Читать книгу The Love of Azalea - Onoto Watanna - Страница 6

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As Azalea walked homeward from the minister’s house, she could still hear in dreamy fancy the eloquent tones of his voice. She found that though beyond his presence she still thrilled at the very memory of his face. He had cast a spell upon her, she told herself. He was a disciple of the Evil One. She must go to the temple of Kwannon for help. Possibly the priests there would give her some talisman which would preserve her from any spell the barbarian might cast upon her. For though her ruse had failed and her sleeves were empty of yen, yet still she had promised the minister to visit him again the following day. Now she found herself wishing that the morrow would come speedily.

Her step-mother met her at the door of the house. Her lips were drawn in a strange fashion apart and her long teeth showed. This was her manner of smiling. It was uglier and more sinister than a frown. Azalea quickened her steps, the color beating up into her face. When she saw that set smile upon Madame Yamada’s face she stopped abruptly before the woman. But her step-mother spoke in the most amiable of tones:

“You must be hungry, my daughter, since you have not had your noon meal.”

The girl raised her eyes inquiringly toward the woman. Then she answered simply:

“Yes, mother-in-law, I am hungry.”

“Come into the kitchen, then, Azalea. The maid has kept your rice warm.”

Azalea was too much accustomed to the vicissitudes of fortune to wonder at the sudden generosity of the step-mother. She ate the rice and sipped the fragrant tea with mechanical relish. The meal was unexpected, but none the less palatable to a hungry young girl. She suspected that her step-mother required something of her, but her mind, occupied with its late thoughts of the minister, had no room for speculation over the motives of her step-mother. She let Madame Yamada herself open the subject.

“Daughter,” said the woman, “would you enjoy a trip to Tokyo?”

Azalea looked up quickly; then she answered shortly:

“No.”

Madame Yamada’s eyes narrowed. She controlled her feelings, however.

“What, Azalea! You do not wish to go to Tokyo, where everything is so gay and bright and beautiful?”

Azalea rested her chin upon her hand and looked out from the kitchen shoji across the fields. She did not answer.

“You are becoming old,” said the step-mother. “You will have to earn your living soon.”

Azalea did not move, but her step-mother knew she was listening to her words.

“Here,” she continued, “there is no way in which you could earn money, for you are of samurai descent and your august ancestors would not rest easily should you be reduced to manual labor.”

“Mother-in-law,” said the girl quietly, “you would be ashamed before our neighbors if I were to obtain work here. My august ancestors would feel no shame.”

“What could you do here?”

Azalea looked at her small white hands thoughtfully.

“I could work in the mills,” she said, and added with a girlish sigh, “but it would maim my hands.”

“Yes, and also your back, your knees, and afterwards your spirit. Let the stout peasant women labor that way, Azalea. Such employment is not for one of gentle birth. You shall go to Tokyo.”

“What shall I do there?” inquired the girl.

“You have beauty and youth,” said Madame Yamada slowly.

The girl moved uneasily and then catching sight of the expression upon her mother’s face, she made as if to arise; but the other held her by the sleeve.

“Why do you start so?” she inquired gruffly. “Do you suppose I referred to the yoshiwara?”

“Yes,” said Azalea, white to the lips. Her voice became passionate. “I will not go, then,” she said. “You shall not sell me. I am the daughter of a samurai.”

“Foolish child! Who spoke of selling you to the yoshiwara?”

“Ah, your eyes spoke, mother-in-law. Besides, what other employment could my youth and beauty find in Tokyo?”

“Are there not geishas and tea house girls, and is not their employment esteemed admirable?”

“Yes, but I have not their accomplishments, and I am too old to learn how to dance. To be a geisha, I have heard, one must apprentice at the age of twelve. I am eighteen years. Yes, I am getting old,” she finished.

Madame Yamada, who sat behind her, looked at her with eyes that held no mercy. In some manner the girl must be sent away. Matsuda should then be told that she preferred the life of gayety in Tokyo to marriage with him. After that, Yuri-san, the oldest daughter, would console and win him. Azalea had always appeared passive and obedient by nature. This sudden impulse of stubbornness was as unexpected as it was disturbing to her step-mother. What if this slim young girl, with her childish face of innocence, should develop the strong will of her samurai parent? Madame Yamada smiled unpleasantly at the prospect, and her smile boded no good for the young girl.

Meanwhile Azalea continued to look out dreamily through the opened shoji toward the hill, upon whose slope stood the little peaked mission house. The words of the minister kept repeating themselves in her head.

“There is only one true God. He it was who created the world—and you. He loves you, and will watch over and care for you always.”

Ah, if it were only true, thought Azalea. If this new God would only be kinder than those she had known, then she might even close the eyes of her heart to the words of the priests of Kwannon, and forget they had told her the God of the barbarians was an evil spirit. She would prove Him. If He proved unkind to her she would believe it, but if it were otherwise, why how could the evil one be kind? It was not possible.

“Answer when you are spoken to,” broke in her step-mother’s sharp voice.

Azalea started.

“I did not hear you speak, honorable step-mother.”

“Your ears are accommodatingly dull. You did not care to hear.”

Azalea sighed, then pressed her lips together, as if to prevent the retort that might have escaped them.

Madame Yamada bent toward her.

“Do you wish to marry?”

Azalea reflected.

“No-o,” she said softly, and then, “perhaps, yes. It would be a solution of my troubles, step-mother, would it not?”

“Would you marry any one who asked you, then? You appear to lack the common qualities of maiden modesty.”

“I did not say I would marry any one,” said the girl, flushing, “but almost anyone would be kinder than you.”

They were daring words, and she anticipated their effect upon her step-mother, for, after having spoken them she made a frightened motion from the older woman, who had seized her arm and was cruelly pinching it. Tears of pain came into the girl’s eyes, but she made no outcry. Suddenly Madame Yamada flung the girl’s arm from her.

“Did my touch hurt, then?” she inquired.

“Yes,” said Azalea briefly, her arm still sore, though released.

“Yet,” said her step-mother, “the pain inflicted by a woman, who is weak, is nothing to that inflicted by a man. What will you do when your husband beats you?”

“I do not know,” said Azalea mechanically, and then added slowly, “but I should not weep, mother-in-law. I would not give him that pleasure. But—” she paused; “all husbands do not beat their wives. Perhaps the gods will favor me with a kind one. I should not marry him otherwise.”

“How will you test his kindness?” asked her mother scornfully.

“I will know,” she answered. “I will see him and love him before I marry him.”

She arose and fluttered her sleeves back and forth. Her arm was in pain. She moved it thus mechanically as a nervous method of relief, but Madame Yamada had seen the figure coming along the white road toward their house, and she leaped to her feet like a savage.

“What!” she cried. “You stand shamelessly in the open doorway shaking your arms in unmaidenly fashion because a man approaches.”

“I did not even see him,” said Azalea, shrinking before the anger of her step-mother’s expression, “and, mother-in-law, see for yourself. The man is Matsuda Isami. Is it likely I would fling my sleeves at him?”

“At him most of all,” said her step-mother hoarsely. “Do not deny it, shameless girl!”

Before Azalea could recover from the surprise occasioned by these words, Madame Yamada, with one black look cast back at her, had left the kitchen, and was hastening to the front part of the house, there to prostrate herself with slavish sweetness and politeness before the exalted Matsuda Isami.