Chapter XVIII.

SEVERAL circumstances and influences combined produced the change in Ganesh’s conduct which led to his acting towards Kamala in the manner he did. He had hitherto steered clear of any troubles and had tried not to offend Kamala, but all the time he was getting more and more involved in Sai’s clutches. Sai and he met behind the temple groves accidentally, it would appear, on several occasions. She began an intimacy with him only with the view of taking revenge on Kamala. Ramchander’s callousness towards her had incensed her terribly, and she was determined to make the girl whom he thought so much of suffer in some way or other. Ramchander had wished Kamala to be happy in her home and he had said that he would be happy in her happiness. It was a new representation of a pure love to her, and she was angry with herself and envious of Kamala. She loved to have people at her feet, and she felt that Ramchander almost spurned her though he was intensely polite and obliging. Sai had contrived to meet him on several occasions in the mountain haunts, and in all their meetings he had maintained a quiet dignity and a proud reserve. Sai did not care for Ganesh much at first, because she considered him young and spiritless. But she exerted herself to make him her slave so as to induce him to neglect Kamala and even to send her away. She was also aware of the low esteem in which she was held by Kamala, and that was another cause of her hatred. She had a subtle attraction for Ganesh. She talked and laughed and exhibited a freedom and independence which seemed to him most fascinating. The more he was in her company the more she exerted herself to please him, till at last she found herself watching for him in the evenings and getting restless when he did not soon appear. Quick and sharp as she was she did not somehow grasp the other side of his character, his wish to please all and avoid troubles, and when he stayed longer than usual with her, a pleased soft expression would steal into her eyes, those eyes that were usually sparkling and keen, and the lips would part in a shy, pleased smile. It was a bewitching look. Ganesh caught the infection of her bright spirits, and he too got into the way of talking in a bright off-hand manner, and excelled even Sai in her keen witty sayings and clever repartees. Sai was astonished, and she who wanted merely to play with the man found that her affections began to be set on him. She tried to keep him long by her side and appoint places where they would meet as it were by accident. It was thus that they met behind the temple grove on the day on which Ramchander visited Kamala at her house.

“Ah! how late you are to-day,” said Sai, when Ganesh came.

“Am I?”

“Yes! you ought to know that. See what a sight you have missed. That temple top was blazing with silver and gold as the sun touched it through the cleft of yonder hill; and the tank there in front,—the large sacred tank, whose bottom no one has fathomed, and in whose bosom, they say, a whole city lies engulfed—was as calm as a crystal and mirrored a moment ago a gorgeous city. From whence came those domes that I saw distinctly, those large mansions, and those broad paved streets? It was a silent city, a city of the dead, and I thought the enchanted moment had come, when, the sages say, a convulsion will take place and when the whole buried city will rise out of the lake, silent, solemn, and entire, the waters being swallowed up in the womb of the earth. Do you think such things are possible? Can you explain them by your wonderful new knowledge acquired in schools. When you did not come … Well!… There you missed a treat, and that is all I can say. Come! If you like we shall sit on the edge of the lake.”

“Yes! we have nothing else to do. I was thinking of Kamala, how she would have enjoyed the sight.” These words just escaped his lips unawares. Perhaps he had felt a twitch of remorse at the sight of Kamala’s face as he came away, but he soon checked himself. Sai looked at him hard, and tossing her head said:—“She does not care. Do you think all have the soul to enjoy such things? She is accustomed to staying at home.”

“Yes! when we make them stay, the poor souls.”

“Do you mean to say she cares much for you and the places you visit, and natural scenes such as these? I know where her thoughts are just now,” said Sai looking much incensed.

“Her thoughts! where can they be?”

“Not with you, surely.”

“Then with whom?” asked Ganesh, with a smile, complacently looking at her.

“Don’t you know the grand cousin she has, who adores the very ground she touches? What are you compared with him? Clever and learned and rich enough to buy you up even.”

“I don’t know of any such person. The saniyasi her father is poor enough and she knows none.”

“Your heart is with her and that is why you excuse her,” said Sai with flashing eyes.

“Why? what do you know? I like to see you angry, for you look so pretty, but why are you against my wife?” Ganesh was bent on mischief partly, and he wanted to arouse Sai’s jealousy.

“I am not against her. I only show you where you are loved truly and where you are deceived. Kamala seems no doubt innocent and guileless.”

“You must not talk of her like that. There are bounds to everything, and talk about a wife is always distasteful to her husband.”

“The poor dove! That is why you leave her so much to herself.”

“It is for you I leave her.”

“Why do you do so?”

“I don’t know,” and he tried to hold her hand.

“And you, you think that such as I am am not worthy to talk of your wife?”

“I did not say that. Don’t be angry.”

“I who reserve all my time for you, I who try to please you. What does your wife do? She does not give two thoughts to you. I tell you that even now perhaps she is talking to her lover. I heard of his coming before I came here, and even saw him inquiring for your house.”

“How dare you say such things? She knows nothing of anyone’s existence, and she talks to no one in her husband’s absence. Don’t try to make me angry.” This he said seriously.

“Come, let us see,” she said.

“See what? Are you playing with me?”

“I tell you she knows him, and I can tell you a great deal more, too.”

“You cannot, you dare not. Let us go and see.”

“Not so fast, not so fast. We shall go to Sarangapani’s wadi, which is empty, and from the window overlooking your house we shall see if Kamala is talking or not.”

As they went she pointed laughing to a gaily trapped horse that was standing at the corner of the street. But Ganesh was furious. He thought she was acting a great lie. to torment him; but lo! from the window, what did he see? The woman laughed and hissed in his ears’ fool,’ and he held the window and strained his eyes, breathing through his compressed teeth. Was it Kamala, his own wife, standing near the half-opened door so suspiciously, and a man in front under the neem tree, half-hidden from the road? Kamala, the penniless, when did she come to know of this stranger’s existence? He turned with questioning eyes, and Sai divining his thoughts turned away her head. She felt a throb of pain at his great suffering, and a momentary inclination to explain all came to her. But when he turned fiercely on her and said with a hoarse voice: “Are you satisfied?” the fiend in her nature was aroused and she retorted angrily: “Satisfied? why should I be satisfied? fool that you should feel so much for her. Why! she is an old hand at it all. I got it from his very lips that he saw her at Dudhasthal, too, I am sure without your knowledge, for you don’t seem to know anything about him. Did I not say, Be careful of a saniyasi’s daughter? He is the distinguished chella of Arunyadaya and Narayen’s nephew and attendant, even the very man that summoned Kamala to Anjinighur when her father was ill. Now do you understand? Do you recognize in him the clever physician who attended Kamala? For after he came was not the cure miraculous?”

Ganesh groaned. “Stop! Stop!” he said. “But it is all true. Go on.” But after a time—it seemed an age to him-he said: “Come, I will have my revenge. You shall live with me and I shall get the truth out of her, but she will be made to feel the tortures of hell. Come, let us go home.”

“Not so soon. You must take some food. You must not make a hubbub. Act the part of an unconscious husband and everything will be out. I don’t like to see a quarrel. You can quietly send her away. I shall come and stay an hour or two to-day.”

What happened afterwards has already been told. Now the reader will understand Ganesh’s behaviour.

Kamala reached her father-in-law’s house in the dark hours of the early morning. Nerved with a new strength she had passed along silent, deserted roads, undaunted either by the great gloom in the mango topes or by the thought of the ghastly tales she had heard of robberies and murders committed on the way by which she went. The servant woman in terror begged her to stop at the rest house for the night, but Kamala was determined to go on; and the two women glided like ghostly shadows through the darkness, unnoticed by any one. Once they heard some steps behind, but they were themselves objects of terror to others; for such is the power of Hindu superstition that a woman seen in a dark night in unfrequented parts in India is sure to be taken for a walking-demon, from whose clutches there is no hope of escape. As Kamala reached her father-in-law’s house she felt a momentary sinking in her heart. How cruel and heartless did they all seem formerly, and how would they look upon her now? “No, I must not be daunted, my life-work is here,” she said, breathing quickly, and knocked firmly at the door. It was an unusual thing to hear a knock at this early hour. Ganesh’s father himself rose to answer it, and came out with a flickering oil light in his hand. Kamala on seeing him, bowed herself to the ground and groaned: “Take me in, I have come from far.”

“Why? What?” stammered the bewildered old man. But seeing the servant woman just behind with the child he changed his tone and ordered her to go in. Then in a commanding tone he asked Kamala to rise and come in and explain matters. “I enter your house only on one condition, that you tell no one that I am here, that you will protect and keep me, however unworthy I may seem. I will slave for you— will do anything. Only this boon I ask. I want to be unknown. I do not know what to tell you. I am an outcast now, and only fit for death; for my husband has turned me out, or rather I have left him. He suspects me. Oh! how shall I tell you? How can I utter the words he spoke even before you? ”

“What is it all? Why all this ado?”

“Ah! he has said you know not what. But is it not you people that have put him up to it? I have come to prove my innocence.”

“But what is it?”

“There was no turning him. He ground his teeth and hissed into my ears more than once that I was false to him. Why did you put him up to it? Drive me, kill me, but ah, this falsehood I cannot bear. Did I give any one reason to think such things?”

“Hush! you are talking madly. Arise, you are not in your senses. Perhaps the bad news about your father has been too much for you. No one put any such dreadful idea into your husband’s head. Come, your mother-in-law must tend you. Don’t sorrow, my child. After your father am I not also one?” At these words Kamala simply stared. Why were they so unaccountably gentle and loving? Her father was not dead, he was only ill, and yet her father-in-law was so kind. Ah! how harshly she had judged him before. She had expected a scolding from him and words such as these:—“If your husband suspects you there must be ground for it, and we cannot have you here.” But what was all this? She stood rooted to the ground, and her father-in-law felt confirmed in his opinion that she had lost her senses. After a time she turned to the old man, and, with the faint glimmer of a smile on her face, said, “So you do not think anything evil of me.”

“No, we don’t, child. How strangely you behave!”

“It may seem strange, but I am not mad,” said Kamala calmly. “I saw Ramchander-punt yesterday, and he told me all the news of my father’s illness. But somebody has caused your son to believe that I am wicked, and now it makes me fear that he is more mad than I am. That woman Sai comes in the evening, and he has of late been so depressed and so different that I cannot but think that it must be her doing. She has given him the fatal drug. I must stay with you. You attend to him, but do not tell him where I am.”

Both husband and wife listened with great concern; and then they took her inside. The mother-in-law in her room broke into lamentations, whilst Kamala comforted her. Kamala suspected not the great sorrow that was in store for her. Only that night, a few hours before she came, they had heard of her father’s death from a messenger who had come in search of Ramchander, and the old man kept the news from the distracted girl. They treated her with love and tenderness, but Kamala knew not that the change in their treatment of her was brought about chiefly by Ramchander’s visit. She was not the penniless girl they imagined her to be, but a rich heiress far above them in birth and position; and all her previous faults were now ascribed to ignorance and innocence. The mother-in-law, in her usual excitable way, drew flattering pictures of Kamala, and the old man, who had always had a strange partiality for her, smiled at the good turn affairs had taken. He said:—”Did I not tell you from the commencement that she was above the ordinary run of girls?” Before Kamala came they had determined to call her home and treat her with all due consideration.

“Ah! there is compensation even in this world,” said the happy, trembling Kamala. “I get all this attention when I thought that the whole world was against me.”