It Happened in Japan

by Baroness Albert d' Anethan

Rosina was radiant, as indeed she well might be, for, after months of feminine vacillation, were not both her beautiful charges at last satisfactorily disposed of? Naturally, perhaps, she took the credit of Pearl's engagement entirely to herself. She told her husband it would never have come off if it had not been for that necessary progging, given so judiciously to the devoted and constant, yet hesitating lover.

At this information Mr. Rawlinson growled forth the remark that she would far better have left matters alone. That people who mixed themselves up in such affairs generally ended by burning their own fingers, and that if de Güldenfeldt, at his age, didn't know his own mind, well, all that he could say was he was a far greater fool than he had given him credit for being.

He further remarked--for when once wound up Tom Rawlinson was not devoid of conversation,--that it was perfect bosh, in his opinion, this ridiculous effusion and fuss over a simple and every-day engagement of marriage. No doubt all the world gushed in the same absurd manner over Pearl's first marriage. And pray, how had that turned out? Certainly he, for one, didn't see that de Güldenfeldt was doing such a very good thing for himself. True, Pearl was a pretty woman, pleasant too, and had an uncommonly good fortune of her own. But then, look at that business with her first husband, to say nothing of that uncomfortable scandal with that fellow Martinworth, who, in his opinion, would far better have kept in England, instead of coming to Japan and getting into further mischief.

For his own part, he liked de Güldenfeldt. He was a capital chap, and he thought it was a pity he was wasting himself on a woman who, in spite of certain attractions, never succeeded in being of the same mind two days running. In fact, in his humble opinion, he was far too good for Pearl.

Thus, having reduced his wife almost to the verge of tears, Tom Rawlinson took his hat and went for a tramp across the hills.

Nevertheless, shortly after he had relieved his mind in this downright fashion, Mr. Rawlinson informed Pearl that it was his express wish that she should be married from his house. He likewise announced his intention of bearing all the expenses of the trousseau and the wedding. In fact he begged that she would understand that she was to look upon herself, for that occasion at least, as a daughter of the house. Further, he requested her acceptance of a trifling cheque with which to buy herself a jewel, which, he need not add, he would feel greatly flattered by her wearing on her wedding day.

The cheque was a substantial one, representing the sum of a hundred guineas.

By this time all the party had moved up to Chuzenji. Pearl was supremely happy in her Japanese wooden house on the borders of the lake. She loved her picturesque, bright little abode, with its fresh, clean tatami, [13] its beautifully engrained wood, its white walls and ceilings, and its sliding paper doors and cupboards. But above all, she loved the broad, cool verandah, on which was passed the hot period of the day, and from which was visible the most extensive, the most lovely view of lake and mountains in all Chuzenji. She would rest her arms on the balustrade of this verandah, which hung completely over the water, and there she would remain, idle and happy for hours, watching the limpid, laughing lake with its frame of wooded mountains and its ever changing banks of clouds.

[ [13] Japanese matting.

But it was in the early morning that Pearl found Chuzenji the most seductive, that she loved it best. After the opening of the amado [14] --without which protection against storm and rain and thieves no Japanese house would be complete--she would lie in bed, and with her face turned towards the lake would watch with a dreamy fascination the scene before her.