“RAMESH, who is that girl?” demanded Jogendra.
“A relation of mine,” answered Ramesh.
“What’s the relationship?” asked Jogendra; “she’s not one of your elders, and I presume the tie has not been created by affection. You’ve told me about all your relatives, yet I never heard anything about this one.”
“Steady on, Jogen,” broke in Akshay. “Surely there are things that a man likes to keep secret even from his friends.”
“Well, Ramesh,” said Jogendra, “is this such a great secret then?”
Ramesh turned red. “Yes, it is a secret,” he said. “I should prefer not to discuss this girl with you.”
“But unfortunately,” retorted Jogendra, “I particularly want to discuss her with you. If you hadn’t been engaged to Hemnalini there would be no need to investigate the ramifications of your family tree; you might have kept your own secrets.”
“This much I can say,” said Ramesh; “there is no one in the world with whom I have formed such a connection as would be a bar to my marrying Hemnalini with a clear conscience.”
Jogendra. “There may be no bar from your point of view, but there may be one from the standpoint of Hemnalini’s relations. I’ll merely ask you this much — whether you’re related to her or not, why do you keep her hidden away here?”
Ramesh. “If I tell you my reason the secret will be out. Can’t you take my word for it without asking for reasons?”
Jogendra. “Is this girl’s name Kamala or not?” Ramesh “It is.”
Jogendra. “Have you or have you not passed her off as your wife?”
Ramesh “I have.”
Jogendra,. “Do you expect me to believe you then? You want to tell us she isn’t your wife. You’ve told every one else that she is. You don’t set a very good example of veracity.”
Akshay. “You mean, it’s hardly the sort of instance that one would use in a college lecture on truthfulness. But after all, my dear Jogen, it may be necessary in practice to tell two different stories to two different sets of people when the circumstances are exceptional. The probabilities are that one or other of the stories is correct. Perhaps what Ramesh Babu told you is true after all.”
Ramesh “I’m not going to tell you people anything at all. I only say this much, that I am doing Hemnalini no wrong in marrying her. I have a very good reason for refusing to discuss Kamala’s affairs with you. It would be wrong for me to do so, however suspicious you may think my conduct. If it were only a question of my own happiness and reputation I should keep nothing from you. But I decline to say anything, when by doing so I may jeopardize another’s future.” Jogendra. “Have you told Hemnalini everything?” Ramesh “No, I’ll tell her after we’re married. If she likes, I’ll tell her even now.”
Jogendra. “Well, may I put a few questions to Kamala about this?”
Ramesh “Most certainly not! If you consider me guilty you can pass on me whatever sentence you think fit. Kamala is perfectly innocent, and I will not expose her to your cross-examination.”
Jogendra. “It’s quite unnecessary to question anybody at all. I’ve found out all that there is to know.
You have given me sufficient proof. I tell you most distinctly that if you set foot in our house again you will have to submit to insult.”
Ramesh turned pale, but said nothing. Jogendra went on: “I’ve something more to say. You’re not to write to Hemnalini or hold the slightest communication with her — openly or in secret. If you write to her I’ll publish abroad the secret that you wish to keep with the proofs that I have. If any one asks us now why your engagement to Hemnalini has been broken off I’ll say it was because I refused my consent to the marriage; I shan’t give the true reason. But if you’re not careful the whole story will come out. You may wonder why I show such restraint in the face of your heartless behaviour. Do not think I have the least sympathy for you; it is only because this matter affects my sister Hemnalini that I have let you off so lightly. My last word to you is never to give the least indication, by speech or behaviour, that you ever had any acquaintance with Hemnalini. It’s no good exacting any promise from you; I can’t expect sincerity from you after such deceit. But if you have any shame, any fear of exposure left, then you won’t disregard this warning, deliberately or otherwise.”
Akshay. “Really, Jogen, really! Aren’t you sorry for Ramesh Babu at all? Look how quietly he takes it! We’d better go now. Never mind, Ramesh Babu, we’re off now.”
Jogendra and Akshay went out, leaving Ramesh too stunned to move. When his numbed senses began to recover from the shock his first impulse was to go for a brisk walk and review the situation in the open air, but he remembered that he could not leave Kamala alone in a strange place.
He went into the next room and found the girl sitting by the window overlooking the street, holding one of the slats of the Venetians open. At Ramesh’s foot-fall she closed the slat and turned her head; Ramesh squatted on the floor.
“Who were these men?” asked Kamala; “they came to our school this morning.”
“Went to your school, did they?” exclaimed Ramesh.
“Yes,” said Kamala. “What were they saying to you?”
“They asked me what relation you were to me.”
Kamala had never sat at the feet of a mother-in-law and learned on what occasions to display the bashfulness becoming in a young wife. Still, her own instincts made her blush at Ramesh’s words.
“I told them,” he went on, “that there was no relationship between us.”
Kamala regarded this kind of pleasantry as extremely bad taste. She turned away angrily exclaiming, “Don’t be silly!”
Ramesh wondered if he could possibly tell Kamala the whole truth.
Suddenly she started up with the exclamation, “Look out, there’s a crow gone off with your fruit!” She hurried into the other room, scared away the crow, and came back with the plate of fruit. “Aren’t you going to have some?” she asked, setting the plate down in front of him.
Ramesh’s appetite had gone, but he was touched by this little attention. “Won’t you have any, Kamala?” he asked.
“You have some first,” she replied, in the rôle of the wife who may not eat till her husband’s hunger is satisfied. It was the merest trifle, but Ramesh’s nerves were on edge and the innocent girl’s delusion brought him to the verge of tears. Speech failed him, but he controlled himself and began to eat. When he had finished he remarked, “We must be off home to-night, Kamala.”
At this announcement Kamala’s face fell. “I don’t want to go there,” she said.
Ramesh. “Would you like to stay at school?”
Kamala. “No, don’t send me back to school; the girls there only ask me questions about you, and they make me shy.”
Ramesh. “What do you tell them?”
Kamala. “I don’t tell them anything. They used to ask me why you wanted to leave me at school for the holidays. I” Kamala could not finish the sentence. The recollection reopened the wound in her heart.
Ramesh. “Why didn’t you tell them that I’m nobody to you?”
Kamala glanced impatiently at him out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t be silly!” she repeated.
“What on earth am I to do?” Ramesh asked himself. His secret was like a worm in his vitals trying to gnaw its way out, and the process was painful. His mind was distraught with tormenting questions. What had Jogendra told Hemnalini by this time? How had Hemnalini taken the news? How could he explain the true state of affairs to her? How could he bear eternal separation from Hemnalini? But he was too distraught to think out the answers to them.
This much he knew, that his relations to Kamala had become a topic of absorbing interest to his friends and his enemies in Calcutta. His false step in describing Kamala as his wife would inflate the rumours that were already current. Not another day could he remain in the place with her.
His abstraction did not escape Kamala’s notice, and she glanced up at him.
“What are you worrying about?” she asked. “If you want to go and live at home, I’ll come too.”
That the girl should subordinate her own wishes to his was a fresh stab to Ramesh. Again he wondered what course he should pursue. He relapsed into absent-mindedness, gazing intently at Kamala without responding to her last remark. Kamala felt that the occasion demanded seriousness. “I say, you weren’t annoyed because I didn’t want to stay on at school for the holidays, were you?” she asked. “Tell me the truth, now!”
“To tell you the truth,” replied Ramesh, “it was myself I was annoyed with, not you.”
With a mighty effort he freed himself from the tangle of his thoughts and set about engaging Kamala in conversation. “Come now, Kamala,” he said briskly, “tell me what you’ve been learning at school all this time.”
Kamala began readily enough to display her learning. She tried to astonish Ramesh by her knowledge of the fact that the earth is round. Ramesh duly declared himself a sceptic on the subject and asked how such a thing was possible. Kamala opened her eyes: “Why, it’s in our book; we learned all about it.”
“You don’t say so,” said Ramesh, affecting surprise. “It’s in a book, is it? How big is the book?”
This query brought Kamala up in arms. “It’s not so very big, but it’s in print, and there are pictures in it too!” This was incontestable proof and Ramesh had to succumb.
When Kamala had finished detailing all that she had learnt she launched forth on an account of the other girls, of the teachers, and of the school routine. Ramesh became absent-minded again, but murmured assent now and then. At times he caught the tail-end of a sentence and threw in half a question. Suddenly Kamala exclaimed, “You’re not listening to me at all!” and stood up in vexation.
“Come, come, Kamala,” said Ramesh hastily, “don’t get angry; I’m not quite myself to-day.”
“Aren’t you well? What’s the matter?” asked Kamala, turning round again.
“I’m not exactly unwell, it’s nothing at all really; I feel like this sometimes. Please go on again.”
“Would you like to see the picture in my geography primer?” asked Kamala, bent on entertaining him with her newly-acquired learning.
Ramesh demanded its production with apparent alacrity.
Kamala brought her book at once and held it open in front of him. “These two globes that you see,” she proceeded, “are really one. You know, one can never see both sides of a round thing at the same time.”
Ramesh appeared to ponder over this. “It’s the same if a thing’s flat,” he remarked.
“That’s why the two hemispheres are shown separately in this picture,” went on Kamala; and thus they spent the first evening of the holidays.