AN IMPROMPTU DINNER-PARTY IN THE PUNJAB
WE had finished the last of several brief but delightful theatrical
engagements in Rawal Pindi—if one may use the phrase “theatrical
engagement,” in connection with so small a band of strolling players as
we had been. The afternoon train was carrying the last of our little
company to Bombay. In twenty-four hours we two were going on—by a
pleasantly broken route—to Karachi. But, in the meantime, we are going
to give a dinner-party. How it all comes back! We had played _Caste_ the
night before, with the kind help of regimental amateurs. Such a funny
performance of _Caste_! (But that’s a story by itself.) At the close of
the performance we had asked “Hawtree,” “George D’Alroy,” and the
prompter to risk a dinner (so called) with us the next night. “Hawtree”
was a popular subaltern in the 60th Rifles; his real name is a grand old
English name. The prompter (also in the 60th) was no less a person than
the son of his Excellency Lord Roberts. “George D’Alroy” was a young
Irishman; his blood and his eyes were very blue, but they were the only
blue thing about him. He was a Gordon Highlander, doing special duty at
Rawal Pindi. Besides playing “D’Alroy” he had danced and sung
“Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” between the acts, arrayed in my “Polly” wig, all
my jewellery (real and otherwise), and a specially-constructed costume.
India is, _par excellence_, the land of bad hotels. We were living in
Rawal Pindi at one of India’s few not bad hotels. They gave us
fruit,—they knew how to cook tomatoes, and (test of tests!) their ice
never gave out. But the capable European manager, who had another
hostelry at one of the hill stations, was away, and I felt that it
behoved my hostess-ship to aid, though not abet, the khansamah.
At five o’clock, when the early Indian sun called softly all men to rise
and pay Sabbath worship to lavish Nature, my ayah brought me my chota
haziri. Chota haziri means little breakfast. Translated by an
unsupervised khansamah or a mean European boarding-house memsahib, it
means two small slices of cold toast and one cup of vile tea. But a
well-trained ayah translates it: “one cup of good tea, one bunch of
black grapes, one Bombay mango, red heart of one melon, and an egg just
come.” Indian fruit in the early Indian morning! It is something even to
remember it. I had my bath; there are three kinds of baths that can only
be properly enjoyed in the Punjab: sun baths, mud baths, and water
baths. I got into my gharri—a barouche, if you please, but a very
shabby one; with a rather black, rather naked coachman, and a very
black, very naked footman; and I was driven to the “bazaar”: driven
through green picture bits of landscape, canopied by the marvellous blue
of perfect sky, and clothed with the indepreciable silver of Indian
lakes, where the pink water-lilies floated: driven through the native
streets, with their fascinating panorama that was teeming with life
primitive after many centuries,—streets dense with Oriental
architecture, some rich, mostly squalid, all graceful—and all having
matchless accessories: driven to a “bazaar” that beggars my description,
and would, unless you have seen it, overtax your imagination.
It was easy enough to provide myself with the materials for a capital
dinner, only, unfortunately, in India at that time of the year the
variety was so limited, that, whatever I selected, I might be sure that
my guests had eaten of it very recently, and cooked far better than I
could offer it to them. For the 60th Rifles have a famous mess, and I
can testify that the mess of the Gordon Highlanders is excellent.
I was back at the hotel at eight, and after breakfast I had a confab
with the khansamah. I gave him my little menu, and told him what I would
cook and what he was to cook. I think that I can write out the menu now,
it was one I so often fell back upon in the East:—
Sandwiches of caviare and hard-boiled eggs. Olives.
Tomato soup.
Salmon (tinned, of course). Cucumbers.
Beef-steak. Mushrooms (tinned). Grilled potatoes.
Fricassee of chicken livers and sweetbreads.
Roast pigeons with bread sauce and limes. Baked tomatoes.
Asparagus (tinned, but delicious).
Chicken curry.
Mayonnaise salad. (No mess cook can make that as well as I can.)
Ices. Creams. Sweets. (The Indians excel at making them.)
Fruit.
Coffee.
But two items I hadn’t selected were provided us—one by the khansamah,
one by that fickle purveyor, Fate. The khansamah enlivened us with the
worst champagne I have ever tasted. We couldn’t drink it, but it gave us
a theme for small-talk. And we pretended to prefer claret. Fate’s
contribution was a nastier one; for like the Egyptians of old we had a
death’s head at our feast. About an hour before we expected our friends,
I heard the rapid canter of a horse, and my ayah, who was sitting on the
verandah, exclaimed, “Lal coatie sahib!” The natives have only this one
term for all British soldiers. No matter what their uniforms, they are
all “red coats.” We were the only guests in the hotel, so I ran out.
Yes, the rider was one of the boys we were expecting later. I had always
seen him so jolly; but now he looked very worn and white. “I have come
to ask you to excuse me to-night,” he said. “I have been all the
afternoon with a poor chap—a private—who has just died. Cholera! It
was very tough. I feel a bit done.” But I vetoed that. It was the time
of all times when an English boy needed a little cheering.
It was a very grave little dinner-party when we sat down; the spirit of
cholera was with us. Oh! what precautions you would all take, here in
London, if you knew of cholera half that I know! How I wish that I could
voice some sharp word of warning that the mothers of England would heed!
My servants think me a bit mad and very troublesome. But I know what I
know. I have paid a terrible price for my knowledge. And so I insist,
and see that they obey. All our garbage is burned. Our drinking water is
boiled. We smell of carbolic from cellar to attic. And in the nursery
there is a bottle of chlorodyne, a flask of brandy, and mustard and
linen ready for plasters. Cholera is very quick. It must be fought
quickly or in vain.
Yes, we began our meal very gravely. But English soldiers are taught the
courage of cheerfulness, and we were not gloomy, though my husband and I
were leaving on the morrow, perhaps never again to see the three soldier
boys we liked so much; and for them that morrow held the dreaded
possibility of “cholera camp.” The champagne helped us to be almost
merry, though not in a conventional way. It is remarkable what vile
champagne is sold in the East and with the very best labels! The
khansamah was very quaint as bottle after bottle was opened, amid an
expectant silence that was not broken by a pop or a fizz. “It was always
the way with the best champagne,” he assured us. “The very best
champagne never jumped about like a nautch-girl. It was all good wine,
not half of it bad gas. Such champagne the ‘sahibs’ did not often see.”
He was in despair when the “sahibs” would not drink it; he was in
downright distress the next morning when my husband declined to pay for
it. “He must pay—indeed he had paid the Parsi from whom he had procured
it, and he could not get back his many rupees. He had procured it with
great difficulty. It had been wanted for the Maharajah of Kapurthala. He
was a most poor man, and he had sold the memsahib a priceless dog for so
few rupees. He wept at our feet.” We were really rather fond of the
khansamah, and we knew that we had only paid treble for a huge half-bred
bull-dog that I had fancied for my children; so the bill was paid less
the price of one of the half-dozen bottles that had been opened.
The following letter reached us a few days before we sailed from
Karachi. It is one of the most valued things in my cabinet of curios:—
Hakin Raig, Mannigar Imperial Hotel,
Rpindi, 14/8/1892.
Mr —— Noble sur and gentlamen.
Karachi city.
Sir,—You cutted the hotel Bille 15 Rupees. And you tolded to me
I must say to Jamasji he sold me crab wine—and what remark you
make of it. I done all arrangements with Jamasji. He said i
don’t care. I am not making here myself wine. This fault of the
shampain maker. Please hear my prayer—you write noble sur to
shampain maker. He live in france his name is Mr. Cliquot. You
tell him he sell Jamasji bad wine. And you send me money by m.o.
what you like. I pray for twenty rupees. Fifteen you cutted the
hotel bill. Five make me present. She is poor man. She will pray
for your long life and procespairity.
Yours faithfully
HAKIN RAIG.
Please tell my salam to your noble lady wife with yourself, and
say if the dog is well.
We sent him a small money-order, but we haven’t yet written to “Mr.
Cliquot, Shampain Maker, France.”
I have just been looking in the last Army List. Neither of the three
young soldiers who dined with us a year ago are missing from the noble
roll. I am so glad; so many whom we knew and liked in India a year ago
are gone. I am personally thankful for every one of those brave lives
spared. For if it were not for the never-to-be-for-a-moment forgotten
memories of personal sorrows, I should count as the pleasantest days of
my life those when we were strolling players in the cantonments of the
Punjab. I wonder how many European women there are in London to-day
home-sick for India? I know one. And they do say that the Duchess of
Connaught knows another. Dear old Punjabi cantonments! Shall I ever see
them again?
[Illustration: IDOLS IN A SIAMESE PAGODA. _Page 341._]