The Flower of Forgiveness

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Thus endlessly through afternoon sunshine and afternoon shade, as the shine fell full on a woman who was sitting silently beside a row of mud cooking-places in the first courtyard. So still, so silent; it seemed as if the waves of sound must break baffled upon the carven folds of the coarse, whitey brown veil which, covering her almost from head to foot, was drawn tight over the forehead to conceal the hair, and wound tight under the chin so as to hide all save the oval face barred by level black brows, and the brown curves of a wide mouth. Only about her feet a voluminous petticoat showed its dingy red and green borderings like a frill. The typical dress of a widow in Northern India, and the face matched it. More indifferent than sad; the lack of vitality, inseparable from the conviction that the life is not worth living, written on every feature, blurring its beauty. For Durga-dei had been beautiful a year ago when sunsetting had sent the master coppersmith to tell her so, and praise the order of a well-kept house. Now the shadow creeping inch by inch along the sunlit dust, and up the sunlit mud wall, brought her no emotion save the mechanical hope that the lentils would be properly cooked by supper time, and the vague wonder why her sister-in-law's shrill voice had not recommenced the conjugation of the imperative mood from the inner court. Parbutti had been sleeping longer than usual; she who but a year agone would no more have dared to sleep! And as for command? Was not a dewarani--the husband's younger brother's wife--bound by every principle of religion and decency to obey? Durga-dei's black brows grew straighter at the thought of the change one short year had wrought. And Gopâl, Parbutti's husband, was the master now. A pretty master for all his good looks, for all his learning! yet what else could one expect, seeing he had spent his youth over books at the Municipal School, while his elder brother, despite his crippled condition, had kept the ancestral business a-going? Yes! on that point the dead husband had been weak; and yet how proud he had been of the handsome lad who was to bring sons to the ancestral hearth! But he had not even done so much, though to be sure, for that Parbutti was to blame; a jealous wife, too selfish--

"Durga! Durga-dei! The broom, quick! Am I to sit in the dust like a lone widow because thou art lazy? The broom, I say!"

The voice which overbore one clamour by another was not pleasant; but it was so in comparison with Durga's face as she rose reluctantly. A thousand times more so than that same face when, after a few minutes of listening to the high-pitched voice, the shrouded figure showed again through the doorway leading to the inner court. Not an ungraceful figure, despite its shroud, as it leant despondently against the lintel, while the black eyes shifted in a sort of helpless indifference over the blank walls imprisoning them.

A year ago; only a year ago!

Her unpractised brain attempted no other complaint; but this unformulated sense of injury possessed her utterly, and everything in heaven and earth became an outrage on that capable past when she had held the reins of government. Of a truth, in that small kingdom of hers behind the coppersmith's shop naught had been wanting that she could compass. Naught save children; for that Parbutti, feckless Parbutti, with youth and health and strength on both sides, was far more responsible than she. If the curse had been hers, would she not gladly have given a handmaiden to her lord? But they had waited for the brother's child which would be as their own, and in that hope had refused to adopt a son while yet there was time. Even now--the small supple hands sought the crevices beyond the door lintel against which they had been resting slackly--sought them as if intent on finding some flaw, some finger-hold in the blank brick wall--yes! even now, but for Parbutti's indecent jealousy, the old customs might bring a tardy comfort, and give her, the widow, back something of her lost power and position. The Mosaic maxim, "Let him take the woman and raise up children to his brother," was so familiar to Durga-dei that its fulfilment in this case seemed to her quite commonplace. Married to Gopâl by kurao, she would not, of course, regain her status as the wife, but she might find solace as the house mother, if there were children. The passion of hearth and home was strong in her, as it is in most good Hindu women; and it is not too much to say that the disregard of time-honoured custom towards herself counted for far less in her resentment than the disregard of a time-honoured custom which was clearly for the good of the family; since she would then have the right to keep handsome, lazy Gopâl and his work together for the sake of the son who might be born to the old trade. She was of the stern old school; but those two were not; and so, between the hearth and that calm perpetuity in which lay its only chance of success, stood a strong woman's jealousy and a weak man's cunning. For Gopâl knew well that sooner or later even the most indecent of barren wives must give her lord a child-bringer. And in such case, without being bad to the heart's core, a handsome fellow like Gopâl might well speculate on a youthful bride in the future, rather than take a widow in the present, since Parbutti would never allow both. So, on the whole, he was not so much to blame. Men were men when all was said and done. They loved beauty. Yet she had been beautiful--surely she had been beautiful.

The clangour ceased suddenly, leaving, as it were, an echo in the chime of the police office gong at the nearest gate striking the hour--five o'clock. Durga, as she counted the strokes, smiled contemptuously. As usual Gopâl was seizing on the first excuse for knocking off work, though a good two hours of daylight remained for the industrious--for the old style masters, such as her dead husband had been. But this one did not even trouble to see the shop properly closed, the implements put aside, or guard against the prentice trick of concealing a handful or two of snippings and filings; for there was his lithe figure at the door, about to cross to the inner courtyard--to ease and indolence--to his supper--to--to Parbutti!

A flash of intense vitality came to Durga's face: despite its silence, its absolute stillness, her whole figure was instinct with life as she stood looking at the man opposite her. He was about her own age, and the scanty clothing of the artisan clashes left the strength and beauty of his limbs unconcealed. The face was handsome also, and pleasant in its beardless contours, surrounded by the fringe of silky black hair showing beneath the artisan's round calico cap. Both figure and features displaying at their best the characteristics of that curious guild which for thousands of years has defied the Sudra origin imputed to it by the Brahmans, and worn the sacred thread of the twice-born in the smithy, the mason's yard, and the carpenter's shop. It curved now like a piece of whipcord across the bronze body to which the afternoon sunshine sent gleams of gold as it shone on the sweat-dewed muscles. A fine young fellow certainly, with the thin, deft hands and feet which are the outcome of generations on generations of manual dexterity displayed in one and only one direction. So far, a type of past ages when Nasmyth hammers and Archimedean drills were unknown. Yet they were not unknown to Gopâl the coppersmith. He had not been idle at the Municipal School, where the primers discourse glibly of all the wonders of the world, all the marvels born from that curious potentiality--the human brain. So the forty and odd ounces of grey matter in Gopâl's own skull were leavened with ideas foreign to those which had been transmitted to him through ages of slow heredity. A curious anomaly; one which has to be taken into account by the master builders of the Great Imperial Institute when they count the cost of progress. And yet as he paused, arrested by the glow on Durga's face, his thoughts defied his education. For it came home to him suddenly, causelessly, that this woman, the widow of his dead brother, was beautiful, and that he had a right to her--if he chose. Yes! she was beautiful--far more beautiful, despite her widowhood, than the jealous wife awaiting him within; and she was his by right--if he chose. Why should he not choose? These thoughts were crowding culture from his brain, as he crossed the courtyard without a word; for convention so far held him fast. Only as she stepped aside from the door to let him pass, their eyes met.

When he had gone, and the sound of Parbutti's shrill welcoming rose over the high partition wall, Durga crouched down beside the fireplace, and blew softly at the smouldering embers under the pot of lentils. It was woman's work to fan a flame if--if it were not fierce enough to do its duty to the hearth. Easy work also: a woman could do it with no more exertion than would make the bosom rise and fall a trifle quicker, or send a tremble through the arm supporting the bowed shoulder. No more than that. And even that Parbutti did not notice, as she bustled out, full of wifely service and housewifely blame, to set the finishing touches to the meal and carry it off to the hungry master, leaving a shapeless bundle of widowhood waiting indifferently for such dog's share of food as might be left when other appetites were satisfied. Then a great silence seemed to take possession of and fill the outer court, just as the clangour had filled it, and still Durga sat waiting, her eyes upon the fire. The sunlight left the wall to dull shadow, the flames died down, but no one called; perhaps they had eaten everything, and she must stave off her whole day's hunger with a handful of parched grain. Well! 'twould count as a virtue, not for herself, but for the dead husband who had gone down to death sonless; not by her fault, though--not by her fault! The old vague sense of injury returned, lulling her to a sort of resignation.

"Durga! Durga-dei!"

She started from a half doze to see Parbutti pausing on her way to the outer door, in order to exclaim at laziness--exclaiming all the louder because Gopâl, also on his way to the world beyond those four walls, stood by listening both to the scolding and the silence. Suddenly he moved impatiently to the door.