Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
lifted, the six stout-legged retainers carrying the vehicle came to a
standstill, while one of them, apparently receiving an order, deftly
drew the hangings from side to side, revealing the personage within. The
norimon’s occupant had raised himself lazily on his elbow and turned
about sidewise in his carriage. His eyes were languorous and sleepy,
slow and sensuous in their glance. They looked out now over the heads of
the retainers, upward toward the small bluff upon which stood Ohano.
For some reason, perhaps because she saw something warmer than menace in
the eyes of this indolent individual, Ohano smiled half unconsciously.
Her little white teeth gleamed between her rosy lips. She appeared very
bewitching as she stood there in her flowered gown in the sunlight.
A moment later something extraordinary happened to Ohano. She knew that
stout arms had seized her, that her eyes were suddenly bound with linen,
and then that she was lifted from her feet. Her giddy senses reeled to a
dizzy unconsciousness.
When next she opened her eyes, she found that all was darkness about
her. Consciousness came to her very slowly. She knew from the swaying
movement of what seemed the soft couch upon which she lay that she was
being carried somewhere. Ohano put out a fearful little hand, and it
touched—a face! At that she sat up crying out in fright. Then the person
who lay beside her stretched out hands toward her, and she was suddenly
drawn down into his arms. He whispered in her ear, and his voice was
like that of one speaking to her in a dream.
“Fear nothing, little dove. You are safe with me in my norimon. But to
see you was to desire you. Do not tremble so. You will appreciate the
honor I have done you, when you realize it. You shall be the favorite
concubine of the Prince of Nijo, and never a wish of your heart or eyes
shall be denied by me.”
She could not stir, so close he held her.
“It is so dark,” she cried breathlessly, “and I am afraid. O-O-most
h-h-honorable prince.”
“It is night, pretty dove; but if I part the curtains of my norimon, the
august moon will lend us joyful light. Will you then cease to tremble
and to fear me?”
She began to sob weakly, and through her childish brain just then
filtered the vague thought of Kwacho. She was like one enmeshed in a
dream nightmare. He who lay beside her laughed softly, and sought to
wipe away her tears with his sensuous lips.
“Tears are for the sad and homely. Never for the Jewel of Nijo! Well,
with his own august lips he wipes them away from the pretty dove’s face.
So and so!”
Yamada Kwacho returned to Echizen one week later. As became a
bridegroom, the young husband had gone first to his home, intending to
report to his prince immediately afterward. He entered the little
farm-house with a joyous step and an eager, expectant face. He left the
house like one shot from a cannon, on a mad run for the city. His brain
whirled. He could not see. He could not think. He had a dim memory of
having rushed upon the foolish maid like one demented, of listening with
gaping mouth to the tale she told; then of thrusting her from him with
such force that she fell to the floor in a heap.
Forgetting the respect due his lordship, the young farmer burst into the
Daimio of Echizen’s presence. He had none of the samurai calm, and his
whole form fairly shook and swayed with the strength of his emotions.
The Lord of Echizen thrust forward a startled face.
“News from the shogunate, Yamada Kwacho?” he cried, fearing from the
aspect of the youth that some treachery had been done his political
party. In disjointed sentences, words coming through his teeth with
effort because of his heavy breathing, the young farmer told his lord of
the kidnapping of his bride, and recalled to him that promise of aid
when necessity should demand it.
The young husband pleaded not in vain. Grieved, insulted, and incensed,
the Daimio of Echizen journeyed in person to the Mikado’s city of Kyoto,
and straight to his August Majesty himself went the story of the farmer
of Echizen. After this there was a great search made through the palaces
and harems of the Prince of Nijo. Five months later Ohano was found and
returned to her husband, Yamada Kwacho.
Three months had scarcely passed before the bells of the Imperial City
rang out a joyous chime. The consort of the Prince of Nijo had given
birth to a royal princess. On that same day, in the little farm-house of
Yamada Kwacho, one more female citizen was added to the Province of
Echizen, and Ohano became a mother.
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CHAPTER I
THE CHILD OF THE SUN
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CHAPTER I
THE CHILD OF THE SUN
ON the shore of Hayama, in a little village two hours’ ride by train
from Tokyo, there stood a sumptuous villa, the summer residence of the
Prince of Nijo, though Nijo himself was seldom seen there. Dissolute and
dissipated by nature and cultivation, he preferred the gayeties and
excitements of the Imperial Court. Here, however, had resided ever since
the year of the Restoration his mother, the Empress Dowager, a noble and
high-souled woman, who preferred the old-fashioned conservatism and
beauty of her country palace to the modern and garish court.
The decorations of her palace, the style of her robes, and those of her
attendants, were entirely of the old time. This was in pleasing contrast
to the customs of the new Empress, who had adopted the foreign style. In
the Imperial Court in its new Tokyo home, there was the heavy perfume of
the choicest roses and violets, but in the palace of the old Empress
Dowager there was the subtle, faint aroma of sweet umegaku and tambo.
Fuji, the queenly mountain, wrapped about in its glorious garment of
snow, mellowed by the touch of the sun, could be seen from her seat. On
all sides of the palace grounds there were valleys and sloping hills.
Within the stone walls which encircled the palace like a fortress there
were gardens of wondrous beauty.
The palace itself was of simple and old-fashioned architecture. It faced
to the east, and its towers and turrets were of gold. Its shojis were
large and so clear that the sunlight pierced through them, flooding the
interior. The floors were covered with soft sweet tatamis—rush mats; the
decorations on the screens and panels of the sliding doors were subdued
and refined though works of art.
It was in this palace that the daughter of the Prince of Nijo spent her
childhood. She was called Sado-ko, after her mother, who had died in
giving her birth. Her father after his presence at a perfunctory feast
given in honor of the birth of the princess had returned immediately to
his pleasures in the capital, and Sado-ko was left in the charge of her
grandmother, the Dowager Empress.
Great was the love existing between these two. All that was noblest in
the character and nature of the young princess was fostered by the old
Empress. The qualities for which she became noted in after years were
the chilling work of those who, after the death of her grandmother, were
given charge of Sado-ko.
In early childhood Sado-ko was wont to run with fleet feet about the
castle gardens, chasing the gloriously hued butterflies. They flew about
her in great numbers, for they were importations to the palace as tame
as home birds. They knew the little princess would do them no harm, and
so they fluttered lightly to her finger, her head, her shoulder, even to
her red lips. Sado-ko loved them dearly, just as she adored the gardens
and the goddess-like Fuji,—her first sight upon arising in the morning.
She loved, too, the quiet, retired beauty of her life, with its freedom
inside the dark stone walls. But more than these things she loved the
Empress Dowager.
Until she was twelve years of age, she knew no other life than that
encompassed by the walls of the palace grounds. Beyond them she had been
told there was another life, turbulent, restless, troublous. The walls
looked forbidding. How much worse must be the world outside them, and
beyond the wide stretch of land and water that faded into misty outline!
Within were sunshine, birds, flowers, gentle words, and soft caressing
smiles. Without, a cruel, cold world waiting to snuff out the warmth and
sunshine of her nature. All this was taught to Sado-ko by the old
Empress Dowager, who in her old age had become selfish. This was the way
in which she sought to keep with her the heart and soul of the companion
of her old age,—the child she loved. Even after she had passed away, she
knew that the thoughts of the princess would remain with her though her
soul should have flown. Thus she paved the way for a companionship in
death as in life, as was the custom with her ancient ancestors.
The children of the Empress Dowager had disappointed her. The Emperor
was occupied with the cares of the nation and the strenuous conditions
of the times, Nijo was almost imbecile from dissipation, her only
daughter had been married into the Tokugawa family, and was practically
separated from her own kin. There was none left to share companionship
with the old Empress, until the little Sado-ko had come. She was the
sole princess of the Nijo family recognized by the Empress, for Western
morality having sifted its way into the Japanese court, the children of
Nijo by his concubines were regarded as illegitimate by the heads of the
royal family, although they were treated with the honor due their blood
and rank. Sado-ko was motherless. The Empress Dowager was her natural
and legal guardian, and to her grandmother she was given.
For ten years, then, these two—the very old Empress and the very young
princess—lived together. Because she was not at all of an inquisitive
mind, and believed implicitly all that her grandmother told her, the
child was perfectly contented with the simple companionship of the
Empress, her butterflies, flowers, and birds. But her grandmother was
too old to run with her about the gardens, and ofttimes the birds, and
the butterflies too, flew over the stone wall and disappeared, to the
tearful anxiety of the little princess, who was sure they would meet
great harm.
As the children of the retainers of the Empress Dowager were not
permitted to visit the private gardens of the palace, Sado-ko had grown
up without playmates of her own age. She was being reared in that
seclusion befitting a descendant of the sun-goddess, and in quite the
ancient style to which her grandmother still clung. So it was only those
attendants who waited upon the person of the Dowager Empress who saw the
little princess herself. She could have counted upon her ten pink
fingers the number of personages with whom she was acquainted. There
were the four grim samurai guards of the palace gates, the three elderly
maids of honor to the Empress, and her own personal maid and nurse
Onatsu-no, in addition to the palace servants and the gardener.
But one eventful day in the month of June, a new personage suddenly
introduced himself to Sado-ko. She had been listening drowsily for a
long time on the wide balcony of the palace to her grandmother’s reading
aloud of ancient Chinese poems, when suddenly a swarm of her own
butterflies flew by, all seemingly following the lead of a purple-hued
stranger. Instantly Sado-ko left her guardian’s side in pursuit, her net
swinging in her hand. She had seldom experienced any trouble in catching
her own butterflies, but the stranger flew in an entirely new direction.
Through a field of iris and across an orchard Sado-ko followed the