"And see that thou cleanest them well; they may be wanted ere long."
There was jeering malice in words, tone, and manner as Parbutti handed
over the tarnished silver ornaments; but Durga took them without a
word--that aggressive silence of hers seeming, as it always did, to
defy the ceaseless clang of the copper which, as usual, filled the
sunlit courtyard. And yet to a woman less restrained than she here was
an occasion for bitter outcry. The ornaments had been hers in those
past days of honoured wifehood; now they were Parbutti's to wear, or to
give, as she chose. But what did that matter? what did anything matter
if only Gopal could be kept content--if only Gopal could be kept to his
promise? Two months of patience, two months of growing anxiety had told
against Durga-dei's good looks according to native standards, though to
Western eyes the face had gained more than it had lost. There was no
indifference in it now. That had given place to an eagerness almost
painful in its intensity; and Parbutti, as she watched the widow begin
her task, smiled to herself at the certainty of its being well
performed; for Durga displayed a vast anxiety to please nowadays--a
most convenient state of affairs for the household generally. Parbutti
smiled again, thinking what Durga would say when she knew the
truth--that the ornaments were to go in the wedding baskets of the
virgin bride who was to be the reward of Gopal's treachery.
"They will need tamarinds to give them back their whiteness," thought
Durga, looking at the silver with experienced eyes. This interest in
the drudgery and detail of her life was not a conscious effort on her
part; of late a sort of dull comfort had come to her in the knowledge
that already, in a thousand ways, she was standing between the
household and that disregard of old ways which to her meant disgrace,
if not disaster. And so it was with a certain pride in her work that,
while Parbutti was sleeping, she watched the tamarind pulp boiling away
in the copper vessel over the fire, until her critical eye told her
that its office was over, and that the ornaments boiling in it would
need no silversmith's aid to enhance their lustre. With a certain
pride, also, in her own carefulness, she let the pulp stay on the fire
till it had regained its original consistency, and then set it aside in
the storeroom against future use. Parbutti would not have thought of
such economy. Parbutti, in a reckless modern fashion, would have thrown
the pulp away, and bought more when next she wanted some. The thought
cheered her as, still with the same careful conservatism, she went on
to some other process, approved by old tradition, for the due cleansing
of tarnished silver. It was no light matter, that keeping of the
household ornaments as if they were fresh from the goldsmith's hands;
for did it not redound to the credit of the hearth? When she had worn
them, none could have told they were not newly-made out of new rupees;
but Parbutti thought only of wearing them in a becoming manner.
Well! this time she should acknowledge that there was some good in
having Durga in the house.
There was something infinitely pathetic in the slow workings of this
woman's mind, as she sat busy over the ornaments--something infinitely
pathetic in the pride with which, after the two or three days of
treatment prescribed, she showed them white and glistening to her
rival.
"Ay!--they are as new--_Mai_ Radha will deem them so at any rate," said
Parbutti, with studied carelessness. The time had come for revenge.
Gopal's passion for pleasure had been aroused, he would allow nothing
now to stand in the way of this projected marriage, and so--and so
there was no harm in springing the mine upon Durga. There is nothing in
heaven or earth so cruel as a jealous woman even when her nature is
kindly, and Parbutti's was not.
"_Mai_ Radha! What hath she to do with them?" The quick anxiety of the
widow's tone was as balm to the other's ears.
"What a mother hath to do with her daughter's trousseau for sure," she
answered lightly. "I meant to tell thee ere this, but Gopal would not
have it, and 'tis true that widows are ill meddlers with marriage. He
weds the girl next month by my consent. The house needs a child."
So far Durga had stood staring at her enemy incredulously. Now she
flung out her arms in sudden passion, letting the widow's shrouding
veil fall from her figure recklessly.
"'Tis a lie--an infamous lie! The house needs no stranger's child. Thou
knowest it! Yea, thou hast known it, and this is thy revenge. But it
shall not be. Gopal shall speak! Gopal, I say! Gopal!"
Parbutti's hands gripped her rival's as in a vice despite her
struggles.
"So! is it that? And thou wouldst lay the burden of thy shame on Gopal,
base walker of the bazaars, betrayer of thy dead lord! On Gopal who
weds a virgin; let us see what he saith. Gopal! I say, Gopal!"
It almost seemed as if their clamour must have pierced that of the
coppersmith's shop, for the latter ceased suddenly in the slow chiming
of five o'clock. Instinctively the women fell away from each other,
feeling that the crisis had come. Another minute would bring the man to
answer for himself. So they stood waiting for the well-known figure on
the threshold.
"Gopal!"
He recoiled from the sight of them, coward to the backbone.
And Parbutti knew it--knew the man with whom she had to deal a thousand
times better than Durga knew him; so her shrill voice came first,
allowing no compromise, no shilly-shallying. Durga had claimed him as
the father of her child. Was it true? for in that case there was no
need to bring a bride to the house, nor indeed under such circumstances
would _Mai_ Radha ever consent to her daughter's marriage. Let him take
his choice without delay.
And Durga, still gauging him by the measure of her own nature, claimed
the truth also. Between the two Gopal stood irresolute, divided between
fear and desire.
"'Tis thy choice, O husband!" came Parbutti's shrill voice; "the widow
or the bride, thou canst not have both."
He knew it perfectly. It was one or the other, and a sudden fierce
dislike leapt up against poor Durga.
"It is a lie," he muttered, his eyes upon the ground; "I have naught to
do with her, naught."
Durga fell back as if she had been struck, but Parbutti's laugh of
triumph failed before the sombre fire of those big blazing eyes. For an
instant it seemed as if the former would give herself up to vehement
upbraiding; then suddenly she passed into the silence of the outer
court without a word, and crouched down in her favourite attitude
beside the smouldering fires. She felt sick and faint with horror,
shame, incredulity. In all her known world of custom and conduct she
seemed to find no foothold on which to recover her balance. He had
denied her, he had denied the hearth. Her tense fingers hung rigidly
without clasp or grip on anything, just as her mind seemed to have lost
hold on all her beliefs, all her knowledge.
In a dim, half-dazed way she knew what would happen. By and by, when
opportunity occurred, Gopal would creep out, as he had crept out many a
time before, and seek to soothe her. There need be no scandal, no open
turning into the streets, if she would promise to make no fuss.
Perhaps, once the marriage were accomplished he might even be induced
to acknowledge the child. And at this thought something that was not
shame, nor anger, nor horror, but sheer animal jealousy, leapt up
within her; for she had learnt to care, as women do learn, even when
they know that he for whom they care is not worth it.