THE CLUB
The station club, “the very heart of the community,” as described by
Mrs. Soames, lay about two miles from our lines. As we drove down there
behind our spanking Australian cobs, my chaperon, who was a great
talker, enlarged upon the subject.
“Our club,” she remarked, “is capitally situated just half way between
the cantonments and Hyderabad city, close to the parade ground, shops
and cemetery, with roads diverging in every direction; a modern but
not very dignified building, as you see. Its businesslike outline and
platform verandas have led scoffers to compare it to a railway station,
and hint that it is the work of a railway engineer, who desired to
raise a monument to the glory of his line! In this idea there may be
a touch of professional jealousy; anyway, ‘handsome is that handsome
does.’ The club is supplied with the latest improvements in the matter
of ventilation and comfort. No London club has better billiard tables,
more luxurious armchairs, or a superior cook. We women are not suffered
to set foot in it, except on special occasions, such as receptions
and balls; mankind are a greedy, selfish pack, who keep the best of
everything for themselves! Well, here we are!” as we turned abruptly
into a large enclosure. “It’s rather early,” she continued, “I see the
bullock bandy with the band has only just arrived, so we may as well
sit in the carriage for a little longer and I will point you out the
chief objects of interest.”
“Yes, please do,” I said, “everything, as you may suppose, is new
to me. What is the small building where I see so many ladies on the
veranda?”
“That, my dear, is the ‘morghi-khana,’ or hen house; a humble offshoot
of the larger establishment, where the ladies of the station forgather
to read papers, exchange news and play bridge, for, as I have already
told you, we are sternly debarred from the parent premises--so amusing!”
“And what,” I inquired, “is the round raised platform with the tea
table and chairs? It looks like a large white cake.”
“It is called a ‘chabutra,’ and was originally intended for a
bandstand--you see one in every station. People make use of them for
tea and talk; they are raised a foot or two off the ground, and keep
you nicely out of the way of snakes. Thank goodness we don’t have many
in Secunderabad--the dry climate doesn’t suit them.”
As Mrs. Soames imparted information, I had been using my eyes and
absorbing my new surroundings. In comparison with the club at Silliram,
this was as a city to a village! Dozens of men and women passed to and
fro, some making for the club, some for the _morghi-khana_. Many of the
men were in polo kit or flannels; the women as a rule were remarkably
smart, their frocks and hats were undoubtedly imported, and had no
connection with the _dirzee_ or bazaar. There were numbers of motor
cars as well as carriages in the compound, and the road beyond was
thronged with vehicles continually passing up and down.
“Did you notice the three ladies who have just settled themselves at
the tea-table?” said Mrs. Soames. “They are always early birds, and are
no doubt waiting for bridge or friends. Shall I tell you about them, as
you will meet them every day?”
“Yes, do, if you please,” I replied, as I glanced over at the trio.
Mrs. Soames gave a little preliminary cough, and began:
“The elderly woman, in the creased tussore costume and toque three
sizes too large, is Mrs. Lakin. She is not nearly so old as she
looks, but the struggle on small means, separation from her children,
unhealthy stations, and the burden and heat of the East, have aged her.
She comes of a good old Indian family, and was born in the country. At
last she has emerged from her early difficulties; her daughters are
married, and her husband commands a regiment. Mrs. Lakin is one of the
old type of mem-sahibs, now almost extinct, who speak the language
fluently, and know the bazaar prices to a dub. Her servants have grown
grey in her service, her animals are fat and well liking; she is the
soul of hospitality, and the most unselfish and sincere of women--her
one weakness is auction bridge,” and Mrs. Soames concluded this little
sketch with a complacent smirk.
“So much for Mrs. Lakin,” I said, “and now for the smart lady with a
white aigrette in her hat.”
“That is Mrs. Belmont, a typical modern mem-sahib. Her husband is in
the Tea-Green Hussars. She had a huge fortune--made, it is said, in
glue--and affects to loathe India, which she scorns as a paradise of
the middle-classes--her own _milieu_ as it happens! Unlike Mrs. Lakin
she does not know her retinue by sight. To her, one black man is
precisely the same as another. Her housekeeping is in the hands of a
magnificent butler, who is amassing a fortune; her personal attendant,
a Europe maid--_such_ a mistake out here--is amassing admirers, and
enjoying the time of her life. Mrs. Belmont is a good many years older
than her husband, but wonderfully well preserved, and, considering her
class, really quite presentable.”
Here I recognised the inflexible attitude of a county lady towards the
heiress of thousands made in glue.
“The third on the chabutra is Mrs. Potter,” continued my companion. “If
you listen you can hear her voice, and her loud rollicking laugh. She
is also known as the ‘Daily She Mail,’ and ‘Slater’s,’ as she is an
inveterate, I may say, official newsmonger. Be sure that you are _very_
careful what you say to her.”
“Yes, but I don’t see how _I_ can give her much news.”
“My dear, you personify news! She will pick your brain in ten minutes;
she will know all about your family, your fortune, your tastes,
and possibly the price of your hat! It is marvellous how she gets
hold of the first tidings of such events as the movements of troops,
engagements, quarrels or scandals; and the worst of it is, that in many
cases her information is correct. Some say she has a friend at the Post
Office; others, that she owes much to her ayah’s circle at the bazaar,
or that Joe Potter, her husband, has his ear to the ground in the
city--where he is a vague ‘something.’ They live in a fine bungalow in
Secunderabad, but have no claim to any social standing. All the same,
Mrs. Potter goes everywhere; her card is filled the moment she appears
at a dance, she is never ‘left out’ of any entertainment, and people
propitiate her with craven attentions. It is much safer to be her
friend than her enemy, for she uses her pen as well as her tongue, and
supplies sharp unsigned articles to the press. Well, now I have given
you an outline of one or two personalities. Here comes Mrs. Wolfe, that
handsome dark woman in the yellow car. She is the wife of an official
at Chudderghat, and that is a stranger with her. Let us get out now,
and hurry over to the chabutra, or we won’t get good seats.”
We ascended the steps of the white cake without any undignified haste,
and Mrs. Soames formally presented me to Mesdames Lakin, Belmont and
Potter, as “My friend Miss Lingard.” We all bowed and smiled at one
another, and fresh tea was ordered from a bearded butler.
As my chaperon was exchanging civilities with the ladies already
established, Mrs. Wolfe and her companion joined us. Mrs. Wolfe was
a tall elegant woman, with magnificent black eyes and an intensely
animated expression.
“This,” she announced, with a comprehensive wave of her hand, “is my
cousin Miss Payne. Sally Payne, who, after her arduous labours in
globe-trotting, has come to enjoy a domestic holiday with me.”
Mrs. Belmont raised her glasses and considered the new-comer with an
air of grave appraisement. A little woman with reddish hair, sharp
features and a pale clever face; she wore a well-cut white linen, a
Panama hat, and carried in a white gloved hand a gold-handled sunshade.
Miss Payne bowed all round with self-possessed grace, seated herself,
and began to take off her gloves.
“Just arrived?” said Mrs. Potter brusquely.
“Yes, only yesterday morning.”
Then she glanced at me and said, “We came up from Wadi in the same
train. You were the girl in that delightful blue silk dust cloak; it
made me _so_ envious. When you tire of it, please let me have the first
offer?”
“Yes, certainly,” I answered, in the same key, “but I do not propose to
part with it yet.”
Mrs. Potter’s swift glance gave me to understand she would deal with me
presently, but that just now she was particularly interested in Miss
Payne, and she once more addressed her:
“Did I not see you at the Cinderella?” she inquired in her judicial
voice.
“Guilty!” admitted the stranger. “My cousin dragged me there, but I
enjoyed it immensely. What ‘go’ there was about it!”
“Yes, it was a good dance,” agreed Mrs. Potter, “though one of the band
had a fit, and the ice-cream ran short; but on the whole, everything
was thoroughly well done.”
“And what heaps of dancing men and pretty women!”
“Yes, we were just about to discuss the beauties of the
evening--‘present company always included!’” and Mrs. Potter glanced at
Mrs. Belmont with her beautiful complexion, and then at Mrs. Wolfe with
her animated, vivid face.
“Oh, pray don’t mind _me_,” protested Miss Payne, coolly accepting the
implied compliment. “At forty I am past the beauty stage. Last night a
worried-looking man rushed up to me and asked where he could find my
daughter? Imagine such a question for a respectable English spinster!”
“I expect he took you for Mrs. Hastings,” suggested Mrs. Soames, “her
hair is the same shade.”
“Well, I’ll make it my business to look out for Mrs. Hastings, and see
myself as others see me. I must confess, if I had been endowed with
a daughter, I’d have chosen that delightful vision in rose-coloured
chiffon.”
“Oh, Miss Warren!” said Mrs. Potter with a sniff. “As it happens, she
has no mother. Yes, she looked well enough, but her dress--an old
one dyed--was too remarkable, especially as she danced with the same
partner most of the evening!”
“Where was her chaperon?” inquired Miss Payne, as she helped herself to
two lumps of sugar.
“Probably she had none,” was the startling reply.
“What!” cried Miss Payne, brandishing the empty sugar tongs. “I know
that chaperons are extinct at home--the bicycle killed them--but I’d no
idea that India was so emancipated.”
“I’m afraid we are,” replied Mrs. Potter. “I heard some violent kissing
last evening behind the screen where my partner and I were sitting out,
and I happened to see the couple later--a girl and a married man!”
“Oh, really!” protested Miss Payne with mock horror, “I shall be
obliged to retire. I am _much_ too young for this kind of conversation!”
Then she looked across at me and burst out laughing.
“What do _you_ say?”
This question drew upon me the immediate notice of Mrs. Potter.
Hitherto I had been sitting a little in the background, now she turned
round and favoured me with special attention.
“And you arrived yesterday, did you not?”
“Yes,” I acknowledged with meek humility.
She stared at me so hard that I felt quite out of countenance, and
could not find anything else to say.
“You are Captain Lingard’s sister, I believe? How nice it is for him to
have you out here!”
“And very nice for me--to be with him,” I murmured.
“Your first visit, of course?” she was proceeding, when my chaperon
interposed, and, moving a little nearer, asked Mrs. Potter a question
about an imminent bridge tournament, and I was for the moment released.
I confess I rather envied the independence of Miss Payne, who, having
finished tea, had courageously betaken herself to the library.
Mrs. Lakin, hitherto engaged in cutting up cake and waiting on the
company, now took a seat beside me and proceeded to break the ice. I
noticed that her complexion was a pale biscuit colour, and her blue
eyes looked faded, but she had a sweet expression--perhaps once upon a
time she had been pretty.
“So I hear you are a new-comer. I wonder what you will think of India.”
“So far, I like it immensely,” I answered.
“There have been wonderful changes since I set foot in the country.
That was thirty years ago. Then this club was a small affair, and stood
farther down where the shop is now. Everything is made so comfortable
in these days. People rush backwards and forwards to England for a few
weeks’ holiday. Formerly it was a wonderful thing if you got home once
in five or six years. All the same, I liked those times best.”
“Did you!” I exclaimed. “But why?”
“Well, it’s not altogether because everything was quarter the price,
though of course that does make a difference, especially when you have
a large family. Things were quieter and easier. Generals did not come
hustling round when they were least expected, and you and your friends
were left in a station for three or four years instead of being whipped
off as now at a moment’s notice. The servants were a superior class,
and one grew attached to them, and almost every girl that came to India
was bound to find a husband.”
“And that is all changed, I understand.”
“Oh yes, it’s as difficult to get off a girl here as it is elsewhere.
In these days when the exchange is so low, sending home money is
ruination--people bring out their families, and the country is
overrun with paying guests, and this, in India, so famous once for
hospitality! My two girls are married--not grand matches, but to really
good fellows--and I must confess I miss them. My husband and I are
alone--just Darby and Joan. I am sorry to say that his time will soon
be up, he will be retired, and we go home for good next spring.”
“Then you love India?” I said.
She nodded expressively, and added:
“You see I was born out here, as were my father and mother before
me. We come of families who have made their home in India for many
generations--educated of course in England, they all return like homing
pigeons to the Army, to the Civil Service, and to many other posts.
India draws them--they _all_ hear the East a-calling.”
“And so you will be really sorry to retire?”
“Yes,” she admitted, “and if we can’t stand it we will return and
settle down in the hills. I can see us in England, probably established
in some London suburb, in a little house, with smoky chimneys, the
boiler always out of order, two servants--saying they’ve too much
to do--ourselves with nothing to do, no interests, and none of our
accustomed comforts. My! I don’t like to think of it! I have heard such
tales from friends who have gone back to England, and find the change
awful, especially the climate.”
“Oh,” I exclaimed astonished, “you do surprise me.”
“Yes,” she answered. “Give me the ordinary honest hot weather out
here. You know where you are; when the heat or rains are due, and when
they cease. It is so much better than your capricious sun one day
and snow the next, and your desperate English winters. Most English
die in winter, and no wonder! You are staying with Mrs. Soames,” she
continued. “Your brother is in Colonel Soames’s regiment; they are
going home in the spring like ourselves.”
This announcement gave me a shock. I understood that there might be
a move from Secunderabad, but I never realised that it would be to
England, or that I might find myself back at Torrington, before the
year was out. As I pondered the subject Mrs. Lakin suddenly rose, in
answer to a frantic signal from another matron.
“Bridge,” she said, turning to me with a triumphant smile, “they have
got up a rubber at last!”
Then she descended somewhat heavily, and hurried away to the
_morghi-khana_.
“A good soul, but oh, what clothes!” said Mrs. Potter, looking after
the retreating figure. “It is whispered that they are chosen by an
envious old maid sister-in-law. I can see a world of spite in that
short-waisted gown and the pantomime toque; and yet the poor lady is
pleased, and tells us that _now_ she gets everything from home.”
“Never mind the clothes,” put in Mrs. Wolfe, “when the woman inside
them is a jewel. She is a sort of godmother to half the station.”
Seeing that I had been abandoned by Mrs. Lakin, Mrs. Potter again
turned to talk to me.
“As you have only just arrived, you have seen nothing of India so far
except railway stations?”
I coloured with guilt, and nodded a deceitful assent.
Mrs. Potter’s quick black eyes looked me up and down, and then she
remarked:
“I dare say you will have a very good time. This is a most interesting
place, if you care for that sort of thing; and you can see something of
all conditions of men, Asiatic and European. There is, as you know, the
great city of Hyderabad, which we may not enter without a pass. Then
comes Chudderghat, where the Politicals and the Resident live; he has
the finest Residency in India. There are also colleges and the convent
of the Holy Rosary. Next we have Secunderabad itself, all shops, and
bazaars, and fine old bungalows. That brings us here. Up your way the
Army is sprinkled about--artillery and engineers, cavalry and line;
this is the largest garrison in India--and now you have the place in a
nutshell!”
“Who are these people?” I inquired, as I observed close to the
_chabutra_ several handsome dark young men getting out of a large motor.
“Oh, they are some of the Nizam’s entourage, mostly noblemen and
officers of the Golconda Lancers. They have been playing polo with the
Lighthearts’ team. Your brother is their captain. Of course, you must
feel rather strange at first, not knowing a soul in the place!”
“Yes,” I answered. I could not say why, but I found it difficult to
talk to Mrs. Potter; her sharp eyes seemed to stab me like knives.
“But you will soon know everybody,” she continued, with a little air of
patronage. “Out here we are all supposed to be in the same set. The set
in Secunderabad is embodied by the club--to be a member is our social
hall-mark. All the rest are, so to speak, in outer darkness--where I
believe there’s a good deal of gnashing of teeth!”
As she was speaking I happened to glance towards the entrance through
which people were still coming and going, and there I beheld someone
who was not a stranger. It was Captain Falkland, attended by Kipper.