And he, too, was compelled to admit and willingly did admire not only the carefully planned pageant of Empire, but the grace and sincerity of those who took part in it, and most especially the grace of the young Prince himself. That slight dignified figure now came forward at the appointed time and standing he read the King’s address with extraordinary composure and clarity. It was impossible not to believe in his goodness and not to be touched by his youth. With the same natural pleasantness, he received the welcome of the city, which Sir David Sassoon presented, and in reply spoke so simply and with such earnestness and honesty, that David wished Darya were present and could hear. “I want to know you,” the young Prince said, gazing upon the vast audience of India, “I want to know you and I want you to know me.”
The beauty of order, the strength of control, the power of law, all were here, and surely they would prevail, David told himself.
The great assembly was over and music burst into the air. The royal company prepared to descend from the dais, and the crowd rose.
Suddenly at this very moment David heard his name called in a whisper. He turned his head and saw Darya standing among a group of Indians just behind him.
“Even I,” Darya said, under cover of the music. Then with his invincible smile, he said, leaning forward to be heard, “Look at me, David — you will not see me for a long time.”
“Ah, Darya,” David said anxiously, “what are you planning now?”
From whence had Darya come? He must have taken advantage of the crowds and made his way in. Among the vivid silks of the courts of the native princes he was dangerously conspicuous in the whiteness of his cotton garments, his little Gandhi cap stark among the gorgeous turbans of scarlet and blue and gold.
“In a moment I shall be arrested,” Darya whispered and his look was proud. He stood with his head high, his arms folded. It was not a moment. Almost instantly two British guards stepped forward and clapped their hands on his shoulders.
“This way, please, sir,” they said with respect; but command.
Darya turned his head this way and that, he met the eyes of those who gazed at him, he smiled again at David and then walked with dignity down the carpeted aisle between the two tall British guards. For a moment the royal company paused, though without confusion, and then as Darya disappeared, the band struck into new music, and the imperial show went on.
Ted saw his father first, tall, gaunt, bearded, his eyes shadowed by the oval brim of his sun helmet. He stood near the gang plank ready to be the first to descend from the ship, and while he waited this last instant his father caught sight of him and raised his hand. Ted lifted his hat high and waved it, and then stood smiling, but only in the instant for almost immediately the gang plank was fixed, the quick dark hands of the dock sailors fastening the ropes with skill, and he leaped down the few feet of board and clasped his father’s hand.
“Dad, this is wonderful—”
“I’m glad to see you, son.”
His father was sunburned almost as dark as the Indians themselves, or perhaps heat-burned. His grey beard cut close to his cheeks was a startling contrast to the brown skin and tragic dark eyes. It was not a smiling face, but Ted had never remembered ready smiles upon his father’s face. It was kind and it wore a controlled patience, a stillness almost terrifying. It was a stern face, as he remembered, in repose or prayer.
“We’d better not stand in this sun,” David said. His son looked so young, so tender, that he felt immediately anxious, the old sickening anxiety of the boy’s childhood in this devilish climate. Twenty-two was too young to begin life here, but it was either here or get rooted in America, and Ted had chosen India.
“I shall have to get hardened to it again,” Ted said with gaiety. There was gaiety in all he said and did, a sparkling, youthful, springing quality. Tall as he looked, he was not as tall as his father or his grandfather, and the peculiar brightness of his white skin, his grey eyes and the auburn hair enhanced his natural spirit with an electric lightness. He was more slender than father or grandfather had ever been, inheriting from Olivia his narrow wiry build and movements too quick for absolute grace. Mercurial, David thought regretfully, perhaps too fine-drawn, too taut, too sensitive for India! Though Ted did not look like Olivia, she had bequeathed something to him of her inner self.
“I have taken rooms at the hotel,” David said. “We can leave the luggage with the porter.” They got into a carriage and sat down side by side in the shelter of the hood, and the horses ambled slowly down the street.
“Do you plan to go straight home to Poona tomorrow?” Ted asked.
“Unless you have some reason for delay,” David replied.
Ted hesitated then decided against mentioning Agnes. Did he speak her name it might be too much, his father might think the friendship deeper than it was. She would not be at the hotel, her parents were staying at Government House, and he had not asked to see her there. They had told each other good-by this morning after breakfast.
“We shall meet again,” he had said with his quick nervous hand clasp.
“Of course,” she said.
“And may I write?” he asked.
“I hope you will,” she had replied.
He looked deeply for a moment into her charming blue eyes, the sweet steadfast eyes of good and highborn young English women, and impressed upon his memory the gentle oval of her face, the serious mouth and firm chin, the fresh and lovely complexion, the slender elegant figure in white linen, the low beautiful English voice. Something trembled in him for a moment, words rose to his lips, and he restrained them. It was too soon, he did not know what he wanted to make of his life, he could not speak of sharing it in any degree with her until he knew for himself what it was to be.
“I shall write after I get home,” he said. “And you, too, write me. Tell me what the first hours are.”
“I fancy we shall be feeling somewhat the same,” she replied.
So they had parted, she had left him quietly before he met his father, and he had caught a glimpse of her with a tall sallow Englishman and a thin sallow graceful woman in a green frock, her parents, he supposed, come to meet her, and to take part in the Durbar, but she did not introduce him. So he could not speak of her now, and certainly he did not want to call upon her in Government House. It would be far too significant, especially with the Durbar going on.
“I’d like to get straight home,” he told his father.
They rode in silence for a few minutes, and he gazed about the scene, so familiar and yet so new, the swarming crowds, the dark, amiable, tense, proud Indian faces, the turbans of every shape and color, the women in their brilliant saris, far more of them on the streets now than there used to be, a few Englishwomen, too, and some Eurasian girls, very beautiful in English garb, and the ever present beggars, wretched, deformed, emaciated, their high voices, pleading for mercy, threading all the noise of the everyday life, and no one paying them any heed.
“I wonder that something isn’t done to get the beggars fed and off the streets,” he said abruptly.
“I suppose it is still as it was in the time of Christ,” David said. “The poor we must have always with us.”
His father spoke, or so Ted thought, almost with indifference, as if India had worn down even pity, or mercy, and certainly the hope of change for such as these. He understood, and rebelled. However long he lived here, he would not allow himself to become indifferent. He would keep his heart alive.
So they did not stay in Bombay. He had no desire to see the Durbar, and they left on the earliest train. He was very quiet, sitting by the dusty window and watching the familiar landscape slip by. This was more than coming home. It was beginning his own life at last.