A Lady of England 95

A Lady of England 95

‘Her reticence regarding her own life and work was extreme.

This much I remember from her occasional talks, incidentally

dropped from her: that she was eight years old when she read

Shakespeare; she was eleven when she began to compose; and

at twenty-one she sent her first book to press.[117] She

wrote to me once how much she exulted over her first printed

composition....

 

‘At that advanced age how much she could accomplish in a single

day was a wonder to everybody. Her vast correspondence, reading

of books and papers, her literary compositions, her school

classes, Bible-meetings, various interviews, were so gracefully

and naturally managed. Still, all these were held in the

background, and jealously guarded against encroaching upon her

Missionary work....

 

‘She was reading the sermon (Spurgeon’s) on Christ’s first

miracle at Cana. She read there that our duty was to fill

the jars to the brim; and it was Christ’s work to turn them

into wine. This led to the self-examining question, “Am I

filling the jars to the brim? Can I not work a little more

for Christ than I have hitherto done?” This gave her strength

in her feebleness; and from that day she spent an hour more

in the zenanas than she used to do. Considering the various

discouragements she met in her Missionary work, it was no small

matter to take this step,--and this too at a time when it was

an effort to walk, not to speak of ascending perpendicular

flights of stairs in the zenanas....

 

‘The one thing which was not liked by some people about her was

that she had an extreme disgust of Natives taking to English

dress, which she invariably designated “ugly.” She regretted on

several occasions that her age and habits did not allow of her

adopting the “graceful _dopatta_” (head cover) in preference to

her hat....

 

‘Her ideas about the burial system were very definite. She

would take up the thread of St. Paul’s argument, and compare

the human body to a seed of grain, which should be simply

buried under the earth, and not shut up in a box and placed in

the ground. She several times expressed her desire to be simply

wrapped up in a clean sheet and carried by her boys to the

cemetery when her turn came, and then laid in the grave as one

naturally sleeping.’

 

 

II.

 

‘During Mr. Baring’s absence in England in 1881, one cold night

Miss Tucker noticed in the Chapel a man shivering with cold.

He was one of the non-Christian servants of the school. After

Service she called him, and asked him if he had more clothes.

The man said “No.” He was shivering, as he had fever. She told

him to wait, and ran upstairs. She came back in a minute with a

beautiful rug. She told the man she could not give it to him,

as it was a present from her sister, but she would lend it to

him for the night, and would buy a country blanket for him the

next day. I asked her what she was going to do herself. She

said she would keep a fire in her bedroom, and that would keep

her warm.

 

‘I saw her many times picking up pieces of broken glass or

bottles. She said poor people who walk barefoot get hurt by

these. She has known cases in which men suffered for weeks from

wounds received from these.

 

‘She was not kind to men only, but to animals. One summer

morning, as she was coming from the city, after doing her

work in the Zenanas, she saw a poor donkey with a sore back,

troubled by a crow. She came home, took a piece of cloth, went

to the place where she saw the donkey, tied the cloth, and came

back and took her breakfast....

 

‘Her example has done a great deal in removing caste feelings

among Christians. Batala was a place for feasts. In these

feasts all Christians were invited. She generally sat with

low-caste Converts, and ate with them....

 

‘Once for sending a girl to an orphanage she sent for a

prospectus of the school. In it two warm dresses were put down

in the list of clothes. ‘It is very unreasonable,’ she said,

‘to require two warm dresses.’ She had herself only one, and

that she had been using for the last nine years. Her poem,

“What a Missionary Miss Sahiba should be,” is an embodiment of

what she was.’

 

One more short sentence from the same source is worthy of particular

attention: ‘When ill, Miss Tucker did not like to inform her friends of

it, lest her friends should leave their work and come to nurse her. She

often expressed a wish that there were MISSION NURSES, who could attend

to the sick Missionaries. Without these, when one got ill, others were

taken from their work to nurse her.’

 

In an earlier chapter it was suggested that some ladies, wishing to

find a vocation, might offer themselves as Honorary helpers to the more

regular Missionaries in certain lines, among which Nursing was included.

Here it seems that the same thought had distinctly occurred to the mind

of Charlotte Tucker. Why should not a little Band of Honorary Nurses for

India be organised,--Nurses, trained and capable, holding themselves

ready to go wherever their services may be required by any sick

Missionary, so that the steady work of other Missionaries should not be

unnecessarily interrupted by the illness of one of their number? The idea

is at least worth consideration, since apparently it would have met with

the approval of A. L. O. E.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

A.D. 1885-1886

 

ON THE RIVER’S BRINK

 

 

Changes again were impending. Mr. and Mrs. Weitbrecht, after two years’

work in Batala, were to quit the place; and in their stead would come Mr.

and Mrs. Corfield,--the former as new Principal of the High School. It

is singular to note one Missionary after another thus coming and going,

while Charlotte Tucker, with resolute perseverance, held to her post.

 

At last she too began to think of a change. Not of leaving Batala; not

of going home, for even the shortest of furloughs! Such an idea perhaps

never so much as occurred to her mind. She simply began to think of

altering her residence in Batala. At Anarkalli she had lived with Miss

Swainson, with Mr. and Mrs. Beutel, with Natives alone, with Mr. Baring,

with Mr. Baring and his wife, with Mr. and Mrs. Weitbrecht; and now

another ‘upheaval’ had become imminent.

 

The notion of a move was apparently at first her own, though others soon

looked upon it as desirable. Two German ladies, Miss Hoernle and Miss

Krapf, dwelt together in the cosy little Mission Bungalow, which they had

named ‘Sonnenschein’ or ‘Sunshine.’ No room remained for a third inmate;

but Miss Tucker formed a plan of building a small annexe to the west of

‘Sunshine,’ for her own use; and to this tiny annexe she resolved to give

the name of ‘Gurub i Aftab,’ or ‘Sunset.’

 

Mrs. Hamilton, on first hearing of the scheme, was somewhat distressed

at the thought of such a change for her ‘Char’; but Miss Tucker wrote to

assure her of no move until the new building should be perfectly dry.

Also a long letter from Mr. Weitbrecht set before Mrs. Hamilton, with

kind clearness, the advantages of the plan. Among other reasons urged was

the overcrowded state of the palace, where more room for the School was

urgently needed; and also the desirability that Miss Tucker, in advancing

years, should not constantly have to climb a steep and awkward staircase,

which had of late greatly tried her strength.

 

It is probable that for some little time past there had been a certain

failure of power, evidenced by such facts as this, though made very

little of by herself, and perhaps little marked by others, because of her

determined cheerfulness and persistence in work.

 

Still, as always, she rose at six in winter, and at half-past four in

summer; had her little breakfast of cocoa and sweet biscuits; then read

and studied till eight. At 8 A.M., whether in summer or in winter, she

seldom failed to take her rapid ‘Devotional walk’ out of doors, up and

down, till summoned to Prayers by the Chapel gong. Then came breakfast

proper; after which she would still, as always, go out in her duli for

three or four hours of Zenana-visiting. Next followed correspondence;

lunch; classes of English history and English literature for the elder

boys; then afternoon tea; then sometimes more reading of a Native

language, and visiting of Native Christians. This was the manner of day

that she spent, week in, week out, month after month, often for ten or

eleven months at a stretch; varied only by itinerating expeditions into

neighbouring villages, or an occasional trip to Amritsar,--the latter

seldom, except on business of some kind. And she had been living this

life now for at least eight or nine years! Small wonder that a breakdown

should come at last. The marvel was that it had not come sooner. A chill

and a bad smell were the immediate cause,--they usually are in such

cases, acting upon exhausted powers.

 

Up to Thursday, December 10, things were much as usual. That morning she

went on her ordinary city round, and then to a Native wedding, where

she was very much tried by a bad smell from a drain, though her innate

courtesy would not allow her to hurry away. On reaching home she was in a

chilled and shivering condition, with the beginning of a sore throat. In

the afternoon fever and drowsiness came on.

 

For a day or two there seemed to be an improvement. Mrs. Weitbrecht, who

was to have left Batala before Sunday, on account of health, deferred her

journey until Monday.

 

Nothing could induce Miss Tucker to remain at home on Saturday. She

started as usual for the city; and on her return she told Mrs. Weitbrecht

‘how glad she was to have gone,’ adding, ‘I am always especially glad

when I go to the city, feeling it a little effort to do so.’ One is

disposed to imagine that it must have been more than a _little_ effort,

on that particular day; and the words contain a revelation as to past

‘efforts’ when unfit for the work which she never would neglect. Dr. H.

M. Clark had been asked to come over, but she utterly declined to see

him, except as a friend, refusing to consider herself ill. On Sunday she

was at both the Church Services, ‘kept up,’ as Mr. Bateman said, ‘by her

indomitable spirit’; and in the afternoon she had, as always, her Class

of boys. On Monday morning she made her appearance early, to see Mrs.

Weitbrecht off,--very bright and cheery, wrapping up sandwiches, and

determinedly hiding how ill she really felt, for fear Mrs. Weitbrecht’s

departure should be again delayed.