Part 2

Consequently the two neighboring clans, while displaying extravagant courtesy towards each other in public, were in reality unfriendly. Only during that portion of the year when the Shogun’s edict ordered a Yedo residence for all daimios, did the lords of the provinces meet one another, and that under the Shogun’s eyes in his Yedo seat of government. In the capital they simulated suavity and cordiality, but once back at their provincial capitals they preserved towards each other an attitude of polite defiance which made all intercourse between them impossible save that of the sword, when their respective samurai and vassals, coming in contact with one another, fought out their lords’ political differences.

Imbittering still more the feeling existing naturally between the Mori and Catzu clans, there was a personal element in the situation. When Catzu had first been made lord of the province he had met on a visit to the Shogun’s Yedo court the Lady Evening Glory, whose brother and guardian (she being an orphan) was a young samurai in the service of the Prince Mori. Having fallen a victim to the lady’s beauty and charms, the lord of Catzu was determined to have her for wife despite the opposition of the Mori Prince. Bold, brave, fearless, and with a grand contempt for the power of his rival, the Lord Catzu had carried off the fair lady from his neighbor’s dominions, though it was generally understood that both the lady herself and her samurai brother lent their assistance to the young lord. The young samurai, incurring thereby the deep displeasure and enmity of his Prince, was deprived of his title and estates and sent into exile upon the first convenient pretext. Strange tales told without shadow of authority diversified the nature of the crime for which the samurai had been exiled, but the two lords remained silent. All who had been concerned in the affair were commanded to the same silence by the Shogun.

Whatever were the many reasons responsible for the constant attitude of antagonism of these two clans towards each other, the lords carefully guarded their lands—more particularly those in the vicinity of their palaces—with all the rigor of a fortress prepared for the fiercest onslaught. Seemingly unapproachable and impenetrable as were the grounds of the Catzu palace, yet there must have existed at some spot in their watchful walls a vulnerable point, the heel of the stone Achilles.

A courtier, by his dress and demeanor plainly a member of the Mori household, lingered in the private gardens of the palace. The day had long since folded its wings of light, but an early March moon was enveloping the land in an ethereal glow. The courtier remained under the friendly shadow of a grove of pine-trees. His eyes were cast upon the stately Catzu shiro (palace). It seemed as though the moon-rays had singled out the graceful old castle and was bathing it tenderly in a halo of soft light.

It was cold, not bitterly so, but sharply chill, as it is at night betwixt the winter and the spring. But unconscious of the chill, erect and graceful, the courtier leaned against a tree-trunk, his arms crossed over his breast, his eyes full of moist sentiment, drinking in the beauty of the night scene, which had an added enchantment for him, a man in love.

All about him, before, behind, and around him, graceful pine-trees raised their slender, pointed heads up to the silver light. In the distance, like a strange, white mirage set in the moonlit sky, a snow-capped mountain seemed hung as in mid-air. The grass beneath his feet was young and intensely soft, with dewy moisture upon it.

A nightingale on the tip of a tall bamboo sang with such passionate sweetness that it brought the lover out from the shelter of the shadow. Quivering with emotion, his soul responding and vibrating to the song of love, he strode into the light of the moon. Unmindful of the danger of his exposure to possible observation, he drew forth from the bosom of his haori a little roll of rice-paper. Once more he read it through, and yet once again.

“MY LORD,—I write this augustly insignificant letter to you, trusting that your health is good. Also the health of all your honorable relatives and ancestors.

“I have received your most honorably magnificent compliments. Accept my humblest thanks.

“Now I deign to write unto you, beseeching you to abandon so foolhardy a purpose as to follow me to my uncle’s home. I would feign warn you that my uncle’s guards are fierce and ofttimes cruel, and to one wearing the garb of a hostile clan, I fear they would show no mercy. Therefore I beseech you, do you pray abandon your honorable purpose.

“Also condescend to permit me to add, that if you must indeed truly attempt so hazardous an undertaking, I would beg to inform you, that though the grounds are surrounded by such great walls that I fear me not even a tailless cat might climb them, and also the gates are guarded by the fiercest samurai, nevertheless, on the south there is a small river. Mayhap you will hire a boat. Then do you come up this honorable river, keeping close to the shore, and I do assure you that you will discover a break in the south wall, which leads into the gardens surrounding the palace.

“My lord, my uncle’s guards are not so vigilant before sunrise, as I myself have ofttimes remarked when I have arisen early of a morning and have looked from my casement, which is also on the south side of the palace, facing the river and the outlet thereto.”

The nightingale paused in its song, and then broke out again, its long, piercing trill filling the night.

The lover returned to the shelter of the pine grove, and, throwing himself upon the grass, drew his cape close about him. Leaning his head upon his hand, he gave himself up to his dreams.

IV

THE Lady Wistaria arose with the sun. Without waiting to pin back the long, silken hair which hung like a cloud of lacquer about her, she stole softly to the casement of her chamber.

The perfume which stole up to her was sweeter and stronger far than that wafted from the trees laden with the dews of the early morning. Yet the trees were bare of blossoms and would not bloom for a month to come. Nevertheless the ledge of Wistaria’s casement was piled with the living spring blossoms of plum and cherry. She could not but caress them with her hands, her lips, her eyes, her burning cheeks. With little, trembling hands she searched among them and found what she sought—a scroll—a narrow, thin, wonderful scroll, long, yet only a few inches in width, with golden borders down the sides, and the faint, exquisite tracings of birds and flowers intertwined among the words that leaped up at her almost as though they had spoken. It was a poem to her—her grace, beauty, modesty, loveliness, its theme:

“A stately shiro was her home; In royal halls she shone most fair, From tiny feet to golden comb, In her sweet life what is my share?

“Oh, lovely maid, my moon thou art; O Fuji san, thou hast my heart!”

There were many other verses, but the Lady Wistaria was too much moved to have either the vision or the mind to read beyond the first stanza. As became her rank and the painful tuition of years, she should have pushed very deliberately the flowers from her sill and torn the scroll into ragged pieces, a chastisement prescribed by every etiquette for the temerity of a presumptuous lover.

But the Lady Wistaria did nothing of the sort. She gathered the flowers tenderly and took them in. Then she came back to the casement, and, leaning far out, gazed with piercing wistfulness out into the little garden below. For some minutes she waited, the patience of her caste fading away gradually into that of the impatience of her sex.

A voice beneath her casement! She leaned farther over. A young man’s eager, glowing face smiled up at her like the rising sun. Again the Lady Wistaria forgot the training of years. Her trembling voice floated down to him:

“Pray you do consider the perils in which you place yourself,” she implored.

“I would pass through all the perils of hell so I might reach you in the end,” he fervidly whispered back.

“Oh, my lord, look yonder! See, the sun is pushing its way upward above the mountains and the hill-tops. Do you not know that soon my uncle’s guards will pass this way?”

“Under the heavens there is nothing in all this wide world worthy as a gift for you, dear lady. That you have deigned to accept my honorable flowers and my abominably constructed poem has given me such strength that I am prepared to fight a whole army of guards. Ay! And to give up readily, too, my life.”

“And if you love me,” she replied, “you will guard with all your strength that life which you are so recklessly exposing to danger.”

“Ah, sweetest lady, can it be true then that you condescend to take some concern in my insignificant existence?”

She made no response other than to pluck from the climbing vine about her casement one little half-blown leaf and drop it at his feet.

As he stooped to pick up the leaf a form interposed itself, and a half-grown man looked him steadily in the face. With a little cry the Lady Wistaria vanished from her casement.

Meanwhile the intruder, instead of being the aggressor, was defending himself against the flashing blade of the infuriated lover. Too proud to call for aid, the youth opposed to the lover found himself outmatched before the skill and fire of the other. So thinking caution better than valor, he flung his sword at the feet of the lover. The latter, picking it up by the middle, returned it to his opponent with a low bow of utmost grace. Then with one hand on his hip and the other holding his sword, he addressed the youth.

“Thy name?”

“Catzu Toro. And thine?”

“Too insignificant to be spoken before one who bears so great a name as thine,” returned the other, bowing with satirical grace.

“How is that?” cried Catzu Toro—“insignificant? What, one in thy garb and with thy skill of swordsmanship?”

The victorious one, shrugging his shoulders imperceptibly, again bowed with a smile of disclaimer.

“May I be permitted,” he said, “to put one question to you, my lord, and then I am perfectly prepared to give myself up to your father’s guards, though not, I promise you, without a struggle, which I doubt not your vassals will long remember.” And he blithely bent the blade of his sword with his two hands.

“Nay, then,” cried the youth, impetuously, “You do me injustice. I am ready to swear protection to one who has acted so bravely as thou. But a question for a question, is not that fair?”

“Assuredly.”

“Very well, then. You serve the Prince of Mori?”

“In a very humble capacity,” returned the other, guardedly.

“In what capacity?” inquired the young Toro, quickly.

“Ah, that is two questions, and you have not even deigned to listen to my one.”

“Speak,” said the youth, curbing his curiosity and impatience.

“The Lady Wistaria—she is your sister?”

“My cousin,” answered the other, briefly.

“Will you tell me how it is possible for one unfortunately attached to an unfriendly clan to pay court to your cousin?”

“Two questions, that!” exclaimed Toro, promptly, whereat they both laughed, their friendship growing in proportion to their good-humor.

“Now,” said Toro, “I will answer whatever questions you may put to me, if you in return will only satisfy my mind concerning certain matters which I am perishing to know.”

“A fair exchange! Good!”

“Then,” said Toro, unloosening his own cape from his hips, “pray throw this about you, for I fear you will be observed by my father’s samurai. Even my presence,” he added, with a sigh, “could hardly protect you, for I, alas! am under age.”

“Is it possible?” said the stranger, with such affected surprise that the boy flushed with delight.

“Now, my lord”—he hesitated, doubtfully, as though hoping the other would supply the name—“now, my lord, let me explain to you why I truly sympathize with you in your love for one who must seem impossible.”

“Not impossible,” corrected the lover, softly, thinking tenderly of the Lady Wistaria’s fears for him.

“I, too,” confessed Toro, “am in the same plight.”

“What!” cried the lover, in dismay; “you also adore the lady?”

“No,” replied Toro, shaking his head with sad melancholy; “but I have conceived the most hopeless attachment for a lady whom I may never dream of winning.”

“Then I am much mistaken in you. I thought, my lord, that you were not only a brave man, but a daring knight.”

“But you cannot conceive of the extremity of my case,” cried the youth, piteously, “for consider: the lady I love not only belongs to our rival clan, but is already betrothed.”

“Well, but betrothals have been broken before, my lord, and the days of romance and adventure are not altogether dead in the land.”

“Ah, yes, that is true, but my rival is not only more powerful, but in every respect more prepossessing and attractive.”

“Indeed? Well, all this interests me very much. Still, I must say, my lord, that though I am in the service of the Mori, I have not seen the knight or courtier who could prove so formidable a rival to you, either in graces or rank—for are you not the son of the great lord of this province?”

“And has not our neighboring lord a son also?”

“Wh—what!” cried the stranger, darting backward as though the youth had dealt him a sharp and unexpected blow; then scanning the other’s face closely, “You do not mean—the Prince—?”

“Yes—the Prince Keiki. That swaggering, bragging, noisy roustabout, who bears so many cognomens.”

“Hum!” said the other. “They call him the Prince Kei—, truly—”

“Yes,” said the youth, jealously, “and also ‘Hikal-Keiki-no-Kimi’ (the Shining Prince Keiki).”

“You have told me strange news indeed,” said the Mori courtier. “I did not know of the betrothal of our Prince. It is very sad, truly.”

“Sad! To be betrothed to the Princess Hollyhock sad?”

“For you, my lord,” replied the other, with a slight smile.

Toro doubled his hands spasmodically as he frowned with the fierceness of a samurai, that the other might not observe the soft moisture of a woman in his eyes.

“Now let me tell you a secret,” said the stranger, touching his arm with confidential sympathy. “Upon my word, the Princess Hollyhock is not betrothed to the Prince Keiki.”

“My lord, you do not say so! Are you sure?”

“As sure as I am that I am here now.”

“Oh, the gods themselves must have sent you hither!” cried the youth. “Will you not accept my protection and constant aid in your suit for my cousin?”

“You are more generous than—”

“Your Prince, you would say,” interrupted Toro, bitterly.

“—than the gods, I was about to remark,” said the other, gravely. “Now let us form a compact. You on your side will promise me protection and aid here on your estates, and I will swear to you that you shall win and wed the Princess Hollyhock.”

“I have a small house yonder, my lord,” cried the impulsive youth, excitedly. “It is kept by my old nurse. Come you with me thither. I shall lend you whatever clothes you may require and you shall remain here as long as you wish. I will introduce you to my family as a friend—a student from my own university in Kummommotta. Then you can make suit to Wistaria, and, having once wed her, who can separate you, let me ask?”

“Not the gods themselves, I swear!” cried the other.

“And your name—what shall I call you?”

The courtier hesitated for the first time.

“My name is insignificant. It is a Mori name, and therefore dangerous in your province.”

“You must assume another, then.”

“Hum! Well, what would you suggest, my lord?”

“How will Shioshio Shawtaro do?”

“Not at all. It has a trading sound.”

“Ho! ho! How about Taketomi Tokioshi?”

“Too imperious.”

“Fujita Gemba?”

“No, no.”

“Then do you choose yourself.”

“My lord, waiving aside all our political differences, do you not think it would be loyal for me to take the name of one of my own people?”

“What, a Mori name? You are very droll, my lord. Why not keep your own name, then?”

“Ah, but it is not the Mori family name I wish to assume, but a surname.”

“It might be dangerous.”

“Oh, not without the family name and title attached. Suppose I take the name of Keiki?”

“What! The name of my rival!”

“My prince, my lord,” said the other, bowing deeply.

“Nevertheless my rival.”

“Not at all; and if he were so, why not grant him this little honor, seeing you are to worst him in the suit for the lady?”

“That is true.”

“The name will sound vastly different with another family name attached. Suppose I assume the name of Tominaga Keiki? That is somewhat different from Mori Keiki, is it not?”

“Somewhat.”

“Then Keiki is my name.”

“Kei—Very well. Let it be so.”

V

THE Lord of Catzu received his son’s friend with hospitality dictated by his fat and good-humored nature, beseeching him to consider the Catzu possessions as his own. Keiki (as he had called himself), on fire to make use of the advantage he had now gained at the outset, was met by two unexpected obstacles.

In the first place, the Lady Wistaria was hedged about by an almost insurmountable wall of etiquette and form. Though the lover blessed all the gods for the privilege of being in her presence each day, yet, impetuous, warm-blooded, and ardent, he could not but chafe at the distance and the silence which seemed impassable between them.

Wistaria, he thought, might just as well have been a twinkling star in the heavens above him as to be placed at one end of the guest-room, her lips sealed in maidenly silence, while at the other end, in the place of honor, must sit he, the august guest, inwardly the burning lover. Between them interposed her honorable relatives and certain members of her uncle’s household, separating the lovers with their extravagant politeness and words of gracious compliment and hospitality.

In the second place, the pilot upon whom he had relied for safe conduct through the icy forms which kept him from his mistress had deserted him perfidiously. Toro, the reckless and foolhardy, his imagination fed by the daring and sang-froid of the Mori clansman, his own heart aflame with as deep a passion as his friend’s, had borrowed his dress and departed for Choshui, there to risk all chance of danger with the bravery, but without, alas! the wit, of the Mori courtier.

To offset these two hardships, the lovers saw a gift sent by the gods in the indisposition of the Lady Evening Glory. After the long and tedious journey from the capital, the lady, who was of a delicate constitution, retired to her apartments with a malady of the head and tooth. In point of fact, the Lady Evening Glory suffered from neuralgia. The lovers prayed that her illness might be long and lingering, though Wistaria, having besought her to keep to her bed as long as possible that relapse might be avoided, tempered her prayer with a petition to her favorite god that her aunt’s illness might be unattended with pain.

With the Lady Evening Glory, the vigilant mentor of Wistaria, safely out of the way, the girl found no cause for despair. This was the reason she returned her lover’s pleading and ofttimes reproachful glances with smiles, which, but for the joy of seeing them, he would have thought heartless. The joy of Wistaria’s smile almost compensated for the pain of her lover’s poignant surmise that her heart had no pity for the woes of her adorer.

And, indeed, at this time there was little else in the girl’s heart save a singing joy, a rippling flutter of new emotions and thrills, which she, too innocent as yet to recognize their full import, cared only to welcome with delight, to encourage, to foster and enjoy to the uttermost.

Between Wistaria and her uncle there was utmost confidence and love. The young girl occupied that place in his heart which would have been held by the daughter denied him by the gods. The mantling flush, the ever-shining eyes, now bright with joy that would overflow, now moist with the unbidden tears that spring to the eyes when the heart is disturbed with an emotion more sweet than expression; these—the change which young love alone can produce in a maiden—he was quick to perceive.

The Lord Catzu’s own marriage had been most romantic, and if his lady had lived down frigidly to the world, her husband at least had retained his sentimental remembrance of the adventurous escapades attending it.

Such were the opportunities of life to the daimio of a province at peace that, to all outward appearances, Catzu was too indolent, too listlessly, luxuriously lazy and preoccupied with his own pleasures to observe his niece’s condition of heart. But the Lord Catzu, with all his placidity, was astute. Beneath his lazy eyelids his own small eyes missed little that passed before him.

In fact, it was not long before he became aware of the attachment between the young people. The courtier, he knew, bore an assumed name, for Toro had labored with awkwardness when he endeavored to invent a lineage for the friend whose appearance at the Catzu palace without the customary retinue of servants or retainers had convinced its lord that he had discovered a tinge of that delightful mystery which but added to the favor of the unknown in the eyes of the sentimental Lord of Catzu. In addition, it was the mode for young nobles of the realm to undertake courtship over an assumed name, so that an air of romance might be lent to their love affair. As to the young man’s rank there could be no question, since his manners and breeding, his grace of person and charm of speech, were caste characteristic. Looking secretly with high favor upon the young man, Catzu considered how he might aid the lovers.

Slothful and deliberate in all he undertook, Catzu might provoke impatience, but his gradual accomplishment of his ends was gratifying. Just as he took his time in the serious business of life, so was he leisurely in the pursuit of his pleasures. As a consequence the lovers for a time were kept in an agony of waiting and suspense.

Keiki, maddened and irritated by the constant presence of the smiling Lord Catzu, who in his opinion stood between him and his heart’s desire, once more fell to writing imploring letters and poems to the Lady Wistaria which made up in epithets of endearment what they lacked in rhetoric. He prayed her to find some means by which he might be with her alone, if only for a fraction of a minute. The one word “Patience,” written upon a little china plate, so minutely that he could scarcely decipher it, was the reply brought by the Lord Catzu, with the information that the Lady Wistaria herself had painted the plate for their august guest.

Meanwhile Catzu, cognizant of every sigh, every appealing expression, every significant motion, laid his plans carefully for the impatient suitor’s happiness. Certainly within the walls of the palace itself there was no hope of solitude for the lovers. Pretexts for out-door pleasure-parties were never wanting in the warmer season. Local fêtes, the birth of each new flower, family events—all these were sufficient invitation in themselves for such convivial parties as delighted the soul of the Lord of Catzu, and could not have failed in their chance opportunity for dual solitude.