Note 04 — Chapter IV · SHOWING HOW MISS FREYNE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH HER SURROUNDINGS.

“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.