“Ah,” says Mrs Hurstwood, with the longest face imaginable, as the good man still lingered, “you don’t know all my trials, miss. Mr Hurstwood is trying to get rid of me.”
“My dearest life!” cries the poor gentleman, quite confounded.
“Why, yes, sir. Did you never hear of the woman who was killed with kindness?”
“Ah, madam,” says Mr Hurstwood, with a broad smile that he sought in vain to restrain spreading over his visage, “our dear Charlotte’s sprightly wit is like our mangoes here, which are only disagreeable before you are arrived at their full flavour.”
“I vow, sir, you’re a sad flatterer,” cried she. “Pray get you gone to your business, or my talk with Miss Freyne will never be done. Oh, we have extraordinary weighty matters to discuss, I’ll assure you.”
“And how does my Charlotte find herself?” I asked her, when her spouse had at last withdrawn, with many bows and scrapes and farewells, and she had sent away the iya that we might talk with the more freedom.
“Why, I’m as well as my Sylvia,” she said; “but it pleases Mr Hurstwood to sit and look at me reclining here, instead of spending the evenings abroad, and I’m lazy enough to pleasure him. But I won’t give way no longer, or I doubt I shall grow like some of our ladies here that rarely stir from their couches. I shall be taking to a hooker next to soothe the mind, as they say. Has my Sylvia ever catched Polly Dorman enjoying hers? I don’t know when I have laughed more, to see her so excessively happy. But no, my dear, I shall go into company and take you about, for from all I hear you want a duenna sadly. So your adventures han’t ceased in consideration of my absence? I understand that things are come to such a pass with you that Mr Freyne would feel no surprise if a coffle[05] of Moguls came demanding you for the Emperor’s seraglio, or an embassy of Russes to invite you to become the bride of their mad Czar. Now tell me all about your lovers and their vows.”
I had a prodigious deal to tell her, as you will guess, even allowing her to hear a portion of Fraser’s letter (not the post-scriptum, oh no! none but my Amelia shall be obliged with the knowledge of that), and moving her to tears with the history of Captain Colquhoun’s singular generosity. When all was done—
“And so,” said she, “the poor Captain is to intimate to your Fraser that if he choose to honour Calcutta with a second visit he’ll be welcome?”
“Why, no, my dear, not exactly. Mr Fraser was to join his ship at Madrass, if the fleet was arrived there, and after that he may go anywhere, and I never know whether he’s even in these seas at all. But if his duty should bring him anywhere near Calcutta, or the Admiral should choose to employ him again with despatches——”