“You are Captain Lingard’s sister, I believe? How nice it is for him to have you out here!”
“And very nice for me—to be with him,” I murmured.
“Your first visit, of course?” she was proceeding, when my chaperon interposed, and, moving a little nearer, asked Mrs. Potter a question about an imminent bridge tournament, and I was for the moment released. I confess I rather envied the independence of Miss Payne, who, having finished tea, had courageously betaken herself to the library.
Mrs. Lakin, hitherto engaged in cutting up cake and waiting on the company, now took a seat beside me and proceeded to break the ice. I noticed that her complexion was a pale biscuit colour, and her blue eyes looked faded, but she had a sweet expression—perhaps once upon a time she had been pretty.
“So I hear you are a new-comer. I wonder what you will think of India.”
“So far, I like it immensely,” I answered.
“There have been wonderful changes since I set foot in the country. That was thirty years ago. Then this club was a small affair, and stood farther down where the shop is now. Everything is made so comfortable in these days. People rush backwards and forwards to England for a few weeks’ holiday. Formerly it was a wonderful thing if you got home once in five or six years. All the same, I liked those times best.”
“Did you!” I exclaimed. “But why?”
“Well, it’s not altogether because everything was quarter the price, though of course that does make a difference, especially when you have a large family. Things were quieter and easier. Generals did not come hustling round when they were least expected, and you and your friends were left in a station for three or four years instead of being whipped off as now at a moment’s notice. The servants were a superior class, and one grew attached to them, and almost every girl that came to India was bound to find a husband.”
“And that is all changed, I understand.”