Pinjore, Sunday, Nov. 3, 1839.
Yes! we are in for it now. All the old discomfort, and worse; for we
left the nice autumnal air blowing at the Fir Tree, with the fern waving
and the trees looking red, and brown, and green, and beautiful--and now
we are in all our old camel-dust and noise, the thermometer at 90° in
the tents, and the punkah going. We received the officers of the escort
and their wives, after church, which was hot work, but I am rather glad
we have so many ladies in camp: it makes it pleasanter for the
gentlemen, and at the different stations it is very popular. Last year
there were only F. and me. In ten days, when we shall have a fresh
cavalry regiment, there will be at least twenty, and about twelve of
them dancers, which is lucky, for we hear of an awful number of balls in
prospect.
They were a ladylike set that we saw to-day; one of them a striking
likeness of you--a thing that I deny to everybody else, but still I do
see it; and perhaps it is better than nothing.
Munny Majra, Monday, Nov. 4.
We began riding part of the march to-day, and the horses go very well,
considering they have had a rest for seven months. My horse is such an
angel! I really like him with a sort of minor Chance sentiment.
Umballa, Thursday, Nov. 7.
E. N. and Mr. G. met us this morning, and rode in with us, and in the
afternoon we went to see E. N.'s house, which he has furnished very
nicely, quite in his mother's style.
A Captain B. arrived from Cabul, with one or two others, and are to
march with us to Kurnaul. They all deny the report of the army ever
having suffered further distress than a want of wine and cigars, and
they are all looking uncommonly fat.
Captain D., of G.'s body-guard, brought back three of the sheep with
which he left us last year, and the 16th are bringing back in safety
their pack of foxhounds. That does not look like having undergone great
privation. Captain B. brought me two shawls from Sir W. C., very pretty
ones--at least we should have thought them so, before we were spoiled by
plenty.
Shah-i-bad.
Mrs. B. arrived last night to meet her husband. She did not know he was
come, so she went straight to E. N.'s bungalow--the usual method with
ladies travelling dâk--and he found her there when he went home from
dinner.
He said he had given up the house to her and gone into a tent, and that
the two little children had arrived with their dear little stomachs much
discomposed by the journey, and had spoilt the sofa whose cover I had
admired in the morning.
This was the place where I bought my little girls last year, and it is a
curious coincidence, that their nominal father, who went to the Punjâb
and took service with Shere Singh, has left him, and arrived at this
place last night, found Rosina's tent, woke her up in the middle of the
night, and the little girls too, and cried and sobbed and kissed the
children, and wanted very much to have them back again. They are so
afraid he will carry them off, that they will not lose sight of Rosina
for a moment. Shere Singh gave this man a rupee a day to teach his cook
English cookery like ours. The man had only waited at our table, so his
imitation of an English _cuisine_ must have been faint and nasty.
Thanjou, Saturday, Nov. 9.
The dear overland post came in just as we came off the march, and were
sitting in front of the tents, sipping gritty tea, dusty up to the eyes,
and with a wretched 'up-before-breakfast' feeling, which evinces itself
in different manners: X. and Z. sneeze at each other; W. O. smokes a
double allowance; F. suffers from hunger; I yawn; G. groans and turns
black; the doctor scolds C. because the road was dusty, and A. rushes
off to business; but this _bad bit_ was cut short by that packet.
I know so well all you say, dearest, about these _weary_ feelings of
life; not that you have any right to them, because you have so many
young lives growing up round you--first volumes of novels that you ought
to carry on to third volumes.
I have a right to feel vapid and tired and willing to lie down and rest;
for during the last four years my life has been essentially an
artificial life; and, moreover, from my bad health it is physically
fatiguing, and I feel I am flagging much more than I ever expected to
do. I should like to see you and to be at home again; but I have no wish
to begin a fresh course of life--not from any quarrel with it, for I
know nobody who is in fact more spoiled, as far as worldly prosperity
goes. I never wish for a thing here that I cannot have, and G., who has
always been a sort of idol to me, is, I really think, fonder of me than
ever, and more dependent on me, as I am his only confidant. I feel I am
of use to him, and that I am in my right place when I am by his side.
Moreover, his government here has hitherto been singularly prosperous
and his health very good, so that there is nothing _outward_ to find
fault with, and much to be thankful for. Still, I have had enough of it,
and as people say in ships, there is a difficulty in 'carrying on.'
'My blood creeps now only in drops through its courses, and the heart
that I had of old, stirs feebly and heavily within me.' It is the change
from youth to age, and made in unfamiliar scenes, so that it is the more
felt. I never had any opinion of
The glories serenely adorning the close of our day,
The calm eve of our night;....
and never wanted the caution,--
Nor from the dregs of life hope to receive
What the first sprightly runnings would not give.
The dregs never held out any promise, but the first sprightly runnings
gave a good deal more happiness than people generally allow. I am quite
sure that you and I feel unusually detached from the future, from having
enjoyed our young days so eagerly.
They were very happy lives; and very often, when I am too tired to do
anything else, I can think over particular days, with nothing but high
spirits to recommend them, that are still quite refreshing. Days when we
were making rush-mats in the garden; then your first 'coming out' at
Oxford, with Lady Grenville; the day Mr. C. gave me my parrot, in what
we called a gold cage; then, later on, visits to Longleat, and a sort of
humble adoration of Lady B. and Lady G.; and then, of all the fortnights
in life I should like to do over again, that fortnight at Burgh; ---- ----
meeting us on his little black pony, as you brought me back from Thames
Ditton, and giving me some heath and some bluebells; and then the fun of
peering out of your window, to see him on the lawn. I could draw his
picture now quite easily. Then there were some good passages at Neasdon,
when T. and E. were such dear, little, small things; so stupid of them
to grow up--they should never have consented to pass four years old.
However, it is of no use going over these things; only, when you say you
are rather tired, I merely answer--so am I!
God bless you, dearest. In two days we shall be at Kurnaul, where we
shall halt the rest of the week; such a dusty, hot place. I never meant
when I started in life to march three times through Kurnaul. However, it
is all on the way home.