“No, because I am the Pasha’s daughter. But he has the right. Suppose my father fell into disgrace, or anything happened to my boy,” and she made with a horrified look the sign for averting the evil eye, “who would stand up for me then? Almost every one has more than one wife; why should I expect my husband to be the exception? There is my father, he is considered a liberal-minded man, of most advanced views, and yet he has just married a fourth wife. It was all arranged when you were ill, so I suppose you did not hear much about it; but she is coming here with him to-morrow. She is Jamileh[03] Khanum, the daughter of his old friend, Tahir Pasha. Her father is also a reformer, and she has had an English governess, and been brought up entirely alla Franca, but she can’t refuse to become the fourth wife of a man almost old enough to be her grandfather.”
“And what can remedy this?” asked Cecil.
“Only Christianity,” said Naimeh Khanum. “They have tried culture and civilisation, but it has done no good. Our men do not care to raise us even to their own level.”
“Then why are you not a Christian?” asked Cecil.
“Because I have too much to leave,” said Naimeh Khanum, slowly and deliberately. “I cannot give up my husband and child. As it says in one of your books which I have read, I have given hostages to fortune. Listen! there is Said Bey coming in. I must go to meet him. Adieu, mademoiselle.”
And she was gone, leaving Cecil to meditate on the unexpected revelation she had received. It was with deep sadness and remorse that she took her way to the room where Azim Bey was waiting for her, for who could say how much she might have helped this struggling soul in all these weeks if she had only known? Poor Naimeh Khanum! she was longing for the temporal blessings of Christianity without thought of the spiritual. They had no further opportunity for conversation, but Cecil did the best she could for her friend. Wrapping up carefully a little New Testament in Arabic which she had received from Dr Yehudi, she placed it where Naimeh Khanum would be sure to find it, with a prayer that the seeker might be led into the light.
The next day Ahmed Khémi Pasha arrived, accompanied by his bride, and attended by a magnificent retinue. There was only time for a formal interchange of visits between Naimeh Khanum and her new stepmother, for the Pasha was making a progress through his dominions, and it was already late in the year. It would have been equally undesirable for Azim Bey and his governess to return to Baghdad in the Pasha’s absence, and to remain at Hillah, tasking the resources of Said Bey for the maintenance of themselves and their attendants, and their cavalcade was accordingly merged in the larger one, they themselves losing their comparative importance, and becoming part of the harem procession under the lead of Jamileh Khanum, who travelled in state at its head in a highly ornamental takhtrevan, or mule-litter.
In honour of his marriage, the Pasha had remitted a large proportion of the obnoxious taxes which had contributed so largely to swell the distress of the province, and this had restored much of his popularity. There was also every prospect of a good corn and fruit harvest, the latter very important to the dwellers in the regions around Baghdad; and as time went on, and this promise was fulfilled, past irritation was forgotten, and the people returned to their usual condition of sleepy contentment. Azim Bey attracted no unfriendly attention, and Cecil went through the tour in safe and undistinguished obscurity. Jamileh Khanum monopolised the attention of the Pasha, and was the undisputed head of her own portion of the assemblage. She was a young lady of some shrewdness and much ambition, and had signalised the short period she had spent at Baghdad by such a violent quarrel with the Um-ul-Pasha, that her husband dared not leave her behind in the Palace. With a natural instinct to like everything that the Um-ul-Pasha disliked, she had come prepared to patronise Azim Bey and Mademoiselle Antaza, and she and Cecil got on very well together. England was their great theme of conversation, for Jamileh Khanum cherished a secret hope that she might one day prevail upon the Pasha to take her there on a visit. With this in view, she was eager to learn from Cecil all she could with regard to English customs and etiquette, although she maintained throughout a lively sense of the difference of position between the great lady and the governess. Cecil found her very amusing, but Azim Bey, who was wont to sit by and look on at the conversations with unwinking black eyes, mistrusted the “little lady mother,” as he called his father’s youngest wife.
“It is all petting and sweetmeats now, mademoiselle,” he said to his governess, “but wait until she has a son of her own.”
“But that can make no difference to you, Bey,” said Cecil. “You have his Excellency’s promise, given to your mother.”