Letters from India Volume II/The Hon E Eden to a Friend
The ‘Belle Alliance,’ like a dear as she is, came in on Monday with quantities of letters—a nice long one from you.
We had a dinner for the Bishop on Monday, and he is as jolly as anyone I ever met, and likes a joke. I do not wonder people all exclaim at the coolness of Government House, and indeed profess to catch cold there. The heat of the few houses we have been in is almost stifling.
I saw the French manager on Wednesday, and settled to have a French play at our little theatre, which always stands primed for acting in the ball-room on the third storey.
George came back early on Thursday, time enough for me to take my first airing with him. The park looks so green and fresh; it would be a nice place in England, where one could go out in daylight. The birds affect a little singing at this time of the year, a wretched confused ramage, without any keynote, and incoherent to the last degree, but still the attempt is commendable and spring-like; and there is a cuckoo who at this season tries to talk: he says Cuck—and can’t say Coo. However, he is very good to speak any English.
The bachelors of Barrackpore gave a ball last night, and we lent them the Flagstaff Bungalow, thinking we should be at Calcutta, but, as we have been kept here, George thought it would be civil to go.
I never mentioned that the ‘Catherine’ at last came in on Thursday with quantities more letters. I do not think it signifies the least the letters coming out of their turns; we read them just as much, and it is surprising how unlike they are to each other, considering that you are all writing about the same events; but the little bits of private family history always tell best, and the more you write to the day the more real the letters seem. It is very odd what extraordinary interest those few scratches of a black liquid on a white pulp can give, because the same number of words said in conversation would go a very little way; and yet one folds up a letter with an air of pompous satisfaction, and says, ‘Ah! it is very comfortable to know all they have been about’—a deception, only I do not mean to see through at.
There is a good story they have also got in the papers. The privates of the Cameronian Regiment acted a play last week (remarkably well, they say), and offered the proceeds to the European Orphan Asylum; the children there are soldiers’ orphans. The paper was circulated to the ladies of the committee, and Fanny and I, and a majority of the ladies, put our names to a resolution that we accepted their contribution with thanks, &c. While we were at Barrackpore two ladies re-circulated the paper (which is against all the rules of the establishment), and they and some others drew up some very absurd resolutions—that no establishment could expect the blessing of Providence that received contributions earned in this unchristian manner; that if the orphans (a remarkably naughty set of spoiled girls) knew such subscriptions were received, it would hurt their feelings and their principles; and they ended by refusing 640 rupees—a great help to the school, and which these poor men have earned in the most respectable manner. We saw all this in the paper, but did not , believe it until it was confirmed, and now George is vexed about it, and half the military people are threatening to withdraw their sub- scriptions.
We had a great dinner to-day, but I have not begun to dine down yet.
The Asylum question rages, and, as says, it is lucky we can all make so much ex- citement out of it. We got back the committee paper to-day, and George drew up an excellent protest, which Fanny and I have signed, and transmitted to the other ladies.
We had our French play in the evening—two little vaudevilles uncommonly well acted, and the theatre is one of the prettiest I have seen. It makes a very good change from the constant balls, and it is a pity the French people are going away. It was all over at eleven.
I have got a story for some of your smallest children, probably middle-aged men by this time, but a simple story for what they were when I left home. I told Major to give the two little boys who wait on Fanny and me gold lace to their turbans and sashes, which is the great aim in life of the under-servants, and as these little boys always stand behind us at dinner, they have a claim to be as smart as the others. But when the liveries were made my little boy, who is the youngest and a good little child in general, had chosen to stay away for a week, thereby losing his lessons as well as staying at home without leave; so I told the sircar not to let him have his smart dress, but to give it to Fanny’s boy without delay, in order to make the moral more striking. When any of the servants are promoted, they always come to make their salaam to all of us, so Fanny’s boy walked into my room, looking very fine, and as he went through the passage he taunted my little boy with it. Mine came in very unhappy and repentant, but I said it was quite impossible to reward him, as he never would learn anything if he loitered at home; so he walked out again, borrowed a sheet of paper, and said he would write a petition for himself, to show that he had learnt something. He brought it in, with one of the hirkarus, to present it; it was a good specimen of a short request. However, I said I would think about it, but could not let him have his turban directly; and in about two hours Rosina, and the jemadar, and two or three others, came to beg I would let him have it, for he had been crying so they did not know what to do with him. ‘And he is so young child, and his little face is grown so small, it quite melancholy, and he say he so ashamed to wait at dinner with the choota lady’s boy quite smart;’ so of course I gave way, as it is always a pity to vex a child, and his face really was grown small. The people here always put me in mind of Number Nip’s friends, who were made of turnips, and withered in twenty-four hours. They have no bone, and no muscles, and fade away, and fatten out again à volonté.
I heard a noise in my passage when I was dressing in the evening, and sent Rosina to ask what it was, and she said that the servants were all laughing, because the little boy was telling them that, when I was ill, he had promised to his god that he would give all my servants a feast (which consists in cake and sugar) when I got well, and that now he had got his new dress he meant to give it to-morrow, and he was inviting them all. I dined down to-day, my recovery being entirely complete, and I am probably much the better for the attack.
This morning there came out of the extreme far end of the hold of the ‘Catherine,’ a box from Rodwell, with a real good satisfactory profusion of books, and we did not expect them, which made it all the pleasanter; and when we all dispersed after luncheon, everybody had at least three volumes, under each arm. Even Captain whose studies are few and far between, stepped off with ‘Mrs. Armitage.’ We have read ‘Boz’ before, but that was one I was most charmed to see. I look upon it as a book of reference, and it was a great inconvenience not having a copy in the house. The ‘Pickwicks’ are equally valuable.
We went to church armed, with money to give to a charity sermon that had been advertised for the late fires; and the Archdeacon began with a capital text about wind and fire, but it suddenly turned into a sermon for the Church Missionary Society, which has been quarrelling with other societies; so Fanny and I began halving our rupees, and George tore up his draft of 50l., and wrote another in pencil for 10l.; and the aides-de-camp, who had clearly not listened for the conclusion, whispered to know whether it was a charity they ought to give to; and, in the meanwhile, the service lasted two hours and a half, on one of the very hottest days we have had this year. George came home so hot that he declared he would not stir out again all day. However, he thought better of it, and went out with me in the carriage. has set up a new curricle.
We had a great dinner yesterday; but they are much less dull and formal since that new arrangement of sitting in the Marble Hall, where nobody can sit in a circle, if they wish it ever so much.
I am quite well again, and began riding again yesterday. All the others are quite well too. In three months our advanced guard of horses, goods, &c., will be setting off. They go six weeks before us, or two months, as we shall go by steamer to Allahabad. We make all these arrangements before George, who says nothing, but has, in fact, made up his mind to go. Sir H. Fane writes such delicious accounts of the mountains, and he says that now, when we are all melting, they have roaring fires morning and evening, and are out all day. ‘Can such things be, and overcome us like a winter cloud, without our special wonder?’ Well, I begin to see things in Lord ’s cheerful way. In five months we shall be travelling, and we shall be marching about for a year and a half, and then we shall not have quite two years more of Calcutta; and then there is only the voyage, and then you must be at Portsmouth if we go by sea, or Dover if overland. I think you had better go there now, for fear of accident. Just stop! I will come in a minute. God bless you all! You are still my very dearest friend.