I returned the salutation rather stiffly, for, though of a placable nature, I had not digested the affront; however, the tide of my anger was turned, and by dinnertime the general and I were as good friends as if nothing had happened.
We lingered for an hour or two at the tiffin table, Augustus Sahib entertaining me with some details of snipe-shooting, and arranging a programme of our future sporting operations, the general drowsily smoking his hookah and nodding in his chair, with an occasional start and muttered commentary on our conversation, indicative, I once or twice thought, of some fresh explosion.
At length, on the approach of evening, the servants, as is usual in India, unbolted and threw open the long venetian doors, to admit the cool air, and out we sauntered on the lawn, to join the ladies (to whose number some addition had been made), and who had preceded us, and were admiring the moving scene on the river.
The sun had just gone down, and all nature seemed to be with one accord putting forth a rejoicing shout, an excess of that luminary producing all the torpid effects which arise from a deficiency of his beams elsewhere. The kite whistled querulously from the house-top, the maynas and squirrels chattered joyfully in the trees, ring-doves cooed, and the bright yellow mango birds and the dark coel (loved of Indian maids) shot through the cool groves and glades of cocoa-nut and bananas (plantains), uttering their clear and shrilly notes.
Mr. Augustus joined the stately Mrs. Capsicum and the newly-arrived spinster, whilst I paired off with the widow, towards whom I felt myself drawn by an irresistible power of attraction. I felt great delight certainly in the society and conversation of this lady; though then too young to analyze the sources of my admiration, reflection has since shown me what they were, having passed them through the prism of my mind, and separated those pencils of moral light which, united, produced the sum of her excellence. I cannot here resist drawing a little portrait of her.
To a full, yet graceful, person Mrs. Delaval united a countenance, which, if not regularly beautiful, still beamed with goodness and intelligence—sensible, lively, yet modest and discreet, she was all that man should desire, and woman wish to be. Above the common littlenesses of the world, her heart was deeply fraught with feeling and sensibility—though, unlike her sex in general, she could direct and restrain them both by the powers of a clear and masculine understanding. Her Irish paternity had given her impulses; her Saxon blood had furnished their regulating power. She played, sang, drew, and, in a word, was mistress of all those lighter accomplishments which serve to attract lovers, but which alone rarely suffice to keep them; to these she added a mind of an original turn, improved by reading and reflection. Much good advice did she impart, the nature of which the reader may readily imagine, and which it will therefore be unnecessary to repeat. It is from the lips of such Mentors, that “truth” indeed “prevails with double sway”—one smile from them goes further towards convincing than a dozen syllogisms.
Many years have now passed since I took that stroll on the banks of the “dark rolling Hooghly;” many a hand I then clasped has since become cold; and many a voice I loved to listen to, mute for ever; but the scene remains pictured in my mind in strong and ineffaceable colours.
I think I now behold the group we formed, the white dresses of the ladies, making them to look like spirits walking in a garden, and honest Augustus, with his solah topee,[[14]] looking down on his shoes, and saying agreeable things, the shadows of evening closing around us; the huge fox bats sailing heavily overhead; the river spreading its broad surface before us, suffused with the crimson flush of departing day; the boats moving across it afar, their oars dabbling as it were in quicksilver; the mists rising slowly from neighbouring groves stealing over the scene, and then the stilly, tranquil hour, broken only by the plash of passing oars, the sound of a distant gong, or the far-off music of a marriage ceremony, or the hum and drumming of the bazaar—those drowsy sounds of an Indian eve. It was a bit of still life to be ever remembered.
The guests for the burra khana now began to arrive. Gigs, carriages, and palankeens, flambeaux, dancing lights, and the musical groans of the cahars, or bearers, as they hurried along the winding road, made the general’s domain, a few moments before buried in repose, a scene of life and animation.
We returned to the mansion. The reception room was fast filling. Generals, colonels, judges, barristers of the Supreme Court, merchants, agents, writers, with their ladies, the élite of Calcutta fashionable society, was, now, for the first time, submitted to my observation. White jackets, and still whiter faces, were the predominating features of the group (except where relieved by English blood and up-country brickdust), whose manners on the whole struck me as being more frank and open than those of people in England, although that freedom occasionally bordered, I thought in many, on a rough, familiar, horse-play sort of manner, which then, at least, was too common in India, where the causes which predispose to a disregard of courtesy are unfortunately too rife.