Travelers Read Free Page B

the dust. When it was time for a meal, he rang a gong and Miss Charlotte came bustling in and stood behind her chair and briskly said grace. The old bearer shouted “Amen” the loudest, and when Miss Charlotte and the two girls had sat down and turned their plates the right way up, he went round the table serving them.
    Miss Charlotte had been in India for thirty years. Her mission house, a large rambling bungalow, was in a poor state of repair but she managed to keep it going and to fill it with worthwhile activity. One of the rooms was used as a school for the children of sweepers, in another girls of poor family were taught to knit and sew; a corner of the back veranda was used as a part-time dispensary. This last activity was not quite legal, for Miss Charlotte was not a qualified dispenser and could not afford to hire one. Once or twice government inspectors had come and looked grave. Altogether Miss Charlotte did not have an easy time: questions were often asked in Parliament about proselytizing missionaries, and Christian missions of varying denominations were being closed all over the country.
    The food Miss Charlotte and the two girls ate was boiled, meager, and English, except on Sundays when there was rice and curry. The dining room carried the congealed smell of a long succession of such meals. It was a cheerless place but, thanks to Miss Charlotte’s serene high spirits, their mealtimes were not cheerless. Although she was completely wrapped up in her work in India, she had not lost interest in what went onat home. By no means. Her first love was literature; her favorite novelists were George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, both of whom she read over and over again. She also had a passion for the theater, although she had never really quite taken to the cinema. But she was eager to learn about the latest developments in all the arts and asked her two guests many questions. Nothing they told her could ever shock her: she received everything quite coolly, indeed with friendly interest, and leaned across the table to hear better. These mealtime chats were so enjoyable for her that she lingered longer than she should have done over her coffee and only managed to tear herself away when, as often happened, a message came to her to say that one of the women in the servants’ quarters had begun her labor, or there was a leper outside the kitchen waiting to be given a meal.
    Gopi Moves In with Raymond
    Gopi didn’t care where he slept—on the sofa, on the floor, on two chairs pushed together. And he fell asleep very quickly; when there was nothing more to interest him, he dropped off at once. He looked childlike and innocent with his eyes shut and his long lashes delicately spread on his cheeks. Raymond sometimes tried to arrange him more comfortably, tucking in a pillow here or there, but really it was not necessary, for Gopi was absolutely comfortable already.
    He was practically living in Raymond’s flat. It had come about quite naturally: he didn’t feel like going home, so he stayed on, from one meal to the next, from one day to the next. He liked being there. He liked being with Raymond and, just as much, he liked the flat, the bachelor’s establishment. It was quite different from anything he knew at home. He had never missed privacy and comfort because he had never known them; now that he was making their acquaintance, he found they suited him. He moved around the place like its natural lord and master.He wore Raymond’s dressing gown and silk scarves and whatever else fitted him. He took it for granted that everything that was there, everything that was Raymond’s, was his.
    This included Raymond’s servant, Shyam. He had completely got over his shyness of Shyam and had no hesitation in ordering him around like his own servant. He found it easy to ignore Shyam’s subsequent surliness, for he hardly noticed it; and it was only when Shyam refused outright to do some