A passage to India
house——” He too was overcome with emotion. “By the way, a letter
came here for you while you were ill,” he continued. “I opened it,
which is a strange confession to make. Will you forgive me? The
circumstances are peculiar. It is from Fielding.”
“Why should he write to me?”
“A most lamentable thing has happened. The defence got hold of
him.”
“He’s a crank, a crank,” said Ronny lightly.
“That’s your way of putting it, but a man can be a crank without
being a cad. Miss Quested had better know how he behaved to you.
If you don’t tell her, somebody else will.” He told her. “He is
now the mainstay of the defence, I needn’t add. He is the one
righteous Englishman in a horde of tyrants. He receives deputations
from the bazaar, and they all chew betel nut and smear one another’s
hands with scent. It is not easy to enter into the mind of such a
man. His students are on strike—out of enthusiasm for him they
won’t learn their lessons. If it weren’t for Fielding one would
never have had the Mohurram trouble. He has done a very grave
disservice to the whole community. The letter lay here a day or
two, waiting till you were well enough, then the situation got so
grave that I decided to open it in case it was useful to us.”
“Is it?” she said feebly.
“Not at all. He only has the impertinence to suggest you have made
a mistake.”
“Would that I had!” She glanced through the letter, which was
careful and formal in its wording. “Dr. Aziz is innocent,” she
read. Then her voice began to tremble again. “But think of his
behaviour to you, Ronny. When you had already to bear so much for
my sake! It was shocking of him. My dear, how can I repay you? How
can one repay when one has nothing to give? What is the use of
personal relationships when everyone brings less and less to them?
I feel we ought all to go back into the desert for centuries and
try and get good. I want to begin at the beginning. All the things
I thought I’d learnt are just a hindrance, they’re not knowledge
at all. I’m not fit for personal relationships. Well, let’s go,
let’s go. Of course Mr. Fielding’s letter doesn’t count; he can
think and write what he likes, only he shouldn’t have been rude to
you when you had so much to bear. That’s what matters. . . . I
don’t want your arm, I’m a magnificent walker, so don’t touch me,
please.”
Mrs. McBryde wished her an affectionate good-bye—a woman with whom
she had nothing in common and whose intimacy oppressed her. They
would have to meet now, year after year, until one of their husbands
was superannuated. Truly Anglo-India had caught her with a
vengeance, and perhaps it served her right for having tried to take
up a line of her own. Humbled yet repelled, she gave thanks. “Oh,
we must help one another, we must take the rough with the smooth,”
said Mrs. McBryde. Miss Derek was there too, still making jokes
about her comic Maharajah and Rani. Required as a witness at the
trial, she had refused to send back the Mudkul car; they would be
frightfully sick. Both Mrs. McBryde and Miss Derek kissed her, and
called her by her Christian name. Then Ronny drove her back. It
was early in the morning, for the day, as the hot weather advanced,
swelled like a monster at both ends, and left less and less room
for the movements of mortals.
As they neared his bungalow, he said: “Mother’s looking forward to
seeing you, but of course she’s old, one mustn’t forget that. Old
people never take things as one expects, in my opinion.” He seemed
warning her against approaching disappointment, but she took no
notice. Her friendship with Mrs. Moore was so deep and real that
she felt sure it would last, whatever else happened. “What can I
do to make things easier for you? it’s you who matter,” she sighed.
“Dear old girl to say so.”
“Dear old boy.” Then she cried: “Ronny, she isn’t ill too?”
He reassured her; Major Callendar was not dissatisfied.
“But you’ll find her—irritable. We are an irritable family. Well,
you’ll see for yourself. No doubt my own nerves are out of order,
and I expected more from mother when I came in from the office than
she felt able to give. She is sure to make a special effort for
you; still, I don’t want your home-coming to be a disappointing
one. Don’t expect too much.”
The house came in sight. It was a replica of the bungalow she had
left. Puffy, red, and curiously severe, Mrs. Moore was revealed
upon a sofa. She didn’t get up when they entered, and the surprise
of this roused Adela from her own troubles.
“Here you are both back,” was the only greeting.
Adela sat down and took her hand. It withdrew, and she felt that
just as others repelled her, so did she repel Mrs. Moore.
“Are you all right? You appeared all right when I left,” said
Ronny, trying not to speak crossly, but he had instructed her to
give the girl a pleasant welcome, and he could not but feel annoyed.
“I am all right,” she said heavily. “As a matter of fact I have
been looking at my return ticket. It is interchangeable, so I have
a much larger choice of boats home than I thought.”
“We can go into that later, can’t we?”
“Ralph and Stella may be wanting to know when I arrive.”
“There is plenty of time for all such plans. How do you think our
Adela looks?”
“I am counting on you to help me through; it is such a blessing to
be with you again, everyone else is a stranger,” said the girl
rapidly.
But Mrs. Moore showed no inclination to be helpful. A sort of
resentment emanated from her. She seemed to say: “Am I to be
bothered for ever?” Her Christian tenderness had gone, or had
developed into a hardness, a just irritation against the human
race; she had taken no interest at the arrest, asked scarcely any
questions, and had refused to leave her bed on the awful last night
of Mohurram, when an attack was expected on the bungalow.
“I know it’s all nothing; I must be sensible, I do try——” Adela
continued, working again towards tears.
“I shouldn’t mind if it had happened anywhere else; at least I
really don’t know where it did happen.”
Ronny supposed that he understood what she meant: she could not
identify or describe the particular cave, indeed almost refused to
have her mind cleared up about it, and it was recognized that the
defence would try to make capital out of this during the trial. He
reassured her: the Marabar caves were notoriously like one another;
indeed, in the future they were to be numbered in sequence with
white paint.
“Yes, I mean that, at least not exactly; but there is this echo
that I keep on hearing.”
“Oh, what of the echo?” asked Mrs. Moore, paying attention to her
for the first time.
“I can’t get rid of it.”
“I don’t suppose you ever will.”
Ronny had emphasized to his mother that Adela would arrive in a
morbid state, yet she was being positively malicious.
“Mrs. Moore, what is this echo?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No—what is it? oh, do say! I felt you would be able to explain it
. . . this will comfort me so. . . .”
“If you don’t know, you don’t know; I can’t tell you.”
“I think you’re rather unkind not to say.”
“Say, say, say,” said the old lady bitterly. “As if anything can
be said! I have spent my life in saying or in listening to sayings;
I have listened too much. It is time I was left in peace. Not to
die,” she added sourly. “No doubt you expect me to die, but when
I have seen you and Ronny married, and seen the other two and
whether they want to be married—I’ll retire then into a cave of my
own.” She smiled, to bring down her remark into ordinary life and
thus add to its bitterness. “Somewhere where no young people will
come asking questions and expecting answers. Some shelf.”
“Quite so, but meantime a trial is coming on,” said her son hotly,
“and the notion of most of us is that we’d better pull together
and help one another through, instead of being disagreeable. Are
you going to talk like that in the witness-box?”
“Why should I be in the witness-box?”
“To confirm certain points in our evidence.”
“I have nothing to do with your ludicrous law courts,” she said,
angry. “I will not be dragged in at all.”
“I won’t have her dragged in, either; I won’t have any more trouble
on my account,” cried Adela, and again took the hand, which was
again withdrawn. “Her evidence is not the least essential.”
“I thought she would want to give it. No one blames you, mother,
but the fact remains that you dropped off at the first cave, and
encouraged Adela to go on with him alone, whereas if you’d been
well enough to keep on too nothing would have happened. He planned
it, I know. Still, you fell into his trap just like Fielding and
Antony before you. . . . Forgive me for speaking so plainly, but
you’ve no right to take up this high and mighty attitude about law
courts. If you’re ill, that’s different; but you say you’re all
right and you seem so, in which case I thought you’ld want to take
your part, I did really.”
“I’ll not have you worry her whether she’s well or ill,” said
Adela, leaving the sofa and taking his arm; then dropped it with
a sigh and sat down again. But he was pleased she had rallied to
him and surveyed his mother patronizingly. He had never felt easy
with her. She was by no means the dear old lady outsiders supposed,
and India had brought her into the open.
“I shall attend your marriage, but not your trial,” she informed
them, tapping her knee; she had become very restless, and rather
ungraceful. “Then I shall go to England.”
“You can’t go to England in May, as you agreed.”
“I have changed my mind.”
“Well, we’d better end this unexpected wrangle,” said the young
man, striding about. “You appear to want to be left out of
everything, and that’s enough.”
“My body, my miserable body,” she sighed. “Why isn’t it strong?
Oh, why can’t I walk away and be gone? Why can’t I finish my duties
and be gone? Why do I get headaches and puff when I walk? And all
the time this to do and that to do and this to do in your way and
that to do in her way, and everything sympathy and confusion and
bearing one another’s burdens. Why can’t this be done and that be
done in my way and they be done and I at peace? Why has anything
to be done, I cannot see. Why all this marriage, marriage? . . .
The human race would have become a single person centuries ago if
marriage was any use. And all this rubbish about love, love in a
church, love in a cave, as if there is the least difference, and
I held up from my business over such trifles!”
“What do you want?” he said, exasperated. “Can you state it in
simple language? If so, do.”
“I want my pack of patience cards.”
“Very well, get them.”
He found, as he expected, that the poor girl was crying. And, as
always, an Indian close outside the window, a mali in this case,
picking up sounds. Much upset, he sat silent for a moment, thinking
over his mother and her senile intrusions. He wished he had never
asked her to visit India, or become under any obligation to her.
“Well, my dear girl, this isn’t much of a home-coming,” he said at
last. “I had no idea she had this up her sleeve.”
Adela had stopped crying. An extraordinary expression was on her
face, half relief, half horror. She repeated, “Aziz, Aziz.”
They all avoided mentioning that name. It had become synonymous
with the power of evil. He was “the prisoner,” “the person in
question,” “the defence,” and the sound of it now rang out like
the first note of new symphony.
“Aziz . . . have I made a mistake?”
“You’re over-tired,” he cried, not much surprised.
“Ronny, he’s innocent; I made an awful mistake.”
“Well, sit down anyhow.” He looked round the room, but only two
sparrows were chasing one another. She obeyed and took hold of his
hand. He stroked it and she smiled, and gasped as if she had risen