On the west bank of the River Jumna, two miles upstream from the high, red sandstone walls of the King of Delhi's palace, there once stood the magnificent house of Sir Thomas Metcalfe

From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 23.

On the west bank of the River Jumna, two miles upstream from the high, red sandstone walls of the King of Delhi's palace, there once stood the magnificent house of Sir Thomas Metcalfe, British representative at the King's court. It was planned as a house suitable both to its owner's important position in India and as a repository for his fine furniture and marble statues, his oil paintings and engravings, his 25,000 books and extensive collection of relics of Napoleon Bonaparte. It contained a vast banqueting hall twenty-four feet in height as well as a dining-room not much less imposing, a drawing-room, a library, a study, a billiard-room, and a Napoleon Gallery, the centre- piece of which was Canova's bust of the Emperor. Upstairs there were numerous bedrooms; below the ground floor a spacious tykhana and swimming-pool; surrounding all four sides of the house was a classical stone colonnade and a wide veranda. Outside, tended by innumerable gardeners, were neat lawns and paths and rows of tubs containing English annuals, lines of cypress trees, gar- denias and rose trees, groups of palms and strangely perfumed creepers overhanging an artificial lake. Close to the house there was
a brick dais on which, when receptions were given, the bands of native regiments played English airs beside a 'gorgeous marquee of Kashmir shawls with silver poles and Persian carpets'.

A meticulous, fastidious man who could not bear to see women eat cheese, who considered that if they must eat mangoes and oranges they might at least have the modesty to do so in the privacy of their own bathrooms, Sir Thomas had designed both house and garden with the utmost care and had been gratified to see it completed exactly as he had pictured it.

In the late 1840s his daughter, Emily, having finished her schooling in England, came to live with him there and later set down her memories of his well-ordered daily life, characteristic of that lived by other rich Sahibs all over India. Sir Thomas rose at five o'clock precisely and, after eating a light breakfast in his dressing-gown on the veranda, walked up and down while delivering orders to silent, submissive servants. At seven he went to bathe in the swimming-pool; then, having dressed, he attended prayers in his oratory before eating his main breakfast, promptly at eight. After breakfast he would quietly smoke for half an hour, servants placing the hookah behind his chair on an embroidered carpet. He would then retire to his study to write letters until ten o'clock when his carriage was brought beneath the portico by the coachman. He walked to his carriage between rows of servants, one holding his hat, another his gloves, others his handkerchief, his gold-headed cane and his dispatch-box. These various articles were then placed in their ordained positions in the carriage which promptly drove off, two grooms standing at the back.

He returned from his office at half past two for dinner at three. After dinner he sat reading for a time before going down to the billiard-room. A game of billiards was followed by two hours spent on the terrace contemplating the river. Then it was time for a light supper and an evening hookah. Immediately the clock struck eight he stood up and went to bed, undoing his neckcloth and throwing it, together with his well-tailored coat, on to the floor to be picked up by the appropriate servant. If this or any other servant did not per- form his duties to the master's entire satisfaction, Sir Thomas would send for a pair of white kid gloves which were presented to him on a silver salver. These he would draw on with becoming dignity, then
firmly pinch the culprit's ear.