MARRIED OR NOT?
Under the magic influence of Rose's presence, Denzil felt almost
content for the time, and his heart swelled with mingled love and
joy; then obstacles would seem to give way, fears to fade, and he
felt his heart endued with a new strength. The hope of rescue or the
chances of escape together, formed a fertile and endless source of
conversation and surmise for these two isolated beings; but Rose had
to humour the Khan by playing chess with him whenever he requested
her to do so, while his wife and daughters quite as frequently
compelled Denzil, who knew Hindostanee, to read for them an Oriental
poem of which they never seemed to grow weary. It was a handsome
volume of exquisite Eastern penmanship; all the pages were perfumed,
and no two of them were alike, all the vignettes of birds, of gilded
mosques, of black-bearded emirs and bayaderes, the elaborate borders
and chapter heads being radiant in colours and gold. It described
the petrifaction of the City of Ishmonie, a place alleged to be in
Upper Egypt, where all that were once animated beings were by an
enchanter changed in an instant to stone, and where they may still be
seen, in all the various positions of sitting, or standing, eating,
sleeping or caressing each other--a legend which obviously arose from
the circumstance of the vast number of statues of men, women, and
children that are, or were, in the place; but this poem so palled
upon Denzil that he shivered with weariness whenever the subject was
named to him.
And now as a certain assurance of safety came into the mind of Rose
Trecarrel, she began to resume some of her old coquettish ways with
him; thus one day as they were promenading in the garden of the
Khan's fort, where the early flowers of Spring were maturing under
the genial shelter of the high embattled walls, when he familiarly
addressed her as "Rose," she said, with an assumed pout on her ruddy
lips,
"I must really forbid you to call me Rose--even here."
"I called you so once, unchecked--by the lake, on that day which you
must remember," he urged gently.
"That day is past."
"But its memory remains. What then am I to call you? To say, 'Miss
Rose', or 'Miss Trecarrel,' after the events of that day would seem
both strange and distant. You are always 'Rose' to me--in my heart,
I mean."
"Fiddlestick! do be sensible. Call me--well, you need not call me
anything that may compromise either the past, the present, or the
future."
"Oh, how unkind of you," said he, eyeing her with a somewhat dubious
expression.
"Poor Denzil," she replied, looking down; "I would to Heaven you were
not so fond of me."
"Fond, is not the word, Rose--but why?"
"Because I was only flirting with you, as I have done with others,"
replied the laughing girl, with a cruelty that was perhaps
unintentional, as she was indeed older than her years, for there are
some women who in mind and body are more rapidly developed than
others.
Denzil was only somewhat past twenty, and his love for her was fresh
as the flowers that were springing up around them. It had been
wasted on none yet, and Rose was the first who seemed to fill up all
the soft illusions of the mind, as being the only one he could love,
and the touch of whose hand or arm would send a thrill of ecstasy to
his heart.
Could hers really be so elastic? he now asked of himself; did one
passion really efface another in her breast, even as the waves efface
the footmarks on the sandy shore? Could she love more than one, and
perhaps more than one at a time?
She sat on a garden seat with her handsome white hands folded before
her. A jet cross which had escaped the pillagers was on her
snow-white neck, when it rose and fell with the undulations of her
breathing. Her long lashes and delicate lids were drooped over the
clear brown eyes, that could be so waggish, droll or cold and calm,
as fun, or passion, or prudence, swayed her. The whole pose, her
aspect, the contour of her head, the exquisite turn of the white and
stately throat, so like that of Mabel, were not lost on Denzil as he
gazed, and in gazing, worshipped her.
"A penny for your thoughts, friend Denzil," said she, looking up with
a laughing face and breaking a silence of some minutes' duration.
"They are priceless, Rose, because they are of you."
"Well, like Paul, you may be most tender and full of truth--the
latter a rare virtue in men; but I can never play the part of
Virginia."
"Why?"
"Because I am too giddy, perhaps," replied Rose; yet with all her
coquetry she was not without an emotion of genuine pride at the
conviction of having inspired so handsome and earnest a young man
with an attachment so devoted and pure.
But what was to be the sequel to all this?
As Artemus Ward says, "one is always inclined to give aid and comfort
to the enemy, if he cums in the shape of a nice young gal;" and
doubtless the old Khan of the Kuzzilbashes seemed to think so too;
for to Rose he was unusually kind, and somewhat unwisely was wont at
times to praise her to his wife. Once he said,
"The girl is beautiful as a bird of paradise."
"Yes; but quite as dumb and useless--there is nothing in her,"
replied the lady.
"She knows her own language, not ours. She has splendid eyes, at all
events; they might get me six good horses among the Usbec Tartars."
"Yes, lovely eyes certainly; yet they seem out of place anywhere,
save in a seraglio," was the sharp response of the Khanum, who
evidently disapproved of the praise and the chess-playing; "send her
to Ackbar Khan."
"Nay; that suits not my purpose, either for her or her friend,"
replied the Khan, on whose mind some remarks made from time to time
by his wife were beginning to have an effect.
He had seen the open and free intercourse of the Feringhee sahibs,
male and female, at the bandstand, at the race-course, in the
Cantonments, in the gardens, and other places in and about Cabul,
during the previous winter; he had also seen them together in
Sinclair sahib's wonderful boat; but there was something in the
footing of Rose and Denzil that sorely puzzled him. They were too
familiar to be mere friends, and she was not tender enough apparently
to be a lover; so, after closely observing them for some days, he
came to the conclusion that they were married, and if not, that they
ought to be.
Thus with the native suspicion of an Oriental, he began to think that
they must be married, and concealed the fact from him for some reason
or purpose of their own. He even spoke pretty pointedly on the
subject to Denzil, and hinted that if she were his wife, it might
prevent her from being sold to the Toorkomans; but the circumstance
of her being married to an infidel would not have made much
difference to those sons of the desert.
Denzil was alarmed and knew not what to think of this new feature in
their affairs. Rose would not have much fortune in England; Denzil
had less, and to marry on his subaltern's pay and allowances, even in
India, might prove ruinous to both; but here they were isolated from
all in the outer world--in Afghanistan; in a land where steam and
printing were unheard of; and where forks and spoons, clocks, and
even toothbrushes were as much unknown as they were to Father Adam
and Mother Eve.
Shireen Khan might solve all their difficulties by slicing off
Denzil's head and selling Rose to the highest bidder in Toorkistan,
if the whim to do either occurred. In his alarm Denzil admitted that
they were affianced to each other, a state of matters beyond the
comprehension of the old Kuzzilbash, as a Mussulman in choosing a
wife usually relies on his mother, or a female friend who does this
office for him.
"Did your mother select her for you?" asked the Khanum, who was
present.
"No," replied Denzil.
"She treats you ill, I fear; a little beating would do her good,"
suggested the lady.
"A beating!" exclaimed Denzil, with astonishment.
"Yes," said Shireen; "among us men are allowed by the Koran to beat
their wives, so long as they do not bruise the skin; for the Prophet
has ordained that women shall not be treated as intellectual beings."
"Why?"
"Lest they aspire to equality with men."
Denzil translated all this to Rose, who had been listening and
turning from one speaker's face to the other; she burst into a saucy
little laugh, and said,
"Tell them that their Prophet was a precious old----"
What she was about to designate him of Mecca, we know not, for Denzil
placed his hand on her lips. The sharp black eyes of the Khan
detected something in this action. They sparkled, while his face
grew red as his cap with sudden anger, and with hands clenched and
uplifted, he exclaimed,
"Now by the seven heavens and the veil of unity, through which the
Prophet passed in his vision, but this is too much! You are either
married or not? Do you laugh at my beard, Kaffirs? If she is your
wife, I shall respect her, nor send her, as I intended, to Bhokara or
Toorkistan for sale; if she is not, then so much the worse for her!"
And, as he spoke, the softness of his Persian dialect turned, in his
anger, hoarse and guttural as that of an Afghan.
"Your wife, Denzil," exclaimed Rose, blushing with mingled amazement
and annoyance, when the first part of this speech was told her; "I do
care more for you than for any one else--but--but--"
"What, dearest Rose?"
"This is a little too much."
"Consider--the danger--the alternative."
"Must I pass myself off as such?"
"It would appear so, dear Rose, for your own sake dissemble."
"Assume a virtue if I have it not!" said she, with some asperity.
"It is unavoidable, what are we to do?"
"Why--is this a conspiracy between you, for it looks very like it?"
"On my honour it is not," replied Denzil, earnestly and tenderly;
"but Toorkistan--think of that."
"Yes--Toorkistan!" repeated the Khan, detecting the word, resentment
still gleaming in his eyes that a Kaffir girl should dare to laugh at
or mock him.
And in this pleasant dilemma we must leave them for a time.