'Bring me more paste, women, and see there be no lumps in it; the last was fit to ruin a body's reputation,' said Lateefa, the kite-maker, as he sate on the ground in one of the arched nooks which surrounded the wide sunlit courtyard of a large native house. It had been a sort of city palace to the dead dynasty, and was now occupied by Jehân Aziz, the Rightful Heir's, family. It was built of stucco, simulating marble; stucco decayed, fast crumbling to dust, so leaving scars, where once there had been ornaments.
The speaker was an old man, though his sleek oiled hair, square-cut in the royal fashion just below the ear, showed no streak of grey. On one side of him lay the raw material of his craft; on the other a swift-growing pile of the manufactured article ready for sale in the bazaar, after his master, Jehân Aziz, prince of kite-flyers, should have taken his choice. That Lateefa himself was prince of kite-makers could be judged from the way in which he bent the bamboo slips to a perfect curve, and held them thus by three dabs of paste and a sheet of tissue paper. It was a miracle of dexterity.
There were two women in the courtyard, one a girl about sixteen, who was lounging lazily behind Lateefa, the other a woman of sixty, dressed in ragged dirty garments, who was spinning as for dear life an arch or two farther down. After a pause, during which she looked almost appealingly at the girl, the latter rose and limped towards an inner court, for Khôjeeya Khânum was slightly lame; slightly deformed also, owing to her lameness.
'Keep the lumps to our dinners, Auntie Khôjee!' called the girl with a pert titter; 'for what with paste and the kites it makes we good women have scarce flour left to fill our stomachs!'
Lateefa, after watching the limp disappear, glanced round at the girl. She was a buxom creature, over-developed for her years, and over-dressed in the cheap finery of Manchester muslin at sixpicea yard and German silver earrings at twoannasa dozen.
'Thy sort of good woman need never starve, niece Sobrai,' he said (for he was connected by some by way of blood to the Heirs of All Things or Nothing), 'I have told thee that before. There is not a drop of her blood in thee,' he nodded to the inner door. 'I mean no blame; some daughters must favour the father. Indeed, I marvel ever there be so few to do it in this family, since, God knows! we men be debauched enough to outweigh the virtue of the sainted Fâtma herself.' He shook his head and began on a new kite.
'Thou knowestthatbetter than I,' retorted Sobrai sharply; 'though thy memory, Uncle Lateef, can scarce hold the poor souls thou hast injured thereby.'
His deft hands left their work, and the supple fingers spread themselves in emphatic denial. 'Not a one! niece, not a one!' he protested, 'Lateefa makes kites, not souls. I take men and women as they came from their Maker's hands--as I came. For, see you, if my kites fly, as I make them fly, why not His souls?'--he paused for a thin musical laugh which suited his thin acute face--'I say not,' he went on, 'that thou art botched by being built another fashion, but that her life,' he nodded again to the inner or women's court, 'is not for such as thee--that thou hadst best appraise thine own needs betimes.'
'May be I have already,' sneered the girl insolently, 'and without thy help, pander!'
He turned on her swiftly. 'Have a care, girl! have a care! In vice, as in virtue, the old ways are safest. So listen not to that woman from cantonments whom the Nawâb brings hither when he entertains. Ah! think not I have not seen thee stealing down on the sly to have a word with her.'
Sobrai gave a half-abashed titter. 'And to Dilarâmthyfriend of the city also! Lo! uncle! What is there to choose between them or their trade either? "If one comes to dance, what matters a veil?" And if the Nawâb would keep his women old-fashioned, why doth he bring Miss Leezie to the house? Ah! say not 'tis only to this outer court where we virtuous need see nothing; for "'tis only the blind cow which hath a separate byre," and my sight is good----'
'And thy heart bad,' added Lateefa dispassionately, as she stood shifting one foot to and fro after the manner of dancing-girls. 'Still, since God made thee, as I make kites, thou wilt doubtless fly thine own way--if thou canst find some one to hold the string! It needs that ever.'
She began a retort, but checked herself as Khôjeeya reappeared with the paste in a green leaf cup.
'Thy work brings quick return, Lateef,' said the old lady, pausing to look wistfully at the growing pile of kites, 'but my wheel twirls for two hours to a farthing tune.' She edged closer and brushed a speck of dirt from the kitemaker's board in wheedling fashion, then went on, 'Couldst not spare me something to-day, Lateef, against the boy's medicine? He needs it sorely, and Noormahal hath not had acowriefrom the Nawâb since the races. Dost know what he lost? He says all, but he lies often.' She spoke without a suspicion of blame, simply as if the fact--being a dispensation of Providence--was neither to be questioned nor resented.
Lateefa laughed airily. 'Lose!' he echoed, 'Jehân hath naught to lose, not even credit. He sets free of fate! "He who bathes naked has no clothes to wring!" 'Tis Salig Râm, his usurer, whose fat flesh quivers lest his tame pensioner should die prematurely. So take heart, my good Khôjee! Things cannot grow worse, or, for that matter, better, since Jehân's affairs are as a slipped camel in the mud. They can neither go back nor forward. For, see you, he must not die of starvation, lest the pension lapse; nor must he live riotous beyond reason, lest once more the pension lapse through his death by surfeit. Would to God I had such leading-strings to comfortable, clean living myself! But none cares for Lateefa's soul or body. So fret not, Khôjee, concerning Jehân. And as for the boy, canst not take the child to the "Duffri'n Hospitar'l" and get physic free? Plenty women go thither, they tell me.'
'Ay! of sorts; but not we,' replied the old lady.
She drew her ragged veil tighter, but Sobrai tittered.
'Hark to her gentility! Yet she goes to the pawnshop, Uncle Lateef, and does the house-marketing to boot--tut! auntie, wouldst pretend it is not so? As if our neighbours did not know us all but servantless! as if they could not tell worshipful Khôjeeya Khânum, king's daughter, below the domino, by the limp!'
The old worn face--it was one of those Providence meant for beauty, then marred--turned in deprecating apology to Lateefa, as representative of outraged propriety and proprietor.
'Some one must,meean,' she said meekly, 'for Ameenan hath but two hands and two feet; yet another set would mean another mouth to feed. Besides, I grow so old, brother; there is no fear.' The faint forlornness and regret of the excuse made Lateefa's sharp face soften.
'Heed not what Sobrai says, sister,' he replied. 'Lo! thy virtue would stand stiff in a brothel; hers grows giddy looking over a wall; so she doth not understand----'
'Not understand!' retorted the girl shrilly. 'Mayhap I understand too much for old folk and old ways. I hold not with lick-spittling men-folk who wander "Englis fassen," yet would keep us in the old path--who say, as their granddads did, that "cattle and women must rub along in their tethers," but claim a long string to their own kites.'
Lateefa interrupted the tirade with a chuckle. 'Since they are able to hold it! but as I told thee, 'tis the mud in the gutter for the gayest of gay petticoats'--he laid his hand on the growing pile of kites-'if they try to soar alone.'
'I will not ask thee to hold mine, anyway,' she retorted, flouncing off in a meditated whirlwind. For Lateefa was right. Sobrai was not born of those who are patient in well-doing. Even without experience, her manners were those of a different model.
Aunt Khôjee looked after her fearfully, then once more turned to representative man in apology. 'Here are ill words,meean,' she began tremulously, 'yet God knows how hard it is to keep girls silent when the world about them hath grown so noisy. In the old days neighbours were of one's own sort; now, if they be ready to pay full rent, that is enough. I say naught against ours--though, good or bad, it was ill done of Alidâd, our cousin, to let the house his fathers died in. Still they be decent folk enough, though the son is abalister.[1]But, see you, since he returned from England he hath taken his wife to live as amembeyond the city. And she hath set his sisters agog to learn, as she learns, of amissfrom themissen. So what with all this talk, and the railway whistle so close, and Sobrai gossiping as girls will over the partitions----'
Lateefa's thin laugh positively crackled. 'Said I not her virtue would not withstand a wall? But heed her not, sister. She is right,for Sobrai! Thou art right, forKôjeeya Khânum!Ye are both God-bred, God-fed! Except concerning houses--therethou art wrong,' he added, giving the old lady a shrewd tentative look. 'Dead folk should remain in their graves and leave the letting of houses to the living. I deem Alidâd wise, for, as the old saw says, "an empty house is the wasp's estate." Jehân should do the like with this, if the Nawâbin would consent to live elsewhere.'
'Elsewhere?' echoed Khôjee, aghast. 'Where else should Noormahal live but in her own house?'
'In a smaller one. Look! saw you ever such a wilderness of a place for five women and a child!'
He swept a derisive finger round the wide courtyard, the terraced arcades, the storied vista of thezenan-khana, the half-fortified gateway, where the royal peacocks still spread their broken plaster tails. And as he did so the flood of yellow sunshine, as if in answer, betrayed every cranny in the cracked brickwork, every scar in the mouldering stucco.
'Tis as a stone on the tail of a kite, sister,' he went on, 'a burden not to be borne by frailty that can scarce support itself.' He had, as he spoke, been tying his morning's work together ere taking it to the bazaar, and now he stood balancing a balloon-like bundle, almost as big as himself, upon his hand; but he emphasised his remark by withdrawing that support, then, ere the kites touched ground, catching the bundle again, so holding them suspended. 'It needs some one to keep feather brains from the gutter,' he continued gravely, 'and thou, Khôjee, art the only body in this house with sense. Khâdjee, thy sister, hath decorum, Sobrai desires, and Noormahal, poor soul, dreams! So let me speak thee soberly. Thou hast heard of this plague, sister?'
Khôjee cracked all her fingers wildly, to avert evil, ere quavering, 'Who hath not? Hath it come, Lateefa? Shall we be all sent to hospital and poisoned?'
The crackling laugh echoed again. 'Fools' tales, woman, fools' tales. Why should theHuzoorstrouble? Have they not soldiers and guns wherewith to kill?'
'But they have driven out theMimbrâns[2]-committee; they have taken possession of all things. Hâfiz Ahmad's wife, who lives as amem, said so. She said her husband----'
The laugh crackled again. 'Ay! he ismimber, yet he knows which side of the wall to jump. And what be the rights and wrongs of the quarrel, I know not; but, as thou sayest, theHuzoorshave taken the reins once more, for the plague is nigh. So they are meddling with God's work, and findinghospitar'lsand who knows what. And Hâfiz Ahmad, for all his grievance, hath recommended his father's--yea! Khôjee, the neighbouring house--ashospitarl. So, see you, sister, if folk were wise thehospitarlmight come to them, and a swinging rent beside; since Behâri Lai, the town clerk, told me the doctors said they must have both houses or neither--they were so nigh. Here, then, is Noormahal's chance. Let her claim a writing for half-rent, since, having right of occupancy by her marriage-dowry, Jehân cannot let without her consent. That would stop wheel-spinning for bare bread, sister.'
But Khôjee's thoughts were not for herself. 'Can theHuzoorsmake us go,' she quavered; 'can they force her?'
Lateefa shrugged his shoulders. 'Nay! nay! but if she choose.'
'Then is that the end,' interrupted Khôjee, with a sigh of relief. 'Noormahal will never choose. She hath but two things left of kingship--and it comes closer through her than through Jehân, mind you, though, being woman she hath no claim like he-two things, the house and the ring! And she will keep both--for her boy.'
Lateefa had his gay balloon balanced afresh on his palm.
'If she can keep the boy,' he said sardonically; 'but even kites are ill to hold with a rotten string.' So, balancing his burden of nothingness from one hand to another, as jugglers play with a ball, he passed out under the broken plaster peacocks, singing significantly, in his high reedy voice, the dirge of motherhood which so often echoes out into the Indian sunshine from behind closed doors--
'O child! who taught thee to deceive!O child! who taught thee thus to leaveMy throning arms? Didst thou not sayThou wert their king for aye!So soon dost thou deceive?So soon hast learnt to leaveThy sonship's crown?To fling it down.Thy throneIs lone.Ah, me! ah, me!'
'O child! who taught thee to deceive!
O child! who taught thee thus to leaveMy throning arms? Didst thou not sayThou wert their king for aye!So soon dost thou deceive?So soon hast learnt to leaveThy sonship's crown?To fling it down.Thy throneIs lone.Ah, me! ah, me!'
It fell on Khôjeeya Khânum's ears, making her heart sink with its implied warning; for a child doomed to disease, like little Sa'adut, the heir to the Heirship of Nothingness, was but faint hold on the soaring honours of royalty. And Jehân Aziz, his father, was a fainter one still. Rumours had come, even to the wide ruined courtyard, of official reprimands, of threats. What wonder, when even the more reputable members of the royal family looked askance at his doings?
Still he was master in that house, and as that was his day for the weekly visit of ceremony he vouchsafed to his lawful wife, it behoved Khôjee to prepare for it after established rule.
Khâdeeja Khânum, Khôjee's twin sister, had already done her share of preparation. She had put on her best pink satin trousers and a spangled green veil, in which she sate, squatted on a string bed set in the women's court, and sewed at a tinsel cap for the head of the house--that being the correct etiquette on such occasions.
And Khâdeeja was far more correct than Khôjeeya. In fact, her position in the household was quite different, seeing that she had been betrothed in her youth to an ancient suitor who died before she was old enough to be claimed, while no one had ever made a bid for Khôjee's limp. So, while the latter's few trinkets had a trick of remaining with the pawnbroker, Khâdjee's never paid even a temporary visit to that official.
Then her clothes, from that decorous sitting on string beds instead of breathless spinning in the dust, remained so spick and span, that Noormahal, poor soul! when money ran scarce for the heir's medicine, would accuse the general scapegoat of extravagance in providing them. On these occasions Khôjee never retorted that the white muslin in which the Nawâbin denied herself was, in the end, more expensive. Neither did she meet Khâdjee's demand for more tinsel with the brutal truth that the caps were too old-fashioned for Jehân Aziz to wear. Family facts of this sort she did not even divulge in her prayers; for Khôjeeya Khânum's religion, like her life, was strictly impersonal. It could be nothing else, since it was barely decent for a woman to intrude even her own salvation on a Creator whose attributes were distinctly masculine!
So, while Khâdjee sewed and Noormahal cuddled the sleeping Sa'adut as she crouched on another bed, Khôjee dragged out the state carpet--whence all the state and most of the carpet had retired in favour of bare string--set the cushions, prepared the pipe, the sherbet, and the hand punkah, lest the master should be fatigued by his condescension; for, to her, all these ceremonies were a sort of sacrament to any intercourse between the sexes, without which it was distinctly improper, and with which it was possible to receive even a scapegrace with benefit to yourself.
Having done all this, she crossed to Noormahal, and, crouching beside the bed, began, with a crooning song, to massage the long slender limbs tucked up under the long slim body. For her niece, though not half her age, was Nawâbin--as such, mistress of the house.
'Nay, auntie,' remonstrated Noormahal in a deep full voice; 'thou also wert up all night with the boy, and art as tired as I.'
'Trra!' retorted Khôjeeya; 'old hemp hath fibre, young hemp flower; and 'twill freshen thee against thy man's coming.' The almost pathetic raillery in the old face which had never known a lover's kiss was quite charming, but Noormahal frowned.
'Better prepare the child's food,' she said, shrinking even from the touch ofthosecaressing hands. 'Mayhap his father will be glad ifhelooks better.'
Her voice, low for her race and sex, suited the fine aquiline face, whose fairness was enhanced by the exceeding darkness of the large melancholy eyes. These in their expression matched the extreme passivity of face and figure--a passivity which held no trace of supineness. For the rest, there was much ignorance and obstinacy in the face, but nobility in both.
She sate, curiously immovable, until Khôjee reappeared with a cup of milk. It was a Jubilee cup, with clasped hands of union upon it, and a portrait of the Queen-Empress surrounded by flags and mottoes. And Noormahal held it to the lips of the little heir to Nothingness or All Things with tender cajoleries.
'Wake up, my heart! Wake! light of mine eyes! Wake! little king!' she murmured, and under her lavish kisses the boy roused to smile, first at her, then at the cup, finally at the old woman who knelt, holding his little bare feet in her wrinkled hand, as if they were a gift. He was a pretty child, despite the ominous scars on the brown velvet of his skin, the hoarse pipe in his childish treble. A lively laddie too, and arrogant from kinglike ignorance of denial.
So Khôjee limped for more sugar, Noormahal wheedled him into another sip or two, Khâdeeja from her tinsels murmured blessings, and even Sobrai (dismissed by the proprieties from the court against the master's visit) giggled from a balcony at Sa'adut's insolence, and called to her girlfriends over the wall that he was a pea of the right pod and no mistake!
Certainly his lordliness was matched by Jehân Aziz when the latter stalked in, without a word of welcome for the three women who stood upsalaamingprofoundly. Yet even he paid court to the child, and, yielding to the implied command of outstretched arms, took Sa'adut to share the cushion of state on the state carpet.
They were a quaint pair this father and son, dressed alike in wrinkled white calico tights, velvet vests, flimsy gauze overcoats, and round tinsel caps set far back on the white parting of their sleek hair; such a startling white parting, considering the brownness of their skins!
The likeness between the two was, in a way, ghastly; the more so because the man's face bore no trace of the suffering which was written so clearly on the boy's.
Noormahal, watching them with empty arms, noticed this with a fierce unreasoning jealousy for her child. Yet there was a deeper, fiercer jealousy than this in the big brooding eyes which took in every detail of the man who, scented, oiled, was all too perceptibly attired for conquest elsewhere. She hated him, it is true, but in India the marriage-tie is not a sentiment, it is a tangible right. And so, still young, still comely, Noormahal felt none of the passionate repulsion which a Western woman would have felt. Her wish, her claim, was to force her husband back to her with contumely. Was he not hers, to be the father of other heirs, if this one found freedom?
But contumely was out of the question. Jehân Aziz still had the green gleam of the kingly emerald on his finger. That must first come back to her safe hoarding, as, by solemn agreement, it always came after the rare occasions--such as the race meeting--when it had to blazon its claims before the world. And now the races were over, where Jehân said he had lost all. All the more reason the ring should come quickly. So, when Sobrai, from above, challenged Jehân's leer by peeping and nodding, there was no need for Aunt Khôjee to sidle between the mistress of the house and the flagrant impropriety, like a hen between her ducklings and the water. Noormahal would have allowed more insult than that to pass unnoticed. She sate passive, brooding, wondering when Jehân would begin on the subject. And all around the group the still sunshine burdened the half-ruined courtyard with a cruel light.
It was one of Khâdeeja's pious benedictions with which she embroidered truth as she embroidered her tinsel caps, which drove the stillness from that elemental group of man, woman, and child, that Trinity for Good or Evil in which the veriest agnostic must believe.
The sight, she asserted, of such a father and such a son filled her soul with certainty that a Merciful Creator would preserve the child to take his father's place.
'And wear the signet of his kingly ancestors,' put in Noormahal, seizing her opportunity. Her challenge smote the sunshine keen as a sword-thrust; with all her desire for diplomacy she could not help it coming. Jehân glared at her furiously for a second; but irritation at a wife soon passes when, as in India, she is no tie--unless she is beloved, and Noormahal was not. Besides, the broaching of the subject was a relief, since it had to be broached somehow; even though the negotiations with Mr. Lucanaster had gone no further than a promise of first refusal should the ring be sold. Not that he, Jehân, had as yet seriously considered sale; but even so, if Salig Râm, the usurer, were to be persuaded to loan money on the ring's security, it must not be returned to Noormahal's keeping.
Therefore, seeing that little Sa'adut would be at once his shield and his weapon in the fight which was bound to come between himself and the passionate woman whose eyes blazed at him, he turned to the child with a laugh and a caress. 'Yea, Sa'adut! thou shalt wear the ring; father will keep it for thee.'
The answer came swift. 'And why not mother, as heretofore?' Auntie Khôjee sidled again in deprecation of such a tone towards the master. Jehân himself would have given his fighting quail (source of his only steady income) to answer this woman as he answered other women; but he could not. The child, the only child which had come to his reprobate life, was her shield, her weapon also. He looked at this tie between them almost resentfully, and thrust it once more to the van of fight.
'Because, Sa'adut, mother hath had it long enough. Hath she not, sonling? It is father's turn now, is it not?'
Sa'adut's big black eyes--they had all his mother's melancholy, with a childish wistfulness superadded to their velvet depths--looked from the woman's face to the man's, from his mother's face to his father's; and a vague perplexity, a still vaguer consciousness of a hidden meaning, came to his childish mind. What did they want, these big people who always took so much upon themselves? Unlessheexpressed a wish, when theirs had to give way.
Suddenly he rose to his feet, a mite of mankind between those two imperious, undisciplined natures which had so thoughtlessly called his into being. The veriest atom of humanity, and yet, by reason of its frailty, its inexperience, more imperious, more undisciplined than that from which it sprung.
'Give it to me, myself!' came his hoarse pipe arrogantly; 'give it to Sa'adut! He will keep it himself. Give it, I say? Give it!'
The claim to individual life in a thing to which you have given life, startled even this father and mother. They paused, uncertain.
So in a second, ear-piercing shrieks of amazed disappointment rent the air, and there was Khôjee on her knees attempting pacification, while Khâdjee from her tinsels implored immediate gratification.
'Give it him, Nawâb-sahib!' she fluttered. 'Lo! he will die in a fit; it is ill denying a child; thou canst take it back when he tires of the plaything.'
'Yea! give it him,meean,' pleaded Khôjee, all of a tremble. '"A child's cry in a house is ill-luck"; thou canst take it back when he sleeps.'
The suggestion struck the keynote of another resentment in Noormahal, making her forget the vague opposition which the child's claim had raised. She caught Sa'adut to her sharply, making that claim her own; for now, thinking only of his helplessness, his cries hurt her physically, making prudence impossible.
'Yea, give it him, Jehân Aziz, Son of Kings!--give it him in jest for a while. It is easy for a father to steal his son's right from him while he sleeps!'
Jehân sprang to his feet with a fearful curse; for the tempest of ungovernable anger which had come to that elemental group in the still sunshine, had brought with it the usual sense of personal outrage on personal virtue which alone makes quarrel possible.
'Steal--didst say steal?' he echoed. 'Ay, but 'tis as easy for a wife to steal from her husband when he wakes! Fool! When I wrung the betrothal pearls from thee last year, didst think I did not know there was a string short? Didst think I could not count them round my mother's neck when she held me, a child----'
Noormahal paled, yet faced him with a scornful laugh. 'Thou didst forget to count the string she sold when thy father refused her bread; it runs in the blood, Nawâb-jee!'
His look was fiendish now. 'That is a lie, woman! and thou knowest it. The English took them, as they take all things. Besides, have I not dallied with them round thy neck since then, at my pleasure? What! are they there still?' he went on mockingly, as Noormahal's hand all unconsciously found the slim throat hidden by the folds of her veil. 'Didst keep them against the chance of my return?'
She glared at him helplessly, yet almost forgetful of the brutality of his insult in a greater wrong. 'It was for the child, thou knowest,' she said, in a muffled voice; 'for his bride--as it was for thine, Jehân; as it hath been ever for every bride in the king's house.'
Her words which came, not from meekness but red-hot rage, made even Jehân Aziz flinch, so that he had to bolster himself up with fresh anger ere replying.
'AndIlet thee think me a fool.Itook no notice for the boy's sake too.' This new reading of his own cowardice restored his sense of virtue, and with it his courage. 'But now, thief!' he went on, 'since thou hast dared to even me to thyself, as well as think me fool, give me my pearls! Dost hear?--the pearls!'
She drew herself up superbly. 'I called thee traitor,' she cried; 'that is enough for thee.'
'And thief for thee. Well, traitor and thief are fitting mates! Let us kiss and make friends on that comradeship!
She returned his insolent leer with a cold stare for one second; then, in the headlong repulsion from the least tie to him, tore the pearls from their hiding-place and flung them on the ground. They fell; the string snapping, to scatter a few of its milk-white beads about the worn carpet of state.
Even Jehân hesitated; then the sight of what meant money overcame his dignity, and he stooped to gather up the prize. The action gave him time for quick thought. This windfall might serve a double purpose. By selling it cheap to Lucanaster-sahibhe could stave off the bigger question of the emerald for a bit, and at the same time raise enough to pay his more pressing debts. Both these considerations brought such a flavour of pure piety to his task, that by the time he had finished it he turned magnificently to his heir who, silenced from all save sobs by his elder's passion, was being comforted by Khôjee, while Khâdjee whimpered like a puppy on her string bed.
'Lo! Sa'adut,' he said, 'take thy ring, sonling! but give it not to thy mother to hoard if thou wouldst grow to wear it, since thou mayst starve the while! But that is her doing, not mine, who would let this house--where I wascalledthief, andfoundone--and give thee proper care, if I had my choice. So, I take my leave of it for ever!'
Khôjee, still on her knees beside the child, turned in swift alarm. 'Peace go with my lord,' she said, her head at his very feet; 'the outer courtyard will be ready as ever for the entertainment----'
He interrupted her mockingly. 'I must learn to take my pleasure elsewhere, noble aunt; 'twill be an easier task than finding it here.' So, with an insolent stare at his wife, he strutted out jauntily.
'Didst hear?' quavered Aunt Khôjee. Khâdeeja Khânum's answering whimper was almost a howl; but Noormahal said nothing. She was thinking of her tormentor's words about the child. Was it true that the price of the ring might save her darling?
For the present, however, the ring itself satisfied him. Appeased even from sobs, he was engrossed in finding out which of his tiny fingers went nearest to filling up its gold circlet. As he did so the green gleam of the emerald shone broadly, unbrokenly; for, as Mr. Lucanaster had often told his Paris principals, the legend scratched on it was so faint that a turn of the wheel would obliterate it. Yet there it was as yet.
'Fuzl-Ilahi, Panah-i-deen.'
Which, being translated, is, 'By the Grace of God Defender of the Faith.'
Words which have caused much shedding of blood and tears.
But Sobrai Begum found laughter in the storm they had provoked.
''Twas only Jehân and Noormahal squabbling over the old ring,' she tittered over the wall in answer to a query. 'In the end, she gave him the last of the pearls to pacify him. I would have used them to better purpose had I had the luck to have my hand on them!' And as she sullenly obeyed Aunt Khôjee's call to help, she told herself that two or three even of the pearls would have brought her freedom; would have given her, as Uncle Lateef had expressed it, that some one to hold the string of her kite, without which aid independence was impossible. For Sobrai had no mind for the gutter.
So the pearls, if she had them----
She gave a little gasp; in folding up the state carpet, four milk-white beads rolled out from its worn strings.
She glanced round her hastily.
Khâdjee was wiping the dimness of past tears from her spectacles, Khôjee was replacing the cushions, Noormahal was brooding over Sa'adut, who had fallen asleep with both his thumbs thrust into the ring, as they thrust the fingers of a corpse which might otherwise come back to disturb the living with what should be buried and forgotten.
There was no one to see. And no one to know; for Jehân would sell or pawn the remainder, none the wiser. Even if he suspected anything he would make no inquiries, since these sales were done in secret.
She had no pocket, and to tie her prize in the corner of her veil would attract attention. So she slipped the pearls into her mouth, and held her tongue even when Aunt Khôjee scolded at her for not being quicker. Such silence paid better than any retort, and it also gave her time to mature her plans. One thing was certain, she must make her push for freedom before there was any chance of discovery, for it was just possible Jehân might know the number of the pearls. The sooner the better, as far as she was concerned, since she had long made up her mind to accept Miss Leezie's offer--with a suitable fee--of educating her to that walk in life. She could not remain dowerless, unwed, within four walls all her life! And if one had to amuse oneself, was it not better to do it openly, in a recognised, almost respectable fashion, which was countenanced even by theHuzoors?
As she made her plans, Jehân on his way to his bachelor quarters in the worst bazaar in Nushapore was making his, and settling that he would certainly lead that pig of an infidel, Lucanaster, to think he would in the end yield the emerald, by letting him have the pearls cheap, under promise of silence.
This was imperative, partly for the sake of honour; mostly because Salig Râm, the usurer, might object to any one else getting them.
The noonday sun lay shadowless in every nook of the narrow evil-smelling courtyard which formed a common exit to Jehân Aziz's bachelor quarters and three or four other houses whose fronts faced the most disreputable bazaar in Nushapore. One of these belonged to Dilarâm, the dancer, and the remaining ones were tenanted by folk of similar tastes, such as Burkut Ali, the Delhi pensioner, whom Jack Raymond had styled the biggest brute in Asia; but he had a double reasoning for choosing the courtyard, in that it enabled him better to play his part of Buckingham to the Rightful Heir.
Despite its character, however, the courtyard was peace and propriety itself in the perpendicular glare of noon; peaceful and proper with a dreamy drugged peace, a satiated propriety that was in keeping with the heavy yellow sunshine.
And Dilarâm herself matched the general drowsiness as she sate, muffled in a creased shawl, yawning, blowsy, ill-kempt, upon a wooden balcony overlooking the courtyard. She matched the squalor of the scene also; a squalor which seemed to put the pleasure that has its marketable value out of possibility in such surroundings.
Jehân Aziz, who sate on a string bed below, looked a trifle less dilapidated than Dilarâm, for his morning toilet had extended to the making of that white parting down the middle of his oiled hair, and a due shaving into line of his thin moustache. Not that these results were due to any energy on his part. They were the work of the barber, who was now occupied, nearer the door, in paring Burkut Ali's nails, while the Heir to Nothingness, in no hurry to proceed, chewed betel thoughtfully, and looked at a caged quail which he meant to fight against a rival's so soon as he could rouse himself sufficiently to dress; for he had got no further in the way of clothing than the wrinkled white calico trousers which, by reason of their tightness, have to be tenant's fixtures during the term of occupation.
'So Sobrai Begum hath flitted at last!' yawned Dilarâm (who was within an aside of Jehân) with a sudden causeless access of indifference and malice. 'And Nawâb Jehân Aziz,Rukn-ud-dowla-Hâfiz-ul-Mulk, hath in consequence one less mouth to feed! Peace be with him!'
'Speak lower, fool, or the barber will hear, and the tale be spread over the town,' muttered Jehân savagely, scowling at the sarcasm of the titles.
A day and a night had passed since Aunt Khôjee, veiled to her finger-tips and fluttering like any pigeon, had fled through the bazaars to tell the head of her house that--not three hours after he had left it in wrath--Sobrai had disappeared. Jehân Aziz, after established custom, had kept the scandalous secret to himself and his immediate family, with the exception of Dilarâm, to whom he had gone at once, as the most likely person to have an inkling of the girl's intentions. For the only way to deal with such cases is to get the truant back as speedily as possible, and ensure a virtuous silence in the future. The silence, as a rule, of the grave. So the chance of the barber having extra long ears was horrible.
Dilarâm, however, glanced idly at the group by the door, which gave unreservedly on the gutters of a cramped alley, and yawned again. 'Not he! Burkut hath him gaping over signs and wonders that will be God's truth ere the whole of Nushapore be shaved! They are more to the barber's trade than a girl's flight; though that also goes far nowadays, what with all the talk about such things. Andthiswould go far indeed, if set agoing--with a head of lie, and sparks of truth in its tail, like the powder in an E'ed[3]squib.'
'The truth!' echoed Jehân, in swift suspicion; 'then thou dost know somewhat, after all?'
She yawned again, smiling. 'Not I! Had none but my sort danced, as in old days, in kings' houses, Dilarâm would have known who else sought to flutter in her footsteps. But with new pleasures, Nawâb-sahib, come new pains. She is not of us in the city; that is sure. But there are baggages with bleached hair and powdered faces outside it. Ask Miss Leezie! I heard her say she lacked apprentices.' Her lazy spitefulness was effective, and Jehân clenched his fine hands viciously. He did not particularly desire to get Sobrai back--except for punishment--provided scandal could be avoided. He was, indeed, well quit of a girl for whom no suitor could be found, and who was not to his own personal taste; but the suggestion of Dilarâm's words stung horribly.
'God smite their souls to the nethermost hell!' he muttered, making the dancer flick her fingers with a giggle.
'Lo! hearken to virtue! "Not a rag for the child and a coat for the cat!" Men be no worse in cantonments than here in the city! Nevertheless the tale, as I said, could be told to a purpose by a clever tongue. It would rouse the common folk more than Burkut's lies about portents, or thebaboo'sabout the plague, if they only knew it!'
Jehân Aziz turned on her like a snake, sleepy yet swift, ready for dreams or death.
'If thou dostdareto tell----'
She held out her bare brown arm in a quick gesture of silence, and rising, swept him asalaamthat set the hidden anklets beneath her dirty draperies a-jingling, and proclaimed her what she was--a passed mistress in the oldest of professions for women.
'There is no need, my lord, she said superbly, 'to teach Dilarâm her duty to the virtuous women who sit free of shame in the noble houses where she dances.Welearn that first of all.'
There was an indescribable grace in her attitude, a cadence in her utterance, which proved her claim. She was of the old school, educated to her craft.
The jingle of anklets brought a man's face to a neighbouring balcony. A face hollow-cheeked, haggard, with dissipation written on it. Brought thither by curiosity, it remained in approval of the studiously-posed figure in the creased shawl. Jehân's face, too, showed a like attraction, and Burkut Ali, the nail-paring over, lounged up with a savage sort of discontent at his own inward admiration--a regret, as it were, for the vices of his ancestors. As a rule, Dilarâm and her dancing did not amuse him in the very least. He had passed from the old style to the new, and, indeed, was chiefly responsible for the introduction of Miss Leezie and her like to the nobility and gentry of Nushapore. But now he was conscious that this, in its way, was better; and the fact formed a fresh item in his general grievance against those who, having taken the reins of government from such as he, had driven India into change--even in its wickedness!
The secret cherishing of this general grievance of his own in the minds of others was Burkut Ali's whole occupation in life. The dilatory disaffection of his neighbours, a disaffection inevitable in a society which this change had literally ruined, could, he had discovered, be turned to his own profit in two ways. First, because, as confidant to seditious utterances, he gained a hold on the utterer; secondly, because, as the repeater of them to persons in high places, he gained a hold on the hearer. For the rest his manners were perfection, his Persian a pure pleasure to the ear. And both these were at their best when--his present part in the farce of vague conspirings being that of general backer-up of Jehân's spasmodic belief in his own claims to royalty--he paused before the heir in the most elaborately courtly fashion and began mellifluously--
'Hath it, perchance, found place in the memory of the Most High that this, being the death-day of the sainted lady ancestress Hâfiz Begum, the dirge for her soul will be intoned by the appointed canons at the family mausoleum? And as this will be the last time----'
'The last time?' echoed Jehân haughtily, 'how so?'
The man's face in the balcony sharpened with sudden interest. Between his dissipations he was editor of the vilest broadsheet in the town, a broadsheet which existed simply by virtue of its unfailing basis of firm falsehoods.
Burkut knew this, and had cast his fly dexterously. Now, feeling the rise, he allowed grave concern to overlay the yellow mask of his face--it was one of those which never change except by an effort of will. 'Because, sire,' he replied, in tones to be heard of all, 'it is known, beyond doubt, that the English Government, being hard pressed by reason of famines and the yearly tribute to the City of London, which the low value of the rupee causes to be greater every year, hath an eye on the endowment of the mausoleum.'
Govind the editor stifled a yawn of disappointment. 'That tale is old,' he put in contemptuously, 'I heard it a week past from the Secretariat Office. My cousin is clerk--as I should have been but for injustice--and saw the papers. It is true; for see you, they closed the mints so as to make the poor folk sell their silver hoards cheap, and now the rupees are scarce.'
He nodded sagely over his own political economy, and as he spoke in Urdu, the barber, as newsmonger of an older type, paused in the sharpening of a razor to listen.
'Impossible!' interrupted Jehân angrily. 'The Government is bound to uphold the shrines and services by strict promises. My fathers only lent them the money on those conditions. The interest was to be spent----'
Govind burst into boisterous laughter; for his head was muddled, his nerves unstrung by an overnight debauch.
'Ay! Nawâb-jee. Crores and crores of rupees lent in the old days, and the interest spent now in gardens for thememsto play games in, and statues to their own Queen! But it is no new thing, I tell you. I am no ignoramus--I ammiddle fail.[4]I have read their histories, and I know. They took all the religious endowments in their own land, and'--he added louder, as an ash-smeared naked figure which had been passing along the alley with the beggar's cry of 'Alâkh Alâkh' paused to listen--'would have killed the religious also but for those among them like Gladstone and Caine-sahibwho say, as we do, that the others are tyrants and have no right to India.'
The hotch-potch of history was interrupted by Dilarâm's yawn. 'Hai! Hai!brother!' she said, 'keep that dreary stuff for Burkut or the barber--they can spread it over folk's hot imaginings like butter on a hearth cake! Or give it tojogi-jeeyonder,' she swept her fingers to the weird figure at the door; a figure whose right hand and arm, withered in the ceaseless task of appealing to high heaven for righteousness, showed like a dry stick pointing upwards, 'though he and his like are never at a loss for lies. Hast a new one to-day, Gopi? Or is it still the old wonder of the golden paper which fell from the sky into one of Mother Kali's many embraces!'
'Jest not of Her, sister,' said thejogiin a theatrically hollow voice, as he thrust his left arm--lean as a lath, yet round in comparison with that raised claim to virtue--towards her in menace. 'Thou art Hers, even in thy denial of Her. Woman as She, spreading disease and death. Mother of Pain, embracing the world, biding thy time to slay.'
Despite the palpable striving for effect, something in the words thrilled the woman beneath the courtesan; and though she flicked all her supple fingers in derision, there was a note of triumph in her voice.
'Talk not to me, saint, as to thy Hindoo widows who believe in golden papers and gods. Yet 'tis true! We of the bazaar lead the world by the nose! Govind may blacken what he likes with ink. Burkut's craft may spend itself in spider's webs. The plague may come. Yea! even the sniffing out of other folk's smells--ay! and the payment for silence!--may be taken from theMimbrâns-committee, and yet the world will wag peaceful. But touchusand it is different. Let none meddle with the men's women or with our will, or they meddle to their cost!'
She tucked the creased shawl closer around her, and squatted down once more in the sunshine; the heavy sunshine in which those others sate also with a sudden fierce approval in their hearts.
It was highest noon, and the sky was a blaze of molten light; so that the shadow from a wheeling kite overhead, as it sought with keen eyes amid the refuse of the city for some prize, circled in sharp outline about the squalid courtyard, falling on one figure, flitting to another, linking them together, as it were, by its hungry restless desire.
So, for a space, there was a drowsy silence, on which the beggar's cry for alms, as he went on his way pausing at every door in the cramped alley, rose monotonously.
After which, Burkut, stifling a yawn, suggested that if the Heir to all Things wished to receive his due recognition as head of the family at the mausoleum, it was time to commence dressing; whereupon Jehân yawned also, and demanded his shoes from Lateefa, who had just come in with a selected bundle of kites for choice against the evening flight.
'I shall need none to-day,' said Jehân sulkily. 'My good time hath to be wasted in dirges and prayers for a dead old woman who is naught to me. Then,' he added aside, half to himself, with a frown, 'I must see Lucanaster--may he roast with fire!'
'If it please God!' assented Burkut piously. Then he added, 'If it is aught I can do--the hell-doomed being in my debt for some things--I might drive a better bargain, perhaps.'
Jehân had not breathed a word to any one of his windfall of pearls, but certain evidences during the last two days that he had, or expected to have cash, had raised Burkut's curiosity.
But Jehân had no intention of having any witness to his interview, least of all one to whom he owed money, so he turned on Burkut insolently.
'I need no man's offices, so keep thy right hand to wash thy left!'
If there was resentment behind Burkut Ali's yellow mask, the latter hid it successfully. 'Then I will but accompany the Nawâb to the mausoleum,' he said deferentially. 'Its owner cannot go unattended!'
It was a motley cargo which the rickety, red-flannel-lined wagonette (which Jehân's usurer allowed him as part of the stock-in-trade necessary for a pension-earner) carried to the stucco tombs of dead kings--for everything, including the dynasty itself, had been stucco at Nushapore! First there was the Heir in his second-best coatee of flowered green satin, then Burkut, burly in a yellow one to match, and Lateefa, despite his calico, gayer than either by reason of his inevitable kites. Finally there was the coachman in ragged livery, and three attendants in rags without the livery; literal hangers-on, clinging to the great scraper-like steps which seemed the only reliable portions of the vehicle.
It had not far to go, however, over the white road and through the clouds of dust; for the mausoleum stood just outside the city in a garden that was irresistibly suggestive of acafé chantantby reason of its stucco statuary, its preparations for nightly illumination, and a generally meretricious scheme of decoration.
The tomb itself--squat, and bulging with inconsequent domes--stood on a plinth towards one end of the garden, and from it, as the wagonette discharged its load at the gates, came the sound of monotonous chanting. But this hesitated, paused, ceased in a murmur of 'the Nawâb!' as Jehân, with a new dignity in his manner, passed up the steps, and so--with aposseof cringing officials who had hurried to meet him buzzing round like bees--entered the wide hall; for despite the domes, despite the minarets outside, this tomb of dead kings was nothing else within. It was just a vast oblong hall hung throughout its length with huge, dusty, cobwebbed, glass chandeliers which, taken in conjunction with the empty polished floor, were suggestive of a ballroom; the dancing-saloon of thecafé chantant!
In the very centre, however, of the emptiness was a low roly-poly tomb, above which rose a musty-fusty baldequin which had once been stately in velvet and pearls. But the moth had fretted new patterns on the curtains, and the cobwebs lay like torn lace on the canopy. Nevertheless, two faintly-smouldering silver censers, standing at the foot of the tomb, showed it not all neglected. And something else, witness to memory, lay between the censers, under a common glass shade such as covers the marble-and-gilt timepiece of a bogus auction, or the dusty waxen flowers of a cheap lodging.
It was the last Nawâb's turban of state.
For the rest, the hall lay empty save for its officials; the minor canons as it were, who still received the stipends set apart by the deceased kings for due daily chantings of dirges, and so clustered round Jehân with courtier-likesalaams.
But not for long; since almost before they had conducted him to the royal pew--an inlaid square of flooring close to the baldequin--a fresh arrival sent them cringing and fluttering to greet it, with greed in their hungry faces; the faces of custodians to whom strangers give tips.
And this party of English tourists looked promising, if only from the reluctant way in which, in obedience to a notice on the door, they took off their hats, and then glanced round with the 'Thank-the-goodness-and-the-grace-which-on-my-birth-hath-smiled' expression which our race learns in the nursery. For this is a frame of mind which leads to a contemptuous tipping of inferior races.
'Guide says that's the last Johnnie's cap--beastly dirty, isn't it?' said one in a churchy whisper, and the others nodded in churchy silence. So, decorously--barring a faint desire to try the waltzing capabilities of the floor on the part of a brother and sister in one corner--they hesitated round the building with the half-shy, half-defiant, 'thus far Iwillgo but no further' reluctance to admit any interest in strange places of worship, which is also a sign of race.
And Jehân from his royal square watched them, oblivious of his prayers, until quite calmly, innocently, they included him as part of the show.
Then he rose and said to Burkut, who was praying to perfection behind----
'I stay not for this. And we are too soon, for all thy fuss of being late. 'Twill be a good half-hour ere the dirge begins. So I go to Lucanaster's.--Nay!' he added hastily, as Burkut began to rise also, 'thou canst stay here, and if any of note come in my absence, tell them I return.'
So with a cunning smile leavening his scowl at the tourists, he passed out. In truth he was glad of the excuse which made it possible to take no one but Lateefa, who was to be trusted--who indeed had to be trusted in all things, since he knew all things--with him to Mr. Lucanaster's house; for even if he had left Burkut outside during his interview, there was no saying what the latter might not have discovered, or say he had discovered, which would answer his purpose of pressure quite as well! For Jehân, like most of Burkut's acquaintances, was quite aware of the latter's method.
Five minutes after, therefore (since Mr. Lucanaster's house lay conveniently close to the city and his numerous clients there), Jehân found himselftête-à-têtewith a shrewd commercial face intent on the scientific counting of a string of pearls with a paper-knife.
'Three, six, nine, twelve,' came Mr. Lucanaster's voice as the ivory slipped between the triplets of pearls.
'Fifty and five,' he said finally, and Jehân nodded.
'Fifty and five,' he assented. 'What will you give me for them,Huzoor?'
Mr. Lucanaster drew a despatch-box towards him, opened it, looked at a paper, and smiled lavishly.
'Nothing, Nawâb-sahib,' he said calmly; 'for, to begin with, there are five short on the string. There were sixty on it when it was stolen.'
Jehân nearly jumped from his chair. 'Stolen!' he echoed. 'It is a lie--they are mine--they were my mother's.'
The lavish smile continued. 'Exactly, Nawâb-sahib, the description says so; and they were stolen from Government House two nights ago.'
'But I tell you it is impossible--my house was wearing them----'
'Excuse me; but you sold your mother's pearls last year! I happen to know, because Gunga Mull, who bought them, was acting for me. You had refused my direct offer, if you remember, and you lost a thousand rupees in consequence. It is safer to trust me in the end, Nawâb-sahib,' put in Mr. Lucanaster suavely.
'But not one string,' protested Jehân, trying to be haughty. 'This one I kept, and if theHuzoordoes not wish to buy, I can sell it elsewhere, as I did before.'
He stretched his hand for the string, but Mr. Lucanaster sate back in his chair dangling the pearls, and looked at the Rightful Heir as a spider looks at a fly.
'I wouldn't try if I were you, Nawâb-sahib,' he said slowly. 'It might lead to--to difficulties. And the coincidence is not very--very credible. But if you are really in need of money'--he spoke still more slowly--'there is always the emerald. Let me see! I offered you six thousand, didn't I?--well, let us say eight; and--and nothing to be said about--about these----' He passed the pearls deftly through his fingers as if appraising them, and added, 'They are really very fine pearls, Nawâb-sahib, quite noticeable pearls. I haven't seen better for a long time, so it is a pity they are unsaleable at present. By and by, perhaps, or in some other place----'
'Does theHuzoormean----' began Jehân blusteringly.
Mr. Lucanaster looked up suddenly, sharply, drew the open despatch-box closer, dropped the pearls into it, and closed the box with a snap. 'I mean nothing, Nawâb-sahib, except that, for your own sake, those pearls had better stay there for the present. You will only be tempted to raise money on them in the bazaar, and as I--if I were asked my opinion, as I certainly should be--would say they were the stolen pearls, it is better not to run the risk of my having to give evidence.'
'I--I will complain--I will go to the commissioner,' stammered Jehân, completely taken aback.
'I wouldn't if I were you; a police inquiry would be the devil to a man of your character; and meanwhile--until you let me have the emerald--here's something for current expenses.'
Jehân looked for a moment as if he would dearly have liked to fling the notes which Mr. Lucanaster pushed over the table to him back in the donor's face; but he refrained. Money was always something, and some of it might even go to pay the poisoning of this hell-doomed infidel, who dared to pretend he thought the pearls were stolen; for Jehân was shrewd enough to see the other's game. Not that it mattered whether he pretended to think, or really thought. The pinch lay in that threat of a police inquiry; and neither the truth nor the falsehood of a charge mitigated or increased the sheer terror of that possibility.
So Jehân,minushis pearls, but with five hundred rupees in his pocket, drove back to the tomb of his dead ancestors in a tumult of impotent anger. He felt himself closer in the toils than he had been, and--naturally enough in a man of his sort--the utmost of his rage was expended on the person over whom he had most power of retaliation--that is, on Noormahal.
Why, he asked himself, had he been fool enough to let her get hold of the emerald again? It had been within his reach, and now it was gone again--hoarded by a foolish woman for the sake of a barren honour.
Barren? No! not altogether barren! As he stood once more in the arched doorway of the mausoleum, this feeling came to assuage the sting of his treatment by Mr. Lucanaster, and yet to make its smart more poignant.
For the assemblage had gathered. The chandeliers were lit, and the myriad-hued flash of their prisms hid the dust, hid the cobwebs, and gave a new brilliance to the mourners gathered in their appointed places. The tourists were gone now. These were his own people. They were waiting for him.
As he paused, a new arrival entering by a side door paused also--paused right in front of him before the glass case containing the last king's turban of state. So, aftersalaam-ing to it profoundly, sought the square belonging to his rank.
Jehân gave a low savage laugh of satisfaction, and passed on to his.
Here it was the first! Here, at any rate, honour was his!
Burkut, watching him swagger over to his prayers, smiled. If this sort of thing went on, he would have his choice of fostering a real conspiracy or denouncing it. That was the best of having an open mind; at least two courses were always open to one.
So, when the dirge was sung, he went and paid his respects to one or two officials, and then, the time for gossip and kite-flying having arrived, joined the worst company in Nushapore, where he talked sedition and backed the paper nothingnesses as they dipped and rose an inch or two, only to fall again, until the dusk blotted their gay colours from the sky. But below the bastioned river wall abutting on the railway bridge, which was the favourite meeting-place of kite-flyers, the dusk brought out other colours to take their place; close at hand and farther off, half-way across the river, and right upon its farther shore, came red and green lights, steady as stars. Until, in the far distance, a red changed to green, the signals which had stood against the evening express dropped, and it showed upon the bridge like some huge glowworm, slackening speed as it came; for the station lay not two hundred yards from where the bridge ended in a semi-fortified gateway.
So the train slid past below the bastioned wall almost at a foot's pace, and half a dozen or more English lads, part of a fresh draft from England just up from Bombay, thrust their heads out of the window curious to see what this strange place, what this strange race with which they were to have so much to do, were like.
'Well! I am blowed if they aren't flyin' kites like Christians,' said one in a hushed voice, an' I thought they was all 'eathen, I did----'