Rika was rather a revelation. The civilians' bungalows have a
here-we-have-no-continuing-city look about them; their owners are
constantly being moved, and pitching their moving tents elsewhere;
but the Royles have been at Rika for fifteen years, and have made a
delightful home. The bungalow is built on a slightly rising ground
with a verandah all round--a verandah made pleasant with comfortable
chairs, rugs, writing-tables, books, and flowers. At one end a
_dirzee_ squats with a sewing-machine, surrounded by white stuff in
various stages of progress for the Mem Sahib and the children. From
the middle of the verandah a broad flight of steps, flanked on either
side by growing plants in pots, leads down to the road, and across the
road lie the tennis-lawns and the flower-garden. I have read that one
of the most pathetic things about this Land of Exile is the useless
effort to make English flowers grow. In Rika they must feel at home,
for the whole air is scented with roses and mignonette. When
Mrs. Royle took us to see her flowers, Boggley pulled a sprig of
mignonette, sniffed it appreciatively, and handing it to me said:
"What does that remind you of?"
"Miss Aitken's teas!" I said promptly. Always that scent takes me
straight back to sunny summer afternoons when
"The day was just a day to my mind,
All sunny before and sunny behind,
Over the heather,"
and myself in a stiffly starched frock, accompanied by three brothers
with polished faces and spotless collars setting out to drink tea with
our friends Miss Aitken and Miss Elspeth.
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