POINTS OF VIEW.
“Well, Georgie?”
“Well, Dick?”
Georgia’s eyes danced with merriment, for Dick was lying in wait for
her on the verandah, with a bunch of roses in his hand. Kubbet-ul-Haj
roses are not roses of Damascus, or of Kashmir, or of any other
locality famous for the culture of the plant; but poor as they were,
they were flowers, and of flowers the prisoners at the Mission had
seen but few of late. He held them out to her with quite unusual
timidity.
“Will you have them?” he asked, somewhat shyly.
“Of course I will, Dick. Thank you so much.” She took them from his
hand, kissed them, and fastened them in her dress. “Are you satisfied
now?” she asked, smiling.
“Satisfied!” he said, looking at her admiringly. “I feel now that what
happened last night was a reality.”
“Why, had you begun to hope it was a dream?”
“It might have been merely imagination--too good to be true. Stratford
has just been declaring that I was mad last evening. He says that I
wanted to sit up all night and talk, and that he had to turn me out of
his room by main force.”
“Poor fellow! Were you trying to drown the remembrance of what had
happened?”
“Drown it, indeed! burn it in, more likely. I can’t imagine how you
ever came to--Georgie, there’s one thing that puzzles me still. Why
were you so angry because Stratford went to the Palace instead of me?
I did all I could to go, of course, because I wanted to do something
for you; but why did you mind so much?”
“Never mind,” said Georgia, growing rather red; “it was absurd and
unreasonable of me. I know you must have thought that I wanted you to
be killed.”
“But why was it?”
“I suppose you will give me no peace until I tell you. It was because
I couldn’t bear to think you cared so little about me as to let him go
instead.”
“I wish I had gone!” said Dick, enviously.
“Then you would probably have been killed, and the treaty would not
have been signed, and we should never have known what we know
now--about our caring for each other, I mean. I might have guessed the
truth when I heard that you had gone, but I could never have been
sure; it might only have been a way of taking a noble revenge on me,
you know. And you would have sacrificed yourself and perhaps even
died, believing all the time that I detested you. I know you deserved
it, but still, I should have been sorry. No, things are much better as
they are. It was very silly of me to think and say what I did.”
“I like you to be silly about me.”
“And you don’t like me under other circumstances? I hope I am not
always silly.”
“I don’t care about circumstances, or wisdom, or foolishness, or
anything. I love you because you are yourself.”
“Dick, you are incorrigible!” There was a slight soreness in Georgia’s
tone. It was undeniable that Dick was lacking in tact.
“Now I have gone and hurt your feelings again! I wish I wasn’t such a
blundering idiot.”
“Dick, listen to me. I want you to do me a favour.”
“If there is any single thing in the whole world I could do for
you----”
“You would do it, I know, however great it was. But it is a number of
little things, Dick. I know you don’t mean to hurt me, but you often
do. Think a moment. I don’t love you any more because of your Victoria
Cross, but it makes me glad and proud to think that you have it. I
know I can’t expect you to be glad that I am a doctor, and proud of
being one, because you dislike the very idea; but I want you to treat
the subject tenderly, because it is connected with me. I daresay it
seems very strange to you that I should be as sensitive about my
profession as you are about yours, and I know you will never look at
the two things in the same light, but I ask you to regard it as a
concession to my weakness when you let an opportunity pass without a
sneer. We must agree to differ on this question, I suppose, but I want
you to do it gracefully, for my sake.” There were tears in her eyes as
she looked at him, and Dick felt the enormity of his conduct more
keenly than he had ever done in the days when he delighted to provoke
her to arguments and the delivery of lectures.
“What a brute I must have been, that you should find it necessary to
ask such a thing of me!” he burst out. “It makes me feel thoroughly
ashamed to think what a cad I am. Do you think that it’s safe to have
anything to do with me, Georgie?”
“I don’t know whether it’s safe or not, but I love you so much that I
couldn’t do without you,” said Georgia, unsteadily.
“To hear you say that makes me feel that I could do anything you asked
me. Help me to be more worthy of you, Georgie. If I hurt your feelings
after this I deserve to be hung. Pull me up--simply slang me--if I say
anything unkind. I never thought I was such a blackguard. No, only
look at me, as you did just now, and if I don’t wilt, as Hicks puts
it, that instant, then throw me over, for I shan’t be worth troubling
about. I will get over that habit of letting out at the things you
care for. I feel as though I could go anywhere and do anything
to-day.”
“And I feel so ridiculously safe,” said Georgia, smiling at him with
an April face.
“And yet nothing is really different from what it was yesterday.”
“Oh, Dick! everything is different. There is hope to-day, and there
was none then. Think how dreadful it would have been to be killed when
everything was wrong between us.”
“What a remark!” said Dick, lazily--“it’s almost worthy of young
Anstruther; and how particularly cheerful the subjects of your
thoughts are! Now that I am in a position to keep you from making rash
expeditions to the Palace, I must say that I don’t see any present
danger of your being killed.”
“The calmness with which you contemplate such a contingency does
infinite credit to your strength of mind, sir. But it is rather
strange that you should have mentioned the Palace, for I am going
there this morning.”
“Not with my consent.”
“Then without it, I am afraid. Dick, you are not going to get up a
quarrel over such a little thing, surely? You don’t imagine that I
should think of going now without taking every possible precaution,
and getting Mr Stratford’s leave?”
“What has Stratford got to do with it? It’s my affair.”
“Excuse me, I think it’s mine. Now, Dick, you don’t deserve to be
reassured and made to feel comfortable about it, but I am going to be
magnanimous. While you were out in the early morning there came a
messenger from the King. He said that they had not yet taken the
bandage from the Queen’s eyes, because they were afraid to touch it if
I was not there. He was so anxious that I should be present and direct
operations that he offered of his own accord to send Antar Khan here
as a hostage for the whole time I am gone. Now are you satisfied?”
“Not unless I go with you.”
“But that’s impossible. Rahah and I make the passage in the litter,
and we couldn’t manage to smuggle you in. Besides, what should we do
with you when we got to the Palace?”
“That wasn’t what I meant. I will take five or six of the servants and
ride beside you. Then I shall wait in the men’s part of the Palace
while you go to see the Queen, and bring you back again. You won’t
find me leaving the place without you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find it rather dull. We shan’t be able to talk, you
know. But of course I should like it much better if you were there.
You will come, then?”
“Rather. If you will run into danger, you shall not go alone--now.”
“Your permission is slightly grudging,” said Georgia, laughing, but
she was heartily glad to have his escort. The unpleasant circumstances
of her last visit to the Palace had made her shrink from going there
again, although she had a particular reason for desiring to do so. The
thought that Dick would not be far off was a reassuring one, even
though there was no reason for anticipating any unfriendliness from
the royal household. And in this way it came to pass that when the
Palace litter, closely guarded by soldiers, conveyed Georgia and her
handmaid to visit her patient, Dick rode behind it with six of the
servants of the Mission, who were divided between delight at being
outside the walls of the house once more, and a certain degree of
terror at the prospect of finding themselves inside the Palace.
Reclining luxuriously on the cushions, with Rahah crouching opposite
to her, Georgia spent the time occupied by the transit in
recapitulating to herself the points of the inquiry which she was
anxious to make, and which had as its primary object the
re-establishment of Sir Dugald’s health. The disagreeable interruption
of her interview with Nur Jahan’s mother, by the entrance of the
King’s younger wife, had prevented her from putting to the women
present the questions which had been suggested to her by their mention
of the witch whose poisons Fath-ud-Din was wont to employ to rid him
of his enemies. The name and dwelling-place of this old woman had
become matters of the deepest interest to Georgia, and she was also
eager for any information that it might be possible to obtain as to
her methods and the poisons she used. On what she could discover this
morning, Sir Dugald’s life, or at any rate, his restoration to health,
might depend, and this in itself was enough to determine Georgia to
leave no stone unturned in the effort to ensure success. But it must
be confessed that she had an additional motive--a sufficiently weighty
one, although completely secondary--and this was the subjugation, or
conviction, or conversion, whichever it might be called, of Dick. She
did not give the process any of these names in her own mind, but she
recognised that in the present state of affairs between them the old
difference of opinion was only lying dormant, and that sooner or later
it must revive. Shrinking with all her heart from the idea of paining,
or even opposing him, she was none the less aware that any surrender
on her part would only bring her grief and remorse later, and she
longed to be able to do something that might justify her in Dick’s
eyes, might bring him to acquiesce of his own free will in her
continuing the practice of her profession, and thus avert the crisis
she foresaw and feared. There was only one thing that could come
between Dick and herself, and that was her work; but she knew that if
she was true to her principles, she must uphold it against Dick. She
had gained a temporary advantage that morning, but she was already
ashamed of the weapons of which she had made use.
“Mine was a weak impulse,” she said to herself, “for it led me to
appeal merely to Dick’s feelings, instead of to his reason and his
sense of right. I made him ashamed of himself, but it was in an unfair
way--almost as bad as it would have been if I had cried. I can’t think
what led me to do it--I suppose it was simply a reversion to the
tactics of the Old Woman. It was lowering myself, and it lowered
Dick--he would never have stooped to try to coax me, but he yields
when I coax him. Of course he liked it--he naturally would, but that
doesn’t make it any better. I asked him to do as a favour to me what
he ought, as a gentleman, to do as a mere matter of justice, and if he
follows the thing out logically he will feel at liberty to sneer at
any other medical woman he may meet, even though he makes an exception
in my case. I have gone to work in the wrong way--no doubt it is the
most comfortable, but that doesn’t signify if it isn’t right. It’s no
use pretending that Dick is perfect--he isn’t, any more than I am; but
I want to see him getting nearer to perfection the more I have to do
with him, and it wouldn’t be the way to bring that about if I helped
him to grow into a tyrant whose most unreasonable wish was law unless
he could be wheedled out of it. No, I see that he has a great deal to
learn yet: I am only afraid that I may not be the right person to
teach it him. I am so much afraid of hurting his feelings--and I don’t
know how I could ever do without him now.”
In short, Georgia was in a difficult position, between an exacting
professional conscience and a sufficiently masterful lover, but it is
possible that her very tenderness for Dick’s feelings afforded her a
better guarantee of success than if she had cared for him less. He, on
his part, was quite content to enjoy to the full his unexpected
happiness, without troubling himself about the future, and he knew
nothing of the heavy sigh with which Georgia at last put her own
affairs from her, and dismounted from the litter in the harem
courtyard at the Palace, prepared to throw herself wholly into the
joys and sorrows of its inmates.
“O doctor lady!” cried Nur Jahan, rushing to meet her with much
clashing of bangles and rustling of stiff satin, “it rejoices my eyes
to behold thee again. We feared that after the evil words of Antar
Khan’s mother thou wouldst never return to us. Truly the world has
changed for us all since thou wert here, and were it not for my lord’s
absence with the army I should have nothing to wish for.”
She led Georgia into the Queen’s room, where the patient was waiting
in pitiable anxiety. The long delay, which she had been too nervous to
terminate at the proper time, had tasked the poor lady’s patience to
the utmost, and she was feverishly eager that the result of the
operation should be known, and the final verdict uttered. The room was
carefully darkened, and Georgia unfastened the bandages. For a moment
the Queen’s weakened eyes could see nothing, and a low despairing wail
broke from her, but almost as Georgia laid her hand upon her shoulder
and exhorted her to be calm, the moan changed to a cry of joy.
“I can see!” she cried. “God is great, and great is the power He has
given to the English and to the doctor lady. With these eyes of mine I
shall behold my son’s son before I die.”
“Here is the child, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, laying her baby
eagerly in the Queen’s arms. “Bless him now, and bless also the doctor
lady, through whose skill thou beholdest him.”
“Almost I might believe myself young again, with my son Rustam Khan in
my arms,” said the grandmother, looking fondly at the baby, “and yet
this is Rustam Khan’s son that I hold. O doctor lady, if the blessing
of one who has suffered much, and whom thou hast by thine art brought
back from the gates of despair, can benefit thee, thou hast it now,
and may it follow thee and thy children and thy children’s children
for ever!”
Georgia’s own eyes were dim with tears as she turned away to put
together the things she had brought with her, and the slaves crowded
round her in grateful reverence, kissing the hem of her dress and
laying her hand on their heads, while Nur Jahan despatched a messenger
to inform the King that the operation had been successful. The slave
returned in a short time, accompanied by the chamberlain who presided
over the treasury, bearing a mass of jewellery tied up in a thick silk
handkerchief as a gift to the doctor lady, together with the King’s
grateful thanks. Georgia knew her duty with respect to presents of
this kind, and having raised the handkerchief to her forehead, she
placed it again on the tray on which it had arrived, and choosing out
of the heap a necklace of curious workmanship, but of comparatively
small intrinsic value, she returned the remainder to the bearer,
desiring him to convey her thanks to the King. Rahah was made happy by
the gift of a massive pair of anklets, in which she clanked about as
though in fetters; and the negro, as he withdrew, intimated that the
King intended to mark the occasion by gifts of jewellery to his wife
and daughter-in-law and their respective attendants. Hence it was a
very merry party which partook presently of coffee and sweetmeats in
the Queen’s room, and Georgia observed with some amusement that now it
was the Queen’s servants who shrieked shrill defiances across the
courtyard at the attendants of Antar Khan’s mother, and that they were
powerless to retaliate. They sat in a scowling and disconsolate row on
the verandah, and, as Mr Hicks would have put it, “squirmed” under the
infliction.
“Must thou leave us when thy friends depart, O doctor lady?” asked the
Queen. “There are many women blind and sick and lame in Kubbet-ul-Haj,
much more in all Ethiopia. Wilt thou not stay and cure them?”
“I am afraid I must go back when the Mission does,” said Georgia,
“though I shall be very sorry to have to leave you all, and I wish I
might hope to come back. But I shall not be my own mistress for very
long now.”
“Has the wife of the Queen of England’s Envoy found a husband for
thee, then, O doctor lady?” asked Nur Jahan with deep commiseration,
forgetting the unfavourable impression of her own married life which
the words would convey; “I thought thou wert free and happy.”
“Peace, Nur Jahan!” said the Queen, quickly. “Knowest thou not that
the caged birds should entice the wild ones into the trap, and not
warn them away? Hath the lot of all women overtaken thee at last, O
doctor lady? I would have thee give God thanks that it comes so late.”
“O my ladies,” said Rahah, indignantly, “surely ye know not the ways
of the English. The great lord that is to marry my lady is a mighty
captain, and his name is known throughout all Khemistan. He is rich
also, and his hand is bountiful,” and Rahah surveyed complacently a
new bracelet she had made for herself that very morning by stringing
together certain silver coins, “and to please my lady he would give
all that he has. In his own eyes he is but the dust under her feet.”
“Art thou so young as to be thus deceived, girl?” asked the Queen,
compassionately. “Surely it is ill with thy mistress if thou art led
away and withheld from warning her by a few pieces of silver. These
that thou hast mentioned are the ways of all men at the first, but
sooner or later the change comes. I warn thee, O doctor lady, when thy
lord brings another wife into the house, however solemnly he may have
assured thee that thou shalt always reign there alone, reproach him
not, but be friendly with her, if she will have it so, for otherwise
she will prevail upon him to cast thee out.”
To the astonishment of the whole circle, Georgia was laughing so
heartily over the idea thus presented to her that she could scarcely
speak, but Rahah explained with haughty superiority the difference
between English and Ethiopian marriage customs, although her
explanation was received with manifest incredulity. It was not until
Georgia had declared solemnly that if her husband brought a second
wife into the house she would instantly leave it, and that the law of
England and public opinion would support her in doing so, that the
ladies began to perceive that there might be advantages attaching to
matrimony in Europe which were lacking to it in Kubbet-ul-Haj. Nur
Jahan possessed the moral support of Rustam Khan’s promise to her
father that he would not take a second wife; but it was evident that
the Queen and her women regarded this as a temporary concession which
might or might not continue to be observed, and that public opinion
would think no worse of Rustam Khan if he withdrew it.
“It is right, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “that thou shouldest
have a prospect of happiness in marriage, for thou hast dealt well
indeed with me and with my house.”
“Nay, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, “is it not rather that the doctor
lady has brought us good luck, from her first coming until now? Since
she came, the wicked Fath-ud-Din has been cast down and punished, and
my father is put into his place. Thine adversary has been made to eat
dirt, and the faces of all our enemies are humbled before us. My lord
is restored to his honours and to his command, and my mother has
returned to her house in peace with many gifts, sent her by our lord
the King. And thine eyes are opened also. Is not the doctor lady truly
a bringer of good luck?”
“And yet our coming to Kubbet-ul-Haj has not brought good fortune to
ourselves,” said Georgia, sadly. “One of our party has been murdered,
and the Envoy himself lies like one dead----”
“And a husband has been found for thee,” murmured the irrepressible
Nur Jahan.
“I see you won’t believe me when I tell you that I don’t count that a
misfortune,” said Georgia. “I am not joking, Nur Jahan. I need help
very much, and I think that some of you can give it me, but it is in
quite a different matter.”
“Speak, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “and may the blindness thou
hast taken from me rest on any that refuse to help thee.”
“You were speaking the other day,” said Georgia, “of some old woman
who was supposed to help Fath-ud-Din by poisoning his enemies. Is this
known to be true, or is it merely common talk?”
“It is quite true,” replied the Queen, “that several of Fath-ud-Din’s
enemies have died in agonising torments which no physician could
alleviate. One expired in torturing thirst, with such pains as those
experience who have lost their way in the desert and can find no
water.” Georgia nodded quickly. “Another died of hunger, which
tormented him with its pangs, while he could swallow nothing to
alleviate them. Yet another went mad, and rushing through the city,
cast himself headlong from the walls; and of one the wives and
children died one after the other, until, broken down by misery, he
died also.”
“Tell me,” said Georgia, eagerly, “has any one whom Fath-ud-Din hated
ever fallen into a sleep so heavy that he could not be awakened, in
which he remained for weeks and yet lived?”
The ladies turned and looked at one another. “It is the Father of
sleep!” were the words that passed between them.
“You know something about it?” cried Georgia.
“We _know_ nothing, O doctor lady,” said Nur Jahan; “but we have heard
much concerning a certain drug of this wicked woman’s. Others of her
poisons are drawn, men say, from strange plants of distant lands; but
this is taken from a fish which is found upon a certain island of the
southern seas, and whose scales and bones and flesh, so they say, have
been all filled with poison by wicked enchantments, and they call it
the Father of sleep.”
“Then have you ever known an instance when it was used?” asked
Georgia, filled with eager anticipation.
“I have, O doctor lady,” said one of the Queen’s confidential slaves,
“and I will tell thee of it if my mistress will suffer me to speak
freely.”
“Speak,” said the Queen. “Have not I commanded all my household to
assist the doctor lady in every way?”
“It was many years ago, when our lord the King married the Vizier’s
sister, who is now the mother of Antar Khan,” said the slave, rather
reluctantly, “and our lord the King’s sister, the Lady Fatma, in whose
service I was at that time, was very angry about the match. It was
even said that she had almost succeeded in breaking it off. That
wicked woman, the sorceress, the accursed Khadija, was sent by
Fath-ud-Din to warn the Lady Fatma to withdraw her opposition, if her
life was dear to her; but the Princess mocked at Khadija, and derided
her powers. Then Khadija made an evil sign, and foretold that before
the next morning light the Lady Fatma should know her power; and
surely enough, when her slaves sought to awaken her at dawn, she did
not hear them, but lay as one still asleep. Then, when they had failed
again and again to arouse her, they ran to tell the King of the
matter, and of the words of Khadija. He sent for the woman, and
threatened her with death, but he could in no way wring from her a
promise to remove the spell, except on condition that no punishment
whatever should be inflicted on her. Now the King had an enemy, a
rebel chief, and it seemed to him that he might well be rid of him by
this woman’s means, and he covenanted with her that, as the price of
her life, she should not only remove the spell from the Lady Fatma,
but also bring about the death of Zohrab Khan. And this was done.”
“And it was well done,” said the Queen, decisively, as the slave
looked towards her with some anxiety. “The man was a traitor, and
false to his salt.”
“But was it poison that Khadija had administered to the Lady Fatma?”
asked Georgia, too eager for information to turn aside to the moral
question involved in the death of Zohrab Khan. “And how did she
counteract it?”
“She had put the poison (very little is needed) into the Lady Fatma’s
coffee, and in order to awaken her from the magic sleep she gave her a
potion that she mixed. It was whispered among the slaves that it was
made of the shavings of a porcupine’s teeth, mixed with the juice of a
plant that is brought from the land of the poison-fish; but the secret
of it is known only to Khadija herself, and the antidote is useless
unless it is administered in one particular way, but none of us who
belonged to the Princess’s household were allowed to see what was
done.”
“This must be the very thing I want to know!” said Georgia. “And now,
where is Khadija to be found?”
“In Fath-ud-Din’s fortress of Bir-ul-Malikat, where she watches over
his daughter Zeynab,” said Nur Jahan, with lively contempt. “The Rose
of the World, they call the girl, and she is to marry Antar Khan, if
Fath-ud-Din and the witch together can bring it about.”
“But where is this fortress?” asked Georgia.
“In the desert, on the way to Khemistan. There are two forts on two
hills, Bir-ul-Malik and Bir-ul-Malikat. Bir-ul-Malik used to belong to
my father, but Khadija dried up the water in the well by her arts, and
the garrison almost died of thirst. My father complained to our lord
the King, and he, thinking that the place was now useless, commanded
Fath-ud-Din to give my father another town in exchange, and this he
did, in another part of the kingdom. But as soon as my father’s men
were gone from Bir-ul-Malik, Fath-ud-Din took possession of the place,
and Khadija brought back the water into the well, and now he holds the
only two forts and wells in all that region.”
This was all the information that could be gained from the household
at the Palace, and Georgia’s desire not to alarm her friends kept her
from uttering aloud the thought that was in her mind, so that she
allowed the subject to drop. During the remainder of the visit,
however, and while she was being carried home in the litter, the
determination rose strong within her to find Khadija and get hold of
the secret of that antidote, if she had to make an expedition into
Ethiopia all by herself, after the Mission had returned to Khemistan,
for the sake of doing so.
After the farewell visit to the Palace, there was still another visit
to be paid, and this was to Nur Jahan’s mother, who had returned with
her husband to her own house, which might now be considered a place of
comparative safety. The Princess sent her litter to the Mission, and
Georgia made the transit in the usual seclusion, escorted by Dick and
a number of armed servants. Arrived at the Grand Vizier’s house, Dick
whiled away the time by a chat with Jahan Beg, and Georgia and Rahah
were conducted to the harem, where the Princess received them with
great kindness. There was even a touch of compassion in her manner,
for which Georgia was at a loss to account until she learnt that Nur
Jahan had told her mother of the doctor lady’s intended marriage.
“Art thou well advised in this that thou art intending, O doctor
lady?” asked the Princess. “If it is true that thou art free to act in
the matter according to thine own will, consider what thou doest
before it is too late. My daughter tells me that thou hast no fear,
since thy betrothed husband is an Englishman; but I know too well that
all husbands are alike, for I also am married to an Englishman,
although I was not aware of the truth until Fath-ud-Din’s servants
shouted it at me as they drove me from my own house a month ago.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Georgia, diffidently, “the Amir Jahan Beg was not
then acquainted with the customs of Ethiopia, which differ from ours,
and he may have appeared unkind through ignorance.”
“Not so,” said the Princess, decisively, “for had that been all, my
love would have won him to honour our customs for my sake,” and her
hard eyes softened at the touch of some early memory. “Listen to me, O
doctor lady, and judge between my lord and me. My first husband was
very old, and when he died I mourned for him almost as for a father.
To him I was a child and a plaything--he was not unkind, but I was
nothing to him, and I knew it. Then for some time I dwelt at the
Palace, under the protection of my cousin the Queen. In those days
every one was talking of the valour and wisdom of a new favourite of
our lord the King, a captive from among the hillmen of the south, but
a convert to the faith of Islam. He had repelled the hostile tribes on
our northern border, and extended the kingdom beyond the utmost limits
it had hitherto attained, and he was coming in triumph to
Kubbet-ul-Haj to lay his spoils at the King’s feet. When that day
came, the Queen and I, with our women, were watching the ceremony from
our balcony above the throne. The slave-girls exclaimed at the
vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought,
he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to
me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends
for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought
that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I
congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her
heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust
and ashes when gained! My nurse told me afterwards that on our
wedding-night she had seen how things would fall out. I was waiting
for my bridegroom, she with me, that she might remove my veil and
leave him to behold my face. He came in without a salutation to either
of us, and sat down beside me upon the divan. My nurse was angry, and
said sharply, ‘It is not the custom in Ethiopia to sit uninvited in
the presence of the daughter of the King’s uncle.’ ‘O mother,’ he
replied, ‘I stand before no woman in Ethiopia, least of all my own
wife.’ My nurse was much disturbed. ‘Wilt thou still marry him,
Nafiza, my dove?’ she whispered, so that only I could hear; ‘the King
will not suffer thee to be insulted.’ But I, thinking, ‘He must surely
be a great prince in his own country, to speak thus to a king’s
granddaughter!’ motioned to her to lift my veil, saying, ‘It is well,
O my nurse; go on.’ And thus was I married, and evil was my marriage.
For in the night I would hear my lord speaking in his own tongue in
his sleep, and I knew that he spoke of his own land. But more; I
learnt why nothing that I could do could please him, or bring his eyes
to look upon me with favour. He had no love for me, he had married me
at the King’s command, and I could not even hope that in time I might
be able to win his affection, for always in the night he called upon
the name of another woman.”
“Oh, but how could you tell?” cried Georgia, quickly, appalled by this
revelation of the tragedy which Jahan Beg had brought into the life of
his slighted wife. “You don’t understand English. You may have
mistaken what he said.” The Lady Nafiza smiled.
“How could I tell, O doctor lady? My heart told me. Though I might not
understand the words, yet I could not mistake the tone. And thus my
dream faded. But when my daughter Nur Jahan was born, my lord left off
crying out to the other woman, but he spoke more and more in his sleep
of his own land. I _knew_ it, O doctor lady, though I could not
understand. And one day, sitting at his feet, with my baby in my arms,
while he held up the hilt of his sword so that the light might flash
upon the jewels and make the child laugh, I plucked up my courage and
said, ‘Does my lord long very sorely for his own land that he cries
out for it every night?’ I would have gone on to tell him that for his
sake I was ready to leave my people and flee with him to his land, but
his brow darkened, and he sprang up and seized me by the shoulder. ‘Am
I not safe in my own house?’ he cried in a dreadful voice. ‘Do they
set my wife to spy upon me? Woman, no one that has betrayed Jahan Beg
lives another hour!’ What could I do but embrace his knees and kiss
his feet, and entreat his mercy for my child’s sake, since he had no
pity for me? And he thrust me from him and went out. Never again did I
speak to him of the words he uttered in sleep. But I loved him still,
and cast about how I might win him to me. At last it seemed to me that
there was indeed a reason for my ill-success, for I had given my lord
no son. Then, after many tears shed in secret, and many struggles with
myself, I said to him, ‘Let my lord choose another wife, who may bear
him sons, and I will welcome her into my house, and she shall be to me
as a sister, for my lord’s sake, and her children as my own.’ This I
did, thinking that he feared to supplant me because I was the King’s
cousin--and indeed, all this house and the slaves were part of my
dowry, and belong to me--but he _laughed_, O doctor lady, he laughed
at me, though I was giving him that which it broke my heart to offer,
and he said, ‘If I desired other wives, I would take them, but one is
enough for me.’ Why should my lord visit upon me the evil deeds of
that other woman, O doctor lady? for I know that she must have
deceived him. But from that day I sought no more to speak to my
husband’s heart. And my daughter grew up; but she was like him and his
people, and not like me, and he loved her for that reason, so that
sometimes I almost hated my own child. But that is long ago, and I
remember it to-day only as a warning to thee.”
Georgia’s eyes were full of tears as she took her leave. She had
bestowed all her pity hitherto on Nur Jahan, but now she felt more
deeply for her mother, whose love, passionate and unrequited, had been
to her only a source of pain. The wrong which Jahan Beg had done had
been visited not only upon himself, but upon his innocent wife and
daughter, and it could not be redressed.
“Sweetheart,” said Dick, anxiously, as he helped Georgia out of the
litter on their return, and assisted her to remove the enshrouding
_burka_, “you look awfully fagged. Come and have a turn round the
courtyard with me.”
“Do you know, Dick,” she said, looking round at him, “that I am being
advised continually not to marry you?”
“No?” said Dick, highly diverted. “What a joke! Who is the faithful
warner--young Anstruther?”
“Dick! As if I would ever let him say a word against you to me! No, it
is all my Ethiopian ladies. They are firmly of opinion that marriage
is a failure.”
“I hope you oppose them with all the ardour of a new convert, then?”
“I can’t convince them, unfortunately. Their arguments are
unanswerable, they are their own husbands.”
“And you have no favourable counter-experience to draw upon?”
“No. I have to defend you on trust, Dick.”
“Poor little girl! and that’s very hard upon you, isn’t it, when you
know so little of me, and what you do know is so bad?”