Wednesday, Oct. 24.
To-day was a day of mysteries for Simla. R. came to breakfast with us, and did half an hour’s business with G., and that put his family into a fever. News had arrived yesterday that the Persians had abandoned the siege of Herât, and so the ——s fancied that the Cabul business would be now so easy, that R. would not go in person.
G. and I were walking in the evening and met the ——s, who said they had never passed such a day of curiosity, evidently thinking, poor new-married dears, that they were not going to part for ten years. Mrs. —— said to G.: ‘Now, for once, Lord A., tell us a secret; what did R. go to you about?’ ‘Why, he came,’ G. said, ‘to ask where we bought our potatoes, they are so remarkably good.’ The other mystery was, that Captain Y. said he had been eight hours trying to prevent two gentlemen from fighting, and we cannot think of any fightable people at Simla. You never saw so lovely an ornament as a great Lucknow merchant brought yesterday. A bunch of grapes made up of twenty-seven emeralds, the smallest emerald the size of a marble, and all of such a beautiful colour; there are large pearls between each, and it is mounted on a plain green enamel stalk. It looks like the fruit in Aladdin’s garden. We want G. to buy it for his parting present to Runjeet Singh. They were to have exchanged rings, and a ring, one single diamond without a flaw, valued at 1,600l., was to have come up from Calcutta this week, but it has been stolen from the dâk. It was insured, but still it was a pity such a good diamond should be lost.
Friday, Oct. 26.
We rode to Mr. B.’s yesterday, knowing that otherwise that bunch of grapes would be slurred over, and not even mentioned to us. I began by saying, we thought it beautiful, and just the present for a great potentate, upon which B. said: ‘Yes, it is almost too expensive, but I was thinking of asking his lordship to let me present it to Shah Soojah.’ Luckily, that was too much even for G., and he said: ‘No, if I allow it to be bought at all, it could only be for a Governor-General to give away; besides, we are going to give Shah Soojah a kingdom, which is quite enough without any presents.’
‘A defeat,’ I thought, and Mr. B. looked as if emerald grapes were remarkably sour, and on our ride home G. said he meant to take them for Runjeet Singh.
Tuesday, Oct. 30.
G. took a fancy on Saturday to go, after dinner, to play at whist with Sir G. R., so we all jonpauned off, and very cold it is at night in those conveyances. The cold brought a bilious attack I had been brewing, to a crisis, and I had one of the worst headaches I ever had in my life, on Sunday, and could not sit up for a moment. It is the first day’s ailment I have had since the week we came to Simla, and very lucky that it came before we go into camp. This day week we start. ‘No ind to my sufferens!’ as some novel says.
Thursday, Nov. 1.
There! now I am quite well again, and in travelling condition; and perhaps, setting off in such good health, marching may not be so fatiguing as it was last year. We have had nothing but take-leave visits the last three days. Mrs. R. sets off to-morrow with her own children and those two little orphaned G.s, whom she is taking to England. The wives to be left here are becoming disconsolate and fractious.