“I have something to tell you after dinner,” said Mrs. Browne significantly later, across the joint.
“And I have something to tell you,” young Browne responded with equal meaning.
Mrs. Browne had the first word, in order, her husband said, that she shouldn’t have the last. She explained that she had found the ayah in tears, quite extinguished upon the floor, the cause being insult. Chua had forgotten at noon the little bright shawl which she wrapped about her head in the streets—had left it upon the memsahib’s veranda. Seeing it, the bearer had done a deadly thing. He had not touched it himself, but he had sent for the sweeper—the sweeper!—and bade him fenk-do[[69]] it to his own unclean place of living. And there, after much search, had Chua found it. Therefore was she deeply abased, and therefore did she tender her resignation. The bearer had behaved Rajah kamafik![[70]] and had, moreover, spoken to her in bat that was carab, very carab.
[69]. Throw.
[70]. Like a lord!
“Yes,” said the sahib, judicially, “and the bearer came to me also weeping with joined hands to supplicate. His tale of woe is a little different. He declares he never saw the shawl and never gave the order—I’ve no doubt he did both—but that the sweeper acted upon his own responsibility. And what do you think the ayah did in revenge? She slippered him!—all round the compound! The bearer, poor chap, fled in disorder, but couldn’t escape. He has undoubtedly been slippered. And in the presence of the whole compound! It’s worse—infinitely worse—than having his puggri[[71]] knocked off in ribaldry. And now he says that though he has served me faithfully all these years, and I am his father and his mother, his honour has been damaged in this place, and he prays to be allowed to depart.”
[71]. Turban.
“Slippered him, George! but he’s such a big man and she such a little woman! All round the compound! Oh,” said George’s wife, giving way to unseemly hilarity, “I should like to have seen that!”
“Little termagant! Oh, it was the insult he ran from, my dear—not the blow. That she—an ayah and the wife of a kitmutgar, should have touched him with the sole of her shoe! Don’t laugh, dear—they’ll hear you, and I’d rather they didn’t.”
The Brownes held further debate, and took all the circumstances into consideration. Young Browne had evidently arrived immediately at a judicial view of the case, though he professed himself willing to let the bearer go if Helen wanted to retain Chua. “Though in that case there’ll be anarchy, my dear, I warn you,” said he. The result was a solemn gathering of the servants next morning upon the veranda, addressed by young Browne, while the memsahib sat up straight in another chair and looked serious. He took no evidence, there would have been too much, but he spoke thus: