“As I live, there’s Captain Colquhoun! Pray, Mr Hamlin, go and fetch him hither. He’ll take Miss off your hands.”
As Mr Hamlin hurried to obey her, she whispered to me, “Pray observe, miss, how careful I am of your punctilio. I wouldn’t for the world place you under an obligation to any of these young gentlemen here, that are all on fire to offer their services in any way; but Captain Colquhoun is your papa’s closest friend, and would take it most unkind if we didn’t appeal to him.”
“Sure the gentleman bows for all the world like a ramrod breaking in two!” says Miss Hamlin in my ear, as we watched Mr Hamlin press through the crowd a second time and accost a person in a military dress that had paused on the outskirts to watch the landing. I could not forbear smiling, though the tears had been at my eyes the moment before, for not only did Captain Colquhoun hold himself like a ramrod, but he moved as stiffly as if his limbs were worked by springs, like those of a Dutch baby.[15] His face was burnt red with the sun, and was so rough and hard in its features that it might have been cut out of a block of wood, and his dress was as plain as his rank would allow, without any of that foppery about the sword-knot and cockade that so many military officers affect.
“Why don’t the gentleman ride in his palanqueen, since he has it with him?” I whispered back to Miss Hamlin, pointing to it as I spoke.
“Why, that’s the Calcutta punctilio, miss. To be without a palanqueen argues you to be a person of no figure, and therefore, even if a gentleman don’t ride in his, it must be carried after him.”
“’Tis all the better for me,” I said, just as Mrs Hamlin brought up the captain, who bowed so low that I could almost fancy I heard the springs creaking.
“Now, what could be more charming than this?” the good lady was saying. “Miss Freyne, you took pleasure in the company of our good Lieutenant Fraser, I know, and you won’t feel strange with Captain Colquhoun when you learn that he’s his cousin. Questionless, Mr Fraser has often mentioned him to you?”
That dreadful name again, when I thought I was done with it for ever! I was ready to sink into the ground, but the Captain relieved me by saying—
“The young lady need not burden her conscience with fibs for my sake, madam. My cousin had questionless far more agreeable matters to discuss, and at best he knows as little of me as I of him. Difference of politics has separated our families for many years.”
This was little enough to say, when one remembers that Mr Fraser’s father holds the estates that should by right be Captain Colquhoun’s, and I was ashamed to recollect how lightly Mr Fraser had spoken of demanding his cousin’s hospitality should he visit Calcutta. But Mrs Hamlin was speaking again.