A Passage to India, E. M. Forster [book series for 10 year olds TXT] 📗

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 homecoming 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 forever?” 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