‘That was Bangla-?Dhasa; they speak it in Bengal. I brought some of my father’s people back when I was in Calcutta. But come, tell me all about your voyage -a good passage? - what did you come in?’
‘A frigate: the Surprise.’
‘Such a good name! You could have - do not beat me if I say knocked me down with a feather - when I saw you in that wicked old shirt on the glacis. Exactly what I should have expected you to wear in this climate - so much more sensible than broadcloth. Do you admire my trousers?’
‘Extremely.’
‘Surprise. Well, you astonish me. Admiral Hervey did speak of a frigate with a nephew of his on board; but he said the Nemesis. Is Aubrey in command? Of course he must be, or you would not be here. Is he married yet? I saw the announcement in The Times, but no marriage yet.’
‘I believe it is to be any minute now.’
‘All my Williams cousins will be married,’ she observed, with a slight check in her bubbling gaiety. ‘Here is the champagne at last. Lord, I could do with a glass. I hope you are as thirsty as I am, Maturin. Let us drink to his health and happiness.’
‘With all my heart.’
‘Tell me,’ said Diana, ‘has he grown up at all?’
‘I do not think that you would see a greater maturity,’ said Stephen. As I grow older, so I coarsen, he thought, emptying his glass.
A greybeard with a silver mace advanced towards Diana, bowed, and thumped three times: immediately low tables came hurrying in, and great silver trays with innumerable dishes, most of them very small. ‘You will forgive me my dear,’ said Lady Forbes, rising. ‘You know I never sup.’
‘Of course,’ said Diana, ‘and as you pass by, would you be very kind and see that everything is ready? Dr Maturin will be staying in the lapis lazuli room.’
They sat on a divan, with the tables grouped in front of them She explained the dishes with great volubility and a fair amount of open greed You will not mind eating in the Indian way? I love it.’ She was in tearing high spirits, laughing and talking away at a splendid rate, as though she had been long deprived of company. ‘How it becomes her to laugh,’ he reflected. ‘Dulce loquentem, dulce ridentem - most women are solemn owls. But then few have such brilliant teeth.’ he said, ‘How many teeth have you in your head, now, Villiers?’
‘Lord, I don’t know. How many should I have? They are all there, in any event. Ha, he has given us bidpai chhatta; how I loved it as a child - still do. Let me help you. Do you think Aubrey would like to dine here, with his officers? I could ask the Admiral. He is a vicious man, but he can be vastly pleasant when he chooses - fool of a wife, but then so many naval wives are impossible. And some of the dockyard people: just men.’
‘I cannot answer for him, of course; but I do know he is much taken up with his ship. She is being heaved up and heaved down; vital pieces are being sawed out of her bowels; she was much shattered south of the Cape. He has refused all invitations apart from the Admiral’s dinner; and that was a holiday of obligation.’
‘Oh well: damn Aubrey. But I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you, Stephen. I have been so lonely, and you were in my mind, as clear as a bell, just before I saw you. You are no great shakes at eating in the Indian way, I see. . . Oh my God, what have you done with your poor hands?’
‘It is of no consequence,’ said.Stephen, darting them out of sight. ‘They were injured - caught in a machine. It is of no consequence; it will soon pass.’
‘I will feed you.’ She sat cross-?legged on a cushion in front of him, dipping into a dozen bowls, dishes, plates, and feeding him with balls that exploded in a pink glow inside his stomach, others that cooled and dulcified his palate. He looked attentively at her firm round legs under the blue muslin, and the play of her loins as she leant from side to side or towards him.
‘What was that thin child I saw you with?’ she asked. ‘A Dhaktari? Too pale for a Gond. She spoke poor Urdu.’
‘I never asked her; nor did she question me. Tell me, Villiers, what must I do? I wish to ensure that she will eat to her hunger every day. At present she begs or steals most of her food. I may buy her for twelve rupees; so the thing should be simple. But it is not. I do not wish to put her into a way of earning an honest living - plying her needle, for example. She has no needle, nor does she feel the need for one. Nor do I wish to entrust her to the good Portuguese sisters, to be clothed and converted. Yet surely there must be some solution?’
‘I am sure there is,’ said Diana. ‘But I should have to know much more about her before I could say anything of the least real use - her caste, and so on. You never believe the difficulties that can cause, when you are thinking of a place for a child. She may be an untouchable: probably is. Send her whenever you have any message for me, and then I can find out. In the meantime she must certainly come here if ever she is hungry. We shall find a way, I am sure. But you will be a great simpleton if you pay twelve rupees, Stephen; three is more the mark. Another piece?’
‘If you please; and do not let us neglect the pale ale at your elbow.’
Ales; sherbet; mangosteens: the sky itself turned pale while they talked of Indian pastrycooks; the frigate’s voyage, her purpose and intent; Mr Stanhope, sloths, the great men of Bombay. Her only references to Canning were oblique: ‘On her good days, Lady Forbes can be an entertaining companion; and at all events she keeps me in countenance - I need it, you know’; and ‘I rode sixty miles the day before yesterday, and sixty the day before that, right over the Ghauts. That was why I was here so much earlier than I had expected. There was some tedious business to be discussed with the Nizam and suddenly I could not bear it any longer and came on alone, leaving the elephants and camels to follow. They should be here on the seventeenth.’
‘Many elephants and camels?’
‘No. Thirty elephants and maybe a hundred of camels. Bullock-?carts too, naturally. But even a small train takes an endless time to get moving: you run mad and start to scream.’
‘And do you indeed travel with thirty elephants?’
‘This was only a small journey: to Hyderabad, no more. When we go right across we take a hundred, and all the rest in proportion. It is like an army. Oh, Stephen, I wish you could have seen half the things I saw this last time! Leopards by the dozen, all kinds of birds and monkeys, a python that had eaten a deer, and a well-?grown young tiger - not up to our Bengal standards, but a tolerable fine beast. Tell me, Stephen, what can I show you?
