CHAPTER XXXVII
Thursday, April 11, 1839.
WE had Mrs. A., Mrs. L., and Mrs. R. to dinner yesterday, as we find it the best way to dine the most companionable ladies en famille when we can furnish gentlemen enough of our own to hand them in to dinner.
G. ought to dress himself as an abbot, and with his four attendant monks receive as many nuns as the table will hold: the dress would make all the difference, and otherwise I do not see how society is to be carried on this year.
Friday, April 12.
I wish my box of gowns would ever arrive, don’t you? I believe now, if I see it when we go down from the hills this year I shall be lucky. Do you recollect sending me a pink striped gown, a long time ago, by a Mr. R.? I had it made up only lately, and put it on new last night: it was beautifully made, ‘and I never looked more truly lovely!’ but there was an odd rent in the sleeve which, Wright said, must be the tailor’s fault. I put on my sash and heard an odd crack under the arm; then Chance jumped into my lap, and there was an odd crack in front. I sat down to dinner, and there was another odd crack behind. In short, long before bed-time my dear gown was what Mrs. M. used to call ‘all in jommetry’ – there was hardly a strip wider than a ribbon, rather a pretty fashion, but perhaps too undefined and uncertain: that comes of being economical in dress. The next gown you send me shall be made up the afternoon it arrives, but you need not send any more till we come out to India next time. I really think this banishment is coming to an end. Now we have broken into the last year but one, it seems like nothing. We have forsaken the buying of shawls and trinkets, and have gone into the upholstery and furniture line; everything is done with a view to Kensington Gore. I have just been writing to C. E. for a few Chinese articles – a cabinet, and a table or so, to arrive at Calcutta next year, and not to be unpacked. I have an arm-chair and a book-case concocting at Singapore, and a sort of table with shelves of my own devising, that is being built at Bareilly, under the magistrate there. That, I think, may prove a failure, but I have a portfolio and inkstand on the stocks that will be really good articles. I got some beautiful polished pebbles from Banda and Nerbudda. (I have not a notion where that is, but everybody here seems to know; I only know my pebbles were ordered eight months ago.) I thought they would have been small trashy things, but some of them are beautiful, like that great stone you had in a brooch, and I am having them set in silver, as a portfolio incrusted and enchased, and all that sort of thing. It will make a shocking item in my month’s expenditure, but then it will be an original device, and when I go home of course everybody will observe: ‘An Indian portfolio, I see, Miss Eden,’ and I shall carelessly answer, ‘Yes, those are the common Bazaar portfolios, but you can have very handsome ones made, if you like to order them, and then, of course, everybody will write out for a common portfolio.
Saturday.
Nothing like a prophecy to ensure its not being fulfilled. Because I said that box would not come till next year, this very morning, after luncheon, a long file of coolies appeared ascending the hill, and the result was twenty-five boxes of sorts– preserves and sweetmeats and sardines and sauces from France, a box of silks and books from ditto. More books from Rodwell, and though last, much the greatest, ‘in our dear love,’ my two boxes of gowns and bonnets.
Thank you again, dearest, for all the trouble you have taken, and very successful trouble it has been.
Tell E., Wright of course thought her tapes, pins, &c., the most valuable part of the cargo, as I was living on a few borrowed pins, large and pointless. I suppose I shall wear the head-dress eventually, and one cap with long streamers looks very tolerably, but there is another with quantities of loose tags, in which I look exactly like Madge Wildfire. It may perhaps be subdued by pins and stitches; but if not, it suits F. remarkably well.
Monday.
I thought it due to you and to myself to wear something new, so I put on that cap with the long tags for church yesterday morning, and Mrs. R. and Mrs. A. both found their devotions much interrupted thereby. We went to afternoon service at church in the Bazaar, to hear a new clergyman, who has come up for his health, and looks half dead, poor man.
Wednesday, April 17.
We had our first dance last night, and it has been one of the gayest we have had here; only fourteen dancing men, but they never sat down, and they had Quadrilles and English country-dances and waltzing, and altogether they all liked it, and beg to have another as soon as possible.
It is rather touching to see our serious Q. dancing away as if his life depended on it; and A. and C. and all the secretaries danced away too, and they were all amused at a small expense of trouble. Between the band and our dinners they are all becoming acquainted and good friends, which is lucky, for I think half the ailments in India come from the solitary lives people lead.
Friday, April 19.
W. O. arrived yesterday morning; he looks uncommonly well, considering that he has ridden sixty miles since three in the morning, and it is very hot even in the hills. He and Mr. A. have killed thirty-six tigers, the largest number ever killed in this part of the country by two guns, and his expedition seems to have answered very well.
I began Wilberforce’s Life when our new books came, but am disappointed. His journals are too short and terse, like heads of chapters; however, there are some good bits here and there, and I like the man himself very much. ‘The Woman of the World’ is a very amusing novel; evidently Mrs. Gore’s, though she writes so much that I suppose she does not put her name to all her works, but it is impossible to mistake them. ‘The Glanville Family’ we got from Calcutta, as you said so much of it, and we all thought it very amusing; but, in fact, ‘Boz’ is the only real reading in the amusing line – don’t you think so?
Our aides-de-camp gave a small fête champêtre yesterday in a valley called Annandale. The party, consisting of six ladies and six gentlemen, began at ten in the morning, and actually lasted till half-past nine at night. Annandale is a thick grove of fir-trees, which no sun can pierce. They had bows and arrows, a swing, battledore and shuttlecock, and a fiddle – the only fiddle in Simla; and they danced and eat all day, and seemed to have liked it throughout wonderfully. Oh dear! with my worn-out spirits and battered constitution, and the constant lassitude of India, it seems marvellous that any strength could stand that physical trial, but I suppose in our young Bromley ball days we should have thought it great fun. These young people did, at all events. They give another pic-nic next Thursday, and we are getting up some tableaux and charades which are to be acted here; the dining-room to be turned into a theatre. They are a very popular set of young men, and I bless their little hearts for taking so much trouble to carry on amusement; but I think they go at it rather too eagerly, and it will end in disappointment to some of them. The expense of these parties will not be so great to them, for both St. Cloup and Mars came to me yesterday to know what they were to do. ‘Ces messieurs’ had asked for a few ‘petits plats’ and a cook or two; and the man who makes ice had been to Mars for French fruits to make it with.
Wednesday, April 24.
I had a young flying squirrel given me a week ago, its eyes shut, quite a baby; it sucks beautifully, and now its eyes are open. I keep thinking of Lord Howth and his rat. It is very like one, only with beautiful sable fur, and a tail half a yard long, and wings; at present very playful and gentle, but I detect much latent ferocity, that will be brought out by the strong diet of almonds and acorns to which he must come at last.
Saturday, April 27.
We had a large dinner yesterday of the chief actors and actresses, and I had had an immense gilt frame made, and put up in the folding-doors of the drawing-room; and after dinner proposed carelessly that they should just try how tableaux would look, and with our shawls and veils and W.’s armour we got up two of the prettiest little scenes possible; I dare say much better than if they had been got up with more care. Mrs. N., Mrs. C., X., and P. acted two scenes from ‘Old Robin Gray,’ while C. sang the ballad, and then W. and X., with Mrs. R. and Mrs. L., acted two scenes out of ‘Ivanhoe.’
It was a new idea to Indians, and had the greatest success, and the acting a ballad makes a great difference. It used to be dull at Woburn for want of a meaning.
Three of the ladies were really pretty; but the odd thing is, that Mrs. R., the plain one, looked the best of all, and sat like a statue. It was a very pretty sight.
Our gentlemen gave another pic-nic down at the waterfall yesterday, and they say nothing ever was so delightful; and it is to be hoped it was, as it began at seven in the morning and lasted till eleven at night.
Then there has been great interest about our theatricals on Tuesday, but it is a difficult matter to arrange the parts so as to give satisfaction to all the ladies concerned.
Saturday, May 4.
My flying squirrel is becoming familiar, and flies a little; that is, it takes long hops after me wherever I go, and I feel be-ratted. The two little girls I bought are turning out very nice children. Wright and Jones are teaching them to work, and make quite an amusement of them. The dispensary which was built by our Fancy Fair proceeds was opened by Dr. D. this week. G. and I rode to see it yesterday, and it is a nice little place, with a very good room for surgical cases, of which, luckily, there are none at present, but Dr. D. had ten patients this morning; one was a Tartar woman, another a Cashmeree, and some Ladakh people. Such an odd result of drawings and work. One of the native doctors attends there, and has taken such a fancy to it that he has asked leave to remain here when we go down to Calcutta, and he means to give up Government House. God bless you, dearest. I suppose you are going out every evening. I cannot say how I like your London campaign. It is such an amusing story that I want it to begin again.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Simla, May 23, 1839.
A LETTER to you which is to go by the Persian Gulf only departed to-day, and I believe there will be no regular steamer for nearly six weeks. A sad interruption to our little communications. A few days after my letter to you was sealed, G. got the official accounts of the taking of Candahar, or rather how Candahar took Shah Soojah, and would have him for its King. There never was anything so satisfactory. I hope M. and Lord M. will have received and shown you the copies of Sir A. Burnes’s letters; it was such a picturesque description of the business. M. wrote me a very good account of it. He says: – ‘Five days ago we poor politicals were assailed from all quarters, from the commander-in-chief to the lowest ensign. They were all exclaiming how we had deceived them; that we had given out that Shah Soojah would be received by the chiefs and people of his country with open arms; that the resources of the country would be laid open to the British army – instead of which, he was opposed by his own countrymen; no chiefs came near him; the army was starving in a land of milk and honey; in fact, we had deceived ourselves, and that Shah Soojah’s cause was impossible. A little patience, and the fallacy of these sentiments would be proved. The sirdars left their late capital with scarcely two hundred followers; their most confidential servants deserted them, for to the last their measures were most oppressive, and they were heartily execrated. Every great chief with numerous followers came out to meet the Shah, and greeted him on his arrival in his own country with every demonstration of joy; the poor crowded about him, making offerings of flowers, and they strewed the road he was to pass over, with roses. Yesterday the King went to visit the city (we are encamped about two miles from it); every person, high and low, seemed to strive how they could most show their devotion to his Majesty, and their delight at the return of a Suddozie to power. The King visited the tomb of his grandfather, Ahmed Shah; and the Prophet’s shirt, which is in keeping of the Mollahs in charge of the tomb, and which was brought out by the sirdars when they were trying to raise a religious war against us, was produced, and the King hugged and kissed it over and over again.
‘The populace are the finest race of Asiatics I have seen; the men tall and muscular, the women particularly fair and pretty, and all well dressed. It seems as if we had dropped into paradise.
‘The country that we have been traversing for two months is the most barren and desolate eye ever rested on; not a tree nor a blade of grass to be seen; we were constantly obliged to make marches of twenty miles to find water; the hills were only huge masses of clay. The contrast now is great; the good things of this life are abundant; luxurious crops, which will be ready for the sickle in three or four weeks; extensive plains of green sward for the cattle; endless gardens and orchards; the rose-trees grow wild, eight or ten feet high; fruits of all kinds; rivulets flow through the valley; the birds are all song birds, and the air rings with their notes; in short, we have reached the oasis at last, and are thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
‘The people are all at their occupations as usual, and seem to have perfect confidence in us. The natives all agree in saying that Dost Mahommed, upon hearing of his brothers having fled, will follow their example, &c. I am very happy in my appointment, and I feel I have a great deal more to say to you, but this must go.’
Poor M.! In to-day’s Calcutta paper there is the death of his pretty little sister, who came out not two years ago; she very nearly died during the first hot season, and now has been carried off by a return of the same fever. Certainly this public news is very satisfactory; the whole thing done without bloodshed; and the effect on the people here is wonderful; the happiness of the wives is very great: they see, with their mind’s eye, their husbands eating apricots and drinking acid sherbet, and they are satisfied. Our ball to-morrow will be very gay, and I have just written to P. to stick up a large ‘Candahar’ opposite the other illuminations.
Saturday, May 25.
The Queen’s ball ‘came off’ yesterday with great success. We had had, the beginning of the week, three days of rain, which frightened us, because it is a rain that nothing can stand. It did us one good deed on Monday – washed away the twenty-four people who were coming to dine with us, which was lucky, as the greater part of the dinner prepared for them was also washed away by the rain breaking the skylight in the dining-room, and plumping down on the table. I went down by myself to Annandale on Thursday evening, to see how things were going on there, and found X., who has been encamped there for three days, walking about very conjugally with Mrs. N, to whom he is engaged. I felt rather de trop as they stepped about with me, showing off the preparations. It was a very pretty-looking fête; we built one temporary sort of room which held fifty people, and the others dined in two large tents on the opposite side of the road, but we were all close together, and drank the Queen’s health at the same moment with much cheering. Between the two tents there was a boarded platform for dancing, roped and arched in with flowers, and then in different parts of the valley, wherever the trees would allow of it, there was ‘Victoria,’ ‘God save the Queen,’ and ‘Candahar’ in immense letters twelve feet high. There was a very old Hindu temple also prettily lit up. Vishnu, or Mahadevi, to whom I believe it really belonged, must have been affronted. The native dealers in sweetmeats came down to sell their goods to the servants and jonpaunees, and C. and X. went round and bought up all their supplies for about twenty rupees for the general good. We dined at six, then had fireworks, and coffee, and then they all danced till twelve. It was the most beautiful evening; such a moon, and the mountains looked so soft and grave, after all the fireworks and glare.
Twenty years ago no European had ever been here, and there we were, with the band playing the ‘Puritani’ and ‘Masaniello,’ and eating salmon from Scotland, and sardines from the Mediterranean, and observing that St. Cloup’s potage à la Julienne was perhaps better than his other soups, and that some of the ladies’ sleeves were too tight according to the overland fashions for March, &c.; and all this in the face of those high hills, some of which have remained untrodden since the creation, and we, 105 Europeans, being surrounded by at least 3,000 mountaineers, who, wrapped up in their hill blankets, looked on at what we call our polite amusements, and bowed to the ground if a European came near them. I sometimes wonder they do not cut all our heads off, and say nothing more about it.
Sunday, May 26.
The aides-de-camp are about as much trouble to me as so many grown-up sons. That sedate Captain P. followed me to my room after breakfast, and thought it right to mention that he had proposed to Miss S. on Thursday, and had been accepted, and that the aunt was agreeable, and that he had written to the stepfather, Colonel – , for his consent, which he had no reason to doubt, &c., and that he hoped I would not mention it to anybody but Lord A., as they were exceedingly desirous Captain L. E. should not know it, but Mrs. S. wished I should be told. If the kitchen poker or church steeple had gone and proposed, it would not have been more out of character, P. has always seemed so very indifferent and cold to ladies; though ever since we have been here, we have observed how altered he was, and what high spirits he was in; and then I met him the other day carrying a little nosegay to Stirling Castle, which looked suspicious and unnatural. Still the shock was great, and the only thing I could think of at first, was to ask with infinite and mistaken promptitude if she were a nice girl, to which P. naturally answered that of course she was – a very nice girl indeed; and I said I had had no opportunity of speaking to her when she dined here, but that now I should take pains to make her acquaintance. And then we discussed his prospects.
He cannot marry for a year at soonest, even if Colonel – consents then; but she is only eighteen, and her father will not let the elder one marry till she is twenty. P. is going away next week on an official tour to Cashmere, a sort of scientific survey which G. wants him to make, and he is to be away four months.
That business was settled, and after luncheon L. E. came, very unhappy in his mind —and thought I must have observed it. He had been on the point of proposing to Miss A. S., when he had been intercepted by the astute aunt, who said she could not but observe his attentions, and thought it as well to mention that A. was engaged. He said, so he had heard, but he did not believe it, and thereupon wrote to the aforesaid A., and brought me his letter and her answer, and his letter to the stepfather and the aunt’s letter to him, and he thought that with my knowledge of the world, I could tell him whether it did not appear that she was only sticking to her engagement because she thought it right, &c.
I could not possibly flatter him. She is a pretty-looking girl, who has evidently fretted herself into bad health because Colonel – would not consent to her marriage with a Mr. – , she being eighteen, and her lover the same age. As she has never heard from the lover since he joined the army of the Indus, it is very possible he is inconstant, and that is what L. E. goes upon; he does not care how long he waits, &c. (and I think he will have to wait some time), but in the meantime perhaps I would speak to Mrs. S., and above all things Captain P. was not to know. That is always the end of all confidences; and in the meantime, as P. lives in a broad grin, and L. E. in a deep sigh, I should think their secrets will be guessed in a week. Thank goodness, now they are all engaged, except Z., who is not likely to fall in love with anybody but himself.
Wednesday, May 29.
We had a theatrical dinner yesterday, and a rehearsal of our new tableaux, which promise to be very successful. Six from the ‘Corsair,’ and five from ‘Kenilworth.’ We had them at night to try how Gulnare would look with her lamp going to visit Conrade; and I had another grand idea, of a trap-door, down which Amy Robsart is supposed to have fallen, at least four inches, so that she must have had every bone in her body smashed; and Varney with a torch looking into it, and Leicester and Trevilian in despair, made it a most awful business. The rehearsal was rather amusing; all the gentlemen in their common red coats, and a pretty Mrs. V., supposed to be Medora, was sitting with the shovel in her hand, and said in such a quiet way, ‘This is, in fact, a guitar;’ which, as she is dreadfully shy, and not given to speak at all, was one of the best jokes she ever made.