Riots were expected, she wrote him, for there were rumors that nationalists were sending in malcontents from the jute mills, paying them each six annas a day to stir up the people against the Prince. But Government was rounding them up before the royal visit, and more than three thousand rebels were in jail. As for hartal—
“Actually complete hartal will be helpful,” she wrote, “for the people will stay at home. Otherwise many might be crushed to death in the crowds on the streets.”
Her letters rose to enthusiasm when the Prince of Wales arrived, and Ted read them thoughtfully, remembering Darya lonely in his prison cell. “It has all been a great success,” she wrote in January. “Most satisfying to us, of course, was the vast entertainment on the second day after Christmas, given entirely by the Indians. It was in the open, on the maidan, and thousands came to see him. How they cheered when the Prince drove slowly around — and it was so very comforting to us. Then he mounted the magnificent dais, and sat down, although he rose as soon as the program began, to receive the sacred offerings — silver coconuts, sweet rice, flowers — all on silver platters. He was finally garlanded and could sit again. Then three great processions came slowly toward him, the first one of priests in their saffron robes, chanting Sanskrit hymns to the most beautiful music, soft and yet wild and sad. Then came thirteen bullock carts, each with a spectacle, a tableau of Indian life, the figures so motionless and poised one could have sworn them of bronze instead of flesh and blood. Then there was the Thibetan dance procession. Of course there was everything else — Manipur dancers, very pretty and so young in their stiff golden skirts and dark bodices, and finally a tremendous historical pageant of the Mogul era. Oh, but the best was when it was all over and the crowd surged forward toward the Prince simply to show their love! And even on the twenty-ninth when he left, the cheering crowds gathered along the river to see him off, although the Pansy was moored by Outram Ghat and his departure was supposed to be private. They were all middle class and working people, too. A great triumph for the British Empire! My father is delighted and so are we all.”
Ted put this letter down. She had never been so warm, so excited, but none of this emotion was for him. It was time indeed to go and see her face to face.
XII
HE REACHED CALCUTTA ON a day already growing hot and went at once to the hotel after the dusty journey. His bearer had fetched his bags and bedding and now hastened ahead to prepare his bath and tea. In the lobby he lingered at the desk, hoping for a letter from Agnes. There was a chit, an invitation not for immediate luncheon, but for tea this afternoon and tennis, a cool little note, not unfriendly perhaps but wary, or did he so imagine? The pale grey paper was thick, and it was embossed with the crest of Government House. But Government House, he reminded himself, was home for her. He must not expect her to be as she had been on the ship, simple and single and free to be herself. She was the Governor’s daughter, and an English woman in India. He stood fingering the note, remembering with a sudden blush the frankness of his letters. He had all but made love to her, for love was very easy. He was still lonely, the nights were hot and long and he dreamed of companionship.
Well, then, he would sleep and rest and read, perhaps even study his language lessons, for he was determined to master not only the literate Marathi but Hindustani and vernacular Gujerati, and after that if possible the other chief languages of India so that wherever he went he could speak to people. Poona, he was beginning to feel, was not to be his final home, but the future was not clear until he had seen Agnes. He mounted the marble steps then and went to his room. There his bearer had already let down the mosquito net, had drawn the shutters and the punkah was in motion.
“English bath, sahib,” the faithful one said, grinning white teeth in a dark face, meaning that here was a vast porcelain tub and cumbrous plumbing and running hot and cold water.
“That is good,” Ted replied. “Now bring me some food, and then you go and sleep, too. I shall sleep all morning.”
“Yes, Sahib.”
The man drifted away, closing the door silently. The room was suddenly quiet, the thick walls shut away the sounds of the street and there was only the faint squeak of the punkah, moving to and fro.
The gardens at Government House were a display of imperial splendor. The heat had not been allowed to scorch the flowers, English larkspur mingled with the luscious Indian blooms and roses, and orchids grew in the shadow of huge lath houses. Lawns spread in acres of green and in the center the dignified mansion rose like an immense English country house. The hired carriage rolled along the driveway and stopped at the entrance steps, his bearer leaped nimbly down from beside the driver and Ted got out.
“You may come back in two hours, or wait,” he directed.
“I wait, Sahib,” the bearer said with dignity. He was handsome in fresh white garments, and he was aware that he did honor to his master, even here.
“Very well,” Ted said.
He mounted the steps and at the open door behind the mosquito screens a servant, a Sikh, tall and bearded, splendid in a blue and gold livery, waited for him.
“Miss Linlay,” Ted said.
“Expecting you, Sahib,” the Sikh said suavely and ushered him into the reception room to the left of the huge square entrance hall.
There he waited, but only a moment for almost at once she came, looking cool and beautiful in her white linen tennis frock, as he saw immediately, her fair hair drawn back into a large knot on her neck, and her face pale, though touched with a faint sudden blush. At her throat she had fastened a yellow rose.
“Agnes!” He took both her hands and looked down into her smiling face, and how blue her eyes were, he thought, more blue even than he remembered and her lips even more sweet. He was overcome with a sudden impulse to bend and kiss those lips, an impulse so strong that he could resist it only by the utmost will. But he knew that she could be deeply and delicately offended, and he would not risk it.
She stood looking at him, smiling, warding him off nevertheless and he imagined that she was changed, less free, at least, than she had been on the ship. But he was prepared for that.
“You had my note quite safely, I see, arriving so exactly,” she said, “and it is still too hot for tennis, I fear. Perhaps it is as cool here as anywhere.”
She sat down on a rather high chair of teak, cool and polished, and he drew a small gold chair near to her, and sitting down he gazed at her frankly and with delight, determined not to allow her to withdraw from him.
“I have come a long way to see you, and I have waited a long time. I wanted to come last autumn, when I went to the United Provinces to see an old friend. But you wouldn’t let me, and again—”
She fended him off. “And who is the old friend?”
“An Indian friend of my father’s, I call him Uncle. He is Darya Sapru.”
“Ah, that name I know,” she observed. “My father says he could have had a knighthood last year if he had not joined himself with Gandhi.”
“Really? But I don’t think he would have accepted a knighthood.”
He saw the slightest hardening of the lovely clear blue eyes, and he hastened away from the subject. “Anyway, my father and Darya have been lifelong friends, although now they are rather apart, because my father does not feel Gandhi is right.”
He stopped abruptly, smitten with guilt.
She said, “I am glad to know your father feels that.”
“Yes, and I mustn’t take shelter behind my father,” he said resolutely. “I don’t know if Gandhi is right or wrong. There is so much I don’t know now. The old India was nicely clear, or so I seem to remember it, maybe because I was only a child, and now everything seems complex. I had to listen to Darya, of course. Seeing him in jail was very confusing.”