Authors, English -- 19th century -- Correspondence; Eden, Emily, 1797-1869 -- Correspondence
We have no letter of so late a date as the papers, so I must wait for
particulars till another ship vouchsafes to sail in.
How odd it will be if we all end our lives comfortable _rich_ old folks
and near Knightsbridge neighbours. If we live to come home, we shall be
very much better off than we could ever have expected to be, for there
is no doubt that the Governor General’s place is well paid. It may well
be, for it is a hard-working situation and a cruel climate. But still,
it is all very handsomely done on the part of the Company, and it is so
new to us to be in a situation in which it is possible to save money,
that the result of the month’s House Accounts is a constant surprise to
me. Not more surprising than that our House Accounts should be of that
extensive nature that it requires a Baboo, an aide-de-camp, and myself,
to keep them correctly.
I wonder whether you have seen our Knightsbridge house.[442] I hear it
is very pretty and I often think what fun it will be settling there.
I should like to know what you think of Mrs. Bramley supposing you know
her, because I cannot make out why she does not come out to join her
husband. He is a very delightful person, I should say almost without
comparison the pleasantest man here, more accomplished and more willing
to talk, and with very creditable remains of good spirits. She has a
sharp little sister, a Mrs. Cockerell, here, almost pretty and very
ill-natured, at least so they say, but we have not found her so the
little we have seen of her. She and her husband are going tiger-shooting
to the Rajmahal hills, for, impossible as it seems in this
endless-looking plain, there _are_ hills, 150 miles off. “Cock Robin”
and “Jenny Wren,” as the little Cockerell couple are familiarly termed,
make one of these excursions every year, and Fanny and William mean to
join the party, with two or three others. It will be a very good change
of scene for her, and something out of the common course of life.
Travelling in the marching fashion, which is the way they mean to go, is
slow but amusing for a little while. Two sets of tents, one to live in
on Monday, while the other is carried on twelve miles, so as to be ready
on Tuesday. Everybody in India has their own set of servants, who are no
more trouble travelling than living at home. They find their own way
from station to station, cook for themselves, sleep on the ground, and,
in short, are quite unlike the fussy lady’s maid and valet who dispute
every inch of the imperial and expect tea, beer, feather beds, etc., at
every bad inn on the road. But then, to be sure, it takes about fourteen
natives to do the work of one English servant. I suppose William and
Fanny could not march without thirty servants of their own, besides
guards, elephants, etc. All these, they say, make excellent sketching,
which is one of the amusements I look to, when we set off on our great
march next year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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