Part 6

“Not alien!” she said, fiercely. “_My_ people—my—” She broke off, and almost staggered towards Aoi, against whom she leaned, as if for support.

“Go away, go!” she cried to them. “Excuse our rudeness, but—but, alas, we are in sorrow.”

She sank to the ground, burying her face and sobbing piteously.

Aoi stepped falteringly towards them.

“Good-bye, excellencies. Pray you come to-morrow instead. We will be in good health then. Good-bye.”

Silently the two men left the house. They were quite far down the street before either spoke again. Then:

“Good Heavens! It is grotesque, impossible, horrible,” said the younger man.

“She is more Japanese than anything else.”

“But her face—it—by George! I haven’t words to express myself. I thought to render a splendid service to the little girl, yet now—well—I feel like a—criminal.”

XVI

After the departure of the strangers, Aoi and Hyacinth, clinging to each other, had gone to the young girl’s chamber, where they had shut themselves in alone. The suddenness of the blow had robbed them of the power of even talking it over. The tension of the strain might have been relieved had they done so. But they sat in silence together throughout the night. Aoi appeared to be dazed, stunned, while the feelings of the girl were mixed. The phantoms of her ever-active mind were tangled, but painful. She was to be torn by force from her home—to be taken away from all she loved—she would never see Aoi again—Aoi, her mother, whom she loved deeply, devotedly.

She would be carried away to a country where the people lived like barbarians and beasts—a country barren of beauty—cold, cruel. All this the misguided sensei had told her more than once. She felt sure she would languish and become mortally sick there, if she ever reached that distant country. But how would she cross the great, horrible ocean that lay between? Yes, she was quite sure she would die before she reached that America; and she did not want to die. Life had been very sweet for her, and she was so young.

Slow tears of self-pity slipped from her eyes and dropped upon her little, clasped hands. She looked across at the immovable figure of Aoi sitting in the dusky room before her like a statue. She wondered vaguely what Aoi was thinking about. How she did love that dear, small mother. She moved a pace closer to her. Aoi parted her lips as if to speak, then closed them, as though words failed her. Hyacinth covered her face with her hands.

How long they sat thus together she could not have told. Her thoughts had become blurred and distant.

Later, when Aoi roused herself from her own painful self-communings, she perceived that the young girl had fallen asleep. Her little head rested uncertainly against the wall-panelling, and Aoi saw the undried tears still upon the white, childish face. She gently placed a pillow beneath the girl’s head, and softly threw over her the slumber-robe. Then she extinguished the one andon which had dimly lighted the room. She did not, however, retire to her own chamber that night, but lay down beside the girl, creeping under the same robe which covered her.

The following morning brought one of the unwelcome strangers again to the house of Madame Aoi. He was the younger one of the two, and had stood by silently while his companion explained the motive of their call.

Mumè had seen him lingering and hesitating at the gate of the garden for some time before he suddenly pushed it open and walked a few paces swiftly up the path, paused in thought a moment, and then continued to the house. He had evidently expected at least a polite reception, and was much disconcerted when the scowling face of the now hostile Mumè confronted him at the threshold. This Oriental virago deigned at first no word of question as to the desire of the caller, but when he had stammeringly stated in uncertain Japanese that the object of his visit was to see Madame Aoi, she broke out into vigorous and violent Japanese abuse.

What did this devil of a barbarian want? How dared he soil the threshold of her august mistress’s house? All the fiends of Hades were pestering them lately, it seemed, but she, Mumè, was not to be frightened by any such fiends as he. He had scared the little one and her mother quite speechless. She, Mumè, would defend them from further violence at his hands, and he had better begone at once, or she would set the whole community upon him and have him stoned and beaten.

In the midst of this harangue she was interrupted by the interposition of Hyacinth, who had arrived upon the scene and had stood silently in the background for some time quietly listening to the fluent Mumè. Then she stepped forward and spoke a few, low words in Japanese to Mumè. The young man could not have told from the expression of her face whether she had reproved the servant or not. When the angry Mumè, muttering and scowling at every retreating step, had disappeared, the girl turned questioningly to the caller. She did not invite him to enter, and though her words were courteous, he thought her eyes antagonistic. He noticed, too, that there were shadows beneath the eyes, and that she was very pale. As he continued to gaze at her face she slowly and unwillingly flushed.

“Your business, honorable sir; what is it you desire?”

“You’ll excuse me, I’m sure, but I came over—er—I came over by request of Mr. Knowles. You remember Mr. Knowles?”

He paused to gain time, still hoping she would bid him enter. But the expression of her face was coldly forbidding, and at his question she merely inclined her head with the faintest, most frigid smile on her lips. It seemed to the anxious young man that she must see through his flimsy ruse. As a matter of fact, all she thought was that here again was that odious stranger. Were the gods going to pester her forever with their company? The thought nauseated and embittered her.

“You see—Miss—er—if you will allow me a moment of your time,” the young man stammered, “I can easily explain.”

Again she inclined her head without speaking, as though she conceded the moment of time, but had no intention that it should be granted anywhere else. He marvelled that the deliciously blushing and ingenuously coquettish girl of the previous day could have changed to this cold and impassive little stiff figure with the dignity of a woman.

“Mr. Knowles, you see, being a great friend of your father—and mine—we naturally feel that—er—we both wish to express our—our—respects for his daughter.”

“Thangs,” she said, laconically.

“And if you would do me the honor,” he added, taking courage from the one word she had allowed herself, “we would like very much to have you and—of course—your—Madame—A-ah—” he floundered, hopelessly.

“Madame Aoi,” said the girl, distantly.

He could not have told how he had happened to invite them to dinner. Certainly it wouldn’t do to have them come at once. There was the attorney to be considered—Mr. Knowles—who knew nothing of his visit, and might, after all, disapprove of it.

“We’ll send you word just when to come,” he concluded, lamely.

He saw her lip curl disdainfully, and guessed aright that she was thinking him atrociously uncouth and rude in delivering so ambiguous an invitation. She said:

“We are ten million times grateful—but we don’ can come—”

She paused ominously a moment, then slightly moving backward into the hall, she said:

“That’s all your business—yes?”

“Yes,” he said, confounded.

She closed the sliding-doors between and left him standing there facing it without.

XVII

Melancholy now took up its morbid abode in the house of Madame Aoi. Even Mumè felt the pall of its heavy weight, and went about her work no longer complaining loudly, but muttering to herself—shuddering at the silence and shadow that had fallen upon the house. For Aoi, to keep out unwelcome callers, kept the shutters and shoji closed at all times, and the house assumed the aspect of one wherein was illness or sorrow.

But Hyacinth sought solace among her flowers. She kept sedulously to the back of the house, where she knew she would be safe from intrusion. Along the little, white-pebbled paths, which she and Aoi had so cunningly planned among the flower-beds, between the twisted and fantastic trees affected by Japanese-garden lovers, she aimlessly wandered.

Meanwhile, the young American attaché fairly haunted the vicinity of Madame Aoi’s house. He would spend sometimes an entire morning strolling up and down the street before the house. Indeed, so familiar had his figure become to the neighborhood children that he no longer was molested by them. He had told Mr. Knowles that he was enchanted by the view of the bay Matsushima, but since it was too enervating to walk in the heat such a distance, he preferred watching it afar from the Pinetree Street, whence he obtained the best view possible. The attorney, deep in the preparation of a report and opinion to follow his cable to Mr. Lorrimer, had merely looked up at him keenly a moment, and, marking the ingenuous coloring that flooded the face of the boy, stuck his tongue in his cheek and softly winked. Mr. Knowles was very well satisfied, since young Saunders would cease to complain against his enforced stay in this little inland town, so far away from the gay metropolis.

For a week Saunders patiently waited and watched for a glimpse of Hyacinth. But though, in his repeated pilgrimages up and down the street, his pace fell to almost a crawl when he would pass her home, and though he did not, after the first day, hesitate to crane his neck eagerly, and try to see beyond the bushes and trees in the front garden to the portion behind, no glimpse, as yet, had he obtained of the object of his desire. The house, indeed, seemed closed, and but for the fact that once or twice he had seen the fat form of Mumè issue forth on apparent shopping errands, he would have thought the house deserted. Once he had attempted to speak to Mumè, but she had indignantly opened an aggressive parasol squarely in his face, the points of which he had barely escaped.

Saunders became desperate. He told himself that he had no intention whatever of allowing a fat little servant to stand in his way, nor was he to be abashed by the haughty dignity of one so completely bewitching as was this little Hyacinth.

Hence, one morning in June, Mr. Saunders came down the Pinetree Street with a much swifter and more dogged step than usual. Reaching Madame Aoi’s house, he did not even linger, but, pushing the gate aside, intrepidly entered the hostile country. He was cautious, however, and, mindful of his previous visit, he turned aside from the path which led to the front threshold, and made his way softly around the side of the house. His bravery was usually short-lived, and, though possibly he would not have admitted it, his heart was thumping, and he bore the aspect of a thief, as, creeping stealthily in the shadow of the trees, he plunged ahead. He had had a purpose in mind when he started—the brave one of penetrating the back of the house. Experience had taught him that the Japanese practically lived in this part of their house, and that the garden, unseen from the front, was where they were likely to be found. Yet he had the natural contempt of the Japanese idea of privacy. He could not accept the fact that in most personal matters of life they appeared to be almost ignorant of the word privacy.

His surmises were correct. He came upon a member of the family almost as soon as he reached the back garden. Hyacinth was sitting on the moss-grown shelf of an old well and looking at the reflection of her face listlessly, perhaps unseeingly, in the dark water beneath. She made a pretty picture, as, startled by the sudden appearance of the young man, she slipped to the ground and faced him. Her eyes were wide, half with fright, half with growing anger, and from being pale she flushed vividly red. Her voice was harsh and strained when, after a moment, she spoke.

“What do you want?”

This time she did not even give him the title of “honorable sir.”

“I wanted to see you,” he said, truthfully.

“You come like a thief,” she said. “Is that the custom of the barbarian?”

“I beg your pardon, but really—the fact is—I hoped this way to avoid an encounter with your servant.”

She made a scornful movement towards the house, but he sprang before her and barred her passage.

“See here—Miss Lorrimer—I hope you will listen to me. I know I seem to have acted atrociously, but really—”

“Have you some business to speak to my honorable mother?” she inquired, boldly.

“No—I confess I have not—but I wanted—to become acquainted with you.”

After that an uncomfortable pause ensued. The girl appeared to be turning the matter over in her mind. Then she said:

“Why do you wish make acquaintance with me?”

Simple as her question was, it appeared to have glowing possibilities to the eager Saunders.

“Because,” he said, “you are so lovely. Do you know—”

She interrupted him.

“Is that the manner in which your country people address maidens?” she asked, with more curiosity than offence.

“Yes—that is, sometimes—when they mean it, and the girl _is_ lovely, as you are.”

“But,” she said, “it is augustly rude to tell me so.”

“Oh no; you wouldn’t think so if you understood.”

“I understand,” she said.

“I mean, if you understood our point of view.”

“Understand it,” she repeated, “but I despise it.” Then, after a slight pause, very earnestly: “I am a Japanese; we are not so uncouth and rude in our intercourse with strangers.”

“I wish you would not regard me as a stranger.”

She looked puzzled.

“Not regard you as a stranger!” she repeated.

“No. I wish you’d look upon me as a friend; one who admires you and wants to—to do something for you.”

“But you are not my friend,” she said. Then, catching her breath a moment, she added, “You are an enemy.”

“I!” He was very much pained. _He_ an enemy to this charming young girl!

“Yes, yes,” she said, with some vehemence. “You come here into our peaceful home and in one day—one minute—you break it all up, bring distress and pain upon us. You have no fine sense; you cannot even be insulted. You come again, again, perhaps again, though your presence we do not desire—”

She stopped short suddenly; her underlip quivered, and she bit it nervously with little, white teeth. She turned her back half towards young Saunders, and he could see from her trembling that she was on the verge of tears. He could only falter very earnestly:

“I am very sorry—very sorry.”

She did not speak again, and for some time they stood in silence, she with her head drooping away from him and he watching her eagerly. He knew she was waiting for him to go, and he was waiting for her to turn to him again. He wanted to see her eyes, those eyes which had flashed at him so wrathfully and then had become so suddenly misty and piteous.

“Will you not at least tell me,” he said, “that you will pardon—forgive me for—for my intrusion—”

“I am very unhappy,” she said, still with her face turned from him. “I am not in condition to see any one—friends—strangers—any one. You have made me so miserable I—I pray to the gods sometimes that I might die.”

She slipped to the ground and buried her face in her arms on the little stone shelf of the well.

Now, the young attaché was really a good-hearted boy, in spite of his frivolity; and the sight of the little, sobbing figure touched him. He stood in a confusion of discomfort and remorse, while strange little waves and thrills of tender emotion swept over him and rendered him still more helpless.

He was too stupid to comprehend the cause of the girl’s wretchedness, and he was very young. Consequently, he actually experienced a thrill of vague pleasure at the thought that in some way his attractive personality was responsible for Hyacinth’s distress.

But while he stood hesitating and perspiring from sheer excitement, he became suddenly conscious of the fact that some one was coming from the house towards them. Aoi came hurriedly across the grass. She paused a moment, startled at the sight of the young foreigner in their private gardens. Then she saw the crouching girl, and in a moment comprehended the situation.

Poor, simple, amiable Aoi! Possibly never in all her life before had such violent feelings assailed her. She turned upon the intruder with flashing eyes.

“You come here! You make my daughter weep! You are bad lot. Leave my grounds or I will have you arrested!”

“Madame Aoi,” he protested, “I assure you that I meant no offence, but—”

Hyacinth had slowly risen to her feet. She put her arm gently about Aoi’s shoulder.

“Do not speak the words to him, mother,” she said, in Japanese. “He did not mean to make me weep.”

Aoi was quieted in an instant. She still looked uncertainly, however, at the stranger.

A sudden idea seemed to come to her mind. She went a hesitating step nearer to Saunders and raised her face to his, while her eyes searched his face. She said:

“You come to see _me_, august sir, or—or—my daughter?”

“Your—that is—”

He flushed uncomfortably, but indicated, with a slight nod of his head, the young girl.

Aoi’s eyes narrowed curiously. Her trembling lips compressed themselves into a stiff, rigid line. When she spoke her voice was quite hoarse.

“In Japan,” she said, “a young man does not visit a maiden unless he is her lover.”

Saunders swung his stick uneasily.

“I am an American,” he said, lamely.

“Yes,” said Aoi. “You are American, and because that is so your visit to my daughter is an insult.”

“No, I protest,” he said, warmly.

“You came for business?”

“No—but—”

“You came to make that love to her—yes—it is so?”

“Yes—but—er—”

Aoi stretched out her slim arm and pointed to the path leading to the front of the house. The gesture could have but one meaning. Young Saunders flushed angrily.

“This is a deuce of a way to take a fellow’s attentions,” he said, half to himself. “Why, I declare, I meant no harm.”

Aoi smiled incredulously.

“I am old,” she said, slowly; and at her flushed, almost youthful, face the young man smiled involuntarily. But she repeated her words: “I am old with experience, Mister—sir—and because I was the wife of an Englishman, I know from him the evil meant by such attention as yours to a maiden of Japan.”

“But she is not Japanese,” he burst out; “I never for a moment thought of her as such.”

His words staggered Aoi. In her zeal to protect the girl from the overtures of this foreigner she had forgotten the facts of the girl’s birth. She became agitated. Her hands fell helplessly to her knees as she bent brokenly forward. With her head bowed, she spoke in a plaintive voice:

“The humble one craves the pardon of the illustrious sir. But will he not condescend to depart?”

Somewhat irritated and provoked, rather sulkily he turned towards the path and slowly, unwillingly, left the garden.

XVIII

A month and a half had gone by since the American attorney had cabled to his client in Europe of the success of his mission. Richard Lorrimer’s immediate response had been that he was leaving at once for Japan. Any day now he might arrive in Sendai.

In the meanwhile, Aoi sought to comfort and strengthen the despairing Hyacinth. She contrived to break up their retirement, and sought to divert her mind by taking her out each day. The girl had acquired a peculiar loathing and horror for the “white people,” of whom the little town of Sendai had now quite a plague.

The women went about in hideous garments, with what appeared to be heavy flower-baskets upon their heads. The men gazed at her and made insinuating efforts to speak to her. Hyacinth was sure all these foreigners carried knives, because they were constantly chipping off pieces of the tombs and the temples. They were sacrilegious beasts, she thought, who had not reverence even for the dead. Everywhere in the city she found them. Sometimes they were even on the heights of Matsushima, where they laughed and talked in loud voices to one another under the very shadows of the holy temples. She hated them all, she told herself. Most of all she loathed this man who was said to be her father, who had broken her mother’s heart and married a woman her mother despised, and who now sought to drag her by force from those she loved.

Yet the visiting foreigners in Sendai possessed a more friendly spirit towards her than she knew. Knowing her history, they were prompted by pity and curiosity to seek an acquaintance, which was always met by the darkest and haughtiest of frowns and disdainful glances. When they addressed her, she stared stonily before her. Once, when a too-curious woman persisted in annoying her with numerous questions, Hyacinth had raised her voice suddenly and shrieked to a score of little urchins playing in the street. In an instant they had rushed into the road, whence they threw sticks and mud at the indignant foreigner. Whereat Hyacinth had burst into a wild peal of shrill, defiant laughter. Then she had rushed headlong into the house, where she flung herself on the floor, giving vent to a tempest of tears.

In these days she could not bear Aoi out of her sight, and even old Mumè received an unusual share of affection. The thought of leaving them caused her deep sorrow. The passage of the days added not one whit to her resignation. If she must go, she would go battling at every step. But, before the time should come, maybe the gods would intervene, and she might die.

Strangely enough, in these days she forgot, or refused to remember, all she had learned at the mission-house. Instead, she would climb wearily the long way to one of the temples on the hill, where she sought the old priest who kept the fire of the gods perpetually burning, and bitterly she poured out at his feet all the anguish of her heart.

She was a Japanese girl, she asserted—Japanese in thought, in feeling, in heart, in soul. How could she leave her beloved home and people to go away with these cold, white ones, whom she could never, never learn to know or understand.

And the priest promised to give her counsel and help when the time should come. From day to day he would admonish:

“A little longer—wait! The gods will find a way.”

But the days passed with more than natural speed of time. Then came a telegram to Sendai. The lawyer, Mr. Knowles, brought it to Aoi’s house. It was from Mr. Lorrimer. He had arrived in Tokyo. He would start at once for Sendai.

Then desperation seized upon Hyacinth. Unmindful of the pleadings of Aoi, she besought the Yamashiro family for help.

Now, the Yamashiro family had always been ashamed of the fact that Hyacinth was half English. They had more than once declared that if she had been wholly so a union with their son would have been an impossible thing. Consequently, Madame Yamashiro received the young girl frigidly. She considered it both hoydenish and rude for a girl to pay a visit to her betrothed’s parents alone. But the moment Hyacinth began to speak, Madame Yamashiro became so frightened that she trembled.

The girl, in a breath, told her of the discovery of her true parentage. She implored Madame Yamashiro to hasten her marriage with Yoshida, so that she might not be forced to leave Japan. For could this foreign father then tear her from her husband? No, all the laws of Japan would prevent him.

So rapid was her utterance that one word tripped against another.

In her agitation, Madame Yamashiro thought the girl insane. She clapped her hands so loudly that half a dozen maidens came to answer at once.