THE
GREAT TAMASHA COOKBOOK AND FAMILY
HISTORY
2
On
The Verandah
Part
2
Poorees of White Flour (A Breakfast Dish)
Knead
for 10 minutes a dough made from a pound 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
fried onion & potato and some sev
[deep-fried pea flour noodles]. A dish of yoghourt & fresh fruit may be
served on the side.
Our
India Days,
Chapter 2: In Which is Told The Third Story of Ponsonby Sahib
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 side 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.
Opposite, 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.
 |
| "A Holy Man in his Dhotee with His Begging Bowl" Photograph, circa 189-? From the Widdop family papers |
“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,” said Mr
Dean 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 amber 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 group 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
nodded and 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 ointment 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 stableyard, 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 if not available, 6 or 7 lemons. Cut in half or smaller pieces
if
larger. Arrange in a large pickling jar, placing the cut surfaces uppermost.
As
you go, sprinkle each layer generously with salt & black pepper (using
about
6 tablespoons of salt & 4 teaspoons of pepper in all). Now
heat 1/2 pint sesame
seed oil (or other oil) in a saucepan and when it is just
about to smoke, add 1
tablespoon of mustard seeds, 2 teaspoons of fenugreek
seeds, 1/2 teaspoon
of aniseed and 6 whole green chillies, topped & tailed.
Cook for about 1/2 to 1
minute. Remove the saucepan 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 back
into the pickle jar, cover & leave to mature.
It
may be served from the jar, half a small lime being enough for one person.
“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 of lamb and mix with 1/2 tablespoon of chopped dhania leaf [coriander leaves] or parsley, salt, 2 beaten eggs,
& 1/2 pint 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 tablespoon of ground turmerick in
water. Sprinkle over the koftas. Cover, shake gently a few times. When dry, serve
with lime juice sprinkled over all.
“What regiment was he from?”
asked Mr Lucas idly.
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 merchant 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 tablespoons sugar or more if liked, & stir
till dissolved. Add 4 glasses of water and 3 teaspoons of rose water.
Sometimes
one adds salt 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.”
Here Ends The
Third Story of Ponsonby Sahib
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,
darling? 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 home
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 some 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.
Ponsonby Sahib’s Goodbye to the White Pillared House in Calcutta
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 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 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 subcontinent; 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.
