.dt The Simple Adventures Of A Memsahib, by Sara Jeannette Duncan—A\
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<I>BY THE SAME AUTHOR.</I>
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<B>A SOCIAL DEPARTURE</B>: <I>How Orthodocia
and I Went Round the World by Ourselves</I>.
With 111 Illustrations by <sc>F. H. Townsend</sc>.
12mo. Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.75.
.in 0

“Widely read and praised on both sides of the Atlantic and
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“A brighter, merrier, more entirely charming book would be,
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.sp 2
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<B>AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON.</B>
With 80 Illustrations by <sc>F. H. Townsend</sc>. 12mo.
Paper, 75 cents; cloth, $1.50.
.in 0
“One of the most naïve and entertaining books of the season.”—<I>New
York Observer.</I>

“The raciness and breeziness which made ‘A Social Departure,’
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D. APPLETON & CO., <sc>Publishers, New York</sc>.
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<s>THEY CAME IN LITTLE STRAGGLING STRINGS AND BANDS. #P 43:strings#.</s>
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[Illustration: THEY CAME IN LITTLE STRAGGLING STRINGS AND BANDS. P 43.]
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.h1
THE SIMPLE ADVENTURES OF A MEMSAHIB
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BY
<l>SARA JEANNETTE DUNCAN</l>

<s>AUTHOR OF
A SOCIAL DEPARTURE, AN AMERICAN GIRL IN LONDON, ETC.</s>


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY F. H. TOWNSEND
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[Illustration:Decoration]
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NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1893
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<sc>Copyright, 1893,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.</sc>


<sc>Electrotyped and Printed
at the Appleton Press, U. S. A.</sc>
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.h2
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
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They came in little straggling strings and bands | #Frontispiece:ifrontis#
Cups of tea | #3:i003#
Young Browne’s tennis | #5:i005#
Her new field of labour | #15:i015#
Aunt Plovtree | #19:i019#
Initial letter | #24:i024#
Initial letter | #49:i049#
Uncertain whether she ought to bow | #57:i057#
“It’s just the place for centipedes” | #63:i063#
Initial letter | #68:i068#
“A very worthy and hard-working sort” | #79:i079#
“What is this?” said Mrs. Browne | #87:i087#
Chua | #94:i094#
An accident disclosed them | #96:i096#
Mr. Sayter | #136:i136#
Mr. Sayter gave Mrs. Browne his arm | #138:i138#
Mrs. Lovitt | #151:i151#
Initial letter | #156:i156#
The ladies went most securely | #159:i159#
Initial letter | #168:i168#
Mr. Jonas Batcham, M. P. | #175:i175#
Three others much like himself | #187:i187#
A sudden indisposition | #191:i191#
Initial letter | #193:i193#
Their hats | #210:i210#
Initial letter | #214:i214#
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“Halma” | #222:i222#
Miss Josephine Lovitt | #225:i225#
Initial letter  |  #234:i234#
Mr. Week slept on a bench | #243:i243#
He stood upon one leg | #252:i252#
Initial letter | #260:i260#
Initial letter | #278:i278#
He asked nothing of the Brownes | #282:i282#
The snows | #291:i291#
“Liver complications—we all come to it” | #297:i297#
She has fallen into a way of crossing her knees in a low chair | #309:i309#
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<xl>THE SIMPLE ADVENTURES OF A MEMSAHIB.</xl>
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.h2
CHAPTER I.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
HELEN FRANCES BROWNE was formerly a Miss
Peachey. Not one of the Devonshire Peacheys—they
are quite a different family. This Miss Peachey’s father was a
clergyman, who folded his flock and his family in the town of
Canbury in Wilts, very nice people and well thought of, with
nice, well-thought-of connections, but nothing particularly aristocratic
amongst them, like the Devonshire Peacheys, and no beer.

The former Miss Peachey is now a memsahib of Lower Bengal.
As you probably know, one is not born a memsahib; the
dignity is arrived at later, through circumstances, processes, and
sometimes through foresight on the part of one’s mamma. It is
not so easy to obtain as it used to be. Formerly it was a mere
question of facilities for transportation, and the whole matter
was arranged, obviously and without criticism, by the operation
of the law of supply. The necessary six months’ tossing fortune
in a sailing ship made young ladies who were willing to undertake
it scarce and valuable, we hear. We are even given to understand
that the unclaimed remnant, the few standing over to
be more deliberately acquired, after the ball given on board for
the facilitation of these matters the night succeeding the ship’s
.bn 009.png
.pn +1
arrival in port, were held to have fallen short of what they reasonably
might have expected. But that was fifty years ago.
To-day Lower Bengal, in the cold weather, is gay with potential
memsahibs of all degrees of attraction, in raiment fresh from
Oxford Street, in high spirits, in excellent form for tennis, dancing,
riding, and full of a charmed appreciation of the “picturesqueness”
of India.

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<s>GOT MIDDLE-AGED LADIES OF WILTSHIRE CUPS OF TEA.</s>
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[Illustration: GOT MIDDLE-AGED LADIES OF WILTSHIRE CUPS OF TEA.]
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They come from the East and from the West, and from school
in Germany. They come to make the acquaintance of their
Anglo-Indian fathers and mothers, to teach the Bible and plain
sewing in the Zenanas, to stay with a married sister, to keep
house for a brother who is in the Department of Police. In the
hot weather a proportion migrate northward, to Darjeeling, or
Simla, in the Hills, but there are enough in our midst all the
year round to produce a certain coy hesitancy and dalliance on the
part of pretending bachelors, augmented by the consideration of
all that might be done in England in three months’ “Privilege”
leave. Young Browne was an example of this. There was no
doubt that young Browne was tremendously attracted by Miss
Pellington—Pellington, Scott & Co., rice and coolies chiefly, a
very old firm—down from the Hills for her second cold weather,
and only beginning to be faintly spoilt, when it so happened
that his furlough fell due. He had fully intended to “do Switzerland
this time,” but Canbury, with tennis every Wednesday
afternoon at the Rectory, and Helen Peachey playing there in
blue and white striped flannel, pink cheeks and a sailor hat,
was so much more interesting than he had expected it to be,
that Switzerland was gradually relegated five years into the
future. After tennis there was always tea in the drawing-room,
and Helen, in the pretty flush of her exertions, poured it out.
Just at first, young Browne did not quite know which he appreciated most,
.bn 010.png
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Helen who poured it out, or the neat little maid
in cap and apron who brought it in—it was so long since he had
seen tea brought in by anything feminine in cap and apron; but
after a bit the little maid sank to her proper status of consideration,
and Helen was left supreme. And Helen Peachey’s tennis,
for grace and muscularity, was certainly a thing to see, young
.bn 011.png
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Browne thought. She played in tournaments while he stood by
in immaculate whites with an idle racquet, and got middle-aged
ladies of Wiltshire cups of tea; but she was not puffed up about
this, and often condescended to be his partner on the Rectory
lawn against the two younger Misses Peachey. It made the
best sett that way, for young Browne’s tennis fluctuated from
indifferent bad to indifferent worse, and the younger Misses
Peachey were vigorous creatures, and gave Helen all she could
do to win with her handicap.

Mr. Browne—we must really get into the way of giving him
his title—was not naturally prone to depression, rather the reverse;
but when the two Misses Peachey came off victorious he
used to be quite uncomfortably gloomy for a time. Once I
know, when he had remarked apologetically to Helen that he
hoped she would have a better partner next time, and she absent-mindedly
returned, “I hope so indeed!” his spirits went
down with a run and did not rise again until somebody who
overheard, chaffed Helen about her blunder and produced gentle
consternation and a melting appeal for pardon. That was at a
very advanced stage of these young people’s relations, long after
everybody but themselves knew exactly what would happen, and
what did happen in the course of another week. It was a
triviality, it would have had no place in our consideration of
the affairs of a young man and woman who fell in love according
to approved analytical methods, with subtle silent scruples
and mysterious misunderstandings, in the modern way. I introduce
it on its merits as a triviality, to indicate that George William
Browne and Helen Frances Peachey arrived at a point
where they considered themselves indispensable to each other
in the most natural, simple, and unimpeded manner. I will go
so far as to say that if Helen had not been there—if she had
.bn 012.png
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spent the summer with an aunt in Hampshire, as was at one
time contemplated—one of the other Misses Peachey might have
.bn 013.png
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inspired this chronicle. But that is risking a good deal, I know,
at the hands of the critics, and especially perhaps at Helen’s.
After all, what I want to state is merely the felicitous engagement,
in July of a recent year, of Mr. Browne and Miss Peachey.
Two tender months later, Mr. Browne sailed for India again,
with a joyful conviction that he had done well to come home,
that somewhat modified his natural grief. Helen remained behind
for various reasons, chiefly connected with the financial
future of the Browne family, and the small part of Calcutta
interested in young Browne found occupation for a few days in
wondering what Miss Pellington would have said if he had proposed
to her. There was no doubt as to the point that he did
not. Calcutta is always accurately informed upon such matters.

.if h
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<s>YOUNG BROWNE’S TENNIS FLUCTUATED FROM INDIFFERENT BAD TO\
INDIFFERENT WORSE.</s>
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[Illustration: YOUNG BROWNE’S TENNIS FLUCTUATED FROM INDIFFERENT\
BAD TO INDIFFERENT WORSE.]
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The dreary waste of a year and four thousand miles that lay
between Miss Peachey and the state of memsahibship was relieved
and made interesting in the usual way by the whole
Peachey family. You know what I mean, perhaps, without
details. Miss Kitty Peachey “etched” Kate Greenway figures
on the corners of table napkins, Miss Julia Peachey wrought the
monogram P. M. in the centre of pillow-shams with many frills,
their Aunt Plovtree, widow of a prominent physician of Canbury,
at once “gave up her time” to the adornment of Helen’s
future drawing-room in Kensington stitch, and Mrs. Peachey
spent many hours of hers in the composition of letters to people
like John Noble, holding general councils over the packets of
patterns that came by return of post. Mrs. Peachey was much
occupied also in receiving the condolences of friends upon so
complete a separation from her daughter, but I am bound to say
that she accepted them with a fair show of cheerfulness. Mrs.
Peachey declared that she would wait until the time came before
she worried. As to both the wild animals and the climate she
.bn 014.png
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understood that they were very much exaggerated, and, indeed,
on account of Helen’s weak throat, she was quite in hopes the
heat might benefit her. And really nowadays, India wasn’t so
very far away after all, was it? It was difficult, however, even
with arguments like these, to reconcile the Canbury ladies to the
hardship of Helen’s fate, especially those with daughters of their
own who had escaped it. Helen listened to the condolences with
bright eyes and a spot of pink on each cheek. They brought her
tender pangs sometimes, but, speaking generally, I am afraid she
liked them.

In six months it was positively time to begin to see about the
trousseau, because, as Mrs. Plovtree very justly remarked, it was
not like getting the child ready to be married in England, where
one would know from a pin or a button exactly what she wanted;
in the case of Indian trousseaux everything had to be thought
out and considered and time allowed to get proper advice in.
For instance, there was that very thing they were talking about
yesterday—that idea of getting Jaeger all through for Helen.
It seemed advisable, but who knew <i>definitely</i> whether it was!
And if there <i>was</i> an unsatisfactory thing in Mrs. Plovtree’s
opinion it was putting off anything whatever, not to speak of an
important matter like this, till the last moment.

The event redounded to the wisdom of Mrs. Plovtree, as
events usually did. It took the Peachey family quite six months
to collect reliable information and construct a trousseau for
Helen out of it; six months indeed, as Mrs. Peachey said, seemed
too little to give to it. They collected a great deal of information.
Mrs. Peachey wrote to everybody she knew who had ever
been in India or had relations there, and so did several friends of
the Peacheys, and the results could not have been more gratifying
either in bulk or in variety. As their Aunt Plovtree said,
.bn 015.png
.pn +1
they really could not have asked for more, indeed they would
have had less difficulty in making up their minds without quite
so much. “<i>Do</i> be advised,” one lady wrote, with impressive underlinings,
“and let her take as little as she can <i>possibly</i> do with.
It is impossible to keep good dresses in India, the climate is
simple <i>ruination</i> to them. I shall never forget the first year of
my married life on that account. It was a <i>heart-breaking</i> experience,
and I <i>do</i> hope that Helen may avoid it. Besides, the
<i>durzies</i>, the native dressmakers, will copy <i>anything</i>, and do it
<i>wonderfully</i> well, at about a fifth of the price one pays at home.”
Which read very convincingly. By the same post a second
cousin of Mrs. Plovtree’s wrote, “If you ask me, I should say
make a special point of having everything in reasonable abundance.
The European shops ask frightful prices, the natives
are always unsatisfactory, and your niece will find it very inconvenient
to send to England for things. My plan was to buy as
little as possible in India, and lay in supplies when we came
home on leave!”

“In the face of that,” said Mrs. Plovtree, “what are we to
do?”

Ladies wrote that Helen would require as warm a wardrobe
as in England; the cold might not be so great but she
would “feel it more.” She must take her furs, by all means.
They wrote also that when they were in India, they wore nothing
more substantial than nun’s veiling, and a light jacket the
year round. They gave her intense directions about her shoes
and slippers—it was impossible to get nice ones in India—they
were made very well and cheaply in the “China bazar”—they
lasted for ever if one took care of them—they were instantly
destroyed by mould and cockroaches when “the rains” came
on. She would require a size larger than usual, on account of
.bn 016.png
.pn +1
the heat; she must remember to take a size smaller because she
would use her feet so little that they would decrease somewhat,
everybody’s did. She must bear one thing in mind, they were
quite two years behind the fashion in India, so that it would be
advisable to date her garments back a little, not to be remarkable.
In another opinion there was this advantage, that in taking
a fashionable trousseau to India, one could rely upon its
being the correct thing for at least two years. The directions in
flannel, and cotton, and linen, were too complicated for precise
detail, but they left equal freedom of choice. And choice was
difficult, because these ladies were all ex-memsahibs, retired
after fifteen, twenty, or twenty-five years’ honourable service, all
equally qualified to warn and to instruct, and equally anxious to
do it. They had lived in somewhat different localities in India,
ranging from seven to seven thousand feet above the level of the
sea, in the Northwest provinces, in the Punjab, in Southern
India, in Beluchistan, and none of them had spent more than an
occasional “cold weather” in Calcutta, but this triviality escaped
the attention of the Peachey family, in dealing with the matter.
India, to their imagination, was incapable of subdivision, a vast
sandy area filled with heathen and fringed with cocoanut trees,
which drew a great many young Englishmen away from their
homes and their families for some occult purpose connected with
drawing pay in rupees. So the Peacheys put these discrepancies
down to the fact that people had such different ideas, and proceeded
to arrange Helen’s trousseau upon a modification of all
of them. When this was quite done Mrs. Plovtree remarked
with some surprise that with the addition of a few muslin frocks,
the child had been fitted out almost exactly as if she were going
to live in England. There was the wedding dress, which she
might or might not wear upon the occasion, it would be indispensable
.bn 017.png
.pn +1
<i>after</i>wards; there was the travelling dress chosen primarily
not to “take the dust” and secondarily not to show it;
two or three gowns of incipient dignity for dinner parties; two
or three more of airier sorts for balls—but at this point I must
refer you to the ladies’ papers. Turn over a few of their pages
and you will see Helen’s trousseau illustrated with skill and
imagination, but with trains, I am bound to add, more prehensile
than Helen ever wore, the habit of the Peachey family
being to follow the fashions at a safe and unaggressive distance.
Among the photographs of the brides which accompany you
may even find one fairly like Helen. These young ladies have
always struck me as bearing a charmingly subdued resemblance
to one another, probably induced by the similarly trying conditions
under which their portraits are published. And certainly
in the lists of presents appended you will find many, if not all
of those that the Rev. Peachey packed with his own clerical
hands in large wooden boxes, for consignment to the P. and O.,
indeed I fancy a discriminating inspection of the advertisements
would reveal most of them. As the Rev. Peachey himself would
say, I need not go into that.

Helen was the first bride that Canbury had contributed to
India, in the social memory. Two or three young men had
gone forth to be brokers’ assistants or civil servants or bank
clerks, and an odd red-coat turned up periodically in the lower
stratum of society on furlough, bringing many-armed red and
yellow idols to its female relatives; but Canbury had no feminine
connections with India, the only sort which are really
binding. Helen’s engagement had an extrinsic interest therefore,
as well as the usual kind, and Canbury made the most of
it. There was the deplorable fact, to begin with, that she could
not be married at home. Canbury gave a dubious assent to its
.bn 018.png
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necessity; everybody had a dim understanding of the exigencies
of “leave,” and knew the theory that such departures from the
orthodox and usual form of matrimonial proceeding were common
and unavoidable. Yet in its heart and out of the Peachey
and Plovtree earshot, Canbury firmly dissented, not without
criticism. Would anybody tell it why they had not gone out
together last year? On the face of it, there could be no question
of saving. The young man was not in debt, and received a
salary of five hundred pounds a year—had not Mr. Peachey’s
curate married Jennie Plovtree a month after they were engaged
on two hundred, and no expectations whatever! Or why, since
they had made up their minds to wait, could they not have put
it off another year! Surely in two years Mr. Browne might
scrape enough together to come home again! Canbury thought
it possessed a slight opinion of a young man who could not come
after his wife. Privately Canbury upheld the extremest traditions
of chivalry, and various among Miss Peachey’s young lady
friends, quite unconscious of fibbing, confided to each other that
“they wouldn’t be in Helen’s place for anything.” In the
rectory drawing-room, however, these stringencies took a smiling
face and a sympathetic form, sometimes disappearing altogether
in the exaltation of the subject’s general aspects. Helen was
told it was very “brave” of her, and Mrs. Peachey was admired
for her courage in letting her daughter go. At which she and
Helen smiled into each other’s eyes understandingly. Then
Canbury began to search the aforesaid advertisements in the
ladies’ papers for mementoes suitable in character and price,
and to send them to the rectory with as hearty wishes for the
happiness of the future Brownes as if they had behaved properly
in every respect.
.bn 019.png
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.h2
CHAPTER II.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
TO Mrs. Peachey, one very consoling circumstance connected
with Helen’s going to India was the good she would probably
be able to do to “those surrounding her.” Helen had always
been “active” at home; she had been the inspiration of
work-parties, the life and soul of penny-readings. She often
took the entire superintendence of the night school. The Canbury
branch of the Y. W. C. T. U. did not know how it should
get on without her. Besides playing the organ of St. Stephen’s,
in which, however, another Miss Peachey was by this time ready
to succeed her. Much as Mrs. Peachey and the parish would
miss Helen, it was a sustaining thought that she was going
amongst those whose need of her was so much greater than
Canbury’s. Mrs. Peachey had private chastened visions, chiefly
on Sunday afternoons, of Helen in her new field of labor. Mrs.
Peachey was not destitute of imagination, and she usually pictured
Helen seated under a bread-fruit tree in her Indian
garden, dressed in white muslin, teaching a circle of little
“blacks” to read the Scriptures. Helen was so successful with
children; and so far as being tempted to its ultimate salvation
with goodies was concerned, a black child was probably just like
a white one. Of course, Helen would have to adapt her inducements
to circumstances—it was not likely that a little Bengali
could be baited with a Bath bun. Doubtless she would have to
offer them rice or—what else was it they liked so much?—oh
.bn 020.png
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yes! sugar-cane. Over the form of these delicacies Mrs. Peachey
usually went to sleep, to dream of larger schemes of heathen
emancipation which Helen should inaugurate. Mr. Peachey,
who knew how hard the human heart could be, even in Canbury,
among an enlightened people enjoying all the blessings of
the nineteenth century, was not so sanguine. He said he believed
these Hindus were very subtle-minded, and Helen was not
much at an argument. He understood they gave able theologians
very hard nuts to crack. Their ideas were entirely different
from ours, and Helen would be obliged to master their ideas
before effecting any very radical change in them. He was afraid
there would be difficulties.

Mrs. Plovtree settled the whole question. Helen was not
going out as a missionary, except in so far as that every woman
who married undertook the charge of <i>one</i> heathen, and she
could not expect to jump into work of that sort all at once. Besides,
the people were so difficult to get at, all shut up in
zenanas and places. And she did not know the language; first
of all, she would have to conquer the language; not that it would
take Helen long, for see what she did in French and German at
school in less than a year! For her part, she would advise
Helen to try to do very little at first—to begin, say, with her
own servants; she would have a number of them, and they
would be greatly under her personal influence and control. Mrs.
Plovtree imparted an obscure idea of Helen’s responsibility for
the higher welfare of her domestics, and a more evident one
that it would be rather a good thing to practice on them, that
they would afford convenient and valuable material for experiments.
In all of which Mrs. Peachey thoughtfully acquiesced,
though in fancy she still allowed herself to picture Helen leading
in gentle triumph a train of Rajahs to the bosom of the
.bn 021.png
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Church—a train of nice Rajahs, clean and savoury. That, as I
have said, was always on Sunday afternoons. On the secular
days of the week they discussed other matters, non-spiritual, and
personal, to which they were able to bring more definiteness of
perspective, and they found a great deal to say.

.if h
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<s>MRS. PEACHEY HAD PRIVATE CHASTENED VISIONS, CHIEFLY ON SUNDAY\
AFTERNOONS, OF HELEN IN HER NEW FIELD OF LABOUR.</s>
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[Illustration: MRS. PEACHEY HAD PRIVATE CHASTENED VISIONS,\
CHIEFLY ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS, OF HELEN IN HER NEW FIELD OF LABOUR.]
.if-

A friend of young Browne’s had gone home opportunely on
six months’ leave, and his recently acquired little wife would be
“delighted,” she said, to wreak her new-found dignity upon
Helen in the capacity of chaperone for the voyage out. But for
this happy circumstance, Helen’s transportation would have presented
a serious difficulty, for the Peacheys were out of the way
of knowing the ever-flowing and returning tide of Anglo-Indians
that find old friends at Cheltenham and take lodgings in Kensington,
and fill their brief holiday with London theatres and
shopping. As it was, there was great congratulation among
the Peacheys, and they hastened to invite Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald
to spend a short time at the rectory before the day on
which the ship sailed. Mrs. Macdonald was extremely sorry that
they couldn’t come; nothing would have given them more pleasure,
but they had so many engagements with old friends of her
husband’s, and the time was getting so short and they had such
a quantity of things to do in London before they sailed, that—the
Peacheys must resign themselves to disappointment. Mrs.
Macdonald hoped that they would all meet on board the <i>Khedive</i>,
but held out very faint hopes of making acquaintance
sooner than that. It was a bright agreeable letter as the one or
two that came before had been, but it left them all in a difficulty
to conjure up Mrs. Macdonald, and unitedly they lamented the
necessity. What Mr. Macdonald was like, as Mrs. Plovtree observed,
being of no consequence whatever. But it was absolute,
and not until the <i>Khedive</i> was within an hour of weighing anchor
.bn 022.png
.pn +1
.bn 023.png
.pn +1
at the Royal Albert Docks, did the assembled Peacheys, forlorn
on the main deck in the midst of Helen’s boxes, get a
glimpse of Mrs. Macdonald. Then it was brief. One of the
stewards pointed out the Peachey group to a very young lady in a
very tight-fitting tailor-made dress, swinging an ulster over her
arm, who approached them briskly with an outstretched hand and
a business-like little smile. “I think you must be Mr. and Mrs.
Peachey,” she said; “I am Mrs. Macdonald. And where is the
young lady?” Mr. Peachey unbent the back of his neck in the
clerical manner, and Mrs. Peachey indicated Helen as well as she
could in the suffusion of the moment, taking farewell counsels of
her sisters with pink eyelids. “But you mustn’t <i>mind</i> her going,
Mrs. Peachey!” Mrs. Macdonald went on vivaciously, shaking
hands with the group, “she will be sure to like it. Everybody
likes it. <i>I</i> am devoted to India! She’ll soon get accustomed
to everything, and then she won’t want to come home—that’s
the way it was with me. I dare say you won’t believe it,
but I’m dying to get back! You’ve seen your cabin?” she demanded
of Helen, “is it forward or aft? Are you port or starboard?”

The Peacheys opened their eyes respectfully at this nautical
proficiency, and Helen said she was afraid she didn’t
know, it was down some stairs and one turned to the left,
toward the end of a long passage, and then to the right into a
little corner.

“Oh, then you’re starboard and a little forward of the
engines!” Mrs. Macdonald declared. “Very lucky you are!
You’ll have your port open far oftener than we will—we’re
weather-side and almost directly over the screw. So much for
not taking one’s passage till three weeks before sailing—and
very fortunate we were to get one at all, the agent said. We
.bn 024.png
.pn +1
have the place to ourselves though, one can generally manage
that by paying for it you know—one comfort! How many in
your cabin?”

“Three of us!” Helen responded apprehensively, “and it <i>is</i>
such a little one! And the one whose name is Stitch has piled
all her rugs and portmanteaux on my bed, and there’s nowhere
to put mine!”

“Oh, the cabins in this ship are not small,” returned Mrs.
Macdonald with seriousness. “She’s got a heavy cargo and
they’re pretty low in the water, if you like, but they’re not small.
Wait till you get used to it a little. As to Madam Stitch, just
pop her bags and things on the floor—don’t hesitate a moment.
One <i>must</i> assert one’s rights on shipboard—it’s positively the
only way! But there are some people to see me off—I must
fly!” She gave them a brisk nod and was on the wing to her
friends when Mrs. Peachey put a hand on her arm. “You
spoke of the ship’s being low in the water, Mrs. Macdonald.
You don’t think—you don’t think there is any danger on that
account?”

Little Mrs. Macdonald stopped to enjoy her laugh. “Oh
dear, no!” she said with vast amusement, “rather the other
way I should think—and we’ll be a great deal steadier for it!”
Then she went, and the Peacheys saw her in the confused
distance babbling as gaily in the midst of her new-comers as
if a thought of the responsibilities of chaperonage had never
entered her head.

“Helen, I believe you are older than she is!” exclaimed
the youngest Miss Peachey.

“I don’t like her,” remarked the second succinctly. “She
giggles and she gabbles. Helen, I wish some of <i>us</i> were going
with you.”
.bn 025.png
.pn +1

“She doesn’t seem to mind travelling,” said the Miss
Peachey with the prospective claim to the title.

“Dear <i>me</i>, Helen!” began Mrs. Peachey almost dolorously,
“she—she seems very bright,” changing her comment. After
all they must make the best of it. The Rev. Peachey clasped
his stick behind his back, and tapped the deck with it, saying
nothing, with rather a pursing of his wide shaven lips, Helen
looked after Mrs. Macdonald helplessly, and her family exchanged
glances in which that lady might have read depreciation.

“Your roll-up, Helen?” exclaimed Mrs. Peachey.

“Here, mamma.”

“You have seven small pieces, remember! <i>Have</i> you got
your keys? Are you sure you are dressed warmly enough? It
will be some time before you get to India, you know!” Mrs.
Peachey had suffered an accession of anxiety in the last ten
minutes.

They stood looking at each other in the common misery of
coming separation, casting about for last words and finding
none of any significance, for people do not anticipate an event
for a whole year without exhausting themselves on the topic
of it. Helen would keep a little diary; she would post it at
Gibraltar, Naples, Port Said, and Colombo; and they were to
write overland to Naples, and by the next mail to Calcutta,
which would reach before she did. These time-worn arrangements
were made over again. Helen thought of a last affectionate
message to her Aunt Plovtree and was in the act of
wording it, when a steward with a yellow envelope inquired of
them for “any lady by the name of Peachey.” The contents
of the yellow envelope had telegraphic brevity. “Good-bye and
God bless you! J. Plovtree.” Helen read, and immediately
.bn 026.png
.pn +1
took out her handkerchief again. “Just like Jane!” said Mrs.
Peachey, sadly, with her eyes full, and Mr. Peachey, to cover
his emotion read aloud the hours at which the message had
been received and delivered.
“Forty-two minutes” he announced
“fairly quick!”
Helen proposed a walk on the
quarter-deck. “The luggage,
my dear child!” Mrs. Peachey
cried. “We mustn’t leave
the luggage, with all these
people about! James, dear,
it would not be safe to leave
the luggage, would it! You
and the girls may go, Helen.
Your father and I will stay
here.”

.if h
.il fn=i_019.jpg w=244px id=i019
.ca
<s>AUNT PLOVTREE.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: AUNT PLOVTREE.]
.if-

“Oh, no!” Helen returned
reproachfully, and
clung to them all.

The crowd on the deck
increased and grew noisier,
people streamed up and down
the wide gangway. Cabin
luggage came rattling down
in cabs, perilously late, the
arm of the great steam-crane
swung load after load high in
air and lowered it into the hold, asserting its own right of
way. “That’s one of your tin-lined boxes, Helen,” exclaimed
Mrs. Peachey, intent on the lightening of the last load, “and
.bn 027.png
.pn +1
oh, I’m <i>sure</i> it is not safe, dear! James won’t you <i>call</i> to
them that it is not safe!” But the long deal case with “<sc>Miss
Peachey, Calcutta</sc>,” in big black letters on it was already
describing an arc over the heads of the unwary, and as it
found its haven Mrs. Peachey made a statement of excited relief,
“I never saw such carelessness!” said she.

A number of ladies, dressed a good deal alike, arrived upon
the deck in company and took up a position near the forward
part of the ship, where the second class passengers were gathered
together, producing little black books. From these they began
to sing with smiling faces and great vigour, various hymns, with
sentiments appropriate to long voyages, danger, and exile from
home. It was a parting attention from their friends to a number
of young missionaries for Burmah, probably designed to
keep up their spirits. The hymns were not exclusively of any
church or creed—Moody and Sankey contributed as many of
them as the <i>Ancient and Modern</i>, but they were all lustily emotional
and befitting the occasion to the most unfortunate degree.
The departing missionaries stood about in subdued
groups and tried to wave their handkerchiefs. One or two
young lady missionaries found refuge in their cabins where they
might sob comfortably. The notes rang high and bathed the
whole ship in elegy, plaintively fell and reveled in the general
wreck of spirits and affectation of hilarity. It began to rain
a little, but the ladies were all provided with umbrellas, and
under them sang on.

.pm verse-start
“While the nearer waters roll,
 While the tempest still is high.”
.pm verse-end

“What idiots they are!” remarked the youngest plain-spoken
Miss Peachey when it became impossible to ignore the
.bn 028.png
.pn +1
effect upon Helen’s feelings any longer. “As if they couldn’t
find anything else to sing than <i>that</i>!”

“Oh, my <i>dear</i>,” rebuked Mrs. Peachey, drying her eyes, “we
may be sure that their motive is everything that is good.”
Whereat the youngest Miss Peachey, unsubdued, muttered “<i>Motive!</i>”

“H’all this for the cabin, miss?” asked a steward, grasping
a hat-box and a portmanteau. “I don’t <i>quite</i> know ‘ow that
there <i>long</i> box is a-going in, miss. Is it accordin’ to the Company’s
regillations, miss?” Mr. Peachey interposed, with dignity,
and said that it was—the precise measurements. It came
from the Army and Navy Stores, he was quite sure the size was
correct. The man still looked dubious, but when Helen said,
regardless of measurements, that she must have it, that it contained
nearly everything she wanted for the voyage, he shouldered
it without further dissent. He was accustomed to this
ultimatum of seafaring ladies, and bowed to it.

Mrs. Peachey began to think that they ought to go down to
the cabin and stay beside the luggage, there were so many odd-looking
people about; but she succumbed to the suggestion of
being carried off; and they all went up on the quarter-deck.
Mrs. Macdonald was there—they might see something more of
Mrs. Macdonald. They clung to the hope.

They did see something more of Mrs. Macdonald—a little.
She interrupted herself and her friends long enough to approach
the Peacheys and ask if all Helen’s luggage was on board, “wedding
presents and all?” jocularly. Mrs. Peachey replied fervently
that she hoped so, and Mrs. Macdonald said, Oh, that was
all right then, and Was she a good sailor? Oh, well, she would
soon get over it. And oh, by the by—departing to her beckoning
friends again—it was all right about their seats at table—Miss
.bn 029.png
.pn +1
Peachey was to sit by them—she had seen the head steward
and he said there would be no difficulty. Having thus reassured
them, “I’ll see you again,” said Mrs. Macdonald, and
noddingly departed.

The first whistle shrilled and bellowed, and a parting stir responded
to it all over the ship. Mrs. Peachey looked agitated,
and laid a hand on Helen’s arm. “There is no cause for haste,
mamma,” said the Rev. Peachey, looking at his watch. “We
have still twenty minutes, and there is a quantity of freight yet
to be got on board.” The missionary ladies began a new hymn,

.pm verse-start
“Oh, think of the friends over there!”
.pm verse-end

“Only twenty minutes, my love! Then I think we ought
really to be getting off! My darling child——”

The whistle blew again stertorously, and the gangway began
to throng with friends of the outward-bound. The dear, tender,
human-hearted Peacheys clustered about the girl they were giving
up—the girl who was going from their arms and their fireside
an infinite distance, to a land of palm-trees and yams, to
marry—and what a lottery marriage was!—a young Browne.
They held her fast, each in turn. “I almost w-wish I w-weren’t
go—” sobbed Helen in her mother’s embraces. “Helen!” said
the youngest Miss Peachey sternly, with a very red nose, “you
do <i>nothing of the sort</i>! You’re only too pleased and proud to
go, and so should I be in your place!” Which rebuke revived
Helen’s loyalty to her Browne if it did not subdue the pangs
with which she hugged her sister.

At last the gangway was withdrawn and all the Peacheys
were on the other side of it. It rained faster, the missionary
ladies still sang on, people called last words to their friends in
the damp crowd below. A box of sweets was thrown to a young
.bn 030.png
.pn +1
lady on the main deck—it dropped into the black water between
the ship and the wharf and was fished out with great excitement.
The Peacheys gathered in a knot under their several
umbrellas, and Helen stood desolately by herself watching them,
now and then exchanging a watery smile. They cast off the
ropes, the Lascars skipped about like monkeys, the crowd stood
back, slowly the great ship slipped away from the wharf into the
river, and as she moved down stream the crowd ran with her a
little way, drowning the missionary ladies with hurrahs. In the
Peacheys’ last glimpse of their Helen she was standing beside
little Mrs. Macdonald and a stout gentleman with a pale face,
rather flabby and deeply marked about the mouth and under the
eyes—a gentleman whom nature had intended to be fair but
whom climatic conditions had darkened in defiance of the intention.
Mrs. Macdonald tapped the gentleman in a sprightly way
with her parasol, for the Peacheys’ benefit, and he took off his
hat. The Peachey family supposed, quite correctly, that that
must be Mr. Macdonald.
.bn 031.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER III.
.sp 2
<target id=i024>
.di i_024.jpg 300 615 1.2
HELEN thought the prospect
of England slipping away
from her in the rain as the ship
throbbed down the river, too desolate
for endurance, so she descended
to her cabin with the unavowed
intention of casting herself
upon her berth to weep. Miss
Stitch was there, however, and Mrs.
Forsyth-Jones, who occupied the
berth above Miss Stitch’s, and the
steward, which seemed to
Helen a good many, and she
retreated.

“Oh, come in!” both the
ladies cried; but Helen
thought it was obviously impossible.
She wandered into
the long dining-saloon and
sat down in one of the revolving
chairs; she watched
a fat ayah patting a baby to
sleep on the floor, looked into the ladies’ cabin and went hastily
out again, for already the dejected had begun to gather there,
.bn 032.png
.pn +1
prone on the sofas and commiserated by the stewardesses.
Finally she made her way upon deck again, meeting Mrs. Macdonald
in the companion-way. “Are you all right?” asked
Mrs. Macdonald cheerfully; but, before Helen had time to say
that she was or was not, the lady had disappeared.

The deck was full of irresolute people like herself, who sat
about on the damp benches or walked up and down under the
awning, still with the look of being fresh from town, still in
gloves and stiff hats, and land-faring garments. They put
their hands in their pockets and shivered, and looked askance
at each other, or made vain attempts to extract their own from
the steamer chairs that were heaped up astern, waiting the
offices of a quartermaster. An occasional hurrying steward
was stopped a dozen times by passengers thirsting for information.
Barefooted Lascars climbed about their monkey-like business
among the ropes, or polished the brasses on the smoking-cabin,
or holystoned a deck which seemed to Helen immaculately
clean before. She found a dry corner and sat down in it
to consider how much more familiar with the ship many of the
people seemed to be than she was, and to envy all the accustomed
ones. It seemed to Helen that she had better not analyse
her other emotions. She wasn’t comfortable, but no doubt she
soon would be; she wasn’t cheerful; but how could anybody
expect that? She was restless and damp and unhappy, and it
finally became necessary for her to draw young Browne’s photograph
out of her hand-bag and peruse it in shelter of the <i>Daily
Graphic</i> for a very long time. After which her spirits rose
appreciably. “He <i>is</i> a dear!” she smiled to herself, “and he’s
got a lovely forehead—and in just five weeks I shall see him
again—just five weeks!”

Quite an ordinary reflection you see, without a shade of
.bn 033.png
.pn +1
subtlety, a reflection probably common to engaged young ladies
the world over; but I have already warned you under no circumstances
to expect anything extraordinary from Helen. It will
be my fault if you find her dull, I shall be in that case no faithful
historian, but a traducer. I have not known the present
Mrs. Browne to be dull, even at the close of a protracted round
of Indian social gaieties; but you must not expect her to be
original.

The voyage to Calcutta began in this way, and I happen to
know that its chief feature of consolation—young Browne’s
forehead—remained in Helen’s pocket, and was constantly bespoken.
Especially perhaps in the Bay of Biscay, which fulfilled
all its traditions for her benefit. I fear that there were
moments, tempestuous moments, in the Bay of Biscay, heightened
by the impassioned comments of Miss Stitch and Mrs.
Forsyth-Jones, when Helen did not dare to dwell upon the
comparative advantages of desiccated spinsterhood in Canbury,
and matrimony in foreign parts attainable only by sea. She
felt that it would be indiscreet, that she could not trust her
conclusions to do credit to her fealty. If it were not for Miss
Stitch and Mrs. Forsyth-Jones, Helen reflected, the horrors of
the situation would have been less keen; but I have no doubt
that each of these ladies entertained the same sentiments towards
her two fellow-voyagers. They united, however, in extolling
the steward. The stewardess was a necessarily perfunctory person,
with the quaverings of forty ladies in her ears at once.
The stewardess was always sure she “didn’t know, ma’am,” and
seemed to think it was a duty one owed the ship to go up on
deck, no matter how one felt. She was also occasionally guilty
of bringing one cold vegetables, if one occurred about thirty-ninth
upon her list of non-diners in public. But the steward
.bn 034.png
.pn +1
was a man, and always respectfully cheerful. He could tell
exactly why it was the ship rolled in that peculiar manner—owing
to the disposition of iron in the hold. He knew just
how long they would be in “the Bay,” and what sort of weather
“she” would be likely to experience during the night; also
could predict within a quarter of an hour, the time at which
they would land at Gibraltar. He was generally incorrect in
every particular, but that made no difference to the value of
his sanguine prophecies, while it mitigated the distressful effects
of his gloomy ones. And it was always he who brought the
first advice that the ports might be opened, who calmed all
fear of a possible rat or cockroach “coming up from the hold,”
and who heralded the ladies’ appearance on deck with armfuls
of rugs, in the days of early convalescence. They chanted to
one another continually how “nice” he was, and how hard he
was obliged to work, poor fellow, each mentally determining a
higher figure for her farewell tip than she had thought of the
day before. This is the custom of ladies the world over who
sail upon the seas.

It must be mentioned that Mrs. Macdonald visited Helen’s
cabin several times in the Bay of Biscay. For her part Mrs.
Macdonald was never ill, she simply made up her mind not to
be, and in her opinion if Helen would only commit herself to a
similar effort she would be all right immediately. The expression
of this opinion rather lessened the value of Mrs. Macdonald’s
sympathy; and the announcement that there was really
lovely weather going on above and the ship was beginning to be
so jolly, failed to make Helen any more comfortable. “Well,
you are funny!” Mrs. Macdonald would say cheerfully in departing,
and she said it every day.

Mr. Macdonald remarked that Gibraltar looked much as usual
.bn 035.png
.pn +1
the morning they steamed under its hostile shadow, and Mrs.
Macdonald said that if she wasn’t in absolute need of some darning
cotton and letter-paper she wouldn’t think of going ashore—the
place was such an old story. The consideration of darning
cotton prevailed, however, and the Macdonalds went ashore,
Helen with them. Helen’s acquaintance with the Macdonalds
had progressed meanwhile. She had learned what not to expect
of them, which excluded all but the gayest and airiest and most
indifferent companionship, and this facilitated matters between
them considerably. It was a little difficult at first. It seemed
to this young lady from Wiltshire, brought up among serious
traditions of matrimony, that her case, if not herself, ought to
be taken a little more importantly; that some impression of the
fateful crisis in her life, toward which they were helping to
hurry her, ought to be evident occasionally in the Macdonald
conduct or conversation. It was only gradually that she came
to see how lightly such projects as hers and young Browne’s
were regarded by these people who were still in the initial stages
of their own; how little space she or her affairs occupied in their
good-natured thoughts; how invariably she must expect any reference
to it to be jocular. During the process Helen had now
and then a novel sense of making one of the various parcels
which Mrs. Macdonald had undertaken to bring out to friends in
Calcutta—a feeling, that she ought properly to be in an air-tight
box in the hold, corded and labelled and expected to give no
further trouble. She realized, at moments, that she was being
“shipped” to young Browne.

They did exactly what everybody does in Gibraltar. There
was no time to get permission from the authorities and go
through the galleries, there never is. Barring which, the people
of the ships find themselves without resource except to drive in
.bn 036.png
.pn +1
the rattle-trap conveyances of the place through its narrow twisting,
high-walled over-topping white streets and out past the
Spanish market, where everybody buys figs and pomegranates to
throw overboard afterwards, and so emerging from the town trot
through the sand and the short grass round the mighty gray
foot of the Rock, to look up and marvel at the terror of those
irregular holes upon its face, and the majesty that it had long
before it became conscious with cannon. Helen and the Macdonalds
did all this and said just what P. and O. voyagers have
said for the last quarter of a century about it. Coming back Mrs.
Macdonald bought her darning cotton and her letter-paper at a
little shop, whose black-browed proprietor sold photographs and
wicked knives, and long pipes as well. Afterwards they all
strolled through the Alameda gardens, that cling for life among
their verbenas and rose bushes to the sides of the Rock, and
finally fell into that fatal corner shop which entraps the unwary
with curios. All roads seem to lead to it in Gibraltar, and one
knows it by the crowd of speculative passengers that encumber
the doorway considering and contrasting desirable purchases.
The Spaniards inside are haughty and indifferent, they will abate
a shilling or two of their exorbitance perhaps, not more. That
is what the Macdonalds said to everybody in an undertone—“You
needn’t try, they won’t come down—it doesn’t seem to be
worth their while. We used to think they would, but now we
don’t ask them!” and in the face of this advice of experience
the passengers hesitated still more over their ill-shaped Moorish
vases, black and red and blue and gilt, their brass and coloured
glass hanging lamps from Cairo, their Persian china superficially
gilt but beautifully blue. The things that fascinated Helen
were curious plaques in relief, all marshy greens, in which the
most realistic lizards and toads were creeping about in imitated
.bn 037.png
.pn +1
moss. Miss Peachey would have liked at least four of these, they
struck her as so original and clever, until Mrs. Macdonald at her
elbow said, in an impressive whisper “<i>Don’t!</i> You see them in
<i>boarding</i>-houses in Calcutta!” when she put them reluctantly
down, and bought a big bedecked Spanish hat to make a
work-basket of, and a large fan, upon which sundry ladies of depraved
appearance and very Irish features were dancing a <i>fandango</i>
instead. I have seen that fan in the present Mrs.
Browne’s Calcutta drawing-room frequently since. She has it
fastened on the wall immediately under a photogravure of <i>The
Angelus</i>, and she will not take it down.

Between Gibraltar and Naples, Helen observed the peculiarities
of the species P. and O. passenger, the person who spends
so large a portion of a lifetime shorter than the average, in wondering
how much more of this delightful or this abominable
weather “we’ll have,” in the Indian Ocean or the Red Sea. She
observed that Miss Stitch arose betimes every morning, and attended
the service held by the little pale ritualistic clergyman in
the saloon before the tables were laid for breakfast, which struck
her as eminently proper, Miss Stitch being a missionary. She
also noticed that Mrs. Forsyth-Jones, returning to her husband
in Burmah, with three photographs of him in uniform variously
arranged in the cabin, had as many small flirtations well in
hand, one in the morning, of the promenade sort, with a middle-aged
Under-Secretary, one in the afternoon, conducted in long
chairs, enhanced by sunset, with a Royal Engineer, whose wife
was similarly occupied at the other end of the ship, and one in
the evening in a secluded corner of the hurricane deck, charitably
witnessed by the moon and stars, with a callow indigo
planter about the age of her eldest son. Helen thought that the
missionary or somebody, some older person, ought to speak to this
.bn 038.png
.pn +1
lady in terms of guarded reproof, and tell her that her conduct
was more conspicuous than perhaps she knew; and our young
lady from Wiltshire was surprised to observe not only that nobody
did, but that Mrs. Forsyth-Jones seemed to be a person of
some popularity on board. The Macdonalds, for instance, hung
about her chair with solicitude, in the temporary absence of any
of the <i>attachés</i>. Mrs. Macdonald herself had plenty of “men-friends”
as she called them. They buzzed about her, whenever
she sat or stood long enough to permit their approach, all day—they
were always bringing her rugs, or old numbers of <i>Punch</i>,
or an orange. But Mrs. Macdonald did not particularize, she
was content with a general empire, though she prized that, as
anybody could see. Among the throng Mr. Macdonald remained
supreme; she expected most attention from him too, and
she called him “Mac.”

Miss Stitch confided to Miss Peachey her opinion that “the
people on board this ship” were more than usually cliquey; but
this was not a conclusion that Helen would have arrived at unassisted.
She saw about her day after day, lining the long tables
and afterwards scattered about easefully on deck, a great many
people, some of whom she thought agreeable-looking, and others
distinctly the reverse. Miss Stitch seemed to think one ought
to know everybody. Helen was sure that a few—a very few—of
the agreeable-looking people would do quite well. She did not
see at all how Miss Stitch could bring herself to talk to the person
who sat next her at table, and wore a large diamond ring on
his third finger, and drank champagne every day at tiffin, and
said he was travelling for his “’ealth,” and pointed most of his remarks
with a tooth-pick. Helen thought that even missionary
zeal would not carry her so far as that. On the other hand, she
found it difficult to understand why everybody, including Miss
.bn 039.png
.pn +1
Stitch, seemed agreed not to make acquaintance with a soft-eyed,
sad-faced lady of rather dark complexion, who talked in a gentle
voice with a slightly foreign accent, Helen thought, and was
accompanied by three daughters, who much resembled her.
They looked very quiet and lady-like to Helen, and she thought
the manners of certain boisterous young ladies who polkaed with
the ship’s officers on a heaving deck after dinner, and whom
everybody accepted, suffered by comparison with them. When
she was told that their name was De Cruz, Helen privately criticised
her fellow countrywomen’s attitude. “It must be,” she
said to herself, “because they are foreign.” And so it was—because
they were foreign. “About four annas in the rupee,” said
Miss Stitch about them one day, and told Helen that she would
find out what that meant before she had been long in India.
But Miss Stitch, M. D., was interested in the welfare, temporal
and eternal, only of ladies who were “pure native.”

Then one peaceful rainy morning, after a rolling night, Naples
lay before them, gathered all about her harbour with Vesuvius
gently smoking in the distance. The slippery hurricane
deck was full of people looking for Vesuvius, grouped round
the single male passenger, who, awakened by the first officer at
four in the morning, had seen it spouting fire. Enviable male
passenger! Invidious first officer! Out from shore came disreputable
Neapolitan companies in small boats, with stringed
instruments, who lay under the ship’s sides and sang, “Finiculi—Finicula!”
in a lavish and abandoned manner, turning
up their impudent faces for contributions from the truly musical
souls on board. Helen listened, enraptured, to a number of
these renditions, after which she concluded that she preferred
“Finiculi—Finicula” as she had heard it sung by Mr. Browne,
in Canbury, Wilts. After breakfast, the Macdonalds attached
.bn 040.png
.pn +1
themselves to an exploring party for Pompeii, under the guidance
of a black-browed Neapolitan, representing Messrs. Cook.
Mrs. Macdonald went about in a pretty, new waterproof, with
Bulwer’s <i>Last Days</i> in her hand, telling people she really must
go this time, she had been lazy so often before, and it was so
awfully cheap with these people—carriages, rail, tiffin and see
everything for only thirty francs each! Helen and Miss Stitch
stayed behind, the night had been too rough to let them venture
on the absorption of so much ancient history, even at this
advantageous rate. But later, when the sun came out, the
young ladies recovered their spirits sufficiently to cruise adventurously
to shore by themselves, to engage a ragged-pocketed
“guide” of perhaps thirteen, and a rattling little victoria,
pulled by a clinking little pony, with bells upon his collar, and
drive about Naples for three delicious hours. I can’t say they
added much to their stock of information. They had no idea
where to go and what to see; but one can always absorb colour
and life without a guide-book, happily; and I know, from what
she told me afterward, that Helen Peachey did that. They
found abundant happiness in the curio shops and much unpalatable
fruit in the open market; they filled their rattle-trap
of a carriage with great bunches of tiny pink roses at a few
coppers apiece, and buried their faces in them. They were
told, driving through a grand toppling main street, all draped
and garlanded with little glass bells for candles, red, green, and
blue, that the King was coming next day. The boy guide told
them this. He showed them also the Royal Palace, with all
the statues of former kings standing about outside, and the
“Grand Café de l’Europe,” much embellished by a painter
whose art had evidently once found favour with the municipality.
In the opinion of the guide, the “Grand Café de
.bn 041.png
.pn +1
l’Europe” was what reasonable people came to Naples to see;
he pointed it out many times and with an increasing show of
personal admiration. He was a very useful, clever boy the
young ladies thought, especially when he took them to the post
office and obtained for Miss Stitch a receipt for the registered
letter she wanted to send away, in as business-like a manner as
if he were in the habit of transmitting large sums abroad daily.
“Don’ you lossit, for <i>good</i>niz sake!” he exclaimed, as he
gave her the slip. But I doubt whether he was quite worth
the sum he claimed at the water’s edge when they departed—the
pay of a full-grown, well-fed guide for a whole day, plus a
<i>pourboire</i>, which they ungrudgingly gave between them.

But I cannot give any more of my valuable space to Mrs.
Browne’s reminiscences of that voyage, which must, according
to the volumes of them, have lasted a space of about seven
months. I believe they were all very gay at Port Said, walking
through the single wide China bazar street of the place, flaming
with colour and resonant of musicians in the gambling
houses, drinking black coffee on the boulevard, and realizing
no whit of Port Said’s iniquity. The Suez Canal had no incident
but several loathly odors, and then came the long smooth
voyage to Colombo and a fantastic glimpse of first cocoanut
trees fringing the shores of Ceylon. A great deal here about
sapphires and rubies and cat’s eyes and little elephants made
of ivory and small brown diving-boys, and first tropical impressions,
but I must not linger in the chronicling. Then the
sail up to Madras, and the brief tarrying there, and the days
that came after, short days when everybody packed and rejoiced.
At last, one night at ten o’clock, a light that was not a star,
shining far through the soft still darkness beyond the bow of
the ship, the light at the mouth of a wide brown river that
.bn 042.png
.pn +1
slipped to the sea through the India, Helen would see in the
morning, and past the city whither her simple heart had gone
before her.

.tb

Mrs. Macdonald kept out of the way. It was the one considerate
thing she did during the voyage. Young Browne,
rather white and nervous-looking, came upon Mr. Macdonald
first in the turbulent shore-going crowd. Mr. Macdonald was
genial and reassuring. “You’ll find her over there, old man,”
said he without circumlocution, “rather back. Better bring
her up to Hungerford Street to breakfast yourself.” And Helen
straightway was found by young Browne in the precise direction
Mr. Macdonald had indicated, and “rather back.” She always
remembers very distinctly that on that occasion she wore a blue
Chambray frock and a sailor hat with a white ribbon round it.
It is not a matter of consequence, still it might as well be
mentioned.
.bn 043.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IV.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
I HAVE no doubt that the present Mrs. Browne would like
me to linger over her first impressions of Calcutta. She
has a habit now of stating that they were keen. That the
pillared houses and the palm-shaded gardens, and the multiplicity
of turbaned domestics gave her special raptures, which
she has since outgrown, but still likes to claim. She said nothing
about it at the time, however, and I am disposed to believe
that the impressions came later, after young Browne had become
a familiar object, and all the boxes were unpacked. As they
were not married immediately, but a week after the <i>Khedive</i>
arrived, to give Mrs. Macdonald time to unpack <i>her</i> boxes, the
former of these processes was an agreeably gradual one occupying
six morning and evening drives in Mr. Browne’s dog-cart,
and sundry half-hours between. Mrs. Macdonald wanted
to make the house pretty for the wedding. “Really, child,”
said she, “you can’t be married in a barn like this!” and to
that end she drew forth many Liberty muslins, much “art”
needlework, and all the decoration flotsam and jetsam of the
season’s summer sales in Oxford Street. I understand that both
the Brownes protested against the plan to have a wedding; they
only wanted to be married, they said, of course in the Church,
regularly, but without unnecessary circumstance. “People can
see it next day in <i>The Englishman</i>,” suggested young Browne,
urged privately to this course by Helen. But it was a point
.bn 044.png
.pn +1
upon which Mrs. Macdonald was inflexible. “Certainly not a
<i>big</i> wedding,” said she, “since you don’t want it, but a few
people we must have just to see it properly done. What
would Calcutta think of you”—reproachfully, to young
Browne, “getting the knot tied that way, in a corner! Besides,
it will be a lovely way of letting everybody know we
are back. <i>I’ll</i> manage it—I know exactly who you ought to
have!”

Thereupon Helen brought out from among her effects a certain
square wooden box, and besought that it might be opened.
“It’s—it’s the cake,” she explained with blushes; “mother thought
I ought to bring it—”

“Oh, of course!” exclaimed Mrs. Macdonald briskly; “everybody
does. There were five altogether on board the <i>Khedive</i>.
Let us hope it has carried well!”

They opened the box, and Helen took out layers of silver
paper with nervous fingers. “It seems a good deal crushed,”
she said. Then she came upon a beautiful white sugar bird of
Paradise lacking his tail, and other fragments dotted with little
silver pellets, and the petals of a whole flower-garden in pink
icing. “It has <i>not</i> carried well!” she exclaimed grievously—and
it hadn’t. It was the proudest erection of the Canbury confectioner’s
experience, a glory and a wonder when it arrived at
the Rectory, but it certainly had not carried well: it was a
travelled wreck.

“Looks very sorry for itself!” remarked young Browne, who
happened to be present.

“It must have happened in that hateful Bay of Biscay!”
said Helen, with an inclination to tears.

“Oh, never mind!” Mrs. Macdonald put in airily, as if it
were a trifle. “It’s easy enough to get another. I’ll send a
.bn 045.png
.pn +1
chit to Peliti’s this very afternoon. You can use up this one
for five o’clock tea afterwards.”

“But do you think it won’t do at all, Mrs. Macdonald?”
Helen begged. “You see the lower tier isn’t much damaged,
and it came all the way from home, you know.”

“I think it ought to do,” remarked young Browne.

“My <i>dear</i>!” cried her hostess, “think of how it would <i>look</i>!
In the midst of everything! It would quite spoil your wedding!
Oh, no—we’ll have another from Peliti’s.”

“What could one do?” confided Mrs. Browne to me afterwards.
“It was <i>her</i> affair—not ours in the least. We were getting
married, don’t you see, for her amusement!” But that
was in one of Mrs. Browne’s ungrateful moments. And was
private to me. Generally speaking, Mrs. Browne said she
thought the Macdonalds arranged everything charmingly. The
Canbury cake went, however, to the later suburban residence of
the Brownes, and was there consumed by them in the reckless
moments of the next six months.

I was one of the people Mrs. Macdonald knew the Brownes
ought to have, and I went to the wedding, in a new heliotrope
silk. I remember that also came out by the <i>Khedive</i>. It was
in the Cathedral, at four o’clock in the afternoon, full choral
service, quantities of flowers, and two heads of departments in
the company, one ex-Commissioner, and a Member of Council.
None of them were people the Brownes were likely to see much
of afterward, in my opinion, and I wondered at Mrs. Macdonald’s
asking them; but the gown she graced the occasion in would
have justified an invitation to the Viceroy—pale green poplin
with silver embroidery.

The bride came very bravely up the aisle upon the arm of her
host, all in the white China silk, a little crushed in places, which
.bn 046.png
.pn +1
the Canbury dressmaker had been reluctantly persuaded to make
unostentatiously. The bridegroom stood consciously ready with
his supporter; we all listened to the nervous vows, sympathetically
thinking back; the little Eurasian choir-boys sang
lustily over the pair. Two inquisitive black crows perched in
the open window and surveyed the ceremony, flying off with
hoarse caws at the point of the blessing; from the world outside
came the hot bright glare of the afternoon sun upon the
Maidan, and the creaking of the ox-gharries,[#] and the chatting
of the mynas in the casuerina[#] trees, and the scent of some
waxy heavy-smelling thing of the country—how like it was to
every other Indian wedding where a maid comes trippingly
from over seas to live in a long chair under a punkah, and
be a law unto kitmutgars!
.pm fn-start
Native ox-carts.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Australian fir.
.pm fn-end

The new Mrs. Browne received our congratulations with shy
distance after it was all over. She looked round at the big stucco
church with its white pillars and cane chairs, and at our unfamiliar
faces, with a little pitiful smile. I had, at the moment, a
feminine desire to slap Mrs. Macdonald for having asked us.
And all the people of the Rectory, who ought to have been at
the wedding, were going about their ordinary business, with only
now and then a speculative thought of this. Everybody who
really cared was four thousand miles away, and unaware. We
could not expect either of them to think much of our perfunctory
congratulations, although Mr. Browne expressed himself
very politely to the contrary in the valuable sentiments he uttered
afterwards in connection with champagne cup and the Peliti
wedding cake, on Mrs. Macdonald’s veranda.

They had a five days’ honeymoon, so far as the outer world
.bn 047.png
.pn +1
was concerned, and they spent it at Patapore. Darjiling, as
young Browne was careful to explain to Helen, was the proper
place, really the thing to do, but it took twenty-six hours to
get to Darjiling, and twenty-six hours to get back, and nobody
wanted to plan off a five days’ honeymoon like that.
Patapore, on the contrary, was quite accessible, only six hours
by mail.

“Is it a hill-station?” asked Helen, when they discussed it.

“Not precisely a hill-station, darling, but it’s on rising
ground—a thousand feet higher than this.”

“Is it an interesting place?” she inquired.

“I think it ought to be, under the circumstances.”

“<i>George!</i> I mean are there any temples there, or anything?”

“I don’t remember any temples. There is a capital dâk-bungalow.”

“And what is a dâk-bungalow, dear? How short you cut
your hair, you dear old thing!”

“That was provisional against your arrival, darling—so you
couldn’t pull it. A dâk-bungalow is a sort of government hotel,
put up in unfrequented places where there aren’t any others, for
the accommodation of travellers.”

“<i>Unfrequented</i> places! O George! Any snakes or tigers?”

“Snakes—a few, I dare say. Tigers—let me see; you <i>might</i>
hear of one about fifty miles from there.”

“Dreadful!” shuddered Helen, rubbing her cheek upon
George’s convict crop. “But what is the <i>attraction</i>, dear?”

“The air,” responded he, promptly substituting his moustache.
“Wonderful air! Think of it, Helen—a thousand feet
up!”

But Helen had not been long enough in India to think of
.bn 048.png
.pn +1
it. “Air is a thing one can get anywhere,” she suggested;
“isn’t there anything else?”

“Seclusion, darling—the most perfect seclusion! Lots to
eat—there’s always the railway restaurant if the dâk-bungalow
gives out, capital air, nice country to walk over, and not a soul
to speak to but our two selves!”

“Oh!” said Helen. “It <i>sounds</i> very nice, dear——” And
so they agreed.

It was an excellent dâk-bungalow without doubt, quite a
wonder in dâk-bungalows. It was new, for one thing—they are
not generally new—and clean, they are not generally clean.
There had been no deserted palace or disused tomb for the government
to utilize at Patapore, so they had been obliged to build
this dâk-bungalow, and they built it very well. It had a <i>pukka</i>[#]
roof instead of a thatched one, which was less comfortable for
the karaits but pleasanter to sleep under; and its walls were
straight and high, well raised from the ground, and newly white-washed.
Inside it was divided into three pairs of rooms, one in
the middle and one at each end. You stepped into one of your
rooms on the north side of the house and out of the other on the
south side, upon your share of the south veranda. The arrangement
was very simple, each pair of rooms was separate and
independent, and had nothing to say to any other.
.pm fn-start
Made of brick and mortar.
.pm fn-end

The furniture was simple too, its simplicity left nothing to
be desired. There were charpoys[#] to sleep on, travellers brought
their own bedding. In one room there were two chairs and a
table, in the other a table and two chairs. There was nothing
on the floor and nothing on the walls. There was ample accommodation
for the air of Patapore, and no other attraction to interfere
.bn 049.png
.pn +1
with it. I don’t know whether we have any right to accompany
the Brownes to Patapore, and to stay with them there; it
is certain that we would not be welcome, if they knew it. It is
equally certain that nobody else did—they were, as young Browne
had predicted, supremely alone. At seven in the morning the
old khansamah in charge of the place gave them chota hazri[#]
in the room with the table in it, bringing tea in a chipped brown
teapot, and big thick cups to drink it out of, one edged with blue
and the other with green, and buttered toast upon a plate which
did not match anything. He was a little brown khansamah,
with very bright eyes and a thin white beard and a trot—he reminded
one curiously of a goat. His lips were thin and much
compressed; he took the Brownes solemnly, and charged them
only three rupees a day each for their food, which young Browne
found astonishingly moderate, though Helen, when she worked
it out in shillings and pence, and considered the value received,
could not bring herself to agree with this.
.pm fn-start
Native beds.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Little breakfast.
.pm fn-end

After chota hazri they went for walks, long walks, stepping
off the dâk-bungalow veranda, as Helen said, into India as it
was before ever the Sahibs came to rule over it. For they could
turn their backs upon the long straight bank of the railway and
wander for miles in any direction over a country that seemed as
empty as if it had just been made. As far as they could see it
rolled in irregular plains and low broken ridges and round hillocks
all covered with short, dry grass, to the horizon, and there,
very far away, the gray outlines of an odd mountain or two stood
against the sky. A few sarl trees were scattered here and there
in clumps, all their lower branches stolen for firewood, and
wherever a mud hut squatted behind a hillock there grew a tall
.bn 050.png
.pn +1
castor oil bean tree or two, and some plantains. There were
tracks of cattle, there was an occasional tank that had evidently
been dug out by men, and there were footpaths making up and
over the hillocks and across the stony beds of the empty <i>nullahs</i>;[#]
but it was only in the morning or in the evening that
they met any of the brown people that lived thereabouts.<target=strings> Then
they came in little straggling strings and bands, looking at these
strangers from under inverted baskets, appearing from nowhere
and disappearing in vague and crooked directions. Helen’s
husband told her that they were coolies working in coal mines on
the side of the railway. There were crows, too, and vultures—the
crows were familiar and impertinent, the vultures sailed high and
took no notice of them—and that was all. They went forth and
they came back again. Helen made a few primitive sketches in
her husband’s note-book. I do not think she did the country
justice, but her sketches seemed to me to indicate the character of
her impressions of it. They went forth and they came back again,
always to a meal—breakfast, or tiffin, or dinner, as the case
might be. Helen liked dinner best, because then the lamps
were lighted, and she had an excuse for changing her dress.
They partook of these meals with three-tined steel forks, and
knives worn down to dagger points, according to the unfathomable
custom of the <i>mussalchi</i>.[#] The courses consisted of
variations upon an original leg of mutton which occurred at one
of their earlier repasts, served upon large cracked plates with
metal reservoirs of hot water under them, and embellished by
tinned peas of a suspicious pallor. And always there was
<i>moorghy</i>[#]—moorghy boiled and fried and roasted, moorghy cutlets,
moorghy curry, moorghy stew. “Nice old person,” said
.bn 051.png
.pn +1
Helen, the first time it appeared, “he has given us fowl! Dear
old patriarch.” “He may or may not be a dear old patriarch,”
George responded, fixing grim eyes upon the bird, “but he is
tolerably sure to have the characteristics of one. You aren’t acquainted
with the indigenous moorghy yet, Helen. You regard
him in the light of a luxury, as if he were a Christian fowl. He
isn’t a luxury out here upon my word. He stalks up and down
all over India improving his muscular tissues, he doesn’t disdain
to pick from a drain, he costs threepence to buy. He is an inferior
creature still. It may be a prejudice of mine, but if
there’s any other form of sustenance to be had I don’t eat
moorghy.”
.pm fn-start
Stream beds.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Dishwasher.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Fowl.
.pm fn-end

“He tastes,” said Mrs. Browne after experiment, “like an
‘indestructible’ picture-book.” It was an unwarrantable simile
upon Mrs. Browne’s part, since she could not possibly remember
the flavour of the literature she used to suck as an infant; but
her verdict was never reversed, and so one Indian staple passed
out of the domestic experiences of the Brownes.

These two young people had unlimited conversation, and one
of them a great many more cigars than were good for him. So
far as I have been able to discover, by way of diversion they had
nothing else. It had not occurred to either of them that the
equipment of a honeymoon required any novels; and the dâk-bungalow
was not provided with current fiction. They covered
an extensive range of subjects, therefore, as they thought, exhaustively.
As a matter of fact, their conversation was so superficial
in its nature, and led to such trivial conclusions, that I do
not propose to repeat it. They were very unanimous always.
Young Browne declared that if his views had habitually received
the unqualified assent which Helen gave them he would have
been a member of the Viceroy’s Council years before. They
.bn 052.png
.pn +1
could not say enough in praise of the air of Patapore, and when
the wind rose it blew them into an ecstasy. Frequently they
discussed the supreme advantages of a dâk-bungalow for a honeymoon,
and then it was something like this on the afternoon of
the third day.

“The perfect freedom of it, you know—the being able to
smoke with one’s legs on the table——”

“Yes, dear. I love to see you doing it. It’s so—it’s so
home-like!” (I think I see the Rev. Peachey with his legs
upon the table!) Then, with sudden animation, “Do you
know, George, I think I heard boxes coming into the next
room!”

“Not at all, Helen. You didn’t, I’m sure you didn’t. And
then the absolute silence of this place——”

“Lovely, George! And that’s how I heard the boxes so distinctly.”
Getting up and going softly to the wall—“George,
there are people in there!”

“Blow the people! However, they haven’t got anything to
do with us.”

“But perhaps—perhaps you know them, George!”

“Most piously I hope I don’t. But never mind, darling.
We can easily keep out of the way, in any case. We won’t let
them spoil it for us.”

“N-no, dear, we won’t. Certainly not. But you’ll find out
who they are, won’t you, Georgie? Ask the khansamah, just for
the sake of knowing!”

“Oh, we’ll find out who they are fast enough. But don’t be
distressed, darling. It will be the simplest thing in the world
to avoid them.”

“Of course it will,” Mrs. Browne responded. “But I
think, George dear, I really must put on my tailor-made this
.bn 053.png
.pn +1
afternoon in case we <i>should</i> come in contact with them in any
way.”

“We won’t,” replied George, cheerfully lighting another
cigar.

To which Mrs. Browne replied without seeming relevance,
“I consider it perfectly <sc>SHAMEFUL</sc> for dâk-bungalows to have
no looking-glasses.”

An hour later Helen flew in from the veranda. “Oh,
George, I’ve seen them: two men and a lady and a black and
white dog—spotted! Quite nice, respectable-looking people, all
of them! They walked past our veranda.”

“Confound their impudence! Did they look in?”

“The dog did.”

“None of the rest? Well, dear, which way did they go?”

Helen indicated a south-easterly direction, and the Brownes
that evening walked almost directly north, with perhaps a point
or two to the west, and did not return until it was quite dark.

The fourth day after breakfast, a stranger entered the veranda
without invitation. He was clad chiefly in a turban and
loin cloth, and on his head he bore a large tin box. He had an
attendant, much like him, but wearing a dirtier loin-cloth, and
bearing a bigger box.

“Oh! who is it?” Helen cried.

“It’s one of those wretched box-wallahs, dear—a kind of
pedlar. I’ll send him off. <i>Hujao</i>,[#] you!”
.pm fn-start
Be off!
.pm fn-end

“Oh, <i>no</i>, George! Let us see what he has to sell,” Helen interposed
with interest; and immediately the man was on the
floor untying his cords.

“My darling, you can’t want anything from him!”
.bn 054.png
.pn +1

“<i>Heaps</i> of things—I shall know as soon as I see what he’s
got, dear! To begin with, there’s a lead pencil! So far as I
know I haven’t a lead pencil in the world. I’ll take that lead
pencil! Soap? No, I think not, thank you. Do tell me what
he says, George. Elastic—the very thing I wanted. And tape?
Please ask him if he’s got any tape. Tooth-brushes—what do
you think, George?”

“<i>Not</i> tooth-brushes!” her lord protested, as one who endures.
“They may be second-hand, dear.”

“<i>Oh!</i> No! Here, take them back, please! Ribbon—have
you any narrow pale blue? That’s <i>about</i> right, if you’ve nothing
better. Hooks and eyes are always useful. So are mixed
pins and sewing cotton. I can’t say I think much of these
towels, George, they’re very thin—still we shall <i>want</i> towels.”

Mrs. Browne was quite pink with excitement, and her eyes
glistened. She became all at once animated and eager, a joy of
her sex was upon her, and unexpectedly. The box-wallah was
an Event, and an Event is a thing much to be desired, even in
one’s honeymoon. This lady had previously and has since made
purchases much more interesting and considerably more expensive
than those that fell in her way at Patapore; but I doubt
whether any of them afforded her a tenth of the satisfaction.
She turned over every one of the box-wallah’s commonplaces,
trusting to find a need for it. She laid embroidered edging
down unwillingly, and put aside handkerchiefs and hosiery with
a sigh, pangs of conscience arising from a trousseau just unpacked.
But it was astonishing how valuably supplementary
that box-wallah’s stores appeared to be. Helen declared, for instance,
that she never would have thought of Persian morning
slippers, which she has never yet been able to wear, if she had
not seen them there, and this I can believe.
.bn 055.png
.pn +1

The transaction occupied the best part of two hours, during
which young Browne behaved very well, smoking quietly, and
only interfering once, on the score of some neckties for himself.
And when Helen remonstrated that everything seemed to be for
her, he begged her to believe that he really didn’t mind—he
didn’t feel acquisitive that morning; she mustn’t consider him.
To which Helen gave regretful compliance, for the box-wallah
had a large stock of gentlemen’s small wares. In the end Mr.
Browne paid the box-wallah, in a masterly manner, something
over a third of his total demand, which he accepted, to Helen’s
astonishment, with only a perfunctory demur, and straight
away put his box on his head and departed. About which time
young Browne’s bearer came with respectful inquiry as to
which train he would pack their joint effects for on the morrow.
This is an invariable terminal point for honeymoons in India.
.bn 056.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER V.
.sp 2
<target id=i049>
.di i_049.jpg 300 415 0.8
IT is time, perhaps, to state a
few facts about Mr. George
William Browne in addition
to those which are in
the reader’s possession already.
I have mentioned,
I think, that he played
tennis badly and was fond
of privacy; it runs in my
mind also that I have in
some way conveyed to you
that he is a rather short
and thickly built young
gentleman, with brown eyes
and a dark moustache, and
a sallow complexion and a broad smile. Helen declares him
handsome, and I never considered him unpleasant-looking, but
it is undoubtedly the case that he is very like other young men
in Calcutta, also clerks in tea and indigo houses on five hundred
rupees a month, with the expectation of partnership whenever
retirement or fever shall remove a head of the firm. His tastes
were common to Calcutta young men also. He liked golf and
polo, and regretted that his pony was not up to the paper-chases;
in literature he preferred Clark Russell and the <i>Pioneer</i>, with
.bn 057.png
.pn +1
Lord Lytton for serious moments. He complied with the customs
of the Cathedral to the extent of a silk hat and a pair of
gloves in the cold weather, and usually attended one service
every Sunday, invariably contributing eight annas to the offertory.
His political creed was simple. He believed in India for
the Anglo-Indians, and despised the teaching and hated the influence,
with sturdy reasons, of Exeter Hall. Any views that he
had of real importance mainly concerned the propagation of tea
in distant markets; but his spare ideas had a crispness that gave
them value in a society inclined to be intellectually limp, and
his nature was sufficiently cheerful and sympathetic to make
him popular, in connection with the fact that he was undeniably
a good fellow.

When all this has been said, I fear that Mr. Browne will not
appear in these pages with the equipment proper for a young
man of whom anything is expected in the nature of modern
fiction. Perhaps this, however, is not so important as it looks,
which will be more evident when we reflect that in marrying
Miss Helen Frances Peachey Mr. Browne performed considerably
the greater part of what will be required of him in this history.

That Young Browne’s <i>tulub</i>[#] was only five hundred rupees
a month is, however, a fact of serious importance both to the
Brownes and to the readers of these chapters. It must be borne
in mind, even as the Brownes bore it in mind, to the proper
understanding of the unpretending matters herein referred to.
There are parts of the world in which this amount translated
into the local currency, would make a plutocrat of its recipient.
Even in Calcutta, in the olden golden time when the rupee was
worth two invariable shillings and the stockbroker waxed not so
.bn 058.png
.pn +1
fat as now, there was a sweet reasonableness about an income of
five hundred that does not exist to-day. There is no doubt, for
one thing, that at that time it did not cost so much to live in a
house. At the present time, and in view of the degeneracy of
the coin, that luxury is not so easy to compass as it used to be.
.pm fn-start
Pay.
.pm fn-end
The Brownes would live in a house, however. Young
Browne, when the matter was up for discussion, stated with
some vehemence his objection to the Calcutta system of private
hostelries. Helen said conclusively that if they had no other
reason for housekeeping, there were those lovely dessert knives
and forks from Aunt Plovtree, and all the other silver things
from people, to say nothing of the complete supply of house
and table linen, ready marked with an artistically intertwined
“HB.” In the face of this, to use other people’s cutlery and
table napkins would be foolish extravagance—didn’t George
think so? George thought so, very decidedly, that was quite a
strong point. It must be a whole house, too, and not a flat;
there was no autonomy in a flat and no proprietorship of the
compound; moreover, you were always meeting the other people
on the stairs. By all means a house to themselves—“if possible,”
added young Browne.

“About what rent does one pay for a house?” Helen inquired.

“You get a fairly good one for three hundred a month, on
lease. A visiting Rajah down for the cold weather to try for a
‘C. I. E.’[#] sometimes pays a thousand.”
.pm fn-start
Companion of the Indian Empire.
.pm fn-end

“But we,” responded Mrs. Browne blankly, “are not Rajahs,
dear!”

“No, thank the Lord,” said Mr. Browne, with what struck
.bn 059.png
.pn +1
his wife as unnecessary piety; “and we’ll make ourselves jolly
comfortable notwithstanding. Nellums—you’ll see!” George
Browne was always over-optimistic. If those two young people
had come to me—but it goes without saying that they went to
nobody.

Helen desired a garden, a tennis-court, and, if possible, a
cocoanut palm-tree in the garden. She would prefer a yellow
house to a pink one, in view of the fact that the houses were all
yellow or pink, and she would like a few pillars in front of it—pillars
seemed so common an architectural incident in Calcutta
that she thought they must be cheap. Mr. Browne particularly
wanted air in the house, “a good south veranda,” and a domicile
well raised above its native Bengal. Mr. Browne was strong
upon locality and drains, and the non-proximity of jungle and
bushes. Helen bowed to his superior knowledge, but secretly
longed that a garden with a cocoanut palm in it might be found
in a neighbourhood not insanitary. And so they fared forth
daily in a ticca-gharry to inspect desirable addresses.

They inspected many. There was no unnecessary formality
about permission to look, no “Enquire of Messrs. So and So,”
no big key to procure from anywhere. The ticca-gharry[#]
stopped, and they alighted. If the high wooden gates were
closed, Mr. Browne beat upon them lustily with his stick, shouting,
“Qui hai!”[#] in tones of severe authority. Then, usually
from a small and dingy domicile near the gate, issued a figure
hastily, a lean, brown figure, in a dirty dhoty, that salaamed perfunctorily,
and stood before them waiting.
.pm fn-start
Hired carriage.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Whoever is!
.pm fn-end

“Iska ghur kali hai?”[#] Mr. Browne would inquire and the
figure would answer, “Ha!”
.pm fn-start
Is this house empty?
.pm fn-end
.bn 060.png
.pn +1

Whereat, without further parley, the Brownes would enter
the place and begin to express their minds about it. Generally
it invited criticism. If the previous sahib had been but three
weeks departed the place had an overgrown look, the bushes
were unkempt, the grass ragged; there were cracks in the mortar
and stains on the walls; within it smelt of desolation. Helen
investigated daintily; it looked, she said, so very “snaky.” The
general features of one house were very like the general features
of another; that is to say, their disadvantages were fairly equal.
They all had jungly compounds, they were all more or less tumble-down,
all in fashionable Eurasian neighbourhoods, and all at
least fifty rupees a month more than the Brownes could afford to
pay. Helen found some æsthetic charm, and young Browne
some objectionable odour in every one of them. She, one might
say, used nothing but her eyes, he nothing but his nose. With
regard to the attractions of one address in particular they came
almost to a difference of opinion. It was a bungalow, and it sat
down flatly in a luxuriant tangle of beaumontia, and bougainvilliers,
and trailing columbine. It had a veranda all roundabout,
and the veranda was a bower of creeping things. Not
only cocoanut palms, but date palms, and areca palms, and toddy
palms grew in the corners of the compound with hibiscus bushes
all in crimson flower along the wall, a banyan-tree in the middle,
and two luxuriant peepuls, one on each side, almost meeting
over the roof of the house. The walls and pillars of the bungalow
were in delicate tones of grey and green; close behind it
were all the picturesque features of a native bustee, and immediately
in front a lovely reflection of the sky lay in a mossy tank in
places where the water was deep enough. The rent was moderate:
it had been empty a long time.

“George!” Helen exclaimed, “it has been waiting for us.”
.bn 061.png
.pn +1

George demurred. “It’s far and away the worst place we’ve
seen,” he remarked.

“I think it’s perfectly sweet,” his wife maintained.

“If we took it,” he returned implacably, “within three
months two funerals would occur in this neighbourhood: one
would be yours and one would be mine. I don’t speak of the
mortality among the servants. I’ll just ask the durwan[#] how
many sahibs have died here lately. And he asked the durwan in
his own tongue.”
.pm fn-start
Doorkeeper.
.pm fn-end

“He says three in the last family, and it was the ‘carab bimar,’
which is the bad sickness or the cholera, my dear. What a fool of
a durwan to leave in charge of an empty house! If you still
think you’d like to have it, Helen, we can inquire——”

“Oh, <i>no</i>!” Helen cried. “Let us go away <i>at once</i>!”

“I was going to say—at the undertaker’s for additional accommodation.
But perhaps we had better not take it. Let’s try
for something clean.”

I consider that the Brownes were very lucky in the end.
They found a house in a suburban locality where a number of
Europeans had already survived for several years, at a rent they
thought they could afford by careful managing. It turned its face
aside from the street and looked towards the south; sitting on its
roof, they could see far across those many-laned jungle suburbs
where the office baboo[#] lives, and whither the sahibs go only on
horseback. The palm fronds waved thick there, fringing the red
sky duskily when the sun went down. The compound was
neglected, but had sanitary possibilities; there was enough grass
for a tennis-court and enough space for a garden. A low line of
godowns ran round two sides of it, where the servants might live
.bn 062.png
.pn +1
and the pony. Palms and plantains grew in the corners. It
was very tropical, and it was inclosed by a wall coloured to
match the house, in the cracks of which sprouted every green
thing. The house itself was pink, which Helen declared her
one disappointment: she preferred the yellow ones so much.
Inside it was chiefly light green, stencilled in yellow by way of
dadoes, which must have been trying, though Helen never admitted
it. There were other peculiarities. The rafters curved
downwards and the floor sloped toward the middle and in various
other directions. In several places trailing decorations in
mud had been arranged by white ants. None of the doors had
locks or bolts; they all opened inwards and were fastened from
the inside with movable bars. The outermost room had twelve
French windows; the innermost room had no windows and was
quite dark when its doors were shut. Irregular holes appeared
at intervals over the wall for the accommodation of punkah-ropes,
each tenant having fancied a different seat outside for his punkah-wallah.
Two or three small apartments upstairs in the rear
of the house had corners divided off by partitions about six
inches high. These were bath-rooms, arranged on the simple
principle of upsetting the bath-tub on the floor and letting the
water run out of a hole in the wall inside the partition. Most
of the windows had glass in them, but not all, and some were
protected by iron bars, the domestic conditions inside having
been originally Aryan and jealous.
.pm fn-start
Native clerk.
.pm fn-end

I do not wish it to be supposed from these details, that the
Brownes were subjected to exceptional hardships, or took up
housekeeping under particularly obscure circumstances. On the
contrary, so few people with their income in Calcutta could
afford to live in houses at all, that young Browne had his name
put up on the gatepost with considerable pride and circumstance.
.bn 063.png
.pn +1
“George W. Browne,” in white letters on a black
ground, in the middle of an oblong wooden tablet, according to
the custom of the place. The fact being that the characteristics
of the Brownes’ house are common, in greater or less degree, to
every house in Calcutta. I venture to say that even the tub of a
Member of Council, on five thousand rupees a month, is discharged
through a hole in the wall.

Perhaps their landlord was more or less unique. The landlord
common to Calcutta is a prosperous Jew, a brocaded Rajah,
at least an unctuous baboo fattened upon dhol-bat and chutney.
The Brownes’ landlord wore a pair of dirty white trousers and a
lean and hungry look, his upper parts being clad in yards of
soiled cotton, in which he also muffled up his head. He followed
them about the place in silent humility—they took him
for a coolie, and young Browne treated his statements with
brevity, turning a broad British back upon him. I don’t think
this enhanced the rent; I fancy it would have been equally extortionate
in any case. But it was only when Mr. Browne asked
where the landlord was to be found that he proudly disclosed his
identity, with apologetic reference, however, to the state of his
attire. He said that his house had been vacant for many
months, and that he had just spent a thousand rupees in repairing
it. His prospective tenant accepted the first of these statements,
and received the second with open laughter. They
closed the bargain, however, and as the landlord occupied an
adjoining bustee, and was frequently to be met in the neighbourhood,
Mrs. Browne was for some time uncertain as to whether she
ought to bow to him or not.
.bn 064.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i_057.jpg w=500px id=i057
.ca
<s>MRS. BROWNE WAS FOR SOME TIME UNCERTAIN WHETHER SHE OUGHT TO\
BOW TO HIM OR NOT.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MRS. BROWNE WAS FOR SOME TIME UNCERTAIN WHETHER\
SHE OUGHT TO BOW TO HIM OR NOT.]
.if-

.bn 065.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VI.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
THERE are a number of ways of furnishing a house in Calcutta.
I, who have known the ins and outs of the place
for twenty odd years, have learned the unsatisfactoriness of all of
them, and am prepared to explain. You can be elaborately done
up by a fine <i>belati</i> upholsterer, who will provide you with spindle-legged
chairs in velvet brocade, and æsthetic window curtains
with faded pink roses on them, everything only about six
months behind the London shops, with prices however considerably
in advance. This way is popular with Viceroys. Or you
may go to the ordinary shops and get Westbourne Grove sorts of
things only slightly depreciated as to value and slightly enhanced
as to cost, paying cash—a way usually adopted by people
of no imagination. Or you may attend the auction sale that
speeds the departure of some home-going memsahib, and buy
her effects for a song: but that must be at the beginning of the
hot weather, when the migration of memsahibs occurs. Or you
can go to Bow Bazar, where all things are of honourable antiquity,
and there purchase pathetic three-legged memorials of
old Calcutta, springless oval-backed sofas that once upheld the
ponderous dignity of the East India Company, tarnished mirrors
which may have reflected the wanton charms of Madame Le
Grand. Baboos sell them, taking knowledge only of their outward
persons and their present utility; and they stand huddled
in little hot low-roofed shops, intimate with the common teak-wood
.bn 066.png
.pn +1
things of yesterday, condescending to gaudy Japanese vases
and fly-blown coloured prints and cracked lamps and mismatched
crockery. Bow Bazar is not always bad and it is always
cheap, granting some previous experience of baboo morals,
and the proprietors charge you nothing for the poetry of your
bargain. They set it off, perhaps, against necessary repairs.
This is not a popular way, as the baboos will testify, but it is a
pleasing one, and it is the way the Brownes took in the main,
supplementing these plenishings with a few from the China
Bazar, where a multitude of the almond-eyed sell you wicker
chairs and tables.

It is a divinely simple thing to furnish a house in India. It
must be cleaned and it must be matted. This is done in a certain
number of hours while you sleep, or ride, or walk, or take
your pleasure, by a God of Immediate Results, whom you colloquially
dub the “bearer,” working through an invisible agency
of coolies. Then you may go and live in it with two chairs and
a table if you like, and people will only think you have a somewhat
immoderate hatred of hangings and furniture and other obstacles
to the free circulation of air. This you might easily possess
to an extreme, and nobody will consider you any the worse
for it. I should have added an “almirah” to the list of your
necessaries, however. You would be criticised if you had not
one or more almirahs. An almirah is a wardrobe, unless it contains
shelves instead of hooks, and then it is a tall cupboard with
doors. Almirahs, therefore, receive all your personal property,
from a dressing-gown to a box of sardines, and it is not possible
to live decently or respectably in India without them. But the
rest is at your good pleasure, and nobody will expect you to have
anything but plated forks and bazar china. Outward circumstance
lies not in these things, but in the locality of your residence
.bn 067.png
.pn +1
and the size of your compound. If you wish to add to
your dignity, buy another pony; if you wish to enhance it, let
the pony be a horse and the horse a Waler. But think not to
aggrandize yourself in the eyes of your fellow Anglo-Indians by
treasures of Chippendale or of Sèvres, by rare tapestries or modern
masters, or even a piano. Dust and the mosquitoes and the
monsoon war against all these things; but chiefly our inconstancy
to the country. We are in conscious exile here for
twenty or twenty-five years, and there is a general theory that
it is too hot and too expensive to make the exile any more
than comfortable. Beside which, do we not pass a quarter
of our existence in the cabins of the P. and O.? But I
must not digress from the Brownes’ experiences to my own
opinions.

The Brownes’ ticca-gharry turned into Bow Bazar out of
Chowringhee, out of Calcutta’s pride among her thoroughfares,
broad and clean, and facing the wide green Maidan, lined with
European shops, and populous with the gharries[#] of the sahibs,
into the narrow crookedness of the native city, where the proprietors
are all Baboo This, or Sheik That, who sit upon the
thresholds of their establishments smoking the peaceful hubble-bubble,
and waiting until it please Allah or Lakshmi to send
them a customer. Very manifold are the wants that Bow
Bazar provides for, wants of the sahib, of the “kala sahib,”[#]
of its own swarming population. You can buy a suit of clothes
there—oh, very cheap—or a seer of rice; all sorts of publications
in English, Bengali, and Urdu; a beautiful oil painting for a
rupee, a handful of sticky native sweetmeats for a pice. You
can have your beard shaved, your horoscope cast, your photograph
.bn 068.png
.pn +1
taken, all at a rate which will deeply astonish you.
There is a great deal of noise in the Bow Bazar, coming
chiefly from strenuous brown throats, a great deal of dust, a
great number and variety of odours. But there the sahiblok,
in the midst of luxury, can enjoy economy—and you can’t
have everything.
.pm fn-start
Carriages.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
“Black sahibs,” i.e. Eurasians.
.pm fn-end

The sellers of sahib’s furniture have the largest shops in Bow
Bazar, and the heaviest stock; they are important among the
merchants; they often speak a little English. The baboo to
whom the Brownes first addressed themselves had this accomplishment,
and he wore the dual European garment of white
duck, and a coat. He was a short baboo, very black, with a
round face so expressive of a sense of humour that young
Browne remarked to Helen privately that he was sure the fellow
had some European blood in him, in spite of the colour—no
pukka Bengali ever grinned like that!

“What iss it, sir, that it iss your wish to buy?” he inquired.
He spoke so rapidly that his words seemed the output of one
breath; yet they were perfectly distinct. It is the manner of
the native who speaks English, and the East Indians have borrowed
it from him.

“Oh! we want to buy a lot of things, Baboo!” said Mr.
Browne, familiarly, “at half your regular prices, and a large discount
for cash! What have you got? Got any chairs?”

“Oh yess indeed; certainlee! Will you please to come this
way?”

“This way” led through a labyrinth of furniture, new and
old, of glass and crockery and chipped ornaments, a dusty haven
of dismayed household gods. “What have you got in there,
Baboo?” asked young Browne, as they passed an almirah revealing
rows of tins and labels.
.bn 069.png
.pn +1

“Stores, sir,—verree best qualitty stores. You can see fo’
you’self, sir—Crosse an’ Blackwell——”

“Oh yes, Baboo! And how long did you say they’d been
there?”

“Onlee <i>one</i> month, sir,” the baboo replied, attempting an expression
of surprise and injury. “I can tell you the name of
the ship they arrived in, sir.”

“Of course you can, Baboo. But never mind. We don’t
want any to-day. Let’s see the chairs. Now, Helen,” he continued,
as the baboo went on in advance, “you see what we are
subject to in this ungodly place. Those pease and gooseberries
and asparaguses have probably been in Calcutta a good deal
longer than I have. They look like old sojourners; I wouldn’t
give them a day under six years. They are doubtless very cheap,
but think, Helen, of what <i>might</i> happen to my inside if you gave
me green pease out of Bow Bazar!” Mrs. Browne looked
aghast. “But I never will, George!” said she, solemnly. And
young Browne made her vow it there and then. “There are two
or three decent European shops here,” he said, with unction,
“where they make a point of not poisoning more people than
they can help. You pay rather largely for that comfortable
assurance, I believe, but it’s worth having. I’d have more faith
in the stability of the family, Helen, if you would promise always
to go to them for tinned things.”

Helen promised effusively, and it is to her credit that she always
informed young Browne, before consumption, whenever a
domestic exigency made her break her word.

They climbed up a dark and winding stair that led out upon
a flat roof, crossed the roof and entered a small room, borrowed
from the premises of some other baboo. “Hold your skirts well
up, Helen; it’s just the place for centipedes,” her husband remarked
.bn 070.png
.pn +1
callously; and Mrs. Browne exhibited a disregard for
her ankles that would have been remarkable under any other
circumstances.

.if h
.il fn=i_063.jpg w=326px id=i063
.ca
<s>IT’S JUST THE PLACE FOR CENTIPEDES.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: IT’S JUST THE PLACE FOR CENTIPEDES.]
.if-
.bn 071.png
.pn +1

“Here, you see, sir, all the chairs,” stated the little baboo,
waving his hand. “I must tell you, sir, that some are off teak
and some off shisham wood. Thee shisham are the superior.”

“You mean, baboo,” said young Browne, seriously, “that the
shisham are the less inferior. That’s a better way of putting it,
baboo.”

“Perhaps so, sir. Yessir, doubtless you are right, sir. The
less inferior—the more grammatical!”

“Precisely. And now about the prices, baboo. What is
your exact overcharge for fellows like this? He’s shisham, isn’t
he? And he’s about as sound as any of ’em.”

“<i>Best</i> shisham, sir—perfeckkly sound—<i>not</i> secon’ hand—our
own make. Feel the weight of thiss, sir!”

“All right, baboo—I know. What’s the price?”

“If thee ladee will just sit down in it for a minit shee will
see how comfortable it iss!”

“Trifle no longer, baboo—what’s the dom?”

“The price off that chair, sir, is <i>eight</i> rupees.”

Mr. Browne sank into it with a pretence at gasping. “You
can’t mean that, baboo. Nothing like that. Eight rupees!
You’re dreaming, baboo. You forget that you only paid two for
it. You’re dreaming, baboo—or you’re joking!”

Hurry Doss Mitterjee smiled in deep appreciation of the
gentleman’s humour. He even chuckled, with a note of deprecation.

“Ah, no, sir! You will pardon me for saying that is a mistake,
sir! In <i>bissiness</i> I doo not joke, never! For those chairs
I pay <i>seven</i> rupees four annas, sir! It iss a small profit but it iss
contentable. I doo <i>not</i> ask more, sir!”

“This is very sad, baboo!” said Mr. Browne seriously.
“This is very sad, indeed! I understood that you were a person
.bn 072.png
.pn +1
of probity, who never asked more than a hundred per cent. But
I know the value of shisham chairs, and this is four hundred—Oh,
very sad, indeed! Now see here, I’ll give you three rupees
apiece for these chairs, and take six.”

“Salaam!” said the baboo, touching his forehead with ironical
gratitude and pushing back the chair. “Nossir!”

“You may take them at coss price, sir—at seven four you
may take them, and I make no profit: but perhaps I get your
custom. Take them—<i>seven</i> four!”

Mr. Browne turned away with a slight sigh. “Come along,
dear,” he said to his wife, “this man sells only to Rajahs and
Members of Council.”

The baboo ignored the pleasantry this time—the moment had
come for action. “<i>What</i> do you give, sir?” he said, following
them—“for the sake off bissiness, <i>what</i> do you give?”

“Four rupees!”

“Five eight!”

“Four eight, baboo—there!”

“Ah, sir, I cannot. Believe <i>me</i> they coss five eight to buy!”

“Look here, baboo—I’ll give you five rupees apiece for six of
those shisham wood chairs, every one as good as this, and I’ll
pay you when you send them—that’s thirty rupees—and not another
pice! Helen, be careful of these steps.”

“To what address, sir? Will to-morrow morning be sufficient
early, sir?”

“George!” exclaimed Helen, as they reached the outer
world of Bow Bazar, “what a horrid little cheat of a man!
Did you hear him say at first that they cost seven four to
make?”

“Oh, my dear,” young Browne responded, superiorly.
“That’s a trifle! You don’t know the baboo.”
.bn 073.png
.pn +1

“Well!” said his wife, admiringly, “I don’t know how you
kept your patience, George!”

Whereat Mr. Browne looked still more superior, and informed
Mrs. Browne that the only way to deal with these fellows was
to chaff ’em; make up your mind in the beginning that you’re
going to be done in the eye, and act accordingly. They always
score, he added, with true Anglo-Indian resignation.

They bought a table next, from a very fat old gentleman—simply
clad—in a beard and a dhoty.[#] The beard and the dhoty
were much the same colour, and both fell so abundantly about
his person that it would be difficult to say which was most useful
to him as an article of apparel. And his moral obliquity was
concealed under more rolls and pads of oily-brown adipose tissue
than could often be seen in Bow Bazar. He must have been a
rascal, as young Browne said, or being a Hindu he wouldn’t have
had a beard.
.pm fn-start
Cloth for legs.
.pm fn-end

It was a small mahogany dining table, second-hand, and its
owner wanted twenty rupees for it.

“I <i>think</i>,” said young Browne, “that the memsahib might
give you fourteen!”

The usual humbly sarcastic salaam—it was a very excellent
table—the baboo could not think of parting with it for that.

“All right!” said Mr. Browne, “the memsahib says she
won’t give more than fourteen, and that’s very dear. But I’ll
make you one offer—just one, mind, baboo! I’ll give you fifteen.
Now take it or leave it—one word!”

The baboo salaamed so that his beard swept the ground, and
fervently refused.

“Very well, baboo! Now I don’t want it at any price, see
if you can bargain with the memsahib.”
.bn 074.png
.pn +1

“<i>Eight</i>een rupees, memsahib!” insinuated the old fellow,
“very cheap.”

“No, indeed!” Helen exclaimed with indignation, rising to
the occasion, “I won’t give you any more than fourteen.”

“<i>Chowdrah rupia, memsahib—fo</i>-teen rupee! But the sahib
he offer fifteen!”

“Oh, I don’t want it at all now,” said the sahib, who stood
in the door with his back turned and whistled. “Now you must
bargain with the memsahib.”

The baboo looked at his customers anxiously for a moment.
“For sixteen rupees you take it,” he said.

“Don’t want it,” responded Mr. Browne.

“Alright—for fifteen?”

“Will you give him fifteen, Helen?”

“Certainly not, dear! Fourteen.”

“Fifteen the sahib <i>say</i> he give!” cried the baboo, his beard
wagging with righteous reproach. “Take it for fifteen!” But
Mr. and Mrs. Browne had made their way out. The baboo followed
reminding and entreating for a hundred yards. They
were deaf. Then he wheeled round upon them in front. “Very
well, you give me fourteen?” The Brownes went back and left
their address, which was weak in them, I consider; but I have
no doubt that to this day that bearded baboo considers himself
an injured person, and the victim of a most disastrous <i>bandobust</i>.[#]
.pm fn-start
Bargain.
.pm fn-end
.bn 075.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VII.
.sp 2
.bn 071.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
<target id=i068>
.di i_068.jpg 300 455 1.0
“LET’S have them up!” said Mr. Browne.

Mr. Browne was smoking
a cigar after breakfast in his
own house. There had been
a time when Mr. Browne
smoked his morning cigar on
his way to office, but that was
formerly. The department of
the tea interest entrusted to
Mr. Browne by his firm did
not receive his active personal
superintendence to the
usual extent during the early
months of the cold weather
of ’91. I am aware of this
because my husband is a senior partner. Not that the firm
minded particularly—they liked young Browne, and I know
that we were rather pleased at the time that he had discovered
something in the world besides tea.

The Brownes had been settled some two or three days, and
the wheels of their domestic arrangements had been running
with that perfection of unobtrusive smoothness that can be fully
experienced only in India, so far as I know. The meals had appeared
.bn 076.png
.pn +1
and disappeared as by magic, the rooms had been swept
and dusted and garnished while there was no eye to see, their
wishes had been anticipated, their orders had been carried out in
the night, as it seemed.

“Let’s have ’em up!” suggested Mr. Browne, with reference
to the mysterious agents of all this circumstance. Helen wanted
to see her servants.

“Bear-<i>er</i>!” shouted the sahib, young Browne.

“<i>Hazur!</i>”[#] came the answer, in deep tones, from regions below,
with a sound of bare feet hastily ascending the stair.
.pm fn-start
Your honour.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Hazur bolya?</i>”[#] enquired the bearer in a subdued voice,
partially presenting himself at the door.
.pm fn-start
Your honour called.
.pm fn-end

“Ha!” said young Browne, “<i>Dekko</i>,[#] bearer! You may <i>sub
nokar lao. Sumja? Memsahib dekna muncta!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
Look!
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Bring all the servants. Do you understand? The memsahib wants to
see them.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Bahut atcha!</i>”[#] responded the bearer, and retired.
.pm fn-start
 Very good.
.pm fn-end

Helen sat up very straight, a little nervous air of apprehension
mingled with her dignity. It had been no flippant business
in her experience, to interview even a prospective under-housemaid,
and presently she would be confronted by a whole retinue.
“Why are they so long?” she asked.

“They’re putting on their clean clothes, and perhaps a little
oil in your honour, my dear. They wish to make as radiant an
appearance as possible.” And in a few minutes later the
Brownes’ domestic staff followed its leader into the room, where
it stood abashed, hands hanging down, looking at the floor. The
bearer made a respectful showman’s gesture and awaited the
pleasure of the sahib.
.bn 077.png
.pn +1

The sahib regarded them quizzically, and softly smoked on,
with crossed legs.

“Dear me!” said Helen; “what a lot!”

“They are people of infinite leisure, my dear. The accomplishment
of any one thing requires a great many of them.
Above all it is necessary that they have peace and long hours to
sleep, and an uninterrupted period in which to cook their rice
and wash and anoint themselves. You will soon find out their
little ways. Now let me explain. They don’t understand a
word of English.

“The bearer you know. The bearer brought all the rest and
is responsible for them. I have no doubt that he is in honoured
receipt of at least half their first month’s wages for securing
their situations for them. He is their superior officer, and is
a person of weight and influence among them, and he’s a very
intelligent man. I’ve had him four years. In that time he has
looked after me very well, I consider, very well indeed. He
knows all about my clothes and keeps them tidy—buys a good
many of ’em—socks and ties and things,—takes care of my
room, rubs me down every evening before dinner,—keeps my
money.”

“Keeps your <i>money</i>, George!”

“Oh, yes! one can’t be bothered with money in this country.”

“Well!” said his wife. “I think it’s quite <i>time</i> you were
married, George. Go on!”

George said something irrelevantly foolish and went on.

“He’s perfectly honest, my dear—entirely so. It would be
altogether beneath his dignity to misappropriate. And I’ve always
found him moderate in his overcharges. I took him partly
because he had good chits and good manners, and partly because
of his ingenuousness. I wanted a man for nine rupees—this
.bn 078.png
.pn +1
chap stood out for ten. By way of argument he remarked that
he would probably be purchasing a great many things for the
sahib in the bazar—that the sahib might as well give ten in the
first place! I thought there was a logical acumen about that
that one didn’t come across every day, and engaged him on the
spot.”

“But, George—it’s—it’s almost immoral!”

“Very, my dear! But you’ll find it saves a lot of trouble.”

Helen compressed her pretty lips in a way that spoke of a stern
determination to adhere to the principles in vogue in Canbury.

“And I wouldn’t advise you to interfere with him too much,
Helen, or he’ll pray to be allowed to go to his <i>mulluk</i>,[#] and we
shall lose a good servant. Of course, I’m obliged to jump down
his throat once a month or so—they all need that—but I consider
him a gentleman, and I never hurt his feelings. You observe
the size of his turban, and the dignity of his bearing generally?
Well, so much for the bearer—he gets ten rupees.”
.pm fn-start
Own country.
.pm fn-end

“I’ve put it down, George.”

“Now the kitmutgar—he’s another old servant of mine—the
gentleman who has just salaamed to you. You see by his dress
that he’s a Mussulman. No self-respecting Hindu, as you’ve
read in books of travel which occasionally contain a truth—will
wait on you at table. Observe his nether garments how they
differ from the bearer’s. The B. you see wears a dhoty.”

“A kind of twisted sheet,” remarked Helen.

“Precisely. And this man a regular divided skirt. The
thing he wears on his head is not a dinner plate covered with
white cotton, as one naturally imagines, but another form of
Mussulman millinery—I’m sure I don’t know what. But you’re
.bn 079.png
.pn +1
never to let him appear in your presence without it. It would be
rank disrespect.

“He is also an old servant,” Mr. Browne went on, “because
servants do get old in the course of time if one doesn’t get rid of
them, and I’ve given up trying to get rid of this one. He’s a
regular old granny, as you can see from his face; he’s infuriatingly
incompetent—always poking things at a man that a man
doesn’t want when a man’s got a liver. But he doesn’t understand
being told to go. I dismissed him every day for a week last hot
weather: he didn’t allow it to interfere with him in the least—turned
up behind my chair next morning as regularly as ever—chose
to regard it as a pleasantry of the sahib’s. When I went
to England, to get engaged to you, my dear, I told him I desired
never to look upon his face again. It was the first one I saw
when the ship reached the P. and O. jetty. And there was a
smile on it! What could I do! And that very night he shot
me in the shirt-front with a soda-water bottle. I hand him over
to you, my dear—you’ll find he’ll stay.”

“I like him,” said Mrs. Browne, “and I think his conduct
has been very devoted, George. And he doesn’t cheat?”

“He has no particular opportunity. Now for the cook.
This is the cook, I take it. You see he wears nothing on his
head but his hair, and that’s cut short. Also he wears his particular
strip of muslin draped about his shoulders, toga-wise.
Also he is of a different cast of countenance, broader, higher
cheek-bones, more benevolent. Remotely he’s got a strain of
Chinese blood in him—he’s probably Moog from Chittagong.”

“<i>Tum bawarchi hai, eh?</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
You are the cook?
.pm fn-end
“<i>Gee-ha!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
Worthy one, yes.
.pm fn-end
.bn 080.png
.pn +1

“<i>Tum Moog hai?</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
You are a Moog?
.pm fn-end

“<i>Gee-ha!</i>”

“He is, you see. Most of the cooks are, and all of them pretend
to be.”

“<i>Tum sub cheese junta, eh, bawarchi!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
You know everything?
.pm fn-end

“<i>Gee-ha, hazur! Hum atcha issoup sumja—atcha si’dish
sumja, atcha eepudin sumja—subcheese khana kawasti teke sumja!
Chittie hai hazur.</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
I know good soup, good sidedishes, good puddings. Everything for
dinner I know well. Here are recommendations, your honour.
.pm fn-end

“He says he’s a treasure, my dear, but that’s a modest statement
they all make. And he wishes to show you his chits; will
you condescend to look at them?”

“What are his chits?” Helen inquired.

“His certificates from other people whose digestions he has
ruined from time to time. Let’s see—‘Kali Bagh, cook’—that’s
his name apparently, but you needn’t remember it, he’ll always
answer to ‘Bawarchi!’—‘has been in my service eighteen
months, and has generally given satisfaction. He is as clean as
any I have ever had, fairly honest, and not inclined to be wasteful.
He is dismissed for no fault, but because I am leaving India.’
H’m! I don’t think much of chits! This one probably ought to
read, ‘He doesn’t get drunk often, but he’s lazy, unpunctual,
and beats his wife. He has cooked for me eighteen months,
because I have been too weak-minded to dismiss him. He now
goes by force of circumstances!’ But it’s not a bad chit.”

“I don’t consider it a very good one,” said Helen. “As clean
as any I have ever had!”

“That’s his profoundest recommendation, my dear! He
probably does <i>not</i> make toast with his toes.
.bn 081.png
.pn +1

“People are utterly devoid of scruple about chits,” Mr.
Browne went on, running over the dirty envelopes and long-folded
half-sheets of letter-paper. “I’ve known men, who
wouldn’t tell a lie under any other circumstances to—to save
their souls, calmly sit down and write fervent recommendations
of the most whopping blackguards, in the joyful moment of their
deliverance, over their own names, perfectly regardless of the immorality
of the thing. It’s a curious example of the way the
natives’ desire to be obliging at any cost comes off on us. Now
here’s a memsahib who ought to be ashamed of herself—‘Kali
Bagh is a capital cook. His entrées are delicious, and he always
sends up a joint done to perfection. His puddings are perhaps
his best point, but his vegetables are quite French. I can
thoroughly recommend him to anyone wanting a really first-rate
chef.—Mary L. Johnson.’ Now we don’t want a chef, this man
isn’t a chef, and Mary L. Johnson never had a chef. I knew
the lady—she was the wife of Bob Johnson of the Jumna Bank—and
they hadn’t a pice more to live on than we have! <i>Chef</i>—upon
my word. And yet,” said young Browne thoughtfully,
“I’ve had some very decent plain dinners at Bob Johnson’s.”

“But what’s the use of chits, George, if people don’t believe
in them?”

“Oh, they do believe in ’em implicitly, till they find out the
horrible mendacity of ’em. Then they rage about it and send
the fellow off, with another excellent chit! And one would
never engage a servant <i>without</i> chits, you know. You see how
they value them—this man’s date back to ‘79. Here’s a break,
two years ago.—What sahib’s cook were you two years ago, Bawarchi?”
asked Mr. Browne.

“Exactly! I thought so, he paid a visit to his mulluk two
years ago—that’s his own country. In other words, he got a bad
.bn 082.png
.pn +1
chit from that sahib and was compelled to destroy it. They
have always visited their mulluks under those circumstances,
for the length of time corresponding to the break. But I guess
he’ll do—we mustn’t expect too much. Twelve rupees.”

The cook took his chits back and salaamed. Helen looked
as if she thought a great deal more might be desired in a cook,
but could not bring herself to the point of discussing it in his
immediate presence.

“He seems so very intelligent,” she said to herself with a
qualm.

“Now then, for the mussalchi! <i>Tum mussalchi hai</i>, eh?”

“Gee-ha, hazur!”

The mussalchi wore a short cotton coat, a dhoty, and an expression
of dejection. On his head was a mere suggestion of a
turban—an abject rag. Written upon his face was a hopeless
longing to become a bawarchi, which fate forbade. Once a mussalchi,
the son of a mussalchi, always a mussalchi, the bearer of
hot water and a dish-cloth, the receiver of orders from kitmutgars.

“Consider your mussalchi, Helen! He is engaged to wash
the dishes, to keep the silver clean, and the pots and pans. His
real mission is to break as many as possible, and to levy large
illegal charges upon you monthly for knife-polish and mops.
In addition he’ll carry the basket home from the market every
morning on his head—the cook, you know, is much too swagger
for that! Think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know,” said Helen in unhappy indecision. “What
do <i>you</i> think, George?”

“Oh we’ll try him, and I suppose he’ll have to get seven
rupees. This is the mallie, the gardener—this gentleman with
his hair done up neatly behind.”
.bn 083.png
.pn +1

“Nice clean-looking man,” remarked Helen, “but oughtn’t
he to wear more clothes.”

“Looks like a decent chap. No, I should say not; I never
saw a mallie with more on. You see he’s a very superior person,
a Brahmin in fact. He wears the sacred string, as well as his
beads and his dhoty; do you see it, over his right shoulder and
under his left arm. He claims to have been ‘twice born.’
They’re generally of a very respectable <i>jat</i>[#] the mallies.”
.pm fn-start
Caste.
.pm fn-end

“He will take care of the garden,” remarked Helen.

“As we happen to have a garden, yes. But his business is to
produce flowers. You want flowers, you engage a mallie. You
get flowers. This process of logic is perfectly simple to the native
mind. It is nothing but justice and sweet reason. A
mallie is a person who causes flowers to appear.”

“But where does he get them?”

“Oh, my dear, that is one of the secrets of his profession.
But I understand that there’s a very wise and liberal understanding
amongst mallies—and quite a number of mallies have gardens
attached to them. There’s a very old story about a mallie’s
chit which you haven’t heard yet. His departing master gave
him an excellent character and summed up by saying: ‘This
mallie has been with me fifteen years. I have had no garden,
I have never lacked flowers, and he has never had a conviction.’”

“George—do you mean to say they steal!”

“Oh, no, my dear! It’s a matter of arrangement. This
man could never take flowers out of another sahib’s garden without
consulting the other sahib’s mallie—that would be very
wrong. But we’ll see if he can’t grow us some for ourselves.”
.bn 084.png
.pn +1

“But the other sahib.”

“The other sahib is similarly obliged from somebody else’s
garden, and doesn’t know anything about it. Eight rupees for
the mallie.”

Helen put it down with inquietude of spirit.

“Now for the syce, who looks after the pony. I’ve had the
syce two or three years, too. He’s a very good servant now, but
he used to give me a lot of trouble by pure laziness. Once he
let a pony of mine get a sore back, and never told me, and I
licked him. I licked him well, and I consider that licking made
a man of him. He realized gradually—he’s a stupid chap—that
it was undesirable to be licked, especially in the compound with
the other servants looking on, and instead of throwing up his
place and bringing me before the magistrate for assault, he concluded
that he wouldn’t let it happen again. It never has, and
he has respected himself and me more ever since.”

“Do you often ‘lick’ them, George?”

“Except this once I never have. Neither does anybody else,
except a few ill-conditioned young cubs, who haven’t been out
long enough to understand the native and think they can kick
him about to advantage. But decent servants never stay with
such men. Indeed they can’t get ’em. You’ve got to have a
good character to get good servants, and there isn’t a sahib in
Calcutta that hasn’t a reputation in the bazar. The bearer
knows perfectly well I wouldn’t touch a hair of his head, and if
the bearer went out with cholera to-morrow I could get half a
dozen as good in his place. On the other hand, probably all the
kitmutgar-lok despise me for keeping such a poor servant as the
Kit, and I’d have a difficulty in getting a better one.”

“Curious!” said Helen.

“Yes. The syce, my dear, will desire you to pay for quite
.bn 085.png
.pn +1
twice as much grain and grass as the pony consumes, and for a
time you will do it. Bye-and-bye you will acquire the wisdom
of a serpent and cut him accordingly. In the meantime he’s
bound to have as much sugar-cane on hand as you want to feed
the pony with, at a fixed charge of four annas a month. Don’t
forget that the syce’s tulub is eight rupees.

“This very smug and smiling person is the dhoby, the washerwoman.
He is an unmitigated rascal. There is no palliation
for anything he does. He carries off your dirty linen every
week in a very big pack on a very little donkey, and brings it
home on the same, beating the donkey all the way there and all
the way back. He mismatches your garments with other people’s,
he washes them with country soap that smells to heaven if
you don’t watch him. His custom in cleaning them is to beat
them violently between two large and jagged stones. He combines
all the vices of his profession upon the civilized globe;
but I’m afraid you’ll have to find out for yourself, dear. Put
down the dhoby at ten.

“This excessively modest person is the bheesty, who brings
us water every day in a goat-skin. He isn’t used to polite society,
but he’s a very worthy and hard-working sort. He’s only
a ticca-bheesty. I fancy several people about here use him.
You see his sole business in life is carrying water about in goat-skins.
So we only give him three rupees.

“The sweeper is out on the veranda. Very properly he
doesn’t venture into our presence. He is of very low caste—does
the sweeping and all the menial work, you know. You are
never to see or speak to him, or you’ll be lowered in the respect
of the compound. The sweeper is a very poor sort of person—he
is the only servant in the place that will eat the remains of
our food. He gets six rupees.”
.bn 086.png
.pn +1

“Is that all?” asked Helen. “I’m sure I don’t know them
apart.”

“That’s all, except your ayah, who isn’t here, and a <i>durwan</i>
to keep the door, whom we’ll get when we’re richer, and a <i>dhurzie</i>
to mend our clothes, whom we’ll get when they begin to wear out.
May they be dismissed now?”

.if h
.il fn=i_079.jpg w=444px id=i079
.ca
<s>A VERY WORTHY AND HARD-WORKING SORT.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: A VERY WORTHY AND HARD-WORKING SORT.]
.if-

“Oh, yes, <i>please</i>!” said Helen, and “<i>Bahut atcha? Tum
jane sucta</i>,”[#] remarked her husband, whereat they salaamed and
departed in single file.
.pm fn-start
You may go.
.pm fn-end
.bn 087.png
.pn +1

“But George,” said Helen, “they come, with my ayah at
eleven, to eighty-five rupees a month! Almost seven pounds!
I thought servants were cheap in India!”

“No, dear, they’re not; at least, not in Calcutta. And these
are the very least we can have to be at all comfortable.”

The two Brownes looked at each other with a slight shade of
domestic anxiety. This was dispelled by the foolish old consideration
of how little anything really mattered, now that they
were one Browne, and presently they were disporting themselves
behind the pony on the Maidan, leaving the cares of their household
to those who were most concerned in them.
.bn 088.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER VIII.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
A WEEK later Helen took over the accounts. In the meantime
she had learned to count rupees and annas, pi and
pice, also a few words of that tongue in which orders are given
in Calcutta. She arose on the seventh morning of her tenure of
office rigidly determined that the office should no longer be a
sinecure. She would drop curiosity and pleasure, and assume
discipline, righteousness and understanding. She would make a
stand. She would deal justly, but she would make a stand. It
would be after George had gone to office. When he came home,
tired with tea affairs, he would not be compelled to rack his brain
further with the day’s marketing. He would see that the lady
he had made Mrs. Browne was capable of more than driving
about in a tum-tum and writing enthusiastic letters home about
the beauties of Calcutta.

George went to office. The kitmutgar softly removed the
blue and white breakfast things. Outside the door, in the “bottle
khana,” the mussalchi, squatting, washed them in an earthen
bowl with a mop-stick. It occurred to Helen that she might as
well begin by going to look at the mussalchi, and she did. She
looked at him with a somewhat severe expression, thereby causing
him dismay and terror. She walked all round the mussalchi,
but found nothing about him to criticise. “But, probably,”
thought she, as she went back to the dining-room, “my looking
at him had its moral effect.” Then she sent for the cook.
.bn 089.png
.pn +1

The cook arrived with an expression of deep solemnity, tempered
by all the amiable qualities you can think of. He held in
his hand an extremely dirty piece of paper, covered with strange
characters in Nagri—how little anybody would have thought,
when they were designed in the dawn of the world, that they
would ever be used to indicate the items of an Englishman’s dinner!
The cook put a pair of spectacles on to read them, which
completed the anomaly, and made him look more benevolent than
ever.

“Well, bawarchi,” said Helen, ready with pencil and note-book,
“account hai?”

“Gee-ha, hai!” responded he. Then after a respectful pause,
“S’in-beef,” he said, “<i>char anna</i>.”

“Shin beef,” repeated Helen, with satisfaction, “four annas.
Yes?”

“Fiss—che[#] anna. Bress mutton—egrupee, che anna.
Eggis—satrah—aht[#] anna.”
.pm fn-start
Six.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Eight.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Seventeen</i> eggs, bawarchi? When did we eat seventeen
eggs? How did we eat seventeen eggs yesterday?”

Mrs. Browne spoke impulsively, in English, but Kali Bagh
seemed to understand, and with an unruffled front proceeded
to account circumstantially for every egg. His mistress was
helpless. But, “to-morrow,” thought she earnestly, “I will <i>see</i>
whether he puts four in the soup!”

The cook went on to state that since yesterday the Browne
family had consumed three seers of potatoes—six pounds—at two
annas a seer, which would be six annas. “And I don’t believe
that, either,” mentally ejaculated Mrs. Browne, but Kali Bagh
continued without flinching. He chronicled salt, pepper, sauce,
.bn 090.png
.pn +1
sugar, he mentioned rice, dhal, “garden-isspice,” “guava isstew,”
“k’rats,”[#] “kiss-miss,”[#] “maida,”[#] and enough “mukkan”[#] to
have supplied a charity-school. Helen was amazed to find the
number of culinary articles which undeniably might have been
used in the course of twenty-four hours—she did not consider
the long calm evening that went to meditation over the list.
When it was finished she found that the day’s expenses in food
had been exactly eight rupees six annas, or about eleven shillings.
Helen had had a thrifty education, and she knew this was absurd.
She turned to the flagrant eggs and to the unblushing potatoes,
and she made a calculation.
.pm fn-start
Carrots.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Raisins.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Flour.
.pm fn-end

.pm fn-start
 Butter.
.pm fn-end

“Bawarchi!” said she, “Potatoes—four annas. Eggs—five
annas, <i>daga</i>.”[#]
.pm fn-start
 I will give.
.pm fn-end

“Bahut atcha!” said the cook, without remonstrance. He
still had twenty-five per cent of profit.

Helen observed, and was encouraged. She summoned up her
sternest look, and drew her pencil through the total. “Eight
rupees,” she remarked with simplicity, “daga na. <i>Five</i> rupees
daga,” and she closed the book.

Kali Bagh looked at her with an expression of understanding,
mingled with disappointment. He did not expect all he asked,
but he expected more than he got. As it was, his profit
amounted only to two rupees, not much for a poor man with a
family. But in after days, when his memsahib grew in general
sagacity and particular knowledge of the bazar, Kali Bagh had
reason to look back regretfully to those two rupees as to the brief
passing of a golden age.

“I will now go down,” said Mrs. Browne with enthusiasm,
“and look at his pots.”
.bn 091.png
.pn +1

The compound, as she crossed it, was full of the eternal sunlight
of India, the gay shrill gossip of the mynas, the hoarse
ejaculations of the crows. A flashy little green parrot flew out of
a hibiscus bush by the wall in full crimson flower; he belonged
to the jungle. But a pair of grey pigeons cooed to each other
over the building of their nest in the cornice of a pillar of the
Brownes’ upper veranda. They had come to stay, and they
spoke of the advantages of co-operative housekeeping with another
young couple like themselves, knowing it to be on a safe
and permanent basis. The garden was all freshly scratched and
tidy; there was a pleasant smell of earth; the mallie, under a pipal
tree, gathered up its broad dry fallen leaves to cook his rice
with. It was a graphic bit of economy, so pleasantly close to
nature that its poetry was plain. “We are the only people who
are extravagant in India,” thought Helen, as she regarded the
mallie, and in this reflection I venture to say that she was quite
correct.

The door of the <i>bawarchi khana</i>[#] was open—it was never
shut. I am not sure, indeed, that there was a door. There were
certainly no windows. It is possible that the bawarchi khana was
seven feet square, and its mistress was just able to stand up straight
in it with a few inches to spare. It contained a shelf, a table,
and a stove. When Kali Bagh sat down he used his heels. The
shelf and the table were full of the oil and condiments dear to the
heart of every bawarchi. The stove was an erection like a tenement
house, built with what was left over from the walls, and artistically
coloured pink to be like them. It contained various hollows
on the top, in one or two of which charcoal was glowing—beyond
this I cannot explain its construction to be plain to understandings
.bn 092.png
.pn +1
accustomed to the kitchen ranges of Christianity
and civilisation. But nothing ever went wrong with Kali Bagh’s
stove, the boiler never leaked, the hot water pipes never burst,
the oven never required relining, the dampers never had to be re-regulated.
He was its presiding genius, he worked it with a
palm leaf fan, and nothing would induce him to look at a modern
improvement. Kali Bagh was a conservative institution himself,
his recipes were an heritage, he was the living representative of
an immemorial <i>dustur</i>.[#] Why should Kali Bagh afflict himself
with the ways of the memsahib!
.pm fn-start
Cook-house.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Custom.
.pm fn-end

The bawarchi khana had another door, opening into a rather
smaller apartment, otherwise lightless and airless, which contained
Kali Bagh’s wardrobe and bed. The wardrobe was elementary
and hung upon a single peg, the bed consisted of four
short legs and a piece of matting. Kali Bagh had reposed himself
on it, and was already snoring, when Mrs. Browne came in.
He had divested himself of his chuddar and his spectacles, and
looked less of a philosopher and more of an Aryan. Mrs. Browne
made a rude clatter among the pans, which brought him to a
sense of her disturbing presence. Presently she observed him
standing behind her, looking anxious. His mistress sniffed about
intrepidly. She lifted saucepan lids and discovered within remains
of concoctions three days old; she found the day’s milk in
an erstwhile kerosene tin; she lifted a kettle and intruded upon
the privacy of a large family of cockroaches, any one of them as
big as a five-shilling piece. Kali Bagh would never have disturbed
them. She found messes and mixtures and herbs and
spices and sauces which she did not understand and could not
approve. The day’s marketing lay in a flat basket under the
.bn 093.png
.pn +1
table. Helen drew it forth and discovered a live pigeon indiscriminately
near the mutton with its wings twisted around one another
at the joint, while from beneath a débris of potatoes, beans
and cauliflower, came a feeble and plaintive “Quack!”

“What is this?” said Mrs. Browne with paler and sterner
criticism, looking into a pot that was bubbling on the fire.

“<i>Chaul hai, memsahib! Hamara khana!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
It is rice, memsahib; my dinner.
.pm fn-end

“Your, dinner, bawarchi! All that rice?” And, indeed,
therein was no justification for Kali Bagh. It was not only
his dinner, but the dinner of the sweeper and of the syce and of
the mussalchi, to be supplied to them a trifle below current
market rates, and Mrs. Browne had paid for it all that morning.
Helen found herself confronted with her little domestic corner of
the great problem of India—the natives’ “way.” But she had
no language with which to circumvent it or remonstrate with it.
She could only decide that Kali Bagh was an eminently proper
subject for discipline, and resolve to tell George, which was not
much of an expedient. It is exactly what we all do in India,
however, under the circumstances. We tell our superior officers,
until at last the Queen Empress herself is told; and the
Queen Empress is quite as incapable of further procedure as Mrs.
Browne; indeed, much more so, for she is compelled to listen to
the voice of her parliamentary wrangling-machine upon the matter,
which obeys the turning of a handle, and is a very fine piece
of mechanism indeed, but not absolutely reliable when it delivers
ready-made opinions upon Aryan problems. At least I am quite
sure that is my husband’s idea, and I have often heard young
Browne say the same thing.

There was a scattering to right and left when Helen reappeared
.bn 094.png
.pn +1
.bn 095.png
.pn +1
in the compound. Her domestics were not dressed to receive
her, and they ran this way and that, noiselessly like cockroaches
to their respective holes. There seemed to be a great
many of them, more by at least half a dozen than were properly
accredited to the house; and Helen was afterwards informed that
they were the <i>bhai</i>[#] of the other servants, representing a fraction
of the great unemployed of Asia, who came daily for fraternal
gossip in the sun and any patronage that might be going. They
were a nuisance, these bhai, and were soon sternly put down by
the arm of the law and the edict of the sahib, who enacted that
no strange native should be allowed to enter the compound without
a chit. “It’s the only way to convince them,” said he, “that
the Maidan is the best place for public meetings.”
.pm fn-start
Caste-brothers.
.pm fn-end

.if h
.il fn=i_087.jpg w=357px id=i087
.ca
<s>“WHAT IS THIS?” SAID MRS. BROWNE, WITH PALER AND STERNER\
CRITICISM.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: “WHAT IS THIS?” SAID MRS. BROWNE, WITH PALER AND\
STERNER CRITICISM.]
.if-

The quarters of the syce and the pony were the only ones that
invited further inspection. The same roof sheltered both of these
creatures of service, a thatched one; but between them a primitive
partition went half way up. On one side of this the pony
was tethered and enjoyed the luxuries of his dependence, on the
other the syce lived in freedom, but did not fare so well. The
pony’s expenses were quite five times as heavy. His food cost
more, his clothes cost more, his medical attendance cost more, to
say nothing of his requiring a valet. He was much the more
valuable animal of the two, though the other is popularly believed
in England to have a soul. His wants were even more
elaborately supplied than the syce’s—he had a trough to feed
from, and a pail to drink out of, a fresh bed every night, a box
for his grain, and a curry-comb for his skin; while the syce’s domestic
arrangements consisted of an earthenware pot, a wooden
stick, and a rickety charpoy. When he was cold he borrowed
.bn 096.png
.pn +1
the pony’s blanket, and I never heard of any toilet articles in
connection with him. The accommodation was not equally
divided between him and the pony, either. The pony had at least
twice as much, and it was in better repair.

The pony looked much askance at Helen. He was accustomed
only to the race of his dark-skinned servitor. The sahib
with his white face and strange talk he associated with the whip
and being made to pull an objectionable construction upon
wheels from which he could not get away; but a memsahib
might be something of inconceivable terror—her petticoats
looked like it. Therefore the pony withdrew himself into a remote
corner of his stable, where he stood looking ineffably silly,
and declined to be seduced by split pieces of sugar-cane or wheedling
words.

“<i>Gorah atcha hai?</i>”[#] asked Helen, and was assured that he
was very “atcha,” that his grain he ate, his grass he ate, his
water he ate, and “<i>cubbi kooch na bolta</i>——” “he never said anything
whatever,” which was the final proof of his flourishing
condition.
.pm fn-start
Is the horse well?
.pm fn-end

It was getting a little discouraging, but Helen thought that
before retreating she might at least inspect the bearer’s cow, a
cow being a gentle domestic animal, of uniform habits, all the
world over. One’s own cow is a thorn in the flesh and a source
of ruin, in India. She declines to give milk, except to the outside
world at so much a seer,[#] she devours abnormal quantities of
food, she is neglected and becomes depraved, being nobody’s particular
business. But it is impossible to draw lacteal supplies
from an unknown source in India. It is paying a large price for
cholera bacilli, which is absurd, since one can get them almost
.bn 097.png
.pn +1
anywhere for nothing. To say nothing of the depravity of the
milk-wallah,[#] who strains his commodity through his dhoty, and
replenishes his cans from the first stagnant tank he comes to.
The wise and advisable thing is to permit the bearer, as a
gracious favour, to keep a cow on the premises and to supply the
family at current rates. It is a source of income to him, and of
confidence to you, while the cow does her whole duty in that
clean and comfortable state whereto she is called. The bearer,
too, is honoured and dignified by the possession of the sacred
animal. He performs every office for her himself, though he
would scorn to bring a pail of water to a horse, and he is happy
to live in the odour of her sanctity. Helen discovered the cow
of their establishment tied with her calf outside the best “go-down”
in the compound—the largest and cleanest—which she
occupied at night. The bearer himself had not nearly such good
quarters, and this was of his own dispensation. She wore a
string of blue beads around her horns, and munched contentedly
at a large illegal breakfast of straw which had been bought and
paid for to supply the pony’s bed.
.pm fn-start
Two pounds.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Man.
.pm fn-end

“Poor cooey!” said Helen, advancing to attempt a familiarity,
but the cow put down her head and made such a violent
lunge at her that she beat a hasty and undignified retreat. This
was partly on account of the calf, which stood a little way off,
but well within the maternal vision, and it was quite an unreasonable
demonstration, as the calf was stuffed, and put there to
act upon the cow’s imagination only. This is a necessary expedient
to ensure milk in India from a cow that has no calf of
her own; it is a painful imposition, but uniformly successful.
The fact is one of reputation, as being the only one invariably
.bn 098.png
.pn +1
rejected by travellers as a lively lie, whereas they are known to
swallow greedily much larger fictions than stuffed calves.

From an upper window, shortly after, Helen saw the cow’s
morning toilet being performed by the bearer. And it was an
instructive sight to see this solemn functionary holding at arm’s
length the utmost end of her tail, and with art and precision improving
its appearance.

In the cool of the evening after dinner, the two Brownes sat
together in the shadow of the pillars of their upper veranda,
and Helen told the story of her adventure in the compound.
Overhead the pigeons cooed of their day’s doings, the pony
neighed from his stable in the expectation of his content. A
light wind stirred the palms where they stood against the stars,
the smoke of the mallie’s pipal leaves curled up faintly from his
roof where he dwelt beside the gate. Below, in the black shadow
of the godowns, easeful figures sat or moved, the subdued tones
of their parley hardly came to the upper veranda. They had
rice and rest and the comfortable hubble-bubble. And the sahib
and the memsahib devised how they might circumvent these
humble people in all their unlawful doings, till the air grew
chill with the dew, and the young moon showed over their
neighbour’s tamarind tree.
.bn 099.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER IX.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
MRS. BROWNE’S ayah was a little Mussulman woman of
about thirty-five, with bright eyes and an expression of
great worldly wisdom upon her small, square, high-boned face.
She dressed somewhat variously, but her official garments were a
short jacket and a striped cotton petticoat, a string of beads
round her neck, silver bangles on her arms and ankles, hoops in
her ears, and a small gold button in her right nostril. This last
bit of coquetry affected Helen uncomfortably for some time.
Her name was Chua, signifying “a rat,” and her heathen sponsors
showed rather a fine discrimination in giving it to her. She
was very like one. It would be easy to fancy her nibbling in the
dark, or making unwarrantable investigations when honest people
were asleep. When Chua was engaged and questioned upon
the subject of remuneration, she salaamed very humbly, and said,
“What the memsahib pleases,” which was ten rupees. At this
Chua’s countenance fell, for most of the ayahs of her acquaintance
received twelve. Accepting the fact, however, that her mistress
was not a “burra memsahib”[#] from whom much might
be expected, but a “chota memsahib”[#] from whom little could
be extracted, she went away content, and spread her mat in the
women’s place in the mosque and bowed many times to the west
as the sun went down, and paid at least four annas to the <i>moulvi</i>[#]
who had helped her to this good fortune.
.pm fn-start
Great memsahib.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Little memsahib.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Priest.
.pm fn-end
.bn 100.png
.pn +1

Chua abode in her own house, as is the custom of ayahs with
family ties. She was married—her husband was a kitmutgar.
They lived in a bustee in the very middle of Calcutta, where
dwelt several other kitmutgars and their wives, a dhoby and a
number of goats, and Chua walked out every morning to her
work. Then home at twelve to cook her food and sleep, then
back at four for further duty until after dinner. She never
breakfasted before starting in the morning, but she carried with
her always a small square tin box from which she refreshed herself
surreptitiously at intervals. Inside the box was only a rolled-up
betel leaf, and inside the leaf a dab of white paste; but it was
to Chua what the hubble-bubble was to Abdul, her husband, a
great and comfortable source of meditation upon the goodness of
Allah, and the easiest form of extortion to be practised upon her
lawful taskmistress.

.if h
.il fn=i_094.jpg w=262px id=i094
.ca
<s>CHUA.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: CHUA.]
.if-

Helen found great difficulty at first in assimilating this hand-maid
into her daily life. She had been told that an ayah was
indispensable, and she could accept Chua as a necessary appendage
to the lofty state of her Oriental existence, but to find occupation
for her became rather a burden to the mind of Mrs. Browne.
Things to do were precious, she could not spare them to be done
by anybody else, even at ten rupees a month with the alternative
of improper idleness. Moreover, the situation was in some respects
embarrassing. One could have one’s ribbons straightened
and one’s hair brushed with equanimity, but when it came to the
bathing of one’s feet and the putting on of one’s stockings Helen
was disposed to dispense with the services of her ayah as verging
on the indelicate. Chua was still more grieved when her mistress
utterly declined to allow herself to be “punched and prodded,”
as she expressed it, in the process of gentle massaging in
which the ayah species are proficient. Mrs. Browne was young
.bn 101.png
.pn +1
.bn 102.png
.pn +1
then, and a new-comer, and not of a disposition to brook any
interference with her muscular tissues. But the other day she
particularly recommended an ayah to me on account of this
accomplishment. This to illustrate, of course, not the degeneration
of Mrs. Browne’s sense of propriety, but of her muscular
tissues.

The comprehension and precise knowledge which Chua at
once obtained of her mistress’s wardrobe and effects was wonderful
in its way. She knew the exact contents of every box and
drawer and wardrobe, the number of pen-nibs in the writing-case,
the number of spools in the work-basket. Helen used to feel, in
the shock of some disclosure of observation extraordinary, as if
the omniscient little woman had made an index of her mistress’s
emotions and ideas as well, and could lay her small skinny brown
finger upon any one of them, which intuition was very far from
being wrong. Chua early induced an admiring confidence in
her rectitude by begging Mrs. Browne to make a list of all her
possessions so that from time to time she could demonstrate
their safety. The ayah felt herself responsible. She knew that
upon the provocation of a missing embroidered petticoat there
might be unpleasant results connected with the police-wallah and
the <i>thana</i>,[#] not only for her but for the whole establishment, and
she wished to be in a secure position to give evidence, if necessary,
against somebody else. It could certainly not be Chua,
therefore, Helen announced, when she communicated to her lord
at the breakfast table the fact that her very best scissors had been
missing for three days. “Isn’t it tedious?” said she.
.pm fn-start
Police office.
.pm fn-end

“Scissors,” said young Browne. “Yes, good new shiny sharp
ones, weren’t they, with Rodgers’ name plainly stamped on them—and
rather small?”
.bn 103.png
.pn +1

“All that,” lamented Helen, “and embroidery size—such
loves!”

.if h
.il fn=i_096.jpg w=253px id=i096
.ca
<s>AN ACCIDENT DISCLOSED THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF AN IMPOSSIBLE VASE.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: AN ACCIDENT DISCLOSED THEM AT THE BOTTOM OF AN\
IMPOSSIBLE VASE.]
.if-

“You are gradually coming within the operation of custom,
my dear. Steel is the weakness of the Aryan. He—in this
case she—will respect your
clothes, take care of your
money, and guard your jewellery—they
all have a general
sense of property in its
correct relation, but it does
not apply to a small pair
of scissors or a neat pocket
knife. Such things seem
to yield to some superior
attraction outside the moral
sense connected with these
people, and they invariably
disappear. It’s inveterate,
but it’s a nuisance. One
has to make such a row.”

“George,” said Helen
gravely, “why do you say
in this case <i>she</i>?”

“I think you’ll find it
was your virtuous maid, my
dear. It wasn’t the bearer—he
has permitted me to
keep the same knife and
nail scissors now for two years and a half, and the rest of the
servants, all but the ayah, are the bearer’s creatures, and will
reflect exactly his morality in quality and degree. She isn’t—she’s
.bn 104.png
.pn +1
an irresponsible functionary, except to you; you’ll have to
keep an eye on her. However, if we make ourselves patiently
and unremittingly disagreeable for a week or two they’ll turn up.”

“I haven’t the Hindustani to be disagreeable in,” Helen remarked.

“Oh, you needn’t be violent; just inquire at least three times
a day, ‘<i>Hamara kinchi, kidder gia?</i>’[#] and look forbidding the
rest of the time. Never dream for a moment they’re stolen or
admit they’re lost. It’s a kind of worry she won’t be able to stand—she’ll
never know what you’re going to do. And she’ll conclude
it’s cheaper in the end to restore them.”
.pm fn-start
My scissors, where have they gone?
.pm fn-end

I don’t know whether the Brownes made themselves as disagreeable
as they might about the kinchi, but it was a long time before
they were restored. Then an accident disclosed them at the
bottom of an impossible vase. Chua, standing by, went through
an extravaganza of gratification. Her eyes shone, she laughed
and clasped her hands with dramatic effect. “<i>Eggi bat</i>”[#]—would
the memsahib inform the sahib and also the bearer that
they had been found?—the latter evidently having resorted lately
to some nefarious means of extracting from her what she had
done with them. Chua had doubtless had an uncomfortable
quarter of an hour before her mistress discovered them, and felt
unjustly served in it. For the theft was only a prospective one,
to be accomplished in the course of time, if it looked advisable.
It did not look advisable and Chua reconsidered it, thereby leaving
her Mohammedan conscience void of offence.
.pm fn-start
One word.
.pm fn-end

As soon as she was able to understand and be understood,
Helen thought it her duty to make some kindly enquiries about
Chua’s domestic affairs. Had she, for instance, any children?
.bn 105.png
.pn +1

“<i>Na, memsahib!</i>” she responded, with a look of assumed
contempt that could not have sat more emphatically upon the
face of any <i>fin de siècle</i> lady who does not believe in babies.
“<i>Baba hai na! Baba na muncta</i>,”[#] she went on with a large
curl of the lip, “Baba all time <i>cry kurta</i>[#]—Waow! Waow!
<i>atcha na</i>,[#] memsahib!”
.pm fn-start
I do not want babies.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Makes crying.
.pm fn-end
.fs 80%
.pm fn-start
Not good.
.pm fn-end

“Oh na, ayah! Baba atcha hai,” laughed Helen, defending
the sacredest theory of her sex.

Chua took an attitude of self-effacement, but her reply had
a patronising dignity, “<i>Memsahib kawasti baba atcha hai</i>,” said
she. “<i>Memsahib kawasti kooch kam hai na! Ayah ka kam
hai! Tub baba atcha na—kooch na muncta!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
For the memsahib babies are good. The memsahib has no work to
do. The ayah has work. Then babies are not good, she does not want
any!
.pm fn-end

Chua occupied quite the modern ground, which was exhilarating
in an Oriental, and doubtless testified to the march of
truth—that babies were only practicable and advisable when
their possible mothers could find nothing better to do. Helen
was impressed, and more deeply so when she presently discovered
that Chua and Abdul, her husband, lived in different houses in
the bustee I have mentioned—different huts, that is, mud-baked
and red-tiled and leaking, and offering equal facilities for the
intrusion of the ubiquitous goat. Chua spoke of Abdul with an
angry flash of contempt. In accommodating himself to circumstances
recently, Abdul had offended her very deeply. It was
on an occasion when Chua had accompanied a memsahib to
England with the usual infant charge. She was very sick, she
earned a hundred and fifty rupees, she was away three months—“<i>kali
tin mahina</i>,[#] memsahib!” and when she returned she
.bn 106.png
.pn +1
found Abdul mated to another. She was artful, was Chua—her
mistress’s face expressed such a degree of disapprobation that
she fancied herself implicated, and instantly laughed to throw a
triviality over Abdul’s misconduct. It was a girl he married, a
mere child “<i>baba kamafik</i>,[#] memsahib”—fourteen years old.
But her scorn came through the mask of her amusement when
she went on to state that the house of Abdul was no longer without
its olive branch, but that Abdul’s sahib had gone away and
there was very little rice for anybody in that family. The recreant
had come to her in his extremity, asking alms, she said with
her curled lip. “<i>Rupia do-o!</i>”[#] she whined, holding out her
hand and imitating his suppliance with intensest irony. Then
drawing herself up proudly she rehearsed her answer brief, contemptuous,
and to the point.

.pm fn-start
 Only three months.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Like a baby.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Ten rupees.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Daga na!—Jao!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
I will not give! Go!
.pm fn-end

She had invested the proceeds of her journey over the “black
water” in a ticca-gharry which lent itself all day long to the
Calcutta public under her administration and to her profit.
The day after Helen had been thus edified, the ayah did not appear
until the afternoon. She had been to law about some point
in relation to the ticca-gharry. I can’t remember what Mrs.
Browne said it was—but she wanted an advance of wages for her
legal expenses. She intended to spare nothing to be triumphant—her
adversary had trusted his case to a common <i>vakeel</i>,[#] she
would have a <i>gorah-vakeel</i>,[#] though they came higher. Her
witnesses would be properly paid too—a rupee apiece, and eight
annas extra for any necessary falsification at present unexpected.
The next afternoon she came late, with a tale of undeserved disaster
which she lucubrated with indignant tears, after the manner
.bn 107.png
.pn +1
of her sex. It was not that the magistrate sahib was not
fair, he was just as the sun at noon, or that Rahim the gharry-wallah
had more witnesses than she—indeed, being a poor man,
he had only four—but they were four of the five, unhappily,
whose services <i>she</i> had engaged. The gharry-wallah had offered
them two rupees—a higher bid—and so they spoke <i>jute bat</i>.[#]
But he would never be able to pay! Oh, it was very <i>carab</i>![#]
and Chua sat in the dust and wrapped her face in her <i>sari</i>[#] and
wept again. Later, she informed her mistress that it was possible
she might again be absent to-morrow—it was possible that
she might come into contact that evening in the street with these
defaulting witnesses—violent contact. <i>It was possible</i> that
if they laughed at her she would strike them, and then—with an
intensely observing eye always upon Helen—then her memsahib, in
the event of her being carried off to the <i>thana</i> for
assault, would of course enquire “<i>Hamara ayah, kidder
hai?</i>”[#] and immediately take proceedings to get her out.
Chua’s countenance fell, though with instant submission, when
Helen informed her sternly that she would on no account institute
such proceedings, and she was deprived even of illegal means of
satisfaction, taken with impunity.
.pm fn-start
 Lawyer.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Literally, horse-lawyer.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
False talk.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Bad.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Head cloth.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 My ayah, where is she?
.pm fn-end

It was Chua’s aptitude for assault that led to her final expulsion
from the service of the Brownes and from the pages of
these annals. Her manner toward the bearer had been propitiatory
from the beginning. She called him “Sirdar,”[#] she
paid him florid Oriental compliments; by the effacement of her
own status and personality she tried to establish a friendly understanding
with him. She undertook small services on his
behalf. She attempted to owe him allegiance as the other servants
.bn 108.png
.pn +1
did. It is impossible to say that she did not press upon
him a percentage of her <i>tulub</i>, to ensure his omnipotent good-will.
But Kasi was for some dark reason unreciprocal—young
Browne believed he thought she was storming his affections—and
at best consented only to preserve an armed neutrality.
Whereat Chua became resentful and angry, carried her head
high, and exchanged remarks with Kasi which were not in the
nature of amenities. The crisis came one afternoon when the
Brownes were out.
.pm fn-start
 Head bearer.
.pm fn-end

“I have something to tell you after dinner,” said Mrs.
Browne significantly later, across the joint.

“And I have something to tell <i>you</i>,” young Browne responded
with equal meaning.

Mrs. Browne had the first word, in order, her husband said,
that she shouldn’t have the last. She explained that she had
found the ayah in tears, quite extinguished upon the floor, the
cause being insult. Chua had forgotten at noon the little bright
shawl which she wrapped about her head in the streets—had left
it upon the memsahib’s veranda. Seeing it, the bearer had done
a deadly thing. He had not touched it himself, but he had sent
for the sweeper—the sweeper!—and bade him <i>fenk-do</i>[#] it to his
own unclean place of living. And there, after much search, had
Chua found it. Therefore was she deeply abased, and therefore
did she tender her resignation. The bearer had behaved <i>Rajah
kamafik!</i>[#] and had, moreover, spoken to her in <i>bat</i> that was
<i>carab</i>, very <i>carab</i>.
.pm fn-start
Throw.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Like a lord!
.pm fn-end

“Yes,” said the sahib, judicially, “and the bearer came to
me also weeping with joined hands to supplicate. His tale of
woe is a little different. He declares he never saw the shawl
.bn 109.png
.pn +1
and never gave the order—I’ve no doubt he did both—but that
the sweeper acted upon his own responsibility. And what do
you think the ayah did in revenge? She <i>slippered</i> him!—all
round the compound! The bearer, poor chap, fled in disorder,
but couldn’t escape. He has undoubtedly been slippered. And
in the presence of the whole compound! It’s worse—infinitely
worse—than having his <i>puggri</i>[#] knocked off in ribaldry. And
now he says that though he has served me faithfully all these
years, and I am his father and his mother, his honour has been
damaged in this place, and he prays to be allowed to depart.”
.pm fn-start
Turban.
.pm fn-end

“Slippered him, George! but he’s such a big man and she
such a little woman! All round the compound! Oh,” said
George’s wife, giving way to unseemly hilarity, “I should like to
have seen that!”

“Little termagant! Oh, it was the insult he ran from, my
dear—not the blow. That she—an ayah and the wife of a kitmutgar,
should have touched him with the sole of her shoe!
Don’t laugh, dear—they’ll hear you, and I’d rather they didn’t.”

The Brownes held further debate, and took all the circumstances
into consideration. Young Browne had evidently arrived
immediately at a judicial view of the case, though he professed
himself willing to let the bearer go if Helen wanted to
retain Chua. “Though in that case there’ll be anarchy, my
dear, I warn you,” said he. The result was a solemn gathering
of the servants next morning upon the veranda, addressed by
young Browne, while the memsahib sat up straight in another
chair and looked serious. He took no evidence, there would
have been too much, but he spoke thus:

“There was yesterday a great disturbance in the compound,
.bn 110.png
.pn +1
which is a shameful thing. Those who thus made great noises,
and used bad language and were without self-respect, were the
bearer and the ayah. The bearer has served me many years in
many places and with many other servants, and I have never before
known him to act without shame or to quarrel. The ayah
has been known a few weeks only. Both the bearer and the
ayah wish to go away. The ayah may go. <i>Bus!</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
Enough.
.pm fn-end

After this simple and direct delivery no word was said. The
servants dispersed to the compound, the bearer, reinstated in his
self-esteem and justified before the world, applied himself to forget
his wrongs and was more diligent than ever in his master’s
service. Chua stated to her mistress that if she had any more
trouble she would die and the wind would blow through her
bones, and many other things in grief-stricken Hindustani
which Helen did not understand. But her mistress permitted
her this balm to her wounded feelings, that when she departed
she left the dishonoured shawl scornfully behind her, having
privately received sufficient backsheesh to buy three like it.
.bn 111.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER X.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
CALCUTTA, in social matters, is a law unto herself, inscrutable,
unevadable. She asks no opinion and permits no
suggestion. She proclaims that it shall be thus, thus it is, and
however odd and inconvenient the custom may be, it lies within
the province of no woman—the men need not be thought of—to
change it, or even to discover by what historic whim it came to
be. Calcutta decrees, for example, that from twelve to two,
what time the sun strikes straightest and strongest on the carriage-top,
what time all brown Bengal with sweet reasonableness
takes its siesta, in the very heat and burden of the day—from
twelve to two is the proper hour forsooth for the memsahib to
visit and be visited. Thus this usually tepid form frequently
reaches a boiling point of social consideration, becomes a mark
of recognition which is simply perfervid. It is also an unamiable
time of day. The cheering effects of breakfast have worn
off, and tiffin looms distantly, the reward of virtue. It would
be impossible to say for how much malice it is directly responsible.
But this is of the gods; we stew obediently, we do not
dream of demurring. Another honoured principle is that all
strangers, except brides, shall make the first call. Herein is the
indolence of Calcutta generous and unreckoning. All new-comers,
of whatever business, jat, or antecedents, have the fee
simple of her drawing-rooms, the right to expect their calls to
be returned, and even to feel slighted if no further recognition
.bn 112.png
.pn +1
is made of them. Anybody may tacitly request Calcutta to invite
him to dinner, and lay upon Calcutta the disagreeable onus
of refusing to do it. Strangers present themselves on their
merits; the tone of society naturally therefore becomes a little
assertive. There are other methods of indirect compulsion. A
man may call—this invariably at mid-day on Sunday—and
thereby invite you to leave cards upon his wife, and the lady is
aggrieved if you decline the invitation. Calcutta suffers all this.
It is the <i>dustur</i>.

Mrs. George William Browne of course was a bride, and had
made her appearance at church. It was not an imposing appearance,
and probably did not attract as much attention as the
Brownes imagined; they occupied one of the back seats of a
sacred edifice of Calcutta which is known to be consecrated to
official circles, and the Brownes were only mercantile. But the
appearance had been made, whether or not anybody was aware
of it; and Mrs. Browne was assuredly entitled to sit from twelve
to two in the days that followed at the receipt of congratulations.

“All Calcutta won’t come,” remarked young Browne, in a
tone of easy prophecy. “But Mrs. Fisher will probably look you
up, and Mrs. Jack Lovitt, and the Wodenhamers—I’ve known
the Wodenhamers a long time. And Mrs. P. Macintyre”—the
person who undertakes this history—“Mrs. P. is the only lady
in the firm just now. She’s sure to call.”

“Where are the rest, George?”

“One of ’em dead. Mrs. J. L. Macintyre’s dead—two of ’em,
Mrs. Babcock and Mrs. Walsh, home in England with their
babies.”

“But, George—all the people who came to the wedding?”

“Out of compliment to the Macdonalds. Yes, they’ll probably
.bn 113.png
.pn +1
call—in their own good time. They’re very busy making
other visits just now, my dear. We mustn’t allow ourselves to
forget that we’re popularly known to be living on five hundred
a month. Society bows to five hundred a month—with possibilities
of advance—but it doesn’t hurry about calling. You see
there are so many people with superior claims—fifteen hundred,
three thousand a month. It’s an original place in that respect—Calcutta.
The valuation of society is done by Government.
Most people arrive here invoiced at so much, the amount usually
rises as they stay, but they’re always kept carefully ticketed and
published, and Calcutta accepts or rejects them, religiously and
gratefully, at their market rates. It’s rather an uninteresting
social basis—especially from our point of view—but it has the
advantage of simplicity. You have a solemn official right to expect
exactly what you can pay for.”

With which treble cynicism young Browne received a bit of
mignonette in his button-hole, kissed his wife, and departed.
They were not really much concerned, these Brownes, about the
conduct and theories of their fellow-beings at this time. Society
was homogeneous, a human mass whose business it was to inhabit
other parts of Calcutta, and do it as unobtrusively as possible.
Even as a subject for conversation, society was perfunctory,
and rather dull. It was a thing apart, it did not menace them
yet, or involve them, or tempt them. They had not arrived at a
point when anything it chose to concern itself with was important
to them. It is charming, this indifference, while it lasts, but
it is not intended to endure.

“It is certainly pretty,” Helen remarked in a tone of conviction,
looking round her little drawing-room. “It’s charming!”
And it was. The walls were tinted a delicate grey, and the windows
were all hung with Indian saris, pale yellow and white.
.bn 114.png
.pn +1
The fresh matted floor was bespread in places with blue and
white dhurries, and a big beflowered Japanese vase in a corner
held a spiky palm. There were books and pictures—perhaps
neither of the sort to bear the last analysis, but that at a glance
didn’t matter—and bits of old china, and all Aunt Plovtree’s
crewel work, and two or three vases running over with roses.
There were some comfortable wicker chairs from the China bazar,
gay with cushions after Liberty, and there were all the little
daintinesses that accompany the earlier stages of matrimony.
Through the windows came in bars and patches the sunlight of
high noon, and the rustling of the palms, and the cooing of the
doves in the veranda.

“It hasn’t much <i>character</i>,” said Mrs. Browne, with her head
at a critical angle, “but it’s charming.”

The fact is that it expressed cleanliness and the Brownes’ income.
I fear that Mrs. Browne belonged to that very numerous
class of ladies in whose opinion character is a thing to arrange,
just a matter to be attended to like the ordering of dinner. If
you had asked her what particular character she wanted her
room to express I think she would have been nonplussed. Or
she might have said, Oh, she wanted it to be “artistic,” with a
little smile of defiance which would have been an evasion, not to
say an equivocation of the matter. Helen Browne was not “artistic,”
and why she should have wanted her drawing-room to
express what she did not understand is one of those enigmas
common to the sex, as it flowers from day to day into new modern
perplexities.

Perhaps it was much more charming of her to be what she
was. It led her, at all events, into no burlesques. Nothing
could be less extravagant, for instance, than that she should
presently occupy herself, with amused concern and mock despair,
.bn 115.png
.pn +1
in turning over a collection of young Browne’s garments
with a view to improving them. The bearer brought them to
her in a basket, laid them deprecatingly at her feet, and retired,
doubtless thinking that though the memsahib might be troublesome
in various ways, she had her advantages. She would perhaps
destroy the sahib’s partiality for old clothes. He himself
had struggled with these ancient socks and shirts a long and
fruitless time, had cobbled them until his soul revolted, especially
when the sahib, observing the result of his labour, had
laughed deep laughs. The sahib was in no wise stingy—he
would give new harness to the pony and new <i>kupra</i>[#] to the
syce, and the bazar was full of beautiful garments for the apparelling
of sahibs, yet persistently and without sense of dishonour
he enrobed himself daily thus! It was a painful, incomprehensible
eccentricity. Now, perhaps, there would be a new
order of things, and a chance for a little reasonable <i>dusturi</i>.[#]
And Kasi spent the rest of the morning discussing contracts in
the bazar.
.pm fn-start
Clothes.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Profit.
.pm fn-end
To his wife, however, young Browne was obliged to be explanatory,
and even apologetic, upon this point. He had to tell
her it was a way they had in India of sticking to their old things—it
was only the most hideous swells that ever got anything
new. You couldn’t keep up with the fashion in India anyhow—the
thing was to be superior to it altogether. Oh, she
wouldn’t have him discard that hat; he’d had that hat four
years, and he was attached to it. If he might be allowed to
keep it another year or two the shape would very likely “come
in” again. Surely he wasn’t inexorably condemned to a new
coat. It would take years to make another as comfortable as
.bn 116.png
.pn +1
that, and it was only a bit ragged in the cuffs. But Helen was
inflexible over the shortcomings of her husband’s wardrobe, as it
is the first duty of the ladies of Anglo-India to be, and young
Browne shortly paid one penalty of matrimony in being reclad
at vast expense, and suffered much contumely in consequence
from his bachelor contemporaries. This morning Helen smiled
over her basket with content and entertainment.

“What aren’t shreds are patches,” said she to the pigeons.
“Dear me! Fancy having married a person who hasn’t been
properly mended since he left England.” The pigeons replied
with suitable sympathy. There was a roll of wheels under the
porch, and the bearer brought up cards, “Mr. and Mrs. John
Lawrence Lovitt.”

“Bearer,” said Helen, mistress of the situation, “all these
things <i>lejao</i>![#] Memsahib <i>salaam do</i>.”[#]
.pm fn-start
Take away.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Give greeting.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Bahut atcha</i>,”[#] said the bearer, whisking them away as he
went. Not for worlds would Kasi have allowed his master’s dilapidations
to become public. And Mrs. Jack Lovitt tripped up.
.pm fn-start
Very good.
.pm fn-end

“How d’ye do, Mrs. Browne?” she said. “I hope I haven’t
come too soon. Some one told me you’d been seen—somewhere—church,
I suppose. People always do go to church at first, in
Calcutta. After a while you won’t—at least not so regularly. It
gets to be rather a bore, don’t you know, either morning or evening.
In the morning it takes it out of you so that you haven’t
energy to receive your callers, and in the evening—well, if you
go in for Sunday tennis you’re too much done for church. But
perhaps you won’t go in for Sunday tennis.”

Mrs. Lovitt sank into a chair and crossed her knees so that
one small high-heeled boot stuck out at a sharp and knowing
.bn 117.png
.pn +1
angle. She was a very little person, and she wore a very smart
gown, though it was only a spotted cotton, and a very small bonnet.
Her long-handled parasol had an enormous bow on it, and
her small hands were buttoned up in an excessive amount of kid.
She had a tiny waist, and her dress fitted her with an absurd
perfection. There was a slight extravagance about Mrs. Jack
Lovitt everywhere. No one could describe her without saying
“very” and “exceedingly” a great many times. Her thin little
face hadn’t a shade of colour—it was absolutely pale, and there
were odd little drawn lines about it that did not interfere with its
particular kind of attractiveness. She wore a <i>pince nez</i> astride
her small, sharp features, and when she sat down it dropped into
her lap quite as if it belonged to a man of fashion.

Helen said, with a conscious effort not to be priggish, that she
didn’t think she would go in for Sunday tennis.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Lovitt, smiling tolerantly, “don’t believe in
it, I suppose? Neither did I when I came out. You’ll soon get
over that. You’ll begin virtuously by doing it for your husband’s
sake, and by and by you’ll find that kind of prejudice
doesn’t thrive in India. I played with your husband the last
Sunday before you came out. The other side completely smashed
us up; I don’t think your husband was in his usual form.”

“Oh, I dare say he was,” said Helen, smiling; “he doesn’t
play a very strong game.”

“Oh, I wasn’t either. I played abominably. But, of course,
I blamed it all upon him; I declared his nerves were affected—on
account of you, you know. He <i>admitted</i> there might be
something in it,” and Mrs. Lovitt laughed casually. “He says
you’re a tremendous swell at it,” she continued inquiringly.

Helen protested, and Mrs. Lovitt went on to say that it didn’t
matter much how one played anyway, for tennis was certainly
.bn 118.png
.pn +1
going out—everybody went in for golf now—links all over the
place. Did Helen go in for golf, and had she done any cricket
before she left England? Mrs. Lovitt had a cousin, Stella Short,
who was in the Wilbarrow Eleven. Perhaps Helen had seen her
photograph—it had been in all the ladies’ papers.

“What do you think of the climate, Mrs. Browne?”

Helen said she thought it perfectly delightful; she found the
glare a little trying.

“Oh, <i>glare</i>! Wait till the hot weather comes. It’s all very
well now and will be till March, but the hot weather’s simply
beastly; and in the rains—well, in the rains you feel exactly like
a dead rat.”

“That must be an extraordinary feeling,” Helen responded,
with some astonishment at the directness of the lady’s similes.

“It <i>is</i>—rather! I suppose you’re going to see the Viceroy’s
Cup won this afternoon?”

“Yes,” said Helen, “are you?”

“Very much so! I’m one of those happy people who have
got a tip. Jimmy Forbes gave me mine. You don’t know
Jimmy. He and I are great chums—we’re always out together.”
Mrs. Lovitt spoke with virtuous candour. “He’s an awfully
<i>pucca</i>[#] sort of fellow, is Jimmy—you’ll like him when you know
him. He’s a great friend of my husband’s, too,” Mrs. Lovitt
added. “Jack thinks a lot of him. And he’s very knowing about
horses. How do you get on with the servants? They’ll stick
you no end at first—of course you know that. When I began I
used to pay three rupees for a leg of mutton. It used to cost us
two hundred a month more than our income to live!”
.pm fn-start
Genuine.
.pm fn-end

“Dear me!” said Helen. “Wasn’t that very inconvenient?”
.bn 119.png
.pn +1

“Inconvenient as the—as possible, sometimes, till Jack got
his promotion. Now we manage all right.”

“Have you any children, Mrs. Lovitt?” Helen ventured, as
the bearer brought up another card.

“Children! Bless me, no, I should think not!” replied
Mrs. John Lawrence Lovitt. “But I’ve got the littlest black and tan
in Calcutta. Jimmy Forbes gave him to me. You must
come and see him. Hello, Kitty Toote, so you’re on the rampage!
Good-bye, Mrs. Browne; don’t let her prejudice you
against Calcutta. She’s always running it down, and it’s the
sweetest place in the world!”

Mrs. Toote made polite greetings to Mrs. Browne. “You
know it isn’t really,” she said, disposing her tall figure gracefully
among the cotton cushions of Helen’s little sofa. “But of course
it depends upon your tastes.” Mrs. Toote had fine eyes, and an
inclination to <i>embonpoint</i>. Her expression advertised a superior
discontent, but there was a more genuine suggestion of gratified
well-being underneath which contradicted the advertisement.
“It’s really awfully frivolous here,” Mrs. Toote remarked.
“Don’t you think so—after England?”

“How can I possibly tell—so soon?” said Helen.

“No, I suppose not. Personally, I wouldn’t mind the <i>frivolity</i>.
The frivolity’s all right—if there were only anything <i>else</i>,
but there isn’t.”

“Anything else?” Helen inquired.

“Yes, anything really elevating, you know—anything that
one could devote one’s self to. I haven’t a word to say against
frivolity; I like it myself as well as anybody,” said Mrs. Toote
with engaging <i>naïveté</i>, “but there ought to be something behind
it to back it up, you know.” Mrs. Toote spoke as if she were
objecting to dining exclusively upon ortolans. But the objection
.bn 120.png
.pn +1
was a matter of pure dietetic theory. In practice, Mrs. Toote
throve upon ortolans.

“Nobody reads,” said Mrs. Toote.

“Nobody?” asked Helen.

“Nobody that <i>I</i> know—except novels, of course.”

“And you prefer other kinds of books,” Helen said, impressed.
“More solid reading?”

“Oh, I enjoy a good novel,” Mrs. Toote conceded; “but I
don’t think people ought to confine themselves to fiction.
There’s biography and philosophy, and—and social economy.
All very interesting—to me.”

“Which are your favorite authors?” asked Helen, with deference.

Mrs. Toote thought a minute. “John Stuart Mill,” said she,
“is a very fine writer. My husband has all his books. So is
Herbert Spencer; we have all his, too. So is Sir Henry Cunninghame.
<i>Have</i> you read <i>The Chronicles of Dustypore</i>?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Helen. “Is it very good?”

“Oh, awfully. You <i>must</i> read it. Then, of course, there’s
Kipling. I’m devoted to Kipling.”

“Do you think he’s nice?” asked Mrs. Browne, doubtfully.

“I think he’s everything. And I must say for the people
here they do read their Kipling. But they don’t talk about him.
I don’t believe they know the difference between Kipling and
anybody else.”

“Perhaps,” Helen ventured, “they’re tired of him.”

“That’s just where it is. How could anybody get tired of
Kipling! You’ll find plenty of gaiety in Calcutta, Mrs.
Browne; but you won’t find much—culture!” And Mrs. Toote
lifted her eyebrows and twisted her lips into a look of critical
resignation.
.bn 121.png
.pn +1

“Aren’t there any societies?”

“Oh, if you mean the Asiatic, that’s for scientists and people
of that sort, you know, and they read awful papers there about
monoliths and ancient dynasties and things. You can’t consider
that the Asiatic represents any popular tendency. <i>I</i> don’t
know anybody that’s fond of Sanskrit. Of course,” Mrs. Toote
continued, “I’m speaking generally, and I mean particularly the
women out here. There are some clever men in the departments,
naturally. One or two of them are my greatest friends,
and it <i>is</i> refreshing to talk to them.”

“But are the ladies <i>all</i> frivolous?” Helen asked.

“Oh, dear, no!”

“And the unfrivolous ones—what do they do?”

“They mess about charities, and keep their husbands in their
pockets, and write eternal letters to their children in England.
I’ve less patience with them than with the other kind,” Mrs.
Toote avowed.

“Well,” said Helen, smiling, “I’m not very literary, so I
daresay it won’t matter much to me.”

“Then you’ll either go in for society or philanthropy—that’s
the way everybody ends up. You are going to the Drawing-Room
next Thursday?”

“I think so.”

“Well, immediately after you must write your names down
in the Government House books. Then they ask you to everything,
you see. Don’t put it off,” advised Mrs. Toote, on the
point of departure. “Don’t put it off <i>a day</i>.”

In a quarter of an hour the Wodenhamers came—Colonel
and Mrs. Wodenhamer, a large lady and a generously planned
gentleman. The smallest and slightest of Helen’s wicker chairs
creaked ominously, as Colonel Wodenhamer sat down in it with
.bn 122.png
.pn +1
an air of asserting that he wasn’t the weight you might think him.
As to Mrs. Wodenhamer, her draperies completely submerged
Helen’s cotton cushions upon the sofa. Colonel Wodenhamer had
mutton-chop whiskers and a double chin and a look of rotund respectability
that couldn’t be surpassed in Hyde Park on Sunday.
He was not a fighting colonel, and in the adding up of commissariat
accounts there is time and opportunity to develop these
amplitudes. Mrs. Wodenhamer matched him more perfectly
than is customary in the odd luck of matrimony, and had a complexion
besides, which the Colonel couldn’t boast. The complexion
spread over features generously planned, and a smile
that contained many of the qualities of a warm sunset, spread
over both. Helen wondered in vain to which of Mrs. Toote’s
two social orders they belonged, for as soon as Colonel Wodenhamer
had explained how it was he had come to call on a week-day—Colonel
Wodenhamer made this a point of serious importance—Mrs.
Wodenhamer led the conversation into domestic details.
It wandered for a time among pots and pans—enamelled
ones were so much the best—it embraced all the servants, took
a turn in the direction of the bazar, and finally settled upon
<i>jharruns</i>.

“You’ll find them <i>so</i> troublesome!” said Mrs. Wodenhamer.

“I don’t know what they are,” said Mrs. Browne, reflecting
upon the insect pests of India.

“Don’t you, really! It’s a wonder you haven’t found out!
They’re towels or dust-cloths—anything of that sort. Almost
every servant must have his <i>jharruns</i>. You have no idea how
they mount up.”

“I suppose they must,” returned Helen, and turned to Colonel
Wodenhamer with intent to venture something about the
weather.
.bn 123.png
.pn +1

“I don’t see how you’ve got on without them so long!” Mrs.
Wodenhamer remarked, glancing round with involuntary criticism.
“I assure you I give out weekly in my house no less than
five dozen—five <i>dozen</i>!”

“That’s a great many,” Helen agreed. “A very fair passage,
I believe, Colonel Wodenhamer—thirty-one days.”

“It’s just a question whether they’re better made in the
house,” Mrs. Wodenhamer went on placidly; “I don’t know
that I wouldn’t advise you to go to the Women’s Friendly—they
work very neatly there.”

“For the <i>jharruns</i>. Oh, yes!” said Helen. “The captain’s
name? I’m <i>afraid</i> I forget, Colonel Wodenhamer. He was a
little man.”

“They wear out so frightfully fast,” his lady remarked.

“P. and O. captains? But consider the life, my dear!”

“<i>Jharruns</i>, John! Mrs. Browne really shouldn’t begin with
less than six dozen.”

“I must see about them at once,” Helen said. “I’m sure
they are very important.”

“The whole comfort of your life depends upon them,” her
visitor replied, rather ambiguously, and at that moment Mrs.
Macdonald came up, and the conversation became so general that
nobody noticed Mrs. Wodenhamer’s being lost in thought. As
she and her husband rose to go, “Your house is smaller than
mine,” said Mrs. Wodenhamer, “I forgot that. I think “—conscientiously—”
you <i>might</i> do with four dozen.”

Neither could Helen bring Mrs. Macdonald under Mrs.
Toote’s classification, for Mrs. Macdonald certainly did not give
one the idea of a serious person, and yet she talked a great deal
about committees. Mrs. Macdonald expressly advised Helen to
“go in for” philanthropy, and in the next breath declared that
.bn 124.png
.pn +1
of course she and young Browne must get themselves put up at
the Saturday Club, where a proportion of Calcutta banded itself
together for purposes of dancing and amateur theatricals, tennis
and light literature. It was puzzling, this combination of good
works and fashionable recreation, until Mrs. Macdonald explained,
the explanation being inferential.

“You see,” said Mrs. Macdonald, “you must take up something,
you know, and then you will get to be known, and it will
make all the difference. Of course if you came out as the wife
of a major-general or a commissioner or a bishop it wouldn’t
matter—you could be independent. But as it is,” continued
Mrs. Macdonald with delicate vagueness, indicating the Brownes’
five hundred a month, “it would be better for you to take an interest
in something, you know. There’s the Home for Sailors’
Orphans—Mrs. Leek and Mrs. Vondermore—they’re not very
important, though. And there’s Lady Blebbin’s Hindu Widow
Institute—that’s overcrowded now. I believe the very best thing
for you”—with an increase of business-like emphasis—“would
be the East Indian Self-Help Society! Mrs. Walter Luff runs
that, and she’s just the woman to appreciate anybody fresh and
energetic like you! I’ve got influence there too—I’ll get you
nominated.”

“But,” said Helen, in some dismay, “it’s not at all likely
that I should be able to be of any use.”

“Use? Of course you will. You’ll be driven to death, but
if Mrs. Walter Luff takes you up, you won’t mind that! Besides,”
said Mrs. Macdonald with an effect of awakened conscience,
“the East Indian Self-Helps do a lot of good. You’re
interested in the East Indians, aren’t you—the Eurasians?”

“I don’t know them when I see them,” said Helen. “I
always confuse them with the Jews and the Greeks.”
.bn 125.png
.pn +1

“Oh, well, you soon will. As a rule they’re awfully poor, you
know, and give us a lot of trouble in Calcutta. Dear me!”
Mrs. Macdonald ejaculated, looking round, “how pretty you are!
But if I were you I’d have a Mirzapore rug for the middle of the
floor; it makes the room so much richer, you know—shows up
everything. And you ought to get two or three good engravings—there
are some lovely new French things at Thacker’s—only
fifty rupees each. Go and see them. But I must be off,”
said this sprightly lady, and Helen was presently again alone, with
a delicate disappearing odour of jessamine and her reflections.

I dropped in that morning too, after all the rest; but it is
not essential to the progress of this narrative that you should be
allowed to gather from my conversation the sort of person that
I am.
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CHAPTER XI.
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IT was clearly impossible to attend Her Excellency’s Drawing-Room
in a tum-tum. The Brownes discussed it with fulness
and precision at some length. Most people resident in Calcutta
would have arrived at this conclusion more rapidly; but as
young Browne said, he had never taken a wife to a Drawing-Room
before, and a fellow always went to the levées in his
tum-tum.

“It’s that awful silk tail of yours that’s the difficulty, dear,”
said he. “It might get wound up in the wheels, or Lord knows
what. Couldn’t you take it in a parcel and put it on when you
get there?”

I can safely leave Helen’s response to the imagination of all
femininity.

“Then,” said young Browne, “it must be a ticca,” and
Helen sighed compliance, for she hated ticcas.

So does all Calcutta, except the baboos. The ticca is an
uncompromising shuttered wooden box with a door in each side
and a seat across each end. Its springs are primitive, its angles
severe. When no man has hired the ticca, the driver slumbers
along the roof and the syce by the wayside. When the ticca is
in action, the driver sits on the top, loosely connected with a
bundle of hay which forms the casual, infrequent <i>déjeuner</i> of
the horses. The syce stands behind, and if the back shutters
are open he is frequently malodorous. There may be some
.bn 127.png
.pn +1
worldly distinction between the syce and the driver, but it is imperceptible
to the foreign eye. I have never been able to decide
which is the more completely disreputable of the two. Their
rags flutter in competition. There is more variety among the
horses. They are large and gaunt and speckled. They are small
and lean and of one colour. They are fly-bitten, unkempt, knock-kneed,
vicious, and nasty. They have bad and vulgar habits.
Some of them have seen Australia and better times, but it is not
evident in their manners. Some of them have been country-bred
for so many generations that the original animal has almost disappeared,
leaving a stricken and nondescript little representative
that might more fitly be harnessed to a wheelbarrow, if wheelbarrows
lent themselves to harness. The ticca-gharry horse is
always ridiculous when he is not pitiful; his gait under pressure
is a gallop, and his equipment is made out in places with pieces
of rope and other expediencies. The baboo loves the ticca-gharry
because the baboo knows not mercy and gets a long ride,
yea and seven of his kind with him, for threepence. Calcutta
people hate it for reasons which are perhaps obvious. And for
another. The ticca-gharry directly aids and abets Government
in its admirable system for the valuation of society, represented,
as has been seen, by the Accountant-General. A person who
habitually drives in a ticca-gharry is not likely on the face of it
to be in receipt of more than a very limited income, and is thus
twice gazetted as not being a particularly desirable person to
know. It is evident therefore that when the Brownes decided to
go to the Viceregal Drawing-Room in a ticca they bowed to
circumstances.

“Only <i>don’t</i> get one, George,” said Helen, plaintively, “with
a pink rosette on its ear.”

There were a few, a very few, other ticca-gharries in the
.bn 128.png
.pn +1
crowd of vehicles that blocked the street leading to Government
House, and presently they all found themselves unaccountably
in the rear of the line that was made to preserve order and
prevent aggression. The stately landaus, the snug broughams
and the smart victorias rolled naturally into their places in front.
The British policeman whether in Hyde Park or Imperial
India, knows his duty. So that Mr. and Mrs. Browne were not
the first who alighted under the wide porch and made their way
with more trepidation than they allowed to appear, into the crimson-carpeted
precincts of the Burra Lord Sahib.

“Where shall I meet you after—after it’s over, George?”
asked Helen coming out of the cloak-room, very pretty in her
soft white silk and the fresh Wiltshire colour that showed in her
cheeks and proclaimed her newly “out.”

“Oh I’ll find you—I’ll be waiting with the other men outside
the door. Good-bye, dear. Don’t be nervous!”

“I <i>am</i> nervous,” said Mrs. Browne. “But I don’t propose
to show it. Good-bye!” and Mrs. Browne followed in the wake
of other shimmering trains that were being marshalled from
corridor to corridor on their way to the Throne Room, where
Their Excellencies, doubtless very bored, were returning bows to
the curtseys of all feminine Calcutta. How very fine those
trains were, some of them. How elaborate and marvellous—how
effective! And indeed they had come forth straight from
Bond-street, many of them, for this very occasion, and therefore,
why not? What use, pray, in being wives and daughters of
thousands a month in the land of exile, if measures could not
be sacredly kept in England and “decent things” got out at
least once a year! And how the trains of thousands a month
rejoiced in their contrast with others representing a smaller
<i>tulub</i>. I do not speak of Helen’s, for hers was a flowing credit
.bn 129.png
.pn +1
to the Canbury dressmaker and quite up to date, but of gowns
of an elder fashion and another day that showed themselves with
delightful <i>naïveté</i> among the glittering creations of the season.
They had seen, some of them, a great many December dissipations;
they had been carefully packed away through a great
many hot weathers and monsoons; they smelt of camphor;
there was a quaintness in their very creases. One or two of
them even told of trousseaux, Helen thought, that must have
come to India in the old sailing days, round Cape Horn. Doubtless
this new little memsahib felt amused in her trim feathers, but
I have worn creases and smelled of camphor myself in my day,
and I could have told her that with five sons at college and a
daughter at school in England, one becomes necessarily indifferent
to the fashions, even if the daughter does spend the holidays
with an aunt in the country, free of expense. But of course one
can’t forecast one’s own camphor and creases, and Helen Browne
may never have any.

The dames who waited or who didn’t wait their turn at the
various barriers that regulated the road to Viceroyalty were
chiefly imported English ladies of the usual pale Anglo-Indian
type and pretty, either intrinsically or with the prettiness that
comes of being well spoilt. Most of them had curtseyed formally
to Their Excellencies every December for several years, yet they
were quite as happily a-tremble as the brides or the <i>débutantes</i>—the
brides of next season.

“I suppose,” Helen overheard one little woman remark with
animation, “Their Excellencies won’t <i>bite</i>!” But she continued
to behave as if she thought they would. There were also
a few ladies who had not been imported. These were noticeable
for a slight and not unbecoming Oriental duskiness under the
powder, an unusual softness and blackness of eye, and an oddity
.bn 130.png
.pn +1
of inflection that struck Helen as so pretty and “foreign.”
These ladies usually wore the feathers in their hair—the three
feathers that compliment Royalty—of the same hue as their
gowns, pink or blue or perhaps yellow, which was doubtless a
survival of some lavish and tropical taste for colour that may
have been peculiarly their own. The Ranees and the Maharanees
made no attempt to subdue the gorgeousness of their
natural instincts, but showed undisguisedly in purple and gold
and eccentric gems, disposed according to the fashion that best
liked them; and it was Helen’s lot to proceed into the Viceregal
presence immediately behind a Mohammedan lady of enormous
proportions, who represented matrimonially a great Nawab, and
did it wholly in crimson satin.

Their Excellencies stood upon a daïs, near enough to the
Throne chair to suggest their connection with it. There were
two stately lines of the Body-Guard, imperturbable under the
majesty of their turbans; there were five or six A.-D.-C.’s, and
secretaries in uniform with an expression of solemn self-containment
under their immature moustaches. And there were,
gathered together at Their Excellencies’ right, the ladies of the
Private Entrée. These ladies were the wives of gentlemen
whose interests were the special care of Government. It was
advisable therefore that their trains should not be stepped on,
nor their tempers disarranged; and they had been received an
hour earlier, with more circumstance, possibly to slower music,
different portals being thrown open for the approach of their
landaus—they all approached in landaus. If you stay in India
long enough, Government will see that you get the Private Entrée
before you go, as a rule. That is if you are a person of any
perseverance, and have objected with sufficient stolidity to getting
out of anybody else’s way. This is not invariably the case,
.bn 131.png
.pn +1
however, or John Perth Macintyre, my husband, with his success
in tea and the knowledge of Indian commerce he has got in the
last twenty years, would have been in the Viceroy’s Council long
ago, and Mrs. Macintyre’s landau approaching with proper distinction
in consequence, which it never has. I have no objection
whatever to this coming out in print, for everybody knows that
we wouldn’t take it now. Moreover I daresay it is one reason
why I always notice that the ladies of the Private Entrée are disposed
to giggle slightly and otherwise forget the caste of Vere de
Vere, as they look on upon the curtseys that come after. On
this occasion, though Helen Browne was much too nervous to
observe it, they were politely convulsed—of course with cast-down
eyes and strained lips, and in the manner of good society—at
the genuflections of the Mohammedan lady in red satin. I
have no doubt one wouldn’t observe this to the same extent if
one were amongst them.

When it was over it had been very simple. The first A.-D.-C.
had handed Helen’s card to the second A.-D.-C., and so on, until
it reached the Military Secretary who stood at the end, and he
had read distinctly aloud from it the perfectly inoffensive description,
“Mrs. George Browne.” Whereat Mrs. George Browne
had gone down several unsteady inches first before one Excellency,
and then before the other, not at all able to observe the
kindly smile with which they encouraged her unreliable equilibrium.
After which she followed the other ladies whose ordeal
was over, with hurrying footsteps and much relief through sundry
tall pillared apartments to the corridor where Mr. George
Browne awaited her, and took his arm with the greatest satisfaction
she had yet experienced in its protection.

Everybody repaired to the ball-room, where, after the last
agitated respects had been received, Their Excellencies also appeared,
.bn 132.png
.pn +1
and Helen had the opportunity of taking a lesson in
social astronomy, and learning if she chose, how that there is one
glory of the sun and another glory of the moon, and how dark
and unamiable those regions may be where the sun and the moon
shine not. Also how an A.-D.-C. may twinkle as a little star in
the firmament, and how a Lieutenant-Governor may be the centre
of a brilliant constellation. Helen noticed a subtle difference
between Their Excellencies and the rest, and put it down in her
admiring innocence to aristocratic lineage or some such vague
reason. As a matter of fact they were the only people in the
room who did not directly or indirectly suggest a life-long interest
in pay and promotion, which is quite enough to make a most
vital difference, a most violent contrast, though it must take
some years to discern this. The pay of a Viceroy is magnificently
absolute, and you can’t promote him. I believe that is arranged
by Her Majesty, in order that he may have time to
think about other things. This may look a trifle caustic, but
the Perth Macintyres have out-stayed five Viceroys in Calcutta,
and I have found that number at least to be quite human.
Although it is a serious fact that the more one comes in contact
with them the less one is struck with any idea of their
common fallibility, and the more one is inclined to refer to
His Excellency as a very superior mind, and to Her Excellency
as “a perfectly charming woman,” without cavil. The last two
Viceroys for instance have seemed to me to be much more
valuable acquaintances than their predecessors. Can it be that
circumstances—chiefly viceregal dinners—have thrown us more
together?

Little Mrs. Macdonald, sitting alone upon a sofa in a corner,
welcomed the Brownes with effusion.

“Do let me go half shares in your husband for a while,” she
.bn 133.png
.pn +1
said to Helen, making room for them. “Mine has gone off with
Mrs. Toote, and I know what <i>that</i> means. Half an hour’s desertion
at least.”

“What did he go for?” asked young Browne.

“Because Mrs. Toote is charming.”

“Do you think so?”

“Don’t <i>you</i>? I thought all the men grovelled before Mrs.
Toote!”

“I don’t grovel,” said young Browne. “I think she’s a bit
of a humbug.”

“But she <i>has</i> good eyes,” Mrs. Macdonald protested.

“Lovely eyes,” Helen chimed.

“Though <i>I wish</i> she wouldn’t spoil them with charcoal the
way she does,” remarked Mrs. Macdonald with amiable unction.
“She doesn’t <i>need</i> to, you know.”

“How do you <i>do</i>, Captain Delytis?” and Mrs. Macdonald
bent very much forward on the sofa in recognizing a young man
in blue lapels, who suddenly reined himself in as it were, responded
profoundly to her salutation, and then hurried on.
“That’s Captain Delytis,” she informed Helen. “One of the
A.-D.-C.’s. Such a dear! He called on me twice last cold
weather, and I was <i>darwaza bund</i> each time. Wasn’t it a
shame!”

“I wouldn’t be too remorseful,” remarked young Browne,
not without malice. He had found Mrs. Macdonald <i>darwaza
bund</i> frequently, and had all a black coat’s aversion to the superior
charms of blue lapels. “A.-D.-C.’s have a way, you know, of
finding out first.”

“Don’t be nasty, George Browne,” responded Mrs. Macdonald,
“besides in this case it doesn’t apply, for Captain Delytis told
me himself how sorry he was. I daresay they have to resort to
.bn 134.png
.pn +1
that sort of thing occasionally though, poor things. They have
so much to do.”

“Do!” remarked young Browne, with the peculiar contempt
mercantile pursuits so often inspire for the army and the civil
service in Calcutta. “They order dinner, I believe.”

“They have charge of the invitations to everything, so you’d
better just make him properly civil to them,” said Mrs. Macdonald,
turning to Helen, who responded, with perfectly feminine
appreciation of the advice, that she would indeed.

“I wonder,” continued Mrs. Macdonald thoughtfully, “why
Mrs. Alec Forbes didn’t see me just now. Did you notice her?—that
tall woman in the pompadourish gown that passed just
now. They say she’s getting too swagger to see lots of people
now that the Simlaites have taken her up so tremendously, but
she’s generally as sweet as possible to me. They tell a funny
story about Mrs. Forbes and Mrs. Perth Macintyre—you’ve seen
Mrs. Perth Macintyre: perhaps you can imagine how patronising
and interfering the old lady is! Well, it was when Mrs.
Forbes first came out, and Calcutta wasn’t at all disposed to take
to her—a little of the tar-brush, you know, and that doesn’t go
down here. But everybody liked Alec Forbes, and she had a lot
of money, and people came round. Mrs. Perth Macintyre decided
to come round too, and one night at dinner, when people
were discussing this very function, she undertook to encourage
Mrs. Forbes about it. ‘I daresay you’ll be a bit timid, my
dear,’ said she, ‘but you’ll just have to go through it like
the rest of us.’ ‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Forbes casually, ‘I daresay it’s
nothing to St. James’s!’ Mrs. Perth Macintyre was sat on
for once—<i>she</i> had never been presented at home. Wasn’t it
good?”

“I can’t see what earthly difference it made,” said young
.bn 135.png
.pn +1
Browne, but his wife could, and turned another page in Part II.,
Feminine: of the Book of Anglo-India.

“Why, George,” she said presently, “who’s that?” her husband
having emitted a gruff “How do!” as a gentleman passed
them.

“That? Oh, nobody much! Sir William Peete.”

“What did Sir William get his K for?” asked Mrs. Macdonald.
“I’ve forgotten.”

“For trimming up Calcutta the time some Royalty or other
came out. He made a very good municipal milliner, got out a
most unusual amount of bunting. They had to recognise it.
The man who drained the place got nothing, so far as I remember.”

“George, you don’t like him,” Mrs. Browne remarked astutely.

“Oh, yes, I do, for two months in the year, when he likes
me. They occur in the rains. Then he’s passionately fond of
everybody who will speak to him. For the rest of the time he’s
exclusively occupied with Sir William Peete and a few other people
of similar standing.”

“What <i>do</i> you mean?” asked Mrs. Macdonald.

“About August and September,” young Browne continued
suavely, “Sir William comes out in boils—comes out copiously.
He gets ’em on his neck and on his face and in the middle of
his forehead. He becomes an awful spectacle. He fawns on
his fellow-beings then. As soon as they leave him he returns
to the sublime consideration of the social eminence of Sir William
Peete. Boils are the only known method of reminding
him that he belongs to the human race, so Providence takes it.”

Mr. Macdonald came up at this moment and carried off his
wife, leaving these young Brownes alone on the sofa in the corner of
.bn 136.png
.pn +1
the room, looking on. They seemed to themselves as they
sat there to have drifted into some tranquil place from which
they could watch the steady current passing, the current that
changes every year and yet is always the same, of English life in
India. The old, old ambitions, the stereotyped political aims,
the worn competitions, the social appraisements—how they have
repeated themselves through what illustrations of the great British
average, even in my time! How little more than illustrations
the men and women have been, as one looks back, pictures
in a magic lantern, shadows on a wall! Good illustrations,
though sharp reflections of the narrow conditions they lived in,
solemn warnings to those that are so eager to come after, if only
the glamour of India left people with eyes to see. How gay they
were and how luxurious, and how important in their little day!
How gorgeous were the attendants of their circumstance, on the
box with a crest upon their turbans—there is a firm in Calcutta
that supplies beautiful crests. And now—let me think!—some
of them in Circular Road Cemetery—cholera, fever, heat—apoplexy;
some of them under the Christian daisies of England—probably
abscess of the liver; the rest grey-faced Cheltenham
pensioners, dull and obscure, with uncertain tempers and an acquired
detestation of the climate of Great Britain. And soon,
very soon, long before the Brownes appear in print, the Perth
Macintyres also will have gone over to the great majority who
have forgotten their Hindustani and regret their khansamahs.
Our brief day too will have died in a red sunset behind clustering
palms, and all its little doings and graspings and pushings,
all its pretty scandals and surmises and sensations, will echo
further and further back into the night.

Of course the Brownes did not moralize thus unpardonably.
Why should they? They sat in their corner and looked at the
.bn 137.png
.pn +1
brilliant scene before them, and young Browne talked with more
or less good-natured cynicism about everybody he saw, and
Helen quite failed to understand why George should take such
ridiculous views of things. And by and by they went down the
broad stairs, past the brown men that stood aside in their garments
of crimson and gold, and the Browne’s ticca-gharry rolled
home with as light-hearted a sahib and memsahib as left Government
House that night. As they had forgotten all about
refreshments it was perhaps fortunate that they were able to
find two mutton cutlets cold from the hands of Kali Bagh and
some biscuits and marmalade, when they arrived, which afforded
them keen satisfaction. They could still, poor dears, with the
solace of a cold cutlet enjoy seeing the world go by.
.bn 138.png
.pn +1
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CHAPTER XII.
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I HAVE hinted, perhaps broadly, how the Government of
India assists society in determining the Values of People.
But this is not wholly done by columns of figures prepared with
great accuracy in the Accounts Department, it is much facilitated
by the discriminating indication of official position. I feel
that official position should have capitals too—in India it always
has. Government determines it profoundly, awfully, and with a
microscope. It affixes a tag to each man’s work and person describing
him and all that he does. There is probably an office
for the manufacture of these, and its head is doubtless known
as the Distributor-General of Imperial Tags to the Government
of India. With all his own time and energy at his disposal for
the purpose he might arrange a designation for himself even
more striking than that. He would date his letters from the
Imperial Tag Office, and they would be composed by the Sub-Assistant-Deputy-Distributor,
who would dictate them to one of
the various gentle and oleaginous baboos who are content to
sharpen pencils and permit their white nether draperies to fall
round tall office stools for moderate remuneration without tags.
In the hot weather the Distributor-General would go to Simla
and the Assistant-Distributor would act for him, indulging prematurely
in the airs which are attached to the office of his superior—borrowing
his tag as it were, for the time. And so the
days of the Distributor-General of Imperial Tags to the Government
.bn 139.png
.pn +1
of India, and those of the lady who is made comfortable
under the same title would be days of great glory and
importance, except perhaps those which he spends in England
on furlough, when he would be obliged to leave his halo
behind him, with his bearer, to be kept in order. After an
absence of a year or two the halo is apt to be found a little
large, but in such cases it is never cut down, the head is
allowed to expand.

I don’t know of the actual existence of such an office in Calcutta,
for as I have stated, Mr. Perth Macintyre has never had
occasion to apply for a tag—they are comparatively uncommon
in what the Simla element is pleased to call the mercantile community
here—but if it does not exist I am at a loss to understand
how they get on without it. Somewhere and somehow the
solemn work of such a Department goes on under the direction
of Heaven, and whether gentlemen in Government service wear
their tags upon their watch-chains or keep them in their pockets,
they are all tagged.

It makes a notable difference. It gives Calcutta for admiration
and emulation a great and glorious company, concerning
whom the stranger, beholding their red-coated chuprassies and
the state which attends them, might well inquire, “Who, who
are these?” Then one who knew—and everybody knows—might
make answer, “These are the Covenanted Ones. These
are the Judges of the High Court and all those who dispense
the law of the Raj, the Scions of the Secretariat and other Departments,
such people as commissioners and Collectors who are
in authority throughout the land, the Army! Bow down!”
The stranger would then remember the old saying in the mouths
of women concerning those, “Three hundred a year dead or
alive,” with reference to pensions, which at one time was distinctly
.bn 140.png
.pn +1
the most important quotation in the matrimonial market
for India.

Thereafter follow the great multitude of the Uncovenanted
Ones, the men whose business is with education, and science
and engineering, and the forests and the police, whose personal
usefulness dies with them, probably because they get less pay
and less furlough while they live. The human heart is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked, and it has lately
entered into the Uncovenanted kind of human heart to cavil at
this arrangement. It has had the audacity to suggest that it is
just as homesick, that it suffers just as much from the climate,
and that its work is just as indispensable as can possibly be the
Covenanted case. I believe the matter is with the Secretary of
State, where so many other matters have tender and indefinite
safe keeping. Meanwhile there are certain positions of lustre
among the Uncovenanted also, but they are few to count and
difficult to attain. It is safe to say that a large proportion of
the Uncovenanted Ones keep their tags in their pockets.

I have heard it stated that an expert can tell a Covenanted
from an Uncovenanted individual by his back, given a social
occasion which would naturally evoke self-consciousness. In
the case of their wives, one need not be an expert. Covenanted
shoulders are not obviously whiter or more classically moulded
than the other kind, but they have a subtle way of establishing
their relations with Government that is not to be mistaken even
by an amateur. The effect cannot be described, and may be obtained
only by contrast. You look at Uncovenanted shoulders,
and you will observe that they fall away. You consider a pair
of mercantile ones, and however massive and richly girt, you will
notice that they suggest a slight depreciation of themselves. It
is only the Covenanted neck that can assert itself with that impressive
.bn 141.png
.pn +1
unconsciousness that comes from the knowledge of constant
homage—bones, one might say, or no bones. This is in
accordance with the will and intention of the Government of
India, and therefore is as it should be. It is the Raj that has
accorded this lady her consideration, therefore in no quarter is it
withheld. The feet of such a one are stayed upon a rock; it
has never been hers to pick her anxious way among the quicksands
of ordinary social advance. Her invitations are secure.
She is acquainted with the number and magnitude of them, she
might almost demand them under a specific regulation. I have
never heard anybody discuss her brains. She occupies a position
which an intellect no doubt adorns, but not indispensably.
Her little frivolities are the care of the Government that holds
her in the hollow of its hand. Society declines to be Pharisaical
about them, and asks her to dinner just the same. The
shifting aristocracy of England affords nothing like her security,
her remarkable poise. It is difficult to understand how,
in spite of all this, she can be as charming as she occasionally
is.

It was in my mind to say much sooner that the Brownes were
going out to dinner. They had gone out to dinner on several
occasions already among the people who had known young
Browne before he was married, but the occasions had been informal,
the invitations worded “quite quietly,” and there had
been no champagne. This was to be a “burra-khana,” with no
lack of circumstance. The invitation ran thus:—“My dear
Mrs. Browne—Will you and your husband give Mr. Peckle, Mr.
Cran and myself the pleasure of your company at dinner on
Tuesday the 27th, at eight o’clock?—Yours sincerely, J. L.
Sayter.”

“Old Sayter!” remarked Mr. Browne. “It’s a chummery,
.bn 142.png
.pn +1
Nell. They called, the lot of them, that Sunday we went up the
river.”

“A chummery—that’s a lot of bachelors living together,”
said Helen.

“Not necessarily bachelors—Sayter’s a bachelor, Cran and
Peckle are both married men, wives in England. It’s two years
since Mrs. Cran went home, and Mrs. Peckle’s never been out,
so far as I know. In fact, we’ve only got Peckle’s bare word for
the existence of a Mrs. Peckle; maybe it’s a fiction in self-defence.”

“George!”

“And I don’t know that he doesn’t invent the little Peckles.
To hear him groan over their expenses you’d think there was a
new one every year, and you know that’s manifestly—”

“<sc>George!</sc>”

“I was going to say improbable. But I dare say there are a
lot of ’em. Peckle goes home once in three or four years and
refreshes his memory as to number and size. After that he always
has a fit of economy and puts down a horse or two.”

“Poor things!” said Helen, pensively, “an old bachelor and
two grass widowers! How wretched their lives must be! Why,
if I had to go home for my health, dear, I can’t imagine what
would become of you!”

“Y—yes! No, indeed, darling! But you sha’n’t go!” An
interruption foolish but inevitable. “As to those old fellows—well,
you’ll see. It’s rather a swagger chummery, very decent
men,” young Browne went on, “and therefore, my dear,” with
mock resignation, “they’ll give us all sorts of unholy indigestibles
to eat, and your husband will have liver of the most frightful
description for a week.”

“Liver,” however, very seldom ensues in the early days of
.bn 143.png
.pn +1
matrimony, and Helen, unacquainted with this domestic bane,
laughed it to scorn. It was her unconscious belief that the idylls
of the Brownes could not suffer from such a commonplace.

.if h
.il fn=i_136.jpg w=391px id=i136
.ca
<s>MR. SAYTER.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MR. SAYTER.]
.if-

Mr. Sayter wore a civil tag of considerable size; the other
two men were brokers. Mr. Sayter’s tag was not offensively
conspicuous, was not in fact to be seen at all unless one took the
trouble to observe it by inference. I mean that a critical estimate
of Mr. Sayter’s manner would discover the tag; it might
be detected behind his attitude and his aphorisms and the free
way in which he lifted his voice upon all things. Perhaps it was
.bn 144.png
.pn +1
only observable in the course of time and the progress of one’s
acquaintance with tagography. At first sight Mr. Sayter was a
little grey gentleman with a look of shrinking modesty and a
pair of very bright eyes. Indeed Mr. Sayter bore himself almost
with humility, his shoulders had a very unaggressive slope, and
he had a way of casting down his eyes as he talked to you which
did not suggest a lofty spirit. Custom, however, proved Mr.
Sayter’s modesty to be rather like that of the fretful porcupine,
his humility to take amused superior standpoints of opinion, and
his eyes to be cast down in search of clever jests that were just
the least bit wicked. All of which, in Anglo-India, subtly denotes
the tag. The untagged or the undertagged are much more
careful how they behave.

Mr. Sayter came down to meet them in the hall and give
Mrs. Browne his arm up stairs, as is the custom in this place.
Helen observed that the wall was very white and high and undecorated,
that the floor was tiled with blocks of marble, and
that the stairs were of broad polished mahogany. In her host
she saw only the unobtrusive Mr. Sayter with a reassuring smile
of characteristic sweetness anxiously getting out of the way of
her train. Young Browne, temporarily abandoned, followed
them up discreetly, and at the top Mrs. Browne was introduced
to a Calcutta dinner-party waiting for a Calcutta dinner.

Among the various low-necked ladies Helen was pleased to
recognise Mrs. Wodenhamer. The presence of Mrs. Wodenhamer
at a dinner given even participially, by Mr. Sayter, indicates
as well as anything the inalienable privileges connected
with the wife of a Commissariat Colonel; but that is by the way.
It is perhaps enough to say that the other ladies were various,
one or two young and rather flippant, one or two middle-aged
and rather fat, verging toward Mrs. Wodenhamer; all very
.bn 145.png
.pn +1
.bn 146.png
.pn +1
agreeably dressed, except Mrs. Wodenhamer, who wore crimson
and black; all extremely self-possessed, all disposed to be easily
conversational. I might itemize their husbands standing about
in degrees of eminence and worldly plethora fairly proportioned
to their waistbands, and sharing the proud consciousness of
having contributed a wife to the occasion. I ought to mention
also Mr. Cran and Mr. Peckle, though I need not dwell
on Mr. Cran’s bearded baldness, or Mr. Peckle’s rosy expansiveness,
as it is quite unlikely that you will have occasion
to recognise them out of their own house. They followed
Mr. Sayter down stairs with Mrs. Wodenhamer and the lady
who most resembled her, when the sound of the gong came
up. Helen, as the bride of the occasion, went down on Mr.
Sayter’s arm.

.if h
.il fn=i_138.jpg w=281px id=i138
.ca
<s>MR. SAYTER GAVE MRS. BROWNE HIS ARM.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MR. SAYTER GAVE MRS. BROWNE HIS ARM.]
.if-

“Well, Mrs. Browne,” said Mr. Sayter presently, giving her
an amiable glance from his soup, “what do you think of us?
Now I know what you’re going to say,” he continued, holding
up a bit of crust in a warning manner. “You’re going to say
that you haven’t been here long enough to form an opinion, or
words to that effect. I’m perfectly right, ain’t I?”

Helen admitted that her answer might have been “something
like that.”

“But you don’t mean it, you know. Really and truly, if
you think a minute, you’ll find you don’t mean it. You’ve got
a lovely opinion of us, all ready for use, in this last month.
And very proper too. The very first thing everybody does here
is to form an opinion of Anglo-Indians. It can’t be postponed,
it’s involuntary. Besides, it’s a duty. We appeal to the moral
side. We call out, as it were, for condemnation. Isn’t that so,
Wodenhamer?”

“Isn’t what so?” said that gentleman. “Certainly. <i>Na!</i>
.bn 147.png
.pn +1
<i>peg do</i>,”[#] to the kitmutgar who wanted to give him champagne.
.pm fn-start
Whisky and soda.
.pm fn-end

“You should have been listening. I decline to begin again.
I was trying to convince Mrs. Browne that India is the only
country in the world where people can be properly applied
to for their impressions before they leave the ship—the way
they do in America with travellers of distinction. But there’s
no use asking Wodenhamer. He’s never been to America, and
when he does travel he goes incog. to avoid these things.”

Colonel Wodenhamer’s mutton-chop whiskers expanded in
recognition of the joke, “People know it when <i>you</i> travel,” he
said.

“That’s sarcastic of you, Wodenhamer, and naughty and
unkind. I think he refers, Mrs. Browne, to the fact that I was
gazetted for duty in Assam last month, and just a fortnight and
three days after I came back the <i>Briton</i> announced that I was
going. Do you know the <i>Briton</i>? Capital paper in many
respects, but erratic occasionally in matters of considerable importance.
Delicious paper for description of ball dresses. I
revel in the <i>Briton’s</i> ball dresses.”

“Who d’you think does that sort of thing for them?” Mr.
Peckle inquired. “Some lady, I suppose.”

“No indeed, Mr. Peckle,” volunteered one in grey bengaline
and gold embroidery, on the other side of the table. “It’s
Captain Dodge, if you please! I know, because at the Belvedere
dance on Friday he came and <i>implored</i> me to tell him what
colour Lady Blebbins was wearing. It was hyacinth and daffodil
faille—the <i>simplest</i> thing, but he was awfully at a loss, poor
fellow! And afterwards I saw him put it down on the back of
his dance-card.”
.bn 148.png
.pn +1

“I daresay they pay for such things,” Mr. Peckle remarked.

“I fancy Dodge gets a polo pony out of it,” observed Mr.
Cran.

“I didn’t give that man Dodge credit for so much imagination,”
said Mr. Sayter. “I wonder if I could induce him to put
me in! I’d like to be treated poetically in the newspapers, for
once. But I’m afraid he won’t,” Mr. Sayter continued sadly,
“because I can’t wear mull muslin—isn’t that what you call it?”
to Helen. “I can’t wear it because I should suffer from the
cold, and yet the baboos do! That’s queer, you know. The
baboo is vain enough already, and I’m not vain at all; yet
Heaven permits the baboo to disport himself in the sweetest
gossamer and threatens me with fever and rheumatism if I
should even think of such a thing!”

“But surely, Mr. Sayter,” Helen interposed, “nobody suffers
from the cold <i>here</i>!”

“Oh, my dear lady! You don’t know! The cold is the one
thing we can’t get acclimatised to in India! To-night it would
be Arctic if we weren’t dining. <i>Kitmutgar, bund caro darwaza!</i>[#]
We’ll have a fire up stairs afterwards.”
.pm fn-start
Shut the door.
.pm fn-end

“A <i>fire</i>!” said Helen in astonishment.

“Yes. And then we’ll be comfortable. He can leave all the
doors and windows open, you know, so that you can take a
severe cold if you want to. Although this is a country governed
by a merciless despotism we don’t compel people to keep well if
they’d rather not.”

“I can’t imagine anybody suffering from the cold in Calcutta!”
Helen declared. “Why, to-day the thermometer stood
at eighty-three!”

“Oh,” said Mr. Sayter, “how I envy you.—What! no Roman
.bn 149.png
.pn +1
punch! You are still warm, you still believe in the thermometer,
you still find the baboo picturesque—I know you do!
Thank Heaven, I continue to like Roman punch—I retain that
innocent taste. But I’ve been cold,” said Mr. Sayter, rubbing
his hand, with a shiver, “for years. For years I’ve had no faith
in the thermometer. For years I’ve been compelled to separate
the oil from the less virtuous principles in the baboo. It’s very
sad, Mrs. Browne, but you’ll come to it.”

“I say, Sayter,” remarked young Browne, who was singularly
without respect of persons, considering that he lived in Calcutta,
“I can’t have you frightening my wife about what she’ll come to
in Calcutta. I don’t want her to develop nervous moral apprehensions—based
on what <i>you’ve</i> come to!”

Mr. Sayter’s chin sank into his necktie in official deprecation
of this liberty on the part of a junior, and a mercantile one, but
he allowed himself to find it humorous, and chuckled, if the
word does not express too vulgar a demonstration. He leaned
back and fingered his empty glass.

“Mrs. Browne,” he said deliberately and engagingly, “will
come to nothing that is not entirely charming.” And he smiled
at Helen in a way which said, “There, I can’t do better than
that.” As a matter of fact he could, and Helen, as she blushed,
was blissfully unaware that this was the kind of compliment
Mr. Sayter offered, though not invidiously, to the wives of
mercantile juniors.

“Moral apprehensions,” repeated Mr. Sayter slowly.—“<i>No!</i>
I’ve had you for ten years,”—he apostrophized the kitmutgar—“you’ve
grown grey in my service and fat on my income, and
you don’t know <i>yet</i> that I never take anything with a hole in it
like that—and pink vegetables inside the hole! Mrs. Browne,
I’m glad you refrained. That’s the single thing Calcutta
.bn 150.png
.pn +1
dinners teach—the one great lesson of abstinence! I was very
clever and learned it early—and you see how many of them I
must have survived. But talking of moral apprehensions, I
know you’re disappointed in one thing.”

“No,” said Helen, promptly; “I like everything.”

“Then you haven’t anticipated us properly—you haven’t
heard about us. You ought to be very much disappointed in
our flagrant respectability.”

“But I like respectability,” Helen replied, with honesty.

“Oh! There, I’m obliged to consider that you come short
again, Mrs. Browne. You’re not in sympathy with the age. I
don’t. I’m very respectable myself, but that’s not my fault.
I’ve never had the good luck to be married, for one thing; and
that, in India, is essential to a career of any interest. But I was
once quite an exceptional, quite an original, character on that
account, and I’m not any more. <i>Those</i> were the good old times.
And to see a beautiful, well-based, well-deserved reputation for
impropriety gradually disappear from a social system it did so
much to make entertaining is enough to sadden a man at my
time of life.”

“Really,” said Helen; and then, with a little bold shivering
plunge, “Were the people out here formerly so very—incorrect?”

“Oh, deliciously incorrect! Scandals were really artistic in
those days. I often wish I had preserved more of them; my
memory’s getting old too. I find myself forgetting important
incidents even in those concerning my most intimate friends.
And how people spent their money then! Big houses—turned
into boarding-houses now—heaps of servants, horses—entertained
like princes! Nowadays people live in flats, and cut the cook,
and save to the uttermost cowrie, so they can retire a year earlier
to drink beer with impunity and eat mutton chops with a better
.bn 151.png
.pn +1
appetite in England. Ignoble age! People—these respectable
people—go home second-class now, too, and pretend to be comfortable.
Disgraceful, I call it.”

“There isn’t the money there used to be, Sayter,” protested
Mr. Peckle. “In those days a man got a decent <i>tulub</i>, and carried
it away in a bag. And the vile rupee was worth two shillings.”

Mr. Peckle helped himself to pistachios, and passed the port.

“I believe that explains it!” and Mr. Sayter pressed his lips
knowingly together. “It never occurred to me before. Economy
and scandals don’t go together. Make a man economical,
and he becomes righteous in every other respect. So Government’s
to blame, as usual. I think, in view of this, we ought to
memorialise Government to drop the income-tax. You would
sign, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Wodenhamer?”

“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Wodenhamer returned, placidly. “Government
ought to get the income-tax out of those rich natives.
I think it’s a shame to make <i>us</i> pay.”

“Quite right, Mrs. Wodenhamer! These, Mrs. Browne, are
called promotion nuts! They’re useful to effect the permanent
removal of your superiors from office. Very nice and very deadly.
You must be sure to have them when you ask any of Browne’s
firm to dinner. No, I’ve a prejudice against them ever since
they were once offered to me in a pudding. I’ve a sad association
with them, too.” And Mr. Sayter looked grave.

“Indeed!” said Helen, not quite sure whether she ought to
make her tone sympathetic.

“Yes, they always come on just as the ladies are leaving,”
twinkled Mr. Sayter; and Helen became aware that Mrs. Wodenhamer
was looking at her with ponderous significance. There
was the usual gracious rustle, and presently the ladies were comfortably
.bn 152.png
.pn +1
and critically ensconced in the drawing-room, sipping
their coffee, at various distances from the indubitable fire. The
conversation was not very general. Mrs. Wodenhamer discussed
something in a suppressed voice on the sofa, with the lady who
approximated her. Helen wondered if it were <i>jharruns</i>. There
was apparently some sympathy between the grey bengaline and
gold embroidery and a cream crêpe de Chine and pearls, with
very yellow hair. A little incisive lady in black who happened
to be nearest to Helen, asked if she didn’t think for three <i>men</i>
the room was awfully pretty. Helen said she did, indeed; and
the little lady in black continued, with an entirely unnecessary
sigh, that men certainly <i>did</i> know how to make themselves comfortable,
there was no doubt about that. Did Mrs. Browne ever
see anything more exquisite than that water-colour on the easel?
Mr. Peckle had just bought it at the Calcutta Art Exhibition;
Mr. Peckle was a great patron of art and that sort of thing, but
then he had to be; he was a director, or something.

“My husband says,” remarked Helen, with lamentable indiscretion,
“that there isn’t any art in Calcutta.”

“<i>Does</i> he? Oh, I think that’s a mistake. There’s Mrs. Cubblewell,
and Colonel Lamb, and Mrs. Tommy Jackson. Mrs.
Tommy paints roses beautifully, and I do a little on satin myself!”
Then, as if it were a natural outgrowth on the subject,
“What <i>is</i> your husband here, Mrs. Browne?”

“He’s in Macintyre and Macintyre’s.”

“Oh, <i>yes</i>!”

Whereafter there fell a silence, during which the little lady
in black seemed to be debating young Browne’s probable connection
with the firm of Macintyre and Macintyre—it sometimes
made such a difference—but before she had properly made up
her mind the gentlemen appeared, and there ensued that uncertain
.bn 153.png
.pn +1
form of conversation which betrays the prevalent desire that
somebody should “make a move.”

Somebody made one finally, before Mr. Sayter actually
yawned. The Brownes drove home rather silently in their ticca-gharry.

“Well?” said young Browne interrogatively, chucking his
wife tenderly under the chin in a moonlit space of Chowringhee.

“I was thinking, George,” said she, “that I didn’t see any
photographs of their wives about the room.”

“No,” said young Browne.
.bn 154.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIII.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
INDIA is a country of ameliorations. The punkah is an amelioration.
So is the second-rate theatrical company from
Australia, notwithstanding its twang. So, for those who like it,
is the custard-apple. It is our complaint that our ameliorations
are too numerous and too obvious. It is painful to us that they
should obscure everything else in the vision of the travelling
public, and suggest themselves as the main facts of an idyllic
existence which runs sweetly among them to the tinkle of the
peg and the salaams of a loyal and affectionate subject race—which
they do. When the travelling public goes back and represents
this to be the case in the columns of the Home Press we do
not like it. The effect is that we are embittered, and the single
one of us who is clever enough writes the ballad of “Paget
M. P.” This is natural and proper. We are none of us constituted
to see our trifling advantages magnified, and our tragic
miseries minimised, especially in the papers, without a sense of
the unpardonable obtuseness of the human race. I do not intend
to be drawn into personal anathema in this chapter though.
It will always be so. The travelling public will continue to
arrive and tarry during the months of November, December,
January, and February, and to rejoice in the realisation of all
they have ever read in the Sunday School books. The travelling
public will continue to prefer its own impressions. In British
journalism and Great British Parliamentary opinion there will
.bn 155.png
.pn +1
always be a stodgy impracticability which the returned Anglo-Indian
can never be strong enough to influence. We are a little
leaven, but we cannot leaven the whole lump.

We die too soon. Besides, it is easier and more comfortable
to philosophise when one is going home next hot weather for
good. I am content, as I write, to think of my ameliorations
even with gratitude, and will only say what so many have said
before me, that a protracted residence under ameliorations is
necessary to the full understanding of how grievous a thing an
ameliorated existence may be.

The Brownes were not contented with what Nature does for
us in this way in the cold weather—green peas and cauliflowers,
red sunsets, oranges and guavas at twopence a dozen. Ever
since the evening they dined with Mr. Sayter they had been of
opinion that the only people whose existence was properly ameliorated
in Calcutta were the people with the joy of a fireplace in
their houses. As a family young Browne declared they were
entitled to a fireside—it was monstrous that they should lack
such an elemental feature of the domestic habit. True they
had a “siggaree,” a funnel-shaped pot of charcoal, like everybody
else—the kitmutgar made toast with it and the bearer
dried damp sheets over it—but one couldn’t be comforted at the
risk of asphyxiation, and besides, it smelled. There was nothing
else, and the Brownes felt that they could not accustom themselves
to gather in a semicircle round a tall Japanese vase, or a
blank space in a white wall fifteen feet high, for anything like
cheerful discourse. They considered that the enduring bliss
which they seemed to have taken with the house lacked this one
thing only. It was impossible to persuade the Spirit of the
Hearth to make himself comfortable in a flower-pot.

It was also impossible to build a chimney—their local tenure
.bn 156.png
.pn +1
being of that brief and uncertain kind which is popular in Calcutta.
A long lease is not desirable when a neighbourhood may
develop typhoid any day, when beams may take to dropping any
night, when one may want six months’ leave just at a season
which is unpropitious for sub-letting. All these conditions obtain
in Calcutta, and any of them might be the Brownes’! Besides,
a chimney would cost rupees incalculable.

There were alternatives, however. The Brownes went to the
ironmonger’s to look at them. They were disposed to take an
alternative if it could be had at a moderate price. Most of those
they saw were connected with a length of stove pipe which went
through the wall, some of them were decoratively tiled, some
involved a marble mantel, and they all required an outlay which,
for a matter of pure sentiment, seemed large to the Brownes.

“For forty-nine weeks in the year,” remarked young Browne
gloomily, “it would have to be stored.”

“Wouldn’t it rust?” inquired Helen.

“Inches!”

“I don’t think we can depend on being able to make a new
hole in the wall every time we move,” Mrs. Browne suggested.
“The landlord mightn’t like it.”

“We could always arrange to fill it up with purple glass when
we leave. If we did that the baboos would encourage our perforations.
So much do they love coloured glass that they paper
it on one side, and thus dissimulate.”

Helen thought this ingenious, but it did not alter the fact
that the tiled temptations were expensive. Then the ironmonger’s
young man, rising to the situation, suggested a kerosene
stove. You purchased a kerosene stove, he said, and there it
was, your inalienable property, or words to that effect. It didn’t
require no fittings, nor yet being built into the wall. It would
.bn 157.png
.pn +1
go with you anywheres, it didn’t want a stove pipe nor yet a
hole. It didn’t go in for being to say decorative, not exactly,
but then see how cheerful it was. You never knew till you tried
how cheerful kerosene could be! The young man gave them to
understand, moreover, that its mechanism could be comprehended
by a child or a punkah wallah. And they had no idea
to what extent it would reduce the consumption of coal. The
Brownes listened attentively, and when the young man paused
and rested one elbow against a patent punkah machine in his
exhaustion, young Browne made a scientific observation of the
stove. He turned one wick up and the other down. “Seems to
work all right,” he said to Helen.

“Perfectly, sir,” said the ironmonger’s young man.

Young Browne looked at him curiously. “You haven’t been
long out?” he remarked.

“No, sir. Only three weeks, sir. I came from this department
in William W’itely’s, sir.”

“I remember,” said Mr. Browne, “they do like to sell things
there. Three months in Calcutta and you won’t care a blow.”

“That so, sir?” the young man returned, smilingly. “I
’ope not, sir, for the sake of business.”

“It is. What do you think of this thing, Helen? Shall we
have it sent up?”

“It would be nice for toffee,” said Helen. “And I’m sure I
can make toffee cheaper than the cook does. I dare say it would
save us a lot in toffee, George.”

“I’m sure it would. And it’s only thirty-five rupees—about
two pounds seven, at the current rate of exchange. It isn’t just
my ideal of a fireside, but it seems the best we can do.” And
the next morning the kerosene stove arrived on the heads of four
coolies, at the Brownes’ suburban residence.
.bn 158.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i_151.jpg w=390px id=i151
.ca
<s>MRS. LOVITT.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MRS. LOVITT.]
.if-

The night was propitiously and comfortably cold. As they
drove home from tennis at Mrs. Jack Lovitt’s, muffled up in the
striped flannel jackets with which Calcutta protects itself from
the inclemency of the weather after tennis, Helen declared, with
the kerosene stove in anticipation, that it was really almost
.bn 159.png
.pn +1
piercing. “It’s a pity, though, George,” she said regretfully,
“that we were <i>quite</i> in such a hurry about buying the stove, for
I was telling Mrs. Lovitt about it, and she said she was so sorry
she didn’t know we wanted one—we could have had theirs, and
it’s in perfect order, for ten rupees.”

“Oh, next cold weather,” returned her lord, “we’ll have the
pleasure of selling ours for ten rupees instead. It comes to much
the same thing, you see.”

It is almost impossible to persuade a sahib of Calcutta to take
his domestic accounts seriously. If his natural proclivities are
in that direction, he is usually not to be respected.

The Brownes had a hump for dinner, and a hump costs a
rupee and several annas. Nevertheless they hurried through it,
the more speedily to avail themselves of their unaccustomed luxury
in kerosene, to “cluster round the cheerful blaze,” as George
Browne put it, which stood solemnly between two long windows
in the drawing-room awaiting a match. Entering, they found
the bearer, the kitmutgar and the mallie kneeling about it, with
varied expressions of concern, the machine still grim and black,
in the midst of a pervasive odour of kerosene. The Brownes
felt palled. It was not what they had expected.

“<i>Bilcul na hona sucta</i>,”[#] said the bearer, rising and surveying
the thing as if it were an obdurate Hindu deity.
.pm fn-start
Simply it may not be!
.pm fn-end

“What does he say?” inquired Mrs. Browne. Mrs. Browne
was always inquiring what the bearer said. Mr. Browne was
rapidly becoming a peripatetic hand-book of Hindustani. He
implored his wife to have a <i>munshi</i>,[#] and Helen thought it
would be delightful but sternly declined on the score of economy.
So young Browne had no surcease.
.pm fn-start
Instructor.
.pm fn-end
.bn 160.png
.pn +1

“<i>Albut hona sucta!</i>”[#] said he, going upon his own knees
before the refractory divinity. Helen stood by with superior interest
and knitted brows, after the manner of women.
.pm fn-start
Without doubt it may be!
.pm fn-end

“<i>Dya-silai</i> <sc>HUM</sc> <i>ko-do</i>!”[#] enunciated the sahib.
.pm fn-start
Give <sc>ME</sc> the matches.
.pm fn-end

Deep relief became visible upon the faces of the bearer, the
kitmutgar, and the mallie. The sahib was omnipotent.

Mr. Browne presently discovered that the wicks had dropped
into the oil reservoirs. He proceeded to take the newly imported
fireside upon his lap, so to speak, and unscrew it, his wife remarking
meanwhile that she supposed it was quite safe. He
rescued the wicks, but Helen has since mournfully given me to
understand that certain of the garments he had on were never
tenable afterwards.

Then they applied a match to engender the sacred fire upon
their hearth, and it was engendered in two long narrow flames
that flared up in yawning tin chasms on either side and sent before
them a wreathing blackness of smoke which escaped rapidly
through the holes on the top for the saucepan and the gridiron.

“It <i>is</i> cheerful,” said Helen insistently. “But it seems to
need a stove pipe after all,” she added, in doubt.

“Not at all,” said her husband, “only to be turned down.”
So he turned it down to a wavering blue and yellow line, and
closed the doors.

“Finish <i>hai</i>?” inquired the bearer, and the sahib said yes, it
was finished, so the bearer, the kitmutgar and the mallie repaired
to the simpler solaces of sentimental organisations less
subtly devised than ours.

These two exiled Brownes drew up chairs and tried to feel at
least anticipative appreciation. There were two round transparent
.bn 161.png
.pn +1
holes in the doors through which they could see a reflection
of their glowing hearth. They leaned towards it and spread
out their hands. Young Browne remarked, with a chill smile,
that it was certainly warmer than it had been. They pulled
their chairs closer together, in order, I have no doubt, to impede
the heat that might escape into other quarters of the room.
Helen slipped her hand into her husband’s, and together they
looked thoughtfully into the depths of the burning wick. I
think the way in which they must have regarded this thing,
which was to mean for them the essence of home life in an unhomelike
country, and the warm glow of home love caught and
held where it is reputed apt to stray abroad, was not altogether
laughable though. In fact——

“<i>Nellie!</i>” exclaimed young Browne, and had occasion to
bring his chair closer still. There was a moist contact of cheeks
and a succession of comforting silences. The kerosene stove
continued to burn excellently, but was disregarded.

“It looks like some kind of—of engine, doesn’t it, George?”
Mrs. Browne recovered herself sufficiently to say.

“Yes. Beastly thing!” concurred young Browne in further
disparagement. Then they began to observe the effect of the
heat on the varnish. It took the form of a hot penetrative unpleasant
smell that radiated from the kerosene stove into every
quarter of the room.

“I expect it will wear off,” said young Browne gloomily,
“but we’d better put the thing out in the compound every night
until it does.”

It has never worn off, however. Helen, with responsible
memory of the thirty-five rupees, used it conscientiously all last
cold weather. She did serious and light-minded cooking with it
while she suffered the delusion that she was Kali Bagh’s superior—inevitable
.bn 162.png
.pn +1
but short—and she made almost enough toffee upon
it to justify its expense, if it had been necessary to subsist upon
toffee. Whenever anything could be done with it the Brownes
did it. They had it lighted to welcome their return from burra-khanas
and Government House dances, and on one occasion
Helen sat for half an hour before it in her most cherished gown,
under a shower of softly falling black flakes of carbonized kerosene
without being aware of it—the result of an injudicious
lighting and forgetting on the part of the bearer. Many an
evening they sat in its presence making efforts at hilarity and
trying to forget the odours of varnish and kerosene—in the end
they always confessed it inadequate. It had a self-contained
moroseness, it never snapped or sparkled or died down. When
they went to bed they turned it out. Through its two round
eyes it mocked their homesick effort after the cheer of other
lands. The bearer admired it and took pride in setting it alight.
But the Brownes regarded it with feelings that grew constantly
more “mixed.” It made no ashes and gave no trouble, and
when they didn’t want it it was not there—all of which seemed
additional offences.

The old kite that surveyed them always through the window
from his perch in the sago palm beside the veranda said nothing,
but if they had been intelligent they might have heard the jackals
that nightly pillaged the city’s rubbish heaps, howling derision
at the foolishness of a sahib who tried to plant his hearth-stone
in India.
.bn 163.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIV.
.sp 2
<target id=i156>
.di i_156.jpg 300 389 1.0
MRS. BROWNE was not permitted to
know any of her immediate neighbours,
which she thought unfortunate.
It was a pity in a way, and yet not a
great pity, for if I know anything about Helen
Browne she would not have been able to assimilate
her neighbours comfortably. Unless
they live with the great and good
in Chowringhee, it is often difficult for
Calcutta people to do this. It is said
that the missionaries manage it, but
about this no one is certain, for between Calcutta people and
the missionaries there is a great gulf fixed. Calcutta interprets
the missionary position with strict logic. It was not Calcutta—Calcutta
proper—that the missionaries came out, second class,
to establish intimate spiritual relations with, but the heathen.
Calcutta is careful, therefore, not to interfere in any way with
this very laudable arrangement; the good work must not be
retarded by any worldly distraction. Calcutta contributes to it,
in her own peculiar way, by allowing the missionaries the fullest
possible opportunity for becoming acquainted with the heathen.
If one does not readily suspect the self-denial in this, it is
because one is predisposed against society—it is perhaps because
one has been snubbed.
.bn 164.png
.pn +1

I cannot say with accuracy, therefore, whether a missionary
in Mrs. Browne’s place would have known Radabullub Mitterjee,
Bahadur, who lived next door to the west; doubtless she
would have made attempts, at least, to introduce herself to the
ladies who divided the matrimonial dignities of his establishment;
but it did not occur to Helen that there was any opening
for such advances upon her part. Even the slits of windows
which commanded the Browne compound were generally shut
and always iron-barred; no dangerous communication from an
unveiled memsahib who ate with her husband could get in there.
It was a little narrow, silent, yellow house, too tall for its width,
much overgrown with heavy-hanging trees, and it stood a long
way back from the road, looking out on a strip of compound,
through a glass door, purple in places and green in places, and
altogether brilliant to behold. The strip of compound was a
marvel of rectangular crookedness. It was a good deal taken
up with a tank, a long narrow tank covered with a generous
green slime, dug rather sidewise. The rest of the place was
divided into small sharp-angled-beds with rows of stones. They
were very much at odds with each other, and nothing grew in
them but a few ragged rose-bushes, and flagrant things that came
of their own accord. Almost every evening R. Mitterjee, Bahadur,
went out to drive. The Brownes used to meet him in the
broad Red Road that cleaves the Maidan, where the landaus, and
victorias, and tum-tums of Calcutta amuse themselves by passing
and repassing, and bowing to each other, in the pleasant part of
the day, before the quick darkness comes and sends them all
home to dinner. Nobody bowed to Radabullub, and he bowed
to nobody, though assuredly no sahib drove in so resplendent a
gharry as his. It was built on the most imposing lines, with
ornamentation of brass, and a beautiful bunch of flowers painted
.bn 165.png
.pn +1
on either door-panel. And it was pulled by two of the most impetuous
prancing steeds in silver mounted harness, that the soul
of a Bahadur could desire. The silver mountings were very
rusty, and the prancing steeds lamentably weak in their fore legs,
but the soul of a Bahadur is not perturbed by little things like
that. Radabullub leaned back behind them superciliously, folding
his arms over his tight silk coat of pink brocade, or twisting
his moustache. With his embroidered yellow turban at a certain
angle, this Bahadur was a killing fellow—very much a man of
the world indeed, but not enough to know a good horse when he
saw it, or to be able to drive it if he did, or to understand what
earthly difference it made to a sahib how his servants were
dressed. His own sat behind in a cluster—he had more of them
than any sahib—in turbans of the colours they most fancied, and
alike only in the respect that they were all dirty and down at
heels, if the expression, in a shoeless case, is properly applied.
But when it was necessary to prepare the way none shouted
louder or ran faster than the servants of Radabullub Mitterjee,
who probably thought that there ought to be a sensible difference
between the apparel of a syce and pink brocade, and approved it.
Radabullub did not always drive in the Red Road alone. Sometimes
the cushion beside him was occupied by a very small and
high-shouldered edition of himself, encased in blue satin with
gold edgings. This Bahadur in embryo folded his arms like his
father and looked at the Red Road with equal superciliousness;
indeed, I fancy he took much the same views of life generally.
They are early inherited in Bengal.

But the ladies, the Mesdames Mitterjee, when they issued
forth from the little silent yellow house, which they did but seldom,
went most securely in charge and under cover, and Mrs.
Browne might look in vain for any glimpse of their fascinations
.bn 166.png
.pn +1
.bn 167.png
.pn +1
behind the purple curtains of their palanquins, as they passed
her gate.

.if h
.il fn=i_159.jpg w=491px id=i159
.ca
<s>THE LADIES WENT MOST SECURELY IN CHARGE AND UNDER COVER.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: THE LADIES WENT MOST SECURELY IN CHARGE AND UNDER\
COVER.]
.if-

I don’t know the name of the people on the other side, and
neither does Mrs. Browne. They seemed to live a good deal in
the veranda in an untidy way. Helen could always command a
man asleep there in pyjamas from her drawing-room window, up
to eleven o’clock in the morning. They paid no more attention
to their compound than Radabullub did, but they had a leggy
bay colt tied up there upon which the family lavished the tenderest
affection. When the Brownes drove home in the early darkness
from tennis, they could usually see a casual meal going on
through an open window at which the discourse was very cheerful
and general, the men in shirt-sleeves, the ladies posed negligently
with their arms upon the table. There was a baby, a
cracked piano, and a violin in the house, but the baby had a good
constitution and went to bed at eight o’clock, and it did not
seem to the Brownes, as they listened to the songs their neighbours
sang after dinner, that the piano was very much out of
tune. They were old old songs that everybody knew, sung with
great spirit and energy, chiefly in chorus, and Mrs. Browne’s
slipper kept time to them with great enjoyment. A boisterous
old song in Calcutta was a pleasant anomaly and struck through
the mango trees like a voice from home. The hearts of the
Brownes warmed towards their neighbours as they smote the
languid air with “Do ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay?”
and as it came again and again, Mr. and Mrs. Browne smiled at
each other and joined softly in the chorus, being comforted
thereby. It was rather an additional attraction that these harmonies
grew a little beery later in the evening. Young Browne
could drink beer in Calcutta only under pain of his own later displeasure—a
bitter thing for an Englishman.
.bn 168.png
.pn +1

They were jockeys, these neighbours of the Brownes’—from
Australia very likely, with the last batch of Waler horses. They
belonged to the class Calcutta knows collectively, as a sub-social
element, that nevertheless has its indeterminate value, being
white, or nearly so, as a rule. The aristocracy of the class is
probably represented by the commissariat sergeants and the local
police, and I have no doubt it observes its rules of precedence,
though it is unlikely that Mrs. Browne’s neighbours had much
regard for them. On certain days of the year Calcutta makes
brief acquaintance with “Light Blue and Canary,” or “Green
Pink Sleeves,” but his wife and baby go on, one might say, without
official sanction of any sort; they are permitted. So it
doesn’t matter to anybody what Light Blue and Canary’s Christian
name is—his cap and sleeves are enough. Occasionally the
reporters are obliged to find it out when Light Blue and Canary
breaks his wretched neck and half ruins a beautiful horse, and
the public have to be informed of it. Then his friends dress
Light Blue and Canary in mufti and bury him early next morning
in Circular Road Cemetery, and there is the most annoying
confusion when both he and his horse have to be scratched for
the afternoon’s races. As to the wife and baby under these circumstances,
they still go on, it is supposed.

I regret to say that the Brownes were bounded on the north
by a bustee. It is not necessary to explain that a bustee is an
unsavoury place, the word has a taste and a smell of its own.
One is always aware of the vicinity of a bustee, chiefly because of
the bovine nature of the fuel it consumes. It is impossible to
put it less vulgarly than that. All over Calcutta, in the cold
weather, there hangs at set of sun a blue cloud of smoke with an
acrid smell. It offends the nostrils of the very Viceroy, yet it is
not in the power of any municipal Commissioner to put out the
.bn 169.png
.pn +1
fires that send it up. It curls through a thousand roofs, the
tiled roofs of the country, representing much humble comfort
and many humble dinners, and every morning on the Maidan
you may see ugly old women stooping to collect the material for it.
Bustees, moreover, are never drained. They and their inhabitants
fester comfortably through the long blue and green Indian
days unconscious that their proximity does not enhance rents.

Mrs. Browne found her bustee neighbours more approachable.
Her dressing-room window overlooked the place and gave her a
point of speculation which she enjoyed quite shamelessly. A
young papoia tree flourished in a corner of the roof she looked
down upon, and various forms of vegetables fringed it. It was
the daily promenade of the family cock, and occasionally a black
goat took the air there. The cock flew up, but the goat always
made use of the family staircase. The family lived mostly in
the yard—three old women and five babies. The old women
wore various kinds of rags, the babies were uniformly dressed in
a string. The biggest baby carried the littlest about, astride her
hip, and they all played together in one corner, where they made
marvels in mud, just as children who wear clothes do. The old
women scolded them severally and collectively, especially when
they came and teased for breakfast with pathetic hands upon
their little round stomachs. The oldest of the old women cooked
the breakfast, and she would not have it hurried. She cooked it
in a single pot that stood on a mud fireplace in the middle of
the yard, squatting before it, feeding the flames with one hand
and stirring the mess with the other. Helen could see what she
put in it—rice, and more rice, and yellow dhol, and last of all
pieces of fish. As she cooked the woman looked up at Helen
now and then and smiled, amused that she should be interested
in so poor an occupation—a memsahib! And the babies, when
.bn 170.png
.pn +1
they discovered her, stood open-mouthed and gazed, forgetting
the pot. In the house they divided it upon plantain leaves, a
popular dinner service in Bengal; and when the babies issued
forth again, in file, their appearance was quite aldermanic. The
old women perhaps reposed, the sun grew hot on the window-ledge,
and Helen thought of other things to do. In the evening,
though, when the hibiscus bushes threw long shadows across the
garden path, and Helen waited for her lord by the gate as a bride
will, the babies came round through devious lanes to assert themselves
as the same babies of the morning and eligible for pice.
Helen felt an elementary joy in bestowing it, and the babies received
it solemnly, as entirely their due, with little salaams for
form’s sake. There was tremendous interest on both sides, but
beyond the statement that the babies lived in the little house,
and the memsahib in the big one, conversation was difficult, and
Helen thought with concern of the vocabulary that would be
necessary in order to teach them about man’s chief end. They
came every day to watch the going forth of the Brownes in the
tum-tum, and made a silent, open eyed, admiring little group
beside the gate, at which the pony usually shied. Then young
Browne would crack his whip in the air very fiercely indeed, and
address them in language that sounded severe, though it had no
perceptible effect. Even the babies in Bengal accept the sahib
as a blustering, impolite person of whom nobody need be afraid.

And then opposite, across the weedy road and the stagnant
ditch, a riotous Rajah resided, in a wonderful castellated place
with four or five abandoned acres around it. The Rajah was
very splendid and important. He had a slouching guard at his
gate with a gun, who probably bullied the dhoby; and when he
went abroad in the evenings, four badly uniformed horsemen,
and no less, pranced uncertainly behind his carriage. The Rajah
.bn 171.png
.pn +1
gave entertainments to European gentlemen of circumstance,
whereat I do not think any single variety of food or drink procurable
in Calcutta was omitted; but ladies did not participate,
except, of course, those who contributed to the entertainment—the
ladies of the nautch, or those of a stray theatrical company
whose performances the Rajah fancied. In return the Rajah
was invited to evening parties at Government House, where
he appeared in a turban and diamonds, supremely oiled and
scented, stood about in corners with his hands behind his back,
and never for an instant dreamed in his disdainful Hindu soul
of eating at the Viceroy’s supper-table. At the end of the cold
weather he went back to his own state, where he sat on the floor
and hatched treason against the British with both majesty and
comfort. In the evening his domain was dotted with the cooking-fires
of his people, who made a sort of tented field of it. The
wind blew the smoke across the Brownes’ compound, causing
young Browne to use language uncomplimentary to Rajahs, and
that was all they ever had to do with this one.

I mention the local isolation of these young people because it
is typical of Calcutta, where nobody by any chance ever leans
over anybody else’s garden gate. Doubtless this has its advantages—they
are probably official—but Helen, not being official,
found it cramping.

There was always the garden, though; she had that much liberty.
The garden had begun with the Brownes, it was a contemporary
success. There had been desolation, but you have
heard how they engaged a mallie. Desolation fled before the
mallie by daily degrees, though he was seldom seen in pursuit of
it. When gardeners work in Christendom, this one sought repose
and the balmy hubble-bubble, or bathed and oiled and ate
in his little mud house under the pipal tree. It was very early
.bn 172.png
.pn +1
in the morning, at crow-caw one might say in poetic reference to
the dawn in India, that the mallie scratched and scraped along
the garden beds with his wonderful little trowel, and spoke to
the flowers so that they sprang up to answer him. When the
shadow of the house fell on the hibiscus bushes he came out
again, and slaked the hot beds with water from the tank in
many buckets. Here and there he stooped over them like a
glistening brown toad-stool, but Helen never knew what he did
or his reason for doing it—that was hid with the mallie-lok.

As to the garden, there was not a tropical seed in it, they
were all English flowers, which made the mallie’s excellent understanding
with them more remarkable, for they spoke a different
language. It was not much of a garden, there was absolutely
no order or arrangement—it would have worried me—but
the Brownes planted a vast amount of interest and affection and
expectation in it; and it all grew. There were such nasturtiums
as Helen longed to show her mother, there were phloxes white
and purple, pansies too, and pinks, and not a quiet corner but
was fragrant with mignonette. A row of sunflowers tilted tall
against the side of the house, and they actually had corn-bottles,
and balsams and daisies. Violets too—violets in exile, violets in
pots, with the peculiar property that violets sometimes have in
India, of bringing tears to the eyes if one bends over them.

The Brownes began by counting them—the first pansy-bud
was an event, and I have heard references between them to “the
day the sunflower came out.” They chronicled daily at breakfast:
“Two nasturtiums and a pink,” “two pinks, three nasturtiums,
and the monthly rose,” with great gratulation, while I am
convinced neither of them looked twice at the fine bunch I sent
round occasionally from my garden while their garden was growing.
It grew so fast, their garden, that presently, if you met
.bn 173.png
.pn +1
them in society, they could talk of nothing else. It was new to
them, this friendly solace of the flowers of home. One would
have thought it specially invented for their honeymoon, whereas
the rest of us demanded it every cold weather, as regularly as the
punkah on the fifteenth of March. Mrs. Browne used to go
about saying what a wonderful amount of comfort one could get
out of a verbena, if it were only the right colour, without the
slightest suspicion of the triteness of the remark; and young
Browne would show you his home-grown button-hole, as if no
other man in the place possessed one. It was eminently good
for them, as it is for all of us. To some of us, you know, England
at last becomes a place where one dies daily of bronchitis,
and is obliged to do without a kitmutgar; but this never happens
if every cold weather one plants one’s self round about with
English flowers. They preserve the remnant of grace which is
left in the Anglo-Indian soul, and keep it homesick, which is its
one chance of salvation. Young Browne seldom said anything
cynical in the garden, and as for Helen, it was simply Canbury
to her. She could always go down and talk of home to her
friends in the flower-beds, who were so steadfastly gay, and tell
them, as she often did, how brave and true it was of them to
come so far from England, forgetting, perhaps, that from a climatic
point of view nasturtiums like heathendom. And in the
evening the smoke of the hubble-bubble was lost in the fragrance
of the garden.

Mrs. Browne says that if I am writing about their compound,
I ought not to omit to mention the fowl-yard, which was situated
at one end of it, near the stable. It was another experiment
in economy—the cook used such a quantity of eggs that the
Brownes saw no reason why they should not be produced on the
premises. So they enclosed a fowl-yard and stocked it, and the
.bn 174.png
.pn +1
cock vied with the crows in informing them of the earliest hint
of daylight. But the Brownes do not now advise the keeping of
fowls on the ground of economy; they say, indeed, that only the
very rich can afford to keep them. It seems that the syce kindly
supplied their food out of the pony’s gram, charging the deficit to
the memsahib, who also paid liberally for barley, a visionary provision
at which her birds had never a pick. They were, notwithstanding,
sound healthy hens, and the marvel was that they did
not lay—except an egg or two a week for pure ostentation. Kali
Bagh was doing a good business with the rest, supplying them to
Mrs. Browne at full market rates, and to Mrs. Green Pink Sleeves
at about half, to secure her custom. The hens in the meantime
clucked cheerfully, and Helen was in a parlous state when in the
end they had to be cut off untimely and stewed. “But with ruin
staring us in the face,” she said, “what else could we do!”

This will serve as an explanation to posterity, if any should
inquire why it was that toward the end of the nineteenth century
in Bengal only Members of Council were in the habit of keeping
hens.
.bn 175.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XV.
.sp 2
<target id=i168>
.di i_168.jpg 300 304 1.0
THE cold weather is not a season of unqualified
delight in Calcutta, in spite of the
glorious coming of the Raj into his
winter palace, and the consequent
nautch. The cold weather has its
trifling drawbacks. The mosquitoes
and the globe-trotters are so bad
then, that some people have been
known to prefer the comparative
seclusion they enjoy when the thermometer stands at 103<l>°</l> in
the shade, when the mosquitoes have gone to the Hills, pursuing
the fat of the land, and the globe-trotters to northern latitudes
seeking publishers.

It may be set down as an axiom that the genus globe-trotter
is unloved in Calcutta. It may also be set down as an axiom
that it is his own fault, for reasons that may appear. But there
are globe-trotters and globe-trotters, and of some the offence is
venial—nothing more, perhaps, than that they make the hotels
uncomfortable, and put up the price of native curiosities. And
some are amusing in their way, and some bring English conversation
with them; and I have known one to be grateful for
such poor favours as he received, but he was not a globe-trotter
that took himself seriously. It is also possible, I believe, if one
lives in India long enough, to come across a globe-trotter who is
.bn 176.png
.pn +1
modest and teachable, but we have been out here only twenty-two
years, and I am going home without having seen one.

The Parliamentary globe-trotter represents the species which
has impressed itself most upon Anglo-India. He has given a
character and a finish, as it were, to the whole genus. He has
made himself so prevalent and of such repute that, meeting any
stalwart stranger of cheerful aggressive countenance at His Excellency’s
board, we are apt to inquire amongst ourselves, “of
what district?” hoping for reasons private to Anglo-India, that
it may not be a Radical one. The initials “M. P.” have become
cabalistic signs. They fill us with the memory of past reproaches,
and the certainty of coming ones. They stand for
much improper language, not entirely used in India. They
inspire a terrible form of fear, the apprehension of the unknown,
for the potentials of the globe-trotting M. P. are only revealed
in caucus, the simple Anglo-Indian cannot forecast them.
Regularly with December he arrives, yearly more vigorous, more
inquisitive, more corpulent, more disposed to make a note of it.
We have also noticed an annual increase in his political importance,
his loquacity, and his capacity to be taken in, which he
would consider better described as ability to form an independent
opinion. At this moment we are looking forward to the last
straw in the shape of Lord Randolph Churchill.

Mr. Jonas Batcham, M. P., was not so great a man as Lord
Randolph Churchill when he arrived in Calcutta last cold
weather; what he may have become since, by the diligent use of
his Indian experiences and information collected “on the spot,”
I have no means of knowing. George Browne’s father was one
of Mr. Batcham’s constituents, and this made Mr. Batcham willing
to stay with the Brownes while he was inspecting Calcutta,
and collecting advice to offer to the Viceroy. He kindly put up
.bn 177.png
.pn +1
with them for several weeks, and when he went away he gave
four annas to the sweeper.

Mr. Batcham occasionally described himself as one of the
largest manufacturers in the north of England, and though the
description leaves something to be desired, it does suggest Mr.
Batcham. He was large, imposing in front, massive in the rear.
He was gray-whiskered, of a rubicund countenance, of a double
chin. He wore a soft felt hat a little on one side, and his hands
in his pockets, a habit which always strikes me as characteristic
of a real manufacturer. He was very well informed—they all
are. He had a suave yet off-hand manner, a business-like smile,
a sonorous bass voice, and a deep, raging and unquenchable
thirst for facts.

Mr. Batcham was very much aware of his value to the
Brownes as a new arrival from England—a delicate appreciation
of himself, which is never wanting to a globe-trotter. Mr.
Batcham blandly mixed himself up with the days when people
came round the Cape in a sailing-ship, or across the sands of
Suez on a camel, and invested himself with all the sentimental
interest that might attach to a fellow-countryman discovered in
the interior of Bechuanaland. A generous philanthropic instinct
rose up and surged within him as he thought, in the midst
of his joyful impressions of the tropics, how much pleasure his
mere presence was probably imparting. He almost felt at moments
as if he had undertaken this long, arduous, and expensive
journey in the interest of the Brownes as well as those of his
constituents.

The great concourse of his kind in the hotels, the telegrams
in the morning’s <i>Englishman</i>, the presence of overland cheese,
the electric light, and the modern bacteriologist, should have rebuked
this pretension somewhat, but it is doubtful if anything
.bn 178.png
.pn +1
could do that. “I saw both your parents before I sailed,” said
Mr. Batcham, in liberal compensation, as it were, for his first
dinner, “and left them quite well.” And when young Browne
replied that since then he was sorry to say his mother had had
a bad attack of bronchitis, however, by the last mail they had
heard she was getting over it, the damper was only momentary,
and Mr. Batcham proceeded to inform them that Parnell was
dead.

Oh, he was sufficiently communicative, that Batcham, sufficiently
willing to impart his impressions, as expansive, by the
time they got to the joint, as ever you liked. He had a certain
humorous perception of what was expected of him. As a
“globe-trotter,” he was familiar with the expression, and applied
it to himself jovially without shame. The perception was incomplete,
and therefore did not make Mr. Batcham uncomfortable.
However, he understood perfectly that globe-trotters as a
class were frequently and prodigiously taken in. Acting upon
this, Mr. Batcham made his incredulity the strong point of his
intelligence, and received certain kinds of information with an
almost obvious wink. That very first night at dinner, he proclaimed
himself to the Brownes a person who could not be imposed
upon—useless to try. “Coming down from Benares,”
said Mr. Batcham, “I travelled with a couple of men who said
they were indigo planters, and so they may have been for all I
know. Anyhow they spotted me to be a globe-trotter—said they
knew it by the kind of hat I wore—and then they proceeded to
fill me up about the country. One fellow said he didn’t own a
yard of indigo land himself; always got the peasants to grow it
for him; and the other went into some complicated explanation
of how blue indigo was got by squeezing green leaves. All sorts
of yarns they told me. How the natives wouldn’t eat factory
.bn 179.png
.pn +1
sugar, because they believed it defiled in the preparation, but
preferred drain water to any other. How a Hill woman would
make nothing of carrying me on her back a thousand feet steady
climbing. How in the part of the country we were going
through, it was so hot in June that men had servants to drench
them with water in the middle of the night regularly. I saw
they were enjoying it, so I let them go on—in fact I rather drew
them out, especially about indigo. Took it all in and cried for
more, as the babies do for patent medicine. Then when we got
out at the station here I said, ‘Thank you gentlemen, for all the
“information” you have given me. It has been very entertaining.
Of course you will understand, however, that I don’t believe
a word of it. Good morning!’ I fancy those two indigo
planters will hesitate before they tackle their next globe-trotter.
I never saw men look more astonished in my life.”

“I should think so!” exclaimed young Browne; “what they
told you was wholly and literally true.”

Mr. Jonas Batcham looked at his host with a humorous
twinkle. “Don’t <i>you</i> try it on,” said he.

Although Mr. Batcham found it advisable to shed so much
of the light of his countenance upon the Brownes, as I have said,
it was native India that he came to see and report upon. And
to this end he had read one or two of the most recent publications
on the subject, works produced, that is to say, by our very
most recent visitors, smoking from the London press before their
authors’ names were dry in the Bombay hotel register. These
volumes had given Mr. Batcham comprehensive ideas of native
India, and he knew that between Cape Comorin and Peshawur
were lying two hundred and fifty million people urgently in need
of his benevolent interference. They were of different races,
religions, customs, and languages—Mr. Batcham had expected to
.bn 180.png
.pn +1
find that and had equipped himself for it by learning the names
of almost all of them. He was acquainted with several of their
gods, he knew that Ganesh had an elephant’s head, that Kali
loved the blood of goats, and that Krishna was the source of all
things. He was aware also that it was not proper to speak of
Mohammedan rajahs or Hindoo sheiks, and he had informed
himself upon the subject of Eastern polygamy. Mr. Batcham
was a person of intelligence who did not travel without preparing
his mind, and though according to his own modest statement
there was still a great deal that he didn’t know about India, it
was open to an appreciative person to doubt this. In one direction
Mr. Batcham had prepared his mind with particular care,
so that the very slightest impression could not fail to be deep
and permanent—in the direction of the wrongs, the sufferings,
the grievances under British rule, of his two hundred and fifty
million fellow-subjects in India. Upon this point Mr. Batcham
was tender and susceptible to a degree that contrasted singularly
with his attitude towards the rest of the world, which had
never found reason to consider him a philanthropist. This
solicitude about his Indian brethren was the more touching perhaps
on that account, and the more remarkable because it found
only cause for grief and remorse in the condition of native India.
Any trifling benefits that have accrued to the people
through British administration—one thinks of public works,
sanitation, education, courts of justice, and so forth—Mr. Batcham
either depreciated or ignored. We had done so little, so
“terribly little,” as Mr. Batcham put it, compared with what we
might have done, and of that little so much had been done badly!
Daily Mr. Batcham discovered more things that had been
neglected, and more things that had been done badly. He looked
for them carefully, and whenever he found one he wept audibly
.bn 181.png
.pn +1
and made a note of it. Time would fail me, as the preacher
says, to recount all the iniquities that came under Mr. Batcham’s
observation during the weeks he spent in India, and I am unworthy
to describe the energy and self-forgetfulness with which
he threw himself into the task of “investigating” them, always
with the most copious notes. There was the fact that both opium
and country spirit were sold to the innocent Hindu, not only
with Government cognisance but actually under Government
regulations, the outrage to every Briton’s conscience being that
revenues were derived therefrom. The Government fattened, in
Mr. Batcham’s graphic figure, upon the physical misery and
moral degradation of its helpless wards. Mr. Batcham searched
his mind in vain to find a parallel to this, strange as it may seem
in connection with his accurate acquaintance with the amount of
excise paid by his brother philanthropists in British beer. The
position of the Government of India was monstrously unique. If
Mr. Batcham were the Government of India, he would scorn to
fill the treasury with the returns of vice. Mr. Batcham would
tax nothing but virtue and the pay of Government servants.
And though Mr. Batcham was not the Government of India, was
he not entitled from his seat in the British House of Commons
and the depth of his righteous indignation, to call the Government
of India to account? For what else then did Jonas Batcham,
M. P., one of the largest manufacturers in the north of
England, with little time to spare, undertake this arduous and
expensive journey to the East? Oh, there were many things
that grieved him, Mr. Batcham, many things to which he felt
compelled to take exception, of which he felt compelled to make
a note. He was grieved at the attitude of the Government
towards the native press in the matter of seditious and disloyal
editorials, scattered by thousands under shelter of the vernacular
.bn 182.png
.pn +1
amongst an ignorant and fanatic population. Mr. Batcham did
not wish to see this practice discouraged. The liberty of the
press Mr. Batcham considered the foundation stone of the liberty
.bn 183.png
.pn +1
of the subject—let the people raise their voice. Grieved also
was Mr. Batcham at the cold shoulder turned by Government
to the Indian Congress—that noble embodiment of the struggles
and aspirations of a subject people. Mr. Batcham thought that
all native movements, movements that marked progress and
emancipation, should be warmly encouraged. The suspicion of
intrigue was an absurd one, and this was not merely a matter of
opinion with Mr. Batcham. He had it from a native gentleman
prominently connected with the Congress. Mr. Batcham had
brought a letter of introduction to the native gentleman—Mr.
Debendra Lal Banerjee—and Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee had
given him such an “inside” view of the methods and aims of
the Congress as gratified Mr. Batcham exceedingly. Mr. Batcham
found Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee the soul of hospitality,
very appreciative of Mr. Batcham’s illustrious position, anxious
to gratify Mr. Batcham’s intelligent curiosity by every means in
his power, and brimming over with loyalty and enthusiasm for
the institutions which Mr. Batcham represented. And when
Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee declared, in admirably fluent English,
that the Congress was inspired by the single thought of
aiding and upholding, so far as lay in its humble power, the administration
of the British Government—to which every member
felt himself personally and incalculably indebted—Mr. Batcham
rejoined audibly, begged Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee to believe
that he was proud to be his fellow-subject, friend, brother, and
made a copious note of it.

.if h
.il fn=i_175.jpg w=317px id=i175
.ca
<s>MR. JONAS BATCHAM, M. P.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MR. JONAS BATCHAM, M. P.]
.if-

Naturally, under these circumstances, Mr. Batcham would
find a very severe grief in the relations existing between European
and native society here, and naturally he could not find
words to express his indignation at the insolent and indifferent
front of his fellow countrymen towards the people of India.
.bn 184.png
.pn +1
“All,” said Mr. Batcham, “on account of a brown skin!” He
could not understand it—no, he could not understand it! But
if Mr. Batcham could not understand it, he could do what lay
in his power as a person of generous sympathies and high moral
tone to alleviate it, and he threw himself into the task. Mr.
Debendra Lal Banerjee gave him no invitation which he did not
accept, offered him no opportunity which he did not profit by.
He drove with Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee, he accompanied him
to the races, to the native theatre, to the English theatre, to
the Kalighat, to the Botanical Gardens, to various interesting religious
and family festivals among Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee’s
immediate social circle; also, on occasions upon which the
Brownes made immoderate thanksgiving, he dined with this
Indian gentleman and his emancipated wife, who was allowed to
appear in public, where she smiled a great deal and said nothing
whatever. Mrs. Debendra Lal Banerjee had not been very long
emancipated, however, and it was in complimenting his Indian
friend upon having so charming a lady to be his companion and
helpmeet, as Mr. Batcham put it, that he observed the first and
only slight chill—it is impossible for Indian gentlemen to freeze—in
Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee’s responses. If Mr. Batcham
could have known how Mrs. Debendra Lal Banerjee was pinched
for that compliment!

I suppose that the entertainment and education of Mr. Jonas
Batcham, M. P., could hardly have cost Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee
less than four or five hundred rupees when he added it up,
but if he had the least desire to see disaffection and sedition
properly encouraged among his countrymen, or took the smallest
satisfaction in the aggravated annoyance and embarrassment of
the Government of India by Her Majesty’s most loyal Opposition,
he must have felt that he had done much to further these
.bn 185.png
.pn +1
things, and considered the money well invested. Mr. Jonas
Batcham, the incredulous, certainly left his hands so brimful of
native hypothecations that it would have been impossible to
lodge another lie in him anywhere. Urbane, impressively self-satisfied,
and well oiled for work, Mr. Jonas Batcham, M. P.,
being towed homeward down the river Hooghly, was a sight
which must have brought tears of pious thanksgiving to the eyes
of his amiable native friend upon the wharf. Nor was Mr. Debendra
Lal Banerjee without his private reward. Mr. Batcham,
in departing, clasped him figuratively to his capacious bosom,
and told him movingly that if ever he came to England the
Batchams would hasten collectively to do likewise. Mr. Batcham’s
wife and family and friends would await that event with
an impatience which Mr. Banerjee must make as brief as possible.
Nothing would give Mr. Batcham greater pleasure than
to receive Mr. Banerjee in his home and show him over his
“works,” or perhaps—jocularly—to take him to a sitting of the
House to hear his humble servant badger the Secretary of State.
And Mr. Banerjee responded suitably that simply to hear the
eloquent addresses of his honourable friend would be amply
sufficient to induce him to undertake the journey, and that to
witness the domestic happiness of this honourable friend would
be only too much joy—he was unworthy. And they parted in
mutual dolours. I anticipate, however, Mr. Batcham is not
gone yet.
.bn 186.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVI.
.sp 2
.dc 0.1 0.68
I HAVE not yet mentioned the one matter of all the grievous
matters that came under his observation in India, about
which Mr. Batcham was particularly grieved. So bitterly, so
loudly, and so persistently did he grieve about this, that one
might almost have thought he came out for the purpose, absurd
as it may seem. I cannot do better than describe it in Mr.
Batcham’s own terms as “the grinding of the faces of the poor,
through our culpable neglect in failing to provide India with the
humane limitations of a Factories Act.” For years past English
labour had been thus happily conditioned, and who could measure
the benefit to the toiling millions on whose behalf the law
had been made! It was incalculable. As a matter of fact the
only result of its operation, which could be computed with accuracy,
was to be found in the out-turn of the mills. There Mr.
Batcham knew to a yard how valuable the Factories Act was to
the operatives; but this was not a view of the question upon
which he dwelt much in India. While he was with us indeed
all practical considerations were swallowed up, for Mr. Batcham,
in the contemplation of the profundity of our iniquity in allowing
the factories of this country pretty much to manage their
own affairs. He did not even permit himself to consider that
the enormous product of Indian looms, together with the cheapness
of the cost of production, was having a prejudicial effect
upon the market. He certainly never mentioned it. His business
.bn 187.png
.pn +1
was with the poor, the down-trodden, the victims of the
rapacity of the capitalist, as much among her Majesty’s subjects
on India’s coral strand as in the crowded tenements of Manchester
or Birmingham. His duty towards these unfortunates
was plain, and heaven forbid that he should think of anything
but his duty!

And so Mr. Batcham lamented high and low over the woes
of the unprotected factory “hand” in India. He began his
lament as soon as ever he was informed—though he knew it
before—that protection did not exist; on the face of it, oppression
must then be rampant. He himself was in the trade, he
knew the temptations of the capitalist, and he would not go so
far as to say that, if a wise and just law did not prevent him, the
exigencies of the market would never lead him to be—inconsiderate—toward
his <i>employés</i>. Reflect then upon the result of almost
unlimited power in the hands of the Indian manufacturer!

This being Mr. Batcham’s pronounced opinion, even before
he gave his personal attention to the subject of Indian manufactures,
his investigations naturally had the effect of heightening
it—one might say they were undertaken with that object. They
did not heighten it, however, as satisfactorily or as definitely as
Mr. Batcham could have wished. After inspecting a cotton
factory in Bombay, a woollen factory in Cawnpore, a jute factory
in Calcutta, he found that the notes left too much to the imagination;
and it would be useless to appeal to the imagination of
the House; the House was utterly devoid of it. True, he had
seen hundreds of operatives working in miserable nakedness
under the unpitying eye of a Eurasian overseer; but then it was
certainly very warm, and the overseer had not been sufficiently
considerate to kick any of them in Mr. Batcham’s presence.
They certainly began early and worked late, but then they ate
.bn 188.png
.pn +1
and slumbered in the middle of the day, chewing betel for casual
delectation the rest of the time. Something might possibly be
done with that if he were careful to avoid dwelling upon the
siesta, and he would be sorry to lay stress upon any trifling
amelioration in the condition of these poor wretches. Mr.
Batcham pondered long upon the betel-nut, but saw no salvation
there. If it could be proved that these miserable beings were
compelled to resort to an injurious stimulant to keep their flagging
energies up to the incredible amount of labour required of
them—and Mr. Batcham had no doubt whatever that this was
the case—it might be useful to cite the betel-nut, but there
seemed to be a difficulty about proving it. The only tangible
deplorable fact that Mr. Batcham had to go upon, was that the
pay of a full-grown operative, not a woman or a child, but a man,
was represented by the shockingly incredible sum of eight annas—eightpence!—a
day! When he heard this Mr. Batcham thought
of the colossal wages paid to factory hands in England and
shuddered. He was so completely occupied in shuddering over
this instance of the rapacity of the Indian manufacturer, that the
statement of what it cost the same operative to live according
to the immemorial custom of his people—about five shillings a
month—entirely escaped his observation. In the stress of his
emotion Mr. Batcham failed to notice one or two other facts that
would have tended to alleviate it, the fact that a factory operative
is paid twice as much as a domestic servant and three times as
much as a cooly, though the cost of life weighs no more heavily
upon him than upon them. The fact that he often works only
two or three months of the year at gunny-bags, and spends the
rest of his time in the more leisurely and congenial scratching of
his fields, and above all, the fact that in India the enterprises of
the foreigner accommodate themselves—not of philanthropy but
.bn 189.png
.pn +1
of necessity—to the customs of the country. It is not the service
of the sahib, with his few thousand personal establishments, his
few hundred plantations and shops, his few dozen factory chimneys
rising along the Hooghly, tainting the sea breeze of Bombay,
that can revolutionise their way of life for two hundred and fifty
million people with whom custom is religion and religion is more
than rice. But Mr. Batcham had no heart to be comforted by
such trivialities. He made emotional notes, dwelt upon the
“eight anna daily pittance,” and felt a still more poignant private
grief that there was no cause for louder sorrow.

At first Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee was inclined to assure
his honourable friend that there was not the slightest need for
any beneficent interference with the condition of his humble compatriots,
to praise but to deprecate Mr. Batcham’s enthusiasm in
the matter, and to point out that the only true and lasting elevation
of her Majesty’s most loyal subjects in India must be brought
about through that much maligned and little understood body,
the Indian Congress. But it was a very, very short time indeed
before Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee found himself in full union
with the noble aims of this British benefactor. He had only to
learn—and he learned very quickly—that his sympathy would be
appreciated, to bestow it with all the gushing fulness of which
the Bengali soul is capable, and Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee’s
sympathy was invaluable to Mr. Batcham. It disclosed points of
weakness in the Indian factory system that would otherwise have
escaped his observation to this day, and suggested interpretations
which no simple-minded Briton would have thought of alone.
And it divined Mr. Batcham’s dissatisfaction that he could not
be more dissatisfied with remarkable accuracy.

In taking measures—Bengali measures—to secure the sympathy
of the travelling British M. P. with the grand progressive
.bn 190.png
.pn +1
movement of Bengali patriotism, it is highly advisable to discover
as soon as possible whether he has any little “movement”
of his own in contemplation which might receive a slight impetus
with advantage. It is then generally possible to combine
the two, to arrange reciprocal favours, to induce the globe-trotting
potentate to take “broader views.” Mr. Debendra Lal
Banerjee put the whole of his time, and a vocabulary which no
English dictionary could improve, at Mr. Batcham’s disposal, to
convince him that this factory grievance was one of the first
which the Indian Congress would press upon the ear of the Raj,
once it had an official right to make suggestions to that honourable
organ. Although Mr. Banerjee quite agreed with Mr.
Batcham that it would be inadvisable to wait until that happened,
he would like Mr. Batcham to understand how close the
interests of the British manufacturer lay to the bosom of the
Indian Congress—though of course Mr. Banerjee designated
them as the wrongs of the native operatives. In the meantime,
however, his honourable friend was naturally restless, naturally
desired to lend his own helping hand to the cause he had at
heart. Mr. Banerjee was overcome by the sublimity of Mr.
Batcham’s devotion, and suggested a little evidence acquired personally.
If it were possible for Mr. Batcham to <i>converse</i> with
any of these unfortunate people!

“It’s the terrible disadvantage of not knowing the language!”
responded Mr. Batcham, in a tone which suggested that the language
ought to be supplied to Members of Parliament. “I
<i>have</i> conversed with ’em through another man, but it was very
unsatisfactory. Couldn’t get anything definite. The fact is,
Mr. Banerjee, the other man was an Anglo-Indian, and I’ve no
doubt the poor wretches suffered from a sort of unconscious intimidation!”
.bn 191.png
.pn +1

Mr. Banerjee shook his head. The head had a black silk hat
on it, and shook as impressively as it might have done in Lombard
street or Westminster. “I fear,” said Mr. Banerjee, “that
it is unhappily but too probable.” Then he raised his eyebrows in
a sadly submissive way, took out his pocket handkerchief and used
it in a manner which suggested—very respectfully—a general
deprecation of Anglo-Indians. Mr. Banerjee must have used it,
I think, for this purpose. I doubt whether he is even yet sufficiently
deteriorated by our civilisation to take out his handkerchief
seriously.

“Above all things,” added Mr. Banerjee, thrusting his fat
hand into the breast of his tightly-buttoned frock coat, and wrapping
himself up in the situation, “above all things it is indispensable
that your evidence shall be unbiased in every particular.
There is no doubt, I deplore to tell you, that here in India the
poor and the needy amongst us will sometimes be wrongly influenced
by the fear of being deprived of the staff of life. I
have even known cases where, under unjust and reprehensible
intimidation, <i>perjury</i>”—Mr. Banerjee’s tone suggested, “I
hardly expected you to believe it!”—“has been committed!”

“Dear me, I dare say,” said Mr. Batcham, “that happens
everywhere.”

But Mr. Banerjee had more than sentimental reflections
upon the moral turpitude of his fellow Aryans to contribute to
the difficulty of his honourable friend. He had given his honourable
friend’s difficulty the very fullest attention. He had
chased it through the most private labyrinth of his mind, where
he had come into sudden and violent contact with Ambica Nath
Mitter. And in the joyful shock of collision with Ambica Nath
Mitter, Debendra Lal Banerjee had said to himself, “Why didn’t
I think of him before?”
.bn 192.png
.pn +1

“There is a very intelligent young man in my office,” said
Mr. Banerjee, “who was formerly employed as clerk in a jute
mill here. I think he would most willingly obtain for you any
grievances you may require.” Mr. Banerjee spoke absent-mindedly,
reflecting upon the qualifications of Ambica for the task.

“The statement of them,” corrected Mr. Batcham.

“The statement of them—precisely, yes. Young Mitter has
had all facilities for observing the oppression in the factories,
and I have no doubt it made a deep impression upon his excellent
heart. He speaks English also fairly well. I will send him
to you.”

“I should like very much to see Mr. Mitter,” Mr. Batcham
remarked. “Mitter, you said?”

“It will not be necessary to remember his name. Call him
‘Baboo’; he will answer to plain ‘Baboo.’ I am sure he will
remember well about the oppressions.”

“I should be even better pleased,” said Mr. Batcham, “if he
brought two or three of the oppressed with him.”

“I think he could also do that,” replied Mr. Banerjee without
hesitation.

Then Mr. Banerjee went away and explained Mr. Batcham’s
difficulty to Ambica Nath Mitter. Considering how discreetly
Mr. Banerjee explained it, the sympathetic perception shown by
Ambica Nath Mitter was extraordinary. It might possibly be
explained by the fact that they both spoke Hindustani. At all
events, Mr. Banerjee dismissed the young man of the excellent
heart with the comfortable feeling that Mr. Batcham’s difficulty
would be solved quite inexpensively.

Two days after, Ambica presented himself at the residence of
the Brownes, accredited to Mr. Batcham by Mr. Debendra Lal
Banerjee. Mr. Browne had gone to office, Mrs. Browne had
.bn 193.png
.pn +1
gone to shop. Mr. Batcham, ruddy and expansive in the thinnest
of flannels, occupied a large portion of the small veranda
alone. The time was most fortuitous, and Mr. Batcham received
Mr. Banerjee’s labour with an agreeable sense of freedom
for the most searching investigations. Having well breakfasted,
digested the morning paper, and fully smoked moreover,
Mr. Batcham was in the mood for the most heartrending revelations.

Ambica was a prepossessing young man, Mr. Batcham
thought. His lustrous long black hair was brushed smoothly
back from a forehead that insisted on its guilelessness. His soft
brown eyes were timid but trustful, and his ambient tissues
spread themselves over features of the most engagingly aquiline
character. He was just at the anti-protuberant stage of baboo-dom,
there was no offence in his fatness. He wore spotless muslin
draperies dependent from either shoulder, and his pen behind
his ear. In his rear were three others much like himself, but
less savoury, less lubricated, less comfortable in appearance.
They impressed one as less virtuous too, but this was purely the
result of adversity.

Mr. Batcham began by asking “Mr. Mitter” to sit down,
which Mr. Mitter did with alacrity. Never in his life had Mr.
Mitter been asked to sit down by a sahib before. Then Mr.
Batcham took out his note-book and pencil, and said impressively
to Mr. Mitter that above all things these men must understand
that they were to tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth with regard to the matters upon which he
was about to question them. Then he questioned them.

.if h
.il fn=i_187.jpg w=499px id=i187
.ca
<s>IN HIS REAR WERE THREE OTHERS MUCH LIKE HIMSELF.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: IN HIS REAR WERE THREE OTHERS MUCH LIKE HIMSELF.]
.if-

Perhaps it is unnecessary to go into Mr. Batcham’s questions.
They were put with the fluency and precision of a man of business.
Ambica Nath Mitter understood them perfectly, and explained
.bn 194.png
.pn +1
.bn 195.png
.pn +1
them admirably. They elicited exactly what Mr.
Batcham wanted to know. His fat, red hand trembled with
avidity as he set down fact after fact of the most “painful” description—or
possibly it was agitated by an indignation which
Mr. Batcham doubtless could not wholly suppress. And, indeed,
the recital of the wrongs which these three miserable men had
suffered under the cruel hand of the tyrannical sirdar,[#] and the
indifferent eye of the callous sahib, would have moved an even
less susceptible heart than that of a British manufacturer in the
same line of business. One had been beaten with stripes—he
showed Mr. Batcham the weal on his shoulder, and Mr. Batcham
touched it, for the sake of the dramatic effect of saying so afterwards.
Another had been compelled to work four hours a day
overtime for a week without a pice of extra pay; the third had
humbly begged for a day’s leave to attend the burning of his
grandmother, and when he returned had been abruptly and
unjustly dismissed—the sahib had said he wished to see his face
no more. It was useless to complain; the factory sahibs would
cut their wages, and the other sahibs did not care. They were
all poor men; they could not buy the law. At this point Mr.
Batcham grew quite feverish. He unbuttoned his shirt-collar,
and interspersed his notes with interjection-points. “This is
better,” he said to himself—“I mean worse, than I expected.”
The interview took a long time—quite three-quarters of an hour—but
Mr. Batcham was distinctly of the opinion that it had not
been misspent. And when Mr. Batcham closed his note-book,
and said to Mr. Mitter that this was a very sad state of things,
but that would do for the present, his three down-trodden Indian
fellow-subjects knelt weeping and kissed the uppers of Mr.
.bn 196.png
.pn +1
Batcham’s broad British boots, invoking the secular blessings of
heaven upon this “protector of the poor.” Mr. Batcham had to
shuffle his feet under his chair so suddenly that he nearly dislocated
one of his knees. “Don’t!” said he, “pray don’t, not
on any account!” And he raised them with his own hands,
very nearly mingled his tears with theirs, and immediately afterwards
made a most dramatic note of it.
.pm fn-start
Native manager.
.pm fn-end

Mr. Batcham had not breakfasted the next morning in fact,
he was looking at his watch and wondering why the Brownes
were always so confoundedly late with their meals when his
bearer came up and inquired whether the sahib would see again
the three “admi”[#] he had seen the day before, they waited
below in the compound. Breakfast was still ten minutes off,
and Mr. Batcham said he would go down. He went down, received
the men with affability, and learned through his English-speaking
bearer that they had been the victims of great injustice
at the hands of Ambica Nath Mitter. This one, it seemed, had
persuaded them to come to the sahib and leave work for the day
on the promise not only of paying them their day’s wages, but
of making the matter right with the sirdar at the factory. Instead
of which, he had paid them only half a day’s wages, and
when they returned that morning they found themselves dismissed.
Therefore, knowing the heart of the sahib that it was
full of mercy, they had come to cast themselves at his feet.
They were all poor men, a very little would satisfy them—two
rupees each perhaps.
.pm fn-start
Persons.
.pm fn-end

“That’s six rupees!” said Mr. Batcham seriously, “two
rupees each would keep you for nearly a month in idleness.
You can get employment much sooner than that.” Mr. Batcham
.bn 197.png
.pn +1
knitted his philanthropic brow. “I’ll see you after breakfast,”
he said, as the kitmutgar came to announce it.

The question of his duty in the matter of the six rupees so
agitated Mr. Batcham that he consulted young Browne about it
at the breakfast-table, and that is the reason why it is I, and not
Mr. Batcham, who recount his experience with Ambica Nath
Mitter to the public. Young Browne heard his guest politely
and sympathetically through before he ventured to express an
opinion. Even then he deferred it. “I’ll have a look at your
factory-wallahs,” said young Browne. Presently he sent the
bearer for them, who came up with two. The other, he said,
had been taken with a sudden indisposition and had gone
away.

Young Browne put up his eye-glass—he sometimes wore an
eye-glass, it was the purest affectation—and looked at the victims
of British oppression in India as they stood with their hands
behind them in acute discomfort, twining and untwining their
dusty toes. As he looked, a smile appeared under the eye-glass,
which gradually broadened and broadened until it knocked the
eye-glass out, and young Browne laughed until the tears came
into his eyes. “It’s too good!” said young Browne brokenly.
“It’s <i>too</i> good!” and laughed again until Mr. Batcham’s annoyance
became serious and obvious and it was necessary to
explain.

“I don’t know what these men may have learned <i>incidentally</i>
about jute,” said he wiping his eyes, “but that’s not their occupation,
Mr. Batcham, I—I happen to know their faces. They’re
both umidwallahs in Watson and Selwyn’s, indigo people, next
door to our place.”

“Dear me, are you <i>sure</i>?” asked Mr. Batcham with a judicial
contraction of his eyebrows. “What is an umidwallah?”
.bn 198.png
.pn +1

“Umid means hope—a man of hope. They come and ask to
work in the office as a favour, and don’t get any pay, expecting
to be taken on in case of a vacancy. These scoundrels have
been in Watson and Selwyn’s for the last year. I venture to
state they’ve never been inside a jute mill in their lives.”

.if h
.il fn=i_191.jpg w=326px id=i191
.ca
<s>THE OTHER HAD BEEN TAKEN WITH A SUDDEN INDISPOSITION AND HAD\
GONE AWAY.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: THE OTHER HAD BEEN TAKEN WITH A SUDDEN\
INDISPOSITION AND HAD GONE AWAY.]
.if-
.bn 199.png
.pn +1

“Tumera kam, k’on hai?”[#] asked young Browne mockingly
of one baboo.
.pm fn-start
Your work, what is it?
.pm fn-end

The baboo cast down his eyes nervously and said, “Wasson
Sewwin company <i>kapas, sahib</i>,”[#] and the other to the same
question made the same answer. They were crushed and sorrowing
baboos suffering under a cruel blow of fate. Why should it
have been granted to only one of them to conclude to be indisposed
at the right moment?
.pm fn-start
With Watson Selwyn Company.
.pm fn-end

I am afraid the savage Anglo-Indian instinct arose in young
Browne and caused him to tease those baboos a little that morning.
It was very wrong of him doubtless, and then it led to the
destruction of a number of Mr. Batcham’s most interesting
notes, which is another regrettable fact. But the only person
who really suffered was Ambica Nath Mitter. Mr. Batcham, of
course, thought it his duty to inform Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee
of the whole unfortunate affair, and Mr. Debendra Lal Banerjee,
in a white heat of indignation, which lasted several days, dismissed
Ambica.

“How could I repose further trust in a man like that!” said
Mr. Banerjee to Mr. Batcham. Besides, privately, Mr. Banerjee
thought Ambica grasping. Mr. Banerjee had entirely intended
that out of the five rupees Ambica received from him, the “factory-wallahs”
should be paid in full.
.bn 200.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVII.
.sp 2
<target id=i193>
.di i_193.jpg 300 364 1.0
SOCIALLY, as I have said, Mr. Batcham represented
one of our cold weather phenomena.
They remain phenomena, the globe-trotters,
notwithstanding the regularity of their reappearance,
flashing like November comets
across the tranquil Anglo-Indian mind,
which refuses to accustom itself to one class
of its heavenly visitors any more than to the
other. It is inaccurate, however, to use any figure of speech
which represents Mr. Batcham as a meteoric body. He had his
prescribed orbit—it is all laid down in Murray—and he circled
through it, revolving regularly upon the axis of an excellent
digestion with great gravity of demeanor. When he appeared
upon Calcutta’s horizon, Calcutta could only put up a helpless
eye-glass and writhe wearily until the large red luminary dipped
again in the west. Then for a week it set at nought and
mocked him. Then it unanimously forgot him, and was only
reminded of his unnecessary existence afterward by the acerbity
of the <i>Englishman’s</i> comments upon his intelligence, which
was entirely deserved.

It was interesting to watch Mr. Batcham in the process of
forming an opinion of Anglo-Indian society; that is, of making
his observations match the rags and tags of ideas about us which
he had gathered together from various popular sources before
.bn 201.png
.pn +1
coming out. They were curious, Mr. Batcham’s impressions,
and they led him into even greater discreetness of conduct than
would naturally be shown by one of the largest manufacturers of
the North of England, of sound evangelical views and inordinate
abdominal development, travelling in search of Truth. In the
doubtful mazes of the flippant Anglo-Indian capital Mr. Batcham
felt that it behoved him to wrap the capacious mantle of his
virtue well about him and to be very heedful of his walk and
conversation. He kept a sharp eye open for invitations to light
and foolish behaviour on the part of possible Mrs. Hawksbees
and Mrs. Mallowes whom he met at Government House, and he
saw a great many. When Lady Blebbins asked him if Mrs.
Batcham were with him, Mr. Batcham said to himself, “There
is certainly something behind <i>that</i>!” and when Mrs. Walter
Luff, who is as proper as proper can be, proposed to drive him
about the Maidan in her barouche, Mr. Batcham said coyly but
firmly that Mrs. Luff must excuse him for asking, but was her
husband to be of the party? Some such uncompromising front
Mr. Batcham showed to temptation in forms even more insidious
than these. I need not say that he never in any case failed
to make a careful note of it; and I have no doubt that long before
this reaches you the glaring facts will have been confided
with inculpating initials to the sympathetic British public
through the columns of the Times over the bashful signature of
Jonas Batcham.

Mr. Batcham saw no reason for concealing his preconceived
ideas of Anglo-Indian society from any of the Anglo-Indians he
met—our morals embarrassed him as little as he supposed that
they embarrassed us. He discussed them with us in candid sorrow,
he enquired of us about them, he told us exactly to what
extent he considered the deterioration of the ethical sense
.bn 202.png
.pn +1
amongst us was to be ascribed to the climate. He spoke calmly
and dispassionately about these things, as an indifferent foreigner
might speak about the exchange value of the rupee or the quality
of Peliti’s ices. He seemed to think that as a subject of conversation
we should rather like it, that his investigations would
have a morbid interest for us. It was reported that he approached
an A.-D.-C. in uniform with the tentative remark
that he believed Simla was a very immoral place, and that the
A.-D.-C. in uniform made with great difficulty three wrinkles
in his forehead—it is almost impossible for an A.-D.-C. in
uniform to wrinkle himself—and said with calm surprise,
“We are Simla,” subsequently reporting the matter to the
Viceroy and suggesting the bastinado. The story adds that
the Viceroy said that nothing could be done, because an
M. P. was certain to go home and tell. But this is the merest
rumour.

Mr. Batcham found the Brownes disappointing in this respect
as he found them disappointing in other respects. They
were not extravagant, they were not in debt, and Mrs. Browne
neither swore nor smoked cigarettes nor rode in steeplechases.
Mr. Batcham investigated them until he found them quite hopelessly
proper, when he put them down as the shining and praiseworthy
exception that proves the rule, and restricted his enquiries
to the private life of their neighbours. Thus, driving
upon the Red Road in the evening and encountering a smart
young pair in a cabriolet, Mr. Batcham would demand, “Who is
that lady?”

“That’s Mrs. Finsley-Jones,” Mrs. Browne would reply.

“And with whom,” Mr. Batcham would continue severely,
“is Mrs. Finsley-Jones driving?”

“With Mr. Finsley-Jones.”
.bn 203.png
.pn +1

“Oh—ah! and who is that lady in the straw hat on the grey
cob?”

“Mrs. MacDonald, I think.”

“And the gentleman?”

“Her husband.”

“Really! you are quite sure it is her husband, Mrs. Browne.
I understood that in India ladies seldom rode with their husbands.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Batcham,” Helen returned innocently,
“horses are apt to be so skittish in India that it isn’t really safe
to go out without a man, and of course one would rather have
one’s husband than anybody else.”

“Not at all, I assure you, Mrs. Browne. I understand that
quite the opposite opinion prevails among the ladies of Calcutta,
and I can depend upon the source of my information. Now
these two people in the dog cart—they are actually flirting with
each other in broad daylight! It is impossible,” said Mr.
Batcham, with an accent of grave deprecation, “that they can
be married.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs,” said Helen shortly, “they were married
about the same time as we were. Why shouldn’t they flirt
with each other if they want to?”

“Certainly not,” said young Browne, who was driving. “It
leads to incorrect ideas of their relations, you see. Fact is, I
caught Tubbs kissing his wife in a dark corner of the Maidan by
the Cathedral myself the other evening, and it was such a very
dark corner that if I hadn’t happened to be lighting a cheroot at
the time, I wouldn’t have believed that Tubbs was Tubbs any
more than Mr. Batcham does. Tubbs can’t afford a popular
misapprehension that he isn’t Mrs. Tubbs’s husband. I’ll tell
Tubbs.”
.bn 204.png
.pn +1

“I think,” said Helen rebukingly, “that you might have
taken some other place to light your cigar in, George.”

“Didn’t light it. Dropped the match, I was so startled.
Last match I had, too. I’ve got that against Tubbs. Oh, I
must speak to Tubbs!”

“If you speak to Tubbs,” Mr. Batcham put in prudently,
“don’t mention my name. I am glad to find myself wrong in
this case. But Mr. Banerjee assures me—”

The pony leaped forward under the cut of young Browne’s
whip, and Mr. Batcham very nearly tumbled out of the back
seat. Young Browne didn’t apologise. “Do you mean to
say,” said he in a red fury, “that you have been talking to a
beastly baboo about the white women of Calcutta? It—it
isn’t usual.”

It was as much for their own amusement as for their guest’s
edification that the Brownes asked Mr. Sayter to dinner to meet
Mr. Batcham. Mr. Sayter came unsuspectingly, and I have
reason to believe that he has not yet forgiven the Brownes.
Nobody in Calcutta could hate a large red globe-trotter more
ferociously than Mr. Sayter did. And the Brownes failed to
palliate their offence by asking anybody else. They were a
square party, and Mr. Batcham sat opposite Mr. Sayter, who
went about afterwards talking about his recent narrow escape
from suffocation.

Mr. Batcham welcomed Mr. Sayter as if he had been in his
own house or his own “works.” He shook Mr. Sayter warmly
by his slender and frigid hand and said he was delighted to meet
him—it was always a pleasure to meet representative men, and
his young friends had told him that Mr. Sayter was a very
representative man indeed, standing almost at the head of his
department.
.bn 205.png
.pn +1

“Oh, goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Sayter, sinking into
a chair. “Fancy being talked about like that now.”

“I have a thousand things to ask you,” continued Mr. Batcham
with increasing cordiality, “a thousand questions are surging
in my brain at this very moment. This India of yours is a
wonderful place, sir!”

“Well,” said Mr. Sayter, “I suppose I can’t help that. But
it isn’t as wonderful as it used to be—that’s one comfort.”

“I’m afraid,” Mr. Batcham remarked with seriousness, “that
your eyes are blinded. I’ve met numbers of people out here—people
of more than average perception—whose eyes seem to me
to be blinded to the beauties of Ind.”

“Probably affected by the dust of Ind,” put in young Browne.
“Will you take my wife in, Mr. Sayter?”

“No,” said Mr. Sayter, “it’s the perverseness of the Anglo-Indian.
He thinks if he talks about the beauties of Ind the
Secretary of State will cut his pay.”

“And yet,” said Mr. Batcham, tucking his napkin into his
capacious waistcoat, “the average public official in this country
seems to me to be pretty fairly remunerated.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Mr. Sayter confidentially, looking
up from his soup, “they’re grossly overpaid. They live in luxury.
I am one of them. I live in luxury. I have a servant to
put on my boots. In England what action should I be obliged
to take in regard to my boots? I should be obliged to put them
on myself! And for the misfortune of living in a country where
I get my boots put on, I’m paid twice as much as I would be in
England, and three times as much as I’m worth. Monstrous,
isn’t it?”

Mr. Batcham smiled a benign smile of approbation. “I assure
you, sir, that is not the way the situation has been represented
.bn 206.png
.pn +1
to me thus far. I hope that before I leave India I may
meet other gentlemen who like yourself have the moral rectitude
to rise above mere considerations of gain—I may say of plunder—and
state the case frankly as it is. With regard to yourself I
have no doubt you exaggerate, but I will tell you candidly that I
have myself for some time held the same opinion precisely with
regard to—with regard to—”

“The Indian services generally. Exactly,” responded Mr.
Sayter, “and when you get home you mean to bring it under
the consideration of Lord Kimberley. Quite so. I wouldn’t be
too sanguine about popularising your view among the Europeans
out here—the Anglo-Indian is a sordid person—but all the
baboos will be very pleased. You will of course endeavour to
extend the employment of baboos in the higher branches of the
Covenanted service—the judicial and administrative. They
come much cheaper, and their feelings are very deeply hurt at
being overlooked in favour of the alien Englishman. You could
get an excellent baboo for any purpose on earth for thirty rupees
a month. And yet,” continued Mr. Sayter absently, “they pay
me two thousand.”

Mr. Batcham looked reflective, and young Browne said,
“Cheap and nasty.”

“Oh, dear no!” remarked Mr. Sayter, “A nice fat wholesome
baboo who could write a beautiful hand—probably a graduate of
the Calcutta University. Talking of universities reminds me to
add, Mr. Batcham, that the university baboo is not quite so
cheap as he used to be. He is still very plentiful and very inexpensive,
but his price is going up since the new regulations.”

“Regulations!” said Mr. Batcham. “You people will regulate
these unfortunate natives off the face of the earth.”

“We should love to,” replied Mr. Sayter, “but we can’t. You
.bn 207.png
.pn +1
have no idea of their rate of multiplication. These particular
regulations were a frightful blow to the baboo.”

“May I ask their nature?” Mr. Batcham inquired.

“Oh yes. They were connected with the examinations for
degrees. It was thought remarkable for some time how universally
the baboos passed them, and how singularly similar the
answers were. The charitable put it down to the extraordinary
aptitude of the Bengali for the retention of printed matter and
the known tendency of his mind to run in grooves. The uncharitable
put the other baboos in charge of printing the examination
papers under a mean system of espionage. I regret to
say that it was only too successful; they caught a whole batch of
baboos taking the means of earning an honest living a little prematurely.”

“Then what happened?” asked young Browne. “I haven’t
heard this story.”

“I don’t remember whether they suppressed that lot of baboos
or not. But they put an end to the extra edition of examination
papers system. They had the lithographing stone
brought into an office where there was only one man, a European,
and they shut the shutters and they locked the door—oh,
they took stringent measures!—and they had the papers turned
off by a coolie, in solemn secrecy, the day before the examination.”

“That must have been entirely satisfactory,” Mr. Batcham
remarked.

“It was not. The baboos passed in great numbers that year
and sent in their papers with a smile. Then I believe they
stopped up the key-hole and blindfolded the coolie. It made no
difference whatever.”

“How did they find out?” Helen asked.
.bn 208.png
.pn +1

“In the end they took to watching this simple, ignorant
coolie. And they observed that when he had finished his work
he invariably sat down and rested on the lithographing stone.
So that he went away charged, one might say, with the wisdom
of the examiners, and published himself in the bazar for I daresay
four annas a copy.”

“That boy, if he lived in the United States, would rise to be
president,” remarked Mr. Batcham oracularly.

“He was of great assistance to the B.A.’s of that year.
Though I believe they found him rather bony for a satisfactory
proof, and they complained that the sense of the questions was
a little disconnected.”

“Mrs. Browne, have you seen anything of the Tootes lately?”

“Nobody has, Mr. Sayter. Mr. Toote has fever.”

“Temperature one hundred and five this morning,” said Mrs.
Browne. “The third attack this year.”

“And the Archie Campbells are going home on sick leave,”
added Helen. “Poor Mr. Campbell is down with abscess of the
liver. There’s a great deal of sickness about.”

“Not more than usual; it’s a deadly time of year,” Mr. Sayter
remarked. “You heard about Bobby Hamilton?”

“Hamilton seedy?” inquired young Browne. “I saw him
riding a fine beast the day before yesterday—he looked fairly fit.
Hamilton’s a very knowing chap about horses, he’s promised to
look after a pony for my wife.”

“You’ll have to get somebody else, I’m afraid.”

“Hamilton’s not——”

“Yes. Went to the funeral this morning. Fine chap. Awful
pity. Cholera.”

“And Mrs. Hamilton is at home!” exclaimed Helen.

“With another baby. Yes. Four now, Hamilton told me
.bn 209.png
.pn +1
last hot weather. He’d been seedy, and I was urging him to
take furlough.”

“Why didn’t he? It might have saved him,” asked Helen.

“I believe the fourth baby was the reason. He couldn’t
afford it. Had to stay and grill, poor chap.”

“How very distressing,” said Mr. Batcham. “I suppose the
widow will be able to live on her pension?”

“She will receive no pension, sir. Mr. Hamilton belonged
to the Education Department, which is uncovenanted. In the
uncovenanted service it is necessary to live in order to enjoy
one’s pension, and that is the reason why its departments add so
little to the taxes.”

“Ah, well,” said Mr. Batcham rather vaguely, “you can’t
have your cake and eat it too. I should consider marriage under
those conditions an improvidence, and I don’t understand people
being ill in this climate. I think it must be largely due to the
imagination. So far as <i>my</i> testimony is worth anything, I find
myself much benefited by it. Thanks, Browne, I’ll have Bass.
<i>I’m</i> not afraid of it.”

Young Browne smiled and wistfully drank half the unsatisfactory
contents of the long glass by his plate.

“To say nothing,” said he, in mournful reference to the climate,
“of the magnificent thirst it engenders.”

Mr. Sayter joined his hands together at the finger tips and
looked at Mr. Jonas Batcham, M. P., from under his eyebrows
in a way which was certainly impertinent, oblivious of the kitmutgar
at his elbow who patiently offered him iced asparagus.

“I’m perfectly certain,” said he, with a crispness in every
syllable, “that Mr. Batcham has been benefited by staying six
weeks in India. If he stayed six years he would doubtless be
more benefited still. I daresay, as he says, we would all be benefited
.bn 210.png
.pn +1
if it were not for our imaginations. It’s a climate that
leaves only one thing to be desired, and if some people say that’s
a coffin, that is clearly their imagination. Uncovenanted people
have a way of dying pretty freely, but that’s out of sheer perverseness
to get more furlough. Most of them go for ever because
they can’t arrange it any other way. And as for cholera,
I give you my word not one man in ten dies of cholera out here;
they go off with typhoid or dysentery, or in some comfortable
way like that, and probably have a punkah the whole time
they’re ill.”

The half-past nine gun boomed from the fort, and Mr. Batcham
started nervously. “I don’t know why it is,” said he,
“that one doesn’t accustom one’s self to hearing guns in India.
I suppose it is some association with the Mutiny.”

“Oh, we’ll have another mutiny,” Mr. Sayter remarked;
“it’s quite on the cards. But you must not be alarmed, Mr.
Batcham. It won’t be,” he added irrepressibly, “till after you
go home.”

The conversation turned upon light literature, and Mr. Batcham
contributed to it the fact that he understood that man
Besant was making a lot of money. Helen had been reading
the memoirs of Mdlle. Bashkirtseff, and had to say that one half
she didn’t understand, and the other half she didn’t like. “And
when,” said Mr. Sayter, “does your book come out, Mr.
Batcham?”

“I haven’t said that I was writing one,” Mr. Batcham replied,
smiling coyly.

“It isn’t necessary,” declared young Browne, “we should expect
a book from you, Mr. Batcham, as a matter of course.”

“Oh, well, I expect I shall have to own to some little account
of my experience,” confessed Mr. Batcham. “My friends have
.bn 211.png
.pn +1
urged me to do something of the kind. If the illustrations can
be got ready, I daresay it will be out in time to catch the spring
market.”

“Don’t forget the illustration of the cobra milking the cow,”
said George Browne, infected by Mr. Sayter; “it will add a great
deal to the interest of the volume without detracting seriously
from its reliability.”

“No,” said Mr. Batcham, “I haven’t got a photograph of
that, I’m sorry to say. The illustrations will be entirely reproduced
from photographs. I’ve got a beauty of the Taj, taken by
magnesium light.”

“Have you decided on a title, Mr. Batcham?” Helen inquired,
playing with the orange-blossom in her finger-bowl.

Mr. Batcham looked carefully round him, and observed that
the kitmutgars had left the room. “Don’t mention it,” he said,
“because somebody else may get hold of it, but I think I’ll
christen the book either ‘My Trot Through India,’ or ‘India, Its
Past, Present, and Future.’”

“Capital!” exclaimed Mr. Sayter, skipping nimbly to hold
back the purdah for the exit of Mrs. Browne. “You can’t really
dispense with either title, and if I were you I should use them
both!”

A little later, before Mr. Sayter disappeared into his brougham,
exploding a vast yawn among the wreaths of his Trichinopoly,
Mr. Batcham shook him warmly by the hand, and re-expressed
his gratification at the opportunity of meeting so representative
a gentleman, to whose opinions such great importance
would naturally attach itself. “Joking apart,” said Mr. Batcham,
“the candid statement of your views upon many points
this evening will be very useful to me.”

“I’m so glad!” said Mr. Sayter.
.bn 212.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XVIII.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
HELEN BROWNE never could be brought to understand
that she was not rich with five hundred rupees a month.
Every now and then she reduced the amount—reduced it indeed,
with the rupee at one and twopence!—to pounds, shillings, and
pence, in order to assure herself over again that it was only a
little less than the entire stipend of the Canbury rectory, “and
we all lived upon that,” she would argue, as if she had there somewhat
unanswerable. It was to her a source of continual and
lamentable mystery that they never seemed to find it convenient
to open a bank account—it was so unwise not to have a bank
account—and yet there was always what George Browne called a
“negative difficulty,” always something to be paid first. On the
last days of every month when it came to balancing the accounts
and finding nothing over, Mrs. Browne regularly cut the bawarchi
six pice on general principles, for which he as regularly came
prepared. Kali Bagh cooked nothing better than his accounts.
Besides this she had her evening gloves cleaned, and saved the
price of a ticca dhurzie, which is at least eight annas, every Saturday
by doing the family darning, and this, in a memsahib, is
saintly. Certainly the Brownes were not extravagant. Helen
used to maintain that the remarkable part of it was vegetables
being so cheap, but there was probably more force in her reflection
that it didn’t really matter much about getting a cauliflower
for a penny when one’s ticca gharries came to three pounds. It
.bn 213.png
.pn +1
was much more curious to observe how exactly every month the
Brownes’ expenses met their income with perhaps just a trifle
now and then to spare, which they might put away if they liked,
unreceipted, to be a nest-egg for a comfortable debt in the near
future—the fact being that Kasi and Kali Bagh and the rest
knew the sahib’s <i>tulub</i> as well as they knew their own, and were
all good at arithmetic to the splitting of a pi. It is perhaps a
tribute to the perfection of their skill that they never disturbed
Helen’s idea that she was very well off. When the rupees disappeared
more quickly than usual, she thought of the price of vegetables
and was convinced that retrenchments were possible and
should soon be effected. Next month Kasi would permit himself
to forget various trifling bills, and there would be great prosperity
with the Brownes for a fortnight. But invariably there came a
time of reckoning when Kasi demonstrated that the income was
very nearly equal to the outgo. On the whole Kasi was contented
with the sahib’s present pay, having great faith in his prospects
of promotion. Barring accidents, Kasi’s speculations upon the
financial future of the Brownes were very perfectly adjusted.

It was the elusive bank account that induced them to listen
to the Jack Lovitts, who lived in Park-street in a bigger house
than they could afford. “We can perfectly well let you have the
top flat,” said Mrs. Jack Lovitt at the end of the cold weather,
“and it will be that much off our rent besides being a lot cheaper
for you. You see we could divide the mallie and the sweeper,”
said Mrs. Lovitt, enunciating this horror quite callously, “and
that would be an advantage. Then we might have one leg of
mutton between us, you know, and that sort of thing—save a lot
of bazar.”

“But should you like to have somebody living over your
head?” asked Helen, pondering over the idea.
.bn 214.png
.pn +1

“Of course not,” replied Mrs. Lovitt candidly, “who would?
But if we mean to go on leave next year we’ve got to do something.
Jack’s eight hundred simply vanishes in our hands.
Last month, Helen Browne, our bill from Peliti alone was a
hundred and ten—beast! If Jack wouldn’t insist on giving ice
to his polo ponies I think we might get on. But you can’t reason
with him about it. He’ll come home with a broken neck from
that polo one of these days. And we haven’t earned anything
approaching a decent pension yet, and my complexion’s absolutely
gone,” added this vivacious lady, who liked saying these insincere
things to her “young friend Mrs. Browne,” who began at this
time to be amused by them.

“I’ve done my little uttermost,” Mrs. Lovitt continued.
“This nougat is filthy, isn’t it? I’ll never leave my dear Peliti
again!” The ladies were tiffining together in a luxury of solitude.
“I’ve sold three frocks.”

“No!” said Helen. “Which?”

“That vieux rose brocade that I got out from home for the
Drawing-Room—the more fool I!—and that gray shimmery crêpe
that you like; and another, a mouse-coloured sort of thing, with
gold bands, that I don’t think you know—I’ve never had it on.
Frifri sent it home with a bill for a hundred and fifty if you
please—and I gave her the foundation. However, I’ve been paid
for it, and Frifri hasn’t, and she can jolly well wait!”

“What did you get for it?” asked Helen.

“Eighty-five—wasn’t I lucky? That new little Mrs. Niblit—jute
or indigo or something—heaps of money. Lady Blebbins
bought the other two for Julia. She’s up in Allahabad, you
know, where the fact of my having swaggered around in them all
season won’t make any difference. What a pretty little flannel
blouse that is of yours, my dear—I wish I could afford one like it!”
.bn 215.png
.pn +1

“It cost three eight altogether,” said Mrs. Browne, “the
dhurzie made it last week. He took two days, but I think he
dawdled.”

“Three eight’s a good deal, I think, for a blouse,” returned
Mrs. Lovitt, the experienced. “Dear me, what a horrible thing
it is to be poor! And nothing but boxes in that upper flat!
Three rooms and two bath-rooms, going, going, gone—I wish it
were! What do you say, Mrs. Browne? Ninety-five rupees
only!”

“It’s cheap,” said Helen; “I’ll ask George.”

She did ask George, at the shortest possible intervals for
three days, and when the subject had been allowed to drop for a
quarter of an hour George asked her. It became the supreme
question, and the consideration they devoted to it might have
revised the Permanent Settlement or decided our right to occupy
the Pamirs.

There were more pros and cons than I have patience to go
into, and I daresay they would have been discussing it still, if
Mrs. Browne had not thought fit to decline her breakfast on the
morning of the third day. Whereat young Browne suspected
fever—he hoped not typhoid—but the place certainly smelt
feverish, now that he came to smell it—and there was no doubt
that it would be an economy to take Mrs. Lovitt’s flat, and forthwith
they took it.

Moving house in India is a light affliction and but for a
moment. The sahib summoned Kasi, and announced to him
that the change would be made to-morrow, “and in thy hand
all things will be.” Kasi received particulars of the address in
Park-street, salaamed, saying “Very good,” and went away more
sorrowful than he seemed, for he was comfortable and mighty
where he was, and change was not often a good thing. Besides,
.bn 216.png
.pn +1
he knew Lovitt sahib that he had a violent temper and reprehensible
modes of speech—it might not be good to come often
under the eye of Lovitt sahib. And he would be obliged to tell
the mallie his friend that it would be to depart, which would
split his heart in two. However, it was the sahib’s will and
there was nothing to say, but a great deal to do. Moreover,
there might be backsheesh, which alleviated all things.

Next morning the Brownes found themselves allowed one
table and two chairs for breakfast purposes, and six coolies sat
without, dusty and expectorant, waiting for those. Kasi, at the
gate, directed a departing train, each balancing some portion of
their worldly goods upon his head, Kasi, watchful and stern, the
protector of his master’s property. The dining-room was dismantled,
the drawing-room had become a floor space enclosed by
high white walls with nail marks in them. There was a little
heap of torn paper in one corner, and cobwebs seemed to have
been spun in the night in half the windows.

“It’s pure magic!” Helen exclaimed. “It’s to-day week,
and I’ve been asleep,” and then “We’ve been awfully happy
here, George,”—an illogical statement to accompany wet
eyelashes.

Even while they sat on their single chairs at their single
table, which George put his elbows on, to secure it he said, the
bedroom furniture decamped with many footsteps, and after the
meal was over there was nothing left to testify of them but their
hats laid conspicuously on a sheet of paper in the middle of the
drawing-room floor. “I suppose,” said young Browne, “they
think we’ve got brains enough to carry those over ourselves.”

.if h
.il fn=i_210.jpg w=321px id=i210
.ca
<s>THEIR HATS LAID CONSPICUOUSLY ON A SHEET OF PAPER.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: THEIR HATS LAID CONSPICUOUSLY ON A SHEET OF PAPER.]
.if-

Mrs. Browne put hers on and drove her husband to office.
Then she shopped for an hour or two, and finished up by
coming to tiffin with me. Then she repaired to Park-street,
.bn 217.png
.pn +1
where she found herself established in the main, with Kasi still
superintending, his locks escaping from his turban, in a state of
extreme perspiration. Then she made a dainty afternoon toilet
with great comfort, and by the time young Browne came home
.bn 218.png
.pn +1
to tea it was quite ready for him in every respect, even to the
wife behind the teapot, in circumstances which, except for the
pictures and the bric-a-brac, might be described as normal.
And of course, being an insensate sahib, he congratulated his
wife—it was prodigious, and all her doing! Kasi was also commended,
however, and the praise of his master fell pleasantly on
the ear of Kasi, who immediately added another rupee to the
amount he meant to charge for coolie-hire. Thus is life alleviated
in India; thus do all its material cares devolve into a hundred
brown hands and leave us free for our exalted occupations
or our noble pleasure. We are unencumbered by the consideration
of so much as a button. Under these beatitudes the average
Anglo-Indian career ought to be one of pure spirit and intellect,
but it is not so—not singularly so.

“What we must be thoroughly on our guard against,” said
young Browne in the top flat at his second cup, “is seeing too
much of the Lovitts. They’re not a bad sort if you keep them
at a proper distance; I don’t believe for an instant there’s any
harm in little Mrs. Jack; but it won’t do to be too intimate.
They’ll be as troublesome as sparrows if we are.”

“There’s one thing we’ll have to look out for,” said Mr.
Jack Lovitt in the bottom flat at his third muffin, “and that is
being too chummy with the Brownes; they’re all right so long
as they stay upstairs, but we won’t encourage them to come
down too often. We’ll have Mrs. B. gushing all over the place
if we do. They’ll have to understand they’ve only rented the
top flat.”

“They’ll always know what we have for dinner,” remarked
the spouse in the top flat.

“They’ll see every soul that comes to the house,” said the
spouse in the bottom flat.
.bn 219.png
.pn +1

“It isn’t the slightest concern of theirs,” replied the lord
upstairs.

“It’s absolutely none of their business,” returned the lord
downstairs.

And they were both “blowed” if they would tolerate the
slightest interest in their respective affairs. The Brownes concluded
that “perhaps once a month” would be often enough to
ask the Lovitts to come up and dine, and the Lovitts thought
the Brownes might come in to tea “once in three weeks or so.”
Before this they had been in the habit of entertaining each
other rather oftener, but then they were not under the same
roof, with a supreme reason for establishing distance. Mrs.
Browne believed that on the whole she wouldn’t engage Mrs.
Lovitt’s dhurzie—it might lead to complications; and Mrs.
Lovitt fancied she had better not offer Helen that skirt-pattern—it
would necessitate endless discussions and runnings up and
down. Mrs. Lovitt deliberately arranged to go up to see Helen
for the first time with her hat and gloves on, to make it obvious
that the call should be formally returned. Helen sent down a
note, beautifully written and addressed, to ask Mrs. Lovitt to
come to tea on Wednesday afternoon, at a quarter past five.
The ladies left no little thing undone, in fact, that would help to
quell a tendency to effusion; they arranged to live as remotely
from each other as the limits of No. 61, Park-street, permitted.
The Brownes had always the roof and habitually sent chairs up
there. “They can’t say we haven’t rented it,” said Helen.

Their precautions not to be offensive to each other were still
more elaborate. Mr. Browne ascertained at what time Mr.
Lovitt went to office, and made a habit of starting a quarter of
an hour earlier. Mrs. Lovitt, observing that the Brownes were
fond of walking in the compound in the evening, walked there
.bn 220.png
.pn +1
always in the morning. Neither of them would give any orders
to the mallie, whom they jointly paid, for fear of committing an
unwarrantable interference, and that functionary grew fat and
lazy, while the weeds multiplied in the gravel walks. Helen
even went so far as to use the back staircase to avoid a possible
encounter at the front door, but young Browne disapproved of
this. He believed in abating no jot or tittle of their lawful
claims. “Use the staircase freely, my dear,” said he, “but do
not engage in conversation at the foot of it.”

They assumed a bland ignorance of each other’s affairs, more
discreet than veracious. When Mrs. Lovitt mentioned that they
had had a lot of people to dinner the night before, Helen said,
“<i>Had</i> you?” as if she had not heard at least half a dozen carriages
drive up at dinner time; as if she had not decided, she
and George, indifferent upon the roof, that the trap which drove
off so <i>much</i> later than the others must have been Jimmy Forbes’s.
And they would be as much surprised, these two ladies, at meeting
anywhere else at dinner as if they had not seen each other’s
name inscribed in the peon book that brought the invitations,
and remarked each of the other, at the time, “It seems to me we
see enough of those people at home.”

They were a little ridiculous, but on the whole they were
very wise indeed, and the relations that ensued were as polite
and as amiable as possible. It was like living on the edge of a
volcano, taking the precaution of throwing a pail or two of
water down every day or two. And nothing happened.
.bn 221.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XIX.
.sp 2
<target id=i214>
.di i_214.jpg 300 278 1.0
NOTHING happened. Thus for three
months, three hot weather months.
The punkah wallahs came and ministered
to the sahiblok with creakings
and snorings that cannot be
uttered, much less spelled. The
mango-crop was gathered and sold,
the <i>topsy muchies</i> swam up the river
Hooghly, and were caught and cooked in their appointed season.
The Viceroy and his shining ones went to Simla, and
a wave of flirtation swept over the Himalayas. The shops
put up grass-tatties for the wind to blow through, and the
customers who went in were much cooler than the coolies who
stood outside throwing water over them. The brain-fever bird
spoke—he does not sing—all day long in the banyan-tree—“<i>Ponk!
Ponk!</i>” all day long in the thickest part of the
banyan-tree, where nobody can see or shoot him. He comes
and stays with the hot weather, a feathered thing accursed.
The morning paper devoted itself exclusively to publishing the
“Gazette” notices of leave and the lists of intending passengers
by P. and O., and week after week the tide bore great ships outward,
every cabin occupied by persons connected with more or
less disordered livers, going home for three or six or twelve
months’ repairs. You could count on your fingers the people
.bn 222.png
.pn +1
you knew in the Red Road. Kasi asked for an umbrella; respectfully
as a right, it was the <i>dustur</i> for the sahib to provide
an umbrella. The ayah begged for an umbrella, humbly as a
favour; she had far to come and the sun was “<i>ag kamofik</i>.”[#]
The kitmutgar asked for an umbrella, not because he had the
slightest idea that he would get it, but because it was generally
more blessed to ask than not to ask. The cholera arrived punctually,
and increased the native death-rate, with its customary
industry. The Lovitts lost a bearer from this cause, and a
valuable polo pony from heat apoplexy. The latter bereavement
was in the paper. The oil exuded more profusely still
upon the adipose tissue that encloses the soul of a baboo, and
Calcutta flamed with the red flowers of the gold mohur tree,
panting nightly, when they were all put out, under the cool south
wind from the sea.
.pm fn-start
Like fire.
.pm fn-end

Neither the Lovitts nor the Brownes left Calcutta; they were
among the people you counted on your fingers. There is very
little to talk about in the hot weather, and the fact that nothing
had happened was discussed a good deal, in the dead privacy of
the roof or the lower veranda. Both the top flat and the bottom
flat thought it had managed admirably, and congratulated itself
accordingly. That nothing should have happened caused them
to rise considerably in each other’s esteem—there were so few
people living under one roof in Calcutta who were able to say it.
They told society how agreeable they found it to live with each
other, and society repeated it, so that the Brownes heard of the
Lovitts’ satisfaction, and the Lovitts heard of the Brownes’.
Indeed, there came a time when the Brownes and the Lovitts
thought almost as much of each other as they did before they
lived together.
.bn 223.png
.pn +1

It had been an extinct volcano after all, and they stopped
throwing water down. Mrs. Lovitt, by degrees, became easily
confidential again, and told Helen among other things that edified
her, exactly what they were saying at the club about Mrs. Lushington
and the General’s A.-D.-C., Mrs. Lovitt’s version coming
straight from Jimmy Forbes, and being absolutely correct.
Helen being without a confidential male admirer upon these
matters—husbands kept them notoriously to themselves—had
not the wherewithal to exchange; but she borrowed the Lovitts’
khansamah to make some cocoanut creams, which was going a
great deal further. When the Brownes’ pony was laid up with
the sun, threatening vertigo, Jack Lovitt took young Browne to
office very sociably in his cart; and when the Lovitts ran up to
Darjiling on ten days’ casual leave, the Brownes looked after
“the littlest black and tan in Calcutta,” and took it out for a
drive every day. They dined and lunched and shopped more
and more often together, and Mrs. Lovitt knew exactly how many
<i>topsy muchies</i> Mrs. Browne got for eight annas.

It was just at this very favourable point that the difficulty
about Mr. Lovitt’s unmarried sister arose. Mr. Lovitt’s unmarried
sister had been shipped six months before to an up-country
relation, and having made no use whatever of her time in Cawnpore,
was now to be transferred to Calcutta as a final experiment.
Mrs. Lovitt wanted a room for her unmarried sister-in-law,
wanted Helen’s dining-room. It was a serious difficulty, and the
Lovitts and the Brownes in the plenitude of their confidence and
good-will agreed to surmount it by “chumming,”—living together
and dividing the bulk of the household expenses—a form of existence
largely supported in Calcutta.

In the beginning, chumming lends itself vastly to expansion,
and the Brownes and the Lovitts expanded to the utmost verge.
.bn 224.png
.pn +1
They forgot the happy result of past discretions; they became a
united family, no longer a top and a bottom flat. They pooled
their domestic resources—the soup-plates were Mrs. Lovitt’s, the
dessert-knives were Mrs. Browne’s. They consulted each other’s
tastes pressingly. They had brisket always on Saturday night
because “Jack” liked cold brisket for breakfast on Sunday morning,
and mutton twice a week because young Browne had a weakness
for caper sauce. Mrs. Lovitt sent away her cook—a crowning
act of grace—and Kali Bagh reigned in his stead. It was all
peace and fraternity, and the sahibs sat together in long praise
of each other’s cigars every evening, while the memsahibs upstairs
discussed their mutual friends and sank deeper into each other’s
affections. Indeed, in little Mrs. Lovitt’s Helen had absolutely
no rival except Jimmy Forbes, the black and tan, and Mr. Lovitt.

They saw a good deal of Mr. Forbes naturally, and the interesting
and unique position in the house occupied by that gentleman
was revealed to Helen with all the force of an Anglo-Indian
experience. He was nearly always there, and when he hadn’t
been there he was in the habit of giving an account of himself as
having been elsewhere. It was expected of him, and much beside.
Helen decided that he couldn’t be described as a “tame
cat” in the family, because the position of a tame cat is an
irresponsible one, and Mr. Forbes had many responsibilities. If
Mrs. Lovitt’s racquet went “<i>fut</i>”[#] it was Jimmy who had
it re-strung for her. When a new theatrical company came sailing
up from Ceylon, Jimmy went on its opening night to report, and if
it were good enough to waste an evening on, he took the
Lovitts—generally both of them—later. If the roof leaked, or the
servants misbehaved, Mrs. Lovitt complained to Jimmy quite
.bn 225.png
.pn +1
as often as to Jack, and Jimmy saw to it. When Mrs. Lovitt
wanted some Burmese carvings, Jimmy arranged it at the jail,
where the captive Burmese carve, and when that lady decided
that she would like to sell her victoria and buy a cabriolet,
Jimmy advertised it in <i>The Englishman</i> and made the bargain.
In fact Mr. Forbes relieved Mr. Lovitt of more than half the
duties pertaining to his official position, of which kindness the
latter gentleman was not insensible. Nor could anybody say
that little Mrs. Lovitt was. She nursed Jimmy Forbes when he
was ill, scolded him when he was imprudent, and advised him on
the subject of his clothes. I don’t know that she ever put his
necktie straight, but she never would allow him to wear anything
but blue ones, and made a point of his throwing away all his
high collars—the turned down ones suited him so much better.
She did not overload him with benefits, but at Christmas and on
his birthday she always gave him some little thing with a personal
association, a pair of slippers, some initialled handkerchiefs,
a new photograph of herself, generally taken with the
littlest black and tan in Calcutta.
.pm fn-start
To ruin.
.pm fn-end

Thus they made no secret of their affection; it had the candour
of high noon. They called each other Jimmy and Jennie
with all publicity. When Jimmy went home on three months’
leave, Jennie told all her friends that she was simply desolated.
She declared to Jimmy and to the world that she was a mother
to this young man, and no mother could have walked and danced
and driven more self-sacrificingly with her son. Mrs. Lovitt
was at least three years younger than her “Jimmy-boy,” but
that, in cases of adoption, is known to be immaterial. In
periods of absence they wrote to each other regularly twice a
week, and Jimmy never forgot to send kind regards to Jack.
Their manner to each other was conspicuous for the absence of
.bn 226.png
.pn +1
anything foolish or awkward or constrained—it was above embarrassment,
it spoke of a secure footing and an untroubled mind,
Mrs. Lovitt lectured Mr. Forbes, and Mr. Forbes rebuked Mrs.
Lovitt with a simplicity and good humour that produced a kind
of astonishment in the spectator, who looked about her in vain
for a formula of criticism. “No,” Mr. Forbes would say, “you’d
better not call on Mrs. Lushington. It’s all right for me to go,
of course, but I’d rather you didn’t know her.” And Mrs.
Lovitt would poutingly acquiesce. When Tertium Quiddism
takes this form, what is there to say?

Mrs. Lovitt’s official lord, at all events, found very little to
say. He liked Forbes himself extremely—capital fellow—awfully
clever chap—and admitted him into full communion as a
member of the family in good and regular standing, with a placidity
which many husbands doubtless envied him. The gentlemen
were not brothers or even brothers-in-law, the relation was
one too delicately adjusted to come under any commonly recognised
description; but there was a kind of fraternity in it which
Mrs. Lovitt seemed to establish, with tacit limitations which
established themselves. The limitations were concerned with
impropriety—in the general sense. It is certain that there were
no occasions <i>a deux</i> when Mr. Forbes felt out of it with Mr. and
Mrs. Lovitt—they had no privacy to speak of which Jimmy was
not welcome to share. In family matters Mr. Lovitt treated
Mr. Forbes much as a valued Under-Secretary. The two men
were calling upon me one Sunday, and I inquired of Mr. Lovitt
whether his wife were going to Mrs. Walter Luff’s concert for
the East Indian Self-Help Association. “’Pon my word,” he
said, “I don’t know. Forbes will tell you.” Mrs. Lovitt had
frequent occasion to mention these amicable conditions to her
friends. “My husband thinks the world of Jimmy Forbes,” she
.bn 227.png
.pn +1
often said, “and Jimmy is perfectly devoted to him.” In moments
of intimacy after tiffin with Mrs. Browne, she was fond of
comparing the two. “Jimmy is a good deal the cleverer,” she
would say judicially, “but Jack is much the better tempered,
poor dear, and his looks leave <i>nothing</i> to be desired, in my
opinion. But then I always did spoil Jack.”

When Miss Josephine Lovitt arrived, tall and vigorous, with
a complexion fresh from the school-room, full of bubbling
laughter, and already made fully aware of herself by six months’
diligent spurning of nice little subalterns, who thought her a
Juno of tremendously good form, these ladies had further confidences.
Mrs. Lovitt initiated them by asking Helen if she
didn’t think it would be just the thing for Jimmy, and in the
discussion which followed it appeared that Mrs. Lovitt had
often tried to marry Jimmy off—she was sure he would be much
happier married—but hitherto unavailingly. No one knew the
trouble she had taken, the efforts she had made. Mrs. Lovitt
couldn’t understand it, for it was only a matter of picking and
choosing, and Jimmy wasn’t shy. “I’ve argued it out with him
a score of times,” she said, “but I can’t get the least satisfaction.
Men are queer animals.”

Helen agreed that Mr. Forbes ought to be married. It was
so much her opinion that she had to be careful not to argue
too emphatically. It seemed to Mrs. Browne that there were
particular as well as general grounds for approving such an
idea, and Miss Josephine Lovitt struck her also as its brilliant
apotheosis. “Josie’s a nice girl,” declared Mrs. Lovitt, “and a
great deal cleverer than she pretends to be. And Jack would
like it above all things. But it’s too nice to hope for,” and Mrs.
Lovitt sighed with the resignation that is born of hope deferred.

Helen reported the matter duly to George, who laughed in
.bn 228.png
.pn +1
a ribald manner about Mrs. Lovitt’s intentions, and would hear
nothing of the advisability of the match, as men never will. So
she was not encouraged to suggest anything of co-operation on
her own part. Indeed, she was hardly conscious of such an
idea, but the married woman’s instinct was already awake in
her, and she was quite prepared to do anything she could to
further Mrs. Lovitt’s benevolent design. It should be furthered,
Helen thought, in the interests of the normal and the
orthodox.

Opportunities did not immediately occur, because Mrs. Lovitt
took them all herself. She gave tennis parties at the Saturday
club, and made up sets so that Mr. Forbes and Miss Lovitt
played together. When Mr. Forbes sang “The Bogie Man” to
them all after dinner she made Josephine play his accompaniment
to save her “rheumatic” finger-joints. Josephine might
teach Jimmy “Halma”—she was much too stupid to learn—she
would talk to Mr. Browne. All this quite shamelessly,
rather with an air of conscious rectitude, of child-like <i>naïveté</i>.
It was the old thing, Jimmy Forbes thought, over his peaceful
private cigar; it amused her to do it, it always had amused her
to do it. Before he had generally resented it a good deal; this
time he resented it too, by Jove, but not so much. After all,
why should he resent it—deuced bad policy; it only encouraged
the little woman to go on with this sort of game. And for
the first time in Mr. Forbes’s dawning experience of womankind
it occurred to him that it might be advisable under some circumstances
not to sulk. He wouldn’t sulk—he would teach the
little woman a lesson. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to do. Besides,
Miss Lovitt was rather amusing, and no fool either; she
wouldn’t misunderstand things. And Mr. Forbes finished his
cigar with the conviction that such an experiment would be
.bn 229.png
.pn +1
.bn 230.png
.pn +1
absolutely safe so far as the girl was concerned—of course, he
was bound to think of the girl—and more or less agreeable.

.if h
.il fn=i_222.jpg w=300px id=i222
.ca
<s>JOSEPHINE MIGHT TEACH JIMMY “HALMA.”</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: JOSEPHINE MIGHT TEACH JIMMY “HALMA.”]
.if-

A little later Helen confided to George that she really
wouldn’t be one bit surprised if something came of it; Jack
Lovitt remarked to his wife that Forbes seemed rather taken
with Josie, and he was quite prepared to give them his blessing;
and Mrs. Lovitt replied that it <i>would</i> be lovely, wouldn’t it, but
she was afraid it was only temporary, adding rather vaguely that
Jimmy Forbes wasn’t a bit like other men. On the whole it
wouldn’t be unsuitable, but it was a pity Josie was so tall—she
overtopped him by about a foot—a tall woman and a little
man did look so idiotic together. That evening Mrs. Lovitt
accompanied “The Bogie Man” without any reference to her
rheumatic finger-joints.

It was at this juncture—when any lady of discretion living
in the same house would have been looking on in silent joy,
without lifting a finger—that Helen found herself yielding
to the temptation of furthering matters, so successfully, you
understand, was Mr. Forbes making his experiment. Here a
little and there a little Mrs. Browne permitted herself to do
what she could, and opportunities occurred to an extent which
inspired and delighted her. She discovered herself to be a person
of wonderful tact, and the discovery no doubt stimulated
her, though it must be said that circumstances put themselves
very readily at her disposal. Mrs. Lovitt, for one thing, had
gradually retired from the generalship of the situation, becoming
less and less sanguine of its issue as Helen became more and
more hopeful. She even had a little confidential conversation
with Josephine, in which she told that young lady that though
Jimmy was a dear good fellow and she had always been able to
depend upon him to be kind to any friends of hers, she was
.bn 231.png
.pn +1
afraid he was not a person to be taken altogether <i>seriously</i>.
Josie would understand. And Josie did understand quite well.

As to Mr. Forbes himself, his experiment had succeeded.
There was no doubt whatever that the little woman had been
taught a lesson; anyone could see that she had learnt it remarkably
well. Yet he continued to instruct her, he did not withdraw
the experiment. He found it interesting, and not exclusively
in its effect upon Mrs. Lovitt. Miss Josephine found it
interesting too. She thought she would like to hand Mr. Forbes
back to her little sister-in-law, to hand him back a little damaged,
perhaps. This was doubtless very naughty of Miss Josephine,
but not unnatural under the circumstances. It was
only, after all, that she did not make a good cat’s paw.

And thus it went on, to be brief—for this is not a chronicle
of the affair of Jimmy Forbes and Mrs. Lovitt’s sister-in-law, the
which any gossip of Calcutta will give you at great length and
detail—until the Brownes asked Miss Josephine Lovitt and Mr.
Forbes to go with them to see Mr. Wylde de Vinton, assisted by
a scratch company, perform <i>Hamlet</i> in the opera house, on a
Saturday evening. Hitherto Mr. Forbes’s Saturday evenings had
not been his own, they had been Mrs. Lovitt’s. She had established
a peculiar claim to be amused on Saturday evenings—they
were usually consecrated to long talks of a semi-sentimental order,
which Jack Lovitt could not possibly have understood even
if he had been there. Therefore when Mr. Forbes showed Mrs.
Lovitt Helen’s note and stated his intention of accepting, it was
in the nature of a finality.

.if h
.il fn=i_225.jpg w=315px id=i225
.ca
<s>MISS JOSEPHINE LOVITT REFRAINED FROM HANDING HIM BACK TO MRS.\
LOVITT.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MISS JOSEPHINE LOVITT REFRAINED FROM HANDING HIM\
BACK TO MRS. LOVITT.]
.if-

I am not interested in deciding whether it was from purely
conscientious motives that Miss Josephine Lovitt, having discovered
Mr. Forbes to have sustained considerable damage, refrained
from handing him back to Mrs. Lovitt. All I wish to
.bn 232.png
.pn +1
establish is that the Brownes did not leave No. 61, Park-street
until quite three weeks after the engagement was announced.
Mrs. Lovitt was obliged to wait until they found a house. And
of course their going had nothing whatever to do with dear
Josie’s engagement—Mrs. Lovitt made that match, and was very
.bn 233.png
.pn +1
proud of it. The incident that brought about their misunderstanding
with the Brownes was the merest trifle, Mrs. Lovitt
would tell you if you knew her well enough, the merest trifle.
They, the Lovitts, had asked the Honourable Mr. Justice Lamb
of the High Court to dinner on, say, Friday of next week. His
lordship was suffering very much from the weather when the invitation
came, and declined it, fabricating another engagement
as even their lordships will. Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Lovitt had
then reached that point in the development of the chumming
system—hastened a little by circumstances—when one thinks it
isn’t absolutely necessary for those people to concern themselves
in <i>all</i> one’s affairs, and the circumstance was not mentioned. As
it happened, therefore, the Brownes two days later invited Mr.
Justice Lamb to dinner on the same Friday, the old gentleman
being a second cousin of young Browne’s, and in the habit of
dining with them once in six months or so. The thermometer
having gone down a few degrees, his lordship, who was a person
of absent mind, accepted with much pleasure, putting the note
in his pocket-book so that he wouldn’t forget the youngster’s address.

“We have a man coming to dinner to-night,” Helen remarked
casually at breakfast, and Mrs. Lovitt was of course not
sufficiently interested to inquire who it was, if Mrs. Browne
didn’t choose to say. The man came, ate his dinner with a
good conscience and a better appetite, and being as amiable as
he was forgetful, mentioned particularly to Mrs. Lovitt how sorry
he was not to have been able to accept her kind invitation of
last week.

It was a little thing, but Mrs. Lovitt foresaw that it might
lead to complications. And so the Brownes departed from No.
61, Park-street, not without thanksgiving.
.bn 234.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XX.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
FOR the furtherance of a good understanding between the
sahibs and the Aryans who obey them and minister unto
them, the Raj[#] has ordained language examinations. This was
necessary, because in war, contract-making, or the management
of accounts, neither a Ghurka nor a Bengali will comprehend
you if you simply swear at him. He must be approached through
a rudimentary medium of imperative moods and future tenses.
Therefore the institution of the Higher and the Lower Standard,
and much anguish on the part of Her Majesty’s subalterns. The
Raj attaches rather more credit to the former of these examinations,
but afterwards the difference is nominal—you forget them
with equal facility.
.pm fn-start
Government.
.pm fn-end

It might be respectively pointed out, however, that the Government
of India has done nothing in this direction to stimulate
intercourse with the native population among memsahibs. In
fact the Government of India does not recognise memsahibs in
any way that is not strictly and entirely polite. And so the
memsahib “picks up” Hindustani—picks it up in her own simple
artless fashion which dispenses with all ordinary aids to the
acquirement of a foreign tongue. She gathers together her own
vocabulary, gathers it from the east and the west, and the north
and the south, from Bengal and Bombay, from Madras and the
Punjab, a preposition from Persia, a conjunction from Cashmere,
.bn 235.png
.pn +1
a noun from the Nilgherries. She makes her own rules, and all
the natives she knows are governed by them—nothing from a
grammatical point of view could be more satisfactory than that.
Her constructions in the language are such as she pleases to
place upon it; thus it is impossible that she should make mistakes.

The memsahib’s Hindustani is nevertheless not perfectly
pure, entirely apart from questions of pronunciation, which she
regulates somewhat imperiously. This is because she prefers to
improve it by the admixture of a little English; and the effect
upon the native mind is quite the same. It really doesn’t matter
whether you say, “That’s <i>bote atcha hai khansamah-gee</i>,”[#] or
“This is very <i>carab</i>,[#] you stupid <i>ool-ka-beta</i>,”[#] or use the simple
Hindustani statements to express your feelings. The English
may adorn them, but it is the Hindustani after all that gives
vitality to your remarks. “<i>Chokee lao</i>,” means “bring a chair,”
but if you put it, “bring me a <i>chokee lao</i>,” the meaning of the
command is not seriously interfered with, beside convincing
you more firmly that you have said what you wanted to say. I
suppose Mrs. Browne talked more Hindustani to Kali Bagh than
to anybody else, and one dinner’s dialogue, so to speak, might be
like this:
.pm fn-start
Very good, worthy Khansamah.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Bad.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Son of an owl.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Kul ka</i>[#] mutton, how much is there, Kali Bagh?”
.pm fn-start
 Of yesterday.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Ha, bus hai, hazur.</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
 Yes, there is enough, your honour.
.pm fn-end

“Then you may <i>irony-stew do</i>,[#] and undercut beefsteak
<i>muncta</i>,[#] and mind you find an <i>atcha wallah</i>.[#] Onions fry <i>ka
sat, sumja</i>?”[#]
.pm fn-start
 Give an Irish stew.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 I want.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Good one.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Therewith, do you understand?
.pm fn-end
.bn 236.png
.pn +1

“<i>Ha, hazur! Bote atcha wallah miliga.[#] Ecpuddin kawasti?</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
I will find.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
And for pudding?
.pm fn-end

“Oh, you can plum-pudding, <i>do</i>—a <i>chota wallah</i>, and <i>cabadar
bote</i> plenty <i>kismiss</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
Take care to put plenty of raisins.
.pm fn-end

“<i>Brunndi-sauce ka sat?</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
 With brandy sauce?
.pm fn-end

“<i>Na.</i> Put into whiskey-shrab. <i>Brunndi burra dom hai.</i>[#]
And <i>dekko</i>, curry <i>hazri na muncta</i>, tiffin <i>muncta</i>.”
.pm fn-start
 Brandy is a large price.
.pm fn-end

This last statement is to the effect that curry does not want
breakfast, wants tiffin, but the heathen mind never translates the
memsahib literally. It picks the words it knows out of her discourse
and links them together upon a system of probabilities
which long application and severe experiences have made remarkably
correct. Then it salaams and acts. The usually admirable
result is misleading to the memsahib, who naturally ascribes it to
the grace and force and clearness of her directions. Whereas
it is really the discernment of Kali Bagh that is to be commended.

Considering the existence of the Higher and Lower Standard
there is less difference between the Hindustani of Anglo-Indian
ladies and Anglo-Indian gentlemen than one would expect. The
sahib has several choice epithets that do not attach themselves to
the vocabulary of the memsahib, who seldom allows her wrath to
run to anything more abusive than “Son-of-an-Owl,” or “Poor-kind-of-man,”
and the voice of the sahib is in itself a terrible
thing so that all his commands are more emphatic, more quickly
to be obeyed. But he is pleased to use much the same forms of
speech as are common to the memsahib, and if he isn’t understood
he will know the reason why. The same delicate autocracy
.bn 237.png
.pn +1
pervades the sahib’s Hindustani as characterises most of his relations
with his Indian fellow-subjects. He has subdued their
language, as it were, to such uses as he thinks fit to put it, and
if they do not choose to acquire it in this form, so much the
more inconvenient for them. He can always get another kitmutgar.
The slight incongruities of his system do not present
themselves to the sahib. He has a vague theory that one ought
not to say <i>tum</i>[#] to a Rajah, but he doesn’t want to talk to Rajahs—he
didn’t come out for <i>that</i>. So that my accuracy need not
be doubted I will quote the case of Mr. Perth Macintyre, and I
am quite sure that if Mr. Perth Macintyre were to be presented
to the Nizam of Hyderabad to-morrow—an honour he would not
at all covet—he would find nothing better to say to him in Hindustani
than “<i>Atcha hai?</i>”[#]—the formula he would use to a
favourite syce.
.pm fn-start
You (familiar).
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Are you well? (familiar).
.pm fn-end

Mrs. Browne had a great aptitude for languages. She had
brought her German prizes with her, and used to look at them
with much satisfaction when the problem of conquering Hindustani
was new to her, and she thought it would be a matter of
some difficulty. She had ambitious ideas at first, connected with
a grammar and a dictionary, and one January afternoon she
learned a whole page of rules for the termination of the feminine.
Mrs. Macdonald found her at it, and assured her earnestly that
she was “going the wrong way about it.” “With all you have
to do,” declared Mrs. Macdonald, “you’ll never get to the end of
that book, and when you do you’ll have forgotten the beginning.
Whatever is the difference to you whether ghoree is the feminine
for horse, or what the plural is! They’re all gorahs! Now I
picked up Hindustani in the ordinary way. I listened, and
.bn 238.png
.pn +1
whenever I didn’t know a thing I asked my ayah what its name
was—and in two months I spoke the language <i>fluently</i>. So will
you, but never with a grammar; a grammar won’t help you to
order dinner. Neither will a dictionary—you won’t find ‘hoss-nallis’
in a dictionary. That’s Hindustani for ‘horse-radish.’
It’s awfully funny, how like English the language is in some
words?”

“Is it?” said Helen, “I hadn’t noticed that. It must be
quite easy to learn, then.”

“Oh, <i>quite</i>! For instance, where we say ‘stable,’ and ‘coat,’
and ‘beer,’ they say ‘ishtable,’ and ‘coatee,’ and ‘beer-shrab.’
And the Hindustani for ‘kettle’ is ‘kettley,’ and for ‘bottle,’
‘botle.’ Oh, it’s not a difficult language!”

One does not cling to a manual of Hindustani in the face of
the protestations of one’s friends, and Mrs. Browne found herself
induced to abandon hers before the terminations for the feminine
were quite fixed in her mind. One might just as well acquire
the language in a less laborious way. So she paid diligent attention,
for one thing, to ordinary Anglo-Indian conversation, which
is in itself a very fair manual of Hindustani. There is hardly
any slang in Anglo-India, the tongue of the gentle Hindu supplies
a substitute for that picturesque form of expression. It
permeates all classes of society, that is, both Covenanted and Uncovenanted
classes; and there are none so dignified in speech as
to eschew it. Mrs. Wodenhamer uses it, and the missionaries’
wives. It is ever on the tongue of Kitty Toote; I have no doubt
it creeps into the parlance of Her Excellency. Therefore it cannot
be vulgar. Only this morning, Mrs. Jack Lovitt in the
course of ten minutes’ conversation in my drawing-room simply
scintillated with it. She wanted to know if it was pucca that we
were going home for good next hot weather, and remarked that
.bn 239.png
.pn +1
it was a pity we had the house on a long bundabust,[#] it was
always such a dick and worry to get rid of a lease. One of her
kitmutgars had been giving her trouble—she was afraid he was a
bad jat of man—he was turning out a regular budmash.[#] He
attended to his hookums[#] very well, but he was always getting
into golmals[#] with the other servants. Had I heard the gup
about Walter Toote’s being in trouble with his Department?
Awful row on, Mrs. Lovitt believed. And had I been at Government
House the night before? It was getting altogether too
gurrum[#] for nautches now. As for her, she had been up every
blessed night for a week with Mrs. Gammidge’s butcha[#]—awfully
bad with dysentery, poor little wretch—and was too done to
go. It was quite time the season was over, and yet they had
three burra-khanas[#] on for next week.
.pm fn-start
Agreement.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Blackguard.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Orders.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Rows.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Hot.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Offspring.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
 Big dinners.
.pm fn-end

It will be evident that a very limited amount of intercourse of
this sort will assist tremendously toward a self-satisfying acquaintance
with Hindustani. There is a distinct flavour of the language
about it. But this lingers only in India. We leave it
when we sail away from the Apollo Bunder,[#] where it attaches
itself to the first new-comers. It belongs to the land of the kitmutgar;
it forsakes us utterly in Kensington.
.pm fn-start
 The Bombay jetty.
.pm fn-end
Mrs. Browne found it very facilitating, and if she did not
finally learn to speak like a native she speedily learned to speak
like a memsahib, which was more desirable. In the course of
time young Browne forgave her the agonies her initiation cost
him. They began early in the morning when Helen remarked
that it was a very “atcha” day, they continued at breakfast when
.bn 240.png
.pn +1
she asked him if he would have an “unda”[#] or some “muchli”[#]
or some “tunda beef,”[#] and it went on at intervals from five
o’clock till bed-time. It was her impression, poor dear thing,
that she was humorous in this—it was not for six whole months
that she learned how Anglo-India sanctions Hindustani for grim
convenience only, declining to be amused by it in any way whatever,
and has placed its own stamp upon such time-established
expressions as are admissible. More than these are recognised to
come of vanity and the desire of display, and Anglo-India will
have none of them. In the meantime Mrs. Browne trespassed
daily, smiling and unaware. At first her George received these
pleasantries with a pained smile. Then he looked solemn, then
severe. When Mrs. Browne’s lapses had been particularly flagrant
a chill fell upon their intercourse which she was puzzled to understand.
Whereupon she tried to dissipate it by the jocular use
of more Hindustani, which made young Browne wriggle in his
chair. They arrived at a point where it was obviously impossible
to go on. It did not occur to young Browne to propose a separation,
though he had shocking liver that day, but he arose suddenly
and said he’d be hanged if he’d stand being talked Hindustani
to any longer. Thereat Mrs. Browne, being a person of
tender feelings, wept. Whereat Mr. Browne, being a man of
sentiment in spite of liver complications, was instantly reduced
to nothingness and suppliance, when explanations of course ensued,
and Helen was made acquainted with most of the information
in this chapter. In the upshot, whether Mrs. Browne never
spoke a word of Hindustani again, as she proposed, or spoke it
all day long for a year and nothing could be sweeter, as he proposed,
I have never been made aware.
.pm fn-start
Egg.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Fish.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Cold beef.
.pm fn-end
.bn 241.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXI.
.sp 2

.if h
.il fn=i_234.jpg w=500px id=i234
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: Decoration]
.sp 2
.if-
.dc 0.2 0.68
IT would be improper
to pretend
to chronicle
even the simple adventures
of a memsahib
without a respectful
reference to
their clerical side.
The reference will be
slight; but it must
be made, if only in
answer to Aunt Plovtree’s
communication
upon the subject, in which she took the trouble to remark particularly
how curious it was that Helen’s letters said so little
about parish matters or a clergyman. One might almost fancy,
said Aunt Plovtree, that such things did not exist in India; and
it is highly inadvisable that these chapters should produce a similar
impression. Helen replied to her aunt that on the contrary
there were several churches scattered about Calcutta, with clergymen
attached to all of them, also an Archdeacon and a Bishop.
Some were higher than others—the clergymen she meant—and
she believed that a number of them were very nice. She didn’t
know any of the clergymen themselves yet; but she had met one
.bn 242.png
.pn +1
or two of the wives of the junior chaplains, and one she thought
an awfully sweet woman. The Archdeacon she didn’t know by
sight, the Bishop she had seen once at a distance. They—the
Brownes—were not quite sure which parish they belonged to
yet; but when they found out she would be sure to mention anything
connected with it that she thought would interest her
dearest Aunt Plovtree. Doubtless Mrs. Plovtree thought that
this left something to be desired, and if my chapter should provoke
the same opinion I can only deplore without presuming to
question it.

The Government of India provides two medical departments
for the benefit of its servants: one for the body and one for the
soul. The Government of India has the reputation of being a
hard taskmaster, but its liberality is not questioned here, unless
one cavils at being obliged to pay one’s own undertaker. It has
arranged, educated, graduated, and certificated assistance in all
cases of bodily and spiritual extremity free of charge, assuming,
however, no ultimate responsibility, except towards the higher
grades of the Covenanted Ones. To them, I believe, it guarantees
heaven; but it is difficult to obtain accurate information upon
this point, especially as that state is apt to be confounded out
here with the rank and privileges of a Knight Commander of the
Order of the Star of India.

It is, of course, a debatable question—I speak here of the
senior chaplains; the junior chaplains suffer an almost prohibitive
baby-tax, which, to a junior chaplain, is a serious financial
consideration, and his pay is not luxurious—but I have always
understood that the spiritual service of the Raj is not such an
excessively bad thing. I know that comparatively few of its
members are of this opinion, and I have no doubt that the peculiarly
agreeable absence of theological controversy in India is due
.bn 243.png
.pn +1
to the fact that the energy of reverend gentlemen is largely occupied
in popularising a different one. Still it remains the lay
idea that the chaplains of the Government of India are in their
father-in-law’s house. The term of service is brief, and during
its course the reverend servant may claim to write his sermons
and proclaim the example of the wicked man for three years
comfortably in a hill-station, where his clerical liver need never
compel his clerical temper to spend itself unbecomingly upon
kitmutgars. His pay is moderate, but as high probably as could
be considered prudent in view of the undesirability of encouraging
worldliness in a spiritual department, and it is not written in
his contract that the beady simpkin shall enhance his little dinner
parties.

“Pegs, claret, and beer for a junior chaplain,” remarked one
of Calcutta’s spiritual advisers to me once; “but sherry is expected
as well of a senior chaplain, and even curaçoa!” He
spoke ruefully, for he was a senior chaplain, and given to hospitality.
The reverend brotherhood are eligible for three months’
privilege leave every year upon full pay, and three years’ furlough
during service on half pay. In addition to which they do not
scruple to hold “retreats,” also doubtless upon full official allowances,
though their cardinal features may be fish and eggs. They
enter into their reward early, and it is a substantial one—three
hundred a year, and such pickings as offer themselves in England
to reverend gentlemen with a competency. Neither is the exercise
of faith required of them in regard to it; it is in the bond.
In this respect it is obvious that the Indian vineyard offers a distinct
advantage over others, where the labourers are expected to
be contented with abstract compensations to be enjoyed after
their decease. Popularly they are known as “padres,” which is
a Portuguese survival more respectable than any other, and a
.bn 244.png
.pn +1
demi-official tag which admits its owner to society. It ought to
be mentioned that the Indian padre does not move in the atmosphere
of feminine adoration which would be created for him in
England; there are too many other men for that. Doubtless the
more attractive of the junior chaplains, sent out, as it were, in
cotton wool, miss the little attentions of the ladies of the parish
at home, but then they have their polo ponies and their
pegs.

There were various reasons why Mrs. George Browne had been
compelled to write to her inquiring aunt that as yet she had not
the pleasure of any clergyman’s acquaintance. The padres are
official, for one thing, and one does not approach an official in
India—especially if one is a commercial—without some appropriate
excuse. When the Brownes wanted to be married a reverend
gentleman married them, and did it very well—as they always do
in the cathedral—for I was looking on. If either of them had
since required to be buried he would doubtless have done that
with the same ability, despatch, and desire to oblige. He might
also in the future be applied to with propriety in connection with
a christening. If the Brownes’ water-pipes leaked the Brownes
would with equal and similar propriety request the Municipal
Engineer to mend them and they would be mended, but the
Municipal Engineer would probably not consider himself naturally
drawn within the circle of the Brownes’ amicable social
relations in consequence. Mrs. Browne would not call upon Mrs.
Municipal Engineer to assure her that they were well mended.
The spiritual official also discharges his duty as specified, and
one would have an equal hesitation, generally, in interpreting it
too broadly. And, indeed, with only the forms and papers relating
to the nuptial, baptismal, and burial business of the capital
upon his hands the Calcutta cleric may claim to be overburdened.
.bn 245.png
.pn +1
His cemetery work alone would keep a hill padre from all sloth
and fatness.

<i>Bien entendu</i>, the missionary padres are different. The missionary
padres are not official. I have no doubt the Government
would interfere to prevent their being eaten if the Bengali baboo
were carnivorous; but he is not, he has no fleshy tastes; he
prefers an inglorious diet of rice, fried sweetmeats and mango
chutney, to even a stalled chaplain, beside whom a missionary
padre is lean and tough. Moreover, the Bengali baboo was never
designed for the shedding of blood. So that the Government
has really no responsibilities toward the missionary padres. It
will educate and sanitate the baboo, but it leaves his salvation to
private enterprise, undertaking nothing on behalf of the <i>entrepreneurs</i>.

The missionary padre receives his slender stipend from the
S. P. G. or from some obscure source in America. It is arranged
upon a scale to promote self-denial, and it is very successful. He
usually lives where the drains are thickest and the smells most
unmanageable, and when we of the broad river and the great
Maidan happen to hear of his address, we invariably ejaculate,
“What a frightfully long way off!” The ticca-gharry is not an
expensive conveyance, but the missionary padre finds himself
better commended of his conscience if he walks and pays the
cost of his transportation in energy and vitality, which must be
heavy in the hot weather and the rains. For the rest, he lives
largely upon second-class beef and his ideals, though they don’t
keep very well either in this climate. Those who come out
celibates remain celibates if not by force of conviction by force
of circumstances. The expensively home-bred young ladies of
Anglo-India are not for missionaries! Whereas those who are
married are usually married to missionary ladies of similar size
.bn 246.png
.pn +1
and complexion labouring in the same cause. Covenanted chaplains,
on the contrary, with the prospects I have mentioned, may
be yoked together with the <i>débutante</i> of any season. So there
is this further difference, that while the official padre’s wife looks
like any other memsahib, the missionary padre’s wife looks like
the missionary padre. I believe that chaplains sometimes ask
missionary padres to dinner “quietly,” and always make a point
of giving them plenty to eat. And I remember meeting a married
pair of them at the Brownes’, a Mr. and Mrs. Week.
Young Browne had known Mr. Week at school before his vocation
appeared to him. He was an undersized young man, high-shouldered,
very hollow-chested, and wore his long hair brushed
back from his high forehead, almost, one might say, behind his
ears. She was a little white woman in a high dress, and wore
her locks, which were beginning to thin, in a tiny knot at the
very back of her crown. It was in the hot weather, and they
spoke appreciatively of the punkah. They had no punkah, it
seemed, either day or night; but the little wife had been very
clever, and had made muslin bags for their heads and hands to
keep off the mosquitoes while they were asleep. We couldn’t
ascertain that either of them had ever been really well since
they came out, and they said they simply made up their minds
to have sickness in the house during the whole of the rains. It
was either neuralgia or fever that season through, and neither
of them knew which was worst. I asked Mrs. Week inadvertently
if she had any children. She said “No,” and there was
a silence which Helen explained afterwards by telling me that
Mrs. Week had lost her only baby from diphtheria, which they
attributed to a certain miasma that “came up through the floor.”

Young Browne tried to make the conversation, but it invariably
turned to some aspect of the “work,” and left him blundering
.bn 247.png
.pn +1
and embarrassed, with no resource except to beg Mrs.
Week to have another slice of the joint. They knew little of the
Red Road or the Eden Gardens, where the band plays in the
evening; they talked of strange places—Khengua Puttoo’s
Lane—Coolootollah. Mrs. Week told us that her great difficulty
in the zenanas lay in getting the ladies to talk. They liked her
to come, they were always pleased and polite, but they seemed
interested in so few things. When Mrs. Week had asked them
if they were well, and how much of a family they had, and how
old the children were, there seemed to be no getting any further,
and she could <i>not</i> chew betel with them. Mrs. Week said she
had tried, but it was no use. She loved her zenana ladies, they
were dear things, and she knew they were attached to her, but
they were provoking, too, sometimes. One day last week she
had talked very seriously to them for nearly an hour, and they
had seemed most attentive. Just as she was going away one of
them—an old lady—approached her, with cast-down eyes and
great reluctance, wishing to speak. Mrs. Week encouraged her
to begin—was she at last to see some fruit of her visits? And
the old lady had said “<i>Eggi bat</i>,” would the memsahib please
to tell them why she put those shiny black hooks in her hair?

Everybody laughed; but Mrs. Week added gravely that she
had shown them the use of hairpins, and taken them a packet
next day, to their great delight. “One never can tell,” said
Mrs. Week, “what these trifles may lead to.”

And Mr. Week had been down in the Sunderbunds, far down
in the Sunderbunds where the miasmas are thickest, and where
he had slept every night for a week on a bench in the same
small room with two baboos and the ague. Mr. Week had found
the people very much interested in the joys of the future state;
their attention only flagged, he said, when he referred to the
.bn 248.png
.pn +1
earthly preparation for them. Mr. Week was more emaciated
than clever. He spoke with an enthusiastic cockney twang of
his open-air meetings and discussions in Dhurrumtollah, of the
anxiety with which the baboos wished to discuss the most recondite
theological points with him. “Yes,” said Mr. Perth Macintyre,
“the baboo is a great buck-wallah.”[#] There is reason to
fear that the lay community of Calcutta is rather inclined to
consider the baboo’s soul an unproved entity.
.pm fn-start
Talker.
.pm fn-end

Returning to the senior and junior chaplains, it is delightful
to see the natural man under the Indian surplice. At home the
padre is an order, in India he is an individual. He is not suppressed
by parish opinion, he is rather encouraged to expand in
the smile of the Raj, which is above all and over all. He is
official, joyous, free, and he develops happily along the lines
which Nature designed for him before ever he turned aside into
the crooked paths of theology. It is seeing by these lights that
we say so often of an Indian padre, “What an excellent politician,
broker, soldier, insurance agent he would have made?”

Being now, as one might say, a sheep of some age and experience
and standing in the community, I have agreeable
recollections of many shepherds. Most of them have long
since retired upon pension, while the flock is still wistfully
baaing over the bars toward the west. Doubtless the reunion
will not be long deferred. It will take place at Bournemouth,
and we will talk of the debased value of the rupee. For one, I
should like to see Padre Corbett again—he would be able to
express himself so forcibly on the subject of the rupee. Padre
Corbett, it is my certain belief, entered the Church because there
was no practicable alternative. He looked facts in the face in a
.bn 249.png
.pn +1
business-like manner, shook his big square head over them,
smoked a farewell pipe to the sturdy <i>bétises</i> of his youth, and
went in for orders under the advice of a second cousin in the India
Office. Then he came out to minister to the soul of Tommy
Atkins in Murshidabad, where it is very hot, and whether it
was the heat of Murshidabad, or the atmosphere of military
discipline there, Padre Corbett got into the way of ordering
Tommy Atkins to come to be saved and not to answer back or
otherwise give trouble about it, that I remember him by.
Padre Corbett never lost the disciplinary air and ideas of
Murshidabad. As he marched up the aisle of peaceful St.
Ignatius in Calcutta behind his choir boys, there was a distinct
military swagger in the rear folds of his surplice, and he put us
through our devotional drill with the rapidity and precision of a
field-marshal. “Fours about! <i>Trot!</i> you miserable sinners!” he
gave us to understand at the beginning of the Psalms, and the
main battalion of St. Ignatius in the pews, following the
directing flank under the organ came on from <i>laudite</i> to <i>laudite</i>
at a magnificent pace. The sermon was a tissue of directions and
a statement of consequences; we were deployed out of church.
We bowed to it, it was quite befitting. We were not Tommy
Atkinses, but we were all officially subordinated to Padre Corbett
in a spiritual sense; in the case of an archangel from Simla
it would be quite the same, and he was perfectly entitled to
“have the honor to inform” us that we would do well to mend
our ways. This sense of constituted authority and the fitness of
things would naturally lead Padre Corbett to the chaste official
glories of the archdeaconry. Indeed, I’m not sure that it
didn’t.

.if h
.il fn=i_243.jpg w=499px id=i243
.ca
<s>MR. WEEK SLEPT ON A BENCH IN THE SAME SMALL ROOM, WITH TWO\
BABOOS AND THE AGUE.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: MR. WEEK SLEPT ON A BENCH IN THE SAME SMALL ROOM,\
WITH TWO BABOOS AND THE AGUE.]
.if-

The Rev. T. C. Peterson, too, once of St. Pancras. I wonder
in what rural corner of South Devonshire Padre Peterson to-day
.bn 250.png
.pn +1
.bn 251.png
.pn +1
entertains Dorcas meetings with innocently amusing accounts
of domestic life in India! He was always by way of being
amusing, was Padre Peterson; he had a fine luminous smile,
which he invariably took with him when he went out to dine.
He was kindly and unostentatious, he lived simply and quietly,
giving a little of his money to the poor and putting a great deal
of it into the Bank of Bengal pending a desirable rate of
exchange. Padre Peterson was every inch a padre; there was
nothing but ecclesiastical meekness in <i>his</i> surplice of a Sunday;
and even his secular expression, notwithstanding the smile, spoke
of high ideals and an embarrassed compromise with week-day
occupations. He had a humble, hopeful way of clasping his
hands and sloping his shoulders and arranging his beard over
his long black cassock, especially when he sat at meat, which
reminded one irresistibly, though I admit the simile is worn, of an
oriel apostle in stained glass. He was seriously happy, and he
made old, old Anglo-Indian jokes with his luminous smile in a
manner which was peculiarly maddening to the enlarged liver
of Calcutta. He would have hesitated to employ coercion even
as a last resort with his flock of St. Pancras. He was no
shepherd with a cracking whip, he would go before rather, and
play upon the lute and dance and so beguile the sheep to follow.
His amiability was great; he was known to “get on” with
everybody. Nobody knew precisely why Padre Peterson always
got everything he wanted, but it was obscurely connected with
the abounding charity for sinners in general, and official sinners
in high places in particular, which was so characteristic of him.
He could placate an angry Under-Secretary, and when an
Under-Secretary is angry India quakes and all the Lieutenant-Governors
go to bed. The finances in St. Pancras were never in
better hands. St. Pancras had a new organ, a new font, and
.bn 252.png
.pn +1
new beams and rafters all through in Padre Peterson’s day.
If new graves and gravestones had been as urgently required
then as they are now, Padre Peterson would have found the
money and had the thing done at the lowest contract rates. A
remarkable man in many ways, and now that I think of it, he’s
dead, quite a long time ago.

Others I seem to remember best in some secular connection.
Padre Jenkins, whose pony won the Gymkhana Cup at the
Barrackpore races of I can’t remember just what year; Padre
MacWhirter, who used to say very truly that he made golf what
it was in Alipore; Padre Lewis-Lewis, who had for five years
the most charming manners and the best choir in Calcutta. But
there is no reason why I should count them over to you. Long
since they have disappeared, most of them, with their little flat
black felt hats on their heads and their tennis racquets in
their hand, into the fogs of that northerly isle whither in
the end we all go and whence none of us return. This chapter
is really more of an apology to Mrs. Plovtree than anything
else.

Mrs. Plovtree will be grieved, however, and justly so, that I
have not said more about the Indian bishop. The explanation
is that I have never known a bishop very well, as I have never
known a Viceroy very well. Even at my own dinner-table I
have never permitted myself to observe a bishop beyond the
point of admiration. Some day in Bournemouth, however, I
will write a thoughtful essay on the points of similarity, so far as
I have noticed them, between Indian bishops and other kinds,
and sent it to the <i>Guardian</i>, where Mrs. Plovtree will be sure to
see it; but it is not considered wise in India to write critical estimates
of bishops or of any other heads of departments until after
one retires. I might just say that the bishop, like the Viceroy,
.bn 253.png
.pn +1
is a foreign plenipotentiary. He does not rise from the withered
ranks of the Indian service, but, like the Viceroy, comes out
fresh from the culling hand of the Secretary of State. He divides
with the Viceroy certain Divine rights, divinest of which is
the right not to care a parrot’s eyelash for anybody. In consequence
the bishop holds his venerable head high and dines
where he pleases. Certain of the Raj-enthralled of Calcutta find
the independence of a bishop offensive. In me it provokes a
lively enthusiasm. I consider the episcopal attitude even more
valuable than the episcopal blessing, even more interesting than
the episcopal discourse. And I agree with Mrs. Browne, who
thinks it must be lovely to be a bishop.

But neither for our spiritual pastors and masters are times
what they were. There was a day, now faded, with all the rollicking
romance of John Company Bahadur, when two honest
butts of golden crown madeira a year helped to alleviate the sorrows
of exile for King George’s chaplains in India—the present
Secretary of State would probably see them teetotallers first!
The mails come out in a fortnight, the competition-wallah over-runs
the land, the Rajah studies French. India is not what it
was, and another of the differences is that the padres buy their
own madeira.

I saw a priest of Kali, wrapped in his yellow chuddar, sit
hugging his knees under a mahogany tree to-night beside the
broad road where the carriages passed rolling into the “cow’s
dust” of the twilight. A brother cleric of the Raj went by in
his victoria with his wife and children, and the yellow robed
one watched them out of sight. There was neither hatred nor
malice nor any evil thing in his gaze, only perhaps a subtle appreciation
of the advantages of the other cloth.
.bn 254.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXII.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
HAVING suited themselves with the furnished house of a
junior civilian, who had suddenly decamped before heat
apoplexy and gastric complications, the Brownes settled down,
if the expression is not too comfortable, to wait for the rains. I
should dislike any misunderstanding on the point of comfort. It
is not too much to say that the word is not understood in Calcutta.
We talk of <i>aram</i> here instead, which means a drugged
ease with heavy dreams.

The Brownes stored their furniture in the godowns of the
other man, and had <i>aram</i> nevertheless in contemplating his,
which was ugly. <i>Aram</i> is cheap—the price of a cup of coffee
and a long veranda chair—and seductive; but I was annoyed
with Helen Browne for accepting the other people’s furniture so
pacifically. It seemed to me that she was becoming acclimatised
too soon. There is a point in that process where a born British
gentlewoman will live without antimacassars and sleep on a charpoy;
but I do not wish to be considered a morbid modern analyst,
so this need not be enlarged upon. The other people’s furniture,
moreover, would have been entertaining if it could have
talked, to so many people it had been let and sub-let and re-let
and leased, always with the house, since it left Bow Bazar, where
it was originally bought outright by an extravagant person second-hand.
It had never belonged to anybody since: it had always
been a mere convenience—a means of enabling people to
.bn 255.png
.pn +1
give dinner parties. No one had ever regarded it, or mended it,
or kept it any cleaner than decency required. It was tarnished,
cracked, frayed, soiled; it included tables with white marble tops,
and bad chromo-lithographs and dusty bunches of dried grasses
which nobody had ever taken the trouble to eliminate. In the
cold weather certain people had paid five hundred rupees a month
for the privilege of living with it; in the hot weather certain
other people had lived with it for nothing, to keep the white ants
out. Withal it was typical Calcutta furniture—a typical part of
the absurd pretence that white people make of being at home in
this place.

The rains are due, as all Calcutta knows, on June the fifteenth.
That is the limit of our time of pure grilling. We
know it is written upon our foreheads that we must turn and
writhe and bite the dust in the pain of the sun to that day; but
on that day we expect that the clouds will come up out of the
east and out of the west and clothe the brazen sky, and interpose
between us and the dolour of India. It is what we call a pucca
bandobust, arranged through the Meteorological Department,
part of the bargain of exile with the Secretary of State. For so
many years of active service we get so much pension and so much
furlough, and we are to be rained upon every fifteenth of June
for three months.

Therefore when the sun arose upon the fifteenth of June of
this current year of the Brownes, and marched across the sky
without winking, the Brownes were naturally and properly aggrieved
together with the Bengal Government and all Calcutta.
When one has defined the very point and limit of one’s endurance,
it is inconsistent and undignified to go on enduring. The
ticca-gharry horses were so much of this opinion that they refused
too, and dropped down dead all up and down Chowringhee,
.bn 256.png
.pn +1
as a preferable alternative—those that were driven. The
more prudent gharry-wallah drew up in the reeking shade of
some great building—it was cooler in the streets than in the
stables—and slept profoundly, refusing all fares till sundown;
and the broker-sahib, who spends his life upon wheels, changed
horses four times a day. On the night of the fifteenth of June
young Browne got up stealthily and deftly turned a jug of water
over a hole in the floor through which a punkah rope hung inert.
There was a sudden scramble below, the punkah rope sawed convulsively,
and young Browne, with a ghastly smile, put out the
glimmering candle and went back to bed. It is a popular form
of discipline in Calcutta, but as applied by young Browne it bore
strikingly upon the weather.

The Maidan cracked and split, and even the broad leaves of
the teak-wood tree hung limp and grey under the powder of the
road. The crows had nothing to say all day, but hopped about
with their beaks ridiculously agape, while the sun blazed down
through the flat roofs of Calcutta, and made Mrs. Browne’s chairs
and tables so hot that it was a surprise to touch them. At the
same time it drew up the evil soul of the odour of the bazars,
the “<i>burra krab</i>[#] smell,” as Kipling calls the chief characteristic
of Calcutta, and cast it abroad in all the city. The Brownes
squandered sums upon Condy’s fluid wholly disproportionate
with their income vainly, for nothing yet known to pharmacy
can cope with that smell. It grew hotter and hotter, and sometimes
the south wind failed, and then the smell became several
smells, special, local, individual, though the frangi-panni tree
leaned blooming on its spiky elbows over every garden wall, and
made them all sweet and langorous and interesting and truly
.bn 257.png
.pn +1
Eastern. The smells were not of great consequence; one gets
accustomed to the smells as one gets accustomed to the curries.
Mrs. Browne declared, too, that one could put up with the
weather, and the cholera, and sunstroke—one didn’t particularly
mind even having one’s house turned inside out occasionally by
a dust-storm. The really trying things—the things one hadn’t
reckoned with beforehand—were that one’s envelope flaps should
all stick down; that the pages of one’s books should curl up;
that the towel should sting one’s face; that the punkah should
stop in the night. Even under these greater afflictions we are
uncomplaining up to the fifteenth of June. But the sixteenth
passed over these Brownes, and the seventeenth and the eighteenth,
and many days more, and still the dusty sun went down
in the smoky west, and against the great red glow of his setting
the naked beesties ran like black gnomes with their goat skins
on their hips, slaking the roads that were red too.... And a
mile and a league all round about the city the ryot folded his
hands before his baking rice-fields, not knowing that men wrote
daily in the <i>Englishman</i> about him, and wondered in what way
he had offended Lakshmi that for so many days she should withhold
the rain!
.pm fn-start
Very bad.
.pm fn-end

.tb

A shutter banged downstairs at three o’clock in the morning,
there came a cool swishing and a subsiding among the fronds of
the date palms, the gold mohur trees raised their heads and listened—it
was coming. Far down in the Sunderbunds it was
raining, and with great sweeps and curves it rained further and
further inland. Calcutta turned more easily upon its pillow,
and slept sound and late, the punkah-wallah slept also with
impunity, and when the city awoke in the morning the rains
had come.
.bn 258.png
.pn +1

Mrs. Browne professed to find a great difference and novelty
in the rains of India. She declared that they came from lower
down, that they were whiter and greyer, that they didn’t refresh
the earth, but beat it and sat upon it, that there was quite an
extraordinary quality of moisture about them. I believe every
new-comer makes similar observations. To the rest of us, it has
been obvious for so many years that during July, August, and
September a considerable amount of water descends upon Bengal,
that we have ceased to make original remarks about it.
But Bengal certainly gets very wet, and Mrs. Browne’s observations
as the time went on, and the floods abated not, were entirely
excusable. Every day it rained, more in the morning
and less in the evening, or less in the morning and more in the
evening. The garden became a jungle, the English flowers that
had died a puzzled death in May, sent up hysterical long shoots;
one could see the grass growing. An adjutant sailed in from
the mofussil[#] marshes, trailing his legs behind him, to look for
frogs on the Maidan. He stood on one leg to look for them,
upon the bronze head of Lord Lawrence, and his appearance,
with his chin buried thoughtfully in his bosom, was much more
sapient than that of the administrator underneath. In the
evening he flew back again, and then the frogs were at liberty
to express their opinion of him. They spoke strongly, as was
natural; one of them, in the tank of Ram Dass Hurrymunny,
barked like a pariah. The crickets did their concerted best to
outvoice the frogs, the cicadas reinforced the crickets, and all the
other shrill-voiced things that could sing in the dark, sang in
such a wheezy heaving eternal monotone, that Mr. and Mrs.
Browne, sitting damply behind their open windows, were quite
reduced to silence.
.pm fn-start
A Country.
.pm fn-end
.bn 259.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i_252.jpg w=181px id=i252
.ca
<s>HE STOOD UPON ONE LEG ON THE BRONZE HEAD OF LORD LAWRENCE.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: HE STOOD UPON ONE LEG ON THE BRONZE HEAD\
OF LORD LAWRENCE.]
.if-

They were planting the little green rice shoots in the mofussil,
they wanted it all and more; but Mrs. Browne in Calcutta
was obliged to look in the
newspapers for the assurance
that she ought to be
thankful for quite so much
rain. It seemed to Mrs.
Browne that all her relations
with the world were
being submerged, and that
she personally was becoming
too wet. She found it
an unnatural and unpleasant
thing that furniture
should perspire; and when
in addition to the roof leaking,
and the matting rotting,
and the cockroaches
multiplying, the yellow sunset
and the blue sea of her
nicest water-colour mixed
themselves up in a terrible
and crumpled and impossible
manner, Mrs. Browne
added tears to the general
moisture, and thought the
very fabric of her existence
was dissolving. Besides
that, the Rev. Peachey
came unglued out of his
blue plush frame, and Aunt
.bn 260.png
.pn +1
Plovtree developed yellow spots. Moreover, a green mould
sprouted in the soles of their shoes, fresh every morning,
and Helen’s evening dresses and gloves “went,” as she expressed
it in writing to Canbury, “all sorts of colours.” To
pass over the fact that centipedes began to run in their playful
zigzag way across the floor, and young Browne killed a
snake in the veranda, which he was not indisposed to believe
a cobra. Helen thought there was no room for doubt
about it, and, as a matter of fact, one hardly ever hears of a
snake being killed in Calcutta that is not a cobra. The harmless
varieties have a remarkable facility in keeping out of the
way.

All over India it was raining, coming down hard on the marginless
plains, on the great slopes of the Himalayas, on the great
cities where the bunnias hive gold in the bazars, on the little
thatched brown villages where the people live and die like harmless
animals, with the memory that once or twice they have had
enough to eat.

But more than anywhere it seemed to rain in Calcutta, where
only about six feet of solid ground intervenes between the people
and the bottomless miry pit. So that it is telling the literal
truth to say that Calcutta was soaked through and through,
dripping, reeking, pestilentially drunken with water. Infinite
deeps below, infinite sources above, between the two a few
macadamised roads, and an inadequate supply of gutters and
drain-pipes. And yet it is not recorded that at any time Calcutta
has succumbed to the rains, and sunk swamped into herself.

Nevertheless, at first it was a few degrees cooler, and, to
borrow a phrase from the press, there was a slight increase in
social activity. People began to give dinners. There are people
.bn 261.png
.pn +1
in Bengal whom all the manifestations of Providence and
of Nature together would not prevent giving dinners. They
find it agreeable to feel the warming, drying influence of the
various forms of carbon prepared by the khansamah in company.
They talk of appointments, promotions, and the Lieutenant-Governor,
and they chatter as if the ague were already
upon them, about how much more sociable Calcutta is in the
rains than in the cold weather—you get to know people so
much better.

Then there were days when it didn’t rain; it shone. Early
in the morning it shone with a vague and watery brilliance in
the sky, and a curious white gleam over the earth. Later the
shining was hot, and straight, and strong, and then Calcutta
steamed, and one saw a parboiled baboo at every corner. Later
still the sun went down over the river, and then one saw hundreds
of parboiled baboos everywhere; and on the Maidan, driving
about in carriages, a few score of the very whitest people on
earth. The Brownes were as white as anybody. Privately Helen
thought her complexion much more interesting than it used to
be, and coveted a barouche to lean back and look languidly
bored in like the few burra memsahibs that devotedly stayed in
Calcutta. It was impossible to be languid in a tum-tum, which
is an uncompromising vehicle, not constructed to encourage
poses.

Behind their stubby little country-bred, Mr. and Mrs. Browne,
taking the air, saw a Calcutta that never revealed itself to any
globe-trotter, and which you will not find described in the
printed experiences in cloth, at 7s. 6d., of Jonas Batcham, for
instance. They saw the broad Maidan laid out in lakes and
rivers, with a theatrical sun, set in purple and gold, dissolving
in each of them, and all the spaces between a marvellous lushgreen,
.bn 262.png
.pn +1
where the horses sank to their fetlocks. Floating over it
they saw a gossamer white pall that consisted of water and bacilli
in a state of suspension, and hung abreast of the people. Calcutta
has a saving grace, known to her Anglo-Indians as the
Casuarina-avenue. You can lose your soul in the infinite filmy
shadows of the marching trees. Even the Indian sunlight, filtering
through their soft dead green, becomes a delicate thing.
The Brownes saw this ranged before them, misty and wonderful
in the evening, hiding the last of the glow in its plumy nearer
branches, and piling up soft clouds of dusk as it stretched further
away. They saw the fort and all the pillared façade of Chowringhee,
with its monuments and palaces and praying places yellow
against a more and more empurpled sky, and the grey spire
of the cathedral rising in its green corner of the Maidan behind
a cluster of trees and a brimming lake, just as it might do in
England. Calcutta sits close beside her river, and there are no
miles of teeming wharfage between her and it. The great ships
lie with their noses against the bank, and the level road runs
beside them. Thus, by a wise provision of the municipality,
people who live in Calcutta are able to drive down every
day and see for themselves that it is possible to get away.
For this reason the Brownes loved the close ships and all the
populous river, lying under the wraith of the rains—the faint
outlines of the crowding masts, with the sunset sky behind
them as far as they could see; the majestic grey ghost of the
old East Indiamen at anchor, with her “state cabin” full of
dates from Mocha; slipping towards them solitarily out of the
unreality the dipping red-brown three-cornered sail of an Arab
dhow. Eloquently always the river breathed of exile and of
home-going, sometimes with her own proper voice, sometimes
with the tongue of a second mate from Portsmouth, or the
.bn 263.png
.pn +1
twang of a negro cook from Savannah, full of airs and superciliousness.
It depended on where you lived yourself when you
were at home.

On a corner of the Maidan a number of mad young Englishmen
played football; in another place there was a lively sale of
goats for sacrifice. An erection of red and gold paper, like a
Chinese pagoda, still wobbled about the biggest tank in propitiation
of its god. Calcutta emptied itself on its wide green acres.
The Brownes met a smart turnout with a thoroughbred, driven
at a spanking pace by a pucca Chinaman, who leant forward
nonchalantly with his pigtail streaming out behind. They met a
fiery pair in a mail-phaeton, with two anxious syces behind, and
driving on the high seat a small, bold, brown lady, all in green
and pink gauze, tinselled, bareheaded, wearing her iniquity as
lightly as a feather. They met a big roomy barouche, with two
servants on the box, two more behind, and an ayah inside, all in
attendance upon a tiny white mite of a belati baby. A small
British terrier met them, regarded them, sniffed them, wagged
his tail and followed them. They were not personal friends of
his, but they were sahibs, and his countrymen; they would understand
his lost estate, a sahib’s dog; he could confide himself
to their good feeling and hospitality pending explanations. And
so the stubby little country-bred trotted down the river road till
he came to a place where the road widened—where, beside an
octagonal erection with a roof, a great many other stubby little
country-breds and slender Arabs and big Walers stood very
quietly between their shafts with drooping heads; and here he
turned, almost of his own accord, and trotted in amongst them
until he found comfortable standing room, when he stopped.
This was Calcutta’s place of pleasure. Behind the octagonal
erection, where presently the band would play, stretched those
.bn 264.png
.pn +1
Eden Gardens which the photographers reproduce so effectively,
and the globe-trotters buy so abundantly. Here we have the
elements of the most romantic municipal scenery—tall palms
and red poinsettias, a fine winding artificial lake with a beautiful
arched artificial bridge, realistic artificial rocks cropping out of
the grass, and a genuine Burmese pagoda of white chunam,
specially constructed for the gardens, in the middle of it all.
The pagoda runs up into a spire, or a lightning conductor, or
something of that nature; and on the top of this a frolicsome
British tar once placed an empty soda-water bottle upside down.
I think the native municipal commissioners regard this with
some pride as a finial ornament; certainly nobody has ever taken
it down. And that is as well, for the soda-water bottle gives,
one might say, the key to the design of the place, which might
otherwise puzzle the stranger. I should not omit to say that the
gardens are illuminated with electric light, as such gardens of
course should be. The people walk up and down under the
electric light, looking at each other; the young men go in among
the carriages and talk to the ladies they know. Calcutta makes
a violent attempt to distract itself. On this particular evening
the Brownes also came to distract themselves—it becomes a habit
in time.

The electric light sputtered and fizzled over the crowd of
standing carriages. Helen thought it darkened the black circle
round young Browne’s eyes; and he asked his wife apprehendingly
if she were feeling chilled or anything—she looked so
white. The damp, warm air clung to their faces. A man in a
ticca-gharry said to a man in the road that it was damned
muggy. Several people in the carriages near heard him say
this—it was so quiet. The crowd of carriage-tops gleamed
motionless, the horses stood dejectedly on three legs, and under
.bn 265.png
.pn +1
every horse’s nose a cotton-clad syce “bitoed”[#] on the ground
with his chin on his knees. A peddling native thrust up a
round flat bouquet of pink and white roses that smelt of “Jockey
Club.” “<i>Jao!</i>” said young Browne.
.pm fn-start
Sat on his heels.
.pm fn-end

Presently the band played a gay and lightsome air, very sad
to hear, from an opera long superseded at home, and with the
playing of the band the general depression seemed to thicken and
close down. There are people in Calcutta who, even for distraction’s
sake, cannot stand selections from the <i>Mikado</i> so near the
end of the century. One by one the carriages began to roll away.
Perhaps along the river road there would be a breath of air.
The band played a medley, all sorts of things, and then “The
Land o’ the Leal.” I saw the MacTaggarts drive off. “<i>Syce!</i>”
said Mr. Perth Macintyre; “<i>buttie jallao!</i> <i>Gur ko!</i>”[#] ... The
last of the pink flush faded out of the sky behind the ships.
The air grew sodden and chill, a little raw breeze crept in from
the east. Young Browne took off his hat to “God Save the
Queen,” and then “I think we ought to hurry him a little,” said
Helen, referring to the stubby little country-bred. “It’s going
to rain.”
.pm fn-start
“Light the (carriage) lamps. To the house!”
.pm fn-end

It was in this month of August, I remember, that we lost a
partner of the firm, in a sad though not unusual way. He died,
as a matter of fact, from a little Calcutta mud which rubbed
itself into his elbow one afternoon when he was thrown out of
his brougham. Tetanus the doctors called it, and they said
he would have had a better chance if he had been thrown
out of his brougham at another time of year. He was
buried, poor man, in seven inches of water; and Mr. Perth
.bn 266.png
.pn +1
Macintyre had two months’ fever after attending the dripping
funeral.

It would be an affectation to write about Mrs. Browne’s experiences
and to omit a chapter on at least one phase of the
weather; but I could have told you in the beginning that it
would not be amusing.
.bn 267.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIII.
.sp 2
.if h
.il fn=i_260.jpg w=500px id=i260
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: Decoration]
.if-
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
IF you have not entirely forgotten
your geography you will know
that against the
eternal gold and
blue of the Indian
sky, across
and across the
middle of the
land, there runs
unevenly a high
white line. You
will remember it
better, perhaps,
as “the trend of
the Himalayas,” and it may have a latter-day association in
your mind with imprudent subalterns and middle-aged ladies
who consume a great many chocolates and call each other
“my dear girl.” Out here we never forget it for a single instant;
it survives the boundaries of our native counties, and
replaces in our imaginations every height in Europe. We call
it “The Snows,” and the name is as little presumptuous as
any other. It is very far off, and the more like heaven for
that reason; moreover, that way Simla lies, which is heaven’s
outer portal, full of knights and angels. They are distant and
.bn 268.png
.pn +1
imperturbable, the Snows, we can only gaze and wonder and
descend again to earth; we have only the globe-trotter’s word
for it that they do not belong to another world. It is the brown
outer ranges that we climb, the heaving brown outer ranges
that stand between the Holy of Holies and the eye of the profane,
the unbeliever, the alien. Because these brown outer
ranges are such very big mountains it is our pleasure to call
them “The Hills”—if you talked of spending three months in
the mountains it would not be clear that you didn’t mean Switzerland.
Here we perch our hill-stations, here once in every
year or two we grow fat and well-liking, here on the brink of a
literal precipice the callow subalterns and the <i>blasé</i> married
ladies flirt.

It was by the merest accident, which I helped to precipitate,
that the Brownes went to the Hills in September. A planter
in the Doon[#] had committed suicide—acute dyspepsia—whose
business was in our hands, and somebody had to go to see
about it. The junior partner wanted to go, but the junior
partner had just come out from England weighing fourteen
stone, and I got Mr. Perth Macintyre to persuade him that it
was absolutely necessary to spend two months of the rains in
Calcutta if he wished to recover his figure. Thus to the
Brownes also came the hope of the clean breath of the Hills.
I went myself down to Howrah station after dinner to add my
blessing to their luggage, but the train was gone. A fat baboo
of Bengal told me so, with a wreath of marigolds round his
neck. I thought, looking at him, how glad they must be to
have turned their faces toward a country where men eat millet
and chapattis,[#] and are lean.
.pm fn-start
Valley.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Native cakes of flour and water.
.pm fn-end
.bn 269.png
.pn +1

Kasi was there too. Kasi travelled “intermediate,” that is
to say sitting on the floor, quite comfortably, in a wooden box,
iron-barred down the sides to let in light and air. Before the
train started Kasi had unrolled all the rugs and pillows, had
made ready soap and towels and brushes, and had left the sahib
who had been very troublesome all day, and the memsahib who
had already unjustly accused him of having forgotten seven
things, with nothing to do but to go to bed and to rise again.
Then he returned to his own place, where his own kind buzzed
about him with flat baskets of sticky brown balls and fried
sweetmeats to sell. Kasi regarded them indifferently and bought
nothing; the kinship was only skin-deep, the lime-marks upon
their foreheads were different, he could not eat from their
hands. Secretly, when the shadow of none fell upon it he took
from a little brass box his betel solace, then as the train whistled
he unwound the ten yards of his turban, wrapped his
red chuddar[#] about him, and disposed himself on the floor
to dream of the profit there might be when the sahib took a
journey.
.pm fn-start
Cloth worn over shoulders.
.pm fn-end

In the morning a dry coolness blew in at the windows. It
had been raining, it would rain again; but here in Behar the
earth had been needy, and her face had grown lovely with the
slaking of her great thirst. The rain had washed the air and the
sun had dried it; to these dwellers in Calcutta it seemed that
they were already on the heights. All night long they had been
going through the rice country, where the pale green shoots stood
knee-deep in the glistening water for miles around, now they
rolled through a land where the crops waved tall with sprouting
ears—maize and millet and wheat. The little villages were almost
.bn 270.png
.pn +1
lost in them. High over the grain the ryot’s sons kept watch and
ward against the thieving parrots in little open thatched houses
stuck on the top of a long pole or in the fork of a dead tree.
They were perched up there to be safe from the leopard’s spring;
the leopards like a maize-fed ryot’s son. They could give warning,
too, if the zemindar’s servant came that way, to ask an extra
tax for the wedding expenses of his master’s second daughter.
The little villages seemed of kindly disposition; here was a precarious
crop that wanted shade, and upon this field every man
had set his bed, one beside another, so that it was covered. They
were at ease, the little villages, the crops throve, there would be
enough for the zemindar if they pretended to be <i>very</i> poor; nobody
would starve that year, and perhaps Malita or Alanga would
add a new silver bangle to her wedding portion.

The Brownes were too utterly poor for the railway restaurants.
They brought a tiffin-basket. Young Browne designed the tiffin-basket,
a Chinaman designed the price. It was as big as a small
trunk; it would just go under the seat. There was room in it
for everything that has yet been thought of in connection with a
civilized repast. I believe Mrs. Browne is now using it as a china
and linen closet. It held ten rupees’ worth of tinned stores
among other things, and a kerosene stove. Mrs. Browne filled
the rest of it up economically with bread and butter and cold
meat, and young Browne added as an after-thought half a dozen
pints of champagne. It was a modest Anglo-Indian tiffin-basket,
and they drew it forth with much joy in the morning, having the
carriage to themselves. It was seven o’clock and the train had
stopped. Servants were running about the platform with cups
of tea and slices of toast for the <i>chota hazri</i> of people who hadn’t
brought tiffin-baskets. “Just for curiosity, George,” said Helen,
“ask how much they are charging?”
.bn 271.png
.pn +1

Young Browne, in the unconventionality of his pyjamas,[#]
leaned out of the window. “Hi, you!” he called, “<i>dom
kitna?</i>”[#]
.pm fn-start
Night garments worn by men in India.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
“Price, how much?”
.pm fn-end

“Aht anna, sahib!”

“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Browne. “<i>Eight</i> annas for a
cup of tea and two bits of toast! The tiffin-basket <i>is</i> a saving,
dear!”

“Oh, it is!” responded Mr. Browne, “for the other meals.
But now that I think of it, I want my chota hazri <i>now</i>,
don’t you? Hi-ups kitmutgar! <i>lao chota hazri</i> and <i>jeldi
karo</i>!”[#]
.pm fn-start
“Bring a little breakfast, and be quick about it!”
.pm fn-end

“One could so easily boil the water, dear,” objected Mrs.
Browne.

“For the other meals. But we can’t cook our chota hazri.
Everything’s at the bottom. We shouldn’t get it ready till midnight.
The fact is,” said young Browne decisively, “we ought
to have brought a kitmutgar—that would have been a saving if
you <i>like</i>!” And as the steaming tea came through the window
and the price went out, “I don’t think it’s so very much,” said
young Browne.

That is the way they began. The precise number and extent
of the economies effected by the tiffin-basket will never be recorded,
but I believe they drank the champagne.

I doubt either your information or your gratification at being
told that they changed at Mogulsarai. Mogulsarai is on the
map, but you will not find it there because you will not look—which
I do not say censoriously; it is quite enough that Anglo-Indians
should be obliged to remember the names of such places.
They are curiously profane, with their crowded little roofs and
.bn 272.png
.pn +1
their mosque-towers; and they are very hot. The Brownes’ train
lay on a side-track baking, as they entered it, four coolies bearing
the tiffin-basket. The place grilled almost silently, black and
white and grey with converging railway lines encumbered with
trucks; an engine moved about snorting painfully, and nearly
naked men ran in and out under the carriages smiting the wheels.
They rolled out of the place and on for an hour, then over the
bridge of the Ganges and past some old fortifications, and out of
the windows they saw Benares, Benares the impressively filthy,
trailing her skirts and her sins in her great sacred river, but
fair, very fair indeed, with the morning sunlight on the faces
of all her gods, and the morning sky behind the minarets of
Aurungzebe.

It was the middle of the night before they reached Lucknow,
where they awoke thirsty. A wide, lighted, orderly station
platform, railway guards walking about in white duck
and gold buttons, a single dissipated-looking little subaltern
promenading with his hands in his pockets. There was no
ice, and young Browne sleepily abused the first railway official
that passed the window. “A big station like this, and the ice
allowed to run out in such weather! The thing ought to be
reported.”

“It’s in weather the like o’ this, sir, that the ice <i>diz</i> run out,”
suggested the guard. “Tickets, sir!”

Lucknow, with her tragedy still upon her lips, her rugged
walls still gaping in the white moonlight up yonder, her graves
still tenderly remembered—and the Brownes’ bitter complaint
of Lucknow was that they found no ice there! Ah, little
Brownes! I write this of you more in sorrow than in anger;
for I know a soldier’s wife whose husband’s name you might
have read graven on a Lucknow tablet in the moonlight that
.bn 273.png
.pn +1
night, and when I remember all that she has told me, I find it
grievous that you should even have been aware that there was
no ice in Lucknow!

In the morning they were rolling through a lightsome
country, all gay fields and gravelly river-beds, with billows of
sunlit air coming in at the windows, an hour from Saharanpore.
A blue hill stood like a cloud on the edge of the horizon, the
Brownes descried it simultaneously and laughed aloud together.
It was so long since they had seen any elevation greater than
their own roof, or a palm-tree, or an umbrella. They got out at
Saharanpore, and Kasi got out at Saharanpore, and the bundles
and the boxes and the bags got out at Saharanpore. They were
all as dirty as they could possibly be, but the people who did not
get out at Saharanpore looked at them enviously, for they had the
prospect of being dirtier still. Arrived at the place of the dâk-bungalow,
and the solace of unlimited ablutions, Mrs. Browne
could not imagine in what respect she had ever found a dâk-bungalow
wanting. Could anything be more delightful than
that they should have it entirely to themselves! Between her
first dâk-bungalow and this one Mrs. Browne had made steps
towards the solitary Calcutta ideal. On this occasion she pulled
down all the chicks,[#] and told the solitary box-wallah who had
outspread his wares in the veranda against her arrival to “Jao,
jeldi!”
.pm fn-start
Venetian blinds.
.pm fn-end

Here they tarried till the following day, when the blowing of
a trumpet aroused them at what they considered an excessively
early hour of the morning. It was their trumpet; they had
bought the exclusive right to it for twelve hours. It belonged to
the dâk-gharry that was to take them from Saharanpore to Dehra,
.bn 274.png
.pn +1
“a distance,” as any guide-book will tell you, of “forty-two
miles.” If you could see a dâk-gharry you would probably
inquire with Mrs. Browne if there wasn’t any other way of
going. There is no other way of going. There are large numbers
of places in India to which there is no other way of going.
And if one had answered you thus, you would have said that if
you had known that you wouldn’t have come. Mrs. Browne
said that when she saw the travelling-carriage of this Orient
land of dreamy luxury, but she didn’t particularly mean it, and
neither would you.

In appearance the Browne’s dâk-gharry was a cross between
a sun-bonnet and a blue hearse. This may be a little difficult to
imagine; but I don’t appeal to your imagination, I state facts.
It was the shape of a hearse, and you were supposed to lie down
in it, which completed the suggestion. To counteract the
gloomy apprehension of this idea, it was painted blue inside
and out—distinctly a <i>foncée</i> blue. This superficial cheerfulness
was accentuated by shutters in the back and sliding doors at the
sides, and the whole thing was trimmed from the roof with
canvas wings. The top would take as much luggage as the hold
of a ship—a small ship. Inside there was nothing at all, and a
place to put your feet. Kasi condoned this austerity with rugs
and pillows, and took his seat beside the driver, with whom he
conversed as affably as his superior social position would admit.
The two Brownes were carefully extended inside like modern
mummies; four native persons of ambiguous appearance and a
persuasive odour fastened themselves on behind. The driver
cracked his whip, and the two meek brown spotted down-trodden
horses stood promptly upon their hind legs pawing the air.
They came down in time, and then they began to back into the
dâk-bungalow dining-room. Dissuaded from this they walked
.bn 275.png
.pn +1
across the road with the intention of putting themselves in the
ditch; and finally, after a terrific expenditure of language on
the part of the driver, they broke into a gallop, which brought
each of the recumbent Brownes inside to a right angle by the
action of some mechanical principle containing a very large element
of alarm. This was not at all a remarkable demonstration.
It is the invincible <i>dustur</i> of every animal in the dâk-gharry
business, and is perfectly understood, locally. The animals attached
to the Brownes galloped their three miles and arrived
reeking at the next dâk-stable without another thought of anything
but their business. In the meantime the local understanding
spread to the Brownes, who specified it afterwards with
liniment.

To this impetuous way of going it was a relief, Mrs. Browne
told me afterwards, to hang one’s feet out of the door. The
picturesque conduct of the fresh dâk-ponies every three or four
miles displayed novel forms of vice, interesting to the uninitiated.
They bit and strove and kicked, and one of them attempted
to get inside. Helen said it was very wearing to one’s
nerves. But when they had accomplished the little earthquake
of starting there were compensations. The road was green and
shaded, as it would be in England; squirrels frisked from one
trunk to another, silvery doves with burnished breasts cooed in
the bamboo branches, and ever the gracious hills drew nearer and
a little nearer.

“These are only the Siwalliks,” remarked young Browne, in
a pause of their jubilant conversation. “Wait till you see the
Himalayas on the other side! The Siwalliks are only rubble.
They’re rapidly crumbling away.”

“If they were in England,” replied Mrs. Browne, watching
the little topmost turrets grow greener, “we wouldn’t admit that
.bn 276.png
.pn +1
they were rubble. And I don’t believe they’ll crumble away very
soon.”

“In a few æons,” returned Mr. Browne superiorly. “It won’t
matter to us. We’re getting regularly up amongst them. This
is the beginning of the pass.”

They had journeyed four hours and had come to a little white
bungalow perched high upon the flank of the nearest hill. Here
the khansamah had a red beard, and swore by it that the sahib
had not forewarned him; how should there be beef and potatoes!
Milk and moorghy might be, but eggs no—the eggs were a little
bad.

“For that saying, son of the Prophet,” said young Browne,
“backsheesh will be to you. In Bengal there is no true talk
regarding eggs. And now hasten with the milk and the warmed
moorghy curry of the traveller of yesterday, and dekko, Kasi,
tiffin-basket, lao!”

Broad is the road that leads over the Mohun Pass, and
beautiful are the summits that look down on it, but it cannot
be climbed with the unaided strength of horses. It was dull
driving but for the sunset behind the hills, when they put oxen
on in the bad places; and still duller when the sulky, long-haired
black buffaloes lent a leg; but there was a certain picturesqueness
in being pulled by the three varieties of beasts at once,
especially when a gang of road-coolies turned in and pushed behind.

They had always the trumpet, too, which enlivened the whole
of that part of Asia. And wild white balsams grew high on the
rocks, and naked little children, in blue necklaces, played about
the road.

There was the blackness of a tunnel, and then the vision of a
fair valley mightily walled in, with the softness of evening still
.bn 277.png
.pn +1
in her face, and the smoke of her hearth-fires curling up to a
purple sky. They rattled across a quarter of a mile of dry riverbed
full of stones, and were in Dehra, Dehra Doon, where all the
hedges drop pink rose-petals, and the bul-bul sings love songs in
Persian, and the sahib lives in a little white house in a garden
which is almost home.
.bn 278.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXIV.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
IN Dehra the Brownes were within sight of the promised land,
not always but often. Sometimes it lay quite hidden in
some indefinable matted cloud-region of the sky, and then the
last of the September rains came pelting down the Doon. Sometimes
it thrust only a shoulder out of its cloud garments, and
sometimes white fleeces swept over it from morning till night.
But there were other days when the clouds sailed high above it,
trailing their shadows after them, and then indeed the Brownes
could climb to it by a winding road that began at their very
feet. The road ascended to Mussoorie, which twinkled white on
a spur above them seven thousand feet up, and twelve miles off.
It would have been perfectly easy and practicable for them to
go to Mussoorie; so easy and practicable that they didn’t go.
When young Browne had looked after the planter’s tea-bushes,
and put a headstone to his grave, and settled his bills and
written home to his people the details of his affairs, there were
eight days over. Mussoorie, the particular paradise of “quiet”
people and retired old gentlemen who mean to die in the country,
was an insignificant achievement for eight days. The
Brownes surveyed the great brown flanks of the hills and burned
for a wider conquest. They would go to Chakrata, high in the
heart of the Himalayas to the west, half way to Simla. They
would ride on horseback all the way up and down again to the
railway station at Saharanpore; it would be more than a hundred
.bn 279.png
.pn +1
miles—an expedition, as young Browne remarked, that
they could dine out on for weeks when they got back to Calcutta.
His own statement of their equipment for the journey
is succinct. “We shall want,” said he, “two ponies, two syces,
and an ekka. The ekka will take the luggage, bedding, Kasi,
and the tiffin-basket. The ponies will take us, and the syces
will come along behind. Let us go and hire them.”

They drove out the long shady main road of Dehra, creeping
always upward to Rajpore, upon this business, and on the way
Mr. Browne explained to Mrs. Browne the natural history, character
and antecedents of the “bazar tat.” “They run small,”
said young Browne, “mostly ears and tails. They have a tendency
to displace objects to the rear of them, and a taste for
human flesh. They were born and brought up in the bazar, and
their morals are unspeakable. But you can’t get morals at any
price in the bazar; they are too expensive to be sold there. And
there’s no real harm in the bazar tat, if you only keep away
from his heels and look a bit spry when you get on.”

Mrs. Browne asked, with concealed anxiety, if there were no
donkeys. She was accustomed to a donkey, she said; she could
ride one really rather well, and if George didn’t mind she would
so <i>much</i> prefer it. But George answered in a spirit of ribaldry.
The only donkeys in India, he said, belonged to the dhobies,
and were permanently engaged in taking home the wash. By
that time they had arrived. It was only a sharp elbow of a
narrow mountain road, Rajpore, with its tumble-down houses,
overhanging it on both sides, and it was quite empty. “There
aren’t any horses here!” Helen remarked with disparagement.

“Wait,” returned her husband. Then, with really no particular
emphasis, he said, “Gorah!”[#] to Rajpore.
.pm fn-start
Horse!
.pm fn-end
.bn 280.png
.pn +1

“<i>Ha, hazur!</i>”

“<i>Good</i> pony, sahib!”

“Here iz, memsahib—here iz!”

Rajpore human on innumerable pairs of brown legs, turned
suddenly into the best and most spacious of its ground floors,
dragging thence Rajpore equine hostile on four, wearing an aggrieved
expression above clinging strands of country grass.
They came, and still they came, from above trotting down, from
below trotting up. A human being of sorts was usually attached
to them, but Rajpore was obviously inhabited by ponies. No
other census would have been worth taking there. Mrs. Browne
was surrounded by ragged turbans and man-eaters. With Mr.
Browne’s anxious hand upon her arm she felt herself precipitated
in every direction at once. “I can’t keep out of the way of <i>all</i>
their heels, George,” she exclaimed in the voice of the tried
woman, and then George backed her carefully against a wall,
drew a semicircle round her with a diameter of five feet, and
forbade man or beast to cross the line. Then they proceeded to
a choice.

“Here iz, hazur! Good nice thin wallah, memsahib <i>kawasti</i>!”[#]
.pm fn-start
For the memsahib.
.pm fn-end

“Thanks,” said Helen; “he’s a diagram! I want a fat
one.”

“Look, memsahib! This one <i>bote</i> plenty fat. <i>Rose</i>, <i>rose</i>,
tarty bun’nles ghas <i>khata</i>!”[#]

.pm fn-start
Day by day he eats thirty bundles of grass!
.pm fn-end
“He’s a baote-tamasha-wallah,” remarked young Browne.
“Look at his eye, Helen. He also appears to have kicked all his
skin off his fetlocks. For you I should prefer the diagram.”

Finally it was the diagram for Helen, who commanded that
.bn 281.png
.pn +1
an unreasonable quantity of food should be given to it under her
eyes, and remained until it was finished. “If she isn’t fatter
after that,” she said with satisfaction, “it’s her own fault.”
Young Browne selected the veritable charger of Rajpore. He
wore his mouth and nose carefully tied up in rope, and might be
relied upon at all points so long as that one remained secure.
“They’re not much of a pair,” said young Browne, “but in
<i>your</i> animal, dear, I don’t mind sacrificing both speed and appearances.”

“To safety. Yes, dear, you are <i>perfectly</i> right.” And Mrs.
Browne, whose sense of humour was imperfectly developed, regarded
her husband with affection.

Thereafter it became a question of an ekka, and Rajpore had
ekkas bewildering in their variety and in their disrepair. If you
have never seen an ekka it will be difficult for you to understand
one. The business ekka does not stand about to be photographed,
and therefore you must be told that, although it appears
to rest mainly on the horse’s back, it has two wheels generally,
one on each side. There is a popular saying that no sahib
likes a one-wheeled ekka, and though it is a popular saying it is
true. The vehicle will do prodigious distances with one wheel,
but it is anticipating Providence to engage it on that basis. An
ekka is rather like a very old two-storied birdcage tilted up and
fore-shortened, with a vaulted roof, and it runs in my mind that
the roof is frescoed. The upstanding little posts at the four
corners are certainly painted red and yellow; they are carved
also, like the rungs of certain chairs. I know that the ekka-wallah
sits in the upper story smiling upon the world. An ekka-wallah
always smiles; his is a life of ease. I know too that there
are bulgings above and protuberances below, and half a yard of
dirty sacking, and seven pieces of ragged rope, and always room
.bn 282.png
.pn +1
for something else; but at this point my impression becomes a
little confused, and I cannot state with assurance which end is
attached to the horse. That, however, is a matter of detail.
The real point is that the Brownes found an ekka apparently
two feet square, which contracted to carry their luggage, bedding,
tiffin-basket, and Kasi up to Chakrata and down to the
plains for the sum of three rupees per diem, which was extortionate.
But the <i>pulthans</i>[#] were moving down, and the sergeants’
wives would require many ekkas. They could afford to
wait for the sergeants’ wives. In expectation of these ladies
the ekka market was a solid unit and the Brownes succumbed
before it.
.pm fn-start
Regiments.
.pm fn-end

Next day they left Dehra, dropping the first of its October
rose-leaves. Thinking of the planter in his grave, Helen wondered
how he could have been so indifferent as to close his eyes
wilfully and intentionally on such a place. It was the morning,
there was a sweet and pungent gaiety in the air, the long road
they had to travel stretched before them in the pleasaunce of
leaf-checkered sunshine. Little striped squirrels played on the
boles of the trees—they were English-looking trees—that met
over their heads. Young Browne thanked God audibly that
they were out of the region of palms and plantains.

Tiny green fly-catchers swung on the rushes of an occasional
pool, pink-breasted ring-doves sidled out of their way, thieving
parrots flew by sixes and sevens screaming up from the <i>kharif</i>
crops.[#] Very green were the <i>kharif</i> crops, with the rain still
about their roots, surging up under the lowest branches of the
trees as far as these travellers could see before them. But for the
teeming luxuriance of everything, the sense of breadth and
.bn 283.png
.pn +1
brightness and the caressing sun, it might have been a road in
Devonshire. But for the wayfarers too. There were neither
smocks nor gigs; the ryot went by, chiefly dressed in his own
brown skin, urging his lean oxen; all the gentle cows had curious
humps between their shoulders. And here by the wayside
they saw the tiny dome of a battered white praying place, and
there the square slab of a Mahomedan tomb.
.pm fn-start
Cold weather crops.
.pm fn-end

The sun grew hot as they scrambled with the road down to
the bridge across a broad river bed full of round white stones
and boulders, with a narrow shallow brown stream hurrying along
the middle. Further away it trickled into the Jumna; here it
played with pebbles and crabs, but now and then in the rains it
brought the boulders down from the mountains swirling, and
threw stones at the Department of Public Works, and shook the
bridges. Looking one way as they crossed the bridge, it was a
piled-up picture, the blue hills massed behind, the big white
stones huddled and stranded in the glistening grey sand, the
foolish little stream in the middle. Looking the other, the picture
went to pieces, the hills sloped further away, the sky came
down, the big stones rounded themselves into little ones, and
spread indistinguishably far. Either way it was beautiful in the
crisp Indian sunlight; it had a gay untroubled life, like porcelain.

After that there were miles of irresponsible curving, weedy
road, that led them sometimes past the sirkar’s[#] sarl forest, and
sometimes past a little village gathered together under a mango-tree,
but oftenest it straggled through wide, sunny, stony country,
full of pale half-tints, where only wild grasses grew. Such
tall wild grasses, purple and yellow and white, bending and tufting
.bn 284.png
.pn +1
above their heads on either side of the way. “They would
make Aunt Plovtree happy for life,” Helen said. They would
indeed, and many another estimable lady resident in Great Britain.
It was a sorrowful waste that they should be growing there
far from the solemn interiors that yearned for their dusty
charms. Helen was so much of this opinion that she dismounted
and gathered a bunch, compelling her husband to do the same,
to send by parcel post to Aunt Plovtree. She flicked the flies off
the Diagram’s ears with them for three miles, then she lost a
third of them in a canter, and young Browne arranged that the
rest should be carefully forgotten at Kalsi dâk-bungalow. He
was of opinion that in undertaking an ascent of nine thousand
feet on a bazar tat in India you couldn’t be expected to gather
and preserve wild grasses for your aunt in England.
.pm fn-start
Government’s.
.pm fn-end
.bn 285.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXV.
.sp 2
.if h
.il fn=i_278.jpg w=500px id=i278
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: Decoration]
.if-
.sp 2
.dc 0.5 0.68
ALL night long the Jumna
purred in their ears, rolling
over the stones at the bottom
of the shady hill,
whereon the Raj had built
a travellers’ rest. Looking
out through the
dewy branches in the
morning, they saw the
Doon lying under
its mists at their
feet, with the ragged
Siwalliks on
the other side—already
they had begun to climb. Already, too, there was the
mountain scent in the air—that smell of wet mossy rock and
ferns and running streams and vigour—and this, as they set
forth upon the Himalayas, with their faces turned upwards, took
possession of their senses and made them altogether joyous.
The Rajpore charger sniffed the wind with his Roman nose as
copiously as circumstances would permit, and snapped viciously
at young Browne’s trousers with his retreating under-lip. The
Rajpore charger must have been at least twelve hands high, and
fat out of all proportion. His syce and proprietor, Boophal—probably
.bn 286.png
.pn +1
thirteen years old, wearing a ragged cloth jacket, a
dhoty, and an expression of precocious iniquity, was very proud
of him. The syce attached to Helen’s pony was visibly abased
by the contrast, and Helen herself declared loudly against the
injustice of being expected to keep up under the circumstances.
Mrs. Browne’s mount had only one idea of going, and that was
to imitate the gait of her distinguished friend in front at a considerable
distance to the rear; and there is no doubt that it
must have been trying invariably to come up puffing, to the
reproaches of a waiting lord, complacent in his saddle. “If you
could ride behind for awhile and beat it,” suggested Helen; “it
doesn’t seem to mind me.” But young Browne thought that
was quite impossible. There was one thing they <i>might</i> do,
though—at Saia they might get her a spur! “George!” cried
she, “do you think I would use a spur?—horrid, cruel thing,
that you never can tell when it’s going in!” with ungrammatical
emotion. “But we might change ponies for a bit, if
you like.”

“We might,” said young Browne, reflectively, “but I don’t
think that I should feel justified in putting you on this one, my
dear; his rage and fury with his nose are awful.”

“But, George, I should like to ride <i>beside</i> you!”

“Not more than I should like to have you, dear. But I
think, since I can’t have that pleasure, what a satisfaction I take
in the knowledge that you are <i>safe</i>. Do you feel disposed to
trot?”

“<i>I</i> do,” returned Mrs. Browne, with plaintive emphasis;
“but you’ll have to start, please. What is the matter with this
animal?”

The Diagram was neighing—long, shrill neighs of presagement,
with her ears cocked forward. “Something’s coming,”
.bn 287.png
.pn +1
said young Browne. “<i>Dâk-wallahata!</i>”[#] remarked Boophal.
A faint jingling on the far side of the nearest curve; the dâk-wallah
had rounded it, and was upon them, at a short, steady,
unrelenting trot. The dâk-wallah, all in khaki, had charge of
Her Majesty’s mails. There was no time for a salaam. He
wore bells at his waist for premonition, and a spear over his
shoulder for defence. These hills were full of <i>janwas</i>[#] without
special respect for Her Majesty’s mails. On he went, jingling
faint and fainter, bearing the news of the mountains down into
the valleys, a pleasant primitive figure of the pleasant primitive
East. Young Browne liked him particularly. “What a decent
way of earning one’s living!” said he.
.pm fn-start
The postman comes.
.pm fn-end
.pm fn-start
Animals.
.pm fn-end

The hills began to round out nobly before them now. The
road took great sweeps and curves, always penetrating and
climbing, and a low stone wall made its appearance running
along the outer edge. Over the wall they looked down upon a
hurrying river and tree-tops; but the hill-sides towered straight
up beside them, lost in sarl, and oak, and mosses, and shadows.
They had climbed a very little way. The stillness seemed to
grow with the sunshine. Only now and then a jungle-fowl
stirred, or a hoo-poe cried, or they heard the trickling of a tiny
stream that made its ferny way down the face of the rock to the
road. Underneath the warm air lay always the cool scent;
strange flowers bloomed in it, but did not change it; it was the
goodly smell of the mountains, and Helen, respiring it, declared
that it was the first time her nose had been the slightest pleasure
to her in India. They turned to look back—the hills had grown
up around them and shut them in; they were upon the solitary,
engirdling road, with its low stone parapet below unknown
.bn 288.png
.pn +1
heights, above unknown depths, insisting always upwards round
the nearer masses to hills that were greater, further, bluer. It
was the little parapet, Helen decided, that made it look so
lonely. It must have taken quantities of people to build the
little parapet along such mighty curves, and now they had all
gone away down the road, and it seemed as if none of them
would ever come back.

After the dâk-wallah the <i>jogi</i>[#] with his matted hair and
furtive eyes. He asked nothing of the Brownes, the jogi, he
extracted pice from his own people, for the good of their souls;
the souls of the Brownes were past paying for; besides, it was so
unlikely that a sahib would pay. And after the jogi came a
score of black, long-haired, long-horned buffaloes, and a man
seated upon an ass driving them. The buffaloes had evidently
never seen anything approaching a Browne before, for they all
with one accord stood quite still when they came within twenty
yards of these two, and stared with the stolidly resentful surprise
that never strikes one as an affectation in a buffalo. There were
so very many buffaloes and so very few Brownes and so little
room for any of them that the situation was awkward. “Keep
close behind me and stick to the inside,” young Browne enjoined
his lady. “They <i>have</i> been known to charge at things they
don’t understand, but they take a good while to make up their
minds.”
.pm fn-start
Religious beggar.
.pm fn-end

.if h
.il fn=i_282.jpg w=325px id=i282
.ca
<s>HE ASKED NOTHING OF THE BROWNES.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: HE ASKED NOTHING OF THE BROWNES.]
.if-

“Do let’s try to squeeze past before they make them up,”
said Helen nervously; but as the Brownes circumspectly advanced
each of the small syces ran out from behind his pony’s
heels, and laying hold of the buffaloes by any horn, ear, or tail
that came nearest, jostled them intrepidly out of the way. And
.bn 289.png
.pn +1
there was a deeper humiliation to come. As they took their
right of way at a trot with what dignity they might, a buffalo
calf, a highly idiotic baby bull, overcome by the dazzling appearance
of the Rajpore charger, turned round and trotted after him
and would not be denied. In vain young Browne smote him
upon the nose, in vain he who sat upon the ass abused with a
loud voice the ancestors of all buffaloes, the little bull fixed upon
.bn 290.png
.pn +1
the charger a look which said, “Entreat me not to leave thee,”
and lumbered steadfastly alongside. Already the little bull’s
mamma, smelling desertion from the rear, had looked round
inquiringly—she was in process of turning—she was after them
horns down, tail straight out, and she was coming fast! There
was very little time for reflection, but it occurred irresistibly to
both the Brownes that the little bull’s mamma would not be
likely to put the blame upon the little bull. There was nothing
for it but flight, therefore, and they fled; promiscuous and fast,
for even the ponies appeared to understand that it was an unpleasant
thing to be pursued by an enraged female buffalo for
the restitution of maternal rights. First the flying Brownes,
neck and neck exhorting each other to calmness, then the bleating
calf that chased the flying Brownes, then the snorting cow
that chased the bleating calf, and, finally, he upon the ass who
chased them all, with shouts and brayings to wake the mountainside.
It was a scene for the imperishable plate of a Kodak:
there was hardly time to take it with the imagination. As
his ideal departed from him the calf fell back into the hands,
as it were, of his mother and his master; and young Browne,
glancing behind, declared with relief that they were both licking
him.

They stopped to rest, to consume quantities of bread and butter
and hard-boiled eggs, to ask milk of an out-cropping village.
Milk was plentiful in the village, cool creamy buffaloes’ milk,
and the price was small, but from what vessel should the sahib
drink it? All the round brass bowls that held it were sacred to
the feeding of themselves, sacred to personalities worth about
four pice each; and the lips of a sahib might not defile them.
The outcast sahib bought a new little earthen pot for a pice,
breaking it solemnly on a stone when they had finished; and
.bn 291.png
.pn +1
even mixed with the taste of fired mud the buffaloes’ milk was
ambrosial.

On they went and up, the trees shelved further down below
and grew scantier above; upon the heights that rose before them
there seemed to be none at all. Down where the river was evening
had fallen, and all the hills behind stood in purple, but a
little white cluster still shone sunlit in a notch above them.
Boophal pointed it out. “<i>Tin cos</i>,”[#] said Boophal. They hastened
on at that, all six of them; they rounded a last flank, rattled
over a bridge with a foaming torrent underneath, and found
themselves clinging, with several fowls, oxen, and people, to the
side of the gorge the torrent made. The dâk-bungalow sat on a
ledge a hundred feet or so further up, and the Brownes felt this
to be excessive. They climbed it, however, and entered into
peace at the top. There was a khansamah and two long chairs,
there would be dinner. The Diagram, unsaddled and fed, folded
herself up like a chest of drawers for repose; but the charger
roamed up and down seeking something to kick, and all night
long at intervals they heard him chewing in imagination the cud
of the buffalo calf, neighing, yawning, biting his under-lip.
.pm fn-start
Three miles.
.pm fn-end

Next day they saw what the creeping road had conquered,
and what it had yet to conquer. It was no longer question of
climbing the great hills, they were amongst the summits, they
walked upon the heights, behind them slope after outlying slope
rose up and barred the way that they had come; and yet the
parapeted road, with its endless loops and curves insisted upward,
and the little military slabs that stood by the mountainside
told them that they had still eighteen, seventeen, sixteen
miles to follow it before they came to Chakrata, whence they
.bn 292.png
.pn +1
should see the Snows. Helen found it difficult to believe that
the next turn would not disclose them, that they were not lying
fair and shining beyond that brown mountain before her to the
left—it was such a prodigious mountain, it must be the last.
But always the belting road sloped upward and disappeared
again, always behind the prodigious brown mountain rose a more
prodigious brown mountain still. They had astounding, soul-stretching
views, these Brownes, but always around and behind
them; before them rose ever the bulk of a single mountain, and
the line of the climbing girdling road.

When God gave men tongues, he never dreamed that they
would want to talk about the Himalayas; there are consequently
no words in the world to do it with. It is given to some of us,
as it was given to these Brownes, thus to creep and to climb up
into the heart of them, to look down over their awful verges and
out upon the immensity of their slopes, to be solitary in the stupendous
surging, heaving mountain-sea that stands mute and
vast here upon the edge of the plains of India. Afterward these
people have more privacy than the rest of the world, for they
have once been quite alone in it, with perhaps a near boulder
and a dragon-fly. And their privacy is the more complete because
there is no password to let another in—language will not
compass it. So they either babble foolishly, or are silent.

The Brownes, in the fulness of their hearts, babbled foolishly.
They wondered whether the white speck near the top of the
mountain across the ravine was a cow or a house, and in either
case how it held on. They wondered what the curious blood-red
crop could be, that lay in little square patches far below them on
the lower slopes where people had tiny farms. They wondered
how cold it was up there in the winter—it was jolly cold now
when you faced the wind. They found ox-eyed daisies and other
.bn 293.png
.pn +1
Christian flowers growing in clefts of the rock, and they gathered
these rejoicing. They implored each other to “keep to the inside”
in places where the low stone wall had been washed away,
and neither of them dared to look over. And they had an adventure
which to this day Mrs. Browne relates as blood-curdling.

It was in rounding an old sunny corner in silent disappointment
at again failing to find Chakrata. Young Browne, riding
first, noticed a loose pebble rattle down the side of the rock.
Mrs. Browne insists that she did not notice the pebble, and I
don’t know that it is important to her evidence that she should.
But she certainly noticed the leopard, so carefully that she never
will be <i>quite</i> sure it wasn’t a tiger. She saw it rise from its four
legs from a ledge of rock above young Browne’s head and look
at young Browne. Mrs. Browne is naturally unable to give anyone
an accurate idea of her emotion during the instant that followed,
but she was perfectly certain that it did not occur to
young Browne to transfix the animal with his eye, and he had
nothing else. Neither it did, but the situation did not find Mr.
Browne entirely without presence of mind notwithstanding.
Raising his whip in a threatening manner Mr. Browne said
“Shoo!” and whatever may have been the value of that expletive
in Mr. Browne’s mouth under ordinary circumstances, in
Mrs. Browne’s opinion it saved his life on that occasion. For
without even an answering growl the leopard turned and trotted
into the thicket quickly, as if she had forgotten something.

“Did you see that, Helen?” inquired her husband, turning
in his saddle.

“I sh-should think I did?” exclaimed Mrs. Browne. “<i>W-w-w-wait</i>
for me, George!” And as the Diagram came up alongside,
young Browne received several tearful embraces, chiefly
upon his arm, in the presence of the syces. “I told you you
.bn 294.png
.pn +1
ought to have a g-g-gun, darling, and you <i>wouldn’t</i> be advised,”
Mrs. Browne reproached him hysterically. “It’s all very well to
laugh, but thin-thin-think of what <i>might</i> have been!”

“It’s awful to think of what might have been if I had had a
gun,” said young Browne solemnly. “In the excitement of the
moment I should have been certain to let it go off, and then she
would have been down on us, sure. They hate guns awfully.
Oh, we may be thankful I hadn’t a gun!”
.bn 295.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVI.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
PRESENTLY they met a wonderfully pretty lady with red
cheeks, such red cheeks as all the Miss Peacheys had in
Canbury, being swung along in a dandy on the shoulders of four
stout coolies. The red cheeks belonged to Chakrata; they were
within half a mile of it then; they would see it before the sun
went down. The road zig-zagged a bit and climbed more
steeply, narrowing hideously here and there. The khuds became
terrific. Young Browne dismounted and walked at his wife’s
bridle, pushing her pony close to the mountainside. The precipices
seemed to shout to them.

There was a last outstanding brown flank; the road hurtled
round it, over it, and then with the greeting of a mighty torrent
of wind that seemed to come from the other side of the world it
ran out upon a wide level place, where a band played and five
hundred soldiers, in Her Majesty’s red, wheeled and marched
and countermarched, it seemed to the Brownes, for pure light-heartedness.
That was the end; there, grouped all about a crag
or two, was Chakrata. There across a vast heaving of mountains
to the horizon—mountains that sank at their feet and swelled
again and again and again purple and blue—stood the still wonder
of the Snows.

“They aren’t real,” said Helen simply, “they’re painted on
the sky.”
.bn 296.png
.pn +1

The Brownes followed a path that twisted through Chakrata,
and in course of time they came to a little out-cropping wooden
diamond-paned chalet, with wide brown eaves that overhung
eternity and looked toward the Snows. It was a tiny toy dâk-bungalow,
and English dahlias, red and purple and yellow and
white, grew in clumps and thickets tall and wild around it.
Here they entered in and demanded a great fire and a cake;
while a grey furred cloud, flying low with her sisters, blotted out
the Snows, and darkness, coming up from the valleys, caught
them upon the mountain-top.

Distinct and unusual joys awaited them in the morning.
The fire had gone out for one thing, and they shivered luxurious
shivers at the prospect of getting up without one. They enjoyed
every shiver and prolonged it. How little one thought of being
thankful for that sort of thing in England, Helen remarked, with
little sniffs at the frosty air; and young Browne said “No, by
Jove,” and how one hated the idea of one’s tub. Oh, delightfully
cold it was, snapping cold, squeaking cold! Helen showed
her hands blue after washing them, and they tumbled through
their respective toilettes like a couple of school children. It was
so long since they had been cold before.

At breakfast the butter was chippy, and that in itself was a
ravishing thing. At what time of year, they asked each other,
would butter ever stand alone without ice in Bengal. And their
fingers were numb—actually numb; could anything have been
more agreeable, except to sit in the sun on the little veranda, as
they afterwards did, and get them warm again! There, without
moving, they could watch that magical drifted white picture in
the sky, so pure as to be beyond all painting, so lifted up as to
be beyond all imagination. A ragged walnut-tree clung to the
edge of the cliff; the wind shook the last of its blackening
.bn 297.png
.pn +1
leaves; the vast, wheeling sky was blue and empty, except of the
Snows, and the dahlias had trooped to the verge to look, so that
the sun shone through their petals with the light of wine. It is
their remoteness, their unapproachableness, that make these
Himalayan Snows a sanctuary. From the foot of man anywhere
they are prodigiously far off, so that they look to him always
the country of a dream just hanging above the world he
knows, or if he be of prayerful mind, the Habitation of the Holiness
of the Lord. And since it is permitted to us that by mountain
and by valley we may journey to look upon the Snows, even
from very far off, our souls do not perish utterly in India, and
our exile is not entirely without its possession.

The Brownes had only two days in Chakrata, which they employed
chiefly as I have mentioned—sitting in the sun devout
before the Himalayas, or ecstatically blowing upon their fingers.
They made one expedition to see a pair of friends whom the
merciful decree of Providence had recently brought up from the
Plains for good, and found them laying in coal and flour for the
winter, which made them quite silent for a moment with suppressed
feeling. “I hope,” said young Browne flippantly, to
conceal his emotion, “that on the event of other stores giving
out you have plenty of candles. They are sustaining in an emergency.”

And as they made their thoughtful way on pony-back to the
brown wooden chalet, Helen observed upon her riding habit
some clustering spots of white, that multiplied and thickened,
and she gathered them up between her fingers with a delighted
cry. “George, dearest, look! We’re being <i>snowed on</i>—in
India!”

All of which was doubtless very trivial, but they were not remarkable
people, these Brownes; from the first I told you so.
.bn 298.png
.pn +1

.if h
.il fn=i_291.jpg w=500px id=i291
.ca
<s>THE SNOWS.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: THE SNOWS.]
.if-

.bn 299.png
.pn +1
And though they found this journey of theirs brimful of the extraordinary,
the unparalleled, there was really only one remarkable
thing about it, which was the dignified and self-reliant conduct
of the ekka. The ekka had always gone before, overflowing
with their goods and crowned with Kasi in cross-legged
pomp. They had traced its wavering progress by ends of
ravelled rope, and splinters of wood, and scraps of worn-out
leather which lay behind in the road to testify of it; and grave
as had been their apprehensions, they had never overtaken it in
a state of collapse. Invariably when they arrived they found the
ekka disburthened, tipped up under a tree, the ekka pony browsing
with a good conscience, Kasi awaiting with an air which
asked for congratulation. How it held together was a miracle
which repeated itself hourly; but it did hold together, and inspired
such confidence in young Browne that he proposed, when
she tired of the Diagram, to deposit Mrs. Browne in the ekka
also. This, however, was declined. Mrs. Browne said that she
had neither the heart nor the nerves for it; in which case, of
course, an emergency would find her quite anatomically unprepared.

Leaving the Snows with grief, therefore, they left the ekka
with trusting faith. There had been a hitch in the process of
packing, examination, consultation. The sahib, inquiring, had
been told that one of the wheels was “a little sick.” It was an
excellent ekka—an ekka with all the qualities; the other wheel
was quite new, and you did not often find an ekka with an
entirely new wheel! But the other was certainly a little old,
and after these many miles a little sick. Young Browne diagnosed
the suffering wheel, and made a serious report; there were
internal complications, and the tire had already been off seven
times. Besides, it wouldn’t stand up; obviously it was not
.bn 300.png
.pn +1
shamming, the <i>purana chucker</i>[#] was taken bad, very bad indeed.
Its cure could be accomplished, however, with wet chips
and a hammer—and time. If the sahib would permit, the ekka
would follow in half an hour.
.pm fn-start
Old wheel.
.pm fn-end

So the Brownes departed gaily, and an hour and three-quarters
later the ekka tottered forth also, with Kasi and the
ekka-wallah walking lamentably alongside exchanging compliments
upon the subject of the wheel. They travelled three
miles and an hour thus, and then the wheel had a sudden relapse,
with signs of dissolution; while young Browne’s dressing-case,
which happened to be on top, shot precipitately first into
space and then into the topmost branches of a wild cherry-tree
growing three thousand feet down the khud. The ekka
pony planted his feet in the road-bed and looked round for
directions; the ekka-wallah groaned and sat down. “And the
sahib, O, my brother-in-law!” exclaimed Kasi, dancing round
the ekka.

“The sahib is in the hand of God!” returned the ekka-wallah
piously. “To-day I have been much troubled. I will smoke.”
And while the Brownes, at Saia, remotely lower down, grew
chilly with vain watching in the shadows that lengthened through
the khuds, the weary ekka leaned peacefully against the mountain
wall, the ekka-wallah drew long comfort from his hubble-bubble,
and Kasi reposed also by the wayside, chewing the pungent
betel, and thinking, with a meditative eye on the wild
cherry-tree below, hard things of fate.

Nevertheless, without the direct interposition of Providence,
the ekka eventually arrived, and there was peace in one end of
the dâk-bungalow, and the crackling of sarl branches, and the
.bn 301.png
.pn +1
simmering of tinned hotch-potch. In the other end was wrath,
and a pair of Royal Engineers—a big Royal Engineer and a
little Royal Engineer. To understand why wrath should abide
with these two Royal Engineers in their end of the bungalow,
it is necessary to understand that it was not an ordinary travellers’
bungalow, but a “Military Works’” bungalow, their very
own bungalow, for “Military Works” and “Royal Engineers”
mean the same thing; and that ordinary travellers were only
allowed to take shelter there by special permission or under
stress of weather. By their proper rights, therefore, these Royal
Engineers should have had both ends of the bungalow, and
the middle, and the compound, and the village, and a few miles
of the road north and south—and a little privacy. If these
ideas seem a trifle large, it becomes necessary to try to understand,
at least approximately, what a Royal Engineer is, where
he comes from, to what dignities and emoluments he may aspire.
And then, when we have looked upon the buttons which reflect
his shining past, and considered the breadth of his shoulders
and the straightness of his legs, and the probable expense he
has been as a whole to his parents and his country, we will easily
bring ourselves to admit that he is entirely right in considering
himself quite the most swagger article in ordinary Government
service in India. We may even share his pardonable incredulity
as to whether before his advent India was at all. And
certainly we will sympathise with the haughtily impatient expletives
with which he would naturally greet pretensions to
circumscribe his vested rights in the Himalayan mountains
on the part of two absurdly unimportant and superfluous
Brownes.

The Brownes in their end heard the two Royal Engineers
kicking the fire logs in theirs, and conversing with that brevity
.bn 302.png
.pn +1
and suppression which always marks a Royal Engineer under
circumstances where ordinary people would be abusively
fluent. Apparently they had command of themselves, they
were Royal Engineers, they weren’t saying much, but it was
vigorous the way they kicked the fire. The Brownes were still
as mice, and absorbed their soup with hearts that grew ever
heavier with a grievous sense of wrong inflicted not only upon
their neighbour but upon a Royal Engineer!

“As a matter of fact, you know,” said young Browne,
“we’ve no business here. I think I ought to go and speak to
them.”

“We’ve got permission,” remarked Mrs. Browne feebly,
“and we were here first.”

“I’m afraid,” said young Browne, “that we have the best
end, and we’ve certainly got the lamp. Maybe they would like
the lamp. I think I ought first to go and see them. After all,
it’s their bungalow.”

Young Browne came back presently twisting the end of his
moustache. It was an unconscious imitation of the Royal Engineers
acquired during their short and embarrassed interview.

“Well?” said Helen.

“Oh, it’s all right. They don’t particularly mind. They
accepted my apology—confound them! And they <i>would</i> like
the lamp—their’s smokes. They’re marching, like us, down to
Saharanpore, inspecting the road or something, and fishing. No
end of a good time those chaps have.”

“What are their names?”

“Haven’t the least idea—they’re Royal Engineers.”

“Well,” returned Mrs. Browne disconsolately, “what are we
to do when you give them the buttie?”

“Go to bed,” returned her lord laconically.
.bn 303.png
.pn +1

Mrs. Browne prepared, therefore, for repose, and while Mr.
Browne yielded up the lamp there reached her from the other
end of the bungalow the ineffable condescension of a Royal Engineer,
who said “Thanks awfully.”

They were gone in the morning; the Brownes heard from
the khansamah that the burra-sahibs had departed at daylight,
and the very burra of the burra-sahibs rode a white horse. The
Brownes were glad these particularly burra-sahibs had gone;
they found they preferred to be entertained by the Military
Works Department in the abstract. “They probably mean to
ride a long way to-day, starting so early,” said Helen hopefully.
“We won’t find them at Futtehpore.” It was unreasonable in
the Brownes; they had no grievance against these Royal Engineers,
and yet they desired exceedingly that somewhere, anywhere,
their ways should diverge; and there is no doubt whatever
that the Royal Engineers would have heartily recommended
a change of route to the Brownes. Unfortunately there was
only one, and it lay before them unravelling down among the
hills to Futtehpore. It was such glorious cantering, though,
that these inconsiderable civil little Brownes on their bazar tats,
all agog with their holiday, almost forgot the possible recurrence
of the Royal Engineer. He became a small cloud on the horizon
of their joyous day; he would probably vanish before evening.
So that the sun shone and the doves cooed and the crested
hoo-poe ran across the path, of what import was a Royal Engineer—or
even two? So the Brownes rode valiantly down
among the hills, she upon her Diagram and he upon the charger
of Rajpore, and when they really went with wings and glory, the
syce-boys running behind attached themselves to the tails of the
Diagram and the charger of Rajpore respectively, relieving their
own legs and adding greatly to the imposing character of the
.bn 304.png
.pn +1
.bn 305.png
.pn +1
cavalcade. And so they went down, down, where purple-veined
begonias grew beside the course of the springs, and tall trees
fluttered their ghostly white leaves over the verge, and orchids
bloomed on dead branches up overhead. As they went they met
an invalid being taken to Chakrata for change of air and scene.
He rode in a dandy evidently made for his special accommodation,
carried by two coolies; and a chuprassie attended him, a
beautiful chuprassie with a red sash and a medal. The invalid
looked at the Brownes in a way that asked their solicitude, but
he made them no salutation because he was only a big brown
and white mastiff, and besides, he didn’t feel up to promiscuous
conversation with strangers who might or might not be desirable.
But when young Browne stopped the chuprassie and the
coolies, and called him “old fellow” and asked him where he
was going and how he had stood the journey, he gave young
Browne a paw and a depreciating turn of his head over the
dandy which distinctly said, “Liver complications. We all come
to it. Your turn next hot weather. This country isn’t fit for a
Christian to live in!” and one more homesick alien passed on to
look for his lost well-being in the Hills. Mrs. Browne hoped he
would find it, he was such a dear dog.

.if h
.il fn=i_297.jpg w=500px id=i297
.ca
<s>LIVER COMPLICATIONS—WE ALL COME TO IT.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: LIVER COMPLICATIONS—WE ALL COME TO IT.]
.if-

.bn 306.png
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVII
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
THE Brownes had left the sunset behind them red upon the
heights when they reached Futtehpore, but there was still
light enough for them to descry a white horse from afar, browsing
in the compound, and they looked at each other in unaffected
melancholy, saying, “They’re here.” If they wanted further
evidence they had it in the person of the khansamah, who ran
forth wagging his beard, and exclaiming that there was no room—how
should there be any room for these Presences from without,
when two Engineer-sahibs had already come! Among his
other duties one Engineer-sahib had to report the shortcomings
of this khansamah. Should it be written among them that the
Engineer-sahib was rendered uncomfortable in his own house!
Ah, that the Presence could be persuaded that there was another
bungalow five miles further on, which the Presence knew perfectly
well there was not.

“Khansamah,” replied young Browne, “two sahibs do not
require four apartments and all the beds. Go and make it right;
and, look you, bring a long chair for the memsahib that thy back
be not smitten,” for by this time the heart of George Browne, of
Macintyre and Macintyre’s, Calcutta, had waxed hot within him
by reason of Royal Engineers.

The khansamah returned presently and announced that the
Presences might have beds, but a long chair—here the khansamah
held his back well behind him that it should not be smitten—he
.bn 307.png
.pn +1
could not give, for the burra Engineer-sahib sat upon the one,
and the chota Engineer-sahib sat upon the other. Yes, they
could have something to eat, when the Engineer-sahibs had
dined; but there would not be time to prepare it before—the
Engineer-sahibs had commanded dinner in one hour. He would
see if a fire was possible—it might be that the Engineer-sahibs
required all the dry wood. It was presently obvious that they
did, and as young Browne and Kasi struggled unavailingly with
an armful of green sari and a year-old copy of the <i>Overland
Mail</i>, that gentleman might have been overheard to remark
roundly in the smoke and the gloom, “<i>Damn</i> the Engineer-sahibs!”

Next morning the white horse was still in the stable when
young Browne stepped out upon the veranda, and the Royal
Engineer stood there smoking with his hands in his pockets, his
legs describing a Royal Engineering angle. He said “Morning!”
with a certain affability to young Browne, who made a lukewarm
response.

“Think of getting on to-day?” inquired the R. E.

“Oh, yes,” Mr. Browne replied. “We must. We’re due at
Saharanpore Friday.”

“Aw! same with us. Bagshiabag to-day, Kalsia to-morrow,
Saharanpore Friday.”

“Exactly our programme,” said young Browne with firmness.

“Aw! Hown’ for’tchnit!”

“Is it?”

“Well, yes, rather. Y’see it was all right at Saia, and it’s all
right here, but at Kalsia there’ll be Mrs. Prinny of the 97th, and
Mrs. Prinny’s got baby, and baby’s got nurse. That’ll be rather
tight, <i>waoun’t</i> it?” and the Royal Engineer removed a cigar ash
from his pyjamas.
.bn 308.png
.pn +1

“Now if either of us should push on to Kalsia to-day,” he
continued insinuatingly.

There was a pause.

“It’s awkward for <i>us</i>, y’see,” continued the R. E., “because
we’re fishing.”

“How far is it?”

“’Bout twenty-six miles.”

“H’m! Rather long march for a lady.”

“Oh, yes—it would be <i>long</i>,” responded the Royal Engineer
with an irresponsible air, “but then think of that awful nurse
an’ baby.”

A quarter of an hour later the Brownes were off again.
Crossing a bridge they passed the two Royal Engineers sitting
upon one of the buttresses examining their fishing tackle.
“We’re going to see if we can manage it,” remarked young
Browne. “Good morning.”

The larger and finer of the Royal Engineers looked up.
“Aw,” said he, “mustn’t over-do it, y’know.”

“We won’t,” returned young Browne.

As a matter of fact they didn’t. Arrived at Bagshiabag, Mrs.
Browne declared herself very nearly dead, the Diagram had been
more diagrammatic than usual. She would rest, and “see” if
she felt equal to going on.

“I’m blowed if you shall,” said her lord, “not for all the
R. E.’s in Asia.” So they peacefully put up in their choice of
ends this time, and made an impartial division of the furniture,
and after tea went for a walk. It was the very last station on
the edge of the hills; the plains began at their very feet to roll
away into unbroken, illimitable misty distances. Bagshiabag—the
King’s garden—the palm-fringed plains that were doubtless
fair in the King’s sight. The Brownes looked at them sorrowing;
.bn 309.png
.pn +1
it requires an Oriental imagination to admire the King’s
garden from an inside point of view.

“We must start early to-morrow,” said young Browne regretfully.
“It will be hot.”

Returning they found the two Royal Engineers refreshing
themselves under a mango-tree in the compound, surrounded by
everything that appertained to the establishment, and wearing
an expression of god-like injury. “We didn’t get on, after all,”
said young Browne, as he passed them with what countenance he
could. The Royal Engineers looked at him and smiled a rectilinear
smile. “No,” they said. It was not much to say, but there
was a compulsion in it that awoke the Brownes before daylight
next morning and put them in their saddles at sunrise. By ten
o’clock the last blue ridge had faded out of the sky-line, by
eleven they were in Kalsia—not Kalsi of the Doon—in the midst
of a great flatness. The ekka with the tiffin-basket was behind
upon the road. They would wait there till it came, and then
make up their minds about pushing on to Saharanpore. The
lady with the nurse and baby was no fiction; she was coming by
dâk-gharry at three o’clock, the khansamah said. And could
the Presence give him any tidings of the Engineer-sahibs who
were on the way? He had been in readiness for the Engineer-sahibs
these three days. The Presence could give him no tidings
whatever of the Engineer-sahibs. He thought very likely they
were dead. Numbers of people had died in India in the last
three days, and the Presence assuredly did not wish any talk of
the Engineer-sahibs. “What is there to eat?” asked the Presence.
And if there was only milk and eggs and chupatties—the
sahibs generally bringing their own food to this place—then let
it be served instantly, to be in readiness when the ekka should
appear. And it was served. But the khansamah had lived a
.bn 310.png
.pn +1
great many years upon the earth, and, moreover, he had privately
questioned the syce-boys, so that he knew of the coming of the
Engineer-sahibs. He knew, too, that it would not be good,
either for his temporal or his eternal happiness, that the Engineer-sahibs
should find four people and a baby in their house
when they arrived. Therefore the khansamah, being full of
guile as of years, sent an open-faced one privily to the turning of
the lane into the road, who gave word to Kasi and to the ekka-wallah
that the sahibs—the Browne sahibs—had gone on to
Saharanpore, and they were by no means to tarry at Kalsia, but
to hasten on after. Believing this word, Kasi and the ekka-wallah,
while the Brownes famished upon the veranda, were
drawing ever nearer to Saharanpore.

It is difficult to make a meal of eggs and milk and chupatties,
but the Brownes found that it could be done, even when
because of anger it is the more indigestible. They found an
unexpected and delightful solace, however, afterward in Saharanpore.
The place was full of the southward bound, a regiment
was on the move, all Mussoorie had emptied itself in dâk-gharries
upon the station. Nevertheless, Kasi the invaluable
had intrigued for a room for them, a room that opened upon a
veranda, with a lamp in it, and a smoking dinner. Kasi was
the more invaluable for being conscience-stricken at having
swallowed false talk. And there is no Military Works bungalow
in Saharanpore, which is a station built primarily and almost
wholly for the use of the general public. The joy of these
unregenerate Brownes, therefore, upon seeing a white horse
vainly walk up to this veranda and hearing a hungry voice, the
voice of the Royal Engineer, vainly inquire for rooms and
dinner, was keen and excessive.

“They’ve funked the baby after all!” said young Browne,
.bn 311.png
.pn +1
“thinking we wouldn’t. Now they’ll become acquainted with
the emotions of the ordinary travelling public in a congested
district. Hope they’ll enjoy ’em as much as we did, Nellie.
I’m going to have a bottle of beer.”

And if the Royal Engineer outside in the dark, where it was
getting chilly, could be susceptible to a note of triumph, he
heard it in the pop of the Pilsener with which on this occasion
Mr. George Browne fortified his opinion of Royal Engineers at
large.
.bn 312.png
.pn +1

.pb
.sp 4
.h2
CHAPTER XXVIII.
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.68
YOU might have read in this morning’s <i>Englishman</i>, in the
list of passengers booked per P. and O. steamer <i>Ganges</i>,
sailing 3d April, “Mr. and Mrs. Perth Macintyre and Miss
Macalister, for Brindisi.” Miss Macalister is a niece of the
Perth Macintyres. She has been out two years and a half, and,
so far as her opportunities are concerned, we have nothing to
reproach ourselves with. For the first time in fifteen years we
have attended the subscription dances to take her, and did not
shirk the fancy dress ball, Mr. Perth Macintyre going as Falstaff,
for her sake. At our time of life this is a great deal of exertion
for a niece, and I consider, if such things are possible, Mr. Perth
Macintyre’s deceased sister ought to have felt gratification at
what we did. Nevertheless, I have not had occasion to mention
Miss Macalister before, and it is only in connection with her
return-ticket that I mention her now. It represents an outlay
which we did not expect to be obliged to make.

We are due in England about the 1st of May, when we will
endeavour to find the warmest south wall in Devonshire—I
shiver at the thought—and hang ourselves up on it. As the
summer advances and the conditions of temperature in Great
Britain become less severe, we will make an effort to visit the
parental Peacheys in Canbury, if neither of us have previously
succumbed to influenza; in which case the box of chutneys and
guava jelly that the Brownes have charged us to deliver will be
.bn 313.png
.pn +1
sent by luggage train. The survivor—we expect there will be at
least a temporary survivor—is to attend to this.

It will make a difference to the Brownes, our going, the difference
of a junior partnership; and although I hope I have a
correct idea of the charms of our society, I fully expect that
their grief at our departure will be tempered by this consideration.
Some one of our administrators is always being quoted in
the newspapers as having called India “a land of regrets.” It is
to be feared, however, that the regrets are felt exclusively by
those who are going. The satisfactions of retirement are obscure,
and the prospect of devoting a shrunken end of existence
to the solicitous avoidance of bronchitis is not inviting. Whereas
it is always to somebody’s profit that an Englishman leaves
India, and he is so accustomed to the irony of the idea of being
his own chief mourner, that he would suspect the deeply-afflicted
at his going of more than the usual manœuvres to obtain his
shoes. The Brownes are very pleased, undisguisedly very
pleased, though Mrs. Browne has condoled with me sincerely, in
private, on the subject of Miss Macalister; and we quite understand
it.

There is nothing, on the other hand, to mitigate our regret
at parting with the Brownes, which is lively. I may not have
been able to make it plain in these few score pages, but I like
the Brownes. They are nice young people, and my advice has
been so often useful to them. As the wife of the junior partner
in Macintyre and Macintyre’s, Mrs. Browne will be obliged to
depend upon her own for the future; but I am leaving her a
good deal to go on with, and a certain proportion of our drawing-room
furniture as well, which she will find equally useful.
I inherited it myself from Mrs. J. Macintyre; it has been a long
time in the firm. Further, we have put off sailing for a fortnight
.bn 314.png
.pn +1
so that I can be godmother in person to the Browne baby,
for whose prospective future I knitted fifteen pairs of socks this
last cold weather; and that I consider the final proof of our
regard.

If it is necessary to explain my interest in these young
Brownes, which you, I regret to think, may find inexplicable, it
lies, I dare say, as much in this departure of ours as in anything
else. Their first chapter has been our last. When you turn
down the page upon the Brownes you close the book upon the
Perth Macintyres, and it has been pleasant to me that our story
should find its end in the beginning of theirs. If this is not
excuse enough, there is a sentimental one besides. For I also
have seen a day when the spell of India was strong upon my
youth, when I saw romance under a turban and soft magic behind
a palm, and found the most fascinating occupation in life
to be the wasting of my husband’s substance among the gabbling
thieves of the China bazar. It was all new to me once—I had
forgotten how new until I saw the old novelty in the eyes of
Helen Browne. Then I thought of reading the first pages of
the Anglo-Indian book again with those young eyes of hers;
and as I have read I have re-written, and interleaved, as you see.
It may be that they will give warning to some and encouragement
to others. I don’t mind confessing that to me they have
brought chiefly a gay reminder of a time when pretty little subalterns
used to trip over their swords to dance with young Mrs.
Perth Macintyre also, which seems quite a ludicrous thing to
print—and that has been enough.

I think she will avoid the graver perils of memsahibship,
Mrs. Browne. I think she will always be a nice little woman.
George and the baby will take care of that. With the moderate
social facilities of the wife of a junior partner in Macintyre and
.bn 315.png
.pn +1
Macintyre’s, she will not be likely even to make the acquaintance
of the occasional all-conquering lady who floats on the surface
of Anglo-Indian society disreputably fair, like the Victoria
Regia in the artificial lake of the Eden Gardens. As to the
emulation of such a one, I believe it is not in the power of circumstances
to suggest it to Mrs. Browne. Besides, she is not
clever, and the Victoria Regia must be clever, clever all round,
besides having a specialty in the souls of men.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Browne has become a memsahib, graduated,
qualified, sophisticated. That was inevitable. I have
watched it come to pass with a sense that it could not be prevented.
She has lost her pretty colour, that always goes first,
and has gained a shadowy ring under each eye, that always
comes afterwards. She is thinner than she was, and has acquired
nerves and some petulance. Helen Peachey had the cerebral
placidity and good temper of one of Fra Angelico’s piping
angels. To make up, she dresses her hair more elaborately, and
crowns it with a little bonnet which is somewhat extravagantly
“chic.” She has fallen into a way of crossing her knees in a low
chair that would horrify her Aunt Plovtree, and a whole set of
little feminine Anglo-Indian poses have come to her naturally.
There is a shade of assertion about her chin that was not there
in England, and her eyes—ah, the pity of this!—have looked
too straight into life to lower themselves as readily as they did
before. She has come into an empire among her husband’s
bachelor friends, to whom she will continue to give gracious little
orders for ten years yet, if she does not go off too shockingly;
and her interests have expanded to include a great many
sub-masculine ones, which she discusses with them in brief and
casual sentences interspersed with smiles that are a little tired.
Without being actually slangy she takes the easiest word and
.bn 316.png
.pn +1
the shortest cut—in India we know only the necessities of
speech, we do not really talk, even in the cold weather.

.if h
.il fn=i_309.jpg w=367px id=i309
.ca
<s>SHE HAS FALLEN INTO A WAY OF CROSSING HER KNEES IN A LOW CHAIR\
THAT WOULD HORRIFY HER AUNT PLOVTREE.</s>
.ca-
.if-
.if t
[Illustration: SHE HAS FALLEN INTO A WAY OF CROSSING HER\
KNEES IN A LOW CHAIR THAT WOULD HORRIFY HER AUNT PLOVTREE.]
.if-

Domesticity has slipped away from Mrs. Browne, though she
held it very tightly for a while, into the dusky hands whose
business is with the house of the sahib. She and young Browne
.bn 317.png
.pn +1
and the baby continue to be managed by Kasi with a skill that
deceives them into thinking themselves comfortable, and Helen
continues to predict with confidence that next month there will
be a balance in her favour instead of Kasi’s. On the contrary,
the accounts will show that the Brownes have had all they
wanted to eat and drink, that the dhoby has been paid, the memsahib
has had a rupee’s worth of postage stamps, and there is
one anna and six pices to pay to Kasi.

It was a very little splash that submerged Mrs. Browne in
Anglo-India, and there is no longer a ripple to tell about it. I
don’t know that life has contracted much for her. I doubt if it
was ever intended to hold more than young Browne and the
baby—but it has changed. Affairs that are not young Browne’s
or the baby’s touch her little. Her world is the personal world
of Anglo-India, and outside of it, except in affection of Canbury,
I believe she does not think at all. She is growing dull to
India, too, which is about as sad a thing as any. She sees no
more the supple savagery of the Pathan in the market-place, the
bowed reverence of the Mussulman praying in the sunset, the
early morning mists lifting among the domes and palms of the
city. She has acquired for the Aryan inhabitant a certain
strong irritation, and she believes him to be nasty in all his
ways. This will sum up her impressions of India as completely
years hence as it does to-day. She is a memsahib like another.

Her mother still occasionally refers to the reports of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel that reach them in Canbury,
and freely supposes that the active interest her daughter
took in Indian Missions has increased and intensified in India.
In reply, Helen is obliged to take refuge in general terms, and
has always discreetly refrained from mentioning the prejudice
that exists in Calcutta against Christian cooks.
.bn 318.png
.pn +1

I hope she may not stay twenty-two years. Anglo-Indian
tissues, material and spiritual, are apt to turn in twenty-two
years to a substance somewhat resembling cork. And I hope
she will not remember so many dead faces as I do when she goes
away—dead faces and palm fronds grey with the powder of the
wayside, and clamorous voices of the bazar crying, “<i>Here iz!
memsahib! Here iz!</i>”...

So let us go our several ways. This is a dusty world. We
drop down the river with the tide to-night. We shall not see
the red tulip blossoms of the silk cottons fall again.
.sp 4
.nf c
THE END.
.nf-
.sp 4
.pb
\_
.sp 4
.dv class='tnbox'
.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.it Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
.it Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent when a\
predominant form was found in this book; otherwise it was not changed.
.if t
.it Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
.if-
.ul-
.ul-
.dv-