THE BLACK CHARM.
“HOW is it possible that I should gain more information regarding
Premi?” asked Alicia sadly, as she sat alone with Robin at the breakfast
table, Kripá Dé preferring to eat his food sitting cross-legged on the
floor. “I am certain that I should not be admitted into the fort were I
to attempt to go there this morning. The women paid me little attention
yesterday, and Darobti was offended at my question regarding Premi. I do
not like to visit where I am not welcome; I cannot go to the fort
to-day.”
“Yet to-day seems our last chance,” observed Robin, “as to-morrow the
zenana is sure to be closed. Could you not ‘screw up your courage to the
sticking-point’ once more, dear Alicia, and attack the fort like a
gallant missionary lady?”
“It would be of no use,” said Alicia; “I am not suited for capturing
forts. I should only meet with repulse and defeat. If there were a
shadow of hope—”
“I have it!” exclaimed Robin suddenly, clapping his hand to his forehead
as if to prevent the escape of a thought. “I beg your pardon for
interrupting you, Alicia, but an idea has just come into my head. I can
insure you a welcome, I can insure you an audience, if—”
“If what? I am curious to know,” said Alicia.
“If you will only go to the zenana in your wedding dress, decked out
with your jewels.”
“You are joking, Robin,” said Alicia.
“I was never more earnest in my life,” exclaimed Robin, and his bright,
earnest eyes showed that he meant what he said. “The bibis might resist
you in your fawn-coloured print; but donning your gleaming white satin,
with the pretty little slippers to match—”
“You absurd boy!” interrupted Alicia, “do you think that I would cross
that dirty court-yard in white satin slippers?”
“Yes, if it were a very slough!” exclaimed Robin; “if that were the only
way of getting into the house. Do you not see,” he added more quietly,
“that if you display your jewels you may very well ask the Hindu ladies
to show you theirs? And should a black locket appear amongst them, why,
you would pounce down upon it like a cat on a mouse!”
“Robins scheme is not so very wild as it seemed at first,” thought
Alicia.
“What say you to my plan?” asked the lad.
“That it would be all very well—if you could only carry it out
yourself.”
“I!” exclaimed Robin, with a burst of uncontrollable mirth. “Fancy me in
white satin, attempting to force my great splay-foot into one of your
delicate slippers!”
“This is too serious a matter for mirth,” said Alicia, who for once
could resist the infection of Robin’s laugh. “Of course if any one goes,
I must go. But it would be so very strange to put on finery here—in this
jungle!”
“It would be making the very best use of finery,” cried Robin, who was
grave enough now. “It would be consecrating it to the cause of humanity.
I never thought when I saw you arrayed in your wedding attire, and
considered you almost too fine to be my sister, that you might make it a
means of delivering a zenana prisoner, and perhaps of bringing her under
Christian influence.”
Alicia sighed, reflected a few moments, then said—“Robin, we must have a
prayer together before I venture, I feel so weak and nervous. I never
engaged in anything so strange and difficult before.”
The brother and sister knelt down together, and Kripá Dé prostrated
himself on the floor, though he could only guess the import of the
prayer. After its conclusion Alicia went to her own room, unlocked and
opened one of her large boxes, and from its envelopment of silver paper
took out the dress which she had worn at her bridal.
Some quarter of an hour afterwards Alicia, blushing under her long white
veil, returned to the place where she had left Robin.
“How absurd I must look in this dress!” she observed, glancing shyly at
her brother.
“Lovely as an angel,” thought Robin, “and going on the errand of an
angel;” but he only said aloud, “I admire you more in that white satin
now than I did on the first day that you wore it. Come, Alicia; your
doli is ready in the veranda.”
“I hate being seen, even by the kahars; and how can I pass through the
city so strangely attired?”
“We will draw down the blind on either side; no one shall see you.”
“My satin will be utterly crushed in that box,” cried Alicia, lifting up
the rich folds which swept the veranda.
“I’ll help to pack in the satin; and if the worst comes to the worst, a
crushed dress is better than a crushed life like Premi’s.”
“Robin, you must go with me; I feel myself in such an absurd position,”
said Alicia, as she with difficulty settled herself in the cramped space
of the doli.
“I will go as far as I may, and wait outside as long as I can,” was
Robin’s reply.
Robin walked by the side of the doli, playfully prompting, encouraging,
supplying his sister with Urdu words, throwing the light of his own
joyous spirit over the little expedition, till Alicia caught his own
love of adventure. There was nothing so terrible to encounter, nothing
so extravagant to do, nothing so difficult to accomplish. Alicia was
certainly going beyond missionary rules and regulations, but so peculiar
a case had never been contemplated by those who had framed them. Alicia
was full of brightness and hope by the time that she arrived at the
outer door of the fort.
The kahar knocked with the rattling chain. He knocked twice, thrice, and
yet again; only the bark of a dog gave reply.
“There is some one within; I hear moving and talking,” said Robin, and
he himself energetically repeated the summons at the door, which brought
a shrill reply from inside, “Fursat nahim” (No leisure), which is the
Panjabi form of saying, “Not at home.”
“Show yourself,” said Robin to Alicia; “I see a child’s face peeping
over the wall.” As he spoke he threw up the blind of the doli on the
side nearest to the fort, and then himself rapidly retreated out of
sight.
Alicia put one slippered foot out of the doli, and extended one arm,
with its satin sleeve and golden bracelet,[6] to extricate herself and
her voluminous dress. The effect was magical. Almost a scream of
astonishment came from the top of the wall; then there was the sound of
a rapid rush within; the door was thrown open, and amidst children’s
shrill cries of “Mem! Mem! devi [goddess], devi!” Alicia entered the
court-yard, to be almost mobbed by a crowd of little urchins of both
sexes, who came staring and shouting to welcome her in.
Footnote 6:
It need hardly be said that the lady’s example is _not_ given for
imitation. A missionary’s dress can scarcely be too quiet and
unostentatious. It would be worse than foolish for one to draw on
herself the attention which should be given to the message which she
bears. When the lantern throws a Scripture picture on the sheet, the
exhibiter carefully avoids standing in front of it, lest he should
himself hide what he seeks to display.
Alicia, a little bewildered and half deafened by the noise, picked her
way as carefully as she could along the yard, which seemed to be even
more dirty than usual. She was cumbered by the necessity of holding up
her long dress, while at the same time protecting her head with her
white-covered umbrella. It was disagreeable to be jostled by children
whose every touch must leave a mark on her white satin; but Alicia went
on till the second court was reached, and then the dark stair. Beyond
this there were great pushing and scrambling; Alicia was almost thrown
down the steps by her noisy, excited young escort. Presently she emerged
into daylight, flushed and heated, with her beautiful dress by no means
improved by the crush.
There was now no difficulty in collecting women; they came from every
likely and unlikely place to stare on an English lady, or rather on the
bridal dress which she wore. Premi alone stood on the roof above, with
Darobti’s fat baby astride on her hip.
“Sit down, sit down!” cried Chand Kor. “Sit down, sit down!” echoed the
one-eyed Jai Dé. The bibis were evidently determined to indulge their
curiosity to the full. “Keep back; bad zát” (low caste), shouted Darobti
to the children who were pressing around Alicia to stroke her smooth
satin and finger her jewels.
When a little order was restored, Alicia had to play show-woman to the
various parts of her dress and the ornaments which she wore. Her satin
slippers, her silk stockings extorted many a “Wah! wah!” the women
feasted on the sight of such pretty novelties. Alicia had to take even
the silver ear-rings from her ears, to be passed round and admired. The
lady’s patience was almost exhausted before she had any opportunity of
pursuing the object for which she had come. Alicia seized that of the
first lull in the noise and excitement.
“Now show me your jewels—all, all!” she cried, repeating the lesson
learned from Robin.
The bibis were by no means loath to display their ornaments: chains and
head-jewels of marvellous make, rings for thumbs and sheaths for toes,
nose-gems and ear-gems, and jingling anklets, bracelets of gold, silver,
and glass, were eagerly thrust on the visitor’s notice. But in vain did
Alicia’s anxious eyes search for a black locket amongst them.
“All, all,” she repeated—“show me all.”
At length the bibis were tired of displaying their treasures; the Mem
Sahiba seemed to have an unreasonable avidity for seeing jewels. Alicia,
heated and tired, began to despair of ever finding what she had come
expressly to see. Some of the women had gone away, Chanel Kor had taken
to her hookah, and Alicia was about to rise and depart, when Darobti
opened a curious old box to take out betel to chew—a very common custom
amongst Eastern bibis. At the bottom of the box lay what looked like a
dirty bit of rag, but Alicia’s quick eye detected in that rag something
of European manufacture.
“What’s that?” asked the lady, pointing to the rag.
The question did not appear to be understood; at any rate it received no
reply. Alicia put out her own jewelled hand, and to Darobti’s surprise
pulled the dirty thing out of the box. It was part of a child’s sock,
and out of it something dropped on the floor. Alicia could not repress
an exclamation of surprise and delight: it was indeed a black locket in
the shape of a heart!
Darobti stooped to pick it up; but the eager lady was quicker than she.
Alicia was breathless with excitement; she actually held in her hand the
two things that might prove to others the fact of which she had now not
the slightest doubt—that Premi was her own cousin. “I have you, and I’ll
keep you,” thought Alicia, after hastily ascertaining that there was an
inscription on the locket, and initials marked in red thread on the
sock.
“Give that back!” cried Darobti.
Alicia clenched her prize tightly in her left hand, then with her right
unfastened her own silver brooch, and held it out to Darobti. “Exchange,
exchange,” said the lady.
Alicia’s very eagerness was the thing to defeat her own object. Her
anxiety awoke in the Hindus both suspicion and that spirit of
covetousness which has such power over the Oriental. Why should the Mem
desire that little black charm? There must be witchcraft.
“It’s a spell to make us all Karanis” (Christians) said Darobti. “I’d
rather throw the black thing down the well than let it get into the
hands of a Feringhi” (European).[7]
“It brought no luck when the girl had it,” cried the one-eyed Jai Dé.
“It may have had something to do with the death of Premi’s husband. Let
the black charm be taken away!”
“Daughter of an owl, you know nothing!” screamed out Darobti; and an
abuse-match began between the two women, carried on in voices so shrill
and loud that Alicia would fain have stopped her ears. A Hindu bibi in a
passion could probably, in noisy volubility, hold her own amongst women
of any other nationality in the world.
Footnote 7:
To show how strong this fear of witchcraft is amongst Hindu women, I
will give another extract, almost as curious as the first, from the
public address of the Christian gentleman and converted Brahmin, T. K.
Chatterji. Speaking of his mother he says,—
“She was very much afraid of the witches, and to protect me from their
evil influences she used to fast often, and make vows to gods and
goddesses. If any devotee happened to visit our village, one of the
first things that she would ask him was, whether he knew anything that
would keep me from the evil influence of the witches. She would pay
him money with which to make puja [worship], and would not mind
undergoing any amount of penances for my good. She was not content
doing this only, but procured a costly gold chain, and enclosed in its
links little pieces of the roots of some wild trees which she thought
had the virtue of driving away witches and evil spirits, and she took
great care to hang this chain round my neck. She used to spit on my
forehead whenever I went out to play with other boys or to the village
school, and would not eat anything until I returned home safe.”
Oh, what a picture is here presented to us of maternal love, strong
though blind, and of slavish, misery-making fear! Such superstition,
met with in various forms, is one of the galling chains from which, in
God’s strength, missionaries desire to free their poor native sisters.
Chand Kor being of a less irascible nature, and perhaps less
superstitious than the others, was more inclined to drive a good bargain
with the ignorant Mem Sahiba, who had taken an evident fancy to a black
ornament, old, damaged, and of little intrinsic value. Alicia, confused
and half-frightened, yet resolved, cost what it might, to keep the
locket. Chand Kor perceived this, and saw her advantage. The lady,
willing to exchange one jewel for another, was driven to bid higher and
higher, till even the contentious women stopped their quarrelling to see
how far the English lady would go.
Alicia's brooch had been rejected; she was ready to add the ear-rings to
match, then the silver buckle which fastened her band; but her offers
were of no avail. Darobti and Jai Dé kept repeating the word _jadugari_
(witchcraft). Alicia knew not the meaning of the word, but she saw that
the bibis connected it with the locket, and thought it probably the name
by which lockets are called.
“Give me the little jadugari,” said she, “and take this,” and she held
out her silver chain.
“It is jadugari; she confesses it, the witch!” cried Darobti, shrinking
back as if the chain were a snake that could bite her.
But the covetous eyes of Chand Kor, the ruler of the zenana, were fixed
on a golden bracelet in the form of a serpent with diamond eyes, which
was the most expensive trinket which Alicia possessed, and a bridal gift
sent from England.
“Give that, _that_,” said the Hindu bibi, “and keep the black thing
which you have in your hand.”
Alicia, thoroughly disgusted at the woman’s mean covetousness, shook her
head and rose from the charpai on which she had been seated.
“Give the charm back!” cried Darobti, becoming suddenly aware that
whilst she was quarrelling with Jai Dé the cause of the dispute might be
carried away.
“Give the charm back!” echoed more than one voice.
Alicia grasped the locket more tightly. It was the property of her
cousin, not theirs; she would never give it up except to its rightful
owner. A cry for help from above burst from the Englishwoman’s heart as
she made one step forward.
Strong brown hands were laid on the lady’s arm; she had no strength to
cast them off—helpless as a dove in the claws of the falcon.
“Give the bracelet!” cried Chand Kor.
With a quick, sudden movement, Alicia drew off the jewel, and flung it
from her in the direction farthest from the door by which she had
entered. It was a bait, and it took. Every one made a rush in that
direction. Alicia was free—released from the grasping hands which had
held her as in a vice. She took advantage of the moment, and rushed to
the door which opened on the stair without stopping to say salám. She
would have forgotten to snatch up her umbrella had she not intuitively
seized on it as a weapon of defence. Alicia rushed so hurriedly down the
stair that she nearly fell in her haste. She could hear the bibis above
quarrelling over the jewel which she had flung away, which all coveted,
but only one could possess. As Alicia, panting with excitement and heat,
sped first across the inner then the outer court-yard, she thrust her
prize—black locket and dirty rag—within the body of her bridal dress
above her heart, she was so much afraid that in her haste she should
drop that which had cost her so dear.
Alicia’s troubles were not ended even when with a sense of relief she
passed through the second door and found herself outside the fort. There
was her little doli indeed in the place where she had left it, but to
her utter dismay Alicia could see neither Robin nor the kahars. Where
could they be? In vain the lady called aloud, in vain she gazed from
side to side; no one replied, and no one appeared.
“What on earth shall I do!” exclaimed the poor girl. “I cannot possibly
return home with no one to carry me.”
There stood Alicia, trembling and perplexed, in her bridal satin,
utterly alone, whilst noisy voices, both from within the fort and the
adjacent native town, made her equally afraid to return to the first, or
to attempt to pass through the other. The sun, now very powerful, was
blazing above her, and fears of _coup-de-soleil_ were added to other
alarms. It was the most miserable moment that Alicia had ever yet known
in the course of her life; never before had she experienced such a sense
of helplessness and desolation.
“I must get home somehow,” she murmured, after looking again and again
in every direction for her faithless kahars; “some one may attack me for
the sake of my jewels, and I am so utterly unprotected! O Robin, Robin!
why did you thus desert me? I must try to make my way back on foot, but
not through the town, oh, not through the town, though I suppose that
must be the shortest way. I must go by the road, but I am not sure in
what direction our bungalow lies. How dreadful it would be should I take
the wrong turn! I cannot stand still under this fiery sun. I have heard
that when exposed to its heat it is safer to walk, still safer to run;
but if I run I shall attract more attention, and may be but going faster
away from my home. Oh, if I had only any one to protect and guide me!”
exclaimed the poor young wife.
The sound of her own words seemed to reproach her for want of faith.
Alicia felt that she was only craving the support of an earthly arm, and
was forgetting in her terror that arm which is ever stretched out to
help the servants of God. “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou
doubt?” flashed on the memory of Alicia. Her exclamations of distress
now took the form of prayer. “Lord, save me, help me, guide me!” she
repeated again and again as she sped on her way, the rough road marring
her slippers, hurting and almost burning her feet. There was comfort in
uttering that incoherent prayer, solace in realizing that wherever she
might go there was a protecting wing above her. Alicia did not look much
around her; she dreaded meeting the wondering stare of natives whom she
might pass on the road. But very few people were abroad—here a wandering
fakir, there two or three peasants weeding the fields on which the crops
were almost ripe for the harvest, which is usually gathered in April. No
one molested the poor young wanderer.
At length Alicia reached a place where the road divided. There were two
paths before her, both equally dusty and glaring, and she knew not which
to take. Alicia stood still, utterly perplexed. Again the prayer for
guidance burst from her lips, and then she turned to the right. Before
her stretched a long straight road, white with dust and glare, and
bordered with cactus. On that road, to Alicia’s inexpressible joy and
relief, she saw forms which she instantly recognized. Their backs were
turned towards her, and they were at a considerable distance; but well
did Alicia know the brown tattu on which her father-in-law was mounted;
familiar and dear to her eyes was the tall form in a sun-helmet which
walked at his side.
Alicia eagerly ran forward, attempting to call out as she ran; but voice
and breath failed her, and she was only able to gasp out, “Harold,
Harold!” in tones too feeble to reach the ear of her husband. Alicia ran
on, then paused to call again, her heart beating so violently that she
pressed her hand over it to still its throbbing. A third call, which
rose into a cry, burst from her parched lips. At the distance which
separated husband from wife it was inaudible to any but Harold; but
love’s quick ear caught the sound of the dear familiar voice. Harold
turned round, saw his wife, and hurried back to meet her, with an
expression of surprise, anxiety, and almost terror on his pale face.
Seeing Alicia alone, strangely attired and greatly excited, a horrible
suspicion flashed across the young man’s mind that the effect of
sunstroke had turned his poor bride’s brain. In no other way could
Harold account for finding her thus—at some distance from home,
unattended, arrayed in white satin, and running as if for her life.
Harold hastened to meet her, and the poor frightened dove threw herself
into his arms, and burst into a passionate flood of tears. This still
further alarmed her husband, who mistook the expression of joy and
relief for one of distress. Alicia’s face was crimson with the exertion
of running in the heat, her slight frame trembled violently; but even at
that moment there was a tone of triumph in her sobbed-out words, “I have
it—I have it—safe in my bosom!”
“What have you, my love, my life?” asked Harold; but he did not press
for a reply. His only thought was how to get his afflicted wife safe
home. Mr. Hartley, who had turned to see the cause of Harold’s suddenly
quitting his side, had ridden back to the spot where his son and Alicia
were standing, and shared the surprise and alarm of young Hartley. The
missionary threw himself off his pony with all the energy of youth, and
bade Harold place Alicia upon it. The agitated girl was lifted to the
saddle and supported on it by her husband, who spoke to her gentle words
of soothing, as he might have done to a frightened child. Very slowly
the party proceeded homewards, Harold holding a white umbrella over the
head of his wife. He did not ask any questions; but as soon as the short
burst of crying was over, and Alicia had recovered her breath, she was
eager to recount her adventures.
“You wonder at seeing me in such a strange dress; but Robin said that my
best chance of getting into the fort was to go in my wedding attire. How
absurd it must look!”
“So it is Robin whom I have to thank for this!” exclaimed Harold
angrily. “I shall take care not to leave you under the care of such a
hare-brained mad-cap again.”
“But Robin was right, quite right!” laughed Alicia. “I did get into the
fort, and I _did_ get the locket out of the hands of the Hindu bibis!”
“What locket? you speak in riddles, my love.”
“Oh, I forgot that you have heard nothing about the black heart-shaped
locket, just like the one which you saw hung round my neck on the first
day that we met. Premi had its fac-simile on the day when she was
brought to the fort; Robin and I thought that if we could only get
possession of it, we could identify my cousin by its means.”
Harold’s face brightened: an intolerable weight was lifted from his
heart; his fears for his wife’s loss of reason were gone. Mr. Hartley
listened as eagerly as did his son to the full and graphic account which
Alicia now gave of her visit to the fort. Harold laughed at the
bargaining over the locket, and when told of the flinging away of the
bracelet which had had such a happy effect, the husband exclaimed with
proud delight, “My noble girl, my spirited wife! you deserve to wear the
Koh-i-nur itself on your arm!”
Mr. Hartley’s praise was almost as warm as that of his son. “It was
bravely done,” he said. “Our Alicia had asked for wisdom and courage,
and they were given in the moment of need.”
“Yes,” said Alicia earnestly; “I feel that I was helped all through, or
I should never have succeeded. Was it not a mercy that at the very
moment when I knew not whither to turn, you should have been passing
along the road?”
“Had not our departure from the encampment been delayed by my
oversleeping myself,” observed Mr. Hartley, “we should have been at the
bungalow hours before this.”
“You were so weary—you have been ill!” cried Alicia. “I cannot bear to
ride while you walk; I would rather, far rather be on foot.”
“My child, I have boots; your little slippers have been fairly worn out
in honourable service,” was the playful reply.
“Robin must never twit me about them again,” said Alicia.
“What to me is incomprehensible is Robin’s conduct to-day!” exclaimed
Harold, with a touch of indignation in his tone. “It is so unlike him to
bring a sister into a difficult situation, and then to desert her, after
promising to keep near.”
“And why did the kahars too run away?” cried Alicia; “something very
strange must have occurred.”
“The mystery will soon be cleared up,” observed Mr. Hartley, “for we
have come in sight of the bungalow at last.”
The reader will find the solution of the mystery in the following
chapter.
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