FEROZA.

Two hen sparrows quarrelling over a feather, while a girl watched them

listlessly; for the rest, sunshine imprisoned by blank walls, save

where at one end a row of scalloped arches gave on two shallow, shadowy

verandah-rooms, and at the other a low doorway led to the world beyond.

But even this was veiled by a brick screen, forced by the light into

unison with the brick building behind. The girl sat with her back

against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chin, and her little, bare,

brown feet moulding themselves in the warm, sun-steeped dust of the

courtyard. In the hands clasped round her green trousers she held an

unopened letter from which the London post-mark stared up into the

brazen Indian sky. She was waiting to have it read to her--waiting with

a dull, almost sullen patience, for the afternoon was still young. It

was old enough, however, to make a sheeted figure in the shadow sit up

on its string bed and yawn because siesta time was past.

"Still thinking of thy letter, Feroz? _Bismillah!_ I'm glad my man

doesn't live in a country where the women go about half naked."

"Who told thee so, Kareem? The Meer _sahib_ said naught."

A light laugh seemed prisoned in the echoing walls. "_Wah!_ How canst

tell? 'Tis father-in-law reads thy letters. Inaiyut saith so. He saw

them at Delhi dancing like bad ones with--"

"Peace, Kareema! Hast no decency?"

"Enough for my years, whilst thou art more like a grandam than a

scarce-wed girl. Why should not Inaiyut be a man? A husband is none the

worse for knowing a pretty woman when he sees one."

She settled the veil on her sleek black head and laughed again. Feroza

Begum's small brown face hardened into scorn. "Inaiyut hath experience

and practice in the art doubtless, as he hath in cockfighting and

dicing."

"Now, don't gibe at him for that. Sure 'tis the younger son's portion

amongst us Moguls. Do I sneer at thy Meer amusing himself over the

black water amongst the _mems?_"

"The Meer is not amusing himself. He is learning to be a barrister."

Kareema swung her legs to the ground with another giggle. "_Wah!_ Men

are men all the world over, and so are women. Yea! 'tis true." She

looked like some gay butterfly as she flashed out into the sunlight,

and began with outstretched arms and floating veil to imitate the

sidelong graces of a dancing girl.

"_Hai! Hai!_ Bad one!" cried a quavering voice behind her, as an old

woman clutching for scant covering at a dirty white sheet shambled

forward. "Can I not close an eye but thou must bring iniquity to

respectable houses? 'Tis all thy scapegrace husband; for when I brought

thee hither thou wast meek-spirited and--"

"Deck me not out with lies, nurse," laughed Kareema. "Sure I was ever

to behaviour as a babe to walking--unsteady on its legs. So wast thou

as a bride; so are all women." She seized the withered old arms as she

spoke, and threw them up in an attitude. "Dance, Mytaben! dance! 'Tis

the best way."

The forced frown faded hopelessly before the young, dimpling face.

"Kareema! Why will'st not be decent like little Feroz yonder?"

"Why? Because my man thinks I'm pretty! Because I've fine clothes!

Feroza hath old green trousers and her man is learning to be '_wise_,'

forsooth! amongst the _mems_. So she is jealous--"

"I'm not jealous," interrupted the other hotly.

"Peace, peace, little doves!" expostulated the old nurse. "Feroz is no

fool to be jealous of a _mem_. Holy Prophet, Kareem! hadst thou seen

them at Delhi as I have--"

"Inaiyut hath seen them too. He saith they are as _houris_ in silk and

satins with bare breasts and arms--"

Mytaben's bony fingers crackled in a shake of horrified denial.

"Silence! shameless one! I tell thee they have no beauty, no

clothes--"

"There! I said they had no clothes," pouted Kareema.

The duenna folded her sheet round her with great dignity. "Thy

wit is sharp, Kareema! 'Tis as well; for thou wilt need it to

protect thy nose! The _mems_ have many clothes; God knows how many, or

how they bear them when even the skin He gives is too hot. They are

sad-coloured, these _mems_, with green spectacles serving as veils. Not

that they need them, for they are virtuous and keep their eyes from men

truck. Not like bad bold hussies who dance--"

"'Tis not true," cried Kareema shrilly. "Thou sayest it to please

Feroza. Inaiyut holds they are _houris_ for beauty, and he knows."

In the wrangle which ensued the London postmark revolved between earth

and heaven as the letter turned over and over in Feroza's listless

fingers.

"I wish I knew," she muttered with a frown puckering her forehead. "He

saith they are so wise, and yet--"

Mytaben paused in the war of words and laid her wrinkled old fingers on

the girl's head. "Plague on new-fangled ways!" she grumbled half to

herself. "Have no fear, heart's life! they are uncomely. But for all

that, 'tis a shame of the Meer to leave thee pining."

A hand was on her mouth. "Hush, Mytaben! 'Tis a wife's duty to wait her

lord's pleasure to stay or come."

There is a dignity in submission, but Kareema laughed again, and even

old Mytab looked at the girl compassionately. "For all that, heart's

life, 'tis well to be sure. Certainty soothes the liver more than hope.

So thou shalt see a _mem_. For lo! the book-readers have come to this

town, and one passeth the door every eve at sundown."

"Oh, Mytab! why didn't you tell us before?" cried both the girls in a

breath.

"Because 'tis enough as it is, to keep two married girls straight, with

never a mother-in-law to make them dance to her tune," grumbled the

nurse evasively. "_Hai_, Kareema! I will tell thy father-in-law the

Moulvie,[18] and then 'twill be bread and water."

"Bread and water is not good for brides," retorted Kareema with a

giggle. "And I will see the _mems_ too, or I will cry, and then--" She

nodded her head maliciously.

That evening at sundown the two girls sat huddled up by the latticed

window of the outer vestibule, while Mytab watched at the door of the

men's court which, with that of the women's apartments, opened into

this shadowy entrance. By putting their eyes close to the fret-work

they could see up and down a narrow alley where a central drain, full

of black sewage, usurped the larger half of the rough brick pavement.

"Look, Feroza! look!" cried Kareema in a choked voice. A white

umbrella lined with green, a huge pith hat tied round with a blue veil,

a gingham dress, a bag of books, white stockings, and tan shoes,--that

was all. They watched the strange apparition breathlessly till it came

abreast of them.

Then Kareema's pent-up mirth burst forth in peals of laughter so

distinctly audible through the open lattice that the cause stopped in

surprise.

Feroza started to her feet. "For shame, Kareem, for shame! He says

they are so good." And before they guessed what she would be at, the

wicket-gate was open, and she was on the bare, indecent doorstep.

"_Salaam! mem sahib, salaam!_" rang her high-pitched, girlish voice.

"I, Feroza Begum of the house of Meer Ahmed Ali, barrister-at-law, am

glad to see you."

Before Kareema, by hanging on to Mytab's scanty attire, lent weight

enough to drag the offender back to seclusion, the English lady raised

her veil, and Feroza Begum, Moguli, caught her first glimpse of a pair

of mild blue eyes. She never forgot the introduction to Miss Julia

Smith, spinster of Clapham. Perhaps she had reason to remember it.

"I might have believed it of Kareem," whimpered the duenna over a

consolatory pipe, "but Feroz! To stand out in the world yelling like a

hawker. _Ai, Ai!_ Give me your quiet ones for wickedness. _Phut!_ in a

moment, like water from the skin-bag, spoiling everything."

"'Twas Kareem's laugh burst the _mashk_, nursie," laughed Feroza. She

and her sister-in-law seemed to have changed places for the time, and

she was flitting about gay as a wren, while the former sulked moodily

on her bed.

Yet as the days passed a new jealousy came like seven devils to possess

poor Feroza utterly.

What was this wisdom which inspired so many well-turned periods in the

Meer's somewhat prosy letters? Beauty was beyond her, but women even of

her race had been wise; passionate Nurjehan, and even pious Fatma--God

forgive her for evening her chances with that saintly woman's! The

thought led to such earnest study of the Koran that old Mytab's wrath

was mollified into a hope of permanent penitence. And all the time the

girl's heart was singing paeans of praise over the ease with which she

remembered the long strings of meaningless words. Buoyed up by hope she

confided her heart's desire to Kareema.

"Eat more butter and grow fat," replied that little coquette. "Dress in

bright colours and redden thy lips. And thou mightest use that powder

the _mems_ have to make their skins fair. Inaiyut saith he will buy me

some in the bazaar. That is true wisdom; the other is for wrinkles."

Despite this cold water, the very next London post-mark brought matters

to a crisis.

"Is that all?" asked Feroza dismally, when her father-in-law, the

Moulvie, had duly intoned her husband's letter. "It looks, oh! it looks

ever so much more on paper."

The old Mohammedan stared through his big horn-rimmed spectacles at her

reluctant finger feeling its way along the crabbed writing.

"Quite enough for a good wife, daughter-in-law," he replied. "Bring my

pipe, and thank God he is well."

As she sat fanning the old man duteously, her mind was full of

suspicion. Could _she_ have compressed the desire and love of her heart

into a few well-turned sentences? Ah! if she could only learn to read

for herself. The thought found utterance in a tentative remark that it

would save the Moulvie trouble if she were a scholar.

"'Tis not much trouble," said the old man courteously; "the letters are

not long."

The effect of these words surprised him into taking off his spectacles,

as if this new departure of quiet Feroza's could be better seen by the

naked eye.

"So thou thinkest to learn all the Meer has learnt?" he asked

scornfully, when her eloquence abated. "_Wah illah!_ What? Euclidus and

Algebra, Political Economy and Justinian?"

The desire of the girl's heart was not this, but jealousy and shame

combined prevented her declaring the real standard of her aims, so she

replied defiantly, "Why not? I can learn the Koran fast--oh, ever so

fast."

It was an unfortunate speech, since it brought down on her the

inevitable reply that such knowledge was enough for those who, at best,

must enter Paradise at a man's coat-tails. Driven into a corner, she

felt the hopelessness of the struggle, until, flushed by success, the

Moulvie forgot caution, and declaimed against his son's stupidity in

desiring more.

Feroza seized on this slip swiftly. If it was as she feared, if her

husband's wishes were kept from her ignorance, she must, she would

learn. If she could not go to school, the _mems_ would come and teach

her at home. They did such work at Delhi; why not here? As for the

Moulvie's determination that no singing should be heard in his house,

that was a righteous wish, and she would tell the _mems_ not to sing

their hymns. Indeed, such a question seemed all too trivial for

comparison with her future happiness. Therefore her disappointment when

Mytaben brought back a peremptory refusal from the mission-ladies to

teach on such condition was very keen. Her piteous, surprised tears

roused Kareema's scornful wonder.

"I can't think why thou shouldst weep; it thickens the nose, and thine

is over-broad as it is. Inaiyut offered once to teach me, but when I

asked him if learning would make him love me better, he kissed me with

a laugh. So I let it alone."

"Thou dost not understand," sobbed Feroza; "no one does. The Meer is

wise, and I am different."

"_Wah!_ Thou art but a woman at best, and life is over for us with the

first wrinkle, no matter what we learn. Ah, Feroz! let's enjoy youth

whilst we have it. See! I have a rare bit of fun for thee if thou wilt

not blab to Mytaben. Promise!"

Three days afterwards Feroza, escaping from the turmoil of a great

marriage in a relative's house, found herself, much to her own surprise

and bewilderment, forming one of a merry party of young women disguised

in boy's clothes, and bound for an hour or so of high jinks in one of

the walled orange gardens which lay on the outskirts of the quarter.

The idea, which had at first filled her with dismay, had next grown

tempting, and then become irresistible with Kareema's artful suggestion

that it would give occasion for a personal interview with the

mission-ladies who had taken up their abode close by. So she had

allowed her doubts and fears to be allayed; though inwardly she failed

to see the vast difference on which her sister-in-law insisted, between

the iniquity of standing on doorsteps in the full light of day, and

sneaking out at night on the quiet.

"Verily," said Kareema in a pet, "thou art a real noodle, Feroz! I tell

thee all the good-style women do thus, and my sister will be there with

her boys. _Wah!_ were it not for my handsome Inaiyut, I should die in

this dull old house where folk wish to be better than God made them."

So it came to pass that while Miss Julia Smith, spinster of Clapham,

sat with her fellow-workers in the verandah resting after their

labours, a boyish figure with a beating heart was creeping towards her

as the goal of every hope.

The English mail was in; an event which by accentuating the severance

from home ties is apt to raise the enthusiasm of the mission-house

beyond normal.

"How very, very interesting it is about the young man Ahmed Ali,"

remarked Julia, in a voice tuned to superlatives. "Dearest Mrs.

Cranston writes that he spoke so sweetly about his ignorant child-wife.

As she says, there is something so--so--so comforting, you know, in the

thought of work coming to us, as if--well, I can't quite express it,

you know,--but from our own homes,--from dear, dear, old England!"

There was a large amount of confused good feeling in Julia Smith. A

kindly soul she was, if a little over-sentimental. Perhaps a broken

sixpence, stored side by side with a decayed vegetable in her desk,

formed a creditable explanation of the latter weakness. Such things

account for much in the lives of most women.

"I suppose," she continued, "we were right to refuse without hymns; but

I shall never forget the sweet child's face as she popped from her

prison. I am making up the incident for our magazine; it will be most

touching. But now that dearest Mrs. Cranston has written, it seems like

the finger of Providence--"

"A boy wanting a Miss," interrupted the nondescript familiar,

inseparable from philanthropy in India. "The one with an umbrella, a

big hat, and a bag of books."

A very womanly laugh with an undercurrent of militant pleasure, ran

round the company. The description fitted one and all, and they were

proud of the fact.

The moon shone bright behind the arches, the scent of orange blossoms

drifted over the high garden wall, and every now and again a burst of

laughter close at hand overbore the more distant noise of wedding drums

and pipes.

"What do you want, my son?"

The soft voice with its strange inflections took away the last vestige

of Feroza's courage. She stood dizzy with absolute fear, her tongue

cleaving to her mouth. A repetition of the question roused her to the

memory that here lay her one chance. She gave a despairing glance into

the gloom in search of those pale blue eyes; then, suddenly,

inheritance broke through her terror. She flung her hands up to heaven,

and her young voice rose in the traditional cry for justice. "_Dohai!

Dohai!_"

"We do not keep justice here," was the soft answer. "You must go to the

Courts for that. We are but women--"

"And I too am a woman! Listen!" The words which had lagged a moment

before now crowded to her lips, and as she stepped closer her raised

arm commanded attention. "You have taken my husband and left me; and I

will not be left! You gave him scholarships and prizes, tempting him

away; and when I also ask for learning, you say, 'You must sing.' What

is singing when I am sad? Surely God will hear my tears and not your

songs!"

Her passion swayed her so that but for Julia Smith's supporting arm she

would have fallen. "I don't understand," said the Englishwoman kindly.

"What have we done? Who are you?"

"I am the wife of Meer Ahmed Ali, barrister-at-law, and I want to be

taught Euclidus, and Justinian, and the--the other things. You shall

not take him away for always. Justice! I say, justice!"

"My dears! My dears!" cried Julia Smith, "didn't I tell you it was the

finger of Providence--"

Half-an-hour afterwards little Feroza, flying back to rejoin her

companions, felt as if Paradise had been opened to her by a promise.

But if Paradise was ajar, the orange garden was closed, the gate

locked, the key gone. She peered through the bars, hoping it was a

practical joke to alarm her. All was still and silent save for the

creak of the well-wheel and a soft rustle from the burnished leaves

where the moonlight glistened white.

"Kareem! let me in! for pity sake let me in!"

Then a wild, uncontrollable fear at finding herself alone in an unknown

world claimed her body and soul, and she fled like a hare to the only

refuge she knew. The _mems_ must protect her; for were they not the

cause of her venturing forth at all? But for them, or their like, would

she not have been well content at home? Yea! well content.

The verandah was empty, and from within came a monotonous voice. She

peered into the dimly lit room to see a circle of kneeling figures, and

hear her own name welded into the even flow of prayer. God and his Holy

Prophet! They were praying that she might become apostate from the

faith of her fathers! Tales of girls seized and baptised against their

will leapt to her memory. She covered her eyes as if to shut out the

horrid sight and fled; whither she neither knew nor cared.

"_Hai!_ have I found thee at last, graceless! scandalous!" scolded some

one into whose arms she ran at full tilt.

"Mytab! oh, dear Mytab!" she cried, clinging frantically to the

familiar figure. "Take me home, oh, please take me home! I will never

go out again, no, never!"

That was the determination of ignorance. Eighteen months after wisdom

had altered it and many other things, for during that time Julia Smith

had sung hymns on the doorstep three days a week. Sometimes she had

quite a large audience, and sometimes Feroza herself would listen at

the lattice. On these occasions the thin voice had a ring in it; for,

despite the fact that her pupil was taught all the truths of religion

in prose and monotone, poor Julia used to wonder if this relegating of

hymns to the doorstep was not a bowing in the house of Rimmon; nay,

worse, a neglect of grace, for she loved her pupil dearly. Not one, but

two pair of eyes glistened over the surprise in preparation for the

absent husband. Wherefore a surprise no one knew, but surprise it was

to be. Feroza said the idea originated in her teacher's sentimental

brain; if so, it took root quickly in the girl's passionate heart.

Thus, beyond the fact of her learning to read and write, the Meer knew

nothing of the change wisdom was working in his wife. And meanwhile

time brought other changes to the quiet courtyard. Handsome, dissipated

Inaiyut died of cholera, and over him, and the boy-baby she lost,

Kareema shed tears which did not dim her beauty. Three months after she

was once more making the bare walls ring with her inconsequent

laughter. She jeered at Feroza's diligence with increased scorn. No

man, she said, was worth the losing of looks in books, and if the Meer

really spoke of return, a course of cosmetics would be more advisable.

Even Julia shook her head over Feroza's thin face. "You work too hard,

dear," she sighed. "Ah! if it were the one thing needful; but I have

failed to teach you that."

"Dear Miss! don't look sad; think of the difference you have wrought.

Oh, do not cry," she went on passionately, for the mild blue eyes were

filling with tears. "Come, we will talk of his return, full of noble

resolutions of self-sacrifice to find--oh dear, dear, Miss! I am so

happy, so dreadfully happy!" As she buried her face in the gingham

dress her voice sank to a murmur of pure content. But some unkind

person had poisoned Julia's peace with remarks of the mixing of unknown

chemicals. After all, what did she know of this absent husband, save

that dear Mrs. Cranston had met him at a conversazione?

"I suppose the Meer is really an enlightened man?" she asked dubiously.

The gingham dress gave up a scared face. "Dear Miss! why, he is a

barrister-at-law!"

Her teacher coughed. "But are you sure, dear, that he wanted you to

learn?"

"Not everything; because he did not think I could; but he spoke of many

things. I have learnt all,--except--"

"Except what?"

Feroza hesitated. "I was not sure,--Inaiyut said he would teach it, but

he died-- 'Tis only a game called whist."

"Whist!"

"Do I not say it right? W-h-i-s-t--_wist_. Oh, Miss! is it a wicked

game? Is it not fit? Ought I not to learn it?"

The fire of questions reduced Julia Smith's confusion to simple tears.

"I don't know," she moaned, "that is the worst! I thought it was the

finger of Providence, and--ah, Feroza! If I have done you harm!"

"You have done me no harm," said Feroza, with a kind smile. "You have

harmed yourself with cinnamon tea and greasy fritters in the other

zenanas, and you shall have some, English fashion, to take away your

headache."

So grumbling Mytab brought an afternoon tea-tray duly supplied with a

plate of thin bread-and-butter from within, and Feroza's small brown

face beamed over Julia Smith's surprise. "He will think himself back

amongst the _mems!_ won't he?" she asked with a happy laugh.

Would he? As she jolted home in her palanquin Julia's head whirled. Old

and new, ignorance and wisdom!--here was a jumble. A stronger brain

than hers might well have felt confusion. For it was sunset in that

heathen town, and from the housetops, in the courtyards, in the very

streets, men paused to lay aside their trivial selves and worship an

ideal. Not one of the crowd giving place to the mission-lady but had in

some way or another, if only by a perfunctory performance of some rite,

testified that day to the fact that religion formed a part of his daily

round, his common task. And on the other side of the world, whence the

missions come?--

Meanwhile Kareema, bewailing the useless cards, found herself backed up

by old Mytaben. Such knowledge, the old woman said, would have been

more useful than learning to be cleaner than God made you. 'Twas easy

to sneer at henna-dyed hands; but was that worse than using scented

soaps like a bad one, and living luxurious? Sheets and towels,

forsooth! Why, Shah-jehan himself never dreamed of such expenses.

"I like them, for all that," cried Kareema gaily; "and I think the

_mems_ are wise to have big looking-glasses. It is hateful only seeing

a little bit of one's self at a time. And Feroza and I are going out to

be admired like the _mems_, aren't we, Feroza?"

"If the Meer wishes it," replied her sister-in-law gravely.

Mytab looked from one to the other. "Have a care, players with fire!"

she said shrilly. "Have a care! Is the world changed because it reads

books and washes? Lo! the customs of the fathers bind the children."

"Mytab hath been mysterious of late," remarked Kareema, giving a queer

look, as the old lady moved away in wrath. "Ah me! if I had but my

handsome Inaiyut dicing in the vestibule 'twould be better for all of

us, maybe."

Feroza laid her soft hand gently on the other's shoulder. "I am so

sorry for thee, dear! but we will love thee always and be a sister and

brother--"

Kareema's look was queerer than ever, and she laughed hysterically.

The day came at last when Feroza sat in the sunlit courtyard holding

another unopened letter in her hand, knowing that ere a week was over

the writer would be prisoned in her kind arms, surrounded by friendly

faces, caught in the meshes of familiar custom. She was not afraid,

even though his letters gave her small clue to the man himself. Her own

convictions were strong enough to supply him with opinions also, and

even if she did not come up to his ideal at first, she felt that the

sweet satisfaction of a return to home and kindred would count for, and

not against her. So she sat idly, delaying to read, and dreaming over

the past, much as she had dreamt over the future nearly two years

before. Only she sat on a chair now, and her white stockings and

patent-leather shoes twisted themselves tortuously about its legs. She

thought mostly of the childish time when she, their cousin, had played

with Ahmed Ali and Inaiyut; it seemed somehow nearer than those other

days, when the studious lad's departure for college had been prefaced

by that strange, unreal marriage.

And Kareema watched her furtively from the far corner where she and

Mytab were making preserves.

Suddenly a loud call, fiercely imperative, made them come sheepishly

forward to where Feroza stood at bay, one hand at her throat, the other

crushing her husband's letter. "What is this? What have you all been

keeping from me? What does he mean?--this talk of duty and custom.

Ah-h-h--!"

Her voice, steady till then, broke into a ringing cry as a trivial

detail in Kareema's reluctant figure caught her eye. The palms and

nails of those delicate hands were no longer stained with henna. They

were as her own, as nature made them, as the Meer _sahib_ said he liked

them! She seized both wrists fiercely, turning the accusing palms to

heaven, while a tempest of sheer animal jealousy beat the wretched girl

down from each new-won foothold, down, down, to the inherited nature

underneath.

"Then it is true," she gasped. "I see! I know! Holy Prophet! what

infamy to talk of duty. He is to marry,--and I who have slaved--He is

mine, mine, I say! Thou shalt not have him!"

Mytab's chill old hand fell on the girl's straining arm like the touch

of Death. "_Allah akhbar wa Mohammed rasul!_[19] Hast forgotten the

faith, Feroza Begum, Moguli? Thine? Since when has the wife a right to

claim all? Since when hast thou become a _mem?_"

The girl glared at her with wild passion, and Kareema gave a whimper as

the grip bit into her tender wrists. "Don't; you hurt me!"

Feroza flung them from her in contemptuous loathing. "Fool! coward! as

if he would touch you. I will tell him all. He will know--Ah God! my

head! my head!--" She was in the dust at their feet stunned by her own

passion.

"I warned the Moulvie to break it by degrees," grumbled Mytab, dragging

the girl to some matting; "but he said 'twould make no more to her than

to the Meer. Books don't seem to change a man, but women are

different."

"It's not my fault," whimpered Kareema. "I don't want to marry the

Meer; he was ever a noodle. Prating of its being a duty, forsooth!"

"So it is! a bounden duty. Never hath childless widow had to leave this

house, and never shall, till God makes us pigs of unbelievers."

"I wish my handsome Inaiyut had lived for all that," muttered the girl,

as Feroza showed signs of recovery. She resisted all attempts at

explanation or comfort, however, and made her way alone, a solitary

resolute figure, to her windowless room, where, when she shut the door,

all was dark. There she lay tearless while the others, sitting in the

sunlight, talked in whispers as if the dead were within.

"The Moulvie must bid her repeat the creed," was old Mytab's ultimatum.

"God send the Miss has not made a Christian of her, with all those

soapings and washings!" She had no spark of pity. Such was woman's lot,

and to rebel was sacrilege.

"Don't make sure of my consent," pouted Kareema, her pretty face

swollen with easy tears. "If he is really the noodle Feroza deems, I'd

rather be a religious. 'Twould be just as amusing."

Mytab laughed derisively. "Thou a religious! The gossips would have

tired tongues. Besides, choice is over. Had the child lived, perhaps;

but now the Moulvie hath a right to see Inaiyut's children on his

knee."

The sunshine had given place to shadow before Feroza appeared.

"Bring me a _burka_;[20] I am going to see the Miss. Follow if thou

wilt," she said; and though her voice had lost its ring, the tone

warned Mytab to raise no objection. Ere she left the sheltering walls

she stood a moment before her sister-in-law, all the character, and

grief, and passion blotted out by the formless white domino she wore.

"I could kill you for being pretty," she said in a hard whisper, as she

turned away.

She had never been to the mission-house since that eventful night, and

the sight of its familiar unfamiliarity renewed the sense of injury

with which she had last seen it. "Miss _Eshsmitt sahib_," they told

her, was ill; but she would take no denial, and so, for the first time

in her life, Feroza entered an English lady's bedroom. Simple, almost

poor as this one was in its appointments, the sight sent a throb of

fear to the girl's heart. What! Was not Kareema's beauty odds enough,

that she must fight also against this undreamed-of comfort? She flung

up her arms with the old cry, "_Dohai! Dohai!_" The fever-flushed face

on the frilled pillows turned fearfully. "What is it, Feroza? Oh! what

is it?"

The question was hard to solve even in the calm sessions of thought,

well-nigh impossible here. Why had she been lured from the old life in

some ways and not in all? Was their boasted influence all words? Then

why had they prated of higher things? Why had they _lied_ to her?

Poor Julia buried her face in a pocket-handkerchief drenched in

_eau-de-Cologne_, and sobbed, "Ah, take her away! Please take her

away!"

So they led her gently to the text-hung drawing-room with a cottage

piano in one corner, and shook their heads over her passionate appeals.

They could do nothing, they said,--nothing at all,--unless she cast in

her lot with them absolutely; so she turned and left them with a sombre

fire in her eyes.

She never knew how the days passed until, as she watched the sunlight

creep up the eastern wall of the court, it came home to her that on the

next evening Meer Ahmed Ali would watch it also. She seemed not to have

thought, and it was Kareema, and not she, who had shed tears. On that

last night the latter came to where her cousin lay still, but

sleepless. "Why wilt be so foolish, Feroza?" she said petulantly.

"Nothing is settled. If he is a noodle, I will none of him, I tell

thee. If not, thou art too much of one thyself to care. God knows he

may not look at either, through being enamoured of the _mems_. And oh,

Feroza," she added, her sympathy overborne by curiosity, "think you he

will wear the strange dress of the Miss _sahib's_ sun-pictures? If so I

shall laugh of a surety."

A gleam of consolation shot through poor Feroza's brain. Men disliked

ridicule. "Of course the Meer dresses Europe-fashion," she replied

stiffly. "Thou seemest to forget that my husband is a man of culture."

A man of culture! undoubtedly, if by culture we mean dutiful

self-improvement. That had been Meer Ahmed Ali's occupation for years,

and his gentle, high-bred face bore unmistakably the look of one

stowing away knowledge for future use. He was really an excellent young

man; and, during his three years at a boarding-house in Notting Hill,

had behaved himself as few young men do when first turned loose in

London. He spoke English perfectly, and it would be difficult to say

what he had not learnt that could be learnt by an adaptive nature in

the space of thirty-six calendar months spent in diligent polishing of

the surface of things. He learnt, for instance, that people looking at

his handsome, intelligent face, said it made them sad to think of his

being married as a boy to a girl he did not love. Thence the idea that

he was a martyr took root and flourished, and he acquiesced proudly in

his own sacrifice on the altar of progress. For him the love of the

poets was not, and even in his desire for Feroza's education he told

himself that he was more actuated by a sense of duty than by any hope

of greater happiness for himself. The natural suggestion that he should

marry his brother's widow he looked on merely as a further development

of previous bondage; and he told himself again that, not having swerved

a hair's breadth from his faith, he was bound to set his own views

aside in favour of a custom desired by those chiefly concerned.

Besides, in the atmosphere of surprised sympathy in which he lived it

was hard, indeed, not to pose as a victim.

And so, just as poor Feroza was confidently asserting his culture, he,

having given his English fellow-passengers the slip, was once more

putting on the clothes of an orthodox Mohammedan. Feroza, on the other

hand, had adopted the dress of the advanced Indian lady, which, with

surprisingly little change, manages to destroy all the grace of the

original costume. The lack of braided hair and clustering jewels

degrades the veil to an unnecessary wrap; the propriety of the bodice

intensifies its shapelessness; the very face suffers by the unconcealed

holes in ears and nose.

Kareema stared with a smile akin to tears. "There is time," she

pleaded. "Come! I can make you look twice as well."

Their eyes met with something of the old affection, but Feroza shook

her head. "I must find out--"

"If he is a noodle?" The interrupting giggle was almost a whimper. "You

mean if he is blind! Ah, Feroza! look at me."

No need to say that; the puzzled eyes had taken in the sight already.

Gleams of jewelled hair under the gold threaded veil; a figure revealed

by the net bodice worn over a scantier one of flowered muslin; bare

feet tucked away in shells of shoes; long gauze draperies showing a

shadow of silk-clad limbs; above it all that dimpling, smiling face.

She shook her head again.

In the long minutes of waiting she lost herself in counting the bricks

on the familiar wall until the sight of a tall man at the door dressed

as a Mohammedan startled her into drawing the veil to her face in fear

of intrusion.

As the man withdrew quickly Kareema's laugh rang out. "To think,

Feroza! thou shouldest be _purdah_ to him after all thy big talk."

"The Meer! Was that the Meer?" faltered Feroza. "I did not--the

dress--"

"Bah! I knew the likeness to my poor Inaiyut. See! yonder he comes

again ushered by father-in-law. Now, quick, Feroza!"

The voice quavering over the prepared phrases of thanks to the Great

Giver of home-coming was infinitely pathetic; and yet, as Ahmed Ali

took the outstretched hand, he was conscious above all things of a

regret, almost a sense of outrage; for the bondage of custom was upon

him already. Kareema, catching his look, came forward with ready tact.

"We welcome my lord," she said in the rounded tone of ceremony, "as one

who, having travelled far, returns to those who have naught worthy his

acceptance save the memory of kinship. My sister and I greet you, _as

sisters_. Nay, more," she added lightly; "I too shake hands

English-fashion, and if I do it wrong forgive us both, since learned

Feroza is teacher."

"You make me very happy," answered the Meer heartily. "How well you are

all looking!"

No need to say where his eyes were.

"You mistake, Meer _sahib_," cried Kareema swiftly, "Feroza looks ill.

'Tis your blame, since she worked over-hard to please you."

The forbidden frown came too late to prevent Ahmed Ali's glance finding

it on his wife's face. It was not becoming. "Was it so hard to learn?"

he asked with a patronising smile. "But your handwriting improved

immensely of late."

The tips of Feroza's fingers showed bloodless under their nervous

clasp, but she said nothing. Indeed, she scarcely opened her lips as

they sat talking over the morning meal. Even when the Meer refused tea

and toast in favour of _chupatties_ and _koftas_[21] it was Kareema who

supplied surprise. Feroza was all eyes and ears, and not till the sun

tipping over the high walls glared down on them did she lose patience

enough to ask, vaguely, what he thought about it all.

"_Wah illah_," cried the Moulvie, "Feroza hits the mark! What thinkest

thou, my son? But I fear not, for thou hast the faithful air, and canst

doubtless repeat thy creed purely."

The young man looked round the familiar scene, every detail of which

fitted so closely to memory that no room remained for the seven years'

absence. A rush of glad recognition surged to heart and brain, making

him stand up and give the _Kalma_.[22]

"I am content, oh, my father!" he cried in ringing tones, as the

sonorous echoes died away to silence. "I am content to come back to the

old life, to the old duties."

"The sun makes my head ache," said Feroza, rising abruptly, "I will go

into the dark and rest."

"Don't go, Feroza! Thou hast not told the Meer about thyself," pleaded

Kareema, rising in her turn. "She hath worked so hard," she added

petulantly to the young man. "No one is worth it, no one."

The Meer looked from one to the other. "Learning is hard for women," he

began. Then something in his wife's face roused the new man in him,

making him say in a totally different tone and manner, "I am afraid I

hardly understand."

"That is what Kareema says of me," replied Feroza icily.

Her cousin, as she sat down once more to listen, shrugged her

shoulders. "And she counted herself as something better than a woman,"

was her inward comment amid her smiles.

Feroza saw nothing of her husband for the rest of the day. The men's

court was crowded with visitors, and she herself had to bear the brunt

of many feminine congratulations. Only at sunset, before starting to

attend a feast given in his honour, he found time for five minutes'

speech with her; but, almost to her relief, he was far too content, far

too excited by his own pleasure to be able to distinguish any other

feeling in her mind. Yet a momentary hesitation on his part as he was

leaving made her heart bound, and a distinct pause brought her to his

side with wistful eyes, only to see Kareema nodding and smiling to him

from the roof, whither she had gone for fresher air. "What is it?" he

asked kindly, though his looks were elsewhere.

"Nothing," she answered, "nothing at all. Go in peace!"

The moon, rising ere the sun set, stole the twilight. So she sat gazing

at the hard square outlines of the walls till far on into the night,

her mind filled with but one thought. The thought that by and by Ahmed

Ali, flushed with content at things which she had taught herself for

his sake to despise, would come home to her--to his wife. The little

room she had travestied into a pitiful caricature of foreign fashions

seemed to mock her foolish hopes, so she crept away to the lattice

whence she had had her first glimpse of wisdom. Even on that brilliant

night the vestibule itself was dark; but through the door she could see

the empty arcades of the men's court surrounding the well where she and

her cousins used to play.

A rustle in the alley made her peer through the fret-work, for the

veriest trifle swayed her; but it was only a dog seeking garbage in the

gutter. Then a door creaked and she started, wondering if Ahmed Ali

could be home already. Silence brought her a dim suspicion that, but

for this wisdom of hers, she might have waited his return calmly

enough. Footsteps now! She cowered to the shadow at the sight of

Kareema followed by Mytab bearing something.

"He mayn't be back till late," came the familiar giggle; "and a soft

pillow will please him."

The pair were back again before she recovered her surprise, and Kareema

paused ere re-entering the women's door. "Poor Feroza! She will get

accustomed to it, I suppose."

"Of what hath she to complain?" retorted the old voice; "he is a

properer man than I deemed. Say, heart's desire, what said he when I

saw thee--?"

"Mytab! thou mean spy! Bah! he told me he would change a letter and

call me Carina, since it meant dearest in some heathen tongue. They

begin thus over the black water likely; 'tis not bad, and new at any

rate."

Feroza scarcely waited for distance to deaden the answering giggle. She

was on her feet, pacing to and fro like a mad creature. Ah! to get away

from it all--from that name, from the look he must have given--to get

something cold and still to quench the raging fire in her veins!

Suddenly, without a waver, she walked to the well and leant over its

low parapet. Her hands sought the cool damp stones, her eyes rested

themselves on the faint glimmer far down--ever, oh, ever so far away!

Hark! some one in the alley. If it were he? Ah! then she must go away,

ever so far away--

Meer Ahmed Ali found his pillow comfortable, and only woke in the dawn

to see Mytab standing beside him.

"Feroza!" she cried. "Where is Feroza?"