As Barakah, caressed by all of them, received this outpour, her feeling of homecoming was complete. And when she came to her own gilded salon—the same where she had sipped the poison which seemed now a dream—there was a slave-girl of Murjânah Khânum’s waiting to conduct her to the bath, with a present of rare flowers and fruit, and a robe of honour which she was to don, when she had rested, for supper in Murjânah Khânum’s rooms, where all the ladies were invited to meet her.
The ladies, having voided their own news, desired a full account of Paris and her doings. “Inshallah, thou wast happy there!” they all exclaimed. When she replied, “My happiness is here with you,” the answer gave unbounded satisfaction. From their remarks she learnt, to her no small amazement, that Hâfiz Bey was the son of her old friend Amînah Khânum.
“Thou didst not know?” they cried. “How can that be? And Bedr-ul-Budûr—surely thou hast heard of her—the slave whose beauty the Princess was always vaunting? It is very strange!”
The placid gossip and the shaded calm existence were delightful after months of agitation. Barakah fell into the harem habits with enthusiasm, devouring sweetstuff at all hours, enjoying cigarettes and the narghile. The best part of her morning was spent at the bath, where the ladies met for gossip and for healthful exercise; her afternoon in seeing visitors or paying visits. Gulbeyzah came to see her, radiating gladness, extolling not her husband but her fellow-wives.
“We spend such merry days together,” she informed her friend. “Oh, how much better than to be an only wife!”
When Barakah returned the visit, she was received by the four durrahs with one voice of welcome. The four together formed a charming small society, quite independent of the husband’s humours and the outside world. All their possessions they enjoyed in common, even children. Barakah was begged to come and see them often, and to love them all.
She would have been completely happy in those days but for embarrassment arising from a secret which she longed yet feared to tell. She was with child. Suspicion grew to certainty and still she put off the announcement, dreading the outcry of these candid women and the harem ceremonies. It slipped from her by accident, one afternoon, and the fuss they made proved even worse than expectation.
Amînah Khânum brought Bedr-ul-Budûr to see her, saying:
“This girl of mine has news to tell you.”
The old Princess herself proclaimed the news with praise to Allah. A flush suffused the listener from head to foot.
“I too—” she murmured, and then stopped in great confusion. Amînah Khânum pounced on her with eager questions. Bedr-ul-Budûr knelt down before her in an ecstasy.
“Thou, too, art blest? And thou hast kept it secret all this while?” the Princess cried. “O Bedr, go and beg the lady Fitnah to come hither instantly!”
“No, no!” entreated Barakah, distraught with shame.
“Yes, yes!” replied the other, scoffing at her. “Is this the famed false modesty of England? Praise God Most High that thou art fruitful, praise Him loudly!”
The joy of Fitnah Khânum passed all bounds. She sent a messenger at once to Yûsuf, another to the Pasha, with the tidings. The Pasha came at once to pay his compliments to Barakah. Yûsuf came later, having thought it necessary to circulate the happy news among his friends. Ghandûr, who, as the water-carrier of the apartment, sat always in the alley, underneath the lady’s lattice, was heard intoning a loud song of triumph, three parts prayer, of which each verse concluded with: “Twin boys, inshallah!”
Joy-shrieks resounded; the whole household smiled; her friends thronged round her, informed of her good luck as if by miracle, for black-shrouded newsbearers were ever flitting by shadowed walls, along the edge of crowded markets, linking the great harems in one society, and what was done in one was known in all. And Barakah alone saw any call for shame or reticence.
From that day forth she was the idol of her little world, her every want forestalled by warm solicitude. Murjânah Khânum talked to her in a religious strain; Fitnah, more homely, prepared dainties for her; the Pasha’s sister came and told her stories. The very children talked aloud of her condition, and hailed it as a blessing to the house.
She had a good excuse for shunning the festivities which took place on the arrival of the Emperor of the French in Cairo; though her husband was employed in the reception, and all the ladies were agog to see the Empress. She wished to be entirely Oriental. Frankish talk disgusted her. Any reminder that the Europeans still existed was annoying; how much more to hear them vaunted by her Eastern friends. Yûsuf himself made fun of her fanaticism. The women humoured her conceit with knowing smiles.
Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr, both in the same condition, were her constant visitors. Amînah Khânum gave advice in her brusque way, and as the Englishwoman’s time drew near, did more for her protection than she knew of in her illness; impressing on Muhammad Pasha through Murjânah the necessity of calling in a Frankish doctor, and herself procuring from the Mufti the religious judgment which stilled the angry outcry of the harem midwives.
The hour of trial came at length—an anguish worse than death, succeeded by a happiness as calm as heaven. From the cries of jubilation filling all the house, from the blessings showered on her within the chamber, she knew that she had borne a son. She saw the blue of evening at the lattice, heard the murmur of the tired city like a voice of waters, and, lulled by vast contentment, fell asleep.
XIX
Never in her life had Barakah seen
