“I fear, Mrs Fraser,” says my spouse very solemnly, “you forget sometimes that you’re married. How otherwise could you coldly propose that I would resign my wife to that lawless villain? Or perhaps you are good enough to intimate that you prefer him to me?”
“Oh, sir, sir!” I cried; and Mr Fraser embraced me with the most obliging tenderness.
“My foolish girl knows now what I’ll think if I hear her say that again,” he said, and went away to consult with Mr Ranger on plans of defence. But as it chanced, their valour proved unnecessary; for their council was interrupted with the commotion caused by the arrival of a palanqueen, out of which stepped Mr Watts, very cheerful and sedate, while among the servants attending on him was Mirza Shaw Buzbeg, riding a very fine horse of his own. The palanqueen and bearers Mr Watts sent back to Cossimbuzar, saying that he was going hunting with the gentlemen, and would carry them thither with him for supper, which (as he bade them remind the cooks) must be on the table without fail at the hour he had named. Coming in then among us, and rubbing his hands very complacently—
“Come,” he said, “the hour is arrived, gentlemen, and Surajah Dowlah’s knell has begun to toll. Meer Jaffier sent to me this afternoon to entreat that I would leave the city, since a rumour had reached the Nabob that Colonel Clive was advancing from Calcutta as far as Chandernagore with his troops. You’ll guess that I was not catched unprepared, for I think ’twould be scarce kind in me to permit Surajah Dowlah to add to his crimes by compassing all our deaths. Leaving the city house in my palanqueen, I betook myself to Cossimbuzar, as I have done pretty often of late on pretence of business, and ordered the servants there to have supper ready against the time I should bring you back with me, gentlemen; but I fear that supper will be cold indeed before we return to eat it. Pack up your falbalas, madam; you have prepared an equestrian habit as I recommended you, I hope? To horse in half an hour, gentlemen! The beasts are in good condition, I trust?”
“Sure, sir,” I heard Dr Dacre say, as I returned into my own apartment, “you can’t intend to ride the whole distance to Chandernagore? Have you forgot we have a female of our party? Mr Fraser consulted me as to your intentions, and I assured him that you was but proposing to ride as far as some point on the river where we might obtain boats. You won’t contradict me, I hope?”
“Why, look ye here, doctor,” cried Mr Watts, “no man knows better than I do that the length of the journey and the extreme heat of the season will make this adventure of ours excessively fatiguing and not a little dangerous, but our lives are at stake. One of my reasons for lingering on in the city longer was that I was in hopes of hearing from Colonel Clive that he desired our retreat, and had provided boats to meet us on the way. But since he han’t chose to be so considerate, we can only trust that the rumour which has alarmed the Nabob is true, and that we shall find the army on the march to Muxadavad. The Colonel knows our danger, for Aume-beg tells me that it has several times been reported in Calcutta that I had been seen slain, and my head set on a pole, and I don’t doubt but he’ll help us if he can. As for the lady, if I know anything of her, she’ll share our hardships without whining or peevishness, and prefer ’em to the alternative of remaining here. And pray, gentlemen, do me the favour to get ready at once. I may be pursued even now.”
The words were not out of Mr Watts’ lips when the other gentlemen scattered each to his apartment, and Mr Fraser, lifting the antiporta of reeds through which I had heard all their conversation, came to me.
“My incomparable girl must show the stuff she’s made of to-night,” he said, with as great an air of cheerfulness as he could command. “We will have a long hard ride, but I know she’ll do her best to support it for her Fraser’s sake.”
“Indeed, dear sir, I’ll endeavour not to disappoint you,” I said, the tears coming into my eyes at the kind and flattering style in which he spoke. Truly, my dear, I can conceive nothing that would grieve me more than to disappoint the dear gentleman in any particular, though I fear I shall never attain to the high ideal he has so obligingly formed of me. My Amelia would, I am convinced, discover a perpetual fund of amusement in the mutual dread which Mr Fraser and I entertain of losing each other’s good opinion. I must tell her that so many years spent on shipboard have rendered my spouse an adept in what he prefers to call making things fast. His apartment at the Agency made me laugh, for everything that could by any means be packed up, put away, rolled up or hung up, had been so treated, until the place looked as bare as my hand. Observing my surprise, Mr Fraser told me that he liked to have things shipshape; and when I asked him whether he anticipated a flood, in which the whole house might sail gaily away, he looked at me as though I had displayed a design to attack his nation. It needs a woman, my dear, to diffuse that air of elegant disorder without which the finest apartment has an uninhabited air. To our sex alone does it belong to be easy without being untidy; for if men dispose things neatly they become also stiff. But seeing that Mr Fraser piques himself on his neatness, I allow him to do as he pleases at present, and to devise all manner of expedients for stowing everything away, until even the water-jar is furnished with a sort of rack on the wall. And here at Moidapore, when I had put on my riding-dress, he showed me a device of his by which my little bundle of clothes (containing my only gown, Amelia) might serve me for a cushion when I rode behind him, and was so pleased with his contrivance that I could not find it in my heart to rebuke his ingenuity by asking him what he thought the gown would look like when I wore it next. En’t I a pattern wife, my dear?
“Alas, alas!” cried Mr Ranger, when I joined with the rest of the party, “sure the shade of good Mr Addison must wander distressed to-night. His fairest disciple has forsook him, and adopted the equestrian habit he detested.”