Golden Afternoon (65 page)

Our numbers at these parties were seldom more than fourteen, at most, and six at the least, though now and again someone would dream up a ‘treasure-hunt' party, which involved anything up to and even over twenty-four. And on one occasion — the fancy-dress ball during Horse Show Week — at least eight or nine men got together and hired the Lodi Golf Club's sitting-room and dining-room for a dinner party before the ball, and decreed that everyone should go as a cowboy or a cowgirl. In those days the Club House was one of the least ruined of the ruins that were scattered all over the plains around Delhi and could have been part of a king's palace, or a pavilion for his
zenana
. It was an unlikely setting for eighteen to twenty palefaces dolled up as cowboys and their girls.

It was a hilarious party, and the hosts had hired
tongas
to take the party out to the dance. Paper cowboy hats and sheriffs' stars (both easily
obtainable from shops in the bazaar that sold carnival junk), were provided for the
tonga
drivers, who entered with enthusiasm into the spirit of the thing, and the entire party arrived at the IDG, whirling ropes or banging toy guns and whooping at the top of their voices, with the
tonga-wallahs
racing each other to arrive first.

I'd had a lot of fun concocting a very fetching cowgirl outfit from white American cloth (boots, belt, cuffs and hat) with a white flannel skirt cut to look like fringed leather, and about a million little silver metal stationery studs which I used for the nail-head decoration on the belt and its holsters, and on the cuffs and the band round the hat. Very taking it was, too. Neil concocted a white outfit for himself, complete with toy revolvers, and we made a nice pair.

Another of our fancy-dress parties was far less successful. Bill had managed to wangle himself some leave and, having joined us at 80/1, collected himself a girl in record time — Pam Cosgrave, the eldest daughter of great friends of my parents who were temporarily stationed in Delhi. The six of us, chaperoned by Mother, had spent a weekend in Agra, from where we arrived back in the late evening just in time to bathe, change and eat a hasty dinner, before leaving for the Old Delhi Club. But we had failed to read the small print on the leaflet that advertised the ball, in particular a brief announcement towards the end of the leaflet that said, ‘Fancy dress optional'.

Well, most women enjoy dressing up in exotic costumes, but the average man shrinks into his shell like a startled hermit-crab at the very idea of ‘making a fool of himself parading about in spangles and a ruff, or whatever' — much as they enjoy themselves once they have been bullied into it! So one and all, they had grabbed the lifeline offered by that one word, and chickened out. And minus their loved ones' support, the women had decided, ‘I can't go all togged up as Mary Queen of Scots when George insists on wearing a dinner-jacket and a black tie!' and they too had tamely followed suit and worn the old blue taffeta again. Our party, arriving late at the Club just as the second or third item on the dance-programmes was finishing, walked out in all our glory on to the raised platform at the entrance to the ballroom. To be faced by a crowd of around 200 soberly clad dancers and received by a roar of laughter and a storm of cheers and hand-clapping. We were the only people in fancy dress!

Poor Pam was the one who suffered most. She was new to Delhi, and
since she hadn't got a fancy dress and could not spare the time to have one made for her, Mother had lent her one that she had worn early on in the days of the First World War. She had gone as Autumn, wearing her opals, complete with tiara, and a dress made of leaves cut from cotton cloth, and shading from green through orange to yellow to varying shades of red. Mother had painted each leaf herself, and it had fitted her then fashionable hourglass figure like a glove, as far as the hip, below which there had been a full skirt of tulle, spangled with tiny beads and ending just above the ankle — very saucy, for Edwardian days. The tulle had perished years ago, but we had kept the exquisite bodice for our dressing-up box, and now produced it for Pam, on whom it reached just above the knee. The whole effect was charming, but exceedingly skimpy, though it showed off Pam's long and lovely legs a treat. But she was a shy child, only just out of school, and finding herself standing there, ‘half-naked' as she protested on the verge of tears, being uproariously applauded by a ballroom full of women in floor-length dresses and openly appreciative men in dinner-jackets, all yelling with laughter, she turned, scarlet-faced, and bolted like a rabbit for the Ladies' room, followed, to the Gents', by a red-faced Neil, disguised as the Knave of Hearts in an equally scanty costume that we had made for Sandy Napier and which he had subsequently donated to the Kaye dressing-up box. Grabbing his overcoat, our cowardly knave (normally a terrific extrovert) took refuge in our parked car where the rest of us hastily joined him.

You would have thought after all that that we would have given up and gone to bed. Not at all. The young us are appallingly resilient, and all that happened was that W. H. P. drove us back to 80/1, where he dropped three Kayes and a Cosgrave before streaking back to the chummery, where he and Neil swapped their motley for dinner-jackets before returning to pick us up, now more conventionally clad (Pam borrowed an evening dress off one of us), and take us back to the Club. Here we rejoined our friends and danced until the band packed up sometime in the small hours, when the sky began to turn grey and snuff out the stars, and the yawning
khitmatgars
served a lavish British breakfast of ham and eggs, imported sausages, toast and marmalade and cups and cups of tea or coffee. Then the tougher half of the revellers made for their homes or the Club dressing-rooms to change into riding clothes and drive off, as the sky turned primrose yellow, to join a meet of the Delhi Hunt at some previously designated spot in the empty, ruin-strewn
lands that stretched away from left to right of the Mall, where their horses and their
syces
would be waiting for them. You can see that the Raj took its amusements, and the more energetic of its exercises, seriously. Thank goodness I have no use for horses.

Tacklow laughed his head off at our account of sweeping into the Old Delhi Club to find ourselves faced by a sea of the correctly clad members of the Establishment, and he told me a fascinating story of his early years in Simla and a fancy-dress ball at Viceregal House.

Cards of invitation to any Viceregal function were valued above rubies among certain members of the social-climbing set, some of whom went to extraordinary lengths to wangle one of the coveted invitations, while others were quite capable of leaving Simla, ostensibly on holiday or to visit friends, rather than let it be seen that they had not been invited. It was impossible to gatecrash the average Viceregal bash, since a printed table plan was issued to each guest. Only at the annual fancy-dress ball, which was a buffet-supper affair for which private dinner parties would be held all over Simla, was it possible for the uninvited to gatecrash, and one year, said Tacklow, after all the invitations were out and every
darzi
in Simla had worked like mad, when the great day came round, news was received that some truly royal Royal had died and all festivities must be cancelled. There were only hours to go before the guests were due to arrive, but by around tea-time every guest had been warned, and the exhausted staff were congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Aware that they had missed no one, they were therefore unprepared for the arrival of several rickshaws pulling up before Viceregal Lodge and decanting passengers in fancy dress at about the time when, but for that eleventh-hour cancellation, the main flood of guests would have been arriving. What
do
you say, when you arrive at a party to which you were not invited, all dressed up as Mephistopheles, complete with scarlet tights and cloak and a crěpe-hair beard, or Madame de Pompadour in a white wig and twenty yards of petunia satin and spangles?

The Delhi season ended for us with another ball at Viceroy's House, after which Mother and I got mentioned in the social column of the newspaper write-up next morning, as ‘looking charming (me) in a delightful ball-gown of green satin' (actually, last year's model, courtesy of our verandah
darzi
, who had lengthened it by tacking on a wide hem of mosquito netting dyed to match) and Mother ‘looking as young and as
pretty as ever in black chiffon-velvet'. Mother was very chuffed! So was I, because it was the first time I had ever been mentioned in the society column. And the last, as far as I remember. Bets's dress didn't rate a mention, so posterity will have to get along without knowing if it was her old pink or the one with spots on. But she danced every dance, mostly with W. H. P., and announced the next day at breakfast that she was engaged to him.

Well, it wasn't exactly a surprise, considering that she had spent almost every available moment in his company during the past two or three months, but Tacklow, who had only seen us
en masse
, so to speak, and hadn't really noticed which young man out of the half-dozen or so in our particular set was attached to whom, was distinctly taken aback. Not that he had anything against W. H. P., or had ever considered him as a possible husband for his younger daughter. For me, perhaps: but not for Bets. I think he must have tried to discuss her choice of chap with Bets. But she was so tremendously happy that it wouldn't have been the least use trying to get her feet back on to solid ground. So he discussed it with me instead, because he presumed that I must have seen almost as much of W. H. P. recently as Bets had.

Well, I had, of course — though only superficially. So I assured my anxious parent that W. H. P. would make an excellent husband for Bets, for they had so many things in common. Bets liked parties and ballroom dancing. So did W. H. P. She liked playing tennis and golf, and going to the cinema; she liked to paint pictures and do pastel portraits, and she liked to play the piano and accompany W. H. P., who had rather a good voice. He admired her artistic talent, her skill on the piano and the tennis court; and as for Bets, she not only thought him fantastically good-looking, but on top of having all their tastes in common, she was wildly in love with him. What more could an anxious father want in a prospective son-in-law?

Tacklow said that he was glad to hear all that, and if I had been W. H. P.'s choice it wouldn't have worried him so much. When I wanted to know why, he said that I was a lot tougher than Bets, that Bets was too gentle, and that he suspected that young Pardey was a bully. I remember laughing at that and explaining that he had been taken in by W. H. P.'s expression, which was inclined to be slightly sneering and superior, as though he were permanently looking down his nose at people. It had put me off him too when I first met him, but he had always been
nice to me — and so obviously devoted to Bets — that I came to the conclusion (which I still think is true) that he suffered from an inferiority complex, probably acquired from discovering, on his arrival in India, that he was a
box-wallah
, and that except in such centres of trade as Calcutta and Madras, where the
box-wallah
is king, occupied one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder. That superior sneer was, I thought, a reaction to this discovery that had become a form of nervous tic.

I did my best to reassure Tacklow and, I have to admit it, myself. Because that sneer had worried me too. Somehow it didn't fit in with all the rest. But when you have partied and danced and picnicked, laughed and had fun, discussed politics, life, art and theology, books and all the ‘isms' of the age, day after day for weeks on end with the same group of people, you accept them all as ‘us' — friends, in fact. Even when they don't agree with you. And anyway, I was half-way in love with Neil Pierce, and wondering what I was going to do about it.

The day didn't end so well, for as soon as his office closed that evening W. H. P. arrived to break the news that Bets had already given us at breakfast, and to ask Tacklow for permission to marry his younger daughter. The two of them, father and suitor, disappeared into Tacklow's study to discuss the position, and emerged after a shortish interval with Tacklow looking rather taken aback, to tell us what had been decided. To begin with, there was no question of a wedding taking place for at least another two years, by which time W. H. P.'s salary would be enough to support a wife, and his seniority enable him to qualify for a married quarter. This meant, since we would be sailing for China in the spring, that he and Bets would not be able to see each other for a considerable time. But at the end of it, he would come to China for the wedding, and they could return to India together on honeymoon. In the meantime, they would like the announcement of their engagement to be sent to the
Civil and Military Gazette
and the
Statesman
, to make it official. There was the usual party on that evening — I rather think it was a supper party at the Underhill Lane Chummery, followed by a visit to the Kashmir Gate Cinema (known to all as the Flea Pit). All I can be sure of is that on arrival at the chummery, Bets and W. H. P., full of the joys of spring, announced their engagement to the assembled company, and that at some time that evening, Neil, caught up in the general euphoria of the occasion, proposed that he and I should follow their example and announce ours.

Had he put the idea to me a few days earlier — or even a few days
later — I might have agreed. But as it was, I felt sure that marriage hadn't even crossed Neil's mind until that evening, and that he was, in effect, only copy-catting his friend Cecil's behaviour, the ‘if Cecil can do this, cheered on by one and all, then why not me?' reaction. I may be maligning him, but I still don't think so. Anyway, the thought made me step back from the brink, and demand more time to think it over.

I was not given it, for the very next day Neil rang me up from his office to give me the dire news that Head Office was transferring him to Rawalpindi, to take the place of one of their men who had to be sent away on sick-leave. He had been given only two days in which to pack and make arrangements to leave Delhi and that was that. I have forgotten who laid on the party we attended that night, but I do remember that it was another moonlight picnic, this time at Humayun's tomb. Also that our numbers had already begun to shrink drastically with the coming of the hot weather. Pairs were being split up. Bill, for instance, had returned to his battery on the Frontier and Pam had left with her parents for, I think, Assam; and now Neil too would be leaving us. The boys and girls who had joined forces to ‘come out to play' at the beginning of the Delhi season would soon be scattered. But tonight ‘the moon was shining bright as day' for them, and Humayun's tomb had never looked more entrancing.