“I had been better pleased, madam, to have found her in worse.”
“For shame, sir! Come, gentlemen,” I turned to those around, “Araminta is the poetical name of the lady to whom Mr Fraser’s allegiance is vowed. What do you think of the lover that can coldly declare he had preferred to find his mistress’s health—it may be even her looks—impaired by reason of his long absence, instead of rejoicing to behold her in good spirits?”
“Why, madam,” says Ensign Bellamy, “we’re all relieved to hear that the gentleman worships at another altar than Miss Freyne’s. Now we can welcome him to our company without fearing to find another added to the band of adorers who must one day be made miserable for life—all but one. Since this is secured, we must in gratitude leave him to settle his quarrels with his mistress as he will.”
“Nay,” said another young gentleman, Mr Fisherton. “Mr Fraser is questionless guilty of a treason against love. Here’s his mistress, as we can’t doubt, surrounded by other suitors, each importuning her to grant him her favours. She’s steadfast in refusing ’em; but what lady in such a situation would find her spirits fail? Her entire existence is a series of triumphs.”
“Yet Penelope suffered from melancholy in the absence of Ulysses,” says Mr Fraser.
“Oh, sir,” says Ensign Bellamy, “she was persuaded that her spouse was living. There was no merit in resisting her suitors; ’twas a necessity.”
“And Ulysses came back to her from sea,” says Mr Menotti, in his mincing style, as though he spoke without thinking, but looking from Mr Fraser to me and back again. All the gentlemen smiled. As for me, I rose and allowed my hoop to spread itself with great exactness, watching it over my shoulder as though I had no other care.
“Come, gentlemen,” I said, when my gown satisfied me, “let us take a turn in the gardens, if you please. Mr Fraser shall conduct me, because he’s the greatest stranger, if his Araminta don’t require his presence, and we’ll request him to be so good as to give us some account of this great victory he has brought us intelligence of.”
Perhaps I was a little cruel, Amelia, for I gave Mr Fraser no chance for half an hour or more of speaking of anything but the capture of Gyria, and the gentlemen seconded me to the best of their ability, continually pouring in fresh questions when he seemed to have come to the end of all he had to tell. But he took his revenge upon me, for when we were in that part of the garden which is laid out in knots,[15] he succeeded in distancing our companions, and turning into another path. So apprehensive was I on finding myself alone with him, that I conceived my sole hope to lie in setting the tone of the conversation myself.
“And how is it you’re able to visit Calcutta, sir?” I asked him.