Читать книгу The Magnificent Montez: From Courtesan to Convert - Horace Wyndham - Страница 16

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While following the drum from camp to camp and from station to station, Lola spent several months in Bareilly, a town that was afterwards to play an important part in the Mutiny. Colonel Durand, an officer who was present when the city was captured in 1858, says that the bungalow she occupied there was destroyed. Yet, the mutineers, he noticed, had spared the bath house that had been built for her in the compound.

During the hot weather of 1839, young Mrs. James, accompanied by her husband, went off to Simla for a month on a visit to her mother, who, yielding to pressure, had at last held out the olive-branch. The welcome, however—except from Captain Craigie, who still had a warm corner in his heart for her—was somewhat frigid.

There is a reference to this visit in Up the Country, a once popular book by Lord Auckland's sister, the Hon. Emily Eden. Following the coy fashion of the period, however, she always refrained from giving a name in full, but would merely allude to people as "Colonel A," "Mr. B," "Mrs. C," and "Miss D," etc. Still, the identities of "Mrs. J" and "Mrs. C" in this extract are clear enough:

September 8, 1839.

Simla is much moved just now by the arrival of a Mrs. J, who has been talked of as a great beauty all the year, and that drives every other woman quite distracted. … Mrs. J is the daughter of a Mrs. C, who is still very handsome herself, and whose husband is deputy-adjutant-general, or some military authority of that kind. She sent this only child to be educated at home, and went home herself two years ago to see her. In the same ship was Mr. J, a poor ensign, going home on sick leave. He told her he was engaged to be married, consulted her about his prospects, and in the meantime privately married this child at school. It was enough to provoke any mother; but, as it now cannot be helped, we have all been trying to persuade her for the last year to make it up. She has withstood it till now, but at last has consented to ask them for a month, and they arrived three days ago.

The rush on the road was remarkable. But nothing could be more satisfactory than the result, for Mrs. J looked lovely, and Mrs. C has set up for her a very grand jonpaun, with bearers in fine orange and brown liveries; and J is a sort of smart-looking man with bright waistcoats and bright teeth, with a showy horse, and he rode along in an attitude of respectful attention to ma belle mère. Altogether, it was an imposing sight, and I cannot see any way out of it but magnanimous admiration.

During this visit to Simla the couple were duly bidden to dine at Auckland House, on Elysium Hill, where they met His Excellency.

"We had a dinner yesterday," wrote their hostess. "Mrs. J is undoubtedly very pretty, and such a merry unaffected girl. She is only seventeen now, and does not look so old; and when one thinks that she is married to a junior lieutenant in the Indian Army, fifteen years older than herself, and that they have 160 rupees a month, and are to pass their whole lives in India, I do not wonder at Mrs. C's resentment at her having run away from school."

Writing to Lady Teresa Lister in England, Miss Eden gives an entertaining account of Simla at this date:

Everybody has been pleased and amused, except the two clergymen who are here, and who have begun a course of sermons against what they call a destructive torrent of worldly gaiety. They had much better preach against the destructive torrent of rain which has now set in for the next three months, and not only washes away all gaiety, but all the paths, in the literal sense, which lead to it. … I do not count Simla as any grievance—nice climate, beautiful place, constant fresh air, plenty of fleas, not much society, everything that is desirable.

In another letter, this indefatigable correspondent remarks:

Here, society is not much trouble, nor much anything else. We give sundry dinners and occasional balls, and have hit upon one popular device. Our band plays twice a week on one of the hills here, and we send ices and refreshments to the listeners, and it makes a nice little reunion with very little trouble.

Benjamin Lumley. Lessee of Her Majesty's Theatre

A further reference to the amenities of Government House at Simla during the Aucklands' regime is instructive, as showing that it was not a case of all work and no play:

There are about ninety-six ladies here whose husbands are gone to the wars, and about twenty-six gentlemen—at least, there will, with good luck, be about that number. We have a very dancing set of aides-de-camp just now, and they are utterly desperate at the notion of our having no balls. I suppose we must begin on one in a fortnight; but it will be difficult, and there are several young ladies here with whom some of our gentlemen are much smitten. As they will have no rivals here, I am horribly afraid the flirtations may become serious, and then we shall lose some active aides-de-camp, and they will find themselves on ensign's pay with a wife to keep. However, they will have these balls, so it is not my fault.

After she had left Simla and its round of gaieties, Lola was to have another meeting with the hospitable Aucklands. This took place in camp at Kurnaul, "a great ugly cantonment, all barracks and dust and guns and soldiers." Miss Eden, who was accompanying her brother on a tour through the district, wrote to her sister in England:

November 13, 1839.

We were at home in the evening, and it was an immense party; but, except that pretty Mrs. J, who was at Simla, and who looked like a star among the others, the women were all plain.

A couple of days later, she added some further particulars:

We left Kurnaul yesterday morning. Little Mrs. J was so unhappy at our going that we asked her to come and pass the day here, and brought her with us. She went from tent to tent and chattered all day and visited her friend, Mrs. M, who is with the camp. I gave her a pink silk gown, and it was altogether a very happy day for her evidently. It ended in her going back to Kurnaul on my elephant, with E.N. by her side, and Mr. J sitting behind. She had never been on an elephant before, and thought it delightful.

She is very pretty, and a good little thing apparently. But they are very poor, and she is very young and lively, and if she falls into bad hands, she would laugh herself into foolish scrapes. At present the husband and wife are very fond of each other, but a girl who marries at fifteen hardly knows what she likes.

When she wrote this passage, Miss Eden might have been a Sibyl, for her words were to become abundantly true.