The Lady and Sada San by Frances Little
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Frances Little >> The Lady and Sada San
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7 The Lady and Sada San
A Sequel to
The Lady of the Decoration
By
Frances Little
New York
The Century Co.
1912
Copyright, 1912, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Published, October, 1912
TO
ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE
AND
CHARLOTTE SMITH
MY FELLOW WANDERERS THROUGH THE ORIENT
The Lady and Sada San
ON THE HIGH SEAS. June, 1911.
_Mate_:
You once told me, before you went to Italy, that after having been
my intimate relative all these years, you had drawn a red line
through the word surprise. Restore the abused thing to its own at
once. You will need it when the end of this letter is reached. I
have left Kentucky after nine years of stay-at-home happiness, and
once again I am on my way to Japan--this time in wifely
disobedience to Jack's wishes.
What do you think that same Jack has "gone and done"! Of course he
is right. That is the provoking part of Jack; it always turns out
that he is in the right. Two months ago he went to some place in
China which, from its ungodly name, should be in the furthermost
parts of a wilderness. Perhaps you have snatched enough time from
guarding the kiddies from a premature end in Como to read a
headline or so in the home papers. If by some wonderful chance,
between baby prattle, bumps and measles, they have given you a
moment's respite, then you know that the Government has grown
decidedly restless for fear the energetic and enterprising bubonic
or pneumonic germ might take passage on some of the ships from the
Orient. So it is fortifying against invasion. The Government,
knowing Jack's indomitable determination to learn everything
knowable about the private life and character of a given germ,
asked him to join several other men it is sending out to get
information, provided of course the germ doesn't get them first.
Jack read me the official-looking document one night between puffs
of his after-dinner pipe.
Another surprise awaits you. For once in my life I had nothing to
say. Possibly it is just as well for the good of the cause that
the honorable writer of the letter could not see how my thoughts
looked.
I glanced about our little den, aglow with soft lights; everything
in it seemed to smile. Well, as you know it, Mate, I do not
believe even you realize the blissfulness of the hours of quiet
comradeship we have spent there. With the great know-it-all old
world shut out, for joyful years we have dwelt together in a
home-made paradise. And yet it seemed just then as if I were
dwelling in a home-made Other Place.
The difference in the speed of time depends on whether love is your
guest or not.
The thought of the briefest interruption to my content made me feel
like cold storage. A break in happiness is sometimes hard to mend.
The blossom does not return to the tree after the storm, no matter
how beautiful the sunshine; and the awful fear of the faintest echo
of past sorrow made my heart as numb as a snowball. To the old
terror of loneliness was added fear for Jack's safety. But I did
not do what you naturally would prophesy. After seeing the look on
Jack's face I changed my mind, and my protest was the silent kind
that says so much. It was lost! Already Jack had gone into one of
his trances, as he does whenever there is a possibility of bearding
a brand-new microbe in its den, whether it is in his own country or
one beyond the seas. In body he was in a padded chair with all the
comforts of home and a charming wife within speaking distance. In
spirit he was in dust-laden China, joyfully following the trail of
the wandering germ. Later on, when Jack came to, we talked it
over. I truly remembered your warnings on the danger of
impetuosity; for I choked off every hasty word and gave my consent
for Jack to go. Then I cried half the night because I had.
We both know that long ago Jack headed for the topmost rung of a
very tall scientific ladder. Sometimes my enthusiasm as chief
booster and encourager has failed, as when it meant absence and
risk. Though I have known women who specialized in renunciation,
till they were the only happy people in the neighborhood, its
charms have never lured me into any violent sacrifice. Here was my
chance and I firmly refused to be the millstone to ornament Jack's
neck.
You might know, Mate? I was hoping all the time that he would find
it quite impossible to leave such a nice biddable wife at home.
But I learn something new about Jack every day. After rather
heated discussion it was decided that I should stay in the little
home. That is, the heat and the discussion was all on my side.
The decision lay in the set of Jack's mouth, despite the tenderness
in his eyes. He thought the risks of the journey too great for me;
the hardships of the rough life too much. Dear me! Will men never
learn that hardship and risk are double cousins to loneliness, and
not even related to love by marriage?
But just as well paint on water as to argue with a scientist when
he has reached a conclusion.
Besides, said Jack, the fatherly Government has no intention that
petticoats, even hobbled ones, should be flitting around while the
habits and the methods of the busy insect were being examined
through a microscope or a telescope. The choice of instrument
depending, of course, upon the activity of the bug.
Black Charity was to be my chief-of-police and
comforter-in-general. Parties--house, card and otherwise--were to
be my diversion, and I was to make any little trips I cared for.
Well, that 's just what I am doing. Of course, there might be a
difference of opinion as to whether a journey from Kentucky to
Japan is a _little_ trip.
I am held by a vague uneasiness today. Possibly it 's because I am
not certain as to Jack's attitude, when he learns through my
letter, which is sailing along with me, that I am going to Japan to
be as near him as possible. I hope he will appreciate my
thoughtfulness in saving him all the bother of saying no. Or it
might be that my slightly dampened spirits come from the discussion
I am still having with myself whether it 's the part of a dutiful
wife to present herself a wiggling sacrifice to science, or whether
science should attend to its own business and lead not into
temptation the scientifically inclined heads of peaceful households.
You 'll say the decision of what was best lay with Jack. Honey,
there 's the error of your mortal mind! In a question like that my
spouse is as one-sided as a Civil War veteran. Say germ-hunt to
Jack and it 's like dangling a gaudy fly before a hungry carp.
I saw Jack off at the station, and went hack to the little house.
Charity had sent the cook home and with her own hands served all
the beloved dainties of my long-ago childhood, trying to coax me
into forgetfulness. As you remember, Mate, dinner has always been
the happiest hour of the day in our small domain. Now? Well,
everything was just the same. The only difference was Jack. And
the half circle of bare tablecloth opposite me was about as
cheerful as a snowy afternoon at the North Pole. I wandered around
the house for awhile, but every time I turned a corner there was a
memory waiting to greet me. Now the merriest of them seemed to be
covered with a chilly shadow, and every one was pale and ghostly.
All night I lay awake, playing at the old game of mental solitaire
and keeping tryst with the wind which seemed to tap with unseen
fingers at my window and sigh,
"Then let come what come may
. . . . . .
I shall have had my day."
Is it possible, Mate, that my glorious day, which I thought had
barely tipped the hour of noon, is already lengthening into the
still shadows of evening?
It was foolish but, for the small comfort I got out of it, I turned
on the light and looked inside my wedding-ring. Time has worn it a
bit but the letters which spell "My Lady of the Decoration,"
spelled again the old-time thrill into my heart.
What 's the use of tying your heartstrings around a man, and then
have ambition slip the knot and leave you all a-quiver?
Far be it from me to stand in Jack's way if germ-stalking is
necessary to his success. Just the same, I could have spent
profitable moments reading the burial service over every microbe,
home-grown and foreign.
Really, Mate, I 've conscientiously tried every plan Jack proposed
and a few of my own. It was no use. That day-after-Christmas
feeling promptly suppressed any effort towards contentment.
At first there was a certain exhilaration in catching pace with the
gay whirl which for so long had been passed by for homier things.
You will remember there was a time when the pace of that same whirl
was never swift enough for me; but my taste for it now was gone,
and it was like trying to do a two-step to a funeral march. For
once in my life I knew the real meaning of that poor old
worn-to-a-frazzle call of the East, for now the' dominant note was
the call of love.
I heard it above the clink of the teacups. It was in the swish of
every silk petticoat. If I went to the theater, church or concert,
the call of that germ-ridden spot of the unholy name beat into my
brain with the persistency of a tom-tom on a Chinese holiday.
Say what you will, Mate, it once took all my courage to leave those
I loved best and go to far-away Japan. Now it required more than I
could dig up to _stay_--with the best on the other side of the
Pacific.
The struggle was easy and swift. The tom-tom won and I am on my
way to be next-door neighbor to Jack. Those whom it concerned here
were away from home, so I told no one good-by, thus saving
everybody so much wasted advice. If there were a tax on advice the
necessities of life would not come so high. Charity followed me to
the train, protesting to the last that "Marse Jack gwine doubt her
velocity when she tell him de truf bout her lady going a-gaddin'
off by herse'f and payin' no mind to her ole mammy's
prosterations." I asked her to come with me as maid. She refused;
said her church was to have an ice-cream sociable and she had "to
fry de fish." This letter will find you joyfully busy with the
babies and the "only man." Blest woman that you are.
But I know you. I have a feeling that you have a few remarks to
make. So hurry up. Let us get it off our minds. Then I can
better tell you what I am doing. Something is going to happen. It
usually does when I am around. I have been asked to chaperone a
young girl whose face and name spell romance. If I were seeking
occupation here is the opportunity knocking my door into splinters.
STILL AT SEA. June, 1911.
Any time you are out of a job and want to overwork all your
faculties and a few emotions, try chaperoning a young room-mate
answering to the name of Sada San, who is one-half American dash,
and the other half the unnamable witchery of a Japanese woman; a
girl with the notes of a lark in her voice when she sings to the
soft twang of an old guitar.
If, too, you are seeking to study psychological effect of such a
combination on people, good, middlin' and otherwise, I would
suggest a Pacific liner as offering fifty-seven varieties, and then
some.
The last twinge of conscience I had over coming, died a cheerful
death. I 'd do it again. For not only is romance surcharging the
air, but fate gives promise of weaving an intricate pattern in the
story of this maid whose life is just fairly begun and whom the
luck of the road has given me as traveling mate. Now, remembering
a few biffs fate has given me, I have no burning desire to meddle
with her business. Neither am I hungering for responsibility. But
what are you going to say to yourself, when a young girl with a
look in her eyes you would wish your daughter to have,
unhesitatingly gives you a letter addressed at large to some
"Christian Sister"! You read it to find it's from her home pastor,
requesting just a little companionship for "a tender young soul who
is trying her wings for the first time in the big and beautiful
world"! I have a very private opinion about reading my title clear
to the Christian Sister business, but no woman with a heart as big
as a pinch of snuff could resist giving her very best and much more
to the slip of a winsome maid, who confidingly asks it--especially
if the sister has any knowledge of the shadows lurking in the
beautiful world.
Mate, these steamers as they sail from shore to shore are like
giant theaters. Every trip is an impromptu drama where comedy,
farce, and often startling tragedy offer large speaking parts. The
revelation of human nature in the original package is funny and
pathetic. Amusement is always on tap and life stories are just
hanging out of the port-hole waiting to attack your sympathy or
tickle your funny bone. But you 'd have to travel far to find the
beginning of a story so heaped up with romantic interest as that of
Sada San as she told it to me, one long, lazy afternoon as I lay on
the couch in my cabin, thanking my stars I was getting the best of
the bare tablecloth and the empty house at home.
Some twenty years ago Sada's father, an American, grew tired of the
slow life in a slow town and lent ear to the fairy stories told of
the Far East, where fortunes were made by looking wise for a few
moments every morning and devoting the rest of the day to samisens
and flutes. He found the glorious country of Japan. The beguiling
tea-houses, and softly swinging sampans were all too distracting.
They sang ambition to sleep and the fortune escaped.
He drifted, and at last sought a mean existence as teacher of
English in a school of a remote seaside village. His spirit broke
when the message came of the death of the girl in America who was
waiting for him. Isolation from his kind and bitter hours left for
thought made life alone too ghastly. He tried to make it more
endurable by taking the pretty daughter of the head man of the
village as his wife.
My temperature took a tumble when I saw proofs of a hard and fast
marriage ceremony, signed and counter-signed by a missionary
brother who meant business.
You say it is a sordid tale? Mate, I know a certain spot in this
Land of Blossoms, where only foreigners are laid to rest, which
bears testimony to a hundred of its kind--strange and pitiful
destinies begun with high and brilliant hopes in their native land;
and when illusions have faded, the end has borne the stamp of
tragedy, because suicide proved the open door out of a life of
failure and exile.
Sada's father was saved suicide and long unhappiness by a timely
tidal-wave, which swept the village nearly bare, and carried the
man and his wife out to sea and to eternity.
The child was found by Susan West who came from a neighboring town
to care for the sick and hungry. Susan was a teacher-missionary.
Not much to look at, if her picture told the truth, but from bits
of her history that I 've picked up her life was a brighter jewel
than most of us will ever find in a heavenly crown. Instead of
holding the unbeliever by the nape of the neck and thrusting a
not-understood doctrine down his unwilling throat, she lived the
simple creed of loving her neighbor better than herself. And the
old pair of goggles she wore made little halos around the least
speck of good she found in any transgressor, no matter how warped
with evil.
When she was n't helping some helpless sinner to see the rainbow of
promise at the end of the straight and narrow way, Susan spent her
time and all her salary, giving sick babies a fighting chance for
life. She took the half-drowned little Sada home with her, and
searched for any kinsman left the child. There was only one, her
mother's brother. He was very poor and gladly gave his consent
that Miss West should keep the child--as long as it was a girl!
Susan had taught the man English once in the long ago and this was
his chance to repay her.
Later on when the teacher found her health failing and headed for
home in America, Uncle Mura was still more generous and raised no
objections to her taking the baby with her.
Together they lived in a small Western town. The missionary reared
the child by rule of love only and went on short rations to educate
her. Sada's eager mind absorbed everything offered her like a
young sponge, and when a few months ago Susanna folded her hands
and joined her foremothers, there was let loose on the world this
exquisite girl with her solitary legacy of untried ideals and a
blind enthusiasm for her mother's people.
Right here, Mate, was when I had a prolonged attack of cold
shivers. Just before Miss West passed along, knowing that the
Valley was near, she wrote to Uncle in Japan and told him that his
niece would soon he alone. Can't you imagine the picture she drew
of her foster child who had satisfied every craving of her big
mother heart? Fascinating and charming and so weighted with
possibilities, that Mura, who had prospered, leaped for his chance
and sent Sada San money for the passage over.
Not a mite of anxiety shadowed her eyes when she told me that Uncle
kept a wonderful tea-house in Kioto. He must be very rich, she
thought, because he wrote her of the beautiful things she was to
have. About this time the room seemed suffocating. I got up and
turned on the electric fan. The only thing required of her, she
continued, was to use her voice to entertain Uncle's friends. But
she hoped to do much more. Through Miss West she knew how many of
her mother's dear people needed help. How glorious that she was
young and strong and could give so much. Susan had also talked to
her of the flowers, the lovely scenery, the poetry of the people
and their splendid spirit--making a dreamland where even man was
perfect. How she loved it! How proud she was to feel that in part
it was her country. Faithfully would she serve it. Oh, Susanna
West! I 'd like to shake you till your harp snapped a string. It
's like sending a baby to pick flowers on the edge of a bottomless
pit.
What could I say! The missionary-teacher had told the truth. She
simply failed to mention that in the fairy-land there are
cherry-blossom lanes down which no human can wander without being
torn by the brier patches.
The path usually starts from a wonderful tea-house where Uncles
have grown rich. Miss West didn't mean to shirk her duty. In most
things the begoggled lady was a visionary with a theory that if you
don't talk about a thing it does not exist; and like most of her
kind she swept the disagreeables into a dust heap and made for the
high places where all was lovely. And yet she had toiled with the
girl through all the difficulties of the Japanese language; and, to
give her a musical education, had pinched to the point of buying
one hat in eight years!
Now it is all done and Sada is launched on the high seas of life
with a pleasure-house for a home and an unscrupulous Uncle with
unlimited authority for a chaperon. Shades of Susan! but I am
hoping guardian angels are "really truly," even if invisible.
Good night, Mate. This game of playing tag with jarring thoughts,
new and old, has made six extra wrinkles. I am glad I came and you
and Jack will have to be, for to quote Charity, "I 'se done
resoluted on my word of honah" to keep my hands, if possible, on
Sada whose eyes are as blue as her hair is black.
PACIFIC OCEAN.
Since morning the sea has been a sheet of blue, streaked with the
silver of flying fish. That is all the scenery there is; not a
sail nor a bird nor an insect. Either the unchanging view or
something in the air has stimulated everybody into being their
nicest. It is surprising how quickly graciousness possesses some
people when there is a witching girl around. Vivacious young men
and benevolent officers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere,
spick and span in white duck and their winningest smiles.
Entertainments dovetail till there is barely time for change of
costume between acts.
But let me tell you, Mate, living up to being a mother is no idle
pastime, particularly if it means reviving the lost art of managing
love-smitten youths and elderly male coquettes. There is a
specimen of each opposite Sada and me at table who are so generous
with their company on deck, before and after meals, I have almost
run out of excuses and am short on plans to avoid the heavy
obligations of their eager attentions.
The youth is a To-Be-Ruler of many people, a Maharajah of India.
But the name is bigger than the man. Two years ago his father
started the boy around the world with a sack full of rubles and a
head full of ancient Indian lore. With these assets he paused at
Oxford that he might skim through the classics. He had been told
this was where all the going-to-be-great men stopped to acquire
just the proper tone of superiority so necessary in ruling a
country. Of course he picked up a bit on electricity, mechanics,
etc. This accomplished to his satisfaction he ran over to America
to view the barbarians' god of money and take a glance at their
houses which touched the sky. But his whole purpose in living, he
told me, was to yield himself to certain meditations, so that in
his final reincarnation, which was only a few centuries off, he
would return to the real thing in Buddha. In the meantime he was
to be a lion, a tiger and a little white bird. At present he is
plain human, with the world-old malady gnawing at his heart, a pain
which threatens to send his cogitations whooping down a thornier
and rosier lane than any Buddha ever knew. Besides I am thinking a
few worldly vanities have crept in and set him hack an eon or so.
He wears purple socks, pink ties and a dainty watch strapped around
his childish wrist.
When I asked him what impressed him most in America, he promptly
answered with his eyes on Sada, "Them girls. They are rapturous!"
Farewell Nirvana! With a camp stool in one hand and a rosary in
the other, he follows Sada San like the shadow on a sun dial.
Wherever she is seated, there is the stool and the royal youth, his
mournful eyes feasting on the curves and dimples of her face, her
lightest jest far sweeter than any prayer, the beads in his hand
forgotten.
The other would-be swain calls himself a Seeker of Truth.
Incidentally he is hunting a wife. His general attitude is a
constant reminder of the uncertainty of life. His presence makes
you glad that nothing lasts. He says his days are heavy with the
problems of the universe, but you can see for yourself that this
very commercial traveler carries a light side line in an assortment
of flirtations that surely must be like dancing little sunbeams on
a life of gloom.
Goodness knows how much of a nuisance he would be if it were not
for a little lady named Dolly, who sits beside him, gray in color,
dress and experience. At no uncertain age she has found a belated
youthfulness and is starting on the first pleasure trip of her life.
Coming across the country to San Francisco, her train was wrecked.
In the smash-up a rude chair struck her just south of the belt line
and she fears brain fever from the blow. The alarm is not general,
for though just freed by kind death from an unhappy life sentence
of matrimony she is ready to try another jailer.
Whether he spied Dolly first and hoped that the gleam from her many
jewels would light up the path in his search for Truth and a few
other things, or whether the Seeker was sought, I do not know.
However the flirtation which seems to have no age limit has
flourished like a bamboo tree. For once the man was too earnest.
Dolly gave heed and promptly attached herself with the persistency
of a barnacle to a weather-beaten junk. By devices worthy a
finished fisher of men, she holds him to his job of suitor, and if
in a moment of abstraction his would-be ardor for Sada grows too
perceptible, the little lady reels in a yard or so of line to make
sure her prize is still dangling on the hook.
To-day at tiffin the griefless widow unconsciously scored at the
expense of the Seeker, to the delight of the whole table. For
Sada's benefit this man quoted a long passage from some German
philosopher. At least it sounded like that. It was far above the
little gray head he was trying to ignore and so weighty I feared
for her mentality. But I did not know Dolly. She rose like a
doughnut. Looking like a child who delights in the rhythm of
meaningless sounds, she heard him through, then exclaimed with
breathless delight, "Oh, ain't he fluid!"
The man fled, but not before he had asked Sada for two dances at
night.
It is like a funny little curtain-raiser, with jealousy as a
gray-haired Cupid. So far as Sada is concerned, it is admiration
gone to waste. Even if she were not gaily indifferent, she is too
absorbed in the happy days she thinks are awaiting her. Poor
child! Little she knows of the limited possibilities of a Japanese
girl's life; and what the effect of the painful restrictions will
be on one of her rearing, I dare not think.
Once she is under the authority of Uncle, the Prince, the Seeker,
and all mankind will be swept into oblivion; and, until such time
as she can be married profitably and to her master's liking, she
will know no man. The cruelest awakening she will face is the
attitude of the Orient toward the innocent offspring in whose veins
runs the blood of two races, separated by differences which never
have been and never will be overcome.
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