Come, My Beloved: A Novel by Buck Pearl S

Author:Buck, Pearl S. [Buck, Pearl S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480421455
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

VIII

THE WEATHER TURNED AND grew cool, as cool as Poona weather ever was, but Olivia was languid. Her days were spent in a routine, pleasant enough but unchanging, and she marvelled that she did not mind. She was getting very lazy, she told herself, and it was an effort to return the dinners to which she and David had been invited, most important of which was a dinner due the Governor and his wife. She made the effort, because David insisted that he must be friendly with Government or he could not do his work. It was difficult, nationalism was rising, Government was irritable and irritated. Americans were suspected of being sympathetic with the nationalist movement and ultimately with independence for India. History was against them.

“I am very glad to find that you are sound, Mr. MacArd,” the Governor said somewhat patronizingly at the dinner table.

Olivia, at the opposite end of the oval table, listened for David’s reply.

“I am against revolution, Your Excellency,” David replied calmly. “That is not to say I am against change. I am doing my best to educate young Indians who will wish eventually to rule their own country, doubtless, but it will be within the scheme of evolutionary order and not in my time or yours, probably.”

“Oh, well, as to that,” the Governor said tolerantly, “we shall of course give them a gradual independence as they are fit for it. Certainly they are not fit for it now, with four fifths of the people illiterate and ignorant.”

Olivia spoke too quickly. “Your Excellency, I’ve wondered so much why they are like this after hundreds of years of enlightened rule under the British Empire.”

She dared not look at David. Instead she fastened her eyes brightly and defiantly upon the Governor’s dignified square face. His voice sharpened. “Oh, come now, Mrs. MacArd, don’t you go saying such things. It will take more than a few hundred years to change India completely. Consider her condition when we came in, and how long it took us merely to establish order. A hundred years passed before we could begin really to govern. As it is, we are still not responsible for the entire country. There are the Native Princes. We are not tyrants, you know. We don’t force things down Indian throats.”

A general movement swayed the guests into conversation, as though by common impulse they moved to cover Olivia’s question. Nothing more must be said, and Olivia’s brief emergence was drowned. She yielded, as she yielded in everything nowadays. She sat quietly smiling, eating with good appetite for she was always hungry, to her own surprise, and yet food gave her no energy.

The evening passed, and when the guests were gone she waited for David to reprove her for the question, but he did not. He was aloof, but he was always aloof now, and she supposed it was because he was so busy. The buildings were going up rapidly, and he was already receiving students. Ramsay was with him every day and on some days all day long, and she saw very little of her husband.

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