“With what cheerfulness and philosophy do these poor people contemplate death!” I reflected, somewhat ashamed to have exhibited my apprehensions before her, as she went to fetch my tea, but since I did not choose that my first night at Bengall should also be my last, I resigned myself to this outlandish style of sleeping. Before I had drunk my dish of tea my trunks arrived, and I was able to change my clothes and put on a silk nightgown instead of my travelling-suit, which was a huge refreshment. And after that I am ashamed to say that I dozed on my couch, while Marianna unpacked my clothes, moving about the chamber with the lightest tread in the world, until I was awakened by the noise of palanqueens’ setting down in the courtyard, and presently a message came that Mrs Freyne desired me to attend her in the saloon. My dearest Miss Turnor will be at no loss to imagine my apprehension as I followed Marianna, and will guess that my heart was in my mouth when I stepped into the saloon, where three ladies were seated enjoying an elegant collation of fruits and sweetmeats. I divined at once which was Mrs Freyne, and at the first glance I determined that my stepmother was a very beautiful young woman, but this opinion did not last. My Amelia won’t think me censorious, for I experienced a feeling of disappointment that a face which seemed at first sight extraordinary handsome should come so far short of beauty. There’s a general something, that I can’t express, which spoils it. No one feature is bad, but none is quite good. The eyes are a little too small and far apart, and of a blue a little too light, as the hair is of somewhat too pale a golden; the nose is a little too short, the lips a little too thin, and the chin a little too much pointed. Such trifles as all these are, yet they spoil the face. For her clothes, my stepmother was wearing a very fine nightgown of white gauze striped with gold, and a Brussels mob trimmed with French flowers, and this dress was well designed to show off the air of great elegance and languor which I observe to be the peculiar[04] of all the Calcutta ladies.
“So you’re arrived, miss!” she said to me. “Had you a short voyage?”
“A monstrous long one, madam. Near ten months.”
“It don’t seem to have done you no harm. I see you’ve brought a pair of red cheeks with you, which is thought vastly ungenteel in Bengall.”
My cheeks were red at that moment, Amelia, I’ll assure you, and I was grateful to one of the other ladies, who seemed a good-natured sort of body, and made room for me on the settee beside her. There I sat, like a good little Miss out of the nursery, to be seen and not heard, and listened to all that was said, while nobody spoke to me, until Miss Dorman, the lady next me, turned and said—
“Have you unpacked your gowns yet, miss? All Calcutta will be agog to see ’em, I’ll assure you.”
“Oh, indeed,” says Mrs Freyne, in a great to-do, “Miss is only just off her journey, and too tired to go showing her clothes this evening. I won’t hear of it. You shall see ’em in good time, miss, I promise you.”
Miss Dorman smiled in rather a droll fashion as she rose to take her leave.
“Pray, miss,” says my stepmother to me, “attend the ladies to their palanqueens,” and I obeyed her.
“Don’t let Madam frighten you, dear Miss,” whispered Miss Dorman to me in the hall. “An English colour is excessively admired in Calcutta, I can tell you, and the plainest woman will pass for a beauty so long as she keeps it. I did, so I know.”