"He should let her go, or kill her," continued the bearer placidly.
"She is not worth the trouble of beating; but he is a fool, because she
is Dhropudi's mother. Yes, he is a fool; he beats her when he finds her
lover there. He should beat her well before the man comes. That is the
best way with women."
It was an old story, it seemed, dating before Dhropudi's appearance on
the scene. It occurred to me that perhaps a deeper tragedy than I had
thought for was ripening in my garden among the ripening plants. I
found myself watching Dhropudi and her father with an almost morbid
interest, and hoping that, if my idle suspicion was right, kindly fate
might hide the truth away forever in the bottom of that well where
Heera often held the child to smile at her own reflection, far down
where the water showed like a huge round dewdrop.
So time went on, until the _sootullians_ showed blossom buds, and
Dhropudi cut her first tooth on one and the same day. Perhaps the
excitement of the double event was too much for Heera's nerves; perhaps
what happened was due anyhow; but as I strolled through the garden that
evening at sundown I saw the most comically pathetic sight my eyes ever
beheld. Heera Nund, clothed, but not in his right mind, was dancing a
_can-can_ among his _sootullians_, while Dhropudi shrieked with delight
and beat frantically on her flower-pot. Even with the knowledge of all
that came after, the remembrance provokes a smile,--the rhythmic
bobbing up and down of the uncouth figure, the cowlike kicks of the
bandy legs, the preternaturally grave face above, the crushed
_sootullians_ below.
I sent him in charge of two sepoys to the Dispensary, and there he
remained for two months, more or less. When he came back he was very
quiet, very thin, and there were the marks of several blisters on the
back of his head. He resumed work cheerfully, with many apologies for
having been ill, and once more he and Dhropudi--who had been handed
over meantime, under police supervision, to her mother--were to be
found spending their days together in amicable companionship; his only
regrets being, apparently, that the _sootullians_ had blossomed and
Dhropudi learnt to walk in his absence.
But for one or two little eccentricities I might have been tempted to
forget that _can-can_ among the flowers; indeed, I always met his
inquiries as to the _sootullians_ with the remark that they had done as
well as could be expected in the circumstances. The eccentricities,
however, if few, were striking. One was his exaggerated gratitude for
the blisters on the back of his head; the last thing in the world one
would have thought likely to produce an outburst of that Christian
virtue. But it did, and an allusion to the all too visible scars
invariably crowned the frequent recital of the benefits he had received
at my hands. Another was the difficulty he had in distinguishing
Dhropudi from the other fruits of his labor. On two separate occasions
she formed part of the daily basket of vegetables which he brought in
to me, and very quaint the little black morsel looked sitting
surrounded by tomatoes and melons. But though he treated the matter as
an elaborate joke when I remarked on it, there was a dazed, uncertain
look in his eyes as if he were not quite sure as to the right end of
the stick.
Nevertheless peace and contentment reigned apparently in his house.
When I sat out in the dark, hot evenings, a glow of flickering
firelight from within showed the mysterious mud-walled enclosure by the
wall, decorous and conventional. The winking stars looking down into it
knew more of the life within than I did, but at any rate no unseemly
cries disturbed the scented night air and the _Huzoor's_ slumbers.
Perhaps the police supervision had impressed the lover with the
dangers of lurking house-trespass by night; perhaps the dark-browed,
heavy-jowled young woman who had taken my warning so sullenly had
learnt more craft; perhaps the languor which creeps over all things in
May had sucked the vigour even from passion. Who could say? Those
crumbling mud walls hid it all, and Heera seemed to have begun a new
life with the hot-weather vegetables.
So matters stood when an old enemy laid hold of me. Ten days after I
found myself racing Death with a determination to reach the sea, and
feel the salt west wind on my face before he and I closed with each
other. The strange hurry and eagerness of it all comes back to some of
us like a nightmare, years after the exile is over; the doctor's
verdict, the swift packing of a trunk or two, the hope, the fear, the
mad longing at least to see the dear faces once more.
They packed me and a half hundred pillows into a _palki ghari_ one
afternoon. The servants stood, white clad, in a row beside the white
pillars, dazzling in the slanting sunlight. I drove through the flower
garden dusty and scorched. At the gate stood Heera Nund, one arm
occupied by Dhropudi, the other supporting a huge basket of vegetables.
He looked uncertain which to present; finally, seeing the carriage
drive on, he deliberately let the basket fall, and running to my side,
thrust the child's chubby hands forward. They held just such ninepin
bouquets as he had carried on our first introduction. "Take them,
_sahib!_" he cried. "Take them for luck! and come back soon to the
_madli_ and the _malin_." As the _ghari_ turned sharp down the road I
saw him standing amidst the ruins of the basket with Dhropudi in his
arms.
Six months passed before I set foot on Indian soil again, and then fate
and a restless Government sent me to a new station. When my servants
arrived with my baggage from the old one, I naturally fell to asking
questions. "And how is Heera Nund?" was one. My bearer smiled benignly.
"_Huzoor_, he is well--in the month of July he was hanged."
"Bearer!"
"Without doubt; it was in the month of July. He killed his wife with an
axe. Dhropudi was bitten by a snake while she slept one day when Heera
had to leave her with her mother; and that night he killed his wife as
_she_ slept also. It was a mistake to be so revengeful, for every one
knew Dhropudi was not really his daughter."
"Do you think that Heera knew?"
"She told him when the child died, in order to stop his grief; but it
did not. She was very kind to him,--after the other one went to prison
for lurking about."
"And did no one tell about it all?"
"About what, _Huzoor?_"
"About the vegetables, and Dhropudi, and the _sootullians_, and the
blisters on the back of his head! Did no one say the man was mad?"
"There was a new assistant at the Dispensary, _sahib_, and her people
were very rich; besides, Heera was not mad at all. He did it on
purpose. He was a bad man, and the Sirkar did right to hang him--in
July."
But as I turned away I could think of nothing but that _can-can_ among
the _sootullians_, with little Dhropudi beating time with a carrot.