Читать книгу Dr. Elsie Inglis - Lady Frances Balfour - Страница 4

‘Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of the mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.’

Naini Tal, Aug. 16, 1864.

‘My darling Amy, – Thank God, I am able to tell you that your dearest mother, and your little sister who was born this morning are well. Aunt Ellen thinks that baby is very like your dearest mother, but I do not see the resemblance at present. I hope I may by and by. We could not form a better wish for her, than that she may grow up like her dear mother in every respect. Old Sona is quite delighted to have another baby to look after again. She took possession of her the moment she was born, as she has done with all of you. The nurse says she is a very strong and healthy baby. I wish to tell you as early as possible the good news of God’s great mercy and goodness towards us in having brought your dearest mother safely through this trial.’

Mrs. Inglis writes a long account of Elsie at a month old, and says she is supposed to have a temper, as she makes herself heard all over the house, and strongly objects to being brought indoors and put into her cradle.

In October she writes how the two babies, her own and Aunt Ellen’s little boy, had been taken to church to be baptized, the one by the name of Elsie Maude, the other Cyril Powney. Both children were thriving, and no one would know that there were two babies in the house. ‘Elsie always stares very hard at papa when he comes to speak to her, as if she did not quite know what to make of his black beard, something different to what she is accustomed to see, but she generally ends by laughing at him’ – the first notice of that radiant friendship in which father and daughter were to journey together in a happy pilgrimage through life.

Elsie had early to make long driving expeditions with her parents, and her mother reports her as ‘accommodating herself to circumstances, watching the trees, sleeping under them, and the jolliest little traveller I ever saw.’

In December 1864 Mrs. Inglis reports their return from camp: —

‘It has been most extraordinarily warm for the time of year, and there has been very little rain during the whole twelvemonth. People attribute it to the wonderful comet which has been visible in the southern hemisphere. Elsie is very well, but she is a very little thing with a very wee face. She has a famous pair of large blue eyes, and it is quite remarkable how she looks about her and seems to observe everything. She lies in her bed at night in the dark and talks away out loud in her own little language, and little voice, and she is always ready for a laugh.’

Later on Mrs. Inglis writes: ‘I think she is one of the most intelligent babies I ever met with.’

Every letter descriptive of the dark, blue-eyed baby with the fast growing light hair, speaks of the smile ready for every one who speaks to her, and the hearty laughs which seem to have been one of her earliest characteristics.

One journey tried Elsie’s philosophy of taking life as she found it. Mrs. Inglis writes to her daughter: —

Naini Tal, 1865.

‘We came in palkies from Beharin to a place called Jeslie, half way up the hill to Naini Tal, and were about ten hours in the palkies. I had arranged to have Elsie with me in my palkie, but the little monkey did not like being away from Sona, and then the strangeness of the whole proceedings bewildered her, and the noise of the bearers seemed to frighten her, so I was obliged to make her over to Sona. She went to sleep after a little while. As we came near the hills it became cold and a wind got up, and then Papa brought her back to me, for we did not quite like her being in Sona’s doolie, which was not so well protected as mine. She had become more reconciled to the disagreeables of dâk travelling by that time. We reached our house about nine o’clock yesterday morning. The change from the dried-up hot plains is very pleasant. You may imagine how often I longed for the railroad and our civilised English way of travelling.’

Mrs. Shaw M‘Laren, the companion sister of Elsie, and to whom her correspondence always refers, has written down some memories of the happy childhood days in India. The year was divided between the plains and the hills of India. Elsie was born in August 1864, at Naini Tal, one of the most beautiful hill stations in the Himalayas. From the verandah, where much of the day was spent, the view was across the masses of ‘huddled hills’ to the ranges crowned by the everlasting snows. An outlook of silent and majestic stillness, and one which could not fail to influence such a spirit as shone out in the always wonderful eyes of Elsie. She grew up with the vision of the glory of the earthly dominion, and it gave a new meaning to the kingdom of the things of the spirit.

‘All our childhood is full of remembrances of “Father.” He never forgot our birthdays; however hot it was down in the scorched plains, when the day came round, if we were up in the hills, a large parcel would arrive from him. His very presence was joy and strength when he came to us at Naini Tal. What a remembrance there is of early walks and early breakfasts with him and the three of us. The table was spread in the verandah between six and seven. Father made three cups of cocoa, one for each of us, and then the glorious walk! Three ponies followed behind, each with their attendant grooms, and two or three red-coated chaprasis, father stopping all along the road to talk to every native who wished to speak to him, while we three ran about, laughing and interested in everything. Then, at night, the shouting for him after we were in bed and father’s step bounding up the stair in Calcutta, or coming along the matted floor of our hill home. All order and quietness flung to the winds while he said good night to us.

‘It was always understood that Elsie and he were special chums, but that never made any jealousy. Father was always just! The three cups of cocoa were exactly the same in quality and quantity. We got equal shares of his right and his left hand in our walks, but Elsie and he were comrades, inseparables from the day of her birth.

‘In the background of our lives there was always the quiet strong mother, whose eyes and smile live on through the years. Every morning before the breakfast and walk, there were five minutes when we sat in front of her in a row on little chairs in her room and read the scripture verses in turn, and then knelt in a straight, quiet row and repeated the prayers after her. Only once can I remember father being angry with any of us, and that was when one of us ventured to hesitate in instant obedience to some wish of hers. I still see the room in which it happened, and the thunder in his voice is with me still.’

Both Mr. and Mrs. Inglis belonged to the Anglican Church, though they never hesitated to go to any denomination where they found the best spiritual life. In later life in Edinburgh, they were connected with the Free Church of Scotland. To again quote from his daughter: ‘His religious outlook was magnificently broad and beautiful, and his belief in God simple and profound. His devotion to our mother is a thing impossible to speak about, but we all feel that in some intangible way it influenced and beautified our childhood.’

In 1870 Mrs. Inglis writes of the lessons of Elsie and her sister Eva. ‘The governess, Mrs. Marwood, is successful as a teacher; it comes easy enough to Elsie to learn, and she delights in stories being told her. Every morning after their early morning walk, and while their baths are being got ready, their mother says they come to her to say their prayers and learn their Bible lesson.’ There are two letters more or less composed by Elsie and written by her father. In as far as they were dictated by herself, they take stock of independent ways, and the spirit of the Pharisee is early developed in the courts of the Lord’s House, as she manages not to fall asleep all the time, while the weaker little sister slumbers and sleeps.

Eva, the sleepy sister, has some further reminiscences of these nursery days: —

‘We had forty dolls! Elsie decreed once that they should all have measles – so days were spent by us three painting little red dots all over the forty faces and the forty pairs of arms and legs. She was the doctor and prescribed gruesome drugs which we had to administer. Then it was decreed that they should slowly recover, so each day so many spots were washed off until the epidemic was wiped out!

‘Another time one of the forty dolls was lost! Maria was small and ugly, but much loved, and the search for her was tremendous, but unsuccessful. The younger sister gave it up. After all there were plenty other dolls – never mind Maria! But Elsie stuck to it. Maria must be found. Father would find her when he came home from Kutcherry in the evening, if nobody else could. So father was told with many tears of Maria’s disappearance. He agreed – Maria must be found. The next day all the enormous staff of Indian servants, numbering all told about thirty or so, were had up in a row and told that unless Maria was found sixpence would be cut from each servant’s pay for interminable months! What a search ensued! and Maria came to light within half an hour – in the pocket of one of the dresses of her little mistress found by one of the ayahs! Her mistress declared at the time, and always maintained with undiminished certainty, that she had first been put there, and then found by the ayah in question during that half-hour’s search!’

These reminiscences have more of interest than just the picture of the little child who was to carry on the early manifestations of a keen interest in life. A smile, surely one of the clouds of glory she trailed from heaven, and carried back untarnished by the tragedies of a stricken earth; they are chiefly valuable in the signs of a steadfast, independent will. The interest of all Elsie’s early development lay in the comradeship with a father whose wide benevolence and understanding love was to be the guide and helper in his daughter’s career. Not for the first time in the history of outstanding lives, the daughter has been the friend, and not the subjugated child of a selfish and dominant parent.

The date of Elsie’s birth was in the dawn of the movement which believed it possible that women could have a mind and a brain of their own, and that the freedom of the one and the cultivation of the other was not a menace to the possessive rights of the family, or the ruin of society at large. Thousands of women born at the same date were instructed that the aim of their lives must be to see to the creature comforts of their male parent, and when he was taken from them, to believe it right that he had neither educated them, nor made provision for the certain old age and spinsterdom which lay before the majority.

There have been many parents who gave their daughters no reason to call them blessed, when they were left alone unprovided with gear or education. In all periods of family history, such instances as Mr. Inglis’ outlook for his daughters is uncommon. He desired for them equal opportunities, and the best and highest education. He gave them the best of his mind, not its dregs, and a comradeship which made a rare and happy entrance for them into life’s daily toil and struggle. The father asked for nothing but their love, and he had his own unselfish devotion returned to him a hundredfold.

It must have been a great joy to him to watch the unfolding of talent and great gifts in this daughter who was always ‘his comrade.’ He could not live to see the end of a career so blessed, so rich in womanly grace and sustaining service, but he knew he had spared no good thing he could bring into her life, and when her mission was fulfilled, then, those who read and inwardly digest these pages will feel that she first learnt the secret of service to mankind in the home of her father.