The English Governess at the Siamese Court Part 4

The Emerald Idol is about twelve inches high and eight in width. Into the virgin gold of which its hair and collar are composed must have been stirred, while the metal was yet molten, crystals, topazes, sapphires, rubies, onyxes, amethysts, and diamonds,--the stones crude, or rudely cut, and blended in such proportions as might enhance to the utmost imaginable limit the beauty and the cost of the adored effigy. The combination is as harmonious as it is splendid. No wonder it is commonly believed that Buddha himself alighted on the spot in the form of a great emerald, and by a flash of lightning conjured the glittering edifice and altar in an instant from the earth, to house and throne him there!

On either side of the eastern entrance--called _Patoo Ngam_, "The Beautiful Gate"--stands a modern statue; one of Saint Peter, with flowing mantle and sandalled feet, in an att.i.tude of sorrow, as when "he turned away his face and wept"; the other of Ceres, scattering flowers.

The western entrance, which admits only ladies, is styled _Patoo Thavadah_, "The Angels' Gate," and is guarded by genii of ferocious aspect.

At a later period, visiting this temple in company with the king and his family, I called his Majesty's attention to the statue at the Beautiful Gate, as that of a Christian saint with whose story he was not unfamiliar. Turning quickly to his children, and addressing them gently, he bade them salute it reverently. "It is Mam's P'hra," [Footnote: Saint, or Lord.] he said; whereupon the tribe of little ones folded their hands devoutly, and made obeisance before the effigy of Saint Peter. As often as my thought reverts to this inspiring shrine, reposing in its lonely loveliness amid the shadows and the silence of its consecrated groves, I cannot find it in my heart to condemn, however illusive the object, but rather I rejoice to admire and applaud, the bent of that devotion which could erect so proud and beautiful a fane in the midst of moral surroundings so ign.o.ble and unlovely,--a spiritual remembrance perhaps older and truer than paganism, enn.o.bling the pagan mind with the idea of an architectural Sabbath, so to speak, such as a heathen may purely enjoy and a Christian may not wisely despise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEAUTIFUL GATE OF THE TEMPLE.]

VI. THE KING AND THE GOVERNESS.

In 1825 a royal prince of Siam (his birthright wrested from him, and his life imperilled) took refuge in a Buddhist monastery and a.s.sumed the yellow garb of a priest. His father, commonly known as Phen-den-Klang, first or supreme king of Siam, had just died, leaving this prince, Chowfa Mongkut, at the age of twenty, lawful heir to the crown; for he was the eldest son of the acknowledged queen, and therefore by courtesy and honored custom, if not by absolute right, the legitimate successor to the throne of the P'hra-batts. [Footnote: The Golden-footed.] But he had an elder half-brother, who, through the intrigues of his mother, had already obtained control of the royal treasury, and now, with the connivance, if not by the authority, of the Senabawdee, the Grand Council of the kingdom, proclaimed himself king. He had the grace, however, to promise his plundered brother--such royal promises being a cheap form of propitiation in Siam--to hold the reins of government only until Chowfa Mongkut should be of years and strength and skill to manage them. But, once firmly seated on the throne, the usurper saw in his patient but proud and astute kinsman only a hindrance and a peril in the path of his own cruder and fiercer aspirations. Hence the forewarning and the flight, the cloister and the yellow robes. And so the usurper continued to reign, unchallenged by any claim from the king that should be, until March, 1851, when, a mortal illness having overtaken him, he convoked the Grand Council of princes and n.o.bles around his couch, and proposed his favorite son as his successor. Then the safe a.s.ses of the court kicked the dying lion with seven words of sententious scorn,--"The crown has already its rightful owner"; whereupon the king literally cursed himself to death, for it was almost in the convulsion, of his chagrin and rage that he came to his end, on the 3d of April.

In Siam there is no such personage as an heir-apparent to the throne, in the definite meaning and positive value which attaches to that phrase in Europe,--no prince with an absolute and exclusive t.i.tle, by birth, adoption, or nomination, to succeed to the crown. And while it is true that the eldest living son of a Siamese sovereign by his queen or queen consort is recognized by all custom, ancient and modern, as the _probable_ successor to the high seat of his royal sire, he cannot be said to have a clear and indefeasible right to it, because the question of his accession has yet to be decided by the electing voice of the Senabawdee, in whose judgment he may be ineligible, by reason of certain physical, mental, or moral disabilities,--as extreme youth, effeminacy, imbecility, intemperance, profligacy. Nevertheless, the election is popularly expected to result in the choice of the eldest son of the queen, though an interregnum or a regency is a contingency by no means unusual.

It was in view of this jurisdiction of the Senabawdee, exercised in deference to a just and honored usage, that the voice of the oracle fell upon the ear of the dying monarch with a disappointing and offensive significance; for he well knew who was meant by the "rightful owner" of the crown. Hardly had he breathed his last when, in spite of the busy intrigues of his eldest son (whom we find described in the _Bangkok Recorder_ of July 26, 1866, as "most honorable and promising"), in spite of the bitter vexation of his lords.h.i.+p Chow Phya Sri Sury Wongse, so soon to be premier, the prince Chowfa Mongkut doffed his sacerdotal robes, emerged from his cloister, and was crowned, with the t.i.tle of Somdetch Phra Paramendr Maha Mongkut.[Footnote: Duke, and royal bearer of the great crown.]

For twenty-five years had the true heir to the throne of the P'hra-batts, patiently biding his time, lain _perdu_ in his monastery, diligently devoting himself to the study of Sanskrit, Pali, theology, history, geology, chemistry, and especially astronomy. He had been a familiar visitor at the houses of the American missionaries, two of whom (Dr. House and Mr. Mattoon) were, throughout his reign and life, gratefully revered by him for that pleasant and profitable converse which helped to unlock to him the secrets of European vigor and advancement, and to make straight and easy the paths of knowledge he had started upon. Not even the essential arrogance of his Siamese nature could prevent him from accepting cordially the happy influences these good and true men inspired; and doubtless he would have gone more than half-way to meet them, but for the dazzle of the golden throne in the distance which arrested him midway between Christianity and Buddhism, between truth and delusion, between light and darkness, between life and death.

In the Oriental tongues this progressive king was eminently proficient; and toward priests, preachers, and teachers, of all creeds, sects, and sciences, an enlightened exemplar of tolerance. It was likewise his peculiar vanity to pa.s.s for an accomplished English scholar, and to this end he maintained in his palace at Bangkok a private printing establishment, with fonts of English type, which, as may be perceived presently, he was at no loss to keep in "copy." Perhaps it was the printing-office which suggested, quite naturally, an English governess for the _elite_ of his wives and concubines, and their offspring,--in number amply adequate to the const.i.tution of a royal school, and in material most attractively fresh and romantic. Happy thought! Wherefore, behold me, just after sunset on a pleasant day in April, 1862, on the threshold of the outer court of the Grand Palace, accompanied by my own brave little boy, and escorted by a compatriot.

A flood of light sweeping through the s.p.a.cious Hall of Audience displayed a throng of n.o.blemen in waiting. None turned a glance, or seemingly a thought, on us, and, my child being tired and hungry, I urged Captain B---- to present us without delay. At once we mounted the marble steps, and entered the brilliant hall unannounced. Ranged on the carpet were many prostrate, mute, and motionless forms, over whose heads to step was a temptation as drolly natural as it was dangerous. His Majesty spied us quickly, and advanced abruptly, petulantly screaming, "Who? who? who?"

Captain B---- (who, by the by, is a t.i.tled n.o.bleman of Siam) introduced me as the English governess, engaged for the royal family. The king shook hands with us, and immediately proceeded to march up and down in quick step, putting one foot before the other with mathematical precision, as if under drill. "Forewarned, forearmed!" my friend whispered that I should prepare myself for a sharp cross-questioning as to my age, my husband, children, and other strictly personal concerns.

Suddenly his Majesty, having cogitated sufficiently in his peculiar manner, with one long final stride halted in front of us, and pointing straight at me with his forefinger, asked, "How old shall you be?"

Scarcely able to repress a smile at a proceeding so absurd, and with my s.e.x's distaste for so serious a question, I demurely replied, "One hundred and fifty years old."

Had I made myself much younger, he might have ridiculed or a.s.sailed me; but now he stood surprised and embarra.s.sed for a few moments, then resumed his queer march; and at last, beginning to perceive the jest, coughed, laughed, coughed again, and in a high, sharp key asked, "In what year were you borned?"

Instantly I struck a mental balance, and answered, as gravely as I could, "In 1788."

At this point the expression of his Majesty's face was indescribably comical. Captain B---- slipped behind a pillar to laugh; but the king only coughed, with a significant emphasis that startled me, and addressed a few words to his prostrate courtiers, who smiled at the carpet,--all except the prime minister, who turned to look at me. But his Majesty was not to be baffled so: again he marched with vigor, and then returned to the attack with _elan_.

"How many years shall you be married?"

"For several years, your Majesty."

He fell into a brown study; then, laughing, rushed at me, and demanded triumphantly:--

"Ha! How many grandchildren shall you now have? Ha, ha! How many? How many? Ha, ha, ha!"

Of course we all laughed with him; but the general hilarity admitted of a variety of constructions.

Then suddenly he seized my hand, and dragged me, _nolens volens_, my little Louis holding fast by my skirt, through several sombre pa.s.sages, along which crouched duennas, shrivelled and grotesque, and many youthful women, covering their faces, as if blinded by the splendor of the pa.s.sing Majesty. At length he stopped before one of the many-curtained recesses, and, drawing aside the hangings, disclosed a lovely, childlike form. He stooped and took her hand, (she naively hiding her face), and placing it in mine, said, "This is my wife, the Lady Talap. She desires to be educated in English. She is as pleasing for her talents as for her beauty, and it is our pleasure to make her a good English scholar. You shall educate her for me."

I replied that the office would give me much pleasure; for nothing could be more eloquently winning than the modest, timid bearing of that tender young creature in the presence of her lord. She laughed low and pleasantly as he translated my sympathetic words to her, and seemed so enraptured with the graciousness of his act that I took my leave of her with a sentiment of profound pity.

He led me back by the way we had come; and now we met many children, who put my patient boy to much childish torture for the gratification of their startled curiosity.

"I have sixty-seven children," said his Majesty, when we had returned to the Audience Hall. "You shall educate them, and as many of my wives, likewise, as may wish to learn English. And I have much correspondence in which you must a.s.sist me. And, moreover, I have much difficulty for reading and translating French letters; for French are fond of using gloomily deceiving terms. You must undertake; and you shall make all their murky sentences and gloomily deceiving propositions clear to me.

And, furthermore, I have by every mail foreign letters whose writing is not easily read by me. You shall copy on round hand, for my readily perusal thereof."

_Nil desperandum_; but I began by despairing of my ability to accomplish tasks so multifarious. I simply bowed, however, and so dismissed myself for that evening.

One tempting morning, when the air was cool, my boy and I ventured some distance beyond the bounds of our usual cautious promenade, close to the palace of the premier. Some forty or fifty carpenters, building boats under a long low shed, attracted the child's attention. We tarried awhile, watching their work, and then strolled to a stone bridge hard by, where we found a gang of repulsive wretches, all men, coupled by means of iron collars and short but heavy fetters, in which they moved with difficulty, if not with positive pain. They were carrying stone from the ca.n.a.l to the bridge, and as they stopped to deposit their burdens, I observed that most of them had hard, defiant faces, though here and there were sad and gentle eyes that bespoke sympathy. One of them approached us, holding out his hand, into which Boy dropped the few coins he had. Instantly, with a greedy shout, the whole gang were upon us, crowding us on all sides, wrangling, yelling. I was exceedingly alarmed, and having no more money there, knew not what to do, except to take my child in my arms, and strive again and again to break through the press; but still I fell back baffled, and sickened by the insufferable odors that emanated from their disgusting persons; and still they pressed and scrambled and screamed, and clanked their horrid chains. But behold! suddenly, as if struck by lightning, every man of them fell on his face, and officers flew among them pell-mell, swingeing with hard, heavy thongs the naked wincing backs.

It was with a sense of infinite relief that we found ourselves safe in our rooms at last; but the breakfast tasted earthy and the atmosphere was choking, and our very hearts were parched. At night Boy lay burning on his little bed, moaning for _aiyer sujok_ (cold water), while I fainted for a breath of fresh, sweet air. But G.o.d blesses these Eastern prison-houses not at all; the air that visits them is no better than the life within,--heavy, stifling, stupefying. For relief I betook me to the study of the Siamese language, an occupation I had found very pleasant and inspiring. As for Boy, who spoke Malay fluently, it was wonderful with what aptness he acquired it.

When next I "interviewed" the king, I was accompanied by the premier's sister, a fair and friendly woman, whose whole stock of English was, "Good morning, sir"; and with this somewhat irrelevant greeting, a dozen times in an hour, though the hour were night, she relieved her pent-up feelings, and gave expression to her sympathy and regard for me.

Mr. Hunter, private secretary to the premier, had informed me, speaking for his Excellency, that I should prepare to enter upon my duties at the royal palace without delay. Accordingly, next morning, the elder sister of the Kralahome came for us. She led the way to the river, followed by slave-girls bearing a gold teapot, a pretty gold tray containing two tiny porcelain cups with covers, her betel-box, also of gold, and two large fans. When we were seated in the closely covered basket-boat, she took up one of the books I had brought with me, and, turning over the leaves, came upon the alphabet; whereat, with a look of pleased surprise, she began repeating the letters. I helped her, and for a while she seemed amused and gratified; but presently, growing weary of it, she abruptly closed the book, and, offering me her hand, said, "Good morning, sir!" I replied with equal cordiality, and I think we bade each other good morning at least a dozen times before we reached the palace.

We landed at a showy pavilion, and after traversing several covered pa.s.sages came to a barrier guarded by Amazons, to whom the old lady was evidently well known, for they threw open the gate for us, and "squatted" till we pa.s.sed. A hot walk of twenty minutes brought us to a curious oval door of polished bra.s.s, which opened and shut noiselessly in a highly ornate frame. This admitted us to a cool retreat, on one side of which were several temples or chapels in antique styles, and on the other a long dim gallery. On the marble floor of this pavilion a number of interesting children sat or sprawled, and quaint babies slept or frolicked in their nurses' arms. It was, indeed, a grateful change from the oppressive, irritating heat and glare through which we had just pa.s.sed.

The loungers started up to greet our motherly guide, who humbly prostrated herself before them; and then refreshments were brought in on large silver trays, with covers of scarlet silk in the form of a bee-hive. As no knife or fork or spoon was visible, Boy and I were fain to content ourselves with oranges, wherewith we made ourselves an unexpected but cheerful show for the entertainment and edification of those juvenile spectators of the royal family of Siam. I smiled and held out my hand to them, for they were, almost without exception, attractive children; but they shyly shrank from me.

Meanwhile the "child-wife," to whom his Majesty had presented me at my first audience, appeared, and after saluting profoundly the sister of the Kralahome, and conversing with her for some minutes, lay down on the cool floor, and, using her betel-box for a pillow, beckoned to me. As I approached, and seated myself beside her, she said: "I am very glad to see you. It is long time I not see. Why you come so late?" to all of which she evidently expected no reply. I tried baby-talk, in the hope of making my amiable sentiments intelligible to so infantile a creature, but in vain. Seeing me disappointed and embarra.s.sed, she oddly sang a sc.r.a.p of the Sunday-school hymn, "There is a Happy Land, far, far away"; and then said, "I think of you very often. In the beginning, G.o.d created the heavens and the earth."

This meritorious but disjointed performance was followed by a protracted and trying silence, I sitting patient, and Boy wondering in my lap. At last she half rose, and, looking around, cautiously whispered, "Dear Mam Mattoon! I love you. I think of you. Your boy dead, you come to palace; you cry--I love you"; and laying her finger on her lips, and her head on the betel-box again, again she sang, "There is a Happy Land, far, far away!"

Mrs. Mattoon is the wife of that good and true American apostle who has n.o.bly served the cause of missions in Siam as a co-laborer with the excellent Dr. Samuel House. While the wife of the latter devoted herself indefatigably to the improvement of schools for the native children whom the mission had gathered round it, Mrs. Mattoon shared her labors by occasionally teaching in the palace, which was for some time thrown open to the ladies of her faithful sisterhood. Here, as elsewhere, the blended force and gentleness of her character wrought marvels in the impressible and grateful minds to which she had access.

So spontaneous and ingenuous a tribute of reverence and affection from a pagan to a Christian lady was inexpressibly charming to me.

Thus the better part of the day pa.s.sed. The longer I rested dreaming there, the more enchanted seemed the world within those walls. I was aroused by a slight noise proceeding from the covered gallery, whence an old lady appeared bearing a candlestick of gold, with branches supporting four lighted candles. I afterward learned that these were daily offerings, which the king, on awakening from his forenoon slumber, sent to the Watt P'hra Keau. This apparition was the signal for much stir. The Lady Talap started to her feet and fled, and we were left alone with the premier's sister and the slaves in waiting. The entire household seemed to awake on the instant, as in the "Sleeping Palace" of Tennyson, at the kiss of the Fairy Prince,--

"The maid and page renewed their strife; The palace banged, and buzzed, and clackt; And all the long-pent stream of life Dashed downward in a cataract."

A various procession of women and children--some pale and downcast, others bright and blooming, more moody and hardened--moved in the one direction; none tarried to chat, none loitered or looked back; the lord was awake.

"And last with these the king awoke, And in his chair himself upreared, And yawned, and rubbed his face, and spoke."

Presently the child-wife reappeared,--arrayed now in dark blue silk, which contrasted well with the soft olive of her complexion,--and quickly followed the others, with a certain anxious alacrity expressed in her baby face. I readily guessed that his Majesty was the awful cause of all this careful bustle, and began to feel uneasy myself, as my ordeal approached. For an hour I stood on thorns. Then there was a general frantic rush. Attendants, nurses, slaves, vanished through doors, around corners, behind pillars, under stairways; and at last, preceded by a sharp, "cross" cough, behold the king!

We found his Majesty in a less genial mood than at my first reception.

He approached us coughing loudly and repeatedly, a sufficiently ominous fas.h.i.+on of announcing himself, which greatly discouraged my darling boy, who clung to me anxiously. He was followed by a numerous "tail" of women and children, who formally prostrated themselves around him. Shaking hands with me coldly, but remarking upon the beauty of the child's hair, half buried in the folds of my dress, he turned to the premier's sister, and conversed at some length with her, she apparently acquiescing in all that he had to say. He then approached me, and said, in a loud and domineering tone:--

"It is our pleasure that you shall reside within this palace with our family."

I replied that it would be quite impossible for me to do so; that, being as yet unable to speak the language, and the gates being shut every evening, I should feel like an unhappy prisoner in the palace.

"Where do you go every evening?" he demanded.

"Not anywhere, your Majesty. I am a stranger here."