It was an unfortunate speech, since it brought down on her the inevitable reply that such knowledge was enough for those who, at best, must enter Paradise at a man's coat-tails. Driven into a corner, she felt the hopelessness of the struggle, until, flushed by success, the Moulvie forgot caution, and declaimed against his son's stupidity in desiring more.
Feroza seized on this slip swiftly. If it was as she feared, if her husband's wishes were kept from her ignorance, she must, she would learn. If she could not go to school, the mems would come and teach her at home. They did such work at Delhi; why not here? As for the Moulvie's determination that no singing should be heard in his house, that was a righteous wish, and she would tell the mems not to sing their hymns. Indeed, such a question seemed all too trivial for comparison with her future happiness. Therefore her disappointment when Mytâben brought back a peremptory refusal from the mission-ladies to teach on such condition was very keen. Her piteous, surprised tears roused Kareema's scornful wonder.
"I can't think why thou shouldst weep; it thickens the nose, and thine is over-broad as it is. Inaiyut offered once to teach me, but when I asked him if learning would make him love me better, he kissed me with a laugh. So I let it alone."
"Thou dost not understand," sobbed Feroza; "no one does. The Meer is wise, and I am different."
"Wah! Thou art but a woman at best, and life is over for us with the first wrinkle, no matter what we learn. Ah, Feroz! let's enjoy youth whilst we have it. See! I have a rare bit of fun for thee if thou wilt not blab to Mytâben. Promise!"
Three days afterwards Feroza, escaping from the turmoil of a great marriage in a relative's house, found herself, much to her own surprise and bewilderment, forming one of a merry party of young women disguised in boy's clothes, and bound for an hour or so of high jinks in one of the walled orange gardens which lay on the outskirts of the quarter. The idea, which had at first filled her with dismay, had next grown tempting, and then become irresistible with Kareema's artful suggestion that it would give occasion for a personal interview with the mission-ladies who had taken up their abode close by. So she had allowed her doubts and fears to be allayed; though inwardly she failed to see the vast difference on which her sister-in-law insisted, between the iniquity of standing on doorsteps in the full light of day, and sneaking out at night on the quiet.
"Verily," said Kareema in a pet, "thou art a real noodle, Feroz! I tell thee all the good-style women do thus, and my sister will be there with her boys. Wah! were it not for my handsome Inaiyut, I should die in this dull old house where folk wish to be better than God made them."
So it came to pass that while Miss Julia Smith, spinster of Clapham, sat with her fellow-workers in the verandah resting after their labours, a boyish figure with a beating heart was creeping towards her as the goal of every hope.
The English mail was in; an event which by accentuating the severance from home ties is apt to raise the enthusiasm of the mission-house beyond normal.
"How very, very interesting it is about the young man Ahmed Ali," remarked Julia, in a voice tuned to superlatives. "Dearest Mrs. Cranston writes that he spoke so sweetly about his ignorant child-wife. As she says, there is something so--so--so comforting, you know, in the thought of work coming to us, as if--well, I can't quite express it, you know,--but from our own homes,--from dear, dear, old England!"