Letters from India Volume II/To the Countess of Buckinghamshire 3
My dearest Sister,—I did not write to you last post, which was wrong, for your letters come most regularly now; however, you need not be affronted. I did not forget you; don’t take me up so short about it, for you will see what you will see. There was a Major Low going home in the ‘Repulse,’ who was to take charge of a small parcel, and I inserted in it a worked muslin pelisse for you, feeling certain the amiable Major would make no objection. The pelisse had the merit of being worked on such fine Dacca muslin that I thought it would have a sweet, airy effect on a hot summer’s day at East Combe; and then what nailed me into buying it, was that the owner, who certainly had not as much muslin on him as would have made a sleeve to the pelisse, held it up with an air of great vanity and, after talking an immense deal of Hindustani, looked over his shoulder with an insinuating smile and said, ‘Quite new pattern;’ so then I offered him half what he asked, and he took me at my word. Mind when the ‘Repulse’ comes you keep an eye on her passengers.
We have got on tolerably well with Calcutta hitherto, and I suppose manage the shutting-up of the house better than in the days of our ignorance, for it has really been quite cool, and that is not the fault of the weather. This house is dreadful to-day; I suppose the native servants do not shut it up when we are away; and when Fanny and I arrived late last night it was like coming into an oven, and sleeping was quite out of the question. It is altogether in a ramshackly state, and it will be rather an advantage for the next Governor-General not to try any repairs; the floors have given way, so that the tables against the walls look like writing-desks, with perhaps a thought too much of a slope; and if it tumbles down, he can build himself a house with good doors and windows. This house has no doors—nothing but jalousies—and ‘I jalouse,’ as the Scotch novels say, that nothing but hot air comes through them.
Yes, it remained a furnace to the end, and the European servants, who have no glass windows to their rooms, were all done up by it. I must say India in the hot season is not the place to play at having a country house full of people.
Lord Jocelyn arrived here two days ago. It is wonderful how he has borne sixteen days of dâk travelling; he says sometimes his palanquin was so hot he could not bear the touch of it, and thought he could get out into the sun to avoid it, and that once or twice, from heat and headache, he thought he had gone mad and was carried along not knowing why. One of his bearers dropped down dead the last day from mere heat. He arrived at twelve at night, and had Giles called up and got some tea, and was pretty well again the next morning; but he says the house is so cold after what he has been through that it makes him chilly. The ‘Conway,’ in which he is to go to China, came up to Calcutta the day he arrived, so I suppose he will be off in a fortnight. He goes merely as a volunteer. The Chinese are so clever; I fully expect they will circumvent us—blow up all our ships with curious-coloured fireworks, or do some odd thing in their usual neat way.
We are very anxious for the next post; the last was so uncommonly interesting with all those debates about the Queen and the ministry.
God bless you dearest sister!