# An American Girl in India/Chapter 16

CHAPTER XVI
SOME OLD FRIENDS AND SIR PETER TWEET
Someone has eaten ham sandwiches in the Jumma Musjid. It doesn't sound very dreadful unless you know, and I guess the people who ate those ham sandwiches didn't know. But, as everybody says, they ought to have known. Fortunately, I am not a sandwichy sort of person myself, and I had sternly repressed Berengaria's desire to go armed to the State Entry with a nasty little paper packet of them. For all I know, that little paper packet may have contained ham. Anyway, it was lucky we left them behind, for I should never have felt quite the same again if I had eaten ham sandwiches in the Jumma Musjid.
You see, it was like this. Anything in the way of pig is Anathema to the Mussulman, who consequently knows nothing of the delights of ham, bacon, and pork. It's not a mere fast-on-Friday sort of thing: they are forbidden during all their lives to touch it. That's why I am so particularly glad I was not born a Mahomedan. If I was told that there was anything I must not eat as long as I ​lived, I should at once feel that life was not worth living without a taste of it. I feel quite sure I should never be able to resist the temptation, and I guess I should succumb and eat it on the sly, and then despise myself ever afterwards, especially if I didn't like the taste of it. But still, when other people have prejudices, I always respect them. I don't believe in playfully dropping cockroaches on to people who have a horror of them, or jumping cats out of bags upon people who have a natural antipathy to them. I wouldn't go and kill a cow on a Hindu's doorstep, or give him beef in a mince under the name of mouton just for a joke. Consequently, I sympathised with the Mahomedans when they got angry because infidels had eaten ham sandwiches in their great Cathedral mosque. It was as bad as if a Mahomedan had gone into Westminster Abbey smoking a hookah, and I guess that would have made the Dean and Canons just wild. It seems that the Mahomedans objected to smoking in their mosque, too, and it was said that we should not be allowed inside again to see the fireworks on the following night as arranged. It was even whispered that the Viceroy was advised not to go. So great was the religious indignation supposed to be that the officials were actually afraid for his safety. 'I am going,' is reported to have been the Viceroy's characteristic reply to the chief of police, who gave the warning. 'You will be responsible for my safety.' Which must have comforted that official greatly.
It was while we were at the polo that afternoon, ​discussing the possibilities that might happen, that I suddenly spotted the three old ladies of my eventful train journey from Bombay to Bandalpur. I don't think I should ever have known them if there had not been three of them together. It was quite evident that they belonged to that large class of English people who believe in wearing their very oldest and shabbiest clothes when travelling. At the polo they appeared really beautifully dressed. They were not even dressed alike, as they had been on the journey, though, of course, being so much alike, and three together, they could not help being a bit quaint. I looked out anxiously for that nephew. When I couldn't see him anywhere round I began to feel real murderous. I looked at those three dear old aunts again. They were sitting in a row, sweet and simple, and delightfully contented with themselves. Surely they would not look like that if a nephew had treated them badly. But still, they were probably a good forgiving old trio, and perhaps love made them blind; but if I found that that nephew had made an excuse to desert them, and was skittling round the corner with some pretty girl or other, I would find him out, and give him 'a piece of my mind,' as Ermyntrude would say.
After one of the chukkers I went over and spoke to them. They purred with pleasure when they saw me, and were delightfully demonstrative. Now I admit it, I love being purred over, and the future looked black for that nephew if he had wounded the feelings of these dear old aunts.
'We wondered in which camp you were,' purred ​Martha, holding my hand, and smiling all over her dear kind old face.
'We are so pleased to see you again,' chirped Jane, trying to possess herself of that same hand.
'You must come to see us,' said Anne, and she put her hand upon my arm persuasively.
I really was glad to see them again, and I said so. I hate people who really are glad to see you, and don't tell you so. And then I mentioned their nephew.
'Oh, our nephew!' exclaimed Martha, with a little comic despairing motion of the hands.
'Yes, what do you think?' smiled Jane mysteriously.
'The very reason of our coming out to India, too,' laughed Anne.
'What happened?' I asked, relieved, knowing from their manner that, though something had happened, yet all was well.
'What do you think?' said Martha. 'We found on arrival at Mehernugger that he had just left for home.'
'He was evidently going to give us a surprise, and so had not written,' supplemented Jane.
'Just in the same way that we were going to surprise him,' said Anne.
A dreadful horrible thought entered my mind. Had my telegram really done that?
'So we have passed one another on the way,' Martha was saying, disappointed, but quite happy and amused.
'It was all our fault for not telling him we were ​coming,' confessed Jane in the manner of one confessing a sin she was really rather proud of.
'But we did so want to give him a surprise,' pleaded Anne, still quite confident of the welcome that would have awaited her had that nephew been at hand.
'They say great minds think alike,' I said gaily. 'and there you were both thinking of giving one another a surprise at the same time.'
It was a great temptation to ask them when that nephew had left Mehernugger. They had said that he had just started for home. Could that mean two days before they arrived? After he had received my warning telegram? Could leave be obtained in a short space of time like that? I wondered greatly. But evidently the aunts were unsuspicious, and though I was real curious to know if it was my telegram announcing their arrival that had sent their nephew flying straight off home, I forebore. I wouldn't for the world have aroused suspicion in those dear contented minds, so I gave that unknown young man the benefit of the doubt. He had not hurt the feelings of the three old ladies whatever he had done, and that, after all, was the main thing. What does it matter if people hurry down a side street to avoid me when they see me coming if I don't see them do it? It's only when they let me see them in the act that I get annoyed. Ignorance is always bliss, so perhaps, after all, my telegram had opened out a way of escape that had not crossed my mind at the time I sent it off.
I often sat with those dear old ladies watching ​the polo after that. Nobody really watched the polo, except a few enthusiasts, and a few others who thought it good form, and kind of sporting like, to simulate an enthusiastic interest in it. But to me it was a perfectly fascinating sight. The smooth, green polo-grounds might have competed with Hurlingham, and not been ashamed, while as for the games themselves, the competition for the Viceroy's International Cup, open to the world, brought together some of the finest teams you could wish to see. The final between Alwar and Jodhpur was grand, the Maharajah of each State playing for his side, and great was the enthusiasm for the winning team, not so much because it was Alwar, as because it had come out on top after such a splendid and well-fought fight.
We saw the fireworks from the Jumma Musjid after all, in spite of vague prognostications. It was there that I met Sir Peter Tweet.
'He's one of the Government of India curiosities,' Berengaria whispered to me just before she introduced him. I am not sure that I should have let Berengaria introduce him if I could have prevented her. But I hadn't time. He was a man with a shaggy beard, and I've no use for men with beards of any kind. But he proved interesting as a curiosity.
He sat down beside me, and I saw at once that he was worried and nervous about something.
'I can't think why I came,' he said plaintively, as we watched the rockets and sprays and wonderful huge Katherine wheels.
'To the fireworks?' I asked, surprised at his ​dismal tone. I was rather enjoying them. I always like things like fireworks—bright and fizzy and beautiful and not too long.
'To Delhi,' he said, and positively groaned about it. 'To Delhi in general and to the fireworks in particular.'
'You can't think why you came to Delhi?' I repeated, looking at him to see if he really were serious. He certainly was original. Everybody I had met hitherto had been lauding everything up to the skies. Sir Peter Tweet was the first man I had met who didn't know why he had come.
He turned and looked at me solemnly.
'It ought never to have been allowed,' he said ponderously, as if he were delivering judgment. 'It ought never to have been allowed. It's a positive danger to human life.'
'Which?' I exclaimed, 'the Durbar or the fireworks?' He had such a weighty manner with him that anybody imaginative like me began to feel danger to human life hovering about in the air all round one straight away.
He waved his hand over the Champs de Mars.
'Could anything be more dangerous than that?' he asked impressively, 'or than this?' waving his hand over the orderly, highly respectable crowd of spectators in the Jumma Musjid. A huge rocket went off with a whizz that positively made me start.
'But why?' I exclaimed, battling against the growing conviction that somehow it must be very dangerous if Sir Peter Tweet said it was. If the Government of India listened to his words with ​reverence, who was I that I should disbelieve? Suddenly a magnificent display of golden light illuminated the whole scene. The effect was weird, glorious, never to be forgotten. The crowd, dense-packed, a seething mass of humanity betrayed into emotion beyond their wont, gesticulating, exclaiming, filled the vast space below, and stretched in one unbroken mass, a sea of heads, right up to the ramparts of the Fort outlined against the sky beyond.
'Ah!' Sir Peter drew a deep breath. It reminded me of the exclamation, half of wonder, half of awe, that a little boy gives out of the darkness at a Sunday school treat when a limelight picture is suddenly thrown upon the screen.
'Now do you understand?' he asked. Suddenly the golden lights shot high up into the air, hovered a moment, and then, falling quickly, one by one, went out. Below was nothing but the darkness. The scene that had stood out clear as day a moment before seemed nothing but a picture of the brain. It was fascinating.
'Just think what it would be like to be down among that crowd!' Sir Peter's voice sounded melodramatic in the darkness. I laughed nervously.
'But we are right up here out of its way in the Jumma Musjid,' I said, determined not to be depressed.
He looked at me again impressively.
'I think of the two we should be safer down below in the crowd,' he said.
A squib—not an ordinary squib, but magnified ​fifty times like everything else at Delhi—seemed to shoot out straight for the place where we sat.
Sir Peter leaned over towards me mysteriously.
'Have you not heard of the ham-sandwiches?' he asked in a whisper. 'Have you heard nothing of the fanaticism of the East? Do you think they are going to let a thing like that pass unavenged? Think what they could do. Practically all the Europeans are gathered here to-night. They could wipe us out with one stroke.'
I shuddered. It would be so unpleasant to be wiped out. I looked round for Berengaria and John, but they had disappeared. There was no help for it. I had to listen to Sir Peter Tweet.
'Think of all that vast crowd,' he went on. 'Think of what it contains. All the worst scoundrels in India are probably collected there. They would have to sacrifice their Jumma Musjid, but what would they care for that compared with the havoc they could work among the infidels? And think of the loot they would find in our tents after they had blown us up? Isn't that temptation enough alone, even leaving aside the ham sandwiches?' He leaned closer to me and spoke slowly and impressively. 'It wants only one fanatic or one scoundrel among all that vast crowd to do it. One man unaided could wipe us all clean out.'
I shuddered again. I felt like a figure on a slate with a nasty damp sponge hanging over me.
Again a mass of changing light shot up into the air, making everything clear as day in wonderful tints of red and blue and gold. It seemed in some ​strange mysterious way to bring Sir Peter's gloomy forebodings within the range of possibility. One long gasping exclamation of wonder and delight swept through the vast crowd, swaying it from end to end.
'But surely they are all loyal,' I said, trying to shake off the uncanny feeling that was taking possession of me.
'Loyal,' he repeated contemptuously. 'Loyal, it may be. But what does the loyalty of the crowd weigh against the one man who throws the bomb?'
'Oh, surely that is one of the things the native of India has not yet done,' I protested.
'It is merely a question of time,' he stated decisively. 'Eventually they will find out their strength. Then heaven help those of us who are still left here.'
We had nearly come to the end of the fireworks. They were showing portraits in fire—wonderful likenesses of the Viceroy and Vicereine, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, and Lord Kitchener. They kind of gave me confidence. They were so very prosaic after those strange and fantastic displays of dancing, dazzling lights. But Sir Peter still harped on tragedies.
'Let alone actual premeditated violence, the danger is appalling enough,' he was saying. 'You never can tell what an Eastern crowd may do. Panic may suddenly seize it, or a wave of fanaticism sweep it off its feet and rob it of all self-control and reason. Or even given none of these things, hundreds may be trampled upon and crushed to death in the ​darkness in the endeavour to get away when the show is over. To bring a crowd like that together is to court disaster. It is absolutely criminal.'
People were beginning to go, and I looked round hopefully for Berengaria. But I felt already that I should be kind of nervous and not sleep well that night.
'But nothing has happened yet,' I said, determined to be cheerful to the last.
'Ah,' he said, looking at me with a curious expression, 'ah, so people think. But they don't know.' He nodded his head mysteriously. I looked inquiry. He lowered his voice, and glanced round furtively. 'Dreadful things have happened,' he whispered, 'but—they've hushed them up.'
'But why did you come to Delhi if you think it is all as bad as this?' I asked as he helped me on with my cloak.
'Because I had to,' he whispered significantly. 'We were given no choice—we had to come. Native princes and Government officials, we're all alike, were simply dragged along at the chariot wheels.' His voice sank lower still and grew more mysterious. 'There are lots of us dying, dying of the cold, the fatigue, the anxiety, nay, some of us have died, but—they've hushed it up.'
Sir Peter Tweet himself looked so careworn and anxious that I became quite sympathetic.
'Oh, do take care. Don't die, Sir Peter,' I said.
'No,' he replied, 'no, I won't if I can help it, though it would serve them right. But I won't, because—they would only hush it up if I did.'
​Just then Berengaria came up. Most of the people had already gone. But Sir Peter showed no signs of coming away.
'Aren't you coming?' asked Berengaria as we moved off.
'Not until the crowd has quite dispersed,' he said seriously. 'I will wait till then. The whole show is dangerous enough without unduly tempting Providence.'
So we bade him good night and left him there.
'Isn't he a curiosity?' laughed Berengaria as we went away. 'He's a perfect old woman, and gives himself a dreadful time imagining horrible things. He is the very last man who ought to have come to India. This country is a place where you are quite safe really, but where there are lots of awful things you can imagine if you are built that way.'
We found our carriage wonderfully easily considering the dense mass of vehicles that lined the roads, and we drove home without mishap of any kind through the good-tempered gossiping native crowd.
It was not until the day we were leaving Delhi that I saw Sir Peter Tweet again.
'I began to wonder what had happened to you and if you had ever got home from the fireworks,' I said.
He looked at me solemnly.
'You haven't heard?' he asked. 'You really mean to say that you haven't heard?'
Sir Peter, ridiculous as he was, had a wonderful way of impressing you at the moment.
​'No,' I said, 'what has happened?'
'So you've never heard,' he said, regarding me solemnly, tragically, reproachfully. 'I ought to have known that they would do it. I've been very ill, and—they've hushed it up.'
And yet Sir Peter Tweet is one of the leading lights in the world of men!
That is one of the things that has puzzled me all through life. How is it possible for a man to be a leading light and a fool at the same time? Yet lots of people manage it. Sir Peter Tweet's name is a kind of household word. He's about at the top of the tree in his own particular line, yet look what an extraordinary individual he is when you meet him outside. And it's just the same with so many other bright and shining lights that you hear so much about. They give you a dreadful shock when you first meet them. Of course, one does not expect very clever people to shine socially too, but still one does expect something. I guess even if you took the Front Bench and mixed them up with the other members, you would never be able to find them again unless you took very great care. But still, it is a great pity that more leading lights can't be found in India who would still be leading lights even when you had dragged them out from the gloom of their secretarial offices.
There's a good story told of one leading light who only shone at the office desk. He wasn't exactly handsome and he knew it, and was sad. He was never known to look jovial or to smile, and his friends playfully called him behind his ​back 'The Ugliest Man in Asia.' Well, a new leading light from home was arriving to join the select circle among the Simla snows, and all the other leading lights went out to welcome him. The ceremony over, they adjourned to the club, where India always does adjourn when the business of the day is over, and they one and all noticed a strange gleam in the eye of 'The Ugliest Man in Asia' that they had never noticed there before. He ordered a peg straight away—a thing he seldom did. He drank it off at one go and ordered another—a thing he had never done before. And then he actually beamed upon the other astonished leading lights.
'By Jove, old fellow,' they said, 'what's up?'
'Have a drink,' he cried—'have drinks all round,' he added recklessly—he who had never so much as given his dearest friend a 'split' before. 'Have drinks all round.'
Mechanically they took the drinks, and waited wondering.
'The Ugliest Man in Asia' raised his glass—his third.
'I've always doubted,' he said, and then he stopped and laughed and blushed all over. 'I've always doubted whether it was possible for anybody to be uglier than I am.' He stopped and laughed again, and slapped his knee. 'But, by Jove, I know now. I've seen him.'
But they tell me that public opinion was very much divided on the point, and that voting for 'The Ugliest Man in Asia' was quite a popular after-dinner game in Simla for quite a long time afterwards.