“It’s absolutely none of their business,” returned the lord downstairs.
And they were both “blowed” if they would tolerate the slightest interest in their respective affairs. The Brownes concluded that “perhaps once a month” would be often enough to ask the Lovitts to come up and dine, and the Lovitts thought the Brownes might come in to tea “once in three weeks or so.” Before this they had been in the habit of entertaining each other rather oftener, but then they were not under the same roof, with a supreme reason for establishing distance. Mrs. Browne believed that on the whole she wouldn’t engage Mrs. Lovitt’s dhurzie—it might lead to complications; and Mrs. Lovitt fancied she had better not offer Helen that skirt-pattern—it would necessitate endless discussions and runnings up and down. Mrs. Lovitt deliberately arranged to go up to see Helen for the first time with her hat and gloves on, to make it obvious that the call should be formally returned. Helen sent down a note, beautifully written and addressed, to ask Mrs. Lovitt to come to tea on Wednesday afternoon, at a quarter past five. The ladies left no little thing undone, in fact, that would help to quell a tendency to effusion; they arranged to live as remotely from each other as the limits of No. 61, Park-street, permitted. The Brownes had always the roof and habitually sent chairs up there. “They can’t say we haven’t rented it,” said Helen.
Their precautions not to be offensive to each other were still more elaborate. Mr. Browne ascertained at what time Mr. Lovitt went to office, and made a habit of starting a quarter of an hour earlier. Mrs. Lovitt, observing that the Brownes were fond of walking in the compound in the evening, walked there always in the morning. Neither of them would give any orders to the mallie, whom they jointly paid, for fear of committing an unwarrantable interference, and that functionary grew fat and lazy, while the weeds multiplied in the gravel walks. Helen even went so far as to use the back staircase to avoid a possible encounter at the front door, but young Browne disapproved of this. He believed in abating no jot or tittle of their lawful claims. “Use the staircase freely, my dear,” said he, “but do not engage in conversation at the foot of it.”
They assumed a bland ignorance of each other’s affairs, more discreet than veracious. When Mrs. Lovitt mentioned that they had had a lot of people to dinner the night before, Helen said, “Had you?” as if she had not heard at least half a dozen carriages drive up at dinner time; as if she had not decided, she and George, indifferent upon the roof, that the trap which drove off so much later than the others must have been Jimmy Forbes’s. And they would be as much surprised, these two ladies, at meeting anywhere else at dinner as if they had not seen each other’s name inscribed in the peon book that brought the invitations, and remarked each of the other, at the time, “It seems to me we see enough of those people at home.”
They were a little ridiculous, but on the whole they were very wise indeed, and the relations that ensued were as polite and as amiable as possible. It was like living on the edge of a volcano, taking the precaution of throwing a pail or two of water down every day or two. And nothing happened.
CHAPTER XIX.
NOTHING happened. Thus for three months, three hot weather months. The punkah wallahs came and ministered to the sahiblok with creakings and snorings that cannot be uttered, much less spelled. The mango-crop was gathered and sold, the topsy muchies swam up the river Hooghly, and were caught and cooked in their appointed season. The Viceroy and his shining ones went to Simla, and a wave of flirtation swept over the Himalayas. The shops put up grass-tatties for the wind to blow through, and the customers who went in were much cooler than the coolies who stood outside throwing water over them. The brain-fever bird spoke—he does not sing—all day long in the banyan-tree—“Ponk! Ponk!” all day long in the thickest part of the banyan-tree, where nobody can see or shoot him. He comes and stays with the hot weather, a feathered thing accursed. The morning paper devoted itself exclusively to publishing the “Gazette” notices of leave and the lists of intending passengers by P. and O., and week after week the tide bore great ships outward, every cabin occupied by persons connected with more or less disordered livers, going home for three or six or twelve months’ repairs. You could count on your fingers the people you knew in the Red Road. Kasi asked for an umbrella; respectfully as a right, it was the dustur for the sahib to provide an umbrella. The ayah begged for an umbrella, humbly as a favour; she had far to come and the sun was “ag kamofik.”[[89]] The kitmutgar asked for an umbrella, not because he had the slightest idea that he would get it, but because it was generally more blessed to ask than not to ask. The cholera arrived punctually, and increased the native death-rate, with its customary industry. The Lovitts lost a bearer from this cause, and a valuable polo pony from heat apoplexy. The latter bereavement was in the paper. The oil exuded more profusely still upon the adipose tissue that encloses the soul of a baboo, and Calcutta flamed with the red flowers of the gold mohur tree, panting nightly, when they were all put out, under the cool south wind from the sea.