The idea of using a
Cemetery as a rendezvous is distinctly a feminine one. A man
would have said simply, 'Let people talk. We'll go down the Mall.'
A woman is made differently, especially if she be such a woman as
the Man's Wife. She and the Tertium Quid enjoyed each other's
society among the graves of men and women whom they had
known and danced with aforetime.
They used to take a big horse-blanket and sit on the grass a little to
the left of the lower end, where there is a dip in the ground, and
where the occupied graves stop short and the ready-made ones are
not ready. Each well-regulated Indian Cemetery keeps
half-a-dozen graves permanently open for contingencies and
incidental wear and tear. In the Hills these are more usually baby's
size, because children who come up weakened and sick from the
Plains often succumb to the effects of the Rains in the Hills or get
pneumonia from their ayahs taking them through damp
pine-woods after the sun has set. In Cantonments, of course, the
man's size is more in request; these arrangements varying with the
climate and population.
One day when the Man's Wife and the Tertium Quid had just
arrived in the Cemetery, they saw some coolies breaking ground.
They had marked out a full-size grave, and the Tertium Quid asked
them whether any Sahib was sick. They said that they did not
know; but it was an order that they should dig a Sahib's grave.
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