendai in these latter years had become quite a bustling commercial city, and all because of Yamashiro’s enterprise. In ten years he had altered the little coast town’s exclusive policy. Thus the townspeople came to believe that Sendai could no longer remain a secluded place of abode, but would become an ugly, commercial centre, a stamping-ground for tradespeople, and in time an open port for the barbarians. In the face of the dissatisfaction of his townspeople Yamashiro steadily kept to his march of progress. Realizing that he could never have the affection of his neighbors, he openly tried to play the despot over them.

A plastic little pupil was his wife, the typical Japanese matron, who, bowing to the will of her lord in all things, scarcely ever spoke save to echo his words, and who lived but for his pleasure and comfort.

The boy Yoshida was like his father, save that he spent his restlessness upon the pleasures of youth. Having no occasion to work, and being provided with an unlimited supply of money, Yoshida frittered his way through life with the idle and rich young men of Sendai, leisurely inventing amusements for themselves, seeking and chasing every butterfly. Not a geisha of Sendai but knew the gallant Yoshida.

Then, mothlike, with a daintier and as gay a fluttering of wings as the geishas, Hyacinth had crossed his path. Aoi had moved her home about this time from the little village on the shore of the bay to the city proper. This occurred after Komazawa’s English lawsuit had been settled, so that the family were now living in more affluent circumstances.

Actually abandoning his geishas, Yoshida, to the envy of the town’s young belles and beauties, offered himself to the daughter of Madame Aoi, the girl whose eyes did not slant in shape, and yet which had a trick of closing half-way and then glancing out sideways. It was as if Hyacinth, with her wide eyes, had unconsciously fallen into the habit of copying nature, where all eyes about her were narrow and seemingly half closed.

On this day Yoshida and his parents brought gifts for Aoi and her daughter; gorgeous gifts they were and very costly. The girl, quite forgetful of the presence of the watchful parents of her lover, threw all her manners to the winds when she beheld the exquisite obi her father-in-law-elect had brought her from Tokyo. Out of the room she slipped, to return in the space of a few minutes, fluttering in through the sliding-doors like a bird of gay plumage, her eyes brighter, her cheeks and lips rosier than the red gold obi twisted so entrancingly about her slender waist.

Yet in her brief absence the Yamashiro family had exchanged significant glances and commented upon her rude actions.

“Your worthy daughter, Madame Aoi,” said Yamashiro, the elder, “should be placed under the care of a severe governess.”

Aoi looked appealingly from the displeased face of Yamashiro to his wife. The latter sat still as an image, her small vermilion-tipped lips closely sealed together like those of a doll.

“You would not delay the marriage, excellent Yamashiro?” inquired Aoi, faintly, the match-making vanities of a mother stirring within her.

“It might be well,” said Yamashiro, stiffly. Languidly the boy interposed:

“Ah, well, she will have time to learn when she has the father and mother-in-law to teach and command her.”

“True,” said his father, and “True” echoed his mother, stonily, scarce parting her lips to enunciate the word.

Then Hyacinth fluttered in gayly, and the light of her smile fell upon them like a shaft of sunlight, to be dissipated, a moment later, by the enshrouding mist. She paused in her tripping pilgrimage of pride across the room, glanced flurriedly at the guests, then sat down hastily beside Madame Aoi. The next moment she was as quiet and still as Madame Yamashiro herself. Her eyes were cast down, as became her age, but even when cast down they gazed in girlish pleasure on the splendor of the new sash.

“Madame Aoi,” said Yamashiro, the elder, “we come to-day not upon a visit of pleasure, but for a purpose.”

Madame Aoi inclined her head attentively.

“You may not, perhaps, have heard the latest news of the town. We are to have an invasion of the barbarians—Western people, in fact.”

“Ah, indeed!” Aoi’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. “No, I have not heard the report.”

Yamashiro breathed heavily.

“Well, this matter brings us to the object of our visit. It has been brought to my knowledge that such an invasion will be sure to affect the townspeople, particularly those who have hitherto mingled with these people.”

Aoi flushed faintly.

“You allude to the mission people?” she asked.

“Yes, madame.”

Aoi bowed. Hyacinth elevated her head ever so slightly. She leaned forward, and her eyes, the lids downcast, were glancing upward sidewise beneath them.

“Such of our people,” continued Yamashiro, “as have chosen to affiliate with the foreigners already permitted here are likely to be intimately associated with the new arrivals, especially those who have married among them.”

He paused, and coughed in his hand.

“You perceive that the bad effect of such association must be felt by those of us who will not deign to give them our friendship. Therefore, madame, knowing that your honorable daughter has spent much time with these people, we desire that hereafter she shall decline all such intimacy.”

Aoi bowed her head almost to the mats.

“It shall be as your excellency desires,” she said.

Then, raising her head, she asked:

“When do the honorable ones come, and why do they come?”

“They may be here already,” replied Yamashiro, “and the reason why they come is because some witless members of our community have advertised in the open ports the unusual beauty of Sendai as a summer resort. The foreigners come out of curiosity. It is very unpleasant.”

“Yet, excellency,” said the girl, with her candid gaze upon him, “were you not the pioneer in Sendai of those who induced intercourse with these barbarians?”

“The wares of Sendai,” replied the other, coldly, “were placed in Tokyo for the foreigner to purchase. We did not invite the foreigner to our city.”

“Sendai is not an open port,” interposed Aoi, speaking so that her daughter might cease with grace. “How can the foreigners, then, invade it?”

“They have no legal rights, but their consuls, always rapacious, have power with his Imperial Majesty. They have obtained his sanction just as did these missionaries.”

“Too bad,” said Aoi.

Hyacinth fidgeted. After a moment, looking fully at Yoshida, she asked:

“Are their women beautiful?”

“No, abominably ugly,” he returned, frowning contemptuously.

A small, roguish smile dimpled the girl’s lips.

“Perhaps,” said she, “I am also like unto them.”

“Never!” said Yoshida, angrily.

“If you were,” said his father, “you would never be wife to a Yamashiro. No Yamashiro would marry a white barbarian.”

The Yamashiro family believed Hyacinth half English. This fact galled them, but they ignored it.

Hastily, nervously, Aoi moved closer to her daughter, laying her hand upon the little ones in the girl’s lap.

“Please, little one,” she said, “bring for the august ones the pipes and the tobacco-bon.”

Outside the closed shoji the girl paused and drew from her sleeve the little hand mirror. She looked deeply into it, her eyes wide open now.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I am like unto them. They are not abominably ugly, if they look like me. No, for Komazawa is also of their blood, and I—and those clothes were Engleesh.”

XIII

Two strangers to Sendai, tall and uncouth-appearing foreigners, came down the main street, walking in the swift, swinging fashion peculiar to the Westerner, so totally unlike the shuffling slide of the native.