Olivia in India Part 4

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.

_29th_.

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 Sat.u.r.day 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 subst.i.tute 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 pa.s.sed a little village on the river-bank with a temple and an idol on a mound. When we anch.o.r.ed in the afternoon two of the officers went on sh.o.r.e 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_.

_Calcutta, Dec. 2_.

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 att.i.tudes. 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-b.u.t.ter, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed bread-and-b.u.t.ter 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 Mem-sahibs, 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 pinch-beck wears off very soon. The Eastern sun reveals blemishes, moral and physical, that would pa.s.s 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 carriage, 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 sn.o.bs at heart.

Sn.o.bbery, 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 a.s.sail 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 cla.s.s 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.

_Calcutta, Dec. 10_.

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?"