Thursday, May 30, 1839.
Our steady doctor gave his ball last night. He was asked for one by Mrs.
L., and found it an easier way of returning civilities than giving a
number of dinners.
Wright and I have been down two or three times to arrange his house, and
put up his curtains, and he had enclosed all his verandahs with branches
of trees and flowers, so that it really looked very pretty. He is very
popular from his extreme good-nature in attending anybody that wants
him; he never takes any fee, and he takes a great deal of pains with his
patients, and, moreover, he is a really well-informed man, and liked in
society. So everybody whom he asked to his ball made a point of going,
and they actually danced from eight at night till five in the morning;
and they said it was one of the gayest balls ever seen.
Saturday, June 1.
We had our tableaux last night, and they were really beautiful. I am
quite sorry they are over. We had each of them three times over, but
still it is like looking at a very fine picture for two minutes and then
seeing it torn up. Mrs. K. as Queen Elizabeth, dragging in Mrs. N. as
Amy Robsart, was one of the best; and Medora lying dead, and the Corsair
in his 'helpless, hopeless brokenness of heart,' was also beautiful, but
in fact they all were so, and G. is walking up and down his room this
morning, wishing they would be so good as to do it all over again. The
enthusiasm of the audience was unbounded. C. recitatived Lord Byron's
words for the Corsair, but wrote songs for Kenilworth; the last,
alluding to Amy's death, 'He comes too late,' was worthy of Mrs.
Arkwright. After the tableaux were over, W. O. gave his first
entertainment, a small supper, to Mrs. K., Mrs. L., Mrs. V., Mrs. N.,
and all the aides-de-camp and one or two gentlemen, and, as the ladies
would not go unless F. and I were there, we went down to his bungalow at
eleven, leaving G. to see our guests out. W.'s supper went off
remarkably well, and his house looked very pretty. St. Cloup thought he
had better give a look at the supper, and when I told him we were going,
he said, 'Oh! alors il faut que M. le Capitaine fasse un peu de dépense.
Je vais pourvoir à tout cela.' The dresses were magnificent last night,
and W. O. looked very well in his corsair's dress. Mrs. N. is not rich,
so I make an excuse of her kindness in acting to send her a green satin
pelisse, as Amy's 'sea-green mantle,' and a very handsome lace dress
with a satin slip from G.
Monday, June 3.
G. has had letters from the army up to May 7. The Shah seems to be as
quietly and comfortably settled as if he had never left his kingdom, and
Sir J. Keane writes most cheerfully about the army, makes very light of
the loss of cattle, and says the soldiers were never so healthy. There
has been on an average one-third fewer in hospital than is usual in
cantonments, and very few deaths.
The followers of the sirdars were reduced to one hundred, and the
sirdars so unpopular that two of our regiments were gone to fetch them
in, almost more as guards than anything else. G. and I have been riding
about the last three days with Mr. A., looking at the Dispensary and the
Asylum and a Serai, the three charities of Simla. The Dispensary has
been built from the proceeds of our fancy fair last year, and opened by
Dr. D., who attends there every morning, and it does so much good that I
am quite heartened up into trying another fancy fair this year, and am
going to send out the circulars this blessed day. It is an odd list of
patients at the Dispensary. There is a Thibet _Tartar_ woman with a
Chinese face, and a rheumatic daughter, and there are people from
Ladakh, and Sikhs and mountaineers, and quantities of little black
babies to be vaccinated. I have not an idea what to do for the sale. The
trick of the drawings to produce such an immense sum cannot be tried
again.
Wednesday, June 5.
This must go, dearest, G. says--where to, I have not an idea, but I know
it will never reach you: it is like going to call upon you, when you are
out, which under present circumstances would be uncommonly disagreeable.
But no steamer can go for two months, so we must hazard something by
that stupid, old-fashioned sailing apparatus.
We are all quite well, and the climate quite beautiful--a _leetle_ too
hot, but not worse than an English August day. Mr. L. gave another fancy
ball last night, and yesterday morning we had a deputation from the
Station to ask us for a day on which they are to give us a ball. We
named June 18 (Waterloo and all that), and that is to close the season,
and then we are to take to the rains for three months.
Saturday, June 8.
Our play last night went off beautifully. I do not know when I have seen
better acting, and Mrs. C. really acts as if she had done nothing else
all her life. I suppose it is easier in a room with carpets and chairs,
and doors and windows, and then she has been brought up in France, and
has the quiet self-possession of a French actress, and her arms are
always in the right place, and she does not seem to think about acting;
then she sings very well and looked very handsome, so that altogether,
to Anglo-Indians, who never see female parts acted except by
artillerymen or clerks, it was a great pleasure.
We made such pretty scenery, too, with a lattice window, and some steps
and a few shrubs and plenty of curtains. After the play they danced five
or six quadrilles, had some supper, and went off, all pleased; and they
want more of these evenings, but it is thundering and pouring to-day,
and it is no use attempting to give parties in the rains. I wish my
drawing paper would not begin to spoil already, but it is turning into
blotting paper. Luckily I cannot find anything to draw just now. It has
occurred to me that when we go home I shall not be able to show you what
an Indian woman is like, and to be sure we have seen very few; but some
of the Paharee women are very pretty, who go about the hills cutting
grass and wood. I met some yesterday and asked them to come and be
sketched, and they said they would, but they have never arrived. Some of
the nautch-girls in the bazaar are very pretty, and wear beautiful
ornaments, but it is not lawful to look at them even for sketching
purposes, and indeed, Mr. N., one of the magistrates, has removed them
all from the main street, so the bazaar is highly correct, but not half
so picturesque as last year. There are very few children ever to be seen
in it. Natives who come to open shops, &c., never bring their families,
from the impossibility of moving women in a sufficiently private manner,
and I very often think that an English village with women and children
walking about must be a pretty sight. They do go about, don't they? I
forget. Poor Mrs. ----, who had a shocking confinement in our camp last
year, has had a worse now; for thirty-six hours Dr. D; could not leave
her for a moment, and for twelve it was not possible to know whether she
were alive--no pulse, and quite cold. We had made all arrangements for
putting off our party yesterday, but she rallied in the afternoon, and
is going on well now. I never saw Dr. D. quite overset before, nor
indeed the least perturbed but he fairly burst out crying when he came
to my room on his way home, and said he did not think anything could
induce him to go through such horrors again; and it was very unlucky
that, just as he was so thoroughly worn out, a poor Paharee was brought
into the Dispensary almost crushed by a tree falling on him, and Dr. D.
had to go and cut off his leg before he went home. I rather wonder how
surgeons enough can be found for all the pains and aches of this world.
Wednesday, June 12.
Captain P. goes off early to-morrow on an official tour to Cashmere, and
will be away five months. He and Miss S. take it very quietly, but they
looked rather unhappy last night.
He had brought me in the morning some Berlin work which the two sisters
had done for the fancy fair, and which they had sold to him in advance
for a mere trifle, and he wanted to know if it were the right price. I
thought it very right in the romantic view of the case, but very wrong
as touching the interests of the poor Dispensary. I told Miss A. S. (the
sister-in-law as is to be) that I should like to buy some of their work
at a dearer rate, and she said there would be plenty, 'but at present I
am working a table-cover for Captain P.' Then she asked if I wanted any
polished pebbles--'I have a great many, but I have given the best to
Captain P.,' just the sort of way in which people make a fuss with their
brothers-in-law at first. It goes off, does it not, Mr. D.?
Saturday, June 15.
We have been a long time without letters, and nobody knows when we shall
have any again. There are several stories left _hanging_ on something
which ought to have been cleared up a long time ago, and never will be
now--poor L. E. L.'s death! We have heard twice from you since the first
account, and it never appeared whether Maclean was 'a brute of a
husband,' or she, poor thing! very easily excited. Then, that Baily, the
supposed murderer(?), we never could find the end of that story.
I went out _pleasantly_ yesterday evening, quite a new idea; but as we
have so much to do for the little amusements of other people, I thought
I might as well for once amuse myself, so I went after dinner to see Mr.
and Mrs. C., and I was to lie on the sofa and they were to sing, and so
they did, beautifully, all sorts of things; she sings equally well in
five languages, French, English, German, Italian, and Hindustani, and
Mr. C. sings anything that is played to him without having any music.
Altogether it was very pleasant, which was lucky, for I meant to be at
home at eleven, a very undue hour for Simla, and a violent thunderstorm
came on which seemed to be splitting the hills into small shreds, so I
could not get home till one, which Wright thought very shocking. I
cannot imagine when we go home how we are to get back to reasonable
hours.