British -- Asia -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Soldiers -- Fiction
She could hardly bring her trembling lips to utter the name, but it
disarmed the angry protest she had read in his face. The child which
had cost Penelope’s life! how could he regard it with anything but
aversion? but how she had loved to think of it, planned for it, worked
for it! He turned to Lady Haigh.
“I will see the--the child at once, if you please, that you may feel
more at ease. Then Tarleton must take you in hand. Haigh must not be
left alone, as I am.”
The ayah stood in the doorway, with a curiously wrapped-up bundle in
her arms. Lady Haigh took it from her, and started in surprise, for on
the child’s forehead was a large black smudge, something in the shape
of a cross.
“Who did this?” she asked sharply. “Please take her, Colonel Keeling.
My arms are so weak.”
“My Memsahib did it herself,” whimpered the ayah sullenly, with a
frightened glance towards the bed.
“Nonsense, Dulya! Make her say what it is,” she appealed to Colonel
Keeling.
“Speak!” he said, in the tone which no native ever disobeyed.
“It was shortly before the--the end, sahib, and Haigh Sahib’s Mem had
swooned, so that the Doctor Sahib was busy with her, and my Memsahib,
who had the _baba_ lying beside her, asked me for water. Then I
brought it, and she made that mark which the Sahib sees, on the
_baba’s_ forehead, and uttered a spell in the language of the Sahibs,
saying ‘Jājia! Jājia!’ very loud. Then I saw that she was making a
charm to avert the evil eye from the _baba_, but that her soul was
even then departing, so that she used water instead of something that
could be seen. Therefore, when she was dead, I made the mark afresh
with lamp-black, saying ‘Jājia! Jājia!’ as my Memsahib had done,
that her wish might be fulfilled. But the English words I knew not.
Perhaps the Sahib can say them?” she added anxiously.
“What can it mean?” asked Lady Haigh, who had dropped into a chair.
“She was baptising her,” said Colonel Keeling simply. “Poor little
Georgia--Penelope’s baby!”
“Surely she must have meant Georgiana or Georgina?” suggested Lady
Haigh, delighted to see him interested in the child.
“No, it was a fancy of hers, she told me so once. She wanted to name
it after me, but she didn’t wish people to think my name was George.”
He spoke with a laugh which was more like a sob.
“I know. She had a dislike to the name.” Lady Haigh knew well why this
was. “She would never even call you St George, I noticed.”
He bent over the child to hide the working of his face, and kissed its
forehead. “It’s not even like her,” he said, as he gave it back to
Lady Haigh.
“No; she was so pleased it was like you. Colonel Keeling, don’t steel
your heart against the poor little thing! Think how Penelope loved it.
I know she hoped it would comfort you.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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