Zemindar by Valerie Fitzgerald Read Free Book Online Page A

keeping her bonnet close over her ears so that her hair would not be disarranged. The Captain himself helped us into the tender and waved us away with every appearance of cordiality, a small attention much appreciated by Emily. I did not look back as we were carried through the shipping to shore.
    We were met on the dock by Mr and Mrs Chalmers, a middle-aged couple, both stout, florid and smartly dressed, with whom we were to reside while in the city. Mr Chalmers was a business associate of my Uncle Hewitt’s (and therefore of Charles’s) and, while he and Charles remained behind to see to the conveyance of our baggage, Emily and I accompanied Mrs Chalmers to her carriage through a crowd of Calcutta citizens come to see the new arrivals, all dressed in their best, some promenading along the dirty dock, some seated in open carriages, but all alike unashamedly interested in the appearance of Emily and my less resplendent self. So much so, indeed, that I was grateful to be on my way at last, seated beside Mrs Chalmers on one seat, while Emily spread her skirts out elegantly on the other and rested one white-gloved hand on the knob of her long parasol with a truly patrician droop of the wrist.
    However I soon forgot her nonsensical airs. The carriage was an open landau which enabled me to take in something of the city and its life as we passed through it, and I found myself pleased and surprised by the generally sophisticated appearance of it all. The streets were broad and clean and lined by fine trees, many of them in flower, while the houses, each set in its own large garden, were well-proportioned and imposing, though naturally of a very different style to anything known at home. It was the hour of the evening promenade and the residents were out riding or driving, many of the ladies elegantly dressed, and many of the men in fine military uniforms, with good horses under them and native grooms running at their horses’ tails.
    ‘I think we shall do very well in India,’ said Emily with some condescension, looking around her with deceptive coolness. ‘Only think how pleasant it will be when we have our own carriage and drive out with Charles beside us on a fine mount and a little black boy running along behind him!’
    ‘Very pleasant—except for the little black boy,’ I answered drily.
    ‘Oh la, Miss Hewitt,’ said Mrs Chalmers, ‘don’t waste pity on the boys! Believe me, they are much more content to run at a horse’s heels and earn a good wage than remain in their homes and starve!’
    I said no more as I was still conscious of my ignorance of the country, but I noticed few natives in the part of the city through which we drove who gave any sign of poverty. They appeared self-respecting and well-mannered, pursuing their own avocations quietly and without any interest in their white fellow citizens. When I observed as much to Mrs Chalmers, saying I had thought to have seen many more of the native population on the streets, she told me that the Indians generally were not allowed on the streets during the promenade hours—only the rich ‘and they are nothing but merchants and money-lenders and such’, she added contemptuously, ‘though of course since the Nawab of Oudh took a house in Chowringhee and brought all his relations and friends with him, there have been a lot more of them around than there used to be in these parts.’ She sniffed disapprovingly.
    ‘The Nawab of Oudh?’ said Emily. ‘Does he live in Calcutta too?’
    ‘Yes indeed, and no credit to the city either! Came here after he was deposed, y’know, and lives in such style and at Government expense, that you’d never believe it! Mr Chalmers says he doesn’t know what the Governor General is about in allowing him to live in the greatest luxury, with all his family and his servants and officials about him, and even a menagerie, of which they say he is excessively fond—lions and tigers and so on—when all the world knows he is the most