It Happened in Japan

by Baroness Albert d' Anethan

Finally, after merely inscribing a few words, she impatiently threw down her pen, and, pushing the writing materials aside, she rose from her seat.

"There will be ample time to catch the post when I come in," she thought. "My head is splitting. I shall die if I don't have some air."

The sun was covered, but this by no means prevented the heat from being stifling as Pearl plodded along the path that overhung the lake. Her feet lagged somewhat, but her thoughts on the contrary, followed each other in rapid succession, and as she trudged through the undergrowth she found herself recalling many incidents of her past life. That unaccountable feeling of misery and depression, that so often weighs down the spirits before the coming of a typhoon, possessed Mrs. Nugent this afternoon. This sentiment of melancholy did not strike her as anything out of the way, for it was indeed many a long day since Pearl had known what it was to feel really happy or light-hearted. She found her eyes filling with tears of self-pity as she walked to the border of the lake, and leaning against a tree, gazed down sadly into its depths.

After all, she drearily thought, what a long incessant struggle had been her life. What a small, what a very small iota of happiness had fallen to her lot. Pearl buried her face in her hands, and wondered if, in any way, she had brought these misfortunes on herself--if, indeed, it had been through any fault of her own that everyone whom she had trusted and loved had proved false in the end, that everything she had believed in had eventually turned to ashes in her hands.

She thought of herself at the time of her marriage--bright, and sunny, and single-hearted, believing in everybody who was kind to her and in everything that pleased her. She remembered how this credulity, this innocent faith in all that was best in human nature, had blindly centred itself in the husband whose utter worthlessness, before many months were passed, was the cause of a cruel awakening from this beautiful dream of pure belief, resulting in disillusion, and in a bitter lesson thoroughly learnt.

She recalled the wretched years that followed this discovery of Mr. Norrywood's real disposition. Then she thought of Martinworth, and how he had come into her life, to transform its misery into an unsatisfied, restless excitement, which, at the time, she blindly deceived herself was happiness. From Martinworth her thoughts turned to the sweet widowed mother, who had died before she left school, but whose example and teaching had remained implanted in her mind, and was the means of keeping her honest and pure through many a bitter moment of trial and temptation. Pearl loved to think of her mother. For long she let her thoughts linger round this guardian angel of her youth. It was a relief to turn them away from herself, and to recall that tall, stately figure, with the large grey eyes, so like her own, the soft voice, and the grave, sweet smile.

She sat down on a moss-grown boulder, and dwelt tenderly on all the past incidents of her merry childhood, and trusting, early girlhood. And when at length she rose, and once more continued her walk, Pearl Nugent's thoughts had taken a new and a happier turn.

She wandered on, lingering here and there, and occasionally plucking some of the many ferns and wild flowers that grew by the path. Her eyes travelled upwards and alighted, at some distance above her, upon a plant she had long desired, a magnificent specimen of the Osmunda regina. Pearl paused in her walk, and found herself speculating as to how greatly this giant fern would adorn her rockery, one of the many beauties of her lovely garden. Finally, with some difficulty, she succeeded in clambering up the steep upright bank, and regardless of the rising wind and the rain that now began to fall, she attempted to loosen the plant, and, for want of a better instrument, commenced digging with her fingers at the roots.

Mrs. Nugent little knew that she had a solitary but interested spectator of her proceedings. Martinworth, in his boat on the lake, had caught the flutter of a white dress through the trees, and, with his keen sight, it did not take him long to distinguish that the owner of the dress was Pearl. He shipped his oars, and bending forward watched with absorption the efforts to uproot the fern. He had not long been thus silently employed when, to his astonishment and dismay, he saw her jerk suddenly backwards, and, sliding rapidly down the bank, disappear from view in a cloud of earth and stones.

The plant that at one time seemed so firmly and obstinately embedded in the ground had, without warning, become loosened, and Pearl, in giving one final pull, found herself thrown with violence and unexpected impetus upon the path.