The Potter's Thumb. Flora Annie Webster Steel
the most beautiful girl in the world, so they lived happy ever after,' replied George carelessly.
It was two nights after this incident that old Zainub the duenna paid a visit to Chândni in her shadowy recesses.
'What is to come of this foolishness?' she asked crossly. ''Twas a week at first; now 'tis ten days. She used to give no trouble, and now she sits by the lattice in a fever for the next day. That is the plague of girls; give them but a glimpse outside and they fret to death. So I warned Meean Khush-hâl sixteen years agone, when the mother took refuge with us during her father's absence on the night of the storm; but he listened not when he had the excuse of the wall. Yea, that is the truth, O Chândni! 'tis well thou shouldst know the whole, since thou hast guessed half. Mayhap thou wilt think twice when thou hast heard. Ai! my daughter! I seem to hear her now; I would not pass such another year with this one for all the money thou couldst give. Nor is it safe for me, or for thee, Chândni, with those eyes in the child's head. Let be--'tis no good. Would I had never consented to begin the work! I will do no more.'
'True!' yawned Chândni, lounging on her bed. 'Thou art getting old for the place--it needs a younger woman. I will tell the Diwân so.'
Zainub whimpered. 'If aught were to come of it, 'twould be different; but thou thyself hast but the hope of beguiling him to some unknown snare within the walls.'
'An unknown snare is the deadliest,' laughed the other shrilly. 'What care I for the girl? 'Tis something to have him meet a screened inmate of the palace day after day; many things may come of that. If Azîzan pines, tell her the wedding is delayed; tell her anything----'
'Tell her!' broke in the old duenna between the whiffs of the hookah whence she sought to draw comfort. 'Sobhân ullah! There is too much telling as it is. He tells her--God knows what!--not sensible reasonable things, like the tales of a parrot, about real men and women; but upside-down rigmaroles about beggar-maidens and kings and sighs without kisses. Lo! she hath them pat! But now, because I bid her hold her tongue from teasing me with them when I wished to sleep, she flung out her hands so, quite free like, saying if she might not speak them she would think them, since they were true words. He had told her, and the sahib-logue ever spake the truth.'
Chândni burst into high pitched laughter. 'So! the little Moghulâni learns fast! 'Tis not strange, seeing the blood which runs in her veins. The cross breed hath but given it strength. Lo! if this be as thou sayest, she would not thank thee for stopping her ears with the cotton of decency. Thus, for the eyes' sake, Zainub, thou hadst best let well alone, and give the girl the rein--while thou canst.'
In good sooth the old dame felt the truth of Chândni's words, and knew herself to be between two stools. Either by interference, or non-interference, she ran the risk of Azîzan's anger; more, perhaps, by the latter than the former. So the girl in her odd dress continued to steal out in the fresh mornings--for March had come with its hot glaring noons--to sit between George and the mosque, and to steal back again, obedient to that beckoning hand from the gate; Zainub's authority remaining sufficient for that, backed as it was by an ill-defined fear on the girl's part, lest the fate of Cinderella should befall her before the proper time. There was little conversation between the odd couple; chiefly because Azîzan had none, and seemed to know nothing of her neighbours and the village. Her mother? Oh yes! she was better for the quinine. She was a purdah woman, more or less, and lived yonder--this with a wave of the hand palacewards. Yes! she had heard there was a potter, but she had never seen him. Oh, no! they were not related. Her dress? It was very old because they were very poor. Her mother had had it by her; it was very ugly. She would rather have 'Manchester'; but they--that is to say, her mother--would not give it her. The Ayôdhya pot? That was old also. She had asked her mother, and she was willing to sell it. When the Huzoor had finished the picture her mother would come, if she were well enough, and settle the price. If not, the Huzoor might go 'yonder' and speak to her mother. The Huzoors were their fathers and mothers. It was not like a black man. This much, no more, George gleaned during the morning hours which passed so swiftly for them both. He in a novel absorption and pride in the success of his own work. She? It is hard to say. She sat listening, while the pigeons sidled and coo'd, the blue tiles glowed, and the blind arcades shut out all the world save George and his stories. They were of the simplest, most uncompromising nature; partly because his sense of superiority made him stoop, perhaps unnecessarily, to Azîzan's level; partly because his knowledge of the language, though long past the stuttering stage, did not extend to niceties of emotion. But loving was loving, hating was hating, when all was said and done. Sometimes the crudity of his own words made the lad smile, as, by the aid of his own complexity, he recognised how entirely they dealt in first principles; and then Azîzan would smile too, not from comprehension, but from first principles also. The woman's smile born of the man's.
It was different, however, when he laid down his brush with an elated laugh. 'There! that's done! and you have sat like--like anything. Earned your ten rupees and--Azîzan! my dear little girl--what is the matter?'
First principles with a vengeance, and the sunlight turning tears to diamonds as they rolled down those sun-coloured cheeks! He rose, divided between pity and impatience, and stood looking at her almost incredulously. 'Come, don't cry--there's nothing to cry about. Look! how pretty you are in the picture; but it wouldn't have been half so pretty if you hadn't sat so still. I owe you more than the ten rupees, Azîzan, and that's a fact. What shall it be--money or jewels? What would you like best?'
She did not answer, and with the same careless superiority he stooped and turned her downcast face to his; he was used to turning it this way or that at his pleasure. But this somehow was different; so was the sun-colour and brown he saw. Sun-colour indeed! He was only one-and-twenty, and the brightness and the glamour which seemed to fall in a moment on everything, as he saw the heart-whole surrender of her eyes, dazed him utterly; only one-and-twenty, and he had never before seen such a look as this that came to him from the sun-coloured face; but it was brown also! Truth is truth. It was not a sense of duty, it was a sense of colour which prevented him from kissing it then and there. So much may be said for him and his morality, that the difference between a brown and a white skin was the outward sign of the vast inward gulf between sentiment and sheer passion. The transition was too abrupt; for the time it shocked his culture, and brought a look to his face before which poor little Azîzan gave a cry, and fled, just as she had fled on that first day when George had spilled the dirty water over the sunshine. He had spilled it now with a vengeance, and--over the sunshine of her face, sent shame--needless shame. 'Azîzan!' he called after her, his pulses bounding and beating, 'Azîzan!'
Then he paused, since she would not; and told himself that there was no need for pursuit. She would come back, for there, as she had left it, lay the Ayôdhya pot. Yes! she must come back. He could scarcely think of her without it clasped in her thin hands; so silent--yet all the time----? He gave a little laugh, tender, half regretful. Dear little Azîz! What a brute, what a fool he had been to bring that look to her face! His brain was in a whirl; he could think of nothing save her shy, confident eyes, and ask himself if, when all was said and done, that world beyond the desert held anything better despite its palaver and pretension? Did it not come back in the end to the old ways, to the first principles? He laughed recklessly at his own thoughts more than once as, scarcely seeing the ground beneath his feet, he made his way homewards to the branded red brick bungalow.
The factotum was standing in the verandah.
'The mem-sahib is waiting for the Huzoor,' he said calmly,
'The mem! what mem?'
'This slave knows not. She came half an hour gone, and said she would await the Huzoor's return.'
'Wait! where?'
The man pointed to the sitting-room. 'In there, Huzoor. She has since fallen asleep in the sahib's arm-chair.'
George stared helplessly at the bamboo-screen which, hanging before the open door, prevented him from seeing inside. Who could it be? Rose Tweedie? The mere thought sent the first blush of the morning to his cheek, by bringing him back with a round turn to civilisation.
'Here! take these things,' he said, thrusting the picture and the pot hastily into the servant's hand; 'and see!--wipe