In the Guardianship of God Part 8

"Well parson 'e brought up sharp at this an' said, 'Stay a bit.' Then 'e look at Joe, an' Joe look at 'im.

"'Tha see she's gotten t' be ma wife, man,' said Joe apologetic like, an' parson 'e push 'is red bricky prayer-book away fretful.

"'But I don't know anything,' he said. 'I don't even know if she is a spinster or a widow. Will you swear she hasn't a husband living?'

"Well, sir, Joe looked at parson, and then 'e looked at me, an' then 'e scratch 'is 'ead--the curls 'ad grown tight as ever, sir--an' then sudden 'e smile--one o' them smiles like the sun on a daisy, sir.

"' Aw dunnot rightly knaw,' says 'e, 'aw nivver arst her,' an' parson 'e look at me an' at 'im and at the solemnisation o' 'oly matrimony as 'f 'e didn't know which was which.

"Well, the end o' it was that the three o' us went down to one o' them light an' shady open-air houses with a tree growin' out o' a wall, and a lot o' pigeons. Parson 'e stood in one o' the arches raise up a step or two, an' they stood in the s.p.a.ce below, right in the sun, an' I stood 'twixt an' between, for you see, sir, I was clerk as well as best man.

"'Will you take this woman to be thy wedded wife?' arst parson.

"'Such is my desire,' says I, in order; but Joe Banks wouldn't none o'

that.

"'Fur better fur worse,' 'e says, 'fur richer fur poorer, domed if a'

doan't.'

"So 'e was wedded to the Most Nailin' Bad Shot in creation."

"And was she pretty?" I asked of Craddock.

He shook his head. "I niver set eyes on her, sir, though I was best man. She was wrap up in a white veil, an' 'e kep' her so--said she liked it--they does, sir, when they've got a good 'usband."

"So they lived happy ever after?"

"Not for long, sir--" here Craddock slipped his hands into his pockets as the first step towards slouching off. "That sort o' thing don't somehow last long, sir," here his eyes caught the gold of the setting sun, as they had a trick of doing when they grew soft. "Seems to me--savin' your presence, sir--as if there was too much o' the Noo Jerewsalem about that sort o' thing fur this world; that's 'ow it is.

She died, sir, a few years after, when 'e was back in the Ca.n.a.ls, in a G.o.d-forsaken spot, where there wasn't no one to--to be best man like.

An' so they found 'im lying beside 'er with a bullet in 'is brain. So I was a minor prophet after all, an' Joey Banks got nicked at last by the Most Nailin' Bad Shot in creation."

THE REFORMER'S WIFE

A SKETCH FROM LIFE

He was a dreamer of dreams, with the look in his large dark eyes, which Botticelli put into the eyes of his Moses; that Moses in doublet and hose, whose figure, isolated from its surroundings, reminds one irresistibly of Christopher Columbus, or Vasco da Gama--of those, in fact, who dream of a Promised Land.

And this man dreamt as wild a dream as any. He hoped, before he died, to change the social customs of India.

He used to sit in my drawing-room, talking to me by the hour of the Prophet and his blessed Fatma--for he was a Mahomedan--and bewailing the sad degeneracy of these present days, when caste had crept into and defiled the Faith. I shall never forget the face of martyred enthusiasm with which he received my first invitation to dinner. He accepted it, as he would have accepted the stake, with fervour, and indeed to his ignorance the ordeal was supreme. However, he appeared punctual to the moment on the appointed day, and greatly relieved my mind by partaking twice of plum-pudding, which he declared to be a surpa.s.singly cool and most digestible form of nourishment, calculated to soothe both body and mind. Though this is hardly the character usually a.s.signed to it, I did not contradict him, for not even his eager self-sacrifice had sufficed for the soup, the fish, or the joint, and he might otherwise have left the table in a starving condition. As it was, he firmly set aside my invitation to drink water after the meal was over, with the modest remark that he had not eaten enough to warrant the indulgence.

The event caused quite a stir in that far-away little town, set out among the ruins of a great city, on the high bank of one of the Punjab rivers; for the scene of this sketch lay out of the beaten track, beyond the reach of _babus_ and barristers, patent-leather shoes and progress. Beyond the pale of civilisation altogether, among a quaint little colony of fighting Pathans who still pointed with pride to an old gate or two which had withstood siege after siege, in those old fighting days when the river had flowed beneath the walls of the city.

Since then the water had ebbed seven miles to the south-east, taking with it the prestige of the stronghold, which only remained a picturesque survival; a cl.u.s.ter of four-storeyed purple-brick houses surrounded by an intermittent purple-brick wall, bastioned and loop-holed. A formidable defence, while it lasted. But it had a trick of dissolving meekly into a sort of mud hedge, in order to gain the next stately fragment, or maybe to effect an alliance with one of the frowning gateways which had defied a.s.sault. This condition of things was a source of sincere delight to my Reformer Futteh Deen (Victory of Faith) who revelled in similes. It was typical of the irrational, illogical position of the inhabitants in regard to a thousand religious and social questions, and just as one brave man could break through these sham fortifications, so one resolute example would suffice to capture the citadel of prejudice, and plant the banner of abstract Truth on its topmost pinnacle.

For he dreamt excellently well, and as he sate declaiming his Persian and Arabic periods in the drawing-room with his eyes half shut, like one in presence of some dazzling light, I used to feel as if something might indeed be done to make the Mill of G.o.d grind a little faster.

In the matter of dining out, indeed, it seemed as if he was right. For within a week of his desperate plunge, I received an invitation to break bread with the munic.i.p.al committee in the upper storey of the Vice-President's house. The request, which was emblazoned in gold, engrossed on silk paper in red and black, and enclosed in a brocade envelope, was signed by the eleven members and the Reformer; who, by the way, edited a ridiculous little magazine to which the committee subscribed a few rupees a month. Solely for the purpose of being able to send copies to their friends at court, and show that they were in the van of progress. For a man must be that, who is patron of a "Society for the General Good of All Men in All Countries." I was, I confess it, surprised, even though a casual remark that now perhaps his Honour the Lieutenant-Governor would no longer suspect his slaves of disloyalty, showed me that philanthropy had begun at home. For the little colony bore a doubtful character, being largely leavened by the new Puritanism, which Government, for reasons best known to itself, chooses to confound with Wahabeeism.

The entertainment given on the roof amid stars.h.i.+ne and catherine-wheels proved a magnificent success, its great feature being an enormous plum-pudding which I was gravely told had been prepared by my own cook. At what cost, I shudder to think; but the rascal's grinning face as he placed it on the table convinced me that he had seized the opportunity for some almost inconceivable extortion. But there was no regret in those twelve grave, bearded faces, as one by one they tasted and approved. All this happened long before a miserable, exotic imitation of an English vestry replaced the old patrician committees, and these men were representatives of the bluest blood in the neighbourhood, many of them descendants of those who in past times had held high offices of state, and had transmitted courtly manners to their children. So the epithets bestowed on the plum-pudding were many-syllabled; but the consensus of opinion was indubitably towards its coolness, its digestibility, and its evident property of soothing the body and the mind. Again I did not deny it.

How could I, out on the roof under the eternal stars, with those twelve foreign faces showing, for once, a common bond of union with the Feringhee? I should have felt like Judas Iscariot if I had struck the thirteenth chord of denial.

The Reformer made a speech afterwards, I remember, in which, being wonderfully well read, he alluded to love-feasts and sacraments, and a coming millennium, when all nations of the world should meet at one table, and--well! not exactly eat plum-pudding together, but something very like it. Then we all shook hands, and a native musician played something on the _siringhi_ which they informed me was "G.o.d Save the Queen." It may have been. I only know that the Reformer's thin face beamed with almost pitiful delight as he told me triumphantly that this was only the beginning.

He was right. From that time forth the plum-pudding feast became a recognised function. Not a week pa.s.sed without one. Generally--for my gorge rose at the idea of my cook's extortion--in the summer-house in my garden, where I could have an excuse for providing the delicacy at my own expense. And I am bound to say that this increased intimacy bore other fruits than that contained in the pudding. For the matter of that it has continued to bear fruit, since I can truthfully date the beginning of my friends.h.i.+p for the people of India from the days when we ate plum-pudding together under the stars.h.i.+ne.

The Reformer was radiant. He formed himself and his eleven into committees and subcommittees for every philanthropical object under the sun, and many an afternoon have I spent under the trees with my work watching one deputation after another retire behind the oleander hedge in order to permutate itself by deft rearrangement of members, secretaries, and vice-presidents into some fresh body bent on the regeneration of mankind. For life was leisureful, lingering and lagging along in the little town where there was neither doctor nor parson, policeman nor ca.n.a.l officer, nor in fact any white face save my own and my husband's. Still we went far and fast in a cheerful, unreal sort of way. We started schools and debating societies, public libraries and technical art cla.s.ses. Finally we met enthusiastically over an extra-sized plum-pudding, and bound ourselves over to reduce the marriage expenditure of our daughters.

The Reformer grew more radiant than ever, and began in the drawing-room--where it appeared to me he hatched all his most daring schemes--to talk big about infant marriage, enforced widowhood, and the seclusion of women. The latter I considered to be the key to the whole position, and therefore I felt surprised at the evident reluctance with which he met my suggestion, that he should begin his struggle by bringing his wife to visit me. He had but one, although she was childless. This was partly, no doubt, in deference to his advanced theories; but also, at least so I judged from his conversation, because of his unbounded admiration for one who by his description was a pearl among women. In fact this unseen partner had from the first been held up to me as a refutation of all my strictures on the degradation of seclusion. So, to tell truth, I was quite anxious to see this paragon, and vexed at the constant ailments and absences which prevented our becoming acquainted. The more so because this shadow of hidden virtue fettered me in argument, for Futteh Deen was an eager patriot, full of enthusiasms for India and the Indians.

Once the sham fortifications were scaled, he a.s.sured me that Hindustan, and above all its women, would come to the front and put the universe to shame. Yet, despite his successes, he looked haggard and anxious; at the time I thought it was too much progress and plum-pudding combined, but afterwards I came to the conclusion that his conscience was ill at ease, even then.

So the heat grew apace. The fly-catchers came to dart among the _sirus_ flowers and skim round the ma.s.sive dome of the old tomb in which we lived. The melons began to ripen, first by ones and twos, then in thousands--gold, and green, and russet. The corners of the streets were piled with them, and every man, woman, and child carried a crescent moon of melon at which they munched contentedly all day long. Now, even with the future good of humanity in view, I could not believe in the safety of a mixed diet of melon and plum-pudding, especially when cholera was flying about. Therefore, on the next committee-day I had a light and wholesome refection of sponge-cakes and jelly prepared for the philanthropists. They partook of it courteously, but sparingly. It was, they said, superexcellent, but of too heating and stimulating a nature to be consumed in quant.i.ties. In vain I a.s.sured them that it could be digested by the most delicate stomach; that it was, in short, a recognised food for convalescents.

This only confirmed them in their view, for, according to the Yunani system, an invalid diet must be heating, strengthening, stimulating.

Somehow in the middle of their upside-down arguments I caught myself looking pitifully at the Reformer, and wondering at his temerity in tilting at the great mysterious ma.s.s of Eastern wisdom.

And that day, in deference to my Western zeal, he was to tilt wildly at the _zenana_ system.

His address fell flat, and for the first time I noticed a distinctly personal flavour in the discussion. Hitherto we had resolved and recorded gaily, as if we ourselves were disinterested spectators.

However, the Vice-President apologised for the general tone, with a side slash at exciting causes in the jelly and sponge-cake, whereat the other ten wagged their heads sagely, remarking that it was marvellous, stupendous, to feel the blood running riot in their veins after those few mouthfuls. Verily such food partook of magic. Only the Reformer dissented, and ate a whole sponge-cake defiantly.

Even so the final Resolution ran thus: "That this committee views with alarm any attempt to force the natural growth of female freedom, which it holds to be strictly a matter for the individual wishes of the man." Indeed it was with difficulty that I, as secretary, avoided the disgrace of having to record the spiteful rider, "And that if any member wanted to unveil the ladies he could begin on his own wife."

I was young then in knowledge of Eastern ways, and consequently indignant. The Reformer, on the other hand, was strangely humble, and tried afterwards to evade the major point by eating another sponge-cake, and making a facetious remark about experiments and vile bodies; for he was a mine of quotations, especially from the Bible, which he used to wield to my great discomfiture.

But on the point at issue I knew he could scarcely go against his own convictions, so I pressed home his duty of taking the initiative. He agreed, gently. By-and-by, perhaps, when his wife was more fit for the ordeal. And it was natural, even the _mem-sahiba_ must allow, for unaccustomed modesty to shrink. She was to the full as devoted as he to the good cause, but at the same time--Finally, the _mem-sahiba_ must remember that women were women all over the world--even though occasionally one was to be found like the _mem-sahiba_ capable of acting as secretary to innumerable committees without a blush. There was something so wistful in his eager blending of flattery and excuse that I yielded for the time, though determined in the end to carry my point.

With this purpose I reverted to plum-puddings once more, and, I fear, to gross bribery of all kinds in the shape of private interviews and soft words. Finally I succeeded in getting half the members to consent to sending their wives to an after-dark at-home in my drawing-room, provided always that Mir Futteh Deen, the Reformer, would set a good example.

He looked troubled when I told him, and pointed out that the responsibility for success or failure now lay virtually with him, yet he did not deny it.

I took elaborate precautions to ensure the most modest seclusion on the appointed evening, even to sending my husband up a ladder to the gallery at the very top of the dome to smoke his after-dinner cigar. I remember thinking how odd it must have looked to him perched up there to see the twinkling lights of the distant city over the soft shadows of the _ferash_ trees, and at his feet the glimmer of the white screens set up to form a conventional _zenan-khana_. But I waited in vain--in my best dress, by the way. No one came, though my ayah a.s.sured me that several jealously-guarded _dhoolies_ arrived at the garden-gate and went away again when Mrs. Futteh Deen never turned up.

I was virtuously indignant with the offender, and the next time he came to see me sent out a message that I was otherwise engaged. I felt a little remorseful at having done so, however, when, committee-day coming round, the Reformer was reported on the sick-list. And there he remained until after the first rain had fallen, bringing with it the real Indian spring--the spring full of roses and jasmines, of which the poets and the bul-buls sing. By this time the novelty had worn off philanthropy and plum-pudding, so that often we had a difficulty in getting a quorum together to resolve anything; and I, personally, had begun to weary for the dazzled eyes and the eager voice so full of sanguine hope.

Therefore it gave me a pang to learn from the Vice-President, who, being a Government official, was a model of punctuality, that in all probability I should never hear or see either one or the other again.

Futteh Deen was dying of the rapid decline which comes so often to the Indian student.

A recurrence of a vague remorse made me put my pride in my pocket and go unasked to the Reformer's house, but my decision came too late. He had died the morning of my visit, and I think I was glad of it.

For the paragon of beauty and virtue, of education and refinement, was a very ordinary woman, years older than my poor Reformer, marked with the small-pox, and blind of one eye. Then I understood.

THE SQUARING OF THE G.o.dS