Calcutta,April ye28th.
To continue the history, in which I know my dearest Amelia is most painfully interested, I returned to my own chamber after the Captain’s departure, and did my best to comply with his desire, though with little faith, I fear, in the possibility of obtaining an answer to my prayers. For indeed, Amelia, what plan could be devised whereby might be satisfied not only my papa’s punctilio and Captain Colquhoun’s honour, but also the prying eagerness of the scandal-mongers of this place? I told myself that there could be none, and endeavoured to bring my mind into a state of resignation—a task that was rendered far harder by the recollections of Mr Fraser that had persisted in forcing themselves upon me all morning. For this is the worst of my misfortunes, that I can’t fail to perceive in the Captain a nobler spirit and a more obliging disposition than in Fraser, and yet (a plague on Sylvia Freyne’s perversity!) I love the meaner man and not the greater. I scolded myself for this preference. I sought to reason myself out of it, but all in vain, for the whole time I knew that if by some miracle Fraser should return at that very hour, and declare his repentance by the smallest word, or even with a look—aye, perhaps without even that—I should forgive him and love him, not better, that were impossible, but with a far more respectful affection than before. I am fully sensible that many writers, and in especial the ingenious Mr Richardson, would counsel me that ’twas my duty to resist a wilful passion of this sort, and endeavour to uproot it, and I should have hoped to do so, had time been allowed me. ’Tis the entering on new and all-important duties with a mind thus preoccupied that I dread, for fear lest, after all, my efforts should fail. “You can but try,” says everybody; but, my dear, it seems to me an extraordinary grave thing to make this sort of experiment, as I may say, in our lives, whereof we have but one apiece, whether to be gained or lost. For if we lose, what then, Amelia?
Spending my morning in reflections of this sort, my dearest girl will readily guess that when the hour for tiffing arrived I was in no state to make a public appearance. Sending Marianna to beg Mrs Freyne to excuse me from attending her at the meal, I turned over on my couch, and sought to cool my hot face with Hungary water. While thus occupied, in comes my papa.
“What, miss, sullen?” he said angrily, seeing me all in a heap on the couch, with my hair about my face and my cap awry.
“Indeed, indeed, sir,” I cried, rising from the couch and falling on my knees before him, “I am trying to mould my mind to your will, believe me. Only remember how your goodness has always indulged your girl in the past, and you’ll perceive how difficult she finds it to accommodate her behaviour to your present awful severity. Pray, sir, don’t think I regard it as ill deserved—I believe I know my faults—but bear with me for to-day, I beg of you.”
“You’re a strange unaccountable hussy,” says my papa, but not so harshly. “What do you want, miss, I should like to know? Well, cry your eyes out to-day, if you will have it so, but mind, no sulking to-morrow, on pain of my gravest displeasure.”
I heard him sigh impatiently as he went away, and (undutiful wretch! you’ll say) the sound rejoiced me, for I knew that whatever my stepmother’s arts had been, they had not availed to estrange my papa’s heart from his girl. My next visitor was Mrs Freyne herself, who came creeping in, with her finger to her lip, after my papa was gone back to hisdufter-conna.
“So you’re to marry the Captain, miss?” she said in a half-whisper; “I hope you’re pleased with the prospect?”
I could not think of any answer to make, and she went on, “Now, miss, I know you’ve often taken it vastly unkind in me that I’ve chanced to disoblige you now and then, but I’ll assure you I en’t really ill-natured. I won’t see you drove into a distasteful marriage without offering you a hope of escape. What do you say to marrying a rich and handsome young gentleman that’s dying for you, instead of your solemn-faced, miserly old Scotchman?”
“Who’s the gentleman, if you please, madam?”
“As though you needed to ask! ’Tis Menotti, of course, with the most elegant residence and keeping the best company in Calcutta. Come, miss, a chitt from me will bring him here in ten minutes, and Padra Mapletoft with him, and you shall be married quietly in your chamber, with no fuss or confusion. Then you can go home with him at once if you please, or if you choose still to play the prude and torment the poor man, he’ll be content not to claim you until you’re reconciled to the notion. Here’s pen and ink, I see—shall I write?”
Now it may appear strange to my Amelia, but this proposition of Mrs Freyne’s went far to reconcile me to quite another notion than hers. ’Twas possible, then, to meet a worse fate than to be compelled to marry an excellent good man that one did not love—even to lay oneself under an eternal obligation of the same nature to a wicked person that one hated.
“I thank you, madam,” I said, “but if I must marry one or other of the gentlemen, I’ll choose the Captain.”
“Then you’re a fool,” says she, “to choose a poor beggarly captain of Company’s troops, with whom you may be grateful if you get a silk gown once in ten years, in preference to one that will load you with the finest jewels and richest stuffs that can be had. I wonder, miss, where the obliging disposition is, with which the gentlemen all credit you, when you can doom to despair an adorer that has worshipped you so long with the utmost devotion, and for no reason at all?”
“Indeed, madam, I have my reasons. Mr Menotti’s manner of life, his free language even in the company of ladies, and the indifferent esteem in which he is held by persons of honour, are sufficient reason for me.”
“Well,” says Mrs Freyne, as she left the room, “if you’ll do me the favour to look at yourself in the glass, miss, I think you’ll say that if Mr Menotti saw you now, your looks would be a sufficient reason for his not marrying you.”
“Ah,” I thought, “I see now why Mr Freyne has been urged on to force me into marrying the Captain, and why I have been sought to be privately dissuaded from the match. The Unknown was a true prophet.”
Now this slight encounter with Mrs Freyne proved a huge refreshment to me, so that I rose and summoned Marianna to dress my hair and help me change my gown. And, indeed, it was well that I did so, for before dinner, while it was still the heat of the day, I was told that Captain Colquhoun was again awaiting me in the saloon. I sought in vain to read his face when I entered the room, but as he led me to a seat I observed that he had a letter in his hand, which he presently opened, showing me that it had another enclosed in it.
“This pacquet,” madam, he said, “I found lying at my quarters when I returned from attending you this morning. I have brought it here because I fancied Miss Freyne might be able to help me respecting its contents.”
“Indeed, sir, I hope you’ll command me,” I said, out of measure astonished at such a sudden change of address.
“It comes,” he said, “from my cousin, the young gentleman that was staying with me a fortnight or so back. He begs me to deliver the enclosure to a lady of whom he is enamoured, and whom—so far as I can make out—he offended grievously before his departure, but he don’t mention the lady’s name. ’Tis a wild fantastical piece of writing, but he appears to consider I would know his mistress. Yesterday I would have returned him the paper, having no notion who the divinity might be, but this day has taught me more things than one. Have you any knowledge of the lady, madam?”
“Oh, sir,” all impatience, “pray, pray give it me.” The Captain laid the letter in my hand, but I delayed to open it, partly through a real misgiving, partly through a foolish readiness to tease myself by postponing my happiness. “It en’t directed to me, sir.”
“If you think it en’t designed for you, madam, pray hand it back to me with the seal unbroken,” says the Captain, in a severe voice of rebuke; but that I could not do. The horrid doubt that I might find the letter wrote after all to some other lady made my hands shake as I tore it open, but then I cried out with joy. Oh, the dear, blessed words, Amelia! fantastical, if you will (sure poor Fraser must have gathered ’em from a novel, as he did that unlucky expedient of his), but for all that the sweetest, the most charming that ever assured the fearful heart of a poor creature that had sad cause to mistrust her lover. I copy them for my dear friend:—
“To the incomparable MrsSylvia Freyne.“If, madam, you deign to permit your eyes to rest upon the lines which the wretch who now addresses himself to you has dared to trace, it may perhaps serve to mitigate your just resentments when you learn that ever since he parted from you he has been a prey to the pangs of that remorse and contrition which is properly his lot. ’Tis true, he quitted your presence with an air of hardihood and bravado, as tho’ he had the effrontery to believe that he might remain unscathed by those arrows which had been planted in his guilty heart by your reproof of him, and this tho’ the wounds they caused (which have never ceased to throb and smart) were even then beginning to fester. The suffering wretch has no art to alleviate his pains, and in his despair he throws himself at the feet of the righteously offended charmer, to ask whether she who inflicted the hurts will be so divinely obliging as to chase ’em away. That the punishment is merited he dares not deny (yet not with such an affectation of humility as might seem to seek to disarm the just wrath of the lady to whom he applies himself), but will Miss Freyne’s tender heart permit her to use her suppliant as the savages of the Virginias their enemies—viz., to set ’em up and shoot arrows into them, and leave them to expire in their agony? Since quitting Calcutta, the miserable object of her displeasure has failed to enjoy a moment of ease from the torment of these cruel barbs in his vitals, and now, his vessel being forced by the stress of a storm to seek shelter in the port of Vizagapatnam, he gazes across the raging billows in the direction of the city that holds his mistress, and longs for the power of throwing himself in reality at her feet, where he might demand pardon too urgently to be withstood, and receive the assurance of his felicity from the kindest lips in the world. But honour draws him back to Madrass, for his orders were strict against lingering on the road, and the lady he ventures to adore would be the last to desire to lure him away from his duty. Won’t the amiable Sylvia grant her Fraser a word of kindness, whether traced by her own fair hand, or confided to the mediation of his kinsman, that may salve his wounds and send him victorious to fight his nation’s battles?“P.S.—Dearest madam, I love you with all my heart and better than my life. Forgive my unlucky trickery, and also my cursed rudeness, and rejoice your most humble and devoted servant,C. Fraser.”
“To the incomparable MrsSylvia Freyne.
“If, madam, you deign to permit your eyes to rest upon the lines which the wretch who now addresses himself to you has dared to trace, it may perhaps serve to mitigate your just resentments when you learn that ever since he parted from you he has been a prey to the pangs of that remorse and contrition which is properly his lot. ’Tis true, he quitted your presence with an air of hardihood and bravado, as tho’ he had the effrontery to believe that he might remain unscathed by those arrows which had been planted in his guilty heart by your reproof of him, and this tho’ the wounds they caused (which have never ceased to throb and smart) were even then beginning to fester. The suffering wretch has no art to alleviate his pains, and in his despair he throws himself at the feet of the righteously offended charmer, to ask whether she who inflicted the hurts will be so divinely obliging as to chase ’em away. That the punishment is merited he dares not deny (yet not with such an affectation of humility as might seem to seek to disarm the just wrath of the lady to whom he applies himself), but will Miss Freyne’s tender heart permit her to use her suppliant as the savages of the Virginias their enemies—viz., to set ’em up and shoot arrows into them, and leave them to expire in their agony? Since quitting Calcutta, the miserable object of her displeasure has failed to enjoy a moment of ease from the torment of these cruel barbs in his vitals, and now, his vessel being forced by the stress of a storm to seek shelter in the port of Vizagapatnam, he gazes across the raging billows in the direction of the city that holds his mistress, and longs for the power of throwing himself in reality at her feet, where he might demand pardon too urgently to be withstood, and receive the assurance of his felicity from the kindest lips in the world. But honour draws him back to Madrass, for his orders were strict against lingering on the road, and the lady he ventures to adore would be the last to desire to lure him away from his duty. Won’t the amiable Sylvia grant her Fraser a word of kindness, whether traced by her own fair hand, or confided to the mediation of his kinsman, that may salve his wounds and send him victorious to fight his nation’s battles?
“P.S.—Dearest madam, I love you with all my heart and better than my life. Forgive my unlucky trickery, and also my cursed rudeness, and rejoice your most humble and devoted servant,
C. Fraser.”
My happy tears fell fast (indeed I could not restrain ’em), on this charming, charming post-scriptum. “Oh, sir,” I cried to the Captain, “how shall I ever thank you for handing me this dear, this affecting letter?” But no sooner were the words out of my mouth (as they say) than I remembered, what my foolish ecstasy had made me forget, the present posture of my affairs. “Dear sir,” I said, “pray forgive me. What must you think of me?”
“Nay, madam,” was the Captain’s reply, “’tis of my cousin Fraser I am thinking. Sure the lad should have been named Jacob, and not Colvin, for he and his have supplanted me these two times.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, “you do me wrong, and your cousin also. See,” and I made as though to tear up Mr Fraser’s letter, but could not bring myself to do it, and only crushed it in my hand, “this late though happy repentance on his part can make no difference to the engagement into which I entered with you this morning. My dear Captain Colquhoun won’t grudge me, I’m sure, the happiness of knowing that I had misjudged one so nearly related to him, but that pleasure is in itself sufficient. I am yours, sir, and it shall be my constant effort, I’ll assure you, that what you have just witnessed shall never be recalled to your mind.”
“Nay, madam,” said he again, with what Charlotte and I have been used to call his wooden smile (oh, my dear, how the memory of our pert jests concerning the noblest of men shames me now!) “when Jacob hath gained both the birthright and the promise, what remains for poor Esau but to flee into the wilderness from the face of his brother?”
“Dear sir, what do you purpose doing?” I cried in great alarm.
“Nothing that need terrify you, madam; merely to withdraw my pretensions in favour of him who has the best right to your hand, since for him your heart goes with it, and to endeavour to find my happiness in that of the lady I most admire and of the man who must needs be worthy since Miss Freyne prefers him to so high a place in her esteem.”
“Sure, dear sir, you must be a philosopher?”
“I am more concerned to be a Christian, madam. But,” seeing that I was much abashed, “don’t let my sour humour put Miss Freyne out of countenance. Be assured, madam, that when I leave you ’twill be to set my wits at work to devise a means of escape from this situation that shall satisfy both Mr Freyne’s punctilio and yours, and if I find a chance to throw in a good word for your Fraser, it shan’t be lost.”
“Oh, sir, dear sir, if there was anything I could do!”
“There’s nothing, madam. Miss Freyne’s kind heart must not concern itself with the old man’s misfortunes. ‘Serves the old fool right for falling in love at his age!’ the world will say, but Alexander Colquhoun himself thinks no shame of it, and he is tough enough to bear the consequences without whimpering. Nay, madam, I protest you honour me too much——”
For when he stooped to kiss my hand, I had seized his and kissed it instead. And, indeed, Amelia, even now that I am cool, I will defend my hasty action to you or any other person. Would not you have been proud to kiss the hand of Sir Charles Grandison? and though you may smile to think that I should have discovered the features of that great and good man in a poor captain of Company’s troops, yet I defy you to produce any person of this age whose disposition will more nearly approach that of Mr Richardson’s noblest and most elevated character.
As I returned to my own chamber a little later, I met my papa.
“Well, miss, and where’s the Captain?” he asked me.
“I believe he’s gone back to his quarters, sir.”
“And what’s settled, hey?”
“I think the Captain will wait upon you to-morrow morning, sir.”
“Pray, miss, why don’t you answer my question? Is all right between you and the Captain?”
“I—I don’t know, sir,” and I burst into tears, which displeased my papa so much that he ordered me to go to my chamber, and not to show myself in his sight for the rest of the day.
The remainder of the afternoon I spent in scribbling these pages to my Amelia, until my eyes ached so badly I could write no more, and also (I’ll confess it) in reading again and again the dear delightful letter that assured me of Fraser’s penitence and faithfulness. My beloved girl will wonder that I could take so much pleasure in that which had so sadly disobliged the dear kind gentleman I had seen so lately, and indeed I was ashamed of my own delight, and astonished at it. I put the letter in my bosom at last, and crept like a mouse into the saloon, which was not lighted, since Mrs Freyne was spending the evening abroad. But outside in the varanda sat my papa, meditating, I fear, on the humours of his troublesome girl, and though he had forbid me his presence I could not endure not to be near him. Seated, therefore, on the straw matting (this is used instead of a carpet), close to the open door that leads on the varanda, and sheltered by theantiporta, I ventured to watch him, with all the love and reverence in my gaze that ought to, and does, fill my grateful heart on the slightest thought of him. He appeared troubled, and I knew that he felt the want of the Captain’s company, who is so often with him of an evening, but before very long Mr Dash was announced, and the two gentlemen sent for theirhookers[01](have I said that these are a strange sort of tobacco-pipe, with a vessel of water and a long tube like a serpent and all manner of outlandish additions belonging to ’em?) and began to smoke.
“I looked in at the Captain’s quarters as I passed,” says Mr Dash after a while, “thinking he would be coming to pass the evening with you, sir.”
“And you found him abroad?”
“No, sir, but he was too busy to stir a foot. Questionless that sergeant of his has been in trouble again, and is condemned to pass the night in the black hole for brawling, after smuggling a jar or two of arrack into the guard-room, and the Captain’s preparing a new scheme for his reformation.”
I knew well what Mr Dash meant, for Captain Colquhoun had often told me of this man, who is an extraordinary good soldier so long as he can resist the influence of strong liquors, and had even requested my opinion on the possibility of depriving him altogether of the indulgence, which in this climate is so often abused; but I did not believe that ’twas this matter which was exercising the Captain’s mind this evening. I sat listening while my papa and Mr Dash spoke of the overbearing and threatening carriage of the new Soubah towards us, and wondered whether he would permit himself to be appeased by the genteel congratulatory letter sent him by the President as soon as he was formally proclaimed in Calcutta. My papa made sure that all would be well, since the Nabob had received the letter favourably, and shown no resentment for the injurious treatment of his messenger in the matter of Kissendasseat, but Mr Dash pointed out that Surajah Dowlah had already seized and imprisoned one of his rivals, namely, Gosseta Begum, his uncle’s widow, and was commonly reported to be about to march against t’other, his cousin the Purranea Nabob, so that he was destroying his enemies one by one, “and after Sucajunk,” says the young gentleman, “our turn will come.”
My papa made some jesting answer to the effect that Mr Dash had taken the infection of Captain Colquhoun’s apprehensions, and after that I believe I must have fallen asleep where I was crouched, for I woke up with a great start and my heart thumping, to find Mr Dash gone and Mr Menotti shouting on the varanda, while my papa sought to quiet him.
“I tell you, sir,” he cried, “I found one of Omy Chund’s peons (and I believe ’twas Juggermunt Sing, their Jemmautdar and the biggest rascal of ’em all, but I could not make sure in the darkness) lurking in your grounds, with a billet upon him addressed to Miss.”
“Sure the fellow must be the biggest fool of ’em all if he handed the chitt to you, sir, in mistake for Miss,” says my papa.
“Sir,” says Mr Menotti, with a very haughty air, “I addressed myself to the rogue with authority, demanding what he was doing in such a place.”
“Ah, and what did you say the place was, sir, by the bye?”
“Why, sir, the great thicket opposite Miss’s window.”
“Indeed, sir! and may I ask what you was doing in such a place?”
I thought Mr Menotti seemed confounded for a moment, but he answered quickly, with a monstrous effrontery, “Why, sir, I saw the fellow sneaking into the shadow of the thicket, and thinking I knew his villainous countenance, my concern for your interests induced me to follow him. Recognising me as an acquaintance of his master’s, he was so imprudent as to declare his errand, when my regard for Miss’s honour at once put me upon getting hold of the letter he carried, which I did by promising to deliver it to the proper person. The wicked wretch had been haunting the spot for hours without being able to have speech of Miss, and being a simple sort of fellow, one of those Sykes[02]from the Mogul’s dominions, and not a Gentoo, he was easily persuaded to deliver it up.”
“Sir, your concern for my honour and my family’s does prodigious credit to the goodness of your heart. Did you dismiss the fellow in peace?”
“Why, no, sir; the billet once in my hands, it was no longer needful to dissemble the fury that possessed me, passing all bounds when I perceived the nature of the vile piece. For seeing that the letter was from the hand of the abandoned deceiver, whose shameless attempts have twice been frustrated by your vigilance, and that it contained a condolence with Miss on the tyranny by which you, sir, was endeavouring to force her into marriage with an elderly suitor, and an invitation to her to meet the writer on that spot at a certain hour this very night, with a view to eloping with him, I fell upon the messenger in my rage, and kicked and cuffed him so soundly that he may be thankful to have escaped with his life.”
“Sir, you lay me under an ever-increasing debt of obligation. The Unknown must be but new at his work to send his letter open and unfolded.”
“Indeed, sir, it was folded and sealed, but my transports of indignation would not permit me to hand the vile scrawl to Miss.”
“Nor to me neither, I suppose, sir? Perhaps, having perused it at your leisure, you’ll now pass it on to me.”
“Why, sir, I tore it into a thousand pieces and scattered ’em abroad. Would you have it pollute the sight of any but myself?”
“Sir,” says my papa, with his most awful air of severity, “I would have you act as a person of honour, if it be in your power. I have such confidence in my daughter that I’m persuaded, had the billet reached her, it would be in my hands at this moment. You have thought fit, not only to open and read, but to destroy, a letter addressed to a lady with whose actions you have not the smallest concern, and by alarming the messenger, to prevent our having any hope of catching his villainous principal in his own trap. You’ll oblige me excessively if you’ll inform your friend Omy Chund that my gardens en’t designed as lurking-places for his peons, and you’ll double the obligation by taking the same information to heart for the future with regard to yourself. I will wish you a very good evening, sir.”
Never, Amelia, have I seen a person look so foolishly confounded as Mr Menotti when my papa bowed him off the varanda, and called to the servants to conduct him to the gate. But oh, my dear, how fearful is this proof that the Unknown has not yet ceased his wicked attempts upon the reputation of your poor friend! Observe how quickly the news of my papa’s pressing on me the Captain’s suit has reached him (though I might give a guess as to the means, since Marianna tells me that Mrs Freyne’s iya Bowanny was despatched to the Mother of Cosmetiques this morning on an errand for some lipsalve), and how promptly the vile wretch acts. My mind is filled with terror by these continual plots against my peace (for what, pray, was Mr Menotti doing in the garden?). The only ray of hope that I can see is the chance that the second vile wretch, desiring to better his position with my papa, may have invented the whole affair. But this hope is destroyed by what I hear this morning (for I have not added a new date, since I desired to keep all the events of yesterday together), that Mr Menotti has quarrelled with his friend Omy Chund, and that the two, each threatening to betray some damaging fact that was come to his knowledge about the other, were with difficulty separated without bloodshed by the bystanders.
April ye29th.
Rising at my usual hour this morning, I dressed myself very carefully, putting on the carnation-coloured ribbons that are always my papa’s favourites, and a gown of printed muslin that he had brought me himself from Dacca. So fearful was I of meeting Mr Freyne, or at least of displeasing him by anything in my carriage or appearance, that I loitered before the mirror, altering a bow here and a knot there, until the bearer (who is as we should say Mr Freyne’s gentleman, but black, of course) came to tell Marianna that his master was waiting. Then you will guess, Amelia, how I hurried out, but slackened my haste as I approached my papa, my feet almost refusing to carry me, such was my state of apprehension. What was my relief when Mr Freyne saluted me most kindly and pleasantly, and bade me pour him a dish of tea before it all became cold. My fears were almost vanished under the influence of my dear papa’s agreeable conversation, when (the meal being ended and the servants retired) he sent me cold all over with—
“I must make you a compliment on the state of your affairs, miss. What with your modesty and your reserves, you’ve brought ’em to a pretty pass!”
“Indeed, dear sir, pardon me—I can’t help it,” I stammered.
“I had the Captain here last night,” says my papa.
“Last night, sir? the Captain? and what—what—?”
“What was you thinking about, miss, to tell him you loved another?”
“I durst not deceive him, sir.”
“Do you know you’re a troublesome, humoursome baggage, miss? What do you think your whimsies have cost the poor Captain?” He threw a great parcel of papers into my lap. “There, take ’em, and see what they come to. On my life, I’m ashamed to touch ’em.”
I unrolled the papers. They were Indian bonds of great sums, three hundred and five hundred pounds, and the like. I sought to reckon up their value, as my papa bade me, but could not come at it in my confusion.
“Pray, sir, what’s all this money?” I said, trying to speak calmly.
“Why, that’s your ransom, miss, to deliver you from the Captain’s clutches, though why he should have to pay it puzzles me.”
“Sure, sir, you must be jesting, and yet it en’t like my papa to rally me on so sorrowful a subject.”
“Sorrowful indeed, miss. I would pay down myself that sum you hold if it would free me from the reproach of having brought so much misfortune upon a man that I esteem the very chiefest of my friends, when I thought only to do him good.”
“But, dear sir, is it I that have done him harm?”
“Yes, miss, you, and that long Scotch lad of yours, and the tattlers and scandal-mongers of this place, and I myself, as I said.”
“You terrify me, sir. What’s happened to the Captain?”
“Oh, nothing, miss,” says my papa; “only that he has been robbed of his mistress and a matter of five thousand pounds besides.”
“This money that’s here, sir?”
“Yes, miss; the sum he makes over to you to compensate you for breaking off his addresses.”
I was filled with horror. “But you would not dream of accepting it, sir?”
“Why, miss, I must; that’s the cursed part of the business. Say that the Captain breaks off his courtship, which is become the common talk of all Calcutta. Did you refuse him? Then the gossip was true, and you was bound by some earlier engagement, so as you durst not marry him. Did he withdraw from his suit? Then you may be assured that he had discovered some spot on the lady’s reputation. Did I put an end to the affair? Why then, I was aware of something improper, and as a person of honour, refused to permit my friend to sacrifice himself. The lady’s in the wrong, you see, however you take it.”
“But, sir, how can this horrid, this dreadful money make things better?”
“Why, just in this way, miss. The Captain came to me last night, and told me you had received his addresses with the dutiful acceptance I had prepared him to expect in you. ‘But presently,’ says he, ‘talking with Miss, I discovered that if she honoured me with her hand, I could not hope to make her as happy as a lady of her beauty and merits has a right to expect. To force myself upon so charming a creature without that assurance which I failed to obtain would be to inflict undeserved misery on her, and a richly merited remorse on myself, but I am sensible that I would do her only a less harm by withdrawing from my suit. As a testimony, then, of my regard for the lady’s worth, and a compensation to her for the breaking-off of the match, I desire to make over to you for her use the sum of five thousand pounds, to be settled strictly upon herself,[03]whomsoever she may marry, and I will take it kindly in you, sir, to allow her to exercise her own choice in that particular.’ That I promised him at once, for ’twas all I could do for him, and indeed he has found the only way out of the difficulty.”
“Oh, sir,” my voice was choked, “forgive me, but mayn’t it be said that the dear gentleman paid down the money sooner than marry me?”
“No, miss, it mayn’t; for what man in his senses would allow himself to be forced into paying down such a sum without a fight at the law? And having paid it, would he be likely to remain friendly with the lady and her family? or more, would he use his best efforts to marry her to a relation of his own?”
“Oh, sir!” This took me quite aback, as the sailors say.
“Yes, indeed, miss. There was an understood condition attached to the gift that if Mr Fraser should pay you his addresses, and they were agreeable to you, I should offer no objection to your marrying. I hadn’t been aware hitherto that I was such a tyrannical parent that ’twas necessary to buy my consent to my daughter’s marrying the man she had a fancy for, but I suppose I can bear the blame if it’s to pleasure the Captain. And now, miss, let me know your thoughts on the subject. Do you desire to marry the fellow?”
“Oh, sir!” again covering my burning face with my hands.
“Come, miss, there’s no need to play the prude with me, is there? You told me once you hated the gentleman; am I to understand that you love him now?”
“Sure, sir, that’s a question should be asked by Mr Fraser himself if your girl is to answer it,” I began, pertly enough, but burst into tears, and cried bitterly, only finding words to entreat my papa to return the money to the Captain, for I could not endure to lie under such an obligation to him. But this Mr Freyne refused, very gently and patiently, pointing out that to return the money would not only disoblige Captain Colquhoun, but also set about again all those injurious rumours which he had been at such pains to silence, and adding that if the Captain could sacrifice the best part of his savings to endow me with the money, I might at least mortify my pride so far as to accept the sacrifice gracefully.
“Though I shall be forced to raise an army to protect this girl of mine,” says my papa, “for after all her adventures (no, miss, I don’t intend it unkindly) hitherto, what will it be now that she’s a fortune as well as a beauty? ’Twill be necessary to fortify the house, questionless, and hire a garrison ofbuxerries.”[04](These are the Indian mercenary soldiers that fight for pay.)
This was said while my papa was comforting me with great kindness, and in his rallying style bidding me never again show myself so strange and obstinate as I had during the last two days, for it had cost him so much to be stern with his girl that he could not hope to achieve it a second time. “And indeed,” he said, “we can’t look to find every day a gentleman that’s willing to pay five thousand pounds for the privilege of being refused by Miss Sylvia Freyne, so pray, miss, make sure of your own mind before the next suitor comes.”
“Why, sir,” I said, “’tis my misfortune that I did know my own mind, for sure I must otherwise have been captivated by the justice and nobility of the Captain’s sentiments. But, sir, the dear gentleman has certainly failed in generosity in this one particular of the money, for how can a poor creature that’s crushed under such a weight of obligation ever make proper acknowledgments to him?”
“Nay, there you’re wrong, miss,” says Mr Freyne. “The Captain gave it as his particular request that I should entreat you never to mention the matter in his presence, nor even to hint at it, since otherwise you’ll force him to cease those visits here which are the great happiness of his life.”
Was there ever such a man, Amelia? The kindness, the delicacy of this behaviour—but no, I shall weep again if I write more on this topic, and I have wept so much of late. But there the Captain sits in the varanda with my papa at this moment, and makes his stiff bow and smiles his wooden smile if I interrupt them, as though nothing had happened between now and a week ago.
May ye11th.
This morning I went to pay a visit to my dear Mrs Hurstwood, whom I have hardly seen for a month. In the very week after her wedding, the dear creature was seized with fever (owing to a chill taken at the Masquerade, said Dr Knox), and as soon as she was a little recovered, her attentive spouse carried her by boat to Ballisore, so that I have lacked her sprightly counsel for some time. I was all eagerness to visit her as soon as I heard she was returned, and my papa having occasion to drive as far as Surman’s, offered to take me with him in the chaise, and fetch me again when he passed in the evening. It so happened that when we reached Mr Hurstwood’s house the good man himself was standing on the steps, about to depart to his business at the Fort, and welcomed us with great warmth, complimenting Mr Freyne on his horses, and declaring that he should no longer be apprehensive for his Charlotte’s cheerfulness since he could leave me to spend the day with her. My papa continued his ride, and Mr Hurstwood carried me to Charlotte’s closet, where she was lying upon a couch. She jumped up on seeing me, and we embraced one another very tenderly, while her worthy spouse rubbed his hands with delight and made us both as many foolish compliments as if he had been Miss Grandison’s Lord G. himself. He displayed a monstrous anxiety lest I should imagine he had neglected or ill-used his Charlotte, which made us both laugh, for indeed I believe if the dear girl had a fancy for the Peacock Throne of Delly he would beggar himself to obtain it for her.
“Ah,” says Mrs Hurstwood, with the longest face imaginable, as the good man still lingered, “you don’t know all my trials, miss. Mr Hurstwood is trying to get rid of me.”
“My dearest life!” cries the poor gentleman, quite confounded.
“Why, yes, sir. Did you never hear of the woman who was killed with kindness?”
“Ah, madam,” says Mr Hurstwood, with a broad smile that he sought in vain to restrain spreading over his visage, “our dear Charlotte’s sprightly wit is like our mangoes here, which are only disagreeable before you are arrived at their full flavour.”
“I vow, sir, you’re a sad flatterer,” cried she. “Pray get you gone to your business, or my talk with Miss Freyne will never be done. Oh, we have extraordinary weighty matters to discuss, I’ll assure you.”
“And how does my Charlotte find herself?” I asked her, when her spouse had at last withdrawn, with many bows and scrapes and farewells, and she had sent away the iya that we might talk with the more freedom.
“Why, I’m as well as my Sylvia,” she said; “but it pleases Mr Hurstwood to sit and look at me reclining here, instead of spending the evenings abroad, and I’m lazy enough to pleasure him. But I won’t give way no longer, or I doubt I shall grow like some of our ladies here that rarely stir from their couches. I shall be taking to ahookernext to soothe the mind, as they say. Has my Sylvia ever catched Polly Dorman enjoying hers? I don’t know when I have laughed more, to see her so excessively happy. But no, my dear, I shall go into company and take you about, for from all I hear you want a duenna sadly. So your adventures han’t ceased in consideration of my absence? I understand that things are come to such a pass with you that Mr Freyne would feel no surprise if acoffle[05]of Moguls came demanding you for the Emperor’s seraglio, or an embassy of Russes to invite you to become the bride of their mad Czar. Now tell me all about your lovers and their vows.”
I had a prodigious deal to tell her, as you will guess, even allowing her to hear a portion of Fraser’s letter (not the post-scriptum, oh no! none but my Amelia shall be obliged with the knowledge of that), and moving her to tears with the history of Captain Colquhoun’s singular generosity. When all was done—
“And so,” said she, “the poor Captain is to intimate to your Fraser that if he choose to honour Calcutta with a second visit he’ll be welcome?”
“Why, no, my dear, not exactly. Mr Fraser was to join his ship at Madrass, if the fleet was arrived there, and after that he may go anywhere, and I never know whether he’s even in these seas at all. But if his duty should bring him anywhere near Calcutta, or the Admiral should choose to employ him again with despatches——”
“Why, then, he’ll find Mr Freyne ready to meet him with open arms, and Miss in the background, all smiles and tears and blushes——”
“I protest, madam, you’re too bad!” I cried. “One might fancy I was——”
“A boarding-school Miss? and so you are, my dear, or was, not so very long ago. But she shan’t be rallied if she don’t like it. And what of all the other lovers who en’t able to pay down five thousand pounds to win their freedom?”
“Why, Mr Menotti’s forbidden the house by my papa.”
“And he has quarrelled with your mamma as well? Oh, I know it; Mrs Mapletoft told me about it yesterday. ’Twas at her house, under colour of a dispute at cards. The gentleman accused the lady of having played him false, and she retorted by threatening to betray what she knew of him, to which he replied that he also had tales to tell if necessary. What do you think of that?”
“Sure their falling-out is the best thing that could be for me.”
“Why, yes, if they remain unreconciled. But they won’t, my dear. With the hold he has over her, she don’t dare disobey him, and the easiest way of gaining his favour is to sacrifice you. So my dear Miss must look to herself. Be careful about your palanqueen-bearers at night, for remember your beloved Miss Byron was carried off by treacherous chairmen, and don’t suffer yourself to be persuaded into entering any chaise or budgero but your papa’s. You don’t want me to warn you not to wander away with Menotti at any party of pleasure.”
“Come, my dearest life,” it was Mr Hurstwood who entered, as gallant as ever, “tiffing is served, and sure you and our dear Miss Freyne must be prodigiously hungry after so long and serious a conversation. I have a piece of news, also, that Miss Freyne’s good papa will be glad to hear. Can you credit it, madam, that our Council have at last plucked up courage to defy the Nabob? It seems that seven or eight days since he sent by the hand of one Facquier[06]Tongar” (thesefacquiers, Amelia, are accounted holy men among the Moors, as thegioghisamong the Gentoos) “to demand with threats the destruction of the new fortifications that he heard we were making; but the Presidency, seeing in the demand only an attempt to extort money from us, made bold to refuse it. To-day is come a second messenger, with aperwannahwrote on the day of the Soubah’s starting at the head of his army against the Purranea Nabob, with very stringent orders that the ditch and wall which, as he hears, we are making round our territory, should be instantly stopped. This wall and ditch, of course, are nothing but an invention of the French who have his ear; but Mr Drake has returned by the messenger a letter saying that the slight repairs in hand on our defences are needed in case of war with the French, and he won’t stop ’em, but that no new works have been devised. I did hear a rumour of the several messengers having been dismissed with contempt, too, but at least you see that we shall venture to hold up our heads to Surajah Dowlah yet.”
Calcutta,May ye26th.
Yet another attempt, my dear! and devised with such singular effrontery that but for the signal goodness of Heaven in frustrating the design, your Sylvia must by this time have found herself the unwilling bride of the daring wretch who pursues her with so much persistence. But here I am running on, as usual, instead of proceeding orderly. Well, my Amelia must know that last night was a party of pleasure given by Mr Kelsall, one of the elder gentlemen here, in his garden at Chitpore, which is about a league from the town, but within the circuit of the Morattoe-ditch. Coming ready dressed into the varanda, I found my papa still smoking hishookerin his ordinary clothes and without his wig.
“Why, sir, en’t you coming with us?” I cried.
“No, miss; and I han’t never designed to.”
“Oh, pardon me, sir. When I heard we were going by water, I thought you must be about to honour us with your company.”
“Why, no, miss, that’s nothing but Madam’s old pique against her palanqueen.” (For you mayn’t be aware, Amelia, that Mrs Freyne uses this equipage as little as she can, and all because she en’t permitted to adorn the poles of the machine with a tyger’s head in silver, this ornament being reserved for the ladies of the President and the second in Council, and much coveted by those of lower rank.) “I purpose passing a quiet evening here with the Captain.”
Leaving my papa, I attended Mrs Freyne to the river-side, where our budgero, the rowers wearing Mr Freyne’s livery of white dresses and orange-coloured ribbons, was awaiting us, and carried us quickly to Chitpore. Mr Kelsall’s garden is situated on the bank of a rivulet that serves to continue the Morattoe-ditch as far as the river, and before reaching it one passes another garden called Baugbuzar or Perrins, where stands a redoubt or fortification on a projecting piece of land, which was planned by Colonel Scott, when he was sent here to improve the defences of the place, to command both the river and the rivulet, and also the high road which crosses this last by a bridge. I am thus particular in my description that my Amelia may understand the later events. On arriving, we found all Calcutta gathered in the gardens. The rivulet was full of budgeroes three deep, moored to the bank and to each other, while not a few ladies and gentlemen had travelled by land in chaises or palanqueens. The garden, which has only been lately laid out, was prodigiously admired, and in particular a pavilion or summer-house, just finished to Mr Kelsall’s own design—an elegant building of stone in a neat octagon shape. Mr Kelsall offered us a very genteel entertainment, for there was not only anotchfor those to watch that chose to sit still, but also a band of music for dancing, and again pleasant alleys, lighted up by huge numbers of little earthen lamps, in the Indian style, in which to roam, while the dessert was one of the richest I have ever seen, including even ices (my Amelia will guess how grateful, and at the same time how costly, is this sweetmeat in such a climate), which are manufactured by the Indians in some artificial and ingenious manner that I don’t pretend to understand. I felt quite at my ease, for although Mr Menotti was present, he made no attempt to force himself either on me or on Mrs Freyne, which gave me confidence that they were as yet unreconciled, but I experienced a good deal of annoyance from a trick played by certain of the young gentlemen, among whom were Ensign Bellamy and his friend Mr le Beaume.
To understand my mortification, you must be told that Ensign Bellamy had entreated me a week ago to tell him what gown I purposed wearing to this entertainment, and on learning ’twas my blush-coloured paduasoy and white satin petticoat, had entreated me very earnestly not to change my mind, which I promised, fancying that he designed to present me with a nosegay or some such trifle, but little guessing to what I was committing myself. Judge, Amelia, of my disgust when on entering the ground there came forward to meet me no fewer than eight gentlemen, ranging themselves on either side of me like a guard, and every man in my livery, as the wild fellows called it, viz., a pink silk coat laced with silver, and white satin waistcoat and breeches, all to match my gown! I’ll assure you there was plenty of mirth for the general company in this odd sight, but very little for me, and when I could draw Ensign Bellamy aside, I reproved him very seriously for the extravagance of his conduct, and especially for putting off the Company’s uniform that he might wear mine. To this he replied that he had allowance not to wear his uniform for this one night, and that he and the other young gentlemen had designed the spectacle by way of protest against the arrogant assumptions of Mr Fraser (whose pretensions, by the way, my dear, are now pretty well known, at least to the unlucky remainder of my suitors, since Mrs Hamlin became acquainted with Captain Colquhoun’s generous conduct). When that presumptuous person should venture to show himself in Calcutta, says Mr Bellamy, he and the rest would make a point of wearing these same suits of clothes, to assure him that there was, at any rate, eight gentlemen of Bengall who were ready to resent his robbing them of their goddess, and would call upon him to prove his right by the sword.
I was more amused by this rodomontade than my Amelia will anticipate, for I knew these young fellows to be persons of sense and honour, and not traitors and ruffians like certain I could name, so all I said was to engage Ensign Bellamy and his companions to be bride-men at my wedding, warning ’em that any one picking a quarrel with Mr Fraser would instantly forfeit the privilege. This condition was received by the gentlemen with a prodigious amount of laughter, for ladies are so few here that a certain modest assurance is gained in speaking by our sex, which the other are all too ready to applaud and obey, and they all vowed they would run no risque of incurring so dreadful a penalty. Thus then to supper, which was served in the summer-house, while the music played without, making a very agreeable effect, and all the company were complimenting Mr Kelsall on the elegance of his entertainment and the taste displayed in the laying-out of the garden, when in a pause of the music there came the sounds of a horse’s feet on the high road leading from Calcutta.
“Sure one of your guests is arriving late, sir,” says one of the ladies to Mr Kelsall.
“Why, he’ll find a few pickings yet, madam,” said he.
Presently Mr Kelsall’s banyan brought in Mr Dash in a riding-dress, his whole appearance much disordered.
“I hope there’s no bad news, sir?” says our host.
“I doubt but I’m a sort of skeleton at your feast, sir, but I thought all the company would be concerned in what I have just learnt, which must be my excuse for breaking in upon the ladies in this attire. The letter wrote by the Governor and Council in reply to the Soubah’s lastperwannahreached him eight days back at Rajamaul[01]on his way to Purranea, and on receiving it, he gave instant orders to cease the advance against his cousin, and returned to invest our factory at Cossimbuzar.”
“Why, the fellow has some mettle in him after all!” cries Ensign Bellamy. “Sure we shall have some fighting now, gentlemen.”
“I would not have you too sure of that, sir,” says Mr Dash. “The President and the Select Committee, who are considering the news, may prefer to disarm the Nabob’s enmity by destroying such of our defences as en’t ready to fall down of themselves.”
“That’s our newly-repaired row of guns on the west face of the Fort,” says Ensign Piccard, with a groan.
“And the redoubt here on Perrins Point,” says Mr Kelsall.
“Nay, sir,” says Mr Dash, “’twill be even this pavilion of yours, perhaps. The Indians all take it for a work of defence.”
“I’ll be hanged,” says Mr Kelsall, very red in the face, “if I’ll pull down my new summerhouse for any Soubah that ever sat on themusnet!”
“Sure, sir, you underrate the meekness of our Government. The Council will do it for you, sooner than affront the Nabob.”
“Oh, sir,” says Mr le Beaume, “pray don’t slander your countrymen. I could not credit such a thing of the great British nation.”
“Come, gentlemen,” says Ensign Bellamy, “fill up your glasses. Here’s to a speedy campaign and a brisk one! When we have sacked Muxadavad, we’ll set Miss Freyne on themusnet, and she shall rule Bengall as now she rules Calcutta!”
The party now began to break up, Mr President and the members of Council having left before the general supper, in expectation of receiving letters from Cossimbuzar, and no one feeling inclined for further merry-making in view of the news that was arrived. At the smallgottby the side of the rivulet there was a prodigious confusion, every one desiring to get on board of his own budgero at once, so that some whose boats were on the outside even clambered across those which intervened, and thus were able to depart first after all. In the crowd I was separated from Mrs Freyne, and with Ensign Bellamy, who was conducting me, went looking about in vain for our budgero, which was not where we had left it on arriving.
“Pray, madam,” said the young gentleman, “suffer me to leave you here a moment, while I run to the end of the press of boats and see whether your servants have moored yours there. I’m ashamed of dragging you about in this style.”
But no sooner was Mr Bellamy gone than I heard Mrs Freyne calling me from behind (have I mentioned, my dear, that my stepmother’s voice is a little shrill?), and looking round, saw her standing on the deck of a budgero in the line nearest thegott, and beckoning to me with her fan. ’Twas a marvel to me how I had missed her, for I could discern the white and orange liveries even where I was. I turned to call Mr Bellamy back, but he was gone too far to hear, and I returned alone to the budgero. Mrs Freyne was no longer on the deck, but there was two or three of the young gentlemen there that attend upon her continually.
“Mrs Freyne fears she has took a chill, madam,” says one of them as I came up, “and won’t therefore stay on deck, but she desired you would attend her in the cabin.”
He offered his hand (I think the fellow was Lieutenant Bentinck, but he was so muffled in his cloak that I could not be certain), and I accepted of his help to step on board. Before I could do more than turn in the direction of the cabin, however, I heard Ensign Bellamy’s voice on the bank behind me.
“Madam, madam! you are in error. I have found your budgero at the end of the line, with Mrs Freyne on board. Pray let me conduct you——” He needed to say no more, for I wrenched my hand from the fellow that held it (though indeed the wretch tightened his grip until it was like iron), and seeing that the boat was already moving from thegott, sprang with all my strength to the shore, the Ensign’s outstretched hands catching mine in time to prevent my landing on my knees on the steps.
“Thank heaven, madam, that you’re safe!” he cried. “I feared you was certain to fall into the water, or at least to receive some hurt in jumping, but I durst not delay.” His countenance was very pale. “That was Menotti’s budgero.”
“But the liveries—Mr Freyne’s colours?” I stammered.
“Mr Menotti’s ribbons are pink, madam, you’ll remember, and by this torch-light——”
“But I saw Mrs Freyne calling to me from the deck!” I cried, foolishly enough, clinging tight to his arm as he guided me along thegott.
“Impossible, madam,” says Mr Bellamy, looking me straight in the face. “Mrs Freyne arrived at your budgero at the same moment as I myself—although she crossed from another boat.”
“Questionless I made a mistake,” I said, but my heart would not cease thumping. Was it possible that my papa’s wife could lay such a plot against the honour and happiness of his daughter? “Pray, sir,” I said to the Ensign, “be so good as to attend us home to-night.”
“With pleasure, madam,” said he, “if I may bring Mr le Beaume.”
I had no chance to answer, for we had reached the budgero, where Mrs Freyne was standing outside the cabin speaking to the chief of the boatmen. “You had better push off,” she was saying. “The Chuta Beebee must be returning in some other budgero with her friends. I can’t wait here all night.”
“Oh, pardon me, madam; I have found the vanished fair,” says Ensign Bellamy, handing me on board. “May I venture to entreat a passage on your vessel for myself and my friend le Beaume? My father always warns me that he won’t stay for me at these entertainments, and to-night he departed early with the other great folks, leaving us two poor babes in the wood to get home as best we might.”
“Oh, pray summon your friend, sir,” says Mrs Freyne, to whom this speech had given time to recover her countenance, for she had changed colour at the sight of me. “Me and Miss will be enchanted to have your company.”
I dare to say that my stepmother blessed the young gentlemen as heartily in her mind as I did, for I can’t conceive how she and I should have faced one another, or how we should have conversed, had we been left to ourselves. As it was, we were attended gallantly home by Mess. le Beaume and Bellamy, and I fancy the latter gentleman must have got a word with my papa, for as I bade him good-night Mr Freyne said to me, so as only I could hear—
“So I understand that my girl en’t safe in company without her papa? After this evening, miss, I’ll take care to go out with you, unless your friend Mrs Hurstwood will take charge of you. But indeed I shall be forced to send your Fraser a despatch to come here post-haste and take you off my hands, for you’re a sad tiresome piece of goods, dragging me away from my quiethookeron my own varanda.”
“Oh, dear sir, let me stay at home with you, and I shall be quite content,” I cried, and went to my chamber, to wake up again and again in the night thinking that I was sailing on one of the slimy, feverish channels of this horrid river, in the power of the vile Menotti, and bound for the nearest European factory where a Popish priest was to be found. My Amelia won’t be surprised, seeing how nearly successful the wicked attempt proved, that my only comfort lay in my papa’s promise for the future, although I won’t deny that I was thankful to have been saved without another of those public discoveries in which your poor Sylvia’s name (I think I may say without her fault) has been too much mixed up.
May ye27th.
To-day Captain Colquhoun visited my papa for tiffing, and told us, with the most vehement disgust, that the Council had stopped all the work that was being done to repair the fortifications, and were sending very humble letters through Mr Watts to the Nabob, representing that since they were building no new defences it was impossible they should cease working on ’em, as his Highness ordered, but that what little they could do to pleasure him was already done, and in consideration of this would he be graciously pleased to withdraw his army from before Cossimbuzar, and leave our factory in safety?
“For Britons to cringe before Surajah Dowlah is an unpardonable sin!” cried the Captain.
“Why,” says my papa, “they argue that he that is down needs fear no fall. If they wallow in the dust before the Soubah, ’tis quite clear that he can’t kick ’em any lower. So that they save their private property and get off with a whole skin, what’s Britain’s honour to them?”
“In that,” cried the Captain, “I’m convinced—and I might almost say I rejoice to think so—they’re wrong. If the Soubah is set on the capture of Calcutta, all their humility won’t turn him aside, and I believe he is.”
“But sure he won’t be such a fool as kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?” says my papa.
“Why, sir, he hopes to make the goose his own. The French have assured him that all the Rajas of the province have laid up their revenues in our Fort for safety, and he looks to lay hands not only on them, but on all our customs and dues for the future. Whatever good advice his grandfather Ally Verdy may have given him to leave us alone, as Mr Holwell insists he did, I can’t doubt but he designs to strip first us, and then the other European factories, of all our privileges.”
“But we shall have a word to say to the gentleman first, Captain.”
“I doubt it, sir; for if so, why are we neglecting our defences, which if they were in good order might enable us to hold out against the Nabob until the rains begin, or even until this year’s fleet arrives from home? Under the guidance of Mr President and his two friends we are dancing smiling to destruction.”
June ye1st.
Oh, my dearest friend, Mr Dash and the Captain were right in their prophecies of the behaviour of the Presidency. Sure the wretch Surajah Dowlah must be rejoicing beyond measure over the terror his name inspires in European breasts! But why should the Council have begun by taking part with his rivals, insulting his messengers, and withholding the customary presents made to a new Soubah, if all they designed was to fall on their knees in the most pitiful submission as soon as he moves his army a step in their direction? I can’t write coldly, my dear. I feel the humiliation of the factory so keenly that my pen digs holes in the paper, and I wish it were a sword, and I a man to fight Surajah Dowlah with it. This day there came letters from Cossimbuzar to the Council, Mr Watts writing that yesterday week one of the Nabob’s captains, a Jemindar named Aume-beg,[02]encamped against the Cossimbuzar factory with a considerable force, which was strengthened later by more troops and two elephants. Prevented from forcing the gate by the coolness of the sergeant on guard, who fetched out his men and bade ’em fix their bayonets, the Moors called a parley, of which Mr Watts took advantage to get in provisions and water and load the great guns of the place. Nothing coming of the first parley, the factory continued to be besieged, and on the 28th of May Dr Forth was sent out, who had attended Ally Verdy Cawn in his last illness, accompanied with amounsee,[03]or Persian secretary, to endeavour to arrive at an accommodation, and ’tis the demands then made upon him that Mr Watts has forwarded by special messenger. The chief of these is for the demolition of our new works at Baugbuzar, and of Mr Kelsall’s summer-house, which last they take for a fortress because, while the land lay waste, a parcel of shells was proved there from time to time. Mr Watts advises the granting of these demands and the appeasing of the Nabob by means of a genteel present, considering that, like his grandfather, who extorted from us in the course of his reign near 100,000l. in all, Surajah Dowlah designs to stop all our business until his rapacity be satisfied.
My Amelia will have learnt from my letters so much of the character of the wise and valiant persons who are our governors that she won’t need to be told what was the immediate impulse of their hearts on reading this alarming news. But for the sake, I suppose, of setting themselves right in their own eyes, what do Mr President and his friends, Mess. Manningham and Frankland, do? They call together the five captains of the Company’s forces here (Captain Colquhoun, of course, being one) and ask them very seriously whether they believe it possible, with a hundred men from the Calcutta garrison, to attempt the relief of Cossimbuzar against the Nabob’s army of 12,000 trained soldiers, supported by a train of artillery! You won’t wonder that the poor men declared the notion to be an extravagant one, but they added that the force at Cossimbuzar was sufficient, and the factory strong enough, to beat off the enemy if wisely handled. But the humane gentlemen to whom our destinies in this country are committed did not offer to repeat this hard saying to Mr Watts. In their care for the lives of our people at Cossimbuzar, they sent for presentation to the Nabob anarasdass,[04]or humble petition, couched in the most submissive terms imaginable, and yielding all he might choose to ask, while they promised prodigious rewards to thecossids[05]or messengers if it should reach Muxadavad in thirty-six hours. At the same time they gave orders for the destruction of poor Mr Kelsall’s pavilion and of the draw-bridge and outworks at Perrins Redoubt, and this is going on as I write. O’ my conscience, Amelia, if my pen were the sword I spoke of just now, and in a manly hand, it would not be against the Nabob I would turn it, but upon his honour the President and his two like-minded advisers.
And how, think you, my dear, are all our minds occupied in this moment of humiliation and disgrace? (Though indeed the three gentlemen at the head of affairs are in high spirits, regarding themselves, so it seems, as the saviours of their countrymen, and looking askance only upon the dejection and uneasiness of such persons as Mr Holwell and Captain Colquhoun.) Why, Amelia, with a play, which the young gentlemen are so good as to promise us a fortnight or so hence! The Play-house en’t generally in use but in the cold weather; but now the work on the defences is stopped (and indeed it’s well the Nabob is so merciful as not to demand the levelling of the walls of the Fort itself, for I think the Council would have pleasured him), and there’s nothing for the officers to do (for there’s but little drill at any time, and to begin it now might anger the Soubah), while the writers are idle for the general stoppage of business, even Captain Colquhoun says ’tis a good thing for the lads to have something to do that may keep ’em out of mischief. They had designed to present to us “Venice Preserved,” since Ensign Bellamy owns to a particular ambition to essay the part of Belvidera; but on its being pointed out that the season was too hot and the times too grave for tragedy, they were obliging enough to substitute a comedy, “The Conscious Lovers,” which I am very curious to see, as the work of one of the writers of my dear ‘Spectators.’ The first performance is promised before the rains, which are expected to begin somewhere about the 15th (fancy, my dear, a rainy season, such as Robinson Crusoe experienced!), and I suppose ’twill give us something to talk about when we are all forced to stay indoors.
June ye7th.
I am writing in the morning, between breakfast and tiffing, to tell my Amelia of the extraordinary events that have, I trust, served to rid me of one at least of my persistent persecutors, though at a grievous cost, I fear, to my papa and to this place. Throughout the whole of Saturday, the day before yesterday, Mrs Freyne was vapourish and difficult to please—not spending the better part of her time in her own closet as usual, but wandering from room to room, taking up and casting down again now this piece of employment and now t’other, and crowning her uncertain behaviour by despatching a messenger to say she would not be present at Mrs Mackett’s rout, just when it was time to start. My papa and I were playing chess on the varanda when she joined us, still in her undress.
“You’ll be late, madam,” says Mr Freyne.
“Oh, I sent a chitt to say I’m not coming,” said she, approaching us to look at the board. “There’s a move I want you to show me, sir—that which you was discussing t’other night with the Captain.”
“When I’ve had my revenge on Miss, you’ll find me at your service, madam.”
“But sure you’re finished with your game already, Mr Freyne.”
“Yes, madam, but Miss has beat me, and in doing so she has let me see a means of defeating a plan of attack that she employs vastly too often for her own safety. I have made up my mind to conquer her this time.”
“But pray, sir, show me this first,” and Mrs Freyne began to move the pieces on the board; “and perhaps Miss will oblige me by fetching the book of plays which I was reading this afternoon and left in the arbour at the end of the garden. Then there’ll be no time wasted.”
“The servants are at your disposal, madam, to run your errands.”
“Indeed, sir, how you can call these two steps an errand I don’t know. Miss can take her iya with her if she’s frightened.”
“Frightened, madam? The girl don’t wander down to the end of the garden at this hour without me and half-a-dozen peons besides, all well armed, I can tell you that.”
“I’ll assure you, sir, you are become a laughing-stock in Calcutta, with these absurd precautions. Do you forbid your daughter to oblige me?”
“Unless she desire to disoblige me, madam.”
Upon this Mrs Freyne burst into tears, lamenting that she was the most miserable woman in Bengall, and that Mr Freyne had not the slightest consideration for her, and encouraged his daughter to insult over her, and so went sobbing to her own chamber, while my papa continued his game.
“Perhaps, sir, Mrs Freyne is sick?” I ventured to say.
“No, miss, I fancy she’s sorry, and I’m glad of it.” Mr Freyne would say no more, and I durst not ask him his meaning.
It must have been about midnight—perhaps somewhat later, for I had been asleep some time, after the customary struggle with the heat—that I was woke up by a tremendous clatter. Voices, the clash of swords, and pistol-shots were all resounding close at hand, and Marianna, who sleeps across my door, came screaming to tell me that the house was attacked, and we should all be murdered. As I sat up in bed, all trembling, to listen, my papa, in his night-cap, suddenly looked in at the door. He was buckling on his sword over his morning-gown, and there was a pair of great pistols sticking out of his pocket.
“Get into yourtuszaconna[06]with your iya, miss,” he cried, “and lock yourself in, and don’t unfasten the door for any one until I bid you.”
I lingered only to throw on a wrapper and a pair of shoes, and obeyed him. Thetuszaconna, or as we should say wardrobe, is the closet in which my gowns and jewels are kept, lighted only by one small window high in the wall. Here Marianna and I locked ourselves in, and not satisfied with that, dragged one of my trunks against the door, and sat upon it (and upon my honour, I don’t know which of us trembled the most. The poor wench had lost all her English in her fright, and bewailed herself in some Indian tongue, calling at times upon her Popish saints in scraps of Latin, while your cowardly Sylvia shook so much that the door trembled against which she leant).
The confused noise of fighting now ceased suddenly from the front of the house, and there was a rushing along the varanda outside our place of refuge. My heart was in my mouth, for I knew that the robbers must be making for my chamber, “and in a minute (I thought) they’ll guess our hiding-place and break open the door, and then——” But almost at the same moment I heard the door of the chamber burst open again, and my papa’s voice cheering on the servants; and so well did they second him that the invaders never penetrated inside the room, but were turned back on the varanda. The noise of the fighting was so dreadful that I could not remain without seeing what went on, and, climbing on a great wooden chest, I peeped out of the window, in time to see the robbers driven off by my papa and the servants, leaving two of their number prostrate on the ground. One of these was a European wearing a masque, who had been knocked down with a blow from a club by our head-peon.
“Throw some water over him and revive him, Jemmautdar,” says Mr Freyne. “He has to answer to me for the night’s work.”
But when the Jemmautdar obeyed, and plucking off the fellow’s masque showed his face as he began to recover his intellects, I could have screamed, for it was Mr Menotti. He looked about him like one dazed.
“Your servant, sir,” says my papa, standing before him with his sword out. “When you’re ready, I’ll trouble you to draw.”
“At your service, sir,” said the villain, fumbling for his sword, which one of the servants, at a glance from Mr Freyne, picked up and gave to him, whispering something at the same time to my papa.
“What, the Cotwal[07]coming round with his peons?” cried Mr Freyne. “Why don’t he come when he might be some use? However” (looking scornfully upon Mr Menotti, who was risen from the ground, but stood swaying uneasily about), “you look none too steady upon your legs, sir, and I’ve no desire to murder you, though I could wish my Jemmautdar had done his work more thoroughly. You shall hear from me very shortly. Two of you take him and set him in the road outside.”
“I shall anticipate with pleasure the arrival of any friend of yours, sir,” the hardy wretch succeeded in saying before he was seized by two of the servants and run across the compound and through the gates. By this time I was descended from my perch and had opened the door of the hiding-place.
“Oh, dear sir,” I cried, catching my papa’s arm, “you en’t going to fight that barbarous man?”