Miss Eden's Letters

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 cockroaches, and quite comfortable for passengers 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 coarse!” 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 passed 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 balls 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 noble selves, but Fanny and I have organised two quadrilles, dressed them in remarkably unbecoming dresses, assured 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. ListerCALCUTTA,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 appointment441 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. Cockerell, 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. “Cock Robin” and “Jenny Wren,” as the little Cockerell couple are familiarly termed, make one of these excursions every year, and Fanny 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 Fanny 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 amusements 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 nobody 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. DrummondGOVERNMENT HOUSE,January 16, 1837.

THERE is a Lady Henry Gordon443 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’s445 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. Nobody knows at all how he is to go on while she is away. [Letter unfinished.]

Miss Eden to Mrs. ListerGOVERNMENT 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:

“Do you find amongst your European acquaintances any pleasing or accomplished women?” Not one – not the sixth part of one; there is not anybody I can prefer to any other body, if I think of sending to ask one to come and pay me a visit, or to go out in the carriage; and when we have had any of them for two or three days at Barrackpore, there is a morne feeling at the end of their visit that it will be tiresome when it comes round to their turn of coming again. I really believe the climate is to blame.

“They read no new books, they take not the slightest interest in home politics, and everything is melted down into being purely local.” There is your second question turned into an answer, which shows what a clever question it was.

Thirdly. It is a gossiping society, of the smallest macadamised gossips I believe, for we are treated with too much respect to know much about it; but they sneer at each other’s dress and looks, and pick out small stories against each other by means of the Ayahs, and it is clearly a downright offence to tell one woman that another looks well. It is not often easy to commit the crime with any regard to truth, but still there are degrees of yellow, and the deep orange woman who has had many fevers does not like the pale primrose creature with the constitution of a horse who has not had more than a couple of agues.

The new arrivals we all agree are coarse and vulgar – not fresh and cheerful, as in my secret soul I think them. But that, you see, is the style of gossipry.

Fourthly. It is a very moral society, I mean that people are very domestic in their habits, and there are no idle men. Every man without exception is employed in his office all day, and in the evening drives. Husbands and wives are always in the same carriage. It is too hot for him to ride or walk, and at evening parties it is not considered possible for one to come without the other; it is quite out of the question. If Mr. Jones is ill everybody knows that Mrs. Jones cannot go out, so she is not expected.

Fifthly. I believe in former days it was a profligate society, as far as young men were concerned, the consequence of which is that the old men of this day are still kept here by the debts they contracted in their youth. But the present class of young men are very prudent and quiet, run into debt very little, and generally marry as soon as they are out of college.

Then as to the Hindu College. The boys are educated, as you say, by the Government, at least under its active patronage, and they are “British subjects,” inasmuch as Britain has taken India, and in many respects they may be called well-educated young men; but still I cannot tell you what the wide difference is between a European and a Native. An elephant and Chance, St. Paul’s and a Baby-Home, the Jerseys and Pembrokes, a diamond and a bad flint, Queen Adelaide and O’Connell, London and Calcutta, are not further apart, and more antipathetic than those two classes. I do not see how the prejudices ever can wear out, nor do I see that it is very desirable. I do not see that any degree of education, or any length of time, could bring natives to the pitch of allowing any liberty to their wives. Their Mussulman creed makes it impossible, and as girls are married at 7 or 8 years old, and after that are never seen by any human being but their husbands, there is no possibility of educating them, and in fact education could only make them miserable. Even our lowest servants of any respectability would not let their wives be seen on any account. They live in mud huts, something like Irish cabins, and in half of that hut these women pass their lives.

Wright446 has tried hard to persuade my Jemadar (a sort of groom of the chambers), who is a superior man of his class, speaks and reads English, and is intelligent, to let her see his wife, but he will not hear of it. The Ayahs who wait on us are not at all considered, though I have never made out to my satisfaction how bad they are.

There is an excellent Mrs. Wilson here, who for 20 years has been trying to educate the lower orders of native females, but she told me the other day, that she has never been able to keep a day-scholar after she was 6 or 7 years old, and she has now removed her whole establishment 7 miles from Calcutta. She has collected 160 orphans, who were left utterly destitute after a great inundation in 1833. They were picked up on the banks of rivers, some even taken from the Pariah dogs! Mrs. Wilson took any that were sent to her, a great many died out of whole cargoes that were sent down. It is the prettiest thing possible to see her amongst her black children, she looks so pleased and happy; she is in her widow’s dress without another European near her, and as she told me the other day, with no more certainty of funds than would supply her for her next six weeks. In short, in a position which would justify a weaker person in sitting down and taking a good cry, but she was as cheerful and as happy as if she had not a care on her mind.

Sixthly. I do not speak a word of Hindustani, and never shall, because I have three servants who all understand, though only one speaks it, and the aides-de-camp are at hand for interpretation. I wish I had learnt it. But there is nothing to read in it, it is difficult to learn accurately, and as I said before, I am not driven to it by the servants. In all this immense establishment there are not more than six who speak English, and if my Jemadar dies, I must. The only time I miss the language is out riding. When more than one of us ride, there is an aide-de-camp with us, but as Fanny constantly goes out with William, I found a tête-à-tête with George was much to be preferred to that bit of state, so he and I ride out alone, and of course he is met by a petition at every odd turning, and sometimes we both long to enquire into the case or to tell the man what to do, and it seems so stupid not to be able to do so.

The guards do not understand a word of English, and the Syces who run by the side of the horses are remarkably cute at understanding our signs if they have reference to the horses, but have no idea on any other subject.

Seventhly. The Ménagerie is almost full. An old tiger, and a young one who is just beginning to turn his playful pats into good hard scratches and is now shut up in a cage grown up and come out, as we should say on arriving at that dignity; a leopard, two cheetahs, two porcupines, two small black bears, sloths, monkeys of sorts that are caught about 100 miles off and shut up, and parrots, and heaps of beautiful Chinese pheasants. Zoological Garden beasts do not walk about wild, but there are a great many parroquets wild in Barrackpore, and alligators in the rivers; and we have met, much to my discomfiture, some huge snakes. There are vultures without end, and the great adjutant birds who live on the top of Government House and walk about the compound all day, would have surprised one in England; but I take it that when we commence our march up the country we shall see many more strange animals. As it is, I am quite satisfied still with the natives. I never see one that would not make the fortune of an artist, particularly at this time of the year. There are so many Arabs come down for the races, and the Burmese or Mugg men, are come with fruit and fish, and yesterday when we went out there were a crowd of Nepaulese, with such beautiful swords and daggers, at the gate. We sent to ask what they wanted, and they said, “Nothing, but to see the Lord Sahib go by.” I am going to send for one to add to my drawings of costumes.

There! Now I have done it thoroughly. I think you are cured of asking questions, but it has amused me writing all this.

I wrote to you December 29th, and sent you a silk scarf in a parcel that poor Doctor Bramley was sending home to his wife. He was with us at Barrackpore three weeks ago, was taken with fever last Monday fortnight, and died in seven days. There never was such a loss both publicly and privately, but the former especially. There is nobody here who can take his place at the Hindu College. He was a very delightful person in his way and the man we saw most of, as George had a great deal of business always to do with him, and he was very sociable with us. It is a horrid part of India, those sudden deaths. Your most affectionate

E. E.Miss Eden to Mr. C. GrevilleBARRACKPORE,April 17, 1837.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, they say that a letter written to-day will still be in time for the overland packet, and for all the adventures to which the Hugh Lindsay, the Dromedary Dawdle, the Desert, etc., may entitle it. Waghorn447 I see is not at Cairo – another calamity! I am in opposition to George’s government on the great Waghorn question. I cannot see why they do not pay him anything he asks, and give him an East Indian peerage, or anything else. All the letters that come quickly to us are invariably stamped “to the care of Mr. Waghorn, Cairo,” and if I thought he were there now, I should, in defiance of the authorities here, address this “to the care of dear Mr. Waghorn”! I suspect you would then have it in less than two months; now, if you receive it in 1838 my fondest expectations will be gratified.

I cannot go back in our life more than 36 hours. It is all the same thing, so I will suppose you called on Thursday morning, and after your visit we came up to Barrackpore in the evening. You know what a horrid bad road it is this side of the half-way home, and therefore will not be surprised to hear that one of the leaders, the horse that you always say is the handsomest of the new set, stepped on a loose stone and came down like a shot. The postillion, who weighs about 1½ lbs., as a small native should, was pitched out of sight into a neighbouring presidency; I believe the leaders ran over the fallen horse, who kicked at them, and they of course kicked him. The spring of the carriage was broken, and the four Syces and the postillion and the guards, being all good Mohammedans, of course looked on contentedly, knowing that what must be – must be. Luckily W. Osborne for once had no other conveyance but our carriage, so he jumped out at the side, and we all tumbled out at opposite doors, and he Hindustani’d the Syces and cut the traces, and we were all put to rights (barring that one horse), and not the worse, thank you. Only it is so much too hot in this country to have adventures.

We were all assiduously fanning ourselves when the accident happened, but no fan would have helped us after that. Think of jumping out of a carriage in a hurry with the thermometer at 95. I will give you a journal of yesterday, to show the vividness and endless variety of our amusements.

Breakfast at nine – an operation which lasts seven minutes, because nobody has any appetite, and George has no time. Then we discussed the papers… In the afternoon, a neighbour sent a note requesting admission to a new native school George has built in a park, for a Brahmin boy of good caste. I gave the father Brahmin a note to the schoolmaster, and with the proper craft of a native, he went and fetched two more of his children and said the note was intended to admit them all three. But the schoolmaster, as all schoolmasters should, knew how to read, and refused them, so when George and I drove to the school in the evening, we found them and about twenty others all clasping their hands and knocking their heads against the ground, because they were prevented learning English, and all saying “Good morning, Sir,” to show how much they had acquired. They say that at all times and to everybody, since the school has been opened.

Then we drove to the Garden, when Chance and his suite met us, and he swam about the tank for half an hour, and the tame otter came for its fish, and the young lynxes came to be looked at, and we fed the gold pheasants and ascertained that that rare exotic the heartsease was in flower, but the daisy, the real English white daisy, has turned out a more common Oenothera, and it proves that neither daisies nor cowslips can be nationalized here. I myself think the buttercup might be brought to perfection, but I know I see those matters in too sanguine a point of view.

We came home hotter than we went out. William [Osborne] and Fanny had been on the river, which was still worse. Dinner was not refreshing.

Then we all went out in the verandah, where there are great pans of water used for wetting the mats put over the windows, and the Aides-de-Camp found a new diversion in putting Chance in one pan, while three of them lifted the other and poured the water over him. He growled, as he used to do at you, to show he did not think those liberties allowable, but immediately jumped into the empty pan to have the bath repeated, whereat we all laughed, for that amounts to a good joke in India. But we never laugh more than two minutes at a time; it is too fatiguing. So then we went, like Lydia Bennet, to a good game at Lottery tickets. Our intellects fell last year from whist pitch, and now they have fallen below écarté, but the whole household can understand Lottery, and except that it is too much trouble to hand a rupee from one card to another, we all like it very much.

At ten o’clock, Fanny and William and I went to a little sailing-boat he has here, and we should have sailed, and it would have been cooler if there had been any air. But there was a lovely moon, and the Hoogly is a handsome bit of river, and we floated about for an hour, and then went to bed. And so ends that eventful day.

We are all very well, though I have been rather ailing for ten days, but in a general way you are quite right; I have very much better health here than I had at home. So all my abuse of the climate is gratuitous; I do not owe it any spite, except for being so very disagreeable. I trust there is a letter from you somewhere on the sea. George has sent for this, so God bless you. I have not time to read it over. Yours ever,

E. EDEN.Miss Eden to Mr. C. GrevilleGOVERNMENT HOUSE,Sept. 11, 1837.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, George says he thinks I ought to write to you, which is rather an impertinent thought of his, because he does not know that I have not been writing to you every day, and he does not know that I have nothing to say, and that out of that nothing I have already furnished him with eight letters for this overland post. But he says there is ¾ of an hour yet before the last Bombay dawdle goes. Three-quarters of an hour for the preparation of a letter that is to travel 15,000 miles!

I am not going to comment on the dear young Queen; that I have done in the other letters. But I never think of anything else, and we are all dying of fevers brought on by court mourning, and curiosity coming on the rainy season. Our own approaching journey448 is one other great interest, and we all declare we are packing up. It is almost as fatiguing lying on the sofa and wondering what is to become of all one’s property as actually packing up, and may perhaps by perseverance produce some result. But hitherto I have not done more than that personally. The faithful Byrne, and the rest of his staff, have gradually removed many of the comforts, and in two days the band and the horses and most of the servants depart, and, as William Osborne observes with real consternation, we shall not have above eight servants apiece left to wait on us.