The deep, cool portico was filled with plants. Huge Chinese pots of sea almond with their large, tongue-shaped leaves and sprays of white starry flowers mixed with the green, shiny, plump-ribbed leaves of wild pepper, dotted with stubby white blooms. Orchids trailed the central aisle, bedecking the end of each line of pews. The pillars were wound about with white ribbon. The altar was surrounded by the feathery leaves of fresh green ferns and bunches of long plantain leaves. Today was the day that Jose da Silva was giving his daughter, Julia, in marriage to Lieutenant Benjamin Sharpe of the Madras Native Regiment. Coleman had received the commission for this church after a series of plans from Calcutta had been rejected for lack of verandahs to shade the body of the church. George’s design had twenty-foot-wide verandahs and porticos enclosing carriage roads; there were shady galleries on the upper floor on three sides. Today the church was full. Every able-bodied member of the European community had turned out in their finery.
