The Shogun's Daughter

by Robert Ames Bennet

Blissful elation gave way to doubt and anxiety. The death of Iyeyoshi had not yet been announced. Abe was waiting for the Mikado’s envoys. When Iyesada had been duly confirmed in his rule, Iyeyoshi would be officially declared dead and would be buried with all due pomp amongst his forefathers either at Shiba or Uyeno. My fear was that, once the period of mourning had begun, Azai might not be permitted to marry me until the termination of the prescribed months of sorrow.

Though puzzled by my feverish impatience at the bare possibility of delay, the Prince urged the matter upon Satsuma. The Daimio, no less willing to please me than to disappoint Keiki, enlisted the assistance of his adopted daughter, Iyesada’s wife. The lady was, I suspect, delighted with the opportunity to remove from the palace one whose influence was far greater than her own.

Abe found Iyesada not only willing but urgent to bind the House of Owari to his interests by means of the marriage. Satsuma offered himself as intermediator between the two families. Arrangements were made under a mutual agreement that, in view of the circumstances, the wedding should be conducted without display. An act accomplished escapes opposition and a large share of the criticism otherwise uttered in the hope of prevention.

The wishes of Azai were not consulted. She was told that she would be wedded to me the following night. Presents were exchanged, and the trousseau of my bride was brought at once to Owari Yashiki, in the charge of Azai’s ladies-in-waiting. Even Tokiwa Sama was impressed by the display of silk costumes and ornaments and artistic articles of personal and household use arranged in the bridal apartments by the ladies of the Princess. My own wardrobe was arranged by my mother and her maids.

Propriety required that I should not view the trousseau of my bride before the ceremony. But chance gave me one glimpse that stirred my heart to deepest tenderness. While passing one of the inner garden courts, I chanced to gaze across, and caught sight of a girl within the opposite veranda. It was O Setsu San bearing in the favorite dolls of her mistress.

I sought the seclusion of a grape arbor in the largest of the yashiki gardens, and mused for hours upon the sweet innocence of my little Princess bride. The thought of her childlike purity filled me with adoration. I had won the love and trust of this young maiden who yet played with her dolls. I must be very gentle with her.

Death had deprived her of a father’s fond care, marriage was to cut her off from home and mother. By entering the family of Owari she was to become as one dead to her own family. She had been the petted daughter of an indulgent father; she was to become the wife and servant of a husband and the humble subordinate of a mother-in-law, whose commands must be obeyed.

Yet hers was a fate far better than the fate of most Japanese brides. She loved me and knew that she was loved: others went to husbands unknown to them, many without so much as the preliminary meeting common among the lower classes. Tokiwa Sama I knew would be a mild tyrant to the gentle daughter-in-law. As a concession to my tojin prejudices, if not because of the winsomeness of my bride, she would not deal harshly with my wife.

This I knew because she had already made the amazing concession of supporting me in a contest against custom. It was my earnest desire that my bride should come to the wedding without the customary shaving of eyebrows and blackening of teeth. I had laid great stress upon this strange proposal. The matter had been carried up to Iyesada, and precedent found for a postponement of the senseless blemishings until after the marriage.

Though much astonishment was expressed over the betrayal of such absurd prejudices by the Prince of Owari, Satsuma won over his daughter, and Iyesada bent to the wish of his Shoguness. The Princess Azai was ordered to comply with the whim of her future husband. For the time, at least, I had saved the beauty of my darling.