CHAPTER XIV
JEAN VISITS
Nan hung the tiny cage with its one occupant outside her room on the verandah and the next morning discovered that the small maker of light had escaped through the open door. Later in the day, joy itself took wings with the return of Neal Harding to his post. He had declared that he would see them all again, but as he would remain in Tokyo, to which place they did not expect to go again, it seemed to Nan that the end of her summer had come. He had not asked her to write, and she told herself that this dream was ended, ended with the flitting of the ghostly visitors from another world. "It was all a phantom anyhow," she sighed as she took down the wee cage and laid it among her treasures. She wondered if Jack would start up a correspondence. Jack did not like to write letters, to be sure, but she was one who made a means serve her ends and if she really did like Mr. Harding above any other man she had met, she would be sure to find a way of keeping him in sight.
A few days later Nan happened to come upon her mother and aunt deep in a discussion of further plans. "You're just the girl we want to see," said Mrs. Corner. "Come, sit down here and talk it all over with us. We feel that we should be thinking of starting forth again, not because we are tired of this lovely spot, but because there is so much more to see, and one can scarcely expect to come to Japan more than once in a lifetime. You and Mary Lee have made the Craigs a long visit and it is time that should be ended. Now what do you think we should make our next point?"
Nan gave the question due consideration. "We must certainly see Kyoto," she said at last. "It is such a very old city and was the capital before Tokyo became so. I have been told that it is the most interesting city in Japan."
Mrs. Corner looked at Miss Helen. "Now that is quite as it should be. Jean has had an invitation to visit there."
"She has? Who has asked her?"
Mrs. Corner raised her voice slightly to say, "Jean, dear, come in here and bring the letter you had this morning."
Jean, who could hear perfectly well through the thin paper partitions of the room, appeared presently with the letter in her hand. It was written on a very long sheet of paper, ornamented delicately upon its surface with shadowy designs. It was in a long narrow envelope, and was folded over and over many times in order to make it fit.
"It is from Ko-yeda Sannomiya," said Jean. "You remember her, Nan? She was the little Japanese girl at Rayner Hall. We took her to Cloverdale once and tried to be nice to her. She is a funny little thing, and some of the girls fought shy of her, but I always liked her, she was so sweet and gentle."
"And has she come back home?"
"Yes, and lives in Kyoto. She heard in some roundabout way that we were over here and had the sense to write to Bettersley and ask to have the letter forwarded. It has been a long time on the way, of course, but the invitation stands for any time I may accept it."
"I don't see why she didn't ask me, too," said Jack who had come in.
"I know," said Mary Lee; "you are too big, and you would scare her family; besides you would fill up the house and there wouldn't be room for any one else."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Jack, "I am no taller than Nan."
"Well, they didn't ask her."
"That is all nonsense," replied Jack. "I suppose the real reason is that Jean flocked with her more than I did, and once I laughed at her for some funny mistake she made. I suppose I shouldn't have done it for it wasn't very polite, but the laugh came out before I thought."
"Are you going, Jean?" Nan asked.
"I think so. It is quite a compliment, I reckon, and I ought to take advantage of it, though it scares me rather to go in among such exceedingly foreign people. I shall only stay a day or so, however, and I don't reckon anything very terrible can happen in that time."
"So then it is settled, is it, that we go on to Kyoto?" said Nan.
"It will be pretty warm, I suppose, after these delightful mountains," remarked Miss Helen regretfully, "but if we come to Japan in summer we must take the consequences. At all events we can be thankful that the rainy season is over."
"I wonder what Ko-yeda means," said Nan musingly, as she handed back the letter to Jean.
"It means a slender twig," Jean informed her. "Ko-yeda told me so long ago."
"It is very pretty, especially for a young girl," Nan decided.
In spite of Eleanor's protests and charges of desertion, and of Mrs. Craig's persuasions, the day was set for their departure. It came all too soon. The evening before, Nan made a last visit to the temples and to the little shrine where she had set free her fireflies. The discovery that Jack had received a letter from Mr. Harding that very morning did not give her a very serene state of mind, but in spite of that she felt a melancholy satisfaction in visiting the places where she had been so happy. The booths had departed from the streets and the crowd had dwindled to the usual number, but in the garden, which held many a dear memory, the water still lapped the slim reeds and the nightingale still repeated its song, not a long sustained, nor so full a strain as she had heard in Italy, but nevertheless a lovelier one to her because of association. Here they two had sat and listened on more than one evening when the air was soft and balmy and when the scent of lilies came to them. "Nevermore, nevermore," was the only refrain which Nan's heart could hear.
Eleanor found her in the little summer-house where they all had spent so many gay and happy hours.
"I could weep when I think of your leaving me, Nan," she said. "I used to be awfully fond of you there at Bettersley but I have enlarged the borders of the place you occupied in my heart and now you take up such a lot of room that I don't see how I can let you go."
"Better come along," said Nan lightly.
"Do you really mean it?"
It had not occurred to Nan before, but, as she turned the plan over in her mind, she was pleased with it. "Why not?" she said.
"I'd simply love to. Of course I must see all I can of Japan, and Aunt Nora wouldn't leave the colonel, neither would he leave her, if he could, which he can't. As for Neal he is not to be depended upon except upon occasions. I don't in the least see why I shouldn't go with you, for a time anyhow. I know Aunt Nora will say I must. Are you really in earnest, Nan, and do you think your mother and aunt would consent to let me hang on to your skirts?"
"I am sure they would be delighted. You all have been mighty nice to us, Nell Harding, and even if we didn't like you so powerful much as we do we'd say, 'Come along.'"
"Don't talk of our having been nice. Why, my dear, you all have been the whole show this summer. You have simply lifted us all out of stupid monotony into delirious excitement."
An hour later it was all settled that Eleanor should be one of the party and after a whirl of packing on her part, she started off for Kyoto with the Corners the very next day.
After all it was found that Kyoto would be more easily reached by way of Tokyo than by any other route and in the latter city was made the stay of a night. It brought Mr. Harding post haste to see them all, but, as luck would have it, Nan was laid up with a headache and could not appear. She insisted upon going on the next morning, and so Tokyo brought her no added memories. At the quiet European hotel in Kyoto, Jean met her late schoolfellow and was borne off without delay.
She made a little wry face over her shoulder as she said good-bye to her sisters, but Jack was very envious of her opportunity and bemoaned her luck in not having won Ko-yeda's regard. "It doesn't make it any better to tell me it is my own fault," she said to Mary Lee, who reminded her of the fact. "Never mind, I will have some sort of adventure before I leave this town; you see if I don't."
However reluctantly Jean started forth, nothing could have exceeded the gracious welcome she received from the family of Ko-yeda. Mrs. Sannomiya bowed to the floor, likewise did Grandmother Sannomiya, as well as every one else in the establishment. Into a fresh, sweet room covered with mats of rice straw she was ushered, a silken cushion was placed for her and she was at once served with "honorable tea," sweetmeats and cakes. This ceremony over, she was taken to another matted room where, as she told her sisters afterward, she hung up her clothes on the floor and listened to what they were saying in the next room. After this Ko-yeda led her to the front of the house which did not face the street, but the garden, and a charming one it was. Not large, but displaying a tiny grotto, a miniature pond where goldfishes and little turtles lived, and where, at this season, lovely lotus blooms floated. Along the stone paths potted plants were set and in one spot Ko-yeda pointed out with pride a cherry tree which was the garden's glory in spring. It was not a very big place but it was admired and beloved by the whole family from the opening of the first budlet to the falling of the scarlet leaves from a baby maple tree. The verandah of the house overlooked the garden rather than the street.
Ko-yeda's pleasure in her company was boundless. She spoke English well and chattered away asking innumerable questions of this and that one and inquiring all about what Jean had seen in Japan. "You are traveled more than I," she said. "Never to Nikko have I been. I go some of the day. You see I do not mean be as other Japanese girl. I am student of America and I very free in my thinking of what I mean do. My grandmother frown and say I naughty little girl, for that I wish no be like the honorable ancestor. She Christian, too, but she cannot forget the ancestor. For myself, I like better remember my present ones."
"Do you think you will marry, Ko-yeda?" asked Jean.
"I cannot say. I would not like to think. It is not respectable for me here in Japan to do so. In your country it is opposite. You marry some of the day?"
"Oh, dear me, I don't know. You may not believe it, Ko-yeda, and I would not like to confess it to my sisters even, but I have never yet been in love, though I am eighteen."
Ko-yeda laughed merrily. "You should be as I am. Some day when come a good Christian somebodies to my father and mother and say I wish Ko-yeda for my son, then perhaps I think, but I shall wait till that day. I will not marry any but my own countryman, I suppose, and I do not wish other, but I wish Christian."
"Of course you do. Will you have to wait on your mother-in-law, then?"
"Oh, yes. My mother do the same. I will do unless perhaps is adopted a young mans to my family. I think will be this for we have no son. Then is my mother my mother-in-law." She laughed merrily.
"Oh, I hope it will turn out that way," said Jean who had her own opinions of Japanese mothers-in-law, and who would have been sorry to see her little friend occupy the position that some young wives must.
Ko-yeda was a dainty, pretty little person, with small oval face, very dark brown, not black, hair, a clear skin over which sometimes crept a soft rosy tint, soft dark eyes, a small mouth and delicate little hands. Her dress was of pale blue crape with a handsome obi, or sash confining the kimono. The sash was subtly brilliant but not gaudy. Altogether Jean thought her a charming figure, much more so in her native costume than she had been at school in European dress. So much could not be said of the grandmother who looked shrunken and yellow, whose teeth were blackened and who wore a sombre robe of gray. "I wonder if Ko-yeda will look like that some day," was Jean's thought as she was escorted in to take dinner.
This was served to her upon a little lacquered table about a foot high while she ate seated on a flat cushion laid upon the matted floor.
There was cold soup and stewed fish and rice into which raw eggs were broken. There was raw fish, too, served with soy, and there was chicken and some queer sort of meat which Jean did not recognize. Indeed the sweetish sauces served with nearly everything rendered most of the dishes unpalatable to her, but she could eat the rice and the chicken and managed to taste the other dishes. In consideration of her preferences, there was real bread, and Ko-yeda had prepared with her own hands a pudding which she presented anxiously. Of course Jean praised it and really but for this quite substantial dish, might have fared rather badly. There was tea, of course, and various sweetmeats, not very attractive to a foreigner.
"If you show me I make some of the American somethings for you," said Ko-yeda.
"Where is your kitchen?" asked Jean.
Ko-yeda laughed. "We have not like you, for we use the hibachi much. I show you our cook place and the go-down and all that."
So they went on a voyage of exploration. The go-down or kura Jean saw to be a sort of storehouse where many things were placed for safety against fire, only too frequent in the cities of Japan. The kura was built of bamboo and wood and was covered two feet thick with clay so that it was quite fire-proof. The little garden which Jean first saw led into another and she was surprised to see how many rooms were in the rambling house, or at least how many there could be when screens were drawn. There were numerous little maids at work here and there and, as Ko-yeda led her guest this way and that, she caught glimpses of cool, quiet, dimly-lighted places where different members of the family were squatting on the floor, – Ko-yeda's mother busy with some delicate embroidery, her grandmother arranging a vase of flowers, her father bending over a table with a brush and a long sheet of paper upon which he made deft marks with great rapidity. He was writing a letter, Ko-yeda told her. Upon entering the house from the garden, they took off their shoes and Ko-yeda provided Jean with a pair of tabi, a queer kind of sock, foot-mittens Jean called them, for instead of a place for the thumb was one for the big toe. As they went through the corridors and peeped into one after another of the rooms, Jean saw how very simple a Japanese home could be. Even the best room, the guest room as it was called, had in it only a number of flat silk-covered cushions to sit or kneel on, a couple of small chests of drawers, lamps with pretty shades, some folding screens, a shining mirror of steel, and a few of the small lacquered tables. In several of the rooms were alcoves which Ko-yeda called tokonoma and chigai-dana.
"In the day of old," said Ko-yeda, "the great gentlemans of the house would use to sit before these. We place here our decoration for the day, in the one, our kakemono and the flowers; in the other a something pretty which we like, a vase, a carvings, what you will. I show you. To-day because of your coming I am wish of our best. I think you like it maybe." She took her into the room where a panel picture hung; it showed a pair of birds exquisitely painted upon white satin, the branch upon which they sat being perfect in detail and the birds' feathers wonderfully wrought. "I remember you teach me 'Birds of a feathers flock together,'" said Ko-yeda.
Jean laughed. She had forgotten, but how well Ko-yeda had remembered a little joke of theirs. In front of the kakemono was a slender vase in which was a single spray of flowers. In the other alcove stood a beautiful piece of carved ivory. This room was shaded from the outside glare of the sun by sliding windows covered with paper through which the light fell softly. Beyond were smaller apartments and above stairs were still more, bath-rooms among them. The place seemed very cool and spacious and peaceful. Every one was kindness itself and all tried in every way to make Ko-yeda's guest feel at home.
The next meal was a more elaborate one. There were several kinds of soup, eels, lobster, more fish, vegetables and then rice served from a large lacquered box. There were odd sweets and some very delicate and delicious cakes. The sweetmeats were in various forms, lotus flowers, and little brown twigs, green leaves and the like, among them. It was all very odd and pleasant. Jean was glad that she and her sisters had experimented with chop-sticks as she felt herself less awkward with them. They were really not so very difficult to manage and they all praised her use of them. Of course the honorable tea had to form a part of the meal, and after this was taken and the obsequious servants had removed the dishes, the girls went out into the garden where Mr. Sannomiya was walking around, a paper umbrella over his head and a large fan in his hand. "My father, he dress European and my mother too, when they go out," Ko-yeda explained, "but at home we all feel more comfort in the native dress."
"I think it is much prettier than ours," said Jean. "I wish you would not give it up."
"But my father so ashamed to have Western man say he what you call a rear number."
Jean smiled. "A back number, you mean?"
"Oh, yes, a back number. I thank you. I am forgetting my English. He say we must not appear like the old Japan which shut the door upon all progress. If we wish be like the rest of world we must do as the other nations and so we wear the dress so to show that we are not behind in things."
As the girls came up Mr. Sannomiya bowed very low and said that he was honored that Jean should come to his poor mean house to see his ugly and uninteresting daughter. Jean was a little startled at the remark as translated by Ko-yeda, but her friend laughed and said, "It is but the way we speak; you must not mind; I know you are not accustomed."
"Do please say something nice to him in your own way," returned Jean. "Tell him how pleased I am to come and how flattered I feel that you have invited me."
This was quite sufficient material for Ko-yeda to make into a very gracious speech, and then with much ceremony each took a different path around the garden.
Later on came callers – Ko-yeda's elder sister and her husband who bowed low and bumped their heads against the floor upon being presented. Jean tried to respond in like manner, but felt her bow was very awkward. Mrs. Sanzo, as well as her husband, was in regulation European costume, but Jean thought Ko-yeda much more charming in her delicate pink crape kimono and obi tied in an immense bow at the back. The funny little hunchy manner of walking which the little Japanese woman displayed was not suited to French gowns and hats, Jean thought. However, most gracious and sweet was Mrs. Sanzo, with a lovely voice and the most charming smile. She could speak a little English and made her sister promise to bring Jean to see her. During the hour that followed the arrival of these visitors others came and Jean had fairly to pinch herself to discover if she were not dreaming as she sat curled up on a little cushion listening to the unfamiliar language in such a very unfamiliar kind of house. Not any more familiar was the appearance of the little maids who came in from time to time to bring refreshments, and who knelt whenever they slid open the fusuma, or screen, between the rooms and who presented their trays of sweetmeats, or the pipes and tobacco for the gentlemen, still kneeling.
But at last bedtime came. Mrs. Sannomiya clapped her hands and the maids again appeared to slide the fusuma while Ko-yeda led the way through the corridors to an upper room where piles of comfortables, or futons as they were called, had been laid on the floor. A little pillow had been provided for Jean in place of the hard wooden bolster usually considered proper for a lady. This because her hair would be disarranged by the use of anything different.
It was a warm night and the shoji and amado were both open toward the garden, though down-stairs Jean heard them putting up the wooden shutters called amado, and knew the house was thus being closed for the night. She could hear the murmur of talk around her, and the plash of water from the fountain in the garden. There was a queer scent of incense in the air and this mingled with the odors of the garden and the smoke of her lamp made her realize that this was indeed a foreign land. She lay under her canopy of mosquito net, a very necessary protection, and wished that Jack were there and that she could fly across the great city to where her mother and sisters were, that she might kiss them all good-night. "Well, I am glad I am not further away," she thought. "Suppose they were across the ocean. I might have reason for feeling homesick."
The next day came a round of entertainments. A visit to Mrs. Sanzo where there was a fat, laughing, slant-eyed, cunning baby, exactly like dolls Jean remembered having had as a child. There was a little glimpse of the city, and a call at one of the mission schools where it seemed pleasant to find American women teachers and gentle little girl pupils. Then there was a drive to the country to see the silk spinners.
"This is the time when the cocoons are ready," Ko-yeda said. "You will like to see?"
Indeed Jean would and so they drove on to where some lowly little cottages made a village. The doors, even the fronts of the houses, were all open, and inside Jean could see fluffy piles of pale yellow or white stuff before which sat withered, brown-faced old men or women with rude little hand-reels upon which they wound the delicate thread. More than once the girls alighted to watch the process, Ko-yeda speaking and evidently telling about Jean, for they eyed her with eager interest and one gave her a soft puffy ball of the silk and would take no return.
There was more than one stop, for no excursion is complete without a cup of tea, and then back to the city to another meal at a foot-high table, more ceremonious bows and visits, another night upon the futons with the insects shrilling outside in the garden to the accompaniment of water trickling over the stones, and the mosquitoes buzzing outside the net, then Jean was ready for her own people and her own way of living. She would see Ko-yeda? Oh, yes, many times before she left Kyoto, and they would have many more pleasant talks.
She went away laden with presents, with all the servants prostrating themselves at each side the door, and with an impression of having lived for two days in an Arabian Night story.