Miss Eden's Letters Part 35

Still, all these _tendencies_ towards war are always rather nervous work. You should employ yourself more a.s.siduously in plucking Russia by the skirts and not allow him to come poking his face towards our little possessions. Whenever there is any important public measure to be taken, I always think George must feel his responsibility--no Ministers, no Parliament, and his Council, such as it is, down at Calcutta. To be sure, as you were going to observe, _if_ he ever felt himself in any doubt, he _might_ feel that he has my superior sense and remarkable abilities to refer to, but as it is, he has a great deal to answer for by himself.

I daresay he does it very well, for my notion is that in a mult.i.tude of counsellors there is folly--"wisdom" was a misprint. And then again, if the Directors happen to take anything amiss, they could hardly do less than recall us. I certainly do long to be at home, not but what I am thankful for Simla, and am as happy there as it is possible to be in India, but still there is nothing I would not give to be with friends and in good society again, with people who know my people, and can talk my talk. Here, society is not much trouble, nor much anything else. We give sundry dinners and occasional b.a.l.l.s, and have hit upon one popular device. Our band plays twice a week on one of the hills here, and we send ices and refreshments to the listeners, and it makes a nice little reunion, with very little trouble. I am so glad to see Boz is off on another book. I do not take to _Oliver Twist_; it is too full of disasters.

I must nearly have bored you to death, so good-bye. Please write again.

Yours most truly,

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._

SIMLA, _November 1, 1838_.

There is a small parcel going to you per Miss Fane (not a ship, but the General's daughter, Miss Fane[458]), which you are to take care of, and eventually it will be a pleasing little occupation for you. It is a journal of William Osborne's,[459] kept while he was at Runjeet Singh's Court, and ill.u.s.trated with some drawings f.a.n.n.y has made from nature designs, and from some sketches made by one of our Aides-de-Camp, and altogether it may eventually make rather a nice little publication, and we think you will be just the man to edit it, and to cram it down the throat of an unwilling bookseller, extracting from him the last penny of its value--and a great deal more. It is not to be published till George gives his consent, and as it gives an account of the Mission which formed the alliance, which is to end in the war--which may end we don't know how--and as William will indulge in levities respecting the Company highly unbecoming the Governor-General's Military Secretary, who is in the receipt of 1500 a year from the said Company, and as for many other "as's," it is not to be printed till further advice. It is trusted to you with implicit confidence. Lord Stanley, f.a.n.n.y says, is to be allowed to read it, but I have not heard of any other confidant, so you are not to go rushing about with treble raps, and then saying: "Here are a few pages about Runjeet, a man in the East, King of the Punjab, or Shah of Barrackpore, or something of that sort, which I think would amuse you.

You may run them over, and lend them to anybody else who will take the trouble of reading them." That is not the line you are to take--not by any means. On the contrary, after a long silence, and with an air of expressive thought, you are to observe: "I have been reading this Memorandum--in fact, I wish I could send it to you; but there are reasons. However, never mind; there is no harm in my saying that I have been reading a journal. I almost wish it might be published; but yet, I do not know. However, if it is, I am sure you _for one_ (a great emphasis on 'for one') would be amused to the last degree. A friend of mine in India, a young man, odd but clever, pa.s.sed some time with Runjeet Singh, and kept a sort of diary. Curious and odd. You may have heard of Runjeet Singh,--Victor Jacquemont's[460] friend, you know; only one eye and quant.i.ties of paint. I wish I could show you the little work, etc." And so, eventually, you know, it might come out with great _eclat_. I think William may write a second part of the Interview at Ferozepore, which might be very gorgeous, taking our army into account, as well as the meeting of the two great people.

ROOPUR,[461]

_November 13, 1838_.

I wrote the above before we left Simla, when we had a good house over our heads and lived in a good climate, and conducted ourselves like respectable people, and people who knew what was what. Now we have returned to the tramping line of life, and have been six days in one wretched camp, the first few so hot and dusty, I thought with added regret of the Simla frost. And now to-day it is pouring as it pours only in India, and I am thinking of the Simla fires. It is impossible to describe the squalid misery of a real wet day in camp--the servants looking soaked and wretched, their cooking-pots not come from the last camp, and their tents leaking in all directions; and a native without a fire and without the means of cooking his own meal is a deplorable sight. The camels are slipping down and dying in all directions, the hackeries[462] sticking in the rivers. And one's personal comfort!

Little ditches running round each tent, with a _slosh_ of mud that one invariably steps into; the pitarrah[463] with the thin muslin gown that was carefully selected because the thermometer was at 90 yesterday, being the only one come to hand; and the fur pelisse, that in a wet rag-house slipping from a mud foundation would be pleasant and seasonable wear, is gone on to the advanced camp. I go under an umbrella from my tent to George's, because wherever there is a seam there is a stream; and we are carried in palanquins to the dining-tent on one side, while the dinner arrives in a palanquin on the other. How people who might by economy and taking in washing and plain work have a comfortable back attic in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, with a fire-place and a boarded floor, can come and march about India, I cannot guess.

There were some slight palliations to the first day in camp: some English boxes, with new books and little English souvenirs from sisters, nieces, etc. And then I have a new horse, which met us at the foot of the hills, and which has turned out a treasure, and is such a beauty, a grey Arab. He is as quiet as a lamb, and as far as I can see, perfect--and a horse must be very perfect indeed that I get upon before daylight, when I am half-asleep and wholly uncomfortable, and which is to canter over no particular road, and to go round elephants, and under camels, and over palanquins, and through a regiment, without making itself disagreeable.

The army will be at Ferozepore two days before we shall. The news from Persia is so satisfactory, that probably only half the force will have to cross the Indus, and it is very likely that Sir H. Fane will go home, and Sir W. Cotton later.[464]

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

SIMLA, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your letter, which I received three weeks ago, was most welcome, though it was "the mingled yarn, of which we spin our lives." Your happy bit of life with your brother, and your prospering children, and your journey, which always (so as you stop short of India) gives a fresh fit of spirits, and then your return, and that melancholy catastrophe.[465]

I cannot say how grieved I was for that. Such a happy young life, and one that was of importance to so many others! I hope Lord John will be allowed to keep those children,[466] and I suppose she will have left them under his guardianship. I suppose he would hardly object to all the children being together. I see by the papers that you have been at Ca.s.siobury with poor Lord John.

Everybody writes what you say of Sir G. Villiers[467]--that he is not the least altered, which I own surprises me, because as far as I am concerned he has been decidedly "changed at nurse," and just simply because he would not answer the two long letters I wrote him, I settled that he was not the original G. Villiers, with whom one could talk and laugh any number of hours, and whose visits were a bright spot in the day, but that he was a mixture of a Spanish Grandee in a reserved black cloak, with a mysterious hat and plume, etc., or a Diplomat in a French comedy who speaks blank verse. But "it is the greatest of comforts," as Mrs. Bennett said about long sleeves, to know that he is unaltered. I should be sorry if those horrid Spaniards had gone and spoilt one of our pleasantest men, and I still think that a system of sending out bores to foreign courts would be an improvement.

Foreigners would never know how it was. A bore would be softened by being translated into another language, or he might simply pa.s.s as an original--_un Anglais enfin_; and then we might keep all the amusing people to ourselves. I should like to have seen your brother; and how I should like to see your children! I have no doubt they are as pretty as you say; the little boy[468] always had a turn that way. I cannot make out whether there are any more coming, but I suppose you would have mentioned it if there were, and I think you are apt to increase your family in a dawdling way, not in that rapid manner with which my sister used to produce ten or twelve children all of a sudden, and before one was prepared for the shock.

We came back to these dear good hills about a fortnight ago, and I love them more dearly than ever. The thermometer was at 91 in our tents, and after two days' toiling up the hills, we found snow in our garden here.

That is all gone, and the flowers are beginning to spring up. The snowy range is so clean and bright, it looks as if one might walk to it, and the red rhododendrons are looking like gigantic scarlet geraniums in the foreground. I cannot sketch hills at all: they are too large here, and there is no beginning nor end to them--no waterfalls, or convents, or old buildings to finish them off.

We were about four months and a half in camp this year, so the blessing of being in a house again is not to be described. I never am well in the plains, and this year it would have been perverse not to have had constant fever. We had rain every week, which kept the tents constantly dripping, and we were very often apparently pitched in a lake, and had to be carried through the water to dress. I was hardly a month the whole time free from ague, and how George and f.a.n.n.y are so constantly well is a matter of astonishment to our doctor and every one else.

The Punjab was an interesting bit of our tour, and I am very glad we have seen Runjeet Singh[469] and all his Indians in their savage grandeur. He very nearly died just before we came away, which would have been a dreadful blow in the political way, but he has happily rallied again.

I should like to show you some of my Sikh sketches, though I have horrible misgivings that, except to those who have run up Sikh intimacies, and who prefer Shere Singh[470] to Kurruck Singh, or _vice versa_, they may be tiresome performances. I have, in the meanwhile, had several of my sketches copied by the miniature painters at Delhi, and they have made some very soft likenesses from them. Do you ever draw now? Or have you no time?

There are 96 ladies here whose husbands are gone to the wars, and about 26 gentlemen--at least there will, with good luck, be about that number.

We have a very dancing set of Aides-de-Camp just now, and they are utterly desperate at the notion of our having no b.a.l.l.s. I suppose we must begin on one in a fortnight, but it will be difficult, and there are several young ladies here with whom some of our gentlemen are much smitten. As they will have no rivals here, I am horribly afraid the flirtations may become serious, and then we shall lose some active Aides-de-Camp, and they will find themselves on Ensign's pay with a wife to keep. However, they _will_ have these b.a.l.l.s, so it is not my fault.

Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister._

SIMLA, _June 17, 1839_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have had a letter of yours to answer more than a month, but this is a bad time of year for writing home. We try all sorts of plans; but, first, the monsoon cripples one steamer, and the next comes back with all the letters still on board that we fondly thought were in England. Then we try an Arab sailing vessel; but I always feel convinced that an Arab ship sails wildly about drinking coffee and robbing other ships. This is to go to the Persian Gulf, and if you are living at your nice little villa, Hafiz Lodge, on the banks of the Gulf, I think it just possible this letter may find you. Otherwise, I do not see why it should.

And now for your letter. First: I see you are now Lady Theresa.[471]

Ought I to make any difference in my little familiarities? Secondly: as touching Lord Clarendon's marriage,[472] which had been mentioned so often as decidedly settled that I began to fear there could be no foundation for it--I never have faith in a report that lasts three months without becoming a fact. However, I am very glad it is all right now. I remember he always liked her, and she has had rather a trying life of it, which will fit her all the more for the enjoyment of happiness.

You talk of your uncle's will as if it had been unsatisfactory. I was in hopes Lord Clarendon was rolling in riches--I do not know why. You should never write as if I knew anything. If you mention a will, you should state it, beginning with "sound health of mind and body," and ending with the witnesses' names; otherwise we never know anything in India, and what little we do know we forget, for want of people to talk it over with.

We cannot remember if that poor Lady H. Villiers[473] died; but I think she did, and if so, I do not see who the late Lord C. could leave his money to, except to the present one. However, he will be well off now, at all events. Lady Verulam,[474] I own, I think a sad and very large objection, but only at first; and as I rather hope to hear by the next mail that your brother is in office, politics and business will prevent any very wearisome intercourse.

Thirdly: as to those unfortunate H. Gordons. His memorial for leave to retire is gone home to the Court of Directors, and George has no more to say to it than you or I have. It rests entirely with the Court, but George thinks they will give him leave to go home, as the idea of his paying that large debt out of his wretched income is absurd, and he is, in fact, a mere expense to them. But about the pension--there again no authority, not even the Court, can help him. I see constantly in the Calcutta papers that when anything the least unusual, or even doubtful, with regard to the Pension Fund is contemplated, then it is put to the vote of the whole Army, and always carried economically. Still, if the Court give him leave to go home, I am sure it would not be worth his while to live here in misery for the sake of the small addition to his pension. I suppose it cannot be more than 100 a year altogether, and I should really think it could not hurt Lady C. Cavendish[475] to make that up out of her own allowance. You will have had my letter explaining the absolute impossibility of George's doing anything here for him.

There is no such thing, Heaven knows, as a sinecure in India. For military men there are Staff appointments, which are, of course, in the gift of the Commander-in-Chief.

We have been uncommonly gay at Simla this year, and have had some beautiful tableaux with music, and one or two very well acted farces, which are a happy change from the everlasting quadrilles, and everybody has been pleased and amused, except the two clergymen who are here, and who have begun a course of sermons against what they call a destructive torrent of worldly gaiety. They had much better preach against the destructive torrent of rain which has now set in for the next three months, and not only washes away all gaiety, but all the paths, in the literal sense, which lead to it. At least I know the last storm has washed away the paths to Government House.

The whole amount of gaiety has been nine evening parties in three months--six here, and three at other houses. Our parties begin at half-past eight, and at twelve o'clock we always get up and make our courtesies and everybody goes at once. Instead of dancing every time, we have had alternations of tableaux and charades, and the result has been three Aides-de-Camp engaged to three very nice English girls, and the dismissal of various native Mrs. Aides-de-Camp. Moreover, instead of the low spirits and constant _traca.s.series_, which are the foundation of an Indian station, everybody this year has been in good humour, and they all delight in Simla, and none of them look ill.

Our public affairs are prospering much, but I will not bore you with details. We really are within sight of going home, dearest Theresa, but it makes me shiver to think of it. I am so afraid something will happen to prevent it.

I do not count Simla as any grievance--nice climate, beautiful place, constant fresh air, active clergymen, plenty of fleas, not much society, everything that is desirable; and when we leave it, we shall only have a year and a half of India. The march is a bad bit; I am always ill marching, and our hot season in Calcutta makes me simmer to think of it.

Then, the last five months will be cool, and we shall be packing. And then, the 4th of March 1841, we embark, and in July of the same you will be "my neighbour Lister," and we shall be calling and talking and making much of each other. I should like to see your children. No, I do not approve of Alice for your girl.[476] There is an unconscious prejudice in favour of the name "Alice" which has risen to an alarming height, and I think it my duty to oppose it. It gives me an idea of a slammerkin milk-and-water girl. However, do as you like, only don't blame me if Alice never looks tidy. Love to Mrs. Villiers. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister._

SIMLA, _June 29, 1839_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, To-day an old sea letter of yours (January 23) has come to hand, containing all that I wanted to know, so as there is an odd opportunity of writing (a Chinese clipper going from Calcutta to Aden, and the letters to find their own way from thence--such a post office arrangement!) I take advantage of it....

This letter is six months old, but still very acceptable, and it shows that I still have some right original English feelings,--that I have been brought up in good Knightsbridge principles.

That old Lord Clarendon[477] was a brute; I always thought so. But what can be the use of carrying on a farce of that sort to the end? He cannot pop his head up even for a minute to say, "How I have tricked you!"--supposing he was proud of it. My only hope is that Lady Clarendon, who will find it difficult amongst her own nieces to hit upon a worthy heir, will do what Lord Clarendon ought to have done. This must go forthwith. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to her Brother, Robert Eden [Vicar of Battersea]._