Alec gave me two girls in the first two years of our marriage. Then he went phut just like that, phut. At fifty-five he was retired from service. I hoped he would take us back to Ole Blighty. But he refused to leave Cal. ‘Livin’ is cheaper here,’ he said. ‘Back home we won’t have an ayah or chhokra.’ In any case he hadn’t saved up anything so we did not have money to pay the ole P. & O. our passage money. We had to move into cheaper digs in the Eurasian quarters between Chowringhee and the native bazaar. I tried to have as little to do with our neighbours as possible! But Alec took to them like a duck takes to water. He started drinking toddy with Eurasians and going to their homes. I pleaded with him: ‘Alec, I don’t want my girls to grow up in India, I want to send them to a good school at Home. If you can’t afford it on your pension, let’s go up country where they are short of sahibs. I am sure you could get some kind of job. With your salary plus the pension we would give the girls what they deserve. We can save up and then join them in England. Meanwhile we could mix with the right kind of people.’ If I said this once, I said it a hundred times. You think that Mister Alexander Aldwell would listen! In through one ear, out of the other! ‘Who’ll give me a job at my age?’ he would say and go out of the house as fast as he could.

I got fed up. Without telling Alec I went to see Mr George Atkins who had been his boss. Mr Atkins was real nice. Only forty and a bachelor. He listened to me and said he’d like time to think it over. He asked me to dine with him at the Calcutta Club. Real swanky it was! Gentlemen in tails, ladies in long dresses! Bearers, khidmatgars, abdars and what have you! And Mr Atkins so gallant! He said he was mighty proud to be seen with anyone as pretty as yours sincerely. I gave him a friendly peck on his nose. After dining and dancing he drove me back in his buggy. I gave him a real mouthful of a goodnight kiss.

A few days later, Mr Atkins invited me to dine with him at his bungalow. So romantic it was! Candle-light and champagne and all that kind of thing. English ham, cheddar cheese and everything of the best from Calcutta’s poshest store—the Hall of All Nations. I knew what he wanted. And I knew what I wanted. After supper we got down to business: I gave him a real nice time. As I said, my hubby had gone phut. I was only twenty-six and hadn’t known a man for more than a year.