My palankeen deposited me at the stage door, her's took her to the dress circle.
'What have you done with your fair companion, my love?' said her husband as he made room for her beside him.
'Oh, isn't it tiresome,' said she, 'she does not feel well, and is obliged to be down, poor dear; she won't be able to come to the play, but she has promised to join me afterwards at the ball.'
The curtain drew up, and the farce commenced. I was well up in my part, but having to appear at the window of a romantic-looking cottage, and respond to the enamoured strains of my gay Lothario, as the devil would have it, I made a sad mistake, for be it known that the reverse side of that romantic cottage was a mass of whitewashed boards and dirty cobwebs, and against this ricketty erection was placed an equally ricketty ladder, on which I, poor Laura, was standing, in imminent peril of my neck; when, therefore, Lothario, falling on his knees, exclaimed, 'Allow me to salute you a la militaire!' I was so flabbergastered that I quite forgot what pretty reply I ought to make; whereupon the prompter, Captain P-, gave me a tremendous pinch in the calf, exclaiming, 'Damn it, why don't you answer,' this in a whisper. But I, feeling the pinch, and forgetting my character, shouted out,
'Damn it, don't pinch so.'
To hear the lovely Laura use such an expression at such a sentimental moment, of course, set the house in a roar of laughter, while ironical bravos saluted my ear on every side; as for poor Lothario, he looked ridiculous enough still kneeling before the cottage.
Silence being at length restored, Captain P- went on the stage and thus addressed the audience: 'Ladies and gentlemen, Miss Laura begs to offer her humble apologies for the slip of the tongue of which she was guilty and promises not to offend in future, if you will allow the piece to proceed.'
The play then went on, and the curtain fell at length amidst loud applause. Laura was called before the curtain, was loudly cheered, made her bow and hooked it.
Strictly following the directions of Mrs B-, I lay down for half an hour then called the ayah, and by and by appeared in the ballroom in the muslin dress and masked like the rest. I seated myself near Mrs B-; her husband was standing by.
'How do you feel now dear?' said she.
'Thank you very much, I am better now, my headache is gone, and I feel pretty well.'
'I'm so glad, dear.'
'Shall you dance tonight, dear Mrs B-?' said I.
'No, my love, I think not! but here comes Mr F-, he's so fond of dancing.' F- advanced rather timidly and bowed.
'Why Mr F- where have you been this last week? I have not seen you for an age,' said she, giving her husband a droll look.
'Gad I've called a good many times on you, my dear Mrs B-, but you were always denied to me.'
'Really, how sorry I am!'
'Perhaps you'll make a fellar amends by dancing with him?' said the lout.
'Couldn't do it my good man, I am quite tired, I merely intend to look on; but here is my friend
— Miss J-, Cornet F-; Cornet F-, Miss J-. She will be happy I'm sure.'
'Vewy prowd, miss, I'm sure,' said F-, with an awkward bow.
'Oh, I love dancing,' said I, with a languishing air.
We stood up; I danced eight sets with him and two waltzes, and never parted with him an instant. At four in the morning he took me in to supper, I devoured nearly a whole chicken, four slices of tongue, and drank nearly two bottles of champagne. F- regarded me with a sort of grotesque horror, and I heard him whisper to a friend,
'Such a devil of a girl! I'm nearly dead, by Jove; she eats and drinks like an ogress.'
I had the greatest difficulty in restraining my laughter. As for the ladies they regarded me with amazement.
Supper over, I rose up and whispered to F-, 'Take me into the ante-room, my garter has come down.'
F- offered his arm with a nervous air; arrived in the anteroom, I put my foot upon a chair, and pulling up my clothes about four inches above the knee, said, 'Well, put up my garter, you fool, can't you?'
F- plucked up his courage and performed the office required, but then took the liberty of slapping my thigh; I administered such a box on the ear as sent my gentleman flying to the other end of the room, where catching his spurs in the door mat, he fell to the ground. I walked off and seated myself beside Mrs B-, and told her the sequel.
'He'll find you out, my friend,' said she.
'Not a bit of it,' I said, laughing, 'if he talks of my dancing and eating, and the garter, you will say to everybody that he is a mean fellow, who took an unwarrantable liberty with the poor girl.'
'Very well, but now, my dear boy, you must go; remember you go straight into my dressing-room, strip as quick as possible, put all the things in the bottom drawer, then get out of the bathroom window and put on your own clothes, and get home as soon as you can. I'll detain Charlie here another half-hour, that will give you time; good-night.' I pressed her hand and left. I found my clothes under the window, and was soon fast asleep in my own bungalow.
It was eleven o'clock the next morning before I opened my eyes, I sprang off the cot, plunged my head in cold water, drank a cup of coffee, lit a cheroot, and seated myself in my easy chair on the verandah, as right as a trivet, but that was my 'age of iron'. In youth we can do such things, and all is couleur de rose, but grown old and grey, we succumb at last.
F- was furious. He saw that Mrs B- had played him a scurvy trick, but being a fool, he never fathomed it.
In relating this anecdote to my friends, I have been wont to embellish a little, and have told them that I declared myself to F-, and apprised him who Miss Jermyn was, such was not the case, it was never known to anyone but Mrs B- and myself; nor should I now tell the story, but, alas, dear Ellen, her husband and F- have been dead for years, and its narration can do them no harm, though many of my contemporaries yet living will recognise the initials, and remember the circumstances.
A few days afterwards the whole cantonment was scandalised by an affair that happened.
Mrs T- had supplied my place with young B- of the — th Dragoons and he used frequently to pass the night with her.
One night it happened that a servant, to whom she had spoken harshly, having previously had some suspicions of her fidelity to her lord, took it into his head to watch her through a hole he had made in her bedroom door. The patience of these natives is proverbial; he watched patiently till one in the morning, then he heard three raps at the jalousies of her bedroom (the window); she sprang out off the bed and opened them and young B- leapt in. They stripped themselves naked, she got on the top of him on the bed; the servant ran to his master's room and told him; the major, without making any noise, placed two men with loaded pistols under the window, with orders to shoot any person who came out, and then seizing a heavy horsewhip, went and burst open his wife's door; he surprised them in the act; he flogged his wife till the blood ran in streams; B- sprang out of the window, and was shot down by the watchers. The major, quite exhausted, went and locked himself in his room.
They flung B- into the lake, but he managed to get out, and crawled home with his right arm broken, and a ball in his groin.
The next day the major was found dead in his cot; the excitement had killed him, he had broken a blood vessel; he died without having time to alter his will, and Mrs T- retained all his property and her own; she removed B- to her house and nursed him in his illness; he sold out of the service, and they returned to England together, but whether he married her, or what became of them I could never learn. This affair made a great noise at the time, and seemed to render other persons who were carrying on intrigues very circumspect in their behaviour.
As for Mrs B- and myself, we arranged a plan by which it was next to impossible for a discovery of the amour to be made.
She used to visit me at night, enveloped from head to foot in a native veil, and often when my servants thought I was entertaining some Mohammedan girl, I was in fact enjoying the society of my pretty Ellen.
A year thus slipped pleasantly away; we had become very spooney on each other, and this dangerous sentimentality would certainly, in the end, have led us into a scrape. But fortune was propitious enough to order it otherwise. Captain B- received a staff appointment in a distant district, and we parted with eternal vows of constancy, fidelity and eternal love!
Some natural tears we shed,
