Hindoo Holiday (18 page)

Now his latest request, produced alternately with questions relating to his petition, is that I should consent to be entertained by him to dinner at his house.

“I am giving a feast to my friends,” he said; “and I have promised them your company, Mr. Ackerley. Will you grant my feast?”

I resist Abdul's invitations. I cannot help it. I distrust his motives too much. This is not to say that I believe he has no genuine affection for me; I think he has; but I cannot welcome it; it is too closely bound up with self-interest. So I made excuses, quite at random, and not very good ones, as he promptly showed. Indian food was not good for European stomachs, I said; it might upset me. But, he hastened to say, he would provide English food for me, whatever I liked; he would give me just the same food as I eat in the Guest House. I then said that in any case I was not free to accept, since I never knew when His Highness might want my company in the evening. Though there was far less truth in this, it seemed to me more impressive than my first line of argument; but, with merciless persistence, he at once exposed its worthlessness. If I could go to dinner with the Sahibs in Rajgarh, I could go to dinner with him. It was easily arranged with His Highness. I was the Sahib and could do as I wished. But perhaps I did not wish? I didn't, but was too polite to say so. Besides, he said, the feast need not be in the evening at all, but in the morning or the afternoon if I preferred; and I need not stay long, only long enough to eat and drink a little, and to see his house, and his little son, and his cat. He wished to show me these things; how could I refuse him?

“You are my friend and I wish to honor you,” he said. “So you must grant my feast because we are friends. You see? In
this
way. So I have your permission? It is granted? Yes, I think so.”

“I'll think about it,” I said feebly.

“But what reason there is? Ah, Mr. Ackerley, if you will not grant my feast, what shall I say to my friends? For I told them all that you would surely grant my feast because of your love for me. They will say you do not love me.”

“And they'll be quite right,” I said with a smile, feeling that if I did not immediately arrest this rapid growth of intimacy there was no knowing where it might not end.

“How is that?” he asked, as though perplexed. “You do not love me?”

“No, Abdul, I don't love you.”

He seemed very concerned.

“Ah, gentleman, but that is not good! If I love you, then you must love me.”

“Why?”

“Indian rule.”

“Nonsense!” I said.

He smirked at this, and then continued, shaking his head:

“Ah, then I was mistaken. I am much ashamed. I said to myself, ‘The Sahib loves me in his heart and will grant my feast.' I said so to my wife, and to my mother, and to my little son. What shall I say to them now?”

“I've no idea what you will say,” I replied, rather crossly.

“I shall be much ashamed before them. What can I do to make you love me?”

He looked at me appealingly, and I did not know how much of all this was honest and how much bunkum.

“Look here, Abdul,” I said, “I'm not much given to feasting and parties, but one day I'll come and have a quiet cup of tea with you alone in your house.”

“And I may not ask my friends?”

“I'd rather come alone.”

“But why may I not ask my friends, Mr. Ackerley?” he inquired, with an impudent smile.

“Oh, English rule!” I said.

He seemed to consider this for a moment or two; then made the best of it.

“Thank you, Mr. Ackerley; thank you. And when shall it be?”

“One day,” I said.

But one cannot evade Abdul. He is quite merciless. My promise is now about a week old, and he has plagued me with it ever since, varying his method of approach according to my temper. If I show irritation at a direct attack he gets at me slyly under the cloak of tuition. Thus I have been made to add to my written vocabulary the Hindi for “to grant,” “feast,” “promise,” “faithless,” and “liar,” and to learn by heart the translation of such phrases as “Can you come to-day?” or “I am disappointed in you,” and it is remarkable how such a process, working upon a sensitive mind, is able to trouble the nerves. In the employment of some such organization as the Inquisition, Abdul would have rendered invaluable service. I have promised to have tea with him on the 11th.

Babaji Rao came up in the evening, and, after clearing his throat, began to talk about the status of Indian women. That their importance in the general scheme of things is entirely subservient is theoretically true, he said; they are the instruments by which a man may get the son whose prayers are so necessary to the peace of his soul after death; but as a matter of fact, in an Indian household, the wife is often a person of influence and even authority, sometimes actually ruling the house and her husband and children too. In any case, chiefly, no doubt, because her instrumental importance is so considerable, there is supposed to be a communion between husband and wife almost as sacred and personal as that between mortals and God. Until quite recently a husband never addressed his wife in the presence of a third person, nor alluded to her directly in conversation; but owing to the inconvenience of such a rule it is now a little relaxed, and a man will converse with his wife in the presence of a near relative, such as a mother or brother, or of such personal servants as a nurse or companion.

I listened attentively to this lecture, and it suddenly occurred to me that he had come expressly with the intention of trying to correct any bad impression which might have been left upon my mind by the Prime Minister the day before yesterday. It was, at any rate, the kind of conscientious thing he would do, and I was glad to have been shown a private domestic interior in the light of his mild and dutiful orthodoxy, after the somewhat depressing pictures suggested by His Highness's indifference, the Prime Minister's cynicism, and Narayan's discontent.

But he had not said very much; only that marriage was the aim, the beginning and end of a woman's life, and could mean for her love, respect, and spiritual development. Of her first years of monotony and neglect, already too plainly hinted at in the case of the Maharajah's daughter by the manner of her reception into this world, he did not speak; nor did he even theorize any happiness for her in widowhood. For an Indian widow may not marry again, and if, as not uncommonly happens, her boy husband succumbs, before the consummation ceremony, to one of the many epidemics prevalent in India, she is condemned to perpetual mourning for him, whom perhaps she cannot even remember, and to a life of domestic drudgery, the loneliness and thanklessness of which it is easy to imagine. As at her birth, no one wants her, but now the opportunity of disposing of her has gone; a child, if she had been able to have one, would have preserved for her, from the wreckage of her single plan, some reason and contact; but now her only importance lies in the performance of those rites for the peace of her husband's soul which would have been the duty of their unborn son.

I wanted to ask Babaji Rao about his own marriage, but felt a little scared by all the etiquette; however, I thought he would not object if I inquired at what age it had taken place, and was pleased to see him receive the question without apparent discomfort. His early life with regard to marriage had been rather tragic, he said, for his first two wives had died before the consummation ceremonies, and he had not accomplished his present successful union (which was his third) until the late age of twenty-one. Two periods of four years had divided these three marriages, so he must have been about twelve or thirteen at the time of his first. I asked him to what extent he had been distressed by these early losses, and he said that by the first he had been no more affected than he would be by the death of some distant acquaintance; but it had been different when his second wife died. He said no more than this, and I respected what appeared to be a still painful thought, remembering His Highness's treatment of the tender memory of the late Mrs. Bramble. But I did very delicately suggest that, considering the superstitious nature of his people, he might have found it rather difficult to make a third
good
match after such a record, and this he endorsed, but added that, as a matter of fact, he had had no difficulty whatever. True, he had not seen his present wife before the marriage; but his aunt had, and from her report and what he himself had gathered from the girl's brother, whom he already knew, he had believed her to be intelligent and even cultured. This was of primary importance to him, coming before beauty; and not only were his expectations fully realized, but she was beautiful into the bargain—a pleasing asset which his aunt had not considered important enough, it seemed, to include in her report.

To-day Abdul gave me the copy he had made of the petition I wrote out for him some days ago, and asked me to present it to His Highness “in the best manner possible.” He then proceeded to explain precisely what he meant by the best manner possible and to compose the kind of speech he wished me to make on his behalf, until I lost patience with him and told him he had better present the petition himself. At about four o'clock we heard the car drive up, and, going out, I told the Maharajah that Abdul wanted to present his petition.

“Tell him I will see him when we come back,” said His Highness, but immediately changed his mind and called after me, “I will see him now.”

I sent for Abdul, and then seated myself in the car. He approached with great humility, beginning his salutations while still some distance away, and then, holding the petition in front of his face between the palms of his hands, he produced a flow of speech, pitched on a low, desolate note, in which the word “Huzoor” (exalted) frequently occurred. He did not once raise his eyes to the royal visage. After his speech had been going on without pause for about two minutes, His Highness suddenly interjected a question, and obtained some information which seemed to give him immense satisfaction, for, ejaculating “Achchha! Achchha!” (good), he leant back in the car and flicked the ash from his cigarette with a triumphant gesture. Meanwhile Abdul's speech was continuing; his hands, relieved of the petition, which he had been told to drop in the car, were now outspread before him, and his eyes turned upwards, so that I guessed he must be saying that for this gracious act of kindness he would pray for His Highness's soul, and for the soul of the Raja Bahadur, and . . . but His Highness had heard enough. At a word from him the car began to turn and the door was slammed in Abdul's face; but he still continued his prayers and supplications through the open window, moving nimbly round with the car, and even following, till he could not keep up any longer and, still moaning, was left behind. His Highness turned a half-veiled eye upon me.

“No man is hero to his valet,” he observed.

“Meaning, Prince?” I asked.

“I did not know who he was until I spoke with him. But now he has told me. I knew his father very well when I was a boy . . .” He began to giggle.

“Yes?” I encouraged.

“Oh, do not ask me! Do not ask me!” he said, tittering, and hid his face in his sleeve.

“Are you going to help him?” I inquired later.

“Yes, yes. I will do for him,” he answered—a remark which, after a moment of mistrust, I accepted in Abdul's favor.

To-day, he shortly afterwards informed me, is Basant day, the day of Spring. In this province the event is now scarcely marked, but in other parts of India it is the gayest of festivals: every one is happy and puts on a yellow garment and worships Mahadeo, the God of Love. Yellow is the Basant color, he said, and at the feast of a Rajputana chief everything would be yellow: not only the carpets, clothes and flowers, but even the food. As we drove along I noticed a certain amount of this color about in the streets of Chhokrapur. I asked if we were to have no celebrations at all, and he said that he had arranged for Napoleon the Third to dance at the Palace in the evening and that I was to come and watch and say exactly what I thought about him. He would be dressed in yellow; but on the following evening I was to come again and see him dance naked and say exactly what I thought about him.

I said that all that would suit me nicely, and asked how the young man was settling down. Apparently he wasn't. Not only were his relatives behaving badly (the second uncle-guardian had now arrived in Chhokrapur to make trouble, while the first still clung disappointingly to life), but Napoleon himself was very restless. In fact he was leaving the State on Monday, probably for ever; that was why His Highness was anxious that I should see him at once. At least, he was
threatening
never to return unless His Highness gave him a present of five hundred rupees as well as the monthly salary of fifty rupees which had been promised him. But if that were granted he would return to His Highness when the latter's pilgrimage was completed. Of course the uncles and aunts were behind all this; they were getting at the boy in private and corrupting him. His Highness had said that it was too much; he would either give Napoleon a lump sum of five hundred rupees, or fifty rupees a month subject to decreasement at the end of a year—and this offer had been refused. So what was His Highness to do? he could not make up his mind.

“What must I do?” he cried mournfully.

“You must be firm,” I said.

But he did not want to lose the boy—for whose future he had already made plans. He had decided that Napoleon should become a lawyer, and I was to take him back to England with me when I returned and have him instructed in this profession. And for a few months every year I was to bring him back to Chhokrapur so that His Highness might see for himself how he was progressing.

“Of course, he is quite illiterate, you know,” he said.

I nodded gravely.

“Is he intelligent?”