Olivia in India Part 13

One got a kick on the shin, and limping up to Boggley said, "Sir, I am wounded; I cannot play," whereupon another ran up to the wounded one, crying, "Courage, brother. Tis a Nelson's death." Great dears I thought they were.

Since then we have been through dry places, and camped in desolate places, hardly ever seeing a European, and enjoying ourselves extremely. One day, a red-letter day, Boggley shot two crocodiles.

One was a fish-eater, but the other was a great old _mugger_, most loathsome to look at. Autolycus hoped for _human limbs_ inside it, and I believe they did actually find relics of his gruesome meals in the shape of anklets and rings and bangles. Boggley is going to have the skins made up into things for me, but it will take about six months to cure them. It is good to think there is one _mugger_ the less. I hate the nasty treacherous beasts. Pretending they are logs, and then eating the poor natives!

One night we had a delightful camping-ground on the edge of a lochan well stocked with duck, which Boggley set out to shoot and ended by missing gloriously. We were much embarra.s.sed by a fat old landowner heaping presents on us. He nearly wept when we refused to accept a goat!

All the fortnight we have only met two Europeans--a couple called Martin. I don't know quite what they were, or why they were holding up the flag of empire in this lonely outpost, but they were the greyest people I ever saw.

Finding ourselves in the neighbourhood of Europeans, we called, as in duty bound. The compound round the bungalow had a dreary look, and when we were shown into the drawing-room I could see at a glance it was a room that no one took any interest in. The rugs on the floor were rumpled, the cushions soiled; photographs stood about in broken frames, and the flowers were dying in their gla.s.ses. When Mrs. Martin came in, I wasn't surprised at her room. A long grey face, lack-l.u.s.tre eyes, greyish hair rolled up anyhow, and greyish clothes with a hiatus between the bodice and skirt. "This," said I to myself, "is a woman who has lost interest in herself and her surroundings," Her husband was small and bleached-looking and, given encouragement, inclined to be jokesome; sometimes (by accident) he was funny. Mrs. Martin paid very little attention to us, and none whatever to her husband's jokes.

I laughed loudly. I thought it was so persevering of him to go on trying to be funny when he was married to such a depressing woman. As we got up to go I noticed in a corner a child's chair with a little chintz cover, and seated in it a smiling china doll lacking one arm and a leg.

I could hardly wait till I was outside to tell Boggley what I thought of Mrs. Martin and her house. "The hopeless, untidy creature!" I raved. "She doesn't deserve to have such a little cheery husband or children."

The only thing I don't like about Boggley is that he never will help me to abuse people.

"Poor woman," he said; "she's pretty bad." Then he told me her story as he had heard it.

Ten years ago, it seems, she was quite a cheery managing woman, with two little girls whom she worshipped; she and her husband lived for the children. They were just going to take them home when they sickened with some ailment. Mr. Martin at the time was prostrate after a bad attack of fever. There was no doctor within thirty miles. One child died, and the mother started with the other on the long drive to the nearest doctor. The last ten miles it was a dead child she held in her arms.

When Boggley finished I was silent, remembering the little chintz-covered chair--empty but for a broken doll.

Now that I have tasted the joys of solitude I don't see how I am to enjoy living in a crowd again. I am practically alone all day, for Boggley has long distances to ride and bicycle--and I never was so happy in my life, I write, and I read, and I fold my hands in newly acquired Oriental calm (which my bustling, busy little mother most certainly won't admire), and sit looking before me for hours.

The books lent me by various people are all read long ago, and I have gone back to those that are always with me.

They are all before me as I write. The little fat green one at the end of the row is Lamb's _Essays of Elia_: he so well fits some moods, and certain minutes of the day, that gentle writer. Next is my _Pilgrim's Progress_, the one I have had since my tenth birthday. Father gave each of us a copy when we reached the mature age of ten. It was only on high days and holy-days that we were allowed to look at his own treasured copy, which stayed behind gla.s.s doors in the corner book-case. The ill.u.s.trations, I know now, were very fine, and even then we found them wonderful. Then comes my little old Bible. I coveted it for years before I got it because it had pages like five-pound notes; I value it now for other reasons. Next the Bible is Q's _Anthology of English Verse_, its brave leather cover rather impaired by the fact that for two mornings Boggley, having mislaid his strop, has stropped his razor on it. Lastly comes my Shakespeare.

Sometimes in a night-marish moment I wonder what the world would have been like had there been no Shakespeare. Suppose we had never known Falstaff, never heard the Clown sing "O Mistress Mine," never laughed with Beatrice nor masqueraded with Rosalind, never thrilled when Cleopatra "again for Cydnos to meet Mark Antony" cries "Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me."

What would we do when surfeited with the company of those around us if we couldn't creep away and pa.s.s for a little while into the company of those immortals? What does it matter how tiresome and complacent people are when I am Orsino inviting the Clown to sing words the utter beauty of which bring the tears to my eyes:

"O fellow, come, the song we had last night: Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain: The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love, Like the old age."

One never comes to the end of the beauty. Only to-day, while I was browsing for a few minutes in a comedy I have not much acquaintance with, I happened on these lines, which I am going to write down merely for the pleasure of writing them:

"I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. I am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too little for pomp to enter: some that humble themselves may, but the many will be too chill and tender, and they'll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire."

A very pleasant thing about our present solitude is that one can read aloud or speak to oneself without risk of being thought demented. The fact is, the inhabitants of the little village on the outskirts of which we are camping regard us as so hopelessly and utterly mad already that no further display of eccentricity on our part could make any difference.

Even in the jungle there are servant troubles. Our cook, finding, I expect, this life too uneventful, intimated that his father was dying, and left last night. We thought we should have to go without dinner, but Autolycus, stepping gallantly into the breach said No, he would cook it; he had often cooked while with Colonel-M'Greegor-Sahib. The next we saw was a hen flying wildly, pursued by Autolycus, and in about half an hour it appeared on the table, its legs--still rather feathery--sticking protestingly from the dish. That was all there was for dinner except two breakfast-cups of muddy coffee.

... The dak came in a little while ago with the. English mail. I have just finished reading your letter. I think I know what you must feel about your book. It is sad to come to the end of a long and pleasant task--something finished you won't do again; a page of life closed.

I know. It scares me, too, how quickly things come to an end. We are hurrying on so, the years pa.s.s so quickly, that even a long life is a terribly short darg. Life is such a happy thing, one would like it to last. I was twenty-six yesterday, and if my soul were to say to me now, "_Finish, good lady, the bright day is over_," I would be most dreadfully sorry (and I would expect everyone else to be dreadfully sorry too; I'm afraid I would insist on a great moaning at the bar when I put out to sea); but I would have to admit that I have had a good time--a good, good time.

But I don't agree with you about the darkness of what comes after. How can it be dark when the Sun of Righteousness has arisen? I suppose it must be very difficult for clever people to believe, the wise and prudent who demand a reason for everything; but Christ said that in this the foolish things of the world would confound the wise. I am glad He said that. I am glad that sometimes the battle is to the weak.

At the crossing, "I sink," cried Christian, the strong man, "I sink in deep waters," but Much-Afraid went through the river singing, though none could understand what she said. I don't know that I could give you a reason for the hope that is in me (I speak as one of the "foolish things"), but this I know, that if we hold fast to the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, then, when the end comes, we shall be able to lay our heads down like children saying, _This night when I lie down to sleep_, in the sure and certain hope that when, having done with houses made with hands, we wake up in the House of Many Mansions, it will be what John Bunyan calls a "sunshine morning."

I shall have to stop writing, though lecturing you is a fascinating pastime, for the day is almost done, and Boggley will soon be home.

Autolycus, looking very worried, is busied with the task of preparing the evening meal. One of the _chupra.s.sis_, his gaudy uniform laid aside, and clad in a fragment of cotton, is sluicing himself with water and praying audibly. The _dhobi_ is beating our clothes white on stones in the tank. In the village the women are grinding corn; the oxen are drawing water from the well. The wood-smoke hangs in wisps on the hot air, and the song of the boys bringing home the cattle comes to me distinctly in the stillness. The sunset colours are fading into the deep blue of the Indian night, and the faithful are being called to prayer.

At home they are burning the whins on the hillsides, and the Loch o'

the Lowes lies steel-grey under the March sky.

THE LAND OF REGRETS

_Calcutta, April 1 (Monday_).

... The flesh-pots of Calcutta are wonderfully pleasant after jungly fare, and there is something rather nice about a big airy bedroom with a bathroom to correspond, hot water at will, and an _ayah_ to look after one's clothes, after the cramped s.p.a.ce of a tent, a zinc bath wiggling on an uneven floor, and Autolycus fumbling vaguely among one's belongings. I am staying with G. in her sister's, Mrs.

Townley's, very charming house. Boggley had to go off at once on another short tour, and I was only too pleased to come to this most comfortable habitation. It is nice to be with G. again, and she has lots to tell me about her doings--dances, garden-parties, picnics--all of which she has enjoyed thoroughly. All the same, I would rather have had my jungle experiences. She and her sister and brother-in-law laugh greatly at my tales. They regard me as an immense joke, I don't know why. I think myself I am rather a sensible, serious sort of person.

Mrs. Townley is the kindest woman. She has such a delightful way of making you feel that you are doing her the greatest favour by accepting her hospitality. I am not the only guest. A member of a nursing sisterhood--Sister Anna Margaret--is resting here for a few days. She wears clothes quite like a nun, but she is the cheeriest soul, with such contented eyes. She might be a girl, from the interest she takes in our doings and the way she laughs at our well-meant but not very witty fun.

Calcutta is very hot. The punkahs go all day--not the flapping kind of Mofussil punkahs, but things like bits of windmills fastened to poles.

I never like to sit or sleep exactly underneath one, they look so insecure; besides, they make one so untidy. At a dinner-party it is really dreadful to have the things flap-flapping above one's carefully done hair. My hair needs no encouragement to get untidy, and I have quite an Ophelia-like air before we get to the fish. It is too hot to go out much except very early in the morning and again after tea. We read and write and work till luncheon, then go to bed and try to sleep till tea-time. We waken hot and very cross, and it is the horridest thing to get up and get into a dress that seems to fasten with millions of hooks and b.u.t.tons. My old Bella is back with me, but she has found a mistress whose temper has shortened as the temperature has risen. Yesterday she fumbled so fastening my dress that I jumped round on her, stamped my foot, and said, "Bella, I shall slap you in a minute," She replied in such a reproving tone, "Oh! Missee Baba." Tea makes one feel better, and then there is tennis and a drive in the cool of the evening.

Mosquitoes are a great trial. They don't worry so much through the day, but at night--at night, when one with infinite care has examined the inside of the mosquito-curtains to make sure none are lurking, and then, satisfied, has dived into bed and tucked the curtain carefully round, and is just going off to sleep--buzz-z-z sounds the hateful thing, and all hope of a quiet night is gone. The other night I woke and found G. springing all over her bed like a kangaroo. At first I thought she had gone mad, dog-like, with the heat, but it turned out she was only stalking a mosquito.

Yesterday we all went--Mrs. Townley, Sister Anna Margaret, G., and I--to the Calcutta Zoo. We fed the monkeys with buns, watched the loathly little snakes crawl among the gra.s.s in their cages, and then G. began gratuitously to insult a large fierce tiger by poking at it with her sunshade.

It wasn't a kind thing to do, for it is surely bad enough to be caged without having a sunshade poked at one, and evidently the tiger thought so, for it lashed its tail and its roars shook the cage. We went home, and retribution followed swift and sure.

The first floor of the house consists of the drawing-room and two enormous bedrooms, one opening into the other, and both opening by several windows on to the verandah. Sister Anna Margaret is in one, G. and I in the other. We have two beds, but they are drawn close together and covered by a mosquito-curtain. Last night we went to bed in our usual gay spirits and fell asleep. It seemed to me that we were in the Zoo again and the tiger was fiercer than ever. It hit the bars with its great paw, and to my horror I saw that the bars were giving.

I ran, but it was too late. The beast was out of the cage and coming after me with great bounds. My legs went round in circles and made no progress, as legs do in dreams; the tiger sprang--and I woke. At first I lay quiet, too thankful to find myself in bed to think about anything else; then I sniffed.

"Olivia?" said G. "Do you notice it?"

"What?" I asked.

"That awful smell of Zoo."

Of course that was it. I had been wondering what was the curious smell. My first thought--an awful one--was that the tiger had actually broken loose, tracked us home, and was now under the bed waiting to devour us. There was nothing to hinder it but a mosquito-curtain! How I accomplished it, paralysed as I was with terror, I know not, but I took a flying leap and landed on G., hitting her nose with my head and clutching wildly at her brawny arms, much developed with tennis, as my only refuge.

She was too terrified to resent my intrusion.

"What do you think it is?" she whispered. "Hu-s-h, speak low. Perhaps it doesn't know there's anyone in the room."

"It's the tiger from the Zoo," I hissed with conviction.

G. started visibly. "Rubbish," she said. "A tiger wouldn't get into a house. Ah--oh, listen!"

Distinctly we heard the fud of four feet going round the bed.