On The Verandah

2

On The Verandah

From the unfinished MS., circa 1899: Our India Days

Preface: Why This Little Book

    It is more than thirty years since the idea of writing a little book of reminiscences of Anglo-India in the first part of the present century had its birth. We were at Tamasha in Kent that summer and the three great-aunts were still with us, and all at that time blessedly well. And since several of their grandchildren had also come to stay and the weather was proving uncertain, it seemed the ideal time to urge them to tell us the stories, many of which we had heard before, but in which we still delighted, of their early life in India, for they were “country born”, as the old India hands say these days, and grew up there with no suggestion of being sent Home to school, as both boys and girls are in these modern times.

    We love to think of this particular summer, for Madeleine Thomas, as she then was, was with us. The thought of her always brings help and inspiration.

    Before we knew it we were planning the book. It was to be a collaborative affair, and since the great-aunts’ old Indian “receets” were a great part of the charm of the stories, we determined that their Hindustanee dishes should be written down, too. Our enthusiasm grew. For days on end we talked of nothing else. We wrote draft after draft, we invaded the kitchen, alas, to try the recipes, driving poor Cook to desperation, we re-drafted, and again we wrote. It seemed the summer would see our little work complete. But alas! other things soon thrust themselves upon us, and our unfinished little book was pigeon-holed for years and years.

    And it is not now what it would have been if finished then.

    The original narrative, as we transcribed it that halcyon summer, did not include the conversations which took place, but many years after when the manuscript was disinterred wiser counsel prevailed, and I have endeavoured to “set the stories in their context” and give the reader, to the best of my recollection, the flavour of the mid-century time in which they were told.

    As to the recipes— After some discussion with kind friends and family I have decided to leave them in. They give a little of the true flavour of old India, before the days of the railway, when the old, old Grand Trunk Road, scarcely yet improved by our English endeavours as it is in these later days, was the only alternative to taking ship if one wished to reach Delhi from Calcutta.

    And it is the flavour in more ways than the merely literal! Here is a story which the great-aunts used to tell, having had it off one of their dear ayahs, which illustrates my point:

    A lady in India once had an ayah, who from morning till night sang the same sad song to the baby. It was a plaintive chant: “Ky a ke waste, Ky a ke waste, pet ke waste, pet ke waste."

    The lady’s curiosity was aroused. The words were simple enough, but they had no sense: “For why? For why? For why? For stomach! For stomach!”

    She called the ayah to her and sought the interpretation of these words.

    “This is the meaning, oh memsahiba,” said the ayah: “Why do we live? What is the meaning of our existence? To fill our stomachs, to fill our stomachs.”

    The great-aunts would add: “You may smile at this and feel sorry for the poor benighted Hindoo, who has such a low idea of the meaning of life, but must we not all eat? Is not the necessity for food common to all mankind?” And if the children were not present they might add the unchristianly aside: “What more is the meaning of life? You see in this little tale the two strands, the philosophical and the bodily, inextricably interwoven, and that, certainly according to the Indian way of thinking, is indeed the meaning of life.” –A.J.T., The Vicarage, Little Shrempton, 189—

Our India Days, Chapter 1

    Since Antoinette and Matt are so interested, we have agreed to tell you our story, and Antoinette may write it down. And yes, Tessa and little Gil may hear it, too! Of course, dear children, we all recall slightly different episodes—Great-Aunt Tiddy is a deal younger than Great-Aunts Tess and Tonie, though it may not seem so to you! And then, Antoinette’s Grandmamma, your dearest Great-Aunt Josie, is gone, now, alas—who would have thought our pretty, gay, heedless Josie would have been the first to leave us? But yes, dear ones, since you wish for it, this is the story of our India days.

    In these modern times, or so the young people certainly claim, everything is changed and we are all so much more aware of the risks that attach to the Anglo-Indian life and the unwisdom of trusting any native—why, they cry, we have had the Indian Mutiny! And the heyday of the East India Company is over—and just as well! For you older persons did not make a very good fist of ruling India at all: these days the Indian Civil Service has the task firmly in hand, and with the better sort of Indian being taught English so that they may make efficient clerks, everything is so much more regular and businesslike. Imagine doing business in the Indian languages as in Grandpapa’s and Great-Grandpapa’s day! Absurd! No wonder the natives came to consider themselves as good as the English! But that cannot happen again. There is nothing like true English rule under the Sovereign, after all!

    None of us three Lucas girls would claim we know anything about the political side of the thing, and certainly the Mutiny was a most dreadful and shocking occurrence. But it did not seem to us, while we were living it, that the life was such a bad one, fifty years ago and more, even if we did not have all the Indian clerks writing English and—well, whatever our dearest grandchildren claim. Protective clothing more suited to the climate: pith helmets and—and spine pads, was it, dearest ones? Whatever you say. Yes, much more suitable; and of course the shipping is so much more efficient these days, no-one would wish to argue with that. Your Great-Grandpapa’s tea must have had to be sent home on the tea clippers? Well, no, dear children, although now of course our fine Indian tea is a—a commonplace, and one cannot imagine English life without it, back when your Great-Grandpapa took over the firm the English were not yet growing tea in India. That did not come along until much later. But yes, for some years the tea has come by tea clipper. Though, really, the big sailing ships that fetched the tea and silks from China were not so very much different. Not as fast—no.

    You wish to know what we did before our Papa started growing the tea? Dear ones, the tea did not loom so large in our lives as you seem to assume—though of course your Great-Aunt Tonie lived for many years on one of Papa’s tea plantations. But that was much later. Before that, when we were children? But there are so many little details—and yet, it all tends to run together into a golden memory of the halcyon days of childhood that can never come again. But you cannot grasp that, as yet! Cherish these days, they are precious ones.

    Matt thinks we might start with one person who stands out in the memory? Perhaps not Ranjit Singh, dear boy, though he was striking, yes. He was our Papa’s burra khitmagar—that is, major-domo, and such a fixture in the house in Calcutta that, again, one scarce knows where to start.

    Dear old Ranjit Singh! He was a Sikh, of course, and must have been over six feet tall—nearer to seven, in his great turban. Such an impressive figure in his white suit of clothes—no, Indian clothes, dear ones, our Papa would never have dreamed of requiring his servants to wear feringhee dress. Tonie is quite correct in saying that that means “foreign” and you had best write “English”, Antoinette! What a tremendous treat it was for us little ones, to be given a ride round the house on Ranjit Singh’s shoulders, high above the world, almost like riding on an elephant!

    Of course we have ridden on an elephant, dear ones! Many, many times—but perhaps that should be for later in the story?

    Perhaps it would be best, after all, to start with Ponsonby Sahib—for who, after our dearest Papa and Mamma, was to become more significant in our lives than he? Yes, we did call him that in those days, children—though as you will see, that was not all he was called!

    Our earliest memories of Ponsonby Sahib date back to around the year 1815, though some of us are old enough to remember meeting him before that, if we put our minds to it. Mind, our dear Josie would maintain she had never laid eyes on him back then! Perhaps Papa’s older children might recall him from earlier days, but in truth we four scarce knew them: they were grown, launched and married to respectable husbands before Tess, Tonie, Josie and little iddy-bitty Tiddy were out of the schoolroom or, in the case of some, the nursery. But for us younger ones the unannounced arrivals and departures of Ponsonby Sahib punctuate, more or less, the memories of our India days in the big white house in Calcutta. We, of course, as children do, took these arrivals and departures for granted, along with the houseful of devoted Indian nurses and bearers who all spoilt us dreadfully, the garden crammed with the flowers that naughty little Josie and Tiddy did not hesitate to despoil, never realising they were the result of hours of tending and watering by faithful mali and his helpers, the illicit visits to the bazaar and the temples with the ayahs, and, contrariwise, the approved Sunday church-going in our best frilled muslins. Yes, and bonnets, of course: Miss Tess and Miss Tonie becomingly decked in real straw with ribbons and silk flowers, while starched white cotton marked the lowly nursery status of Josie baba and Tiddy baba! Not so very different from our little Tessa today, no! Though garments were lighter in those days: you would consider our little muslins very flimsy and inadequate!

    It was, then, a day in 1815 when the thin man on the bony horse rode slowly up to the gates of the Lucas mansion under a clear blue sky. The day was not hot, by Indian standards; nevertheless the streets of Calcutta were almost deserted, and the gatekeeper was observedly asleep in the little thatched shelter which Mr Lucas had caused to be erected by his palatial wrought-iron gates and which the third Mrs Lucas had caused to be painted white to match the mansion. The thin man smiled, just a little. Undoubtedly the thick lawns had been heavily watered that very morning, as every morning, except when the monsoons came; but although the grass was lush and green, it was observedly dry as a bone. A butterfly’s wings flashed for a moment over the amber flowers of a tall ginger plant; then all was still. The hum of the crowded city made the slightest of background noises; the Lucas grounds were silent apart from a faint buzzing of insects.

    The man on the bony horse did not disturb the dozing gatekeeper: instead, as was his habit, he inserted his riding crop through the wrought iron and under the latch of the tall double gates. The gates opened; he pushed them apart just enough to admit himself and his horse, and closed them again. Then he rode slowly up the weedless gravelled drive.

    The front of the mansion, with its heavy pillared porte cochère symmetrically flanked by giant rows of white columns above an intricate tessellated marble flooring, presented an almost respectable appearance, except that the punkah-wallah seated in the lee of one of the huge white pillars had fallen asleep on his little string cot. Again the thin man smiled, just a little. He did not disturb the man, nor knock at the immense carved wooden door, though he did glance at this door with considerable amusement: it would not have been out of place guarding an inner chamber in a maharajah’s palace. Instead, he dismounted, and led the horse slowly off to the right, where the wide gravelled drive disappeared round the corner of the house amongst a profusion of flowering bushes and broad-leaved palms.

    Once past this corner, the house, which appeared so symmetrical from the front, revealed itself to be an oblong block backed by an intricate tangle of wings, attachments and lean-tos. The thin man, who was used to it, walked slowly down the path and ducked under a trellised archway hung with a heavy swag of crimson flowering vine. Then, still leading the horse, he entered a courtyard. To his left, the Classical bulk of the mansion loomed, a heavy whitewashed stone verandah shading that side of the house. To the right, below a high stone wall a long, narrow pool, something in the Moorish style, was featured, with a small fountain tinkling at its centre, and tubs of more flowering vines, bright-blossomed shrubs and shiny-leafed citrus bushes ringing it; and directly before him was a second shaded verandah, very much in the Indian fashion, running the length of a wing set at right angles to the main house. The gravel path was continued; he led the horse slowly along it.

    This verandah was composed of two levels: above, a darkly latticed balcony sheltered what perhaps had been the women’s quarters of the original house, before its new European owner added the imposing main frontage during the previous century. Below, white columns echoed the Moorish tone of the enclosed courtyard.

    Between these columns were slung the heavy wooden blinds, each slat composed of a long, thin branch, that were endemic to the country. Since today was not so very hot, only a few of these blinds were rolled right down: most of them were only about one-third lowered. The rolled two-thirds made a mighty swagging above the verandah, causing the thin man to reflect, as he often did at the sight of these harmless and accustomed domestic aids, that at need the weight of the rolled branches would make a formidable weapon to drop on an unsuspecting adversary’s head. But that, this being India, one probably would never manage it: the riggings could certainly be designed to drop the blinds whenever one fancied, but, alas, the fellows deputed to tend the ropes would undoubtedly manage to tangle them!

    On the verandah floor an Indian servant woman in a crumpled white cotton saree had nodded off beside a long swing in which two angelic-faced European girls were asleep amidst a tangle of silken cushions and trailing shawls and wrappers. One might have been ten years of age: her brown curls were a little tumbled and the neat calico apron sheltering her little white muslin dress had a few paint stains upon it. The brush and watercolours were discarded on the verandah floor. The thin man tied his horse to the nearest verandah post, removed the saddlebags, and glanced at the childish painting of pink and yellow flowers in a vase, and the vase itself nearby on a little cane table, and again smiled that very slight smile. The vase held two marigolds. The painting showed two yellow sunbursts and one pink smudge. The other sleeping child was younger, perhaps seven or eight years of age: a positive cherub with a great mass of tangled golden ringlets, and a crumpled white muslin dress adorned with knots of crushed blue ribbon. One grubby little hand clutched a pink flower.

    —No, dear children, you have it wrong: the date was 1815, remember! That’s right, Matt: the year of Waterloo. These were your Great-Aunt Tonie and your Great-Aunt Josie. Yes, Josie had glorious golden curls, so very like your cousin Margaret’s! Matt, dearest, this is not a story about Waterloo. The precise date? Dearest boy, it was a very long time ago… Let us say, well before the rains. That is how we dated things in India, and let us leave it at that! Do you wish to hear more, or shall we ring for the tea-tray? Very well, then.

    The thin man turned away from the side wing and mounted the steps of the heavy stone verandah shading the main wing. His face expressionless, he went along to where some muslin curtains hung limply at a set of open French doors.

    “Hullo, Johnny Jullerbees!” squeaked a high little voice. “Have you brought some?”

    “Yes,” he said, holding the curtains aside and looking into the big dim room behind them. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

    At this a very small, skinny child emerged, panting, from under the large table which occupied the centre of the room—now, in the dimness, revealing itself to be a library. It was not altogether positive what sex or race this child was: it was clad in a ragged shirt over a minute version of a ragged dhotee, and its head was bound in a ragged white turban, but the thin man said unemotionally: “Hullo, Tiddy.”

    “Hullo, Major!” squeaked the child, beaming.

    “Where are Charlie and Romesh?” he asked mildly, opening one of the saddlebags.

    “They’ll be squashed in there,” said the child disapprovingly. “Romesh is in the palace, he’s on guard. Charlie couldn’t come today, his mother said he had to go to her chota khana.”

    “Poor him,” he said, bending to look under the heavy library table. “Romesh, the guard is relieved!” he said loudly.

    At this a small Indian boy, dressed like the child Tiddy, but wearing a wide belt from which depended a large wooden sword, crawled out from under the table, grinning eagerly.

    “You can have Charlie’s share,” said Tiddy generously to the donor as the oozing paper of syrupy spirals of jullerbees was produced.

    “Thanks,” replied the Major simply, squatting on the carpet, boots and all. The two children, apparently noticing nothing odd in this action, also squatted, and the jullerbees were attacked with the appropriate reverent silence. Apart from the appropriate gasps for air, sighs of appreciation, and so forth.

    —Jullerbees? It is very hard to describe something you have eaten for most of your life and never thought about, dear ones! Well—syrupy spirals. If only our dear Nandinee Ayah were still with us, she would cook some up for you this very day! Nothing like an English cake, Gil baba, no. Very sweet—indeed, very, very sweet! You children would be astounded at the amount of sugar we were allowed to eat as little ones! You may find this hard to believe, but we had both sugarcane and its juice—yes, indeed. Sugarcane juice is of all things the most indescribably delicious! In India one may buy the juice by the glassful fresh from a street vendor: it’s such fun to see him force the canes through his mangle! Er—in a glass, certainly; but to say truth one often chews the sugarcane, Matt: it is just like a piece of, well, raw cane or—or bamboo, dear boy. No, one does not swallow the cane itself, for it is far too fibrous: just the juice. Between us, Tessa, darling, one does have to spit it out, yes, but pray do not tell your Mamma we said so!

    The jullerbees, Matt: yes, of course. They are spirals soaked in a heavy sugar syrup. Quite a plain dough, mixed to a paste—and what a sight to see it was, Nandinee Ayah vigorously mixing up the dough in a big copper bowl with a great armful of narrow bangles jangling and glittering! Odd, indeed, to English eyes, Antoinette, dearest, for she had nigh on four inches of them on each wrist! The sugar syrup, Tessa? Well, one then dribbles the dough through an implement with a little hole in it—Nandinee had a piece of coconut shell she kept expressly for the purpose—making long spirals which are dropped immediately into a great pot of hot oil—and woe betide any child who comes too near to Ayah’s pan of oil! Indeed, it would burn you, darling! But it has to be hot to cook the jullerbees, you see. And when they are cooked, out they come on a big flat brass scoop, and then into the great bowl of sugar syrup! And if the baba-log are impatient, they may eat them immediately, while they are still warm from the oil, but customarily one eats them cold, when they have had time to soak in the syrup for a little. –Just write “log”, Antoinette, dear. Why, the baba-log are the baby people! Surely that is self-evident?

    Yes, Gil baba, Indian words are funny indeed, and you shall have a cakey with the tea-tray! And our little Tessa, of course, of course!

    Very well, Antoinette, dearest, Tonie will write the receet out for you if you wish.

Jullerbees, Best-Beloved Sweetmeats of India

Make a batter of 1 lb [450 g] of flour and water. Make it just about as thick as you would for pancakes. To colour yellow, add one teaspoonful of turmerick. Cover the vessel tight & let stand for 3 days. Then stir in about one half of a cup of thick sour milk [yoghurt]. (Or make up at once by adding 2/3 of a teaspoonful of Bicarbonate of Soda & 1/3 of Cream of Tartar to the mixture and beating it well. The milk must not be too sour in that case.) Pour a little of the batter into a vessel with a hole in the bottom & let the batter run through a little at a time into a pan of hot oil. Keep the hand moving in a circle to form spirals. Fry until crisp & light brown. In the meantime have a dish of syrup ready. Make this from 1 lb [450 g] of brown sugar & water. Keep it in a warm place and as the jullerbees fry place each one for a few minutes in the syrup. Remove & pile them on oiled paper until needed.

    In the library the jullerbees were vanishing fast, as jullerbees always do, and the first session of finger-licking being under way, the Major ventured: “So, is it a palace, today?”

    “Yes: the Red Palace of Dehrapore,” said Tiddy with satisfaction.

    Romesh echoing this phrase in his own language, the Major considerately switched to that tongue, in order to ask: “What are you doing, attacking or defending it?”

    “Defending it, of course,” said Tiddy.

    “I’m the captain of the palace guard,” explained Romesh.

    The Major gave the sideways wobble of the head that in the great subcontinent is used to signify understanding and affirmation—Yes, children, like this! Odd, is it not?—and Tiddy added helpfully: “Charlie was going to attack it. He’ll have to do it tomorrow, now.”

    He moved his head again. “I see. And who are you today, Tiddy?”

    “I’m the rajah’s chief spy, of course.”

    An acute observer might have seen the Major blench, at this. And at the same instant a laughing voice said in English from the inner doorway: “Serves you right, Gil!”

    At which Gilbert Ponsonby got up, grinning, acknowledging: “It certainly does. Loose lips lose lives, is about the first thing I teach my fellows. How are you, Henry?”

    “In the pink, thanks,” replied Mr Lucas. Eyes twinkling, he put his hands together Indian-fashion and bowed. “Namaste.”

    The Major looked at his own sticky hands, and laughed. “Namaste!”

    “Come and tell me all your news,” said Mr Lucas, coming to put a hand on his shoulder.

    “Have you been up in the mofussil?” demanded Tiddy.

    “No, I’ve just been round and about,” replied Ponsonby smoothly.

    “You can see him later, Tiddy,” said Mr Lucas reassuringly, leading him out.

    “Don’t forget!” cried Tiddy loudly as they vanished.

    “I shan’t!” cried Ponsonby.

    As they went along the passage the voice of Miss Tiddy, aged five years, might quite clearly have been heard informing Master Romesh: “He has been up in the mofussil: that was a fib. You can always tell when Johnny Jullerbees is telling fibs.”

    “My God, I hope not!” said Ponsonby with a laugh as they went into Mr Lucas’s study.

    —And that is how we remember Ponsonby Sahib from those very early days. Tell more, Matt? But was it not clear? Indian words? Did we? Something like “nasty”, Tessa? Oh! Namaste! Great-Aunt Tiddy will show you how it is done! There: one bows, you see—it does look like one is praying, yes, Matt. “Namaste” is just a greeting, as in English you might say “Good-day.” Mussels? But there were no mussels in the story, dear, for in India it is not safe to eat shellfish, the weather is so very hot, it is as if no month had an R in it! Ponsonby Sahib was up in the—? Oh! That is “mofussil”: it means up the country. India is very, very big—yes, much bigger than England, Gil baba: Antoinette will show you on the big globe in the schoolroom later. So you see, Johnny Jullerbees had been on a very long journey. And of course there were no trains back then. Certainly it was before Mr Stephenson’s Rocket, Matt, and you had best spend some time these holidays with your schoolbooks, for poor Miss Hart was supposed to have taught you about that quite some months back! Let us just say that Ponsonby Sahib had been on a very long journey, perhaps on horseback, but quite possibly with a camel train.

    Lots of camels, Gil, darling, laden with bags and bundles, all walking one behind the other, with a lurching motion which one has to admit is not a very pleasant sensation, at least to those over twelve years of age! And one can ride or walk beside them. Progress is not very fast, no, but then, life in India never seems urgent…

    Tea? Why of course, darlings, let us ring for the tea-tray! No, well, there is a great deal more to the story, Matt, and if you wish to hear more of Ponsonby Sahib, and the sorts of things he customarily did when he was in the mofussil, perhaps we could have a little more after the tea. Since it still seems to be raining: how dismal the English summers can be, to be sure…

    It must have been some time in the year 1820 when Ponsonby Sahib paid another of his unannounced visits to the Lucas mansion. Lights glowed softly in the house, the muslin curtains at the downstairs windows moved in the pleasant evening breeze and from inside the house the sound of a piano and a woman’s voice singing could be heard. Ponsonby and his captive had not approached the mansion in the usual way; now they came silently across the dark lawn, and slipped through the bushes.

    “See?” hissed his captive crossly. “I said no-one would miss me!”

    Grimly Ponsonby replied: “Chup!” That is, “Be silent!” and they went round the corner of the house and ducked under the swagged arch, Ponsonby gripping his captive’s small, skinny arm unpleasantly hard.

    “Is it a burra khana?” he muttered as they approached the side verandah.

    “Not really,” admitted the captive sourly: “just dinner. The memsahib said Tonie might come down for it and play the new piece, and then she could accompany Tess, since it was only to be Major and Mrs Hatton, Mr and Mrs Carruthers, and Dr Little. Martha Carruthers was not allowed to come: she had a tantrum.”

    “Why?”

    “Girls like her do. Tonie told her she would have her hair up, you see.”

    He moved his head affirmatively. “I see. And has she?”

    “I don’t know. Probably not, she’s only fifteen.”

    “Ah: rubbing salt in the wound,” he said unemotionally, mounting the verandah steps. Tonight the verandah was empty except for its usual scattering of furniture. He moved quickly down to the library, still gripping the captive grimly, and there rang the bell.

    A servant swiftly presented himself, evinced horror and dismay at the sight presented to him, and hurried off to get his master, ekdum—straight away.

    “This,” said Ponsonby grimly, as Mr Lucas came in, looking very mild, “turned up at my sadar this evening claiming to have information for me.”

    Mr Lucas shot one glance at the small, dirty, ragged half-caste boy gripped fiercely in Ponsonby’s grasp and shouted: “Tiddy! What the Devil have you been up to?”

    Tiddy scowled defiantly. “Spying for Ponsonby Sahib. –Why not? Romesh’s brother does it, and he’s only fifteen, and I’m much smarter than him!”

    At this our poor Papa was driven to shout crossly that she knew why not: she was a girl!

    “I think you’d better hear it all, Henry,” said Ponsonby.

    “Er—yes. Well, she can get off to bed.”

    “No! I’ve got information!” cried Tiddy.

    “Then don’t shout,” replied Ponsonby Sahib calmly. “She claims to have been hanging round Quantock’s house, with Romesh and—er—his brother.”

    “Yes, and they didn’t understand a word, see, because it was all in French!” said Tiddy on a triumphant note.

    “Tiddy, I have one word for you,” said our Papa with a sigh. “Waterloo.”

    “I know!” she retorted angrily. “That doesn’t mean the French all love us, or have the interest of the Company at heart.”

    “Er—look, have a cigar,” said Mr Lucas to his friend with a smothered sigh, “and we’ll get to the bottom of it. It may all be a fantasy, y’know.”

    Ponsonby accepted a cigar and they adjourned to the verandah, where the two men lit up and sat down after a cautious checking of the shadows. Tiddy came and squatted at their feet but was ordered peremptorily by her father to get up and sit on a chair like a Christian.

    —No, no, dear children. Everyone squats in India, except for the English, it is completely usual for a rajah—a prince, that is—as well as for a beggar, but pray to do not ask us to demonstrate it, at our advanced ages! Well, they are not Christians, Matt, no, and why should they be? Er—no, do not tell your Papa that, dear boy. Doubtless whatever he told you must be correct, and we are just three silly old ladies. Several religions, dear boy, and perhaps we could discuss that at another time, if your Papa permits you. Now, where were we? Oh, yes:

    “Go on, Tiddy,” said Ponsonby on a dry note, as Mr Lucas merely blew smoke.

    It emerged from the somewhat tangled narrative that Tiddy, on the pretext of helping the punkah-wallah—the man who works the big ceiling fan—had got onto Mr Quantock’s verandah and there overheard, not merely this evening but over the course of several evenings, the aforesaid Quantock plotting with an emissary of the Rajah of Dehrapore, a visiting merchant who went by the name of Bogaert and claimed to be Belgian, and a Mr Paterson who worked for John Company, to foment unrest in the Rajah’s territory, entice an English regiment thereto, and there finish them off. In, according to Tiddy, French.

    “If this farrago be true,” said Mr Lucas slowly, “then one can see why a Froggy masquerading as a Belgian would be quite happy for it to happen, if he was a Republican Froggy, I suppose; and the Rajah’s known to be doing all he can to keep us out of his territory. He’d like to give us a hint or two we’re not welcome there, provided it can appear that we marched in asking for it. But I’d like to know what advantage Quantock gets from it. Or Paterson,” he added, very neutrally indeed.

    “Possibly Paterson is merely being paid for his assistance,” said Ponsonby.

    “Yes, or possibly the whole thing’s a fairy story: she knows Paterson, and don’t like him.”

    “He’s a horrid man, but I’m not making it up!” said Tiddy angrily.

    “Mm. Well, did you get any hint of what Quantock’s in it for?” asked Ponsonby seriously. “He’s a rich man, you know, as well-to-do as your Papa, I dare say.”

    “It was something about the—um—restrictions of John Company. He said they had a stranglehold,”  said Tiddy on a dubious note.

    “Er—well, that smacks of verisimilitude, Henry,” he murmured.

    “Aye, but to betray an English regiment?”

    “It has been known,” said Ponsonby, very drily indeed.

    “It has, indeed,” agreed Henry John Lucas.

    “Aye… But the involvement of the French seems… Well, we have not had a whisper.”

    “They were talking French!” said Tiddy crossly. “Romesh and his brother couldn’t understand, and they went to sleep, but I listened!”

    “Her stepmamma has insisted the girls keep up their French, in memory of their mother,” Mr Lucas conceded.

    Ponsonby rubbed his chin. “Oui, je sais. Raconte-moi cette histoire en français,” he suggested to Tiddy. “Du moins, raconte ce qu’a dit ce Bogaert.”

    Obediently Tiddy repeated what she could recall of M. Bogaert’s conversation, but this did not get them any further. Very clearly there had been a considerable amount which had passed right over her head. Sharp though that head was.

    “Did he mention—he or anyone, Tiddy,” said Ponsonby slowly at last, “anything like St Petersburg, or Moscow, or the interests of the Tsar, or the Northwest Frontier?”

    “No!” she said in amaze. “The frontier’s hundreds and hundreds of miles from the Rajah’s territory, Major!”

    Ponsonby smiled a little. “Mm. Er… Anything about Holland or the Dutch, Tiddy?”

    “No,” she said definitely.

    “Tiddy, think. Anything about the Dutch East Indies?” urged her father.

    “No!” she said crossly. “I am not a simpleton!”

    “No, you’re not that. Er—the Portuguese?” Ponsonby raised his eyebrows at Mr Lucas.

    “Nominally our allies,” murmured the merchant.

    “Mm. Well, there’s more than one power that would like to see us struggling to keep our foothold here, rather than broadening our interests in the East.”

    “Quite.” Mr Lucas pitched the stub of his cigar into a potted plant, and got up. “If this is true, a grateful country may give you a medal,” he said to his youngest daughter in an unpleasant voice. “But I don’t advise you to count on it. If it proves to be a lie, I’ll give you a dashed good beating meself. In the meantime, you can come upstairs and explain yourself to Ayah, and I think I can promise you that she’ll give you a dashed good beating. Say goodnight to Major Ponsonby.” He seized her hand and pulled her to her feet.

    “Goodnight, Ponsonby Sahib,” said Tiddy in a small voice.

    He stood up slowly. “Tiddy, this was a very silly thing to do. Running around the town dressed as a boy is extremely dangerous, as I think you know, and skulking around Quantock’s house, if the man is involved in anything shady, could get you killed. I want your promise you won’t try this sort of trick again.”

    “Well?” said Mr Lucas, as his daughter had not uttered.

    “No!” she shouted. “It’s not fair! Boys can do anything! And it is all true! And I am not a liar!” Forthwith bursting into a storm of tears.

    “She is quite a truthful child,” said Mr Lucas, ignoring the tears, “as much as one brought up by a pack of Indian servants can ever be said to be that. Has a sense of fair play, too.”

    “Yes.” Ponsonby eyed him cautiously. “I’m dashed sorry, Henry. Should never have encouraged her by telling her those spy stories.”

    “No, well, who’d have thought she’d be so cursed silly?”

    “I’m not silly!” shouted Tiddy through the tears.

    “Not half,” replied Mr Lucas stolidly, hauling her off.

    Ponsonby lit a fresh cigar and gazed up at a velvety Indian sky. Eventually he blew out a long stream of smoke. “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. When Mr Lucas reappeared on Ma Maison’s heavy stone side verandah there was no sign of him. The merchant nodded to himself, and went slowly back indoors to his little dinner party.

    —You wish to know if her nurse did beat her, children? Let us just say that Tiddy baba received a good scolding. Yes, Matt: it was a very dangerous thing to do, but perhaps it does prove that girls may be as adventurous as boys. Though on mature reflection some of us had to concede that they can be as foolhardy! Indeed, Tessa, your Great-Aunt Tiddy was a very naughty girl to dress up as a boy. But the bad men did not catch her, and so it turned out happily in the end! Not breeches, no, darling, but a dhotee. A white cloth wrapped about the hips and legs, almost as we might wrap an infant, but in India even very old men wear the dhotee, usually with a long, loose white shirt. The poorer classes cannot afford coats, Matt, though the better-off wear them when the weather is not too hot, or for formal occasions. No, Tessa, dear, rajahs wear pretty silken breeches. As for how it all turned out, Matt, that was not revealed for some two years after that. Things do not move swiftly in India. But as in England it seems it is already time for your old aunts to rest before dinner, we shall leave it there for the nonce. No, children, tomorrow is another day!

Poorees of White Flour (A Breakfast Dish)

Knead for 10 minutes a dough made from a pound [450 g] of fine white flour & water. Let stand 4 or 5 hours. Divide into little balls and roll until they are as thin as paper. Fry [in oil or ghee] as you would fritters. These are delicious served as a breakfast dish with a little spiced fried onion & potato and some sev [deep-fried pea flour noodles]. A dish of curd [yoghourt] & fresh fruit may be served on the side.

Our India Days, Chapter 2

   Some of us were quite grown up, the year that Tiddy baba’s spying finally bore fruit. Or certainly considered ourselves so to be! The Lucas house’s main verandah was crowded with young people on a glorious fine afternoon: muslins fluttered, one or two uniforms could be glimpsed, there was the clink of teacups and the sound of laughter.

    On the far side of the pool, where our stepmamma, the third Mrs Lucas, had caused a long pergola to be erected, the vines were in heavy leaf. In their shade sat what was possibly a holy man, or possibly just a beggar, in a ragged dhotee. He was upright and cross-legged but the bowls beside him, which had evidently lately held food, were empty, and he appeared to be asleep; though the charitable-minded would have said he was meditating. The visitor looked at him respectfully, and did not smile. Much merit was acquired by a house which allowed a holy man to take up residence in its grounds, even if the house was occupied by a feringhee.

    This visitor came softly up to the verandah, put his hands before his face and bowed respectfully. “Namaste, memsahib,” he said to the young memsahib on the seat that moved.

    “Hulloa! Another dashed beggar!” noticed Lieutenant Hawkins with a moue. “Shall I send the fellow about his business, Miss Tonie?”

    “Lor’, ain’t that ten years’ bad luck, out here?” retorted Lieutenant Kennedy brilliantly.

    Tonie glanced at the scrawny, ragged, bowing figure without favour. “Why they must always fawn so—! No, well, possibly he has a message for Papa.”

    “Hoy! Bhai!” cried Lieutenant Kennedy obligingly. “Have you got a chit for the burra-sahib? Chitty? Burra-sahib? Lucas Sahib?”

    The messenger just put his hands together before his face and bowed deeply.

    “Hopeless,” concluded the gallant Lieutenant with a shrug. “Half these bhais are on bhang half the time, and with that and the paan muck they all chew—” He shrugged. “Addles their brains, y’see, Miss Tonie.”

    Tonie of course knew this: she had been born and brought up in the country, whereas Lieutenant Kennedy had been out here for a bare eighteen months. However, she replied politely: “I am sure you are right, Lieutenant.”

    “Get your woman to ask him what his business is,” suggested Lieutenant Hawkins.

    Tonie hesitated. Possibly Ayah would not care to speak to a fellow of this man’s caste; but it was no use attempting to explain this to the pink-faced Mr Hawkins, who had been out here scarce three months. So she said: “Sushila Ayah, ask that man what he wants. And if he is only begging, send him round to the kitchen, jooldee.”

    Sushila Ayah giggled, and pulled her gauzy saree right over her face, but did speak to the man. Only to report the fellow did not speak her language.

    “Fellow don’t bolo the baht, y’see,” explained Mr Kennedy loftily to his comrade-in-arms.

    “Eh?” said Mr Hawkins groggily. “Fellow’s as black as your hat!”

    “There is more than one language, you see. I dare say this fellow is from up the country, Mr Hawkins,” said Tonie kindly.

    “Come down from the mofussil, y’see,” explained Mr Kennedy helpfully.

    “Well, shall we just chase him off, Miss Tonie?” offered the misguided Lieutenant Hawkins, rising to his full six feet.

    Tonie looked up at two yards of well-fed, broad-shouldered, pink-faced young Englishman in some dismay. “No, no, we cannot do that, for what if he does have a chitty for Papa?”

    “Send for one of your bhais?” offered the resourceful Lieutenant Kennedy.

    “It is quite on the cards,” she owned with a sigh, “that he will claim not to speak their language, either. –One never knows, in this country, Mr Hawkins: you see, he may very likely have understood every word that Ayah said, but is concealing the fact for reasons of his own.”

    “Eh? What possible reason could there be?” he spluttered.

    “Don’t try to fathom the natives, dear boy,” advised Mr Kennedy kindly, patting his shoulder. “Fetch young Tiddy, shall I?” he offered helpfully.

    Tonie eyed the uninvited caller with distaste. “Thank you, Lieutenant. That would be best, yes. –My little sister seems to have the knack of dealing with them,” she explained, as Mr Kennedy then indulged in the normal Anglo-Indian version of “fetching”, to wit, yelling loudly for a bhai to get Miss Tiddy out here, ekdum!

    The commotion at their end of the verandah had attracted the notice of some others of the group and as they waited for Tiddy to appear, Martha Carruthers and Catherine Doolittle, escorted by, respectively, Mr George Hilton, from John Company, and Mr Frederick Dean, the son of a well-to-do local box-wallah, wandered down to see what the fuss was.

    “It’s nothing,” said Tonie with a sigh. “The house is eternally plagued by these sorts of mulaquati.”

    “Pa’s given our gatekeeper strict orders to keep ’em all out,” Mr Dean offered helpfully.

    Miss Doolittle, fluttering her eyelashes tremendously, explained that Tonie’s papa was too soft-hearted. This was not the impression of Mr Lucas that Freddy Dean’s revered Pa had conveyed to him, but he nodded humbly and was rewarded by Miss Doolittle’s leaning more heavily on his arm and fluttering the eyelashes more than ever.

    “Tell him to wait,” said the decisive Lieutenant Kennedy. “Mind you, fellow don’t bolo the baht,” he added. “Hoy! Bhai! Wait there!” he cried, making motions in the air as of one patting the head of a favourite large dog.

    Possibly the caller understood; at any rate, he subsided onto the path, taking up the usual squatting position.

    “They can stay like that for hours, you see, Lieutenant Hawkins,” explained Miss Carruthers helpfully.

    Mr Hawkins had remarked that. “Odd, ain’t it?” he agreed comfortably. “What was we talkin’ about— Oh, yes. I say, Miss Doolittle, Miss Tonie is thinking of getting up a little picknick; take a few carriages, y’know, so as you ladies will not be incommoded, and go out to see some fascinating old ruined temple on the outskirts of the town, think that is the scheme.”

    Miss Doolittle, a professed admirer of Mr Hawkins’s big blue eyes and fine shoulders, agreed eagerly to this scheme, with much fluttering of the eyelashes; but Miss Carruthers, not an admirer of big blue eyes and abundant yellow curls in the opposite sex, objecting that they had all seen the silly old ruined temple an hundred times, battle was fairly joined by the time a skinny girl of about twelve years of age, her hair a tangled light brown bird’s nest, her garment a crumpled thing that might once have been a white muslin dress, emerged onto the verandah.

    Tiddy glanced around scornfully. Josie, who had no business to be there at all, had escaped from the schoolroom, not that she had been learning anything there, and, apparently unreproved by our Stepmamma, was as of this very moment entertaining Mrs Lucas herself, Dr Little, Mrs Carruthers, Miss Emily Carruthers, who probably should not have been there either, being but a year Josie’s senior, young Mr Carruthers, and Mr Carruthers’s tutor, a doe-eyed Mr Feathers, with a presentation of her latest poem. –Josie had lately taken up the occupation of poetess, declaring it to be Romantick and interesting. And not uninfluenced by the fact that Mr Feathers self-professedly could not live without the support of this particular literary form. Mrs Carruthers, who knew nothing of literature but had a good grasp of Mr Lucas’s pecuniary worth and social position in Calcutta, and Mrs Lucas, who was placidly letting the thirteen-year-old Josie grow out of what we other girls considered to be an intensely embarrassing phase, were listening tolerantly. Mr Feathers had a polite smile on his curved crimson lips but the expression of the huge, liquid dark eyes might have indicated to more sensitive souls, had there been any such present, that inwardly he was in torment. Emily Carruthers, who was dim enough to think that Josie was wonderful, and fortunate enough to know nothing whatsoever of literature, was simpering admiringly. And young Mr Carruthers was, as usual, looking sulky. Though eating his way through a large plate of sujee cakes as he did so. Dr Little was merely eating cakes and drinking tea.

    The next little cluster of persons on the verandah was centred around Tess, Miss Lucas, under a straw hat trimmed with a profusion of silk flowers. She was sipping tea and allowing a young Mr Armstrong, the son of a gentleman who was involved in the experiments with tea in the hills, and who, had he been a person of any resources, spirit or backbone, thought the twelve-year-old Tiddy with immense scorn, would have been up there helping his father at this instant, to tell her a long, involved story about a horse. The Reverend Mr Gilliatt, a silent but fervent admirer of Miss Lucas, was sitting watching her with very much the expression of an adoring spaniel on his meek pink face. Tiddy, not an admirer of the Established Church nor its representatives, gave him a glance of loathing as she passed.

    She took in the components of Tonie’s group with a bare glance, and spoke to Tonie’s Sushila Ayah in a low voice in the ayah’s own language. Giggling, Sushila confirmed that it was a budmush who did not speak their language, Missy baba.

    Tiddy jumped down from the verandah and went over to the man, putting her hands together before her face and greeting him politely. The man got up and bowed deeply. Tiddy invited him in Sushila’s language to come inside and speak to the burra-sahib. This elicited no response, so she tried another language, and then another. The third apparently struck the right chord: he brightened, and confessed that he did have a message for the master. Tiddy did not make the mistake of asking for it: if it were a written message he would be unlikely to give it to any but Mr Lucas; and if it were a verbal one, he would undoubtedly have orders to repeat it to no-one else. Instead, she led him inside. During the journey along the verandah he avoided the eyes of all the feringhees and their servants there assembled, but Tiddy was used to this behaviour and did not react to it: it probably indicated that they were all unclean to a person of his caste. And in any case it was one of only two possible reactions to a group of foreign devils, the other being a concentrated, fixed stare.

    In Mr Lucas’s study she allowed him to squat on the rug before the big desk, and went to close and bolt the windows, and close the heavy wooden shutters. Then she shut and locked the study door. Then she came and squatted by him on the rug.

    Some time passed in silence. Then Tiddy said in the caller’s language, politely sparing him the embarrassment of eye-contact: “Are you hurt?”

    He put a hand to his left shoulder, where the filthy, ragged shirt was a little more torn and a little more stained. “Only a little scratch, Missy baba.”

    “May I look at it for you?” asked Tiddy cautiously.

    There came a string of respectful protestations and disclaimers but Tiddy just waited patiently, and eventually he opened the shirt, to reveal a wad of bandages. Very carefully Tiddy peeled off these bandages. The top layer was filthy. The second layer was not much better. The third layer was likewise. The fourth layer was observedly cleaner. It was not until she reached the seventh layer of bandages that she found a clean strip of cotton. This was laid over a pad: Tiddy peeled it off carefully and gently removed the pad. “Ah!” she said, sniffing. The wound revealed was clean—remarkably so—and very evidently healing. Tiddy named the ingredients her nose had discerned in the salve. Meekly the man agreed that it was undoubtedly so, Missy baba. Although the likelihood of his saying that anyway was about ten to one, Tiddy nodded pleasedly: it was the same mixture that her own Nandinee Ayah and Tess’s and Tonie’s Sushila Ayah used. “I’ll put some more of this on,” she said. “You have been very well looked after. May I offer you some poor and unworthy food from our humble kitchen?”

    He protested, of course, but eventually accepted with profuse thanks, so possibly he would eat. Tiddy got up. “I shall fetch the salve and some fresh bandages, and the food. You are quite safe here, the windows are locked and I’ll lock the door. No-one will come. The burra-sahib is at his sadar in the town. I shall send for him immediately. Have no fear.”

    He put his hands before his face and protested gratefully, bowing until the hands and the nose behind them almost touched the floor, that the Missy baba was his father and his mother. Tiddy gave a reassuring head wobble and went out, carefully locking the study door after her. In the front hall of the mansion she spoke urgently to big Ranjit Singh, the major-domo. He did not ask questions, but sent a messenger off to Mr Lucas’s office immediately.

    When Tiddy re-entered the study the visitor was squatting where she had left him, gazing into space, his bandages left on the rug where she had discarded them. She was accompanied by a bearer carrying a brass tray which supported two large bowls of water, a pile of clean bandages, a selection of ointments, and some clean towels. Tiddy herself was carrying a tray of food, judicious enquiry amongst the servants having revealed that the man was probably not a Hindoo, and thus not of a caste which would refuse food from her hands.

    She bathed the wound, anointed it and bound it up again, and then allowed the caller to use the other large bowl of water and the remaining towel to wash.

    “That budmush,” noted Ram, the bearer, as she unlocked the door to let him and the big tray out again, “is not a man of caste, Missy baba.”

    “No.” Tiddy watched the man engulf a lamb curry.

    “I don’t know what he is, but it doesn’t matter. At least he won’t starve before our eyes. That reminds me, has the holy man been offered food this afternoon?”

    Ram confirmed that it was so, and noted that the holy man was not a man of caste, either, but one had to respect him, nevertheless. And he had offered a prayer to his gods, whoever they were, for the household.

    “That can’t be bad,” agreed Tiddy. “I think I’d better stay here until Papa comes.”

    “Not alone with the budmush, Tiddy baba!”

    “All right, you stay, too.”

    Setting his tray down on a small occasional table in the passage, Ram agreed he would do so. And the two retreated into the study, Tiddy again locking the door, and squatted down on the rug at a decent distance from the caller, close enough for conversation should he wish to speak but distant enough for him not to feel awkward. Ram in his sparkling clean white tunic, white dhotee, and starched and winged dark red turban, and Tiddy in her grubby little muslin dress. And proceeded to while away the afternoon by telling each other stories. At first the visitor put in a word or two of appreciation; but gradually he was observed to have closed his eyes and nodded off where he squatted. Considerately Tiddy and Ram lowered their voices and, neither feeling in the least impatient, or wondering where on earth Mr Lucas had got to, continued to tell long, rambling tales of virtuous householders and improvident householders, shrewd monkeys and wise foxes, cunning old storks and vain donkeys, wily merchants and cruel tax-gatherers, as the warm afternoon waned into a warm evening.

    The shadows of the tall palms of the Lucas garden were long and blue across the lush lawns when Mr Lucas returned home at last.

    “Thank you, Ram: off you go,” he said firmly, as Ram scrambled up and bowed.

    “The man’s gone to sleep,” explained Tiddy.

    “Mm. Is he all right?”

    “He does have a wound in his shoulder, but it’s been very well looked after. I cleaned it and put some of Nandinee’s salve on it, but it didn’t really need it, Papa. I think he’s just exhausted. Is he one of yours?” she added cautiously.

    “No. Who was here this afternoon, Tiddy?”

    Tiddy reported carefully, telling them over on her fingers: “The gai-wallah’s brother came. It’s all right, he really is. He is come up from their village because they have made a very good match for one of their sisters. And the gai-wallah’s wife’s cousin will look after the cows when he goes to the wedding. A tinker came to see if we needed any pots mended, but as he wasn’t the usual man, Nandinee sent him away. That was before this man came.”

    “Did he really go?”

    “Yes. Krishna told him that the Murchisons’ pots need mending, so he hurried off. Then one of the syces spotted a suspicious-looking budmush hanging around the stable yard, so they chased him off.”

    “And did he really go?”

    “Yes: one of them fired off his bundook and he ran like the wind. Then Sushila Ayah’s sister, Mrs Mookerjee, and her second daughter came, with little Indira.”

    “I think we can discount little Indira.”

    “Guns or knives have been hidden in a baby’s wrappings before now,” replied Tiddy sententiously.

    “That’s true enough. Were they on the verandah when this man came?”

    “No, they were upstairs in the day nursery with Nandinee, telling her about the great match being arranged for Kamala Mookerjee. And refusing to give away the secret of Indira’s other grandmother’s lime pickle!” she admitted with a grin.

Nimboo Pickle

(To be stored for at least a fortnight before eating, if using limes,

or for at least a month if using lemons)

Take 15 limes or 6 or 7 lemons. Cut in half or smaller pieces if larger. Arrange in a large pickling jar, the cut surfaces uppermost. Sprinkle each layer generously with salt & black pepper (about 6 tablespoonsful of salt & 4 teaspoonsful of pepper in all).

Now heat 1/2 pint [300 ml] of sesame seed oil (or other oil) and when it is just about to smoke, add 1 tablespoonful of mustard seeds, 2 teaspoonsful of fenugreek seeds, 1/2 teaspoonful of aniseed and 6 whole green chillies, trimmed. Cook for about 1/2 to 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat & allow to cool. Place the prepared limes in a large bowl. Peel 4 cloves of garlic and 4 oz of fresh ginger, & chop. Add to limes & mix well. Put all into the pickle jar, cover & leave to mature.

Half a lime suffices for one serving with yr. curry; more if desired.

    Not objecting to this domestic aside, Mr Lucas merely said drily: “That figures. Go on.”

    “Then Mr Gilliatt arrived, and sat on the verandah and told poor Mamma a long story about the latest quarrels over the decorations for the church, which she did not wish to know, and mooned at Tess while she was doing her stitchery. Tonie was doing her china painting, but he did not moon at her. Next Mrs Carruthers arrived with Martha and Emily, and that idiot Mr Hilton. Tonie says that if Mrs Carruthers imagines he will ever offer for Martha she has another imagine coming. Personally I don’t see that Martha is any worse than the rest of them. But he is quite old, I suppose. No-one asked why he wasn’t at his work, and Tonie put away her painting things and Tess her stitchery, though not before Mr Gilliatt had told everybody how fine it was and put her to the blush.”

    “That all?” he said unemotionally.

    “No, there were crowds of them.” Tiddy frowned over it. “The Carrutherses came in their barouche. The driver took it round to the stables and let them give him something to eat and drink while his horses were watered. It was their usual driver: he’s Richpal’s cousin.”

    “Yes, good,” he said mildly.

    “Mr Armstrong was next. He just sat and mooned at Tess. Then a feringhee came, selling clothes pegs.”

    “Didn’t think there were any such thing in the whole of the subcontinent. Wood’s at a premium here, y’know,” he said, his eyes watchful.

    “No, well, he was an ex-soldier. English. He was doing the rounds of the English houses but of course it was a mistake, because everyone has Indian servants. I told him he’d do better to get out to the cantonments and speak to the wives of the sergeants and so on. So we gave him some lamb kofta curry and a bowl of rice, and a glass of beer, even though he wasn’t from the regiment.”

Lamb Kofta Curry

Mince 1 pound [450 g] of lamb and mix with 1/2 tablespoonful of chopped dhania leaf [coriander], salt, 2 beaten eggs, & 1/2 pint [300 ml] curd [yoghurt]. Form these into meat balls and fry them in butter till they are well browned. Cook till they begin to split open. Make a paste with 4 ozs. blanched almonds & 1/2 tablespoonful of turmerick in water. Sprinkle over the koftas. Cover, shake gently a few times. When dry, serve with lime juice sprinkled over all. Fried onion is a nice garnish if liked.

    “What regiment was he from?” asked Mr Lucas in an idle tone.

    Tiddy gave him chapter and verse.

    “Mm,” he said, not asking what she had been doing in the kitchen regions at a time when she was supposed to be at her lessons.

    “He said he had nothing to go home to, for his brothers died at Trafalgar and his sweetheart had married another man when he joined up.”

    “Did anybody know him?”

    The answer to that was No, but Ram’s cousin’s brother-in-law lived in the same street, and the man had married a half-caste Indian woman; so that seemed all right. And he had set off for the cantonments, for Tiddy had seen him go from the schoolroom window.

    After that Mr Carruthers and Mr Fellows had arrived on their horses and joined the group on the verandah, closely followed by Catherine Doolittle and Freddy Dean in a tikka gharry. And the entire batch of sujee cakes had had to be sent out to them.

    “A waste,” conceded Mr Lucas primly.

    “Yes.”

    Here there was a slight interruption as the sleeper woke with a start, was reassured by Mr Lucas that he was safe and that he, the burra-sahib, was the burra-sahib, and was asked if he had a message. This elicited merely a confused look, so Mr Lucas shrugged, very slightly, and said to his daughter: “Any more?”

    “Yes. Next those noddies Lieutenant Kennedy and Lieutenant Hawkins drove up in a tonga. The driver let them out at the front door, and the noddies went and knocked, so poor Ranjit had to open the door and get Ram to take them round to the side verandah. The driver went straight away again.”

    “That it?”

    “Yes, the verandah was overflowing!” said Tiddy with a grin. “No, well, Josie went out and started embarrassing everybody by reciting her awful poetry, but I don’t think you can count her. Sushila Ayah was out there, and Richpal and Krishna were serving when he came, and then that idiot Lieutenant Kennedy shouted for a bhai to get me, so Ram did it.”

    “Well, that lot seems pretty normal, though personally I— What?” he said as Tiddy gulped.

    “Um, I forgot: the fortune teller came, but that was earlier. He didn’t come for the memsahibs, only for us.”

    Not reacting to this last, Mr Lucas merely said: “And?”

    “Well, I’m destined to marry a rich nabob and settle down in a giant mansion,” said Tiddy with relish, “and Nandinee is destined to marry the fat son of a wealthy baboo and have five sons, and Bapsee is going to have six sons, though he did not predict the sex of the baby that is on the way, and become the mother-in-law of a wealthy silversmith.”

    “He had you all down to a T, then. No, well, as I was saying, it seems all right, though I wouldn’t trust the strange tinker, nor the feringhee with the clothes pegs or the fellow that the syces chased off, nor yet the amiable peddler that Ranjit tells me was chatting to mali on the lawn later this afternoon, while you were in here. –Don’t worry, mali didn’t let him get further than the trellis. And refrained from watering his feet while he was doing the lawn.”

    “Hah, hah!” said Tiddy gleefully.

    Mr Lucas smiled. “Yes. Well, Tiddy, you’ve done well. I think we may,” he said slowly, eyeing the caller, “just wait, mm?”

    “Yes. It’ll soon be dark,” said Tiddy comfortably.

    “Mm. S’pose I could have a wash and change for dinner.”

    “It would be normal, Papa.”

    He got up, grunting slightly. “Right. Stay here. Richpal’s right outside, cleaning his bundook.” He shook his head. “These Indian servants, y’know. Willing, but no sense of the fitness of things.”

    “Yes!” agreed Tiddy, grinning. “Um, aren’t there people coming for dinner?”

    “Only Dr Little and old McLeod. –He got back from Delhi day before yesterday.”

    “I know. He came down the Grand Trunk Road in the camel-train with Mr Khan and the Pathan rug-seller.”

    Raising his eyebrows only a very little, Mr Lucas nodded, and noting he would have them send in a jug of nimboo panee for Tiddy and the caller, went out, carefully locking the study door after him.

    By the time Mr Lucas was able to excuse himself to his two guests over the port and brandy, Tiddy had been upstairs, the amiable Ram keeping the caller company meanwhile, changed into her nightgown, bidden Mamma goodnight like a good little girl, and come downstairs again. Subsequently assisting the caller to eat another meal, this time consisting largely of a most excellent moorghee pullao—savoury rice with chicken, sprinkled with rosewater and adorned with cashoo nuts and silver leaves, and clearly intended for the dinner table of the burra-sahib himself. Washed down with more nimboo panee, the which they both took this time with the addition of a drop of rosewater and a liberal helping of sugar.

Nimboo Panee (Lemon or Lime Water)

A cooling drink for a hot day.

Squeeze 3 lemons or 4-5 limes with 1 1/2 tablespoonsful of sugar or more if liked, & stir till dissolved. Add 4 glasses of water and 3 teaspoonsful of rose water.

Sometimes one adds salt rather than sugar but this is not so much to English tastes.

    Outside it was now quite dark. Mr Lucas did not open the shutters; he did say to Tiddy, however, in English: “It’s pitch dark out. Get him.”

    Tiddy stood her ground. “He hasn’t been searched.”

    “You’re right. Richpal!” shouted Mr Lucas.

    The burly Sikh hurried in, bundook at the ready, and was ordered to search the caller. The which he made no bones about doing, and would in fact have had the bandages off him had Tiddy not prevented him. The caller was manifestly carrying nothing. “Go,” conceded Mr Lucas. Nodding, Tiddy slipped out. Mr Lucas sat down at his big desk, looking very mild, while the visitor resumed his rags.

    The side verandah of the Lucas mansion slept under a velvet sky. In the grounds nothing moved, though a watcher with very, very sharp ears might have discerned the muffled panting of three large watchdogs. The sound of the piano came faintly from within. Eventually a tiny pale shadow slipped across the courtyard and approached the motionless holy man under the trellis.

    The holy man’s eyes were open but he did not move, as the small figure bowed politely. “I know you have eaten, reverend sir,” said the child respectfully in their common language, “and I know your vows do not allow you to live under a roof, let alone an unholy feringhee roof. Nevertheless my respected father begs you will enter his humble abode, for a few moments only.”

    There was a short silence and then the holy man said dreamily: “Do not call me reverend sir. All are equal, to those who seek the Way.”

    “Ye-es… Even those who do not seek the Way themselves?”

    “We are all seekers after the Way,” he said dreamily. “Lead on, little sister.”

    Obediently she led him on; not onto the verandah but down to the far end of the courtyard, through a high gate, and into the mansion through a back door. She did not speak again, but showed the holy man into the study.

    The visitor got up from the carpet as Mr Lucas carefully re-locked the study door.

    “Thanks, Tiddy,” said the holy man. “My God, Palmer, am I glad to see you!” he said fervently.

    Mr Lucas and Tiddy watched without surprise as the semi-naked holy man and the ragged visitor shook hands heartily.

    “Sit down, Gil,” said Mr Lucas with a smile.

    “I think I’ve forgotten how!” replied the holy man with a laugh, nevertheless sinking onto a sofa. “Whew!” he said, grinning again. “Oh—don’t suppose you’ve been introduced, have you? Allow me to present Horace Balbir Palmer, one of my best men.”

    “I see: adha seer,” said Tiddy, with the head wobble, as Mr Lucas and Mr Palmer shook hands.

    “Yes, Tiddy baba; my mother is Indian, but my father was English,” said Mr Palmer in excellent English. “Else I would have been in a quake when you looked at my shoulder.”

    “Yes, I could see it wasn’t dye, like Ponsonby Sahib’s,” she said simply. “It’s all right, it’s healing beautifully,” she added to Ponsonby.

    “I’m glad to hear it. You can report, Palmer: it’s safe; safer than our d— sadar,” he noted with a grimace.

    “Yes, sir.” Mr Palmer duly reported. Mr Lucas and Tiddy listened quite silently.

    Mr Palmer had been away for what in European terms was a long time. Much longer than the period for which the holy man had been an accustomed sight at the Lucas household, certainly. His tale was an involved one, confirming unrest fomented by the Russians in the far north, Portuguese shenanigans not only in the west, but also much nearer to home, the definite influence of unfriendly French interests, and the varied plots of a parcel of rajahs and maharajahs, none of them agreeing with any other in anything, rather fortunately, though all sharing a strong dislike of the British and of John Company.

    “Well done, Palmer,” concluded Ponsonby.

    “Thank you, sir. Er—may I ask, what’s happened at the sadar?” he said cautiously.

    Ponsonby grimaced. “Infiltration. Leonard Enright was betrayed, we have established it beyond a doubt, by V.J. Taylor and Lieutenant Green.” His mouth hardened.

    “But they’re still there!” gasped Tiddy.

    “Green is, certainly. Sitting in my chair, large as life and twice as natural. –Well, there was an involvement with a woman; some sort of blackmail was involved. But he was always a weak reed,” he said to Mr Palmer with a shrug.

    “And Mr Taylor’s walking around free!” protested Tiddy.

    “We have given him enough rope, you see, Miss Tiddy, and he has now hanged himself,” explained Mr Palmer.

    Tiddy looked dubiously at Ponsonby. “Yes,” he confirmed grimly.

    “So, may I ask how long you have been here, sir?” asked Mr Palmer respectfully.

    “Mm? Oh!” Ponsonby looked down at himself and grinned. “Sitting in poor Lucas’s garden with ashes in my hair? Something like six months, now, Palmer. Green is labouring under the comfortable delusion that I drowned up the country in a flood.”

    “We had a memorial service,” contributed Mr Lucas, grinning.

    Tiddy nodded eagerly. “I cried. And so did Forbes Memsahib: she thought it was real!”

    “All the memsahibs thought so,” confirmed Mr Lucas placidly. “Not all of ’em managed to shed a tear, though,” he admitted drily.

    “The regiment wasn’t here,” said Tiddy sadly. “But Colonel Langford’s regiment was in cantonments, and most of the officers came, and he sent a guard of honour; it was splendid!”

     Mr Palmer looked dubiously at his superior.

    “No, no, dear man: Langford thought it was all genuine!” he assured him.

    Alas, at this the ragged Mr Palmer, the proper Mr Lucas, the nightgowned Tiddy and the holy man himself all broke down in sniggering fits.

    After which Tiddy confided solemnly to the half-caste Mr Palmer: “You see, people like Colonel Langford think that the regimental drills and the skirmishes are what keep India safe for us. But we know better, don’t we?”

    And Mr Palmer agreed, as serious as she herself: “We do indeed, Missy.”

    —Ah, hah! But of course you thought that Ponsonby Sahib was the wounded visitor, dear children! We have told that story before, and everyone is caught out that way! –Well, to your Papa, when he was a boy, Matt, dearest, and to yours, little ones! And to Antoinette’s Mamma, too. All the children would have heard it! Never breathed a word? Er, Matt, your Papa has long since put away childish things such as his Mamma’s and old aunties’ tales. Well, yes, we think it was most exciting, of course! Thrilling, Antoinette, dearest? Perhaps not quite that, but most certainly exciting, and we shall assist you with the spelling of the Indian words, if you really wish to write it all out nicely.

    Oh, dear: we do know what happened to the wicked traitors in the end, Matt, but perhaps not in front of the very little ones. –Would you, Gil baba? With a big bundook, like Grandpapa’s? Oh, the one on the wall in his study! Well, that is an elephant gun, dear child, but it would certainly shoot a wicked traitor like Mr Taylor and Lieutenant Green.—That will do, Matt, dear boy, there is no need to be so explicit.—Er, we do not wish to hear about “all in bits,” Gil, darling. Yes, Tessa, the bad men did deserve it, but of course no-one shot anyone with an elephant gun: they are for shooting— No, ladies do not in general shoot elephants, and in fact very few people shoot elephants, that would be very silly, because they are most useful domestic animals and employed very much for forestry and such-like as well as for private transport. Yes, at one stage our Papa had several elephants for private use. Exactly, Matt: this was before the days of the trains, and elephants were used very much more in those days! Very well, Tessa, darling, we shall tell you more about elephants, but that is for another day. And since the rain seems to have cleared at last, perhaps you children should run out and play in the garden for a little. Of course at spies and traitors, if you wish! But Matt, little Tessa is not to be made the traitor just because she is a girl! There—run along, dear ones.

     (A day later.) There you are, dearest Antoinette. Let us see. Why, yes, you have the Indian words quite correct, dear child: well done! And what a neat hand you write! Yes, we did all come to England when Tiddy was only around twelve, and as you have worked out, that was not so long after that incident, but England was not “home” to us, as you seem to assume. Well, dear, of course it is very hard to imagine it, but just think how you would feel if, let us say, Uncle Henry suddenly arrived from India and said he was taking you there with him next week! It was very like that, yes. No, we did not see Ponsonby Sahib for a long time after that… The last time? We did not officially see him at all, but one or two of us were up and about—it is so much cooler in the early morning, you see—and so of course were the ayahs; and then, much later, Ponsonby Sahib himself told us of it.

    It was a week later. Lieutenant-Colonel Ponsonby, back in uniform, but looking very thin, dismounted from yet another bony nag and slowly tied its reins to Mr Lucas’s verandah post. A syce came running with a bucket of water. Ponsonby Sahib sat slowly down on the main verandah itself and stared at the spot under the trellis where he had sat for those six months. It was very early: the birds were still singing, the shadows were soft on the ground, and out on the front lawn the mali had been slowly watering the grass as he came up the drive.

    After a little a serving-woman appeared and asked respectfully if he would care for chota huzzree. Ponsonby agreed he would, and she vanished, to reappear in very short order with a tray on which reposed a fresh sliced mango, a dish of curd, and some crisply fried pooree breads adorned with a mixture of chopped potato and onion, scattered with deep-fried pea-flour noodles and a green herb, and accompanied by a dish of sweet, hot chutney. It was a receet from Maharashtra: Ponsonby had not seen it in years. He looked at it dazedly. Also on the tray was a steaming silver coffee-pot. When he poured, the pot proved to contain Indian-style spiced coffee, ready-mixed with milk and sugar, and extraordinarily sweet as well as incredibly strong. Very possibly the Lucases were not yet stirring, and he had been favoured with the dishes the servants themselves would eat? Ponsonby sipped extra-powerful, ravishingly sweet coffee, and sighed deeply.

    “I've discovered,” said a placid deep voice as he finished the poorees with the curd and embarked on the mango, “that one of the fellows in the kitchen’s a Maharashtree. Don’t ask me how he got here, because I couldn’t tell you. Think possibly his Pa and Ma were old Pointer’s servants, way back before I took over and Pointer’s became Lucas and Pointer. Was it to your liking?”

    “Yes,” said Ponsonby limply. “Wonderful, thanks, Henry.”

    Mr Lucas sat down in a large basket chair, and sighed. “Good,” he said heavily. “Good.”

    “What’s up?” asked Ponsonby cautiously, licking mango juice off his fingers.

    “I’ve decided we ought to get on home to England,” he said glumly.

    After a moment Ponsonby asked cautiously: “Why?”

    “Well, the reason I’ve given the rest of ’em is that it’s time the older girls had a Season in London, learnt what life at Home is all about, that sort of stuff.”

    “But?”

    “It’s Tiddy,” admitted Mr Lucas with a groan.

    “What’s wrong with her?” he asked mildly.

    “She’s turned twelve years of age, speaks three Indian languages better than she does English, and still gets about the bazaar dressed like a boy, that’s what’s wrong with her!”

    Ponsonby bit his lip. “Mm.”

    “Mind you, she seems to have developed as bad an infatuation for that Feathers ninny as any of ’em,” he owned. “You may have seen him on this very verandah while you were sitting over there half-naked. The thing with the mass of dark curls and the great brown eyes. –Not Miss Doolittle,” he noted drily: “the nominally male thing.”

    “The Carruthers boy’s tutor?” he croaked.

    “The very same. Well, she ain’t favoured him with a little painted dish for his dressing-table like Tonie—oh, yes,” he assured him, as Ponsonby’s jaw sagged: “He has so little, y’see; and she ain’t addressed him a series of very bad verses masquerading under the name of sonnet like that little idiot Josie, nor yet, believe me or believe me not, embroidered him a pair of slippers like Tess because he has so little. –Don’t tell me she’s old enough to know better, it’s one more reason for getting them home to England,” he sighed.

    “I should have thought Tiddy would have more sense,” he said limply.

    “Not at her age,” replied Mr Lucas grimly.

    “Oh, I see.”

    “Mm. And before you say anything, she’s more than smart enough to fool the ayahs, she winds the bhais around her little finger, and in the unlikely event any of them should show any signs of standing up to her, she’s more than capable of giving the lot of them the slip. It won’t do. And in any case the older girls should have a chance to catch an English ninny, or so I’m told,” he said with a sigh.

    “I’ll miss you.”

    “Well, I intend to be back and forth, but I am retiring from an active rôle in things this end. And Gil, do me one favour: don’t say goodbye to Tiddy.”

    There was a little silence.

    “I don’t believe I have the great dark eyes, lily-white skin or Romantick curls of the delicious Feathers creature?” he said lightly.

    “No, but the child sees herself as something very like your trusty aide. I don’t want her believing that that’s one more thing to pine over when she’s left India.”

    “I see. In that case, I’ll get off and report to Wynton. He will like a first-hand report in any case: they’re in cantonments up near Delhi.”

    The journey would take a long time: even if he went by ship, as was usual in those days, it would mean rounding the sub-continent; but Mr Lucas did not remark on the point, merely said calmly. “Well, I’ll say goodbye, then, Gil.”

    The coffee and the Maharashtree breakfast had evidently been the condemned man’s last meal. Gil Ponsonby shrugged a little: he had known for a very long time, after all, that Henry John Lucas was a very hard man. And wrung his hand, asked that his respects be conveyed to Mrs Lucas, mounted onto his bony nag, and trotted away.

    —Gracious, Antoinette, dear child, do not cry! It was not to be the last we saw of Ponsonby Sahib, you know! Also very sad about Mr Feathers? Dear girl, if you are thinking of Reverend Frimpton’s curate again— Exactly! Too pretty for a man! That’s a sensible girl! And in fact Feathers was just like that, so you see, it was not sad at all, but on the contrary, positively funny! That’s better! Now, when you have writ it out nicely, perhaps we might think of telling you a little more of Ponsonby Sahib’s early India days, mm? Why, certainly your friend Madeleine Thomas may come and listen if she is interest— She is. Then of course, Antoinette, dear.

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