Tales of Bengal Part 11

Soon after these unpleasant events the new Sub-Inspector of police arrived at Debendra Babu's house with a warrant for his arrest, and took him to the station despite loud protests of innocence. There he applied for bail, which was of course refused, and he spent the night in the lock-up. Knowing well that he had a very bad case, he humbled himself so far as to send for Nalini, whom he implored with folded hands to save him from destruction. Nalini was deeply moved by his appeal. He heartily despised the fellow's unutterable baseness, but reflected that he had been an old friend of his father's. He undertook the prisoner's defence.

In due course Debendra Babu, with Abdullah, was brought before the Deputy Magistrate of Ghoria on various grave charges. The evidence established a strong prima facie case against both, and Nalini Babu reserved his defence. They were committed for trial. When the case came before the Sessions Judge the Government Pleader (public prosecutor) adduced many witnesses proving the prisoner's guilt, the last of whom was Hiramani, who admitted on cross-examination that she had caused the anonymous letter to be sent to headquarters, which led to the charge being reopened. She protested that she had done so from a feeling that so great a crime should not be hushed up. Nalini Babu, in his turn, put forward some witnesses for the defence; but their statements were not of material advantage to the prisoner. It was, in fact, a losing game, but he played it manfully. After all evidence had been recorded, the Government Pleader was about to sum up for the prosecution, when the Court rose suddenly, as it was past five o'clock.

Nalini was going homewards in the dusk, when he felt a hand laid timidly on his shoulder. Turning sharply round, he saw an old man standing by his side. On being asked his name and business, the newcomer whispered some information which must have interested Nalini greatly for he rubbed his hands, smiled, and nodded several times. After a few minutes' talk the pair went together to a spot where a palanquin with bearers was waiting. Into it got Nalini and was carried off at a smart trot, while his companion hobbled behind.

When the Court a.s.sembled next day Nalini thus addressed the judge: "May it please your honour, I have, by the greatest good luck, obtained certain evidence which will, I think, place this case in a new light". On getting leave to adduce an additional witness, he beckoned to an old man, standing at the back of the Court, who entered the witness-box and declared that his name was Ram Harak and that he was a dismissed servant of the prisoner. This was a curious opening for a witness for the defence, and dead silence fell on the Court while Ram Harak proceeded to swear that it was he, and not Debendra Babu, who had been intimate with the deceased, and that she had poisoned herself to avoid excommunication.

"Did she tell you so herself?" asked the judge sharply.

"No, your highness; I learnt this only yesterday from Maina Bibi, Karim's own sister; Piyari Bibi, Sadhu's daughter; and Nasiban Bibi, his sister-in-law, who all lived with the deceased."

The Government Pleader at once objected to this statement being recorded, as it was hearsay. Nalini, however, a.s.sured the judge that the eye-witnesses were in attendance, and called them, one by one, to give evidence. Pa.s.sing strange was their story. On the evening of Siraji's death they found her writhing in agony on the floor and, on being questioned, she gasped out that she could bear her kinsfolks' tyranny no longer. They had just told her that she was to be excommunicated for intriguing with an infidel. So she had got some yellow a.r.s.enic from the domes (low-caste leather-dressers) and swallowed several tolas weight of the poison in milk. The other women were thunderstruck. They sat down beside her and mingled their lamentations until Siraji's sufferings ended for ever. They afterwards agreed to say nothing about the cause of her death for fear of the police. But Ram Harak had come to them privately and frightened them into promising to tell the whole truth, by pointing out the awful consequences of an innocent man's conviction. Their evidence was not shaken by the Government Pleader's cross-examination, and it was corroborated by a dome, who swore that Siraji had got some a.r.s.enic from him a few days before her death, on the pretext that it was wanted in order to poison some troublesome village dogs. After consulting with the jury for a few minutes, the judge informed Nalini that his client was acquitted, and Debendra Babu left the Court, as the newspapers say, "without a stain on his character". Seeing Ram Harak standing near the door with folded hands, he clasped the good old man to his bosom, with many protestations of grat.i.tude, and begged him to forgive the injustice with which he had been treated.

When Ram Harak found himself alone with his master at the close of this exciting day, he repeated the vile insinuations which Hiramani had made regarding the daughter's character. Debendra Babu was highly indignant and vowed that the scandal-monger should never cross his threshold again. He then implored Ram Harak to trace his son-in-law, authorising him to offer any reparation he might ask. The old man smiled, and left the house, but returned a quarter of an hour later with a Sanyasi (religious mendicant) who revealed himself as the missing Pulin. Debendra Babu received him with warm embraces and many entreaties for pardon; while Pulin said modestly that he alone was to blame, for he ought not to have believed the aspersions cast on his wife by Hiramani, which led him to quit the house in disgust. He added that Ram Harak had found him telling his beads near a temple, and persuaded him to wait close at hand until he had opened Debendra Babu's eyes.

Meanwhile the whole house echoed with songs and laughter. Debendra Babu rewarded Ram Harak's fidelity with a grant of rent-free land, and publicly placed a magnificent turban on his head. He resolved to celebrate his own escape from jail by feasting the neighbours. The entire arrangements were left in the hands of the two Basus, who managed matters so admirably that every one was more than satisfied and Debendra Babu's fame was spread far and wide. When things resumed their normal aspect, he held a confab with the brothers as to the punishment which should be meted out to Hiramani, and it was unanimously resolved to send her to Coventry. They, therefore, forbade the villagers to admit her into their houses, and the shopkeepers to supply her wants. Hiramani soon found Kadampur too hot to hold her and took her departure for ever, to every one's intense relief.

CHAPTER XV

A Tame Rabbit.

When a penniless Hindu marries into a wealthy family he is sorely tempted to live with, and upon, his father-in-law. But the ease thus secured is unattended by dignity. The gharjamai, "son-in-law of the house," as he is styled, shocks public opinion, which holds it disgraceful for an able-bodied man to eat the bread of idleness. Pulin incurred a certain degree of opprobrium by quartering himself on Debendra Babu; neighbours treated him with scant courtesy, and the very household servants made him feel that he was a person of small importance. He bore contumely with patience, looking forward to the time when Debendra Babu's decease would give him a recognised position. His wife was far more ambitious. She objected strongly to sharing her husband's loss of social standing and frequently reproached him with submitting to be her father's annadas (rice-slave).

So, one morning, he poured his sorrows into Nalini's sympathetic ear.

"Mahasay," he said, "you know that people are inclined to blame me for living in idleness, and I do indeed long to chalk out a career for myself. But I don't know how to set about it and have no patron to back me. Do you happen to know of any job which would give me enough to live on? Salary is less an object with me than prospects. I would gladly accept a mastership in some high school."

"You are quite right in seeking independence," replied Nalini, "and I shall be glad to help you. But lower-grade teachers are miserably paid, and their prospects are no better. It is only graduates who can aspire to a head-mastership. Are you one?"

"No, sir, but I pa.s.sed the F.A. examination in 1897."

"Ah, then, you are a Diamond Jubilee man--that's a good omen,"

rejoined Nalini, with a shade of sarcasm in his voice. "What were your English text-books?"

"I read Milton's Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden's Holy Grail, and many other poems, but I'm not sure of their t.i.tles after all these years."

Nalini suspected that his friend's English lore was somewhat rusty. In order to test him further, he asked, "Can you tell me who wrote 'Life is real, life is earnest,'--that line applies to you!"

Pulin fidgeted about before answering. "It must have been Tennyson--or was it Wordsworth? I never could keep poetry in my head."

Nalini thought that an F.A. might have remembered Longfellow's Psalm of Life, but he refrained from airing superior knowledge.

"Do you know any mathematics?" he inquired.

"Mathematics!" replied Pulin joyously. "Why, they're my forte---I am quite at home in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. Please ask me any question you like."

"Well, let us have Prop. 30, Book I. of Euclid."

Pulin rattled off Proposition 13 of that book, without the aid of a diagram. Nalini now saw that the young man's mental equipment was of the slenderest description. He said, "Well, you may call on me another day, when I may be able to tell you of some vacancy".

Pulin, however, would take no denial. He became so insistent that Nalini reluctantly gave him a letter of introduction to Babu Kaliprasanna Som, Secretary of the Ramnagar High School, who, he said, was looking about him for a fourth master. Pulin lost no time in delivering it and was immediately appointed to the vacant post.

English education in Bengal is not regarded as a key which opens the door of a glorious literature, but simply and solely as a stepping-stone in the path of worldly success. The Department seems to aim at turning out clerks and lawyers in reckless profusion. Moreover, academic degrees are tariffed in the marriage market. The "F.A." commands a far higher price than the "entrance-pa.s.sed," while an M.A. has his pick of the richest and prettiest girls belonging to his cla.s.s. Hence parents take a keen interest in their boys' progress and constantly urge them to excel in cla.s.s. With such lessons ringing in his ears, the Bengali schoolboy is consumed with a desire to master his text-books. The great difficulty is to tear him away from them, and insist on his giving sufficient time to manly games. When a new teacher takes the helm, he is closely watched in order to test his competence. The older lads take a cruel pleasure in plying him with questions which they have already solved from the Dictionary. Pulin did not emerge from this ordeal with credit, and the boys concocted a written complaint of his shortcomings, which they despatched to the Secretary of the School Committee, The answer was a promise to redress their grievances.

At 10.30 next morning Kaliprasanna Babu entered Pulin's cla.s.sroom and stood listening to his method of teaching English literature. Presently one of the boys asked him to explain the difference between "fort"

and "fortress". After scratching his head for fully half a minute he replied that the first was a castle defended by men, while the second had a female garrison! The Secretary was quite satisfied. He left the room and sent Pulin a written notice of dismissal. The latter was disheartened beyond measure by this unkind stroke of fortune. He shook the dust of Ramnagar from his feet and returned home to lay his sorrows before Nalini, seasoning the story with remarks highly derogatory to Kaliprasanna Babu's character. In order to get rid of an importunate suitor Nalini gave him another letter of introduction, this time to an old acquaintance named Debnath Lahiri who was head clerk in the office of Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop, one of the largest mercantile firms of Calcutta. Pulin was heartily sick of school-mastering, and the prospect of making a fortune in business filled his soul with joy. He borrowed Rs. 30 from Debendra Babu and took the earliest train for Calcutta. On arriving there he joined a mess of waifs and strays like himself, who herded in a small room and clubbed their pice to provide meals. Then he waited on Debnath Babu, whom he found installed in a sumptuous office overlooking the river Hughli. The great man glanced at his credentials and, with an appearance of cordiality, promised to let him know in case a vacancy occurred in the office. For nearly a month Pulin called daily for news at Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop's, and generally managed to waylay the head clerk, whose reply was invariably, "I have nothing to suit you at present".

One morning, however, he was stopped by the darwan (doorkeeper) who told him gruffly that the "Bara Babu did not like to have outsiders hanging about the office". The baffled suitor reflected on his miserable position. He had just eleven rupees and two pice left, which he calculated would last him, with strict economy, for another fortnight. When they were spent, he would have to return crestfallen to Kadampur. But could he face the neighbours' sneers, the servants'

contumely--worse than all, his wife's bitter tongue? No, that was not to be thought of. It were better to plunge into the river whose turbid waters rolled only a few feet away.

Pulin was roused from this unpleasant train of thought by hearing his name p.r.o.nounced. It came from a well-dressed man, who was just entering Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop's office, welcomed by a salam from the surly doorkeeper. Pulin was delighted to recognise in the stranger a certain Kisari Mohan Chatterji, who had taught him English in the General a.s.sembly's College more than a decade back. In a few words he told his sad story and learnt that Kisari Babu had taken the same step as he himself contemplated, with the result that he was now head clerk in Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop's export department. This news augured well for his own ambition, but poor Pulin was disgusted on hearing that no less than three vacancies had occurred in as many weeks, and that all had been filled by relatives of Babu Debnath Lahiri. Kisari Babu added: "A junior clerk is to be appointed to-morrow. Write out an application in your very best hand, with copies of your testimonials, and bring it to me here this evening at five. I'll see that it reaches our manager, Henderson Saheb." Pulin punctually followed his friend's advice, and dreamed all night of wealth beyond a miser's utmost ambition.

On arriving at Messrs. Kerr & Dunlop's office next morning he joined a crowd of twenty or thirty young men who were bent on a like errand. His spirits sank to zero, nor were they raised when after hanging about in the rain for nearly two hours the aspirants were told that the vacancy had been filled up. Thereupon the forlorn group dispersed, cursing their ill-luck and muttering insinuations against Mr. Henderson and his head clerk. Pulin, however, lingered behind. By tendering a rupee to the doorkeeper he got a slip of paper and pencil, with which he indited a piteous appeal to Kisari Babu, and a promise that it should reach him. Presently his friend came out in a desperate hurry, with a stylograph behind his ear, and his hands laden with papers.

"It's just as I antic.i.p.ated," he whispered to Pulin. "The head clerk has persuaded Henderson Saheb to bestow the post on his wife's nephew. But don't be disheartened. I will speak to our Saheb about you this very day. Come here at five to learn the result."

Pulin did so and was overjoyed to find that he had been appointed probationary clerk in the export department on Rs. 20 per mensem, in supersession of Debnath Babu's nominee.

On the morrow he entered on his new duties with some trepidation, but Kisari Babu took him under his wing and spared no pains to "teach him the ropes". Pulin spent his evenings in furbishing up his English and arithmetic, mastered the whole art of book-keeping, and, being naturally intelligent, he soon had the office routine at his fingers'

ends. He grasped the fact that a young man who wishes to succeed in life must make himself indispensable. In course of time Pulin's industry and trustworthiness attracted the attention of Mr. Henderson, who confirmed him as clerk, with a salary of Rs. 35.

But every cup has its bitter drop; and Pulin's was the persistent enmity of the head clerk, who bore him a grudge for ousting his wife's nephew and seized every opportunity of annoying him. Leagued with the arch-enemy were two subordinate clerks, Gyanendra and Lakshminarain by name, who belonged to Debnath Babu's gusti (family). This trio so managed matters that all the hardest and most thankless work fell to Pulin's lot. He bore their pin-p.r.i.c.ks with equanimity, secure in the constant support of Kisari Babu.

One muggy morning in August he awoke with a splitting headache, the harbinger of an attack of fever, and was obliged to inform the head clerk, by means of a note, of his inability to attend office. An answer was brought by Gyanendra to the effect that three days' leave of absence was granted, but that his work must be carried on by some other clerk. He was, therefore, ordered to send the key of his desk by the bearer. For three days the patient endured alternations of heat and cold; but his malady yielded to quinine, and on the fourth he was able to resume work.

Soon after reaching the office, he was accosted by one of the bearers, named Ramtonu, who told him that the Bara Sahebwished to see him at once. The moment he entered the manager's sanctum he saw that something unpleasant had occurred. Without wishing him good morning, as usual, Mr. Henderson handed him a cheque and asked sternly whether he had filled it up. Pulin examined the doc.u.ment, which turned out to be an order on the Standard Bank to pay Tarak Ghose & Co. Rs. 200, signed by Mr. Henderson. He was obliged to admit that the payee's name, as also the amount in words and figures, seemed to be in his handwriting.

"Yes," rejoined the manager, "and the signature is very like my own; but it is a forgery. Do you hear me, Babu, a forgery!"

To Pulin's disordered senses the room, with its furniture and Mr. Henderson's angry face, seemed to be turning round. He gasped out, "I'm ill, sir!" and sank into a chair. The manager mistook the remains of fever for a tacit admission of guilt. He waited till Pulin had regained a share of his wits and said gravely: "I did not think that one whom I trusted with my cheque-book would act thus. Now you will search your books, to see whether they contain a record of any payment of the kind, and return with them in half an hour. But I must warn you that if this forgery is traced to you, I shall have to call in the police."

Pulin staggered back to his room in despair and observed that Gyanendra and Lakshminarain, who sat at the next desk, were evidently enjoying his mental agony. Alas! the books showed no trace of any payment to Tarak Ghose & Co. He wrung his hands in great distress and sat bewildered, until Ramtonu came to summon him to the manager's tribunal. In the corridor Ramtonu glanced round, to make sure that no one was within hearing, and said, "Don't be afraid, Babuji. You did me a good turn, and I may be able to help you now."

This Ramtonu was an office menial hailing from the district of Gaya, in Behar. He was an intelligent man, but rather unlicked, and was the b.u.t.t of the younger clerks, who delighted in mocking his uncouth up-country dialect. Pulin, however, had never joined in "ragging"

him, and, on one occasion, he lent Ramtonu Rs. 7 for his wife, who was about to increase the population of Gaya. Grat.i.tude for kindness is a marked trait in the Indian character, and Pulin bethought him of the old fable of the Lion and Mouse. He asked: "Why, what do you know about lekha-para (reading and writing)?"

"Never mind," rejoined Ramtonu. "We must not loiter, for we should be suspected of plotting together. Come to the Saheb's room. I shall be admitted, for he knows that I don't understand English. All I ask is that you will clasp your hands as a signal when I may come forward and tell my story."

A European police officer was seated by Mr. Henderson's side, engaged in writing from his dictation. They looked up, and the manager asked whether Pulin had found any record of the payment in dispute.

On receiving a negative answer, he said: "Then I shall be obliged to hand you over to the police".

Pulin clasped his hands in a mute appeal for mercy, whereon Ramtonu stepped forward. Carefully extracting a folded sheet of foolscap from the pocket of his chapkan (a tight-fitting garment, worn by nearly all cla.s.ses in full dress), he spread it out on the table and respectfully asked the manager to run his eye over it.

"By Jove," remarked the latter, with great surprise, "here's some one has been copying my signature--and Pulin's writing too!"

All eyes were now bent on the incriminating doc.u.ment. It was made up of many fragments of paper, carefully pasted on a sheet of foolscap, and bore the words, "Tarak Ghose & Co., two hundred rupees, 200,"