[CHAPTER XXIV]
'Nay! thou hast given me enough, oh Mizra sahib. More than a free woman cares to have,' said Chândni, with a shrug of her massive shoulders. 'Thou hadst thy chance to pay me fair.'
Dalel Beg, clad in his European clothes, and perched in all the isolation of an esteemed visitor in the cane-bottomed chair of state, felt he would like to be on a level with those jeering lips as he used to be at Hodinuggur. Not for the sake of desire only, or for the sake of revenge, but for a mixture of both. As usual, the very audacity of her wickedness fascinated him, yet, now that wickedness was directed against himself he could have strangled her for it.
'Pay thee! How can I pay thee,' he whimpered, 'when those low-caste white swindlers with whom I betted will not pay what I have won? When those white devils of women turn the place into a museum until every Parsee in the bazaar threatens to summon me to court?'
It was not much more than a week since he had defied Chândni in the presence of the said white devils; but the interval had not been pleasant. Beatrice Elflida Norma's mamma knew all about Chândni's long years of hold on the Mizra Sahib, and he was totally unaccustomed to the nagging of wifely jealousy. Besides, something had happened which had opened his eyes to the danger of allowing the courtesan to have a free hand. A proposal had been made by the Canal Department to allow water to run permanently along the sluice-cut; the Rajah who owned the land to the south, having spent a whole season at Simla in order to work the oracle, and the flood having come opportunely as a warning to the experts that it might be wise to provide a more satisfactory outlet for the surplus water. Now, in this case, Hodinuggur, which, being for the most part barren desert, would benefit but little by the plan, might by judicious application of the screw make the Rajah pay for its consent, as a considerable portion of its best land would have to be taken up for various works. This sort of secret intrigue, these almost endless ramifications of rights and dues, underlie the simplest transactions in India, and are recognised by its people as an integral part of administration. Besides, Hodinuggur itself, in lieu of compensation for damage done--which for various reasons it had not yet claimed, one being a delay on the part of the Rajah in paying the promised fee for the opening of the sluice--might manage by the same judicious diplomacy to secure some trifling hold on the water-supply; something, in short, which might be used as a screw for the extortion of a perpetual, if small revenue. But for this, silence as to the past was necessary. Such considerations, to European ears, may seem almost too fine-drawn to be worth notice; but to Dalel Beg and Chândni they were quite the reverse, for he came from a long line of courtiers born and bred in such intrigues; men whose trade had passed with the corrupt courts of other days, while the memory of it survived in their title. Diwâns of Hodinuggur; not Nawabs or Nizams, but Diwâns, that is, in other words, prime minister. And she? Every atom of her blood came from the veins of those who for centuries had woven a still finer net of women's wit around the intrigues of their protectors. It is this extraordinary strength of heredity which, in India, makes the cheap tinkering of Western folk, who are compounded of butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers, so exasperating to those who have eyes to see. If English philanthropists would spend their motley benevolence on the poor, the diseased, and the drunken of their own country, it would be better both for it and for India, where the death-rate is no higher, drunkenness is practically unknown, and poverty is neither unhappy nor discontented.
Thus Chândni and Dalel were well matched as she lolled back in her cushions with a laugh.
'So she spends money! Lo! since thou hast married a "vilayeti" wife thou canst advertise, as the sahibs do, in the papers, that thou art not responsible for her debts. There is no sense in stopping half way as thou hast done. Thou shouldst have gone to a "mission" and been baptized instead of making that half-caste girl repeat the "Kulma" on promise that thou wouldst not in future claim the right of the faithful to other women. Yea! yea! I know the trick.'
'If I have,' muttered Dalel, vexed yet pleased at her boldness, her shrewdness, 'such promises are easily broken. Divorce is easy.'
'If thou hast money to pay the dower to her people--not when thou hast none! Lo! 'tis a mistake to try new ways of wickedness instead of keeping to the old ones.'
So she dismissed him, feeling on the whole contemptuous over her adversaries so far; the Miss Sahiba's arms had been strong, for sure, but the men were worth nothing! nothing at all.