Letters from India Volume II/To Blank 3
Barrackpore, Friday, June 17.
I received your overland letter of April 2 on June 12, which makes us positive neighbours again—a mere trifle of time—and as there is an overland despatch going home on Monday, which will have the honour of conveying this, our communication will be unpleasantly quick. The pen with which, like Niobe, all ink, you last wrote will hardly be dry before you have to begin again. The only fault of these overland letters is that, by going about in that harum-scarum way, they rather spoil—not much but just a leetle—the merit of those plodding navigating epistles, which come in, in their proper course, and find themselves forestalled in most of their news. It tells, however, both ways. I can open all the letters that are to come, till they have worked up to April, without any horrible palpitation as to their containing any misfortune. We know generally that you were all alive and well on April, 2, and all the little details of March will be thankfully received. George had a few days of feverishnses, partly owing to a long council on a dreadfully hot day, but he is quite well again now. We all look, as all Europeans ought to look, utterly colourless, but rather interesting than otherwise. They say it is curious in the cool season to see people returning to their natural colour. Our very hot season is happily over; last Saturday we had a great deal of rain, and on Sunday a thunder-storm that would have made every separate hair on your excellent little head stand on end. George and I were standing in his verandah, and saw the lightning strike the ground close by my new garden, and there was a crash like that of several regiments firing at once; so we skurried in and shut the windows. There was a powder magazine at Dumdum (the idea of living near Dumdum!) struck that afternoon, and poor Dumdum made such a noise that it would have been glad to be deaf, deaf. Since that day we have had much cooler weather, and can open our shutters after luncheon and see the light of day. This morning I actually got up at half-past five, put on a dressing-gown and shawl, and went out to help Gibson plant my new garden, which will really be lovely. Dr. Wallich, of the Botanical Garden (a great man in botanical history), has given me seven hundred plants, which would be exotics of great value if we were not acting in that capacity ourselves, and he is come here himself this afternoon to see that they are all put in the right places. The mornings between five and and a quarter past six are really delightful, and it is a pity that getting up early is so fatiguing, which it certainly is. Gibson is going up the country in ten days to collect for the Duke of Devonshire, so he was very anxious to finish my garden first. George came out at six. It was great fun giving a poke at the bottom of a flower-pot and turning out a nice little plant—like Greenwich days, even though the poor little flower was received by twelve black gardeners very lightly dressed. I crept down the back stairs through Wright’s room, in the hope of avoiding all my own people, who were asleep at my room door; but I had not been out five minutes before they all came pouring out setting their turbans and sashes. It sometimes strikes me that we Europeans are mad people, sent out here because we are dangerous at home, and that our black keepers are told never to lose sight of us, and the ingenious creatures never do. But there is something touching in their attentions; though they are so troublesome they humour their patients. One brought me an arm-chair and another a foot-stool, not being up to the mysteries of a dibble and trowel. Another well-judging creature brought a cup of tea. Chance’s man came up dandling his black charge, and another fetched up, with great care, my beautiful pet goat, not having the sense to calculate that the goat and the garden would not agree; but they are always thinking of these sort of attentions, and, though it gives one a horrible idea of being constantly watched, it shows they watch to some purpose.
You cannot imagine the interest English politics have again become now we have the debates to read. I am so proud of our ministers. At this distance one sees the thing in an historical point of view, and I cannot help thinking they are a wonderful set of men to have brought the country back to that pitch of prosperity in which it is, and by such hard labour too. People are very liberal in their politics here. They do not know much about the individuals that compose our parties, and are very little curious about them; but they are all anxious for ‘good accounts from England,’ and all seem satisfied.
I am so glad you have been scolding Rodwell. The quantities of books that he ought to have sent us by this time! and he has not sent one. We borrowed ‘Rienzi’ and I find it tiresome: but the others like it.
I wish you would tell you have heard from me, if this makes a quick journey. I have written to her twice in the last fortnight from mere wantonness, and cannot inflict a third letter on her.
Ever, dearest, yours most affectionately,
E. E.