E. E.
Miss Eden to——.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
November 3, 1836.
Your last letter came to me by a Liverpool ship, so I think it right to write by the same conveyance, and the more so because our stock of London ships is low. Only one in the river, and she came only two days ago, and I suppose it will be six weeks before she will be well stocked with mosquitoes and cockroaches, and quite comfortable for passengers again.
It is what is by courtesy called the “cold weather” now, and it is charming to see some of the old Indians wrapped up in rough white great-coats, rubbing their withered hands, and trying to look blue, not being aware that their orange skins turn brown when there is the least check of circulation. You have no idea what sallow figures we all are, and I mention it now because in another year I suppose the real Indian blindness will have come over me, and I shall believe we are all our natural colour.
The new arrivals sometimes stagger us, but we simply say, “How coarse!” and wait with confidence for the effects that three weeks’ baking will have, and a delicate tender yellow is the sure result.
With all the fine cold weather they talk of, I have not been able yet to live five minutes, night or day, without the punkah, and we keep our blinds all closed as long as there is a ray of sun. I do not mean to deny that the weather is not improved, but when the chilly creatures who have passed forty years here say triumphantly, “This must remind you of an English November,” they really do great injustice to my powers of recollection. I should like to show them a good Guy Fawkes, with the boys purple with cold, beating their sides, and the squibs and crackers going fizzing along on the frosty ground.
This is our gay season. The Tuesday balls at Government House have become the fashion and are popular with the young ladies, and there is going to be a fancy ball given by the bachelors of Calcutta, which we not only condescend to go to our noble selves, but Fanny and I have organised two quadrilles, dressed them in remarkably unbecoming dresses, assured them that they are quite the right thing, and have made the whole scheme delightful by agreeing to their wish to meet at Government House without their chaperons, and go with us.
My quadrille consists of eight young ladies, and if the care with which I have selected their partners does not settle at least six of them happily, I shall think it a great waste of trouble, red velvet, and blue satin.
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.