In The Permanent Way Part 22

"Let her go, but this once," he pleaded aside; "truly thou art over anxious, and she but seven for all her spirit."

"Seventy or seven, G.o.d knows thee for a baby," snapped Mai Gunga.

"Would I had never listened to thee and thy sister, though, for sure, the children were pretty as marionettes. It was a play to think of it.

But a mother knows her daughter better than the father, though it seems thou wilt be ordering the wedding-garments next. So be it, but till then Pertab goes not to Nanuk; 'tis not seemly."

"I--I don't want Nanuk," howled Pertabi. "I--I want the fresh mola.s.ses--I do--I do."

Want, however, was her master, since her own obstinacy was but inherited from her mother. So she sat sulkily in the sunshine, refusing the armourer's big caresses or the charms of bellows-blowing, while she pictured to herself, with all the vividness of rage, Nanuk going down--going down alone--to watch the great shallow pans of foamy, frothy, fragrant juice shrink and shrink in the dark, low hut where one could scarcely see save for the flame of the furnaces. What joy to feed those flames with the dry, crushed refuse of the cane and leaves! What bliss to thrust a tentative twig, on the sly, into the seething, darkening mola.s.ses, and then escape deftly to that shadowy hiding-place by the well, and gravely consider the question as to whether it was nearly boiled enough. Toffee-making all over the world has a mysterious fascination for children, and this was toffee-making on a gigantic scale. The legitimate bairn's part of sc.r.a.ping from each brew never tasted half so sweet as those stolen morsels; if only because, when you threw away the sucked twigs, the squirrels would come shyly from the peepul tree where the green pigeons cooed all day long, and fight for your leavings. Pertabi could see the whole scene when she closed her eyes. The level plain, the shadow of the trees blotting out the sunshine, the trickle of running water from the well, the creaking of the presses, the babel of busy voices, and over all, through all, that lovely, lovely smell of toffee! Yes! sugar-baking time in the village was heavenly, and Nanuk was greedy--greedy as a grey crow to keep it all to himself!

When Spring brought big Suchet to pay the village revenue into the office, he and the armourer met, as ever, on the best of terms; nevertheless their subsequent interviews with their woman-kind were less satisfactory.

"Thou art worse than a peac.o.c.k which cries even after rain has fallen," finished the big villager testily. "What is it to me if women come or go? Dhyan is a man of mettle and word."

Yet in his heart he knew well that the armourer had no more to say to such matters in the narrow city court, than he had in the wide village yard, where the kine stood in rows, and Nanuk's tumbler pigeons never lacked a grain of corn at which to peck.

As for Mai Gunga, her wrath became finally voluble at the hint thrown out by big Dhyan, that if she went no more to the village, folk might talk of Pertab being slighted. Slighted, indeed, with half the eligible mothers agog with envy! Slighted, when but for this cripple--yea! Dhyan need not make four eyes at her--she said cripple, and meant it. He had a broken leg, and that to a man of sense was sufficient excuse for breach of betrothals. If, indeed, there ever had been such a thing as a betrothal; which for her part she denied.

Dhyan Singh swore many big oaths, vowed many mighty vows that he would have naught to do with such woman's work. Not even if it became clear that, as his wife hinted, his little Pertab would not be welcome in his sister's house. Yet he scowled over the idea, twisted his beard tighter over his ears, as became a man, and looked very fierce.

And when a month or two later Suchet Singh's wife met his halting apology for Mai Gunga's absence with a distinct sniff and a cool remark that she really did not care,--Nanuk could no doubt do better in brides,--he came home in a towering pa.s.sion to his anvil and made a paper knife fit for a brigand. To have such a thing said to him, even in jest, when he, for his sister's sake, had been willing to waive the fact of Nanuk being a cripple!

"Cripple indeed!" shrieked the boy's mother, when Suchet came back from the city one day with Dhyan's remark enlarged and ill.u.s.trated by friendly gossip. "Lo, husband! That is an end. Whose fault if he limps?--only in running, mind, not in walking. Whose indeed! Whose but that immodest, wicked, ill-brought-up hussy's! Was it not to get her another squirrel, because she cried so for his, that he climbed? Let her have her girl; we will have damages."

So when sugar-baking time came round again, Suchet and Dhyan, rather to their own surprise, found themselves claimant and defendant in a breach of betrothal case for the recovery of fifteen hundred rupees spent in preliminary expenses. Yet, despite their surprise, they were both beside themselves with rage. Dhyan because of the unscrupulous claim when not one penny had been spent, Suchet because of the slur cast on his boy's straight limbs by the secondary plea in defence; that even if there had been a betrothal and not a family understanding, the crippled condition of the bridegroom was sufficient excuse for the breach of contract. The actual point of the betrothal being so effectually overlaid by these lies as to be obscured even from the litigant's own eyes.

It was one gorgeous blue day in December that Suchet rode in to the city on his pink-nosed mare, with Nanuk on the crupper to bear witness in Court to his own perfections. A handsome, soft-eyed lad of ten, glad enough of the ride, sorry for the separation, even for one day, from the village toffee-making; but with a great lump of raw sugar stowed away in his turban as partial consolation. For the rest, he had a childish and yet grave acquiescence. Pertabi apparently had been a naughty girl, and Mammi Gunga had never been nice. Yet the "_jej-sahib_"[38] might say they were married; since, after all, he, Nanuk, could run as fast as ever. _Tchu!_ he would like to show Pertabi that it was so.

[Footnote 38: Judge.]

The court-house compound was full of suitors and flies, the case of Suchet _versus_ Dhyan Singh late in the list, so the former bade his son tie the mare in the furthest corner behind the wall, in the shade of a spreading tree, and keep watch, while he went about from group to group in order to discuss his wrongs with various old friends--that being half the joy of going to law; grave groups of reverend bearded faces round a central pipe, grave, slow voices rising in wise saws from the close-set circles of huge turbans and ma.s.sive blue and white draperies.

Meanwhile Nanuk ate sugar till it began to taste sickly, and then he sat looking at the remaining lump and thinking, not without a certain malice, how Pertabi would have enjoyed it. Then suddenly, from behind, a small brown hand reached out and s.n.a.t.c.hed it. "_One two, that's for you; two three, that's for me; three four, sugar galore; the Rajah begs, with a broken leg_----" The singing voice paused, the little figure munching, as it sang, with vindictive eyes upon the boy, paused too in its tantalising dance.

"Did it hurt much, Nano? I'm so sorry. And mother wouldn't let me keep the squirrel, Nano; but I howled, I howled like--like a _bhut_ (devil)."

The abstract truth of the description seemed to bring back the past, and Nanuk's face relaxed.

"Father's at Court, and mother's gone to see the woman who wants me to marry her son," explained Pertabi between the munchings, "but I won't.

I won't marry anybody but you, Nano. I like you, Nano."

Nano's face relaxed still more.

"You have got sugar-presses, Nano, and the other boy has none. He lives in the city, and I hate the city. Is there much sugar this year, Nano?"

"More than last," replied the boy proudly. "We have the best fields in----"

"Then give me another bit," interrupted Pertabi.

"That is all I brought." There was a trace of anxiety in Nanuk's voice, and he looked deprecatingly at the little figure now cuddled up beside him.

"Oh, you silly! but it doesn't matter. We can go and fetch some more.

That's why I ran away. I knew uncle would bring you, so we can go to the village early. Come, Nano."

"Go to the village, Pertab! Oh, what a tale!" It is easy to be virtuously indignant at the first proposition of evil, but what is to be done when you are at the mercy of a small person who hesitates at nothing? Wheedlings, pinchings, kissings, tears, and promises were all one to Pertabi. At least a ride on the pink-nosed mare for the sake of old times! They could slip away easily without being seen; yonder lay the road villagewards--there would be plenty of time to go a mile, perhaps twain, and get back before _Chachcha-ji_ could possibly finish with his friends. She could get off at the corner, and then even if _Chachcha-ji_ had discovered their absence Nano could say he had taken the mare for water, or that the flies were troublesome. Excuses were so easy.

Ten minutes after, his feet barely reaching the big shovel stirrups, young Lochinvar ambled out of the court-house compound with his bride behind him.

"We must come back at the turn, Pertab," he said, to bolster up his own resolution.

"Of course we must come back," replied Pertabi, digging her small heels into the old grey mare. "Can't you make the stupid go faster, Nano? We may as well have all the fun we can."

So the old mare went faster down the high-arched avenue of flickering light and shade, and Pertabi's little red legs flounced about in a way suggestive of falling off. But she shrieked with laughter and held tight to her cavalier.

"Don't let us go back yet, Nano!" she pleaded; "the old thing is all out of breath, and _Chachcha-ji_ will find out you've been galloping her, and beat you. I shouldn't like you to be beaten, Nano dear, and it is so lovely."

It _was_ lovely. They were in the open now among the level stretches of young green corn, and there were the fallen battalions of red and gold canes, and from that clump of trees came the familiar creak of the press. Nay, more! wafted on the soft breeze the delicious, the irresistible smell of sugar-boiling. Other people's sugar-boiling.

"It's time we were going back," remarked Nanuk boldly.

"_Tchu!_" cried Pertabi from behind, "we are not going back any more.

See! I've tied your shawl to my veil. When I do that to my dolls, then they are married; so that settles it. Go on, Nano! it's all right.

Besides it is no _use_ going back now, they would only beat us for getting married. Go on, Nano--or I'll pinch."

Perhaps it really was fear of the pinching, perhaps it was the conviction that they had gone too far to recede, which finally induced young Lochinvar to give the old mare her head towards home. But even then he showed none of the alacrity displayed beneath him and behind him by the female aiders and abettors. His face grew graver and graver, longer and longer.

"We can't be married until we've taken the seven steps," he said at length. "Look! they have been burning weeds in the field. Let's get down and do it, or the G.o.ds will be angry."

Pertabi clapped her hands. "It will be fun, anyhow, so come along, Nano."

They tied the old mare to a tree, while, hand tight clasped in hand, just as they had seen it done a hundred times, they circ.u.mambulated the sacred fire.

"That's better," sighed Nano. "Now, I believe, we really are married."

"_Tchu!_" cried Pertabi in superior wisdom, "I can tell you heaps and heaps of things. Our dolls do them when we've time; we are always marrying our dolls in the city. But we can ride a bit further first, and when we get tired of Pinky-nose we can just get down and be married another way. That'll rest us."

So through the lengthening shadows, they rode on and got married, rode on, and got married, until Pertabi's braided head began to nod against Nanuk's back, and she said sleepily:

"We'll keep the _gur-ror_ (sugar-throwing) till tomorrow, Nano; that'll be fun."

But when, in the deep dusk, the pink-nosed mare drew up of her own accord at the gate of the wide village yard, and drowsy Nanuk just remembered enough of past events to lift his bride across the threshold, and murmur with an awful qualm, "This is my wife," Pertabi woke up suddenly to plant her little red-trousered legs firmly on the ground, and say, with a nod:

"Yes! and we've been married every way we could think of, haven't we, Nano? except the sugar-throwing, because we hadn't any; but--we'll--have--plenty--now; won't we, Nano?" The pauses being filled up by yawns.