Barbara Cleverly by Ragtime in Simla Page B

Governor of the Punjab. You’re the most prominent European, I’m afraid, sir.’
    ‘Do I have to do anything?’
    ‘I don’t think so, sir. Just bow and smile.’
    ‘I spend my whole life bowing and smiling,’ grumbled Sir George. ’Still, I suppose I’m paid for it! Ah, good evening Mrs Gallagher. And is this Margaret? Margaret! I would never have recognized you! So grown up, if you’ll forgive my saying it. First season?’
    Others pressed round him.
    ‘May I present my sister, Sir George? Joyce, this is Sir George Jardine, Acting Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.’
    ‘Delightful! Delightful!’ said George. ‘First visit?’
    ‘This,’ said an ADC in a discreet murmur, ‘is Colonel Chichester’s widow who was here last year.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Sir George, ‘Mrs Chichester! How delightful to see you again! Second visit, I believe? Third, is it? How time passes! And may I present Commander Sandilands who is staying with me – for a few weeks, I hope. Eh, Joe?’
    Somewhere in the background a not very skilled orchestra was tuning and in groups of twos and fours the crowd dispersed by degrees to take their seats in the gilded boxes which surrounded the auditorium.
    ‘Doesn’t look as though they’ve heard about Korsovsky yet,’ said Sir George as they took their seats. ‘Wonder if they’ll make an announcement? Well, just as long as they don’t expect me to.’
    Joe looked about him. Bright eyes, what his mother would have called ‘bold glances’, piled hair and silk dresses, white shirt fronts, moustached faces. Every now and then the light was reflected from a monocle amongst the audience. Joe felt himself transported back to a disappearing age. He was aware that, as Sir George’s guest, he was the focus of curiosity. ‘If I had a moustache, this would be the moment to twirl it!’ His eye was caught by Mrs Graham, the companion of his journey up to Kalka, and he greeted her, to her satisfaction, with a conspiratorial wink.
    With a few bars of what Joe believed to be the overture to Aida, from the six-piece orchestra, the show began. The house lights were turned out and the curtain rose on a one-act comedy played with considerable skill and to much applause by a cast of four.
    ‘Angela,’ he overheard from a near neighbour, ‘really doesn’t look a day over thirty.’
    And the acid reply, ‘I can sit in the sun and look twenty-one, while she’s forty-two in the shade!’
    The drawing-room comedy gave way to the Choral Society – ‘List and Learn, Ye Dainty Roses’ – and to a male voice choir which boomed out the ‘Soldiers’ Chorus’ followed by a floundering Cakewalk danced to a jazz record by a coltish group of only slightly embarrassed girls.
    ‘If this was truly music hall fifty years ago, you could have one of them sent to you in the interval,’ said Sir George. ‘Just mention it to James!’
    ‘Oh, sir! For goodness sake don’t!’ said James nervously.
    ‘Come, come, James! We must look after our guests, you know!’
    The dancing brought the first part of the entertainment to a close. Gossiping and chattering, the crowd proceeded to the foyer. Cigars were lit and, considerably daring, one or two women accepted cigarettes from their escorts. Genial and expansive, Sir George let the crowd wash about him.
    The second and main part of the programme was a melodrama with a cast of eight in three acts. It had been a long day and Joe began to nod, losing the thread from time to time of the unnecessarily complicated plot. The applause, however, was warm and people were beginning to stir in their seats and gather up their wraps when a girl came on to the stage and held up her hand. The audience at once fell silent and looked at her with pleasurable anticipation. She was wearing a long, simply cut white satin evening dress with a red rose at her breast. Her hair, caught in the stage lights, was the colour of a freshly minted King George the Fifth penny and hung, shining and loose on her shoulders.
    Pretty girl, thought Joe automatically. He