Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

“Your permission is slightly grudging,” said Georgia, laughing, but she was heartily glad to have his escort. The unpleasant circumstances of her last visit to the Palace had made her shrink from going there again, although she had a particular reason for desiring to do so. The thought that Dick would not be far off was a reassuring one, even though there was no reason for anticipating any unfriendliness from the royal household. And in this way it came to pass that when the Palace litter, closely guarded by soldiers, conveyed Georgia and her handmaid to visit her patient, Dick rode behind it with six of the servants of the Mission, who were divided between delight at being outside the walls of the house once more, and a certain degree of terror at the prospect of finding themselves inside the Palace.

Reclining luxuriously on the cushions, with Rahah crouching opposite to her, Georgia spent the time occupied by the transit in recapitulating to herself the points of the inquiry which she was anxious to make, and which had as its primary object the re-establishment of Sir Dugald’s health. The disagreeable interruption of her interview with Nur Jahan’s mother, by the entrance of the King’s younger wife, had prevented her from putting to the women present the questions which had been suggested to her by their mention of the witch whose poisons Fath-ud-Din was wont to employ to rid him of his enemies. The name and dwelling-place of this old woman had become matters of the deepest interest to Georgia, and she was also eager for any information that it might be possible to obtain as to her methods and the poisons she used. On what she could discover this morning, Sir Dugald’s life, or at any rate, his restoration to health, might depend, and this in itself was enough to determine Georgia to leave no stone unturned in the effort to ensure success. But it must be confessed that she had an additional motive—a sufficiently weighty one, although completely secondary—and this was the subjugation, or conviction, or conversion, whichever it might be called, of Dick. She did not give the process any of these names in her own mind, but she recognised that in the present state of affairs between them the old difference of opinion was only lying dormant, and that sooner or later it must revive. Shrinking with all her heart from the idea of paining, or even opposing him, she was none the less aware that any surrender on her part would only bring her grief and remorse later, and she longed to be able to do something that might justify her in Dick’s eyes, might bring him to acquiesce of his own free will in her continuing the practice of her profession, and thus avert the crisis she foresaw and feared. There was only one thing that could come between Dick and herself, and that was her work; but she knew that if she was true to her principles, she must uphold it against Dick. She had gained a temporary advantage that morning, but she was already ashamed of the weapons of which she had made use.

“Mine was a weak impulse,” she said to herself, “for it led me to appeal merely to Dick’s feelings, instead of to his reason and his sense of right. I made him ashamed of himself, but it was in an unfair way—almost as bad as it would have been if I had cried. I can’t think what led me to do it—I suppose it was simply a reversion to the tactics of the Old Woman. It was lowering myself, and it lowered Dick—he would never have stooped to try to coax me, but he yields when I coax him. Of course he liked it—he naturally would, but that doesn’t make it any better. I asked him to do as a favour to me what he ought, as a gentleman, to do as a mere matter of justice, and if he follows the thing out logically he will feel at liberty to sneer at any other medical woman he may meet, even though he makes an exception in my case. I have gone to work in the wrong way—no doubt it is the most comfortable, but that doesn’t signify if it isn’t right. It’s no use pretending that Dick is perfect—he isn’t, any more than I am; but I want to see him getting nearer to perfection the more I have to do with him, and it wouldn’t be the way to bring that about if I helped him to grow into a tyrant whose most unreasonable wish was law unless he could be wheedled out of it. No, I see that he has a great deal to learn yet: I am only afraid that I may not be the right person to teach it him. I am so much afraid of hurting his feelings—and I don’t know how I could ever do without him now.”

In short, Georgia was in a difficult position, between an exacting professional conscience and a sufficiently masterful lover, but it is possible that her very tenderness for Dick’s feelings afforded her a better guarantee of success than if she had cared for him less. He, on his part, was quite content to enjoy to the full his unexpected happiness, without troubling himself about the future, and he knew nothing of the heavy sigh with which Georgia at last put her own affairs from her, and dismounted from the litter in the harem courtyard at the Palace, prepared to throw herself wholly into the joys and sorrows of its inmates.

“O doctor lady!” cried Nur Jahan, rushing to meet her with much clashing of bangles and rustling of stiff satin, “it rejoices my eyes to behold thee again. We feared that after the evil words of Antar Khan’s mother thou wouldst never return to us. Truly the world has changed for us all since thou wert here, and were it not for my lord’s absence with the army I should have nothing to wish for.”

She led Georgia into the Queen’s room, where the patient was waiting in pitiable anxiety. The long delay, which she had been too nervous to terminate at the proper time, had tasked the poor lady’s patience to the utmost, and she was feverishly eager that the result of the operation should be known, and the final verdict uttered. The room was carefully darkened, and Georgia unfastened the bandages. For a moment the Queen’s weakened eyes could see nothing, and a low despairing wail broke from her, but almost as Georgia laid her hand upon her shoulder and exhorted her to be calm, the moan changed to a cry of joy.

“I can see!” she cried. “God is great, and great is the power He has given to the English and to the doctor lady. With these eyes of mine I shall behold my son’s son before I die.”

“Here is the child, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, laying her baby eagerly in the Queen’s arms. “Bless him now, and bless also the doctor lady, through whose skill thou beholdest him.”

“Almost I might believe myself young again, with my son Rustam Khan in my arms,” said the grandmother, looking fondly at the baby, “and yet this is Rustam Khan’s son that I hold. O doctor lady, if the blessing of one who has suffered much, and whom thou hast by thine art brought back from the gates of despair, can benefit thee, thou hast it now, and may it follow thee and thy children and thy children’s children for ever!”

Georgia’s own eyes were dim with tears as she turned away to put together the things she had brought with her, and the slaves crowded round her in grateful reverence, kissing the hem of her dress and laying her hand on their heads, while Nur Jahan despatched a messenger to inform the King that the operation had been successful. The slave returned in a short time, accompanied by the chamberlain who presided over the treasury, bearing a mass of jewellery tied up in a thick silk handkerchief as a gift to the doctor lady, together with the King’s grateful thanks. Georgia knew her duty with respect to presents of this kind, and having raised the handkerchief to her forehead, she placed it again on the tray on which it had arrived, and choosing out of the heap a necklace of curious workmanship, but of comparatively small intrinsic value, she returned the remainder to the bearer, desiring him to convey her thanks to the King. Rahah was made happy by the gift of a massive pair of anklets, in which she clanked about as though in fetters; and the negro, as he withdrew, intimated that the King intended to mark the occasion by gifts of jewellery to his wife and daughter-in-law and their respective attendants. Hence it was a very merry party which partook presently of coffee and sweetmeats in the Queen’s room, and Georgia observed with some amusement that now it was the Queen’s servants who shrieked shrill defiances across the courtyard at the attendants of Antar Khan’s mother, and that they were powerless to retaliate. They sat in a scowling and disconsolate row on the verandah, and, as Mr Hicks would have put it, “squirmed” under the infliction.