‘I, what can I do?’ he said, ‘It is the order of the memsahib.’
Ram Singh grunted and said no more. A rickshaw was coming down from the Mall, and the memsahib was in it.
Ten minutes later the ponies stood in their traces under the iron bar, and the lady sat in the tonga behind Ram Singh. Her runners, in uniform, waited beside the empty rickshaw with a puzzled look, at which she laughed, and threw a rupee to the head man.
The luggage was piled and corded on three ekkas behind, and their cross-legged drivers, too, were ready.
‘Chellao!’ she cried, crisply, and Ram Singh imperturbably lifted the reins. The little procession clanked and jingled along the hillside, always tending down, and broke upon the early grey melancholy with a forced and futile cheerfulness, too early, like everything else. As it passed the last of Simla’s little gardens, spread like a pocket-handkerchief on the side of the hill, the lady leaned forward and looked back as if she wished to impress the place upon her memory. Her expression was that of a person going forth without demur into the day’s hazards, ready to cope with them, yet there was some regret in the backward look.
‘It’s a place,’ she said aloud, ‘where EVERYBODY has a good time!’
Then the Amusement Club went out of sight behind a curve; and she settled herself more comfortably among her cushions, and drew a wrap round her to meet the chill wind of the valley. It was all behind her. The lady looked out as the ponies galloped up to the first changing-place, and, seeing a saddled horse held by a syce, cramped herself a little into one corner to make room. The seat would just hold two.
Ram Singh salaamed, getting down to harness the fresh pair, and a man put his face in at the side of the tonga and took off his hat.
‘Are you all right?’ he said. His smile was as conscious as his words were casual.
‘Quite right. The ayah was silly about coming—didn’t want to leave her babies or something—so I had to leave her behind. Everything else is either here or in the ekkas.’