Part 12

There was jeering malice in words, tone, and manner as Parbutti handed over the tarnished silver ornaments; but Durga took them without a word--that aggressive silence of hers seeming, as it always did, to defy the ceaseless clang of the copper which, as usual, filled the sunlit courtyard. And yet to a woman less restrained than she here was an occasion for bitter outcry. The ornaments had been hers in those past days of honoured wifehood; now they were Parbutti's to wear, or to give, as she chose. But what did that matter? what did anything matter if only Gopâl could be kept content--if only Gopâl could be kept to his promise? Two months of patience, two months of growing anxiety had told against Durga-dei's good looks according to native standards, though to Western eyes the face had gained more than it had lost. There was no indifference in it now. That had given place to an eagerness almost painful in its intensity; and Parbutti, as she watched the widow begin her task, smiled to herself at the certainty of its being well performed; for Durga displayed a vast anxiety to please nowadays--a most convenient state of affairs for the household generally. Parbutti smiled again, thinking what Durga would say when she knew the truth--that the ornaments were to go in the wedding baskets of the virgin bride who was to be the reward of Gopâl's treachery.

"They will need tamarinds to give them back their whiteness," thought Durga, looking at the silver with experienced eyes. This interest in the drudgery and detail of her life was not a conscious effort on her part; of late a sort of dull comfort had come to her in the knowledge that already, in a thousand ways, she was standing between the household and that disregard of old ways which to her meant disgrace, if not disaster. And so it was with a certain pride in her work that, while Parbutti was sleeping, she watched the tamarind pulp boiling away in the copper vessel over the fire, until her critical eye told her that its office was over, and that the ornaments boiling in it would need no silversmith's aid to enhance their lustre. With a certain pride, also, in her own carefulness, she let the pulp stay on the fire till it had regained its original consistency, and then set it aside in the storeroom against future use. Parbutti would not have thought of such economy. Parbutti, in a reckless modern fashion, would have thrown the pulp away, and bought more when next she wanted some. The thought cheered her as, still with the same careful conservatism, she went on to some other process, approved by old tradition, for the due cleansing of tarnished silver. It was no light matter, that keeping of the household ornaments as if they were fresh from the goldsmith's hands; for did it not redound to the credit of the hearth? When she had worn them, none could have told they were not newly-made out of new rupees; but Parbutti thought only of wearing them in a becoming manner.

Well! this time she should acknowledge that there was some good in having Durga in the house.

There was something infinitely pathetic in the slow workings of this woman's mind, as she sat busy over the ornaments--something infinitely pathetic in the pride with which, after the two or three days of treatment prescribed, she showed them white and glistening to her rival.

"Ay!--they are as new--_Mai_ Râdha will deem them so at any rate," said Parbutti, with studied carelessness. The time had come for revenge. Gopâl's passion for pleasure had been aroused, he would allow nothing now to stand in the way of this projected marriage, and so--and so there was no harm in springing the mine upon Durga. There is nothing in heaven or earth so cruel as a jealous woman even when her nature is kindly, and Parbutti's was not.

"_Mai_ Râdha! What hath she to do with them?" The quick anxiety of the widow's tone was as balm to the other's ears.

"What a mother hath to do with her daughter's trousseau for sure," she answered lightly. "I meant to tell thee ere this, but Gopâl would not have it, and 'tis true that widows are ill meddlers with marriage. He weds the girl next month by my consent. The house needs a child."

So far Durga had stood staring at her enemy incredulously. Now she flung out her arms in sudden passion, letting the widow's shrouding veil fall from her figure recklessly.

"'Tis a lie--an infamous lie! The house needs no stranger's child. Thou knowest it! Yea, thou hast known it, and this is thy revenge. But it shall not be. Gopâl shall speak! Gopâl, I say! Gopâl!"

Parbutti's hands gripped her rival's as in a vice despite her struggles.

"So! is it that? And thou wouldst lay the burden of thy shame on Gopâl, base walker of the bazaars, betrayer of thy dead lord! On Gopâl who weds a virgin; let us see what he saith. Gopâl! I say, Gopâl!"

It almost seemed as if their clamour must have pierced that of the coppersmith's shop, for the latter ceased suddenly in the slow chiming of five o'clock. Instinctively the women fell away from each other, feeling that the crisis had come. Another minute would bring the man to answer for himself. So they stood waiting for the well-known figure on the threshold.

"Gopâl!"

He recoiled from the sight of them, coward to the backbone.

And Parbutti knew it--knew the man with whom she had to deal a thousand times better than Durga knew him; so her shrill voice came first, allowing no compromise, no shilly-shallying. Durga had claimed him as the father of her child. Was it true? for in that case there was no need to bring a bride to the house, nor indeed under such circumstances would _Mai_ Râdha ever consent to her daughter's marriage. Let him take his choice without delay.

And Durga, still gauging him by the measure of her own nature, claimed the truth also. Between the two Gopâl stood irresolute, divided between fear and desire.

"'Tis thy choice, O husband!" came Parbutti's shrill voice; "the widow or the bride, thou canst not have both."

He knew it perfectly. It was one or the other, and a sudden fierce dislike leapt up against poor Durga.

"It is a lie," he muttered, his eyes upon the ground; "I have naught to do with her, naught."

Durga fell back as if she had been struck, but Parbutti's laugh of triumph failed before the sombre fire of those big blazing eyes. For an instant it seemed as if the former would give herself up to vehement upbraiding; then suddenly she passed into the silence of the outer court without a word, and crouched down in her favourite attitude beside the smouldering fires. She felt sick and faint with horror, shame, incredulity. In all her known world of custom and conduct she seemed to find no foothold on which to recover her balance. He had denied her, he had denied the hearth. Her tense fingers hung rigidly without clasp or grip on anything, just as her mind seemed to have lost hold on all her beliefs, all her knowledge.

In a dim, half-dazed way she knew what would happen. By and by, when opportunity occurred, Gopâl would creep out, as he had crept out many a time before, and seek to soothe her. There need be no scandal, no open turning into the streets, if she would promise to make no fuss. Perhaps, once the marriage were accomplished he might even be induced to acknowledge the child. And at this thought something that was not shame, nor anger, nor horror, but sheer animal jealousy, leapt up within her; for she had learnt to care, as women do learn, even when they know that he for whom they care is not worth it.

So Parbutti and this new woman were to have him, and she--

When the brain is quick its owner may suffer more from the very variety and complexity it gives to grief; but the grief for all that is less absorbing. Durga was so lost in hers that she scarcely noticed Parbutti coming in after a time to see about the supper. There was no call on her for help this evening, no blame because the fires were slack and nothing ready. To tell truth, even Parbutti did not care to drive the stunned look from Durga's face, lest it should be replaced by seven devils; so she was left alone. Yet even so, something made her start, and for a second her hand moved as if she were about to thrust it out in a gesture of dismay; then it sank back listlessly. The impulse had come and gone--the housewifely impulse of warning to the younger woman that tamarind pulp which had been kept for days in a copper vessel was not likely to be a wholesome ingredient in a man's supper. After all, what did it matter to her? Surely Parbutti should know such things without being told them; if not, what right had she to be house-mother, ousting those who did? A curiously petty spite against her simmered up in Durga-dei's mind, and like the bubbles on boiling water served for a time to break up the surface of her hot anger against Gopâl. What! was she to save Parbutti from the consequences of her own ignorance and negligence? There was no more than that in Durga's mind as she watched the cooking; no more than that, and a dumb conviction that somehow the future must be changed, utterly changed. It could not be as the past had been; so much was certain. Yet as she sat, thinking not at all, something must have been juggling with her brain, for Parbutti's first words, when an hour or so afterwards she came bustling back into the outer court, found their reply ready on Durga's lips.

"He is not well," she fussed. "Durga! thou art more learned in simples than most. What shall I give to stay the burning in his throat and keep the sickness from him? God send it be not the great sickness; but 'tis in the city they say." The widow stood up mechanically, and her right hand sought once more the crevices of the wall against which she was leaning.

"I know not. Give him tamarind water an thou likest. 'Tis not my work, but thine."

Revenge had sprung full-fledged from her slow brain in familiar face and welcome form. And it would not be her doing, but Parbutti's! A sort of sensual delight in the idea surged through her, making her add--as if to, give an edge to the sword of fate--"yet if the sickness be about 'twere well to have more skill than mine. I would not have it said I killed him!"

Once more the spite against the woman overbore all other feelings for the time. That, and a dull recognition of the fact that if Gopâl died he would be beyond the reach of them all--that it would benefit no one; save that in good sooth the child would be fatherless instead of--and then, suddenly, those black eyes of hers blazed up fiercely. Yes! that was the only possible end; as well now, when opportunity offered a beginning, as later.

"Ay! give him tamarind water--'tis best for such as he."

Not a shadow of regret came to her as she watched Parbutti follow her advice. It was as if since all time this thing had been ordained, as if aught else were beyond her control. The curious calm with which the Oriental regards death, even for himself, does not count for nothing in such situations as this. We of the West, who reckon the measure of guilt without it, judge harshly, even while we judge equitably. Durga-dei did not think out the question at all. Chance gave her quick opportunity, and she took it. Yet as the night wore on, bringing a succession of gossiping neighbours, she became restless, asking herself if the native doctor, summoned from the _sahib-logue's_ hospital beyond the walls, to satisfy that curious streak of education in the sick man's mind, said sooth in declaring it to be a case of cholera? or whether the wise woman sent by _Mai_ Râdha was right in hinting at the evil eye? Was it, briefly, God's judgment, or man's? The uncertainty oppressed her.

So the dawn breaking over that unseen, unknown world beyond the house of the coppersmith found three haggard faces within it. Found the same thought in each heart: was it to be death, or death in life for one, or for all? yet each awaited the answer with a strange indifference.

"Yes! 'tis the great sickness; he grows blue and cold already," said the neighbours in frank wisdom as they looked in. The air was cooler then with the sudden freshness which seems to come with the sun's first rays; a thin blue smoke began to rise over the awakening city; the sparrows sat preening themselves on the tops of the walls; the loose slippers of the visitors, as they shuffled over the empty courtyards, had whispering, gossiping tongues of their own, which seemed to echo the ominous cackle of the wearers as they left those three faces to their task of waiting. One turned passively to the brightening sky from the low string bed; the other two bent on the ground as passively. A vessel full of tamarind water stood by the sick man, but he had scarcely touched it. Perhaps after all it was the great sickness. Durga scarcely knew whether she were glad or sorry at the thought.

So the sun climbed up until, with one clear distinct "_tam-burr-urr-ur-r_," the daily clamour of the shop began. Maybe the master would not die, maybe he would; either way work must be done, and no one had said the workers nay--as yet.

"Gopâl is still alive," commented the neighbours cheerfully as they listened; "they will stop, likely, when they hear the death wail, and 'tis as well for him to end as he began with the ring of the metal in his ears."

The water-clock from the stairs where Gopâl used to sit chimed noon. The heavens were as brass. A perfect blaze of light beat down on the courtyard and those three faces. But one of them waited no longer, though it still gazed passively into the pale sky from the ground where it lay. And Parbutti, the new-made widow, glared in terrified hatred at the face of that other widow who stood looking down at the dead man.

Then suddenly the death wail rose loud and clear in a woman's voice.

"_Naked he came, naked has gone. This empty dwelling-place belongs neither to you nor to me_."

The clangour ceased, ending in a faint vibration like a dying breath.

"Listen!" said the policeman watching the waterclock; "there is death in the coppersmith's house. I heard he was ill of the sickness. God save him--he hath no son."

FAIZULLAH.

He was beating his wife--an occupation which annihilates time, dissolves the crust of culture, and reduces humanity in both hemispheres to a state of original sin. It is therefore immaterial what Faizullah and Haiyat Bibi did or said during the actual chastisement, for they behaved themselves as any other couple in the same circumstances would have done, that is to say, after the manner of two animals--one injured in his feelings, the other in her body.

She screamed vociferously, but for all that took her punishment with methodical endurance; indeed, there was a distinct air of duty on both sides which went far towards disguising the actual violence. Finally he let her drop, decisively but gently, in one of the dark corners of the low windowless room, and laid aside the bamboo in another. From a third crept an older woman, silent, but sympathetic, carrying a _lotah_ full of water with which she administered comfort to the crushed victim. Faizullah Khan watched the gradual subsidence of his wife's sobs with evident satisfaction.

"Hast had enough for this time, O Haiyat?" he asked mildly. "Or shall I catch thee peeping through the door at the men-folk again like a cat after a mouse? True, 'tis the way thou caughtest me for a husband, Light of mine Eyes; but I will have none of it with other men. Or rather, thou shalt pay for the pleasure. Ay! every time, surely as the farmer pays the usurer for having a good crop. And if there be more than peeping, then I will kill thee. Think not to escape as a mere noseless one; some may care to keep a maimed wife, secure that none will seek her; but not I, Faizullah Khan, Belooch of Birokzai. Did I not marry thee, O Haiyat, Marrow of my Bones, because of thy fair face? Then what good wouldst thou be to me without a nose? Therefore be wise, my heart, or I shall have to kill thee some day."

"The _sahibs_ will hang thee in pigskin if thou dost," whimpered the woman vindictively. "Yea, I would die gladly to see thee swing like the wild beast thou art!"

The sense of coercion was evidently passing away, nor were there wanting signs that ere long tears would be dried at the flame of wrath fast kindling in Haiyat's big black eyes. Faizullah, standing at the open door, through which the yellow sunshine streamed in a broad bar of light, looked across the mud roof of the lower story, past the sandy stretches and broken rocky distance to where a low line of serrated blue mountains blocked the horizon. They were the Takt-i-Suleiman, and beyond their peaks and passes lay Beloochistan.

"There are no _sahibs_ yonder," he said, stretching his right hand towards the hills; "no one to come between a man and his right of faithful wife. God knows I am ready for my father's house again; 'tis only thy beauty, Skin of my Soul! Core of my Heart! that keeps me dawdling here a stranger in the house of mine ancient enemies. Why wilt thou not come with me to the mountains, O Haiyat?"

"I am not a wild beast as thou art," she retorted, still with speech checked by sobs. "I will stay here and get thee swung, for the _sahib-logues_ worship a woman away over the black water and do her bidding. They will fill thy mouth with dirt, and burn thy body, and curse thy soul to the nether--"

"Nay! innermost Apple of mine Eye! do I not worship thee? And art thou not a Belooch also by race, though thy people have dug the grave of their courage with the plough, and tethered their freedom beside their bullocks? They were not always dirt-eaters, mean-spirited, big-bellied--"

"_Hai! Hai!_" That was the beginning of the storm. What followed drove big Faizullah into the court below, where the voices of the two women ceased to be articulate; for it is one thing to beat the wife of your bosom in order to correct a trifling indiscretion, another to deny her and her attendant the right of subsequent abuse. So he smoked his pipe placidly, and amused himself with polishing his well-beloved sword which he kept in defiance of the Arms Act.

The poorer women of the village nodded at each other as the shrill clamour, floating over the high encircling wall, reached the well where they came to draw water.

"The stranger hath big hands," chuckled one; "yet are they smaller than Haiyat's eye. That comes of being a widow so long."

"There will be murder some day, mark my words!" muttered an old hag with a toothless leer. "What else canst thou expect from a Belooch of Birokzai? _Peace! Peace!_ that is what our men say nowadays. In my time, if a man of his race had laid a finger on a woman of ours, there would have been flames over the border, and blood enough to quench them afterwards. But they are afraid of the _sahibs_ and the pigskin; not so Faizullah; he is of the old sort, knowing how to keep his wife."

"He will not keep her for all that, _mai_," sneered a strapping girl, who by the handsome water-vessels she carried showed herself to be a servant in one of the richer houses. "We shall get her back some day, despite her father-in-law's wickedness in letting her marry a good-for-nothing soldier, just because of keeping a hold on her jewels."

"Hold on their honour, O thou false tongue!" shrilled another of the group. "The daughter of thy house would have brought shame on ours. She needed a fierce one to keep her straight."

"After the man--woman, thy house gave her first, O depraved tongue that tasteth not the truth. Had thy people sent her back, our house would have kept her safe enough."

"And her jewels doubtless--"

So the war of words, begun on the top story of Faizullah's house, found its way into the narrow village street, and thence into many a mud-walled courtyard where the women set down the pots of water and rested themselves in wrangling. It even went further, for in not a few of them, when the men came back from their day's work in the fields, the subject of Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and covetous jewels gave rise to slow, deliberate conversation over the evening pipe. Faizullah was right to beat her, of course; on that point all were agreed. The rest was open to argument, and had been so any time these last two years, ever since the bold Belooch of Birokzai, on his way home from short service in a frontier regiment, had halted in his retreat at the sight of a pair of big black eyes behind the chink of a door. Long before that, however, the question as to whether those jewels of Haiyat Bibi's were to come back with her in search of a new bridegroom among her own relations, or to remain with her in her late husband's family, had greatly exercised the minds of this little village, which lay, as it were, safely tucked away between the sheets of sand in the bed of the Indus and the soft pillow-like curves of the rising ground. It was given to be excited over trifles, this far-away, peaceful-looking cluster of mud huts; for beneath the newly acquired placidity of the peasant which its inhabitants presented on the surface, the lawlessness of the border bravo remained ready for any emergency. On the whole, however, it afforded a beautiful example of the civilising effects of agriculture, and as such figured in many reports having as their object the glorification of British rule. Consequently it was watched with jealous eyes by the district and police officials, who felt their sheet-anchor of reference would be gone did any serious crime occur to throw discredit on the converted community. Despite this constant care, the village might have been situated in the moon for all the authorities knew of the pretty intrigues, the hopes and fears, which formed the mainspring of its life. Even the ordinary human interests of its inhabitants were all too low in tone and insignificant to secure alien sympathy. So Haiyat Bibi's peeping eyes and her Delhi-made jewels were disturbing elements unknown to those who signed the monthly criminal reports with placid self-satisfaction at their own success in securing virtue. Even when, egged on by the family, her best-looking male cousin made bids for possession of both these charms in various underhand ways, the consequent employment of Faizullah Khan's marital discipline did not resound so far as the _hâkm's_ ears.