Parpom

The next event of supreme importance to Mimosa was her wedding.

On the day when she was telling me about it we were together in my room, along whose wall stand several bookcases.

“I will show the colours of my sdvis,” said Mimosa, rising and going to one of the bookcases. “JT had one like ¢his” — she pointed to Trevelyan’s Garibaldi (bright red) — “and one like this — T ennyson and His Friends (bright green) — ‘“and this” — it was The China Martyrs of 1900, in orange-yellow. A prolonged search from bookcase to bookcase followed, and finally discovered Kim (crimson) and Lord Kelvin’s Life (terracotta-brown), which fairly satisfied her.

And she had plenty of jewels. Her brass was the best of its kind. For all these necessary things her father had left provision. The long, warm day saw her early at the well, with her dark hair parted smoothly and her pretty garments and bright jewels making her more than ever a bird of radiant plumage. And as the sun rose on her ‘as she stood there, a seventeen-year-old bride,

he must have loved to light her like a picture, 25

THE MASTER’S COLLEGE
POWELL LIBRARY
SANTA CLARITA, CA 91321
with the old grey well for foreground and the
wide sky for frame.

But soon to the startled girl the word began to be whispered; all was not as it appeared. She was poor.:

It was true. Her husband, advised by his elder brother, a clever, unprincipled scoundrel, had deceived Mimosa’s mother. He was not only landless; he was neck-deep in debt.

In Mimosa’s family the custom was for the bridegroom to endow the bride with a substantial gift of land before marriage. This the bridegroom had done. It was the only land he had, but, of course, Mimosa’s mother had no idea of this.

Mimosa went to him. He worshipped the ground she walked on (her own idiom; so East and West touch sometimes). When he was with her she could do as she would with him. The trouble was that he was generally with his elder brother, who then held the reins. Mimosa, however, had character and would not be silenced. “I cannot sleep while we owe one farthing,” she

- said,

But this was absurd. Why should she not be able to sleep? What folly possessed her? It was altogether shocking, and he did so dislike shocks.

Now the neighbours, though they had been quiet for a while after the wedding, had not forgotten that Mimosa was not a worshipper of the usual gods. And they were sure mischief would come of it; the marriage would be unlucky. “Parpom,” they had said. “We shall see.” And they had twisted their hands, palms uppermost, in a curious way impossible to show in words, and waved them to and fro as if trying to wave off the impending ill-luck. “Parpom; yes, Parpom.”

Then the helpful elder brother came to the rescue. If Mimosa felt so, there was only one thing to be done. Let her sell her marriage portion, the land now written to her name. Mimosa eagerly consented, and it was done. The brother kindly helped in the transaction, and did not lose by it.

But, landless, how were they to live?

Mimosa went again to her husband, and spoke words that sounded like thunderclaps in his pained, astonished ears.

“Let us work,” she said.

And he gazed at her, half grieved and half admiring, for she was a very lovely vision with her vivid face and her golden jewels, and her little delicate hands and feet. On her arms and ankles were silver bangles hung with little bells that tinkled when she moved. Yes, she was very desirable, that could not be denied.

But flower of delight as his bride might be, she was most perniciously peculiar. What was to be done? Never in his dreamiest dreams had he conceived so strange a thing. Work! Did she say, “Let us work”? But he had never worked, had never thought of working.

What was debt? Would not the sons that were to be pay it off? The interest — yes, that was a worrying item, but, even so, it could accumulate. Let it be. This, up till now, had been his attitude. Now he found himself more or less unwillingly denuded of that rather admirable glory of debt. (If you have no debt, does it not follow that no one trusts you enough to lend you anything, and from that is it not obvious that you are a person of small consequence?) This new proposal staggered him; it would have been so much easier to slide into debt again, But he agreed. Yes, they would work.

The brother-in-law suggested merchandise. That was pleasant. You had only to sit in your little shop-front, one of a dozen such in the bazaar, and wait till people came in to buy. Salt was to be his commodity — easy to store, easy to ladle out. So he agreed.

But money was needed even to start a salt bazaar, and the ever-helpful brother had a brilliant idea. There were Mimosa’s dowry jewels, gathered one by one through careful years by her father. There was especially her great golden garland, the most costly of all. Sell these and start in salt. To earn an honest livelihood Mimosa gave them all.

They were all lost, every jewel of that heap was lost. The brother had wise ways of losing such treasure. Mimosa could do nothing to recover them.

There was hardly anything left that she could sell. The little she could lay her hands on she gathered and gave to her mother; neither husband nor brother-in-law could be trusted to keep it for her. And her mother promised to dole out a small sum every month. When the time came to give it, the mother refused.

“Thou to give thy dowry jewels to thy husband! Even the golden garland! No worthy daughter of mine art thou. No money shalt thou have of me. Let thy God help thee!”

The village heard it and smiled. “Did we not say, ‘Parpdm’?”