Francis Bradley Bradley-Birt

“ It was a charming stretch of country through which we passed when I could take my eyes from the fascination of Berengaria's driving to glance around. All up hill and down dale with here and there a level patch, the fields cut out and banked up one above the other tier on tier like seats in some vast amphitheatre, it was a panorama of ever-changing beauty. The reapers were at work amongst the paddy, women as well as men bent double reaping with short sickles, standing often ankle deep in the water and mud of their fields that still remained a grateful legacy of the recent rains. ”

“ How we avoided running over innumerable little brown children who ran from their play in the middle of the road shrieking with laughter only just in time, Providence only knows. Through a cloud of dust past a string of heavily-laden bullock-carts we dashed at reckless speed, just shaving the wheels and the bullocks' horns. Old men and older women seemed deaf to the noise of our approach, and only escaped from under the pony's nose at the latest possible minute. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I kept from shouting at them. Berengaria sat sublimely indifferent. ”

“ There was the light in his eyes that I love—the light that just goes straight away to the thing it wants and gets it.
'There's been an American Vicereine once,' he said.
I think something must have leaped up into my eyes too.
'Why shouldn't there be another?'
Did he actually whisper it, or was it only my vivid imagination that spoke the words.
Anyway, I'm in love, and I'm going to be a Duchess. What could any American girl anywhere want more? I guess it won't be just my fault if you don't hear of me knocking around again somewhere very soon. ”

“ And with a wave of the hand amidst a flutter of rose-pink silk dressing-gown Berengaria disappeared from sight. Nothing but Aunt Agatha's maxims had kept me from falling on her neck, and imploring her not to leave me.
I stood in the doorway—one of the eighteen—looking at the foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India. I can't truthfully say that the sight was calculated to inspire one with much confidence, but anyway I felt that it was something to fall back upon as a last resort in case of need. I was congratulating myself on that at least when something happened. ”

“ There's something always wrong about the time in India. It's either half an hour too fast or half an hour too slow. It's like the starboard and the port side of a ship, nobody not to the manner born ever can remember which. There's one time known as local and another known as railway, and one is half an hour or so faster than the other—I'm afraid to say which just now on the spur of the moment. If you want to go by train, then the time is either half an hour ahead or behind the local time, I forget which, but it comes a bit awkward if you can't remember when you want to catch a train. ”

“ Ermyntrude left behind on the Bandalnugger railway platform was too awful a catastrophe to contemplate.
Berengaria stood by the door, surveying the medley of luggage that filled the carriage with the air of a conquerer surveying a fallen city. Then her eyes fell on the nearer of the two forms tucked up in bed.
'Why, it's Mrs. Croydon,' she exclaimed. Then I knew what Berengaria had meant. I saw the tact and the smile at the same time. It must have been horribly annoying to be awakened like that in the middle of a cold winter's night. Yet Mrs. Croydon smiled. ”

“ If it were possible to horrify her more than that, I did it. 'I like them just as they are,' I remember saying, 'unwashed, unkempt, rather odoriferous, but very picturesque.' I think Lady Manifold has regarded me as something very modern ever since. But this is anticipating. It isn't really till you come to go away that you begin to feel with how firm a grip the life of India has taken hold of you, how you love the naked little nut-brown babies playing in the sun, and how the very savour of the East lingers in the nostrils with a strange regret. ”

“ Bless the man, why on earth didn't he speak out. Most men rush in head first, and blurt it out straight away. I had never met a man like this before who hung about and skirmished and seemed to enjoy lingering over it and protracting it as long as possible.
I toyed with the letter in my hands, my eyes upon it, wondering what its contents might be. Lord Hendley didn't speak, and I felt I positively could not look up and catch his eye just then. I grew desperate. Suddenly I jumped up.
'There's Berengaria coming back,' I said hastily, looking as if I heard the sound of wheels on the road. ”

“ And yet Sir Peter Tweet is one of the leading lights in the world of men!
That is one of the things that has puzzled me all through life. How is it possible for a man to be a leading light and a fool at the same time? Yet lots of people manage it. Sir Peter Tweet's name is a kind of household word. He's about at the top of the tree in his own particular line, yet look what an extraordinary individual he is when you meet him outside. And it's just the same with so many other bright and shining lights that you hear so much about. They give you a dreadful shock when you first meet them. ”

“ The only thing that I really enjoyed about my stay in that Bombay hotel was the luxury of a bathroom, adjoining my bedroom, all to myself. There was no furtive slinking along passages thickly populated with unknown doors on either side, no undignified scurrying at the sight of a man at the other end, no leaning over banisters anxiously watching one's chance and finally running a dead heat with the lady you particularly disliked from the floor below. I cannot think why people don't take to building houses in this style at home. ”

“ In a flash one was back again amidst the pomp and glory of the India of to-day, as the Viceroy's bodyguard passed by—that splendid corps in gold and scarlet—the best mounted troops in all the East. And then, again, more splendid still, the Imperial Cadet Corps. Even then one felt that one had no adjective left to describe them, and the marvellous procession had but just begun. The ever-changing blaze of colour and magnificence literally smote one and made one dumb. ”

“ You see a splendid carriage and pair, real good horses, gorgeous harness, men in wonderful liveries, a regular smart turn-out, yet dangling underneath you'll probably find a bundle of grass or that little bit of string again personified in a coil of rope. It's the most comically incongruous sight you've ever seen. But it's a pity, because it spoils the general effect. You couldn't possibly do it anywhere except in India. When Berengaria borrows a Rajah's carriage that ugly coil of rope is always swinging somewhere underneath or in the rear, and I can't get over it. ”

“ Now, if there is one thing that Aunt Agatha hates it is opposition. If a look could have withered up the poor offending Glory, hers would have done it.
'You will either be "Emma" in my service or any absurd name you like outside it.' Aunt Agatha fixed her with a haughty stare through her lorgnettes.
'I'm Glory,' was all the maid said sullenly.
'Well, go there, then,' was what Aunt Agatha looked, but, of course, being a lady, she didn't say it. Sometimes Aunt Agatha has wonderful self-control. It all depends upon whether she remembers her dignity or not in time. ”

“ Can anything in the world be more detestable than getting one's self and one's belongings from the train to the steamer in a good steady downpour of rain? There was only one thing that cheered me up, and that was the sight of Marjory as she prepared to descend in her garden-party frock. I don't mind admitting now that of course she did look much smarter than I did at Charing Cross, but I had my revenge at Dover. ”

“ I peered out looking for the bootlace to guide me, but everything looked dim and shadowy. Was the light burning lower, or was it only my imagination? If anything happened I had a presentiment that I should be paralysed and my limbs refuse to move. My throat was already too much parched to scream. Besides, what noise that one frightened woman might make in the inside of a room like that would have the ghost of a chance of being heard outside. Especially as I had carefully locked every door! How could I have been so foolish as to lock every door! ”

“ One felt as if one must cry out, as if one must break down and sob for very sympathy and joy and pride. They were the remnant, all that was left in India of those who had passed through the fire of Delhi and Lucknow—of those who had helped to save the Empire.
In the forefront marched the little band of Europeans, only twenty-seven of them. Behind, more pathetic still by reason of their great loyalty to another and once alien race, the company of Sepoys, only three hundred and eighty-seven strong all told. They were in every variety of costume. ”

“ One was back with them bearing the brunt and the heat and burden of the day, fighting a hand-to-hand fight of life and death for England. With a rush of feeling one realised that it was to them, to that small band of old and crippled men, and to the many whom they represented who had passed away, that we owed the triumph of to-day. They had come through much tribulation, but they had come to bring us this to-day. Without them, if they had not sacrificed themselves for Empire, there could have been no coronation of the King in his Imperial City. ”

“ Then suddenly the train stops dead, and at once you are an inane, blithering idiot again. All your newly-regained self-confidence goes, and you swear solemnly under your breath that you will never in all your life see anybody off by train again. And when it's a real sad parting and there's a danger of tears, then Heaven help you!
I felt that this digression on the eccentricity of starting trains was necessary to explain the fact that I found myself shaking hands with Lord Hendley for the third time. ”

“ I was so dreamily happy with things as they were that I scarcely noticed a ramshackle ticca ghari crawling up the drive. Have I told you what a ticca ghari is? You can't fail to miss it if you ever go to India. It's quite ubiquitous, and it never was new. It's like some people who never were young. One isn't told if Adam took Eve out driving in the cool of evening, but if he did it must have been in a ticca ghari, and the changeless East has carefully preserved the type of carriage ever since. ”

“ Somebody had died a nasty, sticky death, and not having had an Aunt Agatha to instil nice conventional copy-book maxims into it, had been creating a dreadful fuss about it ever since, and making it just as disagreeable for other people as it could. I shivered as I looked out into the pitchy darkness. Only a horrible patch of white where the dâk bungalow loomed up out of the surrounding gloom scarce a hundred yards away broke the blackness of the night. ”

“ India in all the countless ages of her history, could have seen no sight like that—magnificent state coaches, dazzling glass, or silver and gold, upholstered in every conceivable colour in velvet and satin and silk, splendid teams of horses gorgeously caparisoned and weighed down with trappings and cloth of gold, running footmen as in days of old in state liveries with maces of gold and ebony and silver, and within the coaches the scions of the proudest sons of Ind. ”

“ The glorious blue of the Eastern sky, the dark red line of the Fort for far-off background, the strange, many-coloured crowd, swayed by excitement such as had not been in Delhi for more than a generation, the slowly-pacing line of majestic elephants carrying their gorgeous burdens, all made up a bewildering picture that even one's imagination could scarcely have conceived. ”

“ Now I had said all that I had to say to Lord Hendley on a public railway platform, and I felt that if the train didn't move off soon I should end by saying something fatuous. Was there ever anything more trying than seeing people off or being seen off one's self at a railway-station? I don't know which is the lesser evil. You've already said all you've got to say long before you get there, but, still, you've got to make idiotic remarks to fill up the time, knowing that at any moment you may be cut short in the middle of a sentence by the train moving off. ”

“ Now I admit it, I love being purred over, and the future looked black for that nephew if he had wounded the feelings of these dear old aunts.
'We wondered in which camp you were,' purred Martha, holding my hand, and smiling all over her dear kind old face.
'We are so pleased to see you again,' chirped Jane, trying to possess herself of that same hand.
'You must come to see us,' said Anne, and she put her hand upon my arm persuasively.
I really was glad to see them again, and I said so. I hate people who really are glad to see you, and don't tell you so. And then I mentioned their nephew. ”

“ I always like meeting people who have made a name for themselves in any walk of life. It's stimulating. But I do like them to be modest and retiring as most of them are. It is so interesting trying to draw them out, whereas nobody cares to hear anything that someone else is dying to tell them. It's only the things that there's a chance of your not getting to know that you are really keen on hearing. But still, whatever there might be against 'Argustus Strong,' it was impossible to ignore the woman who had written a book like 'Number 2001, 25th Street,' that had run into seventy-four editions. ”

“ A turn of the road, and all again was modern—a marvellous glimpse of the law and order and precision that the British Raj has imposed upon chaos and disorder. Before us stretched miles and miles of tents shining dazzling white in the morning sun, trim, neat, in orderly lines, like a regiment marshalled for review. It was a marvellous sight, this vast encampment. It made one think of one of those vivid Biblical stories of some beleaguered city on a hill, with the hosts of the enemy encamped over against them on the plains below. The first glimpse of the Ridge is never to be forgotten. ”

“ Why is it that a foolish woman cannot keep her mouth shut? If you do happen to have had the bad luck to be born a fool, I should have thought the only thing to do would have been to keep quiet about it. Lots of people are fools, but they are just wise enough to know it and hush it up, and so they get along all right and nobody ever discovers that they really are fools. But, unfortunately, the majority of fools never discover that they are fools, and so they talk and give themselves away. That woman in the Jumma Musjid was a fool and one of the worst type. ”

“ I gazed out across the lawn with unseeing eyes, quite like the heroine in the story-books.
'No,' I said sadly, quite as if my heart were elsewhere. 'No, I'm afraid not.'
Then I got a panic. What if he should take me at my word, and never ask me again. Men are such fools. I dared not look round. But Lord Hendley was more sensible than that. ”

“ That train looks as if it meant to cling to that platform till the very last gasp. You daren't look along again to find out what the guard is doing, for you are conscious that your friend is looking down on you from the carriage window. You feel desperately that you must say something else. ”

“ The love of guide-books, which the gods gave us in such ample measure too, blunts all the finer instincts, if you don't keep it within due bounds. That's why English, French, and Germans get such wrong impressions of us, since those who have let themselves get under the influence of the guide-book-habit are naturally most in evidence. Now if you give yourself over, body and soul, to the love of guide-books, you get hustled in trying to see too much. And if you're hustled you don't have time to put your clothes on properly, and soon get a sort of scraggy, worried look all round. ”