Chapter 32

exemplified.

"Sure 'tis a most pleasant engaging young man," said Mrs. Merriman, as her boat dropped down the river towards Chandernagore. "Don't you think so, Phyllis?"

"Why, mamma, it does seem so. But 'tis too soon to make up my mind in ten minutes."

"Indeed, miss! Let me tell you I made up my mind about your father in five. La, how Merriman will laugh when he hears 'twas Mr. Burke gave him that scar--

"What is the matter, Munnoo Khan?"

The boat had stopped with a jerk, and the boatmen were looking at one another with some anxiety. The serang explained that ill luck had caused the boat to strike a snag in the river, and she was taking in water.

"You clumsy man! The Sahib will be angry with you. Make haste, then; row harder."

"Mamma, 'tis impossible!" cried Phyllis in alarm. "See, the water is coming in fast; we shall be swamped in a few minutes!"

"Mercy me. 'Tis as you say! Munnoo Khan, row to the nearest ghat; you see it there! Sure 'tis a private ghat, belonging to the house of one of the French merchants. He will lend us a boat. 'Twill be vastly annoying if we do not reach home before dark."

The men just succeeded in reaching the ghat, on the left bank of the river about a mile below Chandernagore, before the boat sank. When the party had landed, Mrs. Merriman sent her jamadar up to the house to ask for the loan of a boat, or for shelter while one was being obtained from Chandernagore.

"Tell the Sahib 'tis the bibi of an English sahib," she said. "He will not refuse to do English ladies a service."

The jamadar shortly returned, followed by a tall dark-featured European in white clothes. He bowed and smiled pleasantly when he came down to the ghat, and addressed Mrs. Merriman in French.

"I am happy to be of service, Madam. Alas! I have no boat at hand, but I shall send instantly to Chandernagore for one. Meanwhile, if you will have the goodness to come to my house, my wife will be proud to offer you refreshments, and we shall do our best to entertain you until the boat arrives.

"Permit me, Madam."

He offered his left hand to assist the lady up the steps.

"I had the mischance to injure my right hand the other day," he explained. "It is needful to keep it from the air."

It was thrust into the pocket of his coat.

"The Frenchman is vastly polite," said Mrs. Merriman to her daughter, as they preceded him up the path to the house. "But there, that is the way with their nation."

"Hush, mamma!" said Phyllis, "he may understand English.

"I do not like his smile," she added in a whisper.

"La, my dear, it means nothing; it comes natural to a Frenchman. He looks quite genteel, you must confess; I should not be surprised if he were a somebody in his own land."

As if in response to the implied question, the man moved to her side, and, in a manner of great deference, said:

"Your jamadar named you to me, Madam; I feel that I ought to explain who I am. My name is Jacques de Bonnefon--a name, I may say it without boasting, once even better known at the court of his Majesty, King Louis the Fifteenth, than in Chandernagore. Alas, Madam fortune is a fickle jade. Here I am now, in Bengal, slowly retrieving by honest commerce a patrimony of which my lamented father was not too careful."

"There! What did I say?" whispered Mrs. Merriman to her daughter as Monsieur de Bonnefon went forward to meet them on the threshold of his veranda. "A noble in misfortune! I only hope his wife is presentable."

They entered the house and were shown into a room opening on the veranda.

"You will pardon my leaving you for a few moments, Mesdames," said their obliging host. "I shall bring my wife to welcome you, and send to Chandernagore for a boat."

With a bow he left them, closing the door behind him.

"Madame de Bonnefon was taken by surprise, I suppose," said Mrs. Merriman, "and is making her toilet. The vanity of these French people, my dear!"

Minutes passed. Evening was coming on apace; little light filtered through the chiks. The ladies sat, wondering why their hostess did not appear.

"Madame takes a long time, my dear," said Mrs. Merriman.

"I don't like it, mamma. I wish we hadn't come into the stranger's house."

"Why, my love, what nonsense! The man is not a savage. The French are not at war with us, and if they were, they do not war on women. Something has happened to delay Monsieur de Bonnefon."

"I can't help it, mamma; I don't like his looks; I fear something, I don't know what. Oh, I wish father were here!"

She got up and walked to and fro restlessly. Then, as by a sudden impulse, she went quickly to the door and turned the handle, She gave a low cry under her breath, and sprang round.

"Mamma! Mamma!" she cried. "I knew it! The door is locked."

Mrs. Merriman rose immediately.

"Nonsense, my dear! He would not dare do such a thing!"

But the door did not yield to her hand, though she pulled and shook it violently.

"The insolent villain!" she exclaimed.

She had plenty of courage, and if her voice shook, it was with anger, not fear. She went to the window opening on the veranda, loosed the bars, and looked out.

"We can get out here," she said. "We will walk instantly to Chandernagore, and demand assistance from the governor."

But the next moment she shrank back into the room. Two armed peons stood in the veranda, one on each side of the window. Recovering herself, Mrs. Merriman went to the window again.

"They will not dare to stop us," she said.

"Let me pass, you men; I will not be kept here."

But the natives did not budge from their post. Only, as the angry lady flung open one of the folding doors, they closed together and barred the way with their pikes. Accustomed to absolute subservience from her own peons, Mrs. Merriman saw at once that insistence was useless. If these men did not obey instantly they would not obey at all.

"I cannot fight them," she said, again turning back. "The wretches! If only your father were here!"

"Or Mr. Burke," said Phyllis. "Oh, how I wish he had come with us!"

"Wishing is no use, my dear. I vow the Frenchman shall pay dearly for this insolence. We must make the best of it."

Meanwhile Monsieur de Bonnefon had gone down to the ghat. But he did not send a messenger to Chandernagore as he had promised. He told the jamadar, in Urdu, that his mistress and the chota bibi would remain at his house for the night. They feared another accident if they should proceed in the darkness. He bade the man bring his party to the house, where they would all find accommodation until the morning.

In the small hours of that night there was a short sharp scuffle in the servants' quarters. The Merriman boatmen and peons were set upon by a score of sturdy men who promptly roped them together, and, hauling them down to the ghat and into a boat, rowed them up to Hugli. There they were thrown into the common prison.

In the morning a charge of dacoity {gang robbery} was laid against them. The story was that they had been apprehended in the act of breaking into the house of Monsieur Sinfray. Plenty of witnesses were forthcoming to give evidence against them; such can be purchased outside any cutcherry in India for a few rupees. The men were convicted. Some were given a choice between execution and service in the Nawab's army; others were sentenced offhand to a term of imprisonment, and these considered themselves lucky in escaping with their lives. In vain they protested their innocence and pleaded that a messenger might be sent to Calcutta; the Nawab was known to be so much incensed against the English that the fact of their being Company's servants would probably avail them nothing.

About the same time that the men were being condemned, a two-ox hackeri, such as was used for the conveyance of pardarnishin {literally, sitting behind screens} women, left the house of Monsieur de Bonnefon and drove inland for some five miles. The curtains were closely drawn, and the people who met it on the road wondered from what zenana the ladies thus screened from the public gaze had come. The team halted at a lonely house surrounded by a high wall, once the residence of a zamindar, now owned by Coja Solomon of Cossimbazar, and leased to a fellow Armenian of Chandernagore. It had been hired more than once by Monsieur Sinfray, the secretary to the Council at Chandernagore and a persona grata with the Nawab, for al fresco entertainments got up in imitation of the fetes at Versailles. But of late Monsieur Sinfray had had too much important business on hand to spare time for such delights. He was believed to be with Sirajuddaula at Murshidabad, and the house had remained untenanted.

The hackeri pulled up at the gate in the wall. The curtains were drawn aside; a group of peons surrounded the cart to fend off prying eyes; and the passengers descended--two ladies clad in long white saris {garment in one piece, covering the body from head to foot} and closely veiled. A sleek Bengali had already got out from a palanquin which had accompanied the hackeri; in a second palanquin sat Monsieur de Bonnefon, who did not take the trouble to alight.

With many salaams the Bengali led the ladies through the gate and across the compound towards the house. They both walked proudly erect, with a gait very different from that of the native ladies who time and again had followed the same path. They entered the house; the heavy door was shut; and from behind the screens of the room to which they were led they heard the hackeri rumbling away.

Monsieur de Bonnefon, as his palanquin was borne off, soliloquized, ticking off imaginary accounts on the fingers of his left hand; the right hand was partly hidden by a black velvet mitten. His reckoning ran somewhat as follows:

"In account with Edward Merriman:

"Credit--to the hounding out of the Company by his friend Clive: nominal: I made more outside; to scurrilous abuse in public and private: mere words; say fifty rupees; to threat to hang me: mere words again: say fifty rupees. Total credit, say a hundred rupees.

"Debit--to ransom for wife and daughter: two lakhs.

"Balance in my favor, say a hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred rupees.

"In a few weeks, Mr. Edward Merriman, I shall trouble you for a settlement."