CHAPTER XII.
I returned to my home and to my books. These were true friends on whom I could rely, and with whom I could find good society, especially as I had my bread provided for. But what if I had been without books, without money and could only eat my crust after I had earned it and unable to get any work to do? This has often been one of my serious questions.
There is not a country on the globe where a European is so badly off as in India, if he is without work and destitute of means and influence. I have known a family of father and mother, with several sons and daughters well educated. The father and sons tried to get employment but failed. They offered to work at wages that would barely supply them with the coarsest food, but this was denied them. They were at last reduced to living on rice alone, the amount for the whole family of six not costing four pence a day, and this they often could not purchase.
Another case was that of a man and his wife, well educated and of fine appearance. He had invested all his money in a business that did not pay. They sold their little property for almost nothing and then their clothes. He could get no kind of employment, and at last they were so reduced that the wife had to conceal herself in the hut where they stayed, for want of clothes, and their almost starving heathen neighbors gave them a few handfuls of rice to eat. An empty pocket and a naked back are about the worst certificates a man can show to get employment or position of any kind. Nobody wants such a recommendation, not even a Christian. Accursed is poverty, for in proportion to his descent in destitution, a man is less liable to receive anything. The rich, who need nothing, have money thrown into their laps and positions thrust upon them, but the greater a person’s necessities, the less he gets. This is a strange contradictory world, yet this is also nature’s law. The more you enrich a field the more it gives you in return, the more I improve my bungalows, the higher rents I can get, but what is the use of talking; the poor cannot grow fat on illustrations and arguments.
If the poor whites have such a struggle for life what must be the condition of the destitute Eurasians who from their emaciated looks have not even rice to eat?
Some months passed and again I became restless. I thought that in the economic arrangement of nature in which everything has its function and uses I also must have my place and work; that I, not less than an active mosquito or a creeping snail, could not have been forgotten in the universal plan.
I knew I must first fit myself for a position. As I had tried to learn the mercantile business, so I thought of engineering. This was no sooner considered than settled. Even if I did not find employment by it I would have the discipline and knowledge of the science, so would lose nothing and be a gainer by it. I entered an engineering college and passed several successful and happy years without anything really worth mentioning occurring except several incidents that were of great importance to me.
The station was a small one, so the society was limited. The students were rather above the average in ability; in fact there was not a sumf among us. All had passed in the highest grades in school, so we could stand erect with our heads upon our shoulders and act like men. We called on the European families, were invited to their lawn and tennis parties, took our share in the games, or rather more often got up games of our own to enliven our hours of recreation and give pleasure to our friends. During the last year of my course a gentleman, with his wife and daughter, came to reside in the station. The daughter was about eighteen years of age, finely formed, healthy and robust, of blonde complexion, very good looking and to me, handsome. She had passed the giggling stage of girlhood, if she ever had been in it. She was well educated, intelligent and had read a number of good books.
From what I have read in English books, from what I have heard and the little I have seen, it appears that most young women and many older ones in society can dress finely, smile, giggle, dance, flirt, look pretty and be or do anything but be sensible. The chief characteristic of this young lady was her sensibleness. She seldom indulgedin nonsense, but when she did there was so much wit and real fun in it as to lift it above inanity. I said she was a blonde, so my opposite, for I was rather “soso.” I have heard the story of an Eurasian who in England was with some unsophisticated girls, when one of them innocently remarked, “You are very much tanned, are you not?” “Yes, I am,” said he. “When I was in India I was out a great deal in the sun.” I think this is what has ailed me, or something or other, perhaps the other, had made my complexion the opposite of a blonde. Yet I think being opposite we were attracted to each other for that—well, no matter—what’s the use of surmising? We often met. I tried to talk as intelligently as I could to her, and I think she reciprocated my efforts, for a number of times she mentioned that she had found the books I had referred to and gave me their opinions. I liked her for this.
One holiday when we were at a tennis party, a white, or rather a reddish youth, still in the downy stage of adolescence, on a visit in the station was of the party. I was standing a little aside, but heard the youth ask the young lady to be his partner. She replied that she was going to play with Mr. Japhet. “Well,” said he, “if you prefer that Eurasian.” “You have no right to make such a remark as that,” she replied with warmth. It was not prudent for me to appear as if I had heard anything, and her choice of me and her reply helped me to restrain my anger. But I remembered the youth, and why shouldn’t I? He was not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; “as a squash before ’tis a peas-cod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple.”
At first I liked her for her good sense and goodness, then I admired, and then—but what’s the use of repeating the old, old story that has been so often told since Adam looked upon Eve and saw that she was good; and yet I will, for there is a pleasure in telling it—I loved her. By that electrical, unseen, unheard power or means of conveying messages from heart to heart that love has, I knew that she loved me. Nothing was said between us about it, for what need was there of telling when we both knew itall? After a while we talked as if the subject had been understood and settled for some time. I will not relate what we said, for nearly everybody knows our conversation all by heart; at least they ought to.
Then the next question was about mama and papa. My dear little mama had gone, and I was still Japhet in search of his father, so there could be no trouble on my side, but hers? Aye, there was the rub. I had my “doots,” as the Scotch say, and yet I was full of courage. She was a fair lady and my heart was not faint. I concluded to attack the weaker half of the family first, but I found my mistake, for she was the stronger of the two when it came to heart affairs, as probably many men have learned to their sorrow when dealing with what is called the weaker sex. She listened most attentively, turning red, then white and so on, the red coming like flashes of lightning. I saw this danger signal at once, but love and courage made me go on. I had formed rather a tender regard for this expected mother-in-law. So in the gentlest, most winning terms and tones I could command, I plead my case. I saw and felt I had no chance from my first word. My courage at last took to its heels and I was trembling and powerless. It was one of the hardest and most trying bits of work I ever had and I have had not a few. When I had finished she said in angry tones, repressed like water bursting from a pipe under a pressure of seventy pounds to the square inch:
“I am surprised! I am angry! How dare you think of such a thing? No, never! I tell you, never!” Just then the other half came in, but he was cold and rather mild and his better half remained on deck. In a word she told him what I wanted but gave him no chance to talk. “No,” she continued, “I tell you once for all. She shall never see you again. Before I would let her marry an Eurasian I would shoot her.” “And I would bury her,” said the other half.
As I did not want any shooting or burying, just then, I thought it best to retreat, and having said, “I am very sorry,” departed.
It was sometime before I could realize what had happened.I have read of the experience of people who had been nearly paralyzed by the shock of an earthquake. They say it is impossible for the mind or words to convey any idea of the intensely awful abject feeling that took possession of them. It seemed to me that I had been through, or into or out of, something of that kind. I do not remember whether I walked, or crept or ran, but I left that scene of failure, anger and despair as soon as I could, and who wouldn’t? My wits had all left me, like sunshine friends. “When a man’s wits are gone, the heavens should open and take him away,” but no heavens opened for me, and I was left to make the best of the situation. When I thought of the young lady, of my love for her, I could have been knocked down by a feather, or anything, for her sake, but when I thought of that unattainable mother-in-law, and her cruel mean fling at me, and of that cold-blooded masculine, offering his services as sexton at the funeral of his daughter, I felt like swearing, and I will not say that I did not use some good robust Saxon expletives, for really, the occasion demanded it.
I think the Episcopal Bishop had a good idea when, in a convocation, he became indignant over some wrong: “Mr. President, I think it is the duty of this right reverend house to set forth a form of sound words to be used by a man under strong provocation.”
In principle I am opposed to swearing, and then only in good, choice language. I never take the name of God in vain, as that is a sin against Him, and a crime against my better nature, and I detest the use of gad, begad, ’swounds, ’sblood, ’sdeath, so many snobbish “Christian gentlemen” are guilty of.
Darwin looks upon swearing as one of the most curious expressions which occur in man; he considers that it reveals his animal descent, and looks upon it as the survival of the habit in animals of uncovering the canine teeth before fighting. I will not dispute this, but confess frankly that I felt like uncovering my canine teeth, as no simple words could do the subject justice. Neither anger or whimpering would accomplish anything for her or me. I hardly knew what I did or did not do, for several days. Icould not attack the citadel, as I had no band of knights to aid me, and had to subdue and smother my love and grief as well as my anger allowed me. After several days, I received a letter clandestinely dispatched by some bribed servant. She told of her love for me, that her mother and father were furious, that her mother was to leave at once with her for Bombay and England. She had begged them to let her see me just once, but they declared it impossible, that they would bind her with ropes, or lock her in a room, if she dared to think of such a thing. “And all because you are an Eurasian! How could you help that?” she added. Certainly? How could I help that?
She further wrote that she was going by the morning train, and wished me to come, not to the railway station, where they would be watching, but to stand on a hillock, near the track, where she could see me once more. I was there. As the train passed she cried out to me, “You have all my heart and love,” and she was gone. I was left in an agony of sorrow and despair. How could I help being an Eurasian? Who made me an Eurasian? How often have I repeated these questions? I often felt like cursing him. It is said that Noah, the Patriarch, good enough to be specially saved, cursed his son for his lack of parental respect, and Ham turned black. My father, for Mr. Percy told me that I must have had one, did the same for me and without any provocation on my part.
There was an interval of several weeks, just here in my life, that has always been a blank to me. I must have been very ill.
My course finished, I received one of the best certificates of my proficiency, and was soon homeward bound again. I was then anxious for employment where I could use the knowledge I had acquired. I was ambitious to go to the capital city to begin at the top. I wrote to the Government of Bengal asking for a position and received the answer—“His Honor directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and to state that he does not deem it advisable to bring outsiders into this province.”
This seemed to me very unjust, as his Honor himself was an outsider, but he probably had in mind the saying,“Present company always excepted.” Besides the babus were everywhere employed from Calcutta to Peshawar. Have the rest of the people no rights? Are the babus so loyal or superior to all others that they should be made the special pets of government? I have often wondered why the rest of the people of India submit to this injustice. There may come a time when the government will wish it had friends in the place of these impudent Bengalis, and the babus themselves will think Hades has burst wide open.
I wrote letters to various firms and all replied, “No assistants required,” or, as some of them put in their printed slips, “No Eurasians need apply.” So there was no help for it; to the books again! It was everything to me that I had an income, but what of the thousands of poor wretches who had neither money, income nor employment.
A year later the bequest of Mr. Percy was placed in my hands, and every rupee accounted for. I invested in villages, and in various parcels of ground in the station, on which I erected bungalows, one of which was for myself, according to my own taste, with one room especially for a library for the books that I had been accumulating.
All this gave me employment for several years, and I was quite happy. My new house was the best in the station, and was better furnished, with ample grounds, ornamented with every kind of shrubbery and flowers. It became the envy of the station. The Commissioner of the Division wrote, asking if he could rent it; then the Barra Sahib wanted it, and the officers wished it for a Mess Koti. My refusal to all created quite a feeling against me. Some one told somebody else, who told me, that the “higher classes” considered the house too good for an Eurasian. I wonder if they should accidentally get to heaven and find some of the lower classes—Eurasians—there, whether they would blow up St. Peter for letting us in?
I had numerous brushes with the magistrate; for he seemed determined to annoy me because I had not let him have my house. My hedges were too high or too broad. I should trim my trees, or should not trim those by the roadside, which I myself had planted. When I had oneof my houses partly constructed he forbade the work to go any further, as I had not obtained his permission to build, and besides it would obstruct the view from his house, though it was five hundred yards away. I felt that all this was petty, spiteful tyranny, and resisted as well as I could, but of what avail? I might as well have quarreled with the man in the moon.
The magistrate had almost absolute power over affairs in the station, and could be a despot if he chose. He was the Great Sahib, and he let everybody know it, especially those he styled the lower classes. If he could not carry out his plans in an open, manly way, he resorted to petty tyranny that goaded one to madness. I had never met him, and all his orders to me were made not in person or by letter, but through his servants, which made it more annoying.
I was soon to make his personal acquaintance. One night, after dining with a friend, I was walking homeward when I heard the screams of a woman, or rather of a girl. I ran, and found two native policemen, one holding each of her hands and dragging her along the road. They stopped at once, and she begged me to have her released. They said they had orders to bring good looking girls into cantonments, and they found her on the road. I ordered them to let her go at once. They said they could not do so. I insisted, and they replied that I should have to answer to the magistrate for obstructing them. I took the girl to a friend’s house, and told them to keep her concealed at my expense. The next morning a servant came, ordering me to appear at the magistrate’s bungalow. I went. As I entered, this worthy was sitting at his writing table.
I said, “Good morning,” and bowed, but he made no salutation. His manner and silence was very embarrassing to me, so I said, “My name is—” “Yes, yes,” he interrupted, “I know you well enough; you are that damned Eurasian who is always making trouble.” “But,” said I, and before I could get in another word he retorted, “I don’t want a word from you. I will let you off this time, but if you ever interfere with the police again, I will give you cause to remember it,” and with a wave of his hand, a servant opened the door for me to retire.
The seizure of this girl was a part of a damnable plan established by a Christian government to supply victims to gratify the lusts of its imported soldiery, and these soldiers probably all baptized, confirmed Christians.
I sent that girl to a girl’s school, and paid her bills for years, which I trust the Recording Angel has put down to the credit of my account.
All the Eurasians were my friends, all the second class whites, and I had besides a number of acquaintances among the first grade. I had several riding horses, the best that money could purchase, a fine carriage, and several rigs of the best make, with horses to suit them. I had a fine house and could give good dinners, no small item in making friends, so some were glad to know me for that, if for no other reason. Then I was greatly interested in sports, and was liberal in my subscriptions, so that, having received my money, they could not well overlook me, especially as they no doubt expected other favors to follow.
One evening, near the band stand, I saw a number of ayahs, with the children of the Mem Sahibs, and among them a very comely young woman, evidently an Eurasian. My beloved magistrate was talking with the children, but with his eyes on the governess. One, a young officer near me, nudged another, and nodding toward the children, said, “The old fellow is up to his tricks again.” The other smiled. The former asked, “Do you know what he said when he came to dine at our mess on Sunday evening?”
“No, what was it?” “Well, the Barra Sahib had read prayers at church in the morning, so at the mess, just as we sat down to the table, he asked, ‘I say, Langton, by the way, who was that young woman in front at the left this morning?’ ‘O, that was the Shaw’s governess,’ replied Langton. ‘By Jove! she is not a bad looking piece; though rather, don’t you think, as if she had been too much in the sun?’ At which there was a slight buzz among the younger set, and they looked at each other with sly winks and nods, and Jeems, at my left, whispered to me, ‘The old man may have the incapacity of age, but he evidently has not forgotten the desires of youth!’”
I was disgusted—angry. Though I did not care a figabout the church and its worship, yet I have always been a stickler for decency, even in a church, or among my dogs. The thought of such a depraved thing reading prayers—the Scriptures, styled sacred—and in what is called the house of God, and while going through with his farce of worship, looking around over the congregation to find some one on whom to rest his lustful eyes! Evidently his eyes were not made for the good of his soul.
For several weeks I often noticed the Barra Sahib among the children, as they seemed suddenly to have become special favorites of his; but he was always near the governess.
Some months after this we lost our magistrate, for he was promoted to the Commissionership of a distant province. The governess also disappeared.