For a wonder I am allowed a sheet of glazed paper, which tempts me to run off a letter, though there is no ship going for a week.
George and his household are all at Calcutta. He gave a dinner yesterday to General Allard, Runjeet Singh’s General, and Jacquemont’s friend, who came out again last week to join his master. He called on us the morning we left Calcutta, with all his staff and the officers of the French ship which brought him out, and we all tried to put our best French forward. Allard wears an immensely long beard, of which he makes two wings, that he is always stroking and making much of; and I was dead absent all the time he was there because his wings are beautiful white hair, and his moustachios, and the middle of his beard quite black. He looked like a piebald horse. Our party was not lively: nobody has three days’I may say three hours’—conversation in them in this country. I have not quite three-quarters of an hour myself, though I have rather a good set of questions. Fanny and I are quite alone, except for the presence of Captain , who is come back from his voyage to the Straits a remarkably fresh-looking, active young man, and he was such a wretched-looking creature when he set off. But he says the first week at sea set him quite up; so that is the thing to do in case of necessity; but at present we are not at all in want of it.
I never saw George so well; and he is really in danger of growing too fat; indeed, so much so, that he has taken this last week to get up very early for a morning ride without prejudice to his ride in the afternoon. I was sitting in his room the other day, when St. Cloud came in search of me with his bill of fare, and he had not seen George for two months. The next day he began with his odd nigger voice and gesticulations, ‘Mon Dieu! madame, son Excellence!’ (he always calls him so) ‘quelle bonne mine il a! qu’il est gras!—bien portant! quel plaisir ça me fait! Son Excellence a un air de santé, de force;’ and he kept describing circles round his odd skull of a face and bony figure by way of illustrating George’s increase of size. ‘Grâce à vos bons dîners’ was, of course, all I could say in answer. ‘Ah, madame, j’en suis enchanté!’ and he went off so like the way in which Mathews used to go off the stage as a negro. I am very fond of St. Cloud—George says because he is the only person who is the least confidential with me. He never associates with any of his fellow-servants. All kitchens in India are distinct buildings, at some distance from the house, and in the hot weather I wanted St. Cloud not to cross the compound, but to send me a written bill of fare. He said no; he thought a few minutes’ conversation with madame did him good; he liked to tell her of the ‘bêtes et fainéants’ who composed his kitchen establishment.
We are going to give a ball here on Friday.