Part 3

Accustomed as he was to this style of reasoning, each remark was a fresh tap driving the nail of conviction into Gunesh Chund's slow brain. As he stood on the roof that night, whence he could see the horizon strike the sky in one unbroken circle, a keen desire to live as his fathers had lived excluded all other thoughts. Here was his world; here lay his duty.

"Thou canst choose a wife for me if thou wiliest," he said sheepishly to his mother, when, in the early dawn, he found her already at work, while Veru lay abed with some ache or pain.

"O my son! O Guneshwa!" cried the old woman, flinging her arms around his neck with unwonted tenderness, and with tears of joy in her bright old eyes. "I will find thee a pearl and paragon. With a skin wheat-coloured, and--"

"Nay, mother," interrupted the big man, still more sheepishly, "an' she please thee, and have a soft tongue, that is all I care for. And, mother, say no word to Veru yet. There is time; and mayhap thou wilt not find a wife soon."

His mother laughed scornfully.

"Not find one to marry the _lumberdar!_ such a fine, straight man as thou art, Guneshwa. Why, they will come in crowds! Nay, be not so modest; that is the girl's part, not the man's. Nevertheless, as thou sayst, 'tis time enough to tell Veru when all things are settled. There is but one woman needed in a marriage."

If some rankling doubt as to the honesty of his silence lingered in Gunesh Chund's mind, it vanished quickly before the personal peace which his decision brought to the household.

Perhaps Veru might have wondered at the lull which thereinafter fell over the combat, but that she herself was absorbed in a new hope of victory, and thought it possible that her keen-eyed mother-in-law might, in like manner, be preparing for defeat.

So the time of truce passed on; until one day, almost before Gunesh had realized his own capitulation, his mother informed him that a bride had been found.

"So soon!" he exclaimed, dismally. "O mother, take care! Sure the choice of a plough-bullock would take me longer."

"Then 'tis time to tell Veru," was his only remark, when the beauties, virtues, and charms of the young lady were dinned into his ears. Whereupon his mother, with much inward contempt at his scruples, told him curtly that she had purposely chosen a bride from a far country, so that he need say nothing, since nothing would be known by others, until the festivities began.

"I will tell her before then," he said, relieved; but somehow the days passed by, leaving behind them the silence that they found.

Meanwhile Veru wearied Heaven with prayers and penances till she grew thin and pale--given to fits of hysteria and tears, yet with a triumphant look in her eyes as she listened to her mother-in-law's constant allusions to her ill-health, with which the old lady bolstered up Gunesh Chund's failing resolution. All three were too much occupied with their own thoughts and secrets to notice anything unusual in the bearing of the others; or if they did notice it, naturally put the change down to vague suspicions, and so held their own counsel more firmly.

The crops were fast turning russet and gold under the glare of sunlight succeeding to the monsoon rains, when Gunesh Chund said good-bye to his household for ten days, and rode by winding village ways to the broad white road that carried Western civilization, in the shape of a post-bag, through the district. Veru, clothed in madder and indigo, stood on the roof to watch him out of sight; loath to lose him, and regretting that she had not risked her secret ere he left. How much more would she have regretted it had she known that her husband's destination lay far beyond his usual bourne, the Central Revenue Office, and that his bundle contained all things necessary for the interchange of presents with a new bride! Meanwhile her mother-in-law, stolidly at work below, wondered how any woman could be so immodest as to show grief at a husband's departure. And Gunesh Chund, riding between serried ranks of feather-topped maize and swelling bosses of millet, thought of the coming harvest. In a way, each and all were looking forward with eager desire to reaping what they had sown; as if life held any other fate for humanity!

That same afternoon, Veru, unwilling to relax any of her efforts because of her hopes, set off to worship a snake which frequented an old ant-hill at the farther end of the village common. The day had been one of extreme heat, and a yellow dust-haze hung over everything. Dust above, below, around her; only the ant-hill, furrowed by long-past rains into rugged pinnacles, rising clear and distinct. She was a timid woman, unused to roaming so far, and she looked fearfully around, dreading lest from one of the dark holes piercing the mound a hooded head might rear itself and speak to her. Such things had been, she knew; for beneath the veneer of unbelief the old superstitions held her in thrall.

Hastily, yet carefully, lest evil should befall from any lack of ceremony, she ranged her sugar-cakes, hung up her chaplet of flowers, and sprinkled the milk she had brought in a little brass pot with a lavish hand; it left dark, ominous-looking stains on the white dust.

Glad to escape from such weird surroundings, yet feeling the need of rest, she drew aside among the wild caper-bushes, and sat down, wiping the beads of perspiration from her forehead with the corner of her veil. It felt quite hot against the damp skin, cooled by the fierce, dry wind that even in this sheltered spot drove the dust along in swirls. She drew her veil over her head and sat still as a statue, in the curiously drooping attitude which to Western eyes suggests absorbing grief; but Veru's mind was full of a great joy, which gained no little sweetness from the thought of revenge. Yet as she dreamed far away into the years, a spreading fold of her veil, caught in a caper-thorn, seemed pointing to something that glistened among the roots behind her. Veru, rising to go, stooped to disengage herself, and saw--a baby's bracelet! The next instant, with a shrill, high-pitched shriek of rage, she set off running towards the village. Her mind, slow enough to take in novel ideas, needed no prompting here. It was little Nihâli's bracelet, and the explanation of this fact followed as a matter of course. The dead child had been exposed as an augury; _but what had the verdict been?_ Strange as it may seem, that thought came uppermost. Doubtless, had the truth been told her in the first freshness of bereavement, when the soft touch of the little hands and the clinging of the lips were more than a memory, indignation and horror at the outrage on her child might have overcome her curiosity. At any rate, the desire to pose as an advanced woman would have induced her to conceal it. But months had passed, bringing a new hope, to ensure which her inherited instincts would gladly have sacrificed more than a _dead_ girl. Indeed, the wish for some such augury had more than once invaded her, and lo! the sign had been given, and she knew nothing of it. That it had been favourable she assumed, believing that otherwise her mother-in-law would have hastened to make it known. Unheard-of spite and cruelty!--but if it were the climax, it should also be an end to tyranny. Trembling with excitement and the uneducated woman's desire for words, she ran forward panting and breathless, with little cries of anger and grief, until she sank down exhausted with the unwonted exertion and her own emotions. When she arose again, it was with greater calmness but more resentment.

Her mother-in-law was toasting the new-made dough-cakes by the fire, when, after many pauses, Veru reached home. Wearied out, she leaned against the door-jamb for support ere commencing the fray, and looked at the elder woman with sombre, menacing eyes. The latter paid no attention, but went on tossing aside the heat-blistered cakes, and placing others upright in the embers till they blew out like bladders.

Suddenly Veru raised her hand; something gleaming flew through the air, and the dead baby's bracelet fell at her enemy's feet and rolled among the ashes.

"The jackals have sent thee a present, grandmother."

The old woman looked at it, startled; then sprang up and faced her adversary in fiercest indignation.

"What hast thou done, fool? Bringing the curse of girls back to the earth! The wild beasts were more merciful than thou art, for they gave no sign; and see, where the bread is baking thou hast thrown the augury. O Guneshwa! O my son! would that thou wert here to see this witch casting her spells to bring barrenness to the bride thou art wooing! But no matter; the old mother will avert them; so bring home thy bride, Guneshwa! bring home the virtuous Kirpa Devi, daughter of Kirpo Ram of Badrewallah!"

Veru, struck dumb by the possible consequences of her own act, as revealed to her in her mother-in-law's unforeseen reproach, felt the whole world turn round as the old woman, roused out of caution, let loose her secret and her tongue without reserve.

"It is not true! it is not true! Guneshwa would never deceive me so!" was all the poor creature found to say against the torrent of words and facts.

"Not true!" echoed the other, remorselessly. "Come hither, and see if it be not true that a wedding is nigh."

Seizing Veru by the wrist, she dragged her across the court-yard, flung open the store-room door, which was kept jealously locked against all intrusion, and pointed to a row of handkerchief-covered basket-trays, ranged in order on the ground.

"Behold!" she cried, jeeringly, as she lifted the covering from one, displaying a pile of cheap tinsel-decked garments, such as are made to fill up the measure of more solid wedding presents. "Guneshwa's mother is not so careless as his wife. Here is everything needful, and yonder is the pile of dates whence he took the offering that went with him to-day. Stay--thou canst read! Put thy scholarship to some use for once, and see if it be not true."

But Veru did not take the letters thrust at her; the shock was too great, following on her excitement and utter weariness. She swayed as she stood, and with a cry of "O Guneshwa, bring the dates back! bring them back!" she fell in a heap among the baskets.

In the dawn of the next day, her mother-in-law, as she lay down to snatch a little sleep while one of her cronies watched by Veru's bed, told herself that the house was cursed indeed! Who would have dreamed of the gods bringing such hopes to Veru? Who would have thought of her concealing them even for a day? And what a heritage of evil she would leave behind her if she died now! Nihâli's augury was bad enough, but what chance would there be for the new wife if the ghost of an expectant mother haunted the house?

Veru must not die--should not die; so the old woman nursed her tenderly, and strove in her rough way to bring comfort to the mind stricken by mad jealousy and resentment.

"I _will_ die," was the only response; "I will die and become a ghost![4] I will! I will!"

[Footnote 4: A woman dying with her unborn child has infinite power for ill.]

"Hearken, O Veru," replied her mother-in-law at last, "thy dying will not harm any one, for if thou diest ere Guneshwa returns, I swear he shall never know a word, neither of thy hopes nor of thy fears! It shall be silence, silence forever, and who fears a ghost he knows not of? Answer me that!"

And Veru, gripped in the stern old woman's greater strength, could only turn her face to the wall sullenly.

"Hast thou no message for Guneshwa?" asked the watcher at the last, as Veru lay sinking.

"None--that--thou--wouldst--give," came the reply, with a strange smile that remained on the lips even after death.

"Now, thank God, neither Guneshwa nor his bride need know aught of this!" thought the old lady, as they streaked the corpse with many a weird ceremony and precaution.

V.

The moon shone brightly as Gunesh Chund rode through the village common on his homeward way. There was scarcely a track to be seen on the hard, white ground, where the sparse bushes close at hand lay like shadows here and there, but in the distance blended themselves into a grey line against the lighter sky. No visible track, yet the _lumberdar's_ pony picked its way unerringly, true as the needle, towards the manger awaiting it; instinct or habit supplying the place of reason. Its rider could boast of no such contented certainty. Something--what, he would have been puzzled to say--had made the path of custom seem doubtful, without supplying him with a new or clearer road. And, overlying the dull sense of discomfort, was a distinct remorse for the deceit to which his honest if sluggish soul was quite a stranger. The memory of his promise troubled him, although he quite acknowledged that a _pudmuni_, or ideal Hindu wife, would never have claimed its fulfilment.

Suddenly his pony started and swerved, throwing him forward in his shovel stirrups.

In his efforts to keep in his seat the cause seemed to be the sudden appearance of a veiled woman, beckoning with outstretched hands; but when he could give a calmer look, the difference in position caused by his pony's advance showed him that it was but the dead trunk of a tree. With a sign of relief he gave the animal a dig in the sides.

"'Tis thinking so much of women-folk does it," he said to himself. "I weary for the ploughing and peace."

A sense of well-being came over him at the familiar sights and sounds, as he neared the village. Even the dogs barking in chorus at the pony's echoing steps seemed to him a welcome, and the house, quiet and dark though it was, a haven of rest after the hustle and bustle of his rapid excursion into an unknown world. The door of the inner court was closed, for he was not expected till dawn, and he stood for an instant beside it, listening. All was still as death, and with another sigh of relief he stumbled up the steep stairs to his favourite sleeping-place.

How calm it was there under the stars; how clear the path, now that he was at home once more among familiar landmarks! Why, if difficulties arose, had they not arisen over and over again in the lives of those who had gone before him? What more easy than to adopt the ancient remedy, and, by building a new court for the new wife, separate the jealous women! His mother would, of course, side with her own choice; so Veru, far from having any ground of complaint, would find greater peace than heretofore. In his quiet, limited way, he loved her more than he would have cared to avow, and so, thinking of her ease, he fell asleep full of content.

The night passed, the dawn lightened into sunshine; yet still he slept, wearied out by his ten days' exile from the village. And so it came to pass that his mother, apprised of his return by finding the pony in its accustomed place, had to rouse him by sad words.

"Awake, O Gunesh Chund, son of Anant Ram, and make thy heart strong, for Veru thy wife is dead."

A sad amaze, an almost pitiful resignation, followed the first incredulity; and then, as he sat below, patiently waiting for many a rite and conventional lamentation, the memory of his last waking thought returned to him.

"I thought of building her a new house for peace' sake," he said, wistfully, to his mother; "and lo! the Great Ones have given her a grave and peace forever."

"Perhaps 'tis as well, Guneshwa!" replied the old woman, softened by his gentle grief. "Her health was poor, and if Death drew nigh, it was better he should come before the bride."

Perhaps 'twas as well! That was all her tongue found to say, but her heart rejoiced exceedingly that eternal silence had fallen over the dead wife's reproaches. If Premi and Chuni only held their tongues, as they always did if it was made worth their while, neither Gunesh Chund nor his bride need know the curse that had come upon them. Above all, the soft-hearted bridegroom would be saved the daily terror of seeing the fatal ghost.

Even as it were, the autumn chills were upon him, making him shiver and shake, and bringing the haggard, ague-stricken look so common at that time of year to his sad face. He took little interest in the preparations which his mother pressed on with feverish haste, but passed days and nights out of doors among his fields, going the round of the crops with the village accountant, and seeing to the payment of revenue dues.

"Thou takest no rest, Gunesh Chund," exclaimed his mother, indignantly, when he pleaded business as an excuse for not going to the silversmith's to hurry him up with the remodelling of poor Veru's ornaments. "A _lumberdar_ was a _lumberdar_ long before the _sahibs_ came to the land. What is it to thee if they want this written one way, and that another? There were no such piles of papers in thy father's day, and he was a better _lumberdar_ than thou wilt ever be."

"Mayhap, mother; but somehow 'tis ill work nowadays doing things as they used to be done. It suits no one, not even thee."

"Not suit me--I'd like to know--"

"Nay! are not the old trinkets being altered even now. For my part, I liked them best as they were."

"Guneshwa thou art a ninny! But thou wilt sing another song when the bride comes to thee adorned. That new silversmith hath done well. There is a fashion of necklet--French pattern he called it--like needlework for fineness. And I have not forgotten the old ways, for the talisman Veru wore is made into a _saukinmhora_, to keep her ghost away."

The _lumberdar's_ face assumed a startled, alarmed look.

"The ghost, mother! Wherefore the ghost? Veru was a good wife, loving me, and I was a good husband to her. There was no ill-will betwixt us, surely."

His mother could have bitten her tongue out for her inadvertence.

"'Twas but a thoughtless word, O my son, and I am over-anxious. Surely the woman took too many blessings from thee in life to give thee curses in death. And see," she added, hastily, in the hope of diverting his eager anxiety, "I have found what thou wert asking for--the certificates of thy fathers to many and many a generation. Thou hadst given them into Veru's keeping, but they are too precious for a woman's holding. Who knows but she has lost some? Squandering thy son's heritage out of spite! Who canst give back the praises of the dead?"

So she went on in purposeful grumbling, while Gunesha, opening the handkerchief in which the precious documents were folded, counted the frayed papers laboriously.

"Nay! they are here, and more; let me count again. Surely, there are thirty-and-two, and when the canal _sahib_ gave me his last year there were but thirty-and-one. Thirty-and-one, no more."

He sat down on the door-step, shifting the papers through his awkward hands, with the uncertain eyes of one who, being unable to read, has to seek recognition through more devious ways. His mother, meanwhile, utterly indifferent, had turned to some household occupation.

"See, there is a new one; that one, may be; 'tis cleaner than the rest," he muttered to himself, opening up the folded sheet conspicuous by its whiteness.

It was written in the Nagari character, and his puzzled face cleared at the sight.

"'Tis all right, mother!" he exclaimed; "there are but thirty one. The other is a letter."

He was about to add a suggestion that Veru might have written it, but checked himself, from fear of starting another tirade against the dead woman.

"A letter!" echoed his mother, contemptuously. "Throw it in the fire! I have no patience with folk who find their tongues too short to touch friend or foe."

"But, mother," returned Gunesh, with a smile, "even thy tongue is not long enough to reach over the world."

"And wherefore should I try? I tell thee, Guneshwa, that we peasant-folk have naught to do with the world. What he can touch with his hands is a man's portion till he dies, and 'tis theft to go beyond. Writing is no good except for certificates. There is Devi Ditta's house thrown into grief, just as the boy's betrothal began, by the news of his father being killed in Burma. God knows where Burma is. Far enough, may be, to keep the news back till a more convenient time, if it came as God meant it to come. And the man is dead, anyhow."

But Gunesh Chund refolded the paper and placed it in his waistband. His friend the accountant could tell him its purport.

"The chills again?" asked his mother, with no anxiety in her voice, when, coming back from Devi Ditta's house with a throat rendered hoarse by neighbourly lamentations, she found her son huddled up under his quilt. "You must get the sahib's white powder. For a wonder, it does good."

"Quinine will not cure me, mother," he replied in a curiously muffled voice that startled the hearer by its dull despair.

"What ails thee, then, Guneshwa?"

The man sat up amid his heavy wrappings and looked at her without resentment. The ague cramped his blue fingers, and made him draw shuddering breaths through widely distended nostrils, as he sat gazing at her with wild eyes full of a mute appeal and reproach. Then, with a little, almost childish cry, he fell back among the quilts once more.

"Thou knowest, mother; thou knowest it well."

Her heart throbbed, but her voice was steady as she replied:

"What do I know, O Gunesh Chund?"

"That Veru kept her promise and I broke mine! She knew you would not tell me, so she wrote. That was the letter."

The old woman stood for an instant bewildered. Then, as she realized that all her wisdom had not availed against the dead wife's knowledge, she threw her lean arms up over her head and beat her hands together wildly, while the court re-echoed with her high, resonant voice.

"She wrote it? Now may God curse her utterly! My curse upon her and every woman who learns--"

A shivering hand reached out towards her.

"Hush, mother! I have had enough of curses to-day."

The mild reproof made her forget her anger in thoughts for him.

"Light of mine eyes! heart of my heart!" she cried, flinging herself on her knees by the bed and stretching the arms, but now raised in cursing, around him in fierce protecting. "She cannot hurt thee--she dare not, if charms avail. The iron rings are about her hands and feet, the nails are through her cursed, writing fingers--would God they had been there ere she wrote that letter!--and the mustard-seed lies thick between her grave and the hearth. I have sown it, and will sow it with each new moon. Look up, Guneshwa! She cannot, she dare not return."

"She hath returned already."

The old woman rose with a gesture of despair.

"Say not so! Break not thy mother's heart with idle words. 'Tis but the chills, and thou hast them often. The powder will cure them."

"Perhaps 'tis so," he replied, listlessly. "But I have seen her. Ere ever I knew of her death she met me on the common as I rode home. Nay, weep not so soon; the truth will be told ere long, and there will be time enough for tears then."

"There will be no need to weep at all, my son," she said, crushing down her own dread in order to lessen his, and fiercely determining to shed no more tears till life held nothing else.

She kept her word; though, as the days passed on, even her wilful blindness could not fail to see how the strong man grew weaker and weaker. Her heart stood still with fear, as she watched for the sleep of exhaustion which followed each successive attack of fever and ague, before stealing away to seize the opportunity for the charms she dared not work save in secrecy.

Indeed, the subject was barred between them; and even when the fever fiend held him in its grip, Gunesh Chund never alluded again to the fatal ghost.

He put aside the _saukin-mhora_ which, in her clutching at straws, she would have had him wear as a talisman, with quite a broad laugh.