Olivia in India Part 6

When Kipling wrote his _Christmas in India_ I think he must have been in a dak-bungalow down with fever, otherwise he would hardly have painted such a very gloomy picture. I, at least, didn't find it a mocking Christmas--but then India isn't my grim stepmother, as Victor Ormonde pointed out to me the other night, I can afford to be home-sick, can afford to let myself think of the "black dividing sea and alien plain," because here I have no continuing city. It is the real exiles, "shackled in a lifelong tether," who may not think, but must go doggedly through their day's darg.

I found it an agreeable day, from the morning when I got my presents and various offerings of flowers, to the evening, when we dined with some very kind people, and had an amusing time playing childish games.

I have often seen pictures headed "Christmas in the Tropics," and looked with sentimental eyes at the people grouped among palm-trees on a verandah, while the girl at the piano sang what was evidently a song about "the dear homeland," to judge from the far-away look in the eyes of all present. It seems a pity to disillusion you, but it isn't at all like that. To begin with, it was quite chilly, and we were very glad of the big fire burning in the grate, and we did not look pensive or far-away, but ate our dinner with great content. I think, perhaps, Christmas fare is even more uninteresting in India than at home; turkey tastes more like white flannel, and plum-pudding is stodgier, and there are no white and scarlet berries or robins; but otherwise it is really a nicer day than in England.

Of course I thought a lot about the home people. I imagined Peter waking and groping for his stocking. Oh, _have_ you forgotten what it felt like to waken up and remember it was Christmas morning? I sometimes wish I could still hang up my stocking. There is nothing in Grown-up Land that equals the thrill the delicious bulginess of the stocking, gripped in the darkness, gave one.

I think they would miss me a little at home. I know Mother would often say, "I wonder what Olivia is doing now!"

And what kind of Christmas had you? A very festive one, I hope.

Very many thanks for the book you sent me. You couldn't possibly have given me anything I like better. Somehow, I have never possessed a copy of _A Child's Garden of Verses_, and this one, so exquisitely, specially bound, will be a great treasure. I like, too, your reason for choosing it. It is nice of you to like my childish reminiscences, but it is rash to say you wish you had known us then. Looking at us now, so quiet, so well-behaved, _such_ ornaments to society, you would be surprised what villains we once were--at least on week-days! We had what R.L.S. calls a "covenanting childhood." Looking back, it seems to me that our childhood was a queer mixture of Calvinism and fairy tales. Calvinism, even now, I a.s.sociate with ham and eggs--I suppose because Sabbath morning was the only time we ever tasted that delicacy. Between bustling Sat.u.r.day night, when we wistfully watched our toys being locked away, and cheery Monday morning, when things began again, there was a great gulf fixed, and that was the Sabbath Day. What strenuous Sabbath Days we had! First there was wors.h.i.+p and the Catechism. (The only time I ever wished to be English was when I thought I might have dallied with "What is your name?" instead of wrestling with such deep things as "What is man's chief end?") After wors.h.i.+p was over we were allowed to walk in the garden till it was time for the morning service. That was the Forenoon Diet of Wors.h.i.+p, then came the Afternoon Diet of Wors.h.i.+p. Having sat like rocks through them both, we proceeded to the Sabbath School, and then went home to tea, and cake, and jam, and an evening filled with bound volumes of _The Christian Treasury_, where we wrestled with tales of religious bigotry and persecution until we seemed to breathe the very atmosphere of dark and mouldy cells; and became daringly familiar with the thumb-screw and the rack, the Inquisition and other devildoms of Spain. I used to wonder pitifully why it had never occurred to the poor victims to say their prayers in bed, and thus save themselves such fiery trials.

I wonder why I pretend we found our Sundays a trial. Looking back, I love every minute of them. Father could make any day delightful; and what a through-the-week Father he was! Sometimes he came to tea with us in the nursery and made believe there was a fairy called Annabel Lee in the teapot, carrying on conversations with her that sent eerie thrills down our several spines. Afterwards he would read out of a little green and gold book that contained for us all the romance of the ages between its elegant covers. From Father we heard of Angus the Subtle, Morag of the Misty Way, and the King of Errin, who rides and rides and whose road is to the End of Days. Sometimes, laying books aside, he told us old tales that he had heard from his mother, who in turn had heard them from hers--of the Red Etain of Ireland who lived in Belligand, and who stole the King's daughter, the King of fair Scotland; and the pathetic tale of the bannock that went to see the world, with its cynical end: "Ah, well! We'll all be in the tod's hole in less than a hunner years."

It was Father who gave us first a love for books, and taught us the magic of lovely words. And it was Father who tried to place our stumbling little childish feet in the Narrow Way, and to turn our eyes ever towards a better country--"that is an heavenly!" I suppose it was the dimly-understood talk of the better country that gave John and me the idea of our Kingdom.

It was a great secret once, but now I may tell without breaking faith.

Boggley and the Bird were prosaic people, caring more for bird-nesting and Red Indian hunting than games of make-believe, so they never knew.

It was part of the sunny old garden, our Kingdom, and was called Nontland because it was ruled by one Nont. He had once been a common ninepin, but having had a hole bored through his middle with a red-hot wire he became possessed of a mystic power and personality. Even we--his creators, so to speak--stood somewhat in awe of him.

The River Beulah flowed through Nontland, and it was bounded on the north by the Celestial Mountains; on the south by the red brick wall, where the big pears grew; on the west by the Rose of Sharon tree; and on the east by the pig-sty. That last sounds something of a descent, but it wasn't really a pig-sty, and I can't think why it was called so, for, to my knowledge, it had never harboured anything but two innocent white Russian rabbits with pink eyes. It was situated at the foot of the kitchen-garden, next door to the hen-houses; the roof, made of pavement flags, was easy to climb, and, sloping as it did to the top of the wall overlooking the high-road, was greatly prized by us as a watch-tower from which we could see the world go by.

To get into our Kingdom we knocked at the Wicket Gate, murmuring as we did so:

"El Dorado Yo he trovado,"

and it opened--with a push. We hadn't an idea then, nor have I now, what the words meant. We got them out of a book called _The Spanish Brothers_, and thought them splendidly mysterious.

Besides ourselves, and Nont, and the Russian rabbits, there was only one other denizen of our Kingdom--a turkey with a broken leg, a lonely, lovable fowl which John, out of pity, raised to the peerage and the office of Prime Minister. I have a vivid recollection of riding in hot haste on a rake to tell the King--not in proper fairy fas.h.i.+on that the skies were fallen, but that Lord Turkey of Henhouse was dead.

John, I remember, always carried some fern seed in his trouser-pocket.

He said it made him invisible--a delusion I loyally supported. It seems to me the sun always shone in those days, the time was ever three o'clock in the afternoon, and faery lay just adown the road!

It has just occurred to me, and it is an awesome thought, that you must converse every day, and all day, in the German language. I believe I have forgotten all I ever knew of German, though it isn't so very long ago since I wrestled in tears and confused darkness of mind with that uncouth tongue. Don't forget your native tongue, and don't dare write me a letter in German, or, like the Editor of _The Spectator_, I shall say, "This correspondence must now cease!"

Since last I wrote life has been one long changing of garments and moving from one show to another. Tuesday was Viceroy's Cup Day at the races, a very pretty sight. One side of the ground was crowded by pretty women in lovely gowns, and on the other side the natives sat in their hundreds and chattered, not the drab-coloured crowd we produce, but gay and striking as a bed of tulips.

There are three stands--one for the members of the Turf Club, one for the ordinary public, and one for the natives who can afford a seat.

The members of the Turf Club may be said to be the sheep; the others the goats. It is more comfortable in every way to be a sheep. You get a better seat and a comfortable tea in an enclosure, with the sight of the goats scrambling wildly for a little refreshment to keep you thankful, for in the heat and dust and glare even a sheep is apt to lose sight of its mercies. I thought G. was the prettiest girl there.

She is always such a refres.h.i.+ng sight, pink and white and golden like a morning in May, and tall--"like a king's own daughter."

I was with the Ormondes and, of course, Boggley. Mrs. Ormonde is so charming, she is a great favourite with men, and is always surrounded when she goes anywhere by about half a dozen eager for her smiles. She has the quaintest way of handing her surplus cavaliers on to me, but I really much prefer Victor and Boggley as companions. They don't need to be amused like other men, and are always good-natured and funny.

I am feeling a little pale with all the excitement, and shall be glad of the change to Darjeeling to-morrow. Next mail you shall hear all about it--that is to say, if no person, seditiously inclined, derails the train or does anything horrid. Some very dreadful things have been happening lately, but I don't think there is much danger so long as we keep far from the vicinity of dignitaries.

_Calcutta, New Year's Day_.

Wednesday already, the mail goes to-morrow, and I with so much to write about.

To begin--we left Calcutta on Friday afternoon and got to the Ganges about eight, when we embarked in a ferry-boat to cross the river.

It was quite a big steamer, with dinner-tables laid out on deck, decorated for Christmas with palm-branches, Chinese lanterns, and large, deadly-looking iced cakes.

On the other side, the train was waiting that was to take us to Siliguri, and we lost no time in looking for places. Indian trains are rather different from our trains. Each carriage has two broad seats running lengthways, which pull out for sleeping berths, and two other berths that let down from the roof. I found I had to share a carriage with two other females, and an upper berth fell to my share.

The bearer arranged my bed, and Boggley took a glance round, asked if I were all right, and departed to his own place. Isn't it a queer idea to carry one's bedding about with one? Pillows, blankets, and a quilt, all done up in a canvas hold-all, accompany people wherever they travel--in trains, hotels, even when staying with friends.

Well, there was I shut up for the night with two strange women, mother and daughter evidently, American certainly; and the horror of an upper berth staring me in the face! It is quite an experience to sleep in the upper berth of an Indian train. To begin with, it takes an acrobat of no mean order to reach it at all, and once you are in your nose almost touches the roof of the carriage. As I climbed to my lofty perch one of the American ladies remarked, "I guess, child, you ain't going to have the time of your life up there to-night." And I hadn't.

Every time the train gave a jolt--which it did every few seconds--I clung wildly to the straps to keep myself from descending suddenly and violently to the floor; and in less than an hour every bone in my body was crying out against the inhuman hardness of my couch. In spite of everything, I fell asleep, and awoke feeling colder than I ever remember feeling before. I started up, banging my head on the roof as I did so, to find that the carriage door was swinging wide open. What was to be done? I carefully felt the b.u.mps beginning to rise on my forehead, and considered. It was, humanly speaking, impossible that I could descend and shut that door, and yet, could I endure lying inadequately covered and exposed to all the winds of heaven? There remained my fellow-travellers--they at least were on the first floor, so to speak; but as I wavered a striking apparition rose, stalked down the carriage, and, leaning far out into the night, seized the door and shut it with a bang. Then arose a shrill protest from beneath me: "Oh, Mommer, how could you be so careless! You might have fallen out, and I should have been left quite alone in this awful heathen country!"

After that there was no more sleep, and when daylight came filtering through the shutters I slid warily to the floor, and having washed and dressed, sat on my dressing-bag and conversed amiably with the Americans. I found them charming and most entertaining, simple, quiet people; not the shrill-voiced tourist _jat_ at all. They had been travelling, so they told me, with a sort of dreary satisfaction, for two years, and they had still about a year to do. It sounded like hard labour! The poor dears! I can't think why they did it. They would have been so much happier at home in their own little corner of the world.

I can picture them attending sewing bees, and other quaint things people do attend in old-fas.h.i.+oned New England storybooks. They had a servant with them whom they addressed as Ali, a bearded rascal who evidently cheated them at every turn, and who actually came into their presence with his shoes on!

I didn't know till I met these Americans that I was such a wit--or perhaps wag is a better word. I didn't try to be funny, I didn't even know I was being funny, but every word I said convulsed them.

The "Mommer" said to me:

"Child, are you married?"

"No," I said, surprised. "Why?"

"I was just thinking what a good time your husband must have!"

When we reached Siliguri I was surprised to find everything glistening with frost, and the few natives who were about had their heads wrapped up in shawls as if they were suffering from toothache. We got some breakfast in the waiting-room, and then took our places in the funniest little toy train. This is the Darjeeling-Himalaya Railway. It was all very primitive. A man banged with a stick on a piece of metal by way of a starting-bell, and we set off on our journey to cloudland.

Eagerly looked for, Darjeeling came at last, but alack! no mountains, only piled-up banks of white clouds. It was bitterly cold, and we were glad to get out and stamp up to the hotel, where we found great fires burning in our rooms.

There wasn't much to do in the hotel beyond reading back numbers of _The Lady's Pictorial_, and I went to bed on Sat.u.r.day night rather low in my mind, fearing, after all, I was not to be accounted worthy to behold the mountains.

Some of the people in the hotel were getting up at 3.30 to go to Tiger Hill to see the sun rise on Everest. Boggley, the lazy one, wouldn't hear of going, and when I awoke in the grey dawning stiff with cold, in spite of a fire and heaps of blankets and rugs, I felt thankful that I hadn't a strenuous brother. If it had been John, I dare not think where he would have made me accompany him to in his efforts to get as near as possible to his beloved mountains. Never shall I forget the first time he took me to Switzerland to climb. I had never climbed before--unless you call scrambling on the hills at home climbing--and I was all eagerness to try till John gave me Whymper's book on Zermatt to amuse me in the train, and I read of the first ascent of the Matterhorn and its tragic sequel. It had the effect of reducing me to a state of abject terror. All through that journey, from Paris to Lausanne, from Lausanne to Visp, from Visp to Zermatt, horror of the Matterhorn hung over me like a pall. I even found something sinister in little Zermatt when we got there--Zermatt that now I love so, with the rus.h.i.+ng, icy river, the cheerful smell of wood smoke, the goats that in the early morning wake one with the tinkle-tinkle of the bells through the street, and the quiet-eyed guides that sit on the wall in the twilight and smoke the pipe of peace.

After dinner, that first night, we walked through the village and along the winding path that leads up to the Schwarzsee, and gazed at the mighty peak, so wild, so savage in the pale purple light that follows the sunset glow--gazed at it in silence, John wrapped in adoration, I thinking of the men who had gone up this road to their death.

"Yes," said John, as we turned back, "some very scared men have come down this road."

If he had known what an exceedingly scared girl was at his side he wouldn't, I think, have chosen that moment to turn into the little graveyard that surrounds the village chapel, to look at the graves of the victims--the graves of Croz the guide, of Hudson, and the boy Hadow. The text on one stone caught my eye--"_Be ye therefore also ready..._" It was too much; I fled back to the hotel, locked the door of my room, shuttered the windows so that I should not see the vestige of a mountain--and wept.

It is odd to think how I hated it all that night, how to myself I maligned all climbers, calling them in my haste foolhardy--senseless--imbecile, when I had only to go up my first easy mountain to become as keen as the worst--or the best.

Sometimes in those mountaineering excursions with John to Zermatt, to Chamonix, to Grindelwald, I have found it in my heart to envy the unaspiring people who spend long days pottering about on level ground.

But looking back it isn't the quiet, lazy days one likes to think about. No--rather it is the mornings when one rose at 2 a.m. and, thrusting aching feet into nailed boots, tiptoed noisily into the deserted dining-room to be supplied with coffee and rolls by a pitifully sleepy waiter.

Outside the guides wait, Joseph and Aloys, and away we tramp in single file along the little path that runs through fields full of wild flowers, drenched with dew, into a fairy-tale wood of tall, straight pine-trees. We follow the steady, slow footsteps of Joseph, the chief guide, up the winding path that turns and twists, and turns again, but rises, always rises, until we are clear of the wood, past the rough, stony ground, and on to the snow, firm and hard to the feet before the sun has melted the night's frost. When we reach the rocks, and before we rope, Aloys removes his rucksack and proceeds to lay out our luncheon; for if one breakfasts at two one is ready for the next meal at nine. Crouched in strange att.i.tudes, we munch cold chicken, rolls and hard-boiled eggs, sweet biscuits and apples, with great content.

Joseph has buried a bottle of white wine in the snow, and now pours some into a horn tumbler, which he hands to Mademoiselle with an air--a draught of nectar. It is John's turn for the tumbler next, and as he emerges from the long, ice-cold, satisfying drink he declares his firm intention, his unalterable resolve, never to drink anything but white wine again in this world. But doubtless as you know, the white wine of the Lowlands is not the white wine of the mountains.

It needs to be buried in the snow by Joseph, and drunk out of a horn tumbler, at the foot of an aiguille, after a six hours' climb, to be at its best. After refreshment comes the hard work. To look at the face of the rock up which Joseph has swarmed; to say hopelessly, "I can't do it, I can't," and then gradually to find here a niche for one hand, here a foothold; to learn to cling to the rock, to use every bit of oneself, to work one's way up delicately as a cat so as not to send loose stones down on the climber below, until, panting, one lands on the ledge appointed by Joseph, there to rest while the next man climbs, it is the best of sports. And at the top to stand in the "stainless eminence of air," to look down eight--ten--a thousand feet to the toy village at the foot while John names all the other angel peaks that soar round us, tell me, you who are also a climber, is it not very good?

But the coming down! Stumbling wearily down the steep paths of the pine-woods with the skin rubbed off one's toes, and giving at the knees like an old and feeble horse, that is not so good. And yet--I don't know. For as we near the valley, puffs of hot, scented air come up to meet us, the tinkle of the cow-bell greets our ears, and we realize that it is only given to those who have braved the perils, who have searched for the deep things of the ancient mountains and found out the precious things of the lasting hills, to thoroughly appreciate the pleasant, homely quietness of the meadow-lands.