It was past six o'clock on the morning of the 20th of April, when I came within a few miles of Umballah. The mornings and the nights were still cool; but, in the day the heat was beginning to be very severe. However, after taking my coffee and making my toilet, I caused my pony to be re-saddled, and, followed by Sham mounted on his pony, rode into the cantonments, inquiring my way, as I went along, of the various servants who were moving about. I eventually found myself at the door of a bungalow, which was tenanted by a very old friend and distant connexion of mine. He was an officer in one of her Majesty's regiments of foot, then stationed at Umballah.
"You will sleep here, of course, during your stay," he said; "but you are the guest of the mess, remember. We have settled all that, and we will go up in the buggy presently to deposit your pasteboard in the mess reading room. I will point out to you where you will always find your knife and fork, and I will introduce to you all the servants—the mess-sergeant especially."
I must now digress for a brief while, in order to give the uninitiated reader some idea of Indian etiquette as it exists amongst Europeans, members of society. In other countries, or at all events in England, when a gentleman goes to take up his abode, for a long or a short period, in a strange locality, it is usual for the residents, if they desire to show him any civility, or make his acquaintance, to call upon him in the first instance. In India the reverse is the case. The stranger must make his round of calls, if he wishes to know the residents; and, what is more, he must leave his cards on the mess, "for the colonel and officers of her Majesty's —— Regiment." You may leave a card on every officer in the regiment, from the senior colonel down to the junior ensign; and each of them may, and possibly will, invite you to his private board; but, if you omit to leave a card on the mess, it would be a gross breach of decorum in any member of the mess to invite you to dine at the mess-table, because you have "not left a card on the mess." And not only to the royal regiments does the rule pertain, but to every regiment in India, and to every brigade of artillery.
Having left my cards at the mess of the regiment to which my friend belonged, I was driven to the mess-house of the —— Dragoons, where another expenditure of cards was incurred; then to the mess-houses of the two native infantry regiments, and the mess-house of the native cavalry regiment. I was then whisked off to the house of General Sir Doodle Dudley, G.C.B., who commanded the division. The General was very old, close upon eighty; but he was "made up" to represent a gentleman of about forty. His chestnut wig fitted him to perfection, and his whiskers were dyed so adroitly, that they were an exact imitation of their original colour. The white teeth were all false; likewise the pink colour in the cheeks and the ivory hue of the forehead. As for the General's dress, it fitted him like a glove, and his patent leather boots and his gold spurs were the neatest and prettiest I had ever seen. In early life Sir Doodle had been a rival and an acquaintance of Beau Brummell. When a Colonel in the Peninsular war, he had been what is called a very good regimental officer; but, from 1818 until his appointment to India, in 1847, as a General of Division, he had been unattached, and had never done a single day's duty. He was so hopelessly deaf, that he never even attempted to ask what was said to him; but a stranger, as I was, would scarcely have credited it; for the General talked, laughed, and rattled on as though he were perfectly unconscious of his infirmity. I ventured a casual remark touching the late dust-storm which had swept over the district, to which the General very vivaciously replied:—
"Yes, my good sir. I knew her in the zenith of her beauty and influence, when she was a lady patroness of Almack's, and the chief favourite of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent. Oh, yes! she is dead, I see by the last overland paper; but I did not think she was so old as they say she was—eighty-four. Only fancy, eighty-four!" Then darting off at a tangent, he remarked, "I see they give it out that I am to have the command-in-chief at Bombay. The fact is, I don't want Bombay, and so I have told my friends at the Horse Guards at least a dozen times. I want the governorship and the command-in-chief at the Cape; but, if they thrust Bombay upon me, I suppose I must take it. One can't always pick and choose, and I fancy it is only right to oblige now and then."
"We shall be very sorry to lose you, General," said my friend, mechanically; "very sorry indeed."
"So I have told his Excellency," exclaimed the General, who presumed that my friend was now talking on an entirely different subject. "So I have told him. But he will not listen to me. He says that if the court-martial still adheres to its finding of murder, he will upset the whole of the proceedings, and order the man to return to his duty; and the court will adhere to its original finding; for the court says, and I say, that a private who deliberately loads his firelock, and deliberately fires at and wounds a serjeant, cannot properly be convicted of manslaughter only. Well, it cannot be helped, I suppose. The fact is, the commander-in-chief is now too old for his work; and he is, as he always was, very obstinate and self-willed." And the General continued, "For the command of an army or a division in India, we want men who are not above listening to the advice of the experienced officers by whom they are surrounded!"
When we were leaving the General, he mistook me for my friend and my friend for me, and respectively addressed us accordingly (his eyesight was very imperfect, and he was too vain to wear glasses). He thanked me for having brought my friend to call upon him, and assured my friend that it would afford him the greatest pleasure in the world if the acquaintance, that day made, should ripen into friendship.
"He is an imbecile," I remarked, when we were driving away from the General's door.