She sat and contemplated her sandal which hung precariously from one of her straight, soft-skinned toes.
‘Do they wear bracelets?’ she asked, fingering the golden collection on her wrists.
Ajit thought of the gold bracelet he had bought for me, at the time of our engagement, and my pleasure at the gift.
‘They do wear them,’ he said. ‘A gold bracelet is much valued.’
His mother must have noticed a sadness in his voice, because she said fearfully: ‘My son, you are ill,’ and she flung her sari back from her face and looked at him closely.
He lifted his eyes to hers, and all the pain and worry must have been shown to her.
‘Ajit, what is this? What is the matter?’
His eyes flickered and then moistened.
‘Mother,’ his voice faltered. ‘Mother – oh, Mother,’ he cried and flung himself full length beside her. The misery in him welled up and regardless of ceremony he wept.
She was shaken by the outburst, but she lifted his head on to the lap made by her crossed legs, and stroked the smooth, black hair. For a time she just crooned softly to him, rocking herself as if she were nursing a baby, and wiped away the tears with the end of her sari.
‘Say, Ajit, say what is the matter. It is my privilege to love and counsel you.’
‘Has Father not told you?’
‘Told me what?’
‘About Peggie.’
‘About Paickie. No. What is Paickie?’
He realised too late that his father had said nothing to his mother, but he could not withdraw and, in any case, she would have to know sooner or later.
Thakkur came to arrange the mosquito net over the divan for the night, but Mrs Singh gestured him silently to go away.
‘What is Paickie?’ she repeated.
Hiding his face in the folds of her sari and holding her hand in such a tight grip that it must have hurt her, he told her the whole story. He admitted his wrong conduct and asked her forgiveness.
‘She is beautiful and good, and she would serve you well, Mother,’ he finished up.
As she later told Bimla Chand Rana, she was shocked beyond imagination, and her first instinct was to say that he must accept his father’s advice, get rid of the foreign woman and marry Bimla his caste sister.
Then she remembered suddenly, she said, a similar occurrence in Jaipur, where her sister lived. A young man, Mohan, had come home from America and had asked his parents’ permission to marry an American. The parents had refused permission, and, as they held the purse strings, they had been able to insist that he must marry a woman of their choosing. Mohan had shut himself up in his room and had fasted for days. One night, he had emerged when the family was asleep, and the next morning he was found dead among the trees at the far end of the compound, dead from a cobra bite, although none knew that a cobra was in the vicinity. It was said that God Shiva had taken pity on him, killed him and taken his spirit to himself, so that he might be spared rebirth.
During his mother’s silence Ajit lay with his head in her lap. He could hear the kitchen boy scrubbing the brass vessels used at dinner; he was slamming them on to the stone floor as he turned them round and round, in order to scour every corner with sand and coconut fibre.
The first words his mother said were: ‘The new thalis will be dented – I must tell Gopal to be more careful.’ Then she said cryptically: ‘Shiva shall not have you – no, not even if you have three English wives.’
Ajit looked up somewhat astonished at the remark, and she smiled down at him and stroked his head.
She began to ask him questions, surprisingly shrewd questions, considering that she had seen little of the world and could not even read very well.
‘What is the custom of marriage in England?’ she asked. ‘Do the parents arrange it? How is a girl brought up? How do they deport themselves?’
Ajit fumbled for his handkerchief. No pockets in a dhoti, he thought irritably. His mother picked the errant piece of linen out of his shirt pocket; he took it and blew his nose. Then he sat up, cross-legged, took his mother’s hand in his again, and carefully and in detail he answered her questions, just as he had about a month before answered my father’s questions.
‘What is Paickie like?’
He slipped off the divan, went to his desk and picked up a battered envelope. From it he drew a photograph of me, which he had taken himself. He had draped a silk scarf over my head and had demanded that I should not smile. The resultant portrait was oddly un-English.
Mrs Singh took the photograph, examined it closely and said that I did not look like the English women that she had seen before.
Ajit affirmed promptly that I was fair like an English woman, but had the disposition of an Indian girl, quiet, modest and loving.
On finding that she was not trying to dissuade him from continuing the marriage, he went on to extol my virtues, until I would have found difficulty in recognising myself from the description. His mother heard him out patiently, her forehead creased deeply as she concentrated on what he was saying.
When he had finished she continued to sit in silence, twiddling her gold bracelets. Ajit quietly put the photograph, which she had returned to him, back into the envelope and replaced it on the desk.
Eventually his mother raised her head and said: ‘It is a pity that your respected father should feel so strongly about Paickie, because he must know –’ her voice trailed off, then gained clarity again as if she had made up her mind to speak out: ‘Father must know that Bhim and Nulini are not content. I had expected that he would be more careful over your marriage. Perhaps he fears his brothers’ condemnation.’ She sighed and added: ‘No grandchild yet.’
Ajit’s curiosity was awakened by her remark about his brother.
‘What’s the trouble with Bhim? He looked all right to me.’
‘He may be all right – but Nulini is not. She is not happy. Dear Bhim has been so engrossed in being a good partner in his law practice, that he forgets his little partner at home.’ Mrs Singh readjusted her sari over her head, and then continued: ‘She is a good daughter-in-law – although she does wear such immodest blouses – and I cannot understand why he does not give time to her. A woman needs her husband near her quite a lot – and – and I am fearful of what may happen if he continues to neglect her.’
‘What could happen?’ asked Ajit impatiently. ‘Bhim is a good husband – only last night I saw him give her money for embroidered sandals to match the saris I gave her.’
‘Money for embroidered sandals is very well in its place, and Bhim works extremely hard – far into the night – so that she may have luxuries. Yet – I think she would go barefoot, if she could feel that she was necessary to him and not just a pretty doll to be well dressed and politely tolerated.’
Mrs Singh hitched her sari more closely round her, and pursed her lips thoughtfully.
‘She is a doll,’ she added. ‘Not intelligent enough to know how to entice him from his work. Sometimes I long to advise them both – they could be so happy – but I am mother-in-law and must not come between them – I may do more damage.’
‘Your wisdom is great, respected Mother. A chance to help them may come when Bhim feels more safely established.’
‘Perhaps. I do not wish you also to be indifferent to your wife. It is time there were grandchildren in this house.’
‘Peggie will bear children – and they will be fair. I could never be indifferent to her.’
‘I was thinking if Bimla was your wife.’
‘I will marry no one else but Peggie.’
Mrs Singh suffered the rebuke in silence, while Ajit paced up and down the room. The house was still, except for the occasional cry of the watchman, as he circled round the compound, and the squeak of the gate as he went through to the uncles’ compound. Fainter and fainter grew his cry, as he moved up to the far end of the family’s property, thumping his staff as he went, to warn all thieves to beware of his coming.
; Mrs Singh began to speak – not of Peggie, but of the generations of women of her caste who had gone before her and how they had kept the honour of the family and of the caste, obeying the scriptures and daily making puja, keeping the feasts and fasts, and sharing life’s burdens equally with their husbands, as was laid down in the marriage ceremony.
Ajit’s heart sank. There was to be no understanding by his mother either, it seemed.
The old lady sighed. These customs were going. Was she not out of purdah herself? Indeed, yes. Did Nulini keep the fasts? She did not. She could not say that she approved of the modern girl – but then her mother-in-law had not approved of her either. Caste barriers also were going. Did not Ram Singh himself sit down to eat with men of other castes? Why should he fear a casteless daughter-in-law? She would automatically become of their caste by her marriage. What mattered was a kind heart, a forbearing temperament, a suitable humility before the dictates of elders. She sighed again and looked at Ajit when she spoke of the latter requirement.
Ajit laughed quietly in his throat. He wanted to shout aloud. His mother was convincing herself that she could cope with Peggie.
‘Did you say something, my son?’
‘No, no, Mother.’
She passed her hand wearily over her face, and then said: ‘Come here and sit with me. We must decide what to do about Paickie.’
Ajit came and sat beside her, while she opened her pan box, took out a cardamum, peeled it carefully and popped in into her mouth. Then she leaned forward and, speaking in a whisper lest anybody left awake should hear, she counselled Ajit as to how he should deal with his father.
At the end he rose and, bending humbly, he kissed the tiny foot with its swinging sandal. She laughed, withdrew her foot quickly and descended gracefully from the divan. She shook up the pillows, straightened the sheets, and told Ajit to put up the mosquito net and to sleep in peace.
Overwhelmed with gratitude for her advice and understanding, Ajit was dumb, but he went to the doorway with her and held back the curtain for her to pass through. She smiled at him and walked slowly along the veranda towards the kitchen. He felt calmer and leaned against the door jamb. The night breeze caressed him.
A light sprang up in the kitchen and through the big window he saw his mother move towards the small shelf on which the elephant-headed Ganesh sat staring accusingly at her. She struck a match, lit a bunch of incense-tipped sticks and put them into a wire stand before him. Then she stood before the god with hands held out in appeal to heaven.
Ajit had a nasty feeling that she was praying for forgiveness for being an undutiful wife. Her advice to him could hardly be said to coincide with that which his father had given.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I have a headache – I could not sleep last night,’ said Ram Singh the next morning to Mrs Singh and Khan, when they arrived with his breakfast.
Ram Singh always had a headache when faced with domestic issues, and the whole house always knew about it. Maharaj always received orders to make special tea, Ayah had to get out the rubbing oil, and the unfortunate clerk, who had followed his master into retirement, was sent hither and thither to bring his work to Ram Singh’s bedside.
‘What has upset him this time?’ asked Thakkur of the clerk.
‘I don’t know,’ said the harassed clerk. ‘He gets worse as he grows older.’
Khan might have been able to tell him – but Khan was a very discreet man. He stood by Mrs Singh at Ram Singh’s bedside, and silently held out his hand to Mrs Singh for the key to the box in which she kept the aspirins. She took the key off the bunch at her waist, and gave it to him, and he went to fetch the bottle from her room.
‘My life is eternally filled with new problems,’ Ram Singh sighed, as Mrs Singh massaged the back of his neck to ease the ache.
Mrs Singh made suitable comforting noises, although, as she told Ajit, she was a little amused, since she knew the cause of the headache.
‘I could not sleep,’ he said again.
Mrs Singh neglected to tell him that she had not even been to bed.
‘Here are the aspirins. Khan, a glass of water. Now, just take two and lie back on your pillow for half an hour, and then I’ll rub you.’
He lay back comforted. His wife had been comforting him ever since he was fifteen and she thirteen, and there is no doubt that he held her in great affection.
Khan went back to his post outside the door.
About an hour later, Ajit came to his father’s room, having heard from Ayah that the headache had eased.
Khan was seated on the floor by the door, surrounded with pink knitting wool which he was winding into balls. As Ajit wished to establish friendly relations with the new servant, he inquired of Khan what he was going to make – he knew that many hill men were skilled weavers and knitters, though normally their wives did this work, while the men themselves went on trading journeys between Tibet and India.
‘I am winding the wool,’ Khan said softly, ‘for Miss Nulini. Last time she bought wool, it shrank after washing, so she asked me to buy for her this time – because my fingers know good quality wools.’
Ajit looked at the small, strong hands as they deftly wound a skein into a ball. The man did not look up from his work – he had not risen at Ajit’s appearance, because he had the skein stretched over his two feet to keep it from tangling. Ajit, therefore, gave a little cough to indicate to his father that he was there.
Ram Singh was washing his mouth out, after having managed to eat his breakfast; so Ajit stood just inside the door until the elder man gave a final gurgle and spat into the wash bowl. Then he raised his hands in salute and said: ‘Namaste.’
Ram Singh dabbed his lips with the towel.
‘Namaste. You may come in. Khan, take away this thali.’
Encouraged by the courteous ‘good morning’, Ajit moved further into the room, while Khan took away the breakfast tray.
Ram Singh climbed on to his divan, crossed his legs neatly, straightened his round, black cap, and took up a paper from his desk.
When Ajit had heard about the headache, he had recognised the sign immediately. It invariably meant that his father was upset and torn by indecision over something, usually in connection with the family; so Ajit hoped that his father was feeling less sure that he was right about his son’s marriage, less certain that an Indian daughter-in-law was essential to the family. It might also have occurred to his father, who was a very honourable man, that even English marriage vows were meant to be kept, and that it was not right to expect him to break them.
To go straight to the reason for Ajit’s visit would have hardly been proper, so Ram Singh asked him if he had seen any of his friends yet. Ajit mentioned the visit of his cousins, and that there was to be a tea party that afternoon. He had already played colour with Shushila and the neighbours’ children, as his blue-stained hands testified.
At the mention of a party, Ram Singh unbent a little. Ajit knew that, despite his efforts at prayer and contemplation, Ram Singh still enjoyed a party, especially a tea party, with lots of hot, spiced samosas and sweet hulwa to nibble.
‘The courtyard must be swept,’ Ram Singh said promptly. ‘Tell Pratap to make sure there are no snakes or scorpions there – it will be full of children this afternoon.’ He thought for a moment, and then said: ‘No. I will instruct Khan.’
Khan was still winding wool outside the door, and came immediately his master called. He was given the message for Pratap and instructions to help Mrs Singh and Thakkur to put out extra divans for the many matrons who would invade the drawing-room.
‘They will enjoy talking scandal – scandal –’ he trailed off. Ajit felt sorry if he was thinking what a scandal his son’s marriage could prove to be. At best at such a party there would be lots of jokes about the return of a marriageable son – and Bimla’s presence would make all the guests surmise. The samosas would taste flat and greasy to his father during this party.
Ram Singh absentminde
dly picked up a glass pot of wheat seeds which had been lying on his desk, and turned it slowly round in his hands, gazing unseeingly at the contents as they slithered round the pot.
Wishing to divert him, Ajit asked if he was considering planting wheat on some of their land.
‘Yes, I am,’ said the elder man. ‘If this strain does well, I will import some more and distribute it to the cultivators round about. They might get a heavier yield.’
Ajit was interested, and an amicable conversation ensued.
When at last the discussion languished, Ram Singh asked guardedly if his son had considered their conversation of the day before. He asked in the soft, melodious voice that had deceived many a lawyer in the courtroom into thinking that his client had the sympathy of the magistrate.
‘Yes, Father,’ Ajit replied. ‘I have given deep thought to it, and I appreciate the kindness of your offer to help me out of the alliance which I have made.’ He paused.
Ram Singh relaxed. So the boy would agree to his suggestions.
‘Then?’ inquired Ram Singh.
Ajit plunged in: ‘Father – I should like to make some other suggestions, if you have no objection.’
The father looked exasperated, but nodded to his son to go on.
‘In a week’s time I must go to Pandipura to start work – and there also I have a flat. There also live but few of our caste brothers to speak to our family of what I do. I suggest that I send for Peggie and take her there.’
He stopped to take a quick look at his father’s face. The expression was wooden and the moustaches stuck out belligerently as if the mouth beneath was compressed with disapproval. Ajit felt his cause was hopeless, but fortified by his mother’s advice he continued doggedly.
‘Let us stay there for a couple of years. In that time Peggie can easily learn enough of our customs never to offend your good taste and to enable her to fit into this house quite well. Unfortunately, it is not likely that at any time during my working life I shall be able to stay long at home here. When the power house is finished and I have worked there for a few years, there will be better posts in other parts of India.’
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