“I’m afraid there’s not time for it,” said Grundy, “and I have nothing of the sort as yet.”
“Well, leave it to me; Chattermohun is a sharp fellow, at a pinch; and I’ll engage, with his assistance, to rig you out for the evening.”
CHAPTER IX.
Captain Marpeet made his appearance at the hour appointed on the following evening, and off we started for the Kidderpore school, which, by the way, is, or was, a rather large and imposing structure, at some distance from Calcutta; mussalchees, or link boys, with blazing flambeaux, scampering ahead in good, tip-top style.
Having passed the bazaar, we turned sharply from the main road, into a pretty extensive compound or domain, and soon found ourselves before the portico of the school, amongst buggies, palankeens, and other conveyances appertaining to visitors who had preceded us. Leaving our palankeens, we entered the house, passed through several rooms, one of them devoted to refreshments, and partly filled with gay Lotharios, some few military, the rest belonging to the orders “shippy” and “cranny,”[[5]] and finally entered the ball-room. This we found thronged with dancers, in a blaze of light, and resounding to the merry notes of a band, which, though not exactly equal to Weippert’s, seemed, nevertheless, as a locomotive stimulus, to be quite as effective. The country-dance then flourished in its green old age, and the couples at the Kidderpore hop were flying about in great style—poussette, hands across, down the middle, and back again—evincing, in spite of the temperature, all that laudable perseverance so essential to the accomplishment of such laborious undertakings.
Marpeet, at my particular request, and to keep us in countenance, wore his uniform, though he had previously declared (considering the season) that it was a most griffinish proceeding to sport broadcloth, and decidedly against his conscience. “You griffs, however,” said he “will have your way, and we must humour you sometimes.” As for myself, in my scarlet raggie, brimstone facings, black waist-belt, and regulation sword, in my own opinion I looked quite the god of war, and was fully armed for execution.
What an era in the life of a soldier is his first appearance in regimentals, “his blushing honours thick about him!” how he then pants for love and glory; the tented field and the clash of arms! At forty or fifty, possibly, if of a thoughtful vein, his sword converted to a hoe or pen, a mighty change comes o’er him, and he thinks, perhaps, that he might have done better had he stuck to a black or a blue one. Sometimes, it is true, when warmed with a flicker of his youthful fire, like Job’s war-horse, he loves to “snuff the battle from afar,” and “saith to the trumpets, ‘ha! ha!’” But, mainly, war delights him no more, for he sees the wide-spread evils which lurk under its exciting pomp and meretricious glitter, and his heart and mind yearn towards those more ennobling pursuits and occupations, which tend to elevate his species, to give to the intellectual and moral their due ascendency, and which speak of “peace and good-will to man.”
The dancers being in motion, we did not advance, but contented ourselves with occupying a position by the door, and leisurely surveying the scene. At one end of the apartment, on chairs and benches, sat certain elderly matrons, amongst whom were the superiors of the establishment, looking complacently at the young folks, and calculating in all probability the amount of execution likely to result from the evening’s amusements.
The young ladies, however, whose sylph-like forms were gliding through the mazes of the dance, were the “orient pearls at random strung,” which principally attracted my attention. As the flush of a summer’s noon fades by insensible degrees into the ebon shades of night, so did the complexions of these charming damsels graduate from white to black. Youth, however, smiling, buxom youth, like the mantle of charity, covers a multitude of defects, or, if I may help myself to another and apter simile, possesses an alchymic power, which converts all it touches to gold. There were eyes, teeth, sportive ringlets, and graceful forms enough, in the Kidderpore ball-room, stamped with all its freshness, to atone for the darker shadings of the picture.
For the first time, indeed, though previously imbued with the common and illiberal European prejudice against black, I began to experience a wavering, and to think that dark languishing eyes and a dash of bronze imparted what is often wanted in English beauties, somewhat of soul and character to the countenance. Music, lights, the excitement of the ball-room, are, however, it must be confessed, sad deceivers, producing illusions full oft, which painfully vanish with the morning’s light. For young ladies of thirty or thereabouts (an age, though now-a-days, I am credibly informed, never attained by spinsters), the ball-room and its factitious glare have some decided advantages. By day, Cupid, the sly urchin, can only make his attacks from smiles and dimples; but by night, at a pinch, he may launch a shaft with effect even from a wrinkle.