When the charming prince at last cut his way through the enchanted
forest, and set foot in that silent palace, the sleeping beauty was
delighted to be waked with a kiss. It is not difficult, however, to
imagine some beauties who would prefer to be left in dismal, cobwebby
peace--beauties who had grown so used to sleep that waking would be a
pain and a shock. It is pitiful to think of the poor young prince in a
case like that--except that princes are almost always fortunate in the
end, and probably know that they will be.
The real sleeping beauty, you will perhaps remember, had a spell put on
her at her christening by a disgruntled fairy. If ever she touched a
distaff, she would prick herself and die. Another and a better fairy
interfered, and arranged that, instead of death, an enchanted sleep
should overtake the princess; and so it happened. In vain the royal
parents prohibited distaffs. Curses are very, very hard to avoid, and
the poor, lovely girl did find a distaff, and did prick her finger, and
did fall asleep, and so did every other living creature in the palace
with her, to stand or sit or lie just where they were for I don’t
remember how many years.
Benedicta had nothing to do with fairies, and she wouldn’t have known a
distaff if she had seen one; nevertheless, at the time when this story
begins, she had been going about for years in a sort of enchanted
slumber. She didn’t know that it was a slumber. She called it dignity,
and pride, and so on, and clung most tenaciously to her twilight
existence.
She was a tall, disdainful creature, very pretty, if you had the courage
to look at her; but the people of Elderfield were so well used to her
that they had no particular wish to look at her. She was simply Miss
Benedicta Miller, from the old Miller place, and the Millers had ceased
to be interesting long before she was born.
They had been rich, but now they were poor. They were very tiresome
about it, too, keeping up a moldy, lamentable sort of state in their
dilapidated house, turning up their noses at every one new and friendly,
and being frightfully sensitive toward all the “old” people who offered
them any courtesy.
There were only two of them left now--Benedicta and her father. Mr.
Miller had grown so sensitive and squeamish and absurd that he was
practically invisible, and was very nearly forgotten. The more he saw
that he was forgotten, the more hurt and resentful he became, and the
less would he come out into the world.
Some one had to come out, however. They couldn’t be _Robinson Crusoes_
on a farm where nothing grew any more. They had to buy what they wanted,
and, to do so, Benedicta had to go to the village.
This she did two or three times a week in a little car, beautifully
polished and cared for, as she cared for everything. She would come
rattling down Main Street, and no amount of jouncing could make her look
anything but dignified, just as no hat, however old and unbecoming,
could destroy the beauty of her proud little head and fine features. She
would enter a shop and give a pitiful little order; and because she
remembered what a wonderful family the Millers had once been, and
because she was so miserable at their present eclipse, and so ashamed of
herself for being miserable, she would be quite cold and curt.
Then home she would go, to her father, who always asked her what was the
news. She knew what sort of news he wanted to hear--that some one had
inquired about him, or sent a message; but no one did that any more.
They would sit down to a meager little lunch cooked by the cheapest
servant obtainable. Though Benedicta herself could have cooked one ten
times better, it would have choked them. Even the heartbreaking bills
that came had to be presented to Mr. Miller on a silver tray.
Benedicta admired her father beyond measure, and agreed with him that
the only self-respecting thing for them was to hide their shameful
poverty from the rest of the world; but he was fifty, and she was only
twenty-three, so that sometimes she was not able to find quite the same
satisfaction in solitary pride that he did. She kept up the tradition
splendidly, but she didn’t always relish it.
For instance, when that Wilkinson girl had come to see her, uninvited
and unencouraged, she had found it difficult to be courteously
disagreeable every instant. She had to be constantly reminding herself
that the Wilkinsons were impossible people who had been retail grocers
when the Millers were in their prime. She had also had to remind herself
that this jolly, friendly girl was not, could not be, really friendly,
but had doubtless come to spy upon their poverty and to laugh about it
afterward.
When, from the window, she had watched her visitor drive off in a smart
little roadster, tears came to Benedicta’s eyes--not tears of envy, but
of genuine regret that the pride of the Millers forbade her to like Miss
Wilkinson. Her life seemed duller and mustier than ever.