An American Girl in India/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
I DON MY TOPI AND WE CALL ON PETER
Then I went and joined Berengaria and John in the veranda, where we had 'chota hazri' as if nothing had happened. In return to Berengaria's inquiries as to whether I had slept well I lied politely. I always think that, because you have had a bad night yourself, there's no need to upset your hostess about it in the morning. Of course, there are people who have such an absurdly exaggerated idea of the truth that they think it necessary to tell it on every possible occasion. But they are very uncomfortable people to live with. Anybody who knows anything of life, and has picked up a little common-sense by the way, knows quite well that the truth is often so dreadfully rude and brutal that it has to be watered down considerably to make things swim at all in ordinary civilised society. Nobody is quite so annoying as the painfully truthful person. Say you're in the midst of a glowing narration of a real exciting incident, what can be more annoying than to be pulled up short by the truthful person because, forsooth, you said it happened at ten o'clock when probably it happened at half-past, and time wasn't of the essence of the story at all? Yet I know a dreadful truthful person like that at home. She nearly drives Aunt Agatha mad. For, in spite of Aunt Agatha's strong common-sense on most points, she's generally a bit vague as to times and dates and places. So she and that truthful person, whose conscience won't allow her to let any mistake pass without correcting it, don't exactly get on well together. You've got to diverge from the truth consciously or unconsciously some time or other, so you had best just make up your mind to it and not worry. 'Heaven can't be left empty. Some people must be allowed to go there,' as Aunt Agatha puts in it her downright way. 'But if they are going to keep people out for a trifling thing like telling a few fibs, there won't be anybody there at all.' So I always tell my hostess when I come down in the morning that I've slept well, and hope to be forgiven when it isn't true.
'Chota hazri,' I perhaps ought to explain is the 'little breakfast.' It's a kind of sandwich by the way to support you until you get to the real 'hazri' later on.
'Eat a good chota hazri,' Berengaria said, helping me to the homely dish of eggs and bacon, 'as you won't get anything else till eleven o'clock.'
From the plentiful supply of eggs and bacon and cold beef and jam and fruit to which I succumbed, I felt that I could hold out much longer than till eleven o'clock.
'Now go and get your topi,' said Berengaria, as we finished, 'and I will show you round the garden.'
I went off to my room, and got Ermyntrude to unearth the topi I had provided myself with at home. In Bombay and on the journey I had gone about in an ordinary hat under a thick parasol, but since everybody told me I should die soon if I did that any more I felt it was time to adopt that topi. It struck me then as I put it on that it looked rather funny, and not quite like those I had seen about the streets of Bombay, but I concluded that, coming from such a well-known London shop, it must be that mine was only a much superior article to those that I had come across out here. I thought the piece of silk that hung down behind quite elegant in an Early Victorian sort of style.
When I rejoined Berengaria in the veranda, I thought she must be suddenly taken with convulsions.
'It's no use my trying not to laugh, Nicola, because I must,' she cried at last, letting herself go, and laughing till the tears rolled down her cheeks.
I looked at her as one person who doesn't see the joke always will look at another person who does. Berengaria jumped up and kissed me impulsively.
'You dear,' she laughed, 'you look just like one of the ladies in those old pig-sticking pictures in John's study.'
Now it requires a very good tempered person indeed to smile when he's being laughed at, especially when he's not quite sure why he's the object of merriment.
'Not having seen the pig-sticking pictures in John's study,' I said as pleasantly as I could, 'I——'
'Oh, my dear,' interrupted Berengaria, still laughing, but recovering herself, 'it's that topi.'
I am afraid it was rather stiffly that I asked what was wrong with that topi.
'Ah, that's one of the things that's so hard to explain,' said Berengaria smilingly. 'Of course, it ought not to have that piece of silk hanging down behind, but beyond that it's difficult to say what's wrong with it except that it is wrong. When you've been out here a little longer you will understand. It isn't that you are bound down to any one shape or style. There are lots of different shapes that you may wear, but there are equally lots of shapes that you can't possibly wear. You'll soon learn to know by instinct, but you can't explain it.'
So the reason of the impossibility of my topi was another of the many things in India one can't expect to get an explanation of.
'Fortunately you can get topis in Slumpanugger,' Berengaria informed me. 'I'll send round for the box-wala to come and bring some up for you to see.'
I didn't ask just then what a 'box-wala' was, because I was too much concerned about my topi, but I found out afterwards that it's a comprehensive term. It includes anything from the picturesque Cashmiri who goes round from door to door like a pedlar with his silks, his silver work, and his embroidery for sale, up to the merchant prince who lives luxuriously in the capital, but yet makes his money out of trade. But, of course, you must never let him know you call him that. You may call a civilian to his face a 'heaven-born,' and he'll probably think even better of you than he did before, but a box-wala would look coldly at you if you called him that to his face. There are lots of other people you may give other appellations to behind their backs that you may not give them to their faces in India. You call a man a 'coolie-catcher' behind his back, but you must take great care to speak of him as an emigration agent when he's present. Fortunately, in the case of a planter, you may call a spade a spade; he's not at all ashamed of planting, I suppose, after all, it's much the same everywhere. In the States you call your parson a 'devil-dodger' when he's nowhere round, but that isn't just the name you accost him by when you meet him on the street. Still, I think it's more common in India than anywhere else, and it makes the conversation full of pitfalls. You never know what your vis-à-vis's sister or cousin or aunt may be, so you have to tread warily when you happen to be a stranger in the land.
As we strolled about the garden, Berengaria chatted in her own inimitable way about the station generally. I feel I ought to stay to explain the meaning of the word 'station' as used in India, but if I stop to explain all the strange and new words that interspersed Berengaria's conversation, I shall develop into a sort of enclycopedia, and never get along at all. When you speak of a station in India, you don't generally mean anything to do with a railway at all. I'm not sure even now if I know just exactly what you do mean. As I said before, everything is a bit vague in India. There are so many things you take for granted and think you quite understand until some tiresome person comes along and asks you to explain them. The station, I think, has now really come to mean the place where any officials have their headquarters. It may mean a lot more, but I certainly think it does mean that.
'There are only about half a dozen houses to call at,' Berengaria was saying. 'We are very short of ladies in the station just now. First, there is Mrs. Ipplethwaite. She takes precedence next to me, but you won't find her very interesting. Somewhere back in the last century one of her ancestors was Governor of Bombay, and she feels it hard luck that she should be in India as anything else. She's married to a dreadful little man, whom, fortunately, one scarcely ever sees. He thinks he's funny when he's only a fool. I can't think why she married him.'
How many of our friends there are of whom we can't think why they did it! I caught myself wondering if Mrs. Ipplethwaite in her turn had ever wondered why Berengaria married John.
'Then there is Mrs. Hicks.' Berengaria paused. It was one of those pauses much more effective than words. One knew that Mrs. Hicks had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. 'I never say anything nasty of anybody if I can help it,' went on Berengaria slowly, as if she were delivering judgment, 'but I can't say anything good of Mrs. Hicks, and as I shall not take you to call upon her it doesn't matter. She is known as the "Rudest Woman in Asia".'
Even Berengaria evidently couldn't resist that last little hit. The 'Rudest Woman in Asia!' Of course, I was immediately seized with a desire to meet her. Anyone with sufficient character to acquire such a high sounding, sweeping title as that must be worth meeting.
'We will call on Mrs. Binks,' Berengaria decided. 'I think she really would be quite a nice woman but for Mrs. Hicks. Mrs. Hicks will not leave her alone, and I believe she takes a malicious pleasure in rubbing her up the wrong way.'
'Are they both quite young?' I asked. I always like to know the ages of people I am being told about. It helps you to form such a much better conception of what they are like. I don't see how you can take an interest in a person until you know whether he is young, middle-aged, or old.
'Nobody is old in India,' Berengaria's reply made me feel that I had asked a question that no decent person would ever have asked. 'And we never admit we are middle-aged. So, of course, they must be quite young.'
Age was evidently one of the things that must not be talked about in India. I made a note of it.
'Then there is Mrs. Caramont. You'll like her. She really is young and bright and pretty, and she's only been out here about a year, so she hasn't had time to get stale like most of us. And that's about all the ladies in the station, except Mrs. Proudfoot.'
From Berengaria's tone it was evident that Mrs. Proudfoot was the kind of person you called to mind last of all, whom you asked to dinner not because you wanted her but simply because she was a human being and counted one, aad filled a vacant place. You all know the kind of person that I mean.
'Poor dear thing,' said Berengaria kindly. 'I'm afraid twenty years of Mr. Proudfoot has rather knocked it out of her. But she hasn't lost her smile, though it has become rather a placid one, and that's something. Empsey—Miss Proudfoot—is rather like her mother, with the exception that she never had in her what her mother has had knocked out of her, but, of course, it comes to much the same thing in the end. They do say that young de Vere Smith de Vere is going to marry her. But I really think she has got more sense. He's the young policeman here, you know.'
'Policeman?' I repeated, finding it hard to think of a policeman in love with one of Berengaria's friends.
'Oh, not a constable or a Bobby,' laughed Berengaria. 'He's the assistant District Superintendent of Police, commonly called the Policeman, and generally one of the best all round men in the station. We've bad luck just now in having two policemen like that awful old tyrant, Mr. Proudfoot, and a silly little boy like young de Vere Smith de Vere.'
I found out afterwards that both Mr. Proudfoot and Mr. de Vere Smith de Vere had once upon a time stood high in the estimation of Berengaria. But why should I give her away? We can't love everybody always.
Naturally it was the bachelors I was most interested in. But Berengaria dismissed them summarily.
'Young Mr. Colborne is quite the best of them,' she said in her direct, downright way, that rather condemned all the others. 'He's a good sort, splendid at all sorts of games, very good-looking, and popular with everybody.'
I'm not quite sure that the description of Mr. Colborne altogether prejudiced me in his favour. I'm always doubtful whether I shall like a person who is said to be universally popular. I've a suspicion that he must be weak or thick skinned or a fraud. I've seen such extraordinary specimens who have been popular. I know that being what is commonly known as a good sort goes a long way, and it covers a multitude of shortcomings, but it can't quite cover them all. If anyone, either a man or a woman, has enough in them to make real friends, then it's a dead certainty that they will make enemies too. It's only the weak sort of people who'll take a snub or anything else that comes along smilingly that will ever be popular all round. If you've got any go or spirit in you, you are bound to offend somebody. Besides, if you're really good for anything you'll make nasty people jealous, and that doesn't tend to make you popular. The universally popular person mustn't have enough in him to make anybody jealous. Of course, if you are a fraud you may manage it. That's the only fault I have to find with Aunt Agatha's maxims. When you don't show people what you really think of them you're deceiving them, though this may be and probably is chiefly for the other people's good, and out of pure consideration for their feelings. So the man who can carry dissimulation to a fine art and never let people know what he's really like, and what a contempt he's got for them, stands a good chance in the race for popularity. Fortunately I've never been troubled with a desire to be popular. Give me a few real good friends, and the others can just take care of themselves.
We breakfasted at eleven, and soon after twelve we started out upon our calls. We went in a victoria with the hood up, so I was able to wear one of my smartest hats. The topi had been already bundled ignominously out of sight.
'We'll go to Mrs. Binks' first,' said Berengaria, as she gave the order to the coachman.
A few minutes' drive along a dusty road, and we were sitting in a nice cool, well ordered drawing-room talking to Mrs. Binks. I was rather taken with Mrs. Binks at first sight. She was bright and lively and full of fun, and I could well imagine that she might have been really pretty before the Indian climate played havoc with her complexion.
'Fifteen hot weathers I have stayed down in the plains,' she told me cheerfully. 'Nothing will induce me to leave my husband to struggle on down here all by myself.'
My admiration for Mrs. Binks grew. Fifteen hot weathers in the plains! Of course I didn't know what a hot weather in the plains really meant, but it sounded dreadful and altogether complexion-destroying. Now no woman resigns herself without a struggle to a cracked and parchy skin. It isn't in her nature to sit down quietly and watch her colour fading, and the whites of her eyes get yellow, and the horrid little lines grow deeper all over her face. Yet Mrs. Binks had done all this in order to be at hand to comfort and support Mr. Binks through the long, dreary hot weathers. Of course, after all, it's only what every wife ought to do. What is the use of a wife if she goes and deserts her husband half the year at the must unpleasant time just when he wants cheering up most. I don't say I shouldn't do it. I probably should, but I think I should feel a bit mean for the first five minutes after I had left him. So I regarded Mrs. Binks as something of a heroine.
Alas! it has always been my fate to see my heroes and heroines dashed rudely to the ground sooner or later.
'Poor Mrs. Binks,' sighed Berengaria as we drove away. 'Five children at home, and five hundred a month. No wonder she stays with her husband in the plains.'
So poor Mrs. Binks' complexion had been immolated on the altar of stern necessity. I couldn't help regretting it. It would have been so much more interesting if it had been the sacrifice of wifely devotion to Mr. Binks.
It was at the next house, at Mrs. Ipplethwaites', that the event of the morning happened. I can't say I found Mrs. Ipplethwaite particularly interesting for the first four or five minutes, but, then, Berengaria had not given her much chance. However, I discovered she was fond of dogs and horses, and anybody who is fond of animals must have some good in them somewhere.
'My husband and I have been for years in very lonely places,' she told me, 'and I don't know what we should have done without our dogs and horses. They have been such good company, almost as intelligent as human beings.'
'But not so intelligent as Peter,' put in Berengaria. 'Do show Peter to my cousin, will you?'
Mrs. Ipplethwaite called out to one of the servants to bring Peter. A moment later out in the veranda I heard a familiar 'Oo-ugh—oo-ugh' that made me grow kind of rigid. Then Peter entered. He was the baboon who had visited me the night before!
Just inside the room he stopped dead and looked at me. He looked long and steadily, as if considering whether he knew me. Then he evidently decided that he did, and showed his teeth in a huge expansive grin.
'He's very shy with strangers at first,' said Mrs. Ipplethwaite, 'and he generally won't have anything to say to you until he gets to know you quite well.'
Peter was quietly dancing up and down with the same smile upon his face, exactly as he had done round and round my bed.
'Salaam, Peter, salaam,' commanded his mistress.
Peter stopped dancing, and salaamed before me down to the ground. As he rose up I could almost have sworn that he winked at me.
'I don't know if he will shake hands,' Mrs. Ipplethwaite went on, 'but we'll ask him. Shake hands, Peter.'
Peter solemnly advanced and held out his hand, probably that very hand that had rested in such a nasty, damp, clammy way upon my knee but a few hours before. Peter gazed at me steadily with a sort of knowing look on his face as we shook hands. Then he positively winked. It was as much as to say, 'What a tale we could tell if we liked, couldn't we?'
'He seems to have taken to you wonderfully,' said Mrs. Ipplethwaite. 'He's really the quaintest creature and most extraordinarily human. But occasionally he's very naughty—aren't you, Peter?—and escapes from the house at nights. Only last night he managed to get loose again, and what do you think he returned home with this morning?'
'What was it, Peter?' I said, stooping over him to cover my fear of what was coming. Peter looked more knowing than ever. Then he sidled up to me, and laid his head down in my lap.
'It was a stocking,' said Mrs. Ipplethwaite, 'a lady's black silk stocking.'
'How extraordinary,' I laughed.
'I wonder whose,' put in Berengaria meditatively; 'there can't be many of them in Slumpanugger.'
I think Peter's instinct must have told him I was getting nervous. He lifted his head, and looked up at me earnestly with his serious monkey face as if he wanted to tell me that I could rely upon him to act as a gentleman, and never say a word.
'How he could have got it I can't think,' said Mrs. Ipplethwaite.
'There can't possibly be more than four ladies here,' murmured Berengaria musingly, 'who possess such things.'
I felt that Berengaria's curiosity was quite indecent. It was narrowing things down a bit too much. I offered up again much gratitude that that stocking was not emblazoned with my name, as that dreadful pockethandkerchief had been on board ship.
'It's perfectly extraordinary,' Mrs. Ipplethwaite remarked to me again, 'how Peter has taken to you at first sight. I've never known him take so much to anyone the first time he's met them before.'
I stroked Peter's head, and he slipped his hand into mine.
'It's wonderful,' exclaimed Mrs. Ipplethwaite.
'We must ask everyone at the club to-night. "Have you lost a black silk stocking?"' persisted Berengaria. 'It sounds so dreadful, and yet of course it's quite all right, being only Peter. We must make it a catchword, "Have you lost a black silk stocking?"'
I was surprised at Berengaria and quite pained.
'It's a very good one,' said Mrs. Ipplethwaite, 'quite as good as you could get.'
I admired Mrs. Ipplethwaite for her discrimination. One always likes to hear one's garments described as 'good,' even when adverse circumstances have deprived one of the use of them.
'What a pity you can't send Peter to find the pair to it,' said Berengaria.
'It really is,' laughed Mrs. Ipplethwaite as we rose to go. 'Because, after all, one black silk stocking is so very useless, isn't it?'
I laughed nervously.
'Peter, you must either take it back or find its pair,' I said, as he accompanied us down the veranda steps. He still looked up at me with that quaint monkey expression of his—half earnest, half comical, as if though you amused and interested him very much he could not wholly understand you.
'It's really marvellous,' were Mrs. Ipplethwaite's last words. 'I've never before seen Peter take to anyone so much as he has to you at first sight.'
But as we drove away I wondered if it really was at first sight that Peter had taken a fancy to me. Could it be possible that he really did recognise me?
Besides Mrs. Binks and Mrs. Ipplethwaite every one else was darwaza bandh, except Mrs. Proudfoot, who was ghussal karte. After we got home again I went to my room to rest for an hour before tea. Berengaria said that everyone in India always disappeared for an hour in the afternoon. You need not sleep unless you liked. There was no compulsion about that. But you must disappear. So with a book I disappeared into my room.
In front of the dressing-table I stood still in amazement. There, very badly rolled up, not wholly innocent of dirt, as if it had been dragged along the ground, lay my lost black silk stocking. Nobody could have rolled it up like that and brought it there save Peter. Dear Peter, he must have taken my laughing words to heart. Wasn't it kind and sweet of him to have brought it back? No human thief would ever have done that. I fell in love with Peter straight away.