Voices in the Night Part 38

Yes! to stifle her, because she could not escape from it! She, Lesley Drummond, who---- In her mind's eye she saw a vision of herself alighting from an omnibus at the corner of Bond Street on a wet day, picking her way over the greasy blister-marks of many feet on the pavement, heedless of the infinite suggestions in the shop windows, to have tea at a ladies'-club with an intimate friend, and solve the problems of life by hard and fast individualism tempered by a sloppy socialism.

Solve! As if it were possible to solve anything in those conditions.

Above all, to solve the greatest problem in the world for women, as you drank your tea on a table littered with the literature of _chiffon_-culture, whose every page proclaimed that woman's aim was to remain temptress, her goal a garden such as this!

They were close to the sanctuary now. The others had entered it, and Lesley paused to look contemptuously at its filagree pretence of protection ere she, too, stooped under its low arch.

'I think you have it, haven't you, Lesley?' asked Grace Arbuthnot, as she entered to find a puzzled look on all three faces. In the old woman's it was mixed with a half-indignant apprehension.

'Have what?' she asked coldly.

'The silk cord that was round the roll; I gave it to you to hold, I think. She won't speak without it; it seems it is a bracelet--an amulet.'

'The bracelet of brotherhood without which a woman cannot speak to a strange man,' explained Jack Raymond. 'Ah! you are wearing it.'

She was. Quite idly she had fastened it by its loop and b.u.t.ton round her wrist, in order to keep it safe. She took it off now, and handed it to him without a word. He pa.s.sed it to Auntie Khojee, whose withered face settled into self-satisfaction as she leant forward, detaining his hand till the bracelet was safely looped on his brown wrist.

Then the words came fast. Floods of them; and Jack Raymond listened patiently.

Fine though the filagree of marble was that shut them off from the garden, it interrupted the light, so that their figures showed dimly to each other. But the scent of the garden drifted in unchecked, and mixed with the faint scent of heliotrope from Grace Arbuthnot's dress. There was something breathless, disturbing to the senses, Lesley felt, in that uncomprehending effort to understand. It was a relief when silence fell suddenly, and there was a pause.

'Is that all?' whispered Grace; she was next to Jack Raymond, her dress touching him.

'I believe I ought to give her a bracelet in return,' he began. She had one of her gold bangles off in a moment, and was thrusting it into his hand--'Take that, please do--you might let me do so much, surely----'

Lesley turned and stepped outside. She felt the need of fresh air.

'There was no use my stopping,' she explained when, after an interval, the two rejoined her. 'I could not understand.'

'Not understand!' echoed Grace Arbuthnot reproachfully. 'I couldn't understand the words either. But I thought the idea perfectly charming.

I wouldn't have missed the little scene for worlds. And she was so delighted with the gold bangle.'

'It is really not uncommon, Lady Arbuthnot,' protested Jack Raymond, who was beginning to feel a trifle restive again. 'And in the old days, the _ram rucki_ was constantly sent by distressed----'

'I know,' interrupted Lesley captiously. 'You read of it in Meadows Taylor's books. But why did she give it to you?'

He paused; a quick annoyance showed on his face; he turned to Lady Arbuthnot vexedly.

'I must apologise,' he said; 'I never realised till this moment that she must have taken me----'

'For Sir George,' put in Grace quietly. 'Didn't you? Now I was thinking all the time how much better you played the part than he would have done. He is like Lesley. He loathes sentiment. No, Mr. Raymond, I won't take it!' she added, as he tried to unfasten the _ram rucki_. 'Give it to Sir George himself, if you like--there he is, coming to meet us.

Or,' she continued, with an elusive, almost mischievous smile, as she went forward to greet her husband, leaving those two on the path together, 'give it back to Miss Drummond! She gave it you first!'

Jack Raymond looked after her quite angrily; then laughed, drew out his pocket-book and laid the _ram rucki_ between the folds of some bank-notes.

'I shall end by doing my duty some day, if this goes on, Miss Drummond,' he said resignedly. 'It is really very kind of you all to take so much interest in my spiritual and bodily welfare.'

As a rule Lesley would have been ready with a sharp retort. Now she was silent. She was thinking that it was true. She had given the bracelet of brotherhood to him first. And then once more a vast impatience seized her. How unreal, how fantastic it was? How far removed from the security of the commonplace?

CHAPTER XVI

THE PRISON OF LIFE

To old Auntie Khojee, however, the incident which Lesley had stigmatised as unreal, and fantastic, was quite natural. Her life, and the lives of thousands such as she, dreary, dull, squalid, as they seem to the eyes of Western women, are yet leavened by many wholly unpractical touches which raise them at times to pure romance. The secret worship of the G.o.ds, the thousand and one omens to be sought, or avoided, the endless fanciful ceremonials; all these are, in their monotonous lives, witnessing to the pa.s.sion for self-effacement in something beyond the woman's own individuality--in something that has to be cajoled and considered, not because it is feared, but because it is loved and must therefore be kept tied to the ap.r.o.n-string--which is Eve's legacy to women of all races and all creeds.

So, as the old lady limped through the bazaars, huddled up in a dirty domino, with Grace Arbuthnot's bangle clutched close to her heart, she felt no surprise at what had happened. Her only feeling was one of regret for having so long believed folk's tales of change. If she had only resorted earlier to ancient methods, little Sa'adut's life might perhaps have been spared. Though that, of course, was G.o.d's will; just as it was His will also that at the very last gasp she should have been told by a gossip that the Lord-_sahib_ was coming, as the Kings came in past times to entertain their friends in the pleasure-garden.

For Khojee was, literally, at the last gasp. Even Lateefa had not been near the courtyard for three days, though he had promised to look in every morning. In truth, this was not the kite-maker's fault, since he was, once more, kicking his heels in the lock-up. He had not antic.i.p.ated this result when--on the impulse of the moment--he had slipped the ring, instead of a morsel of brick, into one of the tiny calico bags which he had found the easiest way of attaching ballast to his kites. It had been but the work of a second to do this, and send the kite up to hover in the steady west wind--on trial--with its string attached to one of the wooden pegs driven for that purpose into the brick wall. So he had had no time for full consideration; but even had he had this, he would scarcely have imagined that Jehan would at once take the irrevocable step of calling in the aid of the police; that being a course which no wise man adopted save as a last resort, when the choice only lay between two evils.

But Jehan's rage had mastered his caution. The loss of the symbol of past power had raised such a tempest of desire for that power of personal coercion, that, seeing no other means of gaining it, he had at once given not only Lateefa, but Burkut Ali in charge for having, between them, stolen the ring. And that despite the voluntary demonstration of innocence afforded by a stripping to stark nakedness of both the accused! They must, he shrilled, have swallowed it!

Dire suggestion to an executive whose chief method of detecting crime is by personal discomfort to the fourth and fifth generation of those presumably implicated in it! Lateefa had felt his liver dissolve, had for one brief moment thought of confession; but the presence of the police, he saw, would make _that_ a leaving of the frying-pan for the fire.

So he and Burkut Ali, the latter vowing vengeance calmly (and knowing he would get it too, since he had money and Jehan had none), were hauled away, not to judgment, but to that worse evil, preliminary inquiry.

Burkut, however, had found bail; and he had been back in his haunts for two days, making Jehan begin to see his mistake, while Lateefa, very sick and sorry for himself, still remained in process of observation.

But by this time his philosophy had returned, and, as he kicked his heels, he composed another mathematical verselet which should equal the values of 'I, Lateefa, laid on nothingness the burden of all things, and the burden of all things made nothingness of Lateefa!'

Of all this, however, Auntie Khojee knew nothing as she made her way straight to the p.a.w.nbroker's where she had pledged Khadeeja Khanum's best pink satin trousers. For the recovery of these was the first necessity. On the morrow ceremonial visits of condolence would begin in the wide courtyard, and she dare not ask Khadjee to receive them in her ordinary attire.

Grace Arbuthnot's bangle would, of course, redeem the trousers over and over again; but the old lady decided this should only be left, in exchange, for one night, as it would be easy to return the garment after the morrow's visits were over; since there would be no more need for it for at least three days. And that would set the bangle free for its legitimate purchase of the 'Essence of Happiness.'

It was growing dark as she limped along the narrow bazaar. The cavernous shops on either side were but half lit with flaring rushlights. The continuous stream of people pa.s.sing one way or the other seemed inevitably to thrust her furtive swathed figure into the gutter. And so, at one shop, round which a crowd had gathered, it needed patience before a way could be edged onwards. It was a drug shop, and it seemed to be driving a roaring trade. As a couple of white-robed men elbowed past her, she heard one say, with a sinister satisfaction--

'And our _Somaj_ dispensary hath trebled its attendance these last days. The people know their friends, know themselves safe! Not that the tales of poison at the hospitals are true; but what will you? These poor folks are ignorant, and we have promised----'

What the promise was, Khojee did not catch; nor did she care to know.

All her thoughts were with Khadjee's pink satin trousers. Therefore she felt as if the whole round world had slipped from under her feet when Mittun, the p.a.w.nbroker, from the midst of the miscellaneous collection of rubbish in which he sat like a tame magpie possessed by the nest-building instinct, told her calmly that he had just sold them!

Sold them at an incredibly high price to a lady of the bazaar who was in a hurry for something smart in which to appear at an a.s.signation that evening. And then, with infinite self-complacency, he drew out from a bag two rupees and some pice.

'See this, mother!' he said, handing her the money. ''Tis a chance such as comes but once in a _kobari's_ life, who must needs fill his belly a many times with other folk's leavings ere he find a grain of corn to stay his own hunger withal.' Here he looked round distastefully at the old lamps, keys, pickle-bottles, rags, books--Heaven knows what--that made up his stock-in-trade, and which, in truth, looked but indigestible fare. 'Yet I am honest,' he went on; 'this much I made, over and above what I loaned thee on them. So there 'tis, with but the due interest held back. Let none say Mittun, _kobari_, is no honest man, who cares not for his customers----'

'Nay! _meean-jee_,' fluttered Khojee, helpless. 'None said that of thee. Yet would I rather the trousers, and I could have given thee gold.'

Mittun eyed the bangle covetously. 'Give it me now, mother. I could loan thee ten rupees on that to buy new trousering.'

Khojee shook her head timidly; for even the p.a.w.nbroker, being a man, had authority.

''Tis for to-morrow, brother; there is not time----'

'Thou couldst buy second-hand,' he persisted; 'there be many in the bazaar, though I have them not. In truth, _Mussumat_ Khojee, I would have sold thine for less than I got, seeing that old clothes are no safe purchase nowadays, what with police inspection, and no rags here, no rags there! As if the plague came in aught but G.o.d's will!'

Khojee, fearful of persuasion, a.s.sented hastily to the p.a.w.nbroker's piety. Everything was G.o.d's will; even her failure to redeem the pink satin trousers!

'I will give thee fifteen for the bangle,' called Mittun after her, and she quickened her limp from the temptation. The bangle was for another purpose. Still fifteen rupees would purchase the 'Essence of Happiness'