CHAPTER IX.
A BIRTHDAY PARTY.
It so happened that the dinner to Mme. Fontaine became a triple celebration. Billie recalled that it was her father's birthday, for one thing.
"He's forgotten it himself," she said. "He never did remember that he was entitled to a birthday."
Furthermore, it was the occasion always of great rejoicing in Japan, being the fifth day of the fifth month on which the Boys' Festival—O Sekku, as it is called there—is celebrated.
"Think of my sweet old boy being born on this lucky day!" cried Billie. "Why can't we give him a real Japanese surprise party, Cousin Helen, and invite those nice men to come? Mr. Ito will tell us what to do."
When Mr. Campbell departed for Tokyo that lovely morning on the fifth of May he had no idea of the plans that were hatching in his home. Scarcely had his 'riksha disappeared down the road, when the entire household became actively busy. Komatsu made a hurried visit to town, bearing notes of invitation to the few acquaintances of the Campbells and returned later in the day accompanied by two men carrying large bales on their backs. That evening when the master of the house returned in time to dress for dinner he scarcely recognized his abode, which had been decorated in a most extraordinary manner.
Across the front of the house on long poles were at least six enormous paper carp, which rose and fell and became realistically inflated with every passing breeze. Very fantastic they appeared with their gaping mouths, their enormous bulging eyes and fins and their scales shining in the sunlight.
The carp, it must be known, is the sacred emblem of the male child in Japan. It also signifies courage, endurance and other admirable though not exclusively masculine qualities. This valiant fish can accomplish the difficult feat of swimming up the rapids, even as a brave youth must conquer difficulties and surmount obstacles. His name is synonymous with perseverance and fortitude. The fifth of May is every boy's birthday in Japan, no matter what his real birthday is, and on that day a feast is kept in every home, rich or poor, where there is a son.
"I suppose, because we have only one son in our house, we are entitled to only one carp," observed Billie, "but I think our nice old boy is good enough for us to string up twenty carp."
This statement was unanimously acceded to by all persons connected with the feast.
All the afternoon the girls had worked over the decorations. The garden was strung with lanterns much more beautiful and artistic in design than any that ever reach America; and the house, under the supervision of Onoye and her mother, was made beautiful with the splendid iris in all its varying shades from deep purple to pale mauve. Among their long, slender, delicate leaves the flowers seemed to be growing in the shallow dishes in which devices of soft lead held them in place.
"Are we entertaining a family of sons this evening or have we just decided to celebrate whether we have sons or not?" asked Mr. Campbell, greeting his daughter on the piazza.
"We are entertaining for our only son, the most promising and delightful young man in the entire universe," answered Billie, kissing him.
"I always thought you were a singularly fortunate young man, Duncan," remarked Miss Campbell, "but I shall no longer attribute it entirely to industry, intelligence and good looks."
"What's the reason, then, Cousin Helen?" asked Mr. Campbell, laughing.
"Why, have you forgotten, boy, that this is your birthday? Forty-five years old, and you don't remember it!"
"I did forget it," said Mr. Campbell, "but I don't see where the luck comes in."
They explained the meaning of the Boys' Festival and the lucky coincidence that had brought him into the world on that auspicious day.
"Go in now and get dressed, for the Widow of Shanghai will be arriving pretty soon and other company besides," ordered Billie.
The girls had dressed early and their pretty summer frocks gleamed softly against the green of the shrubbery as they flitted about the garden and the lawn in the twilight. Nancy was wearing her first train that night; it was only a wee bit of a train, nothing regal and sweeping; but it gave her a secret thrill to throw it over one arm, displaying her lace trimmed petticoat underneath, while she tripped along the garden path. The dress was of pink batiste and delicate lace, and from the round neck her throat rose soft and white like a column. She was the first of the four friends to wear a train. Even Elinor, tall and slender in her white lingerie frock, had not aspired to that dignity. Billie was wearing her best blue mulle that became her mightily because it was near the shade of her blue-gray eyes, and little Mary was dressed in one of the dainty muslin frocks that her mother excelled in making.
"They are no longer little girls," thought Miss Campbell, rather sadly, it must be confessed. She was sitting in a long-chair on the piazza watching her four charges flit about the lawn. "They are almost young ladies now, and how pretty they are, too; each is so different from the other and each charming in her own way. Billie, I think, is too much of a tomboy to worry about yet. Elinor is far too dignified; Mary is too shy. But I feel I shall have to keep a sharp eye on Nancy. Those blue eyes of hers are simply wells of coquetry. I believe the child would flirt with a stone. I doubt if half the time she realizes herself how eloquent she can make them. Little mischief!"
The little lady smiled indulgently, recalling her own blue eyes and the mischief they had been known to stir up.
"And now this Widow from Shanghai comes and breaks in on us," her thoughts proceeded irrelevantly. "I don't in the least wish to cultivate her friendship, but I know her kind. Once she gets her foot in the door there'll be no shaking her off."
As a matter of fact, Miss Helen Campbell, spinster, was never very enthusiastic about widows.
"I don't care for them," she used to say. "They are a knowing, designing lot."
Once when she was asked by a missionary society in West Haven to contribute to a fund for the widows in India, to induce them not to mount their husbands' funeral pyres and permit themselves to be consumed by mortuary flames, Miss Campbell indignantly refused.
"I am sure, if they are so foolish, that's much the best place for them," she announced. "I prefer to give my money for more worthy causes."
And now a widow, who, far from having mounted any funeral pyre, appeared to enjoy life immensely, had placed them under obligations.
"She is a slant-eyed widow with a yellow skin," Miss Campbell thought uncharitably, "and her hair that ought to be dark is light. Of course that isn't her fault and neither is her peculiar complexion nor her slant eyes, but I do wish she were one thing or the other and not half and half."
Of course all these inhospitable and unfriendly notions the little lady was careful to keep to herself. When presently the Widow of Shanghai rode up in a 'riksha and was helped to alight by three maids at once, Miss Campbell was all graciousness and affability.
Mme. Fontaine wore a beautiful white embroidered crÍpe dinner dress. Her figure was so slender Miss Campbell feared it might sway and bend with the least breath of wind. Her curious fluffy hair was arranged on top of her head and her only ornament was a string of small pearls wound twice around her throat. They were very beautiful pearls, each one perfect to the casual eye.
"But then, who can tell the real from the unreal nowadays," thought Miss Campbell, regarding the jewels critically. "They might be imitation, every one of them."
"Reggie" Carlton, as he came to be known to the girls, and Nicholas Grimm soon followed the widow, and after them came Mr. Buxton. Yoritomo could not appear that evening, because of the celebration in his own home where he must remain and share in the family feast.
Mme. Fontaine was reserved almost to the point of shyness with the four men of the party, whom she now met for the first time. But she drew the girls around her by a kind of irresistible attraction. Billie found herself talking as freely as she talked with her three friends. The widow had a curiously sympathetic way of listening that provoked confidences. There was a good deal of friendly rivalry among the Motor Maids for her society. They took turns sitting by her side during the half hour before dinner was announced; but Nancy felt a certain superiority over the others. Was she not bound by a secret tie to this fascinating person because of their chance meeting in the garden in the rain?
"These four girls of mine seem to have acquired a monopoly over you, Mme. Fontaine," observed Mr. Campbell, just returned from a short conference with Mr. Buxton in the library. "They don't give the rest of us half a chance. They have fenced you around as if you were a sacred image of Buddha."
"I feel that they have paid me a great compliment," answered the widow, smiling, "To a lonely woman the friendship of four charming young girls is very sweet."
Mr. Campbell somehow felt extremely sorry for this lonely lady. Mr. Buxton also was touched with commiseration, and the younger men, too, were moved to cast glances of sympathy in her direction.
For the first time in her life Miss Campbell experienced the same sensation a young girl feels when she is left sitting against the wall at a dance while her friends are being whirled about. At first she thought the sensation was a touch of indigestion which frequently brings with it, its near relative, depression. But when the circle closed in around the Widow of Shanghai, and Helen Campbell, spinster, of America, was left sitting quite alone to contemplate the view, she decided that it was not indigestion nor any of its ramifications that ailed her. What the sensation was she could not name, but she felt a profound and entirely human irritation with the Widow of Shanghai and her ingratiating methods.
Fortunately dinner was announced and on the arm of Mr. Buxton she led the way to the dining room with the air of an exiled queen.
Billie was very anxious about the success of her father's birthday dinner. She had herself assisted in decorating the table, and had insisted on placing a crystal bowl of goldfish in the center, although O'Haru had told her that goldfish were not carp, and therefore had no significance whatever with the day.
However, Onoye had caught the idea at once and had carried it out charmingly. Hiding behind the screen, where she could see without being seen, her heart warmed with joy when she heard the exclamations of the guests. The center of the table was arranged to resemble a little lake. The shallow bowl of goldfish was placed on a flat round mirror, on the edge of which nodded groups of iris and their sword-like leaves planted in shallow green dishes; pebbles and water grasses hid the perforations which held them in place. Two little boats sailed on the lake, and at one side was a miniature grotto formed of rocks and moss, and spanned by a little bridge.
"Isn't it cunning?" asked Billie proudly, "and isn't Onoye clever to have carried out the scheme so perfectly?"
"She is, indeed," assented Miss Campbell, feeling suddenly glad to praise some one to counteract the unusual sensations that had possessed her a moment before.
"It is a part of every Japanese girl's education to learn the art of arranging flowers," said Mme. Fontaine. "She is taught that, just as girls in other countries are taught music and languages. It often takes several hours to arrange a group of flowers. The object is, you see, to make them look as natural as possible in the vase."
"It is a pretty accomplishment," said Miss Campbell, "but I doubt if any
American girl would have the patience to learn it. Can you imagine,
Billie, spending two hours arranging three lilies in a bowl to make them
look as if they had grown there?"
"No, I can't," laughed Billie, "but I have spent two hours many times on my back under the 'Comet' trying to find a loose screw."
"If I had a wife—" here Nicholas remarked and paused because everybody laughed.
"Well, if you had one, what would you do with her? Beat her?" asked Mr.
Buxton.
"Do I look like a wife beater?" demanded Nicholas indignantly. "No. I was going to say I'd rather she would know about loose screws in machinery than how to arrange flowers."
"You speak as if marriage was one long motor trip, my boy," observed Mr.
Campbell.
"And, surely," put in Miss Campbell, "if the machinery broke down, you wouldn't compel your wife to repair it?"
"I am afraid very few girls would be eligible for your wife, Mr. Grimm," remarked Mme. Fontaine.
As for Billie, she said nothing at all, but glanced down at her plate, because Nicholas looked straight at her and then burst out with:
"Don't jump on me, everybody, with both feet. I only meant that it's a jolly fine girl who can—er—who—knows—"
He broke down in confusion.
"You mean that a young lady chauffeur would make an excellent wife?" laughed Mr. Campbell.
"Spare his blushes," put in Reggie, and then the talk shifted to other subjects.
It is customary in Japan on the day of the Boys' Festival to tell stories of the heroes of the country, and after dinner when they had gathered in the lantern-hung summer-house for coffee, Mme. Fontaine, urged by the girls, recounted an incident in the life of Yamato, or O'Osu, as he was then known. He was the son of the Emperor Keiko, and when a mere slip of a boy was sent by his father to slay two fierce robbers who had been spreading terror through the country. O'Osu gladly undertook the affair and since the outlaws were giants and he just a boy, he devised a cunning scheme to outwit the terrible brigands. He was slender and small and his hair still long, so that in the gorgeous clothes of a dancing girl no one would ever have guessed he was a brave and reckless young prince.
One night when the robbers were feasting in their cave after pillaging the country for miles around, the beautiful dancing girl appeared before them like a vision. She charmed them with her songs and dances and then suddenly she whipped out a sharp sword and slew the nearest robber. As the other fled terror-stricken to the entrance of the cave, she thrust him in the back and he fell to the ground.
"'Pause, oh Prince, for prince thou surely art,' he gasped. 'But why hast thou done this deed?'
"And the prince, standing over him with the dripping sword, said:
"'I am O'Osu, messenger of the Emperor and avenger of evil.'
"'Then,' said the dying robber, 'thou shalt have a new name. Until this hour my brother and I have been called the bravest men in the West. To thee, august boy, I bequeath the title. Let men call thee the bravest in Yamato.'
"From that day O'Osu was called 'Yamato Take,' and never did he wrong the name."
Mary sighed when Mme. Fontaine had finished the story. She yearned for the gift of language and the power to chain the attention of a circle of people. How had she done it, this mysterious foreigner who could handle the English language even better than English people? Her words were simple and gestures she used almost none. It was her voice, Mary thought. There was an undercurrent of dramatic power in it, like a subterranean river. It could only be guessed at, but it was there, powerful and deep. Even Miss Campbell, unreasonably prejudiced, felt the undercurrent.
"That is a charming story," she observed. "I suppose Japan is filled with many romantic stories of that sort."
"Hundreds of them," answered the widow. "Volumes and volumes could be written about them and still the half not be told."
"And you know many of them, I suppose?" asked Billie.
"Oh, yes. One could not live in Japan without studying her history, so filled with romances and legends of heroic deeds. It is fascinating, I assure you, and furnishes no end of subjects for decorations from a picture on a fan to the masterpiece of a great artist."
There was a moment's silence in the company of which Mme. Fontaine certainly seemed the center. She looked suddenly very Japanese. Against the white of her dress her soft skin gleamed like polished old ivory. Her eyes were darker and more noticeably slanting than ever before. If she only had had dark hair! What country had given her those strangely incongruous locks?
And now it was proposed that they should wander in the garden, and off they started by various paths and bypaths all leading eventually to the little curved bridge at the far end, where Nancy had hung two large yellow lanterns on the ends of supple willow wands.
The Widow of Shanghai walked between Billie and Mr. Campbell, but she had little to say. The moon, swinging over them like another yellow lantern, had glorified the garden into a little earthly paradise. It seemed somehow inappropriate to speak above a whisper in the midst of so much exquisite beauty. The wisteria had opened up during the day and now hung in magnificent purple clusters from an arbor across the main walk.
From the servants' quarters came the tinkle of the samisen, and a breeze laden with the scent of flowers brought with it also the distant sound of voices and laughter.
Nicholas Grimm had joined Billie, and the two young people now lingered in the arbor. In the curve of a path they caught an occasional glimpse of a white dress. The music of Nancy's laugh came to them mingled with Mary's high, sweet note. Gradually the voices died away. The garden seemed to be under a spell. Billie, sitting beside Nicholas in the arbor, waited breathlessly. Then at last in the stillness there burst forth such a stream of full-throated singing as had never been heard.
"It's a nightingale," whispered Nicholas.
Billie felt that she would like very much to cry. Nothing had ever stirred her as this flood of melody which seemed to have been turned on for their especial benefit. While they listened, there came the sound of three pistol shots in quick succession and a cry. Was it an English cry for help?
Instantly Nicholas was on his feet.
"You had better stay here," he said. "I'll run and see what has happened."
Before Billie could reply, Nancy dashed up.
"We are all to go into the house," she said. "Someone has shot a pistol in the far end of the garden. The men have gone down there."
Billie considered the situation for a moment. Certainly neither her father nor his three guests were armed. Would it not be a good precaution to go to the library and get her father's pistol? It was merely an impulse, and she could hardly explain it later, but she obeyed it.
"It's nothing serious, Mr. Buxton says. Probably someone who has been celebrating has wandered into the garden, but we had better wait for them in the house," Billie heard Miss Campbell remark, as she ran along the path to the side entrance.