A passage to India
you down at last. Can you come out at once to Dilkusha?”
“At once?”
“I hope to leave in a moment, don’t let me interrupt,” said Adela.
“The telephone has been broken; Miss Quested can’t ring up her
friends,” he explained.
“A great deal has been broken, more than will ever be mended,” said
the other. “Still, there should be some way of transporting this
lady back to the civil lines. The resources of civilization are
numerous.” He spoke without looking at Miss Quested, and he ignored
the slight movement she made towards him with her hand.
Fielding, who thought the meeting might as well be friendly, said,
“Miss Quested has been explaining a little about her conduct of
this morning.”
“Perhaps the age of miracles has returned. One must be prepared
for everything, our philosophers say.”
“It must have seemed a miracle to the onlookers,” said Adela,
addressing him nervously. “The fact is that I realized before it
was too late that I had made a mistake, and had just enough presence
of mind to say so. That is all my extraordinary conduct amounts
to.”
“All it amounts to, indeed,” he retorted, quivering with rage but
keeping himself in hand, for he felt she might be setting another
trap. “Speaking as a private individual, in a purely informal
conversation, I admired your conduct, and I was delighted when our
warm-hearted students garlanded you. But, like Mr. Fielding, I am
surprised; indeed, surprise is too weak a word. I see you drag my
best friend into the dirt, damage his health and ruin his prospects
in a way you cannot conceive owing to your ignorance of our society
and religion, and then suddenly you get up in the witness-box: ‘Oh
no, Mr. McBryde, after all I am not quite sure, you may as well
let him go.’ Am I mad? I keep asking myself. Is it a dream, and if
so, when did it start? And without doubt it is a dream that has
not yet finished. For I gather you have not done with us yet, and
it is now the turn of the poor old guide who conducted you round
the caves.”
“Not at all, we were only discussing possibilities,” interposed
Fielding.
“An interesting pastime, but a lengthy one. There are one hundred
and seventy million Indians in this notable peninsula, and of
course one or other of them entered the cave. Of course some Indian
is the culprit, we must never doubt that. And since, my dear
Fielding, these possibilities will take you some time”—here he put
his arm over the Englishman’s shoulder and swayed him to and fro
gently—“don’t you think you had better come out to the Nawab
Bahadur’s—or I should say to Mr. Zulfiqar’s, for that is the name
he now requires us to call him by.”
“Gladly, in a minute . . .”
“I have just settled my movements,” said Miss Quested. “I shall go
to the Dak Bungalow.”
“Not the Turtons’?” said Hamidullah, goggle-eyed. “I thought you
were their guest.”
The Dak Bungalow of Chandrapore was below the average, and certainly
servantless. Fielding, though he continued to sway with Hamidullah,
was thinking on independent lines, and said in a moment: “I have
a better idea than that, Miss Quested. You must stop here at the
College. I shall be away at least two days, and you can have the
place entirely to yourself, and make your plans at your convenience.”
“I don’t agree at all,” said Hamidullah, with every symptom of
dismay. “The idea is a thoroughly bad one. There may quite well be
another demonstration to-night, and suppose an attack is made on
the College. You would be held responsible for this lady’s safety,
my dear fellow.”
“They might equally attack the Dak Bungalow.”
“Exactly, but the responsibility there ceases to be yours.”
“Quite so. I have given trouble enough.”
“Do you hear? The lady admits it herself. It’s not an attack from
our people I fear—you should see their orderly conduct at the
hospital; what we must guard against is an attack secretly arranged
by the police for the purpose of discrediting you. McBryde keeps
plenty of roughs for this purpose, and this would be the very
opportunity for him.”
“Never mind. She is not going to the Dak Bungalow,” said Fielding.
He had a natural sympathy for the down-trodden—that was partly why
he rallied from Aziz—and had become determined not to leave the
poor girl in the lurch. Also, he had a new-born respect for her,
consequent on their talk. Although her hard schoolmistressy manner
remained, she was no longer examining life, but being examined by
it; she had become a real person.
“Then where is she to go? We shall never have done with her!” For
Miss Quested had not appealed to Hamidullah. If she had shown
emotion in court, broke down, beat her breast, and invoked the name
of God, she would have summoned forth his imagination and
generosity—he had plenty of both. But while relieving the Oriental
mind, she had chilled it, with the result that he could scarcely
believe she was sincere, and indeed from his standpoint she was
not. For her behaviour rested on cold justice and honesty; she had
felt, while she recanted, no passion of love for those whom she
had wronged. Truth is not truth in that exacting land unless there
go with it kindness and more kindness and kindness again, unless
the Word that was with God also is God. And the girl’s sacrifice—so
creditable according to Western notions—was rightly rejected,
because, though it came from her heart, it did not include her
heart. A few garlands from students was all that India ever gave
her in return.
“But where is she to have her dinner, where is she to sleep? I say
here, here, and if she is hit on the head by roughs, she is hit on
the head. That is my contribution. Well, Miss Quested?”
“You are very kind. I should have said yes, I think, but I agree
with Mr. Hamidullah. I must give no more trouble to you. I believe
my best plan is to return to the Turtons, and see if they will
allow me to sleep, and if they turn me away I must go to the Dak.
The Collector would take me in, I know, but Mrs. Turton said this
morning that she would never see me again.” She spoke without
bitterness, or, as Hamidullah thought, without proper pride. Her
aim was to cause the minimum of annoyance.
“Far better stop here than expose yourself to insults from that
preposterous woman.”
“Do you find her preposterous? I used to. I don’t now.”
“Well, here’s our solution,” said the barrister, who had terminated
his slightly minatory caress and strolled to the window. “Here
comes the City Magistrate. He comes in a third-class band-ghari
for purposes of disguise, he comes unattended, but here comes the
City Magistrate.”
“At last,” said Adela sharply, which caused Fielding to glance at
her.
“He comes, he comes, he comes. I cringe. I tremble.”
“Will you ask him what he wants, Mr. Fielding?”
“He wants you, of course.”
“He may not even know I’m here.”
“I’ll see him first, if you prefer.”
When he had gone, Hamidullah said to her bitingly: “Really, really.
Need you have exposed Mr. Fielding to this further discomfort? He
is far too considerate.” She made no reply, and there was complete
silence between them until their host returned.
“He has some news for you,” he said. “You’ll find him on the
verandah. He prefers not to come in.”
“Does he tell me to come out to him?”
“Whether he tells you or not, you will go, I think,” said
Hamidullah.
She paused, then said, “Perfectly right,” and then said a few words
of thanks to the Principal for his kindness to her during the day.
“Thank goodness, that’s over,” he remarked, not escorting her to
the verandah, for he held it unnecessary to see Ronny again.
“It was insulting of him not to come in.”
“He couldn’t very well after my behaviour to him at the Club.
Heaslop doesn’t come out badly. Besides, Fate has treated him
pretty roughly to-day. He has had a cable to the effect that his
mother’s dead, poor old soul.”
“Oh, really. Mrs. Moore. I’m sorry,” said Hamidullah rather
indifferently.
“She died at sea.”
“The heat, I suppose.”
“Presumably.”
“May is no month to allow an old lady to travel in.”
“Quite so. Heaslop ought never to have let her go, and he knows
it. Shall we be off?”
“Let us wait until the happy couple leave the compound clear . . .
they really are intolerable dawdling there. Ah well, Fielding,
you don’t believe in Providence, I remember. I do. This is Heaslop’s
punishment for abducting our witness in order to stop us establishing
our alibi.”
“You go rather too far there. The poor old lady’s evidence could
have had no value, shout and shriek Mahmoud Ali as he will. She
couldn’t see through the Kawa Dol even if she had wanted to. Only
Miss Quested could have saved him.”
“She loved Aziz, he says, also India, and he loved her.”
“Love is of no value in a witness, as a barrister ought to know.
But I see there is about to be an Esmiss Esmoor legend at
Chandrapore, my dear Hamidullah, and I will not impede its growth.”
The other smiled, and looked at his watch. They both regretted the
death, but they were middle-aged men, who had invested their
emotions elsewhere, and outbursts of grief could not be expected
from them over a slight acquaintance. It’s only one’s own dead who
matter. If for a moment the sense of communion in sorrow came to
them, it passed. How indeed is it possible for one human being to
be sorry for all the sadness that meets him on the face of the
earth, for the pain that is endured not only by men, but by animals
and plants, and perhaps by the stones? The soul is tired in a
moment, and in fear of losing the little she does understand, she
retreats to the permanent lines which habit or chance have dictated,
and suffers there. Fielding had met the dead woman only two or
three times, Hamidullah had seen her in the distance once, and they
were far more occupied with the coming gathering at Dilkusha, the
“victory” dinner, for which they would be most victoriously late.
They agreed not to tell Aziz about Mrs. Moore till the morrow,
because he was fond of her, and the bad news might spoil his fun.
“Oh, this is unbearable!” muttered Hamidullah. For Miss Quested
was back again.
“Mr. Fielding, has Ronny told you of this new misfortune?”
He bowed.
“Ah me!” She sat down, and seemed to stiffen into a monument.
“Heaslop is waiting for you, I think.”
“I do so long to be alone. She was my best friend, far more to me
than to him. I can’t bear to be with Ronny . . . I can’t explain
. . . Could you do me the very great kindness of letting me stop
after all?”
Hamidullah swore violently in the vernacular.
“I should be pleased, but does Mr. Heaslop wish it?”
“I didn’t ask him, we are too much upset—it’s so complex, not like
what unhappiness is supposed to be. Each of us ought to be alone,
and think. Do come and see Ronny again.”
“I think he should come in this time,” said Fielding, feeling that
this much was due to his own dignity. “Do ask him to come.”
She returned with him. He was half miserable, half arrogant—indeed,
a strange mix-up—and broke at once into uneven speech. “I came to
bring Miss Quested away, but her visit to the Turtons has ended,
and there is no other arrangement so far, mine are bachelor quarters
now——”
Fielding stopped him courteously. “Say no more, Miss Quested stops
here. I only wanted to be assured of your approval. Miss Quested,
you had better send for your own servant if he can be found, but
I will leave orders with mine to do all they can for you, also I’ll
let the Scouts know. They have guarded the College ever since it
was closed, and may as well go on. I really think you’ll be as safe
here as anywhere. I shall be back Thursday.”
Meanwhile Hamidullah, determined to spare the enemy no incidental
pain, had said to Ronny: “We hear, sir, that your mother has died.
May we ask where the cable came from?”
“Aden.”