1 a vizier's daughter - Hazara.net

55
A VIZIER’S DAUGHTER – A TALE OF THE HAZARA WAR
Never for one moment let them imagine that you put yourself on a level
with his women. Show them from the first moment who you are and
who you mean to remain. That you are, in fact, Ghulam Hossain’s
daughter, not Mohamed Jan’s affianced wife. If you were to begin by
putting yourself on an equality with people like that, there is no
knowing what advantage they might not take of you. Make them wait
on you from the ver y first, or, my goodness, before you know what has
happened you may find yourself waiting u pon them.”
“Never fear,” the girl answered proudly, “I shall never let them fancy
themselves m y equals. My father has sent them handsome presents for
this favour that they are showing him, and is willing to give them
more, if he is satisfied with their treatment of me. He has told me that
himself. They will be well paid.”
“Assuredly, most assuredly,” the old lady went on. “Ghulam Hossain
may have faults in that he thinks he knows more than any man that ever
lived, but he is not mean. No one could accuse him of ever doing
anything shabby – on the contrar y, if half your mother tells me is true,
he goes too far the other way and is over generous with his goods, and
is extravagant in his habits; too fond of fine clothes and plenty of
them.”
“My father has the ver y simplest taste,” the girl said coldly, “but he
knows what is due to himself in his position, and he insists on having
it.”
The old lad y was much struck with the girl’s whole attitude any way of
expressing herself, and was somewhat mollified; she felt sure she had
been the means of advising her granddaughter how to behave during
her coming visit, and she was not without hopes that all might yet go
well.
“You have taken your embroidery, I hope? You must show them how
girls of your positions are accustomed to employ themselves,” the old
lad y went on after a pause. “It is a beautiful kind of work that those
poor Kandahar women do. It is well that you have learnt it.” But Gul
Begum did not answer, she was watching some fat partridges in the
road that almost seemed to tempt their natural enem y, man, to destroy
them, they kept so close to the little advancing party, only flying on a
few paces ahead , soon to be caught up again. “If I were a partrid ge,”
she kept thinking, “I would spread my wings and fly far, far away,
beyond all harm, off to the wild hills where there is no one to entrap
and to destro y. I would not linger round these frequented paths.”
Quite a large part y of Mohamed Jan’s friends and relat ions met the
travellers about a mile outside their village, all waiting and ready to
escort the girl to what the y believed was to be her new home; two
donkeys laden with sweets being perhaps the most noticeable feature in
the group.