“Oh, if you desire it particularly, dear sir——” Did you ever know a young woman more sweetly obliging than your Sylvia, Amelia? How otherwise could she have consented to appear at the table of the first general of the age in a horrid limp muslin gown without a hoop, made by her own hands, and a cap hastily fashioned (yes, my dear, I’ll own it) out of one of her spouse’s pocket-handkerchiefs? But there was no other ladies present, so that at least no comparisons could be drawn to her disadvantage, and the gentlemen were all in undress, as was, indeed, only proper at an entertainment held in a captured town in the middle of a campaign. Distinguished with the most flattering civilities by Colonel Clive, who came himself to the gate of his quarters to hand her out of her palanqueen, and set her at his right hand during the meal, won’t you give your girl some credit, Amelia, that her head was not turned? But I must not leave my dear friend in ignorance of one fact that should surely have prevented the lightest mind from being uplifted by the elegant kindness of the Colonel. Among the officers and others that were invited, and whom Colonel Clive presented to me, were Mr le Beaume, now a captain in the Company’s army, and Mr Fisherton, who is advanced to be the Colonel’s secretary. When you remember, Amelia, the scenes in which I last beheld these two gentlemen, Captain le Beaume carried wounded into Fort William after the batteries had been abandoned, and Mr Fisherton in that place of horror, the Black Hole itself, will you wonder that they both approached me without a word, and that their feelings came near to overcome them when they touched my hand? Those who stood round were sensibly affected, and I needed but a little encouragement to give way to the melancholy recollections that thronged upon me. This the Colonel had not observed, for he was searching among those present for one whom he did not appear to find.
“Where’s Captain Grant?” he said at last. “I hoped to present all your old friends to you, madam, and you must have been well acquainted with him.”
“Here, sir, at the lady’s service,” said a gentleman wearing the dress of Adlercron’s Regiment.
“No, not you, Major,” says the Colonel. “’Twas Captain Alexander Grant of the Bengall Service I was seeking, an old acquaintance of Mrs Fraser’s.”
“The Captain sent his most humble apologies, sir, but he’s indisposed this evening,” says Mr Fisherton, and his eyes chanced to meet mine. You know in what posture I saw Captain Grant last, Amelia. Perhaps it en’t to be wondered at that he should shrink from meeting the woman whom, in his eagerness for his own safety, he had refused to turn back to save. Something of this I think Colonel Clive must have read in our faces, for he muttered angrily to himself as though he had remembered something suddenly, and brought forward another gentleman, whom I recollect seeing once or twice at Calcutta, although he belonged to the Cossimbuzar factory.
“Mr Hastings, madam,” said the Colonel. “Like Mr Fraser he’s a new-married man,[03] but unhappily he han’t had the foresight to bring his lady with him on this campaign, when Mrs Fraser and she might have exchanged confidences and allayed each other’s fears.”
Mr Hastings replying very genteelly that he hoped before long to have the honour of making his wife acquainted with Mrs Fraser, we went to supper, I being placed, as I said, on Mr Clive’s right, with Dr Dacre on t’other side. The Colonel conversed continually with me in the most agreeable manner, asking me whether I had seen much of the army yet, and what I thought of his loll pultun?[04] This is a regiment of Seapoy soldiers which he has clothed and drilled like Europeans, thus giving them a much more martial air than our old buxerries, who were dressed after the Indian fashion in the long breeches called panjammers,[05] a cabay or vest, and a turbant. I told him that I had observed a number of these men as I passed through the place on my way to his quarters, and been much pleased with their air of neatness and discipline, and then, his words recalling to me that old mystery of Misery’s and the other servants respecting the loll addama, I ventured to inform him with what awe and submissiveness the Indians were watching his progress, counting it to be of little use opposing him.
“I hope Mrs Fraser is so obliging as to share this persuasion of theirs?” said he.
“Why, yes, sir. How could I look to see a cause so good as ours permitted to suffer defeat at the hands of such a wretch as the Nabob?”
“Pray, madam, is it the case in your experience that Providence always awards the victory to the most deserving side?”