Mary Reilly - Mrs Farraday

In a moment the door flew openand I was seized up by the cold, mean, hungry eyes of a woman who I could see greeted every new face as an occasion for suspicion and contempt. She was tall, not well dressed but not in the poor rags of her neighbourson the street by any means, and her hair, which was wiry, silver with age, untidy, seemed to stand out about her face in anger. Though her dress was clean it was cut too low for morning, and the bones that protuded at her throat, where some gentlewoman might place a locket or a bit of ribbon, stuck out looking raw,angry, like the rest of her. When she spoke, which she did at once, her voice was husky, her accent as rude as if she hated the words she spoke.

Valerie Martin, Mary Reilly