III. A FAIR COUNSELLOR
Ten years of Nobo Kumar's wise and careful management had brought the estates of Birnagar and Debipur into order. Villages which had been deserted during the wars of the Moguls and the Afghans were repopulated. Husbandmen and labourers rebuilt their huts on the old homesteads which they had left in panic. Fields overgrown with weeds and jungle were brought under the plough. Village boys picked up bullets and broken muskets from the fields, and their fathers told them stories of the marches and counter-marches of armies they had witnessed. Old soldiers who had followed Dayud Khan or Todar Mull now sat by the evening fire under the pepul tree, and spoke of the deeds they had performed. The stories lost nothing by the rehearsing, the incidents of the war became more and more marvellous as they were repeated from year to year, and admiring listeners looked up to the grey-headed narrators as men of a heroic age, whose deeds a younger generation could never hope to emulate.
A suspicious and watchful world could find no fault in Nobo Kumar's management of the estates. He retained and rewarded the old servants of Birnagar. He showed respect to the memory of Noren's grandfather. He maintained all the charitable institutions, all the temples, all the Dharamsalas which Noren's ancestors had founded. And quietly controlling the entire administration, he avoided that outward show of power which excites popular alarm. When Raja Man Singh came as Governor of Bengal and visited Birnagar, he found reasons to be satisfied with the arrangement which had been made by Raja Todar Mull. More than this, he bestowed honours on Nobo Kumar for his faithful service, and he confirmed the royal promise to restore Debipur to him when the heir of Birnagar came of age.
A few, very few of the old servants of Noren's grandfather, who were now hoary-headed, saw farther. They saw—or thought they saw—that under a smiling face and a kindly behaviour the manager harboured a deep design and a settled purpose. They noticed that Nobo Kumar had quietly and secretly won over every agent in the two estates to his cause. They observed that emissaries from Birnagar were busy in every village and every market-place. And they also perceived that the outworks of Debipur were strengthened, the armed retainers of Debipur were increased. What all this meant they only guessed, but dared not speak. Only when they met their old master's grandson—now a handsome and high-spirited young man—they would take him apart and whisper suspicions into his ears.
"Raja Todar Mull," they said, "is a brave General, and Raja Man Singh is an able Ruler, but they see not into Nobo Kumar's dark soul. Your grandfather's estate is in his iron grip, and Nobo Kumar is not the man to relinquish his hold. Young man, beware!"
Right in the midst of the bazaar, in the most crowded part of the town stood the stately Zemindari House, known as the Rajbari or Palace. Portions of it, built two or three hundred years before, were somewhat out of repair; other portions had been added from time to time; while the new audience-hall had been built by Noren's grandfather, and proudly looked out on the street and the bazaar. It was in this hall that the old Zemindar had received Raja Todar Mull, and it was here that Nobo Kumar had more recently received Raja Man Singh.
A spacious quadrangle in the outer house was surrounded on all sides by structures. Swarms of people from every part of the extensive estate crowded this quadrangle from morning to night, for seclusion and retirement were not the ideas of the olden times. The house of a Zemindar was like a public office, and a Feudal Lord loved to live among his people, and in constant touch with his people. All the public offices were located in the lower storey, round the quadrangle. Village officials came here to pay in the rents collected in villages, and to render their accounts. Headmen of villages came with petitions for abatement of rents on account of drought, for the construction of an irrigation tank, or for advances for the purchase of plough cattle or the rebuilding of huts. Disputes were settled, cases were adjudicated, and offenders were punished by officers appointed by the Zemindar. And sometimes the Zemindar himself presided over these proceedings, and groups of men poured into the quadrangle with no other object than to see the Chief who maintained peace in the land.
The upper storey, all round the quadrangle, was meant for habitation. The state rooms, described above, were in the front; while behind the quadrangle rose the pile of latticed apartments for women. The stateliest room here was reserved for Noren; while Hemlata and her mother occupied humbler apartments. Crowds of women, related to the Zemindar's family, found shelter with their children in this august house, according to the custom of the East.
Behind the women's apartments again there was another quadrangle frequented only by the women of the house. This inner quadrangle presented a picture of domestic work and domestic life. Stores of rice and grain were kept; daily supplies of milk and curd, fish and vegetables, were received, and the kitchen fire blazed from morning to midnight. Busy matrons and women-servants worked all day long, and little children enlivened the place with their boisterous games. In a corner of this inner quadrangle was the Family Temple, where the family priest chanted his prayers, amidst the tinkling of bells and the blowing of shells, morning and evening.
The gardens attached to the house lay further beyond. A spacious lake, surrounded by fruit trees, was bounded by a wall on all sides; and small doors in the wall communicated with the town. Hindu custom did not prevent ladies of the highest rank from frequenting the town, to have their morning ablutions in the sacred river, to offer prayers in a distant temple, or to visit an esteemed neighbour. And when the ladies of the Zemindar's house paid such visits they generally used the inner gates, avoiding the outer quadrangle.
Nobo Kumar's wife was a typical Zemindar's lady of the olden days, proud and august, strict in the performance of religious rites, unwearied in the discharge of her duties as mistress of a vast household. She bathed in the Ganges every morning before sunrise, offered her worship in a temple which Noren's grandfather had built in the Palace gardens, and busied herself the whole day in the endless work of the house. Simple in her own habits, she took her mid-day meal after all the men and all the children had been fed, and then sought a little rest, according to the custom of the East. Once again in the evening she proudly presided over household duties and the evening meals, and late at midnight she stole into the kitchen to have her own before she retired to bed. Her word was law in the large family of relations and dependants living in the Palace, and her wise counsel was often sought and valued, even in affairs of the estate by her husband. And the women of the family whispered among themselves that the strong and imperious Nobo Kumar, the virtual ruler of vast estates, did not often care to face his august lady when she had determined to have her own way.
Perhaps because she was herself a descendant of the Birnagar house, or perhaps because a woman's kindly heart was touched by the helpless condition of an orphan boy noble in descent and handsome in face, Nobo Kumar's wife came to love Noren with a mother's love. She tended him with the same affection that she bestowed on Hemlata, and smiled to see the two children playing together in the gardens or by the lake. And she would not be a woman if some deeper thought about their future life did not sometimes rise in her fond maternal bosom.
For Hemlata had come to the marriageable age of twelve, and Noren was nearly sixteen, and one morning she found them together in the Palace gardens as she was returning from her morning bath. Noren was fetching water from the lake, and Hemlata was watering some jasmine bushes which she had herself planted. Hemlata's mother paused awhile and looked at the happy children, and that day she made up her mind. And a mother's fond wishes mingled in her prayers as she bowed before the image in the garden temple.
Late in the afternoon, when Nobo Kumar was resting himself after his mid-day meal, his wife came and sat by the bedside, and bending forward so as to meet her husband's eyes with her dark noble eyes, she spoke:
"Thy face is pale with anxiety and care, my husband, and thine eyes have lost their wonted glow. Much I fear thy ceaseless work is telling on thy health."
"A man has many cares and many duties, my wife. How can a woman comprehend them?"
"Yet fain would a wife know something of her husband's anxieties, so that she may share them, and try to remove them. Methinks some new weight is pressing on thy mind since some weeks past, and sometimes thy wife has been judged worthy of sharing thy troubles."
"It is true, dear wife, new anxieties are pressing on me with every passing year, and thy counsel is ever of value to me. The time is not far distant when the young Noren will claim his own."
"And thou wilt have won the approbation of all good men, my lord, and even of the Great Raja at Rajmahal, by having brought up a helpless orphan boy and restored to him the estate of his fathers. Great will be thy glory and fame in the land."
"Ay, mighty is the glory of being a humble manager of a House where my great ancestors never set foot except as equals or betters! Thou wert once the mistress of Debipur, lady, can'st thou not feel as a Zemindar's lady should?"
"I feel as well as thyself, husband. By the will of the Great Bhagavan we will win back our position and rank and estate once more."
"God helping, we will! And Depibur will enjoy a higher glory than before if Nobo Kumar has not lost his wonted skill."
"Be it so, my husband. And Bhagavan, who has rescued us from past dangers, is preparing the way to a greater glory in the future."
"Speak plainly, my wife. I guess thou hast some ideas in the matter, and thy wisdom has ever helped me in my endeavours."
"How old is our girl Hemlata, my lord?"
"Why, she is twelve now. She was two when we came to Debipur, and that was ten years ago."
"And is it not meet and proper that we should be thinking of her marriage now?"
"Thou art right, my wife, but I have not thought of it. The noblest in the land would demand the hand of the heiress of Debipur if we were masters of the estate now. But very few seek the alliance so long as we are humble servants at Birnagar!"
"I know not that, my lord; the hand of the heiress of Debipur is sought by many a likely suitor, and many are the offers which come to me from far and nigh. But it would break a mother's heart to part with the only child that the Most High has bestowed on us. No, my lord, I cannot see Hemlata part and live."
"Enough, enough, my wife. Hemlata is as dear to me as to thee. She shall be my heiress, and the proudest suitor in the land will be happy to come and stay at Debipur and rule her estate for her when we are gone."
"Hast thou seen thy ward, young Noren, lately?"
"Yes, I see him pretty often. But why dost thou ask?"
"A handsome boy, is he not, my lord? My woman's eyes have seldom seen so bright a face and so noble a demeanour."
"Ay, ay, the boy has a pretty face enough, and thinks no end of himself. But he is a morose lad, full of silly ideas which designing men have put into his head."
"Make some allowance for his birth and position, my husband. If he is a proud boy, has he not reason to be proud? And will not a proper pride become him when he fills the place his grandfather held before?"
"Ha! Ha! Ha! that spoilt lad will never be what his grandfather was! His grandfather was a man, and I say it though he did me little good."
"Trust me, husband, for in this a woman is always the best judge, Noren will hold his head as high as any Chief of Birnagar ever did."
"I see but poor signs of future greatness in him," said Nobo Kumar again, with a laugh.
"I tell thee again, trust a woman's eyes to judge by looks. I have watched him morning and evening these few years, and a woman seldom misreads a man's secret thoughts."
"Few thoughts can I read in his face except silly ideas of pride."
"But hast thou not seen that proud, defiant young man become gentle as a lamb before our Hemlata, doing her bidding as a slave, courting her smiles with eagerness, willing to sacrifice everything to spare her a tear?"
"Why, what nonsense is all this? I have seen him hanging on the skirts of our little girl more constantly than I would like. I wish thou wouldst keep a watchful eye on the boy."
"He is now a young man, my husband, and a young man's ideas fill his heart. He would follow Hemlata to the world's end to wed the girl, and such a happy union would unite Birnagar and Debipur, and cast on thee a higher glory than thy ancestors ever won."
"And is that thy idea, my august lady? Dost thou, being my wife, forget the rivalry that divides these Houses? Dost thou think, because I am serving at Birnagar for a while, that I have forgotten the traditions of our house? And canst thou imagine that I would wed my daughter to this stripling, and thus make over our Debipur estate to Birnagar after we have stood apart for three hundred years?"
"I follow thee not, my lord," said the lady, in a voice that brooked no contradiction. "I have cherished the thought that the two estates can be united, though they have stood apart for three hundred years, and it would be a higher glory to us if Hemlata be the mistress of the united estates. We have no son of our own, and whoever marries our daughter will be thy successor at Debipur. And Noren shall wed her."
Nobo Kumar quailed before his wife's decision, and remained silent. His wife then added in a softer voice:
"I have not misread Noren, dear husband. The ardent young man will willingly come and live at Debipur if we make that the condition of the marriage. Great will then be the glory of the Debipur House, and Birnagar, so long its rival, will be henceforth a possession of Debipur. I am jealous of the honour of Debipur, my lord, as well as thyself, and I devise and speak as a Debipur lady should."
Nobo Kumar remained silent, and felt that his wife had reason on her side. The long feud of Birnagar and Debipur might be happily ended, once and for ever; and Debipur might stand higher in glory, power and possessions, if the vast estate of Birnagar were added to it.
"We will think about it," at last said Nobo Kumar.
His wife knew that her pleading had told.
Husband and wife had scarcely finished their talk when Noren and Hemlata entered the room, the former carrying a basket of jasmine flowers. He bowed to Nobo Kumar, and with cold respect placed some flowers in his hands. Then he went up to Hemlata's mother, placed the basket before her, and touched her feet with his forehead with sincere affection.
"May you live long," said Nobo Kumar's wife, touching Noren's head with her right hand, "and may you and Hemlata both be happy in life." The rest of her thoughts remained unuttered, but she felt a proud woman and a proud mother that day.
She had forgotten that there was a deep schemer to be reckoned with, and that schemer was Gokul Das.