'Lateefa made of naught, made thee of naught,Lateef who never sought the life God brought,Lateef who's bound and caught in right and ought,Butheforbids thee naught, since thouartnaught,Sail east, west, south, or north, choose thine own port!Thou thing of naught?'
'Lateefa made of naught, made thee of naught,Lateef who never sought the life God brought,Lateef who's bound and caught in right and ought,Butheforbids thee naught, since thouartnaught,Sail east, west, south, or north, choose thine own port!
Thou thing of naught?'
Jehân swore under his breath; the cards were against him. The stakes laid on the bed between him and his adversary had taken his last available rupee; and, of late, even Burkut had refused to play without money down. He looked round sullenly, then turned again to shuffle the pack.
'My nakedness against thine,' he said gruffly; 'the clothes are worth a goldmohur, I'll warrant.'
That was about it, since they were both dressed in the ordinary white garments of nobility at its ease.
Burkut shrugged his shoulders. 'If it please thee--as we sit, then. 'Tis thy turn to deal!'
Lateefa looked up quickly from his work. 'The Nawâb will deal better without the signet of royalty,' he said significantly, and as Jehân paused, Burkut frowned and laughed at the same time.
'Yea!' he said airily, 'that would fetch more than a goldmohurif 'twere sold. Take it off, my lord.'
'I will do what I choose without thy bidding,' retorted Jehân haughtily, as he drew the ring from his finger and laid it for safety just behind him on the string bed.
Lateefa could see it plainly as the cards fell from Jehân's hand; cards that were in his favour; so much so that he could not avoid a triumphant smile.
The game seemed his, but he played a false card and lost a point.
He dashed the tricks down with such force that the springy plaited twine recoiled from the blow; recoiled and sprang up again.
Lateefa could see the green gleam more clearly than ever now, for the ring lay in the dust within reach of his hand. It had jumped from the bed, like a clay pigeon from a trap, under that petulant blow. But the players had not noticed it, they were going on with their game unconcernedly.
Only Lateefa's eyes were on that gold and green, half hidden in the dust!
'If thou hast the chance.' He heard the words as plainly as if Khôjee had been beside him.
But this was no chance. The loss would be discovered in a minute or two. And then it would be a mere question of search; for there could be no suspicion of any one else, since the bed on which those two were playing was set right across the only entrance to that well of wall in which there was no place of concealment--none!
No! it was not a chance!
Yet he heard his reply now--
'On my kites I promise; since they be my creatures, to fly or fail as I make them.'
On his kites!...
A sort of dazzle came to the sunshine, a dazzle to his brain. He gave a sudden reckless laugh, his hand went out to the ring swiftly, and busied itself still more swiftly as he sang, in the varying measure to which such versicles lend themselves, a new version of the old words--
'Lateefa made of naught,Lateef who's bound and caught;Lo! he forbids thee naught,Sail east, west, south, or north!Choose thine own port!'
'Lateefa made of naught,Lateef who's bound and caught;Lo! he forbids thee naught,Sail east, west, south, or north!Choose thine own port!'
The kite which--as he sang--twisted and twirled upwards from his dexterous throw, seemed at first as if it was uncertain what to choose.
'I mark the king!' said Burkut with an oily smile, and once more Jehân with an oath flung down the cards.
But by this time both kites were tilting steadily to leeward, and only Lateefa's skilful finger could, in striking the strings that held them captive, have told that one had a trifle more ballast to carry than the other.
Jack Raymond's admission, 'C'est la peste, mademoiselle,' had been made under compulsion. Lesley, he had recognised, was not one to be put off by evasion; and yet his first impulse had been to keep his discovery to himself. For the sense of authority to deal with men and things, which he had had in the past, was apt to return to him when he found himself in a tight place. Therefore, the necessity for avoiding a scare had seemed to him paramount, and he had followed up his low-toned admission by a rapid request that Lesley should take Jerry home to bed, and say nothing to anybody of the adventure.
But by the time the green sleeves had disappeared, obediently, over the dim lawns that were just becoming visible in the dawn, his sense of responsibility had passed.
He told himself it was none of his business and that once he had handed over the case to the police, the matter would be ended so far as he was concerned. So far, also, as every one was concerned, if the authorities had any sense; since Lesley would hold her tongue, Jerry's ghost could be laid and laughed at, Budlu bribed, and Jân-Ali-shân----
He looked round, wondering if the latter had gone or not, but could see nothing. An elaborately conscientious hawking and spitting, however, from the shadow of a distant bush, told him not only that John Ellison was there, but that he had grasped the situation.
''Ave a quid o' bitter yerbs, sir,' came the loafer's voice resignedly. 'It's a camphor bush, sir, an' there ain't no good in givin' in to plague an' pestilence without a
"Good Lord deliver us."
Is there, sir?'
The question had an almost pathetic apprehension in it.
'Not a bit,' assented Jack Raymond. 'Have a cigar instead, Ellison. I'll light one for you and chuck it over.' He knew his man; knew that without being a coward he was for the moment desperately afraid. Two very different things; since time cures one, and the other is persistent.
So for a minute or two there was silence. Then from the shadow of the camphor bush came a more confident cough.
'If you did 'appen to 'ave a drop o' brandy,' began the voice tentatively, 'though if you 'aven't, sir, it's "Thy will be done!" An' that bein' so, there's nothin' left but w'ot the nation you an' me's got to do next? 'Ow many corpses is there, sir?'
Jack Raymond smiled, feeling he had judged his man rightly.
'There is only the poor devil we chased left alive,' he answered; 'the two children, the woman, and a servant are dead. They have been there nearly a week. Refugees from down country who managed to slip past quarantine. He is a Nushapore man by birth, and, just as they were coming to the journey's end, one child fell sick. So, to escape inspection, he alighted at the last roadside station and walked in at night. He had to pass the Garden Mound, of course, and it struck him it would be safer to find out first if his people would take him in. So he, knowing the ropes, hid his family here for the day. Then his people were alarmed, another child sickened,et cetera. So he stopped on here, getting to and from the bazaar for what he wanted at night, dressed in an old white uniform----'
A low whistle came from the camphor bush, and a murmur, 'No, you don't, sonny! No, you don't!'
'Yes! it was rather a 'cute dodge, but he's an educated man. Well! the last child died yesterday, and he went off to get medicine for his wife, hoping to sneak back as usual. But the garden was full up with Chinese lanterns and bands; and they were dancing----'
'Deary dear!' interrupted the distant voice sympathetically, 'so 'e 'ad to lounge around, awaitin' for "Gord save our gracious Queen" to let 'im see if 'is lawful wife 'ad chucked it! Well, sir, black or white, it do seem cruel 'ard'--there was a pause, another ostentatious clearing of the throat--'but 'e knows the worst now, sir,' went on Jân-Ali-shân, 'so why not 'ave the pore soul out
"where the breezes blow,"
on 'is parallel, as the sayin' is? It 'ud be more 'olesome, special if 'e's got to be took in 'and. As it say in 'Oly Writ,
"Separate ye the livin' from the dead an' the plague was stayed."
Beg pardin', sir, but 'avin' bin seven year in a surplus chore, it come natural-like.'
Jack Raymond thought that it did; thought, as he sat waiting, that the loafer, given a free hand, would probably settle the business as well as any one else. His suggestion was sound, anyhow. So, after a bit, there were three shadowy figures planted out on the lawns at respectful distances from each other. The last one, a dejected heap, huddled up on the grass, whimpering softly.
'If you 'ad another o' them hanti-microbber-tail-twisters about you, sir,' came the suggestive voice between vehement puffings at a cigar, 'it 'ud tickle 'im up, like as it done me. An' bein' a Bombay duck, as the sayin' is, 'e 'd smoke 'is grandmother's curl-papers! I know them down-countrybaboos. "Week in, week out, you can 'ear their bellows blow." An' "Gord save our gracious Queen" 'as bin cruel 'ard on 'em, sir--to say nothin' o' its bein' a sight safer to pizen 'is bla'ck-sill'ys.'
Jack Raymond smiled. Jân-Ali-shân was wisdom itself. So the further shadow was supplied with a cigar, while a comparatively reckless voice hummed cheerfully--
'Tobacco is an Indian weed,Grows green at morn, cut down at eve;Thus we decay, we are but clay,Think of this when you smoke tobacco!'
'Tobacco is an Indian weed,Grows green at morn, cut down at eve;Thus we decay, we are but clay,Think of this when you smoke tobacco!'
'Seems to me, sir,' it broke off at last to say, 'that there's only us three to take count on, so to speak. Them pore things in there 'as sum-totalled up their little bills. An', as the minister's man said when they come worryin' round for a grave, an' 'e busy plantin' sprouts--"Corpses'll keep an' kebbiges won't!" so why not leave 'em comfortable for to-night? We don't want no crowd comin' round to see the place where we laid 'em, do we, sir? An' Madam Toosaw's ain't nothin' to bazaar folk for the chamber o' 'orrers if they get the chanst. Then as for 'im, pore devil, 'emustgo to quarantine camp as a suspect anyhow, so it wouldn't make any odds to 'im, would it, sir? An' we could tell 'im to 'old 'is tongue or worse befall, couldn't we, sir? An' that 'ud tone down the colour a bit, as the sayin' is, more nor lettin' the police send round the town-crier.'
'How about Budlu?' asked Jack Raymond tentatively; but Jân-Ali-shân was ready for him.
'Give 'im in charge 'isself, as 'e ought ter be, for disreliction o' duty in allowin' ghosts. That 'ud stop 'is mouth, sir; special as 'e don't know nothin'.'
The simplicity of the plan was obvious. It would even, Jack Raymond felt, take the responsibility of informing the police off his shoulders. He need only give the stowaway in charge, then go round to the civil surgeon, tell him the truth, and leave him to decide whether or not to hush up the matter absolutely--as he could easily do by the aid of quicklime and a few stones.
'In that case,' he said, after a pause for deliberation, 'the sooner we move off from this particular place----'
'Just so, sir!' interrupted Jân-Ali-shân. 'Dro'r the enemy's fire h'off the weak spot. So, if you'll take 'im over to the general's 'ouse, an' settle 'is an' Budlu's 'ash when the perlice come, I'll 'ang round about them pore things inside, an' warble 'ymns an' psalms an' spiritooal songs till you've done the job. It won't 'urt 'em, sir,' he added apologetically, 'an' it'll kinder keep up my sperits.'
It appeared to do so, for when, a quarter of an hour afterwards Jack Raymond, after finishing his task, returned to that part of the garden on his way to the civil surgeon, he heard quite a cheerful version of 'Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket' coming from the camphor bush. And when, just as the sky was primrose with the first sunbeams, he returned once more to release Jân-Ali-shân from his voluntary lyke-wake, he found him seated on the plinth of the mutiny memorial going methodically through 'John Brown's body,' as sung by convivial parties, with the elision of a word at each verse.
It was near its end, so that only 'John' had to be vocalised when Jack Raymond came up; but the beating of the silent tune went on vigorously while he told Jân-Ali-shân that the civil surgeon had expressed his entire approval of the plan, which he characterised as a stroke of administrative genius!
'"But 'is soul goes marchin' on!"' burst out Jân-Ali-shân, finishing his song at the proper beat. Then he rose, pulled his sleeves over his cuffs, and nodded his head gravely. 'That's 'ow it is, sir. 'Is soul goes marchin' on. That sort o' strokes come to a feller, they do, in the Garding Mound, an' will do, please God, as long as there's a white face among the black.'
So, singing 'Silver threads among the gold,' he sloped off through the cemetery, then over the wall to his work citywards, feeling that, so far as he was concerned, the incident was over.
But to Jack Raymond, as he went back to the club, came the remembrance that Lesley Drummond must be told that her question and his answer were to remain a secret between them. The idea annoyed him, all the more so because of the remembrance of Grace Arbuthnot's guilty face when Lesley had let the cat out of the bag concerning the origin of the green sleeves! Nevertheless, it was inevitable, so he sat down in an ill-humour, wrote a stiff explanatory note suggesting that Jerry's midnight chase should be treated as a nightmare due to turkey and ham, and sent it over to Government House. Yet, before doing so, he fumigated it carefully with tobacco, feeling the while a trifle ashamed of his own smile at the remembrance of those green sleeves.
But the wearer of them, restored to the dignity of a tailor-made coat and skirt, receiving the note while the tell-tale odour was still fresh on it--for she had found sleep impossible--frowned at the recollection of the figure in the political uniform which had refused even to touch those green sleeves. Frowned, not from displeasure, but from impatience at her own sense of pleasure in his thoughtfulness; for it was unfamiliar to her, that sense of rest in another person's care.
Treat it as a nightmare! Of course! How else could one treat that wild medley of green sleeves, political uniforms, ghosts, boys,valses à deux temps, Jân-Ali-shâns!
Only, no sane person would ever dream of dreaming such nonsense!
And yet, what was this unfamiliar tingle to her finger-tips, this curious elation, this sense of personal gain, as if she had found something new and precious--as if a child, idly unfolding a flower-bud, had found a fairy at its heart?
She turned from this fancy still more impatiently, resolving to set the whole incident aside. But this, she soon found, was quite impossible. That secret between her and Jack Raymond was inexorable in its claims. For instance, though the chance of any consequence to him was, she knew, small, she could not avoid watching for his figure to show in its usual haunts, listening if his name came up in conversation. Neither could she avoid relief at the certainty that nothing evil had befallen him. That, of course, was only natural; but it was intolerable that the relief should make her blush! Most intolerable of all when he noticed it and said, with a smile--
'No such luck for my friends, Miss Drummond!'
This happened at a tea-picnic which Lady Arbuthnot gave a day or two after the ball. More than one person had remarked to her on Jack Raymond's failure to put in an appearance. It was growing late. She was conscious of her own anxiety. And then, in a sudden surge, the blood flew to her face at the sight of him, close beside her, shaking hands with his hostess.
'What is the joke, Lesley?' asked Grace Arbuthnot quickly, looking from one to the other.
Once again Jack Raymond answered for her; answered audaciously.
'A dead secret, even from Lady Arbuthnot, is it not, Miss Drummond?'
'I would rather it was not,' she replied, turning away resentfully to wander off by herself into the garden where the tea-picnic was being given; a garden which had been the 'Petit Trianon' of the dead dynasty.
It was a quaint place, tucked away between two angles of the city wall for greater convenience in secret comings and goings to secret pleasures; and it was all the quainter now because of the Englishwomen sipping tea on the steps of the gilded summer-house, the Englishmen calling tennis scores in what had been the rose-water tank, in which kings' favourites had bathed, and on which they had floated in silver barges. The feeling of mutual incredibility, which in India comes so often to all but the unimaginative, came to Lesley, as she thought of the city so close behind the fringe of tall blossoming trees, yet so absolutely hidden by it.
Within half a mile of her lay the courtyard where Auntie Khôjee was starving herself in the effort to get money wherewith to buy the essence of happiness; within half a mile of her Lateefa's kite, overlooked in the tornado of wrath which had followed on the disappearance of the ring, still tilted to leeward under the burden of sovereignty. But of all this--of the romance, the squalor, the humanity of the lives lived in the city--she knew nothing, except her own ignorance of those lives. That, and that only, was with her in the beauty of the garden; the beauty which was, as it were, the only thing that she and the unseen city had in common.
And itwasbeautiful, bosomed in those blossoming trees that shut out the world, shut in the scent of the flowers. It appealed instantly to something deep down in her woman's nature; for this had been a woman's garden!
The remembrance made her recoil spiritually. Partly from the thought of what the garden must have seen in the past, partly from the mere suggestion that it could appeal to anything in her. She walked on quickly, recoiling bodily, as she did so, from an overgrown rose-shoot which usurped the path. In so doing she displayed frills and flounces, a pair of dainty open-worked stockings and high-heeled shoes. But she did not recoil from the sight of these. Despite her views, despite her modern girl's theoretical contempt for chiffons, and disdain for women whose lives are bounded by the becoming, she was not one whit more logical on such points than her grandmothers had been. She had not thought out the real meaning of her frills and furbelows, or confessed to herself that such feminine footgear belongs inevitably to the path which leads to the 'Petit Trianon' of life.
Above all, she had not seen, as women must see before they become a power in the world, that the one point on which all races meet, no matter what their religion, no matter what their ideals, no matter what their standard of morality, is that which makes 'Petit Trianon' possible. In other words, the woman's attitude towards the man; an attitude so strangely at variance with the sex-laws of nature.
Yet of the beauty of this garden who could doubt? Within that fringe of blossoming trees, a wide aqueduct-like a shining cross-lay, edged by mosaicked marble causeways, that were raised above and in their turn edged by a perfect wilderness of flowers. And this wider cross, composed of flowers, mosaic, water, was set in dense thickets of oranges and pomegranates. In this late afternoon all the sunshine seemed concentrated in the cross. Great shafts of yellow light streamed down its limbs, seeming to darken all the rest. In the centre where the limbs met, a group of fountains sent fine feathers into the air, and through their sparkle the gold and marble of the summer-house gleamed amid its sentinels of cypress, at the far end of the garden. There was a cloying sweetness in the air. A flight of jewelled parrots flew screaming from one screen of flowering trees to the other, as if even they--winged creatures as they were--could not escape the thraldom of those high walls, hidden by leaf and blossom.
That sense of prisonment--the prisonment of pleasure--lay heavy on Lesley as she paused, half-unconsciously, before a tiny latticed retreat--the daintiest little retreat in the world--which, just at the opposite end of the shining cross from the gilt summer-house, rose out of the water. Made of marble fretwork, with a domed top, it looked like a lace veil moulded into the form of a singing-bird's cage; and its latticed seclusion was only connected with the causeway on either side of it, by a foot-wide ledge of mosaic.
Lesley, having been in the garden before, knew the purpose this retreat had served in the past, and her involuntary pause beside it prolonged itself in half-disdainful wonder. For this had been the sanctuary. Here had been refuge even from the pleasures of the garden, and hither, if any woman, high or low, chose to appeal for redress, majesty itself had been bound to come and listen, leaving majesty and manhood behind it.
That, at least, was the idea. The retreat itself was more suggestive of beauty gaining in power by seclusion; and Lesley's lip curled with more disdain as she looked at the finnikin filagree cage.
Her expression, however, changed to curiosity as she realised that some one was sitting inside it. She crossed the ledge of mosaic swiftly, and, stooping under the laced edge of a low arch, went in.
It was not beauty that she found. It was a wrinkled anxious-faced old woman, who rose in asalaam, then literally prostrated herself at the girl's feet. Lesley had been long enough in India, now, to judge rightly of the poverty shown in the dress. The blue-striped trousers, tight to the knee and full above, the short whity-brown cotton veil were to be seen--more or less dirty, more or less ragged--in every poor Mohammedan quarter. Yet there was something refined in the worn face, blurred with recent tears, which looked into hers apprehensively, as the owner rose tosalaamagain, leaving a small roll of paper bound with coloured silks upon the marble floor.
Lesley was puzzled for an instant; then it flashed upon her that this must be some belated petitioner for justice in the old style, who had heard, probably, that the Lord-sahibwas in the garden. Such rolls of paper--without the silken tie, however--were often thrust into the carriage when Sir George was in it.
So she hunted round her sparse vocabulary, but finally fell back on the first phrase most newcomers to India learn, namely, 'Kya mankta?' (what do you want?)
It is an admirable beginning, though, unfortunately, the sympathetic curiosity of it seldom becomes impersonal to the speaker! It produced anothersalaam, and such a flood of polished speech that Lesley retired to English incontinently. 'Is it for the Lord-sahib?' she asked hurriedly, picking up the roll and pointing with it to the distant summer-house.
The title produced a fourthsalaam, and Lesley, with some relief, stooped under the fretted arch again, and began to retrace her steps towards the others.
Sir George, she knew, had been doubtful if business would allow him to put in an appearance at the entertainment at all; but some one would be sure to know what message ought to be sent back to the petitioner, who, as Lesley left the bird-cage, settled herself down in it again to wait, with great precision.
'Read it, some one, please!' said Lady Arbuthnot, after she had undone the quaint little tasselled silk cord which was fastened with a loop and button round the roll of paper.
But the order was no such easy matter to obey. So far as the conventional 'Arz fidwe yih hai' (This is the request of your petitioner) went, the little group of administrators who responded to her request were fluent enough. After that came complaints of the character, and more than one suggestion that only a regular native reader could be expected to decipher such writing, and that it would be best to hand the document over to the office, which would be sure to make something of it,--a remark which made Lesley, who was listening, wonder whether the accuracy of that something was to be considered at all!
Grace Arbuthnot, however, listening also, let a curious smile come to her face; a smile that gave it an unusual tenderness. 'Where is Mr. Raymond?' she said suddenly. 'Going, did you say? Will some one call him back, please!'
He appeared, ready for his drive home in rather a violent blazer, and once more there was that unfailing challenge in his polite--'They tell me I am wanted, Lady Arbuthnot?'
'Yes! to read this,' she replied, holding out the hieroglyphic.
In all her life of beauty and grace she had possibly never looked more beautiful, more graceful, and Jack Raymond realised it; realised also that, so far as that beauty, that grace were concerned, he had not forgotten--that he would never forget! And the certainty roused all his antagonism. For a moment he stood like a naughty child refusing to say its lesson; then he took the paper from her, and ran his eye down it.
'Persian,' he said. 'I had better give you the gist of it. The writer is one Khôjeeya Khânum, a pensioner. The Nawâb Jehân Aziz is her representative; he seems to have been taking toll, as they always do--it is madness paying pensions in the lump, as we do. She is starving, I suppose; they generally are! No'--a faint interest dispersed some of the contempt in his face--'it seems she wants money for a specific purpose--to buy the "essence of happiness." That word isitr-i-khush, isn't it, sir?'
The commissioner, thus appealed to--a man who was seldom in fault in speaking the vernaculars--frowned over the symbol.
'Itr-i-khush, 'm, it may be. But it doesn't matter, since it is money she wants? I've had one or two complaints about that sweep Jehân Aziz's pensioners already, Lady Arbuthnot, and we are going to inquire. So I'll put this one's name down too, if I may. Khôjeeya Khânum--thanks. Well, good-night, Lady Arbuthnot! I've a reader with a file yards high waiting me--most important papers. Good-night, Raymond; you haven't forgotten the trick, I see. You are still as good amoonshias ever, isn't he, Lady Arbuthnot?'
'Except in regard to the "Essence of Happiness,"' she replied coolly, making Jack Raymond stare at her, and Lesley once more become impatient.
'But the old woman is waiting,' she interrupted, 'she is waiting for an answer in the bird-cage; surely some one ought to go and tell her something!'
Several of the guests had taken advantage of the commissioner's departure to say their farewells also, so that those three were left in a group by themselves.
'I will go,' said Grace suddenly, 'if Mr. Raymond can spare time from his whist----'
'To find happiness,' he put in quickly, 'by all means!'
The mosaic causeway was narrow, so Lesley fell behind. The shining limb of the water-cross lay to one side of her, the edge of massed flowers to the other. The sky was deepening in its blue overhead, the creeping shadows below had gripped the lace bird-cage in the distance, making it look cold and grey. But the sun which caught the tops of the blossoming trees and made the painted kites that floated above them from the city look like jewels, seemed to linger mysteriously in the soft pink of Grace Arbuthnot's dress, the gay orange and yellow of Jack Raymond's blazer, and claim them as part of its brightness.
In the hush of evening, the insistent 'Do-you-love-too--do-you-love-too' of one small cinnamon dove hidden in a rosebush, seemed to fill the garden. Until from beyond it came some gay voices discussing the 'Essence of Happiness' as the departing guests got into their carriages.
'Take your choice of the four W's!' said one; 'wisdom, wine, wealth, women!'
'I choose a whisky-and-soda,' retorted another. 'I give you in the rest, especially after tennis. By Jove! that was a splendid game.'
'Four W's!' put in a higher key. 'You've forgotten Worth--oh! I don't mean that worth, of course. The dressmaker man----'
'Ye don't need his art, me dear lady----'
Lesley, walking behind those two, paused suddenly; for Jack Raymond had lingered to hold back that trailing rose-shoot from her frills and flounces also. And the cinnamon dove, startled by the pause, fled from the rose-bush to silence and deeper shade. Its flight made her start also.
'Frightened at a dove! said Jack Raymond in a low tone, 'and you weren't a bit frightened at the plague.'
He was smiling at her, his face all soft and kind. She had never seen it like that before. But as he stepped back to Grace Arbuthnot's side, Lesley realised thatshehad.
The certainty that these two had been lovers once came to her then, and brought a curious sense of loneliness. The certainly that, in a way, they would be lovers always, brought her a pang before which she stood aghast. For there was no mistaking it; it was unreasonable, elemental jealousy.
She felt inclined, then and there, to turn back and leave them to do their task alone. They did not want her. What was she, Lesley Drummond, doing there in that garden whose suggestiveness seemed to stifle her? Yes! to stifle her, because she could not escape from it! She, Lesley Drummond, who---- In her mind's eye she saw a vision of herself alighting from an omnibus at the corner of Bond Street on a wet day, picking her way over the greasy blister-marks of many feet on the pavement, heedless of the infinite suggestions in the shop windows, to have tea at a ladies'-club with an intimate friend, and solve the problems of life by hard and fast individualism tempered by a sloppy socialism.
Solve! As if it were possible to solve anything in those conditions. Above all, to solve the greatest problem in the world for women, as you drank your tea on a table littered with the literature ofchiffon-culture, whose every page proclaimed that woman's aim was to remain temptress, her goal a garden such as this!
They were close to the sanctuary now. The others had entered it, and Lesley paused to look contemptuously at its filagree pretence of protection ere she, too, stooped under its low arch.
'I think you have it, haven't you, Lesley?' asked Grace Arbuthnot, as she entered to find a puzzled look on all three faces. In the old woman's it was mixed with a half-indignant apprehension.
'Have what?' she asked coldly.
'The silk cord that was round the roll; I gave it to you to hold, I think. She won't speak without it; it seems it is a bracelet--an amulet.'
'The bracelet of brotherhood without which a woman cannot speak to a strange man,' explained Jack Raymond. 'Ah! you are wearing it.'
She was. Quite idly she had fastened it by its loop and button round her wrist, in order to keep it safe. She took it off now, and handed it to him without a word. He passed it to Auntie Khôjee, whose withered face settled into self-satisfaction as she leant forward, detaining his hand till the bracelet was safely looped on his brown wrist.
Then the words came fast. Floods of them; and Jack Raymond listened patiently.
Fine though the filagree of marble was that shut them off from the garden, it interrupted the light, so that their figures showed dimly to each other. But the scent of the garden drifted in unchecked, and mixed with the faint scent of heliotrope from Grace Arbuthnot's dress. There was something breathless, disturbing to the senses, Lesley felt, in that uncomprehending effort to understand. It was a relief when silence fell suddenly, and there was a pause.
'Is that all?' whispered Grace; she was next to Jack Raymond, her dress touching him.
'I believe I ought to give her a bracelet in return,' he began. She had one of her gold bangles off in a moment, and was thrusting it into his hand--'Take that, please do--you might let me do so much, surely----'
Lesley turned and stepped outside. She felt the need of fresh air.
'There was no use my stopping,' she explained when, after an interval, the two rejoined her. 'I could not understand.'
'Not understand!' echoed Grace Arbuthnot reproachfully. 'I couldn't understand the words either. But I thought the idea perfectly charming. I wouldn't have missed the little scene for worlds. And she was so delighted with the gold bangle.'
'It is really not uncommon, Lady Arbuthnot,' protested Jack Raymond, who was beginning to feel a trifle restive again. 'And in the old days, therâm ruckiwas constantly sent by distressed----'
'I know,' interrupted Lesley captiously. 'You read of it in Meadows Taylor's books. But why did she give it to you?'
He paused; a quick annoyance showed on his face; he turned to Lady Arbuthnot vexedly.
'I must apologise,' he said; 'I never realised till this moment that she must have taken me----'
'For Sir George,' put in Grace quietly. 'Didn't you? Now I was thinking all the time how much better you played the part than he would have done. He is like Lesley. He loathes sentiment. No, Mr. Raymond, I won't take it!' she added, as he tried to unfasten therâm rucki. 'Give it to Sir George himself, if you like--there he is, coming to meet us. Or,' she continued, with an elusive, almost mischievous smile, as she went forward to greet her husband, leaving those two on the path together, 'give it back to Miss Drummond! She gave it you first!'
Jack Raymond looked after her quite angrily; then laughed, drew out his pocket-book and laid therâm ruckibetween the folds of some bank-notes.
'I shall end by doing my duty some day, if this goes on, Miss Drummond,' he said resignedly. 'It is really very kind of you all to take so much interest in my spiritual and bodily welfare.'
As a rule Lesley would have been ready with a sharp retort. Now she was silent. She was thinking that it was true. She had given the bracelet of brotherhood to him first. And then once more a vast impatience seized her. How unreal, how fantastic it was? How far removed from the security of the commonplace?
To old Auntie Khôjee, however, the incident which Lesley had stigmatised as unreal, and fantastic, was quite natural. Her life, and the lives of thousands such as she, dreary, dull, squalid, as they seem to the eyes of Western women, are yet leavened by many wholly unpractical touches which raise them at times to pure romance. The secret worship of the Gods, the thousand and one omens to be sought, or avoided, the endless fanciful ceremonials; all these are, in their monotonous lives, witnessing to the passion for self-effacement in something beyond the woman's own individuality--in something that has to be cajoled and considered, not because it is feared, but because it is loved and must therefore be kept tied to the apron-string--which is Eve's legacy to women of all races and all creeds.
So, as the old lady limped through the bazaars, huddled up in a dirty domino, with Grace Arbuthnot's bangle clutched close to her heart, she felt no surprise at what had happened. Her only feeling was one of regret for having so long believed folk's tales of change. If she had only resorted earlier to ancient methods, little Sa'adut's life might perhaps have been spared. Though that, of course, was God's will; just as it was His will also that at the very last gasp she should have been told by a gossip that the Lord-sahibwas coming, as the Kings came in past times to entertain their friends in the pleasure-garden.
For Khôjee was, literally, at the last gasp. Even Lateefa had not been near the courtyard for three days, though he had promised to look in every morning. In truth, this was not the kite-maker's fault, since he was, once more, kicking his heels in the lock-up. He had not anticipated this result when--on the impulse of the moment--he had slipped the ring, instead of a morsel of brick, into one of the tiny calico bags which he had found the easiest way of attaching ballast to his kites. It had been but the work of a second to do this, and send the kite up to hover in the steady west wind--on trial--with its string attached to one of the wooden pegs driven for that purpose into the brick wall. So he had had no time for full consideration; but even had he had this, he would scarcely have imagined that Jehân would at once take the irrevocable step of calling in the aid of the police; that being a course which no wise man adopted save as a last resort, when the choice only lay between two evils.
But Jehân's rage had mastered his caution. The loss of the symbol of past power had raised such a tempest of desire for that power of personal coercion, that, seeing no other means of gaining it, he had at once given not only Lateefa, but Burkut Ali in charge for having, between them, stolen the ring. And that despite the voluntary demonstration of innocence afforded by a stripping to stark nakedness of both the accused! They must, he shrilled, have swallowed it!
Dire suggestion to an executive whose chief method of detecting crime is by personal discomfort to the fourth and fifth generation of those presumably implicated in it! Lateefa had felt his liver dissolve, had for one brief moment thought of confession; but the presence of the police, he saw, would makethata leaving of the frying-pan for the fire.
So he and Burkut Ali, the latter vowing vengeance calmly (and knowing he would get it too, since he had money and Jehân had none), were hauled away, not to judgment, but to that worse evil, preliminary inquiry.
Burkut, however, had found bail; and he had been back in his haunts for two days, making Jehân begin to see his mistake, while Lateefa, very sick and sorry for himself, still remained in process of observation.
But by this time his philosophy had returned, and, as he kicked his heels, he composed another mathematical verselet which should equal the values of 'I, Lateefa, laid on nothingness the burden of all things, and the burden of all things made nothingness of Lateefa!'
Of all this, however, Auntie Khôjee knew nothing as she made her way straight to the pawnbroker's where she had pledged Khâdeeja Khânum's best pink satin trousers. For the recovery of these was the first necessity. On the morrow ceremonial visits of condolence would begin in the wide courtyard, and she dare not ask Khâdjee to receive them in her ordinary attire.
Grace Arbuthnot's bangle would, of course, redeem the trousers over and over again; but the old lady decided this should only be left, in exchange, for one night, as it would be easy to return the garment after the morrow's visits were over; since there would be no more need for it for at least three days. And that would set the bangle free for its legitimate purchase of the 'Essence of Happiness.'
It was growing dark as she limped along the narrow bazaar. The cavernous shops on either side were but half lit with flaring rushlights. The continuous stream of people passing one way or the other seemed inevitably to thrust her furtive swathed figure into the gutter. And so, at one shop, round which a crowd had gathered, it needed patience before a way could be edged onwards. It was a drug shop, and it seemed to be driving a roaring trade. As a couple of white-robed men elbowed past her, she heard one say, with a sinister satisfaction--
'And ourSomâjdispensary hath trebled its attendance these last days. The people know their friends, know themselves safe! Not that the tales of poison at the hospitals are true; but what will you? These poor folks are ignorant, and we have promised----'
What the promise was, Khôjee did not catch; nor did she care to know. All her thoughts were with Khâdjee's pink satin trousers. Therefore she felt as if the whole round world had slipped from under her feet when Mittun, the pawnbroker, from the midst of the miscellaneous collection of rubbish in which he sat like a tame magpie possessed by the nest-building instinct, told her calmly that he had just sold them! Sold them at an incredibly high price to a lady of the bazaar who was in a hurry for something smart in which to appear at an assignation that evening. And then, with infinite self-complacency, he drew out from a bag two rupees and some pice.
'See this, mother!' he said, handing her the money. ''Tis a chance such as comes but once in akobari'slife, who must needs fill his belly a many times with other folk's leavings ere he find a grain of corn to stay his own hunger withal.' Here he looked round distastefully at the old lamps, keys, pickle-bottles, rags, books--Heaven knows what--that made up his stock-in-trade, and which, in truth, looked but indigestible fare. 'Yet I am honest,' he went on; 'this much I made, over and above what I loaned thee on them. So there 'tis, with but the due interest held back. Let none say Mittun,kobari, is no honest man, who cares not for his customers----'
'Nay!meean-jee,' fluttered Khôjee, helpless. 'None said that of thee. Yet would I rather the trousers, and I could have given thee gold.'
Mittun eyed the bangle covetously. 'Give it me now, mother. I could loan thee ten rupees on that to buy new trousering.'
Khôjee shook her head timidly; for even the pawnbroker, being a man, had authority.
''Tis for to-morrow, brother; there is not time----'
'Thou couldst buy second-hand,' he persisted; 'there be many in the bazaar, though I have them not. In truth,MussumatKhôjee, I would have sold thine for less than I got, seeing that old clothes are no safe purchase nowadays, what with police inspection, and no rags here, no rags there! As if the plague came in aught but God's will!'
Khôjee, fearful of persuasion, assented hastily to the pawnbroker's piety. Everything was God's will; even her failure to redeem the pink satin trousers!
'I will give thee fifteen for the bangle,' called Mittun after her, and she quickened her limp from the temptation. The bangle was for another purpose. Still fifteen rupees would purchase the 'Essence of Happiness' and leave a margin forsagou dam(sago) andsalep misri. Also for real cardamoms. Yes! surely with fifteen rupees in prospect she might afford herself some real cardamoms for to-morrow's assemblage, instead of the cheaper kind she had laid in. It would give style to the occasion, even if the pink satin trousers were unattainable.
Another crowd, before a shop, delayed her as she limped along in the gutter. There was a policeman in it this time, and a voice protesting that it was tyranny. What had the police to do with the selling of a quilt--a quilt that was no longer wanted, seeing that the grandfather had found freedom?
'Ari, idiot!' said the policeman, 'have a care I do not burn it.'
'Give him his percentage, brother!' advised Govind the editor, who, as usual, was hunting the bazaars for news. 'That is what he wants. That is the trick. Yea! I know. Give it him, or he will claim the whole in the name of the plague. That is what theSirkardoes in Bombay. It claims all--money, jewels, clothes. And it will do the same here. This is but the beginning.'
''Twill be the end for thee and thy paper, editor-jee, if thou tellest more lies,' retorted the constable in righteous indignation. 'It is orders, I tell thee! There is suspicion that some one----'
Govind, who, as usual, also had been at thebhangshop, gave a jeering laugh. 'Bapree bap!some one! 'Tis alwayssome oneorsome thing; but we of Nushapore, my masters, will show them we are not as those of Bombay. We can fight for our own.'
There was a surge of assent in the crowd, as if it sought to begin at once, and Khôjee, clutching her gold bangle tighter, fled incontinently down a by-street. So little might turn her limp into a fall, and then that fifteen-rupees'-worth might roll into the gutter and be snatched up by any one. Here, in the tortuous alleys, it was at least quiet, though it was dark. She slithered in the welter of the day's rubbish flung from the high houses on either side, and a scamper of pattering feet told her she had disturbed some rats battening on a bit of choice garbage.
'Allah hamid!' she muttered piously, and went on. The sound of wailing from one of the scarce-seen houses she was passing reminded her regretfully of the cardamoms; for she had left shops behind her. Then she remembered one, not far from the gate of the city, which she must pass; one of those miscellaneous shops which are always to be found near city gates, where travellers can buy most things--flour and vegetables, red peppers, pipe bowls, tobacco. Ay, and opium perhaps; but on the sly, since there was no licence over the door. It was not the sort of shop that such as Khôjeeya Khânum patronised as a rule; still it might have cardamoms.
The low-castebuniya, with a wrinkled monkey face and long iron-grey hair, who crouched behind dingy platters and dusty bags, looked ghoulish by the one flickering light set in the solitary cavern of a shop; for on either side of it was blank wall, trending away to narrow alleys.
Khôjee hesitated. Such men drove many nefarious trades. Still this one might have cardamoms!
'Cardamoms! he echoed with a leer. 'Yea, yea, princess! True cardamoms to satisfy the best of royal blood--he! he!' Those tall houses round his shop held many such as she, and he had recognised the accent.
Khôjee scarce knew whether to be flustered or flattered beneath her domino.
'And be speedy,' she said haughtily. 'I have no time to spare thee.'
'Lo!Nawâbin,' he jeered, 'I have them; such cardamoms as----' He was rummaging in the heterogeneous mass piled up against the back wall of his shop. 'Wait but a moment. I have them--I have them. But two days ago, my princess, I had them.'
Here, by chance, an unwary pull sent a pile of parcels and bundles in confusion round him, and one rolled nigh to Aunt Khôjee, who--careful ever--laid a hold of it to save a possible fall into the gutter. The light fell on something green and sheeny, her fingers recognised the feel of satin, and, the bundle having unrolled itself somewhat, she caught sight of the unmistakable cut of a trouser leg! She opened it out a little curiously.
'Canst not leave things alone?' snapped the shopkeeper angrily. 'Those be not cardamoms.'
'They be something I may need for all that,' retorted Khôjee with spirit--the spirit which never fails a woman in the struggle forchiffons. So there she was, testing the satin with her finger, appraising the make. If they had only been pink!--though that was but a detail, since they were beyond her purse; the satin better by far than the much-to-be-regretted pink-the whole newer--
She wrinkled them aside with a sigh. 'Give me the cardamoms, brother. I have not the money for these.' The man looked at her cunningly.
'If the Daughter of Kings needs trousers, she will find none cheaper.'
'They would yet be too dear for me, brother,' she answered mildly; 'the cardamoms will do.'--
He edged nearer, his evil face growing confidential. 'Lo! Bhagsu never drives a hard bargain with the noble,' he cringed. 'It might be that the virtuous lady's money would purchase these, and save them from the badness of bazaars; since they come from virtue and should go to virtue. How much hath the princess to offer?'
Khôjee gave a half-embarrassed laugh. It was impossible, of course, and yet----
'Thatis as may be,' she replied; 'what shewill offer, is this----' With a flutter of shame and hope she put down the two rupees and the handful of pice. Then she remembered the cardamoms! 'That,' she continued, telling herself she might as well be bold to the bitter end, 'for the trousersandthe cardamoms.' It was a diplomatic stroke, if an unconscious one, for Bhagsu instantly recognised that she had, indeed, ventured her all; that the chance was his to take or leave.
He gave a melancholy groan, then began to roll up the green satin, and tie it round with some of the triple-coloured cotton hanking used at weddings, which, for some occult reason, is always sold at these wayside shops. 'Shiv-jeebe my witness,' he whimpered, 'I give them for naught. But what then? Virtue goes out to virtue, and those who live amongst the noble must be noble!'
Khôjee could hardly believe her ears.
Half an hour afterwards she could hardly believe her eyes, as--Khâdjee having retired safely to sleep with a sausage-roll pillow and a quilt--she sate in the courtyard gloating over her wonderful purchase.
It was simply astounding. Even Khâdjee must forgive her duplicity in regard to that secret pawning of pink trousers, with such green ones as these for reparation! all piped, and edged, and faced, with quite a new braiding of gold thread down the front seam, and a new scent to them also; the wearer must have been in strange parts, though the cut was of the North.
She folded the precious garments with loving little pats, brought out the remaining portions of the state toilet from the almost empty store, saw that Noormahal's muslin was as pure and white and smooth as her old hands could make it, arranged the cardamoms in little saucers, and so, when the city had long since become silent, curled her tired old limbs on a string bed set across the doorway of the inner court--where the servant should have slept, had there been one--and slept fitfully.
For she had to be up at dawn, so that everything should be ready for the visitings, and yet leave her time to get round to the goldsmith's, sell the bangle by weight, and purchase some 'Essence of Happiness'--which was, alas! worth its weight in gold.
Yet when it came it had not much effect, greatly to poor Khôjee's disappointment. Even the quivering, sobbing keene of her neighbours and relations did not rouse Noormahal to any proper display of grief, and--as the groups whispered--how could you expect to lose tears unless you shed them? Was it not a distinct defiance of Providence to deal, even with sorrow, as if it were your own absolutely? Finally, was notkhushki(dryness) one of the fundamental faults in things created?--the other beinggurm-ai(heat).
Khâdeeja Khânum, however, was quite sufficientlyturandtunda(damp and cool) to satisfy the most rigid standard of etiquette; and what with the real cardamoms, the new trousers, a pennyworth of orange-blossom oil which Khôjee had brought with the 'Essence of Happiness,' and a most encouraging report of prevailing sickness and death amongst mutual acquaintances brought by the visitors, the old lady had quite a flush on her withered cheeks by evening, and admitted to her sister, when the latter helped her to undress, that the whole thing had really gone off very well.
Nevertheless she was rather fatigued on the next day. The day after that, Khôjee, returning from the purchasing of some lemon-grass oil, wherewith to wile away the aching in the back, caused, no doubt, by the muscular effort of a continual whimper, found her seated on the string bed in the centre of the lonely courtyard, attired in the green satin trousers and concomitants, waiting, so she said, for the bridal party to arrive.
How stupid Khôjee was! Of course, having regard to her deformity, it was only natural she should take little heed of such things. But all were not made that way, and it was high time the bridal party did come. It seemed, indeed, as if an undue interval had elapsed since the betrothal day, when--if Khôjee would remember--she wore pink, not green. Anyhow she,ShâhzâdiKhâdeeja Khânum, was not one to stand any slackness in a bridegroom's ardour, and if he did not appear that day, she would choose another.
She did. Death claimed her as his before twelve hours were over; almost before poor Noormahal, roused at last from her absorption in grief, had realised she was ill. It seemed incredible! The Nawâbin's big eyes, larger, darker than ever--encircled as they were by great shadows which seemed to have crept down the oval of her face, making it pointed, pinched--turned to Aunt Khôjee, even at the moment of death, in bewildered reproach and regret.
'And thou hast called none in to send her soul forth with prayers? Oh, Khôjee! that was ill done. Nay? I mean no blame for thee alone, kind one, but for us both--yet we did not know--we did not dream--did we?'
Khôjee stood for a second, speechless, rigid, her eyes staring, yearning towards the familiar face over which the awful unfamiliar look was creeping; then, with a wild cry, she threw up her arms and grovelled at Noormahal's feet.
'Nay! I knew--I knew from the first. Oh, child! I have killed her--I, Khôjee--hush! wail not! None must know. And touch her not, Noormahal; that is for me--for her sister who killed her. Lo! child, sole hope of the house! stand further--I can do all--I will do all.--O Khâdjee! Khâdjee! canst thou forgive? And I knew--I knew in my heart all was not right. I knew none would rightly sell such green satin trousers'--here she broke into sobbing laughter--'yet wert thou happy, sister, and I took the blame of theft, if it was theft--and it was--theft of thy life--O Khâdjee! Khâdjee!'
Noormahal, pressed back by frantic clinging arms into a corner of the dark room--for Khôjee, declaring the illness to be a chill, had insisted on keeping the patient inside--caught in her breath fearfully. 'Peace, Khôjee! let me go, auntie!--Lo! thou art not well thyself--the fever hath thee--thou art distraught with grief, as I was. Come, let us go into the light, and I myself will call----'
Khôjee rose to her feet, and laid a quick hand on Noormahal's mouth. 'Nay! none must call,' she said sternly, her self-control brought back by dread. 'Yea! come into the light, and leave her. Come, and I will tell thee there--in the light.'
'How dost thou know?' asked Noormahal, gone grey to her very lips. 'It is not that--lo! folk die of other things. I have seen them. Remember our cousin--it was just so----'
Khôjee's mask of despair showed no wavering. 'Nay, it is the plague. They talked of it at the wailing. It hath been here and there in the city this week past. Mittun held it blasphemy that it should be aught but God's will, and I cried yea! to him; but cannot God send it in the clothes?' Her face, drawn, haggard, almost awful in its questioning, settled after a second into decision. 'Yea! it is the plague--the swellings they speak of are there. It was the trousers. I killed her. And none must know, or they will come and poison thee in hospital, lest it spread. That is why I called no one. The courtyard is wide. I can dig a grave----' Noormahal gave a sharp cry of horrified dissent. 'Yea! I can--my hands are not as thine, sweetheart, soft and fine. Old Khôjee's ugliness can do more than thy beauty--the beauty of King's Daughters which none may see! Remember that, child, remember that'--her voice rang clear of sobs for those words; she rose from where she had crouched to tell her tale, and looked round her with dull, yet steady, eyes. 'There is no hurry. If folk come, none need know she is dead. I will say she sleeps. And at night I can dig. Yea! I knew it from the first. But there is no fear, heart's darling! Thou hast scarce been nigh her. That is why I kept her close. And to-night I will carry her to the outer courtyard--there is a padlock to thenanbut khanastairs, and room for--room forherbeside them. I have thought--yea! thought while I watched. There is no fear, Noormahal! All will go well. Thou wilt have patience, as wives should, and Jehân will return to thee, and little Sa'adut from his paradise will smile on brothers--ay! and sisters too--sisters whom thou wilt spare to old Aunt Khôjee's arms. God knows it shall be so. Deny it not, girl--dare not to deny it? He only knows!'
Her face through its tears was alight with faith and hope and charity, and Noormahal's, as she looked, lost its hardness; a dreaminess that was almost tender came to the dry, bright eyes.
'Yea? He knows.'
That night, after the peacocks with their broken plaster tails ceased to show against the growing dusk, there were faint cautious sounds below them, where the two women dug at a grave. For in this, at least, Noormahal had said she could help. It was not finished by dawn; and after that Khôjee worked alone and only by snatches, while Noormahal watched from the door of the inner courtyard, ready to give the alarm should any visitor come--ready also to entertain them.
And the next night Khôjee would have no help at all. How she managed was a marvel, but she did manage. Even Khâdeeja Khânum herself, had she been able to make comments, could scarcely have found fault with any lack of ceremony. And she would certainly have been gratified by her dead-clothes; for Khôjee, with that terrible remorse at her heart, spared nothing from the costume of ceremony. The green satin trousers should deal no more death. And even the silver earrings, the few trumpery silver bracelets, parting from which would have been worse than death to the dead woman, she replaced with facsimiles in 'German.' For silver could be purified by fire, and the living had need of it; while who knew whether the corpse could tell the difference? Not likely, since God was good, and therefore there was no need to be on one's guard against cheating in His Paradise! So, in a way, 'German' was as good as silver there! For poor Khôjee's white soul arrived at right conclusions by curious methods; she worked by them also, and, when that second dawn came, it was a very tired old woman who crept to the string bed set against the door.
But she rose again early, and telling Noormahal that, since there was now no one in the house but herself while marketings were going on, she had better keep the inner door closed, went off to the bazaar. She limped more than ever because of her tiredness, yet she sped through the streets quicker than usual, since, for the first time in her life, she went with her face uncovered. There was a breathlessness in that old face, and the old hands that held the knotted corner of her veil, wherein she had tied every available morsel of silver, every scrap of gold lace or ornament for which even a farthing could be got, were clasped on each other with almost painful tension.
'Lo, brother!' she said mildly to the goldsmith, 'what matters aruthior two. Weigh it quick, and give what is just. What is just! that is all I ask.'
It was not much, that bare justice, but it was something; and there was still a rupee or two over from the 'Essence of Happiness,' from the unavoidable expenses of that secret burial. So she passed hurriedly to a grain-merchant's shop.
Here she felt lost for a moment, lost, in the magnitude of what she needed to one whose purchases for many years had been a bare day's supply.
'It is for a wedding, likely?' asked the grain-dealer curiously.
'Likely,' she echoed softly. Her very brain felt tired, and it seemed to her confusedly as if, after all, it might be a wedding. The Lord-sahibmight send help, Noormahal might be saved, Jehân might come back to her. All things were possible to patience; and she, Khôjee, was patient enough, surely?
'Thou must send it in an hour's time,' she said to the corn-dealer, her head being still clear enough for that one single purpose of hers, 'then I shall be back. And, look you! I have paid coolie hire. There must be no asking for more.'
That was a necessary warning, since, when she reached home, every farthing would have been spent.
All but one was spent, when she paused beside the public scribe who had set up his desk at a corner where two bazaars met.
'Is it a letter, mother?' he asked of the old woman who put out a hand against the wooden pillar of the neighbouring shop as if for support. 'To the house-master, likely.'
She shook her head this time. 'Nay,meean! There is no house-master,' she said softly, as before, 'and it is not even a letter. But apice-worth of words on a scrap of paper. Listen! "There is food enough. Tarry the Lord's coming without fear or noise. I have locked the door." Canst do that for a pice,meean? And write clear, 'tis for a woman's eyes.' As she repeated the message, swaying to and fro as if she were reciting the Koran, the scribe smiled at a bystander and touched his forehead significantly.
'If beauty lie behind the door, the locking of it is apice-worth in itself,' he said with a grin, 'and I give the rest!'
'If beauty lay behind it!' she thought as she went on, with the paper folded in her hands. Yes! it was beauty, for the safety of which her ugliness was responsible. Had she done all? Had she forgotten nothing? Nothing that would ensure Noormahal from intrusion until she, Khôjee the plague-stricken, had died in the streets. For that was her plan. When death came close, as it surely must come soon, as it had done to Khôjee, she would unbolt the doors and wander away--like a tailor-bird luring a snake from its nest--into the outskirts of the city, right away from the old house. And then what stranger was to know that Khâdjee had died of plague, and was buried by thenaubut khanastairs?
When death came close! but not till then. Surely there was no need till then to face the world--surely she might claim that much!
And when she was dead no one would know the lame old woman was Khôjeeya Khânum, Daughter of Kings. Not even Lateefa.
The thought of him brought her a sudden fear. He was the only one who, having the right to claim it, might, by chance, seek entrance to the courtyard in the next day or two. She might on her way home see him, or leave a message to reassure him, at the house next Dilarâm's, whither she had fled with the news of Sobrai's escape.
There was no one in the house, no one in the little yard behind it; but Lateefa had been there not long ago, for the clippings of his trade littered one corner, and two draggled kites, their strings still fastened to wooden pegs in the wall, lay huddled in another.
Dilarâm might know; a message might be left with her.
As Khôjee stumbled up the dark stairs to a balcony for the first time in her life, she tried to straighten her veil, but her hands trembled; it would not fold decorously.
There were three or four drowsy women lounging in the room at the door of which she stood, beset by a sudden shyness, and three of them tittered at the unusual sight; but the fourth said severely--
'What dost here, sister? This is no place for thy sort.'
'I--I seek Lateefa,' she faltered, and the others tittered louder.
'Peace, fools!' said Dilarâm angrily. 'Dost mean Lateefa the kitemaker?'
But Khôjee had found her dignity. 'Yea! Lateef of the House of the Nawâb Jehân Aziz, on whom be peace. Tell him, courtesan, that Khôjeeya Khânum----' She paused, doubtful of her message, and, in the pause, the jingles on Dilarâm's feet clashed once more as she rose to do honour to a different life.
'Let theBibi sahibaspeak,' she said in her most mellifluous tones. 'We in the freedom of vice are slaves to the prisoners of virtue.'
'Tell him,' said Khôjeeya Khânum, 'that it is well with the prison and the prisoners. That they need no service.'
As she stumbled down the stairs again there was no sound of tittering.
It was nearly an hour after this, and the noonday sun was flooding the courtyards, when Khôjee, having completed her preparations, closed the door between them softly, so as not to disturb Noormahal--who had already retired for the usual midday sleep--and slipped a paper through the chink of the lintel ere drawing it close and padlocking the hasp.
Noormahal could not fail to see the reassuring message there when she woke, and began to wonder where Auntie Khôjee had gone.
As she straightened herself from stooping to the padlock, she felt, giddily, that she had locked herself out of life. She had but a few hours left of seclusion, and then--the streets.
But those few hours she might surely claim. So she closed and barred the wicket in the outer door, and dragging a string bed into the scant shade cast by thenaubut khana, found rest for her aching limbs. And there she lay silent, taking no heed of Noormahal's knockings and appeals which, after a time, rose cautiously. When they ceased the old woman gave a sigh of relief.
Thus far all had gone well. Now she had only to wait till she felt she dare wait no more.
So she lay, watching the shadows of the broken-tailed plaster peacocks of royalty above the gateway creep over the courtyard, up the walls, and disappear into thin air.