1938 June
From HPV to LJT
Chinsurah
June 1st 1938
My dearest of dears
What to add to the diary letter? I got your license renewed. I told the office to find out about the lettering and they say that the P.W.D are seeing to it – in the Monument. Following your advice and putting ammonia on what was clearly a bite near my ankle, I found that it couldn’t be a bite, for at once the skin came off, (diagram of large oval approx. 6 mm long) so much, and later my sock stuck to the place. Spider lick? Insects are thick. I run the punkha in the evening, after dinner, to keep them off: though it doesn’t. Lately I have slept without one. These days I should be sleeping well if only I didn’t wake up so often. My watch lost exactly an hour this evening. As it gains 25 minutes almost per week, what is it likely to show after three days? Furious row at Midnapore between Sen and the S.P. about the Kings Birthday Parage. Suggestion that as Sen seems to think that it is intended to be in his honour and not in the King’s, they had better not have it and if they have it at least keep it private. Sen’s offence being that he wrote on a file directions about holding the parade (which under the rules he can’t do) and also said that as he’d be in Darjeeling the Additional would take the salute – but the rule says that this must be done: only Sen and the S.P. both have copies of the rule as it was before a correction slip made this so in 1905. It beats me how Lakri Wood can be such an ass.
Did you see in the paper that the I.C.S. Gourlay is dead? The Amrita printed a panegyric about him but I fancy more with the idea of rubbing into other I.C.S. what blights we are. Strange that he should have died: he looked hearty enough always. This big strike at Asansol, these big strikes rather, will prove a nuisance. With 10000 men in one small area and 5500 in another doing nothing and hounded on by agitators, there is bound to be more or less of a bust up. A nuisance having a Deputy as District Magistrate and a promoted Indian as S.P. But I have told Stein that I have no intention of running up to Asansol merely to show zeal. I haven’t got any zeal left, I suppose.
Those spots-under-the-skin on my face have spread to my nose: as well as into my hair – where they were before but I checked them with iodine. I shall have to consult the doctor after all. But I never see him.
June is here. I must look up your garden notes. I found one of the trees from the long bed planted near the humus heap, so the mali must have been busy. After all it was not the mother’s wedding that the money was wanted for: but the chhota maker’s own wedding. Probably it will turn out that that I have misunderstood all the other stories too. – I picked up Macaulay’s Essays the other day. How satisfactory the seeing of “N ????”: a good touch. I felt that I ought to write to Henderson about it.
How dull all this is! My dear, Goodbye and much love. Funny to think that you’ve not been gone a month yet. It seems ages and ages. The enclosed effort of Marklew’s may interest you. A stout effort for one unskilled. But why does he write them?
Your Toto.
From HPV to LJT
Thursday. June 2nd
Your letter announcing your arrival has just come in. I had been wondering how soon it could be expected and was glad to get it. But one thing in it has aroused my curiosity. You mention getting letters at Port Said from various friends but do not say anything about getting one from me. I thought that I had despatched it too early, if anything, but of course may have miscalculated.
Mary Ow does write an excellent letter. What relish she has for everything! You see too how she realises that I have no friends of my own, since she refers only to my finding comfort in your friends and my work. I wish that I could write as legibly as she does, and with equal firmness of line.
The Statesman had a paragraph today about Ron the youngest explorer who ever visited Tibet returning after years and summarising his first trip as if it had been his last. It is a futile paper. He says that he hasn’t had permission to go into Tibet, yet: but the Foreign and Political Dept was helpful: and the hitch is opposition from Lhasa where objections to Europeans in Tibet have stiffened again because there is now little risk of any intrusion of Chinese.
Enterprising of the children to come up to London. Would I have done it at their age? But of course I should have thought of the money
Much love, my darling
Toto
From HPV to family No 4
Chinsura.
June 3rd. 1938.
My dear
Tired tonight; it comes on suddenly; I was in fine fettle till I sat me down to type a letter to Watson before dinner about my efforts to follow his directions regarding humus. This is the third day and there is no sign of the stuff heating up yet. Has there been an error? too much air from below? perhaps. Too little green stuff in it? maybe. Too much water? too little water? Anyhow it was my duty to write to him sometime and I chose this evening. Wrongly.
Before that I had been sawing dead wood off shrubs. And sweated. Hartley came in to talk some shop. He asked me to see a Government Movie at his house tomorrow night and to dine afterwards; I said yes. He looks very fine drawn and overworked; but says he is fine.
Silly of me to be wasting the margin like that. It has not rained today. A beautiful evening. Colours over the river; an unusually high tide; and Idris flew over and waved to me gaily. He recognised me the over evening when I was at the club as he flew over owing to my waving both arms and leaping.
Lossing came in after dinner last night to see my spots; of course they were not visible at all then – whereas this morning they were shewing up fine. He thinks poorly of Cuticura and of Germolene ointment (though this had highest awards at Paris Rome Berlin and Brussels and though Harry advises it) and asserted that the spots had no connection with eczema ringworm or the pictures at the conversazzione (but is that the right word or rightly spelt?) at the Tropical School. I cannot think what happened yesterday; getting off all the letters is a job in itself of course. I don’t think that there were interruptions but I remember thinking that I was getting behindhand. This morning Dr. Jafri came in and told me the whole history of the intrigues against him and of his joining the congress in order to get back on his enemies of whom Momen is the chief (though he thinks poorly of Fazl Huq as a universal letter-down) and of his collecting 80 or 90 members of the Assembly who have sworn to vote against Government if they do not introduce a Bill for the doing down of Momen though not by name. If ever a man had asked for people to behave snake-like to him this Bird has on his own account though he was not aware of it. However I should relish seeing Momen who after all is fat and greasy done down or done anyhow, for he has been among my adversaries these many months for the paltry reason that he doesn’t like the idea of paying my taxes. I had to learn Jafri’s tale sometime and he is interesting but he did waste my time today. The stenographer is doing a bit better, having almost learnt to leave blanks when he has not got me down; the reason why he doesn’t do better is that he is scared still of me. He doesn’t put it like that but I gather that he has heard from Secretariat stenographers that I expect a lot. The workmen are now busy in the Memsahib ka daftarkhana or small room off the drawing room. Doing quite well except that every time they take a door off (they are burning the paint off out of doors) they drop it; and as I sit below I am worn out with nervous leaps in my chair; now holding all records. But the first time it happened the stenographer turned green; he must have a weak heart. I went over to the club before dinner last night: no one there of course; I found the life of Sir William Willcocks with a reference to Miss Mcleod and her bringing him to Bengal on the second page: interesting and unexpected in the club.
Sunday June 5
Yesterday owing to my going out at seven to see the Bengali anti-terrorist film, I didn’t do any of this letter. As a film, barring the fact that I couldn’t read the Bengali captions quickly enough to finish them before the film went on, it wasn’t bad; but if the Government think that anyone inclined to terrorism would be put off it by this film they are most infallibly wrong. It was very tiring to watch. A portable set with the film wound by hand; and the flicker was as bad as in the early days of movies. Dinner afterwards and home at ten. Early to bed and I slept well enough; but I overslept myself this morning by half an hour. That is the third Sunday running that I have done this. Yet on other days I wake with a jerk at 7. Perhaps it is not a bad thing to cut out the physical jerks once a week, as happens when I am late, for they are pretty strenuous. Yesterday was a tiring sort of day. Stein came round before breakfast about the Steel strikes. He takes a long time to get to the point but seems to have made a good job of the preparations against riot; he has moved up to Kult and Hirapur 405 men. The strikers at Raniganj where the pottery and paper works are affected chose to start riots on Friday with an attempt on the power house; but luckily there was no shooting. I got a telegram to phone Hog at Darjeeling at 12. Several people came in during the morning notably Tarak Mukherjee, Chairman District Board, who spoke about the Hooghly-Howrah scheme. He has been haranguing Congress people,, one of whom told him that at that conference last week where they condemned it, the leaders from Burdwan said among themselves that of course the Damodar Canal has done immense benefit though they had to deny it publicly. Tarak wanted me to give him a copy of my speech so that he might have it translated with a view to publishing it throughout the district; I told him that I did not know whether government would put up the money, and he said that they were going to pay for this themselves because they were determined that something must be done and would go ahead with agitation even if Government didn’t want it. He is arranging for meetings of leading men to arrange an organisation for this purpose and then wants a big public meeting at which he wants me to attend. Something may result maybe. He stayed till 12, and I started getting through to Hogg. It took 40 minutes to get through to him, during the last 15 of which I was holding the receiver to my ear and was being asked by the Barrackpur, Calcutta and Darjeeling exchanges at least 30 times if I was there and if I could hear, which I scarcely could. Eventually we had a very good connection and spoke without difficulty; they have the wind up and have accepted the suggestions which we made in my letter without demur. Hogg added that if we wanted them we could draw on the Eastern Frontier Rifles i.e. the Military Police; but we want men with lathis not with rifles. I wrote a letter of exhortation to the District Magistrate which roused Stein to admiration; the local officers were taking things calmly; but Stein thinks that after this letter they will jump to it. It would be easier to go up to Asansol myself, but I cannot without letting down the District Magistrate in the eyes of the public until he has been there and reported. That took me till late lunch and afterwards I dealt with files vigorously, till suddenly I felt cooked; and after a few more I went upstairs intending to lie down for half an hour. No punkah, No lights. In any of the upstairs rooms. And as it was stinking hot just then (with the shutters shut on account of driving rain) I returned to work. Actually it turned that the mistri had disengaged the main switch when playing about with some fans and had omitted to push it up again. The workmen are now knocking plaster off the walls of the upstairs office (and there are cracks two inches wide in the outer wall and in that opposite) and burning paint off the outer door of the dressing room and the door at the end of the upstairs passage. The stink is horrid; and as the doors of the office room have been taken off for paint-burning the dust from the plaster drifts out into the passage. It rained like blazes after tea. I went out and looked at the humus; the rod didn’t appear hot but when I lifted the crust off a few inches of the top the heat came up in a wave. This afternoon also the rod was cold. But I suppose that it is really working. The muck which chokes up the drain running from the gate down to the corner of the house looks as if it were most admirable leaf mould: I think that I shall cause it to be preserved. I paid the servants yesterday. This morning I went round smell-hunting and found none. The weakminded father of the chaprasi pushed past me in a doorway and then gave me lip; being surly at best and worse perhaps these days though I do not realise it till crossed, I told the old chaprasi who was there to tell the son to clear out of the godown and take the father with him. At this all-comers and the people already present rushed upon the weakwit and seizing him by the neck hurled him out. He disappeared protesting in the hands of two stalwarts. The general hope was that I might not issue an order that he was to be sacked as well; as he ought to be probably because it is certain that he is not all there and it may be doubted whether he is really of much use to Government. It appears that the son has his wife and family in the compound; and I am not likely to evict them. Also the servants in general have a suspicion that I am unlikely to; so that is that. After that I did accounts but faltered as Harry says. And I wrote three letters about people who want jobs; which is a nuisance; also one refusing to join the Burdwan club. After lunch I wrote a letter and a cheque; and added up the accounts though I have not yet taken any details out of cheque books and as they would be in your cheque book anyhow I probably cannot. Do we not pay anything towards the hospital? there seems to be no entry. Two letters from home today. The other was Rosemary’s. Interesting about the back-scratching parade. It sounds as if the school were cheiropractically-inclined; which reminds me that Boike has left Calcutta but whether for good or on a holiday Lossing who was my informant did not say. I believe that most of the good of physical jerks is in the spine twisting bending and humping. The Statesman mentioned that Ron would be staying at Rangoon till his luggage came on from Calcutta; it sounds as if he had nearly missed the boat again; but the Statesman is usually wrong in anything it says. I slept for a good hour and then lay in a swoon like till tea-time. Rain. I printed some of Harry’s race cards. And then I wrote on the typewriter to Professor Mukherjee, having destroyed what I had written before. Good stuff telling him that he was wrong from A to Z and that the Congress was wrong too, and asking him to try to persuade them to ‘lay off’. Harry is so delighted with the corresponding phrase ‘Relax, sister, relax’ out of Theodora goes Wild that he indulges in it even without cause; as when speaking to his wife. I could not say a thing like that; funny. This instalment has taken me since dinner; and now I am off to bed. Perhaps the spots are a bit less.
Monday June 6th
The purpose of the two crooked dens under the front stairs is now apparent. They are for the sheltering of frogs; there is no grappling with the frogs; or with the flies at the moment. They have come frolicking in. The manure heap is a real joy to them and there is no obvious means of tackling them until the whole lot has been delivered. It comes along irregularly, a couple of carts two days running and then a break of days. The malis have in the past two days dug up the beds on either side of the arbour-thing by the river to a depth of several feet, filled the pits with the most stenchy manure that you could wish and replanted the cannas in them. The mali proper says that he has repotted the ferns, and that he is going to pot the maidenhair fern soon; he points out nine big ferns which he said were the ones you (Joan) told him were the ones to pot (what a sentence!) whereas I should have thought that the maidenhead was the small stuff in front of them. The humus is barely warm. I cut deads all the evening off those yellow flowered things which I should classify as daisies; they have done us proud but are beginning to decline and fall over. The workmen want to mend the roof of the lodge near the front gate of the house (not of the compound) and the mali says that it will be all the better for being cut down to the roots. So there is some green stuff and last for the humus pit. I have done a lot of work today of a sort and am fagged; though I did lie down and relax for half an hour; to tell the truth I felt so limp just before that I suspected fever – but it was a false alarm. Today I wrote to ask what the P.W.D. were going to do about the cracks. Tremendous vigour in the paint-burning line; the whole house smells of it still at 9.15. Stein has telephoned that he is coming round to discuss the strikes. What more? unless by words I could communicate to you my pleasure at seeing a squirrel balancing itself along the top wire of the fence and at every post looking up to see if it were worth while trying to jump into a tree; which it was not. Enough. Funny that I had forgotten that in one of the French books a youth calls a friend ‘vieux crocodile’ and another ‘grande asperge’: very suitable phrases.
Tuesday June 7th. 1938
Stein stayed till past eleven; he is slow at saying his piece, but slower than usual last night because he was tired. On the way up to Asansol he ran into a bullock curt – unattended on the road side and the bullocks swung across the road; and on the way back the radiator choked so that he had to come from Burdwan by train. All well at the Steel Work; no riots; but the managers say that without the police there would have been. I got up at quarter to seven this morning, being deceived by my watch. Soon after breakfast there rolled up the District Magistrate of Burdwan to give his version of the strikes and of the arrangements made; he stayed some time; a nice chap but with big strikes on an I.C.S. officer would be better. He is under orders of transfer. If I had refrained from writing that gingering letter, he would not have shown zeal by coming and I should have had a free day. It is a holiday but I got only one file done; remarks on proposals to alter the Debtors Act: it was necessary to read some of the debates about it and speeches of mine during the debate: and I may tell you that they were admirable stuff. Indeed I almost feel that if I could see myself as others see me I should think that I was no end of a Bahadur. Talking of which, did you see the picture of pal Lothian stepping out of the Railway carriage to settle that row in Rajputana? That is the stuff. And it is sad that he looks as if he walked as if he were ruptured and hadn’t read the right advertisement about it. The letter from Oxford reached me today inclosing Rosemary’s and Annette’s letters. How amazing that young Hogg should look like his mother and that he should be shy! I had been certain that he was exactly like his father but not bald or heavy. There was also a letter from Winsome suggesting the 18th for their coming here but whether the house will be habitable by then I do not know. The two upper rooms have been finished but access to them is through a maze of bamboo scaffold and smell of paint of course. Letter from Watson who says that the humus probably is too wet to heat and I must wait. Lossing the other day suggested that I should play tennis on the hard court when it had been repaired, and receiving today a note that it was ready I changed and went over. Nothing doing; he and Stein were in Calcutta, the Holmans playing golf and the police boy still in office. So I returned with three old Blackwoods which I found. Do I feel lonely? I don’t know; but I was quite pleased when Stein came in.
Wednesday June 8th. 1938.
I started off to bed fairly early last night and pottered over undressing and looking at mosquito bites and smearing on lotion and such so that it was fairly late before I was in bed; and then I couldn’t get off to sleep. But none the worse for that. Interruptions this morning; including an appeal which cut the morning up badly. And again interruptions this afternoon. But I shifted no end of a lot of files. By tea time I felt done up; and so I did not go over to the tennis court where there some people playing. Instead I wandered round; gazed with gloom on the dung pit which is an inferno of flies and on the humus pit at the bottom of which is a pool of water in which midges are breeding. The thing is beyond remedy but steps shall be taken; I think of covering everything with oiled paper to defeat the grubs. The humus rod was definitely hot today; it begins. I then went off and sawed most of the branches off a shrub in the flower bed. It does not look good now; but its previous prunings had given it a twist anyhow; and I have cut out a deal of old wood anyhow. The bougainvilla looks as if had not been cut about at all. A fair number of shoots have come out low down on the stems, which is good. Hartley came in while I was still sawing; he had been called down to see Naz in Calcutta – about a Muhammadan gangle. He sat on till 8.45. discoursing.
Next week there probably will not be much of a letter. Saturday evening to Darjeeling; Sunday, if I know myself, too flabby after the hill journey to do anything; Monday evening farewell dinner to Hogg – not dodged after all; Tuesday evening dinner at Govt. House; Wednesday evening on my way to Calcutta; as I hope, but they have clapped on another conference after the first and I may be delayed. If this conference had not been postponed I could not have gone up; I should have stayed down for the strikes and may do so yet. It depends.
Much love.
From LJT to Annette
Highways
Gt Leighs
Nr Chelmsford
June 6th 1938
My darling Annette
Col. Mason is going to be very busy next week with exams and what not so I shant come down till Friday. I shall come by the 10-15 from Paddington getting to Oxford at 11-20 – I’ll take a taxi to Somerville and deposit my luggage in your room, if you don’t mind, as Gwen Petrie will come there to fetch Rosemary and myself. I’ll also ask Richard to somehow get my other suitcase to your room, as I want to change some things over – (leave evening things and take country shoes and jumper suit)
I don’t know yet whether I am allowed to have Romey out for lunch, but I suggest that anyway we meet at the Cafeteria for lunch at 1 o’clock. I shall, I think, be meeting her about 12 after the service at St Aldgates – as far as I know and if we feel lost we’ll come to your rooms – I have taken a room at the Isis Hotel for 17th to 20th, as its just as cheap as St Giles and the Pilchers will be there and it will enable me to see more of them, though I shant be so conveniently close for you –
I’ve enjoyed this week-end at Highways and done my duty by the family – for I had Auntie Hilda and Guy to lunch in Chelmsford on Saturday and yesterday I visited Uncle Len and Auntie M. from 11 till 12 – Caught a but on to Witham – had lunch with Auntie Do and tea with Auntie May and Auntie came to fetch me home – To-day we have been busy with the Village fête, which has been got up to raise funds for the Hall. It seems to have done well – There’s not much selling going on now so I have slipped home to write to you. I know I shall be pretty busy the next few days in London – You know I’m staying with Auntie Arla at 81 Coleherne Court, SW7.
Best love –
Mum
P.S. Have you any recollection of where we put the Guide Books to the French Cathedrals? I want to lend them to Mrs. Dunn and cant find them anywhere.
From HPV to LJT
Chinsura,
Thursday. June 9th
My dear, Joan
Silly to start writing on mail-day evening. But I explained in my last letter how little time there will be to write this week, and this sort of diary letter gains nothing by waiting for the staleness of my last effort to wear off. I must be more weary than I thought though, to be making so many mistakes. Little done today. I wrote half a dozen letters of congratulation to men who have been given honours, mostly in the Government of India and mostly therefore with the unexpressed feeling that they had got them more easily than if they had been in a province. And I got off the mail letters; and it is amazing how long it takes to sort out the pages and do them up in envelopes. Also I wrote half a dozen demi-official letters by hand because on the king’s birthday my stenographer doesn’t come. And that more or less mucked up the morning. Good comes out of everything. Here have I been lamenting the state of the dungpit, and all this time it has been a quick lunch counter to the squirrels and the mynahs; there were five squirrels catching flies or grubs or beetles on it when I went out there this morning and at least as many mynahs. They looked on me coldly and didn’t budge. All afternoon I laboured at confidential reports till 3.45 when I lay down and made myself limp – really managed it, I think, for I was “seeing black” as the eye-sight book prescribes. I did not put on uniform for the Birthday parade; and I distinctly felt an ass standing out there and lifting my topi whenever they saluted; “I took off me ‘at to the ‘oly name” so to speak. And I suddenly felt certain that my coat collar was turned up and my nose started itching and I felt perplexed whether or no to sheer when the “remove headgear; three cheers” order was given. From all of which I know that I was not destined to be a Governor. By luck it was a gorgeous morning; bright blue sky with fat flat-bottomed clouds and a breeze. But it made up for it later; three feet away from the punkah and I was soaked to the skin – or say six feet. I don’t know why I didn’t go over to play tennis; too slack maybe. I lounged around the garden bored stiff and eventually cut masses of deads off small yellow flowers near the bottle-khana door, though they are nearly over. Then went on to the big yellow flowers in the neighbouring big bed with the hibiscus bushes; beyond doubt they have done us proud and not finished yet maybe. I went over to the Club before changing, in case anyone was there, to show that I am not hostile or proud: but no one was there and it was both stuffy and hot.
I came back and washed my hair and bathed and had a struggle with a mosquito (it escaped, I fear) and then for twenty minutes sprawled on the sofa and read about a murder accomplished by shutting a man inside a Frigidaire; but there was no real comfort in it. They have put iron bars and filled in with bricks and reinforced concrete across the cracks in the wall; the verandah door near the desk in the upstairs office will its two sides entirely reinforced concrete. I went up on the roof and looked at cracks there this evening. Below the Bougainvilla arbour there was a group of men struggling with some queer object and I could not imagine why they should choose to bring up there away from any reasonable means of access a white cow (for such it seemed eventually to be) and then they gave a heave and it at once became clear that they were merely washing paint ashes off a folding venetian door, under the supervision naturally of the driver who has no connection with such things and can therefore pose as an expert.
Friday June 10th
A holiday again today. I am still not up to date though; having worked almost without a stop since breakfast. Telephone message from Darjeeling; Symons; to say that Government ordered me to come up to Darjeeling for the conference no matter what was happening at the Steel works. So it appears that I am in for a laborious time. I shall be like Hamlet; and I hope that I shall be able to refrain better than he from unnecessary words.
It has fortunately been a day almost without interruptions. Beautiful morning but very hot. I came in almost as soon as I went out not wishing to be sopping wet before breakfast. The mosquito bites have been a nuisance today; perhaps the virulence of the beasts, perhaps the iodine I put on them last night (for nothing else seemed to take the sting out of them) or perhaps cussedness is to blame; but they have come up in watery blisters, bunches of them. Eventually I searched the medicine chest for something like Pond’s (or is that a disinfectant?) and found nothing more promising than a bottle marked Larole which looked the pink of prickly heat lotion; but after putting it on I thought that perhaps it is really liquid face powder with no healing or soothing virtue. My ankle has swollen up a bit and there is a swelling on the front of my calf; maybe the mosquitoes responsible have been born and bred in the dung pit which is awash and so are venomous beyond the usual. The contractor is going to do the bedroom while I am in Darjeeling; he undertakes to finish in three days. The bearer is annoyed by this because he says that it ought not to be done without some responsible man to see to the moving of the furniture and things; he being it. I feel that I might have done a little more by way of arranging things; but there are limits. It has been one thing after another lately. Incidentally the stenographer has been presented with a Birthday Honour distinguished merit medal; I told him how pleased I was and I am /// But – on the other hand he may really have been good before he fell ill. At eight o’clock this evening a letter came in to say that there was nothing doing at the moment at the Strikes but that a crisis was expected; so the District Magistrate is staying down instead of coming to the conference. There may be something up because Harmer of Burn’s rang up immediately afterwards to say that Biren Mukherjee just back from Asansol was very worried about the position and wanted to run up here to see me tomorrow; I told him that I should be in Calcutta on my way to Darjeeling and finally agreed to lunch with him at the Bengal Club. A nuisance really. I went over to tell Stein first that there was something brewing perhaps and secondly that I should not be here for it. And just as I finished which was quickly there came on a drenching rainstorm which delayed me for half an hour till nine. It is already past ten and I shall be off to bed. I am dismayed to see how much I have accumulated to do in Darjeeling; besides the two conferences and talks with Ministers, I propose to try and extract orders from Home Department (3), L.S.C. (1 plus a general dust-up perhaps), Education (1), Revenue (two or three), and Rural Indebtedness (dozens almost – a general rowing about futilities of the Minister). Also I want to find out which of the high-climbing porters it is who having been sentenced to death for murder has been reprieved by the Governor. A lot for three days.
handwritten addition to Annette’s copy of letter)
June 15th
I have had less time than I thought. Felt pretty rotten in the car coming up and dead tired: so that I wrote only to your mother and went to bed early. Since then conferences. All day. My division the chief centre of debate. I refrained from being offensive but was more outspoken than any one has ever been to Ministers. A certain heat was generated.
Much love
Dad
From HPV to LJT
Chinsura
June 9th 1938
Kings Birthday
My dear Joan
I have obtained some of the thin typewriting paper at last: but this week it does not profit me, and by writing this extra sheet I am again extravagant to the extent of 2 ½ annas. Your last letter arrived covered with sticking paper and marked “found in open condition”: those foreign envelopes have bad gum. The morning the Kings Birthday Parade. I took the salute: feeling an ass and wondering why Bradley Birt and Sad disputed for the honour. Yesterday the practice feu de joie woke me with a bump: I had been awake before listening vaguely to the band. This morning too I was deep in sleep at a quarter to seven when the bearer (by previous order) brought tea. The bedroom was thick with ahum smoke at 10.30 still. I ticked the bearer off for using so much flit on the net and said to smoke it out instead. My legs are all over mosquito bites: under my office table and while I am dressing. There is one mosquito which comes regularly for a feed when I start Hornibrooks exercise no 1. Which is my no 4. Mrs Mashed wrote from Howrah asking if we would both come to lunch on Saturday: he is D.M. in place of Jerry Symons. The only white D.M. now is Hartly: and Nay asked him yesterday if he had heard anything about being moved. It may indicate that he to be moved, or it may be that Nay was making conversation forgetting that he has only just been posted here: or it may be a threat that he will be moved if he doesn’t favour Muahammadan bus owners. The Muhammadan A.S.P. has just beaten up a bus time keeper: and it is said Gordon is on the war path against him: as he admitted at once what he had done, I shall speak to Hogg in his favour when I see him in Darjeeling.
A Bohn came in yesterday bearing two letters which I had written to his father in 1911. How familiar my writing of that time. More familiar so to speak than that of today which I always regard as a failure to reproduce what it used to be: and it used to be bad, I admit.
It is less than a month since you left! Almost unbelievable
I am glad that all has gone so well with you so far and that you are pleased about Rosemary
Much love
Toto
Ever so much love, in fact
Did you see Nixon is now K.C.I.E.?
From HPV to LJT
(first page of letter missing)I
were there and we went out and leant over the rail to watch. They had a little palki thing with an image in it: and a girl leading a small boy went down and ran underneath it, after which she touched with her head every book that was carried past – how many? 75? maybe (She missed two only: one carried by a little girl two foot high and the other the biggest which a coolie woman took past at a run outside the line.) The process must have been exhausting for she was lurching about as if giddy by the time they were past. They must have had drinks somewhere else since we had seen them before: for the men who led the procession and the second lama (the precentor man) were ??? disguised in liquor. We went on into the club and fell in with the Hollands and the new Military Secretary: name already forgotten but it doesn’t matter for he dislikes the life and is going back to his regiment soon. I was very weary by lunch time: afterwards I was waylaid by Holland who wanted to talk shop. I refused but was drawn out a little and it was three before I went up to lie down. I remained there for an hour and a half and do not whether I slept. But even now after tea, I feel jaded and disinclined to look at files for tomorrows discussion.
June 15th
My dear, letter writing has been impossible. The conference means going at 9.30 getting back at 1.20: going at 2.30 getting back at 5.30 (one day) going at 3.15 getting back at 6.15 (the next) On Monday evening I went up to the Janvrins to see Miss Pierce and bumped into a cocktail party. She was putting the kids to bed and then changing: so it was ages before she came down. I had ¼ hour to change in before going to the Hogg dinner. Yesterday evening my hour off (so to speak) was taken up by Manilal D???? At Govt House.
I am fagged out after breakfast. This conference has been a strain. They did not get my head on a charger as they had said they would: and almost all the Indian officers came to me afterwards (not together) and thanked me for having spoken so strongly for them. The old warrior Fazl Huq came out of it very well really: he bears no malice - but some of the others – well, I don’t know if there will be any lasting bad feeling.
Much love your Toto
From HPV to family
Chinsura.
Bengal.
Saturday, June 18th 1938
My dear Funnies,
Back from Darjeeling and glad to be so. It was much too much of a good thing to be kept at conferences all day without a pause except for meals which tended to be extensions of the conferences, so greatly did all indulge in the talking of shop. The first day’s conference opened with a request by the Governor for perfect frankness and plain speaking, and I for one took this literally. Every Collector in turn (there were perhaps ten or eleven present) told of the facts relating to his district; all very well and without much annoyance on the part of Ministers till it came to the turn of Sen, Collector of Midnapore; he spoke with the utmost bluntness about the way that he had been let down by the Ministers in Midnapore, a thing of which maybe I have told already in letters. There was more than a bit of a breeze; and some plain speaking to him by Ministers, by which he was in no way abashed for he was perfectly in the right. This brought us up to lunch time on the first day. No, it did not; after Sen, the other four Commissioners were questioned – or maybe hot; my memory already is fuzzy. Anyhow it was my turn to speak after lunch and I was the last. There was a rather annoying attitude of hushed expectation about; some one said Now for the star witness! and somebody else added Or accused! But they got their money’s worth before it ended. I spoke with almost blameworthy moderation to begin with but when Ministers tried to justify themselves by making rather silly insinuations that I had no facts to support me I spoke rather more pungently: and there was a good deal of a row. Some of the Ministers said things; and the Governor actually said to one “ If you say a thing like that to any officer again, I shall leave this meeting.” Which was followed by an awful silence. What had been said I did not hear. It was unfortunate that the more the Ministers questioned me the more damaging the facts that they extracted from me as it were against my will, but finally the Prime Minister had a whack at me – and though I say so got the worse of it. Actually I have telescoped two sittings. The ticking off of the Ministers was after I had spoken on the next occasion, after the other Commissioners had had their turn, on the steps which must be taken to meet the crisis. Before me Kindersly and Dash had recommended that we should be allowed to use certain powers that have been withdrawn for futile political reasons, and Fazl Huq had intervened to explain to his own satisfaction that they were wrong in their views and that the powers need not be restored because of this and that consideration. It therefore occasioned fury and heat when with the utmost blandness and obvious unconsciousness that I could possibly be giving offence I followed up some remarks about the advisability of showing firmness and of trying not to let their officers down by adding that of course the aforesaid powers were essential and giving reasons for this view which they failed to contravert – although like fools, seeing that they as Ministers had no need to justify themselves to us their officers, they made efforts to do so. Moreover they tried to best me by sarcasm and witticisms at my expense and I regret to say, came off badly, for twice at least there was a roar of laughter at my reply led by the Governor and by the Ministers who were not at the moment having a whack at me. I regret again to have to say that on each occasion it was the Prime Minister who bumped into me; but he took it well with a grin like a heavy weight taking punishment. Not my metaphor; Johston, the ex-U.P. man, said to the afterwards ‘You got in some heavy body blows on the Prime Minister’. It was curious. All the Indian Collectors came up and thanked me for having “spoken in their defence” afterwards, one by one independently. And the Governor at dinner that night (Tuesday) thanked me for having rubbed into the Ministers things which he had totally failed to get them to see at all. To tell truth I spoke with a suave brutality which no Governor could have used towards Ministers and which, for that matter, no officer should have; but when the Governor said that everything was to be spoken frankly, I had to speak what I had written or be exposed to the retort that I had written what I knew to be untrue. It was a nuisance that they piled on so many conferences; they kept on sending round wads of papers with the intimation that their subject would be discussed next morning or afternoon and there was no time to read them. Having to go out to dinner the first two nights, Monday and Tuesday, and to lunch the second two days, Wednesday and Thursday, was a poisonous nuisance. Dinner first in honour of Hogg who made quite a good but interminable speech; and next at the Governor’s which was on the whole a heavy affair, with much trying to make Indian Collectors feel at their ease. But the English Collectors also are depressingly respectful; however all seemed pleased with my having spoken so frankly and it may even be that what I said will help them later. My times off were Monday and Tuesday evenings; but both were taken up by duties. On Monday I went up to the Janvrins’ to see Lovie. I butted into a cocktail party; pleasant enough with people there whom I knew – among them Miss Wares as was – the one who became engaged in our house at Jalpaiguri, may be now Mrs Cargill, whom I mention only because she asked to be remembered to you. Lovie was upstairs putting the two children to bed (charming friendly kids who thought they knew me because they have heard so many tales of Annette and Rosemary and knew of me as their daddy) and afterwards dressing. The Janvrins insisted on my waiting till she came down though it meant my cutting short my time for dressing for the dinner, and it was really rather inconvenient, But what a charming creature Lorna Janvrin is! Probably this is because she holds herself so upright and (of course) is so slim. When Miss Pearce did arrive I stopped on perhaps fifteen minutes. She is looking extraordinarily smooth and pink, and should be looking very young for that reason but does not. There is something strangely old-maidish about her. She seemed pleased to see me and certainly was pleased to hear about the two girls and to tell me about them. What more? she appears to be happy with the Janvrins, and the two children appear devoted to her. Mani Lal was there and insisted on walking down the hill with me. This meant that we had to go through Rockville, whereas if I had been alone I should have short-cutted straight down to the Club by the back way; and as it was drenching I got my trousers soaked. I had rickshaws two nights because of the rain.
The chief change in Darjeeling is that they have removed the bandstand (and strangely enough, now that it is gone, they have a band playing there) and they have put up concrete balustrades with ornamental lanterns all round the Chowrasts. The piece of land above it where the little watchmaker used to be in the older days has been taken over and the bandstand is to be up there with a garden. The tower at the club which was damaged in the earthquake has been replaced by a plain wooden staircase which is an improvement because it no longer makes the room behind it dark. There are new curtains in the old library in the Gymkhana club and it was fairly clean; Duplock is no more beautiful than before. Bosecks’ has given up; the shop which used to be Harrison Hathaways is now some sort of cheap library. Mrs Wrangham has set up a hairdressers; but why does she do this? I should have thought that he was fairly well off.
Nearly eleven; I shall go to bed. But I must tell you a thing; unprecedented. I have had people in to dinner. The Holmans, Stein and the new police lad Carman. I have never before asked anyone of my own volition. The real cause was that Harry and Winsome who were coming up today had to go off to Golmuri instead (for the strike: at least he had to, and she went too because he has been off colour and she is worried about him) and the domestics were greatly distressed about the probable waste of the mean and the vegetables and the chocolates etc which we had brought up from Calcutta for their entertainment. They went off at ten; she had to go back to the baby and the others went when she did – this was probably the making of the party, but they appeared to enjoy themselves and anyhow they were comparatively cool in our drawing room which must have been a pleasant change.
Sunday June 19th 1938
Again today I overslept myself but not by much. Either I was more done in or up by the Darjeeling trip than I thought or my not having done my physical jerks for a whole week has had deleterious effects.
As to Darjeeling not much more to be said; on the Tuesday evening when I got back well after six and tired out, I found Raja Mani Lal Singh Ray waiting for someone who didn’t come in for ages and I felt bound to entertain him. We started telling with intense relish the story of the dinner to Miss Helen or maybe Ellen Wilkinson at H.E.’s (the Governor’s) when that worthy labour leader had a row with me and then was polished off by the Raja who detests the disloyal party which naturally appealed to her. It was interesting to hear it from his point of view. He said by the way that Sir John Anderson referred to it when he was leaving India, so it must have impressed him also. – I believe that I promised to give messages from lots of people but I forget whom. The journey down passed off well. I refused Kindersley’s suggestion that we should share a car, saying that, if I was going to feel sick, I should prefer to be alone. After lunch I took the iodine drops in water and in the car I sat bolt upright which I conceive to be a sort of charm; and I came through without feeling bad at all. Except that I felt thoroughly stupid and dazed; which I imagine not to be due to the iodine but to the excess of work done during the past few days. At Kurseong we had tea at Pliva’s. Kindersley and I; very good tea with ham-sandwiches, which I ate through greed: though what is worse than ham for car sickness? Rain and mist the whole way down till the plains and torrential rain after we got to the station. We sat at a table with Harold Graham and that Scotch Vet man – Macgregor or Macpherson or something. Kindersley was furious with Graham at the conference and told me afterwards that he came near to sloshing him for interrupting him and laying down the law in an offensive way. The other Graham looks seedy with a vengeance; thin too. In the train, coupé to myself and a good night; I slept from about 10.30 till Ranaghat which we reached an hour late, having started that much late from Siliguri. This suited me. I did not try the getting-off-at-Naihati stunt; as we went through there I caught a glimpse of this house across the river. If I had known that we should be an hour late I might have changed at Ranaghat and come here via Naihati and the ferry, but probably not. I wanted to see Macpherson in the Secretariat and tick him off for opposing me and my scheme. I had breakfast at the club, wrote a letter to the Harijan Minister, Mr Mallik who had wanted me to call at Darjeeling but I had not had the time, left my suitcase for repairs at Morrison Cottle’s, cashed a cheque at the Bank (where we have over three thousand at the moment – not now) and went off to Alipore to see the Rai Bahadur. The usual difficulty about getting down to brass tacks because he had to tell of the merits of Hinduism and the failings of Ministers; but I hope that I have fixed up what I wanted. It was too late by then to drop in on Winsome, so I went straight to the Secretariat and saw Macpherson. You will hardly believe me; but I did abstain from saying one word to suggest that he was a wrong-headed and obstructive loon and instead by assuming that there was no other course open to him without his being treacherous to his Ministers led him to say that he would do everything possible to put through the scheme though personally he did not, he said, believe that I should be able to persuade the people to accept it. I was lucky in finding him struggling with a difficulty which I happened to be able to solve off-hand for him. And that is that, But I may as well add here that there awaited me here a letter from Dr Jaffri to say that he had arranged for the Congress leaders from Calcutta to come in and see me about it; Subhash Bose can’t come (and of that I am glad) but the men just below will. Also my P.A. which means Personal Assistant, an officer who is near the stage of getting a district, tells me that agitation for the scheme has started already and that one of the leading zamindars who was against it has been talked round by his brother. Incidentally I mentioned the thing at the meeting of the Embankment Committee in Howrah and there was animated discussion; mostly among the non-officials hostile; but that is always so at the start.
After seeing Macpherson (all this was on Friday morning) I lunched at the Club which was almost deserted – six or eight people perhaps in all. And after lunch I sat, being tired, for nearly an hour. Then a visit to the opticians who were able to repair my spectacle frame while I waited and who charged me nothing for it; then to Boseck’s to get my watch regulated, for it had gained four minutes in the week, and then to Frank Ross to buy tooth brushes and oddments. After that I decided to look in on Idris Matthews. Do you know he seemed really pleased to see me, stopped off work, led me round the garden and pointed out things including the noofa which had been flowering but wasn’t that afternoon, introduced me at a distance to several squirrels which showed no interest at all, and insisted on my staying to tea. I could not remember the name Lantana Sellowiana which I had meant to bring out and could only think of mauve plant – which to Idris meant nothing except perhaps the wandering Jew. I thought you said to get some Bougainvilla layers from Idris and I asked for them; he too thought that they were to be taken, but none of those which we looked at had rooted at all. The mali has gone off and the willing idiot says that all the ones which the mali prepared were done wrongly and that he (the said idiot) had done them again in the right way; which may explain it whichever way you take it all. I was much delayed because Idris wanted my criticism of a long memorial to the government of India that he had drafted for his Association against a bit of intrigue by Tute, putting in soldiers into the top jobs of the Ordnance; Tute had wangled the thing with the idea of working his son into it and when his son was not selected blew on it to the Ordnance men. Idris cannot write plain English; his draft was like a page of Q’s illustrations of Jargon; and with some diffidence and at a cost of half an hour’s delay I suggested many changes which he accepted with gratitude. It remained fine all the way out and I had the hood down. Arrived to find all well; masses of work accumulated and letters from England waiting; also one from Peter Lombart which I was glad to get. The evening was destroyed by Stein’s arrival to talk about the strikes – not that I minded but he stayed on and on till past eleven.
Yesterday I did a lot of work but made no impression on arrears because all day files poured in. After tea I harangued the mali and went round seeing what was to be done. The big maiden hair have been potted. I told him to pot also some small ones. Then we examined the humus. The pit he alleges to have been very hot while I was away; but I do not believe this; no sign of fungus. Today it has been turned over, and the other end of the pit has been filled with a new brew (if I may misuse the term) with which we mixed at each layer a basket from the heap. The heap has completed its allotted three months and on a casual examination I thought that we had not succeeded quite. But the mali declared it to be of the best; and when he rubbed the lumps with his hands they powdered into black earth which looks and feels precisely like the best of leaf mould. The mali feels that he is among the greater men and explained to the coolies for my benefit of course how cultivators’ crops would benefit from such stuff. But still we have practically no green stuff to put into the pit. There is no thick jungle here as in Jalpai. Which reminds me that I met Bipul Babu in Darjeeling and he asked after family; how is Annette and how is Rosemary? he said, and there is glory for them to be remembered after these ten years. I went off from the pit-filling, because they have it all taped out and go on with so many tins of water and so many baskets of this and that quite mechanically, and I cut deads off gaillardias which have indeed done us proud. Then I cut the leaves off a great branch which fell a fortnight ago from a peepul tree and raised blisters on my hands. That is today’s evenings doings. Most of the morning and almost all the afternoon went on letter writing. Three bills, four letters with copies of three to the Secretary of the Himalayan Club, two to people who wanted news about Sikkim trips (saying that I had passed them on to the Secretary) one to an American father of a climber, and one to the Magistrate Darjeeling about the complaint of the American. There remains still the ordering of new chimneys for the frigidaire; there have been six broken up to date, which seems a lot. If the flame is not kept high the machine will not freeze; and the least bit too high and a hair crack goes right across the chimney; Mogul expressed it by drawing his hand across his throat.
Monday June 20th
I sat in a chair for twenty minutes after lunch today and perhaps dozed. How many files I have done today, I don’t know; it feels like hundreds; and an hour and a half went three appeals – on which of course I have not written orders yet; and there is another tomorrow and three on Wednesday. Alas! Did I say that when I came back on Friday I found in the hall an enormous basket of roses? very fine. I thought some big zamindar had sent them. Next morning they had disappeared of course and I did not think of them, till a youth whom I had never seen turned up with a request that I should give him a letter to the Collector of Burdwan recommending him for an excise shop. And it appeared afterwards that the roses had come from him! They in usefully for Mogul decorated the dinner table with them and they elicited expressions of admiration from Mrs Holman. I am astonished that you have not written to express admiration for my enterprise in asking people to dinner – for it seems like weeks since then.
The re-piled humus has heated up already to admiration; but the other end of the pit does not look too favourable, because so many of the leaves were half rotten already that the mass looks as if air would never circulate through it. I much overestimated the amount of material that we had in the compound; for it is all exhausted and there is about a quarter of the pit left unfilled. The cowdung pit has been earthed over. The second mali has had a telegram to say that if he wishes to be married he must come at once or lose the chance. And the bearer has had a telegram from Arjun of all people saying Do you wish your daughter to be married in seven days telegraph. He has, it seems, been supporting the daughter of his brother in law because, he says, who else would do it; the girl was only two weeks when taken over. The haste is because the possible bridegroom is on leave from Assam. Three guesses who is expected to finance the wedding. I said But surely it would be a fear to send money to Arjun; and the reply was (grandly) Is there not my mother? The third mali’s money lender has conveniently for himself, seeing that I had got Hartley to start an enquiry why he was charging illegal rates of interest, gone to his country for three months. I have bought fifty huge flower-pots for 4 rupees. For exercise, though I did all my physical jerks again this morning. I cut deads this evening; it involves much bending and the blisters on my fingers from yesterday are now painful. I have not told the family how my spotty face is doing. Fairly well except the nose which feels corrugated. Perhaps that is really sunburn and not the spots due to heat and shaving and applying iodine too often. I hate being septic anywhere. To the club after changing, to see if I could find a book. I met twelve frogs on the way there and ten on the way back; some sort of game might be made out of this. Hartley has got an abscess in his ear from bathing at the Angus Mills Baths. The walls in the upstairs office have been patched but it is still a mess of scaffolding. The bedroom ceiling was painted and washed without the walls being defiled. The bathroom is still being done; but they have finished the window, replacing the glass painted thick with green by ground glass and now one can see there; indeed it is almost a nice bathroom though still a bit stuffy. The smell of burning paint all day is trying in this heat. I didn’t discover which of the Pasang Sherpas it was who had been reprieved; employed by a plainsman in Darjeeling, he was swindled and there followed a fight with knives in which had the bad luck to be only too successful. That was the only redeeming feature of the case and the judge had some difficulty in finding plausible arguments to support his recommendation for the reprieve; in fact the only reason for one was the vague feeling that anyone who has a knife fight with a Nepali is asking for it. I met Mahalanobis in Darjeeling but only in the road; his enthusiasm about my random sampling results is dashed by the discovery that the Director of Agriculture or the Ditto of Land Records has lost all the reports except two which I had pinched for my own purposes; They may still turn up for I asked the Rai Bahadur to institute a search.
From HPV to LJT
Wednesday June 22nd
Nothing written yesterday, my darling, because I wrote to Richard. A sermon re avoiding my evil example and making arrangements and such. Frigid and annoying most likely. Also Stein came in. It is a grief that he comes and sits with his mouth open and goes on sitting. By dint of letting work slide – judgements left unwritten – I have thrown off the threat of exhaustion, but I get fed up with things. There was the devils own smell in the clerks’ office this evening: bathroom left uncleaned of course: I called in Mogul who caused a magic to be worked: anyhow the whole place now smells only of disinfectant.
Hartley looks miserable: he came in today to ask about how to get into Government House where he was to lunch. Abscess in ear after causing him agony has subsided, but ???? says that another is forming. He says that he is pulled down only because he has not been sleeping, because of the pain. Myself, I shall have to go in to Calcutta tomorrow: to be on the platform when H.E. goes off at 9 or so (at night) to take up his acting job as viceroy. The iron bar twister who also broke coconuts with his fist is a Dholi, also an orphan: he talks English rather well: a matriculate. Guess that he has been asking for a job on the strength of his performance.
I am rather tired of having the workmen in the house. I told Winsome when they put off last weekend’s stay that till the workmen finished the bathrooms I couldn’t have them to stay. Which reminds me (but you’re not to repeat it) –Kindersley told me that Sawsley asked him if he thought it likely that I’d be willing to chuck the I.C.S. and join him in his business! I see myself.
The new humus is hot after all: the turned stuff very hot. I found the squirrels scratching away the earth on top of the manure pit – to get at grubs? The mali has stayed on and I have let the 2nd mali go, to be married: financing him to the extent of Rs 10/-. The bearer I have advanced Rs 40. Do you conceive to possible that he really is spending or has spent nearly Rs 200/- on that marriage? He says that he has bought the ornaments and clothes over a period of years: and that in his country that amount has to be spent. Of course it is amazing to see, from the debt Bill enquiries which we made, how much Bengali cultivators borrow for weddings.
The American who wrote was Hubert L. Carter of Carter Rice and Co 273 Summer St. Boston. Mass U.S.A. father of Adams Carter of Nanda Devi 1936: he had paid Kydd Rs 40/- for 30 lbs of tea while in Darjeeling to be sent to Boston, and in spite of letters had heard no more about it: I wrote to Larkin. Coventry (the flower photo man, he says) wrote asking you to give advice re Sikkim to a friend of his: I replied, and wrote to the friend to try the Guide: also wrote to Catto. Edmund Wigram St Thomas Hospital Westminster Bridge wrote asking if a man at ????? Punjab could be put up for the Club, when he knew only one member. And Campbell Secord wrote asking if you could fix up 2 good Sherpas for the Karackorams. I send a copy to the Darjeeling Ass Sec and a copy to Cattto. Wigrams letter ditto (to Catto only). A postcard for you from Tichy with an Alaska stamp on it and no room for more addresses – Rita has written asking you to Befriend Ronald who will be in Calcutta in July.
Much love my darling Joan. I am glad that your trip has turned out so well.
Your Toto
From HPV to family
Chinsurah.
Friday. June 24th 1938.
My dear
Entering the drawing room with a debonair assurance, the poor lad threw up his toes and fell heavily. I knew someone would do it sooner or later, having often missed doing it myself by a mere twist; and I suppose that we should be thankful that it was a Madrasi boy who was the victim, for by repute such are lissom and have no bones. He was S.D.O. at Contai till a month or so ago and now is doing judicial work as part of his training. Thank heaven such was not the practice in my time. There are very few of us left who have never been judge. The youth Rao by name stayed quite a time and I had not the heart to send him off. I did not go to see the Governor off after all; the confidential clerk produced a letter saying that it wasn’t necessary. That was well; because I was dead beat anyhow by evening time. Trying to catch up the week lost in Darjeeling is a task. The Personal Assistant has produced an article on Universal Love as the basis of Hinduism which he wanted me to vet; I cut out some slang which read somewhat quaintly in that context; inspired by this he has produced an article which he wrote before he was converted and which proves precisely the opposite quite as cogently. He tells me that the Rai Bahadur D.L.R. who is always holding forth on the merits of the Hindu way of life is a convinced opponent of Hinduism and has been Chairman of an agnostic society. Perhaps he too found conversion; or perhaps he merely preaches the excellence of Hinduism out of perversity; which is very human and good. Tomorrow I unveil two portraits; and shall have to make high souled speeches. That is very much the same sort of thing.
The second or third chaprassi’s wife and the child have been hurled out by the mother in law which means his mother; there was a petition today that they might be allowed to set up house in the cow-stall. I was firm against it as a permanency, but allowed it for ten days. For after all it does rain like mad every couple of hours and it is hard to be without a house in this weather especially when one is a baby. But I told Mogul who was ambassador that I refused to run a basti in the compound; though it is rather late now to take up that attitude. The river is thick with water hyacinth sailing down over the wavelets with flowers held high; floods in Jessore maybe cleaning out the rivers; or perhaps some zealous officer getting the people to clear it off their own land and send it down onto that of others, which is Harold Graham’s idea of the way to get rid of it. I gazed on it wistfully thinking what good use I could make of it. The new humus in the pit simply howls success; hot and white with fungus – at any rate in patches and these ought to spread. The older end is very hot; the rod extracted is too hot to be pleasant to touch; but no sign of fungus. The white ant which invaded my excellent heap have been diddled because the mali has moved it all into the verandah – and I do hope that my boast that it has no smell is true. He is using it as leaf mould for potting plants. You have never seen such a gutting as the mistris have made of the upstairs office room; I should not have believed that there was so much that could be extracted from it. Basket after basket of rubbish is thrown over the verandah; and today I leapt in my chair again when a huge folded tarpaulin came down with a bomb like noise. They are pulling great lumps out of the walls of the sweeper’s staircase; dry rot in the wood. The only place in the world that has ever smelt like the bathroom off the clerk’s office is Siliguri station and that never excelled it. There were words about this. There is a very beautiful lily out on the gold-fish tank. And a dead rat or something quite near there but not traced so far.
Saturday June 25th. 1938
The speeches at the ceremony of unveiling a coloured photo referred to as the “portrait” and an ordinary photo which we described as the “photograph” dealt far more fully with my merits than with thos of the late Mr Mallik Member of the India Council, or the Rai Bahadur S? Ghose. They knew more about me. I made a very good speech about myself too; I always do on such occasions – it was as short as any speech on two illustrious men could be without discourtesy to their memory. The ceremony lasted half an hour. Four speeches; and the unveiling was done by electricity which actually worked. All very gay and friendly; but I was tired out after it and did not return to work although it was only a quarter to four. I lay down in the drawing room and fell into stupor. It is tiring weather. Also I had eaten lunch rather quickly and gone back to work at once in order to get letters off before the ceremony.
I go to Birbhum on Tuesday. The whole thing is misconceived. I asked this dribbler of a confidential clerk how the trains fitted and whether I ought to start the day before and gathered that it was not necessary; but to him the question was an Alice-in-Wonderland one without meaning. In fact it takes from 9.30 till 5.15 to get to the place at this time of year when a road that forms a short cut across a triangle of railway is impassible. Not so bad on the way back; 6 oclock in the morning till 12. But I have left myself only two clear days which is not enough to get anything done; and carelessly I fixed up a meeting with the Swarajists about the Scheme on Saturday afternoon so that I cannot postpone my return. The district magistrate Khan Bahadur Abdul Hye (called by MacKenzie ‘the loud cry’ which is a joke) has written full of enthusiasm a programme for every minute of my stay with a drive 30 miles out and back in the evening to see the type of country. This I shall not do. I am sorry that I said that I’d go on tour but I must start sometime; and perhaps I shall always be behindhand with files whenever I seek to start out. Would that I had the knack of believing that my assistants were first class and could disguise the fact that the draft letters put up are usually bad. Rally I do not know how Burrows could have spoken so enthusiastically about these birds; not that his results were any worse than mine from one point of view. Nothing results from any letter good or bad these days. One of the Secretaries in Darjeeling was remarking that Burrows thought the duty of a Commissioner was to pin together the letters received from the Collectors and to write forwarded on the top one; and after two days toiling to make a connected and reasoned essay out of six long reports from the six districts I feel that wisdom lies that way. It explains why there is so strong a desire on the part of Government to cut down the number of Commissioners by two.
Hartley was at the ceremony, looking rather wan but pleased because the second ear-abscess faded away and he is practically all right again; he says. He was the only guest at Government House except some lady or other and was treated well. It was kind of the Governor to trouble about having him to lunch the day before he went off to Simla to be Viceroy: and keen too. For I suppose that H.E. had some idea of seeing all the Bengal magistrates before leaving. Dr. Jafri came up to me and asked if he might bring along two more Congress men to discuss the Scheme on Saturday next; and I had a letter today from little Professor Mukherjee of the Cathay suggesting that he might come up from Calcutta and talk about it. But I have had no time even to think about it lately: I ought to visit the Agricultural Farm and Ascertain if certain suspicions about their figures are true. Whenever I look at any Government figures I find that they are even worse than I thought possible but there are always further possibilities. I do not wonder indeed that everybody else thinks it hopeless to attempt anything that requires a basis of real fact. Did I tell you that Graham according to Kindersley ascribed to me a tortuous mind (“Good Lord! what a tortuous mind that fellow has got!”) not that he thinks me crooked but that he thinks me to go straight to my end in the way a corkscrew does; admitting that he never knows what I am driving at until he is landed on it. It seems to me that this has some truth in it and that the method has been forced upon me by trying to get some actual results under these Bengal conditions; but it is a gloomy outlook, for there are limits to the possibilities of the method.
Sunday June 26th 1938
If it were not I wake several times during the night (once invariably at 12.20 except last night when I overslept by an hour and woke at 1.20 instead) and if it were not that I woke up in a sort of daze, dissipated by tea and the physical jerks, - if it were not for that, I should say that I slept well these days. Certainly I seem to lie all floppy-like on the bed, which ought to be the main thing. It is strange though how much more restful it seems to be to lie on the floor, as I realise when I find myself doing it in the middle of the physical jerks (and gazing vacantly at the ceiling) instead of getting on with things. There is a sort of publicity about the exercises these days, because the shutters are off the window leading to the verandah and the curtain is too because the glass doors have to be kept shut on account of the scaffolding against them; and at any moment the mistris may charge out (as they did yesterday) and find me cavorting with nothing on; like the Old King. I was reading Huck Finn yesterday, and am struck most with the fact that when I read it at 5 the Square (in the little room at the back that had been Father’s study and was then Alice’s bedroom when her foot or ankle was bad – and do I suppose I must have been in quarantine at the time or anyhow seedy) I did not for one minute realise the bitterness of all the reference to slavery; which is very real when one reads with any intelligence. All that is an aside. I was saying that I woke this morning at 7 exactly, felt indescribably slack and weary, turned over on my face and slept for what seemed hours and woke up much refreshed at exactly one minute past. But I took the day off. Conscience told me that I ought to get up to date. There are two judgements waiting since last Monday to be written. But I did nothing; except write private letters which took much longer than I likes. Every time I go through the lower hall I cry out with rage against the smell. It is fierce. Some of the domestics can perceive nothing; others say and , as I think, with truth that there is something dead somewhere. Search reveals nothing. The left hand dungeon is the centre of it. But inside it though there is a mouldiness most unpleasant and beyond dealing with, I fear, till the weather dries up a bit, the dead smell does not appear. So I begin to wonder if there is some peculiarity in the building of the hall that throws back halitosis in the face. This reminds me that on an impulse in the middle of my exercises I felt that I must examine my top hat but didn’t till I was dressed; and behold it was thick with mould inside. No harm done; but there would have been had I deferred the impulse for many days. The little stool things with the string tops were a mass of mould too; it was almost invisible and I do not know what led me to pick them up and examine them. I saved an enormous spider from my bath today after sharing the bath with it unknowingly, and threw it out of the window in a mugful of water; and I have wondered since whether I should not have done better to let it take its chance of now drowning rather than break its neck in a two-storeyed fall. Going round the garden today I felt some gloom; the rain’s flowers are hardly a success. Perhaps the rain came too soon for them; perhaps they will be a success yet; but a lot look as if blight worm or caterpillar had got at them. Most of the crepe flower shrubs have done badly; I imagine that those old shrubs are not worth the keeping but do not know how one would start new ones. This evening I cut away masses of the red things of the type which concealed the wall at the Towers and had all the horrible flat bedbug monstrosities on them; there was a wasp nest in the middle but no one was stung. Poor brutes. There is comparatively little bird-life in the garden these days or I am unobservant. The magpie robins, some doves, dozens of mynahs, (lots of young ones, not very expert flyers yet) and some owls, and pigeons but I doubt if there is anything else; it is long since I saw the Kingfishers. This evening after my bath I went over to the Doctor’s with the Digest and the Geographical Magazine; three frogs going and two coming back; I felt like Noah who used birds as a barometer and decided that there must be a break in the rains. He was out and no one was at the Club, not that I wanted to go there. After examining the Bougainvilla today I felt sorry that I had not cut away the 3-inch thick main stem on the north side, which twists for ten or twelve feet before it has anything on it, for the whole arbour is so dense with new growth that it looks as if nothing had been cut from it at all. There are waves in the river today; a boat, one of the big fat ones, came up with foam under its bows under two sails – and that is an almost unknown thing on these rivers. If you want to be sea-sick go down the Hooghly on the tide against a wind like this in one or rather two of the haystack boats (there are two boats side by side with the straw piled as big as a haystack above) for they not only rocked though slightly but went round and round teetotum like, in spite of the two men at the two steering oars in the stern or, say, at one end. Picturesque. Half the sky ink-black and the rest a brilliant rain-washed blue. The river is yellow or say bright brown; the red water about which there is so much talk. I have talked it myself. I slept for an hour this afternoon and have lost that utterly dead feeling which has grown on me these latter days (it is really the normal rains feeling) but none the less I am off to bed early, which means now 10 o’clock. (I did have a look at the humus too.)
Monday June 27th. 1938
Nearly ten o’clock. I have been working since dinner; and before dinner too for that matter. Today I have written four judgments, in preparation for going off on tour tomorrow. It would have been well to finish off my long pending files as well, but I couldn’t get round to them; though I have done a fair number. Yesterday’s slack was efficacious. True, I retired upstairs after lunch and lay in a coma for twenty minutes, and may even have been asleep (for I woke at the sound of another window being smashed), but this was perhaps the result of eating half a pineapple with a spoon at the end of my lunch. Pineapple is not the proper diet for colitis anyhow. The workmen have smashed three of the new drawing-room window panes, two since yesterday; rather moderate seeing that there are scaffolds within a couple of feet of them or rather were till this evening for I see that they have been removed. It rained after tea today; I worked till it stopped and then sawed away at the bushes; but they are in a pretty tangle. A few of the poor wasps are hanging around – and this evening dozens of the poor flying ants have come in; poor because I have been sloshing them. Last night it thundered and it lightened till I asked myself why I was not scared still. Furious rain along with it. The smell in the hall has been routed out. They cleaned out the frog-den, but found nothing dead in it. There is only one frog at a time and I have never seen it actually sheltering in the den; but I suspect the frog of smelling dead, because when I met one in the hall tonight there was that sort of smell around. But there is mustiness everywhere, in the huddle of furniture outside the bedroom for instance. I wish that the builders would finish and allow the furniture to go back into its place once more. The bearer’s device of having the bathroom table stool and whatnot painted by the house painters has not been a success because they daubed it on so thick that it comes off in chunks; my water bottle was stuck fast to it this morning and had to be rocked off gently.
Enough. So ends this day, and so ends this letter. I shall not be able to write any individual bits, I fear; Suri is remote with a poor train service and probably I should post before I go tomorrow. Wednesday would do, but shall I have any time for more?
Much love,
Dad
(handwritten addition) Rather silly to send two duplicates to the same house: but no worse maybe than to send four copies to Oxford.
From HPV to LJT
In the train. On the way to Suri
June 28th Tuesday
My own darling,
Poor letters of mine, I fear. Yours are interesting. You seem to write more often than I do. Just crossing the Ajye River, i.e. running north out of Asansol subdivision: it is in flood – yellow and covered with lumps of foam. As I passed through from Ondal northwards there were very few places that I recognised, and I became aware (the train has stopped) that I had very little idea now how the roads and railways ran and how the ???? lay: whereas 22 years ago I could draw a map of them in the dark almost. I had forgotten what nice looking rolling country it is: of course just now at the beginning of the rains things look as well as ever they do.
Just as I left the house a letter came to you from Burma, one Seagrim saying that he’d be through Calcutta next Sunday and would call on you at Rowland Road in case he could have a couple of tents. He doesn’t say what ship he’ll be on or what his Calcutta ddrress will be: so I don’t know what to do. Catto has moved out to Tollygunge by the way. I meant to write to you his address, but left it in the house – and Larkin wrote that Kydd had Mr Carter’s’ money all right but hadn’t been able to arrange export licences. He is a futile creature. I wrote to Mr Carter about it and again to Larkin thanking him. How the train wobbles. But I dont know if the result is much worse than my usual hand. That put the train on its mettle and it showed me what was what for a bit. My labours after dinner last night had the effect of making me lie awake but I did not mind particularly – just sprawled. Then I began to think of thing and thing that I hadn’t seen to about this tour. I hadn’t checked anything that the servants were doing but I suppose that it will work out all right. Ultimately when I did go to sleep, I did fairly well and felt fresh enough at 7 when I woke. It was pouring with rain and very dark. Luckily it cleared up before I finished dressing and has been fine enough since, though gloomy.
Your letters about the children and your doings are very vivid for some reason. I read them with keen enjoyment. But it is no use commenting on them except to say that I am glad to hear Rosemary is cheerful now. The train is off again. I give up the attempt to write.
Suri. Circuit House
Recently furnished for the Governors visit: overfurnished but the stuff is good enough. Pull punkahs. I wish that I had thought of telling Mogul to bring the petrol lamp.
I have sent Seagrims letter to Catto. He can find out what is the name of the Burma mail boat arriving on Sunday and put Marklew on to it. But how casual people are to wait till the last possible moment! I have written a letter to him addressed c/o Mackinnon Mackenzie and saying that we have left Rowland Road. – I shall not start another sheet as I have nothing to write about – having forgotten many things which during the last few days I had reserved for you.
Much love sweetheart
Your
Toto