KAMALA’S school would be breaking up at an early date but Ramesh had arranged with the headmistress that she should remain there during the holidays.
On the morning after his talk with Annada Babu he rose early and went for a constitutional, choosing one of the unfrequented roads on the Maidan — Calcutta’s chief open space. He decided to tell Hemnalini all about Kamala before he married her. Later on he would explain her true situation to Kamala. Thus all possibilities of misunderstanding would be removed. Kamala would find a friend in Hemnalini and would readily agree to make her home with the young couple. There might be gossip if they lived among their own people so he resolved to migrate to Hazaribagh and practise his profession there.
On returning from his walk Ramesh looked in at Annada Babu’s and happened to encounter Hemnalini on the stairs. In ordinary circumstances such a meeting would have been the signal for a friendly conversation but this time Hemnalini blushed — a ghost of a smile like the first glimmering of dawn illumined her countenance — and hurried away with downcast eyes.
Ramesh returned to his rooms and began to thump out on the harmonium the tune that Hemnalini had taught him, — but one cannot play the same tune all day, so by-and-by he turned to a book of poetry; but no poetry, he felt, could rise to the heights that his love had scaled.
Hemnalini too went about that morning treading on air. By midday her housework was finished and she shut herself into her room and sat down to her sewing. Her tranquil features glowed with supreme happiness and the consciousness that she had found her destiny in life seemed to pervade her whole being.
It was some time before the usual tea-hour when Ramesh flung aside his poetry-book and his harmonium and hurried across to Annada Babu’s. On ordinary occasions Hemnalini was always prompt in putting in an appearance, but on this afternoon he found the room empty, nor was there any one in the sitting-room upstairs. Hemnalini was still in her own chamber. Annada Babu appeared at his usual hour and established himself at the tea-table while Ramesh kept glancing nervously at the door.
A step sounded, but it was only Akshay. He greeted Ramesh with the utmost friendliness. “Hullo, Ramesh Babu, I’ve just been to your rooms.” Ramesh looked a shade uneasy when he heard this.
Akshay laughed and went on. “Nothing to be afraid of, Ramesh Babu; my intentions were perfectly peaceful. It’s only right that your friends should congratulate you on the good news; and that was the object of my call.”
This speech drew Annada Babu’s attention to Hemnalini’s absence. He called to her but there was no response, so he went upstairs in person to fetch her. “What’s this, Hem?” he cried. “Still at your sewing? Tea’s ready and Ramesh and Akshay are here.”
“Please have my tea sent up here, dad,” said Hemnalini with a faint flush, “I really must finish my sewing.”
“Now that’s so like you, Hem. Once you’re keen on a thing you forget everything else. When you were working hard for your exam, you’d never lift your nose from your book. Now you’re so taken up with your sewing you’ll do nothing else. No, no, it’ll never do. Come along, you must come down and have your tea,” and he had practically to drag his daughter downstairs. She made straight for the tea-tray and became apparently so absorbed in pouring out tea that she could not lift her eyes to greet either of the guests.
“What are you doing, Hem?” exclaimed Annada Babu. “Why are you giving me sugar? You know I never take it.”
Akshay began to snigger. “She can’t restrain her generosity to-day. She’ll be distributing sweets to every one!”
Ramesh could not bear to hear Akshay sharpening his wit at Hemnalini’s expense and he instantly resolved that once they were married they would cut Akshay out of the list of their acquaintances....
A few days later the same party was assembled round the tea-table when Akshay remarked, “Ramesh Babu, you had better change your name at once.” Akshay’s attempts to be humorous merely intensified Ramesh’s dislike of him.
“Why should I?” he asked.
“Here you are,” said Akshay, opening a newspaper. “A student of the name of Ramesh induced another student to personate him at an exam, and so succeeded in passing, but he was caught in the end.”
Hemnalini knew that Ramesh never had a retort ready on his tongue, so whenever Akshay dealt one of his thrusts she took on herself the task of administering a counter-thrust. This was an occasion that called for her intervention. Suppressing her real indignation she remarked pleasantly, “For the matter of that the jails must be full of Akshays.”
“Hearken to her!” cried Akshay, “I try to administer a friendly warning and you take offence; I’ll have to tell the whole story. You know my little sister Sarat who goes to the girls’ high school? She came home yesterday evening and announced, ‘Do you know, your Ramesh Babu’s wife is at our school.’ I said, ‘Silly kid! Do you think ours is the only Ramesh Babu in the world?’
‘Whoever he is,’ said Sarat, ‘he’s very unkind to his wife. Almost all the girls are going home for the holidays and he has arranged for his wife to board at school. Poor thing, she’s crying her eyes out.’ Then I said to myself, ‘This won’t do at all; other people may make the same mistake as Sarat.’”
Annada Babu burst out laughing. “Akshay, you’re perfectly mad! Why should our Ramesh change his name because some Ramesh or other has left his wife crying at school?” But Ramesh suddenly turned pale and left the room.
“What’s the matter, Ramesh Babu?” cried Akshay. “Where are you off to? Have I offended you? You surely don’t think that I suspect you,” and he hurried out after Ramesh.
“What on earth is it all about?” exclaimed Annada Babu. To his astonishment Hemnalini burst into tears. “What’s this, Hem? What are you crying about?”
“It’s too bad of Akshay Babu, daddy!” she sobbed out; “why does he insult a guest in our house like that?”
“Akshay was only joking; why take it so much to heart?”
“I can’t stand that sort of joke,” and Hemnalini fled upstairs.
Since his return to Calcutta Ramesh had left no stone unturned to trace Kamala’s husband. With great difficulty he had found out where Dhobapukur was and had written to Kamala’s uncle Tarini Charan.
The reply came on the day after the incident just described. Tarini Charan wrote to say that he had heard nothing of his niece’s husband Nalinaksha since the catastrophe; Nalinaksha had been a doctor practising at Rangpur. Tarini Charan had made inquiries there but no one had heard anything more of him, nor did he know where Nalinaksha’s native place was.
Ramesh now definitely banished from his mind the idea that Kamala’s husband could still be alive.
The same post brought him a number of other letters. Several of his acquaintances had heard of his forthcoming marriage and had written to congratulate him. Some of them demanded a dinner from him and others rallied him playfully for keeping them in the dark so long. While he was reading these letters one of Annada Babu’s servants came in with a note for him and his heart beat fast when he recognised the handwriting. It was from Hemnalini, “She could not help suspecting me,” thought Ramesh, “after what Akshay said and now to reassure herself she has written me this letter.”
He opened the letter. It was very short. “Akshay Babu was horribly rude to you yesterday,” she had written. “Why did you not come round this morning? I was expecting you. Why should you worry about what Akshay Babu said? You know I never pay any attention to his foolishness. You must come round early to-day. I am not going to do any sewing.” Ramesh read between these few lines the pain that Hemnalini’s gentle sympathetic heart had suffered, and tears came to his eyes. Since the evening before she had longed passionately to pour balm on his wound, and this craving had remained unabated with her throughout the night and the morning until, unable to restrain it any longer, she had given it expression in this note. He saw it all clearly.
He had felt since the preceding evening that he must reveal to Hemnalini his true situation at once, but yesterday’s incident had made his task harder. Not only would he present the appearance of a criminal caught in the act and trying to exonerate himself, but the disclosure would seem to be a triumph for Akshay, and that was too humiliating to contemplate.
He reflected that Akshay must suppose that Kamala’s husband was some one else of the name of Ramesh, for otherwise he would not have remained quiet so long, confining himself to covert allusions, but would have proclaimed his discovery on the housetops. All these considerations led Ramesh to seek some means of staving off trouble for the present instead of taking the straight course.
At this point the post brought him another letter. Ramesh opened it and found that it was from the headmistress of the girls’ school. She wrote to say that Kamala had taken so terribly to heart the prospect of being kept at school during the holidays that the management must decline to be responsible for her; school would break up on Saturday, and Ramesh must be prepared to receive her at home that day.
Kamala was to come home on Saturday and his wedding was to take place on Sunday!
“Ramesh Babu, you really must forgive me!” It was Akshay who broke in upon him at this crisis in his affairs. “If I had thought that you would take offence at such an everyday piece of foolery I should have kept quiet. People resent a joke if there’s some truth in it, but in this case there was no foundation at all, so I don’t know why you lost your temper in company. Annada Babu has been scolding me ever since and Hemnalini won’t speak to me. I went to see them this morning and she walked out of the room. Why are you all so offended with me?”
“I am not at liberty to tell you at present. I must ask you to excuse me now; I’m rather busy.”
“Oh, preparations for the wedding! The bandsmen want something in advance, I suppose, and you don’t want to waste time here. Well, I shan’t keep you any longer. Good-bye.”
Ramesh hastened to Annada Babu’s as soon as Akshay’s back was turned. Hemnalini had anticipated an early visit and was waiting expectantly in the sitting-room; her sewing lay on the table folded up in a scarf and she had the harmonium beside her. She was looking forward to some of the usual music, it is true, but there is another kind of music that only the soul can hear, and this she had anticipated also.
A faint smile played on her lips as Ramesh entered the room, but it vanished in an instant when he merely asked, “Where’s your father?”
“In his room. Why, do you want him for anything? He’ll be coming down soon for tea.”
Ramesh. “I must see him at once; it’s something very urgent.”
Hemnalini. “Very well; you’ll find him in his room.”
Exit Ramesh.
Something urgent, was it? Everything must yield place to it! Even Love must wait at the door till his turn came! The bright autumn day seemed to sigh as the golden doors of its storehouse of delight swung to. Hemnalini drew her chair away from the harmonium and sat down to sew at the table, but as she plied the stitches an invisible needle worked its way into her heart. Ramesh’s important business seemed to take some time; and Love went a-begging.