The Moneylenders of Shahpur. Helen Forrester

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      Anasuyabehn’s faintness had passed and she glared at the old woman, whose white widow’s sari served only to remind her of the troubles of early widowhood, the likely result if one married a man much older than oneself. Only a lifetime of training stopped her from screaming with rage at her aunt.

      Aunt mustered her forces. She said indignantly, ‘I’ve talked of little else for weeks. I told her all about the family and about the return of their eldest son. I was sure she understood.’

      ‘Marriage never occurred to me,’ Anasuyabehn defended herself, through gritted teeth. ‘They’re not the same caste. I just thought you were telling me the news – gossiping!’ The last word came out loaded with rage.

      ‘Sister!’ Dean Mehta’s voice was full of reproach. ‘Now we are committed. You stupid woman!’ Mentally he reviled himself for leaving so important a matter to her.

      ‘It’s a good match,’ said Aunt defensively. ‘Mahadev could marry anyone he chooses round these parts – and he chose Anasuyabehn.’

      ‘Chose me?’ exclaimed Anasuyabehn. Since she had never even spoken to Mahadev she had assumed that his father was arranging the marriage.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Aunt quickly. ‘He’s admired you for years. However, you were betrothed. But now he finds you are free, and dearly wants to marry you.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Anasuyabehn, surprise for a moment overcoming her anger.

      The Dean, thoroughly exasperated by his sister, nevertheless saw his chance, and said to his bewildered daughter, who was agitatedly running her fingers through her hair, ‘My daughter, your aunt is right. It is a good match in these troubled times.’ He pursed his lips, and then went on, ‘Certainly she should have talked it over thoroughly with you – I regret not asking you myself, but I’ve had so much on my mind lately – however, here we are committed to it, and before we do anything more, I want you to consider it carefully.’

      Anasuyabehn looked at him helplessly. She felt, as her father pressed Mahadev’s suit, that her last Court of Appeal was being closed to her, and she sat like a silent ghost while her father extolled Mahadev’s virtues. When he produced an exquisite sari which had been brought, as a token of the engagement, by one of the ladies concerned in the negotiations, she sat with it half opened in her lap, and hardly heard his voice.

      ‘Child, it was sad that your betrothed should die – I know you liked him. And, unfortunately, it made you look a little unlucky in the eyes of parents …’ He tailed off.

      ‘Mahadev is a handsome man,’ put in the old woman, her voice almost wistful, only to be crushed by an icy look from Anasuyabehn.

      ‘And a generous and thoughtful one,’ added her father, cheering up a little, as he picked up a small box from his desk.

      Mahadev had often been impressed by Anasuyabehn’s quiet and dignified demeanour when he had watched her in the streets; she walked with the perfect foot placement and timing of an elephant, he had many times told himself. Older and wiser than most bridegrooms, he greatly desired to win the favour of his wife-to-be. He had, therefore, insisted that the traditional bags of white and brown sugar be sent to her home, burying in them, instead of the usual two rupees, a small silver box with which to surprise her. It was this box which her father now handed to her.

      Though she was very dejected, Anasuyabehn’s curiosity was aroused by the unexpected token. She took the box from her father and opened it.

      On a fluffy bed of cotton reposed a small nose ring consisting of a single diamond set in gold. Exquisitely cut, it flashed in the sunlight with a delicate blue radiance, a beautiful ornament which spoke, with fabulously expensive eloquence, of its donor’s wealth, and of his interest in her as a person. With an odd quirk of humour, Anasuyabehn saw the mental agony with which a close-fisted, traditional moneylender must have parted with such a valuable gem. He must be in love to the point of insanity, she thought grimly.

      Fascinated, she lifted the ornament out and laid it on the palm of her hand, a hand that began to tremble with a deep fear of the unknown. Here was proof positive that her suitor would not take a negative answer easily. The gift was really valuable and quite unnecessary at such a time.

      Until her father had handed her the little box, she had taken it for granted that, somehow, she would be able to escape from the marriage agreement. But now fear seemed to creep out from the blue stone and wind itself round her heart. A man who loved passionately was not going to be fobbed off so easily – nor was his powerful family, who seemed to be bent on rising socially as a caste. She knew what it was to be in love, she admitted, in love with a strange Maratha from Bombay, and, as she met Tilak on various social occasions, she had begun to feel the white heat of it. What might a powerful man like Mahadev do, if he felt the same?

      And deep down inside her was a little worm of added fear, nesting in her Gujerati respect for money, that, because of Mahadev’s undisputed wealth, she might be tempted to be unfaithful to the new unnourished love which possessed her – though Tilak was not a bad match; a professor had everyone’s respect and a steady, if not large, income.

      She could feel fresh grief rising in her, in belated mourning for her original betrothed. If he had lived, she would have had a family by now and would never have lifted her eyes to Tilak – and Mahadev would have looked elsewhere for a wife. She had not cried at the time of her fiancé’s death – one rarely does about someone seen only once; but now she wished deeply that his thin, tuberculosis-ridden body lay between her and the fires of passion and fear now consuming her.

      I’ll object, she thought, and her inward sense of weakness made her outwardly more belligerent. She gritted her teeth and glared furiously through her tears at her aunt.

      Her father took her silence for reluctant acceptance, and said quite cheerfully, before her defiance could be expressed verbally, ‘Well, daughter, now you can see how highly Mahadev thinks of you. I think well of him myself and I believe you would learn to, too. Come, let us make him happy and give him a marriage date.’

      Toothless and shrivelled as a dry orange skin, her aunt squatted on the floor, nodding her head and smiling amiably.

      ‘An astrologer should arrange it,’ she said, taking out her betal box and scraping round in it for a suitable piece of nut to chew. ‘Though first there should be some parties, so that my niece may meet her future husband.’

      ‘I don’t want to be married,’ said Anasuyabehn in a small tight voice.

      ‘Tut, tut,’ said her aunt, grinning as she chewed.

      ‘I’d rather be a nun.’

      ‘You’ll change your tune when you have a small son in your arms,’ said the old lady, waving one scrawny arm to hitch her sari further over her shoulder.

      ‘Father,’ implored Anasuyabehn, tears pouring down her face. ‘Must I?’

      The Dean scratched his head in embarrassed silence. Finally, he said, ‘Daughter, I have loved you too well and kept you by me too long. It will not be easy to find anyone else as well-to-do, so healthy or so influential.’

      ‘I don’t like him, Papa. I don’t care about him being rich.’ She sniffed back her tears. ‘He’s not the only man in the world.’

      ‘Come, come, daughter,’ he said. ‘You have not yet СКАЧАТЬ