The idea of seeing Mrs. Cameron again was quite intolerable. She
therefore wrote that lady a brief note, an asp for venom, designed
to terminate acquaintance and to rankle, and plunged into the harîm
pleasures with sensations of defiance.
One morning, as she lounged upon her cushioned window-seat, smoking
her narghileh and listening to the voices wafted with the sunlight
through her lattice, Fatûmah came and with a grin announced that Hamdi
Bey desired an audience of her Honour. She gave the word, and in came
Hamdi, knuckling his two eyes.
“O day of pitch!” he cried. “O vile nefarious day! O my beloved sister,
hide me, save me! My father has enforced my mother’s harsh command. I
am to be married to-day to that unholy child of dogs--against my will.
I wished to wait a thousand years. Ghandûr is waiting at this minute to
conduct me to the bath.”
As if in confirmation of his words, the voice of Ghandûr shouted in
the street without: “Make haste, O Hamdi! Lo, the sun is high! The
shadow is already on the stone thou fixedst for a limit when I let thee
enter.”
“Thou hearest,” snuffled Hamdi, “how they hound me? He has my wedding
garments in a bundle--O my hatred! Guests have been bidden--may their
fathers perish! Go to my mother (she will hear thee); plead that I
may be allowed a few months’ respite. It is Na’imah who, through her
mother, hastens on the match. She would destroy my new-found freedom
and torment me.”
Barakah could not help laughing, though she uttered words of comfort.
Na’imah was a very pretty girl, she pointed out, and not ill-natured,
though a great coquette. He would have none of it, but shook his head
with ominous frowns.
“I hate her!” he declared. “And knowest thou? I have a mind to drown
myself this morning at the bath.”
Then, as Ghandûr’s calls became insistent, he left the room with slow,
reluctant steps.
The wedding was a small affair, the parties being children of one
house, and their betrothal (which is legal marriage) having taken place
in infancy. The bride, enthroned, showed none of the reluctance felt
by Hamdi. A bright-eyed and determined little maiden, she was wreathed
in smiles; and when Barakah inquired if she were truly happy, replied,
“The praise to Allah!” with decision.
Next day the house was full of smothered laughter. Hamdi was completely
changed. He and his bride were now the fondest pair. The lady Fitnah,
who had always held that matrimony was a panacea for the crotchets of
young people, male and female, rendered praise where praise was due.
For many days, through shame, the bridegroom hid from Barakah, and from
every one else to whom he had proclaimed his dread of marriage.
When she told Gulbeyzah of the case as of a kind of miracle, the
Circassian answered:
“I perceive no cause for wonder. The bridegroom had not thought of her
before in that relation, had not truly known her--that is all. Love is
a blessing that brings gratitude as surely as the Nile makes plants to
grow.”
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr--nay, all her friends--viewed love, apart
from any individual man, as a material boon. Bred up to it and ripened
for it cunningly, they were ready to adore the man who gave it, however
unattractive from a European standpoint. This view of love, when
realized, explained to Barakah the happiness which every girl of her
acquaintance seemed to find in marriage, even where, as in Gulbeyzah’s
case, the husband was a greybeard thrice her age. Those who possessed
it were content and virtuous. In those who had it not, or were deprived
of it, all amorous crime was reckoned pardonable.
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr explained all this to Barakah in thrilling
tones, as if they uttered truths divine.
“Behold the wisdom of our Faith,” they said, “which grants to every
woman this delight in secret. Women can never truly be the friends
of men; their soul is different. If thrown with men for long, they
feel fatigue. They ask of men one thing--the gift of love. Here we
consort with women, true companions, all day long; and in the night the
bridegroom comes, and we are blest. Is not this better than the way of
Europe, which sets at nought apparent truths--as that most men love
more than one of us, whereas most women need but love itself, the hope
of children?”
That was one of the occasions when Barakah would have given anything
to have an Englishwoman present, and to watch her face. Another came
a few days later when she called upon Gulbeyzah. Alighting from her
carriage at the palace door, she saw a baby’s coffin being carried out,
and thought at once of turning home again. But already smiling eunuchs
stood before her bidding welcome, beseeching her to deign to follow
them to the haramlik. Gulbeyzah met her with a kiss on either cheek.
“Come, help us to console Nasîbah,” she exclaimed. “Her baby died this
night. She is distracted.”
She drew her friend into a chamber where the childless mother lay, face
downward, moaning, while the others tried to soothe her.
“It is no matter,” was the burden of their consolations. “It is not as
if thou wert left altogether desolate. Are we not one, we four? Thou
hast two children left, since ours are thine, and in a day or two
Gulbeyzah will present thee with a third, in sh´Allah!”
“In sh´Allah!” cried Gulbeyzah. “And it shall be thine entirely.
Directly it is born it shall be sent to thee to nurse. I will forget
it. And when it is thy turn again, thou wilt repay me. Is not that a
good idea?”
Oh that English people, who regard polygamy as something dreadful,
could have witnessed that small scene! The wish, escaping Barakah at
unawares, begot a heartache, as she realized that all she saw and heard
for their instruction was thwarted of its natural vent for evermore.
She told herself that she was happy in this life; and so she was upon
the surface, where she kept her thoughts, not daring to pry down into
the depths. In the early days she had desired more knowledge of the
Muslim faith, and a woman learned in religion had been hired to teach
her. But the fury of that faith, the scathing nature of its truths,
appalled her, awaking recollections of a creed more sentimental, with
distressing doubts. She very soon gave up her lessons, closed the eyes
of her intelligence, and resolutely sought her pleasure in the passing
hour.
Still there were moments when vague fears oppressed her. When, in the
third year of her marriage, she brought forth a still-born child,
frightful abysses seemed to yawn around her, and for days she
was afflicted with a kind of nightmare of misgiving, derived from
recollection of the “zâr” and other horrors.
The Eastern ladies were so calm and strong compared with her; they
flinched at nothing except impropriety. The slaughter of a thousand
sheep at Curban Bairam, turning the kitchen court into a shambles,
caused them no disgust. It was ordained of God, they told her, and
it fed the poor. They had no horror of disease or death or filthy
persons, and, though most cleanly, looked on vermin philosophically.
The Turks and the Circassians, with their grand ideals, appeared
more dreadful than the Africans, whose faith was childlike. Barakah
preferred the latter. Her pleasure was in feasts and little outings, in
story-tellers, dancers, and musicians who beguile the time; her only
rapture was in adoration of her small Muhammad.
Her hidden yearnings and beliefs clung round the boy. She dwelt in
longing for the days when he should be her friend. He was her hope,
the product of both parts of her divided life; giving it sense and
sequence, and, in the end perhaps, if Allah willed, consistency. She
dreamt of a great future for him, to astonish Europe. But in the
meanwhile, being sometimes dull, she felt the need of an intelligent,
discreet companion.