The Collected Novels. Anna Buchan
Russel has built a hospital, and the natives come from far and near bringing their sick. As I sit here writing, they come trooping past, taking a short cut past the bungalow, stopping to stare at me quite unabashed, sometimes carrying a sick child, sometimes a blind old man or woman. They know they can come at any time and the Padre Sahib will never tell them to go away. It is different with a Government official. He is hedged round by chuprassis who levy toll on the poor natives before they allow them to enter the presence of the Sahib. It is a scandal, but it seems impossible to stop it. You may catch a chuprassi in the act, you may beat him and insist on his handing back the money, but almost before your back is turned the annas or pice have changed hands again! It is dustoor!
My first view of the hospital was rather a shock. Nothing was what I had expected. The beds are square blocks of cement, without even a mattress. The patients bring their own bedding and their cooking pots and pans, and generally a friend to look after them. The said friends camp all round the hospital, and it is pretty to see them at sunset, each cooking his evening meal over his own little fire. This morning being Sunday I went to a service at the hospital. The mingled smell of carbolic, hookahs, and coco-nut oil was, I confess, rather overpowering, but when Dr. Russel asked me, "Is this at all interesting to you, or is it merely disgusting?" I could reply truthfully that it was more interesting than disgusting. The patients sat rolled up in their blankets, and listened while the tale of the Prodigal Son was read to them, holding up their hands in horror when they heard he herded swine: they regard that as a very low job indeed. It is odd the way they respond: just as if during church service at home a man were to answer each statement made by the clergyman, "Right you are, guv'nor."
Coming home, we saw a native cooking his dinner on a little charcoal fire, and as I passed he threw the contents of the pot away. Surprised, I asked why. "Because," I was told, "your shadow fell on it and defiled it!"
One can hardly overestimate the boon a man like Dr. Russel is to a district. Trust is a plant of slow growth with the natives, but they have learned to trust him entirely, and go to him in all their troubles as children go to a father. And he has a very real helpmate in his wife. I never saw such a busy woman. If she isn't in the hospital helping at operations (she has a medical degree), she is teaching girls to sew, or women to read, and yet the children are beautifully cared for, and the house excellently managed. I suppose most women would pity Mrs. Russel sincerely. She passes her life in a place many miles from another European, with absolutely no society, no gaieties, no theatres, not even shops where she can while away the time buying things she doesn't want. Yet I never met a woman so utterly satisfied with her lot. Honestly, I don't think she has a single thing left to wish for: devoted to her husband, devoted to her children, heart and soul in her work.
"If only," she sometimes says, "it would go on! The children will have to go home very soon—the tragedy of Anglo-Indian life."
They are such dear children, Ronald and Robert and tiny Jean. The boys speak Santali like little natives, and even their English has an odd turn. When little Jean was born they were greatly interested in the first white baby they had seen, and Ronald said rapturously:
"Oh, Mummy, aren't ladies darlings when they are babies?"
Their mother found them one day bending over the cradle, arguing as to why the baby cried.
Ronald said, "She has no teeth, for that reason she cries."
Robert said, "She has no hair, for that reason she cries."
And Ronald finished, "She has no English, for that reason she cries."
I am not the only visitor at Takai. There are two missionary ladies here, resting after a strenuous time in some famine district. One is tall and stout, the other is short and thin; both have drab-coloured faces and straight mouse-coloured hair; both wear eye-glasses and sort of up and down dresses—the very best of women one feels sure, but oh! so difficult. You know my weakness for making people like me, but these dear ladies will have none of me, charm I never so wisely. Everything I do meets with their disapproval—how well I see it in their averted, spectacled eyes! I talk too much, laugh too much, tell foolish tales, mimic my elders and betters, and—worst sin of all—I have never read, never even heard of, the Missionary Magazine.
Something you said in your last letter, some allusion to religion, I didn't quite like, and at any other time I would have written you a sermon on the subject. In Calcutta (where I felt so self-righteous) nothing would have prevented me—but now I haven't the spirit. Mark, please, how the whirligig of Time brings its revenges! In Calcutta I thought myself a saint, in Takai I am regarded as a Brand Unplucked. It is rather dispiriting. I am beginning to wonder if I really am as nice as I thought I was.
Takai, Jan. 22.
This Gorgeous East is a cold and draughty place.
We have chota-hazri in the verandah at 7.30, and at that early hour it is so cold my blue fingers will hardly lift the cup. Now the sun is beginning to warm things into life again, and I have been sitting outside basking in its rays, to the anxiety of Mrs. Russel, who, like all Anglo-Indians, has a profound respect for the power of the Eastern sun. The children are taught that one thing they must not do is to run out without a topi. They were looking over The Pilgrim's Progress with me, and at a picture of Christian, bareheaded, approaching the Celestial City, with the rays of the sun very much in evidence, Robert pointed an accusing finger, saying, "John Bunyan, you're in the sun without your topi."
The poor Santals must feel dreadfully cold just now, especially the children, who have hardly anything on. Mrs. Russel has a big trunk full of things sent out from home as presents to the Mission—pieces of calico, and various kinds of garments—and these are given as prizes to the children who attend the Christian schools. The pieces of cloth which they can wind round them are the most valued prizes. Some of the garments are too ridiculous. Shapeless sacks of pink flannelette, intended, I suppose, for shirts; and such-like. This morning there was a prize-giving. The big trunk was brought into the verandah, and the children were allowed to choose. One small boy chose a dressing-gown of a material known, I believe, as duffle, of a striking pattern. In this he arrayed himself with enormous pride: a wide frilled collar stood out round his little thin neck, and, to complete the picture, he carried a bow and arrow. A quainter figure I never saw! I only wished the well-meaning Dorcas who made the garment could have seen him. A little missionary from somewhere in West Africa once told me about a small orphan native she had rescued and adopted. "I had him christened," she said plaintively. "I had him christened David Livingstone, and I dressed him in a blue serge man-of-war suit; but he ran away." I murmured sympathy, but I couldn't feel surprised. Imagine a little heathen David Livingstone, in a hot, sticky serge suit!
These bows and arrows, by the way, are rather interesting. The natives make them of bamboo and strips of hide, and they are tipped with iron. They really shoot things with them—birds and wild animals, I mean. I bought one from the owner of the dressing-gown for four annas, to take home to Peter. It seemed very little for a real bow and arrow, but Dr. Russel said it was quite enough; and when one comes to think of it, it is double a man's day's wage. I am enjoying myself at Takai. As the man said when he lost his wife, "It's verra quiet but verra peacefu'." After Calcutta, the quiet does seem almost uncanny.
It is a blameless existence one leads. I think I would soon grow very good, for there is no temptation to be anything else. One can't be very frivolous when there is no one to be frivolous with; nor can one backbite and be unkind, for there is no provocation. As for being vain and fond of the putting on of apparel, what is the good when one is the Best People if one wears a garment of any description?
Although there is nothing to do, the days never seem too long. After chota-hazri I generally go for a walk with the children. There is one good broad road passing the bungalow which leads away to the Back of Beyond, but we prefer the little tracks worn by the feet of the natives, which criss-cross everywhere. Jean won't stir a step without a horrid, dilapidated rag doll called Topsy. I do dislike the faces of rag dolls, their lack of profile is so gruesome, and Topsy is a most depressing specimen of her kind; but Jean lavishes affection on her. A woman-child is an odd thing. I remember being taken into a shop to choose a doll, and I chose a most hideous thing