Olivia in India Part 5

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. 1 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 s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 a.s.sure 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!

_Later_,

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 teta.n.u.s. 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 teta.n.u.s!"

The chemist gave us some permanganate of potash, and for the last hour I have been bathing the wrist, a.s.sisted 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?

_Dec. 19_.

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 n.o.ble, 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 a.s.sociated 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-pa.s.sengers, 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 b.a.l.l.s. I think it must be old age approaching, but I can't see any use in going off at the hour when, under happier circ.u.mstances, I would be thinking of bed, to a hot, crowded ballroom; and just at present Calcutta is simply congested with b.a.l.l.s. 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 cl.u.s.ters 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.s the time of day with each other.

Boggley tries to frighten me with tales of dak-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, a.s.sisted 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!

_Calcutta, Dec. 26_.