Chapter 176
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[MEMBERSONLY]
Kindly consult Page 72 where I have replied to all the comments made on the previous chapter.
Casper: Oh wow!! Casper dear! Welcome back!!! And goodness, what all chapters you may have waiting for you! Enjoy your weekend in Arhasia!
There is something I need to clarify with regard to what many of my readers thought about Genny boy's address of Kushi as "Miss Kushi." I am certain there must be a few among you, who have understood there is no reason to get all hot and accusing of his bold address of her. "Miss," in the English world, is not a reference to an unmarried woman but to a "woman" as such, whether she is married or not. As a sign of respect from a person of great polish and position, the General uses this term in the similar manner. By his regard as a respectable General with polite manners, he would address every other woman in the same way if he had to use their name. "Ma'am" and "Miss" are interchangeable in this context and if he was free to meet the Gupta women or had to refer the Raizada women by their names, he would call them, "Miss Garima," "Miss Madhumati," "Miss Manorama" and so on...
And now, I don't know whether I should recommend beverages or icecreams or anything AT ALL for the following chapter, knowing what your reactions could turn into. But all I can say is this: Get a grip on your heart and prepare yourselves for the... well, for what the title worries on...
Chapter 255: A Nascency or A Fatality?
Almost as though the Castle was consumed by wildfire, there was a huge uproar and running about in the Raizada locus.
Having lain Lady Anjali, who was crying with unbearable pain, Rahim Chacha had first rushed to the Elder Lord who was in his room.
Lord Manohar immediately, like his aging legs had never run before, rushed down the stairs and towards the stable to personally fetch the herbalist's wife who was a midwife.
Having heard her granddaughter's cry at its very first syllable, Lady Deviyani had rushed to her side and, presently, the old woman was all over the place, giving urgent orders to the servants, while Lady Manorama helped the frantic Lady Anjali into the wooden birthing chair.
All of a sudden, Lord Arnav and Lord Akash were barging through the Castle doors, having rushed from the Industry as soon as OmPrakash had arrived on horseback, panting with the news.
The Elder Lord arrived with the midwife shortly and Lady Deviyani sentenced everyone to the living room, leaving just herself, the midwife and two other maids in the chamber were Lady Anjali sat wailing with pain.
The frantic atmosphere in the Castle petrified little Ram and he sat in the living room by the window, looking out at nothing in particular. However, distracting his mind came Lady Anjali's painful cries, so loud that they filled the entire Castle.
The little boy could bear it no longer and he ran across the room and into the dinning hall which was empty of persons and, before anyone spotted him, he slid under the table cloth and hid in the darkness under the long table.
But Lady Anjali's cries reached him even there and the boy wrapped his little arms around his legs and buried his face into the crook of his knees.
He could not bear to hear her tormenting cries anymore. Rocking to and fro, he earnestly prayed for the pain to subside in the lovely Lady Anjali.
He squeezed his eyes shut. The memory was still fresh in his mind of how he'd accompanied Lady Anjali to her bedchamber to get the wine cleaned off her gown.
He had brought her a white handkerchief and was watching her dab at the ruddy blotch on her dress when she froze and her cheeks turned pale. She had looked at him as though she had been stabbed and when she opened her mouth, no sound or breath escaped.
All of a sudden, she was falling to the ground, upon the rug that pillowed her fall, clutching at the sides of her womb and wheezing.
"Ram," she had whimpered to the terrified boy who was too shocked to move, "Ram...get Nani..."
Sudden energy rushed up his legs and, dropping the tray that was in his hand, Ram had rushed out of the room. But, instead of running to Lady Deviyani, he rushed to his father-figure, the butler who was replacing the wine-bottle in the kitchen.
One glimpse of Ram's pale face and Rahim Chacha knew what was afoot; after commanding the boy to get the Lady Mother, the butler rushed with a few maids to help Lady Anjali from the floor and onto a safer surface.
No wonder the boy had been so terrified by it all. He huddled under the huge dinning table, trying to block out the sounds that made him want to cry.
Just then, he heard something approach the dinning table and, when it appeared from under the table cloth and presented itself in the darkness of Ram's refuge, the tear-stricken boy saw that it was Nani's white parrot.
The parrot blinked up at him and tilted its head as though studying his secretive situation.
Ram too tilted his head to mirror its movement.
The parrot blinked again.
Ram blinked too.
Did you get scared too and have come to hide here? Ram asked it in his mind but, ofcourse, he knew it couldn't hear.
The parrot straightened up, spread wide its wings and then it flew to Ram's shoulder and found its perch there.
"Fortune friend!" exclaimed the parrot, meaning to assure the boy.
The parrot's loud utterance had, however, caught the attention of another in the vicinity of the dinning hall.
For, in the next moment, the tablecloth was lifted up and light flooded under the table.
Ram and the parrot started, but then relaxed when Kushi's face appeared from the light to peer into the darkness under the table.
"Ram? Fortune? What are you two doing under the table?" Kushi extended a hand and beckoned them to emerge from their hiding-place.
Obediently, and also relieved that he had someone to hold onto, Ram held Kushi's hand and let her lead him from under the table and across to the living room where every other member of the family was seated beside the fireplace, agitated in their sitting or too agitated to be sitting that they'd be walking about.
Though the door was shut, Lady Anjali's intolerable cries were loud and persistent, making Ram cringe.
Kushi held his hand firmly, wanting to help his little heart find the strength to endure the hour.
The parrot was still perched on Ram's shoulder and it seemed to have transformed itself into a dummy, neither moving nor talking, merely sitting there, eyeing everything.
Ram assumed the bird was muted because it was also terrified by Lady Anjali's cries that had begun to sound unearthly and distraught.
Sitting on the lounger, Kushi lifted Ram onto her lap and hugged him, more to assure herself than him.
Payal sat beside her sister, watching Lord Akash fidget in the armchair as though he were sitting on pine-needles.
Lady Manorama sat glumly, staring at the door within the room of which her dear niece fought the birth pangs. Lady Manorama had gone terribly pale, unlike her usual self. Lord Manohar and Rahim Chacha were pacing up and down the room, but the former kept glancing in the direction of his wife, concern of a strange kind etched on his composed features.
Lord Arnav was sitting in the armchair beside the fireplace, his fingers in a restless clasp, his head bowed and his face frowning upon the floor. As Lady Anjali's screams heightened to a torturous tenor, a teardrop fell from Lord Arnav's eye onto the rug and Kushi was the only one who saw it.
A painful sting crossed her heart at the sight, knowing how grieved he was to listen to his sister's helpless pleas of pain.
Wanting to be there for her husband, Kushi released Ram from her embrace and transferred him onto her Jiji's lap. On receiving the boy, Payal pressed her cheek against the little boy's head and rocked him like a mother would a child.
Kushi walked up to where her husband sat and perched herself on the wide armrest of his chair.
Lord Arnav had been leaning forward so Kushi inclined her head against his head, her arm across his shoulder.
Lord Arnav closed his eyes, feeling torn within, because the comfort his wife was extending had presented itself as a dilemma.
As much as he was wanting her presence, her transit towards him had brought her in the proximity and visual ken of his enemy.
The General was sitting in the armchair across from his, both overlooking the fireplace, and the General's anxious attention had moved from the blazing fire to the damsel who had appeared beside the opposite armchair.
Lord Arnav turned his bowed head the side, watching the General from the corner of his eye but addressing his wife, "Kushi, go sit with Ram. I'm fine."
Kushi sat up, hurt by his rejection of her presence, but wisely obliged.
She kissed him on his head and then proceeded back to the lounger, leaning her head against her Jiji's shoulder who now had to handle the cumulative weight of a scared little boy, a dejected young sister and a mummified white parrot.
Lord Arnav watched the General's expression and was surprised to find that the latter looked genuinely worried.
I knew the fool cared for Di, Lord Arnav ascertained, Then why does he provoke designs that state otherwise!
The General, however, was oblivious to Lord Arnav's scrutiny.
His mind, wrapped in the perpetual cries of his labouring wife, was thinking only of one thing: that child, who was certain to be his doom, cannot be born alive.
His venomous hatred for the unborn entity shrouded his mind in such a blindness of senses that he was clearly taken aback when she appeared: The little girl of his nightmares was standing before the fireplace, turned to the fire but her head looking over her shoulder at him.
The General was so stunned, by her unexpected appearance at that juncture, that he simply stared unblinkingly.
But what astonished him was the cold look with which she regarded him, as though he'd wronged her, mutilated her one chance to getting at him.
The anger with which she looked at him transformed his confusion into a hopefulness.
It meant only one thing.
A relieved smile crept upon his face and he released his hands that had been clutched so hard onto the armrest that they had turned pale and bloodless.
The girl still stood there, eyeing him with outright hatred as though he'd betrayed her.
The cunning glint returned in his eyes and he glared triumphantly back at her. Now you will never get me.
Realizing that his relieved happiness was vivid on his face, the General hastily looked around to see if anyone had noticed.
But no one had, for everyone was in their own world of grief in the rising wails of the labouring mother.
That was when the General's gaze fell on the white parrot that was on Ram's shoulder.
Though appearing emotionless and immobile, the parrot was looking straight at something, its eyes shinning with insight.
What stunned the General was where the parrot was looking: not at the General or at the fireplace but where the apparition of the girl stood.
He was astonished by the possibility that the bird could see her and wondered, Perchance, could it be that all animals can see apparitions that are immune to human eyes?
The General returned his gaze at the girl whose cold eyes were still only trained at him.
All of a sudden, as he was watching her, the girl turned her gaze to the fireplace and, without a warning, walked into it, vanishing into the fire that blazed wild for a few seconds before it calmed down in its flare again.
It was at this moment that the General realized everyone was sitting up or frozen in their standing, as though focused in listening.
Lady Anjali's cries had subsided and could be heard only feebly.
Which meant that the child had come.
They waited with bated breath to hear the first cry of the child as it took its first breath of the outside world.
A long minute passed but there was no cry. Only a punishing silence.
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