Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee [47]
January 17: Mistresses Higginbottham and Ruxton and I welcomed Captain Bendell’s wyfe, Harriet, and daughters, Eliza, Charlotte and Anne. Captain Bendell, falling sick while the ship Pride lay in the road, was oblidged to be carried off the country boat and borne by palanquin to the residence of chyrurgeon Ruxton and his kind wyfe.
January 30: The Captain’s wife and 3 children were entertained for tea by mee. My dear husband returned from Metchlepatam [Masulipatnam], where hee had been dispatched by the Chief Factor for inspection of the Companyes factorye. Hee sent to desire to speak with Mistress Bendell in the event of her requiring assistance in business with the Companye. Mistress Bendell consenting, he offered her, in her behalfe, to accommodate all necessary affaires if she should give him a Sealed Letter of Attorney.
February 6: Mistress Ruxton confided in me sad news. The chyrurgeon does not live who can restore health to Captain Bendell.
February 14: The Allmighty culled the goode Captain to His bosom. My dear husband shows great charity to the widowe and her daughters.
March 20: Chief Factor Prynne holds the Captain’s widow accountable for moneys owed by the dear departed Captain to the Companye. Furthermore, Chief Factor Prynne demands of the widow payment of passages home to be taken by her and her children. The widow sent to for my husband. I offered her comfort while dear Gabriel is in Roopconda conducting inquiries of a poddar, which is the Gentue word for cash-keeper, concerning the rich merchant Pedda Timmana’s ways of tradeing upon creditt.
March 30: Eliza Bendell was married to Mr. John Harker, freeman, by Mr. Colbourn, the Chaplaine of St. Sebastian. Mr. John Harker offers to cleare the Captaine’s debts and make payment in full for passages home taken by his bride’s family.
April 10: Concerning Mr. John Harker, Mistress Higginbottham informs mee that the said freeman came into wealth on account of a secret marriage to a Moor woman. Mistress Higginbottham is of the opinion that she should acquaint Mistress Harker with the secret. I am of the opinion that such discharge of duty would inflict on the new bride pernicious suffering.
May 16: This forenoone Mistress Bendell and two daughters embarked the ship Glorious, Eliza Harker having met with an accident month last. Her corpes was interred in the burying place by the church. Of the circumstances of this misfortune I have no knowledge. Mr. Higginbottham is of the opinion that John Harker, freeman, has sealed up his residence here and has removed himself to the Dutch settlement at Pollicull [Palakollu].
After mid-May, the diary entries become more disorderly, and personal. Here are just three entries from the winter of 1695:
October 18: Henry Hedges haunts me. He moves from room to room reminding me hourly that the house remains his. I am his tenant.
November 23: Mistresses Ruxton and Higginbottham tease me with talk of black bibis. Their designe is to affright me. They talk of the vanished Mr. Harker. All Englishmen make secret marriages with black girls, they insist. A wealthy Moor or Gentue woman of respected family allowing herself to be a BIBI, that’s the only exception. They remind me that John Harker was not held accountable for poor departed Eliza’s accident by the Chief Factor. No Englishman here accepts any connection between Mr. Harker’s keeping a BIBI and Eliza’s falling off her horse.
December 24: I know Henry Hedges kept a secret wife here. I feel his bibi’s presence in this house as much as I doe his owne. May God forgive mee for entertaining thoughts of spirits and phantoms.
5
WERE THERE no relatives in England to send the heavy furniture to? Hannah wondered. Or had Henry Hedges, a man so strange and tragical—or mild and farcical—to judge from his abandoned projects of sketching and poetry, his notebooks of descriptive accounts of village life and the forests, his long comparative lists of words in Persian, Tamil, Telugu and English, transformed himself