Voices in the Night. Flora Annie Webster Steel
But none cares for Lateefa's soul or body. So fret not, Khôjee, concerning Jehân. And as for the boy, canst not take the child to the "Duffri'n Hospitar'l" and get physic free? Plenty women go thither, they tell me.'
'Ay! of sorts; but not we,' replied the old lady.
She drew her ragged veil tighter, but Sobrai tittered.
'Hark to her gentility! Yet she goes to the pawnshop, Uncle Lateef, and does the house-marketing to boot--tut! auntie, wouldst pretend it is not so? As if our neighbours did not know us all but servantless! as if they could not tell worshipful Khôjeeya Khânum, king's daughter, below the domino, by the limp!'
The old worn face--it was one of those Providence meant for beauty, then marred--turned in deprecating apology to Lateefa, as representative of outraged propriety and proprietor.
'Some one must, meean,' she said meekly, 'for Ameenan hath but two hands and two feet; yet another set would mean another mouth to feed. Besides, I grow so old, brother; there is no fear.' The faint forlornness and regret of the excuse made Lateefa's sharp face soften.
'Heed not what Sobrai says, sister,' he replied. 'Lo! thy virtue would stand stiff in a brothel; hers grows giddy looking over a wall; so she doth not understand----'
'Not understand!' retorted the girl shrilly. 'Mayhap I understand too much for old folk and old ways. I hold not with lick-spittling men-folk who wander "Englis fassen," yet would keep us in the old path--who say, as their granddads did, that "cattle and women must rub along in their tethers," but claim a long string to their own kites.'
Lateefa interrupted the tirade with a chuckle. 'Since they are able to hold it! but as I told thee, 'tis the mud in the gutter for the gayest of gay petticoats'--he laid his hand on the growing pile of kites-'if they try to soar alone.'
'I will not ask thee to hold mine, anyway,' she retorted, flouncing off in a meditated whirlwind. For Lateefa was right. Sobrai was not born of those who are patient in well-doing. Even without experience, her manners were those of a different model.
Aunt Khôjee looked after her fearfully, then once more turned to representative man in apology. 'Here are ill words, meean,' she began tremulously, 'yet God knows how hard it is to keep girls silent when the world about them hath grown so noisy. In the old days neighbours were of one's own sort; now, if they be ready to pay full rent, that is enough. I say naught against ours--though, good or bad, it was ill done of Alidâd, our cousin, to let the house his fathers died in. Still they be decent folk enough, though the son is a balister.[1] But, see you, since he returned from England he hath taken his wife to live as a mem beyond the city. And she hath set his sisters agog to learn, as she learns, of a miss from the missen. So what with all this talk, and the railway whistle so close, and Sobrai gossiping as girls will over the partitions----'
Lateefa's thin laugh positively crackled. 'Said I not her virtue would not withstand a wall? But heed her not, sister. She is right, for Sobrai! Thou art right, for Kôjeeya Khânum! Ye are both God-bred, God-fed! Except concerning houses--there thou art wrong,' he added, giving the old lady a shrewd tentative look. 'Dead folk should remain in their graves and leave the letting of houses to the living. I deem Alidâd wise, for, as the old saw says, "an empty house is the wasp's estate." Jehân should do the like with this, if the Nawâbin would consent to live elsewhere.'
'Elsewhere?' echoed Khôjee, aghast. 'Where else should Noormahal live but in her own house?'
'In a smaller one. Look! saw you ever such a wilderness of a place for five women and a child!'
He swept a derisive finger round the wide courtyard, the terraced arcades, the storied vista of the zenan-khana, the half-fortified gateway, where the royal peacocks still spread their broken plaster tails. And as he did so the flood of yellow sunshine, as if in answer, betrayed every cranny in the cracked brickwork, every scar in the mouldering stucco.
'Tis as a stone on the tail of a kite, sister,' he went on, 'a burden not to be borne by frailty that can scarce support itself.' He had, as he spoke, been tying his morning's work together ere taking it to the bazaar, and now he stood balancing a balloon-like bundle, almost as big as himself, upon his hand; but he emphasised his remark by withdrawing that support, then, ere the kites touched ground, catching the bundle again, so holding them suspended. 'It needs some one to keep feather brains from the gutter,' he continued gravely, 'and thou, Khôjee, art the only body in this house with sense. Khâdjee, thy sister, hath decorum, Sobrai desires, and Noormahal, poor soul, dreams! So let me speak thee soberly. Thou hast heard of this plague, sister?'
Khôjee cracked all her fingers wildly, to avert evil, ere quavering, 'Who hath not? Hath it come, Lateefa? Shall we be all sent to hospital and poisoned?'
The crackling laugh echoed again. 'Fools' tales, woman, fools' tales. Why should the Huzoors trouble? Have they not soldiers and guns wherewith to kill?'
'But they have driven out the Mimbrâns[2]-committee; they have taken possession of all things. Hâfiz Ahmad's wife, who lives as a mem, said so. She said her husband----'
The laugh crackled again. 'Ay! he is mimber, yet he knows which side of the wall to jump. And what be the rights and wrongs of the quarrel, I know not; but, as thou sayest, the Huzoors have taken the reins once more, for the plague is nigh. So they are meddling with God's work, and finding hospitar'ls and who knows what. And Hâfiz Ahmad, for all his grievance, hath recommended his father's--yea! Khôjee, the neighbouring house--as hospitarl. So, see you, sister, if folk were wise the hospitarl might come to them, and a swinging rent beside; since Behâri Lai, the town clerk, told me the doctors said they must have both houses or neither--they were so nigh. Here, then, is Noormahal's chance. Let her claim a writing for half-rent, since, having right of occupancy by her marriage-dowry, Jehân cannot let without her consent. That would stop wheel-spinning for bare bread, sister.'
But Khôjee's thoughts were not for herself. 'Can the Huzoors make us go,' she quavered; 'can they force her?'
Lateefa shrugged his shoulders. 'Nay! nay! but if she choose.'
'Then is that the end,' interrupted Khôjee, with a sigh of relief. 'Noormahal will never choose. She hath but two things left of kingship--and it comes closer through her than through Jehân, mind you, though, being woman she hath no claim like he-two things, the house and the ring! And she will keep both--for her boy.'
Lateefa had his gay balloon balanced afresh on his palm.
'If she can keep the boy,' he said sardonically; 'but even kites are ill to hold with a rotten string.' So, balancing his burden of nothingness from one hand to another, as jugglers play with a ball, he passed out under the broken plaster peacocks, singing significantly, in his high reedy voice, the dirge of motherhood which so often echoes out into the Indian sunshine from behind closed doors--
'O child! who taught thee to deceive!
O child! who taught thee thus to leave
My throning arms? Didst thou not say
Thou wert their king for aye!
So soon dost thou deceive?
So soon hast learnt to leave
Thy sonship's crown?
To fling it down.
Thy throne
Is lone.
Ah, me! ah, me!'
It fell on Khôjeeya Khânum's ears, making her heart sink with its implied warning; for a child doomed to disease, like little Sa'adut, the heir to the Heirship of Nothingness, was but faint hold on the soaring honours of royalty. And Jehân Aziz, his father, was a fainter one still. Rumours had come, even to the wide ruined courtyard, of official reprimands, of threats. What wonder, when even the more reputable members of the royal family looked askance at his doings?
Still he was master in that house, and as that was his day for the weekly visit of ceremony he vouchsafed to his lawful wife, it