Eyesore/Chapter 17
XVII
With the idea of removing all traces of the recent unpleasantness Mahendra suggested: "Let's have a picnic next Sunday at the Dum-dum Villa[1]"
Asha's enthusiasm was unbounded; but Binodini would not be persuaded. Whereupon both Mahendra and Asha were bitterly disappointed. Binodini is getting more and more distant, thought they.
When in the evening Vihari turned up as usual, Binodini appealed to him: "Is this fair, Vihari Babu? Both of them are angry with me because I refuse to intrude on their picnic in the Dum-dum Villa."
"I can't blame them," replied Vihari, "I wouldn't wish my worst enemy the sort of picnic they'd have if left to themselves without you!"
Binodini.—"Why not join us Vihari Babu? If you come, I'll go too."
Vihari.—"Splendid! But 'tis for the master to command. What says the master of the house?"
Both master and mistress felt aggrieved that Vihari should have met with better success than they. Mahendra lost half his interest in the idea at the prospect of Vihari's company. He had consistently tried to impress on his friend that Binodini resented his presence. After this there would be no holding Vihari back.
"Good idea. Why not?" replied Mahendra without enthusiasm. "But look here, Vihari, you always do make such a fuss wherever you go. You'll be gathering all the village boys round us, or picking a quarrel with some drunken soldier, for all we know."
"That's what makes the world so interesting, you never know what you're likely to be in for next," replied Vihari, with a smile at Mahendra's ill-concealed unwillingness to have him.—"We must be starting early, Sister Binod; I'll turn up in good time."
Early on Sunday morning a hackney carriage of the inferior class had been engaged for the servants and things, and one of the superior class for the family. Vihari punctually made his appearance with a big hamper.
"What on earth is that for?" complained Mahendra. "There's no more room in the servant's carriage."
"Don't worry yourself, Dada," said Vihari, "I'll see to all that."
Binodini and Asha stepped into their carriage. Mahendra hesitated, not quite certain what to do about Vihari. Vihari solved the problem by hoisting his hamper on to the roof of the carriage and himself mounting the coach box.[2]
Mahendra breathed a sigh of relief. Vihari was quite capable, he had feared, of offering to come inside with them.
Binodini was concerned: "I hope Vihari Babu is quite safe up there," she exclaimed.
This reached Vihari, who replied, "Don't trouble about me. The falling-down-in-a-swoon business is not in my line."
"If you're feeling so anxious about him," said Mahendra after the carriage had started, "let me go up and send Vihari in."
Asha took him seriously, and nervously clutching the end of his muslin scarf said, "No, no, you shan't do anything of the kind!"
"You're not used to roughing it," slyly added Binodini, "why take the risk?"
"Risk!" exclaimed Mahendra excitedly, "you think I'm clumsy enough to fall off?" And he rose from his seat as though to jump out of the carriage.
"Talk of Vihari Babu making a fuss!" remarked Binodini caustically. "Who's making a fuss now?"
Mahendra sulked the whole way to Dum-dum. At last they arrived at the villa. The servant's party, which had started long before their's, had not yet turned up.
It was a delicious autumn morning. The dew had just dried in the rays of the sun, and the washed foliage was glistening in the clear light. The walk under the row of Sephali trees against the garden wall was carpeted and perfumed with the scattered blossoms.[3]
Asha, freed from the bondage of brick and mortar, frisked about like a wild gazelle. With Binodini she gathered heaps of the strewn flowers, picked and ate custard apples off the trees, and then the two friends indulged in a prolonged bath in the little artificial lake. The artless merriment of the girls seemed to infect and gladden the rustling leaves and waving blossoms, the changing lights and shadows of the groves, and the rippling wavelets.
They returned to the house after their bath to find that the servants had not yet arrived. Mahendra was lolling on an easy chair in the verandah with a far from cheerful countenance, apparently studying a shop catalogue.
"Where is Vihari Babu?" inquired Binodini.
"I don't know," was Mahendra's laconic reply.
Binodini.—"Let's go and look for him."
Mahendra.—"There's no fear of his getting stolen. We'll find him without the trouble of looking for him."
Binodini.—"But he may be anxiously wondering what's happened to your precious self! Let's go and relieve his mind."
There was a huge Banyan tree near the lake with a masonry platform round its trunk. Here Vihari had unpacked his hamper and was found boiling a kettle over an oil stove. He welcomed his guests, seated them on the raised platform, and handed them cups of tea and helps of sweetmeats on little metal saucers.
"It's a mercy Vihari Babu thought of bringing his hamper," said Binodini, "or what would have become of Mahin Babu without his morning tea?"
Mahendra felt the tea to be a god-send, nevertheless he said: "Vihari always will overdo things. We come for a rough-and-tumble picnic, hut he needs must bring along all the home comforts. That spoils all the fun."
"Pass back the cup then," laughed Vihari, "I won't stand in the way of your enjoying as much empty fun as you like."
It was getting late, yet there was no sign of the servants. All sorts of materials for a feast began to come out of Vihari's hamper; rice, pulses and vegetables, and various cooking spices put up in little bottles.
"You put us to shame, Vihari Babu," said Binodini in unaffected admiration; "your house has no mistress, yet how did you learn all this?"
"Sheer necessity taught me," said Vihari. "If I don't look after myself there's nobody else to do it." Vihari said this in the lightest possible manner, but Binodini's grave eyes showered pity upon him.
Then Vihari and Binodini set to work at the cooking. Asha feebly and hesitatingly offered to help, but Vihari would not let her. The lazy Mahendra made no offer at all but, with his back against the trunk of the Banyan tree, and one leg crossed over the other, he sat watching the dance of the sunbeams on the quivering leaves.
When the cooking was nearly done, Binodini said: "It's not likely, Mahin Babu, that you'll be able to finish counting the leaves. Hadn't you better go and have your bath?" By this time the servants had arrived. There had been a break-down on the way which had detained them. It was past noon.
After the meal somebody proposed a game of cards under the tree. But Mahendra would not give ear to the suggestion, and dozed off in the shade. Asha retired into the house for her siesta. Binodini with a touch at the upper fold of her Sari, as if to pull it over into a veil, said: "I'd better be going in too."
"What d'you want to go inside for?" objected Vihari. "Let's have a chat. Tell me all about your village home."
The hot afternoon breeze every now and then rustled through the leaves, and a koil cooed out of the thicket which fringed the lake. Binodini went on with the story of her childhood, of her father and mother, of her playmates. And as she became absorbed in her recital, her half-drawn veil slipped off unperceived, and the aggressive glow of youth which generally gleamed from her countenance was toned down by these reminiscences of her early days. And when the keen ironical glance, which usually roused such misgivings in the mind of the wary Vihari, came so strangely softened through the long dark moist eyelashes, he seemed to behold before him quite a different person. In the centre of the halo of her outward brilliance a heart honeyed with true feeling could still be discerned, her womanhood had not yet been scorched to the core by the arid frivolity on the surface. "Binodini may look like a light-minded girl," thought Vihari, "but I seem to catch a glimpse of the vestal virgin within." He sighed as he realised how little human beings could know even of themselves, and how the immediate circumstances brought out one particular aspect of a character which to the world at large appeared for the time to represent the whole personality.
He would not let Binodini's story come to an end, but kept it going with his questions. Binodini had never found such a sympathetic listener to the tale of her childhood's recollections, nor had she ever talked so intimately with one of the opposite sex. To-day the overflow of her natural feelings which accompanied her simple unaffected narration had on her mind the cleansing effect of a bath in a sacred stream.
It was five o'clock before Mahendra slept off the fatigue of his untimely awakening. "Let's be off!" he said grumpily.
"Would it matter if we waited till the cool of the evening?" suggested Binodini.
"No, no," Mahendra insisted. "D'you want us to fall into the hands of drunken soldiers?"
It got dark before the things could be gathered together and packed up. Meanwhile the servants came and reported that the carriage had been commandeered by some soldiers and driven off to the railway station. So a man had to be sent off to fetch another.
"What a miserably mis-spent day!" thought the disgusted Mahendra. He could hardly keep his irritation to himself.
The moon struggled up out of the fringe of trees on the horizon, and mounted to the clear sky above. The silent, motionless garden became chequered all over with light and shade. Binodini in the midst of this magical beauty seemed to find in herself an entirely new creature. And there was no trace of affectation in the affectionate embrace with which she put her arms round Asha under the shade of the trees. Asha saw the tears in her eyes, and, greatly pained, asked: "What is it, Eyesore, dear, why do you weep?"
"It's nothing, dear," replied Binodini, "I am so happy; It has been such a wonderful day."
"What makes you think so much of it?" asked Asha.
"I feel as if I have died and come to another world," said Binodini, "where everything may yet be mine!"
The mystified Asha could not understand. The allusion to death shocked her, and she said reprovingly: "Don't talk of such ominous things, my dear!"
A carriage arrived at last. Vihari again got on the coach box. Binodini silently gazed out into the night, and the shadows of the trees, standing sentinel in the moonlight, passed in procession before her gaze. Asha fell asleep in her corner of the carriage. Mahendra was deep in the blues during the whole of the long journey.
- ↑ .Those citizens of Calcutta who can afford it often have a villa (lit. a garden-house) in its precincts, which is used for purposes of occasional relaxation and change. A Bengali picnic implies pot-luck cooked al fresco.
- ↑ The Bengal hackney carriage has room for four inside. The difficulty is in the nice adjustments which are required in different situations, with regard to intimate friends who are treated as, but actually are not, members of the family, where ladies of the house are concerned.
- ↑ The Sephali flower has snow-white petals with a brilliant orange stem and a sweet and powerful scent. The flower drops off the calyx as soon as full-blown, and remains sweet and fresh for a considerable time after falling on the ground.