The House of the Misty Star Part 16

Unable to solve the puzzle, I could only give my unstinted attention to the boy and girl. If only our armor of love could s.h.i.+eld the beloved!

I sent the invitation for the Thanksgiving celebration, and was much relieved by the answer that Mr. Hanaford would join us that evening.

The dinner was a great success. For all of us it was full of good cheer. Jane in her happiness looked years younger. She was in high glee.

"Do you know, my friends in the Quarters are so happy over the hospital," she exclaimed. "I was obliged to ask the Sake Ya to sell only one little bottle of wine to each man. He promised and said he would dilute it at that. Wasn't it good of him to do it? Oh! it's beautiful how big difficulties are melting away--just like fax in the wire!" She joined in the laugh at her expense.

Zura urged, "Lady Jinny, please get you a pair of crutches for that limp in your tongue."

"Better than that, child. First operation in the hospital will be to take the kinks out of my foolish, twisted words."

Afterwards in the sitting-room Zura went through her pretty little ceremony of making after-dinner coffee and serving it in some rare old Kutani cups. The wonderful decoration of the frail china led her to talk of the many phases of j.a.pan and its life that appealed to the artist. Of the lights and shadows on land and sea the effects of the mists and the combination of color that defied mere paint.

I'd never heard Zura talk so well nor so enthusiastically on a sensible subject. For a moment I had a hope that her love for the beauty of the country would overcome her antagonism to her mother's people. I was quickly undeceived.

Then, as if fearful that praise for the glories of old Nippon might make her seem forgetful of the festal day of her own land, she flashed out, "But please don't anybody forget that I am an American to the marrow-bone." She turned to Page. "Did you come direct from America to j.a.pan?"

The usual miserable flush of confusion covered the boy's face.

"Well--you see, I never keep track of dates; guess I'm too--maybe I've traveled a bit too much to count days--"

Either ignoring Page's evasion or not seeing it, Zura continued, "But you love the blessed old country, don't you?"

"With all my heart," he answered fervently.

"Then why do you stay out here? A man can go where he pleases."

"I have my work on hand and riches in mind. You know the old saw about a rolling stone?"

"Indeed I do. It gathers no moss. Neither does it collect burrs in gray whiskers and hayseed in long hair. I tell you," she half-whispered, leaning towards him confidentially, "Let's you and I kidnap Jane and Ursula and emigrate to 'Dixie Land, the land of cotton, where fun and life are easily gotten.' Are you with me?" she audaciously challenged.

Page's face matched the white flowers near him. With a lightness, all a.s.sumed, he answered, "All right; but wait till I make a fortune--teaching." He arose, saying he would go out on the balcony for a smoke.

Soon after that Jane left, saying she must write many letters of thanks.

I was alone with Zura. The night being mild for the time of year, she proposed that we stroll in the garden. To her this lovely spot was something new and beautiful. To me it was something old and tender, but the charm, the spell it wove around us both was the same. It lay in perfect peace, kissed to silence and tender mystery by the splendor of the great, red, autumn moon. More beautiful now, the legend said, because the G.o.ds gathered all the brilliant coloring from the dying foliage and gave it to the pale moon lady for safe keeping.

"And look," exclaimed Zura, as we walked beside the waters which gave back the unclouded glory, "if the s.h.i.+ning dame isn't using our lake for a looking-gla.s.s. You know, Ursula, this is the only night in the year the moon wears a hat. It's made from the scent of the flowers. Doesn't that halo around her look like a chapeau?"

We strolled along, and to Zura's pleadings I answered with ghost legends and myths from a full store gathered through long, lonely years. Charmed by the magic of the night and the wonder of the garden, we lingered long.

We paused in the ghostly half-light of the tall bamboo where the moonlight trickled through, to listen to the song of the Mysterious Bird of the Spirit Land. The bird is seldom seen alive, but if separated from its mate, at once it begins the search by a soft appealing call. If absence is prolonged the call increases to heart-breaking moaning, till from exhaustion the bird droops head downward and dies from grief.

That night the mate was surely lost. The lonely feathered thing made us s.h.i.+ver with the weirdness of its sad notes.

Suddenly we remembered the lateness of the hour and our guest. We took a short cut across the soft gra.s.s toward the house.

We turned sharply around a clump of bamboo and halted. A few steps before us was Page Hanaford. Seated on the edge of an old stone lantern, head in hands, out of the bitterness of some agony we heard him cry, "G.o.d in Heaven! _How_ can I tell her!"

Zura and I clutched hands and crept away to the house. Even then we did not dare to look each other in the face.

Soon after Page came in. He gave no sign of his recent storm, but said good-night to me and, looking down at Zura, he held out his hand without speaking.

Now that I could see the girl's face I could hardly believe she was the same being. With flushed cheeks and downcast eyes she stood in wondering silence, as if in stumbling upon a secret place in a man's soul, she had fallen upon undiscovered regions in her own.

When I returned from locking the door after Page, Zura had gone to her room.

In the night I remembered that not once had Page referred to his absence from the city.

Zura, Jane and I had not often discussed young Hanaford. When we did, it was how we could give him pleasure rather than the probable cause of his spells of dejection. But when I found Jane alone the next day and told her what we had seen in the gardens, omitting what we'd heard, she had an explanation for the whole affair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "G.o.d in Heaven. How can I tell her!"]

"It is perfectly plain, Miss Jenkins. Page has been disappointed in love. I know the signs," Jane said with a little sigh, brightening as she went on, "but that doesn't kill, just hurts, and makes people moody.

I am going to tell Page I know his secret. I know, too, a recipe that will soon heal wounds like his. We have it right here in the house."

"Oh! Jane Gray," I said, exasperated, "do cultivate a little common sense. Now you run along and make us some beaten biscuit for supper by that recipe that you know is infallible, and do not add to Page's burden whatever it is, by trying your sentimental remedies on him."

XIV

WHAT THE SETTING SUN REVEALED

I heard Zura softly singing as she went about her work. She sang more and talked less in the two weeks that followed our Thanksgiving celebration than ever before since I had known her. In that time we had not seen Page. In our one talk of what we had seen in the garden Zura simply remarked that she supposed what we heard Page say meant he dreaded to tell somebody of the loss of his fortune and family. She lightly scoffed at my suggestion of anything more serious. I prayed that might be true, but why his confusion and evasion?

Thoughts of the boy and his secret would have weighed heavily upon me had it not been for my joy in seeing day by day the increasing sweetness and graciousness of my adopted child. Her gentleness of manner and speech often caused me to wonder if she could be the same untamed hoyden of some months ago. Every day I prided myself on my quick understanding of girls, also of the way to rear them. It made me more than happy to see what I was accomplis.h.i.+ng with Jane's help. While it was no royal road to peace and happiness which we traveled, for Zura's impatience with the Orient and its ways, her rebellion against the stigma laid upon Eurasians, brought the shadows upon many a day's suns.h.i.+ne, yet, as the time slipped by, there seemed to be a growing contentment. There were fewer references made to a definite return to America. In the prospect of her permanent stay with me, I found great joy.

Her high spirits found expression in her work. Her love of excitement fed on encounters with Is.h.i.+ and in teasing Jane.

One afternoon she locked the old gardener up in a tea-house till he apologized for some disrespect. She detained him till intense fear of the coming darkness induced him to submit.

One night Jane brought home a long bundle.

"A new dress, Saint Jinny?" asked Zura.

"No, honey, I haven't had a store dress in ten years. One somebody is through with becomes me quite well. These are the models for my hospital."

"You mean plans, don't you? You wouldn't be caught bringing home a model. Models are ladies who would be overcome by the superfluous drapery of a dress. My daddy used them for pictures in his studio. Sit right down here by the fire, Miss Jaygray, and while you dissipate in hot beef tea, I'll give you a lesson on models."

Zura painted so graphically a word picture of her father's studio it made me laugh, for I knew well enough that such clotheless creatures would not be permitted outside the Cannibal islands. The sheriff would take them up.

As Zura continued her wild exaggerations a look of horror covered Miss Gray's face.

"Oh! Zury!" she cried. "Surely those ladies had on part of a dress."

"No! angel child, not even a symptom. Daddy didn't want to paint their clothes. He wanted to copy the curves that grew on the people."