I got my dress; and the fan. And have regretted it ever since, for it would have been nice to have had a memento of that auspicious landmark in my life, that I could have kept for the rest of my days. A piece of jewellery, or silver — which, incidentally, would by now have increased enormously in value and probably ended by becoming an heirloom. As it was, the dress, a frothy and exceedingly fragile affair consisting of layer upon layer of silk net that shaded from orange to lemon (and to be honest, did not particularly become me), became limp and tattered in no time at all, while that spectacular fan, which matched it in colour and created a mild sensation in the ballroom of the Cecil Hotel, fell victim to those rapacious little insects that we used to call ‘woolly bears’ who can (and do) eat anything that comes their way. Only the tortoiseshell sticks of that fan lasted for a few years, but in the end the woolly bears munched their way through those as well. And for some forgotten reason, no photograph seems to have been taken of me wearing that glamorous outfit.
The only thing — apart from the memory — that I have left to remind me of my long-ago coming-of-age is a very small pile of moonstones which are all that is left of a beautiful but incredibly fragile necklace Sandy gave me because, he said, they were the only stones except diamonds (which he couldn’t afford) that could be worn with an orange and lemon dress; they picked up and reflected any colours near them like soap bubbles.
He was right about them reflecting other colours. They do. And they looked wonderful with the fan and the twenty-first birthday ball dress. But alas, that dream of a necklace was as fragile as if it had indeed been made of soap bubbles. The slim oval stones were held together with loops and bands of gold barely thicker than a spider’s web, a necklace such as only an Indian craftsman could have made. It broke too easily, and each time it broke and was mended, a few moonstone drops were lost. In the end it got too small to go round my neck; I tried sewing the remains on to a dress and lost even more stones. By now only a tiny handful, enough to fill a thimble, is all I have to remind me of my coming-of-age party, and of Sandy and Simla, and the band of the Cecil Hotel playing ‘Fancy Our Meeting’, ‘Tea for Two’ and ‘Always’…
My gunner brother, Bill, whose unit was stationed that year in one of the North West Frontier outposts — Razmak, I think — came up to Simla to stay with us for a few days of his leave. He and Phil someone, one of his gunner friends, had spent the main part of it in Kashmir, where they had hired a houseboat between them and evidently had what Bill described as ‘a whale of a time’. In the course of which, it eventually transpired, he had become engaged to be married.
This bombshell having been dropped into the collective family lap prefaced by, ‘Oh … er … um … and by the way —’ it was not at first taken very seriously. Dear Bill had been in love with one damsel or another from his prep school days, and we all remembered the carry-on there had been over a lovely creature he had become temporarily attracted to during his final days in England before he sailed to India (the one who would insist on calling him ‘Billy-boy’), and the swiftness with which she had been superseded in his affections by a ‘smashing’ girl in the course of the voyage out. But at least he had never got as far as being engaged to any of them.
This time it was evidently serious. However, his chances of actually marrying for some years to come were almost non-existent, since the Army still stuck firmly to its rule that no officer might marry without his Colonel’s permission before he attained the rank of Major or the age of thirty, whichever came first. And few, if any, Colonels were going to allow one of their young subalterns, with no private means, to launch into matrimony and the raising of a family before he had learned his trade and proved himself. However, Bill’s main reason for spending the final days of his leave in Simla was not to see his family or celebrate his twenty-third birthday (or even my twenty-first) but to break the news of his engagement, and buy the ring. The style of token that his betrothed had in mind, explained Bill, was unobtainable in such outposts of Empire as Razmak or Bannu or wherever.
The object of his affection turned out to be a girl we had already met in Delhi during Horse Show Week. Her father was a Lieutenant-Colonel in, I think, some Corps or other, or possibly in one of the many Punjab Regiments, and she had a brother who was also in one of the Indian Army Regiments. She and her mother had been spending the hot weather in Kashmir, in a houseboat on the Jhelum, and Bill had met her at a young people’s party at the Residency and, in his usual fashion, instantly fallen in love. I have to admit that I can’t think why. In general, the girls he fell for were outstandingly pretty and this one — let’s call her Bertha — though by no means plain, was nothing to write home about. Just a nice-looking girl with a figure that showed to advantage in a bathing suit, a costume in which she appeared in most of the snapshots of her which Bill produced for our inspection. He seemed to have spent his holiday, in company with a gang of like-minded young friends, on the bathing boat at Nageem, and his nights dining, wining and dancing either at the Club or at Nedou’s Hotel, finishing up by floating off in pairs in shikarras across the moonlit lake, to join up again in the pallid dawn when everyone returned to their separate houseboats — where they would sleep until one o’clock and meet again at Nedou’s for a late luncheon before driving back to Nageem, and repeating the whole programme again.
Had it not been for the engagement, we would probably not have seen Bill for so much as a day of his leave. As it was, he decided that the occasion was important enough to make him tear himself away from his love in order to break the news to his family in person. And then of course there was that ring. Bertha apparently felt the same about rings as Lady Maggie had. An engagement did not count without a ring on the right finger, and that was that. Bill had taken Bertha to look at one or two in the shops of several Kashmiri jewellers on the Bund, but she had not thought much of them, and it had been decided that he would buy one in Simla. The only trouble was that he doubted he had got enough money in his account to cover the transaction, and should it come to more than expected would Tacklow please come up trumps and lend him enough to make up the difference?
Tacklow, looking a little worn, agreed to do so, though Bill had still not repaid that other debt. But he inquired how Bill thought he was going to afford the expense of feeding, clothing and housing a wife on a budget that did not even run to paying for a modest engagement ring. Weddings, he pointed out, were expensive items on their own, let alone honeymoons and all that came after them. ‘Oh, not to worry,’ said Bill buoyantly; he wouldn’t be able to get married for at least seven years, unless of course, as he had explained to Bertha and her parents, he should become a Major before then, which he didn’t think was very likely. However, Bertha had promised to wait for him, and by then he would have saved up enough money to cover the extra expenses, and his pay would have gone up considerably. Everything would be quite all right, we’d see!
Mother, who had received the news with every sign of dismay, visibly relaxed, as I suppose we all did. In Mother’s youth, seven years wouldn’t have seemed like an eternity, as it would today. Victorian brides had always gone in for long engagements, in particular those who followed their men out to the further parts of a widespread Empire. Sir Henry Lawrence’s wife, Honaria, had waited for nine years, living on nothing but scraps of news from him (and in those days it took half a year to get a reply to a letter from India to England), until he was able to send for her to come out and marry him. And she was only one of many. Which I suppose was partly why the idea of a seven-year engagement didn’t seem as weird to us then as it would today. Certainly Bill was taking it very calmly.
Bets and I, both incurably romantic, thought he was being truly heroic. To have found and fallen in love with the only girl in the world for you, the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and to find that she felt the same about you, and then discover that you couldn’t marry her and live happily ever after for seven years — (by which time, of course, you’d both be old!) s
eemed too cruel, and our hearts went out to poor Bill.
We needn’t have bothered. The very next day Bill asked me to accompany him to a jeweller’s to buy the ring. He said he wanted my advice, and I remember feeling flattered. But in fact it was a confidante he needed, for there was something he wanted to get off his chest and, having pledged me to secrecy and extracted a solemn vow that I wouldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone, especially not the family,* he blurted out the whole unhappy story as we walked along the Mall on our way to Hamilton’s, the jeweller’s.
It seemed that he and a friend, a Phil someone who was a fellow gunner, had hired a small houseboat between them, and they had met Bertha at a Residency dance on the first night of their leave. Bill had been very taken with her from the start; she was an excellent dancer, and they had partnered each other for most of the dances that evening, and from then on were regarded as ‘a pair’ at all the subsequent parties attended by their ‘crowd’.
About half-way through that leave, several members of the crowd who were due to return to their units in the plains had thrown a farewell party which began with dinner at Nedou’s Hotel, followed by dancing and drinking at the Srinagar Club and, when the band packed it in, a late-night picnic on Char-Chenar Island, a little island in the middle of the Dāl lake to which the members of the party had arrived in pairs in shikarras. Someone had brought a wind-up gramophone, and there had been the usual mounds of sandwiches, salads and cake, and most people had donated a bottle of something or other, ranging from wine, spirits and liqueurs, to beer and lemonade.
Bill said that he supposed it was the mixture of these that had been his undoing, for he had learned early on, first as a prefect at Repton and later as a ‘snooker’ at the Shop, that it was almost impossible for him to get drunk: because long before he reached that stage, he would be sick; a humiliating habit that he was never to outgrow but which had its useful side, since he never got rowdy, maudlin or belligerent; just vaguely happy — generally prior to being as sick as a cat.
He must have been slightly more than happy by the time the shikarras landed their passengers back at the Dāl Gate, from where they dispersed to their various hotels, guest-houses or houseboats, because he said he didn’t remember anything about the homeward journey or how he had managed to get himself to bed. He woke some time towards mid-morning in bright sunlight, and with a cracking headache, and received the first shock of the day from Phil, who he found fortifying himself with mugs of strong black coffee supplied by their solicitous and experienced manji (boatman). Phil had ordered more of the same for his fellow-sufferer, and lifting his mug in salute said: ‘Here’s to you both. I hear I have to congratulate you.’ ‘Whatever for?’ inquired Bill morosely, gulping black coffee.
Phil looked surprised and, apologizing for speaking out of turn, said he hadn’t realized that it was going to be kept a secret. To which Bill had inquired, what secret? What on earth was Phil blathering on about? And Phil had said: “Your engagement of course. Bertha told me last night when we were all milling around saying goodbye to each other, that you and she had just got engaged to be married. She didn’t tell me that you wanted to keep quiet about it for the time being, so I supposed …’
Now in those days there was an unwritten law in Kashmir concerning couples who took moonlit trips on the lakes, particularly when the lotus lilies were in bloom. It was believed (and frequently proved true) that no young man who took a girl out in a shikarra on those enchanted waters when the moon was full could resist proposing marriage to her. Or she accepting. For which reason any engagement entered into under those conditions would not be considered valid unless repeated on the following morning in full daylight, and preferably before witnesses.
Bill, pale green from shock and hangover, admitted that he hadn’t the faintest idea what he had said or done from the time the picnic party had landed on the island. The whole thing from then on was a blur. Scrambling hastily into his clothes and without even bothering to shave, he fled from the boat, grabbed the first tonga he saw and, urging its driver to get as much speed out of his horse as possible, made for the bund where his girlfriend’s parents had moored their houseboat; with the intention, he explained to me, of saying, ‘Look, old girl, I don’t remember what I said to you on the way back last night, but whatever it was, for God’s sake take it with a tablespoon of salt!’ Or words to that effect. He did not, however, get the chance …
Bertha had gone out shopping, and it was her Mama who received him. And instead of the frosty reception he expected from her, she advanced on him with a beaming smile and outstretched arms and, addressing him as her ‘dear boy’, embraced him fondly and said how pleased she would be to have such a nice son-in-law. And that, said Bill mournfully, tore it. He couldn’t possibly, he insisted, explain to her (as he could have to Bertha) that he had been tight as a newt on the previous evening and hadn’t a clue as to what he had or hadn’t said or done during at least a third of the festivities. ‘So I said the only thing I could think of,’ confessed Bill. ‘I said I couldn’t get married for seven years. Which is true of course; her parents must know that. And she’s sure to get tired of me long before that. It’s not as if she hasn’t got loads of boyfriends.’
I wanted to know what on earth he was going to do if his Bertha turned out to be truly in love with him, and the faithful type who was willing to wait for him for years on end. Was he prepared to marry her when the time was up? Bill merely looked uncomfortable and said it wouldn’t ever come to that. It seemed that both she and her parents had agreed that in view of the length of the engagement, it would be better not to publish any notice of it in the newspapers — to avoid having to publish a cancellation at some later date, hazarded Bill, hopefully. I was less sanguine, because of the ring —
We chose one at Hamilton’s that morning after long deliberation. The deliberation was over price rather than design. Bill’s means, as ever, were strictly limited, and as he had no intention of getting deeper into debt if he could help it, he confided to an elderly assistant at Hamilton’s the maximum figure he could run to, and urged that it be kept as far below that as possible. We ended up with a small sapphire between a couple of slightly smaller diamonds. As this offering was to be given to his fiancée by Bill in person when they met again in Kashmir, which would not be until his next leave, and since we too planned to spend the autumn in Kashmir, the ring was handed over to Tacklow for safe-keeping when Bill returned to the Frontier a few days later.
Amateur dramatics and the Gaiety Theatre continued to play as large a part in my adult life in Simla as they had during my childhood, and to live up to their reputation for fun, feuds and drama. They also brought me a valued friend, one Judith Birdwood who would in the future, after becoming Judy Messel, turn professional and, under her maiden name, design any number of shows for the Cambridge Footlights and the Marlowe Society, for whom she was designer and wardrobe mistress for thirty-eight years. Her father, later Lord Birdwood, was at that time General Sir William Birdwood, Commander-in-Chief, India. Judy had been charmed by the set and costumes for Vanity and had come round the back when the curtain came down after the first night to congratulate me. We sat together in the green-room talking for hours until old de la Rue Brown threw us out. Later on the two of us managed to get involved in other productions, notably an Edwardian musical comedy, Miss Hook of Holland, A Persian Garden, The Constant Nymph and Faust.
I was to have played the soubrette in Miss Hook and sung one of the hit songs in that show — ‘A Little Pink Petti from Peter’. But alas, after rehearsing for weeks my eyes went bad on me, and the eye specialist at the Walker Hospital ordered a week in bed in a blacked-out room — no reading or writing. And, thereafter, spectacles of all dreary things. It was a blow, and when the show was performed I had to watch (through dark glasses and from the back of the stage box) my understudy bringing the house down with endless encores of ‘Pink Petti from Peter’. But although I was out of the show, I had, in partnership with
Judy, designed the costumes and sets, and contributed a personal touch that turned one number, the modern one, into a spectacular success.
All ‘dated’ musical comedies put on by the Simla Amateur Dramatic Club invariably included one ‘modern’ song, slotted in among the original earlier ones. The one we used for Miss Hook of Holland was ‘Tip-Toe through the Tulips’—which in those days was new. Someone had worked out a dance that was meant to turn it into a spectacular number for the entire chorus, but it fell sadly flat until I had a sudden brainwave, which, I am delighted to say, worked a treat. We had a whole lot of paper tulips made in the bazaar, and attached each one to a dart, borrowed from the Darts Club. The dancers carried baskets full of these, and sowed them in lines all over the stage by the simple expedient of dropping each dart with a firm flick of the wrist that drove the point into the wooden floorboards of the stage, and made it possible for the chorus boys and girls to tiptoe through these rows of tulips. Practice made the chorus perfect, and as a final encore, they picked the tulips and stashed them back into their baskets — thus clearing the stage for the next bit of hi-di-ho.
I was exceedingly proud of that simple but most effective bit of stagecraft, and also of a few more that I dreamed up for a production of Faust.
I can’t remember which year Faust came into. Probably 1930, when Judy invited me to spend six weeks at Snowdon, the C-in-C’s house in Simla, to help her and her musical brother, Chris Birdwood, put on a production of Gounod’s Faust at Davico’s ballroom. Though it could have been in 1931 when I was staying with friends of Mother’s, Mr and Mrs Bevan-Petman — parents of the artist Hal Bevan-Petman, who was to become, and remain, a dear and much admired friend of my family’s until the end of his days. The dates of those two separate visits remain vague to my mind, though I remember that after leaving the Bevan-Petmans I spent a few days with the family of Cyril Drummond, Headmaster of the Stapleton Cotton School, and that while I was there his wife won the silver medal for the best watercolour in the Simla Fine Arts Society’s annual show, with a painting called Mist-swept Kuds.* Why do some things stick while others escape one? I remember that while I was there I shared a bedroom with a friendly and charming young daughter of the house named Chloë.