lounging lazily behind Lateefa, the other a woman of sixty, dressed in ragged dirty garments, who was spinning as for dear life an arch or two farther down. After a pause, during which she looked almost appealingly at the girl, the latter rose and limped towards an inner court, for Khôjeeya Khânum was slightly lame; slightly deformed also, owing to her lameness.
'Keep the lumps to our dinners, Auntie Khôjee!' called the girl with a pert titter; 'for what with paste and the kites it makes we good women have scarce flour left to fill our stomachs!'
Lateefa, after watching the limp disappear, glanced round at the girl. She was a buxom creature, over-developed for her years, and over-dressed in the cheap finery of Manchester muslin at six pice a yard and German silver earrings at two annas a dozen.
'Thy sort of good woman need never starve, niece Sobrai,' he said (for he was connected by some by way of blood to the Heirs of All Things or Nothing), 'I have told thee that before. There is not a drop of her blood in thee,' he nodded to the inner door. 'I mean no blame; some daughters must favour the father. Indeed, I marvel ever there be so few to do it in this family, since, God knows! we men be debauched enough to outweigh the virtue of the sainted Fâtma herself.' He shook his head and began on a new kite.
'Thou knowest that better than I,' retorted Sobrai sharply; 'though thy memory, Uncle Lateef, can scarce hold the poor souls thou hast injured thereby.'
His deft hands left their work, and the supple fingers spread themselves in emphatic denial. 'Not a one! niece, not a one!' he protested, 'Lateefa makes kites, not souls. I take men and women as they came from their Maker's hands--as I came. For, see you, if my kites fly, as I make them fly, why not His souls?'--he paused for a thin musical laugh which suited his thin acute face--'I say not,' he went on, 'that thou art botched by being built another fashion, but that her life,' he nodded again to the inner or women's court, 'is not for such as thee--that thou hadst best appraise thine own needs betimes.'
'May be I have already,' sneered the girl insolently, 'and without thy help, pander!'
He turned on her swiftly. 'Have a care, girl! have a care! In vice, as in virtue, the old ways are safest. So listen not to that woman from cantonments whom the Nawâb brings hither when he entertains. Ah! think not I have not seen thee stealing down on the sly to have a word with her.'
Sobrai gave a half-abashed titter. 'And to Dilarâm thy friend of the city also! Lo! uncle! What is there to choose between them or their trade either? "If one comes to dance, what matters a veil?" And if the Nawâb would keep his women old-fashioned, why doth he bring Miss Leezie to the house? Ah! say not 'tis only to this outer court where we virtuous need see nothing; for "'tis only the blind cow which hath a separate byre," and my sight is good----'
'And thy heart bad,' added Lateefa dispassionately, as she stood shifting one foot to and fro after the manner of dancing-girls. 'Still, since God made thee, as I make kites, thou wilt doubtless fly thine own way--if thou canst find some one to hold the string! It needs that ever.'
She began a retort, but checked herself as Khôjeeya reappeared with the paste in a green leaf cup.
'Thy work brings quick return, Lateef,' said the old lady, pausing to look wistfully at the growing pile of kites, 'but my wheel twirls for two hours to a farthing tune.' She edged closer and brushed a speck of dirt from the kitemaker's board in wheedling fashion, then went on, 'Couldst not spare me something to-day, Lateef, against the boy's medicine? He needs it sorely, and Noormahal hath not had a cowrie from the Nawâb since the races. Dost know what he lost? He says all, but he lies often.' She spoke without a suspicion of blame, simply as if the fact--being a dispensation of Providence--was neither to be questioned nor resented.
Lateefa laughed airily. 'Lose!' he echoed, 'Jehân hath naught to lose, not even credit. He sets free of fate! "He who bathes naked has no clothes to wring!" 'Tis Salig Râm, his usurer, whose fat flesh quivers lest his tame pensioner should die prematurely. So take heart, my good Khôjee! Things cannot grow worse, or, for that matter, better, since Jehân's affairs are as a slipped camel in the mud. They can neither go back nor forward. For, see you, he must not die of starvation, lest the pension lapse; nor must he live riotous beyond reason, lest once more the pension lapse through his death by surfeit. Would to God I had such leading-strings to comfortable, clean living myself! But none cares for Lateefa's soul or body. So fret not, Khôjee, concerning Jehân. And as for the boy, canst not take the child to the "Duffri'n Hospitar'l" and get physic free? Plenty women go thither, they tell me.'
'Ay! of sorts; but not we,' replied the old lady.
She drew her ragged veil tighter, but Sobrai tittered.
'Hark to her gentility! Yet she goes to the pawnshop, Uncle Lateef, and does the house-marketing to boot--tut! auntie, wouldst pretend it is not so? As if our neighbours did not know us all but servantless! as if they could not tell worshipful Khôjeeya Khânum, king's daughter, below the domino, by the limp!'
The old worn face--it was one of those Providence meant for beauty, then marred--turned in deprecating apology to Lateefa, as representative of outraged propriety and proprietor.
'Some one must, meean,' she said meekly, 'for Ameenan hath but two hands and two feet; yet another set would mean another mouth to feed. Besides, I grow so old, brother; there is no fear.' The faint forlornness and regret of the excuse made Lateefa's sharp face soften.
'Heed not what Sobrai says, sister,' he replied. 'Lo! thy virtue would stand stiff in a brothel; hers grows giddy looking over a wall; so she doth not understand----'
'Not understand!' retorted the girl shrilly. 'Mayhap I understand too much for old folk and old ways. I hold not with lick-spittling men-folk who wander "Englis fassen," yet would keep us in the old path--who say, as their granddads did, that "cattle and women must rub along in their tethers," but claim a long string to their own kites.'
Lateefa interrupted the tirade with a chuckle. 'Since they are able to hold it! but as I told thee, 'tis the mud in the gutter for the gayest of gay petticoats'--he laid his hand on the growing pile of kites-'if they try to soar alone.'
'I will not ask thee to hold mine, anyway,' she retorted, flouncing off in a meditated whirlwind. For Lateefa was right. Sobrai was not born of those who are patient in well-doing. Even without experience, her manners were those of a different model.
Aunt Khôjee looked after her fearfully, then once more turned to representative man in apology. 'Here are ill words, meean,' she began tremulously, 'yet God knows how hard it is to keep girls silent when the world about them hath grown so noisy. In the old days neighbours were of one's own sort; now, if they be ready to pay full rent, that is enough. I say naught against ours--though, good or bad, it was ill done of Alidâd, our cousin, to let the house his fathers died in. Still they be decent folk enough, though the son is a balister.[1] But, see you, since he returned from England he hath taken his wife to live as a mem beyond the city. And she hath set his sisters agog to learn, as she learns, of a miss from the missen. So what with all this talk, and the railway whistle so close, and Sobrai gossiping as girls will over the partitions----'
Lateefa's thin laugh positively crackled. 'Said I not her virtue would not withstand a wall? But heed her not, sister. She is right, for Sobrai! Thou art right, for Kôjeeya Khânum! Ye are both God-bred, God-fed! Except concerning houses--there thou art wrong,' he added, giving the old lady a shrewd tentative look. 'Dead folk should remain in their graves and leave the letting of houses to the living. I deem Alidâd wise, for, as the old saw says, "an empty house is the wasp's estate." Jehân should do the like with this, if the Nawâbin would consent to live elsewhere.'
