Short stay at Jorehat—My husband appointed to Gauhati—Value
of the bearer in India—His notions and mine not always
in harmony—Arrive at Gauhati—Illness and death of Mr.
Heath—Presentiments—My husband returns to Manipur—I remain at
Shillong—Delicious climate.
There is no necessity to give a detailed account of the time spent
between our leaving Manipur and our return there. It extended over a
period of some ten or twelve weeks only. Instead of remaining at Jorehat
three months as we had at first expected, we were there only ten days,
just long enough to get everything unpacked and stowed away, when a
telegram came from Shillong, ordering my husband to another station
called Gauhati, on the Brahmapootra. As it was a better appointment, he
accepted it, but it was very hard work having to start off on the march
again before we had had time to rest ourselves after our long journey
from Manipur. That wonderful domestic whom we could never do without in
India, the bearer, soon repacked all our things.
Why haven’t we someone like a bearer in England? He is a perfect godsend
in the shiny East. He is valet to the Sahib, makes the beds, dusts
the rooms, cleans the lamps and boots, and is responsible for all the
performances of the other domestics. If they fail to do their duty, or
break your furniture or crockery, you scold the bearer. If one of your
horses goes lame or gets out of condition, the bearer knows of it very
soon, and if your cook sends you up anything nasty for dinner, or the
butter is sour or the milk turned, your bearer is admonished. No doubt he
lectures the other servants for their misdeeds, and takes many gratuities
from them, varying in bulk, for pacifying his irate master or mistress.
He generally gets on amicably with the whole establishment, but sometimes
he makes an enemy of one or other of the servants, and ructions are as
constant as they are noisy. The two bearers (for they generally hunt in
couples) that we had had been with my husband for many years. They were
both very excellent servants, though the elder of the two gave himself
the airs and graces of a Maharajah.
My advent into the menage did not please him at all. Well he knew that
his little sins of omission and commission, so easily perpetrated in a
bachelor establishment, would all vanish and be things of the past when
a Memsahib came out from Belat[6] to rule the roost. Many a battle have
I had with Mr. Moni Ram Dass, as my husband’s chief factotum was called,
before I could get him to see that my way was not his way sometimes. For
instance, on one occasion shortly after my arrival in India I found him
airing the _whole_ of my husband’s wardrobe in my drawing-room at an
hour when visitors were certainties. Now, there are some garments in a
man’s outfit—and in a woman’s, too, for that matter—which, with the best
intention in the world, could never be made to look fitting ornaments
for a lady’s drawing-room. I expounded this theory to the bearer on this
occasion, but it was some time before I got him clearly to understand
that his master’s wardrobe was to be confined to the limits of the
dressing-room and back veranda; and when he did carry off the garments
in question, it was with an expression on his face of severe displeasure
at my want of taste in not considering them in the light of ornaments to
my drawing-room. One virtue in this estimable individual certainly was
worthy of all praise: he knew how to pack.
When we were leaving Manipur, he had packed all our belongings, and on
our arrival at Jorehat, after a long, rough journey, we found everything
in perfect order, and not even a cup broken. He repacked our things when
we had to leave there again, and took them himself to Gauhati, saving us
all the trouble of having to look after our heavy baggage ourselves, and
enabling us to follow on in comfort some days later.
It was beginning to be hot when we arrived at Gauhati early in April, and
I dreaded having to spend the hot season in the plains. It was to be my
first experience of great heat, as the summer before in Manipur we had
never needed punkahs, and on the hottest day we ever had, the thermometer
registered only 87°.
A week after we went to Gauhati, news came from Manipur that Mr. Heath,
our successor, was very ill indeed with dysentery. And as every day went
by, bringing reports of his condition, sometimes better, and then worse
again, we began to fear that he would not recover. At last one day a
telegram came saying that all was over, and that he had died the previous
evening. We were both very sorry to hear it. We had liked what we saw of
him so much, and had been so sorry to leave him there, apart from our own
sad feelings at going, knowing that he disliked and dreaded the place so
much. It seemed terribly sad. I knew well, too, that it would mean our
returning there, and much as I had regretted leaving, I did not want to
go back.
I cannot tell why the dislike had arisen within me at the thoughts of
returning; but the journey was so long, and the time of year so trying,
and on the top of that there was the feeling that a man whom we had known
and liked had just died in the house, and that if we went back it would
be to rooms that were full of his things, and associations quite unlike
those we had left behind us. Maybe that a warning of all that was yet to
come filled me with some unknown presentiment of evil; but it seemed as
though our return there was inevitable.
Within twenty-four hours after we had heard of Mr. Heath’s death came the
letter offering Manipur again to my husband. I watched his face light
up as he read it, full of eagerness to get back to the place he loved,
and I knew that I could never tell him that I did not want him to go. My
reasons for not wishing to return seemed childish, and I thought he would
not understand the superstitious ideas which filled me with dread at the
idea of going back. So when he came to me with the letter and asked me to
decide whether we should say yes or no to it, I said we had better accept
what it offered.
As it was so late in the year for travelling, and the weather so hot
and unhealthy, my husband decided to leave me in Shillong on his way to
Manipur, and let me follow in October. It was with a heavy heart that
I superintended the arrangements for the return journey. An undefinable
dread seemed to predominate over all I did, and I bid good-bye to my
husband when he left me behind in Shillong with a very heavy heart, and
my anxiety was not lessened when I heard from him day after day, giving
me terrible accounts of all he was going through on the way. Every one of
his servants, with the exception of the Khitmutghar, got ill with fever
and other complaints peculiar to the time of year. They had to be carried
the whole way, and my husband had to cook his own dinner and groom his
horses himself every day, besides having to unpack all the necessary
tables and chairs at each halting-place, and do them up again before
starting off next morning. It was only a mercy that he did not get ill
himself to add to the other miseries, and that I was not there to make
extra work for him. Very glad was I to hear from him at last that he had
arrived safely at Manipur. I don’t think he felt very bright at first.
He was quite alone there. The regiment was still away in the Chin Hills,
and rumours were afloat that when it did return most of the men were to
be drafted to Shillong, and only a wing left to garrison Langthabal. My
husband complained, too, that the Residency had somewhat gone to seed
since we left. During Mr. Heath’s illness and the time which elapsed
between his death and our return the servants had all taken a holiday, so
there was a good deal to be done to get things into order again. Several
rooms in the house that contained the dead man’s effects were kept locked
up, and it was some time before my husband could get the whole house
opened and the things sent away down to Calcutta.
Meanwhile I was enjoying myself very much, having got over my first
feelings of loneliness, and made friends with everyone in the place,
more or less. Shillong is a lovely little station nestling away amongst
the Khasia Hills, in the midst of pine woods, and abounding in waterfalls
and mountain-torrents. The climate is delicious all the year round, and
the riding and driving as good, if not better, than any hill-station in
India. Life there was very pleasant, not a superabundance of gaiety, but
quite enough to be enjoyable. I have spent some very happy days there
with some good friends, many of whom, alas! I can never hope to see
again; and the memories that come to me of Shillong and my sojourn there
are tinged with sadness and regret, even though those days were good and
pleasant while they lasted.
Things have changed there now, that is, as far as the comings and goings
of men change, but the hills remain the same, and the face of Nature will
not alter. Her streams will whisper to the rocks and flowers of all that
has been and that is to be. So runs the world. Where others lived and
loved, sorrowed and died, two hundred years ago, we are living now, and
when our day is over and done there will be others to take our place,
until a time comes when there shall be no more change, neither sorrow nor
death, and the former things shall have passed away for ever.