The English Governess at the Siamese Court Part 8

There was no door to grate upon her quivering nerves; a trap-door in the street overhead had opened to the magic of silver, and I had descended a flight of broken steps of stone. At her head, a little higher than the pillow, were a vase of flowers, half faded, a pair of candles burning in gold candlesticks, and a small image of the Buddha. She had brought her G.o.d with her. Well, she needed his presence.

I could hardly keep my feet, for the footing was slippery and my brain swam. Touching the silent, motionless form, in a voice scarcely audible I p.r.o.nounced her name. She turned with difficulty, and a slight sound of clanking explained the covering on the feet. She was chained to one of the trestles.

Sitting up, she made room for me beside her. No tears were in her eyes; only the habitual sadness of her face was deepened. Here, truly, was a perfect work of misery, meekness, and patience.

Astonished at seeing me, she imagined me capable of yet greater things, and folding her hands in an att.i.tude of supplication, implored me to help her. The offence for which she was imprisoned was briefly this:--

She had been led to pet.i.tion, through her son, [Footnote: A privilege granted to all the concubines.] that an appointment held by her late uncle, Phya Khien, might be bestowed on her elder brother, not knowing that another n.o.ble had already been preferred to the post by his Majesty.

Had she been guilty of the gravest crime, her punishment could not have been more severe. It was plain that a stupid grudge was at the bottom of this cruel business. The king, on reading the pet.i.tion, presented by the trembling lad on his knees, became furious, and, dashing it back into the child's face, accused the mother of plotting to undermine his power, saying he knew her to be at heart a rebel, who hated him and his dynasty with all the rancor of her Peguan ancestors, the natural enemies of Siam. Thus lashing himself into a rage of hypocritical patriotism, and seeking to justify himself by condemning her, he sent one of his judges to bring her to him. But before the myrmidon could go and come, concluding to dispense with forms, he antic.i.p.ated the result of that mandate with another,--to chain and imprison her. No sooner was she dragged to this deadly cell, than a third order was issued to flog her till she confessed her treacherous plot; but the stripes were administered so tenderly, [Footnote: In these cases the executioners are women, who generally spare each other if they dare.] that the only confession they extorted was a meek protestation that she was "his meanest slave, and ready to give her life for his pleasure."

"Beat her on the mouth with a slipper for lying!" roared the royal tiger; and they did, in the letter, if not in the spirit, of the brutal sentence. She bore it meekly, hanging down her head. "I am degraded forever!" she said to me.

When once the king was enraged, there was nothing to be done but to wait in patience until the storm should exhaust itself by its own fury. But it was horrible to witness such an abuse of power at the hands of one who was the only source of justice in the land. It was a crime against all humanity, the outrage of the strong upon the helpless. His madness sometimes lasted a week; but weeks have their endings. Besides, he really had a conscience, tough and shrunken as it was; and she had, what was more to the purpose, a whole tribe of powerful connections.

As for myself, there was but one thing I could do; and that was to intercede privately with the Kralahome. The same evening, immediately on returning from my visit to the dungeon, I called on him; but when I explained the object of my visit he rebuked me sharply for interfering between his Majesty and his wives.

"She is my pupil," I replied. "But I have not interfered; I have only come to you for justice. She did not know of the appointment until she had sent in her pet.i.tion; and to punish one woman for that which is permitted and encouraged in another is gross injustice." Thereupon he sent for his secretary, and having satisfied himself that the appointment had not been published, was good enough to promise that he would explain to his Majesty that "there had been delay in making known to the Court the royal pleasure in this matter"; but he spoke with indifference, as if thinking of something else.

I felt chilled and hurt as I left the premier's palace, and more anxious than ever when I thought of the weary eyes of the lonely lad watching for his mother's return; for no one dared tell him the truth. But, to do the premier justice, he was more troubled than he would permit me to discover at the mistake the poor woman had made; for there was good stuff in the moral fabric of the man,--stern rect.i.tude, and a judgment, unlike the king's, not warped by pa.s.sion. That very night [Footnote: All consultations on matters of state and of court discipline are held in the royal palace at night.] he repaired to the Grand Palace, and explained the delay to the king, without appearing to be aware of the concubine's punishment.

On Monday morning, when I came to school in the pavilion, I found, to my great joy, that Hidden-Perfume had been liberated, and was at home again with her child. The poor creature embraced me ardently, glorifying me with grateful epithets from the extravagant vocabulary of her people; and, taking an emerald ring from her finger, she put it upon mine, saying, "By this you will remember your thankful friend." On the following day she also sent me a small purse of gold thread netted, in which were a few Siamese coins, and a sc.r.a.p of paper inscribed with cabalistic characters,--an infallible charm to preserve the wearer from poverty and distress.

Among my pupils was a little girl about eight or nine years old, of delicate frame, and with the low voice and subdued manner of one who had already had experience of sorrow. She was not among those presented to me at the opening of the school. Wanne Ratana Kania was her name ("Sweet Promise of my Hopes"), and very engaging and persuasive was she in her patient, timid loveliness. Her mother, the Lady Khoon Chom Kioa, who had once found favor with the king, had, at the time of my coming to the palace, fallen into disgrace by reason of her gambling, in which she had squandered all the patrimony of the little princess. This fact, instead of inspiring the royal father with pity for his child, seemed to attract to her all that was most cruel in his insane temper. The offence of the mother had made the daughter offensive in his sight; and it was not until long after the term of imprisonment of the degraded favorite had expired that Wanne ventured to appear at a royal _levee_. The moment the king caught sight of the little form, so piteously prostrated there, he drove her rudely from his presence, taunting her with the delinquencies of her mother with a coa.r.s.eness that would have been cruel enough if she had been responsible for them and a gainer by them, but against one of her tender years, innocent toward both, and injured by both, it was inconceivably atrocious.

On her first appearance at school she was so timid and wistful that I felt constrained to notice and encourage her more than those whom I had already with me. But I found this no easy part to play; for very soon one of the court ladies in the confidence of the king took me quietly aside and warned me to be less demonstrative in favor of the little princess, saying, "Surely you would not bring trouble upon that wounded lamb."

It was a sore trial to me to witness the oppression of one so unoffending and so helpless. Yet our Wanne was neither thin nor pale.

There was a freshness in her childish beauty, and a bloom in the transparent olive of her cheek, that were at times bewitching. She loved her father, and in her visions of baby faith beheld him almost as a G.o.d.

It was true joy to her to fold her hands and bow before the chamber where he slept. With that steadfast hopefulness of childhood which can be deceived without being discouraged, she would say, "How glad he will be when I can read!" and yet she had known nothing but despair.

Her memory was extraordinary; she delighted in all that was remarkable, and with careful wisdom gathered up facts and precepts and saved them for future use. She seemed to have built around her an invisible temple of her own design, and to have illuminated it with the rushlight of her childish love. Among the books she read to me, rendering it from English into Siamese, was one called "Spring-time." On translating the line, "Whom He loveth he chasteneth," she looked up in my face, and asked anxiously: "Does thy G.o.d do that? Ah! lady, are _all_ the G.o.ds angry and cruel? Has he no pity, even for those who love him? He must be like my father; _he_ loves us, so he has to be _rye_ (cruel), that we may fear evil and avoid it."

Meanwhile little Wanne learned to spell, read, and translate almost intuitively; for there were novelty and hope to help the Buddhist child, and love to help the English woman. The sad look left her face, her life had found an interest; and very often, on _fete_ days, she was my only pupil;--when suddenly an ominous cloud obscured the sky of her transient gladness. Wanne was poor; and her gifts to me were of the riches of poverty,--fruits and flowers. But she owned some female slaves; and one among them, a woman of twenty-five perhaps (who had already made a place for herself in my regard), seemed devotedly attached to her youthful mistress, and not only attended her to the school day after day, but shared her scholarly enthusiasm, even studied with her, sitting at her feet by the table. Steadily the slave kept pace with the princess. All that Wanne learned at school in the day was lovingly taught to Mai Noie in the nursery at night; and it was not long before I found, to my astonishment, that the slave read and translated as correctly as her mistress.

Very delightful were the demonstrations of attachment interchanged between these two. Mai Noie bore the child in her arms to and from the school, fed her, humored her every whim, fanned her naps, bathed and perfumed her every night, and then rocked her to sleep on her careful bosom, as tenderly as she would have done for her own baby. And then it was charming to watch the child's face kindle with love and comfort as the sound of her friend's step approached.

Suddenly a change; the little princess came to school as usual, but a strange woman attended her, and I saw no more of Mai Noie there. The child grew so listless and wretched that I was forced to ask the cause of her darling's absence; she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears, but replied not a word. Then I inquired of the stranger, and she answered in two syllables,--_My ru_ ("I know not").

Shortly afterward, as I entered the school-room one day, I perceived that something unusual was happening. I turned toward the princes' door, and stood still, fairly holding my breath. There was the king, furious, striding up and down. All the female judges of the palace were present, and a crowd of mothers and royal children. On all the steps around, innumerable slave-women, old and young, crouched and hid their faces.

But the object most conspicuous was little Wanne's mother, manacled, and prostrate on the polished marble pavement. There, too, was my poor little princess, her hands clasped helplessly, her eyes tearless but downcast, palpitating, trembling, shivering. Sorrow and horror had transformed the child.

As well as I could understand, where no one dared explain, the wretched woman had been gambling again, and had even staked and lost her daughter's slaves. At last I understood Wanne's silence when I asked her where Mai Noie was. By some means--spies probably--the whole matter had come to the king's ears, and his rage was wild, not because he loved the child, but that he hated the mother.

Promptly the order was given to lash the woman; and two Amazons advanced to execute it. The first stripe was delivered with savage skill; but before the thong could descend again, the child sprang forward and flung herself across the bare and quivering back of her mother.

_Ti chan, Tha Moom! [Footnote: Tha Mom or Moom, used by children in addressing a royal father.] Poot-thoo ti chan, Tha Mom!_ ("Strike _me_, my father! Pray, strike me, O my father!")

The pause of fear that followed was only broken by my boy, who, with a convulsive cry, buried his face desperately in the folds of my skirt.

There indeed was a case for prayer, any prayer!--the prostrate woman, the hesitating lash, the tearless anguish of the Siamese child, the heart-rending cry of the English child, all those mothers with grovelling brows, but hearts uplifted among the stars, on the wings of the Angel of Prayer. Who could behold so many women crouching, shuddering, stupefied, dismayed, in silence and darkness, animated, enlightened only by the deep whispering heart of maternity, and not be moved with mournful yearning?

The child's prayer was vain. As demons tremble in the presence of a G.o.d, so the king comprehended that he had now to deal with a power of weakness, pity, beauty, courage, and eloquence. "Strike _me_, O my father!" His quick, clear sagacity measured instantly all the danger in that challenge; and though his voice was thick and agitated (for, monster as he was at that moment, he could not but shrink from striking at every mother's heart at his feet), he nervously gave the word to remove the child, and bind her. The united strength of several women was not more than enough to loose the clasp of those loving arms from the neck of an unworthy mother. The tender hands and feet were bound, and the tender heart was broken. The lash descended then, unforbidden by any cry.

XIII. Fa-YING, THE KING'S DARLING.

"Will you teach me to draw?" said an irresistible young voice to me, as I sat at the school-room table, one bright afternoon. "It is so much more pleasant to sit by you than to go to my Sanskrit cla.s.s. My Sanskrit teacher is not like my English teacher; she bends my hands back when I make mistakes. I don't like Sanskrit, I like English. There are so many pretty pictures in your books. Will you take me to England with you, Mam cha?" [Footnote: "Lady, dear."] pleaded the engaging little prattler.

"I am afraid his Majesty will not let you go with me," I replied.

"O yes, he will!" said the child with smiling confidence. "He lets me do as I like. You know I am the Somdetch Chow Fa-ying; he loves me best of all; he will let me go."

"I am glad to hear it," said I, "and very glad to hear that you love English and drawing. Let us go up and ask his Majesty if you may learn drawing instead of Sanskrit."

With sparkling eyes and a happy smile, she sprang from my lap, and, seizing my hand eagerly, said, "O yes! let us go now." We went, and our prayer was granted.

Never did work seem more like pleasure than it did to me as I sat with this sweet, bright little princess, day after day, at the hour when all her brothers and sisters were at their Sanskrit, drawing herself, as the humor seized her, or watching me draw; but oftener listening, her large questioning eyes fixed upon my face, as step by step I led her out of the shadow-land of myth into the realm of the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with G.o.d"; and I felt that this child of smiles and tears, all unbaptized and unblessed as she was, was nearer and dearer to her Father in heaven than to her father on earth.

This was the Somdetch Chowfa Chandrmondol, best known in the palace by her pet name of Fa-ying. Her mother, the late queen consort, in dying, left three sons and this one daughter, whom, with peculiar tenderness and anxiety, she commended to the loving kindness of the king; and now the child was the fondled darling of the lonely, bitter man, having quickly won her way to his heart by the charm of her fearless innocence and trustfulness, her sprightly intelligence and changeful grace.

Morning dawned fair on the river, the sunshine flickering on the silver ripples, and gilding the boats of the market people as they softly glide up or down to the lazy swing of the oars. The floating shops were all awake, displaying their various and fantastic wares to attract the pa.s.sing citizen or stranger. Priests in yellow robes moved noiselessly from door to door, receiving without asking and without thanks the alms wherewith their pious clients hoped to lay up treasures in heaven, or, in Buddhist parlance, to "make merit." Slaves hurried hither and thither in the various bustle of errands. Worshippers thronged the gates and vestibules of the many temples of this city of paG.o.das and _p'hra- cha-dees_, and myriads of fan-shaped bells scattered aeolian melodies on the pa.s.sing breeze. As Boy and I gazed from our piazza on this strangely picturesque panorama, there swept across the river a royal barge filled with slaves, who, the moment they had landed, hurried up to me.

"My lady," they cried, "there is cholera in the palace! Three slaves are lying dead in the princesses' court; and her Highness, the young Somdetch Chow Fa-ying, was seized this morning. She sends for you. O, come to her, quickly!" and with that they put into my hand a sc.r.a.p of paper; it was from his Majesty.

"MY DEAR MAM,--Our well-beloved daughter, your favorite pupil, is attacked with cholera, and has earnest desire to see you, and is heard much to make frequent repet.i.tion of your name. I beg that you will favor her wish. I fear her illness is mortal, as there has been three deaths since morning. She is best beloved of my children.

"I am your afflicted friend,

"S. S. P. P. MAHA MONGKUT."

In a moment I was in my boat. I entreated, I flattered, I scolded, the rowers. How slow they were! how strong the opposing current! And when we did reach those heavy gates, how slowly they moved, with what suspicious caution they admitted me! I was fierce with impatience. And when at last I stood panting at the door of my Fa-ying's chamber--too late! even Dr.

Campbell (the surgeon of the British consulate) had come too late.

There was no need to prolong that anxious wail in the ear of the deaf child, "P'hra-Arahang! P'hra-Arahang!" [Footnote: One of the most sacred of the many t.i.tles of Buddha, repeated by the nearest relative in the ear of the dying till life is quite extinct.] She would not forget her way; she would nevermore lose herself on the road to Heaven. Beyond, above the P'hra-Arahang, she had soared into the eternal, tender arms of the P'hra-Jesus, of whom she was wont to say in her infantine wonder and eagerness, _Mam cha, chan rak P'hra-Jesus mak_ ("Mam dear, I love your holy Jesus.")

As I stooped to imprint a parting kiss on the little face that had been so fair to me, her kindred and slaves exchanged their appealing "P'hra-Arahang" for a sudden burst of heart-rending cries.

An attendant hurried me to the king, who, reading the heavy tidings in my silence, covered his face with his hands and wept pa.s.sionately.

Strange and terrible were the tears of such a man, welling up from a heart from which all natural affections had seemed to be expelled, to make room for his own exacting, engrossing conceit of self.

Bitterly he bewailed his darling, calling her by such tender, touching epithets as the lips of loving Christian mothers use. What could I say?

What could I do but weep with him, and then steal quietly away and leave the king to the Father?