Belonging by Umi Sinha Read Free Book Online Page B

skin! Afterwards, feeling wide awake (as one is bound to do when one has been flayed alive!) we kept a vigil on the hotel steps till dawn, watching the donkey boys gather in the streets and people in colourful costumes going about their business. I am enclosing a watercolour I made of the scene but you will have to imagine the delightful warmth of the night air and the scent of jasmine, woodsmoke and spices.
    The next day we set out for Suez. Because of Louisa’s condition, she and the children’s ayah travelled in a van pulled by horses, but James and I rode camels. Freddie rode with James and Sophie with me. It was romantic, as I had imagined, but the motion of a camel is quite different from that of a horse and I am still unable to sit down without a cushion! However, anything was better than being confined in one of those tiny crowded vans. Poor Louisa and Luxmibai were very thrown about and bruised.
    Aden looked quite sinister, when we arrived in the dark, with strange shadows standing against the sky. A guide told us it is Cain’s burial place and lies under a curse. The hotel was full of rats, which kept jumping over our beds, so you can imagine we did not sleep well! I was quite relieved when our steamer finally arrived. The cabin arrangements are rather primitive compared to the Candia , but everyone seems pleased to be approaching our journey’s end. It is all so exciting!
    I can’t wait to see India but as we get closer I find myself feeling less and less brave about meeting Arthur again. If only we had met at the beginning of his long leave and had time toknow each other better. But I can hear you and Mama saying that I have made my bed and must lie in it, and I shall. I know I am young and silly and have a lot to learn, but I cannot imagine having a better teacher than Arthur.
    I send you all my dearest love and will write again from Calcutta.
    Your loving Cecily
Garden Reach, Calcutta, 3rd November 1855
    Dear Mina,
    It was so lovely to find all your letters waiting for me when we reached Calcutta yesterday. The ship arrived late as the sea has been quite stormy and I was shocked to find our wedding has been arranged for the ninth – in six days’ time! – and we leave for Cuttack on the fourteenth. We are to be married in the cathedral. Arthur organised for the banns to be read and has made all the arrangements. I must confess to being nervous about marrying so soon after arriving, but it seems there is no alternative, as Arthur has used up all his short leave and is due back with his regiment in three weeks.
    Everything is so different here that I wonder if I shall ever get used to it. My first experience of India was quite startling – near Madras some natives rowed out to meet us in canoes, offering fresh fruit and curious trinkets, but as they got closer it was apparent that they had wholly forgotten to put on any clothes! You should have heard the screams and giggles from the Fishing Fleet on the deck below, but Louisa did not bat an eyelash. I overheard Mrs. Weston telling one of the ladies that the secret to managing natives was not to think of them as men at all!
    The sea was very rough around the coast and poor Louisa was quite ill, but she improved when we entered the more sheltered waters of the Bay of Bengal. On the way up the east coast we passed a place called Puri. At dinner Mrs. Weston said there is a famous temple there where each year a procession of great wooden chariots filled with idols is pulled through the streets and the natives used to lie down in front of them to be crushed, in order to gain merit in future lives. She says it is an example of how superstitious the natives are, but James says it is all nonsense.
    Before Calcutta we had to take on a pilot near the mouth of the Hoogly (is that not a divine name for a river?), for the shifting sandbanks are very treacherous. The captain pointed to some masts sticking out of the water, which is all that is left of the ships swallowed