is a subject I never gave much attention to, but now awful doubts assail me. Am I the Best People? One thing is certain: I am of very little importance. I am only a chota Miss Sahib and my chota-ness is my great protection. No one is going to bother much what I do, or trouble to pull my clothes and my conduct to pieces, and I can creep along unnoticed to a great extent; I watch the game and find it vastly entertaining.
It grieves me to say that I am one of the class who ought to remain in England. There I am quite a nice person up to my lights, fairly unselfish, loving my neighbour as myself. But I have proved myself pinchbeck. No, you needn't say I'm sweet, I'm not. I find myself saying the most detestable things about people. Oblivious of the beam in my own eye, I stare fixedly and reprovingly at the mote in my neighbour's. Could anything be more unlovable?
I get no encouragement to be a cat from Boggley. Everyone is his very good friend.
"Mrs. Wright called to-day," I remark at tea.
"Did she?" says Boggley. "She's a nice little woman; you'll like her."
"She makes up," I say, "and she had on a most ridiculous hat. Mrs. Brodie says she's a dreadful flirt."
"Rubbish!" says Boggley; "she's a very good sort and devoted to her husband."
"Mrs. Brodie says," I continue, "that she is horrid to other women and tries to take away their husbands. It is odd how fond Anglo-Indian women are of other people's husbands."
"Much odder," Boggley retorts, "that you should have become such a little backbiting cat! You'll soon be as bad as old Mother Brodie, and she's the worst in Calcutta."
This is the Christmas mail, and I have written sixteen letters, but I can't send presents except to Mother and some girls, for I haven't seen a single thing suitable for a man. Poor Peter wailed for a monkey or a mongoose, but I told him to wait till I came home and I would do my best to bring one or both.
I can only send you greetings from a far country.
You know you will never be better than I wish you.
Calcutta, Dec. 10.
Dear Mr. Oliver Twist,—I really don't think I can write longer letters. They seem to me very long indeed. I am not ashamed of their length, but I am ashamed, especially when I read yours, of their dullness and of the poverty-stricken attempt at description. How is it that you can make your little German town fascinating, when I can only make this vast, stupefying India sound dull? It wouldn't sound dull if I were telling you about it by word of mouth. I could make you see it then; but what can a poor uninspired one do with a pen, some ink, and a sheet of paper?
I have been employing a shining hour by paying calls. You must know that in India the new arrival does not sit and wait to be called on, she up and calls first. It is quite simple. You call your carriage—or, if you haven't aspired to a carriage, the humble, useful tikka-gharry—and drive away to the first house on the list, where you ask the durwan at the gate for bokkus. If the lady is not receiving, he brings out a wooden box with the inscription "Mrs. What's-her-name Not at home," you drop in your cards, and drive on to the next. If the box is not out, then the durwan, taking the cards, goes in to ask if his mistress is receiving, and comes back with her salaams, and that means that one has to go in for a few minutes, but it doesn't often happen. The funny part of it is one may have hundreds of people on one's visiting list and not know half of them by sight, because of the convenient system of the "Not-at-home" box.
The men's calling-time is Sunday between twelve and two. Such a ridiculous time! One is certainly not at one's best at that hour. Isn't it the Irish R.M. who talks of that blank time of day when breakfast has died within one and lunch is not yet? I find it, on the whole, entertaining, though somewhat trying; for Boggley, you see, has to be out paying calls on his own account, and so I have to receive my visitors alone. It is quite like a game.
A servant comes in and presents me with a card inscribed with a name unfamiliar, and I, saying something that sounds like "Salaam do," wait breathless for what may appear. A man comes in. We converse.
I begin: "Where will you sit?" (As there are only four chairs in the room, the choice is not extensive.)
The Man: (seated and twirling his hat): "You have just come out?"
Myself: "Yes, in the Scotia." Remarks follow about the voyage.
The Man: "What do you think of India?"
The Man: "Oh, rather nice, don't you think?"
The Man: "Oh, quite a decent place—what?"
Again the servant appears, this time with two cards. Again I murmur the Open Sesame, and two more men appear. No. 1 gets up to go, shakes hands with me in a detached way, and departs, and the same conversation begins again with the new-comers, until they, in their turn, leave when someone else comes in. It seems to be etiquette to go away whenever another visitor arrives. I didn't understand this, and when a man came whom I knew well in my childhood's days and, after a few minutes' stay, got up to depart, I grabbed his hand and said, "Oh, won't you stay and have a talk?" He, very nicely, stayed on, and we did have a delightful talk; but Victor Ormonde, who happened to be present, has never ceased to chaff me about it. When we dine with them and get up to go he says in thrilling accents, with an absurdly sentimental air, "Oh! won't you stay and have a talk?"
I do think India makes very nice men. Almost every man I have met has been delightful in his own way…. I had just written that last sentence when a servant brought in a card inscribed "Colonel Simpson." I got my sunshade and walked round to my sitting-room, where I found a tall, pensive-looking man. Thinking he must be a friend of Boggley's, I held out my hand frankly, and having shaken it, the man went on holding it.
Like Captain Hook, I murmured to myself, "This is unusual," but I tried to conceal my astonishment, and we sat down together on the sofa. Then he began to feel my pulse. By this time I had made up my mind he must be a lunatic, and I had a wild idea of snatching away my hand and making a bound for the window; but feeling that my legs were too weak with fright to be of any real use to me, I remained seated.
"Are you sick?" he asked.
"Not in the least, thank you," I stammered.
A doubtful look flickered over his pensive countenance.
"Are you not my patient?" he asked.
"No," I answered truthfully.
"But—I was sent for to a Mrs. Woodward; this was the address, and I was shown in here."
He was so upset that I hastened to assure him it did not matter in the least; that Mrs. Woodward lived above us, and it was quite, quite all right. But my comforting protestations profited nothing, and the poor man retired in great confusion, murmuring incoherently. If I had seen "doctor" on his card I might have been prepared, but who would expect a Colonel to be a doctor? This confusing India!
Later,
This has been a queer day! Nothing but alarums and excursions. G. came to tea and suggested that afterwards we should go for a drive in a tikka-gharry, it being a more amusing mode of conveyance in G's eyes than her sister's elegant carriage. So we drove up and down the Red Road and along the Strand until the darkness came. It rained this morning—the first rain I have seen in this dusty land—making the roads quite muddy and the air damp and cold.
"It's
