January 1,1876

Under Oriental Skies

I have been rather quiet these days. Or to be more precise, and keeping in mind the grammatical rule that Mamma once drilled into me as a child, I should instead say quite. So, then, I have been quite quiet.

Today, however, I must write something about James I have been neglecting him for far too long. He had some remarkable company over dinner last night.

The Revds. H.T.Blackett, G.A.Lefroy and Edward Bickersteth from the Cambridge Mission to Delhi were around in Simla visiting the Viceroy during Christmas. Making their acquaintance during a meeting with his Lordship's under secretary, Mr Richard Stapleton, I.C.S., James invited them over to dinner at our home. Among them there was a certain Samuel Scott Allnutt, a very tall thin man fired with a dream. A dream that he calls St.Stephen's College, Cashmere Gate, Delhi. Though a dream that hardly ought to be called by that name. For it seems to me that the Rev. Allnutt breathes, thinks, eats, drinks, sleeps and lives that dream as if what seems like a mirage to some of us here is the most immediate, the most passionate, the most intense, and the most interior reality in his mortal existence.

It is to be a college, he informed us over dinner, bending low over his food and peering into our eyes through his black spectacles, that would become one of the finest flowers of British India in the years to come. So loving and so intimate would be the bond between Cambridge and St.Stephen's, he declared in his deep resonating voice, that the umbilical cord between the two would never be severed, and that even after we, the British, have left this fair land of Hindosthan and have departed to the rest of our forefathers, and thousands will have risen from this earth to condemn us for our iniquities and heap infamies over our heads, millions from among the natives would continue to move through its portals into the hallowed corridors of Cambridge, and yet millions of us Englishmen and Englishwomen would continue to view it as the most precious gift that we ever bequeathed to this land of ancient learning.

I looked towards James. There was a gentle smile on his lips. David could hardly conceal his laughter, and abruptly excused himself from the table and rushed into the living room. I felt a sudden surge of anger at his impudence. But there was no time for me to linger on this, for Allnutt went on talking, almost as if he were a teacher speaking to his attentive students.

It was now the Revd.Lefroy's turn to speak. He would teach Psychology and History at the college, the Revd. Carlyon would instruct the natives in Mathematics, and as for Allnutt, it would be Logic and Literature.

Around this time, David returned.

'Sir, if I may make bold to ask, do you really believe in what you have said? The most precious gift? If you shall permit me to use a colloqualism that is making the rounds in London these days, surely you must be joking, Mr. Allnutt?'

'Oh, yes, I am very serious', replied Allnutt, standing up spontaneously, somewhat in the manner of a deeply wounded man who had been cut to the quick. 'Indeed, very serious. Someday if the sun were to set on Her Majesty's Empire, God forbid, but God is no respecter of persons, nay, that He is not, what shall be left of our presence here? St. Stephen's shall outlive us as the living embodiment of our tireless and unceasing efforts to bring a ray of civilization to these benighted natives. St. Stephen's, I assure you, sir, is not to be a mere building of red bricks and black mortar, like just any gaudy and pompous edifice across the street. Somewhat in the manner that an old Scotsman returning from the war sees from afar his house, lovingly named Red Roofs, and feels a gentle peace streaming through his veins, generations of these natives, long after we are dead and long after this very dinner, unrecorded in any newspaper, is forgotten, will continue to return to St. Stephen's to find a home which they never left.'

Somehow that reply seemed to have silenced David.

For the moment, at least. There was now a sombre look on his long face, and he stared at the candle next to him, gently weeping its warm waxy tears.

Around the table, a deathly silence descended upon us. There was only the occasional sound of knives and forks clashing against each other.

I do not know why, but I felt over the dinner table in my very bosom that I had been a witness to the birth-pangs of something truly glorious, truly resplendent, truly inspiring, something to describe which the frail mortal words of a fragile woman are inadequate to the task.