1835-1837
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
_July, 1835._
I HAVE really escaped with my life--_I ain’t dead yet_, but such a big
monster of a girl![423]--a regular Megalonia of a female, that if you
happened to find a loose joint of hers you would think it must belong to
an antediluvian Ox. Je vous demande un peu what am I to do with a
seventh girl of such dimensions?
Well, my own darling, your letter came just as I was allowed to read,
and it cheered me and delighted me, because you know we cannot help
thinking just the same, and my weak sides shook with laughter, and then
I cried because I do love you so much that I take a pining to see you,
and I am sure you do long to have me within reach of your Ship Hotel or
Ship Inn, for you are too wise to look upon it as more than your
Hostelrie!...
Do you remember how we always liked a maxim? I like a maxim, and I like
a good stout axiom, and a good compact system laid out straight without
any exception in any rule, a good due North and South argument, and
without any of your dippings of needle and variation of the compass. All
this we had in the Tories--but, alas, where are they now? _Ils ne sont
plus ces jours_, and I believe _we are_ the Tories. I think that Lord
Winchester, _e tutti quanti_, must feel like the old woman after her
_réveil_ when she found her petticoat cut off above the knee by that
most clever pedlar Peel.
Do you ever see him now? What a fight Peel made of it, and as
Plunkett[424] said to me, “Alone he did it,” and I forgive him two or
three sins, because, that tho’ he is a bad Chancellor, he loves the
Immortal.
My dear, I grieve to say what a _desperately good_ Chancellor Sugden
made.[425] Couldn’t we hire him? All parties liked him except the
ultra-radical dreg of the canaille. He is vain and pompous; but he
amused me because his vanity is of such a communicative nature that he
would talk his character out to me by the hour, and I like any
confession, even a fool’s. But a clever man’s is very amusing, and I
pick out a bit of human nature and human character as attentively as I
see botanists pick petals and pistils.
It is very good of Lord Auckland to stand for my girl. I really believe
she is harmless, for she could knock me down, but she is merciful! What
shall we call her? I had some thoughts of Rhinocera. She was born the
day the Rhinoceros landed, or Cuvier,[426] because I was reading his
life and works just before she was born, and took a passion for him.
Might she not be called Eden?--Her other name is to be Madeline--her
Godmother’s name....
My baby was christened Caroline Frances Eden, and I constantly call her
Eden. I think it sounds very feminine and _Eve_-ish.
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._
ADMIRALITY,
_July 1835._
MY OWN DEAREST PAM, George wrote to tell you of the awful change in our
destination,[427] and I have been so worried, and have had so much to do
with seeing and hearing the representations of friends, and taking leave
of many who are gone out of town and whom I shall never see again, that
I could not write.
Besides, what is there to say, except, “God’s will be done.” It all
comes to that. I certainly look at the climate with dread, and to the
voyage with utter aversion. Then, we leave a very happy existence here,
and then, worst of all, we leave my sisters and a great many friends.
But still, there is always another side to the question, and I suppose
we shall find it in time. One thing is quite certain, I could not have
lived here without George, so I may be very thankful that my health has
been so good this year that I have no difficulty on that account, as to
going with him. And as other people have liked India and have come back
to say so, perhaps we shall do the same.
What I would give for a talk with you--that you might put it all in a
cheerful light. It makes no difference in our affection or _communion_
that has stood the test of such long absence that 14,000 miles more will
not break it down.
I am going to-morrow for ten days to Mary [Drummond]; she is in a
desperate way about our plans....
By all means stick an “Eden” into your child’s name. Your most
affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell_.
ADMIRALTY,
_[August] 1835._
MY DEAREST PAM, Our letters crossed, and yours was just what I wanted,
and you are as great a dear as ever, only I am never to be allowed to
see you....
A week ago we began our preparations. You do not and cannot guess what
that is--and I have despaired of writing you even a line--I never knew
before _really_ what it was to have no time. And besides the deep-seated
real Indian calamity, you cannot think what a whirl and entanglement
buying and measuring and trying on makes in one’s brain; and poor
Goliath himself would have been obliged to lie down and rest if he had
tried on six pairs of stays consecutively. We sometimes are three hours
at a time shopping, and I could fling myself down and scratch the floor
like a dog that is trying to make a feather bed of the boards when I
come home.
It is so irritating to want so many things and such cold articles. A
cargo of _large fans_; a _silver busk_, because all steel busks become
rusty and spoil the stays; nightdresses with short sleeves, and net
nightcaps, because muslin is too hot. Then such anomalies--quantities of
flannel which I never wear at all in this cool climate, but which we are
to wear at night there, because the creatures who are pulling all night
at the Punkahs sometimes fall asleep. Then you wake from the extreme
heat and call to them, then they wake and begin pulling away with such
fresh vigour that you catch your death with a sudden chill. What a life!
However, it is no use thinking about it.
My present aim in writing is to ask whether there is not anybody in or
near Dublin who can make a sketch of you, something in the Edridge[428]
or Slater line, not very extravagant in price, and if you do not mind,
sitting for it for me. I will send its price by Lord Morpeth, when he
goes, and you must send it me either by a private hand, or if not, we
can have it sent under cover to George, if it is carefully packed. Will
you?
What do you think of the Lords? It is hardly possible to conceive such
hopeless folly, and it is clear that they are the only living animals
that cannot learn experience.
We shall be off in less than a month I believe, not that I believe
anything somehow,--I feel too dreamy and bewildered. Your ever affect.
E. E.
_Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond._
ADMIRALTY,
_Saturday [September 1835]._
MY VERY DEAR MARY, Your note was a sad blow to me; but perhaps it is
best that we should so have parted, and I am very thankful that we
should have had this week together. I am thankful for many things--that
we love each other so entirely; that you have a husband who has been so
invariably kind to all of us, and whom I can love in return; and then,
that your girls seem to me like real friends, and almost like my own
children. All these are great goods and absence cannot touch them. God
bless you, my darling Sister. Your ever affectionate
E. EDEN.
_Lady Campbell to Miss Eden._
CARTON,
_September 1, 1835._
I fear there is no good sketcher in Dublin, but there is a man who does
paint something like a miniature, and does catch a likeness, and it
shall be done for you next week, my darling. I never have you out of my
mind a minute, and I always thought I should not be sorry if a change
sent a Tory out instead of you.... I feel cheerful about you because you
are doing what is right, and only think what you would have been
suffering now if you were seeing him prepared to go without you....
Shall we take good in this world and not take the evil, _our old
compensations_? You might have lived years without either you or George
knowing how much you loved each other, and is there not an utter delight
in this feeling of devotion twice blessed?
Let me know how I am to write to you, and how to send my letters. How
little did I imagine when I read of India, and looked on those hot,
misty, gorgeous Indian views, that I should ever garner up part of my
heart there. I am staying here.[429] I always like them, but there is a
want of colour and life and impulse. There are many positive virtues
present, and an absence of all vice and evil, but yet something is
wanted. There is the dreaminess of Sleepy Hollow upon them.
Send me a bit of your hair, my darling, and always bear me in your
“heart of hearts, as I do thee, Horatio.” I cannot believe it yet, nor
do you, dearest, in spite of the preparations, and it is best you should
not believe it till it is over....
It must be done, and so it had best be well done! and I will not hang to
your skirts and make it harder for you to go forward and do right, only
I felt all the love I have borne you for all these years choking me till
I sobbed it well out, you whom I loved as my own sister.... I was not
surprised at it; I felt it would be, it was so like life--such a horrid
piece of good fortune, such a painful bit of right to be done.
How right the Wise Men were to come _from_ the East! Only, I should not
have been particular about going back again; I had rather have stayed
and sat in Herod’s back-parlour for the rest of my life.
When once it is over you will be very busy and very amused. Emmy, I mean
to open an account with you. I mean to keep a letter always going to
you, and so tell you every week what I am thinking about, because, you
know, in India, without any vanity, I may be very sure my letters will
be valuable. It will cool you to read anything coming from the damp
West.... I have been so eager about the Corporations, for Corporation in
this Country means abomination! And when I heard them all spitting and
scratching about the Tithe Bill, I thought what will they say to the
Corporation Bill that sweeps so much farther.
There is a great deal of rage and fury fermenting here, but I think
there will be no explosion. I own I am sorry to see that the fury of the
Orangemen, tho’ it may not drive the lower orders of Protestants to
fight, will, by making him fancy himself ill-used, persuade him to
emigrate. Thousands are preparing to emigrate.
I do not hope to see Ireland better in my time, and it often makes me so
sad, for I do love it with the love one feels towards the child that is
most weak, most sick.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
ADMIRALTY,
_Thursday, September 1835._
MY DEAREST THERESA, I was very near you yesterday, and at the time I had
appointed, but my heart failed me about taking leave for so long a time,
and as I took one of those fits of lowness which sometimes come over me
now (partly from real bodily fatigue), I saw I should do nothing but cry
if I went to you, and that would be hard upon you and tiresome withal.
Besides, taking leave is at the best of times a hateful process, so I
would not go to you. And now, God bless you and yours, my very dear
friend. I daresay when I come back I shall find _you_ just what you are
now, and _yours_ very much increased in number and size.
Be sure to write to me a fortnight at the very latest after you see our
departure announced, and put your letter under cover to Lord Auckland,
Government House, Calcutta, and put it in the common post, if that is
more convenient to you. Otherwise, if you can find anybody to frank it
to Captain Grindlay, 16 Cornhill, he is our agent, and will at all times
take charge of letters and parcels for us. Pray give my best love and
wishes to Mrs. Villiers. Ever your affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
ADMIRALTY,
_September 1835._
MY DEAREST THERESA, I have received your pretty bracelet with tears,
which is a foolish way of accepting what is very dear to me, but every
day my heart grows more sore, and I look with greater despondency to an
utter separation from such kind friends as mine have proved themselves.
I did not need anything, dearest, to remind me of you. Our friendship
has happily, as far as I remember, been entirely free from even those
little coolnesses and irritations which will mix sometimes with the
closest intimacies. I cannot recollect the slightest _tiff_ between us,
and therefore I have no fears of the _effect_ of absence, but still the
absence itself is most painful. And your bracelet will then be an actual
comfort to me, and besides thinking it so particularly pretty in itself,
I am glad that it is one that I may wear constantly without fear of
injuring it. I have put it on my arm, and there it will stay, I hope,
till we meet again.
I am just setting off to Eastcombe to fetch home Fanny, who will be
delighted with your recollection of her. To-morrow we are to go to the
_Jupiter_ to settle the arrangements of our cabins, but Wednesday, late
in the day, we will go to Knightsbridge.
God bless you, my very dear friend. Many thanks for this and all the
many kindnesses you have shown me. Your ever affectionate
E. E.
_Lord Melbourne to Miss Eden._
SOUTH STREET,
_September 24, 1835._
My Mother always used to say that I was very selfish, both Boy and Man,
and I believe she was right--at least I know that I am always anxious to
escape from anything of a painful nature, and find every excuse for
doing so. Very few events could be more painful to me than your going,
and therefore I am not unwilling to avoid wishing you good-bye. Then God
bless you--as to health, let us hope for the best. The climate of the
East Indies very often re-establishes it.
I send you a _Milton_, which I have had a long time, and often read in.
I shall be most anxious to hear from you and promise to write. Adieu.
Yours,
MELBOURNE.
_King William IV. to Miss Eden._
WINDSOR CASTLE,
_September 26, 1835._
The King cannot suffer Miss Eden to quit this country without thanking
her for the letter she wrote to Him on the 24th inst., and assuring her
of the satisfaction with which He received it.
His Majesty has long been aware of the sincere attachment which exists
between Lord Auckland and his amiable Sisters, and of his anxiety for
their Welfare and happiness, and he gives him credit for this exemplary
feature of his character, not less than He does for the ability and
correct zeal with which he has discharged his Public Duties.
Lord Auckland’s conduct at the Admiralty has indeed been so satisfactory
to the King, that it is impossible He should not regret his Removal from
that Department, though His Majesty trusts that the Interests of the
Country have been consulted in his nomination to the high and important
Situation of Governor-General of India, and sincerely hopes that it may
conduce to his own advantage and satisfaction.
His Majesty is not surprised that Miss Eden and her Sister should have
determined to accompany so affectionate a Brother even to so remote a
destination, and He is sensible how much their Society must contribute
to his comfort, for the uninterrupted continuance of which, and of their
welfare, He assures them of His best Wishes.
WILLIAM R.
[The end of September 1835 Lord Auckland, his two sisters, his
nephew William Godolphin Osborne, their six servants, and Chance
the dog, started on a five-months’ voyage in a sailing-ship to
India. Miss Eden described in her book, _Letters from India_, their
many adventures on board ship, and her impressions of life in
Calcutta. Her water-colour sketches of Funchal, Rio in Brazil, Cape
Town, and her “Portraits of Princes and Natives,” make excellent
illustrations to all the long letters written during her six years’
absence from England.
In 1916 an Exhibition of Miss Eden’s paintings, chosen and arranged
by Mr. F. Harrington, was held at Belvidere, Calcutta, the first
sketch mentioned in the catalogue being that of Chance.
“I had such a pretty present this morning, at least rather pretty.
It is a baby-elephant, nine months old, caught at Saharanpur by the
jemadar of the mahouts, and he has been educating it for me, and
offered it by way of Captain D., his master. William and I have
been looking about for some time for a gigantic goat for Chance to
ride on great occasions, but a youthful elephant is much more
correct, and is the sort of thing Runjeet’s dogs will expect. It
just comes up to my elbow, seems to have Chance’s own little bad
temper and his love of eating, and is altogether rather like him.”]
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._
N. LAT. 17, LONG. 21,
_February 18, 1836_.
MY DEAREST PAM, I got William to write to you from the Cape, as we were
in a flurry of writing, visiting, and surveying Africa, and he had more
time, having been there before. We have had a very smooth sea, and I can
read and draw and write, and as we all are perfectly well, there is not
much to complain of, except of the actual disease--a long voyage, which
is a very bad illness in itself, but we have had it in the mildest form
and with every possible mitigation. At the same time I cannot spare you
the detail of all our hardships, and I know you will shudder to hear
that last Saturday, the fifth day of a dead calm, not a cloud visible,
and the Master threatening three weeks more of the same weather, the
thermometer at 86 in the cabin,--tempers on the go and meals more than
ever the important points of life,--at this awful crisis the Steward
announced that the coffee and orange-marmalade were both come to an end.
No wonder the ship is so light, we have actually ate it a foot out of
the water since we left the Cape. “Nasty Beasts,” as Liston says. Your
lively imagination will immediately guess how bad the butter is, and I
mention the gratifying fact that two small pots of Guava Jelly and the
N.E. Monsoon sprung up on Monday, and we hope their united forces may
carry us to the Sandheads.
I never could like a sea life, nor do I believe that anybody does, but
with all our grumbling about ours, we could not have been 19 weeks at
sea, with so few inconveniences. Captain Grey is an excellent seaman,
and does more of the work of his ship than is usual. The officers and
midshipmen have acted several times for our diversion, and remarkably
well.
The serious drama, _Ella Rosenberg_, was enough to kill one. Ella’s
petticoats were so short, and her cap with her plaits of oakum always
would fall off when she fainted away, and a tall Quartermaster, who
acted the confidant, would call her Hella, and never caught her in time!
Some of the sailors were heard talking over the officers’ acting, and
saying, “They do low comedy pretty well, but they do not understand how
to act the gentleman at all.”
How little we thought in old Grosvenor Street days, when we sat at the
little window listening to the organ-man playing “Portrait charmant”
while the carriage was adjusting itself at the door, that we should be
parted in such an out-_sea_-ish sort of way. That in the middle of
February, when we ought to be shivering in a thick yellow fog, George
and I should be established on a pile of cushions in the stern window of
his cabin, he without his coat, waistcoat, and shoes, learning
Hindoostanee by the sweat of his brow. I, with only one petticoat and a
thin dressing-gown on, a large fan in one hand and a pen in the other,
and neither of us able to attend to our occupations because my little
black spaniel will yap at us, to make us look at the shark which is
playing “Portrait charmant” to two little pilot-fish close under the
window.
I should like to go back to those Grosvenor St. days again. I have had
so much time for thinking over old times lately, that I never knew my
own life thoroughly before. I can quite fancy sometimes that if we could
think in our graves (and who knows), my thoughts would be just what they
are now--the same vivid recollections of former friends and scenes, and
the same yearning to be with them again. There is hardly anything you
and I have talked over, that has not come to life in my mind again, and
I could wring my hands, and tear my hair out, to go back and do it all
over again.
The cottage at Boyle Farm, W. de Roos’s troubles, Henry Montagu, the
Sarpent,[430] even that old Danford[431] with the wen, Mrs. Shepherd and
the Hossy Jossies. Dear me! Did I ever have jollier days with anybody or
love anybody better?
Do write and tell me all about yourself now, and your children--I don’t
half know them. There is a tassel of small ones, like the tassel at the
end of a kite’s tail, that I know nothing about--not even their names.
Tell me all their histories. There is an Emily,[432] I know. What shall
I send her from Calcutta if we ever arrive there? It is now five months
since we have been travelling away from letters, and I feel such hot
tears come into my eyes when I think of....
_Monday, February 29, 1836._--I thought we should have been coming home
with our fortunes made by this time, but we are still within a hundred
miles of the Sandheads. At this precise moment we are at anchor in
_green_ water, so different to the deep blue sea, near some shoals,
which is advantageous, because we can pick up our petticoats and pick
our way to land.
_Thursday. In the Hooghly._--At last, by dint of very great patience and
very little wind, we have arrived, got the pilot on board early
yesterday morning, saw Saugur, which looks as if it had been gnawed to
the bone by the tigers that live on it. We are surrounded by boats
manned by black people, who, by some strange inadvertance, have utterly
forgotten to put on any cloaks whatever. We have a steamer towing us, a
civil welcome from Sir C. Metcalfe;[433] a Prince of Oudh, who has been
deposed by an undutiful nephew, and deprived of several lacs of rupees,
asking for his Excellency, well knowing that the first word even in
Hindoostanee is valuable, which is so much his Excellency’s opinion,
that he wisely refuses to hear it, and, above all, we have received a
profusion of letters from home, ten fat ones for my own share. Nothing
unpleasant in them, which, considering some are dated five weeks after
we left England, is something to be thankful for.
Cecilia de Roos’s[434] marriage; and poor old Lady Salisbury,[435] it
somehow seems as if nothing but fire could destroy her. I am going down
to look over the box that contains the dresses in which we are to appear
at our first Drawing-room to-morrow, and my blonde gown may, and in all
probability will, come out quite yellow and fresh-patterned by the
cockroaches. Your most affectionate
E. EDEN.
_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._
BARRACKPORE,
_March 24, 1836_.
MY DEAREST THERESA, In the utter bewilderment in which I live, from
having more to do in the oven than I could get through comfortably in a
nice bracing frost, I quite forget whether I wrote to you on my first
arrival. I sent off so many letters, necessarily precisely like one
another, that I have forgotten all about them, except that they
announced our arrival after a five months’ voyage, and that we were in
all the nervousness of a first arrival in a hot land of strangers.
We have been here three weeks to-day, and are so accustomed to our way
of life that I cannot help thinking we have been here much longer, and
that it is nearly time to go home again. It is an odd dreamy existence
in many respects, but horribly fatiguing realities breaking into it. It
is more like a constant theatrical representation going on; everything
is so picturesque and so utterly un-English. Wherever there is any state
at all it is on the grandest scale. Every servant at Government House is
a picture by himself, in his loose muslin robes, with scarlet and gold
ropes round his waist, and his scarlet and gold turban over masses of
black hair; and on the esplanade I hardly ever pass a native that I do
not long to stop and sketch--some in satin and gold, and then perhaps
the next thing you meet is a nice English Britschka with good horses
driven by a turbaned coachman, and a tribe of running footmen by its
side, and in it is one of the native Princes, dressed just as he was
when he first came into the world, sitting cross-legged on the front
seat very composedly smoking his hookah.
Then, after passing a house that is much more like a palace than
anything we see in England, we come to a row of mud-thatched huts with
wild, black-looking savages squatting in front of them, little black
native children running up and down the cocoa-trees above the huts, and
no one appearance of civilization that would lead one to guess any
European had ever set foot on the land before. The next minute we may
come to a palace again, or to a regiment of Sepoys in the highest state
of discipline, or to a body burning on the river-shore, or another body
floating down the river with vultures working away at it. Then, if
George is with us, we may meet a crowd of white-muslined men who begin
by knocking their heads against the ground, and then give their long
petitions (asking for some impossibility) in the Hindustani language, or
else an English petition, which is apparently a set of words copied from
some dictionary. No sense whatever--otherwise an excellent petition.
I have described our Calcutta house and household so often that I cannot
do it again. It is all very magnificent, but I cannot endure our life
there. We go there on Monday morning before breakfast. We have great
dinners of 50 people, “fathers and mothers unknown,” to say nothing of
themselves. Every Monday and Wednesday evening Fanny and I are at home
to anybody who is on what is called the Government House List. What that
is I cannot say; the Aides-de-Camp settle it between them, and if they
are the clever young men I hope they are, they naturally place on it the
ladies most agreeable to themselves.
On Thursday morning we also receive any people who chance to notify
themselves the day before. The visiting-time is from ten to one in the
mornings, and we found it so fatiguing to have 100 or 120 people at that
time of day that we have now chosen Tuesday evenings and Thursday
mornings, and do not mean to be at home the rest of the week. There are
schools to visit, and ceremonies half the week. Yesterday we had an
examination at Government House of the Hindu College, and the great
banqueting-hall was completely filled with natives of the higher class.
Some of the boys in their gorgeous dresses looked very well, reciting
and acting scenes from Shakespeare. It is one of the prettiest sights I
have seen in Calcutta. On Thursday afternoon we always come here, and a
prodigious pleasure it is. It feels something like home. It is sixteen
miles from Calcutta, on the river-side. A beautiful fresh green park, a
lovely flower-garden, a menagerie that has been neglected; but there is
a foundation of a tiger and a leopard and two rhinoceros’, and we can
without trouble throw in a few light monkeys and birds to these heavy
articles. It is much cooler here, and we can step out in the evening and
walk a few hundred yards undisturbed.
Then, though we ask a few of the magnates of the land, and a wife or a
daughter or so each time, they are lodged in separate bungalows in the
park, and never appear but at luncheon and dinner, and are no trouble.
We are so many in the family naturally, that seven or eight more or less
make no difference at those times, and I take a drive or a ride on the
elephant alone with George very regularly.
I never see him at Calcutta except in a crowd. In short, Barrackpore is,
I see, to save me from India. I believe the Aides-de-Camp and
secretaries all detest it, but there is no necessity to know that.
George has made William Osborne Military Secretary, which gives him a
very good income, and plenty to do. He has talent enough for anything,
luckily likes occupation, and is very happy. Captain Grey is living with
us, but the _Jupiter_ sails the end of next week. I am afraid he will
have a tiresome journey home; he takes back many more soldiers than the
ship can conveniently hold, and not only that, but such quantities of
wives and children.
I hope you have written to me; you would if you knew the ravenous
craving for letters that possesses the wretches who are sent here. They
are the only things to care for; you cannot mention a name that will not
interest me, whereas I can never find one that you have ever heard
before. Fanny desires me to say she wears your brooch constantly. I need
not mention that of my dear bracelet. I hope in a few weeks we shall
find something to send home, but hitherto we have found nothing but very
dear French goods. Please write.
Give my love to your brother George when you see him or write to him.
Now that I am dead and buried I sit in my hot grave and think over all
the people I liked in the other world, and I find nobody that I knew had
more community of interests and amusements with their kind. I often long
for a laugh and talk with him, but it would be too pleasant for the
climate.
Tell me an immense deal about yourself, and do write, there’s a duck.
Your most affectionate
E. E.
_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA,
_August 16, 1836_.
MY DEAREST PAM, Your long, dear letter has actually found its way
here--came in last week quite by itself, having travelled 15,000 miles
with nobody to take care of it, and it arrived feeling quite well and
not a bit altered since it left you. I cannot sufficiently explain the
value of a letter here; rupees in any number could not express the sum
which a letter is worth, and I do not know how to make you understand
it. But, you see, the scene in India is so well got up to show off a
letter.
I was suddenly picked up out of a large collection of brothers, sisters,
and intimate friends, with heaps of daily interests and habits of long
standing, devoted to the last night’s debate and this morning’s paper,
detesting the heat of even an English summer, worshipping autumn, and
rather rejoicing in a sharp East wind, with a passion for sketching in
the country, and enjoying an easy life in town--with all this we are
sent off out of the reach of even _letters_ from home, to an entirely
new society of a most second-rate description,--to a life of forms and
Aides-de-Camp half the day, and darkness and solitude the other
half--and to a climate!!
Topics of interest we have none indigenous to the soil. There is a great
deal of gossip, I believe, but in the first place, I do not know the
people sufficiently by name or by sight to attach the right history to
the right face, even if I wanted to hear it, and we could not get into
any intimacies even if we wished it, for in our _despotic_ Government,
where the whole patronage of this immense country is in the hands of the
Governor-General, the intimacy of any one person here would put the rest
of the society into a fume, and it is too hot for any super-induced
fuming....
The real _calamity_ of the life is the separation from home and friends.
It feels like death, and all the poor mothers here who have to part from
their children from five years old to seventeen are more to be pitied
than it is possible to say. And the _annoyance_ of the life is the
climate. It is so very HOT, I do not know how to spell it large enough.
Now I have stated our grievances, I must put all the per _contras_ lest
you should think me discontented. First, George is as happy as a King;
then our healths, as I said before, are very good, though we look like
people playing at Snap-dragon--everybody does. And though it is not a
life that admits of one doing much active good, some is always possible
in this position, and then it is a life of great solitude, which is
wholesome.
Then, as a set-off to discomforts peculiar to the climate, we have every
luxury that the wit of man can devise, and are gradually acquiring the
Indian habit of denying ourselves nothing, which will be awkward. I get
up at eight, and with the assistance of Wright and my two black
maids--picturesque creatures as far as white muslin and
scriptural-looking dresses can make ugly women--contrive to have a bath
and to be dressed, and to order dinner by nine, when we meet in the
great hall for breakfast.
When I describe my life, you must take for granted the others are all
much the same, except that His Excellency’s tail is four times longer
than ours at least. Well, I have all my rooms shut up and made dark
before I leave them, and go out into my passage, where I find my two
tailors sitting cross-legged, making my gowns; the two Dacca
embroiderers whom I have taken into my private pay working at a frame of
flowers that look like paintings; Chance, my little dog, under his own
servant’s arm; a _meter_ with his broom to sweep the rooms, two bearers
who pull the punkahs; a sentry to mind that none of these steal
anything; and a Jemadar[436] and four Hurkarus,[437] who are my
particular attendants and follow me about wherever I go--my tail. These
people are all dressed in white muslin, with red and gold turbans and
sashes, and are so picturesque that when I can find no other employment
for them I make them sit for their pictures.
They all make their salaam and we proceed to breakfast which is in an
immense marble hall, and is generally attended by the two Aides-de-Camp
in waiting, the doctor, the private Secretary, and anybody who may be
transacting business at the time.... At six the whole house is opened,
windows, shutters, etc., and carriages, horses, gigs, phaetons, guards,
all come to the door, and we ride or drive just as we like, come home in
time to dress for an eight o’clock dinner, during which the band plays.
We sit out in the verandah and play at chess or _écarté_ for an hour,
and at ten everybody goes to bed.
The week is diversified by a great dinner of fifty people on Monday; on
Tuesday we are _at home_, which was originally meant for a sort of
evening visiting, but it is turned into a regular dance, as the hotter
it is the more they like dancing. Thursday mornings, Fanny and I are
also at home from ten to twelve for introductions, people landing or
coming from up the country, and for any others of society who wish to
see us.
It is very formal and very tiresome. They look very smart, come in
immense numbers, sit down for five minutes, and, if there are forty in
the room at once, never speak to each other. But it is a cheap way of
getting through all the visiting duties of life at one fell swoop. On
Thursday evenings we used to go to Barrackpore to stay till the
following Monday, but now we only go once a fortnight. We are an immense
body to move if it happens to be a pouring day--about four hundred
altogether.
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 nobody 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 godchild 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 _banale_ 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 quantities 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
passage 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, assistance, 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.
God 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 _façon de parler_) in this rainy season
there is not an item of any description to be bought in Calcutta. Nobody
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 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. 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. 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.