He woke up to her labored breathing.

“Chandrika! What has happened?”

“Nothing. Just a little suffocated. I will be fine in a while.”

But he was not convinced. There was an earthen lamp still flickering in one corner of the room. He brought it to the bed despite her protests. He was horrified when he saw her face. She was in excruciating pain. “What is going on? Why didn’t you wake me up? I must send for Vaidyaraj…”

“It’s not needed, Maharaj. I am not even dressed properly.”

“Get dressed then.” He went out and dispatched a servant for the doctor.

When he came back, she was still not dressed and was not making even an attempt at it. A chill of terror ran down his spine, when he realized that she had passed out. “Chadrika!” he cried and tried to shake her into consciousness. But her body was limp. He ran out once again and dispatched a servant to call Madhumita. Coming back, he dressed her up as well as he could.  Anxious and scared, he tried doing whatever he could think of. He sprinkled water on her face, even tried to make her drink some. But nothing helped even a bit.

Madhumita came in running just then. “What happened to her?” she was  distraught. She had dressed herself hurriedly. Her clothes were in a disarray.

“I can’t figure out. I heard her breathing hard and…”

“Chanda!” she rushed beside her sister. She startled on seeing her face. She bent down and looked at her hand. The dangerous ring was missing.  “Oh no! No, no. Chanda! How could you do that? Again?”

“Do what?” Bhumimitra asked.

“She… she isn’t ill, Swami. She has tried to commit suicide. She has poisoned herself.”

“Suicide? And again you said? What is… Forget it. What is to be done? What kind of poison is it? Do you know how it is to be countered?”

“I don’t know the counter,” Madhu spoke through the tears, “But it is made out of a wild fruit… I don’t think it is found here. I am not sure Vaidyaraj would know… The vaidya at Chandranagar would have known…”

“What does the fruit look like?” he asked cautiously.

She explained it as best as she could.

“I think he knows. He had seen it and recognized it at Chandranagar. We must inform him beforehand so that he could come prepared. He might not think of poisoning… Write down about it, Madhu. Write the name and anything else you know about the fruit, and the poison. I must dispatch the information to him immediately.”

—

Even though questions were swarming in his head, Bhumimitra did not ask anything until the doctor had come and given anti-venoms to Chandrika. She still had pulse, but they could do nothing except wait it out. “The poison was potent,” the doctor told them. He would not pronounce the outcome one way or the other. But he emphasized that she needed to exert the willpower to live. Else her body would not be able to fight the poison effectively.

He spoke after the doctor left. “What is it? Why did she do this? And you had said ‘again’?”

Filled with guilt Madhu burst forth with confessions and apologies. Chandrika didn’t want to be a rival to her sister. But Madhu had found her objections to be childish and impractical. When she tried to commit suicide after spending the night with him, she manipulated her into marrying him instead, telling her how disgraceful it would otherwise be.

“She had tried this earlier? And you didn’t think it fit to inform me?”

“I did think she had seen the point, Maharaj. But…”

“Seen the point or not! Shouldn’t I have known what was going on under my own roof?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you with… I have brought her up, Swami. I didn’t think I would go so wrong,” she burst into sobs once again.

He softened on hearing this. “You are right. It’s my fault too… I just… She didn’t talk to me. And the one time when she was vulnerable, when I could have made her talk, I wasted on satisfying my lust…” He shot a glance at Chandrika’s lifeless face, and then left the room. He needed some time to come to terms with the situation he was in. The day he had considered the happiest of his life, what had it turned into?

When he came back after couple of hours, Madhumita was still sitting at Chandrika’s bedside.

“Madhu,” he kept his hand on her shoulders and addressed her softly, “You must take rest too.”

“I’m fine, Maharaj. I can’t leave her…”

“I will be here, I promise. If anything changes, I will inform you. Now you must leave. I don’t want you falling ill.”

She complied. Not because it was his order; but because she assumed that he wanted to be left alone with Chandrika. And she was right in that assumption.

He sat down by her side after Madhu left and held her hand in his. “Don’t die on me, Chandrika. I will do whatever you want. You want your sister’s happiness and no rivals for her? I promise I won’t marry again. You want to go away from her life? I will arrange for that. But you must fight to live, my love. You can’t die on me. That won’t do at all.”

He continued to hold her hand and gazed at her face unblinkingly, hoping to discover some sign of life. And the sign came, when she murmured. “Don’t scold her… Maharaj… Don’t scold her…”

“Chandrika!”

She continued mumbling. He realized that she wasn’t fully conscious yet. But at least she was alive! And she was asking him not to scold her sister.

“I’m not scolding her. I am not angry, Chandrika. Just stay alive. Open your eyes.”

She didn’t open her eyes until late in the morning, by when both Vaidyaraj and Madhu had come back. When she did gain consciousness and the doctor announced her to be out of danger, Bhumimitra asked Madhumita to come with him. Outside he asked her to not bother her about anything at all and only focus on her recovery. “Don’t try to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. And do not talk about her suicide attempt at all. Pretend as if she had fallen ill and you were worried about it. You must consider this my order. I don’t want her to feel compelled to do anything. And if there is anything, anything at all out of ordinary, you must not keep it from me.” Madhu nodded. After this disaster, she wouldn’t have dared behave otherwise. “I will be in my chamber,” he informed and left.

—

To be continued