“Here, Bowanny,” said Captain Colquhoun, but stopped suddenly. “Sure you en’t the woman that was to come to wait on Miss Freyne with my Lady Russell’s good word?”
“No, sir,” says the woman, and I observed that she did not say saeb,[03] like the other servants. “Me Madam’s servant before, but when she see Bowanny, she choose her, and set me to wait on Missy.”
“And what do you call yourself?”
“Me Marianna da Souza, sir—good Portugal blood.”
“Indeed!” says the Captain, somewhat rudely, as I thought. “Well, madam,” turning to me, “this person is your attendant, you’ll perceive. I trust you’ll find her obliging and obedient. For your comfort I may say that Mrs Freyne has always been counted the best dressed woman in Calcutta. And now, unless I can serve you further, I’ll take my leave. Your cabin trunks will arrive shortly. I placed ’em in charge of a couple of cooleys.”
“Oh, pray, sir,” said I, “permit me to express the deep obligation you have laid me under by your kindness——” but he was departing.
“I am promised to sup with Mr Freyne to-night, madam,” he said on the steps, “and I’ll hope to find you recovered from your fatigues.”
Indeed, my Amelia, I felt ready to drop as I followed the woman into the house, which seemed dark and hot instead of bright and hot like the air outside. Marianna desired to show me the chamber where I should lie, and to bring me a dish of tea there, and you may guess I did not refuse it. The chamber to which she led me was large enough, and would have been airy had there been any air moving. There was but little furniture, and that of Chinese make, in quaint and pleasing shapes fashioned out of the bamboo. But the bed—ah, there was a disappointment for me! To understand my feelings, you must know that during all these weary months on shipboard I have comforted myself perpetually for the bare and narrow shelves of the cabin with the prospect of finding at my papa’s house such a bed as we should consider good in England. And, indeed, the bedstead was sufficiently genteel, the posts elegantly carved and inlaid with ivory, but instead of the feather-bed and pillows I had pictured to myself, there was only a meagre mattress and cushion such as we had used on board ship. And the curtains! no substantial woollen stuff—such as those within whose ample shade my Amelia and I have often exchanged confidences far into the night, holding our breath while Mrs Abigail prowled about outside, lest she should discover our wakefulness and peer in upon us with, “Pray, young ladies, are you asleep?” (Do you remember, Amelia, that once I innocently answered, “Oh yes, indeed, madam, we are”?)—the curtains, I say, were not of this sort, but a flimsy kind of muslin or fine netting, apt enough to keep out the musketoes, but admitting freely every current of air. I was the more disturbed to observe this, since the windows were defended only by screens of woven reeds, and not by glass.
“Sure,” I said to Marianna, “it must be vastly dangerous to the health to admit the night air so freely?”
“If Missy not have air in Bengall, Missy die,” was her answer, and this in as smiling and complaisant a tone as if she had uttered the most charming prophecy imaginable.