I was delighted at the prospect of seeing one quite close at hand. I pictured a strong still man with a beard, soft fat hands, and a sob in his voice that, at election times, would touch the great, deep throbbing Heart of the People. Instead, I beheld a small, thin man, with eyes as tired as any of the poor sun-dried bureaucrats, and a wide mouth with a humorous twitch at the corners; a man one couldn't imagine wanting to touch anything so silly as the Heart of the People. He talked, I noticed, very little during dinner, but the men were unusually long in joining us afterwards, and as Boggley clambered after me into the tikka-gharry that was to take us home: "That's a ripping fellow!" said Boggley.
Another illusion shattered!
I hasten to set your mind at rest on one point. I have a chaperon, and a very nice, though entirely unnecessary, one. Her name is Mrs. Victor Ormonde, and she knows my people at home; that is why she bothers with me. She is a most attractive woman to look at, tall, dark and slender, with the dearest little turned-up nose, which makes her look rather impertinent, and she is a little inclined to be sniffy to some people; she considers Calcutta women suburban! Her husband is quite different, friends with everyone, a cheerful soul and as Irish as he can be. He is very fond of chaffing his exclusive wife. "Now do be affable," he implored her the other night, before they went to a large and somewhat mixed gathering. "And was she affable?" I asked next morning. "Oh! rollin' about on the floor," was the obviously untrue reply.
You ask how I like the Anglo-Indian women, and I don't know quite what to say. It is the old story. When they are nice they are very, very nice, but when they are nasty they are horrid. Some of them I simply hate. They give me such nasty little stabs the while they smile and pretend to be pleasant!
I am quite capable of giving back as good as I get, but it isn't worth while, because if one does yield to the temptation, afterwards one feels such a worm. There is no doubt it is more difficult in India than at home to obey the command of one's childhood: "to behave pretty and be a lady." What is a lady exactly? I used to be told that a lady was one who always said "please" when asking for more bread-and-butter, and who never bit the fingers of her gloves. That was simple. "And what'll I be if I'm not a lady?" I asked. "You'll be common," said the nurse severely, and then and there, because snatched bread-and-butter was sweet and gloves chewed in secret pleasant, I registered a vow that common I would be. A dear little lady I met the other day, talking about her sister Mem-sahibs, said airily, "Of course we very soon lose complexions, manners, and morals." She could afford to say so, it being so obviously untrue in her case. I think it is just this, that the women who are pure gold grow more charming, but the pinch-beck wears off very soon. The Eastern sun reveals blemishes, moral and physical, that would pass unnoticed in the murkier atmosphere of England. The wonder to me is that anyone keeps nice when one thinks of the provocation there is to deteriorate. The climate, the lack of any serious occupation to take up their days, the constant round of gaieties indulged in partly, I believe, to keep themselves from thinking, the ever-present anxiety about the children at home—oh! there is much one could say if one held a brief for the Anglo-Indian women.
Calcutta society is made up of Government people, Army people, and business people who are called, for some unknown reason, box-wallahs. It seems very strange that there should be such a desire to go one better than one's neighbour, to have better horses, a smarter carriage, a larger house, smarter gowns, because, at least in the case of the Civil Service people, their income is known down to the last rupee.
Everybody in India is, more or less, somebody. It must be a very sad change to go home to England and be (comparatively) poor and shabby, and certainly obscure, to have people remark vaguely they suppose you are "something in India." I suppose we are all snobs at heart. Snobbery, sir, doth walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere. A good lady talked to me quite seriously lately about what the Best People in Calcutta did. It has become a light table joke with us, and when I plant my elbows on the table and hum a tune while we are waiting for the next course at dinner, Boggley mildly inquires, "Do the Best People do that?"
It is a subject I never gave much attention to, but now awful doubts assail me. Am I the Best People? One thing is certain: I am of very little importance. I am only a chota Miss Sahib and my chota-ness is my great protection. No one is going to bother much what I do, or trouble to pull my clothes and my conduct to pieces, and I can creep along unnoticed to a great extent; I watch the game and find it vastly entertaining.
It grieves me to say that I am one of the class who ought to remain in England. There I am quite a nice person up to my lights, fairly unselfish, loving my neighbour as myself. But I have proved myself pinchbeck. No, you needn't say I'm sweet, I'm not. I find myself saying the most detestable things about people. Oblivious of the beam in my own eye, I stare fixedly and reprovingly at the mote in my neighbour's. Could anything be more unlovable?
I get no encouragement to be a cat from Boggley. Everyone is his very good friend.