Once again it should be noted, that when in her letters she writes home enthusiastically about all her comforts and luxuries, these descriptions must be taken cum grano salis. She had not the slightest intention of misleading anybody; but she was very anxious to put a brave face on the matter; moreover, she was a Missionary Miss Sahiba, and she might not grumble. Everything was for her right just as it was. But another side to the question did exist.
In the year 1879 Mrs. Elmslie, being at home, paid a visit to Mrs. Hamilton; and one day she could not help remarking, ‘When I see how comfortable you are here, and think of your sister, it makes me sad.’ Her tone was almost reproachful; for she was mentally comparing A. L. O. E.’s barely furnished rooms with the abundance of comforts in this home. Evidently she thought Miss Tucker badly off, and wondered why her friends did not assist her more. Explanations naturally followed; and when she learnt the true state of the case, when she heard the amount of Charlotte Tucker’s comfortable little income, she was astonished. The manner of life steadily followed out was, in fact, no matter of necessity, but purely a matter of principle. Miss Tucker counted a life of rigid simplicity worthier her vocation as a Missionary than one of greater ease could have been. She therefore kept to a certain sum of money yearly for her own expenses, while giving much away in addition; she made her clothes last as long as it was possible for them to hold together; she had hardly any furniture in her rooms; and she refused all luxuries, including some things which in India are commonly reckoned not luxuries, but absolute necessaries.
The following particulars have been kindly supplied to me by Miss Wauton and others.
Her style of living, at all times extremely simple, was particularly so at the time that she shared a home with Mr. Baring. She scarcely, indeed, allowed herself even the most ordinary comforts. Her bedroom furniture consisted of a native bedstead, a small table, a wardrobe and two chairs, with a piece of thin matting on the floor, and one or two thin ‘durries.’[89] Always an early riser, Miss Tucker never liked her Ayah to find her still in bed. When she first got up, she used to heat a cup of cocoa with her little etna, for her ‘chhoti hazari.’[90] Miss Tucker always disliked very much being waited on, and preferred to do things for herself. She treated the servants very courteously, always addressing the Ayah as ‘Bibi ji’; and any little thing offered to her at table was accepted with a ‘Thank you,’ or declined with a ‘No, thank you,’ spoken in English, as there is in Hindustani no equivalent for the expression of gratitude.
Together with her marvellous activity of mind and of body was seen a wonderful amount of patience under suffering or discomfort. In the very hot weather she would say to her companions, ‘Let me be the first to complain of the heat’;—and of course she never did complain. She used to ascribe her good health in Batala to the absence there of three things, generally counted indispensable by Europeans in India. She had, first, no doctor; she had, second, no gari; she had, third, no ice. The want of the latter must have been a serious deprivation. The lack of a gari, or carriage, was supplied by her duli, by the native ekka, and by her own walking-powers. As for doctors,—she had, when ill, to go to them, like other people, and to be grateful for their help. Doctors were not, however, favourites with A. L. O. E. She was perhaps a little hard upon them; since, on the one hand, she professed not to trust their skill; and on the other hand, she looked upon them as rather cruel than kind, in trying to keep her longer upon Earth, away from the Home where she wished to be.
Miss Wauton says:—
‘All she had was put at the disposal of others. Every book sent out was lent round to the different Mission circles, or in any place where it might give pleasure or profit. She always had some interesting book on hand, and kept her mind richly stored with knowledge, being specially fond of history. She allowed me once to be present when giving an English History lesson to a class of Baring High School boys. I could have wished myself one of them, to have had such teaching constantly! She was very independent of intercourse with other minds, yet thoroughly enjoyed social pleasures. I never saw any one so carry out the precept—“Rejoice with them that do rejoice.” Nowhere did she seem so much at home as at the wedding-feast; and no wedding-party seemed complete without her.’
But though she could be the life and soul of a wedding feast—perhaps especially of a Native wedding feast,—Miss Tucker was not in all cases an advocate of marriage. The Rev. Robert Clark speaks of her as—‘jealous of the marriage of any of our Lady Missionaries, especially to those gentlemen who were, as she said, “outside of the family.”’ He adds: ‘In her verses on the duties and qualifications of ladies for Missionary work in India, the last couplet was, I think, as follows:—
“The Mission Miss Sahiba must single remain,
Or else she’ll step out of her proper domain.”