After her unhappy affair with Charles Maclean, Wynne was taken off by her mother to stay with her married sister, Eva, in India. As intended, it proved a fateful journey. She set sail from Marseilles aboard the SS Egypt at the beginning of November 1898 chaperoned by her brother, Elliot. Blanche had gone on ahead of them...
November 5th 1898
We passed through the Straits of Messina today and everybody went
up to the end of the ship and looked at the little towns on either side...there
was a frantic wind blowing and one lady whilst looking at the shore was
standing with her skirt and jacket in anything but elegant positions whilst
her hair was floating out behind her to the extent of three feet. I saw
a man come behind her and deliberately Kodak her! Just too rich for words!
November 7th
Yesterday I made the acquaintance of a Major Jackson and Mr Adams
- the former sits at our table and is in the artillery, a very good sort
I should think, fair and quiet. There are three men on board who we call
the Trio, all going to Mozufferpore district, planting (indigo) - one
came out the other morning in an eggshell blue shirt, brick coloured tie
and canary yellow waistcoat!
(which was an extraordinary irony - without doubt, every item of the man's apparel would have been coloured with aniline dyes. He was travelling out to start work for an industry that was already dead - artificial indigo,the Holy Grail of the chemical industries, was finally available in commercial quantities in 1890. By the early twentieth century the traditional indigo industry had been devastated).
November 16th
Baggage day - most people are glad that the voyage is nearly over,
it is scarcely necessary to say that I don't agree with them...Major Cadell
and I have been jawing all the afternoon and about Major Jackson we both
agree that it's quite time he got married! Dear old thing, the last thing
I can imagine him doing. I have given him instructions to do so and my
address, so that if he meets any very fascinating creature he is to write
and tell me...
After the two week voyage, they finally arrived at Bombay, where they transferred to the railway for the journey north to Wynne's sister, who was living near Bettiah, a small town in northern Bihar, not far from the Nepalese border. The estate was called (or was in) Dokraha. Later they lived in a place called Seryah, in a much bigger house. Wynne and Eve's family had a long connection with the area, as their father had been the adviser to the Maharajah of Darbhanga.
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November 18th
It is the very last day. Oh! how I hate it - we entered
the harbour before six this morning, the sunrise was perfect, the harbour
I find is most picturesque and so native looking, or rather one ought
to call it oriental I suppose. ...went off by tender at about 8, heaps
and heaps (of us), only leaving about
2 dozen on board including my dear old pal "the old man" ...I
did so hate saying goodbye to Major J as goodness knows when I shall see
him again, he is stationed at Karachi and he might as well be in America...I
have extracted a promise out of him to send me a line...he certainly is
one of the most charming men I have ever come across, and I have the greatest
respect for him as he is such a thoroughly straight and pucca fellow.
Heavens! Supposing he were to get hold of this one day - however nothing
is more absolutely unlikely.
(You can read about the complete voyage in Travel)