CHAPTER XXII
Simla, September 27, 1838.
THE last ten days have been devoted to finishing up my goods for the fancy fair, and I have not touched a pen. Yesterday the fair ‘came off,’ as they say, and to-day I am so tired I can’t do anything. Once more ‘my bones, girl, my bones.’ There never was so successful a fête. More English than anything I have seen in this country. Giles and Wright went off at seven in the morning with my goods; and at ten Mr. C. came to go down with me. Annandale is a beautiful valley, about two miles off, full of large pine trees. Colonel V. had erected a long booth for the ladies who kept stalls, and there were mottoes and devices over each of them. ‘The Bower of Eden’ was in the centre. Before we came to the booth, there was a turnpike gate with a canvas cottage and an immense board, ‘the Auckland toll bar,’ and Captain P. dressed up as an old woman who kept the gate. On one side there was the Red Cow, kept by some of the uncovenanted, who spoke excellent Irish, and whose jokes and brogue were really very good. There was a large tent opposite the booth for G., and in every part of the valley there were private tents sent by careful mothers for their ayahs and children. There were roundabouts for the natives. W. O. and three of the aides-de-camp kept a skittle-ground, with sticks to throw at, and a wheel of fortune, and a lucky bag, which had great success. G. and F. came soon after eleven, and the selling went off with great rapidity. The native servants had had great consultations whether it would be respectful to buy at my stall, and there were only two or three who arrived at that pitch of assurance; but they were all present, dressed in their finest shawls, and they all thought it very amusing. Half an hour nearly cleared off the stalls, and then Mr. C. began selling my drawings by auction, and made excellent fun of it, knowing the history of every native that I had sketched, and also of all the bidders, and he did it so like an auctioneer: ‘I have kept this gem till now – I may call it a gem, the portrait of Gholam, the faithful Persian who accompanied Major L. from Persia, from Herât! I may say this is a faithful likeness of a man who has witnessed the siege of Herât. Will that great diplomatist, Major L., who is, I know, anxious to possess this perfect picture, allow me to say eighty rupees, or seventy, or sixty?’ ‘This next picture is the Rajah of Nahun and his sons, and I think it quite unequalled for brilliancy of colouring. I shall have nothing equal to this lot to offer this morning. I bid thirty rupees for it myself – the surpêche in the rajah’s turban is worth the money.’ And so he went on, and, I hope, his is the sin of running up the price of the drawings, for I really was quite sorry to see the prices they went at. One group of heads, which only took me three days to do, sold for ninety-five rupees (£9 10s.), and my twenty drawings fetched 800 rupees. Considering that the whole proceeds of the sale is 3,400 rupees, that is a large proportion. My stall altogether produced nearly 1,400 rupees. W. and his allies got 160. The A.s and B.s kept an eating stall, but did not make much by it. As soon as the auction was over, we all went to luncheon with them; then the Ghoorkas shot for some beautiful prizes G. gave them, and he gave the sword for the single-stick fighters. Then we all went to W.’s games. Captain D. was dressed up like an old woman, and Captain P. exactly like a thimble-rigger at Greenwich, and they kept everybody, even Sir G. R., in roars of laughter. It was very amusing to see the grave pompous people, like R., taking three throws for a rupee, and quite delighted if they knocked off a tin snuff-box or a patent stay-lace. Then we had pony races, which ended in Colonel F. riding his old pony against a fat Captain D., and coming in conqueror with universal applause. And then, the sports having lasted from eleven to five, and everybody amused and in good humour, we all came home. It is lucky it was so very shady, for, as it is, hardly any of us can see to-day, from being unused to daylight. The best fancy sales in Calcutta never produced more than 2,000 rupees, so this is quite wonderful, considering that the whole of our European society is only 150 people, and many of them have not a great deal to spend. F. did not keep a stall, and I was rather afraid of it at first, for the natives are slow about that sort of novelty; but as soon as they fairly understood it was for charity, which is the only active virtue they are up to, they thought it all quite right.
We had a melancholy death last Sunday – a poor Mrs. G. She lived at Stirling Castle, just above our house, so there never was a day in which we did not meet her, with her two little boys carried after her, either going to fetch Captain G. from his office, or coming back with him. We met her on Friday evening, and stopped to tell her that Lord G. had written to enquire after her. On Saturday evening she was not at all well, and on Sunday morning Doctor W. sent for Doctor D. to consult with him. Doctor D. saw directly that she was in the blue stage of cholera, and before we came out from church she was dead; she was within a month of her confinement, but the child died too. The poor husband was in such a dreadful state, and so was the eldest boy, who is about four years old. W. says he never heard anything so shocking as the poor boy’s screams. It was necessary to bury her early on Monday morning, and as it is the custom for all acquaintances to attend a funeral, W. went up to Stirling Castle with Colonel B. None but the most degraded natives will touch an European corpse, so the doctors put her into the coffin, and Colonel B. screwed it down, and they were obliged to borrow the boys of our band to carry her to the grave. Poor Captain G. was not able to go himself, but the little boy had crept out of bed and was clinging to his father, and trying to comfort him. We were to have had a party here in the evening, but put it off; for in such a small society of Christians, every possible respect is to be paid to the feelings of any of them.
Wednesday, October 3.
We had our party, which had been put off on Monday, and it went off very well. It is the last meeting of Simla, so everybody came. A great many go down to the plains this week. Poor things! it is about as rational as if a slice of bread were to get off the plate and put itself on the toasting-fork. We have a month more of this place, but there are horrible signs of preparation, camel trunks and stores going off. I very often think I could have a fit of hysterics when I think we are to have five whole months this year of those deplorable tents, in all that dust and heat. This day three years we embarked from Portsmouth, so we have only got two years and five months more of India. That is really very satisfactory. I begin to think of what I shall say when I see you again. It really will be too great happiness; I never can think of it coolly or rationally. It gets into a medley, and I begin to breathe shortly, and to have red ears and pains in my elbows, and then I think it is presumptuous to look on so far; but still it is not so very, very far.
Saturday, Oct. 6.
It was a shocking sight last night, to find the road littered with camel trunks, and beds, and flocks of goats, and dishes and stoves – all the camp preparations of the A.s. They are the first family who have gone down to the plains, much, I should think, to the detriment of the two babies; for they say the heat still is dreadful, and they go into it from this nice climate, which is almost frosty now. But those camp preparations, I am happy to say, made everybody ill. Even Mrs. E., who is going to stay up here, said she went home quite affected by the recollection of the trouble of last year. I really think I can’t go.
We had such an evening of misfortunes on Thursday. We were all playing at loo, the doors open, house door and all, as is usual in India, when the most unearthly yell was set up, apparently in the passage, and this was repeated three or four times, and then all the servants seemed to be screaming. ‘A leopard carrying off Chance!’ was the first thing everybody said, and all the gentlemen ran out, when it proved to be one of Dr. D.’s jonpaunees, who was lying asleep at the door, and had had a violent nightmare; and though three others laid hold of him, he rolled himself off the verandah into the valley below. However, he was not the least hurt. But that set all our nerves on edge. Then, when we went to bed, I heard violent hysterics going on in the maids’ room, and that turned out to be Myra, F.’s ayah, whose husband lives with W. O. They are never a very happy couple, and all of a sudden he took up a stick and beat her dreadfully, and she had run off from his house, leaving her baby on the floor. We sent and redeemed the baby, but it was a long time before Myra could be pacified, and sent off to sleep at Rosina’s house. W. turned off Lewis the next morning, who immediately went and made it up with his wife, who came this morning and said she must go too. My poor old Rosina continues to be very ill, coughing and spitting blood, which is very often the case with the Bengalees here. I am going to send her down to Sabathoo on Tuesday, with Mrs. A. Sabathoo is a very hot place, and may very likely cure Rosina; but she does nothing but cry now, poor old thing, at the idea of going, and insists upon dying here, but I think she will get well in a warm place. One man whom we sent down to the plains, apparently in the last stage of decline, has got safe to Calcutta, and is quite well again. I suppose this is a very bad Siberia to them.
There has been great excitement and happiness in our household. Captain J. wanted to do something kind by the servants on his giving up the charge of them, and wished to have the wages of a few of his favourites raised. I thought that would raise a host of malcontents and petitioners, and suggested that a reward for length of service (as the Company will no longer pension off old servants) would be a popular and useful measure, and he took to it kindly, and by leaving two or three places vacant, we shall not entail any additional expense on our successor. There were several who had been at Government House more than thirty-five years, fifteen who had been between twenty and thirty years, and more than twenty who had served fifteen years. We made three classes of them, and gave them two rupees, and one rupee, and half a rupee per month additional pay, which measure has diffused universal satisfaction, only it occasions constant references to the house-book, for natives never know anything about time; so some of them, who had been there about five years, declare it must be nearly fifteen. Had you a good eclipse of the moon last night? I never saw a really handsome one before; but I dare say yours is quite another moon, and another earth altogether.
Tuesday, Oct. 9.
Poor Rosina set off to-day; she seemed very low, but the air now is so keen here that she naturally felt worse. She fancies she is only going to stay a week, but Dr. D. says she must stay there till we pick her up on our way to the plains.
We have begun doing a little bit of packing, that is, I have made a grand survey of my wardrobe, and found that I had fourteen gowns to bestow on Wright, besides three of which she is to give me the loan, till we leave this place. Then I start clear for the march, six superb morning gowns and six evening ditto, some the remains of M.’s last supply, and some G.’s French gowns. I calculate they will enable me to make a very creditable appearance till I meet your treasure of a box at Agra. Nothing can be more judgematically planned.
Friday, Oct. 12.
They say this must go to-day, which I believe is a mistake. However, it is better to run no risks. I have been writing to R. to send out ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ overland. Does not that book drive you demented? and I am sure it is all true. I remember years ago a trial about one of those Yorkshire schools, where all the boys had the ophthalmia, and one boy had his bones through his skin, and none of the boys were allowed a towel; and these atrocities put us all into one of those frenzies in which we used to indulge in youth. I dare say Dickens was at that school. I wish he would not take to writing horrors, he realises them so painfully.
I am so busy to-day, I have hardly time to write. G. wants to give Runjeet a picture of our Queen in her coronation robes. The Sikhs are not likely to know if it is an exact likeness as far as face goes, and the dress I have made out quite correctly, from descriptions in the papers and from prints, and it really is a very pretty picture. It is to be sent to Delhi to-morrow, and it is to have a frame of gold set with turquoises, with the orders of the Garter and the Bath enamelled. In short, it will be ‘puffect, entirely puffect;’ but I think they ought to give me Runjeet’s return present, as it has cost me much trouble to invent a whole Queen, robes and all. We are all quite well. God bless you! My next letter will be from camp. ‘Mercy on us,’ as S. would say, but it is a comfort to think we shall end here again.
CHAPTER XXIII
Saturday, Oct. 20, 1838.
I THINK it looks ill, that I have let a whole week go by without a touch of Journal; but nothing particular has happened, and it does not mean any coldness, you know, dearest. I have spent a week more of the time I am to be away from you, so I could not be better employed.
Monday we gave a dinner, Tuesday we dined at the R.s. Met Mrs. – and a newly-married couple, the husband being an object of much commiseration. Not but what he is very happy, probably, but he married the very first young lady that came up to the hills this season; she was ‘uncommon ordinary’ then, and nothing can look worse, somehow, than she does now. I dare say she is full of merit, but I merely wish to observe, for the benefit of any of your sons who may come out to India, that when they have been two or three years in a solitary station they should not propose to the very first girl they see. However, I dare say the – s are very happy, as I said before.
We had such an excellent play last night, or rather two farces, acted chiefly by Captains X. and M., and Mr. C., and by Captain Y., one of Sir G.’s aides-de-camp. Captain X. is really quite as good as Liston, and I think he ought to run over a scene or two every evening for our diversion. It is supposed that R. was never seen to laugh till he cried before, which he certainly did last night. It is astonishing how refreshing a real, good laugh is. I have not had so good a one for ages.
Tuesday, Oct. 23.
The work of packing progresses, and there are no bounds to the ardour with which everybody labours to make us uncomfortable. This day fortnight we are to be in our wretched tents – that is, if we really do not find ourselves unequal to the shock at last. There was an idea that coolies enough could not be raised at last, as everybody goes away at the same time, so instead of 3,000 at once, we have 1,000 three times over, and as soon as they have taken one set of camel trunks to the plains they come back for another, so we spread our discomfort thus over a wide surface. I have succumbed to such a temptation to-day – I wish I had not, and yet I am glad I did – a large gold chain, two yards long, of the purest Indian gold. I could not let it escape me, and yet I know I should like to have the money to spend at Lahore.
Wednesday, Oct. 24.
To-day was a day of mysteries for Simla. R. came to breakfast with us, and did half an hour’s business with G., and that put his family into a fever. News had arrived yesterday that the Persians had abandoned the siege of Herât, and so the – s fancied that the Cabul business would be now so easy, that R. would not go in person.
G. and I were walking in the evening and met the – s, who said they had never passed such a day of curiosity, evidently thinking, poor new-married dears, that they were not going to part for ten years. Mrs. – said to G.: ‘Now, for once, Lord A., tell us a secret; what did R. go to you about?’ ‘Why, he came,’ G. said, ‘to ask where we bought our potatoes, they are so remarkably good.’ The other mystery was, that Captain Y. said he had been eight hours trying to prevent two gentlemen from fighting, and we cannot think of any fightable people at Simla. You never saw so lovely an ornament as a great Lucknow merchant brought yesterday. A bunch of grapes made up of twenty-seven emeralds, the smallest emerald the size of a marble, and all of such a beautiful colour; there are large pearls between each, and it is mounted on a plain green enamel stalk. It looks like the fruit in Aladdin’s garden. We want G. to buy it for his parting present to Runjeet Singh. They were to have exchanged rings, and a ring, one single diamond without a flaw, valued at 1,600l., was to have come up from Calcutta this week, but it has been stolen from the dâk. It was insured, but still it was a pity such a good diamond should be lost.
Friday, Oct. 26.
We rode to Mr. B.’s yesterday, knowing that otherwise that bunch of grapes would be slurred over, and not even mentioned to us. I began by saying, we thought it beautiful, and just the present for a great potentate, upon which B. said: ‘Yes, it is almost too expensive, but I was thinking of asking his lordship to let me present it to Shah Soojah.’ Luckily, that was too much even for G., and he said: ‘No, if I allow it to be bought at all, it could only be for a Governor-General to give away; besides, we are going to give Shah Soojah a kingdom, which is quite enough without any presents.’
‘A defeat,’ I thought, and Mr. B. looked as if emerald grapes were remarkably sour, and on our ride home G. said he meant to take them for Runjeet Singh.
Tuesday, Oct. 30.
G. took a fancy on Saturday to go, after dinner, to play at whist with Sir G. R., so we all jonpauned off, and very cold it is at night in those conveyances. The cold brought a bilious attack I had been brewing, to a crisis, and I had one of the worst headaches I ever had in my life, on Sunday, and could not sit up for a moment. It is the first day’s ailment I have had since the week we came to Simla, and very lucky that it came before we go into camp. This day week we start. ‘No ind to my sufferens!’ as some novel says.
Thursday, Nov. 1.
There! now I am quite well again, and in travelling condition; and perhaps, setting off in such good health, marching may not be so fatiguing as it was last year. We have had nothing but take-leave visits the last three days. Mrs. R. sets off to-morrow with her own children and those two little orphaned G.s, whom she is taking to England. The wives to be left here are becoming disconsolate and fractious.
Dear J. left us for good this morning. I do not think he cared much for us; but all the old servants, of whom he has had the care for eleven years, went with all their eastern, devoted-looking ways, and took leave of him and quite overset his nerves, and he went off in a shocking state. After taking leave of F. he quite broke down in G.’s room, and could not come to mine; and my jemadar came in with large tears running down: ‘Major Sahib so unhappy. He say he not able to speak to ladyship – he cry very much!’ I asked if they were all sorry he was going. ‘Yes, very. He very old gentleman at Government House, and know everything, and very just.’ And then, to wind it up with a fine piece of language, ‘he adapt properly well to all lordship’s poor servants.’ What that means I have not a guess, but I think it sounds comfortable; and I see now that the fault of India is that nobody ‘adapts properly well’ to my English feelings.
Sunday, Nov. 4.
After service to-day, the dining-room was given up to Giles and the Philistines, the carpets taken up, and a long country dance formed of the camel trunks and linen-presses that we leave behind; and now we dine and live in the drawing-room, which, without its curtains and draperies, and with its crude folding-doors, looks like half a ball-room at a Canterbury inn. Poor dear house! I am sorry to see it despoiled. We have had seven as good months here as it is possible to pass in India – no trouble, no heat; and if the Himalayas were only a continuation of Primrose Hill or Penge Common, I should have no objection to pass the rest of my life on them. Perhaps you would drive up to Simla on Saturday and stay till Monday.
Monday, Nov. 5.
I had much better not write to-day, only I have nothing else to do; but the September overland post is come (the August is missing), and I always have a regular fit of low spirits that lasts twenty-four hours after that. This is your Newsalls letter, and dear T.’s account of the archery and country balls, and the neighbours; and it all sounds so natural and easy, and I feel so unnatural and so far off. Just as you say, we have been here very little more than half our time, and I am sure it feels and is almost a life.
It will be nearly six years altogether that we shall have been away, if we ever go home again; and that is an immense gap, and coming at a wrong time of life. Ten or fifteen years ago it would have made less difference; your children would still have been children; but now I miss all their youth, and ours will be utterly over. We shall meet again —
When youth and genial years have flown,
And all the life of life is gone.
I feel so very old, not merely in look, for that is not surprising at my age, and in this country, where everybody looks more than fifty; but just what Lady C. describes in her letter – the time for putting up with discomforts has gone by. I believe what adds to my English letter lowness, is the circumstance that carpets, curtains, books, everything is gone from my room, and I am sitting in the middle of it, on a straw beehive chair, which the natives always use when they do admit a chair, with Chance’s own little chair for my feet, and the inkstand on the ledge of the window. I wish I was at Newsalls. There! now they want my inkstand.
Syree, Tuesday, Nov. 6.
The beginning of a second march, and so I had better put this up and send it. We left poor Simla at six this morning, and if I am to be in India I had rather be there than anywhere. We have had seven very quiet months, with good health and in a good climate, and in beautiful scenery. That is much as times go. As for this march, I cannot say what I feel about it. It began just as it left off.
We arrived to breakfast here, and the coolies have been fractious, and so, when I took off my habit, I had no gown to put on; the right box is not come, and I have no bonnet to put on for the afternoon’s march.
We are in the dâk bungalow, two whitewashed empty rooms, with streaks of damp and dirt all over them. We have been breakfasting in one, and all the deserting husbands have joined us. To be sure, St. Cloup is a jewel of a cook for this sort of thing. He came here in the night and prepared the breakfast we have had, and the luncheon we are going to have. He is now gone on to Sabathoo, where we shall find dinner, and he meant to go on again at night to the tents, half-way between Sabathoo and the camp, to arrange to-morrow’s breakfast and luncheon. God bless you, dearest M.!
There is a ship lost – ‘The Protector’ – just in the mouth of the river. It was bringing troops and several passengers, but none whose names we know. There is only one soldier saved out of the whole crew.