DAUGHTERS OF NIJO

“She did not speak to the attendant while she dined, but continued to stare before her through the open shoji”

Illustrations

BEFORE THE STORY’S ACTION

IN the early part of the year of the Restoration there lived within the Province of Echizen a young farmer named Yamada Kwacho. Although he belonged only to the agricultural class, he was known and honored throughout the entire province, for at one time he had saved the life of the Daimio of the province, the powerful Lord of Echizen, premier to the shogunate.

In spite of the favor of the Daimio of the province, Yamada Kwacho made no effort to rise above the class to which he had been born. Satisfied with his estate, he was proud of his simple and honest calling. So the Lord of Echizen, having no opportunity of repaying the young farmer for his service, contented himself perforce with a promise that if at any time Yamada Kwacho should require his aid, he would not fail him.

Kwacho, therefore, lived happily in the knowledge of his prince’s favor; and since he possessed an excellent little farm which yielded him a comfortable living, he had few cares.

He had reached the age of twenty-five years before he began to cast about him for a wife. Because of his renown in the province, Kwacho might have chosen a maiden of much higher rank than his own; but, being of a sensible mind and nature, he sought a bride within his own class. He found her in the person of little Ohano, the daughter of a neighboring farmer. She was as plump, rosy, and pretty as is possible for a Japanese maiden. Moreover, she was docile and gentle by temperament, and had all the admirable domestic virtues attractive to the eye of a youth of the character of Yamada Kwacho.

Though their courtship was brief, their wedding was splendid, for the Prince of Echizen himself bestowed upon them gifts with all good wishes and congratulations. Life seemed to bear a more joyous aspect to Kwacho. He went about his work whistling and singing. All his field-hands and coolies knew him for the kindest of masters.

The young couple had not been married a month, when a great prince, a member of the reigning house, visited the Lord of Echizen in his province. Report had it that this royal prince was in reality an emissary from the Emperor, for at this time the country was torn with the dissensions of Imperialist and Bakufu. It was well known that the Daimio of Echizen owed his office of shogunate premier to the Mikado himself, and that he was secretly in sympathy with the Imperialists. Consequently there were great banquets and entertainments given in the Province of Echizen when a prince of the royal family condescended to visit the Mikado’s vassal, the Daimio of Echizen. The whole province wore a gala aspect, and the streets of the principal cities were constantly enlivened by the passing parades and cortèges of the retainers of the visiting prince.

Owing to the presence of his august guest, the Lord of Echizen was obliged to send a courier to Yedo with proper apologies for not presenting himself before the Shogun at this time. He showed his confidence in Kwacho by bestowing upon him the honor of this important mission.

The young farmer, while naturally loath to leave his young bride of a month, yet, mindful of the great honor, started at once for the Shogun’s capital. Thus Ohano was left at home alone.

Being but fifteen years old, she was fond of gayety, of music and dancing, and it was her dearest wish to visit the capital city of the province, that she might see the gorgeous parade of the nobles. With her husband gone, however, she was forced to deny herself this pleasure, and had to remain at home in seclusion under the charge of an elderly but foolish maid. Ohano became lonely and restless. She wearied of sitting in the house, thinking of Kwacho; and it was tiresome, too, to wander about the farm fields and watch the coolies and laborers. Ohano pined for a little of that excitement so precious to her butterfly heart. Much thought of the capital gayeties, and much conversation with the foolish maid, finally wrought a result.

Ohano would put on her prettiest and gayest of gowns to visit the capital alone, just as though she were a maiden and not a matron who should have had the company of her husband.

As the city was not a great distance away, they could use a comfortable kurumma which would hold them both. Four of the field coolies could be spared as kurumma carriers. In delight the foolish maid dressed her mistress, by this time all rosy with pleasurable excitement and anticipation. The adventure pleased them both, though the foolish mistress assured the foolish maid repeatedly that they would go but to the edge of the city. Thus they could see the great parade of the royal prince pass out of the city gates, for this was the day on which the prince was to leave Echizen and return to Kyoto. All his splendid retinue would accompany him. It was only once in a lifetime one was afforded the opportunity of such a sight, Ohano declared.

They started from the farm gleefully. All the way mistress and maid chatted and laughed in enjoyment. Before they had reached the edge of the city a countryman told them the royal cortège was even then passing through the city gates, and that they must leave the road in haste, for the parade would reach their portion of the highway in a few minutes.

The foolish maid suggested that they alight from the kurumma, that they might have a still better view of the parade. So after the maid the rosy-cheeked little bride, with her eyes dancing and shining, her red lips apart, her childish face all gleaming with pleased curiosity, swung lightly to the ground also.

They were just in time, for the royal parade had taken the road, and the outriders were already in view, so that the kurumma carriers were forced to drag their vehicle aside and fall upon their faces in the dust. The foolish maid, following their example, hid her face on the ground so that she lost sight of that she had come far to see. Ohano, however, less agitated than her servants, instead of prostrating herself at the side of the road, retired to a little bluff near the roadside. She thought she was far enough from the highway to be unseen; but as she happened to be standing on a sloping elevation, and her gay dress made a bright spot of color against the landscape, she was perfectly visible to such of the cortège as chanced to look in her direction.

Very slowly and leisurely the train proceeded. Nobles, samurai, vassals, retainers, attendants, the personal train of each principal samurai, prancing horses, lacquered litters, norimonos, bearing the wives and concubines of the princely staff, banners and streamers and glittering breastplates, all these filed slowly by and dazzled the eyes of the little rustic Ohano.

Then suddenly she felt her knees become weak, hands trembled, while a great flame rushed to her giddy little head. She became conscious of the fact that the train had suddenly halted, and that the bamboo hangings of a gilded norimon had parted. As the curtains of the norimon were slowly 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.

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 flight of the butterflies, until she came to a wall, over which the purple visitor flew.

“A score of ripe cherries descended upon her head.”

Flushed and disappointed the princess sat down breathlessly on the grass beneath a cherry tree. She had been seated but a moment, when the tree above her began to shake and a score of ripe cherries descended upon her head. She sprang to her feet, and looking upward saw a roguish face peering down at her from the cherry tree. The face belonged to a boy of possibly fourteen years. He was laughing with delight at the amazed and frightened face of the little princess, and he kept pelting her with cherries, some of which actually broke on her small Imperial person. As, however, Sado-ko continued to gaze up at him in that frightened manner, he sprang to the ground, rolled himself about on the grass for a spell, and then turned several somersaults so grotesque that Sado-ko forgot her fear and burst into childish laughter, clapping her hands delightedly as he came to his feet before her. They were both laughing heartily now, as they surveyed each other. The boy’s sleeves and the front of his obi were filled with cherries, so that his figure was a succession of grotesque