III
Nilmani's head was the largest part of him. It seemed as if the Creator had blown through a slender stick a big bubble at its top. The doctors feared sometimes that the child might be as frail and as quickly evanescent as a bubble. For a long time he could neither speak nor walk. Looking at his sad grave face, you might think that his parents had unburdened all the sad weight of their advanced years upon the head of this little child.
With his sister's care and nursing, Nilmani passed the period of danger, and arrived at his sixth year.
In the month of Kartik, on the bhaiphoto[26] day, Sasi had dressed Nilmani up as a little Babu, in coat and chadar and red-bordered dhoti, and was giving him the ‘brother's mark,’ when her outspoken neighbour Tara came in and, for one reason or another, began a quarrel.
‘'Tis no use,’ cried she, ‘giving the “brother's mark” with so much show and ruining the brother in secret.’
At this Sasi was thunderstruck with astonishment, rage, and pain. Tara repeated the rumour that Sasi and her husband had conspired together to put the minor Nilmani's property up for sale for arrears of rent, and to purchase it in the name of her husband's cousin. When Sasi heard this, she uttered a curse that those who could spread such a foul lie might be stricken with leprosy in the mouth. And then she went weeping to her husband, and told him of the gossip. Joygopal said: ‘Nobody can be trusted in these days. Upen is my aunt's son, and I felt quite safe in leaving him in charge of the property. He could not have allowed the taluk Hasilpur to fall into arrears and purchase it himself in secret, if I had had the least inkling about it.’
‘Won't you sue then?’ asked Sasi in astonishment.
‘Sue one's cousin!’ said Joygopal. ‘Besides, it would be useless, a simple waste of money.’
It was Sasi's supreme duty to trust her husband's word, but Sasi could not. At last her happy home, the domesticity of her love seemed hateful to her. That home life which had once seemed her supreme refuge was nothing more than a cruel snare of self-interest, which had surrounded them, brother and sister, on all sides. She was a woman, single-handed, and she knew not how she could save the helpless Nilmani. The more she thought, the more her heart filled with terror, loathing, and an infinite love for her imperilled little brother. She thought that, if she only knew how, she would appear before the Lat Saheb,[27] nay, write to the Maharani herself, to save her brother's property. The Maharani would surely not allow Nilmani's taluk[28] of Hasilpur, with an income of seven hundred and fifty-eight rupees a year, to be sold.