“Oh, pray, sir, dear sir, don’t let me be a cause of dissension between you and Mrs Freyne,” I said, and I think my face must have exhibited to him the agony I felt.
“Don’t be a fool, child,” he said, but not roughly. “When you are married, you’ll know better than think every hasty word a tragedy. But sure you don’t look to get a husband if you come to supper in an undress? We’ll pardon a nightgown and mob this first evening, but the Calcutta ladies go very fine, and I don’t want my girl to fall behind them.”
“O’ my conscience, sir, you are on monstrous familiar terms with your daughter already,” said Mrs Freyne. “Perhaps you’ll forgive my asking who it is you expect to supper?”
“Why, two or three fine gentlemen that all chanced to have business at this end of the town, and to be passing just at the time I came home, madam. They had never heard that I had a handsome daughter just landed from England, of course—hey, Miss Sylvy? And as I came through the town I met the Zemindar and the Padra, and asked them in.”
“Which Padra?” asked Mrs Freyne. (This is the name by which all clergymen are known here, Amelia.)
“Why, the old Padra, madam, our good Mr Bellamy.”
“That man!” cried Mrs Freyne. “I do think, Mr Freyne, that if you must invite a divine, you might oblige me so far as to let it be Mr Mapletoft.”
“But I don’t think so, madam. Be sure Parson Mapletoft is far better in the bosom of his family than rustling about here in his best cassock, and flourishing his white hands to show off his fine lace and his diamond ring.”
“The chuta Padra is a person of taste and spirit,” says Mrs Freyne. “Mr Bellamy is no better than any of the gentlemen of the place.”
“I am thankful if I’m no worse than Mr Bellamy, madam,” says my papa, and some of the guests arriving, we moved into the dining-parlour. Mr Bellamy, who is the senior chaplain of the factory, a cheerful and respectable person, handed Mrs Freyne, and I found myself taken in by Mr Holwell, whom every one called the Zemindar, a gentleman of a serious and somewhat troubled aspect. He spoke little to me, but I found abundant entertainment in listening to the general conversation, although there was much that I could not understand. But as you know, my dear, your Sylvia is afflicted with an invincible desire to know all that there is to be known, and as soon as supper was over, and we were gone out on the varanda, where the checks were drawn up, so that we could see the stars, I seized upon Captain Colquhoun. “Pray, sir,” I said, “be so good as to tell me the meaning of all those words I hear the gentlemen use.”