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Ebook has 464 lines and 53433 words, and 10 pages

You say the sun hasn't shone since I left.

Are you by any chance paying me a compliment? Or are you merely stating a fact? As Pet Marjorie would say, I am primmed up with majestic pride because of the compliments I receive. One lady, whose baby I held for a little this morning, told me I had such a sweet, unspoiled disposition! But what really pleased me and made me feel inches taller was that Captain Gordon told someone who told me that he thought I had great stability of character. It is odd how one loves to be told one has what one hasn't! I, who have no more stability of character than a pussy-cat, felt warm with gratitude. Only--I should like to make my exit now before he discovers how mistaken he is!

Yes, I wish you were sitting by my side racing through the waves. Indeed, I wish all my dear people were here.

Are you really feeling lonely, you popular young man of many engagements? Lonely and dissatisfied are your words. But why? Why? Surely no one ever had less reason to feel dissatisfied. There are very many people, my friend, who wouldn't mind being you. And yet you aren't thankful! Not thankful for the interesting life you have, the plays you see, the dinners you eat, the charming women you talk to, the balls you dance at, the clubs you frequent--though what a man does at his clubs beyond escaping for a brief season from his womenkind I never quite know. Think how nice to be a man and not have to look pleased when one is really bored to extinction! If you are bored you have only to slip away to your most comfortable rooms. Did I tell you how much I liked your rooms that day Margie and I went to tea with you? or were we too busy talking about other things? Now don't be like Peter. He was grumbling about something and I told him to go away and count his blessings. He went obediently, and returned triumphant. "I've done it!" he said, "and I've six things to be thankful for and nine to be unthankful for--"

One thing for which I think you might feel "unthankful" is your lamentable lack of near relations. It is hard to be quite alone in the world; for, I agree, aunts don't count for much. Weighed in the balance they are generally found woefully wanting.

I remember once, when we were laughing over some escapade of our childhood you said you had no very pleasant recollection of your childish days, that you didn't look forward to holidays and that your happiest time was at school, because then you had companions.

I feel quite sad when I think what you missed. We were very lucky, four of us growing up together, and I sometimes wonder if other children had the same full, splendid time we had, and if they employed it getting into as many scrapes. The village people, shaking their heads over us and our probable end, used to say, "They're a' bad, but the lassie is the verra deil." We were bad, but we were also extraordinarily happy. I treasure up all sorts of memories, some of them very trivial and absurd, store them away in lavender, and when I feel dreary I take them out and refresh myself with them. One episode I specially remember, though why I should tell you about it I don't quite know, for it is a small thing and "silly sooth." We were staying at the time with our grandmother, the grandmother I am called for, a very stern and stately lady--the only person I have ever really stood in awe of. We had been wandering all day, led by John, searching for hidden treasure at the rainbow's foot, climbing high hills to see if the world came to an end at the other side, or some equally fantastic quest. It was dark and almost supper-time and we had committed the heinous crime of not appearing for tea, so, when we were told to go at once to see our grandmother, and stumbled just as we were, tired and dusty, hair on end and stockings at our ankles into the quiet room where she sat knitting fleecy white things by the table with the lamp, we expected nothing better than to be sent straight to bed, probably supperless. Our grandmother laid down her knitting, took off her spectacles, and instead of the rebuke we expected and deserved said, "Bairns, come away in. I'm sure you must be tired." It had been an unsuccessful day; we had found no treasure, not even the World's End; the night had fallen damp, with an eerily sighing wind which depressed us vaguely as we trudged homewards; but now, the black night shut out, there was the fire-light and the lamp-light, the kind old voice, and the delicious sense of having come home.

My attention is being diverted from my writing by a lady sitting a few yards away--the Candle we call her because so many silly young moths hover round. She is a buxom person, with very golden hair growing darker towards the roots, hard blue eyes, and a powdery white face. G. and I are intensely interested to know what is the attraction about her, for no one can deny there is one. She isn't young; the gods have not made her fair, and I doubt of her honesty; yet from the first she has been surrounded by men--most of them, I grant you, unfinished youths bound to offices in Calcutta, but still men. I thought it might be her brilliant conversation, but for the last half-hour I have listened,--indeed we have no choice but to listen, the voices are so strident,--and it can't be that, because it isn't brilliant or even amusing, unless to call men names like Pyjamas, or Fatty, or Tubby, and slap them playfully at intervals is amusing. A few minutes ago Mrs. Crawley came to sit with us looking so fresh in a white linen dress. I don't know why it is--she wears the simplest clothes, and yet she manages to make all the other women look dowdy. She has the gift, too, of knowing the right thing to wear on every occasion. At Port Said, for instance, the costumes were varied. The Candle flopped on shore in a trailing white lace dress and an enormous hat; some broiled in serge coats and skirts; Mrs. Crawley in a soft green muslin and rose-wreathed hat was a cool and dainty vision. Well, to return. As Mrs. Crawley shook up her chintz cushions, she looked across at the Candle--a long look that took in the elaborate golden hair, the much too smart blouse, the abbreviated skirt showing the high-heeled slippers, the crowd of callow youths--and then, smiling slightly to herself, settled down in her chair. I grew hot all over for the Candle. I don't suppose I need trouble myself. I expect she is used to having women look at her like that, and doesn't mind. Does she really like silly boys so much and other women so little, I wonder! There is generally something rather nasty about a woman who declares she can't get on with other women and whom other women don't like. Men have an absurd notion that we can't admire another woman or admit her good points. It isn't so. We admire a pretty woman just as much as you do. The only difference is you men think that if a woman has a lovely face it follows, as the night the day, that she must have a lovely disposition. We know better that's all.

The poor Candle! I feel so mean and guilty writing about her under her very eyes, so to speak. She looked at me just now quite kindly. I have a good mind to tear this up, but after all what does it matter? My silly little observations won't make any impression on your masculine mind. Only don't say "Spiteful little cat," because I don't mean to be, really.

This is much the longest letter I ever wrote. You will have to read a page at a time and then take a long breath and try again.

Mr. Brand has just come up to ask us why a sculptor dies a horrible death? Do you know?

We passed Aden yesterday and stopped for a few hours to coal. That was the limit. The sun beating down on the deck, the absence of the slightest breeze, coal-dust sifting into everything--ouf! Aden's barren rocks reminded me rather of the Skye Coolin. I wonder if they are climbable. I haven't troubled you much, have I, with accounts of the entertainments on board? but I think I must tell you about a whistling competition we had the other day. You must know that we had each a partner, and the women sat at one end of the deck and the men stood at the other and were told the tune they had to whistle, when they rushed to us and each whistled his tune to his partner, who had to write the name on a piece of paper and hand it back, and the man who got back to the umpire first won--at least his partner did. Do you understand? Well, as you know, I haven't much ear for music, and I hoped I would get an easy tune; but when my partner, a long, thin, earnest man, with a stutter, burst on me and whistled wildly in my face, I had the hopeless feeling that I had never heard the tune before. In his earnestness he came nearer and nearer, his contortions every moment becoming more extraordinary, his whistling more piercing; and I, by this time convulsed by awful, helpless laughter, could only shrink farther back in my seat and gasp feebly, "Please don't."

Mrs. Crawley was not much better. In my own misery I was aware of her voice saying politely, "I have no idea what the tune is, but you whistle beautifully--quite like a gramophone."

When my disgusted and exhausted partner ceased trying to emulate a steam-engine and began to look human again, I timidly inquired what he had been whistling. "The tune," he replied very stiffly, "was 'Rule, Britannia!'"

G. won by guessing "Annie Laurie." She is splendid at all games, and did I tell you how well she sings? In the cabin, when we are alone, she sings to me snatches of all sorts of songs, grave and gay, but she won't sing in the saloon, where every other woman on board with the smallest pretensions to a voice carols nightly. She is a most attractive person this G., with quaint little whimsical ways that make her very lovable. We are together every minute of the day, and yet we never tire of one another's company. I rather think I do most of the talking. If it is true that to be slow in words is a woman's only virtue, then, indeed, is my state pitiable, for talk I must, and G. is a delightful person to talk to. She listens to my tales of Peter and the others, and asks for more, and shouts with laughter at the smallest joke. I pass as a wit with G., and have a great success. She is going to stay with a married sister for the cold weather. Quite like me, only I'm going to an unmarried brother. I think we are both getting slightly impertinent to our elders. They tease us so at meals in the saloon we have to answer back in self-defence, and it is very difficult to help trying to be smart; sometimes, at least with me, it degenerates into rudeness. I told you about all the people at our table, but I forgot one--a very aged man with a long white beard, rather like the evil magician in the fairy tales, but most harmless. "Old Sir Thomas Erpingham," I call him, for I am sure a good soft pillow for that good grey head were better than the churlish turf of India. He is very kind, and calls us Sunshine and Brightness, and pays us the most involved Early Victorian compliments, which we, talking and laughing all the time, seldom ever hear, and it is left to kind Mrs. Wilmot to respond.

Last night we had an excitement. We got into a thick fog and had to stand still and hoot, while something--a homeward-bound steamer, they say--nearly ran us down. The people sleeping on deck said it was most awesome, but I slept peacefully through it until awakened by an American female running down the corridor and remarking at the top of a singularly piercing voice, "Wal, I am scared!"

To-day it is beautifully calm and bright; the nasty, hot, damp wind has gone; and we are sitting in our own little corner of the deck, Mrs. Crawley, Mrs. Wilmot, G., and I, sometimes reading, sometimes writing, very often talking. It is luck for us to have two such charming women to talk to. Mrs. Crawley is supposed to be my chaperon, I believe I forgot to tell you that. Boggley, who is a great friend of hers, wrote and asked her to look after me. How clever of him to fix on one in every way so desirable! Suppose he had asked the Candle!

We have such splendid talks about books. Mrs. Wilmot has, I think, read everything that has been written, also she is very keen about poetry and has my gift--or is it a vice?--of being able to say great pieces by heart, so between us G. is sometimes just a little bored. You see, G. hasn't been brought up in a bookish atmosphere and that makes such a difference. The other night she was brushing her hair, unusually silent and evidently thinking deeply. At last she looked up at me in my bunk, with the brush in her hand and all her hair swept over one shoulder, and said in the most puzzled way, "What was that nasty thing Mrs. Wilmot was saying all about dead women?" and do you know what she objected to?

"Dear dead women, with such hair, too-- What's become of all the gold Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I Feel chilly and grown old."

"Quite mad," said G. placidly as we left her.

We are going to have a dance to-night.

... Now we approach a conclusion. We have passed Colombo, and in three or four days ought to reach Calcutta.

Colombo was rather nice, warm and green and moist; but I failed to detect the spicy breeze blowing soft o'er Ceylon's isle, that the hymn led me to expect. The shops are good and full of interesting things, like small ivory elephants, silver ornaments, bangles, kimonos, and moonstones. We bought various things, and as we staggered with our purchases into the cabin, which now resembles nothing so much as an overcrowded pawnshop, Mrs. Murray remarked "I suppose you thought the cabin looked rather empty that you bought so much rubbish to fill it up."

We were dumb under the deserved rebuke. We had bought her a fan as a peace-offering, rather a pretty one too, but she thanked us with no enthusiasm.

In Colombo we got rickshaws and drove out to the Galle Face Hotel, a beautiful place with the surf thundering on the beach outside. If I were rich I would always ride in a rickshaw. It is a delightful way of getting about, and as we were trotted along a fine broad road, small brown boys ran alongside and pelted us with big waxy, sweet-smelling blossoms. We did enjoy it so. At the Galle Face, in a cool and lofty dining-hall, we had an excellent and varied breakfast, and ate real proper Eastern curry for the first time. Another new experience! I don't like curry at home, curry as English cooks know it--a greasy make-up of cold joint served with sodden rice; but this was different. First, rice was handed round, every particle firm and separate and white, and then a rich brown mixture with prawns and other interesting ingredients, which was the curry. You mix the curry with the rice, when a whole trayful of condiments is offered to eat with it, things like very thin water biscuits, Bombay duck--all sorts of chutney, and when you have mixed everything up together the result is one of the nicest dishes it has been my lot to taste. Note also, you eat it with a fork and spoon, not with a fork alone as mere provincials do!

I begin to feel so excited about seeing Boggley. It is two years since he was home last. Will he have changed much, I wonder? There was a letter from him at Colombo, and he hadn't left Darjeeling and had no house to take me to in Calcutta, so it would appear that when I do land my lodging will be the cold ground. It sounds as if he were still the same casual old Boggley. Who began that name? John, I think. He had two names for him--"Lo-the-poor-Indian" and "Boggley-Wallah"--and in time we all slipped into calling him Boggley. I like to think you two men were such friends at Oxford. Long before I knew you I had heard many tales of your doings, and I think that was one reason why, when we did meet, we liked each other and became friends, because we were both so fond of Boggley. I am filled with qualms as to whether he will be glad to see me. It must be rather a nuisance in lots of ways to have a sister to look after, but he was so keen that I should come that surely he won't think me a bother. Besides, when you think of it, it was really very good of me to leave my home and all my friends and brave the perils of the deep, to visit a brother in exile.

I wish I knew exactly when we shall arrive; this suspense is wearing. One man told me we would be in on Wednesday, another said we would miss the tide and not be in till Saturday. I asked the captain, but he directed me to the barber, who, he said, knew everything--and indeed there are very few things he doesn't know. He is a dignified figure with a shiny curl on his forehead, and a rich Cockney accent, full of information, generally, I must admit, strikingly inaccurate, but bestowed with such an air. "I do believe him though I know he lies."

We are in the Hooghly and shall be in Kidderpore Dock to-morrow morning early. Actually the voyage is at an end. I may as well finish this letter and send it with the mail which leaves Calcutta to-morrow. We can't pack, because Mrs. Albert Murray is occupying all the cabin and most of the passage. We shall creep down when she is quite done and put our belongings together.

It will be a real grief to part to-morrow from Mrs. Crawley and Mrs. Wilmot. The dear women! I wish they had been going to stay in Calcutta, but they go straight away up country. Are there, I wonder, many such charming women in India? It seems improbable. I shall miss all the people at our table: we have been such a gay company. Major Wilmot says G. and I have kept them all amused and made the voyage pleasant, but that is only his kind way. It is quite true, though, what Mrs. Crawley says of G. She is like a great rosy apple, refreshing and sweet and wholesome.

What is really depressing me is the thought that wherever I am to-morrow night there will be no G. to say:

"Good-night, my dear. Sleep well."

And I shan't be able to drop my head over my bunk and reply:

"Good-night, my dear old G."

It will seem so odd and lonely without her.

The ship has stopped--we are to anchor here till daylight.

FLESHPOTS OF CALCUTTA

But I shall go back to where I left off on Wednesday night.

We spent a hot, breathless night in the river. Towards morning I fell asleep and dreamed that the ship was sinking in a quicksand and that I, in trying to save myself, had stuck fast in the port-hole. I wakened cold with fright, to find it was grey dawn and they were getting up the anchor.

Of course we were up at an unearthly hour, all our belongings carefully packed and labelled, ourselves clad in clean white dresses and topis to face the burning, shining face of India. There was little to see and nothing to do, and we walked about getting hungrier and hungrier, and yet when breakfast-time did come we found we were too excited to eat.

When we got into the dock we saw all the people who had come to meet us penned like sheep into enclosures, and we leaned over the side trying to make out the faces of friends. Presently they were allowed to come on board, and I, eagerly watching, spied Boggley bounding up the ladder, and the next moment we were clutching each other wildly. But our greeting--what it is to be Scots!--was merely "Hallo! there you are!" I need not have worried about what I would say when I met him--yes, I was silly enough to do that--for he is just the same dear old Boggley, hair as red, eyes as blue and as short-sighted, mouth as wide as ever. I think his legs are even longer. The first thing he did when he came on board was to fall over someone's dressing-bag, and that made us both laugh helplessly like silly children. I introduced him to G. and the others, and by this time G. had found her sister, and soon they were all talking together, so G. and I slipped away to look out for people in whom we were interested. Very specially did we want, to see Mr. Albert Murray, and when we did see him he was almost exactly what we had expected--small, sandy-haired, his topi making his head look out of all proportion, and with a trodden-on look. We noticed the little man wandering aimlessly about, when a voice from the music-room door saying "Albert" made him start visibly, and turning, he sidled up to our cabin companion, who kissed him severely, while he murmured, "Well, m' dear, how are you?" Seeing us standing near she said, "Well, good-bye, girls. I hope you'll have a good time and behave yourselves;" and then, turning to her husband, by way of an introduction, she added, "These are the girls who shared my cabin." Mr. Albert shuffled his topi and looked at us with kind, blinking eyes, but attempted no remark. The last we saw of him he was tugging the hat-box in the wake of his managing wife. G. looked at me solemnly. "We had little to complain of," she said; "we weren't married to her."

It was rather sweet to watch the little family groups, the mother assuring a bored, indifferent infant that this was its own daddy, and the proud father beaming on both.

The self-conscious bridegrooms sidling up to their blushing brides afforded us much amusement. Some had not seen each other for five years. I wonder if one or two didn't rue their bargains! It seems to me a terrible risk!

I could have gone on watching the people for a long time, but Boggley was anxious to be off; so after tearful farewells and many promises to write had been exchanged, we departed.

The special Providence that looks after casual people has guided Boggley to quite a nice house in a nice part of the town. Many Government people who are in Calcutta only for the cold weather--I mean those of them who are burdened not with wealth but women-folk--find it cheaper and more convenient to live in a boarding-house. Does that conjure up to you a vision of Bloomsbury, and tall grey houses, and dirty maid-servants, and the Passing of Third Floor Backs? It isn't one bit like that. This boarding-house consists, oddly enough, of four big houses all standing a little distance apart in a compound. They are let out in suites of rooms, and the occupants can either all feed together in the public dining-room or in lonely splendour in their own apartments. We have five rooms on the ground floor. Of the two sitting-rooms one is almost quite dark, and is inhabited by a suite of furniture, three marble-topped tables on which Boggley had set out the few photographs and trifles which he hasn't yet lost, and a sad-looking cabinet; the other opens into the garden, and is a nice cheerful room. The dark room we have made Boggley's study; as he only uses it at night, it doesn't matter about the want of light, and there is a fine large writing-table which holds stacks of papers. We got the marble-topped tables carried into the cheery room and covered them with tablecloths from a shop in Park Street, bought rugs for the floor and hangings for the doors, and with a few cushions and palms and flowers the room is quite pretty and home-like. I like the chairs, enormous cane things with long wooden arms which Boggley says are meant for putting one's feet on, and most comfortable.

The four houses, as I told you, stand in a compound. It isn't exactly a garden, for there are lots of things in it that we would consider quite superfluous in a self-respecting garden. There is a good tennis lawn, plots of flowers, trimly-kept walks bordered with poinsettias, and trees with white, heavily-scented flowers, and opposite my bedroom is a little stone-paved enclosure where two cows and two calves lead a calm and meditative existence! And further, there are funny little huts scattered about where one catches glimpses of natives at their devotions or slumbering peacefully. Imagine in the middle of a garden at home coming on a cowhouse or a shanty! But this is India.

The rest of my impressions I shall keep for my next letter. I have written this much to give you an idea of my surroundings, and you see I have taken your interest for granted. Are you bored? Of course you will say you are not, but if I could see your face I should know.

The home mail arrives here on Sunday, when people are having what they call a "Europe morning," and have time to read and enjoy their letters. When you wrote you had just had my mail from Marseilles. How far behind you are! It was too bad of me to write such pitiful letters, but I think I was too miserable to pretend. Now I am very well off, and no one could be more utterly thoughtful and kind than old Boggley. I am sure I shall never regret coming to India, and it will be something to dream about when I am a douce Olivia-sit-by-the-fire.

You speak of rain and mud and fog, and it all seems very far away from this afternoon land. The winter will soon pass, and, as you nicely put it, I shall return with the spring.

So you see I have of necessity many hours alone, at least I have some, and I would have more if G. didn't live within a few minutes' walk, and every morning, armed with a large green-lined parasol and protected by her faithful topi, come round to pass the time of day with me. Her sister, Mrs. Townley, is a very nice woman and kindness itself to me. I can say, like the Psalmist, that goodness and mercy follow me. I started from London knowing no one, yet in twenty-four hours I was fast friends with G. and afterwards with quite a lot of people on board. I thought when I landed in Calcutta I would be a stranger in a strange land and have no one but Boggley, "instead of which" I have G. quite near, and Mrs. Townley says I must come to them any minute of the day I want to; and there are others equally kind. You don't want me to give you a detailed account of Calcutta, do you? It wouldn't interest you to read it, and it certainly wouldn't interest me to write it. When my friends go wandering and write me home long descriptions of the places of interest which they visit, I read them--oh! I read them faithfully--but I am sadly bored. Somehow people interest me more than places. That being so, I shall only inflict on you a little of Calcutta. I like it immensely. They laugh at me for saying it is pretty, but I do think it is quite beautiful. It is so much greener than I expected, and I like the broad streets of pillared houses standing in their palm-shaded compounds. The principal street is called Chowringhee, and it has some fine buildings and really excellent shops, where one can buy quite as pretty things as in London, only, of course, they are of necessity more expensive; it costs a lot to bring them out. The Clubs are in this street, the Bengal Club, and the United Service where my brother would even now be leading a comfortable bachelor existence if he hadn't had a bothering sister to provide a habitation for.

Chowringhee faces the Maidan, a very large park containing among other things a race-course, and cricket and football grounds. The word Maidan is Arabic and Persian and Hindustani for an open space, and I hope you like the superior way I explain things to you. You, who can be silent in so many languages, will probably know what Maidan means--but no matter.

Eatables, however, are by no means the only things to be found in the New Market. Silks, muslins, chicon-work, silver ornaments, and jewellery keep us breathless, while the pleasant shopman in a frock-coat and turban offers them at what he calls "killin'" prices.

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