Miss Eden's Letters Part 32

Barrackpore is a really pretty place. I am making such a garden there, my own private one, for there is a lovely garden there already, but a quarter of a mile from the house, and n.o.body can walk half a quarter of a mile in this country.

It seems so odd to have everything one wants, doesn't it, Pam? I wanted a vase for fish in my garden; a civil engineer put up two.

The other day we ordered the carriage at an undue hour, and there were no guards, and there was such a fuss about it--the Military Secretary writing to the Captain of the Body Guards, and he blaming the Aide-de-Camp in waiting; and I thought of the time when the hackney coach _adjusted_ itself to the Grosvenor Street door, and of William de Roos's sending Danford away from the play that the hack might seem an accident, as if the carriage had not come.

Those were the really jolly days. I wish we could go back to them. You cannot imagine how I enjoyed your history of your children, those are the letters to send to India. Other people or papers tell public news.

What a pleasure it is to have a letter!

I am so glad you like Lord Morpeth,[438] I always did love him; I wish you would tell him to write to me in that odd cramped hand. Poor Mrs.

Beresford, she goes on Wednesday next; I shall be glad when she is safely off. She takes a box for you, with a gown George gives you which I thought would be useful for your Castle drawing-rooms, and some handkerchiefs William sends you, which I have had worked for him by an old native, with a long white beard, who works like an angel. I mean to send my G.o.dchild a present the next opportunity. Yours,

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _August 24, 1836_.

MY DEAREST THERESA. After I wrote you that long letter of upbraiding for never having written to me, your Edinburgh letter, which had reached the respectable age of ten months, was forwarded to me, it having been mislaid with a large packet of other letters, and remained four months in the Custom House! So pleasant when one is almost stamping with impatience for letters--or rather, would be so, if the climate did not prevent those active expressions of feeling.

I think I told you how the American edition of _Dacre_[439] had been one of my first purchases here, and I read it over with considerable pleasure. I do not know exactly what I mean, but I do not think you and your book are like each other. I do not mean any disparagement to either; there may be a very pretty fair mother with a very pretty dark child, both good in their way, but not like, and I cannot put your voice to any of the sentences in your book, or say to any part of it, "So like Theresa!" I am glad of that. I hate those _ba.n.a.le_ likenesses of books to their author. Why did you not tell me the name of your new book? I daresay everybody has read it and discussed it in England, and _I_ don't know its name. And to think of you writing about it in that vague way to me, 15,000 miles off!

The English editions of novels are to be had here for about three guineas apiece. They charge rupees for shillings, and a rupee is about two shillings and a penny. I have bought quant.i.ties of American editions of English books; but then it is a bore waiting till a work is two years old before one reads it. The Americans are valuable creatures at this distance. They send us novels, ice, and apples--three things that, as you may guess, are not indigenous to the soil. I own, I think the apples horrid, they taste of hay and the ship, but the poor dear yellow creatures who have been here twenty years, and who left their homes at an age when munching an unripe apple was a real pleasure, and who have never seen one since, fly at this mucky fruit and fancy themselves young and their livers the natural size, as they eat it. The first freight of apples the Americans sent covered the whole expense of the ship's pa.s.sage out.

We are all so grieved to-day for poor Mrs. Beresford, whom you may remember as a Miss Sewell, going out with Mrs. Hope. Colonel Beresford is the Military Secretary to Sir H. Fane,[440] and came here just a year ago. She has always declared the climate disagreed with her, and as she hated this place and its inhabitants, they did not like her, and said her ailments were all fancy. I never thought so; and she has proved the climate really disagreed with her, by having a violent fever that has lasted two months. The doctors said there was nothing for it but a return to England. Colonel Beresford came out with Sir H. Fane by way of bettering his fortunes, but as they have been here only a year, they have not yet got over the expense of coming out, so there was nothing for it but her going alone. She is one of those people entirely dependent on her husband's care. I hardly know such another attentive _servant_ as he is to her--weighed her medicines, carried her about, etc.--in short, been what she could not find here for millions--an excellent English nurse.

On Tuesday she was to have gone on board, and I wrote to offer her carriage, a.s.sistance, etc., and got back a wretched note from him saying a sudden and rapid change had come on, and she was not expected to live an hour. However, she has lived on, and the doctors still say that, though they do not think she can live, the only chance for it will be going to sea; so she is to be carried on board this afternoon with her little girl, who is a dear little thing, but wants a cool climate too. I cannot imagine a more painful time for Colonel Beresford than the next few months, for as he is obliged to go up the country with the Commander-in-Chief, and _The Perfect_, her ship, may not speak another till they get to the Cape, it may be six months before he hears if she survives the first week of change. If she does, I think she will recover. I am so sorry for them; and here, where we are a limited set who know each other at all, one thinks more of these stories.

I never could take to the Calcutta society, even if there were any, but there is not. Almost everybody who was here when we landed five months ago are gone either home or up the country. They come to Calcutta because they are on their way out to make their fortunes, or on their way home because they have made them, or because their healths require change of station, and they come here to ask for it.

To-day was our _receiving_ day. We receive visits from eleven to one every Thursday morning, and out of seventy or eighty people there were few who were not new introductions. "Have you been here long?" "Only just landed from the _Marianne Webb_--a tiresome voyage." "Did you suffer much at sea?" And so on. "Did you come in the same ship?" "No, we are just come from Lucknow." And then there comes all the story about the hot winds up the country, and whether it is worse or better than Bengal. So tiresome! I rather like to see the new arrivals, if they do not put off calling for more than a week, as they arrive with a little pink colour in their cheeks which lasts nearly ten days, but I heard one of our visitors to-day, who has been in India twenty years, declare seriously that he hated that colour; he thought it looked unnatural and like a disease. I begin to see what he means.

G.o.d bless you, dearest Theresa. I want to send this by _The Perfect_, and am so tired with our visits I cannot write any more. I hope you have written again and sent yours. I hoped to send you something pretty by this ship, but (it is not a mere _facon de parler_) in this rainy season there is not an item of any description to be bought in Calcutta. n.o.body opens even the packages that arrive by mistake, as twenty-four hours spoils everything, but when the cold weather begins, they say that the merchants will have plenty of scarfs, silks, etc., from China and up the country. I want something Indian. We have written to China for any or everything, in the meantime. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to ----._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _November 3, 1836_.

Your last letter came to me by a Liverpool ship, so I think it right to write by the same conveyance, and the more so because our stock of London ships is low. Only one in the river, and she came only two days ago, and I suppose it will be six weeks before she will be well stocked with mosquitoes and c.o.c.kroaches, and quite comfortable for pa.s.sengers again.

It is what is by courtesy called the "cold weather" now, and it is charming to see some of the old Indians wrapped up in rough white great-coats, rubbing their withered hands, and trying to look _blue_, not being aware that their orange skins turn brown when there is the least check of circulation. You have no idea what sallow figures we all are, and I mention it now because in another year I suppose the real Indian blindness will have come over me, and I shall believe we are all our natural colour.

The new arrivals sometimes stagger us, but we simply say, "How coa.r.s.e!"

and wait with confidence for the effects that three weeks' baking will have, and a delicate tender yellow is the sure result.

With all the fine cold weather they talk of, I have not been able yet to live five minutes, night or day, without the punkah, and we keep our blinds all closed as long as there is a ray of sun. I do not mean to deny that the weather is not improved, but when the chilly creatures who have pa.s.sed forty years here say triumphantly, "This must remind you of an English November," they really do great injustice to my powers of recollection. I should like to show them a good Guy Fawkes, with the boys purple with cold, beating their sides, and the squibs and crackers going fizzing along on the frosty ground.

This is our gay season. The Tuesday b.a.l.l.s at Government House have become the fashion and are popular with the young ladies, and there is going to be a fancy ball given by the bachelors of Calcutta, which we not only condescend to go to our n.o.ble selves, but f.a.n.n.y and I have organised two quadrilles, dressed them in remarkably unbecoming dresses, a.s.sured them that they are quite the right thing, and have made the whole scheme delightful by agreeing to their wish to meet at Government House without their chaperons, and go with us.

My quadrille consists of eight young ladies, and if the care with which I have selected their partners does not settle at least six of them happily, I shall think it a great waste of trouble, red velvet, and blue satin.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

CALCUTTA, _December 29, 1836_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Doctor Bramley is sending a little delicate offering in the way of Chinese wood-carving to Lady Morley, so I take that opportunity of sending you a scarf of Dacca muslin, worked at Dacca, and which is considered the best specimen of the kind of thing here; but then we have lost all knowledge of what is really pretty, I believe. I am almost certain we are very nearly savages--not the least ferocious, not cannibals, not even mischievous--but simply good-natured, unsophisticated savages, fond of finery, precious stones and tobacco, quite uninformed, very indolent, and rather stupid.

I wish the holes in my ears were larger, that is all, for I have lately seen in my drives some Burmese with large wedges of amber, or a great bunch of flowers, stuck through the holes of their ears, and I think it has a handsomer effect than our paltry European ear-rings. Besides this silver scarf, I see that I must write to you about Mr. Lister's appointment[441] which I _lit_ upon accidentally in a heap of English papers, and which will, I hope, be a great and permanent addition to your comfort. I cannot say how glad I was to read it; a patent place sounds comfortable, and as all you wanted in life was a little more income, you may guess that I am very really happy one of my best friends should have just what she wanted.

We have no letter of so late a date as the papers, so I must wait for particulars till another ship vouchsafes to sail in.

How odd it will be if we all end our lives comfortable _rich_ old folks and near Knightsbridge neighbours. If we live to come home, we shall be very much better off than we could ever have expected to be, for there is no doubt that the Governor General's place is well paid. It may well be, for it is a hard-working situation and a cruel climate. But still, it is all very handsomely done on the part of the Company, and it is so new to us to be in a situation in which it is possible to save money, that the result of the month's House Accounts is a constant surprise to me. Not more surprising than that our House Accounts should be of that extensive nature that it requires a Baboo, an aide-de-camp, and myself, to keep them correctly.

I wonder whether you have seen our Knightsbridge house.[442] I hear it is very pretty and I often think what fun it will be settling there.

I should like to know what you think of Mrs. Bramley supposing you know her, because I cannot make out why she does not come out to join her husband. He is a very delightful person, I should say almost without comparison the pleasantest man here, more accomplished and more willing to talk, and with very creditable remains of good spirits. She has a sharp little sister, a Mrs. c.o.c.kerell, here, almost pretty and very ill-natured, at least so they say, but we have not found her so the little we have seen of her. She and her husband are going tiger-shooting to the Rajmahal hills, for, impossible as it seems in this endless-looking plain, there _are_ hills, 150 miles off. "c.o.c.k Robin"

and "Jenny Wren," as the little c.o.c.kerell couple are familiarly termed, make one of these excursions every year, and f.a.n.n.y and William mean to join the party, with two or three others. It will be a very good change of scene for her, and something out of the common course of life.

Travelling in the marching fashion, which is the way they mean to go, is slow but amusing for a little while. Two sets of tents, one to live in on Monday, while the other is carried on twelve miles, so as to be ready on Tuesday. Everybody in India has their own set of servants, who are no more trouble travelling than living at home. They find their own way from station to station, cook for themselves, sleep on the ground, and, in short, are quite unlike the fussy lady's maid and valet who dispute every inch of the imperial and expect tea, beer, feather beds, etc., at every bad inn on the road. But then, to be sure, it takes about fourteen natives to do the work of one English servant. I suppose William and f.a.n.n.y could not march without thirty servants of their own, besides guards, elephants, etc. All these, they say, make excellent sketching, which is one of the amus.e.m.e.nts I look to, when we set off on our great march next year.

I keep up my drawing, but entirely in the _figure_ line, as there is no landscape in Bengal, and also the glare is so great that n.o.body could draw it if there were; but every servant in the house is a good study, and I shall very soon be sending home some sketches. I wish your book would come out. I want a new novel very much. My best love to Mrs. V.

Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

CHAPTER XI

1837-1840

_Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _January 16, 1837_.

THERE is a Lady Henry Gordon[443] here, on her way home with two of the loveliest children I ever beheld. One of them puts me in mind of her aunt, poor Lady M. Seymour,[444] but it is still more beautiful. They are older than most children here, and have come from a cold part of the country with fresh rosy cheeks. George and I had met them twice on the plain when we were out riding, and had bored everybody to death to find out who they were. William [Osborne] knew Lady Henry when she was a sort of companion to Lady Sarah Amherst, and a victim to old Lord Amherst's[445] crossness, so he went to call on her and discovered our beautiful children. They have dined here since, and I want her to let us have them at Barrackpore, as she is too busy preparing for her voyage to come herself, but I am afraid she will not. Her husband is a very particular goose, and a pay-master in some particular department, and she does all his work for him. n.o.body knows at all how he is to go on while she is away. [Letter unfinished.]

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _January 25, 1837_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I will take your plan of sitting down forthwith and answering your letter (of August 18th, received January 23rd) on the spot, before the pleasure of reading it wears off. It means I am going to answer your letter directly, and I am so obliged to you for asking me questions--just what I like. Intellect and memory both are impaired, and imagination utterly baked hard, but I can answer questions when they are not very difficult, and if they are put to me slowly and distinctly; and besides, I am shy of writing and boring people with Indian topics. I used to hate them so myself. But if they ask about an Indian life, as you do, and about the things I see every day, why, then, I can write quite fluently, and may heaven have mercy upon your precious soul! So here goes: