“I tore it up in his presence, miss, and defied him to send you another. And in that I was your true friend.”
“Sure it could only have been some message that he desired me to deliver to his Araminta,” I said, half unwillingly.
“And for whose sake would you have kept it, miss—for Araminta’s or your own?”
“There’s no reason why I shouldn’t receive a letter designed to reach me, miss.”
“Yes, miss, there is, if it come from Fraser. As I said, I have stood your friend in this. Perhaps you have forgot the plans which your parents have for you, and the good nature with which my aunt, before our voyage began, left it with you to remember ’em. You’re a young woman of prudence and good sense, though you know nothing of the world but what a boarding school can teach—which is vastly little, and that topsy-turvy—and you’ll accept this escape of yours with thankfulness when you think upon it calmly. Fraser has behaved to you in a monstrous cavalier fashion—leading all around you to believe that he had laid his heart at your feet, when he was enamoured the entire time of another lady. You remember, miss, your tenderness for the fellow’s feelings when my aunt first presented him to you as your humble servant for the voyage; pray, will you have people say that you are fallen into the trap yourself while he’s escaped?”
I saw the justice of her contention, but I have been very low-spirited ever since that morning, so much so that after leaving Madrass I kept my cabin for two or three days, suffering from a serious enough indisposition, from which I am now recovered, though still unhappy in mind. Yet I don’t know what I could have expected had I been able to bid Mr Fraser farewell. He could have said nothing to bring me any complacence, since had he even desired to transfer his allegiance from Araminta to myself, what answer could I have made to such a perjured lover? No, my Amelia knows enough of her Sylvia’s heart to be sure she would never entertain a thought in favour of one who could act in so base a manner. Ah, my dear Miss Turnor, I am rightly punished. I am a very wicked girl, for though Miss Hamlin thought I had forgot my parents’ designs for me, they came often to my mind in the first part of our voyage, until I had contrived to drive them away, resolving to enjoy while I had it the pleasure of Mr Fraser’s company. And now I will answer the question which I see trembling on my dearest friend’s lips. Do I confess, then, you’ll say, that my heart is engaged on this gentleman’s behalf? and to this I can answer, No. How could either my heart or my judgment take sides with one who could act, as I can’t help perceiving, with so much unkindness—I had almost added, so much duplicity—both towards the amiable Araminta and myself? But this I’ll acknowledge, that had matters been otherwise, had he been the honest man I thought him, I could have loved him.
So there, Amelia, you have the worst of it—the dreadful, the humiliating confession—and I’ll beg you won’t mention the subject again, as I shall hope to let this be the last page of my writing on which Mr Fraser’s name appears. Miss Hamlin has used me kindly enough, yet with the contemptuous kindness that says nothing better could be expected from a boarding-school miss, and I must do my best to find happiness in the future in a strict obedience to the commands of my dear papa. But oh, Amelia, if only Mr Freyne were a Papist, as Mrs Hamlin once said! Sure you’ll think I am gone mad, but I mean that in that case he might suffer me to follow my own inclinations, and lead a single life. Why is it that parents will never allow their daughters in this mode of life? We hear continually of the difficulty of making up good marriages, and of the monstrous fortunes demanded with brides, and yet no young woman of our quality is permitted to remain single, even if she desire it. Or if she be afflicted with such a want of looks that no one will take her, even for the sake of her guineas, how hardly do her parents give up their search! How many proposals of marriage sent to the friends of reluctant gentlemen, how many treaties broken off when all but arranged, before she can be allowed to follow her own inclinations!
At Mr Freyne’s house in the Cross-road, Calcutta, Sept. ye 12th.
At last I am able to address my Amelia from my papa’s house, if only to describe the disconcerting adventures I met with in reaching it. Sure, my dear, your Sylvia is the most unlucky girl alive, so extraordinary are the mortifications that assail her! But to take up my history from the point where I left off. In twelve days after sailing from Madrass, for at this time of the year the winds are favourable to those approaching Bengall, we came to the factory at Ballisore, where we expected to find Mr Hamlin waiting for us, but learned that business had kept him at Fort William, and that he would await us at Culpee. Taking on board a pilot (these persons are provided by the Hon. Company for the better navigation of their vessels in these dangerous channels), we entered the Hoogly River, passing the island called Sawgers.[04] Here Mr Marchant, the chief mate, whom I believe I have mentioned before, chanced to be entertaining Miss Hamlin and me with tales of his travels, and told us that this island is much pestered with tygers, as indeed are all in this neighbourhood; but that it is considered a place of great sanctity by the pagans, insomuch that in the months of November and December very many Gioghis,[05] which is a name given to holy men among the Gentoos,[06] go there on pilgrimage. This they do that they may wash themselves in the salt water, and Mr Marchant declared that an incredible number of them perish in the performance of this fancied duty. More times than he could tell, he said, had he beheld a great tyger crouching on the shore and licking his lips, while he watched one of these poor wretches in the water as a cat watches a mouse. ’Twas in vain that the unfortunate should seek to escape; if he would not be drowned he must return to the shore, and there the beast met him. I was expressing my horror on hearing this, and asking Mr Marchant why he had not made haste to kill the tyger and so save the poor Indian, when Miss Hamlin nudged me smartly with her elbow, and when the mate was gone, told me that he was merely rallying me. I was very angry, as you may conceive, at this piece of presumption on the part of such a person, and when he next spoke to us, asserting that the great danger to our ship in sailing up the river arose from the fact that the shoals and currents, nay, the very banks themselves, were continually changing their shape and direction, I allowed him to perceive the disbelief I accorded to his words. But this time, so Miss Hamlin assures me, he was telling nothing but the truth, so that I had been credulous and incredulous at the wrong times. Is not that hard, Amelia?
At Culpee, which overlooks a broad reach of the river, the Orford was met by a huge number of boats, variously called, as I learned, budgeroes, wollacks, and ponsways. The budgeroes are like our state barges, but far exceeding them in neatness and magnificence, the rowers, who are called dandies, and the mangee or helmsman, all dressed in white, with sashes and ribbons of the colour of their masters’ liveries. Mrs Hamlin had assured me that my papa’s budgero would come to meet me here, and my dearest friend won’t be at a loss to imagine with what turmoil of heart I looked at all the gentlemen on board the barges, hoping and yet dreading to find that each one of them was Mr Freyne. But I could perceive no one that I could guess to be my papa, nor did any of them appear to recognise me, so that at last I turned back to Mrs Hamlin, with whom was now standing her spouse, a somewhat stout and red-faced gentleman, but agreeable enough, in a suit of white clothes.