A Passage to India - E. M. Forster [30]
Into this Ronny dropped.
With an annoyance he took no trouble to conceal, he called from the garden: “What’s happened to Fielding? Where’s my mother?”
“Good evening!” she replied coolly.
“I want you and mother at once. There’s to be polo.”
“I thought there was to be no polo.”
“Everything’s altered. Some soldier men have come in. Come along and I’ll tell you about it.”
“Your mother will return shortly, sir,” said Professor Godbole, who had risen with deference. “There is but little to see at our poor college.”
Ronny took no notice, but continued to address his remarks to Adela; he had hurried away from his work to take her to see the polo, because he thought it would give her pleasure. He did not mean to be rude to the two men, but the only link he could be conscious of with an Indian was the official, and neither happened to be his subordinate. As private individuals he forgot them.
Unfortunately Aziz was in no mood to be forgotten. He would not give up the secure and intimate note of the last hour. He had not risen with Godbole, and now, offensively friendly, called from his seat, “Come along up and join us, Mr. Heaslop; sit down till your mother turns up.”
Ronny replied by ordering one of Fielding’s servants to fetch his master at once.
“He may not understand that. Allow me——” Aziz repeated the order idiomatically.
Ronny was tempted to retort; he knew the type; he knew all the types, and this was the spoilt Westernized. But he was a servant of the Government, it was his job to avoid “incidents,” so he said nothing, and ignored the provocation that Aziz continued to offer. Aziz was provocative. Everything he said had an impertinent flavour or jarred. His wings were failing, but he refused to fall without a struggle. He did not mean to be impertinent to Mr. Heaslop, who had never done him harm, but here was an Anglo-Indian who must become a man before comfort could be regained. He did not mean to be greasily confidential to Miss Quested, only to enlist her support; nor to be loud and jolly towards Professor Godbole. A strange quartette—he fluttering to the ground, she puzzled by the sudden ugliness, Ronny fuming, the Brahman observing all three, but with downcast eyes and hands folded, as if nothing was noticeable. A scene from a play, thought Fielding, who now saw them from the distance across the garden grouped among the blue pillars of his beautiful hall.
“Don’t trouble to come, mother,” Ronny called; “we’re just starting.” Then he hurried to Fielding, drew him aside and said with pseudo-heartiness, “I say, old man, do excuse me, but I think perhaps you oughtn’t to have left Miss Quested alone.”
“I’m sorry, what’s up?” replied Fielding, also trying to be genial.
“Well … I’m the sun-dried bureaucrat, no doubt; still, I don’t like to see an English girl left smoking with two Indians.”
“She stopped, as she smokes, by her own wish, old man.”
“Yes, that’s all right in England.”
“I really can’t see the harm.”
“If you can’t see, you can’t see… . Can’t you see that fellow’s a bounder?”
Aziz flamboyant, was patronizing Mrs. Moore.
“He isn’t a bounder,” protested Fielding. “His nerves are on edge, that’s all.”
“What should have upset his precious nerves?”
“I don’t know. He was all right when I left.”
“Well, it’s nothing I’ve said,” said Ronny reassuringly. “I never even spoke to him.”
“Oh well, come along now, and take your ladies away; the catastrophe over.”
“Fielding … don’t think I’m taking it badly, or anything of that sort… . I suppose you won’t come on to the polo with us? We should all be delighted.”
“I’