UNDER-CURRENTS
Mumtaza Mahal, Roshan Khan's grandmother, lived in a queer little
backwater of a house which had eddied itself away from the main stream
of the town, and jammed itself against a wall of the palace as if
seeking dignity thereby. For all that it belonged irredeemably to the
city, and to its evil-smelling lanes. The word house, however, is
misleading to western ears, since this was simply a well-like
courtyard, with a great wooden bed set in the centre under a miserable
attempt at a tree which was used as a clothes-peg, a rack for
saucepans, and a variety of other domestic purposes. It fulfilled them
to the perfect satisfaction of its proprietress, a roundabout old lady,
plump as a button-quail, who, when she was not asleep inside the
arcaded slip of a room on one side, passed her time on the bed in the
scanty shade, keeping company with a sausage-roll of a pillow and a
quilt, both covered in faded, greasy silk. As a rule she did nothing
save eat _pan_; though sometimes, as a favour to Erda Shepherd, who
came to read to her once a week, she would give a few more stitches to
a knitted comforter which never seemed to get any longer. It had been
begun, indeed, under the auspices of another "Miss," who had returned
to England only to die, as so many do, from exposure, and overwork, and
homesickness. For the rest, Mumtaza was an arrogant, yet good-natured
old soul, who, despite those tears on her wedding-day, had kept
dissolute Walidad under her thumb, and his son also. Therefore, it was
one of her pet grievances--and she had many--that Roshan, her grandson,
should have defied her authority and entered the army. The great
standing grievance, however, was that the "_pinson_" she received from
Government because her husband had been deported with the Nawab to
Calcutta, was not so large as one received by a neighbour and gossip
whose husband had been hanged in the mutiny! The two old ladies came to
loggerheads over their respective claims once a month, regularly, when
pay-day came round; Mumtaza asserting shrilly that to die in a strange
country was more painful than hanging, Ashraf-un-nissa contending
roundly that if Walidad had had as much respectful affection for his
widow as her husband had had for his, he could easily have caused
himself to be hanged; since he had certainly deserved it.
Whereat there would be war, until some one in the alley, or round the
corner did something outrageous,--threw slops over some one, or had
twins, or imported a new mother-in-law! Then, friendly discussion
becoming a necessity of life, the big wooden bed would once more hold
two old ladies, two roly-poly bolsters, two quilts--also two tongues!
But these confined themselves, for a time, to lesser grievances; such
as the general decadence of the age, manifested by the reluctance of
young people to obey the old.
There was, however, no sign of displeasure in the reception prepared
for Roshan, when one afternoon, immediately after his arrival at
Eshwara, he appeared to prostrate himself at the feet of age; at least
so he had said in his letter of intimation. Mumtaza Mahal knew her duty
towards men-folk better than to show temper at once; knew also the
suffocating effect of ceremonials. So the tarnished treasures of past
state had been dug out of the mounds of litter heaped up in all four
corners of the arcaded room, and set about the courtyard. An old
elephant-housing covered the wooden bed, and to it Roshan was
conducted: his grandmother, despite her best green satin trousers,
squatting below, on a mat.
The young soldier felt and looked thoroughly uncomfortable. Out of
sheer funk of the old lady's remarks if he had appeared in his usual
_mufti_ of English tweed and a close-fitting turban, he had reverted to
the airy muslins and embroidered smoking-caps of his forbears. He felt
chilly, barely decent in them; and, indeed, the whole environment was
absolutely repugnant to him. His grandmother's tramways could scarcely
be otherwise to one who had gone ahead by express train like Roshan
Khan. Thoroughly well-educated, he knew himself to be considered one of
the smartest native officers in the army. A first-class polo player, a
fair cricketer, able to handle cue and racket, and without equal at the
foils, he had for years met Englishmen on equal terms in sporting
matters. What wonder, then, that he sat looking inexpressibly bored
beside the _hookah_ which was the pride of his grandmamma's heart, in
that it had belonged to many dead and gone Nawabs? He was simply
longing for the solace of a smoke, yet he did not dare to use the
silver cigarette case with his initials, "R.K." on it, which Lance
Carlyon had given him at Christmas in return for the fencing lessons.
Fortunately, however, boredom and yawns are correct during visits of
ceremony, so Mumtaza Mahal crossed her little fat hands over her little
fat green-trousered legs, and told herself the lad was improved in both
manners and looks; was distinctly more like her brother, the late and
sainted Nawab. The fact emphasized her regret that, after a brilliant
career in a mission school, a career which must have led to a minor
clerkship, her grandson should have taken the unheard-of course of
entering the army! If he could even have gone as the Nawab's
grand-nephew, with a dozen troopers or so as following, it might have
been bearable; but, as Walidad's extraction barred all claim to noble
descent, enlistment meant something very different. The old lady,
accustomed to obedience all round, when the dreadful defiance had
occurred, ten years before, had called the stars to witness that it was
all--that everything was--Pidar Narayan's fault! And then she had
fallen a-whimpering, knowing right well that but for the latter's
intercession, she herself would have had no "_pinson_"; since
Government bars those who can be proved to be personally implicated in
evil doings. And now, as she sat looking at her grandson, the same
conflicting estimates made her irritable. Why had Pidar Narayan ever
put his finger in the Eshwara pie? Yet, without him, where would they
all have been? Still, he need not have taught the lad to fence, and so
turned him into a mean, common soldier.
Now, whether this was true, whether his skill with the foils had turned
Roshan's thoughts towards a fighting life, or whether it was simply the
result of natural aptitudes that way, the choice of professions had
been wise. His Colonel,--of the old school though he was,--had
admitted, when pressed, that the young Mahomedan, _given practice_,
might be able to lead the regiment as well as a fresh-joined English
subaltern. The newer school, again, playing the _Krieg spiel_ against
him at Simla, and finding itself in grips with a genuine gift for
tactics, had shaken its head and confessed the hardship of such a
talent being barred from finding its proper level. Still it was
impossible to legislate for exceptions without upsetting the every-day
army apple-cart.
Roshan himself, being sensible--above all, being of a nation which
accepts limitations as a law of God--was, as a rule, satisfied with his
future _risaldar_ majorship, and, if he was lucky, _Aide-de-Camp to the
Queen_, and a few other titles tacked on to it. Like all natives of
India he lived largely on the approbation of his immediate superiors,
and this he had without stint; besides, his whole line of thought had
become too military for any subversion of rule and discipline to seem
desirable.
Yet the curb made itself felt sometimes; never more keenly than at his
grandmother's scornful look, when, in reply to her catechising, he
named his income.
"Only that! _Bah!_ Tis the pay of a coolie!"
"'Tis the pay of my rank, anyhow," he replied sulkily, "and I cannot
expect promotion yet; the rules--"
She waggled her be-veiled, be-jewelled head cunningly. "Rules! What
have rules to do with favour, either for men or women? Lo! thy
grand-uncle, the Nawab, gave twice that to a coachman who had one eye
black and the other blue because he fancied him! So, if thou art in
favour, as thou sayest, ask for more. The _Huzoors_ will give it,
sooner than lose thee."
Roshan did not attempt explanation; he simply evaded the point by
asserting that the pay was sufficient for his wants. In a way it was an
unfortunate remark, since it precipitated the lecture lurking in the
old lady's mind.
"And for the wife's that is to come?" she asked, not without
dignity,--the dignity of age reminding youth that its turn for duty has
come. "And for the son's that has yet to be born? Why are these old
arms still empty of thy children, Roshan?"
He had his answer ready; one that had hitherto baulked even the
matrimonial desires of his mother, who, having gone to live with her
own people, was backed up by sisters and sisters-in-law.
"Because the Most High decreed freedom for wife and son."
It was true. The wife found for him as a boy had died in child-birth.
But Mumtaza had made up her mind to refuse this excuse any longer.
Matters were getting desperate. Here was Roshan past thirty, and never
a child's voice to soothe the passion which seems to come back,
vicariously, to Indian women in their old age. She had been brooding
over an appeal ever since she had heard that, after ten years' absence,
the lad was once more to be within reach of her tongue. So she edged
closer to him, an almost pathetic authority in her face.
"That is but the skin of the orange, Roshan; I take not that as a gift!
There be more wives than one, if the one die, even for the _Huzoors_
whom thou apest. Nay! Light of the house! frown not," she continued, in
sudden alarm at his look. "I did but mean that thou wert different from
thy fathers. How canst help it? Think not the old woman cannot
understand. Was I not young once? Was I not wedded with tears to thy
grandfather--on whom be peace! So I know the heart hath fancies, and
thine--listen while I whisper it--is--is for a wife like a _mem!_
Wherefore not? Thou hast seen and talked with them--they have seemed
better to thee than a cow of a black girl! What then? Have not _mems_
married our people ere now? And with thee,"--she looked round quickly,
to be certain of privacy, then leant closer still,--"with thee it would
be easy--for there is thy cousin."
"My cousin?" he echoed stupidly.
"Yea! thy cousin, when all is said and done," she repeated, with faint
scorn. "Is not the Miss at the palace Anari Begum's granddaughter? Was
not Anari Begum thy grandfather's sister? If that is not cousin, what
is it?"
He had known these facts before, of course, but they had never
presented themselves to him in this connection. Yet they came
instantly, accredited by custom. His cousin; if so, his wife, if he
chose, almost by right. And yet from custom also, he--too sensible not
to have gauged the vast difference between his position as regards
Englishmen, and his position as regarded their wives, sisters,
mothers--was conscious of distinct revolt. "Thou shouldst not say such
things," he exclaimed almost angrily; "the Miss-_sahib_--"
"Miss-_sahib_ indeed!" interrupted Mumtaza with a forced giggle. "Who
knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narayan."
"Wherefore?" asked Roshan coldly. "Her mother was Bonaventura-_sahib's_
child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have
continued the grants given to him by the Nawab."
An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she
tucked another budget of _pan_ into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy
explanation.
"Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could
find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in
Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narayan said no word
when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatar's death, for Anari Begum,
who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he
appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatar's
lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look
you, Anari was in the palace _zenana_ ere she disappeared. Who is to
say she is not thy cousin twice over?... I say not that she is, look
you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anari
Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads
brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narayan keeps a
silent tongue. Her name is Laila,[3] and thine Roshan.[4] Is not that a
fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's
land too; for would it not have been Walidad's, if Bun-avatar had not
ousted him from the _wazeer_-ship with singing birds?"
Roshan Khan stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten
years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague,
almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast
capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own
advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he
served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in
India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a
dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known
how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of
his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their
own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave
an uneasy laugh. "These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with,
Pidar Narayan--"
"Pidar Narayan! Pidar Narayan!" echoed the old diplomatist tartly, "Art
turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narayan[5] the Creator of all?"
Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience
and anger. "Yet is it true. He _is_ the cause of all! But for him
Bun-avatar would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder,
a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--"
A quick frown came to her hearer's face. "Teaching! Ay! but only enough
to make me fit for his skill to play with. I know that now. Well! let
him try it again--" Roshan's sudden fierceness died down to sombre
discontent--"but that is fool's talk. He is too old. I could not meet
him on equal terms." He drew himself up proudly; yet he felt a vague
regret at his own acquired sense of fair play. Below it lay a savagery
that could rejoice in revenge at any price, and Mumtaza Mahal, watching
him, thought him still more like his ancestors, and nodded approvingly.
"Think of it, at least, Roshan," she said, "and remember that it is not
as if the girl were a real _mem_. Pidar Narayan, for all he is so
clever, was put to it to find a husband for the mother, the baptized
baby! He took a poor creature from Martin's school at Lucknow, at last,
who could not even speak English like a _Huzoor_--"
"Because he was Italian and a Catholic," put in Roshan, then shrugged
his shoulders impatiently. "But thou canst not understand. 'Tis
impossible! Dreams, grandmother, dreams!"
"Dreams come true even when forgotten, and torchbearers never see their
own way," retorted the old lady, ending the discussion with proverbial
wisdom as a clincher. "So think of it, since thoughts cost nothing, and
tell no tales."
Roshan felt as if they did the former at any rate, as he strode back
toward the fort, telling himself he would feel better when he had on
his uniform once more. This was his _metier_, not marriage. The best
soldiers, the really great soldiers--he paused, the knowledge that he
could never rise to real greatness coming to make him clinch his right
hand as if on his sword-hilt. The tempest of revolt which swept through
him left him dazed, for he had reasoned the matter out with himself
thoroughly, and thought he had accepted the situation, thought that he
had realized that his dignity in the regiment under the present system
went side by side, and not behind, that of the English officers. Yet
here he was at the mercy of something too strong for acquired wisdom.
He walked on faster to escape into a more wholesome environment, and by
sheer force of will succeeded in driving away all thought of the past
interview save a triviality. That was the remembrance that her name was
Laila, his Roshan. Light and Darkness, Day and Night. A fate indeed.
As he passed into the courtyard, however, on his way to the door in the
river bastion, a group in its centre, round the old gun, brought his
attention back to realities, and he went towards it, his slipper-shod
feet making no martial clank, this time, on the union-jack of raised
paths. The group consisted of half a dozen or so of men listening to
something which was being declaimed, with much gesticulation, by an
ash-smeared _jogi_, whose wide-pierced ears, distended by conch-shell
rings, and transverse bar of white on his forehead, showed him to
belong to the sect which claims to have transcendental powers.
Apparently he had been making the claim, for a young man, whose costume
smacked of Western culture, and whose face was acute, litigious,
interrupted him impatiently.
"Yea, yea; possibly thou couldst come over the obstruction,
Gorakh-nath-_jee_; but the question is whether the obstruction be
legal. Is it not so, Lala Ramanund?"
Lala Ramanund, whose dress was even more Western, and who had a certain
air of distinction, due, evidently, to position, assented; adding, as a
rider, and with some contempt, that at present they had only _jogi_
Gorakh-nath's word that any interference was intended.
Gorakh-nath, a tall, muscular man, naked save for his grass-rope
girdle, his wild hair twined and twisted to a tiara, his wild,
half-insane eyes telling of drugs, shot a glance of absolute defiance
at Ramanund. "Thy name, _pundit-jee_, is not likely to give friendly
witness to mine," he began, alluding to the fact that they were
respectively called after the founders of their absolutely antagonistic
sects, "and yet methinks thou couldst, seeing--"
Here Dya Ram, the first speaker, alarmed in his lawyer's soul at the
militant tone of the _jogi_, suggested hastily that they might inquire,
say at the gate; or stay! there was the _risaldar_ coming; he must
know.
Once more, as he listened to the question put to him, the expression of
his race and creed came to Roshan's face, hiding its culture.
"Of a certainty!" he replied haughtily. "The gun belongs to the Fort.
It is not to be used as a shelter for--for saints!" His contempt was
palpable.
"I deny your premise," put in Dya Ram eagerly. "The gun is the people's
by prescriptive right. I can use it if I choose. The Government
professes neutrality; therefore, no one has a right to interfere with
my religion."
Roshan's face was a study. "Lo! Dya Ram, for thou art my old
class-fellow surely, hast gone back to the old beliefs since the days
when thou didst sign thyself at the end of thy essays, and in thy
books, 'Dya Ram, Agnostic'?"
Dya Ram gave an uneasy cough. "It is a question of legality--" he
began.
"And of money also," put in a new voice cringingly. "The pilgrims come
hither to see the saint, and then bathe. But if there is no saint, many
will not come, and I, who have my right on the steps as marker of the
caste marks--"
"Right!" echoed the Mahomedan curtly. "Have a care, caste-marker, lest
we do not claim the courtyard also."
Here Ramanund, who had hitherto listened indifferently, took up the
cudgels. "That can scarcely be, _risaldar-sahib_," he said; "our pious
folk have come hither to perform their offices since time began."
Gorakh-nath turned on him at once. "Not so, _Vaishnava!_" he said.
"Thou and thine know naught of the Beginning of Things. Come to us and
Holy Shiv-_jee_ for that! Thou art as far from the great wisdom as
he"--here he pointed wildly to Roshan--"yea! further, despite thy
pretence of purity! Despite thy hunger yesterday when, returning to thy
lost faith, thou didst come here to eat as the twice-born should, and a
shadow fell upon thy food! Despite thy deafness to this world just
now,"--here he laughed jeeringly,--"which kept thee back from bearing
witness to my truth, to the truth of Shiv-_jee's_ servant!"
Dya Ram looked at him, then at Ramanund perplexedly. "What means he?"
he said aside. "Didst thou really come hither?"
"My wife was dying," replied Ramanund in a low, rapid undertone, "and
I--you understand--there--there is nothing certain, you see--and any
chance--one goes back at such times--" he broke off almost desperately
in his confession.
Dya Ram, who had signed himself Agnostic, nodded. He understood what it
was to be rudderless in a familiar current, and came to the rescue of
his friend's consistency by asserting that any such decision regarding
the gun, if one had been made, would certainly be disputed. That he and
his--though they demurred to its being counted against them for faith
in the worshipping of mere matter--would, if necessary, carry the case
to the High Court.
"Carry it to the Court of thy god Indra, if need be, Dya Ram," retorted
Roshan, and as he strode off he spat deliberately in the dust. That
also surprised him faintly, for he had thought he had learnt tolerance
of the _Huzoors_. So, with a frown and yet with relief, he put his hand
on the latch which would open the way back to a less disturbing
environment. As he did so, another hand was on it also. The door opened
from within, and Father Ninian stood on the threshold barring it; but
barring it with smiles.
"Ah! my pupil," he said in English. "I have been listening to your
praises from Captain Dering, and from Mr. Carlyon too. He says you are
the best fencer in the army. You and I must cross foils again sometime,
eh, my pupil?"
Roshan, as he stepped aside elaborately to let the old man pass, drew
himself up and saluted.
"If you please, sir; but I have learnt new things since--since those
days."
His tone made Father Ninian pause to look at him for an instant; then
he replied, "And I have not forgotten the old; that makes us equal."
Roshan gave a little hard laugh as he went in; if the old man liked to
think so, let him.
But Father Ninian's face as he passed--a black shadow in the
sunshine--across the level steps leading down to the river wore a
wistful smile. Old and new, he thought. New and old. Senseless, useless
words, fit only for humanity to juggle dreams from, since no man knew
the unseen beginning, knew the unseen end; knew even his own birth and
death. In the endless band of life, naught came first, naught last, and
the things of to-day might be old, the things of yesterday might be
new.
"_Margherita!_"
The name came soundless to the priest's lips, and a quick flush of
youth, and hope, and joy seemed to smooth away the wrinkles of his
face. A faint laugh, a happy laugh, went further towards a hearing than
the name. It was sixty years ago, nearly, since he had left her. An old
story indeed, and yet how new. The new wine of it ran in his old veins,
thrilled to his old brain, and took him back absolutely to a palazzo on
the outskirts of Rome, with the pale flood of the Tiber flowing beneath
a marble loggia. He had never looked on running water since without
remembrance, and now--his feet having led him unconsciously to the
river's edge--he stood smiling at the pale flood of the Hari. For he
knew that he had fought a good fight, that he had kept the promise he
had made in order to still her soul; that he had kept her boy, Pietro
Bonaventura, so far as he could, from harm, and his child, and his
child's child, gathering them as lambs into the arms of Holy Church.
And then something in the last thought drove the tender human smile
from his face. He murmured a "_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_," bent to
the stream, and dipping his fingers in it, crossed himself.
"May Shiv-_jee's_ blessing go with his holy water, _Baba-jee_," said a
voice behind him. It was Gorakh-nath the _jogi_, who, his sympathizers
having departed, had come to fill his gourd.
Father Ninian turned; so for a space they stood face to face;
representatives of the two great supernaturalisms of the world; the one
which has held the West, the one which has held the East.
The old man's face, at first, returned to kindly human tolerance; for
his fifty years of Eshwara had widened his sympathies. But, as he stood
before the _jogi_ it hardened, and the priestly arrogance of the naked
ash-smeared figure, stretching a right hand in claim over the
sanctifying power of the river, was reflected in Father Ninian's as he
spread his left hand upwards, and turned on his heel with the words,
"_Vade retro Satanas!_"