The Magnificent Montez | Page 9

according to this
authority, the "List of Necessaries for a Lady on a Voyage from
England to India" included, among other items, the following articles:
"72 chemises; 36 nightcaps; 70 pocket-handkerchiefs; 30 pairs of
drawers (or combinations, at choice); 15 petticoats; 60 pairs of
stockings; 45 pairs of gloves; at least 20 dresses of different texture; 12
shawls and parasols; and 3 bonnets and 15 morning caps, together with
biscuits and preserves at discretion, and a dozen boxes of aperient
pills." Nothing omitted. Provision for all contingencies.
Officers were also required to provide themselves with an elaborate
outfit. Thus, the list recommended in the East India Voyage gives,
among other necessary items, "72 calico shirts; 60 pairs of stockings;
18 pairs of drawers; 24 pairs of gloves; and 20 pairs of trousers";
together with uniform, saddlery, and camp equipment; and such odds

and ends as "60 lbs. of wax candles and several bottles of ink." Nothing,
however, about red-tape.
A helpful hint furnished by Miss Roberts was that "A lady on
ship-board, spruced up for the Park or the Opera, would only be an
object of ridicule to her experienced companions. Frippery which
would be discarded in England is often useful in India. Members of my
sex," she adds, "who have to study economy, can always secure
bargains by acquiring at small cost items of fashion which, while
outmoded in London, will be new enough by the time they reach
Calcutta."
A lady with such sound views on managing the domestic budget as
Miss Emma Roberts should not have remained long in single
blessedness.
II
Those were not the days of ocean greyhounds, covering the distance
between England and India in a couple of weeks. Nor was there then
any Suez Canal route to shorten the long miles that had to be traversed.
Thus, when Lola and her spouse embarked from England in an East
Indiaman, the voyage took nearly five months to accomplish, with calls
at Madeira, St. Helena, and the Cape, before the welcome cry, "Land
Ahead!" was heard and anchor was dropped at Calcutta.
Lola's first acquaintance with India's coral strand had been made as a
child of five. Now she was returning as a married woman. Yet she was
scarcely eighteen. She did not stop in Calcutta long, for her husband's
regiment was in the Punjaub, and a peremptory message from the
brigadier required him to rejoin as soon as possible. It was at Kurnaul
(as it was then spelled) that Lola began her experience of garrison life.
Among the other officers she met there was a young subaltern of the
Bengal Artillery, who, in the years to come, was to make a name for
himself as "Lawrence of Lucknow."
The year 1838 was, for both the Company's troops and the Queen's
Army, an eventful one where India was concerned. During the spring

Lord Auckland, the newly-appointed Governor-General, hatched the
foolish and ill-conceived policy which led to the first Afghan war. His
idea (so far as he had one) was, with the help of Brown Bess and
British bayonets, to replace Dost Muhammed, who had sat on the
throne there for twenty years without giving any real trouble, by an
incompetent upstart of his own nomination, Shah Shuja.
Lieutenant James's regiment, the 21st Bengal Native Infantry, was
among those selected to join the expeditionary force appointed to
"uphold the prestige of the British Raj"; and, as was the custom at that
time, Lola, mounted on an elephant (which she shared with the
colonel's better half), and followed by a train of baggage camels and a
pack of foxhounds complete, accompanied her husband to the frontier.
The other ladies included Mrs. McNaghten and Mrs. Robert Sale and
the Governor-General's two daughters. It is just possible that Macaulay
had a glimpse of Lola, for a contemporary letter says that "he turned
out to wish the party farewell."
The "Army of the Indus" was given a good send off by a loyal native
prince, Ranjeet Singh (the "Lion of the Punjaub"), who, on their march
up country, entertained the column in a rest-camp at Lahore with
"showy pageants and gay doings," among which were nautch dances,
cock-fights, and theatricals. He meant well, no doubt, but he contrived
to upset a chaplain, who declared himself shocked that a "bevy of
dancing prostitutes should appear in the presence of the ladies of the
family of a British Governor-General." Judging from a luscious account
that Lola gives of a big durbar, to which all the officers and their wives
were bidden, these strictures were not unjustifiable. Thus, after Lord
Auckland ("in sky blue inexpressibles") and his host had delivered
patriotic speeches (with florid allusions to the "British Raj," the "Sahib
Log," and the "Great White Queen," and all the rest of it) gifts were