At her beckon call by Flora Annie Steele. What is your name? I
asked, Foolly Jane Huzzar, she answered with a brilliant, dazzling smile.
I sat looking at her, wondering if a more appropriate name could have been
found for that figure. Among the anemones and celandines, the primulas, pansies
and pinks, the thousand and one blossoms, which, glowing against their groundwork
of forget me not, formed a jewel mosaic right to the foot of the
snows above us. Flowerful life, truly, that was hers. She had
a great bunch of scarlet rhododendrons stuck behind her ear, matching the cloth cap
perched jauntily on her head, And as she sat herding her buffaloes on the
upland, she had threaded chaplet on chaplet of oxen sied daisies and hung them
about her wherever they could be hung. The result was distinctly flowerful. Her
face also was distinctly pretty, distinctly clean for a Kashmiri girl's, but coquette
flirt minx was written in every line of it and accounted for a most unusual
neatness and brightness She caught my eye and smiled again broadly innocently. The Huzzaur
would like to paint my picture, wouldn't he? She went on in a
tone of certainty. The sab who came last year gave me five rupees.
I will take six this year. Food is dear, and those base born
contractors of the Maharajah seize everything one walnut in ten, one chicken in ten.
But I was not going to be beguiled into the old complaints. I
could hear any and every day for the hags of the village up here on
the Mergh, within a stone's throw of the first patch of snow picketing the
outskirts of the great glacier of Gwashbrari, I liked, if possible, to
forget how vile man could be in the little shingle huts clustering below by the
river. I will not describe the place to begin with, it defies description,
And next could I even hint at its surpassing beauty. The globe trotter
would come and defile it. It is sufficient to say that a merg is
an upland meadow or alp, and that this one, with its forget me
nots and sparkling glaciers was like a turquoise set in diamonds. I had seated
myself on a projecting spur, whence I could sketch a frowning defile northwards,
down which the emerald green river was dashing madly among huge rocks crowned by pine
trees. I will give five rupees also, that is plenty, I remarked
suavely, and Foli Jan smiled again. It must do, for I like
being painted. Only a few sabs come very few, but whenever they see
me, they want to paint me and the flowers, and it makes the
other girls in the village angry. Then go Loo and Chuchu. Here she
went off into a perfect cascade of smiles and began to pull the eyelashes off
the daisies deliberately. There seems a peculiar temptation in girlhood for cruelty towards flowers
all over the world, and Fuli Jan was pre eminently girlish. She looked
eighteen, but I doubt if she was really more than sixteen. Even so,
it was odd to find her unappropriated. So I inquired if Golu or
Chuchu was the happy man my mother is a widow, she replied, without
the least hesitation. It depends which will pay the most. For we are
poor. There are others too, so there is no hurry. They are
at my beck and call. She crooked her forefinger and nodded her head,
as if beckoning to some one, for sheer light hearted, innocent enjoyment of
her own attraction. I never saw the equal of that face. I should
have made my fortune if I could have painted it there in the blazing sunlight,
framed in flowers, But it was too much for me. Therefore I
asked her to move to the right, further along the promontory, so that
I could put her in the foreground of the picture I had already begun there
by that first clump of iris, I said, pointing to a patch of
green sword leaves where the white and lilac blossoms were beginning to show. She
gave a perceptible shudder. What sit on a grave? Not? I do
not the huzor Now that those are graves, It is true, all our
people are buried here. We plant the iris over them always. If you
ask why, I know not. It is the flower of death. A
sudden determination to paint her The flowerful life against the flowerful death completely obliterated the
knowledge of my own incompetence. But I urged and bribed in vain FOOLI John
would not stir. She would not even let me pick a handful of the
flowers for her to hold. It was unlucky. Besides, one never knew
what one might find in the thickets of leaves, bones, and horrid things.
Had I never heard that dead people got tired of their graves and tried
to get out. Even if they only wanted something in their graves, they
would stretch forth a hand to get it. That was one reason why people
covered them up with flowers, just to make them more contented. The idea
of stooping to cull the flower and shaking hands with a corpse was distinctly unpleasant,
even in the sunlight. So I gave up the point and began to
sketch the girl as she sat, rather a difficult task, for she chattered
incessantly. Did I see that thin blue thread of smoke in the dark pole
of pine trees covering the bottom of the valley. That was Golu's fire.
He was drying orris root for the Maharajah. There on the opposite merg where
the buffaloes showed dark among the flowers, was Chuchu's hut. Undoubtedly Chuchu was
the richer, but Golu could climb like an ibex. It was he whom
the Huzur was going to take as a guide to the peak. He could
dance too. The huzor should see him dance the circle dance round the fire.
No one turned so slowly as Golu. He would not frighten a young
lamb, except when he was angry. Me well jealous if the Huzar thought
that a better word. By the time she had done chattering, there was
not a petal left on the oxide daisies, and I was divided between pity
and envy towards Golu and Chutchu. That evening, as usual, I set
my painting to dry on the easel at the door of the tent. As
I lounged by the camp fire smoking my pipe, a big young man coming
in with a jar of buffalo milk on his shoulder and a big bunch of
red rhododendron behind his ear, stopped and grinned at my caricature of Foli John.
Five minutes after down by the servant's encampment, I heard a free fight
going on and strolled over to see what was the matter. After the manner
of cashmiri quarrels, it had ended almost as it began for the race love
peace that it had so ohen it was not. However, I saw at
a glance the fault of the smaller of the antagonists, who was being forcibly
held back by my Shikhari Chatchu. That man there wanted to charge Golu.
This man here the same price for milk as he does, Your Honor,
explained the Shikari elaborately. That was extortionate. Even though Golu, being the
Huzur's guide for tomorrow, may be said to be your Honor's servant for the
time. I have settled the matter justly, the Huzar need not give thought
to it. I looked at the two recipients of Fuli Jan's favor with interest,
for that the bunches of rhododendron they both wore were her gift. I
did not doubt they were both fine young men, but Golu was distinctly the
better looking of the two. If a trifle sinister. Despite the recommendation of
my shikari to cast thought aside, the incident lingered in my memory, and
I mentioned it to Fulijung when, on returning to finish my sketch, I
found her waiting for me among the flowers. Her smile was more brilliant than
ever. They will not hurt each other, she said, Chuchu knows that
Golu is more active, and Golu knows that Chuchu is stronger. It is
like the dogs in our village. I was not thinking of them, I
replied, I was thinking of you, supposing they were to quarrel with you.
She laughed. They will not quarrel In summer time. There are plenty
of flowers for everybody. I thought of those red rhododendrons and could not repress
a smile at her bare faced wisdom of the serpent. And in the winter
time, then I will marry one of them, or some one. I
have only to choose. That is all. They are at my beck and
call. Three years passed before recurring leave enabled me to pay another visit to
the mergh. The rhododendrons were once more on the uplands, and as I
turned the last corner of the pine set path which threaded its way through the
defile. I saw the meadow before me, with its mosaic of flowers bright
as ever. The memory of Fuli Jan came back to me, as she
had sat in the sunshine, nodding and beckoning fully Jun echoed the old patriarch
who came out to welcome me. As I crossed the plank bridge to the
village. Fuli Jan, the hood girl Hussor, she is dead. She
died from picking flowers, a vain thing. It was at the turn beyond
the mergh Hussor, halfway between Chuchu's hut and Golou's drying stage. There is
a big rhododendron tree hanging over the cliff, and she must have fallen down.
It is three years gone, three years then it must have happened almost
immediately after I left the valley. The idea upset me. I knew not
why the merk without that flowerful life, nodding and beckoning, felt empty,
and I found myself wondering if indeed the girl had fallen down, or if
she had played with flowers too recklessly, and one of her lovers perhaps both.
It was an idea which dimmed the sunshine, and I was glad that
I had arranged not to remain for the night, but to push on to
another meadow, some six miles further up the river. To do so,
however, I required a fresh relay of Cooli's, and while my shikhari was
arranging for this in the village, I made my way by a cross cut
to the promon tree with its pass of iris. Deaths are rare in these
small communities, and there were but two or three new graves, all but
one too recent to be poor Foolijan's. That then must be hers, with
its still clearly defined oblong of viris, already a mass of pale, purple
and white. I sat down on a rock and began unromantically to eat my
lunch. Finishing up with a pull at my flask, and thus providentially fortified,
I stooped leaving to pick one or two of the blossoms from the grave,
intending to paint them round the sketch of the girl's head, which I
had with me. Great heavens, what was that? I turned positively sick
with horror and doubt. Was it a hand? It? For some time
before I could force myself to set aside the sheathing leaves and settle the point
something. It was, something which, even as I parted the stems fell
to pieces, as the skeleton of a beckoning hand might have done. I
did not stay to see more. I let the flowers close over it,
whatever it was, and made my way back to the village. My baggage,
having changed shoulders, was streaming out over the plank bridge again, and
in the two first bearers carrying my cook room pots and pans, I recognized
Golou and Chutchu. They had both grown stouter and wore huge bunches of red
rhododendron behind their ears. I found out on inquiry that they were both married
and had become bosom friends. I have not seen the turk sat in diamonds
sense, but I often think of it and wonder what it was. I
saw among the iris, and then I seemed to see Foli Jan sitting among
the flowers, nodding her head and saying, they are at my beck and
call. If I were Golu or Chuchu, I would be buried somewhere else,
and of at her beck and call by Flora Annie Steele