Words which have caused much shedding of blood and tears.
But Sobrai Begum found laughter in the storm they had provoked.
""Twas only Jehan and Noormahal squabbling over the old ring," she t.i.ttered 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 Khojee"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.
Khadjee was wiping the dimness of past tears from her spectacles, Khojee 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 Jehan would sell or p.a.w.n 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 Khojee 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 Jehan 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 the _Huzoors_?
As she made her plans, Jehan 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 Ram, the usurer, might object to any one else getting them.
CHAPTER III
COBWEBS
The noonday sun lay shadowless in every nook of the narrow evil-smelling courtyard which formed a common exit to Jehan Aziz"s bachelor quarters and three or four other houses whose fronts faced the most disreputable bazaar in Nushapore. One of these belonged to Dilaram, 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 Dilaram herself matched the general drowsiness as she sate, m.u.f.fled 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.
Jehan Aziz, who sate on a string bed below, looked a trifle less dilapidated than Dilaram, 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 Dilaram (who was within an aside of Jehan) with a sudden causeless access of indifference and malice. "And Nawab Jehan Aziz, _Rukn-ud-dowla-Hafiz-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 Jehan savagely, scowling at the sarcasm of the t.i.tles.
A day and a night had pa.s.sed since Aunt Khojee, 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. Jehan Aziz, after established custom, had kept the scandalous secret to himself and his immediate family, with the exception of Dilaram, 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.
Dilaram, 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 G.o.d"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. And _this_ would 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 Jehan, 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, Dilaram would have known who else sought to flutter in her footsteps. But with new pleasures, Nawab-_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 Jehan 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 Dilaram"s words stung horribly.
"G.o.d smite their souls to the nethermost h.e.l.l!" 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 the _baboo"s_ about the plague, if they only knew it!"
Jehan Aziz turned on her like a snake, sleepy yet swift, ready for dreams or death.
"If thou dost _dare_ to tell----"
She held out her bare brown arm in a quick gesture of silence, and rising, swept him a _salaam_ that set the hidden anklets beneath her dirty draperies a-jingling, and proclaimed her what she was--a pa.s.sed mistress in the oldest of professions for women.
"There is no need, my lord, she said superbly, "to teach Dilaram her duty to the virtuous women who sit free of shame in the n.o.ble houses where she dances. _We_ learn that first of all."
There was an indescribable grace in her att.i.tude, 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. Jehan"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, Dilaram and her dancing did not amuse him in the very least. He had pa.s.sed from the old style to the new, and, indeed, was chiefly responsible for the introduction of Miss Leezie and her like to the n.o.bility 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 Jehan"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 Hafiz 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 Jehan 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 h.o.a.rds 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 Jehan 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! Nawab-_jee_. Crores and crores of rupees lent in the old days, and the interest spent now in gardens for the _mems_ to play games in, and statues to their own Queen! But it is no new thing, I tell you. I am no ignoramus--I am _middle 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 pa.s.sing along the alley with the beggar"s cry of "_Alakh Alakh_" paused to listen--"would have killed the religious also but for those among them like Gladstone and Caine-_sahib_ who say, as we do, that the others are tyrants and have no right to India."
The hotch-potch of history was interrupted by Dilaram"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 b.u.t.ter on a hearth cake! Or give it to _jogi-jee_ yonder," 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 the _jogi_ in 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 G.o.ds. 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 the _Mimbrans_-committee, and yet the world will wag peaceful. But touch _us_ and 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.