Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

Remembering her promise to Nur Jahan’s father, however, Georgia composed her face and took her usual seat beside her patient. The Queen was so much more cheerful this morning, that it was evident she enjoyed the presence of her daughter-in-law and grandson; and after a while, to Georgia’s delight, she brightened visibly at Nur Jahan’s suggestion that, when the operation had been successfully performed, she would be able to see the baby. When the medical examination was over, the young wife felt herself at liberty to talk, and Georgia learnt that, although she had now come for a few days to the Palace solely for the purpose of cheering her mother-in-law, she had not quitted it very long. When Rustam Khan fell into disfavour, he had put his wife and her week-old baby under his mother’s protection at once, fearing that neither his house nor that of Jahan Beg would be safe from the rabble of the city, who were warm partisans of Fath-ud-Din. With high glee, Nur Jahan narrated how her husband had come to visit her in secret, always at hours when the King was not likely to enter the harem, disguised sometimes as a woman and sometimes as a negro, in order to escape the Vizier’s spies; and how once he had actually met his father outside the Queen’s door, but stepping aside respectfully, had passed him without being recognised under the thick veil. To Georgia, the possibility of such adventures within the sacred walls of the harem was a new thing, and she enjoyed the gusto with which Nur Jahan related them. But the Queen thought differently, and began to moan feebly, as she pulled at the edge of the coverlet.

“Thou art always thus, Nur Jahan,” she said, querulously; “laughing and rejoicing when thy lord is in peril of his life. An Ethiopian woman, seeing her husband in such straits, would have shed an ocean of tears, and refused to be comforted until times had changed; but I have seen thee, when Rustam Khan had but just gone from thee, planning eagerly how he should enter the Palace on the next occasion, without letting fall a tear.”

“But it was that which pleased my lord, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, eager to defend herself. “What delight had there been in our meetings, if I had only sat at his feet and bedewed them with tears? There was so much to tell, and so much to hear; how could I weep when my lord was with me? And when he was gone, was it not happier for me to consider how I might see him again, rather than weep because he could not be with me still?”

“Go thy ways, Nur Jahan,” said the elder woman, bitterly. “Thou too wilt one day learn that although the life of all women is sad, that of a woman who is also a king’s wife is saddest of all. How canst thou love thy lord as I, his mother, love him? Thine eyes are as bright as when he married thee, while mine are blind with weeping for him. But he loves the bright eyes better than the blind ones, and is it to be wondered at?” and the Queen rocked herself to and fro, and wailed hopelessly.

“O my mother, wilt thou break my heart?” sobbed Nur Jahan, throwing herself down beside her. “Can we not both love my lord? I know well that thy love for him has lasted longer, but must it needs be greater than mine? My lord’s love is my life, and yet thou wilt not believe it because I do not always weep when I am sad. O doctor lady, dost thou not believe that I love my lord?”

“What does the doctor lady know of it?” demanded the Queen. “But thou art my son’s beloved, Nur Jahan, and for that I love thee also. But I would thou wert as we are. Thou art of the idolaters through thy father, and thou dost not grow like us. But thy life is like ours, and, as years pass on, it will be more and more like mine, and if thou dost not weep then, what wilt thou do? Those who do not weep go mad.”

It was evident to Georgia that Nur Jahan was comforting herself with the thought that her husband was very unlike his father, while the Queen expected that in course of time he would exactly resemble him; but she saw that the excitement was bad for her patient, and interposed prosaically, with a suggestion as to the preparation of beef-tea, which Nur Jahan took up at once, displaying practical powers which encouraged Georgia to give her a first lesson in home nursing. But in spite of this cheering fact, Georgia’s heart still ached as she was carried back to the Mission in her litter, for she could not forget the contrast between the girlish form of Nur Jahan and the bowed and broken figure of the old Queen, who seemed so sure that her daughter-in-law’s life must one day come to resemble her own. But there was a trait in Nur Jahan’s character which had no part in that of the Queen, and which would go far to render her lot even harder—the adventurous spirit which her mother-in-law so bitterly resented, and which had caused her to find a certain enjoyment in the shifts and devices to which her husband had been obliged to have recourse in order to see her.

“Jahan Beg ought to have escaped from the country and brought her to England, as he thought of doing,” was Georgia’s mental comment. “It is his spirit she inherits, and it is cruel of him to rest satisfied with the life to which he has condemned her. She is ready to welcome any excitement, even of a disagreeable kind, as a relief to the monotony of her existence. I can see that she is pining for outside interests, though she doesn’t know it. In a man of English blood this would seem quite natural and proper to every one, and why should it be different for a woman? And what a life it is to which she has to look forward! Even if Rustam Khan keeps his promise and marries no other wife, she can only spend her days in doing nothing. Nothing to do for husband or children, in the house or outside, and to be surrounded by a number of other women as idle as herself! ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.’ I had rather have my thirty-two years of life than the poor Queen’s fifty, queen and wife and mother though she is. Her only advantage in being Queen is that she must not do the little pieces of work which would have fallen to her in another position. As a wife she has to share her husband with an indefinite number of other women, and as a mother she sees her sons treated like Rustam Khan, and her daughters condemned to the same kind of life as herself. Perhaps Nur Jahan’s children may inherit enough of her character to enable them to break the spell; but I am afraid the change won’t come in her time. The East moves so slowly.”

Since Georgia’s thoughts had been so deeply stirred on this subject, it was not wonderful that she communicated her views to Dick when they happened to be talking on the terrace that evening. She felt it a necessity to share her reflections with some one, and to her surprise he received them with unwonted meekness.

“Kipling doesn’t agree with you,” was all he said in answer to her estimate of the probable happiness of the Eastern as compared with that of the Western woman.