It Happened in Japan

by Baroness Albert d' Anethan

"I should say she is the sole and only one. I know at the time he was awfully hard hit. It was our conversation that made me think of him. Never shall I forget the way he stuck up for you one evening at the Club, when that little brute Reichter--who has left, thank God--came out with some garbled version of your story. Mon Dieu! didn't Nicholson give it him, just! He is such a lazy, nonchalant beggar that one never expected to see him fly into such a passion. We all stood aghast, while he lashed the mean little brute with his sarcastic tongue. Yes! you have got a loyal, good friend in Nicholson, Mrs. Nugent."

"And another in you. Yet you change the conversation to avoid telling me what I want so much to know. It is not very kind of you, I think."

"Well, I suppose you will get your way in the end," de Güldenfeldt replied, with a smile, "so I may as well surrender without further hesitation. Yes, people know your story, Mrs. Nugent. However strictly your cousin Mrs. Rawlinson, Nicholson and I have kept the secret, it has somehow oozed out. I firmly believe that it was those globe-trotters--the Clive-Carnishers, who, recognising you at the last Chrysanthemum Party, set it about. At any rate, it is known at the English Legation who you really are, for Thomson spoke to me about it one day. You see," he added deprecatingly, "if you had never entertained, if you had been ugly and stupid and uninteresting, people certainly would not have troubled their heads about you, nor have gone to the bother of raking up old stories. But being what you are, charming and beautiful, no matter if you hide yourself in the moon, no matter if you change your name a dozen times, no matter if you live the life of a hermit--your story, dear lady, will follow you to the end of your existence. There! Now I have given in and told you the truth, and what good will it do you, I should like to know?"

"It has already eased my mind considerably, only that," replied Pearl, "I don't know what has possessed me of late, but I have felt as if I were a cheat--a fraud. You see, I have grown fond of the people here, both Japanese and Europeans, and I have begun to recognise that I was rewarding their kindness but indifferently. Because I was Rosina's cousin, everyone, when I first came, received me with open arms. Then I think they got to like me a little for my own sake. Now you tell me they know my story. Well, this shows, at any rate, that I was right in leaving England, and choosing instead this dear Japan as my home. It is only in a place like this that one would find so much kindness, so much indulgence. The foreign community is so small, so very restricted you see, that I suppose people can't afford to be too exclusive, too particular," she added, rather bitterly.

De Güldenfeldt did not reply. He knew there was considerable truth in Pearl's remarks. If Mrs. Nugent had remained in England she would henceforth, necessarily, have only been received on sufferance. She would by degrees have sunk into the ranks of les déclassées, with no fixed abode, reduced to wandering from second-rate watering-places to out-of-the-way continental towns, seeking rest and finding none. Thus her youth, embittered and disappointed, would finally have passed, and she who formerly had ever been welcome within the portals of good society, would have found herself crawling on her knees, discrowned, outside those closed gates. Here, on the contrary, in the limited European society of the facile East, in spite of varied and garbled versions of her story being known, not only did she receive and was received, but she was considered an acquisition, indeed, much sought after for her beauty and sweetness, her charm and many social talents.

As de Güldenfeldt walked away from Pearl's house that day he was very pensive. The knowledge that he loved Pearl Nugent came as nothing fresh to his mind. He had been fully aware of this fact since their encounter long ago on board the Canadian Pacific liner. At that time however, if anyone had ventured to tell him he would have ever contemplated marrying a woman who had gone through Pearl's unfortunate experiences, a woman who had been tarred by the dirty brush of the Divorce Court, he would have been the first to have scouted the idea as utterly impossible and absurd.

Stanislas de Güldenfeldt was extremely ambitious. His profession was his god, and ever since the day he had entered on his career all his natural tastes and longings, all his passions and desires, had been subservient to this love of his profession and to the determination to excel. He was possessed of many talents and a considerable amount of good looks, which gifts, combined with great charm of manner and the attractions of his position, all helped to made him a favourite with men and women alike. But a natural cautiousness of disposition, together with this ruling love of his profession, caused him to feel general indifference as far as women were concerned, and though he certainly affected their society, and was never otherwise than courteous and charming towards them, he had, with but one or two exceptions been but little influenced by the feminine sex throughout his life. These exceptions had on each occasion proved themselves episodes rather of a pleasant than of a painful nature. He had experienced nevertheless, a certain relief when in the natural course of events these chapters of his life were closed, and with a mind free from all outward influences, once more he could devote his time and his thoughts entirely to his work. He would tell himself that in the abstract he admired women, that on the whole he thought them superior to his own sex. Then he would find himself wondering how it was that in spite of this undoubted admiration, and what indeed might almost be called veneration, he had really loved them so seldom, why the real depths of his nature had been so little stirred, so little troubled by their presence. He knew the answer to that question well enough, but he would seldom give it even to himself, for he frequently felt irritated with himself at this entire absorption in his work, and above all for what he was wont at times to fancy was an absolute want of sentiment in his nature.

And yet as he emerged from Pearl Nugent's garden that spring morning, Monsieur de Güldenfeldt realised to the full what he had more or less known for three years past--that he was even as others were, and that he could love, love with the full power of his long pent-up feelings, and learning this fact, instead of blessing he lamented his fate. He thought of Pearl with her distinguished yet perfectly simple air. He thought of the straight, clear-cut profile, and the firm, rather square little chin, of those pure and clear grey eyes, and the habit she had of doubling her fingers tightly into the palms of her hands. He thought of those many outward examples of her firm and reliant character--and his heart sank. He felt he desired her above everything in the wide world, and he knew as surely as he knew he was himself that if he wished to gratify that desire he must marry her. Stanislas de Güldenfeldt had not studied Pearl's character for three years for nothing. He was confident in his own mind that she had never listened to Martinworth's entreaties, and he knew that in spite of the irregularity of her present position--perhaps for that very reason--there was a pride, a certain hardness in her nature, that would debar him from venturing to propose any union but one which, in the eyes of the world, was strictly conventional and correct.

That day de Güldenfeldt, whistling for his dogs, started on a solitary walk of some miles, far away from the stir and haste of the city. It was a perfect spring day, with a soft breeze blowing, and a hot sun overhead. Stanislas skirted the fields, already bright with the young corn, his eyes lingering on the beauty of the rich and varied foliage, and on the little knolls of many a secluded and shaded grove fringed with clumps of feathery bamboos and an occasional palm waving aloft in the balmy air. Contrasting with the vivid and many shaded greens, and always on the loftiest hill, half hidden in the shadiest spot of the neighbourhood, would be visible the red portal or torii of some little shrine raised to Inari Sama--the god of farming--or perhaps to some other deity of the province, while away in the distance rose a range of purple mountains, and on the east a streak of sea gleamed like silver in the bright afternoon sun. He crossed more than one stream of water, in the cool depths of which groups of stark naked urchins were frisking in the wild abandoned gambols of happy childhood. Peasant women of all ages, wrapped in their scanty upper garments and blue cotton trousers, far more resembling men than members of the gentler sex, would pass along the road, bent and almost hidden beneath overwhelming burdens of huge bundles of faggots, yet ever ready with a cheerful greeting as they toiled on towards the thatched farm houses nestling in the hamlets and villages beyond. Stanislas longed to be an artist to depict on paper these simple scenes of Japanese country life, to be capable of immortalising this lovely peaceful nature, chief of which in his eyes were for the present the snowy blooms of the cherry tree, contrasting with the sombre cryptomeria pines, and the brilliant green and red of the giant wild camellia.

But Stanislas, equally ignorant of the kodak as of the paint brush, with a faint sigh of regret continued his tramp alongside the little square fields of the fresh young corn, emerald-green in colour, traversing in his walk many an enchanting silent grove, till at length he reached the goal of his pilgrimage.