The Empire Trilogy - J. G. Farrell [221]
Yet it was the Collector himself who was responsible for this fortnightly torment since it was he who had founded the Society. He had done so partly because he was a believer in the ennobling powers of literature, and partly because he was sorry for the ladies of the cantonment who had, particularly during the hot season, so little to occupy them. At first he had been pleased with the ladies’ enthusiasm and had considered the plan a success...but then he had made the mistake of inviting Tom Willoughby, the Magistrate. The Magistrate suffered from the disability of a free-thinking turn of mind and from a life that was barren and dreary to match. To make things worse, he was married, but in the celibate manner of so many English “civilians”. The Collector had eyed the Magistrate’s marriage with complacent pity: his wife, imported from England, had stayed two or three years in India until driven home by the heat, the boredom and a fortuitous pregnancy. Ah, the Collector had witnessed this sad story so often during his time in India! And now, though later than most, it seemed that his own marriage, which had survived so long in this arduous climate, must suffer a similar fate, for his wife, Caroline, sitting nervously in the front row with her own sheaf of poems, would soon be sailing from Calcutta. Such was the reward for complacency, he reflected, not without a certain stern satisfaction at the justice of this retribution.
“Oh, there’s Mr Hopkins,” said the Magistrate, ending his discourse abruptly as he caught sight of the Collector lurking in the doorway. And the Collector was obliged to step forward smiling, as if in anticipation of the poetry that would soon be gratifying his ears.
An empty chair had been placed beside the Magistrate, who was somewhat younger than the Collector and had the red hair and ginger whiskers of the born atheist; his face wore a constant expression of cynical surprise, one eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth compressed, as far as one could make out beneath the growth of whiskers which here varied from ginger to cinnamon. It was said in the cantonment that he even slept with one eyebrow raised; the Collector did not know if there was any truth in this.
At one time everyone had sat in a circle and every member of the Society had been willing to voice an opinion on the poem which had just been read. Those were the days when every single poem had bristled with good qualities like a hedgehog and had glutted itself with praise like a jackal, the happy days before the Magistrate had been invited. Soon after his arrival the circle had begun to disintegrate, the ladies had progressively dropped away from each side of him until, soon, they faced him in a semi-circle, and now, at last, directly, as if in the dock. The Collector had bravely installed himself at the Magistrate’s side in order to plead mitigating circumstances.
By this time the poetry reading had begun and Mrs Worseley, wife of one of the railway engineers, had faltered to the end of a sonnet about an erl-king. Everyone, including the Collector, was now watching the Magistrate in dismay, waiting for his verdict; although sure about most things, the Collector lacked confidence in his own judgement when it came to poetry and was obliged to defer to the Magistrate, but not without the private suspicion that his own judgement might be superior after all.
“Mrs Worseley, I found your poem defective in metre, rhyme, and invention. And to be quite honest I consider that we’ve had far too many erl-kings in recent weeks, though I can assure you that even one erl-king would be more than enough for me.” Mrs Worseley hung her head, but looked quite relieved, thinking that she had got off lightly.
Mrs Adams,