When We Were Strolling Players in the East

by Louise Jordan Miln

A THORNLESS BLACK BLOSSOM. Page 273.

She grew to be very deft in my dressing-room. Her wonderful anticipation of my slightest wish made her invaluable in the excitement of a “first night.” She never spoke in the theatre unnecessarily. I used often to let her stand in the wings and watch the play. She liked that, but she always looked on with an expression of disapproval until I came on to the stage. Then she appeared delighted. No matter how badly I did my work, no matter what the audience thought, Ayah thought me splendid and ignored the other actors. I have often thought what a dramatic critic she would make.

We sent her to the circus in Bombay. She had never seen anything of the kind before. She was so moved by fright and delight that she lost her way and was brought home to the hotel, very late, by two policemen. She was ill with terror, and for weeks didn’t get over her shame, which I fear was added to by my husband’s teasing.

I took her to see the Taj Mahal, when we were in Agra,—a monument of human love and accomplishment of human art so supreme that I would scarcely dare to write about it. I showed Ayah all over it, and she said, “It’s a big bungalow!”

She was genuinely and deeply grateful. She was strictly honest. She took the greatest pleasure in all my baby’s pretty clothes. I hoped never to part with her. Her children were married, and she would have gone anywhere with me. But her poor old mother, to whom she was devoted, was ill, and I was obliged to say, “Go to her, Ayah, if you think you ought.” My husband took her from Karachi to Bombay in August of 1892, and I never saw her again.

A friend, who was our guest in Karachi, and who had come from Mooltan to spend with us our last days in India, went with me to see them off. He was very angry because I took my ayah in my arms and kissed her when we parted. Dear soldier boy! I liked him immensely, but I loved my ayah better than any living thing I left in India. I had proved her worth, and I knew it. She loved me and I loved her. We had stood together beside a baby’s cradle and fought a long fight with the Angel of Death. I shall never forget her; and I never remember her without feeling in my heart what Rudyard Kipling had the genius to say⁠—

By the living God that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!