I was about it a great deal, and all .our people were so placid and at ease — I remember a dinner at Carshore's bungalow, with his family, and Skene and his pretty little wife so nervous and pleased in her new pink gown, and jolly old Dr McEgan with his fund of Irish stories, and the garrison men with their red jackets, slung on the backs of their chairs, matching their smiling red faces, and their gossipy wives, and myself raising a laugh by coaxing one of the Wilton girls to eat a "country captain"*(*A type of curry.) with the promise that it would make her hair curl when she grew older.
It was all so comfy and easy, it might have been a dinner-party at home, except for the black faces and gleaming eyes of the bearers standing silent against the chick-screens, and the big moths fluttering round the lamps; afterwards there was a silly card game, and Truth or Con-sequences, and local scandal, and talk of leave and game-shooting with our cheroots and port on the verandah. Trivial enough memories, when you think what happened to all of them — I can still feel the younger Wilton chit pulling at my arm and crying:
"Oh, Colonel Flashman, Papa says if I ask you ever so nicely you will sing us ‘The Galloping Major’ — will you please, oh, please do!" And see those shining eyes, and the ringlets, as she tugged me to where her sister was sitting at the piano.
We couldn't see ahead, then, and life was pleasant — especially for me, with my diplomatic duties to attend to, and they became more enjoyable by the hour; I'll say that for Rani Lakshmibai, she knew how to make business a pleasure. Much of the time we didn't talk in the palace at all; she was, as Skene had told me, a fine horsewoman, and loved nothing better than to put on her jodhpurs and turban, with two little silver pistols in her sash, and gallop on the maidan, or go hawking along a wooded river not far from the city. There was a charming little pavilion there, of about a dozen rooms on two storeys, hidden among the trees, and once or twice I was taken on picnics with a few of her courtiers and attendants. At other times we would talk in the palace garden, among the scores of pet beasts and birds which she kept, and once she had me into one of her hen-parties in the durbar room, at which she entertained all the leading ladies of Jhansi to tea and cakes, and I found myself called on to discourse on European fashions to about fifty giggling Indian females in saris and bangles and kohl-dark eyes — excellent fun, too, although the questions they asked about crinolines and panniers would have made a sailor blush.
But her great delight was to be out of doors, riding or playing with her adopted son Damodar, a grave-faced imp of eight, or inspecting her guards at field exercise; she even watched their wrestling-matches in the courtyard, and a race-meeting in which some of our garrison officers took part — I was intrigued to see that on this occasion she wore a purdah veil and an enveloping robe, for about the palace she went bare-faced — and pretty bare-bodied, too. And if she could be as formal as a stockbroker with a new-bought peerage, she had a delightful way with the ordinary folk — she was never so gay and happy as when she held a party for children from the city in her garden, letting them run among the birds and monkeys, and at one of her almsgivings I saw her quite concerned as her treasurer scattered coins among the mob of hideous and stinking beggars clamouring at her gate. Not at all like a Rani, sometimes — she was a queer mixture of schoolgirl and sophisticated woman, all scatter one moment, all languor and dignity the next. Damned unpredictable — oh, and captivating; there were times when even I found myself regarding her with an interest that wasn't more than four-fifths lustful — and that ain't like me. It was directly after that alms-giving, when we rode out to her pavilion among the trees, and I had just, remarked that what was needed for India was a Poor Law and a few parish workuses, that she suddenly turned in her saddle, and burst out:
"Can you not see that that is not our way — that none of our ways are your ways? You talk of your reforms, and the benefits of British law and the Sirkar's rule — and never think that what seems ideal to you may not suit others; that we have our own customs, which you think strange and foolish, and perhaps they are — but they are ours — our own! You come, in your strength, and your certainty, with your cold eyes and pale faces, like … like machines marching out of your northern ice, and you will have everything in order, tramping in step like your soldiers, whether those you conquer and civilise — as you call it — whether they will or no. Do you not see that it is better to leave people be — to let them alone?"
She wasn't a bit angry, or I'd have agreed straight off, but she was as intense as I'd known her, and the great dark eyes were almost appealing, which was most unusual. I said that all I'd meant was that instead of thousands going sick and ragged and hungry about her city, it might be better to have some system of relief; come cheaper on her, too, if they had the beggars picking yarn or mending roads for their dole.
"You talk of a system!" says she, striking her riding crop on the saddle. "We do not care for systems. Oh, we admire and respect those which you show us — but we do not want them; we would not choose them for ourselves. You remember we spoke of how twelve Indian babus*(*Clerks.) did the work of one white clerk —"
"Well, that's waste, ma'am," says I respectfully. "There's no point —"
"Wasteful or not, does it matter — if people are happy?" says she, impatiently. "Where lies the virtue of your boasted progress, your telegraphs, your railway trains, when we are content with our sandals and our ox-carts?"
I could have pointed out that the price of her sandals would have kept a hundred Jhansi coolie families all their lives, and that she'd never been within ten yards of an ox-cart, but I was tactful.
"We can't help it, maharaj'," says I. "We have to do the best we can, don't you know, as we see it. And it ain't just telegraphs and trains — though you'll find those useful enough, in time — why, I'm told there are to be universities, and hospitals —"
"To teach philosophies that we do not want, and sciences that we do not need. And a law that is foreign to us, which our people cannot understand."
"Well, that doesn't leave 'em far behind the average Englishman," says I. "But it's fair law — and with respect that's more than you can say for most of your Indian courts. Look now — when there was a brawl in the street outside your palace two days since, what happened? Your guards didn't catch the culprits — so they laid hands on the first poor soul they met, haled him into your divan,*(*Court) guilty or not — and you have him hanging by his thumbs and sun-drying at the scene of the crime for two solid days. Fellow near died of it — and he'd done nothing! I ask you, ma'am, is that justice?"
"He was a badmash,*(*scoundrel) and well known," says she, wide-eyed. "Would you have let him go?"
"For that offence, yes — since he was innocent of it. We punish only the guilty."
"And if you cannot find them? Is there to be no example made? There will be no more brawls outside the palace, I think." And seeing my look, she went on: "I know it is not your way, and it seems unfair and even barbarous to you. But we understand it — should that not be enough? You find it strange — like our religions, and our forbidden things, and our customs. But can your Sirkar not see that they are as precious to us as yours are to you? Why is it not enough to your Company to drive its profit? Why this greed to order people's lives?"