The Raj Quartet, Volume 1: The Jewel in the Crown: The Jewel in the Crown Vol 1 (Phoenix Fiction) by Paul Scott

she had felt for the ragged singing children years ago; deeper, harder, because her regard for the children had sprung partly from her pity for them—and for Mr. Chaudhuri she had no pity; only respect and the kind of affection that came from the confidence one human being could feel in another, however little had been felt before.
    “Then,” Mr. Chaudhuri said, “let us proceed.” His lips looked verydry. He was afraid, and so was she, but now perhaps they both saw the comic side, and she did not have to say anything special to him just because his skin was brown or because she had never understood him. After all, he had never fully understood her either. She set the car in motion again and after a while she began to sing. Presently to her surprise and pleasure he joined in. It was the song she always liked the children to learn. All over India, she thought, there were brown and off-white children and adults who could sing the song or, at least, remember it if they ever heard it again and, perhaps, remember it in connection with Miss Crane Mem. She sang it now, not sentimentally, but with joy, not piously, but boldly, almost as though it were a jolly march. When they had sung it right through once, they began again.
         There’s a Friend for little chil dren
             Ab ove the bright blue sky,
         A Friend Who never changes,
             Whose love will never die;
         De da, de da, de da, dum
             And change with changing years,
         This Friend is always worthy —
    Ahead of them rioters were spread out across the road.
    “I can’t,” she said as the car got nearer.
    “You must,” he said. “Blow the horn, keep blowing it and press the accelerator, press.”
    He leaned out of the window to show his dark Bengali face, and waved his arm in a motion demanding right of way. “Faster,” he shouted at her. “Faster, you’re slowing down, keep pressing and blowing.”
    “I shall kill someone,” she shouted back. “I can’t. I can’t. Why don’t they move away?”
    “Let them be killed. Faster. And blow!”
    For a moment, closing on the crowd, she thought she and Mr. Chaudhuri had won, that the men were moving to give way, but then they cohered again into a solid mass. They must have seen her white face. A man in front began to wave his arms, commanding them to stop.
    “Keep going!” Mr. Chaudhuri shouted. “Close your eyes if you must but keep going!”
    She tightened her mouth preparing to obey, but failed. She couldn’tdrive into a mass of living creatures. “I’m sorry,” she cried, and began to press on the brake pedal. She stopped the car some twenty yards from the man who was waving his arms, but kept the engine running. “They weren’t going to move, they’d have died. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t speak,” Mr. Chaudhuri said. “Now leave it to me. Don’t speak.” He put a hand on her wrist. “Trust me,” he said. “I know you never have but trust me now. Do whatever I say. Whatever I say.”
    She nodded. “I trust you. I’ll do what you say.” In her physical panic there was a kind of exhilaration as though she were drunk on the Deputy Commissioner’s brandy. “But don’t run risks. I’m not worth risks. I’m old and it’s all gone and I’ve failed.” She laughed. The men were approaching, swaggering. “After all, it’s me they want,” she said. “Not you. So that’s it. If this is where it ends for me, let it end.”
    “Please, Miss Crane,” he said, “don’t be ridiculous.”
    The car was surrounded now. She found it difficult to distinguish face from face. They all looked the same, they all smelled the same: of liquor and garlic and sweat-soaked cotton cloth. Most were dressed in white homespun shirts and dhotis. Some wore the white Congress cap. They were chanting the words that the whole of India, it seemed to her, had been chanting since early in the spring. Quit India! Quit India! Mr. Chaudhuri was talking to