When she returned home she left Bimla seated on a cushion under a mango tree in her father’s courtyard stabbing murderously at a piece of embroidery. Bimla’s face was contorted with rage. So, she thought, Ajit has married an English woman, a dirty, casteless English woman. She cursed him with curses that scandalised her long-suffering and bewildered Ayah. ‘Do not use such words,’ said Ayah. ‘They are unbecoming to Rana Sahib’s daughter.’ ‘I know what is becoming,’ screamed Bimla, her high Punjabi temper in full vent, and she shoved her needle in and out of the cloth as if it was Ajit she was impaling. ‘Go away!’ Ayah had no inkling of what had caused her charge’s outburst, and she went and sat a few yards away while she thought about it. ‘I, Bimla Chand Rana,’ muttered Bimla, as she savagely bit her embroidery silk at the end of a line of cross stitch, ‘the handsomest woman in the district, to be bypassed by that pudding head of an Ajit in favour of a vulgar Western female!’ She threw her embroidery at a squirrel, who scuttled up the tree in fright, and sat and sulked.
