Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

This was all the information that could be gained from the household at the Palace, and Georgia’s desire not to alarm her friends kept her from uttering aloud the thought that was in her mind, so that she allowed the subject to drop. During the remainder of the visit, however, and while she was being carried home in the litter, the determination rose strong within her to find Khadija and get hold of the secret of that antidote, if she had to make an expedition into Ethiopia all by herself, after the Mission had returned to Khemistan, for the sake of doing so.

After the farewell visit to the Palace, there was still another visit to be paid, and this was to Nur Jahan’s mother, who had returned with her husband to her own house, which might now be considered a place of comparative safety. The Princess sent her litter to the Mission, and Georgia made the transit in the usual seclusion, escorted by Dick and a number of armed servants. Arrived at the Grand Vizier’s house, Dick whiled away the time by a chat with Jahan Beg, and Georgia and Rahah were conducted to the harem, where the Princess received them with great kindness. There was even a touch of compassion in her manner, for which Georgia was at a loss to account until she learnt that Nur Jahan had told her mother of the doctor lady’s intended marriage.

“Art thou well advised in this that thou art intending, O doctor lady?” asked the Princess. “If it is true that thou art free to act in the matter according to thine own will, consider what thou doest before it is too late. My daughter tells me that thou hast no fear, since thy betrothed husband is an Englishman; but I know too well that all husbands are alike, for I also am married to an Englishman, although I was not aware of the truth until Fath-ud-Din’s servants shouted it at me as they drove me from my own house a month ago.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Georgia, diffidently, “the Amir Jahan Beg was not then acquainted with the customs of Ethiopia, which differ from ours, and he may have appeared unkind through ignorance.”

“Not so,” said the Princess, decisively, “for had that been all, my love would have won him to honour our customs for my sake,” and her hard eyes softened at the touch of some early memory. “Listen to me, O doctor lady, and judge between my lord and me. My first husband was very old, and when he died I mourned for him almost as for a father. To him I was a child and a plaything—he was not unkind, but I was nothing to him, and I knew it. Then for some time I dwelt at the Palace, under the protection of my cousin the Queen. In those days every one was talking of the valour and wisdom of a new favourite of our lord the King, a captive from among the hillmen of the south, but a convert to the faith of Islam. He had repelled the hostile tribes on our northern border, and extended the kingdom beyond the utmost limits it had hitherto attained, and he was coming in triumph to Kubbet-ul-Haj to lay his spoils at the King’s feet. When that day came, the Queen and I, with our women, were watching the ceremony from our balcony above the throne. The slave-girls exclaimed at the vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought, he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust and ashes when gained! My nurse told me afterwards that on our wedding-night she had seen how things would fall out. I was waiting for my bridegroom, she with me, that she might remove my veil and leave him to behold my face. He came in without a salutation to either of us, and sat down beside me upon the divan. My nurse was angry, and said sharply, ‘It is not the custom in Ethiopia to sit uninvited in the presence of the daughter of the King’s uncle.’ ‘O mother,’ he replied, ‘I stand before no woman in Ethiopia, least of all my own wife.’ My nurse was much disturbed. ‘Wilt thou still marry him, Nafiza, my dove?’ she whispered, so that only I could hear; ‘the King will not suffer thee to be insulted.’ But I, thinking, ‘He must surely be a great prince in his own country, to speak thus to a king’s granddaughter!’ motioned to her to lift my veil, saying, ‘It is well, O my nurse; go on.’ And thus was I married, and evil was my marriage. For in the night I would hear my lord speaking in his own tongue in his sleep, and I knew that he spoke of his own land. But more; I learnt why nothing that I could do could please him, or bring his eyes to look upon me with favour. He had no love for me, he had married me at the King’s command, and I could not even hope that in time I might be able to win his affection, for always in the night he called upon the name of another woman.”

“Oh, but how could you tell?” cried Georgia, quickly, appalled by this revelation of the tragedy which Jahan Beg had brought into the life of his slighted wife. “You don’t understand English. You may have mistaken what he said.” The Lady Nafiza smiled.

“How could I tell, O doctor lady? My heart told me. Though I might not understand the words, yet I could not mistake the tone. And thus my dream faded. But when my daughter Nur Jahan was born, my lord left off crying out to the other woman, but he spoke more and more in his sleep of his own land. I knew it, O doctor lady, though I could not understand. And one day, sitting at his feet, with my baby in my arms, while he held up the hilt of his sword so that the light might flash upon the jewels and make the child laugh, I plucked up my courage and said, ‘Does my lord long very sorely for his own land that he cries out for it every night?’ I would have gone on to tell him that for his sake I was ready to leave my people and flee with him to his land, but his brow darkened, and he sprang up and seized me by the shoulder. ‘Am I not safe in my own house?’ he cried in a dreadful voice. ‘Do they set my wife to spy upon me? Woman, no one that has betrayed Jahan Beg lives another hour!’ What could I do but embrace his knees and kiss his feet, and entreat his mercy for my child’s sake, since he had no pity for me? And he thrust me from him and went out. Never again did I speak to him of the words he uttered in sleep. But I loved him still, and cast about how I might win him to me. At last it seemed to me that there was indeed a reason for my ill-success, for I had given my lord no son. Then, after many tears shed in secret, and many struggles with myself, I said to him, ‘Let my lord choose another wife, who may bear him sons, and I will welcome her into my house, and she shall be to me as a sister, for my lord’s sake, and her children as my own.’ This I did, thinking that he feared to supplant me because I was the King’s cousin—and indeed, all this house and the slaves were part of my dowry, and belong to me—but he laughed, O doctor lady, he laughed at me, though I was giving him that which it broke my heart to offer, and he said, ‘If I desired other wives, I would take them, but one is enough for me.’ Why should my lord visit upon me the evil deeds of that other woman, O doctor lady? for I know that she must have deceived him. But from that day I sought no more to speak to my husband’s heart. And my daughter grew up; but she was like him and his people, and not like me, and he loved her for that reason, so that sometimes I almost hated my own child. But that is long ago, and I remember it to-day only as a warning to thee.”

Georgia’s eyes were full of tears as she took her leave. She had bestowed all her pity hitherto on Nur Jahan, but now she felt more deeply for her mother, whose love, passionate and unrequited, had been to her only a source of pain. The wrong which Jahan Beg had done had been visited not only upon himself, but upon his innocent wife and daughter, and it could not be redressed.

“Sweetheart,” said Dick, anxiously, as he helped Georgia out of the litter on their return, and assisted her to remove the enshrouding burka, “you look awfully fagged. Come and have a turn round the courtyard with me.”

“Do you know, Dick,” she said, looking round at him, “that I am being advised continually not to marry you?”