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At Bethel there were two enormous goozle-co
Desperation had led Paulette to devise her own method of washing, inside her water-closet: standing in her tin footbath, she would reach carefully into a balty, with a mug, and then allow the water to trickle gently down her body. In the past she had always bathed in a sari, and to be wholly unclothed had made her uncomfortable at first, but after a week or two she had grown used to it. Inevitably, there was a certain amount of spillage and she always had to spend a good deal of time afterwards, in towelling the floor, to remove all trace of the ritual: the servants were ever-curious about the doings of Bethel's inmates and Mrs Burnham, for all her vagueness, seemed to have an efficient way of extracting gossip from them. Despite her precautions, Paulette had reason to think that word of her surreptitious bathing had somehow trickled through to the mistress of the house: of late, Mrs Burnham had made several derisive remarks about the incessant bathing of the Gentoos and how they were always dipping their heads in the Ganges and muttering bobberies and baba-res.
Recalling these strictures, Paulette went to considerable trouble to make sure that no water remained on the floor of her water-closet. But immediately after this struggle, there followed several more: first she had to grapple with the stays of a pair of knee-length drawers; next, she had to twist herself into knots to find the fastenings of her bodice, her chemise, and her petticoat; only then could she wriggle into one of the many dresses her benefactress had bequeathed to her upon her arrival at Bethel.
Although Mrs Burnham's clothes were severe in cut, they were made of much finer stuffs than any that Paulette had ever worn before: not for her common Chinsurah calicoes, nor even the fine shabnam muslins and zaituni satins that many memsahibs made do with; the Burra BeeBee of Bethel would have nothing less than the finest kerseymere, the best silks from China, crisp linens from Ireland and soft Surat nainsooks. The trouble with these fine fabrics, as Paulette had discovered, was that once having been cut and stitched, they could not easily be adapted for the use of another wearer, especially one as maladroit as herself.
At seventeen, Paulette was unusually tall, of a height where she could look over the heads of most of those around her, men and women alike. Her limbs, too, were of such a length that they tended to wave like branches in a wind (years later, this would be her chief complaint about the way she was represented in Deeti's shrine – that her arms looked like the fronds of a coconut palm). In the past, Paulette's awareness of her unusual stature had led to a shy indifference to her appearance: but in a way this awkwardness had also amounted to a charter of freedom, in that it had rid her of the burden of having to care about her looks. But since her arrival at Bethel, her diffidence about her appearance had been transformed into an acute self-consciousness: in repose, her nails and fingertips would seek out small blemishes and tease them until they became ugly blotches on her pale complexion; while walking she would lean forward as if she were striding into a powerful wind; while standing, she would stoop, with her hands clasped behind her back, swaying back and forth, as though she were about to deliver an oration. In the past, she had worn her long, dark hair in pigtails, but of late she had taken to tying it back, in a severe little knot, as if it were a corset for her skull.
On her arrival at Bethel, Paulette had found four dresses laid out on her bed, with all the necessary chemises, blouses and petticoats: Mrs Burnham had assured her that they had all been properly altered to fit and were ready to be worn to di
There was no answer: only a sound like that of a large crowd collectively drawing its breath. Coming through the doors, Paulette had noticed that the dining room seemed strangely full, especially considering that this was meant to be a family supper, with only the Burnhams and their eight-year-old daughter, A
The name stuck, and from then on Paulette was Puggly to Mrs Burnham and A
The next day a contingent of tailors, consisting of some half-dozen darzees and rafoogars, had been summoned to adapt Mrs Burnham's clothing to the measure of the newly arrived missy-mem. Yet, for all their diligence, their efforts had met with limited success: such was Paulette's build that even with the hems let out to the fullest, Mrs Burnham's gowns did not come quite as far down as they should – around the waist and arm, on the other hand, they seemed always to be much wider than was necessary. As a result, when draped upon Paulette, those finely tailored gowns had a tendency to slip and flap; memsahib costume of this kind being, in any case, unfamiliar to her, the lack of fit greatly compounded her discomfort: often, when the loose fabric chafed against her skin, she would pinch, pull and scratch – sometimes causing Mrs Burnham to ask if little chinties had got into her clothes.