At this period the Maharajah was in high favour at Court; his children, after his marriage with the unpretentious little lady he wooed and won at Singapore, were permitted to play with British Royal sprigs, and the Heir-apparent invariably had a week’s shooting with his dusky neighbour and a suitably selected party in the autumn.
But despite the glamour these reunions may be supposed to have spread over him Dhuleep Singh had ever an eye to business, and a contract was made with Baily, the poulterer in Mount Street, for a shilling a head all round for all surplus hares, rabbits, pheasants, and what-not slaughtered at Elvedon Hall.
The Maharajah’s behaviour meanwhile was all that was desirable. At Court functions he was resplendent in emeralds and diamonds, and the slab, six inches by four, on his swordbelt was said to be the finest emerald in the world.
The jewellers to whom was deputed the task of cutting, setting, and otherwise improving the barbaric gems of the youthful prince are said to trace their present Bond Street position to this fortunate selection.
It was only when his Highness assumed evening dress that visions of Mooltan, Chilianwallah, and Goojerat faded from one’s brain, and a podgy little Hindoo seemed to stand before one, divested of that physique and martial bearing one associates with either warriors or Sikhs, and only requiring, as it were, a chutnee-pot peeping out of his pocket to complete the illusion.
During the sixties and seventies Dhuleep Singh was in evidence everywhere. An excellent whist player amongst such admitted champions as Goldingham, Dupplin, “Cavendish” (on whist), and others, he was to be found every afternoon at the Marlborough, or East India, or Whist Club backing his opinion, and damning his partner if he ignored his “call for trumps;” whilst every evening found him at the Alhambra graciously accepting the homage of the houris in the green-room, and distributing 9-carat gimcracks with Oriental lavishness.
During this period apparently the Punjaub occupied only a secondary position in his mind, and we next find him occupying a spacious flat in King Street, Covent Garden, and it was there, doubtless, that visions of charging at the head of the splendid horsemen of the Punjaub and the wresting of India from British rule first entered his romantic brain; for the Maharajah was a poet, though happily none of his effusions appear to have been preserved. He may also have recollected that the Koh-i-noor was once a crown jewel of Runjeet Singh, and his Highness was passionately found of baubles.
Often have I seen him of an evening pacing to and fro outside the “Shirt Shop” (as the Whist Club was affectionately called) maturing those foolish plans that deprived him of his income for a while and led him into straits that it is painful to realise. Occasionally, indeed, he would rave at the injustice of the beggarly income the Government of India accorded him, and then it was he conceived the brilliant idea of coquetting with Russia for the simultaneous rising of the Punjaub and a Russian invasion of India.
Not that one Sikh would have stirred at his call, and his proclamation fizzed and went out like any squib at a Brock benefit. Added to this, Russia rucked on him and his Highness fell into disgrace.
But still his vanity led him on, and he essayed to start for India, and shipped as Pat Casey, though why Pat, and what part of Ireland Casey hailed from will ever remain an unfathomable mystery.