CHAPTER XVI.
CONTAINING THE MEMOIRS OF A CAPTIVE.
From Miss Sylvia Freyne to Miss Amelia Turnor.
MUXADAVAD, End of October, 1756.
Although I have finished the history of the misfortunes that brought me to this place, I yet continue to write, more for the sake of occupying my mind than from any hope that the letter will ever reach my Amelia. It has taken me a whole month to complete my narrative, for so weak was my hand in commencing that I could not manage above half a page a day, though now I can with little weariness fill the best part of one of the thick gilt-edged sheets of paper with which Meer Sinzaun has furnished me. But why make such a business of it? my dear girl will cry. Because, Amelia, I must find something to do, or I believe that the sufferings I endured before coming here, and the apprehensions natural to my present frightful situation, would drive me mad. Meer Sinzaun was wiser than I thought him when he permitted his prisoner to divert herself with pen and ink, for he don’t desire (no more than Lovelace did) to find himself the gaoler of a wretch whose intellects are disordered. Figure to yourself, Amelia, that for near four months, which I have spent in this prison, I have seen no one but Misery and the two or three women belonging to the house, and now and then a gardener or other low-cast person in the distance, without it be that I get sometimes a stolen peep into the street through a small barred window in the upper storey, but only when Misery is absent, for she threatened me with having my one spy-hole bricked up when once she catched me indulging myself with a glimpse of the world. Shamefully though this wicked old woman abused me in the matter of bringing me here, I can’t say but she is civil and respectful enough at most times, making her chief exception when she chances to find me praying. This she appears unable to endure, and makes a point of interrupting me, or of fidgeting about so as to disturb my thoughts. It seems to me that Sinzaun must have threatened her very severely in case I contrived to escape, and that she fears some miracle being wrought by Heaven to assist me. If the poor creature knew how often I have prayed in vain that I might die, sure she would experience no further alarm at the sight of my prayers; but, indeed, she is right enough in imagining that if I should ever effect an escape from this house it must be by means of a miracle.
Do you remember, Amelia, that day when the Rector’s brother came to pay his respects to the gentlewomen at Holly-tree House, and discovered us all sitting round in tears, our needlework neglected, while Mrs Eustacia read aloud to us from the pages of ‘Clarissa’? The good bluff gentleman, you’ll recollect, sat for a while listening, with a snort or a “Pshaw!” at intervals, as though determined not to be moved, but at last, taking advantage of the moment when Mrs Eustacia herself had been forced to remove her spectacles, in order to wipe away the moisture that was gathered on ’em, he cleared his throat, and looking round very fiercely upon us, demanded what the mischief Clarissa meant by secluding herself in an obscure lodging at Hampstead, and thereby increasing the perils of her dangerous situation, instead of seeking out a magistrate at once and throwing herself upon his protection? You’ll remember how we all cried out that the delicacy of her sentiments, her respect for the punctilio of her family, the fear of directing public attention to her own equivocal position, and a dread of finding herself repulsed, would all prevent a female of elegant feelings from taking so bold and resolved a step. “Then I hope for your own sakes, my pretty Misses,” says the good gentleman, “that you’ll none of you ever find yourselves in that poor girl’s situation, or your delicate sentiments will land you in a worse trouble than mere public notice,” and he stumped away with a prodigious determination.
But if he were here now, I think that good man would confess that I have not even Clarissa’s chance of escape allowed me. My dear girl won’t do me the injustice to suppose that I have sat down tamely to submit to any fate my captor may destine for me. No, I have made the circuit of the garden and the roofs which surround it times without number, seeking to discover some unguarded window or door, some outside staircase, or even some broken place that might afford me the means of getting outside my boundaries, but to show you with what lack of success I need only say that Misery don’t even take the pains to follow me, now that she’s satisfied I shan’t throw myself over. She wraps her head in her cloth and falls asleep, taking occasion when she awakes to ask me, in the humblest style in the world, whether I have yet succeeded in finding a cranny to squeeze myself through? But even if I could elude her vigilance and that of the rest, and let myself down over the wall by any means, in what sort of situation should I find myself on the outside, in a country where women of quality never stir out of their own grounds but in a suitable conveyance and surrounded with armed servants? Without friends or money, knowing the language but imperfectly, what could your poor Sylvia do? Sinzaun was right when he said that she might well find herself in a worse captivity than this.
In fine, my dear Miss Turnor, I can’t see the smallest hope of my escaping unless I can obtain some dye with which to stain my skin, and a trustworthy guide who would undertake to procure me the dress of a low-cast female, and convey me to one of the European factories near Cossimbuzar. But how hopeless does it appear to seek for such a person in a city where we Britons are now not only hated, but despised! Nevertheless, in the faint expectation of lighting upon some such charitable soul, I have sought to enter into conversation upon indifferent topics with each of the women of the house at various times, intending to broach my subject by degrees, but they all feign not to understand anything I say. Their stupidity must be assumed, Amelia, for if I spoke Moors as badly as they pretend, how could I make Misery understand me, which she does without the smallest difficulty? The truth is, my dear, that it’s useless to seek to work upon people of this sort without you have money to offer ’em, and that I have not, and they know it. Had I command of sufficient sums, I believe I might be able to buy over even Misery herself, for I have seen her eyes sparkle with avarice when I hinted at the quantity of rupees my friends would pay were I restored to them. But alas! I have not so much as an anna to give her as the earnest of a reward, and Misery is a prudent soul, preferring not to do business save for money down.
But how then do I occupy myself, my Amelia will ask, in a place where there’s no visitors, no diversions, no walking nor riding abroad, and no books? Indeed, my dear, I make the fruitless journeys I have described round the circuit of my prison, I observe the growth of the flowers and sometimes pluck a few, I write to my dear distant friend, and I work with my needle. Perhaps I have no right to say my needle, for you don’t know the odd rules that these people have, all the sewing and embroidering being done, as a general rule, by men. To show you the difficulty I found to obtain this natural and necessary weapon of our sex, I must tell you something about my clothes. When I was first able to leave my bed, Misery had the assurance to bring a complete Persian dress for me to put on. You would have laughed, Amelia, if you had not been in my situation, to picture me wearing first a vest of thin silk, then a little velvet waistcoat ornamented with goldsmith’s work, and a silk petticoat of red and green stripes—the stripes going round the garment, fancy, my dear!—and over all a cloth or veil of silk five or six yards long. Turning away in much displeasure, I bade Misery fetch me my own clothes, which she did with a good deal of grumbling. But alas! though they had been washed while I lay sick, they were so ragged and stained and shrunk that ’twas impossible to put them on.
“You are a Moorwoman now, Beebee,” says the presumptuous Misery, “and of course you’ll wear the Moorish dress.”
“I en’t a Moorwoman, and I won’t wear a Moorish dress,” said I, upon which the old woman had the insolence to mutter that since Meer Sinzaun furnished the clothes I might as well wear what he sent.
“On the contrary,” said I, “I’ll have ’em as unlike as possible to those he sent, that so I may forget the humiliation sooner. How dare you, woman, bring me these shocking gaudy colours, when you know I’m lamenting the loss of the most tender and deeply honoured of parents? Fetch me some decent black stuff, and a tailor to make a gown according to my taste, for I won’t wear these things.”
Finding me so angry, Misery became vastly submissive, as is her way when I assert my will, and entreated with tears that I would pardon my slave, for there was no such thing as a black stuff to be had in all Muxadavad, since none of the Indians wear this mournful hue, and that to send to any of the foreign factories for it would cause suspicion that ’twas a European desired so unusual a fabric.
“Very well,” I said, “I en’t unreasonable. You may bring me white or gray or purple, and I’ll wear it, provided the tailor knows his business.”
But at this Misery fell down at my feet again, and struck her head against the floor, lamenting that ’twas impossible to employ a tailor. He would demand a muster,[01] she said, and when he had my old gown given him, there would be no concealing that ’twas part of a European dress. This was true enough, and I resigned with some regret the notion of the tailor, for these men are extraordinary ingenious in copying any pattern given to ’em, and produce wonderful pieces of work with their rusty needles and scissors that scarce hang together at the rivet. “Come,” I said to Misery, “you and the other maid-servants shall do the sewing, and I’ll tell you what I wish done.” But to hear the cry she raised, you would think she had never touched a needle in all her life, which I can hardly credit. Then, imagining that she had vanquished me, she sat up upon her heels with a smile of assurance to see me put on the Persian clothes. But this I was resolved not to do, for the dress would have been the very livery of slavery, implying that I laid down willingly the privileges of our own free and enlightened land to take up the wretched degraded existence of the Indian women. “Not at all, Misery,” I said; “see that the stuff is got, and I’ll do the sewing myself.” At this there was another shriek of protest, but this time I was firm, and when next the steward came to the curtain to enquire my wishes, I demanded stuff and needles and thread. (My own needles were gone out of my hussy. I fear Misery knows more about them than she feigned to do.) The steward appeared to consider my request in the highest degree extraordinary, more especially when Misery had spoke to him for some time in the Persic[02] language, which I don’t understand, but upon my recalling to him sharply his master’s orders, he besought my pardon humbly for his hesitation and promised obedience. More, he asked me whether I was content with my woman, or if I found her saucy, and would prefer another, but to this I answered that she was well enough, and I desired no change. You perceive, my dear, I know that Misery is false to me, but with another I might be in doubt whether she was to be trusted or no, and so perhaps be led into rash confidences. My forbearance gained me much credit with Misery, who came to me afterwards and placed my foot upon her head, thanking me, in her usual insinuating, deceitful style, for my goodness in passing over her pert behaviour.
Well, Amelia, I had my stuffs fetched me at last, white muslin for gowns, and a sort of dark purple satin, very rich and thick, for a petticoat. You’ll smile to think of your Sylvia setting up as a mantuamaker and milaner,[03] but I found the benefit of Mrs Abigail’s instructions while at the school, and I don’t think my work would disgrace me, even in England. But oh, my dear, the difficulties of making a gown where there’s no such thing as lining or buttons or hooks and eyes, or even lace or trimming! I wish I could show my Amelia my wonderful devices of muslin frills, and ribbons made of strips of satin, and gold clasps used for buttons. But at least I have shown Misery which of us is mistress and which maid, and I have refused to be turned into a Moorwoman to please the taste of my wicked persecutor, who—
Oh, my dearest girl, I am in such a tremble I can’t go on writing. Misery is just come to tell me that Meer Sinzaun is returned to the city with the Soubah after a wholly successful campaign against the Purranea Nabob, and that he’ll do himself the honour to wait on me this evening. I think I had almost forgot the wretch; at least I never believed he would return so soon. What shall I do? what can I do?
Nov. ye 10th.
I have delayed, Amelia, to write you the history of my interview with Sinzaun, because day after day, whenever I thought of the wretch, I was seized with such a shuddering that I could not put pen to paper. But to-day I am resolved to do my utmost to conquer this weakness, since if the mere thought of Sinzaun in his absence make me tremble, in what condition shall I be the next time he chooses to force his presence upon me?
As soon as I could collect my thoughts after receiving Misery’s announcement, I came to the desperate resolution to behave towards my captor in as easy and cheerful a style as I could assume, affecting to regard him merely as a charitable person that had saved me from the Nabob with the object of restoring me to my friends, and ignoring as the creations of a mind diseased all my terrors respecting him in the beginning of my fever. If I could play my part discreetly enough, this expedient might, I thought, procure me some short respite, and perhaps give time for help to reach me,—for surely, unless Britons were prepared to sit down tamely under the most shocking oppression and ill-usage, some attempt must soon be made from Madrass to redress our wrongs. With this in my mind, I prepared to receive Meer Sinzaun. Misery, seeing me, as she believed, resigned to my situation, fell in joyfully with my imagined compliance, and was so presumptuous as to weave in with my hair, as she dressed it, some flowers she had plucked from the garden. This bold device I quickly discovered, and punished the woman by compelling her to take out the flowers and comb my hair up tightly under my cap. At least the odious wretch should have no occasion to fancy that I had dressed myself fine to meet him.
Seated, at the appointed time, in the outer room of the garden-house, which I have taken for my saloon, I awaited the approach of my enemy. Presently I saw him crossing the garden, muffled very ingeniously in the robes of a Moorman of quality, which were drawn up about his face, but of these he disencumbered himself with great agility upon the varanda, and on Misery announcing him, entered my presence in a European habit of great magnificence, bowing in the most submissive manner. I rose and made him my best curtsey. “Your servant, sir,” said I. (You must remember, Amelia, that all our intercourse was in French, since Meer Sinzaun don’t speak English; and indeed I have reason to be grateful for the pains our good Mrs Abigail and Mrs Eustacia took to make us speak their own language with fluency and correctness.)
“Nay, madam, behold your slave at your feet,” he replied, offering his hand to conduct me to the settee. His touch sent a shudder through my frame, but I did my best to conceal the repulsion with which he inspired me.
“Pray be seated, sir,” I said, as he still stood before me in a humble attitude.
“Madam, your commands can’t but be obeyed,” he said, and seated himself opposite to me. For the instant I imagined—so complaisant was his tone—that my fears might after all be unnecessary, but stealing a glance at his countenance I perceived that here was still the old Sinzaun, the man that had got me into his power and meant to keep me there. To hide the despair that seized me, I made shift to speak.
“You are returned from your campaign, sir?”
“Yes, madam, and not only in safety but in triumph,—thanks, as I can’t doubt, to your kind prayers on my behalf.” Oh, Amelia, if you could have seen the horrid smile on the wretch’s lips as he said this! “Or rather, permit me to say, ’twas the beneficent influence of my goddess herself that accompanied me in the fight, and preserved me from harm. Clarissa will deign to accept my poor thanks?”
I was almost choked by the wretch’s assurance, but struggled on.
“You found the time pass agreeably, sir, I trust?”
“Agreeably enough, madam, but prodigious slowly. The charmer who knows where I had left my heart won’t ask me why the days seemed so long. And now may I put the same question to Clarissa? Whatever answer she may please to make will content me, for though she be cruel enough to find the time of her adorer’s absence pass quickly, yet she will but be recognising his devices for her entertainment.”
“The time is always long, sir, when one is parted from one’s friends.” I said this with great seriousness, designing him to receive it as a rebuke for detaining me from my friends so long, but what was my horror and disgust when he bowed with his hand on his heart, crying—
“Oh, madam, you overwhelm me! A thousand thanks for your charming condescension! That Clarissa should miss her slave is indeed the height of bliss for him.”
I clasped my throat with my hand, my dear, or I should have cried out, to see this wretch sitting there complacently to torment me. But I felt assured that he was endeavouring to drive me to some hysterical outburst that might display his power over me, and I resolved to disappoint him if I died for it. While he continued romancing for a moment or two, uttering all the extravagancies he could think of to rob me of my self-command, I recovered myself a little.
“You was so obliging as to furnish me with writing implements, sir, before you left,” I said when he ceased, “and I must be permitted to show you that I have made no use of ’em such as you would disapprove. There were thirty sheets of paper in all, I believe. Here’s the thirty still, though in part used,” and I counted ’em over to him.
“Oh, sweet innocence!” he cried, “that combines the sprightly simplicity of Pamela with the majesty of the divine Clarissa! Sure my charmer never thought so meanly of her Sinzaun as to imagine he would call her to account for the indulgences he was allowed to furnish her? Thirty sheets that have been touched by Clarissa’s fingers! Fifteen or so that bear the impress of her hand! Give me, madam, at least those blank sheets, that I may wear ’em next the heart where your image dwells. I would ask for one of those that are wrote on, but that I know they’re too precious to be parted with, and I would not put my Clarissa’s tender heart to the pain of refusing her adorer. But the blank sheets I must have.”
“Oh, sir, would you deprive me of my sole diversion?” I cried.
“Deprive you, madam? Oh, this carping mercantile spirit don’t become my Clarissa! You shall have two fresh sheets for each one that I take—will that lift the storm-clouds from my charmer’s brow? How is it my star among women will so seldom permit her worshipper to bask in the light of her smiles? He don’t deserve the indulgence, that he knows, but for the sake of Clarissa’s reputation for clemency were it not well that she should show herself more complaisant?”
I gazed at him wildly while he uttered these words in a tone of tender reproach, gathering up the blank sheets the while. “Like Pamela’s Mr B.,” he continued, in a meditative style that checked the sobs which would otherwise have burst from me, “I can’t find it in my heart to deprive my charmer of the pleasure she takes in writing, even though she use it to revile myself. To be sure, I can’t read what she writes, and so improve my disposition, but then, no more can the thrice-happy being to whom it’s addressed. How could I rob Clarissa of a diversion that pleases her, and can injure no one, even myself?”
I think the wicked man looked to see me fly into a passion and demand how he knew that I had wrote anything against him, but I reflected that he could scarce imagine I should deal with his name in my letters with any great tenderness, and that he had but made a guess at what they contained, and I said no more than—
“Sure you must be very well acquainted with Mr Richardson’s works, sir?”
“Madam,” he replied, “they are the study of my life. In the French translations, they are my greatest treasures, and I admire them continually more and more. I think I may say that there en’t a virtuous sentiment, nor a neat touch of humour, that I could not give you chapter and verse for on the instant, in the whole three novels.”
Is it not extraordinary, Amelia, that a person like this can actually take pleasure in such works as Mr Richardson’s, whose whole course and tenor must be a standing rebuke to him? They say that the devil can quote Scripture, as indeed is proved by the Gospels, and this shows that evil beings will read good books without being improved by their study.
“And more,” he continued, “’tis to the good Mr Richardson that I owe the honour of meeting the lady whose portrait he had surely drawn by anticipation in his ‘Clarissa.’ When, in the dress of our great sovereign, I penetrated unknown into the Masquerade at Calcutta, drawn by the fame of a certain lady’s beauty that had reached me, I found myself attracted by one who seemed to me to be none other than Clarissa herself. ‘Here, Sinzaun,’ I said to myself, ‘is a fellow-student of the books you reverence, one who has perceived what is the crowning-point of Clarissa’s history, and has ventured to outshine all other beauties by the simplicity of her attire and the piteousness of her aspect!’ Judge, madam, what were my feelings when I discovered my Clarissa to be the very being at whose shrine I was come to worship!”
“Alas, sir!” was all I could say.
“Yes, madam,” he went on, “I have learned much from Mr Richardson. You won’t find me falling into the error of Lovelace, and making use of barbarous force to constrain my charmer, while her mind and heart remain unsubdued. It is Clarissa’s favour that I desire to gain; she must become mine by her own free consent. I can wait until she choose to oblige me, for I know she’ll make me happy at last.”
He spoke with so much confidence and security that I began to feel as they say birds do when a serpent approaches ’em, powerless to withdraw from the noxious influence, however heartily I hated it, wondering almost whether this man could force me in spite of myself to consent to become his. I broke the spell with a vast effort by asking him the day of the month, which he told me, and shortly afterwards took his departure, leaving me to spend the night in sobs and tears, and urgent prayers to Heaven to save me or let me die.
December ye 15th.
Since my last writing, Amelia, I have endured three interviews with Sinzaun. Such is the horrible cunning of this wicked man, that he don’t present himself at regular intervals, nor inform me of his intended visit until a short time before he appears, so that I spend my whole time with the dread hanging over me of being suddenly confronted with him. This garden seems to be haunted with his image; the slightest footstep—even a shadow falling on the path—drives me into an agony of fear, and the wretch can’t help perceiving, when he comes, the condition my terror throws me into. This alone would prove his cruel nature, that with all the respect and admiration he professes for me, until I’m sick of hearing it, he continues to force himself upon me with the sole purpose of tormenting the being he feigns to love. Indeed, he goes so far as to rally me upon my apprehensions, telling me once that my lofty courage recalled to him some personage of one of the French poets who declared that he feared God and had no other fear,—“a sentiment,” says Sinzaun, “that I’ll venture to commend to my Clarissa, since it describes so exactly her own absence of alarm.” Oh, my dear, is it come to this, that my timidity is bringing a reproach upon the religion I humbly profess? And yet, who could avoid fearing this man? Sure to feel at ease in his presence would come near to sharing his evil deeds.
My dear girl will scarce credit it, but I am convinced that my persecutor entertains himself during his absences with devising fresh miseries for me. He comes to the house muffled in various disguises, and is at huge pains to explain to me that he runs an incredible risque of being tracked by spies, and that he can’t set out to pay me a visit save when he has seen the Nabob engrossed in some new and delightful plan of wickedness. “Then,” says he, “I fly on the wings of love to my charmer, confident that one short hour in her presence will stimulate my invention even to the point of devising fresh pleasures for Saradjot Dollah, such as may gain me a further audience of her.”
“Indeed, sir,” I said, “I can’t but think it a pity that you don’t attempt to lead the Nabob into the paths of virtue. In so novel a pursuit the Prince—and perhaps Meer Sinzaun also—would find a freshness and singularity far more agreeable than the dulness of the evenings you are so obliging as to sacrifice to the poor prisoner here.”
“Dulness! sacrifice!” he cried, brushing away my suggestion lightly; “sure Clarissa must be seeking for compliments. I’m hugely grateful, madam, for your obliging thought, but I’ll assure you that I amuse myself infinitely during these visits. I can’t recall any occasion of my life on which I have been better entertained.”
I can well believe it, Amelia. I never look at him if I can help it, for so great is the loathing with which the man inspires me that I can’t bear to meet his eye, but when through inadvertence I have done so, I perceive in it a sort of sombre ferocity united with delight in my sufferings that makes me tremble. Can my dear Miss Turnor figure to herself the being forced to enter a tyger’s cage for the purpose of diverting the tyger? Which would be the worse, does she think, this, or that the tyger should be so obliging as to exert himself to entertain you? I think she’ll say that one is as bad as the other, and this is my case with Sinzaun. I suffer equally when he compels me to speak and when he speaks himself, for the man, my dear, is an atheist. I would not write this terrible charge, lest my indignation against him should have caused me to judge him harshly, if I had not heard it from his own lips, but he has assured me more than once that the one deity in which he believes is gain, and the one incentive that moves men is advantage. “I believe in my Clarissa,” was the utmost I could get from him when I pressed him strongly on the point, and he added that his life had taught him there was no Providence, either to punish the evil or protect the good, but only a blind fate, out of whose unsteady dispositions the wise man must shape his own road to success. En’t this cruelty indeed, to seek to deprive a poor creature of her faith in God just when she needs it most? But sure Meer Sinzaun has overreached himself in this, for I need not go far to learn of the existence of the devil, and to disbelieve in God on the devil’s word would questionless be the extremest folly in the world. But having thus unfolded to me what he called the wise man’s creed, which he said he had gathered both from European philosophers and from the sages of the East, Sinzaun went on to show its practical application, desiring to prove that there was no truth nor honour nor virtue in the world, any more than Divine justice nor providence, and proceeded to turn into ridicule the very books he had been praising to me a month before. I can but be grateful he don’t know his Bible as well as he does Mr Richardson’s works, for sure ’twas only ignorance, and not good will, made him stop short of attacking that. He cited instance after instance to prove that there was no virtue in goodness, and no reward for’t if there were, and no shame in sin, nor punishment neither, and I could not hope to contend with him. You know, Amelia, I was always the one to be worsted in an argument. How I wished that my dear Mrs Hurstwood were present, with her ready tongue, to give the assailant as good as he brought, and to silence, if she could not convince him, whereas I could but sit quiet, or protest without hope of moving him, while he attacked everything in which the Christian believes. At last he took his leave, and summoning my courage, I said as I curtseyed to him—
“Permit me to say, sir, that I’m entirely at variance with the opinions you have chose to utter this evening.”
“A thousand thanks for the assurance, madam!” was the wretch’s reply. “My mind is inexpressibly relieved. I should be desolated if I thought my Clarissa shared those opinions I have indicated as my own.”
As much as to say that he would prefer his mistress to remain a believer in Christianity, because she would then be the better wife to him! Oh, Amelia, how can anything that is said or done move such a man? I dread and detest him more and more, and my only comfort is based on his assurance that he would wait patiently until he had gained my favour. If he can wait, so can I, if he don’t drive me mad first.
January ye 24th, 1757.
I have been favoured with several further visits from Meer Sinzaun, but to describe these miseries at length would be as unprofitable to my dearest friend as it would be painful to myself; yet of the last I must say something, for the pitiless wretch told me he must take leave of me for a season, since he was about to attend the Soubah into the neighbourhood of Calcutta, there to destroy the last remnants of British trade and enterprise in Bengal.
“Sure, sir, your prince has done more than enough for his honour already in that line,” I cried, in an agony to see my countrymen still further threatened.
“Why, indeed, madam,” he replied, “if there had been only your brave Calcutta gentlemen, Mr Drak” (so he pronounced it), “and his two chief friends, in the matter, we had been contented to leave them alone. The persons who deserted their posts and connived at the destruction of their factory in order to satisfy their enmity against their unfortunate colleague, Mr Holwel