And two pairs of brows knit themselves in solemn puzzlement over this contrariety. Then, “But the Miss Sahib said she loved the children people of the English.”
“Yes! what then?” (but I had guessed). “We want the Miss Sahib to love us.” ... The darlings! Then it was all made clear, helped out by the Amla. They had, even as they said, laid their little plot to win love. They would dress like the children-people of the English. But how to compass this! Their Mother undertook to arrange; and a clever Amla went to a second-hand clothes shop near by, which often supplied Theatrical Companies. “No! they had no dress of the English children-people; but stay—an English Mem-Sahib had sold them a dress not long since. They could make two small copies of this.” And the Babies were reproduced in the sad image of some English widow (curls and all), who had evidently fallen on evil days or the brighter days of second marriage, and got rid of her panoply of mourning.
I think my Goddess of Learning and “Lightning-Beloved” know by now that these foreign arts are unnecessary in the way of love. I have had no widow repeats, but in my heart I hide the realization of a pathos and charm hitherto unsuspected in the consciousness of Babydom.
It was in connection with “Lightning-Beloved,” whose Mother was seeking a husband for her four-year-old, that I came across the “orphanless child,” as he was described in a petition. She explained to me that as she was sonless, “Lightning-Beloved” must be married quickly to someone without fortune or family, though of the right caste. He would then be even as her son, and be supported by her in return for the honour of an alliance. This extraordinary position, “domesticated son-in-law,” as it is called, has been accepted even by adults, and is very familiar in Bengal. I know of one instance where a man waited to propose to the lady of his choice (it was a reformed Hindu family), till he could prove himself capable of supporting her, only to discover that a younger and rather lazy brother had forestalled him by accepting the position of the “domesticated.” However, it was useless arguing the indignity of dependence with “Lightning-Beloved’s” mother, and one’s only chance lay in expounding Sanskrit scripture as to the possibility of waiting for marriage till a later age. Unfortunately, it is a question of Priest-gifts desired at this particular moment, and counter-texts are produced for my consideration, proving that delay means risk of a first-class heaven; so that nothing but the woman’s faith in my assurance that I will use my influence with the spiritual Powers to secure her the coveted position, nevertheless, saves the situation.
For the Goddess of Learning is desired an adopted son, heir to a Raj. I am pleased with this choice, the boy has a face like Rossetti’s Blessed Damozel, and a charming disposition; and we have just been in time to save a threatened repudiation of him by his adoptive Mother. It would have been a dreadful thing, for having by adoption lost for ever all spiritual rights in his natural family, he would, on repudiation of adoption, be left without ancestors for whom to pray; and this, for a Hindu, is terrible indeed.
A new little settler has lately sought the shelter of this Raj, a six-year-old Baby in self-protective exile from her own Estate. Under local law she succeeds as the only unmarried “female” to a considerable inheritance, and as a consequence all around her, grandmothers and sisters included, are interested in her death. They have been drugging her, and she has been brought into headquarters under Police guard. I found her in a wretched house set down in a swamp, and furnished with a hard plank-bed and a box. “Lotus-born,” that is her name, is a miserable shrimp of a Baby, arms like sticks, and a plaintive long-suffering little face, like a cry for help sounding in my ears to this day. She was very ill indeed, burning with malarial fever, and aching, she said, in every limb. She lay on the hard “takht-posh,” and beside her sat her nurse, another baby, eight years old. She sat like a frog, legs crunched up, and her nursing consisted in giving the sufferer a loving pinch every now and then, murmuring, “There! that makes it better.” And the six-year-old, in a monotonous little voice which struggled after cheeriness, would answer, “Yes! Oh! yes.”
I found that the Nurse had tied herself to “Lotus-born” in friendship by a ceremony peculiar to this part of the country. Two tanks are dug, contiguous, and the children make a play with fishes and boats, floating them in the water, and offering rice and feastings on the grass. Quaint songs are sung.
“Who is worshipping the water with garlands of flowers while the sun is overhead?”
“It is I, chaste and virtuous, lucky sister of a Brother. May I have sons who will not die.”
But “Lotus-born” lived not long enough to find fulfilment of her prayer. Better nursing came too late, and the petals of the Lotus curled together in eternal sleep.