 | Chapter II Miss Spring Morning |  |
2. Chapter II
Mechanically, Spring-morning touched the marriage cup with her lips, then relinquished it to the slim brown hand of Omi. He
Presently the relatives left them alone together, and immediately the boy made an impetuous movement toward her, but she seemed to shrink slightly from him, and the long dark lashes resting upon her cheeks did not even raise, and she seemed unconscious or indifferent to the gentle, wooing voice of her young husband.
“O-Haru-no!” He almost whispered the name, and repeated it, as though the very sound pleased and caressed him. Then, as still she did not stir, nor made any sign of hearing him, he added tremulously:
“I am so very happy now. Are not you, beloved?”
Her lips parted mechanically to form the single word of dull assent. The boy's dark skin reddened. He leaned toward her, and took one of her passive little hands in his. She let it rest limply there, but did not return his pressure. His voice had taken a more manly tone; a hint of his new authority was in it, and made itself fully understood and felt by his bride. Just the glint of her shining black eyes showed for a moment, as sullenly she heard his words:
“Obey my honorable mother. Be a good daughter to her. That is all I command of you, my wife!”
Her head drooped wearily, and she answered meekly enough, but behind her words he heard that thrill of bitter rebellion.
“I will be the honorable mother-in-law's humblest servant,” said she.
“Daughter!” substituted the boy quickly. “These are modern days. A daughter-in-law to-day is not considered a servant!”
The faintest smile curled the corners of her lips. She raised her eyes at last, and, wide with defiance, they looked back fairly at her husband.
“Do modern people make such marriages as ours?” she asked.
Omi's face had darkened as sullenly as her own.
“Why not? You and I have always been betrothed.”
Her words, her defiant glance, roused uneasy fears within him. He knew, in a dim way, that it was his own teachings of recent years--the little learning they had so passionately achieved together before the going of his father, which was so insidiously affecting the view-point of his wife.
“You speak and look strangely,” he said, pathetically. “After all, modern ways are not for our women. Women of our class are better off without too much knowledge or education.”
He sighed, looking at her appealingly, even while he spoke falteringly the words which hardened her the more against him. Once Omi had spoken otherwise, she vividly recalled. She shrank into her cold and apathetic self, dumb, submissive to his will and that of his parent, and determined to show no further trace of her condition of heart and mind. He felt utterly pervaded by the vague sense of unhappiness. Why could not O-Haru-no be as other females of her class, meek, obedient, plastic? Why had he foolishly permitted her to share his studies and his books? There she sat before him--his wife--yet with that intangible air of distance and remoteness from him. His dreams of drawing her warmly into the shelter of his arms when once they two should be left alone together had vanished completely. It would be preposterous to embrace one so chilly and forbidding as his bride. Yet it lacked now but a half hour before his departure. His mother would require his presence soon--would jealously begrudge sharing his last moments even with his wife. It seemed to Omi as if he could fairly see the precious moments slipping away--wasted, while he waited, in vain, for his wife's confidence. Mute, almost dumb, she had repelled him from the smallest love advance. He could not frame the words of longing which surged up to his lips, while her cold, shadowy little face was turned so stubbornly from him. Covering his eyes, at last he spoke:
For the first time, now, she leaned toward him, and there was something very soft and appealing in the dark eyes she bent upon him questioningly.
“Tell me then, Omi-sama: if you loved me, why did you marry me tonight?”
He stammered, seeking for words to justify himself.
“It was necessary. My mother--it was impossible to leave her alone--unprotected.”
The hard, baffling look had come back to the girl's face, making it curiously old.
“You bind the one you love, then, to a detestable bondage?”
“No, no,” he protested vehemently, seizing her hands and holding them closely. “Do not refer to it in that way. Is it not the place of the young to serve and protect the old?”
She drew her hands almost savagely from his.
“Ah!” she cried, “you do not even deny it. I am married for the one purpose--to act as slave to your honorable parent.”
Her words smote him. His face turned angrily red, as he rose to his feet.
“It is your duty,” said he coldly. “I have mine, a graver, harder one. I serve the Emperor. His slave I am. For him I gladly give my worthless life. And you?” He looked at her commandingly now. “You are my wife. It is your duty, also, to make sacrifice for him--our emperor.”
His hands rested heavily upon her slender shoulders, and she shrank vainly from him now.
“My wife you are,” he repeated hoarsely. “My mother's slave, if you so name it. But a moment since, all my being melted toward you, but I am not so dull but what I feel your hatred and defiance of me now. Oh, is it well to send your husband to his death with such a heavy heart?”
Silence for a moment, and then, stooping to look at the down-drooped face, Omi saw the tears silently falling. An exclamation of impetuous pity escaped him, and at last he drew his wife into his arms. After a time:
“Do not weep, O-Haru-no. You break my heart. A soldier must be impervious to pain.”
“You go so far away,” she sighed. “Alas, we will never, never meet again. I am not your wife at all.”
“You are my wife for all time,” he asseverated fervently. “Even though my duty takes me from you in this present life, we are united in all the lives yet to come, are we not?”
“I do not know. I do not know.”
“You do not believe, then?”
“I do not know.”
“Then your heart--it is not your husband's?”
He held her off at arm's length from him, waiting hungrily for her reply. It came slowly, faintly:
“I do not know, O-Omi. I have not looked into my heart.”
His voice was hoarse, tremulous with its half fear, half assurance.
“Why then should you suffer at my departure?”
Her gaze averted, she answered sullenly:
“For myself I weep. You go to glorious work, the soldier, the hero of our Emperor, but me you leave in wicked chains.”
“I go--unloved,” he said in a low voice, which vibrated with despair, but though she trembled at his words, she did not deny them.
They stood for a moment looking at each other solemnly, and upon both their young faces was reflected the tragedy of their hearts. Then some one called to Omi, and without a further word or look at his wife, he turned and left the room.
Alone, she stood, staring at the sliding doors which had closed upon her husband. Then suddenly she rushed frantically upon them and drew them apart. Out in the hall a dull takahira gave but a gloomy light. She listened at the head of the little flight of stairs; but the house seemed as silent as the night, and she knew that his mother whispered to him alone in the ozashisiki[2]. She called, in the darkness, down the stairs, her quivering whisper sounding curiously plaintive and piteous.
“Omi! Omi-sama! For the love of all the gods, do not leave me--yet!”
But no warm, boyish voice came in answer to her entreaty. With her hand upon her fluttering heart, she now staggered back into the room, and out upon the little balcony.
The night was starry overhead, but scarcely a breath of wind was stirring. The little wind-bells tinkled only faintly at her coming. Over the balcony, where lately she had twisted the vines and ivy, she now leaned, trying to see into the adjoining house, whither she knew he must go to bid farewell to her step-mother. But the lights of the house were out, and suddenly she realized that the hour was late, and that Omi must have found but a moment to say his sayonara. He was gone!
Across the street, the house of the honorable captain was brilliantly illuminated. They had feasted there also. Many of the soldiers would march away to-night with their captain--Omi among them. She strained her eyes to watch the doorway of the captain's house, and when a little party issued forth, a cry was strangled on her lips.
A beat of a drum was heard up the street--some portion of the regiment on the march to the railway station. Spring- morning wrung her hands desperately together and sank down upon her shaking knees. Now the marching soldiers were passing, had already passed, her house! Soon they were out of sight entirely. Duller, lower, softer sounded the musical beat of the drum.
A foreigner in white flannels came out onto the balcony of the house of Captain Taganouchi. He stood in the darkness looking out at the little house across the street. Suddenly he leaned forward and peered long and eagerly, as though trying to pierce the darkness and short distance that separated the two houses. Was it fancy only, or did he actually see that same child-woman face, resting like a white lotus upon the vine boxes of the balcony? Every nerve alert and sensitive, he looked and looked, and then he listened. Something--some one over there was crying--lowly moaning. He was sure he was not mistaken. Again he listened, and then a little wind swept refreshingly abroad and knocked the hanging glass of the wind-bells back and forth, so that their melodious tinkle alone was heard.
The American went indoors. A sharp clapping of his hands brought a scurrying maid into the apartment. She slipped to her knees to receive his orders. Taking a roll of bills from a leather case, he deftly rolled them in paper and snapped a rubber band upon them. This he handed to the maid, who stared at him open-mouthed.
“Take this,” he said in Japanese, “across the street. It is a wedding gift for the wife of Omi.”
The maid bobbed her head half a dozen times, and departed upon her errand. Jamison Tyrrell heard the sliding glide of her feet along the matted hall and down the stairs, and the clip-clop of her clogs as she crossed the cobblestoned street. But he did not see her, as, hesitating a moment between the two small houses, she approached and knocked upon the door of the Yamadas' house. The old woman thrust out a red and angry face, inflamed with late tears and the imbibing of much sake:
“Who is it?” harshly she demanded.
“A gift-bearer for the bride,” sweetly returned the waiting maid.
The old woman grunted, and shuffling heavily along the hall, she opened the door. Thrusting out a withered old hand, she snatched greedily the package extended by the maid, who departed as speedily as she had come.
| Chapter II Miss Spring Morning | |