The Flower of Forgiveness Part 15

And so, just as poor Feroza was confidently a.s.serting his culture, he, having given his English fellow-pa.s.sengers the slip, was once more putting on the clothes of an orthodox Mohammedan. Feroza, on the other hand, had adopted the dress of the advanced Indian lady, which, with surprisingly little change, manages to destroy all the grace of the original costume. The lack of braided hair and cl.u.s.tering jewels degrades the veil to an unnecessary wrap; the propriety of the bodice intensifies its shapelessness; the very face suffers by the unconcealed holes in ears and nose.

Kareema stared with a smile akin to tears. "There is time," she pleaded. "Come! I can make you look twice as well."

Their eyes met with something of the old affection, but Feroza shook her head. "I must find out--"

"If he is a noodle?" The interrupting giggle was almost a whimper. "You mean if he is blind! Ah, Feroza! look at me."

No need to say that; the puzzled eyes had taken in the sight already.

Gleams of jewelled hair under the gold threaded veil; a figure revealed by the net bodice worn over a scantier one of flowered muslin; bare feet tucked away in sh.e.l.ls of shoes; long gauze draperies showing a shadow of silk-clad limbs; above it all that dimpling, smiling face.

She shook her head again.

In the long minutes of waiting she lost herself in counting the bricks on the familiar wall until the sight of a tall man at the door dressed as a Mohammedan startled her into drawing the veil to her face in fear of intrusion.

As the man withdrew quickly Kareema's laugh rang out. "To think, Feroza! thou shouldest be _purdah_ to him after all thy big talk."

"The Meer! Was that the Meer?" faltered Feroza. "I did not--the dress--"

"Bah! I knew the likeness to my poor Inaiyut. See! yonder he comes again ushered by father-in-law. Now, quick, Feroza!"

The voice quavering over the prepared phrases of thanks to the Great Giver of home-coming was infinitely pathetic; and yet, as Ahmed Ali took the outstretched hand, he was conscious above all things of a regret, almost a sense of outrage; for the bondage of custom was upon him already. Kareema, catching his look, came forward with ready tact.

"We welcome my lord," she said in the rounded tone of ceremony, "as one who, having travelled far, returns to those who have naught worthy his acceptance save the memory of kinship. My sister and I greet you, _as sisters_. Nay, more," she added lightly; "I too shake hands English-fashion, and if I do it wrong forgive us both, since learned Feroza is teacher."

"You make me very happy," answered the Meer heartily. "How well you are all looking!"

No need to say where his eyes were.

"You mistake, Meer _sahib_," cried Kareema swiftly, "Feroza looks ill.

'Tis your blame, since she worked over-hard to please you."

The forbidden frown came too late to prevent Ahmed Ali's glance finding it on his wife's face. It was not becoming. "Was it so hard to learn?"

he asked with a patronising smile. "But your handwriting improved immensely of late."

The tips of Feroza's fingers showed bloodless under their nervous clasp, but she said nothing. Indeed, she scarcely opened her lips as they sat talking over the morning meal. Even when the Meer refused tea and toast in favour of _chupatties_ and _koftas_[21] it was Kareema who supplied surprise. Feroza was all eyes and ears, and not till the sun tipping over the high walls glared down on them did she lose patience enough to ask, vaguely, what he thought about it all.

"_Wah illah_," cried the Moulvie, "Feroza hits the mark! What thinkest thou, my son? But I fear not, for thou hast the faithful air, and canst doubtless repeat thy creed purely."

The young man looked round the familiar scene, every detail of which fitted so closely to memory that no room remained for the seven years'

absence. A rush of glad recognition surged to heart and brain, making him stand up and give the _Kalma_.[22]

"I am content, oh, my father!" he cried in ringing tones, as the sonorous echoes died away to silence. "I am content to come back to the old life, to the old duties."

"The sun makes my head ache," said Feroza, rising abruptly, "I will go into the dark and rest."

"Don't go, Feroza! Thou hast not told the Meer about thyself," pleaded Kareema, rising in her turn. "She hath worked so hard," she added petulantly to the young man. "No one is worth it, no one."

The Meer looked from one to the other. "Learning is hard for women," he began. Then something in his wife's face roused the new man in him, making him say in a totally different tone and manner, "I am afraid I hardly understand."

"That is what Kareema says of me," replied Feroza icily.

Her cousin, as she sat down once more to listen, shrugged her shoulders. "And she counted herself as something better than a woman,"

was her inward comment amid her smiles.

Feroza saw nothing of her husband for the rest of the day. The men's court was crowded with visitors, and she herself had to bear the brunt of many feminine congratulations. Only at sunset, before starting to attend a feast given in his honour, he found time for five minutes'

speech with her; but, almost to her relief, he was far too content, far too excited by his own pleasure to be able to distinguish any other feeling in her mind. Yet a momentary hesitation on his part as he was leaving made her heart bound, and a distinct pause brought her to his side with wistful eyes, only to see Kareema nodding and smiling to him from the roof, whither she had gone for fresher air. "What is it?" he asked kindly, though his looks were elsewhere.

"Nothing," she answered, "nothing at all. Go in peace!"

The moon, rising ere the sun set, stole the twilight. So she sat gazing at the hard square outlines of the walls till far on into the night, her mind filled with but one thought. The thought that by and by Ahmed Ali, flushed with content at things which she had taught herself for his sake to despise, would come home to her--to his wife. The little room she had travestied into a pitiful caricature of foreign fashions seemed to mock her foolish hopes, so she crept away to the lattice whence she had had her first glimpse of wisdom. Even on that brilliant night the vestibule itself was dark; but through the door she could see the empty arcades of the men's court surrounding the well where she and her cousins used to play.

A rustle in the alley made her peer through the fret-work, for the veriest trifle swayed her; but it was only a dog seeking garbage in the gutter. Then a door creaked and she started, wondering if Ahmed Ali could be home already. Silence brought her a dim suspicion that, but for this wisdom of hers, she might have waited his return calmly enough. Footsteps now! She cowered to the shadow at the sight of Kareema followed by Mytab bearing something.

"He mayn't be back till late," came the familiar giggle; "and a soft pillow will please him."

The pair were back again before she recovered her surprise, and Kareema paused ere re-entering the women's door. "Poor Feroza! She will get accustomed to it, I suppose."

"Of what hath she to complain?" retorted the old voice; "he is a properer man than I deemed. Say, heart's desire, what said he when I saw thee--?"

"Mytab! thou mean spy! Bah! he told me he would change a letter and call me Carina, since it meant dearest in some heathen tongue. They begin thus over the black water likely; 'tis not bad, and new at any rate."

Feroza scarcely waited for distance to deaden the answering giggle. She was on her feet, pacing to and fro like a mad creature. Ah! to get away from it all--from that name, from the look he must have given--to get something cold and still to quench the raging fire in her veins!

Suddenly, without a waver, she walked to the well and leant over its low parapet. Her hands sought the cool damp stones, her eyes rested themselves on the faint glimmer far down--ever, oh, ever so far away!

Hark! some one in the alley. If it were he? Ah! then she must go away, ever so far away--

Meer Ahmed Ali found his pillow comfortable, and only woke in the dawn to see Mytab standing beside him.

"Feroza!" she cried. "Where is Feroza?"

A dull remorse came to his drowsy brain. "It was so late--I--"

"Holy Prophet, she is not here! Thou hast not seen her! Then she hath gone to the _Missen_ to be baptised. Why didst turn her brain with books? Fool! Idiot!"

"The Mission!" Meer Ahmed Ali was awake now, and the peaceful party, gathered in the verandah for early tea, stared as the young man burst in on it with imperious demands for his wife. Then his surroundings recalled his acquired courtesy, and he stammered an apologetic explanation.

"She has gone away?" cried Julia, with a queer catch in her breath.

"Oh, Meer _sahib!_ what a mistake we have all made. It was too late to write, and then I got ill; but, indeed! I was going down this very morning to try and make you understand."

"Understand what?" asked the Meer, helplessly confused, adding hurriedly, "but I can't stay now. She must be found. I will not have her run away. I will have her back--yes! I _will_ have her back."

Half-an-hour later Julia Smith, driven to the Moulvie's house by remorseful anxiety, found the wicket-gate ajar. She entered silently upon a scene framed like a picture by the dark doorway of the men's court.

Feroza had come back to those familiar walls. She lay beside the well, and the water from her clinging garments crept in dark stains through the dust. She had wrapped her veil round her to stifle useless cries, and so the dead face, as in life, was decently hidden from the eyes of men. She lay alone under the cloudless sky, for her friends, shrinking from the defilement of death, stood apart: Kareema sobbing on Mytab's breast, with Ahmed Ali, dazed yet indignant, holding her hand; the Moulvie, repeating a prayer; the servants still breathless from their ghastly toil. Julia Smith saw it all with her bodily eyes; yet nothing seemed worth seeing save that veiled figure in the dust. She knelt beside it and took the slender cold hand in hers. "My dear, my dear!"

she whispered through her sobs. "Surely you need not have gone so far, so very far--for help."

But the dead face was hidden even from her tears.