Free Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

couldn't easily handle."
    "Of course you need not at all worry, Mrs. Rivers!" the Nawab likewise assured her. "Where Mr. Rivers is, there is firm control and strong action. As there must be. Otherwise these people cannot be managed at all. All must be grateful to you, Mr. Rivers, for your strong hand," he said, looking at Douglas man-to-man and not seeming to notice that Douglas did not look back at him that way.
    As soon as Mr. Crawford returned from tour, he gave a dinner party at which the main topic of conversation was again the suttee. Douglas came in for much praise. Although embarrassed - he played furiously with his piece of Melba toast - he was also proud, for he highly respected his superiors and set great store by their good opinion of him. Besides Douglas and Olivia, the other guests were the Minnies and Dr. Saunders (Mrs. Saunders not well enough to come): in fact, the same people as usual, there being no other English officers in the district. The meal also was as usual the bland, soggy food the Crawfords might have eaten at home except that their Indian cook had somehow taken it a soggy stage further. However, the way it was served, by bearers in turbans and cummerbands, was rather grand. So were the plate and silver: they had been handed down to Mrs. Crawford by her grandmother who had bought them in Calcutta, at an auction of the effects of an English merchant-banker gone bankrupt.
    After discussing this particular case of suttee, the diners went on to remember past incidents of the same nature. These were drawn not so much from personal experience as from a rich store-house of memories that went back several generations and was probably interesting to those who shared it. The only person there besides Olivia who did not was Dr. Saunders. He concentrated on his dinner though from time to time he contributed exasperated exclamations. The others, however, told their anecdotes with no moral comment whatsoever, even though they had to recount some hair-raising events. And not only did they keep completely cool, but they even had that little smile of tolerance, of affection, even enjoyment that Olivia was beginning to know well: like good parents, they all loved India whatever mischief she might be up to.
    "Mind you," said Major Minnies, "there have been cases of wives who actually did want to be burned with their husbands."
    "Don't believe a word of it! " from Dr. Saunders.
    "I don't think your suttee lady was an altogether willing participant," Mr. Crawford twinkled at Douglas.
    "No," said Douglas, holding in a lot more.
    Olivia looked across at him and said "How do you know?" It was like a challenge and she meant it to be. He hadn't talked to her much about the suttee, wanting to spare her the details (which were indeed very painful - he was to hear that woman's screams to the end of his days). But Olivia resented being spared. "It's part of their religion, isn't it? I thought one wasn't supposed to meddle with that. " Now she looked down into her Windsor soup and not at all at Douglas; but she went on stubbornly: "And quite apart from religion, it is their culture and who are we to interfere with anyone's culture especially an ancient one like theirs. "
    "Culture!" cried Dr. Saunders. "You've been talking to that bounder Horsham!" Olivia didn't know it but her words had recalled those of an English member of Parliament who had passed through the district the year before and had put everyone's back up.
    But Dr. Saunders and Douglas were the only ones to be annoyed with Olivia. The others sportingly discussed her point of view as if it were one that could be taken seriously. They spoke of the sanctity of religious practices, even took into account the possibility of voluntary suttee: but came to the conclusion that, when all was said and done, it was still suicide and in a particularly gruesome form.
    "I know," Olivia said miserably. She had no desire to recommend widow-burning but it was everyone else being so