Another diversion was a weekend at the seaside. From Calcutta this meant Puri, staying either at an hotel or at one of the guest houses or hostels built by various of the companies and businesses based in Calcutta. Here beach ‘boys’ (some were in their sixties) in conical straw hats patrolled the shore to escort bathers into the sea – entering was difficult because of the surf. Others came round with ‘tiffin boxes’ slung from their shoulders, offering food for lunch. Jean Hilary, taken there by friends, wrote of the relaxed freedom of that weekend in 1929. ‘We wore no stockings! only kicks, petticoat and dress.’
As most young women would notice pretty quickly, there was little mixing with Indians, apart from the servants in every bungalow. Indeed, it was possible for many Englishwomen – in particular for regimental wives, where the social life of the community took place almost entirely within that community – never to meet anyone Indian except their own servants and those of their friends. (Even here, potential difficulties could emerge. ‘Before dinner my ayah brushed my hair. It had got very dirty but it had somehow not occurred to me that I could let those skinny little black hands actually touch me but after a bit I got used to the idea and acquiesced and felt no repugnance as I thought I should have done,’ wrote Lilah Wingfield on 29 November 1911).
Today, it seems extraordinary that an impassable gulf existed between the two races; and that sophisticated, intelligent, well-educated Indians, descended from a civilisation far older than that of their overlords, should have been so snubbed. At the same time, advantage was taken of their innate good manners: if some grand personage – a governor, a viceroy – wanted a tiger shoot, it was expected that the chosen maharaja would lay one on.
Long gone was the time when it was accepted that many East India Company men and soldiers took Indian wives; with the Raj came the barrier most forcibly expressed by Kipling in Plain Tales from the Hills: ‘A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed.’ It was an elitism fostered by what was seen as the need to emphasise the difference between the rulers and the ruled, underlining what was then the sincerely held belief that belonging to the British Empire – which then held sway over three-fifths of the earth’s surface – was the best possible fate for any nation, race or creed.
Men in the ICS did, of course, work with Indians to a certain extent and were well aware that posts filled by Indians would increase. But, as Edward Wakefield wrote ironically: ‘It was unthinkable that European women should have to receive medical attention from an Indian doctor.’ It was the same socially, no matter how grand the Indian. When Beatrice Baker became a friend of a good-looking, charming Indian prince her mother quickly saw him off.
Some of the girls who went out to join their parents were called Raj debutantes. For others the outlook was less hopeful. The fashion-conscious Ruby Madden, youthful, blooming and determined that she would not remain in India (its effect on her complexion was already being noted), described an encounter with two of them. After tea in their dressing gowns she and her aunt dressed for a drive. ‘I wore my crash [coarse linen] skirt green silk blouse and hat with blue silk and white ruffle and we started off in the victoria at 5.00 o’clock. We went shopping, then I was introduced to two girls, quite nice but rather worn and old-looking. They are husband-hunting, I believe, and it looks as if it didn’t agree with them.’
The most beautiful girls were known as Week Queens: girls asked to all the ‘Weeks’ of the cold-weather season – Calcutta Week, Lahore Week, Meerut Week, Rawalpindi Week, Delhi Week, each with horse shows, polo, gymkhanas, tent-pegging contests, tennis tournaments, dances, dinners, fancy dress balls and cocktail parties every night. These Weeks were the highlight of the cold-weather season, with Delhi Week – once Delhi had replaced Calcutta as the capital in 1911* – the culmination and peak. Here, civet cats rustled in the thatch of bungalows and hyenas howled at night and Urdu – the ‘language of the camp’ invented by the Moghuls for their multi-racial armies – was still the speech. There was always a New Year’s Day parade with cavalry and infantry marching and galloping across dusty parade grounds.
To entertain as many as possible during the Week there was a huge viceregal garden party – ‘sweet peas and roses, delphiniums and carnations, hibiscus and jasmine, grew in every garden,’ wrote M.M. Kaye, the daughter of the Deputy Chief Censor, Sir Cecil Kaye, in 1927. There was also a ball at Viceroy House and a fancy dress ball at the Imperial Delhi Gymkhana Club, with a band playing tunes like You just You, You’re the Cream in my Coffee, You were Meant for Me, Wonderful You, with supper after eight dances, mostly assorted foxtrots and waltzes (spelt valses).
On New Year’s Day every station had its parade, with uniforms at their smartest, buttons gleaming in the sun, the band playing and complicated manoeuvres performed, all in honour of the King-Emperor. Everyone turned out to watch this spectacle. ‘Went to the New Year’s Parade,’ ran the youthful Claudine Gratton’s diary for 1937. ‘Michael came in to drinks and we all acted the goat, and he lay down on the sofa with his head on my bosom, the angel. In the afternoon slept in the garden.’ In the evening was the inevitable film. ‘Went to see Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone and Robert Taylor in The Gorgeous Hussy. Very good and rather sad.’
For Katherine Welford, New Year’s Day held more than the parade. It was the day the Burma Shell agents came from all over South India to pay their respects to her uncle. ‘We were up very early (after seeing the New Year in) to receive them. We stood on the wide veranda and one by one the agents salaamed and placed beautiful garlands round our necks. I still have one of these, made with fine gold thread.
‘They brought presents, cases of champagne, tropical fruits and Elizabeth Arden cosmetics for my aunt. It was a company rule that only presents that could be consumed were to be accepted. Uncle Maurice told me that one year he was given a silver salver with his crest engraved on it, not one but several, making a design all over it. Of course, it had to be returned.’
Not all the Fishing Fleet girls, however young and pretty, met a future husband. Katherine herself, who arrived with about twenty others, commented that only three of them became engaged during that cold-weather season. ‘I met stacks of young men,’ she said. ‘It was marvellous. After a visit to the Hills I returned to Madras for eight days – and went out with eight different men. I almost lost my heart – but I felt I was too young to settle down.’
8
The Viceroy’s Daughter
Elisabeth Bruce
As a daughter of the Viceroy, Lady Elisabeth Bruce, known in the family as Bessie, was in the highest echelon of the Fishing Fleet. She was pretty, modest, self-contained, helpful to her mother in her public duties and a companion to her father on his walks What made her unusual was a great power of observation, put to good use in the comprehensive diaries she kept from the moment she came out to India. The husband who eventually captured her heart was, in the best tradition of viceregal circles, one of His Ex’s household.
Bessie arrived in Bombay in January 1894, aged sixteen and a half. As her father, the 9th earl of Elgin, was the incoming Viceroy, they were received with much pomp and ceremony. Brought up in Scotland, Bessie was amazed by the contrast. ‘It is a new wonderful undreamt of land . . . a few minutes ago, along a scarlet carpet spread from the bungalow to the chief entrance [of Government House] passed a little procession. H[is] E[xcellency], supported on each side by two attendants dressed in scarlet, holding brass clubs; followed by Her E. in a low dress, with a man carrying a parasol over her head. She wore the tiara, the diamond necklace, two diamond bracelets, her diamond ring and the Fleur de Lys, on a plain black gown, which suited her very well.’
It was an effective introduction to the formality and grandeur that would henceforth surround the Elgins and the impressionable Bessie realised this at once – even in her private diary she refers to her father and mother as ‘His Ex.’ and ‘Her Ex.’, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to remember that she is talking of much-loved parents.
Before they set off for Calcutta, then the seat of government, there were visits, and a state banquet and reception. Bessie, still in the schoolroom at sixteen, did not attend but kept a watchful and admiring eye on the clothes. It was an era when in the evening silks and satins predominated, ‘jewels’ usually meant diamonds, and feathers, lace and flowers were the accepted accessories. Her mother ‘looked beautiful’ in a white silk dress with bunches of purple anemones, pearls and diamonds and Bessie’s young cousin, Elsie Bruce, wore ‘a bride’s white satin dress’.
Elsie was an unabashed member of the Fishing Fleet: before leaving England she had announced her intention of marrying within the year. She had come out as lady-in-waiting to the Vicereine. The Viceroy’s staff was of course much larger – a Military Secretary, a Medical Adviser and various ADCs, about four at a time, officers seconded from their regiments, with the honorary rank of captain, and a Private Secretary, a twenty-nine-year-old civil servant called Henry Babington Smith. He was a rising star; he was also extremely good-looking and, as Bessie was to learn later, a wonderful dancer.
The viceregal party arrived in Calcutta on 27 January 1894 to a huge reception, ‘troops, colours, a dazzling and most orderly crowd, from which came a kind of low buzzing that rolled on with the procession (the people here never shout, they only salaam and smile), shops were closed, every balcony crowded, the body guard and volunteers following H.E.s carriage rattling their swords . . .’. They were met by the outgoing Viceroy, Lord Lansdowne, who led them through the marble halls with their chandeliers and busts of Roman emperors (captured from the French) but, regretting the absence of the electric light she was used to, Bessie noted that ‘there does not seem to be much likelihood of our having other light than parafine [sic] lamps and candles’.
A ceremony that deeply impressed this young Scots girl was the reviewing of the Bodyguard, the Viceroy’s personal corps, ‘at the beginning by daylight, at the end the lances were glittering in the moonbeams. It looked such a perfect little regiment, as divided into six columns, with the sergeants in front; they moved round their reviewing field, then passed in single file before His E.’s carriage, the first five officers with swords, which they lowered as a salute; the two British captains have a leopard skin over the saddle and have horse clothes beautifully embroidered in thick gold thread; they themselves have white helmets, & in every thing else resemble other soldiers; all officers’ horses have a red tassel underneath the chin. It was quite wonderful to see them keep in line so beautifully & manage their horses so well, when they had become impatient from waiting such a long time.’ Unfortunately, her father was very tired after long hours in Council and ‘his carriage being stationed under a tree, the mosquitoes fell upon him in droves’.
One of the Viceroy’s chief recreations was to go for long walks, often accompanied by Bessie and only marred by the standing regulation that a policeman had to accompany the Viceroy whenever he went for a walk. Fortunately, the officer concerned was thoughtful and empathetic: ‘such a nice man, who so entirely understands what a disagreeable thing it must be to be constantly dogged in this way that when we stand still, he hides behind a tree, or pretends to be near us by accident, in such a way that H.E. has said several times that he does not care how many policemen are behind him’.
An important feature of the household was the viceregal band, which played at dinner and at dances, and followed the Viceroy up to Simla when he moved there for the summer. Mercifully, rehearsals were conducted some way away; after the arrival of the Elgins the band began to practise playing reels.
Soon the hot weather began. By 2 March, with the heat increasing daily yet the routine remaining as rigid as ever, ‘when the gong rang, panting forms in muslin, flannelette or silk gathered in the Throne Room for luncheon, which is still supplied with roast beef and boiled puddings, like on a day of 0° at home . . .’. It was a relief to Bessie when, on the evening of 9 March, she set out on the thousand-mile train journey to Simla in the company of her two younger sisters, Christian and Veronica, two ADCs, their governess, a ladies’ maid, countless Indian servants and two dogs, arriving there three days later.
Bessie’s days in Simla were strictly organised. She worked with her governess and sisters in the schoolroom from eight until nine in the morning, followed by breakfast, then an outing, usually in rickshaws, from ten until half past eleven. After this there was more schoolroom work until 1.45; then came luncheon, more work from three until five, the end of the schoolroom day. In the evening the young ladies were taught tennis by the ADCs, with the rickshaw men as ball boys ‘who will on no account lend each other a ball and sometimes nearly fight’.
Sometimes the girls ‘had dinner with the gentlemen’ (the four young ADCs and Henry Babington Smith) and afterwards danced – reels, polkas, valses – ending up with the full curtsey they would have to make to their father on formal occasions. There were visits to The Retreat, the Viceroy’s weekend cottage in Mashobra, six miles from Simla and a thousand feet higher, in spring surrounded by banks of violets in the pine woods, wild roses and pale pink and white begonias. Here there were walks, scrambling over the rocks, more tennis and in the evenings teaching the ADCs the Scottish dances the Elgin family loved and in which the young men had to be proficient for the Simla Season about to begin.
After Simla, with its greater freedom, the viceregal household with the Government of India in its train returned to Calcutta, arriving on 15 December 1894. There were reviews, investitures, parades and a formal visit from the Maharaja of Mysore. ‘His Excellency looked very well in white silk stockings and white knickerbockers instead of trousers. Her Excellency stood beside him in dark blue velvet with her diamonds . . . all the dresses were like long dinner gowns; only one or two had court trains; very many had a veil and feathers.’
The relentless round continued, with entertaining, church parades, a garden party on 27 December and an evening party where H.E. and his hostess sat on a sofa on a dais ‘quite commanding everything, with their feet on a large tiger skin’. There was a fancy dress ball, a state ball, grand dinners at Government House every Thursday, as the heat gradually grew worse: on 19 March the garden party at Government House ‘fortunately did not last long as the rain began and there was a great deal of lightning all evening I hope a storm will come; it might clear away the smallpox which is so bad’.
Bessie was lucky enough to leave again for Simla on 22 March, staying en route at Lucknow, where ‘the mosquitoes were quite dreadful, they sing and buzz round one’s head all evening’, reaching Simla after sunset on 29 March, where it was very cold, followed by rain and thunder for the next few days. As the weather warmed, there were expeditions, the usual round of formal entertaining, dancing after dinner with the ADCs and Henry Babington Smith and, sometimes, games. ‘Mr B.S. played backgammon with me & I lost three times & went to bed. It is such a very nice game – he plays very well indeed.’ The summer was notable for the arrival of a primitive telephone service, beset with unlikely teething troubles – a bell that would not stop ringing at the other end, ‘ear tubes’ that did nothing but crackle and the need sometimes to shout at the top of one’s voice.
The days passed with their storms, mists, rain, brilliant sunshine, visits to Mashobra, walks, the household’s discovery that their servants were much better at using the telephone than they were themselves and, for Bessie, the planning, rehearsing and performing of an eighteenth-century gavotte with her sister, two friends and the male members of the household. There was also the incipient idea of a flower collection, that typical pastime of Victorian young ladies, which would have an unexpected outcome for Bessie.
They left Simla in late October 1895, returning to Calcutta via several states, travelling in the Viceroy’s special train. In the first coach, the Royal Saloon, sat H.E., in the second Royal Saloon were Bessie, her mother and an English maid, then came coaches devoted to dining and cooking, followed by those for the staff; in the final five carriages the fi
rst two were for the sixty-odd servants, the last three for luggage and horses. They wound up at Poona – more ceremony, parades, reviews and a grand ball – followed by another train journey to visit the Nizam of Hyderabad, supposed to have 800 wives, who gave a dinner for 360 in their honour.
Back in Calcutta, Bessie’s father finally succumbed to one of the illnesses that then abounded in India (classified by the viceregal doctor as a chill on the liver). Combined with the poor health of her mother, who had suffered from chronic fatigue, headaches and general malaise since arriving in India, this made for a depressing Christmas. Towards the end of January 1896, with both Excellencies still ill, they were ordered that universal Victorian panacea, ‘sea air’, in the form of a cruise on the SS Warren Hastings, leaving Bessie as the nominal hostess in Government House – a challenge indeed to an eighteen-year-old girl.
Fortunately (for Bessie) the death of Prince Henry of Battenburg, husband of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Beatrice, meant that Court mourning was announced soon after her first dinner party and this put an end to all formal entertaining – but did not prevent a visit to a museum with two friends and Henry Babington Smith. ‘Then we had tea in Mr B.S.’s room and he showed us his microscope which is a Christmas present. It is most interesting, & I do not at all like hearing it called a toy; it is a real instrument . . .’. A few days later she joined her parents on the Warren Hastings cruise; by the time of the final return to Calcutta in early February, her father had completely recovered; and on 27 March they left for Simla again. Here, for the first time, she danced at the state ball, though retiring from it early.
But the past two years had been so punctuated by illness of one sort or another, afflicting everyone from the Viceroy down, that sporadic sickness had come to be taken for granted. The ADCs suffered everything from sunburn, inflamed mosquito bites and injuries from polo and the newly fashionable sport of bicycle riding, to fevers of different sorts; the Vicereine was never really well and even the robust Bessie herself was sometimes under the weather. Finally, after another exhausting tour of the princely states, with its accompanying succession of formal dinners, hours watching parades and reviews and the entertainment of various worthy dignitaries, with the Vicereine newly pregnant and the Viceroy in poor health and with a broken finger, the viceregal party arrived back at Calcutta on 10 December 1896.
The Fishing Fleet Page 13
