In The Permanent Way Part 20

Uma Him[=a]vutee! what did she see? Her own face reflected in the bra.s.s-ringed water, as in a mirror set in a golden frame! Clear as in any mirror her own beauty--the lips Shivo had kissed--the eyes which held him so dear; all, all, unchanged. Ah! but it was impossible! That was what the pious old folk preached--what the pious young folk pretended. She poised the brazen vessel on her head, telling herself pa.s.sionately it was impossible. Yet the sight of the wide courtyard, empty save for _Baba-jee_ creeping about to feed the milch kine and do what he could of woman's work, revived that refrain of self-reproach, "There are too few of us." Shivo himself had said it--for the first time it is true, but would it be the last? Wherefore? since it was true. She set down the water-pot and began to rekindle the ashes on the hearth, thinking stupidly of that reflection of her own face. But water was like a man's heart; it could hold more faces than one.

"_Ari, hai!_ sister," called Mai Radha, pausing at the open doorway to look in and see the house-mistress clapping unleavened bread between her palms with the hot haste of one hard pressed for time. "Thou hast no rest; but one woman is lost in these courts. I mind when thy mother-in-law lived and there were young things growing up in each corner. That is as it should be."

A slow flush darkened Uma's face. "Young things come quick enough when folks will," she retorted pa.s.sionately. "Give me but a year's grace, gossip, and I, Uma-devi, will fill the yard too--if I wish it filled.

Ay! and without asking thy help either."

It was intolerable that this woman with her yearly, endless babies should come and crow over the childless hearth. Yet she was right; and again the old sickening sense of failure replaced the flash of indignant forgetfulness.

"Heed not my food, daughter," came the cheerful contented old voice.

"I can cook mine own and Shivo must need his after the day's toil. If thou take it to him at the threshing-floor 'twill save time; when hands are few the minutes are as jewels and it grows dark already.

Thou wilt need a cresset for safety from the snakes."

Once more the woman winced. That was true also; yet had she been doing her duty and bringing sons to the hearth it would not have been so, for the glory of coming motherhood would have driven the serpents from her path.[35]

[Footnote 35: A common belief in India.]

She paused at the doorstep to give a backward glance, to see the old man already at his woman's work, and her heart smote her again. Was it seemly work for the most learned man in the village who had taught his son to be so good, so kind? Yet Shivo of himself would never say the word, neither would the old man. That was the worst of it; for it would have been easier to have kicked against the p.r.i.c.ks.

She pa.s.sed swiftly to the fields, the bra.s.s platter--glittering under the flicker of the cresset and piled with dough cakes and a green leaf of curds--poised gracefully on her right palm, the bra.s.s _lotah_ of drinking water hanging from her left hand, the heavy folds of her gold and madder draperies swaying as she walked. It was not yet quite dark.

A streak of red light lingered in the horizon, though overhead the stars began to twinkle, matched in the dim stretch of shadowy plain by the twinkling lights showing one by one from the threshing-floors.

But Shiv-deo's was still dark, because there had been no one to bring him a lamp. She gave an angry laugh, set her teeth and stepped quicker. If it came to that, she had better speak at once; speak now--to-night--before Mai Radha or some one else had a chance--speak out in the open where there were no spies to see--to hear.

It was a clear night, she thought, for sure; and, despite the red warning, giving promise of a clear dawn. One of those dawns, maybe, when, like a pearl-edged cloud, the far distant Himalayas would hang on the northern horizon during the brief twilight and vanish before the glare of day. _Ai!_ Mai Uma must be cold up there in the snows!

And Shivo must be hungry by this time; watching, perhaps, the twinkling light she carried come nearer and nearer.

The thought pleased her, soothing her simple heart, and the placid routine of her life came to aid her as she set the platter before her husband reverently with the signs of worship she would have yielded a G.o.d. Were they not, she and Shivo, indissolubly joined together for this world and the next? Was not a good woman redemption's source to her husband? _Baba-jee_ had read that many times from his old books.

So she felt no degradation as she set the water silently by Shivo's right hand, scooped a hollow in the yellow wheat for the flickering cresset and then drew apart into the shadows leaving the man alone to perform the ritual in that little circle of light. He was her husband; that was enough.

With her chin upon both her hands she crouched on another pile of corn and watched him with sad eyes. Far and near all was soft, silent darkness save for those twinkling stars shining in heaven and matched on earth. Far and near familiar peace, familiar certainty. Even that pain at her heart? Had not others felt it and set it aside? The calm endurance of her world, its disregard of pain, seemed to change her own smart to a dull ache, as her eyes followed every movement of the man who loved her.

"Thou art silent, wife," he said, kind wonder in his tone, when, the need for silence being over, she still sat without a word.

That roused her. Silent! yea! silent for too long.

She rose suddenly and stood before him, tall and straight in the circle of light. Then her voice came clear without a tremble.

"There are too few of us in the house, husband. We must have more. We must have young hands when ours are old."

He stood up in his turn stretching his hands towards her.

"Uma! say not so," he faltered, "I want no more."

She shook her head.

"The fields want them; and even thou----" Then her calm broke, dissolved, disappeared, like a child's sand barrier before the tide.

She flung her arms skyward and her voice came like a cry.

"Ask her--ask thy sister--let her do all. I cannot. And she--_she_ must come from afar, Shivo, from far! Not from here--lest Mai Radha----"

She broke off, turned and flung herself face down in the corn silently, clutching at it with her hand.

Shiv-deo stood looking out over the shadowy fields.

"They need them surely," he said softly after a time, "and my father has a right----"

He paused, stooped, and laid a timid touch on the woman's shoulder.

"Yea! she shall come from far, wife, from far."

Then there was silence; far and near.

II

There was no lack of life now in the wide courtyards, though the year claimed by Uma's pride had scarcely gone by. And there was more to come ere the sunset, if the gossips said sooth as they pa.s.sed in and out, setting the iron knife (suspended on a string above the inner door) a-swinging as they elbowed it aside. From within came a babel of voices, striving to speak softly and so sinking into a sort of sibilant hiss, broken by one querulous cry of intermittent complaint.

Without, in the bigger courtyard was a cackle and clamour, joyfully excited, round a platter of sugar-drops set for due refreshment of the neighbours. It would be a boy, for sure, they said, the omens being all propitious and _Purm-eshwar_[36] well aware of the worthiness of the household. But, good lack! what ways foreign women had! There was the girl's mother, disregarding _this_ old custom, performing _that_ new mummery as if there were no canon of right and wrong; yet they were--those town women--of the race, doubtless of the same race! It was pa.s.sing strange; nevertheless Uma herself did bravely, having always been of the wise sort. She had given the word back keenly but now to Mai Radha who, as usual, had her pestle in the mortar, and must needs join in the strange woman's hints that the first wife was better away from the sufferer's sight. _Puramesh!_ What an idea! She had spoken sharp and fair, as was right, seeing that it was hard above the common on Uma--so young, so handsome, so well-beloved! Many a pious one in her place, with no mother-in-law to deal with--only two soft-hearted, soft-tongued men--would have closed the door on another wedding yet awhile, and bided on Providence longer. Small blame either. It was not ten years since those two had come together; while as for affection----

[Footnote 36: The Universal G.o.d.]

The rush of words slackened as the object of it set the swinging knife aside, and came forward to see that naught was lacking to the hospitality of the house. With those strange women within, lording it over all by virtue of their relationship to the expectant mother, it behoved her honour to see that there was no possible ground for complaint. It was a year since Uma had flung herself face down upon the wheat, and now the yellow corn once more lay in heaps upon the white threshing-floor. Another harvest had been sown and watered and reaped; but Uma was waiting for hers. And her mind was in a tumult of jealous fear. Shivo with all his goodness, his kindness to her, could scarcely help loving the mother of his child better than the woman who had failed to bring him one. How could she take that other woman's son in her arms and hold it up for the father's first look? Yet that would be her part.

The strain of the thought showed in her face as she moved about seeing to this and that, speaking to those other women serenely, cheerfully.

Her pride ensured so much.

Within, the coming grandmother heaved a very purposeful sigh of relief at her absence. The patient would be better now that those glowering eyes were away. Whereat Mai Radha, the time-server, nodded her head sagely; but the girlish voice from the bed, set round with lamps and flowers, rose in fretful denial.

"Hold thy peace, mother. Thou canst not understand, being of the town.

It is different here in the village."

The mother giggled, nudging her neighbour. "Nine to credit, ten to debit! That's true of a first wife, town and country. But think as thou wilt, honey! Trust me to see she throws no evil eye on thee or the child. She shall not even see it till the fateful days be over."

The village midwife, an old crone sitting smoking a pipe at the foot of the bed, laughed.

"Thou art out there, mother! 'Tis her part, her right, to show the babe to its father. That is old fashion and we hold to it."