SOCIALLY, as I have said, Mr. Batcham represented one of our cold
weather phenomena. They remain phenomena, the globe-trotters,
notwithstanding the regularity of their reappearance, flashing like
November comets across the tranquil Anglo-Indian mind, which refuses to
accustom itself to one class of its heavenly visitors any more than to
the other. It is inaccurate, however, to use any figure of speech which
represents Mr. Batcham as a meteoric body. He had his prescribed
orbit—it is all laid down in Murray—and he circled through it, revolving
regularly upon the axis of an excellent digestion with great gravity of
demeanor. When he appeared upon Calcutta’s horizon, Calcutta could only
put up a helpless eye-glass and writhe wearily until the large red
luminary dipped again in the west. Then for a week it set at nought and
mocked him. Then it unanimously forgot him, and was only reminded of his
unnecessary existence afterward by the acerbity of the _Englishman’s_
comments upon his intelligence, which was entirely deserved.
It was interesting to watch Mr. Batcham in the process of forming an
opinion of Anglo-Indian society; that is, of making his observations
match the rags and tags of ideas about us which he had gathered together
from various popular sources before coming out. They were curious, Mr.
Batcham’s impressions, and they led him into even greater discreetness
of conduct than would naturally be shown by one of the largest
manufacturers of the North of England, of sound evangelical views and
inordinate abdominal development, travelling in search of Truth. In the
doubtful mazes of the flippant Anglo-Indian capital Mr. Batcham felt
that it behoved him to wrap the capacious mantle of his virtue well
about him and to be very heedful of his walk and conversation. He kept a
sharp eye open for invitations to light and foolish behaviour on the
part of possible Mrs. Hawksbees and Mrs. Mallowes whom he met at
Government House, and he saw a great many. When Lady Blebbins asked him
if Mrs. Batcham were with him, Mr. Batcham said to himself, “There is
certainly something behind _that_!” and when Mrs. Walter Luff, who is as
proper as proper can be, proposed to drive him about the Maidan in her
barouche, Mr. Batcham said coyly but firmly that Mrs. Luff must excuse
him for asking, but was her husband to be of the party? Some such
uncompromising front Mr. Batcham showed to temptation in forms even more
insidious than these. I need not say that he never in any case failed to
make a careful note of it; and I have no doubt that long before this
reaches you the glaring facts will have been confided with inculpating
initials to the sympathetic British public through the columns of the
Times over the bashful signature of Jonas Batcham.
Mr. Batcham saw no reason for concealing his preconceived ideas of
Anglo-Indian society from any of the Anglo-Indians he met—our morals
embarrassed him as little as he supposed that they embarrassed us. He
discussed them with us in candid sorrow, he enquired of us about them,
he told us exactly to what extent he considered the deterioration of the
ethical sense amongst us was to be ascribed to the climate. He spoke
calmly and dispassionately about these things, as an indifferent
foreigner might speak about the exchange value of the rupee or the
quality of Peliti’s ices. He seemed to think that as a subject of
conversation we should rather like it, that his investigations would
have a morbid interest for us. It was reported that he approached an
A.-D.-C. in uniform with the tentative remark that he believed Simla was
a very immoral place, and that the A.-D.-C. in uniform made with great
difficulty three wrinkles in his forehead—it is almost impossible for an
A.-D.-C. in uniform to wrinkle himself—and said with calm surprise, “We
are Simla,” subsequently reporting the matter to the Viceroy and
suggesting the bastinado. The story adds that the Viceroy said that
nothing could be done, because an M. P. was certain to go home and tell.
But this is the merest rumour.
Mr. Batcham found the Brownes disappointing in this respect as he found
them disappointing in other respects. They were not extravagant, they
were not in debt, and Mrs. Browne neither swore nor smoked cigarettes
nor rode in steeplechases. Mr. Batcham investigated them until he found
them quite hopelessly proper, when he put them down as the shining and
praiseworthy exception that proves the rule, and restricted his
enquiries to the private life of their neighbours. Thus, driving upon
the Red Road in the evening and encountering a smart young pair in a
cabriolet, Mr. Batcham would demand, “Who is that lady?”
“That’s Mrs. Finsley-Jones,” Mrs. Browne would reply.
“And with whom,” Mr. Batcham would continue severely, “is Mrs.
Finsley-Jones driving?”
“With Mr. Finsley-Jones.”
“Oh—ah! and who is that lady in the straw hat on the grey cob?”
“Mrs. MacDonald, I think.”
“And the gentleman?”
“Her husband.”
“Really! you are quite sure it is her husband, Mrs. Browne. I understood
that in India ladies seldom rode with their husbands.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Batcham,” Helen returned innocently, “horses are
apt to be so skittish in India that it isn’t really safe to go out
without a man, and of course one would rather have one’s husband than
anybody else.”
“Not at all, I assure you, Mrs. Browne. I understand that quite the
opposite opinion prevails among the ladies of Calcutta, and I can depend
upon the source of my information. Now these two people in the dog
cart—they are actually flirting with each other in broad daylight! It is
impossible,” said Mr. Batcham, with an accent of grave deprecation,
“that they can be married.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs,” said Helen shortly, “they were married about the
same time as we were. Why shouldn’t they flirt with each other if they
want to?”
“Certainly not,” said young Browne, who was driving. “It leads to
incorrect ideas of their relations, you see. Fact is, I caught Tubbs
kissing his wife in a dark corner of the Maidan by the Cathedral myself
the other evening, and it was such a very dark corner that if I hadn’t
happened to be lighting a cheroot at the time, I wouldn’t have believed
that Tubbs was Tubbs any more than Mr. Batcham does. Tubbs can’t afford
a popular misapprehension that he isn’t Mrs. Tubbs’s husband. I’ll tell
Tubbs.”
“I think,” said Helen rebukingly, “that you might have taken some other
place to light your cigar in, George.”
“Didn’t light it. Dropped the match, I was so startled. Last match I
had, too. I’ve got that against Tubbs. Oh, I must speak to Tubbs!”
“If you speak to Tubbs,” Mr. Batcham put in prudently, “don’t mention my
name. I am glad to find myself wrong in this case. But Mr. Banerjee
assures me—”
The pony leaped forward under the cut of young Browne’s whip, and Mr.
Batcham very nearly tumbled out of the back seat. Young Browne didn’t
apologise. “Do you mean to say,” said he in a red fury, “that you have
been talking to a beastly baboo about the white women of Calcutta? It—it
isn’t usual.”
It was as much for their own amusement as for their guest’s edification
that the Brownes asked Mr. Sayter to dinner to meet Mr. Batcham. Mr.
Sayter came unsuspectingly, and I have reason to believe that he has not
yet forgiven the Brownes. Nobody in Calcutta could hate a large red
globe-trotter more ferociously than Mr. Sayter did. And the Brownes
failed to palliate their offence by asking anybody else. They were a
square party, and Mr. Batcham sat opposite Mr. Sayter, who went about
afterwards talking about his recent narrow escape from suffocation.
Mr. Batcham welcomed Mr. Sayter as if he had been in his own house or
his own “works.” He shook Mr. Sayter warmly by his slender and frigid
hand and said he was delighted to meet him—it was always a pleasure to
meet representative men, and his young friends had told him that Mr.
Sayter was a very representative man indeed, standing almost at the head
of his department.
“Oh, goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mr. Sayter, sinking into a chair.
“Fancy being talked about like that now.”
“I have a thousand things to ask you,” continued Mr. Batcham with
increasing cordiality, “a thousand questions are surging in my brain at
this very moment. This India of yours is a wonderful place, sir!”
“Well,” said Mr. Sayter, “I suppose I can’t help that. But it isn’t as
wonderful as it used to be—that’s one comfort.”
“I’m afraid,” Mr. Batcham remarked with seriousness, “that your eyes are
blinded. I’ve met numbers of people out here—people of more than average
perception—whose eyes seem to me to be blinded to the beauties of Ind.”
“Probably affected by the dust of Ind,” put in young Browne. “Will you
take my wife in, Mr. Sayter?”
“No,” said Mr. Sayter, “it’s the perverseness of the Anglo-Indian. He
thinks if he talks about the beauties of Ind the Secretary of State will
cut his pay.”
“And yet,” said Mr. Batcham, tucking his napkin into his capacious
waistcoat, “the average public official in this country seems to me to
be pretty fairly remunerated.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Mr. Sayter confidentially, looking up from
his soup, “they’re grossly overpaid. They live in luxury. I am one of
them. I live in luxury. I have a servant to put on my boots. In England
what action should I be obliged to take in regard to my boots? I should
be obliged to put them on myself! And for the misfortune of living in a
country where I get my boots put on, I’m paid twice as much as I would
be in England, and three times as much as I’m worth. Monstrous, isn’t
it?”
Mr. Batcham smiled a benign smile of approbation. “I assure you, sir,
that is not the way the situation has been represented to me thus far. I
hope that before I leave India I may meet other gentlemen who like
yourself have the moral rectitude to rise above mere considerations of
gain—I may say of plunder—and state the case frankly as it is. With
regard to yourself I have no doubt you exaggerate, but I will tell you
candidly that I have myself for some time held the same opinion
precisely with regard to—with regard to—”
“The Indian services generally. Exactly,” responded Mr. Sayter, “and
when you get home you mean to bring it under the consideration of Lord
Kimberley. Quite so. I wouldn’t be too sanguine about popularising your
view among the Europeans out here—the Anglo-Indian is a sordid
person—but all the baboos will be very pleased. You will of course
endeavour to extend the employment of baboos in the higher branches of
the Covenanted service—the judicial and administrative. They come much
cheaper, and their feelings are very deeply hurt at being overlooked in
favour of the alien Englishman. You could get an excellent baboo for any
purpose on earth for thirty rupees a month. And yet,” continued Mr.
Sayter absently, “they pay me two thousand.”
Mr. Batcham looked reflective, and young Browne said, “Cheap and nasty.”
“Oh, dear no!” remarked Mr. Sayter, “A nice fat wholesome baboo who
could write a beautiful hand—probably a graduate of the Calcutta
University. Talking of universities reminds me to add, Mr. Batcham, that
the university baboo is not quite so cheap as he used to be. He is still
very plentiful and very inexpensive, but his price is going up since the
new regulations.”
“Regulations!” said Mr. Batcham. “You people will regulate these
unfortunate natives off the face of the earth.”
“We should love to,” replied Mr. Sayter, “but we can’t. You have no idea
of their rate of multiplication. These particular regulations were a
frightful blow to the baboo.”
“May I ask their nature?” Mr. Batcham inquired.
“Oh yes. They were connected with the examinations for degrees. It was
thought remarkable for some time how universally the baboos passed them,
and how singularly similar the answers were. The charitable put it down
to the extraordinary aptitude of the Bengali for the retention of
printed matter and the known tendency of his mind to run in grooves. The
uncharitable put the other baboos in charge of printing the examination
papers under a mean system of espionage. I regret to say that it was
only too successful; they caught a whole batch of baboos taking the
means of earning an honest living a little prematurely.”
“Then what happened?” asked young Browne. “I haven’t heard this story.”
“I don’t remember whether they suppressed that lot of baboos or not. But
they put an end to the extra edition of examination papers system. They
had the lithographing stone brought into an office where there was only
one man, a European, and they shut the shutters and they locked the
door—oh, they took stringent measures!—and they had the papers turned
off by a coolie, in solemn secrecy, the day before the examination.”
“That must have been entirely satisfactory,” Mr. Batcham remarked.
“It was not. The baboos passed in great numbers that year and sent in
their papers with a smile. Then I believe they stopped up the key-hole
and blindfolded the coolie. It made no difference whatever.”
“How did they find out?” Helen asked.
“In the end they took to watching this simple, ignorant coolie. And they
observed that when he had finished his work he invariably sat down and
rested on the lithographing stone. So that he went away charged, one
might say, with the wisdom of the examiners, and published himself in
the bazar for I daresay four annas a copy.”
“That boy, if he lived in the United States, would rise to be
president,” remarked Mr. Batcham oracularly.
“He was of great assistance to the B.A.’s of that year. Though I believe
they found him rather bony for a satisfactory proof, and they complained
that the sense of the questions was a little disconnected.”
“Mrs. Browne, have you seen anything of the Tootes lately?”
“Nobody has, Mr. Sayter. Mr. Toote has fever.”
“Temperature one hundred and five this morning,” said Mrs. Browne. “The
third attack this year.”
“And the Archie Campbells are going home on sick leave,” added Helen.
“Poor Mr. Campbell is down with abscess of the liver. There’s a great
deal of sickness about.”
“Not more than usual; it’s a deadly time of year,” Mr. Sayter remarked.
“You heard about Bobby Hamilton?”
“Hamilton seedy?” inquired young Browne. “I saw him riding a fine beast
the day before yesterday—he looked fairly fit. Hamilton’s a very knowing
chap about horses, he’s promised to look after a pony for my wife.”
“You’ll have to get somebody else, I’m afraid.”
“Hamilton’s not——”
“Yes. Went to the funeral this morning. Fine chap. Awful pity. Cholera.”
“And Mrs. Hamilton is at home!” exclaimed Helen.
“With another baby. Yes. Four now, Hamilton told me last hot weather.
He’d been seedy, and I was urging him to take furlough.”
“Why didn’t he? It might have saved him,” asked Helen.
“I believe the fourth baby was the reason. He couldn’t afford it. Had to
stay and grill, poor chap.”
“How very distressing,” said Mr. Batcham. “I suppose the widow will be
able to live on her pension?”
“She will receive no pension, sir. Mr. Hamilton belonged to the
Education Department, which is uncovenanted. In the uncovenanted service
it is necessary to live in order to enjoy one’s pension, and that is the
reason why its departments add so little to the taxes.”
“Ah, well,” said Mr. Batcham rather vaguely, “you can’t have your cake
and eat it too. I should consider marriage under those conditions an
improvidence, and I don’t understand people being ill in this climate. I
think it must be largely due to the imagination. So far as _my_
testimony is worth anything, I find myself much benefited by it. Thanks,
Browne, I’ll have Bass. _I’m_ not afraid of it.”
Young Browne smiled and wistfully drank half the unsatisfactory contents
of the long glass by his plate.
“To say nothing,” said he, in mournful reference to the climate, “of the
magnificent thirst it engenders.”
Mr. Sayter joined his hands together at the finger tips and looked at
Mr. Jonas Batcham, M. P., from under his eyebrows in a way which was
certainly impertinent, oblivious of the kitmutgar at his elbow who
patiently offered him iced asparagus.
“I’m perfectly certain,” said he, with a crispness in every syllable,
“that Mr. Batcham has been benefited by staying six weeks in India. If
he stayed six years he would doubtless be more benefited still. I
daresay, as he says, we would all be benefited if it were not for our
imaginations. It’s a climate that leaves only one thing to be desired,
and if some people say that’s a coffin, that is clearly their
imagination. Uncovenanted people have a way of dying pretty freely, but
that’s out of sheer perverseness to get more furlough. Most of them go
for ever because they can’t arrange it any other way. And as for
cholera, I give you my word not one man in ten dies of cholera out here;
they go off with typhoid or dysentery, or in some comfortable way like
that, and probably have a punkah the whole time they’re ill.”
The half-past nine gun boomed from the fort, and Mr. Batcham started
nervously. “I don’t know why it is,” said he, “that one doesn’t accustom
one’s self to hearing guns in India. I suppose it is some association
with the Mutiny.”
“Oh, we’ll have another mutiny,” Mr. Sayter remarked; “it’s quite on the
cards. But you must not be alarmed, Mr. Batcham. It won’t be,” he added
irrepressibly, “till after you go home.”
The conversation turned upon light literature, and Mr. Batcham
contributed to it the fact that he understood that man Besant was making
a lot of money. Helen had been reading the memoirs of Mdlle.
Bashkirtseff, and had to say that one half she didn’t understand, and
the other half she didn’t like. “And when,” said Mr. Sayter, “does your
book come out, Mr. Batcham?”
“I haven’t said that I was writing one,” Mr. Batcham replied, smiling
coyly.
“It isn’t necessary,” declared young Browne, “we should expect a book
from you, Mr. Batcham, as a matter of course.”
“Oh, well, I expect I shall have to own to some little account of my
experience,” confessed Mr. Batcham. “My friends have urged me to do
something of the kind. If the illustrations can be got ready, I daresay
it will be out in time to catch the spring market.”
“Don’t forget the illustration of the cobra milking the cow,” said
George Browne, infected by Mr. Sayter; “it will add a great deal to the
interest of the volume without detracting seriously from its
reliability.”
“No,” said Mr. Batcham, “I haven’t got a photograph of that, I’m sorry
to say. The illustrations will be entirely reproduced from photographs.
I’ve got a beauty of the Taj, taken by magnesium light.”
“Have you decided on a title, Mr. Batcham?” Helen inquired, playing with
the orange-blossom in her finger-bowl.
Mr. Batcham looked carefully round him, and observed that the kitmutgars
had left the room. “Don’t mention it,” he said, “because somebody else
may get hold of it, but I think I’ll christen the book either ‘My Trot
Through India,’ or ‘India, Its Past, Present, and Future.’”
“Capital!” exclaimed Mr. Sayter, skipping nimbly to hold back the purdah
for the exit of Mrs. Browne. “You can’t really dispense with either
title, and if I were you I should use them both!”
A little later, before Mr. Sayter disappeared into his brougham,
exploding a vast yawn among the wreaths of his Trichinopoly, Mr. Batcham
shook him warmly by the hand, and re-expressed his gratification at the
opportunity of meeting so representative a gentleman, to whose opinions
such great importance would naturally attach itself. “Joking apart,”
said Mr. Batcham, “the candid statement of your views upon many points
this evening will be very useful to me.”
“I’m so glad!” said Mr. Sayter.
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