Captain Marpeet made his appearance at the hour appointed on the
following evening, and off we started for the Kidderpore school, which,
by the way, is, or was, a rather large and imposing structure, at some
distance from Calcutta; mussalchees, or link boys, with blazing
flambeaux, scampering ahead in good, tip-top style.
Having passed the bazaar, we turned sharply from the main road, into a
pretty extensive compound or domain, and soon found ourselves before the
portico of the school, amongst buggies, palankeens, and other
conveyances appertaining to visitors who had preceded us. Leaving our
palankeens, we entered the house, passed through several rooms, one of
them devoted to refreshments, and partly filled with gay Lotharios, some
few military, the rest belonging to the orders “shippy” and “cranny,”[5]
and finally entered the ball-room. This we found thronged with dancers,
in a blaze of light, and resounding to the merry notes of a band, which,
though not exactly equal to Weippert’s, seemed, nevertheless, as a
locomotive stimulus, to be quite as effective. The country-dance then
flourished in its green old age, and the couples at the Kidderpore hop
were flying about in great style—poussette, hands across, down the
middle, and back again—evincing, in spite of the temperature, all that
laudable perseverance so essential to the accomplishment of such
laborious undertakings.
Marpeet, at my particular request, and to keep us in countenance, wore
his uniform, though he had previously declared (considering the season)
that it was a most griffinish proceeding to sport broadcloth, and
decidedly against his conscience. “You griffs, however,” said he “will
have your way, and we must humour you sometimes.” As for myself, in my
scarlet raggie, brimstone facings, black waist-belt, and regulation
sword, in my own opinion I looked quite the god of war, and was fully
armed for execution.
What an era in the life of a soldier is his first appearance in
regimentals, “his blushing honours thick about him!” how he then pants
for love and glory; the tented field and the clash of arms! At forty or
fifty, possibly, if of a thoughtful vein, his sword converted to a hoe
or pen, a mighty change comes o’er him, and he thinks, perhaps, that he
might have done better had he stuck to a black or a blue one. Sometimes,
it is true, when warmed with a flicker of his youthful fire, like Job’s
war-horse, he loves to “snuff the battle from afar,” and “saith to the
trumpets, ‘ha! ha!’” But, mainly, war delights him no more, for he sees
the wide-spread evils which lurk under its exciting pomp and
meretricious glitter, and his heart and mind yearn towards those more
ennobling pursuits and occupations, which tend to elevate his species,
to give to the intellectual and moral their due ascendency, and which
speak of “peace and good-will to man.”
The dancers being in motion, we did not advance, but contented ourselves
with occupying a position by the door, and leisurely surveying the
scene. At one end of the apartment, on chairs and benches, sat certain
elderly matrons, amongst whom were the superiors of the establishment,
looking complacently at the young folks, and calculating in all
probability the amount of execution likely to result from the evening’s
amusements.
The young ladies, however, whose sylph-like forms were gliding through
the mazes of the dance, were the “orient pearls at random strung,” which
principally attracted my attention. As the flush of a summer’s noon
fades by insensible degrees into the ebon shades of night, so did the
complexions of these charming damsels graduate from white to black.
Youth, however, smiling, buxom youth, like the mantle of charity, covers
a multitude of defects, or, if I may help myself to another and apter
simile, possesses an alchymic power, which converts all it touches to
gold. There were eyes, teeth, sportive ringlets, and graceful forms
enough, in the Kidderpore ball-room, stamped with all its freshness, to
atone for the darker shadings of the picture.
For the first time, indeed, though previously imbued with the common and
illiberal European prejudice against black, I began to experience a
wavering, and to think that dark languishing eyes and a dash of bronze
imparted what is often wanted in English beauties, somewhat of soul and
character to the countenance. Music, lights, the excitement of the
ball-room, are, however, it must be confessed, sad deceivers, producing
illusions full oft, which painfully vanish with the morning’s light. For
young ladies of thirty or thereabouts (an age, though now-a-days, I am
credibly informed, never attained by spinsters), the ball-room and its
factitious glare have some decided advantages. By day, Cupid, the sly
urchin, can only make his attacks from smiles and dimples; but by night,
at a pinch, he may launch a shaft with effect even from a wrinkle.
The dance at length ceased; beaux bowed, ladies courtesied, and the
throng broke into couples, and promenaded the apartment. Exhausted
belles sunk into seats, whilst attentive youths fanned and
_persiflaged_, laughed at nothing, and studied “the agreeable.” Such was
the posture of affairs, when the head of the establishment, a lady of
about five-and-forty, of pleasing appearance and address, seeing we were
strangers, approached, and kindly bade us welcome. There was an
amiability, and at the same time a firmness and decision in her manner,
a happy admixture of the _suaviter_ and _fortiter_, which showed that
she was peculiarly well qualified for the arduous task she had to
perform of presiding over this establishment—a sort of nunnery
travestied, in which perpetual celibacy formed no part of the vows, and
the vigils differed widely from those which “pale-eyed virgins keep” in
the gloomy seclusion of the convent.
“Would you like to dance, sir?” said the lady, addressing herself to
Captain Marpeet.
“No, I thank you, ma’am,” said my blunt companion; “I am a little too
stiff in the joints, and my dancing days are all over.”
The fact was, that Marpeet had passed five consecutive years of his life
in the jungles, where, as it frequently happens in India, he had
acquired what, for want of a better term, I will call a _gynophobia_, or
woman-horror, which the occasional appearance of a spinster in those
deserts wild rather tended to confirm than allay. A short residence in
England had, it is true, in some degree, moderated this dread of the
respectable portion of the softer sex; but still much of it remained,
and he shunned with morbid aversion all situations imposing the painful
necessity of whispering soft nothings and “doing the agreeable” with the
ladies. The good dame of the school smiled expressively on receiving
Captain Marpeet’s answer; it was a smile which said, as plain as smile
could speak, “You are an odd fish, I see, and one on whom pressing would
be quite thrown away.”
“Perhaps,” said she, turning to me, “you will allow me to introduce you
to a partner, and if so, I shall have great pleasure in presenting you
to one of our young ladies?”
I had none of Marpeet’s scruples, expressed my acknowledgments, accepted
her offer, and was led full clank across the ball-room, and presented in
due form to Miss Rosa Mussaleh, as an aspirant for her fair hand in the
ensuing dance. Miss Rosa Mussaleh was a fine bouncing girl of eighteen,
still in high blow from the effects of her recent exertions. Form
unexceptionable: complexion rather tending to a delicate saffron,
bespeaking plainly her Asiatic maternity.
“If not engaged, Miss Rosa,” said the school-mistress, presenting me,
“Ensign Gernon” (I had previously communicated my name and _rank_,
though there was not much danger of mistaking me for a major-general)
“will be happy to dance with you.”
“I shall be ver happie; I am not engaged,” said Miss Rosa, in a singular
variety of the Anglo-Saxon tongue called the _Cheechee_ language
(Hindustanee idiom Englished), then new to me—a dialect which
constitutes a distinguishing mark of those born and bred in India, and
the leading peculiarity of which consists in laying a false emphasis,
particularly on such small words as _to_, _me_, _and_, &c. The lady of
the establishment having performed her _devoir_, as mistress of the
ceremonies, made a courteous inclination, and withdrew, leaving us to
ourselves.
As a rather precocious juvenile, I had danced with some of the fair and
well-born damsels of my own land at Bath, Clifton, and elsewhere, and
was, therefore, not to be daunted with the mahogany charms of Miss R.
M.; so, _sans cérémonie_, I dashed into conversation.
“You have a great many charming young ladies here,” said I.
“Oh, yes,” said my partner, “great manie; but they are not all here;
_the_ little girls are gone _to_ bed. Do you then admire our young
ladie?”
This was rather a pointed question; but I replied without hesitation,
“Oh, excessively; there appear to be some lovely creatures amongst them,
and (giving a flourish) with charms enough to move the soul of an
anchorite.”
“Oh,” said Miss Rosa, with a smile and downward look, wishing to be
complimentary, “I think dey are more fond of the military.”
I was on the point of emitting that expressive note of
astonishment—_whew!_ but checked myself.
“I think,” said I, “you rather mistook me, though I can hardly regret
that which has been the cause of so flattering an admission, but I
alluded to an ascetic.”
“Asiatic!” said the young lady, with some hauteur, and a toss of the
head, “no native come to these ball, I assure you.”
I could not suppress an emphatic “humph!”
The fiddles now began again; I presented my arm, divested myself, though
with reluctance, of my trusty Solingen blade, and took my place in the
set. A tremendous long set it was, and after slaving for half an hour, I
found myself at the head of it. Grundy, with a face like that of the
Marquess of Granby on a sign-post, standing next to me, and streaming
like the apotheosis of a river god.
“Well, how do you get on, Grundy?” said I.
“Oh, it’s cruel hot work,” said he, with a sigh, which was perfectly
heart-rending.
“Hot, indeed,” I rejoined, giving sigh for sigh; “they don’t catch me
dancing again in a red coat.”
If working up the dance was fatiguing, the going down it was still more
so. My partner, a practised hand, skipped about without the smallest
signs of fatigue, whilst I, reeking from every pore, was dragged up and
down and whirled round and about till my head spun, and I thought I
should have verily gone into a fit, or sunk from sheer exhaustion on the
floor. I did, however, contrive to hold out till we finished the dance,
five-and-twenty couples at least, when, with a staggering bow, I
tendered my arm and led my partner to her seat.
“Are you fond of dancing?” said she, with the coolest assurance.
“A little of it,” said I, with a sigh, “when in practice, the set not
too long, and the weather not too hot.”
A gentleman, chained, ringed, and be-broached, stout and bronzed, now
came up, and engaged my partner for the next dance, chatted for some
time with the air of an old acquaintance, gave a “bye-bye” sort of a
nod, and passed on.
“Do you know Captain Trinkum?”
“No,” said I; “what does he belong to?”
“To the _Rustomjee Bomanjee_,” said she.
“The _Rustomjee Bomanjee_,” I rejoined; “pray what regiment is that?
some irregular corps, I suppose.”
This remark of mine set her off in a violent fit of laughter, of which
(rather confused) I begged to know the cause.
“It’s a country ship,” screamed she, “not a regiment.” Going off again
at a tangent, “Oh, now I see you are a griffin.”
Thus she balanced the anchorite account, and turned the tables. I can’t
say I was sorry when he of the _Rustomjee Bomanjee_ came smirking up,
and relieved me from the raillery of Miss Rosa, who, though herself
guilty of corrupting the kings English, was an arrant quiz, and not
disposed to spare my griffinish blunders.
Marpeet now joined me, and after a little banter touching the style in
which Miss Rosa had trotted me about, proposed an adjournment to the
refreshment-room. To this I joyfully acceded, suggesting that it would
be a charity to take poor Grundy with us, if his dissolution had not
already taken place.
“Come, Grundy,” said Marpeet; “come along with us; we’re going to
victual and refit, and would recommend the same to you, for you seem in
need of it.”
Grundy assented with pleasure, and, linked arm-in-arm we entered the
refreshment-room.
Here was a scene of considerable bustle; some were preparing acidulous
compounds for the ladies in the ball-room; others doing the like for
themselves. As we entered, a staid and exemplary young man, with his
cargo of negus and cake, balancing the same with the nicety of a
juggler, was making his way out, when in banged a six-foot ensign to do
the bidding of his fair inamorata, and charged with her fan and gloves,
and going full butt against the exemplary beau, upset both negus and
cake. The ensign, a flighty fellow in every respect, made a hasty
apology, and off, leaving the beau to wipe his waistcoat and repair the
damages as best he might. Knots of young fellows were there, laughing,
eating sandwiches or brewing negus, lounging, and clanking their swords.
Native servants belonging to the visitors or the establishment were
bustling about, and making themselves useful; whilst here and there, in
a corner, and availing herself of the solitude of a crowd, a young lady
might be seen, her back against the wall, listlessly sipping her negus,
or balancing a spoon over a jelly-glass, and listening, with downward
look and in mute entrancement, to some handsome _militaire_, whilst he
was pouring into her attentive ear the “leprous distilment” of honied
words.
Recruited and refreshed, we returned to the ball-room, and in spite of
my recent resolution, I again joined the dance, which was kept up till a
late hour, when my friends and I returned to my room in the fort, where,
fairly _done_ up, I betook myself to rest, the fiddles still sounding in
my head, to dream of Miss Rosa, and all I had seen and heard; and so
terminated my first ball in the East.
The Kidderpore hops, I hear, are now no more; from which I conclude that
some other matrimonial plan has been devised for disposing of the young
ladies, more in consonance with the refined delicacy of the age, which,
though recognizing the necessity of matrimony, seems to discountenance
any expedient which smacks of the slave-market.
On the following evening, Captain Marpeet, according to engagement,
called in a hired buggy, to take me a drive on the Course. The Course,
as is well known, is the grand resort of the _beau monde_ of Calcutta,
which, like a colony of owls or bats from a ruin, emerge at sundown from
all parts of that extensive city, to see and to be seen, and to enjoy
the coolness of the evening breeze.
Seated in his gig, Marpeet drew up before the barrack in all his glory,
handling the ribbons with the peculiar and finished grace of a man who
had made it his study. Great, indeed, were his pretensions in that way,
and I am confident he would rather have been the leader of the
four-in-hand club, than have written the _Principia_ of Newton.
In I jumped; Marpeet cracked his whip to mettle up his ticca[6] tit—an
animal deficient in flesh and blood, certainly, but exhibiting an
amazing deal of bone. Away we went. The evening gun had just boomed; the
myriad crows of the Fort cawed querulously responsive from the trees;
the bugles sounded; the drums beat; the guards at the gates, European
and native, were turned out; captains and lieutenants, flushed with
tiffin or a nap, swords under their arms, sauntered along to join them.
The firefly here and there twinkled in the trees, and the far-off yell
of the jackall proclaimed the approach of night, when away we whirled
through covered ways and over thundering drawbridges, past scarp,
counter-scarp, and glacis, and in a few minutes found ourselves amidst
the throng of carriages and equestrians on the Course, the mass of the
Government-house, with its capacious dome and lion-crowned gates, rising
in front, and the vast semicircle of Chowringhee, with its aggregation
of snow-white structures, stretching away far to the right.
What a singular scene here presented itself to my admiring sight! What
an admixture of nations, and their several modes and peculiarities—of
English turn outs and Indian piebald imitations—with strange equipages,
combining European finish with the native original! Carriages and
equestrians, walking, trotting, or galloping, passing and repassing!
This is the Hyde Park of the East, where, though less of splendour than
in its great prototype, there was far more variety to be seen. There
came the Governor-General, the viceroy of British India, open barouche
and four (all dignity and gracious bows); cocked hats and feathers
flying; black body-guard before and behind, in a long trot; sabres
flashing, and scabbards rattling. Near, by way of antithesis, might be
seen a palankeen carriage “creepy crawley,” drawn by two enormous
bullocks, with monstrous dewlaps, bearing some fat old Portuguese lady,
black as Erebus or Nox, to take the air, driver working hard to rouse
them to a transient hobble. There, four or five abreast, rode sundry
dashing young officers, displaying themselves and their uniforms to the
best advantage, “pride in their port, defiance in their eyes;” whilst
near, in some open landau or barouche, the “cynosure of neighbouring
eyes,” would appear the newly-arrived beauty, the belle of the season,
her English roses contrasting with the reigning _pallor_ around, wearing
a look of conscious power, and exhibiting herself to the admiring gaze
of the gossiping world. Happy creature! all is _couleur de rose_ with
you! No thoughts of the future disturb the self-satisfied emotions of
thy exulting bosom! And who is he beside her—the handsome young
aide-de-camp? With easy bend he leans gracefully towards the carriage,
and checks his fiery Arab. Mark how he rattles, and says his agreeable
things, with all the airs of a conscious “eligible,” whilst the
gratified vanity of the woman sparkles in her eyes and glows in her
animated countenance. Here comes an intruder, bound for a distant
bazaar—jingle, jingle, jingle! What a contrast! a native ruth or bylie,
bullocks in a long trot, a pretty black damsel,
With rings on her fingers,
And bells on her toes—
she of childhood’s song to a nicety—peeping from behind the blinds. “Ah!
turn not away those sweet eyes!” Egad, she’s off—driver twisting the
tails and goading the quarters of his cattle to “keep up the steam.”
There whirl past in tilbury or tandem a brace of recently-arrived
writers, regular Meltonians, doing the thing _secundum artem_, and
determined to astonish the crowd. How knowingly, his person
obliqued-quarter front, does the driver sit! With what gentlemanly
_abandon_ does the drivee loll back in the vehicle! These are
high-spirited fellows, who drink their claret, and have never known a
care, and “d——n every thing that is low!”
See, with _andante_ movement now advances the ponderous chariot of the
great Baboo Maha Raja Spooney Persaud Mullik, the great milch-cow of the
lawyers, and who gives his lac at a time from the genuine impulses of a
_native_ benevolence; turbaned coachman; Baboo within, wrapped in
cashmeres, fat, yellow, and bolt upright as the effigy on a tombstone.
Halloo, there! what’s this? A race—clear the way! There they come, hired
for the evening, “two blind uns and a bolter;” heads down, ears
viciously inclined. “Go it, my middies!” Look at the reefer in
advance—all aback, toes in his horse’s nose, head on the crupper,
tugging for bare life to make his craft steer or wear. I thought so—snap
go the tiller-ropes—a man overboard—the blue-jacket rolls in the dust:
he’s up again, hat rammed over his eyes—but the bolter’s off—catch him
who can!
There goes, at a gee-up hobble, a shandry-dan, with two Armenians in
it—highly respectable men, with queer velvet caps, and very
episcopal-looking aprons—strange mixture of European and Asiatic,
neither flesh nor fowl—Topee Wala or Puckree Bund.[7] They nod to two
gentlemen passing in a gig, of the gimcrack order—gentlemen in white
jackets and ditto hats; highly _polished_ men, _i.e._ in the face, which
seems, indeed, to have had the benefit of a bottle of Day and Martin’s
real japan blacking—who are they? Valiant Lusitanians, illustrious
descendants of Albuquerque and Vasco de Gama—Messrs. Joachim de Reberero
and Gomez de Souza, writers in the office of the salt and opium
department. Who is this in cords, top boots, and white jacket—a dapper,
well-fed little man, on a tall English horse, to which he bears about
the same relative proportions that Falstaffs bread did to his sherris
sack?—Ay, who?
Come, tell it, and burn ye—
He is—can he help it?—a special attorney—
an _attaché_ of the Supreme Court.
Such, then, is the Course of Calcutta; and such a little melodramatic
sketch may give some idea of the varied objects which there meet the
eye.
We drove up and down several times, and recognized not a few of our ship
companions; amongst others, the little colonel, in a barouche with some
ladies, whom he was evidently entertaining with a “yarn.” Darkness now
came on apace. The mussalchees, or link boys, with their flaring
mussauls, met their masters at turns of the roads, to light them to
their several homes, and we thought it time to depart. Marpeet drove to
his quarters, where he invited me to pass the evening, to which I
assented. Sitting over our wine, Marpeet discussed the Course, and gave
me a few bits of scandal, touching sundry ladies and gentlemen we had
seen, over which I yawned, for I have ever abominated what are called
private histories.
“Well,” said Marpeet, “I think I shall start for the Upper Provinces,
and leave you sooner than I thought. The lads there in the old corps are
very anxious to have me amongst them once more. I have a letter to-day
from Tippleton—an old friend of mine, who is a real good fellow, with no
nonsense about him (I hope to bring you acquainted some day)—urging my
going up without delay. Let me see,” said he, feeling his pocket, “I
think I have it somewhere about me. Oh, yes, here it is, and you may
read it, if you like. He is rather fond, you will perceive, of the
Hindoostanee zuban, and so forth, but he does not set up for a great
scribe, but is what is better, a devilish honest fellow. Come governor,
toss off your heel-taps, and take some more wine.”
Every language has, probably, terms which, from their superior terseness
or euphony, express more fully the meanings they are intended to convey
than corresponding words in another tongue; and this certainly justifies
their adoption. But there is also a practice of using foreign phrases
indiscriminately, when the native ones would do quite as well. Shortly
after the last peace, novel-writers could express nothing with point and
effect but in French and Italian; so in India there are a class of men,
generally small wits, who interlard their conversation with Hindoostanee
words and phrases; these they often sport in England, where of course
they are unintelligible and out of place. Ye guardian genii! who watch
over the “well of English undefiled,” whilst you admit what will purify
and sweeten, prevent its unhallowed pollution from garbage thrown into
it by every idle and thoughtless hand! And now for Captain Tippleton’s
letter, which though rather more fully charged with Hindoostanee terms
than any the writer ever met with, yet presents some likeness of a
certain species of Indian epistolary style (of the slip-slop and
slang-wanging order):—
Grillumabad, Aug. 18—
MY DEAR MARPEET,
Just now taking a _dekh_ (look) at the Calcutta _Khubber_ (News), I
saw your name amongst those of a batch of griffs and _Tazu wulaits_
(fresh Europeans), having arrived by the _Rottenbeam Castle_. Welcome
back, my dear fellow, to _John Kumpany ka raj_. I hope you will cut
Calcutta, and lose no time in _puhonchowing_ (conveying) yourself up
by _dawk_ to join the old _pultun_ (battalion), in which, I am sorry
to say, things have been quite _oolta poolta_ (topsy-turvy) since you
left us. Tims has quitted the corps, as you probably know. He was a
d——d _puckha_ (stingy) hand, and a _muggra_ (sulky) beast into the
bargain. However, I don’t think we have gained much by his _budlee_
(successor), our new _kummadan_ (commandant)—a regular _bahadur_
(great person), who _dicks_ our lives out with _kuddum ootou_ (drill),
_dumcows_ (bullies) the native officers, and _gallees_ (abuses) the
Jacks (sepoys). Tomkins and I still chum together; he, as _gureeb_ and
_soost_ (quiet and lazy) as ever, and as fond of the _brandy pawney_,
sends his _bhote bhote salaam_ to Marpeet Sahib. Station dull—no
_tumasha_ (fun), as in the old times, when we were first here. The
other day, however, old Dickdar, our brigadier, gave a _burra khanna_
(dinner); his _loll_ (claret) was bang-up and you may be sure we did
not spare the _simpkin_ (champagne); _burra beebee_ (great lady) very
gracious, and a great show-off of the _bal butchos_ (children). We had
the old _bajja_ (band), your creation and hobby, in attendance, and
got up a _nautch_. Smirks, our adjutant, quite a _burra admee_ (great
man) since he mounted the _kantas_ (spurs), bucking up to and devilish
sweet on the spinster; but it won’t _hoga_ (do); nothing under the
revenue or judicial department will go down there—Samjah Sahib?—You
understand me. Tip us a _chit_, my dear fellow, by return of _dawk_,
and believe me,
My dear Marpeet, ever yours very truly,
JONAS TIPPLETON.
“Well,” said I, “as far as I can understand, it seems a very friendly
sort of a letter; but I should be better able to judge if you would give
me the English of it.”
Marpeet laughed, called me a critical dog, and put the letter in his
pocket.
“Come,” added I, “since you have shown me your letter, I will read you
mine; one I have received from my factotum, Chattermohun Ghose,
accounting for his temporary absence, which, for the choiceness of its
language, is quite a _bijou_ in its way. Chattermohun tells me he was
for some time a writer in an adjutant’s office, as also in a merchant’s
counting-house here in Calcutta, which doubtless accounts for the
phraseology smacking not a little of the technical language of both
those schools. Here it is:—
“‘MOST RESPECTFUL AND HONOURED SIR,
“‘Greatly labouring for fearful apprehension that sudden
non-appearance should dictate condemnation from the sensible benignity
of your excellency’s reverence, and feeling in concatenation that
explanation was indispensable, I have herewith the honour to inform
you, that one of my family (now consisting of six children effective
of various denominations) was recently solemnized in holy matrimony
and adoptedly conducted according to prescribed rite and custom of
native religion. This solemnization was carried into production my
house in country by Boitacoolah T’hannah, wither in my patriarchal
duty have repair for a few day.
“‘According to last order of your reverence, have instruct to Gopee
Nauth, of China Bazaar, to disperse to your quarter goods as per
margin,[8] for which he expect the favour of early remittance. I have
also passed to credit of master account 16 rupees 8 annas, leaving
balance my favour 256 rupees 5 annas 3 pice, as per account enclosed.
Trusting from this statement of explanation your honour not think me
absent without leave, I have honour to be, with deep respect and
consideration,
“‘Your most obedient humble servant,
“‘CHATTERMOHUN GHOSE, _Sircar_.
“‘To his Exc. Ensign Gernon, South Bks.’”
“Well,” said Marpeet, “that beats cock-fighting.”