Daughters of Nijo: A Romance of Japan
the store on the morrow, and Ohano’s suggestion that she intended to
keep awake for other nights was not a relishing prospect.
“She shall go on one condition,” he said.
“Yes?” eagerly inquired his wife.
“That she is first betrothed to Kamura Junzo.”
“There will be no trouble as to that,” said Ohano, with conviction, and
lying down drew the quilt over her. A few minutes later the twain were
at rest.
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CHAPTER IV
A BETROTHAL
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CHAPTER IV
A BETROTHAL
THE following morning an early messenger brought a letter to the Kamura
residence. The family were at breakfast, but as the messenger came from
the elder Kamura’s old Echizen friend, Yamada Kwacho, it was opened and
read at once. Its contents, while surprising, were most pleasing to the
family. Kwacho made an overture to contract a betrothal between their
eldest son, Junzo, and his only daughter, Masago.
Junzo at this time was in Tokyo, where he had been living ever since he
had returned from abroad. He was winning fame for himself as a
sculptor,—an art quite new to Japan in its Western form,—and the family
were proud of his achievements. This new mark of compliment from their
esteemed friend, the wealthy Mr. Yamada, naturally flattered the Kamura
family immensely. The messenger was sent back to the Yamada house with
as gracious letter as the one received, and gifts of flowers and tea.
The invitation of Mr. Yamada for a conference at his house the day
following, in which the young couple might also have an opportunity of
seeing each other and becoming acquainted, was accepted. Another
messenger was despatched at once to Junzo in Tokyo, and the family
congratulated themselves upon what they considered their good fortune.
Junzo read his father’s letter with a degree of irritation altogether
out of keeping with the pride in the proposal manifested by the rest of
his family. An extraordinary piece of fortune had recently come to
Junzo, and the subject of his marriage seemed a matter of trivial
importance beside it. He had, in fact, been commissioned to make a
statue of the Prince Komatzu, the war hero of the time, who had
distinguished himself by his brave conduct in the Formosa affair. Junzo
knew that upon this work his future career would depend, and that should
he please his illustrious patron he would doubtless have an opportunity
of doing more work for the court; for at this time the nobility of Japan
emulated everything modern and Western, and it had become the fashion
for the gentlemen of the court to sit for their portraits in oil, though
as yet none of the ladies had gone quite so far.
Junzo’s impatience, therefore, at his father’s summons to return home
for the consummation of his betrothal to a young lady whom he had never
seen, may be surmised. Being a well-bred and obedient son, however, he
departed at once for his home, breaking a number of engagements in so
doing.
As the train from Tokyo carried Junzo to Kamakura, the young man, while
watching the flying landscape from his window, thought with some natural
curiosity of his bride to be. Her father and mother he had met. Upon two
or three occasions he had seen her little brothers playing in the
fields. His active imagination soon pictured Masago. She would, of
course, be plump and rosy-cheeked like her mother, pretty perhaps,
thought Junzo, but lacking in that grace and spirituality that to him
was the ideal of true beauty.
When his own grandsires had been samurai in the service of the Lords of
Echizen, this girl’s ancestors had tilled the soil. Still, times were
changed. The samurai had fallen, and the tradesman and farmer had risen.
Now the descendants of the samurai drew the jinrikisha containing the
fat merchant, or policed the streets of big cities for the glory of
still wearing a sword. Moreover, the elder Kamura was in sympathy with
the modern spirit of the times, and had accepted favors from the hand of
Yamada Kwacho. Besides, the latter had not been without honor in
Echizen; and, after all, his own family—the once proud samurai family of
Kamura—were now but simple citizens, nothing more.
“The Restoration was right and just,” said Junzo, and smoothed out the
frown from his patrician face. “And after all,” he added to his thought,
“this girl of the people will be a more fitting wife than a woman of
modern fancies, such as have become the ladies of caste.”
Masago’s aspect pleased, surprised—nay, quite bewildered Junzo. When at
the look-at meeting she had raised her head finally from its low
obeisance, Junzo had been startled at its delicate beauty. It shocked
him to see a flower so exquisitely lovely and delicate surrounded by
relatives so completely plebeian.
During the entire visit Junzo found his eyes constantly straying toward
his betrothed. When she moved about the room, and with her own hands
served him tea, he noted with delight her grace of movement, and the
symmetry of her figure.
When tea had been served and drunk, he found her close beside him. She
had moved dutifully there at a signal from her father; and now, as his
betrothed, she quietly filled the long-stemmed pipe for him, and lighted
it at the hibachi. As he took it from her hands, their eyes met for the
first time. Junzo, though thrilled by the glance of her eyes, felt
curiously enough repulsed. There was something forbidding, almost
menacing, in their glance. A moment later the long lashes were shielding
them. Then the young man noted that she had not as much as changed
color, but still was calmly white and unmoved. A feeling of uneasiness
possessed him. His delight in her beauty was chilled.
Once only throughout the afternoon did she show interest in the
conversation. This was when Junzo had told his father-in-law to be, of a
prospective visit to court to make a statue of a national hero. Then she
had raised her head suddenly, and Junzo had stumbled over his words in
the glow of artistic appreciation he felt of the beautiful pink color
flooding her face.
The elder Kamura thought his son’s modesty in not mentioning the fact of
the commission he had already received unnecessary in a family soon to
become his own; and so he said, as he tapped the ashes from his pipe on
the hibachi:—
“My son has been commanded to make a statue of his Imperial Highness the
Prince Komatzu.”
The little cup which Masago had lifted toward her lips fell suddenly
from her hand, its contents spilling on the tray. She seemed scarcely
conscious of its fall, as she turned an eager and flushed face toward
Kamura. She spoke for the first time, repeating half mechanically his
words:—
“The Prince Komatzu—”
“Yes,” said Kamura, affably, “a cousin of his Imperial Majesty,” and he
bowed his head to the mats in old-fashioned deference to the name of the
Mikado.
“Why,” spoke up the simple Ohano, her eyes wide and bright, “we have his
august picture.”
Her husband looked at her in astonishment.
“You have a picture of his Highness?” he inquired incredulously. “How is
that possible, Ohano?”
“Masago cut it from a Chinese magazine you brought home last month,”
said the wife, “and it was such a beautiful picture she has put it away
among her treasures, have you not, Masago?”
The girl’s eyes were downcast, and she did not raise them. She knew by
the silence in the room that her answer was awaited by the company, but
she could not move her lips to speak. Then she heard Junzo answering
quietly for her:—
“He is certainly the most admirable hero we have, and one that it honors
our nation to idolize.”
His words were rewarded by a glance from the eyes she raised in timid
gratitude. It was but for a moment; then her head was bent again.
For a week Junzo saw his fiancée daily. At the end of that time he
accompanied her with her family a portion of the way to Kyoto, whither
she went to attend school for a year. Junzo then proceeded alone to
Tokyo, and on his journey back his musings of his future bride were as
vague and unsatisfactory as when he had come.
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CHAPTER V
GOSSIP OF THE COURT
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CHAPTER V
GOSSIP OF THE COURT
IT was early afternoon. The ladies in the Komatzu palace were taking
their noon-day siesta, and idly discussing the work of the artist,
Kamura Junzo. Since he had become a favorite among them, many of the
ladies wished that he could be retained in the palace a little longer.
As they sipped their amber tea indolently in one of the chambers of the
palace, they gossiped with the freedom common to the women of the West
rather than the East.
“Now,” said the little Countess Matsuka, handing her cup to a page, “if
we were only so fortunate as to have two Imperial heroes instead of
one!”
A languorous beauty, swinging lazily in a Dutch hammock, raised herself
upon an elbow.
“But the heroes nowadays are all heimins” (commoners), she said with
soft scorn.
“Oh, Duchess Aoi,” laughed a pretty young woman, who, more industrious,
was working at an embroidery frame, “how can you say so? There are no
heimins to-day.”
“Oh, true,” responded the other, crossly, “there is no caste to-day. The
heimin has become the politician.”
“Yes,” said the pretty one at the frame, “and the politician rules and
owns Nippon.”
The Duchess Aoi sat up aggressively.
“You appear to have the confidence of the diplomats, O Lady Fuji-no,”
said she.
Fuji tossed her head in malicious silence.
“Noble ladies!” came the warning voice of the elderly mentor-chaperon.
“It is too warm to engage the august voice in argument. Let us have
music.”
The Duchess Aoi shrugged her shapely shoulders.
“The court geishas are busy in the male quarters,” she said, “and the
foreign band has broken our ear-drums.”
One of the ladies laughed.
“Besides,” she added to Aoi’s speech, “we don’t want the foreign music
in our private halls. It is enough for state occasions.”
“I enjoy it augustly well,” said a stiff little lady sitting
uncomfortably in her Paris gown on an English chair, who bore the
euphonious name of Yu-giri (Evening Mist). She was the only one of the
company who wore European costume. The others were glad enough to revel
in the comfortable enjoyment of the kimono.
“If her Royal Highness were not so augustly eccentric, _she_ might set
the example,” said the Countess Matsuka, thoughtfully.
“Which Highness, countess?”
“There is only one Royal Highness in the palace now,” said Lady Fuji,
smiling up from her frame,—“the Princess Sado-ko.”
Aoi tossed her head angrily. Her mother had been a concubine of one of
the Imperial princes, and she was of the blood. Yet she was maid of
honor to the Princess Sado-ko, for whom she had no love.
“And what example might _she_ set?” Aoi inquired with evident disdain.
“That of sitting for her portrait to be painted,” explained the Countess
Matsuka.
All of the ladies now showed extreme interest in the subject, and
several began to speak at once.
“Oh, but she would never countenance it!”
“She fairly despises the ways of us moderns.”
“Just to think, it is in her power to keep our charming artist at court
indefinitely.”
“But how lovely to have all our pictures painted. We, of course, would
all follow suit.”
“—if she would only set the fashion.”