Meeting of Experts

MRS. WHITTLE stood in her empty drawing-room nodding and smiling among the carefully grouped chairs. She was rehearsing for her party. First she laughingly told the guests of their common interest. Then she saved it for a surprise. She decided on the surprise.

Every winter Mrs. Whittle took up a new subject: poetry, Colonial furniture, Jacobean needlework. . . . This winter she was studying India, her Arts, Philosophies, Religions, and Current Events. It was the best course she had ever taken — it had brought her in touch with such interesting people, those who had really traveled. These were no ordinary tourists, seeing the world de luxe. They had been ‘on their own,’ ‘off the beaten path.’ They had had real adventures, barely escaping bandits, plague, tigers. . . . ‘There was a little war going on at the time,’ they would say with modest laughs.

There was a professor with a year’s traveling lectureship in the East, and a millionaire sportsman who never did anything but travel — he was going ‘out’ soon to try again for the tiger in Indo-China which his guide had promised him this time. The third man was writing on Yoga as the answer to modern life. And she had two women who could match the men in experiences — the Peaseley girls, who summered in Vermont and spent every winter just wandering, adventuring.

‘The world your oyster,’ Mrs. Whittle had said as she met each one separately, and each had smilingly agreed.

As she heard her guests arrive she wondered nervously for a moment if she should not start the ball rolling at once. Then she reproved herself. Carefully she refrained from mentioning the Orient in the introductions.

Mrs. Whittle always served sherry to break the ice, but everyone was talking readily — about banned frescoes. One of the men had an inside story. Someone else had another.

The maid announced dinner, interrupting a discussion of art and propaganda. Mrs. Whittle allowed the professor to make his point and led them into the dining room. They chattered all the way.

Mrs. Whittle was glad to see them so congenial, but they had reached modern architecture and Mrs. Whittle had done that three winters before. She wanted to divert all this energy into its proper channel.

Her opportunity suddenly offered. The Yoga man referred — a little sententiously, Mrs. Whittle thought, as even she knew what it was — to Dravidian architecture in relation to skyscraper setbacks. Quickly she intervened — ‘Oh, lucky people!’ she said. ‘To think that, everyone here except me really knows India—’

The man who thought Yoga was the answer seemed to have forgotten what he was saying. She hastened to hand him back the stage, with a new setting.

‘Oh, Mr. Dinit, do tell about the time you stayed in the Rajah’s guesthouse in Udapet. So unusual —’

Mr. Dinit looked around the table.

‘Is n’t the Rajah’s guesthouse,’ asked the wealthy sportsman, ‘still the only place to stay in Udapet?’

It seemed it was. Everyone at the table had had to stay at the Rajah’s guesthouse. In fact, it was a hotel.

Mrs. Whittle was disappointed in Mr. Dinit. He had made it sound so exciting. She turned from him. ‘Do tell us what you think of Gandhi, Mr. Trevor. I remember you had an interview with him. So interesting. First hand.’

Mr. Trevor cleared his throat, and then hesitated. He looked around the table. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, affecting gallantry, ‘someone else here has met Gandhi!’

Mrs. Whittle asked each one in turn. They had all met Gandhi. It really appeared that, as the last to be asked remarked rather acidly, Gandhi always received Americans.

There was a silence. Mrs. Whittle ran rapidly over snakes, tigers, elephants . . . the call of the East.

‘Ah, Kipling!’ she said. ‘Do you all agree that “The Road to Mandalay” is one of his best . . .’

The professor glanced about the circle. Confidently he chuckled. ‘Ah, Mrs. Whittle! The most inaccurate poem ever written!’ They all laughed. ‘Yes, I am sorry, but we can’t let you have your flying fishes on the Road to Mandalay . . .’ They all contributed lines which had no truth in them. Mrs. Whittle ejected cries of consternation. She hoped none of her guests would remember having told her this before. Elated, she played her ace.

‘How fortunate for people like me that the camera at least never lies. We shall see the truth of many things after dinner. Mr. Trevor has brought his moving pictures.’

Mr. Trevor cleared his throat and drank water.

‘Really, Mrs. Whittle,’ he said. ‘They might bore these people. I could bring them in another evening.’

‘Mr. Trevor, you are too modest. I remember your confessing that some of them are unique. You were the first white . . .’

One of the girls said, ‘We shall love to see them. Taking pictures is our hobby — at least, one of our hobbies —’

Mr. Trevor coughed again. Hastily Mrs. Whittle rose to lead her guests into the drawing-room.

The machine was ready. Mrs. Whittle’s maid was a model. Coffee was brought in. No one spoke.

‘Do let’s have the pictures now,’ said Mrs. Whittle. She made everyone sit in a good place for seeing the screen. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to walk right into some of the pictures.’

The lights were put out. The machine whirred. A cluster of light spots bobbed about on the dark screen. Mrs. Whittle watched a minute. ‘Can I help you, Mr. Trevor?’

‘The power here must be very low,’ said Mr. Trevor. ‘This is a dancing girl and that is the light catching her headdress. It is a little underexposed even with a strong current, but I keep it for its associations.’

Someone laughed. ‘I mean,’ said Mr. Trevor hastily, ‘it was such a hot day and the temple was so delightfully cool — ’ No one spoke.

‘Are n’t you going to begin with the picture you told me about making?’ said Mrs. Whittle. ‘ You know — your finger pointing and a map and then the flying carpet?’

‘That must have been someone else,’ said Mr. Trevor.

‘I should hope so,’ said the millionaire.

The girls laughed in unison.

The next picture was a dazzling white building.

‘ The Jewel Mosque,’ said Mr. Trevor.

‘Pearl Mosque, please,’ said someone.

‘At Agra,’ said Mr. Trevor.

‘At Delhi,’ whispered the voice.

Light and dark pictures followed each other swiftly, often trembling. Mr. Trevor had taken pictures of buildings by pointing the camera slowly up one side, across the top and down the other side. Domes had shaken him. The projector was running at top speed. No one said anything.

Mr. Trevor began to use Hindustani words. ‘The bathing ghats at Benares. The long cloths drying while the men bathe and pray are their saris . . .’

‘Dhotis,’ said someone. ‘Women wear saris.’

‘These are rice paddy fields — 5

‘Paddy is the word for rice.’

The machine whirred faster. Mr. Trevor appeared on the screen, chatting with an Indian. They seemed to be getting on famously. Mr. Trevor looked into the camera jovially, urging the Indian to do the same.

‘A rajah?’ Mrs. Whittle meant well.

‘My servant,’ said Mr. Trevor.

‘Christian,’ said someone. ‘Or very low caste.’

Mr. Trevor walked from the screen to return in shorts, showing the camera how very comfortable ... He cut a few capers.

Someone cleared his throat.

Mr. Trevor vanished from the screen. He reappeared beside the projector with the lights turned on. He was rapidly rewinding the reel.

‘So sorry, Mrs. Whittle,’ he said. ‘Something seems to have . . . Hope no fuse . . . Thank you so much . . . So glad . . .’

And then they were all gone. Mrs. Whittle rearranged her chairs thoughtfully. A reel lay under one. She picked it up and unrolled it a little against the light. It began with a title, ‘Daydreaming.’ The first of it showed a finger on a map.

Next winter, she decided, she would take up sculpture.