CHAPTER XX
Simla, Wednesday, August 8, 1838.
I OUGHT to have begun again sooner, as my last Journal was sent off this day week, but it appears it will have to wait at Bombay till the eighth of next month, so, as you may receive two at once, it will be rather in your favour if one week is omitted.
It has rained almost literally without ceasing, with constant fog; but if it is clear for ten minutes the beauty of the hills is surpassing; such masses of clouds about them and below them, and they are so purple and so green at this time of year.
August 18.
We had to go to another play last night. Luckily they only acted two farces, so we were home at ten, but anything much worse I never saw. There were three women’s parts in the last farce, and the clerks had made their bonnets out of their broad straw hats tied on; they had gowns with no plaits in them, and no petticoats nor bustles. One of them, a very black half-caste, stood presenting his enormous flat back to the audience, and the lover observed, with great pathos, ‘Upon my soul! that is a most interesting-looking little gurl.’
It seems very uncertain when our next overland packet will come. The steamers could not get there, and there is nothing but an Arab sailing-vessel to bring the letters here. I have no faith in the Arabs as postmen. I had two here yesterday to draw. They followed Captain B. from Cabul, and are genuine ‘Children of the Desert.’ They are very unlike our quiet natives, and laughed so much all the time, that I could hardly draw them; but they make excellent sketches. I often wish for Landseer here.
Wednesday, Aug. 22.
There! this must go. We had a great dinner on Monday, and another fainting lady. Somebody always faints here. I myself believe that, though they do not like to say so, it is the fleas that make them ill. You cannot imagine the provocation of those animals during the rains. W. was really ill for two days with them – irritation and want of sleep – and was obliged to see Dr. D. The worst of it is, that the more the house is cleaned and tormented, the worse the fleas get. They belong to the soil, and even the flower-garden is full of them. They say that plague is to cease next month, which is a comfort.
A box of new books arrived yesterday, just as we were at the last gasp – and such a good set! Perhaps the Annuals might have been left out, but other people like to see them; and then, by great good luck, we had not seen one of the other books, though they had been nine months coming. ‘Lady Annabella,’ ‘Ethel Churchill,’ ‘Pascal Bruno,’ &c. We are now in that age of literature. I wish you would buy on my account a copy of ‘La Marquise de Pontange’ and ‘Le Père Goriot,’ and send them out, and I wish you would send yourself out with them. That would be the real book to read over again.
[A portion of the Journal being lost, these letters of the same dates are here inserted, to carry on the narrative.]
Letter to the Countess of B
Simla, August 20, 1838.
My dearest Sister,
I am going to run off a few short letters to-day and to-morrow, just to show what I would have done, if letters would ever go – but they won’t. They say there is an accumulation of three months’ letters lying at Bombay. There has been a monsoon, and a want of coals, and a burst boiler, and every sort of excuse. I wish, when you are driving about, you would just call at the dockyards3 in your neighbourhood, and mention that we are not at all satisfied with the steamers they send us out; that you think yourself, their last bowsprits are a shame to be seen, and you might add, that if you do not get your letters a little more regularly, you really must speak about employing some other cast-iron men. Somehow, out of four steamers at Bombay, there has not been one available, and we are now expecting our letters of June by some Arab proa, or some sailing-vessel. We may expect, I fancy, with a witness! I have not much news for you, as I doubt (though I think you a wonderfully clever woman) whether you are quite up to the nuances of the Cabul and Candahar politics.
We gain one little good by this war. The army cannot muster at Ferozepore till the 20th of November, and Sir G. R. wishes G. not to meet Runjeet Singh till he can escort him at the head of 10,000 men, so that gives us three more cool weeks here, and takes off three very hot weeks of the plains. The heat subsides about December. F. and I shall be the only ladies in the whole camp. All our own ladies stay up here, bored to death to be without their husbands, but they would be still more bored if they had to drag their children through another long march. Besides, there are great difficulties this time for tents, carriages, &c., and then it is to be hoped we shall make a much shorter journey, and come up here again.
It has rained without ceasing since I wrote last – an excellent thing for India, and not so unpleasant for us as it sounds.
When I say ‘without ceasing,’ it very often stops raining for half an hour in the afternoon, and then the drip and the fog do not count.
We all get on our ponies the moment it is fair, and go cantering past each other, saying, ‘How delightful to be out again,’ and ‘I think we shall get wet’ – and then that is enough exercise for two days. It is supposed the rains are breaking up now, as we have had three fine evenings, one of which we devoted to dropping in after dinner familiarly at the Commander-in-chief’s, to have tea and a rubber of whist.
Don’t you see how free-and-easy that looked? Three jonpauns – like upright coffins – rushing rapidly through the bazaar, with a long train of torch-bearers and hirkarus and three aides-de-camp, in full uniform, all ‘dropping in.’ G. and I, and Sir G. R. and Colonel U., always play at whist, and the others at a round game which is much livelier. I rather like whist, and think it will be one of the small vices of my old age.
I have been doing a quantity of drawings for the fancy sale. I wish you could buy some. There is a Mr. – here who draws beautifully, and he is doing a picture for me of three of the fattest objects in nature – my pony, Chance, and Chance’s boy. I do not mean Chance’s own man, but his footboy, the boy who cleans his shoes and whets his razors. He was one of the skeletons whom the servants picked up in the starving districts, and, like most of those skeletons, the reaction has been frightful, and the little wretch is such an extraordinary figure, particularly seen in profile, that he makes everybody laugh. It will be a curious picture; and I never saw anything so well done as the pony.
I mentioned our fleas to you, I think, in my last letter. They are worse than ever, and bestow their liveliest attentions on W. and me. For the last three nights we have neither of us had any sleep, and the more the rooms are cleaned and worried the livelier the fleas are.
We want some new books. I am sure Mr. Wilberforce’s Life will be ‘sweet pretty reading.’ I have just re-read Mrs. Hannah More’s Life; that is a jewel of a book both for amusement and for good. I like it much better than I did the first time; and now I have taken for my morning book in bed (I always wake early) dear Madame de Sevigné for the 117th time. It is a very affecting book amongst other merits. She was such a good, warm-hearted woman, and was not loved enough. I wish she was not dead and was here! We rather want more letters about the fashions. I am quite certain, from the unmitigated hatred I feel to the tight bit at the top of my sleeves, that you have all got rid of it, and are swaggering about in the fullest of sleeves again. Indeed, if you are not, it would be only benevolent to say you are!
Letter to J. C., Esq
Simla, Wednesday, Aug. 22.
This is to be really a short letter, for I have sent off so many that I have not the fraction of a new idea left; but I feel it my duty to encourage you in your excellent habit of writing. The letters do not come, on account of the monsoon; but still I feel confident, from my intimate knowledge of your character, that yours is an excellent habit of writing, when the monsoon does not set itself against it.
I think it has rained incessantly since I wrote to your mother last, and most people have passed their time in mopping up the wet in their houses, but ours has behaved like an angel, and since the first day has never had a leak. The roofs here are all flat, and made of mud beat into a stiff consistency; but when the rain does get through, the drippings are of a muddy nature. Captain M., after moving into every corner of his house, used to write under an umbrella; and Captain B. and his companion Dr. S. have dined every day in their house with umbrellas held over their heads and their dinners. Still, I do not dislike the rain so much as most people do. There is often a fine half-hour before sunset, in which it is easy to take a canter, quite long enough for the exercise of the day; and whenever it is not actually pouring, the hills are perfectly beautiful and the evening skies are not amiss. Then it is always cool, and people should make much of that blessing. We had an arrival two days ago of a box of new books; that is, new to us. You may remember them in the early part of the reign of Victoria the First, but the pleasure of seeing them is very great. I have read all our old ones (and we have a great collection) at least three times over, even including the twenty-one volumes of St. Simon, which I read once on board ship and now again here; and it certainly is a wonderfully amusing book. I must have begun it again if the box had not appeared. To think of our only having yet received in this legal, direct manner, the eighteenth number of Pickwick! We finished it six months ago, because it is printed and reprinted at Calcutta from overland copies. Mais, je vous demande un peu – what should we have done, if we had waited for the lawful supply, to know Pickwick’s end? I see you are making a great fuss about copyrights, &c., which I cannot understand, as we see it only by bits and scraps; but I beg to announce that I am entirely for piracy and surreptitious and cheap editions, and an early American copy of an English novel for three rupees, instead of a late English one at twenty-two shillings. ‘Them’s my sentiments’ for the next three years at least. As it is, I am reading with deep attention ‘Lady Annabella,’ by the author of ‘Constance,’ which was, I remember, a remarkably pretty novel; and so is this, only the heroine will call her mother ‘My lady.’ I keep hoping it is a joke, and pretend to laugh every time it occurs, but it looks frightfully serious at times. Perhaps the fashion of calling one’s mother ‘My lady’ may have come in, though, since my time.
All our plans have come into shape, and rather satisfactorily. We shall not leave this till the first week in November, when the great heat of the plains will be over. We are to meet Runjeet on the 20th, or thereabouts, at Ferozepore, when also the army will be assembled under Sir G. R.
There will be a review of the army before it goes down the river; and though we talk of our interview taking only a fortnight, everybody says we shall be kept there a month. That will luckily not leave us time for a very long march, and the probability is that we shall only go to Agra, and come up here again in March.
CHAPTER XXI.
Journal continued
Simla, Sunday, Sept. 2, 1838.
THIS is your birthday, and an excellent reason for starting again in my Journal. I wish you a great many of them, dearest; only please to be economical, and don’t spend them lavishly, till I come home to be with you.
We have not done much since my last Journal went. We had a meeting of ladies to settle about the fancy sale, which was easily done, as before they came I wrote a paper of proposals and they all read it, and said it would do very well; and if we can only find anything to sell, I dare say we shall sell it very well. It is to be held in a very pretty valley called Annandale, and G. gives some silver prizes to be shot for by the Ghoorkas, and M. is trying to get up some pony races. The only novelty I suggested was to ask the wives of the uncovenanted service (the clerks in public offices) to send contributions. This was rather a shock to the aristocracy of Simla, and they did suggest that some of the wives were very black. That I met by the argument that the black would not come off on their works, and upon the whole it was considered that we should not lose consequence, and might be saved trouble, by sending a printed paper round to each of their houses. I have done a quantity of drawings, which Mr. C. is to sell by auction. The rain still continues, but not so unceasing as it was, and as it lets us get out and prevents our giving balls, I think it a very nice time of year.
Wednesday, Sept. 5.
I have had Mr. D.’s June letter, which is always satisfactory, and is one of those gentlemanlike epistles (I don’t mean genteel, but pithy and to the point, and like a gentleman in contradistinction to a lady) that make most eligible letters in these foreign parts. G. always opens and reads Mr. D.’s letters to us before we see them, because he says he gets so much news out of them. Rather cool! What do you think I ought to do about it? Mr. D. and I might have secrets of vital importance, which G. might let out – very unpleasant!
Friday, Sept. 7.
There was such a beautiful plate-chest to be raffled for at the ‘Europe shop’ here – everything that life could require – silver tea-pot, cream, sugar, forks, spoons, bottle-stands, cruets, &c., and all so pretty. W. took two tickets, and I one, and there were only 26 tickets in all – 5l. each – so it is a great shame we have not won; but it was thrown for yesterday, and Mr. C. has got it. I am glad, for he wanted it, and is quite delighted.
There was a second prize, of a clock, which I could have put up with– but did not get it; and a third, of a looking-glass, which nobody wanted, and which Dr. D. won, and now he does not know what to do with it. I advise him to bring it home some dark night, and throw it into the valley behind his house. It may amuse the monkeys, who live there in tribes, and can be of no other use.
No looking-glass in India has much quicksilver, but this happens to have none at all, except a few slight streaks here and there.
Saturday, Sept. 8.
You cannot imagine how beautiful our weather is, since a storm on Wednesday, which cleared up the rains. Such nice clear air, and altogether it feels English and exhilarating; and I think of you, and Eden Farm, and the Temple Walk, and Crouch Oak Lane, and the blue butterflies, and then the gravel-pit, and your reading ‘Corinne’ to me; and then the later days of Eastcombe and our parties there, with G. V. in his wonderful spirits, with all his wit, and all the charm about him; and all this because the air is English. I should like to go back to childhood and youth again – there was great enjoyment in them.
Monday, Sept. 10.
We had a large congregation yesterday, and an excellent sermon from Mr. Y., whose health, however, does not improve. I have made such a collection of drawings for the fancy sale —really very good. I am sorry to say it, for it may sound vain, perhaps is vain; but I persist in thinking them good drawings, and I cannot help thinking you would buy some of them.
Mrs. Chance, with her twins, came to visit Chance père to-day. He was very polite to his wife, but could not endure the young puppies. I am not surprised, for they are nearly quite black, with a little white, but no tan, and with vulgar, greasy, smooth hair. However, they are only ten days old, and babies, as you know, alter rapidly.
Thursday, Sept. 13.
We had such a nice expedition yesterday afternoon; just the sort of thing your children would have enjoyed (only you never let them come out with me now). It was to see two waterfalls, and in Simla, where water is bought at great expense, we make much of a few pailfulls that fall gratis over a rock. The valley is about 3,000 feet below our house, very Swiss, and quite different from the hills – such large cedars, and here and there a little Swiss-looking cottage, with one door and no window. I always wonder how ignorant of the ways of the world the inhabitants of these solitary valleys can be, and how such ignorance feels. No ‘crafty boys,’ no fashions, no politics, and, I suppose, a primitive religion that satisfies them. There are temples of great age in all these places. I imagine half these people must be a sort of vulgar Adams and Eves – not so refined, but nearly as innocent.
F. and I were carried down, and rode part of the way up, and when there, we clambered about some wonderful places, and I have not laughed so much for ages. There was a cave to go to, and a smooth rock to descend. G. and Captain J. got me safely to the bottom of the rock, and there we stopped to see Major U., Dr. D., and F. follow. They got half-way, clinging on, by a chain of the servants, to a tree at the top, and then they could get no further. The waterfall made such a noise, that we could not make them hear that there was nothing, in fact, to come for; and their hesitations, and scramblings back again, very nearly killed me. Luckily there was nobody left below to laugh at my return. The jonpaunees made steps of themselves, and I ran up a flight of jonpaunee-stairs very decorously. We are all so stiff to-day, not having walked so much for three years. ‘My bones, girl, my bones!’ (see ‘Romeo and Juliet.’) I wonder whether old Mrs. Davenport has died since we left England. What an actress she was!
Monday, Sept. 17.
There! I skip three entire days, for my whole soul is in England, and this letter must go to-day. This morning there came a knock at the door at seven, and Rosina brought me your July letters, with E.’s enclosed. I had scarcely digested those, when the Calcutta dâk came in, bringing to me your June despatch, which ought to have come with the other June letters exactly one fortnight ago – but never mind! How pleasant it is to have them both! The Coronation seems to have gone off wonderfully well, and must have been a beautiful sight. I suppose we shall have our English papers in two days: I am insatiable for more details. To be sure, if that little Queen’s head were quite turned, and she became the most affected and consequential of beings, it would not be surprising. A young creature of nineteen to be the occasion of such a splendid ceremony, and to have brought together all the great people from all the great nations to do her honour, is enough to intoxicate her. She must have great good sense to be so entirely guiltless of nonsense.
Letter to the Countess of B
Simla, Sept. 8, 1838.
My dearest Sister, – There was no letter from you by the last overland (June). Odd! Can you account for it? Perhaps you did not write, which might be one reason (though a very insufficient one) why the letter did not come, but still it was a pity.
I say no more, being held back by the circumstance that you will have been a whole month without a line from us. Our letters of June, July, and August, all leave Bombay this blessed day – Saturday, Sept. 8. Such an accumulation of twaddle! We are not to blame; we have written – I wish everybody could say as much: but, however, as Falstaff says, when he had wrongfully accused Dame Quickly of picking his pocket, ‘Hostess, I forgive thee – go. Look to thy servants: cherish thy guests; thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified.’
It is such a nice day to-day. The rains ended last Wednesday. After five days of an even down-pour, there came a storm of wind that might have changed the places of some of the little hills, if they had been addicted to hopping, and which devastated my little garden, which happens to be on the windy side of the house; but since that, we have not had a drop of rain. The snowy range has appeared again after a fog of three months. The hills are all blue and green and covered with flowers, and there is a sharp, clear air that is perfectly exhilarating. I have felt nothing like it, I mean nothing so English, since I was on the terrace at Eastcombe, except perhaps the week we were at the Cape. It is a shame of the storm to have twisted my one honeysuckle into a wisp of dead leaves; to have laid low our only double dahlia, and to have broken off a branch of the lavender bush of Simla. All these treasures G. deposited in my little garden at the back of the house, and this is the result of his unguarded confidence. The dahlia was of that rhubarb and magnesia colour which makes you hear the spoon grit against the cup as you look at it. Still it was the only double dahlia in India; but that will revive again. The honeysuckle is a mortifying business. Colonel V. has another, and he used to come crowing and stuttering here about this ‘cu-cu-cu-curious plant’ of his which suddenly took a dwarfish turn and stopped growing; whereas mine had reached the top of the house, and old V. used to call once a week to look at it. Now, I don’t mind the loss of Colonel V.’s visits, but I did like to make him envious of my honeysuckle. We are all dreadfully within sight of travelling again, but there are still six weeks of repose, so that I am as deaf as a post when the word ‘tent’ is mentioned. Still, the subject of provisions, and marches, and agents and magistrates, must be alluded to.
Don’t you think it would be worth my while to buy a pot of paint, out of my own allowance, from the Simla ‘Europe shop,’ and have the acorns and oak leaves painted out of the lining of my tent? The lining is buff, with sprigs of oak leaves, and there is an occasional mistake in the pattern, which distracts me; and there is such an association of dust and bore and bad health with those acorns, that I do not think I can encounter them again. We are to leave this on November 5. I mention that openly, because if Guy Faux wishes to keep his ‘day,’ it would, perhaps, be better and more humane to blow up people who are going into camp, than people who live in houses.
Sept. 13.
I must put this up to-night. This is the first time I have had an evening quite alone, in an English fashion, since we came to India – not even a stray aide-de-camp about. They are all gone to the last of the Simla theatricals. I had seen four out of the five plays, so I excused myself, as I am drawing all day for the fancy fair, and wanted to write to you and M. and C. to-night. I was in a horrid fright. – was going to stay with me, but with great tact he walked off to his own house; and so now, if there were but a carriage-road and a knocker, and a servant in red inexpressibles to announce you, I really should take it kindly if you would drive up, give a double knock, and be announced.
As it is, I am very comfortable. I don’t object; but the window is open to the verandah, and I see the little green Ghoorkas (the most hideous little soldiers in the world) mounting guard, with all sorts of outlandish noises. The door is, of course, open to the passage – Indian doors can’t shut – and my four hirkarus are sitting cross-legged, wrapped up in shawls, playing at a sort of draughts that they call ‘pucheese.’ There is not a human being in the house who understands a word of English: the Europeans are all gone to the play, and the head servants go to their own homes after dinner. I have a great mind to call out ‘fire!’ and ‘thieves!’ as loud as I can, to see what will come of it – it will only break up the game of pucheese; and the hirkarus will think I have gone mad, and respect me accordingly – they have a great regard for madness. I really think it awful! I wish I could speak Hindustani – I am sure I must want something, only I cannot ask for it. I will tell them to seal this letter, and if they tear it up I shall have made a sad waste of my evening.
Good-bye, dearest sister. Please always write by the overland post.