A Passage to India - E. M. Forster [124]
The brother-in-law exclaimed; a bee had got him.
“Lie down in a pool of water, my dear sir—here are plenty. Don’t come near me… . I cannot control them, they are State bees; complain to His Highness of their behaviour.” There was no real danger, for the rain was increasing. The swarm retired to the shrine. He went up to the stranger and pulled a couple of stings out of his wrist, remarking, “Come, pull yourself together and be a man.”
“How do you do, Aziz, after all this time? I heard you were settled in here,” Fielding called to him, but not in friendly tones. “I suppose a couple of stings don’t signify.”
“Not the least. I’ll send an embrocation over to the Guest House. I heard you were settled in there.”
“Why have you not answered my letters?” he asked, going straight for the point, but not reaching it, owing to buckets of rain. His companion, new to the country, cried, as the drops drummed on his topi, that the bees were renewing their attack. Fielding checked his antics rather sharply, then said: “Is there a short cut down to our carriage? We must give up our walk. The weather’s pestilential.”
“Yes. That way.”
“Are you not coming down yourself?”
Aziz sketched a comic salaam; like all Indians, he was skilful in the slighter impertinences. “I tremble, I obey,” the gesture said, and it was not lost upon Fielding. They walked down a rough path to the road—the two men first; the brother-in-law (boy rather than man) next, in a state over his arm, which hurt; the three Indian children last, noisy and impudent—all six wet through.
“How goes it, Aziz?”
“In my usual health.”
“Are you making anything out of your life here?”
“How much do you make out of yours?”
“Who is in charge of the Guest House?” he asked, giving up his slight effort to recapture their intimacy, and growing more official; he was older and sterner.
“His Highness’s Private Secretary, probably.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I don’t know.” “Because not a soul’s been near us since we arrived.”
“Really.”
“I wrote beforehand to the Durbar, and asked if a visit was convenient. I was told it was, and arranged my tour accordingly; but the Guest House servants appear to have no definite instructions, we can’t get any eggs, also my wife wants to go out in the boat.”
“There are two boats.”
“Exactly, and no oars.”
“Colonel Maggs broke the oars when here last.”
“All four?”
“He is a most powerful man.”
“If the weather lifts, we want to see your torchlight procession from the water this evening,” he pursued. “I wrote to Godbole about it, but he has taken no notice; it’s a place of the dead.”
“Perhaps your letter never reached the Minister in question.”
“Will there be any objection to English people watching the procession?”
“I know nothing at all about the religion here. I should never think of watching it myself.”
“We had a very different reception both at Mudkul and Deora, they were kindness itself at Deora, the Maharajah and Maharani wanted us to see everything.”
“You should never have left them.”
“Jump in, Ralph”—they had reached the carriage.
“Jump in, Mr. Quested, and Mr. Fielding.”
“Who on earth is Mr. Quested?”
“Do I mispronounce that well-known name? Is he not your wife’s brother?”
“Who on earth do you suppose I’ve married?”
“I’m only Ralph Moore,” said the boy, blushing, and at that moment there fell another pailful of the rain, and made a mist round their feet. Aziz tried to withdraw, but it was too late.
“Quested? Quested? Don’t you know that my wife was Mrs. Moore’s daughter?”
He trembled, and went purplish grey; he hated the news, hated hearing the name Moore.
“Perhaps this explains your odd attitude?”
“And pray what is wrong with my attitude?”
“The p