Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/117

Rh , which the sly commissioner had managed to introduce without her agency or knowledge, the whole set off by a brand-new grand piano, arrived a day or two before its mistress — "bless me! why, this is indeed a transformation!" nor was the lady's astonishment diminished on finding that Miss Cunningham was till then unaware that all this splendour had been accumulated entirely on her account.

"Why, I declare, my dear, one hardly knows the place again. Your papa used to give very elegant dinners, you know, as became his position; half the station would be here at a time, and everything in first-rate style. You can do the thing properly in these splendid rooms — Calcutta matting, too, I declare!" she ejaculated, by way of interlude, poking the floor with her parasol; "must have cost a rupee a yard if it cost a pice. Splendid rooms, are they not? and no rent to pay. I often tell the brigadier he ought to write in to government for an official residence. Our dining-room will only hold eighteen comfortably, though you can get twenty-two in by a squeeze. We must make the commissioner fix an early day to bring you to dinner, — a sort of introduction to Mustaphabad society; but, as I was saying, although the commissioner used to give such fine parties, when the ladies came into the drawing-room there was hardly a chair for them to sit down upon, leave alone an ottoman. And now I declare," she added, surveying the room with a comprehensive glance, "I don't suppose there is a house outside Chowringhee so handsomely furnished. And the whole effect is really quite chaste; the mixture of green and blue satin blends so nicely, doesn't it? But, dear me, I have never asked you about yourself all this time! Tell me, my dear, you must have had an awfully trying journey. For my part I never will go even to the hills unless the brigadier goes with me; I really cannot travel alone. For all that I look so strong, I am really very delicate, and the least fright upsets me. Tell me, my dear, weren't you very nervous at first starting on your journey at being surrounded by chattering natives, and you not able to speak a word to them?"

"Oh no," replied the young lady, smiling; "you see we came — that is, my companion and I — with friends of papa almost the whole way. So we had no trouble at all; and then papa sent his head man — his jemadar I think he calls him — to Calcutta to meet me, and he sat on the box night and day, and seemed never to go to sleep at all; so we got on capitally, and then papa met us at Panipoor, and brought us on in a camel-carriage, a wonderful conveyance, but really very comfortable."

Thus Mrs. Polwheedle was already established on a friendly footing when the other visitors arrived, a succession of them too numerous to mention, ladies with their husbands, and bachelors, singly or in pairs — Colonal Tartar of the hussars, to wit, driving his mail-phaeton; Rowell and Scurry of the same regiment driving out together in the latter's tandem; Messrs. Cubitt and Stride of the artillery, in a buggy hired from Nubbee Bux, general dealer in the bazaar, the horse attached to which being newly employed in such a capacity made sundry diversions by the way off the road, happily unattended with serious consequences, as the embankment was not much raised above the surrounding country. Others, more economically disposed, made the journey on horseback, among them Lieutenant Yorke and Ensign Spragge of the 76th Native Infantry, who cantered down to the residency on their respective ponies.

The commissioner's house — destined to be the scene of a famous episode in events to come — which had been built in the days before the annexation of Mustaphabad, and when British authority and interest had been represented by a resident or diplomatic agent stationed at the court of the nawab, and therefore still bore the designation of "the residency" — had been designed with a view to symbolize the importance of the paramount authority — the reigning nawab under treaty engagements paying the cost — and the architect had apparently intended to produce some undefined resemblance to the British Museum or a Grecian temple, without feeling quite sure which of the two should be copied. The two visitors, riding through a gateless opening in the wall which enclosed the spacious grounds, alighted under a gigantic portico of no particular order, the columns of which dwarfed their ponies to the size of sheep, and where a sepoy of their regiment was standing as sentry; and then, proceeding up a flight of broad steps, on which were lounging half-a-dozen messengers clad in scarlet tunics, with gold waistbands and white turbans, were ushered into the house. The public rooms were large and lofty; but the drawing-