LIVING A FAIRY TALE
CAHPTER ONE
Sakura thoughtfully smoothed the crumples from her skirt by the simple process of stretching the skirt tightly over her bare knee. Then she heaved a deep sigh. Not a bored or weary sigh, but a sigh of deep concentration.
Anyone seeing her just then might well have thought: "Why is that little girl sitting there doing nothing? Why doesn't she go and play?"
But they would have been under a complete misapprehension, because Sakura was playing. She was playing her own special game which required no one but herself. All the most interesting people she ever saw came into her game, and the best of it was that, as she directed the game, she could make them do exactly what she liked. All of them. Even Syaoran. Though it made one feel very daring to be directing the actions of anyone so handsome and arrogant.
That she had never spoken to him in her life, and that he probably had no idea she existed, did nothing to make him unsuitable for her game. In fact, in a way, the less you knew about a person the freer you were to invent interesting things about him in the grand game of make believe. Anyway—known or unknown, suitable or unsuitable—Syaoran Li held first place as the hero of her game.
Sakura knew perfectly well that not everyone regarded him in this interesting and admiring light. Her father, for instance, had been known to describe him as "the most impossible member of an utterly impossible family".
Afterwards Sakura had asked her mother why the Li families were 'impossible'. And Nadeshiko, in an unguarded moment, had replied impatiently:
"Oh, they're dreadful, flamboyant "show" people. Heaps of money and not a scrap of taste, and the old man is trying to buy up half the best land around here. But that's nothing to do with you, Sakura, and you mustn't ask questions about people."
That made it impossible to inquire what "flamboyant" meant and also what "shoe people" were. The only part of her mother's description which was comprehensible was that they were "dreadful" and had heaps of money.
Sakura saw nothing unattractive in having heaps of money, and as for their being dreadful—she reserved the right to doubt very much whether that applied to the eldest son. Perhaps to the four little girls, who had once stuck out very pink tongues at her as they passed—but not to the grown-up and altogether wonderful Syaoran.
Old Mr. Li too might be dreadful, for all she knew. Certainly he was big and frightening and had a loud, unfriendly voice. But he didn't really interest Sakura much, and he found no place in her game.
He had come to see her father that afternoon on business, she knew, and for some reason the fact gave her a sensation of faint uneasiness. She felt instinctively that it was no pleasant "business" which had brought Mr. Li to their house, though she could hardly say why she felt that. Perhaps because of the preoccupied way her mother said:
"Now you're to go into the garden, Sakura, and play quietly like a good child. Father has Mr. Li coming to see him on business and he doesn't want to be disturbed. I'll come and tell you when you may come in again.
Sakura pulled her skirt even more tightly over her knees and deliberately turned over in her mind the idea of direct disobedience. The game no longer held her attention. She wanted to know what was going on in the house. Above all, she wanted to see Syaoran's father in the familiar background of her own home. One could understand people so much better there.
She gained the french windows of the drawing-room without anyone detecting her approach. And, judging from the raised voices that were coming from the room, Mr. Li had not only arrived, but was proceeding to be "dreadful".
With a pleasurable sensation of flirting with danger, Sakura squeezed herself round the door, in the shelter of a big blue curtains. It was a second or two before she ventured to peep round a fold of the curtain, and when she did she gave a slight gasp of sheer excitement.
Sitting within a yard of her and looking extremely bored and unsmiling was Syaoran Li.
Perhaps her gasp reached his ears, or perhaps some slight movement of the curtain drew his attention because, even as she stood staring at him, he turned his head and saw her.
He didn't smile, but then neither did he do anything to betray her to her parents and Mr. Li, who were at the other end of the long room, talking. With a faintly theatrical gesture—which was, never the less, entirely natural to him—he held out his hand for her to come to him.
She came at once—not to take his hand and stand beside him—but, quite naturally, into the circle of his arm.
The boy looked astonished and just a little put out, but he made no attempt to put her away from him, and, when he spoke, he spoke softly, so that the others should not hear and notice her.
"What are you doing there behind the curtain?" he asked with a touch of curiosity.
"L-looking at you," Sakura told him with commendable accuracy.
He looked surprised again and then, for the first time, a smile crossed his very serious face.
"You funny little thing." he said. And she was terribly afraid the conversation was going to end there.
"W-would you like to see our graduation?" she asked breathlessly. "It's a very nice garden—an' there's a shrubbery an' squirrels sometimes. At least, there was one once."
"Oh, I don't think—'he began. Then he glanced a little distastefully at the group at the other end of the room. His father was making gestures and talking very fast, while Sakura's parents looked glum and her father at any rate seemed only waiting for a chance to leap into the conversation himself.
The boy turned his head and just nodded at Sakura and, without a word; they slipped out of the french window into the garden.
"Now what?" He strolled with her down the garden path and seemed rather devastating bored with what he saw.
He sat down on the fallen elm tree, and suddenly he put his hand and drew her to his side again.
"You queer little girl," he said curiously, "Why were you so anxious to get me out here with you?"
"I-I wanted to talk to you."
"Did you?" again that surprised look. "But why? Are you so bored?"
"Oh no! I've always wanted to talk to you," Sakura confided in a sudden rush.
He gave a puzzled little frown.
"But I've never seen you before."
"No," Sakura agreed humbly. "But I've seen you sometimes. I've seen you ride by your horse."
"Have you?" He seemed rather gratified for a moment. Then he added with an unexpectedly savage little sneer: "And I suppose your father said "There goes that theatrical bounder"?"
"Oh no." Sakura was deeply shocked, though the words were not quite understandable to her. "He never said that. And I shouldn't have taken any notice if he had," she added comfortingly.
"Oh well, it doesn't matter. I don't care what people think." He seemed to forget her presence for a moment, and looked away from her with a dark expression that was both sulky and unhappy.
"I think you're nice," Sakura offered earnestly. "What is the matter?"
"Oh—'he glanced at her again, and smiled rather at her first remark. "It doesn't matter," he repeated. "You wouldn't understand anyway."
"I might," Sakura assured him. "I'm nine and I understand a lot of things."
"Nine, are you?" He smiled again. "You're a little snip for nine. But that's not much of an age anyway."
"Isn't it? How old are you?"
"More than twice your age. I'm, nineteen."
"That's really grown up, isn't it?"
"I like think so."
"You're much older than your four sisters, aren't you?"
"Oh yes. Do you know them?"
"N-not exactly," Sakura said, feeling that the exchange of discourtesies between them hardly constituted an acquaintanceship.
"You don't play with them, do you?—No, of course not. I should have seen you."
"No, I don't play with them." Sakura thought she wouldn't want to, and, in a burst of sudden confidence, she added with dignity: "They put their tongues at me."
"Did they?" little monsters. Shall I punish them for you?"
"Oh no, thank you," Sakura said hastily.
He looked at her and said, perfectly seriously, "Fancy wanting to put one's tongue out at anything as pretty as you."
"Do—do you think I'm pretty?" Sakura blushed slightly.
"Yes, of course. You're so little and fair." He took a strand of her hair a little awkwardly but very gently. "I've never seen such real auburn hair."
"Haven't you?" and then, feeling that the occasion called for a return of compliments, she said gravely: "I think you're awfully handsome too."
For the first time he really laughed.
"Oh, thank you. That's very gratifying. But then you don't see many people, do you?"
"Yes, I do. Quite a lot," insisted Sakura, who really thought that she did.
"Do you?" He glanced at her indulgently. "I thought you seemed a rather lonely little thing."
"Oh no," Sakura assured him, I'm not lonely."
"Any sisters and brothers to play with?"
She shook her head.
"How do you manage then?
"I play by myself." Sakura said, feeling her breath quicken suddenly. "I have—I have a most 'straordinary game, all about people."
"About me?" The boy looked mystified. "What people?"
"Y-you, for one."
"Me! You play about me? But what on earth do you play about me?"
"That—that you're a prince." Sakura whispered, suddenly overcome with confusion.
"That I'm what?" He put his head down to hers to hear what she was saying.
"A prince."
There was silence for a moment. Then he drew her into the circle of his arms again and held her tightly.
"Why do you pretend that? Do you think I'm like a prince?"
Sakura nodded.
"I'm not in the least, you know," he said with a modesty which—though Sakura did not know it—was singularly unlike Syaoran at this time.
"I think so." She nervously twisted a button on his coat, and presently he put his hand over hers and held it still.
"What is your name?" he said.
"Sakura."
"Tell me more about your game, Sakura. Do you come in it too?"
She nodded, but seemed strangely reluctant now to disclose any more.
"And what are you?" he pressed. "A princess, I suppose, and boss me around?"
"Oh no!" Sakura seemed indescribably shocked. "I-I'm a slave."
Syaoran bit his lip rather hard.
"My slave?" he inquired gravely.
Sakura nodded.
"I hope I'm kind to you, Sakura."
"Not always," Sakura confessed.
"Not? Oh, that's rather dreadful of me, surely?"
"Well, you're very sorry afterwards, and that's nice," Sakura explained.
"Funny child. I wonder if you know that you've got hold of a profound human truth there."
"I-I don't think I understand."
"No, of course not. It's your own queer little version of the idea that to appreciate real happiness you must be unhappy first." Syaoran suddenly looked gloomy again, and that restless, half-sulky expression came round his mouth.
Sakura watched him for a moment or two in silence. Then she said, softly, "You're not very happy, are you?"
He shook his head impatiently, and seemed to with quite naturally her small hand stroked his hair.
"Poor boy," she said. Whereat he hugged her that made him seem very young after all.
He didn't speak for a moment or two, and with rare tact she made no attempt to hurry him. After a while he muttered crossly:
"I suppose it's quite a common problem really. The case of one's father wanting to live one's life for one."
Sakura considered that. She didn't think it sounded at all common. In fact, she could not possibly imagine her father trying to do such a thing. It was difficult to see how he could, in any case.
"How does your father want to live your life for you?" she asked at last.
"Sakura, there's only one thing in the world I want to be, and that's a conductor."
She was astounded and disappointed.
"Do you mean a bus conductor?"
"No, you little idiot." He laughed, carelessly unaware that the rebuke wounded her pride considerably.
"An orchestral conductors—an operatic conductor. Above all, operatic, because my heart is really in the theater family. What's the harm in that? Why shouldn't—" He broke off and added impatiently: "Oh, it's all so hopeless."
"There's no harm in it," Sakura said, under the impression that he really wanted an answer to that question.
"Why does your father think there is?"
"Oh, well—" he broke off again. Then he looked at her curiously, almost with suspicion. "Do you know anything about my family, Sakura?
"Only that—No." She shook her head firmly, because, after all, one could hardly repeat just what Mother said. But it certainly seemed that she was coming near finding out what was meant by "dreadful show people."
"We are an absolute theater family," he said the next moment. "At least, I mean my mother and father were and my uncles and aunts on both sides. It's simply in my blood. I can't help it. Only in me it's all mixed up with the musical side of things too. I've had a first-class musical education up to now, Sakura. To express anything in music is as natural to me as breathing. I can't give it up." He made a little gesture of despair which, though slightly theatrical, was absolutely sincere.
"But why doesn't t your father want you to do that?" Sakura looked grave and even frowned slightly in the effort of concerning on this problem. "If you say he was in the theater, why can't you be?"
"Oh just pure snobbery," the boy replied impatiently. "You see, the sort of thing they did was pretty low-class. A sort of touring show—almost all of it in the family."
He paused for a moment, and Sakura nodded encouragingly and said, "Go on."
"I don't know why I'm telling you," the boy exclaimed impatiently. But he went on telling her all the same.
"I don't think my father ever really liked the life, even though he had such an extraordinary flair for making a success of it. He despised it in a way, and he'd made his fortune he would retire and be a country gentlemen.
"And did your mother want to be a country lady?" Sakura inquired interestedly.
"I don't know. Probably not, because she just adored everything to do with footlights and greasepaint. But anyway, she died before my father made his pile."
"Oh, I'm sorry." Sakura said with sincerity. "And what about you? What did you do all the time?"
"I? oh, I was at school. A frightfully expensive school that was expected to turn me into a perfect gentleman. I suppose."
"I think it did," Sakura remarked, whereat he laughed, but he hugged her again rather tightly.
"Well, anyway, it happened to be a school where music was taken seriously, which was fortunate for me. I suppose father just looked on it as an expensive extra. I dare say." He added scornfully, "He wouldn't have minded if I'd become a superior and bloodless devotee of chamber music, but—"
"Become a what?" inquired Sakura, who was naturally considerably at sea by now.
"Oh!" he exclaimed impatiently, "You wouldn't understand of course. You're only a little girl—I'd forgotten. Anyway, it doesn't matter."
"But I do understand," pleaded poor Sakura. "I do really. Please go on. Your father wouldn't have minded if it had been some kind of music, but he didn't like anything that meant you working in a theater. It's quite simple. Really it is."
Syaoran regarded her with unhappy dark eyes. Then, at the expression of seriousness in her face, he smiled suddenly.
"Why are you so interested?" he drew his finger rather gently down her little cheek. "Is it all because of this funny game of yours?"
"Oh—no." Sakura's astonishingly long lashes came down.
"Why, then?"
"Because I—like you."
"Do you, Sakura?" he put his arms lightly around her and looked at her quite seriously. "I wonder why. People don't usually like me."
"But they must." Sakura was shocked. "Why shouldn't they like you?"
"Oh—" he shrugged impatiently. "They dislike the whole family, I suppose. Hasn't anyone ever told you that we're very unpopular around here?"
Sakura thought of what her father had said.
"Is "unpopular" the same as "impossible"?" she inquired gravely.
"No." He flushed darkly. "Is that what you've heard us called?"
She wished then that she hadn't used the word.
"Perhaps that—that wasn't quite the word," she suggested uneasily.
"Oh yes, it was. It's true in a way, I dare say," he added unexpectedly. "We're a raffish, flamboyant lot." Sakura wished he wouldn't keep on using words she didn't understand, because she dare not ask for further explanations. "We'd be all right in our own environment, but my father's mad idea about being a landed proprietor makes us all wrong. He's bought far more than he needs, and everyone round here hates him because he always outbids other people. Don't you know why he's here this afternoon?"
"N-no." that faint feeling of uneasiness suddenly became acute.
"Because he's buying land from your father. Land your father doesn't want to part with-only my father has got him into a position where he's pretty nearly bound to sell."
"N-not the shrubbery?" Sakura inquired fearfully.
"The shrubbery? Oh no, I don't think that's in it. It's the five-acre field down by the stream."
"I don't mind about the field," Sakura said, drawing a great gasp of relief.
"Your father does," Syaoran told her grimly. And Sakura supposed he did.
"Well?" he said rather harshly, after a moment's silence.
"What?" Sakura looked bewildered.
"Don't you know you ought to stick that straight little nose of yours in the air, and say you hate me?"
"But I don't hate you," Sakura said. There was silence, and he looked so dissatisfied that she inquired, "You don't want to be hated, do you?"
"I don't care," he said wretchedly.
Even at nine, Sakura was a creature of impulse, and suddenly she put her arms around his neck.
"I don't hate you a bit," she said, "I think you're simply wonderful."
"He laughed then, but the laugh ended in a sound that Sakura couldn't quite understand from a grown-up, and he put his head against her again, as though that were quite a natural thing to do.
After quite a while she said, "Do you feel better now?"
"Much better." He turned his head and very softly put his lips against her cheek. "You are a dear little thing. Like something in one of Hans Andersen's fairy stories."
"I'm not a fairy," Sakura said solemnly.
"No. I know what you're like. The Little Mermaid."
"I haven't got a tail," Sakura objected.
"Nor had she when she came to earth. Don't you remember? She had it cut off so that she could be near the prince she loved."
"I don't know the story," Sakura explained. And then, rather shyly," Had she got a prince too?"
The boy didn't laugh at her.
"Yes, she had a prince too."
"And did she marry him?"
"No, Sakura. He was silly enough to love someone else."
"I suppose so. It is one of the most beautiful love stories ever written, though."
"I'd like to read it," Sakura said.
"You shall," he promised her with careless generosity. "I'll send you a book of Hans Andersen's stories."
"Will you?" Sakura went very pink. "But I-I haven't anything to give you."
"It doesn't matter." He drew a strand of her hair thoughtfully through his fingers.
But Sakura thought it did matter.
"You can have a piece of my hair, if you like."
"I can what? Oh, Sakura, how sweet!" He laughed and for some reason or other he colored that time. "That would make you my sweetheart, you know," he told her teasingly.
"Would it?" Sakura's lashes were down again.
"Yes, is it a bargain?"
"Wh-what sort of bargain?"
"Will you give me a piece of your hair and be my sweetheart?"
She nodded.
"Shall I fetch a scissors?" She looked doubtful, because any excursion into the house might lead to delightful conversation being brought to a summary conclusion.
He seemed to think so too, because he shook his head. "No, I can do it with my penknife."
He took out his knife and carefully cut off a small twist of her auburn hair. He looked at it with a curious expression it curled into a ring in the palm of his hand. Then he said, "Thank you, Sakura," and put it gravely into his pocket-book.
"I ought to go now," he remarked absently. "They'll be wondering where on earth I am." But he made no attempt to move.
"I want to ask something else," Sakura said anxiously.
"Well, sweetheart?" He smiled at her suddenly, with the most utterly winning expression, his amber eyes very soft as they rested on her.
"If-if you aren't going to be a conductor, what are you going to be?"
"I am going to be a conductor, Sakura, whatever they say," he informed her with determination. "I refuse to be anything else at all. And one day, when I'm famous, you'll be proud of me." He laughed, but he was more than half serious.
"I'm proud of you anyway," Sakura told him soberly.
"Are you? There's nothing much to be proud of yet, I'm afraid. But there will be," He set his handsome mouth obstinately.
"I shan't forget you," she promised.
"No, of course not. You grow up as quickly as possible," he told her laughingly as he got to his feet, and then you can be my real sweetheart."
"Will you wait while I grow up?" Sakura was perfectly solemn, and he picked her up then, right off the ground.
"Yes. Now, are you coming with me?"
Sakura nodded and put her hand into his. Together they went up the garden again and back into the dinning room.
There was no opportunity after that for Sakura to exchange more than a demure handshake with Syaoran, but that hardly mattered.
As the drawing room door closed behind the departing visitors, Fujitaka and Nadeshiko exchanged an extremely eloquent look, and as they heard the front close, Fujitaka exclaimed disgustedly:
"What a couple! My God, what a couple. Ill-bred, self-satisfied, impossible people."
"I like Syaoran. He's a friend of mine," Sakura said in a small, distinct voice. And then she waited for heavens to fall.
"Now look here, young woman," her father had never addressed her quite like that before, "you'll have nothing whatever to do with any member of that family. Do you understand? Nothing. I don't know what you thought you were doing, trailing that young cub around the garden. You'd have been better employed playing with your dolls" (characteristically Fujitaka had never noticed that she didn't play with dolls), "but, in any case, I don't want you making friends I don't approve of."
Sakura said she saw, but a curiously obstinate expression showed for a moment on her rather delicate little face.
Perhaps. Nadeshiko noticed that, because she said, almost immediately, "Now we won't think or talk any more about this horrid afternoon. Come and have your tea, Sakura."
Sakura came obediently, but all the time she was thinking how extraordinarily stupid grown-up people could be. Horrid afternoon indeed! It was the most beautiful afternoon she had ever known.
The problem of how to reconcile obedience to her father with continuance of her friendship with Syaoran didn't actually exercise Sakura's mind very greatly. Some time, somewhere—perhaps when she was quite grown-up, as she had said—she would see him again. Until fate brought them together again there was no need to think about whether she should obey or disobey her father.
To be quite candid, if she ha seen him again, Sakura would have promptly forgotten all about her father and his ridiculous restrictions.
But, after that one dazzling appearance, Syaoran passed out her life for a good many years, leaving behind him nothing but the brilliant memory of that afternoon—and a copy of Hans Andersen's fairy tales.
The book arrived by post one afternoon about three weeks after the visit which he and his father had made. Sakura was in the hall when her mother took it in, so that the exclamation of: "Why, Sakura, it's for you," brought her forward inquiringly at once.
The parcel was handed over and, with perhaps some instinctive knowledge of what was inside it, Sakura escaped to the shrubbery without any comment to anyone.
There, sitting on the fallen elm tree, she opened her present. There was a note lying on top of it, the thick, black handwriting somehow suggestive of Syaoran, and carefully unfolding it, Sakura began to read it. She read print very well, but still had some difficulty with hand writing, and a slight frown of concentration puckered her forehead as she read.
"Sakura dear," the letter ran, "I am sending you this from London, because I promised you should have the book—and I don't want you to forget me entirely. Imagine! I am on my way to Vienna! Somehow I persuade Father in the end to let me have my own way—or else he was just tired of saying "No". Anyway, he has agreed to my having a couple of years" study abroad before he turns the whole thing down, and by then, I know, I shall have proved that I am worth taking seriously.
"I shan't see you for a long time, and for that I am really sorry. But read your fairy stories, think of me occasionally, and grow up as you are now. One day, when I am famous, I expect we shall meet again. I shall not have forgotten the little girl who made me out a prince. SYAORAN LI."
Rather deliberately and slowly Sakura folded up the note again.
So he had gone. However much she had resigned herself to his long absence, she felt desolated now at the thought that he was miles away, and she would not see him for years. Besides, she saw once more that his ambition separated him from her even more than real distance.
He said he would not forget her, but he was casual about their meeting again. He said "one day" and that he expected they would meet. It all sounded very pleasant but rather improbable, and evidently his heart would not be broken if things worked out differently.
It could hardly be otherwise. He had seen her only once. And little girls of nine were really very unimportant people.
Slowly Sakura turned the pages of the book which he had sent her, and as she did so her serious expression relaxed into a smile surprise and joy.
It was a very beautiful, very expensive edition. A typical Syaoran Li present, had she but known it—generous and a trifle ostentatious. The print was large and fine, and the illusions exquisite. Spellbound she read one title after another: "The China Shepherdess", "The Red Shoes", "The Emperor's New Clothes"—and then "The Little Mermaid".
With a sigh of pure satisfaction Sakura began to read one of the most beautiful love stories in the world.