CHAPTER XII.
A THEATER PARTY.
"It's very easy for a bachelor to entertain in Japan," remarked Mr. Buxton one afternoon in the Campbells' summer house. "A busy man is saved all bother and inconvenience if he wants to give a theater party, say, with a dinner to follow, by putting the affair in the hands of an 'elder sister,'"
"Suppose he hasn't any elder sister," put in Miss Campbell feeling slightly offended. Perhaps she was older than Mr. Buxton, but she was sure she didn't look it and she had no intention of being designated as his "elder sister."
"Oh, but he always has," replied Mr. Buxton. "A Japanese providence always provides a Nesan, or elder sister, for persons desiring to entertain. All she requires of you is to leave her alone and pay the bill."
Miss Campbell felt somewhat mollified.
"But what does she do?" asked Mary.
"She does all the work, makes all the arrangements, engages the boxes and the 'rikshas, orders the dinner, tells you how to act; in fact, does everything any good elder sister would do to oblige a little brother."
The others smiled at this droll notion but there was something rather touching, too, about the simple title of elder sister or Nesan for this efficient and reliable individual who took all the burdens on her own shoulders. As a matter of fact a Nesan is the proprietor of a tea house and her business is to get up entertainments.
"And it is for this reason," continued Mr. Buxton, "that I am able to ask all of you for the honor of your company to the theater to-morrow at three and later to dinner. I could never have undertaken it alone, but having been provided with an efficient relative older and wiser than I am, although she looks to be under thirty, I feel no uneasiness whatever."
"I am inclined to accept your reluctant invitation on the spot, Buxton," laughed Mr. Campbell, "for self and family."
"I didn't intend it to appear reluctant," answered the Englishman. "I only wanted to assure you that if you would do me the honor of coming to the entertainment, all things would be correctly carried out according to Japanese etiquette and there would not be a hitch in the whole affair. Will you come?"
"We shall be delighted, Mr. Buxton," answered Miss Campbell.
"I thought you would," he added. "Indeed, I was so certain of it that the little Nesan has already got a list of the guests and the whole thing has been arranged."
"And to make assurance doubly sure, you thought you would just mention the matter to us?" asked Mr. Campbell, who enjoyed teasing this rather odd and amusing old bachelor.
"How do we dress?" asked Nancy.
"I never thought to ask the Nesan how the ladies should dress. But if you take my advice, I should say comfortably. That is, if you can. I believe a woman's clothes are never really comfortable."
"Mine are," broke in Billie, poised on the railing of the summer house swinging her feet carelessly.
"Would you have us dress like men?" demanded Miss Campbell indignantly.
"No indeed, Madam," answered the bachelor, "but in your present costume, you must admit that it would be difficult to sit on the floor."
"But I don't wish to sit on the floor," exclaimed the spinster. "It's a perfectly absurd custom. Besides, you are edging away from the main point—trying to draw out of the—"
"There will be no chairs to-morrow," interrupted the other, blinking his eyes like a wise old bird. "And," he continued as he took his departure, "neither will there be any knives and forks."
"I shall take mine along, then," called Miss Campbell, whose discussions with the bachelor kept them in a constant state of amusement.
"It would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette," he called over his shoulder. Presently he turned back and added, "You are not to use that infernal machine for my party. The Nesan provided 'rikshas for all guests."
"But that's just an additional expense to you, Buxton," cried Mr.
Campbell.
"I know it perfectly well and I so suggested to my elder sister, but she didn't seem to understand, and I decided I would rather hire a gross of 'rikshas than try and make her. So you may expect three of 'em to-morrow at a quarter past two. The performance begins at three."
"Dear old 'Comet,' he's always getting slighted nowadays," remarked
Billie. "He never gets to go anywhere."
"He's probably glad enough to sit in his cell and meditate on the mutability of human events," answered Mr. Buxton, and this time he really did go.
It happened therefore that the "Comet" was once more left in humiliating retirement while his young mistresses rode off in jinrikshas which appeared at the door exactly at the hour mentioned by the host of the afternoon. Indeed the motor car had good reason to be a disgruntled machine. He never did seem to be a part of the Japanese landscape like the graceful 'riksha. As a matter of fact he was a blot on the scene and entirely out of place against a background of an ancient temple or a group of picturesque individuals in clothes more brilliant in hue than his own boyhood coat.
Converging from various points in Tokyo but all timed to meet at the theater door exactly at five minutes to three, came the other guests of the party in 'rikshas provided by the Nesan. Mme. Fontaine was one of these.
"What a picture she is," exclaimed Nancy, noticing at once the widow's beautiful costume of embroidered pongee over which she wore a kimono-shaped mantle of the same embroidered silk, the sleeves of which covered her arms and hands completely.
Nodding and smiling at the girls brightly, she followed Miss Campbell into the theater where they were met by the plump, hospitable little Nesan, who prostrated herself before each guest and removed shoes at the same time.
Miss Campbell groaned.
"Oh, dear," she complained. "Even at the theater! I shall never get accustomed to walking flat-footed. I shall be wearing bifurcated stockings next, I suppose."
"Etiquette, Madam, etiquette," said Mr. Buxton. "You must do as the
Romans do, remember, or else be thought extremely rude."
But there was no time for argument and the party hastily distributed themselves in the two boxes. Yoritomo Ito kept close beside Nancy while Nicholas Grimm and Reggie Carlton sat tailor fashion in the back of the box. The theater was a strange place to the Western eye. There was not a chair in the entire house and Mr. Buxton chuckled aloud over Miss Campbell's complaints when she was obliged to sit on a mat on the floor. Below the two tiers of boxes, the pit appeared like a gigantic checker-board divided into square compartments by partitions about a foot high. In each compartment squatted six people. Running from the rear of the house to the stage was a slightly raised walk three feet broad to be used by the actors as an exit. The stalls were crowded with men and women and children. Here and there were groups of geishas or dancing girls. Their rich apparel made bright spots of color in the scene. The children ran about with perfect freedom, up and down the aisles at the sides and in and out of the stalls, eating sweetmeats and visiting their friends. And there was scarcely a grown person in the entire audience of Japanese who was not smoking, for women as well as men smoke in Japan: one pinch of tobacco in a short pipe, one puff, a little whiff of smoke inhaled and the operation is over. Before the curtain rose, the Nesan flew busily from one box to the other with cushions and sweetmeats, baskets of oranges and boxes of sweet pickled black beans. Presently came the sound of two blocks of wood striking together. Then the curtain rose and the audience settled itself for three hours of the most intense enjoyment. The play was a Japanese legend and the actors picturesque and dramatic, but if all the greatest actors in the world had combined to give the performance, Miss Campbell could not have maintained her cramped position a minute longer than two hours.
"I am sure my limbs will refuse their office, Duncan," she whispered. "If this goes on much longer, I shall have to be carried from the theater like a helpless paralytic."
"Buxton, don't you think we've had enough?" suggested Mr. Campbell, and the bachelor, glad to stretch his own cramped legs, took the hint and gave the signal for departure.
Once more they were in the 'rikshas, only this time Nancy found herself seated by Yoritomo and Billie and Nicholas had paired off in the same way. Miss Campbell was not sure that she approved of this change.
"In my day," she remarked to her cousin, "young ladies never rode alone in buggies with young men."
"But they aren't buggies, Cousin," he answered good-naturedly.
"They are, all but the horse," said Miss Campbell.
But they had arrived at the gate of the tea house before the argument could proceed and were presently rolling through a garden enclosed by high walls. It was a fairyland of a place, even more beautiful than the Campbells' own garden, filled with brilliant beds of flowers and here and there a small grove of stunted pine trees.
Through the door of a tea house, low roofed and brown (houses are not painted in Japan), rushed a score of musumes (maids), pink-cheeked and bare-footed, who greeted the guests with low bows and removed their shoes. There also was their own particular Nesan, owner of that particular tea house, who bowed gracefully and said in Japanese:
"Be honorably pleased to enter."
Inside, the tea house was scrupulously clean. The bare boards in the hall seemed worn thin by scrubbing and nowhere were any furniture or ornaments except the hanging scroll. The floors were covered with soft wicker mats and presently they were all seated in a semicircle at one end of the room. The younger members of the party were in a perfect gale of subdued laughter by this time. Elinor, too dignified to look where she was going, had stubbed her august toe and for at least half a minute had hopped on one foot in an agony of pain. Nicholas had privately circulated a rumor that live carp would be one of the courses, and not to eat a small piece would give grievous offense to the Nesan and her musumes.
After a little table about a foot high had been placed before each guest, a procession of miniature waitresses entered with the dinner. In quick succession were served fish soup, crushed birds with sugared walnuts and oranges, broiled fish with tiny balls of sweetened potatoes, and numerous other strange but not unpalatable dishes, and all the while streams of hors d'ouvres: horseradish, spinach and seaweed. But they were not obliged to eat with chop sticks. Mr. Buxton had provided knives and forks.
At last with the greatest ceremony, the little proprietor herself appeared bearing a large silver tray.
"Here it comes," whispered Nicholas. "What did I tell you?"
There, sure enough, was the carp, taken from the water a moment before and sliced into delicate pink steaks. He lay on a bed of fresh water grasses and leaves, and each portion was served in a dainty mat of twisted grass. Nobody refused a sacrificial morsel, but only Yoritomo and Mr. Buxton had the courage to eat it. Mr. Buxton swallowed his at a gulp and Miss Campbell shivered all over at the sight.
"How could you?" she exclaimed in a whisper.
"Etiquette," he answered. "I would swallow a mouse for the sake of etiquette in this polite country."
During the dinner there had been a sound of suppressed laughter and the tinkle of music behind the partitions, and now, after the last round of the innumerable courses had been served, the partitions were shoved aside and four samisen players entered followed by eight dancing girls. Nothing could equal the grace of their bows as they glided softly in. Their smiles of welcome were inimitable. Then their faces became grave and serious and the dance began. The oldest was hardly more than fifteen and the youngest about ten. They were like sober-faced little dolls in gorgeous brocaded robes as they paraded, stamped their white-stockinged feet and postured with elaborate fans.
Mme. Fontaine, who had eaten no dinner and talked very little, watched the dancers with intense interest.
"Are they not charming little creatures?" she asked Mr. Campbell. "They are trained to be so,—to sing, dance and amuse and to look pretty. But I assure you some of them develop into splendid women. Many of them marry well. The geisha girl is not always a butterfly."
There was a subdued fire in her eyes as she spoke.
Mr. Campbell looked at her curiously.
"You have a special tenderness for them, I see," he remarked.
"I was one," she said.
While this little colloquy was going on, Yoritomo was whispering into
Nancy's ear:
"You think they are pretty? But they are not so beautiful as you. There are no blue eyes in Japan."
And Nicholas was saying to Billie:
"By Jove, it's terrible sitting in this position for three hours at a stretch. Do you think we could slip into the garden? I have something I want to tell you."
Being on the end of the semi-circle, they crept behind one of the sliding partitions and rose stiffly to their feet. Two steps more and they were in the garden, now flooded with moonlight.
"It's romantic," observed Billie, "but what will Cousin Helen say? She's a very strict chaperone."
"Tell her you couldn't endure it another moment; or tell her I couldn't, which would be perfectly true. I feel as if I had shrunk a few inches. I can't stand up straight."
Turning down a walk leading to the little gold fish pond, they presently paused on the miniature bridge and looked down at the reflections of the stars mirrored in the pool beneath. They were quite silent for a moment. Then Nicholas cleared his throat and began in an embarrassed and hesitating way:
"Miss Billie, can you keep a secret?"
"Don't you think that is rather an uncomplimentary question?" answered
Billie. "I must have made a poor impression on you."
"Indeed you haven't. You have made just the other kind," he replied with boyish candor. "That's why I wanted to tell you something, but it was a stupid way to begin. Please forgive me. Of course you can keep a secret. Any girl who is cool-headed enough to run a motor car and—and keep machinery in order and—"
"Well—and what?"
"I think you are just great, Miss Billie. I never met a girl like you before," he mumbled half audibly. "That's why I wanted to tell you something—that is—confide something to you."
Billie looked uncomfortable. She was only a month younger than Nancy, but she Was far less experienced in the ways of the world, her tastes being more boyish and simple than those of that gay little coquette.
"In the first place, you knew I was a civil engineer. That's how I happened to meet your father. Every engineer in the country wanted to meet him, because he is a very famous one himself, as you probably know."
Billie was pleased at this compliment. Her father was too modest to tell such things about himself, and she had no way of knowing his reputation unless other people told her.
"It was through Yoritomo that I came to Japan. We were friends in New York; and it was through his uncle, who is high up in public affairs here, that I got an appointment almost immediately. It's been interesting work, most of the time around Tokyo, and I have enjoyed the experience. But, you see, I came here with just a little money and fell on my feet and feel that I am under obligations to Yoritomo and his family for a good many favors."
"Of course," answered Billie. "But what of it?"
"Well," began Nicholas slowly, "Yoritomo has been a good friend to me. I have always liked him and looked up to him because he's a deal cleverer than I am and a wonderful student,—but lately,—it's hard to explain to you, Miss Bille, but I—"
"Don't you like him any more?"
"No, no, it isn't that." Nicholas paused again and wiped beads of perspiration from his face. He shifted his position and dug his hands into his pockets. "I don't think I can say it," he said. "I thought I could, but it's too deuced hard."
"Go on, you silly boy."
"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't trust him," he blurted out.
"But Papa likes him," said Billie, simply, feeling that her father's sanction was as good as a royal stamp of approval.
"Oh, yes, of course. Everybody likes him. It isn't that."
"Then what are you driving at?"
"Good heavens, I don't know what I am driving at. Only, you see, I introduced Yoritomo to the family and something happened the other day that made me uneasy. It seemed to me that I ought to warn you not to get too thick with him—that is—not you but Miss Brown. You see, Japanese are different—they take things more seriously—" Nicholas plunged deeper and deeper in.
"Can't you tell me what happened?"
"That's the queer part. There's nothing really to tell. It was one of those little incidents that mean everything or nothing. I couldn't tell Mr. Campbell because it was too insignificant, but I thought I might make a clean breast of it to you and you could warn Miss Brown—well—not to talk too much to Yoritomo. She might tell him something—"
"But Nancy hasn't any secrets to tell, Mr. Grimm."
"I thought you promised to call me Nicholas? I didn't say she had, but these Japanese are the wiliest people. They will use you without your knowing you are being used. Couldn't you just tell Miss Nancy to be careful without explaining why? Don't girls ever do that? Just say that Yoritomo's a Jap, and Japs are deep people and she had better not tell him all she knows."
Billie laughed.
"Why, yes, I could, I suppose, but I'm sure it's not necessary. She doesn't know anything to tell."
"Whew!" ejaculated Nicholas, fanning himself with his hat. "I'd rather dig a tunnel through a mountain than have to do that again. I decided I had to do it and I have been working it over in my mind for days. First I thought of Miss Campbell, but she would have gone off her head about it. Miss Brown wouldn't have understood, either. She would have been angry, I suppose. So I decided to come to you. I felt sure you would understand and know exactly what to do."
Billie smiled. She was beginning to be very fond of this boyish, honest young man whose nature was not unlike her own. Just at that moment they saw Yoritomo and Nancy strolling along a moonlit path. He was talking to her in a low intense voice and she was smiling and dimpling as usual. It occurred to Billie that Nancy was getting very grown up all of a sudden and for her part, she couldn't see any fun in it at all. She had noticed lately that Nancy did not enjoy their old-time girlish fun half so much as she used to. She would rather stroll in the garden with a young man than with her four devoted friends, and "hen parties" as she called them, did not amuse her any longer.
Billie began to feel quite serious about the benighted state of her best friend. Her nature was deeply tinged with sympathy and sweetness, but she was not yet old enough to feel tolerant with Nancy for growing up and craving beaux and flattery.
"I will speak to Nancy Brown," she thought, and that night going home in the 'riksha by Nancy's side she turned the matter over in her mind. "But not to-night," she decided, for Nancy had never seemed more adorable than on that ride, chatting with her friend about the evening's pleasures.