A passage to India
Ronny laughed with restraint. He did not approve of English people
taking service under the Native States, where they obtain a certain
amount of influence, but at the expense of the general prestige.
The humorous triumphs of a free lance are of no assistance to an
administrator, and he told the young lady that she would outdo
Indians at their own game if she went on much longer.
“They always sack me before that happens, and then I get another
job. The whole of India seethes with Maharanis and Ranis and Begums
who clamour for such as me.”
“Really. I had no idea.”
“How could you have any idea, Mr. Heaslop? What should he know
about Maharanis, Miss Quested? Nothing. At least I should hope
not.”
“I understand those big people are not particularly interesting,”
said Adela, quietly, disliking the young woman’s tone. Her hand
touched Ronny’s again in the darkness, and to the animal thrill
there was now added a coincidence of opinion.
“Ah, there you’re wrong. They’re priceless.”
“I would scarcely call her wrong,” broke out the Nawab Bahadur,
from his isolation on the front seat, whither they had relegated
him. “A Native State, a Hindu State, the wife of a ruler of a Hindu
State, may beyond doubt be a most excellent lady, and let it not
be for a moment supposed that I suggest anything against the
character of Her Highness the Maharani of Mudkul. But I fear she
will be uneducated, I fear she will be superstitious. Indeed, how
could she be otherwise? What opportunity of education has such a
lady had? Oh, superstition is terrible, terrible! oh, it is the
great defect in our Indian character!”—and as if to point his
criticism, the lights of the civil station appeared on a rise to
the right. He grew more and more voluble. “Oh, it is the duty of
each and every citizen to shake superstition off, and though I have
little experience of Hindu States, and none of this particular one,
namely Mudkul (the Ruler, I fancy, has a salute of but eleven
guns)—yet I cannot imagine that they have been as successful as
British India, where we see reason and orderliness spreading in
every direction, like a most health-giving flood!”
Miss Derek said “Golly!”
Undeterred by the expletive, the old man swept on. His tongue had
been loosed and his mind had several points to make. He wanted to
endorse Miss Quested’s remark that big people are not interesting,
because he was bigger himself than many an independent chief; at
the same time, he must neither remind nor inform her that he was
big, lest she felt she had committed a discourtesy. This was the
groundwork of his oration; worked in with it was his gratitude to
Miss Derek for the lift, his willingness to hold a repulsive dog
in his arms, and his general regret for the trouble he had caused
the human race during the evening. Also he wanted to be dropped
near the city to get hold of his cleaner, and to see what mischief
his grandson was up to. As he wove all these anxieties into a
single rope, he suspected that his audience felt no interest, and
that the City Magistrate fondled either maiden behind the cover of
the harmonium, but good breeding compelled him to continue; it was
nothing to him if they were bored, because he did not know what
boredom is, and it was nothing to him if they were licentious,
because God has created all races to be different. The accident
was over, and his life, equably useful, distinguished, happy, ran
on as before and expressed itself in streams of well-chosen words.
When this old geyser left them, Ronny made no comment, but talked
lightly about polo; Turton had taught him that it is sounder not
to discuss a man at once, and he reserved what he had to say on
the Nawab’s character until later in the evening. His hand, which
he had removed to say good-bye, touched Adela’s again; she caressed
it definitely, he responded, and their firm and mutual pressure
surely meant something. They looked at each other when they reached
the bungalow, for Mrs. Moore was inside it. It was for Miss Quested
to speak, and she said nervously, “Ronny, I should like to take
back what I said on the Maidan.” He assented, and they became
engaged to be married in consequence.
Neither had foreseen such a consequence. She had meant to revert
to her former condition of important and cultivated uncertainty,
but it had passed out of her reach at its appropriate hour. Unlike
the green bird or the hairy animal, she was labelled now. She felt
humiliated again, for she deprecated labels, and she felt too that
there should have been another scene between her lover and herself
at this point, something dramatic and lengthy. He was pleased
instead of distressed, he was surprised, but he had really nothing
to say. What indeed is there to say? To be or not to be married,
that was the question, and they had decided it in the affirmative.
“Come along and let’s tell the mater all this”—opening the
perforated zinc door that protected the bungalow from the swarms
of winged creatures. The noise woke the mater up. She had been
dreaming of the absent children who were so seldom mentioned, Ralph
and Stella, and did not at first grasp what was required of her.
She too had become used to thoughtful procrastination, and felt
alarmed when it came to an end.
When the announcement was over, he made a gracious and honest
remark. “Look here, both of you, see India if you like and as you
like—I know I made myself rather ridiculous at Fielding’s, but . . .
it’s different now. I wasn’t quite sure of myself.”
“My duties here are evidently finished, I don’t want to see India
now; now for my passage back,” was Mrs. Moore’s thought. She
reminded herself of all that a happy marriage means, and of her
own happy marriages, one of which had produced Ronny. Adela’s
parents had also been happily married, and excellent it was to see
the incident repeated by the younger generation. On and on! the
number of such unions would certainly increase as education spread
and ideals grew loftier, and characters firmer. But she was tired
by her visit to Government College, her feet ached, Mr. Fielding
had walked too fast and far, the young people had annoyed her in
the tum-tum, and given her to suppose they were breaking with each
other, and though it was all right now she could not speak as
enthusiastically of wedlock or of anything as she should have done.
Ronny was suited, now she must go home and help the others, if they
wished. She was past marrying herself, even unhappily; her function
was to help others, her reward to be informed that she was
sympathetic. Elderly ladies must not expect more than this.
They dined alone. There was much pleasant and affectionate talk
about the future. Later on they spoke of passing events, and Ronny
reviewed and recounted the day from his own point of view. It was
a different day from the women’s, because while they had enjoyed
themselves or thought, he had worked. Mohurram was approaching,
and as usual the Chandrapore Mohammedans were building paper towers
of a size too large to pass under the branches of a certain pepul
tree. One knew what happened next; the tower stuck, a Mohammedan
climbed up the pepul and cut the branch off, the Hindus protested,
there was a religious riot, and Heaven knew what, with perhaps the
troops sent for. There had been deputations and conciliation
committees under the auspices of Turton, and all the normal work
of Chandrapore had been hung up. Should the procession take another
route, or should the towers be shorter? The Mohammedans offered
the former, the Hindus insisted on the latter. The Collector had
favoured the Hindus, until he suspected that they had artificially
bent the tree nearer the ground. They said it sagged naturally.
Measurements, plans, an official visit to the spot. But Ronny had
not disliked his day, for it proved that the British were necessary
to India; there would certainly have been bloodshed without them.
His voice grew complacent again; he was here not to be pleasant
but to keep the peace, and now that Adela had promised to be his
wife, she was sure to understand.
“What does our old gentleman of the car think?” she asked, and her
negligent tone was exactly what he desired.
“Our old gentleman is helpful and sound, as he always is over
public affairs. You’ve seen in him our show Indian.”
“Have I really?”
“I’m afraid so. Incredible, aren’t they, even the best of them?
They’re all—they all forget their back collar studs sooner or
later. You’ve had to do with three sets of Indians to-day, the
Bhattacharyas, Aziz, and this chap, and it really isn’t a
coincidence that they’ve all let you down.”
“I like Aziz, Aziz is my real friend,” Mrs. Moore interposed.
“When the animal runs into us the Nawab loses his head, deserts
his unfortunate chauffeur, intrudes upon Miss Derek . . . no great
crimes, no great crimes, but no white man would have done it.”
“What animal?”
“Oh, we had a small accident on the Marabar road. Adela thinks it
was a hyena.”
“An accident?” she cried.
“Nothing; no one hurt. Our excellent host awoke much rattled from
his dreams, appeared to think it was our fault, and chanted exactly,
exactly.”
Mrs. Moore shivered, “A ghost!” But the idea of a ghost scarcely
passed her lips. The young people did not take it up, being occupied
with their own outlooks, and deprived of support it perished, or
was reabsorbed into the part of the mind that seldom speaks.
“Yes, nothing criminal,” Ronny summed up, “but there’s the native,
and there’s one of the reasons why we don’t admit him to our clubs,
and how a decent girl like Miss Derek can take service under
natives puzzles me. . . . But I must get on with my work. Krishna!”
Krishna was the peon who should have brought the files from his
office. He had not turned up, and a terrific row ensued. Ronny
stormed, shouted, howled, and only the experienced observer could
tell that he was not angry, did not much want the files, and only
made a row because it was the custom. Servants, quite understanding,
ran slowly in circles, carrying hurricane lamps. Krishna the earth,
Krishna the stars replied, until the Englishman was appeased by
their echoes, fined the absent peon eight annas, and sat down to
his arrears in the next room.
“Will you play Patience with your future mother-in-law, dear Adela,
or does it seem too tame?”
“I should like to—I don’t feel a bit excited—I’m just glad it’s
settled up at last, but I’m not conscious of vast changes. We are
all three the same people still.”
“That’s much the best feeling to have.” She dealt out the first
row of “demon.”
“I suppose so,” said the girl thoughtfully.
“I feared at Mr. Fielding’s that it might be settled the other way
. . . black knave on a red queen. . . .” They chatted gently about
the game.
Presently Adela said: “You heard me tell Aziz and Godbole I wasn’t
stopping in their country. I didn’t mean it, so why did I say it?
I feel I haven’t been—frank enough, attentive enough, or something.
It’s as if I got everything out of proportion. You have been so
very good to me, and I meant to be good when I sailed, but somehow
I haven’t been. . . . Mrs. Moore, if one isn’t absolutely honest,
what is the use of existing?”
She continued to lay out her cards. The words were obscure, but
she understood the uneasiness that produced them. She had
experienced it twice herself, during her own engagements—this vague
contrition and doubt. All had come right enough afterwards and
doubtless would this time—marriage makes most things right enough.
“I wouldn’t worry,” she said. “It’s partly the odd surroundings;
you and I keep on attending to trifles instead of what’s important;
we are what the people here call ‘new.’”
“You mean that my bothers are mixed up with India?”
“India’s——” She stopped.