Since that awful night, Paulette had laboured hard to behave and speak exactly as she should, but not always with success. Just the other day, in referring to the crew of a boat, she had proudly used a newly learnt English word: 'cock-swain'. But instead of earning accolades, the word had provoked a disapproving frown. When they were out of Annabel's hearing, Mrs Burnham explained that the word Paulette had used smacked a little too much of the 'increase and multiply' and could not be used in company: 'If you must buck about that kind of thing, Puggly dear, do remember the word to use nowadays is "roosterswain".'
But then, unaccountably, the BeeBee had burst into giggles and slapped Paulette's knuckles with her fan. 'As for that other thing, dear,' she said, 'no mem would ever let it past her lips.'
One reason why Paulette had risen early was to give herself time to work on the unfinished manuscript of her father's Materia Medica of the plants of Bengal. Dawn was the only time of day that she felt to be entirely her own; in the spending of that hour, there was no need to feel any guilt, even if she chose to do something that she knew to be displeasing to her benefactors. But rare were the days when she was actually able to devote any time to the manuscript: more often than not, her gaze would stray across the river, to the Botanical Gardens, and she would find herself slipping into a spell of melancholy remembrance. Was it cruel or kind of the Burnhams to have given her a room with a window that commanded so fine a view of the river and the shore beyond? She could not decide: the fact was that even when seated at her desk, she had only to crane her head a little to catch a glimpse of the bungalow she had left some fourteen months before – its presence, beyond the water, seemed a mocking reminder of all that she had lost with her father's death. Yet, even to revisit those memories, was to be assailed by a wave of guilt – to hanker after that earlier life seemed not just ungrateful, but disloyal to her benefactors. Whenever her thoughts strayed across the river, she would conscientiously remind herself of her good fortune in being where she was, and in receiving all that the Burnhams had given her – her clothes, her bedroom, pin-money to spend, and most of all, instruction in things of which she had been sadly ignorant, such as piety, penitence and Scripture. Nor was gratitude hard to summon, for to be mindful of her luck she had only to think of the fate that would otherwise have been hers: instead of sitting in this spacious room, she would have found herself in a barracks in Alipore, an inmate of the newly instituted poorhouse for destitute Eurasians and white minors. Such indeed was the lot to which she'd resigned herself when she was summoned before Mr Kendalbushe, a stern-faced judge of the Sudder Court. Instructing her to offer thanks to a merciful heaven, Mr Kendalbushe had let her know that her case had come to the notice of none other than Benjamin Brightwell Burnham, a leading merchant and philanthropist with a distinguished record of receiving destitute white girls into his house. He had written to the presiding officer of the court, offering to provide the orphaned Paulette Lambert with a home.
The judge had shown Paulette the letter: it was prefaced with the line: 'Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.' To her shame, Paulette had not been able to identify the provenance of the verse: it was the judge who told her that it was from 'The Book of the Lord: I Peter, chapter 4, verse 8'. Mr Kendalbushe had then proceeded to ask her a few simple scriptural questions; her answers, or rather, the lack of them, had shocked him into delivering a caustic judgement: 'Miss Lambert, your godlessness is a disgrace to the ruling race: there is many a Gentoo and Mom'den in this city who is better informed than yourself. You are but a step away from chanting like a Sammy or shrieking like a Sheer. In the opinion of this court you will be better served by Mr Burnham's tutelage than ever you were by your father's. It falls to you now to show yourself worthy of this good fortune.'
In the months she had spent at Bethel, Paulette's knowledge of Scripture had grown apace, for Mr Burnham had undertaken to personally instruct her. As with her predecessors, it had been made clear to her that nothing would be asked of her other than regular churchgoing, good behaviour and a willingness to open herself to religious instruction. Before her arrival, Paulette had imagined that the Burnhams would expect her to make herself useful in the manner of a poor relative: the discovery that she had little to offer them, by way of compensatory services, had come as something of a shock. Her offers of help in tutoring Annabel had been politely declined, for reasons that had soon become apparent to Paulette: not only was her command of English far from perfect, her education had followed a path exactly contrary to that which Mrs Burnham deemed appropriate for a girl.
For the most part, Paulette's schooling had consisted of assisting her father as he went about his work. This provided a wider range of instruction than might be supposed, for it was Pierre Lambert's practice to label his plants, when possible, in Bengali and Sanskrit, as well as in accordance with the system recently invented by Linnaeus. This meant that Paulette had learnt a good deal of Latin from her father, while also absorbing Indian languages from the learned munshis who had been enlisted to assist the curator with his collections. French she had studied of her own volition, reading and re-reading her father's books until she knew them almost by heart. Thus, through effort and observation, Paulette had become, while still quite young, an accomplished botanist and a devout reader of Voltaire, Rousseau, and most particularly M. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who had once been her father's teacher and mentor. But Paulette had not thought to mention any of this at Bethel, knowing that the Burnhams would not wish to have Annabel instructed in botany or philosophy or Latin, their dislike of Romish popery being almost equal to their detestation of Hindus and Muslims – or 'Gentoos and Musselmen' as they liked to put it.
By default, since it was not in her nature to be idle, Paulette had assigned herself the task of overseeing the Burnhams' gardens. But this too had proved no easy matter, for the Head Malley had quickly made it clear that he would not willingly take instructions from a girl of her age. It was over his objections that she had planted a chalta tree by the chabutra, and only with the greatest difficulty had she prevailed on him to put a pair of latanias in a bed on the main driveway: these palms, a great favourite of her father's, were another slender link with her past.
Not the least of the reasons why Paulette so often found herself slipping into a state of melancholy was that she had not yet been able to find a way of being properly useful to her benefactors. Now, just as a wave of despair was beginning to build, Paulette was startled out of her despondency by the sound of hoofs and wheels, crackling urgently on the conkers of the gravelled driveway that led to the main entrance of Bethel. She glanced up at the sky and saw that the darkness of night had begun to yield to the first rosy streaks of dawn: but even so, it was very early for a visitor. Opening her door, she crossed the vestibule that ran past her room and unlatched a window on the far side of the house. She was just in time to see a carriage pulling up to the portico of the Burnham mansion: the vehicle was a caranchie, a ramshackle coach constructed from the remains of an old hackney carriage. These humble carriages were common in the Bengali quarters of the city, but Paulette could not remember ever having seen one at Bethel; certainly none had ever pulled up to the main entrance of the house. As she was looking down from above, a man dressed in a kurta and dhoti climbed out and leant over to spit a mouthful of paan into a bed of cobra-lilies: Paulette caught a glimpse of a braided tail of hair hanging down from an enormous head and she knew that the visitor was Baboo Nobokrishna Panda, Mr Burnham's gomusta – the agent responsible for the shipping of indentured migrants. Paulette had seen him about the house a few times, usually carrying armloads of paper for Mr Burnham's perusal – but never before had he presented himself so early in the morning and nor had he ever summoned the courage to bring his caranchie up the main driveway, to the front door.