Although Miss Quested had known Ronny well in
England, she felt well advised to visit him before deciding
to be his wife. India had developed sides of his character
that she had never admired. His self-complacency, his
censoriousness, his lack of subtlety, all grew vivid beneath
a tropic sky; he seemed more indifferent than of old to
what was passing in the minds of his fellows, more certain
that he was right about them or that if he was wrong
it didn’t matter. When proved wrong, he was particularly
exasperating; he always managed to suggest that
she needn’t have bothered to prove it. The point she
made was never the relevant point, her arguments conclusive
but barren, she was reminded that he had expert
knowledge and she none, and that experience would not
help her because she could not interpret it. A Public
School, London University, a year at a crammer’s, a
particular sequence of posts in a particular province, a
fall from a horse and a touch of fever were presented to
her as the only training by which Indians and all who
reside in their country can be understood; the only
training she could comprehend, that is to say, for of course
above Ronny there stretched the higher realms of knowledge,
inhabited by Callendars and Turtons, who had
been not one year in the country but twenty and whose
instincts were superhuman. For himself he made no
extravagant claims; she wished he would. It was the
qualified bray of the callow official, the “I am not perfect,
but——” that got on her nerves.
How gross he had been at Mr. Fielding’s—spoiling the
talk and walking off in the middle of the haunting song!
As he drove them away in the tum-tum, her irritation
became unbearable, and she did not realize that much of
it was directed against herself. She longed for an opportunity
to fly out at him, and since he felt cross too, and
they were both in India, an opportunity soon occurred.
They had scarcely left the College grounds before she
heard him say to his mother, who was with him on the
front seat, “What was that about caves?” and she
promptly opened fire.
“Mrs. Moore, your delightful doctor has decided on
a picnic, instead of a party in his house; we are to
meet him out there—you, myself, Mr. Fielding, Professor
Godbole—exactly the same party.”
“Out where?” asked Ronny.
“The Marabar Caves.”
“Well, I’m blessed,” he murmured after a pause.
“Did he descend to any details?”
“He did not. If you had spoken to him, we could have
arranged them.”
He shook his head laughing.
“Have I said anything funny?”
“I was only thinking how the worthy doctor’s collar
climbed up his neck.”
“I thought you were discussing the caves.”
“So I am. Aziz was exquisitely dressed, from tie-pin
to spats, but he had forgotten his back collar-stud, and
there you have the Indian all over: inattention to detail;
the fundamental slackness that reveals the race. Similarly,
to ‘meet’ in the caves as if they were the clock at
Charing Cross, when they’re miles from a station and each
other.”
“Have you been to them?”
“No, but I know all about them, naturally.”
“Oh naturally!”
“Are you too pledged to this expedition, mother?”
“Mother is pledged to nothing,” said Mrs. Moore,
rather unexpectedly. “Certainly not to this polo.
Will you drive up to the bungalow first, and drop me
there, please? I prefer to rest.”
“Drop me too,” said Adela. “I don’t want to watch
polo either, I’m sure.”
“Simpler to drop the polo,” said Ronny. Tired and
disappointed, he quite lost self-control, and added in a
loud lecturing voice, “I won’t have you messing about with
Indians any more! If you want to go to the Marabar
Caves, you’ll go under British auspices.”
“I’ve never heard of these caves, I don’t know what
or where they are,” said Mrs. Moore, “but I really can’t
have”—she tapped the cushion beside her—“so much
quarrelling and tiresomeness!”
The young people were ashamed. They dropped her
at the bungalow and drove on together to the polo,
feeling it was the least they could do. Their crackling
bad humour left them, but the heaviness of their spirit
remained; thunderstorms seldom clear the air. Miss
Quested was thinking over her own behaviour, and didn’t
like it at all. Instead of weighing Ronny and herself,
and coming to a reasoned conclusion about marriage,
she had incidentally, in the course of a talk about mangoes,
remarked to mixed company that she didn’t mean
to stop in India. Which meant that she wouldn’t marry
Ronny: but what a way to announce it, what a way for
a civilized girl to behave! She owed him an explanation,
but unfortunately there was nothing to explain. The
“thorough talk” so dear to her principles and temperament
had been postponed until too late. There seemed
no point in being disagreeable to him and formulating
her complaints against his character at this hour of the
day, which was the evening. . . . The polo took place
on the Maidan near the entrance of Chandrapore city.
The sun was already declining and each of the trees held
a premonition of night. They walked away from the
governing group to a distant seat, and there, feeling that
it was his due and her own, she forced out of herself the
undigested remark: “We must have a thorough talk,
Ronny, I’m afraid.”
“My temper’s rotten, I must apologize,” was his reply.
“I didn’t mean to order you and mother about, but of
course the way those Bengalis let you down this morning
annoyed me, and I don’t want that sort of thing to keep
happening.”
“It’s nothing to do with them that I . . .”
“No, but Aziz would make some similar muddle over
the caves. He meant nothing by the invitation, I could
tell by his voice; it’s just their way of being pleasant.”
“It’s something very different, nothing to do with
caves, that I wanted to talk over with you.” She gazed
at the colourless grass. “I’ve finally decided we are not
going to be married, my dear boy.”
The news hurt Ronny very much. He had heard
Aziz announce that she would not return to the country,
but had paid no attention to the remark, for he never
dreamt that an Indian could be a channel of communication
between two English people. He controlled himself
and said gently, “You never said we should marry, my
dear girl; you never bound either yourself or me—don’t
let this upset you.”
She felt ashamed. How decent he was! He might
force his opinions down her throat, but did not press
her to an “engagement,” because he believed, like
herself, in the sanctity of personal relationships: it was
this that had drawn them together at their first meeting,
which had occurred among the grand scenery of the
English Lakes. Her ordeal was over, but she felt it
should have been more painful and longer. Adela
will not marry Ronny. It seemed slipping away
like a dream. She said, “But let us discuss things;
it’s all so frightfully important, we mustn’t make false
steps. I want next to hear your point of view about
me—it might help us both.”
His manner was unhappy and reserved. “I don’t
much believe in this discussing—besides, I’m so dead
with all this extra work Mohurram’s bringing, if you’ll
excuse me.”
“I only want everything to be absolutely clear between
us, and to answer any questions you care to put to me on
my conduct.”
“But I haven’t got any questions. You’ve acted
within your rights, you were quite right to come out and
have a look at me doing my work, it was an excellent
plan, and anyhow it’s no use talking further—we should
only get up steam.” He felt angry and bruised; he
was too proud to tempt her back, but he did not consider
that she had behaved badly, because where his compatriots
were concerned he had a generous mind.
“I suppose that there is nothing else; it’s unpardonable
of me to have given you and your mother all this
bother,” said Miss Quested heavily, and frowned up at
the tree beneath which they were sitting. A little
green bird was observing her, so brilliant and neat that
it might have hopped straight out of a shop. On catching
her eye it closed its own, gave a small skip and prepared
to go to bed. Some Indian wild bird. “Yes, nothing
else,” she repeated, feeling that a profound and passionate
speech ought to have been delivered by one or both
of them. “We’ve been awfully British over it, but I
suppose that’s all right.”
“As we are British, I suppose it is.”
“Anyhow we’ve not quarrelled, Ronny.”
“Oh, that would have been too absurd. Why should
we quarrel?”
“I think we shall keep friends.”
“I know we shall.”
“Quite so.”
As soon as they had exchanged this admission, a wave
of relief passed through them both, and then transformed
itself into a wave of tenderness, and passed back. They
were softened by their own honesty, and began to feel
lonely and unwise. Experiences, not character, divided
them; they were not dissimilar, as humans go; indeed,
when compared with the people who stood nearest to
them in point of space they became practically identical.
The Bhil who was holding an officer’s polo pony, the
Eurasian who drove the Nawab Bahadur’s car, the Nawab
Bahadur himself, the Nawab Bahadur’s debauched
grandson—none would have examined a difficulty so
frankly and coolly. The mere fact of examination
caused it to diminish. Of course they were friends, and
for ever. “Do you know what the name of that green
bird up above us is?” she asked, putting her shoulder
rather nearer to his.
“Bee-eater.”
“Oh no, Ronny, it has red bars on its wings.”
“Parrot,” he hazarded.
“Good gracious no.”
The bird in question dived into the dome of the tree.
It was of no importance, yet they would have liked to
identify it, it would somehow have solaced their hearts.
But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking
of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in
something else.
“McBryde has an illustrated bird book,” he said
dejectedly. “I’m no good at all at birds, in fact I’m
useless at any information outside my own job. It’s a
great pity.”
“So am I. I’m useless at everything.”
“What do I hear?” shouted the Nawab Bahadur at
the top of his voice, causing both of them to start. “What
most improbable statement have I heard? An English
lady useless? No, no, no, no, no.” He laughed genially,
sure, within limits, of his welcome.
“Hallo, Nawab Bahadur! Been watching the polo
again?” said Ronny tepidly.
“I have, sahib, I have.”
“How do you do?” said Adela, likewise pulling herself
together. She held out her hand. The old gentleman
judged from so wanton a gesture that she was new
to his country, but he paid little heed. Women who
exposed their face became by that one act so mysterious
to him that he took them at the valuation of their men
folk rather than at his own. Perhaps they were not
immoral, and anyhow they were not his affair. On
seeing the City Magistrate alone with a maiden at twilight,
he had borne down on them with hospitable intent. He
had a new little car, and wished to place it at their disposal;
the City Magistrate would decide whether the
offer was acceptable.
Ronny was by this time rather ashamed of his curtness
to Aziz and Godbole, and here was an opportunity of
showing that he could treat Indians with consideration
when they deserved it. So he said to Adela, with the
same sad friendliness that he had employed when
discussing the bird, “Would half an hour’s spin
entertain you at all?”
“Oughtn’t we to get back to the bungalow.”
“Why?” He gazed at her.
“I think perhaps I ought to see your mother and
discuss future plans.”
“That’s as you like, but there’s no hurry, is there?”
“Let me take you to the bungalow, and first the little
spin,” cried the old man, and hastened to the car.
“He may show you some aspect of the country I
can’t, and he’s a real loyalist. I thought you might care
for a bit of a change.”
Determined to give him no more trouble, she agreed,
but her desire to see India had suddenly decreased.
There had been a factitious element in it.
How should they seat themselves in the car? The elegant
grandson had to be left behind. The Nawab Bahadur
got up in front, for he had no intention of neighbouring
an English girl. “Despite my advanced years, I am learning
to drive,” he said. “Man can learn everything if he
will but try.” And foreseeing a further difficulty, he
added, “I do not do the actual steering. I sit and ask
my chauffeur questions, and thus learn the reason for
everything that is done before I do it myself. By this
method serious and I may say ludicrous accidents, such as
befell one of my compatriots during that delightful
reception at the English Club, are avoided. Our good
Panna Lal! I hope, sahib, that great damage was not
done to your flowers. Let us have our little spin down the
Gangavati road. Half one league onwards!” He fell
asleep.
Ronny instructed the chauffeur to take the Marabar
road rather than the Gangavati, since the latter was
under repair, and settled himself down beside the lady
he had lost. The car made a burring noise and rushed
along a chaussée that ran upon an embankment above
melancholy fields. Trees of a poor quality bordered the
road, indeed the whole scene was inferior, and suggested
that the country-side was too vast to admit of excellence.
In vain did each item in it call out, “Come, come.”
There was not enough god to go round. The two young
people conversed feebly and felt unimportant. When
the darkness began, it seemed to well out of the meagre
vegetation, entirely covering the fields each side of them
before it brimmed over the road. Ronny’s face grew
dim—an event that always increased her esteem for his
character. Her hand touched his, owing to a jolt, and
one of the thrills so frequent in the animal kingdom
passed between them, and announced that all their difficulties
were only a lovers’ quarrel. Each was too proud
to increase the pressure, but neither withdrew it, and a
spurious unity descended on them, as local and temporary
as the gleam that inhabits a firefly. It would vanish in
a moment, perhaps to reappear, but the darkness is
alone durable. And the night that encircled them,
absolute as it seemed, was itself only a spurious unity,
being modified by the gleams of day that leaked up
round the edges of the earth, and by the stars.
They gripped . . . bump, jump, a swerve, two wheels
lifted in the air, breaks on, bump with tree at edge of
embankment, standstill. An accident. A slight one.
Nobody hurt. The Nawab Bahadur awoke. He cried
out in Arabic, and violently tugged his beard.
“What’s the damage?” enquired Ronny, after the
moment’s pause that he permitted himself before taking
charge of a situation. The Eurasian, inclined to be
flustered, rallied to the sound of his voice, and, every inch
an Englishman, replied, “You give me five minutes’
time, I’ll take you any dam anywhere.”
“Frightened, Adela?” He released her hand.
“Not a bit.”
“I consider not to be frightened the height of folly,”
cried the Nawab Bahadur quite rudely.
“Well, it’s all over now, tears are useless,” said Ronny,
dismounting. “We had some luck butting that tree.”
“All over . . . oh yes, the danger is past, let us smoke
cigarettes, let us do anything we please. Oh yes . . .
enjoy ourselves—oh my merciful God . . .” His words
died into Arabic again.
“Wasn’t the bridge. We skidded.”
“We didn’t skid,” said Adela, who had seen the
cause of the accident, and thought everyone must have
seen it too. “We ran into an animal.”
A loud cry broke from the old man: his terror was
disproportionate and ridiculous.
“An animal?”
“A large animal rushed up out of the dark on the
right and hit us.”
“By Jove, she’s right,” Ronny exclaimed. “The
paint’s gone.”
“By Jove, sir, your lady is right,” echoed the Eurasian.
Just by the hinges of the door was a dent, and the door
opened with difficulty.
“Of course I’m right. I saw its hairy back quite
plainly.”
“I say, Adela, what was it?”
“I don’t know the animals any better than the birds
here—too big for a goat.”
“Exactly, too big for a goat . . .” said the old man.
Ronny said, “Let’s go into this; let’s look for its
tracks.”
“Exactly; you wish to borrow this electric torch.”
The English people walked a few steps back into the
darkness, united and happy. Thanks to their youth and
upbringing, they were not upset by the accident. They
traced back the writhing of the tyres to the source of their
disturbance. It was just after the exit from a bridge;
the animal had probably come up out of the nullah.
Steady and smooth ran the marks of the car, ribbons
neatly nicked with lozenges, then all went mad. Certainly
some external force had impinged, but the road
had been used by too many objects for any one track
to be legible, and the torch created such high lights and
black shadows that they could not interpret what it
revealed. Moreover, Adela in her excitement knelt and
swept her skirts about, until it was she if anyone who
appeared to have attacked the car. The incident was a
great relief to them both. They forgot their abortive personal
relationship, and felt adventurous as they muddled
about in the dust.
“I believe it was a buffalo,” she called to their host,
who had not accompanied them.
“Exactly.”
“Unless it was a hyena.”
Ronny approved this last conjecture. Hyenas prowl
in nullahs and headlights dazzle them.
“Excellent, a hyena,” said the Indian with an angry
irony and a gesture at the night. “Mr. Harris!”
“Half a mo-ment. Give me ten minutes’ time.”
“Sahib says hyena.”
“Don’t worry Mr. Harris. He saved us from a nasty
smash. Harris, well done!”
“A smash, sahib, that would not have taken place had
he obeyed and taken us Gangavati side, instead of
Marabar.”
“My fault that. I told him to come this way because
the road’s better. Mr. Lesley has made it pukka right
up to the hills.”
“Ah, now I begin to understand.” Seeming to pull
himself together, he apologized slowly and elaborately
for the accident. Ronny murmured, “Not at all,” but
apologies were his due, and should have started sooner:
because English people are so calm at a crisis, it is not
to be assumed that they are unimportant. The Nawab
Bahadur had not come out very well.
At that moment a large car approached from the
opposite direction. Ronny advanced a few steps down
the road, and with authority in his voice and gesture
stopped it. It bore the inscription “Mudkul State”
across its bonnet. All friskiness and friendliness, Miss
Derek sat inside.
“Mr. Heaslop, Miss Quested, what are you holding
up an innocent female for?”
“We’ve had a breakdown.”
“But how putrid!”
“We ran into a hyena!”
“How absolutely rotten!”
“Can you give us a lift?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Take me too,” said the Nawab Bahadur.
“Heh, what about me?” cried Mr. Harris.
“Now what’s all this? I’m not an omnibus,” said Miss
Derek with decision. “I’ve a harmonium and two dogs
in here with me as it is. I’ll take three of you if one’ll
sit in front and nurse a pug. No more.”
“I will sit in front,” said the Nawab Bahadur.
“Then hop in: I’ve no notion who you are.”
“Heh no, what about my dinner? I can’t be left alone
all the night.” Trying to look and feel like a European,
the chauffeur interposed aggressively. He still wore a
topi, despite the darkness, and his face, to which the
Ruling Race had contributed little beyond bad teeth,
peered out of it pathetically, and seemed to say, “What’s
it all about? Don’t worry me so, you blacks and whites.
Here I am, stuck in dam India same as you, and you
got to fit me in better than this.”
“Nussu will bring you out some suitable dinner upon
a bicycle,” said the Nawab Bahadur, who had regained
his usual dignity. “I shall despatch him with all possible
speed. Meanwhile, repair my car.”
They sped off, and Mr. Harris, after a reproachful
glance, squatted down upon his hams. When English
and Indians were both present, he grew self-conscious,
because he did not know to whom he belonged. For a
little he was vexed by opposite currents in his blood,
then they blended, and he belonged to no one but himself.
But Miss Derek was in tearing spirits. She had succeeded
in stealing the Mudkul car. Her Maharajah
would be awfully sick, but she didn’t mind, he could
sack her if he liked. “I don’t believe in these people
letting you down,” she said. “If I didn’t snatch like
the devil, I should be nowhere. He doesn’t want the
car, silly fool! Surely it’s to the credit of his State
I should be seen about in it at Chandrapore during my
leave. He ought to look at it that way. Anyhow he’s
got to look at it that way. My Maharani’s different—my
Maharani’s a dear. That’s her fox terrier, poor little
devil. I fished them out both with the driver. Imagine
taking dogs to a Chiefs’ Conference! As sensible as taking
Chiefs, perhaps.” She shrieked with laughter. “The
harmonium—the harmonium’s my little mistake, I
own. They rather had me over the harmonium. I
meant it to stop on the train. Oh lor’!”
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.
“What made you call it a ghost?”
“Call what a ghost?”
“The animal thing that hit us. Didn’t you say ‘Oh,
a ghost,’ in passing.”
“I couldn’t have been thinking of what I was saying.”
“It was probably a hyena, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, very likely.”
And they went on with their Patience. Down in
Chandrapore the Nawab Bahadur waited for his car.
He sat behind his town house (a small unfurnished
building which he rarely entered) in the midst of the
little court that always improvises itself round Indians of
position. As if turbans were the natural product of
darkness a fresh one would occasionally froth to the front,
incline itself towards him, and retire. He was preoccupied,
his diction was appropriate to a religious subject.
Nine years previously, when first he had had a car, he
had driven it over a drunken man and killed him, and the
man had been waiting for him ever since. The Nawab
Bahadur was innocent before God and the Law, he
had paid double the compensation necessary; but it
was no use, the man continued to wait in an unspeakable
form, close to the scene of his death. None of
the English people knew of this, nor did the chauffeur;
it was a racial secret communicable more by blood than
speech. He spoke now in horror of the particular
circumstances; he had led others into danger, he had
risked the lives of two innocent and honoured guests.
He repeated, “If I had been killed, what matter? it
must happen sometime; but they who trusted me——”
The company shuddered and invoked the mercy of
God. Only Aziz held aloof, because a personal experience
restrained him: was it not by despising ghosts
that he had come to know Mrs. Moore? “You know,
Nureddin,” he whispered to the grandson—an effeminate
youth whom he seldom met, always liked, and invariably
forgot—“you know, my dear fellow, we Moslems simply
must get rid of these superstitions, or India will never
advance. How long must I hear of the savage pig
upon the Marabar Road?” Nureddin looked down.
Aziz continued: “Your grandfather belongs to another
generation, and I respect and love the old gentleman, as
you know. I say nothing against him, only that it is
wrong for us, because we are young. I want you to
promise me—Nureddin, are you listening?—not to believe
in Evil Spirits, and if I die (for my health grows very
weak) to bring up my three children to disbelieve in them
too.” Nureddin smiled, and a suitable answer rose to
his pretty lips, but before he could make it the car arrived,
and his grandfather took him away.
The game of Patience up in the civil lines went on
longer than this. Mrs. Moore continued to murmur
“Red ten on a black knave,” Miss Quested to assist her,
and to intersperse among the intricacies of the play
details about the hyena, the engagement, the Maharani
of Mudkul, the Bhattacharyas, and the day generally,
whose rough desiccated surface acquired as it receded a
definite outline, as India itself might, could it be viewed
from the moon. Presently the players went to bed, but
not before other people had woken up elsewhere, people
whose emotions they could not share, and whose existence
they ignored. Never tranquil, never perfectly dark, the
night wore itself away, distinguished from other nights
by two or three blasts of wind, which seemed to fall
perpendicularly out of the sky and to bounce back into
it, hard and compact, leaving no freshness behind them:
the hot weather was approaching.
