the old lady's mind.
"And for the wife's that is to come?" she asked, not without dignity,--the dignity of age reminding youth that its turn for duty has come. "And for the son's that has yet to be born? Why are these old arms still empty of thy children, Roshan?"
He had his answer ready; one that had hitherto baulked even the matrimonial desires of his mother, who, having gone to live with her own people, was backed up by sisters and sisters-in-law.
"Because the Most High decreed freedom for wife and son."
It was true. The wife found for him as a boy had died in child-birth.
But Mumtâza had made up her mind to refuse this excuse any longer. Matters were getting desperate. Here was Roshan past thirty, and never a child's voice to soothe the passion which seems to come back, vicariously, to Indian women in their old age. She had been brooding over an appeal ever since she had heard that, after ten years' absence, the lad was once more to be within reach of her tongue. So she edged closer to him, an almost pathetic authority in her face.
"That is but the skin of the orange, Roshan; I take not that as a gift! There be more wives than one, if the one die, even for the Huzoors whom thou apest. Nay! Light of the house! frown not," she continued, in sudden alarm at his look. "I did but mean that thou wert different from thy fathers. How canst help it? Think not the old woman cannot understand. Was I not young once? Was I not wedded with tears to thy grandfather--on whom be peace! So I know the heart hath fancies, and thine--listen while I whisper it--is--is for a wife like a mem! Wherefore not? Thou hast seen and talked with them--they have seemed better to thee than a cow of a black girl! What then? Have not mems married our people ere now? And with thee,"--she looked round quickly, to be certain of privacy, then leant closer still,--"with thee it would be easy--for there is thy cousin."
"My cousin?" he echoed stupidly.
"Yea! thy cousin, when all is said and done," she repeated, with faint scorn. "Is not the Miss at the palace Anâri Begum's granddaughter? Was not Anâri Begum thy grandfather's sister? If that is not cousin, what is it?"
He had known these facts before, of course, but they had never presented themselves to him in this connection. Yet they came instantly, accredited by custom. His cousin; if so, his wife, if he chose, almost by right. And yet from custom also, he--too sensible not to have gauged the vast difference between his position as regards Englishmen, and his position as regarded their wives, sisters, mothers--was conscious of distinct revolt. "Thou shouldst not say such things," he exclaimed almost angrily; "the Miss-sahib--"
"Miss-sahib indeed!" interrupted Mumtâza with a forced giggle. "Who knows she is that? Not even Pidar Narâyan."
"Wherefore?" asked Roshan coldly. "Her mother was Bonaventura-sahib's child and heir. That is certain; else the Government would not have continued the grants given to him by the Nawab."
An expression of infinite cunning crossed the old lady's face; she tucked another budget of pân into her cheek, preparatory to a lengthy explanation.
"Not if it was payment for evidence given, by which Government could find excuse for seizing the rest, and sending innocent people to die in Calcutta? Thou knowest the tale, Roshan? How Pidar Narâyan said no word when everyone was searching, after Bun-avatâr's death, for Anâri Begum, who had disappeared, and how, when the land was being taken, he appeared with a baby, a baptized baby, and swore it was Bun-avatâr's lawful heir--that he himself had married them. Mayhap he did. But, look you, Anâri was in the palace zenâna ere she disappeared. Who is to say she is not thy cousin twice over? … I say not that she is, look you, but who can tell. Yet this is certain, Roshan; she hath Anâri Begum's eyes. For I have seen her; but a month ago the Miss who reads brought her, not knowing of these tales; for Pidar Narâyan keeps a silent tongue. Her name is Laila,[3] and thine Roshan.[4] Is not that a fate? and she hath thy grand-aunt's eyes; ay! and thy grandfather's land too; for would it not have been Walidâd's, if Bun-avatâr had not ousted him from the wazeer-ship with singing birds?"
Roshan Khân stood up feeling as if he was being suffocated. It was ten years since he had had experience of the fine-drawn meshes of vague, almost useless, conspiracy for which Indian women have such vast capability; it was ten years since, with eyes open to his own advantage, he had cast in his lot loyally with the Government he served. In that time there had not been wanting--there never is in India--others, less scrupulous, ready to trade on his connection with a dispossessed family, and his possible sense of injustice. He had known how to treat them. But this idea bit shrewdly at a feeling which men of his stamp have inevitably--the desire for a wife more suitable to their own culture than they can hope to find among their own people. He gave an uneasy laugh. "These be dreams, indeed, grandmother. To begin with, Pidar Narâyan--"
"Pidar Narâyan! Pidar Narâyan!" echoed the old diplomatist tartly, "Art turned Hindoo, that thou dost count Narâyan[5] the Creator of all?" Then she suddenly clapped her hands together in absolute impatience and anger. "Yet is it true. He is the cause of all! But for him Bun-avatâr would have been as an over-fried fritter, a burst bladder, a drum on a hen's back! But for his teaching thee to fence--"
A quick frown came to her hearer's face. "Teaching! Ay! but only enough to make me fit for his skill to play with. I know that now. Well! let him try it again--" Roshan's sudden fierceness died down to sombre discontent--"but that is fool's talk. He is too old. I could not meet him on equal terms." He drew himself up proudly; yet he felt a vague regret at his own acquired sense of fair play. Below it lay a savagery that could rejoice in revenge at any price, and Mumtâza Mahal, watching him, thought him still more like his ancestors, and nodded approvingly.
"Think of it, at least, Roshan," she said, "and remember that it is not as if the girl were a real mem. Pidar Narâyan, for all he is so clever, was put to it to find a husband for the mother, the baptized baby! He took a poor creature from Martin's school at Lucknow, at last, who could not even speak English like a Huzoor--"
"Because he was Italian and a Catholic," put in Roshan, then shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "But thou canst not understand. 'Tis impossible! Dreams, grandmother, dreams!"
"Dreams come true even when forgotten, and torchbearers never see their own way," retorted the old lady, ending the discussion with proverbial wisdom as a clincher. "So think of it, since thoughts cost nothing, and tell no tales."
Roshan felt as if they did the former at any rate, as he strode back toward the fort, telling himself he would feel better when he had on his uniform once more. This was his metier, not marriage. The best soldiers, the really great soldiers--he paused, the knowledge that he could never rise to real greatness coming to make him clinch his right hand as if on his sword-hilt. The tempest of revolt which swept through him left him dazed, for he had reasoned the matter out with himself thoroughly, and thought he had accepted the situation, thought that he had realized that his dignity in the regiment under the present system went side by side, and not behind, that of the English officers. Yet here he was at the mercy of something too strong for acquired wisdom. He walked on faster to escape into a more wholesome environment, and by sheer force of will succeeded in driving away all thought of the past interview save a triviality. That was the remembrance that her name was Laila, his Roshan. Light and Darkness, Day and Night. A fate indeed.
As he passed into the courtyard, however, on his way to the door in the river bastion, a group in its centre, round the old gun, brought his attention back to realities, and he went towards it, his slipper-shod feet making no martial clank, this time, on the union-jack of raised paths. The group consisted of half a dozen or so of men listening to something which was being declaimed, with much gesticulation, by an ash-smeared jogi, whose wide-pierced ears,
