FLESHPOTS OF CALCUTTA
In India. I don't think I have quite realized myself or my surroundings yet, but one thing I know. Boggley has been better than his word, for we are not camping in a corner of the Maidan, but have a decent roof to cover us.
But I shall go back to where I left off on Wednesday night.
We spent a hot, breathless night in the river. Towards morning I fell asleep and dreamed that the ship was sinking in a quicksand and that I, in trying to save myself, had stuck fast in the port-hole. I wakened cold with fright, to find it was grey dawn and they were getting up the anchor.
Of course we were up at an unearthly hour, all our belongings carefully packed and labelled, ourselves clad in clean white dresses and topis to face the burning, shining face of India. There was little to see and nothing to do, and we walked about getting hungrier and hungrier, and yet when breakfast-time did come we found we were too excited to eat.
When we got into the dock we saw all the people who had come to meet us penned like sheep into enclosures, and we leaned over the side trying to make out the faces of friends. Presently they were allowed to come on board, and I, eagerly watching, spied Boggley bounding up the ladder, and the next moment we were clutching each other wildly. But our greeting—what it is to be Scots!—was merely "Hallo! there you are!" I need not have worried about what I would say when I met him—yes, I was silly enough to do that—for he is just the same dear old Boggley, hair as red, eyes as blue and as short-sighted, mouth as wide as ever. I think his legs are even longer. The first thing he did when he came on board was to fall over someone's dressing-bag, and that made us both laugh helplessly like silly children. I introduced him to G. and the others, and by this time G. had found her sister, and soon they were all talking together, so G. and I slipped away to look out for people in whom we were interested. Very specially did we want to see Mr. Albert Murray, and when we did see him he was almost exactly what we had expected—small, sandy-haired, his topi making his head look out of all proportion, and with a trodden-on look. We noticed the little man wandering aimlessly about, when a voice from the music-room door saying "Albert" made him start visibly, and turning, he sidled up to our cabin companion, who kissed him severely, while he murmured, "Well, m' dear, how are you?" Seeing us standing near she said, "Well, good-bye, girls. I hope you'll have a good time and behave yourselves;" and then, turning to her husband, by way of an introduction, she added, "These are the girls who shared my cabin." Mr. Albert shuffled his topi and looked at us with kind, blinking eyes, but attempted no remark. The last we saw of him he was tugging the hat-box in the wake of his managing wife. G. looked at me solemnly. "We had little to complain of," she said; "we weren't married to her."
The husband of the Candle was the greatest surprise. I had imagined—why, I don't know—that that lady's husband would be tall and red-faced, with a large moustache and loud voice and manner, someone who would match well with the Candle. Instead, we beheld a dark, thin-faced man with a stoop, a man who looked like a scholar and spoke with a delightful, quiet voice. He addressed the Candle as Jane. Jane! If it had been Fluffy, or Trixie, or Chippy, or even Dolly, but, with that hair, that complexion, that voice, that troop of attendant swains, to be called Jane! The thing was out of all reason. I wonder all the widespread family of Janes, with their meek eyes and smoothly braided hair, don't rise up and call her anything but blessed. Oh, I know there was no thought of pleasing me when she was christened, but still—Jane!
It was rather sweet to watch the little family groups, the mother assuring a bored, indifferent infant that this was its own daddy, and the proud father beaming on both.
The self-conscious bridegrooms sidling up to their blushing brides afforded us much amusement. Some had not seen each other for five years. I wonder if one or two didn't rue their bargains! It seems to me a terrible risk!
I could have gone on watching the people for a long time, but Boggley was anxious to be off; so after tearful farewells and many promises to write had been exchanged, we departed.
The special Providence that looks after casual people has guided Boggley to quite a nice house in a nice part of the town. Many Government people who are in Calcutta only for the cold weather—I mean those of them who are burdened not with wealth but women-folk—find it cheaper and more convenient to live in a boarding-house. Does that conjure up to you a vision of Bloomsbury, and tall grey houses, and dirty maid-servants, and the Passing of Third Floor Backs? It isn't one bit like that. This boarding-house consists, oddly enough, of four big houses all standing a little distance apart in a compound. They are let out in suites of rooms, and the occupants can either all feed together in the public dining-room or in lonely splendour in their own apartments. We have five rooms on the ground floor. Of the two sitting-rooms one is almost quite dark, and is inhabited by a suite of furniture, three marble-topped tables on which Boggley had set out the few photographs and trifles which he hasn't yet lost, and a sad-looking cabinet; the other opens into the garden, and is a nice cheerful room. The dark room we have made Boggley's study; as he only uses it at night, it doesn't matter about the want of light, and there is a fine large writing-table which holds stacks of papers. We got the marble-topped tables carried into the cheery room and covered them with tablecloths from a shop in Park Street, bought rugs for the floor and hangings for the doors, and with a few cushions and palms and flowers the room is quite pretty and home-like. I like the chairs, enormous cane things with long wooden arms which Boggley says are meant for putting one's feet on, and most comfortable.
Boggley's bedroom is next his study, but I have to take a walk before I come to mine, out of the window,—or door, I'm never sure which it is,—down some steps, then along a garden-walk, round a corner, and up some more steps, where I reach first a small ante-room and then my bedroom. Like the other rooms, it is whitewashed and has a very high ceiling. Some confiding sparrows have built a nest in a hole in the wall, and—and this is really upsetting—there are ten different ways of entering the room, doors and windows, and half of them I can't lock or bar or fasten up in any way. What I should do if a Mutiny occurred I can't think! My bed with its mosquito-curtains stands like a little island in a vast sea of matting, and there are two large wardrobes, what they call almirahs, a dressing-table, and two chairs. It is empty and airy, and that is all that is required of a bedroom.
The four houses, as I told you, stand in a compound. It isn't exactly a garden, for there are lots of things in it that we would consider quite superfluous in a self-respecting garden. There is a good tennis lawn, plots of flowers, trimly-kept walks bordered with poinsettias, and trees with white, heavily-scented flowers, and opposite my bedroom is a little stone-paved enclosure where two cows and two calves lead a calm and meditative existence! And further, there are funny little huts scattered about where one catches glimpses of natives at their devotions or slumbering peacefully. Imagine in the middle of a garden at home coming on a cowhouse or a shanty! But this is India.
Boggley conducted me round, both of us talking hard all the time. He had so many questions to ask and I had so much to tell: all the home news and silly little home jokes—Peter's latest sayings—things that are so amusing to tell and to hear but lose all their flavour written. You remember Boggley's wild bursts of laughter? He laughs just the same now, throws his head back and shouts in the most whole-hearted way. We talked from 11 a.m. till tea-time without a break—talked ourselves hoarse and thirsty. After tea we drove on the Maidan, up and down the Red Road in an unending stream of carriages and motors, shabby tikka-gharries and smart little dogcarts (called here tumtums)—all Calcutta taking the air. One might almost have imagined oneself in the Park, if it had not been that now and again a strange equipage would pass filled with natives, men and boys gorgeous in purple and scarlet and gold, or closed carriages like boxes on wheels, in which sat darkskinned women demurely veiled. From the Red Road we drove to the Strand, a carriage-way by the river where the great ships lie, and watched the sun set and the spars and masts become silhouetted against the red sky. Then darkness fell almost at once.
My mind was a chaos when I went to bed after my first day in India, and I slept so soundly that when I woke I had no idea where I was. All recollections of the voyage and arrival were wiped from my memory, and I was filled first with vague astonishment and then with horror to find myself surrounded by filmy white stuff through which peered a black face. It was only my ayah, a quaint, small person, wrapped in a white sari, with demure, sly eyes and teeth stained red with chewing betel-nut, looking through the mosquito-curtains to see if the Miss Sahib was awake and would like chota-hazri. She embarrasses me greatly slipping about with her bare feet, appearing when I least expect her or squatting on the floor staring at me fixedly. I know no Hindustani and she knows perhaps three English words, so our conversation is limited. The silence gets so on my nerves that I drop hairbrushes and things to make a little disturbance, and it gives her something to do to pick them up. I must at once learn some Hindustani words, such as pink, blue, and green, and then I shall be able to tell Bella what dress to lay out, and her place won't be such a sinecure. I call her Bella because it is the nearest I can get to her name and it has a homely sound.
The rest of my impressions I shall keep for my next letter. I have written this much to give you an idea of my surroundings, and you see I have taken your interest for granted. Are you bored? Of course you will say you are not, but if I could see your face I should know.
The home mail arrives here on Sunday, when people are having what they call a "Europe morning," and have time to read and enjoy their letters. When you wrote you had just had my mail from Marseilles. How far behind you are! It was too bad of me to write such pitiful letters, but I think I was too miserable to pretend. Now I am very well off, and no one could be more utterly thoughtful and kind than old Boggley. I am sure I shall never regret coming to India, and it will be something to dream about when I am a douce Olivia-sit-by-the-fire.
You speak of rain and mud and fog, and it all seems very far away from this afternoon land. The winter will soon pass, and, as you nicely put it, I shall return with the spring.
It is the witching hour of 10 a.m. and I am sitting in my little ante-room—boudoir, call it what you will—immersed in correspondence. Boggley, hard-worked man that he is, has departed for his office followed by a kitmutgar carrying some sandwiches and a bottle of soda-water, which is his modest lunch. Really a Government servant's life is no easy one. He is up every morning by six o'clock, and gets a couple of hours' work done before breakfast. His office receives him at ten and keeps him till four, when he comes home and has tea, after which we ride or drive or play tennis somewhere. A look in at the Club for a game of billiards, more work, dinner, and, if we are not going to a dance or any frivolity, a quiet talk, a smoke, a few more papers gone through, bed, and the long Indian day is over. All day chuprassis, like attendant angels, flit in and out bearing piles of documents marked Urgent, which they heap on his writing-table. I begin greatly to dislike the sight of them.
So you see I have of necessity many hours alone, at least I have some, and I would have more if G. didn't live within a few minutes' walk, and every morning, armed with a large green-lined parasol and protected by her faithful topi, come round to pass the time of day with me. Her sister, Mrs. Townley, is a very nice woman and kindness itself to me. I can say, like the Psalmist, that goodness and mercy follow me. I started from London knowing no one, yet in twenty-four hours I was fast friends with G. and afterwards with quite a lot of people on board. I thought when I landed in Calcutta I would be a stranger in a strange land and have no one but Boggley, "instead of which" I have G. quite near, and Mrs. Townley says I must come to them any minute of the day I want to; and there are others equally kind. You don't want me to give you a detailed account of Calcutta, do you? It wouldn't interest you to read it, and it certainly wouldn't interest me to write it. When my friends go wandering and write me home long descriptions of the places of interest (falsely so called) which they visit, I read them—oh! I read them faithfully—but I am sadly bored. Somehow people interest me more than places. That being so, I shall only inflict on you a little of Calcutta. I like it immensely. They laugh at me for saying it is pretty, but I do think it is quite beautiful. It is so much greener than I expected, and I like the broad streets of pillared houses standing in their palm-shaded compounds. The principal street is called Chowringhee, and it has some fine buildings and really excellent shops, where one can buy quite as pretty things as in London, only, of course, they are of necessity more expensive; it costs a lot to bring them out. The Clubs are in this street, the Bengal Club, and the United Service where my brother would even now be leading a comfortable bachelor existence if he hadn't had a bothering sister to provide a habitation for.
Chowringhee faces the Maidan, a very large park containing among other things a race-course, and cricket and football grounds. The word Maidan is Arabic and Persian and Hindustani for an open space, and I hope you like the superior way I explain things to you. You, who can be silent in so many languages, will probably know what Maidan means—but no matter.
This, then, is the European Calcutta, clean and spacious and pleasant, but not nearly so interesting as the native part. Turn down a side street, walk a little way and you are in a nest of mean streets, unpaved, dirty, smelling vilely, lined with open booths, where squat half-naked men selling lumps of sticky sweetmeats and piles of things that look like unbaked scones and other strange eatables; and little naked babies tumble in the dust with goats and puppies. It seems to me that I go about asking "Why?" all day and no one gives me a satisfactory answer to anything. Why, for example, should we require a troop of servants living, as we do, in a kind of hotel? And yet there they are—Boggley's bearer and my ayah—I can see some reason for their presence—a kitmutgar to wait on us at table and bring tea in the afternoon, another young assistant kitmutgar who scurries like a frightened rabbit at my approach, a delightful small boy who rejoices in the name of pani-wallah, whose sole duty is to carry water for the baths, the dhobi who washes our clothes by beating them between two large—and I should say, judging by the state of the clothes, sharp—stones, losing most of them in the process, and a syce or groom for each pony. Seated, as one sometimes sees them, in rows on the steps, augmented by a chuprassi or two, brilliant in uniform, they make a sufficiently imposing spectacle. I have few words, but I look at them in as pleasant a way as I know how, partly because I like to be friends with servants, and partly because I'm rather afraid of them and don't want to rouse them to Mutiny or do anything desperate, but Boggley discouraged me at the outset. "You needn't grin at them so affably," he remarked, "they will only think you are weak in the head." They quite evidently regard me as a poor creature, even Bella, though she humours me and condescends to say "pretty pretty," or "nicey nicey" when I am dressed in the evening. I think she must once have nursed children, for the words she knows are baby words; she always calls me "poor Missy baba" and strokes me! The pani-wallah finds amusement in practising his English on me. When he sees G. come through the compound, he bounds to my room, holds up the chick and announcing "Mees come," retires, stiff with pride at his knowledge of the language.
I have learned a few useful Hindustani words. Qui hai means roughly, "Is anyone there?" and you cry that instead of ringing a bell, and it brings the instant response "Huzoor," and a servant springs from nowhere to do your bidding. Lao means "bring" and jao "go." You never say "please," and you learn the words in a cross tone—that is, if you want to be really Anglo-Indian. Radical M.P.'s of course will learn "please" at once, if there is such a word in the language, which I doubt. One nice globe-trotting old lady, anxious, like me, to conciliate the natives, was having a cup of chocolate at Peliti's, and she insisted on sending out to see if the tikka-gharry wallah would like a cup!
A tikka-gharry is a thing like a victoria, hired by the hour. There are first, second, and third class tikka- gharries. The first class have two horses, the second one horse, and the third is closed, and, having no springs, is a terrible vehicle indeed. The drivers of these carriages have, as a rule, long whiskers, and are dressed in khaki. They have bags of provender for the horses tied behind the conveyance, where also precariously hangs another man who might be the twin-brother of the driver. I don't know why he is there, but there he is.
G. and I love to set out in a tikka-gharry and practise our Hindustani. Starting early when it is fairly cool—Indian cold weather mornings are the most wonderful things, so fresh and so bright and so blue—G. starts us off at a mad gallop by shouting Juldi jao, which I have to calm down with Asti asti (slower). When we reach Peliti's we cry Roko (stop), and get out to buy caramels, chocolates, and cakes for tea. Peliti has a peculiarly delicious kind of chocolate cake, the recipe for which I wish he would confide to Fuller or Buszard. But it isn't the European shops, good as they are, that occupy our mornings. Much more fascinating haunts await us, the New Market and the China Bazaar. The former is a kind of arcade which contains everything that any reasonable person could require; fragrant fruit and flowers, fresh-smelling vegetables, and the wares of butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, all laid out on booths and stalls for the world to choose from.
There, very early in the morning, come the khansamahs of the various Mem-sahibs and buy all that is needed for the day, while the Mem-sahibs are cosy in bed, needing not to worry about house, visitors, or forthcoming dinner-parties. Housekeeping is easy in India. Boggley thought we had better ask some people to dinner, so we did, though I pointed out that we had no silver or anything to make the table decent; and the boarding-house things are none too dainty. "It'll be all right," said Boggley, "leave it to the servants;" so I engaged the private dining-room—and left it. I rather trembled whe the evening came and our party walked in, but I needn't have. The servants were worthy of their trust. The table looked charming, and, as I had never seen any of the things before, I had a more interesting time than usually falls to the hostess. What I sincerely hoped was that none of the guests had seen any of the things before either, but if they had they possessed great control of their countenances.
Eatables, however, are by no means the only things to be found in the New Market. Silks, muslins, chicon-work, silver ornaments, and jewellery keep us breathless, while the pleasant shopman in a frock-coat and turban offers them at what he calls "killin'" prices.
The China Bazaar is much farther into the city, quite in the native quarter. It is a real adventure to make an expedition there, and the owners allow us to poke in back rooms from which we unearth wondrous treasures in the way of old brass vases; queer, slender-necked scent-bottles still faintly smelling of roses; old lacquer boxes, and bits of rich embroidery. I am becoming a Shylock in the way I beat down prices. I shouldn't wonder a bit when I go home and am ruffling it once more in Bond Street if, when told the price of a thing is a guinea, I laugh in a jocular way and say, "Oh! come now, I'll give you ten shillings."
But to return to Hindustani. I haven't told you all I know. I can ask for tunda beef, which is cold beef, just as tunda pani is cold water, gurrum pani being hot! I can order what I want at meals. At first when I wanted boiled eggs and heard Boggley order unda bile, I remonstrated, "Not under-boiled, hard-boiled," until it was explained to me that unda meant egg. The native can't say any word beginning with s without putting a y before it, thus—y-spice beef, y-street. When men come to see us I cry, "Qui hai?" and, when the servant appears, order "Peg lao—cheroot lao," and feel intensely Anglo-Indian and rather fast. One trait the language has which appeals greatly to me is that one can spell it almost any way one likes, but that is enough about Hindustani for one letter.
I have come in from a ride with Boggley. The proper time to ride is early morning, but I am too lazy and too timid to go when the place is crowded, and so we ride in the cool of the evening, when we have the race-course almost to ourselves. I ride one of Boggley's polo ponies, Solomon by name. Boggley says he is as quiet as a lamb, but I am not sure that he is speaking the strict truth; he has some nasty little ways, it seems to me. He bites for one thing. We were riding with a man the other night and quite suddenly his pony got up in the air and nearly threw him. Solomon had bitten him. The man looked at me as if it were my fault, and I regret to say I laughed. He has also an ungentlemanly way of trying to rub me off against the railings, and then again, for no apparent reason, he suddenly scurries wildly across the Maidan while I pull desperately, but impotently, with fingers weak from fright. Boggley coming behind convulsed with laughter, merely remarks that I am a funk-stick—which, I take it, means the worst kind of coward.
Think where I have been for the last three days!
Down the river in a launch. That kind Mrs. Townley was taking G. and asked Boggley if I might go. We had to leave on Saturday morning before seven to catch the tide, so I warned Bella that she must bring my chota-hazri before six; but I woke and found it was after six, and there were no signs of the perfidious little black Bella. I wasn't nearly ready when G. rushed in, but I threw on garments and we fled, while Boggley, in his dressing-gown, followed with a parting benediction of Peliti's cake as a substitute for tea and toast. We found the launch delightfully comfortable, not to say luxurious. It had been done up for some of the royalties who were out here. There were only we three on board and three young sailor men, so it was a blessedly peaceful three days. We lay on deck and watched the life of the river, all the ships a-sailing, big ships from Dundee and Greenock, German ships, French ships, every kind and nationality of ships down to the curious native craft. Sometimes we passed a little village on the river-bank with a temple and an idol on a mound. When we anchored in the afternoon two of the officers went on shore to shoot, and the sailors let down a net and caught delicious fish for dinner. I did wish Peter had been there. He would have felt like Robinson Crusoe and rejoiced in it all. At dinner the young men told us wonderful stories of their adventures with snakes and tigers. One man said that he was having his bath one morning when a snake came up the pipe. When it saw him it went down again, but as it was disappearing he pulled it back by its tail. Again it tried to go down and again he pulled it back, and then the snake took a look at him and went down tail first. I believed every word, but when I came home and related the amazing tales to Boggley he received them with derisive shouts of laughter, and said they had been spinning us sailors' yarns.
The mail was waiting here when I came back yesterday. Thanks so much for your letter. I am immensely interested in all your news, but I have left myself no time to answer you properly, as this must be posted to-day.
N.B.—The two queerest things I have noticed in Calcutta up to now are:
(a) That when a man goes out to tennis and stays to dinner his bearer carries his dress-clothes wrapped in a towel.
(b) Kippered herrings come to the table rolled up in paper.
I don't think I like this casting of bread upon the water; I never know which loaf it is I am receiving again. You reply to things I had forgotten I had written, and it is rather bewildering.
When you get this you will be settled down in Germany. I am sorry you have left London for one reason, and that a purely selfish one. I shan't be able to imagine you in your new surroundings, and in London I knew pretty well what you would be doing every minute of the day. Knowing, as we do, many of the same people, when you wrote "I have been dining with the Maxwell-Tempests to meet the So-and-sos," I could picture it all even to little Mrs. Maxwell-Tempest's attitudes. I was only in Germany once for three days, and I came away with an impression of a country weird as to food, feathery as to beds, and crammed full of soldiers; but I dare say it is a very good place to write a book. And now—my heartiest congratulations on having a book to write. It sounds—pardon me for saying it—a very dull subject, but if I were a little wiser I expect I should see how important it is, and anyway I have enough sense to perceive that it is a great compliment to be asked to write it. What fun to be a man and have a career! In my more exalted moments it is sometimes borne in on me that I should have been a man and a diplomatist. I feel, though I admit with no grounds to speak of, that I might have been a great success in that most interesting profession. One never knows, and by putting my foot in it very conscientiously all round, I might have earned for myself a reputation of Machiavellian cunning!
What do you think I met at dinner last night? A Travelling Radical Member of Parliament!
Of course I had read of them—often—and knew exactly what sort of creatures they are—fearful wild fowl who come to India for six weeks—
"Comprehend in half a mo'
What it takes a man ten years or so
To know that he will never know,"
tell the native they want to be a brother to him, and go home to write a book about the way India is misgoverned.
I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one quite close at hand. I pictured a strong still man with a beard, soft fat hands, and a sob in his voice that, at election times, would touch the great, deep throbbing Heart of the People. Instead, I beheld a small, thin man, with eyes as tired as any of the poor sun-dried bureaucrats, and a wide mouth with a humorous twitch at the corners; a man one couldn't imagine wanting to touch anything so silly as the Heart of the People. He talked, I noticed, very little during dinner, but the men were unusually long in joining us afterwards, and as Boggley clambered after me into the tikka-gharry that was to take us home: "That's a ripping fellow!" said Boggley.
Another illusion shattered!
I hasten to set your mind at rest on one point. I have a chaperon, and a very nice, though entirely unnecessary, one. Her name is Mrs. Victor Ormonde, and she knows my people at home; that is why she bothers with me. She is a most attractive woman to look at, tall, dark and slender, with the dearest little turned-up nose, which makes her look rather impertinent, and she is a little inclined to be sniffy to some people; she considers Calcutta women suburban! Her husband is quite different, friends with everyone, a cheerful soul and as Irish as he can be. He is very fond of chaffing his exclusive wife. "Now do be affable," he implored her the other night, before they went to a large and somewhat mixed gathering. "And was she affable?" I asked next morning. "Oh! rollin' about on the floor," was the obviously untrue reply.
You ask how I like the Anglo-Indian women, and I don't know quite what to say. It is the old story. When they are nice they are very, very nice, but when they are nasty they are horrid. Some of them I simply hate. They give me such nasty little stabs the while they smile and pretend to be pleasant!
I am quite capable of giving back as good as I get, but it isn't worth while, because if one does yield to the temptation, afterwards one feels such a worm. There is no doubt it is more difficult in India than at home to obey the command of one's childhood: "to behave pretty and be a lady." What is a lady exactly? I used to be told that a lady was one who always said "please" when asking for more bread-and-butter, and who never bit the fingers of her gloves. That was simple. "And what'll I be if I'm not a lady?" I asked. "You'll be common," said the nurse severely, and then and there, because snatched bread-and-butter was sweet and gloves chewed in secret pleasant, I registered a vow that common I would be. A dear little lady I met the other day, talking about her sister Memsahibs, said airily, "Of course we very soon lose complexions, manners, and morals." She could afford to say so, it being so obviously untrue in her case. I think it is just this, that the women who are pure gold grow more charming, but the pinchbeck wears off very soon. The Eastern sun reveals blemishes, moral and physical, that would pass unnoticed in the murkier atmosphere of England. The wonder to me is that anyone keeps nice when one thinks of the provocation there is to deteriorate. The climate, the lack of any serious occupation to take up their days, the constant round of gaieties indulged in partly, I believe, to keep themselves from thinking, the ever-present anxiety about the children at home—oh! there is much one could say if one held a brief for the Anglo-Indian women.
Calcutta society is made up of Government people, Army people, and business people who are called, for some unknown reason, box-wallahs. It seems very strange that there should be such a desire to go one better than one's neighbour, to have better horses, a smarter carrriage, a larger house, smarter gowns, because, at least in the case of the Civil Service people, their income is known down to the last rupee.
Everybody in India is, more or less, somebody. It must be a very sad change to go home to England and be (comparatively) poor and shabby, and certainly obscure, to have people remark vaguely they suppose you are "something in India." I suppose we are all snobs at heart. Snobbery, sir, doth walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere. A good lady talked to me quite seriously lately about what the Best People in Calcutta did. It has become a light table joke with us, and when I plant my elbows on the table and hum a tune while we are waiting for the next course at dinner, Boggley mildly inquires, "Do the Best People do that?"
It is a subject I never gave much attention to, but now awful doubts assail me. Am I the Best People? One thing is certain: I am of very little importance. I am only a chota Miss Sahib and my chota-ness is my great protection. No one is going to bother much what I do, or trouble to pull my clothes and my conduct to pieces, and I can creep along unnoticed to a great extent; I watch the game and find it vastly entertaining.
It grieves me to say that I am one of the class who ought to remain in England. There I am quite a nice person up to my lights, fairly unselfish, loving my neighbour as myself. But I have proved myself pinchbeck. No, you needn't say I'm sweet, I'm not. I find myself saying the most detestable things about people. Oblivious of the beam in my own eye, I stare fixedly and reprovingly at the mote in my neighbour's. Could anything be more unlovable?
I get no encouragement to be a cat from Boggley. Everyone is his very good friend.
"Mrs. Wright called to-day," I remark at tea.
"Did she?" says Boggley. "She's a nice little woman; you'll like her."
"She makes up," I say, "and she had on a most ridiculous hat. Mrs. Brodie says she's a dreadful flirt."
"Rubbish!" says Boggley; "she's a very good sort and devoted to her husband."
"Mrs. Brodie says," I continue, "that she is horrid to other women and tries to take away their husbands. It is odd how fond Anglo-Indian women are of other people's husbands."
"Much odder," Boggley retorts, "that you should have become such a little backbiting cat! You'll soon be as bad as old Mother Brodie, and she's the worst in Calcutta."
This is the Christmas mail, and I have written sixteen letters, but I can't send presents except to Mother and some girls, for I haven't seen a single thing suitable for a man. Poor Peter wailed for a monkey or a mongoose, but I told him to wait till I came home and I would do my best to bring one or both.
I can only send you greetings from a far country.
You know you will never be better than I wish you.
Dear Mr. Oliver Twist,—I really don't think I can write longer letters. They seem to me very long indeed. I am not ashamed of their length, but I am ashamed, especially when I read yours, of their dullness and of the poverty-stricken attempt at description. How is it that you can make your little German town fascinating, when I can only make this vast, stupefying India sound dull? It wouldn't sound dull if I were telling you about it by word of mouth. I could make you see it then; but what can a poor uninspired one do with a pen, some ink, and a sheet of paper?
I have been employing a shining hour by paying calls. You must know that in India the new arrival does not sit and wait to be called on, she up and calls first. It is quite simple. You call your carriage—or, if you haven't aspired to a carriage, the humble, useful tikka-gharry—and drive away to the first house on the list, where you ask the durwan at the gate for bokkus. If the lady is not receiving, he brings out a wooden box with the inscription "Mrs. What's-her-name Not at home," you drop in your cards, and drive on to the next. If the box is not out, then the durwan, taking the cards, goes in to ask if his mistress is receiving, and comes back with her salaams, and that means that one has to go in for a few minutes, but it doesn't often happen. The funny part of it is one may have hundreds of people on one's visiting list and not know half of them by sight, because of the convenient system of the "Not-at-home" box.
The men's calling-time is Sunday between twelve and two. Such a ridiculous time! One is certainly not at one's best at that hour. Isn't it the Irish R.M. who talks of that blank time of day when breakfast has died within one and lunch is not yet? I find it, on the whole, entertaining, though somewhat trying; for Boggley, you see, has to be out paying calls on his own account, and so I have to receive my visitors alone. It is quite like a game.
A servant comes in and presents me with a card inscribed with a name unfamiliar, and I, saying something that sounds like "Salaam do," wait breathless for what may appear. A man comes in. We converse.
I begin: "Where will you sit?" (As there are only four chairs in the room, the choice is not extensive.)
The Man (seated and twirling his hat): "You have just come out?"
Myself: "Yes, in the Scotia." Remarks follow about the voyage.
The Man: "What do you think of India?"
Myself: "Oh, rather nice, don't you think?"
The Man: "Oh, quite a decent place—what?"
Again the servant appears, this time with two cards. Again I murmur the Open Sesame, and two more men appear. No. i gets up to go, shakes hands with me in a detached way, and departs, and the same conversation begins again with the new-comers, until they, in their turn, leave when someone else comes in. It seems to be etiquette to go away whenever another visitor arrives. I didn't understand this, and when a man came whom I knew well in my childhood's days and, after a few minutes' stay, got up to depart, I grabbed his hand and said, "Oh, won't you stay and have a talk?" He, very nicely, stayed on, and we did have a delightful talk; but Victor Ormonde, who happened to be present, has never ceased to chaff me about it. When we dine with them and get up to go he says in thrilling accents, with an absurdly sentimental air, "Oh! won't you stay and have a talk?"
I do think India makes very nice men. Almost every man I have met has been delightful in his own way.... I had just written that last sentence when a servant brought in a card inscribed "Colonel Simpson." I got my sunshade and walked round to my sitting-room, where I found a tall, pensive-looking man. Thinking he must be a friend of Boggley's, I held out my hand frankly, and having shaken it, the man went on holding it.
Like Captain Hook, I murmured to myself, "This is unusual," but I tried to conceal my astonishment, and we sat down together on the sofa. Then he began to feel my pulse. By this time I had made up my mind he must be a lunatic, and I had a wild idea of snatching away my hand and making a bound for the window; but feeling that my legs were too weak with fright to be of any real use to me, I remained seated.
"Are you sick?" he asked.
"Not in the least, thank you," I stammered.
A doubtful look flickered over his pensive countenance.
"Are you not my patient?" he asked.
"No," I answered truthfully.
"But—I was sent for to a Mrs. Woodward; this was the address, and I was shown in here."
He was so upset that I hastened to assure him it did not matter in the least; that Mrs. Woodward lived above us, and it was quite, quite all right. But my comforting protestations profited nothing, and the poor man retired in great confusion, murmuring incoherently. If I had seen "doctor" on his card I might have been prepared, but who would expect a Colonel to be a doctor? This confusing India!
This has been a queer day! Nothing but alarums and excursions. G. came to tea and suggested that afterwards we should go for a drive in a tikka-gharry, it being a more amusing mode of conveyance in G.'s eyes than her sister's elegant carriage. So we drove up and down the Red Road and along the Strand until the darkness came. It rained this morning—the first rain I have seen in this dusty land—making the roads quite muddy and the air damp and cold.
"It's like an evening in England," said G. "Let's get out and walk home." So we told the driver to roko, and G., who had the money to pay him in her hand, got out first; at least I thought she was out, but she had paused, balanced on the step, and my slight push knocked her headlong. How she did it I don't know, but her feet remained in the gharry, while her head was in close conjunction to the horses' hoofs. I suppose astonishment at this feat must have numbed my finer feelings, for G. insists I bounded over her prostrate form, grabbed the money from her hand, and paid the man before I even inquired if she were killed. When I had time to look at her I was glad it was getting dark, and that we were in an unfrequented road. Her white serge costume was mud from head to foot, her hat was squashed out of shape, and even her poor face bore traces of contact with the Red Road. At first she couldn't rise, not because she was hurt, but because she was helpless with laughter. When I did get her on her feet, I found the only injury was a slight cut on the wrist, and great was my relief.
It was a blessing that no native reporters were near, or to-morrow morning we would see in large letters: Shocking Affair in the Red Road. One European Lady attacks Another.
My only fear was tetanus. We have been told such tales of a slight cut causing death that I hurried G. along until we burst breathless into a chemist's shop in Park Street and demanded "something to keep away tetanus!"
The chemist gave us some permanganate of potash, and for the last hour I have been bathing the wrist, assisted by Bella, who has ruined two of my best handkerchiefs in the process. The damaged G. has just departed, and I do hope won't be much the worse. Such awful things happen here. You meet people well and strong one day and hear of their death the next. Death seems appallingly near. One isn't given time to be ill. Either you are quite well or else you are dead.
Now I must stop and go and dress, I see Bella fidgeting. When this reaches you the Old Year will be very near its end. I hate to let it go: it has been such a good old year. Is it that I forget the unpleasant parts? Perhaps, but in looking back I seem to remember only sunny days and pleasant things.
To you, my friend, I send every possible good wish for the New Year. May it be the best you have ever had. May it bring you health, wealth, and, above all, happiness.
The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Isn't that a lovable sentiment?
I am trying to take an interest in Germany and the Germans for your sake, but, as I told you before, Germany is a place I know little or nothing about. France—that noble, fine land—I know and love well. Italy I should like better if there were not so many Madonnas and Children (or ought I to say Madonnas and Childs?) to look at; Switzerland is my darling own place, but Germany I have hitherto only associated with Goethe whom as a poet I dislike, large sausages, and theological doubts. Your description makes me feel that I may have misjudged the country and the people; in fact, your little town sounds a most attractive place to live in. No, I don't think I would expect you to make friends easily. I think you are the sort of man to have hosts of acquaintances and only one or two real friends. You know, you rather scare people. I think it is partly your manner and greatly your monocle; you have such a detached air, and often I have noticed you very unresponsive when people were trying to be amusing. Oh, I don't mean you are ever rude, but you are sometimes chilling. If I hadn't known from Boggley that you were, as he puts it, a perfect jewel, I think I should have shrunk away from before you that first day we met and sat next each other at lunch. I remember I talked a great deal of nonsense, partly, I think, because I was rather afraid of you; and somehow or other we have always gone on talking nonsense to each other since. It has become a habit.
But you don't really want to have a great crowd of friends, do you? It is only weak-minded people like myself who flop on any stranger's neck with protestations of undying affection. It is the easiest thing in the world for any Douglas that ever was to make friends: I think because we are always willing to laugh at the feeblest jest. Nothing endears one so quickly to one's fellow-beings as laughing at their jokes. We have a way, too, of making friends with any casual stranger we may meet in trains, or coach, or steamer. You superior people, who, ignoring your fellow-passengers, sit in a corner and read The Spectator, don't know what you miss. The thrilling stories I have listened to! Once I heard a circumstantial story of a wreck in the South Seas told by the plucky little wife of the captain, who had stayed by her husband's side—"Papa" she called him—while the ship slowly sank on a coral reef, and then drifted about in an open boat for days before they were rescued. It is Mother, however, who meets with the oddest adventures travelling. One day last summer I saw her off in the Scotch Express from Euston, comfortably seated in a corner with books and papers, expecting she would have a nice quiet day. The occupant of the other corner was a Russian lady, and the friend who saw her off asked Mother if she would see she had lunch all right, for she knew no English. This Mother readily promised, and the train started. Mother tried once or twice to speak to the creature, but, receiving only grunts in reply, began a book. She hadn't read the first chapter when the old gentleman opposite said sternly, "Your friend is fainting," and turning, Mother was just in time to catch the Russian as she slid to the floor. She wrestled with her for an hour, reviving her with smelling-salts, and making her comfortable with her air-cushion and rug, distracted all the time by the yelling of young infants somewhere near. As soon as she could leave her she went to see what was wrong, and found twin-babies making day hideous with their din, while their poor mother lay stretched on a seat, too ill to cope with them.
She was a missionary's wife, it turned out, on her way home, with no nurse and much malaria, so, of course, Mother had to stay and nurse the twins until luncheon was ready, when another Good Samaritan came and took a turn. While having luncheon she was hailed by a friend, lately left a widow, who insisted on Mother accompanying her to her compartment, where she wept on her shoulder while telling her all the details of her husband's last illness; then back again to nurse the Russian and the babies until the journey's end, when she emerged almost as hot, and crumpled, and exhausted as if she had run behind all the way.
How heartily, my friend, I agree with you about the tiresomeness of balls. I think it must be old age approaching, but I can't see any use in going off at the hour when, under happier circumstances, I would be thinking of bed, to a hot, crowded ballroom; and just at present Calcutta is simply congested with balls. I don't like things that cost a lot; simple little pleasures please me much more. To drive out to Tollygunge of an afternoon, have tea and a game of croquet, look at the picture papers, and come quietly home again, is to me the height of bliss.
Tollygunge is a club, some miles out of Calcutta, with a race-course, golf-links, croquet-lawns—a very delectable spot. The correct thing is to drive out on Sunday morning and have breakfast out in the open air. Then one sees everyone one knows, and it is very gay; but I think it is much pleasanter to drive out quietly in the afternoon.
The road to Tollygunge lies partly through the jungle, past clusters of native huts where little chocolate-coloured babies roll and chatter in the sunlit dust. You know, the jungle is quite near Calcutta. When I lie at nights and listen to the jackals howling, I remember Kipling's story, and wonder if we were driven out and the jungle were let in, how long it would be before Calcutta became a habitation for the beasts of the field.
Yesterday I drove out with Mrs. Townley and G., and three tired people we were, too tired even to play the gentle game of croquet; glad to sit still in comfortable chairs on the greensward and steep ourselves in the peace and quietness.
At tea, Chil the kite, hovering in mid-air, watched us jealously. Suddenly there was a swoop, a dark flutter of wings, a startled squeak from G., and our cake was gone. That's India!
Tea finished, while we still sat loath to leave, a curious odour forced itself upon our attention. G. sniffed. I sniffed. "Whatever is it?" asked G. Mrs. Townley pointed riverwards to where a thin column of blue-grey smoke rose and hung like a cloud in the hot, still air.
"It's a burning ghat," she said. "They are burning a body."
And that is India!
When one is feeling fairly peaceful and secure, something ghastly, like the smell of burning Hindoo, recalls to one the uncertainty of all things. We rose to go home, feeling depressed, the smell pursuing us.
I have two pieces of news for this letter.
First, Boggley can take a few days' holiday at Christmas, so he means to take me to Darjeeling to see if we can catch a glimpse of the snows. We shall only be there from Saturday afternoon till Monday at noon, and Boggley says that Kangchenjunga is often cloud-covered for weeks, so it is a mere chance whether we shall see it. But surely, surely Kangchenjunga won't be coy with me. I came to India, of course, in the first place to see Boggley, but in the second place to see the snows, and I can't believe that the gods will be so unkind as to deny a humble worshipper of great mountains a sight of the vision glorious.
The other piece of news is quite important.
Boggley has got a new billet. What it is I shan't try to explain, for I don't understand the game of General Post which is played so frequently among Government officials, but it means that he will have to go on a tour of inspection all over everywhere, and, what is more, I shall go too. Isn't it fine?
Boggley actually hesitated about accepting, because he thought I should so hate to leave Calcutta and its gaieties to wander in the jungle. It isn't that I don't enjoy Calcutta; I do, and I am most grateful to the people who have given me such a good time; but I pine to see something of the real India. Calcutta might be a suburb of London. I want to see the native of India, not the fat babu; I want to live in tents and be a gipsy; I want to have Boggley all to myself. We have hardly time at present to pass the time of day with each other.
Boggley tries to frighten me with tales of dâk-bungalows and jungly cooking, but I won't be frightened; I am looking forward to it all too much.
We don't go till the beginning of January, so I shall be able to attend the Drawing-Room and a few other tamashas before we depart.
This will have to do for a letter this week. I must clean some gloves now. That is the only useful thing I do, clean G.'s gloves and my own. We dirty so many pairs of long white gloves, and it is cheaper to clean them at home. You do it with petrol and a small piece of flannel, and the result isn't bad, though somewhat streaky. G.'s part is to sit on my bed and watch me do it, assisted by Bella on the floor. It reminds me of the inhabitants of the Scilly Islands, who, it is said, earn a precarious livelihood by taking in each other's washings!
When Kipling wrote his Christmas in India I think he must have been in a dâk-bungalow down with fever, otherwise he would hardly have painted such a very gloomy picture. I, at least, didn't find it a mocking Christmas—but then India isn't my grim stepmother, as Victor Ormonde pointed out to me the other night. I can afford to be homesick, can afford to let myself think of the "black dividing sea and alien plain," because here I have no continuing city. It is the real exiles, "shackled in a lifelong tether," who may not think, but must go doggedly through their day's darg.
I found it an agreeable day, from the morning when I got my presents and various offerings of flowers, to the evening, when we dined with some very kind people, and had an amusing time playing childish games.
I have often seen pictures headed "Christmas in the Tropics," and looked with sentimental eyes at the people grouped among palm-trees on a verandah, while the girl at the piano sang what was evidently a song about "the dear homeland," to judge from the far-away look in the eyes of all present. It seems a pity to disillusion you, but it isn't at all like that. To begin with, it was quite chilly, and we were very glad of the big fire burning in the grate, and we did not look pensive or far-away, but ate our dinner with great content. I think, perhaps, Christmas fare is even more uninteresting in India than at home; turkey tastes more like white flannel, and plum-pudding is stodgier, and there are no white and scarlet berries or robins; but otherwise it is really a nicer day than in England.
Of course I thought a lot about the home people. I imagined Peter waking and groping for his stocking. Oh, have you forgotten what it felt like to waken up and remember it was Christmas morning? I sometimes wish I could still hang up my stocking. There is nothing in Grown-up Land that equals the thrill the delicious bulginess of the stocking, gripped in the darkness, gave one.
I think they would miss me a little at home. I know Mother would often say, "I wonder what Olivia is doing now!"
And what kind of Christmas had you? A very festive one, I hope.
Very many thanks for the book you sent me. You couldn't possibly have given me anything I like better. Somehow, I have never possessed a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses, and this one, so exquisitely, specially bound, will be a great treasure. I like, too, your reason for choosing it. It is nice of you to like my childish reminiscences, but it is rash to say you wish you had known us then. Looking at us now, so quiet, so well-behaved, such ornaments to society, you would be surprised what villains we once were—at least on week-days! We had what R. L. S. calls a "covenanting childhood." Looking back, it seems to me that our childhood was a queer mixture of Calvinism and fairy tales. Calvinism, even now, I associate with ham and eggs—I suppose because Sabbath morning was the only time we ever tasted that delicacy. Between bustling Saturday night, when we wistfully watched our toys being locked away, and cheery Monday morning, when things began again, there was a great gulf fixed, and that was the Sabbath Day. What strenuous Sabbath Days we had! First there was worship and the Catechism. (The only time I ever wished to be English was when I thought I might have dallied with "What is your name?" instead of wrestling with such deep things as "What is man's chief end?") After worship was over we were allowed to walk in the garden till it was time for the morning service. That was the Forenoon Diet of Worship, then came the Afternoon Diet of Worship. Having sat like rocks through them both, we proceeded to the Sabbath School, and then went home to tea, and cake, and jam, and an evening filled with bound volumes of The Christian Treasury, where we wrestled with tales of religious bigotry and persecution until we seemed to breathe the very atmosphere of dark and mouldy cells; and became daringly familiar with the thumb-screw and the rack, the Inquisition and other devildoms of Spain. I used to wonder pitifully why it had never occurred to the poor victims to say their prayers in bed, and thus save themselves such fiery trials.
I wonder why I pretend we found our Sundays a trial. Looking back, I love every minute of them. Father could make any day delightful; and what a through-the-week Father he was! Sometimes he came to tea with us in the nursery and made believe there was a fairy called Annabel Lee in the teapot, carrying on conversations with her that sent eerie thrills down our several spines. Afterwards he would read out of a little green and gold book that contained for us all the romance of the ages between its elegant covers. From Father we heard of Angus the Subtle, Morag of the Misty Way, and the King of Errin, who rides and rides and whose road is to the End of Days. Sometimes, laying books aside, he told us old tales that he had heard from his mother, who in turn had heard them from hers—of the Red Etain of Ireland who lived in Belligand, and who stole the King's daughter, the King of fair Scotland; and the pathetic tale of the bannock that went to see the world, with its cynical end: "Ah, well! We'll all be in the tod's hole in less than a hunner years."
It was Father who gave us first a love for books, and taught us the magic of lovely words. And it was Father who tried to place our stumbling little childish feet in the Narrow Way, and to turn our eyes ever towards a better country—"that is an heavenly!" I suppose it was the dimlyunderstood talk of the better country that gave John and me the idea of our Kingdom.
It was a great secret once, but now I may tell without breaking faith. Boggley and the Bird were prosaic people, caring more for bird-nesting and Red Indian hunting than games of make-believe, so they never knew. It was part of the sunny old garden, our Kingdom, and was called Nontland because it was ruled by one Nont. He had once been a common ninepin, but having had a hole bored through his middle with a red-hot wire he became possessed of a mystic power and personality. Even we—his creators, so to speak—stood somewhat in awe of him.
The River Beulah flowed through Nontland, and it was bounded on the north by the Celestial Mountains; on the south by the red brick wall, where the big pears grew; on the west by the Rose of Sharon tree; and on the east by the pig-sty. That last sounds something of a descent, but it wasn't really a pig-sty, and I can't think why it was called so, for, to my knowledge, it had never harboured anything but two innocent white Russian rabbits with pink eyes. It was situated at the foot of the kitchen-garden, next door to the hen-houses; the roof, made of pavement flags, was easy to climb, and, sloping as it did to the top of the wall overlooking the high-road, was greatly prized by us as a watch-tower from which we could see the world go by.
To get into our Kingdom we knocked at the Wicket Gate, murmuring as we did so:
"El Dorado
Yo he trovado,"
and it opened—with a push. We hadn't an idea then, nor have I now, what the words meant. We got them out of a book called The Spanish Brothers, and thought them splendidly mysterious.
Besides ourselves, and Nont, and the Russian rabbits, there was only one other denizen of our Kingdom—a turkey with a broken leg, a lonely, lovable fowl which John, out of pity, raised to the peerage and the office of Prime Minister. I have a vivid recollection of riding in hot haste on a rake to tell the King—not in proper fairy fashion that the skies were fallen, but that Lord Turkey of Henhouse was dead.
John, I remember, always carried some fern seed in his trouser-pocket. He said it made him invisible—a delusion I loyally supported. It seems to me the sun always shone in those days, the time was ever three o'clock in the afternoon, and faëry lay just adown the road!
It has just occurred to me, and it is an awesome thought, that you must converse every day, and all day, in the German language. I believe I have forgotten all I ever knew of German, though it isn't so very long ago since I wrestled in tears and confused darkness of mind with that uncouth tongue. Don't forget your native tongue, and don't dare write me a letter in German, or, like the Editor of The Spectator, I shall say, "This correspondence must now cease!"
Since last I wrote life has been one long changing of garments and moving from one show to another. Tuesday was Viceroy's Cup Day at the races, a very pretty sight. One side of the ground was crowded by pretty women in lovely gowns, and on the other side the natives sat in their hundreds and chattered, not the drab-coloured crowd we produce, but gay and striking as a bed of tulips.
There are three stands—one for the members of the Turf Club, one for the ordinary public, and one for the natives who can afford a seat. The members of the Turf Club may be said to be the sheep; the others the goats. It is more comfortable in every way to be a sheep. You get a better seat and a comfortable tea in an enclosure, with the sight of the goats scrambling wildly for a little refreshment to keep you thankful, for in the heat and dust and glare even a sheep is apt to lose sight of its mercies. I thought G. was the prettiest girl there. She is always such a refreshing sight, pink and white and golden like a morning in May, and tall—"like a king's own daughter."
I was with the Ormondes and, of course, Boggley. Mrs. Ormonde is so charming, she is a great favourite with men, and is always surrounded when she goes anywhere by about half a dozen eager for her smiles. She has the quaintest way of handing her surplus cavaliers on to me, but I really much prefer Victor and Boggley as companions. They don't need to be amused like other men, and are always good-natured and funny.
I am feeling a little pale with all the excitement, and shall be glad of the change to Darjeeling tomorrow. Next mail you shall hear all about it—that is to say, if no person, seditiously inclined, derails the train or does anything horrid. Some very dreadful things have been happening lately, but I don't think there is much danger so long as we keep far from the vicinity of dignitaries.
Wednesday already, the mail goes to-morrow, and I with so much to write about.
To begin—we left Calcutta on Friday afternoon and got to the Ganges about eight, when we embarked in a ferry-boat to cross the river. It was quite a big steamer, with dinner-tables laid out on deck, decorated for Christmas with palm-branches, Chinese lanterns, and large, deadly-looking iced cakes.
On the other side, the train was waiting that was to take us to Siliguri, and we lost no time in looking for places. Indian trains are rather different from our trains. Each carriage has two broad seats running lengthways, which pull out for sleeping berths, and two other berths that let down from the roof. I found I had to share a carriage with two other females, and an upper berth fell to my share.
The bearer arranged my bed, and Boggley took a glance round, asked if I were all right, and departed to his own place. Isn't it a queer idea to carry one's bedding about with one? Pillows, blankets, and a quilt, all done up in a canvas hold-all, accompany people wherever they travel—in trains, hotels, even when staying with friends.
Well, there was I shut up for the night with two strange women, mother and daughter evidently, American certainly; and the horror of an upper berth staring me in the face! It is quite an experience to sleep in the upper berth of an Indian train. To begin with, it takes an acrobat of no mean order to reach it at all, and once you are in your nose almost touches the roof of the carriage. As I climbed to my lofty perch one of the American ladies remarked, "I guess, child, you ain't going to have the time of your life up there to-night." And I hadn't. Every time the train gave a jolt—which it did every few seconds—I clung wildly to the straps to keep myself from descending suddenly and violently to the floor; and in less than an hour every bone in my body was crying out against the inhuman hardness of my couch. In spite of everything, I fell asleep, and awoke feeling colder than I ever remember feeling before. I started up, banging my head on the roof as I did so, to find that the carriage door was swinging wide open. What was to be done? I carefully felt the bumps beginning to rise on my forehead, and considered. It was, humanly speaking, impossible that I could descend and shut that door, and yet, could I endure lying inadequately covered and exposed to all the winds of heaven? There remained my fellow-travellers they at least were on the first floor, so to speak; but as I wavered a striking apparition rose, stalked down the carriage, and, leaning far out into the night, seized the door and shut it with a bang. Then arose a shrill protest from beneath me: "Oh, Mommer, how could you be so careless! You might have fallen out, and I should have been left quite alone in this awful heathen country!"
After that there was no more sleep, and when daylight came filtering through the shutters I slid warily to the floor, and having washed and dressed, sat on my dressing-bag and conversed amiably with the Americans. I found them charming and most entertaining, simple, quiet people; not the shrill-voiced tourist jāt at all. They had been travelling, so they told me, with a sort of dreary satisfaction, for two years, and they had still about a year to do. It sounded like hard labour! The poor dears! I can't think why they did it. They would have been so much happier at home in their own little corner of the world. I can picture them attending sewing bees, and other quaint things people do attend in old-fashioned New England storybooks. They had a servant with them whom they addressed as Ali, a bearded rascal who evidently cheated them at every turn, and who actually came into their presence with his shoes on!
I didn't know till I met these Americans that I was such a wit—or perhaps wag is a better word. I didn't try to be funny, I didn't even know I was being funny, but every word I said convulsed them.
The "Mommer" said to me:
"Child, are you married?"
"No," I said, surprised. "Why?"
"I was just thinking what a good time your husband must have!"
When we reached Siliguri I was surprised to find everything glistening with frost, and the few natives who were about had their heads wrapped up in shawls as if they were suffering from toothache. We got some breakfast in the waiting-room, and then took our places in the funniest little toy train. This is the Darjeeling-Himalaya Railway. It was all very primitive. A man banged with a stick on a piece of metal by way of a starting-bell, and we set off on our journey to cloudland.
Eagerly looked for, Darjeeling came at last, but alack! no mountains, only piled-up banks of white clouds. It was bitterly cold, and we were glad to get out and stamp up to the hotel, where we found great fires burning in our rooms.
There wasn't much to do in the hotel beyond reading back numbers of The Lady's Pictorial, and I went to bed on Saturday night rather low in my mind, fearing, after all, I was not to be accounted worthy to behold the mountains.
Some of the people in the hotel were getting up at 3.30 to go to Tiger Hill to see the sun rise on Everest. Boggley, the lazy one, wouldn't hear of going, and when I awoke in the grey dawning stiff with cold, in spite of a fire and heaps of blankets and rugs, I felt thankful that I hadn't a strenuous brother. If it had been John, I dare not think where he would have made me accompany him to in his efforts to get as near as possible to his beloved mountains. Never shall I forget the first time he took me to Switzerland to climb. I had never climbed before—unless you call scrambling on the hills at home climbing—and I was all eagerness to try till John gave me Whymper's book on Zermatt to amuse me in the train, and I read of the first ascent of the Matterhorn and its tragic sequel. It had the effect of reducing me to a state of abject terror. All through that journey, from Paris to Lausanne, from Lausanne to Visp, from Visp to Zermatt, horror of the Matterhorn hung over me like a pall. I even found something sinister in little Zermatt when we got there—Zermatt that now I love so, with the rushing, icy river, the cheerful smell of wood smoke, the goats that in the early morning wake one with the tinkle-tinkle of the bells through the street, and the quiet-eyed guides that sit on the wall in the twilight and smoke the pipe of peace.
After dinner, that first night, we walked through the village and along the winding path that leads up to the Schwarzsee, and gazed at the mighty peak, so wild, so savage in the pale purple light that follows the sunset glow—gazed at it in silence, John wrapped in adoration, I thinking of the men who had gone up this road to their death.
"Yes," said John, as we turned back, "some very scared men have come down this road."
If he had known what an exceedingly scared girl was at his side he wouldn't, I think, have chosen that moment to turn into the little graveyard that surrounds the village chapel, to look at the graves of the victims—the graves of Croz the guide, of Hudson, and the boy Hadow. The text on one stone caught my eye—"Be ye therefore also ready ..." It was too much; I fled back to the hotel, locked the door of my room, shuttered the windows so that I should not see the vestige of a mountain—and wept.
It is odd to think how I hated it all that night, how to myself I maligned all climbers, calling them in my haste foolhardy—senseless—imbecile, when I had only to go up my first easy mountain to become as keen as the worst—or the best.
Sometimes in those mountaineering excursions with John to Zermatt, to Chamonix, to Grindelwald, I have found it in my heart to envy the unaspiring people who spend long days pottering about on level ground. But looking back it isn't the quiet, lazy days one likes to think about. No—rather it is the mornings when one rose at 2 a.m. and, thrusting aching feet into nailed boots, tiptoed noisily into the deserted dining-room to be supplied with coffee and rolls by a pitifully sleepy waiter.
Outside the guides wait, Joseph and Aloys, and away we tramp in single file along the little path that runs through fields full of wild flowers, drenched with dew, into a fairy-tale wood of tall, straight pine-trees. We follow the steady, slow footsteps of Joseph, the chief guide, up the winding path that turns and twists, and turns again, but rises, always rises, until we are clear of the wood, past the rough, stony ground, and on to the snow, firm and hard to the feet before the sun has melted the night's frost. When we reach the rocks, and before we rope, Aloys removes his rücksack and proceeds to lay out our luncheon; for if one breakfasts at two one is ready for the next meal at nine. Crouched in strange attitudes, we munch cold chicken, rolls and hard-boiled eggs, sweet biscuits and apples, with great content. Joseph has buried a bottle of white wine in the snow, and now pours some into a horn tumbler, which he hands to Mademoiselle with an air—a draught of nectar. It is John's turn for the tumbler next, and as he emerges from the long, ice-cold, satisfying drink he declares his firm intention, his unalterable resolve, never to drink anything but white wine again in this world. But doubtless as you know, the white wine of the Lowlands is not the white wine of the mountains. It needs to be buried in the snow by Joseph, and drunk out of a horn tumbler, at the foot of an aiguille, after a six hours' climb, to be at its best. After refreshment comes the hard work. To look at the face of the rock up which Joseph has swarmed; to say hopelessly, "I can't do it, I can't," and then gradually to find here a niche for one hand, here a foothold; to learn to cling to the rock, to use every bit of oneself, to work one's way up delicately as a cat so as not to send loose stones down on the climber below, until, panting, one lands on the ledge appointed by Joseph, there to rest while the next man climbs, it is the best of sports. And at the top to stand in the "stainless eminence of air," to look down eight—ten—a thousand feet to the toy village at the foot while John names all the other angel peaks that soar round us, tell me, you who are also a climber, is it not very good?
But the coming down! Stumbling wearily down the steep paths of the pine-woods with the skin rubbed off one's toes, and giving at the knees like an old and feeble horse, that is not so good. And yet—I don't know. For as we near the valley, puffs of hot, scented air come up to meet us, the tinkle of the cow-bell greets our ears, and we realize that it is only given to those who have braved the perils, who have searched for the deep things of the ancient mountains and found out the precious things of the lasting hills, to thoroughly appreciate the pleasant, homely quietness of the meadow-lands.
But I have wandered miles away from Sunday morning in Darjeeling.
It was still misty when we went out after breakfast, but not so solidly misty, so Boggley held out hopes it would clear.
Darjeeling is a pretty place tucked into the mountain-side. In the middle is the bazaar, and it happened to be market day, which made it more interesting. The village street was lined on both sides with open booths, some piled with fruit and vegetables, others, oddly enough, with lamps and mirrors and other cheap rubbish which bore the legend "Made in Germany," others with all sorts of curios. The place was thronged with people. A few plainsmen and Tibetans Boggley pointed out, but most of the crowd were hill-people, jolly little squat men and women hung with silver chains and heavy ear-rings set with turquoises. Their eyes are very black and all puckered with laughing, and they have actually rosy cheeks.
They crowded round, trying to sell us curios and lumps of rough turquoise. When we asked the price of anything, they replied promptly, "Twenty rupees." We would offer two rupees, and, after a few minutes' bargaining, they took it quite cheerfully, the thing probably not being worth eight annas. I bought a prayer-wheel. It is a round silver thing with a handle rather like a child's rattle, and inside are slips of paper covered with writing. These are the prayers, and at intervals you twirl the wheel round, and the oftener you turn it the more devout you are.
I also purchased some lumps of rough turquoise, though Boggley said they were not a good blue,—too pale,—and was tying them up in my handkerchief when Boggley gripped my arm. "Look!" he said. I looked straight across the valley. "Higher," said Boggley, and I lifted my eyes literally to the skies; and there—"suddenly—behold—beyond"—were the everlasting snows.
All day they stayed with us, and as the sun was setting we climbed to a point of vantage to see the last of them. It has been said they are a snow-white wall barring the whole horizon. They are like a city carved by giants out of eternal ice, a city which lieth four-square. We watched while peak after peak faded into cold greyness; until Kangchenjunga towered, alone, rose-red into the heavens, sublime in its "valorous isolation." Then the light left it too, and we turned and came down from the Hill of God.
We left for Calcutta at noon on Monday, and I had a thoroughly over-eaten, uncomfortable day, all owing to Boggley's forethought. He said as we began breakfast about nine o'clock: "Now eat a good breakfast, for we shall have to leave before lunch, and no man knows when we shall get another meal."
It seemed good common-sense, so I ate an egg and two pieces of toast after I had really finished. That was all very well, but the hotel people thoughtfully provided us with a substantial luncheon before we left. Even then Boggley kept on looking to the future.
"Oh, tuck in," he said. "We shan't get anything more till eight o'clock."
I didn't feel as if I wanted anything ever again, but I hurriedly gobbled some food, and we raced to the station, then sat in the train half an hour before it started.
At the first station we stopped at, the bearer appeared at the carriage window with a breakfast cup of tea and a large "y-sponge-cake," ferreted from no man knows where. He was so pleased with himself that I hadn't the heart to refuse it—so there were three meals that ought to have been spread over the greater part of the day crowded into one morning. I sympathized with the vulture, who
"Eats between his meals,
- And that's the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
- As well as you and I."
It is never pleasant to come down from the heights, and we had rather a dreary journey to Siliguri.
Boggley had taken care to wire for a lower berth in the train for me, but it seems ordained that I shall ascend in Indian trains. I again found myself in a carriage with my Americans, and the daughter had such bad toothache, and seemed so much to dread the prospect of mounting to the eyrie, that I had to say that I would rather like it for myself.
Toothache kept Miss America awake and made her talkative, which was unfortunate for me. She wanted to know all about the manners and customs of the British. She only knew us from the outside, so to speak. Incidentally she shed a lurid light on the habits of the American male. It seems that young men in America are expected to carry offerings of fruit and flowers and candy to young women—not when they are engaged, mark you; what is expected of them then I daren't think—but to quite irrelevant young women. "Don't young gentlemen do so in England?" asked Miss America. "No," I said, feeling that I was making out my countrymen poor, mean creatures indeed, but feeling also how much more complicated life would become for these "gentlemen of England now abed" if they had to carry crates of oranges, drums of figs, and pounds of candies to every casual young woman whose acquaintance they enjoyed.
"You don't say!" said Miss America. "And don't they take you out driving in their buggies?"
"Never," I replied firmly. "They haven't got them."
"You don't say! And how does a young gentleman show he admires you?"
"Well, he doesn't as a rule," I murmured feebly.
"I guess," she said, "we manage things better in America." And, indeed, perhaps they do.
This conversation so exhausted us that we fell very sound asleep, and knew nothing till we arrived at the station where we had to get out and change into the ferry-boat. Then there was a terrible scurry. The servants waiting to pack up the bedding and strap bags—they said they had wakened us at the previous station, but they must have wakened someone else instead—while we threw on various articles of clothing, stuck hats on undone hair, and feet into unlaced shoes, all the while, like a Greek chorus, the "Mommer" moaning reproachfully, "Oh, Ali, you might have woke us," while outside on the platform bounded the irate Boggley speaking wingéd words.
We did get on to the boat, so after all there was no harm done.
I was quite sorry to part with my Americans when we reached Calcutta. They and their Ali were going on to Benares that night, tired and spiritless. They shook us both violently by the hand, vowing we were just "lovely people" and that I was a "real little John Bull!"
The home mail was waiting us when we got back, and I read my letters, slept for an hour or two, and then got up and went to a big New Year's dinner-party, where we had fireworks in our crackers, and sang what G. calls "Oldlangzine."
Thanks so much for your delightfully long letter.
My wrist aches so I can't write another word.
One more week and we start for the Mofussil and the Simple Life. The Mofussil, I may remark in passing, is not, as at first I thought, some sort of prophet, but means simply the country districts.
I have been standing over Bella while she laid out all my dresses, telling her which are to be packed carefully and left in Calcutta, and which are to accompany me. I don't want to take any more luggage than I can help; as it is, I foresee we shall have a mountain. Boggley has been begging everyone for the loan of books, as he does not see how I am to be kept in reading matter when there are no libraries within reach. He accuses me of being capable of finishing two fat volumes in a day, but I shan't have time to read much if I carry out my great project. I am going to write a book. You are surprised? But why? Other members of the family can write, why not I? I read in a review lately that John has great distinction of style, so perhaps I have too. Anyway, I have bought a pile of essay-paper and sixpenny-worth of J nibs, and I mean to find out. It is to be a book about the Mutiny, the information to be derived from Trevelyan's book on Cawnpore. There is room, don't you think, for a really good book on the Mutiny?
Last night the Drawing-Room was held by the Vicereine, a function that everyone, more or less, is expected to attend. I went with G. and her sister (one needn't go with the lady who presents one), and found it most entertaining. Not being the wives or daughters of Members of Council or anything burra, we hadn't the private entrée, and had to wait our turn in pens, like dumb driven cattle.
It is a much simpler affair than a presentation at home; one need not even wear veils and feathers, and the trains of our white satin gowns were modest as to length. It was silly to be nervous about such a little thing, but I quite shook with terror. I think it was the being passed along by A.D.C.'s that unnerved me, but when I reached the last and heard "To be presented," and my name shouted out, I stotted (do you know the Scots word to stot? It means to walk blindly—to stumble—that and much more; oh! a very expressive word) over a length of red carpet that seemed to stretch for miles, feeling exactly as a Dutch wooden doll looks; saw, as in a glass darkly, familiar faces that smiled jeeringly, or encouragingly, I could not be sure which; ducked feebly and uncertainly before the two centre figures; and, gasping relief, found myself going out of the doorway walking on G.'s train.
Afterwards, when we were all gathered upstairs, the many pretty gowns and uniforms made a gay sight. I saw the dearest little Maharanee blazing in magnificent jewels and looking so scared, and shy, and sweet. There was a supper-room, and lots to eat if one could have got at it, or had had room to eat it after it had been got. I don't like champagne—"simpkin" they call it here—much to drink, but I like it less when it is shot down my back by a careless man.
There is a fancy-dress ball to-night at Government House, and that is the last of my dissipations for some time to come.
I go on writing, writing all the time about my own affairs and never even mention your letters, and nothing makes me so cross as to have people do that to me. I like my friends to make interested comments on everything I tell them.
I am glad you are so happy in your work and enjoy life. Is the book nearly finished yet? It is nice that you have found such charming friends. Is the Fräulein person you talk about pretty? I can imagine how you enjoy hearing her play and singing to her accompaniment. I always think of you when I hear good music, and of your face when I told you that the only music I really liked was Scots songs played on the pianola! But you know that is really true. I simply hate good music. Once, in Paris, I went with some people to hear Samson et Delilah, and while everyone sat rapt, enchanted by the sweet sounds, I waited with what patience I could till the stage temple fell, in the vain hope that some part would hit the tenor. What would your Fräulein say to such blasphemy?
Forgive me maligning the gods of your idolatry. I think I had better finish this letter before I go on from bad to worse, because I am in an unaccountably perverse and impertinent frame of mind to-day, and there is no saying what I shall say next.
Such a scene of confusion! Everything I possess is lying on the floor. All the things I have accumulated on my way out and since I came to Calcutta lie in one heap waiting to be packed; shoes, dresses, hats, books, photographs are scattered madly about, and in the middle, almost reduced to idiocy, and making no effort to reduce chaos to order, sits Bella. I can't help her, for I must get my home letters written and posted before we leave Calcutta, for before I reach my first halting-place the mail will be gone.
Boggley has been in the Mofussil for three days, and I have been staying with the Townleys. I came back last night. It was nice being with G. again, and her sister is extraordinarily kind. We had rather an interesting day on Friday. I have always been asking where are the Missionaries, but I suppose I must have asked the wrong people, for they didn't seem to know. However, the other day I met a lady,—Mrs. Gardner,—the wife of a missionary, who asked us to go to lunch with her, and promised she would show us something of the work among the women. So on Friday we set off in a tikka-gharry.
We left the Calcutta we knew—the European shops, the big, cool houses, the Maidan—and drove through native streets, airless, treeless, drab-coloured places, until we despaired of ever reaching anywhere. When at last our man did stop, we found Mrs. Gardner's cool, English-looking drawing-room a welcome refuge from the glare and the dust; and she was kindness itself. She made a delightful cicerone, for she has a keen sense of humour and a wide knowledge of native life.
We went first to see the girls' school—a quaint sight. All the funny little women with their hair well oiled and plastered down, with iron bangles on their wrists to show that they were married, wrapped in their saris, so demurely chanting their lessons! When we went in they all stood up and, touching their foreheads, said in a queer sing-song drawl, "Salaam, Mees Sahib, salaam!" The teachers were native Bible-women. The schoolrooms opened on to a court with a well like a village pump in the middle. One small girl was brought out to tell us the story of the Prodigal Son in Bengali, which she did at great length with dramatic gestures; but our attention was somewhat diverted from her by a small boy who ran in from the street, hot and dusty, sluiced himself unconcernedly all over at the pump, and raced out again dripping. It did look so inviting.
When we left the school Mrs. Gardner said she would take us to see some purdah nashin women—that is, women who never go out with their faces uncovered, and who never see any men but their own husbands.
I don't quite know what we expected to see—something very Oriental and luxurious anyhow; marble halls and women with veils and scarlet satin trousers dotted about on cushions—and the reality was disappointing. No marble halls, no divans and richly carved tables, no hookahs and languid odours of rich perfumes, but a room with cheap modern furniture, china ornaments, and a round table in the middle of the floor, for all the world like the best parlour of the working classes. Two women lived there with their husbands and families, and they came in and looked G. and me all over, fingered our dresses, examined our hats, and then asked why we weren't married! I could see they didn't like the look of us at all. They said we were like the dolls their little girls got at the fête, and produced two glassy-eyed atrocities with flaxen hair and vivid pink cheeks, and asked if we saw the resemblance. We didn't. They told Mrs. Gardner—who has been many years in India, and looks it—that they thought she was much nicer-looking than we were, her face was all one colour! (They spoke, of course, in Bengali, but Mrs. Gardner translated.) Poor women! what a pitifully dull life is theirs! G. was disappointed to hear they hadn't become Christians. She had an idea that the Missionary had only to appear with the Gospel story and the deed was done. I'm afraid it isn't as easy as that by a long way.
Mrs. Gardner read a chapter from the Bible while we were there, and these women argued with her most intelligently. They are by no means stupid. Before we left G. sang to them, with no accompaniment but a cold stare. When she finished they said they preferred Bengali music, it had more tune. We left, feeling we had been no success.
Having seen a comparatively well-to-do household, Mrs. Gardner said she would show us a really poor one. We followed her through a network of lanes more evil-smelling than anything I ever imagined—London can't compete with Calcutta in the way of odours—until we reached a little hovel with nothing in it but a string-bed, a few cooking-pots, and two women. Caste, it seems, has nothing to do with money, and these women, though as poor as it is possible to be, were thrice-born Brahmins, and received us with the most gracious, charming manners, inviting us to sit on the string-bed w ile they stood before us with meekly folded hands. The dim interior of the hut with its sun-bleached mud floor, the two gentle brown-eyed women with their saris and silver anklets, looking wonderingly at G. in her white dress sitting enthroned, with her blue eyes shining and her hair a halo, made an unforgettable picture of the East and the West.
We had tea at the Mission House and met several missionary ladies who told us much that was interesting about their work, which they seem to love whole-heartedly. I asked one girl how it compared with work among the poor at home, and she said, "Well, perhaps it is the sunshine, but here it is never sordid." I can't agree. To me the eternal sunshine makes it worse. At home, although the poverty and misery are terrible, still, I comfort myself, the poor have their cosy moments. In winter sometimes, when funds run to a decent fire and a kippered herring to make a savoury smell, a brown teapot on the hob and the children gathered in, they are as happy as possible for the time being; I have seen them. I can't imagine any brightness in the lives of the women we saw.
To be a missionary in Calcutta, I think one would require to have an acute sense of humour and no sense of smell. Am I flippant? I don't mean to be, because I feel I can't sufficiently admire the men and women who are bearing the heat and burden of the day. And now that sounds patronizing, and Heaven knows I don't mean to be that.
Anyway, G. and I were never intended to be missionaries. We drove home very silent, in the only vehicle procurable, a third-class tikka-gharry, feeling as if all the varied smells of the East were lying heavy on our chests. Once G. said gloomily, "How long does typhoid fever take to come out?" which made me laugh weakly most of the way home.
The day of our departure has come, and Boggley is behaving dreadfully. Having taken time by the forelock, I am packed and ready, but Boggley has done nothing. He remarked airily that I must go to the Stores and get some sheets, a new mosquito-net, and a supply of pots and pans, and then went off to lunch with someone at the Club, leaving me speechless with rage. How can I possibly know what sort of pots and pans are wanted? I never camped out before. I shall calmly finish this letter and pay no attention to his order.
We had a farewell dinner last night, the Ormondes and one or two others. We came into this dismantled room afterwards and talked till midnight, and amused ourselves vastly. I happened to say that I was rather scared at the thought of the wild beasts I might encounter, probably under my camp-bed, in the jungle; so a man, Captain Rawson, drew out a table for me to take with me into camp. One heave and a wriggle means a boa-constrictor, two heaves and a growl a tiger—and so on. So you can imagine me in a tent, in the dead of night, sitting up, anxiously striking matches and consulting my table as to what is attacking me.
Mrs. Ormonde, who is so nervous that if a cracker goes off in her hearing she thinks it is another Mutiny, is anxious that we should take guns with us into the Mofussil in case we are attacked. Picture to yourself Boggley and me setting out "with a little hoard of Maxims." Armed, I should be a menace alike to friend and foe!
My first stopping-place is Takai. Boggley is going to some very far-away place where it wouldn't be convenient to take a female, so when Dr. and Mrs. Russel asked me to come to them while he is there I very gladly accepted the invitation. Dr. Russel is a medical missionary. I don't know him, but his wife, a very clever, interesting woman, I met when she was last home, and she told me about her home in the jungle until I longed to see it. Boggley will come for me in about ten days. Bella I shall leave in Calcutta. It would be a nuisance carting her about from place to place, and I am not so helpless that I can't manage for myself.
Expect next mail to receive a budget of prodigious size.