The hidden clashings of a silent conflict like this, are far harder to bear than an open quarrel.
Chapter III.
Of his whole body Nilmani's head was the foremost. It seemed as if the Creator had blown through a slender stick a big bubble at its top. The doctors also occasionally expressed the apprehension that the child might be as frail and evanescent as a bubble. For a long time, he could not speak or walk. Looking at his sad grave face it seemed as if his parents had all the weight of care of their advanced years on the head of this little child.
With her sister's care and nursing, Nilmani passed the period of danger and stepped into his sixth year.
In the month of Kartik, on the bhaiphota[1] day, Sosi had dressed Nilmani up as a little Babu, in coat and chader and red-bordered dhoti, and was giving him the 'brother's mark' when the aforenamed candid-spoken neighbour Tara came and, from one thing or another, started quarrel.
"'Tis no use," cried she, "giving the 'brother's mark' with so much show ruining the brother in secret."
At this Sosi was thunderstruck with astonishment, rage and pain. At last she heard that husband and wife they had conspired together to put up the minor Nilmani's property to sale for arrears of rent and purchase it in the benami of her husband's cousin. When Sosi heard this, she uttered a curse that those who could spread such a foul lie might be smitten with leprosy in the mouth. And then she went weeping to her husband and told him of the gossip. Joygopal said, "Nobody can be trusted in these days. Upen is my aunt's son, I felt quite secure by leaving him in charge of the properties—when did he allow the taluk Hasilpur to fall into arrears and purchase it himself in secret, if I had the least inkling about it."
"Won't you sue then?" asked Sosi in astonishment.
"How to sue one's cousin!" remarked Joygopal. "Besides, there will be no use, it will be simple waste of money."
It was Sosi's supreme duty to trust in her husband's words, but Sosi could not, by any means. Then, this happy home, this domesticity of love showed themselves before her in a ferocious, hideous shape. That home-life which had seemed to be her supreme refuge—all at once she saw it was nothing more than a cruel snare of self-interest, which had surrounded them, brother and sister, from all sides. She was a woman, single-handed, and she felt herself quite at sea as to how she should save the helpless Nilmani. The more she thought, the more her heart filled with terror, loathing and an infinite love for her imperilled, little brother. She thought that, if she only knew how, she would appear before the Lat Sahib, nay, write to the Maharani herself, to save her brother's property. The Maharani would not surely allow Nilmani's taluk of Hasilpur, with an income of seven hundred fifty-eight rupees a year, to be sold.
When Sosi was thus thinking of bringing her husband's cousin completely to book by appealing straight to the Maharani herself, Nilmani was suddenly seized with fever attended with convulsions.
Joygopal called in the village doctor. When Sosi asked for a better doctor, Joygopal said, "Why, Matilal isn't a bad sort."
Sosi fell at his feet and charged him with an oath on her own head; whereupon Joygopal said, "Well, I shall send for the doctor from town."
Sosi lay with Nilmani in her lap, in her bosom. Nilmani also will not loose her out of sight for a minute; he clung to her lest she should by some pretence escape; even while he slept he would not loosen his hold of her cloth-end.
The whole day wore out thus, and Joygopal came after nightfall and said that the doctor was not found in town, he had gone to see a patient at a distance. He added that he had to leave that very day on account of some litigation but he had told Matilal, and the latter would regularly call and see the patient.
At night Nilmani wandered in sleep. As soon as the morning dawned, Sosi, without
- ↑ Lit. the 'brother's mark'. A beautiful and touching ceremony in which a Hindu sister makes a mark of sandalwood-paste on the forehead of her brother and utters a formula, 'putting the barrier in Yama's doorway' (figurative for wishing long life). On these occasions, the sisters entertain their brothers and make them presents of clothes, &c.
