Chandni was standing in her cool recesses of shadow at the farther end
of the gateway which adjoined the little strip of bazaar leading past
the palace. A bazaar but a few yards long, yet retaining in that small
space a specimen of all the vices which in past times had made the
Moghuls of Hodinuggur infamous. A couple of young men with uncovered
heads were dicing on a string bed thrust under a patched, dyed awning
stretched from balcony to balcony. A group of half-a-dozen more were
quarrelling vilely over a quail fight beside the liquor-seller's booth,
gay in its coloured bottles. Two or three of various ages, heavy with
drugs, were sprawling and nodding in the gutters. Just across the
street a sutara-player was twanging away, and above him a girl,
powdered and painted, bent over the wooden balcony flinging snatches of
hideous song on the passers-by, and shrieking with coarse laughter at a
naked monstrosity who, as he begged, made capital of his misfortunes.
On this girl, with her grease-smirched hair and Brummagem jewelry,
Chandni, from her shadows, cast glances of scorn, which she transferred
after a time to Dalel Beg, who sat crouched up against a plinth smoking
a rank hookah and sipping a 'rajah's peg' of brandy and champagne. He
had discarded European dress entirely, and the few clothes he wore
smelt horribly of musk.
Against the darkness of the arch behind her the woman's tall figure
showed like a white shadow. Not a scrap of colour anywhere save in her
stained lips and the pomegranate sprig she twirled idly in her hand.
Keeping time with it to the thrum of the sutara; keeping time also with
a clash of the silver anklets hidden by the long gauze draperies of her
Delhi dress.
'Yea! Dalel!' she said mockingly, and the creamy column of her throat
vibrated visibly with her smooth round voice. ''Tis over true what the
little sahib said of thy coarse attempts. The pack of us are fools. The
sahib-logue's drink yonder steals what brains God gave thee; then Meean
Khush-hal was never aught but a big belly, and the Diwan--Heaven keep
him for the best of the lot--sits too high. There remains but Chandni
the courtesan, and she----'
'Hath failed,' broke in Dalel with a forced explosion of malicious
laughter. 'Lo! thou hast not had a civil tongue for others since he
flouted thee. Sure the plant must be trampled in the dust ere it
blossoms. Have patience, heart's delight.'
He was too weary even in his malice to seek the amusement of watching
the rage grow to her face as she stood behind him.
'Whose fault----' she began hotly; then with a louder clash of the
anklets ended in a laugh. 'Lo! 'tis past. And what care I? 'Tis naught
to me, but if the treasure-chest of Hodinuggur be empty, 'tis good-bye
to Chandni. She goes back to Delhi.'
'Nay! nay!' whimpered Dalel with a maudlin shake of the head, as he
sought comfort in finishing the tumbler. 'We will succeed yet; but the
boy hath no youth in his veins. I know not how to take him as the
others. Yet have we done our best----'
'Best,' echoed the woman scornfully. 'Stale old tricks. A gold piece
under his plate at dinner forsooth! That was soon over in a beating for
the servant who should have seen it put there. A dish of oranges
stuffed with rupees which the same servant, wise man, kept for himself.
A gun he would not take! a dinner he would not eat! a horse he would
not ride! Even a woman he would not look at. What care I? there be
others who will. Stale old tricks indeed! insipid as uncooled water on
a summer's day, or that thing yonder'--she pointed to the opposite
balcony--'compared to me. Think not I did not see thee ere I came out,
oh! Dalel. Not that I care. There be others, and Delhi is but a day's
journey.'
'Mayhap the tricks are old,' he muttered in sullen discomfiture. 'Hast
new to advise?'
She laughed. 'Not to thee; thou hast not the wit for it. And there is
naught new. The crazy potter is right when he saith the world is in the
dust. Sure every ploughman knows, that no matter what the surface be,
the sand lies under all. Thou hast but to dig deep enough.'
She had moved forward to lean against the plinth. In the action her
thin draperies clung to the long curve of her limbs from hip to ankle.
Her right hand supported her head, which was thrown back against it, so
that the arm framed her face. It was the attitude of the Medea in
Pompeian frescoes; the face of a Medea also till the downward glance of
her eyes met an upward one from the sutara-player. Then with a flash
and a laugh the pomegranate blossom flew out into the sunlight and fell
at the young man's feet. Dalel clutched at her savagely amid a volley
of coarse English oaths.
'Let me go, beloved!' she giggled. 'Did I not say the sand lay under
all? What! art jealous? jealous of Chandni the courtesan? Wouldst have
me Dalelah since thou art Dalel? If that be so, I will put thee in good
temper again.'
She snatched at an old banjo hanging on a nail, sank down amid her
draperies like a cobra on its coil, and began recklessly to sing
'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,' while Dalel waggled his head, but half
mollified.
'Thou canst not dance it though,' he maundered sleepily. 'Not as 'twas
pictured in the English papers at the Jubilee Institute. Thou art no
good at all. I will change thee for a half-caste girl. Yet if there be
no money in the treasury? Lo! Fate is hard, and I have done my best.'
And still the song of civilisation went on, full of incongruous
barbaric intervals. The girl in the balcony retreated in a huff before
an accomplishment unknown to her: the quail-fighters laughed at the
noise. Only George Keene, wandering about one of the inner courts of
the palace, seeking a good spot whence to sketch a certain blue-tiled
mosque, found himself unconsciously whistling a refrain, and paused to
listen in sickening suspense. Yes, it was! Fitzgerald was right when he
said the country was being ruined by culture! What an inconceivable,
unthinkable contrast to that great ruined courtyard, its blue tiles
decorated in endless writing with the Attributes of God. At least how
inconceivable it would have been six weeks ago, when he had first seen
the mosque with Dan as his companion. For George Keene was becoming
accustomed to being, as it were, depolarised. It would have made him
very angry had any one told him that Hodinuggur had already altered his
outlook on life, though it could scarcely have failed to do so. To
begin with Dalel Beg's occidental follies, grafted on to a sound stock
of ancestral vices, made him, as he leered over a billiard cue and
tried to induce George to bet, quite a startling study. Not so
disturbing, however, as the sober, gentle, inoffensive villagers with
the confession, 'It is God's will,' on their patient lips. Content to
toil and die, smiling over the fact. Surely, something ailed the
terminology of religion if these were Heathen, and certain Western folk
in his father's suburban parish were Christians? Then there was the mad
potter in whose walled yard George listened to the oddest old-world
tales, and the Diwan with whom the lad played chess. To tell truth, he
never climbed up for that purpose to the tower without a breathlessness
not altogether to be accounted for by the steepness of the stairs. Face
to face with the old man, sitting still as a statue before the pieces,
George felt himself face to face with something he could not set aside
with a sneer. Yet he might have been playing with an automaton for all
the interest Zubr-ul-Zaman displayed, while he, on his part, was
agonising in anxiety. But once his hand had left the piece, the old
man's would rise from his knee, hover over the board for a second, then
swoop down unerringly with the murmur, 'My play is played.' And the
move generally disposed of all George's deep-laid plans, for the Diwan
was a passed master in chess. Yet the lad returned again and again for
a beating, being dogged in his turn. He was, in fact, on his way from
one when Chandni and the banjo started his thoughts along a familiar
channel. Certainly they were an odd people, and somehow it was
difficult to write home letters which should at once reflect the truth
and give satisfaction to the British public.
Meanwhile Chandni, desisting with Dalel's first reliable snore, threw
the banjo aside and reviewed the position. There was no mist of reserve
between her and her profession. She had been born to it, as her
forebears had been. Her success in it was rather a matter for pride
than shame; her only anxiety being the future. Should she linger on as
she had been doing in hopes that out of sheer conservatism Dalel Beg
would attach her to him permanently by some of the many possible
marriages? Or should she risk the life of a go-between in her old age,
return to Delhi and amuse herself? The reappearance of the painted girl
in the balcony decided her; she would not give way to such creatures as
that until the emptiness of the Treasury was indubitable. Yet as she
sat rolling the little pellets of opium for her midday dose between
her soft palms she looked at her lover distastefully. He was no good,
and if the sluice-gates were to be open that year she must bestir
herself--she and the Diwan. So much was settled before she swallowed
the dream-giver and threw herself full length on the bare string bed
set deep in the shadows. Then the silence of noon fell on that sinful
slip of bazaar. Even the quails ceased to challenge from their hooded
cages, and the sutara-player with the pomegranate blossom stuck in
behind his ear had forgotten the giver in sleep. But out in the fields
the peasants were at work on their scanty crops, and George Keene as he
entered the red brick bungalow paused to listen to a cry which never
failed to impress him. The cry of praise to the giver with which the
villagers drew water from the wells which stood between them and
death. Truly in that wilderness of sand, water was the mother of all
things. What wonder if it became the motive power in life? What wonder
that, like the silver sword of the big canal, it cut the world into
halves--the people who wanted, and the people who did not want the
sluice-gates opened. With a laugh at his own fancy he went in to
lunch, wondering this time what form the desert fowl would take: it
certainly was the mother of all food! Hodinuggur might have its serious
aspects, but on the whole it was farcical as well as tragical, and
'Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, counterbalanced that cry of thanksgiving.
And that same evening, while he was reading the last number of the
_Nineteenth Century_ in the verandah, Chandni had an interview with the
old Diwan on his tower, which, had George been aware of it, would have
seemed to him farcical beyond belief, though it was deadly earnest to
the actors. She sat at the old man's feet so as to be within earshot of
a whisper, since walls, especially in an Indian palace, have ears. That
was why Diwan's chair was set out in the open under the star-gemmed
dome of the sky which paled to its circled setting of plain that, seen
from the height, seemed in its turn to curve, cup-like, to meet the
sky. The decent domino she had worn on her way was cast aside out of
sheer coquetry, so that her supple figure, unadorned save for the heavy
chaplets of jasmine flowers shrouding the filmy muslin, might stand
outlined above the low parapet among the stars. For Chandni was shrewd.
The ordinary jewels of her class might have aroused memories in the old
man, and she wished to impress him with her individuality.
'Nay, daughter,' he said approvingly, 'I well believe failure was not
thy fault. As for thy plan--speak.'
She drew her lips closer to his ear, and laid one hand on his knee, as
if to hold his attention.
'Father! all men care for something. He cares not for what he has been
given. Let us try others. If they fail, well and good. Now there is one
thing such as he favour--God knows why?--but I have seen them myself in
the bazaar at Delhi--sahibs who have come over the black water to buy
ragged rugs and battered brass pots. Why? Because, forsooth, they are
old! The crazy potter would say it was because they remember them. I
know not. But this boy pokes about the old things--questions of the old
tales.'
Zubr-ul-Zaman nodded approval. 'True, he favoured the Ayodhya pot; but
he returned it.'
Chandni's eyes sparkled, then fell. 'So! that is one thing to begin
with. Then he is of those who watch flowers grow and birds build their
nests; who paint colour an paper for the love of it. Again, when the
fowler fails in all else he baits the snare with pity, and sets a
decoy-bird a-fluttering within the net. This boy gives quinine to
the old wives, and fish-oil to the babes born with the Potter's
thumb-mark.' Her laughter crackled joylessly.
'Words--words,' muttered the old man impatiently. What wouldest thou
do?'
She drew closer, and the movement sent a wave of perfume from the
jasmine chaplets into the air.
'Lend me Azizan for a week, and thou shalt see.'
Scent, so people say, is the most powerful stimulant to bygone
memories; perhaps that was the reason why her words brought such a
pulse of fierce life to the old face. 'Aziz! Nay! she is of the house.'
'Why not say of the race, father?' retorted Chandni coolly. 'Nay! in
such talk as ours truth is best. Thinkest thou I am a fool when I
go to dance and sing in the women's quarter? Is it not sixteen years
since the potter's daughter disappeared on the night of the great
storm'--hath not this fifteen-year-old the potter's eyes--Heaven shield
us from them!' Her hand went out in the two-fingered gesture used to
avert the evil eye in West as well as East.
Zubr-ul-Zaman scowled at her.
'There be other girls and plenty; take them,' he began. 'Besides, she
is betrothed. I will not lose the dower.'
'Wherefore shouldest lose it? I said a week, and Zainub, the duenna,
will see to safety. He will but paint her picture.'
The Diwan spat piously. 'And what good will such accursed idol-making
do?' he asked more calmly.
''Twill bring the quarry within reach; he lives too far away now. Give
me the girl, my lord, else will I know that the Diwan Zubr-ul-Zaman
Julal-i-dowla Mustukkul-i-jung is afraid of the potter's eyes.'
'As thou art, daughter of the bazaars,' he retorted fiercely. 'Shall I
set them on thee and thine?'
Chandni essayed an uneasy laugh. 'I will do her no harm,' she muttered
sullenly. 'I will not even speak to her if thou wilt. Zainub shall do
all.'
Half-an-hour afterwards Chandni, wrapped in her white domino, paused on
her way home at the door leading to the women's quarters and knocked.
After a while an old woman appeared at the latticed shutter. The
courtesan whispered a word or two, the door opened, and the two
disappeared down a dark passage.
''Tis Chandni come to dance.' The whisper ran through the airless,
squalid rooms, causing a flutter among the caged inhabitants. Out of
their beds they came, yawning and stretching, to sit squatted in a
circle on the bare floor, and watch Chandni give a spirited imitation
of the way the mem-sahibs waltzed with the sahib-logue. It was not an
edifying spectacle, but it afforded infinite satisfaction to the
audience. An audience which has to take its world at second-hand, and
in the process has grown careless as to abstract truth. The young women
tittered, the old ones called Heaven to witness their horror, and then
they all sat without winking an eye while the courtesan sang the songs
of her profession.
But little Azizan's light eyes saw nothing at which to smile or to cry
in either performance. She was young for her years, and very sleepy;
besides, she was betrothed to an old man whom she had never seen,
because, as all the other girls took care to tell her, she really was
too ugly to be kept in the family. And that sort of thing takes the
zest from life.
When the entertainment was over, Chandni sat and talked with Zainub,
the duenna, until dawn, with that careless disregard of bed-time, which
makes it quite impossible to foretell at what hour of the day or night
a native of India will be asleep or awake.
But George Keene, over the way in the branded bungalow, was safely
tucked up in sheets and blankets, whence nothing short of an earthquake
would have roused him.
An earthquake, or else a prescience of the hideous caricature Chandni
had been making of the _trois temps_ over in the palace.