Like Another Helen

by Sydney C. Grier

Mr F. And your design in telling me this, madam?

Mrs F. Why, sir, now that Menotti is defeated, I know he won’t scruple to tell you a parcel of lies about me, and I desire to be beforehand with him.

Mr F. You desire me to proclaim to the Council, and so to all Calcutta, the iniquitous behaviour of my wife, madam?

Mrs F. (weeping). Indeed, Mr Freyne, you’re cruelly hard. I would have you catch Menotti red-handed, so as no one will give any credit to his tales. I know (for I’ve made it my business to find out, that I might have some hold over him) that when he pleads indisposition as an excuse for absence from church on a Sunday morning, he goes disguised into the wood beyond Baugbuzar, and there receives messages from the Nabob through Monickchund the Governor of Hoogly. If you catch him to-day in the act, we’re safe. Had he succeeded in his last night’s design on Miss, he would have delivered up the hircara[08] that brings the messages to the President, as a proof of his good faith, but now that he has made an open enemy in you he’ll think his only hope of her lies in the Nabob.

Mr F. I’ll send a chitt to Mr Holwell. And now, madam, and you, miss, no more of this shameful matter. I think I have sufficient credit in the place for the Council to help me in preserving the honour of my family if it’s possible to do so, but if not, then the shame is hers that first tells a word of the tale. Your debt to Mr Menotti, madam, shall be discharged, if you’ll oblige me with the particulars.

Mrs F. I’m sure, sir, my maiden-money will far more than suffice——

Mr F. That, madam, you were careful to dissipate in your first year of married life. You had play-debts to be paid then also, if you’ll remember.

Mrs F. I vow, sir, you’re monstrous unkind!

My papa stayed to hear no more, and I followed him from the chamber, only to discover that he felt the strongest repugnance to denouncing Mr Menotti to the Presidency. “I had the fellow in my power last night, and let him go,” he said, “but now, instead of avenging my own quarrel on him, I set the law on his track, for all the world as though I feared to meet him.” In this style he continued to combat all my arguments, until I was frightened to death that he would propose to fight the wretch before laying an information against him, but at last he yielded to my representation of the inexpediency of exposing the entire factory to destruction for the sake of a piece of punctilio, and went to write his letter.

Oh, my Amelia, what a dreadful burden must Mrs Freyne have been bearing during all these months, while all the time your naughty Sylvia was judging her with an unkindness that I can’t doubt has often aroused your disapproval! Is it any wonder that she has appeared peevish and difficult? How all the reports concerning the Soubah’s designs must have startled her, knowing that his excesses might be encouraged by the repeating her unguarded words! Could any assembly of motives have been so strong as the desire to save her own reputation, not only in the eyes of Calcutta, but in those of her spouse, and to deliver the whole factory from destruction? One can’t feel surprised that your poor Sylvia’s preferences weighed but lightly in the opposite balance. But what a Sabbath was this, my dear, beginning in so awful a manner, for Mrs Freyne, for your unhappy girl and her honoured papa, and for the wretched Menotti! There was rumours when we came out of church that Cossimbuzar was fallen, in spite of the submission of our rulers, but this is not confirmed. Still, the President ordered on the spot a report of the defences of Fort William to be made and laid before him to-morrow.