Hindoo Holiday (15 page)

When we came out again into the sunlight a little boy presented me with a pile of stemless marigolds which he had been told to pick for me from the small garden that brightened the entrance to the plantation. Thanking him, I took them in the palms of my hands, and nursed them while we visited the fair. It was concentrated in what I suppose was the high street; stalls of sweetmeats and merchandise lined the gutters, and a large crowd of people pressed round them, filling up the road. We did no more than push slowly up and down again in the car, pressing the people back to either side like bushes which swung together again behind us. There was a good deal of noise, laughter, and commentary, and not nearly as much obeisance as the King received when driving through the streets of Chhokrapur; but it all looked to me good-natured enough, though I did not understand the comments. His Highness sat well back, raising his hand perfunctorily every now and then whether he was saluted or not, and shaking gently with laughter when anything particularly amusing happened—as when, for instance, an old man was rolled into the gutter by the mudguard, or a boy pressed a rude grimace against the window. Soon, however, we were clear of the crowd—except for two or three small boys who were adhering to the sides of the car like burrs to clothes, and had to be flicked off by the King's cousin with a long whip always carried for dispersing goats or cows or other nuisances.

“King,” I said, as we left Chetla behind; “can I throw these lovely flowers away?”

“Yes,” he said; “but throw them into a bush, so that they will not be trodden under foot.”

I did so; and after a moment he said gently:

“Please do not call me ‘King'; that is what my dear tutor used to call me; I do not want any one else to use it.”

“Very well,” I said, “but ‘Maharajah Sahib' is such a mouthful.”

“Then call me ‘Prince'.”

“All right. Now what about ‘Mr. Ackerley'? Isn't that rather a mouthful for you?”

“Oh, no,” he said, “I like it very much. I will tell you something, but you will think me very silly. When I first heard your name, it made me think of a stream of water running over little stones.”

I remember Miss Gibbins, when she was staying in the Guest House a month ago, saying how frequently her night's rest was disturbed by the noises the guard used to make on the verandah outside—coughing and spitting over their brazier, or talking, awake and asleep. Once, when she was disturbed by some sound, she looked through the doorway and saw “a singular figure in the moonlight—a lean figure upon an emaciated white horse, looking like the White Knight in
Alice through the Looking-Glass
.” In the vigorous language of those accustomed to command and be obeyed, she would order them to be silent or to go away; but I am not very good at this. Always at night, and sometimes, when the weather is bad, in the daytime, my front verandah is thronged with odd, derelict, tattered figures. A small bundle of dirty straw in the corner (eaten during the day by cows, which sometimes blunder into my sitting-room in search of further provender) is used by the guard at night to protect their bodies from the harshness of the concrete floor; and there they lie, wrapped up like mummies in their blankets; or squat smoking over a brazier, passing the pipe from hand to hand, their thin rumps just clear of the ground, their backs curved, their arms dangling over their knees, looking like a cluster of bedraggled birds.

I peer out at them. Besides the guard there are two men, poor, emaciated, huddled face to face under one blanket, and in the far corner is an old woman, shrouded in her rusty red shawl, with rings on her toes and an ornament in her nostril. She too is on her haunches, smoking a fragment of a pipe in solitude, a brazier between her thin brown wrinkled legs.

I peer out at her. She perceives the glint of my eye in the window and draws her shawl across her face. I retreat to my book. Through the cracks of the door the charcoal fumes enter and the muffled conversation of the guard or of the two men lying together under one blanket.

Some one chokes and chokes as though he would die. The pipe is passing. Soon it will return to him, and he will choke again, and there will be muffled laughter. I retreat to my bed, and lie alone under my blanket, while the pipe passes. . . .

Napolean the Third is in Chhokrapur. He arrived last night, under escort and unpaid for. His Highness professes complete innocence. How was he to know that the messenger would go and kidnap the boy? It is a “great nuisance,” especially since the sick uncle, whose death now would be of considerable assistance, is reported to be rallying. There may be a scandal . . . legal proceedings.

What is he to do? He is “very upset.” Napoleon also is “very upset.” Indeed the escort had great trouble with him. He protested shrilly all the way from Cawnpore. He does not want to live in Chhokrapur. He is used to constant change and constant excitement and big cities. He will not live in Chhokrapur. He will make trouble. He will get his aunt to make trouble. She is on her way here now. She, too, is “very upset.”

Abdul took me for a walk to-day, “to converse upon natural objects in Hindi—in this way you will learn to speak
very
well.” He was wearing an enormous, rather dirty brown topee, of which he was evidently very proud but which considerably subtracted from his appearance by swallowing up almost all of his head and neck. The indispensable gamp was beneath his arm.

“I have to ask you something, Mr. Ackerley,” he said. “Three things. Will you promise to grant my wish?”

“State it, Abdul.”

“But you must keep it in your heart, and not tell it to any one.”

“You must leave that to my superior intelligence,” I said.

He smirked at this, and then, after a brief consideration, began volubly to explain. Would I get for him, from the Political Agent, a letter of recommendation so that he could obtain better employment, in one of the neighboring States, than that which he now has in Chhokrapur—a clerkship at twelve rupees a month in the Forestry and Mining Department.

“How can I support myself and my family members?” he demanded. “It is not possible.”

“But I don't see any reason why the Political Agent should consider such a request,” I answered. “He doesn't know you, and he doesn't know me very well either . . .”

But Abdul was already proceeding. Failing that, there were two posts in Chhokrapur he would very much like to obtain: typist in the “War Office,” or lecturer in Persian and Urdu in the school.

“But are these posts vacant?” I asked.

“Oh no; but the present men can be sent somewhere else. You have only to ask His Highness and he will at once do it for you. And the lecturer is not at all a good man; he should not have been appointed, but my application was passed over because I am a Mohammedan. But I am much better suited for the post than any other man—though I do not say it, of course, because I
want
the post, but because it is
true
. You understand? Am I clear? In
this
way.”

“I see,” I said; “and you haven't any feelings about getting a man turned out of his job in order that it may be given to you instead?”

“But he can be given another post somewhere else. A
much better
post . . . in some other State. In
this
way. So it would be greatly to his benefit . . .”

“You hypocrite!” I said. “You don't care a rap if he starves. No, my dear Abdul, we'll put your alternatives aside, and consider the question of the Political Agent.”

He sniggered self-consciously, drawing in his chin.

“Ah, Mr. Ackerley,” he said; “but you always go to the base of things! But if you will promise to stay in Chhokrapur, to get some good permanent post here, I will not want to leave it at all. Why don't you? Do so, for my sake.”

When I went into my bedroom this morning I disturbed a rat on my dressing-table. It vanished with alacrity behind it. Silence ensued. I wondered vaguely what it could have done with itself, for the piece of furniture was isolated and the rat had not emerged. I peered underneath, but there was nothing to be seen, so I concluded that the rat must be halfway down, between the back of the table and the wall; and wondering how it could be supporting itself in such a sheer and difficult place, I peeped cautiously behind.

There it was, a globular, dusky shape, its little beady eyes, bright in the gloom, looking up at me. It had fixed itself much in the attitude a mountaineer adopts in negotiating what I believe is called a “chimney,” its little legs spread out and clutching on the one side some roughness in the wall, on the other the wood of the table. Quite absurd it looked, its small fat body propped between the two precipices by its short, spread, match-like legs. We stared at each other for some time. I would have liked to see it complete the descent, but it seemed disinclined to move, and not wishing to trouble it further I went away.

In the evening Babaji Rao drove up in his tonga to chat with me. He is a good man. I realize now that his shifty, taciturn manner (by which, together with his general appearance, I was at first unfavorably impressed) is only due to timidity, whilst he, having interpreted perhaps my reserve as color prejudice or the conscious racial superiority which Anglo-Indians exhale, is also delighted to confess himself wrong and has readily responded to my friendly overtures; in fact, we are both now very well pleased with each other. I like his tonga-driver too, though our intercourse consists solely in a frequent exchange of grins. He is a thin, pock-marked Mohammedan boy, and extremely dirty (his neck, indeed, is so disgraceful that I drew Babaji Rao's attention to it), but his smile is so infectious that it always makes me gay. His dress, too—what there is of it—is soiled and unkempt; but of one garment he is obviously very proud, and I never see him without it. It is the last he puts on, a waistcoat, and must, once upon a time, have been a very fine waistcoat indeed; but nothing now remains of it but the back, very greasy and stained, and a few wisps of pink silk which still adhere to the front of the armholes, so that it is only when one sees him from the rear that one realizes that he is wearing one more garment than one had reckoned in studying him from the front.

Babaji Rao shook hands with me, and placing his round black hat on the center table by the lamp, sat down opposite me in a characteristic attitude—his legs wide apart and his hands, fingers inwards, resting on his thighs. I always feel, from the careful way in which he does it, that he dislikes shaking hands with me and is glad when it is over; and apart from the fact that it is not a natural Hindoo salute and therefore awkward, it cannot be pleasant for him to have to touch the hand of a meat-eater. But he is courageous in discussion, and is always ready, in the interests of learning, to converse with me on any topic, however distasteful it may be; so I broached this very subject of meat-eating, and he told me a curious reminiscence.

Two years ago his only son, Ram Chandra, now aged eight, was playing with some fireworks, when one exploded prematurely and his
dhoti
caught fire. With great difficulty, burning his own hands in the process, Babaji Rao tore off the blazing garment, but not before the little boy had received very severe injuries to his thighs and stomach.

Immediate medical aid was of course necessary, and though Babaji Rao knew that his parents, who do not live in Chhokrapur, would prefer him to obtain Indian treatment, he called in the local Indian doctor who follows the European system of medicine. The child was very weak from shock and pain, and could take nothing but a little rice or porridge, which, the doctor said, was not sufficient to nourish him, and the resisting power engendered by nourishment was very necessary, for every day the wounds had to be anointed and dressed, and this was such a painful business that it took about two hours, the least touch causing the little boy to cry out. So the doctor advised Babaji Rao that, since the patient could not digest milk, he must be given something that he
could
digest—he must be given Brand's Essence of Chicken. Babaji Rao's face puckered with disgust as he uttered these dreadful words to me. Was ever man placed in such a terrible dilemma? He had not known what to do. He could not even think. And he was left to settle it alone with his conscience, for he could not go and seek advice from his friends on so repugnant a matter—except, of course, from the Prime Minister, who had said bluntly exactly what one had expected him to say: “Don't be a fool, my good fellow! Do what the doctor tells you, and don't make such a fuss about it!”

For the Prime Minister was already guilty of the offense of having eaten with his nephews, who, since they had been educated in England, must be presumed to have eaten meat there—or, at any rate, to have eaten with people who had eaten meat. By this act he had become tainted with the same defilement which already disqualified them from being contracted into the best marriages, to which their very high birth entitled them; but a loss of prestige which would undoubtedly have damaged Babaji Rao's self-respect, had upon the Prime Minister the opposite effect; having already suffered, by eating with those who had eaten meat, the same loss of caste in which they were involved, he had then done openly what, it was suspected, he had been doing for some time in private—eaten meat himself. Eggs. He liked them. But Babaji Rao, though he secretly admired the Prime Minister's courage, whilst deploring his taste for eggs, and though he was, perhaps, a little comforted by the unhesitating decision of his advice, could not bring himself to take it. What would his parents say to him if, contrary to their counsel—for they would never permit it—he administered to Ram Chandra Brand's Essence of Chicken—whatever Brand's Essence might be? What would his son say to him afterwards when he learnt that he had been made the victim of such an enormity? And yet, on the other hand . . . He could not decide.