Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
the same way.”
She nestled against his arm, looking toward the stars.
“To-night,” she said, “I’ll sit beside my shoji doors and I will watch
the moon. I’ll tell my heart that I am keeping tryst with you, and think
that it is so, that you and I, my Junzo, are alone in some sweet garden,
keeping a moon tryst.”
He dropped her hands. She could hear his quickened breath. In the shadow
he could not see her face. How could he have guessed that Sado-ko was
jealous of her very self?
“Why did you drop my hands?” she asked.
He seemed to be in painful thought. His voice was husky when he spoke:—
“Your words, Masago, start bitter recollections in my mind.”
“Bitter?” she repeated softly.
“Bitter, bitter,” he replied.
She broke his thought, with a timid question.
“Junzo, this is our wedding-eve. Confide in me.”
He moved from her a step, and stood in indecisive silence. Then:—
“There is nothing to confide.”
“You told me once there was a tale that you would tell me.”
With an impetuous motion he once again seized her hands.
“You are too good, too pure to hear the story of one both false and
base.”
In the strangest, most piteous of voices she answered:—
“Perhaps there was another time when you called her by another name.”
Her strange words rendered him quite speechless. She put her hand upon
his arm. There was a pleading quality in her voice:—
“Junzo, do not think or speak unkindly of poor Sado-ko,” she said.
He repeated the name in a low, despairing voice:—
“Sado-ko!”
The very name recalled his anguish of the past.
“You love her still?” she asked. Now a note of fear was in her voice.
She could not bear that he should speak or think unkindly of the
Princess Sado-ko, yet the very thought that he should love one who was
no longer herself, rendered this paradox of women distracted.
“You love her still?” she asked, catching his arm and shaking it with
her childish jealousy.
“No, no,” he said, as though the very thought was loathsome, “’tis you
alone I love, my own Masago.”
Her tone was sharply tart.
“You do not love Sado-ko?”
“I love Masago,” he said.
She sighed.
“I would not have it otherwise,” she said, and laughed happily.
“Masago,” he said earnestly, “ask the consent of your honored parent
that I may come indoors. We will spend a portion of the night together.
I will then tell you all you wish to know concerning that passion of the
heart I once have felt, which you have suspected. It is better you
should know.”
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CHAPTER XXVI
MASAGO’S RETURN
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CHAPTER XXVI
MASAGO’S RETURN
ALONE in the quiet guest room of the Yamada house they sat. Convention
demanded a light, but it was of the dimmest—a dull and flickering andon.
Yet the night was clear. By the shoji walls they sat, looking into each
other’s faces, thinking always of the morrow.
She had listened without interrupting while in low, tense voice he had
told her of a madness once felt for a high princess. When he had quite
finished and sat in silent, moody gloom, she moved nearer to him, then
slipped her hand into his, and nestled up against his shoulder. Her
voice was soothing in its quality.
“By this time the little bird—the poor caged nightingale is dead,” she
said. “The gods were more kind to you, Junzo, for see, you are so strong
you beat away the cage-bars and are quite free to love again.”
Pressing his face against her hair, he said solemnly:—
“The gods are witness of this fact. You are the only one that I have
ever loved.”
Smiling, she sighed with happiness.
“Poor Sado-ko!” she said.
His voice was earnest.
“I loved you in her, Masago.”
She smiled in sweetest confidence now.
“That is true,” she said. “I do believe it, and to-morrow—”
“To-morrow will be a golden day upon the august calendar of our lives. I
love you! Men of our country do not always marry for their love, Masago,
but the gods are kind, and favor us!”
“How sad,” she said, “it must be to marry one for whom we do not care!”
“It is the fate of many in our land.”
“The times change, Junzo-san. Are not conditions happier to-day?”
“True. In the years to come they will still improve, and if the gods
grant us honorable offspring—”
“What is that?” she cried, starting from him suddenly. “I thought I
heard one moving—and see, oh, look, there is a shadow on the shoji
wall!”
“Where?”
“Over there! See, it is moving now. Some one is upon our balcony. Oh,
Junzo!”
She clung to him in a shivering panic of fear.
“Do not tremble so, Masago. Some foolish listening servant, that is all!
One moment, we will see!”
He started to cross the room to the opposite side, but she clung to him
with nervous apprehension.
“No, no—I am fearful!” she whispered.
“But some one is without. I too saw and see the shadow of the form. Why
should our simple courtship be spied upon? Let me see who it is,
Masago?”
They were speaking in whispers. The girl was trembling with fright.
“It is an evil omen on this night,” she whispered pitifully. “Do not,
pray you, do not seek to find the cause.”
“Your fear is most incomprehensible. Let us go to another room, then. We
will join your honorable parents.”
She clung to him fearfully as they made their way across the room
together. The shadow on the shoji moved upward from its crouching
position, and through the thin walls the lovers saw an arm, with the
long sleeve of a woman falling from it, extended to push aside the
doors.
Upon a sudden impulse Junzo strode toward the doors and opened them. The
figure on the balcony stood still, silhouetted in the silvered light of
the night. Between the parted shoji she stood like one uncertain. Then
suddenly she swayed, as if about to faint. She grasped the door for
support.
The lovers watched her in silence as eloquent as though they gazed upon
a spirit. Then suddenly the man broke the spell of tense silence, and
stooping to the andon raised it up and swung its light upon the woman’s
face.
A cry escaped his lips—a cry simultaneously echoed by the stranger. She
stepped into the room, and with her hands behind her drew the sliding
doors closed. Now against them she stood, looking about her with vague
eyes.
“Who are you?” hoarsely sounded the voice of Junzo.
“Ask—her!” was the reply she made, indicating Sado-ko. Junzo slowly
turned toward his fiancée. He saw her hands fall from her face, which in
the dull light seemed now white as marble. She turned it toward the
woman. Her voice was strange.
“I do not know you, lady,” was her answer.
The one by the doors laughed with a fierce wildness, then threw her arms
above her head with abandoned recklessness.
“You do not know me—you!” She laughed again. “You have reason to know
me, Princess Sado-ko,” she cried.
Cold and immovable still, the girl who but lately had clung so warmly to
her lover, stared now upon the visitor.
“I do not know you,” she repeated in distinct tones. “I am not a
princess, lady, but a simple maiden, the daughter of Yamada Kwacho, and
named Masago!”
Then, as though she put aside some late physical weakness, the other
crossed and faced her.
“I am the maid Masago, with whom you exchanged your state, Princess
Sado-ko,” she said.
There was silence for a moment, then the low-toned, deliberate denial of
the other one.
“It is not true,” she said.
Masago turned toward the artist.
“Look at me!” she said. “You do not dare, you artist-man. You know that
I speak truth.”
As though she were an unholy thing, he shrank from her. She moved
uncertainly about the room. Suddenly she asked quite querulously:—
“Where is my mother? I never realized before how much I loved her.” She
looked about the room impatiently. “How dark it is! Let us have light.”
“No, no,” cried out the artist, imploringly, “there is sufficient.”
“Ah, you fear to see my face more plainly, artist? Yet I will have more
light. My nerves are all unstrung. I could laugh and weep, and I could
scream aloud at the least cause.”
She clapped her hands loudly, imperiously, then restlessly paced the
room.
“The woman always came so slowly. The promptness of the menials of Nijo
makes me impatient of this country slowness.”
Outside, in the corridors, the shuffling tread of the servant was heard.
Masago, in her nervous state, could not wait for her to open the doors,
but pushed them apart.
“Bring more lights,” she commanded, then stayed the woman by grasping
her kimono at the shoulder: “Oh, it is you I see, Okiku. Come inside!”
The woman stepped into the room, looking up at her in a startled
fashion, then glancing at the other silent two.
“Do you recognize Masago?” asked the girl, bringing her face close to
the servant’s. The woman cried out in fright as she stared in horror
from one to the other. Suddenly she gasped:—
“It is a wicked lie. You are not Masago. There is my sweet girl.” She
pointed to the silent Sado-ko.
At those words Sado-ko seemed to come to sudden life. She crossed the
room and whispered to the maid:—
“Okiku, bid my father and my mother come at once. The woman seems both
ill and witless. Pray hasten. Also bring more lights.”
Masago sat down on the floor. Laying her head back against the panelling
of the wall, she closed her eyes wearily.
“I am so tired and worn out,” she said plaintively; “I have travelled
half the night. What time is it, Onatsu-no—Why, I forget again. Oh, it
is good to be home once more. I never knew how much—”
Ohano’s pleasant voice was heard outside the door. As she bustled into
the room, followed by Kwacho, Masago leaped to her feet, and, rushing
headlong across the room, threw her arms about Ohano’s neck.
“Mother! Oh, my mother, mother!” she cried.
Ohano stood in stiff amazement, staring across Masago’s head at Sado-ko.
The maid brought andons; the room was now well lighted.
“Why—what—” was all that Ohano could gasp, but she had not the heart to
put the girl from her arms. Yamada Kwacho was more brusque, however. He
drew the girl away from Ohano by her sleeves, but when he saw her face,
he started in astonished bewilderment.
“I do not understand,” he said dazedly, “Junzo—Masago—” He turned to
them for enlightenment.
Sado-ko spoke with perfect clearness. Her eyes were wide and steady, but
there was no color in her face.
“The woman seems demented, father. She thinks that she is other than
herself—your daughter. But look upon her garments. See the crest upon
her sleeves! She evidently is some high lady. Her mind is wandering in
delusion.”
With a savage cry Masago sprang toward her. She would have struck
Sado-ko had not Kwacho held her.
“What! You—you speak thus in my own father’s house! Oh!” She turned
piteously toward Ohano. “Mother, you will understand. You know your
Masago!”
“You, Masago!” exclaimed Yamada Kwacho; “why, you are wild in ways. Our
girl from babyhood has been docile, quiet, almost dull, while you—”
“Mother, speak to me. Say that you at least know your own child.”
Ohano burst into tears. Her mind was entangled and perplexed.
There were steps without the house, and the shrill calls of runners;
then loud rappings on the doors. Kwacho pushed them open roughly to find
a dozen men in livery upon his veranda. A tall man stepped forward.
Sado-ko pulled her mother down with her upon the floor, thus concealing
their faces in low obeisance. The artist did not move, but his eyes met