The building consisted only of two stories, of great length, and a high chamber, called the "Teak Tower," which rose above the east corner of the house and commanded the most extensive and beautiful views to be found anywhere on the island. The upper story was the part designed for human habitation. The wood of which it was built was a fine-grained teak and very durable. The balcony, running all around the upper story, was elaborately carved. The lower part was chiefly of stone pillars, enclosing a spacious ground-floor united by screens of fine open wire wrought in Oriental patterns of the Persian rose and the Buddhistic lily. The pillars rested firmly on broad stone foundations, and the open wire walls let in all the wind, rain, and sunshine that the feathered inhabitants for whom the enclosure was intended could possibly desire.
But this was not all: on the ground-floor of the hall flourished some beautiful fruit-bearing trees. Right under our bedroom chamber stood that most exquisite of Indian trees, "the gold-mohur acacia," with its rich clusters of golden flowers; the slender, graceful pâpiya, with its heavy drooping leaves and round fruit of a rich yellow when ripe, so much sought after by birds. One gigantic baobâb, which had stood here, no doubt, for centuries, for whose growth and preservation the builder had made ample provision by leaving a well or circular opening through the lower and upper stories and in the roof, gave the house the singular appearance of growing around a great tree. Forcing themselves through this opening to the sky, the branches of the baobâb shot straight up on one side and overshadowed the tower chamber, covering it, after each rainy season, with masses of fragrant blossoms and fine fruit. It was very evident that in the course of time there would be, possibly, a prolonged but mighty struggle between the house and the tree, which should go first, and it was not hard to tell, for already the tree had found its way to the open sky, and its branches were seen pushing here and there and penetrating the woodwork of the chambers adjoining. There were one or two more trees that deserve mention. These were a beautiful Chinese pine and a heart-shaped peepul. The ground-floor of this hall was covered with weeds and a perfect jungle of brushwood. The gardener told me that it abounded in all kinds of reptiles, but I never saw any signs of them until some large snakes were called out one morning by a party of samp-wallahs, or snake-charmers. The fruit trees had long ceased to bear, and were gradually crowding out and killing each other.
All the more rare and beautiful birds with which Mr. Morgan had stocked this place had died or taken flight to homes less confined; only a few still remained. Among them were the sooruk, or scarlet breast, an exquisite singer; the mâina, the Java sparrow, the bulbul or Indian nightingale, and the zeenah, a little quarrelsome brown and red-spotted bird,—all hardy birds. They lingered here, partly from association and partly because of the grain still thrown in and around the "Aviary" morning and evening by the pious Hindoo employed by the Parsee agent to look after the garden.
The tower chamber was our favorite sitting-room because of its splendid views and being removed from the noise and vicinity of our servants. It was simply furnished—a table, a few chairs, mostly of cane, a couple of sofas and a Persian carpet, with gauze nettings to every door and window to keep out our worst foes, the gnats, flies, and mosquitoes. The rest of the house was furnished with the same severe simplicity; there were no curtains, no blinds, no carpets; the floors as well as the walls were painted in subdued half-tints, which gave them the air of being very handsomely fitted up.
In this place I began my first attempt at housekeeping in the East, and I can truly say, without the least exaggeration, that for months the house kept itself and my numerous servants kept me. To begin with, there were too many servants for so quiet and unpretending a household, but I soon found it would be still more difficult to do with fewer: "dustoor," custom, was flung into my face morning, noon, and night. I implored my husband to send half of them away, but if he sent one off, either the whole gang disappeared like a flash or else the work of the banished servant was scrupulously avoided by every one in the establishment. There was, in short, a servant for every distinct thing to be done in the house. There was a khansamah, or native butler, a high-caste Hindoo, who was supposed to keep all the servants in order, but who invariably incited a revolution in the camp if I wished anything to be done my way and not his. Then there was a cook, a kling (a name for a certain race natives of Madras), who got drunk whenever we happened to have friends to dinner; there was a cook's mate, who was inclined to be musical just as we were going to sleep; there was a buttee-wallah, or lamplighter, a stripling, some near relation of the butler's, whose friends and relatives were always dying, and who asked permission three times in the course of a few months to be allowed to go and bury his mother. When I very gently, because of his flowing tears and doleful expression of face, reminded him that he had already buried or burned her twice, he burst into a passionate sob and said, "Oh! that one was my aunt's mother, and the last one my father's mother, but this is my own, own mother." Of course I had to let him go off for two or three days, and the butler too, who was also a mourner. Then there were besides these an ayah, or lady's-maid; a dhoby, or washerman, who came to the house once a week for the clothes, and stayed away sometimes for three weeks, owing to that chronic epidemic, death, in the family; a bheestie, who filled the tubs in the bathroom with water, and did nothing else; a jarroo-wallah, who only came each morning and swept the house and grounds, and then disappeared till the next time; a coachman, a groom, a pundit, or professor of Oriental languages; and lastly, a tailor, whose name was Tom. He, Tom, was a Portuguese Christian, and attended to the mending of the household linen and the making of our clothes. He was the least manageable of the whole lot. He would not answer to the name "boy," a generic name for servants in India and a corruption of the Hindostanee word bhai, brother, but insisted on being called "Tom." This put me very often into an awkward position, as this was the familiar name by which I had learned to call my husband, not knowing that there was another "Tom" attached to him from his bachelor establishment. Once or twice, forgetting this fact, I happened to call "Tom! Tom!" after my husband, who was hurrying off to town, when who should pop into my chamber but the grinning tailor-boy, balancing a pair of huge scissors on his right ear and with a number of needles full of long threads stuck into his woolly head, which served him as a needle-case? There was nothing left me but to change my husband's name.
But this was by no means the beginning and end of my troubles of housekeeping in Bombay. I happened to awake very early one Sunday morning. It was a lovely sunrise: the first blush of dawn was mounting the horizon; the trees in the garden were unfolding their leaves; birds of all colors were perched upon their branches opening their "ruby eyes" on a newly-born day. But as I stood there, entranced with the beauty of a tropical sunrise, my eyes fell on the figure of Tom the tailor going off to early mass attired in my husband's best dress-coat and an embroidered vest which had been a chief object of my girlish admiration. In addition to these he sported pointed shoes, worked stockings—one of the finest pair in my possession—and a frill six inches deep projecting from his shirt-front, with a huge cocked hat, over which he held one of my smallest parasols to protect him from the mildest of morning suns, which had only just mounted the hillside. When I remonstrated with him on his return from chapel, he burst into a passion of tears and sobs and flooded me with such replies as these: "Your godship, you are my father and mother; an unkind, unjust word from your divine voice will break your poor slave's heart and consign him in the prime of his youth to a lonely and desolate grave," etc. I absolutely began to feel that he was the injured party, and that I was anything but a kind, generous mistress and a Christian. It ended in my presenting him with the clothes he had worn, but nevertheless he went about the house for days in a state of sorrowful dejection at my unkindness, which he persisted in saying had caused his heart to bleed to death.
Not long after this in a rash moment we resolved to give a dinner-party to some of our friends in Bombay, and to invite the rich East Indian widow, Mrs. C——, who had shown us many kindnesses. Never in my life did I pass through a more perplexing and fiery ordeal.
The viands were all ordered and sent from town, and had arrived in good season. But no sooner had they been deposited in the kitchen than the butler reported, in his quiet and unconcerned manner, that the cook had gone off to town to get help, and would probably not return in time to prepare the dinner. The butler and the lamplighter were Hindoos, and could not touch beef or ham, or, in fact, any kind of flesh. The butler had no objection to putting these articles on the table when cooked, but as for cooking them, he would lose caste. There was nothing left to be done but for Tom the tailor-boy and I—who, being Christians, had no such scruples—to set about and cook the dinner.
About four o'clock everything was in a fair way toward being cooked, the capons, ham, soup, and vegetables were all in their places on the fire, when suddenly the cook returned, looking very strange; I thought he was only tired and sleepy. He insisted on taking possession of the kitchen, declaring that it almost broke his heart to see me spoiling my nice dress and ruining my complexion over the fire. "What am I good for," said he, striking an attitude and looking queerer than ever, "but to cook you a grand dinner and be your slave for ever?" Thus assured, I quitted the kitchen with all the dinner cooking away at great speed, and betook myself to making various other preparations. It was almost the dinner-hour before I was fairly through with the glasses and dessert and a thousand and one of the many requirements of a European dinner-party. No sooner had I put the last touches to my toilette than my husband returned with two unexpected guests, which called my attention at once, so that I had no opportunity to revisit the kitchen to see that all was as it should be.
The last of the guests had no sooner arrived than the butler threw open the dining-room door and announced in a solemn tone, "Kannah teyar hai Sahibloke" ("Dinner waits, ladies and gentlemen").