1852: Bombay to Sussex
What a thrilling moment it is, at last, to write you from the very shore of India, a land whose name scarcely hinted at the abundance which now greets my every sense! I cannot exaggerate my delight and astonishment; I find myself renewed, as if shed of English cobwebs by the warmth and colours of this extraordinary city. The very air sparkles with life: it is thick with unfamiliar spice, tangy sea breeze, the smoke of chapattis baking and, wafting through it all, a sweetness from the mango trees which dangles over our verandah, putting English orchards utterly to shame.
The city bursts with sounds so unlike home—every street is a tapestry: criers hawking their wares in a dozen lilting tongues, the sharp clatter of bullock carts, children laughing and somewhere always, the swelling cadence of a temple bell. My fingers ache to describe to you how the fabrics here feel—the silks are as cool as water and impossibly light, their patterns painted in hues I’ve never seen adopted in Grosvenor Square. My beloved velvet, I’m mournfully convinced, must be put away for the foreseeable future; one moment beneath the Indian sun and I have learnt what true impracticality means! It will be silk and softest cotton for me, fluttering in the scented evening breezes. Even the taste of water here—sometimes faintly perfumed with rose—reminds me at every turn how very far I am from Wiltshire’s meadows.
I find my palate perpetually intrigued: sweet, cardamom tea, melon so ripe I fear it will dissolve on my tongue and the exhilarating heat of a single chilli tucked mischievously into rice.
You may wonder how I have fared among our own countrywomen here. I must tell you, the English society in Bombay is most satisfactory—quite as lively and all the more enterprising for their foreign surroundings! Dinners are elegant affairs, yet marked by a certain freedom, as if this place has peeled away the stiffness that sometimes weighs down English gatherings. The ladies, attired in muslins and vibrant sashes purchased at market, are quick to welcome newcomers and conversations dart from news of the latest ship to the peculiarities of the monsoon. There is gossip aplenty and a happy inventiveness in adapting to every novelty, from punkahs to palanquins.
It is, in every sense, an awakening. My senses are deliciously overwhelmed, my mind full of plans and impressions and my pen is already itching for a reply. How I wish you could see it, dear Jeanne! Until you do, imagine your cousin utterly enchanted, already sun-bronzed and quite transformed.
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