CHAPTER XXXVI
IN THE OFFICERS’ MESS
People who have seen both tell me that my performance of Polly Eccles is inferior to that of Mrs. Bancroft. But I have, I fancy, excelled Mrs. Bancroft in one particular: I have doubled Polly and the Marquise. I did it in Simla—did it with éclat.
The generous friend who was coming from Subathu to play the Marquise was detained at the last moment. We were in despair. The house was beautifully sold for that, our first night in Simla, and we could ill afford to return the money; we could still less afford to postpone our opening and break faith with our public.
“I will double the part with Polly,” I said as we sat mournfully on the stage at two in the afternoon.
“It’s an impossible double,” said Sam Gerridge.
“It’s a very ugly double,” I said. “But if you like, I’ll try it.”
We took the prompt-book and we did some remarkable things to it. But I am sure that Robertson himself would have forgiven us—under all the circumstances—had he been there.
Then we had a flying rehearsal of the changes, and I went back to the hotel to face the grave difficulty of dresses for Madame la Marquise. I had frocks enough that would do for the part at a pinch. But the great desideratum was to contrive something into which and out of which I could get with very great rapidity. I think that we did well, Ayah and I. She didn’t in the least know what it was all about, but she did what she was told—and did it exactly. Dear old black treasure! How calm, how helpful she was!
Fortunately there had been no question of studying for me. I had played so many times in Caste, I had rehearsed so many Marquises, and my “study,” as we play-folks call the memory of words, has always been a blessed and useful one. It never fails or betrays me.
The first act went as well as I had ever known it to do. We were all just enough nervous to be rather brilliant. There were three Gordon Highlanders in the caste, and well as they had played their parts in their own regimental theatre, they excelled themselves at Simla.
Captain Macready’s “George D’Alroy” was a masterly performance. Surgeon-Captain Barratt’s “Hawtree” was really fine.
The second act came. I went on, more pins than anything else. When the Marquise was announced I cried, “Oh, let me see her!” D’Alroy picked me up and carried me through the folding doors at the back. I pulled out pins as we went. Ayah was there at her post. Screens had been arranged for me and, while I made a change, I called out that I greatly desired to see a “real live Marchioness.” Ayah never spoke, but she worked like the heroine she was, and I went back on to the stage, as La Marquise de St. Maur, in less than one minute after I left it as Polly.
How they cheered me! I had heard that Simla audiences were cold, and that they looked unkindly upon professionals, whom they regarded as intruders in Simla. But we must speak of people as we find them, even if we find them in Simla. And I found that audience kind to a fault. My professional experience has been very varied, and it was no great thing for me to change frock and wig inside of a minute. But I suppose they thought it quick work, and they applauded and commended as if I had done something very plucky. I made seven “changes” that night, and they greeted each in the heartiest way. It was brisk work, but on the whole it was rather good fun and left one no time to think. Poor Ayah was rather puzzled. But the next night it all dawned upon her and she exclaimed, “I now see, lal coatie memsahib no come. My memsahib do two piece—her proper piece, and lal coatie memsahib’s piece. Now lal coatie memsahib yes come, my memsahib do one piece, her proper piece.”
Strangely enough I have since then doubled Polly and the Marquise not once but thrice: once at Murree, twice at Rawal Pindi.
There is no spot in India lovelier than Simla. We went on “off nights” to play at the regimental theatre at Jutogh, a tiny cantonment a few miles from Simla. Several companies of different regiments were stationed there for rifle practice. We went and came in ’rickshaws. I often dream of those rides. Simla seemed very near heaven when the stars came up over the big trees and the moon hung low over the mountains. And the birds thought it was day, and called to their mates. The ride was long—but to me it never seemed half long enough. I could have leaned back in my ’rickshaw and let the coolies pull me on into eternity, up to the infinite. One felt very near Nature up there in the hills. I often thought of home as we went slowly on through the night and the great silence. But I never was home-sick, save for the past, and I knew in my heart that I should feel it bitterly when we came to say a last good-bye to India. And I did feel it, very bitterly indeed.
But it was the grandest of grandeur when the storms broke up there in the mountains. Then one could hold one’s breath and think what an atom one was, and how little anything mattered.
I shall never cease to regret India. The country itself appealed to me; the people delighted me. But, above all, it was India that taught me how staunch, how kind, how true, how generous, how altogether noble our race is,—I learned that in the cantonments of India.
There are a hundred little midnight hospitalities that I wish I might chronicle. Perhaps some day I may. One I remember with especial gratitude, because it was offered us by men whom we did not know. I have had many a cosy little after-the-play supper in an Officers’ Mess, and many a hamper of goodies sent from the same bountiful quarter, but one night, when the rain poured down as if it would wash Simla away, we were urged into the mess at Jutogh by hosts who were to us entire strangers. Even now I don’t remember their names, though they all, if I remember, exchanged cards with my husband. But I remember the kind hands that pulled us in out of the rain, into the warmth and good cheer. We had just finished playing at the desolate little cantonment theatre, and were facing, with what grace we could, the long ride back to Simla. When they came for us, we were abominably dishevelled, but the invitation into comfort and good cheer was irresistibly pleasant. It was a charmingly pretty place. But I believe that the interiors of all officers’ messes are that,—all have been that I have ever seen. I was vulgarly hungry, and would have been delighted with a sandwich and a mug of milk; but with a great courage which is the birthright of men—
“from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of the Shannon—”
they had aroused not only the khansamah but the mess cook; and the cook and the khansamah submitting, as poor natives must to tyrannous Englishmen, gave us a hot supper that made the rain sound like music.
It was always a wonder to me where all the good things came from that found their way into regimental larders. I suppose that, as a matter of fact, they came from all the four quarters of the globe. I know that they had, in that out-of-the-way place, viands that I could by no means have bought in the big bazaars of Simla.
People talk of the good old times. Veterans tell of the great old battles. I believe in the British army as it stands, man to man and shoulder to shoulder. I believe that it would come triumphant through any test. Opportunity makes heroes. Given the opportunity (which I pray they never may be) I for one am sure that the men in the ranks and the men who officer England’s forces would to-day prove themselves, one and all, heroes.
Above all I have faith in the subaltern. I think he is a very undervalued person. The Major-General regards him as of less importance than a private; and the private regards him as of no importance at all. He is in great demand for private theatricals. He is made useful as an orderly officer and about the stables. He distinguishes himself at polo; and is splendidly en evidence on the regimental drag and at gymkanas. I have been told that he writes eloquent love letters. But he does more than that. He takes life and its vicissitudes like a man. Whatever he does, he does like a man, and when his hour comes, he takes his life in his hand, and if he falls—he falls with his face to the foe and with never a murmur. Perhaps his heart cries out sometimes, in the thick of battle or the loneliness of the cantonments, cries out for home and for mother. But he keeps a smiling face to the world; and, take him all in all, he is as true to himself as the sun is to its orbit. If he takes you out in his “tum-tum” (and he will if you are not too very old and ugly) he will come very near breaking your neck, but he probably won’t do it. In the first place, his pony is sagacious and not over mettled; in the second, his sais knows his business; and in the third, he himself is not half so reckless as he pretends to be.
“Do you ever run over a native?” I asked a subaltern in Allahabad.
He was simply rushing through the densest part of the native quarter, and I wondered if our drive wouldn’t end at the police court.
“Not often,” he said, “they are very clever about getting out of the way. And it is ridiculously expensive to run over a native. It costs fifty rupees the first time, and a hundred the second.”
Dear lad! he wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Every dog in the cantonment loved and trusted him. But I believe that a heartless magistrate did once fine him twenty rupees for shaking his bearer.
Yes; I most cordially like the subaltern. Make him your friend if you can, and count yourself lucky. He will be staunch and true as long as he lives, and he will do any earthly thing for you.