VII
One evening resonant with the newly-set-in seasonal rain, Mahendra, with scented muslin scarf and a garland of white jasmine round his neck, jauntily came to his room, creeping up tiptoe, with the idea of surprising Asha. Peeping through the door he found the rain streaming in, with the gusts of wind, through the open east window; the lamp had got blown out; and Asha, lying on the bed on the floor, was shaking with suppressed sobs.
Mahendra bounded to her side and asked, "What is the matter?"
The girl burst into another fit of sobbing, and it was some time before he succeeded in finding out from her that their aunt, unable to bear it any longer, had left the house and gone off to stay with a cousin.
"If she had to go," thought Mahendra irritably, "why need she have spoilt for me this lovely rainy evening!"
In the end all his irritation got focussed on to his mother, she was the root of all the trouble!
"Where Kaki has gone, let us go too," said he; "then we'll see with whom mother can pick a quarrel:" with which he began to pack up his things with a lot of needless noise, and to shout for porters.
Rajlakshmi understood. She slowly went up to Mahendra and mildly asked, "Where are you going?"
Mahendra at first gave her no reply, but after the question had been repeated several times he answered "We're going to Kaki."
"You needn't go anywhere at all," said Rajlakshmi; "I'll bring you your Kaki here."
She at once sent for a palanquin and went off to Annapurna's lodgings. . With the end of her sari[1] round her neck, and palms joined in an attitude of abject humility, she said, "Be merciful, Mistress Aunt, and pardon me."
Annapurna, terribly exercised, bent low and took the dust of Rajlakshmi's feet. "Why make me guilty of impropriety[2], Sister," she wailed, "am I not yours to command?"
The mortified Rajlakshmi sobbed back in her exasperation, "My son and his wife want to leave the house because you have come away."
The sisters-in-law came back home together.
It was still raining. By the time Annapurna reached Mahendra's room, Asha's fit of crying had been soothed and Mahendra was trying to make her laugh with his sallies. Judging by appearances, the rainy evening could not have been so hopelessly wasted after all!
"Chuni!" said Annapurna, "Isn't it enough to make it impossible for me to stay in this house, but you must also pursue me when I'm out of it? Am I not to have any peace at all?"
Asha winced like a stricken deer. Mahendra was fearfully incensed. "What has Chuni done to you, Kaki," he asked, "that you should go on like this?"
"I went away," replied Annapurna, "because I could not bear to see this chit of a girl so shameless. What made the miserable creature drag me back by bringing tears to her mother-in-law's eyes?"
Mahendra never knew before how effectually mothers and aunts can mar the most poetic episodes of life.
The next day Rajlakshmi sent for Vihari and said, "Will you speak to Mahin for me, my child? It's a long while since I've been to my native village of Baraset. I should like to pay the place a visit."
"Since you haven't been there for so long, why not stay away a little longer?" said Vihari. "I'll speak to Dada if you like, but I'm sure he'll never allow you to leave him."
Vihari did not at all like the readiness with which Mahendra gave his consent. "If you let mother go alone, who's to look after her?—Why not send sister Asha[3] with her?" he suggested with the hint of a smile.
Mahendra felt the implied taunt as he retorted, "What makes you think I can't do that?" But there the matter dropped.
Vihari seemed to find a sort of dry pleasure in saying things which he knew Asha would not like, and which would set her against him.
It is hardly necessary to mention that Rajlakshmi was not excessively anxious to revisit the place of her birth. As, when the river is low in summer, the boatman has to keep on sounding with his pole,—so in this ebb-tide of affection between mother and son, Rajlakshmi was feeling her way. That she should so soon touch bottom, with her proposal of going to Baraset, was more than she had expected. "There seems to be some difference," she thought to herself, "between my leaving home, and Annapurna's leaving home. She is an accomplished schemer, while I am only a mother. So I suppose I'd better go."
Annapurna grasped the situation and said, "If sister goes I can't remain."
"Do you hear, mother," said the tactless Mahendra, "if you go, Kaki will go also; how then are we to keep house?"
"Nonsense, Mistress Aunt," said Rajlakshmi, burning with a jealous hatred of the woman; "why should you go? Don't you see you are wanted here? you must stay on!"
Rajlakshmi could not brook further delay. The very next afternoon she was ready to start. Vihari did not, nor for the matter of that did anyone else, doubt for a moment that Mahendra would accompany his mother on the journey. But when the time came, it was found that Mahendra had arranged for a servant to go with her.
When Vihari inquired, "Dada, how is it you're not ready yet?" and Mahendra shamefacedly started to explain, "You see, my college—," Vihari cut him short with "All right, you stay on, I'll take mother along."
Mahendra was wroth, and when alone with Asha, remarked, "Vihari is really getting too bad. He wants to make out that he cares more for mother than I do!"
Annapurna had to remain; but she felt utterly shamed and crushed, and shrank within herself. Mahendra resented her aloofness, and Asha, too, showed that she felt aggrieved.
- ↑ The one piece of cloth which is draped round the body to form the Indian woman's garment.
- ↑ It is accounted very bad form to allow an elder to take up a position or attitude of inferiority.
- ↑ It is not respectful to call any one situated as an elder by name only—hence some relationship has to be established. Sister is an equivalent, not the translation, of the Bengali term.