Hindoo Holiday (21 page)

And now he haunts me. In a long, dingy, plum-colored coat buttoned up to the throat, and a dusty black skull-cap tied under the chin, he tidies the room from morning till night. I was never so much looked after in my life.

If I put a match in my ash-tray he patters in at once, picks it out, and bears it off to the rubbish-heap. But not, of course, without my permission. He never does anything without first getting my nod of assent. He holds the match towards me, almost under my nose. I am trying very hard to learn my lesson for Abdul, so I pretend not to notice. But it is no good.

“Sahib!” he urges confidingly, or sometimes “Huzoor!”—a very respectful form of address, usually reserved, I believe, for royalty.

I glance crossly at him. He waves the match towards the door. The gesture is expressive:

“Are you willing that this match shall be thrown away and for ever lost?”

“Yes, yes—for Heaven's sake!”

He departs happily, and I go on with my lesson, writing down the new words on a sheet of paper and learning them off by heart. Perhaps if that match had been Abdul's, I think to myself, he would not have permitted it to be thrown away. Or, at any rate, he would have given the question more careful consideration. Might not the match be put to other uses, as a toothpick, a nail in the wall for light articles such as pretty empty match-boxes, or to dangle before the cat at the end of a piece of string? No doubt, I think to myself, Abdul has a tin box in which he collects his matchsticks. Having learned my words, I tear up the sheet of paper, and since there is no wastepaper-basket, drop the pieces absent-mindedly on the floor beside my chair. In patters Habib, and carefully collecting them, holds them under my nose.

“Huzoor!”

“Oh,
do
go away!” I groan.

But it is all of no use. I have begged and commanded him, both through Narayan and Babaji Rao, to leave my ashtray alone, but it is all of no use. It is still emptied about thirty times a day, and wiped on the door-curtains afterwards, so that I myself now hastily take out again anything which I inadvertently put into it. The bed is still made according to his original plan, and for a whole month the house has not been swept or dusted, so that when I walk about my rooms little puffs of dust rise up from under my feet. Lampblack and cigarette-ash lie thick on my books and papers, and rat-droppings all over the dressing-table; and while I dismally survey this dreary scene of dust and desolation, in patters the devoted Habib to pick the latest match out of the ash-tray. I gaze mournfully at him. Then I smile; he looks so absurd; and the thick brown lips part to disclose dazzling teeth in response, while he holds out the offensive, untidy match:

“Huzoor!”

His Highness's pilgrimage has been postponed for a month. He is not well enough, and also the weather is too cold, he says, though personally I find it uncomfortably warm. It is a
great disappointment
to him; and perhaps it is; but the real cause of his disappointment, I suspect, dates back to the days when, believing his own departure unavoidable, he gave Napoleon III and me permission to take a holiday running concurrently with his. Napoleon III has already gone, and I'm off on Wednesday; but he himself now stays. Perhaps he is really unwell; but probably it is only an attack of the nervous disorders to which he is especially prone whenever this pilgrimage to Gaya is attempted. He is really very nervous about his health, and consults every doctor he meets, and seldom takes their medicine because it is not the same as the medicine the last doctor prescribed, or because it
is
the same, or because his pundits advise him against it, or because the moon is in its eighth zodiac, or for some other reason. Most of the friends he invites here are army medical men, and we have an I.M.S. man, Captain Drood, and his wife staying in the Guest House at present. They are unusually pleasant Anglo-Indians, and are kind and patient with the little man. One needs patience. Captain Drood examined him the other day, and told me that the Maharajah's complaint was locomotor ataxia and that he had made out a prescription for him to have dispensed at the local hospital. But the Maharajah brought it back next day. He had had it explained to him at the hospital and had recognized it. It was the same prescription that an Allahabad doctor had sent him recently. It contained potassium iodide, which was very disagreeable; it made his eyes water. Could not the Doctor Sahib put something else into the medicine instead of potassium iodide? Could he not put in, for example, nux vomica? Captain Drood told him that nux vomica was of no use for his particular trouble. His Highness quoted other drugs at random. Could he not have one of these—anything but that horrid potassium iodide? But Captain Drood, who was attending the Maharajah for the first time, continued to be reasonable. The most that he could do, he said, was to diminish the amount of potassium iodide he had prescribed, and if it still made His Highness's eyes water this could be obviated by lengthening the intervals between the doses.

With this concession the Maharajah hobbled off, apparently reassured; but the next day Captain Drood learnt that the local doctor, a Hindoo following the European system, had cut out the potassium iodide altogether and substituted something else—no one seemed to know what. This vexed Drood considerably, no doubt in his professional dignity, though he pretended alarm for the Maharajah's welfare in the hands of “these damned unscrupulous pundits,” and expressed a determination to give the little King a “good talking to.” But the “good talking to” did not long survive an interruptive question suddenly put by His Highness, who for some time had appeared inattentive, as to whether the Doctor Sahib (who happened to be slightly bald) shaved the top of his head.

After all, His Highness had already got from Captain Drood all that he really wanted—his medical opinion that the Maharajh was not in a fit state of health to undertake the pilgrimage to Gaya. Mrs. Drood also used her talents to bring about the happy result of another postponement. His Highness loves her. As is common among large, blowsy, highly colored women, she is amiable and kind-hearted; but this is not the point: she tells his fortune with cards. He never tires of this; it is one of his invariable claims upon all his new female visitors, and he seems quite surprised when he is told by any one of them that she does not know how to do it, as though he has always considered this talent an accomplishment possessed by all women of the West. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Drood herself pleaded ignorance at his first request; but His Highness begged her so earnestly at any rate to try, that she gave way and, on what little she remembered of the subject, contrived a system by which not only His Highness but she herself, it seems, is now quite taken in. She allows him to have two or three wishes a day—the wish-card being the nine of hearts, and, while she spreads out the cards into a pattern, he sits beside her with his eyes closed and a very solemn expression indeed on his face, concentratedly wishing.

What is he wishing for? For health, perhaps, for friendship, or for everlasting life; for a vision of heaven, or revision of earth; for the art of the classic Greeks, or the power of the Roman Emperors—or for the return of Napoleon the Third.

Sometimes he gets his nine of hearts and is contented and grateful; when it does not occur he grows ill at ease. But Mrs. Drood usually manages to offer him some compensation. If the nine itself is not turned up, something near to it may be—the seven, eight, or ten; and she tells him that though it does not seem that he is yet to be granted his
full
wish, it will be realized at any rate in part.

“How many annas?” he cries, never slow to accept the opportunity of twisting omens to his advantage, as once he turned his car to keep the blackbuck on the right. If the nine of hearts is fullness—sixteen annas to the rupee—what is the eight of hearts? How many annas?

She helps him; his chances are never less than ten annas, and even when, as invariably happens, he drops the cards in shuffling (for this is an accomplishment which no amount of practice can teach him), she is never impatient, but finds good omens in those that fall to the ground.

When the moon was in its seventh zodiac he was always coming to Mrs. Drood for wishes, for this was a very propitious time for him; but only for three days. Then the moon would be in its eighth zodiac, which he told her, was predicted to be such an unlucky period for him that he would be ill advised then to have his fortune told. He could not, however, refrain, but came to her during this unfavorable period too, and anxiously begged that he might be allowed to have one wish, just
one
.

“Of course, Maharajah Sahib,” she said at once; “and if the nine of hearts does not turn up we shall blame the moon for muddling the cards.”

“You are
quite
right! That is
very
true!” he agreed, immediately restored to confidence, and glanced at me as much as to say “Did you hear?
Such
intelligence!”

The occurrence or non-occurrence of the wish-card, though of primary importance, is not of course the end of the matter; there is all sorts of interesting information to be gleaned from the combinations of the cards when they are spread, and one of His Highness's most frequent inquiries is for news of his future health. This news, Mrs. Drood sees to it, is always good; though once she told me, with a solemnity quite equal to his, that the cards had clearly indicated that he was soon to be very seriously ill. However, since I now find myself, when driving out with him, quite infected by his anxiety over the mongoose, and experience relief or depression according to whether we see one or not, I can hardly say anything more about that. Anyway, his pilgrimage has been postponed until March; the stethoscope and the cards have gone into the scale of his disinclination against the advice of the pundits and of Babaji Rao, who has already made all the elaborate arrangements for his transport; and His Highness is “very disappointed.”

If Habib is a pest, Abdul is a positive incubus.

During the last week I have become so involved in his affairs that now I do not know how to extricate myself; he is an old man of the sea round my neck, and the knowledge that I gave him permission, so to speak, to sit there does not help me to bear his weight philosophically now that I cannot shake him off. After he had presented his petition to the Maharajah I wrote to the latter, at Abdul's request, to confirm it, saying that I hoped he would not forget his promise and that Abdul might be given the managership of the Guest House at twentyfive rupees a month as soon as possible.

I selected that particular employment from among Abdul's other suggestions because it seemed least liable to interfere with any one else's interests, and because the Guest House, according to the bills which upset the Dewan every quarter, is badly in need of management. Narayan says that much of the extravagance is due to the pilferings of the venerable Munshi, who has the keys of the storeroom and is therefore in a splendid position to supply himself, his relations, and his friends, the Doctor and the Collector, with whatever they want. That, says Narayan, is how the port goes, and the whisky goes, and the cigarettes, and Fortnum & Mason's preserved fruits. The Collector is nominally the manager, but he is too busy a man according to Babaji Rao, and too artful a one according to Narayan, to give undivided attention. Advice is always being sought for reducing the terrific expenditure, and it was once suggested that I should take the whole thing over myself as one of my duties; but when I began my campaign against extravagance by cutting out Fortnum & Mason's preserved fruit (which I don't happen to like), I was said to be too extreme an economist and politely released from my new duty. So the appointment of Abdul as a resident manager seemed to me a good idea. Later in the day I was told by His Highness that this was arranged, and that Abdul had been appointed manager on probation from that day at twenty rupees a month. Abdul didn't seem as pleased with this news as I expected.

“Ah, on
probation
!” he said. “That is their
craftiness
. I shall not be allowed to please them, and when you go they will turn me out! I know!”

However, he thanked me before he left, and offered his hand.

But the order to remove was not given, so I spoke to Babaji Rao about it and was told that Abdul must present his petition to the Dewan in the usual way, and the Dewan, under the Maharajah's instructions, would pass it. But Abdul seemed nervous of the Dewan. Could not the business be done through Babaji Rao? he asked; and, in any case, would I draw up his petition for him? But I was rather fed up with the whole affair, which was eating up more and more of the lesson hours, and told him he'd have to manage the rest by himself. But I was not to get out of it so easily. On the 13th I learnt, to my distress, that the very thing I had been trying to avoid was happening; Narayan was to be moved from the Guest House to make way for Abdul.

This might not have been unfortunate, for Narayan, I knew, wanted a change; but the post to which he was to be moved was not as good as the one he held. And it seemed to me that, at about this time, his manner towards me began to alter. I had had his confidence and respect; but now, I felt, he was avoiding me. On the evening before Abdul was to present his petition, while Babaji Rao and I were discussing this muddle on my front verandah, Narayan, who had been sitting with Sharma under the
neem
tree by the kitchen, came over to us to get a paper signed by Babaji Rao. He salaamed and smiled at me in answer to my smile, and I asked him if he would care to walk with us. He said he would; but when we started off a few minutes later he had returned to his seat under the
neem
tree. He had his face turned away, and was pretending, I thought, not to notice us; but his friend Sharma was watching me. This made me very unhappy, and I wrote to Babaji Rao that night to say that I would be much easier in my mind if he would try to rearrange matters with the Dewan so that Abdul remained in his office with an eight-rupee increase of salary until Narayan was properly suited. He replied very agreeably that he would do his best though he feared the Dewan's reply, and asked me to send Narayan to him at seven o'clock in the morning, before the Dewan's court sat, so that he could find out what the boy wanted. But Narayan had an attack of vomiting in the morning and could not keep his appointment; however, Babaji Rao told me yesterday afternoon, greatly to my relief, that he had fixed it all up satisfactorily in the way I had suggested. The Dewan had been very cross, but had nevertheless agreed, and now a little scene would have to be enacted in which Abdul's officer would feign anger with Abdul and tell him he could not yet be spared. The petition would still have to go through the Dewan, and he would write on it “Eight rupees advance”—and that would be the end.