Chapter 265: The Solace and Her Story
When Lady Manorama walked into Payal's bedroom, she found the latter sitting up in her bed, looking forlornly out the window.
Dressed in her night gown, Payal appeared pale, her mind wandering and her eyes vacant.
It was only when she heard the gentle closing of the door that she looked up and noticed Lady Manorama walking towards the bed.
Beside the bed, there was an armchair and the elder woman sat on it. Anyone would have easily noticed that the woman who sat there on that armchair was devoid of all pretenses. There was no pomp and festivity and about her. Though dressed immaculately, her demeanor was unlike her.
They remained silent for a whole minute, talking nothing and looking nowhere but at the hazy sky out the window.
Lady Manorama was angry and hurt that they had kept it hidden from her but she knew well that Payal was grieving within and deserved neither chide nor questioning.
She looked at Payal. The young girl's face was empty and she continued staring at the window, seeing nothing.
Lady Manorama knew if there was something she had to do, it was not to comfort her but to make her cry. She had to cry before she could be comforted of her loss.
Knowing Payal was presently like a glass, vulnerable to break from the tiniest touch, Lady Manorama spoke as gently as her voice could turn down to be, "Do you want to talk?"
Payal shook her head once, her eyes at the window.
Lady Manorama leaned forward, "Would you like me to help you lie down?
Payal didn't gesture or reply. She simply looked away from the window and proceeded to lie down by herself.
Lady Manorama stood up and, despite not being asked to, offered to assist her daughter-in-law to incline her head against the pillow.
Payal lie on her side, facing the window and the armchair where Lady Manorama sat.
Inching the armchair closer to the bed, Lady Manorama sat forward and slid her hand into Payal's cold one and held her hand in a firm grip.
Without sparing a look, Payal closed her eyes and lay still, and Lady Manorama held onto her hand for a long time.
For two days, she took care of Payal, bathing her and feeding her. Payal never spoke but silently complied to everything her mother-in-law wanted her to do. On the third day, instead of sleeping on the lounger at the other end of the room, Lady Manorama decided to share the bed with Payal.
At night, the elder woman was awoken by the sound of Payal whimpering in the dark.
All at once, Lady Manorama sat up and held Payal close to her, caressing her hair and murmuring, "My child. My child..."
The unbroken ropes snapped within her and Payal burst out crying.
The cries were so loud that they would have echoed through all the walls of the Castle, grieving all the hearts that heard it.
Payal cried all through the night and Lady Manorama stayed up till dawn, holding her close, that if her glass girl broke, she could hold the shattered pieces together and help mend her heart.
By the fifth day, Lady Manorama had got Payal talking again.
They were drinking tea silently in the room when the elder woman could hold the query within herself no more, "Why did you choose me?"
Payal looked up, the sunlight from the window caressing the returned colour of her cheeks, "I believed that I hurt you the most by keeping silent of something that mattered greatly to you... and Akashji said you'd understand."
Lady Manorama smiled weakly, "He is right, I suppose, in a way. And I was wrong to have accused him for what happened. I must apologize to him."
"You are his mother," Payal said, "Mothers don't apologize."
Lady Manorama sighed, "A mother is human. Sometimes, even when she means right, she could do the wrong thing."
Payal looked at her cup, "Akashji was desperate to tell everyone. Even Nani knew. But I forced them to not let it be known until Anarkali's ceremony was over."
"To think that the goodness of your heart led you to be foolish," pondered Lady Manorama, and then she stated, "There are some things are not be held untold..."
Payal nodded slowly, watching her tea.
Lady Manorama sat still for a long minute before she kept her teacup on the table and said, "There is something I want to tell you. Something I've kept hidden in my heart for long..." And then she began her story:
Raizada families have a great ancestry, and are especially known for their honesty and trustworthiness. Their families having been courtiers's in many kings' palaces and durbars. But, unfortunately, they were rich only in name and never in wealth. They compensated this loss of theirs through good marriages. There was even a saying that a girl wedded to a Raizada would find prosperity and true love.
Well, I found mine when I married my Manohar. My family was not too famous but were plenty wealthy and they were more than happy to join me to the Raizada name. It was a matter of prestige to them to have connections with that auspicious family name.
But things turned for worse in my life. I may have found true love but I never found prosperity. At least not for a long time.
You see, Deviyani Raizada had three heirs: her sons, Mahendra the Eldest and Manohar the Elder, and her youngest daughter Nalini.
After her husband, Damodar Raizada, passed away and her three children were wedded off, she stayed with her eldest son Mahendra who was to inherit the family house. Manohar moved to the North of India, hoping to make better living there.
The trying first years of our marriage are still a bitter memory. My husband worked day and night trying to make money for our future but its very hard to make a good business if you have not many connections and are too naive to easily trust your prospects with others.
He was never there at home but he always came in time for dinner so we could share a meal together and then I would remember him sleeping with me but before I awoke, he would have gone to work when the morning was still dark.
My heart was anxious every evening, when I waited for him, worrying if he would have fainted in exhaustion while working or been tricked by someone. But when he came home, it was a painful sight to my vision, his haggard, tired look, seeking comfort in his home and in his wife's love.
I cannot understand where he found the strength to always keep smiling and to amuse me with his undying humour every night. Those little conversations we had in the nights were my hope to keep surviving. I had lived in luxury and happiness all my childhood and youth, and now to be in abject poverty was great pain to me.
But the real grief struck us when I lost my first child while it was still inside of me. Manohar was not allowed to be exempted from work to stay with me and console me. I had to bear through the grief all by myself and when he came in the evening in the hopes of comforting me, I would have already cried myself to sleep and his food gone cold with waiting.
How he hated himself for not being there... my poor Manohar.
He had determined himself at times that he would quit his work, but I convinced him that if he did, we would lose everything and life would turn more punishing. He was too dignified to ask his brother for help and my parents couldn't help for they had passed away a year into our marriage.
And then our hopes were dashed a second time when we lost our second child. I had turned nearly insane after that happened and he sent an urgent telegram to his mother.
Deviayni Raizada's presence in our little house eased my husband's mind and comforted me greatly. She helped me bear my third child, who was born feeble and couldn't have survived. But Mother Deviyani took great care and the child lived for twelve days, and was loved a lot before he bid us goodbye. Mother Deviyani helped me find strength in myself and taught me to not falter when situations threatened to weaken me.
It was her wisdom and prayerful presence that assisted me when I was carrying my fourth child and she saw to it that I was administered the best herbs and the right foods that my weak body required to sustain that feeble life surviving inside of me. She was the midwife to my fourth child, the sweetest little boy I'd ever set my eyes upon and his proud Dadi took care of him so well that he survived his first year on earth, looking healthy and happy like he'd come out of the cradle of a healthy womb, unaffected by the ghosts of his three siblings for whom his mother's womb was a grave.
"Mother," Payal reached her hand and touched Lady Manorama's hand, "don't speak thus. What if all those children are the attempts of the same child to try and come into your life again... what if each child didn't die but waited in spirit to come again into your womb...?"
Lady Manorama's eyes, on remembering her past, had filled with tears but she smiled at Payal on hearing her theory, "Perhaps... perhaps my Akash was all three children, trying over and over again to be my son and succeeding the fourth time... And I had never lost him because I had found him at last..."
Finding consolation in the thought, she looked at Payal, "You believe this?"
"I do," Payal's eyes were glistening too, "I know the child I lost is waiting to come again..."
Lady Manorama reached forward and embraced Payal, "Oh, how strong you are... you are nothing like me and I am glad of it!" They knew their hearts were at last contented and in hope.
When they returned to their teas, Lady Manorama resumed her recount:
Only after assuring herself that little Akash was well beyond danger and would live his years fearless of childhood death, did Mother Deviayni leave our home, for she was also urgently needed at her daughter Nalini's side who was about to have her second child.
Life had become a wonderful vessel of happiness for me. My Manohar had found himself another job, a more safer and less demeaning one. Little Akash grew up to be a kind and intelligent boy, with his mother's beautiful features and his father's humour and wisdom. I tried to push back all the painful memories of poverty and losses by letting Manohar buy me clothes and hats and shoes...and the days when he would go to work and Akash would go to school, I would not punish myself in the silence of the house anymore but went out to be among other wives, talk with them, lunch with them, be a different Manorama altogether...
Lady Manorama sighed, "I suppose some habits just don't die."
Payal smiled weakly, "I like you just the way you are, Mother."
Lady Manorama smiled sadly, caressing Payal's cheek, "How hard I have been upon you... With Akash being my only child and having known what it was to marry low, I was afraid I was ruining his future by not letting him have a wife who was a class better than you."
Lady Manorama tucked a strand of Payal's hair behind her ear, "But now I see it. I had let myself be too blind to realize... When I affirmed to his engyesis with you, I was giving him the gift of a best wife after all."
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